Death
by tmb1112
Summary: What if the Quirk, Death, existed? A perfect Quirk for a villain, but what if the boy who manifested that power just wanted to be a hero? Enrolling in U.A. might not be enough, when all your Quirk can do is kill people.
1. Chapter 1: Welcome to UA

**A/N Hey everyone. Watched the most recent episode of Boku no Hero last Saturday and got the idea for this story. Wound up spending the next 3 days straight pretty much writing it, and now I'm all caught up after 130k+ words. It's a pretty dark story but it's going to be T for now, may bump it up later let me know if you think I should. Anyway, enjoy.**

 **Disclaimer: I do not own Boku no Hero Academia**

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 **Chapter 1- Welcome to UA**

 _U.A. High School. Where all the best heroes come from._ In front of the huge building's front gates stood a fifteen year old boy with short black hair that spiked up over the top of his head. He took one step forward through the entrance, _This is where I'm going to do it. Here, I'm going to become, a hero!_

 _My Quirk developed late, when I was seven years old._

 **8 Years Ago**

"The great hero Titanium will save you!" A small boy on a playground held up his toy shield made of plastic, not titanium, then he ran to one side and jumped off the jungle gym. As soon as he feet lifted off it, his eyes opened huge and he realized that the ground was much farther than it had seemed.

"Waaaa! Ahhh! It hurts!"

"Oh come now, Zach," the boy opened his eyes and lifted his head. Standing before him was a beautiful woman with long red hair falling straight down to her waist. She leaned down over him and said with a coy smile, "I didn't know there were heroes who cried over such a small scratch."

"But mom, snff, snff, it hurts," Zach's lips trembled, even as he lifted his left arm to wipe his eyes.

Zach's mother looked over his head at the tiny piece of the playground that her son jumped off of. The fall was not as high as the tiny child, short for his age, thought it was. She smiled while looking back down, "I don't think it's the pain that you're crying over. Did you get scared? I'm sure the great hero Titanium could have landed that-"

"But, but," Zach pursed his lips and lowered his gaze from his mom. He put his arms around his knees and pulled them back towards him, wincing a little from the scratch on his right knee that he had tried to show his mom. He sat in the wood-chips on the floor of the park's playground, and he sniffled again before saying, "I'm not really a hero. That's just pretend." He sniffled again while his mother looked down at him with wide eyes. "Mom, can I-" he paused and started lifting his head. "Without a Quirk, can I become, a hero?"

Tears filled his eyes, and he saw the water brimming in his mother's too. Even with the water in her eyes though, she was smiling wide down at him and his eyes started to grow huge. "Of course you can," she said. Zach's trembling lips curled up too, and his mom reached down her right hand in front of him. "After all, you're already my little hero. Quirk or no Quirk, if you put your mind to it, you can do anything." Zach looked at his mom's outstretched hand, then his eyes shifted to his right knee that still had a small scratch on it.

He wiped his face with his left arm, rubbing his eyes and his nose, then he lowered it and nodded. "Mm," he hummed, and he reached up with his right hand to grab his mother's outstretched one.

 **Present**

 _But I wasn't Quirkless,_ Zach thought, as he thought on a day he thought of so often. Other students wearing UA uniforms were walking towards the building on his sides, some of them walking together, most alone since not many of them knew others who were going to the school. He was not the only person from his class to apply to UA, but he was the only one to get accepted, and accepted to the Hero Course no less.

Zach looked down at his right hand that he moved in front of him a bit. He stared at the thin black glove that covered his hand. Some skin of his wrist showed between his glove and the gray sleeve of his student uniform, but his right hand was fully hidden inside it. Zach bit down behind his lips and clenched his right fist hard as he slowed his walk towards the school.

 **8 Years Ago**

"It's a new Quirk, something we haven't seen before," the doctor standing in front of Zach said. He was one of four in the room, all of them looking interested in the boy whose head was bowed and eyes pointed straight at the floor. His right hand was covered in an oven mitt, wrapped in duct tape tightly to his arm to prevent it from coming off. "This Quirk, Death, is a very dangerous one. You must take special care not to let your son use it again. We have determined through testing that he needs to use his right hand-"

"We understand," a low voice said over Zach's shoulder. Zach could not turn to face the tall man next to him.

"And once again Titanium, we're terribly sorry for this unfortunate situation. There was no way of seeing this coming-"

"Is my son free to go?" the low voice behind Zach said, making the child bite down on his bottom lip. The way his father worded it sounded like he had been in custody of those scientists and doctors who had done tests to see the extent of his powers over the last few days.

The doctor in front of the man and his son seemed hesitant, but then he nodded his head. "Our research team will develop a more suitable replacement for that mitt, Zach." The boy lifted his head and stared at the doctor, his eyes bloodshot and his lips trembling, blood coming out of where he had bit down on the bottom one. The doctor who tried smiling at the boy froze at the sight of that trail of blood, at how hard the boy must have been biting down to draw it. "And, it's not your fault," the doctor added, making Zach stare through his glasses with eyes turning huge. "It could have happened to anyone."

 **Present**

Zach took in a deep breath and shook his head around as he reached the entrance of the school. _Class A,_ he thought, stepping into the school building and looking around at the halls he would be spending the next three years. He gulped before starting his walk towards the classroom. _I'm out of my league here, all the others are going to have such powerful Quirks. Tied for last place on the entrance exam, last place of the accepted students though,_ he reminded himself of all the ones who did not even make the Hero Course, but it did not help.

The distraction of thinking of his classmates was pushed aside by what he had just been thinking on, and his look darkened once again. He tried to mask it by smiling as he walked towards his classroom, but he felt his chest ache. _Dad, didn't see it that way._

 **7 Years Ago**

Zach walked out into his living room in the dead of night. He had a thick mitten over his right hand, something he only took off to bathe, sleep, or wash the mitten itself. The apartment in Musutafu was not small, but it was cozy. The living room was connected to dining room and kitchen, and there were only two bedrooms with a bathroom in between them. Zach walked into the living room where the lights were off but there was light coming from the television still on and at a loud volume that had been keeping him up.

The eight year old walked over to the coffee table in front of the couch and he picked up a few empty beer cans. He lifted them as softly as he could so as not to wake the man on the recliner chair to his left. He cleaned up the room a bit, then walked back towards his dad and looked at the can still loosely held in the man's hand. He thought about grabbing it, but he shook his head and then turned to the tv. The remote was sitting on his dad's lap, but if he was not going to risk waking him by taking the beer, he was not going to risk anything that might. Zach lowered the volume with the actual tv buttons a few notches, then he waited for the sleeping man to adjust to the lower volume, before turning off the tv.

Zach stood up and took a step back towards his room. "What are you doing up?" A voice asked in the darkness behind him. He looked back and saw a shadow stand up from the chair. "You, who killed your mother," the man getting out of his chair fell back on it and over the armrest farther from his son.

The boy heard the crash, but he did not make sense of what was happening. After he heard that voice, saying those words, he spun around and sprinted for his room. He was crying as he shoved his head in his pillow, using it to muffle his sobs. _Mom, I'm sorry!_

 **Present**

 _He never did talk about that night. Maybe he forgot about it, or thought it was a dream. Or maybe he just didn't care anymore… even back then._ Zach clenched his eyes shut tight before opening them fast and glancing around. He spotted a couple of girls walking his direction down the hall, but one of them who he thought might have been looking his way turned back to her friend and said something with a smile on her face. Zach let out a sigh and continued walking. _Get it all out now at least. When class starts, it's time to make friends and learn and train to be a hero. Because I can be one! I can be a hero. He told me so!_

 **7 Years Ago**

Zach breathed in heavily, and he breathed out in staggered breaths like he needed to breath in again while it was all coming out. He was hyperventilating, but he took a step forward anyway. He brought his other foot forward too, so that both of his feet were on the ledge. Zach stood on top of his apartment, and he thought of the last time he thought he saw a fall this far. His heavy breathing slowed down as he imagined that day, that fall that seemed so long ago but was fresh in his memory.

He knew that this drop was farther though. The eight year old knew what a drop this far meant. He lifted his hand and pulled the mitten off of it. Then he reached below and grabbed the specially designed glove made just for him, and he peeled that up and off his hand too. He dropped the glove off the roof, watching as it fell. It blew in the wind and he gulped but steadied himself. _I'll forget one day. I'll, I'll wind up doing it again. How many close calls have there been in a year? What if it starts happening with my left hand too?!_

His feet slid farther towards the edge, then a gust of wind hit him and he threw his arms out to the sides for balance. He wobbled back and forth, half-hoping that the wind would succeed and take the choice out of his hands. Zach did not fall though, and that made him bare his teeth and scrunch up his face. Tears came out of his eyes, and he clenched his right hand so hard that it hurt. "Mom," he whispered. Someone screamed down on the street below, right as Zach closed his eyes. "I'm sorry."

"Stop!"

"Oh my God, someone stop him- oh God!"

"AHH!"

Zach fell from the roof, and then he felt a strong jolt. _Was that death?_ He thought, his eyes snapping open in shock at how little it hurt. His heart started speeding up, and he sat there in the arms of a muscular man in a mostly blue costume with some red and yellow to it. The man who always saved people with a smile, All Might, was staring down at the boy he was flying through the sky with, with a sad and confused frown on his face.

"D-D-Don't," Zach's voice came out hoarse, and his eyes darted to his right arm that was being held against his side by the way All Might was carrying him. His heart started racing even faster, panic rising through him, and he screamed, "DON'T TOUCH ME ALL MIGHT!"

The hero shooting through the sky finally landed on the roof of a building not far from the apartment the child stepped off of. He continued holding the boy in his arms even as the kid struggled, but as he opened his mouth to start speaking, the kid screamed again, "You'll die!"

 _Is this-_ All Might looked to the child's right hand that the kid was clenching so hard into a fist to prevent from accidentally touching All Might. All Might put the boy down and then stared down at the top of his head and his short spiky black hair. The hero with bright yellow gloves and hair to match them kept frowning for a second while looking at the boy, then a smile broke across his face. "Young man," he began, his voice motivational, inspiring.

Zach's head flinched and then lifted up to see the hero before him, hands in fists on his sides. He was smiling. Zach's eyes opened huge and the tears already filling them stopped spilling out as confusion took over him. "Wh-What?" Zach said.

"You are far too young to take your own life. Though you will never be old enough," All Might bent down on a knee and reached forward. Zach tried pulling back, but All Might put a hand down on top of his head before he could. "Don't you have a dream?"

Zach froze and his face filled with shock. "My dream?" He whispered. He closed his eyes and tried looking down, but All Might had a hand on his head so all he could do was dart his eyes to the floor when they opened back up. _I, haven't thought about it since that day. How could I, even consider being a hero? After what I did?_ "I don't-"

"I don't believe that," All Might said. He laughed loudly and then lowered his hand from the boy's head to his right shoulder, making Zach flinch and look at the hero's face in fear.

"All Might, you can't-"

"You're Titanium's son, aren't you?" All Might asked, his voice knowing even before Zach reacted with huge eyes. "An unlucky one," All Might continued, and Zach could not tell if the man was talking about him or his father. He continued though while looking straight into the boy's eyes and squeezing his shoulder a little tighter, even moving his arm down to the top of the boy's arm as well. "A very, very unlucky one. So much misfortune, for such an innocent child. And you are innocent."

Zach's lips started trembling and his eyes teared up again. Hearing that from the world's greatest hero, it made his heart pound and the tears to spill back out and cover his face. "What is your dream?" All Might asked. "Children have dreams, and you are a child, so tell me young man. What is yours?"

"Ah, snf ah, I- I!" Zach clenched his fists even tighter at his sides, and then he snapped his head back and screamed, "I WANT TO BE A HERO!"

"And that," All Might said, making the boy snap his head back down with huge eyes that he just yelled that. All Might was smiling wide at him still but leaning farther forward now so their heads were closer together, before he finished, "Is a magnificent dream…"

 **Present**

 _All Might's going to be a teacher here this year. I wonder if he remembers me?_ Zach saw his classroom up ahead, and he spotted a boy with spiky yellow hair and another whose red hair was even more crazy heading into the room one after the other. He thought about his own black hair and how he had considered switching it up and slicking it down for the first day of class, but he now realized that the short spikes in it would not stick out as much as he had once thought. "Fwew," he let out a breath of relief.

"Hey there," a girl's voice said on his right. He turned his head and saw a girl his age with pink skin slow down as she got to his side. The fact that she was slowing down meant she had jogged to get up next to him, and Zach looked at the pink-haired girl in some surprise. "What class did you wind up getting into?" She asked.

"Class A," Zach replied, his voice quiet, one notch above a whisper.

The girl in front of him smiled at his response though, and she said, "Me too. I'm Ashido Mina," she greeted, spinning to face him fully now that she knew he was in her class. "Thanks for the help at the Entrance Exam."

"No, thank you," Zach said, and she looked at him in surprise while Zach turned back forward and frowned after saying it. "If I hadn't done that, if you didn't need the help, I wouldn't have gotten the points I needed to get in. I barely made it at all," he added in a softer voice.

"Nice," Ashido fist-pumped and Zach glanced back at her in confusion. "I thought I owed you one, but let's just call it even then." The girl had thin horns sticking out of her wavy pink hair, her eyes were black with small yellow irises, and she did not look very human. She smiled at him though, and Zach smiled back and nodded his head in agreement.

"Yeah, even," he said.

They reached the door and Ashido ran in first and right up to a desk in there where she saw someone else she already knew. Zach paused before following her in, looking up at the 1-A sticking out of the entrance. _All Might,_ he thought, looking back down and imagining if he had the number one hero as his homeroom teacher. _I know you save, everyone you can._

 _All Might is the greatest hero, but even he can't save everyone. Suicides don't just stop because of a great hero. So I don't blame you at all. You stopped me from ending my life. Sometimes, you can stop them._

 _Two years after that day though, I would start living on my own._

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 **A/N Leave a review below telling me what you think. First day of school starts next chapter along with more flashbacks, though less than this time so things can start getting moving. Hope you enjoyed.**


	2. Chapter 2: First Day

**Chapter 2- First Day**

"Don't put your feet on the desk!"

"Huh?"

Zach glanced over to the two making a lot of noise on the first day. He sat close to the windows on the far side of the room and right in the middle of the row. He had considered going to the back, but he shook away the thought just as fast. _I need to study twice as hard as everyone else, focus more, be better in everything other than the practical ones._ A bead of sweat formed on the side of his face and he turned towards the windows. Zach stared up at the sky, _Not the practical ones, huh? How am I going to be a hero like that?_

The two arguing on the other side of the room stopped and everyone spun towards the door where another new student just walked in. One of the two arguing seemed to know him, and the tall boy with glasses started marching over while talking about the elite middle school he was from.

Zach sighed and looked back out the window again. _I may as well be sitting here Quirkless. No, no that's not true. I've worked hard for this. Every day, since All Might told me, since I started believing in my dream again._

 **5 Years Ago**

"You sure you don't want to come, Zach?" One of the three boys on Zach's right called back towards him. He turned and walked backwards while cupping one hand to his mouth, and the boy who got off the bus with his friends at Zach's stop called to his neighbor, "I just got the new hero video game!"

"It says on the box that All Might voices his own character!" Another of the boys shouted, and this made Zach freeze and spin to them with big eyes.

"Really?!" Zach exclaimed in excitement. He froze after calling it out, then he shook his head around and frowned. "Well, maybe another time, yeah?" He called back. "I, can't today," he said.

His classmates just shrugged or told him 'okay,' then they continued off to go play games. Zach started running towards his apartment though, and he ran up the stairs all the way to the top floor. He then ran to an empty room at the back of the floor that the landlord used as storage, and he ran across the room in a nicely made path that was still cluttered with random things to not make it so obvious. He ran to the balcony and outside, to the fire escape. Zach climbed up the ladder fast, always afraid someone would spot him and shout at him to get down in this moment, as it was the one time when people could have a good view of him.

He made it up the ladder without issue though, onto the roof which he ran to the middle of to avoid being seen from the sides of the building. The apartment was a tall one, and he was in a more suburban area of the city where there were actually a bunch of houses around the complex. That meant that there were not any tall buildings around him for people to look out windows down at him. He was in the clear, and he started getting changed into his gym clothes that were already in his backpack.

Zach got his work-out clothes on, then he started up his stretches. He looked over at some stuff he had left on the roof and he pulled the tarp off from over them. Since he was leaving them up here, he needed the tarp to protect the exercise equipment when it rained. He learned that very soon after he started leaving things there, as it rained often in Musutafu. There was yellow tape down in a box around the roof that did not get too close to the edge of the building but still gave him a nice track, and after stretching he started his run around the roof. _A hundred and twenty times today,_ he decided as he started the run. _That's more than last week's high, but I have to make the warm ups harder if I'm taking everything else more seriously too. Soon I'll be in middle school, where it really matters._

The black haired boy ran around the roof, training his body after school as he did every day. "Oh crap," he said, coming to a stop as he realized something. "I forgot to pick up stuff for dinner." He remembered how the fridge was almost empty the night before, and how that morning he had fully emptied it, even dumping the last of the milk which had just expired too. _Well, I'm only twelve laps in. A run to the convenience store and back up here would be what, two hundred? Three hundred laps? Why not just make that the warm-up?_

Instead of taking a break to go get food for dinner, Zach ran back to the fire escape and climbed down it so fast that he felt like a monkey. He ran through his building and out onto the street, and he ran down the sidewalk with the wind rushing through his hair. He turned a corner and started running down a different road, and when he reached main street he started smiling. The other people on the sidewalks, the cars going by, the televisions through windows where he could see heroes in action, they all made him happy. The scene he saw through one window showed heroes fighting a villain on a main road just like this one. And as much as he did not want a villain to appear, what he would give to see heroes in action up close like that.

As he ran past another store that he looked into to see a manga his friends had been talking about earlier that day, he heard a shout up ahead of him. Zach stopped and looked towards them, then looked to the sky where someone was already more than halfway across the street up above. His eyes opened wide, as for the first time in over two years, he caught a glimpse of All Might. The hero was gone over the top of another building in a second, but from that day on, Zach's afternoon warm-up run would take place on the streets. He would get farther from home each day, and on occasion, he would see heroes.

 **Present**

Zach stared out the classroom's window and thought about where he would go to get food for dinner tonight. _**"We called your Aunt here. She'll be taking you home."**_

 _Aunt Maye still blames me for Dad. She didn't argue when I said I didn't want to move, and she's fine with me living on my own. She prefers it this way. She stopped visiting after a few months though, I guess even seeing me was too much._ Zach heard a commotion near the door and turned his head from the windows back to the boy with dark green hair, the tall boy with glasses, and a short girl with brown hair who were standing at the entrance.

A figure stood up on the other side of them and Zach stared at the man with a confused expression. _He looks, kind of tired,_ Zach thought. _Is he really a pro?_

The man with long black hair, short stubble on his face, and an overall exhausted disposition began, "I'm your homeroom teacher, Aizawa Shouta. Nice to meet you."

"Eh?" Zach said. It came out on its own, just as it did for everyone else around him who were having trouble believing what they just heard.

"It's kind of sudden, but put these on and go out onto the field…"

* * *

"DIE!"

 _That guy's nuts,_ Zach thought, though he was watching the softball soar up into the sky with an explosion trailing after it in as much awe as everyone else. _He's strong though. First place on the test, while I got last._ He looked down at Bakugo and then turned to Aizawa as the teacher started talking.

"Know your own maximums first," Aizawa turned and lifted a device showing Bakugo's throw distance. "That is the most rational way to form the foundation of a hero."

 _705.2 meters?! That's insane!_ Zach's jaw had dropped and the others around him started talking about how amazing that was.

Ashido clapped her hands together on his left side and leaned forward. "What's this? It seems fun!"

Aizawa's head bowed a bit and Zach looked closer at the teacher who frowned at what they were saying about the physical fitness test. "'It seems fun?'" He asked, and the kids in front of him quieted down with uneasy feelings about his tone. He rose his head and spoke in a low voice, "You have three years to become a hero. Will you keep that attitude like that the whole time?" He smirked and his face looked scarier as he said, "All right then. Whoever comes in last place in all eight tests will be judged to have no potential, and will be punished with expulsion."

 _Oh. Oh! OH MAN!_ Zach's eyes kept widening while everyone else around him exclaimed in shock and started complaining about how unfair this was. _On the first day, really? Alright, I was in first place in these events back in middle school. Just because we can use our Quirks now, won't mean…_

* * *

 _Well, I'm not in last place,_ Zach thought, but he gulped while looking towards the nervous boy who did have the lowest score. The boy was panting with his hands down on his knees and his head bowed. _He didn't use his Quirk on the sprint or long jump either, and I still just barely beat him in those. What's his Quirk?_

Zach walked towards the boy but when he got close he slowed down. There was a strange noise coming from near him, and he noticed the other teen had a hand over his mouth. _Are those, words?_ The sounds made out some form of thought, but they were being mumbled so quietly and pushed together that he could not understand a thing out of his mouth. "Hey," Zach said, trying to break the awkward feeling he had standing in front of this boy who did not seem to notice he was there.

The boy with longer green hair snapped his head up in surprise that someone was talking to him, as he had yet to notice how close the other boy was. "I'm Zach," he said, then he motioned back towards the side-steps where the last of the class were finishing up by using their powers in some cool ways. "Tiring right?" He said, as he had been panting too after giving it his all to get a high score on that one. He had gotten higher than a few others too, including the invisible girl and the guy with blond spiky hair, as well as the guy with the weird bellybutton laser, but he was far from one of the higher scorers.

"Midoriya Izuku," the other boy greeted, and he got stood up and took a deep breath to calm himself down. _There are still tests left. I can still do this!_

Zach leaned back a bit at how intense the other boy's face looked. _I know how he's feeling though. I want to leave a bigger mark on at least one of these tests, but even if I can't do it, I just don't want to get last… Why am I over here though? I'll just feel worse about it, if he gets last and gets expelled._

"You haven't used your Quirk yet either, right?" Midoriya asked. Zach nodded, and the boy in front of him looked even more frustrated after he did. "Is there a reason?" Midoriya wondered.

"It wouldn't have helped with any of them," Zach replied simply, keeping it honest without getting too specific. "What about yours? Can you use yours to get a higher score on the next ones?"

The boy in front of him went wide-eyed then looked down with such a thoughtful look on his face. It was so conflicted that Zach regretted asking, though he regretted it for another reason too. _Is that why I'm over here? Did I come just to figure out if he would do better than me on one, and I would wind up getting expelled? That's not a very heroic-_

"Everyone back outside," Aizawa called out after marking down the scores for the last two in the class. "It's time for everyone to do softball throw."

* * *

 _That Bakugo thought he was Quirkless. But, that was an amazing Quirk. Everyone at my middle school thought I was Quirkless too. It's what I told people, but I decided not to try that here at U.A._ Zach stepped up to do his softball throw while everyone was still going on about Midoriya's. _If he has that as his remarkable one, what am I going to do? What if, I come in last place? What if I get kicked out?_

Midoriya turned from the others around him and looked towards the circle where Zach threw the ball. The same worried look Iida had for him earlier came to his own face this time. He watched as the ball landed far off, for a normal high school student. It was a record farther than Midoriya could hope to reach without his power, longer than the top of his class back in middle school had, but it was still among the lower numbers of their classmates. _All of his scores have been in the lower numbers, while the others who have low scores each time all have a high one by now._

Zach stared out at the ball, then he turned towards Aizawa. The teacher was frowning at him, but he did not start scolding or giving harsh advice like he did with the boy before him. _Damn it,_ Zach turned and walked back towards the rest of the class. _Just like the entrance exam, my ability has no use here. I can't complain about that though, because when will it ever in combat?! I can't use it. I can never use it._ He looked down at his right hand that he clenched in front of his waist. His entire body tensed up in the blue work-out uniform the school provided for him. _I always knew that though. I really thought we might have been alike, but unlike you, I really am Quirkless. I can't do a thing with it!_ He turned his head, then his intense and angry look wiped from his face as the boy he was going to look towards was looking his way already.

Midoriya eased back at that look, but Zach softened it right away while looking away again. _No, it's not his fault. It's no one's fault. I just have to, try and do as best I can in the remaining categories._

Twenty minutes later, Zach stood with his hands running through his hair over and over again. He had a worried look on his face that he could no longer hide from his classmates. _Sit-ups and the sit-and-reach were both just average scores. This is it though, my best. Long distance run._

Zach lined up on the start line with the others in the class. He stared out over the fields they would be running, and along with being the final test, it was going to be the longest one too. He looked down the line a little towards Midoriya who was starting to look worried again. _He didn't do well on the sit-and-reach,_ Zach thought, recalling how he had seen him at the spot next to him having trouble because of the pain in his broken finger. _I doubt he did on sit-ups either, and telling from the pain on his face, he's not going to handle this well. As long as I get a good score here, I can stay above him for sure. Sorry Midoriya, but I don't want to be expelled!_

Zach's feet pressed down harder as he leaned forward and got into a running stance. _Prepare for the start. Be ready to push off. The first moment, is as important as the last._

 **3 Years Ago**

"You want to join cross-country as a first year?" The teacher advisor of the team questioned the short boy in front of her. He was a head smaller than the rest of the runners, but she looked down at his legs below the cut off of his shorts and she lost her small smile. _His leg muscles, are pretty defined. For a short guy…_

The team captain did not need to give it as much thought. He was the fastest runner on the team last year only as a second year, and he smirked as he walked towards the kid. "You think you're fast enough to make the team?"

"I, don't know," Zach said, leaning away from the upperclassman who laughed at his answer. "Probably not," he added, lowering his voice and looking down.

"Then why are you here?" One of the other guys nearby asked, annoyed at the kid for wasting their time.

"I run after school," Zach answered. Most of the people there started staring at him in confusion, then he lifted his head and continued while facing the third-year who just asked him his reason. "So I thought this would be a good place to push my limits."

"Heh, good answer," Zach started turning back to the team captain who was grinning down at him. "But if you want a place on the team, or even just to practice with us, you've gotta be fast."

"I'm fast!" Zach exclaimed. "Here, I'll prove it…"

 **Present**

"Begin," Aizawa called out.

Zach pushed off his front foot hard and lifted his back while taking a long first stride. Everyone else was behind him, his eyes widening and a grin spreading over his face. Then on his left side down the line, a trail of ice shot across the grass and a boy with half white and half red hair slid across it. It did not take long for Iida to sprint by him on his right, a focused look on his face while the engines sticking out of his calves pushed him forward ahead of everyone else.

He got worried as even Aoyama shot ahead of him with his bellybutton laser, but the blond boy fell and then got up and started running normally, a gross look on his face like he regretted trying that. Zach passed him again, but Bakugo shot by using explosions to propel him forward. He used them intermittently, a furious look on his face though despite how he was using his powers. He looked over his shoulder with that enraged expression, but Zach ignored the glare he knew was meant for Midoriya. He could not focus on that, when more and more people were passing him each second.

The frog girl hopped at a steady pace not far to his right, and he saw her look in towards him. He glanced back at her while they were rounding a corner on the grass field that had a pole on it with a sign pointing where they were supposed to turn. Tsuyu Asui made a 'Gero' sound that had Zach's eyes opening wide, then she hopped ahead and curved around the pole. _Still not that many of-_ Zach's thoughts got cut off as some tape shot towards the pole and wrapped around it. Hanta Sero raced by with the tape shooting out of his elbows, then Rikido Sato sprinted past Zach on his left with a crazed look on his face.

Zach stumbled to his right as the larger boy stormed past, and he started running again while angrily staring at his classmate's back. "What's wrong with you?" He called out, but Sato must not have heard him or just decided to ignore him as he kept running ahead. _No! Why am I focusing on him! Just keep going, keep a fast pace that won't wear me out. I can do this!_

* * *

 _Ninth? Is ninth, good enough?_ "Whoa, you're so fast," a voice said behind him. Zach spun while panting slightly and he looked at a girl who was panting heavier behind him. Although she was also panting, she had the control over her breathing that indicated she was not as exhausted as some of the others who were still running into the finish line one by one. And when Zach looked _at_ her, he was more looking through the girl behind him. _Did I beat her?_ He wondered, thinking he might have looked past the floating uniform the first time he did a check around the finish line.

"I was chasing you at the beginning," the invisible girl began. "Because I'm a little worried I'm going to get last."

She sounded nervous to him, and now that Zach thought back on it, he could not remember any events that she had done spectacularly well in either. _Maybe, I have a better chance than I thought._ Instead of getting a relieved look on his face though, he said with a small smile, "I'm sure you'll be fine."

"Hagakure Toru," she said, and her sleeve lifted up in what he thought might have been a wave but could not be too sure about it.

"Zach, Zach Sazaki…" he trailed off and turned towards the finish line where the final person just ran through only to collapse. Zach and Hagakure both felt a little better about their chances at the sight of the boy exhausted and gasping for air on the ground there. "You okay Midoriya?" He asked.

"Yeah," Midoriya Izuku gasped out, sticking a thumb up while he continued panting.

The boy on the ground did not look it though when he started getting up. The worry was strewn over his face again, as once again he had gotten last place in an event. At least Zach thought he had, until he looked back up and spotted a short boy running towards him with exhaustion covering his face. The kid with purple balls on his head that he had been popping off for some of the events had apparently not conserved his energy, and Zach tried not to shake his head as the boy gave it his all to run the rest of the way. He had grinned earlier because Rikido Sato had arrived to the finish line after him, right before collapsing into a deep sleep. Apparently the power he used made him tired, and Zach remembered how the larger boy had been staggering forward sleepily when he finally passed him again on the course.

Zach himself was not a very tall person, closer to Midoriya's height at only five foot one. He was broader at the shoulders, and though his uniform covered up his arms and legs, in the locker room his classmates had seen he had defined muscles for his height and age. Then again, so did almost all the guys in the room at the time so he had not drawn any attention. Zach was hesitant as they all started gathering up to see the results. _I didn't use my Quirk once. Is that okay? Is it okay to be a hero, without being able to use your Quirk?_

"Okay, I'll quickly tell you the results," Aizawa stood in front of the class who had gathered, many with hesitant expressions on their faces. A few of the ones who were more confident that they had received good scores still looked worriedly at the others wondering which of their new classmates was about to be removed. "The total is simply the marks you got from each test. It's a waste of time to explain verbally, so I'll just show you the results all at once."

Zach glanced back towards Midoriya. The boy had his right fist clenched hard in front of him, his index finger swollen and his eyes closed looking like he was praying. Zach spotted the short boy with the purple balls all over his head biting on his fingernails nervously. He looked back at the teacher right as Aizawa pressed a button on a device in his hand that made a hologram pop up in front of him. There were two columns of names on the hologram with one more in the center at the bottom since their class had an odd number of people.

They all scanned the list for their names, while also checking the name at the bottom too. Zach looked down the second column and his eyes widened when he saw his name. _Oh man, that was close._ He looked at the number 20 spot, and he felt annoyance mixed in with the relief that the short kid he had beaten by so much in the long distance run still beat him by a single place. _His side-stepping was really good though, using his power he destroyed me on that. Still, at least I was twentieth, not-_ Zach started turning back and he felt bad for being relieved at all, at the devastated look on Midoriya's face.

"By the way I was lying about the expulsion," Aizawa said.

Everyone froze and their eyes opened wide. The teacher grinned at their reactions and continued, "It was a rational deception to draw out the upper limits of your Quirks."

"WHAT?!" Several of the people in the crowd shouted.

"Of course it was a lie," a girl next to Zach said.

He turned to her in surprise and asked, "You knew?"

"How could a school like U.A. be known as so prestigious if the members of its hero course were expelled so easily?" she replied like it was obvious. Aizawa looked towards her and smirked, going to let the girl believe that if she wanted to. In fact, she was making his lie about it being a lie even more believable.

 _But I see potential here,_ he thought, before looking to the one who Yaoyorozu had spoken directly to. His eyes lowered to the boy's right hand, and the black glove it was hidden inside. Aizawa thought back on the sheet he got with all his students' names and Quirks on it the other day. _He's barely scraping by, but with a Quirk like that, that he's here at all is shocking. What kind of idiots named his Quirk 'Death?' It sounds like they were trying to make him into a villain._

Zach let out a long needed breath of relief and glanced back again to see the relieved look on Midoriya's face. He spun back forward as Aizawa told them their testing was over and to return to the classroom to get their syllabi and course information. He was going to go over and mention to Midoriya how worried he was he was going to be last, as he thought they could relate there, but Aizawa reached the green haired boy first and sent him to the nurse to get his finger healed.

 _Oh yeah, Recovery Girl works here. I guess that means they're going to put us through the wringer without having to worry about us injuring ourselves._ A grin spread over Zach's face, but then a hesitant feeling hit him again. _But against people with Quirks, letting us go all out really only helps the others. Sure, I'll be getting experience to be a real hero, but, but I can't use my power. If I have to fight these people…_ Zach's expression hardened and he shook away his hesitation as he started walking back towards class with the others. _Then I'll win. It's what I've been training for, all this time._

 **3 Years Ago**

"Cross country is harder than I thought," Zach's neighbor Jenny said as she walked down the sidewalk with the boy who lived next door to her apartment. She leaned her head back and let out an exasperated and overly-dramatic sigh. "The captain said 'last lap,' at least twenty times, and I don't know why but I believed her every time she said it."

Zach laughed a little then said in a lower volume than her, "We went running out in town today. The captain let me pick the route, so I used one of my old ones from the summer that I still do on the weekends."

"You run too much," Jenny said in a deadpan voice. He laughed again and scratched the side of his head, then the girl with long red hair tied into pigtails started walking backwards while a little in front of them so they could speak face to face. "You want to come over for dinner tonight? Mom's making spaghetti!"

"Can't," he said. "I've got-"

"Excuse number 43?" Jenny asked, and Zach just smiled apologetically to her. She sighed again then turned back and started walking at his side once more. "Don't overdo it."

"I won't," he replied, right as they were reaching their apartment. The two of them headed up, but Zach walked past his floor.

His neighbor and best friend smirked after him, and she chided, "Don't get caught, Mr. Hero."

Zach tried not to feel embarrassed by that nickname she only called him when they were alone. _I still can't believe she caught me,_ he thought, recalling a weekend a few weeks back when she had started shouting up towards the roof from the street. _I never thought that since I was getting taller, the tape where people used to not be able to see me wouldn't have been accurate anymore. So stupid,_ he had scolded himself over it enough already though, and he had fixed the problem too by closing in his exercise area on the roof to a smaller part of the center of it. He had not been able to avoid telling Jenny what he was doing up there and why though, even if he had lied when she asked what Quirk he had.

 _It's easier, if everyone thinks I'm Quirkless,_ he thought, clenching his right hand hard while he jogged for the fire escape to the roof. He was cautious as he got out on the balcony, then he scampered up the ladder so fast it was unnatural. He always laughed to himself after diving onto the roof from the top of the ladder to get down fast, imagining how he must look if anyone ever saw him do that. The whole point of doing it so quick though was to prevent exactly that.

His laughter went away and a more serious look came to his face. He walked towards the tarps he had on the roof, weighted down to prevent them from blowing away as they had in a wind storm, as they had once before. He had to get a lot of new equipment after that, so he had learned his lesson well. _Aunt Maye gives me an allowance from the money my parents left behind. She never mentions it when we have our occasional phone call, so I guess there's still enough left to keep the apartment and give me the allowance. If she ever runs out, I wonder if she'll make me move in with her and Tsura? I'd have to move from Musutafu, and change middle schools, and I would be farther away from U.A. My dream school._

Zach shook his head around again and looked down at the equipment in front of him. _Before I can get into U.A. though, I need to be ready to become a hero. I need to be strong, even without my Quirk!_

He stood up the training dummy in front of him, and he placed bricks around the base of it to prevent it from moving around when he was punching and kicking it. He pulled out his phone and searched the newest video on a series he was watching where the main star was a hero who specialized in martial arts. "Today, we're going to learn a new technique. This is meant for fighting villains, and for self-defense if you need it-"

"Don't use it on your brothers or sisters," Zach said, finishing the phrase the man said at the beginning of most of his videos. The videos were directed towards a younger audience, but the techniques were the real deal. After saying the end of the phrase at the same time as his online personal trainer, Zach put his phone down on top of an air conditioning vent sticking out of the roof near him, close enough that he could watch the screen while balling both of his fists. Zach looked at his right fist and frowned at the black glove over it. _If I break through it, I'm really screwed. And the material's not that thick, for my convenience. It's not meant for fighting with. But since I can't take it off when a fight starts, there's no point in training with it off!_

The boy with short spiky hair started his techniques on the dummy in front of him. He was all stretched out and warmed up from cross country, so he got straight into fighting. He had a weight day yesterday, so he left the tarp over his weights alone. They had been difficult to get up the ladder, especially the heaviest ones he took up there with him, and there were even heavier ones still in the storage room on the top floor that Zach could not risk carrying up the ladder, yet. For today, he was doing a technique only day. He wanted to master the ones he already knew, learn others, and become an all around better fighter.

"The best heroes don't just rely on their Quirks," he said, while faking a punch with his left hand and then getting in close with his right. He bent his arm and slammed his elbow into the solar-plexus of the training dummy, putting all his power behind the attack. _Just like All Might,_ he thought, while bouncing back as he imagined the reaction he expected the dummy would have done if it was a real opponent who did not go down fast. _He's the best hero, not just because he's strong. But not because he can fight either. Being a hero is more than that. The reason that I need to be able to fight, is what will make me a hero. And that's simple. The reason is-_ He thought about all the times he had run through this city. Every street he ran down with children on it playing in the road. All the people he saw talking and laughing through the windows of cafes and restaurants. He imagined the heroes he saw and all the people who cheered for them when they beat villains, people he cheered along with as happy as they are. _Because I love life!_ He grinned and slammed his left fist forward, smashing the training dummy straight in its face.

* * *

 **A/N Hope you enjoyed. Thanks for the follows, favs, and reviews. Just watched the epic last episode so I'm a little hyped right now, which is why I'm posting another chapter in only like 8 hours. Anyway though, new chapter at you tomorrow! Leave a review below!**


	3. Chapter 3

**Disclaimer: I do not own Boku no Hero Academia**

 **Chapter 3:**

"I am…" Every student in Class 1-A looked to their doors with eyes growing wide. Their smiles spread over their faces, their chests started pounding, and the man threw open the door and leaned inside. "Coming through the door like a normal person!"

Behind Zach's desk and to the right one row over, Kaminari's face lit up and he exclaimed, "It's All Might!" Half of them let out similarly amazed gasps and excited noises, and many of them had been doubtful that All Might would really be there in person.

"He's wearing his Silver Age costume," Zach whispered, then Tsuyu mentioned the same a few seats away from him but in a more confused and louder voice.

Jirou Kyoka leaned to the side after hearing the boy in front of her say that, and the look on his face made her sweatdrop. "Didn't take you for the fanboy type," she remarked as the boy who had been quiet most of the day in front of her had a look of childish excitement on his face now.

Zach spun back to Jirou, then he turned away from the girl with earphones sticking off of her earlobes. He tried to better compose himself with a small blush on his face, but he could not stop from smiling wide at the hero who walked in.

All Might stopped behind the podium in the center of the front of the room and he put his fists at his sides. He wore an old-fashioned red uniform, with white lines on the front in a cool style, cool yellow arm spikes and wrist-guards, and a cool blue cape. _So cool,_ Zach thought, as every part of the uniform looked cool to him. He looked at All Might's face as the hero turned and stared into the room. "I teach Hero Basic Training. It is a subject where you train in different ways to learn the basics of being a hero. You'll take the most credits of this course than any other here!"

All Might tensed up and twisted his body, "Then, let's get right to it!" He slammed his arm forward with a small index card on it labeled, 'COMBAT.' "This is what we'll do today! Combat training!"

Everyone was getting excited, but Zach started staring up at All Might with his smile lowering down a bit. _Combat training, right now? Against each other probably,_ he glanced around the room nervously. "And to go with that are these!" All Might pointed at the wall on his right where panels started sliding out to reveal numbers on each other.

Zach looked at the number '13' where he knew his costume would be inside of. As much as it excited everyone else in the class, he kept staring at All Might while the rest of them looked to the wall. Even after All Might pointed, he kept looking ahead, and there was only one student still looking at him as he said, "Costumes made based on your Quirk registrations and requests that you sent in before school started." All the students started getting up, and All Might continued, "After you change, gather in Ground Beta!"

"Yes sir!" Everyone called out at the same time.

Zach stayed quiet as they all called it out. He started walking for his costume, while a strange feeling churned around in his chest. _Does he, not remember me?_ Zach did not see the recognition he had hoped for in All Might's eyes, and his smile lowered while he got his costume out and looked at it. He was so excited when he had designed it, even asking Jenny to come over and help work on it with him since he did not consider himself very artistic. It came out looking amazing, and his smile lifted a small bit as he looked it over. _I shouldn't be surprised. How many hundreds, no thousands, of people has All Might saved over the years? I thought though, since he knew my dad he might have… I don't know._

Zach started for the locker room with the other guys, trailing behind just a bit. He noticed someone walking pretty far back near him, an anxious look on his face, but he did not look his way. The boy next to him thinking about his costume, and on how he was going to manage combat training, glanced to his left and stopped muttering to himself. Zach had not even noticed Midoriya's muttering, his thoughts too jumbled and his emotions out of balance at what had just happened. _Did he recognize me? We made eye contact, for that brief second. He probably made eye contact with everyone in the room at least once- but, he would remember me. If not for my face, then my Quirk for sure!_

Midoriya relaxed a little at the look on the boy next to him's face. "You're pretty nervous about this too, aren't you?"

The darker haired boy turned to his classmate, and he hesitated then nodded as he tried refocusing on combat training which he was also having tough feelings about. Midoriya looked like he had another question to ask, but he stopped himself and glanced at the costume that Zach was carrying with him. His eyes focused on Zach's right hand, and he realized while his eyes widened that the other boy was always wearing that glove, even though he did not have one on the other hand. "Sazaki-"

"Call me by my first name," Zach cut in. "And we should really be focused on combat training," he added, picking up his pace to catch up with the rest of the guys.

 _I saw where you were looking. He doesn't look like one to be nosy, but at this point people have to start getting interested. I haven't shown a Quirk yet, but I denied being Quirkless. That was the first step, the first step towards telling people what it is. Gah, why is this so hard?_ Zach slowed down when he was right behind a few guys talking about how cool their costumes were, and they all headed into the locker room. _When people asked about my glove in middle school, I had such a good excuse. Telling them it was contagious fungus, a genetic disease, I could make up as much crazy stuff about it as possible and it was still believable. I told them that just taking my hand out of my glove would have been dangerous, so for any of them to try taking it off of me would have been suicidal! Literally…_

 _I can do this. Maybe I'm making assumptions too fast. All Might could come talk to me later. He might not have wanted people to know about how he saved me, yeah, yeah that must be it! After that day, only dad ever talked to me about it, and only that one time. All Might could have only told him. Actually that's probably what he did do, at least, that's what I hope._ Zach's hands tightened around the uniform he was holding. _I tried to kill myself, but he saved me. In more ways that one, you saved me All Might._ Zach rubbed an arm over his eyes and bit down hard, clenching his uniform even tighter in his hands. _So why am I so mad at you right now?!_

* * *

 **Knock Knock Knock Knock Knock**

 _Five knocks,_ Zach thought while getting up from his dinner table. "What do you want Jenny?" He asked while walking to his door. _No one else knocks so many times-_ Zach opened his front door and his eyes opened wide and shot up to the tall man standing in front of him. The muscular hero in the same outfit he wore to school that day, stood in front of Zach with his arm held up in a fist ready to knock again. He brought his arm down and smiled wide at the boy standing in front of him in the doorway.

"I am here," All Might said, though in a whisper. "May I come in?"

Zach realized the teacher and hero probably did not want to be seen, which was why he knocked so many times and was speaking in a low voice. "Y-Y-Yeah, All Might," he moved back and let the hero step in through the door.

"I can't stay for long," All Might began. _A few more minutes in all today, still so much I need to get done!_ He had a rushed look on his face and began speaking rapidly to the boy who had yet to even close the door behind them, "You did a fantastic job at the combat training today. I was surprised by your technique, but on my way here I saw some things on the roof. I had my suspicions but you really shouldn't be using your building's roof as a place to train. Also I had a look into it but now I am fairly certain but do you live here on your own?"

"Uh, thanks, and um, I guess since I'm training at school now, I won't need to go up there as much. I heard there are plans for another apartment complex just down the street that's going to be bigger than this one too, so I'd have to stop anyway…" Zach trailed off as he thought back to everything All Might said, wondering if there was a third thing before the final one he did not really want to talk about.

 _I'll take that as a yes. The half cup of instant ramen on the table is not a good sign, but I see signs of healthy eating in the kitchen._ A cabinet in the kitchen was partially open and All Might could see some brands of food he had suggested for Izuku Midoriya to eat as part of his training regiment. _Then the ramen is likely a result of how he was feeling earlier._ "Earlier, I apologize. I did not want to-"

"No, no I get it!" Zach exclaimed, before lowering his voice in case his neighbors would hear him through the wall talking to All Might. "I'm glad you didn't say anything to me, but I'm really just glad you remember who I am."

"I remember everyone," All Might said. Zach's mouth curled up into an even bigger smile, as the doubts he had had that All Might could not remember everyone he had ever saved were wiped away by that single declaration. "Well, I will see you in school, young Sazaki!"

"Thank you, sensei," Zach said, feeling a weight off his chest from that small conversation alone. All Might started walking for the door behind Zach, but when he was at the boy's side, Zach looked up at him and said, "I'm going to do it. I'm going to become a hero."

All Might's smile grew even larger as he looked back down at his student. He stuck a thumbs up at him and said, "Go for it. Go beyond," All Might opened the door behind him and bent his knees, then he shouted as he leapt out and away from Zach's apartment, "Plus ultra!"

Zach shouted it at the same time, "Plus ultra!" He shouted and ran out the door to watch as All Might soared off, then he let out a long sigh of relief. _All Might, said that I did good in training. I, I earned that…_ Zach saw something out the corner of his eye and slowly started turning to the left.

Standing outside the doorway of the room right next to his was his neighbor with long red pigtails falling more than halfway down her back. Jenny's jaw was dropped and she just stared into Zach's eyes with an eerie silence hanging between them for a minute straight. She had come out because she was going to go check on him and see how things were at U.A., as she had not heard enough about the number one hero academy yet from her best friend. Her jaw was dropping farther and farther and her eyes growing even more huge which made Zach feel nervous about what was about to happen.

"Don't," he said, running over and lifting a hand to cover her mouth with. He stopped himself though when his arm was only half lifted, then he brought his right arm back down to his side and reached forward with his left. Zach grabbed her by the sleeve and pulled her back towards his apartment, while she looked on the verge of screaming.

He had wanted to cover up her mouth at first, but he realized she was way too frantic for that short term solution. _All Might was in such a hurry, I wish he would have just checked before jumping out my door._ Zach closed the door behind him all the way this time, then Jenny shouted, "That was All Might!"

"Shhh!" Zach shushed loudly at her.

"Why was he here?!" Jenny shouted, almost as loud.

"Well, didn't I tell you?" Zach began, trying to come up with an excuse. "All Might is… a teacher at U.A.," he said it, then realized immediately how ridiculous an excuse that was.

"But why was he at your apartment?" Jenny asked, her voice still loud but calming down as this was turning into more of an interrogation. The way he responded the first time made it seem like he was hiding something from her. "Don't tell me, you got in trouble? Did he find out about the roof-"

"Well he did, but-" Zach started it, then he froze and his eyes opened wide. "But he didn't treat it as just some unsafe training I was doing. He said it was breaking building codes, and even counted as trespassing…"

"Oh no," Jenny held a hand over her mouth. Her skin turned bright blue and she asked in a worried voice, "Did you, get expelled?"

"Huh? No," Zach shook his head, and Jenny's skin flashed a warm yellow before shifting back to its usual beige shade. "He just told me to keep my training at official facilities for now on."

Jenny sighed and relaxed before giving her neighbor a pout. He leaned back at that look on her face, and she said in an annoyed voice, "If that's all it was, then you should have texted me to come over. You get to see All Might all the time now so it might not be as big a deal for you, but you know I want to meet him." Zach looked at her apologetically and scratched the back of his head, promising to do just that if All Might ever came back. She frowned for a few more seconds, but then the corners of her lips curled back up and she said, "Now tell me, what kind of exciting things did U.A. have you doing today?!"

"Oh, you would not believe it…"

* * *

 _Rescue training,_ Zach thought, looking around the amazing interior of USJ with wide eyes. He was listening as Thirteen talked about how important rescue work was, and he was smiling wide while wearing his costume and hearing all this. _The most important part, of being a hero._ His fists clenched at his sides, his right in the black glove, and his left in the thicker white one.

Zach's entire costume was white. He had long sleeves on his arms and pants that all matched the same white color. He had a silver belt around his waist as well as silver wrist-guards, and steel plating scattered on different parts of his body. On his knees, his elbows, and on the white glove of his left arm, Zach had hard pieces attached to his body with softer sides on the interior to prevent the damage he normally did to himself fighting only barehanded. _Today's when I show my stuff. The reason I'm here. The reason I'm becoming a hero!_

"…this class is a fresh start. You shall learn how to use your Quirks to save people's lives. You do not have powers so you can harm others." Thirteen stopped talking and then bowed, followed by a chorus of cheers from the students. _Thirteen knows what it's like to have a power like this,_ Zach thought while looking at the hero in a puffy white costume ahead of him. While Zach's head stuck out of the white collar of his uniform though, Thirteen had a black dome over his head so that Zach could not see the teacher's expression. _I wonder if those Black Holes ever hurt people, right when his power developed? He says it's one that can easily kill, so maybe it has. But he can at least use it in other ways too. I can't, learn how to use my Quirk in a way to save lives. But he's right, we don't have powers to harm others. They're for saving people._ Zach threw an arm up with the others and shouted with some classmates, though it was his left arm he threw up with them.

When the clapping and cheers started settling, Aizawa pointed his finger at the area behind where he stood at the top of the stairs. Only he and Thirteen were there as teachers with the students, as All Might was missing for some reason. Aizawa began to the class in front of him, "Alright then, first-"

Aizawa stopped talking as the lights on the ceiling cut off. Zach looked up in confusion as the entire building dimmed a few notches darker. "Huh?" He looked down to check if Aizawa was smirking at them and this was just part of it. When he looked at Aizawa though, he saw behind the teacher, and his eyes opened wide. Aizawa started turning his head with eyes growing in size, a bad sign for Zach who could see that expression even as he focused on the swirling purple circle at the bottom of the stairs just in front of the fountain.

The swirling circle exploded out in all directions, two yellow eyes appearing on the top of the largest part of the purple shadow-like being that just appeared. _This is part of the training. They're trying to scare us-_ A hand reached through the shadows and pulled them to the side, and the face of the figure behind it moved forward. Zach looked into the single eye showing behind the strange hand attached to that man's face. _Those eyes._ He thought, right as the man walked forward along with others stepping out of the dark shadows at his sides. _They're, the same…_

 **2 Years Ago**

"Everyone stay back," Zach said, holding his arms out to the sides as he saw movement behind him.

"But Captain," one of the first years began. "That's Best Jeanist! I want to see what he can do-"

"The police haven't arrived yet," Zach said. "In a situation where villains arrive, civilians get in the way too often- hey you," he shouted towards a couple of guys running towards the area across the street. They stopped and spun to the boy in a pair of sweatpants and matching gray sweatshirt who had a serious look on his face. "Don't get any closer. There could be accom-" Out the corner of Zach's eyes he saw him. His head started turning back towards the smoke that was coming out of what he knew was a Chinese restaurant. He knew it because this was a path he and his cross country team took at least twice a week on their runs.

 _Best Jeanist must have arrived in seconds after I heard that first blast, but it hasn't been that long! He must not have seen this guy,_ Zach leaned back, as did all his teammates. The man running towards them had a body made of steel, a brutish look on his face and a muscular body to match that made him look like a body builder. He had a panicked look on his face too, as any criminal would when one of the world's best heroes showed up to stop them.

His feet left marks in the ground with every step, and he was holding a bag in one hand and a gun in the other. _A gun?!_ Zach saw the weapon and then yelled, "Move out of his way-" He saw one of his teammates, a third-year who had not voted with the others to make him the team captain since he was only in his second year. "Nagiso, don't," Zach began, but his upperclassman got in the way of the villain anyway while the others moved to the side of the sidewalk.

Zach looked farther down the road and saw Best Jeanist looking their way, but he was a good distance away from them. There were not any other heroes in the vicinity yet, and Zach heard the sirens but still did not see any cops. His left hand shot to his right wrist, but his hands were both shaking as he grabbed his glove. _Move!_ He shouted at himself, trying to run up to Nagiso's side. He looked past Nagiso though, into the eyes of the glinting silver man charging at him.

The man punched forward without hesitation, using the arm he was holding a bag with that looked like one of those sacks in bank robbery films. His fist slammed into Nagiso's chest, pushed in, and came out of the teen's back. Nagiso just smirked though at the villain who got a confused look on his face at the feeling of the boy's insides. The villain decided to keep running, even as his arm got stuck inside the boy's mushy body. Nagiso opened his mouth, "My Quirk is Jello, but it's not as- Ah!" His feet came off the ground as the villain kept running, using his excessive strength to drag the kid with him as his arm was stuck lodged through the boy's chest.

"This is bad," one of the third-years on Zach's right began. "Nagiso's got his limits. He can't…"

Zach could hear his heartbeat pounding in his head. He was just out of the way enough that the villain would run by in front of him, taking Nagiso with him. The older boy had a terrified look on his face as he realized what the villain was doing, and then that terror intensified ten-fold as the villain seemed to decide he didn't want this extra weight. His other arm with the pistol in it rose up, and Zach started yanking his glove off while stepping forward.

Nagiso had looked towards Zach in a desperate way, and when Zach saw the look in his eyes, he stopped thinking about what his power would do and what the consequences would be. He saw the gun lifting and he started pulling off his glove, and then he froze, and the villain slammed into the ground. Zach's eyes opened huge, while Nagiso pushed against the arm in his chest to slide off of him. He pushed himself away from the man who just slammed into the ground, strange blue fibers on his legs and back.

"Best Jeanist," Zach finally whispered in relief, as he realized what had happened. He let out a deep breath and took another step forward, then he reached down his left hand for the older boy sitting there and staring at the struggling victim with a terrified look on his face. "Nagiso, are you alright?" Zach asked. Nagiso turned his head and looked at the younger boy's outstretched hand. He was a year older, the main reason he did not want this kid joining in the first place as a first-year, why he did not want him to be captain. Seeing that outstretched hand should have made him angry, but instead his gaze shifted from Zach's hand slowly to the other one, the one he saw Zach running towards him while grabbing, while taking off that strange black glove he always wore.

Zach stood up fast, realizing what Nagiso was thinking of. The perfect lie he had used for years now, he wondered how many of them had seen through it with that one action alone. So many of them were focused on the villain though and their own fear, he started finding it more surprising that Nagiso had picked up on it during that intense situation. "Zach, you-"

"You kids there, get back," Best Jeanist ordered as he ran towards them. "There could be other accomplices." The students all agreed and started running off, Nagiso scrambling to his feet on his own. They ran while the cops went the other direction, all of them talking about how crazy that was. Some of them started telling Nagiso how brave he was to stall for Best Jeanist, but the older boy said nothing about it. He just felt stupid for thinking he could stop a villain, felt terror that had not subsided even after the villain had been taken down and disarmed, and he felt angry that he had not been able to do anything. And he felt something else too as he looked back towards Zach.

Zach had his eyes pointed at the floor as he ran. He thought about how Nagiso would confront him over this. He thought about how he had almost used his power, after swearing that he would never use it again. He had made that promise and reminded himself of it every day, yet right there he almost broke it. In a single moment, his conviction to never remove the glove in a fight was shaken. And he knew why it was shaken too. More than anything that happened during the action, during the moment when he decided to run forward, one thing stuck with him. It filled his mind and he shook as he ran, wondering for the first time in years, if he really did want to become a hero. That hesitation was because of what he saw when he looked in that villain's eyes, a look he would not see again up close in person, until rescue training at U.A.

 **Present**

"Gather together and don't move!" The others who did not realize what was going on yet turned to their homeroom teacher in confusion. "Thirteen. Protect the students."

"What is that?" Kirishima asked, getting nervous for a second before calming himself and leaning forward. The boy with spiky red hair said in some awe, "Is this like the entrance exam where the lesson's already started."

"No," Zach said on his left side. "That's not it." Kirishima glanced next to him and got some more sweat on his face at how afraid the boy next to him looked.

Midoriya made to take a step forward and get a better look, but Aizawa commanded, "Don't move," again in a much stricter tone. They looked towards him and watched as their teacher grabbed his specially made yellow goggles for his costume and put them over his eyes. "Those are, villains."

 _That's a villain too?_ Zach thought, staring at a monster that just walked out of the portal. Its skin was black and its body muscular, and its brain showed on top of its monstrous head. It gave him the creeps as bad as the man next to it who had gray hands all over his body. _These are all, villains!_

* * *

 **A/N Thanks for reading. Rescue training at USJ is interrupted by villains! Hope the pacing isn't too fast, and that you enjoyed the chapter! Leave a review below, and I'm going to start review responses this chapter!**

Limit-Breaking chapter 1 . 23h ago

I have to say the premise for the story is a really interesting one, I'm definitely going to be reading more of it. So far I feel like I'm reading an actual anime story with a dark sense of dread and feeling suspense.

 **Glad you like the premise and that was some high praise! As for changing him with Deku, I get the idea of not having an OC main, as I've barely ever- really only once ever done it before in all my stories. And even the one I did it for DBZ I still had Gohan and Trunks as mains splitting it with the OCs... Anyway! Not gonna switch in Deku, because he's got a role in the story anyway, and because I'm already 130 thousand words through, and it's just not the story. I figured people might get turned away since it's an OC, as I often see OC stories myself as self-inserts or Marie-Sue kind of characters, so while I wrote I had to try and make sure I didn't fall into that trap. So yeah, I figured it might not get as much attention as other fanfics on the Boku no Hero category, but I'm gonna stick with Zach. Hope you enjoyed the last chapters!**

Byzan chapter 1 . 16h ago

I like it. I like the way that his quirk is meant for villain yet his past is the thing that made up a protagonist. keep it up. I have followed this story. I'll leave a review again when I have read the next chapter. promise.

 **Thanks for the review! Glad you liked his backstory, and I hope you enjoyed the recent chapters!**

Guest chapter 2 . 12h ago

This is super interesting! Having a quirk called death... I wonder if there's more to it than that though? Like, maybe he can train it to make people go unconscious? Either way, I think Zach is great, and the fact that he wants to be a hero because he loves life is amazing! Quick question though, does his quirk only work on living things? If not, he would've been able to 'kill' the robots, right?

 **Thanks! I'm glad you enjoyed the start, and there'll be a lot of mysteries surrounding this power which will come up through the story. For that question though, I'm going to go with yeah only on living things, which was why he scored so low on the test and needed the points from helping out Ashido. Thanks for the review!**


	4. Chapter 4

**Disclaimer: I do not own Boku no Hero Academia**

 **Chapter 4:**

"Wow," Midoriya said, his voice hushed mainly because of his awe. "Sensei's actually good at fighting by himself against a lot of people, huh?"

 _Aizawa-sensei, he's, he's awesome!_ Zach looked down in amazement from a little behind Midoriya, but not yet chasing after the rest of their evacuation class. _That quip about not having just one trick to be a hero, that's exactly what I heard in all the training videos. As awesome as some heroes' Quirks are, they need to train in all different things to-_

"This is no time for analysis," Iida called back to the two of them. Zach started stepping backwards, nodding his head before spinning and running as Iida kept calling back, "Hurry up and take shelter." Midoriya started running too, and they all ran as a whole class after Thirteen back down the long path from the doors to the top of the stairs. It did not seem as long while they were running it, but before they even got halfway, a black swirling vortex opened up in their path.

The blackish purple shadow guy from before shot out of the ground and rose up twice as tall as the tallest student. "Nice to meet you," he began, his yellow eyes his only feature other than the black mass swirling around him. "We are the League of Villains."

 _Never heard of them,_ Zach thought, but he was no less afraid knowing that it was an unknown group than he would be if they were well-known terrorists. "It may be presumptuous of us, but we have invited ourselves in to the home of heroes, U.A. high school, in order to have All Might, the Symbol of Peace, take his last breath."

Zach's breath caught in his throat, but his scared look started going away. _They, what?_ His eyes narrowed and both fists clenched hard at his sides. _They're crazy to come here with that- but, they're not. Todoroki said it, they're fools, but they're not dumb. If they came here knowing All Might would be here…_ Zach started breathing again, low and angry breaths while his fists clenched tighter and tighter. He had to release his right fist as it was clenching too hard, and he darted his eyes down to his right palm to make sure his nails didn't pierce his glove.

"I believe All Might should have been here. Has there been some kind of change?" The shadowy figure started stretching out to the sides and continued in his deep voice, "Well, that is neither here nor there. This is the part I am to play."

Zach started walking forward, but he was closer to the back of the group, and two others stepped out in front of Thirteen first. The teacher had just lifted an arm and popped open one of his fingers which he would be able to use his Quirk Black Hole through. Kirishima and Bakugo leapt up in the air first though. Kirishima slashed through the portal-user's body and Bakugo made a huge explosion into him, and smoke covered the area for a few seconds. Zach lifted his arms to cover his mouth, while staring forward in surprise that two others beat him to the punch. _What was I going to do anyway? Tackle a shadow? Though now that I think about it, what would…_ His eyes started to widen as a low voice spoke over Kirishima's victorious taunt.

"Oh, that was dangerous," the shadowy figure reformed as the smoke and dust settled down. He had a silver brace around a portion of his shadowy body while his glowing yellow eyes re-emerged on the swirling shadows above it. "That's right. Even if you are students, you are excellent golden eggs."

"This is bad," Thirteen did not feel good about this situation and he shouted, "You two, move out of the way." Kirishima and Bakugo were in his way, and his power was too powerful and imprecise to use without getting them caught up in it.

"My job is to scatter you all and torture you to death!" The portal figure shouted before they could do anything. His body expanded and then shot forward, wrapping around the entire group in front of him. The purplish black cloud engulfed all of them like a wind pushing against them, and only Iida escaped it with a few others. Tenya looked back behind him with the two he pulled out of there, and he shouted at the dome of dark purple shadows, "Everyone!"

Zach heard the shout, but it sounded like it was getting fainter towards the end. _Scatter us? Is this-_ he lowered his arms and got ready to run, but he no longer felt a solid ground beneath his feet. Everything was pitch black and he felt terrified, and then he started falling. The portal that he was falling from was over ten feet off the ground, but Zach swung his arms around and tried flipping himself to land safely. He dropped down on his left knee and right foot, punching his hand down too as he did. He stared down at the floor where he just landed, surprised by how little that hurt. He had focused his landing on areas that he also used for fighting, which meant there were shock-absorbing paddings on the inside of his costume for when he used his martial arts' attacks.

The boy with spiky black hair lifted his head and glared ahead. He thought about what the portal guy said, and he glared straight at the man closest to him. Zach had seen them when he fell out of the air, all over the rocky area around him. _I'm in the Mountain Zone, across the building. Where is everyone?_ Thoughts were racing through Zach's head as he got up to his left foot too, taking his left hand off the floor in front of where his knee had been bent. He glared at the villain in front of him who did not like the way the boy perfectly executed that hero landing, but the villain started smirking as someone crashed into the floor right on his butt and back to Zach's right.

"Yow!" Kaminari exclaimed, sitting up and rubbing the back of his head that also hit down pretty hard. He panicked at the sight around him and jumped up to his feet, then he jumped backwards as a villain near him ran forward and tried swinging a huge rock down at him he was holding with a stretching arm. Kaminari dodged it, but the smash was loud and it scared the blond boy who realized he would have been crushed if he had stayed there. Even worse, the stretching man pulled the rock back to do it again. While that guy brought his arm back though, another villain charged at Kaminari, a fast one with razor-sharp claws sticking out of her furry yellow hands.

Kaminari's eyes opened wide and he started surrounding himself in electricity, only to never get the chance to shock the woman as a foot slammed into the side of her head and sent her off course lifting off the ground. Zach spun around after landing the kick and landed in front of Kaminari facing the other villains. "What is going on?!" Kaminari shouted, right as two girls jumped down from on some rocks above and behind them, Yaoyorozu holding a long metal staff, and Jirou holding a short sword that her classmate had just made for her with her Quirk, Creation.

All the villains charged at once right as the girls jumped out to help their male classmates. "What is with these guys?!" Kaminari yelled while jumping backwards away from a guy slashing a sword at him. Jirou moved forward and swiped her own, making the villain jump back, then the girl with short hair and earphone-jacks for earlobes had to dive to the side as someone fired a projectile at her. It was not the fastest moving, but it was large and almost hit her as she ducked. It slammed into the rock cliff behind her, then Yaoyorozu ran over and swung her staff to protect Jirou who had yet to get up.

 _These villains,_ Zach thought while running straight towards a bulky man holding a war hammer, except that when he looked closer he saw that the man's arm itself turned into a hammer at the end. The guy lifted it up and slammed down at the kid running towards him, but Zach sidestepped to his right a small amount, then when the villain changed the direction to try and smash down at the boy dodging, Zach darted to his left while ducking. The hammer swung diagonally over the top of his body, hitting the ground on the right of where he would have been even if he had kept going straight. _"There are certain areas of the body you should be especially careful attacking, as you could cause a lot of pain or even permanent injury. However, if the situation calls for it, these are also the same areas where people are most vulnerable."_ Zach stepped on the man's side so he did not have a clear shot at what would be the most vulnerable, as well as the spot he did not want to attack the most as it would make him feel like the villain in any situation. _But here,_ he thought, while slamming forward his right elbow at the man he was about to run by.

He strafed the villain and kept running while bringing both arms back up, then the large man behind him dropped down to his knees. It took a second for the amount of pain to register to the guy who did not think the child would be able to do it, but as he felt the steel-plated elbow hit him in a kidney, he felt one of the worst pains of his life and could not help but let out a gasp of pain as he fell. His hammer had left a hole in the mountain zone and blasted rocks up with it when it smashed down, but the short kid who just ran by him dropped him in one blow.

 _He can still move,_ Zach thought. "Kaminari, zap him," he called out, while running back towards his classmates who were standing in a triangle formation and saying something to each other. Zach sprinted their way as he realized he was isolating himself from his only allies in the area, but he grimaced at the numbers surrounding them.

"I'm telling you I can't," he called out, the same thing he just told Jirou, though he had said it loudly enough that he thought Zach had heard. "All I can do-"

"Is be a stun baton," Jirou said with a smirk, right before kicking Kaminari in the back towards a villain who the boy had just dodged away from.

"What are you-" Zach changed directions to run towards Kaminari, but the blond boy started using his electricity and actually got the man Jirou pushed him into. The large boulder the guy with a stretching Quirk smashed down before came down again, but Jirou spun and her earlobe-headphone-jack connected to her boot, and she fired a condensed soundwave at the boulder that shattered it. The guy swinging his arm down wound up hitting Kaminari with it instead of with the rock, and Kaminari's electricity coursed through his arm all the way to his body.

Even as Kaminari took out a few others, Zach had to dodge to the side and then counter with a strong right hook into the villain's face. The thug got hit and stumbled back, but he grinned back towards the kid who stepped back at the sight of the man's face. He had left a red mark and there was some blood trickling out of the thug's nose, but if anything the guy just looked like he wanted to kill Zach more. Zach looked around and saw so many villains around them, _More than I can handle! More than we can handle!_ He backed up another step, then Yaoyorozu yelled towards him, "Zach get near me!"

Zach spun and started sprinting her way. During their combat training, he had seen how smart their class vice president was. She analyzed the situations quickly, and even back during the first day of class he remembered how she had not been fooled like the rest of them by the expulsion warning. _I knew she'd have a plan,_ he thought, and he saw Yaoyorozu hunch over and her back start to glow. Other villains around them looked towards the girl hesitantly, unsure as to what he power was since she had not shown it since arriving with the other female student.

 _They don't know her Quirk or they wouldn't just sit there and watch this,_ Zach thought as he spotted a villain near him stop instead of chasing him when he ran past. "It takes some time," Yaoyorozu said while the blanket popped up above her and shadowed over her and Jirou's heads. "To make something big," she finished, while the blanket spread out to its full size, easily large enough for three people to fit under. Right as it was about to fall over them, Zach dove and rolled under the sheet's edge. He got in the darkness beneath the sheet, and then Yaoyorozu lifted the edge a bit and said, "It's an insulation sheet 100 millimeters thick. Kaminari."

Yaoyorozu dropped the edge of the sheet back down, grinning just like the other two under the blanket with her. "Nice thinking," Zach said, right as Kaminari yelled outside the blanket.

"In that case… I can be really strong!"

Screams of all the villains outside reached the students under the sheet, and they each felt victorious as thuds followed those screams. The villains were dropping one by one, though as Yaoyorozu lifted the sheet, many of them were frozen where they were standing with smoke coming off of their bodies. A few more started collapsing, but as Yaoyorozu started, "Now then, I'm worried about the others-" Jirou spun to Zach and yelled at him.

"Look away!" Zach's face was red and his eyes huge, and his hands shot up to cover his eyes even though Jirou had already gotten in between him and Yaoyorozu. Jirou spun back to the other girl and said, "Your clothes!"

Yaoyorozu nodded, then looked back at Jirou and said, "I can make them again." Her smile then lowered down as she looked at the boy behind Jirou, then back down at her chest. She had only thought of the problem of repairing her destroyed shirt, not the other inherent problem her power was going to cause. Yaoyorozu's eyes shot open wide and she spun from Jirou and Zach, which only made Jirou more nervous.

"Kaminari don't look over here!" Jirou shouted, then they all looked out at their fellow classmate in confusion, because he was walking around out there with a shit-eating grin on his blank expression. Yaoyorozu quickly repaired her shirt then shot up to her feet, and the other two followed her up. Jirou and Zach walked towards Kaminari who had both of his thumbs stuck up, some blood trickling out of his nose, and he was saying 'wee wee weeee!' over and over again.

"Guess he, blew a fuse, or something," Zach mumbled, his cheeks still red as he avoided looking towards Yaoyorozu.

"And he was already an idiot," Jirou added, smirking at the way he looked now.

"Alright, you two," Yaoyorozu said as she looked at them. She did not include Kaminari in the upcoming conversation, because she doubted he would be able to understand it as he was now. The blond boy just kept pacing about while looking like an idiot, while Yaoyorozu spoke to the two who could still handle themselves. "We need to figure out the situation of the rest of the class. If we were sent here, then there's a chance the others were scattered to the other zones."

"Some of the others aren't as capable in fighting situations," Jirou said. She did not mean it as an insult, more she was saying it in a concerned way. "So we should move fast in case they're barely holding off the villains."

 _Check another area? But, when we know where so many of them are,_ Zach turned his head and started walking towards the part of the Mountain Zone they were on that had a better view over more of the room. The girls wanted to say something to him about how he wordlessly started walking away, but they saw where he was going and figured that was a smart move to get a look around. _If their leaders really think they can beat All Might, that means, they must really have something strong. Something that even Aizawa sensei couldn't handle…_

Jirou at that moment started talking about the villain's plan too, and Yaoyorozu turned to her to listen. Both were no longer holding the weapons Yaoyorozu had made for them, because they thought that they had defeated all the villains. That was why the two girls were so confused when Zach spun around and started sprinting the other way, his eyes huge and his fists lifting up. _I should have guessed it. With so many weak villains like this, there have to be more who are actually strong in this group if they've managed all this. If they have enough power to think they can beat All Might, then of course,_ he sprinted as fast as he could towards Kaminari and the villain who had been sneaking up on him.

The villain moved faster when he was seen. "Kaminari!" The idiot who still did not notice the man right behind him spun at the sound of that shout, and then his blank eyes opened wider as he was shoved hard in the side and pushed out of the way. The villain's hand passed Kaminari, but quickly changed directions for the other boy. Zach lifted his head with wide eyes, fear all over his face as the villain in a skull mask looked down through the eye-holes at him.

"You're real good in a close combat fight," the man said, right before Zach screamed out in agony.

The villain's other hand shot down and hit Zach in the back, while the one he had reached forward originally wrapped around the boy's neck and yanked him up. He never gave Zach the time to get back in a fighting stance, or to try and come up with a way to fight him. Zach had pushed Kaminari out of the way, and the villain gained a different hostage. "It's bad luck kid," the villain said while lifting him and turning to face the girls who had started running his way. "Don't move," he said, taking his other hand from behind Zach's back and putting it close to the side of the boy's head. One arm was wrapped around Zach's neck, the other started sparking electricity near his right ear so close that he could feel sparks.

Yaoyorozu and Jirou froze, while Kaminari looked up in confused fear from the ground a few feet away from the villain's feet. He started getting up, and Yaoyorozu shouted, "He doesn't know-"

"I know," the villain said, stopping the girl from panicking and trying something which he knew she might do if she thought he was about to kill Zach. "That's why I went for him. I'd rather not hurt an electricity-type like myself, and I wouldn't have to with him in that state. Not like this one." He said it and the girls looking the villain's way looked back at the hand sparking electricity next to Zach's face. They looked at the blood on it and then back at the boy who was constantly wincing in pain while also darting his eyes to the bloody hand next to him that was so close to frying his brain.

 _I'm scared. This is bad. He's going to kill me. How bad is my back? It hurts. What do I do? If I start moving my arms he'll kill me. If they try anything he'll kill me!_ "If you two use your Quirks, I'll kill this guy," the villain said, and Zach's fear skyrocketed at how calmly the man said it. There was no hesitation in his voice, he just claimed that he was going to do it and none of them doubted him.

"Zach," Yaoyorozu said, her voice pained. She did not know what to do, as she wanted to help him but knew moving would have the opposite effect. Her eyes darted over to Kaminari, but he was useless in the situation after discharging so much electricity.

 _What's he doing? What are they doing? They're not moving, to save me. But, he's-_ The villain started walking forward as the girls put their hands up. _He's going to kill them! He's just getting close, then he'll kill them, then he'll kill me!_ "If neither of you move, I'll let him go," the masked man said. _No he won't! Try something! One of you, just try-_

"Electric-types like you and Kaminari are natural-born winners, right?" Jirou began, and the villain stopped walking. _What is she doing?_ Zach thought in panic, though the villain did stop moving to listen to her. "I mean, even if you aren't a hero, there are a ton of jobs…"

 _It won't work. I can tell what you're doing, I can see your earphone jack! He's experienced! He has us exactly where he wants us! Someone- someone? Why am I waiting for someone to come?_ _ **"I swear All Might, I'll become a hero. I'll do it without ever using my power to hurt someone!"**_ _No! I can't consider that. Even in, this… situation?_ "Ah!" Zach pulled his head away as the villain moved his bloody sparking hand right up in front of his face.

"Give it up," the man said. "Did you think I really hadn't noticed?" Jirou's headphone jack retracted and stayed in front of her where the villain could see, and all she could do was grind her teeth as her plan was seen through with ease. "A kid's naive thinking only works on dumb adults. Novice heroes shouldn't make light of hostages." Zach's eyes opened even wider and his breath caught up in his throat, his whole body tensing up. "If you two don't put up a fight, I'll let him go."

Both Jirou and Yaoyorozu started sweating worse but they kept their hands lifted as the villain started walking forward. "Someone else's life, or your own? Hahaha," he started laughing and Zach bit down as hard as he could.

 _Taking it lightly, is that what I'm doing? My life our theirs? That's what it means to face villains! That's what it means to be a hero!_ His right hand started moving at his side, his thumb curling in while his middle finger did the same. _But I can't-_ his fingers hesitated, but the villain took another step and they moved again. _The other villains are getting up, no one is coming to save us! I have to!_ His thumb pushed up against the material on the bottom of his middle finger, and he dug his fingernail in as hard as he could. He knew it would work because of incidents that had happened in the past which showed him how weak his gloves could be, despite their power-negating qualities. They were made so that he could use his right hand like a normal person, not to be a cage for his hand that he could not get off.

The fabric on his glove started to rip over his middle finger, and Yaoyorozu spotted what he was doing out the corners of her eyes. She did not turn this time though, afraid that by noticing Jirou's attempt at stopping the villain earlier, she had given it away to him what she was doing. _Does Zach, have a Quirk?_ Yaoyorozu wondered, something she had wondered many times but never gotten a clear answer. _Can it save us?_ _If so, why does he look so…_ The entire building shook and the girls darted their eyes around, but they returned them to their enemy just as fast as the man did not react in the same way and just kept moving towards them, his terrified passenger twitching his right hand the whole time.

Jirou got confused by the look on Zach's face, the regret and the guilt coming over it and making him look like he was in so much more pain than just when the villain had attacked him. The villain glanced down at the boy's face that he pulled back using his arm, though he was acting like he was just tightening his hold to make the girls stay where they were. Zach looked up through the holes in the villain's mask and his hand stopped moving. He looked into the eyes of the villain, but this time he did not see a villain's eyes looking back at him. He saw a person's eyes. His right hand trembled as he imagined that day. He remembered how his mom had taken his hand, how she had held it so tightly, and how it had slid out of his grasp when she collapsed.

Tears filled Zach's eyes. _I can't-_ The villain took another step. In his eyes he could see the girls. He could see them staring at him in fear, in confusion. Neither of them, just like him, knew what to do. They couldn't do a thing though. They were stuck like that, because they wanted to protect him. They were letting the villain walk straight up to them, to protect him. "Now," the villain said, looking up at the two girls and smirking at them. "Don't move."

Zach's eyes shot open wide and he opened his mouth, "AHH-"

The girls gasped, and Zach gasped, and the villain behind them started falling forward with two holes in his shoulders and blood splashing out of them. Zach started turning his head back as he fell, his tears still streaming, his mind blanking at the sight of the villain dropping. "This attack," Jirou said. The other villains realized it too, and all of them looked the other way towards the very front of the building and the doors they could just see. They could not see the middle section of the room, but the doors were visible where they spotted a line of teachers. The sight of those teachers made the other villains who had been getting up around them start backing up, and the ones who could move started scattering.

"The teachers," Jirou's smile grew huge. "That was Snipe-sensei's-"

"AHHHHH!" Zach brought his hands up to the sides of his head and let out a scream.

Across the room, Snipe lowered the gun he had fired towards the Mountain Zone. He cursed under his breath and clenched his gun so much harder. _I was, too…_

Zach turned his head and looked at the man who had been shot in the arms, forced to drop him. He stopped screaming and scrambled back on all fours to the man, and he reached in with his left hand and grabbed the man's mask, pulling it off. "H-Hey Zach," Jirou began, thinking he was about to do something stupid.

Yaoyorozu took a step forward, lifting her hand and opening her mouth to say something. Then she saw the man's face when Zach took his mask off.

"No no no no no," Zach stared at the eyes of the man lying there, half-open. He thought about the feeling he had when his right hand touched the man behind him, when the skin of his middle finger touched his opponent. For a second after he first screamed, he thought that maybe the man's clothes would have made his power fail. It was something he thought about when considering it, but he had decided to ignore since he would not risk it unless he was determined, and if it failed after he would have to figure something else out. It did not fail though.

"Whoa, wh-what is," Jirou stared at the guy's lifeless face, and her heart started racing as she looked from it to the boy who fell back on his butt and put his left hand up to the side of his head. _Snipe-sensei's attack, is aimed for non-vital areas. So, so why did he- die?_ She stared straight at Zach, then the boy looked down to his right while lowering his hand in front of him.

 _He does have a Quirk,_ Yaoyorozu thought, but her bottom lip started trembling as she saw the look on his face. _He, wants to be a hero. With a Quirk like that?_

Zach stared at his hand, at the skin of his middle finger and at the rest of it. He watched as his skin returned from pitch black to his normal skin tone. He kept staring at it, and his face twisted in anger at the sight of the man just in front of him. "I hate you," he whispered, before scrambling up on his knees and grabbing his right hand as hard as he could with his left. He grabbed himself by the wrist as if strangling it, but when that didn't do anything, he balled his right hand into a fist and punched it straight down. "Raaa!" He yelled, before pulling back and slamming it down again. Zach smashed his forehead into the floor because the pain was so much that he tried to stop himself, then he kept punching his fist down over and over again. He must have punched a dozen times before he felt the arms grabbing him. "DON'T TOUCH ME!" He screamed, diving forward instead of getting mad at the two behind him who ran up and tried to stop him.

As soon as he yelled it, Jirou stumbled backwards and then fell on her butt. She pushed her hands on the ground in front of her to move even farther back, because in that shout she did not hear anger at all like she expected he would be with them for trying to stop him. Instead, he sounded terrified. Jirou's heart clenched up and her body covered in sweat, because she realized she just touched the boy who apparently killed the villain with that right hand of his. She had grabbed his right shoulder and upper arm to try and stop him, and she started panting heavily as she saw her life flashing before her eyes.

Yaoyorozu stood closer to Zach even after he shouted it. The boy scrambled back to his feet and spun to stare at the girls behind him, his eyes huge. Not just Jirou and Yaoyorozu, but also Kaminari who looked to be regaining some semblance of sanity as he was back on his feet, were staring at him with wide eyes. Jirou had a terrified look in her eyes, while Yaoyorozu looked down at Zach's hand and said in a stern voice, "Stop it. You're hurting yourself."

Zach looked back down at his right hand and his face twisted in rage, even at the sight of his broken fingers. His glove was ripped up and the last pieces of it fell off as he clenched that had into a fist so tightly his nails cut into his palm. His broken fingers hurt, his forehead too where there was blood trickling out of a shallow cut in it and down right over his eyes. But what hurt the most, was the sight of the man lying on the floor in front of him, between him and his classmates. _The teachers came. They came! I was too hasty! I killed a man. I killed someone. I killed a person! FOR NOTHING!_ The tears filled his eyes and he turned his head to the right.

The boy with short spiky black hair looked to his right and out over USJ. They stood in the Mountain Zone, and he started walking that way. He took two steps, then he froze. He froze while lowering his gaze down to the cliff edge he was nearing. _What am I…_ he stepped back, and he fell to his butt. He brought his knees up to his chest and hugged them with one arm, lifting his other and covering his eyes with it. Kaminari and Yaoyorozu's eyes opened wide as she stared at Zach's back, as his white costume had turned very red below the hole at the top of it close to his left shoulder-blade. Yaoyorozu had completely forgotten about the villain's first blow he got in before taking Zach hostage, and she started running towards the boy's back.

She stopped before getting too close though, and her hesitation made it hard to start making bandages like she had planned. "Zach," she began softly. "It's just your right hand, right? I can touch your back?"

Two figures shot up the side of the cliff and landed in between Zach and the others. Yaoyorozu leaned back, but the scary man in front of her in a pitch black costume was someone she recognized and relaxed after getting a good look at him. "Ectoplasm-sensei-" Kaminari began calling out. Two versions of their teacher who could clone himself had landed in the Mountain Zone, but the one who landed closer to Zach leaned down and picked up the boy curled up there. "H-Hey," Kaminari took a step forward. "What are-"

"I'll get him to safety first," the Ectoplasm closer to them said, while the other flew off carrying their classmate.

 _It's just a clone,_ Zach thought as he lowered his arm to look up at the teacher holding him. Back on the mountain, the other Ectoplasm looked down at the body of a man whose eyes were half-open, and the other version flying away with Zach shifted his gaze to the kid looking back at him. _If I touch him, when we're this high up,_ Zach's right hand twitched, but he clenched it into a fist and clenched his eyes shut in pain. _Why do I keep- for the first time since- why do I keep thinking about doing_ _it?_

* * *

 **A/N Thanks for reading. Leave a review below.**

Guest chapter 3 . 4h ago

AceHavok010  
Like the premise of the story but I can only imagine that it's the same quirk that Tomura has which is fine but add a scene of them interacting or in some shape or form. For advice and constructive criticism, bring up your vocabulary a bit and spice things up once in a while. Also, develop a style because usually some of the best OC characters have some kind of quirks to their personality. Pun totally intended. Recommendation for that is make him a lot more timid or flinching a lot. Quiet. Stuff that you should stop is the over abundance of flashbacks, there's way too many

 **Well, we finally get a look at Zach's Death Quirk this chapter. Thanks for the advice(s) in your reviews. I don't really enjoy writing characters who have those kind of quirky personalities, just it seems like a forced way of making a character seem a certain way, or to tell readers what their personality is instead of showing it build up through the chapters. It's why I dislike writing Sanji's character in fanfics, as if he doesn't start shouting about ladies or making a scene when a girl shows up it becomes OOC for him. So Zach's character's personality might not be fully revealed yet, as it shouldn't be since the first few chapters really did focus more on his backstory than the present. Anyway, less (no) flashbacks this chapter, and I hope you keep reading! Thanks for the reviews!**

Roxas Itsuka chapter 3 . 15m ago

This is a really good story. It's interesting to see someone with a quirk they despise and yet they still try to be a hero. Looking forward to the next chapter.

 **Thanks, glad you enjoyed! Haha it's only been fifteen minutes but here's the next chapter! Thanks for the review!**


	5. Chapter 5

**Disclaimer: I don't own Boku no Hero Academia**

 **Chapter 5:**

Outside of USJ, dozens of cop cars and vans to take away the captured villains were lined up. There were cops gathered all over the place, and criminals were being led out in a single file line in handcuffs all linked together by chains. One detective stood in front of Class 1-A, and he counted them all up in front of him, "…17, 18, 19," he finished his count and nodded his head. "Other than the boy who seriously hurt both legs and the one with the broken hand, everyone else seems unharmed." The detective turned to speak to another cop who stood near him, and the students who were told to gather for a head count started talking to each other.

"I was in the landslide area."

"They underestimated us just 'cause we're kids."

"Where do you think I was?"

"Anyway," the detective started walking back over while talking to another cop, "let's have the students return to their class for now. We won't be questioning them right away anyway, right?"

"Detective," Asui hopped towards the man in a trench coat distinguishing him from the other officers. "What about Aizawa-sensei?"

The detective held up a recording where the doctor who sent the message described the extent of Aizawa's terrible injuries. Ashido then asked about Thirteen and the detective assured them that he was alright too. "All Might will also be fine," he added, though the students did not seem worried about him anyway. "Recovery Girl's healing is enough to take care of him, so he's in the nurse's office." After such an incident, the idea that All Might saved them and only needed to go to a school nurse made most of the students smile.

"What about Deku?" Uraraka called out.

"And for Midoriya?" Iida asked, talking about the same person as Uraraka.

Kaminari looked towards them, then he spun to the detective too and added, "And, Zach? Is he…" Kaminari did not know how to finish his question.

The detective glanced Kaminari's way, then back to the other two who he said, "Treatment in the nurse's office is enough for Midoriya." He got a frown on his face after saying it, while the two he spoke to looked relieved. He glanced back towards Kaminari and had a hesitant look on his face for what he wanted to say.

"Thank goodness," Uraraka said, before opening her eyes and lowering her smile at the way the detective was looking towards Kaminari. Now that she knew Deku was safe though, she was able to shift her worry. She had not heard anything about the other missing member of their class yet, but Kaminari's face looked nervous after that question. Around the class, a few others also noticed that Jirou and Yaoyorozu noticeably looked upset.

"His injuries, would have been enough for Recovery Girl," the detective began. "However, he is in a different location."

The detective seemed to be hiding something from them, but the man noticed the other cop next to him spin fast and salute, and he turned around as well. The class looked behind the detective to see the principal of their school walking over, along with a police officer who seemed important because of how the detective also nodded respectfully and moved out of the way.

"Principal Nezu," Kirishima whispered at the look on the principal's face.

"I am sorry students, but please listen to the police captain and follow his instructions," Nezu said, and the other students who looked like they needed to say something closed their mouths at the serious tone in his voice.

"Three students are needed for immediate questioning," the police captain said, and the detective frowned as he had just told the students to go back to class as questioning could wait until later. "Will Momo Yaoyorozu, Denki Kaminari, and Kyoka Jirou follow me?" It was worded as a question, but it was not a request.

"Oi, hey what's going on?" Kirishima asked as Kaminari started walking away from him and the others near them.

"Couldn't this wait until-" the detective who was just speaking with the students began.

"No, Detective Tsukauchi. Protocol is different when there is a fatality involved." Most of the students in the group in front of the police officer opened their eyes wide, leaning back at the sound of that. "The boy we have taken into custody was-"

"You what?!" Kaminari exclaimed. He stopped dragging his feet and ran forward towards the cop who stopped mid-sentence and frowned down at the boy. "Zach was just trying to save me! He pushed me out of the way!" Kaminari bit down angrily and then yelled, "It wasn't his fault!"

Every student in the group behind the spiky blond-haired boy in shock, even the two girls who had been following behind him. Yaoyorozu took a few seconds, but then she ran forward and began in a more calm way yet still stern to the police officer, "Kaminari is correct. It was in self-defense that he-"

"We can talk about this in private," the police captain said, looking glancing the girl and making Yaoyorozu close her mouth fast. Both she and Kaminari realized what they were doing and who they were talking about it in front of. They each grimaced as they imagined the looks on the others' faces, imagined what they might be thinking at the moment. "For now, please just come with me. Thank you for telling me that though, as we were not sure what to think." The police captain's voice got lower as he led the three students, Jirou trailing a little behind the other two, back towards one of the police vehicles. The principal stayed with the main group of students and repeated what the detective said, sending them all back to the classroom. As the three students were led away by the police captain, he said in a softer voice, "All he kept saying, until he passed out, was 'I killed him.' We don't know any of the details, so I will need you to explain the situation to me. Each of you, separately," he added.

Yaoyorozu's eyes opened wide. _They don't want to give us time to get our story straight. In case we say contradicting things. They're treating him like, a real killer._ "Zach wasn't-"

"Officer Kane, Officer Umbala, take one of the girls each down to the station. Kid, you're with me," the police captain said while looking down at the blond who did not have a good feeling about this either.

Kaminari looked left at Yaoyorozu who glanced back at him, both of them looking uncertain of what was going on. They each looked towards Jirou after, but she was just following one of the officers who motioned her to his vehicle. Yaoyorozu started for the other, but she looked down at the floor as she walked. _I, should have done more. Something. Anything._

* * *

A day after the villain attacks at U.A. High School, the news on every channel was still talking about it. In a hospital in Musutafu, a boy laying on his back on a hospital bed turned off the tv in the room. Zach lay on his side facing the windows, not a scratch on him. Recovery Girl had come by and healed him the night before, and she sounded like she got in a heated argument outside the door before it happened, but since then the only people to come in had been hospital staff and the occasional police officer.

Zach thought about the last nurse to come in who had his lunch, how she had looked towards his right side and where his arm was surrounded by a black box halfway up his forearm. He thought about how when he watched her leave, he could see the two police officers standing outside his door. _They said I wasn't under arrest, but I'm definitely under arrest,_ Zach stared out the window at the bright sky outside. _I wonder if they're having class today. Probably are. The tv stations keep talking about how unprecedented this is, so if they take off any school, the whole thing will look even worse. U.A. is a symbol of heroes,_ his eyes clenched shut as he felt them watering up. _What have I done?_

The sliding door to his room opened up and a cop in full uniform walked towards his bed. "You have a phone call," the officer said. "You're going to want to take it," he added, while Zach turned to look at the man in confusion.

The cop had green skin and horns sticking out of his face, but he was the friendliest of the officers Zach had talked to so far. Zach lifted his left hand and the cop put the phone down in it, then the man walked back for the door and left him alone in there. Zach rose the phone and put it to the side of his head. "Hello?" He started.

There was a pause over the line as the person he was speaking to realized he was there. Then, a low voice Zach recognized well began, "Young Sazaki." He heard All Might's voice and pulled the phone from his head, his thumb hovering over the end call button that he wanted to press so badly. _I can't talk to All Might. I can't face him!_ Zach's finger hesitated though, and then he brought the phone back up to his ear.

"All Might," he whispered. His voice was hoarse and he gasped out two more words before the tears built up in his eyes again. "I'm sorry."

"You have nothing to feel sorry about," All Might said. "Young man, you were a victim of-"

"I killed someone All Might," Zach whispered. He lifted his left arm and put it over his eyes, leaving the phone on the pillow next to his head so he could rub his eyes. He stopped rubbing them and just left his arm covering his eyes, and he continued in a hoarse voice that cracked with every word, "I, it wasn't an accident this time. I-I, I chose to, I decided!" Zach bit his lip but had to stop after a second because of how much it already hurt from biting through it all night and all morning. "And now, the things they're saying about U.A., U.A.'s a symbol of the hero society." Zach heard a surprised gasp on the other side of the phone, and he turned to look at the lit up screen next to him.

"You are even thinking about that?" All Might said, and Zach could not help but bite down on his bottom lip again. All Might's words let him know that he was not just being paranoid, because the hero said it like he had been thinking about that same thing. "Zach, I wish I could have visited you in person," All Might began, while he looked down at his injured body and grimaced. "But before I am going to be able to do so, I felt I needed to speak with you. I heard from your classmates the circumstances-"

"Snipe-sensei showed up in time," Zach gasped out. "He was there, but I still- I didn't know but I- I should have waited but I-" Zach started coughing as he was trying to speak despite the sobs forcing themselves out at the same time. Talking to the cops, he had kept it cold, he had stayed with exactly what had happened. He had tried telling them exactly the situation, once they had gotten him to stop repeating how he had killed the villain. There was no response over the line for a few seconds, then Zach stopped sniffling and he said with tear streaks covering his face, "And now the news is saying someone has to be held responsible for what I did. They're blaming teachers. And they're blaming the school. And I even heard someone, blame you, All Might," Zach gasped and his voice was so pained as he reached for the phone and put it back up to his head. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry All Might. I'm so sorry."

"Zach, this is not where your-"

"All Might," Zach said. He stopped crying and stared straight up at the ceiling above him. "Do you regret, telling me to follow my dream?"

"No," All Might responded.

Zach lay there staring at the ceiling for a few seconds. _He hesitated._ Zach lowered the phone from his head to the pillow next to him. Tears stopped coming out of his eyes, and he stared straight at the ceiling without moving a muscle. All Might started saying something inspirational to him next to his head, but Zach just drowned it all out. _Of course he does. The League of Villains didn't manage to kill All Might, but what I did caused so much damage. The school getting attacked is one thing. Students fighting villains too, but barely anyone got injured. But when the world heard that the villains attacked the top school for heroes, and that one of those heroes-in-training killed a villain, I corrupted the hero society. "What are they teaching their students?" "Why won't they release the name of the student involved?" "These students held off a villain attack, but were their actions justified?"_

 _It's not just me. Everyone would have been treated like celebrities, but no one cares about any of that. It's not long before someone in my class says something to the news, or even to just a friend of theirs who tells a friend who tells the news._ Zach lifted his left arm and wiped off his face before sitting up and leaning back on the wall behind his pillows. He looked down at the black box on his right hand. _All Might, was just saving someone. That day, he wasn't really telling me to be a hero. He said, exactly what a hero should. He got a suicidal kid, to stop thinking those kinds of thoughts. But in his head, he probably hoped that I would change my mind. He probably thought that my goal to be a hero, that with my Quirk, I would realize it was hopeless and give up. Instead I did something stupid. I spent my whole life working towards this goal, and now he can't even tell me the truth. He knows how much it would destroy me, how much I'm destroyed right now._

Zach felt his chest clench up in so much pain. "…there will be a school review when you get back. Do not worry though, the other teachers all understand what-"

"All Might," Zach said in a quiet, pained voice. "I can't return to U.A.," he whispered. "I can't return to that class," he added. "I can't face the others," he said the last part louder and then let out a sob and turned his head away from the phone. "You were wrong. It wasn't a magnificent dream. My Quirk, is Death." He sniffled and then reached back for the phone, "What kind of hero kills people? What kind of hero, kills his parents?" Zach ended the call and then called out, "I'm done!"

The police officer opened up the door and looked across the room at the boy who was sitting up and turned away from him. He started walking over and saw the phone sitting on the side of the young man's bed closer to him. As he neared it he began, "Our posting outside of your door has just been called off. The review is officially over, and we've called your aunt. She's coming here to pick you up." Zach spun with wide eyes, and the green-skinned cop leaned back at the red-eyed, tear-streaked face of the child who he thought would have felt better after a talk with All Might.

"I'm, free to go?" Zach asked, his voice shocked and shaky. "B-But, I…"

"You're not under arrest," the cop said, something he had told the boy a few times already. "No charges have been filed against you, and the department has marked the incident as self-defense, as it should be." The cop smiled at the boy whose whole body started shaking. "Your name has not been released to the public, and it's up to you whether or not you decide to say anything." The officer did not know what else to say, so he just gained a softer look and said, "Things will work themselves out." He turned to go but then paused and added, "You'll have to wear that box for a while. Your school is going to take care of it though."

Zach watched as the cop left, then he leaned back against the wall again. _All Might knew I wouldn't get in trouble. So did the other teachers. They already knew that I'd be back in class, but even when All Might said it, I still thought maybe…_ Zach looked towards the door again, but he did not see silhouettes through the glass. _They're really leaving,_ he thought. _Just leaving me. That's it. The incident is over for them. The guy I killed- damn it,_ Zach lowered his gaze towards the black box around his hand and lower arm. _I, failed._

 **8 Years Ago**

"It's okay, why?! Because I am here!" All Might called out to the crowd as he held the villain he just took down in one arm, and some hostages in another. All Might turned and looked towards another part of the street where another hero who had been at the scene before him was looking his way. _Titanium?!_ All Might thought, his eyes widening as he recognized the other hero.

All Might cut his press conference short, and he caught the other hero after he left the scene and was already another street away. "Titanium," All Might began after catching up.

The other hero looked back at him and gave him a small smile. "All Might, thanks for coming when you did. I didn't know how I-"

"You should be home," All Might said. "I am here. I can take care of hero duties in this city for a few days."

"There's no need," Titanium shook his head at the stronger hero. "I appreciate your concern, but I- I can, I can do this." The strong man with spiky black hair going straight up over his head a few inches clenched his teeth after saying it, trying to force the smile out.

"All Might!" a citizen walking around nearby called out.

"Oh look it is All Might!"

"Titanium, I saw on the news. I am sorry-"

"I'm fine, All Might," Titanium said, turning and walking away which made some citizens near them look at the heroes oddly.

All Might smiled at them to show nothing was wrong, then he jumped up and into the sky. Although he did not want the citizens to think anything of their confrontation, All Might was not finished yet. So he returned to Titanium's hero agency, and when he got inside the first thing a young female sidekick who ran up to him said was, "Please, All Might. Help Titanium."

All Might headed to Titanium's office and walked in while the man was over at his windows, staring out into the city. "Titanium," All Might began. "It has only been a day. Go home," All Might stopped smiling once he was out of the main room where Titanium's sidekicks and staff were gathered. "I hear you have a son. Be with him-"

"I can't!" Titanium shouted, spinning and glaring at All Might furiously at the suggestion. All Might leaned backwards. He had worked with the other hero before, and they had always gotten along. They were not close friends, but All Might considered him a comrade in the same field. He thought he knew the man, yet he had never seen such an expression of this on a man's face. Any man's. Titanium was sad, grieving, but his expression was furious, and yet he tried forcing a smile, because he was a hero. "I can't, look at him," Titanium said. "So I need to go to work, to get away from him. So he doesn't see me, look at him like that."

"I don't understand," All Might began.

"He killed her, All Might," Titanium said. He stepped towards the more muscular hero and hissed through his teeth, "My son, killed my wife. They're testing him right now, testing his 'new' Quirk, but I already knew." He pursed his lips, and All Might stared at the man in shock as he said, "We both knew. My wife and I, but we didn't say anything. Because he's, he's not…" Titanium seemed to realize what he was doing and he leaned back, regaining a calm expression on his face and frowning in a stern way at the other hero. "All Might, I ask you don't repeat-"

"Sazaki," All Might said, using the man's name while stepping closer to him. "What are you talking about? I promise, I will not repeat it."

Titanium bit down so hard that he had to turn his teeth into titanium to prevent them from breaking. Sparks came out from between his teeth that ground over each other, then he opened his mouth and in a raspy voice said, "The boy. His power had manifested, but not like- We didn't know what it was, but our dog died… It just died one day, while playing with him. He thought it went to sleep, and we told him it ran away. But we brought it to the vet to see what the cause of death was, and the vet said he never saw anything like it. The dog's heart just stopped for no reason. A young dog. Healthy. It's heart stopped, so we thought, maybe it was a heart attack. After all, he was six already. He shouldn't have gotten a Quirk if he didn't have one by then- but then," Titanium pursed his lips again, but All Might nodded at him to continue.

"He came home from school one day, and he told us that the class pet had died. He said they held a little funeral for him, but when we asked how it died, because we _needed_ to ask, he told us that it just died right after they took him out to play. The teacher said that, 'things happen,' but things without explanations don't happen twice around the same person. That person, becomes the explanation," Titanium's lips trembled as he pursed them again. "We knew, but what are we supposed to tell our son? That when he gets close to animals, plays with them, he kills them? Instead we made up an excuse, telling him that the doctor just found out that he's allergic to animals. We were too stupid, I was too stupid," Titanium put a hand on his forehead and he rubbed it so hard All Might was worried he would turn his hand to steel and rip through his skin.

"But, it had never happened with people before. But then my wife…" Titanium gasped and stared into All Might's eyes with huge ones of his own. "The boy- the- Z- I can't use his name. I can't talk to him. I can't even tell him it's alright. He's so scared, but I can't even _look_ at him."

"Sazaki, it is not the child's-"

"I loved her so much," Titanium gasped out. "She was, my world," he reached up and grabbed his chest in agony. "Do you love someone All Might? With all your being, love someone?" All Might hesitated for a few seconds, then Titanium continued, "Well if you do, can you imagine if someone took them away from you? Can you imagine how you would feel? What you would want to do? But you know you can't do it, you know you can't get revenge or justice, but worse than that, you have to look at this person who you can't do anything to, and not just look at him, you have to love him? I can't handle this. I couldn't handle a simple fucking job!" Titanium spun and slammed a fist towards the window behind him. The force of the punch shattered the window and he screamed out it, out into the air over the city.

"Titanium!" All Might shouted, reminding him by using his real name what he was doing. The glass falling out the window could hurt innocent people, and All Might had to run outside, plant his feet on the wall of the building across the road, and shoot himself down to make sure that the sidewalk was empty… which it was. All Might looked up as the glass fell towards him, and he punched all the shards to small pieces that would be harmless even if people were to step on them. He jumped back up for the window and looked in harshly at Titanium who was leaning back on his desk, hands on top of his head and a shocked expression at what he had just done. "You are a hero Titanium. Overcome this!" All Might shouted, and Titanium's eyes grew huge. "Go to your son. As much as you are feeling this pain right now, try to imagine the kind of pain he is feeling too. As I said, I will take care of hero duties here, so you need not worry about any criminals you may have stopped in the next few days. Take some time." All Might walked to him and put a hand on his shoulder, and he added at the end, "You can mourn."

 **Present**

The door to Zach's hospital room opened. He turned to see if his aunt had arrived to take him home. It had been a little while since the cops left, but it was not his aunt standing there. Zach stared at the man in a white t-shirt and green pants, and he said, "Who are you?" The man at the door had blond hair in a weird style, with two long bangs falling down the outsides of his face and the rest of it wavy and pushed back over his head. He had a very sharp jaw-line, and his eyes were dark while he stood there with his mouth flat.

The man closed the door behind him and Zach tensed up where he was sitting. _Is it a villain coming for reve-_

"Young Sazaki," the man inside the door began.

Zach blinked a few times, his body relaxing while at the same time flinching and starting to sweat. _What?_ He thought, then said, "What?" in just as confused a tone out loud. He looked the man up and down again, then down and up, then he focused on the bangs sticking down the outsides of the man's face. He looked at how loose the clothing was, then at the bangs again and the position they were falling from. _If those bangs stuck up and out, and his body could get muscular…_ "Nope, I don't see it," he tried picturing a change from the man in front of him into All Might, but it still did not work.

"Listen, I-" the figure in front of Zach coughed and blood splashed out of his mouth, making Zach drop his jaw.

"Do you, want the bed?" Zach asked, wondering if this was a patient who had wandered off and actually needed to be laying down. He had concern in his eyes, as dark as those eyes were.

"Young man, I want you to listen to me," All Might said. His voice was the same, the biggest reason Zach could hardly breathe while staring at this figure. "You have what it takes to be a hero. Your friends told us what happened, every detail."

"W-W-Wait a second," Zach stumbled over his words but managed to get it out. "I don't get this, I'm not- you're, All Might?"

All Might nodded his head, then he continued to the boy who finally accepted it and freaked out for real this time. All Might kept a serious look on his face though, and Zach's calmed down after a few seconds too, an even darker look returning to it. "This is why, I said I could not come earlier," All Might began. "Not many know this secret, but when I heard what you said to end our call, I needed to come."

"All Might, I-"

"You _are_ a talented young man, but I want to take back something I said earlier." Zach looked into All Might's eyes confusedly, then the skinny man with blood trickling down from the corners of his lips said, "I do regret it." Zach's eyes opened wide, and All Might walked over and took a seat at the foot of Zach's bed. "I could not say it, but my hesitation told you the truth, did it not?" All Might let out a low chuckle, then he said, "You are very perceptive."

Zach stared in confusion at the man at the foot of his bed. "Why would you come, just to tell me that?"

"Because lying to you was the wrong choice," All Might said. "Which is why I have come here, in my true form." All Might turned and he reached down to the hem of his shirt, lifting it up and showing Zach his side, and the terrible wound he had hidden there. "I'm getting weaker, because of an injury I received six years ago." All Might lowered his shirt and finished, "I can only stay in the form the public knows me as, an hour and a half each day, after this most recent event cut down my time limit once again."

"All Might," Zach whispered. "Why are you telling me this? I just, told you that, I was dropping out-"

"I don't want you to do that," All Might said. "That's why I am here. I came to tell you the truth, and to offer you a proposal." All Might sighed and slouched over again, turning away from Zach to look towards the wall the door was on. He spoke while facing that way, "I regret what I told you that day. But I do not regret saving you. You should never consider killing yourself."

"I did again," Zach whispered. All Might spun to him wide-eyed. "After I, did it. Right after. I'm not anymore, but I- if I do it again, I'll… no, I _won't_ do it again. I say that- yet-" Zach clenched his mouth shut and he leaned his head on the wall behind him again. "All Might," he whispered.

"I regret telling someone with your Quirk to follow a path that would result in you needing to use it. It was foolish of me. I treated you like a child, but you had already been through so much that you were prepared to take those words to heart. And because _I_ was the one who put you back on that path, who told you to follow your dream, I could not tell you to give up on it. Then you passed the entrance exam," All Might curled his fists and he leaned his head back. "I was terrified that this day would come, but I told myself it would be far in the future. I told myself again, that you would realize your dream was impossible when you could not use your Quirk, and that you would give up. But you're not one to give up."

All Might looked back down and turned to Zach again. "That is why I feel so troubled now. After all of your hardships, after all your loss, after all you have struggled to get past, for this to be the reason you give up- I could not accept it." Zach's eyes started to widen more, his heart speeding up as All Might got up off of his bed. "So I regret it. I regretted it for so long. But when you say that you're finished, because of the guilt you feel over an action that protected other students' lives, I cannot accept that."

The hero in front of Zach looked angry as he was saying it, angry at himself more than anything. "To have even considered staying where I was, accepting that you had finally given up on your dream, it left the most disgusting taste in my mouth. The Symbol of Peace would mean nothing, if I were to let you leave on that note." All Might rose his arms at his sides. "So try again," All Might said.

"B-But you just said, you wish I would give up," Zach said, his eyes huge as everything All Might was telling him was contradictory. "And I didn't protect the others. Snipe-sensei saved us. He would have saved us, even if I hadn't-"

"You don't know that," All Might said. "Perhaps it is true, perhaps it is not. But you pushed Young Kaminari out of the way, and tell me, for whose sake did you use your right hand?" Zach's eyes shot open even wider, and in his head he saw two faces. The two girls who were standing in front of him, terrified looks on their faces as they held their hands up. How defenseless they looked, the laughter of the villain, how he knew the villain was going to kill them because they were trying to protect him. Zach's eyes started watering up again, but he held them back as he pursed his lips and stared into All Might's eyes. "So this is my proposition. I want you to return to U.A. I know you are afraid of what will happen. I know you do not think right now that you can still be a hero, but you have just been introduced into the villains' world at such a young age. You have seen what they can really do, and you will become stronger from this."

Zach's breathing started speeding up. "How many first year students ever experience something like this? Not many, and now you will use this experience through the years we spend teaching you at U.A. You will build off it," All Might's arms rose up higher at his sides and he tilted his head back. "Do become a hero. You have what it takes." All Might had such a frustrated look on his face that he had to keep looking at the ceiling for a few more seconds. _I do hope, I will not come to regret this too._ He thought it, then he said aloud in a lower voice, "Prove me wrong."

 _Is that him, still being honest?_ Zach thought, his heart racing as All Might lowered his gaze and looked at him. _He, he hates that he's doing this right now. All Might, knows that I could hurt more people. The safest thing would be to let me give up, but his emotions are in the way. The responsible thing to do here, would be to leave on my own anyway. Wouldn't it? But if I left now, the answer would always remain the same._ Zach bit down as hard as All Might was doing, and he got just as frustrated a look on his face as the hero in front of him. "Was it good that I was born?" Zach said. All Might's eyes opened wide at the sight of the boy's face as that question escaped his lips. "All I've wanted, is to change the answer to that question," he said. "Saving people. Bringing life. Instead of taking it away." Zach shook his head and his left fist clenched hard, and then his right did as well inside the black box that he turned to look at. "I've considered myself a curse on this world, many times. Because I love this world so much," he said, turning back to All Might to see if he understood. The hero was just staring at him with huge eyes though, and Zach shook his head and continued. "The people. Our society. Heroes. Nature. It's all so amazing. Yet, my mother, who saved so many lives. And my father, who saved maybe even more."

Zach shook his head a few more times and then he said while closing his eyes. "And how many others would they have saved, if I was never born? I ask myself it, every night. So not just the lives I'm responsible for, but the ones they would have saved too. Even if I spend my whole life as something other than a hero, I doubt I can save two people, let alone all the others I need to save, in order to make it worthwhile. If I killed myself, I would have been nothing but a plague to this world." Zach lifted his gaze again into All Might's, but his expression was stronger than the last sentence he just said that sounded like he was putting himself down. "That's why I'm going to keep trying. If you think I have what it takes, then I'll try again. I'll make it so you don't have to live with the regret of telling me to follow my dream, because you're a hero and you don't deserve that."

 _What a heroic thing to say,_ All Might thought while leaning away from the boy's bed.

Zach lifted his left hand and clenched it into a fist in front of him. "I've seen what villains can do. That man, he's not the worst of the villains out there. I know I'll have to face others like him again. But next time, I'll be ready for them." He swept his arm across the front of his body and said, "I'll do it."

"Yes!" All Might called out, feeling motivated himself by the boy's motivation. "Show me, Zach Sazaki, the type of man you will grow to be!"

* * *

 **A/N Thanks for reading. Hope you enjoyed. Leave a review below!**


	6. Chapter 6

**Chapter 6:**

A few hours after All Might left Zach's hospital room, there was a knock at the door. _Finally,_ Zach thought. He looked towards the door, then his eyes opened wide as it cracked open and a head poked through that he was not expecting. "Yo!" The blond boy who leaned his head in grinned and said, "How you doing?"

"Kaminari," Zach said, his voice soft as it usually was when speaking with people he did not know well. "I'm fine," Zach said, as he saw the other boy looking over towards his right hand and the strange box around it.

Another person walked in the room behind Kaminari, and Zach looked at the girl with a black ponytail and large bust in some surprise that she was there too. He looked behind her, but Yaoyorozu turned and slid the door shut behind her. _No Jirou then,_ Zach thought.

Kaminari frowned from closer to his bed as he saw Zach glancing behind Yaoyorozu with a sadder look. "We asked the teachers if they knew where you were staying, but they wouldn't tell us," Kaminari began as he got right up next to Zach's bed. Zach was sitting up with his back against the wall and he was wearing a white hospital gown which made him feel weird since the other two were in their school uniforms.

Zach gave the other boy a confused look after Kaminari spoke though, and he scrunched up his face and asked, "Then how'd you-"

"Yaoyorozu changed how she asked, saying she wanted to bring you the work we did in class today," Kaminari pointed behind him at the girl walking up to the side of the bed too. She had a more serious and composed look on her face like she expected this to be a more serious conversation, but Zach was glad Kaminari did not walk in and start getting all depressed on him.

"Was Midoriya back in class?" Zach asked. _Since I shouldn't know anything about today, since All Might was never here._ He thought it made sense that he'd ask it, though then he remembered that All Might was the one who told him about Midoriya's injury when he asked earlier if anyone else had been hurt. _Hope they don't-_

"Yeah, he was fine," Kaminari replied. The blond boy got a little more serious of a look on his face and he scratched the back of his head while looking away. "Listen, I'm sorry." Zach's eyes widened a bit, and Kaminari continued while looking to the side. "My power's strong, but it short-circuits my brain. It's like a double-edged sword, and well, I'm sorry you had to save me." Kaminari looked back at the boy in front of him, a look of regret on his face.

"Don't be," Zach said. His lips twisted in a difficult way as he tried to make a smile, but then he wound up still frowning as he added, "If Snipe sensei hadn't shown up when he did, then, it would have been better, that it was me there."

Kaminari stared at Zach with his eyes growing huge. The last he had seen of him he was still kind of out of it himself, but what he had heard from the police when he tried defending Zach made him worried about the black-haired boy's mental state. "You're, doing alright then?" Kaminari asked.

Zach smiled and opened his mouth. He froze with it open, air coming out but without any words forming. He tried thinking on all he and All Might had talked about, but it did not help. "Not really," he replied finally. He figured it would actually have seemed stranger if he had smiled and said that everything was fine, but that did not make him feel any better that he just said this to two of his classmates. "What do-" he paused and tssked, turning away as he was planning on just finding out himself when he showed back up at class. "What does everyone, think happened?" He asked while staring towards the windows.

Kaminari frowned and he leaned back from Zach's bed. "Unfortunately, everyone in the class heard it was you who did it." Zach shut his eyes as he knew that already. "But we didn't tell them, it was some cop. We told everyone not to talk to people about it after they let us go back to class. Idiot cops spent over an hour asking me the same stupid questions."

"You guys got questioned?" Zach asked while still facing towards the windows. He already knew a lot of this from All Might, but not the details. "Then thanks. I got released from their custody, there are no cops standing outside the doors anymore at least," he looked back at them and tried smiling in a genuine way to show he appreciated what they must have said about him.

Yaoyorozu looked so frustrated when Zach looked back towards her. He made eye contact with her, and then his eyes opened wider than they did when Kaminari apologized, as Yaoyorozu bowed to him. She bowed her head so far that Zach could see most of her back even from his sitting-up position. "Whoa," Kaminari said, leaning away as he was not expecting that either.

"I'm sorry Zach," Yaoyorozu said. "I am so sorry."

"Yaoyorozu," Zach began.

"In your eyes, when he was marching you towards us," the girl had to clench her eyes shut while staying in her bowed position. "I saw you asking for help." Zach's eyes widened even more, and Yaoyorozu continued in such a regretful tone. "I did not understand though. I thought you wanted us to save you, from his hold. I thought wrongly, that I could come up with something in time. My judgement was wrong."

"No, it wasn't," Zach said. Yaoyorozu's head lifted up and she straightened at the sight of Zach shaking his head at her. " _You_ were right. You have good judgement, better than mine was. I never even considered, that the other teachers would show up in time. Maybe if I had, maybe if I had thought about just trying to stall him like Jirou, maybe if I had fought back or thought about fighting in a way other than using my Quirk- I've spent so long training in just martial arts so I don't have to use it, but I couldn't think of a single way to break his hold. The second he grabbed me, with the pain, and the fear, my go-to reaction was thinking about my Quirk. All I could do was panic, thinking about using or not using it, when I should have just forgotten about it from the start and tried coming up with a different idea."

Kaminari looked down at the boy sitting in front of him, an awed look on his face at everything he just rambled. His gaze shifted towards Zach's right hand again, "So your Quirk, what does it do?"

"You saw, didn't you?" Zach asked, then his eyes widened and he spun to Kaminari after his short curt response. "Oh crap, sorry," he said, remembering how Kaminari was pretty out of it and might not have actually seen. Kaminari looked confused at the different reactions Zach just had, thinking maybe he was more right about that mental state thing than he first thought. "My Quirk," Zach began. He opened his mouth to continue, but he found it hard again to make out the words. "I- I've never actually, told anyone what my Quirk is," he whispered. Kaminari and Yaoyorozu stared at him in surprise, and then he continued quietly, "Everyone who knows, found out from other people. And I had to write it down on my application form, but, yeah, this is the first time," he whispered the last part really quietly before lifting his gaze again and looking from Kaminari to Yaoyorozu whose eyes he looked into as he said it.

"Death. That's my Quirk's name."

Kaminari gulped on his left side and got a bead of sweat on the side of his face. _That's ominous as hell!_

Closer to the foot of his bed, Yaoyorozu took a step towards Zach and kept looking at him in the same way. "I am sorry, we made you use it." He opened his mouth to argue again, but Yaoyorozu continued quickly, "Because if we were not there, you would not have, correct?" Kaminari looked at Yaoyorozu in confusion, then back at Zach who he got even more confused by his wide-eyed reaction.

"I always thought," Zach began while looking straight into Yaoyorozu's eyes. "That I would rather die, than use it aga-" he froze midway through that, then he clenched his mouth shut fast and he winced as he brought up something he should not have. Kaminari stared at Zach in shock for a second but made sure to wipe it from his face before the other boy opened back up his eyes. "But, when it wasn't me whose life was on the line," he continued, seeing Yaoyorozu still looking at him expecting him to go on. He faded off at the end of that though, and he shook his head before smiling in a soft way, "I'm just glad, everyone was okay."

Kaminari grinned at the guy in front of him. "Alright then! On to what you missed," Kaminari sat down on the side of Zach's bed close to where Zach was sitting himself, making the other boy scoot away. Zach threw his legs off the side of the bed while moving to Kaminari's right, and then Yaoyorozu sat down on his right side. She took her bag off her back and started going through it to get some papers, while Kaminari started going on about the Sports Festival that was coming up.

 _The U.A. Sports Festival. I'm actually going to be competing in that big-_ The door to Zach's room slid open fast and the three sitting on the side of Zach's bed looked up to see a woman standing in the doorway. She was frowning and had a bag in her right hand with a change of clothes in it. She had short black hair falling just above her shoulders, wore a pair of thin glasses, and she narrowed her eyes through them at each of the children on Zach's sides. Her eyes darted to the girl on his right, then to his arm which he held in front of his body with the black box around his hand held between his legs. She humphed at the location of it and the protection they had around it, while Zach looked towards her and said, "Hey Aunt Maye."

The others looked in at Zach in surprise, then they stood up to introduce themselves. Zach stood up too, but he began before the other two could start, "I'll see you guys in class. I have to go."

"Hello there," the woman began to the girl who turned back to her. "My name is Maye Sazaki. Please give me and my nephew the room."

Kaminari spun back to the woman in surprise too, and he felt like he should say something considering the attitude he had about her. Zach put his left hand on Kaminari's arm though, and he just nodded at his new friend with a small smile, telling him it was okay with the nod. Kaminari nodded back and then grabbed his bag that was leaning against the wall next to the bed. "Well, see ya' man," Kaminari said, heading for the door and looking away from the woman whose gaze was piercing.

"See you tomorrow, Zach," Yaoyorozu said, smiling at him too and bowing her head a bit as she excused herself from his hospital room.

They left the room together, then Maye closed the door behind them. She looked back towards Zach who lost his smile fast and bowed his head at the look she gave him. "Put these on, I'll get you home," she said, then she walked over towards him and held out her bag. While Zach reached for it, Maye kept an eye on his right hand, a dark look in her eyes as she stared at the black box around it. She turned her back to him once he grabbed the bag, and Zach reached in to grab a shirt from his own closet.

 _Just like her. She went in without asking. Even though it's her name on the lease, I wish she wouldn't do that._ He started putting on a casual change of clothes, and he said in a quiet voice as he did, "Did you bring Tsura?"

"No," Maye replied.

Zach frowned deeper at the reply, which was why he asked while putting his shirt on. _I haven't seen my cousin in years now._ "Of course," he said as he finished sliding his shirt on. He walked forward and when Maye heard him approaching her back she started for the door and opened it. They walked down the hall, Zach trailing ten feet behind his aunt, until they reached the front desk and Maye had to sign him out.

They got in her car and drove in silence for ten minutes. As they neared his house though, Zach looked towards the rear-view mirror in the center of the car because his aunt spoke. He looked at her face, though she continued to look through the windshield as it came out. "You used it again. Like I knew you would."

Zach opened his mouth. _It's been years. I had to. People were in danger. I was going to die!_ None of the excuses he wanted to shout at her came out, and his mouth just closed again. _I don't need to justify myself to her. Of all people-_

"You really are, such a…" His aunt shook her head before she finished, then she just drove him the rest of the way to his apartment in silence.

He got out of the car, and he responded when she asked if he needed her to come up with him, "I'll be fine. Thank you, Aunt Maye."

"Don't do it again," she said. The window of her door closed and she started driving away. The way she said that sounded like a threat to him, and he wondered what exactly she was threatening him with.

He watched her car drive down the street. _I'm such a what? Why did you have to trail off? Monster? Burden? I hate you, Aunt Maye._

* * *

Zach sat at his dinner table, staring at the cup ramen in front of him. He did not feel like making himself a big dinner. The lifeless eyes of the man he killed stared back into his own while he gazed at the cup ramen. "I really, messed up," he whispered. He brought his right hand up and put the box on the table, starting to feel a little tired of lugging it around everywhere. It was not very heavy, but it was made of steel and after carrying it for a whole day, it was starting to wear him down. He brought his left hand up next and rubbed his forehead with it, clenching his eyes shut as he saw the villain's eyes on the black box too.

 _All Might seemed worried about the League of Villains._ He dragged his left hand down his face and then stared forward in his dimly lit apartment where only the light in his kitchen was on. _Their main guys got away. The creepy guy with the hands, and the portal guy. Do they really have a way to kill him? That's not why he's worried, but it's why I am. Why kill All Might? It's because of what he stands for. It must be. To people like me, All Might in an untouchable force of good. The "Symbol of Peace," he's called. If that symbol is destroyed, peace is destroyed. This hero society. This world. How could I ever make up for that?_

 _Maybe there is no way,_ Zach lowered his head down to the table, pushing his instant ramen away from him as he no longer had an appetite. _Was it a good thing that I was born? I helped tarnish the symbols of peace in our world. I do more damage than good everywhere I go. But All Might is right. If I stay at U.A., I can be forged into a force for good. The longer I'm there, the better a hero I'll become._ Zach closed his eyes while laying partly on the table. He was exhausted, and he fell asleep before long.

 **Knock Knock Knock Knock Knock Knock Knock Knock…**

Zach lifted his head and looked towards his door. _I fell asleep without eating my ramen._ He glanced at the cup, but it looked old. _I left the kitchen light on too._ He heard the knocking continue and he finally pushed himself out of his chair. _All Might or Jenny?_ He wondered, while fishing around in his pocket for his phone. He remembered that he had left it back at school when he had changed into his costume before leaving for Rescue Training, which meant it was still there.

The boy sighed and just checked through the peephole. He saw Jenny standing there, but really all he saw was the top of her head and her long red hair. He froze as he stared out there at the girl who had looked down and was lowering something to the floor. She had brought him something, but he did not care about that. _Mom,_ he thought, staring at the long red hair and imagining her lifting her head and having his mother's face. When the girl lifted her face up though, she was far too young and freckle-faced to be his mother. _Why would I think that?_ He thought. _Mom's been dead for years. I wonder if Recovery Girl healed my concussion completely. I'm hallucinating._

He turned and walked back into his apartment, but this time he went for his bedroom to pass out in. _I gave myself a concussion. I broke my own hand. Recovery Girl sure chewed me out for that. I was ignoring everything she said at the time though. There were more important things,_ he fell onto his bed and lay there flat on his stomach for a few seconds with his face pressed into the blankets. _Those things still are more important._ Zach flipped onto his back and stared at the ceiling of his dark room. _Mom. Dad. How do I become heroes like you were?_

"You can't," a voice said above him.

His dad's face appeared blurry in the air above him. "You're not here," Zach muttered, but he stared up with a trembling lip anyway at the sight of his father. The father he was looking at was Titanium, not the face of the man in the final years Zach knew him.

"You, _who killed your mother,_ " his father said it while looking down at him, and Zach lifted his arms and put them both over his face. _I'll never forget about that. Sometimes I pretend like it was a dream. Like I imagined it, which is why he never brought it up again._ Zach stared into his arms in the darkness, and he heard another voice over his head. "We're sorry. He was once, a great hero."

 _All Might didn't say anything about it,_ Zach thought while his expression darkened much more. _When he said the way I ended the phone call made him come, I thought he meant… I thought he was talking about how I said I killed them. If he had argued with me on that point though, I wouldn't have listened to him. Did he know that, which is why he didn't try? Or, does he agree with me?_ Zach lowered his arms down to his sides and stared up with a dark, emotionless glare. _He knows why my father did it. I thought he would tell me it wasn't my fault, but it was. I killed him. I killed him, but not like I killed mom and that villain. It wasn't fast. I didn't stop his heart, halt his brain functions in an instant, I- I made him fall apart._

Zach stared up and saw the face of Titanium appear again, then watched his expression slowly distort and his face get wrinkled and scraggly. His sad look turned angry and erratic, and Zach reached a hand up towards it. Reaching his hand made the images he saw above him fade away, and he shook his head as he knew they were never there to begin with. _Aunt Maye was around so much back then. I don't blame her, I don't really hate her… not really, right? No, she's family. She just, loved her brother. He was her hero. And I made her watch him deteriorate. She saw him go from his worst to his best, standing with him the whole time unable to do a thing about it. Then he killed himself, because of me. But by then, she had abandoned him like the rest. I remember how she snapped at him that Christmas, yelling how she couldn't have him near Tsura anymore. How long was it after that? I knew she blamed herself because of it, but more than herself, she blames me for pushing him to the point that she had to say that. Doesn't she?_ Zach narrowed his gaze at the ceiling.

For some reason, sleep evaded him. He was so exhausted not that long ago, so he did not know what was causing this. All he could do was lay there, lost in his thoughts, for hours. His thoughts were as dangerous to him as his right hand though, and he started thinking hard on the rescue training again. _Thirteen told us. He told us our powers weren't meant to hurt people, and I agreed! Then I went and killed the first villain who ever gave me a little trouble. That was so fucked up. No, Yaoyorozu was right. All Might was right. I did it to save them. Even if it wasn't selfish though, even if it was for the sake of others, I still ended a life. If I don't treat life as sacred, then it'll all be true. I really will be just a monster. A monster with control over death. With the power to kill strong people-_ he thought it then froze and his eyes opened huge, sweat covering his body and a dark feeling creeping through him. _That's right. That's how I knew it. Even before I pulled his mask off, I knew, because I had that feeling. That,_ _ **sensation.**_ _It's what made me scream more than just the realization of what had happened. That feeling I got when I used my power. The feeling that made me laugh, when my mom- It was the same feeling that I had not felt since back then, but stronger. Waves of grief and regret pushed it aside, but it was there for a moment. Is it just a part of my Quirk, or did a part of me feel like that just because? Why, did I feel pleasure?_

* * *

Zach sat up fast. He had been groggy and still half-asleep, thinking about just going back to bed again when he felt himself fading from consciousness. Then he heard the birds. Then he remembered something as he thought about checking the time. His half-asleep state did not register it very quickly, but when he patted his pockets for his phone he realized he was still wearing pants. Then he remembered why he was wearing pants, as he had not changed since coming home from the hospital. And then it hit him that he did not have his phone either. And _that_ , reminded him that he no longer had his alarm clock either.

The fifteen year old jumped out of bed and spun to his windows, to see a lot of light coming out the cracks on the blinds. He ran over and pulled them up, then he grimaced at how bright it was. _I'm supposed to go to school today-_ he ran into the other room and looked into his kitchen to see the clock showing 9:30. "Oh man," he muttered, falling onto a recliner next to his couch. _What am I doing?_ He put his hands over his eyes and let out a groan while leaning his head back. "Alright," he muttered into his left arm, pulling his right away as he had just smacked himself in the face with the hard black box and it kind of hurt. He looked down with his right eye at the box, then imagined how he would walk into class now.

 _"Hey." "What's with the box?" "Why'd you kill that guy?" "What's your Quirk?" "Is it like Thirteen's?" Maybe they already know about it though. Kaminari and Yaoyorozu seemed pretty surprised though, and they even saw it up close. I guess they were expecting some strange power, not just, Death. How do I avoid questions when everyone knows it's me? They'll all know it has something to do with my right hand for sure, even if I wasn't wearing this box. My fighting style during combat training didn't involve my right hand at all, Midoriya mentioned, loudly._ Zach rubbed his forehead and then sat up and got off the chair. _The longer I wait, the later to school I'll be. Maybe they'll give me a break today._

 **An Hour and Ten Minutes Earlier**

Aizawa Shouta looked over to the things he had with him as a phone started ringing. He grabbed it and turned off the third phone alarm that morning, which was making him annoyed at this point as this one was not a wake-up alarm but one labeled, 'Time to leave.' _I don't know whether to call him organized, or forgetful._ He turned off the alarm and put the phone back with his things, so that he could give it back to its owner later that day. He sweatdropped as he continued driving towards U.A. himself, _If it's the latter, will he even show up?_

 **Present**

Zach threw open his door, wearing a collared shirt and some khaki pants. He had left his school uniform in his locker when he changed into his costume for rescue training, as he did with his backpack too. He had the papers his classmates brought to him in the hospital folded up and slid into his pockets, but he did not look like he was prepared for school at all. He took a step out the door, but he stopped before his foot came down. He looked down at the metal tin on the floor with some tinfoil over it, and he moved his foot away to pick it up. _Jenny,_ he thought, glancing to his left at his neighbor's door. _She's in school already,_ he reminded himself, walking back inside to put the food he brought for him on his counter. He checked the contents and grimaced, before opening his fridge and putting it in there. _Hopefully it doesn't go bad,_ he thought.

The boy headed back out and he started his long walk for school. _I'm already late. What's getting there even later going to do?_ He thought, countering his idea to run all the way to U.A. _I'll just make my clothes sweaty, and I'll look like a mess when I get there. Well, if I'll be changing into my uniform anyway, I guess it won't matter if these get a little sweaty._ He picked up his pace into a jog and tried ignoring the looks from passersby who stared at his right hand.

 _Really, how am I going to do this?_ He thought, unable to distract himself with the city around him as he jogged his route to school. _All Might, Kaminari, and Yaoyorozu might have accepted what I did already, but what if everyone else freaks out? I am not prepared for that at all. I don't even know what I'd say! "Sorry?" I did give U.A. a worse reputation. I did keep them from being applauded for standing up to villains._ U.A. was coming just around the next corner, and Zach found himself slowing down again. _I barely got into the Hero Course, and I've only- come on,_ he shook his head around. _I made the decision to come back. Now, I've got to deal with what that means._

Zach turned through the front gates of U.A., and he started for the doors of the high school. As he neared the entrance, the doors opened up and Zach grimaced at the sight of the principal standing there with Midnight, looking like they were waiting for him. He slowed down and gave them a hesitant look, but both the teacher and the principal smiled at him and they moved to the side for him to come in through the door.

He walked in and Principal Nezu began in his cute, high-pitched voice, "Zach Sazaki. Could you please come with us to a disciplinary review?" The mouse/dog/bear hybrid started walking and Zach followed behind him.

"Yeah," he replied, already figuring this was going to happen from what All Might had told him. _I thought maybe they would give me a little time first though. Not first thing when I come in…_

"Pretty late there kid," Midnight began as she walked on Zach's side.

He lowered his gaze and muttered, "Sorry. I left my phone-"

"It's fine, Aizawa mentioned something about that earlier," Midnight said. Zach looked up at her in surprise, _Aizawa sensei did?_

She smiled back at him, and Zach was starting to feel confused about the mixed vibes he was getting here. The principal led him to a board room and he and Midnight went in first, telling him to wait a second for them to call him in. Zach stood anxiously outside the door for only a few seconds before he heard the principal's voice calling him into the room. He gulped and then opened the door and stepped inside.

Zach walked to the middle of the room and turned to look at the curved table of teachers with an opening on his side. The table had a 'U' shape with six teachers sitting around the sides and the principal sitting at the curve of the 'U' straight ahead of him. He wondered if he was supposed to move in to the center of the table, but the principal started speaking when he was just at the edge of it so he figured there was fine. "Zach Sazaki, the nice policemen of Musutafu City have left the decision of what to do with your right hand in our hands," Nezu began.

 _I get that they're heroes, and my teachers, but really?_ Zach tried to keep a calm expression and not bite down on his bottom lip nervously, though he was glancing around at the teachers with a concerned look in his eyes. _Aizawa-sensei's here,_ he thought at the sight of the man closest to him on his right side. _And I know the other teachers already knew about it, but they're not saying anything about how I'm here while All Might's like, that._ He looked past Cementoss on Aizawa's right to where All Might was sitting. Then he saw the principal, followed by Midnight, then Snipe, and finally Ectoplasm closest on his left.

Aizawa stood up and he walked towards Zach. The short boy leaned back as the teacher with long black hair stepped in front of him. "Hold up your right hand," Aizawa said.

 _Are they gonna cut it off?!_ Zach thought, while at the same time lifting his hand up in front of him.

"Careful now," Nezu said.

"I got it," Aizawa began, while pulling out a key and turning Zach's hand to put it in the keyhole.

Zach's eyes widened, and he said quickly, "I'll unlock it." Aizawa paused with the key in the hole, then he nodded and walked back over to his seat. "But, is it really okay?" Zach lifted his head when he was about to unlock it himself to ask his teachers.

"We have decided, that you will not be punished for the events at the rescue training," Nezu said. The small mouse-like creature gave him a soft smile and Zach lowered his gaze back to the black box. "We have also acquired a new glove, with the same specifications as your old one."

"The same?" Zach whispered while staring at the box he had yet to open.

"The glove did as it was meant to. If you had ripped through it accidentally, it would have been a different story," Aizawa said. "But since it was intentional, we don't see a need for an upgrade."

"However in the upcoming sports festival, and for future U.A. training purposes, we have included an extra piece of equipment for your uniform to make doubly sure of the other students' safeties," All Might said. Zach lifted his gaze over to the thin, triangle-faced teacher with long blond hair. "But this is not meant to be a punishment, solely a safety precaution, as we are upgrading U.A. security on every scale after the recent attack."

"All Might," Zach whispered. He looked back at the box, and he turned the key. He heard a clicking noise and the box split down the middle. He grabbed one side of it and pulled it apart from the other, and the box was held together on the bottom so it did not fall apart when he opened it. Zach stared at the light skin of his hand as he lifted it out of the box, still with some dried blood on it. Although Recovery Girl's treatment had healed his hand, it had never been taken out of the box for them to look at it. It had also not been cleaned either. Zach grimaced as he thought it might smell, and he realized as he thought about it that he had not taken a shower since rescue training either.

Almost as if he knew what Zach was thinking about, the principal began, "When you go to get your school uniform from the locker room, you may take a quick shower."

Zach snapped his head up, and he nodded slowly at the principal after a few seconds. _Is the principal a mind reader?_ He wondered. _Are you a mouse, a bear, or a dog?_ He stared at the principal for a few more seconds, then he sweatdropped as the small furry white creature was not saying anything.

"There is one more thing, Zach Sazaki," Snipe began. Zach looked over at the teacher in a cowboy hat, then around at the others who all stood up at the table at the same time.

"Present Mic is currently teaching your class English, so he could not be here, but he wanted to give you this message as well," Nezu continued. "Though this message is from the entire staff here at U.A."

All at once, the heroes around the table started bowing their heads. Zach leaned back, his breathing speeding up rapidly. "We apologize," the group of seven said at the same time.

"Wh-What?" Zach mumbled. He wondered if he was really seeing this right now.

The teachers lifted their heads, and they could see the child was very confused at what just happened. "As administrators it is our job to provide for our students a safe learning environment," Nezu began.

"Not only was our school attacked, but all the security measures we have in place were useless," Midnight continued.

"I myself was supposed to be at the rescue training, but I arrived late," All Might added, grinding his teeth together after it came out.

"I took too long to take my shot," Snipe added, his voice full of regret.

"And I took my eye off the portal-user, and he was able to scatter you all from Thirteen. Thirteen also sends his apologies," Aizawa said while looking straight into Zach's eyes, the boy staring back at him in utter shock.

"As heroes," Cementoss said, "we failed you."

"As teachers, we failed," Midnight added.

"To allow a student to feel the need to use his Quirk to take a life, on school property no less," Ectoplasm said. "It is our greatest shame."

"No!" Zach exclaimed. "It- it wasn't any of your faults. That's just what the media is saying-"

"This time, the media is right," Aizawa said, though he frowned as it came out. "We won't tell you not to feel regret for what you did, but don't think you can tell us not to." Zach spun to his homeroom teacher again and saw him giving Zach a harsh look, and he continued, "We're adults, and heroes, and your teachers. The second you enrolled here, you became our responsibility. It's as simple as that."

Zach got such a conflicted look on his face as Aizawa spoke. He looked around at the teachers and the principal, and he did not know what to say to them. After they had just apologized, it seemed weird to thank them. But it also felt like they were trying to make him feel better, and though it aggravated him that they were accepting the blame for his actions, he did feel like they were making some sense. It did not make him feel much better, but it did relax him as he realized all the panic he had for how his teachers were going to react was unfounded.

 _If only my classmates are this cool about it,_ he thought, then he grimaced as he thought about the day before, and the absence of a girl he thought would have shown up when Kaminari and Yaoyorozu did. "Is, is that all?" He asked after they had waited for him to give his response for what they all said for a few seconds. The teachers glanced around at each other, a few of them frowning as they had hoped for a better reaction than he had. Nezu smiled at the boy and nodded though, telling him he could go to the locker room now.

"Hold on," Aizawa said as Zach started to turn. "Forgetting something?" Aizawa held up a plastic bag with a black glove in it, along with a cell phone. Zach's eyes widened, then Aizawa slid the bag across the table in front of him for Zach to walk over and grab. "Shouldn't rely on your phone so much," he said, and Zach nodded at him back apologetically for his lateness. The boy backed up and bowed his head to the teachers, saying 'Excuse me,' then he walked out of the room.

The teachers glanced around at each other once he was gone. "A kid like that," Ectoplasm began. "An incident is bound to happen again. Are we sure this is the route we should take?"

"Zero punishment, or expulsion," Nezu said, putting his hands together behind his back as he looked around at the other teachers. "When those two options are the most logical, it is a difficult decision." The principal smiled though and continued, "But he has the desire to be a hero. Our failure to protect the students cannot be a cause to take away his dream."

"If it happens again though," Ectoplasm began.

"He knows the consequences," Aizawa said. "We won't be able to punish him if he does this again, because the police will keep him detained this time. Whether or not it's justified, I don't see them letting him go a second time. Not unless, they take that hand of his."

Zach walked towards the locker room, and he had already put his glove on. In case anyone started leaving classrooms, he did not want to risk anyone accidentally bumping into his right hand, even if it was in the middle of a class period. He took the glove back off when he reached the locker room, then he took as quick a shower as possible really just to wash off all the dirt and blood on him. He barely washed his hair at all, but then when he got out he realized that his hair was going to be soaking wet when he got into the class. _It's gonna look like I just woke up. Not that I got up that long ago, but,_ Zach went over to a mirror and started spiking up his black hair. He stopped while he was dragging his fingers up through it, looking down the whole time and wondering why he still did this. _My dad, hated me,_ he thought, pulling his hands back from his head for a second. He paused while looking back into the mirror, and then his face filled with shock and he brought his right hand back to his head again.

Zach spun around and checked the locker room fast, but no one else was in there. He ran over to where he left his glove and he put it back on, _Why did I fix my hair with both hands? I never do that! I should have Recovery Girl heal me again. Did she say something about seeing her when I came back? I can't remember at all! Is that why I don't remember?_ Zach's chest was heaving and he was breathing so hard he was starting to wheeze. He sat down on the bench in front of his locker, a towel wrapped around his waist and lower body. _That was, that was… for years I-_ he turned and looked back towards the mirror he had just been staring into. _I just imagined it,_ he thought, shaking his head and chuckling while clenching his right hand in its glove. His eyes lowered down to that black glove and he saw both of his hands shaking, trembling, and he could see the mirror in the corners of his eyes. _It's my imagination. This damn concussion. I shouldn't have smashed my head into that mountain._

Deciding that it was a concussion that kept messing with him, Zach stood back up and started getting changed into his school uniform. As he got dressed and left the nice clothes he brought to school behind in the locker, he wondered what happened to his hero costume. _The doctors probably ripped it up to try fixing my back. I'm just glad, no one was stupid enough to try and touch my hand._ Zach finished getting his clothes on, then he reached up his left hand and finished spiking up his short hair. _It'll dry faster this way,_ he thought, though he was being specific about which parts of his hair he ran his hand through.

He finally had nothing left to do except get to class. He pulled his phone out and checked the time, _Almost time for lunch? Nope, still got time. Period is about to change though. I shouldn't walk in and interrupt Present Mic, so I'll just go in between classes. Ugh, but that means there'll be nothing to keep everyone from asking those questions. If I walk in now, I could just sit down quickly without- yeah! And then Present Mic will tell them to be quiet if they start asking anyway. So just go in, and interrupt the lesson, and it's Present Mic after all… so he might start shouting an apology like the other teachers, giving away other stuff that happened too. Jeez, such a hard decision._

Zach decided to wait until the lesson was almost done, spending a few more minutes in the locker room, then he headed towards his class in a slow way. He thought that maybe if he walked in close to the end, but not too close, Present Mic would still have stuff he needed to finish in his lesson, so he would finish getting that out of the way before saying anything, if he said anything at all. Unfortunately, by the time he reached his classroom he had had so many doubts about the plan that he wondered how he even came up with it in the first place. He wound up hesitating so long that he stopped believing he would make it into the classroom at all before the end of class, and he just stood there in the hallway near his door for another five minutes, checking his phone constantly.

It was time. Present Mic opened the door to go out on his break, then he lifted his eyebrows and stared through his sunglasses in surprise at the boy standing there right in the hallway. Hizashi Yamada closed the door behind him, then the hero looked back at Zach and said, "Decided to skip English, huh?" He leaned forward with his hands on his hips, and Zach lowered his bottom lip before apologizing fast to the teacher. "Heh, well get on in there. And you know, I'm-" Zach grimaced, then Present Mic just put his hands behind his head and started walking off. "Well, I'm sure they told you anyway."

The kid actually let out a breath of relief that the teacher did not say it to him. It was strange having the people in positions of authority in his life act like that towards him. Zach turned from Present Mic though and looked at the door in front of him. "Alright," he muttered. "I can do this," he reached forward and grabbed the door handle, and he slid the door open.

* * *

 **A/N Hope you enjoyed! Thanks for reading! Leave a review below telling me what you think.**


	7. Chapter 7

**Chapter 7:**

Zach stepped into Class 1-A and a hush fell over the room. He looked left at all the students sitting or standing around. Class had just ended so a few people had gotten up and were standing next to their classmates' seats. He saw his usual seat was left open, and the blond boy who sat near him grinned after a second of surprise. Zach also saw a relieved look on Yaoyorozu's face, and he wondered if she had been worried because he had not shown up that morning, even though she had said 'see you tomorrow' to him at the hospital.

Most of the other looks were just surprised, as the majority of the students thought Zach would have been out for longer. Kirishima had talked to Kaminari about it earlier though, and the boy with spiky red hair called out while turning from Tokoyami's seat he was standing next to, "Zach! You're back!"

Zach felt a huge amount of relief that that was the first thing someone said to him. _Thanks Kirishima,_ he thought, right before leaning back as that boy and a few others came running towards him. Kaminari, Asui, Sato, and Sero all came up to him right near the door. Sero started with a look of surprise on his face, "I thought you got arrested!" Zach looked towards him in surprise that that was the first thing he had to say, and Sero continued in an annoyed voice, "It was really getting on my nerves. Thinking that fighting villains could make us villains ourselves-"

"The tv stations were freaking out about it, did you see them?" Sato said, wondering if wherever Zach was he had a television with him.

"Y-Yeah, I saw," he began in a low voice.

"You guys have no tact," Asui mentioned, and Zach looked left and down at the girl just a little shorter than him. "Are you alright, Zach?"

The others quieted down for a second, and then Zach nodded his head, "Yeah. I'm good," he replied, nodding at the girl with the Quirk- Frog.

"That's great!" Another girl popped up, jumping between Sato and Sero. The girl Zach knew before any of his other classmates, since they met at the Entrance Exam, grinned wide at him as she leaned forward. "We were really worried."

 _You were?_ Zach glanced around at the group standing around him, none of whom he had felt all that close to besides just being classmates.

The group kept asking questions and talking about the League of Villains' attack, as they had been for the past day now. Then Kirishima looked down at Zach's right hand and said, "So what is your Quirk?" Zach got a hesitant look on his face, and he saw Kaminari behind Kirishima and to his right a little get an apologetic look. Kaminari had wanted to tell them not to ask, but he also felt that by saying anything he would be making it seem like something crazy, as well as give it away that he knew something about it. "We were all guessing when we found out you had something."

"I thought you were Quirkless," Sato mentioned. Zach looked his way in surprise, since he remembered telling Sato that his would not be good for the situation back when they teamed up for combat training. "Thought you were just embarrassed about it," he admitted and scratched the back of his head.

"I'm thinking, it's like Thirteen's," Sero said. "Like you take off that glove, and it's a black hole. Or a warp to a different dimension."

 _That would be, worse, I guess,_ Zach wondered to himself. "A glove probably wouldn't even be able to contain that," he mumbled aloud.

"So that's not it?" Sero said, sounding a bit disappointed but also excited since Zach was answering.

"Is it a magma fist?" Sato wondered.

"Or-" Ashido began, but the boy they were questioning cut them off first.

"It's," Zach began in a soft voice. The group around him held their breaths in anticipation. Kaminari looked at Zach hesitantly, with a look telling him he did not have to say anything if he did not want to. Zach could not see well past the two on his left who were blocking most of the class, but it was pretty quiet in there as he took his pause, and he figured every person there was listening to him. _Not, not yet,_ he thought, as the pause was taking so long that he knew he did not want to say it. "It's a secret," he replied.

"Aww," Sero released his held breath in disappointment.

Mineta eased back in his seat, some sweat on his face at that response. "A secret? That's spooky," he whispered. Shoji glanced at him from a seat over, then he wondered, _What if just talking about his hand is dangerous? Like, the Quirk that cannot be named?_ The muscular boy with six arms looked over in an interested way, right as the door opened up and the group over there had to start getting back to their seats as Cementoss walked in.

It was time for Modern Literature to start, their last class before lunch. Zach headed across the room, trying not to look around that much as he made his way for his seat. He could tell most of the others were still focusing on him, staring at him. There was one person who was not staring though, and was in fact trying to do the opposite by staring straight down at her notebook. _Jirou,_ Zach thought as he got closer to her, since her desk was right behind his own.

Kaminari followed Zach since his was only one back and to the right of him, and he began as they neared their seats, "But hey, where were you this morning? And you got that black box off too."

"I overslept," Zach admitted, looking back at the boy he was walking with. Kaminari laughed, and then Zach lifted his right hand and mentioned, "They got me a new glove too. Same as the old one."

"Really?" Kaminari asked in surprise. "That's cool."

"Alright everyone, please settle down," Cementoss' low voice started up and the class got out their modern literature books as they all sat in their seats.

The class went by slowly, with Zach noticing looks from all over the room, mainly from the students who did not come up to him at the door. Near the end of class, when Cementoss handed out papers for the students to pass back down their lines though, Zach held the papers over his shoulder for a few seconds without the girl behind him grabbing them. He clenched his teeth hard, then he turned his head and placed the papers on the edge of her desk, even though he was using his left hand. He looked back forward without a word, and he never made eye contact with the hesitant girl behind him.

Kaminari turned his head and looked at the girl at his side with a funny look, lifting his eyebrows at her as she was being weird. Jirou darted her eyes to him in annoyance at his look, then she reached for the papers to continue passing them back. Her fingers froze right before grabbing the papers Zach had just been holding though. _"DON'T TOUCH ME!"_ She grabbed the papers and let out a gasp of air she had been holding. Jirou passed back the papers to the person behind her, while grimacing as she looked back towards the back of the head of the boy in front of her. _Is it just his right hand? It is! Why am I so, "DON'T-" He really thought, we were going to die. In his voice, he thought he was about to kill us._ Jirou started breathing heavier. Her ability was reliant on sound, and when she plugged her earphone-jacks into things she could hear even faint heartbeats. So she could not get the sound of his voice out of her head. She could not stop thinking about the tone as she had grabbed him by the arm, because out of the whole rescue training, it was the one time she really expected she would die. She thought maybe there was a delay, and while she sat on her butt after falling away from him, she expected for so long that her life would start draining for grabbing him.

Jirou opened her mouth and leaned forward towards the back of Zach's head after a few seconds of sitting there staring at it. She thought about how he had avoided looking at her face when he half-turned his body, which she only saw out of her peripheral vision as she had looked away as well. _I need to say something,_ she paused with her mouth open, then Cementoss started talking about the sheet that had some homework on it for them to do by the end of the next week. The sheet itself did not look very hard and like they would need that much time to do it, but they were all going to be busy the next two weeks training themselves and preparing for the Sports Festival. Their teachers understood it too, and they were not giving the students a heavy course-load during this time.

The girl sitting behind Zach listened to Cementoss for a couple of seconds, then she leaned back in her seat and frowned. _What was I going to say anyway?_

* * *

The whole day went by faster than Zach thought it would. He was able to avoid any hard questions from classmates, and through the day he got a better feel on how his classmates all felt about what he had done. At lunch he sat next to Yaoyorozu, then Todoroki who sat across from her, and Tokoyami and Sero who sat on Todoroki's right side. They talked a little about rescue training and the attack, but their focus was mainly on the Sports Festival and how they were going to be spending most of the afternoon training for it.

Zach was surprised to hear when Ashido sat on his left side that the other classes had gathered outside their room the day before to check out their competition. Ashido looked a little hesitant as she mentioned it, then Sero began while leaning over the table, "Some guy from 1-B was being a real jerk. Said stuff like our class almost got the entire festival cancelled, trying to blame us for it all." Sero looked like he wanted to be more specific but also like he did not want to continued.

Yaoyorozu continued for him though on Zach's right side, "He called out asking which of us," she stopped but Zach knew what she meant and nodded at her with a darker look on his face. "But Bakugo called him an 'extra,' I believe, and then told them all to get lost."

"It was that guy over there," Sero added, motioning towards a table where some class 1-B students were sitting. "He's the blondie with the annoying-looking face."

Somehow, using that description Zach was easily able to pinpoint the boy they were talking about. The boy with combed-over blond hair in Class 1-B was one Zach decided he would make a point of avoiding during the Sports Festival, though he hoped avoiding the guy would not make it more obvious that he was the one he was looking to root out. Zach was also glad that apparently none of the others in his class said anything about it being him who killed the villain, though he was not getting his hopes up that it would remain that way forever.

After lunch, Zach was intercepted by Iida who tried getting him in a secluded place. The class representative apologized deeply to him, bowing farther than any of the heroes or his fellow students, with maybe the exception of Yaoyorozu back at the hospital. Iida said he was too slow to get the teachers, and that he could have been faster, but Zach interrupted him and told him not to apologize. He did not get into it, instead just telling Iida that it would not have mattered. Even though he thought about how it totally would have made a difference in his head, he did not want the class rep who he voted for himself to go on thinking that he could have done something. He did not know if Iida was convinced, but he managed to end the conversation like that so he could get back to class.

The second half of the day though, was dedicated to practical studies, which really just meant sending the students out to train for the Sports Festival. Zach was a bit surprised that the school was still doing the Sports Festival and taking it so seriously, but he knew they had to make it look like the villain attack had not done much damage. If the U.A. Sports Festival had been cancelled, Zach told himself he never would have been able to show his face at school again.

The students got on the blue workout uniforms that they wore on the first day for their Quirk Apprehension Tests. They were told they could use Ground Beta on campus which was an urban environment setting and had been reserved for their class today.

Zach walked out towards the standard urban area to join in training with the rest of his classmates. They were all talking about the Sports Festival, but Zach noticed a few of them were staying quiet. _They're the ones most into this,_ he thought, spotting Todoroki unfocused on anyone around him, walking near the front of the group with a far-off look in his eyes. He saw Bakugou's expression serious, not his usual smug and grinning self. Iida was leading the class, but even he was not as talkative now that they were heading to the training ground. _This is the biggest event in Japan all year, after all. And after what happened, everyone's going to be watching our class closely. The ones who fought villains… and I bet they're going to be guessing which of us is, me._

Zach's eyes focused on one of his classmates as they neared the training area. A few people started splitting off to use different training areas, and Kaminari who was walking on his left talking to Kirishima mentioned how he was going off on his own to an empty rocky area outside of the training ground where he could use his powers more freely. Zach headed into the training grounds with most of the other students, but then they all broke off into groups or to train alone. He was one of the ones who jogged off on his own, but he was not just planning on going for a run the whole time.

After fifteen minutes of warming up by running the streets of the urban area, Zach started a search. Sero flew overhead as he ran down a street, using the tape coming out of his elbows to shoot through the air from telephone posts up onto roofs. Right after Sero flew over him, he saw Ojiro jump from one roof down the road to the one across from it by smacking his tail down hard on the roof behind him. Zach picked up his pace after seeing them, then he ran towards a skyscraper and sprinted straight through the doors. He sprinted to the stairs and started going up the steps taking every single one while moving his feet rapidly. He reached the eighth floor which was higher than most of the other buildings' roofs around it, then he ran the outside of the floor while looking out the windows.

 _There,_ he thought, then sprinted back to the stairs and was less intent on hitting each one on his way down. He was careful about how many he skipped at each time, but the trip down was still three times shorter than the one up. He sprinted across the first floor and out onto the street again. He ran down the road and around a corner towards a part of the training zone where the buildings were knocked over and set up as if a natural disaster had hit the place. On a street in the area, Uraraka had just made a bunch of debris float up in the air, and Ashido and Aoyama were using their powers to destroy that rubble.

When Ashido saw him running towards them, she lowered her hand that she just threw some acid with and cupped it to her mouth. "Hey Zach! Come use your secret power to blow away the debris!"

He ran closer to them and then right past Ashido, while saying in a soft voice, "My power can't do that."

The pink girl he ran past just hummed after he said it and she scratched the back of his head, as if that got her a step closer to figuring out the secret while also stumping her as her best predictions all seemed flawed now. Aoyama had sweat over a lot of his face as he watched Zach run by, and Zach had noticed the boy with the bellybutton laser took a step away when he had ran close to them. Uraraka turned to watch the spiky-haired boy who kept running, frowning and thinking that Zach looked sad when he replied to Ashido.

Zach glanced down a street to his right when he neared another intersection. _He was around here,_ he thought. He looked up as he saw someone falling, and his eyes opened wide at the sight of Kirishima dropping from the top of a building. The red haired boy was smirking though as he crossed his arms in front of his falling body, and his whole body hardened and smashed through the ground with such force that the street broke and dust shot up around him.

He was not looking for Kirishima though, but this was the road he definitely saw who he was looking for on not long ago. _Alright, all-out sprint to find him then._ Zach bent down and put his hands on the floor in front of him, a starting position for sprinting. He pushed down hard with his front foot and swung his arms back, sprinting forward down the road that Kirishima was climbing out of a hole on. He grinned as he looked Zach's way, happy that someone saw how far he just dropped without getting a scratch on him. Kirishima opened his mouth to say something, but Zach sprinted towards him and jumped up on a turned-up piece of street from what Kirishima had broken apart. He landed on the side of some pavement, then jumped off to a different cracked chunk that wobbled beneath his feet, but he did not stay on that one long enough to see which way it would fall either though.

"Hey," Kirishima called after him. "Did you see-"

"Nice fall!" Zach called out without looking back.

Kirishima sweatdropped and scratched the back of his head. _Where's he going in such a hurry?_ The boy with the Hardening Quirk tilted his head to the side as Zach reached the end of the road and snapped his head back and forth, then Kirishima really got interested at the sight of a smile forming on Zach's face. _What's he looking for?_ Kirishima wondered.

Zach started running right down the road he just reached, and he called out towards the back of the person jogging ahead of him, "Midoriya!" _Nice, the road is empty,_ Zach thought, while Izuku Midoriya turned his head in surprise at the sight of the boy running towards him.

Midoriya looked back and his eyes widened at who was running his way, "Z-Zach?"

Zach took a few deep breaths as he slowed down in front of Midoriya, but his sprint did not last long and it did not take much to catch his breath. "Hey," Zach began, gathering up his nerves as he stood before the boy close to his height. He looked Midoriya in the eyes and gained a more serious look to his face, making Midoriya lean back nervously as he wondered what the black-haired boy was doing. "You mind training with me for a bit?" Zach asked.

"M-Me? Why?" Midoriya asked, as it felt like from the way Zach called out his name that the boy had been looking for him.

"Your Quirk and mine are both hard to use," Zach began. Midoriya's eyes widened a little more as Zach said that straight out, then they grew even wider as he continued, "And since you aren't training yours right now, I figure that means you still can't use it without hurting yourself."

Midoriya got a confused look on his face and he said, "Why does that mean-"

"I can't use my Quirk either," Zach said. "To train at least. I don't know whether or not you're planning to use yours during the Sports Festival," he added, but he was saying that he had made the assumption that Midoriya was not going to break his own bones during the training. Midoriya looked more intense after that though, and Zach could see he was thinking hard on the Sports Festival. _He's going to take it pretty seriously too. Everyone is,_ he added to himself, as even the people he saw training with smiles around Ground Beta were doing their bests. "Anyway, I figured I could use a sparring partner, so if you're not going to be working on your Quirk, are you down to train with me for a bit?"

Midoriya glanced over his shoulder, down the street he had been jogging on. He already had his after-school training schedule down too, along with his weekend plans down at Dagoba Beach. Most of it consisted of running and muscle training- push-ups and lifting weights. Midoriya lifted a hand to his mouth and looked down as he refaced Zach. "I didn't think about training with a partner. If the Sports Festival has a one-on-one combat part though, as it does most years, then that would be great training. And in the festival we wouldn't have our costumes in order to keep it fair for everyone. I won't be able to use One-For-All without hurting my classmates, but I did control it that one time against the villain. I just need to focus on picturing the egg in the microwave. But that would still be dangerous and in most situations I should try using it as little as…"

Zach got a bead of sweat on the right side of his face and it slid all the way down before he wiped it off and said, "Alright, so that's a yes?" Midoriya had been mumbling mostly incoherently for ten seconds, and finally the boy with dark green hair lifted his head in surprise like he almost forgot why he started muttering in the first place.

Midoriya nodded, his look intense. Zach pointed towards a building on their left side, "Let's fight in there."

His classmate looked through the windows and saw the first floor of the building was mostly empty. "Let's do it," Midoriya said.

The two of them walked in, and the curious boy at the end of the street just around an intersection grinned from ear to ear at the sight of it. _Zach and Midoriya are going at it?_ Kirishima looked behind him to tell someone to come watch with him, but the road was empty and he frowned. He looked around the corner again, and then he started over for the one that the two had just entered.

"Alright, so just on the feet fighting sound good?" Zach asked as he stood across from Midoriya between some support pillars on the first floor. There was a ten foot gap between them, and Zach continued while lifting up his arms into a fighting stance and spreading his feet apart from each other. "If you go down, we'll just call that a point."

Midoriya sweatdropped while getting in a fighting stance of his own. "You're really into martial arts, huh Zach?"

Zach nodded his head. "You know the Boxing Hero, Gr-"

"Grappler?!" Midoriya exclaimed faster than Zach could finish. "He's a manly hero who saves people in Hosu City. He has half a dozen sidekicks, but he could have more-"

"He just only picks people with fighting-type Quirks," Zach cut in, thinking that that was how Midoriya was going to finish. "I know. I've been watching the free self-defense courses he puts online for years. In most of the newer videos the past couple of years he repeats stuff he's already taught, but even when he does he always brings new experiences from fighting villains." Zach cracked his knuckles while stepping towards Midoriya with his back foot, and he changed up the fighting stance he had been in, opening up his fists to instead have both hands opened up with his fingers curled. "But you're pretty good too. Your fight with Bakugo got me really fired up back in combat training."

 _His smile is real,_ Midoriya thought. It was a strange thought to have as they were about to fight, but the entire day he had seen Zach during class and lunch, and the whole time he saw the other boy smiling, he had thought it was fake. Right now though, it looked like all the worries and doubts and regrets that Zach had were washing away. "Thanks," Midoriya said, referring to how Zach said he was good when it was clear to him that the other boy knew what he was doing. _Zach's a fighting type. It's not his Quirk, but to come up with a defense against it… only he just showed me he could switch up which fighting style he uses easily. And Grappler is the Boxing Hero, but he has a lot of different fighting styles too. Whatever counters I start using- is that why he showed me two different styles? He knows that I come up with ways to beat my-_

"You ready?" Zach asked. Midoriya stopped thinking so hard and just nodded his head, getting serious as he clenched his fists tighter. _He's going to try and feel me out the first few rounds, see which styles I use the most. Midoriya, I didn't pick you just because of your Quirk. If anyone could come up with ways to beat me in just a regular fight, if anyone could show me where my weaknesses are in straight-up combat, it'd be you._ "Then let's go," Zach said, and he ran forward.

Zach swung his right fist forward, and Midoriya's eyes widened as the black glove came towards his face. He pulled away fast, only to realize that the fist was stopping short anyway. His eyes darted to the side at the sight of Zach's left arm really punching forward, and he tried lifting his arms to block it. He brought both hands up and stopped Zach's fist, but his momentum still pushed Midoriya's hands back into his face. Midoriya stumbled a few feet back, then he brought his hands down only to have to duck as Zach swung his right leg around in a roundhouse. Midoriya ducked and he dove forward to try and grab Zach's other leg that was planted on the ground. If he got that one off, Zach's balance would be gone.

Before Midoriya's hand touched his planted leg, Zach slammed his right leg back down right on Midoriya's back. As Midoriya's elbows and knees hit the ground, Zach jumped back with his leg in front of Midoriya's hands and the one on the boy's back. He landed a few feet away, while Midoriya looked up with a pained look on his face from that hard stomp. He did not complain about the pain though or how serious Zach was with the kick, and he got back up on his feet fast and lifted his arms again.

Midoriya ran in first this time, and Zach started to turn his body right to dodge Midoriya's right fist that he punched forward. His dodge was just a feint though, as he knew Midoriya's first punch was going to be. He reached up his right hand looking like he was going to grab Midoriya by the wrist of the arm passing him, making Midoriya hesitate with his left leg he was about to swing up. Zach bent his elbow before grabbing Midoriya's arm though, and he used his right elbow instead of his hand to knock Midoriya's arm painfully across the front of his body. At the same time he snapped his left hand forward and hit Midoriya in the side of the face with his palm, while Midoriya's head had been turning with wide eyes to focus on his own arm that was quickly redirected in front of him.

The green-haired boy lifted off his feet and flew a few feet away from Zach before hitting the ground on his side. Midoriya turned so he was on his butt, then he took a deep breath and got on his feet again. He sprinted forward and punched with his left hand this time. Zach reached up and actually grabbed it this time with his own left hand, but Midoriya seemed to be expecting that and he kept up running forward while throwing his other arm around Zach. Zach lifted his right arm and bent the elbow to slam down on Midoriya's back as the other student had put his head against Zach's side and thrown his other arm around his body to push him back. Zach had lost balance, but he was going to make Midoriya let go before slamming him to the ground. When he brought his right elbow down though, Midoriya let go of the tackle and leaned back fast, yanking his other arm away from Zach's left hand as Zach was focusing all his current strength on his right elbow.

Midoriya leaned back enough that Zach's right arm went past the front of his body, then he punched forward with his right hand. Zach's left hand that had lost its grip on Midoriya's slammed forward while clenching into a fist too, and he slammed it straight against Midoriya's punching fist so their knuckles collided. Both of them winced, then Midoriya punched his left arm up underneath where their arms were punching. It was an uppercut and Zach was too close to pull his head back fast. He brought his right hand in to stop the punch, but he kept moving his arm and used his forearm instead to block it, making him wince in pain at the feeling. Midoriya had expected it before, but the uppercut was more of a test than actually trying to get Zach under the chin as he knew it could be blocked easily. _He doesn't use his right hand at all while fighting._

 _The teachers said that my new costume has something else to put on over this glove for when I'm fighting. Even if I did use my right hand usually, I wouldn't right now,_ Zach pulled back a few inches and opened up his left fist. He grabbed Midoriya's fist as it kept pushing forward with his momentum, then Zach used that momentum to yank Midoriya even closer, while bringing his right knee up. He slammed his knee into Midoriya's gut while the boy who was just thinking about Zach's right hand tried to change what he was focusing on. _I don't need my right hand in a fight though. But he figured that out pretty quick. Still, people in other classes and even our own won't rely on me not using it. Other classes because they might think it's some sort of secret weapon, and our class because they might just be afraid I'll use it if they take advantage._ He grimaced at the thought of that, but then lost his dark look as Midoriya stayed on his feet after stumbling back from that knee in the gut.

Zach ran forward and jumped up while pulling his right fist back, his right leg bent, and then his left leg spun around while Midoriya brought up a guard on his left side to protect from Zach's right leg. He kicked Midoriya and the green-haired boy stumbled to the side, but he stayed on his feet again and then turned punching towards where Zach was running towards him. Zach was not expecting that quick a reaction and tried pulling his face away, but Midoriya's hand skimmed his left cheek and pushed his face even harder away while a bruise started to form. Zach got in close though while Midoriya's arm passed his face, then the green-haired boy brought up a knee just as Zach did when they had gotten closer before. Zach lowered his left hand and caught Midoriya's knee, before bringing up his own for the other boy's gut. Midoriya slammed a hand down though and stopped Zach's knee just as Zach had stopped his own a second ago.

 _Damn,_ Zach thought in annoyance, expecting that one to connect. _He's quick, but I spent a lot of time honing these skills. If I was just beating on him though, this would have been pointless. Don't get frustrated._ Despite what he told himself, each time he knocked down Midoriya, the following round lasted much longer. _This is my usual style too,_ he thought one time, as Midoriya swung a fist in front of his face, then followed up with a kick in his side while his arm had blocked Zach's side for a second and made it impossible to see where his next move would be. He staggered back, then he reached up and caught Midoriya's right foot as the boy tried swinging it up at him as a roundhouse. _But he clearly doesn't use kicks like this usually,_ Zach thought, as Midoriya had no balance at all when Zach caught his leg. He almost fell on his own, but then his right hand balled into a fist and he leaned forward, pushing off the foot that was wobbling and using it to dive at Zach instead.

Zach tried pushing back on that leg he had grabbed, but Midoirya punched his fist already and it nailed Zach in the face. Zach's head snapped back and his right foot stepped backwards, and while Midoriya hit the floor after his punch and winced from the position he landed, Zach also fell back on his butt and reached his left hand up for his face. "Ow," he muttered after a few seconds, lowering his hand from his face only after the angry snarl had wiped from it. "Lucky shot," he said, then scrambled up onto his feet fast. Midoriya got up quickly too though, and the green-haired boy narrowed his eyebrows in with an intense look on his face. _He's coming up with ways to knock me down again. That's not a lucky shot, he's going to keep getting better. Is he some sort of genius or something? A natural?_ Zach started to get sweat on his face, then he realized what was happening and he let out a long breath, before breathing in and stepping his back foot up and spreading his legs farther. He rose both hands as palms and then curled his fingers out while Midoriya leaned back.

"So, you know about All Might too?" Zach ran forward as he said it, then uncurled his fingers and slammed only his left palm out into Midoriya's chest while twisting his body to put his back into it, knocking him back and onto the floor. He flattened Midoriya in a second, but Midoriya just sat there with a stunned look on his face as he stared up at the other boy.

"Wh-Wh-What are you talking about?" Midoriya asked.

"Stuttering that much isn't a very good cover," Zach said, stepping back and then stomping down hard with each foot and slapping his hands down on his knees. "Shouldn't get caught off guard just because of something your opponent says in a fight. The guy we went up against in the Mountain Zone was experienced, and when Jirou tried that, he didn't fall for it for a second." Midoriya's eyes opened even wider at the mention of that, since his mind was still racing over that last thing. "Sometimes your opponent distracts you," Zach said, though he was really trying to back it up to himself with these excuses as he felt like that was a pretty cheap shot.

He waited for Midoriya to stand back up, then he rose his hands from his knees back into his sumo stance. Midoriya stayed in the fighting stance he had been using, though Zach noticed some changes in it since the start of the fight. _He's definitely matching more of what my first style was. His stance doesn't have as many holes in it as when he first got into it. Hopefully this training helps him too, I'd feel kind of bad if I took away time from what else he could be doing._ "Alright," Zach started forward, but Midoriya was clearly distracted now. Zach changed out of his sumo style before he reached Midoriya, surprising the boy again as he got back into his original stance, and he used a move that Midoriya had already countered before to knock his training partner down again.

Zach frowned at how easy that was, and he knew Midoriya wanted to ask him something. At the same time though, Midoriya really did not want to ask him anything, in case Zach had just been distracting him with something random. Zach got out of his fighting stance with a sigh as Midoriya stood back up, because the other boy looked too unfocused to try and go another round while thinking only of counters and ways to fight him, and that's what Zach wanted Midoriya thinking about while they sparred. "He told me you knew too, more of an off-handed mention than anything else. I don't actually know if he realized it himself," Zach added while scratching the back of his head. "He was just telling me about after the fighting was over and everything, and when I asked about how you were doing he mentioned how- it doesn't really matter." Zach shook his head, and he said, "I just kind of, figured it out on my own," he said, scratching his head as he did. "So you do know, right?" Zach asked, as he still had not really said what he was talking about, since Midoriya had not yet confirmed it. As sure as he was of what he had concluded, All Might had given him his trust, and he did not want to break it on an assumption, even a well-thought-out assumption.

At the same time, Midoriya did not know whether Zach knew what he was talking about. So he thought of something to check, and he said, "Droopy bangs?" To anyone who did not know what they were talking about, it would not have made any sense at all, but Zach cracked a smile as he thought of the strange appearance of the man who had appeared in his hospital room.

"They sure look weird when they're not pointing up," Zach said with a small smile. Midoriya's eyes opened wide, and then Zach continued, "I want to be a great hero, like All Might. But it's more than that now, after seeing that. We've gotta become good heroes, faster. In case those League of Villains show up again. Like, at the Sports Festival…" Zach said it in a softer voice and looked up at the ceiling after it came out. _Would they do something that bold? Most of them seemed weak, but the leaders got away. They got away from All Might and a group of pro heroes. That's pretty impressive. No,_ _ **really**_ _impressive._

"I don't think they will," Midoriya said, and Zach lowered his gaze. His opponent had seen the look of worry on his face, and Midoriya continued, "After the attack, they're going to buff up security at the Sports Festival to a point the villains would have to be really stupid to try anything. I don't think they're the type to do something like that, just to get caught."

"Yeah," Zach said softly, then he rose his voice and nodded his head, "Yeah, you're right." He shook his head around and got a small smile on it again as he rose his arms back up. "Then instead of worrying about villains at it, let's worry about all the pro heroes going to be watching us. And let's get ready to show them our best."

Midoriya looked surprised again, then his thoughtful expression vanished and a smile spread across his face instead. An intense, determined smile, and then Midoriya lifted his fists. "Yeah, our bests," Midoriya said, and then the two of them ran at each other.

Outside, Eijiro Kirishima walked away from a building with his arms up in front of him, a serious look on his own face as he punched over and over in the air in front of him. _Those guys were being so intense in there! That's manly as Hell!_ He punched a few more times, then did an uppercut before stopping and glancing over his shoulder. _What were they talking about though? All Might? Droopy bangs? …Whatever. I've gotta get into it too!_

* * *

Two weeks went by fast. Zach wound up joining Midoriya on afternoon training for a few days after school. He was the first training partner Zach had ever had, as his fighting training had always been mock fights with the training dummy on his roof. The fight with the villains showed him, despite the hits he landed against the enemies, that he was not a master in any fighting styles like he had imagined he was. He was better than his training partner, but Midoriya caught on fast and pushed him harder every day they sparred together. They spent a lot of time training on their own too, but two days before the U.A. Festival, Zach told Midoroya before their final spar that it would be their last round.

The suns were setting over the water while they faced each other on an empty part of a beach that Zach had thought was supposed to be covered in garbage until the first time they trained there. They faced each other and got as serious as could be before starting a fight. It lasted longer than usual, and the two of them punched each other in the faces to end it. They each stumbled backwards, then neither of them fell, but they both still left their fighting stances and stood straight up. "Finish this at the Festival?" Zach said, panting and rubbing a fist across his face to get some blood away from under his nose.

Midoriya nodded at him and then took a deep breath and looked down at his red knuckles. "I guess a day to rest my body is a good thing. Just to not be sore for the Sports Festival. But I should still-"

Before he could start a rant, Zach started laughing at his habit of muttering that he never seemed to notice until someone told him to stop. Midoriya looked up and Zach stopped laughing to just grin at the boy in front of him. "See you there then," he said, since the day before it there would be no school, so they would not see each other again after this until the day of. Zach gave Midoriya once last competitive look while the other boy started staring at him, then he turned to leave.

Midoriya stared at Zach's back in a hesitant way. He bit down on his bottom lip and looked frustrated. "Zach," Midoriya began, his tone serious but hesitant. Zach stopped walking but did not turn around, his smile lowering at the sound of that tone. _Don't ask,_ Zach started thinking. "About the villain attack," Midoriya said, and Zach grimaced even more.

"What about it?" Zach asked, looking half over his shoulder so he was just looking back at Midoriya with one eye.

His training partner hesitated at that look, but then his look got more serious and he asked, "Did you need to?" Zach turned his head away from Midoriya. He stared the opposite direction, and he heard the boy behind him ask in a softer voice, "I didn't ask, because I just assumed you did. But then I heard-" he paused and looked away. "Nevermind."

"You heard?" Zach turned his head again and looked back at Midoriya completely this time. "From who?"

"No one told me," Midoriya said, his voice apologetic. "I just, forgot something in the classroom after school yesterday. When I went back to grab it though, I heard Kaminari and Jirou arguing about something. I didn't mean to pry…"

 **Yesterday**

Midoriya reached for the door handle but froze at the sound of the voices on the other side. "… And you're avoiding him like the plague. You could let up a little. He was trying to save you!"

"I'm not avoiding-" Midoriya heard Jirou's voice snap back at Kaminari, but she did not finish that sentence. "The heroes were there. If he had waited…" Midoriya turned and rushed off, not wanting to eavesdrop on any more of this conversation.

Inside the classroom, Jirou faded off and then looked away at Kaminari's annoyed look. "There could have been other ways."

"Yeah, maybe," Kaminari said. "But you're still acting weird. Just give him a break already. It's not going to kill you to be a little nicer to the guy-"

"What if it does?" Jirou muttered. She shook her head, then looked back towards Kaminari who was looking at her in surprise, and then he frowned at her for saying that. "I can't help it," she said, her voice quieter as she admitted that to the blond boy in front of her. "It's not about what else he could have done, or what we could have done to stop it, it's just- how easy it was. Not the decision, but just how quick his Quirk. I mean the guy just _died._ Instantly," Jirou said it with wide eyes like it was an insane power, and Kaminari kept frowning but he nodded his head.

 _Death,_ Kaminari thought about the name Zach gave him for his Quirk. He opened his mouth to say something to Jirou, but then he closed it and just furrowed his brow at her. _I shouldn't. But, out of everyone in the class, I feel like he's- I should tell her that at least._ "Listen Jirou, I don't get what you're thinking about, but can't you just think about how he feels when you avoid him? The others are probably easier for him, since they don't know what happened. But you were there, and you're still acting like this, so everything he's worried he did- you're pretty much confirming it, don't you think?"

Jirou stared blankly at the boy in front of her for a few seconds, then she turned away and muttered, "For an idiot, you make sense sometimes…"

 **Present**

Unfortunately, Midoriya only heard a part of the conversation. He asked anyway though, because it had been something he thought on even before he heard that conversation but had always pushed from his head.

 _She doesn't think I needed to…_ _I knew that, but,_ Zach bit down hard and ground his teeth while staring away from Midoriya. He spoke while looking away, "You want to know, if I used my Quirk rashly? If I killed someone without thinking hard enough about it?" Midoriya held up his hands defensively to say 'of course not,' but Zach continued before he could, "Well I did." Midoriya froze with his arms lifted and mouth open, and his eyes slowly started widening as he stared at Zach's back. "There were things I could have done. I can't say, that I didn't have time. If I had waited another five seconds, ten seconds, we probably still would have been saved. I didn't even think about distracting the villain, try to make that time longer so that the others could think of a better plan than mine. I didn't even threaten him. I could have told him, 'I'll kill you,' but I didn't want to risk him killing me before I could do anything, I guess. I thought that if I tried telling him my Quirk and how quick I could be to finish it, that he might just be faster. So I just killed him. I did it, but there were other options. Better options. I did it, but she's right, I didn't _need_ to."

Zach started walking again. He walked away from Midoriya who lowered his arms down to his sides and just stared at the other boy walk away. There were things he wanted to say to Zach if that was his answer, things he had thought about beforehand. His own power was one that could easily kill people, and when he went to punch Shigaraki Tomura, he was ready to punch with everything he had. But he never regretted that decision, because there were people he was trying to save. As he stared at Zach's back as he walked off though, he could not say anything, because even though he did not regret it, he wondered if he would feel the same had his fist collided.

The boy walking away on the beach with short, dark spiky hair glared ahead of him with such an angry look on his face. _I could have done so many things differently. I try not thinking about them, but right there, I was able to come up with so many ideas on the spot to tell Midoriya. Why did I panic so much in that situation? Why didn't I try, threatening that villain? I could have put my hand near him and started the threat, or even put four fingers on his leg and start intimidating by saying what would happen if I put down the fifth. He could have zapped me- but I could have lied and said if I took my hand off him it would kill him… Would he have believed it? Just because of my glove, that's not a very convincing argument. And no one's ever heard of a Death Quirk before, so he'd have thought I was bluffing. But it would have gained me time as he called my bluff and I countered, probably telling him truths to get him to listen. Told him about mom… but before I would have even got to that, Snipe would have been there. I just had to say something. I rushed it. I, killed a man, for no reason. I thought it in the moment, and I tried to tell myself otherwise since, but even with this time to think, I still did it. Number of saves, still zero. Number of kills, a lot plus one more._

* * *

 **A/N Hope you enjoyed. Zach and Midoriya train for the U.A. Sports Festival that begins next chapter! Thanks for reading! Leave a review below!**


	8. Chapter 8

**A/N Longest chapter so far. Enjoy!**

 **Disclaimer: I don't own Boku no Hero Academia**

 **Chapter 8:**

At the U.A. Sports Festival, Zach made it through the first round by the skin of his teeth. He ranked thirty-first, making it into the second round in the lower tier of forty-two students to get through. For most of the obstacles he felt confident he was staying in a good place in the pack. He had dodged all the robots instead of fighting them. Some of them were fast, but since all he had to do was avoid and not attack them this time, he realized their attacks were advertised more and easier to dodge than normal humans' were. Each time one attacked him, all he had to do was fake that he was dodging a different direction at the start of the robot's attack, and it would attack in that direction each time.

He had thought he was going to make it before Midoriya for sure, as he had seen his training partner lagging behind him while carrying a sheet of metal from a destroyed robot. Zach had been focused on certain classmates of his more than others, as he expected some of them to make it into the later rounds for sure. It was how he avoided Todoroki's ice in the beginning, and why he followed Yaoyorozu who he expected to do well and wound up clearing a path of the largest 0-point robots. When he was halfway through the minefield though, he heard a loud explosion and looked up, only to see Midoriya shooting his way into first place, using that metal sheet he thought his classmate had been dumb for carrying around. _Of course he found a way to use it,_ Zach had thought, before picking up his pace and taking longer strides while staying careful of the land-mines.

Midoriya never used his Quirk, but he came in first anyway. It annoyed Zach, until he heard the rules for the second event. He almost felt bad for his training partner getting stuck with the ten million point headbands while the rest of them had ones in the single, double, or triple digits. He only _almost_ felt bad though, because along with everyone else around him, Midoriya was suddenly the target they needed to take down the most. _Whoever gets his headband wins._

As every student still in stared at Midoriya, Midnight called out, "That's right. It's survival of the fittest, with a chance for those at the bottom to overthrow the top!"

 _There's no way I can join Midoriya's team. Two people without being able to use Quirks, and everyone gunning for us. It's smarter to try and take the first place's headband than try to hold onto it the entire time._ Zach started looking around at the others as Midnight began explaining the rules. A quick look at Midoriya told him that his training partner for the last two weeks was already feeling the pressure of having everyone targeting him, but Zach knew who else was already targeting him from the beginning. _Teams of two to four. If I could get on Todoroki's team, it would be a sure placing. Not only is he the strongest in the class, but he made that declaration of war to Midoriya before we started. We'll be going after the ten million from the start._

 _Headbands have to be worn from the neck up. I'll keep mine around my forehead, can keep it tighter that way since I don't want to tie it tight to my neck. At thirty-first place I'll have the, 60 point headband. That's not bad. It'll be good for the higher placed players to want lower headbands too to even it out. But, then again,_ Zach stopped feeling so confident as he looked around at the other students in Class 1-A who were starting to look for partners. No one looked his way for very long. _That's right. They all know I don't have a Quirk I can use well in this. Todoroki's aiming for the top, so is everyone, and what's getting an extra 60 points on their score going to matter if I can't do anything to help them out during the battle?!_

Zach started breathing heavier, and he listened to the two girls in front of him talking. Midnight just explained how the teams would be staying on the field the entire time, as unlike normal cavalry battles, there was no getting out even if their headbands were stolen or their team fell. Ashido put a finger to her head and said thoughtfully to the shorter girl next to her, "Then one strategy could be to let someone take your points first so you'll be more free."

Asui put a finger to her own chin and looked up while replying, "It's hard to say without seeing how all the points end up getting split up, Mina."

"During the game, it'll be a cruel fight where you can use your Quirks, but it is still a cavalry battle," Midnight explained. Zach's eyes started to widen and the corners of his lips lifted a little again. Midnight continued, "You'll get a red card for attacks that are trying to make people fall on purpose…"

Zach relaxed a little bit as Midnight was finishing up. He spotted Bakugo turn away in annoyance as he heard they would be disqualified for a red card, and he almost laughed at the reaction. He had to be serious though, and his lip flattened out as Midnight gave them fifteen minutes to make teams and prepare themselves.

He turned his head as a large number of people gathered there started walking off to go into the stands. All of the students from the first event were still down there, but only the forty-two remaining were going to stay on the field to pick their teams. Zach saw Aoyama walking away, grabbing his stomach while Hagakure tried cheering him up after going so far only to get forty-third place and get left out of the second event. Hagakure then stopped and stayed behind too, and Zach looked back at the board to see that she had made it in as well. _Ooh, that's rough. I think he's the only one in 1-A who didn't make it._

 _Wait, now's not the time to think about that,_ Zach shook his head around. _Alright, Hagakure? No, invisibility won't help at all. I need one person with a good Quirk. Just one._ He looked over towards Bakugo, but Bakugo had people all around him asking to join his team, lots of people with good Quirks. He tssked and looked for Todoroki, but he spotted Todoroki going around and picking people out like he had a team in his head already. _How about, ah! He'd be perfect._

Zach started jogging across the field, but he spotted Midoriya looking towards the same spot. _Oh no you don't,_ Zach picked up the pace and then called out early, "Hey Iida." The tall class representative turned his head towards Zach and looked at the shorter boy in surprise as he got close. "You want to team up? I figure with your Engine, we can maneuver around without anyone catching us. I can be the rider, and I can block anyone trying to take my headband as well as get past others if we try taking some."

Iida nodded his head as Zach spoke, as the other boy did have skills at hand-to-hand combat that Iida had witnessed before. But then when Zach finished speaking, Midoriya caught up with Uraraka with him, having ran over to try and catch Iida before he made a decision. Midoriya looked at Zach and Zach looked back competitively, only to lose that look to a darker one at the expression Midoriya was giving him. _That's right, we didn't leave on great terms._ Then, Midoriya's expression returned to a competitive one and Zach looked at him in surprise before he spun to Iida, "Iida, before you decide. I have a plan where the three of us-"

"Actually Zach, Midoriya, Uraraka," Iida stopped them before they could continue trying to recruit him. "I already have my team. I'm sorry Midoriya, I am sure you have a wonderful plan as well. But Todoroki and Bakugo aren't the only ones who see you as a rival." He turned to Zach and added, "My apologies."

 _Is he saying that 'cause he still feels guilty about the rescue training?_ Zach thought in annoyance. _I guess it's better that he just says that though, instead of breaking from his team to try and make it up to me._ Zach nodded back at him, "No problem. I'll find a team." Though he said it, Zach was getting nervous as people were getting picked fast all over the place.

He spun around, then he heard Uraraka behind him say quietly, "Deku, why don't we ask Zach-" He pretended like he did not hear her, and he started jogging towards someone whose team he did want to be on. _Whatever Midoriya's answer would have been, I still don't want to be on his team. Iida, Bakugo, Todoroki, the best in the class are all going for him. I, I want to be his rival too!_ "Hey, Ojiro," he started. The boy with a thick tail did not turn to him, and Zach got a confused look on his face as he kept jogging over.

Ojiro was standing still next to another boy, and Zach put a hand on his arm, "Hey, you want to team up?"

Ojiro did not turn around, and Zach was starting to get creeped out. Then a different student came walking over with a kid from Class B walking behind him. "We're already a team," Hitoshi Shinso said. The other three near him turned their heads towards Zach at once, and Zach took a step back before spinning around. _What the hell is going on there?_ He thought while quickly walking away. He looked back over his shoulder after a second and saw the boy with spiky bluish-purple hair talking to the other three and all of them just listening to him. _Ojiro, is he-_

"Hey," a hand clapped down on Zach's shoulder and he spun back forward. Standing in front of him was a blond haired boy who made Zach's eyes open wide. Behind Kaminari, Zach spotted someone else that made his eyes grow even wider. _Todoroki's coming this way. No! There's no way it's me he's coming for, it's gotta be Kaminari._ "Do you-"

"Yeah let's do it," Zach said quickly, lifting up his left hand in front of his body with a big grin on his face. "You can use your lightning to keep people away from us, without shocking me too though, right?" Zach wondered, realizing after he accepted it really quick that his partner might not actually be able to use his Quirk.

Kaminari grabbed his left hand with his own and grinned. "Oh yeah, with the amount I'd be using against the others here, I won't zap you, that much, at all. You want to be the rider though?" Kaminari asked.

Zach saw Todoroki slow down behind Kaminari, but he avoided eye contact when the boy with red and white hair stared his way. _Find a different fourth member Todoroki, I saw you already got Yaoyorozu,_ he thought it in a little annoyance, as she was one of the first people he looked around for, only to see Todoroki reach her first. Then he got Iida too which he noticed after seeing Iida look towards him when mentioning how he already had a team. "I was thinking I could use my hand-to-hand fighting to keep people from grabbing our headband. It wasn't much of a plan, if you thought you would be-"

"No! That's a great plan!" Kaminari said, waving his hands in front of him. "I saw what you could do in the Mountain Zone after all. You were really quick to react while I was still freaking out at what was going on, so I was hoping you'd have a strategy ready."

 _I wouldn't call it a strategy, but thanks Kaminari._ "Alright, then let's get two more people before everyone's teamed up." Kaminari nodded at him, and then they split up to try and cover more ground in the minutes they still had.

 _Over there,_ Zach thought. He spotted the person he had run through the tunnel just behind during the first event, and he headed over. _Most people are sticking with their own classes, except Ojiro and that strange guy… But everyone in my class looks like they've already got partners. Even Todoroki looks to be having a hard time finding a fourth. Class B is all grouped up together, but it's worth a try._ "Hey," Zach began as he neared the boy.

The figure in front of him turned and looked at Zach who was smiling at him. The boy's skin was pitch black from what was showing, so dark it was less a skin tone and more just darkness. He had wavy white hair and thin eyes, and he was frowning as he turned to this boy he didn't know. Shihai Kuroiro recognized him though, thinking about how they entered the tunnel at the same time. They had both started sprinting to the end, and he had made it there faster but only by a second. "Do you have a team yet? I've only got one partner so far- I'm Zach by the way."

"Shihai Kuroiro," the boy with the Quirk Black replied. "And why me?"

"You ran fast," Zach replied. "I did cross country and track through middle school, but you still beat me back in the tunnel. I was really surprised." Zach wished he could have blamed it on a Quirk when the two went head-to-head and started sprinting. They knew it was the final stretch and gave it their alls to beat each other, and Zach had been disappointed by the result. "Anyway, I have Kaminari from my class as a horse already. He can use electricity to keep people off of us, and-"

"You're from Class A aren't you?" A boy asked behind Kuroiro, stepping up next to him and frowning at Zach while looking down his nose at him.

 _Oh crap, this guy,_ Zach looked at the blond boy hesitantly. _This is the one, Sero pointed at. He's the guy-_

"I can't believe I'm seeing a Class A asking a Class B for help," Monoma said in mock shock. "Aren't Class A students supposed to be better? You all who fought the villains and survived, even if one of you did kill one," Monoma narrowed his eyes at the boy's reaction to him saying that.

"We're not better," Zach said, while frowning at the blond boy who was really annoying him at the moment, and not just because he brought up how he had killed the villain. "We're all just, trying our hardest."

"Class B doesn't need help from Class A to show we're better," Monoma continued, a smug look on his face that made Zach think he had some sort of plan already. _So many in Class B got in, but they all came in around me. What were they doing, holding back? I can't imagine so many in Class A were actually better at the obstacle course. There must have been a plan, yeah? Did this guy make it?_ "Class A should stay with Class A, don't you think?" Monoma finished, giving Zach a harsh gaze to finish it that made the shorter boy ease back a little.

Zach turned to Kuroiro again, but the dark boy was looking in at Monoma so he could not see his face. Zach turned and started heading back towards his class, then he heard a low voice behind him, "Hold on." He spun around in surprise, and Monoma spun to his left with huge eyes. Kuroiro glanced back at Monoma and frowned, then he started walking towards Zach while saying in a low voice, "I'm glad someone finally said it. I'm really not into this whole Class A-Class B rivalry thing, Monoma."

"Hmph," Monoma lost his shocked look, and he just started frowning at his classmate's back. "When the rest of Class B makes it into the next round, you'll be sorry you sided with someone from Class A."

"Maybe," Kuroiro said, but he just kept walking forward towards Zach who lifted his mouth into a small smile. The other boy kept frowning though as he reached Zach, and Zach turned and told him to follow him back to their other teammate.

When they got to Kaminari, the blond boy was surprised that Zach grabbed someone from Class B, and he said that he could not get anyone else from their own class to join them. The time limit ran out and they went to get their team's headband made. With Kaminari's 95 points, Zach's 60, and Kuroiro's 65, their point total came out to 220. They went to an edge of the battle zone and stood on the grass to make a plan as everyone else did the same. They did not have a lot of time, but Zach did a quick scan of the other teams before starting up with a strategy. _Midoriya got a good team with him even without Iida. And Todoroki got Jirou to replace Kaminari, she'd be some good defense too I guess, and those headphone jacks could snag headbands easily._

"Our point total right now isn't enough to get us in the top four," Zach said. "So from the start we have to try taking others' headbands. We're on the lower side too though, so we don't need to worry about defense from the start."

"That's a problem," Kuroiro said. "From what you've said, your Quirk would be good for defense, right?" He asked Kaminari.

"If I zap everyone though," Kaminari mentioned. "While they're stopped, we can grab their headbands."

"But we'll get zapped too if you try that," Kuroiro said. Kaminari held up a finger like he had a counter point, then he lowered it slowly and scratched the back of his head.

"No, you can't use your Indiscriminate Shock," Zach began. "So our defense is only great when another team is close, same with offense. What we need to do, is figure out a team with enough points to get us in the top places, and go after them. If we go for too low a team though, then one of the other teams between us and the top four could grab other lower headbands and bump above us. The score total we need right now to be top four, is probably lower than what we'll need to really get fourth."

"So we need more than 415 more points?" Kaminari asked in a panicked voice.

Zach looked up at the scoreboard that now had all the teams names and point totals up on it. _Todoroki's team is in 4th with 630. If we get Mineta's… where is Mineta?_ "Do you see Mineta anywhere?" Zach asked. "He has Shoji and Tsu- oh that's just not fair." Zach frowned as he looked across the field and watched as Shoji lifted his arms and made a sort of cave for the two smaller classmates to hide inside of. "That's actually, going to be hard to beat. And with Tsuyu's tongue, we should stay away from them."

Kaminari turned to Kuroiro and said, "She's got the Quirk, Frog, so her tongue can shoot out really far."

Kuroiro nodded, then he hummed to himself and looked to his left at a different portion of the field. "Monoma devised a plan for the first event." The other two turned to him and the pitch black boy continued, "We stayed behind Class A on purpose, knowing that around forty students would get into the next round. We were checking out the opponents' Quirks, but I didn't really like the strategy. I know it's a good one, and I would have been on Monoma's team, but I want to get a higher score." Zach nodded at him, and then the boy in front of them took a deep breath before saying, "For you to just casually talk about your classmates' Quirks, without caring that I'm from another class, it reminds me that we're on the same team and we need each other to get to the third round."

"So what are you saying?" Kaminari asked.

"Let's go after Tetsutetsu," Kuroiro said. The other two spun back to look at the scoreboard and saw that it was the Class B team in second place overall like they thought. "The four of them who made that team were the ones who didn't really listen to Monoma. They have good Quirks too, which is why I didn't join them when they ran out ahead early on. I wouldn't suggest this if I had stayed with Class B, since Monoma has been telling everyone we need to beat Class A together. But Tetsutetsu, is really hard-headed. His defense is great because of that, but he's stubborn and quick to anger. If another team makes him mad or gets his attention, he won't be focused on us at all."

"That's great," Kaminari began in an excited voice.

"What about the others with him?" Zach asked, as he could see there was more to what Kuroiro had to say.

"Shiozaki and Honenuki both have really strong Quirks with long ranges and good defenses," Kuroiro said, and Kaminari sweatdropped as is suddenly did not seem like a good idea to go after them. "They're going to be looking out to make sure Tetsutetsu doesn't lose his headband. So what we should do, if we go after them, is go in from Awase's side. He's the one wearing the white and blue bandanna."

"So the back-left," Zach said. "If we can get a good angle, it could work."

"Riders get on your horses!" Midnight called out, and a countdown started on the board to show the event was about to begin.

"Alright, let's do this smart," Zach said, as the other two bent down so he could climb up in a good position on their shoulders. It was not the best set-up with only two people, but they managed to get a pretty sturdy horse up. "You guys okay?"

"You're a little heavier than you look," Kuroiro admitted.

"But we'll be fine," Kaminari said.

 _I'm short, but muscle is heavier than fat. Still, I'm only one-thirty-five. I guess I would have trouble carrying almost seventy pounds on my shoulders while running around though, damn. We really could have used a fourth person. Kuroiro's speed won't mean much if I'm weighing them down._

"One more thing," Kuroiro said, after hesitating for a few seconds more until the countdown had almost finished. "I, didn't want to say, because he's my classmate and friend, but I think he's going to be targeting us so I can't just hide it. Sorry Monoma, I know you want it to be a surprise for Class A," Kuroiro mentioned the last part quieter. "Alright, so Monoma's going to be coming after us. Maybe not from the start, since he'll go for someone who can get him into the top four first, but once he's in a safe spot, he'll be after us."

"And that's bad?" Zach wondered, looking back towards the blond kid he could see looking their direction at the same time. There were only a few seconds left of the countdown, and Midnight had her black whip thing raised up in the air ready to swing it down like the start of a car race.

"He has a strong Quirk too. He can use the Quirks of people he touches, it's called Copy. For five minutes after-"

"We have to stay away from him," Zach said, his voice hurried and sweat forming all over his face. Kaminari looked up with wide eyes too and a nervous expression, and Kuroiro saw this first before looking up to see why Zach thought that. Zach was looking towards Monoma in panic though, then he shot his gaze up to the stands where the U.A. teachers were sitting.

"Looks like he done figured it out," Snipe said, and a few other teachers around him let out sighs of relief. All Might slouched in his chair as he had glanced over towards Zach's team again after watching Midoriya get ready for a while. Snipe continued after saying it though, "But Monoma's looking towards him. I didn't think it'd be a problem, but kid had to grab someone from Class B right in front of him. Couldn't be a worse situation."

"What'll we do if he touches him?" Power Loader asked, a hesitant look on his face as he looked around at the tens of thousands of people in the audience around them. All those people were cheering and excited to watch the cavalry battle, and he wondered, "Stop the match?"

"Cementoss knows the situation," All Might said, though his voice was a little nervous too. "If Monoma gets close, he'll block it."

 _Do the teachers know the situation? Of course they do-_ "Begin!" Midnight shouted, and Zach spun his head back forward with huge eyes. _But if they have to step in, there's no way we make it to the next round. It'll be my fault too, that Kaminari and Kuroiro don't get to the third event._

"What are we doing?" Kaminari asked as they started running forward, he and Kuroiro finding a good pace for them both to move at while keeping Zach feeling as light as possible on their shoulders and arms.

"Same thing as everyone else," Zach said, and the horses below him started running that way. "Let's get Midoriya!" He spun to the boy whose headband everyone there wanted, but he made sure to keep Team Monoma in the corner of his eyes. _Damn it. I'm going to have to have half-focus the entire race._

"Why can't we get near Monoma's team?" Kuroiro asked. "What's your Quirk?" He had asked before, but Zach had said that his was too dangerous to use at a Sports Festival and that was it. The way he and Kaminari acted though, it made it seem like it was more than just dangerous.

"It's not something Monoma can copy," Zach said. "I mean, it is- but if he does he won't realize what he's doing." Zach darted his eyes over again, then he snapped his head up and watched as Midoriya's team jetpacked overhead using some gear that a girl from the support department made for them. _Tokoyami's Dark Shadow won't be easy to get past, and that's some good equipment too. They're not the best team to go after,_ he realized it, and then he realized that a lot of others realized it at the same time.

"So quick for this to become chaos," Kuroiro said.

"Let's go for them," Zach said, pointing at a team of two chasing after the team with the guy with spiky indigo hair. _That guy again. He's got Ojiro and two people from Class B it looks like._

"No, that's Team Tsunotori," Kuroiro said, though he started running with Kaminari in the direction Zach said. "The seventy point team," he added. "But the team in front of them is the 360 point team, Shinso."

"I don't like the feeling of the Shinso guy," Zach said. He looked to his left as he saw some people charging, and he said, "Kaminari, block!"

Kaminari looked left and saw a team of three from Class A coming towards them. "Sorry Hagakure," Kaminari said with a grin, and both of the large boys beneath her got panicked looks in their eyes as Kaminari held out his left hand towards them. The invisible girl on top let out a yelp, then Kaminari slammed his left hand down and sparked lightning out of his hand at the floor and in their direction. Both Zach and Kuroiro clenched their teeth as the shocks jolted through them, but it was not as bad as the yelling they heard from the others.

"Change directions," Zach shouted.

The other two realized what he was saying, and they stopped defending from Hagakure's Team and ran towards her instead. Sado and Kota were large boys, and Hagakure's head was up high, but Zach knew that if he reached… They got close and Zach saw movement behind the other team that was momentarily stunned. The three of them were looking at Zach in panic as he reached up for Hagakure's headband, and Zach also saw fear in Koda's eyes too that made him grimace but reach harder. Then Zach pulled his arm back hard and yelled, "Sprint right!"

The two beneath him stopped short and cut to the right, while Zach ducked away and made them wobble as he shifted his weight so hard. "What's-" Kaminari started, before looking over his shoulder and going wide-eyed as Monoma reached out and snagged the headband off the unsuspecting girl who was just confused at why Zach pulled away.

"Ah! Hey!" Hagakure called out. The two beneath her started feeling able to move again, but instead of chasing after the guy who shocked them, they were only focused on getting their own headband back now. "Get back here!" Hagakure called after the blond Class B boy sitting on three of his classmates' shoulders.

 _They got Rin to replace me,_ Kuroiro thought as he saw the other boy in their class who Monoma was using as a horse. He had expected from the start what team Monoma would make, and he had been hesitant to leave them, but even doing so, he did not feel like he had made them his enemies. "Monoma," Kuroiro called towards the blond boy who was running off a different direction at the moment in order to avoid the people behind him. "Don't copy my rider's power!"

The area around them was loud enough that not many people heard it, but Team Hagakure chasing after Monoma did and their eyes widened which Monoma spotted on the two horses on bottom. Sato remembered the guy they were chasing though from when he confronted their class, and his expression returned to normal fast as he saw Monoma glance their way. "Let's get our headband back!" Sato yelled, running faster and making Koda do the same so they could get to the other boys who did not have as long as strides as them.

Monoma frowned as he looked back towards Kuroiro though, after looking at his rider and then the horse who had reacted below him. Zach and Kaminari were wide-eyed that the other member of their group would call that out, after saying how he did not want to give away his classmate's power. And Monoma stared into Kuroiro's eyes darkly, because he knew that his classmate would not have shouted that just to make him angry or to make him lose. _Then, he thinks he needs to shout this at me. Why? That guy's right hand, it's in a strange glove. His power must be dangerous. And for Kuroiro to shout it that seriously…_ Monoma frowned but nodded back towards his classmate.

 _He's more reasonable than I thought,_ Zach thought, as from what the other boy had said and done so far seemed like he might just ignore that. The nod was definitely a serious one though, then Monoma pointed towards an area where Zach spotted Bakugo, and he remembered how someone had told him Bakugo told off Monoma before. _And after Bakugo called out how he was going to be number one in front of everyone, that 'Class B is better' fanatic must want to take him down. I should warn Bakugo, since he kind of defended me with that- but Kuroiro told us Monoma's power just to help us, not to help our classmates. Sorry Bakugo, you're on your own._

"Behind us," Kuroiro said.

"To our left," Zach ordered, and the two below him who were running in no set direction turned the way their rider said. As they turned left, Zach turned his head and glanced behind them to see who Kuroiro was talking about. "Good," Zach said. "They came to us. I thought that might be the best way of getting them."

"What are you talking about?" Kaminari asked. He looked back and saw the number 2 team from the start, Team Tetsutetsu, charging at their backs.

"Kuroiro! We're getting your 220!" The rider of the other team shouted. Tetsutetsu's body was not made of iron at the moment, as Zach expected since that would be tough for his teammates to hold.

 _I saw what the horse in front could do at the start when they attacked Midoriya. He'll make the floor turn into some sinking material, then when we're low down they'll snag the headband._ "Let them get close, slow down just a bit," Zach said quietly while looking back forward and pointing his hand out like they were trying to run from the second highest team. "Over there!" He yelled out, pointing near an open area where there was another low ranked team.

"So we pretend we're going for them, then I zap them when they get close?" Kaminari asked, then he said, "Whoa!" as the ground beneath them became less solid and he and Kuroiro started sinking down.

Zach looked down like he was looking at the ground, but he just smirked while looking at Kaminari's spiky blond hair. "That's it. Kuroiro, clench your teeth. Kaminari, make it a bigger one this time. Right when they're point blank."

"Oh man," Kuroiro muttered, but he did as Zach said right and clenched his teeth as Kaminari started turning to the group behind him.

Kaminari smirked and his fingers started sparking. "Pull back Tetsutetsu," Shiozaki called out while her hair started extending and wrapping around the front of their bodies. Tetsutetsu was leaning down though as they ran just along the side of the other group, and Zach remembered what Kuroiro had said about his classmate. _When he's that close, he'll go for the extra reach before pulling back. She might have good defense, but-_ Zach thought, then he started getting electrocuted with the rest of them as Kaminari emitted it out of his body in a strong blast. After Kaminari let it out, he took in a deep breath and then let it out with a serious look on his face, though a partially blank expression.

"Ahhh," Zach could not hold it in and let out a groan of pain, and he heard something similar below him from Kuroiro. Where Kaminari tried directing the electricity though, there were much louder screams of pain.

Tetsutetsu had been hit before Shiozaki could get her green hair wall up in front of him, and the electricity passed through Tetsutetsu and into the others who Shiozaki had been able to block. Still, they managed to avoid some the brunt, and Zach grit his teeth as the horses beneath him tried hard to change directions and lift their feet. Honenuki's power failed while he got zapped, and the ground lifted back up so Kaminari and Kuroiro could move. They ran forward while Shiozaki's hair was pulling back, and Tetsutetsu tried raising his arms to block them, but he flinched and could not move them up fast enough. Team Sazaki ran past Team Tetsutetsu, and Zach swept his left hand in front of him with the other team's headband on it.

Cheers rang out through the stadium at that moment, and Zach's eyes opened wide as he realized how big it was. Present Mic even shouted over the microphone, "YOW! Team Sazaki comes out of nowhere, jumping into third place!"

"An extra seven hundred still only puts us in third?" Kaminari asked in disbelief, panting hard and the results showing.

 _He's slowing down. Team Monoma's already over a thousand?! There's still a lot of time left. They're not going to let this slide. They're coming after us!_ "They're coming after us, move!" Zach called down, looking behind him and seeing the team they just robbed running after them with angry looks on all their faces.

"We're going to get you for that Kuroiro!" Honenuki yelled, trying to turn the ground beneath the ones they were pursuing into something unstable again.

"They won't fall for it again," Kuroiro said. Zach put the headband on and over his head where it fell down to his neck, and he nodded in agreement with Kuroiro while glancing around to see what they could use to help them out. The guy chasing them could not use his power over a huge distance, and it seemed to work less the farther it was, so they were managing by staying out of his range so far, but Zach did not think it would last long.

"Let's run over there," Zach said, pointing towards a group of five teams who were all battling it out with each other. The other two looked up to see if he was serious, but Zach's face showed he definitely was.

"Why?! We just got into third!" Kaminari exclaimed.

"We'll be targeted by everyone," Kuroiro agreed.

"Yeah, and when they all come after us, hopefully your classmates give up on chasing us and risking Kaminari zapping them again," Zach said, and the two beneath him grinned at the plan before charging towards the other area. The thought of an actual plan and not just a panicked escape made them speed up even, but Zach could hear them both panting beneath them. _For Kaminari it's not just physical. Another big blast and he'll be too tired mentally to really listen to my orders, probably._ "Kaminari, think you'd manage one of those again without short-circuiting?"

"Umm," Kaminari began. "I, could probably follow simple commands. Like point and say, 'Run,' and I think I can do it."

Kuroiro looked next to him, wondering with a sweatdrop rolling down his face if the guy next to him really did get that idiotic with the weakness they told him about.

"Alright, they see us," Zach said, unable to comment on what Kaminari just told him as two of the teams looked his way. They remembered what Present Mic had shouted and their attentions shifted from Team Kendo which also had a lot of headbands already around their rider's neck. Kendo looked over too after seeing some of her pursuers leave, then she told her team to stop chasing another one of the lower tier groups who were running from her, instead having them turn towards Zach's team.

"They're all coming towards us," Kaminari began hesitantly, though he did not slow down.

"I'll block them all," Zach said, lifting up his hands and curling his fingers. He looked towards his right hand and grimaced but kept it up like he was going to block with it, though he knew if he had to he would only swing the arm to deflect.

Team Sazaki stopped short, and the other three charged in. Zach's head snapped down and he saw his horses' feet got stuck in the floor right when they were about to get past.

"No," Zach said, realizing it in that moment. He lifted his arms defensively, while saying in half-shock, "They're far enough back that they realize one of these three will get their headband before they do, but they're counting on it. Either they just don't want to deal with Kaminari again, or-"

"This is payback!" Honenuki called out before laughing, since Kendo reached forward with a large growing hand and tried grabbing Zach's headband.

 _How do I block that?_

"Should I-" Kaminari began.

"No," Zach said quickly. "We still have half the time," he could hear Present Mic in the background just start talking about how there was half time left a few seconds ago. "We're losing these headbands," he said, and the other two went wide-eyed at how accepting he was of that. "But that doesn't mean we won't struggle. Try and get out," he told them, but though the two beneath him tried, Team Tetsutetsu was only getting closer and making it harder for them.

A tongue flew by the huge hand Zach was pushing against with both his left arm and his right crossed beneath it. He tried leaning away fast as he saw it, but the tongue curved right at the end and snagged the lower headband from him. Asui ripped it off his neck, then Shoji turned and started running while the girl over his head handed the headband off to Mineta.

"Hahaha! Thanks Zach!" Mineta called out from the shadows of Shoji's arms, sounding more menacing than Zach had ever heard him at the safety of what he felt was his fortress.

The other teams near them spun and started chasing Shoji, with Kendo pulling her arm back and telling the girls beneath her to go. She glanced back at the headband on Zach's head, but then behind him, and she did not want to get near that team with how intense they looked at the moment. "We need to get another-" Zach began, after the teams in front of him had gone. Then his eyes opened wide and he started turning his head as did the other two who had almost forgotten their legs were stuck in the ground up to the knees.

"We'll be taking that," Yosetsu Awase said with a grin, as Tetsutetsu pulled back with their team's 220 point headband.

"Oh man," Kaminari said, watching as they started running away and the ground slowly pushed them back up.

"Like I said," Zach repeated while they rose up. "We were losing the _headbands,_ both of them. Now Kaminari, it's up to you if we get enough points to win this." Kaminari looked up in surprise, and Zach looked down at him. Their team did not move even though they were back on solid ground, and Zach started looking around to get a better tell at where all the points had gone. There were a lot of teams with no points at all like theirs, while teams like Kendo's and Monoma's already had three or four each. "We'll have around five minutes to pick a target or targets. Then, we wait until as late as possible to give you a little time to recharge, and so that we don't need to hold on to the headbands for long at the end when we're the slowest, since I can tell you're both tired already. Just take a minute, breathe deeply, let's take a break."

"A break? We have zero points," Kuroiro reminded. "Shouldn't we at least try for something else before the final-"

"Trying for anything now will just wear us out. If you two are too tired to make the quick sprint at the end, it won't mean anything. All we need, is when Kaminari paralyzes groups in the final moment, for you two to be able to recover quick enough to start running to the teams that are still shocked. I'll try and recover fast too so I can grab their headbands. We'll do it with thirty seconds left, and we'll take whatever team or teams are around us who Kaminari can catch in a single blow."

The two below him got serious looks on their faces at the tone in Zach's voice. "This is an all or nothing. If they block it, or we can't recover fast enough, or Kaminari uses just a bit too much electricity, then it fails. That's why we need to take a minute. Check the other teams who still have headbands. See which ones have enough points. Check the scoreboard. Think about which powers can stop this final attack."

"Yaoyorozu," Kaminari said, and Zach nodded fast in agreement. "She made that insulation blanket for you guys during the invasion."

"And she and Todoroki think fast too, they wouldn't fall for it," Zach agreed.

"Shiozaki can block too, and they're already back up over 400," Kuroiro mentioned, as it seemed his classmates who stole their original headband had taken another.

"Team Kendo and Team Monoma, and, Team Midoriya," Zach said. "Those three are our best targets. We can't go for Monoma-"

"He won't try and Copy your Quirk," Kuroiro said. "That nod-"

"I know," Zach said, confusing both of the people below him as he said it. "But that wouldn't be fair. Telling him he can't take my Quirk, and then going after him. I- we just can't do it."

"Sounds good to me," Kaminari agreed. "That wouldn't feel like a win."

"Plus, he's probably copied a few good Quirks at this point," Kuroiro mentioned. "So, Kendo and Midoriya."

"Team Midoriya is over behind that ice with Team Todoroki," Zach said, repeating what he just heard Present Mic shout.

"Five minutes left," Kaminari said, then that was repeated loudly over the whole stadium.

"Let's start moving," Zach said, and the two beneath him began a light jog towards where some of the other groups were fighting each other. Two of the teams in the pack of seven of them had a lot of headbands, so there was a group of three teams chasing one and a different nearby group of two chasing one. "Class B has almost all of them," Kaminari said in surprise, as it was Teams Kendo, Monoma, and Tetsutetsu who all had more than one, though Tetsutetsu's was chasing Kendo who had more.

 _Team Mineta has a lot of points too, and that Shinso guy has some as well. Shoji's moving around on the outside though, running fast and away from everyone. They know all they have to do is keep that 705 they got from us with the points they already had._

"Three minutes," Kaminari said, getting a little nervous as they still did not have a plan, and he was getting tired again even though they had not been running for very long.

They kept chasing after the groups as they moved closer to the area where there was a ring of ice on the edge of the field. _Should we try getting the drop on those two high scoring teams? No, we'd be too slow to catch Iida, and Tokoyami's defense is too good._ Kaminari made mention of another minute going by, and all three of them were feeling nervous.

"Pick up the pace a little," Zach said. "Let's get between them all. No one's going to pay attention to a zero-point team running with the pack this late in the game."

"Team Tetsutetsu will," Kuroiro said, but the boys beneath listened to Zach and sped up. Both of their legs and arms were hurting, and they were panting harder as they tried to reach the other groups.

"Lucky," Zach said, as they caught a break with the direction Team Kendo turned. Their team was more focused with the groups chasing them from up close, not the team still far. When they turned though, now both of their teams were running towards each other which closed the distance twice as fast. Kendo started turning a different way, the teams behind her all turned as well.

On their left, Team Monoma started to panic as Bakugo shot in and snagged two of the headbands away from Monoma. Sero pulled Bakugo back after, and the countdown hit one minute. "This isn't close enough," Kaminari warned, as he and Kuroiro pushed down harder to chase after Kendo.

"Run faster!" Zach exclaimed. _Fifty seconds!_

 _Bakugo's team is still after Monoma while they run, but Tetsutetsu's team doesn't know what to do since they changed to chasing Monoma so late in the game. They still have just over four hundred! We still have ZERO!_ He reminded himself to stop focusing on things so far away, as they reached forty seconds remaining. Then his eyes opened huge and time started slowing down for him. They were not yet the closest team to Kendo's, and the other teams between them did not have any points either. Every single one of them was speeding up. _They all know it's the end. Everyone's trying as hard as they can! The others who don't have any points are making last ditch efforts too, and Kendo's team wants to hold their points!_ "Kaminari," he said, his breath picking up. "Aim as best you can, then do it. We'll just have to push through the pain of a bigger one."

They were not at thirty seconds yet, they were not in the perfect range, and Kuroiro hated the sound of this but he clenched his teeth and picked up speed anyway. "Alright," Kaminari said, lifting his left hand and covering in electricity. "Brace yourselves!"

The teams in front of them and to their side heard Kaminari's shout and they started turning their heads. All of their faces turned blue at the look on Kaminari's face, the drip of blood coming down from his left nostril, and the electricity sparking off his hand. "1.3 million volts," Kaminari shouted, "SHOCK!" He slammed his left hand forward and towards the ground, and the lightning zapped out of him and into all the students in front of him who tried running to the sides at the last second to no avail.

A chorus of screams came out of almost a half dozen teams at the same time. They were loud and painful, and the crowd did a collective, "oooooh," of pity as they all started flinching and spazzing out from the pain. The electricity stopped. Behind Team Sazaki, Bakugo's team shot in out of nowhere and snagged the final headband from Monoma, and they instantly continued on towards the ice area where the first place team still was, which was now Todoroki as Present Mic just shouted. Present Mic yelled about Bakugo too, then Midoriya's team which just took another headband back from Todoroki…

"Guys," Zach said, his voice hoarse and his eyes cracking open. He stared forward and saw two of the teams in front of them collapse, and smoke coming off of the two others. "Kendo," he started, lifting a shaking hand and pointing at her.

"Errrr," Kaminari made a strange noise, lifting his head and looking at Zach in a blank way like he did not understand the statement.

Zach's eyes widened more, his plan ruining in front of him as the timer clicked down below twenty, and Kaminari looked like a complete idiot with no idea of what was going on. "You," Kuroiro reached over and grabbed Kaminari by the front of his shirt. Kuroiro stepped forward and yanked Kaminari with him, "Move!" Kuroiro shouted, turning his head and pulling Kaminari another step.

Kaminari lifted his left hand and a large number of people in the stands near them stared at him wondering what he was doing. Kaminari lifted his left fist, and then his thumb stuck up out the top of it. He turned forward and started running, and Kuroiro gasped but had to start moving his legs faster to keep up. Kuroiro was in a lot more pain than the idiot who did not feel the electrocution, and his legs were barely listening to him. "Get ready," Kuroiro shouted through clenched teeth.

"Ten seconds!" Present Mic yelled.

"Almost, there," Zach said, lifting his left arm more as it trembled in front of him. "Go, go right a bit of them, so I," Kuroiro shifted directions a bit, pulling Kaminari along too while holding onto Zach as tight as he could. Zach was bouncing around on their shoulders and their grip was looser than ever, with Kaminari seemingly forgetting why he was still holding on. Zach held his breath as he reached for the back of Kendo's neck with his left arm.

Kendo pulled away. They had been far enough that they were the first of the other teams to regain control, and even her horses started to move while their heads were turned sideways with looks of panic on their faces. Zach reached out farther though, as Kendo was moving slowly. He reached and his fingers brushed against the headbands, and then he reached out farther and clenched. His hand twitched from the pain of the electricity as they ran by.

"TIME UP!" Present Mic yelled.

Kuroiro collapsed beneath Zach, and Zach fell to his left completely onto Kaminari who collapsed as well while letting out a surprised, 'Huh?' The three of them lay in a heap in front of Team Kendo who looked down in shock at the boy on top of Kaminari, the boy who had two headbands in his hands.

"Two?" Zach whispered as he stared at them, then lifted his head back to Kendo's head to see one more headband still there.

The whole crowd started cheering, yelling at the top of their lungs because of what just happened all over the arena.

"225, and 70," Zach read out while staggering up to his feet off of Kaminari.

Kaminari rolled on his back and stuck a thumbs up, "Weee!"

"Not wee, idiot," Kuroiro muttered. He put his hands on the floor at his sides and tried pushing himself up, but he wound up wincing again in pain and clenching his eyes shut. When he opened them though, they widened more than Zach had seen them do before. Shihai Kuroiro reached up and grabbed Zach's hand, and the girls who were looking at them angrily lost some of the anger in their gazes which turned to mainly frustration.

"You idiots," Kinoko Komori said after they helped Kendo down in front of them. She took slow steps to the two standing next to the idiotic electric-type on his back. "Taking two doesn't mean anything, nn," she winced and then lifted and crossed her arms. The girl with long brown bangs that covered up her eyes said in annoyance. "Now, neither of us are, going to get top four."

"Not that we would have anyway," Kendo said with a sigh. She lifted up the 165 point headband she had and they all sighed while looking up at the scoreboard.

"460, really wouldn't have gotten us close…" Zach started to say, only to look at the scoreboard oddly as it was very different from what he saw a minute ago. He had not seen Bakugo's team steal the last of Monoma's points, but Monoma was back at 220 somehow even after losing those points. _That's our original number,_ Zach realized and he turned his head to look over near the ice where Team Tetsutetsu and Team Monoma were arguing for some reason, each team with one headband in their hands.

Team Monoma had tried in the final seconds after Bakugo had stolen their points desperately to get points back, while Tetsutetsu's team had turned to look for Team Kendo when Monoma had lost his. They were so focused on getting some more points, that they only managed to pull away enough to avoid getting both of their headbands stolen, similar to what Kendo had done.

 _Even with the points scattered though, I'm surprised,_ Zach thought, while looking back up at the scoreboard. "Fifth place, isn't bad," he said, looking towards Kuroiro who shrugged and nodded his head in agreement. Zach reached down and grabbed Kaminari by the hand he was still holding up. "Here that big guy, we got fifth?" The girls in Class B all cracked smiles at that. As annoyed as they were at the blond boy, seeing him look like this much of an idiot made them feel pretty good. Kuroiro let out a sigh then he grabbed Kaminari's other arm and helped him to his feet, and he and Zach stood on opposite sides of him to hold him up.

 _Still,_ Zach thought, while hearing some cheers from the stands near him that made him a little embarrassed that people had been watching his team and cheered for their friendly action. He turned his head and looked towards the edge of the arena where Asui, Mineta, and Shoji all looked confused, as did the three on the team of the guy with indigo-colored spiky hair who was walking away with a handful of headbands, including the 705 point one they had stolen from Team Tetsutetsu at the start. _How did that Shinso guy get so many points? He's in second place, but no one on his team looks like they have any idea as to how they did it. Ojiro looks like he's apologizing as Mineta shouts at him…_

* * *

After an hour break for lunch, the students returned to the field for the afternoon activities. Present Mic shouted to the crowd while the giant screen revealed that the final part of the Sports Festival was going to be a tournament with the sixteen people from the four teams who made it into the finals. The top four teams had had a big lead over all the others, and everyone cheered as their faces appeared up on the screen. All the classes were out on the field listening as Midnight talked about the final event and how they would be drawing lots, and the others around Zach were getting really into it.

He heard Sero and Kirishima talking about the different one-on-one events they had every year, and he let out a small sigh that he did not get to take part in them. _After years of watching this. More than half the years I've been alive at least. I really wanted to make it in for my first-_

"Um, excuse me," Ojiro raised his hand and Midnight stopped before she was going to draw lots.

Everyone looked in towards the boy with the long, thick tail who had a conflicted expression on his face. "Ojiro?" Zach wondered as he looked towards him.

Ojiro looked down but he said firmly with his hand raised, "I'm withdrawing."

"Ojiro, why?" Midoriya spun and asked.

"This is a rare chance for the pros to see you," Iida added in shock.

Ojiro lowered his hand but while still keeping his gaze down he continued, "I barely remember anything from the cavalry battle until almost the end."

 _That's it,_ Zach turned his head and looked towards a different section of the field where one of the general studies' classes were. He knew exactly where to look, because he had already looked for the guy on their way out there. "I know this is a great chance, and that it's foolish to waste it…" Zach looked back towards Ojiro and grimaced at the frustrated expression on his classmate's face. "But- everyone here competed by giving it their all! I can't, I can't be up there with everyone without knowing what really happened." He looked down at his lifted fist and then brought it up to cover his eyes as the girls behind him tried telling him not to worry about it and just focus on the finals.

"I'm talking about my pride here… I can't…" he paused and everyone looked at him with pity at how he was feeling. "Also, why are you guys wearing cheerleader outfits?"

It was a question Zach had had but did not want to ask. No point in questioning a good thing after all, but he looked at the girls to see them all gulping and looking down like they themselves were unsure as to why that was. Then he spotted Mineta and Kaminari grinning at each other, and he could not help but crack a smile at it all.

Over at Class B, two people looked at each other and nodded. The two of them stepped out of their class's formation and headed over to the stage where Midnight turned to them. "I'm Nirengeki Shoda. I'd like to withdraw for the same reason."

"Me too," his classmate added. The hairy boy in a pair of glasses continued, "Jurota Shishida. You can take my name out." He looked frustrated and bared his teeth after, but the hairy boy just turned away and walked back towards his classmates who were all confused by his frustrated expression and what was going on.

 _His whole team,_ Zach thought, clenching his teeth and fists at his sides. _That guy,_ Zach turned and glared towards Shinso again, this time narrowing his eyebrows in and hoping the other boy would make eye contact with him. _I want to fight him-_

Nirengeki gave his reason for thinking that it would go against the spirit of the festival if they got to advance, and then the two announcers: Present Mic and Aizawa each wondered what Midnight was going to do about it. Midnight lifted her whip while beginning, "Youthful talk like that is something…" she smacked the whip forward and shouted, "I like! Shoda, Shishida, Ojiro, I accept your withdrawals!"

 _She decided based on her taste…_ Zach thought, along with everyone else around him as they could see the blushing face of their teacher.

"In that case," Midnight began, putting a finger to her chin and looking around. "We'll have to move up three people from the fifth place cavalry battle team…"

Zach's bottom lip started lowering as he still had not put it together. Kirishima spun to Kaminari on his side and gave him a big smile, and Kaminari looked confused for a second before his eyes opened huge. Over in Class B, four girls standing behind Kuroiro gave him dark looks, while he sweatdropped in front of them. Kendo sighed after a second though, and she put a hand down on his shoulder. Kuroiro looked back and saw the girls behind him all start smiling at him. "You worked hard for this," Kendo told him. "Go get it out there. You're the only one from Class B after all."

Midnight smiled and smacked her whip forward, "Which works great! Since the fifth place team only had three members anyway!"

Kaminari ran over to Zach and grabbed him by the shoulders. "We did it dude!" Zach's eyes were still huge as he stared at the stage, and at the woman who turned his way when she pointed the whip at him. "And with that, Kaminari, Kuroiro, and Sazaki all move on to the finals!"

The crowd burst into loud cheers, echoing over the stadium. The people who had seen the effort the group put in in their final stretch were yelling the loudest, but even the people who had focused more on the top teams' fights were cheering too. Zach's lips trembled for a few seconds, then the corners lifted up and he looked into Kaminari's eyes in front of him. "Yeah," he said. "We did it. We really- we did it!" He yelled, and his classmates around him all looked to him in surprise, most of them never having heard him yell that loudly before. Only a few had, and his shout reminded them of that moment. Seeing him now though, the excited and determined look on his face looked the opposite of what they saw that day.

The two girls standing next to each other, (in cheerleader outfits), glanced at each other. Yaoyorozu smiled, and after a few seconds Jirou nodded along and gave a soft smile back. Jirou looked back towards Zach afterwards, and her smile lowered down a little. _I don't want to fight him in the tournament. Let me draw a lot far away from his._

 _Let me draw a lot close to his,_ Zach thought at the same time, turning his head again and looking towards general studies. This time he made sure, and he stared Shinso straight in the eyes with an angry look of his own. Shinso leaned back, as did the other general studies' students who were around him and all looking towards the boys who just got in in Class A. _You're going down,_ Zach thought, _Hitoshi, Shinso._

* * *

 **A/N Thanks for reading! Hope you enjoyed the cavalry battle. Zach just makes it in with Kaminari and Kuroiro's help, and we'll find out who he's facing next time! And, some review responses:**

Roxas Itsuka chapter 7 . 21h ago

Good chapter. Great reaction from Jirou.

 **Thanks! We see a bit of her reaction again there at the end, though this time she's made it into the finals as well after joining Todoroki's team... Hope you enjoyed!**

ARSLOTHES chapter 7 . 11h ago

really interesting, hope he practices on animals to get death down to rendering unconscious since quirks can be trained or at least dilute the power among a lot of people

 **Thanks for the review. We'll see if he's ever able to start managing his power... Hope you enjoyed!**

Guest chapter 4 . Jun 19

I think you wasted a perfectly good chance to show how his power would be useful by having Zach fight some no-named loser instead of him just killing the Nomu with one touch. That would have been much more impressive instead of this whiny "Oh no I killed someone about to kill me" shit

 **Well, Zach did fight a no-name kind of guy, and he def didn't kill the Nomu with one touch... so, not really sure what you're talking about. Anyway, the killing thing probably wouldn't have messed with him as much- if Snipe didn't show up at the same time so it turned out he didn't need to use the power anyway. It wasn't a "about to kill me" guy, but just another villain who would have been defeated anyway.**

Guest chapter 7 . 9h ago

Great chapter! Its nice to see that everyone is still supportice of Zach, and that he and Midoriya are training buddies! I can understand Jirou though. Her thoughts are justified. I just hope she and Zach can work it out! Can't wait to see how Zach does in the tournament!

 **Thanks! I think all of them, having been in the situation too and feeling the same things can get why he might have felt cornered into it. Zach makes it through the first two rounds, we'll see how he does moving forward. Thanks for the review!**


	9. Chapter 9: Sports Festival Finals

**Disclaimer: I don't own Boku no Hero Academia**

 **Chapter 9:**

 _Holy crap,_ Zach thought as he stared at his lot number. _It really is, my lucky day._

 _He, that idiot…_ In the crowd, a student in Class B glared at Zach's back furiously.

Zach showed Midnight his lot with a big smile on his face, and she shouted how she loved his enthusiasm and put him up on the board for the first fight.

 _Turning Kuroiro against us._

Zach turned and looked out into the group right off the stage, at a boy who was walking away from them but glanced back when he heard what Midnight shouted. Zach made eye contact with Shinso as Midnight called out what would be the first match-up of the tournament.

 _Taking Kendo's points at the very end._

The boy on stage with short spiky black hair started walking back off it, and he went over to Kaminari, and to Monoma's own classmate.

Monoma was seething in anger. _One Class B student. I, after all that talk… after my plans!_ Monoma was shaking, and a few of his friends backed up around him as they were getting freaked out by how creepy his expression looked. _And it's all because of that guy. Zach Sazaki. I even, I ended with his points. And as if they're taunting us, the points they ended with, are the same points we started with!_ Monoma's hands stopped shaking and he narrowed his eyes at the right side of the boy. His eyes focused on Zach's right hand, _"Don't copy my rider's power!" Why would Kuroiro say that, unless the power was really dangerous? Time to try again…_

* * *

"Audience!" Present Mic shouted. "The finals that you've all been waiting for have finally started!"

The cheers were louder than Zach had ever heard before as he walked alone out of the tunnel. He tried to keep his focus straight on the stage ahead, but he was in awe of how many people were up on their feet shouting and cheering. "Match One! He hasn't stuck out much at all so far, low placing on the first event and barely getting in after the second, but he's got spirit! From the hero course, Zach Sazaki!"

 _What's with that introduction?_ Zach thought, losing his smile with an annoyed look replacing it while he looked towards Present Mic's commentator booth.

"Umm," Present Mic continued after seeing that dirty look. "Versus! Sorry, he hasn't done anything to stand out much yet either! From general studies, it's Hitoshi Shinso!"

Shinso was frowning deeper than Zach as they each walked towards the stage. They met eyes before they made it, and they both started glaring into each other's eyes. "The rules are simple!" Present Mic yelled. "Force your opponent out of bounds, or immobilize them!" The two students walked up on stage and started crossing it to stand before each other near the center. "You can also win by making your opponent say, 'I give up!'"

The two of them stopped with a decent gap between them, then Zach stood there with his arms at his sides and keeping a straight expression on his face while glaring at his opponent. "Bring on the injuries!" Present Mic continued, while Shinso looked his opponent up and down. "Because we've got our very own Recovery Girl on standby! Put your ethics and morals aside for the moment! But of course, anything life-threatening is crap! It's not allowed!"

 _Bet he'd say that no matter who was up here,_ Zach told himself, keeping his focus on the match and not letting it get torn away by anything. His eyes narrowed at his opponent as it seemed like the match was about to start. Shinso scratched the back of his neck and kept a cool and relaxed disposition about him, but Zach noticed the sweat on the side of his face. _He's seen me staring. I don't like him. Ojiro told me what you did. I'm not falling for it._

Cementoss walked into the middle of the outside of the stage and created a chair to referee from while Present Mic continued the introduction. Cementoss sat down and held up a hand before saying in his low voice, "I'll stop things if they go too far."

"'I give up,' huh?" Shinso began.

Zach closed his eyes and took a deep breath in, then let a deep breath out. _I can't hear you. Not that I'll say, 'I can't hear you.' I don't hear what you just said._

"That monkey was going on about his pride…"

"Start!" Present Mic shouted.

Zach's eyes shot open and he sprinted forward.

"…But don't you think he was an idiot for throwing away his- whoa-"

Zach sprinted across the gap as fast as he could. He brought his right arm up. Cementoss started lifting a hand with a nervous look on his face. Shinso pulled his head to one side, his eyes both darting to Zach's right hand that was inside a glove. His eyes focused so hard on that glove, his head pulling the other way, that he had no idea what hit him when all of Zach's force went into his left fist in the hook he slammed into the side of Shinso's face. Shinso's feet left the ground, his body spinning to the side, his eyes rolling back as spit flew out of his mouth.

Every student in Class A's seating section dropped their bottom lips. All the kids in Class B too, along with most of the heroes in the crowd. Shinso hit the ground, and he lay there flat on his back without moving. Zach brought his left arm back down and snapped his head to the side with a frown on his face. He still did not speak though, did not say, 'Serves you right,' as he wanted to. _Don't know if his Quirk would still work. Thanks Ojiro, I would have shouted something at him the second the match began if you didn't tell me the secret to his power._

"Um, Shinso, can you hear me?" Midnight walked over and asked. No response. His chest was heaving though and she relaxed a bit as she saw the punch only knocked him out. A small grin came to her face as she glanced at Zach, then she threw a hand up in the air and yelled, "Shinso is no longer able to fight. Sazaki advances to the next round!"

The cheers were thunderous. Zach's stern and serious expression after taking down Shinso replaced by one of shock and then anxiety as every person in the stadium was cheering his name or just yelling out at how amazing that was. Class A shot up to their feet and started cheering loudest, some of them pumping fists up in the air for their classmate. The whole crowd was yelling, most of them at least. A lot of the general studies kids were quiet, and one boy in Class B was sitting there and glaring down at the kid who did not use his right hand in that fight, or use a Quirk at all.

"That was cool!" Kirishima shouted from the Class A section one away from Class B. "Just, BAM! One hit knock out!"

Ojiro looked down towards the stage and smiled as Zach managed to listen to his advice and advance to the next round. Zach looked up towards the area as he was starting to head back for the tunnel, and he made eye contact with Ojiro even from the distance. _This is your win too,_ he thought, then he threw his arms up to enjoy the last of the cheers before walking out into the tunnel.

* * *

Kaminari walked down to get in the waiting room for his match. He was up third, so with Jirou and Ashido's match already starting, he had to get his warm-up in fast. _Sero's already getting ready. I didn't even notice he left the booth. He's got longer range than I do, but if he touches me with that tape, I'mma blast him. That tape, conducts electricity, right? If not, then Indiscriminate Shock it is!_

A boy was leaning against a wall ahead of Kaminari, not far from the waiting rooms. He had his head bowed and a smug look on his face along with a small smile. He chuckled as Kaminari was walking past, and Kaminari smirked and opened his mouth to mention how few people from Class B made it in. The other boy beat him to it, "I know it was Zach Sazaki who killed the villain-"

Kaminari spun and his eyes opened huge. Then they narrowed and he stepped towards the Class B kid with neatly combed blond hair and a smug expression on his face. "Bastard," Kaminari growled. "Who told you?"

Monoma's eyes opened wide, his mouth growing into a big grin. "You, just now," Monoma replied. Kaminari tilted his head to the side and leaned backwards, then his eyes started opening even wider and he lifted his right hand up and covered his mouth. "Haha, I knew it. I had my predictions of course, but I was just going around to the dumber-looking members of Class 1-A to try and figure it out. I used the same technique on that Mineta kid asking about Midoriya, but I heard a very defensive response that the two of them were together and Mineta assured me it was just a rumor…"

"Oi, what do you," Kaminari stepped towards Monoma while glaring harshly at him. He clenched his fists, and then he heard a voice shouting for him and Sero to get out to the stage echoing through the halls. A door opened up just a little away from them, and Sero looked over to see his opponent in the hall. He opened his mouth, but Kaminari took another step towards Monoma and hissed, "Don't tell anyone."

"Oh, I won't," Monoma assured him, in the least believable tone possible.

Kaminari's fists clenched tighter, then he heard a voice right behind him, "Hey, Kaminari. Let's go." Kaminari looked over his shoulder and saw Sero looking at him with a hesitant look. "Come on, focus on our fight, yeah?"

Kaminari darted one more glare back at Monoma, while in his head he was screaming at himself. "You know, threatening me is not a very hero-like thing to do," Monoma said, and Kaminari spun and started marching away. He got to Sero's side and they started heading down together to the point where they would split and go to opposite tunnels. Before they got far though, Monoma cupped a hand to his mouth and called out, "Just like killing someone!"

The blond boy walking away clenched his fists even harder at his sides, then he reached up and grabbed his forehead while his face scrunched up in furious frustration. Sero looked next to him and then back at the boy who had tried to figure out who in their class had done it before. He was the one who told Zach it himself, and as he looked at Kaminari's guilty face, he realized what had just happened. "Dude, you didn't," Sero began, right as they reached the point they had to split up.

"He tricked me," Kaminari whispered, before turning and walking the other direction as Sero had to. _How is that, hero-like?_ Kaminari thought, though he brought his other hand up and covered both his eyes as he walked off. _I'm about to go on stage in front of thousands- millions including tv. This is my big debut!_ He dragged his hands down his face and then glared forward, his teeth grinding over each other. _For now, just focus on anger. That kid. Monoma. He tricked me. He made me- I'm such an idiot!_ "DAMN IT!" Kaminari roared.

* * *

"Whoa, they look intense," Zach whispered, and the invisible girl on his right side nodded her head as did the boy with the thick tail on his left. He sat between Hagakure and Ojiro, and they all just enjoyed a really good fight against Ashido and Jirou which had looked pretty matched up for most of it. Jirou wound up coming through in the end, when Ashido got cornered and could not use her acid to slide out of the way quick enough to avoid Jirou's sound-waves.

Now everyone was staring down at Sero and Kaminari who were usually two of the most carefree guys in the class. _Something's wrong,_ Zach thought, as he noticed Kaminari shoot a look up towards their box before refocusing. Even Present Mic shouted something about how thick the air was between those two. They were frowning at each other, and Uraraka whispered in the seat in front of Zach, "Do you think they got in a fight?"

"Maybe, they're just really into it," Hagakure whispered. "D-Do your best you guys!" She shouted, pumping a fist in the air for the two fighters facing each other.

Zach nodded his head. He did not really know what was up with them, but he cupped his hands to his mouth and shouted, "Go for it Kaminari!"

It was one of the loudest times Zach had shouted in front of his classmates. Kaminari heard it too, and he got a pained look in his eyes right as the match started. Kaminari ran forward, trying to focus his feelings into anger. Sero jumped back and then shot the tape from his elbows, but right when it hit Kaminari, he pulled it back. Kaminari expected the tape to wrap around him and he covered himself in electricity in that moment. His eyes widened as Sero just started running around the outside of the ring, his electricity not reaching the other boy. Sero's tape not hitting him either meant that Kaminari still did not know if the tape conducted electricity.

 _Screw it then._ "Here we go!" Kaminari yelled now that he was in the center of the stage. He rose both arms above his head, then he slammed them down while Sero crossed his arms and braced himself. The entire stage covered in lightning. Everyone staring down cheered as Kaminari blasted the place, and then a bunch of people started laughing at his expression after it was finished. Kaminari stood there in the center of the stage with a blank look on his face. He slowly turned himself around and then started walking in a funny way towards a corner of the ring.

"Look at him go!" Present Mic shouted. "Sero still hasn't fallen down, but that might just be the shock people!"

Kaminari walked up to Sero and he grabbed the boy with elbows that shot tape by the shoulders. Kaminari started pushing forward and continuing to walk, and then suddenly he found it hard to keep walking. He lifted his gaze up and saw Sero's darkened face from the electricity glaring down at him, his feet pressing hard into the ground. He was as close to the corner as he would get without worrying about falling out of bounds if he fell from the shock, and after that push his feet were almost touching the edge. Sero lifted his shaky arms and grabbed Kaminari under his armpits though, and then he pushed to the left side. The other boy looked down as a reaction to feeling arms on his sides, then he felt confused as he fell to the side before putting together what was happening.

He hit the ground and scooted back for the ring, but even though he got back in the lines, he had already fallen out of them. Sero dropped down to his knees panting in the corner of the stage, glancing out the corners of his eyes at Kaminari who stood back up and then sadly bowed his stupid-looking face to the floor. _Did he hold some back to be able to push me out? He should have just gone for making me unconscious. If he still has, a mind to be depressed about that,_ Sero thought, glancing the other way again before pushing his twitching hands down hard at his sides and fighting the pain to get back on his feet.

"Kaminari was out of bounds, Hanta Sero advances to…"

* * *

Zach watched the following matches as closely as he could. _Everyone is a potential opponent,_ he thought, but after watching the fourth match, he became convinced that only the next two people he was facing were his possible opponents. The fight between Midoriya and Todoroki was so intense that it threatened them up in their box. For a first round match, it was a lot more exciting than a single punch to the face, Zach had to admit. _Midoriya wound up using his Quirk a lot at the festival though. I really didn't think he would go so far in that fight. He probably injured himself more than Recovery Girl can deal with._

The following fight was funnier but everyone in Class A tried not to laugh as Mei Hatsume messed around with their class representative for an inordinate amount of time. She tricked Iida into wearing gear she had created, just so she could show off to all the support companies watching her as she made a thirty minute self-promotional advertisement out of what should have been a fair fight. At one point during it Kaminari and Sero came back, and Zach turned to ask Kaminari about what happened that made him and Sero so serious, but they were smiling and acting like they did not know what the others were talking about. _They took a while to get back too. Were they talking about something, or were the two just injured? Something's definitely up,_ Zach thought, as he had pretended to go back to watching the fight only to immediately see Kaminari's smile lower.

 _So I'll fight Jirou, then Todoroki… if I beat Jirou that is. She had an awesome fight, and I really don't know if I'll be able to get close enough. I'm not going to feint with my right arm at all either though, not with her. I'll keep it at my side the whole time or I feel like she'll be holding back. Even with it at my side, she might not be able to fight me to her fullest… but that's not my fault. I don't know why, she won't just say something to me. She hasn't spoken about it once. I don't even know what her problem is. That I killed someone? That I yelled at her? My Quirk in general?_ Zach furrowed his brow and put his chin on his hands, _Girls are complicated._

They watched as Hatsume stepped out of bounds to give Iida the victory, though Iida was livid after it. The following match was Tokoyami versus Yaoyorozu, and it was almost as fast as Zach's match as Tokoyami forced her out of bounds before she was able to create anything to fight back against him with. _That's gotta be rough,_ Zach thought as he saw Yaoyorozu's expression at the end of the match. _She's always ranking so high in everything, but she got taken out in seconds._

Zach felt bad for Yaoyorozu, but he got really into it as the next fight started. Kirishima was fighting Kuroiro from Class B, and Zach started cheering for Kuroiro even among his own classmates. "Hey, come on, you gotta root for Kirishima here!" Mineta called over while waving a fist at Zach.

Zach looked over at him and shook his head, "Without Kuroiro, I wouldn't have made it into the finals. I've gotta back him up here." He spun back and called out the other class member's name again, while the others around him yelled for Kirishima. Zach looked back as his voice was drowned out, and he said, "Come on Kaminari. You agree with me, right?"

Kaminari looked down at Zach two rows ahead of him and he opened his mouth to respond, then just froze with it open. Half the class saw Zach ask it, and they all quieted down a little at Kaminari's reaction. "What?" Zach asked.

"Uh, sorry, I was just thinking-" Kaminari tried coming up with an excuse.

"You, thinking?" Jirou said skeptically, and the students around them started laughing. "I bet your mind's still fried from Sero kicking your butt."

 _Thank you Jirou!_ Kaminari thought while smiling towards the girl who leaned backwards at his reaction to her teases.

The match started and Zach spun away from Kaminari. As much as the blond boy's actions were confusing him, he wanted to get into the match and he started cheering for the two who got up close quickly to start fighting. The match looked hard fought, but Kirishima's blows were too much for Kuroiro to take, and the other boy's punches did not do enough against Kirishima's hard body. Present Mic called out Kirishima's name, but Zach still cheered for both of them after it was over.

"Wow Zach, you're really into this today," Hagakure said as the boy next to her finally sat back down between where her and Ojiro were already sitting. "You're never usually this loud."

"It's because it's the Sports Festival," Zach said. "This whole, everything," he looked around with a huge grin on his face. "The stage. The cameras. The stands full of people. Heroes coming to scout us. Every year I watched the festival I imagined when I would be up on that stage," he started shaking and he lifted his left fist in front of him again. "One more match, then the second round starts. I'm going to start getting ready," he shot right back out of his seat after only just sitting down. Talking about the situation he was in right now, the fulfilled dream from so long ago, he could not get any more excited for his next match.

Tokoyami walked past him as he was nearing the top of their stands, and the dark boy with the Dark Shadow Quirk nodded his head as Zach was walking by. "Good luck," Tokoyami told him.

"Thanks," Zach replied, grinning as he headed off to go stretch again. _This will be my first intense fight today. So Uraraka and Bakugo will fight now. That's going to be better than some people think I bet. She could really do a number… but Bakugo's gonna take it. Alright, focus on mine. Jirou. I saw most of the fight when I got back up there. She used mostly the same techniques I saw at the rescue training, but I know because of that that she could be stronger than she fought Ashido with. Doubt she'd go that level with me, unless she is really afraid of my right hand. Alright, I won't just put it at my side. I'll start with my right arm behind my back. It might look like I'm holding back to the crowd, but hopefully it gets it through to her what I'm trying to do._

 _She's, probably going to have to look me in the eyes, at least for a few seconds when we get up there. I can figure out exactly how she's feeling when I see that look. I'll try and fight without freaking her out too much, show her that I won't use my Quirk-_ Zach started jumping in place, lifting his fists and punching fast in front of him in little combos. He lowered his smile a little and got a more serious look to his face. _Jirou has a good Quirk. Shinso's is amazing too, but knowing his secret saved me. I think if I get close to Jirou, I can take her on even one-armed. Pushing her out of bounds will be tough, but I doubt she'll give up just by knocking her down, she'll plug her earphone-jacks into something and blast me. And I don't want to just take her out like Shinso- no, no I can't think about holding back. We're all trying our hardest here._

A huge explosion rocked the entire stadium, and Zach spun his head to look at the wall on his right in surprise. He never made it to the waiting room, as he wound up pacing back and forth while doing his combos. _Damn, Bakugo needed something like that against Uraraka? The whole building shook as bad as that big explosion Todoroki and Midoriya made earlier._

He heard the winner get his name called out, and Zach made his way for the tunnel. _I'll see her out there,_ he told himself, not going to wait to split off from her just to meet back up again. He tried not thinking about how she was probably waiting for him to get ahead anyway, which was why she did not go to the waiting room that he had been pacing in front of. Zach calmed his breathing and kept a steady smile on his face as he headed towards his entrance tunnel. _This is it. The quarter-finals of the U.A. Sports Festival. If I could make it into the semis… I'd have to fight Todoroki._ He shivered at the thought, but he grinned after it and shook his head. _And I'll try as hard as I can in that. That's what it means, to be a hero!_

Zach walked down the tunnel, heading for the light and the stadium ahead.

Up in the teacher's stands, All Might's phone started ringing. _"A phone call is here! A phone call is here! A phone-"_ He picked up the phone to cut off the ringtone that a bunch of the other teachers sweatdropped at the sound of. He lifted it up to his head, "Ah, Tsukauchi, what are-" All Might stopped talking and the other teachers around him looked over at All Might wondering why sweat started forming all over his face.

On the arena floor, two students walked out of the gateways on either side of the stage. Present Mic started shouting introductions for them. "Not much to say about the previous rounds, but a one-hit K.O. in the first match! Everyone's looking to see what he'll do this time: Zach Sazaki!"

Cheers rang out, but Zach was focused on the girl across the stage he saw heading towards it. He figured he was drowning out the cheering, because it sounded like it was not as loud as it was in the previous round. Present Mic then called out about Kyoka Jirou and her previous match, and Jirou lifted her head while she walked up on the stage. She looked over at Zach, and her eyes widened as she stared at him. He was walking up on the stage with his right arm behind his back. It was not _that_ noticeable, as he still had it down at his side until his elbow when his forearm pointed back diagonally. His hand was still close to his waist, but it was behind his body, and he gave Jirou a grin as he walked towards her on the stage.

Less people were cheering in the crowd as the two of them neared each other, and the murmuring and muttering of people talking to their neighbors started to get louder when everyone was doing it on top of each other.

In the general studies' student section, one of Shinso's friends ran up to his row of seats with huge eyes, and he ran down the row until he was right in front of Shinso with wide eyes. "Shinso, you're lucky to be alive man." The boy turned his phone around, and Shinso's eyes opened wide and sweat formed on the sides of his face. He then looked past his classmate who moved to the side to show the others in general studies, some of whom pulled out their phones and started searching the link online, though it was not hard to find the number one breaking news story.

"Guys," Mineta began in the middle of Class A. The other students who were starting to get confused at what was going on around the stadium glanced at Mineta, then a few of them looked towards Kaminari who put both hands up to his face and grabbed his head so hard it looked like it hurt.

"That, that bastard!" Kaminari slammed his hands down and he spun to the nearby wall, sprinting over to it and jumping up. Sero ran after him and grabbed Kaminari by his lower body, while Kaminari started yelling over the wall.

On Class B's side of the wall, the other students looked towards Kaminari, then over towards Monoma who the spikier blond boy was shouting at. Monoma's initial smirk had lowered down and vanished though. His head was looking both ways and around at the whole stadium that was starting to sound a lot different than a minute ago. _This might have, gone too far, for some revenge,_ Monoma thought, easing back in his chair as even his own classmates around him realized what Kaminari was shouting to be true as Monoma slouched in his chair.

Itsuka Kendo looked down at Monoma as she had stood up between him and where Kaminari was looking over the wall. "Even for you, Monoma," she began, before turning her head and looking out towards the stage.

Class A had mostly looked back towards the stage after they saw what Mineta showed them on his phone. When the cheers had almost fully died down, when the muttering and chattering of spectators overtook it, their words piled up on top of each other and started reaching the stage down below. Each member of Class A was able to watch as the boy down on the stage slowly lowered his smile. They saw the look of determination, the competitive spirit on his face, fade away.

" _…That's the same boy…"_

 _"They even let him compete in…"_

 _"…one who killed…"_

"Murderer."

Zach's fists unclenched and his eyes opened huge. The word came out clearer than any of the others. It did not seem like it was necessarily shouted at him, but it was loud, and a lot of people heard it. Some heroes started shouting in that area demanding to know who said that. _Murderer? No one's, ever…_ Zach bit down on his bottom lip and his right fist clenched so hard at his side. The black glove he wore, the slightly thicker one the school provided for him for the fights, and the one underneath, they did nothing to stop the pain as he clenched his right fist so hard and brought it down to his side. Then his eyes focused in front of him and his bottom lip started bleeding as his eyes opened even wider, because he met Jirou's gaze. It darted from his right fist that was shaking in rage, up to his eyes with the fear that she was about to go up against him while he had that loaded weapon shaking and his emotions out of check.

"I, give up," Zach said. He turned around and started walking away.

Jirou's eyes opened huge, and Midnight and Cementoss spun to each other before looking back towards Zach. Midnight started, "Um, Zach Sazaki- are you-"

"I give up," Zach repeated, his voice quieter, and he just kept walking. He walked straight back towards his tunnel, still hearing them all murmur and mutter around him. He heard some heroes shouting at others to be quiet, then he heard another shouting that he did not deserve to be in the tournament. _The longer I'm here, the more damage to the Sports Festival I'll do. It's the only logical move. I just have to leave. Then the festival can continue. Hero society won't be hurt by my being here. I'll just leave._ He neared the tunnel and tried so hard for a few more seconds until he was in the dark, and then his eyes filled with water and they spilled out over his face. He just bit down on his bottom lip though to prevent from letting out any sobs, because he could still be in range of people in the stadium.

 _They're going to come down,_ he thought, and he started sprinting forward. He ran to the end of the tunnel and cut right as hard as he could. He sprinted down a hallway and heard a voice call out behind him, but he just kept running. He sprinted down the hall all the way to one of the exits into a main area, then he cut outside and sprinted as fast as he could across that main area. _Move too fast for anyone to see,_ he thought, while digging his heels in and pushing as hard as he could with every step.

Death Arms and Kamui Woods were standing at security but looking up towards a television on the side of the arena with wide eyes at what just happened. Both of them heard some commotion in front of them and lowered their heads, only for their eyes to open huge at the sight of the boy in a blue uniform sprinting their way. He had two trails of blood coming out of his bottom lip to his chin, and tears all over his face, but he was not making a sound as he sprinted by them and straight out on the street. "H-Hey," Death Arms began, lifting up an arm.

Kamui Woods lifted his arms to stretch wood out to catch the kid, but the teen cut around a corner and the two security guards had to run out on the sidewalk. "Do we, chase him?" Death Arms began, before thinking about the rumor that had reached his ears around the same time the kid on the screen said that he gave up.

"You stay here," Kamui Woods said, and then he started running after the boy himself. He reached the intersection that the boy turned down as soon as he ran out of the area, but the kid was nowhere to be seen. The pro hero frowned and clenched his fists at his sides. "Too slow," he muttered at himself.

 _What was I thinking?!_ Zach screamed in his head as he sprinted down a sidewalk. Inside the windows of buildings on his sides, he saw people in cafes, restaurants, looking at the tvs on the walls and talking about what they were seeing on their phones. _Did I really forget? Did I really think people, would forget?_ He wanted to scream at the top of his lungs, so he just bit down harder and felt the pain of his teeth digging into his lip. _What are they all looking at? I left my phone at the arena! I don't need it,_ he thought, picking up his pace even more and just sprinting as hard as he could down the sidewalk. He did not turn on the road that would take him in the direction of his house. _Where am I going?!_

He kept on running. _I can't go home. Everyone at the apartment complex would have been watching. They'll all be waiting for me. Jenny will have been watching, even if I've been ignoring her for two weeks now. She's going to find out. Everyone's going to find out. Everyone in Japan knows! Be a hero? Who in the world, would think of me as a hero now? I failed. I failed for real this time._ Zach put his hands on the sides of his head and he kept running, then he put his right hand in front of his mouth and screamed into it. Some people he ran past looked at him in confusion as to why he looked so frantic and in pain, but before the man could ask him while reaching back, his girlfriend pointed and said, "That's the one-"

Zach screamed again into his hand. _I hate this. They called me a murderer. A murderer. That's what I am to the world. That's what, I am!_ Zach cut down an alleyway and he ran to the end of it, then he grabbed a trashcan near him and he shoved his head down into it. He put the lid back over the top of his head, and then he screamed at the top of his lungs. "RAAAAAGHHHGAAAAAAA! AAAAAAHHHHH!" He took a few short breaths in, then screamed again, "AHH! Ah ah AHHHHH! AHHHGGH-ack ack ka- AHhhh," he was losing his voice, and he started coughing as he ran out of all breath.

He finally pulled his head out of the trashcan and he looked both ways. No one had come into the alley. He sniffled a few times, then he reached up and rubbed his eyes, his bloody lips dipping down at the corners into so dark a look he could no longer cry. He leaned against the wall next to the trash, and he slid down while pushing a different can to the side. He pulled up his knees, sitting between two trash cans where he would be impossible to see unless from directly in front of him. Zach took a few deep breaths, scrunching his face at the smell of the garbage around him. He stared at the wall across from him, and he just sat there. _I can't go home, and everyone knows who I am everywhere else too. I'll just, wait here._

* * *

Late at night, Zach lifted his head from where it was bowed and pressed in between his knees. He walked down and out of the alley that only one couple had walked down that day, only to hurry away when he made a growling noise at them like he was a homeless person. Zach walked down the street and passed by a window with some televisions in it. The store was closed, and the tvs were off, and he had to keep walking. _I'll just, check when I get home,_ he thought.

He started walking around the streets, and he cursed himself that he had no money on him. He stopped at a 24-hour ATM for his bank where he could use facial I.D. and a PIN code to get money instead of his ATM card, so he managed to pull out some money. Then he stopped at a small clothing store that was open late since the people who owned it lived just upstairs. He bought the clothes without saying a word to them, while the couple behind the counter had nervous looks as they sold the set to him. He got changed there in the store, and when he passed the next alleyway on his way home, he tossed his gym clothes at some garbage cans without looking to see if they made it in.

Zach stopped at a convenience store on his way home, while flattening out his hair that was still spiked up from that morning. _I wanted to look like a hero,_ he thought, while pushing his hair down over and over to keep it that way. It wound up just getting messy instead of flat, but at least it was not spiky so Zach accepted it. He bought himself some food, the main reason he finally got up from sitting in the alley after around eight hours. He smelled, his hair was messy, and he wore a baggy white t-shirt and black pants, with a gray sweatshirt on over the tee. After buying the ramen, a solid twenty cups so he would not have to leave his house again for a while, he started on his way home.

He stopped when he was a good distance from his apartment. He had to scout it out first, after all. _I should just stay home, for now on,_ Zach thought. _But staying here, so many people know I live here. Jenny, her folks, Aunt Maye, All Might. The other teachers probably have this address too. What if someone's waiting for me inside? What if it's the cops, coming back because of popular demand now that everyone knows?_ Zach started towards his building, keeping to the shadows and then darting his way to the stairs up. As he walked down his hall, he stayed crouched and light on his feet so anyone looking out of their peepholes would not be able to see him.

Then he reached his door, and he remembered how he had left his house keys with his stuff at the stadium. He climbed up over the railing next to his door, as his was the last one on the hall. He climbed over the rail and then grabbed the corner of the building tightly with both hands. He swung his legs around and barely got them on the sill of his kitchen window. His right foot slipped as his hands were sliding down, but he readjusted his left foot to stay on better. He glanced down at the drop but did not really consider it, then he got both feet planted and shimmied around. He saw the gap between his outside windowsill and the little balcony outside his bathroom. It was small and not meant to be stood on, but he had climbed out there before and not broken through it. He had never leapt on it from this spot, but he was about to try.

Zach landed on it and he heard loud creaking, so he reached forward and opened his unlocked bathroom windows, as why would he ever need to lock them in such a position. He slid his legs in through them first, then the rest of his body and barely avoided slamming his head into the top of the opening. He turned and closed the window, and this time he locked the latch. His house was dark, and he slid the plastic bags from the crook of his right elbow down to his hand before dropping them on the floor as he walked towards his living room. He turned on his tv and pressed mute immediately. He turned down the volume as low as possible, then he fixed the brightness setting on his tv so it would be impossible to see for anyone not sitting right in front of it.

The house stayed pretty much dark as Zach started watching tv. He saw the Sports Festival, and he felt satisfied that it looked to have finished without him. Jirou tied for third with Tokoyami, Todoroki got second, and Bakugo got first place. _Just like he said he would,_ Zach thought while getting up. He walked for his kitchen and silently made himself some ramen, then he headed back over to the tv. He paused before he reached it, then he walked over to his bedroom and pulled a blanket off his bed.

Zach sat cross-legged in front of his tv, his sweatshirt's hood up, a blanket draped over him, eating a cup of ramen that took two minutes to make. He watched the Sports Festival, then when he saw his own face appear on the screen, he tried hard to keep watching. His hand changed the channel despite his attempt though, and he switched to something funnier. He watched it for a few minutes, trying to find a moment to laugh, then he thought, _Is this it?_

Zach leaned back and put his half-empty ramen cup to his side. He stared at the ceiling, his eyes blank, the whole room dark. He glanced behind him at a recliner chair his dad once sat on in a room like this. A tv on low volume, late at night in the dark, the only light coming from the tv, though his was more dimly lit than that night. _"You, who killed your mother." "Mom?" "Murderer."_ In his head he saw Jirou's eyes as his right hand shook at his side right in front of her. _"It is a magnificent dream…" "I do regret it." "Someone else's life, or your own?_ _ **Hahaha…**_ _" "We're sorry. He was once, a great hero."_

"Mom, Dad," Zach kept staring at the ceiling as he whispered in the softest voice. "What am I, supposed to do?" _I- I won't, kill myself. That was a one time lapse, and I'll never do that. People will care. People will blame themselves, like I blamed- blame, myself._ Zach looked down at his right hand and the gloves over it. He reached to it with his left and he pulled off the thicker glove, tossing it to the side. He lay down on his side, staring at the dim tv with half-open eyes. _But, I can't be a hero. I don't want to go to regular high school. I don't want a different job. All I wanted, was to be a hero. But I can't. Death. It's not a heroic Quirk. I believed in a stupid dream instead of facing reality, for way too long. Aunt Maye pays for this place for now, but when I'm 18 I'll get whatever money my parents left me that she's holding onto. Do I need a job? Will it be enough? Enough for what? This?_

Zach stared at the tv with his half-open eyes, and he groaned in a low hum. _Could I do this forever? This isn't living, is it?_ A guy on the gameshow got hit in the balls, and Zach winced before cracking a smile at the man's over-the-top reaction. "Haha, ha," he mumble laughed. _No, this isn't living. This is, staying alive. Surviving? I, I could do that. No one to call me a murderer, or look at me in fear. If I stay in here, I won't be a monster. I'll just be, some random otaku, or something. As long as the doors and windows stay locked, I'll be fine._

* * *

"Kurogiri, did you see that?"

"He is the one who killed-" The portal-user standing behind the bar Shigaraki Tomura was sitting at began.

"I know," Shigaraki interrupted. "But did you see what just happened? How the society of heroes, turned against him?" A crazed smile spread over the villain's face.

* * *

 **A/N ;( Thanks for reading. Leave a review below telling me what you think. Hope you enjoyed.**


	10. Chapter 10

**Disclaimer: I don't own Boku no Hero Academia**

 **Chapter 10:**

 **The Day After the Sports Festival, Noon**

 **Knock knock.**

Zach lowered the volume on his tv to nothing but other than that he stayed laid on his side. He listened for the door, not moving an inch in case someone on the other side could hear him. _Jirou would be able to hear me in here, but she's the only one I don't have to worry about._

"Hey, Zach," Kaminari's voice came through the other side of the door. "Um, Aunt Maye," he called out, knocking again.

 _She's not your Aunt. She's barely mine,_ Zach thought, then he smiled at the tv. Some guys on the game show trying to run up the slippery steps slid off and knocked down everyone behind them as they slid away.

"Zach," Kaminari tried again, but he sounded like he was about to give up. "Are you in there?" Kaminari wondered, his voice quieter and making Zach shift his head back a few inches to make sure he could hear him. "I'm sorry," Kaminari said, his voice quiet but loud enough for Zach to hear while the room was silent. "I- that Class B jerk he- he told me he knew it was you, and I, I asked how he knew. I'm sorry. He was just trying to get me to… Am I just talking to myself?" He mumbled the last part, and it was the last thing Zach heard.

 **Two Hours Later**

 **Knock knock knock-**

Zach felt like the person out there wanted to knock more times, but they were holding themselves back. "Young Sazaki," All Might began.

"Is that All Might?!" Zach heard a shout through his door, and he shook his head as he realized the hero was there in his muscular and public form.

"I'll come back later," All Might said, his voice softer like he was speaking out the corner of his mouth while facing out towards the street and whoever called to him.

"Don't," Zach called out, then he shut his mouth fast as he did that on impulse and without really thinking. He meant it though, and he said in a softer but colder voice, "Just, don't come back All Might."

 **An Hour After That**

"Zach-"

He heard the voice before he heard any knocking. His tv was still on mute, as he got pretty much the same feeling from watching the gameshow with subtitles on and his apartment completely silent as he did when the volume was on setting '1.' The soft girl's voice continued after a second, "I, gathered your things from the arena. I saw you forgot them…" Yaoyorozu trailed off, then she leaned her head towards the door and said, "Are you in there?"

Zach shook his head no, though for the first time he felt bad as he just sat there and ignored them. "Your phone has a lot of texts. Most of them are good- but I couldn't get past your passcode. So, I mean, I could just…" she trailed off again. "Everyone took the festival seriously until the end. We thought, a reason you may have left was because you didn't want the mood of the festival to shift. By the semi-finals, it was really loud again- but I couldn't cheer with the others."

Zach clenched his eyes shut and put his hands over his ears. He did not press them on tightly though, and his eyes opened back up wide as Yaoyorozu said, "If Snipe sensei didn't arrive when he did. You would have saved our lives." Zach said nothing. The mail slot on his door opened up, and Yaoyorozu slid his phone, wallet, and keys in in a plastic bag. Then she took a step back from the door and turned, only for her eyes to widen at the sight of someone walking towards her.

That boy had his head down though, and he lifted it only to stop and say in surprise, "Y-Y-Yaoyorozu." Midoriya walked towards the dark-haired girl whose look returned to a grim one. "Is Zach home?" Midoriya asked.

Yaoyorozu opened her mouth to say 'no,' but then she glanced back and said, "I don't know."

 _Why does everyone think I'm back here? They're so confident about it too! "She doesn't know?" BS!_ Zach rolled over on his other side and he actually covered both ears this time, deciding he did not want to listen to what Midoriya had to say. If he was going to just ignore them anyway, he did not need to feel guilty about ignoring the things they told him. Zach fell asleep while Midoriya was still there, talking to a door in a motivational way, with no one listening.

 **Two Hours Later**

Zach got hungry around five o'clock, but as bad luck would have it, someone came around while he was in the kitchen. He had to avoid any movement so as not to be heard, but if he did not turn off the stove now, the water would start boiling too much. Turning off the stove required twisting the knob past the spark switch though, and that would make a clicking noise. He decided to risk it, and he flipped it fast right as the person knocked again, and he sighed in relief as the two sounds cancelled each other out.

"Zach?" He heard a quiet voice, nervous and hesitant. _Jenny._ Her knocks did not sound like her normal ones. Her voice was more timid too than the last times she had come to his house telling him to eat with her and tell him how school had been or about the League of Villains' attack and why he was in the hospital. This time, she just spoke in a quiet voice and said, "I don't believe it you know- the rumors they're-"

"Go away Jenny," Zach said, his voice cold and harsh. He said it once, then he finished making his ramen as he heard running away from his door. His chest hurt at how fast she ran off. _Just, get away from me,_ he thought, turning and heading for his couch once more. He was sitting in front of his couch for another twenty minutes before finishing up his ramen. He was bored with the show he was watching though, and he reached for his phone to check the time.

Zach stopped reaching, then he looked over his shoulder and remembered it was near the door. He walked over and reached down for the plastic bag, then he stumbled backwards as he heard a voice outside, "I can hear your heart beat, so don't pretend like-"

"Jirou?" Zach whispered from just on the other side of the door. She had used her powers to check for him a few minutes ago, but she had been hesitating since then for how to call out to him. His voice was much closer than he thought it would be though, from just on the other side of the door in front of her. Zach was too shocked not to say her name though. _She hasn't said, two words to me since the villains. So,_ "What are you doing here?" Zach wondered.

"What am I doing here?" Jirou asked back skeptically, sarcastically. She said it like she had a good reply for him, an obvious reply. But she just stood there for several seconds without being able to say a thing. "I guess, to apologize," Jirou said. "For being a scaredy-cat," she added. Her tone was joking, but at the same time she meant what she said. "Enough people at that stadium were… without me looking…" Jirou scratched the back of her head and looked away. She stared out into the red sky to her right, then she muttered in a lower voice, "Someone left food out here for you."

Zach stayed quiet for a few seconds, then he said, "Do you want it?"

Jirou sweatdropped. "No," she muttered back.

"Oh," Zach said. They were both quiet for a few more seconds, then Zach said in a low voice, "Thanks Jirou. I really feel better." He turned with his phone in hand and headed back for his couch. Zach lay back and threw his blanket back on top of him. _I bet if I opened that door, you'd take a full fucking step back,_ Zach thought, while lifting his phone up over his face.

 _Twelve texts from Kaminari. Eight from Yaoyorozu. I guess those two were kind of, my friends. They showed up pretty quickly too, despite never being here before._ Zach opened his phone and scrolled through their messages. _They both tried asking for my address, but they managed to get it anyway. No texts from Jirou. Guess she just showed up here._ Zach leaned up and looked towards his door, wondering if there was still someone standing on the other side. _Jenny brought me food again. I should take it in and refrigerate it. I've made the mistake before, and as long as she gives me extra meals, I won't have to leave the house. They'll be like my keepers, at a zoo, or feeding the monster in the basement, or some shit like that._

Zach walked back to his door and stared through it at Jirou, waiting for the girl who looked so frustrated to leave. She opened her mouth several times in the next few minutes, before finally she humphed in aggravation and stormed off, an upset and confused look on her face. He watched her go, waiting a few seconds once she was gone, then his door opened a crack and his hand shot out. He snatched the bowl and slid it into his house, looking through the clear plastic cover on top and nodding as he made the right move grabbing it before it had been too long. _Twenty, thirty minutes isn't too bad. Just toss it in the fridge,_ he opened the door and shoved the dish in. _And there's a midnight snack._

 **An Hour Later**

It was darker in Zach's house again with barely any light coming in from the windows. He turned his tv brightness up a little so he could watch from the couch, and he turned the volume back on too since it was straining his eyes watching a dark tv with subtitles. **Knock Knock.** "I'm back," All Might's voice came through the door. Zach did not respond, but he did turn up the tv a few notches since he had already let All Might know he was in there earlier.

He thought raising the volume would be a good sign, but All Might continued anyway, "I'm a hero, so I can't just knock your door down, even if I could do that right now." _So he's in his weak form,_ Zach thought, while flicking the channel to sports, watching highlights of the day before's Sports Festival. There were some epic fights that he missed from his own class, but also some good ones in the second and third years' divisions too. "Young man, talk to me," All Might continued.

The hero outside of Zach's door reached forward to knock again, but then he just put his fist against the door and leaned his head forward while continuing in a lower voice, "There are times, when a hero has to use lethal force." Zach turned his head to look at the back of the couch, but he was really looking through it and towards his door he imagined on the other side.

"Like you've ever killed anyone-"

"I have," All Might said. "Or, maybe, I've tried," All Might said, his voice lower as he continued with that. Zach lowered the volume on his tv with a confused look on his face, but All Might did not elaborate with what he just said. Instead, he continued on his original train of thought now that he had Zach's attention. "The public always looks down on it though. Heroes go through extensive review when a fatality is involved. Because of our Hero Licenses though, it is accepted in society that sometimes it is impossible to save people without taking the lives of the ones threatening them." All Might paused, then he continued, "But many times, Hero Licenses are suspended, even when a large part of the community thinks the hero made the right call. They have to reapply, face fines, pay cuts. But when they reapply for their Licenses, and they get back out there as heroes, I have never heard of a hero who the public has turned away because of his or her actions against villains."

Zach rolled on his back and stared straight up at the darkness above him. He lifted his right hand and gazed on his black glove. "It will stay in the minds of many for longer, because you are still a child. But by the time you are an adult, and you have a hero name, and a Hero License, no one will remember it."

"So in three or four years, I can live my life again?" Zach asked, raising his right hand higher up like he was reaching for something. There was a pause on the other side of the door like All Might was trying to think of something to reply with. "Don't bother," Zach said, dropping his arm back down and laying there limp with his eyes half-open. "I can't handle their pity," he muttered. "More than anything else, imagining what it would look like walking into class now." Zach could not even finish the sentence. _They all saw, how much it really…_ He thought about how he ran down the tunnel and cut right as hard as he could, turning his back to the few faster kids who had gotten close already. He remembered how their expressions changed when he caught glimpses of them, and they saw his. _I'm a man. I want-ed to be a hero. If I showed back up there, they'd just treat me like a victim, like a joke who ran off crying when he got his feelings hurt._

Zach stopped thinking so hard on it, because it was making his face scrunch up in so many different frustrating emotions. "I hope you can be the Symbol of Peace, long enough for Midoriya to take your place."

A gasp escaped All Might's lips on the other side of the door. _Wow, that does work,_ he thought. _Kaminari got duped by that Monoma asshole, but I didn't think someone like All Might would-_

"Midoriya told you?" All Might asked in a shocked voice.

"No," Zach said, and he smirked while putting his hands up behind his head. "But you just did."

All Might dropped his jaw and stared at the door in front of him, wondering why the boy he was talking to sounded so smug about that after saying something so genuine right before it. "Young man, that is a secret-"

"Whatever," Zach muttered. "I'm not leaving this room anymore, so who am I going to tell? The ghosts?" He cracked a small grin, waited for a few seconds, then he said, "I'm just fucking with you All Might, I'm not really seeing ghosts."

"Zach Sazaki, you are-"

"Get out of here All Might!" Zach shouted at the top of his lungs.

The man outside the door opened his dark eyes wide. He spun his head, then he bit down hard while glancing back at the door, before running off down the hall outside of the boy's room. He made a mad dash and ran down the stairs right as two doors opened behind him. _That boy,_ All Might thought, after getting into the shadows and panting while blood seeped between his teeth. _Has he lost it? Is he finally, after everything, is this what breaks him?_

 **Two Days After the Sports Festival**

"Hey Zach," Kaminari hit his fist on the door hard a few times. "Jirou said you were definitely holed up in here! Talk to me man!"

 _Why do we have so many days off after the Sports Festival? Are people going to keep showing up here? At least Aunt Maye didn't even text me, so it doesn't look like she cares enough to swing by. In fact, now that everyone knows, she's probably more intent than ever about staying away from me…_

"Dude," Kaminari said, knocking again and groaning when he heard no response. "I'm sorry. Just tell me, it's okay or something."

 _My life's fucking over, idiot,_ Zach thought, though he was immediately glad he did not say that out loud and kept it in his head. _What a shitty friend I'd be then. I knew Kaminari was stupid. At least he didn't tell Monoma all about what my Quirk was. If people knew my Quirk was Death, they'd probably be freaking out that such a Quirk existed. Hell, they'd probably be after my head. The mob fears what it doesn't understand. Philosophy on the Origin of Quirks, it was a good book._

"Zach, I'm not gonna leave today until you say something. I know you're in there," Kaminari started knocking over and over again. "I don't care if it annoys your neighbors you know? So they'll start getting annoyed at you-"

"Hey Kaminari," Zach called out. He kept staring at the tv, but he just sighed after he had already started. He took a breath, then called out what he just thought, "Thanks for not telling him what my Quirk was too."

Kaminari leaned back from the door, a look of even more regret on his face now. _He thinks I might have done it- of course he does. I just gave him no reason to trust me._ "I won't tell-" Kaminari began, then he clenched his teeth together quickly, as he doubted anything he said at the moment Zach would believe. "I'm sorry," he just muttered again. He lifted his head and tried getting a more excited look on his face, "People have been recognizing…" he faded off, and Zach just shook his head at the other boy's lack of tact.

 _I guess the others who made it to the finals are probably being treated as celebrities out there now. And now that there's not the lingering doubt that one of them's a murderer too, they really are just the amazing class that fought off the villains._ "Good for you," Zach muttered, though he did not know if it was loud enough for Kaminari to hear.

"Are you-" Kaminari began. He stopped himself, then he leaned closer to the door and called in, "You're going to come back to class, right?"

 _Probably not,_ Zach thought. "I'm actually going on vacation. My aunt wants to get me out of the country for a little while, make it easier for me to lay low until this whole thing dies down." _Holy crap brain, high-five. That was amazing!_

"Really? Oh, that's great I guess. Where are you going?"

"America," Zach replied, smiling at how easy this was coming to him. "I have another aunt out there, my Aunt Maye's sister." He paused before getting more into his elaborate lie he was coming up with on the spot, reminding himself to keep it as vague and believable as possible. He acted like the pause was an emotional one though, then he added in a lower voice, "I'll be back."

"You better," Kaminari said, slamming a fist into the door again. "I guess," he said after a few seconds, "I'll see you around then."

"Yeah, see ya' later," Zach said, his smile lowering back down and his eyes half-closing as he lay in a more comfortable way on his couch. _Mid-lunch-afternoon nap time? How long have I been awake since last… what does it matter?_ Zach closed his eyes, and he went back to sleep.

 **A Few Hours Later**

 **Knock Knock Knock Knock**

"That's enough times I think."

"One more-" **Knock**

"Zach, are you in there?"

Zach's eyes opened and he stared at his tv that had a news program on. It was talking about U.A. and how security at the Sports Festival shows that U.A. is dedicated to improving it's security, but there are still doubts because of the invasion. He watched for a few seconds, then thought, _Ashido, Hagakure, and… Ojiro?_

The mail flap on his door pushed in and Ashido tilted her head while on her knees to get a better look inside. Zach's tv was on the other side of his couch, but he had turned the brightness up a little and the changing lights coming from over there confirmed Ashido's suspicions. "Hey! Stop ignoring us," she called straight through the flap so her voice would be louder.

"Zach, you okay?" Ojiro asked.

 _Ojiro,_ Zach thought, remembering him as one of the ones who spotted him right as he was getting out of the tunnel.

"You know, on the train to this station, we heard people talking about you," Ojiro said. Zach lifted up and his eyes widened, and he turned his head to look over the top of his couch in surprise. Ashido was still leaning down though with an eye in front of the mail slot, and her eye opened wide as she saw the hooded figure with a blanket over his head so he was completely shadowed over. She leaned back, and when she brought her head back forward, the strange shadowed creature she saw lift from the other side of the couch had dropped back down.

"I saw you!" She called in, while Zach stayed ducked on his couch, cursing himself that he was seen.

"Mina," Hagakure said, sounding like she wanted the other girl to stop for a minute.

"Zach, I heard them talking about you, but it wasn't all bad," Ojiro said. Zach blinked a few times in confusion while staring at the ceiling. "They mentioned the villain thing, but one of the guys said the villains deserved it. Not that I agree, and I know you don't either, but the other one nodded too. Then he talked about how you punched Shinso in the face." Ojiro paused for a second, and he added, "They said it was really cool, that even without using your Quirk- you managed to get into the top eight."

"And we agree," Hagakure said, trying to do her part to make him feel better.

"You and I almost had a match," Ashido added. "If things had gone just a little different- I would have kicked your butt though!"

Zach slouched down in his couch and he turned to look at the tv in silence. He watched as it shifted from talking about the attack on U.A., to talking about him, and showing the picture of the villain he killed right next to his class picture where he was smiling. A picture of him smiling next to a picture of a guy he killed, it made him look like a crazy person. _Stupid news,_ he thought.

"Hey, stop ignoring us," Ashido called in. "We came all the way over here you know. It wasn't easy to… well, okay we just asked the others."

 _Does everyone in the class know where I live now?_ "Guys, I'm fine. Did Kaminari tell you…"

"Tell us what?" Ojiro asked, which answered Zach's question.

"I'm leaving on a vacation with my aunt, going to America for a little while to lay low. Just a short vacation. I'll be back," he said it, but he grimaced after it all came out. _That didn't sound as convincing as with Kaminari. Coming up with it on the spot was easier, and it flowed better. Trying to match up the details after a nap, not as easy._ "Tomorrow I'm leaving."

"America?" Ashido asked. "Where in?"

"California," Zach said. "I have another aunt out there, the aunt I live with's sister."

"What about your parents?" Hagakure asked.

"Dead," Zach said. He froze and his mouth stuck open, and then he rose a hand and covered up his face with it. _God I'm such an idiot. Did I really just, ughhhhhh._

"I'm sorry," Hagakure whispered after a few seconds, her voice cracking like she felt terrible for bringing that up.

Zach did not reply. He really, just did not know what to say. "Could everyone just, stop spreading stuff about me?" Zach said, his voice barely above a whisper. "Like, where I live. And what I did. And," he did not finish, but he hoped he got the real point of why he just said that in a voice barely audible through the door. _As if I needed more pity. Just everyone, leave me alone, to go on my trip to America._

"Well, we're going," Ojiro said. Ashido opened her mouth to complain about coming all the way there, but Ojiro shook his head at her and the pink girl frowned in an annoyed way, and then a sad one as she looked back at the door.

"Hope to see you back at school soon," Ashido said. The three of them started heading off, Ojiro putting a hand down on Hagakure's shoulder and telling her not to worry about what she asked that she was sniffling about. Ashido followed for a second, then she turned and ran back towards Zach's door. She put her head up close and said in a softer voice when the other two were farther away, "Remember the entrance exam? I thought you were pretty cool back then too. Don't let this get you too down. Cool guys don't get moody for long."

 _"Cool?" What about me, is cool? I lie to everyone I meet. I have a Quirk I can't use. I've killed people. I killed both of my parents. I'm literally a couch potato right now. The difference between me and someone on life support, is that hospital rooms are more lit up than this._ Ashido headed off after the other two waiting for her down the hall of the apartment complex, then when they started heading down the stairs, Zach heard a door open from the next room down.

 _Don't do it,_ he thought, glaring towards the door as he imagined who was behind it. There were a few knocks, and he heard heavy breathing on the other side, then as it stopped for a second and the girl took in a deep breath, Zach whispered, "Don't." He did not know if his word somehow reached through the cracks or the mail slot and reached her, or if she just had second thoughts, but he heard the quick patter of feet running away from his room after he said it. _The one person, I just can't deal with right now._

 **Two Days Later**

 _I should leave,_ Zach thought, sitting up on his couch and letting out a long sigh as he came to the decision. _They're gonna check to see if I really went on that vacation. They're all so nosy. I can't make it to America, not with the amount I can take out of my ATM at a time. Not that I wanted to go to California anyway. But I should get going. Spend another day here and I'll miss the first day back, then the teachers might get involved. Call my Aunt Maye to ask why I'm not in school. Show up at my house…_

Zach spent the late afternoon and past dinner preparing himself. He was taking only a backpack, and at the moment he did not know where he was planning on going exactly. _I'll just start running. I've been slacking lately… though, I was always only running, to train to be-_ He shook his head around and kept searching his apartment to make sure he grabbed as much as he needed. _I joked about ghosts, but why did I want to stay in this house so badly? So many bad memories here._ Zach glanced towards his living room and the recliner, then he looked at the tv still playing as he could not remember a time he had turned it off in more than half a week now. His gaze then shifted to the bathroom, to the mirror, and he shivered as he thought about a day two and a half weeks back. _I just imagined it then too._

He shook his head around and then looked towards his dining room. He thought about his first day of school, _There were good memories too,_ he thought, before frowning deeply at the idea. He saw himself sitting at that table talking and laughing with someone, but he erased the image from his head before he could think on it harder. Then, his eyes shifted towards the bathroom again. They shifted to the windows above the toilet, where there was a small balcony outside. His gaze stayed plastered to that window for a few moments, imagining the windowsill on the other side. _And things, that don't make sense…_

Zach turned to his front door and he started walking towards it. He paused and went back to his living room, unplugging the tv, then he started for the door once more. All the lights in his house were off. Anything electric was unplugged. He wondered as he did a final check around him, while sliding his feet into his shoes, _Wonder how long Maye will take to notice and stop paying for the water? She'll probably just drop the lease early when she sees. I could text her, but,_ Zach looked over his shoulder and to his dining room table where he left his phone. _Don't need that where I'm going. Where, am I going?_ He paused while staring at his door right in front of him. _Trains are still running, they will be for a while. I could go anywhere in the country. Just head to some random city, get a room- but then how long until I'm low on money? Maye won't finance me if I disappear, and my ATM card will get cut off fast… so then I'll have to get a part-time job? That's, I don't want to do that. Maybe I'll just come back here, maybe I just need as long as until she decides to cut me off. Or maybe, where I go people won't recognize me, in which case I'll never leave. I'll never, come back,_ Zach reached for the door handle in front of him.

The door next door opened. He paused with his hand near the handle and he clenched his eyes shut. _Don't come over here. Don't come over here._ He leaned back from the door as the footsteps got closer, louder than usual. _What is she-_ "Zach." The voice on the other side of the door was stern, and Zach looked through the peephole while trying hard not to make a sound. _Mr. Akers. What is he doing here?_

"I know you're in there," Mr. Akers said. He was a thin man and stood just over six feet tall. He had short brown hair and wore a pair of glasses, and he was wearing casual clothes as it was already after dinner and he had been relaxing at home. The man continued in a stern voice when he did not hear a response, "This is from my daughter." He leaned down and placed a tin on the floor in front of Zach's door. "She's too scared to come here herself, but she still made you the dinner. She's more afraid, you aren't treating yourself right, because of the 'lies' the media is telling."

Mr. Akers stood back straight and he continued in a lower voice, "But you and I both know they aren't lies."

 _You, knew?_ Zach thought, his eyes opening wide as he stared at the door in front of him that he had leaned away from again.

"We have known, for a long, long time. One night, when your father was-" the neighbor cut himself off, then he continued after a pause, "We had been trying to help him through it, but hearing how she died, it really broke our hearts. But it also scared us. There was a boy, living next door to us, with _that_ Quirk?"

Zach clenched his teeth and he tightened his fists at his sides so hard. His eyes closed in pain, because the neighbors had been more of parents to him than anyone in the past seven years. Mr. Akers continued in a lower voice, "Do you know, how many times we spent watching you and Jenny play so carefully? Watching your every movements to make sure you didn't hurt our precious girl? That you didn't kill her?" Zach's fists tightened harder and his eyes shut tight to prevent any water from forming in them.

"Once."

Zach froze and his mind full of anger and frustration and sad thoughts became just confused. His eyes opened up and he stared at the door in front of him while the man on the other side was quiet. "Wh-" he started, but he caught himself. He could not help it though, and he whispered at the door, "What?"

"One time," Mr. Akers replied. "I know, it was foolish of us. What parents in their right minds would take one look, and then leave their daughter in the care of someone so dangerous? But we never doubted it. When you came over to play, when Jenny asked to go to your place, when you went to the park together, not once were we concerned about you hurting her." Zach's eyes started watering up more, his arms shaking at his sides while his face filled with so much confusion.

"How?" He gasped out. "How were you not-"

"The very first time we watched you two, we saw you treat our daughter like she was fragile. Every time the two of you did something, you made sure your right hand was far away." Mr. Akers smiled and continued to the boy he knew was standing just on the other side of the door, "The look in your eyes when she tripped, and then how you instinctively moved towards her, but only used your left hand to catch her." The tears spilled out the corners of Zach's eyes. "I knew in that moment, I was looking at a future hero."

His wet eyes shot open huge and his breathing stopped short. He tried gasping for breath but he was unable to do it. Zach lifted an arm and rubbed his eyes over and over. "But more than we knew it back then, Jenny saw it when you caught her, when you asked if she was okay. I think ever since, you've been more than her friend." Zach tried to keep rubbing his arms to stop it, but he still had to gasp in as his neighbor added, "You're her hero."

Mr. Akers heard Zach's pained gasp and he lowered his smile down despite the feelings the boy on the other side of the door was having. "As her father, as a man, I want to be my little girl's hero. But even if I'm not, I'll still protect her. And right now, she's hurting. You won't talk to her. She hasn't seen you in weeks. Her dinners go in there though, and she keeps making them, even though you tell her to go away. Or, whatever you've been telling her, since she won't talk about it. Now I know it's tough, but tomorrow I'm going to tell her to come here herself-"

The door opened and Mr. Akers froze with his mouth open. Zach slowly reached his hand to the right and he flicked a switch that illuminated his apartment's entrance. Mr. Akers spotted a heavily packed backpack on the floor behind Zach, and he thought he had heard a thud at the same time as the door started to open. He looked up at Zach's eyes with wide ones of his own, but Zach rubbed his eyes once more while stepping out. He gulped and then said in a low voice, "I'm sorry, Mr. Akers." He got a more serious expression on his face, then he continued, "But could I talk to her now, instead? If she feels that way, right now…" _What am I doing?_ "Then I can't just leave her…" _What, **was** I doing?_ "I'm sorry," he repeated in a softer voice. He took some deep breaths, steadying himself since he could not cry once he went to his neighbor's apartment. _I never have, cried in front of her. I knew she was watching the Sports Festival and I, I got in that tunnel as fast as I could. I, I've always wanted to be a hero. But, I always considered myself a hero to one person anyway, because of how I thought she looked at me! But it wasn't just me who thought it, I'm so stupid! What have I been doing, when my best friend-_

Zach clenched his teeth hard and he blinked his eyes a bunch to dry them out. "Mr. Akers," he began, looking up into the taller man's eyes. He hesitated, then he said in a softer voice, "Can I tell her, everything?"

"I always hoped you would," he replied without hesitating. Zach's eyes widened again, and the man continued, "I don't like lying to my daughter. But it wasn't our secret to tell."

"Thank you," Zach whispered.

The man nodded, then he started for his room and Zach watched him walk that way. "Well come on now," he said, glancing back at the boy who hesitated after he started thinking about how he was going to do this. "We don't have all night. You have school tomorrow, don't you?"

Zach's eyes opened huge again and they darted back to his door. He imagined the bag lying on the other side of it, all the preparations he had made, the thoughts he had had before he heard Mr. Akers' voice. Then he turned back to his neighbor watching him expectantly, and slowly his head nodded once. _It's not just my classmates, and my teachers, there are people- who care for me. People who would be hurt if I left. I always knew that. That was one of the main reasons why, I would never again consider killing myself. So why did I think leaving would be okay? Without telling anyone? Without telling, Jenny?_

Zach followed Mr. Akers into his house, and he saw Mrs. Akers get up from a chair and look towards him in surprise to see him there. She smiled after a second though, and she nodded her head towards the hall where Zach knew Jenny's bedroom was. Zach looked back at the man behind him, but Mr. Akers was not going to take him there. Zach took a deep breath and then he walked for Jenny's room. He stopped outside her door and heard her voice on the other side, "I'm fine dad-"

"Jenny," Zach began, saying it before she could continue because the tone of her voice was contradicting the words coming out. Zach heard movement on the other side and he continued, "Could I-"

The door flew open and Jenny stared at Zach wide-eyed that he was standing in front of her. She stared at the gray hoodie he was wearing and the black pants that looked as dirty, then she focused on his face and into his eyes. Jenny reached forward and wrapped the boy a few inches taller than her in a hug. "I'm sorry," he said as she hugged him, and he put both arms around her, resting his right hand over his left arm on her back. "Can I come in?" He asked, pulling his head back. "I, want to talk to you."

"Well it's about time," Jenny said as she pulled back, frowning at him now that they were back on speaking terms. The red-haired girl glanced around him and towards her living room and main area where she knew her parents were, then she moved to the side so he could come in. She closed the door behind him and then put her back to it. "Tell me everything. The villain attack, the Sports Festival," she hesitated for a moment, then continued in a quieter voice, "and, did you really, I know I said I didn't believe, but are the rumors…"

Zach kept facing away from her, then he turned and sat down on her bed. He looked her in the eyes and he nodded his head. "Jenny," he began in a soft voice. "I'm really sorry, that I lied to you." Zach lifted up his right hand and Jenny looked at it with her eyes growing wide. "I'm not Quirkless," Zach said. "And this glove isn't holding back a deadly virus."

"What is it?" Jenny asked in amazement, stepping forward while her mind was being blown.

"It's just a normal hand," Zach said, as he could see she was staring at his glove like there was some crazy sci-fi thing underneath. "But, if my hand touches anything, anything alive," he spoke in a soft voice while Jenny's eyes were opening even wider, refocusing on Zach's eyes that he kept pointed at her face. "It dies," he finished. "My Quirk's name, is Death." He saw chills go down Jenny's spine and her breathing picked up pace.

"That's," she whispered, walking towards him and then turning and sitting on his right side. She looked down and to her left at the hand he pulled back away from her, as he always did to 'prevent getting her sick.' "Did my parents know about it?" She asked.

Zach smiled and said, "Apparently." She looked at him in surprise, and he continued, "Your dad just told me they had known since forever ago. I was pretty surprised too."

"They kept it from me," Jenny started in a low voice.

"Don't blame them, I'm really happy they didn't say anything. They were just treating me," he paused and bit his bottom lip, only to let go fast as it was still healing from the other day. "Your parents, wanted to let me tell you in my own time. And, I'm sorry I didn't tell you, years ago," he finished in a whisper, as he realized he really should have done this so long ago. "So, about the day of the villains' attack. Can, I talk to you about it?"

Jenny's eyes widened as she turned to look at Zach's face, seeing that he looked really hesitant about saying anything else. She reached over and grabbed him by the right arm, at his forearm instead of his hand which still made him flinch though at how close it was. She was not afraid though, and she said when he looked back up in her eyes, "You can talk to me about anything."

Zach took a deep breath and nodded at her. "Alright, so we had only just got to the dome, the Unforeseen Simulation Joint, or USJ." Jenny cracked a smile at the name of it, but she got serious as Zach continued, "Then they appeared. There were dozens of them. Dozens, of villains…"

* * *

 **A/N Thanks for reading. Hope you enjoyed. Leave a review below telling me what you think.**

BloodySS2God chapter 9 . 18h ago

Oh my GOD! This story is soooooo good! Sucgh a great concept! What great execution! You my friend are one hell of a story teller! Just... wow! Cant wait to read more of this amazing story! Insta Follow and Favourite :)

 **Thanks a ton! I'm really glad people are liking it. Hope you enjoyed the newest chapter!**

zerom1v chapter 9 . 14h ago

Poor Zach. That was intenseNow the league of villains have it's sights on him.

Can't wait for next chapter.  
P/S: Not cool Monoma. Not cool at all

 **Zach had a tough time of it, but thing's might be looking up at the end of the chapter here. And yeah, dick move Monoma XD. Thanks for the review!**

Roxas Itsuka chapter 9 . 13h ago

Brilliant chapter. OMG though, poor Zach. I hope things get better for him. Monoma deserves a good punch to the face. Interesting to see the League of Villains take an interest in him. Looking forward to the next chapter.

 **Thanks! League of Villains take notice, which is bad news... Glad you enjoyed, and hope you liked the new chapter!**

LordOfTee chapter 9 . 12h ago

Duudee... they're gonna turn him into an accomplice. Damn now I feel bad for Zach.

 **Zach! Resist the dark side... Thanks for the review!**

Colinpop5 chapter 9 . 10h ago

Honestly is you made him temp join the villains and then went back to being a hero that would be cool

 **Thanks for the review. Lots of people thinking the same thing with those last few sentences I added in last chapter, huh? Well, we'll see what happens with the League of Villains and Zach soon... XD Thanks for all the reviews everyone!**


	11. Chapter 11

**Disclaimer: I don't own Boku no Hero Academia**

 **Chapter 11:**

Zach made it a point to get to school early on the day they went back. It was raining pretty hard out, which he was grateful for as it meant he could wear a jacket and have his hood up all the way to school. He reached school and left his wet things at the lockers, then he went to class where he was the second one there. Todoroki had turned his gaze to the boy who entered second, and he asked Zach about his vacation to California. _Guess word finally got around about that,_ he had a bead of sweat rolling down his face as he thought it. "We cancelled. I decided I couldn't miss that much class."

"Well I'm glad you're here," Todoroki said and nodded at him.

"Yeah, me too," Zach said, then he walked over towards his seat as he heard the door opening behind him with another early comer to the class.

"Ah! Zach! I thought you were going to…"

And that was about how Zach's morning went. _Really, really regretting the lie at this point,_ he thought as Sato and Kirishima stood at the side of his desk saying how much it stinks that he couldn't go on the trip, even though he had been pretty specific with the reason he was still at school.

As more of the class got in, people started talking about the last few days since the Sports Festival. Zach listened in but did not look around as the other students talked about how people had recognized them on the train, talked to them on the streets. Kaminari came in, and then he ran to Zach's seat and asked the same question as everyone else had when they saw him. His face looked panicked though as Zach said why he cancelled it. "Did that Aunt of yours get angry? I feel like she's the type that really freaks out-"

"Actually, she still went on the trip," Zach replied, scratching the back of his head. _Wow, it's like talking to Kaminari just makes it so easy to lie. That's probably not a good thing._ "Though she was a little annoyed I didn't say something sooner."

Someone else walked in while the two of them were talking, and she walked towards Zach and Kaminari. She looked at Zach in surprise when he turned towards her, giving her a small smile even. _Did he actually, feel better because of that?_ Jirou wondered, as she had thought he was just messing with her back when she visited him.

Jirou was not the only person in the class to feel this way. Ojiro, Hagakure, Ashido, Kaminari, and Yaoyorozu all felt like they had a part in getting Zach to school that day. As did All Might who sat in the teacher's lounge with a huge grin on his face after the principal had just told him of Zach's early arrival. One boy who walked in right behind Iida did not share the feeling of the others who went to visit Zach. Midoriya looked over and wanted to ask him something, but there was no time until class was starting.

Aizawa walked in right after Midoriya sat down, and everyone else shot to their seats at the same time to avoid the glare from their teacher. Asui mentioned how Aizawa had gotten his bandages from the USJ incident off, as he had worn what looked like a full-body cast for the entire Sports Festival. Then Aizawa got a semi-serious look on his face and began while the class gained serious expressions themselves, "More importantly, we're having a special hero informatics class today."

 _Special? That sounds dangerous._ Zach sat up straight in his seat looking as anxious and on-edge as the others.

"… Code names. You will be coming up with hero names," Aizawa told them. Half the class jumped up and cheered, though Zach stayed seated just letting out a breath of relief. Aizawa's irises flashed red and everyone sat back down in an instant, the whole room silent. "This is related to the pro hero draft picks I mentioned the other day. The drafts begin in earnest in the second and third years, after students have gained experience and can become immediate assets to pros. In other words, for them to extend offers to first years like you shows that they are interested in your future potential. These offers are often cancelled if that interest dies down by graduation."

 _Pro draft picks. Getting picked up by a pro hero means everything at U.A._ Zach looked to his left out the window and into the rain. _Maybe next year…_

"…and here are the totals for those who received offers," Aizawa said. He pressed a button on a remote and the board on the wall behind the podium a little to his right turned on with 'Class A No. of offers' at the top.

Zach looked back over and he stared in a bit of surprise as Todoroki's name appeared first with the longest bar, and then Bakugo's was a little shorter than it. _Probably because of how Bakugo was acting at the end._ Tokoyami and Iida got the next two highest numbers, though there's were a tenth the size of Bakugo's. Each of them received in the three hundreds, while Bakugo was in the high three thousands and Todoroki even passed four thousand. _These guys are crazy strong,_ Zach thought. _I saw the fight of Iida and Tokoyami being played on the news. It was epic, even if Tokoyami won, that was one of the coolest fights, and it was only a quarterfinal. Then again, Midoriya and Todoroki's wasn't even that and caused the most damage of the day._

Kaminari's name popped up, then Sero who complained at him that he won only for Kaminari to put his hands behind his head and brag that his power was just cooler after all. Yaoyorozu popped up, then Kirishima, then Jirou who sweatdropped at the sight of her very, very tiny bar. She had one more offer than Uraraka at 20, with 21 herself.

"Guess getting to the semifinals doesn't mean as much when you get a bye in the second round," Kirishima mentioned over his shoulder to a girl who got a round ahead of him but only a third of the offers.

"Yeah, guess so," Jirou replied, putting her hand on her cheek. She looked towards the board in some surprise though and lowered her hand as she looked down beneath Uraraka's name where a final bar popped up so thin she did not notice it until spotting the name.

"Three?" Zach whispered, his eyes growing wide as he stared at the board ahead of him. "But, I just, punched a guy and gave up," he said.

"Some people are too scared to ask for a guy who had to be restrained on the podium," Sero whispered about how Todoroki and Bakugo's places had switched.

Bakugo spun his head and roared with a scary look on his face, "What are the pros scared of?!"

"I really got, three," Zach whispered. He looked to his right, and after Kaminari groaned about how big the gap was between them and the top two, he looked over and saw Zach staring at him in semi-shock. Kaminari stuck a thumbs up his way, and Zach grinned after a few seconds as the shock was finally wearing down.

 _Did the pros see something? I thought, the festival was a total bust._ Zach's expression darkened as he turned back forward, thinking about the moment he gave up again. All those voices in the crowd. All the people he ran past on the way into that dark, smelly alley. He grimaced just thinking about it, and how it was not even a week ago that it had happened. _Telling Jenny about stuff, really did calm me down. Even if I only told her, about killing the villain. There are some things, I should just keep to myself._

"…whether or not anyone asked for you, you will all be participating in internships with pros." Aizawa continued explaining. _Internships? Does that mean, out in the field? Against, villains?_ Zach gulped then refocused back on the number 3 next to his name on the board. _I have three choices. Probably less than anyone else, since the people who didn't get any offers will have a big pool to pick from. I'll have to make a good choice then._

"At USJ you already got to experience combat with real villains, but it will still be meaningful training for you to see pros at work firsthand." Aizawa finished.

"So that explains the hero names!" Sato called out.

Uraraka spun to him and pumped a fist, "Things are suddenly getting a lot more fun."

Aizawa told them the names might be temporary but they should make sure to treat them seriously in case people started recognizing them while they were still interning. Then Midnight came in to help them choose names since Aizawa claimed he had no idea how to help with that. Aizawa just picked up his sleeping bag and decided to say one more thing before taking a nap, "When you give yourself a name, you get a more concrete image of what you want to be like in the future, and you can get closer to it. This is what it means when they say 'Names and natures do often agree.' Like 'All Might' for example."

 _Ah, because he's all mighty,_ Zach thought, though he sweatdropped at the idea. Still, when the white boards were passed back to him and he passed the rest on, he stared down at the board with a nervous expression. _"When you give yourself a name, you get a more concrete image of what you want to be like in the future…" Is this that serious? Hero names, I never thought too much on it._ He glanced around while taking the cap off his marker, but the others were all writing fast or looking deep in thought about what they were going to come up with. He stared back down at the board. _What I want to be like in the future._

Zach's eyes closed and he moved the marker down to the board. It started to move, but he froze and his lips twisted around. _Hero names, match the heroes' natures. Can I really use something like that, with my Quirk?_ He hesitated and took his marker off the board, staring down at the mark he left there. He was still having trouble deciding when Midnight called them up to start presenting. Zach gulped at the thought of that, and he became even more hesitant to write the name he had thought of before. His nerves only got worse as Aoyama and Ashido started them off with really weird names. Luckily Tsuyu Asui got them back on track with 'Froppy,' which everyone started cheering for as they were able to get serious again.

 _Everyone has such good names. I shouldn't be embarrassed to say it._ He tightened his grip on the marker, using his right hand as he always did when he wrote. It was the worst part of his curse, the fact that he was also right-handed. He looked down at that hand, and he imagined the villain's face he saw just recently in the news, but which he already could not get out of his mind if he tried, and he had tried. _I could go with Grim Reaper. Or, the Black Death. Insta-Kill. Nightmare…_ Zach shook his head fast, a bead of sweat rolling down his face at something that appeared in his mind. _How about something simpler? Like, Hero-Man? Villain Smasher?_

As another three students went, all of them using names that reflected their bodies or Quirks, those bland names seemed so embarrassing to him. More so, than the one still on his mind that he started drawing the first line for on the board. _Death Hand. Right Hand of Murder._ He thought these names while writing a different one down on the board. He finished up and then held the board towards him, afraid someone would see it. That just made him gulp though as he was currently watching Yaoyorozu proclaim herself the 'Everything Hero: Creati.' _I really can't do this,_ he thought, pushing the board out to erase it. He froze though as he looked down at the name again. _"When you give yourself a name, you get a more concrete image of what you want to be like in the future, and you can get closer to it." Can I get closer to it? Is this, really a step in the direction of becoming a hero?_

His hands tightened around the sides of the board. He got ready to go up, but he watched first as Todoroki went up and held up a board that just had his name on it. Midnight wondered if he was okay with it, and a bunch of people looked at him in confusion, but he just nodded and went back to his seat. Zach raised his hand when Midnight looked around for the next person, then he got up with his stomach feeling like it was full of butterflies. His breath picked up as he darted his gaze to the sign again, then back up to his classmates who were all looking to see what he was going to say. He held the board against his chest tight, then he turned it and put it on the podium.

Midnight looked at the sign and then at the boy behind it with widening eyes, then a lifting smile. The class in front of Zach let out more surprised gasps though, but no one said anything against it. Zach put his hands firmly on the sides of the board, and he said in a soft voice, "Lifebringer. Because, that's the hero I want to become." _Instead of the bringer of death. I just, want to help people. Save people._

"A fine name, a fine name," Midnight said, and Zach turned to the sexy hero who gave him a thumbs up. He relaxed and started heading back to his seat, a smile on his face larger than he had had since arriving at school. _I actually wrote it down, and said it in front of everyone. That's the name people will start calling me. It's like All Might said. Someday, they'll forget about what I've done as a kid, once I'm a hero whose saved so many more._

Zach sat down and Bakugo got up behind him, walking up to the front and shouting, "King Explosion Murder!" The whole class sweatdropped after Zach's meaningful name which seemed like a big moment for him, to what they thought was a joke. Midnight told him he should not use it though, and Bakugo looked seriously angry about it.

* * *

After all the names were decided, or left undecided for some of them, Aizawa went back to talking about the internships. As Zach suspected, the people who got offers were to pick from their lists, while the others got a choice of 40 agencies from around the country to pick from. They handed out all the lists and then told them they had two days to hand in their decisions, then the two teachers left the room and left the students to think on it.

Todoroki looked at his list and spotted Endeavor Hero Agency not far down it. He narrowed his eyes at his father's name, but he nodded his head after a few seconds as he made his decision.

"Actually, I've already decided!" Uraraka said from over near Midoriya's desk where a few others were standing after hearing Midoriya's muttering as he tried to pick from one of the forty agencies. He had fought too recklessly in the Sports Festival that he wound up not getting any offers. The others around her all looked in, and Zach turned his head with a dazed look on his face and listened to Uraraka say, "Battle Hero: Gunhead's agency."

"Huh, Gunhead's a huge battle type," Midoriya said in surprise.

Zach stood up and started walking over, and he listened as Uraraka gave her reasons for joining Gunhead's agency. She said that even though she wanted to be a mainly rescue-based hero like Thirteen, fighting Bakugo showed her that she could do a lot more if she was stronger. He frowned as she talked about it, and he lifted back up his sheet and stared at it with a closer and more hesitant look. "What about you Zach?" Ojiro asked, turning to the boy who just walked over. "You got three offers, right?"

"Not much to pick from then," Yaoyorozu said, realizing why Zach looked a bit frustrated as he stared at his sheet.

"That's not it," he muttered, knowing why she said it like that. "After Uraraka talked about broadening our skill set, I'm not sure I should do my original plan," Zach said hesitantly. "But I don't know anything about these other two heroes, and Grappler's been my-"

"Zach! You got a offer from Grappler?" Midoriya asked in amazement, his eyes lighting up. Zach looked down at him and nodded, and Midoriya continued while getting a more confused look on his face, "Isn't he a big hero of yours though?"

Zach nodded his head, and Uraraka spun to him and held up both her hands. "Ah! Then you should totally go for it! Who knows if you'll get a chance to meet him again?"

"Not just meet him," Kaminari added. Though he was surprised Zach actually knew one of the three heroes who sent him an offer, he continued with a grin to his friend who had not been avoiding him like Kaminari was worried he might after he spilled the beans. "You'd get to see him in action up close, and even fight villains with him-"

"I'm going to Grappler's agency," Zach said, and Kaminari started laughing as he never got to finish. Zach noticed out the corner of his eye that Midoriya was shaking where he was sitting, and his eyes lowered down before making him frown. _He's doing air-sits during class? I guess he needs to train his body to be able to handle that strong Quirk… his Quirk, which All Might- I speculated too much when all I was doing was lying around thinking. Doing that to All Might, the same thing Monoma did to Kaminari and me, that was mean. I should apologize for prying. It's obviously an even bigger secret than the one he already showed me, which is huge in itself, so this must be even crazier. I'll just tell him I don't really know what I'm talking about, since it really was just speculation. I don't need to know the truth. I'll worry about my own Quirk, and I'll let Midoriya worry about his._

Zach headed for lunch when he had circled the Boxing Hero: Grappler's agency on the list. He put it away and headed to the cafeteria, going to hand it in afterwards, but when he was only halfway there, he heard Midoriya call up to him. He turned and saw the boy with dark green hair running his way, not with the others who Zach thought he would go to lunch with. He picked his agency faster than most others, so he was heading to lunch to get some food since he skipped breakfast in order to arrive to school really early.

"Hey, Midoriya," Zach started, a confused look on his face at the other boy's expression. He stared at the kid about his height, an inch taller or so even with the spikes of black hair over Zach's head. "What's up?"

"Did I do something wrong?" Midoriya asked, stopping panting and just looking at Zach up close. The other boy leaned back at that question, a bead of sweat rolling down his face.

"I've got, no idea what you mean," Zach said.

"It's just," Midoriya glanced around, but they were alone in the hallway for the moment. "You didn't say anything, when I went to your apartment. And all the others who went said they talked to you…"

Zach lifted his eyebrows and cracked a smile at the nervous look on his classmate's face. "Midoriya, I fell asleep like, right after you got there."

"Huh?" Midoriya's bottom lip dropped and a blank look replaced all the anxiety on his face. Zach just nodded at him while trying to hold in a laugh. "So, you didn't hear anything I said?" Zach shook his head around, though he was not going to mention how he intentionally did not listen so he could pass out. Midoriya then said, "Do you want to hear the speech? I was outside your door for five minutes-"

"It's fine," Zach said, reaching a hand out and putting it on Midoriya's shoulder. "It's the thought that counts," he said with a reassuring smile, and Midoriya smiled genuinely back, even though Zach had a sweatdrop sliding down the back of his head as he really hoped Midoriya felt better and would just drop it.

* * *

On the day that Class 1-A were leaving for their internships, they all gathered together at the train station before they would be scattering around the country. Most of them had internships far from any of their classmates, and only a few were going places in the same areas. After Aizawa saw off the class, Zach started heading towards his train without waiting for anyone. _Grappler,_ he thought, holding his costume case tight. It had the number '13' on it indicating his number alphabetically in class.

He was concentrated on his internship which he had been looking forward to for what felt like months now, even though it had only been a few days. The day he learned he would be interning there, he told Jenny all about it, and her parents invited him over for a celebration for it. He also told them the hero name he had come up with in class, and the three of them had loved it. Zach lowered his gaze to his costume box, then he pulled his backpack straps tight again. _Everything I need for a week away. It's more than I was planning on taking for an indefinite trip…_ Zach shook his head around, then he kept walking but froze and glanced back over his shoulder.

 _And then there's this,_ he thought, his expression darkening as he saw Iida turn to face Midoriya and Uraraka. Zach was already close to the escalator up to the platform for the trains to Hosu City, where Grappler's agency was situated. _Grappler's such an awesome hero, it makes sense for me to go here. But Iida had what, 320, 350 offers?_ Iida turned around and Zach turned away an instant later. He turned away and took a step, then he sighed and bowed his head. He closed his eyes and imagined that expression on Iida's face as he turned from Midoriya and Uraraka, the two Zach figured were the class rep's closest friends in the class. _Can't well ignore that,_ he thought as he made his way for the escalator and headed up.

He darted his eyes to the left as he saw someone pointing towards him, and he saw a couple of kids who looked ten years old each going down the opposite escalator across the stairs from him. As soon as they brought attention to him, others on that escalator looked his way. _One look, is that really all it takes? Even in a regular school uniform… Maybe I should stop styling my hair like Dad's._ He reached up and touched his spiky black hair, but he stopped and brought his hand back down. _No. It'll take time, but this is a cool style. Dad was a cool hero, saving people with his hair like this._

Zach got on his platform and he headed over to wait for the train to Hosu City. He took deep breaths to try and calm himself down, but his heart rate kept speeding up more at the thought of what he was about to do. _I don't even know him that well… but that doesn't matter here. He's my classmate, and a friend. He may not have showed up, but he texted me those long paragraphs, even though he's in the middle of this. Keeping up the class rep guise until the very end, huh?_ Zach shivered as he thought it, thinking about that look on Iida's face when he turned away from his friends one more time. _If I wasn't already convinced, that would have been the dead give-away._

The train arrived, and Zach got on. Musutafu City was not far from Hosu, both of them located around Tokyo. _Alright, this'll be a nice thirty minute trip. Nothing big. Just relaxing._ Zach stood there inside the train as it started to move. He stood even while everyone else sat. There were seats open for him, even with the box he was carrying. _If I just took a seat though, what kind of hero would that make me?_ Zach turned and walked back for the door connecting this car and the one behind it.

They were racing over the track, and Zach used the poles for support as he made his way back through the train. He opened another train door and entered, then he saw the tall boy in his class sitting in a more empty section than most. He was staring straight ahead, his expression dark and intense. Tenya Iida stared out the windows across the train from him above the empty seats. He glared out towards the tall buildings of Tokyo, while their train raced over tracks curving around the outside of the city. _"Tenya… actually, I don't have any feeling in my legs… The hero, Ingenium, will probably end here."_ _Hero Killer, I'm…_

Iida was so focused staring straight out the windows, that he did not notice who had walked in front of him until he had sat down on the seat directly across from him. Iida's eyes opened wide, while Zach sat back in the chair and stared at him. Zach put his costume box down next to him, then he tilted his head while looking at Iida, wondering if Iida was going to pretend like he was not just giving the window an 'I'll kill you' stare. "Zach, I heard you were going to Hosu City too. Grappler, correct?"

Zach nodded his head, "And what about you? Must be some amazing hero right? Since you got so many offers." Zach smiled at the taller boy and acted like he had no idea.

Iida got a serious look on his face and said, "The Normal Hero: Manual. He is also a fine-"

"Normal Hero," Zach said, nodding his head as that was not 'amazing,' as he had predicted. Iida frowned at him for interrupting, but Zach just looked back with a straight expression. "So Iida. We gonna pretend like we both don't know why you're going to Hosu?"

"I don't know what you're-"

"Alright then, I guess I'll be the one to stop playing first," Zach said, interrupting him again. "I spent four days straight watching tv after the Sports Festival. Just nonstop sleeping, and watching tv." Iida's eyes opened a little wider at why Zach would mention that, then they narrowed again as Zach started reciting news clips he had watched several times in pretty much the same wording each time. "The Hero Killer, Stain. He took out the Pro Hero Ingenium. I'm sorry by the way," he added, and he was apologetic about that. He continued while Iida was openly glaring at him now. "I checked out Stain's patterns, seems like he's not done with Hosu. Weird then, that you'd choose to come here."

"Zach, you don't know what you're-"

"Iida, I'm not going to tell you not to do it," Zach said, shaking his head and leaning back in his seat. Iida froze with his mouth open, still ready to deny everything. Yet Zach just looked at him in a serious way and said, "If my, family, had been hurt by someone. You can bet the first thing I'd want to do is go after them." _Jenny, her parents, even Aunt Maye, and Tsura._ "But that box you've got there," Zach continued, losing his sympathetic tone. "That's a costume made by U.A. that they entrusted to us to be responsible with. Whatever we do in these costumes will reflect back on our school and everything it stands for. As the class rep, I feel like you'd be the one most clear on that." Iida's head lowered and his forehead scrunched up, such a frustrated look on his face all of a sudden. "Be careful Iida," Zach said, standing up and making Iida lift his gaze fast to see his classmate turning away from him.

Zach took a step, then he paused and looked back towards the boy still staring at him. "Do you really think, you're stronger than your brother was?" He asked, then he turned back forward and walked away, clenching his teeth hard as he knew that was a terrible way to end that conversation. He did not want to look back at Iida's face now, but if he had he would have seen such furious frustration that he would have believed he only made the situation worse.

 _Of course I'm not stronger! But, what am I- supposed to do, with all this anger?!_

* * *

 **A/N Hope you enjoyed. Thanks for reading! Leave a review below telling me what you think and predictions for the next chapters.**

zerom1v chapter 10 . 18h ago

Wow. I was in chapter nine just a moment and then BAM chapter ten appears.  
Mr. Akers one heck of a dad! His words have more positive impact than All Might XD  
Hope Zach discovers how his quirk works. And I hope his hero name is epic

 **Haha glad you liked Mr. Akers. Thought Zach needed some more positivity in his life. Hope you liked Zach's Hero Name. And as for this rapid posting, we're still only halfway through the chapters I already have finished, so expect more coming every day for another week at least! Thanks for the review!**

Roxas Itsuka chapter 10 . 15h ago

Good chapter. Great emotional turmoil you displayed here.

 **Thanks! That's what I was going for, so glad it showed well!**

bloodyhound17 chapter 10 . 11h ago

Will Jenny become Zach's girlfriend?

 **No spoilers... XD Thanks for the review!**


	12. Chapter 12

**Disclaimer: I don't own Boku no Hero Academia**

 **Chapter 12:**

"Zach Sazaki," Grappler called out. He was a tall man of almost eight feet, wearing a tight reddish-brown, sleeveless muscle shirt, and loose black pants. He had his huge muscular arms crossed in front of his body under his chest that was also pushing out into his muscle shirt. Over his hands were red boxing gloves, or at least they looked like that when his arms were crossed and hands closed. If he turned his hands over and moved his fingers, the fingers of the glove moved around in the same way. He had on a red piece of headgear that looked like something a boxer would wear, but his had a visor that was currently pulled up over his forehead just beneath the start of his spiky blue hair.

"Yes sir!" Zach replied respectfully as he stood in front of the man more than half his body taller than him, and at least three times as heavy.

Grappler looked behind the boy at the three sidekicks currently in the room with them. They were in a dojo on one of the floor's of Grappler's agency building, just above the floor where Grappler had introduced the intern to the other staff members. "I saw you during that first fight at the Sports Festival. You think you know how to fight, huh?" Grappler stepped forward and brought his crossed arms down to put his hands on his sides. "You don't know the first thing," Grappler said, grinning down at the boy who looked up at him wide-eyed.

"You knocked him out in one blow," one of the martial arts' sidekicks behind Zach began. Zach looked back at his 'senpai' at the industry, and the guy wearing what looked like football paddings yet designed into hero gear continued, "But you charged him too recklessly. It's good to get the drop on someone, especially if they were blabbing like your opponent was-"

"But that could have easily been a trap," another hero sidekick on the left of the guy right behind Zach said. He was a thinner man than the others and wore a white gi, and he had a sword at his side attached to the black belt around his waist. "What if he had been speaking to you to reveal his own weakness? Villains do this on occasion as well."

"The dumb ones at least!" The largest guy in the room, a burly figure almost ten feet tall and half that as wide at the shoulders called out. He was smiling broadly, and his face looked weird like it was made for him to be able to smile with the entire bottom half of it. "But you still should have checked him out first, then look for his weakness-"

"Actually, everyone," Zach began. He felt like they might have had this whole thing planned out, and he felt kind of bad interrupting it, but he did not want them to go on making these assumptions any further. "I found out what his Quirk was beforehand. He had a sort-of Brainwashing. If I had answered him, he would have been able to control my body." The sidekicks behind Zach all stared at him in surprise, and the man in the white gi mentioned how that was a very rare Quirk.

Grappler hummed though as he looked down at the boy who faced him again. "Doing recon on your opponents is a good move. But I just liked that punch," he said, clenching his own fists and lifting them in front of him which made the boy before him take a step back with wide eyes as Grappler got ready to demonstrate in front of him. "I felt like if you had more fights in the tournament, we would have been able to see more, but all I needed was one look to tell. You've trained."

"With the best," Zach said, shaking his head while grinning wide, as he could hardly believe this was happening.

"Heh, well you haven't trained with me yet," Grappler said.

 _Oh man! I want to tell him, but I also feel like that'd be really embarrassing!_ The person Zach was talking about training with already, since he had been shouting at Zach to 'Punch!' 'Kick!' and 'Go for a twenty minute warm-up jog!' for seven years, was the same man in front of him now.

"I'm going to show you all the moves," Grappler said. "Alright, first of all, show me your stance." The pro hero looked at the stance the boy got in, then he chuckled and said, "I meant the cheetah stance-" Zach spun and lifted his hands in a different way. Grappler called out another stance, then realizing that the boy might have been a little more skilled than he had thought, (and hoped), he decided to get straight into the more advanced stuff. "Alright, roundhouse into a…

"High knee, feint right kick…

"Bear hug suplex set-up…"

"Sweep the knee…"

Grappler looked over the boy's head as he had him start up a combo of combos, and he looked at his sidekicks who were all just gawking at the kid's back as he had not once needed an explanation or a demonstration yet. "That was a good warm-up," Grappler said, stopping Zach in the middle of his high-speed combo and making the boy look up in surprise that this was still just the warm-up. They had been at this for thirty minutes now.

 _That's pro heroes for you. Working us to the bone._ Zach nodded to show he was ready for whatever the next challenge the Boxing Hero had for him.

Grappler hummed to himself, then he said, "I expected us to be here longer, but get your costume on. Let's go on patrol."

Zach's eyes opened wide. _Patrol! Already… Oh man, what if_ _ **we're**_ _the ones who run into Stain?_ He started looking a little nervous, and Grappler frowned at the sight of the kid's expression.

"What's making you hesitate?" The martial arts' master and pro hero questioned. Zach opened his mouth, but he was worried that if he brought up Stain, it would seem like he came to the city just to find him. _I just figured it out, but, I shouldn't mention anything._ Grappler could see more hesitation and jumbled thoughts in the student's head, and he said, "Is it the same thing that made you back out of the Sports Festival?"

Zach stopped thinking about Stain and his focus became fully on himself and Grappler. "No," he said, in a serious tone to show he meant it that these two things had nothing to do with each other. "I'm not hesitating. Let's go."

"One thing before we do," Grappler said. He looked down at Zach's right hand, and he said, "Before I take you out on the street, know this. I am responsible for you out there."

"I won't use my Quirk," Zach said before the man could tell him not to.

"Why?" Grappler asked.

 _Does, he not know?_ "Because, it's dangerous," Zach replied. The men in the room all looked at him seriously, and they all thought on the USJ incident. It was the reason Zach backed out of the Sports Festival, which was what Grappler had been trying to hint at before. "So, that's why I'm training hard in martial arts. I think if my body's strong enough, and my skills are good enough, I can be a great hero even without using my Quirk."

"And that Quirk would be?" Grappler questioned. Zach hesitated and he closed his mouth again. After saying something so full of determination and spirit to a hero of his, he had hoped for a different reaction. But he had not answered the hero's question with his long-winded response.

"It's," Zach started. He looked over his shoulder, then back at Grappler. _I don't know any of them very well. They're heroes, but they're still people. People get scared._ "It's a secret," Zach said, looking up into Grappler's eyes apologetically. "But I can't use it against villains. And it wouldn't help with anything else, so there is nothing I can do about it."

"Training Quirks, is as important as training the body," Grappler said. Zach's eyes widened as the Boxing Hero took a step towards him. "To be afraid of one's own Quirk, is a dangerous thing. Hiding it away, and denying its power, are good ways to make it so you never learn how to control your Quirk."

"I can't, control it-" Zach began.

"Have you ever really tried?" Grappler wondered.

"Yes," Zach said. "But it just kills," he continued, his voice getting louder and more distressed. "I tried. I tried a bunch of times. But every time I tried to use it weaker, or just barely touch… it doesn't make a difference." He gasped the last part out, then he took a few breaths to calm himself, not wanting to lose it in front of his hero. He took a deep breath in and then let it out, then he looked back into Grappler's eyes with a serious expression. "My Quirk can only kill. I tried using it in other ways, tried making it weaker, but nothing worked. All I wound up doing was killing a few literal guinea pigs, and I hated it too much to keep trying."

Grappler sighed and he scratched his chin a few times while looking down at the boy. _Can he really, become a hero? A Quirkless hero doesn't really exist. Two of the guys in here, plus myself, have simple strength enhancers, but even that is a huge natural advantage against someone without anything. Well, I'm guessing by the end of the week I'll have my answer. This kid can be as determined, as well-versed a fighter as a kid can be, but we'll see if he's hero material._ "Well, what are you still doing in those clothes?" Grappler called out. "I thought I said get in your costume! You've got a minute kid!"

Zach sprinted off the get his hero uniform on, panicking that he had forgotten, yet forgetting that it was Grappler who told him to wait anyway.

* * *

Zach spent the day patrolling the city along with Grappler and three of his sidekicks. Linebacker, Old-Fashioned Hero: Samurai, and Big Supreme all gave Zach pointers while they walked around, telling him about the purpose of wearing their costumes out in public and letting the public see them. They told him how their actions keep villains from popping up all day, and all night as well as their patrols continue. Zach wound up alternating shifts with the sidekicks, with Grappler telling him that he needed to see both their day and night activities. It was only the first day, but when he got back to the agency at four a.m, Zach was exhausted.

He passed out, only to be woken up at nine for morning training. He was shocked by the huge breakfast they had made for him, but Grappler yelled while they ate together that pro heroes needed their energy for the long days and important jobs they had. Zach had to shake off his feeling of fatigue from the long day before, as he agreed with his hero and did not want them to think he was slacking off or being lazy. They started training again, but it was more hands-on than when he arrived the day before. Zach admitted to Grappler that all he had learned was through Grappler's own videos when the hero caught him using a counter that he had invented. Grappler told him that those videos were not meant to train heroes, but as self-defense courses that just made him some advertising money to keep up upkeep when villain activity was low.

Although Zach was disappointed by the motives for why the videos were created, he told Grappler that if those were just self-defense tactics, then there must be a lot of fighting styles he does not know specifically made for taking down villains. The Boxing Hero had frowned at him, only to crack a grin as a voice called out that a villain had appeared. "Why don't I show you some of those techniques then?" Grappler said, then he shouted at Zach to get ready for action and follow him.

The two of them ran across town and came upon a scene where a couple of heroes had already arrived. Zach glanced around but did not see Iida or Manual at the scene. Then he refocused in awe as Grappler ran right between the two heroes using long range attacks to keep the out-of-control villain away from the civilians and lines of police setting up to protect them. Grappler sprinted through and did a straight-on charge at the villain. The helmet over his head with the visor on it had a display set up on the tinted green glass, telling him the villain's Quirk that had already been determined when his identity was discovered by the others who had arrived earlier. A voice in his helmet told him how the heroes took him down the first time, as they were able to ascertain his identity because he was a convicted felon who had been released on parole.

"You just couldn't resist," Grappler shouted as he slammed his arms up and caught the huge hairy ones the villain slammed down at him. Once he caught the arms of the twelve foot tall Gorilla Quirk guy's green-furred arms, he pulled them both to the left while swinging his right leg up, slamming it straight under the villain's armpit and dislocating an arm. The villain let out a roar while hitting the ground on Grappler's left and skidding across it.

Cheers shouted from the sides of the scene, and Zach stood there in shock at how quick it happened. The hero in front of him on his left wiped some sweat off his forehead, before saying, "That's Grappler for you. None of my attacks were doing a thing."

"I thought its skin was too rough, was about to shout at him something about it," the other hero near Zach said, scratching the back of his head. "Guess I was wrong."

Grappler ran over as the villain tried using its other arm to push itself up, and the strong hero grabbed the arm it was putting all its strength down on and tugged it behind the villain's back while planting a knee into his spine. He locked up the villain's arm in an arm-bar, then the villain roared in pain as it tried using its other arm only to find it impossible and very painful. The villain turned his head and bared his teeth while leaning up towards Grappler, then Grappler slammed the man's head down into the street while keeping the other in an arm-bar. "This time, I don't think you'll be getting parole. Villain, you're going back to jail!" Grappler pushed down on the villain's head harder as it struggled against him and was actually pushing back despite their position.

The cops knew it was their turn though, and they ran forward and up to the villain to cuff and chain him up. When the incident was over, Zach was amazed as Grappler started heading back towards him. The other heroes and civilians all around were cheering for him and the quick way he took down the villain, and Zach started smiling too and told the hero how amazing it was when he got to him. Zach thought about how at the USJ event he had been so indecisive. He did not know which villains to go after, did not know what to do when he was caught to the point that he panicked. But as he thought about how he was slow at making fast decisions in a time like this, Grappler instead brought up his fight with Shinso at the Sports Festival. He knew the best move was to end it quickly before he let anything slip, and Grappler said he threw a great punch on top of that.

The two of them headed towards the media for Grappler to speak to about the villain, and Zach hesitantly got behind Grappler as the media asked him questions. He suddenly wished his hero uniform had a helmet like Grappler's and like so many of his classmates had, because he noticed that the people who worked for the media were very quick to recognize who he was. After only two questions though, Grappler said that they had to go and they headed off. Zach quickly walked up to Grappler's right side as a reporter tried moving his way, really not wanting to be on the mainstream news stations as he knew this would be if he said a single word. He still clenched his teeth though as the reporter shouted the question at his back anyway, "Zach Sazaki! What is your Quirk?"

 _Is that all they really care about? What about the villain? Why not ask why I had to do it? Or, like, how it feels? Or something else!_ Zach hated how much speculation the news had made about his ability. They had stopped doing it as much when U.A. released a public statement that they never confirmed which student it was- but because they did not deny that it was Zach, which the media believed they would have if a student had been accused falsely, they kept on reporting that it was him. Zach told the school not to do anything else about it, as he figured the only way to get the situation to die down was if no one gave it any publicity or new information. It had already started fading before his identity came out, and here the media were trying to get new information to keep it a story. _So don't tell them. Not that I was going to anyway, but an even better reason now… better, than trying not to get lynched?_

Zach shivered but he just kept walking with his head up next to Grappler. The pro hero glanced down with only his eyes to see how the boy was doing, and he nodded in a satisfied way at how Zach was handling it. _Better than running away at least,_ he thought, recalling how the boy had left the stage in the quarterfinals of the Sports Festival. _Almost didn't send the offer because of that, but he's still just a kid. Millions of people staring at him, saying the same things, oof,_ Grappler opened his mouth, "In my helmet is a communicator connected to the agency. The information my visor picks up and the police communications we are granted access to are transferred straight to the agency. You mentioned that there were a lot more staff members than you thought I had from my low number of sidekicks, but all of them have important jobs. Interacting with the media, finding villains and jobs that are close enough for my sidekicks and I to reach in time to make a difference, and even in a fight. They search the internet as soon as the villain is located, learn everything about him to put on my visor and prepare me for…"

The student's mind shifted from his own dark thoughts on his Quirk to focusing on the present, and the future. Grappler mentioned to him that if he had a hero firm of his own one day, he would need to consider all these things and whether or not he can do them alone or needs to hire help. The hero laughed that he was not great with just about anything except for fighting, so without his support staff, he'd be "up a creek without a paddle." That really got Zach thinking about his future. _If I had an agency, maybe I could have people with really amazing Quirks with me for when my skills aren't enough. But, if they have more powerful Quirks that can stop villains I can't, wouldn't they be the heroes, and me the sidekick? To get amazing people to follow me, with only my skills as a fighter, I'd need to be more than just an average hero. I'd have to be more than a great hero, but a remarkable one._

 _I never thought about being one of the top heroes. I mean, I've thought about it, but never considered it as a possibility. But what if it's the only way? If the only way to even become a hero at all, is to be one so amazing that I can get a bunch of other strong people to stay at my sides and help me? Could I do that? Could I inspire people like those at the top do? Like, All Might does?_ Zach clenched his fists at his sides. _It's not a matter of "can" I do it. I'm_ _ **going**_ _to do it. I'm not going to let my past get in the way of my dream. I won't let my Quirk stop me. Or what anyone else thinks. I'll be a hero, more amazing than any!_

* * *

"What's going on?" Zach called out as both Linebacker and Samurai spun their heads the same direction with wide eyes. All three of them stared out into the city where a huge explosion just went off. The sky turned red over there and with its illumination, they were able to see the plumes of black smoke billowing out all over the sky.

"Let's go!" Linebacker yelled, and he started sprinting that way without waiting. Samurai turned to tell the kid to follow along, but Zach ran past the man in the white gi, an intense look on his face as his hands clenched at his sides.

Samurai watched as Zach ran past, then he looked down at the boy's right hand clenched in his black glove. _**"We were told by U.A. not to let him take his glove off. I'll ask him his Quirk when he gets here and make that decision myself. But if it really is something we can't work on, something too dangerous, then we don't let him get in fights with villains."** Grappler-sensei, I will not let you down._ "Lifebringer," Samurai called out, running towards the boy wearing an all white uniform like his except without the black belt. Zach turned his head as he was called by his hero name, trying not to smile as he heard it again directed towards him, as he was supposed to be focused on the fight ahead.

"When we get to the scene, your job is to get the civilians away from there. Do not engage in combat, understood?" Samurai asked, giving the boy a serious look. Zach looked back into his eyes and nodded his head, seeing that saying anything else would get the hero to tell him to return.

They kept running, but Zach frowned deeper as they ran towards the scene. _We don't even know what the situation is yet. What if they do need my help? Well, we'll figure it out when we're there. I shouldn't try to fight villains as I am now. I'm still not strong enough-_ Linebacker had just reached the next intersection where a lot of red light from around it was flooding down, indicating they were close to the fires now. As soon as he turned his head though, Samurai and Zach skid to stops and their eyes opened huge. A figure came flying out around that next intersection and slammed into Linebacker, and both of them tumbled down the street and into the wall of a building across it on the corner.

The reason both the twenty-eight year old sidekick and student intern felt their bodies tense up and sweat to cover their faces though, was that the man who crashed into Linebacker was none other than Grappler. The Boxing Hero: Grappler, staggered up to his feet off the wall of the building and he looked down at Linebacker, only to see his sidekick out cold from how hard he collided with him. The pro in charge of the agency looked over towards Samurai and Zach who called out his name, then he turned and ran back down the street he just came flying out of. "Samurai with me! Lifebringer, help the police evacuate the area!"

The hero stared at Zach with a hesitant look as he kept running down that road, Samurai running up to help him. _What was that?_ Zach thought, seeing a strange look in the hero's eyes as he had looked over. _What's going on here?_ Zach thought, hearing another explosion and looking up to see what caused it on such a high story of a building. He looked up, and he felt like his heart skipped a beat. High in the air he saw something flying out of an explosion on the side of a skyscraper, a hero held by his mouth in its long beak. The creature swooped down while dropping the hero, and another hero ran over and shot a jet of water high into the air that the one who was dropped landed on before getting lowered down. Zach barely noticed the hero getting saved though, because he was too busy staring at the top of the creature's head, the creepy eyes and the brain that was showing on the top of it.

 _Nomu,_ he thought, taking a step back as he remembered how strong the one at USJ was said to be. _All Might fought it, and he said that the incident caused his time limit as a hero to shrink down. The heroes around here can't do anything against that! They're going to,_ Zach started running forward onto the next street where he spun to see if the other heroes needed his help. He froze and his heart started pounding as he looked down that road. Grappler got tossed up into the air, then Samurai's sword slammed into the leg of the creature in front of him, only for the weapon to push in and get stuck in its muscles. The large black Nomu more muscular than the one Zach saw flying up in the air slammed a fist down and hit Samurai on the side. The hero tried blocking with one arm, and Zach heard a crack before the sidekick he had just been patrolling the streets with got thrown aside so fast he smashed through a window on this side of the street before Zach was even able to turn his head. _Samurai, is he-_

Zach looked back at the Nomu, his hands trembling like his whole body in fear of the creature. _Nomus? Plural?! Just one of these things is… is impossible to fight! This group of, I don't recognize any of…_ Zach spotted the same hero he saw drop from the sky, one of his arms over the shoulder of another hero who was running away to get the injured one out of there. Manual leaned down and lowered the injured hero, then he spun back towards the Nomu in the middle of the road surrounded by heroes who could do nothing to stop it. Manual grimaced then started shooting water towards the fires on the sides of the road to try and keep it contained, though he looked left and right while doing this as if looking for something.

 _He's, looking for Iida. Where would Iida be right now if not for here?_ Zach felt a buzz in his pocket while he heard police behind him shout about keeping the line and getting all civilians behind it. He looked back and saw cop cars lining up, and one of the cops shouted at him to help them clear out a building where some hiding civilians had called in from. _A group of civilians trapped in this zone, near villains and out-of-control fires._ Zach ran towards them and told them his hero name and how Grappler had told him to help out, and they split him up with a couple of cops to go search a different building than the one the rest of the police started heading into.

 _It's probably just Jenny, worried because she knows I'm in Hosu City,_ Zach thought. He ran into a building and shouted with the cops to see if anyone was there. They decided to sweep different floors to make it go faster, and Zach was to hit the fourth and seventh which was the top floor of the building. He told them he was fast, and he sprinted up the stairs taking three at a time without slowing down until he reached the fourth. He sprinted through the office yelling around for people, then he ran all the way up to the top floor to search as well. "Hey! You two!" Zach shouted towards some windows on the opposite side of the room as the stairwell door he got out of.

A couple of janitors turned towards him with nervous looks and wide eyes. One looked like a normal guy while the other had mops for arms, which Zach figured was pretty useful for his job. "Let's go! We're evacuating the building before the fires spread here."

"What about those monsters?" One of the janitors yelled as they ran towards him.

"We'll get you to safety far from them, now come on," Zach yelled motioning for the door in a fast way so they would pick up the pace. "Careful down the stairs, he mentioned, worried their panicked feelings would make them trip and fall.

"Thanks, hero," the guy with mop-arms said as he ran by and started running down the stairs. A huge smile spread over Zach's face for a second, then he heard a crash outside and remembered everything happening around him.

Zach heard down the steps one of the cops call up that their floors were clear, and Zach called down that the top was empty too. He started heading down as the officers said they received word they were pushing back the police line another block. They waited until the janitors were far enough down, then the cop farther back towards Zach turned to him and said, "Nothing's working against those villains. The heroes are losing!"

Zach's breath sped up and he kept running down the steps, his eyes wide and shaking. _What if I, am making a bad decision? I can't just go around killing villains, but, what if the heroes are getting hurt, or even killed out there?_ Zach's arms shook at his sides as he ran, and his right hand trembled as he tried clenching it into a fist. _If I do something though, it won't just be a freak accident. I'll be the hero who kills villains. I'll be expelled. I'll be shunned by society. But, if it saves those heroes… isn't that still what a hero would do? It's just the society that would look down on me, but I'd really, be doing a good thing?_

They reached the first floor and Zach watched as the cops and the two janitors ran ahead and out the building. He slowed down though, his hand sliding into his pocket to pull his phone out. _Jenny. What did she say to me? What should I-_ Zach stared at his phone and he froze. There was no writing. No message. There were some responses from confused people in their class, but the boy who sent the message had not responded. He just texted out a location. A location in Hosu City.

Zach sprinted outside and he ran towards the cops who were evacuating large groups of heroes down the road. A look over his shoulder showed that the heroes were keeping the Nomus busy, and then Zach spotted something that made his eyes grow huge. "Endeavor," he whispered, right before the cops and civilians behind him cheered. "No time," he whispered, turning away from the hero he would have loved to see in action. He sprinted towards the cop cars and the officer who told him to evacuate the building with the others. The sergeant opened his mouth to say something, but Zach spoke fast, "Send people to this address." He did not stop after sprinting towards the cop, tossing him the phone and then running by while imagining the location he saw in his head.

"Why? What's going on there?" The cop asked, spinning and calling to the young hero.

 _I don't know! But with Endeavor here, I made the right move not going to try and kill the villains. But Endeavor's not over there, and I think Midoriya needs help. There's nothing I can say though to convince the cop that it's a priority. I don't have any proof after all. But, Midoriya wouldn't send something like that and not respond. He's in Hosu. Where is Iida? There's only one reason Iida wouldn't be here with Manual._ Zach just sprinted away without answering the cop, hoping the man would just listen if he looked that serious about it. He hoped maybe his hero uniform would make the difference, and he held onto that hope as he sprinted down the road.

 _I recognized the location. I know how to get there from here._ Zach sprinted without break. He had just ran up and down a seven story building after running to the scene of the incident, and now he was running as fast as ever across Hosu. He was starting to pant, but he breathed in and out through his nose and just pushed down his heels harder. _Why didn't I do more?_ He thought, grinding his teeth and clenching his fists tighter at his sides. _I told him I knew, but I just told him to think about it. I didn't want to get involved in someone else's business, because I hate it when people get involved in mine. When they snoop and pry, and I could tell it was that serious and personal a thing for him- but I, I just pretended that talking to him on the train was enough to help. If anything I probably made things worse, just made him, more frustrated._

Zach shook his head, then he cut left down a main road which he had seen on the picture Midoriya sent of his location. _The alley is off of this road, just up ahead._ He saw a flash of red light in that direction, coming out of the alley. _Fire? Endeavor's here, did Todoroki… I thought he didn't like his dad or something. Might not be him._ He figured Shoto Todoroki just came to his head because he had recently seen Endeavor, but when he finally reached the alley and turned down it, the first person he saw was the same boy he was just thinking of. Zach skid to a stop in his sprint as he spun down that alleyway, panting heavily and darting his eyes around. His eyes grew huge, but his heart rate was slowing down as he spotted the figure his classmate was dragging down the alley. _They, beat the hero killer?!_ Zach thought, his bottom lip lowering as he looked around at them.

"Zach," Todoroki said as the boy sprinted out in front of them.

Iida lifted his head, as he had been looking down at his arm covered that was covered in his blood. He had also just been staring down at the floor, his mind filled with all the regret and guilt of coming here alone and getting his classmates hurt. He looked up hearing what Todoroki said, and his regret grew even more as he thought about the boy he expected to be frowning at him in a disappointed or angry way after he had even gone out of his way to warn him on the train. "Zach, I-" he began as he rose his gaze, going to apologize for ignoring him and pretending like Zach did not know what he was talking about. When he looked up though, his eyes opened wide at the sight of Zach letting out a deep breath of relief. Zach put his hands down on his knees and started panting heavier, as the realization that he did not have to run into a fight against a guy who murders heroes hit him all at once.

"Geez, you guys scared me," he said while looking down and breathing hard. _Thought they might have been dead. Thought they might have been almost dead, and needed me to step in. But if these guys couldn't handle it, I would have taken my glove off right away._ He was panting from more than just running, as he thought of what would have happened had he turned down this alley and seen something else. Zach lifted his head to Midoriya who was being carried on Native's back, a hero who Zach actually recognized from the villain fight the day before who had been unable to do anything until Grappler arrived.

The pro hero carrying Midoriya saw the boy at the alley's end and he said, "You, were Grappler's sidekick right?"

Zach looked down at the hero in surprise, wondering if the guy really did not recognize him from anywhere else. "Yeah," Zach replied. "I gave the police this location. They should be here soon," he added, looking up towards Midoriya again over Native's shoulder. "Though you could have given some more information," he added, though it was mock annoyance in his voice.

"I told my father to send some pro heroes here too," Todoroki added while stepping out of the alley. Just after he said it, Gran Torino showed up and started yelling at Midoriya for not staying put on the train. This was then followed by a group of other heroes running down the sidewalk and mentioning how they had been sent over.

"I saw Endeavor back there," Zach said, and Todoroki looked left at him. Zach had sweat on his face though and a scared look as he stared back towards the side of the city where it must have still been engulfed in flames considering all the red in the sky. "You're dad really is awesome. But," Zach paused as he knew how he was going to finish that sentence. He turned to Iida who stood with his head bowed and to Midoriya who looked at him oddly on Native's shoulder. "There are Nomus in the city. Just like the one from USJ."

"The League of Villains?" Todoroki wondered, narrowing his gaze as he thought about it. Midoriya just thought back to the train he came to the city on with Gran Torino, when the Nomu smashed through the wall attacking a hero. The heroes around them all started talking about the Hero Killer they noticed the children had caught, and they mentioned calling the police only for Zach to say that he already gave them the address.

Zach looked around for Grappler among the heroes he had seen back at the fight earlier. He frowned as he did not see him among them, but there were other heroes from the fight he did not see either. _They're probably still dealing with the Nomus,_ Zach thought, narrowing his eyes and staring back in the direction of the flames. He started running, but the short elderly hero who appeared and talked to Midoriya called out to him that Endeavor was taking care of it. Zach looked back towards Gran Torino, then over at the flaming sky in Hosu. _But, I could stop this right now._

Zach held back though, because the more experienced hero told him to. He walked back over to talk to his classmates and then Iida walked towards them, ignoring the heroes telling him to stay put until an ambulance could deal with his injuries. Iida bowed to them, apologizing to Midoriya and Todoroki that he got hurt because of him, and that he caused this by letting his anger blind him. Zach sweatdropped that Iida needed to be doing this now, while he was worried about Grappler and the others from the agency. Midoriya replied though that he was sorry for not noticing how Iida felt, and Todoroki told him to lift his head as the class rep. Zach just frowned more though, _I noticed how you felt. And I just said that as the class rep, you should know better. Damn, I did nothing to help him. I couldn't- no, there were things I could have done. Why didn't I look at my phone faster? Was it because we were in the middle of an incident like this-_

"Everyone duck!" Gran Torino shouted.

Zach was shocked but he dropped down fast. He snapped his head up while he ducked though, as the shadow swooped down over him and reached its talons down, grabbing Midoriya and flying up into the air with him. "Midoriya!" He shouted, snapping back up and taking a step after the Nomu that came out of nowhere. Todoroki lifted his arm that covered in flames, Gran Torino bent down to prepare to shoot after him, then Zach saw the movement on his left. His eyes darted to the floor as someone moved faster than anyone else. His ropes were falling behind him, and Zach started to turn with his eyes getting wider as the man leapt up and licked across one of the heroes' faces, where blood from the injured Nomu had splashed as it grabbed Midoriya.

The flying Nomu lost its ability to move, while the Hero Killer raced between the others who all looked in in shock at his movements. He sprinted out of his ropes, holding a knife the heroes had missed while disarming his unconscious body. "This society overgrown with fake heroes…" he started yelling while jumping up at the falling villain. "And the criminals who wave their power around idly…" Stain stabbed his knife down into the head of the Nomu and slammed it into the floor, grabbing Midoriya with his other hand as they skid down the sidewalk. "Should all be purged."

Zach felt chills down his body as he looked towards the Hero Killer's back. He saw Midoriya next to him look up at Stain's face only for an intense fear like Zach could not imagine to spread across it. " _This is all,_ " Stain's voice came out raspy but loud, terrifying and full of conviction, but mostly terrifying while he ripped the blade through the Nomu's head and made blood splash up in the air. " _To create a more just society,_ " Stain snarled, his body staggering up as his voice echoed around the street.

"He saved the boy?" One of the heroes behind Zach wondered in shock.

"Idiot, he took a hostage," another argued.

"He killed someone without hesitation," a third said, sweating badly at the look of the villain.

"Anyway, get ready to fight now," the only female hero in the group said.

"Why are you all standing around in a group?" The group turned at the sound of that voice approaching down the street, and Zach felt hope fill him at the sight of the man with flames sticking out of his head and all over his body. "The villain should've escaped this way," Endeavor added.

"H-How are things on your end?" One of the heroes who had been fighting with Endeavor before asked.

Endeavor's attention had switched though and he started, "Things got a little rough, but don't tell me, that man is…"

The villain bent down with one hand on Midoriya turned his head and looked through the white cloth over his face. He was breathing heavily and had spit sliding out of his mouth. He was burnt up and his body looked broken, but he hissed in his raspy and terrifying voice while looking back down the street, " _Endeavor_."

"Hero Killer!" Endeavor shouted with a grin, pulling a fist back and covering it in flames.

As Gran Torino shouted at Endeavor to wait because of Midoriya, Zach felt his blood run cold, as the white cloth tied around Stain's face fell off. Stain turned his body and looked back towards the heroes. _**"You fake-"**_ Zach took a step back, feeling a pressure like nothing he had ever felt before pressing down on him. The villain looked shadowed by the night, his eyes looked red, and he staggered a step towards them while speaking in a tone that made every person there fill with fear. _**"I must make things right."**_ He took another step, _**"Someone must be dyed in blood."**_

 _ **"I must take back what it means to be a hero!"**_ His body exuded the most bloodthirsty aura. It felt like his anger was tangible in the air and burning at their bodies. When he stomped another foot forward, Zach could swear the city shook around them. His left hand trembled as it moved to his right, grabbing his glove and sliding it. _**"Come! Try and get me, you fakes!"**_ In the corner of his eyes he saw Endeavor take a step back. The old hero who Midoriya had been interning with, Gran Torino, too. His classmates were frozen in place, and he could not tear his eyes off of Stain even as he brought his glove to his fingertips.

 _ **"The only one I'll let kill me is the true hero… ALL MIGHT!"**_ Zach swore he saw a giant black monster fill the air around Stain and cover the entire street. His bloodthirsty aura rushed down the street so hard that the heroes let out whimpers and one even fell backwards. _Clink!_ Stain's knife hit the floor. Zach's eyes opened huge and he shot his eyes down, seeing he dropped his glove when Stain made that final roar. He lifted his gaze back up, and he stared in shock at the villain they were all so terrified of. His eyes had rolled back and he was standing there motionless.

"He's, unconscious," Endeavor said.

Zach dropped to his knees and grabbed his glove. He tried sliding it back on his right hand as fast as he could, while Todoroki fell on his butt next to him and Iida dropped to his knees too. He looked back up before he had finished getting his glove on though, staring at Stain in shock. _What was that? Everyone felt it. Everyone, was terrified._ Zach's hands were trembling, and his right hand was so sweaty he was having trouble getting it into his glove. He looked down to focus and managed to get it back in there, then he looked towards Stain again while Endeavor and Gran Torino headed towards him. _That guy at USJ, he was nothing. That was, a real villain. Real villains are… monsters._ Zach's hands were still trembling, and he grabbed his knees tightly with them. _"He killed someone without hesitation…"_ What one of the heroes behind him said about Stain a minute ago echoed in his head, and his eyes refocused down on his right hand. _I didn't even think, about taking it off this time. I just did it- without hesitating._ His eyes rose again towards Stain and he bit down hard, closing his eyes and bowing his head while grabbing his knees even tighter. _Monsters…_

* * *

 **A/N Thanks for reading. Hope you enjoyed. Leave a review below telling me what you think.**


	13. Chapter 13

**Disclaimer: I don't own Boku no Hero Academia**

 **Chapter 13:**

"So you guys want me not to say anything?" Zach asked in a low voice, his expression dark as the words came out. "Pretend like I didn't see it was you who beat Stain?"

"We don't like it either," Todoroki started. "But-"

"Fine, I get it," Zach said. He nodded at the three in the hospital room he came to visit. He changed the topic fast while they looked at him in surprise, as they never even got to explain the reasoning for why they could not take credit for beating Stain. "Are you guys all doing alright though?" He asked.

Todoroki frowned and looked away, which made Midoriya and Iida both grin. Zach thought it was a weird reaction to have, then Iida got a more serious tone in his voice as he said, "My left arm suffered some long-term damage, but other than that we are okay."

"Todoroki thinks it's his fault," Midoriya half-whispered with a hand cupped to his mouth. "Because he's the cursed 'Hand-Crusher-" Midoriya barely got it out before he and Iida started laughing again.

"It's not that funny," Todoroki said, sounding annoyed like they had already laughed about this enough.

Zach cracked a small smile, then he just nodded at them. "Well, I'm glad," he said. "I've gotta go though," he said, making them all turn back to him to see him giving them a half, fake smile before turning back for the door. "Still have a few more days of the internship after all," he said, then he walked out and closed the door behind him fast before the others could ask him the questions he knew were on their mind. _How can I hide it though?_ He thought, as he turned and started walking farther through the hospital.

His expression darkened more, filling with regret as he reached a door that his hand hesitantly moved towards. He knocked on it twice and heard a voice, "Come in."

Zach opened the door and he stepped inside. He walked over towards a hospital bed where a muscular man was lying with a few people on his side standing or sitting in chairs. Zach recognized a few people from the agency, but Grappler turned to them and asked if they could have the room for a minute. The others talking to him nodded and headed for the door, a few of them glancing back with looks of regret and sadness on their faces. "Lifebringer. Good to see you here. I heard from a cop friend of mine that you really helped out during-"

"Grappler," Zach began, his voice hoarse.

The man in front of him lowered his smile and he gained a similar dark look to the one Zach had on his face. Zach tried to keep himself from saying anything, from putting his problems on the man in front of him, especially now. He distracted himself, "What about Samurai? Will he be alright?"

"He's a strong one," Grappler said. "He was in the ICU for the night, it looked bad, but I knew he'd pull through. Though, there will be some permanent damage in his left arm." Grappler added it, then saw the boy in front of him scrunch his face up and bite down in mental pain. "You mustn't blame yourself for this. Samurai wouldn't either-"

"But, I could have done something," Zach said, trying hard not to let his voice crack as he looked down to his feet. "I, if I had gone over there, it would have been over in a second. _I,_ could have ended it."

Grappler's eyes widened a bit that the boy thought that. He almost wanted to argue that there would have been nothing the kid could have done, but he saw Zach clenching his right wrist with his left hand so hard, and clenching that right fist even harder. "To do so though, would you have had to kill the villain?" Grappler asked. Zach ground his teeth but nodded his head once. "Then it is a good thing you did not intervene." Zach lifted his head, his eyes huge and shocked. "No heroes were killed during the fight. You would not have saved anyone by stepping in, breaking the rules, and hurting your own soul."

Zach gasped in and his eyes filled with water. "The actions you made last night, were the best actions you could have made as a hero. Helping civilians, and informing the police, you made good judgment calls. Oh come now, don't cry," Grappler gave the kid a smile and said, "You proved yourself out in a terrible situation. You shouldn't regret that."

"But, Grappler," Zach said, his voice coming out cracked and forced as tears spilled out of his eyes. "Your arms," Zach cried, his heart breaking as he stared at the arm-less man on the bed in front of him. He had not gotten a clear answer as to what had happened to the hero, but he imagined a hundred different scenarios. The Nomu he saw fighting all the heroes ripping Grappler's arms off. He saw the black creature pinning Grappler to the ground and taking them one at a time. He saw the Nomu biting one off, then ripping the other into pieces. Grappler had the top part of his left arm, from midway down his bicep up which the doctors had managed to save. "If I had done something, then… you could still be a hero!"

Grappler's eyes lowered and he could not force the smile on his face any longer. He bared his own teeth and would have loved to clench his hands angrily in front of him. His whole life training with those arms. Training all his different fighting techniques using them. Saving people with them. Then he turned to the boy next to him, and he thought while losing the enraged and frustrated look on his face at the kid's bowed head and the tears falling off his chin. _I never once, saved people with only my fists,_ Grappler thought. "You're right, I can't be a hero anymore. But, the government pays a large pension to heroes who get maimed on the job." Zach lifted his head with wide eyes to see the hero lifting the corners of his mouth to smile at him. Zach's eyes grew even wider and his breath caught in his throat as the man continued, "So don't cry for me son. You've done a good job, Sazaki."

Grappler smiled more and he leaned back on the headboard of his bed he was sitting up on. "Titanium would be proud," he said. Zach froze and he stared at Grappler in even more shock while the pro hero chuckled at his expression.

"You knew, my father?" Zach whispered.

"You didn't really think, a single punch could get you an offer, did you?" Grappler asked. His voice got a little more serious, and Zach decided not to mention that two other heroes seemed to think so. He just stared at Grappler as the man turned towards him, "Yes, I knew your father. He was a great hero, someone I looked up to." Grappler then continued in a lower voice, "It was a shame what happened to him. I never let the scandals and the man he became, at the end, change my opinion of the hero I knew as Titanium though. That man, was a wonderful hero."

Zach had his teeth clenched hard, and he wiped his face of the tears before nodding at Grappler. _I feel the same,_ the kid thought.

"I'm sure you know how easy it is for a hero's reputation to be made then," Grappler continued, and Zach nodded his head. "You don't want to be known as a hero who kills people. That's not a hero at all. Our justice system exists for a reason. If heroes go beyond that and start using lethal force all the time, our whole society becomes one run under the iron fist of the law. It would be a pretty authoritative government to allow someone like that to run around, getting paid by them to kill villains." Zach shook his head, knowing he couldn't do it yet closing his eyes because he had to see the result of his inaction if he left them open. "Open your eyes," Grappler said, seeing what Zach was doing.

Zach paused for a few seconds, then he opened them again and stared at Grappler's sides. "Sometimes, there are going to be people you can't save. You'll have to accept that if you become a hero. If you live with guilt and regret every time you fail to save someone, you'll never make it in this field." Zach nodded his head, then he heard something no one had ever told him before, "Sometimes though, you may have to kill a villain." Zach stared at the man in shock, and Grappler continued while looking sternly into his eyes. "It's not something I'd like to say to an aspiring hero in his youth, but as heroes we need to be selfless. If you _choose_ not to involve yourself with a situation because you fear you may have to use your power, then you have lost what it means to be a hero." The boy kept staring at him with wide eyes, and Grappler finished, "It's once you're in the situation itself that you have to make the decision. Avoiding the decision, is the same as looking away. If you can't be a hero without doing that, then you can't be a hero at all."

He finished it on that, and after a few seconds Zach bowed his head. _Is that why I ignored the phone call? I was in a situation where I could be a hero without having to use my powers, could I have just wanted that to continue so I_ _ **chose**_ _not to look at my phone? I knew there was a chance of it having something to do with Iida, because I didn't see him outside with Manual. I knew it could have been the Hero Killer, and it wasn't fear of him that stopped me. I didn't want, to have to be in a situation where I'd be forced to make the choice._ Zach clenched his eyes shut harder, _And when I did get in that situation, I wound up taking off my glove. For a guy who was already on the verge of unconsciousness. Am I really cut out for this? I'm not! Not yet- but, maybe these things, will be stepping stones._ Zach opened his eyes slowly and he started steadying his expression. _That's what an internship is meant to be, a learning experience. I know what I need to work on now. More than making myself stronger physically, it's my resolve I need to fix. Getting involved even when I don't need to, and still not using my power- unless it becomes an absolute necessity, as Grappler says._

"Alright, now I've got to go over some things with my sidekicks and staff," Grappler began again, and Zach grimaced as he knew there must have been a lot of developments around the agency with Grappler no longer able to be a hero. There were people he knew who would lose their jobs and would not get the same pension plans as Grappler, who would need to find new heroes to work for. He thought about the sidekicks who had just lost their mentor. Zach nodded and turned away from the hero, walking for the door of the room.

He stopped though before he reached the door. His head bowed, and he held his tongue for a moment but could not hold it back. "Did you, really just choose me, because of my dad?" He asked.

"Hmph, when did I say that?" Grappler asked. Zach's head lifted and he turned it to the side to look back at the man sitting on his bed. Grappler grinned at him as he continued, "I said it wasn't _just_ because of the punch, but I wouldn't have just invited some nobody to come intern with me just because I knew of his father. But when I checked you out, and saw that name Sazaki, I figured out who you were. That hair of yours gave it away," he added with a small laugh. "But I wouldn't have known, wouldn't have looked into it, unless I was interested in the first place. So, let's call it half and half," Grappler finished, shrugging his shoulders and trying not to wince at the pain in his right shoulder that had been messed up as well.

Zach nodded at the hero, then he turned and left the room which had the people waiting outside head back in. He walked away, thinking on all Grappler had told him. _He was happy I stayed back and did what he said, so why mention the stuff about having to kill sometimes… unless, I guess the internship is over at this point. He figured now is as good a time as any to tell me. I can't believe it, Grappler's really, going to have to retire. And his arms!_ Zach tried not to let his eyes get wet again so he just got angry instead. _What was the League of Villains doing there? Did they have a connection to Stain? Stain killed that Nomu though who was trying… Do they know about Midoriya? They tried taking him. That Nomu, it took other heroes too, but this time it looked like it was running away! Midoriya fought with the leader of the League of Villains, that Shigaraki guy. Does he want revenge? Is Midoriya in danger? Or is he being targeted for another reason? He could be. He could be, in a lot of danger._

* * *

The rest of the internship went by slowly, with many trips to the hospital with Grappler's sidekicks. They continued patrolling the streets, but there was very little crime through the whole city after Stain's defeat. They wound up spending most of it helping out the places where the fires and damage had been the worst. They patrolled construction sites, and they searched for any sign of the League of Villains members who were spotted on the roof of a building during the incident. However, since the portal-user was there too, Zach did not expect them to be able to find the villains.

It came time to leave and Zach went to the hospital again, but Grappler was released that same day and when Zach was meant to be leaving, Grappler was about to head out to announce his "retirement" from hero duties. He said that since he was a veteran hero anyway, he could pretend like it was not a forced retirement, even though he did not see a way around it. Zach stayed behind and watched for a little as Grappler told people he could still fight with the parts of him he had left, and Zach really did believe Grappler could take down some villains with his kicks and fighting experience alone, but he could see the people in the crowd pitying the hero who had a smile on his face to show them he was alright, and that the villains had failed.

He left before Grappler was finished, only able to talk to his hero for a short time before the press conference. Zach went to the train station with his things, and Iida came up to him. Iida said he had heard what happened to Grappler, and Zach deflected off the subject as quick as he could. He asked about Iida's arm, but Iida seemed to be at least well enough to travel back home earlier that week. He had returned before the week's end though in order to respect Manual who he had chose for his internship, even if he had betrayed the hero's trust with his reason for coming. There was something Zach wanted to tell Iida after Iida mentioned to him again about keeping Stain a secret. Zach had not even been included among the heroes and students who came across Stain, as without any injuries or involvement he could get away with just arriving with the police. He had not wanted to be included as he was worried his involvement would make the news refocus on him again, and no one argued that point.

Zach had his hand over his pocket and he opened his mouth after telling Iida he wouldn't say a thing since he wanted his being there kept a secret more than anyone. He froze though and Iida looked at him in confusion while Zach's hand tightened on the phone in his pants. _No, there's no point in telling him._ Zach said something else instead, moving his hand from his phone that had a video on it he had seen the night before and downloaded before it could get removed from the website he saw it on. _Stain. He's the worst thing that could have happened to this society._

It had bothered him so much the night before that he had only gotten three hours of sleep, and restless sleep at that. He thought at first that he was relieved because the video had not gotten a glimpse of his face. But the more he rewatched Stain, the more he remembered how much the words got to him the first time he saw it, and even the second and third times he saw it by watching the video, the more he thought about how much it was getting to him. He couldn't say anything to Iida about it though, even when they brought it back up in class on their first day back.

Kaminari said that Stain seemed kind of cool, because he had seen the video too. Zach wondered how many people in the class had seen it, while Iida went on about how he could see how people thought Stain's ideology was cool but that he chose to go down the path of evil. _Kaminari might be the only one, but that's still two of us, in a classroom of high school students. In villain circles, it will have spread much faster. What's worse, if even regular people, or people trying to be heroes like Kaminari, can see the Hero Killer as cool, how many villains will try to follow that ideology he had? I wanted to believe that no one would else would be that villainous, that Stain really was as murderous and scary as it gets, but there are others out there. Others, who when they see the video will become inspired. And what's worse, Stain killing that Nomu wasn't a point in the video. It would have at least cast doubt about the conclusion the villains are going to make, like it did with me._

Zach spent his school days after returning from the internship in almost constant worry. He was worried about his Quirk. He was worried about his future. When they did hero basic training, he came in last in the rescue race while distracted, but he did not think it was the distraction that made him last. As everyone stood panting in front of All Might, as he gave them useful hints, congratulated the person who fake-saved him first, Zach stared at the floor thinking about Stain. More specifically, he thought about the League of Villains. All Might gave him a standard 'You need to come up with ways to get here quicker without the use of your Quirk' that he gave to a few others who could not use their Quirk for good mobility. He had thanked All Might for it, but it was half-hearted and he started staring at the hero's back once he had turned away.

After hero basic training towards the end of the day, Zach decided he needed to do it. He looked for All Might and walked right in when he knocked and heard All Might on the other side of one of the teacher's lounges. If he had not been in there, he would have just asked a teacher to tell him where he was. All Might's voice was serious as he said, "Come in." Zach wondered why he was so stern and he opened the door, only for All Might to spit up blood and shoot out of his seat on the couch with wide dark eyes. "Young Sazaki!" He exclaimed in surprise.

"Guess you were, expecting someone else," Zach mentioned apologetically. "Really should ask, who it is first though," he added, since All Might was in his skinny, weak form at the moment.

All Might reached up and wiped some sweat off his face. The fact that it was not Midoriya but a different student made him panic, but this was the one student who his mistake was not a disaster over. Zach closed the door behind him quickly when he entered, but he stayed close to it after speaking to All Might. He took a deep breath while All Might faced him, and then the hero spoke before he could, "I heard you were at the Hosu Incident-"

"All Might, I'm sorry," Zach said, bowing his head to the hero who leaned back in some surprise and a lot of confusion. "The last time we talked, just the two of us, I was out of line." Zach kept his head bowed and clenched his teeth as he thought about how cynical he was when he was just lying on his couch after the Sports Festival. It was easier at the time not to feel anything at all, so he had said things without thinking about the feelings of the people behind the door. Since he had gotten back, he had not had a chance to say it, but he decided before coming back to school during the internship that it was not up to fate to give him the chance. He had to make the move himself. _"Get out of here All Might!"_ "I risked your secret, shouting at you to leave when you had just come to try and help me. It was childish, and stupid," Zach said, "and I'm sorry."

He lifted his head, and he saw All Might start smiling at him which made him straighten up the rest of the way. "I am glad you came back to school," All Might said. "I was afraid after that that you would not, as were the other teachers. I believe your classmates had something to do with making you feel better. They are good friends."

 _Yeah, let's go with that,_ Zach thought. _The teachers giving my classmates my address, my classmates texting and coming to my place, they may not have been the final thing to get me back but they helped. Jenny, her parents, they really saved me. Everyone here though, and All Might,_ Zach paused and he got a more hesitant look on his face. "About, the other thing I said," Zach continued, and All Might frowned at him like he did not want the boy to bring it up. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have tried to make you confirm- I just thought it- I tricked you," He finally said. "And for that, I'm also sorry."

All Might frowned more at the young man in front of him, a bead of sweat rolling down his face as he stared at the boy. _"I hope you can be the Symbol of Peace, long enough for Midoriya to take your place." "Midoriya told you?" "No, but you just did."_ "Young Sazaki, I am not upset that you tricked me. But, I must ask how you figured it out."

"I'm sorry," Zach said. "It's just, Bakugo called 'Deku' Quirkless on the first day. And Midoriya calls him 'Kacchan,' and I figure they've known each other for a long time because of those nicknames. And Midoriya isn't the type to lie about it, so Bakugo not knowing didn't make any sense. Then someone once said that his Quirk was like All Might's, and I noticed that you and Midoriya had a strange relationship where you'd ask to talk to him more than the others, or just cared more or something. It's not much to go on, but I figured you were giving him his power once I heard that you were losing your own. Making him the next Symbol of Peace, or something," he added the 'or something,' at the end because he really did not know what he was talking about when he said it to All Might back at his apartment. He would have been more surprised his guess had truth in it if he had not been so out of it at the time.

All Might stared at him with his bottom lip lowered, then he muttered, "You're too perceptive." The hero had sweatdrops sliding down the back of his head, wondering if anyone else would have pieced it together from just that information. Even the other teachers at the school had not noticed yet, or so he hoped. "Also, you're not exactly right, but-"

"You don't have to tell me anything else," Zach said quickly, throwing his hands up and waving his palms at All Might. "I'm sorry I pried, and that's all I really came to say-" Zach spun to grab the door, and he threw it open and then dropped his jaw while All Might did the same behind him.

Midoriya stood there looking in with wide eyes at Zach, then he looked towards All Might in panic from what he had just heard through the door. Zach spun from Midoriya to All Might, then he said, "Um, yeah. Well I've gotta go," he realized why it was All Might had invited the person in without asking. He realized All Might was waiting for Midoriya, and telling from the serious voice All Might had had at the time, he could tell it was going to be about secrets and stuff he did not want to hear any more about. "Sorry," Zach added, glancing at Midoriya as he walked past him.

"Um, um," Midoriya turned to follow after him with his eyes. "D-Don't tell any-"

"I won't," Zach said while spinning around and continuing away backwards. "I promise," he said while looking in Midoriya's eyes. _I still don't even really know what I'm talking about,_ he added to himself while spinning back away. _He called me "perceptive," which pretty much confirms it, even though he already did. But I said more this time, so he confirmed that as well? I don't want to play detective, it just happens when I think too much!_ He cursed himself for making it weird now for the next time he saw Midoriya, because he knew Midoriya was not going to be able to hold back from talking about it with him. _And he's going to wind up telling me stuff that I really don't know,_ he thought. _Maybe All Might will tell him to just hold back. I hope so._

* * *

Final Exams came for the class faster than anyone had expected. Zach tried to refocus on schoolwork since nothing was coming out of the video as he thought it might. There was no rapid increase in crime, and the League of Villains weren't showing themselves either. Though he had a bad feeling about the reason crime was staying low, where all the villains who were inspired might be going and gathering up their strength, he knew there was nothing he could do until he was a better hero. He had gotten right in the middle of the pack back during midterms, and for finals he heard a few others around him talking about how they needed help, only for Yaoyorozu to offer her help.

He decided he could use it, and along with Ashido, Jirou, Kaminari, Ojiro, and Sero they all went to her house on the weekend to study. There was a training camp over the summer he really wanted to go to after all, but only the students who passed the final exam could go. Zach was stunned as were his classmates by the size of Yaoyorozu's mansion. Her driveway past the main gate alone was so large that they had been unable to see her house past all the trees on the sides of it. It took them a while to reach her house, where the huge ornate front doors opened up for them and Yaoyorozu greeted them before leading the group to the "hall." She left them in there to get the tea, and Zach looked around at the room that had a long table in it and a fireplace but not much else. _It's bigger than my apartment,_ he thought, imagining all the rooms put together would fit in there with room to spare.

Zach had never had trouble with grades in school, getting by with top marks without studying had worked for most of his life even as he had focused more on training than school. The U.A. midterm showed him that he might have to put more effort into the next test, but after all that had happened recently he had forgotten to study much at all. The study session went better than he thought though, with Yaoyorozu helping in every subject that she seemed to be a teacher in from how good she was at it all. He took the test and though it was hard, it was no harder than he expected it to be and figured he would get somewhere near the middle of the pack again. Then came the practical exam, and he was as shocked as the rest of the class to learn that they would be facing the teachers.

His thoughts on how bad it was that they were facing the teachers was countered by his excitement over which teacher he was up against. He had to calm himself down though as did his two partners, as his team wound up being the one put in a group of three because of their odd numbers. As lucky as he thought he was, it was also unlucky and he knew it. The teachers had put students up against teachers they would have a hard time with, and they took into account that he could only do anything from up close. _If I could get close to Midnight sensei though,_ Zach shook the thought from his mind. _We need to think about how to run from her. The other two have more long-ranged Quirks, but it'll still be difficult._

Zach tried strategizing with Mineta and Sero beforehand, but none of them were able to come up with a good strategy for getting the cuffs on her. They either had to get a pair of cuffs on their teacher or make it to the exit, and as much as Mineta said getting the cuffs on Midnight should be their priority, Sero and Zach hated that they had to argue and tell him they needed to stay back. The R-Rated Hero was just that powerful in close range, that one breath in while near her and they would lose for sure. Their only other option was getting through the exit gate, but Midnight could just stand in front of it and fill it with her Quirk's knockout-gas power and wait for them to try. If they tried making a bolt for it too while holding their breaths, Zach figured she would attack them, and he doubted they could take down a pro hero quick enough to get through it without breathing.

After hearing Kirishima and Sato failed they got worried, but when Kaminari and Ashido lost too, Zach was getting really anxious. They never did come up with a good plan though. As they walked out on the field in preparation for theirs to start, Zach began, "We should go straight for the gate. I think the longer we're out here, the more of a chance of Midnight taking us down." Sero and Mineta looked at him and nodded, though Mineta's face looked distressed and he was already darting his eyes around to look for Midnight before the exam even started.

"I don't know how long her knockout-gas works for, but if we inhale it we're done for," Zach said. "Maybe we really should split up, then all try going in on different sides-"

"But then I won't be able to use my tape to get you and Mineta out, if she does fill the place with gas-"

A buzzer went off and a voice called out, "Team Mineta, Sazaki, Sero, practical exam. Ready go."

"Guys, this really is unfair," Mineta complained. "How are we supposed to get past her? There's no way!"

"We just have to try," Zach said, and he started moving in the direction of the gate.

Sero and Mineta started moving too, but they were being careful. Their testing area was covered in large rocks, any one of which Midnight could be hiding behind. As Zach was looking around while walking towards the gate, he spotted movement behind one of the rocks near him. _Imagination, or-_ he saw a boy walking near that rock and he called out, "Mineta! Back up!"

Mineta spun to him nervously, then he looked back with wide eyes at the woman leaning out from behind the rock with a sadistic smirk on her face. Sero ran forward and bent his elbow towards Mineta, shooting some tape over and pulling Mineta up and out of the way. Zach ran towards Sero though as he did that, holding his breath and pushing right as Midnight come up to his back. Mineta yelled down from above in panic as he was thrown high into the air. _She was reaching for his mask,_ Zach thought while ducking down under Midnight's arms, Sero falling away in front of him at the hard shove Zach gave him. _That means her power is definitely reliant on us ingesting it. I thought it could have been through the skin too, but this is good._

Zach kept running after pushing Sero, trying to get out of the gas cloud that surrounded them at the moment of his push. Sero scrambled back up to his feet and he saw Zach holding his breath as he ran away. Sero held his breath too, in case the air filter on his mask did not filter out the gas. He stood up and started running after Zach, but he gasped as he felt arms grab him by his and pull him backwards. He let out his breath while his cheeks turned red as his felt his back bump into something soft, then his eyes went wide and he held his breath again as his mask opened up.

 _Gotta get away!_ Sero thought with wide eyes. He started shaking his head and looking desperately at the boy running back towards him though with his cheeks puffed out.

 _Before she knocks him out,_ Zach thought, lifting up the cuffs at his side. _I need to-_ Midnight let go of Sero and pushed him forward before Zach reached. Sero getting pushed forward fast was not what either of them expected, and Sero slammed into Zach right before Zach was going to start his fake to the right only to dodge left and dive for Midnight's ankles. Sero hitting Zach made the boy who was pushed gasp, and Zach almost did the same but managed to hold his breath even as he hit the ground with Sero on top of him. He lifted his head and pushed Sero off, his face turning red and then purple as it tried going blue at the sight of the sadistic woman standing over him and looking down with a huge smirk.

"Ooh! Squirm more!" Midnight said, and Zach started pushing his hands down on the floor at his sides to scramble backwards. She walked towards him though as fast as he was pushing back, and he turned to try and get up.

"Ah," he gasped as a whip cracked and wrapped around his leg, tripping him back to the floor. He realized what he did and tried holding his breath though, but after letting out his voice he needed to breathe in now and he took in a huge gasp of air.

The next thing he knew, he was waking up to see Mineta bragging to Sero about how he won the exam for them. Zach's jaw dropped and he ran over, asking if Mineta was serious. Mineta bragged about how he had used his pop-off purple balls on his head to stick Midnight's whip to a rock and the handle of it to her hand, preventing her from chasing him. Then he even dragged both of them through the gate with him to top it off. Zach felt relieved, while at the same time frustrated as Mineta bragged. _In the end, I didn't do anything. I had to be saved…_

* * *

"Unfortunately, there are those who did not pass the final exams. Accordingly, for the training camp in the woods… everyone's going!"

Zach looked to his right with a small smile as Kaminari shot his bowed head up looking like he was about to cry tears of joy. _That's great,_ Zach thought, relaxing a little too. _I was actually planning on telling Aizawa sensei that I didn't deserve to go-_

"We can go too?" Kirishima shouted.

"Really?" Ashido had tears in her eyes as she asked.

"Yeah. Some failed, but no one failed the written exam. In the practical, Kirishima, Kaminari, Ashido, Sato, Sero, and Sazaki all failed."

 _Guess I didn't need to say anything,_ Zach thought with sweat rolling down both sides of his face as he slunk down into his chair.

Sero put a hand over his face, "I knew it. Just because Mineta passed didn't mean we scored high enough." He looked over towards Zach who looked his way too, and they both sighed while looking back down at their desks.

Aizawa went on about how the teachers actually all left ways for the students to win, then he continued on, "In the first place, the training camp in the woods is one to increase strength. So those who failed need it the most. They need to get stronger. It was a rational falsehood!"

The four who had thought they were going to get left behind started cheering, while Iida complained about how the school would lose their trust for all these "rational deceptions."

Aizawa agreed, then his voice got darker as he said it was not all lies. "Failure is failure." Zach lifted his gaze from his desk nervously. Aizawa was looking at the students who failed, and he said, "We have prepared a separate time for extra lessons for you lot. Frankly, it will be harder than the extra lessons you'd get if you stayed at school."

Zach bowed his head as did the others, but he thought while looking down, _This won't be that bad. We get to go to the camp anyway, and I could use the extra lessons. What did I do wrong against Midnight? Mineta managed to pass… Mineta! Should I have accepted Sero was lost and just tried making a mad dash for the gate? Would she have caught me anyway if I did? What about tactically retreating like Mineta? Would she have even come after us if both had run off?_ He rose a hand and rubbed the side of his head with it. _In the end, I was just outmatched. As usual._

When class ended, everyone was talking about the training camp and how they needed to buy things to prepare for it. Zach didn't own a bathing suit so he chimed in too, and the class decided to go to the mall together after Hagakure suggested it.

The next day, everyone got to the mall and they stuck together for a short time at first. It was the first time they had all gone out together as a class, and Zach was enjoying the trip. _A mall? I've never really gone to one,_ he thought while he looked around in awe at all the stores. _I just buy what I need at the local stores. Malls have a totally different vibe, huh?_

"Hey look! Aren't those U.A. students?" Zach heard as he was walking towards a group of his classmates all bunched up as they talked about the different things they wanted to buy. He was walking towards them with Kaminari, and they both turned right to see a couple of girls who looked around their age or maybe a little older pointing towards their group. They looked back and spotted two others they recognized, but as Kaminari started to grin at the recognition from some cute girls, both of them opened their eyes wide and then turned away fast as the boy was looking back towards them.

Zach turned away and pretended like he did not notice. _Malls are too public. I haven't really, gone anywhere besides school, and Hosu City where I wouldn't have to see those people again, or at least that's what I told myself when they'd stare-_ "Come on," Kaminari said, grabbing Zach by the arm and pulling towards the group with a smile on his face. "I don't have any outdoorsy shoes, so I need a pair of those," he mentioned loudly as he heard the others discussing what they needed.

"Oh, me too! Me too!" Hagakure called out, moving over towards them.

"I need, a bathing suit," Zach began. He said it and noticed a lot of his classmates look at him while he spoke. None of them looked at him the same way those two cute girls just did though. _Even the ones who did, right after USJ. I feel like, I don't need the approval of everyone else yet. Just my classmates seeing me normally is enough to make them forget. Maybe, once I'm a hero, things will be the same with everyone else!_

Kirishima suggested they break off and go to different stores since they all seemed to have different things they wanted to buy. The group agreed and decided they would meet back up at three o'clock. Zach wound up going with Hagakure and Kaminari since he figured he could get a bathing suit at a clothing store, as long as it was not a shoe-only store.

"I feel bad for you two though, Aizawa made the extra lessons sound really scary," Hagakure said while the three of them were walking down a line of stores to try and find a good one.

Kaminari bowed his head in the middle of the three and let out an exasperated sigh. "Yeah," he said, a worried look on his face. He snapped his head back up a second later looking chipper and added, "But that I get to go at all has me thankful. I was looking forward to this more than anyone!"

"Haha, I'm looking forward to it too," Zach said. "I didn't know how much fun hanging out with everyone outside of class would be."

The other two looked left towards him and saw Zach smiling wide as he continued in a soft voice, "I bet everyone gets even closer during the training camp."

"Yeah, this is fun, isn't it?" Kaminari said, leaning back and putting his hands behind his head. "I've started losing touch with my friends from middle school. U.A.'s got us so busy all the time, you know?" Zach and Hagakure nodded as they felt the same ways. "But in just one semester I feel like I've already made a bunch of new friends."

"Me too!" Hagakure called out, punching a fist up which the other two could kind of figure out even though she was wearing a tank top so she did not have sleeves to give away her movements.

Kaminari pointed out a shop near them that had a lot of clothes in it but also shoes right at the entrance on display. As they started heading over, Kaminari continued, "I'm just glad the semester's over. It was fun but now we've finally got some time away from school." Zach thought he'd smile at the sound of that, but it just made him furrow his brow considering their last conversation. "Wouldn't it be cool if we threw an end of the year party?" Kaminari said, laughing about it as they headed into the store.

"A party?" Zach asked in surprise.

Hagakure laughed and then crossed her arms in front of her, "My parents would never let me have a party." As she finished saying it, she tried closing her mouth fast and then turned her head towards Zach. She expected to see a dark look on his face or something, but he did not, and he did not notice she was staring thanks to her invisibility so she was able to examine his face closer.

"Yeah, guess that's kind of a deal-breaker," Kaminari said, giving up on the idea as quick as it came.

"We could have one at my house," Zach admitted. They were just talking about how they did not hang out outside of school a lot, and then he felt kind of down when he thought about how they'd have a long break between now and the training camp. He turned to the two next to him and continued, "My aunt who I live with is really chill with me having people over."

The other two were surprised, then Kaminari pulled his elbows in at his sides and called out, "Oh yeah!" He looked excited, but then he turned towards Zach and said, "Is that lady really cool with it though?" He thought back to the hospital when he and Yaoyorozu went to visit Zach, and he shivered before mentioning, "She looked really strict."

"It's fine," Zach said. _Aunt Maye probably would be really against it, but it's not like she'd ever find out._

"Hmm, I don't know," Hagakure started. The other two turned to her as she walked to their sides, and they stood in a triangle formation with the girl in the middle who neither could tell if she was looking at them or the other. "Even though I said we couldn't do it at my house, I bet my parents wouldn't even let me go to one at someone else's. They'd think we were going to be drinking or something."

Kaminari rubbed the top of his head and hummed, thinking about that himself, while Zach quickly said that he wasn't planning on getting drinks since they were all underage. "Though," Zach continued, lowering his left hand he had waved in front of him while quickly saying he wouldn't get alcohol. "Now that I think about it, there's not much to do at my place anyway. How do you even throw a house party?" He wondered, and the other two grabbed their chins and tilted their heads to the side to think about it.

"Well, I still think it was a good idea," Kaminari said, shrugging his shoulders before looking around for the shoes. "But for now, I need shoes!"

The three of them searched the store for some things to buy. Zach got his pretty quick since he did not spend a lot of time choosing his bathing suit, but he was going to wait for the other two since he did not want to just go off on his own through the mall. While Kaminari and Hagakure were both in line though, Zach heard a commotion behind him. "What's going on?" Kaminari asked, looking past Zach as the black haired boy turned and looked out at some people running past the store with nervous expressions.

"I'll go check it out," Zach offered since he was off the line already. He headed towards the door, but then the speakers turned on, and then Zach heard the sirens in the distance. His heart started racing as he ran out the door of the store, hearing his classmates call after him. He sprinted outside and spun back and forth, as the voice over the speakers announced that they were locking down the mall until the police arrived. _What's going on?_

Zach spun his head both ways, frantic as he searched for the reason for this panic. He never did locate the source. When he found out, it was at the same time as the rest of his class. Shigaraki Tomura had approached Midoriya in broad daylight, grabbing him with the same hand that had disintegrated Aizawa's elbow during the USJ incident. Everyone in Class 1-A was worried about him, and Midoriya told them what Shigaraki had asked and wanted when the police came and questioned him.

 _All Might,_ Zach thought as he listened to Midoriya speak to the cops. _I want to ask him, about this. I want to talk to the pro heroes… but it's not like they won't already be thinking about it. But I want to make sure! I want to know, that the heroes realize what's happening. The League of Villains is moving again. That guy showing up here, in the middle of the day no less! Where are the villains Stain should have motivated? What are they waiting for?! Are the heroes really, just waiting for their next move? Is that all they_ _ **can**_ _do? If the League of Villains is still focusing on us, and the heroes are just waiting for something to happen… then aren't we, going to get attacked again? That Nomu targeted Midoriya for a reason. Shigaraki went after Midoriya again today. Do they know about him and All Might, or is the power they share what interests the League? There are too many questions. Not enough answers. Sooner or later, there's going to be an event. The villains will make their move and we won't be ready for it. How long, until that happens? How long, until we have to face them again?_

* * *

 **A/N Thanks for reading. Fast-paced chapter this time as there wasn't much I wanted to write about these, and I really just wanted to get to the training camp! Hope you enjoyed anyway though. And leave a review below telling me what you think or predictions for upcoming chapters!**


	14. Chapter 14

**Disclaimer: I don't own Boku no Hero Academia. Enjoy the longest chapter so far!**

 **Chapter 14:**

"5:30, is just, way too, early- awwww," Kaminari stretched an arm up while grabbing it by the elbow and then he slouched again.

Zach rubbed his eyes and then smacked his cheeks a couple of times to wake himself up. He saw Aizawa walking over in front of their class and he started stretching, just in case they were about to be thrown into another trap of an exercise right at the start of the day. Stretching his sore legs out hurt, after the eight hour trek through the "Forest of Beasts" the day before. He had considered using his Quirk against the monsters, but he was afraid just touching them would actually work against Pixie Bob who had created and controlled them and not on the monsters themselves, so he refrained. Instead all he could do was act as a distraction for others who had more powerful Quirks that could destroy them.

The night before had been pretty uneventful too, though he had had a talk with Midoriya later in the night after they had bathed in the hot springs. A kid named Kota was at the summer training camp with all of them and the instructors, and he had fallen off the dividing wall between the girls and guys' baths and fainted after stopping Mineta from peeping on the girls, when he got a look at them himself. Midoriya had caught him and got him back to the instructors, but Zach had felt like something was bothering Midoriya since then. Zach had shifted the conversation towards that kid when Midoriya tried talking to him about All Might, but he started to wonder during it if that was the right move.

On the morning of the second day, Zach glanced over towards Midoriya who was getting ready for Aizawa to say something unreasonable like the rest of them. _Sorry Midoriya, but I don't feel the same way you do. That kid, I don't like it. You say you feel bad, like he is right to see heroes this way because of how his parents died? His parents died in action as heroes, something as heroic as that, and even their own son doesn't think they're heroes?! I just, I don't get it. He's not, that young._ Zach frowned and looked back at the building behind him where he wondered if that kid was still asleep.

"Good morning, ladies and gentlemen! Today we will begin training camp to increase your strength in earnest." Aizawa began and everyone straightened up, losing their tired looks as they prepared themselves. "The goal of this training camp is to increase everyone's strength, and with that, for everyone to obtain provisional licenses. It is to prepare you all to face hostilities that are becoming more real by the minute."

 _Like Shigaraki at the mall,_ Zach thought. _Would Midoriya have gotten in trouble, like with the Stain incident, if he had done something to stop Shigaraki then? He doesn't have a license, but the guy attacked him in broad daylight! If people really get arrested for things like that, if they get arrested even- something's wrong with the system, not with them._ Zach shook his head and refocused as Aizawa told Bakugo to throw a ball as he had in the first test they took after getting to U.A.

Everyone was surprised to see Bakugo's throw distance had barely improved at all in the past three months. Aizawa started talking about how they had all improved, but in their mental and technical levels as well as in stamina. Now they were going to be training the strength of their Quirks. _Alright then,_ Zach thought as Aizawa was getting motivational, telling them it was going to be so hard they'd feel like dying. _Soo, what am I going to do?_ He thought.

* * *

By mid-morning of the second day of the Training Camp, Zach was already feeling the exhaustion. He did not think they would be able to work him as hard as all the others because of his lack of a usable Quirk, but his was as intense as anyone's. He could hear Koji Koda shouting into the sky from the cliff face up above him, working on his Anivoice's range and his shy nature. No one else was around Zach though, as he worked his body to the limit.

The pro hero Ragdoll's Quirk- Search, gave her the ability to watch over the entire camp at the same time, so even though no one was around him, he could not slack off for a moment. If he did… Tiger's face appeared in his mind as he slowed down, the muscular guy who wore a cat uniform like the rest of the Wild Wild Pussycats. His personality and scary appearance did not match the rest of the group, and it scared Zach thinking about the man who had taken time off from Midoriya and the Class B muscle augmentation types to yell some new training requirements at him.

Zach's left fist was already bloody, his legs were exhausted from all the running, and he did not know how much more strength and stamina training he could do before running out of gas completely. Around midday though, the homeroom teacher of Class-B, Vlad, brought a student of his over to where Zach was training on his own. They wanted them both to get more practical fighting training in, and figured it was better against someone they had not faced before too. Zach and the boy brought to him were both surprised though when they saw who it was they were going to be training with. "Kuroiro?" Zach asked as Vlad walked over with the pitch black boy behind him.

"You two continue the training we gave you together, but include sparring with each other into it," Vlad said. The muscular teacher in a red costume turned and left the boys in their blue gym clothes covered in dirt, Zach wearing a new set after "losing" his old one after the Sports Festival. Vlad headed back to do the rounds walking around his students and making sure they were all treating the camp as seriously as possible.

"Sparring? You can't train your Quirk?" Zach questioned the boy in front of him who frowned and looked away in annoyance. Zach held up his hands apologetically, "Sorry, it's not like I can either. That's why I'm, over here," he added in a voice that got quieter towards the end.

Kuroiro looked back and he said, "It's not that." The boy from Class B's face was pitch black except for his eyes and his mouth, even his lips just blended in with the rest of it, though Zach did not know if he even had lips. The boy's hands were black as well, so dark that Zach figured he would disappear completely if the lights went out. In contrast his hair was white and wavy, but it did not make him look any less dark, especially considering that when he closed his mouth and blinked, his entire face disappeared into complete darkness.

Zach opened his eyes wide as Kuroiro blinked after starting to speak, then he cut it out quick while the other boy continued, "In the Sports Festival, I lost to your classmate, Kirishima. Even though I consider myself good at close combat fighting, my Quirk doesn't help me out much with that. Black doesn't help much in fighting at all," he said, looking down at his dark hands in annoyance at the thought of his first match loss back in the tournament.

"Mine neither," Zach said, making Kuroiro look up from his hands to his new training partner. "Alright," Zach began, lifting his tone and turning to face Kuroiro completely. "Let's go a couple rounds, then do the training routines Tiger gave us again, yeah?" Zach suggested, lifting up his fists into a fighting stance.

Kuroiro nodded at him, but he kept frowning as he lifted his hands. His teeth showed while he frowned and Zach had to admit it was a little intimidating. He focused though and curled his fingers up, sliding his feet apart on the dirt beneath him. Kuroiro remembered the reason Zach chose to be on top of their horse in the cavalry battle, and he thought about the first fight Zach had in the tournament too. He was going to take it seriously, even against someone who could not use their Quirk for some reason.

The two of them fought each other for a while, light sparring while also keeping it intense. Neither wanted to hurt the other only to be forced by the teachers to keep training the entire day, so they wound up apologizing each time the other person had a hard time getting back to their feet. Zach was surprised by Kuroiro's skill, though not so much by his power. Zach already knew Kuroiro was strong, as he recalled how he and Kaminari had been able to carry him for that whole cavalry battle on their own, and he did not think Kaminari was one of the stronger boys in their class. Still, when the first hit knocked him down, Zach coughed a few times while rubbing his chest where he was hit, surprised by the force of it.

The idea that it was someone who did not even have a power-enhancing Quirk that hurt him that much, made Zach even more intense in the training. He imagined villains whose powers would make them physically stronger than him and how he would have to get in fights with them in the future. _Then again,_ Zach thought while leaning his body fast to the side after a second feint, making Kuroiro's fist fly over his left shoulder inches from his face, and for Kuroiro's eyes to open wide since he thought he saw through the feint only for it to have been just the first one. Zach reached his arms forward while Kuroiro's fist passed his head, wrapping under his extended arm and behind his back, and he tackled Kuroiro to the floor in a tight hold. _The Hero Killer's Quirk, Bloodcurdle, it had nothing to do with strength._

Zach released his partner and got back up, holding a hand down for the other teen to take. He lifted Kuroiro up and they stepped back, then nodded at each other to show the next round was on. They started circling each other, and Zach's thoughts were split between the fight and the Hero Killer. _He fought Iida, Todoroki, and Midoriya, three of the four who Pixie Bob said were the clear best of our class. That made me a little annoyed at first, but those three have really amazing Quirks on top of their convictions and all. Despite it all though, they told me the Hero Killer wasn't even taking them that seriously, and that he was dodging all their attacks or brushing them off. How he managed to get to Midoriya ahead of all those heroes, kill that Nomu… all with a rib about to puncture his lung!_

Zach had to refocus fast as Kuroiro shot towards him, making a quick distraction with his Quirk where his entire body including his clothes turned dark for a second. Seeing him go dark actually alerted Zach though instead of distracting him, since he was already distracted in the first place. He dodged the grapple, ducking under and popping his arms up to open Kuroiro's body for an attack. He slammed his left fist out but opened it into a palm at the last second, hitting his fellow student in the stomach with an open palm instead. Kuroiro still gasped out some spit and staggered backwards, but he did not fall and he only got the wind knocked out of him.

Kuroiro stopped after staggering back, and he looked at Zach's right hand that Zach lowered back to his side. The boy who just knocked his classmate back froze as his thoughts almost immediately went back to Stain. He lifted up his right hand and it started shaking as he stared at the glove, imagining how he popped both of his hands up into the bottoms of Kuroiro's arms in order to get that clear shot on his body. Kuroiro had been so surprised by it that he did not even think of a way to dodge Zach's next hit, even if he had been able to. "Sorry," Zach apologized, looking back up with afraid eyes into the student from Class B's. "Let's, do a run," he said, and Kuroiro nodded back at him, losing his surprised look and getting a more thoughtful one at how Zach reacted.

The two of them continued their training for hours. All their classmates were working out their Quirks, but unlike them, Kuroiro said his was not really one he could train. It was similar to the girl in Class A, he told Zach during one of their runs through the forest, Hagakure Toru. He said that unlike her Invisibility though, which would work at any time of the day for stealth, he could only get away with using his Quirk like that at night. Vlad had considered sending him into the dark cave to work on stealth against Tokoyami who was practicing control, but Aizawa told them that it was a really, really bad idea to try that. Zach thought of how Tokoyami looked when Aizawa told him what his training was going to be earlier that morning, and he nodded as he remembered the sounds that came from the cave after Tokoyami went in.

They started doing weight training together using weights Pixie Bob created with her Quirk, Earthflow. They had popped up near them right as they finished their run, and they figured Ragdoll who was watching all of them was telling them through Pixie Bob what to do next. They sparred again after it, but they were tired and they both knew it. They figured maybe it was worth it to see how they could fight in situations when they were already exhausted, but both of them were too tired to really pick anything up from it. When they all finally headed back to the base camp at the bottom of the mountain, both of the hero course classes were dragging their feet, slouched over and groaning in pain and exhaustion.

Unfortunately, the teachers and supervisors were not going to help them with anything. They had to make their own dinners, (which Iida got really into), and though they were tired both classes worked hard together in order to make the meals. While they were cooking, Zach stopped cooking curry with Uraraka and Todoroki for a second as he saw someone walk by right behind him. He only spotted the person's hair, but he turned his head and watched as the blond boy walked off. _Weird, I haven't seen him that much at all. I thought he was all 'Class B is better,' and would be yelling that the whole time. What's,_ Zach watched as the boy walked over to some classmates and started talking, and Zach saw them turn and look at him, answering him, but none of them smiled and they all just got back to working on dinner pretty quick.

 _Serves him…_ Zach frowned as the boy turned away and started walking to a different area with some of his other classmates. _He's such an asshole,_ Zach thought, turning back to his curry with an angry look on his face. He glanced next to him as he spotted someone staring, and he looked at Uraraka bent down right next to him, giving him a curious look at his expression. Zach glanced the other way and saw Todoroki looking back at him after looking the way he had. _What's that look? Is he expecting something from me? No, that's not it at all… so am I expecting something from me? I don't want to- to that guy-_ Zach furrowed his brow and just got back to cooking. _Stupid Monoma, I really hate that guy, so why does seeing people giving him those looks… looks, like people are judging him…_

Zach rubbed the side of his head and he let out a small sigh. _But I'm not that nice a guy,_ he thought, refocusing on curry and pushing the other boy out of his mind. They all finished up the curry, and it was one of the best meals of Zach's life. Admittedly, it was not that good. None of them were master chefs after all. But considering their exhaustion, and the fact that it was a meal they all worked hard to make, it tasted amazing to them.

They went to bed early, at least most of them did. Zach had to stay up late with the others who failed in the extra lessons, then they finally were let out at 2 a.m., only to have to wake up as early as they did on the second day. Once again, they began their strength training. Aizawa came over to Zach and Kuroiro as they were starting this time though, and he gave them a short lecture on weapons. He talked about the hard cloths he used to capture villains, and how his Quirk like their own cannot on its own capture villains. Zach admitted that he had tried using knives before, thinking that maybe training with them would be smart. Then he slid the left sleeve of his gym clothes up and showed off a nasty scar on his upper arm he got when he was eleven years old, and he said he had not tried teaching himself how to use weapons since. Kuroiro just said that he had not thought about it.

Aizawa then gave them some more specific directives than he had the day before, sending them through the forest to a huge hill that Pixie Bob created early on. There was a single earth beast up there that they needed to defeat and then make it back before nightfall. Both of them were hesitant and anxious about it, considering both had relied on their classmates in taking down Pixie Bob's monsters two days earlier. They left on their journey though, and the hill was far enough away that they had to run from the start if they planned to make it back in time for the "Test of Courage" that everyone was looking forward to that would occur that night. Zach made a quip about how Class A was going to win it at the start of their run towards the hill, but his lively spirit after hearing about the fun events of later that night was quickly replaced by exhaustion setting back in from the day before.

He and Kuroiro stopped caring about the future battle between their classes, as they needed to work together in order to reach the hill, fight the monster, and even make it back for that fun event. It took them a couple of hours, but they reached the bottom of the hill and stopped to take a break. The monster they knew to be somewhere on it was not something either of them thought they could handle while wheezing, and they stopped to get their breath and prepare for a fight against something neither were confident they could defeat. "Maybe, it'll be, a smaller one," Zach offered as a consolation.

"Has, Aizawa, ever given you, a break?" Kuroiro wondered darkly, thinking about their own homeroom teacher's rough tactics. He looked at Zach, then frowned deeper as Zach grimaced and looked away. Kuroiro sighed as he heard his partner's stomach growl, and he reached down into his pocket. "Hey," he said, and Zach turned his head back while leaning against a tree. Zach's eyes opened wide and he reached a hand up, catching an energy bar the darker teen tossed him.

Kuroiro unwrapped his own, while saying, "Ragdoll shouldn't be able to see us all the way out here. Though one of the teachers might be following us," he added, then looked around.

 _So if they do see us and get annoyed by this, they'll call us out and we don't have to worry as much about the monster knowing we have a pro watching our backs,_ Zach thought, opening up his own power bar. He took a sniff of it and let out a famished breath. "Did you," he took a bite then spoke while chewing, "bring these, in your bag?"

Kuroiro frowned his way and Zach chewed quicker before swallowing as it looked like the other boy was annoyed at his manners. Kuroiro replied after Zach swallowed, finishing his own bite before speaking, "Yeah. You didn't see them giving them out back at the camp," he added, as it was a stupid question. Zach nodded his head, thinking about how it would have been smart to bring snacks along with him. Kuroiro continued, "I thought they might starve us or something out here, to simulate some disaster, or something."

 _Vlad sensei sounds as serious as Aizawa sensei,_ Zach thought with a sweatdrop. The two of them finished off their energy bars and they refaced the hill without breathing as deeply anymore. "I'd say it's almost noon," Zach said. "Maybe only eleven," he added, as they had woken up early for the day's training.

"Let's do this," Kuroiro said, not sounding very intent on going in, especially since no teachers called them out on breaking and eating which meant they might be on their own out here.

The two started walking up the hill. They had strategized a bit on their way to it, but both were feeling nervous about their chances. _Still can't risk touching it with my right hand,_ Zach thought. _I know as much about my ability- no,_ _ **more,**_ _than anyone else. I know everything about it, well- as much as I've figured out. Still, that means if I don't know if it will kill her, no one else does either. The fact that no one's told me anything about it, just means the teachers trust in my judgement here. I won't take the risk just for a training exercise._

"Does it feel like the tree cover is getting thicker?" Zach asked as they rose farther up the hill. Kuroiro looked around and they both noticed the trees around them looking thicker than usual, and there were strange-looking trees mixed in as well now that they checked. Shihai Kuroiro nodded, and Zach narrowed his eyes at a tree that curved towards the top to try and make it seem like the brown branches and leaves around it could have been coming out of its trunk, but they were coming out of others around it. "She's giving you opportunity to use your Quirk," Zach mentioned as he thought of the reason for it. "Which I can only assume, means that the monster is going to be as hard as the others."

Kuroiro darted his gaze to his partner, as he had hoped the help meant that they were taking it easy on them. "Then I'll be the bait," Kuroiro said, and they both nodded. They were only going to try fighting if they came up against a monster smaller than the ones they had already seen.

The two of them walked farther up the hill, and Zach pointed when he saw what looked like the summit. "There's a mound. Aizawa said it would be near the middle, so if we get up on that we can look around and…" Zach noticed some small rocks rolling off the mound at the middle of the hill that they were approaching. _The highest point. It's really, at the exact center,_ Zach swung his right arm out, stopping Kuroiro on his side as the dark boy was about to take another step. Kuroiro's thin eyes narrowed in even more and focused on the mound up ahead, the mound which started shifting as soon as the boys stopped.

A large brownish, dirt-colored hand lifted out of the ground. It had four claws at the end of its large arm, and the two boys took steps back at the sight of it. "As large?" Kuroiro muttered.

"Because there's only one," Zach began, while another huge arm shot out of the ground and hit the floor in front of the mound. The arm slid back, its dirt claws dragging through the dirt and leaving scars in the hill where it tore up the ground. Zach gulped and continued, "She must, be able to make it bigger." The head of the beast shot out of the ground and both of them stumbled backwards at the sight of its menacing face, sharp teeth, and eyes that darted towards them. _**"ROOOAAARRRR!"**_ Both of them dropped their jaws and stared in terror at the monster in front of them as it rose out of the ground on its back legs, standing tall in front of them right in the center of the hill.

Koji Koda was standing on a cliff overlooking the forest, and his voice cut off while he was in his second day of shouting loudly into the sky. He froze and his eyes opened wide, while Aizawa who had come to check on him turned back as he had just started walking away. The teacher grinned while looking out there, while Koda's face covered in sweat at the sound of that roar. "Looks like they found the beast," Aizawa said with a small laugh. His eyes narrowed in and his mouth lowered back down into a flat lip. _Zach needs to see more of the things he can't do. His attitude is too similar to Midoriya, Todoroki, Bakugo's. He needs to change the focus of what kind of hero he wants to become, but just telling him that wouldn't be enough. How many times has he probably thought it himself, only to still be here right now?_

Aizawa turned and started walking away, frowning more as he thought on the boy far behind him. _All Might tells me he lives alone. When no one tells you what to do, all your decisions are made by yourself. So there's not much I can tell him, but we can at least show him… there are things he can't do._

Zach and Kuroiro stepped back again as the beast that just rose in front of them. "What are we supposed-" Kuroiro began.

Zach's feet planted down hard at his sides and his fists clenched in front of him. He brought his elbows in at his sides, and he snapped his head back, "RAAAAA!" Kuroiro spun to the boy next to him like he was crazy, while Pixie Bob stopped snickering from the tree branch she was watching from to instead drop her jaw as the boy started sprinting forward. "Same plan for the big beasts!" Zach yelled as he ran forward. "If it's this big," he continued, while sprinting straight towards the monster. _Please be right about this._

The beast lifted up its right claw, and Zach sprinted to the left. The beast followed him with its eyes, and it brought down its right claw hard after him. _It crossed over,_ Kuroiro thought, staring at the beast that was now standing with its front legs crossing each other. It turned and moved its left a second later to reached after Zach who dove to the side at the last second to avoid being pinned down. Kuroiro sprinted towards the beast, yelling out just like Zach had. _Screw it. We have to do it,_ he thought, pushing the fear from his mind as he charged at the beast that turned its head to him. As soon as the beast looked back, Kuroiro spun and he started sprinting back into the woods.

Zach had gotten up and ran into the forest as well, only a hundred feet away from the part that his partner had ran into. Pixie Bob started grinning ear to ear as the two kids split off and ran past her on her sides. She looked back and forth from her tree branch, then she smirked and turned back Zach's direction. The beast that had turned towards Kuroiro turned and it started charging after the boy with spiky black hair. Zach looked back with wide eyes, then he yelled out, "That should be cheating!" The woman smirking from her tree branch opened her eyes wide behind her visor, and she leapt to another tree branch where she knew she would be out of sight. _Did he see me? Or he just knows I refocused it based on their moves? Either way, he shouldn't have any idea that I'm close enough to hear him. I could have done this from a distance._ She started grinning again as she thought he was probably just shouting that in frustration.

 _Pixie Bob's messing with us hard. Are we really supposed to win this fight? It seems like this is intentionally harder than ever. Even the semi-darkness of being under this thick canopy, it doesn't mean a thing if Kuroiro's camouflage doesn't work against the beast. And if Pixie Bob is watching us, she'll be able to follow Kuroiro and keep the monster after him. But then why give us this extra darkness in the first place?_ Zach started serpentining around trees to make the beast have to slow down its charge at his back, as it was too bulky to make as quick darting movements. _I can think of one reason…_ Zach thought, his eyes narrowing and his mouth dipping into a lower frown. _Is this just some ploy, to make us realize our weaknesses and accept them? I could see that. It makes sense to give us the notion that victory is possible, so that we don't leave thinking there was nothing we could do. They want us thinking that if we were someone else, there would have been something. But so what?! That's not training!_

Zach slammed his left fist out to the side as he ran past a mud mound attached to the side of a tree to make it thicker. He punched the hard wall hard and winced as he bruised his knuckles. "Damn it," he hissed. _Forty one people, and we're the only ones getting this treatment._ "Kuroiro!" He called out, turning to the side his comrade ran into the trees in. "Stop! The plan won't work!" Zach got right behind a tree and panted there for a second with his back against it, listening to the beast charging from behind him. He leaned to his right when it got close, then he did a spin-dodge back the other way and came out of the other side of the tree, right as the beast charged onto the other side of the tree and reached a claw around to grab him. He sprinted straight up and between the legs of the beast that had to turn its head while skidding to a stop.

"What do you mean?" Kuroiro called out, and Zach turned to see where the other student was.

 _We're not supposed to win. If I shout that though, it will just seem like I'm making excuses for when we lose. And if a teacher is watching, they might change it up to give us more of a chance so that they can still lecture us afterwards. I'm not having it!_ "I have a new plan, but I have to whisper it, Pixie Bob's watching!" _It was too quick for Mandalay to have told it to her, Ragdoll told us the limit of her range and I doubt they would have taken her away from watching the rest of the class. Pixie Bob must really be around here, unless she can just see us fully through that visor and not just information about us. Whatever it is, if she can hear us right now, I need to make it so she can't._

Zach sprinted straight towards Kuroiro, ignoring the beast behind him that was charging their way and making the tops of the trees shake with every one it bumped into on the way towards them. Kuroiro leaned back from Zach after the other boy whispered fast to him, and then he nodded his head quickly as there was no time to think while Kuroiro could see the terrifying face of the beast behind Zach. "We can do this," Zach said, before nodding back at him and splitting off to the left, making Kuroiro run the other way.

 _They're tired down there, and they can't keep weaving my baby forever,_ Pixie Bob thought. She leaned off the branch though and licked her lips, staring at the boy with spiky black hair. _You've got no moves strong enough to beat it, but Aizawa tells me you've got a sharp eye kid. I want to see what you try- huh?_ Zach stopped running, spinning back and facing the beast when he stood in a more open area than any in the forest around him.

Zach looked towards the monster that was getting better at getting around the trees. Its mobility was improving, as if Pixie Bob was more used to moving around the large earth monster. It ran at a tree and stepped both legs to the left, then its back legs, and it barely slowed down its run at all, barely bumping into the tree at all as it passed. _But it did bump it,_ Zach thought, taking a step back and lowering his mouth into a deep snarl. His fists clenched at his sides and then he rose up his right fist and brought it in front of him. He opened his palm and pointed it at the creature in front of him, while Pixie Bob's eyes opened wide.

 _I'm supposed to stop him from taking his glove off, but that's all Aizawa said about it,_ Pixie Bob got a bead of sweat on the side of her face as Zach started yelling out again.

"HAAAAA- TAKE THISSSS- Do it Kuroiro!" He shouted, and he started sprinting to the side while the beast charged faster at him.

Kuroiro jumped out from behind a tree on the beast's right side, over at the edge of the clearing right where it started getting darker. Pixie Bob had lost sight of him behind some trees a few seconds ago, and her eyes opened wide as she spun towards the darkness he emerged from. _But, his power is just-_ she stared at the kid and her eyes started growing much wider as he swung an arm forward, as if throwing something. There was nothing in his hand though. _A bluff?!_ Pixie Bob's eyes darted back towards her beast and her bottom lip dropped.

 _She was too attentive of the trees all around to do what we planned at first,_ Zach thought as he looked towards the beast that tried slowing its momentum. It was too late though. _But when I confirmed she was there, it was clear her "baby" wouldn't just mindlessly sprint into an obvious trap. So we couldn't just stand in front of trees and dive out of the way hoping it would crash into it. But! Each time one of us did something while the other had the beast's attention, it took a few seconds for the beast to change direction or continue chasing! She makes decisions fast, but she's still supposed to be watching both of us and checking our progress. If he jumps out of nowhere, then she_ _ **had**_ _to turn away from me, even if I didn't make my standing there out to just be a distraction for him._

Kuroiro stared with wide eyes as the tree the beast slammed into shook so bad that leaves fell off and branches cracked. Then, a loud crack echoed through the woods. The beast that's head partially broke apart when it hit the tree started lifting back up on its fallen legs, making both boys open their eyes wide. _It slowed at the last second-_ Zach thought in panic as his sure-win strategy was falling apart. Then another crack came out of the tree, one much louder than the last one that made the two boys worried they had done something wrong. The tree started falling, and the beast tried scrambling up faster, only to be pushed down, and then smashed into the ground by the tree it had just sprinted into at full force. The legs crumbled beneath it, and the tree broke the beast right down the middle of its back.

 _If I was too close to the tree it would have been too obvious, so I had to stop in the middle and then just step back as if nervous,_ Zach thought, while the smile on his face grew more and more. _I didn't think she'd assume I was trying to make it charge the tree if I was that far away. I hoped she would be focused enough on my yelling and my mysterious hand, that Kuroiro's shout surprised her into turning away for a few seconds. I assumed everything, and it worked!_

"I can't believe that worked," Kuroiro said, walking towards the middle of the clearing and looking over the top of the thick trunk at Zach.

"Better, than I thought it would," Zach added, snapping his gaze up to Kuroiro with a big grin on his face. "I never thought the tree would fall, I hoped the collision would be enough to break it apart, but it wasn't."

"You didn't pick that tree specifically?" Kuroiro wondered, sweatdropping since every other part of the plan seemed so well designed. Zach just shook his head and started laughing, and then the boy with the Quirk, Black, lifted up the corners of his mouth too.

Zach stopped laughing, because that smile actually looked scarier than when Kuroiro frowned usually. Kuroiro stopped smiling after a few seconds, and then Zach darted his eyes away. "I guess, we should start the trek back," Zach said, glancing around the trees as he said it. His eyes narrowed as he looked around them, not just like he was looking for Pixie Bob, but in a daring way.

 _It's like he's telling me to send another monster their way, because it will prove what I was trying to do,_ Pixie Bob thought, frowning while crossing her arms in front of her chest. _I wasn't going after them with intent to stop them from the start, it had to be a learning experience after all. But still, I didn't want them to succeed. He- they, beat me._

"Let's go," Kuroiro agreed.

Zach got around the tree, and the two of them started walking down the hill. They were too exhausted after that fight to start running right away, so they walked for a while even after reaching the bottom of the hill. Their walk started off pretty quiet, even after the victory they just had.

It was an hour into the walk back, with the suns high above their heads and beating hotly down on them, when Zach started talking. "You're Quirk," he began in a hesitant way, and Kuroiro glanced to the side at him without turning while they continued on. "It's called Black, right? So at night you'd blend in well." Kuroiro nodded, not really getting what this conversation was leading to or the point of it. He continued walking while frowning with his teeth showing, which to Zach was a less threatening look than when he was smiling or had his mouth closed. "Do you, ever get treated weird because of it?" Zach asked.

Kuroiro turned his head and his narrow eyes widened a bit. He was surprised, as that was a personal question to ask someone. Kuroiro kept frowning for a few seconds, then he looked back forward and mentioned, "It happens." Zach glanced at him in surprise now, but not that much of it. Kuroiro continued while Zach looked at the side of his pitch black face. "It's not so bad, because so many people have Quirks that make them look not-human, or at least what normal humans used to be considered."

Zach nodded his head, and he added on himself, "In my earlier schools, the teachers talked about how discrimination was bad when Quirks were first getting started. 'Monster,' was thrown around a lot. But now, it's more like those without Quirks are the ones discriminated against. The 'Quirkless.'" Kuroiro nodded, but he frowned deeper when Zach finished.

"It may not be institutional anymore," Kuroiro started. He stopped himself, but Zach turned towards him waiting for him to continue while they walked. "But, it's not possible for it to go away completely. When I was younger I didn't notice as much, but around middle school I started to realize, whenever I was out at night people would ease away from me. I'd come around a corner, and I'd always unintentionally scare people. I tried smiling to make it not as bad-"

"But that didn't work?" Zach asked while cracking a small smile. Kuroiro frowned towards him, and Zach just added, "I've seen you smile." He kept grinning, and after a few seconds Kuroiro just sighed instead of getting annoyed by it, turning away from the other boy.

"Class B has a few others like that in it though, more than A from what I've seen," Kuroiro mentioned. "So everyone in my class was quick to get used to it. Your class too, surprisingly," he muttered that quieter as if he was expecting it to be different.

"Yeah, they're pretty great like that," Zach said, though he sounded hesitant as it came out.

"Why did you bring it up?" Kuroiro questioned. He froze after asking, and then his look got darker. "Oh, sorry," he muttered. At first he asked because Zach looked normal to him, but then he realized why people might give him nervous or even afraid looks, and he felt like it was not a cool thing to bring up. "Monoma's a di- he went too far that day," Kuroiro muttered, cutting off his curse in case a teacher really was following them around.

"Isn't he your friend?" Zach asked.

"'Was,'" Kuroiro muttered.

 _Oh man,_ Zach thought, reaching up and rubbing the side of his head. He stopped while in the middle of doing it, and his eyes opened wide while looking back at his right hand he scratched his head with. He froze and brought his hand back down, and he whispered after a second with a nervous look on his face, "But, that's not actually why I brought it up," he said. He figured Kuroiro thought he was asking because of the way people had been looking at him ever since the Sports Festival, but he had seen those looks from long before then. He lifted his right hand in front of him and Kuroiro looked at the tight black glove on it closely, wondering what was beneath it that could kill a villain, that was so dangerous they could not risk Monoma copying it.

"Your hand?" Kuroiro questioned.

Zach hesitated for a second, closing his eyes and imagining something in his head. He shivered and then nodded while opening his eyes, responding, "Yeah." He balled his right hand into a fist and then brought it back down to his side as they continued to walk. "I told people I was Quirkless until High School, because of the looks I get from people who know what it is."

"And what-" Kuroiro started, before cutting himself off. He just said it was a personal matter, and Zach nodded thanks at him for not asking.

Zach paused after Kuroiro stopped himself, and he looked down at the floor at how cool the other boy was about that. He lifted his head and looked around in the trees above him while coming to a stop. Kuroiro stopped next to him, then Zach called out, "Hey Pixie Bob, if you're there could you tell us?" He waited for a few seconds. "I know a really young suitor who had a lot of money," Zach called out, cupping his left hand to his mouth. He waited a few seconds, then he nodded as it seemed they were good. "She probably went back to tell Aizawa sensei," he muttered, a small smirk coming to his face as he imagined their conversation of how he and Kuroiro managed to beat the beast.

"What are you doing?" Kuroiro asked.

"It's about my hand, but, it's also not," Zach said, turning back to the boy next to him and saying it in a hushed voice. "The reason I ask, that is," he specified, and Kuroiro nodded his head though he got a hesitant look on his face at the way this conversation was going. "Did you ever, have you ever," Zach's breathing got heavier, and he closed his eyes while thinking far back. His body shook, and then his eyes shot open and he shook his head. "Actually," he said, some sweat on the sides of his face. "Nevermind."

"Huh?" Kuroiro said in a deadpan voice. After that build up, he was expecting something big. Zach sweatdropped as he realized this was a really weird thing to do only to not actually follow up with anything. _It's like I'm being intentionally mysterious. Probably looks like I'm a dick._ "Actually, yeah," Kuroiro started, and Zach looked at him in a confused way. "If you're that nervous about it, then better not," he said, nodding his head like Zach's decision to hold back was a good one.

"Oh… yeah," Zach said, nodding back at him. "Thanks," he said, then turned back the way they were heading before. "Let's start running, yeah? Feel like I got my breath back right there," he mentioned. Kuroiro thought about how Zach had started panting worse than ever as he started bringing up… whatever it was he was about to bring up, but he did not say anything about it and just nodded. The two of them started running at the same pace back through the forest towards the training ground.

When they finally made it back to the camp, the first person they saw was Koji who stopped shouting when he looked down at them. His eyes opened wide and he lifted his head back from the cliff out into the distance where he had heard a roar and seen a tree fall earlier. He had a bird go check on them and return, so he knew they were okay, but he did not expect them to look that unharmed. Neither of the two nearing the cliff had any severe injuries, and they just looked exhausted after their run, coming to stops at the base of it and panting with their hands down on their knees. The sun was still pretty high in the sky, but it was later in the afternoon. Still, they arrived long before nightfall and the two of them turned and grinned at each other after the arrival. After the first day when they were told to make it to the camp in three hours, only for it to take over eight, to arrive long before the time allotted felt like they had done more than win, but win a total victory.

Aizawa came up to them after a minute of them breaking, and he told them 'good job,' and that was it. He then had them get back to some of their exercises from the day before, saying there was no slacking off during the training camp. Zach got annoyed by that, feeling like there should have been more of a talk about what they had done. It annoyed him a little, but when night came, he became a lot more upset as Aizawa announced to Class A right before the start of the Test of Courage that the extra lessons students needed to come with him.

He tried complaining, as did the others (especially Ashido who was shocked as Aizawa took them away from the fun event), but Aizawa wrapped them up in his special cloths and led them away against their wills. They were led back through the dark forest after gathering with everyone else, and Zach thought as they neared the camp building, _They could have told us earlier. Instead they gave us the hope that we could do the Test of Courage. That's just, mean,_ he thought, frowning and glancing back over his shoulder as he imagined the rest of the class having fun tonight. _Couldn't my fight against the beast have replaced by final exam? It wasn't as hard as facing Midnight though, I guess…_

They got into the extra lessons' room and Zach once again avoided the gaze of the member of Class B who also failed the test. His classmates also avoided his gaze, which Zach noticed and frowned at as it happened for the second day in a row. _I have good reason to be annoyed. I mean, as aspiring heroes they'd all be annoyed at what he did, but this is excessive. I don't think, he meant for things to go that far. Kaminari told me angrily about how he didn't get in trouble from the school, since it was just "a confirmed source" who gave the information to the media. Still, if he's in the hero course, then he's probably not, all that bad a person._ Zach looked back across the class from where he took his seat and stared at the blond boy who went back to staring at his desk with an annoyed look on his face, yet Zach saw sadness behind the frustration.

Aizawa had told them on their way back to the building that they would be learning about the proper way to act during an emergency, and they all took their seats and prepared for the lecture. Aizawa walked to Vlad who was already in there with his fists on his sides as he watched Monoma work on the papers he had given him, and he started, "Vlad, I want to add some practice maneuvers this time."

"I was thinking about that too, you don't have to tell me-"

Vlad was cut off as every person in the room heard a voice in their heads. _**"Everyone!"**_

"It's Mandalay's Telepath," Kirishima said, lifting his gaze as it sounded like the voice came from above him.

Zach looked towards the windows, while he heard Ashido next to him say, "I like this, it makes me jump."

Kaminari added, "It only works in one direction though, so it's kind of annoying…"

"Quiet," Aizawa said, lifting a hand over his ear to drown out the students.

 _Why would Mandalay talk to us all like this?_ Zach wondered, putting his palms down on his desk with a nervous look growing on his face. _Did someone get hurt?_

 _ **"We're being attacked by two villains!"**_ Mandalay called out into everyone's heads.

Zach's chair slid back and he shot to his feet with wide eyes. The other students in the room all had wide eyes but looked too shocked to register what was happening, looking around at each other as if wondering if this was part of the training camp. They had just been about to learn about emergency situations after all. _They wouldn't joke about this!_ Zach thought though, spinning towards the windows and staring outside in fear.

 _ **"It's possible that there are more! Everyone who can move, get back to camp immediately! Even if you come across an enemy, retreat, and do not engage!"**_

 _Retreating is the safest option, I know that,_ Zach thought while tightening his fists on his desk and looking down at them. _But what happens when they're attacked and can't run away?!_

"Huh why are villains…"

"I don't get…"

"Isn't this place supposed to be a secret?" Sato asked, while everyone spoke over each other, including their homeroom teacher.

"Vlad, I'm leaving this place to you," Aizawa said, running out the door without hearing any argument. He said as he ran through though, "No one leave this room!" His eyes darted back in and Zach swore he saw them focus on him for a second.

"Everyone stay in your seats," Vlad commanded in a loud, harsh voice as he turned back to the students. "And keep quiet, we need to be listening for more of Mandalay's Telepath."

"Vlad-sensei, how did the villains find us?" Monoma asked, his face covered in sweat and fear.

Vlad looked down at the boy, then back around the room at the other students. Zach slowly lowered back down to his chair, but his fists were shaking on the desk in front of him. Kaminari, Sato, Sero, Ashido, and Monoma all looked afraid, while Kirishima's fists started clenching like Zach's and his face got a frustrated look to it. "We don't know, one of them might have a power that allowed them to," Vlad suggested.

 _Oh man,_ Zach thought, his fists unclenching as he saw that look on Vlad's face. _He doesn't believe that, but that's one of the only options. The other possibility… that's why he looks so angry. A pro hero would be composed in this situation, in emergency situations, unless they think someone betrayed them?! Who knew where we were? All Might never came, because he's a target, but the other teachers… Did the school only send two, because they wanted to keep the rest of the staff in the dark? Was that the real reason? Then the amount of people who know, are the people here and a couple of others. Someone in this camp, someone in Class A or B even…_ Zach's eyes shifted over to Monoma, but the boy looked genuinely afraid and Zach frowned deeper, annoyed by his reaction.

"We have to help them!" Kirishima shot out of his seat and slammed a fist down on it, leaving a mark as he yelled.

"Sit back down," Vlad ordered firmly.

"Even if we don't go fight the villains," Kirishima said, holding his hands up in front of him. "We should at least go out front and make sure everyone knows-"

The group heard a blast outside and they all spun to the windows, only for every one of them to open their eyes wide at the explosion of blue flames racing past the windows. "They're already here?" Ashido asked, as she got out of her seat and stepped away from the windows with terror on her face.

"Not good," Kaminari said, getting out of his seat too and sparking lighting off his fingertips.

Vlad ran towards the windows and called out, "Everyone back!"

Zach took a step backwards as he thought about all those blue flames. _Even if I wanted to, I couldn't get close enough to a villain like that…_

"You guys!"

Zach spun around after hearing Kirishima's shout. The others all spun back too to the door, where Iida threw it open to reveal Iida, Mineta, Koda, and Ojiro all standing there.

"What about that fire?!" Zach shouted towards them, as he had not seen any more since the initial blast.

"Did you see Eraser Head on your way in?" Vlad questioned.

"He was fighting a villain," Iida reported. "He looked to have defeated him before he ran- Sensei!" Iida shouted.

Vlad had turned from the windows to look towards the students, but seeing the four students near the doorway go wide-eyed, he started turning his head back around. All the students facing towards Iida started turning as well, and with their heads half-turned towards the windows, every single window shattered in along with most of the wall. "Get down!" Vlad shouted, jumping towards a chunk of debris flying straight for his student.

Kirishima hardened his body and threw his arms out to the sides while getting in front of Ashido whose eyes went from squinted shut to wide at the sight of the back of his spiky-red-haired head. Kaminari yelled out and dove for cover, while Sato crossed his arms in front of him, and Iida pulled back the others in the doorway with him while spinning around. Iida felt a shard of glass hit him in the back of his right knee and he let out a yell of pain while falling. Ojiro called out for Iida, then he pushed past and got in the doorway as the room in front of them was full of dust from whatever just smashed down the wall. He was one of the only ones who got a good look at it, and it had him shaking where he stood even as he curled his tail and lifted his fists.

Zach lay on his back while staring up at the ceiling in a daze. He lowered his gaze down to his left arm and saw a gash in his sleeve near his bicep, and the sleeve was getting darker and wet. He did not feel much pain though, and he sat up while looking towards the wall, his adrenaline pumping so hard that he could not hear his classmates behind him or even his own loud breathing. He looked through the shattered mess of what was a wall covered in windows, towards the broken glass and turned over desks, and chunks of wall. In the right corner of his eye he saw Monoma run to his teacher's side and start yelling at him with tears in his eyes, while the pro hero coughed up blood and reached up a hand, grabbing a large piece of glass and sliding it out of his chest. He heard yelling of pain behind him that he thought might have been Sero, or Sato, but he did not turn around. He couldn't.

"Zach!" Ojiro shouted across the room. "Zach!"

"Let's… see…" a voice spoke slowly in the hole in the wall, as a silhouette moved through the smoke.

Vlad punched a fist down hard on the ground in front of him and tried getting up, but he coughed again and blood seeped between his teeth. Monoma put a hand on his teacher's shoulder and Vlad looked at him in surprise, then shouted at him as Monoma nervously stepped forward. "I've a-always wanted to try out your Quirk, sensei," Monoma said in as brave a voice he could muster, even as his legs trembled and the top half of his face turned blue at the sight of the figure walking through the wall.

 _Where'd Aizawa sensei have to run off to at a time like this?_ Zach thought while standing straight up, farther forward than anyone else in the class as he stared at the shadow that was becoming clearer as the dust shifted away. The figure behind it was almost as dark, his body dark purple to a shade that it was almost black. A smaller figure walked over the debris at the side of the monster next to him, spiky black hair and a creepy appearance that had the four still hesitating back near the door looking over in shock. Mineta and Koda had bent down to try and help Iida with his leg, but all three of them and Ojiro standing in front to protect them looked terrified as they saw the same villain Aizawa had supposedly defeated outside standing there next to the hulking beast.

"Hey Ganeshi, you went overboard," Dabi said, the thin villain smirking despite the words coming out of his mouth.

The giant next to him was three times his size, and he stepped into the room on all fours. His arms then lifted off the ground as he stood up, making him even taller while something waved in front of his torso. The students in the room stared at the giant figure with nervous or scared expressions, and the four in the back were staring at the thick trunk swinging like a pendulum in front of the villain's body. The one called Ganeshi said in a deep voice, "Sorry, Dabi. But let's… see…" he lifted his right hand that had thick, fatty fingers and he stared at something he was holding. "I don't, see Mido-riya. That's, a shame…"

 _I knew it,_ Zach thought as he stared at the slow speaking villain. _They are trying to capture him for some reason-_

"I wanted, to crush him," Ganeshi said, and all the students in the room opened their eyes wide with sweat all over their faces. "Shigaraki… would have, praised me…"

"You shouldn't look for praise from a guy like that," Dabi said, then he darted his eyes to the side and up with blue flames sparking from his hand at the dark look the hulking man gave him. "Not the time," Dabi warned, seeing a dangerous look in his comrade's eyes.

"…Yeah," Ganeshi said.

"Students," Vlad said, pushing his hand on the floor as hard as he could. The wound on his chest was not bleeding, despite how bad Zach thought it was. And Zach saw the blood between his teeth was gone too, making him wonder what the hero's Quirk was that he was managing to stand up after such a wound. "Get out of here," Vlad said, while Monoma looked back at his teacher with wide eyes.

"You can't!" Monoma shouted. The other students who were in Class A all looked at the blond boy with surprised gazes, as they had all judged him differently than this.

 _He's right. Vlad sensei can't take them like that._ Zach was looking for some way he could help out. _Don't consider taking the glove off. Not yet. Try and come up with another strategy first-_

"I don't, see Bakugo, either," Ganeshi said slowly, moving another picture in his fat hand to the side while looking around the room below.

"Why do you want to kill Bakugo?! And Midoriya?!" Kirishima shouted, stepping forward so he was up on Zach's right side.

One of the villains Kirishima shouted at looked towards him, while Vlad shouted at Kirishima to get back. Dabi smirked at the kid with red hair, "Hmph, wouldn't you like to know."

At that moment, a voice started shouting in each of the students and Vlad's heads. _**"Everyone in Class A and Class B!"**_ It was Mandalay's Telepath again, and their eyes all opened wide as she continued shouting at them. _**"In the name of the Pro Hero, Eraser Head, you are granted permission to engage in combat! I repeat! Everyone in Class A and Class B! You are granted permission to engage in combat!"**_

 _Is it really that bad out there, Eraser Head?_ Vlad thought, while focusing hard on his Quirk, Blood Control, to try and hold himself together. Although the wound on his chest was the worst though, and the one he had to focus his powers on, he had other shallow wounds on his arms and legs. And what was worse, he knew he could not start attacking the villains to push them back, without losing control over his punctured lung and letting it fill with blood.

"Villains," Vlad began, taking a step towards them. "You have made, a very big mistake."

Ojiro stepped forward, his resolve hardening after what he just heard. Mineta looked back at Iida who was struggling to try and stand but could not do it, then at Koda who looked terrified while trying to help him. Mineta turned and tried to stand back up, but his legs were shaking too much at the sight of the two villains standing at the edge of the classroom. The shorter one called Dabi covered his right hand in blue flames and reached down, igniting the floor around him with flames that started igniting the desks and the wall on one side of him.

"Keep those, away from…" the other villain continued, before noticing another picture in his hand. "I'm not good, with faces," he continued, while lowering his hand and dropping the pictures in it. "But…"

 _ **"We have discovered one of the villains' targets!"**_ Mandalay shouted in all of their heads, right as the giant villain in front of them started turning his head and lowering his gaze. Dabi also smirked while turning his head back forward, focusing on one of the people in the room he had already noticed. _**"It is one of the students- Kacchan!"**_

Iida lifted his bowed head and let go of his leg with both hands, "It's Bakugo?" He had been farther away and growling in his own pain when it was brought up before, when Mineta and Koda were trying to get him to hold still and stop moving while pulling the glass from the soft part on the back of his right knee.

"Sazaki… Zach," Ganeshi said. Zach's face was already full of fear and covered in sweat as they both looked towards him. "You'll be, coming with, us too."

Zach's terrified expression stayed that way, but his eyes opened wide and his mind started racing while everyone in the room behind and around him spun his way. _"Targets." "Coming with us… too?" "Crush him." What's it all mean? What is the situation?! Think think, there's no time- do I take off! NO! Don't think about that. Come up with another idea. As soon as you consider it an option, you won't be able to think rationally. Now focus. Midoriya, they don't want to capture him. They must, Shigaraki must just want him dead. I was wrong. They don't know about his connection with All Might, or they do and he's too dangerous to try anything except kill him._

Kirishima stepped forward on Zach's side and the black haired boy went wide eyed. "Get back Zach," Kirishima said. "If you're their target, you need to get away."

 _He's right,_ Zach thought, and he jumped backwards, then did it a second time while Vlad stepped to the left, blocking the villains who both moved in at that moment. Kirishima lifted his arms and his whole body hardened, and then he and Vlad both ran forward at the same time. "Kirishima, don't!" Zach started yelling, reaching forward. Tape wrapped around his chest and pulled him back, and Zach looked back to see Ojiro sprinting past him, and Sero holding his right arm up. Sero had his other hand down on his stomach, a pained look on his pale face as he pulled Zach away with the tape from his right arm.

"Don't do- something stupid," Sero said, unwrapping his tape and then dropping back to a knee, making Sato drop next to him and yell about him holding still until the glass was out.

 _Everyone, is fighting,_ Zach thought, spinning back and watching as Kirishima ducked down and Vlad rose his arms, splashing blood out at the trunk swinging towards him. The amount of blood that appeared there was more than Zach imagined the muscular hero could spare, making him wonder even more about the man's Quirk. Vlad hardened his blood as the trunk hit it, then the trunk pushed through and hit the man behind who gasped in pain and shock at the villain's power.

"Vlad sensei!" Kirishima shouted, losing focus and turning toward the teacher who flew towards the front wall of the classroom and hit it so hard that he made cracks break out on all sides of his back.

"Kirishima!" Ojiro shouted, reaching an arm out which Kirishima saw out the right corner of his eye, since he was facing towards the front of the room and not the outside wall, where the villain he just turned away from should be. He did not see Dabi standing there anymore though, as the man should have after he jumped back from Kirishima's first swipe. Kirishima started turning his head, his eyes darting down, while the man popping up behind him lifted his hand a little more right up against Kirishima's back.

He hardened his back.

It wasn't enough.

Dabi's hand glowed blue on Kirishima's back and Kirishima started yelling out in pain, but the yell cut short in under a second. The front of his chest glowed blue too, and then the explosion of blue flames blasted out of Kirishima's chest and into the other side of the room towards Vlad who just slid down the wall leaving a blood trail behind him. The flames hit the teacher, blasting that wall and making cracks form all over the ceiling. Dabi pulled his hand back and then he instantly jumped away, while Kirishima's body was still falling forward into the disappearing blue flames.

"KIRISHIMA!" Ashido and Ojiro shouted at the top of their lungs.

Dabi leapt out back from the wall, away from the burning section on the side he had ignited first. A trunk swung after him and a deep voice growled out closer to the side that just burst into flames. "What did, I say…" Ganeshi turned his head and he stomped down so hard that the classroom next to him shook, though his step was away from the class.

"Vlad sensei!" Monoma yelled, running towards the wall that had burst into flames. He leaned back from the hot blue fire, then he yelled out and ran forward, spreading his blood out around him using Vlad's Quirk. He grabbed his teacher and dragged backwards, while Ojiro dropped down and caught Kirishima right before he hit the floor.

"Come on Kirishima," Ojiro started, turning the boy over to see Kirishima's face. "You're-" Ojiro began, then his eyes opened wide and his skin paled. His hands were getting wet on Kirishima's back, and he stared at the front of his shirt at the big hole in it.

While the fight had been going on, in the five seconds leading up to Kirishima getting blue flames blasted through his torso, Zach's mind had been racing nonstop. _They want to kill Midoriya, but Bakugo's another target. He said "too," so they want Bakugo, and they want me. Is it, is it because of the Sports Festival? The villains think because I was shunned, because just because I killed someone- and Bakugo, he had to be restrained on the podium. If they could turn students from U.A. against the hero society, it would collapse in an instant. Death. The heroes raised a student with that Quirk, only to have the student they trained turn into a villain. It would destroy the public's faith in the heroes, in U.A., even in All Might as one of my teachers. The Symbol of Peace. They want to capture me, in order to crush that. That's it. That's what, I would do if I were them._ Zach's teeth clenched, and then he let out a gasp and his mind started to blank. He reached forward but he had no breath to shout, not like his classmates.

A blue tint covered Zach's face as he stood there staring at the mortally wounded. Flames were on the edge of the ceiling farther from the door to the hall, as well as spreading farther back on either wall so that on both sides of him he could only see blue flames. There was fire scattered on the floor in front of him, leaving little space to move through to the outside where both villains were standing. The shorter one who used the blue fire was telling the other one to wait until later to argue about this, suggested they could even fight it out if Ganeshi was not satisfied by then. The larger one slammed his trunk on the floor and made cracks split out on either side of him, and the whole classroom shook again as it turned its head in.

"Then… let's get… him," Ganeshi said.

"I'll come with you!" Zach shouted.

He shouted it, then his eyes opened wide and he froze where he stood. Everything he just thought rushed back to him. All the terrible things that could come of the villains taking him. But when he shot his gaze from Kirishima up to those villains, only one thought crossed his mind. He sprinted forward before anyone in the class had even spun towards him. Ojiro started lifting his head from Kirishima, and he rose his hands only to stare at them in shock at how red they were. He heard a thud and snapped his head back down since he had been holding Kirishima up a little, meaning when he pulled his hands away, the red-haired boy fell to the floor.

"I'll come! Just don't hurt anyone else!" Zach yelled, panic on his face as he darted in between the flames. He froze though, right at the edge of the fire but before he reached the villains. He swung his arms out to the sides and ignored the shouts of his classmates behind him. He ignored the class rep who ordered him as the class rep that he return and retreat. He ignored Ojiro, and the teacher who called out in a raspy voice, though unable to move more than just lifting his head a little.

 _I should have known, with the power to break the wall- damn it!_ "Kid, get back- ack," Vlad had to focus his whole body on keeping himself alive, but his gaze shifted over to another child. A student. He stared at the kid who ran forward with him, who he did not send back right away because of what Aizawa told them through Mandalay's Telepath. Vlad King grit his teeth so hard at the sight of the boy's unmoving body.

"Alright then," Dabi said, smirking as he looked at the kid standing there between them and the others. "That's a pretty brave decision-"

"There are two conditions!" Zach yelled. The villains who were about to head back in anyway to take him by force did not feel like they needed to listen to these conditions, but as Zach saw the larger one's mouth opening, he shouted quickly before the slow man could, "The first, is that you keep true to your word and leave here with me! We all walk away, leaving this classroom and my classmates behind!"

"Zach!" Kaminari shouted, running closer and up to Ojiro who stood next to Kirishima with a look of rage growing on his face.

Before either of them could move closer, Zach screamed, "GET BACK!" He lifted his right arm and he grabbed his glove while everyone stared at him with widening eyes, including the two villains. Zach ripped his glove off, and a dozen people stared at his hand with confused expressions. Even Kaminari had never seen his hand use its Quirk, though he was not as confused or shocked as all the others when Zach's hand turned out to be a normal, light-skinned, unimpressive hand.

"Well, that's disappointing-" Dabi began.

"The second condition!" Zach yelled.

 **4 Years Ago**

 **Thud**

Zach slipped in the shower and he yelled out as he fell to the floor. He reached his hands up and grabbed his head with both hands in pain. He winced, then his eyes opened wide. He trembled as he got to his feet, looking towards his mirror outside the foggy glass of his shower. He moved his right hand away from his head, feeling his heart pounding as he stood there with a headache. Zach lifted his hand to his chest and felt his heart, and he waited for a few seconds as it slowed down.

 _What was that?_ He thought. He opened his showed door and grabbed a towel, drying himself off while stepping out onto the rug. He did not turn off the water, as he had only just stepped in a few minutes ago. The eleven year old boy tried evading his gaze from the fogged-up mirror, but when he looked towards it he relaxed and then looked left and above his toilet at the window there. He saw a shadow on the other side of the glass, and he hesitated before reaching for the window latch.

His eyes shifted to the top part of his toilet, where his special black glove rested waiting for him to put it on. _Putting it on wet is hard,_ he thought, drying his hand better while reaching up with his left towards the window. _I'll just check,_ he thought. He opened up the window, and he stared out in surprise at what he saw on the small ledge outside his window. There was an old flower-pot with dead flowers in it sitting on one side, and right in the middle was a small black lump of feathers.

"What the-" Zach muttered. He put his towel down and then stepped up on the toilet lid. His feet almost slipped and he wobbled his arms out to the sides to keep his balance, still letting out a breath of relief as he did not fall. No one would have been there to help him, if he did get hurt. He glanced at his left arm which still sported a nasty scar around his bicep. _I don't want to have to call Aunt Maye again for something like that._ He looked back towards the window, and he reached out his left hand while using the window's edge to hold himself steady, grabbing it with his right hand. Zach hesitated as his left hand neared the creature lying there still, and then he poked at it.

 _It must have, broken its neck on the glass. Stupid bird,_ he thought, though he felt bad as he turned it over. He tilted it on its side and looked at its face, and he shivered at the look of the dead creature. _The dead, don't look that much different,_ the face of his mother appeared in his mind, a peaceful expression on it, tears on her face. He bit down on his bottom lip, then he reached up his right hand. _If it's already dead,_ he thought, and he used his left to hold him in place, reaching with his right and touching the creature. His eyes opened wide as he felt his fingers touch, then he thought, _What am I doing?_ The boy started pulling his fingers away, then he winced and pulled back faster. He lost his balance on the toilet and he slipped off backwards, but his eyes opened wide as he fell for a reason other than the fear of falling head-first. His breath caught and he gasped, as he spotted his poking fingers had turned black. Then his vision cut off…

 **Present**

"My second condition, is you let me go to Kirishima!" Zach shouted. The villains looking at him, as well as all the students behind him, got confused looks on their faces at Zach's request.

"If you want to check if he's alive, I'll save you the trouble," Dabi started, while taking a step forward to show that Zach did not have a say in this, and his demands did not need to be met.

"MY QUIRK IS DEATH!" Zach roared at the top of his lungs. The villain in front of him froze, and Zach saw Ganeshi's trunk ease back as well. All the students in the room behind Zach stared at him with growing eyes, while Zach's voice got lower, but even more threatening as he continued, "If I want to, I could kill everyone here with a snap of my fingers." He lifted his right hand, a hand that looked so normal, but one that both of the villains were staring at hesitantly.

"Let me go to him, and I'll come with you," Zach said. "Just stay there, for a few seconds. And don't do anything," Zach said. He turned and he walked back into the classroom behind him, not looking back to check on the villains. He figured the longer he stood there, the higher chance of one of them calling his bluff.

"Zach-" Kaminari began.

"Ojiro, Kaminari, back up or my hand will kill you," Zach said, his voice cold and his eyes colder as he walked forward with his head partially bowed.

Mineta backed up so his back was against the wall next to the door. Iida stared out towards Zach with his bottom lip lowered, his eyes huge as Zach clenched his right fist in front of him, then darted his glare to both of the students he just snarled at. Ojiro leaned backwards, but Kaminari's eyes just softened and he whispered his friend's name.

 _When I woke up that day,_ Zach thought, his gaze shifting back to Kirishima's body. "Move away," he said, and Ojiro backed up from the boy who looked like he had really snapped this time. _The bird was gone. I thought, it could have been a hallucination, from slipping after I came out of the shower, but the window was open. I was paranoid. I knew my Quirk was Death, so I tried ignoring it, but I couldn't just let that go. I felt pain in my fingers, I_ _ **saw**_ _them turn black, and then the bird was gone._ Zach reached Kirishima and he bent down over the boy's body without hesitating. _So I went to the pet store, and I bought a guinea pig. I named him Charles, Chuck for short. I got connected to him because I waited so long, because I had second thoughts, third doubts, fourth hesitations about touching him. I was horrified at what I was considering, with such an innocent animal. One that I had come to like. I got connected to it, but that's why, when I finally told myself I had to check, I was so broken up by the results. I killed him, then I touched him again, but nothing happened. I waited longer, because the bird had been dead for a little before I touched it… if it was even there… NO! It was there! It had to have been. Please, let it have been._

Zach lowered his right hand. He hesitated over Kirishima's body, while everyone in the classroom and outside looked at him in silence. Their eyes were huge, and no one knew what was happening as the boy whose face was tinted blue by the flames grabbed Kirishima over his open wound. _I tried again though, because I wanted to be thorough. I got another guinea pig, and I killed it right away this time, but it didn't make me feel any less terrible. I thought maybe because I touched it too early, and I had to wait the amount of time as with the bird, but again it failed when I just tried the same time. I tried with a bird too, thinking maybe it was the species but that didn't work either. I almost gave up, but I thought there was a chance. A chance that it could still work, but only if I wasn't the one who did it! But then- a few months later I got my chance. I ran even more those days, trying to come upon an accident, or something terrible. I felt so horrible looking for bad things to happen, and then I found it! I found a dog surrounded by people, people who were sad and crying about how it got hit by a car. I ran to it, and I took off my glove while yelling at them to get back. They looked so hopeful, but it didn't work. Then I had to scream at them as they got angry and tried confronting me, yelling that they would die if they touched me and sprinting away while putting the glove back on. But, as much as I had decided that it was a trick of my mind, I always had doubt. I doubted, because there was one more possibility. A mixture of the two things I thought were wrong with my experiments mixed together!_

Zach ground his teeth and he shut his eyes so tightly as he pressed his right hand harder against Kirishima's body. _It couldn't be me who killed them, and the time limit couldn't have expired. I wasted time talking to the villains, it's my fault they're here and my fault Kirishima's dead. But still, there is the chance I was wrong-_ Zach felt a pain in his chest like no other. He thought it was the grief, the acceptance that he had failed and he was just stalling for time, holding a dead classmate's body while everyone stared at him like he was an idiot. He felt like he was being cruel, doing this to a friend who he had gotten killed, who had died trying to protect him. When he had just listened to Kirishima and backed up, not thinking about how his classmate was going up against a real villain, he had gotten him killed. Zach screamed out in pain, tilting his head back at the agony he felt inside him. He screamed, and his eyes shot open as this sharp a pain could not have been from grief. His head struggled to lower down, and he brought his left arm over and grabbed his right by the elbow as his mind tried telling his body to pull it away.

"NO!" Zach yelled, holding his arm there despite the pain in his chest increasing. "It's going to work!" He shouted, his eyes wide, his mouth twisting up at the corners while tears started spilling from the corners. Everyone in the class was staring at Zach with wide eyes, eyes that were filling with hope as Zach's hand had turned black. The black color was ominous, and terrifying, but as it spread up Zach's arm and he started to scream in pain, the boy started smiling. "KIRISHIMA!" Zach yelled, while the black reached the top of his arm, and his chest reached the maximum amount of pain Zach could imagine. Despite all the pain though, he started laughing, because the eyes of the boy lying in front of him were opening up. Tears spilled out of Zach's eyes and onto the body of the boy lying below him, while the pain started to subside, while Zach's body stopped shaking and the black color on his arm lowered back fast to his hand before vanishing.

Zach lifted his hand from Kirishima's chest fast, afraid of what would happen if he left it there for too long. He stared down in shock, at the closed up wound on Kirishima's chest. He stared at it, while Kirishima's arms started moving at his sides.

"That's, impossible," Dabi said, his eyes narrowing down afterwards while a bead of sweat rolled down his face. "Death? That Quirk, seems to be the opposite," he said it in a voice raising in volume, and Zach's eyes shot open.

"Zach?" Kirishima whispered, staring up at the boy who rose and turned away from him. Eijiro Kirishima pushed down on the floor at his sides, looking down towards his chest because of the last thing he remembered. He stared at his chest, in the middle of his torn-up uniform, at the skin that looked pristine and undamaged. "Wh-What just…"

Zach turned towards Dabi who stopped walking back towards the classroom. "Let's go," Zach said, and he ran back towards Dabi before the villain could take another step.

"Zach!" Iida shouted after the boy.

"H-Hey," Kirishima tried getting up, but he felt exhausted and he collapsed back down after a second. "HEY!" He shouted, turning his head while down on a knee, "Where are-" his eyes opened wide as Zach slowed down just in front of the villains.

Zach lowered his gaze to the floor. _That's one,_ he thought, but his lips did not lift up. He looked left at Dabi, then right and up at the monster glaring down at him. His hand was still out of his glove, but he clenched his left hand tight around his glove which he kept with him the whole time. He had not even dropped it while steadying his right arm over Kirishima's chest before. Zach turned his head back and he glared at Sato, at Mineta, and Kaminari. He looked at Ojiro behind them who stood next to Kirishima, letting the red-haired boy use him as a crutch to get up. _They wouldn't just let it go that easily,_ he thought, while the corners of his lips lifted and his head started leaning back. He looked down his nose towards his classmates who all leaned back at the look, all of them freezing with their mouths open, forgetting what they were about to say.

"You kids, stay here," Zach said, smirking more as he stared them down. _They're too strong. Bakugo's going to be taken too. I can't just kill these two and accept that I didn't get taken. Saving myself, isn't what this Quirk is for. I'll save him, but I'll save these guys first._ "Every last one of you, looks down on me for killing that villain."

"Zach! What are you-" Kaminari started shouting.

"Shut up!" Zach snapped, glaring at Kaminari without holding back. "At the Sports Festival, you heard what the masses think of me, didn't you? 'What's he doing, trying to be a hero?' 'Killer.' ' _Murderer,'_ " Zach hissed the last part, then he bowed his head and looked up towards his friends, smirking in a terrifying way that had Mineta and Sato each stepping back. "And you know what, they were right? I am one. And it wasn't just once…" Zach faded off, stopping himself from going any farther even as his face twisted in rage, using his own self-hatred as help for this. He started backing up until Dabi and Ganeshi were on his sides, and he continued while stopping between them. "Aizawa sensei even sent me off today on a training mission that he expected me to fail."

Vlad's eyes opened wide while he lay on the ground, as for the first time he thought the kid might not actually be doing this as a trick to the villains. "Stop him," Vlad whispered, and only the boy closest to him heard it. Monoma looked down with wide eyes, then the boy on his knees next to his homeroom teacher turned back to look out at the kid outside between the terrifying villains.

"Zach," Kirishima called out. "Don't do this! We can fight them-"

"You can't," Zach said, lifting his head and just glaring their way with an emotionless expression this time. "If you try, you'll die. And I won't bring you back this time." As if to prove it, Zach lifted his right hand and he slid his glove back on. "Aizawa sensei doesn't believe I can be a hero. All Might told me the same, pretty much. And Grappler too," Zach muttered lower, his eyes darting to the floor. This time, Dabi glanced in at him and the villain's eyebrows lifted up a bit. "Everyone's been trying to get me to give up. The civilians of this society, call me a monster. I don't know why I've spent so long, trying to be a hero for those people." Zach's hands started shaking at his sides, and he snapped his head back up after staring at the ground for a few seconds. "Well if everyone wants to think of me as a villain, then I can go ahead and play the part! This society overgrown with fake heroes…"

Iida's eyes shot open huge, and Kaminari took a step back at the words he recognized well. The villains on either side of Zach could not help but grin. Zach faded off and he turned away. "Someone must be dyed in blood," he hissed. "I don't belong, in the type of society you guys do. But Stain was right anyway. Something about it, is rotten at the core. I don't know what that is," Zach started walking forward towards the forest ahead of him, the forest with blue flames rising in the distance over it. "But with the League of Villains, maybe I can find it."

"Zach!" Kirishima yelled, pushing himself forward and forcing his Hardening as he moved through Dabi's flames.

Dabi lifted his hand though, and Zach spun his head back with widening eyes as the man pointed his hand at the building. Zach opened his mouth, but Dabi's hand was pointed down a bit, and the flames he shot out made a huge line of blue flames separating the group in the classroom from him. He heard them shouting his name. He could partially see them through the flames. He looked a few of them in the eyes as the flames flickered in such a way to allow him to, then he turned and started walking away. _Around ten. That's, around ten more. Eleven total? Still, nowhere close…_

"Zach Sazaki!" A voice shouted over all the others.

Zach paused while walking in front of the two villains who narrowed their eyes at the boy's back as he was taking too many pauses.

The two of them heard a voice, and Dabi put a hand to his head to respond to it. "The second target is also acquired. Let's go."

 _So they got him,_ Zach thought, though he did not change his expression as he had already expected it, and he did not want the villains to see.

"I'M SORRY!"

Zach's eyes opened wide. The students of Class A stared at the back of the kid with blond hair who now also had to be held back just like Kirishima. Ojiro and Sato were struggling to hold Kirishima down, as even in his weakened state he was trying to get through the flames while yelling Zach's name. Koda had run forward to grab Monoma though when Vlad yelled towards him to stop, and Koda was telling him not to as the blond boy screamed again, "You're not a villain! Don't do this- because of me!"

 _Damn it Monoma. This sucks so much. This really, really sucks. But to save Bakugo, I'm going to make it even worse for you._ "Fuck you," Zach called out. It wasn't a yell, but it was loud enough that he knew it reached. Zach turned his head and he smirked towards the flames back behind him, "But it _is_ because of you," he said, then he turned and kept walking through the forest. _What a villainous thing to say to someone whose truly remorseful. I'm knocking one off for that. Back down to ten._

Dabi walked up to the kid's side, while Ganeshi on the right said in a low voice, "I'm still… taking credit, with Shiga-raki."

"Go for it, you deserve the credit big guy," Zach said. "Wouldn't have done a thing if you weren't there."

"I don't believe you, you know?" Dabi said, while he walked next to Zach. "Pretend as much as you like, but you're just saving-"

"Believe me or not, I don't really care," Zach said, turning and looking up into Dabi's eyes as he said it. The other man was over a head taller than him, but Zach stared up with a serious and unafraid look as he continued, "I saved them, because they were my classmates. They're comrades of mine, who were willing to sacrifice themselves for me. I don't know if you villains get the sense of camaraderie, caring about people, but I do. That doesn't mean though, that I didn't mean what I said." He looked back forward and narrowed his eyes into the dark forest ahead of him. "I'm fed up, and you guys came to get me. I don't have any family. I don't have any reason to stay in a school that doesn't want me." He said it and bit down, because these were not just lies he was telling the villains. "I don't, belong here," he finished.

"Hmph," Dabi lifted his gaze from the kid's. "Stay here for a second," he said. Zach looked towards him in confusion, and then both of the villains at his sides started melting. Zach felt shivers down his spine as they started seeping away.

In a few seconds, he was all alone in the forest. He stood there, and he looked over his shoulder back towards the camp building. _If I went back now, Aizawa or one of the Pussycats might have shown up. Other students too, who could handle these guys. I wouldn't have to go with them… Or they could follow me, and kill more of them. If I do go back, and Vlad sensei has died though, I could save his live too. What the hell- I can really bring people back to life? What is this Quirk? Wait- what am I doing? …Bakugo. That's right. They already have him. Which means, I have to do it. They are starting to trust me. Even if Bakugo wasn't, they're going to bring me to their headquarters. They'll bring me to Shigaraki… and maybe even, his boss. From what they've talked about his personality, he doesn't seem like the type to be able to put this all together on his own. It terrified me thinking someone was pulling the strings, especially if that guy planned on Shigaraki and the Nomus and Stain all being seen on the same night. I ignored the possibility because it was crazy, but I have to accept it as one now, and not kill Shigaraki as soon as I see him. He might not be, the final boss._

"Oi kid," Zach spun his head and he saw Dabi walking out from between some trees. "So you actually stayed put?"

"Whoa! What a weird kid! Nice job new comrade," a figure in an all black outfit who jumped out next to Dabi stuck a thumbs up at him after calling him weird. His personality seemed to switch, and then Zach's eyes darted away from them to the larger figure he saw coming out from the trees next to Dabi. He was not as large as before, _Strength enhancing, or a transformation? His trunk is still there, but it looks really weird when it's not thick. All shriveled up…_

"Don't stare," Dabi warned while he started walking towards the kid. "And come on. We need to get to the rendezvous point. If you fall behind, Ganeshi will knock you out." Zach darted his eyes to the large man with dark brown skin and a long trunk sticking off his face who glared at Zach like he really wanted to knock the kid out and present him to Shigaraki himself. Dabi continued while walking past Zach, "The power you saw of his earlier, was only a fraction thanks to Twice's power. Same with mine. Don't think about trying anything," he warned.

"I won't," Zach replied instantly, turning and following after Dabi quickly, as it seemed like they were in a hurry. The Twice guy started talking to Ganeshi as they moved faster too, and the four of them were making their way through the forest to an unknown extraction point. Zach kept his breathing steady, and he calmed his thoughts as well, _I just, became a spy. Ten. My number of saves, is at ten. Mom, dad, how many thousands could you have saved in the past eight years? I don't know, but I've made my start. I made up for a few. And I didn't kill anyone to do it. I saved them, using my head, not my Quirk… except for Kirishima. This Quirk, Death, it's not just to kill people. It's the control over Death. It's like, I actually am Death. The Grim Reaper, like I considered my hero name to be. The one who decides, who lives, and who dies… Death._

* * *

 **A/N Thanks for reading. Let me know what you think in a review below or predictions for upcoming chapters. Hope you enjoyed!**


	15. Chapter 15

**Chapter 15:**

"Huh? No one else is here yet?"

Zach walked out through some trees side by side with a villain with spiky black hair. A little to their left, two other villains stepped out at the same time. The spiky-haired man on Zach's right started when he saw the girl standing in front of them looking around for her comrades, "You lunatic, did you get the blood?"

The fifteen year old with spiky black hair tried not to let his expression change, but that question made him uneasy. _Blood? What are they-_

"How many people's worth?" Dabi asked.

Himiko Toga turned to him and said proudly, "One person!"

"Just one?!" Twice exclaimed. The guy in a tight black costume with some gray lines going through it and a gray mask over the top of his face jumped behind Toga while throwing a finger up in shock. "Weren't you told to get at least three?!"

"It couldn't be helped," the girl said as she walked forward, right between Dabi and Twice towards the boy in the middle. She continued while smiling, "I thought I was going to die." She tilted her head to the side and smiled insanely at the boy in front of her who just kept glaring intensely at the girl's face.

"Anyway- Toga, aren't you a little too happy?" Twice leaned back confusedly at the expression on the girl's face. "Was there anything to make you depressed?"

She turned away from Zach and said with a dreamy look on her face, "I made some friends and found a boy I'm interested in." Her hands were to her cheeks and her voice was enamored.

 _They're, they're all insane!_ Zach thought, while trying hard not to let his face cover in sweat. Twice was reacting behind her as if she had confessed to her, telling her he couldn't and then shouting that he liked her too.

Dabi glanced down at the kid at his side, and then he said, "We found one who was more cooperative than we thought."

"Oooh," Toga spun back to the boy with spiky black hair. She leaned her face towards him, and Zach pulled back a bit at how creepy her eyes were when they got close. "Hmm," she started humming, her smile lowering down a bit. "I don't-"

Dabi lifted his head next to Zach, and Zach, Toga, and Twice all looked to him and then up in the air. Something was falling, and they all snapped their heads down as it crashed into the floor screaming.

Zach's eyes darted over to the largest villain still farther back on his left who started turning over, then back to the group who just crashed down, then around the insane people around him. Then they shot back to the group who just slammed down on top of a man who looked to be a villain considering Zach did not know him, he was wearing a mask, and his classmates were attacking him.

"Hey, hey, hey, hey!" Twice started shouting. "I know these kids!" Then he pointed a finger and shouted in a lower and more confused voice, "Who are they?"

 _Midoriya, Shoji, Todoroki,_ Zach thought, his eyes growing wide at the sight of the three of them. _This is, the worst possible situation!_ A foot stomped down on his left, and he darted his gaze over to see Ganeshi getting larger, a grin spreading over his face. "Mido-riya!" The large villain began, his trunk getting thicker.

"Give Kacchan and Tokoyami ba-" Midoriya's passionate yell cut off and his eyes opened wide at the sight of the people in front of him.

The other two on Mr. Compress looked forward as well with their eyes growing huge at the sight of what they dropped into.

"Mister, get out of the way," Dabi said, lifting his arm and covering it in flames.

 _What do I do?! Where is Bakugo? Tokoyami too?! I can't do-_ "Hey!" Zach yelled, as Dabi fired a thick blast of flames towards where Mr. Compress was just laying but vanished. Screams came out from Midoriya, Shoji, and Todoroki as the blue flames grazed them and they fell to the sides of the flames.

"Stay back kid," Dabi warned. "Or I'll have Mister get rid of you too," he said.

"Faces from Shigaraki's kill list!" Twice called out as he leapt up towards Todoroki who got away from the flames better than the others and did not yell out as loud. "That little beat up boy and you…"

Zach watched as Twice came at Todoroki only for ice to push him back. _He's talking about Midoriya. There's a kill list and a capture list. The three who took down Stain. The two- or three including Tokoyami? Who don't belong? Is it because of Tokoyami's power? Did he let it out tonight, and since it's dark… Where are they? What did he mean by having that Mr. Compress guy 'get rid of' me? They have too many strong powers!_

"Ganeshi!" Zach screamed, making the huge villain who just started moving forward turn back to him. "I'll kill you," Zach snarled, reaching for his right hand.

The girl Toga had charged at Midoriya, and when he leapt away from her, Ganeshi stepped towards him and pulled his trunk to the side. Dabi looked back and glared at the kid behind him, but Zach held his right glove tight with his left hand. "I swear to God," Zach yelled. "If you kill them- I will _murder_ you!" _Keep up the villainous persona while also saving them! I can't do nothing, but I can't go back on it now just to be a prisoner._ Zach spun his head to Dabi and growled, "Condition one."

"Can't do it at a time like this," Dabi replied, and Zach bit down hard as he was not expecting any different a response.

He thought for a second that even stopping Ganeshi was not going to save Midoriya, but Shoji ran in and decked Toga away before she could stab her knife down into Midoriya's throat. She looked back and said she was going to cut up Shoji, and then the two of them heard the stomp behind them and glanced back to see the huge purplish-black villain behind them glaring their way too. Ganeshi turned away for a second, then he looked back at Midoriya, then he said in a low voice, "Get in, my way… Sazaki. And I'll, kill you, too," Zach's body tensed up as he heard how serious the villain was with those words. Whether or not the organization wanted him captured, that villain was not letting him live if he tried getting in the way again.

At that moment, a small blue marble on the floor shone light and transformed back into Mr. Compress. He sat up grabbing one arm, "Ow ow ow. I can't believe you flew so far to chase after me. Your ideas are far out!" The guy in the white mask covered in black lines wore a big yellow coat with a high collar popped on the sides of his head. He wore a black top hat with red just above the rim, and it had a feather sticking out too. He turned his head and looked towards a boy who shot him a glare as soon as he stood.

"There's the other one, you got him Dabi," Mr. Compress said in a congratulatory tone.

 _Other one?_ Three boys in the area thought at the same time. It indicated the targets were only the ones already here.

"I told you I did," Dabi said, sounding annoyed that the other man doubted him. "Where's Bakugo?" He added after, walking towards Compress without anyone stopping him. Twice was fighting against Todoroki, cutting apart his ice and keeping him on the ropes with his agility, getting Todoroki farther away from Mr. Compress and Dabi, and Zach.

"Zach!" Todoroki shouted over. "Run towards me!"

Zach looked towards Todoroki, then behind himself at Dabi and Mr. Compress. His eyes darted to the guy in the big yellow coat who was patting his pocket, the man seeming to be flustered as he could not find something. _Is this-_

"Midoriya, Todoroki, Zach," Shoji said, and the three boys all spun towards him. "We're running away!"

 _He didn't,_ Zach thought, his eyes growing even wider at the look on Shoji's face.

"I'm sure now, based on what he just did…" Shoji looked towards the two villains who were close to Zach, yet had a small gap between them. Zach had not stepped away from them yet though, his eyes darting around to check out the situation even while Shoji said how they needed to run. "I don't know what your Quirk is," Shoji continued to Compress who turned his head to the side to look back at him while he was speaking. "But inside that right pocket of yours that you kept flaunting, were these-" he held up two blue marbles that looked just like Compress did when he disappeared to dodge Dabi's first attack. "Tokoyami and Bakugo, right, entertainer?"

"Shoji!" Midoriya exclaimed.

 _Did he really figure it out?!_ Zach thought. _If Bakugo's back-_ Zach's eyes darted towards Dabi who was looking straight towards him, while Compress turned fully to Shoji. _If I move, he's telling the Compress guy to do the same to me. I could move, I could get out of here. Could I? My number one priority was saving Bakugo, but what about the other goals? Were they that flimsy that I want to run right now?! Was my conviction that small?!_

"Oh, that didn't take you very long," Compress said. He lifted his hands at his sides and said in an impressed voice, "As expected of someone with six arms!"

Ganeshi stomped towards Midoriya's back, "I won't, let you, get-" A wall of ice blocked him off and made the huge villain lean back. He turned his head and pulled his trunk to the side.

Todoroki started running, and Midoriya and Shoji made to do the same. Midoriya looked back though and his eyes opened wide, "Run! ZACH!"

"You guys get out of here!" Zach yelled right back towards him, not moving his feet from his spot. All three of them stopped as he shouted it, and he leaned forward and yelled, "NOW!" They opened their mouths to yell various things back at him, while Dabi rose his arm on Zach's right to fire at the targets that just stopped moving. Zach thought Mr. Compress looked too composed though, and the entertainer told Dabi to wait.

"What are you talking about?!" Todoroki shouted back.

"We need to go!" Shoji yelled.

"Behind you!" Zach screamed at them.

The three spun around, and Midoriya's face covered in fear as he said, "A Nomu?" It came out from behind a tree, a weird purple device over its head but with the brain still sticking out of the monster.

"Let's get over-" Todoroki started moving a direction there were no villains, though looking back towards Zach as he did. _What is he-_ Both his thoughts and words cut off and his feet skid to a stop as the dark purple portal appeared in front of him. Ganeshi slammed his trunk into the ice wall and the entire thing shattered outwards in so many pieces that the other villains had to dodge, including the huge portal-user who just appeared.

"Watch it Ganeshi!" Twice shouted, dodging with his great mobility all the ice shards. A portal opened up behind Kurogiri who just appeared in front of three students, protecting him from the ice.

Zach crossed his arms in front of his body as he turned to it, but then none of the ice hit him. He opened his eyes that he shut to keep them from getting cut, and his eyes widened as he realized why he felt warm heat of pain. Blue flames rose in front of him, and he turned to stare at Dabi with huge eyes. "We're nakama now, right?" Dabi asked, smirking at the kid who was saved while at the same time also cut off from his classmates.

"This guy-"

"Was at USJ!"

"Zach!" Midoriya yelled, looking away from Kurogiri's scary yellow eyes on the form towering over them.

"It has been five minutes since the signal," Kurogiri started. Portals appeared in front of every member of the League of Villains' Vanguard Action Squad. One appeared behind Dabi, and Kurogiri continued, "Let us go, Dabi. Take Sazaki with you."

"Zach! Run!" Todoroki shouted over, starting to run to the side of the portal user.

"Sorry, Izuku," Toga started, waving towards Midoriya as she walked into her portal. "I'll see you later."

Twice also dove straight through his portal without delay. Ganeshi growled towards Midoriya, his voice coming out inaudible though it sounded like he was trying to say something menacing behind his thick swinging trunk. He stepped backwards though, dropping on all fours while walking back into the vortex and letting it close behind him.

Compress turned around next to Dabi and he started walking for the portal behind them, while Zach looked over nervously, deciding what his course of action should be. _There's a large enough gap that he would have to come at me if he wanted to force me through. I could dodge his flames from this distance too, and try tricking him with my hand again. But why does that Compress guy look so calm? He's leaving like he didn't screw up!_

"Wait," Dabi said. "Our goal isn't complete yet-"

"Ohh, that?" Mr. Compress stopped right before stepping into the portal. "They seemed so happy that they rushed out here, so I thought I'd give them a present."

The three facing off near Kurogiri spun to Compress, and Zach looked over too to see the villain turning around fully and lifting his arms in an extravagant way. His voice rose and he continued, "It's a habit, one of the basics of magic. When I flaunt something…"

He reached up for his face and lifted his hat while moving away his mask, revealing his face underneath that had a darker black mask on over it that still revealed some of his light skin. "…it's because there's something I don't want you to see." Mr. Compress stuck out his tongue, revealing two small blue marbles sitting on it in his mouth.

 _He had them fooled the entire time. He had_ _ **us**_ _fooled,_ Zach thought, while calming his expression and tightening his fists at his sides again. _All bets are off. Two captured. The enemy's base. Their leader. Their trust._ Zach started walking towards that portal, while Mr. Compress snapped his fingers. The two marbles that Shoji was carrying flashed light and transformed into chunks of Todoroki's ice.

 _These villains are good. Too good. Too much for Midoriya in his injured state, Shoji too, and just Todoroki to deal with. And even if I pulled off my glove, against all of them they'd definitely catch me. They'd definitely get away. They'd definitely take my classmates._ "Let's go," Zach said as he walked towards Dabi. "But you should let those two go, they won't-"

"Get in the warp gate," Dabi said, interrupting the boy who just frowned but could not say anything else.

Mr. Compress darted his gaze from behind the mask to the boy he thought may be trying to trick him by walking up slowly only to attack, but Dabi stood in the way and he did not think the kid would be able to get him as Dabi watched his every move. So he had time to call out to the three who looked so befuddled by his magic trick. "Oh yes! During the first freezing attack, I prepared dummies and put them in my right pocket."

"Damn it!" Midoriya started running forward with his arms in splints, appearing to Zach like they were broken. Todoroki and Shoji ran up on his sides to get to Mr. Compress as well.

"If you discover that what was in my right hand was in my right pocket, then of course you'd rush happily over," Mr. Compress said, holding his arms out to the sides as he bragged about it and slid back into the portal. His lower body made it through, and Zach moved quicker towards Dabi who also backed up towards it, though not fast enough that he couldn't rush forward and grab Zach if he stopped.

"Waaaiiittt!" Midoriya screamed at the magician who had almost slid completely into the portal now.

"You next," Dabi said to the boy who reached in front of him, just outside the portal.

"Zach! Run!" Shoji shouted towards him.

Dabi put a hand down on Zach's shoulder, and he stepped back towards the portal, while Zach took another step forward without looking back.

"And now," Mr. Compress bowed the top of his body as if it were the end of an act. "That's all from me-"

A blue beam shot over Zach's left shoulder. Dabi started turning his head. Kurogiri's yellow eyes opened wide. The three students sprinting towards Mr. Compress and were almost at him lowered their bottom lips, and then all their eyes focused on two small blue spheres flying out of Compress's open mouth. Zach's eyes darted to the side, he pulled against Dabi's hand, and he darted his gaze over to the bushes where the blue beam just shot out of. _Aoyama, you followed-_

Mr. Compress coughed and the marbles came out of his mouth, and Dabi saw it. The hand closer to grabbing them was on Zach's shoulder, and he just felt the boy pull away. Shoji and Todoroki both reached their arms out, and when Midoriya tried to do the same he collapsed in agony and rolled head over heels. There were two students reaching out a hand each though for the marbles falling towards them. Zach felt the hand lift off his shoulder, _No,_ he thought, his head turning back to Dabi whose gaze was singularly focused on one thing.

Shoji's hand snagged the marble in front of him, and he pulled his arm away fast to bring his hand to his chest. Todoroki reached out, and Zach started lifting his hand, only for his eyes to dart down and spot Dabi's other open hand that had not been on his shoulder pointed at his chest. He froze, and could only watch as Dabi snatched the other marble from right in front of Todoroki's fingertips. The look of horror and frustration on Todoroki's face as his eyes shifted to the villain's face, as Dabi said, "That's sad. Todoroki, Shoto."

Todoroki hit the ground and skid and tumbled across the floor, having leapt off to dive for the marble. Dabi leaned back into the portal, and his eyes darted to Zach while he held Bakugo's marble in his hand. "You're move," he said, and Zach grit his teeth. _He's seeing through me. I shouldn't have pulled back._ Zach stepped forward anyway though. _Even if he thinks he knows, I reached for the marble. I told them already I cared about my classmates, and I wanted to save Bakugo who I had already started to say wouldn't have wanted to join us._

"Release it," Dabi added to Mr. Compress, who was grabbing his face with a deep frown and pained expression after the screw-up he just made.

Compress's voice came out frustrated as he slid the rest of the way into the portal, "My show's been ruined." He snapped his fingers, and the marble in Dabi's right hand glowed.

The marble popped out of Shoji's hand too, and Tokoyami appeared in midair falling to the ground.

"No problem," Dabi said with a cocky smirk as he slid back as well, now with his hand around the back of Bakugo's neck as the boy with spiky bleached-blond hair appeared there.

Zach stared with huge eyes at the boy being pulled back through the portal. He thought about diving and trying to yank him back, and then he thought about the last time he reached only to give himself away. _Sorry Bakugo,_ Zach thought, clenching his teeth and bearing with it despite the look of fear and anger on his classmate's face. Bakugo was not looking at him though, but straight at Midoriya who was running forward. "KACCHANNNN!" Midoriya leapt for the portal, ignoring all the pain coursing through his body as he saw only Bakugo's face left.

"Don't come, Deku," Bakugo's voice was so strained, hoarse like it was hard for him to speak because of the fear of being dragged into the darkness.

Midoriya kept screaming as Bakugo's face disappeared completely into the portal. Zach saw Midoriya falling towards the portal, ready to dive straight in. Zach sprinted two steps forward and he jumped up, grabbing Midoriya by one of his broken arms and slamming him down into the ground just outside the warp gate. He twisted Midoriya's arm. "AAAHHHHH!" Midoriya screamed in agony.

"Zach!" Tokoyami shouted over, shocked at what he was seeing and confused at the same time.

Kurogiri smirked though from where he was still watching over the area. Todoroki looked over with wide eyes as he lay on his side, his frustrated look from missing Bakugo and letting Dabi grab him replacing with shock as Zach twisted Midoriya's arm, while smirking ear to ear. "Where we're going, you can't follow," Zach said, tugging Midoriya's arm one time extra hard and making him scream again in such confused and utter agony. Zach then stood up and he stepped to his right into the portal, turning his head back once he was halfway in. He looked at his classmates, smirking like a villain, and then he pulled the rest of the way through. He stepped backwards into a brightly-lit bar, and the portal in front of him disappeared. He stared through it at the wall on the other side, his smile lowering down, a hurt look replacing it as he imagined how those four would think of him now. _But Midoriya, you're on their kill list,_ Zach thought while starting to turn his head. _If you had come in here, as you are now,_ he looked behind him and got a serious look on his face as he stared at the large group of villains behind him. _You would have been slaughtered._

"Told you he'd come," Dabi said, smirking as he continued to hold Bakugo by the back of the neck. Zach turned towards Bakugo who stared him in the eyes with huge ones of his own. Zach stared straight into Bakugo's eyes, and he did not change his grim expression at all.

The one Dabi said that to humphed, and he glared down at the kid more than two times shorter than him. He almost touched the ceiling of the bar, a tall figure with dark brown skin and a swinging but shriveled trunk in front of his body. "You were, right," Ganeshi said, but he still glared in annoyance at the kid who came through on his own.

Bakugo kept looking at Zach, and he gasped out in as strong a voice he could manage, which was still raspy and afraid, "Why are you, here?"

 _Bakugo, what are you- I, I'd have thought you'd be fighting already! Get over it! You're not one to be afraid! Start attacking and let's destroy them! You're the strongest person in the class right?_ Zach's face stayed calm as he opened his mouth. _Unless he knows he can't do a thing, because Dabi could kill him before he gets an explosion off. And it's a hostage situation too. If I'm not actually on their side, they can use Bakugo to keep me from doing anything stupid._

"Boys," an ominous, low voice said behind Zach. There was no one there a second ago, so Zach knew who it had to be. He turned his head to the side and got a bead of sweat on his face but tried not to look that afraid of the portal-user, Kurogiri. The door opened behind him, and Kurogiri continued while Zach turned even more, his eyes opening wide, "Allow me to introduce you, to Shigaraki Tomura. Leader of the League of Villains," Kurogiri moved to the side and the man behind him stepped forward.

 _And I think… I just may have…_ Zach looked at the insane man's face and the eyes, the eyes of the villain that he spotted at USJ which scared him so much. Those eyes looked into his, and Zach thought while covering in sweat, _…Bitten off, more than I can chew._

* * *

The day after the attack on the U.A. training camp, the news was full of people criticizing U.A. They were calling on the management to respond, saying that there was something fundamentally wrong with the school to allow two students to be kidnapped, shouting for answers of what the school would do about the families of the victims.

"…Even if my child wanted to become a hero, I could not possible enroll them-" Shigaraki Tomura turned off the tv.

"Heh heh, I'm really grateful for all the publicity we've been getting," he said, while turning away from the television. The whole Vanguard Action Squad who were just being talked about on the news, along with the two boys who were captured were in the bar that Zach figured was the villains' main hideout.

The only thing he had not seen since getting back, was the Nomu he caught a glimpse of back before stepping into Kurogiri's portal. _Where did they send it?_ He wondered while looking with the others towards a blond boy who was strapped to a chair with big steel boxes over his hands to keep him from using his power. Shigaraki turned to Bakugo after turning off the tv, "Hey, don't you agree, Katsuki Bakugo?"

Bakugo stayed silent, looking back at Shigaraki from the person he had been glaring at for the past ten minutes, and most of the last day. Zach figured part of the reason Bakugo was so mad, was that he himself had not been cuffed or chained up, despite some initial complaints from other members. Shigaraki said though that since Zach came on his own, there was no need for it. He had added that considering they lost three members, and almost lost Bakugo at the last second, it could have gone much worse if the other kid had tried fighting back too.

Zach was still thinking back on that, wondering if Shigaraki had wanted him to react in a regretful way by bringing it up. He had just stood there and taken it without flinching, before asking why he would fight back against something he was okay with. That was when Bakugo started yelling at him. Bakugo was done yelling now though. After ignoring Shigaraki, he glared back at Zach again who took his glare in stride once more. _I don't know what you'd expect me to do in this situation. It's not like you did any better when you could still move and use your Quirk. And if I start taking my glove off, there are bound to be faster people than me in here who can stop me before I kill even a single one of them. Plus… I have to capture them alive. Only kill, if they plan another attack that could hurt innocents, and even then, I should try contacting the police first. They'll be keeping a close eye on me though-_

"Oi Sazaki, what are you thinking about?" Shigaraki asked, turning his head towards the boy staring silently at Bakugo, yet with a thoughtful look on his face.

"I'm worried," Zach said. "My classmates will try to find us," he turned towards the leader of the group. Shigaraki wore all black and he had a strange severed hand attached to the front of his face which made him look much scarier, but Zach was getting used to the appearance and did not sweat anymore while he looked at the creepy leader. Zach's hair was no longer spiked up, but messed up around his head, messier like Shigaraki's gray hair. _Right now, I'm not a hero,_ Zach told himself, as if method acting. "They're all capable," he continued, "especially, Midoriya Izuku."

Shigaraki's grin lowered down at the sound of that name, his hands clenching on the bar in front of him. _Why am I doing stuff like this? Just stay quiet and out of the way and try not to get put in chains like Bakugo!_ "He'll come here for sure," Zach said, "even though Bakugo told him not to."

"You," Bakugo began, his voice low and angrier than any time he had yelled at Zach so far. "You're really-"

"I'm not messing around, Bakugo," Zach said, turning his head and glaring out the corners of his eyes at the boy whose eyes widened as his look. Zach narrowed his eyes so he was barely looking through them, and he continued in a low voice, "You might be too stubborn to consider it, but I'm not." Zach kept glaring into Bakugo's eyes for a few seconds, then he looked away first and back to Shigaraki whose hands loosened up over the bar.

"Heh heh, heh heh heh!" Shigaraki's voice got higher pitched and he started scratching at his neck. "He'll come will he? That's good, great!" His mouth twisted up at the corners, "Even though I said it was okay to kill him, I wanted to be the one to do it," he scratched his neck harder, and he bit down behind his parted lips.

 _As much as he sounds like he really wants to kill Midoriya, he's angry. Midoriya, makes him really angry,_ Zach thought. _Use that… later. Any more now, and he might kill me._ Zach kept his mouth closed, but he felt like he had said enough to maybe convince the others around him that he really was not just messing around, or joining them so he wouldn't be a prisoner. He was trying really hard to show no signs of being a spy. He never mentioned a thing about their set up, he didn't ask about their numbers, or where the Nomu was that he could not locate. He didn't even ask where the bar they were in was, and when he had gone to sleep exhausted the night before, he had passed out on a couch while the villains were watching him.

He had been hesitant to sleep in front of the crazy people, but they had gone through a lot of trouble to get him and Bakugo. Plus, he felt more exhausted than ever later that night, which he blamed on the minor injury on his left arm and mainly the use of his new power. That was something else which confused him though, and as he stood there in the room with the villains who started talking to each other again, his eyes shifted over to Dabi without him looking directly at the man with spiky black hair and a weirdly patched-up body. _The Ganeshi guy looks slow, like he forgets things easily. He needed our pictures to figure out who was who at the attack. He mentioned to Shigaraki that he helped get me, but he didn't talk about the details, probably because I decided to come on my own. Yet, even Dabi didn't mention my Quirk. So when Shigaraki asked, I told him it was Death, the power to stop hearts with my right hand. I didn't explain it in detail when he asked, telling him that he'd think I was just lying no matter what I gave away, and that I didn't want to tell them anyway. He actually laughed at that, instead of killing me like I thought he might when I first started speaking._

Zach leaned his head back and stared at the ceiling above him while letting out a small sigh. _What personality to have? The tired kid who is just glad to get out of a society who hated him? Am I supposed to be relieved right now? Relaxed?_ He tensed up and lowered his gaze, checking if anyone was watching him. _Or am I the student who switched sides on a whim, who might go back at any time and is nervous about the villains finding out about him. That's no good, but if I don't at least show signs of it, won't they think I'm messing with them? No student at a hero course would be as calm as sighing and lounging about after joining villains. It would be unnatural. Admittedly, maybe doing that and then instantly getting this more nervous and fidgety expression was the best move, because it shows I'm trying to fit in without making me look like a hardened criminal. Because I'm not. I'm just a student who…_

"Oi, bastard," Bakugo's voice came out as a hiss, and it did not interrupt the other villains' conversation. Only Zach and the two others closer to him, and Shigaraki still sitting at the bar, looked over. Bakugo was leaning forward against his restraints, and his mouth twisted up into a crazed smirk while he glared Zach down in a way that had Zach as scared as he was of some of the villains in the room, and he actually leaned back nervously at the look. "You're dead!" Bakugo shouted, now interrupting the others as he roared it at Zach. "You hear me?!"

 _Either Bakugo found out and he's doing a great job at playing along… yeah no, that's not actually an option. Bakugo was smart on the written tests, but in situations like these he can't get past his emotions. Then again though, if Bakugo really had noticed what I was doing and was acting calmer about me being here, then I doubt I would actually be fooling any of these villains. So I should take this as a small victory,_ he thought it even though Bakugo's words hurt him, but he just sighed and turned away from the boy who yelled louder as if Zach turning made it so he couldn't hear as well. Zach rubbed the side of his head with his left hand, "You're too loud." Bakugo's shouts only got louder, and Zach saw the villain Magne as well as Dabi both grin at his response.

The reason Zach turned away as he said it was not to be mean to Bakugo though. He did not think he could get the words out in that tone, if he had been staring at Bakugo's face. Even as angry as he was in that moment, Zach could see what Bakugo was trying to hide from them so much. _He's afraid,_ Zach thought, while his hands were steady at his sides. _He's so, afraid. Bakugo, I swear. You're my number one priority here. I'll save you!_

* * *

"Midoriya, I'm sorry I caused you trouble," Tokoyami said.

Two days after the incident at the training camp, Izuku Midoriya had woken up in his hospital room. His classmates all came in to see him pretty soon after he awoke, this time he expected for longer than the times he had been told he had faded in and out of consciousness over the past two days. "No, I did too…" Midoriya meekly replied, his arms both wrapped up in thick casts on his sides as he lay in his hospital bed. "Did everyone from Class-A come here?" He asked in a soft voice.

"No," Iida replied. He was up and moving around as the injury in the back of his leg had been healed by Recovery Girl without consequence after the incident. He felt guilty though and his expression showed it, that he only received such a minor injury with what he was about to say. His eyes stayed hidden behind his glasses while the others around him gained sadder looks on their faces, and he began, "Jirou and Hagakure are still unconscious from the villains' gas. Sero received a bad wound on his right arm as well as his stomach, so he is here at the hospital. As is Yaoyorozu, who received a heavy blow to the head and only regained consciousness yesterday. So, everyone but those four came…"

Iida trailed off, and then Uraraka added softly, "Fourteen of us."

Midoriya looked at the fourteen next to him with wide eyes, thinking about the only two not mentioned who were also not there with them.

"Because Bakugo isn't here," Todoroki said.

Kaminari turned towards him and added, "And Zach."

Todoroki looked back towards the blond boy with spiky hair, and he narrowed his gaze at him. "What's with that look?" Kaminari asked, leaning back before quickly steadying his gaze and leaning forward again. "He's been caught too!"

"Keep your voice down," Iida began. "This is a hospital-"

"But he's going off treating Zach like-"

"Like he left with the villains," Shoji finished, and Kaminari spun with wide eyes as the larger boy right next to him spoke up. "Of his own free will," Shoji finished.

"You guys don't know that," Mineta began arguing softly. "He, he said some things yeah…" Mineta did not know why he was arguing, his face covering in sweat as he thought about the last things Zach said to them before the blue flames rose in a line and cut them off.

Midoriya just lay back and stared up with a horrified expression, the final seconds before the portal closed on Bakugo replaying in his mind. What happened after that was haunting him too, but the look of fear in Bakugo's eyes as he disappeared into the portal, it made his heart clench up in pain. "All Might once said, 'I can't save the people I can't reach.'" The others all stopped arguing and looked towards the boy whose gaze had shifted to the windows as he spoke in this soft voice. "That's why he will always save those he can reach. I… was in a place where I could reach… I had to save him… to save them," he added, as the tears welled up in his eyes. "That's what my Quirk is for… It's exactly like Aizawa sensei told me," Midoriya's vision was starting to get blurry with all the tears in it.

His tears spilled out as he heard how Aizawa told him on the first day of school that he'd become useless after saving just one person. He had saved Kota, and then he let the other two go by right in front of him. His tears spilled down and he whispered while sobbing, "My body… wouldn't move… It was all I could do to save Kota." He clenched his eyes shut and his voice got higher pitched, "I couldn't save someone right in front of me."

"Then," Kirishima began from the spot right next to Midoriya's bed on his left side, in front of most of his classmates. "Let's save them this time."

Todoroki darted a look right at the boy he had already talked about this with, but not in a lot of detail. _"Them?"_ Todoroki thought, his eyes dark. He thought of how he had missed Bakugo, how he had hit the ground and looked back so frustrated. _Zach, was in reaching distance. He could have just reached out and grabbed Bakugo, but instead, he tackled Midoriya. He hurt Midoriya even worse- but his eyes, when he slid through they were the opposite of Bakugo's. He knew exactly what he was doing, and he was just smirking the whole time._

"Actually, Todoroki and I were here yesterday too," Kirishima was keeping calm as he spoke, his expression straight as the words came out. "On our way to your room, we passed by Yaoyorozu's and saw her talking to All Might and a police officer. She told them, that she had attached a tracking device she created to one of the villains. Then she handed them a receiver so the heroes and police would be able to go after the villains."

Every person in the room other than Kirishima and Todoroki stared at the pair in shock. Iida leaned forward though without taking long to figure it out, and he asked with sweat on the sides of his face, "So you're saying, you're going to have Yaoyorozu make another receiver?"

"What if it does?" Todoroki asked.

The tension in the air was thick as the members of Class A were all sweating and looking back and forth between Todoroki and Iida. Iida's teeth bared and he was shaking, thinking about the consequences he faced for going after Stain after his brother had been attacked. It was all the more frustrating that it was Todoroki suggesting this, who was there with him, and he finally snapped, "It is as All Might said!" He was shouting and continued even louder, "This is something we should leave to the pros!

"Who's being too loud now?" Kaminari muttered, though he was leaning back from the tense conversation himself. He looked back and forth between Iida and Todoroki, then past Todoroki to Kirishima whose head was bowed and fists clenched hard at his sides.

"This isn't the place for us to act you idiots!" Iida finished shouting.

Kirishima clenched his eyes shut and he finally yelled back, "We know that!" He turned and he reached up, grabbing his chest with such a frustrated and furious look on it though. "But, I couldn't do anything!" Kirishima clenched his hand over his shirt even more, curling a fist in the fabric. "I tried," he gasped out, his voice becoming hoarse as he did. "I tried to protect Zach, but I-"

"He didn't want protecting," Todoroki started.

"Shut it!" Kirishima yelled, making Todoroki spin to the boy behind him whose head bowed.

A few of the others in Class A got confused looks, while most others got uneasy ones on their faces. Uraraka and Asui glanced behind them at Mineta who let out a soft whimper, and they saw such a conflicted look on his face that was afraid and at the same time guilty.

 _Why, am I so afraid of him?_ Mineta thought, clenching his teeth angrily that he felt this way about a classmate, one he had seen, do something amazing.

"He, I was," Kirishima grabbed his chest even harder and he gasped for air. "I died," he whispered. "I tried to fight the villains, but I couldn't do a thing!" Todoroki, Asui, Shoji, Uraraka, and Midoriya were all staring at Kirishima in confusion. Tokoyami had heard something strange from Kirishima earlier, something he did not believe at the time but was finding hard to keep denying at the look on Kirishima's face. "And then that guy, he, he killed me."

Kirishima whispered it and his hand loosened on his shirt, a look of pure fear on his face. "I imagine those seconds, falling forward. It felt like seconds at least, as my vision faded in front of me." His breath was staggered and his eyes shaking as he looked down at his chest where he just let go. "I knew the flames should have been on my back, and I was so confused at why they were blasting out in front of me, out of my chest." The others who had not seen this were opening their eyes wider and wider, while even the ones who were there were tightening their fists or getting watery eyes as Kirishima described it from his perspective. Kirishima gasped for breath, then he continued in a higher voice, "My vision got darker… and I had realized what was happening- as the pain filled my whole body, and then the pain disappeared." Kirishima lifted a hand to his face and put it right over his eyes, then he dragged it down his face, his stern, serious face. He continued in a firm voice while staring straight ahead yet so far-away, imagining what he saw next, "Then, I opened my eyes, and Zach was leaning over me. I- I don't know, what he did. He- he used his hand…" Kirishima bit down hard and he shouted while looking into Todoroki's huge eyes, "So don't talk about him, like he's a villain!"

"I don't get how he did it," Kaminari whispered. "That's not…" he trailed off as he noticed a lot of others turned towards him since the room was silent. He cursed and held his tongue, then he decided to keep going anyway, "That's not how, he told me his Quirk worked."

"He told you?" Shoji questioned.

"After USJ," Kaminari replied. "Only me and Yaoyorozu knew, I think. But, but he said it only-" he paused, as he once again felt like he was betraying his friend's trust. He could not hold himself back though, and he finished, "He said it could only kill. It was like he shouted at the villains back at the training camp," Kaminari continued, looking down at the floor as he was confirming what Zach had already told him. "His Quirk, it's name is Death."

"He wasn't lying about that?!" Mineta exclaimed in panic, as that was one thing that scared him more than the others yet he thought was most likely to be a lie. "But what about Kirishima-"

"I don't know," Kaminari said, clenching his fists and shaking his head as he looked down. "But Zach wasn't lying when he told me. He said, he thought he would rather die, than use his Quirk again. And then when he was using it on Kirishima, I saw it on his face…" Kaminari lifted his head and looked Kirishima's way, before adding, "He didn't know if it would work. He was- terrified. And when you, opened your eyes," Kaminari shook his head again but actually lifted the corners of his lips a little. "I feel like, for the first time in his life, he thought his Quirk might not be a curse. He was shocked it worked. And he looked, so happy," Kaminari reached his hands up to the sides of his head and he rubbed them around in his hair after saying all that. "But then we just let him walk away!" He shouted in frustration.

"He really, brought you back to life?" Uraraka whispered, staring over at Kirishima who turned back and nodded. "I never heard, of a Quirk that amazing."

"Why was it called Death though?" Todoroki asked. Kirishima turned and glared angrily at the boy next to him, and Todoroki continued, "I'll admit, I was wrong. I thought he had completely… but, he still," Todoroki turned to Midoriya, and he continued while Midoriya looked up in his eyes, "He stopped Midoriya from trying to save Bakugo." Kirishima's fists clenched hard, his face scrunching up as he imagined his best friend in the class who had also been taken. "He was right there, with the villain who took Bakugo, and he just walked through the portal with them."

"Th-There must have been a reason," Ashido started, holding up her hands like it was obvious.

"Like what?" Todoroki asked while turning to her. "All the other villains were through, and we were all around him. He could have stopped, stayed behind, but he just smirked at us and walked through."

The others' expressions all darkened again, and then Ojiro began in a soft voice, "I don't, want to believe it." The others looked over at him, then he continued, "But what Zach said, when he was leaving the camp…" the others who were there all looked away or bit down hard, and the ones who had not been felt uneasy about their reactions. "It all sounded, like things he would really say. He, talked about how people looked at him after the Sports Festival, how we looked at him after USJ…"

Kaminari and Ojiro both clenched their eyes shut, as something came into both of their minds at the same time. _"Ojiro, Kaminari, back up or my hand will kill you,"_ Kaminari's fists clenched but they started shaking this time, fear filling him as he thought about Zach's tone, how serious he was being at the time. _But, he was just warning us,_ Kaminari thought as he opened back up his eyes and released his fists. _Because that's his Quirk, it kills people. So when he took off his glove, to try and save Kirishima… he didn't know if it would work, but he did know if either of us were too close, his hand might have killed us. Even then, even when he was at his scariest, he was just trying to save us!_ Kaminari bit down and his face scrunched up, _That's three times now, you idiot. Let me save you, one of these…_ Kaminari's gaze lifted back up from his feet and over to Kirishima and Todoroki.

"Despite how we all might feel," Iida said, his own body shaking like he had his own opinions on the matter but was holding them back. "The point remains, we must leave this to the heroes."

"Iida is right," Asui mentioned, though softly as she could see how frustrated her classmates around her were all feeling.

Kirishima's head bowed and he started shaking. "Iida, all of you, you're all correct," he snapped up and shouted, "I know that!" He turned with a desperate look though and held out a hand over the bed, "But! Midoriya, your hand can still reach! Let's go save them! They're both your friends too, right? We can go save them!"

Midoriya stared at that hand, but it was not as if he could move either of his arms, so no one knew what Midoriya's answer would be.

"So, let me get this straight," Ashido began, sounding a little confused about what Kirishima was suggesting here. "You guys are planning on getting another receiver from Yao-momo, then you're going to try and save Bakugo, and Zach, yourselves?"

"Yeah, that's right," Kirishima replied.

Iida shouted at how they were going overboard, then Shoji, Tokoyami, and Asui all joined in in agreement. As Asui was finishing up though, a boy behind her who had kept quiet the entire time started walking forward, though he kept hesitating after every step. "…If you're saying you'll fight again, that you'll break the rules," Asui sounded regretful as she said it, but she finished off, "Those acts are the same as those of villains."

They had had their permissions to fight the villains revoked. It was against the rules for them to try anything, yet they were still considering it, and no one could blame them. "B-But," a small voice said, and everyone looked over to see the timid boy in the back lean away at their gazes. He was usually one of the more eccentric people in their class, outgoing and smiling and 'shining" or 'twinkling.' Aoyama Yuga lifted his head, and his voice was soft and nervous, but he had to say it anyway, "We all told the police what happened. C-Considering, the stories, that Todoroki told," Aoyama continued, looking towards the boy with half red hair and half white who looked back in his eyes. Aoyama kept his gaze for a few seconds, before looking towards Shoji, "And, some others too, and even myself…" he lowered his gaze. "If we leave it to the heroes," he continued, "and to the police…" a few others were realizing what he was saying and their eyes were getting wider. "Then, won't they treat Zach- like a villain?"

"That's right!" Kirishima yelled, spinning back to Todoroki who was still looking hesitant. He still had a look after Aoyama said that which showed he did not totally think the police would be wrong if they thought Zach had turned. "You all said these nasty things about him, so the heroes are going to treat him like a villain!"

"And what if he is?" Asui questioned. Kirishima spun to her in surprise, but she added, "I didn't see Zach at all. But from what everyone's saying, I think there's a chance either way."

"The only way to know for sure," Todoroki continued after her. "Is to ask him ourselves," he finished, while Iida clenched his fists tighter at what Todoroki was implying with that.

"No," Aoyama said. "I already know," the others all looked back to the boy who had started this in the first place. "I- I was there too," he said, looking back at Todoroki who had been talking about the final moments before they left into the warp gate. "But, I had followed them too…"

 **Two Days Earlier…**

"Mr. Compress finished up really fast too! Took him long enough!" Twice shouted, waving back and forth and pointing his fingers up in the air, even when his personality changed

"He did a good job," Dabi agreed, then he looked down to his left at a boy he was keeping close to him as they moved. They were walking through the forest towards the rendezvous point, and they were almost there.

"I wish… Midoriya…" Ganeshi started.

"We'll get him next time! How did you miss him?!" Twice exclaimed, jumping in front of Ganeshi and bouncing about.

"We're leaving right after we get there?" Zach asked. "Is it the warp guy?" He wondered.

 _Zach?!_

Dabi was looking around as Zach asked the question. "Don't be nosy kid," he warned, looking down at him harshly.

"Just want to know how we're getting out of here. I don't want anyone else to see me," Zach added.

"This whole area was supposed to be filled with gas to keep this area hidden," Dabi replied, frowning as he looked around again. "Things never go as plan," he said.

 _Someone defeated a villain?_ Aoyama thought, hiding behind a bush in terror. He had two unconscious girls next to him, Jirou and Hagakure, and Yaoyorozu had told him to get them back to camp. He was too scared to move though, yet behind him… _They're taking Zach away. If the others are fighting, I should-_ Aoyama leaned to the side and looked out towards the voices he heard.

In that instant, Aoyama saw the man next to Zach looking straight towards his bush and into his eyes. Zach spun, while Aoyama ducked back. Aoyama held his breath and covered his mouth with his hands. _We met eyes! No, n-no… I should still- Zach needs,_ he could hear footsteps approaching his bush, and the other two villains still walking farther ahead. Then the footsteps stopped, and he heard a low voice on the other side of the bush. "Condition one. You don't touch them, and I'll come."

 _Wh-What?_

"Hmph, alright then, but you better not go back on it."

"Oi Dabi! Is it okay not to call back that Nomu guy? It only reacts to your voice…"

 **Present**

Aoyama's lips were trembling after he described what had happened, and the rest of the class stared at him with wide eyes. The ones who were back at camp with Zach cursed themselves for what they thought when he left them. _"If you try, you'll die. And I won't bring you back this time."_ A lot of them thought that was the moment he was cutting off ties with them, that he was splitting off. Yet this happened afterwards, and only just before the others saw him at the villains' extraction point.

"Even then," Aoyama whispered. Then he lifted his gaze and spoke louder though still in a shaky voice, "Even then, when he was with the villains, he was protecting us."

Todoroki frowned and he glared down at his hand, the hand that had just missed Bakugo. If he had had even an extra second, a single moment to make things different he would have. _Yet Zach had all the time he needed. He doesn't have as strong a Quirk- at least that's what I would have used as an excuse. But he could have saved Bakugo! Why, wouldn't he?_

Midoriya bowed his own head. _"Where we're going, you can't follow."_ His eyes opened wide as he stared down at his arms wrapped in their full casts. _I've only, been thinking about Kacchan. Todoroki was right, I thought. As much as I didn't want to, I thought Zach… but, but what if he-_ Midoriya stared at his arms. _What, would I have done, even if I could reach? He stopped me from reaching Kacchan, and I was so frustrated… but why did he do it? Was it because he's being a villain? Aoyama saw him just before that, and he saved Aoyama's life. He didn't grab…_ Midoriya wanted to reach up and grab his head, as he thought about Kacchan's eyes again as he was pulled into the portal. Then he thought about the smirk he saw as he opened his eyes that were squinting in pain, staring up in shock at the evil-looking ones of his other classmate. _I don't know. I don't know, what to think. I don't know, what's the right thing to do!_

* * *

The doctor came into the room while they were all still confused and upset. No one knew where they landed on the sides of the argument, but they had to leave so Midoriya could get an exam. As they walked out though, Kirishima told Midoriya that they would be going that night. They were not going to wait any longer for something to happen to their classmates. He said that if Midoriya was well by then, that they wanted to invite him along too.

Midoriya spent the entire day at the hospital. He went over checkups with his doctor where he learned some dire medical news, about how a few more times of straining his body like that and he'd have to live without his arms. He talked with his mom who told him she did not want him at U.A. anymore, and then he left the hospital at night when Kirishima told him he and Todoroki would be waiting. Yaoyorozu was leaving at the same time, and they went outside together.

Iida confronted them in front of the hospital, going as far as punching Midoriya in the face while shouting about how they could not do it. He said he was as frustrated as them, as the class rep he was worried about the others, but he was also worried about Midoriya whose injuries he saw could get as bad as his older brother's which crippled him for life. Midoriya bowed his head at that, not knowing what to say when he had received similar news earlier that day. Before either of them could continue to each other though, Todoroki spoke up, "Iida. We don't expect to face them head-on and win either."

Tenya Iida lowered his hands from Midoriya's shoulders and looked behind him at Todoroki in confusion. "We'll extricate them without fighting."

"In other words, covert action," Kirishima said. "Like Zach's already doing," he added, and Todoroki glanced at the boy next to him to see Kirishima's expression getting more serious after he originally said it with a smile. "He'll help us get Bakugo out. He's just waiting for an opportunity, like we're going to do. That's the way we students can fight while toeing the line on the rules."

"I trust Todoroki," Yaoyorozu began. "But, so that I can stop them if anything happens, I plan to accompany them as well."

Kirishima's head lifted with hope on it, "Yaoyorozu!"

Iida looked more upset though as he said her name, then behind him a voice spoke out, "If that's all it is, then I'm coming too."

Iida spun around and Midoriya lifted his bowed head. The other three all looked back towards the entrance to the hospital's path where a blond-haired boy was walking towards them from the street, after leaning against the wall there for the past two minutes and listening to them argue. Kaminari Denki stepped out and Kirishima's eyes opened wide again, while Iida whispered, "Kaminari, you too?" He sounded so frustrated, but Kaminari just shrugged at the class rep in a half-apologetic way.

"I was hesitant, because I don't want to fight," Kaminari said. "'Cause Tsuyu is right, and I don't want to be considered a villain. But, if I can save Zach, or just do something that can help save him," Kaminari lifted a fist and he smiled despite the sweat coming down the sides of his face. "Then I have to get him back," Kaminari said.

"I, don't know myself," Midoriya whispered, and Iida spun back to him. He lifted his head after hesitating for a few seconds, and he said firmly, "But I want to save them. I can't stop thinking about it."

Iida looked around at them all, and then he cursed in his head and bowed it. "We just can't come to an agreement," he whispered in a pained voice. "In that case," he rose his head and looked at Yaoyorozu whose idea he was going to take for himself. "Take me with you."

The whole group stared at him in shock. None of them expected the person most opposed to their involvement would get involved himself, but the resolve in his voice to come along with them was not something they could argue with. So they nodded their heads, and then they all started walking towards the street together. "Hey," a voice said on the left of the group right before they were going to pass the wall and get on the sidewalk. Their eyes opened wide as the voice came from the shadows to their left, yet they could not see anything there.

They all turned, and two eyes opened in the darkness while a mouth opened to show a frowning face. His clothes turned back to their normal colors and he stepped out of the shadows. "Kuroiro, Shihai," Kaminari whispered, seeing the third member of his cavalry battle team from the U.A. Sports Festival. Kuroiro stared into Kaminari's eyes for a few seconds, then Kaminari had to look away as someone else walked out from behind Kuroiro who had been hidden there. Then Kaminari started glaring in an angry way and even baring his teeth.

"Monoma," Todoroki said, his eyes narrowing at the blond boy who leaned back at that look in the powerful teen's eyes. Monoma already had a lot of sweat on his face, looking hesitant and unsure of whether or not he would be able to show himself in front of all these Class A students. He stood there though and accepted their looks.

"Class B," Midoriya whispered. "What are you-"

"I-" Kuroiro started, clenching his fists at his sides. "I was unconscious, from the start," he said. "I- I woke up, just to hear all everyone had gone through." He sounded angry, and his mouth curved farther down to give him an even angrier look. He paused for a few seconds, then he looked down at the floor. _"Did you ever- have you ever… Actually, nevermind." What did he want to tell me? I knew it was bothering him, but I let him drop the conversation easily because I did not want to talk about something personal!_

Kuroiro lifted his head back up and he continued while staring at the six students from Class 1-A, "I heard from Awase in my class that he had stuck a tracker on a villain. I found out it was Yaoyorozu who gave it to him," he looked at the girl in the group in front of him who looked hesitant at his stare. "But, it was when I heard what he said when he was taken…" Kuroiro's fists clenched harder at his sides. _I should have noticed!_ "I decided to come with him."

"You mean, him?" Iida wondered, looking at the boy who apparently was already going to come even without Kuroiro to help him.

"I don't-" Monoma began, smiling and starting in a cocky voice. He lost it immediately, as he was going to say how he did not care about Bakugo, but there were things he needed to settle with Zach. Instead he just slouched and leaned back at the looks of the Class A students. "It's my fault," he whispered. "I was, a sore loser," he added. "And I did something, really bad. I wanted his forgiveness, before he walked away I shouted for it because I wanted to hear it before he left. But then, then he said, that it _was_ my fault. Even though I already knew. Even though, I tried apologizing," Monoma lowered his gaze to the floor, and he shook his head around as he thought about it. "His feelings of anger, at the hero society, at the public and how they view him, it's because of what I did."

"If you're only coming, because you feel guilty," Todoroki began.

"I'm not!" Monoma exclaimed, lifting his head fast as he shouted it. He froze and darted his gaze back to the hospital in worry that someone had heard him. Then he turned back, and he continued softer, "I, I don't deserve to go to U.A. anymore. Everyone knows it, even I started to accept it after… But, I can still be a hero. There has to be a way for redemption. But if I don't try to help, the person who I've hurt," Monoma lowered his voice even softer, hating having to say this to people at all, let alone people from Class A. "Then I can never be a hero," he finished.

"Can we really do a covert op with eight people?" Kirishima wondered, as the group was larger than he thought it would be at first.

"You have to," Kuroiro said. "Because each of us would still go, whether or not we are allowed to stay with the group."

Todoroki frowned as he was considering denying them entry. _Eight people. Kuroiro's Quirk seems good for this, and Monoma can Copy it if I remember right. Kaminari… could cut the lights if we need it, and one of them could run in and get them out of there, or both of them even._ "Let's go then," Todoroki said, while imagining how the people who joined them at the end could help. _Iida though, as fast as he is, he won't rush in there to save them. His Recipro, he'd be more likely to use it to drag one of us away, if we come up with a plan he sees as too risky, too high a chance of us getting in a fight._

"Let's do it," Kaminari said, nodding along after Todoroki started moving. He turned to Kirishima when the red-haired boy got to his side, and the two of them walked onto the sidewalk together before turning with Todoroki. Midoriya moved too, and Iida followed behind with a nervous look like he had something to say to the boy he had punched before. Yaoyorozu patted down her pocket to check again for the tracker, and the two boys from Class B stepped up behind them. Their group of eight was ready. They were going to save their classmates.

* * *

 **A/N Thanks for reading. Hope you enjoyed! The start of the Bakugo rescue operation episode made me come up with the idea for this story, a couple of Saturdays ago. Got another couple of big chapters coming up. Leave a review below telling me what you thought of this one or predictions for upcoming ones! Alright, review responses:**

Awesomeness chapter 14 . Jun 26

Will Zach's quirk go beyond just "Death" at some point? I feel like the problem is that since he can't train it, it uncontrollably kills people. SO... if he could bridge that gap to actually train his quirk or some other method where his control grows to a certain point. Maybe he'll be able to knock people out instead of out right killing them.  
Another thing I thought that was cool was that people that he kills with his quirk he can bring only those people back to life. Hence Lifebringer... maybe something you want to work with.

 **Not going to post the whole review here, (there was a lot XD ), but I'll respond to most, as best I can without spoiling. So I won't say whether or not he'll be able to train his Quirk further, though he is still discovering things about it since he's been so hesitant to ever use it. Also, it's actually the exact opposite of that second thing. He can only bring people to live who he " _didn't"_ kill, hence why he was able to save Kirishima who Dabi killed, but not the animals he tested his powers on. A couple of people actually mentioned Rogue, and I actually forgot all about her admittedly, but her power is pretty similar. Then again, I only remember her power killing anyone she ever touched, and I had no idea about the being able to absorb their powers thing. That's a pretty cool idea though, and who knows... I like the stats and ideas, but again his power can't bring back what he himself has killed. The bird that crashed into his bathroom window he could, but the guinea pigs/ bird he bought from the store he could not, and he thinks there's a time limit too. Weapons, more powers, what else could happen- I won't say, 'cause no spoilers! Haha but thanks for such a long review and I'm glad you're enjoying this!**

Guest chapter 14 . Jun 25

Is this guy like Rouge from X men?  
Sucking out people's life force through skin contact and borrowing their powers for awhile?

 **Again, I'm surprised I never knew about this Rogue power. I'm just thinking of her from the first X-Men movie I think where she kills people she touches. But it's a cool idea and who knows, could show up? Thanks for the review!**

BlueGrey chapter 13 . Jun 25

Really enjoying your work so far, you have a fantastic writing style!  
Looking forward to seeing Zach's first real talk with the villains though, it'll be interesting to see both how the villains will try to coerce him as well as the heroes give him reasons to stay with them after all his hardships  
Can't wait for the next chapter!

 **Thanks a lot! Zach joins up with the villains in his own secret covert operation that no one else knows about, which is causing him a bit of problems already as we see no one really knowing what he's doing. Hope you enjoyed!**

zerom1v chapter 14 . 13h ago

How brave! But at the same time it's a bad move. All for One can take his quirk away from him, creating more deaths, even that of All Might. I hope THAT doesn't happen.  
Katsuki will have his head, believing he is actually siding with the Villains.  
I wonder how things will turn out. Great chapter!

 **Zach moves in, and the first thing he thinks is how screwed he is once he makes eye contact with Shigaraki, agreeing he might have made a bad move there. No All For One yet, but Katsuki- yeah he's a little pissed off XD. Thanks for the review!**

Guest chapter 13 . Jun 24

Can't help but feel that Zach should probably give up. I love the fast updating but Zach's a terrible protagonist. He just doesn't DO anything worthwhile. He's basically a background character to all major events. Like he'd be immensely useful against Nomus (which aren't people so he could avoid his usual wangsty crap) but he hasn't had a single interaction with them at all.

 **Disappointed you feel that way. Though the next chapter after the one you reviewed on put him in the spotlight of the next major event. He hasn't been that main in the other arcs admittedly, but it's his story and not Boku no Hero, so throwing him in the spotlight of what Boku no Hero focused on was never the main point of this. I'm sure he felt like he was in the middle of every event, though this time, he really is... Also, Nomus are totally people. I mean, he's thought about it more with them since he kind of considers them monsters, but they're still humans who were just altered into those monsters, so the point remains that he would be killing someone. Well, I hope you liked the last chapter where he got some more spotlight, and hope you kept reading!**

Roxas Itsuka chapter 14 . Jun 25

Awesome chapter. Knew the League was going to come for him. Interesting how Zach's quirk is actually control over death. Looking forward to the next chapter.

 **Thanks! Shigaraki showed his interest back at the Sports Festival, and now the Vanguard Squad has come! Glad you enjoyed, and thanks for the review!**

LordOfTee chapter 14 . Jun 25

This is good, it shows how Zach was to afraid of his quirk to see through its capabilities but that one moment where it really mattered he was able to save someone from the fate of death

 **Glad you saw that. Zach's been denying the power for so long that his half hopes that it could actually help were just buried down, but when it came time he decided it was worth the try again, and well, Kirishima's alive thanks to it! Thanks for the review!**

bloodyhound17 chapter 14 . Jun 25

This part I'm slightly confused on so his right hand is death, and his left is life? Or something like that?

 **Nah, he uses his right hand for both. It's why he told Kaminari and Ojiro to get back as he moved for Kirishima, because he had to take off his glove in order to save Kirishima. It like, flips death and life? If that makes sense to you. Thanks for reviewing!**

Colinpop5 chapter 14 . Jun 25

ohhhhhh shit

 **XD Haha, shit's about to go down. Thanks for the review, and thanks everyone for reading, faving, following, and reviewing to this story!**


	16. Chapter 16: Camino Ward Part 1

**Chapter 16:**

The television was on in the villains' secret hideout/bar in Camino Ward, in the Kanagawa Prefecture. Zach was watching it with nervous thoughts filling his head as he stood next to a stool at the bar. The news was running nonstop about the villain attack, and Zach had seen his own face several times in the past hour alone. Shigaraki Tomura sat on a stool not far away from him, and the villain turned his head from the tv to the other student with them who was still locked up tightly to a chair.

"I'll ask you once again, aspiring hero, Katsuki Bakugo," Shigaraki began.

 _There's no point,_ Zach thought, though he turned his head as did the other villains to watch.

"Will you join me?" Shigaraki asked, staring over with one eye between the fingers of the hand attached to his face.

"If you're gonna talk in your sleep, then you should just go to sleep and die," Bakugo taunted.

 _What does that even mean?_ Zach wondered, though he got a nervous feeling by the way Shigaraki started looking at Bakugo after hearing it. _He's running out of patience here. Bakugo's not budging an inch._

"What's the matter?" Mr. Compress began from across the room where he was leaning on a wall. "You're comrade has already accepted it, and so willingly I might add."

Bakugo's gaze shifted from the masked magician towards his fellow classmate standing behind Shigaraki. The kid standing there with messy black hair had on an all black outfit, having changed when Kurogiri popped back in that morning and brought him a change in clothes. He ate better than Bakugo too, and right in front of the boy still wearing his same dirty clothes, chained up and furious. Zach could tell Bakugo wanted him dead, or at least that's what the look in Bakugo's eyes was telling him.

"Hey, turn it up," Magne said, grinning and pointing towards the tv which made all the villains and students in the bar turn to see staff from U.A. at a press conference. At the bar, Shigaraki lifted up his remote and pointed it at the tv that Zach moved out of the way of so the leader could see it. He stepped back and they all stared at the screen as the person telling the news narrated what was happening.

"…a clip from U.A. High School's apology press conference that just occurred."

"Aizawa sensei," Zach muttered. "He hates being on tv," he whispered.

Shigaraki started smirking, as did the other villains around the room. Zach could not find it in him to even fake a smile though as he stared at the three staff members on the screen. _So Vlad sensei was alright. That's good. I didn't hear about any fatalities, but I was worried about his condition._ Zach stared blankly at the screen even as he thought in relief. _The homeroom teachers and the principal. They have to do this, but what's an apology going to do? There's nothing they can say…_

"We deeply apologize for this incident," Aizawa began. His hair was slicked back over his head and he was wearing a suit, and Zach could hardly believe it but he was clean shaven as well. Aizawa continued, "That allowed harm to come to 36 first years because of our unpreparedness. We apologize for causing unease in society due to our negligence in properly defending ourselves in a place of learning…" All three of the staff up there bowed and flash photography went off as the reporters took pictures. "We are truly sorry."

"Hehehe…"

"Ha… ha ha, haaa…"

"And the society starts to crumble," Spinner said, the green-skinned villain smirking wide. "All from Stain," he said, his mouth curling up even more at the idea of following Stain's legacy.

"This is where it begins," Kurogiri said from behind the bar. "The faith was already shaken, but multiple events, and one of this magnitude," he did not finish but there was no need to. The reporters at the press conference were doing their job for them, asking what the teachers were planning to do about this, even though everyone knew there was nothing the staff could say that would ease the people's concerns.

Principal Nezu started talking about how they would deal with the families and increases in security, but the answers were unsatisfactory, and Zach could only imagine how restless everyone watching this must be getting. _They're looking for answers from the U.A. staff, but they don't have them! Faith in the top hero institution is shaken, almost broken…_

"…Yes, I'm with Extra-Insider tv," the next reporter to speak up said. "One of the students who has gone missing, presumed abducted by the heroes, is none other than Sazaki Zach correct?" The man continued without pausing to allow that question to be answered, as everyone knew the answer to it already. "That same student was responsible for a death on school grounds earlier this year. This is troubling enough, considering the same student who should have been watched with more care than any other was taken by the villains, but what is more troubling is a rumor that I would like to hear your statement on."

Zach's breath caught in his throat and everything around him dulled to a low hum. All the noise of the villains in the bar with him, his own breathing, it all drowned out as he heard the reporter say, "That Sazaki Zach chose to follow the villains of his own free will."

The entire press conference got loud and everyone started shouting at the same time. Zach's bottom lip lowered, and he whispered, "How did they- who would-"

"Oh," Shigaraki began, and Zach's eyes opened even wider as he slowly turned his head to the right. "Did you want that to be kept a secret?" He questioned, smirking from behind the hand. "You should have said something."

"You- why would you?" Zach whispered, shaking his head in disbelief.

"Because, that was the whole point," Shigaraki said. "Getting you two on our side is important, because I want more allies. But at the same time it's important for breaking down this false society. You want to do the same, right?" He lifted his head and grinned, looking into Zach's eyes as the boy stared back at him, still in shock.

"I just," Zach began, lowering his gaze while turning back to the tv behind him. "I have a family," he whispered. In his head he could see them: Jenny, both of her parents, sitting at the dinner table and staring at the screen right now with wide, disbelieving eyes. "Would have liked for them, to believe, it was a different story," he said. _But I did go with them. I chose to be a spy, without telling anyone else my real reasons. Who could back me up if I ever tried convincing people? No one. That's right. No one would ever believe me._ Zach stared at the screen, and he saw the teachers on it both look towards the principal. He had seen Aizawa open his mouth as if to respond right away, but he also saw Vlad King lower his gaze with an angry look on it. _I was, too convincing,_ Zach thought, as the villains smirked at him, as Dabi mentioned to him that his family would have figured out anyway, as Mr. Compress told him he was sorry it had to be that way.

"U.A. currently does not have a statement to respond to that," Principal Nezu began.

 _That's it,_ Zach thought, his wide eyes going back to normal size. _Should I just, be a villain?_ He wondered. The thought crossed his mind and he did not even scold himself over it. He lifted up his right hand and stared at it while turning to look over the bar, where there was a mirror he could see his reflection in. _That was, the nail in my coffin. I can't go back. Not answering a question that simple, "no comment," is like the same thing as saying I've totally turned into a villain. They didn't just seal my fate, they destroyed their own reputation._ Shigaraki Tomura started laughing at the outrage at the press conference at that response, then he turned off the tv and turned back around.

Bakugo started yelling at Zach's side, screaming at him angrily over what just happened, but Zach was drowning him out while staring at his black glove. _What am I… doing here?_ He wondered, staring at his hand and opening it up in confusion.

Kurogiri hummed from behind the counter of the bar. _It seems he has finally realized, he can never go back now._

Zach was not even trying to hide it. If he thought for a second, he would realize that the way he was acting was giving away that a part of him still thought he could go back to the hero side if he was given the chance. Dabi smirked though as he saw the realization on the kid's face. Even Toga smiled where she was standing, laughing to herself while her cheeks turned red at the sight of the boy's eyes shadowed by his messy bangs.

 _Did I just, destroy hero society?_ Zach wondered. _I always thought, even with my Quirk, that I was trying to do right. As long as I put effort in and tried, I believed that it was the right thing to do. I came here to save Bakugo, to take down the leader of this organization on my own, but did I think about what that would do to the world? No, I've been here for two days, and it's going to fall apart now. Even if I take them down, more villains will… unless, those villains realize it was all a ruse. If, even U.A. staff were in on it and they just had to say that stuff at a press conference in order to keep the villains tricked into believing my ploy. Hold on, that could even be why they helped me out, maybe?! Anything's possible! If Aizawa or Vlad sensei thinks that maybe I chose to join to be a spy, they could be helping… me… Hold on, tricking the villains, into complacency, by having a press conference, that's a really, good idea…_

Zach turned towards Bakugo and his eyes narrowed down, his expression darkened and his right fist that he had clenched in front of him lowered to his side. Bakugo leaned back at the look in Zach's eyes, determined and set with conviction now like he had not seen since the darker haired boy had walked through the portal. "Bakugo," Zach started. "It's over, Shigaraki's right. You should join us." _Bakugo! Listen to my screaming thoughts if you can hear me you idiot! We're about to get out of here!_ "The hero society is broken at its core, don't you agree? Come on, I know you. We're friends. You've never agreed with the current methods, they're too restricted for you."

"Once heroes receive compensation to save people," Spinner began while leaning on the wall. "They aren't heroes anymore," he finished. "That is Stain's teaching."

Shigaraki leaned to the side and started to the kid tied up and darting his gaze around the room at them all, "The strange system of transforming people's lives into money or glory. The society that sticks tight to those rules. The citizens who blame the losers rather than encourage them… Our fight is to question: What is a hero? What is justice?"

 _I'm so fucked. Thinking for a second that the heroes would call me a villain, or even imply it by not responding, that's not a plan on their part. Even if they do have something planned, I'm not a part of it! Because I'm not what they think of as a hero! This society has always rejected me. I've broken the rules. I joined with the villains. I didn't run away, and I threatened my classmates, I even attacked Midoriya! I'm standing here telling Bakugo to turn into a villain, while thinking that he can hear me thoughts?! How could anyone just assume what I'm thinking? Even I don't know what I'm thinking half the time!_

"Is this society really just? We'll have everyone thinking about it," Shigaraki said. Then he leaned forward and continued with a grin, "We're planning on winning. You like winning too, right?"

Katsuki Bakugo's expression narrowed but it no longer looked afraid. "Dabi, release his restraints," Shigaraki said.

Zach spun to the leader in surprise, then to Dabi who said that Bakugo was going to attack them. _Holy crap, this is a terrible idea. I can't tell him that he's misreading Bakugo though. If I do, then what if he just decides to kill Bakugo? And what if, if he releases Bakugo, then I have my chance? Is that my opportunity? As soon as Bakugo sets off his first explosion, I take off my glove and kill Shigaraki. I'll be shunned by hero society. People will look at me funny for it, and I might get arrested, but if they find out that the U.A. student really was just infiltrating to try and stop the League of Villains, it will restore faith. In fact, it will restore more than what's already been lost if I can end this, right here, right now!_

"It's fine!" Shigaraki threw his arms out to the sides after Dabi's complaint. "We need to treat him like an equal too, since we're scouting him. Besides," Shigaraki's arms lowered back down. "You can tell if you'll win or not if you fight in this situation right, U.A. student?"

 _No, that's not it,_ Zach thought while looking at Bakugo's expression. _You can't expect him to react like other people would._ He heard Dabi telling Twice to go release him, and he took a step back while looking at Bakugo's face. _Alright, if Bakugo does what I think. I'll have my opportunity-_ Zach spotted Dabi after Dabi ordered Twice to release Bakugo instead. He stared at the villain with spiky black hair, as the man looked back towards him and stared straight into his eyes. _What does he know? Is he still suspicious, or is he just looking at me?_ Zach stared back for a second, before turning to follow Twice towards Bakugo's chair with his eyes. _He stopped looking already. Was that just a random look, or is he really watching me? Is anyone else in the room keeping an eye on my hand? How fast are they? If I reach for Shigaraki, how long will it take Kurogiri to open a portal and make my hand miss. What if, what if he makes the second portal appear next to my head…_ Zach's eyes opened wide and he started breathing faster, though he forced it out his nose while narrowing his eyes again, focusing on Bakugo's hands as Twice started to release them.

 _Whatever I do, the decision is right now. Compress is behind me to my right._ He could hear the man talking to Bakugo to apologize for being rough back in the woods. _He's the most troublesome, because if he gets me there's nothing I can do. So I should get him first, but at the same time that will give all these experienced villains time to prepare for me and not let my hand touch._ Bakugo's cuffs came off, and Zach knew what was coming. _Spinner to my right. Dabi in front of me to the right, possibly already suspicious. Kurogiro left behind the bar, but his range is everywhere. Toga leaning over bar, close, and dangerously insane. Twice will get hit by Bakugo. Magne to back-right, and she's fast and strong. One hit from her and I'm done, I think. So many strong guys._

Shigaraki was walking forward and talking about how they and Bakugo were the same, then Bakugo jumped up with a knee right in Twice's face, and he slammed a palm forward and made an explosion hit Shigaraki at point blank.

 _He barely stumbled back,_ Zach thought with wide eyes, his left hand down at the base of his right glove on his wrist. He did not dart his eyes to the side, but he saw Dabi's eyes shoot towards him, so he stayed put while holding his glove like he was just preparing for combat and nothing more. The gray hand fell off of Shigaraki Tomura's face, and Bakugo stood up while saying in a low, cocky voice, "I listened to you go on and on. Idiots can't get to the point, so they're always talking for a long time…"

 _Bakugo,_ Zach thought as he looked towards the boy lifting his head. He knew he would be able to tell when he looked into his eyes, now that Bakugo was freed and they could work together. When Bakugo's gaze lifted though, he did not even glance back towards Zach. _He, doesn't realize-_

"…'We wanna harass people, so please join us,' right? Don't bother," his voice came out as a hiss this time, and his eyes glared over at Zach this time.

 _Is it too late for me?_ Zach wondered, his left hand loosening on his glove. _Why am I still doing this? Why am I, trying?_

Bakugo lifted his right hand, his fingers curled up and a smile across his face as he said in a threatening voice, "I want to win like All Might. No matter what anyone says, that will never change!"

 _No one believes in me anymore,_ Zach thought, looking towards Bakugo with dark eyes and without the sweat the other villains had on their faces after Bakugo's attack and declaration. _Everyone else will have given up on me, because of that press conference. I don't have a phone to tell them otherwise. I can't show my face or the police or heroes will get me. The last shred of hope I held onto, was that I could save Bakugo. That I could destroy the League of Villains. But what's… If I do it, will Bakugo forgive me? Will the others welcome me back? Could I rejoin society? And if I could, would I want to? Look at how easily they gave up on me. Each and every last one of them. I know I'm convincing, but come on Bakugo, I called us "friends" a minute ago, couldn't you tell I was trying to send you a message, considering we've barely talked to each other?! I guess, he didn't know me well enough to figure even that much out. I guess, no one really knew me well enough._

 _I went with the villains to save my friends. I went with them to save Bakugo. I went with them to save hero society. But, even if I did save a few people. Even if I did, make a difference in some people's lives._ Kirishima's face appeared in his mind, then the others he left behind back at the camp. He thought about Midoriya who he stopped from going through the portal, and Aoyama who he prevented Dabi from going after, which wound up saving Tokoyami as well. _Even if I did, make a small difference,_ he thought. Two faces appeared in his mind, _Mom. Dad... This is the point of no return. I'm no longer able, to save people like you did. I can't save enough, to ever make up for all the ones you couldn't because of me. Not in that method. Not, as a hero._

Bakugo shouted at all the villains that he was going to kick their asses since he was still permitted to fight, and they all responded to him while moving towards him to get ready. Only Zach, and Shigaraki who kept staring at the hand that fell off his face, still weren't moving. "Father," Shigaraki said in a quiet, insane voice, his left hand twitching and lifting at his side.

"Don't! Shigaraki Tomura," Kurogiri called out from behind the bar as he heard that.

Zach lifted his head and the entire top half of his face was shadowed over. His left hand slid his glove more off as Kurogiri yelled, "Calm down!"

The hand Shigaraki was raising moved to the side and pointed back, making every person in the room stare at him in surprise. Zach's head lifted a little and his darkened expression got a bit confused, as he thought Shigaraki was about to try and kill Bakugo for sure. Zach noticed it but did not turn his head, but Dabi was staring over at him with wider eyes than usual at the expression shift on his face. "Don't touch him, any of you," Shigaraki said. He reached down and grabbed the hand Bakugo blew off his face, and he stood and reattached that to cover his face up again. "This guy, is a valuable piece."

 _He's being smart,_ Zach thought, glaring at the back of Shigaraki's head. _He's not letting his emotions get the better of him. He's not as childish as I thought, and he's making rational decisions. With a guy like Kurogiri supporting him, he really could do all this on his own-_

"…Sensei, lend me your power."

Zach's dark eyed started to widen, and then he heard the voice behind him and he slowly turned his head. He looked back at the television behind him where a voice came out of, but only the word 'SOUND' was written in purple on the black screen. "That was a good decision, Shigaraki Tomura." The voice came out of the screen low and in a proud way like the man was glad Shigaraki held back.

"You're not the boss around here?" Bakugo asked with a bead of sweat coming down his face but still a big smirk on it as he prepared to attack them all. "That's not funny!"

"Kurogiri, Compress, make him go to sleep again," Shigaraki ordered.

 _There is a big boss. Which means,_ Zach's dark look started to disappear. _I, I really couldn't end things in one night. No matter what I do, I can't destroy the League of Villains, and I can't save my name. I can help save Bakugo, and that's it. What happens after that, I'll just have to accept! I can't just kill them all, I can't even try. It wouldn't change the game, it would only pile up more bodies! Even if those bodies save other lives though? When does killing one hero, and killing several villains, even it out? How can I hope to catch my parents by only counting it when I save people one at a time? I have to look at the big picture the opposite way too, don't I? It wouldn't be heroic, but it wouldn't be villainous either. Well, it would from our society's standpoint. But I think, it would be like an, anti-hero._ Zach's lips curled up, while his body was shaking and his eyes darting to the sides.

 _Here we go. Kurogiri and Compress, the most difficult two. They're going to try and knock out Bakugo, but it won't be easy. He'll fight back, and then I kill the rest of them. It doesn't matter that it won't destroy the League. It doesn't even matter that I'll be killing people. I can save Bakugo! I can stop these guys from killing innocent people in the future! So I'll do it! Right here! RIGHT NOW!_

Compress started walking past Zach on his right side, Zach's left hand tightened back over his right glove, Dabi saw him and started moving, while Kurogiri moved for Bakugo as well though only using his Quirk. **Knock Knock.** Everyone in the room turned to the front door where two knocks just came through.

"Hello! This is Pizza-La, Camino Store."

 _A pizzeria? The chances- are none!_ Zach pulled back and crossed his arms in front of him.

 _ **CRASH!**_ "SMASH!"

The wall on the side of the room behind where Spinner had just leaned off exploded inwards. Zach turned while lowering his crossed arms, looking into the center of the debris breaking inwards where he saw All Might in all his glory, punching a hole through the building. He stared at All Might like all the others, in shock. _And,_ Zach thought, while dropping his crossed arms. Shigaraki shouted for a Gate from Kurogiri, but Kamui Woods dropped in from the top of the hole and swung an arm forward, extending wood from it in branches that bound up every single villain in the room. _It's over,_ Zach thought, as he closed his eyes and prepared for the wood about to wrap around him.

He waited, then he opened his eyes in confusion. He spun towards Dabi who tried using his flames to burn out of the wooden binding, only for an old hero who Zach recognized to shoot in and slam a foot into the back of Dabi's head so hard that the villain got knocked out and he could not use his Quirk. _Gran, Torino,_ Zach thought, before looking around again in confusion at the scene around him.

"Just what I'd expect from one of the most competent new heroes around, Kamui Woods! And the veteran faster than the eye can see, Gran Torino!" All Might shouted out. The muscular hero in blue and red and yellow, the Symbol of Peace, the number one hero lifted his head and looked in the room with a smile on his face. "You can't run anymore, League of Villains. Why? Because _we_ are here!"

"All Might," Zach whispered while staring straight ahead at the hero in front of him.

"Right after the press conference," Compress began, leaning up while being held down by Kamui Woods. He sounded like he was struggling for air, but he managed to get out, "Don't tell me this was pre-aranged?"

"Ahh, no," Toga squirmed in pain.

"Tree man! Stop pulling me! Push!" Twice yelled.

"When one is on the offensive is when one neglects defense the most," a voice came from the door.

Zach turned his head and looked over to see a hero he recognized sliding into view through the door. _Edgeshot,_ he thought at the sight of such a famous and top tier hero.

"We're not the only ones from Pizza-La Camino Store," the number 5 ranked hero added, opening the door and allowing the dozens of armed police to start rushing in. Edgeshot then continued with, "Outside you're surrounded by skilled heroes like Endeavor, and the police."

"I'm sure you were scared," All Might stood up fully and looked towards Bakugo. "You did good bearing it." He looked back towards Zach and he added, "You as well. It's fine now, young men."

"I wasn't scared!" Bakugo shouted, then he snapped his gaze down and glared towards the center of the room. "And what are you talking about?" He continued, while Zach turned away from All Might towards the other boy. Zach still looked shocked that he did not have trees wrapping him up, but his shocked look straightened out as he faced Bakugo and saw the furious look in his eyes.

 _So I wasn't just imagining it,_ Zach thought, glad he was not going crazy. He opened his mouth to say something, but Shigaraki started speaking first.

"After I went through all the trouble to prepare this, why are you coming to me, you last boss?"

Zach lowered his gaze from Bakugo to a man between the two of them. Shigaraki was on the floor wrapped up in Kamui Woods' Quirk right in front of the stools. Bakugo saw where Zach was looking and he stepped forward, "Don't you even think-"

"It can't be helped," Shigaraki said, while All Might was turning to Bakugo to tell him to calm down for a moment. Bakugo stopped though as Shigaraki continued, "'We're not the only ones here?' That goes for us too. Kurogiri! Bring as many of them as you can here!"

"Nomus I presume?!" All Might shouted back.

Bakugo went wide-eyed, while Zach clenched his fists and prepared for them to appear all over the room. The boy still confused at what his role in this room was thought, _Nomus aren't people, not really. I'll kill them without-_

It was taking too long, and Shigaraki spun to the bar, "What's the matter, Kurogiri?"

The man hidden in the shadows of his warp powers had sweat on his seemingly gaseous face. "I'm sorry, Shigaraki Tomura. The Nomus that were supposed to be in a fixed location, are not there!"

Zach watched as All Might started laughing, calling Shigaraki green and claiming that they had won on every front. The boy with messy black hair looked over to Bakugo and saw him watching All Might, then they both looked back over as Shigaraki started a rant about justice and heroes. _It's not over though,_ Zach thought. _They may have stopped the Nomus with another team. And this group here. But that voice I heard… He's gotta be the mastermind. Behind Stain, behind USJ, behind Shigaraki. "Sensei." Shigaraki's following this guy's lead! But, with the heroes as impressive as they are, can he do anything with his army all captured? With the police, and the heroes… they even figured out who all these guys really are?!_

The boys listened in as Gran Torino listed off each of the villains by their real names, saying it only took the police a night to figure it all out. Gran Torino stood before the shocked villains who thought they hid their identities well, and he called out, "Do you understand? There is nowhere left for you to run." Then the old man looked towards the villain with wavy gray hair. "Hey Shigaraki, can I ask you where your boss is?"

Zach spun towards Gran Torino. _They already know about that too? There's nothing, nothing I got out of this that the heroes wouldn't have been able to do on their own!_ Zach turned back, and he looked towards Shigaraki with a growing grin. _Even if I did nothing, it seems like they really were just playing the villains with-_ Zach saw Shigaraki's eye twitching behind his hand, and the boy felt chills down his spine he had not felt for a while when he looked at that man.

"This… This is… unsatisfying," Shigaraki's voice came out shaky and deranged, and even Bakugo stared at him in silence and a little nervously. Even wrapped up in wood, unable to move, Shigaraki sounded like he was still going to try and kill them all. "Don't be ridiculous… Don't be ridiculous…" Gran Torino got some sweat on the side of his face too, while Zach's open hands slowly started to tighten at his sides again.

 _In this situation, with All Might and all these pro heroes, the best idea is to just side with them and fight against the villains. Pretending to be on their side doesn't help me anymore._ Zach clenched his fists and glared at Shigaraki, while All Might spoke on his right side, "Where is he right now?"

"Go away," Shigaraki whispered in a raspy voice. "Disappear…"

"Shigaraki!" All Might yelled.

"I HATE YOU!" Shigaraki screamed.

Gray explosions of some liquid or gaseous substance blew apart the air on the sides of Shigaraki Tomura. Every person in the room spun towards them, including Shigaraki himself, in shock at their appearances. Screeching and growling noises came from inside the splashing pools of silver-gray Quirk-substance, and then their heads pushed through. Zach's fists stayed clenched, even as the Nomus pushed through the holes. Their monstrous appearances terrified him as usual, but All Might was at his side, heroes were all around him.

"Nomus? They came out of nowhere!" Kamui Woods exclaimed.

"Edgeshot, what about Kurogiri?!" Gran Torino called out.

 _No, that's not his power,_ Zach thought, but when he opened his mouth to say something, he froze instead. _Do it! Yell out! Just help the heroes like a hero would-_

"He's still unconscious," Edgeshot said after checking, and Zach clenched his teeth that he hesitated too long. "He didn't do it!"

More strange portals were appearing all over the bar, with Nomus coming out of all of them. The monsters were different sizes, most of them gray or black, and they all had their brains sticking out of their heads while they screeched in terrifying voices.

"Kamui Woods! Do not let them go under any circumstances!"

 _They're everywhere!_ Zach thought as one was appearing right above him, and he stepped forward to get out of the way. As he took the step though, he felt a strange sensation inside him.

Zach coughed and out from his mouth came a huge mass of the liquid-y substance that was so gross he thought he would puke if his entire mouth was not full of it. It splashed out of his mouth and surrounded his face and body faster than he could step forward. He heard All Might shout his name, followed by Bakugo's, and he clenched his eyes shut as the liquid hit him in the eyes. _I'm being teleported, but it's so much grosser than Kurogiri-_ "Ack agh," he was finally able to breath and he dropped to his knees, coughing up the strange substance and then wiping his tongue at the lingering taste that made him want to puke.

His eyes squinted open while he faced the floor between his hands. He stopped coughing and he focused on what he was looking at, wondering if it was a street or something, then he lifted his head to see Bakugo standing and coughing on his right side, and a man standing in front of him while he stood there coughing. The figure Zach looked at made his body tense up in terror, his mind reeling and his heart speeding up. "Bakugo," Zach whispered, barely able to get the word out to try and warn the boy of who was standing next to him.

"I'm sorry Bakugo," the man said, and Bakugo stopped coughing while lifting his head and exclaiming, 'Huh?!'

Zach heard the splashes behind him, and in the corners of his vision he saw them falling at his sides. _Everyone escaped. They all got out of there._

Bakugo spun around and looked at all the villains grabbing at their mouths and complaining about the tastes, and then his eyes focused on the person closest to him who was on his hands and knees and looking up in his eyes. _Bakugo, still doesn't trust me!_ Zach thought in panic as he saw Bakugo's face. _What's going on? Weren't the heroes there? Weren't the Nomus taken care of? It felt like, the heroes had won the day. But this guy, his voice is… and he was the only thing I…_ Zach started standing up as the others did the same behind him. _Heroes, aren't going to win?_

The thought terrified him, but at the same time, Zach realized where he was. _Bakugo doesn't seem to realize it yet,_ Zach thought, as his eyes darted around. _These are destroyed buildings. There are heroes, lying around- Best Jeanist too? Even, the number 4 hero, can't stand up to this monster. All Might and that Gran Torino guy, who was teaching Midoriya, they know him. He's, the last boss. Like Shigaraki said about All Might. This, is my last boss!_

"Sensei," Shigaraki said, on his knees in the middle of his conscious subordinate villains. Kurogiri and Dabi were still unconscious, but they had been saved too and were laying on the ground of this destroyed area right behind where Spinner was crouched.

"You failed again, huh, Tomura?" the dark man said. He wore all black, including a mask over most of his face that also had some strange metal contraption attached to it. He started walking forward, calmly stepping towards them while everyone stared his way. None of the other villains still standing had seen this man either, and Zach could see them all looking tense as they stared at him. "But do not be discouraged. Just try again. I have brought your associates back as well. Even this boy." He added it as he neared Bakugo.

 _Why doesn't he mention me? Is it because Bakugo was still fighting back, and I wasn't? But if he was watching, then he should have seen that the heroes were going to let me get away-_ The man turned to him next, "And this, thing," he added. Zach's eyes shot open huge while the figure kept walking, continuing to Shigaraki, "Because you judged that they were important pieces."

 _"Thing?"_ Zach thought. _What is he talking about? Is he just… being an asshole?_

The man walked right past him and Bakugo, then he held a hand out for Shigaraki to take. Zach stared at his back and he reached for his right hand, only to feel the most intense fear he had ever felt in his life at the pressure exuding from that man's back. His hands trembled, and he lost all ability to breathe. _He beat the number 4 hero. All Might thinks he's a big threat. Just because I have a strong Quirk, doesn't mean I can do a thing! Even if killing him meant saving the world, that doesn't mean I'm any stronger!_

"Do it over as many times as you need to," the figure said, while standing in the middle of a desolate area littered in unconscious bodies and toppled structures. "That is why I am here. It's all for you."

Bakugo trembled and ground his teeth because he could feel himself shaking. He looked over to see what Zach was thinking at a time like this, only to see Zach's arms trembling themselves as he held his left hand on his right wrist. _Why didn't the heroes…_ Bakugo thought, but he turned back as the scariest villain started talking again. "You're here, after all, aren't you?"

 _Huh?_ Zach thought, then he spun his head and snapped his gaze to the sky. Bakugo saw his movement and picked his head up too, as did all the villains ahead of them. They only saw it for a second, before the thing flying towards them crashed down into the man in black, and All Might yelled, "I'll have you return everything! All For One!"

"Will you kill me again, All Might?" All For One questioned, sounding like he was smiling behind that mask from his tone.

The collision of these too was too intense for Zach to watch. He crossed his arms to protect himself, but the wind was still too intense and knocked him backwards. The ground beneath the collision broke apart and Zach found himself being thrown backwards along with rocks and debris.

All Might and All For One faced off, with All For One saying that All Might had taken too long to get there. Bakugo lay on his side trying to hold himself on a piece of ground without falling off since everything was at different levels around there, and he barely heard their conversation as he was too busy thinking, _He held back All Might, with his bare hands!_

Bakugo felt a hand grab him by the shoulder and he turned his head, only for his eyes to grow huge at the sight of the boy behind him tugging on his arm. Zach's face was full of sheer panic. _Now's the only chance! While the dust is still in the air! While I'm the closest one to him!_ 'Run,' he mouthed the words to Bakugo then he staggered backwards and he fell to the floor grabbing at his own chin.

Bakugo stood up and looked down with wide eyes at the boy who just fell away from him, but who was looking up while grabbing at his face like he just got punched, a desperate look in his eyes. "What are you doing?" Bakugo growled at the boy whose eyes widened even more. "What do you think, you're telling me-"

 _You idiot!_ _Just leave me behind! What if All Might needs help? What if he injures the bad guy but lets him get away with these others, with me? What if I can finish him off when he's wounded? There's too much I can do here with my Quirk! I want to just grab you and run, but this guy is killing top heroes! He's created a villain society, and he's absolutely mad! He's giving the reigns to Shigaraki Tomura for what reason? All I can think of is he finds it amusing, but there must be a deeper reason. For now though, I know for sure that he is the most dangerous man in the world, and I might actually be able to kill him right here. The one person, I can't hesitate to kill. All For One! He's going to destroy the world!_ Zach stared into Bakugo's eyes as he thought all that, and for the first time since Zach walked through the portal into the bar, he saw a look on Bakugo's face that looked maybe something like understanding.

"We're going!" Bakugo shouted, and Zach's bottom lip dropped as he was obviously wrong. "You're going to-"

"I will get those young men back, and this time I'm going to throw you into prison for sure!" All Might yelled, pulling his elbows in to the sides and making his muscles bulk up while his feet cracked down on the floor. "And all of the League of Villains you control with you!" He roared, before shooting off the ground towards All For One like a missile.

The boys had barely started talking, they had barely started turning to All Might and his opponent, and they would have had no idea what had happened if All For One did not slow down All Might with his power. He had lifted one hand and out from it released such a force that it became visible in the air, just the force alone. It was so powerful that the floor beneath All Might shredded, and All Might's punch was cancelled in mid-throw, while the hero was thrown backwards so hard that he smashed through a line of buildings far away from them. Building after building fell, the entire city falling apart around them, Zach could only stare in silence as the dust cleared and the damage became clear to him.

Zach stared back towards All For One as he heard him talking. _What are those things he's listing? Quirks? All those, are his Quirks? That's insane!_

"All Might!" Bakugo yelled.

"Even without your worry, he won't die from something like that," All For One said, turning back to Bakugo again.

Zach leaned away and took a terrified step backwards as the man looked their direction, then he spotted another figure on his right that made him stop and dart his gaze over. His eyes widened as the dark leader of the League of Villain spoke to that wavy haired man, "So run away from here, Tomura, and take those children with you." All For One lifted his hand and out from his fingers shot black protrusions with glowing red lines on them. The thin black lines shot up in the air and cut at sharp angles over towards Kurogiri whose back they shoved straight into. "Kurogiri, get everyone out of here."

 _What is he doing?_ Zach thought while spinning around.

Magne ran forward at the same time and called out that Kurogiri was unconscious and could not use his power. She shouted at the man who brought them there to just warp them away himself, but the dark man replied in a calm voice, "I just got mine, Magne. On top of only being able to transport short distances, unlike his coordinate transport, I can only bring people to me or away from me." Kurogiri's body started twitching and everyone looked towards it as he finished, "And I can only send them away to someone I am very familiar with. So I'll have Kurogiri do it!" A huge black portal with purple on the edges of the circle exploded out of Kurogiri's body as All For One called out, "Forcible Quirk Activation!"

 _He has too many powers. But, he told Shigaraki to get us out of here. That must mean he's staying to fight All Might. In that case, I don't have to worry about him._ Zach turned to Bakugo who started looking around as he realized how the situation was looking.

"What about you sensei?" Shigaraki asked, concern in his tone.

A crash sounded in the distance and the villains all spun to see something flying out of a collapsed building. All Might rose high in the air and swung his arms behind him to propel him down at All For One like a missile. The villain started flying up in the air himself, showing off another of his amazing Quirks. "Think constantly, Tomura," All For One said. "You still have much more room to grow!"

"I won't let you run!" All Might slammed a fist forward and the wind blasted off the collision of the two men in the air, but since they were farther away now it did not throw everyone off their feet this time.

All Might and All For One were about to start their battle, and the villains knew it was their time to go. The portal was open, and Mr. Compress walked over to Dabi and bent down next to him, transforming him into a marble while calling out, "Let's go Shigaraki! While the pipe mask guy is holding All Might back! Get your piece," he added, and Bakugo turned his head and glared back towards the entertainer.

Zach stood in between Bakugo and the villains behind him. Shigaraki stood behind on his left, and he saw Toga on his right and back a little. He was facing Bakugo like the rest of them, watching as Bakugo's eyes darted around at all the villains in front of him, including his classmate. "Oi, bastard," Bakugo began in a low growl as his gaze shifted past Zach. He spoke in a low voice not meant for the other villains to hear, and he continued while looking towards Shigaraki who was about to move from what he could see. "What are you, really doing?"

All Might's eyes darted over as he pushed a fist into All For One, to see the two boys facing off with a ten foot gap between them, and all the other villains looking their way. A bead of sweat formed on his face and he pushed away from All For One to try and rush them, but the black lines shot out of All For One's fingertips and tried to pierce All Might, making him jump back to avoid them.

 _All Might's blocked,_ Zach thought. He saw Toga running up on his right, and Twice behind him took out his weapon and slashed it forward. He stood still though as the wire blade shot past his right arm towards Bakugo who leaned out of the way to dodge it. Toga ran at Bakugo and started slashing her knife, and Zach could see the desperation on Bakugo's face, even as he swept his hand at the floor in front of him, blowing it apart and forcing her back.

 _I don't have a Quirk to use against them. I don't have one to use against Bakugo either, since Shigaraki wants to save him. If I take off my glove, he'll know I'm trying to fight them, because I've talked about caring about my classmates._ Zach's eyes were huge as Compress ran at Bakugo's back, but the blond boy noticed first and pointed a hand down, using an explosion to blast him up over Compress' arm and body. He flipped and landed even farther from All Might who tried rushing back, only to be caught by the black lines sticking out of All For One's fingers and thrown back halfway across the city. _What can I do?!_

The villains all moved up around him, until they had Bakugo circled. It felt like they must have been cornering him like this on purpose, even though Zach had thought Bakugo was managing to dodge them well. Himiko Toga, Magne, Twice, Mr. Compress, Spinner, and Shigaraki stood around him, and then one figure walked up on Zach's right side. His body grew larger again, and Zach's breathing sped up as Ganeshi's huge form emerged next to him. _They're not trying to get him to come along anymore. They're going to drag him by force. They'll hurt him- They'll hurt him!_

"Are you holding back your strength?" All For One asked as he and All Might clenched their hands together. They were grappling for the stronger position, the ground beneath them cracking down and lowering in elevation, but the villain could still tell All Might was far weaker than he should have been. "To keep those boys from getting caught up in this?" All For One pushed back harder and All Might had to leap away as the man got too strong for him to push back on anymore. "It's rough isn't it?" All For One called to him in a taunting way. "To be these things called heroes!" He laughed and then added, his voice lower while his arms that he lifted at his sides lowered down, "Too hard for some to handle. For one on the edge, of hero and villain, what kind of thing could they become?"

All Might's gaze darted over, and he shouted, "Young Sazaki! Don't do it!"

Zach froze and his eyes opened wide. Two of the villains near him instantly looked back, while most continued attacking Bakugo to try and get him by force. Toga threw knives at Bakugo he was desperately dodging back and forth in midair with his explosions. Spinner leapt up at him to try getting at his back, only for Bakugo to bounce up with another blast and avoid him as well.

Attention of the villains around him turned back to Zach. The boy lifting his right hand, the glove that was ripped on the middle finger that he used his thumb to tear without removing it. He lifted his left hand first while stepping towards Bakugo in a fighting stance, but his right arm was lifting to his side towards Ganeshi's thick back left leg. The dark man turned his large head and his thick trunk swung to the side as he glared down at Zach, who stared forward with wide eyes as Bakugo landed. _All Might, why?_ Zach thought, while lifting his right hand the rest of the way and standing in a fighting stance while facing Bakugo who looked his way, wondering why All Might called out to him to stop. And when Bakugo looked Zach's way, Zach smirked, and then he heard the crash behind him and he turned his head, darting his gaze over.

 _They're here,_ he thought, his bottom lip dropping. The wall shattered outwards, the other villains started turning too, and then the ice shot out from the breaking wall and created a massive spike rising over the entire battlefield and high into the air. Three figures went flying up that spike, sliding up all the way into the sky and flying off the top of it in a second. _It didn't make sense,_ Zach thought as he saw who it was rising off the ice. _All of my plans, and predictions, they were all logical and made sense to me. But I didn't even need to think about it, which is why I didn't consider it a secret, when I said to Shigaraki that he would come. It just sounded like something he'd do. I had no idea how he'd find us, how he'd come, how he'd do what he's doing right now!_ Zach started to grin, then he turned his head back to Bakugo whose eyes were wide as he stared into the sky.

"COME!" Kirishima yelled down, holding his hand out. Midoriya and Iida were carrying him through the sky off the top of the ice spike that had come out of nowhere.

Zach knew Todoroki must have been behind him somewhere too. _They came,_ he thought, then his relieved smile vanished in an instant as Bakugo's head lowered and their eyes met. Zach's eyes grew huge, then he twisted a snarl in a second and he screamed, "RUN!"

 **BOOM!**

Shigaraki sped forward and reached, but Bakugo's hands opened up and he fired huge explosions out of his palms, blasting him high into the sky. He reached a hand up as he neared the red-haired boy reaching down, and the two of them clasped each other's arms. Bakugo grinned as he snapped his head up, "What are-" Kirishima had a worried look on his face, looking past the boy he had just caught and back to the ground where another boy stood. Bakugo frowned and turned his head back, and then he stared down towards the area with wide eyes too. They looked down there, at the kid looking right back up, smiling wide in relief.

"He's-" Bakugo began, frowning deeper as he started.

"What?!" Spinner shouted.

Shigaraki's hands were shaking as his eyes locked onto Midoriya. "You- you show up everywhere!" He screamed in fury.

The other villains recovered fast and started running forward before the boys got too far. "Don't let them get away!" Compress called out. "Where are the long distance fighters?!"

"Kurogiri and Dabi," Spinner hissed as he stepped forward nervously, frustration over his face as he added, "They're both down!"

"You two, get close," Magne said, and the two turned to her to see her doing something with her Quirk. She held her hands out in front of her body pointed in at each other, blue light sparking between them as she showed off her Quirk, Magnetism.

Spinner and Compress got in front of Magne, the blue light surrounded their bodies, and they each started pushing back against Magne as the magnetism she put on them pulled harder and harder towards her, getting ready for a release towards the escaping teens. _When facing an enemy larger and stronger,_ Zach thought, while sprinting at Magne. He leaned his head to the left and dodged a knife, but only barely so it still slashed across his right cheek and drew blood. He saw Toga in the corner of his vision seeing where he was running, but now that he saw her he was able to dodge the second knife, this time by sliding forward on the floor while Magne's back leg bent down under the pressure of the two in front of him. _NOW!_ He thought, as he knew there was no time otherwise. Zach grabbed the front leg of the very masculine woman whose body was shaking hard enough as it was with all the pressure.

 _Disrupt their balance!_ Zach yanked Magne's left foot off the ground, and Magne started falling back right as she pushed forward, sending Spinner and Compress flying straight up in the air instead of towards the escaping children. The two villains screamed as they were sent soaring straight up, high into the sky. Magne fell backwards, her eyes opening wide behind her sunglasses as she turned towards the boy using all his strength to lift up, as well as he could in the position he was lifting in.

Zach had his left arm wrapped around Magne's leg. His feet were pressed hard on the ground below and behind him, but his left hand was grabbing his right arm as he pushed up, his right arm that was extended straight out instead of grabbing Magne, since he had already ripped a hole in one of the glove's fingers. "I won't let you!" Zach yelled. Then he jumped away as Magne hit the ground, as Shigaraki was running towards him. He jumped backwards, then he snapped his head to the side in midair as a knife flew towards it again.

"Don't kill him Toga," Shigaraki said as Zach was coming down. "This traitor can still be useful," his voice sounded furious. Zach could not keep himself calm, stumbling backwards after he landed only to feel one of the worst pains in his life as he was hit in the back. Zach hit the floor and the crushing feeling he felt in his spine got even stronger and made him scream. "Don't Ganeshi," Shigaraki said.

"As you… say, Shigaraki," Ganeshi said, while stomping down on Zach's back with less force than a second ago.

All Might shouted towards Zach, his gaze coming down from the ones who just flew off. All For One saw how distracted All Might was, and he shoved the black lines coming out of his fingers into All Might's chest. The hero spun around and yelled out in fury, but he was lifted high into the air and then slammed down a hundred meters away into the top of an already-fallen building. "Go Shigaraki, while you still have a piece-"

Shigaraki's head snapped forward, but a foot still grazed him and made his body spin around, then slam into the ground hard. "SHIGA-RAKI!" Ganeshi shouted, then he pulled back as something slammed into the front of his chest so hard that even his thick body could not help it. He pulled back, and after already lessening the weight he had put on the boy's back, his left hand which acted as a foot while he was on all fours like this came off of Zach's back.

"Let's go," Gran Torino said, grabbing the boy out from beneath the foot and racing to get out of there.

"Shimura's friend," All For One said as he saw Gran Torino. The short old man raced through the air with Zach in his arms, being careful of the boy's right hand even though he saw a glove on it. "That is Shigaraki's," All For One continued, and he held his hand up.

"I won't let you!" All Might roared, coming down for All For One with his fist pulled back.

"Warp," All For One said with his hand raised.

A pool of the silver substance surrounded Gran Torino and Zach, and the hero pushed Zach away as it had all poured out of his own mouth. Zach fell away from Gran Torino, turning back towards All For One while his face was covered in pain from the hit in his back. All Might slammed his fist forward, right as the old man appeared floating there between All Might and All For One. The fist collided hard even as All Might tried pulling back, and the force alone still pushed All For One skidding backwards. The villain in all black said as he skid backwards, as something bounced off his arm and shot away in the wind, "A shame. I had meant to use Shock Inversion too, but you were too fast All Might. Did you decide not to hold back, to give him time to get the child away?"

Zach hit the ground and he let out a gasp of pain, his chest aching as the fall was farther than he thought even though his eyes had time to bulge as All Might smashed Gran Torino's face. All Might pulled his arm back, but the number one hero was still staring out towards where Gran Torino's body went bouncing off with a horrified look on his face. _It was, for me?_ Zach thought, his head turning back to All Might. The pressure that pushed down on him made Zach fear for his life. He had never seen All Might look so furious. All For One continued, "Can you really not hold back here though? Even if he had gone-"

"Get him and let's go," Zach heard a closer voice behind him. He tried moving, but his whole body screamed out in pain. Despite it though, he saw something moving towards him. He heard Shigaraki tell Magne to 'catch them,' right as screams were getting louder and approaching. Spinner and Compress slowed down as Magne put the same magnetic attraction on them as with Shigaraki while he stood below, and then she released it right as they slowed to near stops above them.

Zach heard the stomps approaching, and he put his hands down on the floor at his sides. His eyes clenched shut and he could hear the monster moving his way. _I should have found a way to get out with Bakugo. He needed both hands to blast himself into the air with balance, but I could have ran towards him and jumped on his back, or something! Anything, better than… Todoroki,_ he thought, his eyes shooting open and filling with hope. That hope vanished though, as he saw a small elderly figure laying motionless up ahead of him, partially covered in some debris. Zach's fingers curled up in the ground beneath him.

"Stay away, from the child!" A woman's voice yelled out, and Zach turned his head to see a hand growing massive and reaching towards him. It did not grab him, but the huge elephant-like villain behind him who spun to see Mt. Lady rising to her feet. Mt. Lady lifted up her hand, then she screamed and had to unclench the fist she was making. Zach's eyes opened wide, at the sight of two of Mt. Lady's fingers bent the wrong way. Ganeshi dropped thirty feet to the floor, and the ground around him broke down and cracked on his sides.

 _What am I thinking?_ Zach thought as he stared back at the woman who screamed, only to clench her other fist and punch it down. "Run!" She yelled towards him. _I can't run!_ He thought, while he struggled to get up to his knees. Toga and Shigaraki, Spinner, Twice, Magne, and Compress, they were all moving towards him, while Ganeshi turned his head and then swung back, stretching his trunk up to meet Mt. Lady's fist straight-on. They collided and the wind was so forceful that Zach felt it pushing against him as much as one of the collisions between All Might and the enemy leader. _All Might's still holding back because I'm here. Ganeshi is too strong- and they're going to take me through the portal! The others can't fight! But, but despite knowing that… They're going to!_

Zach did not know who else was still hiding over behind that wall, or if they had run off right after sending the other three into the sky for the first extraction. _But, if they're still there,_ Zach thought, looking past the small body ahead of him towards the shattered wall that had standing parts on either side of the hole. "You've caused us a lot of trouble," Shigaraki started as he neared Zach's back. "But you just wanted to save your friend, right? You wanted to be the special _only_ student to come with us, right? Right? Right?!" His voice was getting higher pitched and more insane, and Zach pulled himself harder to his hands and knees.

He stared at the floor between his hands, and the pain in his spine started shifting to the back of his mind. His body started pumping with adrenaline, as the world around him got fuzzy. _Todoroki, is a hero. Whoever else came with them, wouldn't have left, just because they saved Bakugo. The villains know that, and are expecting them to jump out. They'll kill my classmates when my friends think they have a moment where the villains have left their guards down. All Might can't fight at full power even in his rage over that old hero, because I'm still here. All Might has a time limit. My classmates can't come out here! They'll come out even if I agree with Shigaraki and go with him, because they won't want me to follow this path just to protect All Might which is what Todoroki will think I'm doing. I can't run or my classmates die. I can't stay or All Might dies. There's only one thing I can do!_ Zach started standing up, reaching to his right hand as he did and ripping his glove fully off. He spun around while lifting his right hand, a smirk spreading over his face as he dropped his glove to the floor and held his hand between him and Shigaraki Tomura. _I have to make All Might stop holding back, while I'm still here… I need to be- I need to really become…_ "I'm not a hero," Zach said, but the smirk stayed plastered over his face. He started laughing and Shigaraki grinned back at him as Zach's arm pulled back towards his own body a little.

Zach held his arm back, so his right hand was right in front of his body instead of extended to keep Shigaraki away. The pain in his back and from the bloody slash on his cheek had faded into his mind, and his smirk lowered down a little while his eyebrows narrowed in. Shigaraki started while Zach looked at him like that, "Then let's go. _We_ need to escape from here, before All Might gets us."

Shigaraki's fingers were twitching at his sides, and Zach continued to smirk at the villain whose face was mostly hidden behind his mask-hand. All the other villains behind Shigaraki had smiles on their faces too, but Zach could see how they really felt, see how their hands were twitching. None of them believed him anymore. They all thought he was just saying another lie, and as soon as he turned his back he could tell the Compress guy was going to take him out.

Zach's mouth lowered down into a flat lip, and he asked the man in front of him while tilting his head a bit to the side, "Why do we continue to play this game, when we all know, it has moved on to the next level?" Zach's mouth twisted back up into a mad smirk, and he clenched his right fist in front of his chest. Shigaraki's half smile dropped down, and then the other villains all started moving towards Zach. "Don't do it," Zach warned, raising his right hand in a threatening way. "I'll snap my fingers and you'll all be-"

"That's not how it works though, is it?" Shigaraki asked, taking a step forward while the smirk rose back on his face again.

Zach's smile lowered and then he started frowning while taking a step back, spinning his arm to point at each person who was starting to encircle him as they ran around. They were very close to the portal sticking out of Kurogiri's chest, and they were all in a hurry to get him through it. Zach was in a hurry too though, as he did not know how much longer All Might had. Yet when Shigaraki started speaking again, all the thoughts of the villains around him and the situation faded from his mind. "I didn't believe you when you told me what your Quirk did, so I had Kurogiri find out for me."

 _How?_ Zach thought, while darting his eyes around, then spinning and pointing his hand at Magne who stepped towards him with a furious look from what Zach did before. Magne leaned back, then the other villains held their positions too, to listen as Shigaraki explained his Quirk so they would be able to capture him without getting killed. "A touch of your right hand, will kill anything. It's not stopping a heart, but Death." Shigaraki grinned at the sound of it, and he started laughing at Zach's expression. "The halt of all brain functions, blood circulation cutting off, the heart stopping cold. Instant death, with no chance of revival."

The short boy with messy black hair could hardly keep himself from charging at Shigaraki, and then Zach saw something behind the man with wavy gray hair that made him gasp in horror. The already injured Mt. Lady had not been able to stop her opponent, and Zach stared out in terror as Ganeshi stood there, sixteen feet tall, his trunk wrapped around Mt. Lady's neck while she was in her smaller form. Shigaraki continued while Zach was staring that way in terror, "We won't let you touch us with that hand, and we're taking you along. The world already thinks you've come on your own, so we can't have you going back now."

Shigaraki ran forward. At the same time Zach saw Toga pulling out a knife and running towards him on his left and Twice sprinting at him from the right. Magne moved in at his back left, and Spinner at his back on the other side. Compress ran straight for the back of his head though, reaching out to use his Quirk and make Zach an easy prisoner to transfer. All Might looked over to shout something, only for the black lines to slam him in the chest and knock him backwards, blood splashing out of his mouth as he dragged a trench through the ground away from All For One. And then Zach heard the crack. Over the entire battlefield, he heard the crack of a neck.

 _Ganeshi. I, I could have killed him. All Might… you stopped me. You alerted them, and you stopped me! And now, Mt. Lady…_ Zach's lips rose up at the corner. Shigaraki slammed on the breaks. Twice froze and let out a yelp of surprise, and Toga's eyes shot open huge as she skid on her heels and hopped backwards. Spinner and Magne only caught glimpses of the side of his face, but they leapt backwards as well right before Zach did a full spin while slamming his right arm out and ducking. He crouched and spun his whole body with his right arm extended, and his hand smacked across the front of Compress as the man turned his head right in confusion as to why Spinner else just leapt back.

Compress fell forward and flat on his face. He did not move a muscle. He did not twitch. Compress just lay there and Zach stood back up straight, looking down at the villain in front of him. "Ha, hahaha," Zach brought his left hand up to the side of his head and he started laughing. "I totally forgot," Zach said, his laughter dying down as he lowered his hand from his head. The villains were staring at him with sweaty looks, while All Might who just came out of some rubble looked over with wide eyes at the figure lying at Zach's feet. All For One looked over too, while Zach turned and looked straight at Shigaraki, "With Bakugo gone, the main goal I came here to accomplish was completed, but I totally forgot about the other reason!" _I have to truly become, a villain!_ He tilted his head back and smirked madly, and he shouted, "All of you, dead!"

* * *

 **A/N Thanks for reading. It was after watching the start of the Bakugo rescue arc that I had the idea for this story three Saturdays ago, so I really wanted the story to be able to reach this point. For anyone who thought this story followed to closely to the show up until now, well, I'm no manga reader so from here on we split. Hope you enjoyed this chapter...**


	17. Chapter 17: Camino Ward Part 2

**Chapter 17:**

 _My classmates should be running now. All Might should realize it soon too. If he holds back for my sake any longer, he'll be hurting me more than if his blows actually hit me._ Zach's eyes focused on Compress's body as he lay on the floor next to him. He, like the villains all around him, darted their gazes to Compress when a light shone out from on top of his body. Dabi appeared there laying unconscious on top of Compress, as the entertainer's Quirk failed after his death.

"Mr. Compress," Spinner said, his eyes narrowing down. The scaly green-skinned villain turned his glare to Zach and he pulled out a sword, giving Zach a murderous glare after that. It was not so much that he needed to avenge his comrade, but that he was done trying to just get close and take the boy down. "Shigaraki," Spinner began. "Let's-"

"Kill him," Shigaraki said, his expression dark and his voice low. He stared down at Compress too, another important piece in his plans, gone just like Bakugo.

 _I can't win against them all! All of them trying to kill me, I'll be dead in seconds!_ Zach's smiling lips started to tremble, and he brought his right hand closer to his chest though it shook as he did. Toga was pulling a knife back, but her eyes opened wide and her smile spread at what the boy was doing. "I-" Zach began, and he saw Ganeshi jogging their way, each step making thuds on the ground. All For One was between him and All Might who was the farthest away, and Zach brought his right hand closer to his chest. _Do it then. It's over anyway. Fuck it._

Zach's face twisted and his body stopped shaking. "My Quirk, Death, could not undergo as extensive of testing as the scientists and doctors wanted. You say you know about my Quirk, but you don't know," Zach said, looking straight into Shigaraki's eye behind his weird hand's fingers. If Shigaraki thought Zach was bluffing, he would have charged and tried to kill him in that second, but what Zach was saying actually made a little sense, and his unhinged expression made it harder to ignore. "No one knows," Zach whispered it. "Because, they were too afraid to find out what would happen if I touched myself with my right hand. They wanted to know if it would kill me, but how could they test it?!" Zach called it out and he started grinning afterwards, "But I knew it would kill me. I really wanted it to, when I first placed my hand over my heart." His hand was too close to his chest now. None of the villains were going to move to stop him from touching his chest, because he was too close to it that he would touch before they managed to stop him, and they were getting afraid of what was going to happen once it did.

"I just wanted to die," Zach whispered. "Because I thought I was a monster." His lips twisted, his face scrunching up, and his voice rose higher in pitch, as he got louder and shouted, "But when I touched it-"

 **7 Years Ago**

 _"You, who killed your mother,"_ Zach stared into the bathroom mirror. He stood there with the door locked, even though no one else was home. His dad had rarely been home recently, but he was terrified someone would walk in. "Mom," Zach whispered, lifting his hand in front of him. His thick mitten was lying in the sink, and he slowly pulled off his glove too, only to stare at his hand in terror at the sight of what was hidden beneath the specially-made glove to keep his powers under control.

He felt like he was staring at a monster. The feeling of looking at a monster though, spread to thinking he was himself a monster, because he lifted his gaze to the mirror and saw his own body holding that hand up. "I'm so sorry," Zach whispered. His heart was pounding, and he lifted his hand farther. He brought his hand close to his body, his whole right arm trembling. "I, I just can't," he whispered, his voice cracking as his hand got close. "I- can't live with this," he gasped out.

His hand stopped shaking as much. He closed his eyes. "I killed you," he whispered, and then he pressed his hand into his chest. Zach kept his eyes closed for a few seconds, wondering what the sensation of death felt like. It did not feel like this was it though, so he pressed harder into his chest and he started yelling out as he waited for it to take hold. Finally his eyes shot open and he pulled his hand away, realizing what he was doing in a moment of clarity. "I can't-" he froze after those words came out of his mouth. He froze still and stared at the mirror in front of him, and when his eyes grew wide, and he took a step backwards, the mirror reflected his own actions. "AAHHHH!" He screamed, falling backwards and reaching his hands to the sides of his head to grab his temples in terror. He calmed down a bit and shot back to his feet again, turning to the door to run. When he turned though, he caught a glimpse in the mirror and froze once more, turning back to see a human face staring back at him with sweat drenching it. "W-W-Was I imagining it?"

 **Present**

"But when I touched it-" Zach shook his head around and he clenched his teeth so hard as his palm moved the last inch so the space between it and his chest was as small as possible. "I thought I must have been imagining things, but I went to the roof and jumped off instead of trying again! And every time, I've caught a glimpse again, I just look away and forget about it, touching my chest or head again…" Zach bit down on his bottom lip, while the corners pulled up and he leaned his head back. "Just like the monster under your bed. You stop looking for it after a while, because you've accepted it's just in your head. But you don't check every night if it's there. In fact, you never check at all. You just believe, that it's gone, that it was fake…" Zach pressed his hand to his chest, and his smile dropped down while his eyes lost their insane look. "But when I saved Kirishima," he whispered, "I knew, the things I thought were imagined were true. I knew, _all_ of the things I thought were dreams, were reality."

Zach's arms turned pitch black, blending in with his clothes which seemed to disappear as his body became darker and darker. His arms were only black for an instant though, before white started to become visible inside them. His bones showed through the dark coating covering his arms, then his ribs and all the bones in his torso and legs showed as well. His neck was black, and his face covered in the color too, but with a white skull showing between the darkness. His black hair started waving around over the top of his head, while small black wisps seeped off of his shoulders, his fingertips, the sides of his legs. Zach's head was only partially bowed, so the eye-sockets of the skull in the darkness were still visible, and those eye sockets filled with a glowing red light. "In my head…" Zach said, the jaw of his skull opening up and speaking in his voice, only darker. He paused, not used to the sound of his voice coming out like that, to the point he had to remind himself that he was the one speaking. "I called this, Nightmare." He lifted his head and stared with his glowing red ones into Shigaraki's.

His red eyes filled his whole eye sockets, flaring as he stared towards the villain before him. "No one's ever seen what it does," Zach said, then he let out a long breath and black steam came out of his open jaw. "Even I don't know, what I'm about to do," he said, his red eyes darting around as he rose his hands up at his sides. "I don't even know if it made me any stronger. If I can fight all of you, or not!" His voice got louder and angrier, and the villains around him already staring at his scary appearance with wide eyes all leaned back as he clenched both fists in front of him and roared, "But! I plan on winning!"

Shigaraki took a step back and then froze, his lips twisting into a furious snarl. "Kill him! But don't get close," he added.

 _They think touching anywhere on my body could be deadly now-_ Zach thought. He spun to the side and barely dodged a lone line of razor-sharp steel, and he snapped his head back towards Twice who immediately leapt backwards as he turned his way. "Whoa whoa whoa! You're really ugly- Cool Quirk!"

Zach felt a knife lodge in his right arm and he growled in pain, spinning that way and waving his left arm across his body as he spun. "Get away!" He yelled out, and when he swung his left arm across the front of his body, black wisps came off of the swing in a wind that blew towards Himiko Toga and made her eyes open wide in terror.

"Come!" Magne magnetized Toga and Spinner at the same time, and she yanked the younger girl towards their comrade. _She was barely in range. That mist probably kills,_ Magne thought while spinning back to the kid whose power was unknown even to himself.

Zach reached up and grabbed the knife in his arm, yanking it out. He was about to drop it, and then he looked down at it with his glowing red eyes that were tinting everything in his vision that color. He stared at the blade as did the villains, and they all watched as the darkness on his hand over his boney fingers started seeping onto the knife. The steel became covered in a thin black coating, so even as blood came out and showed on the outside of Zach's arm, his jaw clenched and he felt confidence rising in him. His head was pitch black on the outsides, only the face of his skull showed to the villains before him. Zach turned himself quickly, rapidly from one villain to the next while lifting his short black blade.

Shigaraki's face was twisting in so much anger, but his eyes also darted to the other side where he saw All For One grappling with All Might again. His eyes then shot over to the portal, the warp gate next to Kurogiri's body that was still open and waiting for them. Zach saw where he was looking, and he also realized at that moment what it meant. _They're not trying to take me anymore. In fact, he's only risking the other members' lives trying to finish me off._

"All Might!" Zach yelled at the top of his lungs.

 **7 Years Ago**

On the roof of a building, All Might stood in front of a child whose live he had just saved. "What is your dream?" All Might asked. "Children have dreams, and you are a child, so tell me young man. What is yours?"

"Ah, snf ah, I- I!" Zach clenched his fists even tighter at his sides, and then he snapped his head back and screamed, "I WANT TO BE A HERO!"

"And that," All Might said, making the boy snap his head back down with huge eyes that he just yelled that. All Might was smiling wide at him still but leaning farther forward now so their heads were closer together, before he finished, "Is a magnificent dream…"

Zach stared in shock at All Might for a few seconds, then the eight year old's eyes filled with tears that spilled out over his face as he broke down. He fell to the floor while All Might stood straight up, and Zach cried at the top of his lungs. The emotional boy started crying thinking of all the fear he felt when leaping off the building, then his tears stopped flowing and his body tensed up. All Might was looking down at the boy and smiling as it looked like he had just saved his life, but the boy stopped sobbing emotionally and the hero sweatdropped as the kid said while looking at the floor, "But, but I'm-" he thought about what he tried only thirty minutes before going up to the roof, back in the bathroom of his apartment. "But I'm a monster," he whispered. _It was real!_

"You are not a monster," All Might began.

"I was!" Zach shouted. All Might lowered down to a knee in front of the boy, and Zach shook in fear as he stared at All Might's face, sliding his right hand behind his back and hiding it there. He did not want to show All Might what he saw, he did not ever want to touch his body with his right hand again. He did not know what had happened, why he had seen that for a moment, but it was stuck in his head and he started shaking while staring at the hero. "After, what I just saw," he whispered, though not going into it. "I'm, I'm scared All Might. I think, I'm terrified that, I'm actually a monster."

All Might looked at the boy who was not saying this in regards to the things he had done that he regretted. All Might could see on the boy's face, that he thought he was actually a _real_ monster. He almost wanted to laugh at the idea, but instead he put his fists on his hips and stood in a heroic pose while he called down, "No." Zach lifted his bowed and teary-eyed gaze, and his eyes opened wide again as All Might declared, "Before me stands a human!" Zach's eyes widened even more, but his lips started trembling and his eyes filled with even more water. "Enough of that," All Might continued, and Zach blinked some tears away to see what All Might was talking about. "If your dream is to be a hero, you can't do it looking like that."

"The times when you're scared, when you're worried, are the best times to smile. So smile young man, and live!"

 **Present**

Zach smiled. He could feel his face moving as it normally should, even though he knew when he had caught glimpses of this in the mirror that he did not have a real face. The darkness surrounded his entire body though, all of him including his head, and the boy's bones were only translucent through that dark veil. He knew he could get hurt now in this state, as he could see the blood coming down his right arm over the darkness, though it was a little hard to see as black wisps rose right up through the flowing liquid. He was still afraid of the villains. They were in the middle of trying to kill him, but when Shigaraki Tomura looked towards the warp gate, he remembered what All Might had told him. Zach lost the scared expression he had had to match how he was feeling while he spun around to face them all.

All Might glanced towards the boy, and Zach grinned even more so that his jaw on his skull and all his teeth showed it, and even the darkness in front of his face partially shrouding that skull lifted up over the corners of where his mouth should have been. He smiled, and he yelled, "You can't save me anymore! Touch me and you die! It's the same for everyone here- so All Might, before I wind up killing everyone- JUST DO IT ALREADY!" Zach screamed it and kept smiling, despite what he knew, or at least hoped was coming.

"Geez, young man," All Might started, his muscles tensing all over his body, a look of pure rage coming to his face as he turned back towards All For One. His muscles tightened more and more, and the ground beneath his feet cracked under the pressure. "Pushing me into a corner like this," All Might said.

"Go through the warp gate!" Shigaraki shouted.

The other villains ignored Zach and they all started running for the portal. Zach sprinted at Shigaraki, but the man was too fast and escaped in front of him. He reached out, then he clenched his fist before he would have reached anyway. His smile dropped back down, as he turned his head and watched Shigaraki take another step for the portal. Zach took another step, then he felt the collision that he never saw. He almost started turning to see if All Might had moved and that was just his lift-off explosion, but the wind that hit him in the back sent him flying. He was running towards Shigaraki, and when he was lifted off the ground he flew past where he had been sprinting towards, all the way into another figure who had been running towards Shigaraki from the other side.

Zach slammed into Ganeshi hard, and he let out a gasp of pain as his chest rammed into the elephant-man's huge body. "Move," the man said, and Zach's eyes that were clenched in pain opened up. He stared in shock at the torso in front of him, then an arm slammed in on his side and Zach rose up his already bloody right arm to block. It did not make a difference. At the same time that his arm broke, his body remembered the pain from Ganeshi's earlier attack, and his back filled with pain at the same time as the right side of his body from his shoulder to his upper legs.

The kid screamed in agony as he was thrown through the air to his left side, only for another huge blast of wind to hit him in the back and send him flipping head-over heels forward. He was caught bouncing around in the air, to the point of regret over the sheer agony his was feeling. He regretted telling All Might to go at it. He regretted that All Might listened to him. He regretted missing Shigaraki Tomura, though he was unable to tell whether or not Shigaraki or any of the others made it into the warp gate. He doubted they did from his current condition, but the guy Ganeshi had kept running without being hindered by the wind. He had even managed to smack a hand across his body, and finally Zach was able to think about that right as he started falling from the air.

 _That should have killed him,_ he thought in panic, shock, but still mostly pain. His head turned, and his neck hurt from doing so as he tried looking back towards Ganeshi. The elephant-type Quirk user was still moving towards the warp gate, but slower now, and Zach did not think it was from All Might's fight which he could not longer see. _That, should have killed me,_ Zach thought, right before hitting the ground and rolling so hard that while he rolled, he thought, _It will kill- mee-ooowwww!_ He could not scream it aloud as he lost all breath while rolling over his chest. Still, he finally stopped moving while lying on his back, his head propped up to the side because of the angle he landed on and the debris where he stopped rolling. He turned his head which caused him a lot of pain, looking back towards where he hoped to catch a glimpse of All Might fighting at his strongest, but yet could only see the shaking buildings around that area and the rising dust, the explosions of men fighting at speeds faster than he could follow.

Then his gaze focused on something closer to him. He noticed Ganeshi had stopped, and he thought maybe the warp gate had vanished on the other side since he had no idea how long Kurogiri's power would last for while the portal-user was himself unconscious. As Zach thought it though, he saw Ganeshi's legs collapse from beneath him. He fell to his knees, and Zach's eyes opened wide as he heard a roar of agony come from the guy who had smacked him away, who he had slammed into and been pressed into his chest for a few seconds by the wind pushing on his back. _What's, going on?_ Zach thought, as his body started to numb, as his vision got hazy. _Did I, kill him, or not?_ His vision got hazier, but he forced his eyes open. Zach brought his left arm in front of his body and he used it to drag himself onto his chest, then he pushed it down below him since lying on his chest caused him huge amounts of pain. His whole right side of his body ached as he pushed up, and his red eyes grew wider as he saw Ganeshi's upper body collapse down, his face dropping into the floor.

 _Like this,_ Zach thought. _Does it still kill, just slower? Or, does it kill, based on the amount…_ Zach wanted to think more on it, on a revelation that was blowing his mind and making it impossible to realize the extent of his own injuries. All he would have to do was look down though, as he would be able to see so many broken bones through the translucent black veil over him. He slid his right knee up on the ground, pushing his left hand down harder to get up to his left foot too. His right leg screamed in pain at him from midway up the thigh, but he wanted to keep standing. He needed to get up, get a better look at Ganeshi. _What if I just-_ he thought, before wincing as he tried moving his right arm. He winced, then his arm went numb and he could no longer move it. That made him worried, very worried about the nerve endings connecting and holding his arm together, but he still did not take his eyes off the man far ahead of him. _What if I just, knocked him out?_

Hope filled Zach's eyes, and he brought his left arm over to his right leg to try and pull it up. He let out a scream of pain as he tried to stand on a broken bone, falling forward again. He did not want to fall on his chest or right side, so Zach quickly bent the top half of his body and slammed his forehead into the ground first. "RAAAA!" He screamed in pain, as that hurt his head and still did not stop his right side and all of his broken body to flood with agony. He convulsed, dropping to his left side and squirming to try and shake off the pain in his right. He could not even pass out anymore, as he had felt himself doing before, because the pain was too intense and he had nothing to help with it. "AAHHH! RRAAA!"

"Zach," a voice called over.

Zach heard it, and he snapped his head back and stared towards a piece of debris near him. It was a chunk of wall from a building he figured must have been around here, and he looked towards it for the source of that voice. It was hard for him to spot the person though, even though he was already out in front of the debris, because the boy he was looking towards blended in so well with the night. When Zach saw Kuroiro staring at him though, he froze and his mouth that opened to bellow out another scream of pain just let out a gasp instead. In his head he saw when the two of them were walking through the forest, when he had gone back on what he wanted to show the boy from Class B. It was not because he had thought Kuroiro might get scared, or because he did not know what this form would do, but because Zach had reminded himself that it was not real in the first place.

The lie he told himself to avoid showing anyone, to avoid making it real, it came back to him as he stared at the kid looking back his way. Kuroiro took a step towards him, and Zach's glowing red eyes grew larger in size, filling his whole eye sockets and more of his black face. "Stay- back," Zach managed to rasp out, before groaning in pain and pulling his head away from the other teen. He rolled himself back over and got to his knees again. _How many of our classmates are here? Are they all just scattered around this battlefield? In the middle of a war between villains and heroes?! If the other villains got blown away… no, not the "other" villains, just, the villains. If they got blown away, they could be around here. They could be trying to attack my friends._ Zach's left foot rose up again, and his left hand clenched in front of his torso and he staggered up onto his feet, putting all of his weight on his left leg and leaning to that side as he got up.

Kuroiro started jogging forward, but slowly, like he wanted to help Zach balance but at the same time was hesitant about getting any closer. "Zach," Kuroiro began. "I should have asked you about what you were talking about," he began. "I'm not afraid though," he added. "Because I know who you are. It doesn't matter what you look like-"

"I'll kill you," Zach whispered. It was not a threat, but a warning because Zach could not stop it from happening. "My right arm, my hand," he continued. "I think he, shattered them, ack, ack-" Zach coughed a few times and blood came out of his mouth. _Don't look down,_ he thought, imagining the sight of cracked ribs on the right side of his chest, imagining what Kuroiro must have been looking at at the moment for him to have that kind of expression.

"We, can't move your arm for you," a voice said on Zach's right. He looked over and saw two others stepping out from behind the wall of a fallen building. Kaminari stepped farther forward while Todoroki stepped up behind him, keeping his head on a swivel unlike the blond who was staring straight at Zach. "But dude, you can figure something out, yeah?" Kaminari said. He could not mask his expression, or hide the fact that he was sweating badly as he faced Zach. Then again though, he could see past Zach into a battlefield where he had just seen all of the most terrifying things in his life.

"It'll hurt," Todoroki said, "But try touching yourself with your hand again. We'll get you out of here once you do."

Zach looked around at the three of them, then he bit down hard and he ground his teeth. Blood seeped between his teeth, and it drenched his right arm. He looked at his arm, stared at all the broken bones inside it, some of which were sticking out of the darkness. _I, look like a monster. I- I just killed someone… again,_ Zach lifted his gaze again, and his eyes grew huge as another person stepped close to him. She held up a splint she had just created, and she had bandages and gauze ready with her. Yaoyorozu looked at Zach, straight in his glowing red eyes, and she said without flinching or having any fear in her eyes, "Quickly, Zach. So that we can help you. So that we can escape!"

The boy looked around at the young, aspiring heroes in front of him, and his heart started racing. "No," he whispered, "we can't leave yet." His eyes grew even wider in realization, and as he stared at the group in front of him, he said quickly, "Gran Torino, Mt. Lady, I think they're dead-"

"That's why we have to-" Kuroiro started.

"I can save them!" Zach exclaimed, then he coughed up blood and he dropped back to his knees. He leaned forward when he said he could do it, and just hitting his right knee shook the bone in his upper right leg. "AHH _HHH!_ " His scream of pain cracked and he lost his voice as blood came out with the sound.

"Zach!" Yaoyorozu shouted.

"Don't push yourself," Kuroiro snapped.

"Just stay still," Kaminari begged him, as even with a skull for a face, even with a deeper voice, he could see and hear all of Zach's pain. "You can't save everyone-"

"Just," Zach started. "When I, drop on my right hand," he started, while reaching over to his side with his left. He reached near his wrist, and he slowly put his left hand around it. He could feel the pain starting, not that intense yet, but what he was about to do he knew would be a more intense pain that anything. A part of him felt like this was karma for what he did to Midoriya. He did not know if he would be conscious after it, so he said, "If I pass out, drag me to their bodies. There's a time limit, so it has to be right now. Try to wake me up, force me awake if you need to, but don't try using my arm to save them on your own. I don't know, if when my skin turns black…" Zach had to catch himself off guard, surprise himself. He did not think he could knowingly cause himself that much pain, so he spoke until he was no longer thinking about the pain at all, then he yanked his right wrist towards his face while falling towards it.

Zach's limp right hand smacked him in the face, while the agonized scream escaped out his open jaw. The black veil vanished from his head, and his red eyes turned white, pure white. His eyes were rolled back in his head and his voice cut off as he kept falling forward, his arms dropping limp at his sides as he fell face-down into the floor.

* * *

 **A/N Thanks for reading. Hope you enjoyed. Leave a review telling me what you think and predictions for upcoming chapters!**

Colinpop5 chapter 15 . Jun 27

WOOOOOOOO

 **WOOO back at you! XD Glad you're excited!**

Byzan chapter 10 . Jun 27

you updated the story faster than I read. I won't complaint about it though.

this arc where Zach got emotional made me teared up. Literally. I'm not lying. well, hope that tells you how great this story is for me.  
I hope you keep updating faster than I could read. :D  
thank you for your hard work... I hope you are working hard. if not, then you gotta tell me your work(s) where you worked hard on it. :D

 **Thanks! I had a lot of this story finished before I even started posting the chapters, though this chapter I wrote after I had posted the first chapter, so I'm only a little ahead of it right now. Really glad I got you with the emotions, and if you like this work of mine, then you could try reading Nexus/ Nexus Heroes Will Rise. I've worked harder on those two fanfics than anything, and it's still in progress. Check it out on my page if you want! Thanks for the review!**

Roxas Itsuka chapter 16 . 18h ago

Awesome chapter. It seems as though Zach finally reached his breaking point. He's more of an anti-hero in this story.

 **Thanks! Zach hits the "fuck it" point this chapter, going fully off and trying something even he's afraid of. The anti-hero thing occurred to him last chapter too, I think it was, and with the body count he's racking up, he really is... Thanks for the review!**

zerom1v chapter 16 . 14h ago

Oh no! Zach has gone full out! I guess NONE of the villains wanted to actually risk getting touched by him, only Mr. Compress went for the catch and died. I wonder, were they expecting the kid to hold back? Guess they depended too much on his moral value. But when you push too much, one can crack.  
I feel bad for Zach. He made that call because he was the reason All Might can't go all out and Mt. Lady got hurt.  
Hope All for One doesn't take away his quirk. That would be horrible O.O Hope the others did't leave him behind as well. That would be worse.  
What happens next?! Can't wait! Great chapter! Glad to know Bakugou put the pieces together and wanted to leave with Zach!  
Hope Monoma and Kuroiro and Denki come and save the day! They still didn't show how heroic they can be!

 **Zach went nuts there at the start of this chapter/ end of the last one. Compress couldn't see Zach's face when he snapped, but all the villains who did were stopped cold in their tracks. They could see he was ready to kill them, and that he did not have a hero mind-set at that point. Zach just keeps getting pushed into corners, though with All Might facing off against All For One, no time in there for the big boss to snag the boy's power, if he did even want it. Bakugo, that last second look down towards Zach, and then looking back once they were flying off and seeing the relieved smile... Zach's friends show up to get him at the end of the chapter, though no sign of one of them- Thanks for the review! Hope you enjoyed the chapter!**

LordOfTee chapter 16 . 14h ago

Shigaraki used Speech, Oh no ! Zach has been afflicted with Insanity, Zach attacks current allies because of Insanity, Current Allies have been frightened !

 **Zach uses Nightmare, it was super effective- kind of. XD Laughed at this review, so thanks, and hope you enjoyed the chapter!**

zerom1v chapter 16 . 11h ago

wait a minute... Mr. Compress is fully covered in clothes. Does Zachs' quirk work either way? I thought Contact was needed, as in skin with skin  
(Gasp) Is Mr. Compress pretending?!

 **Nah, Compress got done in. Zach thought maybe the clothes thing would make a difference back at USJ too, but he knew from the moment he touched that it had worked, and it had. Compress goes down- but what about Ganeshi? Thanks for the review!**

D-Koy24 chapter 2 . 7h ago

First anime fic I'm trying and I must say,bravo!  
I think I chose well with this one...btw I like how Zach fits into the class, characters like him are always fun to follow :p

 **Wow! Thanks a lot! Hope you're still enjoying it! Thanks everyone for reading and reviewing!**


	18. Chapter 18

**Chapter 18:**

Zach Sazaki slowly opened up his eyes. Everything in front of him was blurry, and he lay with his head turned to the side. His eyelids lifted and he saw a short woman sitting next to his bed, her stretching lips pulling back to her face. She looked at him in surprise though when her lips were out of the way, despite the heavy treatment she just lay on him. "Sazaki," Recovery Girl began. She smiled for a moment, then the short old lady shook her head at him. "I have treated many students in my years, but your class needs to take it easier." Recovery Girl had her hands on her knees, and she questioned, "How are you feeling?"

The school nurse looked in the boy's eyes to make sure that he was understanding what she was asking him. Zach blinked a few times, then he glanced around while turning his head a bit. His back hurt and he winced, while he gazed around the white walls and recognized it as a hospital room. _Aunt Maye will be mad again,_ he thought, an odd thought to have he realized after everything that had caused this situation rushed back to him. His eyes started opening wide and he turned back to Recovery Girl fast. "All Might?" He asked, his face full of worry.

Recovery Girl sighed at his response to her question, then she smiled a bit as he seemed alright enough to her. "He's fine," she said, though she also sounded a little sad to him.

 **Knock-** "Hey, oh Recovery Girl…" Zach recognized the voice at his door, and he smiled while trying to lean up farther, but his back really did hurt and he just winced after the attempt. The boy in the door saw the movement though and he ran inside next to Recovery Girl who sat on a chair at the side of Zach's bed. The teenager with messy and spiky blond hair ran up to Zach's bed and he looked at the black-haired boy who stared back at him. "You're awake," Kaminari Denki said.

Zach nodded his head, then Recovery Girl said to him, "Stay where you are." He turned his head back to her and Kaminari looked at her as well, and Recovery Girl started describing to him the injuries in his back that were the worst he received. A few simple treatments were not going to be enough, and Zach grimaced at the idea of something really damaging his spine.

 _At least it doesn't seem permanent,_ he thought based on what she was telling him, though that made him think back on Grappler and wince at the thought. His gaze then shifted back to Kaminari who looked to him again too. Zach's lips were curled down, and he opened his mouth to say something, then he closed it and frowned again. Recovery Girl let out an extra loud sigh this time and then said she was going to go check on another patient in a nearby room.

Kaminari and Zach watched her go, and Zach said when she had almost reached the door, "Recovery Girl, thank you." He tried bowing his head, but that hurt his spine and he winced only for the nurse to snap back at him to listen to her orders if he really wants to be grateful, and Zach promised to stop moving around as much. Once she left the room, Zach looked back at Kaminari and he began in a quiet voice, "So, what happened?"

Kaminari stared at him in some confusion, and Zach grimaced as he knew that was too vague. "I- I don't remember much at all, after I saw you guys," he said. "I'm sitting here trying to think, but- what day is it? How long-"

"Two days," Kaminari replied. Zach nodded his head, leaning his head back and staring up. _It feels that long,_ he thought to himself. "And, as for what happened afterwards." Zach lifted his gaze again, and Kaminari was shaking his head while pursing his lips in a huge smile. "Ohh man, you are so unlucky you missed it."

"Huh?" Zach muttered.

The door to his room opened back up, and Zach looked over to see two other classmates walking into the room. They had just heard from Recovery Girl who they passed in the hall some news, and the two headed over fast. "Todoroki, Yaoyorozu," Zach said, looking at the two who he also remembered being there that night. As he saw them, he lowered his gaze down and stared at his bed in shame. He had a guilty look the others did not really get, and he began in a low voice, "You all, went out into that dangerous situation-"

"We saved Mt. Lady," Todoroki said. Zach lifted his gaze, then his eyes opened huge and he suddenly remembered what he tried telling them right before he passed out.

"What about-"

"That other guy was fine," Kaminari cut in. "He bounced back, apparently he was just out cold for a bit from All Might's punch, but All Might must have still been holding back even then because you were still there."

 _He was fine,_ Zach thought in some relief. "Mt. Lady," Zach whispered. "I don't remember anything about it," he added.

The others glanced around at each other, then Todoroki stepped closer to Zach's bed and he began, "We got you over to her, staying out of All Might's way and going around the outside of the area. But when we tried to wake you up, you started fading in and out of consciousness. You were saying that you'd save her, but as you knelt next to her, your broken arm wasn't moving."

"You guys didn't-" Zach began, a scared look in his eyes.

"No, you warned us not to try and force your arm on her," Kaminari said. "And none of us, really wanted to try that," he added, thinking about how it had been considered for a moment while Zach had knelt there mumbling to himself.

Zach lowered his gaze, thinking hard but finding his memory too hazy to even recall warning them. "So then, how?" Zach asked.

Todoroki frowned some more, then he said, "There was someone else there who you did not see. He, copied your power," Zach's eyes started opening wide, and Todoroki finished, "And he used it to save Mt. Lady."

Zach's bottom lip dropped, and he thought about all the pain he felt trying to bring back Kirishima after he had just died. "Monoma?" He whispered, just to make sure. The other three nodded, Kaminari looking as surprised as he did and the blond boy already knew about it.

"I know," Kaminari said at Zach's look. "Crazy, right?"

"I almost stopped him when he started yelling in pain," Todoroki admitted. "But he stopped screaming, to tell me that it was 'normal.'" Zach's eyes opened wide, and he muttered that he figures it could be considered 'normal' if the two times it had happened they both hurt. He had already expected it, but the fact that Monoma picked up on it as well surprised him, though not much as he thought about the other boy's strategies and tricks in the Sports Festival.

"Then, we tried to escape there quickly," Yaoyorozu continued. Zach looked to the girl with a spiky black ponytail who smiled at him as he made eye contact with her. "And All Might took care of the villain, All For One."

Zach shivered as he thought about that monster, but he smiled at the idea of All Might beating him. As he lay there smiling though, he saw some hesitation on his classmates' faces. "What else?" He asked.

"When All Might was fighting, this weird thing happened," Kaminari said. "On all the cameras, he just, kind of, deflated…"

"I am worried about-" Yaoyorozu continued, then her eyes widened at the expression on Zach's face.

Zach took his eyes off the others and shifted to a tv in the corner of his room. "Everyone, saw?" He whispered in a quiet voice, then he really wished he had just thought it in his head. He closed his mouth fast and did not glance back at the others who he wondered if they were staring at him with wide eyes at the moment. Instead, his eyes lowered to his right arm, an arm he felt strapped to the bed. He looked at it, and his eyes opened wide as he saw a black glove over his right hand with only the bottom of it sticking out of the larger white mitten over it. "No, box?" He wondered in confusion.

Kaminari was confused at what Zach was talking about when he turned and whispered the first thing, but he grinned at the sound of that confusion. "The principal went back and did another press conference," he said. Zach turned back and looked into his blond friend's eyes, and he saw Yaoyorozu smiling brightly and even Todoroki with a small smile on his face too. "We all saw that other press conference on our way to help, and it really pissed me off. But, the principal went back on and told people how he had been working with the police and couldn't say anything. He made another press conference to let everyone know that they got "both" of the students back, and then he added that he would now deny the rumor that you joined them."

Zach's eyes grew huge and his eyes shot back over to his right hand, then back to Kaminari and the others next to him. "So- I'm…" he whispered, then his lips started trembling too much for him to say anything else. He turned ahead again and he bit down hard, so hard as he stared at the wall across the room. He rose his left arm and started rubbing it across his eyes fast, "I thought- I thought I was done for. I thought, I don't know, I just thought the whole world would-" he pursed his trembling lips again but lowered his arm, and when his left arm lowered past his mouth, it was lifted into a huge smile that he turned back to his classmates with.

Kaminari had his phone out and was searching for something, and he turned the screen after Zach looked back at him. It had a small recording and he saw the principal in the middle of the screen, zoomed in on Kaminari's phone. The time marker at the bottom was pulled more than halfway towards the end of the video, and he pressed play for Zach at the fifty second mark. "…Zach Sazaki is an aspiring hero and a bright student- Not a villain." Kaminari pulled the phone back and then smirked at Zach's wide and teary-eyed expression.

"Could have fooled me though," Kaminari said. Zach looked up at him and stared with wide eyes, and Kaminari then narrowed his gaze and put a creepy smile on his face as he said, "This society overgrown with fake heroes…" Todoroki spun to Kaminari with wide eyes, while Yaoyorozu just looked a little confused. Kaminari leaned his head back and called in a mocking voice, "Someone must be dyed in blood!"

"What are you doing?" Todoroki asked, as those words sounded very familiar to him.

Kaminari pointed at Zach who eased back in his bed with red cheeks and an embarrassed look. "It's what he said when the villains came to take him. Totally creeped everybody out."

"I, had to make it believable?" Zach offered, saying it as a question though since he felt like he was making excuses for scaring his classmates.

"Dude, I saw the video so I even knew what you were doing, and you still scared me," Kaminari said, laughing again as Zach looked at him. Zach had a hesitant expression on his face as he saw Kaminari laugh, then he glanced back towards Yaoyorozu and Todoroki, the latter of whom started frowning at him only to nod in understanding after a second. _Are they right?_ Zach wondered. _I knew, that quoting him would get those villains to believe me. That's the only reason I said that stuff. Does everyone really believe that? Do I really not, have to explain myself to anyone?_

Zach started sniffling and he had to rub his face again. The official statement by the principal, the looks on his classmates' faces, it was all too much. He had thought his world was ending. After he woke up with Recovery Girl in front of him and felt the restraints on his right arm, he suspected the worst. The restraints just seemed to be so he didn't accidentally move it in his sleep though, or while the doctors were working on him, since they didn't put the big protective box over his hand. Zach wondered how they got the gloves on in the first place, then he turned as Yaoyorozu started in a soft voice, "Zach." He looked at her, and the other two guys looked left at the girl farther towards the foot of Zach's bed.

Yaoyorozu hesitated, then she looked at the boys on her right before turning back to Zach. "We agreed, not to tell anyone-" she paused. "We don't know, if All Might will," she faded off again and then got a nervous expression like she did not know how to finish telling him this.

"Your scary transformation thing," Kaminari said, and Zach grimaced while the other two shot him looks at the way he worded it. "What? It is scary," Kaminari said, shrugging at the two who continued to frown at him.

"I know," Zach whispered, looking back up at Kaminari himself. "Did you, hear-"

"How you said you thought it wasn't even real?" Kaminari asked, and he nodded his head. Zach thought about what else he had talked about in that moment, but he was glad Kaminari was answering like this without bringing up how he had tried killing himself. The blond boy continued, "If I looked in the mirror and saw that I'd rather think of it as a nightmare too."

"Kaminari," Yaoyorozu started.

"It's fine," Zach said, and he really meant it as he looked over towards her. She seemed surprised, then Zach turned back to Kaminari and nodded his head, adding, "Were my eyes glowing? I always looked away fast, but I always noticed-"

"Yes," Todoroki said. Zach turned to him and Todoroki nodded his head while saying, "Your eyes glowed red."

Zach nodded his head, and he leaned back on his pillow again. He wanted to listen to Recovery Girl and stay as still as possible. His right arm still hurt a lot, which he only noticed when he tried testing how tight the restraints on his arm was, but it was his back that was really killing him. He lay flat and he listened as Kaminari continued on about his crazy transformation, and the other two added in things about the rest of the night. Todoroki mentioned how Bakugo was alright, and then as Zach opened his mouth to ask about someone, the door to his room opened up.

Todoroki looked back and spotted the person he had texted when Recovery Girl told them about Zach. Zach looked towards the door, Kaminari moving a bit so he could see, then Zach started scooting back so he could sit up better. He needed to get up so that he could bow his head, but the boy who walked in rushed over at the look of pain on Zach's face. "Don't move on my account," he said, waving his arms around in a worried way.

"Midoriya," Zach began, pulling back as he saw Midoriya waving his hands like that apologetically. He caught a glimpse under Midoriya's right sleeve, he saw some scars on the hand and did not know if they were already there or recent ones. Either way, Zach lowered his head and he said while looking down, while he felt pain in his back. "I'm sorry. Your arm," he said, his teeth grinding after it came out. Todoroki's eyes widened at the first words out of Zach's mouth as Midoriya arrived, but he also nodded after a second as if Zach said anything else he would have still felt upset at him over that. "It was, so destroyed," Zach lifted his gaze a little, and he saw Midoriya looking down at his right arm with a hesitant look, one that told Zach all he needed to know. "Can you, still use it?" Zach asked.

"Yeah," Izuku Midoriya replied. He clenched his right hand into a fist to show it, then he lifted his gaze to Zach and said, "So, thanks." Zach's eyes started growing wider, and Midoriya lowered his head back down to look at his hands. "I, I didn't want to lose Kacchan. I was so desperate, I would have jumped right through that portal…" Midoriya hesitated, then he lifted his gaze to Zach's shocked wide eyes. "But, if I had," Midoriya continued. "I- I probably would have died."

"Though that doesn't mean you should have gone in instead," Todoroki said, frowning at Zach who turned to him now. "You should have run, we all could have gotten out of there together."

"I'm sorry," Zach said, looking into Todoroki's eyes and seeing the other boy really was upset over how things went back then. "I thought-" Zach began, then he stopped himself and shook his head. "It doesn't matter. The things I thought I needed to do, none of it mattered in the end. The heroes came, and I just got in the way," he said, lowering his gaze back down to his lap which was covered in a thin white blanket. He brought his left hand down over his stomach and clenched a fist there while laying back and staring at the ceiling. "In the end, I couldn't even help Bakugo. You guys were awesome by the way," he added, turning his head to the group next to his bed.

"I can't believe-" Kaminari began. He stopped himself, then he shook his head and asked, "Did you really go with them, to save Bakugo?"

Zach's eyes widened a little, then he looked away and got a hesitant look on his face. _Among, other things,_ he thought. "Mostly," he muttered.

Todoroki hummed and nodded his head once. _I don't know why I believed he would become a villain so easily,_ he thought, frowning to himself at the thought. He imagined Hosu City, when Zach had sprinted to the edge of the alley he was walking down while dragging Stain behind him. He thought about the look of relief on Zach's face as he dropped his hands to his knees and started panting there.

Zach glanced around at the others when he looked back up, keeping his gaze off of Midoriya. _I wonder, if the other four saw? Midoriya, Iida, Kirishima, and Bakugo might have been far enough away. I didn't transform into, didn't touch myself with…_ Zach grimaced deeper. _I need to come up with a better name for that. Nightmare, doesn't fit something I'm going to start using more._ In his mind he saw Ganeshi, shattering his right arm and running for the portal, even after Zach had slammed into him with his whole body covered in that black coating. _Did he survive? Even if he didn't, it wasn't instant death. That means there could be ways to make my Quirk not kill people. It could be this super amazing Quirk that I've just never been able to control!_

Kaminari lifted his phone, and then he looked at Zach with a grin and said, "The others are all heading here now." Zach's eyes widened and he felt a little nervous at the sound of that. "I told them that-"

The door of Zach's room slid open and everyone spun towards it. They all expected to see someone in Class A after what Kaminari just said, but instead they saw Recovery Girl there with her back to them and speaking in a frustrated voice. "I cannot allow this. He still needs-"

"I don't like it either," another voice said, and a man walked into the doorway who all of the students recognized.

"Aizawa sensei?" Midoriya wondered, while the man in the entrance turned to look over Recovery Girl and into the room.

Zach made eye contact with his homeroom teacher who was frowning more than usual today, which was saying a lot. _Oh, that could be how they got the gloves on me,_ Zach wondered, glancing back to his right hand again.

"Hey, what's going on?" Kaminari asked, his voice raising with some panic in it that made Zach spin back the other way.

Recovery Girl hummed angrily under her breath, but she had to move out of the way for the men in the doorway with Aizawa. "Aizawa sensei?" Yaoyorozu questioned, stepping back towards the man with long black hair.

"You four need to get out of here," Aizawa said.

"What is this?" Todoroki asked, not moving from his place next to Zach's bed as he glared at the other men who walked in with Aizawa.

"Zach Sazaki," the man who walked in directly behind Aizawa began. Another two police officers behind this man walked in and towards the foot of Zach's bed, and the kid's eyes opened wide as he saw one of them carrying a large black box with him. Zach spun back towards the other man, spotting Recovery Girl with a frustrated look off to the side, looking down and shaking her head. The police officer with a full brown beard and a stern demeanor continued while holding up a piece of paper, "I have a warrant for your arrest. Please come quietly."

"For what?!" Kaminari shouted at the cop.

"Kaminari," Aizawa snapped in a harsh tone.

"And what are you doing here sensei?" Kaminari asked, turning angrily to the man who just told him to be quiet with that scolding voice.

"I just learned about this myself," Aizawa replied.

"Wh-What about the school's…" Zach started, spinning to the men on his right who stopped before reaching for his right arm. He spun back to the officer who held up a warrant and he said in a panicked and confused voice, "The school statement? The press conference?"

"This matter is out of your school's hands," the officer said. "Besides, you are not under arrest for joining the League of Villains. We currently accept U.A.'s statement on that matter. However, in the cases of the deaths of Atsuhiro Sako, and Shindeki Buda, you are charged with unlawful use of your Quirk, use of a Quirk without a Hero License, and thereby, two counts of homicide." Zach's bottom lip dropped, and his eyes darted from the cop to Aizawa, to Recovery Girl, over to the other police officers on his right and then the ones at the door.

All at once Zach's four classmates started arguing with the cops. Aizawa started yelling at them all, but Zach's mind was filling with white noise and he just lay back with huge eyes. His head turned to the right again and he did not move his arm as the two officers put the black box over it and then shut it over his hand. They undid his straps next, before pulling the blanket over his body down. He heard Aizawa yelling at the others, scolding them and saying that this was not a guilty verdict, but that they had enough evidence for a trial. _Am I-_ Zach thought. The relief, the waves of relief he felt when Kaminari and the others told him the good news, it was all reversing and panic was pushing down on his whole body.

He kind of noticed some cops helping him to his feet, and though he winced as he got up, the fact that he could move meant that they could take him from there. His wrists were cuffed behind his back, and Aizawa walked up to his left side as they started outside and down the halls of the hospital. Doctors and nurses moved off to the sides along with other patients, and Zach saw other police officers farther down the hall. _What is happening?_ He thought, his heart pounding and his head turning to face Aizawa. "Don't say a thing. They're vultures out there."

 _What?_ Zach thought in confusion. He heard a cop reading him off his rights behind him, and then he saw the front doors and through them. They were led down to them, out the doors, and then Zach's eyes opened wide. He stared down towards the street just in front of the hospital's front doors, but around the cop cars that were there, other vehicles had just pulled up. There were not many of them, but reporters were rushing up towards him and some of the cops moved out to intercept and keep them back. "I don't, I was just-" he spun to Aizawa, then the cop on his right who he thought might see what he was trying to say.

"Zach Sazaki! Why did you do it?"

"Did you really get captured, or did you…"

"How does it feel to have killed two people now?"

Zach spun around and looked at the reporters calling out and trying to get a statement from him. He was being led down the steps towards the cop cars that seemed so close, but he could hear and see so much before he reached them. He saw to his left over the heads of some cops and reporters he was about to walk to, a few people who had just arrived at the hospital together and were staring over with wide eyes. _Asui, Aoyama, Uraraka,_ Zach's lips trembled as he saw them, staring at him with his hands cuffed, being led away like, like a villain.

"Why did you kill another person?"

"Do you think it's okay to kill villains?!"

"Do you think yourself above the law?!"

The door to the cop car slammed shut and Zach sat there with a dropped jaw and shocked expression on his face. He turned and looked back out the windows, seeing flashing cameras and the looks of so many people facing towards him. There were tv cameras there too, and Zach's eyes started shaking at the sight of them pointed towards the cop car. He turned back forward as the vehicle started driving, taking him, somewhere. What just happened played over and over again in his mind. It all felt like a blur. It happened so fast. His back hurt. He stared straight ahead and through the divider where there were two cops in the front seats, then he turned left and looked at another officer who had gotten in the car with him. He looked down to stare at his hand, but then he remembered that his hands were cuffed behind his back as he felt the shooting pain of trying to pull his right arm to his front. Zach winced and then just stared down at his lap with huge eyes and a terrified and stunned look on his face.

 _Oh shit._

* * *

 **A/N Thanks for reading. Zach's, in a bit of trouble... Hope you enjoyed. Leave a review telling me what you think, or predictions for the coming trial!**


	19. Chapter 19: Trial

**Chapter 19:**

Zach was led into a room and the police officer behind him told him to lift his arms. His wrists were cuffed in front of him now, and he rose them for the cop to take off. "You have fifteen minutes," the man said, then he stepped back and closed the door.

The woman at the table in front of Zach stood on the side of it and she motioned for him to come take a seat. "I'm sorry I could not get you in here sooner. Yours is a high profile case though, and they tried to say you were too dangerous to keep us from talking- anyway, my name is Rivera Hanuri, I am your defense attorney." The woman had purple skin with white dots on her face that looked like freckles. Her hair was orange and tied back behind her in a single braid, and she wore a professional-looking black suit and long matching skirt.

Zach walked forward hesitantly and to the chair she had motioned at. "This must all be very scary for you," Rivera began to the boy she did not back away from as he took his seat. She leaned down towards him and continued, "Have they been treating you right? How are conditions where you've been being held?"

"Okay, I guess," Zach said, getting confused by the questions. The lawyer frowned at his response though, hoping for a different answer as cruel as it would be to him. "Are you- going to get me out of here?" Zach asked, his voice nervous and his eyes darting around the room.

"If you mean, defend your actions in court, then yes," Rivera replied, while walking around the table and sitting on the other side of him. Zach stared at her in confusion, and she sighed but then started explaining fast to the boy who did not seem to understand what was going on. "Here's the quick rundown. You're being tried as a minor, so don't worry about any massive punishment or anything. Also, this case is getting a lot of fanfare, so already there are a large number of people supporting that you be released right away."

"Really?" Zach asked, hope filling his eyes.

His lawyer nodded, but then she frowned and the boy's mouth lowered back down at the corners. "Then again, there are a lot of people who are also against you. However, the majority of those people are not calling for very harsh punishments either, so take a deep breath and relax a little." Zach tried doing as she said, but after his deep breath the lawyer could see he was just as tense as ever. She hummed though and then continued, as time was short, "They've got you on a lot of charges. I wish I could tell you this case is in the bag, because I personally feel like you shouldn't be being prosecuted," she frowned more and added, "but, this case is difficult. Since it's two separate cases, and the villains you- killed, were in two different incidents…"

"Huh?" Zach said, his voice confused and his head tilting to the side. "Two, 'different' incidents?" He asked.

Rivera started staring at him confusedly now, and she nodded her head while wondering what he was thinking. As his lawyer though, she did not want to know what he was thinking there, and she just explained to him, "Atsuhiro Sako was the villain known as Compress, or Mr. Compress." Zach nodded his head slowly, thinking on the man he spun around and smacked his hand across during the battle. His eyes lowered to the table, imagining talking with that man in the few days he had known him. "The other, Shindeki Buda, was the name of the villain from the USJ Incident who-"

Zach's eyes opened huge and his bottom lip lowered, as he suddenly remembered that name. He thought about the news programs, and he whispered, " _Him?_ " He thought about the picture that would sometimes pop up on the news after, and again after the Sports Festival. _I always just ignored when they'd talk about him. I didn't want to think of him, as a… I didn't want to humanize him. I just thought of him as, "a villain," in my head. But, if it was those two, then what about…_

"Yes," Rivera replied. "I know you thought that case was dropped, however your prosecutors this time are the same ones who attempted to get you charged last time. They were unable to find substantial evidence then to pursue a case against you, but with the Camino Ward incident added on top of it, they were able to charge you with both. Unfortunately, since you were never charged the first time, this doesn't fall under the category of being charged twice with the same crime. Instead, with the time they were given to find evidence on you for this incident, they say they uncovered enough evidence to charge you with Buda's death as well."

Zach lifted his hands to run them through his hair, but he winced in pain as he hit himself with the box on his right hand. "Ow," he muttered after a second of the lawyer looked at him worriedly.

She cracked a smile at the boy and then she leaned forward with a more serious look on her face, "Now that you're all caught up. We have to talk about what we're going to do for your defense. I already have some things ready to back you up. Previous cases with precedent about self-defense and the use of Quirks, but because this is the second time, and because there is speculation over the nature of your business being in the location of the second incident, I feel we could use some character witnesses."

"What do you mean?" Zach wondered, but he already had a bad feeling about this.

"People who will back up the fact that you're not a villain. People who will tell the court that you were just doing what you needed to, that you're a hero! You're a student at the prestigious U.A. High School. Already many people doubt that someone who goes there would do these things if they did not have to, but if there are people who start backing that up by talking about the type of person you are too." Rivera smiled at him, and Zach saw a long, thin tongue in her mouth slide across the top of her bottom row of teeth. She finished while lifting her purple hands in front of her, "Then the court will understand that you only did the things you needed to."

 _Oh damn, oh man, oh geez…_ Zach lifted his left hand and started scratching the side of his head. The lawyer in front of him started talking about how she already had a few ideas for character witnesses, but Zach was sweating badly. _Character witnesses? I'm screwed! She's talking about my classmates! Even the ones who think I did the right thing though, they'll have to go up on the stand and take an oath to tell the truth if they do. They'll have to tell things about me. They'll have to, talk about what I said back in the forest…_ "Wait a second," Zach whispered. Rivera looked at the boy wondering why he was stopping her, and he lifted his gaze back to her eyes. "Is the prosecution, going to question anyone from my class?"

"Most likely," Rivera replied. She did not like how nervous the boy looked with that question, but she continued anyway, "As well as whoever we call up, who they can cross-examine, they can call up their own witnesses as well."

 _Am I, really going to be okay?_ Zach thought. _Let's see. I thought, I had gotten away with the stuff I did. But what did I really do that they can get me on? I was defending myself against the villains, for sure, but she said that the circumstances around why I was protecting myself that second time are shaky. What does she mean by that? What is the speculation over why I was there? Are they going to ask if I voluntarily went with the villains? If I say no, that I felt forced into going, would- would I be lying? And even if I do say that, will my classmates back me up? I think they will after what I heard at the hospital…_ Zach's lips started trembling and he lifted his left hand and put it in front of his face. "I- I don't think I can-"

"You're going to be alright," his lawyer said, her voice firm. Zach lowered his hand and looked at the woman in surprise, and she gave him a serious look back to get him to calm down. "Let's get back to it. You'll have time to freak out later on your own, but while we're together we need to work. Now, your neighbors have already contacted me. John and Mary Akers, as well as-"

"Don't bring her into court," Zach interrupted, his eyes narrowing down angrily as he said it.

Rivera lifted her eyebrows in some surprise, then she countered him, "It could really help. Jenny-"

"I don't care what her parents told you, or what she said, or anything," Zach said. "Do not, bring her into court. Tell the Akers I'm happy they want to help me, but tell them I do not want Jenny here."

Rivera frowned but she nodded. "Alright then. Well, next we have your teachers. They've only known you for the same amount of time as your fellow students, but unlike your classmates, they've known about your Quirk the entire time. They have seen you interact with classmates and in hero environments without using your Quirk every day, responsibly. I'm sure each of them will have something to say-"

"Don't call up All Might," Zach said. Rivera frowned at him again, a hesitant look on her face. "I mean it," Zach continued, his breathing picking up. "If All Might is up there, he has to tell the truth and the whole truth, right? He can't lie?!" Rivera leaned back at that question, but she nodded her head at him again. "Then he can't go up there."

"Why not?" She asked him.

Zach frowned and kept his mouth shut for a few seconds, then he glanced down and bit hard. "There's, lawyer- criminal confidentiality right?"

"Attorney-client privilege, but yes," Rivera replied.

"Alright," Zach whispered. He lifted his head to look into his lawyer's eyes, and he said, "If the prosecutors ask All Might, when he first met me, as I bet is probably a question they could totally ask, All Might would have to tell them…" Zach hesitated, then he took a deep breath and he said, "That, he saved my life, when I was eight years old." His lawyer stared at him in surprise, then she leaned back with a pained expression as Zach looked down and continued, "I had jumped off my roof. I just- wanted to end it, but All Might he- he saved me. And then, he told me," he grimaced and did not know if he should keep going, but this lawyer seemed professional and like she would not repeat it to anyone. "He told me I could be a hero." Zach lifted his head and stared into Rivera's dark eyes and the blue irises in the middle of them, "If people find that out, they might start blaming All Might for what I've done. I- I can't let All Might…" Zach purses his lips and shook his head around.

His lawyer stared at him in surprise for a few moments, then she sighed and frowned deeply after letting that set in. "I'm sorry, Zach," she said. He lifted his gaze in confusion, and she continued in a low voice, "But the prosecution has already called All Might as a witness." Zach's eyes bulged, and Rivera continued, "There's nothing I can do about it. And there's nothing I can do to influence what questions the prosecution asks. If I try and get them not to say something, they'll only want to say it more."

"No," Zach whispered, looking down and staring at the table in fear. _Everything? Is this, is everything going to come out? I don't want this. I don't want, to be on the news. I hate this! Why is this happening?! I was just, trying to help people!_ Zach's face scrunched up and his teeth clenched in frustration.

"You're time is up."

Zach spun around towards the doors, his eyes huge. "That was fifteen minutes?" He whispered.

"Don't worry," his lawyer started from behind him. Zach looked back while the cop walked towards him, and Rivera had gotten out of her seat and was giving him an encouraging look. "We'll have another chance to talk before the trial. When they bring you in I'll have some time with you, tell you all I have. While you're gone though, before I see you again," the officer behind Zach told him to lift his hands to get the cuffs back on. Zach turned to him and did as the cop said, but he looked over his shoulder as his lawyer continued, "I want you to think about whether or not you'll be willing to go up on the stand yourself. Remember, you have the right not to incriminate yourself, but if you can go up there and answer questions honestly, it'll go a long way to proving to everyone your innocence."

 _Testify? Should I…_ Zach breathed heavily but he nodded his head at her to show he understood. He then turned and followed the officer back out of the room, his hands once again cuffed. He was led back down the hall outside the room he could meet his lawyer in, walking past cells on either side of him. The officer brought him back down to his own. A loud buzzer went off and the bars opened up for him. And Zach stepped inside and the cop took his cuffs off once again.

The bars closed behind him with the sound of another buzzer, then the boy in an orange jumpsuit took a seat on his small bed up against the wall. He sat on it and stared across his cell at the sink attached to the wall, and at the mirror over it. He put his elbows down on his knees and lowered his chin down on top of the box on his right hand. Zach Sazaki stared in the mirror and he saw sad eyes staring back at him. "Why is this happening?" He whispered.

Zach stared at himself, and he had the sudden urge to touch his face and see. He could not do it with the box around his right hand, but he wanted to really look at himself in that form. For the first time, he did not feel afraid of it. _What am I thinking about at a time like this?_ He thought, shaking his head to get the thought out of his mind. He refocused on the mirror and narrowed his gaze. _If I testify against myself, I won't perjure myself. I, I'm not a criminal, so I don't need to. If I tell them the truth, will I really be let free though?_ Zach stared at himself even more afraid, and he started thinking faster. _Why wouldn't I be? I only did, the right thing. Every time! I did what I thought was right. Even the villain at USJ, how can they say that's my fault?! I thought it was- but, but I was wrong! That guy was trying to kill us all. If Snipe hadn't shown up- but he did- But if he didn't! If he didn't, then what I did was the only thing to do. The teachers apologized. They said they were at fault for it. I didn't get charged! How can they charge me for it now, after all this time?!_

The kid lowered his head down more into his hand, then he lifted his left instead and put down the metal box so that he could actually rub around his face. He felt a headache coming on, and even though Recovery Girl had been to visit him once now, his back still hurt and he winced while laying on his back on the bed. His right side felt mostly better though, so that was one plus side out of all this. Zach lay flat on his back and he lifted the box up over his body, staring at it with a dark look on his face. "If I tell the truth, I shouldn't get in trouble. I- helped people. Kirishima, Vlad-sensei… the others who Dabi and Ganeshi were threatening too…" Zach trailed off his muttering, then he stared at his right arm even closer. _Ganeshi,_ he thought. _No one's said a thing about him. I know I saw him collapse, but, but what is it? Is it because All Might's punch threw me into him? Is it that I'm not actually responsible, that it wasn't intentional that time? Or, or did he escape? Do I ask? Do I bring attention to the fact that I killed someone else? That I- probably, killed someone else…_

Zach's frown deepened farther and he spun, standing up next to his bed again and glaring into the mirror. _What did I do?! Why am I here?!_ He pursed his lips at his reflection in the mirror, then he turned and started pacing back and forth in his cell. He walked from his toilet to the bars and then back again, dozens of times while his thoughts were racing. _Compress. The villains. Shigaraki said that they were going to kill me. But, that was after I killed Compress- but still! They were going to. They knew I wanted Bakugo out of there, they wouldn't have forgiven that. And I stopped Magne, and, and I was trying to help All Might. They knew I was their enemy, and they were going to kill me! The other villain too. How is protecting yourself a crime?! Protecting others?! If I didn't go with them, they would have kept attacking the camp. They might have killed someone else, or maybe they wouldn't have given me the time to bring back Kirishima! They only didn't make a move during that because I gave it as one of my conditions. And then I, then I said those things to my classmates._ Zach lifted his left hand and scratched it over the top of his head over and over again. He started grumbling to himself and then muttering, then he growled aloud, "Why did I say all that?"

 _I should have just left them in silence. Dabi made that wall of flames anyway. I didn't need to say all that stuff. Why did I have to say it?! I made myself sound like such a villain, in front of my classmates. In front of people I don't know well. In front of a hero, and Monoma… Monoma came to help though. It was for me, it had to be. Because I told him I didn't forgive him- I put him in danger! But, but if I didn't say that, then Mt. Lady wouldn't be alive right now! So another good decision! All those choices I made, they weren't bad ones! They saved people! Even if some of them were unnecessary, even if I didn't do as much good as I thought I would, I didn't just go there to get in the way. There were reasons! I was a target, and I went because if I had stayed, they would have kept killing my classmates! That's why I went, and everything that happened after that, is a result of that decision! That's the story I'm sticking with. And that's the truth._

* * *

Zach sat at the front of a courtroom. He could hear a lot of people talking behind him, but he did not want to look back there. He knew there was a camera there too, at least one. He did not want his face televised. For as long as he could keep it off camera, he wanted to. He sat in a black suit, with Rivera at his side wearing the same formal attire she wore to visit him a few days before. To his left, past a gap in front of the aisle of seating rows going back through the courtroom, was another table like the one he and Rivera sat behind. Behind that table though, there were two men who kept darting Zach looks that made him feel very nervous. They each had light skin and broad shoulders, one of them with a sharpened jaw-line and the other's a fatter one, and the one with a fat jaw was a little larger around the stomach too.

"The prosecution," Rivera whispered to him, leaning her head close to the boy who was pretending to stare forward instead of to his left. He could see lots of folders and files in front of them, sheets of paper that they started writing on after looking towards him which only made him more nervous. "They're good," his lawyer whispered. Zach felt nervous, then he turned to the right as Rivera added, "But I'm better." He looked at her, and the woman winked at him.

Zach felt a small bit of relief at Rivera's confidence. Added with the conversation they had before coming out here, he knew they had a solid defense lined up for him. _The truth,_ he thought, his head turning to a door behind the front area that just opened up. There were two boxes on either side of a huge wooden podium, one of which he knew was the stand and was right in front of him, and the other had a short man in glasses sitting behind a computer to write down everything that happened in there. The stenographer started typing quickly as an officer on the side of the room called out that Judge Wilson was presiding over the trial. The bailiff called out the charges, then added that Zach was being charged as a minor.

The judge walked up and sat behind the tallest part of the room, sitting at the desk that looked like a podium from down where Zach was sitting. He gulped as he looked up at the dark-skinned walrus man who had long tusks sticking out of his top row of teeth and dipping down below his chin. His arms also turned into brown flippers towards the hands, but those flippers were also covered in brown fur just like the sides of his head. He was a large, and intimidating figure, and Zach wondered what type of Quirk he had that made him look like this. "Zach Sazaki, versus the People of Japan," Judge Wilson began. He turned towards the prosecution and said, "I'll take opening statements now."

Zach sat there nervously and watched as one of the two prosecutors, the man with the sharp jaw-line, walked up and started speaking in a high-pitched voice that sounded like a woman's. The man accused him of killing two people, acting outside of the law, attempting to take it into his own hands, and using his Quirk without a Hero License. And with every extra thing he added, Zach slouched farther into his seat, because he did not feel like the prosecutor was lying. The prosecution finished strong, claiming that Zach Sazaki had proven in a short few months that he cannot be trusted as a hero, ending with, "What kind of hero, kills every villain he comes across? What kind of person does this?"

The boy and his defense attorney both heard with that last sentence that the prosecutor was hinting at something, but he finished his opening statements and only made Zach more nervous as he left that up in the air. _What is he going to say about me? What are they going to tell everyone?! I'm getting blasted right now!_ Rivera stood up and she started talking, and Zach slid back up out of his seat, sitting straight up with wide eyes as his attorney started emphatically calling out on his behalf and swinging her arms towards him in a dramatic fashion. _Whoa,_ he thought, as she suddenly got very into this at only the opening statements. "…without any choice of his own, the defendant was forced into terrible situations where his life was in danger. He acted not only accordingly, not only in a way that protected himself, but in a heroic fashion, saving his fellow classmates and himself. This trial should never have been called. Zach Sazaki, has done nothing wrong."

Rivera walked back over to the table and sat next to Zach who stared at her with wide eyes, then a smile. "That was great," he whispered to her, unable to keep his mouth shut like she suggested he do before they entered. She gave him a small half-smile back, but then she looked away indicating that he should still stay quiet. Zach spun to the prosecutors who were whispering to each other and motioning at their papers, then the one with the fat jaw stood up as Judge Wilson asked for their first witness.

"The prosecution calls Sekijiro Kan, commonly known by his pro hero name, Vlad King, to the stand."

Zach spun to the aisle behind him, and he started sweating as he looked towards the muscular man with short spiky gray hair. It was not just Vlad King who made him nervous though, but the other people he noticed sitting around that man who just stood up who had him feeling tense. The other U.A. faculty were all sitting around him, all wearing suits just like Vlad King was. _What day is it?! Is there school- oh wait, it's still summer. Still, all the teachers, they're pro heroes too. Shouldn't some of them be out on the streets or something? Why did everyone,_ Zach only looked a few rows back, but he was too nervous to look any farther after seeing the teachers, so he just followed Class-B's homeroom teacher as he walked up and then through the gap between the defense and prosecution's tables.

Vlad King glanced down at the boy on his right as he walked past, and they shared a similar look that said neither of them wanted to be there. The teacher and pro hero walked up to the stand and took a seat before fidgeting around in his chair that seemed too small for the muscular hero to sit in. He was quickly sworn in to make sure that he only told the truth while he was up there. "Vlad King," the prosecutor began as he walked up. The man with a chubby chin held out a hand and said as if it were obvious, "As a pro hero, one would assume that you have above average judgement when it comes to villains, situations where villains are involved, and a better insight than most as to the mindset of a villain."

"I don't know if I'd say that," Vlad began.

The prosecutor was not asking a question there though, and he just continued once the hero stopped, "Well, whether you think so or not, us citizens believe in your judgements. As a hero, we take what you say very seriously. So could you tell us, the events that led up to Zach Sazaki going with the villains on the third night of the U.A. summer training camp?"

The way the prosecuting attorney worded that statement unnerved Zach. _"Going with," not "being taken by." He knows what he said too. Why does Vlad King look so nervous? Come on sensei, say something good!_

"The villains attacked us at base camp," Vlad King began. "We had received information from Mandalay's Telepath, informing us of the situation, and Eraser Head went out to gather students and send them back to camp. However, one of the two targets of the villains' attack was at the camp-"

"And why was Zach Sazaki there at the time? Why was he not out with the other students?"

Vlad King frowned, but he answered truthfully, "Along with a group of other students, he was taking extra lessons."

"For what reason did they need the extra lessons?"

"Objection, your Honor," Rivera called out, standing out of her chair. "Relevance to the case."

"I'll allow it, but make this the end of this track of questioning," Judge Wilson said, nodding at the defense attorney and then the prosecutor who smiled and nodded back. It was his last part on this line of questioning anyway.

The U.A. teacher kept frowning at the lawyer in front of him. _I know it's his job, but,_ Vlad sighed mentally but responded aloud, "The students taking extra lessons needed them because they failed the Final Exam."

The prosecuting lawyer nodded, then he stepped back and took a pause to show he was getting back on track. In a deep voice the chubby-chinned man continued, "Alright, please continue with your recollection of the night's events."

"We were attacked," Vlad said, getting frustrated but keeping his cool as he paraphrased. "They broke into the classroom, and the initial attack caused a lot of injuries among myself and the students. When they entered the room, one of them mentioned how they were targeting Zach Sazaki, so he backed away from the broken wall. I started to fight the villains, and at that time, Mandalay used her Telepath to inform everyone that Eraser Head had given the students permission to use their Quirks. Still, even with myself and the students facing them," he grimaced and looked so frustrated as he continued, "we were unable to stop the villains." He paused, then he turned to the boy staring at him from the table right in front of the stand, "Zach Sazaki, went with the villains to prevent them from killing the other students and myself. They were too strong, and he-"

"But that is not what you said in your initial report, is it?" the prosecutor in front of Vlad King cut in. "I understand that at the time, you were not under oath. But when you first talked to the police about the incident, you had a different outlook on the events that transpired."

Vlad did not say anything, but he had to start avoiding Zach's gaze so he just glared at the prosecutor instead. "Instead of have you repeat what you said back then though, I'll just read the report myself and you can tell me if that's really what you thought back then. You had said, after your treatment and you had come back into consciousness, that Zach Sazaki left with the villains of his own accord. You claimed back then as you do now, that he may have done so in order to save you and the other students who were there. However, you were not sure of yourself and added, that you thought there was a chance that Zach Sazaki had actually joined with the villains. Isn't that correct?" The lawyer's voice rose in pitch towards the end like he was surprised by what he was reading, which only made Vlad frown deeper at the lawyer in front of him.

"Yes," Vlad replied after a few seconds' hesitation.

"Why did you think that?" The prosecutor asked.

"He was," Vlad began. "Very convincing, however he needed to be in order to trick the villains."

"He made, a convincing villain," the prosecutor said, taking a step back from the stand and putting his hands together behind his back. "Perhaps it was in order to trick the villains. But from the same police reports of that night, we have several eye witnesses of what Zach Sazaki said that managed to convince even a pro hero that he had 'switched sides.' Those eye witness accounts claimed to have seen Zach Sazaki smirking 'villainously,' or 'menacingly,'" he put up air quotes both times, and Zach looked down at the table in front of him, wondering which of his classmates had said those things about him. "And even more," the prosecutor continued, "some of the things he had said, sounded remarkably similar to the villains' ideology, yet he had compared that ideology into his own life. Using the words of the Hero Killer: Stain, Zach Sazaki claimed that this hero society we live in is a sham. Hmph," the lawyer shook his head and then turned to look at the young man behind the table who lifted up his gaze to meet the chubby-chinned guy's. "How can one expect to be a hero, when they don't even believe in the society they're trying to be a part of?"

The prosecutor turned back to Vlad King, and he told the hero that he had no further questions. It was time for Rivera's turn, and as much as Zach wanted to whisper some things to her to prepare after all that, she stood up right away in a confident way that made him feel like he did not need to worry. She marched up to the stand, and she said straight away, "Vlad King, would you agree with my client, that many of the people who joined the League of Villains likely did so because of the Hero Killer's ideology?"

"I would," Vlad responded.

"So wouldn't using the Hero Killer's own words, be a great way to convince the villains that he was really on their side?" She asked. Vlad once again agreed with her, and he smiled as he responded affirmatively. Rivera turned after those two simple questions, and she began while facing the rest of the courtroom, "Zach Sazaki went with the villains, yes. No one is arguing the fact that he left with them. However, the prosecution would have you believe he did this because he's secretly evil. This child, attending the most prestigious hero school in our country, is not the villain the prosecution wants to make him out to be. Seeing the situation was out of the hands of his teacher and classmates, my client chose to leave with them and prevent the bloodshed of anyone else trying to protect him. If he had just run out with the villains though, his classmates would have chased him and tried to stop the villains who they were given permission to fight. So in order to protect his classmates, and put the villains off guard, the defendant tricked everyone around him into thinking that he was the bad guy. If you step back and look at the situation, he managed to take what could have been an incident with several fatalities, and ended it without any loss of life. He not only kept his classmates from chasing after him, but he went as far as to convince the villains he was leaving with that he was switching sides. Unfortunately, he was a little too convincing," Rivera said and cracked a smile while looking back at Vlad who scratched the side of his head at her look.

"Still, to be able to trick even a pro hero," Rivera continued while looking back into the courtroom. "As the prosecution says, pro heroes have above average insight. So to convince even Vlad King. To make decisions in such a chaotic scenario, decisions that saved lives." She chuckled and then finished while looking towards Zach, "I for one am impressed by Zach Sazaki's actions. Instead of punishing him, he should be praised for defusing that situation without any _more_ of his classmates losing their lives."

"Objection," the prosecutor with the sharper chin stood up. He shook his head while looking towards Rivera Hanuri, then looked to the judge and said, "None of the students lost their lives at the U.A. training camp."

Rivera turned to Vlad before the judge could say anything about the complaint. "Would you agree with that statement?" She questioned.

Judge Wilson paused, then he turned to his left at the man sitting there and a little below him. Vlad looked hesitantly at the woman before him, then to his right at the judge, then out into the courtroom again. "I, don't-" he paused, then he looked into Zach's confused eyes and began again, "I do not know what I saw. I was, at the time, badly injured. However, what I did see, was Zach Sazaki using his Quirk to seal a hole in another student's chest. It was a life-threatening injury, if not, already a fatal one…" Vlad faded off, frowning more as he thought back on it. "But I do not know, whether or not the boy's heart had stopped before Sazaki stepped in."

"Alright," Rivera said, accepting the answer. "To clarify though, for the record. If my client had not stepped in, the other student would be dead right now?"

"I believe so," Vlad responded.

"And it was in order to save this classmate, that Zach Sazaki first called out to the villains?" Rivera questioned.

Vlad nodded then responded slower, "I, think so."

It was not a strong reaction, but Rivera nodded at the sound of it anyway. Then, a voice shouted from far back in the courtroom, "THAT'S RIGHT!"

Everyone in all the rows spun their heads, Rivera looked back and Vlad sweatdropped but leaned to the side a little to look back there. Zach just bowed his head though, looking down and shaking his head even as he could not keep the corners of his lips from curling up a small amount. The judge started banging his gavel, but the voice in the back of the room continued yelling, "Zach saved my life! He brought me back!" _Kirishima,_ Zach thought, trying so hard not to smile considering the courtroom was getting loud and turning more chaotic. _Thank you,_ Zach thought, lifting his head with a more confident look on his face now.

"No further questions your honor," Rivera said while the room was still loud, though Kirishima's shouting voice was getting farther away as he was taken out of the courtroom.

Vlad King was allowed to leave the stand, and the courtroom settled down pretty quickly. Zach knew his classmate had been led out, but now he wished he had turned when everyone else did. _Who else is here? Are they all in the back of the room? Or was Kirishima going to be a witness so they called him here? I know some of the witnesses already, but she said the prosecution could have others hidden up their sleeves. I can handle this though._

The next one up on the stand was Aizawa Shouta. He was introduced as "the defendant's homeroom teacher," then they added "Eraser Head" afterwards. As they asked Aizawa to describe the USJ incident followed by the training camp in the woods, Zach started wondering something. _Are they going to call up any of my classmates? I feel like the others have all talked to each other enough by now, that no one would really help the prosecution out… I don't know. I hope not. I told Rivera I didn't want to bring any of them up here either though, even though she said they would make good character witnesses. I just don't, I don't want them talking about-_ Zach thought about what he shouted at the villains before putting his right hand to his chest. He thought about the number of people who saw him do that. He wondered about the other things he said before he entered Kurogiri's portal, or before he left with Dabi and Ganeshi at the start. _They sound like they know all about that already, but I can at least keep some things about myself from being televised to the whole world._

"…and when you returned to the classroom, what did you do next?" The prosecutor with the sharp chin asked. He grinned after asking it, but Aizawa kept frowning while glaring right back into his eyes and the lawyer got a bead of sweat on the side of his face.

Aizawa responded though, "When I heard the situation, I ran out into the woods to find Sazaki."

"Leaving the rest of your students without a hero to protect them?" The prosecuting attorney asked.

Aizawa glared at the man harder, then he began in a low and annoyed voice, "The villains had just left the area. If they planned on causing harm to those left behind at camp, why would they have left in the first place? I had to put priority on the student I knew was in danger first." The prosecutor nodded at Aizawa, and the hero grimaced before glancing back towards Zach. He continued, "I rushed through the woods, until I came upon a group of students in a clearing. It was the area where Katsuki Bakugo and Zach Sazaki were taken from."

"Where the portal-user appeared," the prosecutor specified, wording the end of what Aizawa said differently. Then he continued before Aizawa could make the remark that he opened his mouth to say, "How long, would you say it was between when the portal-user disappeared and you came out into the clearing?"

Aizawa held his tongue, then he said in a low voice, "I don't know."

"Well, the police reports taken from a few of the students in that clearing, say very clearly that you arrived within a minute of the villains' departure," the prosecutor said. "So we'll go with, under a minute," the lawyer said, shrugging his shoulders like he had hoped for a better, more specific, answer from Aizawa. He sounded satisfied with the time he already had though, and then he continued while turning back to the courtroom, "In the reports made by the students who Eraser Head came across in that clearing, the prosecution noticed something strange. Every one of the villains had already gone through the portal, leaving the accused behind. This is where those rumors originated from I'm sure, because, even though there were no more villains around, Zach Sazaki attacked his classmate, and then he stepped through the portal on his own. He was not coerced, and he had a choice," the other prosecutor walked up to the judge's stand and handed up some papers with the police reports on them.

"Now, we did not call those students up today," the sharp-faced attorney continued while the judge read over some reports. "Because in the time they've had since the event, the students have talked to each other. They've talked to the defendant, and he has given them his reasons. I don't imagine the emotion-based responses we would get out of them now, in attempts to help a classmate, would paint an accurate picture of the events that transpired that night. But what they reported, what they told the police directly after seeing Mr. Sazaki's actions, it is far from heroic."

"Am I done up here?" Aizawa questioned the prosecutor's back, interrupting what was about to be a dramatic pause.

The attorney frowned as that took away some of the drama he meant to end that statement on. He lifted the corners of his lips again though as he turned, "Yes, but one last thing." The prosecution's grinning faces did not give Aizawa a good feeling, and he knew he was right to feel that way as the man in front of him asked, "Do you think Zach Sazaki should keep trying to be a hero?"

Aizawa glared hard into the lawyer's eyes, but they did not falter this time. The pro hero frowned deeply, glancing behind the lawyer to the kid behind the table whose bottom lip had lowered at the question. Zach started glaring at the lawyer's back after a few seconds. _How? Alright, alright no, it makes sense. I shouted it, when I was shouting all that stuff at everyone, I shouted how Aizawa sensei gave me training he didn't think I could do. I knew he wanted me to quit-_

"It's not my place to decide," Aizawa started.

"But I want your opinion on it," the prosecutor said. He narrowed his eyes but kept smiling as he said, "Do you think Sazaki has what it takes to be a hero? Is he, hero material? Should he continue on this path? In your opinion," the lawyer added that at the end, and the dark haired hero before him let out a long sigh before frowning just as deep as before.

"No," Aizawa replied.

Aizawa expected the man to ask 'Why not' afterwards, but the lawyer just leaned back away from the stand and nodded his head. "Thank you. That is all."

Zach almost felt relieved that the prosecution did not go further into that question, but it unnerved him too much that they didn't. He watched hesitantly as the lawyer walked back to his table, while Zach's lawyer got up slowly at his side. Rivera started walking towards the stand, but she did not have a great feeling about this herself. She did not want to ask Aizawa why he thought Zach should not be a hero, but it was clearly set up with everyone in the room now waiting to hear what that reason was. "Eraser Head," she began. "You've been the defendant's homeroom teacher for a semester now, correct?" Aizawa nodded and gave an affirmative response. "In that time, has Zach Sazaki ever shown violent tendencies? Has he acted out in class? Or, been violent towards classmates outside of hero training exercises?"

"No," Aizawa replied.

"The statement given by U.A. is that Zach Sazaki is an 'aspiring hero and a bright student- not, a, villain.' Would you agree with that statement?" She questioned.

Aizawa paused for a moment. "He doesn't have the best grades, but they're not the worst either," Aizawa replied. "But I'd agree," he finished.

 _Is he calling me not bright? Or is he trying to tell me to study harder, if I get back into class? If I can get out of this, without going to prison forever…_ Zach shook his head, reminding himself that that was not going to happen.

"That is all," Rivera finished. Zach lifted his gaze to her in a bit of surprise that she ended it like that, but Rivera did not want to keep Aizawa on the stand any longer than necessary. She half expected the prosecution to stand up now and add in another question, but the judge just sent Aizawa off and asked for another witness.

This time, Rivera called forward a witness. She called forward John Akers, who she used as a character witness and asked all about Zach. Zach felt really awkward having Mr. Akers say all this good stuff about him, while he sat there right in front of the man. Mr. Akers was not hesitant at all though to respond to Rivera's questions in as long-winded a way as he could. Anecdotes about when Zach was a kid, how he acted around his daughter, the boy's ideology and how all he wants to do is be a hero and help people. Then, Zach felt the most relief ever as the prosecution said that they had no questions for the defendant.

 _I didn't want Jenny coming, but I'm glad they decided on just Mr. Akers being here. Hopefully that means Mrs. Akers is keeping Jenny from watching this. Is this being televised? I didn't want to ask, but I also just kind of figured the answer was yes._ Zach fidgeted around in the suit Rivera had gotten for him to wear during the trial. As Mr. Akers walked down from the stand and past Zach, the boy could only glance at his neighbor for a second before his mind wandered again.

The situation was weird, he knew that much from what he had seen on tv before. There was no bail hearing, since the case was happening so soon and apparently he had been considered enough of a danger. At the same time though, he was given liberties like not wearing cuffs, being allowed to change, but the fact that there was not even a jury there in the room really confused him at first. Apparently though, Rivera had told him before the trial had started, he was not up for jail time. He was relieved by that, while at the same time confused as to why the trial still needed to go on. She told him that the trial itself was more of a civil review, and that they were not trying to get a fine out of him if that's what he thought. It was too confusing for him to understand, and they had spent most of their time together planning a defense instead of talking about the results if he had failed. Rivera sounded confident to him that they would win, but Zach did not know how he felt about the judge's expression that had not changed very much through the trial except for when he got angry at Kirishima's outburst.

 _The judge holds my fate in his hands. He has a lot of power, but not just in determining my punishment. It's because the hero system is directly linked with the government, that this is so unnerving. He can say anything, give me all sorts of punishments. What if I get kicked out of U.A.? Is that a punishment a judge could give me? What about cutting off my hand- I really don't think… He could order that I have this box on my arm forever though._ Zach lowered his gaze, and he grimaced as he imagined a court order saying he could never remove the metal container. _They'd lock it and keep the key, and I'd be stuck with… I wouldn't be able to- it would be like losing my right arm altogether!_ Zach started sweating at the idea of it. _I wouldn't even be able to fight, not without the use of my right elbow… though I guess I could slam the metal box into villains' faces- no, no I'd never make it with something like that on my arm. And if they find me guilty, they'll never let me be a hero anyway. But what am I guilty of?!_

"The prosecution calls All Might to the stand." Zach spun his head to the left, and he dropped his mouth into a depressed frown. He knew it was coming. He had known for a while that All Might would be there, to testify against him, but he did not want to see it happen. He looked back forward and then down at the table in front of him. _Ohhhh man,_ he thought. _All Might, saw everything. He saw me smile and laugh, but all that- it was to unnerve the villains! I just, I did that stuff to buy myself time. I was just trying to help the situation…_

Zach froze and his thoughts cut off. His heart started pounding, and his body covered in sweat. _What have-_ he started, but could not finish the thought for a few seconds. _What have I been, thinking about? All this time? I didn't once- why wasn't I- why didn't anyone tell…_ Zach stared at the thin man with his blond hair pushed back, his right arm in a sling, both arms wrapped in bandages. _The whole world saw him like this, but, but why isn't he back in… Is that it? Did his time- did it run out? Did I? Was it because I took too long? Was it because of what I did? The choices I made? The Symbol of Peace is shattered… he's, he can't be a hero, like that. What was I thinking?_

All Might walked past Zach's table and he could not smile. Not at the look the boy on his right was giving him. The prosecution began by thanking All Might, telling him how everyone appreciated all he had done for them over the years and in the most recent battle. The sharp-jawed man spent a lot of time on it, making sure no one thought he was the bad guy for what he was about to question All Might with. "Alright then All Might, the prosecution only has one real question for you." After all the build up, most people in the court stared at the lawyer in surprise as he said that. All Might also gained a confused look on his face. He had been the closest one to Zach during the incident, and he had been at USJ too, so he thought they would have more to ask him about Zach's actions. "You have seen Mr. Sazaki up close in the most recent incident, you have been his teacher for months now, it's fair to say that you are well acquainted with the defendant. That is why my one question to you, the Symbol of Peace, our greatest hero, is: Do you think Zach Sazaki should be a hero?"

Zach's eyes opened huge. He stared at the lawyer's back, then as the man moved aside a bit he was able to lock eyes with All Might's wide ones as well. _He was sworn in,_ Zach thought. _And, I already know the answer. Unless, it changed… What would have changed it? Recklessly charging into a situation I knew nothing about?! Killing villains right in front of him?_ Zach's head bowed to look at the table, and then he clenched his eyes shut as All Might began, "Young Sazaki is a brave young man. And he is a bright student. At the summer training camp, those two things combined-"

"All Might, I'm sorry to interrupt," the attorney began in his feminine voice, in an apologetic tone as disingenuous as it seemed. "But do you think, the defendant should continue trying to be a hero? Do you think, if he continues on this path we really won't be back in this courtroom in another couple of months? That there won't be another body on our hands?" The man with the pointed jaw shook his head, then he said firmly, "Yes or no, All Might. Do you think, you personally, believe that Mr. Sazaki should be allowed to continue his attempts to be a hero?"

 _All Might,_ Zach thought, clenching his eyes tighter as he imagined the man looking at him. _"I do regret it." Don't do it All Might. Don't lie for me in-_ "No." All Might replied. Zach's eyes shot open and he stared at the top of the table in shock at the word that just came out of All Might's mouth. _Huh?_ Everything he was just telling himself, he was telling himself it because he thought he knew how All Might was going to respond. His head twitched, he heard the murmuring behind him, and he lifted his head slowly to face All Might again. _All, Might?_ Zach thought, as he stared at the man who had been his greatest hero since he was eight years old.

"Thank you," the prosecutor said, not following up on that question just as he had for Aizawa.

 _Young Sazaki,_ All Might thought as he stared into the boy's eyes. _I, am sorry._ He could see an actual light in Zach's eyes getting dimmer as the boy stared back at him. His expression did not look distraught, or full of dread; he just looked, darker.

Rivera started to get up, but Zach turned to her and said, "Don't." His lawyer looked back down at him, looked into Zach's eyes before the boy shook his head at her. _All Might, you don't need to stay here. You've already done, more than enough for me. You don't need to feel guilty. Don't do, a single other thing for me._ "Just, let him go," Zach said, his tone raising at the end with a tone that told his lawyer he really did not want the hero to answer a thing.

The defense attorney looked back towards All Might whose eyes widened as he heard what Zach said. After what he just told the court though, what he just said to everyone, there was nothing All Might could say to the boy who turned back and stared him in the eyes again. Rivera told the judge that she had no questions for the witness and took her seat again, and All Might was allowed to leave. _Right there,_ Zach thought, as All Might walked back towards the aisle on Zach's left. _Right there, is probably the moment I lost this. The man they all look up to. He sat there and told them not to let me be a hero. It wasn't in those words, but they are my teachers at U.A. They're the ones who are trying to make me into a hero, and they just told everyone that they don't think they can do it. They're telling me to stop trying, but I won't do it! It, it doesn't matter what you think anymore All Might! When I was eight, I needed you to tell me that I could accomplish my dream. And when I almost gave up, that first time, you came to me and told me that even though you didn't have faith, it was up to me to make my decisions! I chose to go back to U.A., and now, I'm going to stay! Jenny thinks of me as her hero. I saved my classmates! I saved Kirishima-_

"The prosecution calls Maye Sazaki to the stand."

Zach froze and his blood ran cold. "Aunt, Maye," he whispered, turning his head, then turning it the other way towards some doors on the side of the courtroom. She was led in, a thin woman with short black hair and sharp glasses. She wore a professional looking black dress-suit with a skirt, and she walked right up to the stand without needing to be led. Her eyes did not shift towards Zach as she walked, even though the boy was staring at the side of her face with wide, trembling eyes. _Why is she here? Why is the prosecution the ones who called her up? I told Ms. Hanuri not to call her, and she said she wouldn't. Did she-_ out the corner of Zach's eyes he saw Rivera shooting him a nervous look, as if wondering why Zach did not want to call her up if the prosecution thought it was a smart move to.

His aunt was sworn in and the prosecution began their assault, "Ms. Sazaki, would you please inform the court of your relationship with the defendant."

"His father, was my brother," Maye replied, making eye contact with the lawyer the whole time without ever turning towards the boy in question.

"Strange way to word that he's your 'nephew,'" the lawyer remarked. Maye's expression stayed flat and she kept staring through her glasses into the prosecutor's eyes without reacting. The chubby-chinned man coughed into his fist then continued, "You are the defendant's closest blood relative, is that correct?"

"It is," Maye replied.

"And you have known the defendant his entire life?"

"Yes," Maye said.

"Before these two incidents, were there signs that he would come to be in this situation right now? As a child, did you notice things about him that seemed, off? Or-"

"Yes," Maye answered.

Zach stared down at the table and his eyes were huge as he realized what was going on. _All those times I told myself we were still family. All those times I said I still loved her. She, she's really, this whole time…_

"He has? Hmm," the attorney turned around and he looked around the courtroom with a narrowing gaze. "I am going to read to you a direct statement from one of the police officers, Shu Yuriko, who saw the defendant immediately after the incident at USJ. Ahem," the lawyer lifted a sheet of paper and said, "'The boy's eyes were glazed over. He just repeated, "I killed him. I killed him. I didn't need to kill him, but I killed him," over and over. It was creepy as…' Well, I'll leave out the rest." The prosecutor lowered his sheet of paper, then he asked the court, "'I didn't need to kill him?' What did the defendant mean by that? Why would he have killed someone, if he didn't need to? If he wasn't forced to do it? Unless, he's not the hero the defense would have you believe."

The prosecutor turned back to Maye, and Zach twitched as he heard the following question, "The address listed for Zach Sazaki, the apartment is under your name, correct?"

"That is correct," Maye replied.

Zach started lifting his gaze with a nervous expression covering it.

"And you are his legal guardian?"

"Yes," Maye answered again.

"So then, do you live with the defendant?"

There was a few seconds of hesitation as Maye's eyes widened then narrowed at the prosecutor. "No." Maye's response made the court room fill with a strange tension in the following pause. People stared towards the woman in confusion, others glanced at each other wondering what she was talking about.

"You don't?" The prosecutor asked. Maye glared at him, but the man was no longer sweating under her gaze. "That, seems quite strange doesn't it? When exactly did you stop living with him?"

"I never," Maye started.

"'Never?'" The lawyer cut in faster than she could continue. "But I have here, that you have been Zach Sazaki's guardian for over five years now. Where have you been living all this time?"

"With my daughter, in Kabuchou City," Maye answered. She looked upset that she was saying this in front of the court, and Zach was getting increasingly nervous as even Maye was starting to look flustered. Her eyes darted around as she saw the looks of people in the rows of the courtroom start getting angry at her.

"So, you left a ten year old boy to live on his own? Is that what I'm hearing-"

"That's not- I still-" Maye started. Zach's eyes widened as he thought maybe his aunt was being forced into this, maybe she was regretting going up there in front of the court. She was starting to sweat, and he felt bad as he knew how this must look to everyone watching. Her voice started getting louder in her panic, and she snapped at the man in front of her, "I made sure, the bills and, and my card! I gave whatever necessary!"

"He is a child, and you left him on-"

" _That_ is not a child!" Maye shouted. Her hands clenched over the stand, and her eyes were wide behind her glasses as she glared at the prosecutor. She was panting, and she continued in an even louder voice, "How could I bring that thing into my house? I was expected to raise it, next to my daughter?!" Her breath picked up even more, then she hissed with a cold sweat covering her, "That monster?"

The courtroom erupted in noise. Even the prosecutor in front of the stand had wide eyes as he looked at the woman in front of him. She turned her gaze after that final statement though, and then she leaned back as if she just realized what she snapped in front of everyone. Except when she leaned back, she did it while staring at one figure who was glaring so angrily at her for what she just called him. That boy lost his furious gaze though, because when he locked eyes with Aunt Maye, she snapped back so fast that he could not help but drop his bottom lip. _She's, afraid of me? Has she always… Is that really why, she let me live on my own?! Oh my God! AHHHHH!_

The judge started slamming his gavel down to get the room under control. Teachers were shouting from some rows, other people were yelling out at Maye to explain herself. The prosecutor turned and despite a bead of sweat on his face, he was going to roll with what just happened. "If this is the way the defendant's closest family sees him, the person who knows him best in the world, how can we trust him? How are parents supposed to send their children to the dorms that U.A. is setting up for their students? How could they feel safe sending their children to live with someone who could kill them, who has a history of making bad choices that lead him to murder?"

"Mr. Jenkleman, I said order," Judge Wilson growled after slamming his wooden hammer down one more time. The chubby-chinned lawyer speaking over everyone else turned and nodded apologetically at the judge, and then the man behind the bench frowned as the room was still full of muttering and people looking like they wanted to shout things. He looked towards the defendant to see what the boy was thinking, to see what he looked like after all of that was said.

Rivera was also turned towards her client, and she began, "I'm going to cross-examine the crap out of her. She just admitted to negligence and child abuse and-"

"Call me up to the stand," Zach whispered. He turned his head and looked up into Rivera's eyes, a determined look on his face that shocked her. She thought the boy would be devastated, or crying after the shock she saw in his eyes at what the woman before them just said. "Everyone just saw my Aunt call me a monster. I'm the only one who can convince them otherwise now. So call me up there. I need to show them, I need to show everyone that I'm not what they're calling me. I need to defend myself."

"It's a risky move. You know the questions they're going to ask you if you go up there," Rivera told him.

"Ms. Hanuri, do you have any questions for the witness?" Judge Wilson started, feeling like he was about to hear a hell of a rebuttal after the prosecution said they had no further questions. Maye was sweating badly, darting her gaze around the room full of heroes and reporters and feeling like she just messed up big time. She tried straightening out her hair, preparing for the defense to grill her. Half of her outburst though, was to defend what the prosecution was already accusing her of. She was terrified of the way she was looking to everyone, so she had yelled out in panic to try and gain their sympathies instead. To make them understand why it was she could not live with that thing.

"The defense, does not," Rivera replied. Judge Wilson stared at her in confusion, then he slammed his gavel a few times as others in the courtroom decided they needed to defend Zach if his own lawyer was just going to let that stand.

The judge then continued on to say that they would be looking into the matter of Zach Sazaki's home situation and signs of neglect. Zach sat there while frowning towards the stand, but he did not make eye contact with Aunt Maye as the judge told her she could face consequences. Zach could barely hear what was going on around him anymore though. All he heard was his own heavy breathing and his heart pounding in his ears. _Can I do this? It's not about 'can,' I have to do this. Aunt Maye just, she just… I can't be a hero if I don't stand up for myself right here. I'm not what she says. I don't believe it. No matter what anyone else says. I'm going to be a hero! That's what I've decided! That's what I need to become, in order to save lives. In order, to change the answer…_

"The defense calls Zach Sazaki to the stand," Rivera said.

The courtroom filled with loud murmuring as Zach got up to his feet. He took a deep breath and looked towards the bailiff who then motioned for the seat behind the stand. His aunt had left the room while he had been facing the table, gathering his thoughts. He walked up towards the seat and his face was full of confidence. He had a determined look about him that made both prosecutors sitting back behind their table eye the boy hesitantly. This was the best scenario for them, as they had doubted the boy would go up on his own, but now that he was they would have time to question him themselves as well. The judge watched as Zach walked up without hesitation, and the brown-skinned walrus man hummed at the look in the boy's eyes.

Zach stood at the stand near his chair and he swore to tell the truth when the judge asked if he would. He sat down at the chair and stared out into the courtroom. Everyone's eyes were on him. He saw all the U.A. teachers looking his way. He saw the men who had been called up earlier and he made eye contact with each of them for a few seconds. He spotted Mr. Akers too and his neighbor gave him a reassuring nod which calmed Zach even more. Then he looked farther back, and he saw a couple of television cameras set up highly elevated over the back of the aisle pointing towards the front of the room. He only glanced past the cameras for a second, as even as confident as he was at the moment, he was trying hard to keep that up with only the people in the room watching him. Imagining that there were more staring at this or that it was being televised and watched by thousands, or more, it was too much to dwell on. He looked farther right though, and Zach spotted only a couple of faces where he thought he might have seen more. _What parents want to let their kids come here?_ Zach thought, though he stared at the few classmates who had shown up for a few seconds. _Todoroki, Midoriya, and I know Kirishima was here too, though it looks like they didn't let him back in._

Rivera walked up to Zach's seat, and they made eye contact before Zach gave her a nod telling her that it was alright. They had not gone into this with the intention of Zach going on the stand, but they had made a plan in case it became necessary anyway. The fact that he was up here said that he did not think the trial was going well, and since she did not argue much with him over it, he knew his lawyer felt the same way. "Over the course of this trial, the prosecution has made my client out to be a bad person. They have called his judgement into question, yet they called up witnesses who really did not have anything to say about Zach Sazaki abusing his power in the incidents we should be discussing today. So from the one person who knows what happened the best, why don't we hear what my client has to say really happened? Alright Zach, please tell me about the USJ incident. The prosecution made claims that you did not have to use your Quirk against Shindeki Buda, but I want you to tell the court exactly what happened that day."

Zach tried to keep his expression strong as he nodded at Rivera. Zach took a deep breath as she moved a little out of the way, but he kept eye contact with her as he began, "We went to USJ for rescue training, but the villains showed up out of nowhere. They separated us from each other, from the teachers," Zach's eyes lowered and he continued strongly, though he was finding it hard to keep up eye contact as he spoke without hesitation. "I was sent to the Mountain Zone with some classmates, but there were several times more villains there than there were us. We fought them. And, we thought we beat them all. Ka- My classmate used a strong attack that left him defenseless though, and although that attack took down most of the villains, one of them- Shindeki Buda," Zach paused, he could not recall if he had ever said that villain's name aloud before.

After the pause, Zach continued strongly, lifting his gaze back to meet Rivera's. "He was different from the others. Stronger. I saw him going for my classmate who couldn't protect himself, and I, I got in the way. In a second though, he had me. I couldn't- I wasn't able to-" Zach bit down and his gaze lowered again, but he did not slow down. "I tried. I tried to save my classmate, but I, I got caught. And he hurt me," Zach grit his teeth more, his eyes closing as he thought back on USJ. He thought about when the villain held him up, and he continued, "He held me there, with a hand covered in electricity next to my face, covered in my own blood. I, I didn't know what to do. I didn't know, how to get out of it. And then he- then he told, my other two classmates that, that if they didn't want him to kill me, they had to hold their hands up and not do anything! He was going to kill us. I knew it, he was that different from the others. He, he was the one who blocked the communications out of USJ, he was one of the few villains there who actually could- who was actually really strong…" Zach shook his head, and he continued while clenching his eyes shut harder, "But I still tried, I tried to think of- I, but I couldn't come up with anything. Not at that moment, not while he was walking towards them, laughing, about to kill them. And I _knew._ I _knew_ I could save them, even if I had to- even if I had to kill him. And it was all I could think of. It was the only solution I thought I had-" Zach bit down hard on his bottom lip and opened back up his eyes, only to see Rivera staring back at him with wide eyes of her own.

He turned to the right a little and continued while looking towards the prosecutors, "But after I touched-, after I used my Quirk to, to kill him." Zach gulped and he had to lift his left arm fast to rub his eyes once before continuing just as strong as before, though with a more upset look on his face now, "The teachers arrived. They arrived, in that moment. I- if I had waited, I thought we still would have survived. That's why I was saying that when I was taken away. That's why I, I felt so guilty. Why I still feel guilty," he added softer, but just as firm. "But in the moment, I had no idea the teachers were arriving. I, didn't think- I did it to save them." He said that and looked out into the courtroom with a calm expression. He knew he had just said a lot, and he tried to keep himself from getting too emotional over it, despite not even saying that much when he told Jenny or even the police the first times he was asked.

After a few seconds, Rivera smiled at the boy who looked back at her. "To save, his classmates," Rivera turned and spoke to the people behind her. Then she continued, "Does that sound like someone irresponsibly using his Quirk? No. When he was attacked by the villains, was his first reaction to use his Quirk and kill them? No. He is not that kind of person. Zach Sazaki used his power in self-defense, and to save people, and yet he still feels the pain of taking someone else's life. These are not the actions of a villain, of someone who deserves to be on trial, and definitely not of a 'monster,'" Rivera said, scoffing at the idea of it before glaring towards the prosecutors. "Yet the prosecution would have you believe that this child is what, evil? It's absurd to even consider, when all of my client's actions were based on good intentions."

Rivera turned back to Zach, and she asked him, "Was the situation the same at the summer training camp?"

"It was similar," Zach replied.

"As your teacher Vlad King said, you went with the villains without having to be dragged off. Why was that?" She asked him.

"Because, I thought they would kill more of my classmates if I stayed there. I thought-"

"Objection," the fat-chinned prosecutor began.

Rivera turned to him and lifted her eyebrows, asking before he could elaborate, "You really want to make him specify on this point? Alright then, I'm glad you objected," she smiled at the man then turned back to Zach. "Could you tell us what you mean by 'more?' Had they already killed one?"

"Yes," Zach replied. He looked saddened even though he knew this might help him out. Rivera lost her smug grin that the prosecution gave her this chance, but she nodded at Zach to continue despite his look that showed he did not want to talk about it. "The villains, trying to kidnap me, they killed my classmate. He was dead, but my Quirk brought him back to life."

"Amazing," Rivera whispered, though in a loud whisper for everyone to hear. "How were you able to find the time to heal him, in that situation? With villains after you?"

"I told them I'd come with them," Zach said, lifting his gaze and continuing on stronger as this was the best point he thought they had. "I said that if they let me go to my classmate, my friend, that I'd go with them without fighting them. I had hoped, that maybe while I was healing him, the other heroes would arrive. But after it was done, I saw the villains coming close, and I had to follow through with what I promised. So I went with them. But- but I didn't do it because I wanted to. I did it to save the others."

"And it was because of this, this unavoidable incident where you saved several of your classmates, and a pro hero's life, that you were put in the situation where you were forced to take Atsuhiro Sako's life?" Rivera questioned.

"Yes," Zach replied. She gave him a small nod and Zach relaxed, not realizing how tense he was while sitting there until he knew it was done. Rivera turned to the courtroom and started making some final statements about what Zach had told her. She summarized his actions in both scenarios, said that he was not at fault for these situations he was put in. And as Zach looked around the room, he had to force his expression straight and serious, because at the reassuring looks and smiles from several people in there, he was feeling more confident than ever about the trial. He even glanced towards the judge to see what the man thought about him now, but he could not read the expression of the guy with long tusks who hummed to himself once Rivera was finished speaking.

The sharp-chinned man walked forward. He cleared his throat once he reached Zach, and Zach started to lose a bit of his confidence as the man looked at him with as much of a confident look on his own face. "There has been much speculation in this courtroom, as well as on the news, as to what your Quirk is, Mr. Sazaki. Would you please tell the court the name of your Quirk?"

Zach's expression darkened, but he straightened it right away and nodded his head. "Death," Zach replied.

"I'm sorry, what was that?" The lawyer questioned.

Zach grit his teeth, as the man with the sharp face and pointed eyebrows was already pushing his buttons. _Keep calm. He's trying to make you mess up._ "My Quirk, it's called Death."

"And could you tell the room what it is your Quirk does?"

"My Quirk has two abilities," Zach said. _Not including Nightmare. But, that's not really an ability? Maybe? I don't really know what it is, or if it counts as a part of my Quirk, so I'll just leave it out for now. Yeah, that's the reason,_ he told himself, though really he just doubted he would make it through this trial if he started telling people that he could transform into a terrifying monster. _That would kind of prove Aunt Maye's point…_ "With my right hand, anything I touch, anything alive, dies."

"Let me cut in," the prosecutor said while Zach still had his mouth open to continue. Zach's face scrunched up, but the man lifted a sheet of paper that made Zach grimace, realizing the guy was holding onto it to mention later on in the trial the entire time. "Right here I have medical records I was able to acquire with the court's permission. I'm just going to read off their definition of your Quirk," he cleared his throat then began while holding the sheet up between Zach and himself, "'The Quirk Death, is one of the most dangerous Quirks we have ever come across. This power allows Zach Sazaki to kill in an instant. All electrical messages stop shooting between synapses in the brain. Blood stops pumping. A single touch, and there is total and complete death. We already know it can kill humans, but we have not been able to find a single creature immune to the touch. Monkey, dog, cat, insects, birds, every living organism that touches Zach Sazaki's right hand is killed in that instant. In fact, this may mean that he is impervious to disease. Microorganisms and harmful bacteria could even be affected by this power. There is no way to do more extensive testing…'" The lawyer stopped reading and he lowered the paper. "What a definition. This is the description of-"

"Objection your Honor," Rivera called out, standing out of her seat. "Mr. Haido asked my client a question, and he has yet to let the defendant answer. He even cut him off midway, but I believe the courtroom deserves to hear Zach Sazaki's definition of his Quirk. As we just heard from my opponent's reading, those who tested him were unable to complete their testing."

Zach looked past the lawyer in front of him and could not help but grin at his own lawyer's interruption. "I'll allow it," Judge Wilson said, nodding at Rivera's objection. He turned to Zach and said, "Continue with your original response."

Zach saw Mr. Haido frown, but he spoke while turning back to the lawyer in front of him. "Yes, what you said is one use of my Quirk. However that was when my Quirk was first discovered. Since then, I've learned that my Quirk can also save people. I used it to seal the wound of a classmate and restart his heart. He was dead, and I brought him back to life."

"Are you a doctor?" Mr. Haido asked. Zach got a confused look on his face and started shaking his head, and the lawyer continued, "Then how in that moment, were you able to determine that your classmate was truly dead? There are enough witnesses that I can believe your Quirk may have healing properties, but to say that you 'brought him back to life,' don't you think that's making too strong an assumption?"

"No," Zach said, tilting his head in a bit of confusion. "As you just said, and as I just said, if I touch people with my right hand, they'd die." The lawyer in front of him opened his eyes wider, and Zach continued in an annoyed voice, "So if my classmate was still alive, wouldn't my Quirk have killed him? If he was still alive, it would have. But he wasn't alive, so when I touched him with my right hand, and I held it there on his body, I brought him back to life. And that is not an assumption. That _is_ what happened." Zach continued in a firm voice, not faltering as he finished, "Because I've realized recently that my Quirk is not just something that causes death, it is the control over death itself. Just as easily as it can kill, it can bring life."

In the rows of seating in the courtroom, Midnight stared forward with her eyes opening wide. _Lifebringer,_ she thought. _"Because that's the hero I want to become." His Quirk, did he already know about it back then? Or, when did he…_

Izuku Midoriya smiled in the back of the room where he was sitting next to Todoroki. He glanced next to him at the boy with half white hair and half red, and Todoroki looked back at him before giving a nod with a small smile that showed he also thought this was going well.

"Mr. Sazaki," the prosecutor in front of Zach began after a short pause. "The prosecution does not agree with the statement made by your aunt a few minutes ago. In fact, we apologize for that. It was uncalled for." Zach stared at the man in front of him in surprise, and a bit of confusion as the man started off like that. "Our position has never been that you are a villain. We don't think you're a monster either. But despite how amazing you have just told us your Quirk is, the question that this court exists for, is whether or not you have shown good judgement in the use of it up until now. Your description of USJ, it sounds like you had a hard time of it. Still, you say yourself that the teachers had already arrived. I know it's not fair to judge you on the same basis as pro heroes, but you were in a dangerous situation that required critical judgement. It is a situation you find yourself in a lot, and will continue to find yourself in as time goes on, if you continue on a path to become a hero. And you reacted. Yes, you were scared. And yes, it is not your fault that you were put in that mess in the first place. But you killed a man. Your Quirk is not like others. You cannot just reach the same point that other students would reach before saying, 'now is the time I need to use my Quirk.' Even in a situation like that, if you know that your Quirk will kill, you need to keep a cooler head and make a smart decision."

Zach pursed his lips but then kept frowning at the lawyer before him without saying a word, as he had yet to be asked a question. The man standing there nodded, then he continued, "But it is not USJ that I would like to focus on. Ms. Hanuri brought up the reason you went with the villains as an explanation for your second charge, but it was not an explanation at all. You have told us now why you were forced to follow the villains, but that was two days before you took the life of Atsuhiro Sako. To skip ahead and just say that the events of the training camp forced you to kill that man, it is a huge leap." The fifteen year old grimaced and prepared himself for the questions he had dreaded since walking in.

"Let's start with before you even left the woods," Mr. Haido began. "After you left with the two villains, you ran into more of your classmates in the forest, isn't that correct?"

Zach hesitated, then he nodded and said, "That's right."

"You came across other villains, as well as your fellow classmates, and a fight broke out. Stop me if I say anything wrong here, but while your classmates began fighting the villains to stop them from kidnapping young Bakugo, and yourself, you were the only one who did not fight. Instead, who was the only person you attacked in the forest during that fight?"

Zach pursed his lips hard, grimacing as he looked out into the courtroom and into one of his classmate's eyes. Midoriya was staring back at him wide-eyed, as if he was shocked that the prosecutor was using this against Zach. He looked like he wanted to jump out of his seat, but Zach was glad Todoroki was sitting next to him and seemed to stop him from jumping up. "My own classmate," Zach started. He looked into the prosecutor's eyes and continued, "But only because I thought he was going to get himself killed, charging after the villains with his body already broken from injuries."

"So you stopped him from going after them, but then you followed yourself?" Mr. Haido asked. Zach paused with his mouth open, then the lawyer continued quickly, "Because, the reports your classmates gave to the police indicate that you were left behind by the villains. That in fact, you were the last one to walk through the portals the villain Kurogiri created. No one was there forcing you to walk through, but you still went through the portal." Zach closed his mouth and his eyes started darting around the courtroom. "Why is that, Mr. Sazaki? Why would you do such a thing?"

"They could have come back if I didn't-"

"That was all you were thinking about at the time?" Mr. Haido asked.

Zach froze again. His mouth froze open, and he saw Rivera shaking her head at him. At the same time though, Zach did not want to lie. He came up to the stand knowing that he would have to tell the truth, and he started shaking his own head. "What were you thinking?" Mr. Haido asked.

"That, I could save my class- I could save Bakugo," Zach replied.

"What made you think you-"

"They thought I had joined them," Zach snapped. He tried calming down, but he continued in an upset voice while glaring at the lawyer, "So I thought I could find a moment to get him out, without having to fight anyone!"

"That didn't work out well for you though," the prosecutor said, and Zach's eyes opened wider. " _You_ made the _choice_ to follow those villains. You followed them into their base, and you made things more difficult for the heroes and police who were already formulating their own plan." Zach's teeth ground behind his lips, but his eyes darted down to the stand in front of him. "You are a student, a child, and you made the foolish decision to chase after a classmate. That was the job of heroes, of people who are paid and who do this sort of thing for a living. You not only got in the way by making this decision, but you hindered the efforts of All Might and the other heroes. This is the second time in a period of a few months where your judgement has been seriously skewed, where you have made the wrong choices, but this is not surprising coming from your family is it?"

Zach's face twitched while he stared at the stand below him. His eyes started to raise and his head lifted up slowly to the lawyer. "Huh?"

"Your father, Jack Sazaki, made some poor decisions in his time as well, didn't he?"

"Objection!"

"My father was a great hero!" Zach shouted at the lawyer in front of him.

"Your honor," Rivera continued. "My client's family history should not be counted as a part of this trial-"

"I beg to differ," Mr. Haido said, turning to Judge Wilson. "As the defendant is still a minor, and is being charged as such, we should look at his upbringing as well. And seeing how his Aunt has not been looking after him, the last person who has had a large influence as the defendant's family would be his father." The judge looked hesitantly back and forth between the lawyers, then he nodded at Mr. Haido to continue. Zach grit his teeth as he heard that, then the lawyer in front of him turned back after thanking the judge. "You say your father was a great hero, but I wonder how many people in this courtroom have a good recollection of the pro hero, Titanium?"

Far back in the room, Midoriya's eyes opened wide and his bottom lip lowered. Todoroki glanced next to him at the green haired boy, while Midoriya just stared at the black spikes over Zach's head, suddenly realizing something. "His dad, is-"

"Stop it," Zach began to the lawyer before him.

Rivera looked nervously towards her client, shaking her head at the boy who was glaring so angrily at Mr. Haido now.

"The pro hero Titanium was involved in a number of scandals half a dozen years ago." Mr. Haido looked back towards Zach as he said it, then he turned to the courtroom and started, "The first incident that made the news was when Titanium stopped a villain, saved a few lives, yet he was intoxicated during it.

"He was off duty," Zach started calling out.

"Mr. Sazaki," Judge Wilson began. "I would remind you not to make such outbursts. You will have time to counter when Ms. Hanuri comes back up."

Zach pursed his lips and tried hard to steady his expression, but he was finding it harder every second. "Mr. Sazaki is right," Mr. Haido began. "Titanium was off duty, at a bar minding his own business, when the incident occurred. He was simply in the right place at the right time, and although he was under the influence of alcohol, he saved the citizens who were in danger and captured the villain. No one really cared about the fact that he had caused some extra, unnecessary collateral damage. It was a coincidence, and he handled it well. But, when it happens a second time, the same kind of incident," Mr. Haido lifted his eyebrows like it was surprising in the least. "Even if the situation was similar, people start to wonder, 'What kind of hero spends all his off hours drinking?' Once again though, he was not punished for his actions, but it was when he saved people, while on duty, and was found to be intoxicated that time. When Titanium chose to drink before putting on his hero costume, when he crippled a villain, for life, while in his intoxicated state, well, our society could not ignore his problem any longer."

Mr. Haido lifted his hands and continued, "The pro hero Titanium's Hero License was suspended, indefinitely. Why was this? Because his judgement was poor. Because he made bad choices that lost him the faith of our society. And now his son is following in his example-"

"It's not my dad's fault!" Zach shouted. His right fist was clenched so hard inside his steel box that it hurt, and he pushed his left hand and the box down on the stand so hard as he glared at the lawyer. The judge started yelling at him, but Zach kept shouting, "He was in a bad place! But he was a great hero! Even then, even when he was drunk on the job! He still saved the people-"

"MR. SAZAKI!" The judge slammed his gavel down, and Zach's eyes opened wide as he spun to the man who had gotten up out of his seat, just as Zach did while he was yelling at Mr. Haido.

The prosecutor in front of Zach had taken a step back, then he turned while Zach was still standing and he started, "Right here is the perfect example." Zach spun forward and stared at the back of the lawyer's head, and Mr. Haido continued to everyone, "In a moment of stress, when the defendant feels pressured, his reaction is over the top and emotionally charged. How angry he just looked, over just a civil discussion in court. Can we really believe that the times he was 'forced' to kill those villains, he was really not just acting out? That he was really not just making another poor decision?"

Zach opened his mouth, then he darted his gaze back to the judge who was watching him with his gavel half-raised. Zach knew another outburst and he was done for, as the judge had just threatened him with contempt on his second outburst. Shouting in his own defense at the moment would only prove the prosecutor right, and he seethed through his teeth as he lowered back to his seat. "A small amount of emotional pressure," Mr. Haido started, and Zach stared with widening eyes at the man turning back to him, wondering if that was why the prosecutor brought up his father in the first place. "In these situations where he 'felt his life was in danger,' as the defendant says, it is hard not to see that he may have been exaggerating." Zach bared his teeth at the man who clearly tricked him, then Mr. Haido continued while stepping out of the way so hopefully the camera could pick up on that expression, "If he gets riled up this quickly, how can we trust his judgement?"

Zach's eyes opened wide again, because now he was staring out into the courtroom where everyone was looking towards him, not the lawyer. They were not glaring at the lawyer or giving him dirty looks for what he had been saying like Zach had thought, and hoped they would be. Instead, they were all staring at him and his angry expression. "Zach Sazaki made 'judgement calls' to kill villains, without even having a license that proves to this society that his judgement is something worth considering. His father showed through several incidents that he could not be trusted, which was why his license was suspended. Yet Titanium never once killed a villain." Zach stared at the prosecutor with wide eyes, and the lawyer shook his head at Zach, a look of actual pity in his eyes as he did it. Zach lowered his bottom lip at that look, then the man with the sharp-chin continued, "How could we even think about making a boy who is already killing people without a license that would give him a partial excuse for doing so, into a hero? How could the government sponsor such a person who acts as judge, jury, and executioner?"

"That's not," Zach started whispering, but he shut his mouth fast, not wanting to get yelled at by the judge again.

"He is already seen to the public as someone who kills villains, and we cannot pay a person like that. We cannot pay him to go out and murder villains all day. In a few months, even without a license, he's done it twice! How many others will it take before we realize that Zach Sazaki has no purpose being a hero? His teachers have already realized it. The prosecution knows it. How many more bodies are required before the defendant realizes it himself?"

Zach's head bowed and he stared at his hands still resting over the stand. He stared down at the black box over his right. _Realize it myself? Never. I'll never give up. But, everyone else is giving up on me. They're all coming to the decision on their own. I can't say a thing… This is so frustrating! By the rules of hero society, yeah I've broken a few rules, but, but I helped people too! A couple of times I used my power, in self-defense!_ _Why does it matter? Why, can't they just accept it? They can't sponsor me, because people will see it as them hiring someone who kills people? But, but I can save lives too. I'm not just murdering all the villains I see. If I was doing that, then I could get what they're talking about! But those were extreme circumstances. Someone has to see that! Why don't they get why I had to do those things?!_

Rivera came back up, then Mr. Haido started arguing with her about the nature of Zach's actions. He sat there barely listening to them, instead gazing around the courtroom at all the people watching him. _Would any of them care?_ Zach thought. _Aizawa sensei, he doesn't want me in his class anymore. Why didn't he expel me early on then? Was it because, was it because back then he actually thought I could… but because of what I've done he doesn't anymore? And All Might, he told me to keep trying after USJ, even if he regretted it, but this second time- Was it because I was smiling after I did it? But, but I was only doing that to get him to- Why doesn't anyone understand?!_

"Mr. Sazaki." Zach's eyes snapped open wider and to the right a bit at Mr. Haido who seemed to have said his name a couple of times already by the way he was looking at Zach oddly. "Have you?"

"Have I what?" Zach asked.

The man frowned, then he repeated himself, "Have you ever intentionally used your powers, without a Hero License, to kill someone."

"It was self-defense," Zach replied without hesitation.

"Was Compress trying to kill you?" Mr. Haido asked. Zach opened his mouth to respond, then he froze and his eyes slowly started growing wider. "From what the prosecution knows, Atsuhiro Sako's Quirk gave him the ability to capture easily, to transform people and objects into small marbles with a touch." Zach's breathing sped up, and in his head he saw the masked man reaching for his back. He had ducked, and spun around with his right arm out. Compress was reaching for him, but there was no dangerous weapon in his hands. "So tell me, was that man you killed truly trying to kill you?"

"He was- he, he was trying," Zach could not get the words out. Then he started shaking his head and said in a strained voice, "He was trying to take me though. If he captured me, they could have killed me!"

"So you weren't in mortal danger at that moment," Mr. Haido said, in a regretful tone. "Mr. Sazaki. We are not denying that you did act in defense for a large portion of these incidents, as well as in the interests of other students, but when it comes to the use of your Quirk, you _cannot_ be as quick as others to start using it. Your Quirk, Death, is too dangerous for that. In situations where one may have to use their Quirk to escape from, to avoid capture, extenuating circumstances allow for the cause of injury. In fact, often it would be excused. But Death, that's not a Quirk we can just excuse the use of. Not twice. Not when you put yourself in the situation." Zach's lips started trembling, as he himself was starting to understand where the prosecution was coming from. That's what made it all the more devastating as the prosecutor said, "There is no place for a Quirk like that in hero society."

Mr. Haido backed up and took a deep breath, then he turned to the judge and said, "It is unfortunate that it has come to this, but the prosecution calls for Zach Sazaki to be banned from using his Quirk, ever again."

Zach's bottom lip lowered, and he started loudly, "What about," he stopped himself, but then he had to continue and he shouted, "What about my healing? I can save people! How can you-"

"How can we trust you to take your glove off?" Mr. Haido questioned, looking back into Zach's eyes. "To put your dangerous hand out in the open, even to help someone, knowing what you have done with it before?" Zach's jaw lowered a little, and Mr. Haido continued, "If we gave you a provisional license for only a partial use of your power, how long until you break the rules again? How long until you decide there is no difference between saving a life by using your hand to heal someone, and using your hand to kill a villain you see on the street threatening some people?" The boy stared at the sharp-chinned prosecutor in shock, but he had no answer as his mouth opened and closed over and over again.

The prosecution ended their questioning, and Rivera could see a look of surrender on Zach's face. She wanted to go up there and ask him other questions to change the court's mind, but she hated to admit that the prosecution had done a great job at making Zach out to be the bad guy here. And as much as they kept saying that they did not blame him, the amount they questioned his judgement made it hard to see that Zach really was just doing these things in self-defense. The lawyers gave their finishing statements, and Zach sat back at the defense table next to Rivera Hanuri as Judge Wilson went over the trial. Not only was he a judge, but a part of the hero licensing committee, one of the chairs in charge of keeping track of all the heroes, and thus one of the people at the top of hero society.

Zach watched as the judge examined everything he had heard closely, but the boy was already dreading what was happening around him. _Did I lose? What does it mean that I've lost? I didn't do well at all. I messed up. I told them that I was just trying to help my classmates, that I was just trying to protect myself… Why are these things wrong? I get that I broke some rules, but, but we were attacked by villains! How was I supposed to hold back?! Jirou and Yaoyorozu, Kirishima, Kaminari, Vlad, all of them. All Might too. I did things to help them. Even killing Compress, was it really to protect myself? I thought, maybe I could only get All Might to get serious, if I started killing villains. I thought he would get hurt, get killed, lose his time limit, if he held back anymore! I don't use my power for myself. I just use it, because all I want to do, all I need to do…_

Judge Wilson put down some papers he had taken notes on and he removed a pair of reading glasses he had put on. He looked towards the defense table, and he said, "Zach Sazaki, would you come up here for a moment before I read the verdict?"

Zach listened and he got out of his seat. He started up for the center of the judge's table, and he looked up into the large man's eyes that focused down on him. In a voice low, only for Zach and the stenographer on the judge's side to hear, he began, "Young man. I feel you have been treated unfairly through this trial. I understand as do most, that you have been a victim of terrible circumstances." Zach started nodding, but he did not want to smile yet as he could hear the 'but' coming. "But that is why I must ask you this question. It is a simple one, yet one that will determine your fate. And I need you to answer it truthfully, son." Zach nodded at the judge, and the walrus-looking man nodded back at him. It was silent in the courtroom behind Zach, and he wondered how many others were actually able to hear the quiet conversation he was having with the judge.

"If you find yourself as a hero in a situation where you feel to save civilians' lives, you have to use your Quirk, would you do it?" Zach stared at the judge with huge eyes. His expression filled with shock, and he thought back to the hospital room Grappler lay in without either of his arms. _What's the right answer to this?_ Zach thought, his heart pounding and his mind whirling at the question. _Grappler, he told me that… but the judge can't want me to say 'yes!' This doesn't… If I get in a situation like that, if I felt-_ "Sir," Zach began. "I know what the right answer is, the answer you want me to give you," Zach started shaking his head, "but I also know that a person who doesn't do something in that situation wouldn't be a hero. I don't understand how I'm supposed to answer this, if both answers are bad. So, I'll just say what I would do, and that's make the decision based on the situation. I'd have to see, and I'd try all I could not to use my Quirk, try everything before using it, but I can't say I wouldn't. Not, if it could save innocent lives."

Judge Wilson stared at the boy for a few seconds in silence after that answer. Then he rose his left flipper-y hand and rubbed his forehead with it while letting out a sigh. "I was afraid, that would be your answer," the man said, and Zach's heart started racing even faster. The judge looked up and he gazed around the courtroom, and he began in a loud tone that filled the entire building. "I have come to a decision. In the trial of the People vs Zach Sazaki, the defendant is found innocent of the charges of killing Shindeki Buda and Atsuhiro Sako." Zach's mouth started lifting up, only to dip down fast as the judge continued, "However, he is found guilty of the other charges."

The judge looked back down into Zach's huge eyes, and he said to the boy, "Although he did act in the defense of himself and other students in a large part, he made decisions beyond what he was lawfully allowed to make. These decisions are what led him to the point of needing to use self-defense in the death of Atsuhiro Sako. Zach Sazaki attempted to take the law into his own hands, without a Hero License, to follow the villains and try to save a classmate on his own. He used his Quirk without a license. He intentionally killed a villain with his Quirk." Judge Wilson let out a loud sigh, then he continued while staring into Zach's eyes, "It is tough, but we cannot have a child already with a history of this to continue on as if it were fine. It is my duty to uphold the rules of our society, as without these rules we have chaos. Zach Sazaki, I ban you from ever using your Quirk again. It will be a criminal matter to do so." Zach's heart pounded so hard he could hear it in his ears, then his eyes grew as wide as possible and he felt his heart skip a beat as the judge continued, "On top of this, the defendant is also barred from ever taking a Hero License Examination. Zach Sazaki, you cannot become a hero."

* * *

 **A/N Thanks for reading. So, I don't really know how Japanese court works, or court in the Boku no Hero world, so I just took the American system and changed it up a bit. Tried to think of how Zach would be punished and could not imagine he'd get away with this a second time. I put in some hints at the end of last chapter: "** **How does it feel to have killed two people now?" but Ganeshi was not one of the two Zach was being charged with. What happened to him? What is Zach going to do now that he's been barred from using his powers or getting a hero license? Find out next time! Hope you enjoyed the longest chapter so far!** **Review responses:**

An Average Jo chapter 18 . 16h ago

His Aunt Maye may testify against him and things might spiral to chaos in Zach's life. That's just my guess though. In the end he's probably gonna feel really heartbroken.

 **Awesome prediction! Zach recovers quicker from Maye's testimony than his lawyer thought he would, but getting up on the stand himself may have made things even worse... Thanks for the review!**

LordOfTee chapter 18 . 16h ago

I really do wonder how Zach's gonna get out of this troublesome situation.

 **Well, it is for sure not looking good. Thanks for the review!**

Roxas Itsuka chapter 18 . 15h ago

Oh God, poor Zach. Given that it was self-defense will it help his case.

 **;( It did for sure help, but self-defense can only be used as an excuse so far. Thanks for the continued reviews since the start!**

zerom1v chapter 18 . 15h ago

Can't believe he forgot for a moment that he killed two people.

 **Haha, his friends really made it seem like everything was going to be alright there for a second. Hope you enjoyed the chapter!**

Colinpop5 chapter 18 . 10h ago

Oooooooooo. Can't wait

 **Ooo! Hope you liked it!**

D-Koy24 chapter 18 . 6h ago

*sigh* can't say I'm surprised, he did kill two people. Hope Zach isn't found guilty,though.  
Please write more at this length! I can't handle reading chapters as long as the previous ones anymore. :)  
~D-Koy  
PS:"Hoooooooo!"

 **Zach's been found innocent of killing, at least... Sorry about the length XD. I write chapters based more on the plot I want to get in during that chapter, which is why some chapters are super long like this when I find I have a lot more to write about without wanting it to stretch through a bunch of chapters. Thanks for the reviews, glad you're all caught up!**

Guest chapter 8 . 8h ago

I really do enjoy this story, the plot is really interesting and I love your characters. However I really think you should review how to use commas, you're using them too often when it's not necessary. Maybe it's because I've been studying the English section of ACT, but I'm jut really noticing how you put commas in sentences that are complete without a comma. Commas should be used when combining two complete ideas in most all instances, but you've used them within one complete idea and it just sounds and looks wrong. I think the story is amazing, but if you look into understanding grammar and the whole complete idea/incomplete idea thing you'd improve the story.

 **Awesome, glad you're enjoying this! Also, just because, I mean, don't you talk about- I love commas. I've thought before that I use them a bunch, maybe too much, but it makes things flow better. At least in my writing style I feel it does. Or else things start to get stale when everything's a full but short sentence. Anyway, I don't really want to write out all the different rules for commas right here, but there are _so_ many rules for commas beyond just combining two complete sentence. In the dialogue I use them to indicate pauses, outside of the dialogue they're used to connect not only two parts that could be full sentences, but also shifts in tense. Also to start and end dialogue, "He paused, looking down at the table and considering his options," that's a random example not actually in the story. But I can't just write "He paused looking down at..." because the following verb was also going to use "ing" which needed the ',' as an indicator to the shift. Anyway, didn't really want to get into this. Just explaining why it's not going to change up. I'm glad you liked the story so far! **

Guest chapter 18 . 7h ago

They have self defense laws in Japan, Zach's life was at risk and there were witnesses. I don't think he'd be arrested, they would merely take his statement, and later if a court of law finds him guilty of homicide, arrest him.

 **Yeah, don't know if those laws are the same in the Boku no Hero world. You seem to be a pro in law so you may find some other things in here that don't match the Japan law system... but suspend your disbelief since this is a fantasy world, yeah? XD Thanks for reading and reviewing!**

Okay chapter 18 . 5h ago

Can we get a description of Zach's current powers and what they do? I'm a little confused...

 **Well, hope this chapter cleared it up a bit. They talk about it a lot during the trial.**

A little Lost chapter 18 . 5h ago

Can Zach bring his victims back to life? In fact, can we get a rundown of his CURRENT powers? I'm a little lost as to what you described in the chapters before. Were the italics suppose to be internal thoughts?

 **No to the first question. This chapter gives a rundown of his powers in Zach's words, in the doctors' words, and really only left out Nightmare which Zach still doesn't know much about himself. Also, yes. I guess I should have specified it at the beginning, though I'm pretty sure I ended some Italics statements with "he thought." But yeah, most italics mean that the character is thinking. Sometimes it will be used in the middle of sentences for emphasis too though, just in case you see a single word in dialogue that's italicized. Thanks for the review, hope you're a little clearer on everything after this chapter!**


	20. Chapter 20

**Chapter 20:**

"…the defendant is also barred from ever taking a Hero License test. Zach Sazaki, you cannot become a hero."

Zach's world started to shatter around him. He heard some people start shouting behind him, but he began just as fast as they did, "Please!" Zach shouted. "This is, becoming a hero is everything to me! It's all I've ever wanted-"

"I am sorry young man, but you have lost the trust of society. We cannot permit you to use your Quirk-"

"I have to save people!" Zach shouted. He got an angry expression on his face, and he swung his right arm out to his side before shouting, "Don't you get it?! All I've ever wanted, is to help people! To save them! I, I need to make up for all the people I've killed."

The judge's sympathetic look changed fast, and he questioned, "What do you mean, 'all?' Are you talking about the villains-"

"No," Zach said, shaking his head. His eyes clenched shut and he bit down so hard. So many emotions were rushing through him. Dread, sadness, guilt, regret, anger, he could not keep his composure with them all rushing through his head. "That's not it-" Zach started.

"Who else have you killed?" Judge Wilson questioned, his expression darkening and narrowing down at the boy.

Zach clenched his teeth and snapped his eyes open. "Please, I just- I have to be a hero. I have to make up for-"

Mr. Jenkleman stood up and called over, "How many people have you killed?"

"Hundreds!" Zach yelled. He brought his left hand up to the side of his head and squeezed it, then he yelled, "Thousands! How many?! I don't know!" Zach spun and screamed it at the chubby-faced lawyer who leaned back at Zach's furious expression. "Every night I lie away thinking of all of them! All the people my dad didn't save, all the people-" he stopped himself and his eyes opened wide as he realized what he was shouting in front of everyone. Then he decided, in that instant, that he did not care if he embarrassed himself. This was the moment that was determining the rest of his life. It was all or nothing. "My dad, he k- he died because of me!" Zach yelled, spinning back to the judge and looking him in the eyes. "Everyone he didn't save, all the people the hero Titanium couldn't save, their lives are on me! I _killed_ all of them! It's my fault, and so many others too." _Mom,_ he thought, unable to start talking about it because he knew he would not be able to speak anymore if he tried. "Please," he opened his eyes again and looked desperately into the judge's. "Just give me another chance. I, I won't kill anyone."

Zach said it then started shaking his head, because he had just told the judge a minute ago that he did not know if he could make that promise. Judge Wilson lost his accusing look after the boy explained what he meant, and he gained a look of regret on it but had to keep shaking his head at the boy. He figured there was likely some accident regarding the Quirk that he did not know about, and he just stared down with an unwavering gaze at the boy whose face filled with a look of distraught at that look and head shake. "The decision has been made. The Quirk Death, is too dangerous a Quirk. It is too much responsibility, for someone deemed not responsible enough to use it. The control over life and death, it is not a natural power. You…"

 _Is that, what it is?_ Zach thought. _Is that what this whole thing is?! Oh my G- Is it because they figured it out?! Was this whole thing… was it because of rumors of Death?! IS THAT WHY?!_ Zach's head that had bowed slowly lifted up and he glared at the judge in a way that made the man freeze with his mouth open. Zach then turned his head to the side, his gaze shifting past the prosecuting attorneys who leaned away, then past all the heroes sitting in the rows who were not speaking out against the verdict. Zach's cold glare shifted over each of them and the entire room became silent in a single second. _It's because of Death? Are they afraid? Is the world afraid? I haven't been out there, but is that why this is happening? Am I- is this the lynching I was always so afraid of? They found out about my power, the public learned what my hand can do… and they're afraid of me. They're so afraid, they banning me from using my power to save lives. Even though that's what I_ _ **need**_ _to do._ "I have to change the answer," Zach said, glaring at the people around the room.

All Might's eyes widened huge while sweat covered his face. Zach's left fist clenched so hard in front of him, and he had to hiss because speaking any louder he knew his voice would crack, "Was it good that I was born? All I want to do, is change the answer to that. And you won't let me." His voice raised at the end, so full of frustration and anger. "You won't, let me, save people?! What is-" His dark eyes filled with shock, his open mouth opened wider as his jaw dropped, and his head started turning to the left.

A dozen heroes shot out of their seats at the same time. Zach's head turned farther to the left. He stared at a big purple circle that hovered in the air next to him, touching the floor in front of the judge's bench and going higher than the top of Zach's head. The swirling darkness was a portal, one Zach recognized well as he had been through one just like it before. The courtroom erupted in noise, everyone shouting at the same time. The majority of people started sprinting out into the aisles and back towards the doors, getting in the way of heroes who were trying to run the other direction.

"Young Sazaki!" All Might shouted.

Aizawa darted his gaze around, but he could not cancel out the power of the villain who he could not see. _Where is he!?_ Aizawa thought, then his gaze kept turning and his eyes opened huge at the cameras in the back of the room. "Turn off the cameras!" He yelled, but the cameramen had even ran away at the sight of that portal, though they left their equipment behind. _He's watching us, and he can-_ Aizawa started turning back, and he called out, "Kamui Woods, don't-"

Kamui Woods swung his right arm forward and wood extended off of his arm towards the boy. A portal opened up in front of where his arm was extending, and another portal opened up on the side of Vlad King and Midnight who were running forward. Kamui Woods slammed his attack into them and knocked them off to the side, and he shouted, "AH! I'm sorry!"

While the room fell into panic, other portals appearing around and redirecting heroes or tossing random civilians in the air for the heroes to save, Zach stared at the portal on his left. Other portals appeared in front of him and behind and on his right. He was boxed in, but the portal did not appear right on him. They were all a few feet off, with the portal on his left being the closest one. It was also the only portal, that Zach suspected did not just lead to another place in this room. "Zach Sazaki," Kurogiri's low voice came through the portal. "Three seconds. Make your decision."

 _Decision?_ Zach thought. His huge eyes returned to normal size. His breathing slowed down, and his heart stopped pounding as hard. _If this is my last act as a hero, I can save more lives. Screw it. This is, all I can do._ Zach turned and walked into the portal. _What decision is there to make?_ He thought, his expression dark and his arms down at his sides. He entered through the portal and it closed behind him.

Zach stood in a dark room, three villains in front of him. The room was narrow, and cluttered. The lights were off, but the light from the tv televising his trial was flashing and flickering, and everyone was shouting on the other side in the courtroom where all the portals had just disappeared from. The reporters who would be saying things about it had all run off expecting an attack was coming, but Zach could hear the yells of the heroes on the other side. He heard a roar of despair come from All Might, but his expression did not change as he glared at the men in front of him. Zach started lifting his right hand, then his eyes darted down and he snarled as he saw the metal box on it.

"He actually came," Kurogiri said, sounding more surprised than Zach thought considering his tone back when it came through the portal.

"I told you he would," Dabi said. The man with spikier black hair than Zach and a patched-up appearance grinned at the kid in front of him.

Shigaraki stayed quiet for a few seconds in between the two of them. His fingers were twitching at his sides, and Zach's eyes darted down to them. _What did I just do?_ He thought, though he was not in as much panic as he thought he should be. _Is he going to kill me now? I can't use my Quirk with this box on my hand. Did I just, walk in here to die?_

"I'm glad you decided to come," Shigaraki Tomura said, grinning behind the hand attached to his face. Zach stared at the leader of the group of villains in confusion, then his expression darkened and he took a step forward.

"Don't do it," Dabi warned. "Or else, you'll die, and you never would have changed the answer." Zach turned his head to the left a little and glared at the man who must have just heard that on tv.

"What do you want from me?" Zach asked, his voice full of anger. His mind was still swirling with all the emotions he felt back in the courtroom, but even though he understood what the situation was that he just put himself in, he was not panicking. _I just, did it again. What's it matter now though? What can they do, ban me double? They already gave me, the worst punishment I can imagine. The League of Villains though. They'll kill so many people. If my last act, is taking a bunch of them out, then fuck it._ "I'll do it," Zach said before anyone could respond. "Just get this box off and I'll-"

"Be quiet for a second," Dabi said. The slender man much taller than Zach walked right up to the kid and looked down. The boy stared back up without any fear in his eyes. He just looked angry, and betrayed, and frustrated. "At the training camp, you said some things to me."

"I said them to gain your trust," Zach snapped angrily.

"Maybe you did," Dabi said. Then he smirked, and Zach saw Shigaraki Tomura lift the corners of his lips as well. "But you weren't lying. You said the civilians of that society, they call you a monster. That's what you told me. You didn't know why you were trying to be a hero for them-"

"That's just-" Zach started. He shook his head, then he yelled, "I said that because I wanted you to trust me!"

"You had Stain's words memorized," Dabi whispered. Zach's eyes opened wide, his breathing picking up speed. Dabi continued while smirking at the kid in front of him, "You said you didn't belong in the same society as your friends. You said Stain was right, that something about that society is rotten at the core. And you said that maybe with the League of Villains, you could find it." Dabi leaned down in front of Zach's face, and he continued while smirking at the boy, lifting a hand and covering it in blue flames in case Zach thought about punching him as he could see the boy was considering. "You were right."

"I didn't say it because I meant it," Zach began. "The hero society, is good!"

"Did they not just banish you, for nothing?" Kurogiri questioned.

Zach bit down hard, then started, "I'm, I'm not one of you. Don't try lumping me in with-"

Dabi straightened up in front of him and asked, "If you really meant these things you're saying, why would you be denying it so strongly?" Zach spun to him with sweat forming all over his face, taking a step back at Dabi's question. Dabi continued, "Why would you deny it, when denying it here would mean losing our trust, getting us to kill you?" Dabi chuckled and took a step towards the boy who had backed up. "It's because you're afraid that you are actually agreeing. You don't need to pretend though."

"I'm, not," Zach said in weak protest. "I'm not one of you."

"The heroes seem to think you are," Dabi said. Zach looked down, his gaze focusing on the floor while his hands unclenched at his sides. "But don't worry. You're just a villain. There's no shame in that."

"I'm not a villain," Zach said, shaking his head and looking up at Dabi with his face scrunched up. "I, I just want to help people-"

"That may be," Dabi said, "but you're still a villain, in their eyes. You fit their definition of a villain. Just like we do." Dabi continued while lowering his mouth into a flat line, "Do you really think villains are evil though? Now that you're being labelled by one. People call you a monster, but you aren't one, right?" Zach started looking at Dabi in more confusion, but his breathing was speeding up and his heart racing again. "The society that called you a monster. The society that says you can't be a hero, that says you can't use your Quirk to save lives, is the very thing we're against. So tell me, why is it you had Stain's words memorized?"

"I was there," Zach began. "I saw- I saw Stain…" he faded off, then he started shaking his head. _Why am I still, trying?_ he thought, his fists clenching and unclenching at his sides. "I downloaded the video, and I watched it over and over again," Zach said. "But, I did that because I was…" he faded off, and his breathing picked up even more as he looked down at the ground. _Why did I keep watching it? Why did I, say those things to my classmates? Why was lying to them, so easy?_ "I…" he started muttering, a look of realization slowly forming on his face. "I thought, I was watching the Stain video all those times, because I was afraid of what the video was doing. I thought it would make people want to follow the villains, make people think Stain was, cool. I was terrified by it because of those things, I thought, but I think what really scared me, what I was really-" he paused and his eyes opened huge as he darted them around at the three villains in front of him.

Even though he did not finish it though, Dabi did for him, "You were scared, because you agreed with what he was saying?" Zach's eyes shot open even wider and darted back to the spiky-haired villain. "The main reason that court determined that you can't use your Quirk anymore, it's because they can't pay you to use Death knowing what it could cause… but you never cared about compensation, did you?" Zach's breathing sped up even more so that he was panting in front of the villains now. "Everyone saw it. They saw you turn with that angry look on your face, a furious expression that no hero should have," Dabi smirked as Zach's panting got even heavier. "But then, while you looked that angry, you told them how you just want to save people. And yet they'll still vilify you for it."

 _What is going on?_ Zach thought, his eyes darting around at the villains, and then down to his hands that he moved in front of his body a little. _Why am I listening to this? Why, does it make sense?! These are villains!_

"Zach Sazaki," Shigaraki began. Zach turned and lifted his gaze back to Shigaraki's eyes behind the fingers of the attached hand on his face. "Join the League of Villains. If you do, you can do as you like," Shigaraki Tomura said.

"Wh-What do you mean?" Zach asked. _Why didn't I just shout, "NO!"? Why am I humoring this- no, no it's like Dabi said, I'm just agreeing because I want them to trust me!_

"You want to save people," Shigaraki said. "And I want to destroy what it means to be a hero. It's simple really. You can save as many people as you like. We'll even help you do it. I don't even want much in return." Shigaraki held up his right hand like it was a reasonable offer, and as wide as Zach's eyes were, his mind was telling him to take the deal. His eyes slowly shifted to Kurogiri whose shadowy body was giving Zach all kinds of ideas. He turned back to Dabi who nodded at him and gave the kid a small grin. "Sure, you could try killing us right away, but you'd be dead before you got more than one, at most," Shigaraki said. He smirked more behind the attached hand, "And how many people would you save by doing that? Not enough. Not to make up for what you've done."

Zach's lips pressed together, then his top row of teeth slid forward and started biting down on his bottom lip. _What am I doing here? … Actually…_ Zach's scared look started to fade. He looked around at the three villains again. _Why am I still- thinking like a student at U.A.? I just got… I can't be in the hero course anymore. After what just happened, I can't even go back to normal society now. If I do, they'll lock me up, if the villains even let me leave. And even if they don't lock me up, what then? Go to high school? Get a job? Just pretend like all this is in the past? It, can never be in the past. Even if I was able to get over everything, to forget about my crimes, now that my Quirk is known, I'll never live a normal life. Villains will always want to use my Quirk for themselves. I don't know what else Shigaraki Tomura wants from me, but it can't just be to let me be a part of his organization. He probably wants me to bring them back to life if they're killed by villains. Or something… But, if they ask me to kill for them, I won't do it- Wait! Does that mean I'm… yeah, yeah why not? Kurogiri, he could, if I get his help, then how many people could I save?_

"I-" Zach began. _What am I thinking? Joining the League of Villains, for real? No, no it's just tricking- what am I… No one would ever believe it, and if it's just you you're trying to convince, then why do it this time? Why not just accept, that you don't need to worry about how you're going to explain this when you get out? At this point, there is no going back. Jenny… I'm sorry. Everyone, I'm sorry._ "If I join you, I won't kill anyone-" Zach started. _But what if they kill people while I'm a member?! That means I'll be just sitting by and letting them-_

"Alright," Shigaraki said. Just like that, Zach's thoughts were derailed and his eyes opened huge again. "You're an important piece in my plans. Now that I know how you really feel, what you really want. I'm telling you, I want you to save people. That's all." Zach's lips started trembling. "That's right," Shigaraki said, grinning at the boy. "Question what it means to be a villain. Question why the hero society wouldn't let you do it, yet I will. Why would villains want you to save people, and heroes not let you?"

"Heroes," Dabi started. "Their only jobs should be saving lives. The rest doesn't matter. How big their agencies are, how many sidekicks they have, how much they're paid every month, why are these things factors in determining how great a hero is? There is only one thing that should matter, one thing that makes a real hero that Stain would accept. And that's, saving people."

"You are an intelligent boy," Kurogiri began. "Think of what we could do, with your Quirk and mine. How could you use it to save lives, lives the hero society wouldn't be able to save without you?"

 _There really are, ways,_ Zach thought. _I'm… I don't need people to think of me as a hero. That, I always wanted that, but it was never that important to me. What's really important? The only thing that really matters, is that I save people. Mom, how many could you have saved? Dad- they, they were talking shit about you. They were, they treated you like… Your memory to hero society might be a terrible legacy, but I know the kind of man you really were! Aunt Maye, she loved you so much. She saw you spiral into depression, and kill yourself, because of me! How could she not see me as a monster!? A boy with the Quirk Death, who killed her brother and his wife! How could she want me around my cousin? Dad, I know, this isn't what you'd want for me. I know, you were a great hero who respected the rules. But society shunned you, punished you when you needed help. Even a hero needs help sometimes, but instead of helping you, they kicked you out. They fired you. They made it worse! I always said I loved hero society, because the world I saw around me was based on the hero society. But, but all the peace I saw, all the happy people, could they still exist that way even if hero society is being questioned? Because, because I no longer believe in this society!_

Zach lifted his left hand, and he ran it through his spiky hair over the top of his head. His expression darkened, and his eyes focused on Shigaraki Tomura. "I'll, join you," he said. "I'll, join the League of Villains."

Dabi grinned, and Shigaraki tilted his head back and started laughing, lifting his arms up at his sides. He only laughed for a few seconds before lowering his head and glaring at Zach again though, "You killed Mr. Compress." Zach's eyes widened, then Shigaraki continued, "But Ganeshi survived." Zach's face covered in confusion, then shock, as he first thought Shigaraki was going to threaten him or something. Instead, Shigaraki Tomura said, "We'll work on your Quirk while you're with us. Ganeshi is in a coma after all. It's still not perfect," Shigaraki smirked at the confused and stunned boy before him. "Question what it means to be a hero, Zach Sazaki."

Zach ran his hand through his hair some more, so many thoughts rushing through his mind at the same time. Thoughts about the possibilities of using Nightmare, different ways to use his Quirk while with the League of Villains, what the rest of society would think of him for now on, what things Jenny would hear about him. His hand kept running through his spiky hair though, and then his dark expression got even darker and he slowly moved his hand down to his side again. "I, need a haircut," Zach said.

Dabi looked at the boy in mild confusion, but Kurogiri hummed to himself. He had done research on the boy, and he knew what Zach's father looked like. "Very well," Kurogiri said. "Come over here," the portal-user told the boy. He started walking forward and Zach turned as the man walked by him, his whole body shadowy and looking like it was not solid. He eased past Zach and then Zach saw a mirror that Kurogiri grabbed a chair and slid it in front of.

"Dabi, you'll be in charge of him, since this was your idea after all," Shigaraki said while Zach walked over and took a seat in front of Kurogiri.

"That's fine," Dabi replied, glancing to his left at Shigaraki again. _Something's different about him now. Now that All For One is gone. I never thought he'd agree… but he's actually being reasonable here._

Zach sat silently in front of the mirror as Kurogiri got a pair of scissors. The dark man behind Zach started cutting the spikes of his hair, cutting his hair short all around his head. _Don't question it anymore,_ Zach thought as he watched his hair falling out the corners of his eyes, watching it in the mirror in front of him too. _I was, I hesitated so often. I questioned everything. Every time a situation arose, I couldn't act quickly, because I was too worried about what everyone would say… But the Symbol of Peace is gone. All Might, looking like that, the peace we've had for so long is going to disappear. Villains are going to appear everywhere, not just the League of Villains._

Kurogiri cut off the spikes farthest forward on Zach's head, and they slid down his face before dropping to his feet. He kept staring straight forward and his eyes got darker as he stared himself in the eyes. _In Hosu City, Grappler and Samurai told me not to fight. If I had though, I could have killed those Nomus. I let people get hurt, let heroes get hurt. How many people could Grappler still have saved, but I took away… I listened to them. Even though the Nomus, they don't even have proper brain functions. They're pretty much monsters, just like, Ganeshi was._ Zach's mouth twisted even farther down. _When I tried joining in with Bakugo. I wanted to fight alongside him, but All Might shouted at me not to. He didn't want me doing it, when I had almost killed Ganeshi. He shouted at me to stop, and Mt. Lady was killed by Ganeshi not a few minutes later! I won't hesitate anymore! I won't listen to the hero way of doing things! Hero society doesn't even want me using my healing Quirk, but, but Death is… I should be allowed to use it, and I should also be able to use it to kill. It's stupid. It frustrates me. They're willing to let terrible things happen because the hero society can't publicly allow heroes to go around killing villains. But, if killing one villain saves a bunch of people's lives, then I'm not killing, I'm saving innocents._ Zach's dark eyes widened a bit, then they returned to normal size and his fists clenched harder at his sides. _That's how I've always thought. Since I've always considered the people who live and die by association as ones I'm responsible for. The people who die because Titanium wasn't there to save them, I blame myself for that. The people my mom could have healed, all of them are on me. But, I can't just accept the deaths by association as my fault then. I also, have to take into account the people I may have saved. Those two villains, and Ganeshi if he's really in a coma, how many people would they have killed had I not touched them? How many people, am I saving right now with their deaths? All the people Compress, Ganeshi, and Shindeki Buda could have killed after they faced me, who they'll never be able to hurt now,_ _ **I**_ _saved all those people. And I'll never know the numbers I killed or saved, I just, have to make the judgement calls._

Hair fell behind Zach's head and he felt it tickle his neck. He refocused on the mirror and realized that all his spikes were gone. Kurogiri was finishing evening up his hair, but Zach lifted his left hand and he ran it over his crew cut of black hair. _The villains I kill from now on, not these villains necessarily, but what if they ask me to take out competition? If they, don't want enemies or something… I could do that. And while I help them out by taking out other villains, I'll use my Quirk to save lives at the same time. I, I can save so many people being here. I don't have to do anything I don't want to. I can do, whatever I want to! There are no rules! This is a life or death game I'm playing. Every decision could make the villains kill me, or it could get the heroes to capture me and throw me in jail. This, this is what it means to be a criminal, to be a villain. I'm on the wrong side of the law now, but I'm going to save people anyway. Ha, haha, this is crazy! I never even though about this, never thought, I could save more people outside of the rules of hero society. It's because, I always looked up to heroes, and I wanted to do things the same way as them. But with my Quirk, that was never a feasible option. I always, needed to come up with my own way of doing things. The villains are wrong. I won't be a villain like them. And the heroes are wrong too, I can still use my Quirk to save people. But I'll do it without being a hero, and I'll be doing good… and that makes me, an anti-hero! That's what I'll be! An anti-hero!_

Dabi walked over to Zach after he stood back up, brushing his hands over his head to get off lingering strands of hair. "Come on, I'll give you a look around."

"The box?" Zach wondered.

"We'll see about that, in time," Dabi said, telling the kid with his words that they still did not trust him not to just go on a rampage and try killing them all.

Zach nodded his head, understanding their need to be cautious around him. _After all. I showed these villains the monster inside me. I showed them Nightmare, and I could do it again. How strong am I? Can I learn to control Nightmare? Can I control Death? Can I decide who lives and who dies? I can! The power, is in my right hand!_

As Zach and Dabi started walking off, Kurogiri walked back towards Shigaraki. "You have matured, Shigaraki Tomura."

"Hmph. We need Sazaki, even if I don't like him," Shigaraki responded. "Turning him against hero society, and using that Quirk of his for our own gains, though that will need some more of a push, some give and take." Shigaraki turned to Kurogiri and said, "Give the boy what he wants, for now. Once he gets a taste of what he's always wanted, we'll threaten taking it away, and that's when I'll get what I want." Shigaraki turned back and looked down the darkness of the room they were in towards the door Dabi just led Zach out of. "You were out cold, Dabi too, but I saw it." Kurogiri looked at Shigaraki in confusion, and Shigaraki Tomura smirked ear to ear behind the attached gray hand over his face. "Right before he killed Compress, he smirked. That smile, that look on his face when he decided…" Shigaraki started chuckling, and he said, "A single look, and all the villains including myself leapt away. Compress only didn't, because he was right behind him. We all stopped cold, before he had even turned into a monster."

"Why?" Kurogiri asked.

"It was the same feeling when All Might threatened us after beating the Nomu, the same thing we saw those heroes feel when Stain walked towards them that night," Shigaraki's smirk lowered down a little. "Those two have changed more about hero society than anyone. They shaped the world we're living in right now. So seeing that look, on Sazaki's face," Shigaraki frowned deeper, but then he lifted the corners of his lips back up and continued, "I bet we could shake the world, using him. So we'll use him. And we'll shape him into a villain. And if we need to do what we did with the others, treating Stain's ideology as our own, we'll do something else to get the kid to trust us. I'll use all of it. Every piece I have. Everything, sensei taught me."

* * *

 **A/N Thanks for reading... Zach, enters into the villains' realm once again. This time though, he's not thinking about how to get out. How will Zach adapt to his new situation? Will he be able to save people as he hopes, or will he turn into a villain? Has he already? His path is more uncertain than ever, but he considers himself in control of the situation. How will the world change, when the boy with the Quirk Death has finally joined the villains? Let me know what you think or predictions for the future in a review below!**

zerom1v chapter 19 . 4h ago

what will he do now?! He can't go to UA and he can't use his quirk O.o

 **Well, didn't have to wait very long to find out. 2 posts in 10 hours, and I finished up another chapter too between then so I'll be able to keep up my posting through the rest of this week, hopefully. Thanks for the review!**

gods-own chapter 19 . 3h ago

I like your work but I would say that you need to get a proofreader, some of your paragraphs without dialogue are to long and need to be broken down into small examples, besides that its a good story, keep up the hard work.

 **Lots of big paragraphs in this one, hope you can read that much. Lol, just kidding. But really, the only reason so many paragraphs are as _small_ as they are, is because of dialogue. Can't put two different characters' dialogues in the same paragraph, or else they'd all probably be longer. As long as there's a main single idea, like Zach's thoughts as he gets a haircut, or Zach's thoughts as he finishes up getting his haircut, XD it's going to be one paragraph. Hope the style doesn't bug you too much! Glad you're enjoying the story otherwise.**

Guest chapter 19 . 5h ago

It's a little worrying where your driving the story to considering everything that has happened. Nothing that comes to mind shows this to get better anytime soon. It's frightening to imagine what what Zach's future is going to be. He can't become and I doubt he could live a regular considering he is most likely a pariah due to the death of the villains. The last time something happened he practically became a shut in and he already tried to commit sucide in the past. Zach is probably feeling like he has nothing to live for.

 **Yeah, might be right to be a little worried there... Zach's future just became a lot more frightening, as he joins up with the villains. He doesn't think he can have a normal life anymore either, with knowledge of his Quirk out there, and just the fact that he doesn't want a normal life at all. He _has_ to save people, so he joined the League of Villains- Well, let me know what you think of the developments. Thanks for the review, and thanks everyone for reading!**


	21. Chapter 21

**Chapter 21:**

"I need 50 cc's of adrenaline stat! Where is the ambulance with the second-"

"It's arriving right now, doctor," a nurse running alongside the stretcher with the first doctor replied back to him. "The condition of the second patient is critical."

"So is this one's," another doctor said, while holding pressure down on the large wound on the green-skinned man's side. The figure on the stretcher had a bloody police officer's uniform on, and the cop was bleeding out from the injury on his side. "Whatever the villain hit him with, the bleeding won't stop."

"Let me look at that," the doctor on the other side of the stretcher stopped them and he moved the other man's hands off of the wound. He lifted the white bandages and there was a lot of dark blood all over them. "Damn it, whatever the power was, it's stopping the blood from clotting."

"Poison?" The nurse questioned in shock. "We didn't even consider-"

"It was reported as a stab wound from the villain's morphing arm, there was no-"

"His heart rate is dropping!"

"Doctor Matthews!"

The doctor leading this stretcher spun and he grit his teeth at the sight of a female colleague leading another stretcher towards them in the wide emergency operating room. "This patient is crashing! We need the crash cart now…"

On the side of the ER, a woman sitting behind a desk leaned over and watched as the second stretcher was wheeled past into an operating room. She could hear all the doctors shouting back there, and more staff were running over from around the hospital. The emergency room was not very full with patients, but all the ones in there had stopped what they were doing and the line in front of the woman at the counter had even turned to see what the commotion was about. Some people sitting on chairs in there waiting for help started talking about the news they were seeing on their phone where a couple of new villains had appeared downtown and were causing a huge mess.

The middle-aged woman behind the counter sat back down though as she heard something shouted in the next room over. She had long purple hair that was starting to gray, and her gaze shifted over to a picture frame she had on her desk, a few inches from the phone. She looked at the frame and saw herself standing between her two sons, the taller one in a green graduation gown, the younger one shorter than his mother. She had her arm around his side and down on his shoulder, and both of her sons were smiling at the camera as she was. She gulped and then reached out for the frame, only her hand reached a little to the side and to the phone. She opened the drawer in front of her at the same time, then told a patient in front of her to wait because of the current situation when the man tried starting back up about his arm that he thought he had broken but was not sure of.

She picked up the phone and glanced down at a sticky note she took out of her drawer. The woman took in a deep breath, then she typed the number and put the receiver up to her head. The phone rang twice, then a deep voice picked up, "Yes?"

"Mr. Smith?" She began hesitantly. She saw the patient in front of her watching her in confusion, and she removed the hesitant and nervous look from her face. "This is Ms. Sanders, Katy Sanders, from Musutafu General-"

"Has there been a fatality?"

"I, I believe an accident just caused a death," she continued, turning around in her chair as she spoke, thinking the man before her might figure out something was weird about what she was saying. "There could be a second fatality as well, I am hearing the conditions are both critical. No, no one is definitely dead already… I don't hear them shouting anymore, so that probably means the second is either stable or- yes, yes I'll try. I promise so please- yes, yes I understand. Of course, I will. Th-Thank you."

* * *

At U.A. High School, Class-A had finally settled into their dorms. They had just gone through another day of intense training and working on special moves in order to prepare for the Hero License exam and start of the semester. Some of them were making editions to their costumes, others were changing up their fighting styles, and all of them were working their hardest to get themselves ready.

After returning to the dorms, Kaminari Denki grabbed his phone before heading over to the common space on the first floor. He plopped onto a couch and leaned back, letting out a long breath of exhaustion while putting his hands behind his head. He did not know how many times that day he had short-circuited his mind while working on his Quirk. _I really need to think of a way to fix that, or there's no way I'm going to pass. I can definitely output more though, before I go stupid._

He sighed and then sat up as a couple of girls walked into the room along with Sero. "Yo," Kaminari said as they walked over.

Jirou smirked at the blond boy who the last time she saw him, he had been walking in a straight line with a totally blank expression on his face. She mimicked it as she walked towards the couch, and Sero and Hagakure started laughing which made Kaminari grumble in annoyance. "Like you're not all exhausted after today," Kaminari said.

Jirou sighed and then turned, falling back on the couch while shrugging and saying, "I guess."

"I thought your new costume looked great, Kaminari," Toru Hagakure said. Kaminari's face brightened at the compliment and he started going on about it. Jirou glanced to her right at the boy who was grinning and talking excitedly to Hagakure, and she frowned at him before leaning back on the couch and putting her own hands behind her head. Jirou let out a long yawn, then she started staring at the ceiling quietly.

Sero and Hagakure sat down too, and while the two of them started talking, Kaminari lifted up his phone as he got a message from someone. He spotted who it was from and lifted an eyebrow. _Why not just come find me?_ Kaminari thought, as he saw Kirishima's name on the message and knew the boy was somewhere in the same building. He sighed but opened up his phone anyway, then his eyes started widening and he straightened in his seat. Kaminari started typing fast as he went on the internet, and the two in front of him stopped talking and turned to him seeing his expression shift frantically.

"What's up?" Sero questioned.

Jirou lowered her gaze from the ceiling and turned to Kaminari, then she opened her mouth to make a joke, only for Kaminari's eyes to open huge as he stopped typing. He started sliding a finger down as he was reading something, then he lifted his other hand and ran it up through his spiky blond hair while more sweat formed on his face. "What the…" he began, before lowering his phone and staring up at the ceiling. "What are you doing?"

"Let me see that," Jirou grabbed Kaminari's phone from him and she scrolled back up to the top of what he was reading. "Oh? Yeah I heard about this," she began, glancing at Kaminari in some confusion as to his reaction. She turned to the other two as Sero asked what she was talking about, and Jirou said, "A pair of villains popped up in Musutafu today. I heard that Midnight sensei and Snipe sensei actually left school to go help take care of them."

"Were they strong?" Sero wondered, glancing towards Kaminari to see what had him running his hands up through his hair, and what had the corners of his lips curling up even as he looked really nervous.

"I guess," Jirou began as she looked back at the phone. Her expression darkened and she continued, "Actually, it looks like they killed two…" Jirou stopped speaking as she scrolled down a little farther. "What the-" she spun to Kaminari, only to see him look back at her with a huge smile on his face, despite the panicked look to it.

"What is it?" Hagakure asked, getting nervous herself now as Jirou's expression started to look more like Kaminari's did when he first read what he was looking at.

Jirou gulped and then started reading what she had just seen, though she read it aloud this time, "At 2:34, and 2:37 P.M., two deaths were called at Musutafu General Hospital." Jirou took a few deep breaths, then she continued, "But at 2:40 P.M., both Officer Haga Tonari, and the deceased civilian Kyoyako Suna… were resuscitated. Eye-witness reports claim a, masked man, appeared…" Jirou shook her head a few times, then she continued quietly, "Out of a portal. Brought both patients back to life. And then left." Kyoka Jirou reached a hand up to her head and she started scratching it while lifting her gaze back to Hagakure and Sero. She could not see how Hagakure was reacting, but Sero's eyes were huge as he spun back to Kaminari who nodded at him with a big grin on his face.

"You think-" Sero began.

"For sure," Kaminari replied. "I know it," he said.

"Zach?" Hagakure whispered. Kaminari looked towards the invisible girl and nodded his head at the space above the top of her collar.

"I don't get it," Sero said, shaking his head as he tried to piece this together. "Why would the portal guy, help Zach-"

"Maybe," Jirou began, her expression getting darker as she did. Kaminari turned to her and his smile lowered at the hesitant look she gave him, "Zach made a deal with them. Maybe, if they let him…"

"No way," Kaminari started.

"Then why would they help him?" Sero asked. Kaminari spun back with wide eyes, wondering how none of them were as excited about this as he was.

"Zach's fine," Kaminari said, grinning at the others as if they were missing the main point of this. "And he's saving people."

"But," Hagakure whispered. "Does this mean, he went through the portal himself?"

Kaminari lost his smile and he stared at the invisible girl in shock. He opened his mouth to reply, then he froze and his heart started racing. _Of course he didn't! Unless, what if- Zach's smart so, what if he thought of doing this even then? Right at that moment?_

"Either way," Sero began, and the other three turned towards him. "I don't know what to think, but to me, it sounds like Zach just saved two people. So," he grinned, his big smile stretching across the whole bottom half of his face. "I'm glad he's still a good guy."

"Ha, of course he is," Kaminari said, laughing that Sero even had to mention it. He threw his hands behind his head and leaned back on the couch. "I don't know what he's doing. I never really got, what he was thinking," his smile lowered down a little. He thought about a video he had watched several times in the past week. _"My dad, he, he died because of me!" "You left a ten year old boy to live on his own?" "_ _ **That**_ _is not a child!"_ "I, never really understood him at all," Kaminari continued, his voice lower as he whispered it. "He never told me a thing… but, I still know what kind of person Zach is. And if he's saving people, it's because _he's_ using the portal-guy, not the other way around."

After a few seconds, the girl on Kaminari's left nodded her head. "Zach does, think a lot," Jirou admitted with a shrug. "Sometimes too much though," she added. "That's, what got him in trouble in the first place."

"But what did he really do wrong?" Kaminari asked, then he shut his mouth fast as the other three all spun to him. "Not that, killing villains is alright," he muttered. "But, you know what happened that first time," Kaminari said while looking into Jirou's eyes. "Do you really still think, he could have-"

"No," Jirou replied. "I get it now."

"And if that Compress guy was trying to capture any of you," Kaminari said, looking back to Hagakure and Sero, "wouldn't you use your Quirk to fight back against him?"

Sero shrugged and tilted his head to the side, then he nodded it, "Yeah, of course."

Hagakure did not know how to answer that question, but she nodded her head anyway, which still didn't give anyone an answer since they couldn't see her nod. "That's right," Kaminari said after a second. "So I don't care about all that stuff the news is saying about him. I'm sure they'll piece it together that he's the guy in the hospital too. Some people still don't believe he saved Kirishima though, so that's probably the only reason they haven't said it yet."

"What happens when people find out?" Jirou wondered. Kaminari looked to her, and she continued, "He might have saved them, but if he went back through the portal afterwards, on his own… If he's using his Quirk, even though the judge told him he couldn't…"

"Then, that makes him a villain," Sero said, and Kaminari's eyes opened huge. They widened that big, because he could not deny what they just said. Sero leaned back in his chair and muttered, "That, stinks." He rubbed his forehead then added quieter, "What is Zach thinking?"

Jirou looked towards Sero, then she lowered her gaze to the floor between them. _I want- we all want him to come back here. But, even if he did come back, he can't be a part of our class anymore. Is that…_ Jirou lifted a hand and put it in front of her face a few inches off. She thought about how Zach looked at her, when she looked at him in fear at the Sports Festival. _What were we, to him?_

"Kaminari," Hagakure began in a whisper. The others looked towards her, and she continued, "Remember when we went to the mall? Zach said we could have that party at his house, because his Aunt wouldn't care-" she had to stop herself and grimaced as she now knew that Zach had been lying to them back then. "He- he wanted to spend more time, outside of class with the rest of us." Jirou stared towards the invisible girl with her eyes wide, thinking about how she was just wondering about this. "We, should have had that party," Hagakure whispered.

Kaminari frowned, and he nodded his head. _Zach. I'm sorry I never noticed. I wish, you would have told me._

* * *

Midoriya lay on his bed late at night, on his side with his phone in front of him. He had seen a message in the class's group chat, and since then, other news articles had come out about the incident. The boy with curly green hair stared at the article that started with a picture taken at Musutafu General, a picture that caught the side of the face of a figure in a black mask. The boy had a crew cut of black hair above the top of the mask, and he had light skin that could be seen through the holes on it and on his neck. He scrolled down and saw pictures of the two victims, both of whom had no injuries whatsoever.

 _"The masked figure grabbed Ms. Kyoyako with his right hand, and his hand and wrist turned black as he yelled in pain. He had on long sleeves so we could not see how far up the blackness went, but after a few seconds of him screaming, he stopped and moved on to the other deceased patient. Officer Haga took a few seconds longer, and his screams were more painful. Then he sluggishly turned and walked through a portal that opened up behind him. It all happened so fast…"_ Midoriya lowered his phone to his bed, putting the screen down so that his room became dark.

Izuku Midoriya rolled onto his back and stared straight up at the ceiling. He thought back a week ago, how he had jumped out of his seat. How he and Todoroki had tried pushing past people going the other direction. He imagined Midnight and Vlad King getting knocked out of the way, and how he had barely stopped to see if they were alright, sliding under Kamui Woods' Quirk instead to get closer. _I was right there. He was within reach,_ Midoriya thought, as he imagined how he had leapt up in the air using Full Cowling, how he had gotten high enough up that he could see over the portal blocking off Zach and the rest of the room. _But,_ Midoriya thought, and he rolled back on his other side so he was facing the wall this time. In his head he saw Zach turning left, and stepping through the portal with that dark, calm look on his face. _How do you save someone, who doesn't want to be saved? Should I have swung towards him, to stop him from doing it… If I had, how long would it have been, before the villains just went after him at home? If it was his choice to go with them- I thought he would be killed trying to fight them. I thought, he was going to do something so stupid, that he would try fighting even with that box on his arm- but I didn't swing at him. Why?_

 _Was it because it was his choice? Or, was it because of the verdict… or…_ Midoriya thought about Zach's look, when he turned from the judge and faced the rest of the courtroom. He clenched his eyes shut, but he could not get that look out of his eyes. _He looked, he looked- betrayed. Like every one of us sitting there, watching as his dreams were shattered… we were all at fault. That's what I saw at least, when I saw those eyes. But Zach didn't just go there and fight. I was afraid, he had died, and I didn't stop him. I knew I had messed up, but, he must not have tried attacking the villains. I thought for sure, but he didn't. Instead, he's working with them. Even after everything they did to us. He's working with them- to save lives? "I have to change the answer… Was it good that I was born? All I want to do, is change the answer to that. And you won't let me…"_

Midoriya lay on his back again, and he kicked his legs out a few times as they were feeling sore from training earlier. That lingering soreness was not what was keeping him awake all night though, and he knew it. He put his legs back down, and he stared straight up at his ceiling that was visible now that his eyes had adjusted to the darkness. He stared at a poster of All Might, and he thought about his hero going up on stand. _I know, he's not allowed to lie. But, but for the teachers to have said those things. All Might, must blame himself. I should talk to him about it. What should we do? How do we, get Zach back?_

* * *

Zach Sazaki lay on his bed in the League of Villains' lair. His door opened and he struggled to sit up as fast as he could. He swung his legs off the side of his bed, his body slouched, and his head lifted up with some difficulty to face the man standing there. "You're really that exhausted, from saving just two people?" Dabi asked, looking down on him from the doorway that was barely more illuminated than Zach's dark room.

"When I use my Quirk, to save people at least, I feel so much pain and exhaustion," Zach said.

"Only when you use it to bring back from the dead?" Dabi asked, lifting his eyebrows. "What about when you kill? What do you feel then?"

Zach's eyes lowered, but for the first time in his life, for the first time ever, he felt like answering this question truthfully would not make the person in front of him look at him like he was insane. "Pleasure," Zach whispered. His eyes shot open wide and he lifted his head to Dabi, only to wince as even that criminal was staring at him with wide eyes after he said that. "It's not my fault. I just, feel good," Zach said. "I'm disgusted by the feeling. It's not like I actually like doing it, but, but my body fills with…" Zach shook his head around, not knowing why he felt the need to explain himself to a villain who killed Kirishima without remorse. "Why are you here?" Zach asked.

"Let's go train your power," Dabi said.

Zach's eyes opened wide. Dabi smirked at him and then motioned out the door he was standing in. "We've gathered up a large number of animals. The quicker you get your power under control, the fewer of them you have to kill," Dabi said.

"I don't like killing animals," Zach began. He stood up and rolled his arms a few times, trying to work off his exhaustion. He looked down at his right hand that had a steel box on it. "But let's do it. It'll be worth it, if I can control Death."

Dabi nodded at him, then he tossed a key towards Zach. "Let's go."

 _They're becoming more lenient with it,_ Zach thought, as he started taking off his hand's cage. _And they even let me use my power, somewhere populated this time. Kurogiri always sent me to isolated areas before, morgues where the body had just been brought in. Sometimes it failed, so now I know it's between twenty and thirty minutes, but still. I'm learning. The other ones were counted as mistakes, mysterious awakenings by patients the doctors thought were dead. This time though, they must have wanted me to be seen. Maybe, they thought sending me somewhere public on the first time, I would try to escape. But I'm five people in now. Five lives saved, and I haven't had to take one. Now I'm training Death to not kill people too? I, I won't use my Quirk on them. Not yet, not, not for a while. This is making me too much stronger. They're willing to take risks with my training. They're willing to send me places I could get arrested, willing to break all the rules, and I'm getting stronger because of it. I'm learning more about my Quirk, than I ever did at U.A. Saving more people, than if I was just sitting in a classroom, trying to get a useless piece of paper that would only restrict what I can do more… But I have to remember, I am not one of them. I am here, for my own reasons. The second they start making me do things, that don't involve saving people, that are villainous- I have to be able to tell the difference. I know what they're trying to do. Move one step at a time, until the next step up doesn't seem like that big a jump. But I can't let that happen. I am neither a hero nor a villain, but I have to keep my own code. What code? What code do I live by?_

Zach walked out of the room and followed after Dabi, but his eyes narrowed down at the back of the man in front of him. _I'll have to make up that code soon. Because the longer I'm here, the more I don't want to leave. The more, this guy who KILLED Kirishima, doesn't actually seem like a bad guy. Stain's radical ideas, that's all Dabi follows. But, I'm against that fake hero stuff too now. That makes me, more like Dabi than it does- No! Don't think like that. I'm a hero, in my own way. It's not the kind of hero that society recognizes. But as long as I am saving lives. As long as I do, the right thing, then it doesn't matter if I don't follow the rules. I'll make my own rules, my own code, and I'll live by that. And if I'm wrong, and the world starts going to shit because of what I'm doing, or Shigaraki Tomura starts attacking everyone again, I'll just kill 'em all._

* * *

 **A/N Thanks for reading. Hope you enjoyed the chapter. Leave a review below telling me what you think, questions, or predictions! Alright review responses... (whoa, that's a lot):**

I-R-Stormzz chapter 20 . Jul 1

Hope we get a chapter dedicated to everyone's reaction to Zach joining the Villians. I Really want to see how Class 1A reacted to all of this.

 **Jumping straight into the next week, so, sorry 'bout that. We get some Class-A scenes here though, and it seems like people don't really know that Zach went through the portal on his own (except for Midoriya who saw him step through). Thanks for the review!**

LordOfTee chapter 20 . Jul 2

So! after reading this chapter I thought to myself what would Zach's full title be? And I think I thought of the perfect name The Heroic Villain: Lifebringer.  
This chappy was sorta sad for me in the beginning because it really showed how Zach was cracking I mean his outburst was very justified it really showed how he cared about his father's legacy and for someone to essentially spit on that legacy without a thought was sorta heart wrenching.  
Other than that thanks for the awesome chapter i'm really getting invested into this story!

 **Awesome name XD. Definitely getting darker here as Zach's gone to the dark side, glad I could make you feel for him at the start of last chapter. Glad you're invested and thanks for the review!**

animelover78861 chapter 20 . Jul 1

Wow i just started reading this story and I'm obsessed. I wonder What the heroes and the world will react cause there the ones who caused this

 **Thanks! I also wonder how they're all reacting... did not see much of it this time, but next chapter's a longer one again where we'll see more- but no spoilers!**

D-Koy24 chapter 20 . Jul 2

So is he changing his name to Grim Reaper?He mentioned it a few chapters back as a possible hero name (anti-hero in this case)  
Not surprised that old hand-face has plans to change Zach into a true villain,oh how are his classmates (former classmates) going to react about this?Im SO EXCITED for the next chapter!  
~D-Koy 'Hoooooo!'

 **Guess I should've made a full react chapter huh? Lots of people looking for that, but with the way Zach got taken/ disappeared/ left with the villains, I didn't really think spending a scene showing everyone looking shocked at a tv was worth it. Really, it just didn't cross my mind at the time :p. Anyway, we'll see if he decides to switch up his name and how he'll move from here on... Thanks for the reviews!**

Roxas Itsuka chapter 20 . Jul 2

Awesome chapter. It's tragic to see how far Zach has been pushed until he finally snaps and joins the other side. Still, it's interesting to see him become an anti-hero. In the next chapter, will it show the heroes and Zach's aunt dealing with what has happened? Keep up the good work.

 **Thanks! Zach snaps but now he's getting what he always wanted... Anti-hero time! No react chapter, hopping straight into the next arc: Bad Zach Arc. Haha thanks for the review, and hope you enjoyed the chapter!**

An Average Jo chapter 20 . Jul 2

I have no doubt that you will be able to write a story not following cannon really interesting. Really looking forward to see his (ex-)classmates reaction to him going anti-hero. Hopefully they fight. It will look really badass :D

 **Thanks! I'm not going to rely on the manga/wiki that much (or at all) moving forward. Now that Zach's not with Class A, we wouldn't see much of the same stuff anyway. Wound up spoiling some stuff for myself as I tried writing other scenes farther in this, but I tried not to put anything into the story that hasn't been shown in the anime yet. How will his ex-classmates react if they run into Zach again? Maybe we'll find out... Hope you enjoyed!**

QuirklessGorilla chapter 20 . Jul 2

Nooooo! Zack's becoming a villain.  
i cant wait to know what happens.  
also good job and you post the chapters alot instead of like 1 per month :DDD

 **Zach no! Well, at least he's helping people? Thanks for the review! (and I write fast, got 3 more chapters done yesterday actually, so I'll be keeping the pace up!)**

Thebloodlord chapter 20 . Jul 2

While I like the chapter, I think he went to the villains side to quickly, he may hate hero society but he has a strong sense of what a right and wrong. I think he should leave the first chance he gets. Furthermore, Azawa loves all his students i don't he he would sit there and watch as his student was stripped of becoming a hero. He should go back to UA and have the ability to become a hero after this arc. Also a little romance would be nice yes?

let me clarify, I do understand Zacks actions, but the heros and teachers did nothing do defend him when he was on trial as far as we know, THAT is out of character for them.

 **Zach's still holding onto that sense, even if he is on the villains' side now. He just knows he can't do a thing staying on the right side of the law, while now he has the chance to save people that was almost taken from him. Also, I don't think the teachers really would have stood up for him. Zach went through the portal on his own, he killed another villain, the heroes even mentioned back when they first had the talk after apologizing to Zach after USJ, that if he did it again there would be nothing they could do. Still, All Might and Aizawa did try to deflect the questions or give more information, but up on the stand it's up to the lawyers to ask them the questions and their job to answer, not to try and defend or prosecute Zach themselves, as when All Might tried to defend him the prosecutor cut him off. Anyway, glad you liked the chapter though, and hope you enjoyed the new one! Thanks for reviewing!**

BlueGrey chapter 20 . Jul 2

Christ on a bike that was ROUGH  
I am so excited about this turn of events, to see him truly betrayed by everyone he's ever looked to for guidance, even the society he was lived and breathed his whole life  
I serious cannot wait to see how he grows as an anti-hero, I truly think that'd suit him more than a hero would've anyway

 **Glad you're getting into it! Zach's saving lives, but he's also thinking some dark thoughts there at the end of the chapter. We'll see where it goes from here! Thanks!**

Guest chapter 20 . 7h ago

Are you going to update the photo for this fic specifically? I like it alot.

 **Possibly. And thanks!**

Guest chapter 20 . 6h ago

So, I know Zack can't kill himself with his own power. But when he was younger and didn't know. How did he function as a normal human being? Did he get different sized gloves growing up? How did he cut his nails as a kid, if everything that touch his hands died? Does it have a 5 finger activation requirement? or any part of his hand? Can you explain his knockout ability against Ganeshi? Will Zack ever return to U.A., what about his buddies in Class B? What about the people who care about him?

 **I don't think it would be very hard. The doctors gave him the special glove, so I'm sure he was able to ask for a new one if it got too small on him. Cutting his nails? Use a nail clipper, and since it was himself even if he touched it wouldn't matter, since only touching his own chest or head activates Nightmare. Won't explain any of that other stuff though. The more Zach learns about his Quirk, the more we'll learn about it. And we'll see about that other stuff soon... Thanks for the review! Hope this cleared it up a bit.**

Fan chapter 20 . 5h ago

I really like this story. Zack's powers keep growing. He's like a combination of Midnight and Aizawa.  
What was that mist thing that came from Nightmare? Does it also knockout?  
Will Zack learn how to fight like Aizawa and knock people out with his power?  
Though I am worried about the direction of this story... The summary gives it the idea that Zack struggles to continue being a hero? Will he really just join up with the LoV? Another rescue? Will he rejoin U.A. after demonstrating finer control?  
I'm worried because I like how you developed this character and I feel bad for the shit he's been through.  
Was there a reason for killing Mr. Compress? Please, update as soon as you can.

 **Thanks! Zach's powers grow and he's starting to train them with the League of Villains! What other things might he learn about his powers? Can he make them stronger? Will he start using weapons? Where will Zach go from here? All questions that I will not answer, 'cause no spoilers! Zach's got it rough, but I'm glad you're worried about him, makes it feel like I'm doing a good job here. Haha thanks again for the review!**

 **-Thanks again everyone for reviewing! I really did not think that this story would gain so much traction in a couple weeks that I'd have this many people reviewing to each chapter (or for some of you it was the first time), but still there were a lot for having posted this like 30 hours ago. So even though I haven't been doing these responses on every chapter, the following times I _do_ do review responses, I'm going to pick out a couple and respond to them. It just makes the chapter word # way too skewed when a 4 and 1/2 thousand chapter like this comes out a thousand words+ over, and well, it's a lot of editing work adding all these. Hope to still see all the reviews those despite this, and well, I hope y'all enjoyed!**


	22. Chapter 22

**Disclaimer: I don't own Boku no Hero Academia**

 **Chapter 22:**

"Yooo! This is Mikey Mike and we're back with Wild Dogs EXTREEEEME Trick Stunts! We're bringing you all the action from right here in downtown Osaka. Alright alright, look here. Yo Ryan! Look at the camera!"

"WILD!"

"Hey Mikey! We set it up. We all good!"

"You hear that ladies and gentlemen? We got a brand new stunt ready for y'all today! Ryan's gonna do a triple-spinny mctwist back-heel, with a blindfold! On Fire!"

"Wait, what was that last part?!"

"Hahaha! Just messin' with you buddy! You all ready up there?!"

"It's uh, looking a little high, and wobbly… BUT LET'S DO IT YAAAWAAA!"

"YAAA!"

"HAAA!"

"You got this Ryan!"

"Oh man, here we go!"

"Coming to you live! Remember everyone, this is Wild Dogs tv, subscribe and tell your friends! Now here we go. Ryan's looking down. He's gettin' ready. Come on dude! You got- oh nice!"

"YEeaaAY-yahhh!"

"You got this dude!"

"Ryan's speeding down, he's got this! You got this man! Oh, oh shit, Oh Damn! YOO- oh FUCK! Ryan?!"

"Yooo…"

"Guys get over here!"

"Holy crap man. Oh man that does not look good."

"Hey Ryan, Ryan buddy can you hear me."

"Uhhhh…"

"Yo Mikey why are you still rolling?"

"We gotta show everybody the result of the trick. I mean, people like it when we fail just as much."

"We can't post this man- oh crap."

"Is his arm, supposed to look like that?"

"Ryan, you good?"

"WILD!"

"Alright he's good!"

"Um, I don't think he's good."

"Listen to him man."

"WILD!"

"…"

"Yo his arm is seriously fucked up."

"Dude, stop rolling."

"We can't monetize it if it's this graphic."

"We'll cut out parts later. Which means you folks watching on the live stream now, are the only ones getting to see this raw footage!"

"Not the time Mikey!"

"Let's get him in the van."

"WILD!"

"Guys, I think he probably hit his head."

"I don't see any blood… on his head that is."

"Geez, his arm is so fucked. I thought maybe it was just dislocated or-"

"WILD!"

"Yeah buddy, we get it. Just hold on. We'll get you to the hospital."

Four guys in their early twenties shoved their bloody friend into the far back seat as they piled into Richie's van. The van sped off with the screeching of tires leaving skid marks on the street. "Dude, which way!" Richie snapped at the Mikey who sat in the passenger seat next to him. "Put down the camera already! Get the directions-"

"I've got 'em, I got 'em," Mikey Mike said, holding up his phone with one hand while slyly passing the camera behind him to one of the guys who grabbed it and kept it low so Richie would not see. Jimmy pointed the camera back at himself and stuck his forked tongue out on the camera, then pointed it at Mark on the seat next to him.

"You doing alright back there buddy?" Mark called over his shoulder as the van sped down the road. Jimmy leaned back too and he pointed the camera behind him at Ryan.

Ryan held up his right hand, then turned his head to look at his left arm in confusion as to why it did not lift up. His eyes opened huge at the sight of it, then he stared back forward with those huge eyes straight into the camera. Mark and Jimmy both leaned back, worried that he was finally realizing what was happening, then Ryan just pumped his right hand all the way up into the ceiling and shook his head around, yelling, "WIIILLD!" As he shook around his hair, some of the blond spiky bangs sticking over his forehead moved off to the sides and showed a large red bump on the front left of his forehead.

"Oh shit dude," Mark said, though he was grinning after Ryan's enthusiastic 'Wild Boys Call.'

"What?" Richie snapped, looking into the rearview mirror, which Jimmy saw coming and quickly brought the camera down between the seats and out of sight. He had it pointed up at his face though and smirked into the lens as he wondered how many more people were watching this as it kept getting shared. He flipped around the side part to look into to see what he was recording, and his eyes opened wide at the number of viewers. He thought for a moment that maybe it would be bad to keep rolling while their friend was in such bad condition, but then he thought better of it and held up a hand with only his thumb and pinky up that he waved around for thousands to see, more than they had ever had on a live stream before.

"It's nothing dude," Mark assured Richie whose eyes went back to the road when he saw Ryan smiling.

"Left up here," Mikey said. Then he stopped and spun to the driver from his phone, and he said, "Don't you live here dude? How the fuck don't you know-"

"I don't normally do shit that gets me sent to the hospital!" Richie yelled. Jimmy lifted the camera and both he and Mark rolled their eyes like Richie was being a buzz-kill, and Ryan made a face in the background before wincing and looking down at his left arm.

"Oh, not good," Mark muttered as he glanced back. "Hey buddy, look up here," he said, getting Ryan to look forward again. "That trick was awesome dude! You actually landed it!"

Jimmy turned the camera to Mark with a confused look on his face, but Mark winked at the camera then turned back and nodded at a confused Ryan who had asked, "I did?"

"Yeah, 'course you did man," Jimmy said, spinning and saying it to his friend who he realized was actually in a bad situation here. He even lowered the camera down, pointing it at the floor and forgetting about the viewers, but only for a few seconds. What got him to bring the camera back up though, was what he saw over Mark's shoulders and out the window. "Yo, what's going on here?" He lifted the camera and pointed it outside, and Mark turned around to look out, Ryan looked left out the farther back windows, and even Richie had to take his eyes off the road to look out the driver's window at the line of five cop cars parked on the side of the road.

"Yo, it's right there," Mikey pointed.

"Shit, say something sooner," Richie said, slamming on the brakes, then turning the wheel and cutting towards an entrance. He headed towards a sign for the hospital, then more specifically the sign for the ER. "Yo, we're almost there Ryan-"

"Holy SHIT! MY ARM!" Ryan screamed.

Everyone in the car spun around to the guy whose face was full of panic. Ryan had looked left out the windows towards the cops, then his head lowered and he saw his messed up arm again, and everyone else was too distracted to distract him from staring at it in slow revelation. "AHHH!" Ryan screamed. He still was not feeling the pain, but the panic alone was making him freak out and start moving around, which was starting to cause him more pain too.

"Oh geez, buddy calm down-"

"What the-"

"They're stopping us."

"This is crazy! The police can't do this. I'm recording it!"

"I knew you were still fucking- whatever," Richie rolled down the window and he leaned out while still only slowing down. "We've gotta get-"

"AAGHHAAA!"

"You can't come this way. What are you doing?"

"Isn't it obvious?! Listen to the screams, and we're on the fucking path for the ER!"

"Why didn't you call an ambulance, we can't accept-"

"FUCCCKKKK! It HURTTSSS!"

"Come on Ryan, keep it strong for-"

"RAAA!"

"What do we do?"

"We can't just leave him in there. We'll just get him in fast."

"What about the-"

"Don't say a thing. We'll move them through before anything-"

"GFAAAFUCKCK! Help me! Why the fuck are you- AAHH!"

"You can't do this! He needs a doctor!"

"He hit his head too!"

"I DID?!"

"Oh shit Mark, why the fuck would you go and say that?"

"Alright, follow our car up to the entrance. And do exactly as we say. You came, at the worst possible time you kids."

"What the Hell is going on here?" Richie muttered, but he started driving after the cops down the road up towards the hospital ER doors, a road that was empty yet had so many cop cars on the intersection just off of it.

"Live, from _Ooosaka_ General! It's Mikey Mike and the boys, and something is happenin' right now!"

"I bet it's secret government tests," Jimmy said, turning the camera back to himself again. His jaw dropped as he saw the number of viewers below, but he did not want to say anything about it as it would not be a very cool thing to do. So instead he just thought to show all the new viewers in case they missed it, and he spun the camera to Ryan who was gently touching his left shoulder with his right hand and then pulling it back, a scared look on his face that made Jimmy lower the camera a little again, realizing what he was doing.

"Alright, we're here," Mikey leaned over the chair and he held his hand out for the camera, getting it from Jimmy without any complaint from the spiky-black-haired twenty-two year old.

"You two, get him out of the car," Richie said as he threw the driver's side door open.

"You all can't come in here."

"He's not going to be able to move on his own."

"And he's our friend. We're not just handing him off when you cops are acting sketchy as fuck!"

Mikey had the camera hidden between his arm and his side, trying to keep the lens pointed forward without blocking it, yet still angling his body so the two cops who had parked in front of them would not be able to spot it. Jimmy and Mark climbed out of the back seat trying to help Ryan, but Ryan yelled out in pain and Mikey winced as it actually looked like Ryan was feeling it all now. Mikey lifted his left hand and pushed up his glasses, his red-skinned face grinning wide with all his sharp teeth. _This is fucking gold!_

"Alright, we'll take you in. But listen to me. Follow us and listen to what we say at all times."

"You said to listen to you already, but what's going on man? Why are-"

"No questions."

"I know we said we'd listen, or well, we didn't say that- dude! We need a doctor and you're playing fucking 'let's be mystery cops!' Can we please-"

"What are you two doing?"

"They didn't call an ambulance-"

"They _can't_ be here."

"Listen to me! We are citizens of Japan! You cannot deny us entrance into a fucking hospital! Now call a doctor you asshat!"

"Holy shit Mark, you can't call a-"

"MY ARM IS FUCKING BACKWARDS!"

"God damn it, let's get him inside. We're moving fast!"

The young men and their injured friend sprinted into the hospital, Jimmy and Mark moving as fast as they could while also helping Ryan along who was starting to stagger about as he moved. Some nurses ran towards the door immediately after they entered, and the Wild Dogs were all confused as the waiting room of the ER looked perfectly normal. There were men and women sitting in chairs around the place, a line of four people standing behind a desk that had a woman sitting behind it. When the group came running into the room though, every one of them, including Ryan, froze stiff as the entire room turned at once in their directions.

"Oh no dude, I'm fucking out," Mark let go of Ryan and he turned, sprinting out of the hospital that he was already getting the creeps by the second he saw that.

Richie was nervous, but everyone quickly turned away from them other than the nurses who ran over, and he said to one of them, "Are there any doctors here? I don't know- I have no idea-"

"Yes. Yes the doctors are all back this way. Come with us quickly."

"He hit his head too," Jimmy said, as he held Richie's right arm over his shoulders and walked with him. "He's, he's really losing it here. He hasn't shouted 'Wild,' or even in pain."

"Why is he bleeding-"

"It's not out his head."

Mikey was not following after the others, but slowing down and watching as they headed through the doors. His red-skinned face was covering in sweat, but he grinned as he turned his head and looked back into the room behind him. The two cops and the strange man in a black suit who had run into the entranceway to shout at them were moving with his friends, but the man in the suit turned back and gave the boy in glasses a harsh glare at his grin. Mikey Mike could not help himself though, and he pulled the camera out of the crook of his arm. "What's happening in here!?" He called out, pointing the camera around the room, though only a few people spun to him in panic, while most just looked his way nervously.

"Hey, you have to stay with your friend. If you don't have an emergency-"

"Sir, we have to ask you to move along, this is a hospital-"

Mikey started to feel like he had just made a fool of himself in the middle of a hospital ER. Then, he stumbled backwards and fell onto his butt. The nurse in front of him who was trying to get him to move along, and the man in the suit behind him, both spun with intense looks on their faces towards the opposite side of the room as the doors. Mikey's jaw was on the floor, and his camera was shaking as he lifted it back up from pointing at the ground on his side, over to the portal that just appeared in midair over near the open doors separating this waiting room of the ER from an adjacent hallway.

A figure stepped out of the portal wearing a black mask over his face that had skin showing through the eye-holes, on his neck, and on his hands that stuck out of his black sleeves. He stepped out into the waiting room and saw everyone spinning towards him in shock. The line of people on his left turned with wide eyes, the lady behind the counter pushed back and her chair started rolling away. The portal closed behind the figure who was turning left, his eyes widening behind his mask.

"Freeze!"

Mikey pointed his camera to the right, while the man in the black suit whipped his arms up from his side where he just grabbed a gun that was hidden beneath his black jacket. "What the fuck is going on?" Mikey whispered, while every person in the waiting room was jumping up to their feet, pulling out guns and pointing them towards the short figure who just stepped out of a swirling portal.

That portal was gone now, and the room was full of police officers. "Put your hands up!"

"Don't move!"

"Freeze!"

"Hands behind your head!"

Mikey slid backwards on his butt, then his gaze darted down to the camera he had grabbed from Jimmy back in the van. He did not even check back then the inner view of what the camera was showing along with their live stream's viewers, but now that he looked, his jaw dropped several inches at the number of viewers. _This will make the channel! Here we go!_ Mikey pushed back farther until he was behind the cop on his right, then snuck up on his feet and moved the camera to get a better angle past a cop who had gotten up and was in his way.

"Umm, hold on-" the masked figure wearing a black long-sleeved shirt said. He had on long black pants too, black shoes, and his dark mask only had openings on his eyes and over his mouth so his lips and a little light skin around them was showing too.

"No! Don't move!"

"Stop moving your hands!"

"You're surrounded by twenty four officers and two pro heroes!"

The man in the black suit on Mikey's right moved forward and he called out in a stern voice over everyone else's, including the pro hero in a red cape who just called those numbers out at the masked man. "Put your hands up in the air, slowly."

"Do you want me to freeze or put my hands up?! I'm getting mixed signals here-"

"Don't be smart with us," another voice said that made Mikey snap his camera up, only to spot the other hero who was crouched on the ceiling. _Was he up there from the start?_ The cameraman thought in shock, wondering if he somehow missed that. "Just do what we say and don't move a muscle… Unless Officer Fullman tells you to."

"And that would be me," the man in the black suit said. He lowered his gun down a little as the boy turned towards him. "Just put your hands up, and slowly put them behind your head."

The figure in the black mask looked around. A lot of people were pointing weapons at him, but most of the guns were stun guns and tasers now that he looked closer. His gaze shifted to the pro heroes, and his expression looked so confused as he finally lost his wide-eyed look. "Can you tell me-"

"Put your hands in the air!" a female cop shouted, sweat all over her face as she yelled it, seeing the figure's right hand move at his side.

"Nobody panic," Officer Fullman said, lifting his left arm out with an open palm. "Just do as I say, Zach Sazaki, and you-"

"That's not my name," the figure in the mask said. Fullman froze with his mouth open, cops looked around at each other, and the pro heroes both narrowed their gazes though gaining confused looks on their faces.

"Then, who are you?" The hero in the red cape asked, taking a step towards the boy.

"Don't come near me," the kid said, taking a step back.

Immediately a dozen cops yelled at him to stop moving, and he froze again. "Just tell me this!" He shouted, his arms lifting his front of his body.

"Don't move!"

"He told me to put my hands up!"

"It's alright! Put them behind your head… and what is it?"

The short figure's arms kept lifting, and he held his hands straight up at the sides of his shoulders before he stopped moving them. "Thank you. I just, have one question. I'm still kind of confused…"

Mikey zoomed in the camera, focusing on the face of the masked boy standing there near the hallway jutting off of the ER. The boy's eyes darted towards that hallway, then back around at all the people in front of him. "Did no one die? Is- was the car crash, a lie? It was, right?" There was always the chance that the car crash had happened, but knowing what would come of it, this had been gathered up quickly to prepare for his arrival. Zach thought about that, but he was doubting it considering the expression of the woman he saw behind the counter on his right.

"Yes," Officer Fallman said, after hesitating for a few seconds. "No one is actually dead. Now put your hands behind your head."

"Oh," Zach's eyes lowered down to the floor. He stared at the ground at his feet, _They were just, tricking me? Well, that sucks,_ he thought, even as his mouth curled into a small smile. "Okay, I'm putting them behind my head," Zach said. "But just saying, you asked me to do it." Zach's hands touched his head.

Mikey dropped his camera and fell backwards. Some of the cops had lowered their arms at the question the boy asked, and the relieved look that had formed on what they could see of his face afterwards. But when his hands touched his head all their arms snapped back up as their faces filled with fear. A black portal opened up in front of Zach, and gunshots fired. "Hold your fire!" Fallman shouted, darting his head back and glaring at the young man who was on his butt again, a camera on his side pointing forward though blocked by the guy's own leg. However that camera was rolling, and it caught the sounds of gunfire.

Zach let out a deep breath of relief after he touched his head. _That was, actually really stupid. Why did I do that? I thought maybe, it could intimidate them all into running off, but I should have realized they'd just fire at me. I look like a monster after all,_ Zach stepped backwards into the portal that appeared behind him, while the pro hero on the ceiling leapt over the other portal between Zach and the cops. Zach stepped back faster, touching his head again quickly as he spotted that hero dropping towards him. _Geez, idiot,_ Zach thought as he stepped into a lit-up white room, the portal in front of him closing fast. _What would have happened if you had touched me? I'm sure you guys knew what you were doing, since you knew it was me in there. Oh man, I never told them my name was Lifebringer. I meant to bring that up somewhere in the conversation- didn't expect things to go that badly._

"Are you alright, Sazaki?" Kurogiri questioned the boy in front of him he walked up to.

"Yeah," Zach replied, then he lifted his left hand back up and pulled his mask up over his hair. He let out a deep breath through his nose, as the mask was a little suffocating. "Can't believe they really set a trap for me."

"The nurse must have given us up. We will-"

"Don't do anything to her," Zach said, glaring at Kurogiri harshly.

The portal-user frowned down at Zach and narrowed his glowing yellow eyes at the short fifteen year old. "If we do nothing, then the others-"

"Nobody else is going to set a trap," Zach said, lifting his voice at the end in a skeptical way, like he was surprised Kurogiri thought that.

"What do you mean?"

"They'll definitely hear about that one failing, and when they do, who else is going to want to risk their lives over this? I mean really, what is it they'd be risking their lives over, stopping me from saving lives? If they're working at a hospital, they must care at least a little about the people they're helping. I don't know why that nurse felt the need to call the cops, but you should try being less threatening next time you tell people to call you when there are accidents." Kurogiri's yellow eyes widened as he stared at the kid who grinned at his wide-eyed reaction. "I'm serious. Now that people kind of know what I'm doing, I'm sure if you just tell them straight out, or instead of going after people you think you can threaten well, pick out doctors or nurses who care more about their patients than anything… Really, I think we can change up the way we're doing this now. And you don't need to threaten a single other person."

"You really think that will work?" Kurogiri questioned him. "After what just happened, how can you be confident in that?"

"It's _because_ of what just happened. I mean sure, I showed some people the Nightmare- the, um," he stopped and tried thinking of the other names his had spitballed, but nothing else came to his mind as quickly as 'Nightmare' did. "Well, I know that happened, but I didn't hurt any of them even though they came to capture me, and they even wound up shooting at me. All I've done so far is save people. I'm just hoping, people will start to see that. Isn't that what you're all hoping for too? What Shigaraki wants?"

Kurogiri hummed and he nodded once. "Very well. I will consider using those new tactics. The less villain-like your actions are after all, the more use you are to us."

 _That sounds ridiculous, while at the same time I get what you're trying to do by using me like that. Well, whatever. Win win for now, but I think you're thinking too much about your end goal. "Challenge what it means to be a hero?" That's good and all, I can even get with that, but your League of Villains took a hit, and what new villains are going to want to join an organization that's getting all its recent publicity because of good acts? Heh, if anything, I'm making the League of Villains seem… well, alright no need to go that far. No one's going to forget about Camino Ward, or the attacks on U.A., Stain, any of it. But I can at least look on the bright side. I have to! There are positives, about me saving people- I mean, other than the fact that these people get to go home to their families, enjoy the rest of their lives._ Zach couldn't stop the smile from spreading across his face again. "I totally agree," Zach said to Kurogiri, then he laughed and turned from the man with the Quirk: Warp Gate. "I'm going to go train," the boy with short black hair said, waving his right hand next to him.

Zach walked right out of the room, and he lowered his arm down to his side before smiling even wider. _He didn't say a thing! No more box. Maybe it's because I added that I'm starting training, so it would have been a waste of time anyway. But still, seems like, they're really starting to trust me!_ Zach thought it excitedly, but the curled up corners of his lips lowered down after a few seconds. He did not notice though, and he just kept going towards his training room. His lips curled farther down as he thought on the training, _Sorry little guys, but it needs to be done._

* * *

At the U.A. High School dorms, Momo Yaoyorozu sat at her desk with a large bowl of chocolates in front of her. She picked up and ate with one hand, while holding her other hand out behind her, alternating between creating pencils and pens, and doing so as fast as she could. The writing utensils were littering her floor already, but she just kept going with some sweat on her forehead, stuffing her face and staring at her computer screen that had the notes she had typed up on it.

"Hmm," she hummed, before moving her left hand over to scroll down a bit. "Ah!" She stopped Creating after another pencil popped out of her right palm, then she reached her hand forward and created a tissue which she brought to her mouse-pad that had a smear of chocolate on it. "Oh no," she said, as it was just getting rubbed around. "How much water will disrupt the pad, I'm sure it won't-" she hummed and started rubbing harder, not wanting to try getting the napkin wet and risk breaking the laptop. She rubbed for a few seconds, and then she slowed down and pulled it away to show the pad was clean. "That's, better," she whispered.

Yaoyorozu put the napkin down next to her keyboard, then she moved her left hand for the bowl of chocolates again. Before she reached into the bowl though, her right hand had gone to the mousepad. _Have to make sure, it still works,_ she thought, while clicking down on an icon on the bar at the side of her screen. "Okay," she mumbled, as the internet button bounced showing that the mouse's click function still worked. "Great," she said, smiling as her computer was still fine. Then again, she never doubted it was, not really. She kept staring at the screen without reaching for more chocolates, looking at the search bar in the middle and the address bar at the top. _I shouldn't. I still have, stuff to…_

She could not help herself. Yaoyorozu typed fast into the search bar and then she scrolled down the results page quickly. As she was in the middle of reading one address of a link, she clicked up on the red 'x' at the corner of the screen and closed her eyes. "What am I doing?" She whispered to herself, shaking her head and then reaching for the bowl of chocolates again. Momo grabbed a small chocolate ball and popped it into her mouth, but she chewed slower this time while staring back at her notes now that the internet window had been closed. She could not focus on the classwork anymore though, not after the things she had just read.

 _Zach,_ Yaoyorozu thought, and she lifted her right hand and rubbed her forehead with it. _I wish I had gone to the court…_ she stopped her own thoughts, but then she closed her eyes and continued thinking it. _Why didn't I? Why didn't so many- I know Kaminari said it was his parents, but, but I-_ Yaoyorozu lowered her hand and stared at her computer screen, trying to refocus. She just let out a sigh instead though and leaned back in her chair, staring up at her ceiling.

 _ **"This is, a 'hall?' Is every room here this big?"**_ _The look when I told him that was not actually one of the bigger rooms,_ Yaoyorozu cracked a smile, thinking about the final exam study prep she had at her house with her classmates. _That seems, so long ago now,_ she thought, losing her smile as the boy's wondrous look faded from her mind. _**"I have to change the answer…"**_ Momo got up from her chair and she dropped onto her bed, grabbing her pillow and shoving her face into it. _Why didn't I say anything? We were all there, at the hospital with him. It was the last time, his life was even close to normal. We had told him! We told him everything would be okay! We came to him and said- and we decided beforehand to act like we didn't hear- but, but I should have told him. I should have, talked to him… If I had the time, would I have? Without the others there, just me…_

 **Two Weeks Ago…**

"Kaminari, keep watching!"

"Oh, I am not going to look away," Kaminari said, his eyes huge as he stood farthest on one side of the group, staring out towards a battle that had his whole body shaking. His eyes shot open wide and he held his breath in fear, taking a step backwards, "What is… All Might?" Kaminari whispered.

"Ahhh AHH!"

"Are you sure you can do this?"

"Monoma, stop it-"

"It's okay, agh, this is, what happens- Ah! I can't believe, it hurts this much though, RRRGGhh-"

Yaoyorozu sat on her knees in front of Zach, glancing to her right as she heard Monoma's pained screams and groans, then to her left as she saw Kaminari taking another step back in fear. _What is happening? Is All Might-_

"I have to… Mount Lady, I need- I can save her. I have to-"

"Zach," Yaoyorozu said, reaching for the boy on his knees in front of her. "It's alright. You can pass back out now. Monoma's got-"

"Mount Lady, I need to save, my right hand…" Zach's eyes were darting around in front of him, not focused on anything, and Yaoyorozu's breathing was speeding up. Fear filled her at the look on the boy's face in front of her.

She looked down at his right hand, unmoving on the side of his body. Its fingers did not even twitch, though they were dripping blood. She wanted to make a large pot holder to slide over his hand, but Todoroki had told her not to even get close to it. She was afraid of what would happen if something she was touching was touching his hand too, so as much as she wanted to make it easier for them to carry him out of there, they had to let his right arm dangle as they moved him. Zach was not showing any pain on his face now though, and Yaoyorozu started shaking and she pursed her lips at the desperate, worried look on his face. "Zach," she whispered, leaning closer and scooting forward on her knees towards his left side.

Yaoyorozu put a hand on Zach's left shoulder, and she heard Kaminari behind her mutter, "You can do it, All Might."

"It's alright," she said, her voice soft. The boy in front of her was in the middle of saying the word, 'save,' but he froze and his eyes darted towards Yaoyorozu. The girl kneeling at his side leaned closer and she held his shoulder tighter. Then he looked in her eyes, and Yaoyorozu felt her chest ache at that look in his. _He's, scared,_ she thought.

His eyes widened a little while he made eye contact with Yaoyorozu, as Monoma let out one last yell of pain behind him and off fifteen feet. "Did you, see it?" He whispered. Yaoyorozu nodded her head. The boy who had passed out after talking to them while in that dark form did not seem to remember their conversation, or what was going on around him. He just looked into Yaoyorozu's eyes with afraid ones of his own, and before she could open her mouth to speak, he asked, "Did you, hear everything, I said?"

The broken boy in front of her seemed so scared, but not just because of what Yaoyorozu thought he was nervous about. "It's okay," Yaoyorozu said. She reached her other hand forward and put it on his left arm, squeezing that along with his shoulder. She could barely look towards his messed up right arm, and she had no idea what other life-threatening injuries he might have on him, but his face was way paler than she felt safe with. "Don't be sad," she said, lifting her lips at the short boy whose eyes were shaking. She felt a little awkward doing this, but in the state he was in at the moment, she doubted he would remember any of this. He had been in a trance since they shook him out of unconsciousness, and before Monoma had suggested copying his powers, he had dropped back out cold on them twice.

She steadied her voice and continued, "None of us are scared by what we saw. It's okay-" she paused, and she pursed her lips while looking into the eyes of the boy right in front of her. The second thing he asked her, made her more hesitant to answer. She had to though at that look in his eyes, because she thought back to USJ as she thought about how to respond to him. In her mind she had seen him, standing up and turning towards the edge of the cliff, walking towards it before collapsing again and into tears. _Was he thinking about…_ she thought, and her chest clenched up even more. "Zach," she began quieter. She thought about what he had yelled at the villains before touching his chest with his hand, about the first time he had tried it, about what he had hoped would happen when he touched it. "You don't, have to feel that way. You have friends, who care about you." The boy's shaking eyes widened as if he recognized what she was saying, but Yaoyorozu just got more afraid as his slightly open mouth started drooling a line of blood out the left corner of his mouth. She pursed her trembling lips again, _We need to get him out of here!_ "All of us who came here, and the others too," Yaoyorozu continued. Tears came out of the boy's eyes, but they were not happy ones like he was listening to what she was telling him, and her heart fell at how bad she felt for the boy in front of her.

"Zach, you are _not_ a monster," Yaoyorozu said, her voice more firm as she moved her right hand from his shoulder up under his chin. She was careful as she lifted it, afraid of doing anything that could possibly injure him more before they could get him emergency medical treatment. "You shouldn't feel that way. You should, never feel that way. Don't think, you're a bad person. You're not, and, and killing those two villains," she whispered softer, "it doesn't make you evil-"

"But, what about my mom?"

Yaoyorozu's soft and caring expression wiped from her face. It was pure reaction, her eyes opening huge, her bottom lip lowering. Then Todoroki called out, "Yaoyorozu, Kaminari, let's go." Yaoyorozu spun her head and saw Kuroiro and Todoroki each helping Mt. Lady up to her feet, while Monoma was keeping a distance from them. The blond boy from Class B had his hand held up close to his chest, shaking there, and then he pushed it away, deciding not to try out being that scary monster.

Kaminari walked backwards while staring the other way with wide eyes, then he spun to Yaoyorozu and said, "Let's get him up! We have to get out of here!"

Yaoyorozu did not know what had him in such a rush from what he was just watching, but when she turned back to Zach to say something, she saw the boy in front of her with his head bowed and both eyes closed. Yaoyorozu leaned away from him, her entire body slouching. Kaminari reached down and grabbed Zach by the left arm, apologizing as he lifted up and then started to drag while keeping a wide berth from Zach's body and his arm that could possibly come near him if he was not careful. "Sorry, my bad," Kaminari muttered over and over again, but he was moving fast without looking back, only glancing in front of him and then staring down at Zach where he kept his eyes on for the most part.

Yaoyorozu got up, and Kaminari turned back right as Todoroki did a little in front of him to call for her to pick up the pace. Both of them opened their eyes wide in confusion, as Yaoyorozu sprinted forward while rubbing her fists on the corners of her eyes, trying hard not to make it obvious that she was crying. _That's, that's not fair. Why would- no, not why. It, it must have, been an accident. Is- That could have easily, been how his Quirk… how it first… I just assumed it was an animal. I had hoped- but no, I considered, as soon as, his Aunt showed up instead of his parents. It must have been then, that I- but I pretended like I didn't- Zach. I, I wish…_

 **Present**

 _Why did you have to, be born with such a Quirk?_ Yaoyorozu thought, opening her eyes while her face was shoved into her pillow. _It was bad luck. That's really, all it was. It could have happened to anyone-_ Yaoyorozu flipped over to stare at her ceiling instead of her pillow. _It could have happened to me. Creation, is such a perfect Quirk for me. I, but if I had Death. If I had accidentally killed, my mom,_ Yaoyorozu rose her right arm up and draped her forearm over her eyes. "Ahh," she sighed, then took in a deep breath as she pulled her arm back off of her face.

Yaoyorozu's eyes focused in on a spot on her ceiling. _The teachers haven't talked about Zach since the day we moved in. We're supposed to tell them if he contacts any of us, but, I wonder if he's talking to Kaminari. Is he trying something? I wonder if anyone knows what he's doing, and if he told them to just keep it a secret. I don't believe, he would just stay with the League of Villains. Even if he could use his Quirk to help people, they're villains. Real villains._

Yaoyorozu looked back to her desk, and she steadied her expression and got back up off her bed. _And I need to be better prepared to face them. Even if he's not talking to anyone. Even if he's all on his own. I know he's still a good person, and sooner or later he might need our help. We, we went to save him and Bakugo from the villains, but we couldn't get to him in time. We just stood there and watched, as he killed someone._ Yaoyorozu sat at her seat, and she refocused on her notes, moving around her finger on the mouse pad to get her screen to lighten back up. _I need to pass this Hero License Test, I need a provisional license, so that the next time the opportunity arises, I can use my Quirk. So that I can fight, instead of standing by helplessly. I need to become, a hero!_

* * *

"So your limit is four," Dabi said, looking down at the kid on his knees to his right. Zach's legs were pointed out to different sides while he sat there on his knees, his hands down on the floor in front of him, trying to push up. He was exhausted though, and his arms became limp at his sides.

"For, now," Zach muttered, while leaning back and letting his arms just stay hanging limp in front of him.

"Hmm, yeah, for now," Dabi agreed, and Zach looked up over his shoulder. The taller man with a patched-up appearance and spiky black hair looked down into Zach's eyes. "Sooner or later, you think you'll be able to save everyone?"

"Hopefully," Zach replied, while struggling to bring his legs together under him. He pushed down with more effort, then he looked up to his left at the man who held down a hand for him to take. Zach's eyes widened, then narrowed down. He pushed harder for a second, then he grimaced and let out an exasperated grumble. Zach reached up with his left hand, clasped it in Dabi's right, and the taller man yanked him up to his feet in a rough pull. "Oof," Zach grunted as he planted his feet, instantly feeling more exhausted as he did.

"You can still only do one though, when I completely burn it up," Dabi said. "And none when I destroy the head. Think you'll be able to change that too?"

Zach shook his head in an unsure way while looking back in front of him towards the sheep that was walking around the square room full of barn animals. The sheep had a patch on both sides of its torso where there was no white wool, but its skin in those areas was completely healed up even though a jet of blue flames had blasted through it only ten minutes earlier. Zach winced and he lowered his left hand to his left side after Dabi let go, and Dabi watched as the boy rubbed an area he was never hit in like it was sore.

The teen stopped rubbing after a few seconds, frowning as he lowered his hand. _With Dabi always watching my training sessions, it's hard to hide anything about my power from them. The more I learn about it, the more they're learning about it too. And they keep getting me to try out more with it, which is good, but they're learning all the extents of my ability at the same time that I do. It's frustrating._ "We should stop now," Zach said, turning towards the exit and staring at the large white door.

"You can still stand," Dabi remarked.

"Yeah, but what if Kurogiri finds something after I go again?" Zach asked, turning back to the taller man. "If I can't move at all, I'd feel shitty that I just brought a sheep back when I could have saved someone's life."

"Makes sense," Dabi replied. He turned and nodded for the door, and Zach started walking with him on his left side. He noticed but never said anything about how Dabi constantly stood on his left. It was clear the man did not fully trust him, but at the same time Dabi never mentioned anything about how he was standing on Zach's left or that distrust Zach could feel coming from him. "So why is it, you feel the need to save all those people anyway?"

Zach's eyes darted to his side and up at the man who looked back and down towards him while they moved. The younger boy with short black hair close to his scalp, recently cut again to keep it short, looked at Dabi in confusion at first, then surprise. _Is he just, curious? Why is he asking? None of them, have ever asked me before._ "Why, wouldn't I-" Zach began.

"A lot of people have Quirks that can save people, but only a portion of the population try using them that way," Dabi replied, turning back forward and pushing the door open as they reached it. He let Zach go first, and Zach once again got the feeling the older man did not want him walking with a clear shot on Dabi's back. Zach walked through but looked over his shoulder as Dabi continued to the kid walking by, "Even most heroes, don't go this out of their way to save people. They stick close to their agencies, stick to fights or emergencies nearby."

"And?" Zach muttered, turning away and frowning as he looked forward down the hall. Any time he started to agree with what the villains were saying, he always made sure to clear his mind quickly. _Those heroes are still doing hero work. There are enough heroes in our society that they don't all need to try and stop every crime. If the best heroes all went around stopping everything, all the other heroes wouldn't be able to keep their agencies running, and there would be a shortage of heroes. Then if those top heroes are killed, there would be no protection-_

"And yet you came here, to the villains who have attacked you twice now, in order to save people," Dabi remarked. Zach came to a stop and he turned in the hallway that was darker than the training room he had just been in. They were in some large abandoned factory of some kind, though Zach had never seen its exterior. Whenever he wanted to leave, or they changed locations, it was through the use of Kurogiri's power. He figured the villains considered him kind of like their prisoner, as they had tried treating him as an equal before which had failed. As long as he had this much freedom though, he was satisfied. Zach looked into Dabi's eyes though and frowned, though with a semi-confused look on his face as to why Dabi was bringing this up. "No hero, would go that far to save people. But you're not really saving them either."

"What do you mean? I am-"

"No, you're waiting until they aren't saved," Dabi said. "You find people that other heroes couldn't save, and you bring them back to life, at a cost to your own health. Why go so far for them? Why use your power, when it hurts you?" Zach held his tongue, feeling like turning away yet also wanting to respond defiantly towards what Dabi was saying. "You went as far as to joining the League of Villains. You knew that their society would treat you like one too. Why go so far?"

 **8 Years Ago**

"I'm not really a hero. That's just pretend." Zach sniffled again while his mother looked down at him with wide eyes. "Mom, can I-" he paused and started lifting his head. "Without a Quirk, can I become, a hero?"

Tears filled the seven year old boy's eyes, and he saw the water brimming in his mother's too. Even with the water in her eyes though, she was smiling wide down at him and his eyes started to grow huge. "Of course you can," she said. Zach's trembling lips curled up too, and his mom reached down her right hand in front of him. "After all, you're already my little hero. Quirk or no Quirk, if you put your mind to it, you can do anything." Zach looked at his mom's outstretched hand, then his eyes shifted to his right knee that still had a small scratch on it.

He wiped his face with his left arm, rubbing his eyes and his nose, then he lowered it and nodded. "Mm," he hummed, and he reached up with his right hand to grab his mother's outstretched one.

Zach's mother leaned forward while she grabbed his right hand, and off of her chin dripped a tear. The tear fell from her chin right as she started pulling her boy forward. Zach looked down at his right knee with a smile, as the teardrop hit and he felt a warmth fill that leg. He stood up to his feet, then he smiled even more as the warmth in his leg came from somewhere else. It did not feel like a warmth exactly, but the feeling was even better than his mom's healing Quirk gave him.

"Hehe," Zach looked towards his right hand, and his mother also lowered her gaze down to that hand that she was holding. Her fingers started pulling back from Zach's hand, but her legs were also coming out from beneath her. Zach turned his head with the huge smile on it towards his mother's face, while her eyes were staring down in absolute horror, yet those eyes were stuck in that position. Zach's smile wiped from his face as his mom fell, and he ran up to her side while yelling out in panic. Then, his eyes lowered to his right arm, his right hand that his mother had stared at in terror. His eyes shifted back to her face that was stuck in that position, and then to his arm that was losing its black color, and all the tingling feeling inside him vanished as well. "Mom?" He whispered, reaching back for her body to shake her around. He stopped though when his right hand was close, and he froze before grabbing her. "No, mom, no, no…" Zach fell backwards and he pushed himself away, lifting both hands and staring at them, but focusing in on his right after a few seconds. He kept scooting backwards, and his breath was coming out faster and faster, his eyes huge and his lips trembling. "No, I- I- did I, ah hah, ah hah- _AHHHHH_ …"

 **Present**

 _I was the last person, she ever healed,_ Zach thought, his eyes narrowing up at the villain before him. "My mother," Zach began, then he froze with his mouth open. He paused, wondering why he would respond to the man in front of him at all. _I'm, supposed to be, earning their trust,_ Zach told himself, giving a good enough reason for him to continue. "She was so nice, the- just the best person," the start of Zach's explanation had Dabi looking at the kid in confusion with his right eyebrow lifted up. "Her Quirk though, it was a healing one that was reliant on her being sad. She could heal, but only with her tears… and yet!"

Zach stopped himself again, then he continued, "She still decided to be a nurse. And she, she was able to use her Quirk perfectly, because just seeing other people hurting made her cry. She was willing to get sad, to have to see people in pain- and I know she was able to save so many with that power." He paused, then he looked into Dabi's eyes in a more determined way, "So if she could do that, then I can do this. I can accept working with villains, and feeling the most- excruciating pains I have ever felt," _Well, other than that night in Camino Ward. That, hurt more-_ "It's worth it. Because to me, it's not 'going this far' for them. If this is _all_ I have to do," Zach grinned at Dabi whose eyes widened more at the response. "Then I can take it."

* * *

Shihai Kuroiro put his hands down on the counter in the kitchen he stood in. He stared at the heating-up water over the stove, and he let out an annoyed sigh before lifting his phone to check the time again. He glanced the other way and back out into the living room, then he grumbled and walked over to the fridge. Kuroiro checked the list on the fridge again, then he rubbed the left side of his head, putting his pitch black hand through his wavy white hair. "Why do I have to do this?" He muttered.

Kuroiro walked back into the living room. He walked towards the couch, wearing a white t-shirt and a pair of red shorts. "Grandma," he said, and the old woman sitting on the couch on his right turned to him. His Quirk was genetic, and though it did not hit every generation, his Grandma had the same Quirk that he did. She was watching a soap opera, and Kuroiro could not think of a program he would want to watch less. All the jokes were meant for people from a different age, and the drama was awkward and difficult to watch. The dark woman with curly white hair in her sixties turned to the teenager on her left, "Oh, Shihai! Have you seen this-"

"No Grandma," Kuroiro said, _For the tenth time,_ he thought, rolling his eyes. He looked past her on the couch towards the side table next to it. He frowned at the sight of the closed pill bottle and the almost full cup of tea. "Have you taken your pills yet?" He asked.

"Oh, is it that time already?" She asked, looking back towards the tv and then the box below where the time was. "Oh my," she said, laughing a little and turning back to her grandson. "I should get on that. But you really should sit and join me. Jessica just- oh, you said you haven't seen this. Well Jessica is Amy's best friend, but she's also Richard's long lost sister-"

Kuroiro tried very hard not to rub his forehead, and he just smiled and interrupted, "I actually have to keep up making lunch. You said you take your pills on your own right, when my mom is here?"

"Oh yes," Grandma Kuroiro replied. She waved him off and reached over for her tea and the bottle. "Did you make me this tea? Thank you, Shihai."

He sighed and scratched the back of his head. "No problem. I'll have food out in ten. Then, I guess I'll watch this with you," he added, though he looked up at the screen reluctantly again. He figured he would just sit near her and stay on his phone for most of the time, but the longer he watched the more he hoped he would actually find interest. He sweatdropped as he turned around though, hearing a 'shocking' love confession come from the tv behind him that had his Grandma exclaiming in shock. He glanced back, but he was relieved to see she did not spill her tea.

 _Mom said it had been getting worse since last time I saw her, but it doesn't really seem that bad. It's just her short-term, not as bad as some things I've heard people her age can come down with._ Kuroiro walked into the kitchen and he saw the water had just started to boil. He grabbed the pasta next to the stove, checked to see that it was really eight minutes he was supposed to cook for, then he set a timer on his phone and dropped the pasta in. He leaned back on the opposite counter, and he glanced left back towards the living room where he saw his grandmother's white hair over the top of the couch. _I'm really supposed to be at school though. What if a villain found out I went home today? Would they come after me? Probably not._

Kuroiro put his hands up behind his head and stared forward. He frowned and walked up to the stove, grabbing a wooden spoon and stirring around for a few seconds before walking back and leaning on the opposite counter again. He heard another corny joke from the other room and sighed, imagining what the others in his class were doing right now. _Not how I wanted to spend my Saturday. But, can't be helped._ He relaxed and pushed down on the counter at his sides, popping himself up to sit on it while watching the stove. _Mom deserves a vacation, if this really is this much work every day. I may have moved out, but it's almost like having another kid here…_ Kuroiro frowned at the way he just considered the situation. He imagined his grandma at his birthday parties, his Christmases, and he rubbed the side of his head while frowning deeper. She was still acting like his grandmother while they talked to each other, but the dynamic was changing ever so slowly. _It must suck for her too. Getting old._

Kuroiro felt a buzzing in his pocket, and he reached down and slid his phone out. He turned off the timer and walked forward. He had to stir hard for a few seconds, as he had not stirred enough to keep the pasta from sticking together. "Damn," he muttered, as he could not keep stirring or risk overcooking since he had set the timer for the exact time on the box. He went through the motions of straining the pasta, then he got out some plates. He put some pre-made sauce on the stove and heated it up quick, pulling off the taped-note on the container and tossing it out, just rolling his eyes at the 'Thanks again' his mom wrote on it.

The pitch-black-skinned boy finished up and he started walking back towards the living room with both plates in his hand. "Hey Grandma, you want parmesan or-" he stopped as he got next to his couch, turning in towards the woman sitting up on his right. He turned to her and he could not finish his sentence, both plates falling out of his hands and shattering on the floor, hot tomato sauce getting on his legs. He ignored the burning sensation though and ran forward, reaching out and grabbing his grandmother by the shoulder. "Hey, Hey!" He shook her around, as she was sleeping in way too strange a position. His eyes darted over to the table, "Did she not take-" he saw the pill bottle on the table, but it was open indicating that she had in fact taken her pills. "Grandma!" Kuroiro called out, shaking her around more. "You're just asleep- right? Right?!" He yelled right in her face, but the woman's eyes were not lifting open even as her head tilted farther back from the shake. Then her head bowed as Kuroiro yanked forward, and he let go and stumbled back as her body slouched forward.

"What- wh- what's-" he spun towards the pill bottle. "I don't get-" He reached out and grabbed the open bottle, then his eyes opened huge as he pulled it in front of him and looked down. On the bottom of the small orange container were three small white pills. "Wasn't this, half full…" Kuroiro's eyes shifted back towards the old woman on the couch next to him. "Hey," he whispered. His fingers were shaking too much, and the pill bottle slipped through his fingers. "No, I, you said you take your own pills-" _"Number 4- Make sure Grandma takes two pills at noon and again before she goes to bed." She said, she takes them on her own though. How should- how would I know…_ Kuroiro's entire body started shaking, and he took another step back and tripped on the footrest in front of the couch. He fell backwards over it and onto his back and the back of his head, his legs sticking up while he winced in pain.

Shihai's eyes opened back up and he stared up at the ceiling in shock. "What did I-" he could see the tv in the top of his vision, that stupid Jessica making another stupid joke on the stupid soap opera. Kuroiro's wide eyes narrowed in fury and he scrambled up, turning towards the tv and grabbing it, pulling it off the tv shelf and throwing it to the ground on his right. It shattered and he was panting while looking at it, and then he saw the unmoving woman out the corners of his eyes that made him turn his head back towards her. He was already panting as he looked at the tv, but now his panting got louder and he brought his hands up to the sides of his head. "No way. I- I have to call the ambulance-" he froze, then he sprinted towards the couch, almost tripping on the footrest again.

Kuroiro leapt on his couch and he moved his right hand for his Grandma's neck. He paused when his fingers were close, his hand shaking as he extended two to try and check for a pulse. He held his breath and he touched two fingers to her neck, and then his mouth opened and his expression fell into despair. His shaking fingers moved off of her neck and his arms fell flat to his sides. _Did I- she, overdosed. But I! I was supposed to be watching her. I was supposed to, be taking care of her._ He leaned away, and he whispered while staring at the old woman's bowed head. "Grandma," he whispered.

The boy's left hand moved down to his pocket and he pulled it out. He opened it and went to the phone app to call the ambulance, or to call the police on himself. He had the keypad out and reached forward a finger to press a button, and then his finger stopped when it was right over the screen. Kuroiro's panting started speeding up again, his finger trembling over the screen. _No,_ he thought, lowering his finger and pressing a button. He froze while pressing that button down. _But, how would I even,_ he lifted the finger up, but then he hesitated before going for the next one. _It's been so long… but not that long- but long enough? Long enough that nothing I could do- nothing I could, do…_ Kuroiro stared at the phone in his hand, he stared at it and started panting harder, and harder. He brought up his right hand and scratched through his white hair violently, then he snapped up and jumped over his couch. _If I'm considering it, then I can't waste time! I can't, hesitate!_

Kuroiro got off his phone app, and he got on the main social media one that everyone he knew used. It was the most popular one in Japan, and there was a button on the bottom to press and start a live video feed. He pressed the button, and he started typing into the summary box on the top. He wrote in all capital letters, and he flipped the camera so the front-facing camera was the one recording. He had sweat all over his face, his hair was even messier than usual, and he had a desperate expression as he started shouting at the screen in front of him.

Fifteen miles away, in the U.A. High School dorms, a group of Class-A students were sitting around in the first floor of the dorm in the common room. Many of their classmates had gone out to use the training facilities that morning, but a lot of them had returned already or come back after lunch for a break. Kaminari Denki was exhausted from that morning, but his mind was starting to recover and he was planning on heading back on over to one of the training zones as soon as he could. He was sitting back on a chair, taking slow deep breaths in and letting them out, while thinking hard to get his mind working again faster which had been working for him recently.

He had his phone out in one hand as he did his breathing techniques though, and he saw a notification on the top of his screen while on a mindless gaming app that he was just trying to break his own high score on. He paused the game and read the notification, _"Shihai Kuroiro, has started a, live stream." That's, weird,_ Kaminari thought. It came to him slowly, but he shook his head as he thought about the dark boy from Class-B. _He doesn't seem like, the type to do live streams._ Kaminari pressed on the notification before it went away, and his phone jumped over to the social media app.

Kaminari saw Kuroiro's scared, desperate face on the center of the screen and it made him sit up fast. He turned up the volume while staring down with wide eyes, and the voice coming out of his phone was in a rushed and loud voice. Sero and Kirishima stopped talking to each other where they were standing a few feet behind Kaminari's chair, and Jirou and Yaoyorozu froze on the nearby couch where they were discussing the recent Hero License Test. Kaminari read the top of the screen, his mind fully clearing and his attention alert as he sped-read the capital letters for the description of the video. The description read, "MY ADDRESS IS 657 UNDOMI STREET, MUSUTAFU CITY. SHARE THIS VIDEO. PLEASE COME!"

"Holy crap," Kaminari whispered, after hearing what Kuroiro just shouted at the screen. He hesitated, and then he looked at the bottom and saw the number of viewers. _Five?_ Kaminari's eyes opened wide, _Share this video?_ The realization kicked in and he reached forward and tapped a button on the bottom of the video without hesitation, while Kirishima and Sero both looked over his shoulders.

"Are you sure that's-" Sero began, but Kaminari pressed the 'Confirm' button that came up after the initial tap.

Kirishima stared in at Kaminari's head for a second, then his huge eyes narrowed down and he reached down into his pocket fast. He realized he did not have his phone on him, as he was just about to head out for more training. Kirishima spun around and he sprinted for his room, and Sero watched him run off for a few seconds. Then, the black-haired boy who could shoot tape from his elbows shrugged his shoulders and he reached into his own pocket where he did have his phone.

"Are you guys serious?" Jirou wondered, as she got a bead of sweat rolling down the side of her face. "This could be a-"

"I, I wasn't paying attention. She forgets things, but I still, I let her take her own pills…"

Jirou stopped talking and looked towards the phone in Kaminari's hand. Kaminari lifted it and pointed the screen at the couch that Yaoyorozu and Jirou were sitting on. Yaoyorozu took one look at Kuroiro's face, and she read the line above the video, and she shot out of her seat. Jirou got up afterwards, turning to Yaoyorozu to say something. The taller girl with the largest chest in the class was already sprinting off though, and she ran for her room as quickly as she could. _Kuroiro-san,_ Yaoyorozu thought. She had seen very few emotions on the face of the boy from Class-B. She had even thought that it was difficult to make out what he was thinking without being able to see anything other than his eyes and mouth, but she could see them on the expression he was making in that video.

Kaminari turned the phone back towards himself, and he stared at it as the boy in the video paused, turning his head to look back towards his couch. He started turning the phone that way, then Kuroiro seemed to have second thoughts, but he kept turning anyway while saying, "Mom, Dad, I'm sorry. I- I messed up." He pulled it back quickly, and he said while staring at the screen with a more serious gaze. "I know, I know the cops might show up. I know- but please, please come."

The description did not say who he was calling for. He never said the name, but people knew who he was talking to. And more people started to share the video anyway. Kuroiro saw the number going up, but it still was not high enough. "Please," he pointed his camera towards the couch again. He pointed it at the woman sitting there slouched over, and he walked around the side of his couch, the dropped plates and the broken tv partially visible as he moved. "Just, come quick. It's been, ten, twelve minutes maybe. I don't know, maybe less- I, It's my fault." Kaminari lifted his head from the phone and looked towards Jirou, and the girl standing in front of him went wide-eyed at his look, and then she reached into her pocket. Sero grinned at her, feeling more relief with every person who shared it, as he was still unsure as to what the consequences for this would be.

Across the U.A. campus, All Might was watching over the training of his favorite student, (even if he would never admit he had favorites). The thin man with two scraggly blond bangs drooping to the sides of his face and the rest of hair pushed back over his head turned to the right. He spotted Midnight lifting up her phone and staring at the screen for a few seconds. Her eyes opened wide, and then she turned towards All Might. All Might started heading towards her, while Midoriya Izuku glanced over from the training area and wondered what was going on. He continued jumping around the rocky area using Full Cowling, kicking his legs instead of punching as was the new fighting style he was trying out.

Midnight saw All Might heading towards her, but she looked back at her screen before moving towards him. She lifted her other hand, but she stopped before touching a certain button, curling her extended finger back in. She pursed her lips and narrowed her eyebrows in, a frustrated look on her face as she considered her position. "What is it, Midnight?" All Might asked, walking over towards the sexy teacher who turned the phone for All Might to see. All Might's eyes opened wide, and he stared at the screen in absolute shock that made Midnight turn the phone a bit so that she could see again too. She had a strong reaction herself, but All Might had dropped his jaw too far at the sight of it.

Midnight's bottom lip dropped this time too though, and she gawked at the boy with the Quirk Black as he spun around his head in as much shock as the teachers watching him. His phone dropped out of his hand, and the image pointed up at the ceiling, but Midnight and All Might both saw that black portal open up in the air behind Kuroiro. They saw the boy who had run out of it with a black mask on his face, the instant before Kuroiro dropped his phone.

"You came," Kuroiro whispered, spinning around in his house and staring at the boy behind him. The portal closed, but the masked boy who ran in moved fast towards the couch. _He gave me a minute. I know they want this to get blown up so I made him let me go, but Kuroiro knows it, Kurogiri knows it, I know it! People are coming for me!_

Zach got on the couch and he put his right hand up to the old woman's head. He pushed her head back and he held his breath as his right hand turned black. Kuroiro stared at Zach's hand for a moment, at the black glove on it that the black fingertips of had all slid down as his real fingers pushed out. The white fingers that pushed out of the fingers of the glove all turned dark, then his wrist did past the end of the glove. _He dropped his camera, so it's still rolling. Do I talk to him? I want to talk to him. Kurogiri will hear everything though, as will everyone. I'm glad he didn't write "Zach," 'cause I was coming anyway- not that everyone doesn't already know who I am, but what would the point of the mask be?_ Zach started groaning, and then his voice came out as he could not longer distract himself from the pain. _It doesn't hurt as much as physical injuries, but I can feel my heart pounding, my internal organs are-_ "AAhhhrrrg," Zach ground his teeth and he stopped his complaining as he pushed harder against the old woman's forehead.

"Please, Z-" Zach darted his gaze over, and Kuroiro stopped from where he stood right next to his friend. Kuroiro paused, and then he just said again, "Please." _I don't know what you've been doing. I don't understand it at all. But please, just save her._

 _I've never brought back anyone this old. I don't want to bring people back from natural deaths, from old age or diseases or stuff like that. I mean, I do, but then I'd be making everyone immortal. That's crazy, and I can't do that- but, but he said she overdosed. That's not natural. Even if she is old. Even if she might die soon anyway. He was blaming himself! I know that feeling,_ the black color started to drain from Zach's arm, and he saw it slide out from beneath his sleeve and then down to his fingers. He let out a long breath of relief and then pulled his hand away from the old woman's head as her eyes blinked open. Zach pulled his hand off of the woman's head, and her eyes that opened back up closed again just as slowly.

"What happened-" Kuroiro began, leaning forward in worry.

Zach curled his fingers back in and forced the glove's fingers to close back up, and he darted Kuroiro a look from behind his mask like he was annoyed that the other boy was getting close to him. "It's exhausting for both of us," Zach said, using a lower voice than normal. His head snapped towards the windows, then he looked back towards Kuroiro, and he said in a quiet voice, "She's fine." His tone and voice were back to what they normally were, and Zach reached up and he pulled his black mask up over his chin and the rest of his face. He left it bunched up there and gave Kuroiro a big, slightly exhausted smile. _I think healing older people might be more difficult. Good to know._ "Just asleep."

Kuroiro stared in shock at Zach for a few moments, then glanced towards his Grandma whose chest he could see moving. His eyes looked back and he wiped his eyes with an arm, then said, "Thank you. Get out of here though, I saw a leaked video of-"

"Yeah I know," Zach replied. _There was a live stream that caught me at that trap, but I haven't seen it. Apparently it gets taken down really fast, just like the Stain video did… Geez, why'd I have to make that comparison?_ Zach frowned, then he shook his head around at the reaction Kuroiro had. He kept his voice a whisper and he said, "I only have a few seconds." He spoke quieter than he knew a camera would be able to catch, and he stepped towards Kuroiro as he did.

Zach reached behind him and down into the back pocket of his pants, and he pulled out an envelope that was folded and scrunched up. Kuroiro's eyes opened wide, and he whispered back to Zach softly, "Information on the League-"

Zach sweatdropped and he lowered his hand a little. "Um, no," he muttered, and Kuroiro sweatdropped too, giving Zach an apologetic look as he could see Zach now felt awkward about handing off this letter. Zach shook his head again though as he spotted a portal opening up behind Kuroiro. He stepped another foot closer to his friend and started whispering while pushing the letter into his chest, "My neighbor Jenny Akers. Give this to her. Please."

"You got it," Kuroiro said. "Thanks-"

Zach walked up on Kuroiro's side to head for the portal behind him. He stopped though and he interrupted the boy who started turning to him. He interrupted in an even quieter whisper, his face a lot more serious while Kuroiro was pocketing that envelope. "One more thing…" Zach's eyes darted around, then he turned to Kuroiro with that serious look and leaned in towards the other boy's ear.

Kuroiro nodded his head, then his eyes shot open huge and darted to the side at the boy leaning in next to him. Zach pulled back and then sprinted into the portal, not waiting a second to see if Kuroiro heard what he said. Zach ran through the portal, it closed behind him, and then the front door to Kuroiro's house busted open. Kuroiro spun towards the door, his eyes huge as he saw two cops sprinting into the room, the first ones to arrive. "Where is he?!"

"Just missed him," Kuroiro said, lifting his hands up and putting them behind his head.

One of the officers ran through the house and he passed Kuroiro, heading for the back door. The other moved towards the boy who lifted his hands up, and he said, "Put your hands down kid. Did he use a portal?" The cop glanced around the floor, and he made sure to keep himself calm as he saw a phone he figured might still be recording everything he said. "How's your Grandma?" The cop asked as he stepped over a clump of spaghetti in red sauce, then looked at the woman on the couch.

"Alive," Kuroiro replied, lowering his hands down. He put them at his sides, and his right hand touched his pocket and felt the envelope inside it. Shihai sat down on the couch next to his Grandma, turning to the woman with pitch black skin and giving a small smile at the sight of her soft breathing. The officer lifted a hand and he scratched the top of his head that was covered in small stubby horns.

"Stay right there," the officer said, reaching down and grabbing a radio from his waist. The man turned and he rubbed his head while calling in that they were too late, even though they had claimed to be close enough to the address on the video that had been shared thousands of times in a short few minutes. They did not arrive in time like he thought they would, and as he started reporting that in, Kuroiro slid an envelope out of his pocket. He kept his gaze on his grandmother, while he slid the envelope down into a crack between the cushions and the back of the couch. _They might make me come answer some questions. They probably will. I can't have this on me. As much as it might help the police with information, as much as Zach should- he should have written information on the villains instead of this, whatever this is... I owe him this much, and so much more._

* * *

 **A/N Thanks for reading. Zach almost gets nabbed at a hospital. We get a flashback to the night of Camino Ward where a semi-conscious Zach lets slip to Yaoyorozu about his mom. A flashback to the very first flashback in this story from Chapter 1, right after his mom reached down her hand towards him. Now his mother's power his revealed too, as he had always thought about both of his parents when he was thinking about how he had stopped them from saving people. Zach tells Kurogiri he doesn't need to threaten people to get this to work, tells Dabi why he's fine with doing "only" this much to save people, and he saves Kuroiro's Grandma! A lot happens this chapter, and some time passes through it too. Anyway, I hope you all enjoyed! Leave a review telling me what you think below!**

zerom1v chapter 21 . Jul 3

It was a good call on Shigaraki Tomura's part. Cause people like Stain will probably see the good in Zachs' actions and consider the heros hypocrites.  
Could there be a friendship between Dabi and Zach in the near future?

 **Shigaraki using that head of his to try and use Zach, while Zach is trying just as hard to keep ahead. Definitely more scenes of Zach talking more casually with the villains here, hope you liked the scene with him and Dabi this time! Thanks for the review!**

Lunar Stag chapter 21 . Jul 3

Woah! Anti-hero coming out for the show! The story is looking great, but romance? And romance with a hero? Or a villain?

 **Anti-hero Zach making his rounds across Japan, and more people are seeing him that way as we see how quick Kuroiro's video gets shared towards the end. Romance... I have a few ideas, even if it hasn't been very prevalent so far. I have pairings in mind. I'd like to see what you guys think might be some good pairings in this story, they don't need to be same as canon (though I like a bunch of the canon ones so things...), well, no spoilers. But yeah, let me know what you guys think about how romance should go moving forward!**

Last Shadowism chapter 21 . 3h ago

Can Zack use his Death Quirk as a bluff?  
He has (2) gloves right? So he can attack with one, taking off it off, but still wouldn't kill anything because he hand another on. Did you intent for that to be apart of Zack's costume?  
So how did he kill Mr. Compress? While in nightmare form, did his right hand slap him in the neck or something where there were no cloth protection?  
Why was Ganeshi Knocked out when he got touched? (Coma? Awesome.)  
Can you explain these nuances? Thanks and awesome work.

 **Alright I think you're a little (a lot) confused, so I gotta clear this up. Zach's Quirk is in his right hand. He wears two gloves sometimes, like in his hero costume same reason other people have two gloves on their costumes. He also sometimes wears two gloves over his right hand, the lower one that holds back his power and sometimes a thicker one over it too. But he can't just alternate between left and right hands. How did his kill Compress? Well, it was before he turned Nightmare form anyway. He turned Nightmare after that because they stopped trying to capture him and were only going to kill him. He also hit Compress over the clothes, just like he got the guy at USJ. Normal does not stop it, which is why Zach has the specially-made glove that he was supposed to keep on his right hand at all times. And for that last part, can you like, not spoil stuff for me? Not that I'm annoyed, but I really am just an anime-watcher and I don't want much spoiled in the future for me, though some big stuff has been already while I researched how to write these recent chapters before it diverges like crazy. Still, I'm not going to hit future arcs in this that are canon, and we're now technically past the show too, so from here on it's up in the air what happens. Hope you aren't as confused as much on his powers, left out some of the stuff you asked since it will be revealed as he uses/ trains his power more. And thanks! Glad you're liking it so far!**

Reader 3 chapter 21 . 2h ago

Does Nightmare Augment Zack's physical abilities? Or is he just a skeleton demon with the quirk that kills all over?  
What his mom and dad's quirks again? How did his translate from theirs?

 **Who knows? Can't say about those questions when we've barely seen Nightmare in action other than the first fight he used it with, when he still didn't know how. His Dad Titanium, could turn into Titanium which I think we saw in the flashback where he and All Might had their talk about Zach. His mom's Quirk was revealed in this one. How they translated to Death, who knows? How did Midoriya go Quirkless? Chance. Fate. The whim of the God (writer) who decides their lives. Pick any of the above lol. Thanks for the review! And thanks everyone else for your reviews too! Like I said, only going to do a few responses for here on, but I appreciate all of them! Hope you enjoyed the chapter!**


	23. Chapter 23

**Disclaimer: I don't own Boku no Hero Academia**

 **Chapter 23:**

"I'll accept any punishment," Kuroiro said, staring ahead at his homeroom teacher as they stood in the hallway outside of their classroom.

Vlad King had a serious expression on his face as he stared down at Kuroiro. He had been waiting for him outside the room when Kuroiro approached late, having been slow on his way to school since he knew what he was in for. The boy had steadied his resolve on the way to school though, telling himself that he did not regret what he did while accepting that he was still going to get in trouble for it. The boy's homeroom teacher frowned down at him for a few more seconds, then he lifted a hand in the red glove of his costume and scratched the back of his head. Kuroiro's eyes opened wide at the sight of his teacher doing this, and Vlad King ran his hand up from the back of his gray hair to the front before lowering his arm again.

"You're not, in any trouble," Vlad King said.

"Huh?" Kuroiro muttered, as he had spent the entire morning fixing his resolve for the punishment he would receive.

"It's just, not-" Vlad King stopped himself and he frowned more at the shocked boy in front of him. "I'll give it to you straight, Kuroiro. The more Sazaki saves people, the less anyone's looking for him to be punished." Kuroiro's narrow eyes opened even more, almost to the point they were as wide as most others' were normally. The boy with the Quirk Black gave his teacher a confused look, and Vlad King hummed as he could see he needed to say more.

"At first, when he started using his power to bring people back, I am sure you heard many people calling it 'unnatural.' They claimed that the dead should stay dead," Vlad said. He paused, his lips deepening in his frown after it came out. Then he continued, "However, more and more people are finding out that they know someone who was brought back, or know someone who knows someone. The number is rising too high, and vocal supporters are appearing who are frustrated at us heroes and the police."

"At you?" Kuroiro questioned confusedly.

"They know the police and heroes have been targeting him, and although he is breaking the law…" Vlad King hesitated. He scratched his head again, then he stood firmly in front of the boy and put his hands on his sides to not let his own student think he was as hesitant about all this as he really was. "The citizens are upset, that we are forcing him into hiding: 'The Healer,' the 'Miracle Worker,' or the name that's been building up steam since this person first denied being Zach Sazaki- 'Lifebringer.'" Kuroiro got a more confused look on his face as to why Vlad King said that, and his homeroom teacher grunted before saying, "It's the name he chose as his hero name. Which means most likely, it was posted online by someone at this school."

Kuroiro's eyes opened wide, but Vlad was not finished. "It's one of the reasons we cannot punish you for this. Considering half the school shared your video," Vlad King muttered. Kuroiro had to keep himself from smiling as Vlad King continued, "If we gave you a punishment for it, we'd have to punish everyone, and that's not our position anyway."

"What-" Kuroiro began. Vlad King looked into the boy's thin eyes, and Kuroiro stopped holding it back and asked, "What are the teachers' positions? What is U.A.'s position on this?"

Vlad King hummed, then he said, "If Zach Sazaki has sided with the League of Villains, then even if he is doing good he is our enemy." Kuroiro's eyes lowered to the floor, but then Vlad continued, "But, if he's doing what he tried to do at the training camp, and in Camino Ward… If he's still doing it, but pulling the long-con this time," the left corner of Vlad's lip curled up and he shook his head once. "Admittedly, we do not know what our reaction will be. But he can't kill anyone else," Vlad said, his lips dipping back down far after Kuroiro looked up at him. "That's the number one thing we are looking at. If he kills anyone, after going with the villains on his own, he'll be going to prison when he comes back- or when he's captured, whichever comes first."

Shihai Kuroiro frowned but he nodded at his teacher, understanding the stance while questioning himself what he would think if Zach came back after doing something like that. Vlad King slapped a hand down on Kuroiro's left shoulder and finished while he pulled the boy forward towards the door of Class-B. "Despite all that, it really just comes down to this. How could we punish you, for saving your own grandmother's life?" Vlad asked. Then the teacher reached forward and slid the door open, before shoving Kuroiro through and into the classroom.

The rough way in which Vlad pushed Kuroiro in had the entire classroom silent. Kuroiro walked over to his empty seat after steading himself, and he sat down on the left side of Monoma, on the right of Tetsutetsu. They both looked towards him, then their attentions snapped forward as the homeroom teacher started talking to them all.

Kuroiro listened in to what Vlad was saying for a little, but his attention shifted away a few minutes in. _Mom told me, after the scolding- she told me, Grandma's condition was better. I don't know what that means, but maybe her memory is back to what it was. What does Zach's Quirk do…_ Kuroiro closed his eyes and shook his head once to shake off those thoughts. He sat back in his seat, then as Vlad King turned to the board, Kuroiro looked to his right at the blond boy who turned to him noticing his classmate turning. Kuroiro stared at Monoma for a second with his mouth still in a frown, then he said in a low whisper, "Thanks for sharing it."

Before the notifications had popped up so fast that he was unable to follow, he had caught glimpses of the first names of people who shared his live stream. One of the very first, was the boy sitting on his right side now. The blond boy smiled back at him and nodded, then Monoma turned to look back towards Vlad King as the homeroom teacher was turning back around. A few others behind Kuroiro and Monoma who heard the whisper looked at Monoma's back too. Vlad King had scolded Kuroiro and Monoma harshly on the first day back after the training camp, when they were first moving into their dorms, and everyone in Class-B was shocked to hear Monoma had gone to try and save Bakugo and Sazaki. Some of them still did not know how to feel about their classmate, but almost all of them had forgiven him for his actions at the Sports Festival now. One of the ones who had not yet was sitting right behind Monoma, but the boy's expression softened as he stared at the back of Monoma's head.

Neito Monoma looked down at his notebook, then up at his teacher again who kept talking about what they could do now that most of them had acquired hero licenses. As Monoma listened to Vlad King, he thought to himself, _I wonder, if I would have gotten my provisional license if I hadn't… What I did to Sazaki, I was ashamed. But because of that, I became a better hero. I hope everyone in class can see that. At the exam, Kendo wanted to hear what I thought. I was surprised, but then when the others actually listened to my strategy-_ Monoma pursed his lips and he continued taking notes, trying hard not to smile as he did. His urge to smile faded though and he stopped moving his pen. _I never really, helped him. I saved Mt. Lady like he wanted, but him, what did I do to help him? I hid when the others talked him down, afraid of what he'd do if he saw me, terrified because of the monster I thought he-_ Monoma closed his eyes while still looking at his notes. _And now he's a villain,_ Monoma's hand tightened on his pen, his eyes opening back up and lifting towards Vlad while his mouth lowered into a deep frown. Then a sweatdrop formed on the side of his serious face, and he thought, _A villain, who saved Kuroiro's Grandma…_

* * *

On an elevated train shooting over Musutafu City, Kuroiro glanced at the blond boy next to him who had a red hoodie on with the hood up. The sixteen year old blond boy kept talking even though Kuroiro mentioned how they should keep low profiles. Kuroiro had a black hoodie on himself, that along with his Quirk made him as dark as could be. He appreciated that people usually looked away when they saw him for once, because he had become too well-known in the past week. Even though it had just been a video stream that disappeared once it was done, people had taken screenshots and a lot of people knew his face. He felt like it was more than even when he was in the Sports Festival's final round.

Kaminari was not hiding himself as much though. His hood was barely over his head, halfway back on his blond hair so the front spikes were still sticking up, and he was not doing a good job at hiding considering he kept talking to Kuroiro about their classes. "You could have just given me his address," Kuroiro said as Kaminari closed his mouth again. Kaminari rolled his eyes as Kuroiro mentioned it again, and Kuroiro frowned more from under his hood while looking at the blond next to him. _I could not locate his address as easily as I had hoped. Yet I was still surprised when he told me he knew where Zach lived._

"Where's the fun in that?" Kaminari asked. He laughed, even though Kuroiro did not look to be in the laughing mood. "Hey, anything I can get that tells me more about him, I'll take," Kaminari said. He looked up at the electronic banner over the sliding doors in front of him on the train, checking what the next stop was. "We're getting off here," Kaminari said to the boy next to him, and Kuroiro just nodded once.

The two of them got off the train, and as soon as they started walking in a less crowded area, Kaminari took off his hood and unzipped his sweatshirt. He fanned a hand at his face and muttered about it being too hot, and Kuroiro just frowned that the other boy was not taking the secrecy seriously. _Two U.A. students walking around, near Zach Sazaki's apartment no less. It could draw unwanted attention,_ Kuroiro thought.

 _What's in the letter? I gotta know!_ Kaminari pretended to still be looking straight ahead, but even though he was facing forward his eyes had darted to his right side and were watching Kuroiro. _Why'd he send it to this girl? Couldn't he have written me one too? I want to know what's up man!_

"Where are we going?" Kuroiro asked, turning his head to Kaminari who looked away fast before pointing down the road.

"It's right around that corner," Denki Kaminari replied.

Kuroiro nodded in response again, and Kaminari rolled his eyes as he could never get a conversation going with the boy next to him. "So, what do you think this girl looks like?" Kaminari asked. He continued as he was only half expecting an answer, "I bet she's like, black haired, and probably got these huge knockers-"

"What are you talking about?" Kuroiro muttered. "We're just delivering a letter. Does it matter what she looks like?"

"Um, yes?" Kaminari said, his eyes widening, surprised that was even a question. "How can you not be interested? Zach went out of his way to give you that envelope, risking everything he's doing for this girl." Kuroiro hummed and he felt the envelope in his pocket again, wondering what could be inside it even though he had tried to keep from getting interested up until now. Kaminari kept going, "I never even considered he had a girl back home. This is easily the biggest mystery about him."

This made Kuroiro sweatdrop and he actually cracked a smile for a short second. _Out of everything, the thing that interests you the most is whether he has a girlfriend or not?_ Kuroiro asked himself while shaking his head.

"That's his apartment building," Kaminari said as they rounded the corner. He lifted his head and said in some surprise, "I don't remember that other building though… guess it must have just been built."

"Sure we're in the right place? And you didn't get us lost?"

"I'm sure! That's definitely it," Kaminari said assuredly, recognizing the place he had been to twice before. He knew the route well enough now that he did not even have to pull it up on his phone after Kuroiro asked him for directions.

"Alright," Kuroiro replied. "Let's go up…" he trailed off and frowned deeper. _How am I going to figure out which neighbor it is? I guess if I can find a landlord._ "Hey Kaminari," Kuroiro began, turning to see if the blond boy had any ideas.

Kaminari's head was turned to the left though, watching the figure who just ran by them on the other side of the road. She had on a brighter red hoodie than his, with her hood up, and she was wearing tight black pants that Kaminari was staring at when Kuroiro turned. Kuroiro rolled his eyes and opened his mouth to continue, then Kaminari spun towards him with wide eyes and pretended like they were mid-conversation, saying, "No way. Really?"

Kuroiro glanced the other way, and Kaminari started sweating more. The girl he had been watching run away had looked back all of a sudden, catching him staring at her butt. He was trying hard to pretend it was not the case, but out the corner of his eyes he saw that girl jogging across the street in front of them. _Oh man,_ Kaminari thought, leaning back with a smile on his face as he turned to this girl like it was the first time he was seeing her. She was jogging right up towards them, and Kaminari began, "Hey there."

The girl came to a stop in front of the two. She was shorter than Kuroiro by an entire foot, and just a little less than that for Kaminari who was a few inches shorter than his darker companion. She reached up and pulled her headphones out of her ears, then she pulled back her hood and shook out her red hair so the ponytail it was tied in came up over her bunched-up hood. The short girl looked back and forth between the two, and Kuroiro was getting more annoyed at Kaminari by the second for getting them into this. He opened his mouth to apologize while Kaminari was thinking up an excuse since it seemed like the girl knew he had been watching her, then she said, "Denki Kaminari? And, Shihai Kuroiro?" She pointed a finger at each of them, then she grinned wide at their reactions.

"You know us?" Kuroiro began, though he wondered if maybe it was just a U.A. Sports Festival thing. It seemed like it was more than that though considering the girl came right up to them without hesitation.

Kaminari grinned as he felt relieved like the girl did not actually catch him. "Yeah, that's me," he said while flashing the girl his smile, and she just smiled back at him before he asked, "How's a cute girl like you know who we are?"

Her entire light-skinned face shaded pink, and Kaminari and Kuroiro's eyes widened a bit in surprise at her Quirk. Jenny got over the compliment quickly though as she realized what they were staring at. Instead of getting more embarrassed about it and making that shade turn more red, her skin turned back to normal and she smiled at the two in her normal way again. "Sure I know you. You two were on Zach's team for the Cavalry Battle."

Kuroiro looked at the girl in even more surprise, then he looked around and muttered, "Does everyone around here know who Zach-"

"Don't you get it dude?" Kaminari asked. Kaminari started grinning as Kuroiro looked at him in confusion, and Kaminari said before the girl could respond to his question, "You really think Zach's friends with more than one cute girl? No way." Kuroiro's eyes widened a bit, while Jenny tried to keep from letting her face turn pink again, though it did turn pale white at what Kaminari said next. "This has got to be that Jenny girl."

Jenny Akers' eyes opened huge, then her face turned pink, then it shaded into a warm yellow as her mouth curled up so much again. "Did Zach talk about me?" She asked, confirming what Kaminari said which made him smirk. "Actually," she continued, her skin turning back to its normal color. She looked around the neighborhood that was very close to her apartment, then she looked back at the boys in front of her and asked, "Why are you here?"

Jenny lifted her right arm and wiped it across her forehead. She was sweating from her long run that she was just getting back from, a run she took on her own even though it was the middle of cross country season and she got enough of it at school, or so her parents tried telling her before she ran out. She thought she recognized the two boys from only a quick glance their way, and though she had questioned it while she kept running for a few seconds, she had to turn and make sure she was wrong. When she saw it really was the two who Zach teamed with during the Cavalry Battle, easily recognizing them since their team was the only team she was really paying attention to back then, she had to say something.

"Actually," Kuroiro began, reaching down into his pocket. Kaminari stared with interest at the girl's expression while Kuroiro pulled a folded in half envelope from his pocket. "Zach wanted me to get this to you," Kuroiro said, unfolding it and showing the girl that it had 'Jenny' written on the envelope.

Jenny's eyes opened wide again, then she lifted a hand towards the envelope. Her arm froze though before her hand grabbed it, and a more hesitant look formed on her face.

 _Chance!_ Kaminari thought with a grin, before getting more serious and stepping towards the girl. "If you want, we'll read it with you." Kuroiro darted Kaminari a look, while Jenny lifted her gaze to him in more surprise. He could see she was hesitant about responding, and he lost his serious expression and frowned more. "Actually, I just want to read it," Kaminari admitted to her. "I want to know how Zach's doing," he told the red-haired girl, and he continued, "It's really bugging me that I don't know how he is. So you know, if you don't mind-"

Jenny started nodding her head, because she knew that feeling herself. "Fine," she said, and she grabbed the letter from Kuroiro's hand while turning to him too. She tilted her head at him, asking with the motion if he wanted to listen in too. Kuroiro opened his mouth to say it did not matter to him, but he hesitated and then nodded his head while his mouth closed back into a frown. "Cool," Jenny turned and she started heading back for her apartment. "Come on," she said.

"We can't read it here?" Kaminari asked.

"Well I'm not taking you inside, if that's what you think," Jenny remarked. Kaminari's eyes widened for a second, then the girl in front of him turned and smirked at the blond boy who she definitely did catch staring at her, as well as dropping a few well-placed compliments. "I just want to sit down for this," she said, and she pointed towards the side of her apartment where the steps leading up to the second floor that she lived on started.

The three teenagers walked over to the steps, and Jenny walked up a couple before sitting down on the fourth step up. Kaminari popped a squat on the second step and leaned his back against the bars of the outer railing, while Kuroiro just leaned back on the wall on the inside of the staircase in front of the blond, crossing his arms and staring ahead as he prepared for what came in the letter. Jenny was hesitant about opening the letter, but she was glad Kaminari had asked to listen in. It made it harder for her to keep sitting there without opening the envelope in her hands, especially with Kaminari looking at her expectantly and with eyebrows raised. "I'm doing it," she said at his look, and he held his palms up defensively.

Jenny looked back down at the envelope, took a deep breath, then she ripped the top of it open and pulled out the paper inside that was folded into thirds. She pulled the top flap up and the bottom down and held it in a way so it would not re-fold itself, and she stared at the top line. _Should I really tell them this? Zach did address it only to me- but, these guys came all the way here to find me. They deserve to hear it too._ Jenny steadied her voice and started, "'Hey Jenny. I don't know how I'm going to get this to you, but if there's an opportunity I'll try to take it.'"

Kuroiro stared out past the railing above Kaminari's head while the boy in front of him glanced back his way. _Guess he got his opportunity. Not that, it was the priority to him,_ Kuroiro thought, shaking the idea out of his head that Zach had come just to give him the letter, considering how quick Zach was to run to his grandmother's side. _And now she's doing better than ever._

Jenny read some more of what was written in her head, then she started speaking again. She wanted to confirm first that she was not going to give away Zach's secrets that he only wanted her to hear, but she did not see much of that in there. She continued, "'I don't really know what to tell you. I guess, I'm sorry. Can't say anything about where I am right now, even if I knew. The others here could find this after all.' He's, talking about the villains?" Jenny whispered, lifting her gaze from the note and looking to Kaminari who nodded at her after a couple of seconds. Jenny frowned and hummed in her throat while lowering her eyes back to the page. "He kept going, 'I'm saving people Jenny. I know they're probably saying all kinds of things about me on tv, but it's still me. Even if I can't come back right now, I am saving people in my own way. I'll see you again though! Just because I can't come back right now, doesn't mean it'll be forever.'" Jenny paused, and she looked farther down the note as there was a small gap there, a couple of crossed-out things too like Zach did not know how to keep going.

"'Well, that's about-' he stopped again, but he didn't cross it out," Jenny muttered, then she stopped herself as she read the bottom. She read it, glanced up at the others, and she did not know if she wanted to keep speaking. Yet even after only a few seconds, she could barely hold it in anymore and wanted to ask questions about it. So instead she started in a softer voice, "He, gets kind of personal here." She glanced up, but neither of them told her not to say anything. They did not ask to hear either, but Jenny wanted to go on. "He said, 'Next time I see you, I'll tell you everything. About what happened-'" Jenny paused, then she continued after pursing her lips for a second, "'About what happened to my parents. About how All Might saved me when I was a kid. All of it.'" Jenny looked up, but both Kuroiro and Kaminari had wide-eyed confusion on their faces after hearing that. Jenny folded the letter back up and placed it down on her knees, and she muttered, "'Goodbye.'"

Jenny stayed quiet after, but her elbows were on her knees and she stared forward in between the boys and out into the street past her apartment. _"I know I don't say it enough, but I love you and your parents. I miss you. Goodbye." Idiot… say more._ Jenny's eyes lowered down to the letter and ripped envelope she had pressed to her knees by her elbows, frowning as there was so much more she wanted to hear.

Kaminari put his hands up behind his head and leaned back on the railing. He let out a loud groan, and the other two thoughtful teens on the steps looked down his way. "I wish he had said more," Kaminari said, looking up in annoyance at how Zach ended that. "More questions than answers there," he muttered, rolling his eyes. He stopped after a second and smiled though, "Sounds like he's alright though." Kaminari looked up at Kuroiro, then he turned to Jenny who was looking at him in surprise. "He sounds like he's in good spirits, despite everything."

"'…they're probably saying all kinds of things about me on tv,'" Kuroiro started. The other two turned his way, and he said, "It sounds like he doesn't have access to television." Both of the others' eyes opened wide, and Kuroiro continued after seeing those looks, "I thought he may have been trying to leave secret messages in there. Didn't you-"

"Let's read it again," Kaminari said. "Look closer in the-" he paused as he suggested and started leaning towards Jenny, seeing a more hesitant look on her face. He quickly realized that she probably left some personal things out and just sat back again. "Nevermind. Do you think he'd try doing that?" Kaminari asked, looking at Jenny who was surprised he leaned back so quickly.

She smiled that he did not try to pry and read it for himself though, and then she shook her head and said, "I don't think so. He's good at puzzles and codes, but he knows I wouldn't be able to figure that kind of stuff out. And if he was trying to be careful about the villains reading that, he'd have to make the codes harder than they could figure out, yeah?" Kaminari hummed and nodded his head as that made sense to him. "No way I decipher a code he's making too hard for villains."

"Hmm," Kuroiro hummed, nodding his head too. _He's just being careful,_ Kuroiro thought, though he was disappointed there was not more useful information in that letter.

"But," Jenny continued, looking up at the dark boy leaning on the wall. "Zach's right-handed." Kuroiro gave her a confused look, and she continued, "He's so bad at writing with his left hand, that there's no way he still has that box on his hand to be writing like this."

"What does that mean?" Kaminari asked.

"Well," Jenny said, turning back to the blond. "It means they're not just taking it off to let him go around healing people. He might not be allowed to watch tv," she said with a shrug, then she smiled and said, "but it seems like he's got some freedoms. Especially if he was able to write this without anyone noticing."

Kaminari smiled at the sound of that, but Kuroiro did not know if it made him feel any better. _He's free. He's making decisions on his own. I kind of knew that, but how free is he? He said he doesn't even know where he is towards the start of the letter. That could have just been to convince the villains he's on their side though if he really expected them to find the letter… Why am I thinking about this? Can I really figure out what Zach's trying to do? How well do I know him to think I can do that? Well, enough…_

"That's pretty cool," Kaminari said, smiling at the girl who looked excited by her revelation. He then smirked more at the cute girl, and he said while keeping his hands behind his head, "So, you Zach's girlfriend?"

Jenny's eyes bulged and Kaminari leaned back at the panicked look on her face. "What? No, he's like, I've known him my whole life. Zach's more like a, a brother to me. It's not like that-"

"You know," Kaminari cut in. "A simple 'no' would have been a lot more convincing." His tease made the girl's face light up pink, then turn redder as she frowned at the boy who laughed at her reaction. _Didn't want to make a move if she was, but, I think I'll stay out of this,_ Kaminari thought, deciding not to go after the cute girl in front of him.

"We're really not though," Jenny said, rolling her eyes after calming down and realizing he was just messing with her. "He's just, my best friend." Kaminari grinned and nodded at her, while Kuroiro frowned at the blond boy for making it awkward. Kaminari did not seem to think it was though, and neither did Jenny who actually felt relaxed with the blond boy's attitude being less serious than she would have thought. Jenny pouted and she continued after a few seconds in an annoyed voice, "Even though, he never told me anything."

In that annoyed voice, Kuroiro also thought he heard some hurt laced in it. Kaminari added on right after she finished though, "Haha! I know, right?" She turned to him, and Kaminari said, "He's always being so secretive."

"I _know!_ " Jenny exclaimed, taking her elbows off her knees and throwing her hands up in the air. "Like when he was locked up in his room, he wouldn't-"

"Oh my God, that was so annoying," Kaminari said.

"You came here?"

"Twice! I thought maybe he just wasn't home the first time-"

"Oh he was there the entire time," Jenny assured him.

"I know that now," Kaminari retorted. The two of them stopped for a second, then they each started laughing. Kuroiro watched this in mild amusement, then he cracked a small smile with his lips closed, which would have made it impossible for anyone to tell he was smiling since his whole face except for his thin eyes was now pitch black.

Jenny stopped laughing and she shook her head, though she was smiling more now. "Zach needs to share more," she said.

"We'll tell him that, when he gets back," Kaminari agreed, and he nodded at the girl who looked surprised as she made eye contact with him. She smiled again after a few seconds though, and she nodded back in agreement.

"When he gets back."

* * *

"What do you mean? Send me there," Zach said, narrowing his confused glare at the dark figure in front of him who narrowed his right back.

"If I do, this time, we're going to need something more in exchange," Kurogiri told the boy standing in front of him. They were in Zach's room: dark, cramped, with only a bed up against one wall and a small dresser with the boy's clothes in it. Kurogiri had just told him about a construction worker who fell to his death because of some faulty equipment. It sounded to Zach like a brutal way to go, and maybe even too much for him to be able to revive, but that's why he wanted to get out there as soon as he could.

 _The more time that passes, the less likely I can save them,_ Zach thought. He frowned at Kurogiri though and did not just accept what the man told him. "I'm already giving you stuff in exchange. Isn't me saving people what you want? Change the-"

"If all you do is bring people back to life," Kurogiri began, holding up a shadowy hand in front of him with the palm facing up. He was wearing a black suit and the silver guard around his neck was visible as he was standing in his normal form at the moment. "Then the people will not distinguish you from the heroes. There needs to be more."

"I won't kill anyone for you," Zach said, glaring at Kurogiro harsher. _What am I saying? What if he doesn't let me go save that guy now? Bluff him-_

Kurogiri let out a sigh, then he moved his hand from his right side and left a warp gate next to him. Zach lifted his eyebrows at the portal-user, but Kurogiri motioned towards it with his head and said, "We'll talk more on this when you get back. Think hard about how you want to play this."

Zach walked forward, eying Kurogiri as he moved for the portal. He only half-expected the portal to send him where he needed to go, and he was surprised when he arrived at the construction site where an ambulance was parked near. There were other construction workers all around him, and even a couple of cops who were near the ambulance. _Why'd they even send one?_ Zach wondered as he bent down and put his right hand over the man's chest. _His head is cracked. That's bad, but not impossible. If it's not crushed, complete- ahh…_ "Ahhh," he groaned, lifting his left hand and grabbing the side of his head. He had to pull his right hand off of the man for a second, then he grit his teeth and pushed it back down, grabbing his wrist with his left hand as he put it on and made his hand turn black again.

"I can feel, my skull, cracking," Zach gasped out, his eyes turning bloodshot as the black color ran up his entire arm and reached his neck. He could feel the tingling sensation in his throat, reaching up to his chin as he let out a pained groan and leaned backwards. He snapped his head back and bit down so hard he was afraid his teeth might break, not that he could spend any time thinking about that before letting out a roar of agony. He could feel it in his broken legs, in his head, in his crushed chest cavity. _I hope this guy died quick,_ Zach thought, while experiencing just one of the worst pains of his life. The black color on the bottom half of his face started seeping back down. It retreated off of his neck, down his arm, all the way to his fingers which turned white again. Zach lifted his hand and his fingers hid back behind the fingers of the glove that re-covered them.

Zach's eyes that had been clenched shut at his final scream opened back up while he panted there on his knees. His eyes hurt as he opened them, and he reached his left arm up and rubbed them as they felt wet. He lowered his sleeve and looked down to see some red on it, making his eyes open wide in some fear. _That's never happened before,_ he thought, but then he lowered his gaze down to the man who he saw movement from in front of him. _Then again, he was, he looked splatted._ "Are you, okay?" Zach asked, worried that the man's cracked skull may have lost something considering the guy's blank look as he stared up at Zach. He stared at the boy who put his mask on as soon as Kurogiri mentioned the incident, before the portal-user had made it seem like he wouldn't let him go for a minute. _It probably wouldn't have hurt as much if Kurogiri had just-_ Zach saw the portal open up behind him, and he darted his gaze around wondering where there was a camera that Hackerman could see him on.

Zach stood up next to the construction worker who did not look great, but at least was alive. Zach took a step back for the portal, shifting his gaze towards the ambulance. He stared at the two EMTs and the two cops near them, and his eyes opened wide behind his mask as the officers each turned away from him. They had been watching him, but when he looked their ways they pretended like they had not seen him. Zach's smile lifted up more behind his mask, then he dropped it back down and stepped through the swirling darkness behind him. He heard the cheers come from the other construction workers right as he was stepping through, he heard clapping, but his expression was dark as he walked through the warp gate.

He stepped into a room he was not surprised to find himself in. _Knew it,_ he thought, as he suspected he would not be returned to his room after that. _I'm not even in the same building. I've been around the one I'm in most of the time to realize that's a separate facility as this one. The one, that's probably the main headquarters, considering he's here._ Zach stared at the man he stepped out right in front of, and the guy with hands attached all over his body started walking towards him. "Shigaraki," Zach said, nodding at the man who was supposed to be his boss.

Shigaraki Tomura walked right up to Zach, leaving barely a three foot gap between them. "Good work," Shigaraki said, and he smiled from behind the gray hand covering most of his face.

Zach hesitated, then nodded and said, "Yeah. Thanks, I guess." _I don't like this. Why the sudden shift? Are they making new plans? Do I try and kill Shigaraki right now? Is it just me and him here? No, Kurogiri's probably watching and protecting too. Anything I do, he could stop in an instant._ Zach's expression did not shift once as he thought, keeping just a slightly hesitant and confused look on his face instead. "So, why am I here?"

"You might not have noticed," Shigaraki said, turning his back to the boy in front of him. Again Zach did not change his expression even as he had a clear shot on Shigaraki's back, he just kept looking confused at what the villain was saying. "But villains are showing up. Lots of villains. The _age_ of All Might is over," Shigaraki mocked, saying 'age' like it was a laughable thing.

"I've noticed," Zach said, and Shigaraki turned back to him. "A lot of the people I've been- who you've been letting me save, are killed by villains." Zach changed up his wording to assure Shigaraki that he was grateful, and the villain with wavy gray hair smirked at him behind the hand for his non-hostile attitude.

 _It's their fault,_ Zach thought, while keeping the mild-mannered look on his face. He had become an expert of hiding what he was thinking, and he really hoped the League of Villains never got a mind reader on their side. _The "age" of All Might ended because of them. That hero, he…_ Zach's face looked a bit more frustrated, and he shook his head to stop thinking about the man who appeared in his mind, sitting behind the witness stand in court. _All Might stopped villains like these before. He can't do it now, and that might be partially my fault… No, no All For One was just that strong, and All Might beat him anyway. These people I'm saving, I'm really saving. All Might can't do it anymore, and the other heroes can't save everyone. I can though._

"That's exactly right," Shigaraki said to Zach, and Zach looked into the villain's eyes through the parted fingers of the hand over his face. "But although we have gotten you to some of their victims, the number of fatalities from villain attacks is still on the rise." Zach grimaced and gained a darker look as he frowned at Shigaraki. "But don't worry," Shigaraki said, "you can change that."

Zach's grimace deepened more. _Alright. How do I play this? Like, Kurogiri said… Damn it, they still know. They know I'm not-_ Zach lifted up his grimace and he just asked as if confused, "How?"

"I like how so many people are feeling it's alright to be a villain again," Shigaraki replied, lifting his arms to the sides and grinning more. "It's what I was going for, but!" He narrowed his gaze and his mouth dipped down, "One of the villain brokers helping us out, was killed by some villains I asked him to recruit for us. I can't have that," Shigaraki said, his eyes narrowing more behind his face-hand-mask. He lifted up his right hand and he started scratching his neck, and he continued, "They're not people I can work with. They're too, crazy."

 _Too crazy for you?_ Zach thought, though he managed not to say it out loud as he really wanted to. _How crazy can they be though for the League of Villains to think they're too much?_

"And it wasn't just the broker they killed," Shigaraki continued. Zach's eyes widened for a second before narrowing again at the implication, and Shigaraki continued, "They seem to enjoy killing, just for the sake of killing." He said it in a mock-astonished voice, holding his hands up at his sides and shaking his head in disbelief.

 _What do I do? What do I say? This is the next step up. This is the next step they want me to take, before they'll give me another one step up. How many one steps have I already taken and not known about? I'm standing in front of Shigaraki without the box on my hand, having a conversation with him without anyone else around._ "And you want me, to kill them?" Zach asked. His face was dark, and he thought after asking, _How many people would I save? Taking out villains that crazy? Wait! How do I even know Shigaraki's telling the truth? Hell, if I do what he says, it might be a trick and I wind up killing a room full of orphans or puppies instead. I mean, not that I wouldn't be able to tell the difference, but the point stands that they could be good guys. Or even just villains who might not agree with Shigaraki, but that doesn't mean they're more evil than the League of Villains. If anything!_

"Pretty much," Shigaraki said. "Though I can settle for less," he added.

Zach reached up with his left hand and he slid his mask up his face, putting it over his short black hair that usually stuck out the top of the mask. He had a genuinely confused look on his face this time, and because of that he felt okay with showing Shigaraki his whole expression. He hoped that he had been convincing up until this point anyway, but the more he could speak his mind and what he was really thinking, the more he wanted to. "I don't get it," Zach said. "If you want them out of the way, why would you want me using my powers to do anything less?"

"It's not that I want you to use your Quirk at all," Shigaraki said. He smirked at the boy who just looked more confused now. "Twice is taking a team to get rid of them. You remember Twice?"

Zach had not seen Twice in a while, but he nodded his head as he thought about the schizophrenic man. _Sending a crazy guy after other crazy people. And I'll be there in the middle of a villain gang war?_ Zach nodded his head at Shigaraki, and Shigaraki continued speaking.

"You might not have to kill any of them yourself…"

 _If I go. If I go there and just let villains kill each other, is that a full step up? I'm already- I already know that they've still been being villains even while I was here. It's not like this is news to me. But, the closer I am…_

"You'll just have to listen to Twice. Do what he says. And Dabi tells me you've worked your Quirk enough to…"

 _He's right. I wouldn't have to kill any of them. If I weaken them though, and then the League of Villains kills them, then I helped with that murder. But, if killing one of them saves innocent people…_

"The thing is, some people are starting to wonder if keeping you around is really worth it," Shigaraki said, and Zach met his gaze again. They stared into each other's eyes, and then Shigaraki grinned again after a few seconds of it, "But I know you are. Still, how are we supposed to keep letting you do as you do, without any give-back? I can't let it continue like that."

An unnerved look spread on Zach's face. _How much, of a choice do I have in this? It seems like I do. It sounded like it at first really. But, if I don't do this, he's not going to let me save more people. And if he's stopping that, and I don't do what they say, then that means I'll be the same thing as a prisoner._ Zach got a bead of sweat on the right side of his face, though he kept a thoughtful look on his face like he was pondering pros and cons of the decision. "And, just how many people have they killed?" Zach asked. His mind was not on the mission or what Shigaraki started replying with though. _If I'm just a prisoner here, if I can't save people anymore… it hasn't been enough!_

"…I told you, all I want you to do is save people," Shigaraki said. Zach's eyes widened, as that was what Shigaraki told him the first day he had joined back up with them, right after the trial concluded. "And this. What you'll be doing there. That _is_ saving people," Shigaraki said.

 _What kind of people are they? The day I got here I was ready to kill any villain on a second's notice, but, but…_ In Zach's head he saw Kurogiri lowering his arm and making that portal for him to go save the construction worker. He thought about the villain taking his advice and how he even let Zach call one of the doctors recently and tell the truth about what he wanted them to do. He recalled smiling smugly at Kurogiri afterwards when the doctor agreed to call him back when the time came, even though Zach never threatened the man once. Then Zach thought about Dabi. He thought about the man who killed Kirishima, and he thought about how angry he got a week earlier when he finally snapped at Dabi about doing that. _"Did it look like it hurt?"_ Zach thought about Dabi's response, and that made an even more frustrated look form on his face. _Did he kill Kirishima painlessly on purpose? Does that really make it any better?_ Zach thought about the man grinning at him after finally bringing back a sheep that Dabi had roasted as badly as ones Zach had been unable to save his first few weeks there. He thought about how Dabi told him he was getting stronger by using his power like this all the time, and how he was glad someone else had noticed even if it did upset him that the villains knew about his rising strengths.

 _If, the villains can have good sides to them,_ Zach thought. _Then how can I kill them just like that?_ _As much as they think that by making me into one of their own, I'll be more likely to help them, if anything it just has me thinking villains are more like people than I ever had before. I thought there was such a huge gap between villains, and the rest of society. But the villains I see, they're not working for straight-up evil reasons. And some of them, like Twice and Toga, they're genuinely crazy. Insane people who have no place in regular society, nothing that can help them._ Zach's eyebrows furrowed in more. The more he thought about the villains he was currently working with as real people, the more he thought about the others. The ones he used to tell himself not to feel guilty about, because of all the people he could have saved with their deaths, he thought more about them every day. In his head appeared Shindeki Buda laughing evilly, but then Mr. Compress appeared. And as much as he tried hating him, as much as he resented Compress for all that had happened to him because of him, he felt bad about what he had done to him.

"What's your answer?" Shigaraki asked the boy whose mind was swirling with all these thoughts. Zach's eyes rose again and locked with Shigaraki's. They were in a huge open area in a warehouse somewhere, lights illuminating a garage part of it off to their right, but it was pretty dark around them. Zach's head bowed a little but he kept his gaze up and locking with Shigaraki's.

 _What this comes down to, is what my response in this moment will mean. Forget everything else. If I say 'no,' I'll become a prisoner here. I won't be able to save anyone. Who knows what their next move will be if I don't do what they want voluntarily. Things could get much worse, if I don't say yes. If I do what they say, I can continue saving people. I can keep on the current path, and I still don't need to kill anyone._ "Alright," Zach finally replied. "I'll go with Twice, but I'm going to use Nightmare from the start. I don't want to kill any of them. I'll, take some out, if need be…" Zach hesitated and he pursed his lips, then he had to say, "And leave them for the cops."

Zach kept his eyes cold as he steadied his expression. He finished saying it and glared coldly into Shigaraki's eyes, waiting to hear the leader of the League of Villains tell him that that was not an option, tell him that Twice would execute them if Zach did not finish them off. "Hmph," Shigaraki leaned back from the short kid whose eyes opened wide at the grin he saw on Shigaraki's face. "Do what you want. You're a villain after all. Act by your own code. Just listen to what I say, and do what Twice says on this mission."

 _Act by, my own code. That's what I told myself. There's no mind-reader here, he just thinks that way. Unless there is and they're going for a long-game and really think they can change my mind with enough time, if they know all my thoughts and can try changing me… No, no they wouldn't be doing that. It's too unlikely. What's more likely, is that the 'act by your own code' thing, is just something villains already believe in. Shit. Shit! But I thought of that on my own. Well, that's what separated villains from heroes. Heroes have the set code, set rules, and everyone who doesn't follow those rules is defined as a villain. Even though I'm saving lives, I'll always be just, a villain. And who knows, maybe going out on a mission like this, I'll wind up saving lives that would have been taken by the other villains? I can't say no, but that doesn't mean I have to do things the way they want. I'll do whatever I can to be able to keep saving people, except take a life. That's, my code._ "I understand," Zach said to Shigaraki, nodding and putting as serious an expression on his face as he could. "I'll do it." _Unless he tells me to kill someone. That's, where I should draw the line._

 _It's not much of a code. Save people, without killing anyone. It's what my code was always meant to be, but now, I'm the only one enforcing it. The people around me wouldn't care. In fact, they would be happy if I broke it. But that's why it's all the more important. I don't have a system of checks, don't have anyone making sure I stay on the right path. It's up to me. So I'll do what Shigaraki wants. And I'll go attack another villain base with these villains. Anything, to keep Kurogiri sending me to save lives. That's, the most important thing._

* * *

 **A/N Thanks for reading. Hope you enjoyed. Leave a review below telling me what you think, or predictions for upcoming chapters!**


	24. Chapter 24

**Disclaimer: I don't own Boku no Hero Academia**

 **Chapter 24:**

"Chief. Chief. Chief." The principal of U.A. High School, Nezu, nodded his head to the three chiefs of police who he had just walked up to. The two men and the woman in front of the mouse-bear-dog principal nodded at the small furry creature in respect.

"Principal Nezu," the Chief of the Osaka police department greeted. "I did not know U.A. staff would be attending this meeting." The woman with long blond hair that had silver streaks in it and some wrinkles on her face scratched her chin as she looked at the smaller figure. "Will All Might be here?"

"No," Nezu replied in his high-pitched voice. "Only I was invited here. I do not believe any other heroes at all are coming, not only U.A. staff." Nezu said it, because at the same time he thought about why it might be that the U.A. staff was not being fully trusted.

"Ladies, gentlemen." One of the chiefs was about to respond to Nezu, but they turned and looked towards a seven foot tall woman who was almost as wide at the shoulders walking into the room. "Please, take your seats," the huge woman said, walking over to one of three chairs near the front of the room herself. Her chair was in the center of the three, and two men took seats at the ones on her sides. One was a light-skinned man who looked older than everyone else in the room and had long white hair to match that partially covered up his eyes with bangs and fell from his chin almost to the floor. On the woman's left though as she sat down, was a figure the U.A. principal had seen more recently.

William Wilson nodded towards the small mouse creature who had looked his way right as he was looking over, and Nezu nodded respectfully back at the judge. Everyone other than the three officials in the front of the room sat around the semicircular table that stretched around the rest of it. There were high-ranking police officers from several cities there if the chiefs could not come to this themselves, and a few other government officials taking part in the meeting.

The large woman in the center of the front of the room started speaking as soon as everyone had taken their seats. "You all know why we are here. Over the past two months, villains have come out of hiding, and crime has started increasing along with them. Murder, drugs, costume-trafficking, they all rise with the increasing appearances of villains." Everyone around the room nodded and had frowns on their faces at this information, but it was nothing new to these people at the top of the hero society. "While these things are on the rise however, public opinion of, Lifebringer, rises as well."

The main official in the center of the room stared straight forward at the middle seat in the semicircle table where the principal of U.A. was sitting. "This is a problem," she continued. She looked to her left at Judge Wilson who kept a serious and deep frown on his face behind his long tusks. Although they knew the name of the mysterious figure who was going around saving lives all over Japan, that figure had started to be reported even by main tv stations as the most popular name for him online. Less people were using his name, giving police officers near incidents where he appeared a reasonable excuse to say that they did not know who it was who appeared to save the recently deceased.

Everyone in the room hummed to themselves or murmured something under their breaths, and many of them looked towards Nezu who kept looking towards the official taking charge of the meeting. The large woman with short curly brown hair narrowed her gaze towards Nezu, then shifted it around at all the police officers whose cities the boy had been appearing in, whose cities' medias reported good things about him and were making their job more difficult by the day. "Today, you have all been called here so that we may come up with a solution," she said. "To discuss an answer, to the Zach Sazaki Problem."

* * *

Inside the top floor of an empty office building in central Musutafu, five men were gathered in a side room that did not have any windows. They could not have the lights on anywhere else on the floor and risk being seen through the windows, as it was long past closing hours of the office and would seem suspicious, despite the fact that one of the five men in there owned the building. Seiki Ganji was an eight foot tall man who wore a business suit that he had worn to work that morning, unlike the two on the opposite side of the table of the small side room, closer to the door.

The two who were closer to the door were more cautious about their identities. Both wore masks, and both of their costumes were dark, though Lavamander's had more color with dark red highlights on his elbows, neck, knees, boots, and gloves. Most of his costume was black though, just like the man who was farther from the table, leaning back on the side wall with a foot up against it and an annoyed look on his face. The bottom half of his face was visible under the bottom of his mask that only dropped to his nose, but his eyes were not visible which made it seem like it would be impossible for him to see.

The other two men in the room stood on the left side of the table in relation to the building's owner. They were both thin men, one of whom was a police officer and was uncomfortable about being in this room at the moment. Naomasa Tsukauchi wore his usual trench coat and a matching hat, his hands were in his coat's pockets, and his hat was dipped down more so the rim shadowed over the top half of his face. _Meeting in secret like this,_ he thought, but he kept a steady gaze as he turned to Ganji. Lavamander had just shown up, and Ganji stepped up to the table to start speaking. "Surprised you came," he said, looking to Lavamander and then over to the darker man leaning on the wall.

"We're it?" Lavamander asked. The man had scales on the bottom of his face that almost blended in with his light skin, but they got more defined down his chin before disappearing under the red of the costume on his neck.

Ganji grunted and then said in his much lower voice than Lavamander's, "You're the only two who replied."

"Hmph," Lavamander leaned back and then turned to his right to face the two standing there. "Guess a meeting with All Might isn't worth as much as it used to be."

All Might sweatdropped as he looked towards Lavamander. Tsukauchi looked like he wanted to say something back after that, and All Might spoke quickly first, "I understand. I am glad you came however, Lavamander." The scaly man leaned his head back some more, then he humphed again and nodded once at All Might. "You too, Webb," All Might said over to the man whose head turned All Might's way even if he did not have showing eyes to meet the retired hero's with.

"So why did you call us here?" Lavamander asked. "And with a cop present too," he added, turning to the man in the trench coat. Tsukauchi did not introduce himself yet, but Lavamander could tell from a single glance.

"This is Detective Tsukauchi, a personal friend of mine," All Might introduced. "He already knew about the existence of this society as well."

"Enough with introductions," Ganji said in his deep voice. Everyone turned his way, and he said while looking at All Might, "What is it you asked us here for?"

Tsukauchi frowned at All Might, but he kept his mouth shut to let the hero at his side speak first. _These men and I, will never be able to meet eye to eye, All Might. We have long since passed the time of vigilantes in hero society. Sometimes they show up, and on occasion the police will let them go. They're not organized like this though. The vigilantes who do occasional acts of heroism with their Quirks to try and help out, would never be able to join this organization. No this- collection, since I can't even call something without a structure like this an organization. The anti-hero society. A select few at the top of the police brass know of them, and they have a few connections with certain heroes as well. It's so secretive that I thought it was a fake rumor when I first heard the idea, and it's not being a cop that gave me this in, but only my relationship with All Might. Still my friend, I wish you had not invited me to come with you, not this time…_

"I have come, to ask for a favor," All Might said. "Your society is kept a secret despite the good you do, and also to prevent any need for the Police Force to attempt to capture you-"

"Which they would fail at doing," Lavamander remarked. He turned to Tsukauchi and added, "Though I'm surprised you actually didn't bring any other cops with you."

 _How does he know that?_ Tsukauchi wondered. _Lavamander's Quirk, is unknown to me. His name suggests something about lava and salamanders, and those scales as well, but can he tell at this moment? Or did he search the building before coming in here?_ The detective frowned at the figure in front of him who was wearing a costume that was technically illegal considering he had no Hero License, the man who was very powerful from what All Might had told him

"What is this favor?" Ganji asked. He did not interrupt as rudely as Lavamander, but he also wanted All Might to stop beating around the bush.

All Might lost the hesitation on his face, the slightly nervous look he got when Lavamander confronted Tsukauchi again. He took a deep breath and then narrowed his dark eyes down, and he said, "I wish to save, Lifebringer." Ganji leaned back where he was standing, humming and looking down at the smaller men on his left. He lifted a hand and started scratching his chin that had a thin black goatee on it. Lavamander tilted his head to the side, checking if All Might was serious, then he frowned and pulled back too though with a less thoughtful look on his face. All Might continued, "There is no way to get him out of the villains' clutches, without the result being that he is arrested along with them. You, who stand on the line between hero and villain, are the only ones I can turn to for this."

"Sorry, All Might," Lavamander said as soon as All Might sounded like he might be finished. All Might turned to the man who he considered the strongest of the three in the room, and he frowned at the man's shaking head and disapproving look. Lavamander wore a black cloak that fell behind his back but could be pulled around his entire muscular body, his black mask was made of some sort of steel and had a lifted black visor over the eyes and slits for his mouth before. The mask started at just below his mouth but went over the top of his head, more like a helmet, so All Might did not know if he had hair or was bald. Lavamander looked into All Might's eyes with his dark red ones, and he shook his head once more before continuing in a lower voice than before, "Although it is pretty common knowledge, most people don't seem to care. But we all know Zach Sazaki chose to step through that portal at the court house."

Tsukauchi's gaze lowered and the rim of his hat shadowed over the top half of his face even more. All Might frowned at Lavamander's response, then he turned to the right at Seiki Ganji who crossed his arms again after thinking for a minute. "Lavamander is correct," Ganji said, though he gave All Might a slightly apologetic look afterwards. "I know he is your student, and he may be doing some good in the world," Ganji shook his head and then hardened his expression. "But he joined the League of Villains of his own free will. Those, who destroyed Camino Ward. How many died that night, All Might?"

All Might grimaced deeply, but then he said, "Sazaki almost died that night too." Ganji frowned more at the former hero who continued, "Yet he still chose to follow the people who nearly killed him. But he did so to save lives," All Might bit down in a frustrated way, and he looked back towards Lavamander, before turning towards Webb. Lavamander dropped his visor back over his eyes, and Webb might not have had eyes at all under that mask, not that All Might had ever seen him without it on. So he turned back to Ganji whose eyes he could look at, "All I am asking for, is that someone tries to help him. He is all on his own."

"'How long will it be before he becomes a villain, with only villains influencing him?'" Ganji said. "Is that what you are afraid of, All Might?" All Might hesitated in responding, and that made Ganji continue in an even stronger tone, "In that case, I am even more against it. You said so during the boy's trial. You do not believe in him, and whatever you want to say to counter that, you just confirmed your feelings to me. He is surrounded by villains and you fear he will become one? Would you feel that way if it were any of your other students? No. You feel this way, because the boy makes poor decisions, villainous decisions."

All Might frowned deeper at what Seiki Ganji was saying, but then his eyes turned huge and he turned his head right to Tsukauchi. "Actually, All Might," Tsukauchi began. He looked into his friend's eyes apologetically, but then his expression became more stern and he said, "I have to agree with them."

"Damn it," Lavamander muttered. "I don't like it when cops agree with me," he said under his breath.

Tsukauchi tried to ignore the man and just continued to his shocked friend, "As much as I know you want Sazaki to just be, a misunderstood child, I don't think he is. He recently turned sixteen, did he not?" All Might frowned lower and lost his shocked look, but still had a frustrated one on his face. "You told me yourself that he is an intelligent person, mature for his age. I can't consider someone like that as anything other than a danger, even if he did save my sister's old roommate from her university." He added that because he thought All Might might bring it up as he had told his friend the story already.

"I don't like any villains," Lavamander started. "But the League of Villains really rub me the wrong way. Going after kids every time. Going after you All Might, forcing you into retirement. I hate those bastards." His eyes darkened under his visor, and he crossed his arms over his chest like Ganji was doing across the table from him. "That kid's one of them now, which makes him just like all the others to me. Sort of," he added, grimacing behind his mask that he added it on at the end.

Tsukauchi nodded in agreement at that, and All Might turned to his cop friend, then to Ganji, then back to Lavamander. And then All Might's eyes turned from the three vocal opponents of what he was requesting. He looked across the room at the man wearing all black, whose skin was tan under the bottom of his mask that covered the top of his face. "Webb?" All Might asked, confused as the man lowered the leg he had against the wall down to the floor.

Ganji never mentioned anything about it to the third anti-hero in the room, but he did let out a low growl at the sight of a smudge of dirt on his wall where Webb lowered his foot from. "You got something to say?" Lavamander asked, turning to Webb who leaned off of the wall while turning away from All Might.

Webb walked towards the door without saying anything, but he stopped when he reached it. "I'll go."

All Might's eyes opened huge. "What do you mean?" Tsukauchi asked, stepping away from the table and closer to the side where Lavamander and Webb were. "That makes it sound like you know where they are. Do you have information-"

Webb's head turned sideways so Tsukauchi was staring at the top of his mask. The man in black frowned at him, and he said in an annoyed voice, "I don't work for you." He turned back to the door and said, "But if All Might thinks he's worth it, I'll check it out."

Now All Might wanted to ask him something similar to what Tsukauchi did, but Webb opened the door first and looked about to leave. All Might bowed the top part of his body and the man in the doorway hesitated. "Thank you, Webb."

The man in all black waited another second, then he stepped out and closed the door behind him. He turned and headed towards the door for the stairs leading up to the roof. _Zach Sazaki. Lifebringer. That's not a very good name for a villain._

* * *

"Have you noticed? There have been less reports this week."

"Maybe less people are dying?"

"That's not it. If anything, villain activity is up."

Midoriya glanced towards the kitchen where he saw Kaminari and Kirishima talking in louder voices than either of them thought. He was walking towards the area in the common room with the couches and soft chairs where he saw Uraraka, Tsuyu, and Iida sitting around near the tv. It was a Sunday and everyone in Class-A was lounging about and recovering, after the full-class-training-session they had the day before which wound up being way more intense than any of them expected when Aizawa sensei showed up during it.

The green-haired boy who had been in a good mood as he was heading over lost that smile as he neared his friends. _I noticed that too Kirishima. Less people are being saved by "Lifebringer." He hasn't disappeared, but if he's not saving people, what is he spending all his time doing? I can only think, the villains are giving him tasks other than bringing people back to life._

"Hey Deku," Uraraka turned her head to look over the couch. She got a confused look on her face for a second, but Midoriya's expression lightened up as he faced her too so she smiled again.

"Mirodiya-chan, are you feeling alright?" Tsuyu asked him as he sat on the couch next to her. He turned and said he was fine with a surprised look, but the girl with the Quirk: Frog tilted her head as she thought there was something wrong for sure.

"We were just talking about next Term's hero internships, Midoriya-kun," Iida said. Most of them were wearing casual clothing, but Iida had on a collared shirt even while they were all relaxing in the common room. Midoriya half wanted to ask if he was going somewhere, but he also considered that Iida was just wearing it during his relaxation.

"So much happened this time," Uraraka said, letting out a long sigh and shaking her head. "It was nothing like the first one, not that Gunhead's training wasn't hard too," she added, thinking back on the first semester more fondly and doing a quick punch out in front of her.

Iida looked towards Midoriya who gazed back towards him, and then the tall class rep said with a small smile, "Yes, nothing like the first time." Uraraka saw his smile and look at Deku, and then her eyes popped open wide.

"Oh right!" Uraraka exclaimed, covering her mouth with one hand afterwards like she spoke carelessly. She had totally forgotten about how the other two had met Stain during the first internship, and they quickly told her not to worry about bringing it up.

"What's going on?" Midoriya asked, turning to the tv screen the other three had on while they sat around. The volume was on low, but they were watching the news and something interesting seemed to be happening.

"It's over already," Uraraka told the boy who turned back to her in confusion. "They're just showing old footage now. Endeavor stopped some villains in Chinji City." Uraraka's voice got softer, and she added, "There were eleven people injured, and four died."

"That's terrible," Izuku said, turning back to the screen. He paused as he kept staring at it, and he asked, "How, long ago was it?"

"An hour or so," Tsuyu replied. Midoriya's frown deepened as he kept reading the bar that just appeared on the bottom of the screen with the same numbers Uraraka just mentioned on it.

The other three around Midoriya saw his deepened frown, and their expressions fell. Asui Tsuyu looked towards the screen again, and she grabbed the remote that was next to her and turned up the volume. They watched as the news anchors showed back up behind their desk again, the three who had arguments about incidents and had been talking about Endeavor's quick arrival and save. One of them was not talking as much as the other two though, and then he spoke up when they asked what he thought about all this.

"My only question is, where is Lifebringer?"

Both of the other anchors lifted their eyebrows at him, while the kids sitting on the couches in the Class-A U.A. dorm stared at the screen with wider eyes as it was brought up. They were all thinking about it anyway though, as another man who had goat horns sticking out of his head remarked, "Perhaps he didn't hear about this."

"It's the biggest news all day," the first man retorted. "And we've mentioned the casualties several times."

"Well with such a big event, with police and heroes everywhere, it's not like he can just pop in and save them," the third spoke up. "With that much police presence around, doubt even his portal-taxi can get him out of there."

"Need I remind you, the one using the portals is a villain who…"

"… the heroes fault for trying to capture him anyway!"

"Let's just agree to disagree. He didn't show up here, but Endeavor saved who knows how many dozens who could have been injured or killed from this villains' rampage."

"But, he didn't save everyone."

"No one can."

"You sure about that?"

Midoriya's eyes opened wider, then Tsuyu pressed a button on the remote and turned off the tv. Everyone spun towards her in surprise, then Midoriya noticed something. When he turned towards her he saw over the back of the couch, seeing Kaminari and Kirishima not far behind. Mineta had come out of the laundry room and was holding a basket in his hands with his clean clothes in them. He looked the other way past Iida and saw Yaoyorozu standing midway across the common room from the girl's side where she had stopped and stared at the news Tsuyu had put at a loud volume.

Tsuyu frowned and lowered her head, putting the remote down next to her. She pursed her lips without saying anything. _Those acts, are the same acts as those of villains. I thought that, I believed it. I was wrong though- at least, I think I was. But…_ In Tsuyu's mind she saw Shigaraki Tomura reaching his hand out for her face, putting his hand on her to try and kill her. If not for Aizawa erasing his Quirk in that moment, she knew she would have died. She thought about that, and then she had to purse her lips more and bite down inside her mouth. In her head she saw Shigaraki, and she saw Kurogiri next to him, and then the girl Himiko Toga who attacked them in the woods… and then she saw Zach. She did not see the short-haired version of him wearing a mask like she had seen on the internet, she just saw him wearing his blue gym uniform, his hair spiked up over his head.

Tsuyu thought about Zach next to all those villains, then she shook her head around and opened her eyes while staring down. She thought about the same boy, only this time she thought about when she had rushed to the hospital after getting Kaminari's text that he had woken up. _Right when I got there, I saw him. Zach, was terrified._ Tsuyu thought about how he was led out of the hospital in cuffs, how all the reporters had swarmed him and the police, but he was looking towards them. _He had looked towards us, Aoyama, Uraraka too, and he had such a desperate look in his eyes. He was pleading for our help- and that's the last time I saw him._

The mood of the dorm had just gone far down, and Mineta spoke up after looking around and seeing everyone's faces. "Oi oi, what do think this means? I don't, really get it, but," he looked up and to the right at Kaminari and Kirishima. "Where'd Zach go?"

The two on his right looked down at him, and Kaminari opened his mouth to respond, only he could not come up with anything. Kirishima frowned deeper, but he shook his head after a few seconds. "He has a plan," he said, a soft but assured tone in his voice that Kaminari nodded quickly in agreement with.

 _"But, he didn't save everyone." "No one can." "You sure about that?"_ Midoriya's eyes focused on the black tv screen. He wanted to ask Tsuyu to turn it back on, but he shook his head thinking about the last thing he heard. _No. No one can reach everyone. Is that, why he's slowing down? Does everyone expect too much from him, even though it hurts him? Even though he feels so much pain? Or is it something else? The villains could be doing this on purpose. People were getting used to Lifebringer showing up at times like this, so making him stop could have everyone wanting him back… but, he hasn't stopped. He's still active, but he's slowing down. How long until he stops completely? And once he does, what then? What will he be doing? What, might he already be doing?_

* * *

 **A/N Thanks for reading! Lifebringer's popularity is on the rise, All Might asks for help from a secret society of anti-heroes, and people start to notice Lifebringer is showing up less often... No Zach this chapter as time passes quickly through the fall term. Where is he? What is he doing? Hope you enjoyed the chapter! Leave a review below!**

gods-own chapter 23 . 10h ago

good stuff

 **Thanks!**

zerom1v chapter 23 . 9h ago

Is the coma permanent? I never heard again of Ganeshi.  
Can Zach take the person away from the coma if he uses nightmare twice on the same persone? Or with lifebringer ability?  
Hope Zach can keep to his moral code of not killing anyone

 **Who knows? And I made Ganeshi up. Figured it didn't need to be canon exactly when whole new people exist in this world, and now more new characters are going to show up as they did this time. We'll see more about Zach's powers... soon. And can Zach hold on? Midoriya's worried, Lifebringer appearances are slowing down... what has he been doing? Thanks for the review!**

D-Koy24 chapter 23 . 7h ago

Tell Kaminari to step off!  
Nice work seems Zach's gaining their trust even more,I'm worried about next chapter, I think they will somehow get involved with murdering villains infront of a hidden camera to make it really a point of no return

 **Haha, Kaminari figured to back off, but a flirt's a flirt. Zach makes his decision, but what is he doing now? "One more step" might be a step too far... Thanks for the review!**

Roxas Itsuka chapter 23 . 6h ago

Interesting chapter. Loved Kuroiro and Kaminari in this chapter. Nice to see Monoma has been redeemed. Looking forward to seeing Zach using nightmare in the next chapter. Will the villains they are fighting the eight precepts of death?

 **Thanks! Monoma's class seems to have forgiven him... No Zach this chapter though. Also I just looked up what that last part meant, and yeah still haven't read the manga, so doubtful they're showing up in this. Thanks for reviewing! Hope you enjoyed the chapter.**

ShadowJack chapter 23 . 9h ago

So nightmare serves as the knockout function? Does it boost his strength somewhat? What was that mist that kinda comes off from him in Nightmare form? Can Zack resurrect anything now within the time limit? Is there a number of times he is limited to for one person? Can he resurrect things with the head crushed? Will his left hand start changing? ( I ask this because he was a late bloomer right, age 7? So what if he experiences more changes? Just some prediction/thoughts... Great Chapter!

 **So many questions, so few answers. Actually, 0 answers. More will be revealed soon, but I like all the predictions questions. So much to think about when it comes to Zach's power after all. Glad you liked the chapter, and thanks for the review!**


	25. Chapter 25: VTS Part 1

**Disclaimer: I don't own Boku no Hero Academia**

 **Chapter 25:**

"Because of events that took place at the recent internships, and the rise of villain activity as a whole, we've decided to hold a new special training exercise."

 _Special?_ The students of Class-A thought, giving Aizawa suspicious looks. Knowing the way he started his sentences, they knew this could be something either oddly normal or ridiculously dangerous. Not knowing whether it would be crazy was worse than back when they just assumed it was dangerous though, as they still had the notion that they could be safe. Their eyes all started opening wide though as Aizawa continued with his eyes narrowed, "Fighting real villains-"

Every kid in the class lowered their bottom lips, then Aizawa continued, "-Training Simulation." The entire class sweatdropped. "We're opening a new facility recently built at the edge of campus. We'll have to take the bus there like with USJ. As you know, we've been trying to prepare you for real fights against villains sooner than you usually would. Well at this new facility, you'll…" Aizawa trailed off and the class looked at him confusedly, only to get more nervous as he started grinning. "Actually, you'll find out when we get there."

Just like that, everyone in Class-A was on their toes about what they were about to be doing. Kaminari glanced to his left at Jirou who shrugged and had a bead of sweat on her face just like he did. An entirely new building, unspecified training, and "fighting real villains- training simulation," all sounded like nerve-racking things. It was also exciting though, and Ashido asked while throwing up her hand, "Are we the first class using the building?"

"No," Aizawa replied, and he glared at the girl who did not wait before asking her question. Ashido sheepishly lowered her arm down, and Aizawa said, "Clearly, the second and third years had their turns first, and Class-B will have theirs before you as well. They go tomorrow, we leave on Friday."

"Dang," Kirishima snapped his fingers, thinking about his friend in the neighboring class who he interned with the first semester. He could imagine Tetsutetsu laughing that they got to go first, but then his annoyed look lifted and he scratched his chin. _When he brags about it, bet I can figure out all about the training beforehand. Tell the rest of the class to prepare for whatever crazy thing Aizawa sensei and the other teachers and preparing for us._ He smirked, then wiped it fast in case Aizawa was looking his way.

 _It's a training simulation, but knowing U.A. they might do something really scary, like making us fight the heroes again. Or, Aizawa sensei dressing up like some spooky vampire villain,_ Hagakure thought it, then leaned back in her seat as Aizawa's gaze passed over her. _His eyes do go red sometimes in that scary way…_

 _Fighting real villains._ Bakugo clenched his fists over the table. _They've been basing everything we do recently on current events. So these real villains we'll be facing…_

 _Are they going to make a League of Villains simulation?_ Midoriya thought, staring intensely at Aizawa and trying to figure out the training. _What would U.A. students get the most use out of in a training simulation? Another kidnap attempt like with Kacchan and Zach? They could recreate the training camp in the woods,_ Midoriya's thoughts started to stray, and he quickly continued to himself, _Or maybe Camino Ward again? There have been other big incidents too recently. Other groups outside of the League of Villains._

"Anyway, prepare yourselves for it. It won't be easy, and you'll be getting graded on your performances during it," Aizawa said.

"How are we supposed to prepare if you won't give us any information beforehand?" Sero asked.

"Good point," Aizawa remarked, and Sero let out a breath as he was half-expecting to be yelled at. Aizawa grinned at him though and Sero got nervous again before the teacher said, "Guess you'll just have to prepare for anything and everything."

 _So unfair,_ Sero thought while slouching back into his chair. He saw he was not the only one who thought that way as Mineta was sweating to his right and looking around to see if anyone else thought this was ridiculous.

Yaoyorozu turned to Todoroki at her side and she let out a sigh and gave him a small shrug. "Nothing we shouldn't have expected by now," she mentioned.

"Mm," Todoroki agreed with a small nod. _Villains. We get stronger, but they have been getting stronger and more organized. The types of villains we need to prepare for changes with the times._ Todoroki turned and looked towards the windows of the classroom. _New kinds of villains._

* * *

"Hello students. Today we have prepared a special training exercise for you." At the front of the lobby of the VTS building, or the "Villain Training Simulator," Principal Nezu stood up on a small podium that allowed all the students and the teachers in the room to see him. "You will be split into four groups, and each team will head through one of the doors behind me." Everyone looked past the principal towards the doors leading into the rest of the building.

The lobby itself was small. It was not very long from the front doors behind them to the huge solid wall in front that only had four doors at the bottom of it. There were timers at the top of each door as well, each one with two hours set on it ready to start counting down. Each of the students were wearing their hero uniforms, as were the four teachers with them. Yaoyorozu looked to her right towards Midnight and she thought, _There is a teacher per group. Is it going to be us versus the teachers again-_

"Each group will need to pick a team leader," Nezu continued to the students who were trying to figure out the simulation even as he explained it. "However, you cannot make the teacher who accompanies you into the team leader." The students started getting more confused looks on their faces, and Nezu smiled at them all before continuing. "Cooperation is an important part of hero duties. Often times during an incident, a more experienced hero may show up, but if you have been there since the start of the fight, you may need to give more experienced heroes directives. To be able to tell a pro hero you respect to follow your orders, to get them to listen to your advice."

The students started looking towards their teachers with wide eyes as the four around them looked in towards them. Midnight, Aizawa, Present Mic, and All Might stood around them. A few of the students looked at All Might hesitantly, and the scrawny former top hero sweatdropped at their unsure looks. "However, the teachers are not just your allies. They have also been gravely wounded."

Midnight threw an arm up to her forehead and dramatically fell backwards to a knee, making the three boys on her left turn towards her with wide eyes. "Protect me," she said, then winked at Sero, Kaminari, and Mineta who all snapped back with bloody noses.

Aizawa did not do anything, but Present Mic pretended like he was punched in the gut and hunched over. He reached forward and tapped Aizawa on the shoulder a few times, "Get into it man!" Aizawa rolled his eyes, then muttered, 'Ow,' and grabbed his side in an unenthusiastic way.

"This is an escort mission. Imagine that they are wounded heroes who need your support. They can give you advice, and help to the 'best' of their injured abilities, but do not expect them to be much help." Nezu explained to the class.

"Our real purpose of following you around is to mark your progress," Aizawa said. "You are graded on this after all, and there are no cameras watching you. So if you can't impress me," he said, and he glared down at the twenty students who all started hoping they got one of the other three teachers in their group.

 _No cameras,_ Nezu thought, while keeping his small smile on his face. _Except for the secret ones that only I know about. It is time to suspect everyone equally._

"Every member of your group including the teacher must make it through the course together in order for it to be completed. Your teams have already been decided, but the team leaders are ultimately up to you. And teachers, no suggestions on who your team's leader should be," Nezu added, holding up a finger and wagging it.

On the large wall behind Nezu's podium, above the timers over the doors, a huge screen appeared. It was black at first, then a fourth of the screen farthest to the left illuminated. At the top of the screen was Aizawa's face and his name and hero name stretched out to the right of it. The background was green, and below the column that his head had appeared in, five students' pictures appeared going down the wall until just above the door they would be entering. "Hmm," Aizawa hummed, and Todoroki looked left at the teacher who was reading the names below his closely.

 _Did the teachers not even know which students they would have?_ Todoroki wondered. _Why keep them in the dark?_ His eyes narrowed and shifted back to the principal who continued and pressed another button.

As the second panel on the screen lit up pink so that only half of it was black now, Kaminari ran his hands up through his hair in a frustrated way. _Not only am I not with Midnight, but I had to get Aizawa sensei! Gah! Alright, Sero, Shoji, Hagakure, and Yaoyorozu isn't bad. Yaoyorozu should definitely be the team captain._ Kaminari thought it and turned towards her, and he grinned at Yaoyorozu's surprised face as she looked around at her teammates who had all turned to her at the same time. It was hard to tell that Hagakure did too, but the invisible girl's shoes and gloves moved a bit to the sides so Yaoyorozu thought she might be looking her way.

"YOW! What a team!" Present Mic shouted. He turned and he put a hand on Koda's right shoulder while hunching over more, grabbing his chest as if in pain. "You gonna get me through this alright-" Present Mic stopped for a second, in his mind an image flashing of insects crawling up his body. He pulled his hand away from Koda fast after that PTSD, and he walked over and put it on Sato's shoulder instead. "You gonna get me through this, alright kid?"

Jirou grinned at Koda next to her who had a bead of sweat rolling down his face. "Guess he hasn't forgotten about that yet," Jirou joked, and Koda turned to her before smiling a bit too. Their team consisted of the two of them, Present Mic, Sato, Todoroki, and Mineta.

Mineta let out a yell of despair before spinning back to Midnight. "So unfair," he said. He, Kaminari, and Sero all let out long sighs of disappointment as they took one last look at Midnight, because their teams were starting to move off the other way towards the doors on the left.

"Team 3," Nezu said, motioning behind him and on the other side now as a bright blue background appeared. Midnight's face appeared at the top, then below her popped up Tokoyami's face. The dark student kept staring at the board without making any notice that he was pleased, even though a small shade of pink did hit his black cheeks for a second.

Bakugo humphed and crossed his arms over his chest after seeing his face pop up at the bottom of the list. He was getting annoyed there for a second as he thought they threw him in with Midoriya and All Might who must have been in the final group, so his grunt was a semi-satisfied one.

Tsuyu Asui put a finger up to the corner of her lip and tilted her head. "Hmm, I don't know who should be the leader," she said. "Anyone except for Bakugo would be good."

A tick mark appeared on Bakugo's forehead. Uraraka and Iida glanced back after hearing that and pretended they did not see Bakugo's scrunched up expression as they started talking about who should be their team leader.

"That means the final team," Midoriya began. He looked around the others who were still standing around without a group, right before a purple background showed up on the farthest right fourth of the screen with their faces on them. "Is me, All Might, Kirishima, Ashido, Ojiro, and…" Midoriya turned to the left and saw the blond boy directly in front of him with his hands behind his head and leaned back with a big smile on his face.

Aoyama blinked his eyes fast at Midoriya a few times, then the boy whose uniform was sparking said, "Saving the leader for last Midoriya? I do sparkle so much that-"

"I'll be the leader!" Ashido jumped between Midoriya and Aoyama, cutting off the blond boy who tried leaning to the other side to continue. Ashido just bounced up the other way though and kept blocking as she said, "I'd be a great leader."

"I don't know," Kirishima started as he walked over. Ashido spun to him and lifted her eyebrows up before frowning, but Kirishima turned towards the curly-green-haired boy and said, "I think Midoriya should be the team leader. He's always got great plans."

"Oh- I don't think-" Midoriya started waving his hands in front of him after the compliment, but then Ojiro stepped up on Kirishima's left side and agreed. Midoriya lowered his arms, and then Ashido sighed and admitted that they were right.

"It's decided then," Kirishima said after the three of them were in agreement.

Midoriya sweatdropped as the decision to make him leader happened without him saying anything, and then he noticed Aoyama leaning out behind Ashido and saying, "Yes, it is decided." The bead of sweat on Midoriya's face slid down farther as he realized they made the decision without Aoyama either.

"So, Young Midoriya is the team leader?" All Might asked as he stepped up to the group of five. "Then let us go! This is a timed trial, but it is also a race between you and your classmates."

Aizawa was saying the same thing to the kids already gathered behind him. On the list of names above his head, Yaoyorozu's name and row across the screen was highlighted in yellow, as all the team leaders' names started doing across the board. "…The grade I give you is important," Aizawa continued.

"But," Present Mic called to the group gathered before him. Todoroki's name was highlighted above him, and he continued while looking at the team leader closest to the door Mic stood with his back to. "Even if I give you a perfect score, if you don't come in the top two places, or even if you do come in second, but it's past the two hours allotted…"

"Then all five of you," Midnight began, then she bowed her chin and blinked her eyes a few times at them apologetically. "Unfortunately, will fail."

"Wh-What?!" Mineta exclaimed in front of Present Mic. "Doesn't that mean, half the class is going to fail?!"

 _It could be a rational deception, like they have tricked us with before,_ Iida thought. He stopped scratching his chin and lifted his gaze, then he turned it to either side. _But if it is not._

 _If that's true,_ Midoriya thought, turning to his left and looking down the line of leaders. Iida had just turned right and met Midoriya's gaze, then the taller boy turned to his left so they were both looking farther away at Todoroki and Yaoyorozu who were facing their way. All four teachers saw their team leaders getting serious as they realized the others in their class were the competition, and then the timers above their heads dropped down a second to 1:59:59. The doors behind them opened inwards, and the teachers with their backs to the doors stepped to the sides.

The students ran through the doors, and all four of the teachers stayed where they were on the sides of the doorway still in the lobby. Nezu was facing them all from behind the podium, and the small principal started smiling. Aizawa could not help but crack a grin, while Present Mic was laughing loudly. Midnight leaned her head towards the door and she called out in a dramatic fashion, "Oh no, my leg! I cannot move!"

"I must have hit my head," All Might said when Midoriya ran back through the doorway with Ashido at his side. "Was it this way?" He turned and started walking farther into the lobby the opposite direction as the door he was supposed to be going in.

"Ah! All Might, what are you doing?!" Midoriya exclaimed.

All Might turned towards him, then pointed a finger at himself as if asking, 'You talking to me?' Then he grinned as he could not stay in character any longer, and he said, "Come on, team leader. Did you just assume I would know to follow you?"

"Come with us All Might!" Ashido yelled, running forward and grabbing the teacher by the hand and then running back towards the door. She glanced up at the timer, then to her left at the others in their class who came back for their teachers.

"We're moving this way Present Mic," Todoroki said, trying not to sound annoyed at the teacher who shouted, 'What?!' at him the first few times.

"Sorry, an explosion made it hard for me to hear!" Present Mic shouted while leaning in towards Todoroki's head as they ran. The five students around Present Mic all sweatdropped, wondering if having a teacher on their teams was more of a burden than the help they originally hoped it would be.

"What will you do, if a fellow hero cannot move?" Midnight asked the boys in front of her, and she grinned at the blushes on all the boy's faces.

"Uraraka," Iida said, regaining his composure and pushing up on his glasses.

Ochaco Uraraka's face lit up at the look Iida was giving her, and she ran up to Midnight who was on her knees in front of the boys. Uraraka touched the teacher and made her weightless, then she lifted Midnight up and started running forward while pulling Midnight along like she was a balloon.

"Haha, nice idea," Midnight said. "Don't forget though," she continued, and the kids below her all looked up in confusion. "This is a villain simulator we've entered." Their eyes all opened wide, and they slowed down to look at their terrain closer.

Tokoyami turned his head and looked back towards the door that had closed after their entire team had made it through. On the inside of that wall high above the door was a timer twenty times the size of the one on the other side. The timer took up almost the entire width of the tall wall stretching the height of the building. The time limit was in red numbers and counting down second by second on both the back wall behind them, and the wall on the opposite side of the room what looked like a mile and a half to two miles away. The bus had driven straight up to the building down the road and the students never got a look at how far back it stretched until now, and the idea that they had to make it that far while under attack by villains, while needing to protect a teacher as well, it was a daunting task.

"Two hours for this?" Bakugo asked, laughing before stepping forward again and smirking. His eyes darted around and he made small explosions out from his palms as he curled and uncurled his fingers. "Piece of cake."

Midnight smirked down at the boy walking farther forward than the others. They were in a huge nature kind of zone. There was a dirt path going straight ahead in front of them, but not far up they could see the sides of the path start getting rockier. At their sides right now was a light forest covering, a pretty open area for the start where it was clear they could not see any villains. The rocky area gave more opportunity for villains to be hiding, but what was supposed to slow them down more was the fact that the most straight path led between tall rock walls that rose up higher the longer they stayed on the path. Trying to get off the path and keep moving would be difficult though as the forest thinned even all the way towards the side walls, making an entire rocky zone in front of them. Worse yet, the path started to curve after going straight between the cliffs and since the cliffs were higher than their current elevation, they could not see what was beyond and what else they might have to face after the first area.

"Bakugo," Iida started. "Use your explosions to get high up and give us a report on the layout of the room-"

As Iida was speaking, Tokoyami, Uraraka, and Asui all looked at him like he was being crazy. Iida got confused at their looks, then his own eyes opened wide and he cut off as Bakugo started turning to him. "Ehh?"

Midnight started laughing as she had expected this from this group already. "Don't tell me what to do, tin man," Bakugo said, and Iida leaned back in shock before looking down at his costume that had him in a full iron suit. "I was going to do that anyway," Bakugo added, and he glanced up at Midnight and smirked at the teacher whose laughs cut off with a surprised look coming to her face instead. Bakugo fired blasts out of his hands and shot up into the air, then he fired again, and again until he was higher up than the cliffs just ahead. He grunted as he got a good idea on the layout of the room, but he also saw something behind one of the rocks on the side of the cliff. "I see you!" Bakugo shouted, blasting another explosion to keep him up.

The man he was shouting at was almost a quarter of a mile in front of him and down on the right cliffs, standing between some jagged rocks where he would have a good look down into the main path. "You trying to ambush us when we take the quickest route or something?" Bakugo taunted at the guy who had yet to move, Bakugo thought because the man might think he was bluffing with his shout. The guy started moving after Bakugo's next shout though, coming out around the rock and then jumping to a higher one where he would be able to see Bakugo and all the people farther towards the entrance of the room.

Bakugo dropped out of the air, slowing down as he almost reached the ground with another explosion. He landed in front of the group and took two steps forward, his eyes huge and his body shaking as he stared at the figure looking down towards him.

"Midnight-sensei," Uraraka said in panic, spinning to the woman above her whose eyes were also wide.

"Oh no," Midnight whispered.

Uraraka released her gravity hold on Midnight, while Tokoyami took a step back. Asui was too scared to move though, but her eyes did dart to the right and then left in fear of villains coming out of nowhere to attack them. "Oi oi," Bakugo began in a low voice as he stared towards the top of the hill. "Are you kidding me? Are you, really kidding me?!" He yelled and spun towards Midnight.

Midnight lowered next to Uraraka and the shorter girl started to her teacher, "What are we going to-"

As Midnight touched down, her right leg bent and she let out a yell of pain while falling again. Her head bowed, and Uraraka's eyes opened huge as did the others looking towards her. Midnight's head slowly lifted up, a sadistic smirk on it as she faced the children. "What are you going to do, when you find yourselves in this situation? Figure it out, team leader."

"Figure it, out," Iida whispered, turning from Midnight back towards the cliff. "If Midnight-sensei is still acting injured," Iida started. "Then, that must not be, Shigaraki Tomura."

Shigaraki Tomura stood on the cliff staring down at the students, and below the fake hand attached to his face, he smirked. The man held his arms out to the sides and he started laughing, his voice sending chills down the students' spines as they had heard that voice before. Shigaraki lowered his head and his arms, and then he stepped backwards and jumped back into a crack between some rocks to disappear from their sight.

"What's going on?" Tokoyami asked. "Is that- did the school create robots?"

Midnight heard the question and she frowned deeply. She hummed to herself as Iida asked him how they could create such a robot, and Tokoyami brought up a movie he had watched recently with very human-like robots in it. "That is no robot," Midnight said. The other five looked towards their teacher, and Midnight said, "I only say this because I know a few of you might go too far if you think that way." Her eyes were focused on Bakugo, but they glanced at Tokoyami for a second too. "I won't tell you who it is, but he's a pro hero we requested to help with this exercise."

Moving through the crevices that filled the cliff area of the room, Shigaraki Tomura had a small grin on his face as he thought about the looks those students gave him. _The famous U.A. freshman Class-A. I knew they would have the most dramatic reactions compared to the upperclassmen, but those were so much more than even Class-B. Let's see how they do._ The hero grinned more. The man disguised as Shigaraki Tomura, was the pro hero known as the Shapeshifting Hero- Changeling. His Quirk: Shapeshift allows him to change his body to match the appearance of anyone he had seen before, as well as copy any voice he had heard as well. He could not copy their Quirks too though, but that was why on the person of Shigaraki Tomura there were a few differences that Bakugo had noticed when he had looked closely.

"He had weapons?" Uraraka asked.

"There were small differences between him and Shigaraki," Iida agreed with what Bakugo just mentioned. He scratched his chin, and he continued to the others with him, "If this person has the ability to transform to look like villains, then it is likely his Quirk is not a powerful one in combat."

"Then let's go straight through him," Bakugo said. "I'll blast away any weapons he attacks us with."

"We need to do this smart Bakugo-kun," Asui began. "This is a pro hero we're up against."

"I thought it was a villain," Midnight said. The others looked towards their teacher wondering why she was taking the act so seriously, and then Midnight put a finger to her lips and asked, "What Bakugo said might be right, but what if there're more than one villain here?" The students looked at her with wide eyes, wondering if she was actually helping them now. Then again, there was also the possibility she was messing with them to make them move slower and get a lower grade.

Bakugo looked back forward and across the room that looked short to him considering the time limit only a few minutes ago, yet they were in the same spot now, and the task seemed a lot harder with a shorter time limit. He grinned though, and he took another step forward, _It would have been too easy otherwise._ "Oi, Uraraka," Bakugo said. "Pick up the dead weight and let's get moving."

"Bakugo, we still need-" Tokoyami began.

"They're trying to make us sit around doing nothing. Half of the class is failing, remember?" The other four looked at Bakugo's back in surprise, as did Midnight though she grinned after only a second of it. "There's no time to sit on our-" he paused remembering that there was a teacher with them, stopping himself from cursing early. "Let's move."

Iida nodded his head after humming for a second. "You are right. However we will not take the most central path." Bakugo turned and looked at Iida in annoyance, but Iida was pointing to the left before the start of the rocks on the side of the path. "We do not want the villains to have an easy high ground on us. It will not be so hard to keep moving fast even in that terrain. Uraraka-kun, can you lower all of our weights as well?"

"That's still well within my limit," Uraraka assured with a thumbs up, using her other hand to keep holding Midnight.

"You don't need to use it on Bakugo or me," Tsuyu said. She hopped forward and then again onto one of the smaller rocks right at the start of the path. "We'll scout."

"Can you do that Bakugo?" Iida asked, making sure not to say it as an order.

"Hmph," Bakugo put his hands behind him and blew himself farther down the path but on the other side of the new route they were taking as Asui went on. Bakugo landed on a rock and he narrowed his eyes up the semi-takable route that Iida chose. It did not look great, but considering how rocky and uneven the rest of the surface was, he could tell this secondary path was pre-made as an option too. _Just as much a chance of a trap over here,_ Bakugo thought, and he jumped forward off the rock. "DIE!"

Bakugo slammed his hand towards a tall rock in front of him, blowing it apart. He landed on the side closer to the others who all stared at him with sweatdrops on their faces. "No one hiding behind it after all," he muttered to himself, then turned towards another rock. Twenty meters away from Bakugo, one of "Shigaraki Tomura's" comrades got a nervous look on their face from where they hid behind a boulder.

* * *

"I'm seriously going to wet myself," Mineta exclaimed, spinning his head and trying to keep his legs from shaking as he looked around the trees encircling them.

"Do _not,_ " Jirou snapped, though she did not turn to her right at the boy on another part of the circle as her. She had sweat all over her face too, but she said, "Remember, this is just training."

Todoroki stomped his right foot forward and ice shot out of his leg. Koda and Sato glanced in that direction and their eyes widened as Todoroki's ice caught a figure who was spinning around them and moved into the path of the ice right at that moment. "You got him!" Sato called out.

The figure that Todoroki caught in his ice had just moved out from behind a tree. He was in between two trees, a black figure with a brain sticking out the top of its head, creepy eyes on its face, and what looked like a metal beak full of razor-sharp teeth. As they were all looking towards the terrifying figure they had all seen before, their eyes opened huge as two other figures who looked exactly like it shot forward from father back in the forest. They slammed fists down on the ice at that Nomu's legs, breaking it apart and releasing the first one.

"Why are there so many Nomus?!" Mineta exclaimed. He spun towards Present Mic and yelled, "You've gotta help us out!"

Present Mic grinned and said, "Alright then! I've got- ugh agh!" He stumbled backwards and grabbed his stomach again. "My stomachache, it's back. Too bad kid," he added with a smirk at the small boy whose excited face filled with dread again.

"They're not real Nomus," Todoroki said. "We have to figure out the trick with them, before we'll be able to move any farther forward. Koda," Todoroki glanced to his left at the tall boy with a rock-shaped head. They were in a dense forest, and Todoroki just gave the boy one look before Koda nodded and put his hands up to his mouth.

"Animals!" He yelled, his voice high-pitched but much louder than he normally spoke. He shouted fast into the air, "Please help us! How many of those scary creatures are in the forest? Where are they?!"

"They're everywhere," Mineta said, his eyes opening wide as he saw another one darting out from a tree not far in front of him. Their clearing was less a clearing and more just the only area for a while that did not have constant tree cover. The canopy above them was almost as thick as everywhere else though, shadowing over the teens and their teacher.

"Forest?" Jirou muttered after what Koda called out. "This is more like a jungle. Tropical rainforest I guess," she was sweating badly too, and she imagined that the school was going all out with the environment, making it as hot as a tropical jungle would be as well. They were sweating, they were surrounded by Nomus, and none of them knew that Ectoplasm was watching from where he floated just above the thin area of the canopy they were beneath.

Although it was the pro hero Ectoplasm who floated above them, he looked a lot like a scary floating Nomu. _Changeling's power works on others only for thirty minute periods. I'll have to head over and get him to transform me again in a bit. The results of this are as expected. Against villains they already know, the students are as cautious as they should be. How long until they realize though, that the Nomus they are fighting are not as strong as the ones they know? How long until they realize that it is my powers they are fighting against? That's what will determine their score here._

"Guys," Todoroki started. _As I thought. The Nomu wasn't able to break out of the ice, even though I made it weak enough that it should have broken it after a second. It needed two others who moved much too synchronized for Nomus._ "All the Nomus are being controlled by the same person, and they don't have the Nomus' power. I think it's probably Ectoplasm sensei." The teacher hovering above the canopy looked down with wide eyes, and Todoroki continued to his surprised classmates and even Present Mic who looked around like he did not notice that. "The only reason I'm hesitant is because he didn't make the clone I caught disappear, but that was likely to keep us from realizing it was him, so he had his other clones release that one instead."

"But, how come he looks like Nomu?" Mineta asked, still in a scared way though he was starting to calm down a little as they were all reminded of how reliable Todoroki was.

"I don't know. But if we think of this as someone whose Quirk is to clone themselves, instead of a powerful, regenerating army, everyone can calm down."

 _Getting the others to keep calm. Pointing out how my clones are not as powerful as individual Nomus. All great work, Todoroki. But now that you know…_ All of the Nomus rushed out from behind the trees at once towards the students. The kids started to attack, but the Nomus were not rushing at the students and they only stopped a couple of the clones before stopping what they were doing. All five of the students backed up, and Present Mic started going, "Whoa whoa whoa!"

Ectoplasm's mouth was open and ectoplasm poured out of his mouth and down into the darkness behind some trees, before sliding across the floor and up to the combining clones. He forced more and more into them, until the top of he giant Nomu rising off the floor was almost up to the canopy.

"Everyone move! Something this large won't have great mobility in the jungle-"

The group started running off through the trees, including Present Mic whose actual scared expression did not make any of the students feel reassured. Todoroki's call to get them to move had everyone running as fast as they could, but he had to stop calling out about Ectoplasm's mobility as a giant arm swung behind them and knocked two trees out of the ground. "AHHH!" The other five with Todoroki yelled as trees flew towards them only to hit other trees and get broken apart or stop short.

Todoroki's eyes opened wide as well even if he didn't shout, then he turned and he stomped his right foot down again. "We're going the wrong way!" The other five stopped, spun back to Todoroki and saw him looking over his shoulder at them. "He's forcing us back towards the door. We have to move forward!"

The others looked towards their team leader, who had created a massive wall of ice to block the attacks from the giant Nomu that was still not even a third the ice wall's size. The wall also curved around towards the far end of the room, and Todoroki pointed that way and called out, "Come on! There's no time to waste."

"Y-Yeah, you're right," Jirou agreed. She started to run and glanced back to call for the others to keep moving, only to see Mineta sprinting behind a tree. She sweatdropped with an annoyed look on her face and she said, "Todoroki. Hold on a second. Someone needed a bathroom break-"

Sato and Koda ran over to hide behind different trees, then Present Mic scratched the back of his head and started walking backwards. "I'm just, going to scout this way," he said. Jirou glanced over at Todoroki and she shrugged her shoulders, while sweating and thinking, _The only time I really wish I was a guy._

* * *

"Ah! Cementoss sensei!" Ashido exclaimed as she looked up towards the scary man whose body had just transformed. The entire grassy field around Cementoss was covered in blue flames, and he lowered his arms that had flamethrowers attached to them.

"Oh dear," Cementoss said. He turned and looked towards the timer on the far side of the room from the entrance, and then he turned back forward to the group who was staring at him in shock. _I lost focus of the time because of their quick reactions and counters. However, I will not make it easy for them to move forward while I go to change my appearance again._

"That guy, was Cementoss the whole time?" Kirishima asked, his fast-paced breathing slowing down a bit. He wondered if the teachers put the guy with spiky black hair and blue flames in his section on purpose, and he grimaced at the thought of how afraid he had been right at the start. Until Midoriya said something about it being a fake, he had barely been able to move. "Damn it," Kirishima muttered under his breath.

"Now that you know," Cementoss said. He placed both palms on the floor, and the students in front of him all stumbled backwards as the ground in front of them started waving around. A wall rose out of the floor, a huge thick wall, and then Cementoss fired blue flames from the special flamethrowers all over his side of the wall, covering more of the field in the flames. He lifted his left wrist as he started to run off, and he tapped a few buttons on it to send in robots on standby for when he needed to take a break or re-disguise himself. _Instead of Dabi, I should go for a more close range disguise. They are almost halfway, and they will start to rush the exit now that more than half the time has passed._

"We have to get past this!"

"Let's smash straight through it Midoriya," Kirishima said to the boy on his right. Behind them, Ashido, Ojiro, and Aoyama stood in a triangle on All Might's sides and behind him in order to protect their fellow hero who 'thinks he might have a concussion.'

Midoriya turned and he hesitated for a moment, then he nodded in agreement with the spiky-red-haired boy. "Aoyama," Midoriya said, having an idea and turning to the boy on All Might's right side. "When we smash it down, look out in case Cementoss sensei tries attacking us right after."

Aoyama put two fingers in a 'V' up to the side of his face and gave Midoriya a wink. _I'll take that as an 'ok,'_ Midoriya thought. "Let's do it," he said, his body covering in a glow as One For All spread through it. "Full Cowling!"

"Haaa!" Kirishima shouted while jumping forward and hardening his body.

The two of them smashed hard into the wall, and despite its thickness, cracks covered it. Then the area around where Kirishima punched and Midoriya kicked started blasting out the other way. Aoyama ran forward and looked around for anything coming for the two, while Midoriya and Kirishima went wide-eyed and started panicking as the ground below where they were falling was covering in flames. "Land on some debris," Midoriya called to his left at Kirishima.

A large part of the cement wall landed on some blue flames, and Midoriya and Kirishima both dropped down on it before letting out breaths of relief. Their eyes snapped open again and up though as they heard a whizzing above them. Through the smoke rising from blue flames still burning around them, two large robot bug creatures dropped out of the air. The green mechanical creatures flapped their wings and changed directions when Kirishima jumped and tried punching them.

One of the ones that turned though, was hit by a sparkly blue beam of light and exploded. "Nice Aoyama!" Kirishima called back.

"Let's move forward!" Midoriya called out.

"Come on," Ashido said, and then she turned to her right and let out a long groan. All Might had turned the direction Aoyama had moved away from, and he was walking that way with an aimless look on his face. "All Might!" Ashido called out, and the hero turned his head towards her in confusion. "This way," she said, pointing towards the wall and rolling her eyes at him.

"Oh, really?" All Might put a hand behind his head and scratched it like he had forgotten. "Thank you, Young Ashido." He started for the hole in the wall and then struggled to climb up since Midoriya and Kirishima had punched and kicked the hole off the ground a bit.

Ashido looked to Ojiro who sighed and then walked up to All Might and helped hoist the teacher up to the hole. Right after All Might made it up though, one of the bug robots was dipping down towards him. "Ah!" All Might let out a yelp of surprise, as he actually was not expecting that. Ojiro smacked his tail down below him and leapt over All Might's head, flipping in front of him and waving his tail into the side of the robot, smashing it the other way instead.

"Nice save!" All Might called out, sticking a thumbs up towards Ojiro who smiled when he turned from All Might and looked forward again. Midoriya was putting out the flames in a path in front of them using fast kicks, but most of the flames were dying down on their own anyway as the grassy field was almost all burned up.

Ojiro glanced around at all the damage around them from what had been a nice green field when they arrived. The air was full of dark smoke, there were blue flames everywhere along with broken pieces of robot and cement debris, and there was a long wall crossing the middle of the field too. "Guess they have to repair this place each time," Ojiro said.

"Stop looking around and let's go," Ashido said as she walked up next to him, holding one of All Might's hands in her own. "We've only got fifty six minutes left, and who knows if the other teams have already finished or not?!"

"Have the teachers ever given us a time limit they think we can pass with?" Kirishima called over his shoulder after the sound of her shout. "Top two teams make it-"

"That's not it," Midoriya reminded him. "Even if we come in second, or even if we get first place…" Kirishima looked ahead to Midoriya who stood farthest forward at the end of the path where the grassy field dropped off. They were at the highest elevation they would be at for the rest of the test, and there was a cliff dropping down into a canyon just ahead of them that they had already seen thanks to scouting from the higher elevated area they had started at. "It won't mean a thing," Midoriya continued while he looked through the shadowed canyon ahead of them with rock pillars all over it. There was a lot they could destroy, but also a lot the faux villains could be hiding behind. "In this test, only ten people can pass. But, twenty people could just as easily fail. Once two hours is over, we've failed the test."

"But you'll still have to finish," All Might added as he walked forward from the wall down the path they opened up. The students all looked towards the thin teacher with pushed back blond hair and two droopy bangs. "Passing and failing are not the only important things. There is a big difference between barely failing, and getting a zero! Though you shouldn't be thinking about failing at all now, when our goal is so close at hand! Let's go!" He called out, running forward without needing Ashido to guide him anymore.

All Might closed his eyes for a few seconds, _I can't believe I'm doing this-_ "Ahhh!" He yelled as he ran right over the edge of the cliff.

The five students who thought All Might may actually be trying to help them dropped their jaws. Kirishima and Midoriya leapt off the cliff after him, and Kirishima called out, "Midoriya! Use my arms!" Midoriya turned and saw Kirishima hardening his arms while turning in midair to be right behind him. Kirishima pushed his arms down while Midoriya pushed his legs up into them, then they both pushed off at the same time to send Midoriya faster after All Might.

"Guys!" Ashido yelled down, throwing acid towards the bottom of the cliff to try and dissolve the hard rocks or at least make them softer for the landing.

"This is beyond ridiculous," Ojiro muttered. "All Might's just getting in our way."

"Well," Aoyama began. Ojiro turned to him and Aoyama hesitated. Then the blond boy with a bellybutton laser looked back towards the red timer on the giant wall ahead of them. Ashido and Ojiro looked with him, and he said, "We were just standing here. Instead of wasting time figuring out how to get down-"

"He jumped to push us forward, so we can make it by the time limit!" Ashido finished in an amazed and excited way. "Guess we should start moving too!"

The three of them headed down the cliff as fast as they could so they would not be holding back their classmates and teacher. When they reached the bottom though, they wound up having to wait a bit as Midoriya had injured himself catching All Might and spinning towards the bottom of the cliff. All Might got hurt a little too, and Kirishima and Midoriya were apologizing to him. All Might sweatdropped at their apologies though, and he waved a hand in front of him. "That may have been, a little too far. I won't take off points for letting me get this, it's barely a scratch after all," he laughed about it, while trying not to wince at the pain he felt. _This is embarrassing,_ All Might thought, at the sight of his students all looking worried about him. Midoriya looked like he wanted to apologize more, and All Might motioned towards the timer at the front of the room with his head.

Midoriya turned to look at it, then back into his mentor's eyes. "Well, team leader," All Might began. "What is the next move?"

"Let's rush towards the exit at full speed!" Midoriya yelled after only a brief hesitation.

"Huh?" Ashido wondered.

"If Cementoss sensei's disguise is because of a Quirk someone used on him, then it looked like the time limit must have run out. So there's probably a hero helping everyone out, but for every room here." All Might started grinning as Midoriya looked at his friends and classmates to explain this. "…which means that person might not be in this room. If Cementoss sensei is gone for now, then we need to move as far forward as we can while our only obstacles are the robots."

"Unless there are other villains around here," All Might spoke up. "There is the distinct possibility Cementoss was not the only one here."

"We'll figure that out as we go," Midoriya said, turning and looking at everyone to see if they were in agreement.

"We have to move," Ojiro said.

"Let's go fast!" Ashido called out with a fist pump.

"I, am feeling alright!" Yuga Aoyma called out with a fancy pose, his stomach not hurting him even after destroying a few robots back up on the cliff.

"Then let's do it!" Kirishima yelled, and he turned and started running.

"Keep All Might in the middle. All Might, can you run?"

"I think I can, as long as I do not get lost." All Might cracked a smile, and this time so did all of the others who had just circled around him.

Their group started rushing through the rocky canyon. The pillars all around them were casting dark shadows through the area. Even the lighting on the ceiling seemed to have dimmed, and Midoriya noticed the lights were not lined up in the same pattern as they were earlier. _They took the position of the rock columns into account with the placement of the lights. If the shadows are where they are on purpose…_ "Right here," Midoriya said, avoiding an area more shadowed than most even though there were less pillars around it. The others with him thought the more clear area might be better, but no one argued with their team leader at the front and they all followed him right instead.

Midoriya led them through a more narrow pass, and then they ran out from between two close pillars that the three moving in the center row with All Might in the middle had to squeeze to get through. All of their eyes widened as they popped out on the right side of the canyon area, and a few of them spun back in shock to see all the pillars behind them. They looked left too, and they saw the canyon area stretched farther towards the far wall that did not seem so far now that they were out of it.

"There's a path to higher elevated ground," Ashido said in surprise, pointing up and farther to their right towards the exterior of the building. They were all the way in the farthest right room anyway, so the rest of their room was to their left. They ran up the path that was close to the wall. At the distance they first scouted, they had not seen this area that they started running up on. It was so thin and close to the wall that it seemed like it might just be part of the wall that lowered underground since they had been looking into the ravine area anyway.

After they ran up the side path though, a rock wall rose on their left side and started curving back in. It separated them from the main area, while not being too spread off the wall that had they been inside the ravine it would still look like just the wall to them.

"Be careful," Midoriya warned. His eyes darted around the narrow path that had bumpy areas and a few small lifted rock stumps that looked like trees had been cut off of them.

"Why?" Ashido asked, a big smile on her face. "I think you found the secret passageway."

"This does seem like we typed in the cheat code," Kirishima said, imagining the easiest pathway in video games that could only be found in real specific ways.

"That is why we should be more careful," Ojiro warned. "It could just be lulling us into a false sense of security."

"There's another zone after this too," Midoriya reminded. "It's the last one before the doors, but we have to go up what looked like a muddy incline. So let's keep moving fast, but keep an eye out-"

"Over there," Ojiro called out. Their group that had just started jogging faster again slowed down. They looked towards an elevated rock section to their right. It looked like a tree stump of stone, but only half of it was sticking out of the wall. They had the rock wall to their backs as they spun towards that area, the muddy incline was to their lefts if they could get through the rest of this area, and the way back they came was on their rights. They had a twenty foot gap between them and the rock stump ten feet above them in elevation, but on either side at the top of that stump, black portals opened up out from in front of the wall.

"Oh man," Ashido said, leaning back but lifting her hands up defensively as she looked towards the swirling purplish-black circles over that stump. Out from the portals stepped two figures who walked forward a few feet and stared down at the students and their teacher.

The group of six stared back up at them with wide eyes, and Kirishima said as he narrowed his eyes at them, "Don't recognize these two."

"That might be worse than if we did, considering Cementoss sensei used what we expected that villain to," Ojiro warned. "Here we're in the dark."

Midoriya stood at the far left of the group since it was the farthest forward of where they had been walking. He was thinking fast as he stood with his fists raised, facing the villains who had appeared. _How much time do we have left? If we try avoiding them and running for the exit, could we make it? We don't have a plan for getting up the mudslide yet. If we were in a hurry, we might all be able to make it up, but All Might! How do we get him-_ Midoriya turned his head to the right at All Might, and his thoughts slowed and came to a stop. Aoyama was behind All Might and looking past him and Ashido towards the elevated rock, but the sparkling young hero in training caught a glimpse of All Might's face too and he started to feel anxious.

Kirishima and Ojiro were on All Might's right, farther back as they had been taking up the group's rear. Kirishima was closer to the building's actual giant wall, and thus the portals that had opened and the men who had come out of them, while Ojiro stood not far from the small rock wall behind him that blocked their area off from the rest of the floor. Ojiro glanced to his left, as he thought about the time limit as well and wanted to ask Midoriya what they should do.

"All Might?" Midoriya asked.

The portals closed behind the two men who had just appeared up in front of them. One of the men looked young, in his twenties likely, with long blond hair that fell straight behind him though with a single braid falling over his right shoulder. The other man was a heavyset figure unlike his slender comrade, and he looked a little older. He was wide at the shoulders and had a hefty stature, along with a long metal cannon that stuck up from his back and over his bald dark-skinned head. As they stepped forward on that surface closer to the students and their teacher, the two men smirked and looked inwards where another portal opened between them.

Each of the students who looked back towards that portal felt shivers down their spines. "Alright, this is going too far, don't you think?" Mina Ashido said, taking a step back and glancing to her right to see if Kirishima thought the same.

Kirishima had sweat coming down the left side of his face closer to Ashido, but she could see he was trying to keep a steady and strong expression on his face.

"No," All Might whispered.

"All Might," Midoriya said a second after he saw the figure, his voice fast and serious. "Tell us. Is this part of the test?"

The other four with them heard Midoriya's question and their eyes widened. Midoriya had not even asked it when the guy with spiky black hair had appeared before them earlier, the first time they saw a villain they actually recognized. The look on All Might's face had Midoriya afraid though, as All Might's mouth was lowered so far from his usual smile. The others who glanced at All Might saw his expression had changed since those first two portals opened and he just looked really nervous. All Might's face was full of despair, and his arms were flat at his sides while he stared forward with shaking eyes.

" _That's_ , not part of the test?" Aoyama whispered, taking a step back, only to bump into the rock wall that was suddenly trapping them in this section of the room.

Midoriya's eyes were wide at All Might's expression that followed his question. He stared back towards the rock area where the figure who stepped out of the third portal took another step so he was in front of the other two. He stood farthest up on the elevated rock section, closest to the group he was looking down on, with his glowing red eyes. The group of six down in front of him stared up, five of them with fear and confusion on their faces at the terrifying figure, though most of them were standing firm anyway.

Ojiro kept in a fighting stance, Kirishima hardened his entire body, Ashido rose her shaking hands after a few seconds and steadied them, and Midoriya bend his knees and glared up into the red eyes of the dark figure before them. That dark figure's body was covered head to toe in a veil of darkness, but his bone structure was showing through the front of his body. His skull looked the most terrifying with the red glow coming out of his eye sockets, the color flaring about and shifting how thick it was from one side to the other like he was gazing around in front of him. Then the darkness in front of his teeth, translucent so it was hard to see, but not impossible, pulled up at the edges in the shape of a smirking mouth. The jaw behind it smirked as well, and then it opened its mouth, and a low voice came out on top of another one like there were two voices speaking at once. "Hey guys. What's with those looks?"

The sixteen year olds staring at the dark figure on the rock face did not know how to respond. They did not recognize the voice, or the figure in front of them, but something about his voice did sound familiar to them. All Might stared straight forward into the red eyes of the figure as his red eyes shifted back to him again, and that figure's mouth stayed in its smirk, even lifting up more as All Might made eye contact. The dark figure's head leaned back and he chuckled in a dark way. "Don't you remember me?" He asked, while lifting his right hand up in front of his body.

The students standing there still did not know what was happening. They did not realize it, until the second the short dark figure's right hand touched his face, and the dark aura around it dissolved away. The blackness faded and the wisps coming off of his arms, legs, and torso, they all vanished at once. The boy's head was still leaned back, and he was still looking down towards them with a huge smirk on his face. Ashido's arms dropped back down, her jaw dropped, and her eyes shot open huge. Kirishima took a step back, the shock making his arms lower a bit and his Hardening Quirk to fail. Midoriya's bent knees started to shake, as the black coloring completely faded off of the figure in front of them.

"Zach," Midoriya whispered.

Zach Sazaki stood there looking down at his former classmates and teacher. He wore an all black costume of a skin-tight long-sleeved shirt and tight black pants, but he had a silver belt around his waist too. There were two knives strapped to the belt, a strange-looking gun on one side of it too. He had a helmet on that wrapped around the sides of his head over his temples and the back of his skull, but it left the top of his head open so everyone could see his crew cut of black hair. His menacing smirk started lowering down and he leaned his head down too to glare at the people in front of him more harshly. "Now then, shall we begin?"

* * *

 **A/N Thanks for reading. Hope you enjoyed. Leave a review below telling me what you think! Also... bum bum BUM! Cliffhanger! HaHA!**

gods-own chapter 24 . 5h ago

well done on keeping up the pace with this story

 **Thanks! It's staying intense for me too as I write. So I just keep going. Gonna have 30 chapters down before a month's even passed with 1-2 chapters a day like this.**

Roxas Itsuka chapter 24 . 3h ago

Awesome chapter. An Anti-hero society, that's interesting. Wonder if Zach will join that. I love how his popularity is going up with the public though I am curious about that police meeting. Looking forward to the next chapter.

 **Thanks a bunch! Figured I'm not gonna start reading the manga, so I've gotta figure out where to push this story now. Got a lot of ideas for it. What happened at the police meeting? Why is Zach here? Find out next time! Hope you enjoyed this chapter only 3 hours since reading the last one!**

Logargon chapter 24 . 8h ago

Is it too greedy of me to want another chapter?

 **Nope! Here's your second one today! And I wrote two more between when I posted them, (really should be doing more actual work), but guess I'll keep the pace up though! Thanks for reviewing, and I hope you enjoyed!**


	26. Chapter 26: VTS Part 2

**Disclaimer: I don't own Boku no Hero Academia**

 **Chapter 26:**

"Ojiro!" Midoriya shouted, spinning to his right. "Get help!"

"Got it," Ojiro said, lifting his tail up as he spun to Midoriya.

"Run and I kill the hostage," the blond man with long hair on Zach's right said. The students and All Might all stared wide eyes at the man furthest to the left from their perspective.

That man lifted up his right hand and he laughed while brushing the long blond braid off of his shoulder and back behind him. "Wh-What hostage?" Ojiro asked.

Midoriya wanted to yell at him that they were bluffing, but it did not sound to him like that man really was. All Might's eyes started darting around the students with him, then they rose back to the boy standing before them who just made way too threatening an entrance. "Young, Sazaki," All Might began.

"Hey there All Might," Zach said. His mouth lifted back up from its frown into a flat lip as he spoke to his old teacher. "Long time no see-"

"Zach!" Kirishima shouted up towards the boy on the higher rock surface angrily. Zach turned towards him, and Kirishima narrowed his eyes even angrier back at him. "What are you doing? Did you- why are-" Kirishima shook his head a few times, then he snapped, "Come over here!"

"Sorry, can't do that, old friend," Zach said, and he lifted his left hand to scratch the back of his head with. His left hand wore a tight black glove just like his right, but the right had fingertips on it too making the glove look harmless. The students in front of him looking at Zach still felt unnerved though, because of what they saw before Zach reverted back into this state. "By the way, how'd you guys like Nightmare? I'm not hiding it anymore. I'm not hiding anything, anymore."

"Zach," Ashido whispered, water forming in her eyes. She steadied her feet on the ground though. _The villains are attacking again. On campus, again! We have to stop them before this becomes a big incident!_

"Are they only attacking here, or is it everywhere?" Midoriya whispered. "Principal Nezu said there were no cameras, but there are teachers and pro heroes all over the building. Cementoss sensei should be-"

"Hey kid, pick up the pace," the blond guy on Zach's right side said. Zach frowned at him, but the older guy frowned right back, "This is your big day, but I'm still in charge. Shigaraki said so."

"Yeah, whatever," Zach muttered, turning back to the group in front of him. "I'm here, to make my declaration. At the school where it all started," the corners of his lips started spreading up more.

Ojiro turned and he smacked his tail down. "Ahh!" Ashido screamed. Ojiro spun back after leaping up on the rock wall behind him. Ashido scrambled backwards and fell on her butt as the ground at her feet broke apart with two holes just in front of where her toes were. Ojiro's eyes opened wide, and he dropped back down as the three villains were all glaring his way.

"How?" Aoyama whispered.

 _I saw it,_ Midoriya thought. _That blond man. He shot small projectiles out of his index fingers. I barely caught a glimpse of them though. They moved so fast! Could Full Cowling get me to him in time? What about the other one- the other two! If I get close, Zach could…_ "Zach!" Midoriya yelled, his fists clenching at his sides. He swung an arm in front of him and shouted, "What are you doing?!"

"Don't Shooter," Zach said, lifting his right hand and putting it out in front of the man on his right. Midoriya's eyes widened as it looked like Zach might be trying to protect him, considering the blond just lifted a hand and pointed his index finger out as if it were a gun aimed at him. "Midoriya, I'm here because apparently it's time I sent a message." Zach lifted his left hand and he scratched the back of his head, then he wound up just rubbing his hand around on the back of his black-steel helmet. "Shooter and Hydro are just to help me out with it," Zach said, nodding his head to the right when he said 'Shooter' and left when he said 'Hydro.'

The burly figure on Zach's left grinned more as his villain name was said aloud before All Might. _The strongest, and most promising of the new batch of villains. Shigaraki said his strength comes close to what even Ganeshi's was,_ Zach thought after his second nod. Zach kept grinning as he looked back down at the group before him. "So this is my message: I'm not Lifebringer anymore. That name the media calls me, they should have stopped when I stopped spending all my time hitting hospitals and accident scenes. Those idiots treat me like some vigilante, but I am not. I am not a hero, or an anti-hero, or a vigilante." Zach's mouth curled up at the corners more, and he said while lifting his right hand and having his fingers slide out the tips of his gloves. "I am a villain."

"Sazaki," All Might whispered, lowering his gaze down. As he said it, he imagined the face of Titanium in his mind. He saw the man he once respected as a colleague and fellow hero, and then he lifted his gaze up to the boy who no longer shared his hair style. The boy who had an expression on his face that the hero Titanium never would have had. All Might's fists clenched, even as his eyes kept shaking and he felt the tears trying to well up in them.

"That it?" Hydro wondered, turning right towards the other two next to him.

"Not yet," Shooter said. Zach turned to the right too and lifted his eyebrows, then he narrowed them in as the man pointed his finger towards Ashido and All Might who she had just gotten back up in front of. He brought his other hand forward too, and then Zach swung his arm out to the right again and he put it in front of Shooter's lifted gun-fingers. "Don't do this kid," Shooter warned. "Not after you made such a strong declaration right there."

"I figured this would happen," Zach said, turning and glaring at Shooter who darted his gaze back.

Kirishima moved, he ran in front of Ashido and hardened his body. Shooter fired twice, both hit Kirishima and just made the boy skid backwards into the girl behind him. Zach's fingers that had slid out of his glove curled back towards Shooter, and Zach gave the man next to him a murderous glare. Shooter did not back up though, and he said, "You think this is enough of a message? No. When Shigaraki said to send a message, you know what he meant."

"Then it's me who has to send the message," Zach said. He glared at Shooter in a more harsh way, but the blond man's eyes actually widened in surprise. Zach's lips stayed dipped down, and he said, "So don't touch any of them. I'll do it. And then you call Kurogiri to get us out of here. Got it?" Zach's ungloved fingers were dangerously close to Shooter, and the kid had a dark look in his eyes that made the other villain narrow his back but then lower the arms he had dipped below Zach's to shoot towards the moving people in front of them.

"It's already been a minute. Don't slack," Shooter warned.

Zach turned towards the group in front of him, and he said, "Who wants to do it?" The people in front of Zach dropped their jaws at him as he stepped forward and started walking down the slant of the rock stump from the flat section sticking out of the wall. Zach glared around at his classmates, lifted his right hand with all his fingers sticking out of his glove, and he said, "Who wants to die?"

"I'm going to kick your ass!" Kirishima shouted, stepping forward and glaring furiously at Zach. His arms were still hardened, and his stomp forward made the rock ground beneath his right foot crack.

"Kirishima wait-" Midoriya started.

"If anyone else makes a move," Shooter called out. He grinned as the others looked towards him, while Kirishima kept his gaze locked with Zach's. "I'll shoot Pinky over there."

Never had Ashido been so afraid to hear her own super-hero name. All Might put an arm in front of the girl though, and he stepped forward to separate her from the villain. Shooter just grinned more though, and he said, "That works too. Shooter, the man who killed All Might. It just rolls off the tongue!"

"Don't," Zach said. "This isn't about you," he turned his head and glared back towards the blond man. "What do you think is worse? All Might dying to protect some students, or the former Symbol of Peace," Zach turned back and smirked as he finished, "unable to do a thing as a student was killed in front of him."

"RAAA!" Kirishima yelled, sprinting forward towards Zach.

Midoriya's whole body started shaking. His gaze snapped from Kirishima, up to the man pointing hand-guns down at All Might. The man looked annoyed at Zach's response, but that also told Midoriya that he was listening to what Zach was saying. Yet if he moved, he knew the man would use that as his excuse and shoot All Might in the face anyway. _Am I fast enough to jump in the way?! If I do, will it kill me with Full Cowling around-_ "Kirishima!" Midoriya yelled. "Don't let him touch you-"

"I know that!" Kirishima yelled as he sprinted for Zach. "You, bastard," Kirishima yelled as he hardened both arms and then slashed them down in front of him. He slashed from above Zach's left shoulder down, and Zach leapt backwards to avoid the red-haired boy's range.

Zach stepped back again and again, moving his right hand forward once in a while which had Kirishima leaning away from it. Zach was leading Kirishima farther up the rock surface closer to his own comrades, but neither of the other villains were doing a thing to stop him. Then, Zach stopped stepping back. Kirishima slashed up from the ground towards Zach's front, in a move that Zach had dodged back from before attempting a counter each time before. This time though, Zach expected it as it was coming, and he turned his body sideways and allowed the hardened arms to start passing straight up in front of him. Zach's right hand lifted over Kirishima's rising arms, and Kirishima turned his head left towards it with huge eyes. Zach put his right hand around Kirishima's face.

Midoriya's body started glowing and he bent both legs. Then he froze. He froze and the Full Cowling faded off of his body. Midoriya, All Might, Ashido, Ojiro, and Aoyama felt their hearts skip beats. Their jaws dropped so far, and Ojiro clenched his eyes shut after a second. He wanted to sprint forward, just as he had the last time he saw this. In his head he remembered a blue beam of flames coming out of Kirishima's chest, and he recalled seeing the red-haired boy falling forward. This time though, when his eyes opened back up, Kirishima was falling backwards. The Hardening on his arms was fading away, as it did on his face that had hardened too before Zach's hand touched it.

Kirishima fell backwards, motionless, and he hit his back on the gentle rock slant he and Zach were fighting on. Zach stared down at the boy in front of him. He looked down at the unmoving body in front of him, his eyes wide, his right hand shaking where he held it in the air. Zach shook his head after a second and he brought his shaking right hand back down. He held it in front of his body, grabbing its wrist with his left hand so hard. Then he pressed his right hand into his chest again, and a black coating spread over his entire body. Wisps of darkness came off of his shoulders, off his arms that he lifted back up in front of him, off of his legs that turned so that he was facing straight down the slant again.

"No," Ashido whispered. She started shaking her head and she tried taking a step around All Might, but he put his arm out in front of her and she turned to him with a panicked look on her face. "All Might, we have to-"

All Might's face scared Ashido silent. _"You won't be able to see Shigaraki as a villain. If you go after him thinking of him as Nana Shimura's relative, trying to help him."_ All Might's hands started shaking violently at his sides, his whole body trembling in anger.

"Don't try it All Might," Zach warned, his voice coming out deeper and distorted through his scary open skeletal jaw. "I know you can keep your muscle form for a second, but touch me and you die. Shooter shoots faster than a second too. And even one of your hits won't take Hyrdo down for the count." Zach's jaw did not smirk after he said it. He just turned and his glowing red eyes focused back down on the red-haired boy lying in front of him. He turned back up towards Shooter who was smirking down at him, and Hydro who nodded his way before Zach started walking back towards them.

"KIRISHIMA!" Midoriya screamed. He took a step, and Shooter crossed an arm over his other one and fired at the floor at Midoriya's feet. Midoriya pulled a leg back fast, because the projectile fired was actually aimed at his shin. He pulled his leg back while surrounding it in One For All, making a wind slam backwards as he managed to dodge it. He was not on balance to keep running though, and instead he had to freeze as one of Shooter's fingers was pointed at him now, the other still aimed at All Might.

"Almost shot All Might there," Shooter said, then his eyes turned straight ahead of him at the boy walking his way in between him and All Might. He had almost fired at All Might when he glimpsed Midoriya's movement, but he noticed Zach directly in his line of sight, making him spin his other hand towards the boy who was moving and stop him. The second hesitation he took when he saw Zach before him was what he blamed his miss on, and he narrowed his eyes towards Midoriya and said, "I never miss a second time."

"Should we take his body back with us?" Hyrdo questioned the other two who had been members of the League of Villains for longer than him. Shooter kept his eyes on the others, but Zach turned towards Hydro as he stepped up on the flat section again. Zach took another step before turning his head sideways and looking down through his glowing red eyes at the body down the slant a bit.

"I didn't even think about that," Zach mentioned. "That would be even more embarrassing for U.A. though. Not that things can get much worse, but to not even be able to give his family his body." Zach shook his head, then he turned to Hydro while his former classmates stared at him in horror. "Go grab it."

"Heh," Shooter said. He pointed both guns harder in front of him as he could see the people down there preparing to move to stop Hydro from taking Kirishima. Some of them were still holding onto hope that they could save him, while most of them were just too enraged with the aspect of the villains getting Kirishima's body. Three of them were crying, and Shooter started to laugh as he continued to the boy behind him, "Never thought I'd actually say it kid, but that was-" Shooter's eyes shot open huge and started darting to the side, but his eyelids were closing and his legs came out from beneath him.

Hydro started turning his head, only to feel a hand touch him in the right side. He lowered his gaze as he felt the dark feeling fill him, his eyes opening huge while he lifted his right arm up. Shooter kept falling farther to his right, while the dark figure behind and between both of them moved his hand off of Hydro after holding it there for a second. Zach took a quick hop back, but Hydro's arm that was slamming down slowed down and fell limp to his side anyway before his knees collapsed from beneath him.

The students down below stared in shock to the top of the flat rock surface where Zach was standing on his own. The two villains collapsed forward and fell onto the slant that they slid down a few feet before stopping. All Might's enraged expression filled with confusion, then he grit his teeth again at the grin he saw the skull-faced boy at the top of the rocky area giving them.

Midoriya's eyes snapped from Zach to the man Shooter, then to Hydro who was motionless just like him. Then he turned back to Kirishima, then to Zach again. _He just killed three people!_ Midoriya started running up the slant. He did not sprint at Zach, but he ran towards Kirishima and stood between him and the other boy who just said to take Kirishima's body. "I, don't understand," Midoriya started. "Why are you doing this?" He asked. "Why did you-"

Ashido ran up towards Kirishima too, calling out his name while tears came out of her eyes. She lifted her head and screamed Zach's name angrily once, then she brought it back down as she reached the spiky-haired boy flat on his back. Ojiro stepped forward as well after shaking off the shock, and he yelled up towards Zach, "What did you do?! Why did you kill him?!"

Aoyama was still scared of the dark figure at the top of the hill, but he stepped forward so he was on All Might's side instead of standing behind him. He had strong long-range attacks, which in this situation meant he should be the one moving forward more than any of the others. Zach lifted his right hand and he tapped himself on the side of the head, seemingly leaving himself defenseless up on the flat rock surface. "Even though I'm glad I convinced you, I wish it wasn't so easy every time," Zach said, a mock-hurt look on his face. "Right, my ' _old_ _friend?_ '"

Midoriya was just about to sprint forward. Without the dark coating that he did not understand that no longer covered Zach, all he knew was that he had to move fast and stay away from Zach's right hand. At the sound of that phrase though, the emphasis on it that had Zach grinning even more, it made Midoriya's body tense up and freeze. Ashido had fallen to her knees behind him, and she called out, "KIRISH-" her jaw dropped and her eyes bulged open as the boy lying in front of her sat up in a single motion.

Kirishima sat up, then he turned his head towards Ashido with wide eyes at the tears streaming down her face. He turned the other way next and saw Midoriya's head half-turned, then turning the rest of the way in utter shock as Kirishima was getting up behind him.

"What is going on?" Ojiro called out, so confused at the moment.

"Good thing you got that message to me," Kirishima said, as he looked towards Zach. His mouth did not lift up into a smile as he said it though, and his eyes lowered from Zach to look at each of the villains lying just ahead of him. _"I don't know why he wanted me to tell you, but he treated it like it was really important…"_ _If Kuroiro never said anything, I would have thought he had really lost it here. But, still,_ "Zach, you," Kirishima began.

"How?" All Might asked. He took a step forward, and he glared up into Zach's eyes which made the short boy lean back a little. He was taller than the last time his classmates saw him, but that still meant he was only about Ashido's height at five foot three inches. "You touched him with-"

"Someone I brought back to life with my Quirk, can't be killed by it," Zach said. He wanted to grin, but all he saw were dark, upset looks directed back towards him. "It's the same as how I can't bring things back to life, that I've killed myself."

All Might grit his teeth even harder. His eyes lowered to the villains in front of Zach, and Midoriya took a step farther towards the boy in front of him. "You killed them," Midoriya said. "Again! You-"

"They're not dead," Zach said.

Kirishima, All Might, and Midoriya all opened their eyes wide. It was the reason Kirishima was still frowning even after he had played along with Zach's plan. "They're not?!" He asked in amazement, snapping his gaze up from their bodies to Zach to see if he was serious.

Zach lifted the left corner of his lip up just a small bit as he stared at the group in front of him. _This is enough._ He looked towards All Might who was staring at him in shock. _I knew, one day I would be able to do it. It's like I told you, when you dropped me back off at home that day. Before you could jump into the sky and soar away to save the rest of the world, I made that promise._ _ **"I swear All Might, I'll become a hero. I'll do it without ever using my power to hurt someone!"**_

Zach's gaze lowered back to the villains in front of him. _I didn't succeed. Not at first._ "They're just unconscious," Zach said. As Zach said it, he spotted two peopled running up the slant on his left behind where Ojiro was gawking at him from. On his right side, he saw another person running towards him from the far end of the room that Midoriya's group had been trying to get to originally. Zach let out a sigh at the sight of these people rushing towards him. He lifted his arms in front of him with his wrists bent down, and he said, "My real declaration-" his classmates all looked up into his eyes, as did All Might. They stared in shock as Zach finished, "I came to turn myself in."

 _I can't stay there anymore._ Zach thought while he held his arms out in front of his body. _They were right to look at me in fear when I first appeared. If things had gone even a little differently, I would have gone down the wrong path, fully._

"Zach Sazaki?!"

"Are those the villains?"

"Did he kill them-"

"They're alive!" Zach shouted. He lowered his mouth into a deep frown after calling it out. His eyes lowered to the floor in front of him and the villains laying there. _I considered taking villains' lives. It wasn't so long ago that if I had a chance like this, I would have killed them. If they had taken the box off in the first days, even weeks after I joined them. If they had trusted me back then, I would have killed any villain they asked me to. I was in such a dark place after that trial, and I didn't even realize it until I had been saving people for weeks. When people started smiling at me again, when people thanked me before I left, when they weren't scared to see me appear but relieved… I felt good again. And I remembered, why it is I don't kill people. But then, when Shigaraki threatened to stop me from doing my hospital work, to stop me from bringing people back to life, again I considered it. I considered breaking my new code. But I stayed strong, I kept myself from breaking it. I've come close though. Too close, too many times. And they slowly stopped me from bringing people back to life. They had me do it in less public situations, then they would only let me do it if there was no one else around._

"Sazaki," Aizawa started as he arrived behind the other teachers. He stood behind Snipe and Nezu who were both staring at Zach in surprise as he stood there with his arms outstretched in front of him. Aizawa looked down at the principal, then around the area up near Zach and his expression darkened. "What is everyone doing?" He questioned, taking a step forward with a dark grimace on his face.

"He's turning himself in," Nezu said, and Aizawa stopped before turning down to the principal. "And he says, the other villains are alive."

 _They wanted me to kill. They wanted it so much, but I knew they would record it._ Zach thought, while he lifted his gaze from the villains and then shifted it around the other students in front of him, the teachers on his right, and then over to the ones on his left. He looked at Aizawa and Vlad King whom he had last seen at the court trial, and he gave them a small smile as if saying that there were no hard feelings about it. _I got out though. I got out now. Before I had changed forever. I couldn't do it. If I killed, they said they would send me out more often to save people. I had so many opportunities. I could have killed villains, and saved the people they would one day kill, but I stopped myself! Because, I couldn't go out with the intent to kill people. Doing it on purpose, setting out for murder, those things were on their own enough to hold be back, but what stopped me when those ideas stopped sounding so far-off, was what Lifebringer came to become. People were questioning heroes, but not because of "villains." They were only questioning it because of "Lifebringer." But if I had done something truly villainous, if people saw me killing some and saving others, it would have made Lifebringer into a villain, but more than that! If I got to choose who lives and who dies, if it was up to me when to bring people to live, or who to kill with a single touch, I would have been like a God. And I'm not! I was just, trying to help people. And everyone saw that. That's what they thought of Lifebringer. So if a video came out showing me saving people at a hospital, followed by one of me killing a villain mercilessly, it would destroy people's faith. They trusted me. I understood, what I was doing, and the impact it would have on society. I knew people had gained trust in me, and that trust would not have gone away completely if they saw me kill a villain. But that's what would have been the end. If I was a complete villain, and still had a lot of people on my side, it wold have destroyed this society. Split it up into different sides who agreed and disagreed with what I was doing, and the more violent this world becomes, the more people would have sided with me._

Zach let out a small gasp of breath, then he relaxed a bit as the cloths Aizawa shot out his way only wrapped around the two villains laying in front of him without moving. Everyone in front of him moved closer, and Zach kept his arms right where they were in front of his body. Aizawa pulled the villains towards him, wrapped up in his powerful cloths, and he checked each of their pulses. _Slow, but they're both alive._ He lifted his gaze back towards Zach, and he thought while staring at the kid, _He, actually found a way to make it weaker._

"Zach Sazaki," All Might began, stepping forward towards the boy on the higher rock platform ahead of him. All Might thought of everything Zach had said since he came out of the portal. He thought about how evil and deranged the boy looked, and how calm and relaxed he appeared in the moment. "Was it all, a lie?"

Zach met All Might's gaze, and he nodded his head once with a small smile on his face. "Yeah," he said. "I'm sorry, I made you mad. And I'm sorry guys," Zach continued to his classmates who were still staring at him in mixes of confusion and shock, other than Kirishima who was grinning. "I know that was scary…"

Principal Nezu was not as focused as everyone else on the apology Zach started giving his classmates. The teachers all knew that they needed to arrest him, but no one wanted to do it. He looked ready to come on his own, and his right hand was hidden back inside the black glove he was wearing with all fingers covered to show he had no hostile intent. He had not just killed anyone, he had finally come back, and all they knew he had done since he had left was save lives, a lot of lives. The principal's eyes focused on the two villains at Aizawa's feet though, then back towards Zach, then up towards the ceiling. _Something is wrong. The video I saw showed that those portals had just opened up, the men just coming out before we came in here. Too much seems to have happened. Everyone is in different positions._ Nezu pulled out a small tablet from his pocket and lifted it in front of him.

Vlad King and Aizawa both looked down to see the principal holding up a device that showed a camera view down on them. "No cameras, huh?" Vlad King questioned.

"This is wrong," Nezu said, his eyes widening a the sight of the screen. Aizawa and Vlad both looked down on it, and they saw Aizawa pulling the villains towards him and then bending down, checking their pulses.

"A time delay?" Aizawa began.

Nezu's eyes started lifting up, "They've been ha-"

"…and because Nightmare spreads Death across my whole body, it's power is diluted. If I only touch for a brief second, it won't-"

As Zach was explaining the creepy form his friends had seen and why it stopped him from killing the villains, and right before Nezu could finish saying the word 'hacked,' the air on Zach's left side swirled a dark purple color.

Midoriya's knees bent. His eyes darted back to Zach as he charged Full Cowling, then they shot open huge as Zach's eyes were widening as well. _This isn't him?!_

"Sazaki!" Snipe yelled over, lifting his guns to stop the boy from going through the portal.

"They can see!" Nezu shouted, while he typed fast into the tablet on his hands. _How could they hack this! I thought for them to do so, they would have to know it existed in the first place and I am the only one who knows. A mind reader? Or someone who can scan for cameras or electronics!_

"It's not-" Zach started, while turning his head towards the portal and moving his arms in front of his body.

Something charged out of the portal. It was big, eight feet tall and broad at the shoulders. It had metal spikes sticking out of its back, but the rest of it was black from head to toe, except for the brain sticking out of its skull.

 _There are still Nomus?!_ Zach thought in fear as he swung his right arm around, trying to pull it in front of his body while sliding his fingers out of the glove. A huge black arm grabbed down on his right forearm hard, as the Nomu sprinted through the portal faster than Zach could follow. The hand gripped his right arm while it was still moving, and then a loud crack sounded as the Nomu bent to the side while still sprinting forward. Zach's feet were lifted off the ground as he yelled in pain, and another portal opened behind him while the Nomu kept sprinting.

"SMAAAASSHHH!" Midoriya screamed, slamming his right leg as hard as he could around towards the side of the Nomu's head. He was the only one to arrive that fast, the only one who reached right as they were about to hit the portal. His leg collided with the Nomu's head and made it snap to the side, then the Nomu swung Zach's body and slammed his torso into Midoriya's face.

 _Shock absorption?!_ All Might thought while he ran forward, while everyone ran towards the portal the Nomu just smacked Midoriya away from. Two of Snipe's bullets slammed into the Nomu's arm at its weakest point, but the bullets just bounced off of Nomu's body and fell harmlessly to the floor. The Nomu hesitated for a second after the kick in the face, and then it sprinted the rest of the way into the portal, Zach getting swung forward through with it, a terrified last look on his face before he was dragged through.

The portals closed.

Midoriya had his arms reached out in front of him, and then he fell flat on his stomach with his arms crossing. He had kicked so hard behind him to send himself flying back towards Zach, and he hit the ground violently where the portal just was. He yelled out in pain, and he yelled out in frustration. "Ahhh AHHH! NOOO! No, No," Midoriya's fists clenched in front of him on the ground, tears spilling out of his eyes as he curled his body forward.

The teachers all stared towards the spot the former student just vanished from. All any of them could think about was that look on his face right before he went through, the look of absolute horror as he was taken away. "Zach?" Kirishima muttered after a few seconds, as if it was finally hitting him. "No no no," he brought his hands up and ran them through his hair. He had barely seen a thing. It had happened in an instant. The portals appearing, the Nomu sprinting through and decking Zach, Midoriya vanishing and reappearing after where he attacked the creature, how quickly it swatted Midoriya away using Zach's body. It was all too much for him to even react to until it was over.

"No way," Ashido whispered. She was just opening her mouth to yell angrily up at Zach for messing with her, and she was going to yell at Kirishima for tricking her too, but the upset emotions she felt that she was tricked were so petty that they vanished instantly as Zach did. "He was, back," Ashido whispered, her eyes watering up. "He _came_ back," she whispered, her voice cracking. It was a scenario she had never imagined. Getting killed by the villains, or captured by heroes and the police, seemed like the only two ways things were going to end for him, at least to her. "He came back," Ashido said again, tears spilling out of her eyes now and running down her pink face.

A few hundred miles away, Zach was yanked through a portal and slammed so hard onto the floor that he could not think straight for a few seconds. When he finally could, his first thought was, _It's not grabbing me._ He tried moving his arm that was twisted behind his back, but another arm grabbed it this time. A knee slammed into his back, and Shigaraki Tomura's face snapped down to the side of his. The man with wavy gray hair had his head turned in towards Zach so their faces were inches away, Shigaraki staring between the fingers of the hand attached to his face and right into Zach's eyes. "That was the _last_ time," Shigaraki said, twisting Zach's arm more and pressing his knee harder into the boy's spine.

 _Use the opponent's weight against-_ A foot stepped down on the top of Zach's head and slammed his face into the floor. He heard a voice he had heard ever day for the last few months, as Dabi said down to him, "You really fucked this up. You could have changed the world with us."

 **CLICK**

Zach heard the locking sound, and his eyes shot open even as his face was pressed down into the floor. He tried swinging around his right arm, only to yell out in agony as he forgot how hard the Nomu had grabbed down on it. There was a metal box on his hand anyway now, a box that he had not worn in weeks, months even. "How?" Zach gasped out as the foot came off the back of his head. "Why? How is there a Nomu? How did you know what I did-" he turned his head sideways and looked up at Shigaraki's face that he leaned back down over Zach. Zach could see other figures past Shigaraki: Kurogiri, Spinner, a dozen others who he recognized and a bunch he did not too. "You- you told Shooter he had to call you to let you know when-"

"Hackerman found some cameras. I just told you three he didn't, so I could make sure, one last time, that you were really with us," Shigaraki grabbed the back of Zach's head and ripped his helmet off, then he brought his hand down to Zach's skull and he slammed the boy's face into the floor again. Zach felt his nose break, and he screamed in pain again. Shigaraki started laughing, laughing as he brought his head down next to Zach's ear, while scratching his neck with his other hand.

Zach felt terrified, because he had never heard laughter sound so angry. _He's, really pissed off. I made it. I really, I was there! How did the heroes let me get taken?_ Zach's whole body started shaking as he felt Shigaraki's breath on his ear. _I made it back! I really, I was home. What are they going to do?_ "What, are you going to do with me?" Zach asked, managing to make it out despite the pain he was feeling in his broken and bent right arm as well as in his face. His whole body ached actually from how hard the Nomu hit him when slamming him through the portals, and he was afraid as he could see that powerful monster standing by not far behind Shigaraki as if waiting for more orders.

Shigaraki laughed harder, and he leaned up off of Zach's back, taking his knee off the kid and standing up at his side. Shigaraki looked down at the sixteen year old who slid his left hand up and tried pushing himself into a better position. "You are going to wish you were never born," Shigaraki said while locking his eyes from behind the attached hand to Zach's.

The sound of that made Zach feel more fear, than he could ever imagine. His eyes darted around the room to all the people near him. They had been his comrades, his allies, for months now. Each one of them stood there staring silently towards him without pity in their eyes. He had been tricking them, sneaking around behind their backs, all this time. And they had finally caught him. The thing he was most terrified about, for months on end now, was this exact moment. His lips started trembling, blood running over them out from the nostrils of his broken nose. In a raspy voice, Zach said while looking into Shigaraki's eyes, "Just kill me. Just, get it over with!" Shigaraki's lips that were dipped so far down started twisting, his face distorting behind the creepy hand over it.

"Kill you?" Shigaraki asked. "You're, an important piece," he said, tilting his head to the side. "Don't you get that? Haven't you figured that out yet?!" Shigaraki yelled. He smirked in an insane way behind the hand, but his eyes were still full of rage as he looked down into Zach's. "You will," he said. Zach pushed his left hand down on the ground to try and get away, to push back from Shigaraki who scared him more than anyone else in his life ever had. "You, don't get to leave."

* * *

 **A/N Thanks for reading... Leave a review telling me what you think below...**

You know what chapter 25 . 11h ago

I'm surprised. I first happened upon this gem before realizing it was a gem thinking it was not good because it seemed so out of the ordinary. Though, I admit now, I was severely underestimating how good this story got despite not following canon necessarily. I really appreciate the constant updates and I really like this story alot.  
I do have some questions:

 **I'm really glad you got into this story! I knew right when I started writing it that it was out of the ordinary, for me too since I don't often write OCs. In my biggest story I've been writing for the past few years I made it a point not to add any OCs at all, and that one has 2.5 million words. But again I'm glad it works even without following canon, really at all at this point. Alright, to those questions: I might read the manga in the future, don't know right now but I often wind up doing so after a season ends. As for now though, we're already past the manga time-wise (I think, since I don't really know), but this Villain Training Simulation is coming after the internships after the hero license arc, so a lot of stuff that happened in canon can still have happened in this for if I do start reading or for whatever's revealed in the rest of this season. So as much as I like the suggestion (it's how I tried mixing the first few seasons of the show into this), at this point I'm past the point of doing so, but I'll still be adding more stuff that does come out into it... don't really know how to describe but hope you get it. Class-B's had a decent-sized role in this, and I don't know how big it will get. I developed Kuroiro's character hesitantly, as well as when I showed his Quirk's uses, because I do want to stick truthfully to characters and I don't know if his Quirk will ever come into play in the manga. That had me slow to do more with it at first, but I think I will just continue developing him without worrying about a possible future he might have canonically. Zach! Shigaraki's been trying to turn him, use him against hero society, but things have changed now. If you felt really bad for Zach before... well, things don't look good. Thanks for the review!**

WWHHAATT chapter 25 . 11h ago

I thought Zach's code was not to kill anyone. But I guess scaring the living shit out of his former classmates doesn't violate that single rule he lives by.  
I'm starting to think that you really like screwing with your readers... ZACH WHY?!  
Great Update.

 **Zach managed to keep to his code from what we saw this chapter, though he did give everyone a pretty big scare. Glad you liked it, and thanks for reviewing!**

Celestial stratos chapter 24 . 7h ago

Zach and momo... Hmmmmmmm

 **Hmmm. Hmmmmmm. Hmm?**

Logargon chapter 25 . 9h ago

You sir have spoiled me rotten with all this great reading material

 **Well I'm glad you're enjoying it! Thanks for reviewing everyone! And, well, prepare yourselves...**


	27. Chapter 27

**Chapter 27:**

In a suburban area of Musutafu City, Jenny Akers sat on her couch with her legs crossed and her head leaning forward over them. "Jenny, come sit at the table," Mrs. Akers called over to her daughter who had been sitting in the same place that she was in if she wasn't pacing around whenever she was home now. "You can leave the tv on," she added to her daughter who looked reluctant to come over.

Jenny smiled and she rushed over to the table. She did not even make it there before glancing over her shoulder to check the news again, and she almost tripped on an empty chair as she made her way to her seat. "Whoops," she spun around it and ran over, taking her seat and then turning to the screen in the living room again. She glanced back at the empty chair she had nearly fallen over, a chair that had been empty for months now, but used to seat a boy who would come over at least once a week to eat with them.

"Don't eat it too fast now, just to get back to watching tv," Mr. Akers said as he placed a plate down in front of his daughter. Jenny spun to him in surprise, not even noticing he was standing next to her until he said something.

"It's all anyone's been talking about all day," Jenny said. She started twirling her fork into her food, but she was barely looking at it. Jenny was looking up at her dad while she moved around her fork, and she continued to the man who sat on her right side. "I knew it. I knew there was a reason he had been saving less and less people. It was all a trap," Jenny stabbed her fork down into her steak and she pointed a finger towards her dad with a big grin on her face. "Just luring them into a sense of security, tricking them by acting like saving people wasn't the biggest thing anymore. When they stopped teleporting him around to all the accidents, he must have started planning this!"

"Honey," Mrs. Akers started in a slow voice. Jenny turned towards her mother, and Mrs. Akers turned from her daughter to her husband. She had a hesitant look on her face, and then she turned back to Jenny and said, "I don't think that's actually what happened." Jenny's eyes started to widen, then her mother lifted her fork from her food and pointed it at her daughter, "This is Zach we're talking about. He must have had this planned since before he even went through the portal at the courthouse."

Jenny's face lit back up and she rose her fork still with her steak on it to point back at her mother. "Great point!"

Mr. Akers laughed while he actually used his fork to pick up some food and put it in his mouth. "Whatever really happened, Zach caught two villains. I would have thought the heroes would try to take credit if something like this happened. I'm surprised they're actually crediting him."

"Oh look," Jenny pointed back towards the tv in the other room. She did not turn up the volume before running to the table, so they had to quiet down as the three news anchors started talking at their discussion table again. "Shh," Jenny said as her mom put her fork down and made a clinking noise.

"I'll say it again, there is no argument here Bob. Lifebringer, confirmed now without a doubt, as Zach Sazaki, is on our side-"

"There never was a doubt, Kasami," the chubbier man whose hairline was receding started, but he continued, "about the boy's identity. How can we be sure this is really a good thing though?"

"The two he helped the U.A. faculty arrest were wanted criminals-"

"I'm not arguing the point there. All I'm saying-"

"Well what is it you're saying?"

"He's still with the villains! In my mind, there are two options. Either the League of Villains wants us to trust this Lifebringer, so they had him hand us two of their own who were not worth anything to them, or!" Bob shouted as it looked like the other two were about to interrupt him, "Or, Lifebringer really did turn on them and help capture those two just because he is on our side. But if that's true, and he was taken back through the portal as we've heard, then what does that mean for him?"

"What are you saying Bob? He always goes back through the portal-"

"But that's not what the report this time says. They say that Sazaki was brought back through the portal against his will."

"Well you know what?" Kasami started, while the Akers family started staring at the screen more nervously. The thin, young man with slicked black hair and pointy ears sticking out of it grinned and held out a hand. "I bet, the villains just want it to seem like he's on our side. Like you said, they might want us to think he's on our side- but! And this is a big 'but' Bob. Even if the villains are trying to use Lifebringer that way, all this kid has done so far is save lives and now, capture villains. If he is secretly some super-villain super-weapon, he hasn't shown us that side of him yet. And maybe the thing the villains are relying on, the moment when he will turn on us that they're trying to lure us into, maybe _he's_ the one messing with them. Get as much out of them as he can before bailing."

"I hope you're right Kasami. I really do."

"We all do."

"There's no question about it," Jenny said, while turning back to her parents who refaced their daughter. Jenny lifted her fork again and she said, "It was even before he went to trial. I bet he acted all weird during it _just_ to get the villains to think he would actually join them again!"

Mr. Akers lost his smile for a second, but then he regained it and said in a soft voice, "Now wouldn't that be something."

* * *

"Momo, come on," Jirou said. Yaoyorozu turned to her friend with earphone-jacks for earlobes who just jumped up from Yaoyorozu's own bed. "Kirishima just got back. He's downstairs in the common room." Jirou pocketed her phone while Yaoyorozu popped up from her desk chair.

The two of them ran out the room and headed towards the stairs, and Jirou said in annoyance as they rushed down, "Finally we can get some answers. Stupid teachers only telling us the official statements-"

"Kyoka," Yaoyorozu started, feeling she should say something about her friend calling the teachers stupid.

"Hey don't act like it hasn't been bothering you," Jirou said accusingly. "All you've been doing is fidgeting around and scrolling the web for hours now. I was starting to get worried about you there." Jirou picked up her feet to speed up, and she added, "Plus, you're practically sprinting down these stairs."

"I am being careful," Yaoyorozu assured her.

The two girls reached the first floor and they popped out of the stairwell and looked around. It did not take them long to see the boy across the floor surrounded by almost their entire class at the tables near the kitchen. The two of them were in Yaoyorozu's room on the fifth floor, so they were two of the last ones to get there.

"Kirishima," Jirou called out as they ran forward. A few others moved to make space for Jirou and Yaoyorozu in the growing circle around the spiky-red-haired boy.

"Why'd it take so long for you to get out?" Hagakure asked.

"I don't know," Kirishima said. "The cops thought we might all be targets or something, even though we told them it wasn't it, so they tried to keep us at the station."

"You had to stay longer though," Ojiro mentioned. He had also just arrived back at the dorm, the last one besides Kirishima who had not come back yet. They had said they wanted to wait for Kirishima to show up before talking about what happened though for some reason, and Ojiro asked after Kirishima turned to make eye contact with him. "How did you know to do that? What was that message you said Zach got to you?"

"Heh," Kirishima scratched the back of his head.

"He was sending you messages?" Kaminari asked in surprise, his eyes wide.

"Just one," Kirishima said, and Kaminari leaned back, getting more confused. "And I won't say how I got it," Kirishima started. Everyone opened their mouths to argue, but he continued, "I'll say what he told me though." The ones who opened their mouths closed them to let him go on. Midoriya had leaned forward and opened his mouth wide, and then he leaned back as Kirishima started talking again, though there was still sweat all over the green-haired boy's face.

"He just told me, that his Quirk could no longer kill me," Kirishima said. Most of the class stared at him in confusion, and he continued, "He told me that Death couldn't kill what it had already brought back to life, and he added 'old friend,' into the message too. I didn't really get why he said something like that, it sounded weird to me at the time. So when he said it while pretending to be all evil, I knew he wanted me to play along. And then I thought about what might lure the villains in-"

"You scared the crap out of me!" Ashido exclaimed, and she smacked Kirishima on the shoulder angrily. They had all been rushed out by police the day before when they were separated and then they had not really seen each other again until now. The pink-skinned and pink-haired girl gave Kirishima such an annoyed look. "Couldn't you have thought of anything better than playing dead?!"

"I don't get it," Sero started slowly. "What are you talking about?"

"Zach touched Kirishima with his right hand," Ojiro started to the dark-haired boy on his left. "And Kirishima fell backwards like he was dead. We _all_ thought he was," Ojiro added, turning back and frowning at Kirishima just like Ashido was.

"Hey, we all survived didn't we? No injuries too?" Kirishima asked, looking around at the other four who were with him at the training. "And that guy Shooter, he was going to kill someone. If we didn't do that trick, he might have shot All Might." Kirishima turned to Ashido and the girl's dark eyes widened. "Or you," Kirishima added.

Ashido's frown lowered more, but not in an angry way this time. "So, I don't really get it," Sato started. The others looked towards the tall boy with spiky brown hair and big lips who had a confused look on his face. "No one's really been telling us anything."

"And the news is useless," Kaminari added. "They're talking like the villains totally failed, since no students were hurt and two villains were captured. But, the stuff they're saying about Zach?"

Midoriya looked down at the floor, his fists clenching so hard at his sides they hurt. His teeth bit against each other and his eyes watered up again. _Every time,_ Midoriya thought. "He's," Midoriya whispered, his voice hoarse. A few of the others near Midoriya turned to him, then back to Kirishima whose expression turned frustrated and angry as well.

"I, didn't really see," Aoyama said when Mineta looked up at him as if wondering why the others had those expressions.

"It happened so fast," Ashido added in a soft voice.

"How did Zach get out of there with all the teachers watching him?" Yaoyorozu asked.

"It, wasn't him 'getting out' of anywhere," Ojiro said in a low voice. "He was, he told us he was, turning himself in."

"What?" Sero asked in surprise. "Why doesn't the news-"

"They're treating it like, Zach went back with the villains," Kirishima started. His fists clenched and he hardened them because of how hard he knew he was about to squeeze. "Because if they consider him as a student, getting captured," Kirishima's teeth ground over each other. "That must be the reason," he said, while his classmates stared at him wide-eyed. "U.A. had too many incidents already. People were losing too much faith in heroes, but still," Kirishima shook his head. "That's not what happened. It wasn't just, the villains bringing back their…" Kirishima slammed his hand down on the table behind him, and he left a dent in it.

"Kirishima-kun," Iida started, but when Kirishima's gaze lifted back up the class rep found it hard to start scolding him.

"He looked so, scared," Kirishima said. "And we were surrounded by the teachers! They couldn't do, a thing," Kirishima shook his head. "And neither could I."

"Maybe Zach meant to go back with them," Kaminari began. "He's been doing that kind of stuff-"

"It wasn't like that this time," Kirishima snapped. He looked towards Kaminari angrily, then he lost that angry look at the nervous and afraid one on Kaminari's face. "You didn't see him. He was so relieved, that he was finally back. I saw it in his eyes. He _wanted_ to come back. Even if it meant getting arrested, he was just glad to be out of it. Out of the villains' hands. And we just stood there and watched him get taken, again," Kirishima clenched his eyes shut and wanted to slam his hand back on the table, but he stopped himself from doing it this time after what Iida said. Instead, all he could do was unclench his fist and feel even more frustration that there was nothing he could take his anger out on.

"I don't know if the teachers didn't care about saving him, or if they just couldn't do it," Kirishima said, his eyes opening back up darkly. He shook his head and then continued while looking right, "The only one who did anything, was Midoriya-"

"I couldn't stop it," Midoriya whispered, looking back up as Kirishima mentioned that. "I didn't _do_ anything, Kirishima. All, all I did, was give Zach hope that-" Midoriya's teeth clenched again and tears seeped out of his eyes. "Three times. That's three times now, I couldn't stop him," Midoriya gasped out. "From right next to him. He, the first two times, he went into the warp gates on his own," Midoriya gasped out. Todoroki looked towards Midoriya and thought about the courthouse and how close Midoriya had gotten, but Midoriya had never said that Zach went into that portal voluntarily before. "But this time," Midoriya whispered. "He knew what was coming, and I'd never seen him more afraid."

"What, was coming?" Kaminari asked. He stepped farther in and into the gap of the circle while facing Midoriya. "What do you mean by that? What do you think, is happening to him?"

"After betraying them like that," Asui started, her head bowing and her voice soft. Kaminari looked towards her, but when Asui opened her mouth to finish, she could not make out the words.

Sero's eyes opened huge as he looked next to him at the short girl whose head bowed after the start of her sentence. "No way," Sero whispered. "You think they killed him?"

"Don't talk like that," everyone turned towards the tallest girl in the class who stepped forward after Sero's whisper. Yaoyorozu held up a palm and she said, "It has only been one day. Perhaps the heroes will locate the League of Villains' hideout soon. Or maybe Zach will continue saving people and we'll see it on the news. It is much too early to be saying anything like that Sero," Yaoyorozu frowned and gave the boy a stern look that made him hold up his hands apologetically.

"Sorry, sorry," he said, then he scratched the back of his head and gave her a half-smile. "You're right. I don't know what I'm talking about. It's, too early to say."

"Yeah," Kirishima agreed, nodding his head and getting a harder look on his face as he shook away the unsettled look that had been on it for a while now. He looked towards Yaoyorozu and stared into her eyes for a second, then he lifted the corners of his mouth and turned to Midoriya, "Cheer up Midoriya." Izuku lifted his head and saw Kirishima grinning back at him, "How many times now have we thought he was gone, only for him to show back up, still on our side?"

Midoriya's eyes widened, and Kirishima looked around at the others near him with that same confident smile. He locked eyes with Kaminari for a second, and finally Kaminari let out a deep breath and scratched the back of his head. Tsuyu had him really nervous all of a sudden, but he shook that feeling away with a shake of his head. "Yeah, you're right," Kaminari said. "I bet he might have already broken out of there too. He showed you guys, right?" Kaminari asked, cracking a small grin while Kirishima looked at him wide-eyed.

"You saw it too?" Kirishima asked.

"Hehe," Kaminari chuckled.

Yaoyorozu was about to scold Kaminari for saying something, but she spun to Kirishima in surprise at his response. "You did see it?"

"See what?" Uraraka questioned.

Ashido looked towards Uraraka and spoke before Yaoyorozu could call out for her to stop, "Zach's got this creepy transformation thing! He looked like the grim reaper with this spooky dark form with red eyes!"

Shoji turned his head to the right and looked at Tokoyami who pretended not to see him turn. Though Tokoyami was also just still staring forward in interest at what Ashido just said. "How does he-" Tokoyami started.

"Everyone," Yaoyorozu said. The others looked towards her, and she seemed hesitant, but then she continued in a firm voice, "Zach seemed very self-conscious about that form to me. We should not-"

"Maybe a while ago," Kirishima said, cutting her off. "But you should have seen him. He walked out of the portal looking like that. I don't know when you saw it, but," Kirishima shook his head, lifting the corners of his lips since he was brought to a better mood again. "He used that thing to take down both villains like that!" Kirishima snapped his fingers and then grinned at the surprise on Yaoyorozu's face. "He was popping in and out of the form like it was second nature to him, even though I had never seen him do it before!"

"It, was strong," Ojiro admitted, cracking a small smile himself. He sweatdropped after saying it and added, "Scary too though."

"Maybe he'll tell us all about it," Kaminari said, turning his head at the classmates around him since he was still kind of in the center of the gap. "Once he comes back for real, that is."

Midoriya's eyes lowered after Kaminari said it, even though everyone else seemed to like the idea of that. _That was him trying to come back for real though,_ he thought, his eyes focused on the ground. _And as much as everyone wants to be optimistic, I- I'm afraid. Zach, I'm so sorry. I'm sorry!_

* * *

Zach let out a loud moan and he yelled in a hoarse voice, "Please! Just shut it off already!" He let out this yell, and then his half-open eyes shot open wider as the strobe lights and loud noises cut off at the same time. The room descended into pitch blackness, and Zach started breathing heavily as this did not make him feel at ease enough to go to sleep. The door in front of him opened up and the light turned on in there, and Zach stared straight forward at the man covered in green scales who stood before him. "Spinner," Zach muttered. "What do you want?" Zach spat out at him.

The man who looked a bit like a lizard had a white bandanna around his eyes, and his long pinkish purple hair was pushed back over the top of his head before spiking up. His eyes were dark under his bandanna as he walked forward towards the chair Zach was in. "Just come a little closer," Zach said. "And take off this box on my right hand, so I can KILL YOU WITH IT!" Zach screamed, leaning towards Spinner as the man walked around his left side instead of Zach's right. Spinner did not back up when the boy leaned towards him though, he just walked behind Zach's chair and pulled it back so it was tilted up on its back legs. "Hey, HEY!"

Spinner pulled the chair around and started dragging it and Zach towards the door. "Quicker to just take you and the chair, than get you out of it," Spinner remarked in a low voice.

"Damn it! Let me out!" Zach shouted, forgetting his exhaustion and roaring in anger. "How long was I in there? How long have you been keeping me-"

"It's been three days," Spinner replied.

"Only, three days?" Zach whispered. His eyes were huge and he leaned back in his chair in shock, staring behind him as Spinner dragged him backwards out the room. Zach's eyes twitched and his whole body started sweating. _It felt, so much longer,_ he thought. "Spinner, where are you taking me?" Zach asked. He turned to the guy behind him, twisting his neck as much as he could. "Just let me out of here. Say I escaped or something-"

"Do you think I like you?" Spinner asked.

"We're comrades, right?" Zach asked, his lips twisting up. "Come on! I know you liked me-"

"You were lying the entire time," Spinner said. "Lying through your teeth. And you know, I never liked you," Spinner kept dragging without turning around to face Zach. "Maybe, when we first got you out of the forest, but you killed Mr. Compress. I was never happy Shigaraki let you back in."

"I'll kill you too!" Zach yelled. "If you don't kill me soon, you're going to regret it, when I come back and MURDER YOU!"

Zach struggled in his chair, and then he let out a scream of pain and stopped squirming around. He looked down towards his left hand, and he winced in pain as he tried moving his hand again. He thought about the day he was sat in this chair, what felt like so long ago to him now but had actually only been a few days. _**"Guess we'll have to start back up at phase one again. We're not letting you out of that box again until…"** They were just messing with me. Telling me that stuff, so I wouldn't think it was going to be so bad, so I had the idea that I could keep lying to them and acting as Lifebringer. Then they nailed my fucking hand to this chair!_ Zach's lips trembled as he saw the dark blood covering his left hand, and the brighter red blood that just started coming out as he moved around again. He struggled to pull his legs from the chair, and he groaned and ground his teeth around in pain at the feeling of the barbed wire wrapped around his ankles and the front bars of the chair.

"I'm losing a lot of blood already," Zach said, turning his head to the side as Spinner kept dragging him. Spinner actually turned his head sideways this time and slowed down, looking out his left eye back at Zach's tired, pale face. "So can't you just, finish me off? Please. I don't know, what other sick things you have planned. But it's enough already."

"Not according to Shigaraki," Spinner said, turning back forward again. "And you're not feeling that way because of the blood loss. You're just sleep-deprived. Don't fall asleep on me now though, we're here."

Spinner opened up the door in front of him and then dragged Zach through it into a large room that was darker than the hallway they just exited. Spinner dragged him into the room and right into the middle of it before spinning his chair around so Zach was facing him. Spinner backed up, and Zach turned his head left to look at Twice, then right where he saw Shigaraki standing. "You look tired," Shigaraki remarked.

"Why are you doing this?" Zach muttered. "I wish I wasn't born, okay? Now just finish it. I know the heroes won't come. You know they won't. And I'm never going to turn." Shigaraki smirked, and Zach bit down before shouting in a more angry way, "I won't! I'll never kill anyone for you! Torture isn't going to work-"

"You think that was torture?" Shigaraki asked. Zach froze with his mouth open, then a form started walking forward from behind Shigaraki that had Zach leaning far back in his seat. He leaned so hard back that the chair started leaning backwards, and it fell over and made Zach yell out in pain from his left hand and his legs and his right knee were there still a bandage wrapped around where Shigaraki had stabbed him a few days ago. His right arm hurt too, but it was in a splint despite the box on his right hand. After all, Shigaraki had said, what would Zach's purpose be if he did not have his right hand? Zach's chair fell on its side after falling over, and Zach tried scooting back while darting his eyes down and towards Shigaraki.

The large figure that walked forward behind Shigaraki stepped into the dim light of the large room. He was twelve feet tall, and he had a blank expression on his dark face. "Ganeshi," Zach whispered in fear of the huge man who looked down towards him, his trunk waving back and forth in front of his huge body. "How, I thought-"

Spinner was walking towards Zach's chair to get him upright again, and Shigaraki stepped forward while grinning behind his mask. "That wasn't torture," Shigaraki said. "I wasn't even warming up yet. But this, this is the real warm up," Shigaraki said, while Spinner lifted Zach's chair so he was face to face with the leader of the League of Villains again. Shigaraki Tomura was smirking from behind the hand attached to his face, and then he did something that terrified Zach. Shigaraki reached up and he grabbed the hand over his face, and he pulled it off.

Shigaraki leaned down and he placed the hand on the floor. There were still a bunch of other hands attached all over his body, but his face did not have one on it now. He stood there looking forward at Zach with a huge grin, and then he said, "Snap my neck, Ganeshi."

"I still think this is crazy… DO IT!" Twice shouted, stepping forward closer to Zach's chair and jumping up in an excited way.

Spinner glanced at Shigaraki and shook his head, a bead of sweat rolling down his face, then he turned to the big guy marching up behind him. "He only listens to your commands now, Shigaraki. You sure he's not going to go nuts soon as you're dead?"

"He's pretty much brain dead, but don't be mean Spinner," Shigaraki said, while Zach looked around at them all like they were mad. Ganeshi reached Shigaraki and his trunk started bulking up as did his whole body. His arms dropped onto the floor behind Shigaraki at his sides, and Shigaraki kept looking at Zach while the thick trunk lifted up and wrapped around his neck.

"You're, you're insane!" Zach shouted at the man before him who was lifted up by Ganeshi's trunk.

Ganeshi hesitated for a second, then Shigaraki said, "Do it." _**Crack!**_ Zach's eyes bulged open, and Spinner even dropped his bottom lip at the sight of Shigaraki's head going limp to the side.

"Hey hey! Don't rip his head off-" Spinner stopped shouting as Shigaraki's body dropped through the loop of Ganeshi's trunk. Then, the huge elephant-looking figure took a seat and just stared down towards Shigaraki with a downright confused look on his face. Spinner rubbed the back of his head, then he turned towards Zach and he said, "Alright Sazaki, now." Zach turned towards Spinner with huge eyes, finally realizing what was happening. "You're going to bring Shigaraki back to life."

Zach stared at Spinner in shock. He stared at the man, then turned to look at Twice who gave him a thumbs up and thumbs down with opposite hands. Then Zach turned to Ganeshi who seemed to be useless without Shigaraki telling him what to do. "Ha, haha," Zach's lips twisted and he started laughing. "Hahaha! AHHAHAHAA-ach ack, HAHA!" Zach laughed so hard that all of his injuries hurt at how much he was moving. "You really are all insane! I'm not bringing him back!"

Zach spun to Spinner again and looked at him like he was an idiot. "Was this really his plan? Have Ganeshi kill him, so that I could bring him back to life, so that I can never kill him?! That's ridiculous! He should have…" Zach saw Spinner doing something ever since he started laughing, and Zach trailed off as Spinner was completely ignoring everything he was shouting. Spinner had lifted up a tablet he pulled out of his pocket, and he was tapping a few buttons on it. "What is that? What are you doing?! Don't you hear me? I'm going to leave Shigaraki dead!"

"He never thought you would just agree to it," Spinner said, shaking his head in annoyance at all the boy's shouts. He tapped one more button on the tablet, then he walked up to Zach and lowered it in front of the boy's chest.

Zach stayed staring up at Spinner's dark face for a few seconds, his breathing picking up speed. There were a lot of things he did not want to do in his life but felt forced into. Yet in his entire life, he could not think of anything he wanted to do less than look down at the tablet in front of him. "Look," Spinner told him. "You need to look," Spinner lifted his other hand and grabbed Zach by the top of the head, and he yanked his head down to force him to stare at the tablet.

On one side of the tablet, Zach saw a dark room. He saw a dark room that he recognized well. He recognized it, because it was his own apartment. The apartment's main room was dark, but the men in there had his television turned on. There were three figures in Zach's apartment who he could see in the light of his tv. He saw one of them with his hand on top of the screen, and he recognized the dark-skinned, short, glasses-wearing, Hackerman's figure anywhere. The fact that he had black spikes sticking out of his nose, ears, cheeks, and forehead that were all too thick to be called piercings gave him away. The other two, Zach recognized a lot more because he had seen them almost every day of his life for three months now.

It was the other half of the tablet that Zach's eyes were locked onto though. The other side of the tablet was more lit up, showing an apartment complex just like his. In fact, because of the positioning of the two cameras, it almost looked like the black line in the center of the screen was acting as a wall between the two rooms, and it very well could have been considering the rooms were neighboring anyway. Zach stared at the image of the apartment next door to his, of the man sitting on the couch watching television, of the woman in the kitchen washing the dishes from dinner, and the girl who just ran out of the hallway from her room and jumped on the couch near her dad.

"What are," Zach whispered. His gaze shifted back to his own room, and he looked at the television in front of Kurogiri and Dabi. He stared at the screen that Hackerman had his hand on top of, and he saw the same image that took up the right half of the tablet he himself was staring at. Zach's gaze slowly lifted up to Spinner, and Spinner gave him a dark glare before lifting up the hand he initially used to shove Zach's hand down.

Spinner pulled the tablet back, and he held the key out in front of Zach. "You know how this is going to work, don't you? You won't try anything, right?"

Zach looked from the key, back over to the tablet Spinner was holding. A part of him wanted to start thinking up ways he could get out of this. He started to think up scenarios where the box came off, and he killed everyone, and he raced home, but none of those thoughts managed to take much form. He just started nodding his head at Spinner, his lips pursing and fear covering his face. "Alright then," Spinner said. He stepped right in front of Zach, then he reached down to the boy's left hand.

"Hold on, I-" Zach started, then he let out a yell of pain as Spinner ripped the spike out of his left hand.

"I'm not taking that box off myself," Spinner said. He grabbed Zach's left hand, flipped it over, and slammed the key down into his bloody palm. "The clock's ticking. Move fast."

Zach gulped down the next scream he wanted to make, and he moved his shaking left hand over to the box on his right. It was not the same box the hero system had originally put on him, but one the villains designed and starting making him use only a few weeks before they stopped making him wear it at all. He always saw it around though, in rooms where he was with the villains, as if reminding him that they could slap it on at any time. Zach's hand was shaking so much as he tried to open the box that he was getting scared he was going to take too long, and that just made his hand more unsteady.

"Keep shaking it around!" Twice shouted at him.

"I'm not trying to," Zach said, somewhat understanding what the crazy man was saying. He finally slid the key into the lock, and he bit down even harder before twisting in a movement that made his left hand fill with pain again. The box came off of his hand, and Zach tried to get off the chair to go help Shigaraki. He totally forgot about his legs with the intense fear clouding his mind, and he almost fell out of the chair. Instead though, he was stuck to it and just fell forward with it on top of him, his legs scraping against the barbed wire and making in growl in pain. Zach ignored the pain though, and he crawled forward, dragging the chair with him as he used only his left hand to drag him towards Shigaraki's body.

Spinner and Twice watched him move, and then Zach noticed Ganeshi's head had lifted a little too and the big man was staring at him as he dragged forward. _Where's the Nomu? If I kill these guys, how does Kurogiri find out? If they're all dead, will Dabi and Kurogiri still kill them? What am I thinking about? I can't even move, let alone kill three villains. And, I can't risk it. I have to save them. It's what matters most. I'll do anything to save them,_ Zach thought it and then froze as he reached Shigaraki's body. It had only been a minute, two, three at max. He had a lot of time before the limit ran out. He froze there though, lying on his stomach with blood coming out of reopened wounds around his body, a terrified look on his face. _Will I really do anything they ask? I, I have to think of something different. Before I bring back Shigaraki-_

"Hesitate for any longer, and I'll tell them it's a go," Spinner said from behind Zach on his right.

Zach reached to his right arm and dragged it forward with his left. "YaaaAAA!" Zach ignored the pain of moving his broken right arm, and he continued to try and ignore it as he slammed his right hand down on Shigaraki's chest. _I wanted to kill him. If there was anyone, anyone I would break my rule for, it would have been him!_ Zach kept screaming as his right arm turned black. He was in only his underwear, his villain costume taken away almost as soon as he got back. He saw his entire arm turning black, and he wished a snapped neck was not something his Quirk could heal. As he screamed though, he thought, _But Monoma saved Mt. Lady with a broken neck. And that time would have been longer than this. And that was Ganeshi too- oh no…_ Zach's arm started to lose its black color, and the pain started to fade away a little. "What, am I doing?" He whispered, pulling his arm away from Shigaraki's body.

Shigaraki opened up his eyes. His eyes widened huge for a few seconds, and he reached up to his neck and rubbed it while he sat up. Shigaraki turned to Zach and looked down at his right arm that was limp in front of his body as he lay there with a horrified look on his face at what he had just done. Shigaraki reached down and he grabbed Zach's right hand. "Oh, oh that's good," Shigaraki said, grinning ear to ear at Zach who stared up in terror at Shigaraki's face. "When was the last time someone held your hand like this?" Shigaraki asked, and Zach's eyes opened huge as he realized it had been his mother 8 years ago. Then Zach screamed in agony as Shigaraki tugged Zach's arm just a bit.

The villain let go and stood up in front of Zach, not wanting to mess with his right arm that much after all. He turned towards Spinner who was shaking his head, "Can't believe you took that risk."

"It wasn't a risk at all," Shigaraki said. He held up a hand, and he caught the box Spinner tossed to him. Shigaraki leaned down and he lifted Zach's arm more carefully this time, using the splint still attached to it instead of grabbing by the actual arm. He placed Zach's hand in the box while Zach stared down at the ground. "Who wouldn't do something like that, for their family?" Shigaraki asked.

Zach could hear the smirk on Shigaraki's face. He slowly lifted his gaze, while Shigaraki locked the box back onto Zach's right hand. He grabbed Zach by the shoulder and hoisted him and the chair attached to his legs up again. He put Zach down in a sitting position, then he reached down and grabbed a hand on the floor not far from him. Ganeshi stood up behind Shigaraki, a smile on the large man's face and a more alert look to it after a few seconds of Shigaraki back on his feet. Shigaraki attached the hand to his face and let out a long, deep breath.

"You were alive! That's weird," Twice said, throwing his hands up and making confusing motions with them.

 _Everyone. They're all insane. They're evil. They're all monsters. The Nomus. Ganeshi. Shigaraki. Twice and Toga. Spinner, and Dabi and Kurogiri too. If they're threatening my-_ Zach's eyes widened again, and he lifted them to Shigaraki who started smirking towards him once more, looking to be in a good mood. He stared between the fingers of the reattached hand on his face into Zach's dark, scared, and confused eyes. "You said, 'I have a family,' when I told you how I spread the rumor that you joined us."

Zach's eyes opened up huge, and he started panting as he thought back on how he did mumble that after watching the U.A. press conference the night of Camino Ward. "It surprised me," Shigaraki continued. "Because Kurogiri told me that your family was all gone. I though maybe you meant that Aunt of yours, but after your trial," Shigaraki chuckled darkly, and Zach's eyes started shaking as he thought about it himself. He realized that it would not be hard to piece it together, not with the testimonies his aunt gave compared to the one Mr. Akers did. "I understood what you meant," Shigaraki finished.

Spinner walked over, and he handed the tablet to Shigaraki who looked down at it and continued smirking. He looked up at Zach, then back at the tablet, and he hummed to himself in a way that made Zach's blood run cold. Shigaraki reached down and tapped on the screen, and he pressed a button before lifting the tablet up near his face. He stared straight between the fingers of the hand over his face, looked Zach straight in the eyes, and he said, "Do it."

"What?!" Zach shouted, leaning forward to try and jump out of his seat.

"Stay! GO!" Twice shouted, though he was behind Zach's seat with a rope that he just threw over it to wrap over Zach's chest. He pulled it tight around the back of the chair and tied it up there, then he stood up and held the back of the chair steady since Zach started struggling against his own binds.

"What are you talking about?!" Zach shouted at Shigaraki who lowered his tablet and started chuckling at Zach's panicked expression. Shigaraki turned the device in his hand so the screen was facing Zach, and Zach watched as Kurogiri nodded and then lifted up a hand. "WAIT!" Zach yelled. "I'll- I'll do-" he cut himself off and ground his teeth, and then his eyes bulged and he gasped as a black portal opened up in the middle of the Akers' house, right in between their kitchen and the living room, blocking the front door. "I'll do whatever you want!" Zach screamed.

"Anything?" Shigaraki asked.

"ANYTHING!" Zach yelled as he started hearing the yells of panic coming from the tablet. Shigaraki turned up the volume on it, while pushing the screen closer to Zach. "I'll, I'll even kill other villains for you-" Shigaraki pulled the tablet back, and then Zach screamed as he saw Dabi stepping through the black portal into the Akers' house. "Heroes too! Whoever you want! I'll kill them! Please! PLEASE!"

"Hahaha," Shigaraki lowered the tablet and he kept laughing for a few seconds while Zach looked up into his eyes. Shigaraki was laughing in a victorious way, and Zach's horrified face started lifting up a bit, despite all he just promised to do. "I know you will," Shigaraki said, ending his laughter and just looking back down at Zach's face that lost the hope starting to rise on it. "But this, this isn't to make to do what I say. I don't need to do this for that," Shigaraki lifted the tablet again, and he moved it to the side a little so that he could watch while still showing it to Zach too. "Oh, that one's for Shooter," Shigaraki said.

He pointed at the screen in the kitchen where the woman inside it who had backed against the counter tried jumping over it to get out of there. The entire kitchen was full of blue flames though, and there was nowhere for her to run. Her screams came out of the tablet, and Zach started screaming at the screen. He was not yelling any words, he was just roaring at what he was watching. He snapped his rabid look from the device up to Shigaraki. "I'LL KILL YOU!"

"You can't!" Shigaraki yelled in such an amused way. "You just made it so," he reminded, before laughing harder and looking back at the tablet.

"Run Jenny!"

"MOM!"

"Ooh, he looks like a fighter! Good luck- kill him Dabi!" Twice cheered on from behind Zach.

Spinner stayed silent on Zach's left, but he did look on in more amusement as John Akers charged at Dabi, his body bulking up and his muscles tensing so much that they ripped through his clothes. He swung a heavy punch towards Dabi's head, and Dabi ducked down and lifted his right hand up in front of the man's chest.

Zach opened his mouth to scream at Mr. Akers to doge, only for a whimper to escape his throat instead at the sight of the huge explosion of blue flames to shoot out of the man's back. It filled up the rest of the main room behind him, as well as blocking off the path back to the bedrooms from where Jenny was stuck in the living room. Out from the black portal closer to the door, Kurogiri stepped out in a huge form with his yellow eyes narrowed down towards the girl who was screaming for her mom and dad.

Zach was full of despair. He could not do or say anything, but Jenny's voice was shaking him from his stupor. "Hey, hey hey," Zach started stammering and he spun to Shigaraki. "I promise. I'll never, I'll never betray you again. I'll do whatever you want. I swear!"

"That guy, was for Hydro," Shigaraki said. "I actually had some big plans for him. I really, wasn't expecting you to betray me. It hurt," Shigaraki said. "But, I guess you did get two of ours arrested, and we killed two of your family," Shigaraki sighed, and Zach's eyes widened with hope. "Oh wait," Shigaraki said, lifting his hand and hitting himself on the side of his head. "I forgot. About, Mr. Compress," he finished, looking down and glaring hard at Zach again. "I never really punished you for that, did I?"

Dabi walked through the flames towards the girl who was backed into a corner of her house. There was no escape, and there were blue flames all around her. _Heroes will show up,_ Zach thought. _Someone, has to show up!_ "Please," Zach whispered. He begged, his eyes filling with water as he stared into Shigaraki's eyes. "I, I'm sorry. You knew I was only here, to save people. It's what I told you from the start. How, this isn't fair- just, let her live. I swear, I swear on my life, I'll follow you for the rest of mine if you just let her live. I care more about her, than anything."

Shigaraki leaned back, then he turned the tablet and looked down at it. He looked to be considering it, then he heard a voice shout through the tablet, "Zach's going to come here!" Shigaraki's eyes widened, and he turned the tablet again so they could all watch this. The girl in the corner had a defiant look on her face, looking the bright blue color of terror that had Zach's heart tearing apart. He saw a color he had never seen on her face before, a color that must have been associated with pure, absolute fear. That color went away though, and Jenny narrowed her eyes to glare at Dabi while her fists tightened. "He's going to save me."

Zach's bottom lip lowered, and the tears started falling out of his eyes. "Please," he whispered, while he stared at the girl in the video. "Please, let me save her."

"He'll come here, and he'll bring back my parents. He's going to save me," Jenny said, while Dabi lifted up his hand again, and her face started turning blue once more. It turned bright blue, so bright blue that it started to whiten, and her face filled with horror, losing all the confidence she had on it as Dabi's hand burst into flames. "Zach!" Jenny screamed.

"You must really be her hero," Shigaraki said. "She really thinks you're going to come!"

"Please," Zach sobbed. "Don't do it, don't- STOP HIM!"

"NO!" Shigaraki yelled back at Zach.

"ZACH! HELP MEEE- NO! AHHHH! AHHHHHHHHHEEEE- _EEEEAAAAHHHH!"_


	28. Chapter 28

**A/N I don't own Boku no Hero Academia**

 **Chapter 28:**

 **Six Weeks After the VTS Incident**

"Tonight's your big night! Don't fuck it up. Are you ready for it?"

Zach nodded his head.

"Alright! Stay here!"

Zach started following after Twice who walked out of the room. He had a black box on his right hand. He wore a black t-shirt, and a black pair of pants, and he was dirty. Zach's right arm no longer had any bandages around it, though the ones under his shirt were itchy and he lifted his left hand and scratched them.

Twice led Zach into a bright room full of people. Zach turned his head both directions, then he snapped it forward as Twice moved out of the way a little and he saw Shigaraki and Kurogiri standing up ahead of him. Zach hesitated, then he kept walking as Shigaraki lifted a hand and curled the fingers towards himself. "So," Shigaraki started, and Zach came to a stop ten feet in front of him. "How was your Christmas?"

Zach's eyes darted around, then back to Shigaraki and he opened his mouth. "I, I-"

"Did you celebrate Christmas?" Shigaraki asked.

"Kind, of," Zach said.

"You know why Christmas used to be celebrated right?" Shigaraki asked. "Because Jesus was 'supposedly' born on this day. You know what Jesus was known for doing? Coming back to life," Shigaraki said it and then grinned behind the hand attached to his face. "Guess that makes me Jesus," he said with a laugh.

"Y-Yeah, I guess," Zach agreed, then he leaned backwards in fear as Shigaraki stopped laughing.

"Are you ready, to keep all those promises you've made me?" Shigaraki asked. Zach's eyes grew wider, his heart pounding in his chest, but he nodded his head fast without hesitating any longer. "Do I need to remind you? All your classmates at U.A., all your friends," Shigaraki chuckled as Zach started shaking his head fast, telling him he did not need to continue. "You're not getting that box off your hand though," Shigaraki said, and Zach started nodding at him, in a way like he totally understood why Shigaraki would not risk that.

"Whatever you want," Zach said. "I'll- I'll do it," his voice came out short, higher-pitched and cracking while he darted his eyes around. Shigaraki started glaring at him, and Zach's eyes refocused without darting around as he was afraid he was doing the wrong thing here. Shigaraki grinned at that look on Zach's face.

"Kurogiri, send him over," Shigaraki said. "It's just another of our facilities," Shigaraki added to the kid in front of him who started walking forward. A portal appeared in front of Kurogiri, and Shigaraki walked forward to stand on the side of it as Zach stepped up. "Remember what will happen if you break the rules," Shigaraki said, and Zach shook his head quickly again.

"I won't," Zach said, looking up into Shigaraki's eyes, then snapping his head down and quickly walking through the portal.

Zach stepped through the portal and out the other side. He looked around him, and he saw four villains lounging around in the room he entered. They were looking towards the portal that appeared between them. One of them was sitting on a chair that was leaned back, his legs up on the table in front of him. Two others were talking over at the top of a staircase that only went down, and another had his elbows down on another table near the one the first guy had his legs up on.

"There he is," the man with curly red hair and his elbows down on the table remarked. He pushed off and took a few steps forward, putting his hands down in his pockets and looking the kid up and down. "This is the legendary Lifebringer?" Zach's eyes shot open huge as he spun to the man behind him, before shaking his head rapidly back and forth. "Huh? You're not."

"Not Lifebringer," Zach said, and the guy looking at him leaned his head back at the sixteen year old's gaze. "Lifebringer, isn't real," he whispered.

"Damn, Shigaraki really did some work." Zach spun around and stared with wide eyes at the green-scaled man he saw behind him reaching the top of the stairs. "Come on, bring him down here. Let's do this fast."

"Alright kid, let's go-"

Zach started scurrying towards the stairs. "You don't need to force me," he assured them. He looked around and gave them all twisted smiles, then darted his gaze back to the steps and Spinner who shook his head at the sight of the kid rushing his way.

One of the guys reached for Zach as he came towards the steps, but Spinner said, "Don't. Look at his hand. What's he going to do?"

Zach stared at the two guys on his right with wide eyes while he ran past. They each glared down at him, and he turned fast and then ran down the stairs after Spinner before slowing down right behind him. Spinner glanced over his shoulder as he kept heading down the stairs, and the man with a white bandanna around his eyes shook his head at the kid taking steps at his pace. "You really, fucked up," Spinner said. Zach looked up into Spinner's eyes, then his gaze snapped back down fast.

"I'm sorry," Zach whispered while looking at his feet as he walked down the steps.

Spinner opened his mouth, then he just shook his head at the boy's response. The others were following them down the steps, and Spinner stopped when they reached another floor. The stairs continued going down in that stairwell, and Zach had no idea what floor they were on. He had no idea what this building was, as he did not remember ever being in it before. He stepped into the room out of the stairwell, and then he stopped as he looked towards the middle of it. Zach stared at a thick metal pole sticking out of the ground. There was a man near it, watching the figure on his knees whose hands were behind her back and over her head cuffed to a loop sticking out of the pole.

The woman on her knees had messy black hair, and she lifted her head and looked towards the men who just came out of the staircase with wide eyes. Her eyes focused on the boy next to Spinner though. He was someone she had not seen at this building before, but she knew him. She had seen his face before. The woman stared at the boy with huge eyes, and she whispered after a few seconds, "Lifebringer."

"Not Lifebringer," Zach whispered, shaking his head and snapping his gaze down to the floor.

The woman who looked towards that boy dropped her jaw, and her fear intensified a hundred fold as the man at her side reached to his waist and pulled out the sidearm he had on him. The man was seven feet tall, he had short spiky blond hair, and he was wearing a villain costume that looked as good as ones heroes wore. Zach heard the cocking of a pistol, and he looked towards the man with spiky blond hair who lifted up the pistol and took a few steps in front of the woman.

"Use your left hand," Spinner said to the kid next to him.

"Wh-what? Wait a second!" The woman on her knees started shouting. She shook her disheveled hair out of her face and spun desperately from one man to the other.

Zach's eyes opened huge as he stared at that gun being held out in front of him. Spinner's voice got lower, and he said while Zach stared at the gun in shock, "If you don't, I'll have to tell Shigaraki."

The boy started walking forward. "Hey. H-Hey, you can't do this," the woman said, her voice shaky as she pulled against her cuffs. Yanking her arms free was not working though, and Zach took another step towards the man in the bright red uniform with spiky blond hair. "You're Lifebringer! You're, Zach Sazaki, right?! You save people!"

Zach's lips started trembling as he opened them up. "I'm s-" he started, then he cut himself off and he pursed his lips harder. "Not, Lifebringer," he gasped out. "No, such, thing," he whispered.

The blond man held out the gun towards Zach, but he pulled it back before the boy reaching for it could grab it. "Try anything funny," the guy started, and Zach shook his head rapidly at him.

Behind Zach and the man handing him the gun, the guy with curly red hair walked up next to Spinner in the spot Zach had been standing in. "After this, we going straight on to Micro-Man's agency?"

"Depends on him," Spinner said. "Might need to wait a couple more weeks. I still can't see him doing it." Spinner's right hand lifted up to the hilt sticking out above his right shoulder. He grabbed it, but his grip loosened as Zach took the gun from their comrade and turned it on the woman who backed up harder against the pole. "Or maybe, tonight really will be his big debut," Spinner said, his eyes widening in a bit of surprise.

Zach held his left hand forward, but his hand was shaking too much and he could not get a good aim on the woman who pulled her head back and forth to the sides. "Please, just stop," Zach said, taking a step towards her and moving around his left hand to get a good lock on her. He gulped, and he gulped again. His entire left arm was shaking, and he gasped out towards the woman in front of him, "Stop moving. It'll, only hurt more if I miss." Her eyes opened huge, and she stopped struggling as she turned back to look up into Zach's eyes.

"Wh-What did they, do to you?" She whispered.

Zach's eyes widened more as he stared into the woman's. His left arm stopped shaking as much. He bit down, grinding his teeth over each other. "Ah hah, ah hah," Zach pushed the gun farther forward towards the woman's face, perfectly on line with her forehead. The barrel of the gun wobbled but no matter how he shot from this close, there was no missing. "I'm sorry," Zach whispered.

The second 'sorry' came out of Zach's mouth, his left arm stopped shaking at all. The gun steadied, and Zach took in a deep breath. He swung his right arm in front of his body and pointed the gun down at the box swinging in front of him. **BANG!**

"Oh shit!" A tall guy behind the smirking man with red curly hair shouted. As the others' smirks were lowering though, his lips curled up into a wild smirk as he reached down for the blades at his waist.

 **Clank!** The box hit the floor. Zach swung his right hand in and he slammed it into his chest, while spinning his left arm out to the side and firing two more times. **BANG! BANG!** Zach's body covered in a black veil, and the two fastest men in there, Spinner and the blond guy who were already closest to him, tried leaping backwards while pulling their arms away from the boy. Spinner reached up for his weapon, then his eyes opened huge and he dove for a table.

"FUCKING DIE!" Zach roared, spinning and swinging his right arm in front of him. His entire body was covered in a black wispy veil, and when he swung his arm, a black wind came off of his arm and swept towards the villains who were all on one side of him. Zach saw each of them diving for cover or running into the stairwell, and Zach turned his head sideways for a brief second. The woman in front of him who saw her life flash in front of her eyes when Zach apologized to her, dropped her jaw as the terrifying dark monster rose the gun back up towards her again. **BANG!** The cuffs holding the woman's hands to the pole broke, then Zach dropped the gun on the floor. "Find your own way out!" He yelled at her, then he turned and sprinted as fast as he could farther into the room away from the stairs.

Zach heard gunfire behind him, and he clenched his eyes shut as he ran as fast as he could. _Hackerman could be watching from anywhere. Kurogiri could try and make me run into a portal at any time! There could be villains everywhere!_ Zach sprinted while darting his glowing red back and forth. _Windows!_ Zach sprinted towards the windows, and he barely slowed down at all while grabbing a folding chair that was leaning against the bottom of a half-staircase he leapt fully down instead of taking any of the five steps. Zach spun in a full circle and he threw the chair at the window as hard as he could, then he spun back to the man he saw chasing right behind him.

"I knew this was a bad idea!"

"YOU SHOULDN'T HAVE CHASED ME!" Zach screamed, his voice echoing over itself in a dark deranged way. He rose his hands up, and all the black wisps that normally seeped off of different parts of his body disappeared. The black veil got less thick around his whole form, and instead, the darkness over the top of his raised palms got thicker and more condensed. Zach breathed out a deep heavy breath that released black steam in front of him, and the man holding two knives in front of Zach felt the blades slip out of his grip. The dark figure before him, his glowing eyes, his skeletal form and black aura, and the black swirling mass of death he held above himself. It was too much for the guy who turned, only to scream out as he looked over his shoulders and saw Zach throw both of his arms back anyway.

Spinner was sprinting towards the guy running back up the small staircase, and he started shouting, "Don't you run from-" Spinner came to a short stop at the explosion of darkness that blew up behind the other villain, then swept up the steps and slammed into the man's back. The other guy had almost escaped it too, but as soon as the black wind hit him, his eyes started rolling back and he gasped out while falling off his feet. Spinner stepped back, holding his huge weapon of different blades up in front of him with a dark look in his eyes.

When the black explosion died down, Spinner narrowed his glare towards the broken window he saw down the few steps and a little ahead. He ran forward up to that window and hopped up into the windowsill. He looked down from the second floor, and he saw shattered glass all over the ground downstairs. He also saw some blood on that glass, but there was no body down there, only a broken chair. Spinner got a dark look on his face, but also a nervous one as he lifted a hand and ran it up through his hair. "This is not good."

Zach scrambled down an alleyway, then he turned down another only to see it was a dead-end and turn back. He spun and he sprinted down the alley out to the edge of a sidewalk. He poked his head out and looked both ways, then he sprinted out and across the nearly deserted street. The dark figure sprinted into another alleyway, spending as little time out on roads that might have cameras on them as possible. He took a few seconds' break, putting his left hand out on the wall next to him for balance. He slid his hand down after those few seconds as his arm got tired, then he turned to his left arm and narrowed his eyes at the glass sticking out of his tricep. His gaze shifted to the wall he had put his left hand on, where blood from his injury had seeped down to already so that he left a bloody handprint on the wall that slid down it. He looked behind him and saw some blood drops on the sidewalk too.

"No no no," he muttered, and he started running down the alley. He lifted his right hand and reached over to his left tricep, and he ripped the glass out which made a lot more blood splash out of his arm. He dropped the glass on the floor, then he reached his left hand down and pulled his shirt up. He was having difficulty getting it off, so he had to use his right hand too. He felt his hand brush his chest as he lifted his shirt, and he ripped it off faster before touching his lightening chest again to recover his darkness. "Come on, I need something to kill," Zach mumbled, while he stumbled farther in the alleyway. He stumbled to his left and put his back up against the wall while he tied the shirt on his left arm using his right hand and his mouth. "They'll be coming. I can't be leaving a trail," he shook his head and then picked up his feet and started running again.

Leaning his shirtless back against that wall snapped him to his senses because of how cold that wall was, and because of the pain from tightening his shirt around his bloody wound. His black shirt was getting darker each second, but before it soaked through, Zach knew he had to lose his trail. _It's so cold,_ he thought, while sprinting even faster and panting out dark breaths of air. He sprinted out onto a sidewalk and then looked to his right in panic at the two people who had almost stepped out in front of that alley at the same time. It was two men who looked to be drunk and heading home from a bar, and they both stared at him in terror at the sight of the black form with glowing red eyes and a skeletal appearance.

Zach sprinted past them and across the road, running behind a car that just drove past. _Maybe it's not as late as I thought. Those first few roads close to whatever building I was in, they were deserted because that's a warehouse area. Where do I go? Who can I go to?!_ Zach sprinted down a sidewalk for a few more seconds, then he found a narrow alleyway that he cut into and started running through. He had to weave around garbage and then he was met with a fence that he did not know what he was going to do about. Zach turned towards some garbage cans near him, and he considered hiding in one. "No," he told himself. "They'll find me. I need to keep moving. Before I start leaving a trail again. Before, a trail…"

Zach's eyes widened, and he spun back to the garbage cans, then the fence. _Injured and leaving a bloody trail, they'll never think I could make it over this fence. I barely considered it!_ The dark boy reached out and dragged a garbage can over towards the fence. He climbed up on top of it, and then he jumped for the fence. "Aghh-" he bit down harder, ignoring the pain in his left arm, ignoring how cold the steel fence was. He tried rolling himself over it, but the fence cut into his side as he did and he winced in pain again.

The boy brought his right hand down to his side and grabbed it tightly. _Can't let any blood spill,_ he thought, while running fast down the rest of the alley, then cutting right into a different one that was a little thicker and led onto another road. At the end of that alleyway and across the street past its exit, he saw a sign for a subway station only 150 meters straight ahead. _Those two drunk guys. They might be heading home on a train. I don't have money. I don't have a shirt now either. I have to get out of this area though. I have to get far!_ Zach started staggering down the alleyway. He lifted his left arm to grab a wall for balance again, but he clenched it into a fist remembering that he could not do that. He slammed his right fist to the side and into the other wall a few times, filling himself with pain as he could feel himself getting dizzy and inattentive.

"Fuck, if I hit an artery I'm done," Zach muttered, coming to a stop before he reached the end of the alley. He just saw someone walk by on the sidewalk, and he did not want to go out there as he was right now. He bent down and put his black hands down on his knees. "Why not?" He asked himself. "Is that really, a bad thing? No, no no," he shook his head a few times. "It was better dead, than stuck there, but I'm free now. I can do this. I'm smart. You are smart!" He lifted his hands and smacked his cheeks a few times. His skin started to lose its black color and Zach got nervous that he must have hit himself an odd number of times. He lifted his right hand to do one more smack on his face, then he stopped and looked out the alley at someone who just walked by. _Screw it. I'm sorry._

Zach ran down the alleyway, and he leaned his head out to turn left towards the woman who just walked by. "Excuse me," Zach started, his voice raspy and cracking. He almost tried to use a fake voice to speak in, but just trying to speak normally made him sound worse than he wanted to. The woman walking down the sidewalk turned her head and looked back at the boy with huge eyes. She stared at the pale-faced, five foot four teenager, who was not wearing a shirt despite it being below freezing out. Zach only had part of his body sticking out of the alley, leaving his left arm inside it so she would not see his condition. "I must have gotten really drunk, and I just need to get home, but I lost my shirt somewhere…" he gave her his most apologetic, as well as slightly buzzed look that he could muster.

Her panicked look started to calm down a little more, but she rushed towards the boy and she started taking off her jacket. "Here, let's go get you-" Zach stepped out of the alley, and now she was able to see the blood all over his left arm, and the shirt around the upper part of it.

The woman looked at him in shock, and he said, "Okay, I was lying." _There's no way someone would just give a drunk person their things and let it go from there. It's the drunk person's fault anyway. But,_ "I'm actually homeless. Another homeless guy stole my stuff, stabbed me when I tried to stop him," Zach said.

"Let me call an ambulance," she started, though she finished taking her jacket off first. She held it out, and then her eyes widened more as the boy reached up his bloody left hand instead of his right that looked perfectly fine.

"I don't have health insurance," Zach lied. "This is more than enough," he told her, showing his most grateful look as he slid his arms into her jacket. "I'm sure I'll be alright. I'm sorry I'm leaving you with only your sweatshirt, do you think you'll make it home alright?" _And with that, how can she ask for it back now? Not only am I being grateful, but caring for her as well. How can she ask an underage homeless boy for her jacket back? She should feel like a hero for the rest of her life after this._ "You're my hero," Zach said to the woman. _She is, a hero,_ he told himself, realizing that he was not just manipulating her like he thought. "You're seriously saving my life here," he said, and he reached up and put the woman's hood up over his head.

"I- I mean," she turned and watched as Zach started staggering across the street. She watched him start going, then she turned and looked down the alleyway he just came from. The woman lifted up both hands and she rubbed the back of her brown hair in such a confused way, even if she was feeling a little good about herself. "I, should call them anyway," she said, shaking her head after a few seconds. "How young was he? I thought I recognized him too," she mumbled, while pulling out her phone. "I thought he was a kid," she started while holding her phone in front of her. "But, he may just be short. He was stabbed though." Her finger moved down to start typing on her phone, then her eyes widened. "He was just, stabbed?"

She looked back down the alley he came out of. She looked down at her nice sweater, thought about the fact that she was a woman walking alone at night, imagined a crazy homeless guy with a knife around her, and she shoved her phone back into her pocket. "I'll report it when I get home," she whispered, spinning and speeding up her walk back towards her place.

Zach stood on the escalator up into the subway station. _Higucha City? Where is that? Why don't I know where that is?!_ Zach closed his eyes and took some deep breaths. _No, that's not true. I do know this. It's like, the cities around Tokyo. It's not actually a city, it's a part of- Kyoto!_ Zach's eyes shot open, and he let out a small breath of relief that he could remember that. Then his eyes started darting around again while he reached the top of the escalator.

He hurried forward from the top of it after a small crowd of people that were all heading the same way. _Must be a train in a few minutes. This might be my only chance. If this is the closest station, they'll be here soon to cut me off. If they're not here already- don't think like that! If they're here, you're fucked and have to go Nightmare and try another escape!_ _If they're not though, this will be the only way to avoid a prolonged chase. I can't get caught. I won't get caught! I'll die first!_

Zach moved farther into the crowd, finding the most crowded part of it. Then his eyes widened as he saw people moving the other way. _Alright, a train just dropped people off. These people moving the same way as me are rushing, some of them are drunk. Some are drunk moving the other way too. Fuck it, try it and go for everything!_

Zach stepped a little to his left, looking a little wobbly just as some others near him did. He stepped left when someone else who he could see a lump on the front pocket of their coat was wobbling the other way. It was a hard bump, and the two of them bounced off of each other. Zach lifted his left hand and he patted the man's chest in an apologetic way, leaning forward and saying, "My bad."

"Haha, nah don't worry about it! It's Christmas!" The guy yelled, throwing his hands up in the air as he walked backwards after some more of his friends.

 _Sorry,_ Zach thought while turning back around. _He seemed, like a cool… I thought Shigaraki said Christmas was yesterday, or something. Did I really escape him?_ Zach pulled his new wallet out of his left coat pocket and flipped it open without taking his right hand out of his pocket once. He was still cold, having nothing on beneath the coat and a rip in his right pant leg. He hoped he did not look too strange to the officer who sat near the turnstiles to get onto the trains. _Oh yeah. Fucking nice,_ Zach popped out a card to put money on for using the trains, then he felt bad again as he scanned it and saw more than eight thousand yen on the card. _Sorry, but I need to get out of here. It's life or death, and you all fucking owe me anyway-_ Zach shook his head around after walking through the turnstile. He saw some people running, and he sprinted to catch up to them. They were running to a different platform, and his eyes opened wide as he saw doors start closing to the train up ahead.

 _I don't know where you're going,_ Zach thought, as he sprinted harder than he knew he could at his current level of exhaustion. Zach sprinted through the doors when they were halfway closed and stumbled after making it in. The train was not overly packed considering the time, but there were a few people around him who laughed as he just made it in.

"Nice!"

"Haha," another guy near his buddy who called out 'nice' laughed.

Most people stayed quiet though, and Zach only glanced towards those two before turning and walking over to a nearby open seat. He sat on a spot with no one on his right side, even though he had his right hand in his pocket. He felt nervous though, because he wanted to take his right hand out and check on the shirt tied around his upper left arm. He was too nervous to do it though, even under the coat, with the man sitting on his left side who he might bump into through their clothes. _It's too potent when it's trapped only in my right hand. Regular fabric won't protect people from it._ Lucky for Zach though, he smelled bad. The man sitting next to him made an annoyed grunt and a face to show not-so-subtly why he was standing. _Never been so happy to smell,_ Zach thought, while he pulled his right hand out and slid it carefully through the center of his coat.

He noticed the person across the train from him look at him oddly, and he thought they may have noticed how he did not have anything on under the coat when he pushed aside the buttons for a second. Then he wondered if the guy just thought it was weird he was wearing a long brown woman's coat. Then Zach considered that it probably looked like he was rubbing his left armpit after the guy next to him stood up because of the smell. _Do I really smell that bad? When was the last time I took a shower? How many days has it been? Weeks? Months? Where is this train going?_ He tightened up his shirt again that was soaked, but he felt like the pain in his left arm was not as intense as it was before. _That's either a good sign, or a bad sign. No shit. Damn…_

Zach's eyes snapped open, and he shook his head around before standing up off the seat. _Can't fall asleep. They won't just let me get away. Figure out what stop to get off on. This train card will work at other places, and this guy had some cash on him as well. Don't use his credit cards, it's a dick move- plus they might be able to track me. I need a hat to keep out of Hackerman's sights if he's checking nearby cities' security cameras. I need to get a bullet train to Tokyo tomorrow from wherever I go to. Somewhere that I know the layout of, is much better to hide in than somewhere I don't._

Zach lifted his left hand, winced in pain and hoped he did not reopen the wound on his upper arm, but he had to smack himself in the cheeks a couple of times to keep himself awake. _Shigaraki, said he's going to kill my classmates. He should have just left her- That fucker. That mother fucker! The U.A. students have been in danger from his attack for so long. But protected in the dorms, protected by the teachers…_ Zach's lips twisted and he snarled for a second. _They're safe. I have to think they're safe. If I didn't tell myself that from the first day, I never would have been able to keep alive escape plans. I would have just accepted what he said because I would be saving them, not just myself, doing whatever Shigaraki said. But the code. Just remember the code. Don't kill anyone. Did that woman survive? Fuck! I just left her to die back there!_

The boy shook his head around and clenched his eyes shut, pressing his forehead against the metal bar in the train to be used for support. The train was slowing down, and Zach had wanted to stay on it for another few stops or so, but he shook that thought out of his head. _The longer I stay on this, the more a chance they come to one of the next stops. They might find out that someone stole a card at the last stop right before this train left, and just hit all the stops after it. I have to move fast to a station not on this line. I'll change up my route quickly and often. Keep my mind off everyone else for now. I fucking, I fucking escaped. I won't be captured again. I can't let anyone know where I am, because the villains will figure it out. There's a spy back at U.A. How many spies are in the police forces? Shigaraki would never let me know any of them. The only person I can trust is me. I could never get back into the hero society anyway. Turning myself in? Giving up the villain life? Why did I ever think I would be able to do those things after all I had done? After becoming a true villain… Focus!_ He shouted mentally at himself as the train came to a stop and the doors opened.

 _Some people here were suspicious of me. Move fast before anyone can report. Get away. Act normal. Buy some normal clothes with this guy's cash. Put on a hoodie for men, wear a hat, buy some first aid stuff so you don't pass out from blood loss. Escape Kyoto first. Make it back to Tokyo. They might expect that… but they might know that I know they expect it. Either way, I know those streets. I ran Musutafu for years. I ran the neighboring cities too though. Cities I could reach in a quick train ride, how many times did I run around their streets to explore a new place? To see more of this beautiful- this, amazing world? …Amazing? Is this really, the world I loved?_

Zach left the subway station and got up on the street, but he stopped and looked around with a blank look. He watched as a group of guys and girls who looked like they were in college started walking one direction while talking about which bar they wanted to go to. He saw an older couple with their arms locked, and then the woman pointed up and her husband or boyfriend looked up too and smiled wide. Zach lifted his gaze up, and then he lifted his left hand. A snowflake fell down on it and he looked down at his palm that had some dried blood on it, something he only noticed now and realized some people on the train had probably stared at. Before he could hurry away from the station though, he was stuck staring at the snowflake that was slowly melting on his hand. The snowflake was perfect, unique, beautiful when it landed on him. But it melted away, all of its beauty gone as it turned to water and made his dried blood get wet again.

 _Am I, a snowflake?_ Zach thought, then shook his head around at the analogy. "That snowflake, was beautiful," he whispered, and he turned his head and started jogging, shoving both hands far into his coat's pocket. His eyes filled with water and spilled down his face, making his face cold as the snow fell around him. "This world, really is beautiful. I don't ever want to, leave it again," his voice cracked and his face scrunched up as he ran. "I just want to live, in this world. I want to see more of it. And I, I want to…" in his head appeared the woman he left behind with Spinner and the others. Zach gasped in pain, his chest aching as he thought about three other faces. "I want- I have to change the answer."

* * *

"You- you- how could you let him-"

"He shot off the damn box in one shot," Spinner growled. "He touched his chest before any of us could do a thing. He wasn't broken at all!"

"He was!" Shigaraki yelled, turning and glaring at Spinner who did not back down. Shigaraki lifted a hand and he started scratching his neck, scratching over and over to the point he was almost bleeding. "I don't like this. I don't like this at all."

"Shigaraki Tomura," Kurogiri began, moving up next to Shigaraki. "He is sure to appear on our radar before long. Everyone in Japan knows his face after all."

"They know Zach Sazaki's face," Shigaraki muttered. "With spiky hair, and no scars," he shook his head and kept scratching at his neck for a few seconds. "And they know Lifebringer, in a mask…" he kept scratching even more furiously, then he stopped with his hand half-scratched down his neck. "Then, let's call _him_ ," Shigaraki said, lowering his hand down and turning to Kurogiri.

"He will charge a large sum," Kurogiri said, knowing exactly who Shigaraki was referring to. "Hunter, does not come cheap. He has shown willingness to work with us in the past, but-"

"Pay him whatever he wants," Shigaraki said, waving his hand like it was no problem. "If it's him, we'll get Sazaki back for sure. Then," Shigaraki's head bowed and his hands started shaking at his sides. "I'll have to find a way to step his _conditioning_ up." Spinner was not unnerved when he and Shigaraki were having their confrontation, but he got nervous at the look in Shigaraki's eyes now. "That, that _thing_ was tricking me," Shigaraki said, his voice low and with a new kind of rage in how calm his tone was. _That's what Master called him. I didn't realize it back then._ "It's not a human, more like a beast," Shigaraki growled. "Which means," his lips twisted back up at the corners, "it _can_ be tamed."

* * *

 **A/N Thanks for reading. Didn't put an Author's Note last time to just leave it on that note, and now we're suddenly six weeks later. Shit got dark fast. Zach escapes the villains, and now he's on his own. In hiding, on the run from the villains, and the _Hunter_ is being sent after him. Time flew by since Zach joined up with the villains after his court case in August. Lifebringer, his time slowing down saving people and whatever he was doing leading up to VTS, and the six weeks after to late December. Zach is finally away from them, but will it last? Where can he go? What can he do? Hope you're enjoying... Leave a review below telling me what you think, questions, or predictions. Review responses:**

The wielder of the blue flames chapter 27 . 16h ago

Honestly I saw this coming... but it still hurts.  
Zach was foolish to think the villains wouldn't find out about his relations after all his antics in the past.  
They may have done it... but he showed them the way to do it.

 **;( I don't think he really thought about them not realizing it, but still gotta be shocking when family's dragged into it. Thanks for the review.**

LordOfTee chapter 27 . 8h ago

GODDAMN! Shigaraki is a f*cking hardcore monster.  
He did all of that just for a piece that could change the whole board.  
If he's that ruthless what else is he willing to do for victory?

 **Shigaraki did it for the piece, and now he's lost that piece. What's he willing to do to get it back? To win? Thanks for reviewing.**

Nightsky of FlameClan chapter 27 . 3h ago

I have no words...

 **I have three.**

CPU-BLANC-WHITE HEART chapter 27 . 3h ago

Holy fuck that sounded horrible at the end

 **Yeah, that's not something one's ever going to forget...**

Guest chapter 27 . 21h ago

Fuuuuuck

 **Yea. Agreed.**

Guest chapter 27 . 1h ago

NOOOO.. I like jenny and I like her and Zach and I believe she has to be saved and I think Zach should unlock a new power to save her but have him not make to the parents in time and I want to she more of her in the story. But you do want you want just know that some people love Zach and jenny.

 **Nooo... I also liked Jenny. Didn't know how that chapter was going to end when I started it. Jenny's been there since the beginning, with Zach since much longer. She's been a part of his life through all we've seen of him. Zach and Jenny shippers... sorry. Thanks for the review, sorry for crushing your hopes in this chapter.**


	29. Chapter 29: New Year's

**Chapter 29:**

"A New Year's party?" Sero asked, leaning back on the chair at his table and putting his hands behind his head. "What would we even do for it?"

"I don't know," Kaminari said, shrugging his shoulders but then grinning more. "But hey we're stuck at school anyway. Doesn't mean the break has to feel like it! So let's do it." Kaminari slammed a fist down on the table showing his conviction for this party to happen.

"I think that is a great idea Kaminari-kun," a stern voice said behind Kaminari. Kaminari spun on his chair and his eyes grew as wide as Sero's were after hearing that from the tall boy with glasses standing there.

"Iida? Really?" Kaminari asked. He was too surprised to even get excited that Iida agreed with him. "You think it's a good plan?"

"Yes. We should make preparations at once," Iida said, and he lifted his hand and started scratching his chin. "Perhaps we should go shopping for decorations. Make it a conventional affair."

"Should we invite Class-B?" Sero wondered, getting into the idea now that it seemed likely to happen. If the class rep was talking about already buying decorations, it sounded set in stone. "Those guys have gotta feel as cooped up in their dorms as we do."

"Aha!" Kaminari lifted a hand and pointed back at Sero. "It's supposed to snow tomorrow night, yeah? We can have a big snowball fight between the classes! Or like, a snowman building contest- we could make a whole competition out of it!"

Sero was not suggesting it to be competitive, but he did grin at the idea of those games. A couple of girls in the kitchen were heading over to join in the conversation, and Hagakure jumped up excitedly at the sound of those suggestions. "Oh! I want to make a snowman!"

"We can only do it if it really snows tomorrow," Jirou said. "There's no telling if-"

Hagakure and Kaminari both turned to her with frowns and annoyed looks, though Jirou just assumed the kind of look Hagakure had from her sigh-hum. The dark-haired girl sweatdropped and added, "Not that, it won't snow." Kaminari's lips curled back up and he turned to Hagakure who turned back and started talking about how good she was at making snowmen.

"Let's do it then!" Kaminari said. "We'll see if Class-B wants to join- and knowing those 'we have to beat Class-A guys,' I'm sure we'll get a bunch of them to compete with us."

Kaminari imitated Monoma and even made a face while he said it, pushing down on the top of his spiky hair to make it look more like the other blond's. Sero started laughing while Iida smiled a bit too, and Hagakure was laughing along with Sero which had Kaminari letting go of his pushed-down hair and grinning. Jirou's eyes shifted to her right at the laughing invisible girl next to her, then back at the annoying spiky-haired blond who pulled out his phone to text some of the others in Class-A. _Why am I getting annoyed right now?_ She thought, and she turned away from the table with slightly red cheeks. "I'll go tell the other girls."

"Let's do it!" Hagakure called out, bouncing up and running next to Jirou.

The invisible girl turned in towards her friend and got confused by the semi-annoyed look that came to Jirou's face, but then they both turned around as Kaminari said, "Just put it in the class chat. And I told everyone Iida was in too, so they'll all know this is really happening."

"I do not see why I am the deciding factor-"

Footsteps started echoing through the building, and the group turned their heads towards the stairwell where voices started calling out from.

"Whoa! Is this serious!"

"Iida for real?!"

"New Year's Party!"

Iida sweatdropped and then he called out with his hands cupped to his mouth, "No running on the stairs! It is dangerous!" All the loud footsteps came to a sudden stop, as no one in the stairwell wanted to upset the class rep and make him lose the suddenly fun persona he must have had to accept this idea. _I knew everyone needed a morale boost, but I did not think Kaminari-kun's idea would get everyone so excited… Alright!_ Iida reached up and pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose, getting a more serious look on his face. _I will make this celebration a great success!_

* * *

"More snow? Why is it always snowing?" Zach lowered the garbage can lid that he was holding over his head down to the ground next to him. He pushed his legs out and kicked away the black bags in front of him between where he sat leaned-up against a wall and the alleyway with an inch of snow in it.

Zach got up, and he stretched his right arm up in the air. _How much sleep did I get?_ He reached back down and grabbed the plastic garbage can lid, and he put it on top of his hat. He had to focus on balancing it there, but he did not want the snow falling on him to start accumulating only to melt, which would get his clothes all wet.

He moved his right hand to his zipper slowly, and he slid the zipper down his jacket. The boy reached under his black hoodie that was below the jacket. He reached up, winced, and he pulled his arm out from under his clothes after another quick tap on his chest to stop his body from transforming. "Damn it," he muttered. Zach reached down and into his black sweatpants' pocket. He had the sweatpants over the dark pants he wore when he initially escaped, and they were managing to keep him at least a little warmer. Unfortunately they were not water-proof, but overnight hidden under the trash lid and pressed into a corner of an alley, they had lost the damp feeling he went to sleep in.

Zach pulled a wallet out of his pocket and he opened its money pouch. He stared into it, grimaced at the sight of such a small amount remaining, then he turned it around in his hand and looked at the I.D. on the inside. _Casey, DeAngelino. When I finish off the last of it, I'll mail this back to you. Hope you didn't go through canceling your credit cards and everything, getting a new driver's license…_ Zach lowered his wallet back down to his pocket and slid it in. _Don't want to be a burden on you. I'm sorry. I just needed clothes and food._

Zach moved around his left hand, and he reached up to his left shoulder with his right hand again. He rubbed from his left shoulder down the back of his left upper arm, and he winced in pain at the feeling through three sleeves and a bandage. He curled his fingers on his left hand a few times, keeping them warm and making sure blood was still circulating through them. The lid wobbled on his head and he moved it around to try and keep it balanced, but the lid fell over and hit the ground with a loud noise that made Zach snap his head both directions. He started bending to pick it up, then he stopped and shook his head, turning to the right again and the end of the alley. "It's time to move," he said, his breath coming out in front of his black face-mask.

He wore a black mask that he was glad did not stick out too much because of the cold. It covered up the bottom of his face and was dotted in small holes that still had fabric on them but was thinner to make it easy to breath. It had a bump in the middle for his nose, but it stopped right after the bump and below his eyes. He had on a red beanie too, covering up the top of his head and his ears. _Can they use facial recognition on just my eyes?_ Zach thought, a worry he had a lot since getting on this attire. _Moving around fast and shady-like would draw more attention to me though. I just have to avoid looking straight towards cameras as much as I can._

Zach stepped out onto a sidewalk and turned right, walking after a couple not far in front of him. He did not look around to see if anyone saw him come out of that alleyway, as that would be more suspicious if anyone did. He lifted up his hands in the black gloves he was wearing, and he breathed out onto them through his mask. They felt chilly despite the warm wool gloves beneath and the thicker ones over them, but Zach was nervous as he stared at the hands he held in front of his face. _Two layers of just normal gloves still doesn't do it. If I can still accidentally transform myself, a small touch with my right hand could still kill. I have to use my left hand as little as possible to let my arm heal, but in public I can only use my left._ Zach lowered his right hand and put it into his jacket pocket, curling it into a fist and repeating a mantra to himself. _Do not forget. You are wearing a glove, but you are a weapon. Don't move this hand around in public. It's never, never been this dangerous. I've never walked around in public like this, with a loaded gun pointed at everyone around me. Even if someone bumps into my jacket where I have my hand in the pocket, they might still be in danger. The layer of my jacket, the two gloves, and whatever layers they're wearing? No! Don't think of it skeptically. The threat is real. You are the threat._

A main road was coming up in front of him, and Zach slowed down while the snow falling around him was only speeding up. _Where am I going? I have to keep moving, in case I'm still being followed. I- I probably, no I definitely am being chased. Could they locate me? What is this freedom? Freedom to do what? Run and hide for the rest of my life?_ Zach lowered his gaze, but then snapped it up fast again, reminding himself to stay alert of anyone who might bump into his right side. _Being homeless in the winter, I heard it sucks. But the rest of the year. I could go into the woods, live like some hermit? Or go be a monk in the mountains? There are options! Things I can still do. Things that don't involve- that aren't painful, or scary. I have no one. I am on my own. But I can still, love this life. I can find something. I have to, find something. Or else, what's the point of it all? Why, would I still be fighting?_

Zach walked down the sidewalk of a main road in Musutafu, keeping far to the right side of the sidewalk at the edge of the road to avoid anyone moving on that side of him. His eyes shifted around the walkway in front of him while also glancing back to see if anyone was trying to overtake him from behind. He walked quickly, without much of a destination in mind, but he was so focused on what was on his side of the street, that he almost missed a small group walking down the opposite sidewalk.

The group passed by him, no cars between them on the road. As they were passing, Zach's head turned a bit to the right, into the street. His eyes widened below the beanie and above the face-mask, then his head turned back forward and he steadied his breathing. He kept walking straight without making a sound, but he was less alert now as he walked through the falling snow towards the next intersection. _That's… good. I'm happy…_ Zach's lips beneath his mask were shaking and the corners of them dipped down so far. He rose his right arm and rubbed over his eyes once, _I'm really, happy. They're happy. They looked, happy. So, so that's good! That's great. That's- that's…_ Zach bit down on his bottom lip and turned his head to the right again, glancing towards backs getting ever farther away from him. _That's so… good,_ he thought it, and a tear fell from the inner corner of his right eye, sliding under his mask, and a scar just beneath it.

* * *

"Heh, you guys look like you're in a good mood," Kirishima said as he looked towards the door of the dorm building.

"It's snowing like crazy out there!" Mineta called out as he ran inside. He rubbed his arms and then took off his hood, letting all the purple balls on his head pop up to their usual shape. He sounded like he was cold, but he was grinning too and holding bags in his hands.

"What'd you get?" Kirishima asked, walking over while Bakugo grunted and just leaned back on the couch instead of getting up. Bakugo looked over though out the corners of his eyes and listened as Iida, Mineta, Sero, Kaminari, Yaoyorozu, and Hagakure talked about what they had bought. The group of them had gotten permission to head off campus to go shopping, within an allotted time limit since they had not requested sooner to get a trip off of school grounds. U.A. had turned into a boarding school after all, but as it was set up in order to protect the students, there were rules regarding knowing which students were off campus at what times, and there would be big problems if they did not arrive back on time.

"Whoa! Look at all this food!" Kirishima pulled out some meat from one of the bags Iida was holding, and he lifted it up to show Bakugo who he saw looking over from the couch. "Looks like we're having our own barbecue here!"

"The events that Kendo-kun has agreed to will take place after we eat-" Iida began.

"So we eat as separate classes, then meet up for the countdown party? I like it!"

"That's right," Kaminari said, leaning forward with a big grin on his face. "We're keeping this going all the way to the countdown! New Year's Parties are the best because they have to go to at least midnight."

"I'm so excited," Hagakure said, holding up her hands in front of her chest and jumping up and down as she could barely contain her anticipation.

"This party, is going to be epic!"

* * *

Zach Sazaki froze where he stood on a busy sidewalk in Musutafu. He turned his head to the left, looked across the road, and his eyes grew huge while his heart started pounding. _That's him. That's, the same guy I saw two intersections ago, the one I thought I recognized from even earlier!_ Zach turned back forward, as the guy he looked towards was not looking towards him. _Did he see me look his way? Shit. I shouldn't have made that obvious. Who is it? Who found me?!_

Zach continued walking down the sidewalk. _Alright, calm down. It's still the middle of the day, even if the snow is making it less crowded than usual. Oh no. Oh no oh no. This is no time to be calm! I'm so fucked! Who could have found me? I haven't left a trail or anything-_ Zach's eyes widened more but he continued to move at a slow pace. _Did they, did they hire_ _ **him**_ _? Oh shit! Shigaraki totally would go that far!_

The boy turned right down the next road. He hesitated as he neared an alleyway, slowing down more. _No._ He walked by it. _If I duck in somewhere, he might just corner me. And then he could call up Kurogiri with where he is, and he could get me! What if I go in and turn on Nightmare? Can I take him? NO! This, if this really is Hunter. It's only been what, four days? How did he find me so fast? I changed cities. I took a dozen different trains. I spent up half that guy's train card, and it wasn't under his name or anything so there was no way for him to just call and cancel it. It's a card you put money on… I should just ditch it anyway. WHAT ARE YOU THINKING ABOUT!?_ Zach shook his head around and he picked up the speed of his walk, following a family ahead of him that had small children with them.

He slowed down after getting close to that family. _What am I doing? These are villains. Don't, just assume they won't attack because there are civilians around- but I have to! If I isolate myself right now, he might get me! He might have been about to catch me when I left the alley this morning. What if, what if he's been following me ever since?_ Zach's breath showed through his mask as he was panting heavier, and his eyes darted around in fear that someone would notice his increased panic.

 _What is the Hunter's Quirk? Hunter, he, I never met him before, but he's the one Shigaraki would call for this! I already knew- I suspected-_ Zach bit down hard and he turned again onto another street, with plans to turn at the next intersection as well, as he picked up his walk into a light jog that someone might do in order to get home and out of the snow faster. _Those villains, who stole the League's costume shipment. Shigaraki knew someone must have betrayed us for those illegal costumes to have all been stolen, for the Crazzles to know which truck had them. We couldn't find them, probably because Riptide was leaking our every move. So Shigaraki outsourced, found Hunter. They spent a week looking for them, but Hunter took a few hours. The things he did to them…_ Zach's scared eyes widened, and then they narrowed and his hands stopped shaking, tightening into harder fists in his pockets.

 _The things he did to them, were child's play. I thought, at the time it happened, that he was brutal. I almost gagged in my mouth at the sight of the pictures, almost broke character in front of Dabi and Kurogiri…_ Zach's eyes narrowed down more, and his teeth clenched as hard as both of his fists were, his left arm hurting at how hard he was tightening his left hand. _But that wasn't brutality. If Hunter comes for me. If he keeps on my trail by tonight, I'll kill him. No! I'll tear him apart!_

* * *

"Hey! No Quirks!"

"You said no using Quirks to throw snowballs faster, nothing about making forts-"

"No Quirk-usage at all will be tolerated!" Iida called out, standing up from behind the snow wall in front of him to call that over to the arguing parties. They both looked over and Mineta let out a loud groan while Torodoki just stopped using his ice powers next to the small boy who told him it was okay to use them this way in the first place. Mineta stopped groaning and he started laughing though, as did most people who had looked Iida's way when he shot up, as five snowballs hit him in the side and knocked him backwards.

Midoriya lifted up a hand over his mouth to keep from laughing, as did Uraraka on his left side. Then the curly-haired boy lowered his hand and called over to the taller boy fixing his glasses, "Iida, are you okay?"

"I did not expect such an attack while I was settling a dispute in the rules," Iida said, and he lowered his head afterwards. "How could I let my guard down so much?" He slammed a fist down at his side, and the others looking towards him sweatdropped at how seriously he took that surprise attack.

Shoji looked down at his arms while he leaned back against a taller snow wall that he, Koda, and Sato were leaning against. The other two on his sides looked in at the tallest boy in the class, and one of Shoji's six hands turned into a mouth. "No one's said anything so far," he said. The other two looked at him, and he shrugged before turning that mouth back into a hand and continuing to roll up snowballs three at a time.

"Haha! Let's do this!" Sato stood up with some of the snowballs from the huge pile they had built up. He wound up, then he got hit in the face and snapped backwards. It looked like he was going to fall, then he stomped his right foot back behind him and bent down, putting the top of his head forward towards the oncoming snowballs. "Take THIS!" He threw his own attacks rapid fire towards the enemy fortresses, at the students from Class B across the front lawn of Class A's dorm where their battle was taking place.

"Flanking party! With me!"

A group of Class-A students kneeling down behind a wall spun their heads the other direction, and they eyes opened huge at the sight of Monoma running at them from behind with a group of six other Class B guys. They all started chucking snowballs while on a strafing run right by the north side of the Class-A combined fortress. The attack was brutal, and Class-A students yelled out while spinning out and trying to dodge the snowballs raining into them.

Monoma turned his head after passing the side of the base in front of his small army. "How do you like that Class-A? Aren't you supposed-"

"DIE!" Bakugo yelled.

Everyone in Class-A spun towards the boy they could only get to join when they said that Class-A might lose without him, which would then represent that Bakugo was a worse snowball fighter since he was a part of Class-A. Bakugo swung his arm forward hard while shouting 'DIE' and Monoma's face filled with shock in the second before his head snapped backwards and his legs lifted off the ground. Bakugo had the bottom of his jacket pulled up in front of him to hold a dozen snowballs, and he lifted another one even as he was bombarded from other members of Class-B. He took every hit like he barely felt it, then he fired another snowball so fast that his own class wondered if he was secretly using his Quirk, yet somehow the snowballs were not exploding.

The flanking team trying to run back towards their side of the lawn got nailed, every last one of them, with hits that knocked them off their feet and made them regret following Monoma's attack strategy even if it had worked at first. Class-A started cheering, while Class-B stopped wasting their snowballs on the boy who was covered in snow but just kept grinning as the Class-B members scrambled back up and ran towards their fort.

"Guess Bakugo's number one at snowball fights too," Sero said, looking to his right at Kirishima and laughing.

"Oi," Bakugo said, and he turned his head to the right to glare straight at the middle of Class-B's snow fort. All of the scattered snowball fights along the lines of the forts came to a stop as everyone on the lawn looked towards the boy near the middle of Class-A's fort. "I'm tired of this back and forth. It's time to attack!"

All of Class A and B stared at him with lowered lips for a second as Bakugo smirked towards the other class's fort. "Let's destroy their fort."

"Um, Bakugo-kun. I do not think that is how snowball fights-"

"I'm in Bakugo!" Kirishima called out, jumping to his feet and ignoring Iida's protest. He ran forward and jumped over the wall to their side, and Bakugo jumped forward at the same time. Sato turned to Shoji and Koda and grinned, then he jumped up and over the wall as well, with Shoji right behind him, and Koda just following since he was the last one there.

The fact that Koji Koda was one of the first ones over the wall though, made the majority of Class A feel like they were falling behind. Everyone scrambled up while picking up as many of the pre-made snowballs they had around them, or scooping up more snow as they rose.

"Everyone prepare yourselves!" Kendo shouted to her classmates. The others who had just retreated back behind the walls were scooting backwards, expecting some reprieve from their destruction as they had made it to safety. The rest of of Class-B rose up their snowballs and threw them for some defense as Class-A charged their fort.

The Class-A students leapt up on the walls and threw snowballs down, but Kirishima got slammed by a dozen at the same time as the first person up there, and he flew backwards and landed on his back. He rose an arm up dramatically, then he brought it down and wiped the snowball off of his face. "Brrr," Kirishima shivered, then he started laughing and jumped back up as his classmates were all running by him. "Let's end this!" He yelled.

"Destroy their fort too!" Tetsutetsu shouted, running over the wall farther down the line. "While it's unprotected!" Shiozaki and Honenuki leapt up behind him and ran towards Class-A's fort, and the few who had stayed behind to stay out of the chaos looked over to see the trouble coming. Both forts were destroyed in under a minute, and the front lawn of Class-A's building at Heights Alliance dorm complexes became a warzone. The area turned into more chaos than an organized battleground, but Kendo and Iida were keeping an eye on everyone to make sure the rules were followed. No one took it too far though, (though Bakugo came close with a few warnings from Iida), but overall, the classes were smiling and having a good time.

* * *

"Not good. This is not good," Zach was running down a side road in some suburbs not far from a train station he just left. "How is he here already? Did he follow me on the train? Can he fly?" Zach looked over his shoulder and back down the road, but he could not see anyone behind him. That only made him more panicked though, because he knew the guy was still there since he had spotted him only a minute earlier.

His eyes darted up into the dark sky above that was still dropping snowflakes down, though slower than it had earlier in the afternoon. The white everywhere had tricked Zach into thinking it was earlier, though really he had just been hoping all day that the daytime would last forever, and people would stay on the streets. It was New Year's after all, and he was hoping people would be out at bars celebrating. _Why did it have to snow today?!_ Zach thought. _Why, is it going to get worse tonight? Why are bars closing- because they don't want their patrons walking home drunk and falling asleep in the snow and dying… but still! Couldn't one just stay open?! I could stay near it, and people would be going in and out all the time and I wouldn't have to-_

Zach came to a stop and he stared down the sidewalk to the next intersection. A man just walked out from around the corner and turned his way. The man did not stop when he saw him, or slow down, he just kept walking with his hands down in the pockets of his long black coat. He had on a black hat with a rim around it, and he had on a black mask similar to Zach's that covered up the bottom half of his face. That man turned towards Zach and kept walking like he was your everyday passerby, but Zach had seen him over a dozen times that day. He had seen the man everywhere he looked, and the man was walking straight towards him.

"Oh fuck, oh fuck fuck," Zach started walking backwards, then he turned and sprinted out into the road and straight down it. The roads were cleared by snow-plows, so he could run faster on them than he could on the sidewalks that were starting to get slippery. Zach started sprinting as fast as he could down the road, a look of sheer panic on his face. _What do I do?!_ _Do I fight?! Can I beat him?! He's everywhere! He's going to get me! He's, going to bring me back to Shigaraki- I'd rather die! I'd really, rather die! So do it then!_

Zach clenched his eyes closed and he sprinted even faster than he knew he could. _NO! I don't, want to! I'm free! If he catches me though, that torture wouldn't be like last time. It- could it be worse? That's…_ Zach's lips trembled and then he bit down hard on his bottom lip. _Should I kill him? I could break the rule. I've seen what Hunter does. The kind of_ _ **monster**_ _he is. No, no no no No! No killing. That's, the easy way. But he's going to get me. Unless, I fight. I have to fight. I can't do it in the open though. If we make a lot of noise in a place like this, police will come, people will take pictures, Kurogiri will make portals and take me away. Fight or die. Fight or die. Fight or die? FIGHT!_

* * *

"I still think Class-B's snow-giant was better," Monoma muttered, his arms crossed as he stood near the wall behind the tables in Class-A's dorm.

Kuroiro looked next to him at the blond boy leaning there, and he said, "It was hard to see for you guys. They'll still be out there in the morning, and we can get a better look at how they ended up."

"If Kendo and Class-A's rep didn't end the contest early, we would've won for sure," Kosei agreed with Monoma, leaning forward past Kuroiro to say it to the blond leaning on the dark boy's other side.

"It's snowing too hard," Kuroiro said, agreeing with the decision the class reps made. "Besides, it got way too cold."

"What a way to bring in the New Year. Starting it on a blizzard," Kosei leaned back against the wall. The boy with short spiky brown hair smirked and added, "Though, guess it's also a cool way to finish off the year."

To the right of the three Class-B boys in the crowded common room of Class-A's dormitory, the couches were all packed around the television in the corner of the room. Both Kendo and Iida prepared for when everyone would come back inside after their outdoor activities back when they were shopping for their respective classes earlier, so the kitchen and dining area was full of people sipping hot chocolate with mini marshmallows in them. There had been some sweets and snacks on the counters too, but the bags of chips were brought to different tables and the small table in between the couches wound up having most of the snacks on it as the party centered there instead of the kitchen.

"'I totally drilled you with the last snowball right before they called it,'" Sato read off the speech bubble sticking out of one of the Class B student's necks. Manga Fukidashi then started laughing which popped up in text over his head too, while Sato said, "That was you?!" He had been hit hard in the back of the head right at the end of the fight and looked around for who did it but no one from Class-B had taken the credit. "That was a cheap shot and you know it…"

Over on the left couch in the sitting area, Yaoyorozu sat on one side with two other girls sitting on her left. Shiozaki and Kendo were both in Class-B, but they were talking freely with Yaoyorozu who laughed with a hand over her mouth at something Kendo said. Juzo Honenuki suddenly pushed his head over the top of the couch between the two girls from Class-B's faces, making them jump in a bit of surprise. "Hey Kendo, do you have the remote? It's almost time."

"Really?" Kendo asked, and she looked back towards the tv that was at a low volume since no one was really watching while they were all talking to each other. Her eyes widened at the countdown, and she said with a small laugh, "I totally lost track of the time." Kendo looked to either side of her, shifting her weight a bit and reaching down where she found the remote she had put down after lowering the volume earlier. "Here," she said, handing it up to Honenuki whose eyes widened in a bit of surprise, before he reached forward and grabbed it and pulled back fast.

"Um, thanks," he said, then he shook his head around and pointed the remote towards the tv to turn it up a few notches.

The others sitting on couches in the area or standing around them turned towards the tv as they started hearing the song coming from it louder. They wondered why it was being turned up, and most of them looked at the countdown in the corner in surprise. "This is probably the last song before they go back to do the actual countdown," Kaminari said from the left side of the couch centered in front of the tv. He turned to his right and the girl who he had been talking to with Sero who sat on her other side.

"The, countdown," Hagakure said slowly, turning back to the screen again after facing Kaminari when he spoke. "I- I have to, go to the bathroom," Hagakure said, jumping out of her seat real quick.

"Huh, oh-" Kaminari leaned back as the girl ran in front of him. She was wearing more casual clothes than most of the people in Class-B had on, as were a lot in Class-A, but all the wet clothes from their outer layers were gathered around near the heaters by the door. Iida had been very organized when they all came in to make sure the entire common area did not get wet, then some in Class-A had gone up to their rooms to get changed into more comfortable clothes. A couple from Class-B had run back to their dorms too, but with the snow coming down as hard as it was, most of them did not want the extra two trips.

Kaminari turned and watched Hagakure go, then he leaned back on the couch and put his hands behind his head again. "Another year gone by," Kaminari remarked. "Another missed opportunity."

Sero looked towards Kaminari and laughed at what the blond boy was referring to. Then Sero noticed something over Kaminari's head, standing past the other side of the couch and looking towards the oblivious blond boy who just started watching the countdown with a relaxed look on his face. Sero snickered and then got up off the couch, making the blond turn to him and ask, "What? Not going to watch?"

"Still got a couple minutes," Sero said and waved a hand off at him. "I'm going to grab some more hot chocolate."

Kaminari shrugged, not feeling cold himself anymore since they had been inside for a while. He scooted into the middle and stretched out his arms now that no one was sitting next to him, putting his head back and letting out an exhausted sigh. He grinned at the sounds of everyone talking around the room, and he closed his eyes and thought, _This was the best idea. Just a fun day. No training, no studying, nothing but a party._

"Oi, move your arm," Kaminari lifted his head and then pulled his left arm out of the way fast as Jirou was already sitting without waiting for him to move it.

"Dang, almost thought I'd get the whole couch all the way to the countdown," Kaminari said, shrugging his shoulders while smirking at the girl next to him who gave him an annoyed look before switching to a smug one.

"Oh I'm so sorry," she said, while leaning back on the couch herself and taking up more room by putting her hands back behind her head with her elbows out.

The singing on the screen stopped, and it went back to the hosts of the countdown party. "What I would give to be in Tokyo right now," Kirishima said, leaning over the top of the center couch on the right of Kaminari's head. He hopped over the back of it and continued to the blond boy next to him and the girl who looked over from Kaminari's left, "There's gotta be like a million people out there!"

"You know, every year when the countdown hits zero, all those people do a special tradition," Kaminari said. Kirishima's eyebrows lifted up, while the girl behind Kaminari opened her eyes wide. "I hear there's always a lot of trouble because so many of the people out there are drunk by this time, and when the countdown hits zero they all pop off their Quirks into the air. The ones who can at least."

"Yeah, can you _not_ do that?" Jirou said, leaning forward off the couch and giving Kaminari a threatening look. "If you knock out the power on a night as cold as this-"

"I won't, I won't," Kaminari assured, holding up his hands defensively. "It's just something I saw last New Year's when I was watching the countdown. Even though it's so discouraged, the cameras always pan around to try and catch all the cool Quirks people show off. Probably gets them in trouble, haha," Kirishima laughed with him, and then someone from Class-B behind the couch called out, 'One minute left!'

Hanta Sero stood back at a table not far from the couches. Most of the others around the common room were moving closer to the backs of the couches so they could all chant the countdown together. Sero looked towards the couch he had gotten up from, but he shook his head with a mock-disappointed look on it while still smiling wide. "Tsk tsk," he said as he shook his head at the two who started arguing again, only to turn as Kirishima started the countdown earlier than anyone, yelling out '35!' as excitedly as if he were yelling out '1.' Kaminari and Jirou both sweatdropped as '34' came out in an even more excited way, but this time a few others actually joined in with them as they thought it was time to start counting down.

Midoriya stood behind the couch that Yaoyorozu and two Class-B girls were sitting on, and he turned to Uraraka who was standing next to him. "Hey Uraraka," he started. She turned to him and was about to call out a number with Kirishima, but she froze at the more serious look on Deku's face. Her eyes opened huge and her cheeks started to turn red, and then Midoriya asked, "Do you have any New Year's resolutions?" He turned back forward after asking and looked towards the tv and the countdown. "I've been thinking about mine."

Uraraka's face only turned more red in the following seconds as she thought about what she had assumed, then she shook her head around and put a finger up to her chin. "New Year's resolutions? I, didn't really think about it."

On the couch in front of them, Yaoyorozu glanced over her shoulder as she heard what Midoriya said. She turned back to look at the tv, then glanced out the corners of her eyes to the left where Tetsutetsu and Honenuki were both leaning forward and calling out numbers with Kendo and Shiozaki now. _New Year's, resolution?_ Yaoyorozu thought. She stared towards the screen and the number '15' that popped up in the middle of it now that the camera was zooming in on the giant building in Tokyo that everyone at that huge party was shouting at.

"Fourteen!" The building was a lot louder with the shout this time, as more people who were initially annoyed at how early it started got into it.

"Hey, Ojiro…"

"Thirteen!"

"You better not spark off."

"I'm not going to! Geez, you know that's not the _only_ New Year's' tradition that happens at midnight?"

"Twelve!"

Yaoyorozu shifted her eyes from the tv over to her right. Her gaze passed over the couch on the other side of the coffee table where some other Class B students were sitting with some of her own classmates standing behind them and chanting with everyone. Yaoyorozu glanced to her right at the center couch in the room. Jirou's face was red for some reason, and Kaminari started laughing a second later while everyone was shouting 'Eleven.' _Jirou, Kaminari,_ Yaoyorozu thought, and she smiled softly as Jirou hit Kaminari on the shoulder and snapped something at him which made him lean away.

 _Zach,_ Yaoyorozu glanced back towards the tv as the countdown dropped below ten and most everyone was chanting now. She herself stopped calling out numbers already though, and her smile lowered down at what she just thought. Seeing the two others who were with them at USJ, seeing everyone in the room happy and chanting and laughing, Yaoyorozu wanted to keep going with all of them. She could not find it in her to keep smiling though, her eyes shifting down from the screen to the floor of the room between the couches. _Where is he right now? No one's, seen him for months. Early November, and it's January in six seconds. He hasn't saved anyone in so long. Zach, are you really alive out there? Are you safe?_

Kaminari was leaning back towards Jirou to say something to her, but Kirishima called out 'Five' so loud behind him that he waited a half a second to start up. But when he took his brief pause, he spotted Yaoyorozu past Jirou and on the other couch. Everyone around her was staring at the tv and chanting the number 'Four,' so he was the only one to notice. His eyes went wide, and Jirou got confused and spun around with a semi-flustered look at what took Kaminari's attention away. Those kinds of thoughts faded from her mind though, as she saw Yaoyorozu's sad expression and her gaze aimed at the floor instead of the tv.

Jirou opened her mouth to ask, 'What's wrong,' but she stopped herself from doing so. She told herself that she just did not want to make a big deal out of it and have other people look towards Momo, but really she just already knew the answer. Jirou turned to Kaminari to say something about it, but he had leaned back in his seat already and was staring towards the tv in a quieter way than the others around him.

"Two!" Kirishima yelled it so loud and was out of his chair, pumping a fist up in the air. So the fact that the guy next to him was not standing up and yelling made him turn his head back. He looked at Kaminari who he last saw a few seconds earlier smiling and laughing with Jirou. The spiky-haired blond's mouth had dipped and he was staring straight at the tv screen with a sad look on his face. Kirishima's eyes opened wide, while everyone in the room yelled out, 'One!'

"Happy New Year!" Thirty people shouted at the same time, and they all started cheering and making a lot of noise. Jirou looked back and forth between Yaoyorozu and Kaminari, and she pursed her lips in an upset way at how the new year just started. Sero was cheering with everyone else, but he kept his eye close to the couch and shook his head once more as he saw Kaminari and Jirou's heads still far apart. He caught a glimpse of Yaoyorozu's face past them right as Kendo was turning to her and asking her a question, but Yaoyorozu's face lit back up and she smiled in a normal way at Kendo's question. Then Sero's eyes shifted over to behind that couch, and behind Midoriya and Uraraka who cheered along with everyone else.

Sero stared towards a boy with a thick tail and blond hair that matched the color of the fur at the end of his tail. His cheeks were bright red and his eyes huge, and Sero got a semi-confused look on his face, until he noticed that there was a second set of clothes floating in front of Ojiro's. Sero's eyes bulged and his bottom lip lowered, even more than Ojiro himself. Then Sero started laughing as he looked around and saw no one else in the room noticed. _Perk of being an invisible girl, huh? Too bad I was on the lookout!_

Yaoyorozu turned away from Kendo after assuring her that it was nothing and she was just thinking something strange for a second. She looked back towards the tv where the cameramen were aiming their cameras all around the giant party in the streets towards people illegally setting off their Quirks in fun ways that had police rushing towards them. Yaoyorozu kept her smile on her face, but it lowered down a bit as she stared at the screen where the countdown was stuck on '0.' _Zach. If I had a New Year's resolution this year, just one. It would be to find you. I don't think I can do it. But I want you to come back. Aizawa sensei said your name had been taken off the roster the first day of this last term, and there was one less seat in the classroom, but we've all known it this whole time. Class-A is missing a student. We miss you. I… I just want to know, that you're safe._

* * *

"Happy New Year's!"

Zach heard a shout come from a third story window above him where someone stuck their arms out and started banging two pots together to make a lot of noise. He could not slow down though. He hobbled forward as fast as he could, a dark figure with glowing red eyes limping through the night. _I need to run!_ Snow fell heavily around him, and Zach spun around the next corner of the alley and put his back up against it for a few seconds. His whole body wisped out darkness, and he breathed heavily and in long breaths as he rose his hands in front of his body.

Zach turned his head and darted his gaze back down the alley he just ran-hobbled through. He had his left hand lifted and ready to throw the swirling black haze over it that kind of looked like a ball if it were not so loose in form. He spun back and forth, then he turned around to see if there was anyone in the alley that he just ran into. _I wish I had run through alleys more during my training. I always wanted to see so much, look around at everything, that I never thought of mapping out all these alleyways! And it's going to get me killed!_

He heard a noise behind him and ran back into the three-way intersection of the alley before throwing his hand down and making the black swirling mass on his bloody hand hit the floor. Snow blew up from the collision, making a black and white wind rush out down every possible way he could move. Then Zach came running out of one of the directions, not the way he came from or first turned into, but the way he would have gone had he kept going straight in the first place.

Zach ran forward, wincing with every step and leaving a trail of red behind him as he could feel his right shoe was already sopping with blood. His entire right pant leg was wet, at least the first layer of pants were. The outer layer had been ripped off from the thigh down, just as his left sleeves had been leaving that bloody arm bare. _Did he know where I was injured? He reopened the wound on purpose, he must have,_ Zach thought, glancing again towards his left arm. Even with the black veil over his whole body, he could see the red drenching down his entire arm. _I'm losing, so much blood, again,_ Zach thought, staggering to a stop towards the end of the alley, then glancing behind him to see if anyone was there.

The boy lifted his head after looking back and seeing no one. _If only, I had, my grappling gun. Dabi said my, mobility needed work. I could get to the rooftops… then what? I can't, jump like this._ He turned and started staggering forward again. He exited onto a dark street, and he could not tell where he was. The roads were no longer plowed, the snow was coming down too hard for the plows to hit these areas on the outskirts of the city as often. Zach heard more shouting coming from the upper floor of a building near him. "Hey, want to help me-" he stopped his half-hearted call for help and shook his head around. "Don't drag anyone, into this," he muttered, thinking on the woman in the warehouse who he abandoned in order to escape Spinner. "You've all done, enough," Zach said, and he reached into his pocket, pulled out a wallet, and he dropped it on the floor behind him before he kept staggering right out into the middle of the abandoned road.

"Alright!" Zach called out, spinning around in a circle. He almost fell as he finished his spin. He looked towards the alley he came from, then up towards the roofs around him. He was in an area with some small apartment complexes and run-down offices, but he could not think of how the place would look in the daytime and without snow cover so he didn't recognize it. "Come on Hunter. Where are you?" Zach asked, his voice normal-toned while he glared around at all the rooftops, all the windows, all the different alleys and entranceways to buildings. "People might be leaving friends' New Year's' parties soon. Can't let me be out here when they come out, can you?" He hesitated, then he called out louder, "Wait, can you?!"

Zach snapped his head left and glared at the top of a nearby building. "I know you can fly!" He shouted. _Are there really parties going on around here? Hearing a few people in their houses celebrating, I just assume people will come out? And if they do, then what? Kurogiri finds me at a police station? Or Hunter kills them before they can do a thing-_ Zach lifted up his right arm and swung it in front of his face. The jaw of his skull showing through the thin black aura on his face lowered. His jaw lowered, and Zach let out a gasp of air that looked like black steam and covered up more of his face that had been losing some of the black veil with the recent attacks he tried.

Zach lowered his right hand and looked at the knife he had caught by the blade. He saw some blood get on it, but he caught it while it was moving pretty fast, and he caught it right on the blade. "It barely nicked me," he muttered, wondering about the black veil over his hand. "How did I catch it?" He added in just as much confusion, then he lifted his gaze and flipped the knife around while his black aura seeped over the weapon. He held the hilt upside-down and brought it back towards his chest, keeping the blade pointed out in front of him while he rose his left hand into a curled fighting position.

A knife came flying at Zach, right towards the first knife he was already holding. Zach pulled the weapon back and turned the blade to try and hit the other one away. He had brought the hilt too close to his chest though, that as he pulled back to deflect, his own hand touched his chest. The knife that hit his knife next pushed it harder into him, while also slicing open one of his fingers. It sliced through without a problem, because the black aura vanished off of Zach's hand in that same instant.

Zach pulled his bloody hand away from his chest, then he started pulling it back in. Two hands slammed onto the back of Zach and slammed him into the snowy street. One hand grabbed him by the back of the head, the other by his right shoulder-blade that the man pushed something sharp into so hard that Zach felt something tearing inside his back. He lost feeling inside most of his right arm, while he felt pain filling his entire body. The figure who had a hand on the back of Zach's head moved that hand around his head and covered Zach's mouth with it before pulling his head off of the floor.

"Hard to hunt something I can't kill, and I can't touch," Hunter said. Zach's head turned sideways as the man with the creepy voice pulled it to one side, and Zach looked up into the scariest eyes he had ever seen before. Not only were they the eyes of a villain, not only were they the only thing Zach could see on the man's face that had a mask covering the bottom and a hat covering the top, but they were the eyes of a man who was not going to listen to anything Zach tried bargaining him with.

 _He's going to take me back!_ Zach thought, and he struggled to pull his head out of the man's grasp. Hunter had his hand over Zach's mouth to prevent him from screaming, but Zach was not trying to move his mouth from the hand, only trying to make it so he could move his head better. He slammed down as hard as he could with his head, while opening his mouth and biting at the same time. He bashed his head through the snow and made a hole all the way to the pavement, but it did not hurt much the first time because of the cushion. As Hunter moved his hand though, and the snow was now parted while Zach pulled up again, he had a clear shot on the pavement and nothing keeping him from smashing his head as hard as he possibly could. "AhhhAHAH!" He sob-screamed as he smashed his head down towards the pavement, doing it as hard as he could to try and prevent himself from ever waking up again.

"As I said," Hunter's hand re-wrapped around Zach's head, but on his forehead this time. Zach still pushed down towards the ground, and Hunter stopped talking because his hand hit the floor with such force that it actually hurt even while pulling the boy's head back. "Can't kill you, and I also can't let you kill yourself," Hunter said. He flipped Zach over, and he had a black sack in his hand that he slid over Zach's unmoving right arm. He scooped up some snow as he got the arm in the bag too, not caring to be precise when it could mean getting killed.

"If you don't bring me back," Zach started. "I'll- I'll do whatever you want. I'll grant-ack, grant you three wishes!" He yelled, his voice cracking and breaking as he yelled it.

"Grant wishes now?" Hunter said while he stood up, dragging Zach to his feet at the same time and pulling out another sack, this one for Zach's head. He stopped and looked down at the boy's right arm that was in a special sack tied tightly around his bicep so it would no slip off. "You can bring people to life, kill people, and you've got the appearance of…" Hunter lifted his head back up from the hand he covered to stare into the terrified boy's eyes. "No way," Hunter said, shaking his head. "I know what this is. It's one of those, deals with the devil. Those always go wrong," he shook his head at the boy who leaned his head back with a look of even more shocked horror on his face.

 _The devil?_ _ **HE**_ _thinks_ _ **I'M**_ _the devil?! FUCCKKKK!_ Zach's eyes were shaking and his mouth twisted up so far while he looked into Hunter's eyes. Hunter was raising the sack to put over Zach's head again, but Zach had pulled his mask down to make it easier to breathe during the fight-chase he had been having for hours now. Zach smirked at the man before him with an absolutely insane look on his own face to match the eyes of the villain. "What do you, think is worse?" Zach asked. "Making a deal with the-ack, ack gah," he started coughing, his body feeling weak and tired and unhealthy. He lifted up the corner of his chapped lips and regained a half-smirk on his pale face after the coughing fit though. "Or, handing the devil off, to someone who will torture him? I'll- if you do this, my wrath will know no end." Zach's eyes squinted more, his lips curling down, as he went for the biggest bluff in his life. "You will burn for eternity. In the hell flames. In the pit. And I will be your master until the end of time."

Hunter kept staring into the kid's eyes from close up, and he reached down and grabbed a knife off of his waist, dropping the sack on the floor. "You're freaking me out. So I'm just going to kill you. I'll tell Shigaraki it was unavoidable."

What should have felt like a huge relief to Zach, made his eyes shoot open wide in panic. "W-Wait," he started. "I'm not really the-" he paused, and then his face scrunched up in so much conflicted frustration. _I don't want to die! I don't want to go back! WHY ARE THOSE, the only two, options?_ Zach closed his eyes and never finished what he was saying, holding his breath and preparing for the end.

"I don't believe you," Hunter said, and he stabbed his knife forward.

 _ **Clink!**_

Zach opened his eyes fast. He stared at Hunter's knife that was flying out of his hand, and the man in front of him yanked him backwards while leaping up in the air. He leapt so high up that Zach let out a gasp as they were suddenly on the top of a four-story apartment building that had cracked walls and a few boarded windows so it looked like half the rooms were uninhabited. Hunter turned and bent his legs to jump again, but as he made to leap into the air, he yelled out and snapped his gaze down.

Zach followed Hunter's eyes down to the man's legs, and his own eyes opened a little more before closing to the less-than-half-open state they were in previously. His eyes closed a little more but bounced open when he felt a jolt on top of another roof. He heard Hunter's voice growl, "I know you."

He felt a hard drop as he landed down on the roof, but it was not as rough as he thought it should be. He felt cold a second later and remembered how there was a thick layer of snow all over the roof they were on. His body half-sank into it with the initial drop, and through the one eye not in the snow, Zach saw the man in front of him slash down between his pressed-together legs with a long curved knife.

Zach Sazaki's head turned a little more and he looked up to see Hunter leaping off the building. Someone was on the next building down's roof, and they leapt up at the same time Hunter did. They each slashed at each other, then the man who had been on the other building landed next to Zach and reached down, grabbing the boy by the back of the shirt. "…the drop." Zach's hearing was fuzzy and one of his ears was full of snow, so he did not hear much of what the man just said to him. He did hear 'the drop' though, and before he could wonder what it meant, he was falling off of the building.

 _The fuck is happening?_ Zach thought. His eyes closed, then when they opened back up he was getting dragged by his left arm. The person dragging him was fast, but chasing after their backs was someone Zach did not recognize. The man was in all black but did not look to be dressed for winter considering how thin all his clothing was. Even his headwear was not a beanie or warm face-mask, but a hard black mask that covered up the top half of his face and the top of his skull. That man leapt up in the air and Zach's eyes followed him up for a second, but his eyelids were closing and he did not see what happened next.

The next thing he knew he was lying on the ground again, this time with more of his body out of the snow. He was in an alleyway that did not get a lot of snow in it because of how close the buildings were together which meant the wind blowing the snow up above kept it from filling up in here. Zach turned his head and lifted the top half of his body. He lowered his right hand down and winced in pain from more than the wound on his back, feeling a cut on his palm and on his right ring finger too. The pain actually shook him out of the daze he had been in for a bit though, and he shook his head around while regaining a sense of himself.

"I'm alive," he muttered. "And, not captured?" He wondered, looking down to his right hand. He stared at the black sack that was definitely tied around his hand, and he reached over to try and untie it with only his left, just to find the knot impossible to take out like that. He winced as he used his left arm to try this, and he finally dropped the bloody arm back to his left side. Zach leaned against the wall behind him, and he let out a long breath that hung in the air in front of him. The cold stone wall, the nice breeze through his short and messy black hair, it all felt so nice to him at the moment. His eyes opened up and he saw a warm glow around everything in his vision. "This is nice…" he blinked a few times, then he lowered his gaze to his left arm that was still bleeding, then his right leg that was bloody too and straight-out limp out in front of him even after he had curled his left knee towards his chest. _But it hurt moving my right leg,_ he thought, a sad look on his face as he tried telling himself to move that leg too.

 _Fuck…_ He heard the curse far back in his head, but his body and the rest of his mind ignored it. _I'm dying…_ Zach's eyes widened more, and he looked down at himself. He rose up his right arm and brought his aching hand to his chest that groaned in pain from a bruise. He pressed his palm against his chest, then he frowned and moved the sacked-up hand from his body. _Guess he found something, that blocks it. They had my medical records, I guess._ Zach lifted his right hand and pressed it through the sack into the wall behind him, and he started sliding his back up the wall while unbending his curled-in left leg. _How the fuck, am I going to, survive this?_

Zach slid up farther, but putting weight on his right leg made it feel more wet. He felt more blood was coming out of the wound on his right thigh. _Would Hunter have risked, a fatal wound, at first? Maybe, he just wanted me to, pass out from blood loss, then he'd patch me…_ Zach started leaning to the side and almost fell, but he slammed both palms backwards into the wall and brought the back of his head back into it too. The slam of his head hurt a lot, and he realized he put more strength into that slam than he had thought. _That hurts like Hell, but I know where I am now! Focus! I have to get out of here while whatever's going on keeps-_ Zach turned and took a step farther into the alley, then a figure dropped in front of him and landed hard on the ground.

There was less than an inch of snow in the alley, with only light flurries making it in from above. The guy who hit the ground did not have a soft landing at all. He was wearing black, and he did not have on Hunter's black coat that Zach saw him wearing earlier. "God damn it," Zach said, and he rose his right hand towards his mouth to try and tear the sack off. He bit down on the material and shook his head around trying to shred it and release his caged hand. Even a small hole would be good enough for him, and he thought he'd be able to figure out when he touched his teeth with his palm after his vision started to tint red. It happened slowly at first, and it was not a bright red tint, only something he noticed when he started using Nightmare for extended periods of time. But once he did notice it, it was impossible to enter the form without him knowing as the corners of his vision shaded red after only a few seconds.

Zach heard a groan in front of him, and for a second his eyes opened wide in hopes that the man who was fighting Hunter would get up again. Then, he lifted his gaze and stared into the air in front of him and up ten feet. He stared at a figure who was upside-down in front of him so their faces were only ten feet apart, a diagonal gap between Zach's pale one and the man who had the top half of his face covered by a hard black mask. "Huh," Zach dropped his right arm to his side, then he looked down at the man in front of him. _So that's Hunter,_ Zach thought. He lifted his head back up to the man above him who he realized was not hovering, but hanging from something. The guy dropped down before Zach could figure out what he was hanging from, but Zach did not take a step back as the man landed in front of him.

"You want something?" Zach muttered, tilting his head to the side.

Webb faced the kid in front of him who was taller than he had been told. He then turned and reached down, grabbing the man below him by his right leg. Hunter was just sliding his left leg up to its knee, but Webb grabbed that leg and snapped it to the side with a hard twist. "Ha," Zach laughed, while Hunter's head just fell down to the ground, passing out from the shock when his bone stuck out of his leg. Webb tossed his hand up and threw Hunter into the air, then Webb brought back his middle finger and index finger on his right hand. Out from his knuckles shot a white substance that slammed into Hunter and flung him into the wall, and it stuck him there.

"A, web?" Zach muttered. He lowered his gaze back to the man in front of him. The guy was wearing a kind-of costume, even though it was mainly just a tight black suit with the mask over his head. "You a hero, or something?" Zach asked the guy, wondering if the mask might have had a hidden visor that made it so they were actually making eye contact. Zach's vision was blurry, his head was pounding, and he was really feeling the cold for the first time all night as shivers coursed through his body.

Webb pulled a phone out of his pocket and put it up to his head. "Yeah. I'm reporting a villain. He's stuck to a wall of an alley off of 34th street near Bullshead Avenue… Attempted murder. A video with his villainous actions will be delivered to the police station tomorrow morning." Webb lowered his phone and ended the call, putting it back into his pocket. Then he turned to the boy next to him who was staring at him blankly, though now with a slightly worried look on his face at the sound of that call. "Or something," Webb replied to the teenager.

Zach forgot what he had asked, so he thought back on why the guy would say that to him, then he tilted his head as it came back to him. _He's, not a hero?_ "You a villain?" Zach asked. "You want to use my Quirk?" His eyes were dark, and his voice shaky at the question yet also angry and daring. "You want to try?" Zach muttered, then he started falling backwards. "Oh sh-" he tried bringing a leg back to catch himself, but he picked the wrong one and grunted in pain instead before falling to his butt.

Zach lifted his gaze back to the man in front of him who shook his head at him with a deep frown on his face. "You really fucked things up for me here, kid." The man said.

"Sure," Zach whispered, while his eyes were closing and his head was bowing farther. "I'm gonna, sleep now," he said, his eyes closed and his head dropped down. The corners of his lips curled up as he did not feel the immediate need to open his eyes back up this time. "Thanks…"

* * *

 **A/N Thanks... for reading! Class-A and Class-B have a New Year's party! While at the same time, Zach is hunted by the dangerous Hunter and nearly cut down. Webb shows up at the last second to save Zach's life, though he doesn't seem too happy about doing it. Zach survives for now though, and despite how long it's been, Class-A hasn't forgotten about him. Not completely. Their paths cross early this chapter, but they are in different worlds and Zach can only look on them from afar as he kept moving through the streets. Near death, will Webb be able to save Zach? What does the anti-hero want? Where will Zach go from here? Find out next time!** **Hope you enjoyed, and leave a review below telling me what you think or predictions for what's coming!**

LordOfTee chapter 28 . 7h ago

So Zach now has an appreciation of life that goes further beyond life is fragile.  
He seems to be coping to his situation better than most people would.

 **Zach manages to hold onto some of his ideals, though he has some lapses in here. Loving life yet not knowing how he's going to survive and live it. Wanting to live but willing to die if it means not going back. Even some thoughts about killing the Hunter. We'll see how he continues to cope with what's happened in the coming chapters. Thanks for reviewing!**

D-Koy24 chapter 28 . 1h ago

I'm all alone...  
I can't trust anyone...  
Not even myself...  
I'm on the run...  
With a monster inside me...  
Or is that monster really me...  
They're after me I have to get away...  
I can't go back...

 **Awesome review XD. Read it, and I could totally see Zach sitting in that alley covered in trash the night before with that mantra in his head before he fell asleep. Hope you enjoyed the chapter!**

Logargon chapter 28 . 8h ago

I held out hope ... that everything would have turned out ok in the end ... but ... but just damb you've taken a cannon and not just sunk the ship but demolished it ... it's just so heart wrenching. Oh pour Zach , that sweet child something goods gotta come out of this soon right?! It's just gotta. I needs to know more plz! The suspense to know more is killing me! How did every one else respond to the families death!

 **;( Sank the ship, blown it to bits, oh yeah. Zach's managing not to dwell on it too much, though he is running for his life... I guess something good came this time? Better, than constant despair at least, though seeing his former classmates going shopping for party supplies couldn't have felt great, as much as he told himself it was. Thanks for reviewing!**


	30. Chapter 30

**Chapter 30:**

"How is that my fault?" Zach snapped. He leaned against the wall his cot was pressed up against, his right leg extended out in front of him and his left curled in so his foot was against his inner right thigh. Zach lowered the bowl of rice he had lifted in his bandaged right hand, then he pointed a hand at the man sitting cross-legged on another cot across a small gap in the tiny apartment they were in. "If you knew where I was, you could have told me the plan any time."

Zach reached for the water bottle next to where he put his bowl, and he lifted it to his lips after twisting off the cap with one hand. He poured some water into his mouth to wash down the dry rice, then he put it back at his side and grabbed the rice bowl again. He could not use his left arm with it wrapped from the elbow up and put in a sling, and he agreed that he needed to let it heal so he did not complain when he woke up to find his arm in a sling earlier that afternoon.

"All you had to do was get caught and taken back to the villains' base. Hunter never would have seen me, and you'd actually be safe. Not to mention catching the villains who still want to kill you, and who have started this whole downfall of society."

Zach's expression darkened and his eyes lowered to the floor. His body started shaking after a few seconds and he shook his head around. He gazed down at his chest, which was wrapped in white bandages completely around and on his back too. He looked down at his right hand, then back up and towards the guy in front of him. "You said your name's Webb?" The man wearing a comfy long-sleeved black shirt and gray sweatpants, and who had a gray beanie over his black hair, forehead, and eyes, nodded his head at the teen before him. "I guess, we could try that next," Zach said. "It's a good idea, and they need to be stopped," Zach whispered the last part of that sentence. "They're all, monsters," Zach said, his eyes dark and his eyebrows narrowing in.

"Noticed some nasty stuff as I wrapped your body," Webb said, and again Zach's eyes darted to his right hand.

Ignoring what Webb was referring to right there, Zach said, "How'd you wrap my hand?" He lifted his gaze back to the man's gray beanie, and he added, "And are you blind?"

"Got no tact I see," Webb said.

"Sorry," Zach muttered. "Kind of forgot how to talk to people," he leaned his head against the wall behind him and looked up at the ceiling. "You're the first normal person I've conversed with- the first non-villain," he corrected himself, shaking his head as he stopped trying to imagine how long it had been. "Since, you're not normal," he said.

Webb shook his head as the kid continued to say things without caring about tact at all. "You are right," Webb admitted. "I am not normal. And I am blind. But you are the one who wrapped your right hand." Zach looked confused, then he looked down at his right hand again. "Right when I was cutting Hunter's sack off of your arm, you woke up. It was as if you knew what I was about to do."

"Huh," Zach muttered, trying to recall it but he could not remember a thing before he woke up a couple hours ago in the middle of the afternoon. He turned his head to the right and stared out the single window in the room over the gap between them. "A new year, huh?"

"What did you mean?" Webb asked. Zach turned back to him, and Webb continued at the boy's confused look. "When you said that we could 'try that next,' what did you mean by that?"

"You wanted Hunter to take me back, so you could destroy the League of Villains, right?" Zach asked.

"So I could alert heroes and have them destroy the League of Villains," Webb countered.

"Well," Zach said, continuing despite that correction. "They're not going to stop hunting me, just because their first hunter, Hunter, failed. Shigaraki won't let me go that easily. He'll never let me escape."

"You already have escaped from him," Webb said. "How you did it escapes me. But you escaped them on your own."

"When they've got a guy who can hack security cameras and all kinds of electronics, and a guy who can make portals, what does escape really mean?" Zach asked, tilting his head and looking towards the blind man's gray beanie. He started staring the man up and down, wondering if Webb had some sort of sixth sense that would let him know what Zach was looking at. Zach continued while looking at the guy's hands and feet to see if he could see any external signs of the figure's Quirk. Neither he nor Webb were wearing any shoes, but they had socks on, and Zach was wearing a pair of blacks sweatpants Webb must have put on him, which he thanked the man for soon after he woke up.

Webb paused after Zach's question, then he said, "So that _was_ it." Zach looked at him confusedly, and Webb continued, "Your principal got in a bit of trouble because of his secret security cameras. Only he knew about them, so some people accused him of being the leak he was trying so hard to find."

"You know about the traitor?" Zach asked.

Webb's head bowed a bit as if he were glaring at Zach, and he said, "Do you?"

"I know one exists," Zach said. "I've known it for a while, before I-" he paused, then he finished, "before I made the worst mistake of my life."

"That's what you consider your going with the villains?" Webb asked.

"Yeah," Zach replied.

"The people you saved?"

"What about them?"

Webb hummed and he leaned back while keeping his legs crossed, putting his back on the wall behind him again. "As I thought, I don't like you."

"You don't seem like the type who likes people at all," Zach said. He looked around the room, then back at the man and said, "Minimalist. Don't work well with others. Acts mysterious for no fucking reason."

"You've got a mouth on you."

"Happens when you're surrounded by nothing but villains," Zach started, then he stopped and just frowned. He brought his right hand up and he touched his head, and he stared through red eyes at Webb who lifted his head at Zach's action. "You can't see this, so that's kind of cool I guess," Zach said, and he tapped his head again to turn off Nightmare. "Most people get scared by it."

"Don't do that again," Webb said.

Zach put his right arm over his left knee that he lifted up in front of his body. "Why not?"

"If you do, I'll stick your hand to the wall and leave you here. You called me a minimalist. Do you really think this box apartment is where I live?" Webb's question made Zach's eyes widen, then the man continued, "Did you really think I would bring you to my house?"

There was an awkward silence in the room between the two for a few seconds after that question. "So you have a house," Zach said, breaking the silence and cracking a grin. The man in front of him frowned deeper at Zach's sarcastic remark, and Zach saw the dip of those lips and leaned back hard into the wall behind him. His breath hitched, and Webb's expression lost its hardened frown in that second.

"Why are you so afraid?"

Zach calmed his fast breathing and he wrapped his right arm around the front of his left knee, pulling it back towards his body. "Like I said. Those villains, are monsters. You saw- or well, I guess you didn't. You ' _noticed_ ' it though." Zach shook his head a few times, shaking away thoughts he had when he saw the scary frown on Webb's face. _I don't really know this guy. I'm acting too casual around him. What if he throws me out? What if he starts… no, no calm down. Just stay calm. Calm._ Zach took some more deep breaths, then his eyes darkened and he said in a low voice, "So if you want to do it, I'll act as bait. But if Kurogiri uses a portal to take me from the base I lead you to, that they take me to while you follow, then you gotta promise me something."

Webb faced the boy without saying anything. Zach leaned forward off the wall and he hissed, "Put a tracker in me. Make it so that if I get taken away, you can keep following. But you gotta make the tracker double as a bomb, in case things go south." Zach's face was deadly serious and he hoped his tone came out as such while he spoke to the blind man. "I don't even know why I'm considering this, when I could get caught again. When they could torture me again. But if it means stopping those bastards once and for all." In Zach's mind again appeared the woman he left behind in the warehouse in Higucha City. He shook his head and in a pained voice said, "I have to do it."

"I won't put a bomb, or a tracker in you," Webb said. "You said there's a guy who can hack electronic devices right? He might find it and short out the bomb before I could set it off, switch off the tracker." Zach's eyes shot open huge and he started breathing fast again as he realized how flawed his idea was. "Then you'd really be screwed."

"You're right," Zach whispered. He shook his head while looking down at the cot between his legs. "Well, I don't know what else to do then. I, I have no plays." Webb rose his head and faced the boy whose eyes were pointed straight down. Zach was staring at the floor and talking about how he had nothing, but his mouth was up in a small smile. "I'm alive though," Zach said. "Somehow. I'm, still alive," he let out a small laugh. It came out dry, and there was only one, then he narrowed his gaze more and lowered that smile. _Why, am I still alive? When everyone else. Everyone, I loved. Mom, Dad, the Akers… Jenny._ _ **"ZACH!"**_ Zach closed his eyes and he shook his head. _The screams. I can't get them out of my head. I can never, ever get them out._

"You've got two plays actually," Webb said.

Zach's eyes shot open, then his head lifted and he stared at the man in front of him in a confused way. "I do?" He asked.

"Two options. Two paths you can go on from here," Webb replied.

Zach's eyes opened even wider as there was no hesitation, not trickery on Webb's face that he could see at all. "Wh-What are they?"

The blind man hummed for a few seconds, then he started, "I am an anti-hero." Zach's eyes bulged and the left corner of his lip pulled up, a smirk covering his face that he had to purse closed because he did not want to start laughing madly. He actually wanted to hear the options, and the sound of something he had once called himself over and over in his own head could not ruin his chances of finding an out from all this. "There are others like me. We exist in the shadows. People don't know we're here."

 _Really? I mean, I guess I didn't know this guy existed. And he beat Hunter! Not that, I really remember them fighting that much… Did he throw me off a building?_ Zach thought. _Ah! Wait, I landed on something soft I think, but it wasn't snow. It bounced back- it was totally a web. Webb, web, haha, hahaha!_ "And, what?" Zach asked, hiding his thoughts that had just strayed far in the matter of a few seconds. "Could I become one, just like that? I don't know how to be an anti-hero. Without any help, I can't do a thing. Plus, I'll be captured by villains the first time I try doing anything."

"Not a very optimistic outlook, for someone who needs a lot of optimism right now," Webb said.

" _Ch_ , guess you're right," Zach said. "Still don't see it working out well."

"That's because I didn't finish," Webb said, and Zach closed his mouth, nodding a few times to tell the guy to go on. He opened his mouth to say something too since he figured Webb did not see his nod, but Webb continued first, "I work on my own, but your power has it's uses." Zach opened his mouth to make a snide remark about how many, but he stopped himself and just closed his mouth again after a second of Web seeming to glare at him through that beanie. _How'd he do that?_ Zach thought. "For a time, I could get you situated in this world," Webb finished.

"You mean it?" Zach asked.

"If I saved you, just to let you go like you are now, you'd just get captured again. Would be like I didn't do a thing," Webb said. "So I could teach you, how to be an anti-hero. How to be a member of anti-hero society. It sucks most for you, because currently everyone knows your name and identity. That's not how anti-hero life works." Zach got a more confused look on his face, and Webb continued, "Most anti-heroes, no one knows their real identity. Certain ones… well, they have circumstances that let's them avoid punishment. But men like me, don't exist. Not to society."

"So, secret identities?" Zach whispered, sounding awed by it. "Just like superheroes ought to be."

"We'd fake your death, then you'd have to get a new costume. Find something that can disguise that other form of yours if you can. It would be a while before you can start showing up again. Too suspicious if Lifebringer dies one day and another strange costumed figure starts going around saving people." Webb leaned back on the wall behind him. "Been thinking about this for a while, but you could probably make it. Your power causes too much of a fuss though. Every time someone's brought back to life, big deal's gonna be made. So when you save people, try and tell them that they had never died, and that they had never seen you. Most of the time they'll be grateful enough that they don't say anything to anyone."

"These are all useful hints for if I become an anti-hero," Zach started. "Stuff you could tell me during my training," he added. "But what about the second option? Not that being your disciple, faking my death, and becoming an old-timey outside-the-rules vigilante doesn't seem fun."

"The second option…" Webb stopped himself, and he started frowning at Zach again. "Are you mentally stable?" Webb asked.

Zach's grin lowered down, and he started glaring at the older man. "You're calling me crazy? Didn't you throw a sixteen year old off a four story building last night, right before you snapped a guy's leg like it was a twig?"

"You are acting strangely for someone in your position," Webb replied, not commenting on Zach's retorts pushing insanity back at him. "Laughing. Smiling."

"How do you know I'm smiling?" Zach asked, and he lowered his mouth into a deep frown before curling up fast, then lowering it again to see if Webb would call him out wrongly.

Webb just kept frowning at Zach though, and Zach could not bring his mouth into a smile anymore. "You want to know why?" Zach asked, lifting his tone at the end. "You, really want to know? It's simple," Zach held his right hand out, and with his bandaged palm up he said, "If I start thinking about it for more than a second, I'll break down. I'm not gonna be the guy who pushes my problems on someone else," Zach said, his eyes getting darker and his voice lower at the end. "I don't need to sit around crying, and moaning, and complaining. That would be stupid."

"So you'll just bury it?" Webb asked.

"Guess so," Zach replied, lifting the left corner of his lip again. He shrugged his right shoulder, then he said in a darker voice, "Now, what's the second option? Is it something I can't do if I'm not stable enough? I can be stable if I need to be."

"That's not a very convincing answer," Webb started. "But it's not a bad move. Hide it deep inside, but you have to be careful when you do that."

"You done it before?" Zach asked.

For a moment Webb thought Zach was being rude, or snarky just for the point, but he heard the tone in the boy's voice shift at the end. _He does not know how to do it. How to handle it. And he thinks I would have tips because of the person he's pinned me as._ Webb did not nod nor shake his head, and Zach frowned darkly for an instant before just letting out an exasperated sigh and leaning back again.

Zach did not say anything else. If the guy in front of him was not going to tell him the second option, he figured he would just go with the first one. As he was thinking more on the first option he stopped Webb from going on more about, Webb let out a deep breath then started, "The second option." Zach's head rose and he faced the blind man again while Webb reached to his side and grabbed his phone from on top of his pillow. The man never turned his head, but Zach saw his hand move over and his fingers curl around the phone like he could see it perfectly. "Is you return to regular society."

"Can I do that, without Kurogiri and Hackerman getting me?" Zach asked, as he figured Webb would not bring it up after Zach had already mentioned this unless there was a way around it.

"Yes," Webb replied. "Their powers are not all-powerful. They have weaknesses. Hero society can prepare against those, and stop them-"

"I was surrounded by heroes when I-" Zach stopped himself and grit his teeth angrily. He shook his head while clenching his eyes shut and hearing screams echo in his ears. "Kurogiri still took me away. They couldn't stop it. They didn't even try."

"And since then, they will have made countermeasures to prevent something like that from ever happening again," Webb said. Zach just shook his head at how simple the man was making it out to be.

Webb faced the boy and had a dark expression on his own face, and he started in a low and serious tone. "This is a serious option. You have been given a chance." Zach lifted his dark gaze again, looking at Webb in a confused and angry and pained way. "In secret, the tops of hero society have been discussing you. They have been doing so for a long time. And they chose to give you a second chance." Zach's angry look started to lighten, but his confusion only increased.

"What are you talking about?"

"A pardon," Webb said. "But more than that. A retrial," it came out of Webb's mouth and Zach felt his mind blank. He shook his head around in confusion, then Webb continued while Zach was still shaking his head. "It would not be public, and the heads of the society could use what happened at the last one as an excuse. They would also be able to bend the rules easier, without any cameras or media around. At first, you were a thorn in their side because you were helping people as a villain. But now, because of what people think you stand for, or _stood_ for," he added, referring back on Zach's response to what Webb asked him earlier. Zach thought about how he replied when Webb asked him about the people he saved, and Zach's gaze got darker even as Webb continued this explanation.

"I have it on good authority that should you suddenly turn yourself in, to let's say Musutafu police department, you could get processed and released in a number of hours."

Zach blinked a few times while staring at Webb in silence. His eyes grew huge, then they narrowed again. "There are dirty cops," Zach muttered. "Someone will tell."

"Not if the head of the department already knows about this, and I call him directly before dropping you off. By the time you get there, all the paperwork is written up, and the chief's already called heroes in to give you an escort."

Zach fell silent again. _Is there really a way?_ "And when I get pardoned, then what? My apartment burned. Everyone in the world knows who I am. Sooner or later, villains will come after me-"

"The one I believe had a large role in getting you this opportunity, is your former principal," Webb started. Instantly both of Zach's hands tightened into clenched fists, and he bared his teeth and ground them over each other. "I see you still hold resentment-"

"You don't _'see'_ anything," Zach snapped. He breathed heavily for a few seconds, then he lowered his gaze and muttered, "That was stupid. Sorry."

Webb hummed to himself. _If that is the extent of one of his snaps, perhaps it is not so bad. Not bad enough that it is not a feasible option._ "Those are your two options," Webb said. Zach kept his gaze down as Webb said it, the boy closing his eyes and shaking his head for the mean blind joke he just made. "I am interested in what you will choose. What does the boy All Might asked me to save, think about this?"

 _All Might?_ Zach thought. _He's-_ Zach saw the scrawny man with pushed back blond hair looking at him so angrily, after he "killed" Kirishima. He thought about how All Might looked when he faced the teachers in desperation as the Nomu tackled him away. _He couldn't do anything, but, of all of them… I despise him the least- no, no I don't actually dislike All Might at all. He got Webb to come for me. Even without his Quirk. Even as weak as he became. He still did more than any of those "amazing" heroes could._

"Do you have a preference?" Webb asked. "I do not think you will do well back in hero society." Zach lifted his gaze back up and stared at the man who continued, "I think Lifebringer should die as the people remember him. If what you represented changes into something worse, I'll regret coming to save you."

"Yeah, that would suck," Zach agreed. He turned his head to the right and looked out the window. There was some snow on the corners of the glass, and more built up at the bottom of the sill. It was sunny outside though. Zach stared out at the contrasting sun and snow, and a small smile spread on his face. "I'm not Lifebringer," Zach whispered in a quiet voice, and his smile twitched, his face scrunching up for a moment. His smile rose again though, and he kept going, "But I think, it would be easy to give up just like that."

"'Give up?'" Webb asked.

"That's how I'd consider it, I think," Zach said. He kept staring out the window but he got a more serious look on his face. It was not dark, or a fooling around look, he just stared out and into the sky with a serious and determined expression. "When I think about last year's New Year's goals," Zach started. "And, I have been thinking about them recently. I realized, they haven't changed much from last year, as much as I have." Zach got a small smile on his face though his eyes stayed serious as he stared out into the sky. "And…"

Zach's lips flattened out, and he turned from the window back to Webb. "I tried going around the rules. I ignored them. I tried to be a hero in my own way. Rules exist for a reason though. I didn't know, what that reason was. I didn't understand, what I was getting myself into. Now I know though. Now, if I have the choice to follow the rules or continue going around them, how can I pick going around them? As easy as it would be to avoid villains, avoid spotlight, avoid ever having to listen to anyone again. As much as being an anti-hero, is something I thought I really wanted to do for the past four months or so, that's the easy way. And it's also the way that got everyone I love killed." He kept staring towards Webb as he said it, and he saw the man in front of him's face twitch. "They died, because I did things the easy way, because I ignored the rules. I walked through the portal that day in the courthouse, because the alternative was worse to me. Having to go out in public with everyone knowing who I was, everyone knowing what I had done, all about my Quirk and my dad and my past… Thinking about going to a normal high school, getting a job where I wouldn't be able to save anyone, I thought about all of that when they found me guilty, when they told me I couldn't be a hero. So when that portal appeared and gave me an out, I took it. Right here, you're giving me a chance to throw Zach Sazaki away completely, to cast aside Lif- to cast, to cast aside the person I was, and to throw away my old life entirely and live beyond the rules of the law for now on. It would be easy to take that option, and have no one except for you to ever have to answer to again, and even then, only until you leave me on my own." Zach paused and took in a deep breath, "But I can't do that. Not again. Relying on my judgement alone, is what got me into this in the first place."

Webb waited a few moments after Zach finished speaking. "So you've made your decision?" Webb asked. Zach could not tell in the tone of the man's voice whether he accepted the answer or not. He did not know how to read Webb's facial expression only from the bottom half of it. Zach nodded at him though, and replied, 'Yes.' Webb hummed at the sound of that clear, unwavering response. He lifted the phone which he had grabbed when he first brought up the second option. He tapped a bunch of times on the screen without looking down at it, and Zach wondered what the blind man was doing.

"It's done," Webb said, and he lowered the phone while Zach's eyes opened wide. "There's no going back now. You have made your choice. You must live with it from here on."

The teenage boy gulped and hesitated for a moment. "I know," Zach said. _What I do from here on, is the restart of my life. I need to treat every moment like I am being hunted, because I will be. Don't get too close to people. They'll be used against me, and, they'll be killed because of me. I can't have this laid-back persona. I can't, just bury everything. I need to think about it. I need to think about all of it. Even if it hurts. I need to remind myself what will happen if I lower my guard, if I make friends, if I trust the heroes to protect me._ _ **"Think constantly."**_ _All For One had some good ideas after all. I can never let my guard down again. Never trust anyone again. There are spies everywhere. Maybe I can root them out. Maybe I can use what happened to me, as a learning experience, and use some of those techniques back on the spy to find the League of Villains. I know how to make someone say anything. I know, how to get someone to the point where they would say or do whatever you say…_ _But no, I can't do that. Not where I'm going. Still, almost all of that. I can find the spy, as long as I don't trust anyone. And I don't. Not even him._

Zach's eyes softened at the man in front of him, while his thoughts became even more suspicious. _Why does he say he's blind if he can see every action I make? Why does he really want me to be his sidekick or whatever? Is he just trying to help? I doubt it. Everyone has ulterior motives. What is his end goal? What is he an anti-hero for? His final goal might be different from mine, and that might be what he'd try to teach me to be like. There's no way I can trust him, after having just met him… Still though,_ Zach turned left and looked towards the one piece of furniture in the room other than the cots. There was a small table next to the door with a little garbage can beneath it, and on that table was an open med-kit, and a tube with some blood on it resting on the table that he had noticed earlier. He saw the pump, and he suspected there were needles for both ends of the tube. _I was wondering how I felt even somewhat okay today._ "Did you give me a blood transfusion?" Zach asked. He looked back towards Webb, and he looked at the insides of the man's elbows for marks. "Guessing you didn't have spare blood on hand. Sure yours is okay?"

Webb kept silent as he faced Zach for a few more seconds, then he let out a low sigh as he was expecting more of a reaction from the boy over his decision. He thought maybe Zach would ask him what the next step was, or ask how he set things in motion with just some taps on his phone, but the boy was quick to move on to the next subject. "Lucky you, I also happen to be B-. Would have had to bring you to a hospital otherwise, and your situation would be very different."

"Yeah, Kurogiri would have picked me up while I was unconscious and I would have woken up surrounded by villains," Zach said. Though that was not what Webb was referring to, it was what Zach suspected would have happened in that scenario.

Webb opened his mouth to counter, closed it, then said after a few seconds, "Maybe."

"Anyway," Zach said, continuing quickly even though he felt kind of good that Webb thought he might be right about that. "Thanks. For that, and saving me from Hunter, and I guess setting up my future too. You really saved my life. I'll be sure to pay you back for it someday, anti-hero."

Webb opened his mouth for a moment, then he closed it again and leaned forward on his cot. He brought his face forward towards Zach, and he said in a serious voice, "I will hold you to that, Sazaki."

* * *

 **A/N Thanks for reading. Zach's given two options for his future, and he chooses what he sees as the harder path but also the one he needs to take. Leave a review below telling me what you think and predictions from here on. I hope you enjoyed the chapter!**

D-Koy24 chapter 29 . 23h ago

Its Spiderman! He saved Zach!  
Sooo MomoxZach... Interesting I kinda expected Jenny but hey we'll see.  
~D-Koy  
Am I safe now...  
Or did I get into something worse?  
Who cares I might not make it to tomorrow anyways.

 **Webb's definitely based on Spiderman. Won't lie. Thought, what would be a cool power to give this guy? Oh damn, I'll make him a badass spiderman, and blind too! We'll see how that works out as Webb mentions at the end here he plans to have Zach repay him for this... Won't confirm deny on the ships- and it seems like Zach has made it out at the moment, though we'll see if he can make it any longer. Thanks for the review, hope you enjoyed!**

Southpaw17 chapter 29 . 22h ago

I've spent the last few days binge reading this and I'm head over heels in love with it! I think you've done a great job writing Zach's character, his reactions and emotions to all the shit that's happened to him feels very realistic. I also really like the darker turn the story took recently. I'm looking forward to seeing where the story goes from here :)

 **Cool! Thanks a lot, glad you've liked it so much. And I'm glad you liked the darker turn too, since it was a pretty big downfall. The story had had its ups and downs emotionally up 'til then, but it definitely hit a new low a couple chapters back. Can I top it? Do I even want to? Haha, hope you enjoyed the new chapter! Thanks for the review!**

Nightsky of FlameClan chapter 29 . 18h ago

This is probably one of the greatest stories I've ever read. Can't wait for more, keep up the good work! Hope you update soon!

 **Thank you! Means a lot to hear stuff like that. Another day another update! Thanks for reviewing!**


	31. Chapter 31

**Chapter 31:**

"Three days left until the end of break," Hanta Sero leaned forward over the table he had just finished lunch at. "Didn't feel long at all," he said.

"Twelve days really isn't a lot," Sato agreed from across the table from him. "It's longer than usual though. In my middle school we only got off ten days, less some years."

"Yeah, guess that's true," Sero said, stretching his arms up over his head then leaning back on his seat. "So at least we're not back already then? I can go with that," he grinned ear to ear, then turned to the right and said to the guys sitting next to them at the next table down. "How you guys want to spend it?"

"I'm going to train my ultimate move," Kirishima said, finishing up his food and standing up after the final bite. He picked up his plate and silverware and headed quickly towards the kitchen to wash them off, while Sero watched him go and sighed.

"Guess I should get to something like that too," Sero said after his long sigh. He reached his arms out in front of him, and he stretched them in front of him, moving around his cylindrical elbows full of his Quirk: Tape to warm them up. "Don't want to get back on the first day and have Aizawa make us do something crazy, without refreshing on some stuff first."

Kaminari looked to his left at Sero, then he put down his phone he was messing around on and shifted his thoughts onto what he was going to do today as well. He had gotten up late after all, so he still had his entire day ahead of him. Kaminari's phone buzzed and he looked down at the screen, where he saw 'Mom,' and a text message that he had to open his phone to see. Sato started talking about how he was going to spend the afternoon trying out some new cake recipes and seeing if the girls wanted to taste test them, which made Sero start complaining at him for having such a desirable secret talent.

Kaminari dropped his phone. More specifically, it bobbled in his hand three times and then fell out of his hands and bounced on the table, before falling on the floor. Kaminari pushed back from the table fast, reaching down and hitting his head on it as he was not paying close attention. "Ow!" Kaminari yelled, while Sero started laughing at the chain of events that just kept getting better.

"What are you doing?" Sero asked, while Kirishima was walking behind Sato to head out after cleaning off his dishes.

"I-I," Kaminari lifted up onto his seat again and then he stood up completely while holding his phone with a shaking hand. Kirishima turned back at the look on Kaminari's face, and Sero and Sato both got more confused as Kaminari tried holding his phone steady with both hands. He zoomed in on the picture his mom sent him, after reading the line of text she had sent him with it that made him drop his phone. "I- don't under-" Kaminari started reading, and he gulped twice in the next few seconds.

"Hey Kaminari," Sato started. "What is it? Are you alright?"

"'Alright?'" Kaminari asked, lifting his gaze towards the larger boy. The others were looking at him in worried ways like Kaminari had just read that a family member had died or something. Kaminari started shaking his head at those looks of theirs. "That's not…" he started, then he looked down at the picture on his phone, tapping it again as it had started to dim. "My mom, got a letter from U.A."

"You getting kicked out of school?" Sero asked, as that seemed like something that could cause Kaminari to have that kind of reaction.

"No," Kaminari said, shaking his head again. "'Dear parents and/or guardians… This letter is to inform you, that, Zach Sazaki,'" Kaminari paused and gulped again, while the other three's eyes were opening wider. Kaminari lifted his gaze from his phone, and he whispered, "Holy shit."

Two floors up, Tenya Iida stood from his desk that was covered in notes. He lifted his phone and stared at the letter his mother just texted him, and then he saw another notification pop up at the top of his phone from Kaminari. Iida lifted his phone again and continued to read what he saw before but had to jump out of his seat at the sight of. _"…that Zach Sazaki, will be returning to U.A. freshman Class-A…"_

In the girls' locker room five minutes away from the dorm at the main campus building, Ashido and Hagakure stood on either side of Jirou in only their underwear, looking down at Jirou's phone in shock as the girl in the middle continued reading. "'…At the start of the final term following winter break.'"

"I don't understand," Hagakure started, leaning back from Jirou and turning to look at the other girls in confusion. "Does this mean- I didn't even know Zach was back."

 _I didn't even know if he was alive,_ Ashido thought while turning towards her invisible friend. _How did he get out of that?_ Mina thought about Zach getting tackled towards that portal, and the one glimpse of his face she saw before he disappeared, for what she thought would be forever. Her mouth started curling up, and her eyes filled with water as she said, "He must be!"

Jirou kept reading the letter for a few seconds, then she lowered her phone and said, "I have to go tell Momo." She turned to run off, then she froze after a few steps and looked don at her body, still only clad in underwear and a sports bra.

"Forgetting something?" Ashido asked with a laugh, a teary-eyed but happy laugh.

Hagakure sniffled and she wiped her invisible eyes while Jirou rushed to put on her gym clothes, forgetting about putting on her hero uniform for now. "When was the last time we saw him?" Hagakure asked. The other two looked towards her, and she said after sniffling again, "I think, it was before the test of courage in the forest. He looked so upset that Aizawa-sensei made him go to extra lessons."

"Ha, haha," Ashido laughed. She shook her head and said, "He was disappointed. I guess that was the last time you two saw him." Ashido's smile lowered down a little, as she thought about later that night. Then she thought about the more recent time she had seen him, back at VTS. In her head she saw him stepping out of the portal, looking like a monster, and then she saw him "killing" Kirishima. _I should have known it was a lie from the start. After he brought Kirishima to life right in front of me, Ojiro and I should have seen that trick coming from a mile away! I have to apologize._ She thought about how furiously she had yelled at Zach when she ran towards Kirishima's body. _He was my first new friend at U.A._

Across the campus at Ground Beta, Tokoyami walked out of the stairwell from the basement of one of the skyscrapers in the urban zone, Todoroki walking out behind him. Both of them sported a few bruises but nothing too serious after the training they had been doing. They stepped out onto the street that had been plowed of snow so that students could train here with permissions from the main office, which both of them had acquired. The two of them were talking about their training, when they turned seeing Tsuyu Asui hopping out around the corner of another building near them.

She looked to be heading farther down the road, but she turned towards them when they looked her way, and she stopped. Tsuyu turned her body and hopped over towards them before standing up and walking forward with her arms curled forward in front of her and her tongue sticking out of her mouth a bit. "Did you two hear the news?"

"What news?" Todoroki asked.

Tsuyu reached down into her costume's pocket that she had kept her phone in. She did not expect that she was going to do hard enough training today that it would be risky to have it there instead of leaving it in the lockers. "Here," she said, "read it for yourselves."

Todoroki grabbed the phone, and Tokoyami stood at his side and leaned in to read what the taller boy was looking at. Tokoyami's eyes grew huge, while Todoroki's wide eyes just started returning to their normal size. _"…following winter break. If you have questions or concerns regarding this matter, feel free to contact the school administration office at 46…" What is going on? There was nothing on the news about this. Is this being done in secret?_

"Do you think, they rescued him?" Tokoyami asked, leaning away from the phone himself after he finished reading the letter. "A secret operation, in the dead of night last night, perhaps."

"It could be," Todoroki replied, nodding his head once. "Which is why the media hasn't gotten a hold on the story yet. The teachers probably knew about this for a while though," he said, while handing the phone back out to Tsuyu and nodding at her in thanks.

"They might not have said anything, in case the operation did not go well," Tsuyu said. The boys looked down at the girl who continued, "They would not want to bring our hopes up for nothing." Tokoyami nodded his head in agreement, and Todoroki hummed wondering if that was what it was.

"In any case, it will be good to see him again," Tokoyami said. "I was afraid something had happened to him, with the long absence of news on his whereabouts."

 _If the teachers knew something, they should have told us. You're not the only one Tokoyami,_ Todoroki thought while nodding in agreement with the dark boy next to him. _I've thought he was dead, for months now. I wonder if my dad knew something about this._

In the school cafeteria, Izuku Midoriya held his phone shakily in his hand, and he lowered it back down before staring across the table at Ojiro who was just finishing up the message himself. Ojiro lifted his gaze to Midoriya, shaking his head with his bottom lip lowered. _Is this real?_ Midoriya thought, and Ojiro's expression was telling him it was. _He died. I- I accepted it. I cried._ Tears were welling up in Midoriya's eyes again as he thought that. _He looked like, he thought he was going to die. How did he- they must have saved him. The heroes. All Might, we talked about Zach. You told me that he was probably… you agreed that he- but you must have known this, right?!_

In the teacher's lounge of U.A., All Might spit out his tea at something the principal just told the room that a number of teachers were gathered in. All Might dropped his jaw and stared forward in shock, his cheeks sucked in and his chin pointy, his body skinny and weak. He shook while looking towards the short mouse figure who had a small smile on his face after that announcement.

"Are you being serious?" Aizawa questioned, his voice dark as he looked over from his chair.

"Very," Nezu replied, and Aizawa's eyes opened wider again after they had narrowed in disbelief right after the first time Nezu said it. "The letters were sent out to Class-A's families yesterday and will have arrived today. The students are all sure to be informed shortly if they have not learned of this already."

"Why are you just telling us now?" Present Mic asked, his shocked look settling down a bit but a confused one replacing it. "Shouldn't we have known before-" Hizashi Yamada stopped himself. He looked around the room of other teachers, then back to the principal and muttered, "Oh."

"It was decided that everyone would learn of this at the same time," Principal Nezu said. "By powers over my head. But yes, Present Mic, you are correct in what you are thinking."

"You've been moving around behind the scenes, yeah?" Snipe asked, leaning back in his chair. "Well, I don't mind it. 'Specially if you got the kid back."

"Yes," Nezu said, though his mouth did lower down into a flat line as he spoke. He turned to All Might for a moment, then he continued, "Zach Sazaki was given a retrial. As well as being found innocent of previous charges, all suspected charges were filed against him and then subsequently dropped. Only a select group of officials, police, and myself were involved in this."

"The media won't take long to catch wind of it," Aizawa muttered, his distaste for the media clear in his voice.

"Before they do, the League of Villains are sure to," Nezu said. His voice got more serious and his mouth lower down, and he continued, "Which is why Zach Sazaki's location is to be a secret until the first day of classes when he moves in. We must prepare for an attack on that day, but if there is not one," Nezu took a pause, then he continued, "that is not a sign that we can relax. We will need to stay constantly ready for an attempt to capture Sazaki. The villains have already attempted to get him back once since his escape."

 _"Escape?!"_ Most of the teachers in the room thought at the same time.

 _There's no way he could have escaped that situation on his own. If he really did, or that's really his story, then there's a more likely situation in place here,_ Aizawa thought darkly. _They released him, after completely turning him against us. He could be a second spy._ _Use Death on everyone when we're not ready. I have to be prepared to erase his Quirk at all times._

"All Might, may I speak with you for a minute in private?" Nezu asked, his mouth smiling again as he turned to the former top hero and Symbol of Peace.

"Yes, of course," All Might said. He stood up and followed after Nezu as the principal started leading him away, leaving the other teachers in the room with more questions than answers at the moment, and all with a sense of anxiety over the situation.

All Might followed Nezu into an adjacent room. The principal walked over and suggested All Might take a seat, but when All Might said he would rather stand, Nezu nodded his head as that was just as fine. Nezu turned to All Might and he put his hands behind his back before he started in his high-pitched voice, "All Might, did you happen to have anything to do with Zach's appearance safely in the hands of the police?" All Might's eyes widened at Nezu's question, then they widened even more and his bottom lip lowered.

The mouse-dog-bear creature in a suit and tie nodded his head at All Might's reaction. His Quirk, High Spec, told him about as much when he first brought up the announcement in the other room. All Might's reaction made him wonder many things, and he spoke as it was confirmed by All Might's second reaction, "I did not know you had such contacts."

 _Webb! He really did it!_ All Might thought, his smile reappearing on his face.

"All Might," Nezu said, and the former hero in front of the creature got a more confused look at the still dark tone of Nezu's voice. He started to get worried that he was going to be reprimanded for his anti-hero contact, but that was not where Nezu was going with this at all. "As you know, I had my hero license suspended for a period of time after the VTS incident. Many people in high places insisted that I be relieved from my position as U.A. principal as well. However, Zach Sazaki provided information on the League of Villains and a member previously unknown to us, named Hackerman."

"Hackerman," All Might repeated, a sweatdrop on the side of his face.

"Yes," Nezu said. "The suspicion that I was not a mouse, but a rat, has been lifted." He attempted to make a joke, but All Might continued frowning as he could see a sad look on the principal's face. "Sazaki did not know the extent of this man's powers, but they are unsettling and we will need to continue to upgrade security protocols…" Nezu hesitated, then he spoke in a lower voice to All Might. "Sazaki was tortured. Severely." All Might's eyes widened again, but Nezu continued without pause, "He did not give details, but Recovery Girl was the first hero of our staff to meet with him. He had several recent injuries that she said were close to causing permanent damage. However, it was the injuries he had already received that she informed me of the nature of. He claimed to her that the scars were caused by accidents, but they were not. All Might, this is truly, U.A.'s greatest failure, but it will be swept under the rug."

"I don't understand," All Might started.

"Sazaki has cooperated fully yet would not confirm anything on his injuries. The judges accepted and the matter is to be kept private. We will give a press conference as soon as the media catches wind to confirm his return, but say nothing of his time with the villains." Nezu paused and this time the small creature lowered his gaze down. "It was my failure as a principal that allowed this to happen. He has been left in our care in order for us to educate and protect him as he is made into a hero who can protect himself and fight the villains. In the next two years, I wish to make fix my failure. Will you help me? I know you have a-"

"Of course," All Might said, answering before Nezu could finish. "I doubted him," All Might said. "I- for a minute I truly, hated-" All Might grit his teeth and he lowered his gaze down just as Nezu had before. "And I will live with that as I have been, but if I am now granted the opportunity to fix my mistake." All Might smiled at the principal who still had a depressed expression, and All Might said in a determined way, "I will take that opportunity, and save Young Sazaki."

* * *

On January sixth, Zach Sazaki stood outside the front of U.A. High School. People were not walking by him towards the school building at his sides. Most of the students were coming in from their dormitories five minutes from campus but on the other side of the school building. Even students who had gone on vacations with family over the break had made it back to their dorms already before ten minutes until homeroom on the first day back. The press had been kept away from the school which Zach was grateful for, but even if they were there, he was barely recognizable in his outfit.

Zach wore a puffy black jacket and a baseball cap with the rim pulled down. His hair was not as short as when he had it in a crew cut, but it was only a few inches long and messy under his hat as he did not fix it up that morning. _I was told that my things from the training camp in the woods are at school. That includes my phone- which I'll have to throw out. I don't know if Hackerman can get into my phone camera, but I need a new phone and new number. My wallet's there too though, and some clothes. Officer Haga Tonari,_ Zach thought about the green-skinned man who had horns sticking out of his face. He thought about how the man had been nice to him after the USJ event, and how shocked he was when the first time he was saving someone in public as Lifebringer, that cop was one of the two people he had to save. _It made sense they put him on the detail. But I wish he didn't ask if I wanted anything from my apartment. I guess the whole complex must not have burned down after that. How long did it take the fire department to get in there? How long after…_ Zach lifted his left hand and dragged it down the front of his face under his hat's rim.

Zach started walking towards the building in front of him. He was five foot four, over two inches taller than he was the last time he entered this building half a year earlier. As he walked towards the front doors, his eyes narrowed and his breathing steadied. _Who is the spy? Someone in Class-A, Class-B, or one of the teachers? Is it someone I know well? Someone who I was friends with?_ Zach walked up the steps towards the door, taking one at a time at a slow but regular pace. _Anyone can be evil. People I thought, might have good sides to them…_ in Zach's mind appeared a taller man with big spikes of black hair and a patched-up appearance. Zach froze and his teeth ground so hard behind his lips, his chest aching at the thought of him.

 _I know now, it was stupid to try and look for good sides of villains. Thinking that it was unfair for Toga and Twice just because they're insane, or that Spinner and Dabi really did just agree that fake heroes… It was all stupid._ Zach walked up to the doors, and he paused after he reached out to grab them. He turned his head sideways and looked behind him. He was wearing a black glove over his left hand but a specially-made different black glove that would work similar to the one he had with his villain costume over his right. _No one behind me,_ Zach thought while his left hand was on the handle, his right hand close to his body just in case someone tried attacking him at this moment where they might think he was the most off-guard. _I got them to let me have this glove, because I wouldn't accept coming back here otherwise after the heroes let me go the first time. I need to be able to save myself, but that's not the only thing I told them._

Zach opened up the doors and he stepped inside. He looked around to see if there would be a teacher there to escort him to Class-A, but no one arrived to greet him. _I'm still a little early, but they should have known exactly when I got here._ Zach shook his head and started walking forward towards the locker room at the front of the school where he could take off his exterior layers to reveal his school uniform beneath. He was careful as he took them off, ready for someone to ambush him as soon as his right hand was occupied. His eyes darted back and forth as he removed his puffy jacket and shoved it in his locker. Then he took off his hat and pushed it in too, before shaking his head around some more to even out his hat-hair.

 _I said all the right answers at that retrial,_ he thought as he closed the locker. _It was all bullshit._ _ **"Of course your honor." "Exactly." "I never hurt anyone." "I told the police as much as I can remember."**_ _I said, exactly what they wanted to hear. I told them how I wanted to return to the U.A. hero course. Even though, I would have rather gone to any other hero school. This is the only place that can protect me though. It's the only place they would sent me to. I agreed with them before they could even tell me what they wanted. I told them, what they wanted to tell me, so they felt like we were all on the same page. But I gave half-responses. I didn't tell them everything. I kept secrets. I gave the_ _ **right**_ _responses, because it's the only way I'm going to survive. Then again, there's another reason for coming to U.A. Besides the top-level security measures, besides the possibility of a spy I could root out, anywhere else I went would become a target right away. Can't let that happen. I'm at war with the League of Villains, and who better to fight them with than the ones they've declared war on over and over again?_

Zach stared down the hallway towards the 'Class-A' sign sticking out of his classroom. There was no one from his class outside it in the hall, but there were some people hanging around outside the door of the room next door to it. He walked down the hall and a couple of the boys standing there turned his way. They looked towards him and their eyes started widening, but as one of them took a step in his direction, he froze at the sight of Zach's face. Zach looked at the blond boy, and the thoughts he had about the villains whose good sides he tried to look on returned to him. Zach's eyes narrowed down, and he kept walking forward while taking his gaze off of Neito Monoma and facing his classroom's doorway instead.

Shihai Kuroiro stared down the hallway with wide eyes and his mouth opened a bit after that look he just saw Zach shoot Monoma. _What was, that?_

Zach stood outside Class-A, and he frowned at the doorway in front of him he heard a lot of noise behind. _Here we go,_ he thought, and he reached his hand out for the handle.

* * *

 **A/N Short chapter this time. Zach re-enters the hero society and gets left in U.A.'s care as he returns to Class-A. Thanks for reading. Hope you enjoyed and are looking forward to Zach's return to school life. Leave a review below telling me what you think!**


	32. Chapter 32

**Chapter 32:**

The door of Class-A opened up and every person in the room spun towards it at the same time. Zach Sazaki stepped through the entrance, his lips flat and his expression hard to read. The door closed behind him, while the class stared with huge eyes at the boy who just entered. To him, it looked like most of them must have doubted he was actually going to show up until that very second.

Kaminari was already out of his seat standing not far from the door, but he took a few seconds to speak when he thought he was going to say something immediately. He had to stare at Zach's face just as the others all did. They all looked at the curved line underneath his right eye from close to his nose all the way to the edge of his face where the scar disappeared under his sideburns. It was thicker just beneath his eye and thinned before vanishing under his hairline. The outer part of the middle of his left ear was sliced too, split a centimeter or two in.

Zach's eyes gazed over most of the class who were standing around the room. Every single member of Class-A was already there except for him. _They're all staring at me. Oh shit. I knew this was going to happen. Keep to the plan. No, I can't do it. I can't handle these looks. They're all getting more and more nervous. Don't do it._ Zach lifted the corners of his lips the smallest amount. "Hey," he said. _The fuck! I wasn't going to smile! Stay dark. Stay isolated. Don't get connected!_

"Zach!"

"Welcome back-" Yaoyorozu looked around as she spoke the same time that a dozen of her classmates shouted at the same time, only none of them said what she thought they were all going to say when he walked into the room.

Half the room started running towards Zach at the same time, but they stopped as he lifted his left hand up. He held up his hand telling them to stop, and his lips flattened back out. He started walking forward, lowering his arm and just walking towards his empty seat over in the middle near the windows. It was an open seat in a row with five chairs instead of four like the other four rows had. _Alright. Nice recovery. Stay dark, just enough to keep them from asking questions, not enough to make them all nervous._

Zach walked right up to his seat, he took his backpack off and put it down next to his chair, then he sat down. He turned his head right to look back at the rest of the class after he took his seat, and everyone was gawking at him after he just sat down as if he had never left. He was wearing a school uniform, a new one that was a larger size since he had grown a bit since the previous spring semester. He was told by the principal who he spoke to at the police station that the school was going to upgrade his costume to match his new size as well, and he asked for corrections he wanted added to the upgrade as well. Zach looked around at everyone, then Kaminari came walking fast after Zach who had stepped by him without so much as giving him a second glance.

"Yo," Kaminari said, running down the row and sitting in the seat right next to Zach's on his right. "'Hey?' That's it? That's your big entrance line?"

"Yeah!" Kirishima called out, looking over from where he stood another row past Kaminari, having never made it to the front of the room before Zach held up a hand for them to stop. "You gotta make a grand entrance at a time like this!"

Zach looked around the room, seeing every single person in there waiting for him to say something. They all looked like they had things they wanted to say too, but he did not let his eyes linger on a single one of them more than anyone else. He just shifted his gaze past them all, then back to Kirishima and shrugged at the boy with spiky red hair who lowered his smile at that uncaring shrug. "I'm back," Zach said, offering two words this time, before he looked down at his backpack and started unzipping it.

 _This is harder than I thought. I wanted to stop my gaze like three times. But anyone in here could be the spy. Anyone, could rat out who in the class I care for more than the others. So I have to just care for everyone in here the same amount._ Zach pulled out a new notebook and put it down on the desk in front of him. A few of his things had been brought to him at the station, but the principal had told him that the rest of his things were brought to his new dorm room at Heights Alliance.

Kaminari leaned in off of his chair towards Zach who turned back to him with a steady gaze. "Are you okay?" Kaminari asked.

Zach got a confused look on his face. _How do I answer? I'm clearly not acting normal. A few of them are looking at each other and murmuring, but everyone's just staring at me. I really cannot take this right now._ "I'm fine," Zach said, smiling more and nodding at Kaminari. "Really," he looked around at the others who were all staring at him oddly, but a few started lightening those looks at his smile. _Smiling puts everyone at ease. Just smile for now, then distance in a bit. As long as I smile at everyone, no one is singled out._ "I'm just glad to be back. It's still kind of shocking. Guess I'm processing it, you know?"

"Yeah," Kaminari replied, leaning back and nodding like that was a totally reasonable answer. "Yeah, 'course you are. It's been what? Four months now? Five?"

"Feels like longer," Zach said, then he closed his mouth fast. _Why did I say that? Why does it matter? Just because it's the truth, just because the last two months felt like twice that, thrice even…_ Zach realized what he was thinking, and what his face must have looked like, and he turned away and back down to his notebook that he opened up like he had something he needed to write in it at that moment.

"Well we're all glad you're back!" Ashido called out, and Zach had to turn from his book that he kept looking at to try and get them to stop talking to him. A few members of the class seemed to notice what he was trying to do: Todoroki, Shoji, Uraraka, Asui, Tokoyami. They started moving back to their seats if they were not in them already, though they kept looking back towards Zach as they did.

"Thanks," Zach said.

"Y-Yeah," Sero agreed, shaking his head around to get rid of the strange feeling he had since he saw Zach's face. He opened his mouth again to ask about it, but he stopped himself and felt another strange sensation in his stomach that told him not to. "Wasn't the same since you left."

Jirou came walking over from where she had been standing, and she stopped in between Kaminari and Zach. Her seat was behind Zach's, so he thought she was just going to walk by at first. She stopped though and leaned her head down towards him which made him pull back and look at her in confusion. "What?" Zach asked.

"How you been?" Jirou asked.

Zach's eyes widened at the question. _Recently? No, no don't think about it. Just, think about the past couple of days._ "Pretty good," Zach replied. "I got back into U.A. They even gave me a provisional license," he added.

"Really?!" Sero called out, running over towards Zach's seat that it now seemed alright to crowd around since Jirou was there.

 _Why did I say anything? I should have left it at a one word answer so she would have just sat down behind me._

"You didn't have to take an exam?" Sato asked in confusion, leaning forward on the desk behind Kaminari's from a row back. "Lucky-" the word came out of his mouth then he shut it fast, though a couple of others near him darted him looks.

Zach cracked a bit grin though as he heard that come out of Sato's mouth. It took everything he had not to start laughing. _"Lucky?" You fucking serious Sato?_ "Ck, ch," Zach had to open his mouth and let out some short, cut-off laughs, then he shook his head and lowered it into a flat lip again. "No, I didn't," Zach said. _They'd all just be confused by it if I didn't say anything. This works better. Less questions later,_ Zach convinced himself, and he looked past Jirou's right side towards Sato as he added, "Guess that does make me lucky." _Why am I doing this? Why- why can't I just tell everyone everything? What?! Well, that's what I want to do. That's all I want to do. I didn't realize it until I saw all of them looking at me in worried ways like they want to know, like they want to help. Could they help? It doesn't matter. I'd put them all in danger if I open up._

The door to Class-A opened up and everyone spun towards it to see Aizawa walking inside. Zach turned straight forward and sat up in his chair. His flat lip dipped down a little at the corners though involuntarily. Everyone in the class wanted to ask Zach more, get him to say more, but Aizawa glared around at all the people out of their seats who rushed back over to their own. It may have been the first day of the semester, but they all knew their homeroom teacher's rules by now.

Aizawa walked into the middle of the room and he looked as tired as ever. He was disheveled and had bags under his eyes and stubble over the bottom of his face. He wore his black costume and white raggedy scarf, and his hair was as long and messy, looking like he just rolled out of bed, as when Zach had last seen him. _At VTS,_ Zach thought, his eyes darkening another notch before returning to normal as Aizawa started speaking. "Well. I hope you enjoyed your winter breaks. Now, we're getting right back into it today. So," he reached up and scratched the back of his head. "We're doing Avalanche rescue-training today. It's going to take up all of the morning class periods, so head over to the locker rooms and meet outside of Ground Epsilon in fifteen minutes."

"Ground Epsilon?" Kaminari muttered, turning to his left and the black-haired boy next to him. "Never been there before."

"Is this a new training site?" Iida questioned with his hand lifted high in the air.

"No," Aizawa said in a droned-out way. "But it's only used in the third term. The cold weather conditions from January through March make it easier to upkeep as it's one of the larger training grounds. Now get moving. It's farther away so fifteen minutes isn't a lot of time to get out there." He turned back towards the door himself while all the students were getting up, then he stopped and looked back. "Oh yeah. Sazaki." Zach turned and looked across the room into the teacher's eyes. "Welcome back," Aizawa said.

Yaoyorozu nodded her head as that was how she thought everyone should have greeted him at first. When she looked back towards Zach though, the semi-satisfied look on her face faded fast. Zach's lips were flat and he barely reacted to what Aizawa said. He just stared blankly into the teacher's eyes for a second, then said, "Thank you, sensei."

 _Aizawa doesn't trust me. He's acting normal, but that hesitation I made before responding, I saw the look in his eyes. He was trying to see what I was thinking. I knew Aizawa would consider it. How much do the heroes know? If they find out that I escaped from the villains on my own, how many would doubt that I could really do it if they did not want me to… what if they're right? Don't do that to yourself. You're not a secret sleeper agent. Hunter wasn't just to throw you off from your real intentions for coming here._ Zach started heading for the door after Aizawa had left. _Calm down,_ he thought to himself, noticing a lot of people staring at him again. _Acting too weird is a good way to draw attention to yourself. How, how do I act normal though? Acting normal is making them all think I'm acting weirder than ever! There is no right way to act in this situation unless I make a big deal out of being gone since August. And I don't want to make a big deal out of it. I don't want to start talking about everything._

"Hey Zach, wait up!"

Zach grimaced, then he turned with a flat lip towards the blond boy who ignored how unenthusiastic he was and stepped right up on his side. "You've gotta check out my new costume. I got a bunch of upgrades."

"You too?" Zach asked.

"You got yours upgraded?" Kaminari asked in surprise. "How long have you been back?"

"Oh, I mean," Zach muttered, lowering his voice and cursing in his head for his reaction right there. "I just put the request in a couple of days ago. My costume won't have changed yet."

Kaminari frowned as Zach dodged the second part of his question, though the answer made him think it was recently. "You should have seen it man," Kaminari started, and Zach turned his head wondering what Kaminari was talking about, without looking too interested. "We had this huge party a week ago."

"A party?" Zach asked in surprise, his eyes widening.

"Yeah, we had it on New Year's Eve. I was thinking about what you said back when we went to the mall, and I suggested we have this big thing to celebrate the new year. All of Class-A and Class-B were there. Would you believe it, Iida set the whole thing up?" Kaminari said, lifting his own eyebrows up as if he were still surprised by it. Zach's eyebrows lifted too, but Kaminari frowned at the reaction that did not seem very genuine, and he noticed Zach's look get farther away as soon as he mentioned 'New Year's.' "What did you do on New Year's?"

 _ **"Happy New Year's!"**_ Zach heard the shout in his head coming from an apartment above him, while he was running for his life and covered in his own blood. "Oh, not much," he said, his lips lowering into a deep frown. "Sounds like I missed a good time though," he added in a softer voice.

"Yeah you did," Kaminari said, and Zach frowned in a more annoyed way that Kaminari was rubbing it in his face. "We had a snowball fight between the classes, and we even built these huge snowmen. Class-B must have knocked ours down on their way back from our dorm though, since when we went back out in the morning, theirs was the only one still standing. Monoma showed up when we started destroying theirs, and he said that they had nothing to do with it. 'Must have been the wind,' he said. Our's just wasn't built 'as superbly.'"

"Sounds like fun," Zach said, and his gaze lowered down to the floor before lifting as he saw the door to the locker room just ahead. "Hope we do it again next year," Zach said.

"Oh yeah, of course," Kaminari agreed. "And next time it will be better, since everyone will be there."

Zach turned towards Kaminari and his eyes grew wider again. _Damn it, Kaminari,_ Zach thought, and he turned away from Kaminari just as fast as he looked towards him. _Were we really that good of friends? Can't you tell I'm trying to avoid you? Am I though? I've been keeping this conversation up. I could have just not responded, like I'm doing now- but he said that in an end-of-the-conversation kind of way anyway. Why is this as hard- harder, than running for my life?_

Zach and Kaminari headed into the locker room, and all the other guys in the class walked in too. Zach walked over to his locker and he spun in the combo, and he looked inside to see a new blue gym uniform in there, as well as his old white costume. _White. When was the last time I wore all white? Or even light colors? This class uniform's the lightest thing…_ Zach shook his head and he started taking off the light gray uniform, then he unbuttoned the white shirt beneath it and took off his red tie.

He tossed his uniform into the locker on an empty shelf, then he reached down for his box that had his white costume inside. He popped it open and pulled out the suit, turning and laying it on the bench behind him. He took off his normal shoes and put them in the locker too, spending extra time taking them off. He slid out of his button down shirt, yet underneath that nice shirt he had on another long-sleeved white one. This one was more of an under-shirt that looked warm and comfortable, and the sleeves went all the way to his wrists just at the edge of his black gloves.

Sero looked behind him after he got in only his underwear and was starting to put on his hero costume. He smirked and he said to Zach's back, "What's wrong? Did you get out of shape since you've been gone?"

Zach turned over his shoulder and saw Sero smirking at him. A couple of others looked over too, seeing Zach standing there still with a shirt on and his black pants. Zach was hesitating, hoping everyone would finish changing so that he could get changed in private. _What am I thinking? I'd never make it out in time, and I'd draw attention for being late, and I'm going to have to get changed in here every day. There's no point in trying to avoid it. Just use Deflection Two._

"A little," Zach remarked to Sero, while he reached down and grabbed the hem of his shirt. _I did spend what was it, six weeks, seven weeks, barely allowed to move on my own. I'm sure I had some muscle atrophy. It's why I was so sore those first few days running from the warehouse. My legs weren't used to it. Running like that. I barely noticed since it was for my life, but I was aching all over every minute of it. Probably why I started panting so quickly all those times. It wasn't just the fear-_

"Holy-

"Yo."

"Zach," Midoriya whispered, lowering the white glove he was about to slide his right hand into. He stared towards the boy who just took his shirt off and was reaching into his locker to put it with his other clothes.

Every guy in the locker room stared over towards Zach at those three reactions. Looking closely at a guy while he was changing was pretty weird, but they all started staring at the boy who froze after hearing those reactions and stopped thinking on a tangent. _Oh yeah, Deflection Two. Just need someone to ask the question now._

"What happened?" Kaminari said, stepping towards Zach while still only half in his costume.

Zach turned to him, then he looked down at his torso. When he turned, the people who had only seen one side of his body got a glimpse at more of his torso only to see that it was all evenly dispersed around his back too. Zach stared down at his chest, at the three scars over his left pectoral, the thicker one on his right side next to his stomach. There was a long one going diagonally up from his waistband to his right side just under his ribs, then curving around his side. His skin was discolored on a few places as well- burn scars. Zach stared down at those old wounds and other smaller ones, then to his left arm that unlike his right also had a lot of scars on it. He also had a white bandage wrapped around his upper left arm over his bicep and tricep, and Zach glanced at that for a second and thought about straying off plan, but then he shook his head and reminded again, _Deflection Two._

"You guys remember how I was going around, saving people?" Zach asked. He looked towards Kaminari, then at Midoriya who lifted his shaky gaze from Zach's body up to the other boy's face. Zach's eyes were steady and his mouth was almost flat with the corners lifted up the smallest amounts on either side. "Well one time, there was a car crash that I heard someone got crushed inside of. They were having a hard time getting the body out since there was a fire, but my time limit would have run out if I waited. I went into the car, tried getting him out, and well… the car exploded." Half of the guys looking towards him dropped their jaws, while the other half looked at him oddly and with confused looks at what he was telling them.

 _Todoroki, Ojiro, Kirishima, Bakugo, Midoriya, Iida, and Shoji look at least a bit skeptical._ "I was teleported out of there by Kurogiri, but I got kind of fucked up." He looked down at his body again while frowning, his eyes focusing on each scar for a second. His eyes were starting to lose focus, and he blinked a few times while shifting his gaze to his pants. _And to get everyone to look away,_ he thought, while grabbing the waistband of his pants. He started pulling his pants down, and even though he was wearing underwear, everyone looked away as their classmate undressed.

"Well if that was back then," Sero said, though he kept getting changed and spoke just to Zach so it was in a lower voice. Zach took out his white costume and started putting it on too, though he was finding it a tight squeeze to get his legs in the pants. He looked back as Sero spoke though, and Sero pointed at his left arm where the white bandage was. "What's that from? And on your leg," he added, as he saw the bandage sticking out the bottom of Zach's boxers around his right thigh.

 _Recent. What happened recently? It's obvious it's recent. What did I do recently that they all… I guess, the truth? Do I? I don't have a good deflection for this._ "I," Zach started, and he turned away and started lifting the top half of his costume to slide over his head. "I got injured escaping," Zach said. He pushed his arms through the sleeves of his costume, and once again found it a hard fit. His head came through the collar easy enough, then he looked down to his right hand and curled his fingers a few times in his glove. _I can see my entire wrist, and the sleeve feels tight. As much as my muscles might have shrunk a bit, my arms and legs definitely got longer._ He pushed his left arm harder through his other sleeve, then he turned his head a bit to look at the amount of skin showing on his left arm still, only to grimace as a scar showed on the gap between his glove and sleeve.

As he lifted his head back up after looking at his left wrist, he saw Sato staring at him wide eyes from down a few lockers, and Mineta gawking at him from the other side of the bench between the two rows of lockers all the guys were between.

"You, escaped?" A voice asked behind Zach. He turned and stared at a bleached-blond boy with his hair spiked up who always looked angry, and looked skeptical and annoyed at what Zach just said. "What do you mean by that? Didn't the heroes-"

"No heroes came to get me," Zach said, frowning right back at Bakugo and glaring at the boy a couple inches taller than him. He did not flinch at Bakugo's glare after he said it, and Bakugo's eyebrows lifted up.

"You're serious?" Kirishima asked, leaning around Bakugo and asking in surprise.

"Everyone, we must hurry to Ground Epsilon," Iida reminded everyone, as he realized that he himself was just staring in as much surprise as everyone around him. "We do not want to leave Aizawa sensei waiting."

They all agreed on that point, and Zach nodded at Kirishima before turning back to his locker and closing it. He turned back to them again, and he saw Bakugo still frowning at him, his fists clenched at his sides like he had something else to say. Zach thought about the last time he saw Bakugo, flying up in the air after Kirishima, Iida, and Midoriya. He remembered smiling up as he saw him escaping, but the next time he saw him was in the classroom earlier and Bakugo did not say a thing. Just like everyone else, all of them who had last seen him at such strange times, they all just acted like they had not parted for five months on weird terms, because that's how he pushed it.

Zach started walking quickly back towards the door, as he had his costume on and wanted to head out before anyone else could come up to his side and start talking. Kirishima grabbed the last part of his costume and chased after Zach though while putting the headpiece on over his head. "Hey, so how'd you escape?" Kirishima asked before Zach left the locker room, a big grin on his face as he did not doubt what Zach just said and thought it was awesome.

The question made Zach freeze in place. Kirishima's grin dropped immediately. All the others behind them looked towards Zach's back, and then Zach said in a loud enough voice for them all to hear him, "I didn't kill anyone." A bunch of the people who looked towards him all had the same thought right before Zach spoke, and they eyes opened wide as it was almost like he read their minds. "I, I haven't killed anyone, again," he said.

"No one thought you did," Sero started.

"A few of you did," Zach muttered, then he opened the door and walked out.

Kirishima hesitated for a moment, then he ran out the door after him and said, "So how _did_ you escape?" Zach grimaced again, as he was hoping that edgy answer would get them to leave him alone for a while. "Also, hey," Kirishima continued, and Zach slowed so the red-head could actually get on his side as it seemed like Kirishima wanted to say something quieter. "I didn't see you back at the courthouse, I acted stupid and got kicked out-" Zach smiled softly as he thought about that, and Kirishima grinned at the smile that actually looked genuine to him. "But at VTS, I didn't get to say anything either."

"We've gotta keep moving," Zach said, motioning forward since Kirishima had them slowing down.

"Just wait a second," Kirishima said, and Zach turned hearing the serious tone of the other boy's voice. Kirishima turned towards him, right in the middle of the hallway, and he bowed the top of his body making Zach lean back with the most uncomfortable look on his face. "Thank you, for bringing me back to life."

"Alright, you're welcome," Zach said, and he quickly started walking again, faster this time. Kirishima stood back up straight and he jogged after Zach to get to his side. A couple others who had come out of the locker room back behind them stared over in surprise at what Kirishima just did, then they watched as he ran up to Zach and started talking with a grin on his face even as the boy he was talking to was trying to move quicker away from him.

Ojiro looked to his left at Iida, then right at Kaminari who was frowning a little as he looked down the hall at Zach and Kirishima's backs. "Does Zach seem," Ojiro started, and the other two looked in at him. They had all come out of the locker room around the same time, but Kaminari was a little farther forward and he looked back too while slowing down a few steps. Ojiro hesitated, but then he continued in a quieter voice, "Like he's hiding something?"

"I am sure Zach has his reasons," Iida said. Ojiro glanced at him, but Iida kept staring through the dark slit of his helmet up towards Zach, until he and Kirishima turned to head outside into the cold. "And if he feels like telling us, he will," Iida said. _**"Be careful Iida."**_ _He did not involve himself in my affairs in Hosu City during the first internship. He told me he knew, but, he stayed out of my way. But was that the right thing? Afterwards, he also distanced himself from the situation. I was partly grateful that he did not say more, because I would have had to apologize to him more… but had he done so- He seemed to not want to pry though. And I understand why. When he had so many secrets himself, he must have thought it would be hypocritical to say anything more. Or perhaps he was just worried about us involving in his affairs?_ Iida sped up as they headed down the hall, as it felt like it must have been almost ten minutes already. "Let us move quickly. We must check the map outside to locate Ground Epsilon. I thought I had the school's map memorized."

"Sometimes the fields are just labeled with the actual Greek letters, and that messes me up," Kaminari admitted after Iida said it. He looked over towards Ojiro, then he frowned again as Ojiro still seemed to be on the Zach 'hiding something' subject.

Kaminari opened his mouth to say something to Ojiro about leaving it be, but Ojiro said as they sped-walked for the exit, "Zach, didn't have those scars, at VTS." Iida and Kaminari looked in at him with wide eyes, and Ojiro continued, "At least, the one under his right eye, and on his ear. But didn't those two, look as old as the others?" He asked the last part quietly. "I could see if they were just from another incident, but he didn't specify, and they're not recent enough that it would have been the same time as those ones that are still wrapped."

"Hey," Kaminari said, stopping Ojiro and giving him a harsh look. "If there're more incidents, then maybe he just doesn't want to list every time he's gotten scarred in the last five months, yeah? That doesn't mean he's hiding anything. We're short on time like Iida says. If you want to ask him about those ones on his face, then do it when we get back to the dorm later. We all live with him now. It's not like there's any shortage of opportunities to figure out what's wrong with him."

Iid and Ojiro both looked at Kaminari in surprise. They reached the doors and stepped out, and Kaminari looked straight out towards Zach and Kirishima who were up ahead of them. Kirishima looked over his shoulder and called out, "We checked the map! Follow us!"

Kaminari held a thumbs up, then he lowered his smile when Kirishima turned away again. Both of the others heard the way Kaminari worded his advice to Ojiro, and Kaminari was not trying to hide it from his face. _Of course there's something wrong with him. Noticed as soon as he said 'Hey.' Doesn't mean I can just start asking him to tell me everything… Was that car crash thing a lie?_ Kaminari shook his head. _Ojiro's just getting to me. I'll ask about the one under his eye later. If he says it was in the crash, then yeah he's lying about it. But I'd bet a hundred bucks he says what really happened._

* * *

"I definitely need a winter upgrade for my costume," Ashido said, rubbing her arms as she walked back towards their dormitory after the final class of the day had ended.

"You're telling me!" Hagakure exclaimed, and her teeth were still chattering.

Ashido and Jirou looked left towards the invisible girl who rubbed her hands on her arms a few times then rubbed them on her invisible cheeks as she let out more shivers. Even in her coat just heading back to the dorms, she still could not get the cold out of her mind. The other two sweatdropped, and Jirou said, "We told you you didn't need to get into your costume."

"Aizawa sensei told us to get our costumes on," Hagakure exclaimed exasperatedly, as she had been told this many times by now. "I thought he'd be mad if I showed up out there still in my uniform! I was so embarrassed when he told me to go back!"

"Well walking into an avalanche pretty much naked isn't a great idea," Ashido said, then she grinned and leaned back while laughing as Hagakure smacked her on the arm.

"I wear gloves and shoes!" Hagakure called out.

"That's why the 'pretty much' was there," Ashido said, then she leapt away this time to avoid the next hit Hagakure tried to smack her with.

Hagakure's legs started slipping as she missed it, then she wobbled around with her arms out for balance. She looked down at the path they were walking on where she almost just slipped on some ice. "That was close," she said, her voice nervous as she started walking more carefully.

"It was warmer this morning, but it's getting really cold all of a sudden. Wasn't it supposed to rain tonight? Finally melt all this snow?" Jirou said in annoyance.

"Feels too cold for that now," Ashido replied. "Probably going to snow again."

"Probably," Hagakure agreed.

The three girls talking about the weather stopped talking as there was not much else to say about it. They glanced around at each other, all of them wanting to talk about the same subject. "Sooo," Ashido started, looking right at Jirou, then left at Hagakure. "Zach looks kinda cute with that scar, doesn't he?" Ashido said, and she grinned at the blush on Jirou's face and the audible 'blush' noise that Hagakure made.

"That's really what you got from seeing him today?" Jirou remarked, rolling her eyes and turning to the pink girl next to her, only to see Ashido's grin lower at that question.

"No," Ashido said, shaking her head and slowing down as she looked towards their dorm they were approaching. "Not really."

"Did you guys," Hagakure started. The other two looked left towards the invisible girl whose expression they could read by the tone of her voice. Her head lowered and she whispered quieter, "Did you think, he looked sad?"

"Sad?" Ashido asked in surprise. "I didn't notice that. I thought he was actually doing good, like way too good!"

"Yeah, yeah you're right," Hagakure said, shaking her head as she thought about Zach's smiles she saw all day that for some reason looked sad to her.

Jirou nodded along with the two of them, but as she kept walking she thought about when she stepped up to him right at the start of the day. _I looked into his eyes, and his reaction was so genuine. He leaned back in surprise, and confusion, and he looked like he was asking 'what are you doing?' It was the perfect reaction, for two people who barely know each other. For two classmates, on the first day of school. That's it! It was bugging me all day, but I saw him doing it to everyone! He was, treating it like the first day of school again. He missed a single semester. Does he think we've all changed a lot or somethi- or, or has he changed a lot, so he just assumes we all have?_

The three girls turned in to walk up towards their dorm's front doors. _Has he changed a lot? I didn't really notice, but, but shouldn't he have? Now that I think about it, he's, he's been through a ton in the last few months! Getting kidnapped by villains. Getting put on trial for, oh yeah, he killed two people! He, he had to go up there and try to defend himself, after people called him a monster, his own aunt for crying out loud!_ They were almost at the door, and Jirou was shocked by how low down on the list she was after thinking about it all the way up the walkway. _Joining the villains. Going around saving everyone, starting that Lifebringer thing that spread everywhere, though Kaminari says he was the one who started writing that all over the internet and I don't doubt it. The Villain Training Simulator, and…_ Jirou stopped after she stepped inside and started wiping her feet off on the rug inside the door, then taking her shoes off before stepping farther inside. _What else happened? Between the time Lifebringer stopped really saving people much at all, and when he came back? That's like, half the time he was gone. More! If all that other stuff happened in the first half, what else happened to him? I want to know, but at the same time,_ again Jirou saw the confused look in Zach's eyes as he leaned away from her back in the classroom, like she was a person he barely knew at all. _I, I thought we were closer than that. I don't get that look. I don't get, what he's thinking at all._

* * *

On the fifth floor of Class-A's dorm, Yaoyorozu sat on her desk chair but was facing the opposite direction as her desk. She stared towards the door of her room, her breath fast and her hands held together over her lap. _I didn't say a word to him, all day,_ she thought, staring harder at the door and urging herself to get out of her chair. _I have the perfect opportunity. They gave him the empty room next to Sato. Just across the floor on the boys' side…_ Yaoyorozu shook her head and spun around to face her desk again.

She spun to the desk, then her chair kept spinning and she refaced the door while standing up. "Okay," she said, and she walked towards the door. She looked down after reaching it, staring at the comfortable clothes she changed into after coming back from class. She wore a white t-shirt with 'MOMO' written in bright red letters over the chest, and she had on a pair of dark blue sweat pants and white socks. Yaoyorozu hesitated at the door, then she pulled it open and stepped out before she could argue with herself any more.

Yaoyorozu stepped out, and she glanced down the hall to her left as if nervous that Asui would be standing in front of her door and see what she was doing. Yaoyorozu shook her head around again. _I'm not doing anything wrong,_ she reminded herself. The tall girl with black hair tied back into a spiky ponytail and the largest bust size of any other girl in her class marched confidently down the hall and towards the boys' side.

As Yaoyorozu headed towards Zach's room, the boy she was trying to think of how to approach was finishing up unpacking. There was not much, but as he finished, he held up his cell phone and stared at the device with a dark look in his glowing red eyes. Zach stood there with a black aura around his body, and he had to focus hard in order to keep that black aura from spreading around his cell phone in his right hand. He put the phone into his left hand, then he hesitated and looked around the room. _My voice would come out funny,_ Zach thought, and he brought his right hand to his chest and pressed it against his black t-shirt. His shirt was almost too small for him that the hem barely touched his pants' waistband, and he thought while his body turned back to its normal colors, _I need to go shopping for clothes. I don't have much that fits me anymore._

Zach scrolled down his smartphone and his finger hovered over one of the contacts on it. _This is stupid. They might have already hacked my- no, it doesn't matter. If they can hack mine, they can just as easily hack hers. No matter what phone I call on, there's always the chance they're listening._ Zach kept his right hand in front of his chest, ready to press it into himself at a moment's notice. His eyes darted around again, then he tapped his finger down on the green cell phone symbol next to the name on his contact list.

The boy with messy short black hair lifted his phone to his left ear, and he winced as his thumb brushed up against the top of his ear's outside. He felt part of it move back while the other part stayed where it was, and he shivered as the split ear always gave him chills at the sensation. The phone buzzed in his left hand, and he heard it ring over, and over, and over again. _If there's no response, I'll just throw it out anyway-_

The ringing stopped, and Zach knew the call had been picked up. He heard breathing on the other side, and he said, "Aunt Maye?"

"Zach," she whispered after a few seconds. "I, I heard you came back," she started, her voice getting louder. "A-Are you alright?"

Zach smiled softly, and he looked down towards the floor with half-closed eyes and a sad expression on his face. "Yeah, I'm fine. I'm, happy you picked up."

"Zach," Maye started, then she stopped herself again. Zach heard a deep inhale on the other side of the line, then the woman began, "I am so, sorry." Zach's half-closed eyes closed more, and he smiled in an even softer way. "I was- I didn't expect the questions and… When they started making me out to be a bad guy, I panicked. I wasn't used to it. And you had just- I'm sorry."

"It's alright," Zach said.

"No, it's not," Maye countered. "I said terrible things to you. I, I heard you saved so many people-"

"Aunt Maye," Zach interrupted. "It's alright, really. I don't blame you for the things you said." Zach lifted his head and stared at the ceiling, and he said into his phone in a calm and understanding voice, "I'm not a monster. I know that. But I can see why you thought I was." He heard her opening her mouth to speak as the breath came in, so he spoke faster and louder to stop her, "We both know, it's my fault my dad did it." Maye's breath came out hitched at what Zach said. "The two of us never talked about it. Never once, since you first picked me up that day and I asked if I could stay living at home. But I knew you thought that way from the start. I knew, because I felt the same way."

"When you said that," Maye started. "When you said it at the trial, before they took you-"

"They didn't take me, Aunt Maye," Zach said. "I went with them." His aunt was silent over the other end of the line. "Don't blame yourself for that either. My dad, he fell into a deep depression after my mom died. And seeing me, every day of his life, it drove him mad. I know that's what happened now, as I think back on those years. But Aunt Maye, it was an accident, you know that right?"

"Of course I do," Maye responded right away. Zach was speaking so maturely to her, that she no longer felt like she was talking to a boy at all. She continued after a second, "But, that never made the difference to me. I knew it should. I always knew, but accidental or not, I could never get over it. I'm sorry."

"And I forgive you," Zach said. He heard a gasp on the other side of the phone, then there was silence for a few seconds.

"Zach," Maye said after ten seconds. "I have Tsura here. Would you like to talk to her?"

Zach's eyes opened huge for the first time since he started the call. _Tsura? I, I haven't talked to her in years. How old is she now? Two years younger than me- she's so old! I don't know how to talk to my baby cousin like-_ "Yes. Thank you," Zach said. _Gah! Why do I keep doing stuff like this?_

"Um," Zach heard a voice over the line that was high-pitched, but he did not recognize it. "Hey, Zach," Tsura started.

 _A fourteen year old girl- or is she still thirteen? I think it was like two and a half years apart- stop hesitating!_ "Hey, Tsura," Zach said. "How, are things?"

"They're good, I guess," Tsura replied.

"That's good," Zach said. He hesitated, then he said, "Still want to be a master chef?"

"Huh? Ha, haha," there was some awkward laughter over the line after the initial confused 'huh.' "I haven't wanted that, in years now."

"Oh," Zach said. "Well, what are you trying to do now?"

"I don't know. Maybe become a hero?" she said, offering it up and sounding like she was asking for advice.

Zach hummed, then he said, "I don't know if your grades are good enough."

"How would you know that?!"

"Haha, ha, I just remember your mom scolding you even back in elementary school. Have they gotten better?"

There was a pause over the line, then an annoyed voice muttered, "It's not all about grades. Don't have to get into U.A. to be a hero."

"It'd be better you didn't come to U.A.," Zach agreed with another laugh.

"Don't want your cousin cramping your style?" Tsura asked with a hint of a teasing tone.

 _Where does she get off…_ Zach's smile lowered down, and his eyes closed a bit too. "Not really. It's just dangerous here. Hey Tsura," Zach started. "I'm, sorry if I caused you and your mom any problems this past year."

"I was pretty mad at my mom for a while," Tsura said. She paused like she was looking towards the woman who was still in the room with her or at least nearby, then she continued, "But she really was worried about you. She blamed herself a bit for what happened, more than I blamed her. You don't have to be sorry though. No charges ever went against her, since she'd been supporting you the whole time. You know, your parents didn't actually leave you a lot of money?" Tsura's voice was quieter, and Zach's eyes widened for a second before lowering to their half-open state again.

"I didn't," Zach said. "But, I should have realized. So your mom's been supporting me, the whole time." _She did check up once in a while. Came to drive me home whenever I got injured. Called on my birthday and the occasional holiday. Guess maybe she loved me, even under all that hate._ "Sorry again though, if you were getting any unwanted attention from what I was doing."

"At first, yeah you were really being annoying," Tsura said. She lightened her tone and continued, "But then, all my friends started talking about how cool you were. And other people at school started talking to me. I got more popular in a few months because of you. Not that we call ourselves it, but I'm one of the 'cool kids' now."

"Haha, hahaha," Zach laughed at how proud she sounded right there.

"So thanks for that, big 'cuz," Tsura said, calling him the same way they used to when they were younger.

Zach's laughter slowed down, and it came to a stop while he moved the phone away from his face. He stared at the screen, and then he closed his eyes shut hard while losing his smile completely. He put the phone up to his ear. He took a deep breath. "I'm glad I made up with the two of you," he started. "So we can end on good terms." Zach paused and he clenched his left hand tighter around his phone, while Tsura said something in confusion on the other end. _I'm sorry._ "Don't try to contact me again," Zach said, his voice more stern and serious. "Goodbye forever." He moved the phone from his ear, and he pressed the 'End Call' button.

Zach stared at the phone for a few seconds, then he turned to his wall over his bed. His lips twisted around, and he clenched his eyes shut. _Before they call back. Just do it!_ Zach wound up, and he threw his phone at the wall. He walked over, reached down on top of his blanket and grabbed the broken phone, and he scooped up some glass around it too. _If they had a tracker in the phone, it probably just gave the building location. They already know where this building is though. They must. The spy would have told them. Just like, the spy could tell them what room is mine. Which is why I have to be prepared at all times, even while I sleep. If they don't have my exact location though, I can't make it easier for them to hunt me down._

The boy walked for his door with his broken phone and pieces in hand. _I'll go throw it out in the kitchen downstairs. Then tomorrow I'll try to get a pass off campus to go shopping for clothes, a new phone-_ Zach opened his door and froze at the sight of the girl on the other side with her hand lifted in a fist like she was about to knock. Zach stared at her in surprise. "Yaoyorozu," he said. He looked down at his left hand that he was holding up, not in a glove anymore like it had been all day. Yaoyorozu looked at his hand that he was holding his phone in, and Zach said as she looked down at it in surprise, "Think I need a new one."

"What, happened?" Yaoyorozu asked.

 _Was she standing here when I threw it into the wall? It wasn't very long ago. I could pretend like the noise had nothing to do with it, but she would then ask about the noise._ "I messed up while unpacking," Zach said, trying not to think for too long and just hiding how he needed to think about his answer by acting embarrassed while he responded. "I was shaking my stuff all over my bed, forgot my phone was mixed in after so long. It hit hard and I wound up, with this," he muttered, looking back down at his phone and some glass shards from the screen he had resting over it. "Anyway, I'm going to throw it out downstairs, since I still need garbage bags for my room anyway. _Thank God I actually don't have any,_ Zach thought, as that was a great lie he came up with on the spot and he knew it.

"Oh, you're going downstairs?" Yaoyorozu said. "I- I wanted to ask you something first, if you do not mind."

She was acting semi-formal with him, and as much as Zach thought that was a good thing, it also made him sad. He smiled at her though and nodded his head, a mild confused look on his face. "What is it?"

Yaoyorozu looked into Zach's eyes and stared deep into them. _I will be able to tell for sure,_ she thought. "Are you _really_ doing alright? If you are not, I wish to help you-"

"There's no need for that," Zach said. He stepped out of his room and let the door closed behind him, then he started for the stairs while looking over his shoulder at her. "I'm fine, really. I'm back. I'm finally back home."

Yaoyorozu watched him turn away from her, leaving her standing in front of his door with so many questions left unanswered. _Was that, the truth?_ Momo Yaoyorozu thought. _I could not tell, at all. He did not seem to be lying, but I do not believe him anyway. He was devastated when the cops dragged him away, what I saw of the trial… how could he have gotten over those things, by spending months with villains? I thought it would only get worse. How is he so, alright?_

 _Why was Yaoyorozu outside of my room? Is she the spy? I saw Mineta watching me oddly while I ate dinner. His pervy routine could be an act just to put everyone off guard. They catch him watching the girls, blame it on being a perv, same if he sneaks around Midnight and goes through her things. What about Hagakure? She could disappear and be in any room. She could be listening to every secret conversation and no one would ever notice. The teachers could think they narrow the field down by testing different groups with different information, but Hagakure could always be secretly listening to them… Or maybe, there's no spy at all. Hackerman's just been too good from the very start. Yeah, if only._ Zach's hand clenched around his broken cell phone, and his right hand stayed in front of his body as he walked down the steps, ready at any moment's notice to turn him into a dark creature covered in Death. _But really, why was Yaoyorozu there? She just wanted to ask if I was fine like the others? Or, I guess Yaoyorozu was one of my closer friends back then too. It just feels, so long ago. All of it. Everything that happened before VTS. Everything, before they tortured me, and murdered my family, and-_

Zach lifted his left arm holding his cell phone and he rubbed his eyes with it fast. He winced a bit as there was still a wound under his left arm's bandage, since the glass shard that cut into him had gone deep and that wound was infected before Webb even found him. Even Recovery Girl was not able to help it that easily. Zach kept rubbing his eyes using the top of that arm though, and then he lowered it only to glare down a few more steps at a boy who had stopped at the third floor platform and had not started down his hallway. Zach's gaze softened after he glared at Koji Koda, but the larger boy still leaned back from that first look. "Sorry, Koda," Zach said, and he continued down the steps before turning and walking past the rock-shape-headed boy. "Just broke my phone," he said in a sad way, as if that was the reason Koda caught him doing something out of character on the steps. "It's an emotional day," he whispered, and he continued away while smirking at the joke only he understood.

* * *

 **A/N Thanks for reading. Zach returns to his class and distances himself from his classmates, lying about his scars, how he's feeling, what he's doing. A lot of lying going on this chapter... He makes up with his family though, before cutting off ties with them. The third term has started up. What is in store for Zach's life from here on? Hope you enjoyed. Leave a review below!**

Nightsky of FlameClan chapter 31 . 23h ago

Well that sucked. I was hoping for a longer chapter. Oh well, I hope you update soon!

 **Twice as long this time, _sooorrryyyyy._ Can't get out a 10k chapter _every_ day. Hope you enjoyed.**

Pokemark17 chapter 31 . 19h ago

Glad the story's back on track

 **Well, Zach is back in school. And it is Boku no Hero _Academia_ so guess that makes it on track again. XD Thanks for the review!**

D-Koy24 chapter 31 . 19h ago

I will be you hero baby!  
I could-...something something... Oh OH YEAH  
I don't know the lyrics okay! *pouts with arms crossed.  
I don't know why but the chapter felt very short, maybe its just me,anyway I can't wait for next chapter! Give it to me!  
~D-Koy, can't wait to see the face of Ducky-momo.

 **That was def one of the shorter chapters, don't know if it was the shortest but it might have been. Keeping up the streak with another chapter today, maybe I'll get another one later in too. (Probably will). Thanks for the review, and I hope you enjoyed! Also... _"I can be your hero baby! I can kiss away the pain. I will stand by you forever! You can take, my breath away..."_ XD**

dmaxime2000 chapter 31 . 16h ago

I thought I would be happy about Zach returning to U.A. but something doesn't seem right. Zach seems to paranoid, that's definitely going to affect his friendships in a negative way.

 **Paranoid Zach is right. Kind of hard not to be paranoid after what happened at VTS though. Zach's smashing his own phone in fear and imagining everyone around him as a spy... Not a real happy return this chapter, but we'll see if things start getting better from here on in! Thanks for the review!**

evil879 chapter 31 . 8h ago

is zach going to be able to copy powers like rogue yes or no

 **No... As in no, I won't answer this question. No one knows about Zach's powers before he does, not even me. Okay, maybe I do a couple of chapters in advance, but not going to spoil stuff in this comment section. Thanks for the reviews everyone! Be back later with another post!**


	33. Chapter 33

**Chapter 33:**

Three days after school at U.A. had started back up, Zach felt like he was starting to get less and less stared at constantly. He could even sit down and eat lunch in peace without people asking him a dozen questions which he had recently done a much better job of deflecting with short, one-word replies or just straight-up ignoring. Zach sat there eating his lunch that he savored every bite of, _Lunch-Rush's food is so good. How did I never notice it before? This shit is fucking delicious!_ Zach chowed down, and he chuckled to himself while taking another bite. _I figured out the best expression. Whenever they ask the questions I don't want to, or can't, answer. I just gotta do the pursed lip, eyes down to the right, then half-smile only to lose it like I was trying hard to force it. They fucking apologize before I can even say a thing!_

Zach put his fork back down into his vegetables and pushed them around a bit. _Was I really malnourished? Sometimes they'd go days without feeding me, over a week that other time- but it felt like Shigaraki always wanted me strong enough. I guess at any time he might have felt it was enough, but when that woman was captured._ "Damn it," he muttered, lifting his hand and rubbing the side of his head while pushing around his food some more. "Why do I keep thinking about her? I, left her behind. But I don't really care about her. She's…" he trailed off his mumbling, and he closed his eyes as he thought about the terrified look on the woman's face as he, while in Nightmare, dropped the gun at her feet. _I would have heard something about her._

The boy with messy black hair lifted some veggies up to his mouth, then he noticed the boy on his left side looking in at him oddly and with lifted eyebrows. He put his vegetables in his mouth and started chewing, while thinking, _I wasn't being-_ his gaze shifted in front of him, and he saw some others looking back at their food. The boy on his right was not as quick to look away though, as Kaminari had heard part of what Zach said even if he was mumbling quietly. "' _Her?_ '" Kaminari leaned forward and asked, grinning wide at the question. "You stuck thinking about a girl, Zach?"

"Shut up," Zach muttered, shaking his head and looking back at his food.

This time though, Kaminari could see Zach was trying to use the same kind of usual deflection to try and get out of the question. "She cute?" Zach lifted his eyes up and let out a mental groan as Kaminari leaned towards him more. "Ooh, don't tell me, I bet it's Jenny huh?"

Zach had just looked back down at his food to just try and ignore Kaminari, but he froze as he put his fork in the vegetables again. He froze and stared down at his food, and his eyes opened wide while he leaned up and turned his head to Kaminari. "What did you just say?" Zach asked.

Kaminari leaned back at that look, and he said, "I might have gone with Kuroiro." He scratched the back of his head while a couple of others looked at them in confusion. Kaminari glanced around wondering if he should keep going while people were looking, but Zach kept just staring straight at his face darkly. "He didn't know your address after all. We all, read the letter together. The three of us."

"You were sending letters?" Ashido asked from across Kaminari, a look of surprise on her face as she leaned diagonally over the table. Her eyes widened more, and she said, "To a girl?"

Zach's harsh look at Kaminari started to lower back down. _Why? That's, that's not fair. He knows her? And, he didn't hear? Do people think it was just a normal house fire? Would it have made the news? No, no VTS was the only thing being talked about probably._ Zach stared at his food in front of him, and Kaminari said while trying to shake the uneasy feeling he had, "So, she said she wasn't your girlfriend, but I didn't believe it. Blushed so hard, her whole face turned pink when I asked."

 _That, sounds like her Quirk,_ Zach thought, while he kept staring down at his food. "I don't know what you're talking about," Zach said. Kaminari got a confused look on his face, then he wondered if he was not really supposed to be saying stuff like this after all. "I wasn't able to get any information out while I was with the villains. Or communicate with anyone," Zach said, and he turned his head and gave Kaminari a death glare. Then he looked back down to his food, _Can't just sit here now._ Zach stood up and picked up his tray. _God damn it! JENNY!_ Zach turned from the table right before he heard the screams in his head, before he knew there was no way to keep a straight face anymore.

Zach went and dumped his tray off, then he put it back with the other dirty ones and headed out of the cafeteria. _Fuck fuck fuck FUCK!_ He screamed in his mind, to try and drown out the screams he heard in the back of his head. Zach walked down a hallway back towards Class-A, but they had time before they needed to return. He turned and walked down another hall, though wondering where he was going as he just walked off randomly. _Everyone's staring at me. They're always staring at me! I have to steady my expression. Stop looking angry, or sad. Steady and normal. Just fuck FUCK!_ There were a lot of people in the hall, and Zach turned and started heading towards the boys' bathroom.

 _Am I really going to hide in the bathroom?_ Zach thought as he neared the door. _No fucking way. But, I guess I'll just take a quick piss since I'm here._

He walked into the bathroom and pissed, then he walked over to the mirror that he stared in while washing his left hand. Zach stared at his own blank expression, the long scar under his right eye, his split ear. _Can I really do this? I, it's not like I'm in some life or death situation right- no. No I'm always in one. Think constantly. I can't let my guard down. I can't not hide my emotions from everyone. But, but this isn't an intense situation I'm in right now! I'm just, using the bathroom, and I'm still hiding my face?_ Zach's mouth started twisting down, and his eyes filled with fear and started watering up right away. He stopped himself and returned his expression to normal, _Shit. Is that how I'm really feeling right now? I want to just let my guard down, just for a little while. It's been so long- well, not while I was being tortured I guess. But, but not since August, not since the training camp, have I been- or maybe at the hospital after it- or on the stand? No, even after that. Sometimes, when I was with the villains, I wasn't really pretending was I? They saw my true face sometimes, and I had to try and hide it again, even when I realized my true face was something they were happy to see. They saw me, enjoying it! Being a villain! IT WAS FUN!_

Zach lifted both hands to his head, then he kept staring into the mirror with wide eyes, though he was happy the glove on his right did not fail and transform him while he rubbed his temples. "It was fun," he whispered, lowering his hands and putting them back at his sides. He walked back out of the bathroom, wiping his damp hand on his pants a few times before heading back for his classroom. _Was it fun? I enjoyed it. Did I? I hated some of the stuff they were doing, things I witnessed, things they made me take part in… But I enjoyed it. I enjoyed training my Quirk, training with weapons, and the real combat was- no, don't even think about that. Don't risk any of that coming to light. I didn't kill anyone, but, that's not all that matters. That would have gotten me arrested for real had I answered wrong at the retrial._ He walked back towards his classroom, and he refocused on keeping his expression straight as he got close to the door.

Zach stepped into the classroom, and he saw a couple of others in there still. He looked left towards Sato, Sero, and Mineta, gave the group a small nod when they looked his way and made eye contact, then he walked for his seat. _Would I have just walked up to those guys and talked first semester? Maybe. What are they talking about? Doesn't matter. Don't make friends with them._ Zach sat at his seat and looked towards the window as soon as he sat down. _I didn't eat everything, even though I was thinking about how good Lunch-Rush's food was._ An annoyed look formed on his face and his gaze darkened. He stared out at the dark clouds in the sky, _Will it snow today, or rain? I needed to see the sun right now._ _How long without seeing the sun? How long was it? It felt like…_

The black-haired teen pulled out his phone and opened it to the weather app. "Oh hey Zach," Sero's voice was behind him, closer than he knew the group of three had been in the room with only five people in it.

"What's up?" Zach asked without looking up from his phone, his expression still dark but now with some annoyance in it too.

"I heard you broke your phone," Sero said. "Need our numbers again, right?"

 _I didn't ask for that._ Zach turned and gave the taller teen a small smile. "I'm back in the group chat. So I have everyone's number."

Sero nodded as that made some sense, but Mineta spoke up, "How do you know whose number's whose though?"

Zach looked down into Mineta's eyes. They both realized in that moment that neither had talked to each other since Zach had gotten back. Zach thought about the last time he saw Mineta before he left. He remembered the terrified look of the short boy with purple balls for hair who he saw through the wall of blue flames, and he did not know if Mineta had been more afraid of the villains or him at that moment. _The look on his face now, makes me think it was me,_ Zach thought. "I figured it out," Zach replied after a brief pause. "From the messages. I caught up."

Zach turned back the other way, indicating that was the end of the conversation. _I caught up. Now, what can you ask that starts with 'hey did you hear?' I heard everything. I scrolled up, and I saw everything. You should have made a new class group chat, instead of leaving me in it all of last semester. Why'd you do that? You talked about me enough that someone should have brought up the idea._ Zach stared at a snowflake falling past the window. _As it said,_ he thought, imagining the weather app he had pulled out at the start of that conversation. _No one even mentioned starting a new chat without me. I'm a part of this class. Even last semester? I only saw them, once. I showed up at U.A. once the entire term. I wasn't on the roster. I was a villain. I had left on my own accord. So why? Why leave me in the chat? Why didn't anyone in here, give up on me? Did one of them, but they're just keeping it to themselves since I was let back in? Keeping it quiet because the general consensus seems to like that I'm back? Who would be against me being here? Who in this class thinks of me as a villain… but if there was one, why didn't they bring up starting a new chat?_

The sixteen year old lifted his left hand and he rubbed the side of his head with it while watching snowflakes fall slowly out of the sky. He heard other students returning from lunch, but he did not turn from the falling flakes. _Am I a snowflake? I've thought that before. Where was that? It was recently. Must have been after I escaped actually, since it was barely a week into November when… when it started. That was only two months ago? Two months. A full two months? It's all a blur. Except, it's not. It's a blur, but it also felt like it was forever during it. VTS until now, everything that happened was… just focus on the final week before I got back. Escape. Survival. Hunter. Webb. Turning myself in. The retrial._

"Hey Zach," Jirou started, leaning forward and saying the boy's name. Zach turned his head and looked at Jirou, then she motioned with her head to the front of the room. Zach looked to the front, and he saw Cementoss standing there, in front of the entire class who were sitting in their seats on his right, in front of him, and behind him. _Modern Lit already started?_ He wondered, while reaching down to get his books out. _Snow's falling faster now. Guess I should have realized, time was passing. Time moves so quickly now. Or did it always move this fast. Damn it. How could two months feel so long, but also like they just passed me by? It feels like VTS was yesterday, which means between yesterday and today, all that stuff happened. All that stuff, Webb said it's okay to bury. Well, he talked about snapping, but I've been doing well so far. Just gotta, keep it up I guess._

* * *

Zach sat on the couch of the common room of his dorm. He had his right hand on his thigh, pressed there gently so he could pull it up fast if need arises. There was no longer a bandage under his clothes there or on his left arm after Recovery Girl's most recent treatment. He was staring at the tv that had the news on, but he had to start thinking about something else as he saw a report on an accident up in Hokkaido. _If I was still with the villains-_ he stopped those thoughts right away. _Will Aunt Maye pay for my phone plan? If she stops supporting me, will the government start to? I said goodbye forever and don't plan to give her my new number, but I was able to pull out money from the ATM. I can't believe she'd been supporting me all that time. My mom and dad didn't leave me a lot? Dad must have lost a lot in the scandals, and spent a lot on booze…_

Zach leaned back into the sofa and tried clearing the dark thoughts from his mind. _Making up with Maye and Tsura was the best thing to do. Even if they heard that conversation, it was clear I was cutting off ties at the end. They'll know that I'm doing that so I don't feel too close to them, so they can't use them against me. They are my family, but I still barely know them. I wouldn't kill for them. Even if there were guns to…_ Thinking about putting guns to heads made an image appear in Zach's mind. _I wasn't going to shoot her. I never would have. Why was the gun shaking so much? It was just to trick Spinner and the others. I knew it. I knew I couldn't even be thinking about it, because they might catch me. So I just had to make the decision in the moment, which is the only reason I pointed the gun at her head, with my finger on the trigger! I LET HER GO! There's no way she escaped. Why, is she plaguing me? Because I can only think about my escape onwards. I know it. That's the worst thing I did, since I started my escape. But I hadn't escaped yet. Why, do I have to think about her as after the fact? Or, even during the torture, was that still the worst thing I've ever done?_

 _Tsura. Aunt Maye. I shouldn't think about them, but I have to bring my thoughts back to something good. Something good, that I'll never see again._ Zach let out a small sigh and lowered his head to stare down at his right hand on his lap. "How am I going to do this?" he whispered, staring at his fingers that he curled a couple of times. He then straightened them out fully and snapped his wrist out, pushing the tips of his fingers out of the glove. He pulled his fingers back in, then pushed them out, doing it rapid-fire to keep his muscles ready for it at a moment's notice. "It's not as easy as the glove on my villain costume was, but the heroes want to be-" Zach saw movement out the corner of his eye, and his head snapped to the left while his expression turned dark and both hands clenched.

Zach glared next to the couch a few feet away where someone was standing. _The spy?_ He thought, though he calmed down after a second when he saw who it was. _Shit. That's twice now. I muttered in front of the others at lunch today too. Have to remember to keep it in my head._ _ **"What are you thinking? No hiding things from me!" "AhhhAAHHH!"**_ Zach winced and thought about a scar on his left arm. _He had me saying every word that came out of my mouth. Still wasn't used to conversation when I talked to Webb, wound up saying a lot of stuff I shouldn't have. Making a blind joke, to a blind man? But is he though?_

"Zach," Midoriya said to the boy who lifted his gaze back up to him. The green-haired boy had wet hair and he held a towel over his shoulder since he just came from the bath. He walked towards the couch though as he could not stop himself after Zach's expression just changed from threatening and suspicious, to relieved and annoyed, to pained and far-off, all the matter of a few seconds. Midoriya stepped closer to the couch, and he glanced around to see if anyone else was around, but they were alone in the common room for now. Midoriya looked back at Zach and he clenched his teeth in a way that made Zach sweatdrop and lean back himself. It was the same look Zach saw whenever Midoriya was looking towards him for too long since he got back. "I'm," Midoriya started, but he found it hard to get it out. "I don't have the right to say it, but I'm- sorry."

Zach's eyes opened wide and he leaned back farther while staring at Midoriya's pained expression as he finally got the words out. It had been three days now and he realized that Midoriya had been holding this in the entire time. "I'm so, sorry," Midoriya whispered.

"Whoa, what?" Zach started shaking his head. Midoriya looked into Zach's eyes, and the darker haired boy frowned at his classmate's expression. "Why are you sorry?" Zach asked. _Out of everyone. You're like the only one I know for sure isn't the spy. Well, one of the only ones, but Shigaraki told me all the time how much he wanted you dead, how much he wanted me to help kill you._ "You have nothing to be sorry for," Zach said, waving a hand at Midoriya before cracking a small smile. "And sorry for looking towards you like that. Guess I must have picked up on your habit of talking to yourself. Sometimes my own rants that I go on in my head start to seep out now," again he thought about the reason for that, and his mouth dipped down as he finished, "I should fix that."

"Zach," Midoriya started, his voice hoarse. Zach frowned deeper that Midoriya did not relax after what he had said. "You don't have to- do this," Midoriya said, and Zach's eyes opened wider. "Pretend like everything's alright. It's okay, if you want to be mad at me. I messed up-"

"Midoriya," Zach said, his voice firm as he narrowed his eyes. He got the other boy to shut up, then he said with a serious look on his face, "You, are the _only_ one who has nothing to be sorry for." Midoriya's eyes started growing wider. "The only person, who, in that room full of heroes, came to save me. Yeah you failed, but you _tried._ You came to Camino Ward. You were at the courthouse, and you never said that you saw me walk through, even though I know you did." Midoriya's eyes opened even more, and Zach said to him while getting up from the couch, "You never have to apologize to me. So don't, okay? I don't want things to be weird between us." _That's right. I was thinking about this all wrong. I don't need to hide from everyone. I don't need to isolate from everyone. There's someone Shigaraki is already trying to kill. Someone who he'd try to kill whether or not I'm friends with him._

A bigger smile spread over Zach's face as he stood in front of his classmate who was still just a little taller than him. "Okay?" Zach asked.

 _"Okay?" How am I supposed to be okay with this? I spent the last two months, thinking I had let him die. And now he comes back, all those scars… and he wants things to be normal?_

"I just want, to not be treated the way you're looking at me," Zach said, and Midoriya lowered his bottom lip as his face must have been showing his thoughts. "Everyone looks at me the same way. I just want one person to treat things like they're normal, because this _is_ my normal now. Does, that make any sense?" Zach asked, a nervous look on his face as he realized he was acting weird again. He looked around to see if anyone else saw him, then he looked back forward as Midoriya's expression started to change.

"Y-Yeah," Midoriya said. "That makes sense," he assured, swinging his hands up as he could see Zach felt awkward about what he just asked for.

"Really?" Zach asked, his eyes opening wide. "It did?" _I don't even know what I just asked for. How do I act around Midoriya now? I can't just, tell him stuff. Can I act normally around him and still keep everything I've done for the past five months a secret?_

"Yeah," the green-haired boy replied.

"Cool," Zach said, a relieved look on his face as he leaned away from his friend. "Thanks Midoriya," he said. "For this, and for fighting that Nomu. I never forgot about it."

Midoriya opened his mouth to say how he failed again, but he stopped himself because of what Zach had just told him. Instead he could only nod his head, while thinking, _"Never?" He never forgot? That makes it sound like it was so long ago. Zach, where did you get those scars? Why- can't I ask him?_

* * *

In Izuku Midoriya's room on the first weekend since Zach got back to U.A., Zach was sitting at the foot of Midoriya's bed and looking towards the chair his classmate was on. Zach was tossing a ball up and catching it as they talked, and he was talking with little restraint. "…You should have seen it Midoriya. You ever see two people with Gigantification Quirks going at it? It was a good thing we weren't anywhere populated. Those two giants were wrecking everything!"

"Giant battles," Midoriya whispered, leaning back in his seat. He had something he wanted to ask Zach, but he also knew what things Zach would and would not talk to him about. So instead he reached over to his desk and quickly pulled out a notebook that he flipped open to the earliest free page he had. "How big were they? Do you know their villain names?"

"Neither were as big as Mount Lady," Zach started. He smiled a bit as he mentioned the female hero giant, then that smile lowered down. _Monoma. He healed her, not me. But he used my Quirk. He used my Quirk to save her even though it hurts. And he also, told everyone in the world what I did. If he didn't, would any of it have happened? Maybe the spy didn't even know until he released it. Maybe, I never would-_ Zach shook his head around as Midoriya started to get wider-eyed at his expression. "Sorry, what were we- oh yeah," Zach nodded and smiled again as he leaned back on the foot of the bed. "One of them, not the one with the League of Villains, was at least fifty, maybe sixty feet tall. His name was Tower-guy." Midoriya lowered his pen to the paper, but he caught the tense of Zach's sentence and stopped himself. "The other with the League, was a little shorter, but Skyscraper was much stronger. Skyscraper crushed Tower-guy-"

"Did he," Izuku started. Zach lowered his smile down, and he hesitated before nodding his head. Zach looked away while Midoriya put his notebook back to his side. "How often, are the villains out there, killing each other?" Midoriya asked after a few seconds.

"I know you guys saw it during your fall internships," Zach started. He looked to the wall on his friend's right, where there was a giant All Might poster over a shelf covered in All Might figurines. The sight of all that All Might made Zach frown and continue, "Things have kept getting worse since All Might's been gone. But it's not all flashy stuff that everyone knows about. And it's not like they're all secretly preparing for these huge attacks either and that's why they don't show up so much. There's, a dark world hidden under this one." Midoriya's eyes widened while Zach turned back and looked him in the eyes. "The underworld," Zach said quietly. "It operates parallel to hero society, and when it stays parallel and doesn't collide, no one does a thing about it. But those two lines, the hero society and the underworld, they can't run parallel all the time. Sometimes, the underworld's line bends in and bumps against regular society's which is always straight," Zach lifted his gaze to another visage of All Might again. "Even though those occasional bumps are getting more frequent, it still won't be a huge problem. But the underworld's line is getting thicker. And when it gets too thick," Zach said, his voice getting softer and his eyes narrowing at All Might's face. "That it can't run parallel to hero's anymore, there's going to be a clash that bends both lines off course."

"You're talking about, an upheaval of hero society," Midoriya whispered. "Why do you think-"

"There are more villains than ever," Zach said. "The League of Villains," he continued, looking towards Midoriya again. "It's not a small collection of villains anymore. They have command, structure, different businesses and operations all running under them. It's a society in itself, with competition," he muttered the last part, and his eyes got darker. "And when villains clash, sometimes other people get drawn into it. In other situations too, wherever there are more villains, there are more victims of villains. And there are more villains than ever, at least in our lifetimes."

Izuku Midoriya leaned back in his chair after a few seconds, and he had a nervous look on his face, but one that grew more determined the longer he thought on what Zach said. _"Next, it's your turn."_

That look of determination spreading on Midoriya's face made Zach lose his dark one too. "Hopefully that clash never comes though," Zach said. Midoriya locked eyes with him again and his face filled with surprise as he had just readied himself for this ultimate situation it seemed they were heading to. "It might be farther away than I hope, long enough for you to master your power," Zach grinned and then finished while Midoriya leaned back with wider eyes and his bottom lip dropping, "Long enough for you to become the Symbol of Peace."

"Wh-What are you…" Midoriya started, only for Zach to look into his large eyes with a serious gaze. The green-haired boy started breathing heavier, then he asked in a softer voice, "Zach, do you really think-" Midoriya paused, and he clenched his teeth hard. "Becoming the Symbol of Peace, I- I thought I couldn't do it, because I let a friend get taken from right in front of me. I couldn't do anything to stop it."

"That's why you need to master that power," Zach cut in. Zach darted his gaze around, then cupped a hand to his mouth and whispered, "You'll be as strong as All Might, right?"

Midoriya hesitated and looked around too, even though it was only the two of them in his room. _I'm not supposed to- it's a secret, but All Might said Zach kind of figured it out. How much, All Might didn't know._ "Stronger, hopefully," Midoriya finally said, then he looked down and lowered the small smile he had just gained. "Hey Zach," Midoriya started, as the boy in front of him had lowered his jaw in amazement that 'stronger' than All Might was even possible. Zach's mouth closed though at the tone of Midoriya's voice, making him think it was going to be a question he would try and avoid. "You didn't, tell the villains about my Quirk," Midoriya started, and he lifted his gaze to Zach's face only to see the boy in front of him staring back with huge eyes. Midoriya opened his mouth to say something, but then he stopped from immediately apologizing and got a more serious look again, "Did you? It's a secret-"

"I didn't," Zach said, and he turned his head away and closed his eyes. _If I did, I might have been able to get a short reprieve. If I had told them I had some information important to them. But, but I couldn't do it. Even at my absolute lowest times, I have faith in you Midoriya. To become that Symbol of Peace. And, if I took that away, or helped them at all with stopping you, it would be the absolute worst thing I have ever done. I would have, destroyed the future. If I had done that I never would have been able to change the answer. The only time I would have, is that night._

"Okay, just checking. Sorry," Izuku said quickly some sweat rolling down the side of his face though afterwards.

"Yeah, it's no problem," Zach said, though he was getting up as he did. He lowered the ball he had been tossing up and down to his left side and walked for the door. "I'm gonna head back to my room."

"Zach, I was just-"

Zach turned and he half-smiled at the boy behind him. "It's really not because of that. I get why you have to be secretive about it. I just thought of some things I need to do tonight. Talk to you tomorrow, yeah?"

Midoriya's lifted hand lowered down, and he frowned but nodded his head at his friend. "You know, you can talk to me?" Midoriya said as Zach opened the door.

Zach froze with the door half-open, his mouth lowering into the deepest frown while his forehead scrunched up. _Can I though? I want to talk to someone. But so much of it was illegal. So much, people will look down on. And so much, will just make you look at me in pity for the rest of our lives._ Zach smiled, and he turned his head sideways to look back at the boy behind him, "I know."

Zach left Midoriya's room and headed up three floors for his room. _It really isn't about you suspecting me Midoriya. I don't think so, at least. I just…_ He squeezed on the ball in his left hand and let out a deep breath as he turned out of the stairwell onto the fifth floor. _I really need to vent, and I can't do it. It's the most frustrating thing in the world. Being in this place where it seems like I'm at least a little safe. I know I have to be cautious of Kurogiri, or Hackerman watching me, but Principal Nezu assured me they have better countermeasures in place now. All school systems don't accept signals from the outside, but what about students' phones? Is there a barrier around the school campus that keeps radio signals specifically from Quirks out? Were you intentionally unspecific because you still don't trust me?_

The boy walked into his room and he tossed the ball in his hand over towards his bed. He stood in his room and looked around it, but he was too uneasy because of what he was just thinking about. _They probably know this is my room by now. Why'd I walk in here so confidently? I used my right hand to open the door, because the ball was in my left. That would have been a perfect moment for them to grab me. Stupid._ He lifted his right hand for his chest, pushing his fingers out of his glove and preparing to change modes. He stopped though, and he thought, _What will it do? Just make me feel safer, but I'll still be in here. I have to come back here though. Fuck. I'm so uneasy right now. I need to calm down- but there's no way I can do it in this cramped space where villains can pop up and attack me at any time!_

Zach spun and he opened back up the door to his room. He stepped out and looked both ways on his hall, then he started walking down the hallway towards a door he saw at the end of it. He passed Sato's room, then Todoroki's. He reached Sero's and froze as he heard noise on the other side, but it was just Sero listening to music, not him stepping out of the room like Zach was worried about. _How would I explain that? Standing in front of his door. I could just knock and hang with him. Damn it, no I can't. Midoriya's the only one I can hang out with like that, and I just left his room because I wanted time to think! Right? I just needed to be alone. Except, I needed to vent. To be alone and to vent. That's just venting to myself, which is I guess what I'm doing right now. It sucks though, when you're the only one you can talk to._

Zach walked up to the door at the end of the hall, the first door out from the staircase. His room was closer to the curve in the hall that cut over to the girl's side on the opposite end of the stairs. Next to the steps over here though, there was a doorway between Sero's room and the stairwell. Zach looked towards the stairs, then he turned back to the door and pushed the bar to open it up. _I could probably get in trouble for this,_ he thought. He ignored the doubt though and stepped into the stairs leading to the roof.

Back down the hallway, at the curve in the hall, Yaoyorozu stepped out from behind the corner and stared down to the other end where a door just closed. _Isn't that door the roof access? We are not allowed to go up there. Why, is Zach going up there?_ Momo Yaoyorozu started walking down the hallway, glancing nervously to her right as she passed Zach's door, then looking down towards the roof access door again. _"I went to the roof and jumped off instead of trying again!"_ Yaoyorozu's eyes shot open wide and she started speed-walking down the hall, then jogging. _No, what am I thinking?_ She thought, slowing down before she reached the door. _I'm just worried for nothing. He's, not going to… I saw him talking to Midoriya today and smiling, but, was the smile real? Is he really, hurting? I need to go!_

She shook her head, scolding herself for slowing down and trying to convince herself otherwise. _If it's nothing, if I am being paranoid, I will just scold him for going up on the roof anyway. But, what other reason could he have?!_ Yaoyorozu opened up the door and she started running up the narrow staircase to the roof. There was a door at the top with a push bar on it, but instead of rushing into it and shoving it open, she slowed down and pressed her hands on it slowly. _What am I doing? I- I just don't want to spook him, if he's on the ledge. That's why I'll, open the door…_

Zach stood on the side of the Class-A's dorm roof. He was a few feet back from the ledge, staring out into the dark sky ahead of him without looking up. He just stared straight out, past other dorms, past Musutafu City that he saw ahead of him and on his left a bit. Zach had his hands in his pockets and was breathing a little calmer than he was before coming up to the roof. Most of the roofs of Heights Alliance were slanted and shingled, but that was over the two sides of the building with the halls inside them. He was farther back on it, where beneath him was the main stairwell and end hallways. He stood on the west side of the back of the building, twelve feet from the back-left corner if someone was looking at it from the front.

 _…That would be weird though. While we're all still students, everyone's supposed to be thinking about having their own agencies and being the best heroes they can be. Plus, it would just start a weird dynamic if I told him, I wouldn't mind being his sidekick. But I think it would be kind of cool, once he's the next All Might. And I want to help him get to that point. I want to help, save this world. Before it's too late. Still though, not gonna say anything about it. I want to be my own hero anyway. Instead of a sidekick, maybe I can just work with him as equals. Or, if it takes too long for him to master that Quirk, I'll take some of the share. The way I do things, the way I've been doing them and how I plan to from now on, it doesn't match the hero style. But if I have to do it, I will. And whether or not people at the top of society complain, I know why they let me back in so easily. People, trust me. They don't know me, and they know I've killed people, know I joined the villains, but they trust me. I saw them talking about me on the news last night. People want to see if I'm really at U.A. They want to know where I've been, why I stopped healing people… It's not that I don't want to-_

"Zach?"

Zach's head snapped so hard to the right that his neck hurt. His eyes were huge, and he said after a second of his bottom lip being lowered, "What are you doing here?"

Yaoyorozu took a step past the door and let it start closing behind her. "I saw you going up," she started hesitantly. She stopped walking and kept a large gap between them, as she asked in a nervous tone, "What, are _you_ doing up here?"

 _Why did she follow me? I guess, anyone could have. It doesn't mean anything. This is Yaoyorozu! Shindeki Buda almost killed her- not that Shigaraki would have told everyone who his spy was, if he even had one back then… But why did she follow then?_ "I," Zach started, trying to think up an excuse while also figuring out why Yaoyorozu had that strange look on her face. _She doesn't look like she just came to scold me for being on the roof… the roof. Oh man. She heard, and she- she thinks I-_ Zach turned his head back forward, looking off the roof. He leaned forward a bit to look down at the drop, then back at Yaoyorozu who had an even more nervous look on her face. He almost felt like smiling and laughing at her unwarranted concern, but instead he just felt a warm feeling inside him that made him frown more.

"It's not that," Zach said. "What, you're thinking," he specified, and Yaoyorozu's eyes widened as he could tell, and apparently it was not it which made her start feeling worse that she let him see she was expecting it. "My room just felt a little, stuffy," he said, his voice softer as he turned and looked back out over the campus again.

"Stuffy?" Yaoyorozu asked, taking another step towards the shorter boy. He had not spoken much at all to her since he returned, and as relieved as she was that he was not thinking about jumping, she did not want to go back inside with just that. "Are the dorm rooms not to your liking?"

"I like it," Zach said, shaking his head as that was wrong too. He froze for a few seconds, then he looked back and said, "Do you, have your phone on you?"

Yaoyorozu's eyes opened wide. "No, but I can go get it-"

"No don't," Zach said just as quickly as she was speaking. She got a confused look on her face, wondering why he asked if he wanted her answer to be 'no.' "I don't-" Zach started again, then he frowned and started shaking his head at her again. He opened his mouth, then he looked around and out in different directions. _What am I afraid of? We're alone. There are no phones! There's no need, to be so afraid!_ "I just, needed somewhere, where I could think," Zach said, looking hesitantly at Yaoyorozu to see if that made sense to her.

"And your room, is not a good place for that?" Yaoyorozu questioned. She got all of her best thinking done in the confines of her own private room surrounded by her things. She did not see how someone's own room could feel 'stuffy,' but she wanted to know.

"No," Zach said, and he shook his head again. He opened his mouth, closed it, then opened it again. "I'm afraid-" he stopped and cursed in his head, lowering his gaze from the shocked girl in front of him.

"Of what?" Yaoyorozu asked, taking another step closer to Zach so the gap was only ten feet now.

"I- I know, better than anyone," Zach started while looking at the roof below his feet. "How Kurogiri's power works." Yaoyorozu's eyes got even wider, while Zach muttered, "All those accidents, all those times he sent me to locations to save people, I understood what his power was like. I know, he needs to see the place he's creating warp gates in, or have the exact coordinates. And I know it's difficult to get the exact coordinates. It's why I was too late sometimes. Or why I had to appear in certain hospital rooms, and leave out those same rooms, but run across the hospital to the room where the person actually was. But he could find a way," Zach whispered, and he shook his head while lifting it a bit to stare back at the girl in front of him. _I shouldn't be telling her this. It'll only scare her. It'll, only make things worse._

"Zach, you think, they are going to try and kidnap you?" Yaoyorozu asked in realization. He nodded his head after a second of hesitation, since he had already confirmed it with what he was just saying anyway, or at least that's how he reasoned it to himself. "U.A.'s security is too-"

"I don't have enough faith in it," Zach interrupted, shaking his head at her and then turning and looking off the roof again. "It's been bypassed before. And, and with Hackerman-" Zach paused and he looked back at Yaoyorozu. "As hard as going around saving people was, it got easier whenever we could get Hackerman to help us. He's another villain," Zach explained to the confused-looking girl in front of him. "But, I almost never saw him. And I never figured out how his Quirk works. I know it has to do with signals, or electrical waves, and he has to be touching some form of electronics. But he can hack into things. I don't know what he can, what he can't. I don't know if he has a range. I know, he hacked secret cameras at VTS, but I don't know where he was during that. He could have been teleported by Kurogiri right up to the building, or he could have been a hundred miles away. And if he was a hundred miles away, if he has no range, couldn't he have hacked into my old phone? Used the location settings on GPS to find my _exact_ location?"

Yaoyorozu's breathing started picking up as the boy in front of her spoke faster. "And I've already started giving people my new number, after I- after my phone broke," he whispered, though as he looked into Yaoyorozu's eyes, he could tell she did not believe the story he gave for his phone breaking anymore. "And what if he can hack just by having a phone number? It's why I, have black tape over both cameras on my phone," Zach whispered. "But just having it in my room, makes it hard to do work, sleep… relax." He added the last part because it was the reason he was up here on the roof right now.

"Zach," Yaoyorozu began. His eyes squinted shut and he lowered his gaze from hers as he thought, _Why'd I keep talking? I should have just kept my mouth shut._ "You do not have to worry so much. The teachers know that VTS was hacked, and they have taken countermeasures to prevent it from happening again. I am sure we do not need to worry about our phone cameras watching us." _How could you know that? I know they are checking signals coming in and out, and I know there are supposed to be blocks…_ "And as you said yourself, this Kurogiri, the one with the Warp-Gate Quirk, he cannot just create portals anywhere. If you have taken the precaution to tape your new phone, I will not try to tell you it is unnecessary, but it is surely enough."

"How do you know?" Zach asked, lifting his gaze back into her eyes. He was really searching for an answer, and she could see that and came up with one fast.

Yaoyorozu lifted up her left palm and offered, "Even if the worst case scenario was true, and the Hackerman could find out your new phone, hack it, and find your position, how would he know what floor you are on? Is your phone's location so exact, that he could be sure he is not opening a portal straight into the floor, or the wall? Would he risk sending someone into a wall? And how would they know if you were in your room at the time? If he cannot observe what is going on as well, how can he know how long to hold his portal open for, unless he risks coming through himself, alone into the school that has been preparing for him to arrive again since the first time they saw him?"

Zach's eyes grew wider with everything she said, and he started nodding his head along with her. His mind tried to come up with ways that the villains would counter each of the things she said, but she was speaking so fast that his mind could not keep up, and there were so many risks he realized the villains would have to take that it seemed crazier to him that they would try each second. _But, there are still ways. When I walk around with my phone out of my room, in a street or something. Or if I pass in front of security cameras- if Hackerman really can just hack every security camera and use facial recognition to find me whenever I pop up. That would be an OP power for sure. He has to have more drawbacks. I hope he does, but I can't rely on hope!_

"Anyway Zach, I think you should question whether or not you are being, just a little paranoid," Yaoyorozu suggested. He lifted his gaze to her again, and he slowly started nodding as he had considered that himself several times. She smiled at his nod, and she said with that small smile on her face, "Perhaps they are not even trying to locate you at all. Maybe, they are not trying to capture you." She offered it up and smiled at him, but his nods stopped and his expression darkened again.

"They're trying," Zach whispered.

She thought he was talking about right now, and that he was not just on the roof because he was paranoid, and she started shaking her head at him. "You don't know that-"

"I do," Zach said, his voice louder, then he closed it fast as she looked at him with wider eyes. He gave an apologetic look for that outburst, then he opened his mouth. _They'll never stop…_ _ **"You will never go back. You are one of us now. You are going to be one of us, forever."**_ _No! No no, don't think about that stuff. Only, only recently._ Zach's mouth that opened, his face scrunching up in pain as he did, closed again. He pursed his lips and shook his head, then he said while looking her in the eyes, "They're chasing me. They're trying to get me. Because I escaped."

Yaoyorozu had heard that rumor that all the guys in class had apparently heard straight from Zach, but she still shook her head at him again. She wanted him to feel better, safer, and she could see he still looked way too paranoid. Her head shake made Zach bite down harder though, and he said, "I know it. I'm not just being- sure I'm being a little paranoid, but-" he stopped again, and he shook his head while closing his eyes in pain, and anger because of the look she was giving him. "I heard you all had a party on New Year's."

The girl in front of him got a sadder look on her face, and she thought about how much that must have hurt him knowing they had a party even while he was gone. She opened her mouth to speak, but Zach continued as she did, "Want to know where I was?" Yaoyorozu froze, then Zach turned from her and looked out off the roof again towards the bright lights coming from the city they were in. "Just, a few miles away. Running through the streets, getting chased, by the _Hunter._ " Yaoyorozu's eyes opened huge behind him, and she stared in shock at the boy who reached his right hand up to his left arm, grabbing it in phantom pain and squeezing the top of his long sleeve so tightly. "He wanted to bring me back. He was going to- so I tried fighting him, but I had no idea where he was. He'd come out of nowhere. He almost got me, so I turned into R- I used my Nightmare form. I, I still couldn't do a thing though. I fought, and ran, and got chased and attacked, for hours. All of New Year's Eve… and when I heard the countdown, when I heard the cheers for the new year, while stumbling around and covered in my own blood-" Zach gasped and he leaned his head back, taking in a huge breath of cold air to clear his throat, not wanting to get choked-up here.

After taking that pause for a breath though, he realized what he was saying and who he was ranting to. _It was after. It was after I left. I, I don't need to keep that stuff a secret, but…_ he turned his head to the side and looked back, then he turned his body fully and his eyes opened huge at the girl behind him. "I'm sorry," Zach whispered, gritting his teeth and lowering his right hand from his left arm. "I didn't mean to, say all that," he whispered, hating himself because of the tears he saw in the corners of Yaoyorozu's eyes. "But I'm not, just being paranoid for no reason. I didn't have a lot of options. I didn't think I had any… But coming to U.A., was not the safest path I could have taken. At least I don't think it was," he muttered at the end, wondering if the other choice would have been any safer than this. "And I'm just, nervous," he said, deciding against saying 'afraid.' "But I'll be alright," he said, shaking his head again. "Thinking about those things you said, I feel like my room's, probably safe."

"Zach," Yaoyorozu whispered, and she lifted a hand and wiped off her face just below her eyes. "I had no idea…" She stopped herself, then she started while taking a step closer to him, "I'm sorry you feel like- no, I'm sorry that they _are_ still coming after you. But we won't let you get taken this time. As long as you don't, go with them-"

"Heh, don't worry about that," Zach started, but his laugh was cold and dry. "I'll never go back with them again. I'd rather- do anything else," Zach finished that sentence, and he felt relieved at how close he got there to making her even more worried. Zach started walking forward, moving a little to the side to go past the girl towards the door. "I mean it Yaoyorozu," Zach said, when he got right up next to her and she turned in towards him. "Thank you," he said, turning partly and smiling at her out the corner of his right eye. "You're one of the smartest people I know. So I'm glad you think it'd be nearly impossible for them to get me in my room. Makes me feel better."

Yaoyorozu's breathing sped up but Zach turned straight forward and kept going for the door back downstairs. She was frozen where she stood for a few seconds, her cheeks red and feeling shivers from something other than the cold air around them. _**"You all can call me Zach. I don't go by my last name."**_ What Zach told his class on the first day of school the previous spring came to Yaoyorozu's head, and she thought about what he just said, before saying, "Zach." She started walking towards the door back downstairs too, but she looked down and to her side as she continued, "You can call me Momo, if you'd like."

 _Her first name?_ Zach thought, his hand stopping before he touched the handle of the door. His eyes were wide, and he thought in surprise, _I don't think any of the guys in class call her Momo. Maybe, things changed since- no, no I've heard them call her Yaoyorozu since… Then why-_ Zach turned his head sideways and glanced back at Yaoyorozu again, and his heart clenched up, and his face scrunched, and he turned back to the door with a frustrated look on his face. _No one calls her Momo. If I did, people would know- think, we were close. I, can't do that to you._ "That's fine Yaoyorozu," he said, his voice flat and making Momo lift her eyes up at his back in surprise, and a bit of hurt at how unaffected that voice sounded. "Let's get back inside. Thank you, for talking to me." _I can't, put any of you at risk._

* * *

"You're an idiot," Jirou said, rolling her eyes at the boy next to her she was walking away from U.A. High School with.

"Or, am I a genius?" Kaminari asked, lifting his eyebrows and bouncing them a few times when the shorter girl glanced back his way.

Kyoka Jirou thought about earlier that day when Kaminari short-circuited his mind, and she put a hand over her mouth and laughed into it. "'A genius?'" Kaminari lowered his bottom lip at how funny she seemed to think that was, but then he crossed his arms and kept grinning anyway.

"It's a good idea. Just because it's boarding school, doesn't mean we have to spend every weekend cooped up here. And didn't you say you snowboard when we were doing the avalanche training?" He asked.

Jirou's eyes widened a bit and she turned back to Kaminari as they were nearing their dorm. "What? Do you not?" Kaminari asked at her strange look.

"N-No I do," Jirou said. She turned back forward and thought, _You remembered that?_ "You never said anything about it then though."

"Wasn't really focused on snowboarding when there was an avalanche coming towards us. I can't believe you wanted to ride that thing-"

"Oh, can you only handle the bunny slopes?" Jirou teased.

"No! Double blacks, all the way," Kaminari assured, crossing his arms to eliminate the doubt that he was anything but the best. She rolled her eyes at him but he kept looking at her like he was serious, then as she opened them wider and was going to ask if he really was, his head turned more to look behind them. Kaminari's grin lowered and he frowned, before turning back forward towards the dorm with a scrunched-up face.

Jirou glanced back before looking up at Kaminari's face. "What's up with you?" She asked.

"Why's," Kaminari started, then he stopped and just pouted for a second. They reached the walkway up to their dorm's front doors, but Kaminari slowed down and said, "You go in ahead. I'm gonna, stay here for a minute," Kaminari said, in the weirdest way that made Jirou sweatdrop at his annoyed expression. He seemed to forget all about what they were just talking about, even though she was actually starting to give the idea some though, and she frowned before shrugging and walking for the building.

Kaminari stretched both hands up in the air like he was just standing there for no reason, then he turned his head and looked back at the two walking towards him. "Oh, hey guys," Kaminari said, and he walked back and stepped next to Zach's left side while Midoriya walked on his right. The conversation he saw them having as they walked towards the dorm stopped and both looked towards him. "I'm wiped after today. I think I bombed that test."

"Really?" Midoriya asked, leaning forward to look past the boy between them. "Are you having trouble with math Kaminari?"

"Yeah, I should probably ask Yaoyorozu for some help again," Kaminari admitted with a scratch of the back of his head. "How'd you do, Zach?" Kaminari asked.

"Good," Zach said. "I think," he added, as they stepped onto the walkway up to the dorm's doors.

Kaminari narrowed his eyebrows down, as Zach responded without looking away from those doors. His short response, his attitude, it was rubbing Kaminari the wrong way. Midoriya looked over towards Kaminari with a nervous expression that Kaminari caught, and Kaminari just frowned at him too. "So, you two are like besties now huh?" Kaminari asked, his tone half-joking but his lip flat after he asked.

"Wh-What do-" Midoriya started as he and Zach stopped from the weird question.

Zach turned and looked Kaminari in the eyes with an annoyed expression on his face, but that only made Kaminari's expression even more annoyed itself, and Midoriya to lean back nervously. "You mad at me for something? I said I was sorry for mentioning the letter dude, but I barely said anything about it anyway."

"I'm not mad," Zach started.

"Then why're you being like this?" Kaminari asked.

Midoriya glanced to his left back towards the road to check if any of their other classmates were returning, and he spotted Shoji and Mineta walking just into sight. "I'm not 'being like' anything," Zach started. His voice got lower and he said, "I'm just not-"

"I see you having these long conversations with Midoriya," Kaminari said, and Midoriya looked back anxiously, feeling really awkward about this current situation. "But you say like two words to me and walk off." Zach's eyes widened a bit as Kaminari's narrowed, but instead of annoyance, the blond just looked hurt. "If I didn't do anything to piss you off, then why are you," Kaminari shook his head once, then he stopped and grit his teeth more. "No," he muttered to himself, as he was about to just say 'forget it' and head inside. "It's not okay man. Thought we were friends, and I know this isn't just the 'new you,' or whatever, because I see you talking to Midoriya without holding back so much. So unless I did something, you're just making me feel like I did something for no reason."

"It's not for no reason, but you didn't do anything," Zach started, shaking his head at the blond teen. _Kaminari, it's not that. I want to be friends. I, really do._

"Then what is it?" Kaminari asked. "If you're gonna keep acting this way, which it sounds like you are, then at least give me a good reason. If you don't, you're just being a di-"

"Midoriya's already on the villains' kill list," Zach said, and he narrowed his gaze at Kaminari in a cold way. Kaminari's eyes widened, and Midoriya's did at Zach's back too. Zach glanced back in a hesitant way after saying it, but he shook his head and then turned back to Kaminari. "So I can make friends with Midoriya without feeling like it's my fault when- if the villains kill him." Zach clenched his eyes after the pessimistic way in which he almost said that.

"Zach, I don't get it," Midoriya started behind the boy who he was confused hearing this from.

"You're, wait- so you're…" Kaminari was not getting it either, and he looked at Zach in such a confused way as Zach's eyes opened back up.

"The villains, are going to kill everyone I care about," Zach said. He pursed his lips, then he returned to an uncaring expression at Kaminari's huge eyes, "So I have to distance myself. Plus, Midoriya was the only one who tried to help me," Zach continued, turning back to the door of the dorm with an annoyed look on his face. He realized he just made it sound like he was only sticking by Midoriya for that reason alone, and that annoyed him since it was not the only or even more important reason. "In that room full of heroes, none of them did a thing, while Midoriya fought the Nomu and tried to save me." Zach had seen Shoji and Mineta reaching the start of the path, but he pretended like he never had and that they were just ending their conversation as he opened up the dorm and walked inside, leaving the door open in hopes the other two would move in fast to prevent the cold from getting in while also stopping Mineta and Shoji from asking questions outside.

Zach continued towards the stairwell after taking his shoes off, and his eyes were dark as he clenched his fists at his sides. _Damn it. Damn! Why didn't I come up with a better reason- a lie? Telling him the villains are going to kill him. I guess, that will scare him into staying away from me though. Maybe. I hope he doesn't go off telling everyone… though actually, I guess that would be a quick way to get everyone to avoid me. Do I really want that?_ _ **"Zach!"**_ Zach's eyes clenched shut as he walked up the stairs towards his room, thinking about the first thing everyone shouted at him last week. _Are they already telling the others? How many will know soon? How many of them are going to stop talking to me? These people who I live with, my classmates, my- I want to call them friends. I want to just_ _ **be**_ _normal and live here like a normal person. I want to enjoy this place like I know I would if I wasn't worrying all the time._

The boy opened his room, got inside, and he slid his fingers out of his right glove with a flick of his wrist. He smacked his hand into his chest and his exposed fingers touched him and turned him pitch black, before his bones showed through the front of his black veil. Zach's vision started tinting red, and he walked over to his desk and sat on his chair. His blinds were drawn, and he never turned the light on in his room. _Not worried,_ Zach thought, lowering his elbows to his desk and putting his left hand under his chin. He stared at the closed blinds, the cracks of light getting in that he felt the urge to cover up. He pulled out his phone from his pocket and put it on the desk, and the black veil on it seeped off in little wisps after a few seconds of it resting there. Zach stared at the tape over the cameras, then down at the microphone which he had broken intentionally a few days ago, just in case Hackerman was always listening in to everything he said. _Afraid,_ Zach thought. _I can't call this freedom. I'm here at the safest place in the country for me, and I'm still terrified. I'm still trapped, by Shigaraki. He's in my head._ Zach started shaking and he lifted his left hand from under his chin up to the side of his head. _And that means, I'm still his prisoner. Damn it,_ he thought, clenching his left fist into the darkness around his head that felt like a mix of a gas and actual touchable Death. _The only way I can protect myself, is to get stronger on my own._ Zach lowered his hand and turned, getting up from his chair and then dropping into a push-up position on the floor. _I got weaker during that… but, I can be strong. I can, protect myself. On my own. Because no one else can protect me._

* * *

"Alright class, you may start lunch now," Cementoss said to Class-A as his Modern Literature class came to an end. "Your Hero Studies course this afternoon will be led by Aizawa sensei, by the way," Cementoss added.

The students getting up from their seats gave the teacher a thankful look, reminding themselves to get back from the cafeteria earlier than usual. Zach stood up and started out of his row, but when he turned to walk towards the door, Cementoss stepped his way and spoke to him. "Sazaki. Would you mind coming down to the teacher's lounge?"

Zach turned towards Cementoss and stared up in the gray figure's slits of eyes. His flat lip dipped into a frown and he glanced to his right to see a couple of classmates looking back at him wondering what this was about. "Do I have to?" Zach asked, thinking on the wording and polite tone that Cementoss worded that.

"Some other teachers and I have something we need to speak with you about," Cementoss replied.

 _Is he dodging the question? I said I wanted to avoid this._ Zach frowned deeper but nodded his head, "Okay."

Cementoss and Zach walked out of the classroom after the rest of the students had gone, and they walked the other way down the hallway. Zach saw students from other classes walking by him on the other side of the hall, but he kept his gaze straight on Cementoss's back. _Everyone still gawks at me. Some of them probably haven't seen me yet, but still. Get over it already. Damn, why is Cementoss doing this?_ Zach's fists clenched hard at his sides but he released them a second later, trying to calm his expression.

 _ **"Principal Nezu. That thing you guys did after USJ, don't do that. If you're planning on having all the teachers meet up with me or something, please don't." "I am not sure I understand-" "No one's going to like it. They won't. I won't. Please, just don't do something like that."**_ Zach's expression got darker as they reached the teacher's lounge, and Cementoss opened the door for Zach to step in. He walked into the room, and he glanced around to see four other teachers in there.

Vlad King, Snipe, Present Mic, and All Might were all standing in the room and turned as Cementoss led Zach in. He walked in with a dark look on his face he could not hide, a look many of the teachers in front of him had seen in the last week and a half. _The principal probably did what I asked, but these guys just couldn't help themselves._ The door closed behind Zach and he took a few steps farther in while the taller men all faced him. "You don't want to do this," Zach muttered under his breath as All Might stepped forward.

All Might got a confused look on his face, wondering what Zach thought they were about to do. "Young Sazaki," All Might began. The thin teacher with pushed-back blond hair over his head pulled back as Zach started shaking his head at him, his lips pursed and like he was holding himself back. "We called you hear because each of us has something that we need to tell you."

Present Mic scratched the back of the head. He could see the look on the boy's face saying that he did not want to be there, and neither did he. He lowered that hand though, and he thought about VTS and running up the rocky area from the side closer to the muddy slope, seeing the kid and dropping his jaw, freezing in place. Present Mic's lips twisted down, and he started, "We shouldn't have let you get taken away."

Zach turned to Present Mic and started shaking his head, such a frustrated look on his face. "Don't," Zach started, looking around at the others who were all opening their mouths.

"We were so close," Vlad King began, his teeth clenching after it came out. _This is the second time, Sazaki…_

"It was our job to protect you," Cementoss added in.

"But, we failed," Snipe completed. "And for that, we are sorry."

Zach looked towards Snipe, then he looked back into the middle at All Might who searched Zach's eyes to see what he was pursing his lips so hard for. Zach finally opened his mouth, and he asked in a strained voice, "Is that all?"

Most of the teachers in front of him got even more frustrated looks at the expression on the kid's face and his attitude. "Hey Sazaki," Present Mic started. "What's with that reaction? Can't you-"

"Do you want me to forgive you?" Zach asked, and his eyebrows pushed down while his eyes glared up at Present Mic. A furious look spread over Zach's face, "You, pro heroes, who let me get taken from right in front of you?" Zach hissed, and all five of the men in front of Zach opened their eyes wide. "I despise-" he started, then he bit down hard and he clenched his fists at his sides to stop saying it. "I had come back," he snapped, his voice getting louder while he balled his fists. He glared back at All Might whose jaw was dropped and his eyes were huge, then he shot his glare to Cementoss who he had tried to warn. "I came back, to the only place I thought I would be safe. I, I made the opportunity for myself- because I had faith that once I was surrounded by heroes, the heroes I trusted the most! There was no way I would fall back into the villains' hands."

"Sazaki," Snipe started softly.

Zach shook his head while darting his gaze towards Snipe, then he looked back at Present Mic and whispered, "You couldn't have shouted?" His eyes darted to Cementoss, "Or, made a wall blocking the portal? Or something? Anything?!" Zach shouted, looking into Cementoss's eyes desperately, and the teacher could see the boy truly searching for an answer. "I- surrounded by all those 'great' heroes, I got captured, and I got…" Zach's lips started trembling, and he bit down on his bottom lip hard. He bit down so hard with shaking eyes and a panicked look rising on his face, that a trail of blood came out the middle of his lip and seeped down to his chin while the teachers all stared in shock at him.

Zach gasped, and he reached a hand up and wiped the blood he felt, then wiped his eyes fast too before spinning around. _FUCK! That's why, I didn't want to have to talk to them. Talk to, my fallen heroes. I hate this._ Zach took a step towards the door, then he froze as his hand grabbed the handle. "Snipe sensei," Zach started, his voice low and his eyes darting to the floor. "Thank you, for trying to shoot the Nomu," Zach said. He slid open the door, then he continued, "Next time though, if it happens again, aim for the head."

Snipe's eyes widened behind his mask, then he spoke to the kid about to walk out, while the others were all still too shocked or frustrated to speak. Vlad King's fists clenched so hard he broke the skin of his palms through his gloves, and Present Mic's jaw was dropped as he saw that going a much different way. Snipe started before Zach could walk out, "Even if I had done something like that, the Nomu's head and its arms are made of-"

"Not _its_ head," Zach interrupted. Snipe got confused, and then he and the other teachers all realized what Zach was saying. "If one's pulling me through a portal again, and you see it," his head turned sideways and he had a pained look on his face as he whispered, "aim for mine."

* * *

 **A/N** **Thanks for reading. Hope you enjoyed. Leave a review below!**

Nightsky of FlameClan chapter 32 . 9h ago

Yay, Zach's back. I hope he opens up to the others again soon. And why do I sense a sort of romance blooming? I get the feel Yaoyorozu and Jirou are beginning to develop a crush on our protag.  
Anyways, hope you update soon, can't wait for more!

 **Zach back in the school swing, not a very happy camper though. Zach and Yaoyorozu have a moment this chapter, but he's still against putting anyone in harm's way by getting close- except for Midoriya whose a target already! Hope you enjoyed and thanks for reviewing!**

D-Koy24 chapter 32 . 8h ago

Hmmm I defiantly wanted Tsuyu to be there as Mono walked to Zach's room.I imagined her still thinking about not running into Tsu and out of nowhere she hears "Momo-chan" and has an awkward staring contest with her (involuntary)  
~D-Koy,No one can deny my sparkle, MERCI!

 **Lol would've been a funny moment, should add some more of those considering the amount of angst in this chapter. Sparkle! Thanks for the review!**

Carzysgt chapter 32 . 9h ago

Aww man! I can understand the paranoia for Zach, but I think it's a bit late to be worrying about a potential spy figuring out who you care about in the class since they've been able to observe who Zach associates with since the start of freshman year! Idk about how potentially effective the "countermeasures" against Kurogiri and Hackerman are, but you can't live and be on guard 24/7, Zach.  
Honestly, I just want to see Zach talk about what he went through and how he feels about it with someone like Denki, Momo, Jirou, or Izuku. No man is an island Zach! Ya can't do this to yourself, you need help!

 **Zach's gone full paranoia here. I think as long as he pushes back from everyone, whoever the spy is might not think he still cares for the same people from the first semester, it has been a while after all and he's acting like he's meeting them all again for the first time. Then again he's finding that pretty hard as some people (Kaminari and Yaoyorozu) keep butting in... Kurogiri and Hackerman are pretty OP though, at Zach's own words even though he's not too sure on Hackerman's exact powers. Some good talks with Denki, Momo, and Izuku this chapter, so thought it was pretty funny you mentioned that XD Hope you enjoyed the chapter and thanks for reviewing!**

Guest chapter 32 . 9h ago

Yes, Zachary. Do it! Execute order 69. Leave no cock unblocked!

 **I am... pretty confused. Lol nice review though!**

Guest chapter 31 . 20m ago

Awesome-ness

 **Thanks!**


	34. Chapter 34: Softy

**Chapter 34:**

"So Zach, do you mind if I call you Zach? What would you like to talk about today?"

 _I knew this was going to happen,_ Zach thought as he sat on a comfortable chair in front of the school psychiatrist, Softy. _I pretty much told the teachers to kill me yesterday. That was so dumb._ "I don't know," Zach muttered. _Whatever. School mandated "sessions," don't sound that bad. I won't tell any of my classmates about them. I can't believe I'm in therapy- actually, I totally should be in therapy. Has anyone ever needed it more?_

"Well, why don't we start with what you told your teachers? Why they, made you come here," Softy said. The middle-aged woman was half a foot shorter than Zach, and even though she was in her early forties, she had the face of a caring new mother. Her expression was soft and understanding, her eyes big and blue and seemingly sparkling, and her hair was long and blonde. She was not too beautiful, but had an appearance of someone who, who just looked easy to talk to. Zach looked at her in a hesitant way, and she gave him an apologetic look but continued, "They are just worried about you."

"I don't want to talk about them," Zach started, as he was starting to feel angry thinking about these "worried" teachers.

"Okay then," Softy said, and Zach looked at her in some surprise. "We don't have to talk about anything you don't want to. This is a safe place."

 _I doubt it,_ Zach thought, and his eyes darted around the room before stopping on the woman who lowered her gaze to a notepad in front of her. His eyes widened as he realized she was writing down what he just did, and he started, "Isn't there, patient-doctor confidentiality-"

"Of course," Softy said, and she put her notes down quickly at the question. She sat on a chair that did not look as comfortable as Zach's recliner, but it had a soft bottom and back, and was on wheels so she could turn it back and forth as she spoke. "The notes are just so I can go over them. Helps me come up with ways to help you."

 _You can't help me… or,_ Zach scrunched up his face as he looked at the woman in front of him carefully. _Doctor's take this kind of stuff seriously, right?_ "You really won't, say anything I tell you?"

"No," Softy assured him, and she stopped spinning her chair back and forth which made Zach see she was being serious. She looked into his eyes with her big, soft ones, and she nodded her head at him with a small smile on her face. "The only time I would ever have to talk to someone about these sessions, is if I feel you are a danger to yourself. Or, if you are planning _future_ crimes," Zach's eyes widened huge at the sound of that, which did not make Softy feel very great though she did keep giving him a look to show him she meant every word.

 _Is she asking if I've committed crimes? Or, is she telling me it's alright to confess? Wait, what if she's tricking- No, this is a doctor! They're not, like villains. This is a hero. She's not, trapping me?_

"I want you to trust me, Zach. Anything you tell me, anything you want to talk about, it can be just between us. But it seems to me, like you're holding a lot back," she said, suggesting with her tone that he take some of that load off.

 _I think, maybe I can… What if she's the spy? Would they really have told the psychiatrist where the secret training camp in the woods was? I doubt it. Even if they trust, there would be no need to involve people in the loop who were not necessary._ "Alright," Zach started, his voice pretty quiet. "I, didn't tell the truth." His head snapped up fast and he continued, "I never killed anyone- I mean," he closed his mouth and his flustered look started calming down at the calm one on Softy's face. She just nodded at him once telling him to gather his thoughts together and continue, and Zach took a deep breath as he did just that.

"Since I went on trial for it, I never killed a person," Zach said. Softy nodded her head at him with a small smile, but Zach continued while locking his gaze with her to see what her reaction would be, "But when I had the retrial, I didn't tell the judges the truth, even though I was under oath." Softy stopped for a second, then she nodded at Zach as he paused and she wanted him to keep on going. Zach frowned, looking hesitant again over whether he should continue. _She's, not going to betray me?_ He thought, his heart starting to pound at the reassuring look in Softy's eyes.

Zach continued, leaning back on his chair a bit. He took a deep breath, and he spoke in a soft voice while his eyes gazed over towards the wall on his right. "I think it was back three months ago, October, or maybe late September, or early November…" Zach trailed off as that was not very specific in the least. "One of those months," he mumbled.

"Haha, let's just say, in the fall then?" Softy suggested.

Zach turned back towards her wide-eyed, then he nodded his head in agreement and actually smiled a bit at her interested, judgement-free look. "I, started going to villain fights," Zach continued.

Softy leaned forward in her seat. "Could you tell me what a 'villain fight' is?" She asked. She was not pressing hard for the answer, leaving room in her tone for Zach to deny her, but the fact that she left that room made it seem to him like there was no point in not saying it.

 _Softy, it's like, the most relaxing name. Probably why she became a psychiatrist- no, I've got that backwards. She picked the name…_ Zach shook his head, then his small smile from thinking about how nice Softy was started to drop down. "A villain fight," Zach started. He paused, looking down, then back up into Softy's eyes who he decided he could confide in. "Normally, when heroes fight villains, those are the kinds of fights people think of. But there are other battles going on in the shadows. Villains fighting villains," he explained, and Softy nodded her head in understanding at him.

She did not pick up her notes again after Zach's initial unease at them, though she did mark that down in her head for later. Zach continued though while looking into Softy's eyes, and she tried not to let her expression change despite the darkness growing in Zach's eyes. "And those battles," he said, his voice lower. It was not a whisper, just lower in tone and pitch, his eyes narrowing along with it as he thought back. "Are so much more intense, than any fight I've ever seen between heroes and villains before. Every move, that both sides make, is intended to kill. Everyone's aiming for vital areas from the very start. People dropping left and right, and in that madness, one day back 'in the fall,' I had my life saved."

Zach shook his head while refocusing his gaze on the woman in front of him. He leaned back fast as if regretting the small rant, but Softy stayed leaning forwards. "You were saved?" She questioned.

"I-" Zach started. He pursed his lips in frustration, his bottom lip hurting from where he had broken through it the day before. _Even as Nightmare…_ Zach shook his head, his eyes clenching shut.

"You don't need to if-" Softy began.

"It's," Zach started, cutting her off and making Softy close her mouth. She wanted to hear it anyway, and the offer was now up there so Zach could stop whenever he wanted. His eyes opened back up, and he said with the most frustrated look on his face. "It's not, fair. I, I was saved, by the same guy who- who killed Kirishima, who-" Zach could not finish that sentence and had to shake his head, his mind blanking and flipping back to that night 'in the fall.' "And I don't know how to deal with it. He, is a villain. The worst kind of villain. But, he risked his life for me. I saw sides of him I thought were good. I spent so long around those villains, I started to relate to them. But I was wrong," Zach whispered, staring into Softy's eyes and saying it like the realization was fresh. "I thought I saw people, but I must have been wrong for them to still do the things they did. Things they're still doing. I don't know how to deal with my feelings of absolute hatred towards Dabi, while still recalling the months he spent as the only person I could talk to. I don't know _how_ to hate him with my whole being, even though I _need_ to hate him."

"Why is it necessary to hate him?" Softy asked. Zach looked into her eyes in surprise, and Softy continued while offering up a palm, "It is not a hero's job to hate all villains, only to stop them. Hate, is a terrible emotion to try and force on yourself. So if you are lucky enough to have a way to prevent-" Zach's eyes shot open wide, and Softy lowered her hand with a sincerely apologetic look on her face. "I am so sorry, Zach. You are in no way, 'lucky.'" Zach's wide eyes opened even wider, and he wondered if the woman in front of him was a mind reader. He had no idea what her Quirk was so it started making him feel really uncomfortable.

"Do not worry, Zach," Softy said, and her voice got louder while somehow staying calm and relaxing to him. "My Quirk, is called Sooth. It relaxes the body and the mind. You do not have to feel uncomfortable here."

"Sooth?" Zach asked, and he tensed while just relaxing up. "So, I'm not actually relaxed? This is all just your Quirk-"

Before Zach could accuse her of forcing things out of him that he did not want to talk about, Softy said, "I only used my Quirk right there, to show you that I am not in fact reading your mind. It is just my job, to read how you are feeling. So I am sorry, that I implied you were in any way fortunate. I know you have had it rough over these past few… several…" Softy stopped herself, then she just said, "You have had a difficult life."

"Yeah," Zach muttered, but he did slouch back into his seat.

"So would you mind telling me, Zach," Softy began again, trying to get them back on track. "Why it is you feel the need to hate the villain, Dabi? If you saw a good side to him, perhaps there is a chance for rehabilitation."

"Not for him," Zach said.

"Why?" Softy asked.

Zach heard in the question that she wanted a reason, but also that it was up to him whether to give one or not. And this time, he chose not to. "Maybe next time," Zach said though, as the woman really was being nice to him and he did not feel like just shutting her down straight out. "But you know, your Quirk is pretty nice. I can think of a few people who could have used it."

"People, like the ones in the mental institution I also work at?" Softy questioned.

Zach hesitated, then he said, "Yeah. I hate them too," he muttered. "But they need help. The really, insane people," Zach whispered. "Seeing people who are, just out of their mind," he shook his head and looked at Softy in a harder way. "I know it's not their fault, but I can't help but hate them too. The insane, the schizophrenic, the bat-shit crazy," he ground his teeth and shook his head. "And even they, at the villain fights, even they!" He cut himself off and his face returned to its frustrated expression. "They were my, allies. I was always lying to them, always hiding that I was going to come back one day, but even though everything I said was a lie… Even though I only went with them to those places, so they would let me keep saving people… We fought side by side. They, had my back. And then I betrayed them like I always planned on, and when they got me back, some of them actually- they actually looked betrayed," Zach gasped out at Softy, and her eyes widened at the water welling up in Zach's eyes. "I hate them so much, but why would they be so mad at me for getting Shooter and Hydro arrested? Why would they treat it like such a horrible betrayal, unless they really thought I had been on their side? I, I had always just expected that they could see through my ruse, that they knew I was lying all the time, even to myself. But they thought I was their comrade. And maybe even I… thought I was their comrade too."

Zach stopped speaking and looked at Softy to see what she thought about all that. "It wasn't just Stockholm Syndrome," Zach muttered at her, and Softy's eyes widened this time which made Zach lose his dark look. He wondered if he just made her think maybe he could read minds like he thought about her earlier, and then he continued while losing his dark emotions and lifting his mouth into that smug grin. "Because I went with them on my own. I looked for the good in them, to make it easier for me to talk to them and gain their trust. But, even if I thought they were comrades for a few seconds here and there, even if they did sometimes help me out, I hate every last one of them. Even when I think about how I shouldn't, how they aren't _all_ bad, I still hate them. I don't know if I can change that, even though you're right and I know heroes shouldn't hate that much. But I don't think I can do it." Zach lifted his left hand and slowly brushed it over the scar under his right eye. His whole body tensed up as he touched it, and he lowered the hand before staring at it with wide eyes at what he was doing. _How did I get- oh oh yeah OH-_ Zach shook his head fast and he gulped before staring at Softy to see what she was thinking.

She just looked at him sadly though, and then her look turned softer and she said, "Well, maybe together we can change that." Zach's eyes widened, and Softy gave him the smallest of reassuring smiles. "As I said. Our sessions will stay between the two of us. I will only tell the principal _when_ we meet, since this was school-mandated and they will want to hear that you have been coming." Zach nodded at her in agreement as that made some sense. She glanced down at her watch, then up at the boy who she was glad opened up, but she did not want him talking any more for now and just to feel she had forced too much out of him on the first meeting. "Sorry to keep you for so long on your second Saturday back. I'm sure you have things to do," she said.

Zach nodded at her again and got out of his seat. _That was, easier than I thought,_ Zach thought. He gave Softy one more hesitant look, but it lifted into a more thankful one after a few seconds. "Thank you, Softy. I'll," he paused, then he continued, "I'll see you next Saturday then."

* * *

"We will be using training Ground Gamma," Aizawa said to the class in front of him. It was Monday and the start to another week of school at U.A., and the class was more somber today than Aizawa could remember in recent memory. _Yesterday's villain attack in Nagoya was pretty bad,_ Aizawa thought as he looked around at the dark or depressed looks on some of the students' faces. _What's worse is most of them escaped too. Always worse when there's no bright side._

"All Might and I will explain more when you get out there. But this is a bomb-disposal exercise. Think on what that might mean yourselves as you make your way out there," Aizawa said, and he saw thoughtful looks from a few of his students who rose their heads and got more serious looks on their faces. He saw a lot still had lowered ones though, or the same upset looks they had had all morning. "If you want there to be less incidents like yesterday's," Aizawa said, mentioning it for the first time and making the class in front of him all look up and into his eyes. His expression was serious and he finished, "Then take this exercise seriously. The more prepared you are, the more people you can save from the needless violence of villains."

More of the darker looks on the students' faces turned serious, some of them surprised before they realized what Aizawa was saying and hardened their expressions. Aizawa glanced towards a boy on the right side of the room whose expression did not change through anything he just said. _I told them not to do it, but I didn't expect your response. To get even Yamada looking like that,_ Aizawa thought about Present Mic whose expression was grim when he saw it on Friday afternoon. He had even made a joke, one of his very rare and dry jokes about how Yamada was silent for once. _**"If I yelled his way, I'd have hurt him more than the Nomu! Right?!"**_ _Cementoss took it pretty hard too._ _ **"It is my greatest failure as a hero."**_

Aizawa saw Zach look up and into his eyes while he was frowning at the boy with short and messy black hair. Instead of breaking eye contact though, Aizawa said, "Sazaki. Your new costume came in." Zach's eyebrows lifted as he thought Aizawa was looking at him for a different reason. "Everyone else get out there," Aizawa said, while a panel on the wall with the number '13' started coming out.

Zach turned to that panel while everyone was heading away, including the teacher who just watched him for another second before turning off. Zach saw a couple of people looking towards the box sticking out of the wall, wondering what Zach's new costume was going to look like. _The teachers. Most of the others leave me alone now too. They know I don't want to talk to them… Or they think I don't._ Zach stared straight at the panel, but he started frowning at some hair he saw in his peripheral vision.

Zach had not grabbed his costume box yet, even though it was sticking out of the wall. He had wanted to wait until everyone was probably out of the locker room, avoid changing with them again and having everyone stare at his scars. He turned to the side in annoyance and frowned at the boy behind him with spiky blond hair and a black lightning bolt shape in the front left downwards spikes. Kaminari was standing behind Zach, and he grinned as Zach turned to him. The grin on Kaminari's face made Zach's scrunch up in annoyance. Everyone else had left the room, and Zach started in an annoyed voice, "What? I told you that-"

"Let me stop you there," Kaminari said, holding up his right palm right in front of Zach's face. Zach stared at the hand in his face, then kept a blank look as Kaminari lowered it and continued to grin at him. "I thought about what you said," Kaminari began. He crossed his arms over his chest and then said in a defiant tone, "But, you can say whatever you want, I'm still gonna hang out with you." Zach's eyes opened wide, and then they narrowed. Kaminari's narrowed right back though, and he said while keeping his arms crossed in a firm way. "You don't get to make decisions for the rest of us."

"I can make mine though, and I decided not to be friends with you, or anyone else-" Zach started.

"Well stop that," Kaminari said, his voice frustrated. Zach lowered his bottom lip at how annoyed Kaminari sounded with him, while he was the one who wanted to snap off at Kaminari right now. "You can try pushing away your friends, but you can't tell us we're not allowed to hang around you. You might think that's being selfless, but it's not. It's the opposite." Zach's eyes widened in confusion, and Kaminari pointed a finger out at his chest. "You don't get to make all the decisions. You can't say you're doing something to 'protect' me and just think I'm going to leave it at that, do you?"

Zach started shaking his head, but he had a hurt look on it at what Kaminari was telling him. "You'll get hurt-"

"And if I get hurt because of it," Kaminari said, speaking over Zach like the other boy wasn't saying anything. Kaminari frowned and continued, "Then that's a result of _my_ decision. Got it? That's me telling you, I'm accepting the 'risks' of being your friend." Kaminari said it jokingly, but then he got a more serious and hurt look of his own on his face, and he pushed the finger he had pointed out right into Zach's chest. "So stop trying to push me off. It stings worse than what the villains can do to me."

Zach shook his head, and he pushed Kaminari's finger off his chest with his left hand. "You're wrong," Zach said while shaking his head. His head stopped and he looked into Kaminari's eyes darkly, "You have no idea the things the villains can do to you."

"That's because you won't tell me," Kaminari said, holding his hands up at his sides with an exasperated shrug, but it was a mock one anyway. "Even if I knew though, the answer would stay the same," Kaminari said it and smirked at the boy in front of him whose eyes opened huge. "Now come on," Kaminari said, turning around towards the door. "We've got to rush out there or Aizawa sensei's gonna give it to us. Besides, I want to see the new upgrades on your costume as much as everyone else does."

Zach grabbed his box slowly and then turned back to the door with it, only to see Kaminari had stopped in the doorway instead of heading all the way out. Kaminari stood there still with a small grin on his face, but it lowered down again into a more serious expression as he said, "And I'm not the only one who feels that way, just to let you know. So instead of pushing everyone away, how about trying letting everyone in?" Kaminari grinned again and turned his head to the side to look back at a shocked Zach, then he laughed at that expression before heading off fast to go get his own costume on.

Zach stayed frozen in place across the classroom for a few seconds after Kaminari was gone. _Let everyone in, instead of pushing everyone away? I thought about that Kaminari. Did you think I didn't? If I do that though, and the villains come… I don't want to feel that pain again. Was it ever really about protecting them then? Or was I just trying, to protect myself? In a future I saw where my friends were killed, I couldn't bear to think of them all as my friends. But, what if I don't lose them this time? Can they protect themselves? The future heroes of our world are gathered at this school, in my class. Is it really right for me to just be thinking about protecting them? Maybe, they don't need my protection. Even if they're friends with me, maybe it wouldn't be, such a bad thing. Kaminari even knows the risks, but he's willing to go this far…_ Zach's lips curled up at the corners even as he tried pushing them down. _That just makes me not want to be your friend more, you idiot. Couldn't you have figured that out? Heh, probably not, knowing_ _you._

* * *

 **A/N Thanks for reading. Zach opens up a bit this chapter and we hear some of what he went through with the villains. Figured after the teachers heard something like that they couldn't just ignore it, and it actually gave me a good opportunity to add some stuff in. Haven't ever written a therapist scene before, just like I hadn't written a court case. This story's fun like that with the different environments and things happening I've never written before. If anyone's in therapy and that's totally dif from what it's like, don't rip on me too hard lol. Anyway, Kaminari comes back at the end here and tells Zach he doesn't care about what Zach told him before the weekend, and although it's a short chapter I hope you enjoyed! Leave a review below telling me what you think/ predictions for upcoming chapter: Bomb Defusal!**

D-Koy24 chapter 33 . 13h ago

Call me momo  
Ok Yaoyorozu  
*cringes* hmm they're not on the same page.  
 **Haha yeah that had to sting a bit right there. Thanks for the review!**

Kevito100 chapter 33 . 13h ago

Holy shit that got dark at the end... I love it. I really hope that he eventually gets comfortable and I really hope this turns to a MomoxZach

 **Zach's pretty pissed at his teachers, and he avoids the subject completely at his first "session." We'll see how the shipping goes from here... Thanks for reviewing!**

Colinpop5 chapter 33 . 10h ago

Oh shit. Wait if Zach was tortured shouldn't he have trauma from it. Like the flinching paranoid(you got that) and more submissive attitude? Or is he just fucked up?

 **Oh shit's right. And he's pretty traumatized, he talked to Webb about it though, why he was acting so fucked and crazy. The time between VTS and his escape, he's just repressing it hard, like really, really hard. Few times in here when he started getting to thinking about it and he immediately switches the subject even in his own head. Like when he walked into the bathroom last chapter and tried letting his guard down while looking in the mirror only to almost break down in a second, or how just trying to tell the teachers at the end made him bite down so hard he bit through his bottom lip. If it's that hard to even think about it, it's just easier _not_ to think about it. Anyway, he's still pretty fucked up, and we'll see other sides of Zach's mental state as his life at school continues... Hope you enjoyed the chapter, and thanks for the review!**

Celestial stratos chapter 33 . 10h ago

Are you purposely torturing zach?. He accidentally killed his mother, his father committed suicide ( i think?) he blames himself, the heroes and other people names i forgot told him he should quit trying to be a hero thus leading him to join the villains because he thought they were 'good' which he regretted joining after they murdered jenny and her parents. Now hes back at U.A but paranoid thinking his friends are spys which is understandable.  
But what im trying to say is that this story has a lot of potential to be great don't ruin it by killing characters left and right to make your oc 'mature' to keep telling him that the world is fucked up and is unfair and that he has to grow up, to endure to keep saving people no matter how life fucks you in the ass.  
BUT WHAT IM REALLY REALLY SAYING IS THAT DON'T SINK THE MOMOXZACH SHIP! I NEED IT MY LIFE DEPENDS ON IT

 **Zach's had it... pretty rough. Softy admitted it here too when she was going to go "been a rough couple of months," but she stopped herself and tried correcting only to realize his whole life was just kinda boned. Titanium did kill himself, and yeah he blames himself. A lot of bad, whole lot of bad, and paranoia all over the place, even spending a few minutes considering the psych is a spy. Haven't really been killing too many though, the Akers are really it, and I guess Mr. Compress. But I even saved Mt. Lady and Gran Torino who I originally killed off in Camino Ward only to realize Zach'd try saving them and All Might wouldn't have snapped Gran Torino's neck if he pulled back, or at least I reasoned it when I decided he survived. Who else _could_ die though? Momo? That seems to be what you're all telling me. Because I just _love_ sinking ships hahahah... just kidding. Won't say if it's even happening, or if everyone's going to have a happy ending, all I'll say is... Thanks for the review! XD**

LordOfTee chapter 33 . 4h ago

Duuuuuuddeeee! Zach is NOT! willing to be taken again I mean he told him to aim for his head.  
That is really serious if a situation escalates to the point where you'd rather kys than go with them then you know s*it is gonna go down.

 **Yeaaahh. Zach's been pretty clear he would rather die than return to that place. His battle on New Year's he was considering it the whole night, and when Hunter finally got him he tried smashing his skull into the floor then convinced Hunter he was the devil just to try and get the guy to kill him instead of handing him over (which actually worked). So yeah, he is _realllly_ against going back there. Thanks for the review. Hope you enjoyed the chapter.**


	35. Chapter 35

**Chapter 35:**

"Kaminari, where's Sazaki?" Aizawa snapped at the boy jogging up to Ground Gamma after the rest of the class had already arrived. "You're _both_ late," he added, and Kaminari gulped at the look Aizawa gave him.

After that gulp though, Kaminari smiled again and Aizawa got a confused look on his face. A few others gawked at Kaminari for being so daring, but Kaminari was in a good mood after going through with giving Zach his answer. _Maybe he'll finally lighten up with this, and I'm not worried about no villains._ Kaminari looked over his shoulder and then said, "He's coming…" Kaminari's eyes widened, and he grinned even more at the person he saw jogging their way.

Todoroki's eyes widened a bit at the sight of the boy jogging their way. _That looks, a little like my first costume,_ he thought.

Ashido, Midoriya, Kirishima, Ojiro, and Aoyama all stared in more surprise than most of their classmates as Zach jogged towards them. "Whoa," Kirishima said, stepping back and staring at the boy heading their way. "That looks just like," he trailed off, though now Bakugo was frowning at the side of his head for starting that sentence in the first place.

"What he wore at VTS," Ashido whispered, and Hagakure and Sero turned in to the pink girl between them before looking back out at Zach. "Though, with more white," Ashido added, making her feel at least a little more at ease.

Zach jogged towards his class who he knew would all be staring at his new costume, so he tried not to show any signs of being nervous over them all staring at it. _It should be alright though,_ Zach thought. He did not want to look down at it while everyone else was, which would have made it obvious he was self-conscious about all their stares. He focused on what Kaminari told him instead, and he turned to the blond who was grinning and nodding his head at the look of Zach's new costume.

Ojiro's eyes focused down at Zach's sides, and he got a bead of sweat on the side of his face at the sight of sheaths on his waist, as well as the same strange gun he saw back at the Villain Training Simulation building. What Ashido said had him more at ease too though. Zach's entire right side from the top of his tight collar, to his waist, to his right foot was pure white. Even the sheaths on his right side were white with white hilts coming out of them.

 _White on his right side?_ Jirou thought in confusion. _Wonder if there's a reason for that._

Zach had two knife sheaths on his right side, one on his left, and the gun was next to it in an attached holster on the same steel belt as the rest of his equipment. His costume was now skin-tight over his torso and arms, covering all of them up so that none of his skin was showing except on his face. It was pitch black over his left side, including the belt that was white on the other side, and the steel of the gun and the sheath and hilt of the knife on the left side were black too. Despite most of his body being split between white and black though, the helmet on his head was fully black. It covered up the top of his head, the back, and the sides including over his ears, but it left his face in the open.

 _Thought he might try hiding his face with the new costume,_ Midoriya thought. _The whole country knows he's Lifebringer- or he was._ Midoriya frowned more at something Zach told him when he brought that up before. _I didn't think he'd want people to recognize him._

Zach had thought about it himself when he was drawing the helmet design to give to Principal Nezu back when he was staying in police protection for a few days at the start of the month. He felt confident about his decision though, even as he had to look certain classmates in the eyes after they looked at his whole costume. _I'm not hiding. Not while I wear this. Not while I'm, being a hero. I'm done wearing a mask to save people._

"Nice costume dude," Kirishima said as Zach came to a stop behind the class he had slowed near.

"You're late," Aizawa said before others could start talking to him about the new suit and making their training start even later.

"Sorry, had trouble figuring out the helmet," Zach lied. He said it so simply that it did not sound like a lie to anyone, except for Kaminari who knew why Zach was actually out just behind him.

That made Kaminari frown after a few seconds, as he thought back on when Zach was locked in his apartment not talking to anyone. _He told me he was going on vacation with his aunt. Then he told everyone that they cancelled, but there's no way she was actually taking him to America. I totally believed him! He was lying even back…_ Kaminari shook his head and just frowned but in a slightly less annoyed way. _What was he actually going to do then? I'm glad he changed plans, and came back to school. Was he just going to stay home forever?_

"Well no time for delay," Aizawa said.

"Aizawa sensei, wasn't All Might supposed to be here with us?" Yaoyorozu questioned after looking away from Zach's new costume and towards the teacher.

"He is," Aizawa replied, and he grinned at the girl who got a confused look in her eyes.

"You'll be splitting off to enter the training area four at a time, with one group of five," Aizawa started. "Inside the center of Ground Gamma, there is a bomb."

 _A_ _ **fake**_ _bomb?_ Everyone in the class thought, really hoping Aizawa just misspoke.

"There is a time limit!" All Might's voice called out, and everyone looked towards the huge steel forest in front of them. There were giant warehouses all interlocking with each other by metal pipes and beams, tubing and wires. There were ladders, narrow passageways, and it looked to be a very difficult place to move through. All Might's face projected on a wall in front of them right at the outside of the training Ground where the class was gathered. "As there often is for explosives. When you reach the bomb, I will start communicating with you the procedure of how to defuse it! It may not be your area of expertise, but sometimes you will be faced with something you are not used to, and still need to be able to handle it as the hero who arrived first!"

The others in class started glancing around as they wondered if they were competing against their other classmates. Zach frowned as he stared at the steel area ahead of him. _Last time I raced here, I came in last place. I was distracted after the internships. That was my excuse at least. I'll always be distracted though. There's always something on my mind. So this time, just focus for now on the training. Don't come in last- no, don't even think about it like that. Make it to the bomb first. Learn how to defuse a bomb._

"Have you ever defused a bomb All Might?!" Ashido called out, hoping All Might could hear her.

The thin man on the screen chuckled. He leaned his head back and then said while looking up, "Well, no. I have come in contact with many explosives, though I normally threw them high into the sky, or held them against my chest…" the nostalgic look in All Might's eyes did not match the lowered lips of most of the students who all remembered the skinny man they were looking at had been the number 1 hero for years. "Anyway, that is not an option for most of you. If the time limit is running down, some of you may consider using your Quirks to stop the explosion. I will not tell you not to, as part of your score is based on how much damage is caused by the explosion."

Every person in Class-A who was thinking about getting to the bomb before their classmates felt their hearts speed up as their bottom lips lowered. "That would have happened if it were a real bomb," All Might continued, which had every person in Class-A glaring at the screen with a tick mark on their foreheads. "Though the explosion caused by this dummy will still be dangerous, so do try and defuse it seriously," All Might added, a bead of sweat rolling down his face while all the students went wide-eyed again that they actually had not been tricked the first time.

"What happens to the three who don't reach the bomb first?" Sato questioned, looking towards Aizawa on his right.

"The timer is not very long," Aizawa said. "And we have a number of dummy bombs. As long as you don't arrive all one right after the other, it shouldn't be a problem. Follow All Might's directions quickly, precisely, and make it to the bomb in time. Whoever makes it there first will have the longest amount of time to defuse."

"And when you say a 'dummy bomb,'" Hagakure started. "Just how big is the explosion-"

"Alright, here are is the first group of four," Aizawa said, and he pointed a remote at the screen. He made All Might's face disappear and put the first group up on it along with a map of Ground Gamma and where the first four people would be entering from.

Hagakure sweatdropped, and a lot of people grimaced that Aizawa never answered their question. It made them all the more worried about defusing the bomb, which had Iida scratching his chin after a few seconds. "Everyone," Iida started before he headed off to get to the opposite side of the ground where he would be starting from in the first group. Everyone looked his way, including Sero, Todoroki, and Jirou who were just starting to move to their designated entrances as well. "When dealing with bomb defusal, one must not panic. Do not think about how large the explosion will be, as it will only make your hands unsteady." Iida turned after giving his advice, then he started running to get around the training area.

Everyone who stared at Iida opened their eyes wide, and then a dozen of them called out, "Thank you class rep!"

* * *

Zach stood on the west side of Ground Gamma. Even though he was separated from the rest of class, he had a screen projecting in front of him too with the view of the inside of the central area. His eyes were wide and he started panting as the smoke cleared and he saw Jirou on her back, staring up at the ceiling and coughing up smoke after that blast. _That was less time than it took Sero to defuse getting there in second place. Jirou looked like she was moving fast. How much time does fourth place have? How much did that hurt? She's moving around well, but All Might's asking if she's okay- why am I thinking about what happens if I come in last? I won't. Still, Todoroki froze the bomb when it was about to explode and he was in third. He's the most level-headed guy in class. If he couldn't get it done in time… no, I'm more level-headed now, but I'm also focused. Focused on winning this. Not third. Not second. I'm getting first._

Jirou got up and All Might called out to her that it was a good attempt and she was only two steps away, but the wire she was moving touched the trap switch he had warned her not to touch. Zach felt a little more relieved knowing that the time limit was not that short for whoever got their fourth, but he reminded himself one more time not to get last anyway. He looked back up at the projection as Aizawa switched it to a map of the zone with four faces around the sides. _Midoriya's a lot better with Full Cowling now. He did well the first time we raced here, and that was right when he started learning it. How do I beat him? On foot, on the… Just do it._ Zach's expression steadied and his fists clenched at his sides. His knees bent, and he put his left hand in its black glove down in front of him. His right hand was in a tight white glove, a different model than the black one. This white one was closer to the glove he had with his villain costume, sliding his fingers up and down easier while still requiring him to force it which was good since he did not want an accident as careful as he always was when using his right hand around allies.

Zach bent and bounced his knees a few times while leaning forward in the stance to start a sprint. He put his weight forward, his right hand lifted up in front of him with the palm facing inwards. His face became a lot more serious, his focus narrowed in on the entrance in front of him that still had a red light over it. He felt free and light on his feet. His legs no longer had steel plates over his knees or in his shoes, or the shock absorbing padding on the inside. The legs of his costume were pulled as tight to his body as was his shirt, accentuating his leg muscles he had been working back up since he escaped the villains. It was only not tight around his waist and from his thighs up, just a little looser there to prevent it from looking weird.

Zach started taking in and out deep breaths as he focused solely on the opening in front of him. He heard the teachers going over the scores, but he did not need to know how well he _needed_ to do. He already knew what his plan was. _Taking out the metal plates helps with mobility, but also with combat. I thought my only way to be a hero was through martial arts, but Dabi- Dabi was right._ _ **"Trying to get close when your Quirk doesn't help out, unless you're willing to use that Nightmare form all the time…"**_ _I can't just risk knocking people into comas, or killing them, every time I fight villains. It's an art controlling that form, and I do it pretty well, but those villains I attacked while escaping Spinner, I really hope I'm telling the truth and really haven't killed any of them. No direct contact, it's very unlikely I took out a grown man with just the wind. Oh shit!_

The light turned green and let out a ring, and Zach stumbled forward as he tried pushing out of his sprinting stance without really focusing. He wobbled through the gate off-balanced, then he kept running while steadying himself. He sprinted as fast as he could from the very start. _Ashido's fast too with that Acid, and Mineta can bounce forward on his grape things. I'm the only one whose Quirk doesn't help with speed at least a bit. So I need to MOVE!_ Zach's feet pressed down hard as he sprinted straight towards a narrow pass between two large metal tubes sticking up in the air. He ran and leapt forward over a steel bar in front of him that stuck out of the path, then he fell into a slide underneath the bar that was right past it.

Zach popped up in an intersection without any way to keep moving forward, and he darted his gaze up before grimacing and spinning right. He kept sprinting, then he turned left at the next turn to move towards the middle faster. He sprinted without holding anything back, without caring about being careful or what would happen if he tripped while running this fast. Zach just sprinted, straight towards the wall up ahead of him. He did not see an intersection near the wall, and he would have to cut off much earlier and then find a new route to try and get to the middle. The wall up ahead of him was only fifteen feet tall, but there were no bars right above it that he looked for as he first realized he could not get up. _If I go around I'll be last! No hesitation!_ He sprinted straight past the last intersection he could take. _Never hesitate!_

 **3 and 1/2 Months Ago**

"Everyone out the back!"

Zach stood in front of the back door with his body surrounded in darkness. He held up his right hand towards the figures turning towards him inside the warehouse that had blue flames rising up one wall, a huge crack in the middle of the floor, and several dead bodies lying around. None of the men or women who looked towards him faltered for more than a split second after seeing him though. Most of them already knew he was there, and five of them started sprinting his way at the same time.

 _What do I do?! Who do I try to stop? I can't kill anyone- I promised I wouldn't!_ Zach started leaning back, while a man in front of him lifted up the saber he was sprinting towards the shorter enemy with. The man did not hesitate, not like Zach was doing. He slashed down towards the dark figure who lifted his arms to try and protect himself, crossing them in front of his face.

"Reaper! Move!" Zach felt a shove in his side and fell away, his red eyes opening and darting back in his eye sockets towards the angry figure who just shoved him.

The man who pushed him pulled his arm back just as fast, but the sword curved right at the end and caught the inside of Dabi's arm that he was pulling away slower than usual. Blood splashed out of Dabi's arm, as Zach hit the ground, as other villains ran towards the ones escaping out the back door. "Yeah, keep running! Don't let them get away!" Twice yelled as he dropped on Zach's other side, and a few other villains ran with him after the other ones who were escaping.

"Oi Dabi, you alright?" Twice asked, turning his head towards the man who dropped down to a knee behind him.

Zach stared forward in shock, his skull jaw dropped as he faced the man who dropped to his other knee. Zach lifted his right hand up slowly, then he pulled it back and touched himself in the face. A few others from their assault group in the League of Villains came over as Dabi was down on both knees, and Twice shouted at them to go after the others and finish them off. Zach just got up and took a step towards Dabi though, looking down at the man whose head was bowed, who was taking deep breaths while grabbing his right arm with his left hand. "You," Zach began, his voice a whisper. The kid's face filled with frustration, and anger, but he could not stop himself and shouted, "Why would you do that?! You know what touching me while I was like that-"

Dabi slammed his bloody right fist up and right into Zach's stomach. It was not a very strong punch, but Zach was not expecting it and was in the middle of speaking. It knocked the wind out of him and made Zach drop down to his knees. Twice laughed from next to them then yelled, "Not cool!"

Zach grabbed at his stomach with his left hand, then lifted his head with his face covered in confusion at the top of Dabi's black spikes. The man in front of him kept panting for a few seconds while lowering his right arm and grabbing it again with his left over the slash. "What the hell are you hesitating for?" Dabi muttered, looking up in annoyance at Zach's wide-eyed look. "We're comrades, yeah? Nakama." Dabi's mouth curled up in the split between his light skin and the purple patchy area. Dabi leaned back, snapping his head back and letting out a long breath while looking at the ceiling that was covering in blue flames that spread from what he made earlier. "And it's because I know so well what a brief touch in that form does, that I could do that," Dabi replied to what Zach had been saying before he punched the kid in the gut.

 _He didn't even pause to think,_ Zach thought with wide eyes as he stared at the man on his knees in front of him. _He knew it wouldn't kill him, and it would save me, and he just acted. Even though it got him hurt… for me? He killed Kirishima! He KILLED Kirishima!_ Zach's lips twisted and his forehead wrinkled at what Dabi was telling him.

"Well, you let them get out the back door," Dabi muttered. "Just hope the others caught up," he added, while sliding his left leg up and trying to stand despite the dizzy feeling he had.

"You good Dabi?" Twice asked. "Whoa! Your arm is bloody!"

"Just a scratch," Dabi said as he stood up. He looked down at the kid who was staring up at him with huge eyes. "Hmph. Get that look off your face and let's regroup. If you can't accept I just helped you out 'cause we're on the same side, then think of it as a birthday present." Zach's eyes shot open even more, and Dabi smirked at the kid whose jaw dropped.

"It's your birthday?!" Twice shouted in an excited way, jumping up in the air.

"Is it?" Zach muttered. "I don't, know the day…"

"It is," Dabi said, then he reached his left hand down for Zach's. "Now get up, Reaper. We've still got work to do…"

 **Present**

 _No hesitation._ Zach thought, though what he was thinking back on almost made his thoughts too jumbled to focus. He saw the wall in front of him though, and he did not slow down as he sprinted towards it. _Can't use grappling gun. Too high to jump. No hesitation._ Zach sprinted straight up to the wall and he leapt when he was a few feet off.

Outside of Ground Gamma, the students of Class-A all focused on the same image as the one person who was still on the ground level did something seemingly idiotic. Mineta had climbed up a wall right at the start using his Pop-Off purple balls from his head, and Ashido was sliding on a metal pipe using her Acid. Midoriya was closest to the center already, but all of them looked towards the boy who they knew did not have a Quirk that would work to climb the tall wall he just sprinted towards.

 _There are no pipes for him to use as hand holds,_ Aizawa thought, narrowing his eyes at what the boy was doing. He glanced above it but as he already thought, he could not see anything for the boy to use his grappling gun on. _What is he-_

Zach leapt at the wall, slammed a foot into it, brought his next leg up and slammed another foot in, then brought his first foot up again. He successfully got the third step in before he felt himself slipping. Zach's right hand that had swung down as he tried running up the wall flew back up his side while whipping a white hilt out of his sheath. Zach slammed his right hand forward while leaning his entire body weight forward, and he jammed the blade of the knife straight through the wall. _The wall is as thin as it looked, don't need to move as fast- but do anyway!_ Zach's backup plan for if the knife did not stick in was stabbing the next one up to his left before the knife slid out of the indent he figured it would make even if he could not break through. He knew the wall in front of him was hollow on the other side though, and he put enough strength into that stab that the blade broke through.

His left hand was already lifting with a black knife in it, and he whipped his arm forward as hard as he could again above him. He ripped the right knife out and reached up to stab it in again, but he was almost at the top and he just reached farther and stabbed the knife over the top of the wall, hooking it into the floor that he realized must have been grated up there. He pulled the black knife out and slid it back into its sheath then reached up with his left hand over the top of the wall, doing another pull-up hoisting his whole body and then climbing up on it. He scrambled to his feet as soon as he was on top of the wall, sliding his white knife into a sheath while pulling the black gun off his other side at the same time. The knife was barely back in when Zach leapt off the fifteen-foot-tall wall, firing the grappling hook out of his gun and up towards a metal beam above him.

He hooked it and lowered in his arc before rising back up with more momentum. He shook the gun once to get the hook off, but it did not work and he shook it again harder. _First time using- bad idea! Don't panic!_ He was already on his downwards arc, but he aimed towards another bar ahead of him and fired. It hit, but the line was still dropping him down in the arc, and he fell towards the ground diagonally. Zach lifted his legs as he was about to hit down, snapping them back to give himself another second. He was almost at the bottom of the arc, and he tried pushing his legs apart to give him just a few more inches, anything. His knees hit the ground but he was at the bottom of the arc now and kept his momentum, skidding over the floor and ripping through the knees of his new uniform. He ignored it though, and the pain of the skin of his knees tearing, and instead just grinned as he moved up on the second half of the arc.

He rose up towards the next wall that was lower than the one he leapt off of but would still be difficult to get up if he had fallen there. There was a pathway going straight towards the middle of the zone at the top of that wall, and Zach swung up before swinging his gun as hard as he did the second time with the first bar. He did not have time to put it back at his belt before he hit the ground, so instead he just curled it into his chest while pulling up his bloody knees and ducking his head down while lifting his other arm over his head. Zach hit down on the wall fast, but with forward momentum that let him drop into a forward roll. He came out of the roll in a full-out sprint, though stumbling a bit to the sides at the initial feeling of pain in his legs.

Aizawa stared up at the screen with wide eyes, while some of the students behind him started speaking about what he just did. _These movements are like nothing he showed before. They're less predictable. More trained- almost like he's had combat training… or been in combat situations._ The teacher's eyes narrowed more at the boy on the screen whose expression was unsettling to him.

After hitting down, the pain Zach felt in his knees just made him speed up. He was panting, his eyes darting back and forth. He sprinted down the pathway and spun right, then leapt over a gap and kicked off the wall on his left, then the one on his right to jump up to a bar above him. He almost did not make it and one of his arms slipped, but he reached up again quickly and yanked himself up the bar with a pull-up that hurt his arms he really used all his strength in to stab those knives through the wall. Zach knew he likely dulled them with those two stabs alone, but he ignored it as he rose higher in elevation and started running over a thick bar, moving so fast he knew he had a chance of slipping off at any second.

And then he did slip. He slipped off the bar, but he recovered while falling and saw what he needed to do. He kicked off the metal bar he was passing on his right, redirecting himself towards the roof a little to the left of the thick bar he fell off. It was ten feet down, but he crouched as he fell and put all his momentum forward to fall into a roll again. He winced but came right out of it and kept sprinting in the direction the bar above him had been going, and he even smirked as that pipe curved off a different way which he would not have to now for a few more seconds. That smirk wiped from his face as he jumped off the roof and stepped-off quick on a round bar, making sure he was perfectly centered on his landing so as not to lose his footing. He put his weight down on it while leaning forward, sliding the sole of his white right shoe from one side to the other and then leaping again onto a narrow passage cutting straight towards the center of Ground Gamma.

He slipped again as he landed, stumbling to his right into the wall and bouncing off of it. He felt the pain in his knees, and it made him move faster with the panic of bumping into the wall and running out of time as he knew the others must be getting close now, as this was about as long as it took for Iida to reach the first round. Zach scrambled forward, falling forward and putting a hand down before sliding it back at his side and sprinting ahead, his head snapping left and right and his right hand pulling up for his sheath. His breath was picking up faster, and he started sprinting again while raising his head, his eyes wide and panicked.

 **3 Months Ago**

"Damn it! Where did that come from?!" Shooter shouted, spinning around and firing a few rounds behind them. His eyes widened and he turned and sprinted even faster, passing Zach and the man he was dragging over his right shoulder.

"Holy crap- everyone's leaving us behind," Zach whispered in realization, as Shooter was the last person out of the building behind them.

"Everyone stop!" Twice shouted over his shoulder, which made the entire group chasing him sprint even faster.

"Guys- I-" Zach had to stop himself, cursing internally at the idea of calling out to them for help. Then he cursed again, darting his eyes to the right at the man whose head was resting over his shoulder. Zach was grabbing the man's left arm with his own left, having it slung over his shoulders while dragging the taller man's legs behind him. "Wake up Dabi! Open your eyes!" Zach yelled in panic at the man whose left side of his face was covered in blood. "Damn it, what is that thing?!"

"Trigger," Dabi muttered, and Zach's eyes snapped to the right again as he had screamed it while spinning forward.

Zach's legs ached carrying this weight on his back while running full speed, but the others had left Dabi behind. _Why didn't I?!_ He thought, while looking at Dabi's eyes that had opened and shifted towards the teen pulling him away. "What the fuck is Trigger?!" Zach shouted.

"Trigger?" Shooter called out, spinning around as he heard Zach's call. Then his eyes opened huge and he lifted up both arms, firing behind Zach and Dabi who each turned their heads more.

They looked back through the docks covered in shipping containers, and their eyes popped open huge as the entire wall of the warehouse they just sprinted out of the open garage doors of blew apart. A huge red fist slammed through the middle of it, then a spiked right leg stomped down on the ground in front of the beast inside. "It's getting bigger!" A blue-skinned orc-looking villain running ahead and on Zach's left shouted. Then, a huge chunk of wall that had flown up in the air came dropping down and the man screamed, "AHHH-" _**CRASH**_

Zach had kept running forward, but he winced as the wall slammed down on Thoron. Blood splashed out towards him and he saw an unmoving blue arm underneath that wall, and he knew that very well could have been him since he was even farther back. He saw splashes of debris in the water to his right, and he picked up his speed even faster as he saw Spinner up ahead of their retreating group. There was a large portal opened up right behind Spinner, but it was a distance away, and Zach could hear the thunderous footsteps starting behind him.

"Trigger," Dabi muttered. "It was a drug that got pretty popular a few years back. Some busts, and the side effects pretty much ended it, but it's on the rise again."

"What does it do?!" Zach yelled in panic, as the huge footsteps behind him were getting closer.

"Powers up Quirks," Dabi replied and Zach's eyes darted back to him in confusion along with terror as he felt another footstep not far behind him, and the portal was still fifty meters off. "Could make a guy with a normal Quirk get one fit for a hero, but it made people lose, cognitive functions ack-" Dabi coughed and he rose his right arm to wipe some blood from his mouth. He started picking his feet up, shaking his head as if realizing where he was. Realizing it also made him realize how loud those footsteps were, and that shook him out of the stupor more. "But a guy with an already good Quirk, whose already half-lost-it in the head," Dabi said, turning his head and then sprinting out of Zach's hold and towards the portal ahead of them.

Zach's eyes turned huge as Dabi sprinted off, then he put his feet to the pavement even harder to speed up without the weight on his shoulders. _**BOOM!**_ The ground beneath his feet shook so much that he stumbled in full sprint and almost fell over. He was terrified, but as he stumbled he had to turn his head a little just to check how close it was. And he looked up, and…

 _ **"RRROOAOAAAARRR!"**_

 **Present**

Zach's head snapped around with a look of sheer panic and terror on it. He stared behind him, and then he slowed down from his all-out sprint. He slowed down and his head snapped to both sides at the metal bars on his sides and the tall steel walls past them that had his area shadowed over a little. _What the-_ he started thinking, and then he realized where he was. He spun around, right as he heard an explosion come from the center area. _Oh crap! How many? Is that the first place? Did they mess up, or is it already second or third? Am I in last? What's it matter compared to- No! I move full speed! I wanted to win this! Who cares if nothing's chasing me? Keep moving top speed._

Even though he kept from lingering on the thought, Zach's face was scrunched up as he moved as fast as he could for the large center area he was about to reach the edge of. _Was anyone watching me right there? I hope I didn't look too weird._

Class-A stared at one of the screens with dropped jaws. Only a few had turned away when Midoriya messed up the bomb defusal after arriving at the center area first, while the rest of them and their teacher had kept staring into the televised eyes of someone who looked like they were running for their life. Zach had spun around while a lot of them were already watching him nervously or in confusion anyway, as he was bumping into walls and sprinting with his head on a swivel. When he turned though, right into the camera he did not see and hoped was not there, everyone saw his expression.

Seventeen students saw the most, or one of the most terrified looks they had ever seen before. Sero's laughing comment about the way Zach was running caught in his throat and his eyes bulged. His mouth dropped at the corners, and he just stared at the boy who turned back around and kept running again though a little calmer like he realized where he was.

Aizawa lifted a hand and ran it through his dark scraggly hair. He thought about what he was thinking of not a minute earlier when Zach was making split-second decisions without hesitating, and he had now confirmed it with what he just saw on Sazaki's face. He frowned though as he thought about it for a different reason other than the kid having that combat experience. _How do I scold him over it, if he supposedly made it through the judges? If I do it anyway, has he already faced punishment? Or did he lie? I don't see how they would let him come back here if they knew he had been fighting. All anyone thought, and I had even hoped, was that he had only used his Quirk to heal. He really thought right there though, that he was being chased._

Jirou was standing next to Kaminari who had been making fun of her from getting exploded all the way into the start of this round. The two of them were silent now as they stared at the screen that Zach was running forward on. He reached the room at the same time as Ashido, then as Ashido yelped and called out that she was there first, Zach just sprinted straight towards the center of the room and grabbed the bomb before calling out for All Might. Ashido called that it was unfair, but All Might started speaking to Zach over the speakers and Ashido gawked that it was alright.

Jirou turned to Kaminari after losing her gawk and just staring at the screen for a few seconds. She looked at the boy next to her whose face was so frustrated as he looked at his friend who was quickly and precisely defusing the bomb, his hands steady in front of him as he moved. _Guess he doesn't know what that was all about,_ Jirou thought, before glancing back at the image of the boy defusing the bomb. _He got there so quick without a Quirk. Much faster than I did. I spent seconds looking around every corner, trying to find better routes, and he just made his own when they weren't there. Was he moving that fast the whole time, because he convinced himself there was something chasing him? Or…_ Kyoka frowned and she looked at the boy in a sad way even as All Might called out a congratulations.

All Might told him to run over to the panel that lifted up on the wall so he could join Midoriya and they could both watch Ashido together from in there. Midoriya sat behind All Might's control chair, his back against the wall of the inside room and black on a lot of his body from the explosion that mainly just blasted him with soot and enough force to throw him backwards. Midoriya was looking at Zach in surprise as the boy jogged over, and he started saying something to him before the panel closed and Ashido ran towards the next bomb that popped out a panel of the floor for her to defuse. She yelled out in panic as soon as she knelt in front of it, "Sixteen seconds?!"

As a couple of the others started focusing on Ashido and wondering how she was going to defuse or get rid of the bomb in that short of time, Kaminari glanced to his left at Jirou who he saw staring at him. He grimaced right back, but then he smiled as he remembered something. _Oh yeah, I'll just ask him what he was thinking about after this._ Kaminari turned back and started watching Ashido, putting his hands behind his head as he recalled his decision from earlier. _And I won't let him give me a 'maybe another time' for an answer! Sometimes, you just gotta be nosy!_

* * *

Zach lay on his bed surrounded in a black aura. He stared up at the ceiling while panting, his whole room tinted red. _Darkness doesn't mean much in this state. My eyes don't need to adjust at all. Man it gets dark early though,_ Zach thought, glancing towards his window while still panting. He kept his hands both behind his head. Both of his palms were on the back of his head, but the Nightmare state was staying around his body. His fingers slid out of his glove to turn him into this form, but he could let them cover his fingers again too while inside it. Zach took a deep breath after glancing at his closed blinds that he could only see darkness through, as it was already dark at 4:40 since it was in the middle of the winter after all.

His timer started buzzing next to him, and Zach started doing sit-ups again. He did them fast, and he did not feel the aching in his body for over ten seconds. _Death is somehow stronger. But what makes it stronger? I caught that knife. And it wasn't like I just killed something to give me the boost. It just- I just knew the knife was coming. My body reacted. Maybe I can't die in Death form… Death form? Is that really better than Nightmare? Why could I never come up with anything better? Reaper isn't a name I can use as a hero. That was my villain name to prevent anyone from knowing Lifebringer was ever out there. Didn't want random villain groups knowing I was going around kicking their asses._ Zach started doing his sit-ups faster.

 _Why'd I tell Kaminari that stuff?_ He thought, his jaw biting down harder behind his wispy black veil of a mouth. _Why not? He made his decision- but I should… What? Ignore his resolve? He's my friend. He always was, always has been, even when I ignored him. He called me out on lying about the Aunt Maye-California-vacation thing too. Didn't think he'd ever piece that together, though I'm sure some of the others must have realized it if they ever watched my Aunt's testimony… Of course they all watched it. I vanished for fucking months afterwards._ Zach started panting, and he tried sitting up again only to fall back and let out a gasp of dark breath into the air above him.

Zach reached to his side and slid his phone open fast. He had to set the timer again before the darkness covered his entire phone and made it impossible to see, and he managed to set a 2 minute timer before laying on his back again. _Does training in this state power it up more? I don't know. It doesn't really matter, since I'm staying in it as long as I'm alone._ He took some deep breaths to calm down his panting after that hard set that he just went at with as many reps as it took until he could not do one more. _I almost snapped at him. Would that have been better? Telling him stuff, that I lied about in court. That's a fucking liability if I've ever seen one. I told him not to say a thing though, and as big a mouth as he has, after taking this long to get me to tell him anything, he's gotta know I'm never gonna talk to him again if people find out. For his good as much as for mine. If he tells people I'm telling him secrets, he'll be a target. Unless, he's the spy._

Zach's red eyes got wider, and then the red started flaring and his vision got redder as he glared at the ceiling. "He's not," Zach growled aloud. _Shindeki Buda would not have known who the spy was. He would have gone for Kaminari anyway. Or if it hadn't started back then, the villains could have started threatening Kaminari's family…_ Zach was thinking too fast for himself to argue with, and he brought his hands from behind his head to the sides of it and grabbed it hard. "Damn it. Shut up," he snarled at himself. "He's my friend." Zach's eyes opened wide, and he whispered, "Good thing I'm in therapy. I'm fucking talking to myself. Damn it. Damn it!" He yelled that, then he froze and spun his head to the side at the wall on his right that connected to Sato's room. _Do I have nightmares? I hope I don't wake him up if I do. I sometimes wake up in cold sweats, but I was only screaming once… He totally heard it, but no one's ever said anything. He must not have said a thing. Thanks Sato-_

 _ **Bzzz**_ Zach heard his phone buzzing and reached to it to turn off the timer. It stopped though instead of going on continuously, and he lifted his phone instead. He slid off the timer button that popped up a second after he rose his phone, then he opened the text message that had appeared before it while trying to keep his darkness from covering the device. His breath picked up speed again since he had finished panting as he prepared for his final set, but Zach started calming himself down after a few seconds. _It's a random number, but…_ Zach swung his legs off the side of his bed and red the message again. _"516221." Alright. Alright I get it. Shouldn't be too hard._ Zach stood up and he slid his phone down into his pocket with his left hand while tapping on his chest with his right with his fingers sticking out of the glove. _Should I do the final set before I go? No, I might need my energy. Really? Do I think I'm about to go into a fight, with this calm an attitude?_

Zach opened the door of his room and stepped out just as the last shreds of darkness vanished from him. He headed down the hall and then down the stairs to the common room. Zach walked towards the front door, and he saw Uraraka and Asui look over from the couch. They stared a second longer than they should have, and Zach frowned while avoiding their gazes. _Everyone totally saw. I thought maybe Kaminari was just watching me 'cause we're friends… damn it. Well, it's true. But, I guess he left out that everyone noticed. I really thought that monster was chasing me. I barely made it through the portal, and Kurogiri still split off a huge fist that made it through. That was disgusting,_ Zach almost reached the door, then he heard a voice behind him.

"Where you going?"

Zach stopped and got an annoyed look on his face. A really annoyed look. He turned his head sideways and glared at the boy behind him with bleach blond hair that spiked up around his head. "Shopping. Where are you going?" Zach asked sarcastically, as Bakugo had been walking behind him before stopping and asking the question. Bakugo narrowed his gaze at Zach at that question, and Zach glared right back at him straight in his eyes.

Asui and Uraraka looked over with wider eyes, getting nervous as this looked like it might escalate. Kirishima and Sero were hanging out near the kitchen though, and Kirishima called over as he saw who was near the door, "Oi Zach! Where are you going?"

"I need to get some snacks," Zach called back, turning from Bakugo and giving Kirishima a small, friendly look. _Kaminari's right. I don't need to treat everyone like strangers. I live with them, eat with them, learn with them. They're all my classmates. Doesn't mean they're all my closest friends, but they're the closest people I have right now._ "Just ran out," Zach added, before turning to the door and ignoring Bakugo altogether as he opened it to leave. _Don't want Kirishima saying he'll tag along or something. Can't have that right now._ Zach got out of the building quick, and he started walking down the path in the near darkness of the U.A. campus. The sun had gone down not long ago, so it was not pitch black out, but it was dark enough that Zach felt cautious about his surroundings and walked straight into the middle of the road while keeping his right hand lifted around stomach-level.

Zach headed to the main office of U.A. The main campus was pretty empty as he arrived. He knew most of the teachers lived on campus now too to better protect the students. The main office was open 24/7 as well, in case there were emergencies with the students who lived there. Zach walked up just before five o'clock, and he stepped before the receptionist who was surprised to see him. "I just need a thirty minute pass," Zach said. "Ran out of food," he added.

The woman behind the counter hummed while looking at his I.D. card, not that she needed to see it to know who he was. She scanned it, then she said while looking up, "You went shopping two days ago."

"Yeah?" Zach said. He lifted his eyebrows at her, but she lifted them right back at him. "I guess, I'll buy in bulk this time?" He asked, as if wondering why it was a problem that he was going shopping again after only two days.

"We would appreciate it if you did," she said to him. Then she gave him a small buzzer and tapped a button on her keyboard. "It'll start blinking at 25 minutes in…"

"And start beeping at 29," Zach finished for her. "I know. I'll only be ten or fifteen," he said, and he turned. He stopped after taking a step away, then he turned back with a sigh but smiled at the woman behind the counter. "Thank you."

She hummed, then she smiled at the boy at the change in attitude. "You're very welcome, Lifebringer."

Zach's smile lowered down, and the woman in front of him gained a confused look. Zach turned away from her fast, lowering his gaze and stepping out of the office with a dark look in his eyes. "Not Lifebringer," he muttered under his breath.

Zach Sazaki left U.A. and headed out into the streets of Musutafu. He kept his head on a bit of a swivel, kept his right hand lifted just a bit, but he was not really looking out for villains as much as he was searching for other predators that could be lurking around U.A. _Are the press still trying to get an interview with me? I don't see them giving up that easily. Then again, Shigaraki could have posted people out here to watch for me coming out._ Zach reached up and he made sure the black hood of his sweatshirt was pulled farther forward to cover him up more. He had been wearing it back in his room while he worked out, and he did not get changed since he was in a hurry to get out.

"Let's see," he said, lifting his phone up and checking the time. _5:04. Still have twelve minutes. He'll probably be there early, and I told her 10-15 minutes. 221. 221. 221._ Zach glanced around, then he turned left at the next intersection. He saw a lot of people around the streets, and he lifted his gloved hands and rubbed them in front of him a few times. He had thrown on the second glove on his way out the door, pulling it out of his sweatshirt pocket that he kept it in just in case. After all, there were instances where he would have to leave quickly without giving away who he was by wearing only a glove over his right hand.

 _There we are,_ Zach thought, and he walked towards the convenience store just ahead of him. _Figured he would pick one close to school. It would look strange to any teachers who might be following me if I went any farther than the closest one._

Zach stepped into the convenience store, and he grabbed a basket before going straight towards a shelf with some snack food on it. _Good thing I was actually low on snacks. Makes it so I'm not wasting Aunt Maye's money. Want to use as little as possible now that the school's pretty much supporting me for everything else. Full cut-off of contact should include not taking money out of her account._ Zach dropped another bag of chips in his basket, then he looked over the shelf towards the refrigerated section, only to frown and turn away. He walked towards a shelf in the back covered in magazines and manga.

The kid with messy black hair picked up a popular manga and flipped through it. He stopped on a page with a pirate who had a brown tail and was holding a big sword covered in bandages. He read the popular manga for a few seconds, and he actually got interested in it, _He's a ninja too?_

"This was not your best idea," a man behind Zach said. Zach continued to read the manga, then his eyes widened a small amount as the man took a roll of toilet paper off a shelf that he had run his hand along the entire way. "Reading manga? Did you think I could casually walk up alongside you and start reading?"

Zach sweatdropped and he closed the book and put it back on the shelf. He shook his head like he was reminding himself he had to go shopping and get back quick, then he walked to the other side of the shelf as the man with short brown hair and a pair of sunglasses on. The guy on the other side of the shelf had a cane in one hand, and he was running his hand up and down the shelf with a semi-confused look on his face like he was struggling at finding what he needed to. Zach had looked over the shelf towards him, then he saw that look and realized something. "What are you looking for?" Zach asked, and he walked around the shelf to "help" out the blind man on the other side.

"Hmp," Webb let out a satisfied hum while Zach walked around towards him. Then his mouth lowered into a flat lip as he turned towards the young man who was trying to be helpful to him. Webb was only a few inches taller than the short student, at five seven himself. Once he turned to the shorter boy so his lips could not be read from outside if there was anyone looking in, he said, "I am looking for- Hunter is going to be let free tomorrow."

Zach's eyes widened a little, then he himself turned farther from the windows and pointed at the shelf on the other side of them. "Right here," he said. Webb turned with him, and Zach continued in a dark and lower voice, "Didn't know what the rest of your face looked like. Why _are_ you so tan?"

"I'm part Italian," Webb replied. "That all you have to say?"

"How's he getting out?" Zach said, while reaching forward and grabbing a tub of shampoo. He grabbed the blind man by a hand and lifted it up to put the shampoo in it, making Webb frown this time as the kid took the act too far, though he did not say anything about it.

Instead, Webb replied, "Apparently, because of the way he was apprehended, it would be a mistrial and Hunter could not be charged in court."

Zach grimaced. An annoyed and angry look spreading on his face which made him look harder at the shelf in front of him so no one would see.

"It was obvious this was going to happen," Webb continued, his voice still low so only the two of them could hear. Zach glanced out the left corners of his eyes at the man who reached forward and moved around the shampoo to put it back in its place, then reached over and grabbed another bottle. He handed it to Zach so the boy could "explain" what the label said, while Webb continued, "This was _supposed_ to happen."

Zach got a confused look on his face, but then he shifted his gaze down at the bottle's label with a thoughtful look, "Does that mean…" Zach hesitated. He grinned after a second though, thinking about a conversation that he and Webb had had back the day after Webb saved him from Hunter. "You put a tracker on Hunter?" Zach asked.

Webb did not smile, but he did nod and feel satisfied at the kid's quick thinking. "Sooner or later, he will be called to the League of Villains again. They will want to know the reason for his failure, or they will hire him a second time. Even with that failure, his reputation taking a hit will only make his prices drop and make them more likely to ask for his help."

Zach hummed himself this time, then realizing the look on his face, he went with it and put the shampoo back like he had been pondering it's uses. "Here, check this out," Zach said, walking around Webb to his other side and grabbing a 3-in-1 shampoo, conditioner, body wash. "If Hunter gets close with a tracker on him, Hackerman might find out. I still don't know how he got into VTS's systems. How he discovered the cameras in the first place."

"It's not that kind of tracker," Webb replied as Zach handed him the bottle he had just seemingly talked about to the blind man. Zach did not change his expression but listened close as Webb talked, a smile on his face like he was finally happy with what he was getting. "It's a tracking Quirk. Similar to how Hunter used your scent, using his Quirk, Moth." Zach's eyes widened a bit more, but he returned them to normal quickly while just feeling satisfied at that information. "I asked an acquaintance with a useful Quirk for help. He met with Hunter in jail disguised as a guard, he doesn't know the tracker's on him."

"How do you follow it?"

"My acquaintance sends me reports every hour he's awake," Webb replied.

 _Sounds more like a partner than an acquaintance. Though, I bet he refers to me as an acquaintance too to others he works with. What is my purpose here? I never asked. There's no reason, I thought._ "What do you want from me?" Zach asked, realizing as he thought about it that he had no idea what he was there for. The two of them started walking for the counter together, and Zach stood in front of Webb since he had just asked the question. There was one person in front of them already getting his things, and Zach looked back over his right shoulder away from the door as he listened to the blind man behind him. It would have looked weird for them to be having an obvious conversation while looking away from each other, and even though neither of them knew whether or not someone was watching them, they were both appreciative of how the other person was being cautious.

"I thought you would want to know, that's all," Webb said. Zach got a skeptical look on his face, and Webb frowned immediately. Zach lost the look that he would not give a blind man, and Webb lost the one that showed he could tell what Zach's expression had just turned to. Webb continued after that brief lapse in both of their judgements, "As well as," he paused as Zach started to smirk as he knew he was right in thinking there was more.

"Sorry, continue," Zach said, then he turned forward as the guy behind the counter called for him to move up. The man behind Zach did not say a word as Zach got his few snacks and ramen cups rung up. Zach stepped aside after he was finished, but he looked back towards the blind man who bought the few things he had on him as well, including the 3-in-1 shampoo Zach suggested to him.

Webb stepped away from the counter and he and Zach walked out the door together, then when they were on the steps outside, Webb turned to Zach again like he was thanking the young man for help in the shop. "Next time I send you a message, it will be to ask for your help. Not for a meeting like this. Will you accept?"

Zach smiled at the blind man who was thanking him, and he shook his head like it was no problem at all. "I don't know," Zach said while smiling. "I'm glad you're keeping me involved, but I really, I just don't know. It's too soon."

"When you next receive a message, decide fast. If you ignore it, I will cease communications," Webb turned around and lifted his right hand, giving a small friendly wave over his shoulder.

Zach waved back, then he laughed and cupped his hands to his mouth. "Goodbye!" he called out, then he turned while laughing and started heading back to his school. He lifted his left hand as he did though, and he put the hood back on that he had taken off in the convenience shop and was surprised no one called him out on. Then again, his face did look different from the pictures still being shown of him on tv: scarless, spiky-haired.

Zach Sazaki headed back towards U.A., and he lifted his head to stare up at the dark sky above that was pitch black now. He could not see any stars, but that was to be expected in a city as bright as Musutafu. He stared up at the stars, and he narrowed his gaze after a few seconds. _Help Webb? It's pretty clear All Might doesn't know about this. He probably only asked Webb for help, because of my situation at the time. After Webb and I spent those two days talking though, he wanted to… It's strange to me, doing something like this. I made my choice. I, had the option of becoming Webb's student and learning how to be an anti-hero from him, or joining back with hero society. The whole reason I chose hero society, was because I wanted to follow the rules and not bring the consequences that ignoring them was bound to. Can I stand on the line not of a hero and villain, but of a hero and anti-hero? Does such a thing exist? No, a hero who ignores the rules and does stuff like that, would just be an anti-hero already, or a villain depending on the viewpoint._

He continued heading back towards U.A., and he felt a buzzing from the device in his pocket that made him grimace. _25 minutes already. Guess I'll have to apologize it wasn't ten to fifteen after all._ He thought it, then he frowned deeper at the obvious distraction he gave himself. _How do I decide? Could I even leave for long enough to really help? When he says that, he means he wants me to fight with him, or at least do more than meet him in a nearby convenience store. I should expect that he means infiltrating and attacking at his side. I should expect anything and everything. He said he was going to keep going after the League of Villains. We both knew that I could not give the hero system_ _ **all**_ _the information I have, as that would implicate me in a dozen or so crimes. And if I was going back, no one who could use that information would be out there. So I gave it all to Webb. He took everything I learned in 5 months, and he's asking for my help now even after all that._ "Haaaa," Zach let out a long breath and he started scratching his chin with his left hand.

 _Guess I'll just go to school for now,_ he thought, and he lowered his left hand and shrugged his shoulders. Zach smiled as he thought about the talks he and Kaminari had that day. He thought about how he came in second for his round at Ground Gamma, but actually got first in his group since he defused the bomb while Midoriya had it blasted in his face. He stretched his arms up in the sky and let out a laugh as he thought about Bakugo's angry look at him as he was about to leave. _What's your fucking problem?_ Zach's expression darkened, but he kept grinning as he lowered both gloved hands behind his head and kept walking back to school. _I can do this. Balancing everything. Holding back. Pushing forward. School, friends, villains, Webb, teachers, six weeks, Hunter, future, hiding. Balance everything. Don't lose it again._

* * *

 **A/N Thanks for reading. I read the entire manga last night, solid all-nighter. So in a few chapters since I'm already finished with some of the next ones, more from the manga will show up in here, even if I am past its current timeline now. Actually got Trigger from the Vigilante- My Hero Academia: Illegals manga where it's the main focus, and I didn't know it was going to be in Boku no Hero at all until I read the manga last night, which actually saved me here as I changed up some dialogue to keep canon since Dabi initially was going to be really surprised that Trigger had shown up, as I thought it was an old drug... Well anyway, going to be some cool things added in now that I know some other characters and plots that happened in the fall that Zach missed, though not all that happened in the manga may have happened while he was away with the villains. This world is different after all, and Zach's leaving with the villains may have changed more! So anyway, I h** **ope you enjoyed the chapter. Leave a review telling me what you think, or predictions for upcoming chapters!**

Crosswald chapter 34 . 18h ago

I wonder how you're gonna develop the way Zach will use his power without hurt anyone, and what will be his "specials" attack because as he is back is UA he's a future hero...no ?  
Ho and i really want him to realize there's a lot peaple who care of him. He has friends.  
A support the shop momo Zach ! Yeaaa

 **Zach even without his power does pretty good at his training today, and it seems he's accepted at least Kaminari as a friend. Another support for the Momo Zach ship huh? We'll see... Thanks for the review!**

Words and letters chapter 34 . 15h ago

You spoil me, you have such a talent with writing stories and the characters in it, you've kept me captivated ever since I found your story but what you spoil me with the most is the fact you've released more chapters than days you started this with a huge word count, LIKE I'M HAPPY IF A STORY STICKS WITH A WEEK SCHEDULE AND YOU HAVE MORE THAN A DAILY UPLOAD RATE and that time you updated within 2 hours bloody madman  
So thank you for making this, I hope good fortune comes your way

 **Thanks! Really glad you're enjoying it. With this chapter, I have now hit over 300,000 words, with more than 30 chapters, in under 30 days! Still having a lot of fun with it, so expect another full week of uploads! XD Thanks again!**

ali2331 chapter 34 . 4h ago

So yeah. I'm confused about what "path" Zach actually chose. He seems like he's not that determined to be a hero and go to UA but at the same time UA is supposedly a super tough school and he couldn't possibly be going through with all the hard courses without a goal in mind. So does he want to be a hero?

 **Zach decided to go to the hero school, and he is determined to do well and make it a hero, but he's just shown not to be too into going to _UA_ specifically. Hates the teachers, knows there's a spy, but he also knows it's the only hero school he can go to that'll accept him and won't be in a ton more danger because of his presence. He's settling in a bit more now though, but at the end here he's still trying to figure out what he's doing. "Balance everything," is gonna be hard with U.A. classes as tough as you're saying, but we'll see how he moves on from here.**

Harbringer27 chapter 34 . 17h ago

Ok I dunno if I'm wrong or I forgot or missed a part of the story but is Jenny and her parents dead? Because if im honest I don't know, and I would really like to know even if it's a yes please

 **Yeah. Hop back like 7 chapters, right before the 6 week time skip before Zach escaped the villains. He hasn't been thinking about it or talking with anyone about it either, still surprised you missed it though.**

Thebloodlord chapter 34 . 14h ago

Will thar be romance? (And not yaoi romance, sorry it doesn't do it for me) I can see Jiro or Momo being his GF, I don't think the story Needs a romantic partner but it could make for some interesting situations

 **I think thar will be. Won't be yaoi so don't worry. I won't confirm or deny any ships though. Thanks for the review!**

Guest chapter 34 . 8h ago

Will Zach ever start appreciating the people around him?  
Cause this guy seriously needs some love because he's too emotionally deprived. I thought this would be ZackxJirou but Momo has been getting a lot of "attention" recently.  
When will he get that freaky growth spurt and become the tall attractive guy with scars all over his muscular body, cause it's hilarious how he's barely taller than Tokoyami!? Plus he's tortured constantly, I mean come on! If there is one thing I know that makes men feel better is if they are taller than most people, even if they have significant problems. Something that helps people get through problems because he has absolutely no outlet, he can't even kill things. He's bottling everything way too much and it's going to come out at the worst time possible.

 **Zach's got Midoriya, and now Kaminari too, we'll see if he can open up a bit to anyone else in coming chapters. Zach getting a growth spurt and coming back looking like that would require a longer time skip, while really we're just seeing it happen more gradually. He was just over five foot at the start of the story after all, and not even a year later he's 5'4" so he's def getting bigger. He's got a small outlet now as he's sent to therapy, so hopefully that'll work out for him, but yeah we'll see. Thanks for reviewing! Hope y'all enjoyed the chapter!**


	36. Chapter 36

**Chapter 36:**

"I'm telling you, she really called me Chargebolt straight off the bat," Kaminari said while walking side-by-side with Zach down a hallway of U.A. They had just left their final class for the day, and Zach started laughing as Kaminari continued, "I don't think she actually knew my real name. She must have been from Osaka. I guess I did go by my hero name there, but I only really helped with one incident. I was so confused as to how she knew me, and then get this, she winks at me. Seriously!"

Zach grinned at the guy next to him skeptically, but Kaminari was giving him a totally serious look. "She winked?" Zach asked. Kaminari nodded quick as he could see Zach was starting to believe it. "Then, you must have gotten her number, yeah?" Zach asked in a skeptical tone.

Kaminari grinned big this time, and he whipped out his phone too fast for Zach to see. Zach snapped his head down in shock and watched as Kaminari pulled out the contact info like he had it ready to show off at any moment. "I'm telling you, it was awesome," Kaminari said while Zach looked back up. Zach started laughing after a second, and Kaminari joined in before pocketing his phone. "I'm going to hit her up on Thursday, give myself enough time to get a nice two hour pass for a date over the weekend."

"That bother you at all?" Zach asked.

"What do you mean?" Kaminari wondered. They turned left down a hall and could see the exit of the back of the school up ahead of them where a lot of other students were walking out of to head back towards their dorms. "The whole, getting a pass thing?" Kaminari asked, and Zach nodded his head with a small frown on his face. "I mean, it's a little annoying, but it's pretty obvious why we need a system like that, right?"

"Haha, I guess," Zach admitted. He was actually annoyed there for a second, but Kaminari's response made him grin and he turned to his spiky-haired blond friend. "Maybe if I didn't break in at VTS, it wouldn't be so strict." Kaminari's bottom lip dropped, then he started laughing hard as Zach made a joke about that.

Zach smiled at Kaminari's laughter. He was walking on the right side of the left side of the hall that he and Kaminari were walking on, with his blond friend on the left side of him closer to the wall. As he was walking though, someone bumped into Zach's right side and his eyes shot open huge, before he quickly remembered that his right hand was in a special glove and in his pocket. He still turned to the right in annoyance though at the person he swore moved farther to his side of the hall just to bump him.

"What's up?" Kaminari asked, leaning around Zach's side as the other boy stopped after getting bumped.

They both looked at the brown-haired boy who looked a little older than them. He was wearing a school uniform, but his looked a little disheveled and wrinkled. His expression was clearly upset, and he glared towards Zach with a deep frown on his face. Everyone moving in the hallway around them stopped. The three of them stopping cut off traffic, and it made everyone on both sides of the hall stare over at the second-year student who started glaring down Zach Sazaki. Zach wanted to just apologize for the bump at this point as the other guy was seemingly making a big deal out of it, and he was clearly dealing with something by the look on his face.

"What are you doing here?" The second-year snapped at Zach. Zach leaned his head back, then his eyes narrowed quickly as the guy in front of him who was a few inches taller continued, "Yesterday, my little cousin got hit by a drunk driver. She was only eleven years old," the guy snapped at Zach. Zach's eyes got darker, and he glared harder at the older boy while people all over the hall around them started to sweat at the confrontation.

"Hey hey," Kaminari started, stepping up on Zach's left side. "I'm sorry man but-"

Zach held his left arm up in front of Kaminari before he got any farther forward. Down the hall at the last intersection, Ashido and Hagakure leaned around some older girls to try and see what was going on, and their eyes opened wide as the boy in front of Zach said, "She died. You're Lifebringer, aren't you-"

Zach stepped closer to the guy in front of him. _Not Lifebringer._ "Do you," Zach started, looking up into the guy's eyes with ones that were emotionless despite what the other teen just said to him. "Think I could just magically save her life?" Zach questioned, glaring at the guy who was accusing him of, something, in front of a few dozen people. Zach glared harder at the teen whose face started sweating at the sight of the scar-faced, angry look. His eyes narrowed and he said in a low voice, stepping one more foot closer to the older teen, "I can't save everyone."

He turned away and kept walking for the back door of the school. The others ahead of him who had turned around to watch, all spun the other way and kept heading for the door out of the school, trying hard to avoid Lifebringer's eyes as he just scared the crap out of them, even if some of them understood where he was coming from.

"Hey, yo Zach wait up," Kaminari ran after his friend and then slowed once he got to Zach's side since Zach was still just walking. He turned in and said, "You okay?"

"Yeah," Zach replied, though his expression was dark and his fists clenched hard at his sides. "It just," he began, and his face scrunched up more. "An eleven year old girl, died," he whispered. Kaminari's eyes widened more, while Zach lifted his left arm as they stepped out the back doors of the school. Zach wiped his arm across his eyes quickly, while saying in just as hard a voice, "I know, if I was still with the villains they would probably have stopped me from saving people at all at this point. But there's a chance. A chance if I had just stayed…" Zach closed his eyes and bit down hard for a few seconds. "I- I can't save everyone, right?" He asked, his head turning and his eyes opening to look at the boy next to him.

"No one can," Kaminari assured him. "People, die sometimes," Kaminari said. "It sucks, but it happens."

"Yeah," Zach agreed, nodding along with him. His eyes lowered down though after he agreed. He stared at the floor, and he bit down on his bottom lip as he and Kaminari headed out onto the road behind the school. They were heading towards the dorms, and most other people around them headed off in different directions than them. "I can't save everyone," Zach whispered again. He turned towards Kaminari, and Kaminari looked back towards him only to open his eyes huge at the tears in Zach's eyes. _Like I couldn't save them,_ Zach thought instead of saying it aloud like he almost just did. _Mrs. Akers,_ he saw the woman screaming in her kitchen as the flames erupted around her. _Mr. Akers,_ he saw the pillar of flames shooting out of the man's back after he had turned so strong Zach barely recognized him. Zach's lips trembled and tears came out of both eyes making him turn from Kaminari, _Je-Jenny._

"Dude, you couldn't save her," Kaminari said.

Zach knew he meant the eleven year old girl the other student just told them about, but Zach couldn't hold it back anyway. He kept himself from thinking about them for so long, all the time, whenever he could. But his tears streamed down now even as he pursed his lips shut and clenched his teeth as hard as he could. Kaminari grit his teeth too as he saw the agony on Zach's face, and he reached his right arm out and put it over Zach's shoulders. "You'll be alright man."

 _It's not that Kaminari._ Zach thought. _Did he know Jenny? He talked to her at least, but he doesn't know. I- I don't want to tell him,_ tears streamed freely from Zach's eyes as the two of them walked back towards their dorm at Heights Alliance. Zach lifted his left hand and covered his eyes and the top of his face up with it as he walked. "Ah ahh ah," Zach tried to hold it back, but it came out in short gasps while he wiped hard over his eyes. _**"Zach! ZACH! HELP ME! AAAHAHHHH!"**_ Zach grabbed his face so hard and he could hardly take it anymore. "I'm so sorry," he whispered, his voice cracking and his heart breaking inside as he thought hard about it for the first time in days, maybe weeks.

"Dude," Kaminari whispered, his own eyes getting wetter as Zach tried his best to hold himself together. "You _can't_ save everyone," Kaminari whispered. He grabbed Zach's opposite shoulder tighter, and Zach nodded his head in agreement. He wiped his arm over his face harder this time, so hard it hurt but made him feel a bit better as it distracted him from the thoughts plaguing his mind.

"I know," Zach whispered. He pulled away from Kaminari a bit and the blond lowered his arm hesitantly, but Zach glanced at him and gave him a thankful nod after a second to show he appreciated it. Kaminari nodded back, even if he did not understand how Zach felt at the moment.

The two girls not far behind them who lagged behind farther just to avoid interrupting both found themselves tearing up as Zach turned his head sideways. They had both seen him wiping his arm over his face, and as far back as they were from them, they both heard what sounded like choked-off sobs from just up ahead. Ashido turned to Hagakure whose face she wished she could see right now, and the invisible girl shook that invisible head at her friend with a sad look on it that could only be told by her low hum.

Zach and Kaminari turned in towards their dorm building as they reached it. "Hey," Zach started, as they were walking up the path together. Kaminari glanced in, wondering if Zach was going to mention why that got to him so much back there. Zach just looked at him halfway with a small turn of his head though, and he said, "Thanks, for still being my friend. Even after everything."

"You mean after you went and saved a hundred people?" Kaminari asked, and Zach's eyes opened wide at the response to what was supposed to be his serious moment. Kaminari grinned at Zach's wide-eyed reaction though, and he said, "Dude, from that first time you saved that cop and that chick just downtown, when I knew you were still a hero despite going with those bastards, I always considered you my friend. Actually scratch that, I never stopped, 'cause I didn't even know you went through the portal yourself 'til Midoriya said it after VTS."

"He did?" Zach asked, a little hurt at the sound of that.

Kaminari could see that, and he held up both hands defensively for Midoriya's sake. "I think he thought you were dead at that point." Zach's eyes opened even wider, and Kaminari continued, "He was just, really messed up after letting you get taken a third time through the portals. He said the first two times you went through on your own, so we all just kind of realized it," Kaminari explained.

"Oh," Zach replied, and he lowered his gaze down right as they were reaching the door to the building. "Well, I'm going to apologize to him again. He still blames himself for letting me get caught," Zach added, shaking his head with a sad look on his face.

"Yeah, Midoriya tends to blame himself for a lot," Kaminari agreed. "Want to tell him together?"

Zach thought it would be a really serious moment between the two of them later, so he turned to Kaminari in surprise and confusion as they walked through the front door. Then, his lips curled up, as avoiding an awkward conversation like that sounded exactly like what he would prefer. "Sure," Zach replied. _Having Kaminari there will make it easier to seem like I treat the whole thing like a joke. Even if he really did let met get- no, it's the teachers' faults if anything. Midoriya tried. I can't blame him for that. I never did. Even at those times, when I was at my worst. I kept my promise, didn't I? I didn't say a thing? I remember it all! Don't I? If I'm repressing any of those memories, harder than others… I really, really- No! I wouldn't have told them. Shigaraki didn't know. He would have rubbed my face in it if I had given up Midoriya's secrets, wouldn't he have?_

Zach glanced behind him as the door was about to close, then he pulled it back open for the girls he saw walking up the path. "Hey," he said to them as they got close to the entrance. One look at their faces though, or at least at Ashido's, and Zach grimaced as he realized they were probably in the hallway back at the school building.

"That guy was such a jerk," Ashido said quickly as she saw the realization on Zach's face that showed she definitely was not doing a good job at hiding what she saw.

"Don't blame him," Zach said quickly. "Think about, if you were in his shoes," he added, a sad look on his face as he thought about that. He thought about his own younger cousin, and he wondered how he would react if he walked by someone who had the ability to bring people back to life and did not save her. _Tsura,_ he thought about the girl he cut ties with, who he still loved despite it.

"Oh, oh yeah," Ashido said, agreeing and nodding at Zach whose expression she saw get so sad in the next few seconds, though he was thinking about how he had cut his ties with his family and not actually what he just said to her.

"Wouldn't it be great, if you got someone with a portal Quirk to be a sidekick for you in the future?" Hagakure asked, leaning towards Zach as she stepped inside. Zach leaned back in surprise, then he started smiling softly at the invisible girl whose face was right in front of his. "Instead of a nasty villain like that Kurogiri. And you know," she continued, her voice raising in pitch as if she suddenly had an idea. "Even though it's rare, I bet if someone has a portal Quirk right now and wants to be a hero, there's only one hero who they'd want to help out in the future!"

Zach's eyes shot open wide. He had always thought about how rare Kurogiri's Quirk was as an excuse for why he did not leave, or why he had joined in the first place, but what Hagakure just said made him drop his jaw. "Whoa," Ashido said, realizing it too and then spinning back to Zach. "That's totally right! If I had a portal or warp gate Quirk or something, I'd definitely join your agency. The two of you could do more than like, 90 percent of heroes combined!"

Zach looked at the two girls in front of him, then to the left at Kaminari who shrugged and grinned at the support he was getting. Zach turned back to the girls and he smiled genuinely at them, his eyes so soft as he whispered, "Thanks. I never, actually thought about that."

Hagakure's face lit up, not that anyone noticed. "I'm glad!" She exclaimed.

"Me too," Ashido agreed. "Even though I still think we should have done rock-paper-scissors to see who got to defuse the bomb first. You got me explodeded!" Ashido exclaimed, pointing a finger out at Zach who leaned back defensively.

Kaminari started laughing, then Zach laughed along with him. He laughed so hard that he forgot why it was his heart had been aching for minutes now. He smiled again when he opened his eyes, even though there were tears on the corners of them. Zach smiled at the two girls and he whispered, "Thank you."

* * *

On the sidewalks of Musutafu, a group of freshmen Class-A U.A. students were walking towards a shopping center their class representative was leading them towards. "The third term's really gonna go fast," Kirishima said, glancing back at the group behind him where he stood on Iida's right. "Only January, February, and March. It's feels like so much less than the others."

"Finals will be in April," Jirou reminded. "Break between end of this semester and the start of our second year isn't as long as I wish," she added, grimacing as she thought about the short break that would be around the length of their winter vacation.

"Do we really need to decorate the dorms for February?" Midoriya questioned Iida, stepping close to the class rep's side.

Iida pushed up on his glasses, and he said in a firm voice, "I believe it will be a source of unity and a morale boost to have everyone work together to decorate the dorm."

"February's big holiday is Valentine's though," Zach mentioned. "We really going to cover the halls in pink for a whole-"

"And what's wrong with pink?" Ashido said, spinning around and putting her hands on her hips while staring at the boy in the back of the group of six.

Zach got a sweatdrop on the side of his head and he replied quickly, "Nothing."

Midoriya looked back with a smile and a sweatdrop of his own on his face and Zach glanced his way for help. Ashido hummed at him for another second then spun still with her hands on her hips. "Good. Because the fourth floor is going to be su- _uuuper_ pink!" She lifted her hands up in front of her and then spread them apart as if imagining the walls of the hallway on the other side of them. "We'll even paint-"

"Ashido-kun, there will be none of that," Iida stated harshly, Ashido flinched and she cracked a nervous smile as Iida turned his head to the side. "That would be considered vandalism of the school property! How could you even consider going so far? The teachers and faculty who built the dorms for our protection did so with care and-"

"Okay okay okay," Ashido waved her hands in front of her as Iida sounded like he would just keep going. "We could always paint it back afterwards," Ashido muttered, though she dropped her arms and let out a defeated sigh.

"Good thing Hagakure's not here," Jirou mentioned to the pink girl on her side who turned left to face her. "Decorating for Valentine's Day? She'd have us buying like hundreds of pink hearts to hang all over the place, girly stuff like that I have a feeling would go missing thanks to certain guys…"

Ashido's eyes widened in panic as she thought about a certain exploding boy on her own floor whose room she suddenly decided she would not be putting up any decorations near. She frowned for only a second thinking about Bakugo though, before she grinned at something else Jirou said. "I thought she definitely would have come, but I think she already had plans today with _her_ Valentine," Ashido said, her voice getting a little quieter at the end. Jirou's face turned red and her eyes opened wide, and Ashido just kept smirking at her for a second before darting her eyes right and left. She looked ahead and did not see Iida or Kirishima looking at her, and when she looked back, Zach's head was turned towards the middle of the road and he looked like he was thinking on something. Ashido turned back and gave Jirou a wink while the girl with long earlobes shook her head around.

Zach stared into the road until he saw Ashido look forward again, then he turned and looked forward too at the others' backs. _Her Valentine? I wonder if Hagakure and Ojiro are going out. It's not like they didn't hang out like that before… Wonder if Midoriya noticed?_ He turned his head at Midoriya who was only a bit in front of him and on the left. Midoriya looked to be thinking hard, just like Zach had pretended to be a minute ago to trick Ashido, but Zach was pretty sure Midoriya's thoughtful expression was serious.

"It is right up here," Iida said, motioning towards the shopping center ahead of them. There was a party-type store that the group was heading to for their decorations, and the others around Iida started getting more excited.

"Alright!" Ashido threw her arms up in the air. "I'm getting into this now!"

"Let's do it!" Kirishima said.

"Kirishima," Midoriya began in some surprise, looking over towards the red-haired teen. "I didn't think you'd be into this sort of thing."

"But that's why I had to come," Kirishima said, looking back at Midoriya with a look asking how Midoriya could not understand. "February? Valentine's Day? The whole dorm would be way too girly if someone did not come to stop it-"

"You can't stop it!" Ashido exclaimed, and she started running forward after hearing Kirishima's true reason for coming. "Our floor will be pink!"

"I'll settle for red," Kirishima called out loudly as he ran towards the building too.

"Compose yourselves in the manner fit for U.A. students…" Iida's head started turning left as he was speeding up to chase the others he was scolding.

It sped right past Zach, Midoriya, and Jirou. Their heads all spun left, then they turned to follow the truck moving way too fast for a city street like this. There were not a lot of cars on the road at all, but this truck was moving right down the middle. "Hey, isn't that dangerous-" Jirou's hand was lifting up towards the truck but her eyes shot open wide as she saw the front wheels turn right and left quickly, but the vehicle was not responding well to the attempts of the driver.

"It's out of control!" Midoriya shouted, and he started running forward.

 _What are the…_

Kirishima and Ashido spun to their lefts, then they each pulled back farther onto the sidewalk as the front of the truck swung their way and then back across the street. Kirishima only stopped for a second, then he started running again and sprinted right past Ashido whose eyes opened wide at the determined look on the boy's face passing right in front of her. Then her eyes widened more as a taller teen with smoke shooting out the back of his calves, and another boy with green hair shot by in front of her too.

"Oh no," Jirou said, and she started running forward after the truck that just went over the curve across the end of the street in the intersection. It bounced up, the left tires came out from beneath it as it started leaning to one side in the parking lot, the driver trying one last effort to prevent from slamming into the shopping center ahead. Other cars in the parking lot got pushed out of the way, people screamed in that direction, and the truck fell on its side with a loud _**CRASH!**_

"Let's go help!" Ashido shouted, turning to Jirou who was running towards her. She looked a little farther back before she spun forward, then the girl with bright pink skin froze and she spun her head around again. "Uh, hey Zach!" She shouted.

 _It just happened to crash right in front of us?_ Zach thought, his heart rate skyrocketing and his head snapping side to side. His eyes were huge, his head pounding with the sound of his own heartbeat. _What? Why? Is this for real? Is this, a trap?! No, people need help,_ he spun back forward and saw Ashido looking his way and calling out, and Jirou turned before yelling something at him and waving a hand after her too, then both girls turned and started running for the crashed truck.

Zach saw flames rising up from the parking lot though, and a lot of smoke, and he heard sirens in the distance. _Even if it's not,_ Zach thought, his right foot trembling as he tried to pick it up. He finally did lift it, but instead of putting it forward, his foot came back behind him as his whole body leaned backwards. _People are going to start recording! The news will show up, the media! They'll know exactly where I am! This_ _ **IS**_ _just to get me?! IS IT?! Can I even help in this situation anyway?_ He took another step back, and his head spun around with his eyes huge, and he started sprinting away like the fire behind him was a villain fight. A few people on the sidewalks who saw the kid running and the scared look on his face spun around themselves and started running. _They're going to come for me!_

* * *

"I don't care," Kirishima said, his voice angry as he continued down the hallway after marching out of the stairwell. "How could he just run off like that?"

"M-Maybe he was just going to get help," Jirou suggested, before thinking back on the expression she saw when glancing back one more time as she had almost reached the truck, right before he spun and started running. Her lips curled into a frown herself and she slowed down a bit behind Kirishima, falling back to where Midoriya was speed-walking just a little slower than the others.

"It is unbefitting of a hero with a provisional license," Iida said, and he frowned as he thought about how Zach had mentioned getting his on his first day back in their class. "But he also disobeyed the rules and left the group to return to school on his own. He did not check in at the office and only used his I.D." Iida was saying these things like they mattered more to him, but he had as frustrated a look as Kirishima did on his face.

Ashido frowned from right behind and between the two of them. She thought back a few days to a conversation she and Hagakure had with Zach, and she frowned so much deeper as she thought about what he just did. _Sure you can't save everyone, but you can't just run like…_

The three at the front reached the door at the end of the hall and Iida lifted a hand to knock on it firmly. Kirishima beat him to it though, grabbing the doorknob without waiting for a knock and throwing the door right open. "Hey Zach-" Kirishima barged into the room on the right side of the door, Iida looked forward on the left, and Ashido stared between them. All three of them, after opening the door to Zach's room, froze in place and felt chills down their spines.

The room in front of them was dark. They had been caught up after the accident to clear things up with police, and they even got talked to by a reporter who showed up, so by the time they returned back to school it was already dark. The room before them had the blinds drawn, the lights were off, and only the light from the hall came into it when they opened the door. And with that light from the hallway, Iida, Kirishima, and Ashido all stared at the form that leapt up on its feet on the bed in the room's corner. He was covered head to toe in blackness, and his red eyes flared as he glared towards the door through tinted red vision.

Those red eyes started growing huge as he saw who it was who just barged through his door. He lowered the knife in his left hand, then he lifted his right hand quickly and pressed it against his chest. "Don't you knock?" Zach asked and hopped off the bed, his voice getting less deep through the sentence as the darkness faded from his body. He was wearing the same clothes he had on when they were out earlier, and he tossed the knife in his left hand over on top of his desk before turning and glaring back at his doorway.

Kirishima reached over and flipped the light on, then he marched into Zach's room with an annoyed look on his face. Ashido stepped in behind him, while Iida was still thinking about what he just saw for the first time and had him feeling unsettled. Jirou reached the doorway right as Kirishima kept going in, turning on the lights as he went. She glanced into the room as he moved forward, and Jirou's eyes widened a bit as she saw some black wisps disappearing over Zach's shoulders in the illuminated room. She thought it might be a trick of the eyes since it disappeared the same moment she looked in, but Iida's expression on her left made her feel like she was not just seeing things.

"Where did you go?" Kirishima asked, his voice harsh as he got right up in front of Zach only a couple of feet away.

"I came back here-" Zach started, his eyes narrowing at Kirishima, then behind him at the other four he had been out with who were all just inside his room or standing outside the door. He grimaced at the looks they were giving him, though Iida's went back to just a disappointed and disapproving one after another second.

"You ran off," Kirishima said, sounding even angrier while his fists clenched at his sides. "How could you just do that, while all of us ran over to help out?"

"My Quirk is Death," Zach replied, staring into Kirishima's eyes darkly. "How could I have helped out? I would, have just gotten in the way," he said.

"That's why you ran?" Ashido asked. Zach glanced her way, and his mouth opened and then closed again.

His face scrunched up and he opened his mouth again before turning back to Kirishima. "I- I couldn't have done anything-"

"And what if someone was killed?" Kirishima asked.

Zach clenched his eyes shut. He shook his head and whispered, "I checked the news. No one did-"

"But what if they had?" Ashido started.

"If- If someone had gotten a picture of me, and posted it," Zach started, spinning to the girl behind Kirishima. "Then people might have. The situation would have gotten so much worse," Zach said, shaking his head at her while speaking faster with the excuse.

"How?" Kirishima snapped. "How would that have-"

Zach leaned forward at Kirishima who was interrogating him from only a couple feet off. "I told you. I _escaped,_ " Zach said, his eyes narrowing even while he had to bite down so hard after saying it.

Ashido's eyes opened wide behind Kirishima, and Jirou stared into the room with her bottom lip lowered. She darted her gaze to her sides at Midoriya and Iida, and both of them were losing their disappointed ones which only made Jirou's eyes open wider. _Escaped?_

"They're looking for me," Zach said, turning back to Kirishima after darting his gaze around at the others. Kirishima had not moved his face back at all though, and Zach did after a couple more seconds. He pulled his face back and he said defensively, "If they knew I was there, they would have come. They would have come through portals, and they would have started something right there. They're still trying to get me!" Zach snapped at the boy in front of him who finally lifted his angry frown.

Kirishima kept looking frustrated though, even as he was getting less angry with Zach. He frowned deeper again after a second and started shaking his head. "No. No that doesn't make it- You don't know that!"

"I do!" Zach yelled. "Days before I came back to class, I was being hunted and chased and it didn't stop just because I got to this place!" Kirishima's eyes widened as Zach stared into them with shaky ones of his own. "They would have come as soon as they knew I was out there! They, they could come at _any_ time," Zach said, making his voice firmer and angrier at his classmate for confronting him over this in the first place.

Ashido's wide eyes got even wider as she thought about how Zach looked when they opened the door. "Is that why you were using that form, even in your own room?" Ashido whispered. Kirishima spun towards her, then back to Zach who leaned away from him and bit down hard, wishing no one had seen that. He did not make it disappear as soon as they opened the door though, because he was too afraid of who else it could be.

Kirishima looked back at Zach's face while the shorter boy's gaze darted away and to the floor. Then Kirishima looked behind him and to the table that had a black-hilted knife on it with a sharp steel blade. It looked just like the one from Zach's hero costume, and Kirishima started to think that's exactly what it was. "You-" Kirishima started, but his face scrunched at the forehead and his lips pulled back again to bare his naturally sharp teeth. "You can't just use that as an excuse," Kirishima said.

Zach lifted his head back up and stared into Kirishima's eyes. Kirishima's fists were clenched hard at his sides, and he continued in a frustrated way, "People could have died. The driver was badly hurt." Zach bit down behind his lips and his face grew more frustrated while Kirishima's did too. Kirishima balled his fists up harder and said, "And if someone had died, then you could have saved them. Lifebringer could-"

"Not Lifebringer!" Zach shouted, snapping his head forward with his eyes snapping open huge.

Kirishima's bottom lip dropped and he leaned back at the look in Zach's huge eyes. Zach leaned back at Kirishima's reaction, and he brought his left hand up to the side of his head and grabbed it hard. "Sorry," Zach said, closing his eyes tightly, while Kirishima's fists unclenched at his sides. "I'm, glad no one was killed," Zach whispered.

Kirishima stared silently at Zach for a few seconds, then he turned and walked for door. Ashido turned and opened her mouth to say something to him as he walked past, but Kirishima's face was so frustrated that she could not think of anything to say. _You saved my life. You're a… you're supposed to already be a…_ Kirishima ground his teeth harder as he marched out of the room and past the others. _"Not Lifebringer!" What do you mean? Why aren't you- What did they do to you? After VTS. After, I didn't move…_

Ashido stepped back from Zach, then she lowered her head as she did not know what to say to him either. She pursed her lips, then she turned away and walked for the door. Jirou watched Ashido come close to her, and she just glanced back into the room once more before turning and walking with her friend away from the room.

Tenya Iida opened his mouth at the door. He had a lot he was planning on saying to Zach after he got there, but Kirishima had been so intense from the start he knew he was going to wait for a minute to have a chance to speak. He froze though with his mouth open, and his eyes darted down to Zach's floor that the boy inside was staring at himself as his classmates all left. When he considered it not as Zach just running off on his own, but him running for his life, it made it so hard to scold him over it. _He was just, afraid,_ Iida thought, glancing up one more time at the boy in the room, the boy with a scar under his right eye and a split ear, and so many more that Iida knew were hidden beneath his clothes.

Iida turned and he started walking away. Midoriya watched him go for a few seconds, then he looked back into the room at Zach. He opened his mouth, closed it, then he stepped into the room. Zach did not raise his head though he knew who the person still standing in front of me was. "I won't, try," Midoriya started. "To pretend like I know how you're feeling. But Zach," Midoriya stopped himself, wondering if he should say it. He thought about some of the conversations the two of them had had though in the brief three weeks Zach had been back. About the future, about being heroes, and Midoriya grit his teeth before continued, "But, will you ever feel like they've given up?"

Zach froze while staring at the floor, his eyes widening again and shaking at Midoriya's words. "And if you stay like this," he continued. Midoriya shook his head, but he wanted to help. _I don't want you, to run._ "How do you plan on being a hero, if you leave situations like that one?" He paused while Zach's breath caught in his throat, his heart racing even faster. "The essence of being a hero, is butting in even when people don't ask you to. To avoid- to actively run away-" Midoriya couldn't finish, he started shaking his head apologetically, as he could not say a meaningful ending to his speech without feeling like he was hurting his friend even more.

"You're right," Zach whispered. He lifted his head, his breathing steadying out but still heavy. His heart rate was fast, but he lifted as steady a gaze as he could to look at Midoriya with. "I know you're right. You're all right." _But I-_ "And next time," Zach continued aloud, even as he shouted internally at himself not to. "I _promise,_ I'll stay."

Midoriya hesitated, then he nodded his head at Zach's determined expression, as shaky as it looked. The green haired boy stepped back out the doorway and he closed the door with him, still with an apologetic look on his face though now it looked in part for how they barged in in the first place. The door closed, and Zach's right hand twitched. His fingers slid out of his glove, and he closed his eyes hard while letting out a gasp, as his immediate reaction was now to press his hand against his body and use his Nightmare form. _How could I make that promise- how couldn't I? Midoriya's right. Kirishima, and Ashido too. All of them. They were mad at me for running away, and they were right to be!_

Zach walked over to his bed and he dropped on his butt at the edge of it. He lifted both hands and started rubbing his forehead with the palms of them, keeping his skin looking normal for now as he did not touch his fingertips to his body. He rubbed and rubbed, while twisting his lip in so much self-doubt. _If I had gone, maybe I would have helped someone. Even if I didn't have to bring anyone back, I could have made a difference. But it's not about this accident! If I, run away,_ Zach clenched his eyes shut harder behind his hands. _That's so embarrassing. I can't believe I did that. I didn't stop until I got back. I just kept running, and I kept convincing myself it was the right move. But I was wrong. That's not something, a hero would do._

Zach let go of his head with his right hand, and he slid his left down his face. He put his elbows down on his knees and glared forward. His expression hardened, and he muttered, "I can't do that." He shook his head a few times. _I'm not back at U.A. because I wanted a safe place to hide. That wasn't the reason. I- I even knew, it would be more dangerous when I made the decision. I was so sure of myself, so confident when I made that choice. Now I'm here though, and I'm living in constant fear? I didn't think it was that bad. I thought I was getting over it even, the more I talked with classmates and smiled and laughed with them. But I fell apart today! I_ _ **can't**_ _do that. Even if I'm afraid, a hero has to stick it out and push forward anyway. Even if I'm scared, I have to smile like All Might- like, like All Might said to._

His lips that were flat as he readied himself, as he set his determination, started lifting up at the corners. _Make that a fluke. Show them next time. I mean it when I say, I want to become a hero. No! A great hero! People think of me, they, they think of Lifebr-_ His smiling lips trembled for a second, then he shook his head around and narrowed his eyes in while smiling even harder. He forced it on his face, and he thought, _People trust me. They believe in me. Kirishima, believes in me. That's why, he was so angry. I let him down. I let them all down. I can't do that. I won't. If I do, I'll never be a great hero. The next time the opportunity arises, I won't run!_

Zach's phone buzzed on his desk in front of him. He looked towards it and his smile lowered down flat. He glared at the device that only buzzed once and then stopped. Zach stared at it and then he got up to his feet and started towards it instead of thinking harder on why he was staring at it in half-shock. Something told him to feel tense, but he ignored that feeling and confidently lifted his phone. He lifted it up, expecting a lot of different things. Maybe a text from a classmate asking about what happened if the others had not kept their mouths shut, or maybe a picture of him running away sent by a random number with a laughing emoji under it. The thought of Shigaraki fucking with him like that almost made Zach hesitate to pick up the phone, but he had just hardened his resolve and picked it up without delay.

He picked up the phone and stared at an unknown number on the screen. He did not panic though. Zach opened up his phone and he read the message that appeared on his screen. He read it over and over, then he sighed and lowered the phone. Zach put it back on the desk in front of him. _Well,_ he thought. A bead of sweat rolled down the left side of his face. _I didn't mean this…_ _ **"Next time I send you a message, it will be to ask for your help. Not a meeting like this…"**_ _What to do. What to do. I was not, ready for this so soon. But,_ Zach's expression started to re-harden. He turned to his windows, the closed blinds, and walked up to them. Zach slid them open and stared out into the darkness through them.

 _I didn't know. I came to hero society again to stay within the rules, but acting in public makes me afraid of getting caught. I'll act next time I have the opportunity anyway, but does that mean I ignore it when it's not in public? No. I should take all of it. Use, all of it._ _**"When you next receive a message, decide fast. If you ignore it, I will cease communications."**_ _He wants my reply now. It's time to decide. I can figure out a way to balance it. Balance everything. Use everything._ Zach's fast breathing slowed down. He calmed himself. _Today, I failed. Luckily no one got killed because of it. I won't be that lucky if I fail again. People will die. Good people. I have to be a hero. I have to do anything I can, and everything. Webb, wait for me. I'm on my way._

* * *

 **A/N Thanks for reading. Hope you enjoyed. Leave a review below!**


	37. Chapter 37: Anti-Hero

**A/N Hey guys. Getting out another chapter today, but not going to do any review responses for this one either. Going to edit fast then post so I can go cheer on Croatia as they kick France's butt in the World Cup. Anyway, hope you enjoy the chapter!**

 **Disclaimer: I still don't own Boku no Hero Academia, (even if I forgot to add this in a couple of the last chapters).**

 **Chapter 37:**

"You came."

Zach stopped walking through the alley and he lifted his head. A figure was upside-down in front and above him where there was none a second ago. Webb flipped over and the web sticking out of his knuckles dropped him to the floor. "You didn't think I would?" Zach asked, and he smiled at the man in front of him whose lips curled down beneath the bottom his mask.

Zach wore all black. He had a backpack on over his heavy clothes that covered most of his body and head, but he did not look too strange considering it was pretty cold out. It was still a couple more days until January was over, and it had dropped below freezing just after sunset earlier. "I didn't," Webb said. Zach frowned at the honest response, as he would have rather Webb just humphed or said anything else really. Webb continued though, "It was only half because of your reaction last time. I also doubted you would be able to get out of that school so easily."

"It wasn't that easy," Zach muttered in annoyance. "But it's not like I haven't been planning on a way to get out without being noticed since the day I got there." He sighed and then muttered in a lower voice, "There's going to be hell to pay when I get back."

Webb was about to start speaking, but he frowned and Zach saw the curl of the man's lips. "I'm here to help," Zach assured him. He had a black face-mask on covering the bottom of his face, a red beanie over the top of his head, and he wore a thick black hoodie with the hood bunched up behind his neck. The hoodie had 'TOKYO' written across the middle of it, and he had a pair of black sweatpants on too. Zach wore a thicker pair of black gloves over his hands, though his special glove was underneath the right one to prevent from accidentally killing people. Zach lifted his hands up after saying he came to help Webb, and he continued, "But I'm going to be going back there. And if you need my help again after I get back, I know it'll be harder next time, but I'll try to get out again then too."

"What we're doing," Webb began. "Is not within the rules of hero society. You cannot have it both ways."

"That's where you're wrong," Zach said. "You gave me two choices, but you still asked for my help when I picked the second option." Webb frowned deeper at Zach, but the boy continued, "I didn't come here to change my answer. But I figure, if you would bother asking for my help, then it means that I _can_ help. And that means I needed to come here." Zach explained his reasoning, and Webb continued to frown for a few seconds before lifting his head up a bit and flattening his lips.

"You have a plan?" Webb asked.

"Yeah, but I have to do a lot to make it work. They won't believe me, even if I make it really really believable. Anyway though, let me deal with that," Zach said, shaking his head to show Webb did not need to worry about it.

Webb hummed and nodded once. "Fine. Let's move. We're heading to Ugina City, outskirts of Nagoya."

"Nagoya," Zach repeated with a nod. "Works out well for me," he added. A grin spread on Zach's face, and he said, "How are we getting there?"

Webb turned and walked farther down the alleyway, and Zach followed behind him. He looked around the alley and did not see any blood stains anywhere, even though it was the alley where he and Webb first talked. "So, has Hunter-" Zach started, looking back towards Webb as he thought about the battle at the start of the month.

"That's not what we're doing," Webb said. Zach's eyes widened, but he kept walking and just waited for Webb to elaborate. "Hunter hasn't made contact with the League of Villains yet, as far as I am aware. But I did follow up on some leads after dropping a drug gang leader off a roof." Zach wondered if the information he gave to Webb helped out at all during this, but he sweatdropped at the sound of his information gathering. "I caught him with a web when he almost went splat."

"And I'm guessing he spilled everything?" Zach remarked, a cold smirk on his face that had Webb turning his head sideways. Zach saw the frown on Webb's face and he lowered the smirk behind his mask, but he did not apologize for doing it.

Webb faced forward again, then he turned down a connecting alley that Zach followed him over to. "He told me where he got his drugs from, and I recognized one of the names that you told me about before we parted." Zach smiled again, more a genuine happy one this time as the information he had gathered while with the villains had not all been wasted after all. "I tracked Diamondfist to Ugina City. That's where I found his base of operations."

 _Diamondfist,_ Zach thought, his mouth dropping back into a deep frown. He thought about the last time he saw the man. _Right after VTS. He was in there with Shigaraki and the others. They all stood around watching…_ Zach's fists clenched harder at his sides. Zach's fists had to unclench though and he could not keep such an angry and serious look on his face. His bottom lip lowered as Webb grabbed a big raggedy cloth off what Zach had thought was trash leaning on the wall. Webb pulled the cloth away right as Zach was starting to recognize the shape under it, and Zach grinned more and more at the sight of the motorcycle beneath it.

"Wait a second," Zach said after a second. "You can drive?"

Webb just frowned at Zach at the question, and Zach held his hands up apologetically. "I guess, not legally I bet," Zach added, and Webb frowned harder at the boy who had to crack a grin. "Imagine that's what you get arrested for though. Blind driving. I think it would be ironic at least." Zach got quieter at the end as Webb just kept frowning at him. "Well, let's get moving," Zach said, trying to change the subject. "And if a cop does pull us over, we can just say I was driving-"

"You're not driving," Webb said, hearing the growing excitement that Zach was trying to mask.

 _Darn,_ "Alright," Zach said. "You going to give me details on the way of what we're doing, or just leave me in the dark until we get there?"

Webb frowned at another question from the boy, while he pulled the bike off the wall and rolled it up into the wider alley they had just come out of. "When we get there," Webb said. "And we're not doing anything tonight. Planning comes first."

"Understood," Zach said, his voice more serious and his expression focusing. Webb told him to go grab them the helmets laying near the discarded cloth behind where the bike had been leaning, and Zach did as he was told. He walked over and handed one to Webb, then they each put them on and got on the motorcycle. Zach felt a little weird about it, and cautious too as he moved his right hand forward around Webb's side to a center area of the black and red motorcycle. He wanted to be not in an awkward position while also making sure he was not going to fall off, and he had to get in that position fast as Webb revved up the bike and started moving.

They sped out of the alleyway, Zach holding on as best he could. He started smiling after a second of the wind rushing against him, even if his face was protected by the dark visor. Webb had taken off his usual helmet and put it in a box on the back of their ride so he could put the motorcycle one on, but he had switched them while Zach was putting his own on, and the boy grimaced behind his visor as he thought about how he missed getting a look at Webb's eyes. _Or lack of them,_ he wondered to himself. They sped down the streets of Musutafu, and Zach glanced to his right towards the side of the city that U.A. High School was in. _Really hope this doesn't become a huge deal._

* * *

On Friday morning, Momo Yaoyorozu woke up to the sound of her alarm and stretched her arms up above her head. She got off of her huge bed that almost filled up the width of the dorm room that was tiny in comparison to her room at her mansion. She grabbed her toiletries and walked out of her room to go use the bathroom and freshen up for the day. Yaoyorozu brushed her teeth, fixed up her hair, and put on some makeup before heading back towards her dorm room.

She went back in and checked over all her notes and homework. Then she got into her school uniform and stood in front of her mirror to ensure she was presentable. Yaoyorozu grabbed her backpack, checked the mirror one more time, then she stepped out of her room with a smile on her face and an aura of confidence around her. She turned to the left to walk down the hall back towards the stairs, but she stopped before heading that direction. She turned straight ahead again, looking down the connecting hallway just outside of her door that led to a room which had been empty the first four and a half months she lived there. Yaoyorozu smiled thinking about how that room was no longer empty, then she started to turn away again.

She froze though. Before she could look away from the door, she saw something that made her frown and start walking forward. She stopped herself, shaking her head for thinking about going to the boys' side of the dorm this early. She had woken up earlier than most people would have, and she still planned on eating breakfast, and getting to class early. Yaoyorozu knew there was a chance he would open his door while she was walking towards it, and she would have no explanation. After her hesitation she kept walking though. _What is that?_

Yaoyorozu walked down the hall, and she started speeding up as she had a bad feeling in her big chest. She ran the last few yards up to Zach's door, and then she stopped and stared at the white slip of paper attached to the door at her eye level. It was a small slip of white paper, with pen written over it in big letters.

Down the hallway two doors, Shoto Todoroki stepped out of his bedroom. He turned his head left as he saw someone else in the hallway, and he stared at the girl looking at Zach's door with a nervous and scared expression on her face. "Is something wrong Yaoyorozu?" He questioned. Her head spun his way with wide eyes, as she did not even notice him come out of his room. Then Yaoyorozu gulped and looked back forward, and Todoroki jogged towards her as she had a very strange look in her eyes. "What is…" Todoroki saw something attached to Zach's door, and he frowned and cut himself off.

Todoroki stopped next to Yaoyorozu and he read the note on the door aloud, "'Going on vacation. Be back in a few days.'" Todoroki read it again, his eyes darting back to the left and then rereading the small note that sounded so ridiculous to him. He reached down and grabbed Zach's doorknob, and he pushed the door in. Yaoyorozu stepped in with him, and Todoroki flipped the light switch on. The boy with half white hair and half red, and a burn scar on the left side of his face partially hidden by his red bangs, stared at the empty bed that was made nicely. He looked towards the desk next, and he stared at the phone resting on top of it right next to all of Zach's books that were not in his missing backpack.

Yaoyorozu lifted her hands up in front of her chest. "Oh no," she whispered, shaking her head.

"He did say, 'a few days,'" Todoroki said. Yaoyorozu spun to him in surprise, and he continued, "That's a plus."

"What if it wasn't him who wrote it?" Yaoyorozu asked.

Todoroki's eyes widened for a second, both because of the worry on Yaoyorozu's face and also the realization that that was a possibility. He shook his head though and said, "Why would they leave a note? Why would they mention a few days at all?" Yaoyorozu's eyes widened at that, and then she let out a breath of relief. She stared back towards Zach's bed though with a nervous expression still spread over her face. Todoroki continued while he looked towards that empty bed too, "But this is still bad. I'll go see if the teachers know yet."

Todoroki took out his phone and snapped a picture of the note on the door. Then he left Zach's room and started jogging down the hall towards the stairs. _What is he thinking? "Vacation?" In the middle of a Thursday night, you just decided that? Yaoyorozu thought you may have been captured, but it would be more likely for people to think you were just going to find the villains yourself. Whether to fight them, or to give them information…_ Todoroki frowned at the thought, then he frowned at himself for frowning at it. _Zach. Are you really our friend?_

Yaoyorozu stared down at her hands she was holding together in front of herself so tightly. _Was it because I didn't talk to him more? Is he unhappy here? Why would he leave without telling anyone? Did anyone know this was coming? I should inform the rest of the class. One of them may have information that can assure me he is safe. I do not understand why he would leave on his own. He was so afraid of the villains capturing him. "Going on vacation," just does not seem realistic to me. That is why I assumed the worst. But if he really did leave on his own as Todoroki-san says… Where did you go?_

Kaminari woke up late, and he was in the middle of brushing his teeth when he got a text that made him spit water and toothpaste all over the bathroom mirror.

Mineta lifted another spoonful of cereal to his mouth while looking down at his phone, then he dropped his jaw and pulled his phone right up to his face. "Wh-Wh-What?!"

Shoji sat at the next table down, and he stood up from his seat while staring at his phone with wide eyes. _Would the school have sanctioned this? A several day trip- where he would miss a day of class! There is no way he told the teachers._

Upstairs a floor, Izuku Midoriya sat back on his bed and put his phone down next to him. He was already in his school uniform, ready to go eat breakfast and head to class, but that message had him bowing his head and staring at his All Might rug on the floor. _Was it because of what we said to him? I thought- he said he was…_ Midoriya started shaking his head. _He was afraid to be in his dorm room…_

 _Is that it?_ Kirishima thought, running a hand up through his spiky red hair while staring down at his phone in shock. _I could tell he was scared, but I didn't think it was this bad. Unless I'm misreading what that note means. Zach does stuff like that when he means something else._ Kirishima clenched his left hand hard, careful not to clench both fists and break his phone. He thought about what happened yesterday, but then he shook his head, angry at himself for getting angry at Zach over that now. _Where are you going?_

 _Zach-kun,_ Iida thought, as he lifted his phone to the side of his head with it ringing for the U.A. main office. _I should have told you what I held back. Doing things like this. Coming and going as you please, for whatever reasons, they are not allowed! For, whatever reasons._

 _No way,_ Jirou thought, stopping on the staircase down as she read her text message. _Oh I'm such an idiot! Why didn't I say anything? He was practically shaking in fear, and we all just left him alone in his room. A room he didn't even feel safe in, since he was using whatever that form the others saw was. I wish I saw it. I wish, I said something. Don't run, Zach. You're not the only one afraid for you, you know._

* * *

"How did this happen?" Aizawa asked, glaring around the office he was in. There were other pro heroes around him, a few regular faculty members who worked overnight shifts and had nervous looks on their faces, and the principal who was frowning like the rest of them.

"We," the main office's head secretary started. All the teachers looked her way, and she gulped before continuing in as sturdy a voice she could. "We checked over the footage."

"And how did Zach Sazaki sneak out of campus?" Vlad King questioned, his arms crossed over his chest.

It was morning before class started, but they had all been called as it could be an emergency situation. The older woman looked towards Vlad King and said to the pro hero, "He, didn't." She got a more nervous look on her face, and then she continued, "Sazaki, walked right out the front gate."

Most of the teachers stared at this woman as if asking if she was messing with them. All Might's eyes widened and he questioned in a confused voice, "How is that possible?"

"So, everyone here understands how the students' I.D.'s work," the secretary started. She hesitated, then she continued, "Well since we have instituted this dorm system to have students check in and out of school, we have run into problems when students forget their I.D.'s in their rooms. As someone without an I.D. cannot even get onto campus, a teacher has to be called to the entrance, their identity has to be thoroughly checked and their I.D. located…" the woman paused and she got a more nervous look on her face as the heroes wanted her to get to the point. "That means, students have accidentally left their I.D.'s behind before, and walked off of campus fine. It is getting back on that is a problem. And if he did not check out, and the system has his I.D. as still being on the premises, then…" she trailed off as the heroes all understood how it would be that no one noticed him leaving.

The woman paused at the teachers' realizations, then she continued, "We also know, that Zach Sazaki knew this. Since last week," she turned towards Snipe sensei who was the teacher called for it, and Snipe's eyes opened wide behind his mask. "He left without his I.D. and had to go through this process. It's very possible, in my opinion, that he was trying to figure out a way to sneak out back then."

"And he found it," Nezu said. The others all looked towards the principal who stood there with his hands behind his back and a thoughtful look on his face. "Well then, we must reprimand him for missing today's classes when he returns."

Aizawa glared at the principal who looked his way at the sight of that dark look. "You make this out like it's not a big deal," Aizawa said.

"It is a very big deal," Nezu countered, assuring his teacher that he was implying no such thing with his words. "And we will have to question him over his whereabouts upon his return as well. However, his note said that he would return within a 'few days.' We should allow him to do so." Nezu did not smile as he spoke, and he continued in a lower but still high-pitched tone to Aizawa, "His message tells me that he will in fact return, to the best of his abilities."

"And if he doesn't?" Midnight asked. "If the villains get him?"

"Or if he's gone back to them-" Aizawa continued.

"He wouldn't," All Might began, turning to his colleague who frowned as he looked back.

Aizawa opened his mouth to say something back, but Principal Nezu spoke first, "Zach Sazaki needed a vacation. We should take him at his word. He will receive punishment for skipping school when he returns, but we are not to make this into a big deal." The others around the office with Nezu all started staring at him with wider eyes. "If the villains were to find out that Sazaki is no longer on our premises, he will be in more danger. I ask that all of you keep quiet about this, and Aizawa, I trust you will relay this message to your students as well."

Shota Aizawa grimaced for a second but then nodded his head. He was suspicious, but not enough that he would risk his student's safety over it. _If Sazaki's really just being a brat right now, going off on a "vacation" without telling anyone… I'll wish I had permission to expel him, but I'll make sure he knows not to do it again… Then again, what are the chances he's really just taking a few days off? Sazaki._ Aizawa saw the look on the boy's face when they did the training at Ground Gamma at the start of the week. _I've never seen someone progress that far from the start of the year. Last place to first. It's like Midoriya, except Sazaki wasn't using his Quirk. He was using, he-_ Aizawa saw that look again. He saw when Zach turned back to the camera, with a look like he was imagining the worst monster imaginable right behind him with its claws at the back of his neck. _Maybe All Might has a point. Whatever he saw with those villains, would he really go back there? I doubt he'll even get close to them._

* * *

Zach stared straight ahead at a building with two men standing out front of it. They were smoking together, and one of them blew the smoke from his cigarette onto his palms that he rubbed in front of him in the cold air. He was not wearing gloves like his partner outside the warehouse, and Zach said in a low voice, "Jackson. Don't know his first name, or last if that is his first. He goes by Morph, and he can morph his hands into different shapes. Everyone calls him 'Jackson' even though he's annoyed by it and tells them to call him by his Quirk's name, but people laugh that he couldn't be more creative…" Zach trailed off, and he closed his eyes tightly behind his mask.

"And the other one?" Webb asked, his voice filling Zach's helmet.

Zach shifted his gaze to the other figure. "I don't- with that hat on, it's hard to tell," Zach started. Webb moved a little closer, and Zach said, "Okay. I think- no I'm pretty sure that's The German. I see some blond hair pressed down by the hat, and I think I saw him with Jackson when I was at- oh! Hold on a second." Webb moved back and Zach lost sight of the men ahead of him.

Zach leaned back in the chair he was sitting on in a small dark room a block away. Ugina City was dark outside his window, and it was the middle of Friday night. It was technically already Saturday morning, but 1:30 a.m. Zach considered was still nighttime. He closed his eyes from beneath the visor over his head, an almost identical helmet to the one Webb was wearing a block away. "If this is the place I'm thinking of- man, okay I never knew it was in Nagoya. But I can think of the layout of this building a little. I'm imagining it," Zach whispered.

"You won't have to imagine in a second. When you see it through my visor, I'll give you control. Tell me which way to go, etcetera."

Zach's breathing sped up a bit. He kept himself from panting though, and he just said, "Alright. I won't let you down. In this place, I don't remember seeing Diamondfist more times than I ever saw him anywhere else, but I did see him once at the same time as those two. Morph, The German, a few others, and Diamondfist. They were doing something down in the basement, but I never went down there. They just came up from there before we…" Zach trailed off, and he frowned as he narrowed his eyes from behind his mask. _Some things, even Webb doesn't need to know about._ "I went to that base other times, but one time I had time to just wander, as long as I didn't leave. So I tried the door to the basement, and it was locked. That's the place to go."

Webb moved back to the spot where he could see the doors, and he was not very far away. The two villains outside were talking to each other, and Zach switched his tone fast. "The German, I don't remember if I told you about him. If that's him, can move metal with his mind. Take him out quicker. He could probably start crushing your head with the helmet on it. He has a short range with it though, or else it would be a lot more deadly. Still, be caref- be wary," Zach did not want to tell Webb to be 'careful' like he was worried about the man. This was a work relationship, they both wanted the villains destroyed, and the best way to do that was if Webb was wary of The German's Quirk and did not get too close.

"I'm going in at the first opportunity," Webb said, his voice a whisper. Zach leaned forward in his chair. He was sitting behind a desk in a small motel room, put under a fake name by Webb early on Friday morning when they arrived in Nagoya, before the suns had even come up. They had done some scouting earlier, they had spent a lot of time planning, and Zach was still a bit upset over his role in this. He was not complaining though. He had not even complained back when Webb told him he would not be coming in. Less of a chance of him being captured. Less chance the villains know he's involved, or of Zach's involvement ever being discovered which would be bad for the boy who was planning on returning to his school if all went well.

"Understood," Zach said. He put his hands down on his knees, and he started deep breathing as if what he was seeing in front of him was actually in front of him at the moment. The helmet blocked out most sounds in his own room, even though it was quiet in there, so he could hear what Webb was hearing too. Though he wondered if Webb could actually hear a lot more than him which was why the supposedly blind man was still so capable. Zach darted his gaze around the exterior of the warehouse, up at some windows high up on it, then across at the far sides. _That's about as big as that building was on the inside, and we saw how far back it went earlier. With Morph and The German both there, it does seem like it's that place. Webb, you better not get killed in there. I have no idea, what I'd do if you did. Probably run in there._

Zach's breathing sped up a bit, then his eyes widened and he focused as he was suddenly sprinting forward. He calmed himself as it was only Webb's movements, but he felt his legs try to run forward and he was holding them back. It was like he was in virtual reality, except he had never done that before and this was a lot more real to him. Zach did not say a word as Webb fought, using webs to cover Morph's mouth while he slammed The German in the back of the head so hard Zach hoped the man was only knocked-out.

Morph transformed his arms into blades. Zach actually pulled his body to the right, and he wobbled around on the chair as Webb ducked down instead and disoriented him with the difference in how he was moving and his vision was reacting. Webb closed the gap between them as Morph was swinging his other arm in. Webb pointed his right hand out at the arm swinging in towards him, firing a web of white into that arm so fast that it pushed it back the other way. As Morph's eyes were turning to follow where his arm was swinging back to, trying to morph his arm into something that would rip through that web, Webb's left knee lifted into Morph's gut.

The chubby man tried to let out a scream or a gasp, some kind of noise from what Zach could hear. He could not do it with the web over his mouth though. Morph hunched over, then he started bringing his left arm at Webb after he made it look like he was down for the count. Both of Webb's hands clapped in on the sides of Morph's temples, and Zach could see the guy's irises start rolling around in his eyes as he lost focus completely. Webb clasped his hands that he clapped on Morph's head though, and then he slammed Morph's face down into his right knee this time, and blood splashed up in the air from the brutal collision.

"They might have cameras. Move fast," Zach said. He ignored the brutality, as he hated both of those men anyway. Webb opened up the warehouse doors and he sprinted inside. "Ten o'clock-" Zach started, and Webb was already lifting his left hand out in front of him. A line of webs shot out and expanded right at the man walking out from behind a corner of tall wooden crates lined up down the warehouse. Zach did not recognize the guy, but a second later he would have been unrecognizable anyway as Webb ripped the web towards himself and then shoved an elbow out and caught the villain in the face before the man could even give a reason for why he was there, or shout for help, or scream.

"Where's this basement?"

"Um, go between those rows of crates. Wait, don't you want to hide his-"

"You said to move fast. So there's no time," Webb said, while he ran between two rows of tall wooden crates. He left the unconscious man with a bloodying face lying back behind him out in the open on the floor. The warehouse was pretty dark, as it did not want to draw any attention to itself. Still, there were light stands around the room and Webb was out in the open right now.

 _Not long 'til this gets out of hand,_ Zach thought. "Go left up there, then you'll see a hallway on the platform up a bit. Going up is the only way to reach the stairwell to the basement. That door's the locked one, but I saw through it when the door opened and I know there are stairs right behind it. This is definitely the same building."

Webb shot two webs up over the top of the balcony area at the end of the rows of crates, and he flung himself up before sticking to the wall over the top of the hallway. He did not move for a few seconds and Zach got confused, then Webb dropped down and lowered his arms past the front of his face. Zach still did not know what he was doing, until he heard a grunt and half-scream from below him. Webb lowered his head a bit and Zach saw two villains beneath Webb's body, slammed into the floor by the backs of their heads. _I never saw them on his visor. Which means he didn't see them either- because he's blind! Time to stop doubting it. He just heard, or smelled, or sensed them somehow._ Webb lifted up and sprinted down the hallway those two men had just come out of. He pointed his hands behind him at his sides as he ran, and he fired thick webs at them to stick them to the ground and prevent either from escaping.

"They knew I was here," Webb said. He did not care about leaving his webs out now, because stealth was gone completely from the way both of those villains below him ran out of the hall looking ready to fight.

"Cameras?" Zach muttered. _I never saw any in the bases. I figured they knew if heroes busted in they'd get the video data and learn about their operations. But I also thought they would be watching me at all times._

"Which door?"

"That one!" Zach said quickly as Webb was about to run by it.

An arm stuck out in front of Zach's vision, and it slid across the wall on Webb's right before hitting the crack where the door started. It was a simple movement, and he grabbed the doorknob right away after touching the door. Zach thought it was going to be locked, but Webb threw it right open and then started sprinting down the steps. "They must not have wanted me to see it," Zach said while Webb ran down the steps. "So hopefully it's-"

Webb hit the bottom of the steps, then he stopped before reaching for the doorknob of the door at the bottom. He shot webs over the top of the door and leapt up, pulling himself forward and sticking his legs out. The door blew off its hinges as Webb's feet connected, and Zach's eyes widened at the power the man must have had in those kicks to send the door flying so far into the next room. Webb spun to his right while the door flew out in front of him. "AH!" a voice screamed on the other side of where the door slammed into someone and ricocheted away into a huge stack of metal crates.

The man still swinging into the room after the door ignored the voice of the man hit by the door though. There was a man on the side of the doorway with a fist swinging forward, no hesitation as Webb knocked down the door. Diamondfist's plan changed immediately when Webb did not open the door, and Webb rose his hands and fired webs at Diamondfist's face and his swinging right fist. The web hit him in the fist and slowed it a bit, but the muscular man whose fist was shiny a blue slammed into Webb's side anyway.

Webb flew off course and hit the ground hard before rolling backwards and flipping to one knee and a foot. Zach leaned forward on his chair, and he shouted, "Marx on your right. Long-range," the boy had sweat all over his face as he noticed the person who was on the other side of the doorway when Webb kicked it down. "There are two others in there who dodged the door. Diamondfist is ripping the web off!"

"Who are you?!"

"What is this guy?!"

 _He's, amazing._ Zach's shouts came out less frequently, as Webb dodged Marx's attacks without turning his head. He dodged them right after running past one of the two men who had dove away from the door, and that man got hit twice in the arm and stomach. He flew back into a table covered in mounds of white powder and plastic bags, and the table fell over and into a stack of thick plastic bags already lined up on the other side.

White powder puffed up in the air, then two of the lights in the room shattered from ricochet. A villain not far from the one who just got shot yelled, "Marx! Watch your- AHH!"

"Screwdriver?!"

"WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON HERE?!"

"Someone get Kurogiri to get us out!"

"It's one man! And not even a hero. We can't let the operation-" Diamondfist was spinning around in the darkness, and he saw something fly in front of his vision that made him snap his right fist up. He punched so hard that his fist broke through the plastic bag full of white powder. He smirked though and slammed his left fist out to his side, his entire arm covering in a hard light blue coating just like his right arm was. And he slammed it straight into a second fake that exploded more white powder everywhere. And then right between the clouds of white powder, a man with his mouth closed being careful not to breath it in came flying.

Webb moved right between Diamondfist's hardened arms. Both he and Zach thought about what Zach had told him before. _**"I've never seen Diamondfist get hurt when he has his diamond coating over his skin, but he can't always protect himself. He can't attack and defend at the same time well. If he hardens too much…"**_ Webb slammed a flying knee straight into Diamondfist's face that he tried to harden in the instant before Webb got there. It got a little harder, but nowhere near hard enough to protect from a knee as forceful as one of the kicks that slammed the doors down before. As Diamondfist lifted off his feet and started flying back too, Webb snapped his left hand forward with his middle and index fingers curled in. Webb swung his left arm after catching Diamondfist with his web, and he swung him back right into the path of projectiles flying towards him. He intercepted three of them, while the fourth kept flying at his side.

Webb winced and Zach heard a grunt, but he did not see why Webb threw Diamondfist the other way in the first place. The helmet over Webb's head had night-vision, and Zach looked through a green tint in confusion, then surprise, then he smirked wide as he heard Marx's scream. The last of the lights in the room were broken and Zach realized that Webb had been going for that since he entered. In the green-tinted basement Zach saw Diamondfist and Marx roll backwards into a wall, while Webb lowered his right hand to his side and rubbed the wound. "I've been grazed." Zach's eyes widened while Webb faced down for a second so Zach could see it through the visor. "It's not too bad, but I can't leave blood behind here."

 _Too many creepy powers in the League of Villains,_ Zach agreed. He frowned though, and he said, "Except you can. This place won't be League of Villains if you succeed. Call the cops."

"We won't get any information if-"

"They'll win if you just run now. They'll escape and abandon this place but not before taking everything with them. Incapacitate the rest and let's call the cops."

Webb frowned as Zach told him what to do. Then he rose his arms and fired two webs around a stack of crates at a man who just ran out with fire over his palms. One web wrapped around the top of the guy's face including his nose and eyes, while the other just slammed him in the chest hard enough to knock the wind out of him. It lifted him off the floor and into a metal crate behind him that was open, and the crate fell over and weapons fell out. The sound of those clinking assault rifles, and the smell of drugs, and the sound of moaning villains around him. "It's not a total loss," Webb said.

He reached down to his right side again and grabbed his bloody wound. _I may leave drops behind, but the powder everywhere will dry it up fast. DNA testing would come up a match, but there'll be enough blood in this room that they won't do it._ Webb started walking back forward, letting go of his wound and turning his head the directions of different villains rising back to their feet. The man who the door slammed into had crawled across the floor, and he coughed up some blood before grabbing an assault rifle lying next to a turned-over crate.

Webb attached webs to that gun as it was pointed at him, and he yanked it out of the villain's hand and swung it around the room towards a woman who just jumped over a thick stack of piled drugs. These were in a plastic crate and were inside of test tubes, a liquid substance with hundreds of vials in each crate. The weapon Webb slung her way hit her in the side of her head while she could not see a thing. It slammed her so hard that Zach winced, but he calmed himself as the woman spun around in the air and gasped out blood. Webb attached another web to a crate up ahead of him, and Zach heard a grunt as he brought his other arm forward and connected webs with it too. He spun both arms to the side with the crate, and he threw it over to a corner of the room.

Diamondfist had gotten back on his feet, a broken nose with blood coming out of it and a large gash on his chest and forehead. He roared though as he punched forward at the shape flying towards him in the darkness. He smashed through the crate while yelling, and his fist also shattered some vials inside it. Liquid splashed into Diamondfist's open mouth. It got on his skin, and he started laughing as he sprinted forward. "Haha HAHAHA!" Webb was running back towards him too, but he slowed down as Diamondfist dropped to his knees and started laughing madly with his hands on the sides of his head, his Quirk failing him.

"You're trying to sell this to junkies," Webb muttered, taking a step towards the hysterical man who had just accidentally taken a lot of drugs. Webb spun a kick into the side of the man's head, crushing his fingers into it and breaking them, while also cutting off Diamondfist's mad laughter at the same time. Webb turned his head around the room again, and Zach just sat in silence staring at all the carnage in the basement.

Some sparks came from the broken lights on the ceiling. There were wet red spots on some parts of the floor, but most of it was covered in a thin layer of white powder. Zach looked around the long basement that stretched most of the length of the warehouse, and without anyone attacking Webb, he was finally able to take in what he was seeing. "Guns, drugs… hopefully there are costumes around too. And villains. You really, got them all."

"Call the police to my location," Webb said.

Zach nodded, smiling but not letting that smile come through his tone as he replied, "Alright. Get out of there."

"Good work," Webb said.

Zach took the helmet off, and he put it down at the table in front of him. He leaned the chair back he was sitting on while pulling out a disposable phone he had bought earlier that day. Zach put the phone to his head and reported that he heard gunfire and gave the address. He said it sounded like villains were fighting each other, which in fact it technically was. _Hunter couldn't stay arrested, because it seemed like a vigilante had delivered him. It was an illegal act of carrying out justice. But, if Webb's just another villain who came and attacked, and a nearby civilian reported the activity._ Zach frowned, and he realized a flaw in his thinking. He reached forward and grabbed the helmet, putting it back on fast, "Hey Webb. Good you're still in there."

"What is it?" Webb asked, as he was making the place look like it had been raided, and then evacuated quickly while leaving everything behind. He removed his webs from a lot while making sure the villains he took down were unconscious, and he had one of the villain's ripped-off shirts shoved under his costume against his side to prevent blood from dripping anywhere. He was moving fast too, and he spoke quickly as the boy's tone sounded important.

"Fire off a few shots. If there's no gunpowder residue, or bullet casings or something- I told the cops I heard gunfire-"

"Understood," Webb said, not going to argue or say that the kid should have come up with a better reason. He just sprinted towards a crate of guns, kicked it over after breaking the latches on top, and he threw a couple of them around the room. He picked one up and fired a few rounds at nearby walls, then he tossed it away as well. "I'm moving out. Back in ten."

Zach nodded and leaned back in the chair again. He left the helmet on but just watched quietly as Webb escaped the warehouse. He kicked The German in the face on his way out the front door, and Zach wondered if the man on the floor had been moving. Webb reached down too and he ripped the webs off of Morph's face and arm. He had left some behind in the building, but he did not want to leave behind signs that it was a single man who did all that damage. Even if the villains' stories matched up though, with all the contraband they were going to be found with, along with all their previous records and hopefully warrants currently out for their arrests, no lawyer was getting them out of this.

Webb escaped out into the night, shooting a web up to the top of a building and pulling himself towards it with a big jump. He only made it halfway up the building though, and Zach watched silently as Webb crawled up the side of the building on his hands and feet, at a ninety degree angle. _Have his webs gotten weaker after using so many? Can he not jump as far? Or does it not have to do with his Quirk, and it's…_ Zach frowned and he took the helmet off of his head. _What am I thinking about?_ He thought while walking over to their things, and pulling out a medical kit that Webb had with him, just like he had when he saved Zach's life at the start of that month.

Zach opened up the med kit and put it on one of the twin beds in the room. He took out some gauze, medical tape, and anti-infection liquid, and he got them ready for when Webb came back. Then he remembered something and walked over to the window, opening it up and shivering at the cold air that rushed in. He headed over to his backpack and pulled out his black sweatshirt, threw the hoodie on and then crossed his arms while looking back towards the open window. _Can't just come in through the front looking like that. Wonder how he doesn't get cold in that tight suit though. Guess I should look up stuff on spiders, if that really is his Quirk. Seems like it. I don't need to look it up though,_ he reminded himself with a shake of his head. _Webb just wrecked Diamondfist and those guys. That was brutal. I don't know if he has anything against them, or all villains, but I really don't think he's a double agent. It's okay to trust some people. Like your partner…_

* * *

 **A/N Thanks for reading! As I said, gonna go watch the World Cup now. Hope you enjoyed though!**


	38. Chapter 38

**Chapter 38:**

"Alright," Zach clapped his hands together. "If you're really alright then," he said, after Webb just told him again that it was nothing. He had actually pulled away from Marx's last attack in the moment after he realized he had missed throwing Diamondback into all the projectiles. Webb frowned as the boy mentioned it again, but then Zach said, "I'm going to head out."

Webb stayed quiet for a few seconds, then he said, "Back to school already?"

"Nope," Zach replied. "Have to get to my alibi. Won't be able to make anything believable if I don't actually go and do a bunch. I have a room booked in Kyoto under a fake name. Going to try and take the first train out there, then vacation my butt off."

"Vacation?" Webb asked.

"I'm sure you've never heard of it, but it's when you take some time off and relax and have fun," Zach said. Webb kept frowning at him, and Zach eased off of the jokes as he started putting away any of his things he had out into his backpack. "I was glad when you said Nagoya, since I made the plan of where to go in Kyoto and what stuff I was going to do there before I headed out Thursday night." It was early Saturday morning, still before the sun came up, but the trains would start running in just a little bit and Zach wanted to be on the first one. Nagoya was not far from Kyoto, so he had time to get there and rest at his booked room before going out to enjoy the day.

"School's been stressing me out. Surrounded by people who just want to ask me questions all day, things I'm not going to tell them, most of the time." _They even sent me to a therapist… which I was supposed to go to today. Sorry for breaking our appointment Softy._ Zach thought, and he actually felt a little bad since he liked her and the little session they had last time. "So I just needed to get away for a couple of days. Or else I would have really thought I was just trading being a prisoner at one place to one at another."

"Hmm," Webb hummed and nodded his head from where he sat on his twin bed, not moving so that his wound would heal quickly. "Convincing," Webb said.

 _That's because it's not untrue,_ Zach thought. He smiled some more and added to himself, _And there's been no mention of me "disappearing" from U.A., so it looks like they believe I actually wrote the note. Today, I really can just go on a short vacation. I'll have to use Aunt Maye's ATM card though at least once. I don't have enough on me to pay everything in cash including a three night stay at a motel in Kyoto. But that makes it better, since if they can check they'll see I really did take out money on Saturday morning after spending everything I had on me the first days. Shouldn't take much to get the guy at the motel to agree that I was in the room the two nights before too, a couple extra yen thrown in._ "Alright, I'm going to go. But are you sure you don't want me to stay? I could get you food so you don't have to move-"

"Ask again," Webb said. Zach flinched at the tone and held his hands up defensively. He turned from the guy who looked annoyed as Zach was acting like he was way more injured than he was. Zach turned to the door with one strap of his backpack slung over his shoulder. He slid his shoes on and was about to leave, then Webb said, "Your assistance helped out." Zach turned his head to the side while Webb continued while facing straight forward instead of the door. "Even when you felt I had things under control. The villains, their techniques, how quickly I was able to reach the basement so the villains did not have more time to prepare."

Zach wondered if he was trying to say 'thank you,' in a roundabout way, but he resisted saying 'You're welcome' in a smug tone. Instead, he just smiled and said, "Glad I could help. Feel free to ask for it again."

Zach reached for the door and opened it. He stepped forward while Webb was silent, then he heard before he closed it behind him, "I will." Zach closed the door and he smiled more as he turned and started walking. _Diamondfist. He's done. Did the cops really get him though? I haven't seen anything, but it was really late/early. Maybe the cops are figuring out how to spin this. Maybe a villain got up by the time they got there. They probably brought a pro hero with them too. Hopefully Webb took most of them out for the count though, but if a villain was up and attacking the cops, then they could probably say they busted into the place and got everything._

The sixteen year old headed out of the motel, not even glancing at the manager behind the counter as he walked outside. He had his black face mask on, a red beanie, and warm clothes all around him. He walked out into the brisk morning air of Ugina City around Nagoya, and he took in a deep breath of that air. _The League of Villains, aren't unstoppable._ He grinned and started down the sidewalk, while the sun had just started to rise and dyed the sky a pinkish orange color. He crossed the street that was not busy this early, heading towards the trains that were just about to start running. _I took down Shooter and Hydro,_ thinking about them, made two different faces appear in his mind that had Zach's smile wiping from his face. He shook his head fast and violently to get their heads out of his mind, along with their screaming voices.

 _Diamondfist too! Webb was right. Could he have taken them down without me? Maybe, he_ _ **was**_ _pretty badass. But he thought he needed my help before it, and he said it was useful afterwards. He's not the kind of guy who would say that if it weren't true._ Zach's lips curled up again. _Morph, The German, Marx, Sheik, some others too._ Zach lifted up his phone, and he searched the web again for the hundredth time since the attack. This time though, he saw something posted just recently that made his face light up. He tapped the link, started reading, and he grinned so much before lowering it again. He was nearing the train station, and Zach glanced around to see if anyone was nearby. Then he lifted the phone and slammed down while bringing up his knee.

Zach smashed his phone and then tossed it into a garbage can he was about to walk past. _Called the cops on that. Can't have it. I left my actual phone back in the dorm, but I need to take pictures for the next couple of days. I'll buy another disposable one, or a better one this time and maybe just replace my old one. Can Hackerman find it? If he could, wouldn't I have known already? Tape over the cameras and messing with the microphone wouldn't have stopped them._ Zach's face got more serious as he headed towards the stairs up to an elevated train station. _Does Shigaraki know I took part? There's no evidence. Nothing linking me to this. But if the spy at U.A. is in my class, or a teacher, I'm sure Shigaraki would suspect it was me. Well fuck him! Let him think it was me. I want his plans to fail. I want everything he's made to fall apart in front of him. All his plans! I WANT TO KILL HIM!_

Zach stopped on the stairs up to the station as his mouth twisted into a furious snarl. _Diamondfist, was one of the bigger players if he had his own operation. That, seemed like a big one too. Not just focusing on one business, that warehouse must have supplied different groups of League members all over. That kind of stuff is what they give smaller groups of villains too sometimes to get them to join, or just to give them incentive for profit. If some of the less loyal groups don't get their shipments, they could get mad at the League for failing. Diamondfist is also known as a League of Villains member, so his capture, his arrest makes them look weak. It better make people think they're a joke. Think they aren't really the top of the underworld. Makes the villains fight each other more. Those fights, did more damage to the underworld than the heroes have this past half a year. But maybe, what Webb does… no, what Webb_ _ **and I**_ _do from here on, will make as much of a difference. Or maybe what we do, will cause the fights that do that damage. I can only hope,_ Zach thought, but he started smirking again. _But even if it didn't do much. We stopped villains. Confiscated all that dangerous stuff. Took out a warehouse the League used. This was a win. I, actually did, some good. Like a hero would._

* * *

On Saturday morning in the Class-A dorm of U.A. High School, a number of the students were sitting around the common room. They were eating, or making food, and they were talking about the one thing that had been bothering them since the morning before. The fact that none of the teachers even really talked about it made them all the more confused and interested, but Aizawa told them not to talk about it to anyone back at homeroom yesterday. So none of them knew what was happening, or what the school was doing about the disappearance of one of its students.

Denki Kaminari checked Zach's room after he got up, half-expecting his friend to have just snuck back in in the middle of the night. He was sitting at a table in the common room with a frustrated look on his face, tapping a finger next to his breakfast plate and grumbling to himself. "Not telling me a thing. Thought we were past that. Stupid idiot. I want to go on vacation." Kaminari lifted his tapping hand and ran it up the side of his hair a bunch of times.

Jirou sat across the table from the blond, and she sighed as he was still feeling the same way she saw him look throughout the day yesterday. The whole class was on edge though, as it came the second day without Zach with still no word of where he was. None of them wanted to believe that he was not coming back, but not one of them could also stop themselves from thinking it was a possibility. Jirou opened her mouth to say something to Kaminari about being so mopey, then she frowned and closed her mouth with a more upset look on it as she thought about how Zach looked on Thursday afternoon. "Where would he even go?" She mumbled, and Kaminari looked up to see her staring at him as she asked.

Kaminari shook his head, and he muttered back, "I don't know." He blinked a few times, then he sat up in his seat fast and shook that mood from his face. "But you said it yourself, he was, stressed," Kaminari said, though changing the phrasing Jirou used when she talked to him about this at lunch yesterday.

 _I said he was "scared," but whatever,_ Jirou thought.

"Hey guys," Uraraka started, getting up from her seat that she had been sitting in with a thoughtful and sad look. She walked towards the couches while the others looked towards her, and she said, "Something's…"

She had her phone in her left hand, and she walked towards the tv and grabbed the remote. Uraraka turned it on and flipped to the news while others got up from their tables and rushed over at her hesitant voice. No one sat on the couches. They just stood behind or in front of them, some of them nudging others to move so they could get a good look. "Kaminari, bend down or move," Jirou snapped at the blond who ran right in front of it. He moved to the side, but he did not turn back towards her and just kept staring at the screen.

"Whoa," Kirishima said, and he grinned at what he was seeing on the screen. Despite all their moods, this put a smile on his face. "They did a raid on the League of Villains?" He asked in surprise, grinning his sharp teeth as he saw the media gathered about, some pro heroes in the background, and police all over the place. There were no villains on the screen as they had all been arrested and taken away already, but there were crates and boxes from inside being wheeled out of an open garage.

"That's not," Uraraka started, and she glanced down at her phone again and what she had read on it. A couple others looked to her, then to the young female reporter on the screen who had her cameraman turn the camera towards the leading officer at the scene.

She asked him about the specifics of the operation, and the officer responded, "What you see here," he turned and motioned back at the warehouse. "Is a result of villain on villain violence. Two villain gangs fighting over territory, and the contraband we confiscated inside. It was an anonymous tip to the police that led to the arrests of eleven villains, including one Todo Viscucci, known more commonly by his villain name Diamondfist. We believe he was a high ranking member of the League of Villains, so this is quite a victory. Four of the villains arrested sustained critical injuries, however we believe they are not life-threatening at this time. We also confiscated over two tons of illicit substances, illegal weapons, and many of the villains were wearing costumes they acquired through the black market…"

"This is, pretty cool," Sero said. He knew he should be a lot more excited over this, and he would be on any other day. "You had me scared there for a second Uraraka," he added with a small laugh. "I thought you were- well, nevermind."

Kaminari turned his head towards Sero, his eyes huge which made Sero lean back. Sero opened his mouth to say he didn't really expect anything, but Kaminari asked first in a whisper, "You think it was Zach?"

Everyone in the room stared at him, and then they spun to Uraraka who had a nervous look on her face. "What is it Uraraka?" Kirishima asked, seeing the girl look like she had something to say.

"I must have read, something wrong," Uraraka said quietly. "If they're saying it was a fight between villain gangs…" She hesitated, then whispered, "But, I read something on my phone that said the villains were all League of Villains, not from different gangs. And," she hesitated again, and she rubbed the side of her head with a confused look on her face. "It said one of the villains being led out in cuffs, was-"

"Zach?!" Kaminari asked in shock.

"No!" Uraraka exclaimed, throwing her hands up as that was not what she meant at all. Kaminari's face relaxed, as did a few others who Uraraka realized she had scared right there. So she stopped beating around the bush, and she said, "The villain coming out was saying that it was a, a single person who," she stopped herself and then said quickly, "But that's just what villains say, so they don't get arrested? Try to make it seem like they were arrested without proper procedure, right?"

"The police, are saying it was a gang fight," Sato started. "Do you think they'd lie just to be able to arrest the villains?"

"No, no of course not," Uraraka said quickly, shaking her head.

Kirishima frowned deeply though at Sato's question. _It's not like they haven't bent the truth before to fit… VTS, and what they did at Zach's trial. We can't always just trust what the media tells us._

Iida had been quiet while this went on in front of him, as he stood behind the couch and looked over his shorter classmates' heads. He hummed at Sato's question, and he lifted a hand to his chin and frowned while thinking harder about it. _Stain still would have been arrested even if they had shown that it was myself, Midoriya, and Todoroki who fought him. That is because a life was in danger though, and we acted. An act of violence, not in self defense or the defense of others, but an attack on villains who were at their own base… would that be accepted? And if the police_ _ **did**_ _arrest them after such a thing, would it not give legitimacy to the act of vigilantism without a hero license? They could not accept that, but they also cannot let so many villains go. Would they lie and change the facts so they could arrest them, maybe not? But I do think that they will intentionally avoid looking into the villains' claim that it was a vigilante. If it is true that it was a single person, they will still just call that person a villain as well, as they very well may have been! No, as they_ _ **would**_ _have been had they done this without the proper protocols… without a hero license…_

Iida's eyes started opening wider. _But what if it was Zach? He, has a hero license. Would that make it… Except why would he not take credit? Is it because it is a provisional hero license and he should not be acting- why do I think it is him? He went on vacation. That is what he claimed. If he knew where the villains were, and wanted the police to arrest them, why would he attack them himself and on his own? And if he did, is Zach really strong enough to take on all those villains on his own? I do not think so, but then again,_ Iida saw a dark figure with glowing red eyes appear in his mind who he saw for the first time a couple of days ago. He thought about VTS and how Zach was credited for defeating two villains. _Perhaps, it is not so far-fetched for Uraraka-kun and Kaminari-kun to believe this._

"There's no way," Sero said to the blond in front of him who started grinning a nervous grin.

"You're trying to tell me," Jirou began. She had a sweatdrop on the side of her face, and she muttered in a deadpan tone at Kaminari, "Zach snuck out of school, went to Ugina City, and he took down a villain operation on his own? That's what you think happened?" She asked.

Uraraka started shaking her head, as the idea sounded crazy in her head even when she first thought it. Kaminari frowned more nervously at Jirou's question, and the girl with earphone jacks coming out of her ears continued while looking back towards the screen, "You really think he would go back there?" Her frown dipped lower, thinking about how afraid Zach looked on Thursday again. _"Not Lifebringer!"_ It echoed in her mind and she flinched while watching the police pull out more contraband from the warehouse, heroes guarding around the area. "He just needed time away from here. That's it."

"Yeah," Kirishima said, putting his hands behind his head and letting out a sigh. What Kaminari said had him shocked for a minute there, but he shook his head around and almost laughed at the thought of it. _He just needed a break. Hope he feels safe, wherever he went._

* * *

 _I feel good na-na-na-na-na-na-na._ Zach walked down a street in a scenic area of Kyoto. He had headphones in his ears, a red beanie on his head, but his black face-mask was pulled down a bit since it was not all that cold out. He nodded his head while looking out over the water on his left, out towards a shrine unobscured by the trees around it that had no leaves on them. Zach smiled and pulled his new phone out, taking a picture of the shrine before turning the camera to himself and getting a selfie with it in the background. _Thanks Aunt Maye, na-na-na-na…_ He turned and pocketed his new phone, and he thanked the woman in his head who he was glad never cut off his ATM card. _Probably should stop buying new phones though. Third new one in a month. She's gotta be confused at where all that money's going. Maybe she heard about the fire-_

Zach started nodding his head again and he reached up and pressed on the up-volume button near the top of his white headphones. He listened to the songs for free online so he did not have to buy any, and he put his arms behind his head as he continued walking down a street that only had other walkers or bikers on it. There were no cars, and a lot of the people around looked to be tourists like him who were checking out the shrines and temples of Kyoto. _Wonder why I never came here? I had years of time, that I just spent at home when I could have traveled around the country. Guess I was still a kid, didn't really think about it._

Zach had a skip in his step as he pulled out his phone and changed the song to another upbeat and fun one to nod his head to. He shoved it back into his pocket and then hummed along, thinking about what he did the night before over and over again in his head. He had taken a nap as soon as he got to his rented motel room, sleeping in Nightmare mode even though he was pretty sure no one knew where he was. The reservation he made was still there, even though the guy at the front desk was annoyed at him for not showing up on time. He said he'd pay for the full three nights though, so now he had a place to go back to after his fun day in Kyoto.

The suns were already going down in the west though, and Zach decided to head back into the bigger part of the city as he would not be able to see the nature part as much once it was dark. He headed into Kyoto and walked around with headphones in, his face mostly showing, and he barely felt in danger at all. _Attack me. I dare you! I feel fucking invincible right now! "I feel invincible…"_ Zach pulled out his phone and started looking up a new song, then he popped open a different app once he was listening to a song that had him grinning confidently. _Two hours until the show starts. Guess I'll get some food. Still have a lot of cash on me._

Zach went to a strip in Kyoto that had a lot of good-looking restaurants on it. He did not know if he was dressed well enough for a few of them, but he saw a place that a family walked into and grinned. If it was family-friendly, he figured that meant they would be fine with him looking like he did. He was wearing nicer clothes under his jacket than the dark ones he wore when he left on Thursday night anyway, as he had brought a better set for the show tonight in his backpack.

Zach ordered a steak, he got a milkshake with it, and he even considered getting dessert on top of it all. He smiled at his waitress though and said while patting his stomach, "I think I'm good. Could I get the check please?"

She nodded at him and left to get it. Zach sat back in his chair and looked over to some televisions where people were playing soccer, and although he did not have a preference for either team, he smiled as someone scored a goal and made the people at the bar cheer. A couple of them patted each other on the back, two younger guys Zach wondered if they were actually twenty years old yet high-fived, and Zach laughed as one guy at the bar moaned. He was wearing a different jersey color than the others around him, and a couple of his friends started poking fun of him which made him call back that his team would catch up. Zach heard a cry come from behind him and looked over his chair over to the booth the family that went in before him was sitting at.

A young kid was complaining about not getting dessert, but Zach smiled as the parents got him to quiet down, and the boy's older sister said something to him with a smile on her face that made the frowning kid smile again. Zach wondered what they were talking about, but he turned his head as his waitress was next to his table again. He thought she had been gone a little long for just getting his check, but she was smiling down at him as he looked up at her with the smile on his own face. His started to go away and he got confused as she opened up the black bill and put it down in front of him. Zach looked down at the receipt, then up at the woman next to him with wide eyes.

He looked back down at the receipt and the amount he owed at the bottom. Zach stared at the pen scribbling over the price, and the note at the bottom, 'Lifebringer eats free.' Zach opened his mouth as he saw it, his face twitching and he looked up like he wanted to say something. The look on the woman's face though as she smiled down at him, it made Zach purse his lips at her. She leaned down and said, "I asked my boss. He said it was alright-"

"Could, could you two not tell other people I'm here?" Zach whispered, deciding not to try and hide it. He did not think his identity would be discovered because of the scars on his face and ear, but he had taken his hat off when he sat at the table. He wished he had not, and he wished he had gone to another restaurant all of a sudden.

The waitress got a surprised look on her face, then she started nodding at the boy in front of her. "Of course. My lips are sealed. I'll pass it on to the manager too," she added. She took a step to walk past Zach's chair, but then she put a hand down on his left shoulder. "Thank you," she whispered down to him.

Zach looked over his shoulder and watched as she walked away. _Did I save her life? I, didn't recognize her? I- I came to Kyoto, a couple of times didn't I? Or did I save the manager? Or just someone she knows? Or she's just thanking me,_ his lips started curling up. Zach grabbed his jacket and the receipt as he got out of his seat, lifting his red beanie to put back on his head. _She's just thanking me, for all of it. Everything._ Zach's eyes started to get wet, and he moved quickly for the door of the restaurant. _Am I that recognizable? Should I, be more worried? She agreed not to say anything, but can I trust her? Why not?_

 _She gave me a free meal, not ratted me out to her villain overlords. Most people, aren't on the villains' side. I'm so worried about it all the time, I forgot a simple thing._ Zach looked back as he got to the door of the restaurant. He stared at the bar where the guys watching soccer all started calling out as someone was driving down the field, to the family standing up and getting their coats back on, to the waitress and the man in a black suit next to her who were staring over from near the kitchen. He gave them a small half-wave, and the two nodded back towards him and waved as well. Zach spun and left the steak place, and he could not have smiled wider if he tried, even as he had to wipe his eyes of the water welling up in them.

He stepped out onto the street and looked around the sidewalks. People who were walking in and out of restaurants and bars. Families and people waiting for taxis. A bus coming to a stop and dropping a couple of people off, and two taxi drivers standing between their cars and laughing about something. He thought about the shrines he saw earlier and how amazed everyone else was as they took pictures around him too. _I'm not the only one. Everyone can see it. They can all see, how beautiful this, that this world can be._ His smile lowered a little, but he turned and started walking the direction of the theater.

Zach Sazaki went to a theater. He went to see a play, and he sat in the audience and took off his jacket but left his beanie on for the duration of the show. He did not want more people to recognize who he was, but three-quarters of the way through the show, he noticed the girl who had been sitting on his left from the start staring at him.

A bead of sweat rolled down his face as she turned left and started telling her boyfriend on her side something. Then she turned back his way and leaned in, while her boyfriend leaned forward on her other side. "Hey, I'm not imagining things, right? Are you, Zach Sazaki?" She whispered.

 _Do I lie? I kind of want to._ Zach turned towards her with a confused look on his face, then the right corner of his lip started pulling up. He cursed internally as he did it, then he lifted a finger to his mouth and shushed her quietly. He was not doing it because the show was going on, but as a request for her to not make a big deal out of it. Her eyes opened wide, and she spun back to her boyfriend whose eyes were already wide as he saw Zach shush them.

"Could we get a picture?" The guy said after his girl looked excitedly back at him.

 _Oh. Well, I guess it would be good to have other people back up my alibi too._ "Sure," Zach whispered back. "After the show though, and could you not post it or anything… at least for a couple of days?" The two stared at him in surprise, but they each nodded at his request. He figured if he asked them not to post it at all they might have to break that promise, but they both seemed happy enough to get a picture that they might listen to him.

The show continued and Zach went back to watching it, and he was glad the other two on his left did not start asking him questions through the show. They actually just let him watch in peace, though the guy pulled his phone out and had texted someone which Zach pretended he did not notice. _It's not the villains. He's probably telling his best friend or something. And that guy will spread it to others, but it'll just be a random rumor. Just ignore it. You're fine._

Zach relaxed in his comfortable chair. He leaned back in it and started smiling again as the orchestra with the play started getting louder as an intense scene started up. He watched as the men battled over the love of a woman who already had a different lover, who was sneaking in while focus was supposed to be on the fighters. That guy was sneaking up behind the female actress, and she looked shocked as he tapped on her back and she spun around. The two battling it out on stage had no idea the woman they were fighting over was sneaking away, and Zach loved how into the battle the two seemed, like each really thought they would get the love of the woman if they defeated their opponent.

 _How hard must they have worked to act that well? You know… I could probably be an actor. Do actors with hero licenses get to use their powers while they act? I heard of an American hero who uses his powers on tv a lot. Well, I know I could do it. I act really well. Tricked Shigaraki didn't I?_ His lips curved down into a deep frown. _I did. And that's why they're- they're dead,_ Zach saw one of the two actors on the stage falling backwards, really fake blood splashing up as the man most of the audience did not expect to win actually took him down. Zach tried to get back into it, but his expression was darker now and his eyes lowered from the stage to his own lap that his hands were in, his right still in a single glove and his left not. He knew the other two on his left had looked down at his right hand while he sat there, and now he was staring at it too.

 _People like me. They gave me my meal for free. They want to take pictures with me in public. That's like, a hero. But I'm not. Not yet… Even though I fight villains? Even though we took down Diamondfist last night? No, Webb took Diamondfist down… I helped. I really did. And people think I'm a hero. I saved people. I saved so many. But, I let them- I let them die. No, I got them killed. I couldn't do anything. But I'm trying! Jenny, I- I'm still trying to be a hero. Like you thought I was. Up until, the second you…_ A tear rolled out of Zach's right eye and slid down his face, and he lifted his arm and wiped it quickly, since the scene on stage was not a really sad one so he knew his expression would be confusing to anyone watching, and there were people watching.

 _They're, really good actors, and actresses,_ Zach thought. _To get me this emotional. That's it. That's why, I'm crying._ He shook his head of other thoughts besides the play, then thought of the two on his left who wanted a picture with him. _I want a picture with them too. I'm glad there are people, who think of me as a hero already. Maybe one day, I'll believe it myself._

* * *

 **A/N Thanks for reading. Leave a review below telling me what you think or predictions/questions for the story. Zach goes on the vacation he said he was going on, and he's in a pretty good mood after the Diamondfist bust the night before. Next time he'll have to return though, and face the consequences for leaving... Anyway, h** **ope you enjoyed the chapter!**

Guest chapter 35 . Jul 15

Are you going to get anyone on deviantART to draw your character and all the costumes he's had because this story is getting really good. I would offer to draw them, but I suck so if you have an interest plz ask someone!

 **That's a great idea. I've never had someone make a cover art for any stories before, but if anyone does want to make one I'd really appreciate it! Thanks for the suggestion.**

Shadowbat chapter 35 . Jul 14

God I love this I pulled an all nighter to catch up lol. I cant wait for more updates.

 **Awesome! Glad you're caught up and really into it, hope you enjoyed the new update!**

Wow chapter 36 . 16h ago

Are they gonna find out about Jennie soon?  
O_O  
Keep up the good work!

 **Who knows? *shrugs* It happened a while back now, but Zach's having a hard time keeping himself from thinking about it (at the end there). Thanks for the review!**

Guest chapter 37 . 13h ago

France are winning!  
But Did you want France or Croatia to win?  
I really like Zach teaming up with Webb! :D

 **Actually wanted Croatia, but oh well. Glad you liked the Webb and Zach team-up, and the end of their talk at the start of this chapter makes it seem like there may be more to come... Thanks for the review!**


	39. Chapter 39

**Chapter 39:**

On Sunday afternoon, Zach Sazaki stepped up to the front gates of U.A. High School. He had been gone for a little over two and a half days, since Thursday night when he walked right out of these same gates. He could not go back in through them without his student I.D., so he had to press a button on a pad outside and request entry. He had done so hesitantly, and he was now waiting for someone to come get him. His right hand was lifted up in front of his chest, in case someone at the school informed the villains he was right outside the front gate. It lowered a bit though as he saw the group coming out to get him after five minutes of him standing there.

Zach tried hard not to grimace at the looks on Midnight, Aizawa, and Present Mic's faces, as the three of them headed out to get him. They all looked mad, and Zach could tell he was in trouble before they even got close. He was told to follow them and he did just that. Zach followed them into the school and into the main office, and the principal arrived right after he got in there. They had his student I.D. with them, and Aizawa pulled out a note once they were all in the main office with the boy who had a very nervous look on his face. "'Going on vacation. Be back in a few days.'" Aizawa read off the note then lifted his gaze to Zach's.

"Um," Zach started, preparing his apology.

"Where did you go, Sazaki?" Aizawa questioned before Zach could speak.

"To, Kyoto," Zach replied. "I'm sorry-"

"Kyoto?" Present Mic said, lifting his head back and looking down his nose at the kid to check if he was lying.

"Yeah," Zach replied. "I just- I couldn't handle the stress," Zach said, looking apologetically towards Present Mic, then at his own homeroom teacher, then over to the principal. "I felt too much like a prisoner here, so I left to remind myself that I was free."

Principal Nezu kept frowning at Zach, though he hummed to himself at what Zach said. "I, I know it sounds suspicious," he added, turning towards Aizawa who he already knew did not trust him very much. Aizawa frowned as the kid looked his way while saying that, showing him that Zach knew how he felt. "But, that's why I took a bunch of pictures. And I've got receipts and stuff ready too," he said, and he reached down for his pocket with his left hand. He looked around hesitantly to see if anyone would tell him to put his hands up, but they were all just waiting for him to give the proof he said he had. Zach pulled out his wallet that he removed his I.D. from before leaving, and he opened it up and took out some receipts, including the one he got at dinner the day before.

Zach hesitated as he looked at that receipt, and he did not want to hand it over but did after a second's hesitation. Then he pulled his phone out while Aizawa flipped through the receipts Zach handed him. "I took some pictures, and made sure I was in them too. And a couple of people who recognized me took pictures too," Zach added. Midnight looked at the boy in surprise and leaned back as he said that, and Zach continued, "They probably haven't posted them yet, because I asked them not to, but I'm sure they will in a few days or something."

"Why did you ignore protocol?" Aizawa snapped, interrupting the boy who started to smile as he gave that reasoning. Zach frowned and looked back towards his teacher who continued, "And you skipped class too. U.A. is the top hero high school," Aizawa's scruffy look narrowed down at Zach who frowned deeper at the sight of it, but not in an afraid and nervous way. Zach just frowned back at Aizawa in a darker way as he wondered how to respond.

 _I already told him I was stressed. What does he want from me?_ Zach glanced around at the other teachers, then to the principal as well. "I was afraid," Zach said.

"Afraid of going through proper protocol?" Midnight asked, lifting her tone skeptically at the boy.

"Those protocols are there to keep you safe-" Present Mic continued.

"I'm afraid, at this school," Zach said. He frowned at the two who just tried countering him, then he continued while they frowned at his answer. "Why wouldn't I? After a villain attacked me here, after I got taken in front of the people who are here 'protecting' me? How could I feel safe?" Zach's expression got even darker while turning from Present Mic's face towards Principal Nezu, "And we all know there's a spy here." Zach said it in a dark tone, and the three teachers around him opened their eyes wide.

"You know-"

"If I knew who," Zach cut off Aizawa. "I would have said something. But it's because I don't know, that this place is even scarier. I know, it's the only place I'm really protected at all, but that doesn't change that someone here must have told them where our training camp was. One of my classmates? Someone in Class-B? Or someone in the faculty, even in this room?" Zach's eyes darted around the four with him. "I don't know. So how could I go to the main office and tell them exactly where I was planning to go? What motel I was going to stay at, for how long, without anyone there to protect me? The villains would have been waiting inside my room by the time I got there," Zach muttered the last part and his eyes dipped down. "But, I know it was still against the rules. And I'm sorry. I just needed some time away, to calm down. And then yesterday morning, I really started feeling better after I heard Diamondfist got taken down," he grinned a little and lifted his gaze. "And I just- I'm sorry. It wasn't right of me to break the rules. I just didn't know what to do."

Aizawa kept glaring at the kid whose gaze lowered back down after he finished. Then he lifted his right hand and started rubbing the back of his head through his hair. He glanced over at Mic and Midnight, and then he grimaced again as neither of them were looking very strict or angry anymore. So he kept a stern look on his face and looked back at the boy in front of them. He opened his mouth to say something, but Principal Nezu spoke first, "Sazaki." His voice was high-pitched and understanding, and he continued as Zach lifted his gaze to look the principal in the eyes. Nezu had a scar over his right eye diagonally down his face similar to the one under Zach's right eye, and the small creature gave the boy a reassuring smile which had Zach's eyes open wide. "I understand the predicament you found yourself in, however we cannot allow you to just leave campus as you please and ignore the rules that all of the students need to follow. Is there anyone amongst the staff who you do trust?"

Zach hesitated, then he nodded and said, "All Might." He glanced around at the other three around him, stopped on Aizawa sensei, then he lowered his gaze and shifted it back to the principal. He thought about both Aizawa and Nezu. He thought about how badly hurt his homeroom teacher was at USJ, and how he had run out to try and protect them at the training camp. _But anyone can lie. Anyone can disguise their true motives. And maybe he didn't become a spy until after USJ. And Nezu, he made those cameras. Even if I did help him get out of trouble for them, because I knew it was Hackerman… how did Hackerman find them? Is it part of his power? Or did Nezu give it away and just act surprised? He seemed genuinely apologetic, but his Quirk makes him smart enough that he could trick me easily._ "That's all," Zach whispered after a few seconds.

Present Mic opened his mouth, then he closed it and just bit down as he thought about what Zach said to him and the other teachers who tried apologizing for VTS. His eyes lowered down, and his fists clenched at his sides. Midnight glanced next to her at her colleague who looked so frustrated that he was being considered the spy, after bringing it up to the rest of the staff in the first place.

Aizawa stared down at the top of Sazaki's head, the right side of his face too as he faced the principal. He frowned at the kid's lack of trust even in him, and then he frowned deeper thinking back on the trial he had been a witness at. _Had I known then, he could actually train Death not to kill people, what would my answer have been? Can he become a hero? He's still breaking the rules._ "After everything," Aizawa said in a dark voice. "You're still breaking the rules."

Zach's face scrunched up and his fists clenched hard at his sides. _I know,_ he thought, his heart beating faster at Aizawa's scolding. _And I'd have no one to blame but myself, if that had backfired and I was captured by the villains again, or even killed. No one would have known what happened to me, until Shigaraki used my body to make a point or some shit like that. He'd have killed me, and videotaped it, and showed everyone what happened to their Lifebr- to the Life…_ Zach clenched his eyes shut, then he opened them and looked into Nezu's eyes again.

"One week detention," Principal Nezu said. The three teachers around Zach turned towards the principal in some surprise, and Zach's eyes widened too at the look on the small creature's face. "However Sazaki, if you break the school rules again, you may be expelled." Zach's eyes shot open huge, and Principal Nezu continued, "Although your entry into U.A. was part of your deal during the retrial, you are not excused from the same set of rules as your fellow classmates. If you feel you truly cannot trust our system though, and you find yourself again afraid and in need of an escape," Nezu smiled more and he said, "Then please inform All Might of where you will be going. If he knows, then the staff of U.A. can account for your whereabouts. And if something were to occur where you went to, there would be at least one person who knows."

Zach's eyes opened huge, and he started breathing heavily as he thought about what the principal was saying. _Just All Might? Is that really okay? That- I can do that. Even if I have to lie to All Might though… Webb said that All Might had no idea what we were doing._ "I-" Zach started, and he nodded his head before taking a deep breath. "I can do that. I'm sorry, I, I didn't realize that was an option."

"It is now," Nezu said, giving the child in front of him a reassuring nod. "I want you to be able to trust us. You are not a prisoner here," Nezu said. "But we are tasked with protecting you, and we cannot do that if you will not allow us to."

Zach shifted his gaze towards Midnight. She sighed and then smiled in a small reassuring way at him too, then he turned to Present Mic who was still frowning at Zach's distrust, but he nodded his head as well. Then Zach turned towards his homeroom teacher who was scratching the back of his head and looking away. "A week detention, sounds like a good punishment," Aizawa muttered, and Zach's eyes shot open wide. His teacher then looked back at him and kept a stern look on his face as he said harshly, "I didn't tell anyone to do it, but you should see if any of your classmates took notes for you on Friday." Zach nodded quickly at his homeroom teacher, then he looked around at them all again and to Principal Nezu last.

"It will be after school for an hour every day this week," Nezu said. "And I want you to think hard on who you think you can trust here, Zach Sazaki. It is smart to be cautious, but there is a difference between caution and paranoia. I am sure if you think on it, you will discover you have more people here who you can trust than you currently believe." Zach slowly started nodding at the small white creature, then Nezu handed forward Zach's I.D. for the boy to take.

Zach took his I.D. back and he slid it into his wallet that he took back out of his pocket. He paused before closing his wallet though, and he turned to Aizawa who still had Zach's receipts in his hand. Zach opened his mouth, closed it, then he asked, "Could I get one of those back?"

Aizawa frowned deeper at Zach, then he picked out the receipt that he had stared at closer when he first flipped through, because there was no doubt who the receipt had been given to. It was not written in Sazaki's handwriting, and Aizawa sighed as he held the receipt forward. Zach's eyes widened a bit that he did not have to say which one, then he nodded gratefully at his teacher and took the receipt back from him. "Thank you, sensei," Zach said.

"Now that you have returned as well," Nezu started. "I must also inform your legal guardian of how you broke the rules and your-"

"My aunt?" Zach asked, his mouth twisting down and his head turning back to the principal. Nezu frowned more and stopped while the other teachers around Zach got hesitant looks on their faces. Aizawa wanted to scold Sazaki for interrupting the principal, but instead he just felt awkward at what the boy said. He still remembered how shocked he was when that woman shouted certain things about Zach at the courthouse, and he glanced towards Principal Nezu wondering why he had to bring that up.

Zach's eyes narrowed at the principal, then he lost the look and shook his head fast. He got a less angry one, and more just a nervous one on his own face as he hoped Nezu would accept what he was about to say. "Could you, please not? The two of us aren't in contact," Zach said. "I, cut off ties with her," Zach said, and he grimaced more at the looks of the teachers at his sides. "So, please don't drag a stranger into my business. I'll take more punishment, if that's an alternative."

 _He does not want to drag her into his life,_ Nezu thought while staring at the boy. _I feel I should inform someone though. He needs support from outside of the school as well._ "If not your Aunt," Midnight started. Zach started turning towards her, as she continued, "Then how about John Akers? He and his-" Midnight stopped at the look on Zach's face. He stared at her with wide eyes, and a trembling lip that he bit down on before shaking his head at her. "You do not have to be afraid of dragging them into…"

Zach lifted his left hand and he grabbed the side of his head while clenching his eyes closed. "That's not," he whispered. "That's not true," he whispered, his voice cracking. "I already did," his voice cracked even more, then he quickly rubbed his hand on the side of his head. _What am I saying?!_ "I don't want, to involve them more," Zach lied through his teeth, having to seethe it out as his heart filled with pain.

"Okay," Nezu said. "I understand. In that case however, you are accepting full responsibility for your actions. You must correct your actions on your own, Sazaki."

"I will," Zach said. He nodded quickly at the principal, and then Principal Nezu told Zach that he could return to his dorm.

Zach left the main office, then Nezu turned to Midnight who was watching Zach leave with wide eyes. She turned to the principal as did the other two teachers in there, and they saw Nezu look back and forth between them. Principal Nezu lifted a hand to his face and sighed at the looks on his teachers' faces. "I am afraid, Midnight, that it would be quite impossible to convince Sazaki of that." Midnight looked at the mouse-dog-bear creature in some confusion, then her eyes shot open huge as did Present Mic and Aizawa's. "As John Akers, and his entire family, died in a house fire in November. Shortly after, Zach Sazaki betrayed the League of Villains."

Present Mic lifted his right hand to his head and started rubbing it around, then he just started scratching it while looking down from behind his orange sunglasses. Midnight turned his head still with shock over it, and she looked back towards the door Zach Sazaki left a minute ago. _**"I already did."**_ She turned back to Nezu, and she whispered, "A, house fire?"

Nezu nodded his head, but he closed his eyes as he did. "If only, that were true."

Aizawa kept staring at the door of the office that Sazaki just walked out of. He lost the rest of the suspicion he felt, and he just felt bad now. He caught how the boy responded to what Midnight said, and his expression got darker. _He blames himself for dragging them into his mess. And what's worse, he's not wrong. That's a new step for the villains though. Going after families. If people knew that sending their kids to hero schools would make them themselves targets- could that be why Sazaki's keeping it a secret? Probably not. He probably, just doesn't want to think about it. Is that why he's spending so much time, distancing himself from his classmates? That's a hard way to live. If we had saved him at VTS, would things have gone this way? Would they still have died?_ Aizawa's eyes started widening more, as he thought about the real reason the boy might not trust them. _As much as he blames us though,_ he thought about the choked up way Zach responded to Midnight, and he grimaced deeper. _He blames himself much more._

* * *

Zach walked up the path towards his dorm building. He looked at the entrance hesitantly, getting an even more nervous look on his face than he had when he approached the school as a whole. _This is going to be rough. I'm doing well so far though. The teachers didn't say anything about it. I mentioned hearing about Diamondfist, so maybe they didn't ask because they knew what I was going to say. Or maybe they wouldn't have asked in the first place. And the receipt for the motel, I got the guy to mark the date for when I "first" arrived on it, so the receipts spanned the whole time I was gone._ He slowed down right before reaching the entrance, and he stopped at the door before taking in some much needed deep breaths.

 _Well, here goes nothing,_ Zach grabbed the door handle and stepped inside. He took his shoes off just through the entrance, then he turned his head left towards the couch area. Hanta Sero and Fumikage Tokoyami looked towards the door and dropped their jaws as Zach stood there and took his shoes off.

"Hey," Zach said, lifting a hand up at his side and cracking a smile.

"Dude!" Sero shouted, jumping up to his feet.

"Zach," Tokoyami also said while getting up quickly. He jogged over right behind Sero, and he started smiling after a second of seeing Zach's nervous smile. The dark-skinned boy with a beak let out a low chuckle and shook his head at the worry he had felt for nothing.

"Where'd you go?" Sero said after running up to Zach. "Are you alright? Why didn't you say anything?"

"I, went to Kyoto," Zach said, leaning back from Sero and then smiling as he reached up and scratched the side of his head. "Sorry for not telling anyone, I just needed a vacation."

"Zach!"

"Zach?!"

Others father in the common room around the corner who saw Sero and Tokoyami run over came over themselves and then called out his name as they saw him. Sato, Hagakure, and Uraraka ran towards him and gathered near the door and their classmate who had returned. Zach looked at them and his eyes widened at the relieved looks on Uraraka and Sato's faces, and he wondered if there was one on Hagakure's too.

"Are you alright?" Hagakure asked as she ran straight up to the boy and lifted her head to look in his eyes. Zach looked down at her invisible face, a nervous one on his own at how close she just got to him. "Are you?" She asked again at his strange look.

"Oh, oh yeah," Zach said, shaking his head around and smiling to assure her he was fine.

"You're looking," Sato started. Zach turned his way and Sato was hesitating. Their rooms were next door to each other, and Sato thought about a few things he heard in the middle of the night coming from Zach's room. Things he had not told anyone else about. That's why he looked pretty confused as he said, "Like you're, in a good mood."

Zach got surprised for a second, then he smiled and said, "I am." He thought about how he felt on Thursday afternoon, compared to right now. He smiled and even laughed a few times at the attitude he had after returning from that shopping trip he ran from. "I really, really needed that vacation."

"Zach!"

Zach sweatdropped while turning right and looking towards the girl's bath and laundry rooms, and the staircase where two girls and a few more guys just came down. He smiled towards them, though he was getting a little tired of every person in the dorm shouting his name as they saw him. As much as he thought it annoyed him though, he kept smiling as the group of them ran at him right to the door.

Yaoyorozu, Jirou, Midoriya, Iida, Ojiro, and Mineta all ran up to him. "I'm fine. Kyoto," Zach said, leaning away and trying to respond to everyone at the same times. "I just needed a break from school. Sorry. I know I should have said something. Didn't want anyone trying to convince me not to go. I know."

"You should always go through the proper protocol," Iida scolded even after Zach apologized to him.

"Yeah, got in a bit of trouble for that," Zach admitted. The others looked at him wide-eyed wondering what that punishment was, and Zach said quickly, "I got a week of detention after school."

"Oh, that's great!" Yaoyorozu exclaimed, clapping her hands together in front of her. Zach glanced at her oddly, as did a few of the others at her excited reaction to him getting detention. Her eyes shot open wide, and then she swung her hands in front of her and said, "I didn't mean it like- I'm just glad it is not something worse."

"Me too," Zach admitted, laughing after a second at her flustered expression.

Yaoyorozu's eyes widened as she saw Zach start laughing. He was laughing in a way that seemed so genuine to her, and the others were seeing his laughter for the first time right now and their eyes widened as they wondered if this was the same boy they'd been seeing for the past month.

"Zach!"

Zach did not even sweatdrop this time at the sound of his own name being shouted, though he did feel a little nervous as he looked towards the stairs. He saw Kaminari running towards him, and Ashido and Kirishima coming out of the stairwell right behind him. "Hey Kaminari," Zach said, his voice already apologetic. "Sorry I didn't say anything-"

"Where'd you go?" Kaminari asked as he ran over.

"Kyoto," Zach started. "I always wanted to, but I went to-"

"Are you sure you didn't go to, Ugina City?" Kaminari asked, lifting his eyebrows accusingly. Zach's face got confused for a second, then his eyes opened wide and his bottom lip lowered.

"Ha, haha," Zach laughed and then went, "You think I attacked the League of Villains?" He glanced around, but the rest of them were mostly shaking their heads or rolling their eyes at Kaminari. Then again though, as he laughed and looked past his classmates, he was really checking to see which of them might have thought he was serious. _Iida and Midoriya._ Zach turned back to Kaminari, and he said, "I actually took a bunch of pictures while I was gone, since I thought the teachers would want to see when I got back."

Zach pulled out a phone, and the others all looked at it in surprise. He noticed Jirou's eyes widening in front of him and to his right, and she said when he looked up at her, "Didn't you leave your phone here?"

"Bought a new one," Zach said, scratching the back of his head for a second while letting out another laugh. He looked down at the phone and then moved towards Kaminari who was still giving him a skeptical look. "Look," Zach said, turning the phone a bit so Kaminari could see the pictures too. "I went to see the Kinkaku-ji, and I walked through the bamboo forest where those monkeys come right up to you," he scrolled through some pictures, smiling as he thought back on the stuff he actually did yesterday and that morning which he enjoyed a lot.

Hagakure ran around and she leaned past Kirishima who was looking at the pictures from next to Kaminari. "Was it really cold there?" Hagakure asked.

Zach just showed a selfie of himself in the bamboo forest, and he was wearing his red beanie along with having his black hood up on his sweatshirt. "Well," Zach started. "I just didn't want people to notice me," he said, lowering his phone a bit as he looked back around at the others. Zach was making this out to be a lot more normal than any of them had thought, and that was starting to make a few of them frown. "People noticed me anyway though," he added with a laugh, looking back at Kaminari.

"Weren't you," Midoriya started. Zach looked over to him, and Midoriya hesitated before continuing, "Weren't you nervous, about people seeing you?"

"At first," Zach admitted. "But people were all really cool about it. Some people wanted selfies with me, though I asked that they didn't post them or anything. I was surprised they recognized me though," he added. He spun to Kaminari who was looking up at him in surprise at how talkative and smiley Zach was being. "I even got a selfie with some girls on the train this morning who called me out on it," he said and swiped a few pictures down until reaching the one on the train.

Kaminari looked down at the picture, then his eyes opened wide and he snatched the phone out of Zach's hand. "Whoa! These girls are cute!"

"Let me see!" Mineta exclaimed, jumping up at Kaminari's side with huge eyes.

Zach grinned at Kaminari's reaction, while two girls on his left frowned at the boys. Jirou rolled her eyes in annoyance as Kaminari asked Zach if he got their numbers, and then she glanced to the side and noticed Yaoyorozu's frown lift up a little as Zach said he didn't ask. Jirou cracked a grin after seeing that look on her face, then she shook her head and spun back towards Zach, "Wait a second. You only got a week of detention for this?"

Zach turned back towards her and got a hesitant look on his face at her question. Her eyes widened and she waved a hand in front of her, "Not that I wish you'd gotten more. But, Momo's right, I thought it was going to be a lot worse."

"I think Aizawa sensei wanted it to be," Zach said, and he shivered.

Midoriya's expression got a little sadder as he saw Zach make that face that had a couple of others laughing or shivering themselves imagining Aizawa's scolding. _Is he really,_ Midoriya thought. _Is he just going through, the motions? I thought he was really happy for a moment, but I've seen him let his guard down a bit. This, looks like him still hiding everything. Is he, lying about everything? Are those emotions fake?_

"I can't believe you didn't get their numbers," Kaminari said, holding the phone out for Zach to take. He grinned after Zach took it though, and he said while nudging his elbow forward into Zach's side. "Guess you've already got a girl though huh?" Zach started turning towards him, and he said while Zach's eyes widened, "Bet Jenny wouldn't be too happy about that picture."

Zach nodded his head, his mouth flattening out and his expression getting a bit darker. "Not, my girlfriend," Zach muttered. He shifted the strap of his backpack on his back like it was feeling really heavy, then he glanced back around at the others, a few who were looking at him in surprise after what just happened. "I'm going to go settle in," Zach said, and he started for the stairs to head up to his room.

A couple of the others moved out of the way, then Jirou stepped up to Kaminari's side and elbowed him making him spin to her in surprise. "Way to ruin to mood," she said and rolled her eyes at him.

Kaminari leaned back and then looked around to see a few others frowning at him too. "I didn't know it'd do that," he said. "They must have had a falling out or something," Kaminari mumbled, turning to look at Zach's back.

"He really had a girlfriend?" Jirou asked in surprise.

"No," Kaminari shook his head. "I know his neighbor though, she's his best friend. More like, a sister I guess," he said, and he scratched the back of his head.

Yaoyorozu watched Zach head into the stairwell, then everyone close to the door heard a voice in the stairwell call out, "Zach!" Most of them sweatdropped as he obviously did not make it to his room.

Class-A looked around at each other on the inside of the door. They were all frowning. None of them felt satisfied. A few started humming to themselves, and Iida turned to look back towards the stairs after a few seconds. _It does seem like he just went on a vacation. It looked like it did him some good, but…_

Kirishima's fists clenched at his sides. _He'd do it again,_ Kirishima thought. _Just head off on his own. He doesn't look afraid. Maybe it did do him some good, but I-_ Kirishima frowned deeper towards the stairs.

"Hey guys," Hagakure started, her facing lighting up as she looked around at everyone else who seemed to be feeling the same way she was. "I just had a great idea!"

* * *

Zach sat in his room, at his desk and staring at his right hand. He looked at his bed with his backpack on it, then down at his right hand again in front of him. _I was on my own outside the school. I had a new phone on me, and I was probably in view of cameras a whole lot. I wasn't being careful, as careful as I should- or I have been. Do I need to sit here in Nightmare form? Do I get complacent just because they haven't attacked me yet?_ He started shaking his head, but he lowered his hand anyway. He smiled softly while looking down at his desk. He stared at the books he put on them a few days ago to make room in his backpack. _As Aizawa said. I should get notes from my classmates. Kaminari seemed to believe me after I showed the picture I took with Kate and Maou on the train. They really were cute…_ Zach closed his eyes hard, preventing the water he felt building up again as he thought about what else Kaminari said to him.

 _It's not like anyone knows,_ Zach thought. _I barely even think about it. I can't. Even thinking the words is too much. Thinking about those weeks, that I now just refer to as "those weeks" or "those six weeks" in my head._ He lifted his gaze to his windows that still had the blinds open. _But even if I don't think about them, it's not like they didn't happen. It's not like I'm not different now. I've seen so many beautiful things in this world. I love this world. But out there,_ Zach stared out and saw clouds rolling across the orange sky in the late Sunday afternoon. _Out there, underneath that beautiful sunset, are monsters. This beautiful world hides so much darkness, and I never truly understood it. I saw glimpses of the darkness through my entire life, but nothing like I-_ Zach lifted his left hand and put it against his temple, bowing his head and putting his elbow on the desk in front of him to help hold his head up.

He stared out the window while grabbing his head, his eyes dark as he continued to watch the sky get darker. _Evil. I won't think of the specifics. I'll just make myself sad, and scared, and angry if I do. But I remember it all. If I think back. I saw true evil. Something I did not think existed. Everyone must have some good in them? Those who don't must just be insane? Naive thinking from naive people. Even villains have good sides? It was foolish to think of them all in that light._ Zach sighed and he closed his eyes, then he snapped them back open and focused outside. _**"AAAEEEeee…"**_ The screaming voice in his head when he closed his eyes faded off as he started thinking heavy thoughts again. _I fought the League of Villains, and no one but Webb knows. And I'm fine with that,_ a soft smile came to his face. _I don't need recognition. I'll just feel self-satisfied over it. And it's not like I need to be a flashy hero to get people to like me. It's been months since I went around saving everyone as L- why can't I even think that name? Life-bringer. Lifebringer. It's not hard to-_ _ **"Who are you? What is your name?! Are you LIFEBRINGER?!"**_

Zach brought his right hand up to the other side of his head now. He pressed both palms against his head, shaking it around while clenching his eyes shut. _It's enough, isn't it?_ His eyes opened again, and he looked out into the sky that was getting black now, and even cloudier. _What's enough? Nothing. I haven't done enough yet. I haven't become a hero. I haven't saved enough to change the answer, and I never will now. I haven't even gotten over those six weeks. Is that something I can do? I never even considered it, but that should come before the others. I can't do those things, with everything that happened holding me back. Like on Thursday when I couldn't do a thing, because of that terror. It's something I need to overcome on my own. Something I need to rise above, in order to become a hero._

 **Knock Knock.** Zach turned his head and looked back towards his door. He lowered his hands from his head, and since his right was still wearing its glove he had not gone into Nightmare form.

He stood up from his seat and started for his room's door. "Yeah? What's up…" Zach asked, while he grabbed the doorknob and opened his door inwards. He froze and stared outside his door with wide eyes at the group gathered outside. "Everyone?" he finished, at the sight of Class-A standing outside.

"You missed out on the Room King contest!" Hagakure exclaimed.

Zach got a confused look on his face, and he glanced around at the others to see what she was talking about. "We had a contest over whose room in the dorm was the best," Kaminari explained when Zach gave him a confused look. "Though the votes were totally rigged."

"I won!" Sato mentioned proudly, and Zach looked towards the large boy with big lips who the girls all smiled at for some reason after he said that.

"But the competition isn't over," Hagakure continued, holding up a finger even though no one could see it.

Zach glanced over his shoulder after she said it, sweatdropped, then he moved out of the way a bit so the others could look into his room. His eyes widened a bit as the girls all took the opportunity and ran right in. Ashido was normally really excited over this sort of thing, but she just saw Zach's room the other day and she came in after the others. Jirou and Yaoyorozu had also seen inside it before, and that was why neither of them were actually particularly excited about going back in. That, and well…

"Oh, this room is, nice," Sero said as he stepped in after the girls, scratching the side of his head.

"It, looks a little like mine," Uraraka added, turning and smiling at Zach even while a bead of sweat dripped down her face.

"Really?" Zach asked. He looked towards his window that had a desk in front of it and a chair pulled out from beneath. Then he looked over towards his bed, and the backpack on it. The rest of his clothes that were not in his backpack lay at the foot of his bed or folded up on the edge of his desk.

"I'd say it looks more like Shoji's," Todoroki said.

Shoji nodded his head, as there was barely any more in there than there was in his own room.

Zach looked at Shoji in surprise, his eyes wide. "Really?"

"Shoji's room has even less," Kaminari said.

"I don't need much," Shoji said.

"The school will give you stuff if you need," Zach started, feeling weird about what Shoji just said. He glanced back over at his bed, and then at the desk and desk chair. "I thought they probably offered everyone this stuff."

"Wait, that's not your furniture?" Jirou asked in surprise.

Zach shook his head, and he frowned as he looked around his mostly empty room. _The bed, the blankets, the pillow, the desk and chair, they were all just in here for me when I arrived. And, my bag from the training camp with my things in it._

"Well hey dude, you should bring your stuff from home here," Sero said in surprise. He looked around the room, then he turned back to Zach and continued, "You lived by yourself, right? So you could just bring everything here."

"I don't-" Zach started. He frowned at Sero, then looked around his mostly empty room again. He thought about his drawers of clothes, his closet too, his extra shoes, his wall posters, his cookware, his tv. "My apartment caught fire while I was gone, so all my furniture…" he muttered.

Zach said it while his eyes pointed down. Every single person in front of him stared at him in a deadpan way at that response, and then all of their gazes turned annoyed and shifted to Sero whose face covered in sweat. Sero opened his mouth to apologize, but he really did not know what to say to that. No one had a response for what Zach just said, though half of them thought simultaneously, _Unlucky._

Kaminari opened his mouth to ask something, but Ashido jumped up first and broke the awkward silence by exclaiming, "Well did you know Sato can bake?!" Zach looked back up in confusion at Ashido. She continued quickly at his look, "You have to try some of his cake!"

Sato's eyes opened wide, but a more proud look came to his face as Zach shifted his gaze over to him. "Yeah! I'm making another chiffon cake tonight actually!" _I am now,_ Sato thought to himself, though he kept smiling as he was happy to make one anyway. _Hope I have enough ingredients._

"Yaoyorozu brought her bed from home," Jirou added, and Zach turned to the girl with earphone jacks sticking out of her ears. She snickered and added, "It doesn't really fit in the room." Yaoyorozu blushed and lifted a hand to cover her mouth with, then Midoriya added that Tokoyami had a sword in his room too. Tokoyami got annoyed at Midoriya for saying that, and then Aoyama exclaimed that Zach's room was not nearly dazzling enough.

Midoriya smiled as Zach looked back and forth between their classmates who were all telling him about the contest he missed so long ago. _We all realized it in the last few days since he left,_ Midoriya thought as he looked at the others. He knew they had all felt it too when they were left inside the front door earlier all feeling unsatisfied after Zach once again walked away without telling them anything. _We were all letting Zach do as he pleased since he got back. We let him set his own pace._ Midoriya's expression softened as Zach pursed his lips like he was holding back even as Mineta and Kaminari both tried getting him to agree that Sato making a cake was totally cheating. _When we should have been the ones setting it,_ Midoriya thought, and he opened his mouth to say something again.

Before Midoriya could speak, Zach opened his pursed lips and he tried to say something. He opened his mouth to respond to something Mineta just said, but he stopped and just froze there with his mouth open. And then Tsuyu Asui stepped forward while Zach was stuck in place looking like he had something to say but could not make out the words. "Zach," she whispered, and he turned to the girl and stopped trying to strain himself to speak. He was having so much difficulty getting out what he wanted to say for some reason, but his eyes just widened more as the shorter girl in front of him started, "I was so against anyone going to help you and Bakugo-chan. I- I thought it was the right thing to do," most of the class behind Tsuyu started staring at her with wide eyes as her voice cracked right there. "But, I feel like I stopped some of the others from going who might have, been able to save you before you had to kill that villain," Tsuyu's eyes watered up and she continued while shaking her head, "Which led to so many terrible things happening to you."

"Tsuyu," Zach started, lifting a hand up towards her. "It's not- don't worry about things like-"

"Zach," Tokoyami started, and Zach spun to the dark boy with a beak who stepped farther into the room. Mezo Shoji also stepped forward too, while Tokoyami continued, "I must also apologize. After seeing you in the woods that night, I believed you had turned to the dark side."

A mouth formed on one of Shoji's right dupli-arms, and he said, "I did as well. I'm sorry."

"It's not your faults," Zach started quickly. "It's not any of your-"

"I apologize too," Todoroki said. Zach spun towards him and his breathing sped up more. Todoroki looked away after making eye contact with Zach for a second, and he said in a low voice, "I, really thought you were a villain at the training camp. And I told the others as much," he added in a lower voice. "I should have had more faith in you."

"That's not-"

"I'm sorry I was so afraid of you," Mineta added. "Even though you were being really scary! I should have just, pretended to be scared for the villains, or something…"

"And I shouldn't have believed you actually killed Kirishima," Ashido started quickly. "I'm sorry, I should have known…"

Midoriya looked around as everyone in the room started apologizing to Zach. Things they were never able to say to him, because he had been avoiding talking to each of them since the day he returned back to class. He had avoided contact altogether, avoided getting personal with almost any of them. _Everyone had mixed feelings,_ Midoriya thought, while he pursed his lips himself at Zach's expression and his eyes that were darting back and forth around all his classmates. _No one knew what to think. We were all so confused over how to feel about him, and when he suddenly popped back up in the classroom, no one knew how to react. Even when he came and talked to me about certain things, I didn't know how to respond to him, because he wouldn't tell me everything. We all tried to treat things like normal, because that's how Zach did it. But it was impossible after all. We all agreed, even without really talking about it. Things couldn't keep going the way they were._

The look on Zach's face started to change more, and Midoriya felt his heart clench up even as the corners of his lips pulled up into a trembling smile. _We all want to get things back to normal. Our normal lives of working together and studying together, and pushing each other to be better heroes. Back to normal, the way they never were that second term._ The tears coming out of Zach's eyes were spreading to a few of his classmates now, and Midoriya's eyes were watering up as well. _I know everyone kept it in the back of their minds, even while we tried keeping up the fun act and pretending that everything was fine. I know because I felt it too. When I did not know how to react when I'd be sitting in class only to get a notification on my phone that Lifebringer just got in a confrontation with police at an active crime scene. We all knew you were alive, but we couldn't do anything to help you. You were clashing with the police, and saving lives, and you were all alone._

Zach did not know why he was crying. He did not even care though, that tears were spilling down the sides of his face freely while he clenched his eyes shut. He didn't know why they were all saying these things to him, why they chose now at this moment, or why he was not saying anything to them. He did not know why he was crying as they apologized, but he could not stop. Finally the tears came out of Midoriya's eyes too, and he started after Yaoyorozu apologized in a teary-eyed way herself, "I've told you over and over that I'm sorry, but you never accept it. So I won't say I'm sorry for letting you get taken this time, but Zach I'm sorry, because we were all confused when you came back different than you were the first semester, and we didn't know how to react to the new you. But it's still you, still our classmate and our friend." Zach opened his clenched eyes and stared at Midoriya in the middle of all his classmates, smiling faces yet many of which that had tears in their eyes just like Midoriya's teary-eyed smiling expression.

Midoriya held out his right hand, close enough that he could reach Zach. "Let's do it together. Let's become heroes, as a class, once again!"


	40. Chapter 40

**Disclaimer: I don't own Boku no Hero Academia. Now, enjoy the second longest chapter so far!**

 **Chapter 40:**

On Tuesday morning, Zach woke up and swung his legs over the side of his bed. He stretched his arms up over his head, looked around his red-tinted room, then he tapped on his head with his right hand while sticking his fingers back out of his glove. He slid them right back in while turning off Nightmare mode, something he still did not feel comfortable sleeping without. He got ready for the day and left his dorm in his school uniform, and he had on his usual black glove over his right hand.

 _Detention was pretty rough yesterday. Just two teachers and me. Guess if a lot of people know I have detention, they might be trying to make me feel safer by having both Aizawa and Present Mic in there, but it just kind of feels weird. Present Mic tried talking to me, and I just- I mean… I don't know why I have to act so weird around them. But I don't want to open up to them either. Why didn't they try to save me? Gah! Don't think about that kind of stuff this early in the morning. Keep a clear head for if villains attack and try to capture you, and just enjoy the rest. Or, look like your enjoying it, while you try to sniff out the real spy. I haven't gotten anywhere trying that though. Not that, I've really been trying. I've been avoiding talking to people, for that very reason. What if one of them is the spy?_

Zach put both hands up behind his head and let out a long sigh as he walked down the road towards the school. He looked a little ahead of him and to the right where someone else was walking, and he recognized the spikes of bleached blond hair anywhere. His eyes darted away quick, then he frowned after he looked the other way as him. _Why have I been like this around him?_ Zach stared towards Musutafu, then he glanced towards his school building again, and he saw the other boy out the corner of his eyes also with his head partially sideways and looking out the corners back his way. Bakugo's head snapped back straight forwards as the two of them looking out the corners of their eyes made eye contact for a split second.

 _Damn it,_ Zach thought, turning forward completely. He took a few deep breaths, feeling pretty nervous about what he was thinking about doing. _He didn't come to my room on Sunday. Not that I expected him to- not that I expected anyone to! But, he didn't show up. I still, really haven't talked to him, those times he angrily confronted me aside._ Zach started speeding up a little bit. _And if I don't initiate it, we never will._ He slowed right before catching up, and he thought, _Do we need to?_ Bakugo started turning to the side as he heard Zach get up close, and Zach gulped before taking another few steps so he was closer to his classmate. "What?" Bakugo snapped while still walking, his hands down in his pockets and an annoyed look on his face.

"I just-" Zach started. He froze for a second, then he continued quick since they were still walking to class. This was going to be a short conversation anyway, but the longer he hesitated the shorter it would be and he might not get out what he wanted to say. "I guess, I'm sorry about Camino Ward."

Bakugo stopped for a second, and Zach kept walking so they were finally next to each other, then Zach kept walking since they _did_ need to get to class, and since he did not want other people walking up to them after what he just said. "What are you talking about this-" Bakugo started, and he sped-walked forward while frowning at the shorter boy by a couple of inches. "Why are you sorry?" Bakugo grumbled, his tone annoyed still, though Zach figured that was just his normal voice.

"I thought, it was a smart move to try and trick the villains," Zach said. "And I didn't tell you what I was doing, and I just kind of assumed you would…" Zach started shaking his head, as he was the one trying to apologize here. "But yeah, I didn't explain it to you, so I know I must have looked like a real villain. That must have, sucked," Zach muttered. He imagined in his head how it would have felt to be sitting in that chair, with one of his classmates by the villains' sides. He thought about that a lot actually, every time he thought about what would happen when the traitor revealed themselves.

"Don't bring up stupid things," Bakugo said, and Zach opened his eyes a bit in surprise. "That's just, in the past now," Bakugo said. He got an even more annoyed look on his face, as it sounded like Zach was accusing him of being scared back then, but Zach never said those words so he couldn't snap about it. He just grimaced that Zach was bringing this up now, then he turned his head a little to the side and looked out the left corners of his eyes. Zach had a small relieved look on his face, like this went better than he was expecting, and that annoyed Bakugo a bit too. But he kept frowning for a different reason as they were nearing the school, and he said, "Did you-"

Zach turned back to him, losing his satisfied look that he finally said something to Bakugo. He got a confused expression on his face at Bakugo's which looked like he wanted to ask something. There were a lot of things Zach was nervous about Bakugo asking, but his eyes opened wide as the spiky-haired blond said, "Did you take down those villains this weekend?" Bakugo was deadly serious, and he stared straight at Zach's face to see his reaction.

Zach's eyes had shot open wide at the question. He stopped where he was, and Bakugo froze too with his own eyes widening. Then, Zach's lips pursed and the corners of them pulled up a bit, which just made Bakugo glare at him even more discerningly. "Pff, pf, sorry," Zach blew some wind between his pursed lips as if trying not to laugh, then he apologized quickly. Bakugo kept glaring at him for that reaction, then Zach said with a small smile like he was still trying to hold back laughter, "It's just, that's what Kaminari thought."

Katsuki Bakugo's eyes opened wide, and Zach tried hard not to make it look like he was still holding back laughter. Bakugo's face filled with anger though and he spun from Zach and started marching towards the building faster, "Shut up. I didn't think you actually did." Zach smirked for a brief second as Bakugo marched away, clearly feeling dumb for being compared to Kaminari. Zach figured saying that Kaminari expected the same thing was an easy way to get someone surprisingly smart like Bakugo to blow it off as a stupid conspiracy theory. He still let out a small breath of relief though as that was closer than he wanted to get to people figuring out what he had done.

He started walking towards the school again once Bakugo was pretty far ahead. He smiled a bit too as he looked towards Bakugo's back. _Admittedly, he's another person I can trust completely. One of the only ones besides Midoriya and All Might. There are others- no, no don't just start canceling people out because they're your friends. Everyone could be the spy. Even the people you trust most… But, Bakugo is not. I heard what All For One and Shigaraki said to him. I know for a fact he's not actually with them. And, Kirishima got a hole blown in his chest. So he couldn't be, right? And, who else? Kaminari? Yaoyorozu? Jirou? Sero? Can I cross them off?_ "Hey Zach," a voice called out behind him.

Zach turned his head and looked towards a boy in a school uniform whose skin was completely black. _What about Kuroiro? There's no way. He- why go through that QuirkBook fiasco, when he could have just called up Kurogiri and told him? That's the best reason I have? He came to save me at Camino Ward too, but so did a lot of them I can't be too sure about…_ "Hey Kuroiro," Zach said as his Class-B friend reached him. He had barely spoken to Kuroiro since he had gotten back, but Kuroiro was surprised as Zach actually waited for him to walk up this time instead of just heading inside so he would have to catch up. "How's it going?" Zach asked.

"Pretty, good," Kuroiro said, actually feeling better just from Zach's question alone. "You?" He asked, as Zach started walking forward towards the school again.

They walked side by side, and Zach replied with a sigh, "Not great. I got detention."

"You did?" Kuroiro asked. Zach nodded, and Shihai followed up with, "What for?"

"I-" Zach started. He turned to Kuroiro, then frowned for a second. _If Shigaraki doesn't know already that I was out at the time, and the spy is in Class-B…_ "Don't tell anyone?" Zach asked. Kuroiro nodded, and Zach had just pretty much convinced himself that Kuroiro was not the spy anyway. "I snuck off campus," Zach replied. Kuroiro's narrow slanted eyes opened a little wider, and Zach continued after that surprised look, "Spent the whole weekend in Kyoto."

"Why?" Kuroiro asked. _Kyoto? This weekend? Kyoto's close to Nagoya, and Ugina City… Probably not._

"Just needed a little vacation. Definitely should have asked for the time off though, instead of slipping out without my I.D." He paused and scratched the back of his head, before adding, "They're changing the system up a bit because of that."

Kuroiro shook his head at Zach's response. They kept walking through the halls they just entered, and Kuroiro said before they reached the classrooms, "My Grandma's health is better." Zach turned towards him in a little confusion, and Kuroiro continued while looking back, "It's better, than before you saved her." Zach blinked a few times, then he scrunched his face up in more confusion and came to a full stop.

"What, do you mean?" Zach asked.

Kuroiro stopped too, then he looked around at some other students walking by them. A lot of them looked at Zach, and a few looked at Kuroiro too remembering how he had called for help in the previous term, and how that masked figure had replied. Kuroiro paused after Zach's question, wondering if this was big news to the boy in front of him. "My Grandma had memory problems. Her mind was, deteriorating. After she overdosed though, and you brought her back to life…" Zach's eyes started growing wider, and then they shot down as he moved his right hand in front of him a little. "She was fine," Kuroiro finished. "She's back to her old self again. I don't know, if it's permanent," the darker boy continued. "But for a few months now, she's been doing great."

Zach took a few deep breaths to try and calm himself down at what Kuroiro was telling him. "You okay?" Kuroiro asked.

"Y-Yeah," Zach said, and he nodded a few times. He turned and started for his classroom again, but he glanced over his shoulder and said, "I'm glad, she's doing alright- better! I'm really glad." _Even though, that changes everything,_ Zach thought.

The two of them split off as they reached their classrooms. Zach headed into Class-A, and he walked right over to his seat with a semi-panicked look on his face that had some of his classmates wondering what was wrong. Bakugo watched Zach go and sit down, a look of confusion on his face as he had just seen Zach a few minutes ago looking like he was in a great mood. Zach sat down and he brought his left hand up to his mouth immediately, lowering his head and looking down in front of him as he thought faster than he could keep up with. _I never wanted to bring back people who died of old age and diseases and such. I thought it would be going to far, like playing God! But it was beyond that. I figured if I brought them back, they might just die again soon anyway. It's why even saving Kuroiro's Grandma I was looking for reasons not to save old people. I thought saving her tired me out more than saving younger people, and maybe that was true, but maybe it wasn't because she was old! Maybe I was doing more than just reversing the overdose? Did I fix her brain problems? I fixed her memory, by bringing her back to life? How far does that extend?_

 _If someone with no legs dies and I save them, would they regrow appendages? I saved a guy who had lost an arm before, but I put his cut-off arm close to his body, pressed them together while I brought him back. I could actually feel my left arm ripping off, and it hurt so much, but it reattached! If I didn't put it there, would it have grown back on its own? Would that have just caused me more pain?! If I bring back someone who was insane for their entire life, can I make them sane? And, if people were dying of terminal illnesses, and I was letting them die because I thought that disease would just kill them again, was I wrong?! How many more hundreds could I have saved going for more than just accidents?! I could save everyone? Can I?! I can't take that! Even if I could handle all that- I'd be making the human race immortal! No one would ever have to die again? Could I control life to that extent? Holy shit! Fuck! Do I have the right to do this? Stopping brutal, unexpected accidents, is one thing. But someone who gets the plug pulled on them because they're brain dead on life support- if I bring them back will they become a fully functioning human again?! I didn't want to test this to certain levels, because the control over life to this extent is too much. Death with a single touch, and the key to immortality! And Nightmare! It's too much. I can't do this. I can't even, help an out-of-control truck! I ran away, without even checking if anyone was dead. If they were- Not Lifebringer! Why do I still shout that in my own fucking head?! Shigaraki isn't here! I don't, have to be scared all the time. But I do! At any time- I can't! I have to be able to stop for a few minutes, put my face out in the open and save lives, even if the villains could get me! Is that what I was afraid for? Not just that the truck was set up, or someone could start recording the scene, but if I found a dead person and started healing them… I'd have to stay in that spot for as long as it takes! Hospitals would report that I'm there bringing dead patients back to life. That's why I haven't been going there when I get time away from school. I've been actively avoiding hospitals, even though I could save people there! That's not heroic!_

Shota Aizawa started up homeroom a couple of minutes ago, but he was getting annoyed as he looked over towards Sazaki again to see him on the verge of mumbling, but not making any sound out that would give cause for scolding. His hand was in front of his mouth and he was looking forward like he was paying attention, but Aizawa could see him thinking so hard about something that it almost felt like he was the one interrupting Zach, not that his talking was stopping the boy from thinking his existential crisis.

Zach actually focused after another few seconds, Aizawa thought in part due to the fact that he started speaking a bit louder. Zach looked at Aizawa and pushed all those thoughts from his head for now. _I'm in school. I wouldn't be safe at a hospital. Too much news would get around about what I'm doing again, and then everyone else would get mad that I'm not at their hospitals while they're dying. Having a portal user on my side really would be great. Someone better than Kurogiri- well, with a better Quirk. It's not hard to be better than that sack of shit shadow fuck._ And Aizawa sweatdropped once again as the boy who started paying attention to him was suddenly glaring like he was looking at a villain, though at least Aizawa could tell the look was not really directed at him.

* * *

At lunch on Tuesday, Zach found himself lost in thought over what Kuroiro told him earlier. He was sitting at the edge of the table on Kaminari's left, across the table from Sero, with Mineta on Sero's left side. After a couple of minutes of lunch, Zach noticed it seemed a bit quiet around him and he lifted his gaze from his tray he had been staring at for two minutes straight now while in constant thought. "Whoa," Mineta said when Zach finally looked up. "I didn't know someone could have a staring contest with mashed potatoes."

Zach sweatdropped as he realized he had just been looking at his food nonstop since he got it. He lifted some mashed potatoes up and shoved them in his mouth as a response, as it proving that he won the contest and was eating his opponent as the victor. The attempt to make a joke out of it fell flat to the other three though, and Sero asked the boy across from him, a sweatdrop of his own on the side of his head. "What have you been thinking about all morning? You've been acting weird since you came into class."

"Weirder than usual," Kaminari added with a laugh, and Zach frowned in annoyance at him, which made Jirou elbow Kaminari from his other side.

Jirou looked in after she elbowed Kaminari though, and she said to Zach while looking past the hunched-over blond, "I noticed it too though. You okay?"

Zach looked around at them, then he sighed and nodded his head. "I just got, some medical news," he said. He twisted his lip again and frowned back at his food.

"Are you dying?" Kaminari asked in shock, which made Jirou hit him again, though she looked nervous too after doing so.

"No," Zach said, shaking his head but not looking up from his food like it was that shocking a question. "I just figured out, that my Quirk heals people." Mineta, Sero, Kaminari, Jirou, and Ojiro who sat across from Jirou all looked towards Zach in confusion.

"Well, yeah," Mineta started. "Didn't you already know-"

"No, I mean," Zach started, shaking his head again, before looking up as he figured he was not explaining this well. He was saying it like they all knew what he was thinking about, since he was way past just discovering it himself. He paused as he wondered what their reactions would be, but he also wanted some second opinions on it he realized. "Say I heal someone with heart disease. They had it for years, and they died after a long fight with it at like, fifty-five. Would that be okay?" Zach asked.

That was a deep, and kind of confusing question to the others around him. "Well, why not?" Jirou asked.

Zach opened his mouth, but Sero lifted a hand and scratched his chin while answering himself, "I don't know." His hesitant response made a few of the others look his way in surprise, and Sero continued, "Don't you think, maybe it would just be their time?"

"See, that's what I thought," Zach said, holding up his left hand and nodding in agreement. He frowned though, and he rose that left hand up to the side of his head and started scratching it. "But, now I learned… What if I bring them back, and they don't have heart disease anymore?" Sero's eyes widened, and he lowered his hand from his chin while staring at Zach with wide eyes as this was not really a hypothetical question at all Zach was asking.

"You can do that?" Mineta asked with big eyes.

Zach hesitated as he looked around and saw a bunch of big sets of eyes looking at him. He lowered the hand he was scratching his head with, and he responded with a slow nod, "I think so. I, might be wrong," he added on top. "But if I could do it," he continued, getting back to his reason for bringing it up in the first place. "Should I? Save old people too, I mean? If they died at sixty from a rare disease, but could have lived twenty more years?" He frowned and looked back at his food, and he started moving his fork around in his potatoes again. "It feels like I should," he whispered, "but then where do I draw the line?" His voice got softer, "How old do I cut it off? Or do I do a case by case decision? And if I do that, won't everyone get mad at me, when I choose to let their loved ones…" he lowered his fork and just stared at his potatoes again in such a serious way as this decision weighed down on him.

Suddenly that decision was weighing down on the five closest to him at the table too though, and they all sweatdropped as they tried to figure out a way to respond to this philosophical question. It would only ever be asked as a philosophical question normally, maybe something a philosophy teacher would ask in college if they had Zach's Quirk as a hypothetical. Actually having that Quirk and making the question real though, it made it a lot tougher to say what they would actually do.

"Well," Mineta began, and he scratched the back of his head. The others looked to him to see if he was actually going to pull the pin on this grenade, and Zach looked towards him too which made Mineta more nervous. He continued though, "How were you choosing who to save before?"

"I just, went wherever there was a fatal accident," Zach said. "But it was always an accident. Unpredictable. Mostly young people, before their time… Whenever that might be," he whispered the last part and lifted his left hand to rub his head again.

Ojiro looked at Zach with his bottom lip lowering farther. _When is someone's "time," if he could save them from anything? That's, a scary thought,_ Ojiro shivered trying to imagine the implications of that.

Zach felt a buzz in his pocket, and he was glad to get an outlet from this conversation even if he had started it in the first place by bringing up something weird. Zach pulling out his phone relieved a few of the others who thought he might still want them to give him answers. Kaminari hummed though from Zach's right side, still scratching his chin as he thought about it himself. "I think," Kaminari said, and Jirou looked at him in annoyance for keeping it going when it seemed like Zach had given them an out of the conversation.

Zach glanced up from his phone with a small smile on his face, making Kaminari wonder what he had just been looking at. The blond with spikes of hair pointed down at the sides of his head and sticking up in the middle held up a hand and offered, "Why not, just save whoever you can?" Zach got a slightly confused look on his face, and Kaminari continued, "It's not like you can be everywhere at once. So you don't need to think about how you could save everyone everywhere, right? It's not like you have that portal guy to send you everywhere when people die now. You can only do it if you're there at the time."

A few of the others looked at Kaminari in surprise too, and Jirou gawked at the back of his head as this actually sounded like a good idea. Zach smiled after a few seconds though, and he nodded his head and said, "You're right. Guess I'm just a little nervous, learning more parts of my Quirk." He glanced down at his right hand holding his phone, and he turned his phone over to stare at the back of his glove. Mineta gulped as Zach stared at his hand like it was some crazy powerful weapon, then the short boy looked up towards the purple balls on top of his head. For once he was really glad he was not born with a super powerful Quirk, if these were the sort of philosophical questions those people had to ask themselves.

Zach turned his phone back over and let out a small laugh while shaking his head at how serious he had been all morning. The others felt relieved to see him smile for real for the first time all day, and they got back to their lunches while bringing up the afternoon training Cementoss mentioned before lunch. Zach had his phone open to QuirkBook though as the others across the table talked about class, and Kaminari leaned over and looked down at what Zach was looking at. "Hey, where's that?" Kaminari asked.

Zach reached forward and took a bite of his food while looking down and thinking nostalgically on the picture he had pulled up. He scrolled back up the picture so Kaminari could read the description, then Kaminari lifted his eyebrows and asked skeptically, "You went on vacation, and you went to go see a play?"

"It was really good," Zach countered, defending his choice of vacation activity since he knew it was not a very manly thing to do. He looked back and switched the topic back to why he was really smiling at the picture, "Those two recognized me, the girl really since she was sitting next to me."

Sero turned from Mineta, Ojiro, and Jirou and back to Zach who turned the phone a bit so he could see when he saw Sero look over. He turned it back after Sero looked at the selfie that had Zach in the middle of the couple who were smiling on either side with the girl holding her arm out in front of them to take the selfie. Zach stared at the picture he remembered so fondly, and he chuckled again at the description on top where the girl who posted it said they bumped into Lifebringer on Saturday night and where it was. _I hope the teachers see this,_ Zach thought, just in case they still did not fully believe his alibi.

Kaminari frowned though as he read it, and he finally sighed and scratched the back of his head while leaning back. Zach gave him a confused look at that reaction, and Kaminari said, "I really thought you went to Ugina City."

Zach started laughing again and Sero joined in with him. Zach then turned his phone back as he stopped laughing, because he admittedly did not find it all that funny as well as he was acting like it was. He stared at the screen and scrolled down a bit, shaking his head at how many likes, comments, and shares the picture already had for being posted not long ago. His own account was private and he asked them not to tag him, but he did turn on notifications for if any of the people he met over the weekend posted something.

He looked down and watched as the likes continued going up, and more people shared it over and over. _This is crazy,_ Zach thought. He had pulled out his phone soon after it was posted, and he was amazed at how many people were sharing. He read some of the comments and felt a little conflicted over what he was reading. _"Is that really him?" "That does look like him!" "Why would Lifebringer be at a play?!" "Why was he there instead of bringing people back to life?"_ He scrolled past a few names in bold where people had tagged their friends to come look at this if they did not want to share it themselves, then he frowned at the next comment he saw. _"Where'd he get those scars? I bet he got them while still with the villains. Who was he fighting? #Lifebringerisavillain" That's not cool._ Zach lowered his phone a bit.

 _I never really liked social media,_ he thought, but he still lifted his phone back up and clicked a button that told him there were new comments farther up. Zach's eyes opened wide at a picture that had just been posted in the comment section and was getting a lot of likes to keep it near the top. _"This is so crazy. I was eating dinner with the family at Steak Crew Bar-B-Q on that same night. I swore I saw Lifebringer, but my husband told me it wasn't him! This is the same person though!"_ Zach sweatdropped, and there was no denying that the person the woman had secretly taken a picture of was the same one in the picture above. And considering the picture above had a description that claimed he had talked to them and agreed for the pictures, and it looked close enough that it was pretty obviously him, it was clear the other picture was him too.

 _Can I go anywhere? Even if only a few people recognize me, once they say something everyone else will- Oh wait! Now it's not going to just be a few people. If these pictures start getting around, the media will show them too. Everyone's going to know what I look like now. Ugh, how am I going to get, around…_ Zach looked down beneath the second picture. He looked in the reply section of the picture comment that was getting the most likes fast, and there was a reply just under that second picture that was at the top because of the amount of times it had been liked now too.

Zach read the entire comment and then lowered the phone and lifted his left hand to his forehead. He started taking deep breaths, but his face scrunched up under his hand, and his eyes had to clench shut behind his arm. _This is so frustrating,_ he thought, and he looked back down to his phone. Kaminari looked back over too. Zach had been reading to himself for a couple of minutes, and he read the comment that Zach was reading again himself. _"Both of these things happened on Saturday night in Kyoto? At the same time, in the same city, only a short walk from Steak Crew Bar-B-Q, my wife was dying in the hospital. What was Lifebringer- no, Zach Sazaki, doing there when this was happening? In fact, why wasn't he at U.A. where the mass media told us he returned to without any proof? Is he still with the villains? If not, then why didn't he save her?! Zach Sazaki if you're reading this why didn't you save her?"_ Zach rubbed his forehead again, while Kaminari glanced up with some pity in his eyes at Zach's expression. _Why, is it getting so many likes? Does that mean, everyone thinks the same? I should have saved her? I should have._

He shook his head around and looked back at his food. _I don't even know the circumstances. Save, who I can save. Like Kaminari said, save people who I can… "Only a short walk from…" Damn it. Damn it damn it. I could have saved her, if I had just taken a quick detour to check if anyone had died- do I have to do that every thirty minutes?_ Zach closed his eyes and let out a long sigh, then he turned off his phone and shoved it into his pocket. _That's enough QuirkBook for today._

* * *

On Wednesday afternoon, classes at U.A. had ended for the day, but Zach Sazaki was stuck in Class-A for the third day of his detention. He sat at his seat with his notes in front of him, figuring he'd do something productive while stuck in there until the hour was over. Aizawa and Present Mic sat in the room with him, and Mic had his shoulders slouched and his hands on his knees, tapping his fingers down impatiently as he checked the time again.

Aizawa just sat silently behind his desk and looked a lot more patient than his colleague who wanted to start talking or something to make this less awkward. Neither of the other two looked like they thought it was weird the room was quiet though, and it made sweat slid down the side of Yamada's face. The silence had gotten to him on the first day of Sazaki's detention too though, and the awkward conversation they wound up having when he tried talking to the student about Kyoto was too much for Present Mic to want to risk it again. _"Kyoto huh?" "Yep." "I've spent a lot of time in Kyoto-" "Oh…"_ Mic grimaced at the idea of trying to start up another one-on-one talk with this kid, since Aizawa had been no help and would not join in.

Present Mic glanced up at the clock and his bottom lip dropped as he saw it was only fourteen minutes in, not even a quarter of the way through this boring punishment. So when the ground shook beneath them, Yamada shot up to his feet with a big smile on his face before quickly wiping it and exclaiming, "What was that?!"

Zach also jumped out of his seat, and Aizawa was out of his as well. They spun towards the windows but did not see anything outside, then they felt the ground shake beneath them again. "Maybe it's Mount Lady," Zach started, turning back to his teachers. Her agency was in the same city as the school after all, but then again, _If she's in her big form. She must be fighting a villain,_ Zach thought.

"It sounds close to the school," Aizawa said, and he ran for the door. He turned his head sideways seeing Sazaki running towards him, and he frowned but did not say anything. He was supposed to watch over Sazaki for the hour after school ended, and if there was something distracting him from doing that, then there was a possibility that that was the purpose of the shaking in the first place. The three of them ran down the hall towards an intersection into a hallway lined with windows that had a better view out in front of the building. They ran into that hallway, and Zach's eyes grew wide at the two pillars of smoke rising from only what looked like two or three blocks from the school building.

"Should we go?" Present Mic muttered, turning to Aizawa to see what he thought.

"We don't know the current situation-" Aizawa began, and then his eyes that had remained at their normal size even when he saw the smoke started to widen. Mic spun back to the window while Zach's bottom lip lowered in shock, and they stared at the giant woman with long blonde hair who was falling backwards. She put her hands behind her and pressed them into buildings on the side of the one she was falling towards, so the one she hit only got a few broken windows. The ones she used for balance also got cracked walls and a few smashed windows, but Mt. Lady pushed herself back up and then turned her body sideways even in the big road she was standing in to prevent that happening again. She lifted up a huge foot to slam down, but the two teachers and the boy watching from U.A. could see the trail of blood coming out of her left nostril and the fact that she was missing one of the blue horns of her costume.

"But we have to go," Aizawa finished after seeing the state Mt. Lady was in. _How many other heroes are there already? What's happening?_

"Let me come too," Zach said. Aizawa and Present Mic both spun and looked down at the short boy standing there and looking out the windows. He spun to them with wide eyes, but his shaking lips stopped after a second and he said, "Someone might need my help."

"We'll be enough," Aizawa started.

"And what if someone's already died?" Zach asked, his eyes widening at his teacher's response and his fists clenching at his sides.

"We don't have time for this," Mic began, turning back and starting to run.

"You're currently in detention for leaving school and breaking the rules," Aizawa said, his eyes narrowing at the boy in front of him. They darted right as Mt. Lady stumbled backwards and made the ground shake a few more times, then he turned back and started to run while saying, "I'll leave you with-"

"Why do you get to decide?" Zach asked, glaring at Aizawa's back as he was starting to run. Aizawa stopped, and Zach pursed his lips at the tone he was taking with his teacher. He did not care if he got in more trouble right now though, and he continued in a loud voice, "If someone's dead out there already, what can you do about it? I'm not saying I can do anything against whatever villain's out there, but I am the _only_ one who can save people who have already died." Aizawa turned his head, and Zach stared straight up into his eyes with a serious one in his own. "You know it's true. I don't know, if you have some moral standing on what I do bringing people back, or if you're for it or what, but if someone's dead out there then they have a family whose begging right now. They are begging that I run over there from U.A., they-"

"Let's go," Aizawa spun back around, an annoyed look on his face as he started running. Zach stopped arguing and sprinted right after him, while the teacher in black with a raggedy scarf around his neck glared ahead. _If they're already dead, they're beyond saving. That's what, I used to think at least… "Why do you get to decide?"_ Aizawa grit his teeth more, _He's right. He has a provisional license, and there are people who only he can save. If I knew more about the situation I could leave him behind, but that time limit of his._ "Hmm-"

"Aizawa sensei!"

The two of them were just reaching the front of the school building, but the shout behind them made them stop and spin. Running their way was the boy who just shouted, who had curly green hair and his hero uniform on since he was just training. And behind him was another boy with half red hair and half white, also wearing his blue hero outfit. Midoriya and Todoroki left the after-school training they had just gotten started with, and they each stared at Zach in surprise for a few seconds seeing him in his school uniform about to run out after Present Mic who was now getting far ahead of them.

"Are you two going?" Todoroki asked. "Let us-"

Aizawa darted his gaze and saw Mic almost at the gate, and he knew whatever he said was going to receive complaints from the two behind him. _Actually, this works better,_ "Are you two?" Aizawa questioned. The way the question was asked implied he was not telling them not to, and that made both of them sprint forward even as their eyes were huge at their teacher's response. Aizawa turned and ran out the door and Zach turned and ran out too, while Midoriya and Todoroki sprinted up behind them.

"What's going on?" Todoroki asked as he reached up behind Aizawa.

"We're about to find out," Aizawa replied. "Think of this as a class," he continued, and the other three looked towards him, while he reached up and put a pair of yellow goggles on over his head. His eyes darted to the side at Sazaki who was not wearing his hero uniform, then he turned his head a bit and looked back while saying, "Listen to what I say. Follow me. And don't fail. Sazaki, don't use your power to fight."

Zach grit his teeth but responded quickly, "I'll just use it to bring people back, if anyone's died."

Midoriya stared at Zach's back right in front of him, and after a second he smiled. It was a small smile and wiped fast as he returned to his serious look, but he thought about his classmate a week ago compared to now. _Instead of running away, he's running towards it,_ Midoriya refocused and snapped his gaze up towards another pillar of black smoke as the ground shook again.

"Todoroki, work on putting out whatever fires there are," Aizawa said. He had just nodded at the man at the gate of U.A. who looked at Aizawa and around at the students, then specifically Sazaki. His eyes darted back to Aizawa, but the new security guard at the gate of the school did not say anything when the ground shook again and felt bigger that time. The reason it felt bigger was also the reason Aizawa closed his mouth and just started running faster, because they saw over the tops of buildings Mt. Lady falling backwards and vanishing from their eyesight.

"Someone's fighting at Mt. Lady's strength?" Zach said, his voice nervous even as he tried to keep calm and serious. _Ganeshi? Did Shigaraki send Ganeshi here to drag me out?! Don't think about that! Midoriya, Todoroki, Aizawa sensei, other heroes around. And it's probably not even a kidnapping! Forget about that! It's paranoia at this point! There are other villains here, right now. Ones you're not imagining. Ones fighting Mt. Lady and destroying part of the city, and putting people's lives in danger!_

Midoriya shook his head while they turned around a corner and kept running towards the scene. He did not just sprint ahead of Aizawa sensei since they did not know the situation, and he did not want to run in on the scene and get in the way if there was already a plan to take down the villain in action. Aizawa said to "follow me" so Midoriya kept behind the teacher and kept his thoughts on what they could do to help when they arrived instead of how he could arrive quicker. "It's not necessarily," Midoriya said. Todoroki looked to the side and Zach turned his head sideways from just in front of him to look back. Midoriya had a thoughtful look on his face, and he continued, "If the villain is strong enough to hurt her at all, but isn't a huge villain him or herself, then their best move would be to use the environment around her. Jumping back and forth inside of buildings or darting around using the city to their advantage."

"That's even worse than just a villain at her strength," Todoroki said in a low voice. He thought about running up and freezing a giant villain, but if the enemy had good mobility as well then that was a different and less simple scenario. Unfortunately, they had no more time to theorize. They turned the next corner, and they saw Mt. Lady up ahead with her palms on the ground at her sides as she pushed back up on the street. Higher up the street level on the fourth floor of the building on Mt. Lady's right, Kamui Woods was hanging off the side of the building with one arm of wooden branches attached to the wall and the other reaching inside.

Kamui Woods pulled out of the floor and had two people in his branches who started coughing loudly as he pulled them out. "Todoroki," Aizawa said as he kept running down the street.

Todoroki nodded and he ran towards the building, using his right side to create ice that he focused towards the third and fourth floors where there was a lot of smoke coming out of. Todoroki called up to Kamui Woods asking about other people inside, but he glanced out the left corners of his eyes at the other three who kept running ahead. _I want to get over there fast,_ his head snapped back up as Kamui Woods responded about other people still inside as well as the ones on the upper floors that had smoke rising up into them too. The pro hero shouted back down that there was another fire as well though, and Todoroki spun towards where he saw the other plume of black smoke rising from back at the school when he and Midoriya first looked out into Musutafu.

Zach darted his gaze back and forth as they ran towards the giant woman who got back up on her feet just ahead of her now. Her huge body was blocking off most of what was going on, but once she stood they were able to see past her legs and the battleground just ahead. Zach and Midoriya's eyes opened wide at the sight of the street that both of them had been on many times before. It was chaos. There were two cars slammed into each other on one side with another upside-down on top of them crushed in the center so the sides were pushed up. There were holes and cracks in the street, scattered injured pro heroes, and two villains were unconscious near Backdraft who was dragging them backwards to get behind Mt. Lady who was at his side.

"What's the situation here?" Aizawa called out as he ran towards the hero whose uniform made him look like a fireman.

Backdraft spun his head and said, "Eraser Head! Good, this is getting out of control."

"It already looks out of control," Aizawa said as he came to a stop in between Mt. Lady's right leg and Backdraft. Aizawa looked down at the two villains who he assumed were such since he did not recognize them, they were wrapped up in Kamui Woods' branches, and they were wearing costumes that looked pretty menacing. Considering the expressions of the other heroes and how intense everyone still was, Aizawa asked the hero who put down the villains and lifted back up his arms that had red water taps on the ends of them, "What are the other villains' Quirks?"

"There's only one left," Backdraft said, while Mt. Lady picked up her right foot on their lefts and started running forward. The others all spun as her footsteps shook the ground and made wind fly towards them, then she stopped right before the next intersection that had some cars pushed to the sides, and cracked or broken windows up the sides of the buildings adjacent. She came to a stop because Death Arms came flying out of the right side of that intersection. His head was snapped back, and the street lamppost he was using as a weapon was bouncing on the ground below him in two pieces. Backdraft continued while Mt. Lady ran into the intersection and blocked the side Death Arms just came flying in from and the side where the wounded pro hero landed and skid to a stop. "He did not seem too much stronger than his 'brothers,' what he called these two. After the first two were captured though, he injected himself with something and went out of control."

Zach's eyes opened wide, and he said in shock, "Trigger."

Aizawa just opened his mouth to say the same thing, but instead he turned his head a bit and said, "What do you know of it?" Zach's face was nervous as he looked back at his teacher, and the boy actually gulped feeling less sure about this than he was earlier.

"That makes sense," Backdraft said, "but its effect was strange. The villain's Quirk seemed like a purely strength enhancing one, like these two. It must have been a composite though, activated by Trigger. He's, causing these explosions-"

At the same time as he said it, Mt. Lady swung her right fist down into the street in front of her. She started pushing her feet down behind her, and she ran down the intersecting street while yelling out and slamming her fist even harder down. The ground shook hard when her fist connected, but the ground shook much worse a second later and a blast erupted from around the corner. _**BA-DOOOM!**_ A blast of flames threw Mt. Lady back into the intersection, but she bent her legs and slammed down her feet on the sides of the road, slamming a hand down in front of her too. It worked in slowing her down, but a few of the other pro heroes watching her sweatdropped at how much collateral damage she was doing fighting with her giant body like this. Those were problems for later though, and Aizawa started sprinting forward to reach that intersection.

"It has something to do with when he takes damage!" Backdraft shouted towards Eraser Head, but he turned and was running a different way. "I have to put out more of the fires! I only stopped to get the villains farther from their brother. At first he was trying to rescue them, even after he shot up for a little, but-"

 _ **"RRAAAAA!"**_ The villain screamed. Mt. Lady stepped backwards, then she brought her leg she was pulling back forward in a hard punt. As her leg was crossing the intersection in front of where Aizawa was running though, a figure sprinting towards her did a quick sidestep to his right. He even shifted his head left first, then pulled right in a fast motion that even if she had tried shifting her leg's momentum, she would have done so in the opposite direction. The villain bent his knees and leapt off the ground, his rippling muscular right arm pulled back behind him.

Aizawa's eyes shot open and his pupils flashed red, then the villain slammed his pulled back right arm into Mt. Lady's stomach. She gasped and spat as her eyes bulged from the punch, and Aizawa grimaced but kept running forward. _Is he that strong? I can most likely cancel out whatever explosions Backdraft mentioned, but his strength is no joke, and Midoriya's guess was right. He's got speed._ Aizawa's bandages that were around his neck lifted up and he swung his arms forward. The villain snapped his head to the side and jumped backwards, swinging his arm out in front of him to try and smack the curling white cloths away. The villain's reaction was fast, but Aizawa's special cloths wrapped around as the villain's arm slammed into them, and then Aizawa tugged back the other way and changed the villain's momentum in midair.

At the same moment, Buster Hero: Air Jet came flying up in the air using a rocket on his back after just dropping two injured civilians off over at some police cars that had arrived and were setting up a perimeter. The pro hero wore an all white and red costume, and he lifted his white right arm with a cannon on it and called out, "Take this, villain!" He fired at the villain's head as Aizawa pulled forward through the air, and the explosion sent him swinging down even harder towards the ground as Aizawa slammed his arms down. Aizawa could feel the tug of the villain against him when he tried yanking through the air, and his feet were skidding forward from it showing the strength of the villain was still enough to do that even with no ground for using his whole weight.

The villain hit down hard though, but as he hit the ground, he slammed his other fist down with him and made the collision so much more forceful. He slammed through the pavement, blasted up a lot of dust with the debris, and Aizawa grimaced as he lost sight of the villain. Aizawa felt his bands pull tight right after he thought about how he could not see the villain anymore, and he tried unraveling them from his opponent fast. The villain yanked back though, and Aizawa flew into the dust while the villain lifted up and slammed his left hand forward. Aizawa came through the dust and debris and he tried canceling the villain's Quirk as quickly as he could, while also twisting his body to dodge the hit that would still be bone-crushing even without whatever explosion part of its Quirk he was still trying to erase. He did not twist his body very far, but then through the smoke on his left, a boy in a green costume shot out and slammed a kick into the villain's arm in mid-punch.

Aizawa collided with the arm that turned sideways, then Midoriya grabbed the back of his teacher's black shirt and jumped them both back and away from the villain swinging its other arm around now. Aizawa unwrapped his bandages fast as the villain swung his large black arm at them. The swing of the arm blew away a lot of the dust around him, and from thirty feet away Zach stared at the villain who Midoriya just appeared at in an instant despite having been standing just ahead of him a moment ago. They were keeping the villain in the middle of the intersection, and there were heroes on all sides as Air Jet flew down and landed on the side of the intersection opposite where Mt. Lady had gotten back up to a single knee after the punch to her gut. Midoriya and Aizawa leapt back after they landed to get back on the road Zach was on, a little farther ahead and to his left.

Zach grimaced as he looked over towards Aizawa, then around at the area in the middle of the city. He could see people gathered up near their windows and a lot of people on the first floors of buildings they had been rushed to off the road by heroes who were trying to keep the villain out in the open and away from the masses. Zach looked from Aizawa back to the villain, his fists clenching at his sides and his eyes narrowing. He was a tall figure at over eight feet, closer to nine, and he had long black hair coming off of his bulky black head. His muscles were tensed violently and looked to be straining against his skin with his veins showing, and his teeth were bared like an animal, yet he looked aware of his surroundings. The villain let out a low growl, his eyes bloodshot and his mouth open and panting but baring again as he let out that snarl and turned to glare at Mt. Lady who was back up on both feet now. His glare got more furious as he looked towards her, and Zach wondered if one or both of the man's "brothers" had been taken down by the female hero.

 _Should I go Nightmare? With everyone watching? Does that really matter?! No, what matters is that Aizawa told me not to use my Quirk offensively. I have to listen to what he said, not as a student, but as a less experienced hero. If he thinks I'm needed he'll ask. I'm sure the teachers all know how I took down the villains at VTS-_ _**"RRAAAARRRR!"**_ The villain snapped his head back and opened his mouth, letting out a roar and scream of pain at the same time. His fists clenched at his sides hard, and blood dripped out between his fingers.

Zach started running forward and left a bit, and he said to Aizawa when he was five feet back, "There are new strains of Trigger out there. Some of them wind up being more potent than others. Instead of just making villains lose some reasoning, they lose their minds completely- even after the drug should have worn off." Midoriya glanced back at Zach while the villain ahead of them turned both directions on that street and then down towards the three of them. There was a tall building on his other side, but right inside that building's front doors leaning up against a wall was a woman just waiting for him to try and use that direction as the escape route. Midnight had a hand grabbing her white right sleeve ready to rip it off and release her knockout gas, but she was waiting for the right moment. Zach continued to the two closest to him, "But the ones who really do lose their minds, I only saw it twice, but the power gets way out of control. And it gets stronger over time."

Aizawa frowned deeper at the sound of that. "Either the out-of-control villain learns how to use it, has that much reasoning," he began. "Or the strain takes a longer effect with the peak coming at a certain point in time. Either way, we need to knock him out before his strength gets to be too much." Midoriya glanced in at his teacher, and Aizawa continued, "I doubt I'll be able to hold him with my cloths for long." _Trigger. That drug is making too much of a reemergence. Weren't enough villains dumb enough to buy it in recent years._ "Let's move," Aizawa said, as he saw the villain's body tensing at the shoulders and bulking up even. It was seeing the glow in the villain's large black right fist that made Aizawa say it was time to move.

Aizawa glared at that fist and the glow went away, and then Mt. Lady stepped forward and slammed a fist down towards the villain. "You've gone too far!" She yelled, her voice sounding angry and pained as it came out. The villain dodged to the left fast, and Mt. Lady's fist slammed into the ground and blew up dust and debris again. Aizawa frowned deeply as he swung his cloths forward to the spot the villain dodged to, because right as the dust was rising up, that villain glared both bloodshot eyes towards him and his black lips twisted apart to show him baring his teeth his way.

Using the dust for cover, the villain started running the direction of the least heroes, yet not towards the building now on his left. He ran towards the spot below where Air Jet flew up using his jetpack to get a better look on the ground, but as he ran out of the smoke there was another hero there who leaned towards him and shouted, _"HEYYYYYY!"_ The villain's body snapped backwards and both hands reached up for his head.

Aizawa leapt backwards, his ears starting to ring, and others on the street around the villain all grabbed their ears. Present Mic stopped attacking after a few seconds, grimacing at the low usability of his power in this environment. He stopped the villain from running though, and Air Jet flew forward as Present Mic closed his mouth. Air Jet fired his arm cannon from closer to the villain this time since the blast's power had not been enough last time, but the villain snapped his arms down from his head right before Air Jet fired. The hero's jetpack pumped out more flames, but the villain leapt up in the air and slammed a fist into Air Jet's cannon right as it fired. The cannon bent back, Air Jet yelled in pain, then the villain's head snapped down and he glared at Present Mic who stepped back from that look and stopped opening his mouth to call to his fellow hero. "Uh oh- ahh!" Present Mic turned and dove, but Air Jet slammed into his side and the two of them rolled down the road over each other.

The villain punched his fist down and threw Air Jet out of the air, then right as his fist was at the end of its momentum, it was yanked by a cloth backwards behind his body. The villain started spinning its head again, only to lifted its other arm fast right before a leg slammed into him. "SMASH!" Midoriya yelled, spinning his kick into the villain's lifted free arm. The kick pushed the villain's arm back and to the side, Midoriya's leg hit the man in the side too, and then Aizawa directed the direction the villain flew off to into the sidewalk. The ground around where the villain hit cracked, and a few small rocks flew at the windows of the first floor of the building and smashed through them.

Screams came out of that building, and Aizawa tugged the other way to throw the villain back into the road. Present Mic was getting up on the other side of the villain, and he started dragging Air Jet back while yelling at the hero who got messed up by that last punch. Zach had run just to the edge of the intersection that was now getting farther from the fight, and he saw Present Mic shouting at Air Jet down the road. He started breathing faster, but he ran down the road towards the two of them, staying on the same sidewalk that Aizawa smashed the villain down onto a few seconds ago. The villain was back in the middle of the road though, and Midoriya shot towards him before changing directions with a quick kick down, lifting up over the fist slamming forward at him. Wind from both the boy's kick and the villain's punch flew down the road, then Aizawa tugged on the villain's arm he still had wrapped up and prevented it from lifting and blocking Midoriya's second kick which slammed the villain right on top of its head.

The dark villain slammed into the floor, and Zach heard the screams from before turn into cheers as he ran past a few broken windows on his right. He ran past the part of the middle of the road where the villain had just been slammed into the ground by one of Midoriya's strongest Smashes, and then Zach curved into the middle of the road and ran up to Present Mic. "Is he alright?!" Zach asked, running close as Present Mic finally laid the other hero down.

"I'm, fine," Air Jet said, and Zach stopped and felt a huge amount of relief. Air Jet started pushing his non-broken arm down on the ground next to him, and Present Mic stepped forward to block off the villain from going farther down the road. Present Mic did look over his shoulder though and told Air Jet to stay still or risk making his injury even worse. "This, is nothing," Air Jet said, his voice pained as he got back up to his feet, though his legs were shaking. "That villain, we need to stop him. Before he even injected himself with that drug, he was causing so much damage with his brothers. But after, he's become unstoppable."

"What are you talking about?" Zach asked quickly. The pro hero turned to the boy next to him in a school uniform, and he got a confused expression on his face wondering what the boy was doing there.

Then his eyes widened as he recognized who this was, but before he could say anything, he snapped his head back towards the middle of the road as a red glow came out the corners of his eyes from the dust that blew up after Midoriya's last attack. "Move back!" Air Jet shouted, flames shooting out the bottom of his jetpack while he reached forward and grabbed the student by his uniform. His jetpack managed not to get destroyed when the villain slammed him into Present Mic instead of the ground, but using it again shook something loose inside it, and after he shot him and Zach into the air and backwards, the jetpack failed.

"Whoa!" Zach yelled, as what he thought was about to be really cool suddenly turned into them plummeting fifteen feet towards the ground. Air Jet's arms wrapped around him though, and Zach's eyes grew even wider before he winced from the still-hard landing. At the same moment as their hard landing, the explosion went off behind them and the corners of Zach's vision filled with red right before he clenched them in pain as they skid across the ground. "Air Jet! Hey! Are you alright?!" Zach got up off the villain's stomach and he shook the man around a little but the guy's eyes were shut. Air Jet opened them up slowly after a second and again Zach felt the huge amount of relief seeing the hero alive. "What was that?" Zach asked, spinning while on his knees back in the direction of the explosion.

Air Jet started to respond but his voice was low and Zach lowered his head down over the hero's face to listen. "The damage he takes, it contributes, to the size of the explosion. Ack, aghhh," Air Jet groaned, while Zach lifted up a bit and stared back towards the simmering explosion and the huge cloud of black smoke rising up above it. _Considering how hard Midoriya can hit…_ "It's why we can't stop him," Air Jet muttered, and he tried to push himself up only to cough and moan in pain as even his other arm seemed to be broken now after that rough landing. "Mt. Lady's punches, just get blasted back at her. I thought, Eraser Head might-"

Zach spun back to the hero as the man's voice cut off suddenly. He shook the hero around a few times, but Air Jet was out cold. Zach checked his pulse quick to make sure he was only unconscious, then he stood up and started dragging Air Jet to the side of the road and the building behind him. _We need to knock him out. Could I do it? I should, try at least._ Zach pulled Air Jet onto the sidewalk, then farther towards the front doors of an office building being opened up for him to bring the hero through.

Zach dropped him off and ignored the people around him who shouted at the kid in a school uniform not to go back out there. Zach sprinted onto the street and he started running towards where the explosion went off. He saw Present Mic staggering up to his feet across the road, some blood on his arms that had lost the black sleeves of his costume when he crossed them to block the explosion. Zach did not see Aizawa or Midoriya, but he suspected both of them were even closer to the explosion that Present Mic, though he hoped Midoriya had used his speed to get them away right before it went off. He was lifting up his right hand towards his own chest, when he heard a voice shout on his left and up ahead past the explosion, close to the intersection he came out of before.

"Zach!"

He looked down the sidewalk farther since he was about to cut into the road, and he saw Todoroki on the other side of the settling smoke. Shoto Todoroki started running the opposite direction that Zach was so they were both heading to the same spot, but Todoroki's pointed behind him and he yelled, "Back this way!"

 _Why would he call out my name and a different direction as the villain?!_ Zach did not run into the middle of the road where the explosion had happened. He sprinted past the side of it even faster, towards Todoroki and then past him while shouting, "Where?!"

"Kamui Woods said," Todoroki turned as Zach kept running without stopping next to him. "It's at the road where they started fighting-"

"Todoroki!" Zach shouted towards his classmate, having turned back since he was getting too far. Todoroki spun, and a huge ice wall shot out of the ground in front of him to protect. The wall cracked right as he started forming it, and the boy on the other side jumped backwards and crossed his arms to protect from the ice. Todoroki landed in front of Zach, and Zach did a double-take back towards the street they were fighting on, and then back towards the road Todoroki had pointed at. _Do I fight, or go to save the person? This is-_

"Lifebringer," a voice said behind him, and he spun and looked up high towards Mt. Lady. She had burn marks on a lot of the skin of her arms and legs, but her eyes were open wide as she recognized the boy down on the ground. She bent down far and she said to him in a rushed voice and a hopeful smile on her face, "Please, you have to save him."

"Where?!" Zach shouted. Hearing the plea from another hero made the decision a lot easier for him, especially since she was still up and able to fight this villain who was smashing through the ice Todoroki attacked with and dodging his flames.

Aizawa got up next to the building Midoriya had brought them over to in the instant of the giant explosion. He had even been a little confused for a second, but now he was looking down and to his left at the student who lost his entire right sleeve and pant leg to that explosion. "Don't be reckless," Aizawa scolded the student who could have escaped the explosion with less damage if he had just focused on getting himself out of there. "Stay back for a few seconds, catch your breath," Aizawa added to the boy who was trying to stand back on his burnt right leg right away. "That explosion," Aizawa started as he stepped forward. "How did he initiate it?"

Midoriya was close enough that he had seen through the smoke the villain's red glow, but he shook his head confusedly still not understanding how it blasted out that much power. Aizawa glared towards the center of the blast where the villain just leapt back into some smoke, leaving Todoroki to make a tough decision. Aizawa's gaze focused on the boy who used his ice to try and trap the villain in the smoke, but his eyes also darted to his right a couple of times as he saw a boy standing in front of Mt. Lady. The student he looked towards nodded after she told him something and he started sprinting away faster than ever. Aizawa narrowed his eyes, at the same time feeling anger, relief, and anxiety. He was angry as he knew what could cause Sazaki to run off like that, he was relieved because the boy was so close that he knew he must have been considering fighting the villain, but he was also anxious because Sazaki was leaving his sight.

 _What are the chances this was set up? There's no way they would know Sazaki would come out here, even if there was a casualty. But he's going off on his own now. This is not good._ Aizawa's glare shifted back to the villain whose head was bowed in the center of the road where there was now a crater stretching almost to both sidewalks. He ripped both legs up and through the ice, then he pointed his right hand forward and it started glowing, but Aizawa noticed the red glow was lighter than what it was at the previous blast. It was still enough that the larger wave of ice shooting at him would have blasted apart, but the glow vanished in the final moment and the villain's eyes shot open wide again before darting Aizawa's way. Then Todoroki's ice overtook it and surrounded the entire villain in ice.

 _ **"Raa, RAAA!"**_ The villain's head was not covered like the rest of its body, and he was roaring while trying to rip his body out of the ice.

"I wouldn't if I were you," Todoroki warned, walking forward and breathing out steam. The entire road between Todoroki and the villain was covered in ice, as was the entire crater in the center of the road, and there was an ice block sticking out of the ground twenty feet up with the villain stuck inside it. The villain was close to the bottom of the crater, so he was still just at Todoroki's eye level when the student in a blue costume stopped walking fifteen feet ahead of him.

Aizawa could not help but grin for a second as Todoroki stopped the villain in his tracks, without knocking him unconscious at that. He blinked and then snapped his eyes open again and continued to erase the still-conscious villain's Quirk before it could get off a blast. At a closer look, Aizawa grimaced at the sight of the villain's face now that the man was frozen in ice. His nose was messed up badly, and both of its bloodshot eyes were bruised up, and there were cuts on his face and a lot of his body. Aizawa grimaced because despite all those injuries, the drugged-up villain was struggling as hard as it could inside the ice and was tearing even more of its skin off.

Todoroki lost the calm look on his face after threatening the villain not to struggle, because his threat did not work. He was really just warning the villain not to move and risk hurting himself more, but the villain did not seem to care at all about the pain he was putting himself in. _If this keeps up,_ Todoroki thought, and then he darted his gaze over towards Aizawa to see what he should do. "Just keep it up for a few more seconds Todoroki," a female voice called out, and Todoroki felt more relieved as he saw a woman running out of a building near Aizawa.

Midoriya relaxed as Midnight sensei ran out into the road and towards the ice the villain was trapped in. The villain struggled harder in the ice, baring its teeth and snapping its head towards her, ripping the ice around its neck off and making some long black hair rip off the top of its head as it was still trapped. Midnight had a smirk on her face as she was about to say something before releasing her gas, but blood splashed at her as the villain snapped his ravenous face in her direction. "Everyone move back," Midnight called out in a more serious tone, and she pulled off a lot more of her sleeve than she thought she was going to.

"Do it fast," Aizawa warned, as his eyes were feeling very dry and he had to blink them soon. Pinkish-purple knockout gas filled the air around Midnight and the villain, and Aizawa started running forward despite some pain in his legs. He held his breath and sprinted right up past Midnight, keeping his eyes on the villain. Midoriya and Todoroki stared towards them, as did Present Mic from farther away and Mt. Lady whose hands shook at her sides as she wanted to slam them down at the villain a lot. There was a lot of black smoke rising up around them, but Backdraft stopped putting out flames for a second and turned towards the middle of the road, and Kamui Woods lowered some more hurt civilians down behind a wall of yellow tape created by another pro hero a few feet away from him. They all looked towards the villain who had caused so much chaos in the city, and then the pinkish gas started to fade and Aizawa hopped backwards to get out of it early. The heroes and students relaxed, and Todoroki walked forward to defrost the unconscious villain for the police to take away.

As people started cheering and the heroes relaxed, two blocks away Zach Sazaki stood near a man laying in an indented part of the street. There were other citizens around the indent, some cops nearby, and Zach was breathing hard as he stared down at the figure. He could hear people around him talking, and he felt his heart pounding and aching as he looked at the guy's body. _I can't- I can't do this._ Zach's lips trembled as he stared at the man's body, looking crushed on the ground. There were other injured people around, some ambulances nearby and EMTs running around to help them, but this was the only fatality Zach heard of from the people gathered around with him.

"What was he thinking?"

"He was thinking, he could be a hero."

"Don't say it like that. He gave the others time to escape."

"His Quirk seemed strong too, but he wasn't a fighter."

"Still, to get crushed like that."

"He was in the heroes' way-"

"But Mt. Lady's hand… the villain was so strong all of a sudden. Knocking her back like that, only for her to…"

"That was so, fucked up."

Zach's fists clenched hard at his sides, but his eyes started darting around in worry. _What if it's been enough time already? What if, his body is just too messed up? This is bad. People shouldn't even be looking at something this gruesome. His head, is intact though. But!_ Zach's arms shook so hard at his sides. _As soon as I start, people are going to start recording. Where are the heroes? They're all fighting the villain! What if they come for me? Won't they?! I should wait- but the time limit! I already know it might have been too long- except this just happened! There wouldn't be so many people allowed to gather around like this, unless they're still having trouble getting control over the-_

"Alright people, we need you to back up. We've set up a perimeter and it's behind the ambulances. I don't care if this is where you work, either get back inside your buildings or get behind the police tape."

The crowd around him started dispersing, but a few people were still staying close. He saw tears in their eyes, even as they could not get close. One of them had her hands over her mouth, and she kept gagging and looking away. Her friend had tears in her eyes too, but she was holding the other woman close and neither started moving when the cop trying to disperse the crowd got near. The officer turned to a boy near the indented part of the street with a few cracks in it, and he said to the short student, "You too. Move back with the others."

"I'm a," Zach whispered. He took a step forward, his breath picking up so he was panting. He took another step and the women on the other side of the indented part of street lifted their heads as the boy stepped within five feet of the man crushed on the ground. "I'm a," Zach repeated, his voice getting louder while the cop who just spoke to him started going wide-eyed. Then the two women looking at him lowered their arms and their faces filled with shock, as the boy they were staring at gulped and lifted up his right hand, removing his glove. "Stand back," he said, his voice quiet as his eyes focused on the body in front of him while other people started looking over and everyone started murmuring and getting louder. "I'm a, hero," he said, and he lowered down to his knees next to the man whose pulse Zach did not need to check.

 _Can I do this? Am I just getting their hopes up? And, what about the League of, the League… They're not here. They haven't been here, for a long time. I've been imagining it like they were still surrounding me, watching my every move, for so long._ Zach lifted his shaking right hand and moved it closer to the man lying on the floor in front of him, flat on his back but with a few limbs bent or turned upside-down. There was a lot of blood below him too, and Zach started panting harder as he brought his hand down towards the man's chest, bringing his own knees up to the guy's side and hunching his body over him. _I can do this though, because the villains aren't around me. I'm a hero. Saving people, is what I do. It's what I need to do._ Zach's face started scrunching up more, his eyes getting wet as he lowered his right hand to the man's body. He pressed his palm on the guy's chest and he took in a deep breath, and then he gasped and winced in the pain that started. _It's working,_ he thought, even as his entire arm started shaking. He took off his glove because of how messed up the guy was, so he figured he would get as much of his right hand's skin on him as possible. He put it over a part of the guy's shirt that was ripped too, and he pressed harder into the wound while his hand turned black.

Zach felt a sharp pain in his chest, and his clenched eyes shot open wide. "AhhHH!" He shouted. His right hand came off of the guy's body and his right arm shook so hard that he had to snap his left arm over and grab his shaking forearm. His whole body shook and his eyes trembled as he stared straight ahead of him. While his eyes were clenched, when he felt that pain in his chest, he felt a knife cutting across his chest. He could see it in his mind, and he saw Shigaraki laughing, and he heard screams in his head. He bit down hard though and he slammed his right hand back down, and this time he grabbed his arm with his left hand to force it down there. But when it turned black again, and Zach felt his body filling with pain in a dozen different places, he gasped out choked-breaths and his eyes bulged wide as he felt agony through his body.

 _I can't, do this,_ Zach's hand shook as he held it there, then he could not even force it down anymore as he heard in his head. _**"AAAAEEEEEE!"**_ Zach lifted his right hand, and he was panting, and his eyes were bloodshot. _What's happening? Why can't I, do this?_ Tears started spilling out of Zach's eyes as he clenched them shut and shook his head around. He moved his right hand back down for the guy's chest and held it there with his eyes closed, and he let out an agonized scream as his right hand turned black again, and he had to lift his hand again. _I, I know it._ His tears continued to spill, and this time he slammed his right hand down and pushed down with his left on that arm, but he also hunched farther over and put his entire torso's weight on his right arm to prevent it from lifting up. _I know- I know there's a chance they come, but that wasn't the only reason!_ "AAHhh AH AHHH!" Zach screamed, but he kept his body weight on his arm and bit down, grinding his teeth back and forth to stop himself from pulling away.

 _I had to imagine the villains were going to take me, all the time! Not just because those fears are justified, but because if I stop thinking about it like I'm in a survival situation- And if I'm accepting, that I can save this guy even if people start recording, then I'm doing just that! I'm accepting, that I'm not in that situation. So if that's in the past, and I'm not currently, in danger. Not in danger, to stop me from thinking on what had happened like it's in the past._ Zach yanked his body backwards, as he felt an agonizing pain in his left arm that reminded him of a scar he got five weeks ago. He ripped backwards, and he fell on his butt while snapping his eyes open and panting, and then his jaw dropped as he saw the man in the indent in front of him did not look any better. _No, that's not true,_ Zach looked closer at the man's chest where his hand had been pressed into, and Zach did not see the external wound under his shirt anymore.

"Lifebringer, please!"

"Don't give up!"

Zach's head lifted and he stared at the two women at the edge of the indent who stepped closer to him. They were sobbing, and Zach pushed himself off his butt and scrambled back over the man in front of him. He panted, then he took in a huge breath and he brought his right hand forward and down on the man's body. This time, like the others, he saw it in his mind. He pursed his lips for an instant, then he opened his mouth and screamed.

"Do your best!"

"Don't give up!"

The officer at the side of the indent lifted his hand to try and saw something to the kid in front of him, tell him to stop since the man he was trying to save looked beyond recovery. Then the officer's eyes opened wide and his arm lowered back down, because the crushed man's left arm that looked snapped, suddenly straightened out. At that same moment, Zach Sazaki's right arm that was blackening up from his hand rippled so violently that the boy's scream caught in his throat, because the pain was so sharp that he almost lost consciousness.

 _DON'T!_ Zach screamed at himself, snapping his eyes back open and looking at the man below him, even as the blackness spread farther up his arm. _It's not more painful- that much more painful- than any other time!_ Zach bit down harder and then he let out a scream, a scream that hurt his own throat at how loud it was. And his eyes spilled more water, because he felt a pain in his back, and it reminded him of a scar he got right above that spot. He could feel his ribs crushing inside his chest, and he felt more scars, and he remembered getting those scars. "AHHH! Ah ah AHH hah AHH _AHHHHH AAAEEEHHHHAA!"_

The cheers for Lifebringer to continue quieted down. Even the officer who was starting to feel some hope just leaned back from the boy whose screams started to fill with more than just physical agony. In Zach's mind he saw a girl screaming out his name. His eyes clenched, but that just made what he was seeing all the more clear. And he heard her screams as he screamed aloud, and then he felt a knife carving down his face from his nose to the side. _**"Don't you close your eyes!" "Will you do whatever I say?" "I don't believe you!" "TRAITOR!"**_

"AHH ahhh," Zach's right arm lifted again. He collapsed over the man below him, then he dragged his arm back up and he put it on the guy's chest, and he felt one of the sharpest pains he ever had in his spine. _Why now? Why- AAhhh ah ah._ _ **"Zach! HELP ME! NO! AHHHHH…" "We're nakama now, right?"**_ _Dabi why? WHY?!_ Zach bent his head down, and he clenched his eyes even harder while he gagged and then let out another scream, because he felt like his eyes were popping inside his head. The crushed man's head had been turned to the side, and Zach felt an agonizing pain in his neck too while his eyes felt like they were un-popping. He choked on his own tongue, and then he saw Shigaraki holding up a knife. Then he saw Shigaraki lifting a lighter and some bug spray, and as he felt his left femur un-snapping, he saw a flamethrower against his thigh melting his skin.

"Aizawa sensei," Midoriya said, turning to the man next to him with a panicked look on his face. "We have to stop him."

Midoriya and Todoroki stood on Aizawa's left side, and Midnight stood next to Aizawa on his right. They rushed over to get to Zach Sazaki while the police and other heroes dealt with the unconscious villain, and the four of them were not far behind the boy hunched over and screaming at the top of his lungs in the middle of the road. Todoroki winced and pulled back as he saw something rip out on Zach's back, tearing through his uniform only for there not to be any injury under that rip. Zach's body was staying together, but his screams made it sound like he was tearing apart. "Midoriya's right," Todoroki agreed, turning to their teacher who had told them to stand back. "I've seen Zach's power bring someone back," he said, though he did not mention how it was Monoma who he saw use it. "This is going too far. He shouldn't be screaming, like that," Todoroki finished, wincing again and looking back towards the boy who everyone on the street was staring at in silence.

Even the women who seemed to know the crushed man were just staring down at the boy, even stepping back as he let out a more agonized scream and snapped his head back. The tears that were coming out of his eyes before were starting to come out red, ever since he felt his eyes popping like the crushed man on the floor's must have. Aizawa said as he saw that blood on the boy's face, "You're right. This is enough." He stepped forward, then Zach snapped his head down and shouted.

"I CAN DO THIS!" Aizawa froze where he was. The thought occurred to him to erase Sazaki's power, but the blackness on Zach's arm was rising higher. It started covering his sleeve instead of just moving up his skin beneath it, making black wisps come off of his whole right arm. The black color had moved up his skin all the way to his neck though, and everyone watching could see little branches of black breaking off up his neck and branching out towards his chin. Zach's eyes shot open, blood on the bottoms of his eyelids, and he screamed again but this time in fury and he leaned his body down on the dead man's even harder.

It had been minutes since he started, Zach did not know how many. He did not know how long the man had been dead for, as that was a factor in how hard it was along with how bad his condition was. Zach figured he had never healed anyone whose body was this badly destroyed before, a thought he tried distracting himself with only to lose that distraction in a few seconds. He coughed a couple of times, and blood splashed out of his mouth right as black lines curving up from his chin started touching his bottom lip. "I can do this," Zach muttered after those coughs, then he saw a knife moving towards his face and it filled with fear. He started panting, then he felt a pain inside his head and he screamed, "AAAHHH-agh, ack ack, AHHH!" He felt a knife carving down the middle of his torso, and a knife stabbing into his leg, and barbed wire ripping into his ankles.

 _SAVE HIM!_

Zach's eyes snapped open again and he glared down while pressing his right hand even harder onto the man's corpse. His whole body trembled, while he saw the man's chest vibrating and bones on the inside fixing together. Zach let out pained gasps, shorter screams of agony since he was running out of breath. _They're around you. Other heroes, who will protect you. I'm safe. I'm safe now, and I left that woman behind in Higucha. And I, I made the Akers targets. Dad killed himself, and mom… And JENNY!_ Zach's right arm steadied and he bit down as hard as he could, as those thoughts all rushed to his head and pushed the pain away. Even though it steadied a bit, that just meant his right was not shaking hard enough that his hand risked slipping off the guy's body anymore. Zach tried holding back his sobs, but he felt safe. He felt safe for one of the first times, in a long time. Even in Kyoto he had convinced himself that he was in hiding so that meant he was still in the middle of surviving, and he realized that as he sat there out in the open and screamed his lungs out. _I made her into a target. I put a target on her, and she burned! She burned, because of me!_

"I can't listen to this," Todoroki finally muttered after over five minutes. He could not say a thing about pulling Zach away anymore, not when he saw the dead guy's right leg turn back the right way on its own, not after the resolve he heard in Zach's voice. What he was hearing though, it was worse than the blood dripping out of Zach's eyes. They were not screams caused by pain, or any pain Todoroki could think of. He turned his head, but out the corner of his eyes he saw Zach's distressed, distraught face bow and a pained whisper to escape his lips.

"I'm so sorry," Zach gasped out, then he opened his mouth and screamed, "Ahhhhh." His voice was hoarse though, making his scream more a half-moan through a scratchy voice. "So, close," he whispered after stopping his scream, though he felt his body so weak as he said it. He bit down though, and he snapped his eyes open again. He took his left hand off of his right arm, then he slammed it back onto his forearm and pushed his right hand harder down. "I'll save you," he said, his voice stronger than it was a second ago. "I'll definitely, save you."

Farther back on the street behind Aizawa, Midnight, Midoriya, and Todoroki, another pro hero ran around a corner and looked towards them. Mt. Lady stood back behind them in her regular form already, her hands together in front of her chest and water in her eyes. _Please,_ she thought, then she turned her head and her eyes opened wide as Kamui Woods moved forward next to her. Kamui Woods stared ahead towards Zach Sazaki and his eyes opened wide too as the boy tilted his head back and screamed, his voice coming out clearer for a few seconds before breaking.

Zach curled his legs in even harder to the man's body, while he lowered his head and let out a gasp. He stared at the man in front of him, and he gasped because he felt the moment. It was a moment he always felt, and his heart started racing, and his head pounding. The black color up his neck and covering the bottom of Zach's face started to recede. It lowered back to his right arm, and Zach felt the pain start to fade. He stared in shock at the man below him, the man whose chest was starting to move just the smallest bit up and down. The guy's eyes did not open at first, and Zach was a little worried, but as the black left the tips of his right hand's fingers, the man's eyes cracked open.

He tried leaning forward, but his eyes closed again right away and his head turned to the side. Zach lifted his shaking right hand from the man's body, then he pulled it back fast and fell backwards as the two women sprinted forward after seeing the no-longer-crushed man's eyes open for that short second. Zach sat on his butt, a shocked look on his face as he stared at the guy and his two friends or family or whatever they were to him. Zach scooted back a couple of feet, and then he lifted his right hand and stared at it over his lap as he sat there. His eyes filled with water, and they still had blood in them too, and he cried tears of blood while staring at his hand through that slightly red-tinted vision. _I saved someone. I really, saved someone,_ he thought, his heart aching so hard. Everything he just thought about, the things that made him break down right there in the middle of the road, they were erased and replaced with that single thought.

 _It's been so, so long. I forgot, how this,_ he lifted his gaze to the women, one of whom turned to him and started shouting thanks at him. Zach just nodded and pulled his right hand away farther, but made sure not to touch his body with it. He heard talking behind him, and he saw one of the women hunched over the recently-brought-to-life guy look behind Zach and drop her jaw. She stared behind him, then back down at Zach and her face filled with fear and so much pity.

Zach turned his head sideways, and he looked behind him to see Aizawa standing there. He looked at Aizawa, who was standing there with his back to Zach. Zach looked to the left side of his teacher, and he saw Midnight with a hesitant look on her face, before she turned his way and they locked eyes with hers growing wide. He glanced the other way and saw Midoriya and Todoroki both looking at something in front of Aizawa. Zach started standing up, and he turned his body fully and stepped out of the indent on the ground and to Aizawa's right side. He kept his right hand lifted, grabbing it by the wrist and darting his eyes around to make sure no one got close.

Then Zach's eyes stopped darting around. They focused past Aizawa, and his teacher with long black hair turned and grimaced as Zach's bloody eyes were starting to grow wide. "Sazaki," Aizawa said, and he held an arm out in front of Zach. "You can't," Aizawa said.

Zach stared at Kamui Woods, and the figure who Kamui Woods was standing there holding. The hero lowered his wooden branches down and placed the figure down, a young woman who Zach wondered if she was even out of high school. She did not have on a school uniform, but school ended a while ago now. _When did she…_ Zach started thinking, but he stepped forward anyway.

"Zach, hold on," Todoroki began, though he kept back as Zach's right hand was out in the open.

"Sazaki," Aizawa said firmly, and he turned to face the boy trying to walk past him. Zach turned his head slowly and faced Aizawa who shook his head at the look on the boy's face. "You _can't_ do it," Aizawa repeated. Zach's wide eyes stared into Aizawa's, then they looked past him towards the girl Kamui Woods lowered to the street. "You're U.A.'s responsibility, and I took you out of school. So it's up to me, and I say you _can't_ do it. It'll kill you."

"It won't," Zach said.

"It'll rip you apart," Aizawa said, and he did not think he was exaggerating that much after what he just saw. "You can barely stand," Aizawa repeated, as he saw the way Zach took that last step. "Any more of this and-"

"You don't," Zach started, and he looked towards the girl again as he continued, "get to decide, who lives, and who dies." Aizawa's eyes widened at the kid who started walking forward again, ignoring what he just told him. Zach stepped forward, and he focused on his walking to make himself look more steady on his feet. "I won't die. She will." The way Zach said it showed he did not consider her dead yet, and Aizawa frowned deeply while darting his eyes back to the girl, the young girl who Zach still believed he could save. Aizawa's arm started to lower, while Zach repeated, "You can't decide, something like that…" _And you can?_ Aizawa thought, but he could not raise his arm and stop Zach anymore. He grit his teeth and just watched as the boy moved towards the body, putting his body on the line for this to a point Aizawa could not ignore.

Zach staggered forward, stumbling to his right a bit before shaking his head around and refocusing. He jogged forward as that shake of his head actually made things a little clearer, and he called out, "Move back," since Kamui Woods was still close.

"Kid, are you sure-" Kamui Woods started, and he was starting to regret bringing the second victim over towards where he heard Lifebringer was.

Zach dropped next to the girl and put his right hand on her, just above the top of her large breasts that were burnt like a lot of her body. He put it below her neck and above her breasts, and he closed his eyes as the pain started back up again. _I can do this. I have to._ Zach felt the pain bubbling up inside him, covering his skin and making him feel like he was completely enflamed. His staggered breathing picked up speed, and he felt the screams coming but held them back as long as he could. _Because, I'm a hero! I won't let people die like this. I won't, let the villains win! I have to save her! I, have to…_ "AAAHHHHHH!"

* * *

 **A/N Thanks for reading. Intense chapter here at the end as Zach finally saves people again for the first time since before VTS. Hope you all enjoyed the fight scenes, as well as the new developments with Zach's Quirk in regards to Kuroiro's Grandma, and his acceptance that he's a little safer. Anyway, thanks again, and here are some review responses:**

Crying Blitz chapter 39 . 16h ago

I absolutely love your writing style and flow keep it up!

 **Thanks a bunch! I will.**

D-Koy24 chapter 39 . 15h ago

Hmmm I just noticed something... WHERE'S BAKUGO?! Come on!Even if he said something was stupid or threatening someone  
~D-Koy, ONE PUNCH!

 **Haha, I saw this review and was like, "good thing how the next chapter starts." He missed out on the welcoming back of Zach, but Zach tries making up with him a little this chapter after getting closer with the rest of the class at the end of the last one. Thanks for reviewing!**

CPU-BLANC-WHITE HEART chapter 39 . 10h ago

Man, Kaminari is mentioning Jenny way too much for Zachs sake, I feel he may snap on him

 **Yeah, Kaminari does tease him a bunch, though at least he kept from doing it this chapter when they were hanging at lunch. Maybe he got the message last time... though we can only hope. Thanks for the review!**

LordOfTee chapter 39 . 3h ago

Oh yeah! Talk about making reconnections,this is the da good stuff.(nods head in appreciation of class companionship)

 **Zach finally opening back up to his class, at least enough that he showed them some emotions without trying to hide it. Glad you liked it, and hope you enjoyed the new chapter!**

Guest chapter 39 . 15h ago

The next chapter should be all the girls shopping with Zach because he grew several more inches and most of his clothes in the apartment burned in the fire.  
He should be at least Bakugo to Iida's height at the rate he's growing.  
Shigaraki attack at the mall like in the manga?

 **Not gonna say he's that tall... still actually pretty short. It's a pretty big growth spurt to go from 5 foot to 5'4" in less than a year though (April-February), and maybe it'll keep up. Though maybe he'll just be super short for the rest of his life! Hahahahaha... And Shigaraki did attack the mall. It was much earlier on, and Zach didn't see it since he was shopping with Kaminari and Hagakure. Happened right before the training camp chapters. Thanks for the review, hope y'all enjoyed the chapter!**


	41. Chapter 41

**Chapter 41:**

Zach slowly opened his eyes. His vision was blurry as his eyelids parted, but it got clearer the more he opened them. He looked out the right of his eyes, and he tilted his head a bit to stare at the woman across the nurse's office from him who was giving "treatment" to an unconscious Death Arms. Zach sat up a bit at the sight of where he was, and of the pro hero who was only one of two who were laying on U.A. nurse's office beds. He did not recognize the second hero on a bed closer to him for a few seconds, then he leaned over his bed a bit more and his eyes widened. _So that's what Air Jet looks like,_ he thought, leaning back as he recognized the man's face even if his costume was off.

"Sazaki," Recovery Girl said, looking over right as the boy was leaning back on his bed. Zach looked her way, and he got a worried look on his face as she started walking over. The short old woman frowned at him and she opened her mouth to start scolding, but Zach beat her to it.

"Did, she survive?" Zach asked. Recovery Girl froze with her mouth open, as she thought the boy looked worried because she was getting ready to scold him. She closed her mouth, and she sighed while walking over and getting up on a chair next to his bed.

Recovery Girl looked into Zach's eyes, checking for damage as she leaned her head back and forth and he followed her with his movements. He was a little slow, but he looked really tired and the nurse frowned while pulling away from him. His eyes that had followed her around were full of anxiety, and Recovery Girl finally said, "Yes." Zach's face filled with relief and he leaned back for real this time, putting his back on the top of the bed behind him and slouching his shoulders. His head bowed and he started breathing in and out heavy breaths. "You," Recovery Girl started, then she stopped and furrowed her brow. "You cannot do that again."

Zach turned and looked the old woman in the eyes, lifting his head a bit and seeing an upset look on her face. She kept a stern tone as Zach's eyes started to widen, "I have seen a video, and I already scolded Aizawa for letting you continue." Zach's eyes widened more, and she continued while shaking her head, "You cannot continue on with this if it hurts you that much."

"It doesn't leave lasting wounds," Zach said, lifting his arms up to show he was fine. He felt exhausted and lifting them actually made him more tired and feel like dropping them back to his sides, but he held them there to prove he was fine to Recovery Girl.

She shook her head at him again after that response, even if it did take her a few seconds. "I understand your willingness," she started. "But wounds on the mind, are as dangerous as ones on the body." She said it and Zach's lips that he had been trying hard to keep in a smile for her started dipping down at the corners.

He thought back on what he had been thinking of, before he lost consciousness. He had to break off eye contact with her, and he looked down at the bed he was sitting on. "I know," he whispered. Recovery Girl felt her heart hurt at that response.

"Seeing your expression during that," Recovery Girl started, and Zach frowned deeper as he wondered what had been recorded, and what he looked like since he had not focused on it after he started. "I know, you told me you did not want to talk about it, when we first met after your return." Zach bit down harder and he kept frowning, but he just kept staring at his bed because he could not look up at Recovery Girl. "Did the pain today, remind you of where you got those scars?" Zach pursed his lips and then after a few seconds he nodded his head, and Recovery Girl shook hers at the sight of that nod. She knew from examining his scars that they were not 'accidents' as he tried telling her they were. "PTSD," she said to the boy who finally lifted his head to look at her. "It is not surprising considering what you have been through, but if bringing back the dead is what triggers it-"

"Recovery Girl," Zach started, and he smiled as he interrupted her. "You know, you might be right. Maybe it was, what triggered it," Zach offered. He spoke faster as she tried to interrupt him, "But it's not a bad thing. I need it. Just because, it made me think about it, doesn't mean it's not there the rest of the time. And all that bad, and all the terrible things," Zach continued, shaking his head and clenching his eyes shut for a second. He smiled after closing them, and he whispered, "Saving people, makes it better. It's the only thing."

Recovery Girl sighed and she started shaking her head again. "I can't believe you were going through that pain each time."

"I wasn't," Zach whispered, shaking his head and losing that smile. "That first guy," he started, opening his eyes and looking at her with a pained look on his face. He shook his head while looking into Recovery Girl's eyes, and he said, "I never saved someone like that before. He was, I felt…" Zach paused, and then he smiled even though he was describing, or trying to describe the worst pain he had ever felt. He smiled because that guy was still alive, and he thought about the two women who cried and screamed and thanked him. "It hurt more," Zach just finished, but he kept smiling softly even as he thought on it.

Recovery Girl's eyes widened at that look on his face, and then she turned and frowned while facing away from him. "Of all the…" she trailed off and she hopped off of the chair. "Stay there. I am getting some medication that you should start on."

As she started walking off, the door to the nurse's office opened and All Might poked his head in. The sharp-chinned former top hero opened his eyes wide seeing Zach sitting up on his bed, and he entered the room and started for the boy's bed. All Might glanced at the other two beds to see how the other heroes were doing and then turned to Recovery Girl who shook her head after looking at him, a frustrated and tired look on her own face. All Might walked over to Zach's bed, and he glanced around again before turning directly to the boy and smiling, "Young Sazaki."

"Hey, All Might," Zach said, his voice quiet. He had been speaking in a soft voice to Recovery Girl, but as he tried raising it for All Might he felt his throat was scratchy and he did not have much of a voice. So he just spoke in a soft voice close to the tone he used to speak in when he first arrived at U.A. "What are you doing here?" Zach asked.

"I heard about your actions today," All Might said. He stepped closer to Zach's bed, right up to the side of it and Zach got a more hesitant look at the one on All Might's face. He leaned away and lifted an eyebrow at the thin man with pushed back blond hair and two droopy bangs over the front of his face.

"Did you come to scold me too?" Zach wondered.

"No," All Might said, shaking his head. He glanced back towards Recovery Girl nervously as he knew he was contradicting what she must have told him considering that look on her face as he was coming over, but he turned back with a smile anyway. "I'm proud of you," All Might said. Zach's eyes widened, and All Might lifted a hand and put it up through his hair. He chuckled a few times at Zach's surprised look, then he said in amazement, "Putting your body on the line. The essence of self-sacrifice." All Might shook his head, and he got a more serious expression but kept smiling as he looked down into Zach's eyes.

"I came here, to tell you that I do not regret it," All Might said. Zach's eyes widened more, and All Might's smile lowered a bit before he continued. "I am glad I told you that you could be a hero. And, I take back what I said at the trial too," All Might added. He frowned a little thinking about it, thinking about how Zach looked when he lifted his gaze from the defendant's table in shock at what All Might's reply to that single question had been. "I am sorry, that I doubted you," All Might paused and took a deeper breath, then he finished, "I think you can do it. Young Sazaki, you can be a hero."

Zach's eyes widened more, and then he smiled wide. "Thank you All Might," he said. He tilted his head and his expression got softer, and he said in a choked-off way after hesitating with pursed lips, "It means a lot to me." He said it and kept that soft look on his face with a small smile, and All Might leaned back with wide eyes at how insincere that sounded. Zach sweatdropped and lost his small smile as he could see that All Might saw through him. He felt too tired to lie really well though, or to act at all for that matter. He sighed and then lowered his smile into a flat lip and said, "Sorry. It's just," Zach turned and looked towards the windows of the office just to his left. "I already decided it," Zach admitted.

"Even before the trial, before you and Aizawa, sensei, told me I shouldn't," Zach continued. All Might stared at the back of Zach's head with huge eyes at what the boy was saying. "I never would have got up on the stand otherwise, but by that point my conviction was already strong enough, to hold onto my goals on my own." Zach's expression got more serious as he stared out the windows into the dark sky outside. He turned his head back, and he said straight to the man behind him, "They may have been shaken a little that day, but now though. Now they don't waver at all." He paused and then thought back on something All Might told him long ago, and he smiled. Just the corners of his lips lifted up a little, and he continued, "I still make mistakes, still question my decisions, and I still get scared. But I _will_ become a hero. Stop the League of Villains. Help Midoriya protect the world. Save, as many people as I can, for as long as I can."

Zach made the declaration to the man who had been his biggest hero since he was eight years old. And as much as his faith in his hero had faltered over the recent months, from the trial, to VTS, Zach smiled more genuinely at the man in front of him after what he just said. _Asking Webb to save me. And even coming here right now, to tell me I can do it. He's still, my hero. It's a stupid notion, to have a hero who isn't strong at all, who can't do much… But even without your power you're still saving me All Might._ "All Might, thank you," Zach told the man in front of him who was staring at him in shock with his bottom lip still lowered after Zach's declaration right there. "I never told you, because I thought I should just deny it to keep everything secret, but my life _was_ saved thanks to you. You don't understand how close I was. A knife, was about to go through my throat…" Zach stopped, and he looked behind All Might towards Recovery Girl who had been staring in shock at him after Zach's strong declaration a few seconds ago too. Zach quieted down and looked back to All Might and just whispered, "So thanks. And even though my conviction is already strong enough, I'm glad you think I can be a hero. It makes me think I'm a step closer."

Zach lifted his right hand to clench in front of him, then his eyes widened as it rose from beneath the blanket and did not have a glove on. "Oh shit," Zach said, and he pulled his hand back fast towards himself. He pulled back so fast actually, that he accidentally slammed it right into his chest and started covering his body in darkness. "Oh fuck-" Zach pulled his hand off and touched himself again, turning off Nightmare mode before it could form fully, though his eyes were already glowing red and a black veil had surrounded him and made All Might lean away and step back. Zach returned to normal and let out a deep breath, then he turned his head towards All Might and Recovery Girl, and he sweatdropped before muttering, "Sorry for cursing. Is, my glove here?"

Recovery Girl finally closed her gawking mouth, and she rolled her eyes as the boy who had seemed so serious and mature a second ago got all flustered at just the sight of his own hand. "Don't curse in the nurse's office," she said in a scolding tone, making Zach pull back and sweat more. "But yes, I have your glove right here," she grabbed it along with the bottle she had just filled up, and then she headed back over towards his bed. She gave All Might a serious look and he nodded before backing away from Zach's bed.

"Well, that is a strong resolve you have shown me, Young Sazaki," All Might said. He scratched the back of his head through his blond hair, wondering if there was anything left for him to tell Zach if the boy really thought he did not need All Might's words for support. "I guess, I will see you in class tomorrow."

Zach nodded back at him, and All Might smiled at the boy who did the same. The former Symbol of Peace left the nurse's office, and Recovery Girl walked up to Zach's bed. She glanced behind her, but as she thought both of the other heroes were still out cold. "Here you go," she said, tossing the glove to Zach first. He caught it with his right and then used his left to slide it on his right hand, and he let out a long breath of relief once his hand was back in the safety of its holster.

Recovery Girl then held up a small pill bottle that Zach turned his gaze to and lost his relieved smile. He stared at it, then to Recovery Girl with a hesitant look. "These are called Voloft," Recovery Girl began. Zach still looked confused, but he leaned back as she continued, "They are antidepressants. Used often for cases of PTSD such as yours."

 _There are no cases like mine,_ Zach thought angrily, frowning at the woman suggesting this to him. _I don't need, drugs. I don't want them! I don't, deserve them. The things that I'm upset over, that plague me, are things caused by my own decisions. If I stop thinking of them. Or if I start thinking on them without feeling my genuine emotions over them,_ Zach started shaking his head, and Recovery Girl frowned at him. Zach spoke up though, "Thank you, but no thanks. I'll handle this on my own. I need to," he added as he saw her opening her mouth to argue. "I know medication, might help in some cases, but not mine. The villains are still coming for me, probably," he added 'probably' on at the end, since he was still surprised a little that none showed up to kidnap him today, especially now that he knew there had been recordings of what had happened. "I can't be high on happy pills that make me less paranoid," he finished strongly.

"Your argument for not needing these is that you are paranoid?" Recovery Girl questioned. She lifted her eyebrows at him and then pushed the bottle forward.

"Might be paranoia," Zach said, and he reached out his hand. He put his left hand over Recovery Girl's though and pushed it and the bottle down. "But it's not an irrational paranoia. Isn't there a difference when they really _are_ out to get you?"

Recovery Girl just frowned at his response, but she sighed after a second and lowered the bottle the rest of the way. "Remember that the offer stands," she said. "And I want you to stop next time if you get that close to passing out. You went catatonic before you even finished, healing, the second victim. I told Aizawa to erase your power and force you away next time. I don't know what stopped him from doing it today."

"He must have wanted to save her too," Zach said, then he looked down after he said it. "And, don't tell him that-" Zach caught himself, and he said softer, "Sorry. I know, you're the professional." He lifted his gaze and looked into Recovery Girl's eyes, "But only I know my power. Only I, can decide when it's too much. There are things I can do with this, that people never thought was possible. If you could save someone who was still alive, for sure, but you knew it would cause you pain, wouldn't you still do it?" Zach asked. Recovery Girl rubbed the side of her head, as there was just no getting through to the boy in front of her. "Because to me, they aren't dead yet," Zach said. She lifted her gaze back into his eyes, and he finished, "To me, they're still just people who I can save."

The nurse hummed and she rubbed the side of her head harder at that response. "I'll have to think about it," she said. "But your answers are contradictory. Telling me you're paranoid the villains are going to get you and the paranoia isn't unfounded, only to tell me that you're going to keep going to the point of passing out and being unable to defend yourself." She shook her head around, "It's not a good strategy."

Zach's eyes widened, then he looked down and furrowed his brow while clenching his fists in front of him. _She's right. Going too far that I lose time, that I pass out or go "catatonic," it's a perfect opportunity for villains to take me away._ "I'll, work on it," Zach said, lifting his gaze and giving the old woman a small smile.

Recovery Girl shook her head, then Zach pulled his legs to the side and dropped them off the bed. "Are you leaving so soon?" She questioned. "You should still rest here-"

"I don't have any real injuries, right?" Zach asked in a soft voice, his throat the only thing really hurting him right now. "I'd feel more comfortable in my own room," he said. _Where there's a knife,_ he added to himself without speaking aloud.

Recovery Girl paused, then she said, "I won't keep you then." She stared at him closely, checking to make sure he was not just leaving early to pretend that he was more fine than he really was. The nurse turned her head after a second and frowned at his upbeat attitude that made her think he really was feeling better after what he had done earlier. She started talking as Zach walked for the door, still wearing his school uniform though there were some rips in it which he noticed on his way out of the room. "Someone came in to see you, but she left a letter when she saw you were still unconscious."

Zach turned, and Recovery Girl walked back from her desk holding a plastic bag with some things in it. Zach patted his pockets and realized he did not have his wallet or his phone, though he already kind of knew considering he could see them in that bag along with a folded up slip of paper. "Who was it?" Zach asked as he took the bag from the older woman.

"Mt. Lady," Recovery Girl replied. "She was quite disappointed that you were not up." The old woman sweatdropped and muttered, "She tried yelling at you even… I had to kick her out."

Zach sweatdropped too, then he looked down at the paper in the bag and wondered what the hero had written on it. "Well, thank you for looking after me," Zach said, looking back up from the bag and nodding at the nurse who sighed once more and just nodded her head. "I'll, think about all you said," Zach said. He turned and walked back for the door, but as he opened it, he heard Recovery Girl speak in a low voice behind him.

"Sazaki, do you know-" she paused. "A man you saved in late September. He worked for a construction company, and he fell a great distance." Zach grimaced, thinking of who that could be. _That was the same day, as the first night I started my life, as a real villain._ Recovery Girl continued, "Did you know, he had lung cancer?" Zach's grimace dipped so much farther and his hands started shaking at his sides. His eyes clenched shut, as Recovery Girl continued, "He had been a smoker since he was a teenager, but after you-"

"Please don't," Zach whispered. Recovery Girl's eyes opened wide at Zach's whisper, and they widened more as the boy turned his head and looked back at her with such a scared and nervous look on his face. "Don't finish that sentence."

"What's wrong?" She asked.

He paused, wishing he had just walked out of there faster. "If I-" he started. He froze and bit down on his bottom lip, then he stopped since Recovery Girl had scolded him and told him to stop doing that pretty recently. He was scared though, and it was a natural reaction for him to try and shift that fear to some pain. Zach gulped, and then he whispered, "What would that, mean? I don't know. I can't, think about that," Zach said. He shook his head a few times, then he looked down and continued, "I've been scared of my power before. It's terrified me, for a long time. A lot of things about it… But this. Saving, everyone. It'd be possible, wouldn't it? What would that mean?" His eyes lifted and back to the nurse whose narrowed back down at the deep statements he was making. "I'm only sixteen. If I can save, everyone. Sixty, seventy, eighty years of mortality meaning something else if I can live that long. Consequences to people's actions… They could drink themselves to death over a course of five years, or smoke constantly… And all they would have to do is call me up when they're close to dying, because I'd come. And if they're healthy after that, and I save for accidents too… What does old age mean? Does anyone actually die, from old age?" He asked the woman in front of him who specialized in medicine for her entire life.

"Don't think so hard on all that," Recovery Girl said. Zach's eyes widened as he had just told her some of the deepest things that he had been thinking of whenever this idea came to his mind. "They're questions you can figure out as time goes on. Things you can decide for yourself as you go, that you don't need to push on yourself all at once." Zach started nodding at her, and she finished, "As you said. You are the 'only' one who can decide how to use your power. No one else can make the decision for you. Make your own code-"

Zach's face lit up and he smiled brightly at the woman in front of him. She leaned back at that reaction and stopped short at how happy he suddenly looked. "That's awesome," Zach said, shaking his head in amazement and laughing while turning around. "This is awesome," he said, and he walked out of the nurse's office while waving a hand over his shoulder. "Thanks Recovery Girl. Thanks, a whole lot for saying that."

 _What did I say?_

Zach grinned as he walked down the hallway, a bigger skip in his step than there would be just from saving two lives. _"Make your own code." "Act by your own code."_ "Haha, hahaha," Zach grabbed his stomach with his left hand and laughed hard. _I thought I was so much like a villain because I thought that, but Recovery Girl just said the same thing! That's not a villain ideology, that's just how people live life! We all have to chose our own moralities. Recovery Girl is like the farthest thing from Shigaraki Tomura._ Zach's skip calmed down a little at the thought of that name, but he shook his head and then lifted the plastic bag he was still holding.

He pulled out his phone and wallet first and pocketed them, then he reached for the letter. Zach stopped before heading out of the school and back to his dorm, and he yawned while unfolding the sheet. _I really am tired,_ he thought, and he looked down at the sheet with half-closed eyes. He smiled a little in a sad way as he read the start of it. _"…I didn't expect his sudden power boost and when I fell and put my hand down to catch myself I felt- I crushed-"_ Zach looked down to lower down on the sheet as a lot had been scribbled out in between like she was finding it hard to find the right words to write. _"I blamed myself. So thanks kid. And, thanks for that other thing- I remember dying in Camino Ward. Wish you were awake, your nurse is kicking me out, but here's my number…"_ Zach's eyes widened a bit as the pro hero, and a very beautiful woman left her number for him at the bottom of the letter. His eyes would not have widened as much if there was not a heart drawn at the end of it that made his face blush a bit. He just folded back up the paper though and he put it in the bag, and he put them both in his pocket with his wallet.

Zach started walking again, heading out of the school and back for his apartment. He checked his phone when he took it out of the bag first, and it was already more than five hours after he had passed out. He wondered if anyone would still be hanging around in the common room of the dorm, but his thoughts shifted to that letter again. Zach was thinking about putting it with the receipt he got when he went to Kyoto, but he hesitated at the thought. _Not everything she wrote should be directed to me. It was really Monoma, who saved her._ Zach started to frown a little, but he shook his head as he continued to walk up the road for Class-A's dorm.

 _Don't know why I got mad at Monoma. I shouldn't treat him like the villains. The first day back I was way too paranoid, not that it was a bad thing. But I forgave Monoma for the Sports Festival, especially since he came to save me, and he saved Mt. Lady when I couldn't… But, I don't think they would have even thought about going to save her if I didn't say something when about to pass out._ Zach smiled again, in a better mood as he walked towards his dorm and giving himself credit where he thought it was due. _It was Monoma too, but my power. And my idea. Mt. Lady's alive because of me, and she stopped those villains today before the hardest one… though, that guy I saved wouldn't have died- what am I thinking? Not just him, but a lot of other people probably would have too if Mt. Lady wasn't there. All those people she protected today, I protected them too, right? And keeping her from feeling like she had killed someone, keeping her from blaming herself,_ Zach shook his head and he patted his hand down on his left pocket a few times. _I'm glad, I could help her._

Zach reached the walkway up to his dorm and he was still smiling. He looked up at the building he was walking towards. _Home,_ he thought. _It's my real home now. A place I can go back to. Spy? Maybe it was just Hackerman the whole time! Heh, I can only hope. But it was probably a teacher or Class-B… actually, just don't think about it for right now. I haven't gotten anywhere with it anyway, and I know there's no real way for me to find out. So I'll just stay careful at all times, but not super paranoid like before. I let my guard down today in public, off campus without any heroes around, and I didn't get taken. They'd be stupid to come after me here if I'm going to give them opportunities like that. Not that I will keep doing that- I have to be more careful like Recovery Girl said-_

"Zach!"

He opened the door and walked inside without really thinking about what he was doing, and he spun towards the couches in surprise as he heard that shout. He did not know what he was expecting when he walked in, but it was not half of the class hanging out around the common room. It was a Wednesday night after all, and though not too late, it was later than people were usually gathered down here. A few people looked like they were going to run to the door to ask him questions before he went up to his room, but Zach took off his shoes and he started walking their way instead. He smiled and he headed right towards the couches around the tv. "Hey," he said, smiling as he walked up to the far couch and turning to the two girls on the side of it who did not have a third person there. They had gotten up when he walked in, but he noticed the extra spot and walked straight towards it.

"Can I, sit here?" He said, his voice getting quieter at the end as the 'can I' came out scratchier than he intended. He barely got it out of his mouth before dropping backwards onto the couch too, not actually waiting to hear a response. _Man, I am tired. Walking up stairs right now sounds terrible._ He let out a long yawn and leaned back while sliding farther down into the couch in the most relaxed way anyone around him could imagine. He looked like he might actually sink straight into it as he just kept slouching farther.

"You're pretty tired, huh?" Jirou asked the boy next to her. She had been in the middle of that couch, while Yaoyorozu was on her opposite side and leaned farther forward to look down in surprise at Zach. The girl with a spiky black ponytail smiled after a second of staring at Zach's exhausted but satisfied and smiling face. She sat down on the couch again and Jirou glanced her way, before sitting down next to her in her spot again. There was another spot on the couches open, but the spot Zach picked made it so no one was on his right side which he always felt more comfortable with.

Kaminari and Kirishima had turned when Zach slowly walked right by them, and they headed back over to the couch area and looked towards the exhausted boy sliding into his cushion. Sitting back down on the middle couch were Mineta, Hagakure, and Ojiro, and on the couch across the table from the one Zach sat on, Ashido ran over and stole the seat Kaminari had jumped up from, next to Shoji who never got up in the first place and only spun his head around. Kirishima had been standing already, as was Sato who stood behind the middle couch where he had been watching tv from.

Zach barely noticed the tv was on as he walked to the couch, but he turned his head to it a bit and slid back out of his slouched position to stare at the news. "Hey," he said, cracking a slightly bigger smile. "They're talking about- awwww," he yawned and he slouched again. _Geez, how did I even make it back here? Recovery Girl was right. Just that walk alone took the last of my energy._ He leaned back on the couch again, turning away from the screen showing videos of Musutafu after the villain attack where the damage was being shown. He heard one of the people talking in the background of the images mention, 'Lifebringer,' and he smiled a little while leaning back. _Lifebringer. That's not my name. Not Lifebringer. Why do I have to keep thinking that? I'm obviously fucked, if I think that too instead of just respond aloud with it._ He shook his head around while opening his eyes again, and then he darted his eyes around as he realized everyone in the room was still looking his way.

"Dude, are you alright?" Kaminari asked, sitting on the arm rest of the couch next to his old seat that Ashido stole. He leaned forward on it and said, "They wouldn't show the video on the news 'cause it was so graphic, but you were-"

"Kaminari," Yaoyorozu started in a scolding tone. "Perhaps Zach does not wish to-"

"It's fine," Zach started, turning left and leaning forward to look past Jirou at the girl next to her. He turned back to Kaminari after nodding at Yaoyorozu, and he said, "I'm good. Thanks." He glanced around and from their looks, he figured the rest of them all saw the video too. "It just, hurt a lot more this time."

"Your eyes were bleeding," Ashido said. "It was weird, you looked just like Mineta."

Zach frowned deeply, and half of the room had to cover their mouths with a hand at that reaction while Mineta dropped his jaw. "What's that look for?!"

"Just thinking about bleeding out my eyes," Zach replied, and the five who laughed at his reaction opened their eyes wide and felt stupid for laughing now. Zach froze as he saw those looks, and he sweatdropped as his lie to make Mineta feel better made the rest of them feel worse for laughing. He smiled as Mineta looked happy by that answer though, and Zach said to the shorter boy, "I didn't realize bleeding out your eyes hurt like that though. It felt like my eyes were popping and unpop-" he stopped speaking at Mineta's wide eyes, and then he muttered while leaning back, "Oh, does that not, happen when you pull off your…"

"No," Mineta said, shaking his head with a nervous look on his face as he thought about what Zach was just describing.

Jirou looked to her right with an uneasy look too. _Like his eyes were popping?! Crap, he's in way too good a mood right now. Thought he'd be like comatose or something._

Kirishima pursed his lips as he looked over towards Zach who actually lost his relaxed expression for a few seconds. The boy with messy black hair shook his head though and smiled as he looked Kirishima's way and past him towards Sero and Tokoyami who were heading towards the common area.

"Hey! You're back already," Sero said in surprise as he stopped behind where Shoji sat on the couch.

"Surprised Recovery Girl let you out," Ojiro mentioned, a bead of sweat on his face but a smile too. He was confused at Zach's appearance as were the others, but he had been looking more and more like this for a few days now. Ever since they all went to his room on Sunday, he had just been in a gradually better mood. To have it reach its peak right after that video they saw of him screaming at the top of his lungs in agony though, it was a little strange.

"She tried to get me to rest longer," Zach admitted. "Didn't want to sleep there though," he said. He lifted up his arms in front of him and looked down. He mentioned that last part about sleeping there because he thought about how he needed to get to class tomorrow, and thinking about that reminded him of the state of his uniform. The others had not really noticed since they had been so focused on his face, but now they looked down and noticed a few rips in his uniform too.

"Whoa, did you fight the villain too?" Mineta asked. He leaned forward and said, "We heard it was Todoroki who finally beat it."

Zach shook his head at the first part of what Mineta said, then his eyes widened and he said, "Really?"

"You didn't know?" Jirou asked.

He shook his head and then added, "I left before the villain was down. I don't know how it ended." Saying that got everyone around him to start talking at once.

"What did the villain look like while it was fighting?"

"Did you see the other heroes fighting?"

"It was Todoroki who stopped the guy, but Midnight sensei knocked him out."

"Midoriya helped too, Todoroki said at least."

"How did you guys get Aizawa sensei to let you come with him?"

"It was a just good thing," Zach started, "I was in detention at the time." He grinned afterwards, and a few of the others talking to him at once started laughing at that. Zach yawned again, and he felt his eyes closing on their own as much as he wanted to stay up and talk with everyone. He still felt pretty great, and he was liking this talk too and finding out more about the parts of the fight he missed. He lowered his left hand and patted down his pocket where he felt that letter from Mt. Lady too, then he sighed and pushed up to his feet. "I'm actually," he started, then he opened his mouth more and yawned harder while his eyes just stayed more than half closed.

"Go get some more rest," Yaoyorozu said, making it so he would not have to feel the need to finish that sentence. "You should listen to Recovery Girl."

"I, know," he said. He smiled her way again, then he turned and started scratching the back of his head as he walked for the stairwell. "See you guys tomorrow."

"Yeah, night man," Kaminari said, turning in a bit of surprise as Zach walked right by. The other boy's face looked exhausted though and Kaminari laughed after a second as Zach had to shake his head around and then turn to be more on line with the stairwell.

"Good job out there!" Sero said, cupping his hands to his mouth when Zach was almost at the stairwell. He wanted to talk to him longer, but Zach was clearly on the verge of passing out again.

"Y-Yeah," Mineta agreed, leaning forward off the couch and saying it since he did not when Zach was there. "That was super cool!"

Zach stopped at the stairwell and he smiled more than ever at what his classmates were saying. He thought back on what they were talking about, and doing so made him think of some of the things he thought about back then. But what they were saying to him, overwhelmed those thoughts of pain and regret. He turned his head a bit and flashed them a small smile out the right side of his face.

Kirishima stared at that right side of Zach's face and kept thinking on it even after Zach turned and continued into the stairwell and up the stairs. After a few seconds, the spiky-red-haired teen started that way himself and he sped-walked in before jogging up the stairs. He did not have to go as fast as he thought though, as he found Zach at the second floor with his hands down on his knees. "Looking, a little tired there," Kirishima mentioned, and Zach turned his head while still hunched over, not even trying to hide it as he stood there panting.

"Stairs are, tough," Zach said between breaths, and he flashed Kirishima a smile after joking about how tired he was.

Kirishima did not smile back though, and Zach straightened up while getting a more serious look on his own face. He tried to get more awake too without smacking his cheeks a couple of times like he felt the need to do. "What's wrong?" Zach asked.

"I'm sorry," Kirishima said. Zach's eyes widened and he got a bit of confusion on his face. Kirishima looked a bit hesitant and awkward about this himself, but more like he could not figure out the words he was trying to come up with. "The other day, I'm sorry for saying you should have come at that truck crash." Zach's eyes widened more, and Kirishima continued, "I didn't realize, it hurt you so much. And I'm sorry you had to go through that, to save me."

"Don't be," Zach started.

"I am," Kirishima said. "You shouldn't have to, feel that much pain. I shouldn't have forced you to feel that-"

"Kirishima," Zach began, shaking his head at what the red-head was saying. Kirishima opened his mouth to say more, but Zach frowned and continued, "I mean it, don't be sorry. Saving you, was one of the best moments of my life." Kirishima's eyes opened wide and his mouth froze in its half-open way. "You were, the first person I ever saved. Not just the first I brought back to life, but saved. At USJ I thought I was- but Snipe was there and would have rescued us anyway. Bringing you back though… I didn't know I could do it. And I didn't know it would hurt at the time, but when it hurt, I'm telling you," Zach smiled and he continued, "It was a great pain. And I know that sounds weird, and it's not like I like pain-" Zach paused and he frowned for a second as now he was the one having trouble coming up with what to say.

He sighed and he got a more straight look on his face before continuing. "You know Kirishima, it hurts a lot whenever I bring someone back. But when I take a life, I get the opposite feeling." Kirishima's eyes started to widen even more, and Zach said softer, "One of euphoria. But! I will never stop saving lives. As much as it hurts me physically, the feeling I get from saving a life, knowing that the person will get to go home to their family, is a thousand times better than that weird pleasure I get from taking one." He paused and added, "Saving you, was one of the best feelings I ever had, as fleeting as it was since I had to go with the villains a few seconds later… So, don't apologize for that." His serious look shifted and his flat lips lifted into a smile again. "Every time I bring someone back, it feels amazing. As much as it hurts me, I'll never stop saving people. My, mom," Zach said, and he kept smiling even as he felt a pang in his heart. "Her Quirk was reliant on her crying. She had to be crying in order to heal people, as her tears had healing powers. So I think, that's a part of her Quirk that she passed on to me. Instead of feeling sad, I have to feel pain, in order to save a life."

Kirishima stared in silence at Zach for a few seconds after he finished speaking. He rose his right hand and ran it through his hair a few times, wondering what he should say to all of that. He felt like Zach was thanking him for showing that he could save people, and he no longer really felt apologetic over it, but he thought back on that video he saw and it made him wrinkle his forehead in regret again. "It was just rough, because it's the first time doing it again after a few months," Zach said. Kirishima looked into his eyes again, and Zach's smile actually dropped down after he said it. He was only mentioning it because he thought he could get Kirishima to relax more if he made this time seem like it was so much worse, which it really was. Mentioning how it was worse though, made him think of what the pain during it reminded him of. "I'll get used to it again," he whispered after his face got a darker look on it.

Although they were not thinking it for the same reason, Kirishima heard Zach mention how it had been a few months since he had last done it, and it made the spiky-red-haired boy frown and bare his teeth in frustration. Zach had turned after saying that last sentence though, and he started up the stairs again in a slow and exhausted way. Kirishima walked on his left side and lifted up Zach's arm, putting it over his shoulders and helping take the weight off. Zach wanted to say it was unnecessary, but he actually felt lighter on his feet and could walk up the stairs faster. "Thanks," he said, and the two of them headed up to the third and then fourth floor.

As they turned the fourth floor to go farther, Zach shrugged off Kirishima's arm. "It's alright. You don't need to come with me all the way," he added, since he knew this was Kirishima's floor. He also noticed the dark look on Kirishima's face as they went up those last two flights, and he knew there was something on his mind. As much as he did not want to ask, because it might be something he did not want to answer, he also did not want to leave Kirishima with that frustrated feeling all night. "You good?" Zach asked.

Kirishima turned to him, and his gaze lingered on the right side of Zach's face which was what made him go after his classmate in the first place. Zach saw where Kirishima was looking, and he grimaced too just like the red-head. "Those few months," Kirishima started. "You didn't bring anyone back. No one heard a thing from you," Kirishima looked into Zach's eyes. "I thought you were dead, Zach." Zach frowned deeper but less in an annoyed and frustrated way, because he knew so many of his classmates thought like that. "I couldn't do a thing as you were taken through that portal, and the next time I see you… And I don't want to pry or think you're lying, but you said you got those scars when a car exploded, while you were still going around saving people. But you didn't have those," he nodded at Zach's face and the ones that were most visible, "when I saw you at VTS. And if you didn't save people after that." Kirishima's face looked so frustrated, and angry at himself, and angry just that he was bringing this up in the first place. "What happened, since VTS-"

"Nothing," Zach whispered. Kirishima bit down harder and dropped his gaze to the floor at Zach's response. "Those scars really were from an explosion. The ones on my face were from after. Shigaraki beat me for betraying them," Kirishima's head snapped back up and his eyes were wide. "But I'm not lying about the rest of it. The one on my face, yeah, that wasn't from the car explosion. I just didn't feel like talking about what happened after, because I knew you might blame yourself for it. I convinced them I was on their side again though," Zach said, giving Kirishima a small half-smile. "They wouldn't let me save anyone, but right when they started giving me some more freedom, I found my chance and bolted, made my escape and turned myself in."

"Really?" Kirishima asked. His wide eyes lowered back to normal a bit, and he leaned forward and asked, "That's _really_ what happened?"

"Really," Zach said, losing his half-smile at Kirishima's doubt.

Kirishima's eyes opened wide again though at Zach's response, and he stepped back before lifting a hand and rubbing his head. "Damn," he said, and he shook his head a few times. "Well, I'm still sorry he beat you after that."

"Don't be," Zach said. "It wasn't your fault. No one could have stopped it," he turned and started up for the fifth floor. _Do I really think that? No, the teachers could have. If they had tried. If they had done whatever they could have, or if they were stronger!_ "Night Kirishima," Zach said.

Kirishima scratched his head a few more times, then he sighed and said, "Night dude. I'm glad, you figured out you could bring people back thanks to me. You've been a cool hero ever since." Zach froze on the step and turned back, only for Kirishima to have turned his back already and started walking into his hall. Zach watched him until he was out of sight, then his mouth curled back up as he spun and continued up the stairs.

 _He really does, think I'm a hero. Already. Do other people? I have a license, provisional at least._ Zach chuckled to himself and he lifted his hands and put them behind his head. He let out a yawn and glanced up at the ceiling in the best mood he had been in, for a very long time. _Being a hero, feels pretty great._

* * *

 **A/N Thanks for reading. Hope you enjoyed the chapter. Leave a review below telling me what you think or predictions!**

Guest chapter 40 . 14h ago

Will Aizawa still assign homework to Zach after this spectacle. I feel like he would despite Zach literally feeling phantom pain that normally would make people go unconscious from the pain. Zach himself wasn't dying right? All he felt was a victim's pain leading up to their death.

 **He might let Zach off the hook, though Zach was doing his homework in detention so maybe he got most of it done already! Zach's Quirk doesn't let him _see_ how people died like you were saying, he just thought about what happened because he knew about it before he started healing. Like when he was standing around the guy's body he heard the people talking about how he was crushed, and when he felt the pain of his ribs cracking he knew that the guy he was healing must have had a bunch of cracked ribs too. The main things he was feeling this time though were mental though, he was feeling a lot of the pain he felt back during the weeks since VTS that he finally let himself think about since he accepted he was safe enough to save someone in public. But yeah he really wasn't seeing the guy's death, just knew about how it happened. I think that's a cool arc idea, but I'm not gonna say if I will use anything from it (though those Quirks are pretty interesting... ;), so thanks). And thanks for the review(s)!**

LordOfTee chapter 40 . 8h ago

I just now learned that Zach feels the pain of the victim that he's healing.  
How could I be so unobservant?

 **Haha, yeah it started back with Kirishima he started yelling in pain, and then with Kuroiro's Grandma I tried showing it was a different kind of pain like he was feeling his insides get all fucked up from whatever organs must have failed when she overdosed. Same thing with the construction guy Recovery Girl mentioned this time who was fucked up really bad so it hurt Zach more than most. Anyway, didn't really specify it too much until these last two chapters. Hope you enjoyed the chapter!**

D-Koy24 chapter 40 . 14h ago

Okay let me start reading this chapter..  
..."One eternity later"(French accent)...  
...and I'm done wool that was... Interesting.  
~D-Koy,the last air bender

 **Guess it was a bit long, though hope you liked it! Thanks for the review, air bender!**

Colinpop5 chapter 40 . 17h ago

Intense

 **Yup. Little calmer this time. Thanks for the reviews everyone!**


	42. Chapter 42

**Chapter 42:**

"And how are you doing today?"

Zach shifted in his seat, fidgeting around for a few seconds under the gaze of the woman in front of him. He sighed when he could not find a good position, and then he bowed his head and said, "I'm sorry for missing last week." He got it off his chest sooner than he thought he would, but he felt too strange not mentioning it. "I know I said, 'next Saturday.' So, I'm sorry I skipped our session."

"Hmm, well, how about we start with that weekend then?" Softy asked, giving the boy a thoughtful smile. "If you really felt-"

"Can we, not talk about that?" Zach asked. _I don't want to sit here lying to you, Softy. And I'm not telling you about Webb and Diamondfist and secretly being an anti-hero. I feel like that kind of stuff falls under the 'future crimes' category, since it's kind of an ongoing thing, I think. Webb did make it seem like he's going to ask for help again, but I'm glad he's not doing so this soon. It'd be tough to get out without a nice gap period._

Softy hummed some more at Zach's response, but she nodded after a second. "Well then, how about what happened this Wednesday?" She asked.

"The villain fight?" Zach said.

"I'm thinking more on, what happened afterwards," she said. Zach grimaced even though he thought this might, probably come up. "I won't lie, I did see a video of your actions online. It was not a clear camera angle of your face, but you looked to be in some serious pain."

Zach nodded as she was not wrong there. "Healing him, the first of the two- since I don't really remember the second very well, it hurt more than bringing someone back ever had before." Softy nodded, and Zach stared at her for a few seconds and could see she was still waiting for more. _More?_ He opened his mouth and closed it, then he opened it again and whispered, "But it wasn't the, physical pain."

"Now, what do you mean by that?" Softy asked.

 _I lied to Kirishima so easily, even after he poured his heart out wanting to know. But I have to see him every day. I'd have to see the way he looks at me completely change. He, thinks I'm a hero._ Zach shook his head and looked into Softy's eyes. She had a soft expression like he did not have to say a thing if he did not want to, but he was trying to push it out of himself anyway. "The, pain of healing that man on Wednesday… All that pain brought back weeks, months of stuff I buried down because I don't want to think about it."

"That's dangerous you know?" Softy began. "To have such repressed memories."

"I know," Zach replied. "And I know, if I'm going to wind up thinking about it whenever I save someone, then I need a better outlet. Because if I only think about it at those times, I'll lose focus. Or the mental pain of thinking about all that, is going to keep me from saving more people… But talking about it," He continued, pausing for a second between thoughts. "It's too hard. I know I'll go insane if I talk about it."

Softy shook her head at him. She smiled and said, "You should have more confidence in yourself. More faith that you can-"

"I _know,_ " Zach cut her off. "That I'll go insane." She closed her open mouth and nodded at him, and Zach's eyes widened, before he clenched his eyes shut for a few seconds. "How long can someone go without sleep for?" He asked. He did not know what that nod meant. He thought maybe because he had cut her off she thought that he wanted to talk, or maybe she was telling him he did not have to say anything if he did not want to- but he wanted to. "Since you're a doctor, you should know right?" He asked, his eyes snapping open and looking into Softy's again. She stayed quiet though despite his question, and Zach asked again in a more strained voice, "How, many hours of nonstop consciousness can someone endure it before they lose it and just die?"

She started to shake her head. "I'm assuming this is not a hypothetical-"

"Solitary confinement," Zach whispered, shaking his head at her. "On its own is… but without being able to sleep. It's _maddening._ "

"Do you still feel," Softy began. Zach's eyes widened and he quickly changed his expression that he wondered if it was too "mad" itself. She paused as she saw him forcefully change his expression for her, and then she continued in a quieter voice, "Do you still feel like that sleep deprivation is affecting you?"

Zach opened his mouth to respond negatively right away, but he stopped with his mouth open. He froze for a few seconds, then he nodded his head a couple of times. "I thought," Zach began in a whisper. He looked into Softy's eyes, the woman he had decided to confide in and had convinced himself with dozens of reasons why it would be impossible for her to be the spy. "I thought weeks, months were passing, at a snail's pace. At what was probably…" he trailed off, then he looked down and lifted his left arm in front of him. He had taken off his sweatshirt when he got inside, and his short-sleeved shirt left his left arm exposed with several scars on it. Long ones, short ones, old ones, new ones. He glanced at the back of his hand and then turned it over to look at his palm, and Softy watched his eyes while also looking at those wounds herself, as she had avoided staring at them to prevent her patient from feeling self-conscious since he took off his sweatshirt.

"The scars on my body were some of the least painful parts of those six weeks, more, that I was captured after VTS for," Zach said. "The things that really mess with me," he continued. He paused for a moment, then he looked up and into Softy's eyes again. "All Shigaraki wanted, was to make me into a villain. So when I showed him that I wasn't going to just change on my own, he decided to- to break my mind, and shape it the way he wanted."

Softy straightened up in her seat a little and stared at Zach with slightly bigger eyes. As much as these meetings were for her client's mental health, she was going to be getting into his head more than anyone else. The principal never said it to her, and the other teachers never brought it up either, but they knew Zach Sazaki had "escaped" the villains. It was what the boy said he did, and it unnerved them. No one wanted to believe that the villains had really turned him, and set him loose once he had been fully brainwashed or indoctrinated. It was in the back of their minds though. The fact that he was bringing up this concept to her directly though made her start feeling a bit excited as she could erase that doubt, while also scaring her as to what she thought she was about to hear.

Zach hesitated for a moment as Softy leaned forward, but when she nodded at him to continue, Zach nodded back and took a deep breath. Things he had never talked about, thinks he had pushed down, he told himself he was going to bring them up here to prevent them from rising the next time he had to save a life. Planning on talking about them, and actually saying them out loud, to another person, were very different things though. "Pretty early on," Zach started. "Shigaraki came in, to the room I was kept in for most of those six weeks, a little longer maybe… He came in, and he- he told me that…" Zach pursed his lips instead of biting down on his bottom one, then he whispered to the woman in front of him, "He told me that they had made a fake body of me, and faked my death."

Softy's eyebrows lifted, and Zach continued to her, "He showed me a news article too that said I was dead. He did it, to keep me from hoping the heroes would ever come. Then one day, probably a month later, after not being able to sleep- with the strobe lights and constant… noises." Zach paused after saying 'noises,' shivering and clenching his eyes shut for a few seconds. He took deep breaths to calm himself down though, as no one was forcing him to say these things. "Those times, felt so long. One time, the first I think, Shigaraki came back in. I had asked him how long it had been, and he told me it had been six months." Zach paused again and then whispered, "I laughed. I actually, laughed at him, because I only thought it had been like three or four. Then Shigaraki laughed right back at me, and he told me he was lying, and it had only been five days."

Zach's lips started trembling as he thought about that. His look at the moment was not far from what he had looked like at the time. "I denied it," he whispered. "Told him he was lying, because I couldn't believe it. Then- or maybe this was later on and not towards the start, because I'm pretty sure it was right after this, as I came to believe it and started to lose it, that Shigaraki told me how they never faked my death. But after all that time, the heroes still weren't coming. I already had no faith they were coming for me, but knowing that it had been so long, with them knowing I was still alive- and Shigaraki tried using that. Talking about how the heroes were fakes, leaving me to die. And I was so angry, that I really thought I convinced them afterwards that I was actually on their side- and then he just started it up again! He, he always does that," Zach said, then he caught himself and shook his head fast. "He, he _did_ that all the time. He'd convince me of something, then flip it around right away. Like, like he made me think I actually started to get him to trust me a bit, and then he laughed as he pulled his arms away from the box, because I actually looked hopeful he would take it off… He always waited, until I looked like I had hope, before doing it."

"But you never broke," Softy said. Zach lowered his gaze, and she continued, "You have told me that you never killed anyone, since your trial. You meant that didn't you?" Zach nodded his head once, only a short and quick nod though. "You resisted-"

"Just, killing though," Zach whispered. "That's the only thing," he continued, lifting his gaze to Softy again. His eyes were so sad as he looked into hers, because she sounded like she was telling him to be proud that he had kept from breaking under the pressure. "I did, break," he whispered. "I might not have killed, like he wanted, but I was mad. I, the days of no sleep. Staying awake for so long, hundreds of hours of straight consciousness, uninterrupted. And I'd get so thirsty, then I'd wish I never had any more water ever. There were times, I looked it up after and found out it's called Chinese Water Torture. I was just, I had my head pulled back in that chair, and they'd pour water on my face when I was thirsty but then never turned it off. They almost shut it off, but they left it dripping. Dripping. Dripping. Dripping. On my forehead, and it was cold, and I was going insane. And I couldn't sleep. And they'd do it at random, for minutes or hours at a time. And I wasn't allowed to die because they wanted me to start killing people for them. And I wasn't allowed to go completely insane, because I knew I would start to do just that. I knew I would kill, if I actually broke, so I forced it as the only thought in my head, and the rest of my mind just, melted away." He looked into Softy's eyes with such a far-off and distant look in his that when she started leaning back to check if he would follow her, his eyes did not shift to follow her movement.

"I went mad in that room," Zach whispered. His eyes refocused on Softy who stopped moving around as he locked eyes with her. "Absolutely. Fucking. Mad," he said, his eyes growing huge. "And that madness lasted until the second I started my escape. All I could think about, was not killing anyone, how to survive without killing anyone. How to stop the torture without killing. Not killing… And when I made my escape, the plan happened in that moment, because the fear I felt leading up to it was so intense that I had stopped thinking about escaping. I, don't remember thinking much at all, until the second I started running. I couldn't come up with a plan. I was terrified someone would notice, or be reading my mind, and I would be back in the room again. Back with the dripping. And the, noises. And dripping, drips that went on and on, so close to my eyes that I flinched for hours and it went from uncomfortable to sheer and constant agony, except there was no real pain. It was all in my head, but knowing that didn't make it easier. Not while I knew the teachers knew I was fine, not while, the media reported that I had just gone back with them again. They weren't looking for me. No manhunt, because no family to care. They just left me there…" Zach trailed off and he started shaking his head, before lowering his gaze down to the floor of the psychiatrist office.

 _Talking about that stuff, it's hard. That's some of it. That's still just, some of it. How he tried breaking me. Shigaraki Tomura. You couldn't do it._

"I'm glad you decided to share that with me," Softy began, and Zach's eyes lifted back to meet hers. "I can't imagine, what that must have felt like. Each one of the things you described on your own would be too much for me. I would be taking all kinds of antidepressants and…" she trailed off, then she held up her palms at the frown that formed on Zach's face. "I promised her I'd try," Softy said, and then she gave Zach a sly smile that actually made him feel a little relaxed despite everything he just thought on. It almost felt like she was bringing up the antidepressants as a joke about what Recovery Girl had told her, and she was not going to press the issue right now if Zach was that against taking them. Instead she changed tactics and just used the idea of them in a way that she hoped could make him relax. "But I think you can do this on your own. You seem to be handling it, much better than I can imagine anyone else would."

Zach nodded his head, agreeing with her and taking some deep breaths as he calmed himself down a bit from his long rant. "I think you can do it," Softy started, "but I think there are also some things the two of us can do together too. I think we can work through some of the issues, some of the negative feelings you have."

"I don't think," Zach began.

"Trust me?" Softy said, lifting her tone at the end to show it was a question even though she said it like she wanted him too as well. He hesitated, and she continued without forcing him to respond, "I know we can do it. We'll start off with something a little more simple and move into deeper stuff later, if you'd like." Zach hummed and had a really hesitant look on his face. Telling Softy some stuff was part of what he planned, but he figured that alone would help him out. He did not really plan on them actually changing his feelings over those memories he was repressing. He was repressing them for a reason after all.

"Like, what kind, of simple things?" Zach began.

"Hmm, well how about," Softy started. She looked up thoughtfully in the beginning, then the nice older woman with a pretty face and soothing personality smiled like she had an idea. Zach leaned forward at that look that made it seem like the idea was a great one. "Let's start with, your teachers. Your feelings towards each of them specifically, not just as a group." Softy specified it and Zach frowned more than he had at her initial suggestion. "Like All Might, how do you feel about him?"

"I, like All Might," Zach said, feeling no need to hold that back. He even smiled a bit, and he said, "All Might's been my hero since I was a kid. He, saved my life, several times now."

 _Really?_ "That's good," Softy said. There were other questions she had about that, but they were not really important to what her job was.

"And how about your homeroom teacher, Eraser Head?"

"Aizawa sensei is," Zach started, frowning again as he started thinking about him. "He's," Zach continued, and he furled his lip and narrowed his eyes down. "He let me come out on Wednesday. And I thought he was going to stop me, but he actually- he must have accepted my resolve. He let me keep going, to save those two people."

"Sounds like you appreciate it," Softy remarked.

"I, do," Zach said in a slow way. "I still don't think, he really trusts me. He probably thinks the villains let me go, a sleeper agent," Zach looked around in Softy's eyes after he said it, trying to find a sign that maybe she felt the same way. _Psychiatrists are good,_ Zach thought, as she had no outward reaction to what he just said. "But, I'm starting to, trust him," Zach said, muttering the last part as it annoyed him a bit.

"Well that's great," Softy said. "And how about the other teacher I heard you went out to the fight with? Present Mic?"

Zach frowned deeper again. He thought about the awkward conversation Present Mic tried starting on Monday during detention, then how the man looked when he was brought to listen to the apologies of the teachers in the teachers' lounge. He considered how Present Mic had been avoiding his gaze in English class since then, and he frowned even deeper before muttering, "He could have done something."

"At the Villain Training Simulation?" Softy asked.

"I saw him," Zach said. "Not even that far away. He could have-" Zach froze as Softy stared at him, waiting to hear how that sentence was going to end. "He could have done something," Zach repeated.

"Like screamed with his Voice Quirk?" Softy offered, as if that was what Zach was suggesting.

Zach's forehead wrinkled up. "Yeah," he said.

"Would that not have hurt you as well?" She asked him.

"I know, I know that," Zach said. "But it could have stalled the Nomu for a second. An extra second for maybe Cementoss to figure out what was going on and made a wall in front of the portal, which he didn't do. Or it would have given Midoriya the extra second, to attack again more effectively and save me. Maybe that Nomu's weakness was a loud shout too. I know that's a long shot, but it could have paralyzed it, or made it lose track of its orders since they're pretty much thoughtless monsters anyway. Maybe if it was only for a second though, because any longer and he'd have to stop to not risk hurting me, Aizawa could have wrapped it up in his cloths. I don't know if he erased one of its Quirks or not, but he was too slow. They were all, too slow."

"So Aizawa again," Softy said. "Present Mic, and Cementoss. It seems those three are the ones you've focused much of your anger against the teachers here on."

"Snipe was there too," Zach said quickly. "And he, I know he was fast enough, but he couldn't do anything."

"His Quirk isn't one that _could_ do anything there though, right?" Softy asked, mentioning it since Zach did not bring him up when he was just ranting about what the teachers could have done differently. He had brought up the best reasons he had for being angry since she seemed to be defending the heroes.

Zach frowned for a few seconds, then he said in a low voice, "Principal Nezu too. He set up those cameras without telling anyone. Hackerman found them. How'd he do that? The principal claimed no one else knew, so it must have been a Quirk…" Zach trailed off his current train of thought, and he frowned so much deeper at what he was suggesting aloud. Thinking it in his head was one thing, but saying these things about people, or mouse-dog-bears, who he respected to someone else felt stranger to him. He finished in a softer mutter, "He could be the spy."

"The spy?" Softy asked.

Zach's eyes widened, and then he leaned forward in his chair and said, "You don't know?" Then he leaned back and frowned. _Except I don't know for sure either, do I? It could have been Hackerman every time. No, Principal Nezu would have said something. The teachers would have countered me when I brought it up. They would have tried to make me feel at ease, but I mention it and they just get dark looks on their faces like they've all been thinking about it hard too._ "The League of Villains has someone in the school. It's-"

"Do you think," Softy began. Zach looked at her in surprise that she interrupted him, but she rose a hand for him to wait before going off track from the topic she wanted to stay on. "Let's not go into this spy issue for now, but I'll accept that one exists at the moment. Because of the existence of this spy however, do you think you may be treating your teachers unfairly?" Zach frowned more, scrunching his face up. "I know it was frustrating, and that torture of making you think they might come, only to rip it away, it must have been hard too. The way the media told it, the way your absence was spun in our society, it has to hurt. These things are not the fault of those teachers though. In a split second, you were taken away through the warp gates by a Nomu ready to capture you. That must have been planned beforehand, for a quick retrieval if you betrayed them, am I correct?"

 _Shigaraki still thought, there was a chance. He said he trusted me, but he had the backup in place. A backup that was unbeatable. Except it wasn't! Someone should have, figured out a way. Someone should have saved me!_ "Someone should have stopped them," Zach said aloud. "Someone should have stopped it, from happening," he said, his voice quieter. "It wasn't, only my fault," he whispered.

"'Only?' So, you blame yourself for-"

"Because I didn't make a better plan," Zach said, keeping his gaze down and biting hard as he seethed it through his teeth. "I made such an elaborate plan. And I believed I had gained their trust, even though at that point I still knew- or I thought I knew that most of them still knew I was just trying to be a hero in my own way. I didn't think they actually thought I was one of them, but I also didn't think they doubted me when the idea was… And I worked hard to convince them. So Shigaraki watching me through the cameras, I didn't see it coming. I didn't think he'd lie about it, but I should have known Kurogiri didn't just have the right coordinates when we popped up _right_ in front of my classmates and All Might. I should have known, the villains were watching, but I was so caught up in keeping up my act, and at that point there was no going back. I had to send my message-" Zach paused and he started taking some deep breaths as he had been ranting really fast. "It all just came out of nowhere. Appearing right in front of them, things happening that didn't make sense, but they were things I couldn't change my plan around, so I guess I just ignored them. But, but as much as it's my fault-"

"Those things are not your fault," Softy said. Zach opened his mouth but she continued quickly, "If you had waited any longer, just stayed a member of the League of Villains even as they stopped you from saving people, you would have been no different than the other villains." Zach closed his mouth and shook his head for a few seconds, but Softy continued, "The message Shigaraki wanted you to send, you prevented any of your classmates from getting hurt in a situation where many could have been killed. You did the best you could, with the information you had. You couldn't have known about the hidden cameras."

"But I should have planned for them," Zach whispered. "I should have planned, for everything. Think constantly," he said even softer, and he shook his head around as he quoted the most evil villain he had ever seen before. "I thought I was so smart, thought I tricked real villains."

"But they were too smart," Softy finished for him. Zach hesitated, then he just nodded his head once in agreement. "Which is why I say, it is not your fault." Zach's head snapped up, an annoyed look like she had ignored everything he just said. "Villains do horrible things," she began, and she leaned towards Zach with a serious look on her face. "You have experienced some of those things, many of them. The terrible things they do, and that they did to you, are not your fault though. Their actions are their own. And being in the crosshairs of those villains, is more chance than anything. Your Quirk. The villain you were faced with at USJ. The villains targeted you because of things you could not control. You did the best you could, _at the time_ , to keep in control of your situation." Zach's lips started trembling and he wanted to shake his head so much at her, because he was at fault! She finished though, "Hindsight is twenty-twenty. To think back on those events though with the information you have now, and to think that the you from back then should have been prepared for everything you now know, it will only plague you with needless regret. Regret over things you could not control. Things you could not have prepared for, as much as you'd like to imagine now that you should have done so."

Zach leaned his head back and let out a gasp of air. He felt his heart pounding in his chest, and he was fighting hard to keep his eyes from watering up. He had gotten emotional too many times recently, and he was doing well so far keeping his feelings down. But the idea that it might not be his fault, or even that it was just _less_ of his fault than he believed, it was releasing so much weight that he only just realized was pushing down on him. "You really think so?" Zach wondered while staring at the ceiling.

"I know so," Softy assured him. He let out another gasp, then Softy continued softly, "Now. Let's talk about your teachers, individually," she looked into Zach's eyes as he lowered his head. "Because to me, it seemed like you blamed yourself more than you blame any of them." Zach hesitantly nodded back at her, but a more thoughtful look spreading over that hesitant expression. Softy smiled at his expression, and she said, "Alright then, let's begin…"

* * *

"Thanks again, Principal Nezu," Zach said to the short white-furred principal next to him as he stood outside a meeting room in a hallway of U.A. High School.

Nezu nodded up at the student and smiled at the boy who had a slightly nervous look and a bead of sweat rolling down the right side of his face. It was Monday after school, and Zach fidgeted around as Nezu said, "I will go inside now. Feel free to come in at your own pace."

Zach nodded at the short creature with a high-pitched voice, and he watched Nezu walk in and the door close behind him. He took a few deep breaths, then his right hand that was lifting for the door handle hesitated and pulled back a bit. He froze though as he tried pulling his hand back. _Damn it, Softy. I'd feel guilty now, if I didn't go through with it._ Zach shook his head around, and he gulped before grabbing the handle in front of him.

Zach Sazaki opened up the door and walking into the meeting room. He stepped in and walked right into the middle of the room before turning to the long semicircular table with a large number of the U.A. staff gathered at it. Teachers he did not even have, the guidance counselor Hound Dog, Lunch Rush, Recovery Girl too, they were all gathered around. Zach was nervous as he turned to face them all, and he took a deep breath while the staff of U.A. Zach asked Principal Nezu as a favor to gather for him all looked to the boy and awaited what he had to say. Zach kept as steady a look on his face as he could even as he felt incredibly nervous, then he bowed his body deeply so his upper body was almost at a perpendicular angle with his legs. "I am sorry," Zach began. His eyes clenched shut while he faced the floor, and he continued, "I've been nothing but a burden since I got into this school. I barely passed the entrance exam, I caused you all kinds of stress killing villains and going off on my own, and then I unfairly blamed some of you for getting captured after VTS."

He unbowed his body and looked straight into Cementoss's eyes, then to Present Mic, and Snipe, Vlad King, then All Might who was staring in as much surprise as the rest of the teachers. All Might smiled after a second though as Zach said this, as he was not that surprised after the talk they had in the nurse's office the other day that Zach would do something like this. Zach stared at All Might for a few more seconds, feeling guilty that he ever felt bad about him, especially after Webb had saved him. Then he looked to Aizawa and continued, "I gave you all dirty looks, that none of you deserved. And I said things," he glanced back towards Present Mic, "that aren't true."

Midnight leaned back in her seat and lost her surprised look, grinning at the boy instead with her cheeks reddening. _How mature!_

 _Young Sazaki, is getting ahead of his past,_ All Might thought, and he nodded at the boy that he could continue as Zach started hesitating nervously after all he had said.

Zach gulped, then he continued while facing the principal who had gathered all the teachers for him. "I've let anger, and regret push down on me for too long, and I'm ready to move forward. But before I can do that I need to fix my relationship with my professors." He looked around at them all, then he bowed far again and said, "So I ask you, please keep taking good care of me."

Aizawa lifted a hand and scratched his stubble on his left cheek close to his chin. _Those looks were getting annoying. Good thing he's worked it out._

Cementoss smiled after Zach finished, _Softy really did a lot in only a few weeks. Though I am sure this is also Sazaki himself, and not solely her guidance. Still, I must thank her._

"Sazaki, everyone here appreciates your sentiment," Principal Nezu said. "We will continue to watch over your progress and protect you for as long as you are in our care."

Zach got out of his bow, and he smiled and said, "Thank you." He felt a buzz in his pocket after he said it, then a few of the other teachers gave him short responses as well, though most of them just nodded at the boy. The principal told him he could go and then started thanking the other members of the staff for coming, and Zach walked out of the room first and quickly sped-walked away while letting sweat cover his face. He reached into his pocket while having a small freak out at how much that just stressed him out, then he sweatdropped over his sweating face and stared down at the message on his phone with a look of disbelief at the code written there. _Wonder if there could have been a worse time for that._

* * *

 **A/N Thanks for reading. Zach continues working out his issues this chapter, mainly forgiving his teachers for the terrible things that happened to him after VTS, some of which I finally delved into above. And at the end he gets a text... Hope you enjoyed and are looking forward to the next chapter! It's time for finals here in Tokyo (where I've been studying abroad if you guys didn't know), and I had one this morning I think I did pretty well in, hopefully acing my 漢字２class (Kanji 2). Anyway, going to keep up the updates, I hope, even though there's a lot I have to do with studying for finals, moving out of my dorm, and then I'm gonna travel the country for a week or so before heading back home. Thanks again for reading, and leave a review below telling me what you think or predictions for what's coming!**

D-Koy24 chapter 41 . 18h ago

Mt Lady gave him her number...  
Only a matter of time till Mineta or Kaminari find it and try something.  
~D-Koy, The champion of Cyrodiil

 **Haha, think Mineta might still be scared from his last time with Mt. Lady. Thanks for the review, hope you enjoyed the new chapter DK!**

Thebloodlord chapter 41 . 21h ago

Please tell me Zach and Kirishima are NOT going to be a couple, it a not that I don't like homosexuality it's just not my type of romance novel

 **You seem pretty worried about this, so I'll let you know, it's not gonna happen. They're just friends.**

JehovahReigns chapter 41 . 16h ago

"A 's Best-selling book"  
"Brilliant Story and Character Development."  
"A Fascinating Read"  
"Extremely dedicated Author."  
I feel these scrape the surface of the amazing reviews you'd get if you published this lol. You update so frequently and it's amazing.  
At first I had worries about my enjoyment of this book, since you weren't including manga... but you can weave an awesome and engaging story without that base so I'm both happy and impressed. Looking forward to more and God Bless :) :D

 **Awesome! Thanks a ton for all the great reviews, in one review! XD I'm really glad you've enjoyed the story so far, and I hope you enjoyed the newest chapter!**

AOT FAN chapter 41 . 14h ago

Does Zach's Knives and Grappling Hook work like 3D Maneuvering Gear?

 **Sorry AOT Fan, but not really. More like Batman is what I was thinking. Thanks for reviewing.**

Guest chapter 41 . 12h ago

*Watching Zach and Yaoyorozu interact at any moment in any situation*  
"Fucking kiss already!"

 **Is it coming? When? Why? How? Maybe I'll just sink the ship... Lol won't say anything real about it, but like how even the small moment from last chapter got you excited! Thanks for the review!**


	43. Chapter 43

**Chapter 43:**

In the middle of Musutafu City, Zach Sazaki walked down a sidewalk with a baseball cap over his head. His hands were in black gloves and shoved into his pockets, and he was wearing a hoodie with a jacket on over it and thick sweatpants too. It was mid-February, but the weather that had just started getting better suddenly took a one-eighty and hit them with more below freezing days out of nowhere. He had a cap on instead of a warmer beanie though, as he was trying not to have people recognize him as he walked down the road.

 _Two people already looked at me curiously. I wonder if they figured it out and kept walking, or if they just thought I was someone else,_ Zach kept his head down a bit and kept walking with the rim of his hat shadowing the top of his face. _Not everyone's happy I'm "back," as the news was calling it. Too many people dying recently around here. I just don't know though, until it's too late. Sometimes hearing about it an hour after, and I want to rush over to see if the time limit's increased at all… But the hospital isn't close enough. I can't save, everyone. But I haven't saved anyone since_ _ **last**_ _Wednesday. It's only been two people total since I got back. Really thought that would start back up a trend or something, but my life's barely changed because of it._

Zach let out a sigh and his breath hung in the air in front of him. He pulled out his phone as he hit a corner to double-check something, but he nodded as he was still on the right track and just waited for the walk sign to turn on at the corner. His eyes darted around while he rubbed his hands in his gloves in front of him. Waiting for the sign to change gave him a moment to look around seemingly aimlessly, though his eyes were darting around at every alleyway, every indent into a building. _Anyone following me? Principal Nezu mentioned radio waves coming into the school, but something about ones made by Quirks. Can he tell the difference, or are they monitoring all the students' communications? Even if they're not, they might just be monitoring mine, even though I have two new phones. I didn't give anyone the number of the newer one I bought in Kyoto though. Which is why I brought that one with me…_

He started walking across the street as the people on his sides did, making him turn to see the walk signal lit up green. _Haven't noticed anyone following me yet. If there is, do they notice me looking around for them? It would definitely make me look suspicious. If All Might told them where I said I was going too, that would make it worse, since I'm not heading that way at all._ Zach thought back on his conversation with All Might the afternoon before. _Lying to All Might sucks so much more now that I apologized to the teachers. Feel guiltier._

Zach slowed down and he looked down the road a bit and across the street. He stared towards a skyscraper in the middle of central Musutafu, one of the tallest ones in the city. _I'm still not sure what I'm going to be doing,_ he thought. _But it's not urgent, since Webb told me I had to pick a specific day on my own. Leaving no date in the message gave me more time to figure out how to spin this, but it's only been a couple weeks since skipping town, I'm surprised All Might managed to get me a full day pass out._ Zach crossed the road when the crosswalk's symbol turned green, and he started down that sidewalk towards the skyscraper. _Rasheed Corporation. Had no idea what it was when I checked the address and saw this was the place. Still not entirely sure how they make their money, but the Adam Rasheed guy is a pretty well known name apparently. Philanthropy, his business invests in some smart fuels, the business's website had a lot of information. Wonder why Webb wants me to meet him here. There's got to be a bigger reason behind it. A company headquarters is such a weird place to meet up if we're just going to talk, but it's the middle of the day!_

Zach shook his head since he was still in the dark about what was going on. He walked up to the front doors of the building though and he got nervous as he could see through the glass doors and long windows on the sides of them into the lobby ahead. There was a desk across the building's lobby, and the elevators were behind it, and Zach had no idea how he was going to walk in there and claim the reason for being there. "Sazaki," a voice said behind him and Zach's eyes widened while he snapped his head to the side. He relaxed after a second then shook his head in wonder at how the blind man with brown hair and a pair of sunglasses on got behind him without him noticing.

Webb was wearing warm clothes which Zach looked up and down and thought to himself, _Wonder if he gets hot in those? He always wears such thin clothes even when it's snowing and I've never seen him cold._ "Hey, guess this is the right place," Zach said, turning back to the building he had been hesitant about entering.

"We have an appointment, let's go in," Webb said. He wasted no time with pleasantries, and Zach just nodded and waited for Webb to go first to follow the blind man inside. Webb did not move for the doors though, and Zach suddenly remembered he was waiting for the blind guy with a cane in one hand to walk inside before him.

"Oh, this way," Zach said, and he turned and walked up to open the door for the blind man. He sighed internally as Webb walked up to the entrance and stepped in before him. "So, what are we doing here?" Zach asked as he walked in after Webb. _"An appointment?"_ He thought curiously. "We're meeting with someone?"

"That's right," Webb replied. He tapped his cane in front of him as he walked, and they headed straight towards the reception desk across the lobby. There were a couple of security guards in the room, some men in suits walking out of an elevator and heading out to lunch, and the woman behind the counter had long green hair and matching light green skin. Webb walked right up to the counter and tapped it with his cane a couple of times before the woman greeted them. "We are here for a 12:30 appointment with Mr. Ganji."

The receptionist looked down at a folder in front of her and Zach walked up next to Webb to look over the counter and try to see what she was looking at. "So would you be, Takashi Huga?" She questioned, looking up at the blind man again.

"That is correct," he said.

"Could I see a form of identification please, Mr. Huga?" The woman behind the counter asked.

"Of course," Webb replied in a polite way. He took out a wallet and slid a card up after running his fingers over them for a second as if checking to make sure it was the right one.

Zach looked closely as Webb handed the card over. _Takashi Huga? Is that really his name? Is he telling me his secret identity right now? Could be a fake though. Especially if this has anything to do with his line of work… I'm still pretty confused._

"Alright then. I'll call up to Mr. Ganji's office to let them know you arrived. You can go up to the thirty-eighth floor. Here is your pass," she held a slip of laminated paper over the counter, and Zach reached out when Webb lifted his hand only to miss the sheet.

"I got it," Zach said, and he grabbed the slip from the woman.

She turned to him, and she opened her eyes wide for a second as she checked the boy out for the first time under his hat. Zach sweatdropped that she immediately recognized him, and then he just smiled at the woman who opened her mouth but closed it quickly. She was on duty after all, and getting nosy into clients' business was unprofessional, even if she did want to ask what Lifebringer was doing there. Zach assumed that was why she held herself back and just smiled back at him after a moment, and he was relieved as Webb nodded at her and started moving around the counter.

"The elevators are over here," Zach said. He walked side by side with the older man, bringing them over to the elevators where he showed a guard next to them the pass. The man nodded and let them go through, pressing a button that opened the elevator for them. Zach and Webb walked inside, and Zach pressed the button for the thirty-eighth floor which was one down from the top floor of the building. The doors closed and Zach let out a breath of relief, then muttered, "Everyone recognizes me now."

"You should have gotten out sooner," Webb remarked, now that they were alone and in the elevator. Zach turned to him in surprise, and Webb turned back as they rode the elevator up. "Makes it seem like you'd rather not come when you take this long."

"It was only a week since you last- a week and a half when you texted me," Zach said, correcting himself as Webb's eyes seemed to narrow behind his sunglasses. His eyebrows dipped down at least, and Zach once again wondered what the man's eyes really looked like behind there. "And as you texted me, I had just tried repairing trust between my teachers and me. Couldn't just ask them right after that." Webb turned back forward to the doors in front of them, and Zach grimaced at his lack of response for what he said. "I figured since you didn't leave a date, there was no rush. I think a single week isn't bad."

"There was no rush," Webb admitted. "But there could have been." Zach gave him a confused look, since he still did not know why they were there. "I brought you here to meet with an acquaintance of mine."

 _The guy who's tracking Hunter? Or someone else? How big is the anti-hero society? I know I chose not to be a part of it, but I kind of wish I had let him explain more of it before making my decision. It seems pretty cool. Then again, no sure way to know that's why we're here._ "An acquaintance?" Zach questioned. "Does he know what you do at night, Huga-san?"

Webb got an annoyed look on his face. Zach could have just been calling him by it to keep with the I.D. he had gone by at the desk, but he felt like the boy said it in a tone asking him if that name was real. "It's not my real name," Webb said, turning his head a bit and making Zach lean away at the annoyed expression. "Stay respectful in front of this man. He is the CFO of Rasheed."

"CFO?" Zach asked.

Webb frowned deeper that Zach did not understand, and they were about to reach their floor too considering the amount of time they had been on the elevator. "Chief Financial Officer. Seiki Ganji is a co-founder of the company with Adam Rasheed. A less public figure, but perhaps more important in the running of this company. Do not embarrass yourself," Webb said, though to Zach it sounded like Webb was saying not to embarrass _him_.

"Got it," Zach said, and he stood up straighter and pushed down on his jacket a couple times as the elevator slowed. _Should have told me I was meeting someone important like that. I would have worn my best clothes under this. Surprised that receptionist didn't say a thing to me. She might have actually, if she didn't recognize me without seeing my I.D. I actually had no idea how I was going to answer if she asked me my name, so I'm glad she didn't. I would have said Webb was my uncle or something, made an idiot of myself when she actually checked my I.D. I have to have these kind of things prepared beforehand. Secret identities are hard when everyone knows your fucking name…_

The elevator stopped and the doors opened up. They stepped out into a small waiting room with another desk ahead of them with a secretary sitting behind it. The man behind the desk had on a professional black suit, and he smiled towards the elevator at the two he had heard were on their way up. He lifted a phone from his desk and spoke into it, "Mr. Ganji. Your 12:30 is here."

Zach was walking forward towards the desk, but Webb was moving to the right and no longer tapping his cane on the ground in front of him. He lifted the cane up and walked around a few soft waiting chairs without caring that the secretary could see him avoiding them easily. Zach turned and followed him as it seemed like they were not going to walk to the secretary and talk to him, and the man behind the counter looked surprised for a moment before nodding his head and lowering his phone. Zach spun from the phone to Webb's back, _Could he hear what the Ganji guy was saying through the phone? How good is his hearing? Or is he just going straight back since he and this CFO have a deeper friendship? I feel like he'd still refer any relationship as an acquaintance, at least to me._

Webb walked right over to a set of large wooden doors that he pushed his hands into and opened up. Zach's eyes opened wide as he followed Webb through into a huge office that seemed to stretch the entire length of the floor. The small waiting room only took up a fraction of the floor, while this room was at least ten times longer. It stretched far too, from the line of windows on the right to the wall on Zach's left seemed almost like the whole width of the building, though he knew there must have been something on the other side of that wall since there were no windows on it. There were some paintings on the wall, and some hanging plants near the windows, some furniture all over the office though it was mainly empty. Across the long room though, there was a thick wooden desk with a man standing behind it on the side of a large chair. There were two chairs on the side of the desk farther from him, and Zach started feeling nervous as the man standing there had his arms crossed and was watching them approach.

He stood eight feet tall. He had on a black suit jacket lined with thin vertical gray stripes every few inches. He had on a black tie over his white button down beneath the jacket, and he was a burly figure very broad at the shoulders. The man had a thin goatee, slick black hair pushed back over the top of his head and shiny like it was gelled, and his fists clenched out of the sleeves of his crossed arms looked as big as Zach's head. That intimidating man looked straight at Zach as he walked in behind Webb and on his left, and then he lifted the left corner of his lips and Zach felt a ton of relief at the sight. He was still incredibly nervous, but he had no idea what was happening and the powerful businessman's intense gaze had not made it any easier on him.

"Welcome, Zach Sazaki," Seiki Ganji said, as the boy and blind man walked towards him. "I am pleased to finally meet you."

 _Finally?_ Zach wondered. "Um, it's nice to meet you too, sir," Zach replied, coming to a stop just past the middle of the room. He bowed a bit to the company CFO, and Ganji let out a low chuckle at the boy's anxiety.

Webb turned his head after Zach stopped and waited with an impatient look until he lifted his gaze up. Webb motioned farther towards the desk, and Zach started walking again after Webb who moved just a bit ahead of him. Zach and Webb walked all the way up to right behind the soft chairs on their side of the desk, then Seiki Ganji looked Zach up and down from up close. His gaze focused on the scar cutting across the right side of Zach's face under his eye, then it shifted over to the boy's left ear. Ganji looked back and into Zach's eyes that steadied after the man checked him over. "So this is the boy All Might thought was worth saving," Ganji said, and he lifted a hand and started scratching his beard.

Zach darted his gaze to Webb, then to Seiki Ganji again, wondering how he should respond to that question. _Webb didn't tell me who this guy is or what he knows. Why would he do that? Does this guy know everything?! If so, why use a fake name at the door? And why wouldn't he explain more to me- unless he wants me to figure this all out on my own._ "You know All Might?" Zach asked in some surprise, his face having showed it from the second Ganji mentioned his teacher.

"Of course, I am the one he came to. And I was the one who called Webb." Webb sweatdropped on Zach's left while the boy darted his gaze over again, then Ganji slammed his hand from his chin down on the desk in front of him and leaned over it. "I figure that means you owe me one favor," Ganji said.

 _Whoa, what is he doing? This guy runs a huge company-_ "I do?" Zach asked in surprise. He got a confused look on his face and turned to Webb as if asking what the burly man was talking about.

Ganji leaned back from the desk and he hummed, lifting his left hand back up again and scratching his chin with it. He continued to the boy whose head turned back, "Good job the other week. The two of you did quick work of Diamondfist and his operation."

"Huh?" Zach lifted his eyebrows and got a really befuddled look on his face this time.

"It's fine, Sazaki," Webb said, deciding to get the kid to stop the act he was clearly putting up because he thought this was a test. "Seiki Ganji is an acquaintance of mine."

 _There he goes saying "acquaintance" again. Am I supposed to just assume that all of your acquaintances know your secret life?_ Zach frowned after his thoughts, and he narrowed his eyes before saying, "Why'd you tell him I was involved with Diamondfist?"

Webb frowned deeper and turned fully to the boy, while Ganji leaned his head back in some more surprise from behind the desk. Ganji opened his mouth, but Webb spoke first, "Fair point. Should have asked you first." Ganji's eyes widened as they darted back to the blind man in a pair of sunglasses, then he grinned more at Webb's expression as the older man continued to the boy, "Ganji is a, well-connected, acquaintance of mine however. In my line of work, a man like him is necessary. _Everyone_ , in my line of work knows Seiki Ganji."

 _That's a kind of roundabout way of saying this guy is part of anti-hero society. Guess after just mentioning my annoyance at him talking about my involvement, he might be leaving it up to this Ganji guy to decide how much to tell me._ "So," Zach started, and he turned from Webb and to the muscular man behind the desk whose burly body was not hidden well under his thick suit. "I guess, I do owe you one," Zach said, nodding as he accepted that Ganji did help him out if he was the one who contacted Webb. _Does that mean Webb and All Might aren't in contact? Webb made it sound like he met with All Might, but I can believe this Ganji guy is the middle man… Which makes a lot of sense. A guy who's not a hero, but not wearing a costume either, at least right now. What if this is his, secret identity?! He's like a billionaire though! Oh crap, "well-connected" doesn't even start to cut it here._

"That's right," Ganji said, and he gained a serious look that made Zach stand up straight and lose his informal tone he just took with that thanks.

"Our line of work is run on favors," Webb said, making Zach turn back to him with wider eyes. "I'm not surprised you brought that up soon as he walked in the door, Ganji. Could have given him a moment though for introductions first."

"If he's smart, he already knows who I am. And I already know who he is!" Ganji called back at the thinner and shorter man who just stayed silent at that response.

 _That's true. Everyone would know who I am immediately. As for me knowing him, I did research the company but I didn't look up anything on the CFO. At least I know some of what this company does though, can ask about Rasheed… Favors. That's what Webb told me that first time we really talked. I told him I'd pay him back, and he took it really seriously. I told him I'd help him out again after Ugina and he accepted it too really seriously. In this world, it's just people's words that they rely on. He's telling me I owe him_ _ **a**_ _favor, and it could be something like what Webb asked me to do, something crazier even. Are favors currency in this world? If so, am I about to gain a favor since I came here for them?_

"I'm sorry, but I'm still confused," Zach began to the man whose eyes he looked into. Ganji's eyes had thick coal black pupils in them, and he crossed his arms again as Zach spoke to him in a slightly confused way while still standing straight up in a confident stance. "I do not know why I am here. Was it just to meet with you for the first time, and learn that I owe you a favor?"

"Hmph, of course not," Seiki Ganji said, scoffing at the idea. "You owe me _two_ favors," Ganji said. Zach's eyebrows lifted up, and then Ganji continued, "Or you will, once this meeting is over." He turned and grabbed his chair, pulling it out from behind his desk. "Now sit. Both of you."

Webb stepped forward and pulled aside a chair he sat in without delay. Zach was only a second behind, not wanting to seem hesitant despite _still_ being confused as to his purpose here. Apparently he was the one being helped out though if he was going to owe this man another favor, and Zach started realizing that made a lot more sense anyway. _It's the middle of the day, and this guy's a billionaire with a lot of power in this huge company. There are a thousand things he can help me with, and about zero I could offer him right now._

"Before we begin on designing your costume," Ganji said, putting his hands over the table and together into a single fist. He faced Zach whose eyes just widened much bigger, and he continued, "I have certain questions I would like you to answer." Zach's wide eyes returned to normal size and a hardened look formed on his face as he prepared to be interrogated. Ganji lifted the right corner of his lip for a moment at Zach's look, confusing the boy again who just flattened his lip out instead of frowning at this intimidating businessman. "Webb brought you here, so I won't insult him by questioning if you have secret evil intentions." Zach glanced next to him at Webb who was just sitting up in his chair with a bland expression on his face like he was a third party in this conversation, which Zach started to imagine he might have been.

"Then, what do you want to ask me?" Zach asked.

"I have received new information from some acquaintances of mine overseas, as well as one in Kyushu," Seiki Ganji started. Webb leaned a bit farther forward with a thoughtful look on his face, and Zach's eyes darted to his occasional partner and back to the CFO before him. "Webb handed me a large amount of information at once a while back," Ganji continued while looking into Zach's steadying gaze again. "Information acquaintances of mine were able to use. Useful information," he added, with a nod at the boy whose lips curled up a bit before flattening again quick to keep a serious expression. Ganji leaned back, and he continued, "However, you spent months with the League of Villains. You may have tried to retell him everything that seemed important at the time, but there are specifics that only seem important for certain situations."

 _Like the schematics of a random base in a location I didn't know. Or Quirks of random grunts who I couldn't remember off the top of my head unless I was staring at their faces from up close._ Zach nodded at Ganij as he understood these things well after their raid in Ugina City.

Ganji pulled out a sheet of paper and a pen and he started, "Webb tells me you spent some time overseas. I'm specifically interested in Russia," he continued when Zach opened his mouth to respond to the first part. "You told him you recognized men speaking Russian in one of the locations."

"Yeah," Zach said, nodding his head. "I knew it from some movies, but I didn't know what they were talking about with Shigaraki."

"When was this?" Ganji asked.

Zach frowned, feeling like he was being interrogated again. _No, don't think of it that way. This guy passes information around people like Webb. Webb probably doesn't know where he gets the info from, which makes it dangerous… But if this Ganji guy is well-connected enough, he can check up on what we give him himself before sending anti-heroes? Or does he just trust in the people who are in this information loop? Webb told me there are not many of them, but also that this society is kept in secret in the shadows. If none of them really know the others well, and only certain people like Seiki Ganji can band them together… Man this kind of stuff is heavy._ "It was," Zach started, as Ganji frowned at him for his hesitation. "Really early on. I didn't realize it at the time, but I think we fled Japan after Camino Ward. I was barely let outside, and only to be teleported to certain areas and then back to ones I didn't know the locations of."

Ganji scratched the back of his head and he frowned more. "Camino Ward huh?" He muttered. "Probably no use if it's that long ago then. Did the group Shigaraki met with seem to side with him, or-"

"I couldn't tell you," Zach said, somewhat apologetically. "Just saw them for a brief moment. I was still thinking at the time about memorizing everything I saw to help when I got out… since I didn't know how long I was going to be there." He muttered the last part as he decided he was saying too much to this man he just met and still did not really know or trust. "In the time I spent overseas, or at least in bases I thought may have been, I only really got better in English. I was in America for a bit, and in Russia only at the very start when they were still recruiting really hard and avoiding spending much time in Japan. Top of the most wanted list and all," he said the last part softer.

"Makes sense," Ganji said, nodding his head and then writing something down on the paper in front of him, which Zach really wanted to know what it said. "Alright, I have a few more questions for you, but I want you to start working on this," Ganji slid another paper from on his side of the desk past the one he had been writing on, and he pushed it over the wooden surface and towards Zach. Zach leaned forward and slid it the rest of the way to himself, as the desk was wide as well as long. He brought it towards himself, then his eyes widened again even though he had already heard Ganji mention about this. There was a blank picture of a human body on the page drawn as a very average man with only a pair of tights on. There were lines pointing out from all over his body, and on the right side of the page were different articles of clothing and boxes beneath them to write specifics into. "Let's work on getting you a costume."

"I already have a costume," Zach began.

"The next time I ask you to come out," Webb began, speaking up for the first time since sitting. Zach turned his way and Webb continued, "I may need more than just a man-behind-the-helmet. You can't go out there in your U.A. costume." Zach grimaced and nodded his head, thinking about something he scolded Iida about back in the spring. He kept grimacing for another reason though, even as Seiki Ganji spoke back up again.

"This is the cause for the second favor. Do not worry about expense. Put down whatever you feel you need on the costume's-" Ganji froze with his mouth open as Zach narrowed his gaze towards him.

"Where do the costumes come from?" Zach's question was cold, low, and Ganji lifted his eyebrows up at the teenager before him.

Webb frowned deep though and turned his head to the right at Zach's seat. "You're a guest. Don't insult the-"

"Hmm, don't worry about it Webb," Ganji said, and he nodded his head a couple of times while Webb turned back to the larger man in some surprise. Ganji started grinning after a second though, and he said, "I think it's good you asked." He chuckled and Zach's intimidating look faded as the man was complimenting him despite him getting cold and angry right there. "It shows you care who it's coming from. I assure you though, I have my own contractors for things like this, and I watch over them closely to make sure these, unconventional, costumes are not supplied illegally to villains." The way he said it made it sound like he was calling what they were doing completely legal, which made Webb sigh and Zach sweatdrop.

 _Guess he doesn't consider what we're doing as villainous,_ Zach thought. _That was a good response though,_ his expression relaxed a bit as he nodded at Ganji. He looked back at the sheet, and he stared at it closely as he thought about what he should do. Coming up with his new hero costume took him a while, and he had put a lot of thought into the colors, what side the colors were on, his weapons, and the helmet without a visor so that people could see his face. On this costume though, he knew he had to do things differently. _In secret. But also so people don't recognize me. Can't just put a mask on and consider it a different look._

"Webb, there have been high murder rates across towns and cities in southern Kyushu for over a week now. Rumors of Nomus are spreading around again. We don't know where they're coming from, but these rumors have been confirmed…"

Zach was finding it hard to focus on his costume design as the two men started discussing villain activity around Japan and occasionally overseas as well. They seemed to be focusing on Japan though, but Zach heard a name come up a few times in the conversation. _Conrad. He's been giving Ganji information? It sounds like more than the others- or at least he says the guy's name, or anti-hero name. Maybe that guy's like the Seiki Ganji of Russia? Wait, I need an anti-hero name too. Hopefully these two are the only ones who know who I am. If I get a costume and have a mask over it, and I meet with other people in the anti-hero society, I don't want all of them knowing I'm Zach Sazaki. I want as few people possible to know this part of my life. I'll mention it to these two in a bit… though, Ganji saw me get annoyed at Webb for saying something to him. I shouldn't "insult" him by insinuating that he would betray my trust. But he might also think me careless if I don't mention it._

Zach shook his head around and refocused on the costume design still blank in front of him. He tried to distract from the conversation that he was not a part of, even if they were letting him listen in to all of it. _A costume for anti-hero work. It, it's pointless._

"What is it?" Webb asked, turning to Zach who spun in surprise. "If you do not appreciate this, you can go-"

"It's not that," Zach started quickly, wondering why Webb was so mad all of a sudden. _He must have noticed I was losing any desire to keep going._ Zach opened his mouth to explain, then he paused and closed it with a twisted frown on his face. He stood up and he backed away from his chair while turning to Ganji, "Maybe Webb hasn't noticed, but you'll be able to see the flaw in this whole thing right away." Zach lifted his right hand with his fingers curled in a bit, then he flicked his wrist and extended all fingers, pushing them out of his glove.

Webb started to move, but Ganji held up a hand and the blind man stopped. Webb frowned deeper though, as he had told Zach not to do this after the first time the boy "showed" it to him. Webb frowned Zach's way, but this time Zach realized this might have been something a blind man really could not understand. Zach touched his own chest and his body covered in a black veil. Ganji's eyes shot open wide, and he stared while getting out of his seat into the flaring red ones in the center of Zach's skull's eye sockets. "That is," Ganji began, "quite a Quirk." He finished it better than Zach thought he would, though the man's hesitation in the middle of his sentence made him think Ganji was planning on finishing it differently at first.

"Notice the problem though?" Zach asked, his voice deeper, scratchy and overlapping with his normal one in a strange and creepy way. Webb frowned deeper at Zach but stayed in his seat, frowning more just because he did not notice the problem Zach was speaking of.

"It covers your clothes," Ganji began. Zach started to nod, but Ganji scratched his chin and continued, "Yet, your bones are visible through the veil."

Zach looked down and stared into the front of his body at his bones on the inside. "I know," Zach muttered, and he looked back up at Ganji. "I don't really get it myself. The darkness covers anything touching me. A knife, a grappling gun, even my cell phone."

"It automatically covers it?" Ganji asked.

Zach hesitated, and he wondered where they were going with this as Ganji had barely stopped for a second to question what he was doing. "No," Zach said. "I actually, can manage to stop it from covering my cell phone for a little, if I focus. But it just spills over it-"

"This is interesting," Ganji continued, and he leaned over his desk and put both palms down on it. Zach could see gears turning in the man's head as he looked him up and down several times. "Are you wearing any white?"

"White?" Zach muttered, and he looked down at his body again, not that he could see what he was wearing. He thought about it and then shook his head, though he stared down at his feet closer. "My socks, but my feet are as black-"

"Damn," Ganji lifted a hand and scratched his chin a few times again. "I see why it is difficult for you to decide on a costume. If you use this in your hero costume and in this unofficial one for work on the side, people will recognize you as one and the same." Zach started to nod, but Ganji continued quickly, "When you keep the black veil over you from covering your phone, how do you do it?"

"I, haven't really," Zach began. "I don't use my phone often like this," he said. "My voice is weird, and I have to focus on it too much that I didn't think about-"

"So you haven't tried training it, that's good," Ganji said. "Do you have control over it at all? Expelling?" He asked. Zach hesitated, then he nodded while his veil of black mouth in front of his jaw lifted up into a small grin. The boy's dark mouth and jaw curving into a grin was slightly creepy, but Ganji just grinned more after a second and rose a hand to his chin again thoughtfully. "Control is good. I can see why you would focus on expelling, especially if that darkness can do some damage. But if you can focus on making it thinner as well, over certain parts of your body at least. If you could at least get the layer underneath your costume, on your torso and vital areas. It is bad to have your bones showing like this. Villains will aim for clear targets, and if you are injured they will have their targets shown more clearly to them. A single crack or fracture that you would normally try to hide from a villain would become your downfall if they could see how much damage you took."

Zach started nodding fast, but Ganji was not finished yet. "As for now, since your focus during a fight can't be on keeping down this darkness, especially because you can barely keep it off your phone as you are now, _and_ I'm sure you're going to need to be expelling it from different areas while restraining from them-" he paused and took in a deep breath, then Ganji continued as he leaned back straight up and finished, "I'll have the contractors make your costume out of bone fibers. It won't be human bone, but all bones of mammals have the same general makeup. It shouldn't be hard to make you a costume that can at least make that dark form look different than when you use it as a hero."

Zach frowned and he lifted his right hand and tapped his head. He kept grimacing after the black aura disappeared off him, and he walked up towards his chair with that dark look on his face. There was something he needed to say now, but he also did not want to do so after he and Ganji had just worked on some preliminary plans on the costume together. "Realizing this," Zach began. "I feel the need to upgrade my hero costume as well."

"Understandable," Ganij said. Zach's eyes widened as he thought that was going to be harder, but Ganji continued, "I would never want you going into a villain fight, whether acting publicly or in the shadows of darkness, without your optimal equipment. You must keep the designs different though, and the most important aspect will be the mask. Does your hero costume have a mask?" He asked.

Zach shook his head, but this actually made Ganji frown. "I don't want to hide my face in public," Zach started. "People know who I am. I want to be able to smile-"

"That's fine," Ganji started, lifting his right palm to show he meant nothing too serious by his frown. "I just thought that your intimidating red eyes would have been good for use against villains in ways they will not be during the day." Zach's eyes started to widen at that, understanding what he was getting at there. Seiki Ganji moved back towards his seat and he sat down with a satisfied look on his face and a flat lip again. "Anyway, now that we have a good plan for the material make up, draw out a costume design. Remember that you do not have to think of looking heroic, only practicality, and intimidation which can work in your favor even though you may be going up against hardened villains. I have spent many years in this world, and I have never seen a Quirk that without witnessing what it can do, instantly gave me chills like yours did."

Webb turned back to Zach after hearing that, and he muttered, "Perks."

Zach lowered his bottom lip, _Perks? He's not talking about for me, but him! Perks, of being blind?! Did he just make a joke?!_

Ganji chuckled at Webb's remark, then he turned to the blind man and said, "As we were saying. An acquaintance outside of Hosu, I think you know him-" Ganji saw a nod from Webb, and he continued, "He spent the weekend at some industrial docks of Nagasaki. Big freight ship arrived covered in shipping crates. X-Ray didn't work through the crates, definitely meant to be hiding something. No big shots there yet, a couple of wanted men but small timers. Says a shipment this big though, likely LoV's involved. It's a private shipyard, no probable cause to search any of the crates since the wanted ones are staying away from the shipment altogether, making it look like separate entities according to him…"

Zach drew up a costume on the paper Ganji provided for him. He kept an ear open but had to focus on the design that he knew he would be wearing sometime soon. _Made of bone. Creepy. Maybe it can just be lined with it though, and have normal material on the inside. If the bone really acts as a cover for my bones inside, then I'll just have a full white inside through the translucent black veil. Unless I thicken the veil around myself at all times. I won't have to try and hide it under my clothes if the bone suit acts as it should, as even under the veil it'd still show. I should still practice how low I can keep Nightmare at though. I've tried touching lightly and pulling the darkness away from my fingers when I touched the animals during training, but it barely changed the amount of time it took to knock them out or kill them. That's when it comes to using my power though. Just how it appears around me is different. I know because it's slow to cover things I'm just touching a part of instead of all of it at once._

He drew up a white costume for himself, then he drew a line away from it and mentioned to still make it bone, but he started shading it in. He thought about the intimidation factor Ganji mentioned, and he realized that bones did not need to be white. If the outer costume of bone covered up the ones inside, then if he could make it black and have nothing showing through the veil, he figured that was the best option. So he did the same thing for his mask, labeling it as made of bone, but making it a thick sheet that covered his entire face from his neck to forehead and then it stopped. _My helmet on my hero costume covers up the sides, back, and top of my head. It covers up my hair, so let's let my hair free in this one. I'll let it wave around in the darkness, and then here,_ he started drawing something over the center of the mask near the eyes on the sample figure. _I can still use the eyes for intimidation. As long as they don't see the skull face around them, and it's just a red glow coming out of a slit in the visor, they shouldn't be able to make the connection between me there and Zach Sazaki the hero in training at U.A. Even if they do recognize me, they'll more likely just recognize me as… Reaper…_

Zach lowered his pen and he brought his left hand up to his forehead and rubbed it a few times. _Oh I've totally been ignoring that. How many villains outside of the League have seen this form? Know my villain name that I was called by in those fights? Damn it. They'll put it together fast, and rumors will spread. But, that's all they'll be. I can just deny everything. Fix up my hero uniform to cover more of my body too, and I'll use different fighting styles in public and when I anti-hero, if Webb is planning on taking me to something soon which is why he's prepping this._ Zach lowered his hand from his forehead and he picked up his pen again, shaking off the nervous feeling he had of being recognized. _If it comes, you have lies prepared, and you can come up with others on the spot. Make the costumes different. Use good excuses. Keep a low profile when with Webb, and-_ "My anti-hero name," Zach started.

The other two turned towards him. They had just finished something they were talking about, with Ganji handing a slip of paper over the table for Webb to take. Zach did not know what was on it as he had lost focus on them for a few moments, but he turned to Ganji and then to Webb. "Reaper," he said.

"Reaper," Webb repeated. He did not say it skeptically or as a question, but he was repeating as if testing it out himself or letting Zach hear it repeated back to him. "Any reason-"

"Are you," Ganji began. Webb turned back to him, and Ganji looked at Zach whose eyes widened for a second before narrowing again. The boy nodded his head, and Ganji lifted a hand and scratched the back of his head. "That makes sense actually, with what I just saw," he admitted. "Choosing your villain name though. Are you sure about that?"

Webb turned back to Zach and frowned more at the boy next to him. "Villain name?"

Zach had not said anything about that name to Webb, but he kept his face steady after Webb asked. "Villains know me by it already. Ones outside of the League don't know it's me. The ones in the League who do, might get more intimidated after what they did to me. If they see me coming towards them, and I pop my visor up or force out more black steam around me. Be like a vengeful demon, or the Grim Reaper coming for them."

"Getting recognized is counter-productive," Webb began. "Even the words of a villain will be taken seriously if you have a shaky alibi for when they were captured." Zach frowned at that response and tried to think of a way around it. "However, I like what you said before mentioning the League. Villains who don't know what you look like outside of that form. As long as you keep from using it in public too often, or you change your appearance enough…" Webb trailed off and he started humming to himself as he wondered if it was actually going to work.

"We'll work on it as time goes on," Ganij said, having them reach an agreement for now and saying it did not all need to be decided at once. "As I said Saza- Reaper," Ganji said, and Zach looked surprised for a second as the man changed how he was referring to him. "You have to take every encounter with villains equally as seriously. Deal with them differently, but do not slack in either field." Ganji paused and he leaned his head back before continuing to the short boy across the desk from him, "A secret identity as an actual hero. Heh, I don't think anyone's done it before." Zach's eyes widened again, and Ganji continued to him, "Most of the time, the anti-heroes' ideologies pushed them from being heroes in the first place. To be able to stand in both worlds is seemingly a contradiction, when heroes are meant to uphold the rules and the existence of anti-heroes is due to the ideals of those who disagree with heroes but still wish to fight for justice."

Seiki Ganji leaned forward and looked into Zach's eyes, his hazel eyes that steadied at the rich businessman's gaze. "I wanted to see those eyes," Ganji said, a serious look on his face as he stayed there leaning towards Zach with his fists over the table. "Was the boy All Might went out of his way to ask a favor for really worth it? Was his conviction half-baked to have such a crazy idea of being a hero and anti-hero at the same time? An idealist who thinks he can have both? Or a realist thinking far ahead… What you are, I still haven't decided," Ganji finished. He leaned back and crossed his arms again, while Zach just felt confused by that little rant and tried to keep his own serious gaze despite feeling like he was being tested again. "But you're serious about it at least, and that's all I'm asking for. Now tell me some more about your time in America. As much as you can remember, as well as all your information on Shigaraki Tomura's plans, or even what you, as someone who spent so much time with him, think those plans might be. What do you see happening in our near future, Reaper…"

Zach answered Seiki Ganji's questions to the best of his abilities. Ganji had passed on his information to Webb, Webb had gotten a slip of paper and passed on some info back to Ganji, and Zach told another person about the inner workings of the League of Villains. He admitted that it had been several months now, just a little over a week into November, since he was actually privy to important information and treated like a member of the League. He was glad Ganji never asked him what happened in the time between then and when he escaped, though Zach wondered if Webb had mentioned it to him, or if Ganji was just tactful enough on his own.

 _How did a man like this get to be involved in the anti-hero society? He finally called it that. Enough with the "acquaintances" or sugar-coating his words like it was not against the law. He just went off on a rant back there about how different heroes and anti-heroes are._ Zach thought this as Ganji wrote down some information that he said was more important than Zach himself realized. _Can I really exist in both lines? Why not? This guy's running a business, and Hell, his work here definitely helps him with the anti-hero work. I know when I'm a hero and privy to information only heroes have, it will help if I continue to do this anti-hero stuff that long. And vice versa too. Information I can get from contacts like this, as long as I find ways to show that I obtained the info legally, it can make my hero work more effective. Rules are there for a reason, but they're also things that villains abuse. I knew that even when I decided to follow the rules and restrict myself with society. I knew because as a villain we were always careful not to leave enough evidence for heroes or police to get warrants. Move around if cops catch wind, because of the spies they have it wasn't hard to figure out, and the cops who have rules preventing them from acting quickly are always left behind._

"This was very useful for a certain investigation in Hokkaido. It will actually help the police and pro heroes more than it will my acquaintance up there," Ganji said, smiling at Zach after he put back down his pen. Zach looked surprised, but he nodded and smiled back after a second. There were things he could not tell the police directly, because if they learned it from him then they would figure out how he got that information. Going through a middle man like this to inform someone else who had a police contact, was a resource Zach did not expect to have. As he was putting that together, Ganji stood up from his chair, and Webb got up as well. Zach realized it was the end of the meeting and shot up to his feet too, but he was still thinking about the different possibilities of what Ganji just said to him.

Seiki Ganji watched Zach's thought process for a few seconds. His expression was discerning, but he nodded his head and he reached down for his desk. He slid open a drawer and took out a small business card different from the ones on his desk, though almost identical. He reached out over the desk and said, "Take my card." Webb lifted his eyebrows up behind his sunglasses, while Ganji continued, "Call the number, and use the code 'I would like to speak with the man.'"

"When?" Zach asked as he reached out to grab the card.

"If you need to meet," Ganji replied back, and Zach's eyes opened wide as the man did. Zach's fingers grabbed the card, the fingers of his left hand holding one side but Ganji did not let go of the other side just yet.

"I'll only use it if I need to," Zach assured. "And I won't say a word about this."

Ganji chuckled as he let go of the card. "Was actually just looking for a 'thank you,'" he started, and Zach sweatdropped while pulling the card back. "Didn't think you'd say anything, but I'm glad for the reassurance anyway." He grinned while standing back up straight behind his desk, and he crossed his arms before saying, "I think I see what All Might, and Webb saw in you."

Zach nodded at the man and when his head was down he said this time, "Thank you. I appreciate all you are doing for me, Mr. Ganji."

"Hmph, and they say your generation has no manners," Ganji said. He turned to Webb, "Thought you said he was rough around the edges."

Zach imagined the first conversations he had with Webb compared to the one with Ganji. He had not made a single joke, or commented on Webb's blindness in a snarky way, or anything that he realized he usually did when just with Webb. He did not want to look at the man next to him who he could already see out the corners of his eyes frowning at him below his sunglasses. _Don't know what it is. Webb's more intimidating too, even though Ganji's got this giant office and billionaire status. Guess I adapted better before meeting him, or maybe it's just Webb. Being formal here but I don't feel like I have to around him. Maybe because he's always bringing us to box apartments and shitty motel rooms and meeting in convenience stores._ Zach almost cracked a smile, but he kept his stoic expression while facing Ganji and just nodded again in thanks for that comment on his manners.

"Always good to see you Webb," Ganji said, turning back to the blind man and speaking in a more formal tone this time for their farewell.

Webb nodded, Zach thought maybe in agreement or just in respect. Then the blind man turned and started back across the office. Zach turned to follow him, then spun back to Seiki Ganji and bowed again, "Two favors. I won't forget it," he said, and he unbowed and turned away before the man could say anything. Ganji seemed like the kind of man who cared a lot about that kind of thing even though he had not mentioned it in the second half of the meeting, so Zach made sure the man knew he had not forgotten it.

"Good to hear," Ganji said as Zach walked off. "I'm expecting big things, kid. From both Reaper, and Zach Sazaki." Zach kept walking, then he stopped as the man finished, "And, from Lifebringer."

Zach froze where he was and stared forward with wide eyes. _Not- damn it._ Zach kept walking again. _I am. The world thinks of me as it, yet, I changed my hero name. I told Principal Nezu that day at the station. One of the first things I said to him, "Not Lifebringer." I, I'm not. I am though! People cheered that name while I_ _ **brought someone back to life.**_ _It's exactly what Lifebringer is meant to be, what it represents._ _ **"What is your name?"**_ Zach clenched his teeth and he felt his scars aching all over his body. He walked out of the room with Webb though and out into the lobby, then over to the elevator while the secretary thanked them for coming.

They got in the elevator and Zach finally started panting, his left hand reaching up and grabbing his chest over his pounding chest. Webb turned to the boy standing next to him. He had some things he wanted to remark about the meeting, but he felt the kid's anxiety rising ever since the last word Ganji called across his office to them. He opened his mouth to say something to the kid, but slowly Zach's breaths were quieting, and his hand lowered from his chest. Webb closed his mouth and turned forward again, then he spoke as they dropped through the building in silence. "I'm surprised he gave you a card. You're learning about this world fast, faster than I thought you would be able to having chose the second option."

"Thanks," Zach said. "I won't be using it yet though. I'll be waiting for your next call."

Webb frowned deeply at Zach's response. "It is your decision," Webb said, but Zach heard a tone in his voice that made him turn to the blind man in slight confusion. He stared at Webb's face but did not see the feeling he thought he heard in the man's tone, so he just turned forward again and then looked down at his right hand he held in front of his body. _Controlling Death to cover less of my body to keep it under my clothes. If I can do that, I don't need to alter my hero costume and I'll be able to hide my appearance as Reaper. I may have to add a visor for my hero helmet, only to slide down when I use Nightmare. I originally planned on just revealing it in time and having people accept it as long as I saved people while in that form, but if I am going to do this, and I_ _ **am**_ _going to do this, then I take it seriously. The police, the heroes, the villains, the people of Japan, they all know me by different names. And that's what it means to have a secret identity. It's not something my classmates would understand. It's a life that means true solitude. A life that means isolating because you can never be completely truthful about it, to anyone, even other people in the field. What is Webb's name? Is Seiki Ganji really only in it to help people? Are the people he gets his information from anti-heroes like Webb, or do they go farther and kill villains?_

The elevator door opened and the two of them headed out. Webb did not say anything as they headed to the doors, and Zach felt a bit more hesitant as he watched the man next to him walk. He had Seiki Ganji's card in his pocket, and he wondered if he said the wrong thing in regards to it considering Webb's reaction. There was no telling with Webb though, and Zach only felt like he was telling the truth so he did not know what else to say. So when they exited the building and Webb turned one way, Zach just frowned and turned the other back in the direction of his school. _What to do for the rest of the day? Did I annoy Webb? No, we were only meeting up for that meet with Seiki Ganji._ Zach paused and looked up, back towards the top of the skyscraper behind him. _CFO of the Rasheed Corporation. I should look up more about him later. Or right now. I have the whole day off since I didn't know what was coming. Even got my meeting with Softy bumped back to tomorrow. A Saturday on my own in Musutafu,_ Zach reached up and he pushed the rim of his baseball cap back down. He had taken it off during the meeting for respect, but he had it back on by the time he was out the front doors of the building.

 _Guess I should just enjoy it. Do some research. And then maybe head back to campus early and get to work on training. Control, and keeping the veil less powerful. It was the most important thing to me at first. But once I got it under enough control to know how to knock out, and I knew how much it took for different weights and creatures, I just focused on expelling more, seeing how strong I could be. Going even lower than my current minimum is going to be difficult, but I need to focus. Mr. Ganji was right. I'm doing something crazy trying to be a hero and an anti-hero, I need to do everything I can. Check everyone's background, expect everyone might be lying, learn your own weaknesses and work on them, train up power, and upgrade your costume-s. Juggle all that, school life at U.A., missions with Webb, therapy, and socializing with your classmates… Not one of those things I want to give up. I can do it all. If I put my mind to it, I_ _ **can**_ _do it. I will!_

* * *

"Super Moves," Aizawa repeated.

Zach got a bead of sweat on the side of his face and grimaced at his teacher who said it again. _I wanted to train making my power weaker today,_ he thought, as it was Monday morning only two days after his meeting with Seiki Ganji and Webb at Rasheed Corporation's headquarters. _Super Moves. The others have talked to me about theirs, but we haven't done anything with it since the start of the term._ Aizawa stood in front of Zach, while the rest of the students in the room were practicing their ultimate techniques with Ectoplasm clones or using rocky surfaces Cementoss made for them.

"Super moves, huh?" Zach repeated back, glancing around and watching as his classmates all got to work right away. "I guess I'm, a little behind in that aspect," Zach said. _Why am I even thinking about training it weaker at all? Using that form at training, at school, in front of my classmates…_ "I think, I might have one," Zach told his homeroom teacher.

Aizawa looked down at the boy before him and nodded, humming to himself at Zach's response. _He doesn't seem to sure about it himself. Will he use that form he used at VTS to take down the villains? I've yet to see him use it in class, and I admit I am looking forward to it._ "You have one, huh?" Aizawa asked. Zach turned, and Aizawa looked down into his eyes. They were alone near the center of the room just in from the doorway, while everyone else was training farther in and up on elevated sections made by Cementoss. "Where'd you learn it?"

Zach stared hesitantly into his teacher's eyes for a few seconds. He felt like glaring Aizawa down for the question, but he had made up with his teachers. He could not act like that towards them now, as he was trying to get back in a normal student-teacher relationship with them all. Still, it was a question Zach felt like Aizawa already knew the answer to. He responded in a low voice, "I trained, while I was with the villains." Aizawa looked a bit surprised that Zach responded, but then he nodded at the boy whose expression got a lot darker as he made his response.

"Well, if it helps you become a better hero," Aizawa began, and Zach's eyes widened at the response his teacher had. Aizawa did not want to press it any further at the moment though just to make his dark student get more depressed in front of him. "Then show me what you've come up with," he finished, and Aizawa turned to his right towards a dark teacher in a scary costume not far from them. "Ectoplasm, send a clone over here would you?"

 _Using a special move on a U.A. teacher. On a pro hero. What should I do? A special move…_ Zach's eyes closed and he started thinking hard. _Only using what's on my costume. I don't want to go Nightmare. The less people who see it, the less will know when I break the rules if anyone catches a video of Reaper doing stuff like that. Reaper, can't believe I actually picked my villain name. It's just going to let the villains know I'm after them. Wish I could have told Softy yesterday, but no one should know about this. And that's why I shouldn't use Nightmare in front of people. Only in combat situations, and when I train privately on my own. As for now…_

A clone of Ectoplasm flew over and came to a stop fifteen feet in front of Zach. The boy wearing his new-and-improved hero costume narrowed his gaze at Ectoplasm and took in a deep breath. _I need focus,_ he thought, and he exhaled the breath slowly. _Focus. This is, a pro hero. Think about the final exams, how did Tokoyami and Tsuyu take him? Actually, I don't need to think of it as him having his Quirk. He's just one of dozens of clones. Just a clone of a pro hero should be intense though, and I know he's a good fighter at least._ Zach lowered his right hand and rested it just over his belt and a white sheath there, while he kept his left hand curled up in front of him in a fighting stance he had learned a long time ago.

Aizawa stared at Zach's stance, Ectoplasm did too. They glanced at his right hand that looked close to pulling out his knife but had not touched the sheath. He was still his normal self, not something the two of them were expecting to see. They had each heard about it after VTS, and Aizawa figured this was going to be the moment he saw it since Zach had not used it during any other training exercises as of yet. Cementoss glanced over from across the room more, then he put his hands down and reformed a large rock wall in front of Kirishima who had just smashed one down.

Kirishima saw the wall rising back up, but his attention had shifted off of the risen stone platform he was standing on. His body lost its most intense hardened form and he took a few deep breaths while looking off the section towards the front of the room. He had to wait some time before getting that form back up, and part of his training was extending its time limit anyway. So as he waited to be able to try his Super Move again, he stared towards Zach and grinned as he expected to see the crazy form he saw back at VTS. He started lowering his grin though as Zach whipped the knife out of the right sheath and flung it forward in a single movement at Ectoplasm's body.

Zach swung his right arm up from his side out in front of his body, releasing his knife at the finish of his extend. He started sprinting forward at the same moment he started pulling the knife out of its sheath. Ectoplasm, or at least the clone in front of Zach, saw the knife coming towards him fast. He moved though, while thinking, _Almost perfectly on target. A little to left of center-_ Ectoplasm's eyes widened, as Zach was not sprinting towards where Ectoplasm had been standing. The boy started running right as his knife was still coming up, but he never changed directions when Ectoplasm started his dodge. _Was it off-centered on purpose?_ Ectoplasm thought, while raising his arms and stopping after his dodge. Zach's right arm snapped back to his side as soon as the first knife was off of it and he was running, and he grabbed the second white hilt while also grabbing the black hilt on his other side.

Zach whipped both knives out at the same time while sprinting another step at Ectoplasm making there only a short gap between them. The teacher in all black was a little impressed Zach closed the distance so fast, but he leaned forward and closed it more before the boy would be able to lift up his knives into a stance. Ectoplasm lifted up his right leg under his costume's trench coat, then his eyes shot open wide and darted back to Zach's lifting hands. The hands raising up from Zach's waist in front of his body, both released the knives he was holding. He did not have the speed or angle to be throwing them at Ectoplasm, and he did not flick his wrists. Zach just dropped the knives forward and Ectoplasm's eyes started following the blades, then they darted fast back to Zach's hands. _The knives were a distraction,_ Ectoplasm thought, but he reacted fast despite the boy being this close to him. Zach's right hand that had balled into a fist after dropping the knife was swinging up for Ectoplasm's jaw.

Ectoplasm lifted both of his arms faster than Zach's hand was going to reach his face. Zach's right hand opened up right before Ectoplasm's arms crossed though, and though all his fingers stayed inside the glove, Ectoplasm's full focus was on the dangerous hand in its white glove. So his mouth opened and he let out a gasp as he felt a wire pull tight around his stomach. His eyes lowered while his arms started to uncross, to see Zach's left hand had shot back to his side as soon as it released the knife. It had grabbed the black grappling gun off of his side, and the boy fired it around his teacher. While Ectoplasm's arms were lifting to see what just happened, Zach's right hand that was not in a fist anymore grabbed down on Ectoplasm's arm.

Zach yanked back with the hand on his grappling gun, while pushing Ectoplasm's right arm farther in front of his body. He pushed the teacher off his feet forward, but Ectoplasm flipped himself around before he hit the ground. He flipped so hard he planned on yanking Sazaki off of his feet with the wire connecting them, but his eyes darted above his body and watched as the grappling gun went flying over him, pulled by the wire wrapped around him but no longer in the grip of the boy who had been holding it. Ectoplasm's eyes started turning more towards where Zach should be, while he hit down on his back instead of his stomach, but Zach was already diving forward. Zach slammed both hands out into Ectoplasm's arms he put on the ground at his sides to push up, while pulling his knee up under his body and slamming it down on Ectoplasm's lifting neck, crushing it back into the floor by shifting all his weight down on it along with his momentum. He brought the left hand he just used to knock Ectoplasm's right arm out from under him up and balled it into a fist, and he slammed down at Ectoplasm's face.

Zach's fist stopped right over the clone's face, and he started panting while sitting there looking into his math teacher's white eyes. Ectoplasm's clone was looking up at the fist and then at Sazaki's face with a shocked look on his own. The actual Ectoplasm was standing across the room a little, closer to Cementoss who glanced at him to see what he thought about that. Ectoplasm lost his shocked look after a moment and his clone did as well while saying, "Nice, job."

Zach got off of his teacher fast, and he kept panting for a few seconds while watching the dark man stand up to his feet. _Well that, worked. I'm glad. Hope it looked like enough of a special attack to be considered a Super Move._ Zach turned to Aizawa who was walking up to his back.

Aizawa lost the surprised look on his face when Zach first finished his move with a fist over Ectoplasm's face. He stepped up closer to Zach, but he darted a quick glare up towards some stone platforms students were supposed to be training on. Kirishima spun back towards the cement wall in front of him, and Ojiro, Midoriya, Uraraka, Sato, and Sero all looked away as well. Zach noticed the glare and looked behind him, but no one else was looking his way so he wondered what Aizawa did it for. He turned back to his teacher who stopped in front of him and asked, "You learned all that in a couple of months?"

Zach looked towards his discarded grappling gun that Ectoplasm got the wire off himself when he stood up, and the three knives laying around too. He thought about what Aizawa was asking him, and he responded slowly, "I only really-" He paused and frowned, then he shook his head around as he told himself there was no point in lying. _I need to get better. It's the whole reason to come to school! Lying about this is stupid._ "I only really learned how to throw knives, and use my grappling gun. Mastering those was hard, but once I knew how, it wasn't hard to incorporate them into my martial arts. It's still the same kind of thing, making distractions and feints with them-"

"You lost all of your weapons by the end of that move though," Ectoplasm mentioned from behind the boy.

Zach glanced over his shoulder, then back to Aizawa who seemed to agree by his expression. "Well, that's why it's a Super Move," Zach explained, feeling smug in his head as he came up with this on the spot. "It'd only be use to finish the fight, so if I lost my weapons during it it's not as big a deal."

Ectoplasm hummed and then nodded as that did make some sense. There were others in the class too who had attacks that once used would not be able to be used again and would make them weaker, some of them worse than just losing a couple of weapons. Aizawa kept frowning after Zach's explanation though. "It's still not much of a Super Move," he said, and Zach looked into his teacher's eyes in a bit of surprise. "It's a good combo," Aizawa admitted, "but not really a finishing move."

"It's the best combo I could think of without my Quirk though," Zach started. He took a second then added, "I'll, work on it though."

Aizawa frowned more at the boy's response. "What about with your Quirk?" He asked. Zach frowned more, but Aizawa continued, "Don't you have uses for your Quirk other than killing now? Like at VTS," Aizawa said, and Zach just furrowed his eyebrow more with a slightly frustrated look on his face.

"I, don't," Zach started. "Not really," he said. _Using that here? For everyone to see. Forget about trying to be secretive, I know the real reason I don't want to show off this form. It's because it's terrifying! I scare the crap out of everyone who sees it, especially the first time. Everyone in here's working to strengthen their Super Moves, they don't need to be freaked out right now. And I don't, want them to see me like that right now. I'm already pissed Iida's seen it now too, and I think Jirou may have caught a glimpse that day too, but to just show everyone…_

"Is that really your best move?" Aizawa asked. Zach lifted his head back up after staring down for a moment, and he saw Aizawa frowning deeply back at him. He was hesitant for a second, but he nodded his head at his teacher who just frowned more. "Are you taking this seriously?" Zach's eyes opened wide, and Aizawa took another step and glared down with a scary look at the boy in front of him. "I do not know what is holding you back, but the villains will attack again." Zach's lips pursed and his eyes darted around, and Aizawa finished to him, "We need all of you students to be ready to fight them."

 _I know that,_ Zach thought, looking back and into Aizawa's eyes. _My training here at U.A., the help of my teachers, if I don't use it all and just hide my power, I'm only burdening them. And I want their help! Their advice. Pointers and suggestions for using my power better._ Zach started nodding at Aizawa. "Sorry, sensei," he said. "I'll take it more seriously. I'll go again. I have a, different move," he said hesitantly, looking away since he had just lied to his teacher a second ago when he nodded at Aizawa's question.

Aizawa just hummed though instead of getting mad, as he was satisfied since the boy did not try and keep pretending. He backed away, and Zach turned to Ectoplasm who jumped backwards fifteen feet to make a gap between them again. "I won't let you get close this time," Ectoplasm began. He paused though, and then the dark teacher said, "Unless to practice your Super Move you need to be." Ectoplasm remembered this was to train up the boy's special attack, but he was still thinking about the boy taking him down a minute ago. He decided to forget about it and just work with his student, but that plan went out the window as Zach responded.

"You can be wherever," Zach said. He grinned as Ectoplasm narrowed his eyes, though he was feeling a little nervous at that look from his scary-looking teacher. _Then again, he's not the only one who can be scary,_ Zach thought, while lifting his right hand and flexing his fingers all straight out for a second. His fingers slid out of his glove, and Zach pulled that hand towards his body. He hesitated though, and he lost his grin at Ectoplasm in a competitive way as he could kind of see what Ectoplasm was thinking of. His grin dipped and his eyes darted around without him turning his head. All of his classmates were working on their Super Moves, and some of them were behind tall stone pillars so not all of them would be able to see him. No one was really watching him either, as even the ones he did not notice but had been watching before got back to their own training after Aizawa's glare and when they realized Zach was not going to transform.

 _Here we go,_ Zach thought grimly, then he touched his right hand into his chest. He touched over the split between the white and black, and out from his entire body at once expelled black wisps. Aizawa and Ectoplasm both stared with wide eyes as the boy covered in darkness instantly. Zach kept facing Ectoplasm, and his serious look on his skull showing through the black veil got darker. The dark wisps over Zach's face made a translucent dark expression of their own, narrowed down with glowing red eyes that went back deep into the eye sockets of the skull. His skeletal body showed through his arms, his legs, the front of his torso too. His whole body was covered in a thick black veil that covered his costume and any part of his body beneath it. His helmet disappeared as well as his hair, leaving Zach's skull visible from the sides and in front, and both Ectoplasm and Aizawa stared into the red eyes of the boy, Aizawa from his right side and Ectoplasm from straight in front of him.

The teachers had already heard the description so they only looked at him in surprise for a second, unable to help it at the nearly instant transformation. In a second Zach's body was gone and surrounded by the black veil, but he still stood in the shape of a person, a five foot four inch tall human. Small wisps of darkness came off of his shoulders and the top of his head, breaking off the sides of his legs and lifting up from his fingertips as he lifted his hands in front of him with his fingers curled up. "Super Move," Zach began, his voice deeper and scratchier than a moment ago.

Kirishima was panting as he lowered his arms down to his sides again. He was exhausted, and his knuckles were bruised as he had kept on smashing until his Hardening failed him completely. He turned his head left again, and his eyes opened huge and he leaned that way with a grin spreading over his face again. Cementoss did not lift a wall in front of Kirishima to keep him focused on his training, because Cementoss and Ectoplasm's real body were staring over at the boy who kept lifting his hands up and moved them to his sides. Zach rose his arms at his sides then put them over his head, and Kirishima stared closer wondering what he was doing.

Kyoka Jirou pulled her earphone jacks out of the rocks in front of her that had been difficult to break through thanks to Cementoss making them harder than usual. She wiped some sweat off her forehead then looked down and to her left where she saw Mineta taking steps back with giant eyes as he stared farther back in the room. Jirou spun her head and jogged a little forward to see over a taller pillar next to her, where Bakugo was at the top of blowing stuff up. Jirou got around it and looked towards the front of the room, and her eyes opened huge at the sight of what Zach was doing.

 _Focus on pushing it all out,_ Zach thought, imagining the wind that came out when he first used the Nightmare form for combat. He had his hands pointed towards each other over the top of his head, forcing out darkness not in wisps but in a more steady wind that he pushed in and curled his fingers more around. Wisps broke free out of the dark mass accumulating between his hands, but the gaseous cloud Zach had created was getting thicker as he pushed his arms closer and closer together. He started bringing both lifted arms down to his right side, and they were shaking as he pushed his left hand in harder towards his right. The sphere condensed over his right palm, and his fingers curled up and gripped onto the sphere that when he grabbed it, his dark fingers stayed on the outside and did not seem to merge with the attack. He pushed his left hand down harder over it while forcing the darkness around his body through both of his arms. The dark coating surrounding him was actually thinning, and Aizawa noticed some white fabric on Zach's right side under the dark veil, but he could not see white sleeves as Zach's arms were still thick with darkness.

"What is that thing?" Mineta whispered. He shook his head around though, because he knew it already from Kirishima's description. His eyes were focused on the ball of darkness in the being's right hand though, so dark and black and scaring the crap out of the shortest boy in the class. "I don't like this," he said, his voice higher pitched as the form with glowing red eyes and a dark appearance clenched his right hand around the sphere of black on his hand tighter.

Jirou gulped as Zach pulled his left hand away from the ball. _What is that? His Quirk is Death, right? So what is that thing? Will that thing kill whatever it- but Zach took down the two villains at VTS. Maybe it won't, kill whatever it touches,_ she shivered involuntarily but could not look away as Zach started lifting his attack.

Bakugo slammed his right hand down and blasted the pillar below him in a frustrated way as his newest Super Move was not working like he wanted it to. He caught Kirishima looking to the side instead of training out the corner of his eye, and he turned to follow Kirishima's gaze though he already expected where it was looking. "What is it now-" Bakugo started to mutter in annoyance, only for his eyes to open wide at the menacing dark form he had never seen before facing off against one of Ectoplasm's clones near where Zach should have been. "Is that," Bakugo began, but there was no point in finishing the sentence.

"So, you do have an actual Super Move," Ectoplasm said to the boy facing him. There was a large gap between them at the moment, and Ectoplasm's gaze focused on the sphere Zach was holding in his lifted right hand then back to the boy's red eyes that were focused solely on him. Ectoplasm narrowed his eyes back into those dark red ones, and he said, "How do you plan on hitting me? I won't let you get close, so unless its speed-"

Zach lifted up his right arm and put his hand behind him. He kept forcing darkness down his right arm to fill the sphere that would have lost power through the cracks of his fingers that dark wisps were coming out of as fast as he could power it up. So he kept it at the strength when he pulled his left hand away, and he pulled his right arm back with the strength of the sphere set, and he stomped his left foot forward. "Super Move," he said loudly and in his scary voice. Zach wound up, and he threw his right arm forward like he was throwing a baseball. "DEATH GRENADE!" Zach yelled.

Ectoplasm leapt off the ground and shot backwards, while the ball flying at him started arcing down to the spot he had just been standing in. "Not fast enough. For that much charge-up, you need something that will reach faster-"

"That's why it's a 'Grenade'…" Zach started, and Ectoplasm's eyes started shifting from the boy he was lecturing back to the spot he had been standing. Zach continued right before the ball hit down, "…It has shrapnel, Ectoplasm-sensei." The sphere of darkness hit the ground, and it exploded outwards in all direction with black wisps that were thicker at first and thinned out farther from the blast point. None of the explosive wisps were thick for long, but the initial blast made the condensed ball of Death expand before it erupted outwards. The clone that was closest to the blast crossed its arms while turning back fully to the attack, and several black wisps slammed into him and pushed into his body, blowing around his outsides like a wind.

Ectoplasm's clone hit down on the ground on his feet. He fell off his feet right after landing on them though, falling backwards and skidding on the floor away with his momentum from the leap away. The clone started falling apart into ectoplasm, while all around the room, Ectoplasm clones started hunching over. Zach snapped his head to the left as he heard someone call out something, and Aizawa spun around with wide eyes too. The two of them looked around, then over towards Cementoss and Ectoplasm where the real teacher hunched over just as all the other ones had. As his clones were vanishing, Ectoplasm fell to his knees and then collapsed down forward on his face.

Zach stared towards his teacher in wide-eyed shock, then he rose his right hand quick and tapped on his chest while running towards his math teacher. His eyes narrowed when Cementoss leaned down and checked on Ectoplasm, only to gain a relieved look on his face. "Thought something like this might happen," Zach muttered, as he slowed to a stop and saw Cementoss laying Ectoplasm out flat on his back. Zach lifted his left hand and put it up through his messy black hair, and Aizawa stopped on his right side instead of running farther forward after Cementoss said loudly that Ectoplasm was fine. The other students all rushing over too relaxed, then most of them looked towards Zach.

He glanced left and looked around his classmates, and he grimaced at all their looks. _Why'd I have to scream it's name? I never even had a name for it before. Is 'Death Grenade' really a good name for a move a hero would have? It didn't even cause death. I used Death, to do it though._

"Dude, you took out Ectoplasm-sensei!" Kaminari called out, and he ran towards Zach instead of the teacher who Cementoss was still checking on.

"He, should be fine," Zach said. He turned from Kaminari back towards Cementoss and said as his gray teacher looked up at him, "If I don't touch something directly, usually it won't take someone down, or even knock them unconscious. The Death wind isn't focused enough, but with the, Death Grenade," he said it more hesitantly as he was just questioning the naming of the attack. "I guess the 'shrapnel' was too thick," he muttered, his voice getting lower as he looked down with some worry at his math teacher. "I didn't think- or I didn't know if, his clones… but I should have expected it to-"

"Don't think about it like that, Sazaki," Aizawa started, and the boy turned and looked up at his homeroom teacher. "Ectoplasm doesn't take damage that his clones do," Aizawa continued. "Or, he shouldn't," he added, and he lifted up a hand and scratched a finger above his left cheek and under his eye. "You're saying it won't do lasting damage though, correct?" Aizawa asked.

Zach shook his head quickly, glancing around at the others who had run over too, as he was feeling nervous under all their gazes like he had just done something really bad. Aizawa nodded though after Zach's quick head shake, and he said, "Good then. That's a good Super Move," Zach's eyes started getting wider, and Aizawa continued while turning to him, "But Ectoplasm was right, even if you did get him with it. The charge-up time for it was too long. Most villains won't give you the time for that."

"But that was amazing!" Ashido suddenly shouted, and Zach spun to the girl who could not hold it in anymore. After hearing that Ectoplasm-sensei was going to be okay, her shock turned into awe and she was practically jumping as she shouted that at Zach. "How'd you hurt the real Ectoplasm-sensei by attacking his clone? How long is he going to be like that?"

Aizawa wanted to scold the pink girl for cutting in on him, but he also wanted to know the answer of that second question, the first one too though he suspected Sazaki did not have an answer for it. "How long?" Zach began. He turned hesitantly back to Ectoplasm and said, "I can't be too sure. If everything that hit the clone transferred over to his real body, which would be strange, I feel like it'd be less, but _if_ it is all of that… maybe two days?"

Aizawa lowered his bottom lip for a second, then he sweatdropped at the kid who got a sheepish look at everyone's dropped jaws. "Sorry," Zach repeated, while looking back to his teacher who he really hoped would wake up before that.

"That's a great move for capturing villains then though," Sero mentioned, closing his dropped jaw and saying it in a pretty amazed way. "I wondered how you got those two villains at VTS."

"Hey," Aizawa started to the group who had run over. "All of you get back to training," his voice was cold and his eyes flashed red, and all of the students ran off quickly. There were only five of them anyway, as most had stopped coming when Cementoss called out that Ectoplasm was fine. The ones who never rushed over had stared at Zach though, wondering how he took out their training partner without doing any damage to the real Ectoplasm. Aizawa told the others to get back to work, but he was looking down and to the left at the kid in front of him with narrowed eyes too. Zach stepped closer to Cementoss and knelt on Ectoplasm's other side, saying he'd help get the man to the nurse's office and that he was sorry again. _Two days, and Ectoplasm dodged most of it. Sazaki said that'd still be on the high side, but it was his clone. Even this, is still too much. I shouldn't have pushed him to use it. He uses weapons for a reason. His Quirk is too much. I thought maybe he managed to make it weaker, and this is definitely a step up from insta-kill, but it's not enough._

Aizawa's eyes widened a bit more as he stared at the kid on his knees next to Ectoplasm's body. _Was he holding back? It makes sense, if he thought it might be a possibility that his attack would kill at its strongest. I know he is cautious enough considering how he treated Pixie Bob's Earth Flow creatures. What is that form though? Did he know about it even in the spring? Or has he only created it recently? Training such a dangerous power, he'll at least figure out how much he needs to use to capture which is good… But this is a dangerous, very dangerous Quirk. An uncontrolled Quirk called Death is not as much of an issue, as long as the policy is just to 'not use it.' Sazaki, I know you're a good kid and I take back what I said at that trial, but I don't know. I feel like you're lying about something, whenever I talk to you. Which makes it difficult to tell when you really are lying, though you were not trying very hard when I asked about your Super Move._ Zach lifted up Ectoplasm with his left arm holding one of his teacher's over his shoulder to walk him out of there, and he told Cementoss not to worry about it since he did not want to take away from everyone else's training even more. Zach offered to bring Ectoplasm to Recovery Girl's office, and Aizawa accepted and told him to hurry back. As the boy walked off though, Aizawa stared at Zach's back with a frown and a hesitant look on his face. _He's going to become powerful, I can see that pretty clearly now and yet, I don't feel good about knowing. Not bad either, just- uneasy. Sazaki, you do not make it easy._

* * *

 **A/N Thanks for reading! Another long chapter, probably could have split it into two, but I hope you enjoyed it all! Zach meets with Webb and the CFO of the Rasheed Corporation, Seiki Ganji, who we saw back when All Might first asked the anti-heroes for help. Zach delves deeper into that side of life while at the same time revealing his Nightmare form to his classmates and teachers. Training reducing his power, expelling it, and getting stronger and more connected... Leave a review below telling me what you think. Death Grenade!**


	44. Chapter 44: Lifebringer

**Chapter 44:**

"Do you really have to mention it?" Zach muttered to the boy sitting on his bed in front of him. Zach was pacing back and forth in the middle of Midoriya's floor over his All Might rug, and he said while turning to him and turning to do another pace around, "I feel stupid enough for doing it already. I just, I doubted it would actually affect the real Ectoplasm for a second. I just told myself it wouldn't so I could try out my move in front of the teachers, and look what happened."

Izuku Midoriya held up his hands in front of him and waved them a couple of times. "It's not your fault. No one could have guessed it would make him-"

"I could have, and I did," Zach said, stopping and turning to Midoriya with a look of disbelief on his face. "I guessed that a long time ago. I don't know how my Quirk works, and no one else does either."

"Well you knew it wouldn't kill him," Midoriya offered, still a bead of sweat on the side of his face but a small smile too. "You didn't risk anything life-threatening."

"It's still," Zach started, but he cut himself off and just frowned again. He turned and started pacing back and forth, a frustrated look on his face as he thought back on the day's training. "How did it work on the real body?" Zach muttered, turning back and glancing towards Midoriya as he walked. "Does that make any sense to you? I mean, what kind of Quirk can do that? I don't like it. I don't like it when, I can't predict what Death is going to do. I felt like I had enough of a grasp on it, but there are still things… other than this too, just things about Death that I- ah fuck!" Zach hit his right foot on the corner of Midoriya's bed and shouted as he stubbed half of that foot's toes considering he had no shoe on.

He started hopping on his left foot and reached down to grab his right while snapping, "Fucking cunt, shit-" He stopped himself and just pursed his lips and let out a groan while lowering his foot down. "God damn," he muttered. _How does a stubbed toe still hurt like that? After everything, that pain is nothing… but damn it smarts._ He ground his teeth for a second then was going to get back to pacing, but a look at Midoriya's shocked face had him confused.

"That's uh, are you alright?" Midoriya asked.

"Yeah, I'm fine," Zach replied, shaking his head and smiling to show the pain really wasn't that bad.

Midoriya sweatdropped more at his reply though. "Well it's just," he started as Zach looked confused by Midoriya's expression. "That was some, pretty strong language."

"Oh, oh!" Zach did not even realize what he had said after stubbing his toe until Midoriya said it. "Sorry," he apologized, "just slipped out."

"It's, fine," Midoriya said. "Just surprised me," he added. _I noticed he cursed sometimes in normal conversations now, and he didn't before. Still, that was a lot- though I guess, maybe he picked up on it while with, the villains._ Midoriya's gaze lowered down to the floor, as Zach started pacing again. _Should I ask? I tried pretty hard not to, since prying usually gets him to go away. But he's been opening up more recently._ Midoriya lifted his head a bit, and he said, "Hey Zach."

Zach stopped moving again and turned back to Midoriya. He was about to say how he hoped Ectoplasm-sensei was back for math class tomorrow, but instead he just nodded and said, "Yeah, what's up?" He could see Midoriya had something on his mind, and he had wanted them to get back off of the subject anyway so he was glad for a change in conversation.

Midoriya looked a little hesitant, but he began, "The night All Might lost the last of his power." Zach nodded and got a more serious look on his own face as this seemed to be an intense conversation Midoriya was trying to start. "How do you feel about it?" Midoriya asked. Zach got a confused expression on his face and leaned back, lifting an eyebrow and humming like he was trying to figure out what his classmate meant by that. Midoriya saw the look and he grimaced but said in a softer voice, "He lost it, saving you and Kacchan." Zach's eyes opened wider, and Midoriya said, "I know Kacchan blamed himself, which is why I wanted to ask you. He let those feelings build up, and I-"

"It doesn't matter," Zach said. Midoriya stopped talking as Zach interrupted him, and Zach continued while making his expression straight. "Whether or not I blame myself is meaningless."

"I don't understand," Midoriya started, shaking his head as that answer did not really tell him if Zach felt it was his fault. "But All Might would have gone to stop them even if neither of you-"

"But he couldn't go all out from the start…" Zach started shaking his head quickly to stop himself from arguing here. "As I said though, it doesn't matter. Whether I blame myself or not, it's meaningless. Because at this point, I've already passed it." Midoriya's eyes started widening, while Zach's got darker and narrowed at a poster of All Might above Midoriya's head. "The question," he whispered. "Was a good thing that I was born? There's no longer any way for me to quantify, all the bad I've done," Zach said.

"Zach, you-"

"Already I thought the number was in the hundreds, thousands," Zach said, his voice low and stern, and his eyes narrowing more at that poster of All Might. _Mom, Dad, All Might…_ "The people my par- my dad could have saved had I not- if I wasn't born," Zach whispered, and Midoriya felt his chest clench up as he did not know how to ask Zach about that. Zach continued, "But more than any of that, and more than All Might's retirement, there's something unforgivable I'll never be able to atone for. Or at least- it'll take me my entire life, no matter how many people I save. _She_ died because of me, and that's one thing I'll never make up for. I'll never get over," he whispered at the end, his eyes lowering down to the floor at his feet and such a sad look forming on his face.

"Who?" Midoriya whispered.

Zach cleared his mind as fast as he could, as the sadness he was feeling was replacing with another emotion, and his sad thoughts were starting to be drowned out by screams. He clenched his eyes shut and shook his head for a second, switching his thoughts quickly to another "she" who he could be thinking about. Thinking about the woman he left behind in the villain's base in Higucha took his mind off of who he was just thinking about, but it did not change his expression very much. He just shook his head again instead of telling Midoriya what he was thinking about. "No one," Zach whispered, realizing he could not bring himself to talk about her either.

"Well whoever it is, I'm sure they wouldn't want you to think that way," Midoriya said quickly, and Zach lifted his gaze into his friend's in surprise. "Thinking you can never make up for it no matter what you do, that's not true. You've already saved so many lives, and if you keep doing it-"

"If a hero kills an innocent person," Zach began quietly, "then saves ten people, is that a good person?" Midoriya froze and stared at Zach with wide eyes, "If a hero saves a few hundred people, but then goes out and murders a couple, are those crimes forgiven because things even out? No, right? How could they? People wouldn't think of someone like that as a hero. They _wouldn't_ be a hero, not in my eyes, not in yours," Zach got even softer and he balled his fists up at his sides. "So if I'm to blame for hundreds, then how could any number ever be enough? I can't match up one death for one save, it doesn't work like that. When someone dies, because of you, how can you ever quantify that? Do you think I can just go: 'alright I'll save twenty thousand people,' and that will somehow make up for that life? There's no way, I could do something like that… not anymore." _Not, with Jenny. No amount of lives… Damn it, stop thinking about her._

"Bakugo blamed himself though?" Zach asked, changing the subject without caring that it was super obvious. "I'm surprised he told you about it, though I've noticed a lack of him cursing you out recently."

Midoriya noticed the complete turn of the conversation Zach was doing, but he did not know what else he could say. He wanted to tell Zach that this person he was blaming himself for, that if he did not kill her since he said he did not kill anyone since Mr. Compress, then it was not his fault. But Zach did not tell him the specifics, so he could not say anything. It still took a lot to hold himself back though, because he wanted to help Zach and not just pretend like everything was alright for him. "We-" Midoriya started. "Actually, I guess I should tell you this," he realized, his eyes widening. "Kacchan, knows about my Quirk now too. And about All Might and everything."

"Oh yeah?" Zach asked in surprise. He stepped over to Midoriya's desk chair and spun it around to sit on it backwards. "And what is, 'and everything?' Never really asked, and I've just got this weird vague idea about your Quirk."

Midoriya got a nervous look on his face like he regretted bringing this up now. "You don't have to tell me," Zach said, lifting up his palms and letting out a small laugh.

"You want to know though?" Midoriya asked, a little confused since Zach had told him it did not matter to him before.

"Well if you're saying Bakugo knows 'too,' I figure that means you consider me in the loop," Zach said. Midoriya's eyes widened again, and Zach let out a small laugh before saying, "So if I am, you want to tell me? I feel like it's a cool story. All For One and All Might, your Quirk, it sounds like an epic that not many people know about."

"No, not a lot of people do," Midoriya agreed. Izuku closed his eyes for a second then opened them and looked right at an All Might poster across the room from his bed. _I don't know, if I'm supposed to keep it a secret from him. Or if All Might wants to tell him himself. Or never tell him. Isn't it more dangerous though, with Zach only knowing part? No, it's not I guess._ "Zach, it's just-" Midoriya started, He looked into Zach's eyes, stared into them and saw Zach give him a small smile and shake his head, like it really was not a big deal to him. In fact, he was really just asking it because he knew it would be a great way to distract himself from things he was getting too depressed over. Midoriya could see that Zach was fine not hearing it though, but instead of finishing his sentence about how it was a secret, that look made him relax and let out a long breath. "All For One, has lived for a very long time. And a long time ago, he had a brother…"

* * *

"I'm going to try and go with Fat Gum again…"

Zach nodded his head at the spiky-red-haired boy next to him as they walked down the sidewalk with some bags in their hands. The two of them had just gone to the convenience store after school, grabbed some snacks and such. Kirishima needed some protein shake powder too, which he told Zach about while they were on their way there, and Zach wound up buying some himself. Kirishima started talking about his last internship instead of the next one that they were just talking about in the store, but Zach's mind started to lose focus as they walked back towards U.A.

 _Midoriya's Quirk is way too strong._ He smiled at the thought but nodded like he was doing so to whatever Kirishima just told him that he kind of lost focus on. _When he said "stronger" than All Might's was, I thought he was just being hopeful or something, but if it really does compound with each generation… He's really going to be more powerful than All Might! Still, it's crazier even that All For One lost that night in Camino Ward. I knew he was a legend in the villain world, but the things I heard I thought were mostly myths. He's actually an immortal monster who could have taken down the world! I mean, I knew he was that powerful a villain, but All Might beat him! That's so awesome!_ Zach forced his mouth to dip down as he tried refocusing on what Kirishima said instead of smiling in an excited way. When he started listening closer to what Kirishima was saying though, he turned his head and his eyes widened.

"Did you just say," Zach began. He stopped himself, but Kirishima turned to him while they walked and gave his shorter friend a confused look. Kirishima was just talking about his debut as Red Riot during his internship, and Zach said, "The guy you were fighting, he injected himself with Trigger?"

"Oh yeah," Kirishima said. He stopped walking and Zach got a nervous look on his face as his classmate looked at him like he knew why Zach had brought it up. "That villain you, Midoriya, and Todoroki fought two weeks ago, he was on Trigger right?"

"Y-Yeah," Zach responded, nodding and continuing to walk. It was almost two weeks ago to that day, one day off since it was Tuesday afternoon and it had happened two Wednesdays ago. Zach hesitated after they started walking again, then he said, "How strong was the Trigger? You beat the guy didn't you?"

"Uh huh," Kirishima assured. He scratched the back of his head and continued, "I don't know what you mean by 'how strong,' but it definitely made him a lot stronger. Even when I did my regular hardening his Quirk had gotten strong enough to cut me."

Zach grimaced deeper as they kept walking, a guilty look spread over his face and his fists clenched at his sides. He glanced next to him at Kirishima who stared at his expression like he wanted an explanation for it, and Zach just frowned more. They continued to walk, plastic bags in each hand with their groceries in them, but Zach spoke in a quiet voice to the boy next to him as they moved. "I know the League of Villains got a lot of shipments of Trigger in from China. They didn't tell me much about it, until after I had seen what Trigger could do," Zach frowned deeper and got a nervous look on his face.

"You've fought someone on Trigger too?" Kirishima asked, "I mean, other than the guy the other week."

"I didn't even fight that guy," Zach started. "And I definitely didn't fight the other one," he said, grimacing more as that made it sound like he couldn't do it. He continued despite that embarrassment though, "All I could do was run from that monster. It's what I-" he paused, then he turned in a little and thought about how Kaminari told him everyone had seen it. "It's what I was thinking about, during the bomb defusing training." Kirishima's eyes opened wide as he knew exactly what Zach was talking about, and he got a dark look on his face also looking like he felt bad as he thought about how scared Zach was during that. "I'd never seen something like it before," Zach continued, turning from Kirishima as he did not want to keep looking at that pitying expression on his face. "But once I knew about it, they decided why not tell me all about it? And why not, tell me all about what they were doing with it too?" He added that part in an even lower voice, his tone darkening and Kirishima's eyes getting wider.

"You knew what they were doing? Their operations and stuff?" He asked in shock, as all he thought was that Zach was healing people. Zach bit down hard behind his lips, feeling very conflicted as he wanted to say something but also knew it was a bad thing to do.

"Don't, tell anyone this stuff, okay?" Zach asked, turning to Kirishima with a softer look. Kirishima's eyes widened more, as he could see Zach meant with that expression and question. It meant what he was about to hear was not just a secret, but something Zach was really worried about other people finding out about. And even though that unnerved Kirishima at why he would be nervous, he did not waste any time to nod seriously at Zach and say he wouldn't say a thing.

 _I saved his life, would he really tell? He keeps his word too! He's that kind of guy, I think, as long as he's not the spy- damn it! Fuck, if he is, then it doesn't matter anyway now, does it?!_ Zach got angry at himself for considering it, then he just shook his head and refocused on what he was talking about with Kirishima. _Why am I even bringing it up? Why not talk about it? He got hurt because of this stuff, and as long as he's not going to tell anyone, then he deserves to know. He_ _ **should**_ _know! And I want to tell him._ "The League of Villains wasn't very connected in drugs, at first," Zach began as they turned a corner to keep heading back towards school. "But after some other, large villain groups were defeated in the fall," he paused and glanced next to him at Kirishima whose eyes widened more. "Including, the Eightfold Cleansers," he said, confirming what Kirishima was thinking about and had just talked about a bit. "And the other groups were all pre-existing, established crime syndicates that were there before the League of Villains. After taking down a few though, and forcing others to cooperate, the League took over drug operations all over the place. A lot of gangs became their subordinates, as Shigaraki became the "Kingpin" of the Underworld, or so he called himself," Zach muttered at the end in an annoyed and frustrated way.

"Do you know where these drug operations are?" Kirishima asked in surprise, and some confusion as he felt like Zach would have given up that information already.

"I was always warped around everywhere," Zach replied with a small shake of his head. "Barely ever knew where I was. Not the city, not the country even sometimes," he added and scratched the side of his head. Kirishima looked surprised by that, but then he just frowned as he was hoping Zach would have useful information, even though he already figured he did not. Zach continued though and Kirishima's eyes opened huge as he turned to the right and his friend walking at his side, "Once Shigaraki had control of those, in those drug labs, different kinds of drugs were experimented on. And I knew about them all." Zach shook his head and then said in a lower voice, "And the scariest drug I heard of, is a mix between Trigger, and another one that removes powers."

Kirishima's huge eyes bulged even wider, then they started to narrow as a darker look spread over his face. "Zach," he said, and Zach spun to him in surprise at how serious that voice was. Kirishima stopped walking and Zach did too, and Kirishima asked, "Did you know about Eri?"

Zach shook his head around confusedly, and Kirishima relaxed and let out a long sigh. _Of course he didn't,_ Kirishima thought. Then he frowned and got a bead of sweat on the side of his face, _I don't want to tell him. He seems guilty enough just knowing, but…_ "The one that removes powers, shouldn't be out there anymore," Kirishima mentioned.

Zach started nodding at him, though he was a bit surprised Kirishima knew that much about it. He returned to his dark look and turned forward again to start walking while he talked. "You're right," he said to the taller boy walking on his left. "But the League knew it when the supply was cut off, and they stockpiled it," he said. Kirishima got a nervous look on his face and Zach continued in a lower voice, "There is a supply of that completed drug in storage, and some of it can be twisted with Trigger, spliced, and injected…" Zach trailed off and he bit down hard, but with a really anxious look on his own face that had Kirishima sweating. The idea of the Quirk-Destroying drug alone was one of the worst things Kirishima could imagine, so a drug even worse than that unnerved him.

"A drug that enhances Quirks, and one that makes them disappear," Zach said. "They, wanted to see what it could do. The results were," Zach stopped himself and pursed his lips before rubbing the back of his head hard with his left hand. He did not want to stop now though; he couldn't after building it up so much to Kirishima. "It completely destabilizes a person's DNA," Zach began. "It has the mental deterioration symptoms of Trigger, and after the effects, _if_ the one who used it survives their Quirk's peak state, they lose their Quirk forever."

Kirishima's eyes were wide for the whole thing, and then he asked in a low voice, "' _If_ ' they survive the ' _peak_ ' state? What does that even mean?"

Zach shook his head a couple of times and replied, "Some people's Quirks are never meant to reach their full potential." He grimaced more thinking about his own, a really nervous thought trying to form in the back of his head that he quickly shook away. Instead he said aloud, "Imagine Thirteen's Black Hole at its maximum power." Zach turned and looked into Kirishima's eyes and said, "Imagine if he could create an _actual_ Black Hole, one that constantly sucks in anything and everything. It could tear apart the planet." Zach looked back forward and said, "If that drug is injected into Thirteen and he loses his ability to reason while his Quirk runs wild…"

Kirishima's jaw dropped, staring at Zach in shock and stopping for a moment as he processed that. "You're talking about world-ending stuff here," he said, in a half-joking tone as if asking if Zach thought it was crazy too.

Zach just nodded though and made Kirishima gulp before walking again as his darker-haired friend continued, "That's why I'm glad there is not a lot of the Quirk-Destroying component left." Kirishima started to relax, and he did more as Zach said, "The Quirk-Destroying drug is powerful enough on its own, a secret weapon to take away heroes' Quirks in future battles. So most of it went into storage without being experimented on. But I also suspect," he continued, and Kirishima's lightening look got more serious as Zach's darkened. "That there are a few vials of that finished drug still out there. You're not far off, Kirishima," Zach said, glancing left at his friend again. "When you called it a 'world-ender,' because when the results of what it did were shown, Chemist named it Apocalypse."

 _Chemist?_ Kirishima thought. _Must be another villain Zach knows._ "Apocalypse, sounds way ominous though," Kirishima began, trying to lighten their moods. "And not too easy to say. Is there a shorter name?"

"There is no simpler street name," Zach replied, shaking his head. "Because it never got on the streets. Who wants to buy a power-up drug that would get rid of their Quirk after a single use, or more likely, kill them? Plus, there just wasn't enough of it." Zach stopped shaking his head and speaking in his lighter tone, and his eyes darkened more than ever during the conversation as he whispered, "I watched a video of the test trials though with some other villains and Shigaraki." Zach's eyes narrowed down and his look was seriously dark, and unnerving for his classmate who could hear a cold and detached tone in Zach's voice. "Only two of the eight test subjects survived, and neither had their Quirks afterwards, and one of those two went half insane too." Zach's look was even more grim and the top half of his face shadowed over, but as dark as he was, he could not hide the disgusted feeling as his mouth twisted around. "Those, with heteropmorphic Quirks all died. Their extra arms, fell off. New appendages that grew and got really muscular, exploded maybe before ever reaching the peak. Skin pigmentation that wasn't normal melted through skin…"

"Dude, you don't need to think about it," Kirishima said, as Zach's face was getting more disturbed each second like he was imagining these things in his head. "I'm surprised though," Kirishima said after Zach's eyes snapped open and he realized what he was ranting, and Kirishima continued before Zach could get flustered, "Shigaraki, he let you see stuff like that? Didn't he realize you were just there to save people?"

"Guess, he thought I might've wanted in on the drug business," Zach said, and he cracked a small smile with it since Kirishima laughed afterwards. "I didn't want to be involved in it, but I'm kind of glad he did show me that stuff. Makes it so I know more now that can help with hero work since I'm back," Zach said. "If Shigaraki really thought I was going to change sides," Zach continued. He lost his smile but then forced it back up and shook his head, "He was an idiot. He just wants my Quirk now, and I wouldn't-"

"Zach Sazaki!"

Zach and Kirishima both spun their heads and looked across the street. They were just about to reach the gates to U.A. High School, but someone seemed to be waiting there for them. Zach almost snapped his right hand up to his own chest, but he calmed himself down as he saw the man running across the street. _There's no way a villain coming to take me would shout my name before jumping out at me. I really haven't been on guard as much lately though, I wasn't ready for this at all. Would have taken a full second to turn Nightmare. Need to remember where I am._

"Who's this guy?" Kirishima wondered, looking at Zach to see if he knew what the guy was doing.

Zach shook his head though as the man in a long tannish jacket with lots of buttons on it ran across the street towards them. He lifted up a tape recorder in front of him and Zach grimaced, a sweatdrop rolling down the left side of his face as the guy stopped before him. _Is this really the first time one of them's caught me outside the school? I really should have worn a hat, but it was such a nice day for once. Not cold at all, I'm just wearing a sweatshirt. Should have at least thrown the hood up. Stupid mistakes. Way too relaxed._ "Hi, how are you?" Zach said, glancing at the recorder and wondering if it was already catching everything he said.

Kirishima glanced from Zach back to the man in front of him, then he started giving the reporter a dirty look as the man seemed to be waiting there for him. Kirishima and Zach both had a similar thought at the same time, since the guy was not there when they left the school which they knew since they took the same route to the store and back. _Someone told him I left,_ Zach thought, grimacing but at the same time feeling a little relieved. _Guy probably offered someone at the school some money to tell him… Damn it. Even though that's a good excuse to give the person at my school, like I can get how they could be seduced with that, what if this guy wasn't a reporter? What if a villain dressed like a reporter went and asked them to report when I walked out of school? Fuck it, I'm telling Principal Nezu this guy knew. How many people knew I was going out? The main office, the new security guard, a couple of teachers probably and some classmates._

"I'm amazed to finally meet you. You've been in hiding ever since you left the villains!" The reporter said. He had a tan hat the same color as his long coat over the top of his head, he wore a pair of glasses, and Zach thought he had the appearance of a rat with a stubbly beard and squinting eyes behind his glasses.

Kirishima got an even angrier look on his face, but Zach responded quickly as he expected Kirishima to say something fast and possibly damning. "Yeah, I don't really want media attention. I'm just trying to get through school." He paused, then he added while the reporter looked taken-aback by Zach's calm response. "Also, you have it wrong there. I didn't just 'leave' the villains. It was pretty difficult escaping from them, but that's not something I can really talk about here." Zach turned and he started walking for the school again. The gates were just up ahead, and he did not walk faster towards them or anything. He just started walking again, and he turned back only to Kirishima and said, "Let's get back. We don't have much time before the office wants us in."

 _Dammmnnn, he's playing this good,_ Kirishima grinned wide and jogged up to Zach's side. He started walking calmly next to him though he could not hide the smug look on his face that Zach hid from his own. Zach had a much calmer expression and a flat lip that made it look like he was annoyed even, though he saw Kirishima's smug look in the corners of his eyes and could not help but feel the same way.

"Hold on, wait a second," the reporter jogged after the two boys and up on their side where he walked again. They were really close to the school now though, and the reporter darted his head to look towards the gates he would never get through and then back to the boy he wanted more from. Zach turned his head to the man without slowing his pace, and the guy asked quickly while holding his recorder forward, "Why are you trying to avoid this conversation? Why don't you want to answer to the media?"

"It's not that. I'm just busy with schoolwork."

"Then why are you out of school at all?" The reporter asked quickly, getting angry at Zach's quick responses.

This time Zach just lifted up his arms a bit to show the grocery bags in them. "The school feeds us well, but I do need some snacks. Late night studying sessions and all," he said, and this time he even smirked at the reporter whose bottom lip dropped as Zach deflected perfectly. Even Kirishima's eyes widened a bit at how well Zach responded to the question, while Zach tried hard not to laugh aloud as he gave the perfect response for a great student who appreciated his school.

They waited at the crosswalk before their school for a total of one second before the sign turned green and they could go across. Zach could only grin more at his luck, while the reporter walking alongside the two of them looked to be thinking fast about what questions he wanted to ask before losing the student everyone wanted an exclusive with. Kirishima kept quiet even though he wanted to start up a different conversation with Zach, as he did not want to let the annoying reporter not leaving them alone get anything more. He decided he would just wait until they were through the gates, though the conversation he would start once they were inside was going to be about this anyway.

"Do you have any comments on the Lifebringer video?"

Zach slowed down in the crosswalk, his smile lowering down into a flat lip. He did not slow his pace that much, but he did dart his irises to the corners of his eyes and stare at the reporter walking alongside him and holding up the recorder near his face. "The what?" He asked, though he did not slow down. _Which video? What's he talking about?_

The reporter had sweat all over his face, and he rose his free hand and pushed up his glasses again before saying, "You have not seen it? It has been taken down several times, but it is quite an interesting video. Are you sure you have not seen-"

"What is it?" Zach asked, slowing a little more. He glanced ahead towards the gates, and since they were across the crosswalk now he did not have to go far to get away from this guy. He shook his head after a second though and then picked back up his pace to get onto school grounds.

"You really, haven't seen it," the reporter said, and Zach's eyes shot open wide while he stopped in his tracks. _Was that… pity?_ Zach spun his head towards the reporter who lowered his arm a little, and he actually looked like he felt bad for Zach as he did that. Zach stared at the guy with wide eyes, no longer seeing a rat-like appearance from him at all as he turned off the recorder and shoved it back in his pocket.

"What is it?" Zach asked, more serious this time as he took a step towards that reporter. "What are you talking about?"

"Hey Zach," Kirishima began. "Let's just get inside."

"Your biography," the reporter said, lifting his head and looking into Zach's eyes again. "The Lifebringer video," he turned away and started off, lifting both hands and rubbing at the sides of his head in annoyance. Zach watched him do this and could imagine the man yelling at himself for letting up an opportunity. The teenager with black hair thought he had a good read on the reporter: do anything for a story, even pay people at a school to give him information. Seeing the man so frustrated that he was giving up though, it matched the personality while just giving the guy a bit of humanity, depending on what the video he was talking about was.

Zach turned away from the guy and he had a dark look on his face as he walked back for the gates into school. He entered and then he and Kirishima both held up their I.D.'s for the security guard put into place because of Zach's escape a few weekends before. The human factor of the security measures nodded at them and let them through, though he stared at Zach's expression hesitantly before letting them go. Kirishima looked in at Zach nervously too as they walked towards their school, then Zach said in a low voice, "We have to find that video."

* * *

"Hey guys," Kaminari said.

Kirishima and Zach were sitting in different parts of Kaminari's room with their phones up in front of them. They looked to the desk where Kaminari turned from his computer and gulped before motioning back with his head at the screen.

"You found it?" Kirishima asked.

"Are you sure?" Zach questioned. He had found enough fake videos already, or ones that he clicked on only to see a 'removed video' notice pop up over the screen of his phone.

"Yeah," Kaminari said. "I think," he added while turning back, as the others walked up on either side of him. Kaminari's room was cluttered with things: a dart board, maps, common posters, and signs on the walls, sports equipment like a basketball and skateboard lying around, there was stuff everywhere. It was the exact opposite of Zach's room that still had little furniture or any decorations in it. Kaminari's rolling desk chair pulled in a little, and he moved the mouse next to his keyboard to slide the cursor over the 'play' triangle button in the center of the bottom of the screen. "I let it run for a second, but I think this might actually be it so I pulled it back to the start."

Zach took a few deep breaths in and out as Kaminari spoke and held the cursor over the 'play' button. _What is this? What is the 'Lifebringer video?' Is it like a video of me saving- no, no the reporter called it a, he said it was a 'biography.' What does that mean? I think I know- or at least I really hope it's not what I kind of think. Stain had a video. That one got taken down a lot too. Is this going to have the criminal stuff I did on it? If so though, why would the government take it down? Why not just come and arrest me? I need to know._ Zach nodded at Kaminari and said, "Do it." _These two are two of my closest friends here. Hopefully this doesn't destroy that. Maybe I should just have him text me the link-_ _too late._ Zach stopped trying to convince himself out of it, and the three of them just stared at the screen to watch the video they had spent the last hour searching the web for.

Kaminari gulped again, then he clicked. The black screen gained letters on it that faded in at the center in a big font covering the screen. 'LIFEBRINGER' formed in white capital letters across the screen then started fading after a couple of seconds. A voice started speaking. It was a regular-sounding male voice, but Zach and Kaminari both recognized it immediately. Zach looked at Kaminari who shook his head back at him, since he had only made it a few seconds in before sliding it back when the video worked and seemed like it might be real. "Lifebringer," the voice had said, the same exact voice that Zach had heard over and over again after his internship at Hosu City, because he had watched the Stain video every night.

"What's wrong?" Kirishima asked the other two who reacted oddly to the first word.

"This guy narrated the Stain video," Kaminari replied quietly.

"Real name: Zach Sazaki," the video continued, and two pictures of Zach showed up on the screen. The first was a picture of him from the Sports Festival that was shown up on the big screen when he came out for his fights, his school photo in his blue uniform. The next showed him in a hoodie with the black hood bunched up behind his neck, a smaller smile on his face, and a scar under his right eye and a split ear. Despite him smiling in both pictures though, the shading of the screen made it look darker and then a red tint covered it before the narrator continued. "His mother Kaitlyn Sazaki, 33 years young, dies mysteriously of a heart attack when Lifebringer was 7 years old."

Zach's two friends on his right side sitting on a chair and standing next to it both turned their heads in. Zach did not take his eyes off of the computer screen, but his lip was trembling and his eyes were huge. Both Kirishima and Kaminari opened their eyes wide in horrified realization, while the voice on the screen continued after showing a picture of the woman it mentioned. "What could cause such a healthy woman to die so suddenly and without warning? Soon after her passing, her husband- the hero Titanium's drinking problem becomes public knowledge, and he has his hero license suspended. Records of Titanium's death are troubling," the video narrator continued, while showing a video of Titanium yelling drunkenly on camera and swinging his arm in front of his body. That faded though and a piece of paper started getting zoomed in on in the black background.

"Official reports claim that Titanium's death was a result of natural causes. Further investigation found this however," the voice paused and the piece of paper getting zoomed in on came to cover the center of the screen. There was a written report there, and certain lines got underlined in red while the voice started speaking again, "This is an original police report from an officer who responded to the call on the day of Titanium's death. His exact words here are, 'I found a man matching Titanium's description, though different from the last time I saw him. Disheveled, scraggly, he had clearly been in distress. I found him hanging by his neck from his bedroom fan.'" The voice on the video paused, while Kaminari and Kirishima both dropped their bottom lips farther.

Zach leaned away from the computer and lifted both hands up to the sides of his head. _No one's supposed to know about that! Dad, no. People, people shouldn't know-_

"The report goes on to mention the one who made the call to the police," the narrator of the video continued. The image zoomed in and the paper that was zoomed in on slid up to show a highlighter part lower down. "The report claims there was a child at the apartment at the time who led the officer to the room Titanium was in. The boy showed the cop the man hanging there, then he walked away without saying a word. The very last line of the report states, 'I have never been more afraid of a child.'"

Zach's hands grabbed the sides of his head tighter and he was starting to breath faster as he watched the screen start changing again. "A former hero committing suicide is too much for hero society however," the narrator said, while showing unrelated news clippings of what did come out on the day of Titanium's death. "The society supposed to praise heroes and treat them as such let one of these heroes fall apart, so it was swept under the rug. Lifebringer was the boy in the report, only recently turned ten years old at the time. Maye Sazaki, his aunt, claimed at Sazaki's court case that she never took charge of Lifebringer, leaving him alone during which time he trained himself in martial arts. His goal was supposedly to become a hero, but deaths racked up and he joined the League of Villains at age 15." In the video background, images of Shindeki Buda, Atsuhiro Sako, Titanium, and Kaitlyn Sazaki all appeared.

There was a brief hesitation as the screen turned black again, then Zach's face reappeared but in a different picture taken from a distance and showing Zach again as he looked now only with a much darker look than the smiling picture from the beginning. His mouth was dipped down, his eyes narrowed, and the scar on the right side of his face was more pronounced than it was in the first picture. "At 16, Lifebringer returned to hero society, after raising the dead over a hundred recorded times, with dozens of other unconfirmed reports." News articles and clippings appeared all over the screen in one massive collage as the narrator said this. Then the man with a slightly high-pitched voice and interested tone continued, "He has control over life and death, some might even think him a God. But a clip from the Wild Dogs Tv web show caught a glimpse of the, 'Lifebringer,' during one of his visits to a hospital where the police attempted to apprehend him."

Zach's eyes opened wider and he started panting heavier, his entire chest heaving as he stared at the screen where he appeared. Zach was smirking on the image behind a black mask, and he was lifting his hands to the back of his head. Then he touched his head, and the camera started to drop, but the image froze right as it was about to start getting blurry. The masked figure's eyes had just flashed red behind the holes of the mask, and darkness came out all over his body giving him a horrifying black veil which looked worse than usual since it had not formed fully, freezing the frame in mid-transformation. The video zoomed in on that dark figure with blurry black wisps coming out of him, and the narrator's voice said in a lower tone, "Hiding in a human's skin, the creature that killed its parents, the demon of Japan." The screen turned to black again and the word 'LIFEBRINGER' reappeared on it, but the white font started turning red and then each of the letters bled down the screen from the bottom in a menacing way. And then the video ended and a 'replay' button appeared in the center of the screen.

Kaminari stayed staring in shock at his screen for several seconds after the video ended. Then he leaned back in his chair and turned to the left. Kirishima was still gawking for a second after hearing how they ended the video, then he spun to his left after seeing Kaminari turn that way. Both of them had seen the form that was starting to appear in the video already, so they were not that shocked by it, but a lot was said in that video and they turned to the boy it was about to say something to him. They each froze though after looking at Zach.

Zach stood there looking at the screen with his eyes at normal size and his lips barely parted as he panted through them. He turned his head right to look at the other two, and he said in a soft voice, "I'm, going to go get some rest."

"Hey Zach," Kirishima began, stepping back around Kaminari's chair.

"Dude, it's-" Kaminari started himself.

"I mean it," Zach said, his voice getting harsher while at the same time straining not to crack. "I'm going to my room to be alone," Zach said, and he turned from them and walked towards the door fast. His face scrunched up as soon as he turned away from them, and his teeth ground over each other, and his eyes filled with water. "Don't, come up," Zach said, and he walked right out of Kaminari's room without waiting for either of them to respond. He stepped out of the door and started for the staircase, but both Kaminari and Kirishima ran out the door right behind him.

"Zach, wait a second," Kaminari said, pleading as he did not want to leave Zach alone after hearing all that.

"You can talk to us man," Kirishima tried, holding up his hands showing he was down. He had been hanging with Zach since class ended earlier, and the look he just saw in Zach's eyes was like none he had seen today or even in the past few weeks. Zach kept walking, but he heard the other two coming up from behind him and slowed down. Kirishima took another step towards the stairwell, then said, "We don't think like that. It's just a video, no one really thinks you're a, demon." Kirishima ended it in a skeptical, laughable tone.

Zach did not laugh though. He just lowered his head a little while still facing away from his friends. "I just need to be alone right now," he whispered. "Please, just leave me alone." Kirishima's eyes opened wide and his joking look vanished at the pain in Zach's voice. He lifted his hand, but Zach sped-walked into the stairwell ahead and instantly started up the stairs. Kirishima lowered his hand once Zach was gone, and then he clenched it into a fist hard in front of his body.

Kaminari brought both hands up to the sides of his head and ran them through his downwards-pointing spikes. "Zach," he said, shaking his head while looking towards the stairs. He turned towards Kirishima who looked back towards him, and they shared such a sad look in the next moment. "It was all true then, yeah?" Kaminari wondered aloud. Considering Zach's reaction, there was no denying what they had just seen, at least the early parts that they had seen his reactions to as well. Kirishima grimaced deeper and turned back to the stairs with a hurt look on his face, and Kaminari frowned too before looking back himself. "That's what I thought," the blond whispered. "That, really sucks… No, that doesn't even come close. Zach, I'm sorry."

* * *

 **A/N Thanks for reading. Hope you enjoyed. Leave me a review below telling me what you think.**

Guest chapter 43 . Jul 21

Can we get a rundown of Zach's current skills with his quirk, weapon techniques and level of martial arts technique?

 **Zach's current power level is about 120. Hope that helps!**


	45. Chapter 45

**A/N Just want to start the chapter with a shoutout to Celestial Stratos for drawing Zach! Check out the cover image for Death and take a look. Anyway, hope you all enjoy the chapter.**

 **Disclaimer: I don't own Boku no Hero Academia**

 **Chapter 45:**

"What's going on?" Yaoyorozu asked as she walked up to Jirou in the common room of their dorm. There were a cluster of others gathered around at one of the tables between the kitchen and the couch area, and in the middle of them was Kirishima who had a dark and sad look on his face.

"Some, video came out," Jirou said to the taller girl next to her. "I don't really know what they're talking about-"

"You saw it?" Kirishima asked, looking to his right at the short boy standing next to the table who leaned back at that look. Minoru Mineta nodded after a second though, as he had just mentioned it anyway. He had a nervous look on his face, and he leaned back more as Kirishima asked, "When?"

"Today at lunch," Mineta replied. He glanced around at the others near them, and then he looked down and said, "I didn't want to say anything to him about it. I, just hoped it got taken down for good when the link I saw it on stopped working."

On the other side of the table as Mineta, Ojiro looked next to him and down a bit, and Hagakure turned towards him and nodded. Ojiro could not see her nod, but Hagakure turned back and started in a soft voice, "We actually, Ojiro and I, saw it too." Kirishima spun towards them, and so did everyone else around the table, and Jirou and Yaoyorozu who stood a little farther back from it. Sero, Tokoyami, Ashido, Sato, Uraraka, and Asui were standing around the table too and all looked to Hagakure when she spoke up.

"Last night," Ojiro added on. "I saw something about it so we looked it up…" he trailed off and got such a frustrated look on his face. In his head he saw Zach at the Sports Festival after taking down Shinso, smiling up towards him in the audience. Then he thought of how Zach told him to move aside, before bringing Kirishima back to life right in front of him. He grimaced most though as he thought about VTS and seeing Zach standing there with his hands up, only to see his despairing face as he was tackled through the portal an instant later. Ojiro saw Zach as he came back next to how he looked at VTS, and he clenched his fists at his sides so hard that Hagakure reached over and put an invisible hand in his. Ojiro finished in a lower voice, "If he saw that though, I could see why he'd be, upset."

Sero almost wanted to remark about how he was in the common room for most of last night, so when were Hagakure and Ojiro together that they saw the video, but he held off even though he had sometimes made such remarks before ever since the New Year's party. Instead, Sero began in a soft voice, "What was on the video? Kirishima," he said as he saw the red-head just look down at the table he was sitting at in more frustration. "If already four of you have seen it in the past day, it's going to be spread around fast, you know? Media'll get it soon, and we'll all hear about it from them instead of you."

Kirishima grit his teeth as that sounded a lot worse to him, especially after his and Zach's run-in with a reporter just that day who kept trying to spin things Zach was saying. _That guy was holding back too,_ Kirishima thought. _If he saw that video, and I think he did, I'm shocked he didn't call Zach out on all that stuff. Zach probably would have flipped out there. It's only because we're here right now, that we're home,_ Kirishima lifted his head and looked towards the stairwell across the common room. _What kind of bastards, make something like that?_ "Zach will, come down sometime," Kirishima said, turning to Sero and frowning more as he said it. "He just wanted to be alone for now. As for what was on the video though," Kirishima continued. He opened his mouth, then he froze and shut it fast. _What am I thinking? Just because there's a chance it'll come out all distorted on the news, doesn't mean I should just say this stuff right here. Maybe it really will get taken down from the web fully before anyone else sees it. That would be the best option._ "Ask Zach, if you really want to know," Kirishima suggested. "Though he said to leave him alone."

Sero sighed and leaned back, as he was actually thinking Kirishima was going to tell them for a moment there. _I'll just look it up myself. Shouldn't be too hard. Should I though? Why not? He's my classmate, I should watch a video about him for that alone…_

"What do you think, Yao-momo?" Jirou turned next to her, but the tall girl who had walked up to her side was no longer there. Jirou jumped in a bit of surprise at Yaoyorozu's sudden disappearance, but then again she did not have to wonder for long. She plugged an earphone jack into the floor beneath her feet, and she heard Momo's breathing and footsteps in the stairwell heading back to her own floor. _Momo, what are you doing?_ Jirou thought, shaking her head a small amount with a sad look on her face. She yanked the headphone jack out of the floor though, as Kirishima slid his chair out from the table with a loud scraping noise and then shouted, making her ears pop at the ridiculously loud noise as she was trying to focus on something much farther away.

Jirou grumbled in annoyance even though there was no way for Kirishima to know what she was doing. She frowned towards Kirishima who looked so frustrated as he glanced back towards the stairwell, then she turned that way too. _I don't really want to know what they're talking about. It doesn't sound good. A video about Zach? Why can't they just, leave him alone?_

Yaoyorozu walked down her hallway slower than she rushed up to her floor. She paused when she was halfway down it, and she started shaking her head fast before rushing to her own room. _I don't even know what to say to him. I don't even know what happened. I might just make it worse trying to help him without knowing._ Yaoyorozu put her back to the inside of her door. _Maybe he does just need to be alone. He bounces back every time, and I don't even know what this is so it might not be, so bad…_ Yaoyorozu saw the looks on the faces of the people who had seen the video downstairs, and she clenched her eyes shut before walking over to her desk and sitting in front of her computer.

 _This isn't right,_ she thought, even as she typed into the search bar. _I shouldn't pry. But what if Zach- what if this isn't something he can just come back from, on his own?_ Yaoyorozu's hand that was hesitating over her mouse started scrolling down the page. She scrolled the search results, then she typed in some extra keywords. It did not take her as long as it had taken some of her classmates. She found the video in a couple of minutes only checking links several search pages in and from obscure-sounding websites.

Yaoyorozu watched the video. She pressed play before she could question herself again, and she watched the whole video, and then she watched it again. Momo lifted her right arm and rubbed her eyes a few times after the second watch, then she turned on her chair and looked back at the door to her bedroom. She stood up and walked towards it, but she froze when her hand touched her doorknob. _I can't get emotional._ She took a few deep breaths to calm herself down, then she got a more focused look on her face. _Someone needs to talk to him._ _ **"That's fine, Yaoyorozu."**_

Her hand loosened on the knob, _Maybe, I should go tell Midoriya. Or Kaminari…_ Yaoyorozu's hand retightened around the doorknob and she turned it. _No, I can- I can help him too. I know why he wanted to keep his distance. Talking about how Hackerman could find him at any time, Kurogiri could take him, he's worried about us. Even though he,_ Yaoyorozu thought about the video she just saw and she clenched her eyes shut. She lifted both hands and smacked herself on the cheeks a couple of times to make sure she was ready and composed enough for this.

She walked out of her room and started straight out from her door towards Zach's room. The door was closed, but she did not see a note on it which for some reason she was half-expecting. Yaoyorozu shook her head around for expecting such a thing, then she slowed down as she neared the boy's door. She paused outside of his dorm room and then lifted up her right hand as a fist to knock. Yaoyorozu reached forward and knocked twice on the door. "Zach?" She began quietly. There was no response, and Yaoyorozu wondered if she was being too quiet. That was only a brief thought though, as it made more sense to her that he was just ignoring her. _Or maybe he's asleep,_ she thought, lowering her fist. She furled her lip and then lifted that hand again, _He wouldn't be, if he just saw that. This isn't fair,_ she thought about Zach earlier that day, remembered seeing him and Kirishima talking about going shopping after school, saw him smiling.

Yaoyorozu knocked again. "Are you in there?" She asked, keeping her voice soft but a little louder than last time. "Zach," she started, lowering her fist and moving her head closer to the door. "I- I saw the video," she began again. "The things it said at the end, we don't think that way you know? No one does. You're not the 'demon of Japan.' You're not even close to-" she stopped and she put her head closer as she tried to keep herself composed yet wanted him to say something back. "You don't need to be alone right now," she said. "You shouldn't be. I know how you must be feeling- or, I know what you're- I mean I don't know the feeling at all, but I," she closed her mouth and got a frustrated look on her face that she was messing this up so much.

Yaoyorozu lowered her hand from the door a little and leaned back, but then her lowering hand moved over to his doorknob. _I can't just leave him like this. It wouldn't be a heroic thing to do. And, friends should look out for one another,_ she thought, while grabbing Zach's doorknob. "Zach, can I come in?" She asked quietly. "I just want to make sure, you're alright," she added. Right there she knew she was forcing him into speaking if he did not want her to check, but once again he just stayed quiet. For a second she thought it was a good thing because he must have known she was going to enter anyway, but she had a strange feeling in her gut. She thought he would have told her to go away right there, and she did not think he would just let her walk in on him.

She started pushing his door inwards, panting as she did because of the really bad feeling rising from her stomach. Yaoyorozu stepped into his room and the lights were all off. She had a sudden panicked feeling that maybe Zach really had gone to sleep, exhausted from the emotions he must have felt after seeing the video, perhaps. She almost shut the door right away, but she pushed it in a little farther first and looked towards his bed that got illuminated a bit by the hallway light flooding into the room. _It's empty,_ she thought, and she darted her eyes around the rest of the room. _I don't,_ she started thinking, letting go of the doorknob and looking around in confusion. _Kirishima thought he was upstairs. He was hoping Zach would come down-_ Yaoyorozu's eyes shot open wide and her head snapped up. There was only one place she could think of now, and she spun and left Zach's room, shutting the door behind her. _Zach,_ she thought, turning her head and looking at a door all the way down the hallway near the stairs. Her hands balled into fists at her sides and she started jogging towards it, _You really shouldn't be going up there._

Zach sat at the edge of the roof in the back left corner from the perspective of someone looking at it from the front. He was only a foot from the actual corner, sitting on his butt with his knees curled up in front of him and his chest pressed into them. His arms were wrapped around his legs pulling them into his chest tighter, and he shivered with chattering teeth as he stared out into the dark sky, tears streaming down his face. His chest was full of pain and he bit down harder while staring with shaking eyes into the distance. "Damn it. Damn it damn it damn it," he whispered, his voice coming out choked-up. He sniffled and tried holding back more tears to no avail, and he brought his left hand up over his face and covered it. "Every time," he said into his hand, closing his eyes and barely making the words out.

 _I wish, I wish right now, that I took those antidepressants from Recovery Girl. This hurts too much. I can't, I can't take it._ His eyes snapped back open and he pushed his left hand farther up his face and into his hair. He gasped out while running his hand through his hair, thinking about the image of himself half-transformed into Lifebringer. He thought about the smile on his face as he did that, surrounded by police officers and wearing his villain mask. Zach bit his teeth together tightly and then cursed, "Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck fuck Fuck!" He shouted the last one than shut his mouth fast in case anyone could hear him through their windows or if they just happened to be outside.

 _It was all true. Everything they said was true, so why wouldn't the demon thing be too? Are they right? No! Please let it be no. What kind of Quirk could affect Ectoplasm sensei through one of his clones though? What kind of Quirk, kills your mom? What kind of human gets everyone who's ever been close to him killed?_ "I'm not human," he whispered. "I'm not even, a person," he said. Zach brought his left hand to the side of his head and clenched it into a fist in his hair. He moved it from his head then punched in and again and again. _I could pretend, because no one else knew. The less I thought about those things, the less I had to remember them… The less real they were to me. I could have left them in the past. Things I've done. The horrible things. The worst things. But now, I'll never get past them. That's on the internet now. It's never coming down. It's never going away. I'll be reminded of it all, every day of my life. My classmates are all going to know. Everyone around me is just going to look at me with pity, or disgust, or hatred, or even fear. Should they be afraid? Am I really, a monster?_

Zach lifted his head and looked past his legs again off the corner of the roof. Then he heard a door open on the silent roof and he spun his head, and he scrambled to his feet. Yaoyorozu ran out onto the roof and then came to a stop as Zach shot onto his feet and spun to look her in the eyes. There were stars out, a large moon, and it was bright enough that the two of them could see each other well even in the dark. Zach stared at Yaoyorozu for a few seconds, and his surprised look narrowed down angrily while his hands balled into fists at his sides. "What are you doing here?" He asked, not masking his anger very well in his voice.

"I came, to make sure you were alright," Yaoyorozu replied, keeping her voice strong and stepping closer to Zach who was much too close to the edge for her liking. "I thought you might be up here, and I'm just, I'm worried about you Zach." She wanted to add something on at the end, but she also did not want to tell him to step away from the ledge and imply anything after he called her out on thinking that was his reason for being on the roof last time. This time he was closer to it though, and this time, Yaoyorozu saw a look in Zach's eyes that scared her enough into stopping before she walked any closer. "Let's go inside Zach. We can talk about it if you want, the things in the video-"

"You saw it too," Zach whispered, shaking his head and sucking in a deep breath as he already kind of expected that. "Everyone's going to see it," he added, in such a pained voice while he turned his head to the right and looked off of the roof again.

"Zach, it doesn't change anything," Yaoyorozu started in a soft, reassuring tone. "Those things, they don't define who you-"

"How couldn't they?" Zach snapped, spinning to her and getting an angrier look on his face at how calm and reassuring she was being. He shook his head at her, his lips twisting and his fists clenching even harder. "I've, I've been," his teeth ground against each other, and he bit back the sadness trying to well up and just focused it all in the anger he felt that Yaoyorozu was telling him this was not a big deal. He swung his right arm across the front of his body and yelled, "I've been a plague on this world, my entire life!"

"That's not-"

"Everyone, I have ever cared about," Zach said, biting down harder and interrupting her with tears in his eyes. "My mom, my dad, the Akers, _Jenny_ ," Zach gasped the last name out then tilted his head back and breathed so loudly up in the air. He gasped in and he said while staring in the sky, "They killed her. The villains they, killed her, because of me!" He snapped his head back down and looked into Yaoyorozu's confused and scared eyes, scared because Zach was shouting this while still very close to the edge of the building. Zach continued to her in his gasping, pained voice, "Because I had a stupid dream to be a hero. Even though I killed my own mom. Even though I smiled as it happened, because for some reason, my power makes me feel pleasure when I kill things." Zach said it and his lips were trembling while he saw the pained look on Yaoyorozu's face. Seeing it on the video and hearing Zach tell her felt different. Those words 'I killed my own mom,' felt like someone had punched her in the gut, and she did not know what she could say to him after. And what he said following it did not make it any easier.

"Why would I feel pleasure?" Zach whispered. "What kind of fucked up-" he shook his head, then he shouted, "The video was right. I _am_ a demon! I, I must be, to feel like that." He added, his voice getting softer and a hurt look flashing over his face as he turned away. "The scientists and doctors never said that my power released dopamine or chemicals into my brain, so I must really just, just enjoy it." He looked down as he finished with that, then he started laughing. "Ha, haha, ha," he laughed in short breaths, sounding like he had cracked with what he just said.

 _Oh no. Oh no this is not good,_ Yaoyorozu thought, as the boy in front of her seemed to be having a mental break. "Z-Zach," Yaoyorozu started. "Why don't we, talk about this inside?"

Zach lifted his head a little, and he looked Yaoyorozu in the eyes, and his twisted smile faltered. It dipped down and his eyes filled with anguish at what he saw her thinking. Then he started thinking about it too, and he squeezed his eyes shut. "What that report said," Zach began. "About what I did after my dad killed himself, it wasn't a lie." He opened his eyes and looked into Yaoyorozu's while in so much pain that it felt physical, like someone was grabbing him around the heart and tightening their grip. "I, I saw it and called the cops, and then I just walked away. When the police arrived, I left without saying a word. I, I didn't even cry. Because I knew, I didn't deserve to. I knew, and I couldn't think too hard about it. I knew that my dad killed himself, _because_ of me."

"Zach, that's not true," Yaoyorozu started, taking another step towards him and begging in her voice for him to understand that.

"He spent almost three years," Zach said, shaking his head back at her as she did not understand. "Living with the demon that killed his wife." Yaoyorozu's eyes shot open wide, her breathing picking up faster that Zach felt this way, and then her eyes started trembling as Zach continued. "During that time he became an alcoholic. He lost all his friends. He lost his job and the trust of the people. He pushed away everyone in his life, pushed away his entire family, but he stayed with me the whole time. And it was _because_ he stayed, he had to keep looking at me that whole time, reminded every day of what I did, yet forced to try and l-love m-me." Zach said, his lips trembling too much at the end of it that he could barely get the last words out. Tears welling up in the corners of his eyes blinked out, and they rolled down his cheeks as he gasped, "I can't take it anymore."

He shook his head and looked down, then he snapped his head back up and stared into Yaoyorozu's eyes. "I can't take all the terrible things that have happened because of me. I thought, I could be a hero, but I was ignoring the signs. I ignored everything that told me I could never do it, and I dragged more and more people into it." The corners of his lips dipped down so far and he whispered, "Why does killing feel good, and saving people hurts so much? Why does saving someone make me so exhausted, hurt me so badly? I learned during my training with the villains, that killing got rid of that exhaustion. Killing doesn't just feel good, it, it rejuvenated me, but I always pretended to still be exhausted to the villains so they'd never catch on. It was one of the few things I was able to hide," he whispered the last part, but then he lifted his left hand and covered the top half of his face with it while continuing, "But that might not have been the reason. I wasn't just hiding that, to keep secrets from the villains. Maybe I was just hiding it, because it scares me." He lowered his hand and looked into Yaoyorozu's, his gaze full of terror.

"You don't- it's your Quirk, isn't it?" Yaoyorozu said, trying to find something to say to him. She held out a hand and forced a small smile though it took a lot to be able to lift her lips at all after hearing all of that. "You don't need to be afraid, because you control it. No one else can-"

"But that's even worse," Zach gasp-whispered at her. " _Me?_ It's not better that _I_ have control over it. I'm not-" his lips started trembling more, and then he steadied them and hardened his expression a bit. He wiped his face with his left hand, and then he whispered towards her, "The day I joined the League of Villains, my darkest moment. I went through that portal, ready to murder all of them," he said, his voice soft and with regret in it, but steady as he confessed it to her. He wanted to see the rejection in her eyes, the turn of her soft look into one realizing the monster he was. He continued after a second of her look not changing the way he wanted it to, "And when they told me that they'd let me save people, using Kurogiri's power, I was ready to do whatever… I would have, killed any villain I came across. Not just League of Villains. I would have killed other villains for them. I thought, if I killed a villain who would have killed innocent people in the future, then I was saving those people. I _thought_ , I could save every life and kill every villain to save even more people who they just _might_ kill in the future."

Zach shook his head, then he tried to smirk in a menacing way only to fail and lower his expression into one of despair. "At that moment," he said, then pursed his lips as he did not want to say it but also did not care enough about the long term to hold it back. "I had truly considered myself the master over life and death. I had even laughed, thinking that 'I could decide who lives and who dies.'" Zach shook his head and his look got darker, his messy black bangs shadowing over his eyes as he bowed his head. "No one deserves that much power. And the stronger I got, the more control over this power I had, the more like Death I actually became. So before I go back to thinking that way. Before I become the real grim reaper, who commands death, a demon…" Zach turned his head to the right while still looking down, staring off the roof's edge that was only a couple feet away from him.

Yaoyorozu's eyes shot open huge. They were shaking at what he was just saying, not in fear of him, just getting more worried each second as he got darker and darker with what he was saying. "That _isn't_ you, Zach," Yaoyorozu said, taking another step forward, moving closer to him as where he was looking was making her heart race. "The person I know is nothing like that. You try so hard. You give everything you have, just to save people. Even if you've had some slip ups, things you regret, you can't give up. You're doing good things now."

"There's too much," Zach whispered, shaking his head but lifting it a little to stare into Yaoyorozu's eyes once again. "Too much, to ever make up for. I killed them," he said.

"They were accidents," Yaoyorozu countered in a firm tone. "And these things, Zach," she started, shaking her head at him and pursing her lips at the sight of his expression. "They're in the past. Far in the past. You became a hero-"

"It's not _all_ , far in the past," Zach said, his voice cracking on 'all' and sounding like he sobbed the word out. He stepped away from the corner of the roof, but only to lean towards Yaoyorozu and say in a choked-off voice, "Maybe. Maybe some of it- because I did that stuff as Lifebringer. But Jenny," he said, his voice cracking more and water filling his eyes again. "How can I call that, in the past? It was so recent, and I'll never be able to make up for- I'll never be able to forgive myself-" he bit down on his bottom lip but it slid out from beneath his teeth because his lips were shaking so hard. He couldn't stop though, and he said through a strained voice, his entire face full of fear and regret. "Just after VTS. Strapped to a chair by barbed wire with no way to get to her, but a camera so I could see every second of it." Zach brought his hands to the sides of his head while Yaoyorozu's eyes were huge and her whole body shaking at what he was starting to say. "And I tried- I really tried to stop watching, so Shigaraki dragged a knife under my eye, and he dug it in," Zach closed his eyes tightly and tears slipped out the corners of them, sliding down the right side of his face right over a long scar that was thicker just beneath the center of it.

"I thought, he was going to dig it out, so I had to open it again. I had to watch, knowing every second she lay there was a second closer to my time limit running out. Ten minutes, twenty, thirty, forty, of the longest minutes of my life," Zach paused and he gasped out, thinking about that night a couple of days after VTS. He snapped his head back and bit down hard, then he yelled out, "And when I close my eyes! I see her burning! She was my age, but I always thought of her like a little sister. I loved her, more than I knew I could ever love someone, and I only realized it as she screamed my name! As she died, screaming out in agony yet still believing that I would come save her. Until her very last breath, she believed in me. And I failed her! I let her die!"

Down one floor, Shoto Todoroki leaned back from his window and bowed his head. He had been at his desk when he heard the shouting on the roof, and he was preparing his ice in case of the worst when he realized who was on the roof and heard the tone of his shouts. He lowered his hand though, and then he brought it back to his face and pressed his palm against his forehead while running his fingers into his hair.

Kyoka Jirou sat on her bed with her earphone jacks plugged into the wall behind her. She wanted to check on Yaoyorozu who she knew was going to try and talk to Zach, but she wished she had never plugged them into the wall in the first place. She pulled her knees up to her chest, tears in her eyes as she disconnected the jacks. Jirou lowered her face between her knees and closed her eyes tightly. _Villains. That's so fucking, evil._

Yaoyorozu lifted up her left hand and put it on top of her head. She pushed it back over her hair, opening her mouth to try and say something only to close it again. She stared into Zach's eyes after he shouted that, and she had to try as hard as she could not to cry for him. Instead, Yaoyorozu took another step towards him. Zach leaned back as she walked his way, a soft look on her face full of compassion, and sympathy. He shook his head though at that look, and he yelled, "I got her killed! Her entire family! I lost her! I- I lost everything!"

"You haven't lost everything," Yaoyorozu said, her voice soft and just above a whisper. She took another step and then stopped with her legs close together, a small gap between them so she could talk in a quiet voice. "You haven't lost everyone," she continued. Zach's eyes widened, then he lowered his gaze to the floor and clenched his fists hard at his sides. "You have all your classmates, and friends, and, and I'm your friend too," she said, then she pursed her lips as Zach lifted his gaze and had such a scared look in his eyes.

 _I know. I've always, known that. But that just means. One day. I'll have to feel this pain again. What if I lose all of you? Or what if, the villains kill you because of me too?_ Zach thought, grinding his teeth and feeling knives in his heart. _It's just too much. Losing you like that. Even if you all won't reject me, like I thought you would over the video, like the others still might. I'll still lose you. Sooner or later, I always lose everything._

"I'm sorry," Yaoyorozu whispered. Zach's eyes widened, and they grew wider and wider as Yaoyorozu bowed her head in front of him and tears started welling up in her eyes. "I'm sorry we had that party on New Year's, but, but I only wanted one thing for my New Year's resolution," she whispered it then lifted her head while taking another step forward. He stared at her with wide eyes and she continued, "When Jirou showed me the school's letter, that you were going to return, only days after that. I cried," she said. "I was so happy."

Zach bit down and he shut his eyes hard, bringing up his left arm and covering them then rubbing it back and forth over them. Yaoyorozu whispered as he did this, "So please, don't go away again. I know you're afraid you're going to lose us, but we're all afraid we're going to lose you too. I'm afraid, when I see you like this." Zach pressed his left arm harder into his face but stopped rubbing it, his eyes opening back up on the other side. He started lowering his arm and stared in front of him and up a little into Yaoyorozu's face.

Zach stared at what he thought was going to be a reassuring, sad but strong look. It was just afraid though. Yaoyorozu's lips were pursed, and her eyes scared as she stared from only a few feet at the boy she was still terrified for. Zach glanced to his side once more, off the side of the building. His eyes narrowed and then he closed them, sucking in a sharp breath while thinking, _What, am I doing? What was I really, going to do?_ His head turned back and his eyes opened again to lock with Yaoyorozu's. _Did I just forget, because of that video? I'm so stupid. I knew it. I've known, this whole time, that there are still people who care about me. And what would happen if I had… how would they have felt? And Jenny, if there is something after, and you're looking down on me right now, how ashamed would you be? Mom, Dad, Mr. and Mrs. Akers. I let you all down. And I almost gave up, even though, I haven't made up for any of it._

Zach looked down from Yaoyorozu's face and to the floor between them. Shame was welling up inside him and pushing down on the rest of his emotions, but the rest were still there too. Besides the shame, and the sadness and anger though, he felt something else as he thought about the girl in front of him's expression. His eyes focused harder on the floor, but he started whispering in the softest voice, "I'm okay. You don't have to…" He closed his eyes, and then his lips lifted at the corners into a tiny, very tiny smile. "Thank you, Momo."

Momo's eyes shot open huge, and then they filled with water as Zach took a step towards her. He stepped away from the corner of the building, sniffling and whispering again with his lips trembling, "Thank you. Thank ah, thank you- ah, ah," he took in short rough breaths and then started to lift his head. Before he could look in her eyes though, Momo put her arms around Zach's back and the back of his head. She pulled his head into her left shoulder, and she sniffled too while giving him a hug that she felt like he needed.

She was almost hesitant about doing it, but she pulled him into a hug and then tightened it more as she heard the gasp come out of his mouth. _When was the last time someone, anyone held you close like this?_ Yaoyorozu thought, squeezing on Zach's back and hoping her feelings would get through to him. _You still have, people who care. Please, know this._

Zach's eyes got wetter and he lowered his head into Momo's shoulder, whispering again, "Thank you." The hug was unexpected, and as soon as it happened he tensed up. He could not think of the last time anyone had hugged him, given him any form of contact similar. He thought back to after the upperclassman got mad at him for not saving his cousin from a drunk driving accident, and how Kaminari had put a hand on his shoulder and squeezed. _Before that though,_ Zach thought, as he stopped sniffling as much and actually lifted up his left arm, putting it on Yaoyorozu's back and just accepting the comfort she was giving him. _When? No one. For so long. How long? Who last… It was probably, Jenny._ Zach's eyes shut and he pressed his face into the taller girl's shoulder, and he just let out a silent sob. He had not told anyone the things he had just told her. He had told her things he had never told anyone, and here she still was. "Thank, you."

Momo held Zach there near the edge of the roof. It was cold in the dark of night in February, but she felt warm as she listened to his quiet sobs and the repeated 'thank you's escaping his lips. _Zach,_ Momo thought, rubbing the hand on his back up and down for a second to show him she was still there. _My New Year's resolution, the one thing I wanted, was to "find" you. Even though you were back though, I never really did that. Not until now. Zach,_ she held him tighter, _I found you._


	46. Chapter 46

**Disclaimer: I don't own Boku no Hero Academia**

 **Chapter 46:**

"So, what are you going to do about it?" Kaminari asked. He kept his voice pretty quiet, like he did not want to upset his classmate in front of him who still had a soft look on his face. Zach did appear better than the last time Kaminari and Kirishima had seen him though, and they both felt grateful to the fourth person in the room who was sitting at Zach's desk chair. They were all in Zach's room, and he had texted the other two to come up.

"Everyone's, seeing it, or seen it already," Zach began in a soft voice. "But I really just don't, want to talk about it. I know that'll just leave it to people's imaginations, and that'll be worse than if I try to explain it myself, but," Zach stopped and he lowered his gaze a big. He was sitting on his bed, to the left of Kaminari sitting next to him, in front of Kirishima who stood and Yaoyorozu sitting at his desk chair. "I don't think I'll be able to talk about that stuff, without getting emotional. I think I'd rather just ignore it, you know?"

"I mean, I guess that makes sense," Kaminari said, shrugging his shoulders. "It's not like I know how you feel. I'm thinking maybe it won't come out on mass media though," he added. Zach turned to him wondering what he meant by that, and Kaminari continued while holding up an open palm, "Who else could be taking those links down, if not the government? And if they don't want something running, they can stop the big news programs from showing it. It's what they did with the Stain video anyway. Can you imagine if news programs played that?"

Zach nodded his head in agreement, as that made some sense to him. Still, comparing his video to Stain's again made him grimace more and he lowered his gaze back to his floor. "You guys know, the stuff in that video was true," Zach mentioned quietly to the two guys he had texted a few minutes ago to come to his room.

"Not all of it," Kaminari said. "Not the last part at least. You're too short to be a demon."

Zach cracked a smile and let out a small laugh, even while Yaoyorozu had frowned at the blond for making a joke at a time like this. Zach laughed a couple more times though, and he shook his head while turning to Kaminari who just grinned back at him. Kirishima grinned too after a second when he saw Zach's reaction, and Yaoyorozu smiled too that his mood seemed to be a little better. Zach lowered his smile though from Kaminari's joke after another second, and he looked from Kaminari to Kirishima and then back. "But the other stuff," Zach said. "It was true," his voice was soft and the other two's heads bowed a little while getting serious looks to them. "My mom," Zach whispered. "I never told anyone about it. It was an, accident. I didn't know-" he paused and pursed his lips as he did not know how to continue talking about this. He never wanted to see the looks of pity on their faces he was seeing now, and he didn't want them to keep looking at him like that.

"I'm sorry," Kirishima said, lowering his gaze from Zach to the floor between them. "Can't imagine what- I'm just sorry."

"Yeah, that really," Kaminari began. He lifted his hands to his head and rubbed them through the back of his hair. He had already been thinking about it since he saw the video, but he still did not know how to respond to hearing it. He looked at the boy next to him whose gaze lowered to the floor before he even trailed off, "I'm sorry man."

Zach nodded his head, showing he appreciated their condolences though there was not much to say about them. _They're just sorry though,_ Zach thought while looking down. _Neither are calling me a murderer. I thought maybe, but, I guess not really. I never really thought my classmates who have always been there, who were so supportive, would treat me differently because of that accident. That's what it was. An unavoidable accident. If people knew- and they are going to know, one way or another. If they're going to find out though, and they're going to think about it, then I shouldn't pretend like they don't. They all saw the Nightmare form already. They all knew I went to the League of Villains, that I saved people as- and if they saw the trial they must have already known something about my dad. So really the only elephant in the room, as long as I treat it that way, is my mom. The first thing they mentioned._

He lifted his head and looked around at the others. He turned and looked Yaoyorozu in the eyes, and he started, "That wasn't too bad." She got a surprised look on her face, and the other two lifted back their heads to face Zach. "So if everyone's going to find out anyway, or they already have some kind of idea, I think I should give the context."

"You really don't have to talk about it," Kaminari began, as Zach told them a minute ago that he did not want to.

"I think it's the only way though," Zach said, turning back to him. "I know everyone will just be thinking about it. Or I'll think they are every day in class and, and I want to just get it out of the way. Tell everyone. Let them say what they need to. If I can just get through it all, tonight," he said and took a pause. He got up on his feet and took a deep breath, "Then I can move past it."

"That sounds," Kirishima began. He lifted a hand and scratched the back of his head, then he grinned and nodded, "Like a solid plan. Getting past it in one night. Know I couldn't do that," he said.

Zach felt like Kirishima was calling him strong by saying that, and Zach shook his head with a small smile on his face, "I had help." Kirishima grinned more, feeling like he had helped out himself. Kaminari got a small smile on his face too as he stood up from Zach's bed, but he looked towards the girl who stood from the desk chair after he grinned for a second. She had a clearly surprised look on her face at what Zach just said, then she smiled more warmly than Kaminari was. _Wonder how she got him to open up? Well, whatever you did, nice job._

Zach glanced back towards Yaoyorozu after he said it, then to Kaminari too after a few seconds. "Thanks, you guys," he said. He turned back to Kirishima and said, "You said you were in the common room right? There still a bunch of people down there?"

"Probably," Kirishima said. "We could get the rest of the class to gather too-"

Zach shook his head and Kirishima stopped, a confused look forming on his face that Zach did not want that. "I'm not going to treat it like a big deal. Just go in there, tell whoever's there, and then I'm sure what I say will spread to whoever's not there."

Kaminari sighed and he scratched the back of his head. Zach turned to him wondering what that was for, and Kaminari said with a small chuckle, "You think too fast."

"I guess, that makes sense though," Kirishima said, thinking about how they really did not need to gather everyone, and how that would make it into a bigger deal anyway. "You want us to come with-" Zach shook his head again, a small smile on his face to show he appreciated the thought, but wanted to do this alone. "Oh. Well alright then," the redhead said with a shrug.

"Are you sure?" Yaoyorozu asked, walking up next to Zach who turned and nodded at her.

She looked unsure at his response, but he smiled more warmly and said, "I'm sure. Thanks Momo."

Yaoyorozu let out a small sigh as he did sound alright as he said that. She smiled at him and nodded, "Then good luck." By the time she looked up to head for Zach's door, the other two boys in the room had lost the surprised looks on their faces at what Zach called her. As they started walking out though, it was the only thing either of them were thinking about, and they kept glancing towards the tall, busty class vice-president who was smiling after how she was just referred to.

Kirishima glanced to his right at Kaminari as they walked, and then the two of them looked back at Zach who was walking towards the door just behind them. He got a slightly confused, but embarrassed look on his face. He was pretending like he did not know what those looks were for, but he knew his fake confused expression was not working. As much as that made him embarrassed as to what he thought his classmates might think of it, his face darkened a second later and the other two looked back forward. _That's not good. I want to call her Momo. To make her feel like I'm not pushing her away, because we're friends, because she was scared for me and cares about… But if I call her Momo in front of others, they'll think- it's not even about that though. As embarrassing as I think it would be, that's just my excuse if I stop. The real reason I don't want to, is because they'll target you first. If they do come, and they do go after the people I love- or the people I care about again. Whoever the spy is, might find out. Tell Shigaraki._

They all walked out of Zach's room and he closed the door behind him, but before he followed after Kirishima and Kaminari towards the stairs, he looked at Yaoyorozu as she walked straight out towards her door in the opposite hall. She looked back and smiled at him, and he smiled too before turning to follow the others, his smile dropping down and his face darkening again. Kaminari looked back to mention something now that Yaoyorozu was not there, but he turned back quickly as it looked like Zach was thinking about what he was going to tell the others downstairs. Zach's mind had not left the girl Kaminari almost mentioned though, _Momo. I don't want to put you in danger. But I also don't want to lose, our friendship. I don't know how to do this. Because I don't believe I can protect you. I don't believe it, because I failed before. I haven't managed to protect anything my whole life. I'm not going to go away again though. I won't distance myself either, being here but not really_ _ **being**_ _here. I'll just have to do it this time. Protect the people I care about. Protect you, and Kaminari and Kirishima too. Protect Midoriya, so I can protect the future, and because I care about him too. I care about all of them. Damn, I really hope the spy isn't one of you. That'd really, really just crush me…_

* * *

"Hey, Zach," Mineta started, lifting a hand and giving him a small half-wave as he walked towards them. The common room had a half dozen people in it, which was less than Zach thought there would be. One look at Mineta's face though, and Zach knew he had seen it.

He glanced around as he walked towards them sitting at tables and not on the couches. Zach wore a casual long-sleeved blue shirt and black sweatpants, and everyone was wearing comfortable clothes as they just sat around. He felt uncomfortable as he looked at a few of them, a bit nervous too since he had come down the stairs thinking more about Momo and villains than what he was going to say to them. He glanced left a little at Ojiro and Hagakure sitting on opposite sides of one table, and Ashido standing next to it looking at him hesitantly too after Hagakure mentioned something they saw on the video. "So," Zach started, his voice kind of joking, kind of just quiet and questioning. "Who, saw it?" He wondered.

Sero and Sato looked in at the short boy between them who gulped before saying, "I did."

"We did too," Hagakure said quickly, pointing at Ojiro and herself, which Zach saw when her long sleeves waved up.

"Sorry," Ojiro said, sweatdropping as Zach frowned at them. Half of them saw, and he figured the other half must have known some stuff already considering they looked to be talking about it when he walked over. "It's just-"

"It's fine," Zach said, shaking his head at Ojiro. He opened his mouth to continue, then he just closed it and lifted his left hand to rub the side of his head. "So, I thought I'd just say it, because it's out there so, just to clear things up…" it was harder than he thought it was going to be, and he already knew it was going to be difficult.

Hagakure waved her hands at him and said, "Don't force yourself. We don't care- I mean we care, of course we care."

Zach sweatdropped as he looked through the invisible girl's face. He thought about when she came to his apartment after the Sports Festival with the other two at that table. He said he was going to visit his other aunt in America, and she had asked him about his parents. _"Dead," I still can't believe I said that to her._ Zach grimaced as he wondered what kind of expression she had now, and he thought she must have felt even worse about what she said back then knowing it was him who caused his parents' deaths.

"Y-Yeah," Mineta said, shaking his head too and looking away like something else caught his interest. "I didn't believe any of that stuff anyway-"

"It was true," Zach said, and Mineta's eyes shot open wide while he spun his head back to Zach. All six of the other students in front of Zach stared at him with wide eyes, and he just took in a deep breath before trying to say, what he came down to say. "When I was seven, I hurt myself. I got hurt, and my mom she- she grabbed my hand to help me up. I thought I was Quirkless, I didn't- we didn't know," his voice got quieter but he stopped himself from looking down as he spoke. He just stared around at them and all their hurt and pitying looks, and he hoped it would be the last time he had to see them. "It was an accident. She grabbed my hand, and my Quirk manifested… and she died." Zach lifted back up his left hand and scratched the side of his head, darting his gaze down to the floor and thinking calming thoughts for a second as he had felt himself about to get teary-eyed again, and he did not want that to happen. Not while he was trying to avoid more pity. Not while he was getting past it.

"But that, was a long, long time ago," Zach whispered, and he lifted his head with a strong look on his face, even though it was soft like his voice. The others who were all about to open their mouths to say how sorry they were or how terrible that was, just stared in shock as Zach forced a small smile for them. "A long, time ago," Zach repeated. "I'm only saying something now, because I know it's going to come out anyway. Figured I should give context, you know?"

Sero lifted both of his hands up and ran them through his black hair. Ojiro kept staring with wide eyes at Zach for a few more seconds, until Zach locked eyes with him again and just nodded his head to show it was alright. Zach turned to Ashido whose bottom lip was lowered, and he gave her a slightly bigger smile than he gave the others. He thought about after the Sports Festival again, after Ojiro and Hagakure had started walking away when Ashido ran back and said what she wanted to. He thought about the last thing she told him that day, _**"…Cool guys don't get moody for long."**_

As he thought about it, Ashido's eyes started getting even wider as she thought about how Zach was not nearly as moody as she thought he would be, and she remembered telling him that before. Her black eyes that had started getting watery blinked a few times in shock as she knew why it was he was smiling like that at her.

Mineta's huge eyes he was staring at Zach with started to lower and he looked at the floor. _What are you doing?_ He thought, his small fists tightening at his sides. _That video, was I just avoiding him since it because I was trying to hide the stuff I knew? No, it was, I got scared. Why am I thinking like that? Zach's not a bad guy. Hearing about his mom, but they didn't say it straight out, just implied it at first. A mysterious heart attack though, it was obvious, and I-_ "I'm sorry," Mineta said, shaking his head at Zach who turned back to him. "That- I'm just sorry," he said, and he lifted a hand and started scratching the purple balls over his head.

"Yeah man, that really sucks," Sero said and nodded in agreement with Mineta. "You sure you're alright? Kirishima said- well I mean, I figure getting this stuff dredged up can't be fun." Sero cut back as he realized he shouldn't say Kirishima told them anything, since he really hadn't too.

"Yeah you're right, it stinks," Zach agreed, losing his smile and rubbing the side of his head with his left hand again. "But like I said, it happened a long time ago. It's not that I'm over it or anything-" he stopped himself and grimaced as he said that. "Just, I can control my Quirk now. So there won't, be anymore accidents," he said. He finished it as if he was assuring them not to worry, and the others went wide-eyed again as it seemed like now he had come over to make sure they weren't afraid of him.

"We know you're careful with it," Ojiro said quickly, standing from his seat and saying that in a tone like Zach did not have to worry at all. "Like at the training camp. Even in that situation, you still made sure me and Kaminari were far back when you came over with your hand out to save Kirishima."

"Yeah," Mineta called out, thinking back on that himself. At the time he had been scared out of his wits by Zach threatening them, only for him to then witness one of the most amazing things in his life. "We know you've got it under control," Mineta said, and he shook his head at himself for even questioning that since lunch.

Ashido opened her mouth to say something in agreement too, but she frowned as she watched Zach's face when Mineta was speaking. _He shifted it away from his mom without anyone noticing,_ Ashido thought. _Or, maybe Hagakure noticed too, and that's why she's not saying anything. If he doesn't want to talk about it anymore though, I guess that's fine._

Sato nodded along as Sero started talking about whoever made the video, but the taller and more muscular boy was thinking about something else when Zach responded saying he wanted to know too. _I hope he really is alright. What about Jenny though? He seems like he's over his mom, at least a bit maybe, but you wake me up sometimes Zach._ Sato thought while looking sadly at the boy in front of him, _Nightmares about the same girl I heard Kaminari mention. I don't want to look into it, but what happened?_

Zach saw Sato out the corner of his eye while he was talking to Sero about finding out who made the video, and he sighed internally at the larger boy's look. _I knew it._

* * *

In class the day after Zach saw the Lifebringer video, he could not shake the feeling that there were eyes on him from all over the room. _Guess it was too much to hope they'd all just get over the rumors that quickly. I only really talked to half of them about it, not even._ Zach was slouched into his chair and looking down at his books closely through all the class periods. At lunch he made sure to sit around others he had already talked about the video with, avoiding having to discuss it again today. He saw some surprised looks from others who saw them eating in peace with none of the others around him bringing up the video, and he hoped some of the others would mention it to the people he was talking to so they could pass on what he had said without him needing to talk about it anymore.

The second half of the day he could already feel less people staring at him. _Maybe no one else even saw it,_ Zach thought hopefully while he wrote out an English sentence Present Mic just said aloud. _They'll hear that I told the others about my mom, and they'd probably not even bother looking up the video at that point. That'd be nice. I could just, let this get behind me._ Zach closed his eyes as his pencil was close to the end of his paper. _Mom. I didn't think about it, for so long. I pushed it to the back of my head, and before I knew it, I had done so many other terrible things that an accident when I was seven years old, is no longer at the top of that list. I'm still sorry. I wish, I didn't- I don't even know how to finish that regret though. Because it was just pure chance. As terrible… but, but it wasn't like that this time. I made decisions, that put Jenny and the Akers in danger. I-_ Zach shook his head and refocused up at his teacher who started calling out another sentence.

Jirou sat behind Zach with her eyes stuck down on the paper in front of her. Whenever she looked up towards Present Mic, her eyes shifted to the back of Zach's head in a second. She looked up again and tried to keep them away, but she saw him shaking his head in front of her while looking down, and it made her chest ache. _I can't get it out of my head._ _ **"And when I close my eyes! I see her burning!"**_ _Gahh! I want to talk to Momo about it at least, but I don't want either of them to know I was listening. I should've just minded my own business._

At the back of the classroom, Todoroki was focused on the teacher's lecture, but his eyes did glance over to the left a couple of times through the class. He did not look at him as much as Jirou, but he also did not feel much regret over what he had heard, as after hearing it he knew he was right to be ready at his window. _Why was he up on the roof? Was he really going to… I heard him and Yaoyorozu walking back down the hallway a few minutes after that. I had wondered who was up there with him,_ Todoroki looked at the girl on the seat right next to him who he noticed was still focused on her classwork all day despite what he thought would be distracting her.

 _ **"She died because of me…"**_ Midoriya glanced to his left over towards Zach, then he turned back forward and started writing down another sentence. _Was he talking about his mom the other day? At the time, I thought it made sense, but I didn't want to imagine it. Kirishima said he really sounded like he was past it though. So why does Zach still seem, like he's always, in so much pain?_

Zach was a little off when he thought people were not looking at him as much anymore, but he was focusing more on class anyway so he noticed them less himself. The afternoon was going by fast, and Aizawa came back in towards the end of the day to discuss something with the class. Zach actually felt pretty good when Aizawa stood up there and he knew there were only a few minutes left until school was done for the day. No one had mentioned the video to him. Lunch was delicious. And he started to get excited even as Aizawa started, "So about the hero internships this term…"

Everyone leaned forward in their seats, their attentions snapping to their teacher and excited looks appearing on more of their faces. "U.A. won't be doing any for the first years," Aizawa continued. Most of the class dropped their jaws as Aizawa put that on them without any warning.

"Wait really?"

"Why not?" Kirishima asked, leaning forward and getting an aggravated look on his face. Aizawa glared at the class and they all sat up straight with their mouths closed and complete silence.

Zach sat up like the others, but his eyes lowered to his desk in front of him and his expression turned grim. _Is it because of me? Why would they cancel? I really needed money from an internship, make it so I can really cut off all contact with Maye. I can't even get annoyed about it. It's my fault anyway._

Aizawa saw Sazaki's expression dip ten notches darker in the matter of two seconds and he tried not to sweatdrop. He continued to the students awaiting an explanation, scratching his right cheek as he did, "Some people think it's foolish to send students out multiple times during their first year into action. The amount of villain incidents are still on the rise, so it's even more likely you'll be fighting villains at your internships than it was in the fall."

"Sensei," Iida started while putting his right hand up high. "Is it not because of the rise in villain incidents that we should get more experience as soon as possible?"

"You make a good point," Aizawa said, though he kept his tired and unfocused tone. "But as much as experience is important, sending the unexperienced into these situations too early would just be an unnecessary risk. As you should all know, along with the increase in the rate of villain incidents, hero deaths are becoming more common too." A more grim hush fell over the classroom with Iida's hand lowering down and his eyes disappearing behind a glint of his glasses. Everyone stared at their teacher whose voice got a little more serious as he continued, "You already know it from your provisional license exams. The fifty percent pass rate from previous years was cut dramatically, below seven percent. This is one of the reasons for that."

Zach lifted his head and his confused expression started to fill with realization at Aizawa's explanation. _Heroes are dying out there. They're not all weak ones, but if in recent years the tests were not as exclusive, there are bound to have been half-capable heroes out there. Still are too, since the ones who had their licenses are not going to have to go through the tests again. Though, maybe they should. That would reduce the number of pro heroes out there though, below the number of villains. It used to be more heroes than villains, now I feel like they're closer to the same number, but if they're letting less new heroes make it through the system at the same time as current heroes are dying… This world is only going to get more dangerous. I understand why they don't want to let those who aren't ready to get their licenses, and why they don't want people our age going out to fight the villains too often yet, but that solution is going to result in an even smaller fraction of the population being able to protect the rest._

"First the Culture Festival," Kaminari muttered on Zach's right side. Zach glanced at him and saw Kaminari running his left hand up through his hair in a frustrated way. "Now this. Kind of disappointing."

Zach looked past Kaminari as he was saying that, and his eyes widened a bit as he saw Midoriya with his head aimed down at his desk, a frustrated and sad look on his face. _What's that look about?_

"But for those of you who would have gotten internships, this may actually help you out," Aizawa continued. Everyone looked back up at their teacher if they had been taking a moment to think on what he told them. He went on, "Whether or not you were having them, the end of the year is coming up, and instead of a final exam we're having you write research papers."

The class who thought there might be something big to make up for the internships just groaned or grimaced more as it was a completely school-like thing and also sounded really boring. "You'll not only have to write the paper, but present it in front of the freshman hero classes and the faculty," Aizawa continued. The ones who groaned at how boring it sounded got nervous looks on their faces as they lifted their gazes again, but they were not the only ones. Hearing that unnerved a lot of people in class who were not the best public speakers. Jirou and Hagakure both looked in at Koda with apologetic looks while the very shy boy started shaking there with huge eyes.

"Is something like this really necessary?" Todoroki began. "Couldn't the report alone be enough?"

"Um, yeah I agree," Midoriya added, though he lifted up a hand as he said it. "Why would we need this?"

"You're all planning on being heroes," Aizawa started his response, not too annoyed at their questions since he himself was not very into the answer he was about to give. "At some point, you'll all come in contact with the media. You'll be faced with them, and you have to be able to speak publicly. I hate it myself, but just this year you all saw me have to go on tv." He grimaced thinking back on it, and Zach looked down as he thought about that too, while Bakugo was still grinding his teeth at the idea of giving a stupid presentation to the classes and teachers. "So if you think you can go into this with a good report only to bomb speaking in front of everyone, think again."

Koda's face turned even more red and his whole body started shaking at the idea of this being a final project for the year. Aizawa felt bad for him, but only him, and he glared around at the other students who all looked ready to complain about this. Iida lifted his hand again after Aizawa re-silenced the room, and when Aizawa looked over, the class rep began, "What are the specifics of this research paper? How many pages are required? And is the due date at the end of the semester or before it and the presentations are done at the end?"

Aizawa sweatdropped at all of Iida's questions, while everyone else in the class actually felt appreciative as they had gotten ahead of themselves thinking about presenting their papers that they forgot to ask what they were actually writing about. "It's ultimately up to you," Aizawa started. "Choose a topic related to anything you've learned this year. Hero activities, your own Quirks and possible uses for them, etcetera. For example, if you want to do a research paper looking up reasons why having another internship period in your first year would have been a good thing, for those of you I can see still mulling that over it could be a good topic." A few of the students who were still thinking about that looked at their teacher in surprise, and Aizawa continued, "As many reasons as there are why you should be kept here in school for your own safety, there are as many reasons why you should be out there interning with heroes. Think about both sides in your arguments. You aren't just doing research. You have to have your own opinions in these papers too. Do your research, pick something you're actually interested in so you don't come off as boring during your presentation, and don't miss the deadline. Which is, the day you'll be presenting."

 _Which is…_

"That gives you around a month and a half to prepare. Your course load won't drop at all during this time, except in the final days leading up to the presentations," Aizawa scratched the back of his head like he was thinking about what else he might have forgotten. "There is no page limit, or minimum," he muttered. "Take that to mean what you will. If you fail this though, you fail for the year so don't cut corners… Oh yeah," he said, lifting the corners of his lips like he forgot the most simple thing. The students all getting worked up over the due date sighed internally as it seemed like he remembered, only to tense up again as Aizawa added, "You have to get your main idea cleared by a member of the staff. You can ask any teacher for advice in your research, use the school library to your advantage, and…" The class leaned forward.

Aizawa turned and looked up at a clock on the wall. "Class is over. You can all go."

"What day are the presentations?!"

Aizawa leaned back at the exclamations from half the class. He scratched his cheek and said in a tired voice, "I'll let you know in a couple of weeks. It'll be early April, sometime. Just have to work out what auditorium we'll need, or when we can use it…" he grabbed his sleeping bag from behind the desk and started walking for the door while putting it over himself. "If you have any questions… well, try and figure them out on your own."

Zach sweatdropped as he watched the homeroom teacher lazily exit the room, then he leaned back on his chair and stared up at the ceiling. _Something we're interested in… Huh._

Kaminari was humming to himself with both hands interlocked behind his head, and he turned left to Zach a few seconds after Aizawa left. "What do you think? Any ideas?"

Jirou looked to Kaminari in surprise at the casual way he was talking to Zach, and the hum that Zach made after his question. She had not sat near them at lunch, sitting far off unlike usual. She had to avert her gaze too as Zach turned in to answer his blond friend. _I can't look at him without giving away what I heard. That was so terrible. How is he, how does he do this? Every day, looking like nothing's bothering him._ _ **"As she died, screaming out in agony yet still believing that I would come save her. Until her very last breath, she believed in me. And I failed her! I let her die!"**_

Zach turned to Kaminari after humming for a second. "Maybe," he began. "I've got a couple of ideas," he said slowly, then he turned his head more and said, "What about you, Jirou?"

Jirou leaned back as she was not expecting the question, though she realized she had been watching them. Kaminari looked back too, and he lifted an eyebrow at her off-put attitude. "Um, I don't, think so," Jirou started, and she lifted a hand to scratch the side of her head with, looking to the side like she was thinking hard. "Maybe something about my Quirk…"

"Oh, cool," Zach said, turning back forward quickly. _I thought I noticed something weird about her all day. She must have seen the video, and maybe she didn't hear that I talked about it. I should… her Quirk? No, of course not- but then again, if she was the spy it'd be a great one. She could eavesdrop everywhere without anyone noticing._ Zach's expression got darker while he started packing up his things to head out. Most people were still in class talking about the paper, but a few had started leaving already and he no longer felt like being in there. _Jirou's not the spy. She's not. At USJ she- and she's Jirou! Why do you have to suspect your friends? That's not cool. It's not fair to the ones who really have done nothing wrong. She could just be staring at you funny for the video, or, if she did eavesdrop on something, it probably was just because she was worried. I was on the roof last night… how close, was I?_

Zach got up and started for the door. His head was partially bowed and his eyes shadowed over by his bangs, _Never again. There are people who care. I can't do that to them. And, I can't give up like that. I still haven't changed a thing. Haven't, changed the answer. And it's not impossible. I can think of a way. To make up for everything. There has to be a way to do that much good. To make up for it all, to protect this world, from the monsters lurking inside it. Shigaraki, Dabi, Kurogiri, the spy, All For One, all of them. I can stop them. I told All Might I was going to. Yesterday was just a hiccup. A bad one, but the last one. Make it so. From here on out, I'm doing it. Taking down the League of Villains, supporting Midoriya in order for him to become the Symbol of Peace, saving this world. There are things I can do. A perspective on the world that only I might have. I know what I want to do for my research paper. I'll make up for all of it. Jenny, I'll never forget you, but I'll make you proud… I'm so sorry, I got you killed._

He walked out of the classroom, and Kaminari turned his head from the boy who just walked out without a word and looked so intense as he did it. He turned to the girl behind him whose bottom lip was lowered after she watched Zach right there, then she snapped her head down as Kaminari gave her an annoyed look. "What? Did you see the video or something?" Kaminari asked.

"I don't know, what you're talking about," Jirou said, packing up her things quicker.

"Really?" Kaminari asked, lifting his eyebrows up that she was going to try and play it that way. "Did it get you that freaked out?" He wondered. Then he leaned forward off his chair while she was leaning off hers so he could add, "You know Zach told us afterwards. His Quirk just manifested one day, and he accidentally killed his mom." Jirou bit down hard as she heard this, since she did _not_ know that and it just added to the terrible things she _had_ heard the night before. "It was an accident though," Kaminari repeated to her, since she seemed to tense up a lot hearing that.

"Yeah, I get it," Jirou said after a few seconds. She shook her head around and tried putting on a smile for the blond in front of her, but she could not force it if she tried. "That's just, sad," she whispered, giving her reason for why she could not fake the look at the moment. _Even if that was an accident. That girl, she's the one Kaminari mentioned to Zach those times. Jenny. Zach's mood always changed when he brought her up. I should tell him not to talk about her any… but then, he'll ask why, and he'll start looking at Zach just like, I must have been._ Jirou lifted a hand and rubbed her forehead before picking up her things. She started for the door herself, only to turn as Yaoyorozu called over to her to wait for a second so they could walk back together, as they often did. Jirou grimaced but then thought as her best friend in the class walked her way, _I can't do this. I have to tell Momo at least- but then won't she tell Zach I know? Agh, she should, then I don't have to say it myself. Keeping it to myself that I know though, it's like I'm betraying their trust. I wish, I hadn't listened to a thing…_

* * *

 **A/N Hey guys. Thanks for reading the chapter. Didn't put an A/N at the bottom of the last chapter, admittedly that chapter gets to me more than any has in Death. Rereading and editing it always brings tears to my eyes, especially the part right before I showed Jirou and Todoroki listening. Anyway, just wanted to mention that now since I didn't put an Author's Note at the end of the last chapter. I hope you enjoyed that one, and I hope you liked this one too of a bit more of reactions and seeing what's coming up. Leave a review below telling me what you think, and time for review responses:**

D-Koy24 chapter 45 . 20h ago

Ammo locked and loaded...  
"JUST TAKE THE SHOT!" ZachxMomo fans shouted in unison.  
I am really believing you are just a tease! (Vain popping on forehead) but I like how you included Todoroki and Jirou in the scene and their reactions (Jirou obviously would've snooped, no doubt there.  
~D-Koy, a very impatient ZachxMomo friend.  
(Holds sign that says "Stop camping!")  
(Please respond to this *Puppydog eyes times infinity")

 **Zach says 'Momo!' Haha, I was expecting people to be excited over them, but you guys are all too much XD. We'll see if I'm teasing or if anything comes from it... def some snoopers in the class, with Sato and Midoriya thinking on some things too. I get you're impatient, but although I won't say a ship has sailed, someone's definitely building a boat around here... ;)** **Thanks for the review!**

Guest chapter 45 . 18h ago

FUUUUCKKIIIINNNNGG FINALY!

 **Haha glad you liked it! Thanks for reviewing!**

An Average Jo chapter 45 . 11h ago

It happened! Finally! Yeahhhhhh boiiiiii

 **Glad y'all enjoyed! Thanks for the review!**

Guest chapter 45 . 17h ago

WHY IS ZACK SO SHORT?! WHY?!

 **Well... he was a late bloomer? His Quirk showed up late, so maybe his height growth spurt's hitting late too? Only reason I got! Thanks for the review!**


	47. Chapter 47

**Disclaimer: I don't own Boku no Hero Academia**

 **Chapter 47:**

Zach stood at his new dresser, a small one that came in a box he had to put together himself, using the blender he had on top of it. He had decided once they found out they were not doing internships that he could not just rely on the idea of his own cashflow coming in soon. He wanted to ask the school for more furniture before using his Aunt Maye's card anymore, but he also felt like bringing up his monetary situation to them was a good way for the principal to force him back into contact with his aunt. So he realized the best way to just not contact her, may be to just use her card to show her that he's still fine. Each time he used it and found that it still worked though, he felt a pang of guilt knowing that she still cared enough to let him do this, and he was trying hard not to reciprocate any of those feelings.

The tub of protein shake powder he got on his last shopping trip with Kirishima was going down fast despite it coming in a large container. He was sweating and wearing a black tank top with yellow letters on the front spelling out 'ALL MIGHT' with the 'ALL' above the 'MIGHT' centered over the chest. Even though it was still February, the dorms had heating so working out in his made him pretty sweaty. He had just finished his workout though which was why he was blending up the protein shake powder along with some fruit and milk he bought and a scoop of peanut butter. The peanut butter was just his personal preference, but it did add some more protein in it too so he made sure it was a big scoop.

 **Knock Knock**

Zach nodded his head up and down with a pair of headphones in his ears. All he could hear over the music in his head, was the churning of the ingredients of his shake in front of him. He held a hand down on top of the lid of the blender as it was shaking a lot, but it stopped and he reached over to his cup and popped the lid off it. He poured the whole shake into the cup and put the top on, then he shook the special cup for post-workout around a couple of times himself before taking the first sip. The bitter taste of the powder make him scrunch his face a little, but there were enough tasty ingredients in it that he could ignore that taste, especially since he knew it was going to help him out anyway.

"Hey Zach?"

Zach turned towards his door and he popped a headphone out of his right ear. "Huh? Someone there?" He started turning down the volume then he stopped and took out the other headphone too as he heard a response from the other side.

"Yeah man, you free?"

 _Kirishima? Thought I heard Midoriya? Maybe both of them._ Zach walked over to his door, shoving his headphones down into his phone's pocket of his red shorts and shaking his cup around on his way over. "I guess, what's up?" Zach asked. He reached for the door and pulled it open, then he looked next to Kirishima and Midoriya to see two others who he had not heard. "Oh, hey," Zach said, getting a little more self-conscious at the two girls who were there with Kirishima and Midoriya.

Uraraka and Tsuyu smiled and said 'hi' back to Zach, then Kirishima said, "Hey, you using the stuff we bought the other-"

"Yep, couldn't you hear the blender through the door?" Zach wondered. "Also sorry, had headphones in too," he said, as he wondered if they had knocked first and he just did not hear them.

Zach thought they were noticing he had just worked out, from the sweat on his arms and on his face a bit; even the sides of his hair were kind of damp. It was Saturday and he decided against going to train at the school. He still felt too many strange looks about the video, even though he was glad Kaminari turned out to be right and nothing about it was coming out on big news programs. There was another reason he did not want to work out in front of people though, especially if he was wearing a tank top like he was now.

After Tsuyu and Uraraka greeted him, the two of them both started staring at his left arm. Zach always wore long sleeves, which made some sense considering it had only been winter since he came back from, wherever he had been. This meant neither of them had seen his left arm since January though, and though they had noticed the scar on the back of his left hand, they did not realize it was consistent up his whole arm. He had scars on his forearm, his bicep and tricep, and over his shoulder. Zach pretended not to notice their stares when he realized after a second that they were not just thanks to his workout sweat, and he said to Midoriya who he first heard call in to him. "Anyway, what's up? You guys need something?"

"Actually," Uraraka started, and she lifted her gaze to Zach from his arm fast, suddenly feeling more confident about why they were here. "We wanted to talk to you about our internships."

Zach sweatdropped and leaned back a little, and he muttered, "Sorry. I didn't think, they'd cancel them-"

"Dude what are you talking about?" Kirishima asked. "No one's blaming you for this semester."

"Oh," Zach said, and the others besides Kirishima opened their eyes wide as they realized that's actually what Zach was doing.

"Yeah, it was like Aizawa-sensei said," Midoriya agreed with Kirishima quickly.

"Yeah, I know," Zach started. "I just thought, people might blame me," he muttered. _I thought it was my fault at the start, but what Aizawa sensei said actually made sense. Still, I could see why other people would just blame me for any changes at U.A. I did make a big- well, whatever._ "Then, did you mean your last internships?" Zach asked, before any of them could start trying to convince him of something he already pretty much believed.

Uraraka hesitated since she was about to say something encouraging, then she nodded her head. She opened her mouth to continue, but Zach stepped back with wide eyes and said, "Oh shit- sorry, you want to come in?" He realized he was standing in front of his doorway, then he turned and grimaced as he wondered if his room smelled a bit of sweat. The air was circulating though so he hoped since it had been a couple of minutes since his final set that it was not too bad.

The others walked in after Kirishima who immediately mentioned, "Hey, you got a dresser. Gotta get some stuff to make this room less boring though."

Zach smiled a bit at Kirishima, then he looked at Midoriya and then down to his own tank top. "Maybe I'll get an All Might poster, or something," he said, suggesting it to himself while thinking on how his hero might be a good motivator while he was working out.

"That's a great idea. But there are a lot of different All Might posters. If you get one from the Silver Age online at…"

Zach sweatdropped while Midoriya quickly started going on about what seemed like his greatest passion, buying All Might merchandise. He muttered after a few seconds, "Or maybe, a Grappler poster." Midoriya froze with his mouth open, then Kirishima started laughing as Zach did not seem to want to be a part of this strange All-Might-obsessed culture. Zach opened his protein shake as he did not want it getting warm, and since it was pretty warm in his room he knew the blended-up ice would not last. He took a big sip and then said while he lowered it, "So, internships? And you guys can sit if you want." _What are they doing here? Are they suspicious of stuff I did while they were interning? Did they hear rumors about a creepy guy called Reaper whose description matches my Nightmare form? Or are they just looking for information? I did tell Kirishima a lot about Trigger and Apocalypse the other day._

Tsuyu walked over to Zach's bed and sat on the side of it, which made him try hard not to let a pink shade come to his cheeks. The other three stayed standing, though Kirishima leaned back against his desk as he gained a more serious look on his face. Zach still had a calm expression after taking his last sip, slightly confused and interested, but an expression that made Midoriya and Kirishima both feel like he was hiding everything he was thinking, which he really was. He could see it on Midoriya's face that he wished Zach was not hiding his feelings at the moment, but Zach was too nervous by what they wanted to talk about to show them, as it would give away that he was worried about what they might know.

"Zach, we really wanted to talk to you, about Eri," Midoriya started.

 _Eri. That's the girl Kirishima got really serious when he asked me if I knew about her. Something bad must have happened._ "Who?" Zach asked. He glanced towards Kirishima when the red-haired boy looked at him with a narrowed gaze, but Zach looked at him not in confusion but with a look to show he did recognize the name just still did not know who it was.

"Eri-chan is," Tsuyu began. She paused for a second, her expression saddening before lifting so she could finish, "A little girl. Very sweet and innocent."

"She was," Uraraka started. "Being used by these villains, in the fall-"

"But that's not what we wanted to talk about," Kirishima added, glancing at Uraraka who shook her head in agreement that she was going to get off track there.

 _They don't want to talk about internships? Just about this girl? I have a, bad feeling about this._ Zach nodded at Kirishima to continue, but it was Midoriya who started again.

Midoriya spoke in a softer tone, keeping eye contact with Zach as he said, "Eri, thought she was cursed." Zach's eyes opened wide as he stared at Midoriya, and he cursed in his head that he reacted that way. His eyes stayed wide though as Midoriya continued, "When her Quirk appeared, she made her dad vanish with her power. And her mom, thought she was a," Midoriya hesitated for a second, not wanting to say it about the girl or because of what it would insinuate here with the fact that they were bringing this up to Zach in the first place. "She thought her daughter was cursed, so she gave her away, to her father who was in charge of, the Eight Precepts of Death."

Zach's eyes widened more, then they darted back to Kirishima who had told him a bit of his fight against one of the Eightfold Cleansers. He realized now why Kirishima brought up that girl while they were talking the other day, but it did not make him feel any better. _Are they comparing me to this girl? I mean, not that it sounds too crazy different. She actually sounds, like she's had a really rough time of it._

"That's, not all," Midoriya continued. Zach looked back and into Midoriya's eyes, and he could see his friend looked more hesitant than before to continue. He glanced at Zach's left arm and then back into Zach's eyes though, and he continued in a soft voice, "But her grandfather left her in charge of, Chisaki." Midoriya's teeth clenched for a second and he whispered with a shake of his head, "She's only six years old, but Chisaki's Quirk, Overhaul, it could take apart and put back together-"

The second Midoriya said 'Overhaul,' Zach's expression darkened and his fists started to clench. He had to stop himself because he almost squeezed his cup hard enough that the plastic would have bent in and splashed the protein shake out the top. Midoriya stopped talking, and the other three who were involved in rescuing Eri from Overhaul all stared at Zach with wide eyes at his reaction. "His Quirk, was called Overhaul?" Zach muttered. "Sure that wasn't, his name?" He asked, lifting his lowered gaze back into Midoriya's wide eyes.

 _I don't want to talk about this girl. It sounds like, like this Chisaki guy tortured her. I can't see why they would bring that up to me, unless they're suspicious about where I got my scars. Even after I lied again to Kirishima, though I'm thinking he probably believes me more than the rest considering I told him how Shigaraki had "beat" me._ Zach took a deep breath as Midoriya confirmed that Chisaki used his Quirk's name as his villain name too. _How to deflect this conversation. How to- Overhaul. You fuck- damn it._ Zach's hands clenched tighter again, then he snapped his head to his right and grimaced. Zach walked back to his dresser and put down his shake, then he reached for some paper towels on the floor next to the dresser since there was no more room on top of it, and he wiped his hand before wiping off the cup he accidentally squeezed too tightly.

"Did you, know him?" Kirishima asked. When he asked Zach about Eri and saw he did not know anything, he just assumed Zach had no idea what any of the stuff he was talking about with his internship was.

Zach looked back and grimaced more, but there was no hiding what he had already given away. "Yeah, I met him once," Zach admitted. His face was disgusted, and the top half got half-shadowed over just looking full of dread at what he was thinking about.

"Whatever you're thinking about him," Kirishima started. "He's even worse. The Quirk-Destroying drug, they were making that out of Eri." Zach turned towards him in confusion and then with widening eyes as Kirishima continued in a dark tone himself, "Using her blood, and when she couldn't make any more, he'd- he'd disassemble her, and put her back together." Zach closed his eyes, clenching them shut tight at the sound of that.

 _Doing that, to a little girl. Over and over again._ _That's just,_ tears pushed at the corners of Zach's eyes, and he lifted his left arm to rub his face fast. _Stop it. They're going to try and switch this to talking about you in a second. I know it!_ "That's, horrible," Zach started, lowering his arm and replacing his sad look with one of fury. His eyes were still wet, but he looked pissed-off all of a sudden and his fists balled at his sides. "If he did to her, what I think- I saw him, blow someone apart-" Zach stopped himself and grit his teeth even harder, his face so angry but frustrated too as he thought back on it. "I didn't, even like the person who…" Zach lifted his left hand and rubbed the side of his head while his classmates started staring at him in shock now, because of how angry he was getting at himself as he tried talking about this.

 **Six Months Ago**

"I don't care if you don't like me," Zach muttered to the taller person on his left side. The transgender woman with dark red hair and a pair of sunglasses on looked down at the boy on her right side who stood there with his arms down at his sides. "I'm not here to make friends with you all. Just to save people."

"Well we're going to be working together, honey," Magne said down to him. Zach lifted his head a bit and glared up at the villain next to him who frowned back for a second before lifting her lips into a grin. His eyes widened, and she said to him, "I'll forgive you for stopping me from catching your little friend as he escaped." Zach thought back to how he knocked Magne off balance and stopped him from sending other villains after Bakugo while he was escaping, and his eyes opened wider. Then Magne's grin lowered and she said, "But you'll have to work much harder before I can get over Mr. Compress."

Zach's wide eyes narrowed down and his fists clenched at his sides. _He deserved it,_ Zach thought. _They all do. I should just start killing them all right now, except, they let me save those people. They really let me save them._ "Why would you try to get over that?" Zach muttered. "I killed your comrade, not that you thought of him like one I'm sure. But if you're going to pretend like you need to get over it at all, then you should know normal people don't forgive stuff like that."

"Hmph, it's stupid to hold a grudge like that," Magne started. Zach turned his head to the side and then his bottom lip lowered as Magne continued, "I got to meet an old friend of mine just the other day. Even though she knew what kind of things I'd done, she didn't care. There are certain things that go past common sense-"

"Oi, Twice is back. Look sharp…"

 **Present**

Zach lowered the hand he was scratching the side of his head with, then he started in a low voice, "Chisaki, he, he wanted to be the Kingpin. He started a fight with us…" Zach's classmates stared at him nervously as he started this, and Midoriya's eyes darted around to the others in the room with them. _Does Zach realize what he's saying? He told me some stuff about fighting other villains, but he said he didn't say that stuff to the court. He said he wanted to keep that stuff secret._

"Zach-chan," Tsuyu began. "Don't you mean, he fought with the League of Villains?"

Zach looked towards the frog-girl sitting on the side of his bed, and he frowned so deeply at her question. _"Us?"_ "I was-" he started, then he bit down hard. "It was just after, the court case. I was," he stopped himself again but then shook his head, realizing he could not finish it here without leaving things worse than the way they were at the start. "At the time they still made me wear the box over my right hand whenever I was around. They thought I would try killing them, and I don't know if they were wrong. It was the first time I ever, did anything other than just going around saving people. While I was still working out the kinks, and training my power, and the name 'Lifebringer' hadn't even really gained traction yet. They, Shigaraki he- he took the box off my hand to make the League look like they had more members in front of a new potential ally."

He shook his head and looked down, "That's all I- I thought that if, that was all I had to do, then it would be worth it. He said he wouldn't let me go out and save more people for the rest of the week otherwise, so I just said 'fine,' and I got ready to stand in the background and not do anything." Zach looked around, and he saw nervous looks in each of his classmates' eyes at what they were hearing. He knew this was more than he should tell them, he had even forgotten why he had started in the first place. He was so frustrated by it though, and frustrated that he could not stop here without leaving them assuming all kinds of things about him. "But when Overhaul, he started talking about how the League had been losing so many strong 'pawns,' and I had even grinned as he said that… But Magne," Zach whispered. He shook his head, while Midoriya thought about the large woman with dark red hair who had attacked them in the middle of the training camp forest.

Zach took a deep breath then narrowed his eyes and clenched his fists in more frustration. "I hated her. I really, I did. But right before Overhaul walked in, _she_ talked about forgiving _me._ I, I got so confused, and angry about that. She was mad at me, because I killed Mr. Compress. I thought maybe she was just trying to trick me, but I could never find out, because a minute later Overhaul blew her apart. She ran forward from right next to me, and I got Magne bits all over me. Just guts and blood covering my whole-" he blinked his eyes a couple of times and then lifted his gaze to Midoriya whose eyes were huge and shaking, and Zach did not even want to look around at the others. "I was only there to save people," Zach muttered while looking into Midoriya's eyes. "So I had no idea what I was supposed to do, as they all started trying to kill each other. The Eightfold Cleansers busted into the base, and Shigaraki killed one of them, and Toga threw a knife into this guy's eye, and it was a bloodbath in seconds. Dabi set the building on fire…"

"Hey Zach, you don't have to think about that," Uraraka started, waving her hands in front of her as Zach was looking way too distressed compared to his good mood they found him in when they came to his room. They had come in order to try and help him anyway, ask if he wanted to meet Eri, and Uraraka wanted to question him about the real nature of his scars when she got a glimpse of more of them going up his left arm. Already without even talking about where he got those though, he sounded way too depressed.

"Yeah," Zach agreed with her after looking her way for a few seconds. He shook his head around to try and get all those thoughts out of his head, bring himself back to the place he was in before he started thinking about Overhaul. He could not just switch back that easily though, but he tried moving past that day at least. "After that, I told them I was done with anything like it, that I was just going to save people and nothing else." Midoriya stared at Zach closer, as he knew that was not true but wondered if he meant for just a little while, or if he was trying to convince the others in the room. Either way, Zach continued, "But when I heard from Dabi that they started working with those guys after that, with Overhaul, I hated them all even more. I couldn't figure it out, when they had all seemed angry over Magne, but I knew they were villains so there was no point in thinking of it like that… or at least, I thought that was true, until they told me they betrayed and took down Overhaul. And I was glad, because I hated Overhaul more, for some reason…" Zach shook his head some more, trying to shake off the dark rant he had only been trying to finish by implying that he was not involved in the rest of the stuff that happened afterwards. He looked around at the others and then corrected himself in a quicker voice, "I mean, not that it was just them who stopped Overhaul. I know you guys, and the heroes did stuff too- I just, didn't have access to the news for a few months, at the time. So I didn't really know what had happened."

"The League of Villains attacked the police who were transporting Overhaul," Kirishima said. Zach turned to him and Kirishima looked pissed as he muttered, "They dragged him out of the truck and killed him, and a hero while they were at it." Zach pursed his lips and clenched his eyes shut, thinking of how a moment ago he mentioned how he was "glad" that Overhaul was taken down. _Damn it. They were, killing heroes. While I was with them, they were doing such, such evil things. Things I ignored as long as I was saving people._

Kirishima leaned back after the pained look that spread over Zach's face, and he cursed in his head. _Why would I say that? Yeah it pisses me off, but saying it to Zach I know how he'd feel…_ "But it's good to know that other stuff too," Kirishima said, and Zach opened back up his hurt eyes to look into the red-head's. "Like, I didn't know that Magne villain was killed. Don't you think that's stuff you oughta tell us?"

"I told the judges at the retrial," Zach said softly. "That he was dead, at least," he added in a lower whisper, which made his classmates go wider eyed for a second as they wondered if that meant he left out how he had seen it himself.

"Zach," Uraraka began. "Are you-"

 **Knock Knock**

Everyone in the room spun towards Zach's door, then his eyes opened wide and he reached into his pocket and checked his phone. "Oh man," he said, shaking his head as he saw the time. He walked over to the door and opened it up, "Hey," he started after opening the door wide and showing the tall girl on the other side his room and the people inside.

Yaoyorozu's mouth opened in a surprised 'o' and she said, "Oh. I thought we-"

"Yeah, my bad Momo," Zach said, then he turned back to the others in the room, three of whom were staring at him with big eyes after what he just said. "You guys mind? I actually asked for some help with my research paper idea, we were going to work on that now…" he trailed off and looked down at himself, while Yaoyorozu behind him was staring at his left arm with a hurt gaze, seeing those scars covering his skin. Zach turned to Momo and said, "I was actually going to take a shower after I worked out-" he grimaced and turned back while the others were moving towards his door.

"Oh!" Midoriya just realized something with his eyes widening more. "Sorry we kind of, took you by surprise-"

"It's fine Zach," Yaoyorozu started. "How about I come back in thirty?"

Tsuyu tilted her head to the side as she looked past the others and to Yaoyorozu whose room was just down the hall from hers. Uraraka also tried hard and failed to hide the red shade to her cheeks especially when Zach turned back to her and called her 'Momo' again as he said that sounded good.

Kirishima frowned as they were leaving Zach's room. He glanced back while Zach was jogging over to grab his towel, chugging the rest of his protein shake he did not spill. _In the end, we never really said the stuff the others wanted to. I told them how Zach said he got those scars, but they wanted to make sure or get the "real" reasons out of him. I didn't doubt it, but the fact that he prevented anyone from asking at all. I didn't even notice. He just, ran the conversation towards Chisaki instead of Eri. It looked like it hurt him to think about that too though, which- which might just be him using something actually believable to distract us and himself with? Could he do that? I feel like he totally could, but why would he talk about that painful stuff, instead of just let it get around to his scars? He didn't sound that broken up about them when he told me. Are you still lying? Are you always just, lying?_

Zach turned after grabbing the rest of his bath stuff and started for the door Kirishima was standing just on the other side of. Zach smiled at him and then got a confused look as to why Kirishima was looking back so seriously. Kirishima shook his head at that look and he laughed to himself, _What am I thinking about? Zach's not like that._

 _Saying Momo's name in front of the three who hadn't heard me say it before derailed their thoughts completely. Now all they're thinking about is my relationship with Momo, and Kirishima's trusting enough that any suspicions he have shouldn't last. I'm not telling you guys. I'm not telling anyone. I don't even want to tell Momo, or Softy, stuff like that. I told Softy the psychological stuff was the worst, and some of it was really that bad, but I don't want to think about these scars. I can get over sleep deprivation, because I barely remember how I was thinking in those weeks spent alone and insane. It's hard to put myself in that same mindset. I just remember how insane it made me. But these scars,_ Zach was walking downstairs, and he glanced at his left arm as he walked still in a tank-top. _Half the girls just saw it. Barely anyone hasn't seen it yet, and I'm sure they've heard about it anyway… I don't want to think about how I got them. Because they were punishments, when I didn't answer questions, or when I answered them wrong- Not Life- Damn it! Take a shower and get back to your room. You're making Momo wait, even though she wants to help with the research paper._

Zach lifted his left hand and smacked himself on the cheek a couple of times to regain his composure. He headed over to the bath area and washed up quickly, though a little slower than he had initially planned since his workout had cut it close with when he was supposed to meet up with Yaoyorozu. Now he had thirty minutes so he took a bit more time to actually bathe instead of just wash off his sweat.

As Zach was taking his shower though, Midoriya and Uraraka sat on opposite chairs at a table in the common room on the same floor. They stared at each other over the table, and then Uraraka whispered, "'Momo?'"

Midoriya nodded his head with a serious look. He may have suspected that Zach was doing something to shift their attentions and break focus of what they had been talking about, but at the time most of them wanted to conversation to change anyway because of the dark mood that had filled his room. The main reason he did not notice though, was Yaoyorozu's reaction to when Zach said her first name. "She didn't seem, surprised," Midoriya whispered back, and Uraraka nodded her head fast as she had noticed the same thing.

 _If anything, she smiled,_ Uraraka thought, lifting a hand to her chin and thinking hard with a loud hum. Then, for a second she thought back on the original reason they went to Zach's room, and she turned to look over towards the bath area. Thinking about it made her lower her hand from her chin and start staring closer, then she turned back to Midoriya and said, "Deku." He looked at her wondering if she was going to give her theory on it, only for Uraraka to ask in a soft voice, "Does the rest of his body, look like that arm?"

Izuku's gaze shifted down to the top of the table between them. _We got distracted pretty easily. He doesn't seem to want to think about it though, and we shouldn't force him to._ He nodded his head, but then he lifted his eyes up slowly towards Uraraka. She thought he was going to continue about it, only for him to whisper, "Do you think, they're, t-together?"

Uraraka's face turned red, even though she realized Deku was changing the conversation back. She would rather talk about this though anyway, knowing now what the answer to that question was. _"Together?" Th-That's, I don't think so. Maybe it's just like, Tsuyu? Everyone calls her by her first name, and, and I call Momo by hers too. A lot of people do,_ Uraraka thought, nodding her head as she made that point to herself. Her nodding head made Midoriya's eyes open huge though, and then she said quickly to him while waving her arms up at his misunderstanding, "No that's not it! A, lot of people call Momo, 'Momo,' right?"

Midoriya nodded in agreement for a second, then he whispered, "Do any other guys?" _I'll, I'll just ask Zach myself later. I should apologize for just showing up like that too. I didn't realize he had a whole schedule for what he was doing today and we were interrupting it. I hope he's not mad, I just wanted to tell him about, Eri… Though I guess I never really made the point I wanted to. Zach, you should meet her._

Zach finished up in the shower and headed back to his room. He cleared his head a little under the hot water so he was feeling good as he walked up the stairs. He ignored what he talked about with the others right before cleaning himself up, and he just focused on what came next, as he often did. _Yaoyo- Momo's coming by. I should buy a new chair next time I'm out. People wind up being in my room a lot more than I felt like they would. How are we going to work on… I hope the others actually believed that. Out of everything I told them, I mean most of it was the truth anyway, but I feel like the thing they'd disbelieve the most is Momo coming over so we could do schoolwork. Especially since I called her Momo. That was a deflection, but it may have worked too well. We're friends. We're just, friends,_ Zach repeated it again in his head, even though he was not trying to convince anyone else at the moment. He shook his head around and just smiled as he walked back to his room, _She totally saved me back there though. I was talking way too much. Uraraka, Tsuyu, it's not like I suspect either of them, but I don't have a lot of reasons not to suspect them either. Even if they're not spies though, I shouldn't just trust everyone with that kind of stuff. That's stuff that could get me in a lot of trouble._

He slowed down on his way up the stairs when he was at the third floor, glancing down that hallway and frowning deeply for a second. He shook his head and continued to walk, thinking, _I guess Jirou's not the spy. It would make sense for her to use those earphone jacks to spy on everyone, but she wouldn't have told Momo she heard us. She looked like she felt bad too when I went to talk to her about it, though I just told her not to worry._ He shook his head around some more as he tried to stop thinking on that, as he knew who he would start thinking about if he got too into the conversation they had.

Zach went back to his room and he cleaned the place up a little. He reminded himself to get air freshener the next time he was out, even though he could not smell any sweat like it was a room recently worked out in. He made his bed, then he went over to the blender that was still pretty dirty from when he made his shake. _I don't have time to go wash it out downstairs. But this looks gross, like I don't take care of my things. She knows I just finished up though- I shouldn't have taken such a long shower._ Zach reached down and grabbed the paper towels, grimacing as he wasted some money but cleaning out the inside of the blender with a few of them anyway and tossing them in the trash afterwards.

Yaoyorozu showed up back at his room exactly thirty minutes after they were first supposed to meet, and Zach let her sit at his desk chair while he sat on his bed a few feet away. "Did you get it cleared?" She asked him while she was taking out some papers of her own to put on his desk.

"Yeah, after school yesterday," Zach said. "I got it cleared with Principal Nezu, but I still need to workshop the idea. It's still a little broad."

"You must be careful about narrowing it down too much. With such an idea, if you do not look at the bigger picture there will be many contradictions to it. The points you want to argue have counter-points, so it is necessary to have counter-points to those counters."

Zach nodded and scratched the back of his head. "So to make sure it's a good paper, I need to find all the reasons why my idea wouldn't work too? Argue against myself, and still try to find reasons, hmmm," he hummed and scratched his head a little faster, then he just grinned and lowered his hand. "That makes a lot of sense. Plus, I do kind of like arguing. Think I'm pretty good at it too."

"And if you really have been thinking about this for a while, then I'm sure you have thought about reasons for the other side already," Yaoyorozu added.

Zach nodded his head in agreement and she smiled. Then Zach said, "And even though I get the other side, it doesn't mean I'm any less sure about mine. Now I've just got to back it up with facts though, add statistics, and I do not know how I'm going to go up there and speak in front of all those people…"

"Me neither," Momo admitted, a bead of sweat on the side of her face.

"What are you talking about? You're great at speaking in front of everyone. Remember combat training at the start of the year?" Zach said, laughing at the idea of her having trouble public speaking. "No one in class knew each other yet, but in front of all of us and All Might you broke down that first match so well." Yaoyorozu's cheeks got a little red, and she looked down at the papers for her own research paper she brought with her. Zach continued as she looked down though, "I'm sure you're going to crush this paper. As for me though, I've got zero experience speaking in front of people. Well, from the heart," he added, and he turned and looked towards his window that had the blinds open so he could see the bright blue sky outside. _Times I've spoken in front of a bunch of people. Let's see: a middle school project, then… the rest of it was me acting like a villain, towards the others at the camp so they wouldn't chase me, towards Shigaraki and the villains in Camino Ward, and at VTS where I scared the crap out of them. All of that was just because I needed to though, things were intense- well I guess I spoke at the trial too. Though I kind of freaked out there, oh man I'm not ready for this at all._

"You'll do fine," Yaoyorozu assured him, and Zach turned his gaze to see she was looking back at him again. "You can practice just with me a few times to make sure you know what you want to say. If I could, practice with you too-"

"Yeah, of course," Zach said quickly, nodding his head as that sounded like a great plan. He relaxed a bit too, since knowing he would be able to prepare for the public speaking reminded him how the rest of those times were different in-the-moment sort of things. "We have to write the essays first though," he added, and he put his hands on the back of his head and leaned back. He let out a deep breath, then he got a more serious look on his face as they were not here to relax, but to prepare. Even though they had time, he had missed the entire second term. He wanted to make up for whatever finals and other things he missed that term with an amazing final project to finish the year off. He clapped his hands together and then reached for his backpack resting between his legs, "Let's get to work."

* * *

Zach lifted his left hand and scratched the back of his head with a frustrated look as he faced the paper in front of him. He scratched it around a few times while curling his lip down at the right corner, then he lifted his head with a sigh and stared out the window to his left. Zach stared outside and watched as a couple of birds flew by the second story window and landed on a tree branch sticking past the glass. He found himself staring at the birds as they jumped around tweeting for a few seconds, then he shook his head around as he knew he had to focus.

 _It's already mid-March. Making good progress, but I can't get complacent. Have to correct and edit, and add when new stuff happens._ He stared down at all the printed out papers of his draft, all the red lines marking the pages, the entire crossed out sections that he was starting to regret crossing out, even though he knew that the version on his computer still had them down. Zach pulled his phone out of his pocket and he searched a new song he turned on before lifting up an archived report he was going through. The archives at the Musutafu Public Library were almost as extensive as the ones at U.A. itself, but though it had less of a selection than the best hero school in the nation, there were things this library had that the one closer to home did not. Zach nodded his head with his black hoodie's hood up as he continued studying up, occasionally marking down statistics on his draft papers along with citing of the records he got them from.

 _I like this library. The one at school, I know everyone's staring at me. No one here would expect me to show up though, so they wouldn't be looking any closer seeing someone in a hoodie. Can't even wear this in the library at school._ Zach smiled a bit as he continued flipping through records he felt he could include in his paper, _Maybe I should add a graph to the presentation. No, I can just add the stats in the paper itself. A presentation with a bunch of graphs and numbers would be too boring. Can't rely on stuff like that. One visual is enough. The focus should be on me and what I'm saying. Taking attention off myself seems like a good thing, but that's just because I don't want everyone staring at me for ten minutes. Is it really going to take that long? I feel like I'm stuttering or pausing too much when I practice how I might present, even on my own. So if I can cut that out, maybe I can shorten it a bit._

Zach turned his head and looked out the window again, but he frowned as the birds were all gone. _Keeping it a secret is tougher than I thought. It's such a big thing that everyone's talking about their ideas. I asked Principal Nezu to keep it a secret too though, really just because I don't want to have to talk about it at all leading up to the presentation. I feel like maybe my classmates might have some ideas for it though, like Momo did, but it's supposed to be my presentation. If they start suggesting things left and right, I'm going to feel like I should include them just to make the others happy. Ignoring their ideas and opinions and giving mine despite them would be rude, but really I just don't want to talk about this until I've got it all ready myself. Arguing a point I'm still trying to construct and defend myself is a good way to- I am still getting too distracted!_ He snapped his attention back to his papers and shook his head around a few times to get back on track. _It's because Midoriya asked me this morning why I wouldn't just say. I get that not saying makes it seem like a mystery, or something bad, which probably just makes people more interested… Focus._

Zach actually shook off the distraction this time and got back to work. He worked hard for a few more hours, but as the sun started setting outside he decided he should get back to U.A. soon. He had actually gone through the main office instead of just asking All Might for permission to head out today, as a test more than anything. It had been in the back of his mind the entire time he studied, but the later into the day it got the less he thought on it. When he finally got up to leave though, he sighed as he started away from the small table he had been working at. _So it's probably not anyone in the main office. I really thought I'd be able to narrow it down easier, but the spy could know what I'm doing. It still could be someone there, one of the teachers who knew where I was going today. I didn't tell my classmates, but it's not like one of them couldn't have asked a teacher to figure it out either… Though if something_ _ **had**_ _happened and one student asked about where I was, that would be pretty damning. I don't think I was hoping there would be an attack, but I just want something to get rid of this paranoia. Something to narrow the field down other than my feelings on the matter._

He started down the stairs towards the main entrance of the library, but as he was walking down the flight, he heard fast footsteps behind him. His head snapped to the side and his eyes darted up, only for his face to relax a bit at the expressions of the two guys who looked to be high schoolers like him. They both froze where they were on the steps, big nervous eyes at the expression Zach just snapped at them. _They just recognized me. You're a hero, smile._ Zach smiled, easing up his tense attitude and just giving them a more confused look. He reached up and took out the headphones he had at a very low volume, to make it seem like he was not listening to things around him while also giving him the music he wanted to hear. "Sorry, thought you were sneaking up on me," Zach said at the nervous looks while he took his headphones out.

"Oh no- our bad," one of the two guys said. He was wearing a purple hoodie with the hood down, and he had spiky yellow hair that spiked up most in a single line above the center of his head. His buddy was a foot shorter than him and had black dots all over the top of his otherwise bald head. The two light-skinned boys glanced at each other, then the yellow-haired guy kept going down the steps with a more confident look though he still had a bead of sweat on his face. "Just, I thought I recognized you, and I did, and I wanted to say something, so when I saw you going…" the boy who looked just a little older than Zach reached up a hand and scratched the back of his head, then he lifted his other hand and said, "You mind signing something?"

"Sure," Zach said. _Kind of thought that's what they wanted._ He kept his hood up but reached forward his right hand for the sharpie the guy was holding out. The guy looked down at Zach's right hand with wide eyes, but Zach was a righty so he did not reach with his left like he usually did. Zach took the sharpie and popped off the top, then he took the book the blond boy pulled out fast for Zach to sign the cover of. It looked like his school binder and had a couple of stickers on it, and Zach signed right under a couple of them. "Here," he said. _Signing it like that, is a step towards accepting it again._

"So cool," the blond boy said as he took his book back, with 'Lifebringer' signed over the cover of his binder.

"Could you sign my board?" the shorter boy said as Zach was about to hand back the marker too.

"Board?" Zach asked.

"My skateboard," the boy said. The two older teens had backpacks on, though the blond wore his over one shoulder and was able to swing it around the front of his body easier to shove his binder back into.

"I really gotta get back to U.A.," Zach said. He saw a disappointed look start to form on the older boy's face, which felt awkward for him being younger and all. He pulled back the marker though that the blond was about to grab, and he said, "If you catch up to me though, while I'm walking, I'll sign it." He grinned while turning and walking down the stairs again.

"Yoo, cool," the shorter seventeen year old said. He jogged down the stairs and his blond friend ran with him, turning and thanking Zach though he added they'd see him in a second after they grabbed their boards.

Zach smiled a bit more as he watched them run off. _Weird. Maybe they didn't see the Lifebringer video. Guess it might not be that popular- or maybe they saw it, and they don't care? I kind of want to ask, but if they haven't seen it I don't want to give them a reason to look it up._ He shook his head and decided not to mention anything about it. Zach walked out of the library and started down the sidewalk in the direction of U.A., but he heard calls of his name behind him after a few seconds. He grimaced and darted his gaze around from under his hoodie, but the sidewalks were not too crowded and he only saw a couple across the street look his way in surprise when they called out 'Lifebringer.'

"You guys can call me Zach," he said when they ran up to him. _That's a step up from just saying "Not Lifebringer."_ He thought of it in a positive light since after he said to call him by his real name his mind immediately tried to start thinking a dark thought.

"Cool, alright Zach," the blond guy said. He pushed his foot down on the ground next to him and went past on his board, while the teen with black spots on his head stopped in front of Zach and kicked his foot down on the back of his skateboard.

"Here," the shorter guy, a couple of inches shorter than Zach even, said. He had a patchy mustache and beard just on his chin though, but he still looked like an excited kid while Zach pulled the sharpie back out of his sweatshirt pocket and signed the bottom of the board. "I'm Nico by the way," the shorter guy said while Zach finished up signing.

He handed the board back, right as the blond did a small jump ahead of them and spun himself around during it. He rolled back over and Zach tossed him the marker when he was a couple feet away. "Whoa," he lifted his hands and bobbled it, but he caught it and let out a quick breath of relief that he didn't just embarrass himself. "I'm Riley," he said after shoving the marker into the side of his backpack he nudged around him again. "Quirk: Numb."

"What's that do?" Zach asked, turning his head left while Riley spun his board again and started rolling at a walking pace. Nico was on Zach's other side, and he felt a strange feeling of normalcy as he just started talking to these two guys who had treated him like a celebrity a minute ago. _Could they be spies-_ he had the thought then cracked a bigger grin. _Now that's some paranoia. Two random guys are… well, they did come up to me. And if someone at the school did tell the League that I was at the library. Oh shit what does Numb do? If he makes me go numb and I lose feeling,_ Zach's grin went away and his right hand twitched at his side, though he kept his fingers hidden in his glove despite his suspicion.

"I can numb any pain I feel, or others' too," Riley said. "Though not for a very long time."

"That's a pretty nice Quirk," Zach said, his eyebrows lifting in surprise. _Maybe if he could actually train his Quirk, he'd have an offensive way for it. He could stop villains in their tracks if they couldn't feel parts of their bodies, or even make them injure themselves further if they try moving using parts of their body that are too badly injured._ "You use it when you skateboard?"

"Sometimes," Riley replied, then he froze and his eyes opened wide.

"Dude," Nico said past Zach in a deadpan tone.

"Don't worry," Zach said. "You think I'm one to tell you not to use your Quirk like that?" He asked it then sweatdropped as he wondered why he was talking to these guys so casually again. _I don't even know them. He seemed pretty nervous there though that I was going to call him out on it._

"Ha, haha, yeah," Riley said, tapping his foot on the ground a few times to catch back up with Zach who did not slow down when the other two had. "Guess that's, true," Riley said, though now he was sweating a bit and looked like he wanted to say something else.

 _Don't do it. We barely know each other,_ Zach thought, darting Riley a look out the corner of his eyes. Riley eased back at that look, then Zach reminded himself what he thought when he first saw these guys heading down the stairs to talk to him. He smiled again and asked, "Anyway, where do you guys go to school?"

"Hoshien Academy," Nico said, and Zach turned right to the shorter boy. "Sure it's okay for you to just let Riley go though?" Nico asked. "Using his Quirk like a total villain. Doing tricks on his skateboard and not even feeling the punishment when he falls, which is most of the time." Zach grinned, because at first he thought Nico was being serious. The more he said it though, the more Zach realized that the shorter boy thought Zach was telling the truth and didn't care about hiding it anymore.

"Dude, stop it," Riley said on Zach's other side. Zach was still smiling when he looked back towards Riley though, easing the taller boy's worries he had since seeing a dark look cross Lifebringer's face a minute ago. "Yeah well," he rose a hand and rubbed the back of his head. "I don't get out of all of it. Not like it lasts more than ten minutes."

"Could still be a really useful Quirk though," Zach said. Riley looked at him in a bit of surprise, but Zach continued, "Sometimes people go into shock from pain at accidents or villain attacks. So since you could numb others' pain too, could be a good Quirk for a hero."

Riley's eyes widened even more, then he rubbed a finger under his nose in a cocky way. "Heh, I've always thought so," he said.

"Haha, he complains about his 'useless' Quirk all the time," Nico remarked, and Riley got an annoyed look on his face that Nico was calling him out again in front of Lifebringer.

Zach glanced back skeptically towards Riley for trying to play it differently a moment ago, and Riley grimaced instead of shouting at Nico that he did not. "Well, when I gotta compare it to Nico's, it's really not fair."

"Why? You have a strong one?" Zach wondered in surprise, turning to the boy next to him on the right. The black dots all over Nico's head started to pop out of his head with thick trails behind them. It almost looked like hair except each strand was a couple centimeters thick. They waved around in the air over his head a foot high or more, but they sucked back into his head fast as Nico saw a few people walking around a corner up ahead. "How long can you make those?" Zach asked, still thinking about them even as Nico's attention had shifted away.

"I don't know," Nico replied. He looked back at the slightly taller boy on his left while they walked, his skateboard under the crook of his left arm. "They're pretty strong. Can pick things up with them at least, but I haven't really tried to see how long they can get. It hurts my scalp if I make them more than five or six feet."

"Huh," Zach said, a thoughtful look on his face. "That's pretty good too though. You could whip those around yourself, make for a really good defense if they're strong enough to lift things."

"Well I guess," Nico said, smiling at the idea of it. "Not planning on being a hero though," he added. "So hopefully I don't have to think about that."

"Might want to practice it on your own though," Zach suggested. Nico's eyes widened and so did Riley's on Zach's other side. Zach realized what he just said in a suggestive tone right there and he slowed down, a frown forming on his face. "I mean, not that you should use it," he continued. He glanced back towards Riley, then to Nico again and said, "It couldn't hurt to have that defense prepared though, right? So in case you need it you're not just waving them around in a panicked way."

"In case I need them," Nico said softly, looking back forward and humming to himself. "Does seem like a more likely possibility these days."

"Only reason I say something," Zach agreed. He lifted his left hand and rubbed his head though afterwards, and he laughed as they kept going, "But hey, don't say I said anything about it. Shouldn't really be thinking of defending yourself with your Quirk anyway. Just run if you're in a bad situation," he finished. Even as he let out another laugh and started listening to the others' responses, Zach's thoughts were more grim, _You won't always be able to run though. And a Quirk like yours, it could actually protect yourself pretty well against a lot of different types of villains, as well as protect other people…_ Zach shook his head around and then his stomach growled and he rubbed it for a second.

"Well, I'm heading back to school," Zach said, suggesting with his tone that the other guys finally leave him alone. _Gotta go grab some snacks before I go back. Really should try to make it a shorter trip if I can, but I need the extra meals with the new workout regimen. I didn't realize how much stronger Nightmare form got physically from training in it. I don't like eating in Nightmare form, but I wonder if getting my nutrients and protein in it would help too?_

Zach had a more serious look on his face as he thought about his training, and the two guys who kind of wanted to talk with him more decided to let him go. "Thanks for signing my board," Nico said, dropping the skateboard in front of him and putting a foot on it.

"Yeah, thanks for the autographs. And thanks for saving that girl a couple of weeks ago," Riley added. Zach stopped where he was and stared at the blond boy with a spiky kind-of mohawk over his head. Riley started kicking down next to his board to speed up too, and he called out, "She's an upperclassman at Hoshien. Gonna be the valedictorian this year or something. Cool girl." Riley reached up and grabbed his purple hood, then he popped it over his head and pushed down on his spiky hair. He turned his head sideways as he rode off, and he called back, "Keep rockin' Lifebringer!"

Nico shook his head while he skated after his friend, but he turned his head too and called a 'Thanks' back to Zach for their senpai too. Zach watched as the two of them raced off and then sped around a corner just down the sidewalk. He shook his head fast, _Don't get too distracted. If the spy told them I was at the library, they could be waiting to ambush me on the way back. That was why I wanted to walk with others... really? I wanted to drag them into it? Can't convince myself of that, but damn I was barely paying attention at all during any of that._ Zach shook his head some more then he kept walking, thinking about his carelessness to stop from smiling too wide at what they told him at the end there. _I'm really glad I didn't pass out from the pain. A valedictorian. A high school girl. Another person,_ he shook his head and just kept smiling, as it did not really matter to him who the person was after all, it made him feel good either way.

As he kept walking down the sidewalk, he rubbed his stomach again and thought, _Oh yeah. Real reason I wanted them to head off. Do I go get a meal in town too- no, I don't want to waste money when I don't need to. I'll eat at the cafeteria when I get back. Just grab some snacks, protein bars, actually I need another tub of Muscle Milk powder. I went through that fast again. It's great though when the results are showing. Even if I did feel sore just sitting at the library all day._

Zach headed for a convenience store near the school where he took his hood off once he entered. He smiled towards the old man behind the counter who smiled back towards him and nodded a greeting. Unlike most places outside of U.A., this was one he frequented so the owner was not surprised to see him, and Zach actually knew what to expect from him after a conversation they had a few weeks back. _25% off isn't bad. Any more and I'd feel like I was abusing the owner's good will, any less and I'd feel like the guy was being cheap considering he said I saved his cousin's daughter's husband. Well, not cheap. He's got a business to run after all._ Zach went around picking out some things he needed, though he was disappointed that his favorite protein snack bar was sold out.

As he walked towards the register, he thought about a different conversation he had in this building not with the convenience store clerk. _Webb's been quiet since we met with Mr. Ganji. Don't even know anything about my anti-hero costume. Midoriya introduced me to Hatsume, and she had some cool ideas for my costume when I told her about the bone stuff that I want to add on to my anti-hero costume. Thought if I got word from Webb sooner, I could tell Mr. Ganji before they finished with my costume. I don't want to use that card- seemed all super special or something- just to ask for an edit to my costume. That's for emergencies only. I'm sure Ganji's costume-maker contractor will make an awesome costume though. The one at school's working out pretty well, though now I just look fully white with a dark translucent exterior in Nightmare form. It's kind of cool, and I took the black off of the school one again, but as long as I can't force the black veil inside my costume, I'm going to look too similar in the black one I wear as an anti-hero, though the masks are different enough it might make the difference._

 _Still, wonder what I did? I noticed it on the way down the elevator and out the building. Did we part on bad terms? I couldn't really tell, but usually when I head off on my own Webb said something like he'd call me again. This time I said I'd be waiting for his next call, but he didn't seem very enthusiastic in his response. It's not like villain activity has gone down at all._ "Hey Tanaka-san," Zach said as he got up to the register after waiting for a few people to buy their things. "Just this today. No Super-Power Bars in stock," he added with a sigh.

"Actually, just haven't had the time to stock the shelf yet," the older Japanese man behind the counter said, and he smiled at Zach's surprise hearing that. "I'll grab you a couple. How many you need?"

"Ummm, six?" Zach said after a second's thought.

"Haha, alright then," Tanaka said, and he walked off behind the counter to go grab a box in a side room just next to it.

As Tanaka went to the side room to grab the protein bars, Zach turned to the side and looked at the sliding doors of the building on his left. There was a woman in line behind him, and one more guy in the store over at the manga and magazine area. Zach kept track of where they both were and where their eyes were focused, but he was surprised that the woman behind him did not even seem to recognize his face as he turned sideways. _That's more suspicious than if she was interested- oh, there it is,_ he saw her eyes glance towards his face and then widen at his hair and the split on his left ear that was closer to her. Zach was not really focused on her though, as he was looking out in the street for a reason.

 _Thought I heard something loud. Like a crash. Should go check it out, in a second,_ he looked back at the counter and pulled out his wallet to pay. Tanaka totaled up Zach's goods and the six protein bars he just came back with, then he tapped a button on the register that knocked a quarter of the price off. Zach smiled wide as he saw that, and he said, "Thanks Tanaka-san."

"Here you go," the man said, handing over Zach's bags which the boy took gratefully in his left hand. "Have a good one," he told the boy who turned in his hoodie and waved with his right, before grabbing his hood with that waving hand and pulling it back up over the top of his head.

 _It was nothing,_ Zach told himself as he walked out of the store. _No one's acting like they heard a thing. Must have been my, imagination…_ Zach frowned as he tried convincing himself of that, as he turned his head right a bit and saw two girls standing at the edge of an alleyway across the street, looking in at something. _Could be anything,_ he thought, only to see them both turn and start running down the sidewalk with nervous looks on their faces. Zach sighed and he glanced left in the direction of his school, and the setting sun almost on the horizon to the west. He sighed though, and he jogged across the street while lifting his right hand just a bit to be ready.

He ran to the alleyway he saw those girls looking in on, and he immediately backed up to stand with his back to the corner of the building on the sidewalk. _Oh shit,_ he thought. _That, didn't look good. No no no, I knew them! But still, carrying sacks over their shoulders like that, all they need are dollar signs on them and ski masks. Though without ski masks,_ he grimaced and stepped back out, looking down the alley towards the man he saw down there, and the shorter girl in front of him who lowered the phone she was recording with.

"Gentle! This came out really good!" Manami Alba called out excitedly. The girl was as short as Mineta, with long thick red pigtails falling down to the sides of her body. Zach frowned towards that three-and-a-half-foot tall girl who looked young, but he felt like was probably actually a few years older than himself. His eyes narrowed more back towards the tall man in front of her who stopped posing with the big brown sack over his shoulder similar to the one his accomplice was carrying.

"Bravo, La Brava," Gentle said. He rose a hand and put a few fingers to his forehead and then leaned his head back, saying, "Now let us be off. We cannot linger too close to the scene of the crime…"

 _Oh shit,_ Zach started into the alley. _What crime? This is bad,_ he lowered his left hand and dropped his bags on the floor. "Hey!" Zach called out. The man with nicely combed gray hair and a luscious mustache and beard that matched spun his head in the big popped purple collar of his costume. The left strap of Zach's backpack was sliding down his arm, and he called over while keeping his head bowed a bit so the hood would shadow his face, "Put the bags down, Gentle Criminal!"

"Who's that?" La Brava called out, spinning towards the person jogging towards them in a black hoodie.

Gentle's eyes narrowed at the bag the boy was taking off, and he turned to his partner and said, "It does not matter. But he knows my name," he added in a happier tone. He laughed a few times while stepping towards La Brava, then he reached down a hand and grabbed her hand while her face flushed red. "Goodbye, my loyal fan!" Danjuro Tobita, or Gentle, called down as the ground beneath them turned elastic thanks to his Quirk and bounced him and La Brava high into the air.

"Oh no you don't," Zach snapped his right arm up from the backpack he had half over his arm, and he aimed and fired while Gentle was lifting up. The Gentle Criminal's head snapped down with wide eyes, and La Brava looked down as well only to drop her jaw at the sight of the hooded boy rising up after them holding a grappling gun in his hand. Zach lifted his head and his hood came off because of the wind pushing down on him as he rose, exposing his terrified face as he flew dozens of feet off the ground and above the tops of the buildings on his sides. _Holy shit! If he knocks me off I'm so dead! Why did I think this was a good idea?!_ "Ahhh!" Zach yelled, pressing a button on the grappling gun and retracting the wire to pull himself even faster towards the rising pair higher above him.

Zach shot up towards them while screaming in panic, while both Gentle and La Brava lost their ideas of shaking him off when they saw the face of the boy flying towards them. "Lifebringer?!" The two shouted, right before Zach wrapped his arms around Gentle's leg that the grappling hook wrapped around in the first place.

"Holy crap. Please don't drop me!" Zach shouted. He snapped his head up and said, "I've already got my right hand on you! Lower us to a building gently, Gentle!"

Gentle's eyes were wide, but he narrowed them and then said in a holier-than-thou tone, "If you touch me though, you'd plummet to your death. You sound far too panicked otherwise." Gentle swung an arm next to him and they all bounced farther through the air, Zach letting out a yelp of surprise at the sudden burst of speed, though he only gripped Gentle's leg tighter.

"I'm serious! If I squeeze too tightly my fingers will come out of the glove!" Zach bluffed, though he knew it would work. "So stop freaking me out, or you're going to get all three of us killed!"

Gentle's eyes grew wide again, and this time he actually listened to the kid. He swung his arm again and made the sky elastic behind him but at an angle that would drop them towards the roof of a nearby building.

"Gentle, we have to keep running," La Brava said. "Let's shake him off when we're close to a roof."

"And give up a chance like this?" Gentle asked. La Brava's eyes opened wider, while Zach's gaze just shot up from the building he was gratefully watching approach below them at a gentle pace. He glared into Gentle's eyes as the older man looked down at him, and Gentle said in an ominous yet still gentlemanly tone, "I think not. What we pulled earlier will only be the tip of the iceberg." La Brava's eyes started shining at what he was saying, then he kicked his left leg forward and Zach let go, because they were about to drop down at the roof of a ten story building anyway.

Zach hit the roof and fell down to one knee while skidding backwards. He let his backpack that had swung wildly during the flight fall off of his arm, and he frowned more thinking about how he left his groceries in that alley to get stolen. He had other things to focus on though, and he got up and rose his right hand in front of his chest just in case.

Gentle lowered down across the roof, and he put La Brava down. The short girl smirked towards Zach after Gentle's declaration a minute ago, and Zach did not like how Gentle was looking at him. "Zach Sazaki," the Gentle Criminal began. "My videos these past few weeks have been getting close to zero views thanks to that Lifebringer biography of yours. But this, will be my breakthrough! To write-"

"Your name down in history. Yeah, I know," Zach said, and he kept frowning even as Gentle narrowed his eyes and smiled at the boy's recognition of what he was about to say.

"La Brava, start recording," Gentle said. "I want this to be-"

"Wait!" Zach shouted, throwing his hands up and waving both palms at the other two. "Stop. You don't want to do that."

"Hah! You think you will defeat me? Are you pitying me, boy-"

Gentle started it and then glared angrier at Zach as he interrupted again. "Just think about it," Zach said. He spun to La Brava and pointed his right palm at her, "Please, just a second." She had her phone half-lifted, and she felt no reason to listen to the high schooler over Gentle. Zach continued while spinning back to Gentle, "Is that really how you want your breakout video to be? You want everyone to be watching you just because I'm in the video?" Gentle narrowed his eyes more, and Zach continued, "You _just_ said you were mad because of that stupid Lifebringer video, which I hate too by the way. If you put up a video with me in it, it'll just make you feel more unsatisfied."

"Do not pretend to know my reasons, Lifebringer," Gentle said, leaning back and smiling at the boy again. La Brava turned to Gentle and she still had her phone only half-raised, but she could see a more hesitant look on Gentle's face now. "You think people will only watch for you, and that may be true, but what will they think of the Gentle Criminal after he foils Lifebringer's plans to capture him?"

"I don't know, but I'm not going to try and capture you," Zach said. He lowered his arms, while thinking, _Ah, this might get really bad. I think I get this guy though. I've seen his videos._

"Excuse me?" Gentle said, lifting an eyebrow and looking at the teenager skeptically. "Are you really going to act like that, after you just confronted us in an alleyway of your own accord?"

"Well, it looked like you stole something," Zach said. "And you talked about the 'scene of the crime,'" he added. He glanced at La Brava again, but he saw she still did not know whether to start filming or not, which was good since he hoped he was getting somewhere. "I couldn't just let you run off, without knowing what you did. I can't capture you though." He held up his palms defensively as Gentle narrowed them in a threatening way with a grin on his face. "Really, I can't," Zach repeated. "I've seen the videos. Heroes try to stop you all the time, a bunch of them at a time. No idea how you stop them, and I'm not going to just kill you so can't use my hand."

"An impressive bluff, but a bluff nonetheless," Gentle said, and he lifted a hand to dramatically rub his forehead. He saw La Brava raising the camera in the corner of his eye, but he took his forehead-rubbing hand off to hold a palm at her to wait. She looked surprised, as did Zach who thought he was about to attack after calling that bluff. Gentle did not want to make this about Zach though, and he continued while off camera, "Everyone knows you captured two of the League of Villains who attacked your school. _Captured,_ not killed. And I saw the end of the Lifebringer video. The 'demon of Japan' can do more than-"

"Don't, call me that," Zach said, wincing and then biting his lip after he said that reactively to the villain in front of him. Gentle's eyes opened wide, and he and La Brava both watched as Zach took a couple of deep breaths and clenched his fists down at his sides. "I'm not, like that," Zach said, lifting his gaze back up to Gentle. "And I don't want to fight you. I didn't even want to confront you two, when I saw it was you, but then you mentioned the 'crime' and I had to at least check it out. So what's in the bags? What did you do?"

Gentle continued to stare at Zach in some surprise for a few seconds, not really knowing how to react to the boy's reaction at what he was saying in a cocky tone a moment ago. "Did anyone, get hurt?" Zach asked, narrowing his question down.

"What are you asking for?" La Brava snapped, getting angry at the teenager. She stepped forward and swung an arm across her body, "Gentle only commits gentlemanly crimes. He's the Chivalrous Thief!"

"So who'd you steal from?" Zach asked, his eyes darting back to the sacks each of them still had with them, though Gentle had dropped his behind his legs after landing.

"Does it really matter, to a hero like yourself?" Gentle inquired. He scratched his chin a few times, then he said, "And I don't think I believe you. You are too interested in our crimes, to just let us go from here. If La Brava were to record us fighting, my popularity, my reputation, they would be made!"

"Or you might lose," Zach said. "And if you really are too strong and force me into a corner, what if you die?" Zach asked. "What'd be the point? Why do we have to do something, like that? I really don't, have anything against you," he shook his head a few times and then pursed his lips as Gentle narrowed his gaze and still had a skeptical look on his face. "Aren't you, trying to be a hero?" Zach said.

La Brava's eyes opened huge and she spun towards Gentle, then back to the arrogant boy ahead of her and to her left, as she had moved to the side to record a good angle of the possible fight. "What are you saying?!"

"I've seen your videos," Zach said. "Robbing stores, because the big companies that own them have crooked business practices. It's not very heroic, or villain-like. But it seems like you're trying to do good."

"You don't know anything about me," Gentle responded, sighing at the boy's naivety. "Making my mark on this world. Leaving a legacy behind. To be known by millions!" Gentle shouted, throwing his head back and his arms to the side in dramatic fashion. Then he lowered his head and glared towards Zach while smiling again, "To do that, I'd go to any lengths-"

"Would you though?" Zach asked, and Gentle's smile dipped down at the corners. The man stepped forward and got ready to say that he would, but Zach stepped back away from him and said, "If so, why haven't you already? If you had recorded flashier crimes, more violent ones, a lot more people would know who you are!" Zach's eyes shot open huge as soon as he yelled that. _Oh man. If this guy goes around doing more violent stuff because I told him to- Have to argue better!_ "It seems to me like going down in history doesn't matter more than the work you're doing. But you're not doing good stuff either, just kind of, weird, in-the-middle, stuff," Zach said, and he immediately regretted it at the look on both Gentle and La Brava's faces.

"You don't know how hard Gentle works for this! How much this means to him!" La Brava shouted. "And you and your publicity stunts don't make things any easier!"

"I hate being on camera!" Zach snapped towards the girl, making her lean back with wide eyes at his frustrated look. He spun back to Gentle, "So I would _love_ it, if you could become this media king or whatever that you want to be. If your videos got all the hype, then maybe people would stop making ones that call me a demon and tell everyone I killed my mom!" He started panting after shouting that, and he glared at Gentle who was staring back at him with wide eyes. "Do you want to know, why your videos don't get a lot of views? It's not because your crimes aren't very violent," he corrected himself from earlier, glad he managed to keep them there long enough for him to do so. "You know why people watch videos about me?" He asked, then paused and replied for himself, "Because I was saving lives."

"I am not a hero," Gentle said. "I was never cut out for that sort of thing. Not in this society-"

"Really?" Zach asked, sweatdropping as the man said that to him. "You're going to play that card, with me?"

"This society welcomed you back, most with open arms," Gentle said, looking down his nose as the boy tried to be coy with him.

"And if the 'gentlemanly' crimes you were committing, were actually like you pass your petty thefts off to be, I'm sure it'd welcome you too," Zach replied. He crossed his arms over his chest and looked defiantly into Gentle's eyes while the man frowned and glared back at him. "I get, some random kid you don't know, who you already don't like, coming up to you and telling you to change your ways isn't something anyone would like. But I _have_ to do it in order to call myself a hero. I _have_ to try and change you."

"And why not just capture me?" Gentle questioned. "If you could, that is," he added.

"Because you're not like the League of-"

"No! I am not!" Gentle proclaimed, throwing an arm out to the side which made his long purple jacket flap behind him. "However although I am not the same kind of villain, the crimes of a gentleman will shake the world-"

"They never will," Zach cut right back in after Gentle cut him off. "I'm not saying you're wasting your time," Zach continued, holding up only his left hand defensively as Gentle seemed to be tired of this back and forth. "But look around. Violent crimes are on the rise. Murder, drugs, people are scared of this stuff and it gets their attention. Whatever crimes you do, you're not going to get their attentions off of things they're afraid of."

Gentle's hands balled into fists and lowered down at his sides. "Gentle," La Brava whispered at the frustrated look on his face. She spun to Zach angrily, then back to Gentle whose fists were shaking.

"Do you really want to be associated with people like that though?" Zach asked, seeing the man in front of him getting angrier which was actually starting to unnerve him a bit. "I mean, the things you say in your video make it sound like you really think you're doing good…" _Oh shit. He's mad. Am I wrong about this guy?_ "In this society though, crumbling under the pressure of villains," Zach continued quicker. "Who's going to pay any attention to a guy who isn't really doing damage, and isn't acting like a hero either?"

"You think, I don't know that?" Gentle's narrowed gaze at the floor lifted and glared into Zach's eyes, but Zach's eyes were wide at what he just heard. La Brava's eyes were much wider than Zach's though, and she stared at Gentle in shock and with a trembling lip. He saw her out the corners of his eyes, but he kept glaring at Zach and said, "To get views in any other way though, to reach the fame is desire in a manner unbecoming of a gentleman. It is not who I am!"

"Then why not, do more good?" Zach suggested. Gentle glared at him, but Zach stepped forward and said, "Really. That's the solution. How many pro heroes have been after you before only for you to get away? And average villains aren't as strong as most heroes, so you're like top tier…" Zach shook his head as he was getting a little off track, and he held up both palms in front of him. "No one cares if you commit petty crimes and get away with it, as long as those crimes are still negative ones, like, like where did you get that, money?" He guessed what was in the sacks that looked like they were filled with bills.

Gentle kept frowning at the boy, but he said in a proud voice, "The G&K Bank has been stealing their patrons' money for years with hidden fees inside of loan payments. People who simply want to pay back what they borrowed wind up paying double, and it all goes straight to the pockets of the men at the top. Taking some of that money away…"

 _They robbed a bank?! What is this, an old-western? Alright, so shady business practice. Is that even shady?_ "That money you're stealing," Zach said, interrupting what Gentle was saying. "It's not the bank's money. It's the people who have accounts there, and you're taking it from them."

"Their money is insured," La Brava said in a matter-of-fact tone at the boy who sounded like he was taking high ground over them. "But when people rush to the bank to try and take their money out, feeling like it's not safe there, the bank loses business."

 _Oh crap. That's actually, well thought out. I thought they were just robbing a bank and calling it "justice." Still, this is kind of, really really shady. I don't want to be seen with these two, 'cause I wasn't joking when I said this guy's top tier. He could probably kick my ass, and if anyone sees us I have to start fighting._ Zach had a bead of sweat on the right side of his face, but as Gentle opened his mouth to start back up a rant about how 'you see Lifebringer, this _is_ a just…' Zach spoke first. "So some really rich guys are going to lose a little money, no one else is actually getting robbed… and you wonder why you don't get a lot of views?" Gentle's half-open mouth dropped at the boy's taunt, and Zach continued quick before the guy could go from shocked to angry. "You know why people care about me? Why they watch videos with me in it? It's because what I do is simple. Not because it's good, or bad. Just simple. You've got this crazy convoluted scheme that people have to really think about in order to realize that you might be doing something good, while I just bring someone back to life. It's simple."

"You have the power to make it simple," Gentle retorted, shaking his head like Zach was making it out to be so easy.

"And you don't?" Zach asked. "You can take on heroes, you're strong enough that you could actually stop crimes that matter, or ones that people care about at least. Violent crimes. You could show up at a villain attack and stop it, and then fly off without even recording yourself, and you'd be a hundred times more popular than you are now."

"I am no hero," Gentle said. He said it not in an angry voice, but with a thoughtful look on his face that seemed sad to Zach.

"That's fine," Zach replied. "You don't need to be a hero, to do something good." Gentle's eyes widened back open a bit, and Zach smiled softly at him while adding, "Your Robin Hood kind-of lifestyle might one day be needed. I don't know. But there are better ways to getting fame, and staying gentlemanly, than robbing a bank."

"How can you say things like this?" Gentle questioned. He leaned his head back and looked down confusedly at the boy facing him. "Are you not a hero?"

Zach hesitated for a few seconds. "How long ago, was I on the wrong side of the thin line? Between a hero, and someone just trying to do good?" He paused, and then he reached his left hand down to the hem of his sweatshirt. La Brava and Gentle both tensed as it almost seemed like he was reaching for a weapon or something, but Zach just bunched his sweatshirt and shirt beneath up in his hand and then lifted up. He stared towards Gentle and his mouth twisted frustratedly and in an embarrassed way at the wide-eyed look Gentle was giving his torso. "You're not a villain, Gentle Criminal," Zach said, and he put his shirts back down fast. "I'll never, be able to see you the same way as them. Your more recent videos though, you were willing to go farther, do more damage, to try and get more views. Soon, you might go too far. Or a hero might just catch you. Throw you both in prison. And what would be the point? Who would remember you? What good, would come from it?"

 _He looks,_ La Brava thought, blinking a few times in confusion before her eyes widened more. _Sad._

 _What would be the point? To stick to my values. To achieve my dreams I would even step on the dreams of others._ Gentle's hands shook but he could not ball them into fists again at the soft look the kid was giving him. Zach turned away after another second of staring into Gentle's eyes, and he reached down for his backpack. The sky was a dark orange with darkness already falling in the east, and Zach slid the straps of his backpack on. "Where do you think you are going?" Gentle questioned, stepping towards the boy.

Zach reached up his left hand and slid his hood over the top of his head. He pulled his grappling gun back out and held it in his right hand, then he walked over towards the edge of the building and took a deep breath as he looked down at the far drop. "I left my groceries back in that alley," Zach said in a low, annoyed voice. He pointed his grappling gun out when he saw a target, lifted it a few inches above to account for gravity, then he fired and watched as the hook shot out and wrapped around. He tugged a few times to make sure it was secure, then he glanced back at Gentle who was not moving any closer and said, "It's not that you're not worth my time. I just really, don't want to fight you." _It'd feel like fighting myself. I liked your videos. Even though they were weird, and I didn't know how to feel, I was glad there were more people who blurred the line. Though you had it blurred too far to the side of villains. Man, I really hope I did something here. I half-wish I had never chased them._ Zach hopped off the roof, and he swung away.

* * *

"Hahaha! They're calling him the April Fools' Day Villain!" Sero laughed and pointed at the tv in the common room from over at the common room kitchen.

"Sounds like a stupid nickname for such a strong guy," Jirou said while glancing towards the screen herself. She smirked after saying it and said, "I'm sure he'll hate it though, so that's a plus."

"Haha, damn that's cold," Kaminari remarked from where he leaned back on the counter next to her.

"He deserves that kind of a stupid name though," Zach said across the kitchen from Kaminari. He had a ramen cup in his hand and was finishing it up while standing there hanging with the others. "Making such a huge entrance right in front of all of us. The whole class in one spot."

"I'd say he's more unlucky that stupid," Ashido pointed out on Zach's left. "Like really unlucky. I mean he had such a grand speech and everything, and remember how far his jaw dropped when he turned and saw us all not running away?"

"When he recognized us I could actually see the 'I'm screwed' look form on his face," Kaminari laughed.

"Not that you did anything," Jirou remarked, and Kaminari sweatdropped while Sero laughed more.

Zach got a bead of sweat on his face too, and Ashido spun to him with a pout on her face that made him look away and lift his chopsticks to finish his ramen faster. "Yeah, some of us didn't do much," Ashido said, leaning forward in at Zach as he pretended not to see her. "And still got most of the questions when the media showed up, even though he was just standing in the back."

"I'm sorry," Zach said, sweating more but putting down his empty ramen cup on the counter. "I tried standing behind Koda but they still noticed me."

"How could you do such a thing to Koda?" Jirou scolded, shaking her head at Zach who sweat more as he thought about how he brought all the attention to the shyest boy in the class.

"Hey, maybe it'll help him out with the report," Zach said, turning back and shrugging like he did nothing wrong. "Compared to being on camera and on tv, Thursday's presentation should be a piece of cake…" Zach got a more nervous look on his face, and he scratched the back of his head before saying, "Speaking of which. I should get back to work on mine."

Jirou sighed and rubbed the side of her head, "Yeah, me too."

"Really thought they would have saved it for the last week of class. I hoped at least," Kaminari added, rubbing his temples hard and with a nervous look on his face. "I still have so much I need to write."

"Shouldn't have saved it for the last minute," Zach said as he started out of the kitchen, smirking at his friend who groaned and leaned farther back on the counter.

"Yeah, some of us have been working on it since Aizawa sensei told us," Sero said, though he was not talking about himself as he mentioned it. "Right Zach? You've been-"

"You'll see on Thursday," Zach replied before Sero could try and inquire as to his project idea, again.

Kaminari turned as Zach was heading away, then he leaned in towards Jirou's head and whispered, "If his report isn't the best thing I've ever heard, I won't buy it that 'working on the paper' is all he and Yaoyorozu've been doing alone up in his room." Kaminari smirked, while Jirou's face turned bright red and one of her earphone jacks snapped up behind her and shoved into Kaminari's ear.

Jirou shook her head while glancing back towards Zach and feeling relieved he did not hear that. She turned around while Ashido called out for him to wait up, and she said in an annoyed and quiet tone at Kaminari, still with pink cheeks, "Don't be a perv."

Ashido ran up on Zach's side, saying, "I'm going to work on mine too. Want to trade and go over each other's?" She said, blinking her eyes at him in a hopeful way.

He laughed and pulled his head back a bit as she leaned towards him, then he shook his head and said, "Sorry Mina. Managed to keep it under wraps this long. Just a few more days. I'll go over yours though if you want me to," he added, feeling like he should offer even though he was pretty sure she only asked in the first place because she wanted to read his, not the other way around.

Mina Ashido sighed and dropped her arms limp at her sides while slouching forward. Then she straightened up and scratched the back of her head through her wavy pink hair that was longer than at the start of the school year so it now well below the bottom of her neck. "Actually yeah," she said, and Zach turned her way in some surprise at the response. "I am _suupperr_ not confident about my presentation."

"Really?" Zach asked. "You were talking about it like you were ready though-"

"Yeah, the reason _why_ I was talking about it that much was to try and get you guys to tell me what you thought," she replied in some annoyance, since none of them had caught on to her roundabout way of trying to get criticism. "So would you mind going over it once?"

"Sure," Zach said, as he had meant his offer in the first place.

"Yay! Thanks Zach!" Ashido exclaimed, doing a little jump right before they started up the stairwell.

"No problem Mina," Zach replied. He felt a little less nervous though as he was not going right back to working on his research paper, and could distract himself from the anxiety over it with his classmate's paper instead for a little.

Mina smiled more as they headed up the stairs after Zach said her name again. She smirked and looked farther up the stairwell, thinking about how she had tried prying it out of Yaoyorozu that she and Zach were a "thing." Momo repeatedly said to her and the other girls that they were just friends though, and that she told Zach to call her by her first name since they were just good friends. To this, Ashido had asked her that she wouldn't mind if she had Zach call her by her first name too, which Ashido felt almost worked at the reaction Momo had. It was because of the only half-reaction that Momo quickly wiped away and said it was fine, that Ashido actually went through with it and told Zach to call her 'Mina' for now on.

 _This is too much fun,_ Mina thought as she got a little giddy just thinking about Yaoyorozu seeing them. _Since, we're 'good friends' too, it shouldn't bother you. Gahhh! What am I thinking right now? I really need to do some actual work!_

Zach went with Ashido to her room on the fourth floor, her very hot pink room. He only went over her essay and talked with her about how she was going to present it for ten minutes though, as he knew he could not spend too much time only helping her out when he still felt there was more he needed to do to fine-tune his own presentation. "…I think since you've got no problem doing stuff like this, you have a natural advantage in the presentation. But I still think you should have some more straight-up facts to add in, instead of just saying 'Acid,' maybe describe the science-y workings of your Quirk. Like add what pH levels you can make it, maybe?" Zach suggested, while he was about to head out, wanting to give some advice since she had asked him to help and he felt like he had not done much but read it.

"Yeah… yeah! That's a great idea!" Ashido snapped her fingers like it just occurred to her, and she smiled wide at Zach near her door. "Is that what you did for yours? Went into the science of your Quirk?" She leaned forward as he reached behind him for the doorknob, "Speaking of which, what is the science behind it?"

"Oh, uh I don't really know," Zach said, and he opened up the door. "Maybe if that's what my report is really about, you'll find out on Thursday," he offered, and he grinned at the disappointed sigh she let out.

Ashido smiled though after she sighed, and she said, "Thanks for the help! I'm going to ace this thing!"

"Hope so," Zach replied. "See ya' later," he added, and he turned and headed out. Zach started back for the stairwell and smiled wide himself, hoping he really did just help Mina out with her project.

 **One Year Ago**

"Oh yeah! Another two points!" Mina Ashido laughed and then lifted her head to look farther down the street where she saw another robot. "Here I come!" She called out, and she threw some Acid in front of her that she slid over on the ground to speed her way towards the next robot. As she raced down the road, she was passing an intersection that she was going to ignore since the robot was just on the other side of it if she kept going straight.

As Ashido passed the corner though, a robot just about to leave the intersection spun towards her and her head started turning right as well. She jumped up in the air as it swung an arm down where she was sliding, and she laughed while throwing an arm forward and covering the front of the robot in Acid. "Take that-"

"Look out!"

Mina spun her head back to the left, the direction she had been heading in the first place where the original robot that she had taken her eyes off of was swinging a metal arm forward. Her eyes opened wide, only for the arm to just miss her on her downwards arc. It missed because of the boy who just threw his entire weight into the side of the robot, knocking it over while it started turning its attention to him. The boy with short and spiky black hair grabbed the thick arm and put a foot down on the side of the robot while tugging the other way with all his weight. He slammed his foot down harder into the joint, and he ripped the robot's arm out with a loud yell.

"Got it!" He shouted, then he lifted the arm up as the robot started to rise, and he smashed it down on the robot's head over and over again.

Mina watched in a bit of surprise, then the robot finally collapsed and stopped moving. She turned to the short boy to say something, but he turned to her first and her eyes widened at the panicked look on his face. "Two points," he said, then he started running. As he neared her his eyes looked up and down the pink girl he was running by to get into the side road Ashido had turned down a few seconds ago to destroy the other robot.

"Two points?" She said in surprise as she watched him run off. She looked back at the robot he destroyed and muttered, "But that's only a one-pointer… unless," she spun back and her eyes widened. _Does he only have two points total?_

Zach left the robot arm he used to destroy the fake villain behind, since he had to be light on his feet in order to catch other villains. _That girl's Quirk is so good for this! She's going to pass for sure. Gah, saving her is totally going to make me have less of a chance of getting in now._

 **Present**

Zach walked up the stairs to his own floor from Mina's, and he smiled thinking just over a year back to the U.A. Entrance Exam. _I thought I had done something stupid making sure she didn't get hurt, since she would take up one of the selective spots in the hero course. I should have realized they'd give me points for that though. So many points, it actually made up for only getting four villain points total. I really thought I had bombed…_

He shook his head and lowered his smile into a flat lip. _Everyone's getting their papers ready. I've had mine finished for a while now, but I keep going back and editing so much. It's not like the overall premise has changed. As long as society keeps changing around us, in the same general trend, the point remains. I want to make this presentation great. Not just because it's a huge part of my grade, or for the teachers to see me putting in the effort. This is about more. I have to perfect it… I should see if Momo is free, after I work on it some more myself. Finalize it on your own, then give the presentation as if it were the real deal to her._ Zach reached down and pulled out his phone just as he was reaching his door. _Seems like a plan,_ he thought, and he was smiling wide as he thought it.

* * *

"…That was my presentation. Thank you very much for listening." Zach kept his hands at his sides even though he wanted to bring one up and start scratching his head with it, or wiping off the sweatdrop he felt on his forehead, and on his left cheek, and on his right one too. He kept a steady posture though as he stared at the girl sitting in front of where he had stood for the whole rehearsal of his speech, then he finally slouched his shoulders and let out a gasp of breath. "Alright," he said, feeling like at this amount of time after he finished he would be allowed to leave and show the expression of how nervous he had been through it. He gave the girl in front of him a half-smile after taking in some deep breaths, and he said, "I think that was pretty good. Right?"

"That was," Yaoyorozu started, but she stopped and shook her head a few times. She pursed her lips and then said with a big smile, "You're going to do great tomorrow. I still think it's amazing that you're doing this idea." Zach scratched the back of his head and smiled more at her support. "My paper really cannot compare," she continued. "Just the uses for Creation for the betterment of society isn't-"

"I think yours is amazing too!" Zach said, stepping towards the chair and shaking his head. Yaoyorozu looked back up after lowering her gaze for a second, and Zach added, "I just hope the order isn't random and I wind up going right after you. That has me more nervous than anything," he said. "I know yours is the one presentation that I don't want to follow."

Yaoyozoru shook her head at him as she stood up from the chair. She gained a small smile at what he was saying, but she said after standing, "You really have no idea, how great that was. I am sure everyone is going to love it."

"I don't know," Zach started. "It's a little controversial. Don't you think-"

"Whether they agree with you or not, it's impossible not to see how much work you've put into this," Yaoyorozu reached a hand forward and grabbed Zach's left that he was holding in front of him a bit hesitantly after scratching his head, almost like he wanted to do it again anxiously. His eyes opened wide, and she just smiled at his surprised look and finished, "If you say it tomorrow, just like you did right there, I'm sure you're going to blow them away. Some of the people you think might be really against it too, are some of the same ones whose minds you might change. Just like you changed mine, ever since you started working on this."

Zach lost his surprised look and started smiling a lot more confidently as she told him that. _I can do this._ He held her hand back and lowered them down, and he looked into Momo's eyes and said, "I couldn't have done it without you. Thanks for working with me on this, since the start."

Momo's eyes widened a bit, then she turned her head and pursed her lips for a second. This was the last day before the presentations, and after they were finished there would no longer be the reason for the frequent meetings and hang-outs. She turned her head back, but Zach's hand left hers after his thanks and he lowered his arms back down to his sides still looking confident. "I just hope I don't have to go first tomorrow. Not first, and not behind you. Two things," he said, shaking his head and laughing. He walked around Momo's side and felt like face-palming as he went to his desk and picked up his papers that he had not held while giving his report, going solely from memory.

As he picked up the papers, he thought about the look on Momo's face a second ago. _She was holding something back. I can't. I want to say something myself- but, but I can't! Don't!_ Zach turned his head and looked at Momo who shook her own head around before turning to Zach and saying how she was going to make sure she was well rested for tomorrow. Zach's smile almost faltered but he just said that was a good idea and that he would do the same, and he watched her leave before dropping backwards onto his bed and throwing his arms out to the sides. _Damn it,_ he thought. _What are you thinking?_ He added to himself after getting such a disappointed expression on his face. _Have you forgotten? Of course not. I just, I just wish I could though. But I know what they'll do. As it is we're already too close. This is the end though. No more reason for her to come to my room most afternoons. Some of those times, we only worked on the paper for a little while. I don't want to lose those talks…_ _ **"ZACH! HELP ME!"**_

Zach closed his eyes and brought his outstretched arms up and over his face. He rested them over his entire face and let out a gasp into them as he held them there. _Some things, I never even thought about. Things I could never have, but I never really thought I wanted. I can't think about them. I can't start, wanting a life like that. Not now. I made my choices. Getting any closer than this, will only lead to pain. For her. For me. Mainly for her though. Don't ever forget that. Don't make, the same mistake again._

* * *

 **A/N Hope you enjoyed. Almost forgot to post one today. Had a final, and a final presentation yesterday, and a final tomorrow morning in Japanese. Actually this morning, since I'm finishing this edit at around 3 in the morning, and I should really drink another Red Bull and get to studying already! Anyway, a long chapter this time, leave a review telling me what you think! Lots of scenes in this, and the chapter is itself a couple months of a time skip as we enter into April and the end of the semester. Thanks for reading! One review response today, like to hear some more feedback from you guys!**

D-Koy24 chapter 46 . Jul 24

Now about the Chapter... I think it was good, I can't remember the last time I took time to review a chapter instead of posting unnecessary comments. The dilemma Jirou is going through is not an easy one, for the longer she waits the worse it becomes for her because I see that he might start believing she's the spy of how she'll be acting around him.  
~D-Koy, oh I forgot... (Whispers 'ZachxMomo forever') who said that? That person is a genius (Scratches cheek)

 **Sooo, not gonna post everything here... Lol I actually didn't know what tune you were trying to make, and giving me the song title didn't help since I'd never heard of it before. You're having a great time there in the comment section though so that's great XD Alright admittedly, barely spent any time on the Jirou thing. Actually noticed it here that I ended the last chapter on her thoughts like it was going to be bigger, but this chapter was flying by through time and I just had to mention that the problem was resolved and there's still drama and stuff going on while he continues on with school, not like it just stops when I jump forward weeks/months. Y'all can imagine how that went. Sorry for your ZachxMomo here at the end, as close as they got... and thanks again for the reviews! Hope you enjoyed the long chapter! And thanks everyone for reading so far!**


	48. Chapter 48: Report

**Disclaimer: I don't own Boku no Hero Academia**

 **Chapter 48:**

"Next up," Midnight said. She sat in the back of the small auditorium, right in the middle of the line of teachers for the freshman hero course. "Is Zach Sazaki," she read out, smiling and looking to her right down the audience towards a chair at the aisle right next to the steps on the outside. The seating got higher up farther away from the front of the room so everyone in it could see the front without worrying about seeing over the person in front of them, except for Mineta who sat behind Shoji and was regretting it with every girl's presentation he had to strain himself to watch closely.

Everyone in the room looked to their rights where another student from Class A got up. The order had been picked randomly, and Hanta Sero just sat back down before Midnight called Zach up there. Zach gave Sero an encouraging smile as he headed up towards the front himself, though he turned forward again quickly and tried hard not to gulp. He walked up to the podium that had a projector screen right next to it and a clicker on top for him to use if needed, and Zach hoped the teachers were ready with the visual he had created.

In the audience, everyone stared down towards the boy with black hair that was pushed down flat and combed to the right side today, and who wore his school uniform looking ironed and wrinkle-free. Everyone in Class A, Class B, and even most of the staff members looked ahead with interest and anticipation as they wanted to know what his research paper was on. Only Yaoyorozu, and the principal who sat on Midnight's right side between her and All Might knew what his research was about. All Might glanced down at Nezu's face and the smile on it that relieved him a bit, before he turned back to look at Young Sazaki and make sure he knew he was watching if the boy looked up there.

 _Most have been uses of their Quirks so far. A few interesting ones,_ Aizawa thought, humming to himself as he thought back a couple of presentations. _I knew Asui's was going to be good, but Aoyama's "secret" paper actually turned out good. He kept making a big deal out of how it was a secret though, whereas Sazaki's just kept it under wraps._ Aizawa focused his gaze on the boy who did not look nervous as he turned behind the podium and faced out at them all. _Even if it is just one on his Quirk though, I'm expecting a different kind of presentation here._

Tetsutetsu Tetsutetsu leaned forward in his seat and narrowed his eyes. _What's it going to be? I want to know how his Quirk works. The Quirk that saved my buddy Kirishima!_

Monoma glanced out the corner of his eye at Tetsutetsu on the seat next to him, but he refocused up on Zach quickly. _Will he talk about how much it hurts bringing someone back? Feeling my own head twist back on, and the other pain Mt. Lady must have felt before dying, it was rough._ Monoma smiled even as he thought back on that, because of a conversation he and Zach had had a couple of weeks back. _Mt. Lady thanked… No! I can't hope his presentation is good! So far the most stand-out presentation was a Class A! We cannot lose!_

Across the small auditorium that was split mostly between Class A and Class B, Midoriya leaned forward. Uraraka looked next to her on her left and she saw Midoriya with a hand over his mouth, and she whispered quickly at him, "Don't start muttering."

Midoriya's eyes opened wide and his cheeks turned red as he nodded in gratitude at Uraraka who sighed in relief. They both turned back though, and Izuku thought instead of muttered, _It could be so many different things. I couldn't do a paper on my Quirk since it's a secret, but I had such a hard time finding a topic that really interested me outside of it. Zach's been working on this from the start though, and he wouldn't say what is was even though he was working so hard on it. Is it about his Quirk? Is he going to tell people here things about it… or is he going to talk about more serious stuff? The stuff he talked about with me, about the villains- but if he does that now, he's going to be admitting to those things he said he took part in. I never said anything to him, about what I think about him doing that, but I don't want him to say it all right here. I don't want him to go away again! No, no calm down. Zach wouldn't do something like that. He's careful. He's always, careful… Right?_

Mineta leaned left to look past Shoji, almost as interested a look on his face as there was back during Itsuka Kendo's presentation three back. _Is he going to talk about Nightmare form?! I can't believe he calls it that!_ Mineta thought about how he had pestered Zach about it a while back after a training session, wanting to know how it worked only for Zach to deflect away from his "unstable Nightmare form." _He hasn't used it since that day with Ectoplasm sensei, so not even everyone in the class has seen it yet! Unless they saw the video, but even then it was only half! I want to know how it works. It being a mystery is half of why it's so scary Zach!_

Todoroki stared closely at the boy who he had not spoken to much at all for a couple of months. _I could see it being a presentation on harsher punishments for villains. Or arguing that killing villains is alright. How does he live like this?_ The sixteen year old with half red hair and half white leaned back in his chair but kept a thoughtful yet straight expression as he stared down at Zach. _Sometimes I see it. The look in his eyes he had when he first came back. It's still there. He'll just be sitting there with the same smile as when he's really happy, but I know the things he's thinking about. Whenever I see that dark look, I'm worried you're looking for revenge now. I can't shake that feeling either, because I know it's what I would be doing in your shoes._ _ **"And when I close my eyes! I see her burning! She was my age, but I always thought of her like a little sister. I loved her, more than I knew I could ever love someone, and I only realized it as she screamed my name! As she died, screaming out in agony yet still believing that I would come save her. Until her very last breath, she believed in me. And I failed her! I let her die!"**_ _I haven't forgotten a word I heard that night, Zach, as hard as I have tried._

On Todoroki's left side, Yaoyorozu held her hands together down in her lap. _Good luck, Zach._

Zach took in a deep breath through his nose so it would not be noticeable, then he began. "My research paper is titled: Flaws of the Legal System in Regards to Quirk Usage." No sooner were the words out of his mouth that he saw smiles go away, uneasy looks on students and teachers' faces, but Zach's expression stayed completely calm. His hands lifted up and he put them together over the podium, and he continued to face his audience without faltering, and kept going after pausing after the title. "In the past year, our society has started changing drastically. Villains are on the rise, with more villain appearances recorded last month than any month previous in the past twenty years. There were more arrests last month than ever as well, but also the highest number of villain incidents resolved without the capture of the villains who caused them. This is not a sudden shocking statistic however, because it has gradually occurred with six of the eight months before this March breaking those same records. The dynamics of our society, are changing, but our laws remain stagnant. This is a problem that most people do not see as one, because how could the laws be at fault? We live under the same system today that we lived in so many years of relative peace under." Zach paused, then he said without looking up towards the man, "The system is kept the same as it was when All Might was active, when most villains were kept at bay by the idea of the Symbol of Peace. That is not the same world we live in anymore. When everything else is changing, why does the law system stay the same? Is it because those laws are absolute; they're the only guideline our society could exist under? No. Because even before All Might's retirement, these flaws still existed. It is only because of recent trends that they have become more pronounced, even if there is not yet a public, vocal claim of such."

Zach took a deep breath, _There's an introduction. Alright, keep steady. Ignore those looks._ "The legal system in our country is very similar to that in most countries of the modern world today. And most parts of the law codes have clear reasons for their existence, are clearly protecting the public from crimes. But then there are laws where the morality of the offender comes into question, where citizens may have used their Quirks in an illegal way yet against a villain. Sometimes the offender is not punished. However, in most cases this is not the case. The flaws in the legal code stem from laws stating that citizens will be penalized for fighting against a villain if it's not in direct self-defense. The only thing to do in any emergency situation is to run away, and if you run up to a villain to try and distract it, even just to allow a hero time to arrive, you can get in serious legal trouble."

A lot of people in the room who felt skeptical about Zach's choice of report topic, or uncertain about the controversial things he was saying, lost those looks. He mentioned without really mentioning his own court case, and it was difficult for them to think of telling him how the laws were perfect and set in stone, when their classmate or student had such a hard time because of it. Zach continued to them, "Protecting someone else with your Quirk, if not possessing a hero license and causing a villain a certain degree of harm, is cause for arrest, fines, and even possible jail time with actual villains." He said the last part with a frown on his face, but then he lifted it and held up his left hand in an offering way, "The biggest problem with changing this however, is that without this rule, people would think it's okay to fight back against villains. Most people don't know how to use their Quirks though, and they can cause collateral damage to others, get themselves hurt, or badly hurt the villains with an uncontrolled power. This problem seems insurmountable, because there is not an easy solution to fix it. After all, this problem traces back to the very basics of society, namely education. Everyone takes a Quirk safety course when they're kids, just developing them. Quirk counseling as a child is important, but then schools stop. They teach in those courses that Quirks are not to be used, unless one is going to try and be a hero. So by high school it's decided whether or not you will need your Quirk for the rest of your life, and people are strongly discouraged to stop using them anymore at all. Then, when people don't use their Quirks in high school, college, they forget how to use them, or they become weaker than they were even as children. They don't train what could be very powerful Quirks, and these are the people who run away from villains when they appear. The school systems fail by not teaching students how to properly use their Quirks, not developing them and training students how to use them. It should not just be hero high schools, but all schools should have courses on Quirk development and for all ages. It is not the schools' responsibilities to change this though, but the legal system that determines the curriculum." He paused for a second, then lowered his left hand and lifted his right inside of his black glove. "I only recently learned how to use my Quirk, after having it kept under wraps for years because no one ever wanted me to try training it. Then when it came time to use it in emergencies, I was unprepared, and I wound up killing two people." He lowered his right hand back down and kept a serious look on his face, even as he saw a lot of the people in the room staring at him with wide eyes that he would bring that up. Zach continued on, only using himself as one example, "Something that could have been avoided. How many others in this room arrived at U.A. without having a good hold on their Quirks? Quirks that crippled the users after one use, or just Quirks that no one had ever tried helping you master. Within a single year of training, everyone has gotten stronger to the point that looking back on the first fights with villains, wouldn't you have reacted differently? Fought better? With just one year of training, in a school environment, this is possible. So what may have happened differently, if schools had developed Quirks with us from the start?"

Zach took a breath and then continued in a lower voice, "There's another problem though, this time with changing the schooling system. If the biggest problem in regards to changing the laws on Quirk usage was the education system, then this is the biggest counter-point to changing the education system to train Quirks. That is, that schools would inevitably be teaching future villains," Zach said, and he saw some eyes widen as a lot of his fellow students were barely keeping up and now saw this huge problem. "Wouldn't this make those future villains stronger?" Zach asked. He nodded his head and replied to himself, "It will, however when everyone else raises their strength as well, it will more than even out. Why? Because villains train their Quirks anyway. Whether or not they're given help by the system, they will abuse the rules keeping civilians from training. They prey on those weaker than them, weaker only because they never trained or were taught how to use their Quirks." Zach pressed a button on the clicker he had subtly grabbed with his right hand, and everyone focused solely on him spun as the projector screen suddenly turned on with a bright image of a road in what looked like Musutafu.

He took a step out from behind the podium and faced sideways so he could look at the picture he chose, as well as turn his head when needed. On the picture, there were hundreds of people running away. The camera angle was right from the middle of the road, showing people running towards it down the street, on the sidewalks, some people were jumping up on cars others were speeding away and picking up dust. Two people were flying, one using jets coming out of their feet, the other just pointing her hands down and staying higher off the sidewalk. Most people were not using their Quirks though, just sprinting away from something. The 'something' that they were running from was not even in the picture. The angle just showed down the road to an intersection where there were some crashed cars and a lot of smoke rising up from the building straight ahead that had a lot of shattered windows. "This is the scene of a villain attack two months ago, here in Musutafu. In this picture, there are over a hundred visible civilians caught on camera running from the scene, while there are also two heroes rushing towards it." Zach pressed a button on the remote, and two tiny green circles popped up on the screen. They appeared over the back of a man barely visible past some civilians running towards the camera on the road, and another crawling on a wall at the top of the left side of the picture who was barely in it and missed by a few people who had not looked up that high.

"How many people in this crowd have Quirks stronger than those heroes, had they trained them?" Zach posed a question. He looked around, then he turned back to the screen and said, "In a crowd this big there are bound to be a few, so let's just circle a couple at random," he clicked on the clicker, then again, and a third time. A random young woman on the sidewalk really close to the camera so she was almost off the screen, a muscular man with four arms running away on the opposite sidewalk, and a guy who looked a bit like Tsuyu and had hopped up on top of a car for a quicker path out of the madness got all got circled in a small purple color. "What about people who are faster? Not faster than the heroes, but faster than whatever villain they're all running from?" Zach asked. He clicked a couple more times, more than last time when he asked how many were stronger than heroes. The two who were flying, the guy with dust coming up behind him, and a couple of others all got yellow circles around their bodies, as did the woman on the front left who already had a purple circle on her. "A Quirk making them faster than the villains, means that they could have distracted them while letting others get away. Yet in this picture, people who are faster are running away faster than the slower people. The stronger ones," Zach clicked a button but did not pause even as ten more circles appeared in red on the screen over figures in the crowd, "are ignoring the weaker people around them who they could protect. People with hardening or strengthening Quirks ignore people around them, because everyone has the same directive in this situation. Run away. If every person in this picture knew how to use their Quirks, many would still run, but many would be able to distract or push back. They could _help._ And how many of them _want_ to help?" Other colored circles had appeared over people when Zach mentioned hardening and strengthening, but at this final question, eighty percent of the people on the screen got circled in green, the same color attached to the two heroes.

Zach left the picture up there and turned to the audience again. "This brings up the problem of why there would be a need for heroes though," he said, as was somewhat implied when he labeled most of the people in the picture the same color as the 'actual' heroes. Zach got a somewhat confused look on his face as he looked around though, and he asked, "But when did we decide as a society to make everyone defenseless?" He walked back behind the podium and put his hands on it, and he continued, "In most countries around the world, people used to be armed at all times. Citizens carried swords, and then guns on them, because when someone attacked they needed to be able to fight back. Regular citizens had this ability. And yes, this led to some problems when stronger weapons were made, but now every citizen in the world is carrying a weapon at the same time, and only the bad ones know how to use them. Laws put in place eventually fixed the problem with guns, because no one could get them anymore, but that's impossible to do with Quirks. Laws preventing people from training their Quirks, don't stop villains from becoming stronger and practicing," Zach said, in a tone like it was obvious since why would the villains listen to those laws. "These laws only stop regular, law-abiding people who will very likely in this world with rising villain patterns, one day have to face those villains in the street."

Zach's eyes narrowed and he continued in a lower but just as serious and strong a voice, "A villain with a half-trained _decent_ Quirk can slaughter a group of civilians, even if two or three of those people had naturally stronger Quirks that they just don't know how to use. If you want to keep laws in place that say people can't use Quirks in public, that's fine, even though there are so many non-dangerous Quirks that could help with jobs, medicine, and other things people should not have to get licenses to use. But, laws preventing people from using Quirks against villains, and from training them hurts the entire society. Because any half-cocked thug standing on a street corner wanting to get into villainous activities now has an outlet. Groups of villains will, and _do,_ go up to corners of delinquents and turn them into hardened villains. They teach kids with weak ideologies that they easily mold into ones that can help the villain groups' plans."

Tetsutetsu leaned forward in his seat, his eyes opening huge. _The training forest. That poison gas kid. Is that what…_

"And how many months," Zach continued. "Weeks even, does it take to turn a teenager who had barely used his Quirk before, into someone who can fight better than any average Japanese person?" He shook his head around, then he lifted his darker and narrowed gaze that he had for that portion of the speech which just came naturally to him as he talked about it. He stared at shocked and thoughtful looks alike, and he tried to keep himself calm even as he saw people considering all he had just talked about. Zach continued, "And while villains increase in number, the amount of people who want to become heroes decreases. They see how bloody the lives of heroes are becoming on television every day. They hear about the increase in hero deaths, and crippling injuries that force heroes into retirement." _Grappler, All Might…_ "Did you know that the application rate to U.A. is drastically lower this coming year than it was last spring?" Zach questioned, then continued, "And even though U.A. has been a target on several occasions which could be a reason, it's also because people are afraid of becoming heroes in this scarier world, as it is the hero course that took the sharpest drop in applicants. It's not just U.A., but Shiketsu High, Ketsubutsu Academy, Isamu Academy." Zach listed off high schools that the other students knew of as their rivals and other big hero schools, and their eyes were much wider hearing this than just U.A. as they had realized it made sense after Zach first said it. "Hero courses are receiving fewer applications, and yet at the same time, the Hero Licensing Exam is getting more selective. This can only lead to one possible future, and that is one with fewer heroes than we are accustomed to. It will come gradually, as more heroes are killed. As heroes are forced into retirement because of injury, because of villains stealing or destroying their Quirks, or they choose to retire before one of those other things happen. It is not unbelievable, and it is something that is already happening, that heroes who did not realize what their job would come to entail break under the pressure of this changing world. Having less heroes, and more villains, is scary enough. But when villains are experimenting with drugs like Trigger, which can make an average villain powerful enough to take on several heroes at once, and when they are creating Nomus who can hold several Quirks and cause damage on unprecedented scales, it becomes something that we cannot simply stop by sending out more heroes. There has to be an institutional change to fix something as big as this."

Zach took in a deep breath and grabbed the sides of the top of the podium. _Almost there. Conclusion has to be strong. I've got this._ "My solution to these problems, is an upheaval of society's law codes. Reexamine what it means to be a hero and a villain. At its very foundation, our society frowns upon Quirk usage and only allows certain people to use them. There still need to be regulations, yes, but the current regulations cause more harm than good. The current regulations can _not_ keep up with the changing society. When laws have become restricting, and people get hurt because of it, something is wrong with that. But most people are too afraid to even consider changing something that has been a constant for their entire lives. Laws limiting Quirks exist because of fear though, even though most people consider Quirks the next stage in human evolution. Afraid that Quirks will become too powerful they've been strictly regulated, and most people are told to just not use their natural abilities. Fear of progress has always led to the discrimination of others. People do not need to fit society's boundaries though, society needs to extend its boundaries to be able to include everyone. People don't want things to change, but they _are_ changing. We are in a transitionary period. Villains keep getting stronger, their groups keep getting larger, and their attacks are becoming more frequent. Yet as a whole, society has had no response to this except to 'stay the course,' like suddenly things are going to go back to the way they were in the days of All Might." Zach said it incredulously, trying to show them, and succeeding in a big part, how ridiculous that sounded. "The problems I mentioned have always existed in our society, but now the world is becoming a more violent place by the day, and people are starting to realize it. People are living in fear of villain attacks, and they can't train to protect themselves without being afraid of getting arrested if they do something wrong. There is unrest growing in society, as more people become upset with the current trends but can't do anything to stop it. With every villain who appears, twenty more regular citizens feel unsafe, feel unsatisfied with the ones protecting them. The people are relying solely on heroes to protect them, but the dynamic of society is changing, and now there are an equal amount of villains out there as there are heroes, or even more villains. Organized crime is at an all time high in twenty five years. Next year it will be higher. Next _month_ it will be higher."

He looked around into his classmates' eyes, one by one and staring into as many of them as he could. Those people who had been wondering what Zach was going to do for over a month now were staring at him wide-eyed as he continued his conclusion, "Things are getting worse, fast, and if the next big incident is bigger than all the ones previous, it might cause a loss of faith in hero society altogether. But if blame can't be put directly on the heroes, if everyone is able to fight back, that civil unrest that we are bounding towards will not come. And maybe if everyone could fight back together, if everyone had a good hold on their Quirk's abilities, the disaster I can see coming could be avoided. Teach every student in school how to protect themselves, and others, with their Quirks, safely. People who are already out of school, have pro heroes offer courses to them in self-defense, and change the laws that prohibit citizens from stepping in when a villain appears. Make whatever pro hero arrives on the scene the commanding officer, and let the others help him or her out following the pro hero's experience. Why is the line separating heroes and civilians thicker than the one separating them from villains?" Zach asked, and he shook his head once after asking it. "Because the villains' numbers might rise higher than heroes, it may have already happened, but those who want to do harm and wrong, will _never_ outnumber the people who want to help and do good! Because I believe, people are inherently good. And if given the chance to stand up and protect each other, if given the freedom to stand by heroes and fight villains by their sides," he turned to the screen on his right that still had his picture from before up there. Zach stared at the people with different colored markings all over them, and most of them with green, and then he finished as he turned back to the audience, "How many citizens could become heroes in their own way?"

Almost everyone in the room just stared in shock at Zach as he finished. One of the only ones who wasn't, was Yaoyorozu who just started smiling wide after he got the final line out. She felt her heart pounding and she let out a breath of air as she had been holding it at his final pause. _It was even better than yesterday. That was-_

 _Amazing,_ Midoriya thought. _I never really thought- because I thought that once I could use One For All at full power I could just stop everything like All Might did. But Zach said these problems existed before, and he was right about that too. His own example is the perfect one. In such a short time he's become able to control Death, but it wasn't until after we got attacked. Others probably agree with what he said about our powers injuring ourselves since we couldn't use them right when we got to U.A., thinking about me. Did he do that on purpose, even though he knows the real reason I can't control it? Even if he did though, I'm not the only one…_

 _That was, crazy,_ Kaminari thought. He looked straight towards Zach who stood there facing them all calmly after finishing his speech. _If I had more control over Electrification at USJ, Zach wouldn't have had to push my dumb self out of the way. And if he had more control, he wouldn't have had to kill that guy either. Just the amount of power we both have right now, is enough to make the difference that would have changed things that day. I didn't use my power to the point of going stupid too much before high school, because no one was telling me to train it and I thought it was strong enough. But if I had gotten help training it sooner…_

 _What was that?_ Todoroki stared in silence towards Zach with his eyes wide. _I was thinking about him saying something like- well, I was worried when he brought up changing the laws. I thought he was going to talk about heroes being allowed to kill villains, but even when he mentioned his own actions, he treated them like mistakes that could have been avoided. He's, he said that people are "inherently good," that he really thinks that way?!_ Todoroki's eyes opened even wider as he stared at the boy whose screams he heard echo in his ears again. _How?_

 _I've done so much wrong,_ Zach thought after finishing his essay, relaxing but keeping his posture since he was still up there in front of everyone. _Jenny thought I was a hero up until the second she died though. I let her down. I let her die. I can't just be okay with saving people, more than I had killed, or more than my parents could have saved. Jenny was that important to me. No number of people I save will ever make up for it. Not, in my lifetime at least. But if I can change society. If I can make the world a safe place again, with laws set that will protect people for decades, centuries to come. It's too hopeful- but if I can help establish the world as a safer place from villains, how many countless people could I save? As well as promoting the use of Quirks so that society can keep advancing instead of stagnating and decrying the use of Quirks by normal people. Overcoming the fear of progress. Treating Quirks like the amazing things they are, and making future children who are like me and Eri not feel like they're cursed because theirs don't fit the kind of Quirks that heroes would have._

Zach looked over towards Midoriya who was staring at him just like everyone else in the room. _I know I won't become the greatest hero. I know that, but a Symbol of Peace can only last as long as they're alive for, though I know you can pass it down sooner or later. What I want to do though, I hope will last longer than a single Symbol of Peace. I want-_

The room filled with loud clapping all at once, one person doing it which immediately made everyone else snap their hands up and start clapping as they realized it was over and they were all just too absorbed in their own thoughts after all the different things Zach just brought up. The clapping was loud, and Sero did not care that it was louder than it was a few minutes ago when he ended his speech, as he was clapping loudly too and finally grinning as he lost his wide-eyed look.

 _Yeah but what if,_ Monoma frowned even as he clapped with the others around him. _Training future villains is not such a simple problem he can just get past by saying other people would be stronger too… but if they're being trained in school and given hero ideology courses while training Quirks, couldn't that fix problems of how some of those villains come to be anyway when they're shunned for using their Quirks… Hmm, I want to look for that answer, but I also want to ignore it!_ _There was so little in there that he gave room to argue with, when he spent as much time talking about the counters I would have had._ The blond boy from Class B trying to find reasons to dislike Zach's presentation was not finding it easy, as easy as it seemed to be at the start.

 _That was awesome!_ Kirishima kept clapping much louder than the boy on his right side who was not clapping at all.

Bakugo finally leaned back in his seat, and he grunted as he had to do that since he did not remember leaning forward at all. _Damn it,_ he thought, and he lifted a hand and rubbed his forehead while looking straight up. _The fuck did I have to go after him for?_ Bakugo thought in annoyance.

Itsuka Kendo smiled as she clapped for the Class A student whose presentation really surprised her. When she stopped clapping she got a more thoughtful look on her face again though and thought back on something in his report that caught her attention. She had lost focus on it as he kept going strong at the time, but she thought back on it now and her smile lowered a bit. _Villains picking up delinquents on street corners. That middle school kid was probably like that. Mustard. Even though he attacked us, I felt bad for him. Did Zach see people like him being brainwashed while he was with the villains? I'm glad, they didn't get to him too._

In the back of the room, the pro heroes were clapping their hands as well. Midnight turned to her left at Present Mic while they clapped with impressed, thoughtful, and surprised looks on their faces. He looked back at her and stopped clapping, then Midnight said thoughtfully, "A change in society like that is not an easy one to make."

"Bureaucracy takes a long time to get anything done," Present Mic added in an annoyed tone. "If an incident happens like he says though, and his report topic were to become common opinion, it, could change things."

On Mic's other side, Snipe said in a lower voice, "Does that mean we have to wait until after another giant disaster, allow it to happen before things can change?"

All Might looked left at what he heard Snipe say, then he turned back forward and continued clapping for a few more seconds as he stared at Zach. _I am always surprised by you, Young Sazaki. Everything you do catches me off guard. I did not expect this to be your answer. Is this what you have concluded after all you have been through? This is the solution you see? Those are your true ideals, that you have just laid bare before us? You have been secretive, and keep so much to yourself, but you have tried to push your hidden past aside and have focused on the future. The effort you put into this paper, your own heart that you poured into it, I could feel them and for once could hear that you meant every bit of what you said. Your presentations were supposed to be on something you are passionate about, but I never knew this was something you were thinking about so deeply on. The future of our society without me… When Young Midoriya told me that he told you everything, I trusted his decision and trusted you. But as much as I accepted it, I also assumed that it would have a different effect on you than it did on Young Bakugo. He would strive to be stronger than even me, to be the best no matter what, so it could not stop him. Anyone else though, I would assume they would feel the pressure of the world lift off their shoulders, allowing it all to fall on Young Midoriya's._ All Might lowered his arms as he finished clapping, and he smiled down at the boy who was looking up towards the teachers now as they sometimes asked questions after the presentations. All Might looked into that boy's eyes, and his smile lowered down a little, _He feels that pressure still though. The knowledge that there will be less heroes, and more villains, like the days before the pillar which is now gone. Even without All For One, the world is becoming what I feared it would be with his influence. Young- no, not anymore. Sazaki, I do not know if I can call you a young man after hearing this. You have looked beyond the near future. You are looking at something far away, that I can not see. What is this world you are imagining?_

Aizawa leaned back in his chair as the final claps in the room started to fade out. He stared down towards Sazaki in a thoughtful way, humming to himself before lifting a hand and scratching his right cheek. _I was wondering if Sazaki was really hero material at the start of this, when he was still questioning hero procedure, but…_ He scratched under the deep scar under his own right eye, while looking down at the boy who had a longer one that was thinner near his nose and side of his face, but just as thick just beneath the eye. _That was, more like a college-level thesis,_ Aizawa thought, a small grin on his face while he lowered his hand. _Still. There are other problems he did not address. He did not even talk about how the reexamining of the law codes could take place. He's not considering the bureaucrats, those old guys at the top who will be the last ones to want to change things. Letting people without licenses fight villains, is asking for citizens to get themselves killed out there. I know that, yet it's because civilians are weak and untrained that this problem exists, for the most part. And it's not like there aren't already citizens getting pulled into things and killed. If citizens get killed trying to help out though… if they do… then they'd be considered heroes. Even in our society now, that's the case. People who break the rules to help out where they're not required to, most of the time get punished for it, but if they're killed in the attempt it doesn't happen like that._

In the middle of the line of faculty members, Principal Nezu lifted up his tiny right bear paw. Zach nodded at the principal who was the only one to raise a hand for a question, and Nezu started while all the students looked back to see who it was asking. "Very good work, Sazaki. I do have a question though, one that I believe is a very large problem that you did not address in your report. This is a very radical idea while at the same time one that sounds undeniably sensible. In your report at one point however, you mentioned how we believe Quirks are the next step in human evolution…"

Zach's eyes opened wide as did most people in the room, and Zach held up a hand and quickly said, "I'm so sorry- I didn't mean-"

Nezu continued, "Oh I am not offended. After all it is true that it is the next step in human evolution, and you did not make a claim that it was not in any other creatures." Zach felt a huge amount of relief and lowered his hand, getting a more serious look on his face as he awaited the actual question Nezu was building towards… just in a really long-winded, dragged-out sort of way. "This is not just seen as progress though, but a spiral. There is a reason for the fear that you said, correctly, causes laws regulating Quirks so stringently. That reason is that a major concern in society is that Quirks will ultimately become too powerful. Quirks will arise with the power to destroy the world. Training everyone, and making Quirks stronger for everyone, would be seen as increasing the chances for this to come to pass sooner."

Everyone in the room turned back to Zach as the principal finished there. He did not ask a question, just posed that information to Zach and awaited to hear what the boy's response would be. Nezu was the only one smiling while everyone else stared at Zach, realizing themselves how that was actually a huge problem to the solution Zach had suggested. Even Momo stared towards Zach with a worried look, afraid the work he had done for so long would be undermined if Zach could not come up with a good response to the principal. They had worked the speech down to every detail, so the thing he was least prepared for were questions to come at him afterwards.

Even though he was less prepared for them than for giving his speech, that did not mean Zach had not prepared. He responded without more than a short pause to seem like he was thinking about it, "As much as there arises the possibility of someone with a world-ending Quirk in the millions who start training theirs, there is also the possibility of several people training abilities that can defend against that power. When, or if, the day comes that someone with a power to destroy the world appears, and that person also turns out to be a villain, could someone among the eight billion of us have a Quirk able to stop them? I think so. But does this person who can stop that potential villain know they can do it right now? Is this person one of the tiny fraction of the percentage of good people in this world who actually know how to use their Quirks to their full powers?" Zach's response made Momo smile again in relief, as he had it under control, while most of the students around her were just staring in more surprise that the principal's question they all thought made sense was getting countered.

"And truthfully," Zach continued. "If the possibility _already_ exists, that a world-ending Quirk could come to be, then that's just a further reason for why the system needs to change now to match the next level up from our current state. We can't just have these old rules and laws in place when the world is gradually changing around us, to the point that when someone appears with a Quirk that is impossible to control within the current rules and system, we don't have any response for it." Zach hesitated, because he did not know if he wanted to add on this last thing. _I took it out of the speech because I thought it would sound too preachy, but it really seems like it would work here._ He took a breath and then added, "'Human progress is neither automatic nor inevitable. Every step towards the goal of justice requires sacrifice, suffering, and struggle; the tireless exertions and passionate concern of dedicated individuals.'" Zach let out a breath after saying that, then he looked up into the principal's eyes as Nezu nodded with an impressed look on his face, because he recognized that already. "That was a quote from Martin Luther King Jr., an activist for equal rights in America in the 1900s. I know it is a scary thing to try and change laws that are supposedly protecting the world from some distant world-ending villain, but if we want to keep advancing as a society and a species- a world, then we can't keep denying progress. And I think if enough people strive to make it work: if heroes are willing to accept civilians' help, and citizens are willing to train and be taught by current heroes, so that we can face the villains together with overwhelming numbers, then we can move forward to a world that's even safer than it was before All Might's retirement."

Nezu hummed and he nodded again at Zach's response, a small smile on his cute mouse-like face. "Very good response, Sazaki." The principal turned left and right down the line of teachers with him, then he nodded as they all seemed satisfied with leaving it at one question. Nezu turned back and said, "Once again, that was a very nice presentation. You may take your seat."

"Next up, is Katsuki Bakugo," Midnight called out, and the spiky-blond boy in the audience started out of his seat.

Most people in the room turned to Bakugo, and a lot of Class B stared at the other boy who was captured by the villains and wondered if he had some crazy presentation for them too. Most of Class A who looked at Bakugo though, just leaned back at the angry look on his face as he got out of his seat. Zach made sure to stay out of his way as he headed back for his seat, but he was not focused too much on Bakugo. The room filled with another round of applause after Nezu had told him he could take his seat, the applause going right over Midnight calling out Bakugo's name. As more attention started shifting to the next presenter though, Zach's gaze shifted around the entire room and his eyes focused on everyone there. _The spy is in this room._

Zach continued towards his seat, not making it obvious he was looking around at them for any reason other than to smile at a few friends giving him encouraging looks. _That was a good speech. I did it exactly how I wanted to, maybe even better. I'm glad I got to say the quote. Spent so much time looking up quotes on progress just to take it out. Still though, it was great. I worked harder on that, then I have on anything in my life. Shigaraki hasn't been trying to capture me. Not very hard at least, considering how often I've been out of school and out in the open. I've given opportunities, so now I know that Shigaraki has a plan that involves leaving me here._

Zach walked up the steps towards his seat, and his smile lowered down as he neared it. _So go on, spy. Whoever you are. I know you're in this room of what, fifty people? I made eye contact with most of them, and probably with you. I looked you in the eyes right there while giving that speech, and I hope you saw how much I meant every word. I want you to tell Shigaraki everything I just told them all, because I want Shigaraki to regret thinking he can use me by leaving me here. Whatever his plans for me are, I'll destroy them. I want him to know that by staying at U.A., I'm going to be doing things to stop him that I could never do on my own. Influence my friends, classmates, even teachers. I can push change. What do you want with me Shigaraki? Are you going to just wait until I've gotten more popular, wait until more people see me as a hero, then reveal everything I've done? Did you make that biography video? If so, you were a fool not to rat me out for the illegal things I did for you. You'll come to regret it. I am going to make up for everything. I am going to do so much good for this world, other than just bringing people back to life. I'll change the society that makes children with "cursed" Quirks feel that way. I'll change people's minds, and prevent a clash between heroes and the people they're meant to protect. I'll destroy everything you've worked for. I'll break all of your plans. Take away all of your pawns one by one, and tear down everything you've built. I'm going to make sure this beautiful world, never becomes your plaything. Like I was…_

* * *

 **A/N Thanks for reading. Hope you enjoyed. Found myself writing an actual essay here, but I had fun with it and think it's a good progression for Zach. I tried showing through earlier scenes his thoughts on some of this, like with the guy Mt. Lady accidentally crushed who had been trying to help against the villains, and those two teens last chapter. Even Gentle and La Brava I had Zach talk a bit about some stuff that came up in this report, which he had been working on earlier that day showing why maybe Zach was interested in Nico and Riley's Quirks... Anyway, hope I surprised some of you guys with the report topic, as well as what Zach's opinions are in the first place. Leave a review telling me what you think, and time for some review responses:**

D-Koy24 chapter 47 . 10h ago

You're gonna stall this ship till we get to like Chapter 70 right...?  
Sigh  
But I'll still be stubborn! Team Momozaki FTW,!  
By the way I've been waiting all day for this chapter!  
~D-Koy, the red dragon emperor! Sorry for shouting so much I'm just excited about their moment! (Eyes sparkling)

 **Haha no telling when this ship might sail... if ever! Sorry for the long wait, I know it was almost a day without an update so that would've been terrible! Thanks for the review, and glad you liked their moment last chapter!**

Guest chapter 47 . 6h ago

If this emotionally unstable boy doesn't kiss this polite and bubbly girl soon, I'ma lose my mind!

 **XD Thanks for the review! We'll see about that...**

Guest chapter 47 . 3h ago

We're running out of manga material faster than I thought we would

 **Me too, me too. When I started reading the manga I thought I'd get a whole lot of new stuff to add, but admittedly I had done a pretty big time skip through the fall right around the time I started reading it. Didn't realize the manga was still only halfway through the fall, so I thought I'd have up til like midway through the second year or something. Anyway, added a whole ton of it last chapter with Overhaul, Magne's death, Gentle and La Brava, and I mentioned the Culture Festival had been cancelled in the fall unlike the manga. Some things have changed, and who knows what else from the manga may have and has yet to be revealed what different turns it took? Thanks for reviewing!**


	49. Chapter 49: Capture The Flag

**Disclaimer: I don't own Boku no Hero Academia**

 **Chapter 49:**

Behind U.A. High School, Class 1-A was gathered at Training Ground Omega. Past them was a base that looked a bit like a really-obvious evil lair. There were skulls and crossbones painted on the stone walls in black, there were high walls just outside the fortress, and another wall just outside the gate covered in screens showing camera angles all over the inside of the base. There was an outer area inside the walls but not yet inside the fortress, there were long passageways inside and open grand halls with lots of furniture in them to get in the way, staircases up, and in one room in the fortress there was a blue flag hanging off of a post that stuck out of the ground.

"You all did a great job yesterday with your research paper presentations," Midnight began to the excited students all looking at the video screens and slowly putting together what was happening. "So because of that, and because there is only a week left until the end of the term and your freshman years here at U.A…"

 _Here it comes…_ Kaminari leaned forward with Sero and Kirishima on either side of him.

"We will be doing a training exercise," Aizawa said from where he stood on Midnight's left in front of the students. None of them got disappointed looks on their faces, all of them just leaning in further as they hoped Aizawa was messing with them with his tone, and their homeroom teacher grinned after a second at his class that had caught on too well by now. "Of capture the flag-"

"YaHOO!" Ashido shouted and jumped up in the air. Kirishima, Kaminari, and Sero all threw up an arm and yelled out excitedly too, and so did half of the rest of the class.

"A totally fun game!" Mineta exclaimed, then breathed out a sigh of relief.

 _Yeah, don't get too excited Mineta,_ Zach thought as he looked down and to the right at the top of the short boy's head. _I'm sure they're not going to just let it be that simple._

The third teacher there with them, All Might stood on Midnight's right and began to the happy students, "It's capture the flag, but with a few differences, mainly the full use of your Quirks is allowed." He held up a finger and explained further, "The team inside will be the villains, protecting their flag. It could be a bomb the hero team needs to get out of the building. Or a captured hostage! Think of it as something important that you need to get out of there."

"But remember it is just a flag," Midnight added. "So even if it gets a little damaged in the fighting, it'll be fine."

The excited looks on the students' faces started to simmer down. Midnight smirked at them all, and she held up capture tape in one hand as that smirk started to turn more sadistic. The male teachers both glanced in at Midnight hesitantly while she said, "Just because it is capture the flag, does not give you an excuse to take your training exercises anything but seriously. Go Plus Ultra, and steal the flag within fifteen minutes! Villains or heroes, use the capture tape to wrap your opponents and stop their movements. If the flag is taken out these front gates, time runs out, or all members of one team can't move, then it's game over!"

Bakugo grinned and he lifted his hands, little explosions going off in front of his green gauntlets. His competitive smirk had the people around him getting nervous and leaning back, but more of them were starting to smirk and grin themselves as they got into the spirit of what would still be a fun game anyway. The teachers had not specified the class as being important to their grades, but they were supposed to take it seriously anyway and as U.A. students, they planned to do just that.

Mineta looked around with a nervous look on his face, then he stared back forward and up at the huge fortress in Ground Omega. Kaminari lifted his hands and made sparks come off of his fingers with a smirk across his face. "Small cramped corridors. A flag room that's not too huge," he tilted his head back and looked confidently forward. "Let's do this!"

"Sensei," Yaoyorozu lifted her hand and started. Midnight turned to her, and Yaoyorozu asked, "How will we decide which team gets the extra person?"

There were twenty-one of them in all, so one of the teams would have a number advantage, or so it seemed. Midnight grinned at that, and then she swung her arm to the side with a black whip in it and the screens lining the wall behind her all stopped showing camera angles inside the training ground. Every screen showed part of the same image so they all acted as one giant yellow screen that was split down the middle. 'Villains' was written at the top of the right side of the screen, and 'Heroes' covered the top of the left. There were four empty boxes beneath 'Heroes' and only three boxes under 'Villains.'

"There will be three games!" Midnight called out.

"Those of you chosen as villains will get a couple of minutes to set up inside, while the heroes are not able to watch the screens," Aizawa added. "I won't say there's an advantage for either team though, as it is up to chance really."

"Chance?" Kirishima asked.

"That is right!" All Might called out. "You will not always get to choose who you are put with in a fight. Usually we choose teams for your exercises, but today we leave it up to fate!"

"Ooh, this is kind of exciting, right Deku?" Uraraka looked to her right at the taller boy who looked back and nodded. Uraraka got a softer look and more confused one at the sight of Deku's, but he turned away without treating it like anything was wrong.

Midoriya stared up at the screens as All Might called out how the system would randomly select them, but then he turned his head a little more and looked to the right out the corners of his eyes. He stared over towards Zach who was on the right of Kaminari and Kirishima by a few feet, standing near the front of the class. Izuku Midoriya thought about the talk they had the night before, when Zach finally agreed to talk to him about his paper he had kept a secret for so long. _**"I'm glad you liked it, but it's not like that. I'm not going to do anything about it right now."**_ Midoriya stared closer at the back of Zach's head, an uneasy one on his own face. _**"…Well, there's not much I can do. We're still in school Midoriya. But, even though I don't like the media, and I don't like being on camera, maybe next time I am I'll mention a part of my beliefs. Just a little. I'll use the media's interest in me. Or tell small groups first, then let them spread what I say to others, and hopefully I hear those views outside of the people I first told them to. If I hear positive responses towards certain opinions I can push it farther. Use everything. You know?"**_ _No Zach, I really don't know what you were talking about. You've got these like, crazy ideas that sound so, so-_

"The first member of the hero team, is Izuku Midoriya!" Midoriya's eyes opened wide at Midnight's call, and he snapped his head back up to the big connected screens where his face just appeared in the box farthest to the left.

"Who's team are you trying to be on?" Kaminari asked, leaning in towards Sero and smirking.

Sero hummed and then said, "It's gotta be one of those three yeah? Todoroki, Bakugo, or," he looked up and then turned his head and finished, "Midoriya too. Don't think I'd lose with one of them with me-"

"Shoto Todoroki!" Midnight called out.

Half the class lowered their bottom lips as the second member of the hero team got picked. Aizawa sweatdropped, and All Might kept smiling while looking back though he did get more of a hesitant look on his face. "This is why I said random doesn't work," Aizawa began in a low mutter.

"Ochaco Uraraka!" Midnight shouted the next name without hesitating after everyone had seen Todoroki pop up.

"Yes!" Uraraka called out happily. "We're on the same team Deku," she said to the boy who just turned back to her.

"Y-Yeah, that's great," he said, leaning away as she leaned towards him while saying it in her excited voice.

"You're so lucky Ochaco," Jirou said behind her. Midoriya and Uraraka looked back at the girl standing on Yaoyorozu's right side who added, "You guys have got this for sure."

"I'm surprised it was Uraraka though," Kaminari said, a more relaxed look coming to his face. "For a second there I thought it was going to be Bakugo."

"And the last person on the hero team, is Tenya Iida!" Midnight announced.

Kaminari sweatdropped, and Sero muttered under his breath, "He would have been the fourth person I picked." Kaminari nodded in quiet agreement, while Kirishima punched his fists together in front of him in excitement.

"I hope I'm a villain," Kirishima said, something he did not know if he had ever said before or ever would again.

"You want to go up against them?!" Kaminari asked like he was crazy. "Those three powerhouses," he started loudly, then he coughed as he noticed Ashido glaring at him a few feet to his left, and remembered Uraraka standing behind him. "Not to mention Iida," Kaminari added after his cough.

Uraraka's face lit up in surprise as she realized she was included as one of those 'powerhouses,' while Iida turned his head and gawked at Kaminari's insult. Sero elbowed Kaminari in the side though and said with a laugh, "Nice save."

Zach shook his head over at Kaminari, then he turned it more and looked back at Uraraka and Midoriya. He glanced over at Iida, then Todoroki who stood farther back. His gaze shifted right past Momo as he looked towards Todoroki, but after he looked at him he looked back and pretended like he had not seen her staring at him when his gaze shifted by the first time. He smiled at her, then he turned back forward and looked towards the villains' side of the screen. _Focus. This is training. It might be fun, but if I'm in this match it's going to be the hardest thing-_

"Zach Sazaki," Midnight called out as the faces flipping fast through the box on the far left of the right half of the screen finally stopped on his class photo. It was his new class photo taken right after he returned in early January, his mouth a flat line and his bangs longer and messy over the top of his face unlike the parted way he had them now. He had wished for a few months now that he had at least pretended when he got that picture taken that he was happy, but he actually appreciated it for once that he looked scary like that.

Everyone spun towards Zach to see his reaction to getting put up against that other team, only for their eyes to open wide at the grin rising on his face. "Are you crazy?" Kaminari called to his right. "Stop looking so excited!"

Zach spun left in surprise, then looked around more nervously, only for Kirishima to step towards him from just on his left and hold up a clenched fist. "Yeah! Let's do this! I'm getting picked next!" Zach relaxed as Kirishima joined in with being excited about being on the villains' team, even though he was not on it yet.

"Yeah, we got this," Zach agreed, and he looked back competitively towards Midoriya who looked surprisedly back at him. After a second though, Midoriya smiled too and nodded his way with a competitive look in his own eyes. Uraraka felt relieved as she saw that smile, for some reason feeling like something was wrong up until Deku made it.

"Come on, come on," Kirishima held his fists in front of him and stepped past the rest of them. He looked up towards the middle blank under the word 'Villains' that kept spinning around. He was grinning his sharp teeth wide while most everyone behind him just hoped the board would agree and let Kirishima take up one of those spots.

The faces stopped flipping through, and all of the students and teachers' eyes widened at the face of the boy who appeared there. He had spiky bleached blond hair, and he blasted explosions off of his hands as he saw his face, "Alright!" Bakugo yelled, making everyone around him spin his way with even wider eyes at how excited he sounded. Bakugo was holding it back and pretending like it did not matter, but seeing his face up there let him show how much he wanted to be on the villains' team. He got on it and spun left after shouting, looking towards Midoriya and Uraraka, and Iida who had just headed over to talk with them. Midoriya leaned back at the threatening gaze, while Uraraka's face turned pale, and Iida sweatdropped as it looked bloodthirsty. Then Bakugo spun towards Todoroki farther than them and as far back as he was, and he shouted, "Destroy the heroes!"

"You really get into it whenever you're picked as a villain, I see," Sero joked, and they all thought back on the first combat training they had and how scary Bakugo got back then too.

"I don't want to be in this round," Kaminari said after a second of deliberation. He thought for a moment maybe it would be okay with Bakugo on his team, but he started shaking his head at the idea of what was about to go on past those walls. "All those monsters fighting each other at once," he said and shivered. "Kirishima, take my place if the computer picks-"

"The computer's picks are final," Aizawa said loudly and harshly before Kaminari could finish.

"Ah-em, I mean, yeah of course," Kaminari said, leaning away from his scary homeroom teacher before grimacing as he looked towards the board again.

All of Class A stared at the board. They all watched the box for the student farthest on the right, wondering who the seventh in this first round was going to be. The majority of them were not saying anything, but they agreed with Kaminari and just hoped Kirishima would get what he wanted here. Kirishima's arms shook at his sides as this sounded even more fun now with Bakugo and Zach on his team.

Yaoyorozu hummed to herself and did not look at the screens with as much anxiety as the others. Jirou glanced at her like she was crazy for doing so, but the shorter girl snapped her gaze back to the board as the faces started flashing through on the farthest right box. As Jirou begged not to get thrown into that mess, Yaoyorozu thought, _Considering the grace period the villains get, I would be able to make a series of traps. Bakugo could destroy the floor in different areas, and I could create a tarp that looks like the hallway's real floor. Pitfalls, as well as cannons I could set up at the end of halls. If we could fire the capture tape out cannons, or use trip wires and drop it as nets…_

 _Out of everyone here, I kind of want Yaoyorozu on our team,_ Zach thought. He shook his head after, then he paused and shook it again. _Just because of her power though. It would be really good in a situation like this, like it is for most situations… But let's get Kirishima! That could be really good. I don't think Bakugo'd work well as a team unless Kirishima's there. Plus Kirishima's really strong too, so if we play it right we just might-_

Everyone there stared at the last person to appear to finish off the seven. Zach stopped thinking and he lowered his head and looked to his right. Bakugo grunted but paid less attention than everyone else, still smirking afterwards and raising his fists as he turned back to their enemies. The teachers who were hoping the teams might even up depending on the last person all grimaced, though Midnight started grinning a few seconds later and shaking her head with a small laugh. She spun and swept the bottom furry part of her black whip out towards the short boy whose jaw was dropped and eyes were full of fear. "Minoru Mineta!"

 _Yes! Not me!_ Sero thought, while looking towards Mineta with a wide grin on his face that showed all his big teeth.

Tokoyami put a hand down on Mineta's right shoulder and Mineta snapped his gaze up to the dark boy who had a serious expression on his face. "Mineta. Don't worry about it."

"What's that supposed to mean?! You think I'm going to die in there!" Mineta shouted at Tokoyami, who instead of denying it just turned his head away like something else caught his attention.

Mineta dropped his jaw again, then Midnight started shouting even while All Might and Aizawa looked hesitantly in at her like they wanted to suggest changing up the teams. "Villain team! Head into Ground Omega! You will have five minutes to prepare. Good luck protecting your flag!"

The huge gates started to open up, and Bakugo sprinted towards them without waiting. He was laughing, but he stopped for a second as All Might called out, "Don't forget to grab your earpieces!" He lifted up a box with small white headsets in them, and Bakugo humphed in annoyance but turned and grabbed one of the ones on the villain side.

Zach let out a breath of relief as he saw Bakugo grabbing one before running in. Bakugo shouted behind him without looking back, "Move it!"

"I don't wanna anymore," Mineta began in a quiet and nervous voice.

"Come on Mineta," Zach said, looking down at the boy as he started walking forward. Mineta looked up and into Zach's eyes, and Zach grinned and said to him, "Let's win this. We can't do it without you." Zach turned forward and jogged towards All Might, reaching into the box and grabbing an earpiece to put in his right ear.

All Might looked at Zach in surprise, and Aizawa narrowed his eyes after a second at him too. _Does Sazaki have a plan, or is he…_

 _Really? Mineta? Ok, it's not the worst thing that could have happened… right? Well I can work with it anyway. Mineta beat Midnight sensei. He passed when Sero and I failed. That's why Midnight sensei doesn't look like she has zero faith in us like All Might and Aizawa sensei do. There's a lot he can do, as long as he feels confident enough. Hope he thinks I have some great plan for him or something-_

Mineta ran forward with a newfound confidence even as sweat was still covering his face. He grabbed a earpiece from All Might and fumbled while putting it in his ear as he ran through the gate. "Zach! Zach what are we going to do?! They have Midoriya and Todoroki and-"

"And nothing!" Bakugo's voice shouted into the headsets, making Zach and Mineta both wince and pull their heads to the opposite sides as their earpieces were in. Behind them, the teachers called out for the hero team to move forward into the waiting area just outside the gates that were closing again, past the wall that had all the screens on it for the rest of them to observe. The hero team grabbed their own headsets, while the teachers each put in their own that could monitor both teams' communications. All three teachers winced too as Bakugo's screaming voice filled their headsets, and they all lowered the volume for their own and also for the students they felt a little bad for. "I'm going to kick all their asses!"

Zach slowed down after the gates closed behind them, and he lifted a hand and covered his earpiece with one hand while turning to Mineta. He lifted his eyebrows a few times, and Mineta's eyes opened wide before he reached up and covered his headset too so Bakugo would not hear Zach's voice over it. Everyone outside except for the four heroes who started making their own infiltration plan started laughing as Zach and Mineta planned while jogging into the fortress, obviously hiding whatever they were talking about from Bakugo.

"…he's not going to listen to anything we say. But this is Bakugo, so he's definitely going to win. Or he'll be trying his hardest to from the very beginning. Which means, hopefully we have a few extra minutes that we can prepare." Zach lifted his hand off his ear and said louder, "The two of us should just stay as defense. Sound good Bakugo?"

"Do what you want! Don't let them take the flag."

"Let us know if anyone gets past you. Where are you by the way?"

Nothing responded back for a few seconds and both Zach and Mineta sweatdropped, then Bakugo snapped, "I'm on the second floor at the front of the building. The flag room is another floor up, get up there now!"

"Sure," Zach said, before instantly covering his headset again. "Alright Mineta, we got this. I need your help with the flag room for a second, but then let's split up and guard from different places."

"Separate?! But there are only three of us already, and Bakugo's not going to work with us! If we separate-"

"If we stay together, and Todoroki gets us all with a single ice attack, it'll be over before it started. It's a good thing Bakugo's not with us, because if either of us get caught it'll be up to him to save us," Zach said, and then he grimaced deeply just as Mineta did.

"Do you think he would?" Mineta whispered, really hoping their conversation could not be heard through his fingers over the earpiece.

"I think he wants to win," Zach replied. "So it depends on if he thinks our help would help him."

Outside Ground Omega, Midoriya, Todoroki, Iida, and Uraraka stood in a small circle just past the closed gates. There was a timer being projected on the gate, and they still had three more minutes to plan. "You think Bakugo's going to attack right away?" Todoroki asked Iida after what the class rep just theorized their opponents' plan would be.

"I don't know," Uraraka began hesitantly herself. "He looked to be running far ahead before the gates closed. He was almost inside the fort."

"An ambush?" Midoriya whispered, a hand up in front of his mouth as he muttered under his breath during their conversation. "I don't think Kacchan will go along with whatever plan Zach might make, or Mineta," Midoriya added, scratching his chin some more as he added it. "Bakugo's combat sense is unrivaled, but the other two think a lot too. Mineta can do more to slow us down… unless Zach decides to use his Nightmare form."

"Do you think he would?" Todoroki asked the green haired boy who was the closest to Zach out of the four of them.

Midoriya hummed, then he turned and glanced at the gate. "I think…"

"What?! Why not?!" Mineta shouted at Zach as they ran into the flag room on the third floor of the fortress.

"Do it now," Zach said, and Mineta ran forward still with a flustered and annoyed look. While Mineta pulled the purple Pop Off balls off his head, Zach responded to his question, "I won't use Nightmare on them. This is supposed to be a reward from the teachers I think. They're giving us this exercise without really much at stake, and it's a fun game of capture the flag. As intense as it might get, this feels like a game to me. It seems like everyone wants to have fun." Mineta looked over his shoulder with wide eyes, and Zach lifted his right hand and stared at it inside the glove. "If I wind up knocking someone out for a few hours, or a day, or two days… I can control it well, but I can't plan for their actions completely. If I'm a little off with my aim when trying to just get them to fall to their knees, take all their strength, I might wind up ruining their day. I could make it so they miss out on watching the next rounds, cheering on the others, and make what's supposed to be a good day turn into something unpleasant for everyone."

Zach clenched his lifted right hand into a fist and then lowered it down to his side. He looked over at Mineta to continue, then he shouted, "Keep going! We don't have a lot of time!" Mineta jumped at the shout and then nodded fast as he had totally forgotten, and he started pulling off the purple balls again and getting back to their plan. "Sorry," Zach added as he just shouted there. He meant it in two ways though, "I know it could get us an easier victory, maybe, if I just try filling up the area around the flag with Death. It's just not what I see as fun."

Bakugo stayed quiet as he stared out a window on the second floor, his back up against a wall next to it and only just glancing through. He stared through the glass towards the front gates he would have a view of from the second the other group entered, and he could see whatever strategy Deku put into place. He stopped thinking about his opponents and their probable strategies for a second though, the right corner of his lip lifting up before dipping down just as fast. _Good. But fuck you anyway. Damn it. Midnight sensei said our reports were good, but that bastard made mine sound boring. No, that's not it. That's not what bugs me about you, bastard._ Bakugo's head turned back a little from the sideways angle he was staring through the window, looking farther into the fortress and up at the ceiling above him. _But I don't know what it is. Those scars. Disappearing that same weekend the League of Villains were attacked. And then you, you got me believing your excuse by comparing me to the electro-idiot. I realized it later on. How quickly I changed my mind because of that. Did you expect that to happen? Is that why you said it?_

Bakugo spun his head right again as he heard 'one minute left' called out by Midnight sensei in front of the gates.

On the other side of those gates, Iida scratched his chin thoughtfully and then turned back to the gates himself. "So Bakugo-kun will not try attacking us all at once. Zach-kun will not use his Nightmare Form. And Mineta-kun will try to stop our movements. The path to the flag is straight-forward from what I could see looking at the camera angles earlier. There are other ways to it, but with the time limit-"

"That shouldn't be a problem for you," Todoroki started. Iida turned to him, and Todoroki added, "You should go around for the other door in that flag room. Bakugo will surely come after me or Midoriya if we go straight."

"We should both go straight," Midoriya agreed, looking at Todoroki and nodding his head. "The villains are at a disadvantage because of their numbers, but Kacchan is strong. Even the two of us together will not beat him easily. But if we can stop Kacchan, Iida can get to the flag and escape quickly. Quicker, if Uraraka makes his armor weightless. That way, your Engine and even your Reciproburst will be faster. Uraraka, could you hold onto Iida too and make yourself weightless?" Midoriya asked, and she nodded fast at him as there were only thirty seconds left to finish making a plan. "If using speed to grab the flag doesn't work, since Mineta might have blocked up both paths or the area around the flag, it might be the two of you versus the two of them. You'll have the advantage though, because they _have_ to protect the flag. They can't go wherever they want and leave the flag unprotected."

"Midoriya," Todoroki started. "Do you really think Bakugo will just stay distracted by us? If he sees the two of us running straight in, I am sure he'll know what we're planning."

"I don't think it'll matter," Midoriya replied, and Todoroki's eyebrows lifted in surprise. The other two looked confused as well, but Midoriya turned to the gates and continued while getting into a ready stance, "Kacchan will leave it to the other two. Zach wouldn't have any problem with telling him if they let the flag get stolen. Kacchan will just fight us until that happens, then he'll go after Iida, unless we can tie him up with the capture tape first. This is assuming Iida and Uraraka can get the flag though."

"Leave it to us," Iida said, pushing up on his glasses while facing the gate himself and leaning forward in a running stance.

"We've got this Deku!" Uraraka added and punched a fist up in the air. She then made herself weightless and grabbed onto Iida, doing the same with all his armor. "Let's win!" Uraraka shouted in a confident and excited tone.

Todoroki breathed out a visible cold breath and clenched both fists at his sides. "Didn't think this is where I'd have my rematch with Bakugo."

"I was thinking the same thing," Midoriya said. "But we can't think of it like that, when it's the two of us fighting together."

"He's going to go all out on both of us," Todoroki said. The timer was about to reach zero, and he lifted his fists and dug his feet down. "So let's do the same."

"Hey guys! Don't destroy the whole training ground in the first round!" Kaminari called forward with his hands cupped to his mouth.

"First match, START!" Midnight shouted, and the gates reopened.

"Here they come," Zach said, putting his hand next to his earpiece. "Bakugo, are they splitting up?"

Mineta glanced nervously back behind him, then ahead of him on the hallway he was standing in. _Why am I all alone?! In the main path too!_

"Grr, shut up," Bakugo said, but his words came out in a quiet voice.

 _He sees them running his way. Damn it. Just tell us where-_

"Glasses and Uraraka are going around the north side." Bakugo said, then he stopped talking and he ran off from his position at the windows before anyone could see him glancing through them. Bakugo moved around on the second floor, backed away from the windows and stepped out into the hallway. He took a deep breath, ignored the 'thanks' over the headset without even growling, and he just pointed his right hand down at the floor and curled his left hand's fingers in in front of it. "AP Shot," he said in a soft voice, while a huge smirk spread on his face at the sound of the door opening below and in front of him. "FIRE!"

Midoriya and Todoroki snapped their heads up and both skid to as quick a stop as they could. Bakugo was not dropping down right in front of them to give them the chance to sprint by and make it to the stairs. He blasted a hole in the ceiling they were about to run under, and he blew it apart with such force that the debris shot down before the falling teen himself. Bakugo lifted his right hand and pointed the green gauntlet forward, grabbing the pin on the side of it while Midoriya clenched his fist and Todoroki lifted his right hand.

"Already?!" Midoriya shouted as Bakugo was about to use his most powerful explosion at the start to blow them back.

The teachers outside held back from shouting at Bakugo not to kill his classmates, as unnerving as this straight-out assault within the first twenty seconds was. Todoroki's right side covered in ice and an ice wall shot out in front of him and filled the whole hallway. Bakugo smirked and let go of the pin he had grabbed on his right gauntlet, firing a normal explosion out in front of him instead and blasting himself back onto the second floor.

Midoriya's eyes started going wide as he heard the explosion but the ice did not get blasted backwards. "What happened?" Todoroki said, as he lowered his right arm and did not hear Bakugo trying to smash through the ice on the other side.

"He had us block up the main path, and cut off our access to the new hole in the ceiling," Midoriya said as he realized what Bakugo had done. "In that case," he was not waiting around, and he bent his knees and then jumped straight up at the ceiling above his head. He pulled his leg back, while Todoroki pointed his left hand forward and fired flames at his own ice wall. "We'll open up more! SMASH!" Midoriya kicked a hole through the ceiling, while Todoroki destroyed all of his ice.

Rubble flew up onto the second floor, then Midoriya snapped his body back. _I knew he'd expect me to come straight up._ Bakugo's right grabbing hand passed over the top of Midoriya's body, and Midoriya reached up both arms and grabbed onto it. He started swinging as his legs were touching down on a piece of ceiling-floor still rising, and he bent his knees and pushed off. Bakugo's other arm swinging around to slam into Midoriya's back opened its fingers and fired an explosion right before Midoriya extended his legs. Their trajectory changed from what Midoriya tried to do sending them at the wall behind them to throw them outside in front of the fortress, instead sending them sideways with Midoriya back-first towards a wall.

As soon as Midoriya's back hit the wall he gasped out, and Bakugo fired an explosion from his right hand that Midoriya's grip loosened a little from. He pulled his right arm backwards while swinging his left arm more, firing a series of explosions out of it that rippled in a line across the front of his body, one of which hit Midoriya and slammed him back into the wall he bounced off of. As Bakugo was swinging his arm though, his head was already turned the other way, and after his hand passed Midoriya he fired explosions from both hands out in front of him at the same time. Bakugo shot over the hole Midoriya made and over his own hole in the floor, but a glance down showed him a trail of ice going down that hallway. Bakugo did not slow down, even as he saw the path of ice splitting off in three different directions at the intersection at the edge of his vision through the hole.

 _You think you're so smart,_ Bakugo thought, and he stopped blasting explosions behind him and just sprinted down the second floor hall and cut right. He fired a blast that way, then he cut back and ran down the hallway straight. Bakugo sprinted towards the stairwell and leapt up before he reached the door, put his left hand close to it, and he fired a huge explosion with the sweat from running over there without making it too big he'd need to destroy the gauntlet. The door blasted backwards, and Todoroki lifted his left hand as soon as he heard the blast. The door was almost on him when he fired the huge fiery blast out of his own hand, the only thing strong and fast enough to stop the door moving at that speed from slamming into him. He blasted a hole through the door and slowed its momentum a little, but the two halves of it still hit him and threw him back into the wall at the top of the second floor stairwell. The stairs did not keep going to the third floor but forced him inwards since above it was the exterior of the fortress that narrowed in towards the top.

The explosion Todoroki fired smashed through the door though, and through the explosion Bakugo fired into it. As Todoroki was thrown back into the stairs, Bakugo slammed into the wall on the other side of the hallway as the stairwell entrance, even if he did pull his body mostly to the right before it happened. His left shoulder and most of his left arm got burned, but after he slammed into the wall and closed his eyes with a loud grunt, his eyes snapped back open and his head spun to the right. He glared down the hallway at the light he saw bouncing on the walls in his direction, and he rose his right gauntlet that way and pulled the pin.

Midoriya was using Full Cowling down the hall to get a hit on Bakugo who he saw falling off of the wall looking injured. Bakugo's head snapped his way without warning though, and as Midoriya tried to get there faster, Bakugo just decided to blow up the entire hallway. Midoriya turned right as the explosion was coming out, and he had just bounced to the ceiling so the fastest way he could get out was going straight down. He pushed off his bent legs and shot at the floor with both arms crossed in front of him. "CAROLINA SMASSHHH!" Midoriya swung both arms out as he was about to hit the floor, and All Might's mouth curved into a huge grin outside even as Midoriya had to use his arms instead of his legs to get out of it. The entire floor around where Midoriya hit blew apart, and then all that rising rubble and the bottoms of Midoriya's legs were caught in Bakugo's enormous explosion. That explosion also ripped apart even more of the floor, the walls on the sides of the hall, and made the floor above shake violently and crack right in front of Mineta whose jaw was on the floor at the sound of all the explosions right below him.

"I can't do this!" Mineta screamed, turning and sprinting away right as a crack formed in the floor between his legs.

"Get back to the flag Mineta! Iida and Uraraka are here!"

Zach stood at the end of a hallway that had a single line of Mineta's Pop Off balls hanging from one side of the hallway to the other. The balls were stuck to the middle of the walls, and the whip dipped down in the middle of the hall but was still above the ground a little even at the center. Zach stood on the other side of them a few feet back with his hands down at both sides of his waist, his fingers twitching next to his weapons while he looked down the hallway with narrowed eyes at the two who just sprinted up the stairs together. Most of them were on the second floor now, with only Mineta above on the flag floor. _Thought I'd have a little more time with them going around the whole building, but Uraraka made Iida faster than ever. Jumping over Mineta's trap won't be hard if they're weightless, but hopefully Iida's not since he wouldn't be used to weighing nothing and wouldn't have good movements. What do I do? Just keep bluffing until they run close!_

Zach snapped the black grappling gun up from his left side, the only thing still black on his entirely white costume now lined with bone particulate inside the material it was made out of. Zach rose the grappling gun and pointed it down the hallway like a real gun, confusing the two who stared at it, exactly like Zach wanted them to. _Why would I point a grappling gun at them? I guess I could fire it if they sprint towards me. Wouldn't pierce Iida's armor, but it could knock him off course, or maybe if I time it right I could actually get it around his leg and trip him up into Mineta's balls._

"Uraraka-kun, let's use our number advantage," Iida suggested in a quiet voice. The fastest path was clearly the one in front of him, but they had gotten this far quickly. "There is no need to fight," Iida added. _When we cannot be sure that Zach-kun will not try and knock us out after pretending like he won't for the start of the fight._ Iida erred on the side of caution, and he said, "Now, go!" His engines turned on while Uraraka leapt off of his back, and they both shot different directions in the hallway just outside the door of the last stairwell.

"Mineta, your trap worked," Zach said. "Stay calm. Iida and Uraraka are running around to find a different route to the stairs, I'm coming up!"

Zach ran down the hallway behind him, cut right, and he ran straight towards the door to the stairs up in the back of the fortress. It was not the main stairwell, but Zach remembered seeing it outside when they were looking at the camera angles in the building too. He ran inside and sprinted up the stairs cautiously, stepping around the Pop Off balls scattered every couple of steps and keeping his head on a swivel to check behind him and make sure no one was coming.

Zach ran to the top of the stairs and through the door, then called out, "Mineta!"

"I'm coming!" Mineta yelled back. Zach heard it over his headset but also down the hall on his left, and he turned to see Mineta bouncing on Pop Off balls he left in a scattered line going around that hallway and a lot of the floor. Mineta bounced all the way to the one closest to the auxiliary staircase door, and Zach slammed it shut before Mineta pulled off two balls from the top of his head. He winced as he pulled them off, and Mineta said while he stuck the balls to the crack of the door in two places so it wouldn't be able to open, "It's starting to hurt. I can't do this much longer. It's only two minutes in! Zach how are we supposed to-"

"Bakugo's keeping them busy," Zach said. "And I don't think Iida or Uraraka have the power to bust down this door easily. It'll definitely hurt Iida and mess with his Engines if he has to use Reciproburst."

"Damn it! DEKU!" Bakugo's voice came through their headsets and both Zach and Mineta winced, then they heard him scream, "DIE!"

"SMASH!" Mineta and Zach also heard that in their heads.

"Oh shit," Zach muttered. He spun his head, then he turned to Mineta and said, "Guard the door."

"Wh-What?! Where are you-"

Zach sprinted back down the hall, still making sure not to get stuck to one of Mineta's Pop Off balls that were put in tricky locations and just around corners. "Bakugo!" Zach called out as he sprinted towards the flag room. "Do you still have both of them-"

"I will in a second!" Bakugo yelled back furiously, and in some pain.

 _I knew it!_ Zach sprinted even faster down the corridors, and he ran straight towards the open door in the back of the flag room. He sprinted through it into the room, then he snapped his head towards the opposite door that flew open at the same time he entered. Zach stared towards that door and his eyes opened wide as he saw Todoroki step into the room with caution in his gaze. Todoroki darted his eyes towards Zach, then back to the flag, then around at the Pop Off balls around the room.

They were scattered, but also mainly just around the flag so no one could stand directly next to it. There were a few around the bottom of the flag pole so no one would be able to take it away, but Todoroki saw this and just breathed out some steam. Zach sprinted into the room. He sprinted as fast as he could straight towards the flag, _The one place he can't attack with full power!_ Zach sprinted, and then he leapt up in the air right before the entire floor of the room froze. Every single Pop Off ball froze in place, leaving small icy bumps scattered around the room and a bumpier area just around the flag. There was no purple left in the room after a single instant though, and Zach grimaced at how many of Mineta's Pop Off balls they wasted doing that. _No, we couldn't have just expected Todoroki would be the first one here,_ Zach thought as he landed and skid forward on the ice. He had his head turned towards Todoroki, then he winced and fell forward, his eyes opening huge and darting down towards the small round bump in the ice his skidding right foot slammed into.

He tumbled forward, then he came out of his roll into a slippery sprint, dodging the ice that just rose up where he was rolling. Todoroki slid forward, ice forming beneath him and rising over the other ice as he shot towards the middle of the room that Zach had just reached. Zach pulled out his grappling gun and pointed it Todoroki's way. _Fuck it!_ Zach fired straight at Todoroki's right arm. Todoroki swung that right arm in front of him and made a wave of ice that blocked the end of the grappling gun, and then froze it which Zach realized as he tried tugging the hook back to himself. Todoroki slid up the side of the wave and threw more ice after it to curve himself back towards the middle of the room. As he came around the curve though, he had to duck as the gun came flying at his head since Zach no longer had a use for it.

Zach pulled out a knife from his right side, and he lifted the white hilt in front of him while standing in front of the flag frozen in the ice. He took a deep breath and let it out, and it hung in the air because of how cold the room had become with ice covering the floor, rising up the bottoms of the walls, and in huge waves curving around it. _Come on Bakugo. Midoriya tells me you're still stronger than he is. Please prove he's not just being modest. I can't take Todoroki._

Todoroki dropped off of his wave right in front of Zach only ten feet away. Todoroki's head bowed a little and he stared up through the tops of his eyes at Zach, and Zach smirked while turning his knife in his right hand into a different stance with the blade pointed out to his right side instead of pointing in front of him. He let out another cold breath as Todoroki did the same, and Todoroki could see Zach thinking about how he could protect the flag at his back, and nothing else. _Completely separating himself from everything else going on. How he acted during his report, is nothing like I see him act at the dorm. How he acts in a fight, or in public, it's always different. If he closes his eyes right now, what would he think about?_

"What are you thinking about, Todoroki?" Zach asked, and Todoroki's narrowed and intense eyes widened. He did not think his expression was anything less than serious, but Zach's eyes got darker as he glared into Todoroki's. His voice was quiet so he would not be heard over his earpiece, and he said, "Where is your focus?" Zach sprinted forward. _What am I saying? Why was he just standing there? He shouldn't have given me any time to think. He must have been thinking something weird._ Zach tossed his knife at Todoroki who was stepping towards him and raising his left hand, Todoroki had to smack that left hand into the knife, then he leaned away as Zach curled the fist of the hand he tossed it with. His slammed his right fist forward, but he pulled it in and extended his elbow while jumping off the floor that he caught out the bottoms of his eyes Todoroki's right foot just froze. He lifted off the ground and extended his right elbow out for Todoroki's chest, but Todoroki leapt back after freezing the floor, as well as the bottom of Zach's feet that did not rise far enough off the ground in his jump.

"Shit!" Zach shouted, and he reached down and pulled the second knife off of his right side. He bent his body back and then slammed it down, right as Todoroki was sliding forward fast on his right side. _Damn it!_ "No!" Zach yelled, as he tried slamming his knife through the ice between his legs only for more of it to rise up his legs and almost to the bottom of his waist. His knife dug a few inches into the ice, but it did not break through it or anything, and Todoroki just reached the flag. He grabbed the flag and he pointed his left hand down at the bottom that was frozen into the floor. A jet of flames shot out of his hand into the floor, the Pop Off balls, and the bottom of the flag, and then Todoroki lifted most of the flag and flag post except for the very bottom he burned away.

Todoroki paused a moment after lifting the flag, saying, "Those really are strong." He looked down at Mineta's surviving Pop Off balls while all his ice and the ground and flag had been burnt up. Then Todoroki turned to start running back towards the entrance he had come through before which was the closest route to the door.

"NO!" Zach yelled, his voice getting deeper and scratchier, and Todoroki's head turning more with wider eyes as Zach's entire body covered in a black veil. Todoroki turned in that much surprise because he had not seen Zach use this for months now, as he had only been training it in private.

Zach had risen straight up after failing to break through the ice with his knife. He let go of the knife with his right hand, smacked his right hand into his chest while reaching out with his left and catching that knife. As he caught the knife with his left hand, he slammed his whole body back down while the black veil was covering it, though most of the black veil was pushing to one side of his body and down that arm. Todoroki's eyes opened wide as Zach's pitch black right hand curled into a fist and slammed down at the ice covering the bottom of his body. All the ice around Zach's legs blew apart, and a black wind blasted off of the punch that made Zach spin his head and open his red eyes wide towards Todoroki who was not too far from him.

A wall of ice rose up between Todoroki and those black tendrils though, making it big and thick to eliminate any chance of them touching him. Todoroki let out a small but heavy breath as he avoided touching any of it, but the young man with a burn scar on half his face got a confused look as Zach turned and sprinted the other way as the ice wall they just put up while the darkness vanished from around him. Zach did not sprint towards either of the doors, just away from the wall, and away from him. _Why would he- below!_ Todoroki realized it, the ground beneath him started to shake. He forced ice out of his right side, but after just making such a large ice wave in front of him, it was not immediate. It needed to be instantaneous too, as Bakugo did not give Zach much of a warning, before he blew a giant hole straight in the floor with his second gauntlet.

The explosion was not right on target with Todoroki, as it was closer to the door Todoroki came in through, but the explosion was huge. "Bakugo you idiot!" Zach yelled while ducking behind one of Todoroki's earlier ice waves that the top of just blew apart when hit by a huge piece of floor debris. "What if you destroy the flag?!"

"He wouldn't let it get destroyed," Bakugo yelled while flying up through the floor, his second gauntlet destroyed as he rose above, a bruise on his left cheek and blood coming out of that nostril, but no sign of Midoriya anywhere. Bakugo landed at the edge of the hole and looked towards where Todoroki was getting back on his feet. There was some blood on Todoroki's right arm where the blue sleeve was gone, blood coming from a slash by some debris and not from the burned skin around it. While Zach ran after Todoroki blocked him with the wall, he had told Bakugo the exact location of Todoroki and that he had the flag, after hearing Bakugo shout he was blasting through the floor.

Zach heard Bakugo's response to his panicked shout and his eyes widened, then he poked back up over the ice wall behind him that was some of the only ice to survive the explosion that just ripped through the floor. Looking over the ice he saw Todoroki and Bakugo facing off, Todoroki having to hold the flag in his left hand while he rose his bloody right arm in front of him.

Only as Bakugo lifted up his left hand, did Zach notice that Bakugo had blood seeping out between the fingers of his right hand that was staying down at his side. _This is absurd,_ Zach thought, even as he grinned and started sprinting at Todoroki.

"He's mine!" Bakugo yelled.

"I'm just getting the flag!" Zach yelled right back. "I'll leave you to it when I get it back!"

"Guys?! Does he still have it?!" Mineta yelled over their headsets, as he thought with Bakugo's enormous explosion following the talk with Zach that their team would have gotten it back already. "Do you want me to- oh crap!" Mineta spun back to the door to the auxiliary staircase behind him that just blew off the hinges on the opposite side as where he put his Pop Off balls. _I should have put them on both sides!_ He shouted at himself in regret, while stumbling and falling backwards at the side of Iida flipping through the air with blue flames coming out the back of his legs. He had heard Uraraka's failed attempts to smash down the door and then Iida's, but he did not hear them make a plan or anything and did not see this coming all of a sudden.

Iida's head spun and he looked down through his glasses at Mineta who fell back on his butt at the intense look on Iida's face. _While they have all been fighting! What have we been doing back here?!_ Iida heard Zach and Bakugo's shouts over Todoroki's headset, and they knew Todoroki was in the middle of fighting the two of them. The fact that the team with only three had a numerical advantage while he and Uraraka were on the other side of the building made the class rep furious. He glared down at Mineta and shouted, "To the flag!"

Mineta scooted backwards on his butt, a terrified look in his eyes. He turned and started running before Iida fell, sprinting back towards the hallway closer to the flag room. "They're right behind me!" Mineta shouted.

"Hold them off!" Zach yelled right back.

Mineta stopped at the intersection, his eyes opening huge as Zach said it. "I can't!" He yelled. He looked behind him and saw Uraraka running out of the stairwell too, then pointing his way while Iida dropped down to a knee for a second to wait for his Engines to stop overheating.

"A hero can always break out of a tight pinch," Zach called into his earpiece, while stumbling backwards and falling to his butt, holding the flag tight in both arms against his own chest. He held it close and turned to run, and he heard an explosion behind him and Bakugo yelling at Todoroki 'where are you looking?' Zach grinned, Bakugo smirked as Todoroki flew back, and then Zach said into his earpiece, "Think constantly, Mineta." Bakugo's smirk as Todoroki flew backwards dropped immediately, his eyes opening wide and his head turning to the side. Todoroki almost wanted to shout the same thing Bakugo just yelled at him right back, but instead he slammed his bloody right palm into the floor as he hit down, sending a wave of ice at Bakugo who bit down but lifted his busted hand too in order to smack both of them forward rapidly enough with as many explosions as needed to blow through all the ice.

Outside of Ground Omega, All Might's amazed smile as he watched the battles like everyone else dipped down too. His eyes opened huge, his bottom lip lowered, and he stared straight at the camera angle into the middle of the flag room floor where Zach had gone back to the center area and dropped the flag. He grabbed a chunk of ice near him and tossed it over on top of the flag with some effort, then he dropped to his butt on it and started panting while putting a hand to his ear and continuing to talk into his earpiece.

Mineta stopped running right after turning into the hallway adjacent to the one the staircase was in. His eyes had opened wide as Zach told him 'a hero can always break out of a tight pinch,' but he stopped completely at that second part and spun his head around. _Think constantly,_ he thought, and he clenched his eyes shut as he heard more explosions the way he had just been running. _I can't go that way! It'll be three on three if Midoriya isn't there, and what if he does get there?! Even if he doesn't, one of them could take the flag while we're fighting, and we'd never catch Iida. If Iida gets in there. If he gets the flag- we'll lose! Does that really matter?! I don't want to die!_ Mineta took another step back, hearing Iida and Uraraka's voices around the corner getting closer and not caring about their volume like they thought he had kept running away. Knowing that they thought that of him made Mineta's legs stop shaking as much, and he bit down even with the fear all over his face.

"Remember Mineta. It was always supposed to be the two of them against you," Zach said, and Mineta started breathing heavier but slower breaths. Bakugo's expression got confused even as he ran towards Todoroki and blasted himself to the right to dodge a jet of flames. He did not know when they had talked about this before like Zach seemed to be referencing, but the other two had made plans without talking to him in the first place. "Midoriya and Todoroki might not be able to get off of your Pop Offs either, but they could destroy the ground around it easily if they got caught. It would be an inconvenience for them, but for those other two, you can take them out completely. Stick them Mineta. Find a way. Midnight sensei beat me and Sero, but you took down a pro hero on your own. What can Iida and Uraraka do to stop you?"

Zach covered his earpiece more after saying all that, and he started panting and bowed his head. _Damn, it. My legs hurt. That was so cold._ He started shaking them out, and he lifted the left corner of his mouth while raising off his butt from the ice that was starting to make his white pants damp from sitting on it for so long. He glanced down at the flag underneath it, then around at the Pop Off balls still in the room attached to some debris. _Mineta's Quirk seems really weak, but it's his personality that makes that true. He's actually smart, and can be strategic, and if he just has some confidence…_

 _Zach's right, I did beat Midnight sensei all on my own! I had Zach with me, and he got knocked out in few seconds! Just like Sero!_ Mineta's lips curled into a grin and he wiped some sweat off his face while he started pulling Pop Off balls from his head fast despite the pain. Iida and Uraraka ran around the corner and then came to a stop, their eyes opening wide and both of them diving to the sides at the sight of a purple whip of balls flying towards them. Iida's Engines pushed him away faster, but Uraraka still managed to dodge too back the way they came. The end of the whip hit down between Iida and Uraraka right in that intersection, then Iida turned around after running off, cutting back in and calling out, "Villain! We will get past you!"

Iida ran around the corner, turned his head, and his eyes opened huge. Mineta was attached to the wall right at the edge of the corner, using one hand to hold himself there with a single Pop Off ball, and the other on the ball at the end of the whip he had slammed into the middle of the intersection. Mineta pushed off of the ball on the wall and bounced at Iida with arms wide, and he threw his arms around Iida and wrapped the side of his body in a hug. "Get off of me, Minet- Villain!" Iida yelled, keeping in his persona while swinging his arm and throwing Mineta off of him and farther down the side of the hall he had just run to to dodge the whip.

"Iida!" Uraraka shouted.

Iida spun towards her, then he looked down and his eyes opened wide behind his glasses. There was a single Pop Off ball attached to the front of his armor, but it was attached to a line of them that fell to the floor without being held up as tautly anymore. He did not even have the full length of the whip to move, just ten or so balls before the whip connected to his chest touched the floor. "Hahaha. Mwhahaha! MWHAHAHAHA!" Mineta shouted while getting to his feet, wiping his face with one arm.

Iida spun back to Mineta with wide eyes, and hearing Mineta's laughter he shouted, "You fiend!"

"Iida! I'll get you out of-"

"No, Uraraka-kun," Iida said, spinning back her way. "I will get out of my armor. You keep going to the flag!"

"Taking off your armor huh?" Mineta asked, speaking down his nose while walking forward. Iida turned with a nervous look on his face at Mineta's menacing and cocky voice. Mineta lifted up both hands in front of him, and with blood on the bottom of his eyelids he asked, "You really think I'll let you do that, hero?!" He pulled the end of the capture tape away from its other side, and he started running at Iida while laughing madly.

"Iida!"

"Go Uraraka-kun!"

Uraraka hesitated as she ran for his back, then she hummed affirmatively and turned down the next hallway instead. "Zach! Uraraka's coming!" Mineta shouted, while he ran around Iida staying a good distance but swinging the tape at him to try and wrap him up. Iida lifted his arms to try and start taking off his armor, but Mineta got close when he'd try.

After a couple of seconds Iida stopped struggling to remove his armor, and he said, "First, I'll stop you villain!" Heat came out the back of Iida's legs that he was still able to turn despite being stuck in pretty much the same space. Then the class rep felt his calves hurting as the heat was blocked, and Iida's eyes opened huge and snapped down. "When did you?!" Purple balls covered the back of both of Iida's calves in another smaller purple whip.

"You were too busy trying to take off your armor the last time I ran around you," Mineta said in an even cockier voice than before. He started walking forward, no longer worried about Iida's kicks which were his main reason for staying away. "Now hero, it's time for you to be captured!"

"Hi-yaa!" Mineta started turning, and a hand smacked him hard in the left side of his face. Not only did he get thrown off his feet, but he kept flying off the ground farther and farther down the hallway past Iida and back towards the door the heroes had broken down before.

"Iida!" Uraraka shouted as she looked at her partner she ran back for.

"I cannot believe it," Iida said, in such an ashamed and embarrassed voice as he rose his right hand to his forehead. He reached down with both hands and grabbed the Pop Off balls, and he yanked back from his calves as hard as he could. He started gasping and panting after a few seconds of trying and failing, then his eyes opened huge as he tried pulling his hands off of them. "Oh no," he said. Uraraka sweatdropped as did most people who were watching the screen with Iida on it as he was now stuck in a ridiculous, and uncomfortable-looking position with his hands sticking down on the back of his calves. "Run Uraraka-kun! We must get the flag!"

"I'm on it!" Uraraka called out, though apologetically as she backed away from Iida.

"Don't leave me up here!" Mineta shouted her way, and Uraraka turned down the hall to see Mineta against the ceiling. He was no longer flying without gravity as he had taken off one of his Pop Offs and stuck it above him, but he was still weightless and did not know what to do.

"Sorry Mineta," Uraraka shouted to the boy with a hand-print on the left side of his face and bloody tears streaking down it.

Uraraka started running down the next hallway that her and Iida had tried running down over a minute ago now, and she picked up her speed with a super intense look coming to her face. _I can still hear Bakugo's explosions, and Mineta shouted to Zach that I was coming a minute ago._

 _Think constantly. Think constantly._ Mineta snapped his eyes open and reached up his free arm, wiping the blood from beneath his eyes.

Uraraka picked up speed as she turned around a corner, and her eyes widened as she saw through an open door just ahead of her and into a room with giant holes in the floor and walls, chunks of ice scattered around, and a boy in the middle of it staring her way with a knife in one hand and a grappling gun in the other. Zach grinned as he saw Uraraka, who he was expecting to come much sooner but understood through Mineta's headset that she had gone back and attacked him.

Uraraka ran forward, but she slowed down as she heard Iida's voice in her head, "Wait! What are you- Uraraka-kun!"

The shorter girl with brown hair turned her head sideways, and her eyes opened wide as a boy flew past the last intersection and almost shot right by the turn that would have sent him out some windows. Mineta reached a hand forward though and slammed another Pop Off ball into the corner of the turn, jolting the rest of his weightless body back without much pain. He spun himself around the corner and grinned towards Uraraka, then he yanked himself forward off his Pop Off ball and sent himself flying gravity-less down the entire hallway like a missile that was laughing even as he had to squint his eyes because of the blood in them.

"Alright Mineta!" Zach shouted. "You're doing it! Awesome!" _Holy crap, and I'm not only saying that to hype you up anymore!_

"Release!" Uraraka pulled her fingertips against each other and kept running at full speed again towards Zach. Both Zach and Mineta's eyes opened wide, then the short boy flying down the hallway gained gravity again. Mineta let out a scream right before he hit down on the ground and started tumbling forward behind Uraraka whose face gained an intense look and made Zach step back as she sprinted through the doorway.

Uraraka did not slow down, spotting the flag behind Zach and under a block of ice. She sprinted towards him, and Zach tossed his knife from his right hand to his left, slamming his grappling hook down into the sheath at the same time. Zach lunged the knife forward, and Uraraka pivoted one foot to the side. _Gunhead Martial Arts! Against someone with a knife, pivot one foot to disappear from your opponent's line of-_ Uraraka's eyes opened huge before she could reach in for Zach's wrist. Zach's head was already turning the direction she had pivoted to, as he remembered her fight against Thirteen in the Final Exam last year and knew her fighting style well which was why he led her into this. He smirked as she looked into his eyes, then he fired.

Uraraka's head snapped down, _When did he-_ The grappling gun she thought he had put away was grabbed by the hand that tossed the knife, which had started moving down for it at the same moment he caught the knife in a big movement with his left hand. The wire wrapped around Uraraka's body, and she thought, _He put the gun away, to make it seem like he wasn't trading hands!_ Uraraka brought her hand forward anyway, since Zach had brought it close distance before firing at her.

Zach yanked hard to the side, _She's light!_ He knew he could do it, but the problem was time. He snapped his upper body to the side and down, letting Uraraka's hand pass over him. Her other hand hit him in the side. Zach was so focused on the hand moving over the top of his body, he didn't notice the other that she was curving down to keep out of his line of sight. Zach lost the strength of his tug as he no longer had the weight of his body below him, and his feet lifted off the ground while Uraraka just stumbled to the side and fell to one knee instead of being thrown like Zach had hoped. She spun towards the flag and started running to it while getting off a knee. "I don't think so!" Zach yelled, and he reached both hands forward onto the wire extending from the grappling gun, letting go of his knife and the gun which had turned weightless with him when she touched his body.

Zach pulled himself as fast as Mineta had been moving before at Uraraka, and she saw him coming right as she made the ice in front of her weightless. Uraraka spun and threw the ice chunk behind her, then she touched her fingertips together and returned both Zach and the ice's gravity. Zach gasped in pain as the ice slammed into his face fast. Uraraka started panting while turning her head to the flag again, reaching up her free hand and pulling the hook out from beneath the wire that had wrapped around her, and letting it all drop to the ground just as Zach and the ice that hit him did behind her.

"No!" Mineta shouted from the doorway, and Uraraka turned to see Mineta with one arm out using the doorway as support. He lifted his head and called out while looking a mess, "That flag is ours! You cannot take it!"

Uraraka turned towards the windows at the side of the room that had all been shattered, and she started running without saying a thing to Mineta. She dragged the flag with her, but she made it weightless and pulled the post up in her arms, then her head snapped to the side as she felt the vibration right behind her. "Raa!" Zach came down, but Uraraka felt him before his jump. He knew she had seen him which was why he yelled out to try and intimidate her, but Uraraka sidestepped fast, and she made it look like she was going right first. _Shit! I fell for the feint!_ Zach hit down and put both hands on the ground and bent both knees, then he shot out of the crouched position and ran for Uraraka who was nearing the windows.

"Don't let her get outside!" Mineta yelled.

"If you two lose the flag, I'll kill you!"

Zach did not need the extra motivation from either of them, and he dove at Uraraka with his left arm outstretched before she reached the window. He grabbed her by the back of her pink costume at her left shoulder, then she spun around and swung the weightless flag around behind her. Zach got smacked in the face by it and the flag bounced off, but it did not hurt very much. Uraraka's other hand coming back in a fist though, he did not want to get hit by that. _Then again,_ he reached his right hand across his body and grabbed the weightless flag, and he oofed as a fist hit him in the right side of his face. Uraraka's eyes opened wide as Zach did not try to dodge her punch, but Zach recovered from it fast even while still feeling pain, pulling back on the flag hard.

 _Release!_ Uraraka reached her punching hand back to the one holding the flag, making it full of weight again and making Zach's hold on it no longer work as twenty pounds of weight was not easy to tug in the way he was doing with his right hand crossed in front of his body. He punched his left hand under that arm while losing his grip, slamming Uraraka in the side as she pulled forward to try and get out the window. Uraraka let go of the flag as she stumbled to the side, and Mineta stopped stagger-running towards them from back near the middle of the room.

"Ah! Zach you can't hit-"

Uraraka spun around and she jumped up. Zach did not have that much force behind his hit because of his weird position punching his left arm under his right, but now he was in even more an awkward position. He fell backwards with the flag as Uraraka was no longer pulling the other way, and he lifted his right leg to try and slam down behind him for balance, but Uraraka was already diving at him. She smacked a hand down into Zach's face and made him weightless again while he was falling, and then as Zach flipped over as he hit the ground, Uraraka punched her other hand forward and hit him in the gut, sending him flying backwards and letting go of the weightless flag that Uraraka had grabbed with her other hand.

Uraraka turned and she sprinted for the window again only a few feet away. Mineta started running again and shouted, "Ah! What do we-"

"Get behind me!" Zach yelled out. _We only have seconds!_

Mineta's eyes opened wide, then he ran towards Zach and jumped right as Zach was finishing a tumble over in midair. He bent his knees after his feet touched into Mineta's palms, and then Mineta pushed forward while Zach jumped out of that position. "HAAAA!" Zach yelled, trying to make Uraraka scared so she could not use her power in a good way to get out of the third floor without dropping too fast. She turned her head with wide eyes while just at the windowsill, and then her eyes widened even more when she was about to duck, as a weightless Zach would go flying through the window of the third story of the fortress. Uraraka put her hands together to make everything have weight again, then she instantly made the flag weightless while turning and getting ready to jump out the window.

Zach saw her making him have weight again coming though, and as he gained weight and fell towards the ground littered in ice chunks and debris, the only thing he focused on was one of Mineta's Pop Off balls that he made sure he did not land on. He hit the ground and into a hard roll that scraped through the knees and elbows of his costume, and he felt a rattling in a few of his bones, something really hurt in his back, but he came out of his roll into a full-out sprint and dove at Uraraka whose head started turning to the side again. "That's ours!" Zach yelled, and this time Uraraka's face really did get scared as Zach dove at her. She pulled away, but Zach's diving arms did not grab her, only the top of the weightless flag she was holding.

Zach grabbed the flag, and then his momentum continued his dive straight out the window with his eyes opening huge. "Zach!" Uraraka shouted in panic, and she held onto the flag as hard as she could while grabbing the inside of the window with one hand. Mineta started sprinting up behind her, and he had an idea and reached up to the top of his head. Zach dropped down, both arms up grabbing the post of the flag. His eyes opened huge right before he felt the jolt, and the flag post wobbled just outside the window. He looked up and saw Uraraka leaning the top half of her body out the window, a strained look on her face as she tried holding the flag and the inside of the window that had some glass on it and was cutting into her palm.

"Don't let go!" Uraraka called out.

Mineta ran up behind Uraraka and attached a Pop Off ball to either of her feet, then he leaned outside with blood coming out the corners of his eyes again. Both Mineta and Uraraka were reaching down, but Zach's gaze never shifted to either of their faces. Zach had felt himself dropping with the flag, then he jolted to a stop and looked back to see Uraraka holding onto it with all her might farther back on the flag post and trying to pull it away. Zach let go of one hand on the post, and his other slid off in that same second. Mineta and Uraraka both started shouting, "ZA-" Zach's right hand that slid off the post slid down the blue flag below it, but it tightened into that flag, just as his left hand swept up above him. Zach slashed a knife up against the flag post where the flag connected to it, and he fell.

Uraraka and Mineta dropped their jaws instead of shouting as Zach started falling from the third floor. He let go of the knife in his left hand and used it to grab the flag he just released from his right, while reaching his right hand in and touching himself in the chest while he fell. The building got narrower farther towards the top, so the outer part of the second floor beneath him was only fifteen feet below him. The building's earlier floors were much taller too with the grand hall in the first floor being really tall, and the second floor being a little smaller, but the bottom of the windows of the third floor were only twenty feet up, and Zach was already hanging down before he dropped. He covered in a black veil as he fell, wishing he still had his grappling gun as he bent his legs and prepared for the landing, focusing Death down his legs as it covered his entire body.

Zach hit down on the roof of the second floor, and he heard creaking in his bones. He looked down through the darkness, but then he snapped his head up before actually looking to see what was wrong. He had focused so much Death down on his legs right before falling that it was too thick at the moment to see inside, and he decided as it started to thin out that he did not want to know. _How much time is left?_ He thought instead, while patting his chest with his right hand again, and pushing his balled left fist and the flag in it into the floor on his other side to rise off his butt.

He winced at pain he felt mostly in his left leg but was present too in his right. _It's not broken. It doesn't feel broken._ He staggered up to his right foot first, then he punched his balled left fist into the ground below him, only to wince as he had gotten rid of the black aura and punching a stone surface hurt his knuckles. The pain in his knuckles shifted some from his left leg though, and he was able to get up on that before looking up towards the window above where Uraraka and Mineta were staring down at him in shock. "Mineta! Trap her there!" Zach shouted, his eyes widening in confusion as to why Mineta was in the window, but not caring enough to think beyond what Mineta could do now to help.

The small boy with blood in his eyes fell backwards on his butt, feeling relieved and scared at the same time that Zach managed to survive that with almost no damage. He looked at Uraraka who was still staring out the window in shock, then he said while rubbing the left side of his face where she smacked him before, "Already done."

Uraraka spun to Mineta, then she snapped her head down and looked at the Pop Off balls attached to her feet that she knew Mineta attached so she wouldn't get pulled out the window. "Ah! Noo!" Uraraka realized it as she tugged her feet up, she was not getting out of this any time soon.

 _Oh man,_ Mineta thought while falling back on his back and staring at the cracked ceiling of the flag room above him. _If I use any more, they're not even going to be too sticky. I feel like crap, and they're going to lose their adhesiveness soon._ He shook his head around and leaned back up, looking at Uraraka who kept struggling despite feeling how hard she was stuck to the floor. Mineta got a nervous look on his face but made it a confident one after a second anyway. "Wait a second," he whispered, an amazing idea coming to his head. His cheeks turned bright red, and he lifted up his capture tape, "Just in case they're already too weak," he started, drool coming out the corner of his mouth while Uraraka turned to him and it was her turn for her face to change color, though to blue instead of red. "Uraraka! Let me tie you up!"

 _"YAAA!"_

Outside of Ground Omega, most of Class A winced as Ochaco Uraraka spun a flag post she returned the weight to at the last second and smacked Mineta in the side so hard that he flew off the ground.

"Not that he doesn't deserve it," Jirou began, while stepping in front of the others and to the right where the three teachers were standing. "But don't you think, this is all going a bit too far?"

Sero had beads of sweat dripping down both sides of his face. "I kind of expected it with a few of them," Sero began. "But man, they're all getting way too into this."

Kaminari agreed while sweating himself. "This is crazy," he said, while looking back towards the screen where an explosion had blocked off their sight for a few seconds, only for them to all be able to see Todoroki and Bakugo facing each other looking absolutely wrecked. Bakugo looked the worse-off of the two, but he was also grinning madly for some reason and looked again like he was really into this villain part. Bakugo pointed his hands down at his sides, twitching his fingers and making explosions blast off of them over and over again without effort. He was sweating out so much nitroglycerin-like sweat that he wasn't feeling slowed at all. On the other hand, he had just shouted a taunt at Todoroki that his ice was too slow for him to even waste explosions on anymore.

 _Even regulating the temperature,_ Todoroki thought, panting and lifting his left arm again to get rid of the frost accumulating on his right side. All the frost melted away, but he started panting harder as the heat filled up the room instead, his left hand glowing bright red and the floor on that side melting. _I needed to make it much colder, in order for the explosion necessary to take you down._ Todoroki was not letting himself get slower for no reason, and he started charging a blast that most of the students watching had only seen at the Sports Festival.

"He's going to blow up the entire Ground!" Ashido shouted, backing away from the walls ahead of her as she suddenly did not feel safe just being near the area anymore.

"Should we stop this?" All Might asked, glancing to his right at the other two.

Midnight hummed, but Aizawa said in a low and serious voice, "They have made it an entire year here." The other two looked in at him, as did the students behind him who were all surprised at what their homeroom teacher was saying. "To make them stop now would be saying that we don't trust them not to go too far. Do you think Todoroki has lost sight of what this battle really is?" Aizawa questioned.

"No," All Might responded without hesitation. "I also believe in our students." He looked back at the screen, and his eyes started opening wide. Bakugo was retreating, and yet Todoroki was not moving any faster. Bakugo knew what Todoroki was doing to let himself get caught up in that much frostbite, and his taunt at Todoroki getting slower was as much to make it seem like he did not know what was going on, as him telling Todoroki to do it now or he would catch on for sure. Todoroki did not think it was either though, and he realized what Bakugo was doing, yet decided to fire his blast anyway. He knew Bakugo would catch on from the start, and he had planned on it as he could not just fire this attack at his classmate from point blank when Bakugo no longer had the gauntlets to let him create as massive explosions as he made earlier.

The only thing the teachers had said through the fight was All Might warning Bakugo not to injure himself right after he used the second gauntlet. He already knew All Might was watching though, and the teacher and former number one hero had warned him about it before. As Bakugo ran off, he shouted into his earpiece, "Where's the flag?! It better still be up there!"

"It's not, but I have it, with me," Zach said, as he walked down a hallway on the second floor. He entered into a large room and his eyes opened wide at the craters all over the place, destroyed and smoldering furniture, holes in the wall, and a big opening in the floor. Zach dropped down to his knees after stumbling into the room, then he crawled over to a turned-over couch that was almost ripped in half, and he pulled half of it towards himself as he scooted to a wall. _We should have moved the flag from the start. The teachers haven't said a thing about it. Maybe it's because the others took it first, so it's not like we hid it somewhere they wouldn't be able to find. Could one of them find me?_ Zach leaned his back up against the couch, and he took in a deep breath, only for that breath to catch in his throat as a massive explosion went off downstairs. "What the hell?!" Zach shouted.

He put his hands over his head, and he coughed a couple of times while clenching his eyes shut in the shaking building. His eyelids slammed closed, and he felt his entire body shaking as he sat there with his back against the couch. With his eyes closed, he saw himself inside a warehouse with Dabi and Spinner on his right, and Toga and Twice on his left. There were thirty people in front of him, and he was surrounded in a black aura with his eyes glowing red. _**"Tell them who you are." "My name, is REAPER!"**_ Zach's eyes shot open and he shook it around, a smile coming to his face as he thought about where he really was. _This is fun. This is just a training exercise. A game. I'm enjoying it! But, I enjoyed that too… didn't I?_ Zach's expression got dark, and then his eyes shot open wide as he heard something behind him.

"Zach?"

The voice was hoarse, hurt, and yet Zach held his own breath and his eyes opened huge.

"I heard, you shout," Midoriya's voice said on the other side of the couch, much closer to where Zach was than Zach knew the other boy thought he was. Midoriya stood on bare feet just on the other side of it, his head turning side to side. He had a black eye on the left side of his face, he was limping with his left half-burnt leg, and he was exhausted, but he started smiling as he looked around. He lifted his scarred right arm and wiped under his nose where a small trail of blood just started trickling. "Getting out of Bakugo's capture tape when I woke up was hard," Midoriya admitted. "I really wasn't expecting him to come at me from behind, but winning mattered more, than just having good fights."

Todoroki hummed to himself downstairs as he came to a stop instead of running around looking for Zach. Uraraka told them that Zach had the flag and was running with it, and Todoroki started into his headset, "Midoriya. Where are you? I'll come- nevermind-" Todoroki jumped backwards and swung his bloody right arm in front of him, wincing in pain even as he made an ice wall that Bakugo slammed his right hand into and blasted straight through. Todoroki stopped after jumping back though, jumping forwards instead right as Bakugo made it through the ice. Todoroki heated up his left side, melting the ice around him, but his right arm that was burnt and bloody was what swung in front of him and slammed a fist straight into Bakugo's face. Bakugo fired off an explosion into Todoroki's chest over his lifting left arm an instant after the other boy thought he got a powerful hit in, and the two of them flew off from each other, Bakugo slamming into the rest of Todoroki's ice wall he did not break, and Todoroki smashing into the ground ahead of Bakugo.

Bakugo started sliding down the ice wall, his eyes half-closed and feeling exhausted, burnt, cold, bruised, and cut-up. He almost grinned as he saw Todoroki lifting back up to his feet, again, like he kept doing. He almost made a taunt about how he could go all day, and he wanted to do just that, but he also heard what Midoriya said, which meant that he could hear it over his own teammate's earpiece. _He doesn't realize how close Zach is to him._ Bakugo lifted an arm like he was wiping under his nose of some wet and dry blood, and he spoke into his arm so Todoroki would not know why he was speaking softly, "Don't let Deku see you."

Zach heard Bakugo's voice in his ear, and he smirked on the other side of the couch. Zach pulled out a knife, the last weapon he had on him, and he stood up from behind the couch. "Too late," Zach said. _I'm having too much fun, to just hide. It would be as unfair as covering it in Death, if I just hid the flag now._ Midoriya turned his head sideways as he was facing the opposite direction as the couch that was pulled almost up against the wall behind him, and the curly-green-haired boy's eyes opened wide as Zach lifted the flag in one hand and a knife in the other. Zach let go of most of the flag so he was only holding on by a piece, then he spun his hand around a few times to wrap the flag around his left bloody knuckles before curling that wrapped left hand into a fist and lifting it in a fighting stance.

"I'm almost out," Uraraka's voice said in her teammates' ears. "I've got one foot- no way!"

Mineta staggered up on his feet, his head partially bowed and a shadow covering the top of it. "You don't seem to understand, Uraraka," Mineta said in a serious voice. She had thought he was knocked out for sure, but he got up and wobbled back and forth like he was unsteady on his feet.

Zach jumped up on top of the couch, and Bakugo smirked ear to ear while lowering his arms and blowing explosions off his palms. Mineta snapped his head up with a completely serious look on his face, and he yelled, "I am going to tie you up for sure! This is my Plus Ultra!"

Mineta sprinted forward. Zach jumped towards Midoriya who bent one leg and then even the other despite him limping with it. Midoriya filled himself with Full Cowling, while Uraraka bent down and picked back up the flag post. Todoroki sprinted to a close distance and stomped his right leg forward to create a spike of ice to capture Bakugo in, and Bakugo put his right hand and left hand together with one curled for a precise AP Shot.

"Time up!"

Zach fell forward on Midoriya, pulling both arms back while Midoriya stopped attempting to jump. The two of them fell on the ground, while Mineta passed-out with a look of despair on his face upstairs, and Uraraka fell to her butt panting as she did not realize how worried she was until Mineta was unconscious. Todoroki froze and the spike that just started came to a stop before Bakugo, while Bakugo pulled his arms away from each other fast and canceled out his explosion with only small blasts coming out of his palms instead. A disappointed look came to Bakugo's face for a second that he could not blast through that ice straight on, but a smirk spread on it a second later as Midnight's voice continued, "Villain team wins!"

"NOOOO!" Iida shouted upstairs, while still stuck in a very uncomfortable and helpless position. His voice echoed around the fortress, and he was the only person able to shout that loudly, as the only person not covered in injuries.

"YEah," Bakugo yelled, his voice cracking halfway through and his hands dropping down to his knees. His body hunched over and he was panting, but with a big smirk on his face. He lifted his eyes and looked through the ice at Todoroki on the other side who dropped his arms to his sides, panting too but without the smile. Todoroki lifted his head and looked at the ceiling, then he grimaced and tssked, looking away in a disappointed way. "Take, that…" Bakugo dropped down to a knee, and he started shaking his head around while looking at the floor. _No way. Deku and the half-and-half bastard aren't unconscious._ Bakugo blasted some explosions out of his right hand he put on the floor, shaking himself out of it and helping push himself back to his feet.

Zach rolled off of Midoriya and lay on his back next to his friend, both of them panting in exhausted ways. "Good thing, the time, just ran out," Zach said. He stared up at the ceiling and cracked a small grin as Midoriya turned his head towards him. "You were totally, about to kick my ass," Zach said, and he grinned even more before laughing. He laughed, then coughed, then he laughed again and lifted up his left hand with the flag wrapped around it. "WOOHOO-ack-ka, ack!" He coughed a couple of times, but then he started laughing after his cheer of victory.

Outside the gates of Ground Omega, the other students started cheering. A lot of them had been nervous through the fight that it was going to go too far, but they were all happy to see the villain team win. It had seemed like there was an advantage for the heroes, and the heroes had even gotten their hands on the flag multiple times. Yaoyorozu stopped clapping and she let out a breath of relief as she stared at the screen with Midoriya and Zach laying on their backs on it. The two of them started getting up, both looking a little wobbly, but then they started helping each other stand and she smiled even more at the sight of it.

Sero shook his head a couple of times once he stopped cheering. He turned to Kaminari and said, "I didn't even notice the time limit was about to run out. Man, that was so intense." He sweat a little more and then added, "Good thing all of them went in the first round."

After Sero said it, he looked past Kaminari at Kirishima who was shaking excitedly and still cheering. He looked so much more hyped now than he was even before the match, and Sero gulped as he thought about the one person left out there whose team he wanted to be sure to get on.

The whole class had unknowingly moved a lot closer to the screens through the fight, and they finally all leaned back away from them. Tokoyami grinned and he turned to Shoji who flexed his arms, both of them feeling motivated after watching that battle. Hagakure turned to Ojiro and said in an excited tone how much fun this seemed, even if she did hope they didn't wind up getting injured like the others. After Hagakure mentioned it, Aizawa sighed and turned to the other two teachers, asking which of them wanted to call Recovery Girl and let her know how capture the flag went. Midnight called not doing it quickly, and All Might looked back and forth at them with wide eyes before sighing and accepting the horrifying duty.

On the far left side of the group, Ashido turned next to her after calming down a little from the epic end to the fights. She had kind of hoped those last clashes would have happened though, maybe with the exception of Mineta. She turned next to her and got a more thoughtful look while facing the taller girl at her side. "Yao-momo," Mina Ashido began. The busty black-haired girl looked to her right at her pink friend, and Ashido asked, "Does Zach get stronger when he uses that dark form thing? It seemed like he might," she hesitated and looked back at the screen and the boy limping on it alongside Midoriya, the two of them talking and laughing about something. She smiled seeing them laughing, and then she turned back and said to Momo who had a more thoughtful look on her face now, "But he really looked like he hurt himself falling out that window."

"I can't believe he cut the flag," Sero said, turning left to the girls next to him on his other side as Kaminari. He laughed and added, "I think he thought Uraraka was trying to pull the flag away from him."

"I just can't believe Mineta stopped Iida," Kaminari said, turning left himself and shaking his head in shock. "That's gotta sting Iida's pride. And well," Kaminari looked back and the rest of them did too and stared at Iida's bent backwards body with his hands stuck to his own blocked-up calves. He started yelling out for someone to get him out of that, and all of them sweatdropped, realizing themselves that getting him out of that was not such a simple task.

"I'll get him," Aizawa said, and all the students turned to their teacher who scratched the side of his face while walking towards the open Ground Omega gates. _Didn't think with that random match-up things would work out like this. Work out…_ Aizawa walked into the open area between the gates and the fortress, and he had to pause while looking at the exterior of the building alone. Todoroki's huge explosion had ripped an entire section of wall off the first floor, there were holes all over the ceiling just inside the closest entrance straight ahead of him, and there were holes around a lot of the walls on every floor. _Isn't this a little much?_ He thought, a bead of sweat on his face too. "Midnight," he said, putting a hand to his earpiece. "While All Might calls Recovery Girl, mind getting Cementoss over here?"

"Haha, I can do that," Midnight said, admitting herself while looking at all the different screens how much that seemed to be needed.

Yaoyorozu listened as the others she was talking to excitedly discussed the different things that happened during the fight, but she was thinking on what Ashido asked her a minute ago. _…but, he still seemed to have hurt his legs. Both times too. Although he was able to break out of the ice, he shook his legs off afterwards. They were even worse after the fall. He managed to jump at Midoriya at the end though. I don't know- I'll just ask him during whatever round I am not in myself._ Yaoyorozu smiled at the idea of it, and then she thought, _Hopefully they can all watch the next rounds._

* * *

After school on Friday, the students of Class A were all hanging out in the common room together. The energy was up from the day's activities, and they were still talking about capture the flag in such excited tones. Even though they knew it was unlikely they would get the chance to do it again, any time soon at least, most of them were talking about "next time I'm going to…" or "I'll get you next time!"

Kirishima stood near Ojiro in the kitchen, arguing with the boy with the thick tail who was leaning away with a bead of sweat on the side of his face, but grinning anyway. "You're right," Ojiro agreed. "I couldn't break through Unbreakable at all. I didn't really want to see though, just get you away from the flag-"

"But you were on the hero team," Kirishima argued back. "A hero's gotta be straightforward! That was tricky! I didn't think you'd jump right over me-"

"You're just upset because you let our flag get stolen," Jirou said across the counter, and Kirishima spun her way before crossing his arms with an annoyed humph. "If Koda wasn't there, you would have lost the game for us."

Koda leaned back a few feet behind Jirou and waved his hands in front of him as Kirishima looked over. Kirishima grinned though instead of getting annoyed at Koda, even while Ojiro grimaced and rubbed the side of his head. Ojiro rubbed right over where he could feel the pecking of the birds that attacked him as soon as he came out of the fortress, one of which had stolen the flag away from him while he waved his arms at them.

"I can't believe you let birds beat you," Sato remarked from the edge of the kitchen, though he sounded less disappointed and more like he was holding back laughter.

Ojiro sweatdropped more, then felt a reassuring pat on the back from a girl he could not see behind him. "Today just wasn't the heroes' day," Hagakure said as Ojiro turned to her. "I was so surprised though. I had no idea Yao-momo could be such a scary villain."

"Even if it was just her versus all of you," Jirou remarked with a laugh over the counter. "The villains still would have won."

Kaminari sighed on Jirou's other side at the next table down. "You're totally right. I can't believe not a single hero made it to the flag room. All I heard was screaming and cannon fire going off around the whole building." He crossed his arms and let out a nervous shiver, "It was pretty spooky."

"If Recovery Girl had let us go as hard as those guys did on the first round, I would have won for sure," Kirishima said, looking back at Ojiro.

"Oh, you were holding back huh?" Ojiro asked, smiling again as he shifted thoughts from being attacked by birds to how he outmaneuvered Kirishima again. "Didn't seem like that when you started up your Super Move-"

"You were going all out! And I was more worried about Aoyama's laser…"

Around the corner of the common room, past the couches where others were sitting and talking about their own rounds or each other's, past the front door of the building and over in the stairwell, Zach leaned back on the second floor platform of the stairs. He had thought the boy in front of him would actually be in a good mood, and maybe a good mood with him because they were on the same team after all. Bakugo just glowered at Zach from up close though while they were the only two on the staircase. It was the first time the two of them were alone since the training earlier in the day, and Bakugo thought back on what had been bothering him all day as much as he enjoyed the rest of the game.

"'Think, constantly?'" Bakugo questioned.

Zach's eyes started widening, then shot open huge. _Was Bakugo- holy crap he was there when I first heard that! I didn't realize. Why didn't I realize? It's because…_

"That's what All For One said, while he was fighting All Might," Bakugo said, his voice low and threatening and accusing Zach of something.

Zach got a bead of sweat on the side of his face at what he was thinking about more than what Bakugo said. _It's because, I don't even think about how it's All For One who said it the first time. Not anymore. It's become, my own._ "Is it, bad advice?"Zach asked.

Bakugo's eyes widened at Zach's response, as he expected the boy in front of him to try denying it or giving some sort of excuse. He actually did not know why he was bringing it up at all, but it annoyed him to no end for a big reason. "You quoted a villain," Bakugo said, "right after saying, what All Might said. Breaking out of a tight pinch, and thinking constantly. Saying those things together," Bakugo grit his teeth and he glared harder at the black-haired boy in front of him who was four inches shorter than him.

Zach lost his hesitant look, his sweatdrop, and the anxious feeling he had when Bakugo was not actually in a good mood like he assumed when he said 'hey' while walking down the stairs from his room. "You're right, I quoted a villain," Zach said. His voice got quieter and his eyes darted down the steps, towards the second floor hallway, then to the stairs behind him. He darted them right back into Bakugo's eyes and added, "But All For One wasn't dumb. I know, that you know the past behind him." Bakugo's eyes opened huge and he leaned back from Zach at the sound of that. Zach lightened up his harsh and serious expression once Bakugo stopped glaring, and he continued, "I know it too now."

"Deku told you-"

"It doesn't matter," Zach said, not wanting to throw his friend under the bus. The fact that he knew that Bakugo knew as well though meant it could only be Midoriya or All Might, which he realized and cursed himself for since he originally just planned to act like he had learned with the villains. "Anyway," Zach continued, getting back on track, "We know All For One existed a long time before us. He was one of the smartest people in the world, and he was running all the League of Villains' schemes behind the scenes. So I want to be able to think like that guy," Zach said, and Bakugo's eyes narrowed in more but did not look that angry this time. "To hopefully be able to figure out what he's planning." _Sounds good. Really I just think it makes sense. It's a calming, two-word phrase. Think, constantly. Whenever I start panicking, or get in a fight and lose track of my surroundings, I just need to think for a second. Hanging out of that window, if I had panicked that I was almost about to fall, I might have lost the flag. If seeing Todoroki chilled me too much, he would have gotten the flag sooner and gotten out of there before Bakugo had time to catch back up._

"He's in jail," Bakugo said. He frowned more at Zach for his excuse, though he was not as bugged by the initial idea as he was before talking to him.

Zach's expression got much darker as Bakugo said that though, and Bakugo's eyes widened as Zach said, "Wonder if he'll be there forever?" He lifted his head fast after saying it, to see Bakugo staring at him with wide eyes that Zach actually thought that. Zach grimaced and almost took it back to say of course he did not expect All For One to ever get free, but he stopped himself from doing so. Instead he thought back to the question Principal Nezu asked him after his report the day before. "World-destroying Quirks," Zach said in a low whisper. "It didn't seem too far in the future when the principal asked me about it yesterday. But the chance of someone training that power is one in a million, and the chance of that person also being a villain, is also one in a million, so the chances of it ever happening like that are tiny." Bakugo got confused at what Zach was bringing this up for, but Zach continued, "Yet it doesn't seem that far in the future if All For One gets out." Zach pursed his lips for a second, then he whispered faster, "Because it isn't about them training it, or them turning out to be a villain, when All For One could just take that power. An evil mastermind with the ability to steal powers. As long as he's still alive, I seriously think there's a chance he can destroy the world."

"You're overthinking it," Bakugo snapped, making Zach lean back with wider eyes now. "He's arrested. That's the end of it. Got it?"

Zach hesitated after Bakugo's final 'Got it,' and he thought, _Is he trying to get me to be less paranoid? That's pretty nice of him. I think you're wrong Bakugo. I think he could get a Quirk that tells him others' Quirks, or helps him locate the exact Quirk he wants, and if he's had enough of trying to rule this world from the shadows, maybe he'll just destroy it._ "Y-Yeah, you're right," Zach said, shaking his head and lifting his left hand to scratch the back of it. "Well I'm going downstairs," Zach said, turning to continue his way down. "Nice job winning it for us today," Zach finished while walking off.

Bakugo had an annoyed look on his face, mainly because that smile he saw felt as fake as Zach's agreement with what he had said. Bakugo frowned more that Zach still thought All For One was a huge threat, and he wondered in annoyance why Deku or All Might would tell him, but he said aloud as he walked for the stairs up instead of down, "It wasn't just me."

Zach stopped almost at the bottom of the steps and spun his head with wide eyes. Bakugo was not in his line of sight though, so after a second Zach felt fine with smiling while knowing it would not piss him off. _It wasn't, but I didn't think you'd ever agree with that. Thanks, Bakugo._

* * *

 **A/N Thanks for reading. Hope you enjoyed the chapter! I put You Say Run on a loop while I wrote this chapter and imagined the fight in my head, anyway I just had a fun time. Hope y'all thought it was intense and liked the battles as well as Zach's talk with Bakugo at the end. Delved a little more into Zach's Quirk here and it's been a few months (story-wise) since we've really seen it with Zach training it the whole time and training his body too. Leave a review below telling me what you think of the chapter, predictions for upcoming ones, comments, questions, suggestions, etc. Have some fun arcs in mind coming up, and I just finished the next arc from 50-53. Review responses:**

10toaster chapter 48 . 15h ago

I really liked your take on the quirk laws in this chapter. I hadn't really thought too much about what changes could be made to the hero society, but I think you did a great job finding a solution to the problems found in BNHA's society. I've been following this fic for a few weeks and I have to say that it's probably my favorite fan fiction of all time, so keep up the good work!

 **Thanks! I hadn't really thought about it much either, but I had the idea for Zach talking about this kind of stuff and decided on the report idea so he'd have a reason to go into his thoughts on it. I've thought there were some things off about the Quirk society since I started watching Boku no Hero, 'cause if I was in that world I'd be using my super-power all the time which would get me in trouble but I mean, how do you not? I'm really glad you've been liking and keeping up with the story, and knowing it's one of if not your fav fanfiction really pumps me up! Gonna get to work on Ch. 54 right now, but anyway I hope you enjoyed the chapter, and thanks for the review!**

Guest chapter 48 . 11h ago

With the end of material, are there plans for original story arcs, or just focusing on character development. I'm personally fine with either.

 **Both! Time for some new arcs, but it'll keep developing for sure. Feel like big events and arcs can be great at affecting character development instead of just normal school life, so expect 'em both in the coming chapters! Thanks for reviewing, and I hope you enjoyed!**


	50. Chapter 50

**A/N Hey guys! Special chapter 50 coming at you. This is now the fiftieth chapter in 42 days, and this story is hitting 460,000 words with it. Thank you all for reading this far, favoriting, following, and reviewing too. New arc starting up this chapter which I hope you enjoy!**

 **Chapter 50:**

Zach sat straight up on his folding chair in the middle of the big grassy field set up in one of the massive stages used by U.A. High School. He lifted a hand and pulled at his collar that felt a little tight all of a sudden, and he shifted his gaze around the stands surrounding the field he was sitting on. There were hundreds of seats around them, and no gap between Class A and Class B, with barely any gap between the rest of the first year classes either. The forty-one of them were shoved right into the pack of first years, though at least they were all sitting together. On the other half of the field were the second years, one of the reasons Zach felt a little nervous as he sat in his seat.

For the first time all year since getting to U.A., Zach saw someone from his middle school. He saw him when they were heading out to the field together, a boy a year older than him who had been on cross country with him years back. _I can't believe I almost made it the entire year without seeing him!_ Zach thought, a bead of sweat dripping down the left side of his face as he glanced towards the second years again. _I never knew what he did after middle school, but I remember people saying he applied to U.A. Did he get in the hero course a year above us?_ Zach gulped, and he shook his head and kept focusing on Nagiso, _Yeah, I'm just nervous because of the time we saw Best Jeanist fighting the villain, and he almost got killed trying to use his Jello Quirk, and he saw me reaching for my glove… Gah! I can't handle this! There are so many people watching!_

Zach pretended like he did not notice. He was not looking around the stands around the huge field they were on, just trying to keep his focus on the stage up ahead. He'd occasionally look to his left when he got too nervous to pretend like it was Nagiso who was getting to him, but this whole situation had him on the edge of his seat. While Bakugo sat two seats down to his left with an annoyed and bored expression on his face, slouched down with his hands shoved in his pockets, Zach was sitting up like he was in class feeling like everyone's eyes were on him. On his left sat Kirishima who was leaning left to see past Shoji and down the field farther towards the front rows that were lined with all the third year students. The third year section was only half as thick as the underclassmen's sections, because it was spread to cover the whole middle of the field instead of only half and pushed back longways. That section wound up looking more than twice as thick though, as behind all the third-year students were their parents and family members who had come for the graduation ceremony.

Class A was at the front of the first years, but Zach stayed in the second row back and in the middle of a few of his friends. There was not a huge gap between the front of the first years and the back of the family section, since there were a lot of a family members for all the graduating students. Zach thought about that small gap and how hard it would be to spot him in the field, but he was still doing his best to avoid looking to the sides and the stands where others had come to the graduation too.

The U.A. graduation ceremony. There were pro heroes all over the stands, a whole ton of security for such a huge event, and reporters gathered there to welcome a whole new class of heroes out into the world. Many of them had already made their debuts as interns; most of the graduating class of heroes actually, as this was U.A. after all so all the third years still in the hero course were out doing hero work already. Zach looked ahead and towards the stage where Principal Nezu was giving a long, long speech about all the hard work U.A. students put in over their three years, different anecdotes about the students and advice he had about being heroes in the real world. He had to look past all the families of older students and past those older students themselves, all but three of whom were still sitting. _The Big Three,_ Zach thought while staring at the three students representing the graduating class who were already on the stage with much of the faculty who sat on chairs behind the podium Nezu stood at.

Zach focused on them, then his eyes started to shift towards cameras on the side of the stage. _I really didn't want to come to this. What if they make a big deal about me? God I would hate that so much. So fucking much. Everyone would think I'm an asshole taking attention away from the seniors. I don't want to do that to the seniors either! They've worked three years for this. And all their families came out to see them. I don't know why I think any focus would shift to me, it's not like I've done anything of importance lately. Two people. A total of two people since I came back. It's not a lot, but I'm definitely training Nightmare form up in school. And wait! Not just those two I brought back, but all the people I might have saved helping Webb too. Stopping Diamondfist, getting those drugs and weapons and costumes confiscated… Why hasn't Webb hit me back up for so long? Not a thing in March, and now over a week into April and still nothing._

Zach looked towards the seating just ahead of them again. He turned his head left and tried to focus on Nagiso, but his eyes shifted right again and his head turned back forward. He stared at the back rows of the seating for the families, and he thought quickly to himself, _Would Webb… what am I thinking? Just because he's, the one person outside of my school life who I might be, who I consider myself, close to… Geez, I don't even know his real name. He saved me, and I thought maybe because of the more open way I act around him, that I realized when we were at Ganji's… But if not him._ Zach's eyes lowered from those seats just ahead of him. He looked down at his knees, and at his hands he had resting over them. His shoulders slouched a little out of his sitting-up position, and his mouth lowered into a sad frown. _Wouldn't the Akers? They would have come, when I graduated. They would have been like my real family. They_ _ **were**_ _my real family. I won't ever get back in contact with Aunt Maye, and as soon as the first internship starts next year, I'll throw out her ATM card… Aunt Maye, and Tsura. No, no! Don't think about them like they're family. I made that decision to push them away, to just end things instead of, having a family._ _I could have had that… but Shigaraki would have just killed them. He still will if I ever try to do anything with them again. He might think he'd be doing me a favor taking out my Aunt Maye as things are now. So never talk to them again. No family. That's what you decided. Just accept that. No family, nobody to sit at those seats at graduation. No one, to love._

Zach imagined their faces as he lifted his head back up a bit. The principal called up the number one student, and Zach looked towards him, but his eyes shifted back down to the families sitting in the section behind the third years. It shifted down because he saw people in those chairs looking back towards him, except those people were translucent. He stared at their faces: his mom, his dad, the Akers, and Jenny. His bottom lip shook for a second and he bit down on it and brought his gaze back up to the stage fast. _Damn it,_ he thought as he watched the guy at the top of the class step up to the podium. He kept his eyes solely on the bland-faced older boy with a blond flip of hair sticking up over his head, and the people he thought were looking at him in the family section faded from his peripheral vision.

On Zach's left side, Eijiro Kirishima glanced in at Zach to say something. Spotting the look on Zach's face though, his eyes opened wide as for some reason Zach looked on the verge of tears.

"Hey Zach, did you know we fought him?" Midoriya asked on Zach's right side.

Zach spun to his green-haired friend in some surprise, then he looked back forward fast as he saw people out in the stands way past Midoriya. He asked as he stared back up at the stage and the number one graduate though, "Who did?"

"All of Class A," Kirishima added from Zach's left. Zach glanced his way too while leaning back a little in his seat, feeling more relaxed as he was fully distracted. He thought maybe the two at his sides had noticed, but instead of getting annoyed at himself for letting what he was thinking about show through, all he felt was a small warmth in his chest that the two of them were trying to distract him, if that was what it was about. "He crushed us though. Happened so fast; we didn't know what was happening."

"I would have kicked his ass," Bakugo said, crossing his arms over his chest on Kirishima's left without getting out of his slouched position.

"Bakugo, you weren't there?" Zach wondered.

"Bakugo and Todoroki weren't fighting with us," Kirishima replied.

"It wouldn't have made-" Midoriya stopped himself mid-sentence, and he shut up fast as Kacchan turned his head and glared past Kirishima and Zach with a glare that was daring him to finish that sentence. "I mean, Togata-senpai is just very strong," Midoriya turned back to Zach and whispered.

"Didn't you intern with him?" Zach asked. He remembered Midoriya mentioning Togata-senpai before, though he kind of regretted bringing up Midoriya's internship now. _The hero they were interning under, Sir Nighteye…_

Midoriya thought about it too for a second, but he nodded his head at Zach's question without getting a depressed expression. Zach saw his friend's still composed look and he shook away his own dark thoughts at the sight of Midoriya's strength at being able to talk about this. "Is he really the best-"

"Better," Midoriya whispered, a look of awe on his face as Mirio Togata started up a speech to his classmates and to everyone around them. They all stared up at that plain-faced upperclassman who spoke with passion, with confidence, and with the smile of a hero on his face. He waved a fist and pointed out at his comrades he was graduating with, and Zach felt himself getting pumped-up even though Togata was talking mainly to his own class.

Zach leaned back in his seat while a lot of the third years started cheering out. He looked towards the blond boy standing on that stage, and his eyes focused in on him and that smile on his face like he could take on the world right now. _How do I become like that? "Better" than the best? The number one at U.A._ "What's his Quirk?" Zach whispered, glancing next to him to Midoriya on his right. "It has to be super strong, right?"

"Permeation," Midoriya responded quietly. "But it's not his Quirk that makes him strong, it's how he uses it." Zach's eyes widened while Midoriya kept staring forward with a big smile and admiring look. "He was actually weaker in his class before training with Sir Nighteye. He told us it's thanks to training, that he's been able to come this far."

"Kind of like us then, right?" Zach asked. Midoriya turned to him in surprise, and Zach added with a smaller smile, "Remember during the Quirk aptitude test? I really thought one of us was going to get expelled for sure."

Midoriya sweatdropped as he thought about how Aizawa had threatened it and he believed it. Then he considered what Zach said and remembered how they came in twentieth and twenty-first respectively. He smiled a little thinking about how far he had come since then, from the day when he had first used One For All in a way that did not cripple himself. It had been about a year now, and Midoriya had to agree with a growing smile at how far they had come. Thinking about how far they had come reminded him of Zach's research paper presentation last week and what Zach mentioned about that, which made him think about a different part of Zach's presentation. He lowered his gaze down to the families behind the third year students while Togata had changed his focus from the past and how hard his classmates had worked to get there to what their future had to be now. It was inspirational, motivational, and Midoriya smiled as he listened to it while searching the crowd of families.

Zach saw Midoriya looking down and around at the family members, and he got a confused look as to why he would be distracted from the amazing speech he had just started watching for a good twenty seconds. He followed Midoriya's stopping gaze into the crowd and one row in from the back on the right side up ahead of them. At two seats close to the outside on the right, Zach spotted two short figures sitting. "Oh hey," he whispered, and Midoriya glanced at him to see Zach looking the same way. The green-haired boy's eyes widened though as Zach whispered to him, "That's Gran Torino, right? What's he doing here? He someone's Grandpa?"

Zach turned in more at Midoriya who he knew was close to Gran Torino, and since he had been looking towards the short old man he figured Midoriya was looking for him and knew why he would be there. Midoriya got a hesitant look on his face though as he glanced back towards Gran Torino, then to Zach again. He looked past at Kirishima, but Kirishima was too into Mirio Togata's speech and Zach was whispering pretty quietly anyway. Midoriya turned to Zach and spoke with a flat lip, confusing Zach who stopped smiling and looking interested, instead getting serious himself. "He's here for Togata senpai," Midoriya started to whisper. "Or mainly, he's here to bring her to see him."

"Her?" Zach whispered, turning his head and looking back towards Gran Torino, and then the chair right next to him where another short figure was sitting. The little girl next to Gran Torino had long silver hair, she wore a little red dress, and Zach could see the tip of a horn sticking up in front of her head. He could only see a part of the side of her face, but she was smiling wide from what he could see.

"That's Eri," Midoriya said softly.

 _Lemillion,_ Eri thought, smiling brightly towards the stage. Her face lit up even more as she felt like the man standing up there turned her way, and Gran Torino on her right side let out a small silent chuckle at the look on her face.

 _Only for him, or Midoriya does she get that look._ "Gramps," Gran Torino felt a tug on his left pant leg and he turned in. He was sitting farthest to the outside of the family section, and he looked in at the girl next to him who smiled as brightly as she was just doing as she asked, "We can go see him after, right? We can right?"

"In a bit," Gran Torino assured, lifting a hand and patting the small girl on the head. He ruffled his hand around a little over it, and Eri lowered her head as he pushed some hair lightly down over her face. She smiled too much at that answer to be annoyed by it, and she just blew upwards at the hair over her eyes to push it away, before lifting her head to look at the stage again as Togata was giving his finishing remarks. Gran Torino stared at the girl who turned back to the stage, and he humphed while turning back to it quickly himself, though he could not stop from smiling either.

Zach's eyes opened wide as he stared at Midoriya and then back up towards where those two were sitting. "…He got in the way to protect her, since only he was fast enough at the time. He got hit by the Quirk Destroying bullet though. Yet even after losing it," Midoriya started smiling again as he looked back to the old man he was talking about, "he's still acting as a hero. At least to Eri, and to me, he is. He's protecting, and looking after her at a secret location."

 _So that no one can get their hands on the Quirk Destroying drug again,_ Zach thought as he looked that way. _If I had known about this Midoriya, I would have added Gran Torino into my report too. Mentioned more about heroes losing their Quirks. A veteran hero like him, losing his Quirk to this new generation of villains… What am I thinking about? The presentation is over. In that case, I shouldn't think about it as classwork, but just a grim reminder of what my presentation said. Gran Torino was a great hero. I saw him in the videos of Camino Ward doing stuff after I thought he had been killed. He saved All Might, he saved Eri, and he was there in Hosu City too. It's sad that he lost his Quirk…_ Zach's eyes widened and he spun to Midoriya in surprise at the last thing his friend just finished on. _Her Quirk is Rewind, and she might be able to bring his Quirk back? Hell, she could turn him into a young man again then, couldn't she? What does mortality mean with Quirks like these?! I could bring anyone back to life, and she could keep them young forever. That's WILD! Oh man. Oh my God! That's so absurd! I'm never mentioning I just thought that to anyone. That's not life. What is life, without death? Holy crap._ Zach shivered at the terrifying thought he just had, and Midoriya glanced at him in confusion as to Zach's reaction to him saying Gran Torino could get his power back.

"That's really great," Zach whispered, shifting his thoughts back. The main reason he focused on Gran Torino was so he would not have to focus on Eri, but he glanced at the little girl again too and the genuine smile on her face before she started clapping for the end of Mirio Togata's speech. _That's really, really great. She's young. I was so worried. I didn't want to think- or even look at her. When they told me the things that had happened to her… but she has people. She's not alone. And she looks like she's recovered, or recovering from the things Overhaul did to her. That's so great!_ Zach started clapping with everyone else, but Midoriya looked to his left and into Zach's eyes while he clapped too.

Midoriya's smile as he started clapping for Togata senpai lowered and his eyes opened huge at the water he saw in Zach's eyes. Zach didn't look sad though. Midoriya stared with such wide eyes, because of how happy Zach looked. Zach leaned back while everyone was still clapping and he subtly lifted his left hand to rub each of his wet eyes quickly. _If she can do it, then I can too. I won't let what happened to me define my future. I can't. If I think like that, I wouldn't be able to take it. Always look forward. Never forget, but always look forward._

* * *

"You too Sero?" Kaminari asked after Sero just said he was going to be leaving for the break between school years.

A lot of Class A students were gathered in the first floor of their dorm room after graduation. It was the last thing they had to do before the next term, and next school year's classes started in a little over a week. They got off in early-mid-April, and they had to be back still in April for the start of the next semester. Sero nodded at Kaminari and opened his mouth to say what he was doing, but he paused and then asked in confusion, "Wait, 'too?' I didn't know you were doing anything."

"You're really going?" Zach asked, turning to the blond next to him with a skeptical look.

"I kept telling you I was," Kaminari said, rolling his eyes with a laugh that Zach was still surprised. The others looked his way now, and Kaminari explained at their looks, "I'm going on a couple of trips. Had all these big plans, and Zach kept calling me out on it saying I wasn't going to do it." He turned back and smirked at the boy at his side still a couple inches shorter than him. "But just because I hadn't bought the tickets or anything until this week, didn't mean I wasn't going to do it."

"You should just plan ahead more," Zach said, crossing his arms as he felt a little defensive at that. _Really didn't think he was going to do it,_ he thought though.

"Where are you going? I'm just spending the week with my parents and extended family. Got really traditional grandparents who live at this old-timey temple," Sero said, looking at Kaminari as it was a question despite his explanation raising questions of its own.

Jirou and Yaoyorozu opened their eyes wider though as they thought back on when they checked out Sero's room and saw how Japanese-y it looked. They had kind of forgotten about it because of Todoroki's even more amazing Japanese-styled room and Sato's delicious cake that came afterwards, but now they remembered it and realized where it may have come from.

"I'm glad you asked! I'm-"

"Sero-kun! Your father is outside waiting for you!" Iida shouted into the building from the door he just rushed into.

Sero spun away from Kaminari in surprise, and he pulled out his phone before smacking himself in the forehead with a palm. "Oh crap. Yeah, thanks Iida!" He started rushing off, and Kaminari sweatdropped as the other boy completely forgot about him.

"See you guys when I get back," Sero called over his shoulder. He turned and said goodbye to a couple of others near the couch area too, but he was in a rush to get to his room and grab his packed bag. His phone had been on silent and he missed the several messages his father sent him from outside the school, so he even used his Quirk to shoot himself towards the stairs, which got Iida chasing after him and calling out not to use his Quirk in such a manner.

Kaminari sighed once Sero was gone, then Jirou said, "So where are you going?"

Kaminari turned back to the others and grinned at the two girls who had been talking with them and did not know his plans unlike Zach. "I'm going on a bus tour over to Kyoto, then take a flight down to Okinawa to hit up some beaches now that it's getting hot!"

"You really did the Okinawa thing too?" Zach asked in surprise, and a bit of jealousy. _Always wish I had gone there too._

"Yup," Kaminari replied, putting his hands up behind his head. "Got some money saved up, and what better way to spend it than on a 'vacation,' right?" He nudged Zach with an elbow, then he smirked more at the confused look on Yaoyorozu and Jirou's face at what seemed like an inside joke. Kaminari continued while grinning, "Considering how many pics with cute girls Zach got on his 'vacation' to Kyoto, I'm sure a good-looking guy like me's going to hit the jackpot!" Kaminari explained his reasoning for his amazing mood.

Yaoyorozu let out a small, uneasy laugh, while Jirou got an annoyed look on her own face. She shook her head at Kaminari and said with a smirk, "Afraid Zach's a bit more popular than you Kaminari. Not going to be any girls who want your picture."

Zach got a little red-faced as Jirou mentioned that, but Kaminari just replied in a smug tone, "That's not true. We're all pretty famous by now. I'm going to be swarmed with hotties."

Jirou frowned more in an annoyed way and scoffed, "I'm sure they'll run off as soon as you try a corny pick-up line."

Kaminari rolled his eyes and then replied jokingly, "Well if you're that worried I'm gonna fail why don't you come with me then?" Jirou's left earphone jack swung around and smacked Kaminari on the shoulder which he grabbed only to start laughing. "Joking, joking," he said defensively between laughs. Jirou turned away with a humph and an annoyed look on her face, but Zach and Momo both noticed a slight shade of red on her cheeks there for a second.

Zach smirked and turned to Kaminari, saying before the laughing boy could focus back on Jirou, "When are you leaving?"

Kaminari turned to Zach and said, "Tomorrow morning. Earrrrllyyy," he stretched out the last part and groaned afterwards. "Bus leaves early, and I have to get to the bus station itself- it's a whole thing." He said it with in exasperated sigh, but he smiled again after, "But I'm sure a 6 a.m. energy drink will get me going. Don't want to spend the vacation asleep, you know?"

"Well, send some pictures," Zach said, as he nodded in agreement with Kaminari's sentiment. He paused for a second, then added, "And be careful."

"Ha what are you, my mom-"

"Seriously," Zach said, lowering his smile as he had said it in a lighter tone himself at first that he thought Kaminari might not have realized he meant it. Jirou and Yaoyorozu turned to Zach in some surprise, but Zach did not get too serious. He just said, "The League could target any one of us. Can't be too careful, right?"

Kaminari looked at Zach in surprise for a few more seconds, then he nodded his head and just smiled at him. "Yeah, got you. I'll be fine though," he pulled his shoulders back and then lifted his palms and made sparks come out of them. "I can be really strong, after all."

"And really stupid too," Jirou added, then started giggling herself with a hand over her mouth as she thought about Kaminari's short-circuited state.

Zach turned to Momo again as Kaminari retorted something at Jirou, and Zach smirked again. He lifted his eyebrows as Momo looked his way and motioned them at the other two, but Yaoyorozu just nodded after a second's hesitation and looked back with that small smile that showed she understood what Zach was hinting at. _Either she doesn't think it's as amusing, or maybe she's thinking about something else. I'm treating these two like they're being a thing, when we- stop. Don't think about that. You know why you just told Kaminari to be careful. People know who I'm friends with. I haven't been hiding it anymore. I accepted Shigaraki's going to leave me here for some reason, but that still doesn't mean he won't… Calm down. He'll be fine. A lot of the class are taking off for this break. I'm sure, everything will be, okay…_

* * *

"Oh really? What's that like?" Kaminari leaned in next to him on the bus and looked interestedly at the girl a year older than him. "I'm really into biology," he added at her surprised look at how interested he was about the book she had out, trying to get some of her homework over break done early on.

The tall girl with a pair of glasses on, but a good-looking face behind them and a brown ponytail that made her look like even more of an intellectual looked at Kaminari's face and hummed, wondering if he really was into biology like he said. So she asked him about something pretty simple, that anyone with a basic understanding would be able to understand. Kaminari nodded with that interested look on his face as she talked about it, then he paused after she finished the question, and a thoughtful look came to his face as he leaned back in the seat. It would have actually been convincing which she was surprised about, except it did not work with how simple of a question she had asked to make him look so thought-provoked.

"That's really, just such a…" Kaminari shook his head and then chuckled in an amazed way. "I guess I still have a lot to learn. By the way what are you looking forward to in Kyoto the most?"

The older girl almost laughed at how quickly and shamelessly he changed the subject. Instead of laughing though she sighed, and she glanced back at her book before turning again and out the window on her left side. It was raining out and the sky was pretty dark, but they could still see for miles out from their elevated road. "There's a lot in Kyoto I want to see. A good friend visited recently and told me about it," she said, and Kaminari's eyes widened. Before he could say 'me too,' though, she added, "I'm actually looking forward to the bus tour a lot too though. We're taking such a scenic route, I almost forgot, but look at that." The girl stared out towards the forests and distant giant mountain even bigger than the one they were driving on. The road curved around the side of a tall mountain between Musutafu and Kyoto, and it was a scenic path with a great view at one point that the bus was going to stop at so they could all get off and take pictures.

"Yeah, it is pretty beautiful," Kaminari said. He got such a huge smirk on his face and the girl in front of him sweatdropped with a growing look of dread. "Just like y-"

The bus started slowing down with a hard jolt. The two teenagers jolted forward in their seats and the girl next to Kaminari lifted a hand to push her glasses back up, while she smirked because of what must have been the best luck to avoid hearing that corny line. Kaminari felt the opposite way though, grimacing as he got interrupted. The bus driver had hit the breaks for some reason, and Kaminari leaned to his right into the aisle to look forward and call up asking what was wrong. He looked towards the front of the bus as they slowed even more though, and he did not call anything out because he could see through the front windshield and onto the road around the bend that had just become visible.

"What are we going to do?"

"Can we still get to the top?"

"Are we going to miss the arrival time in Kyoto?"

The bus driver brought them to a full stop and he ran a hand up into his hair. He turned next to him at the younger female tour guide and shook his head before saying something that made her sigh and stand before the rest of the upset passengers. Her voice came out clearly through the bus because of the microphone attached to her shirt collar, "We'll have to find another route. I'll call this in."

"This must have just happened," the bus driver's voice announced over the bus speakers too. "I can still see some smaller rocks falling, but that just makes it clearer that we need to turn back. I didn't think the weather was this bad." He leaned forward and looked up to his right at the wall going up the side of the mountain next to them that the road was carved into.

Kaminari glanced to his left at the girl who had such a disappointed look on her face. "Well this sucks," he said, leaning back himself and agreeing with her expression's tone. "Nothing we can do about the rain though."

"I wonder if-" the girl next to him started. He glanced at her and she stopped talking, shaking her head which just made Kaminari more interested. "I'm Jessica Thompson by the way," she said, turning to the boy who she was talking to and realized she still didn't know his name.

"Denki Kaminari," he replied back. "But what were you starting to say there?" He asked, still interested in that look on her face.

She hesitated, then she leaned up and looked over all the seats in front of her again right as the bus driver started backing them in reverse to try and do a several-point turn to get the bus going back the other direction. It was going to be difficult on the narrow road with such a long vehicle, but he told them that they should be able to work it out soon. "My Quirk would actually, really help with moving those rocks," Thompson said.

"Really?" Kaminari asked in surprise. She did not look like the heavy-lifting type, so he asked, "What's your Quirk?"

Thompson coughed into her arm and looked away, then she replied, "Slime." Kaminari's eyes widened and he leaned back which he grimaced at doing a second later as it seemed like she was already self-conscious about that. The older girl continued quickly, "I can touch thinks and make them slippery. Things that I touch slide against each other really easily too, so even those big rocks would slide over the road, and off the other side… But, it doesn't really matter." Kaminari opened his mouth to say it sounded like a great idea, but she continued, "If more rocks could fall while we're driving, then there's no point in clearing the road. It would just make other people think it's not dangerous."

"Huh," Kaminari said, then he heard the bus driver's exasperated sigh and many of the people on the bus start groaning. Kaminari and Thompson looked back when they saw others looking behind them, and Kaminari sweatdropped before muttering, "Like these people. Oh man," he added, rubbing the side of his head. "How do we back up now? If there's traffic we're gonna be stuck here all…" he faded off.

The truck that pulled up behind them pulled up close enough that the bus driver could not try reversing and then pulling forward again to continue the turn around on the mountain path. That truck did not have a good way of turning though, as a smaller black van seemingly trying to go around the stopped larger vehicles had pulled onto the other side of the road and drove past the left side of the truck so it was closer to the side of the road with the drop off instead of the wall on the bus's other side.

"Don't people get that we're not stopped for no reason?" Thompson asked in frustration, as now they were not getting to the scenic spot and it seemed it would be even longer until they reached Kyoto.

"What's wrong?" The bus driver's voice that should have been quiet from the tone of his whisper came out of the speakers of the bus.

The tour guide spun to the people behind her who all looked up as the bus driver said that, and the driver grimaced as he forgot to turn off his microphone. The younger woman who just told him something turned to the bus passengers, and she hesitated but then lifted a hand to her mic and turned it on. "Sorry everyone. I tried to get in contact with emergency services so they could come out and clear the rocks, but it seems we don't have service this high on the mountain."

"What?!"

"How are we going to get back then? These cars are blocking…"

Thompson turned to Kaminari to say something about their situation, but her eyes opened wide at the sight of the sixteen year old next to her. Kaminari's eyes had narrowed, and his face was deadly serious as he looked past her and towards the black van that kept driving past the side of their bus too but had to stop before getting to the front since they were at an angle from the few turns they tried. He glanced back and saw another two SUVs, a dark red one and a black one pull along the other side of that long truck, but what really got to him was the front door of the truck opening and the driver getting out.

The girl at Kaminari's side glanced back in confusion as to his serious expression, and she hummed as the driver opened his truck door. "At least they'll figure out what's…"

Kaminari's eyes shot open wide and he pulled out his phone fast. He looked down at it and his fingers sparked, and Thompson spun and looked at him with wide-eyes as she caught those sparks in the corner of her eyes. "What are you-"

"It's not the service," Kaminari whispered.

"Who's that?!"

Kaminari's eyes darted up and he looked out the front of the windshield. His breathing picked up faster while others on the bus started talking in more panicked voices, considering there was a man standing out there on the rocks on the road.

"He just dropped down out of nowhere!"

"He's wearing a costume! Must be here to clear the rubble!"

"How'd he know?"

"Maybe there were other cars here before us?"

"What do you mean it's not the service?" Thompson whispered, her eyes huge.

 _What do I do? What do I- this is- this is definitely…_ Kaminari's fingers sparked on his phone more, and he started tapping on it quickly.

"Oh my God!"

"Why are they all getting out- holy shit!"

"They're all wearing-"

"Those aren't heroes-"

Kaminari snapped his head up and looked through the front windshield, to see the tall, light-skinned, bald man standing on the largest rock blocking the road smirk through the windshield of the bus at the panicking passengers inside. People were getting out of the SUVs and van and truck, and they were all wearing costumes, and they all had appearances that did not match those of heroes. Thompson whispered on Kaminari's left, "They're all, villains."

Kaminari's face covered in sweat as he looked at that bald man through the windshield. "Oh fuck me."

* * *

 **A/N Thanks for reading. Hope you enjoyed the chapter. What's Kaminari going to do? What's going on? So I just finished up my study abroad program here in Japan and I won't have time to write very often in the next few days, which means I'll likely catch up to where I'm currently at editing-wise. Gonna travel the country now that I've got a week before it's back to the states. Anyway, also wanted to mention about the first scene in this chapter. Nagiso was a guy in a flashback with Zach much earlier on who I wanted to add back in for a while. Mirio Togata, still has his Quirk, but Gran Torino lost his? Things changed when Zach became Lifebringer. Big part of that, might have been that Kurogiri and Zach were working together to save people with him as Lifebringer around that time where in the manga Gran Torino left the Overhaul mission to hunt down Kurogiri. Wondered what would've happened if Gran Torino was there, decided to still have Sir Nighteye die, but Gran Torino lost his Quirk instead of Togata. So stuff like that wasn't really delved into much as I never specified exactly what differences happened b/w the manga and Death before. Could be other differences, other things could have changed, so don't assume everything from the manga has happened in this AU. A new arc starts here at the end of the chapter during the break between school years. What is going to happen?! Find out next time!**

Favorite Reader chapter 49 . Jul 27

Does Zach's quirk grant him any enhanced physical abilities in his Nightmare Form?  
SO... if we were to translate this properly. Zach's durability comes from the Diluted Death on his body in Nightmare form, but does he gain any noteworthy enhanced strength, maybe not on the same level but enough to break stone or concrete effortlessly. I know this was not touched upon because Zach never really fights against inanimate things because he thought Nightmare would only work on living things like his right hand. So, basically he never learned if his strength was enhanced because was never put into a situation where his strength was being tested and was forced to use Nightmare.  
-The only thing I'm wondering now is... Does Nightmare give him any level of enhanced strength  
Can his long range attack energies be used to destroy physical inanimate objects at a distance rather than just knock people out? (Did Death Grenade damage the floor or something like that when he landed it testing it against Ectoplasm? (Is he awake now? Did Zach apologize to him?...)  
Awesome story by the way!  
Why is Zach still Fun-Sized?! If he and Momo get together please dont make it awkward and that includes the fact he's four inches shorter than her...

 **Thanks for the long review! Cut out a little bit of it, but I'll try to respond to it all. As of the last chapter we see that Zach is able to focus Death to make himself a bit stronger, since he was able to smash out of the ice when he wasn't able to before, as well as land that far drop and still be able to walk away, even if he was limping. He's been training for a few months straight too that we've seen, and doing it in Nightmare form specifically. We have yet to see him do anything really big strength-wise with it though, and I wouldn't say 'effortlessly' he can break stone, we haven't seen anything implying he can do that yet. Zach was not proved to be immune to disease, but back in the court case one of the prosecutors made the accusation that considering Zach's right hand kills whatever it touches, then bacteria that cause disease would die and he might not never get sick. Never mentioned that Death Grenade destroyed any of the floor, and the next chapter kind of sped by the days after that, so considering I think the second scene in it they made no mention of Ectoplasm it was left to you to kind of guess that he was alright so there was no bigger deal made out of it. I'm glad you've liked the story so far, and don't worry, Zach's still getting taller! We'll see if he manages to pass her though... XD Thanks again!**

LordOfTee chapter 48 . Jul 27

That was a wonderfully written presentation! And I'm glad that Zach isn't Super hung about the traitor but is still very keen.

 **Thanks, (from me and Zach). Zach's starting to relax more around his classmates and friends, but he knows the spy is still there somewhere... Glad you enjoyed, and hope you're ready for the new arc!**

D-Koy24 chapter 48 . 20h ago

I shall vote for Zach! That was amazing- surprised you made the whole chapter about his speech- but who cares, you/ Zach I don't know which anymore killed it,no you didn't kill it you killed then brought it back and killed it over and over!  
*clears throat* (Kneels down and chants "I'm not worthy") Seriously Bakugo must be pissef he's going up after that XD LOL

Zach was awesome even though he didn't surround the flag with death... But hey a nice chapter where Zach doesn't feel like he has to be an outcast.  
~D-Koy, sorry for short review I have a headache! (Ouch too loud!)  
 **Haha thanks! Really glad you liked chapter 48. Didn't know if I could make a chapter about an essay actually come out interesting and good. Bakugo was def pissed, still thinking about it the next day at capture the flag for the beginning a bit. Also glad you liked the game, and don't worry about the short review, 'cause the consistency's awesome! Thanks for the reviews!**

Guest chapter 1 . 19h ago

i loved it it was amazing! i also love my hero academia

 **Thanks! I love it too!**


	51. Chapter 51

**Disclaimer: I don't own Boku no Hero Academia**

 **Chapter 51:**

Kaminari: "Guys holy shit!"

A picture popped up in Class 1-A's whole class group message. A second picture followed, then a third. A half dozen texts came through their phones so fast that anyone thinking about ignoring it pulled their phones out of their pockets and started looking at the photos.

Sero: "Oh man where are you?"

A picture of a map sent with a pin on Kaminari's location, in the middle of nowhere far from any nearby cities. Kaminari: "Send people! Phone signals are being blocked!"

Yaoyorozu: "Call the cops!"

Sato: "How are u texting?"

Zach: "Amplify your phone signal more if you can't call the cops"

Bakugo: "Kick all their asses idiot!"

Jirou: "R those all villains?!"

Iida: "I have alerted the authorities. Kaminari you must protect the people with you."

Kirishima: "Bakugo's right! You have to fight them!"

Midoriya: "Be careful Kaminari"

Kaminari: "I can't fight them! There are too many civs around for me to be strong and everything's wet from the rain I'll electrocute everyone and I don't have my costume so I can't direct"

Iida: "Heroes and the police are heading to you Kaminari-kun. Do what you can until then."

Jirou: "Don't listen to them! You can't take that many!"

Zach: "Kaminari"

Mineta: "Guys what's going on?!"

Ashido: "Hey Kaminari kick their butts!"

Yaoyorozu: "Protect the people on the bus first and foremost."

Zach: "Kaminari?"

The messages stopped for a few seconds. They had been coming out rapidly and non-stop for two minutes now, but everyone in Class A just stopped sending them. They all stared at the last message, and they were awaiting a response.

Zach stood up from the edge of his bed he was sitting on. It was pretty early in the morning, and though he had been awake he was just sitting around on his phone since it was the start of vacation after all. He stood up and ran his left hand up through his hair covered in dark shadows of his Nightmare mode. _What do I do? Kaminari's right. The others must realize it too, even Bakugo didn't say anything when Kaminari retorted. His retort seemed cut off, like he sent it early for some reason._ Zach started pacing back and forth in his room, then he walked over to the door as he heard another one open in his hallway. He stepped out while tapping on his chest with his right hand, then looked to the right towards Sato who looked his way in surprise seeing the darkness leave Zach's body.

"Zach," Sato began. "What do we do? What do you think's happening?"

Zach started walking his way and then right past and Sato turned to walk with him. Zach glanced up at the taller boy and shook his head for a second with pursed lips, then he said, "I don't know. I don't know what to do." He said it fast, and he rose his left hand and ran it up through his hair again as he rushed faster into the stairwell. The two of them started jogging down the stairs, and Zach continued while looking straight down with a serious look and his mind racing. "I hope Kaminari figures a way out of it. He's strong. And, and maybe he's not responding because that's what he's doing right now. He left his phone to go out and fight- or maybe the villains confiscated phones and took the bus passengers as hostages… or maybe they just robbed and killed everyone there."

Sato's eyes opened huge at that last suggestion, and he shouted quickly after gaining that shocked look, "Kaminari wouldn't let that happen!"

"Maybe not, but what can he do on a vehicle? What if he blows it up and those other ones- or what about all that water? Can he use his power in the rain or will it electrocute all the wet ground and everyone near him including those civilians?" Zach's voice was getting more panicked, and when he and Sato both whipped their buzzing phones out with hopeful looks, their hopes were dashed as it was just the others texting Kaminari's name or saying to tell the teachers and figure out what's happening. Someone suggested it was the League of Villains, and that made the others who were away from campus start panicking and saying that they had to get away from their families and back to school.

"What can we do?" Zach whispered as they stopped down on the third floor. He looked through the doors next to the stairwell, his rapid breathing slowing down. _What can I do? Is there nothing to do, except wait? Maybe everything will work out. Maybe, Kaminari can figure a way out of it, or the heroes Iida called will arrive at the location. Kaminari's really strong. Maybe, even though he can't fight now, maybe they'll take those people somewhere where… but why? What's going on? Why would they attack a bus? Is it just to get Kaminari?! Is it because of me?! Is it the League, after my best- my best friend?!_ Zach's fists clenched at his sides as he thought it. It came into his head without having to think about it, and he bit down so hard behind his lips as he stared into the third floor and towards Kaminari's dorm room. _What can_ _ **I**_ _do? Right now, what is it that I can do to help him?_

* * *

At a cafe in a less urban area of Musutafu not far from Zach's old home, everyone in the cafe was staring towards the counter and up at a tv screen that just had more news on the currently breaking story. In the cafe at a booth in the back corner, Zach Sazaki sat with a black hoodie on and the hood up, his black bangs pressed down over his forehead and shadowing his eyes. He had a small cup of coffee in front of him that was almost empty, the volume he was going to leave it at so people thought he was still drinking if they looked over. No one was looking at him though. They were all staring at the screen just like he was.

Zach felt a buzz in his pocket and he pulled out his phone. He lowered his gaze from the breaking news story for a second to see a text from Yaoyorozu. He opened his phone and backed off of the text conversation with All Might, who he had texted before news of the story reached the former number 1 hero, who had given Zach permission to leave the school via a text that Zach was able to show the security guard at the gate before news had spread far enough. He already had several messages from All Might lower down below that permission which were sent after Zach left the school, one of which he received only minutes after making it off campus.

 _"Zach where are you? Come back to the dorm. The teachers want you back, and we're getting worried since you aren't responding. Tell me you're okay. Things are getting crazy. Just tell me you're fine."_ Zach lowered the phone with Yaoyorozu's message on it and bit down, but he just turned it off and slid it into his pocket. _I shouldn't even have it on me. I need it for a little longer though…_ Zach stared up at the screen and he bit down harder at what the news anchors were saying.

"…heroes arrived on the scene but found no sign of the tour bus or any of the thirty-two passengers aboard. The rock slide shown here has been determined not to have been caused by natural phenomena. It is believed one of the villains in the pictures shown previously must have been responsible."

"What is it these villains want? Why take a bus full of vacationers?"

"There have yet to be any ransom demands, but every member of the tour is missing, including one Denki Kaminari, a student from U.A.'s freshman Class A." The anchor saying this was pushed to the side of the screen as another visual popped up in front of him, showing the Sports Festival and Kaminari out there using his Electrification against Sero and then a clip back at the Cavalry Battle. Zach saw himself in that next image, and he bit down even harder and then stood up from the table, right before he heard mention on the screen of his being with Kaminari in that clip.

The other anchor moved on fast after saying that it _was_ Lifebringer they saw there. "This Kaminari goes by the hero name Chargebolt, and he has a provisional hero license. What is he doing? The footage we have from the scene does not show signs of a fight-"

"The information we did receive was sent from Denki Kaminari's phone," the other anchor countered. "He managed to get out information to be sent to the police and heroes, but one boy without even a full license would have a hard time against all the villains in those pictures. We don't know if he tried fighting or not, or what happened to him and the other passengers. From the pictures we did receive here at the station not long ago however, we have determined the man standing in front of the bus to be one Howard Kasami, who some people may know of as the villain Shatterer."

"Now that's a tough name to say. For those of you just joining us and did not hear before, Shatterer is one of three leaders of a villain gang known as the War Boys whose operations have mostly taken place in Hokkaido in the past. Shatterer is wanted for a list of crimes, including homicide and terrorist actions. His gang is responsible for the death of the pro hero, Your Hero: Everyman, during a chase two months ago where two of the War Boys were captured and arrested."

"The War Boys seem to be responsible for this, but there have yet to be any ransom demands, and we don't know…"

Zach opened up the door to the cafe and stepped outside. He thought about the pictures the anchors had just skimmed through while talking about the War Boys. They were pictures he had been looking at all morning, and although he had not even had lunch yet, it already felt like the longest day in a long, long time. _Whether or not it's actually my fault, shouldn't matter. It doesn't._ Zach's head lifted a bit and he looked into the dark sky above full of blackish-gray clouds. His eyes narrowed and he lifted his phone up. He scrolled through the contacts and started walking down the sidewalk, his head lifting and focusing farther into the most urban and central part of town. He put the phone up to the side of his head under the hood. The phone rang twice, then someone picked up on the other end.

"Hello, how can I help-"

"I would like to speak with the man," Zach said. He kept walking and nodded his head a couple of times, then he pulled the phone away from his head and pressed the red end-call button. He lifted his right knee and slammed his phone down at the same time, then he tossed the broken device in a trashcan he was about to walk past anyway. He kept his hood up and his expression dark, and focused straight ahead. He was so focused on what was ahead, that he did not notice the head poking out of an alleyway just on the other side of the cafe he had been sitting in for the past hour and a half. The figure's head leaned out farther and they stared straight at Zach's back, and a huge smile broke out over their face before they pulled back and out of sight.

* * *

"How do you like it?" Seiki Ganji asked, scratching his goatee and grinning himself as he looked up and down the shorter figure before him.

Zach stood in Ganji's office at the side wall that was not covered in windows. He did not know the reason last time why the other wall that looked like it should have been covered in windows, as Ganji's office was wide enough that it seemed to span the width of the building, did not have any windows to speak of. He stood just inside an indent in the wall that had opened up to reveal a whole secret narrow passage inside, and he stared into a mirror through the shaded visor over his helmet. _It's stuffy,_ he thought, but he nodded his head and then turned to Ganji and said in a grateful voice, "It's great."

The sixteen year old pulled out a knife from the black sheath on his right side, then one from the left to check the sharpness. He had two more sheaths under his armpits attached to his sides, two more on either side of his hips, another knife on the back of his waist, and his grappling gun was a different model with a twist to it to throw off anyone who might think this costume was similar to Lifebringer's. The biggest difference of his all-black uniform was his helmet though that covered his entire face, and the neck of his skin-tight costume pulled right up to his chin so not an inch of skin was showing on his whole body. The bottom half of the helmet had vertical slits for him to breathe black steam through, as well as breathe easier normally in the stuffy helmet. The top of the face-mask was actually a visor though it was shaded to the point that it just looked like a smooth cover on the top half, yet if his eyes were to turn red they would glow through that visor as it was not made of bone like the rest of the helmet. It was smooth on the sides and around the back of his head, but the top of the helmet did not cover the top of his scalp. It seemed like an obvious flaw for defensive purposes, but the boy in all black wanted his messy black hair showing. His original costume idea did not have anything covering the very top of his head either, though he had wanted his spiky hair to show back then to imitate a hero, not to strike fear when his hair would seep black tendrils into the air above him.

"We'll see how great it is," a voice said behind Zach after he had turned to Ganji again. The larger man turned his head a little and just grinned, while Zach spun around with wide eyes and stared farther into the office. He stared in surprise at the brown-haired man walking his way with a pair of sunglasses on.

"Webb," Zach began in a whisper. He stared at the blind man walking his way, and after few seconds he grinned and asked, "Will you _see_ how great it is?" Ganji's eyes shot open huge behind Zach, his bottom lip dropping as the boy made a blind joke to a blind man.

Webb frowned deeply and stopped walking towards Zach. He paused, then he turned around and Zach called out, "Wait wait! Sorry." He reached up and took his helmet off to stop muffling his own voice which it only did a little, and he was mainly taking it off since there was no reason to have it on right now. Webb turned back around, and Zach said, "I'm surprised though." He glanced back at Ganji, then forward at Webb farther back in the office, "Even though I asked Mr. Ganji to get in contact with you, I didn't think you'd be here so soon."

"You said that I have a way to save your friend," Webb said, repeating what Ganji told him when he had called after speaking with Zach over the phone.

"You do," Zach said, though his voice got lower there and a little hesitant. He lifted his gloved left hand and rubbed over his mouth with it, then he lowered it and said, "And the other hostages too."

"And what is this way?" Ganji asked. He was also interested since Zach had not explained to him yet, saying earlier that it only mattered if Webb came which Ganji did not assure him was going to happen.

"It's something only we can do, together," Zach said slowly. "But it's going to come at a cost…"

Zach explained some of his plan to Webb whose face immediately dipped into an annoyed one, then a more thoughtful one as Zach walked over to a chair he had left his other clothes and belongings. Zach pulled out a sock and he held up his hand with a hopeful look on his face, and after a minute of deliberation Webb nodded his head and said, "Fine."

It was still light out past the windows on one side of the office, though it was dark too as the gray clouds from earlier had covered the city in a downpour. Webb and Zach stood over near the windows talking, while Seiki Ganji went over to his own narrow passage on the side of his office. While they were alone, Zach asked the man next to him who was a couple of inches taller than him, "Why haven't you messaged me recently?" Webb faced the boy and frowned more at the kid who did not lean away but just got a more upset, and a little hurt look on his face at Webb's frown. "I don't know what I did," Zach said. "But ever since we last came here, or even before we left, I know I must have done something."

Webb kept his mouth closed for a few seconds, but then he lifted a hand and rubbed his forehead over his sunglasses. "You were supposed to-" he started, then he stopped himself and sighed. He turned and walked farther back towards the center of the room and the chairs in front of Ganji's desk. Zach walked after him, a frustrated look on his face that Webb would not just tell him already. "I am disappointed, by your response."

"What response?" Zach asked, annoyed since it seemed like Webb was talking in riddles.

"To our meeting here," Webb said. "Your first meeting with Ganji." He turned to the boy behind him again, a frown on his face and his eyebrows narrowed in behind his sunglasses. Zach paused and his eyes widened a bit, though he was still confused as to what Webb was referring to. "After receiving a card, which I was surprised by. I did not think he would give you one on your first meeting. Yet when you received it, you said that you would not use it, and that you would wait until I called on you."

"I had school and-"

"You are right. You made it clear with that statement in the elevator, that you were preoccupied." Zach froze with his mouth open, and his eyes opened wider at what Webb was telling him. "Introducing you to Ganji was supposed to make you more independent, as your own anti-hero with your own connections, not that you realized it at the time. While you designed your costume I had some hope, because I could tell you were listening to the things we discussed. Yet despite talking at length about several criminal operations, you showed no interest in joining me to face them as I made clear I would be doing."

"I would have come if you'd asked," Zach said, a frustrated and also angry look on his face. _Why didn't I notice? Why didn't-_ "Why not just tell me that's what you wanted?"

"It's not up to me to decide what you do," Webb said. "If you took the initiative on your own to show a will to join the fights I implied would be happening soon, or even if you had left school on your own without telling me to go face them by yourself… But you disappointed me by your response, so I decided not to bother with you anymore."

 _"Bother with me?" Damn it. He just, ended things without saying a word. He didn't even give me a number so I could get in contact with him. But that's, just the kind of guy Webb is._ "Then why'd you come?" Zach asked darkly.

"I owe you a favor," Webb said. Zach's eyes opened wide, and Webb continued, "You helped with Diamondfist when I asked you to."

"Really?" Zach asked, his eyebrows lifting up. _I wanted to go to that anyway. And he saved my life a bunch of times before that so if anything I was repaying the favor. Maybe he considers the information I gave him enough to pay back those saves anyway, but it's not like I went to fight Diamondfist for Webb. I went with him because I wanted to fight the League of Villains… It feels like Webb's using that as an excuse to help me, and I want to poke fun at him for doing it, but I guess our relationship wasn't as strong as I thought… I really thought of him, as a friend? No, a mentor? I guess that's closer. Not a hero, even if he did save my life. He was willing to let me get captured again to lead him to the League of Villains. He's an anti-hero. I know that. Damn it, I just didn't realize how much I messed up by saying that thoughtlessly in the elevator. I wasn't even paying attention. All I was thinking about was Lifebringer, and controlling Nightmare- there's always too much on my plate! That's no excuse though! I have to realize stuff like that. I have to think about how Webb was feeling in there, when I just got a card from Seiki Ganji, I should have been super hyped to become an anti-hero, but I was just thinking about all sorts of different things… My mind was scattered._

"Well then," Zach said, taking a deep breath as he calmed his thoughts a bit. "Thanks for coming, and letting me do this."

"I still feel it's a waste, but to save thirty-two people it's an acceptable loss. Maybe," Webb added at the end in a more annoyed tone as he once again weighed the pros and cons.

"It is," Zach said. "Even if it was just one person," he added, his voice softer.

Webb frowned more at the boy before him, but Zach frowned right back up at his face and narrowed his own eyes. "Alright," Seiki Ganji's deep voice boomed towards them. The two turned towards the other wall, and Zach's eyes shot open huge at the sight of the burly man standing there in a suit of tight black latex that looked thick and bulletproof. He had a belt on around his waist covered in different tools, a black mask over his face different from Zach's with a helmet that was thicker on the sides with round circle pieces sticking off the sides of his head, as well as thick black boots on with spikes around the sides of the soles.

"Whoa," Zach whispered, then he shook his head around. "Wait, are you, coming with us?" He asked it even though it seemed obvious at this point.

"Those pictures showed a great deal of villains," Seiki Ganji said in a serious tone from behind his mask. The middle of his mask had a visor that was lifted up so his eyes were showing, and those eyes narrowed as he rose up his clenched fists at his sides. "If I can help save the people held captive, then I will do my part. As Mythril, I will support you in your mission, Reaper." Zach's eyes opened even wider at how serious a tone Ganji had while saying that. "Now come here. We'll use the secret elevator at the end of the passage down to the secret garage beneath the building. It has been a long time since I used the secret tunnel connecting to the Cardana Tunnel."

 _Oh man. I forgot how rich this guy was for a second… but still! He's got a secret fucking tunnel?! How the Hell did he-_ Webb started walking forward on Zach's right, and Zach moved up as well. "Where's your costume Webb?" Zach wondered.

"I'll put it on on the way," Webb replied, which made Zach lift an eyebrow in confusion as that still did not answer his question.

"What is this method we will be locating them?" Ganji asked as Zach and Webb walked up to him. They entered the narrow passage with Ganji at the front and Zach just behind and to the left, while Webb could just walk side-by-side on Zach's right in the dark passage full of costumes and weapons. Ganji tapped a button on his right wrist where the fabric moved to show a bunch of tech beneath, and the end of the passage cracked in the middle at what looked like a wall to reveal the hidden elevator Zach did not notice last time he was in here.

Webb frowned again deeper at Ganji's question, and he replied, "We'll be using Hunter."

Ganji looked over his right shoulder in some surprise, focusing only on Webb as he did. _He's letting Sazaki do this?_

"I have something of my friend's on me," Zach said, walking with his helmet in one hand and a sock tucked into the belt on his left side behind a black sheath pressed tightly to him. He had spoken vaguely without giving away much information the first time, but if Ganji was coming along he figured he'd say everything. "He can track him using it, no matter where he is."

"And you're sure you want to give away that we've been tracking him?" Webb muttered, voicing his complaint with the boy's plan.

"He may never get in contact with the League of Villains," Zach began. "But even if he does one day, we need this now. We can't leave those people, and my friend, in villains' clutches for a far-off hope. Besides, I don't plan on letting him know we've been tracking him," Zach added that in a darker voice right as the three of them were getting in the elevator. Webb and Ganji both looked in at the boy as the elevator started dropping them fast through the building, much faster than the main elevator could go. Zach did not look at either of the men next to him after what he just said, but he finished in a lower voice, "When we get to him, just follow my lead. It's going to get, dark."

Webb nodded his head in understanding and pulled out his phone without any more hesitation. He tapped a few buttons while Ganji and Zach both looked at him, wondering how he managed to work his phone without even facing down at the screen. Webb lifted it up to the side of his head, and he said, "Yeah. Riekers, I need his location. No, not like that. I'm going after him. Yeah. Keep me posted on all movements. As precise as you can get, time is of the essence."

Zach felt relieved that Webb felt they were pressed for time, but he also caught that 'as precise as you can get,' which meant they might not be able to locate Hunter as easily as he had hoped. _He knows my scent. And that makes it better,_ Zach thought, suppressing a small grin from coming to his face.

The doors of the elevator opened up and Zach's jaw dropped. He tried closing it fast, but the 'basement' looked like a badass secret lair with giant computers up ahead of them along a wall and a series of different vehicles lined up on a strip of pavement before a road into a narrow tunnel ahead of them. Ganji tapped some buttons on his wrist and the tunnel started lighting up, and then the big black Hummer at the right side of the line of vehicles turned on its engines without anyone inside it.

"Want to drive, Webb?" Ganji offered, a grin like he got a kick out of it.

Webb started frowning deeper, and Zach could not help but lift the corners of his mouth a little as it almost seemed to Zach like Ganji was taking his attitude as an excuse to make a blind joke himself. Zach realized a second later that he was probably wrong though as he saw Webb looking like he was thinking about it, only to shake his head and say, "I'll be on the phone in the back. I need to get changed as well. Let's move. There will be no breaks between reaching Hunter and going after the War Boys."

Webb moved for the Hummer and slid his hand along the door to the handle he grabbed and pulled open. Zach felt a little stupid that he thought it was a blind joke at all, thinking back on how Webb had driven them on a motorcycle from Musutafu to Ugina City before. He saw Webb get in the back of the big vehicle though, and he watched as Ganji moved around the other side, so he just stepped right up to the passenger seat and got in at the front. He kept his helmet off for now, but when he got in the Hummer and saw Ganji stepping in with his still on, he put his own as well. _Secret identities. It's important._ He lifted his visor at least while sitting there in the passenger seat, and he turned to Ganji who put the truck into gear and started driving forward fast. _Guess there are no speed limits on his own private, not to mention secret, roads._

"Gan- Mythril," Zach said, realizing he had to use identities now that the mission was started, or now that Ganji was in costume, or just because of the fact that Ganji told him his anti-hero name a few minutes ago. "What is your Quirk? I assumed it had something to do with strength-"

"You assumed correctly," Mythril replied. "I can strengthen to two times my normal strength, two and a half if I go all out."

Zach tried very hard to keep a straight expression as he stared back out through the front windshield. _He's a billionaire. He's a very well-connected anti-hero. This guy talked to All Might about saving me. Don't crack a smile._ Zach managed to hold himself back, then he said, "You look strong already, so that must be-"

"There's no need to push yourself Reaper," Mythril said. He continued driving straight down the underground road but it curved ahead and Zach could see a large steel wall around that bend. "I understand that Strengthening is not an amazing Quirk in this world. It is why I graduated U.A.'s business course, even though I originally tried for the hero course." Zach's eyes widened as the man started talking about this, and though he knew Ganji had graduated from U.A. since he had done his research since their last meeting, he did not know that the man had tried to do the hero course first. Ganji continued after a pause, "Just into the start of my first year though, I was offered to move up into the hero course thanks to the Sports Festival. I decided against it however."

Ganji pushed his foot to the gas pedal harder and let out a low chuckle behind his mask, while Zach's eyes opened wide at what the man was saying. "I understood within a short time that I had a knack for business, and I had already made a plan to be a hero in my own way. The offer to move into the hero course was a test in my eyes, and I have always believed I chose correctly." The metal doors at the end of the path opened up in a single swoosh, leaving a large gap into a more illuminated tunnel while all the lights currently around them cut off. The Hummer shot out of the hole in the wall and dropped down ten feet to the ground of the tunnel while Ganji spun the wheel hard to one side.

Zach held on for his life as their truck spun out at the back wheels but then turned correctly after a second. He glanced in the rearview mirror and out the back of the Hummer to see another car had stopped in the road behind them, and he wondered what the person in that vehicle must think considering the wall of the Cardana tunnel was back the way it should be and did not look like a giant metal door at all from this side. They drove fast too, and they were out of sight of that other vehicle in a few seconds. _Isn't that risky-_ Zach's eyes widened more as he stared at the man in the backseat who was already wearing a helmet that covered the top of his head. _When did he- how did he?! I wanted to see his eyes,_ Zach thought in annoyance. He turned away from Webb with a deep frown, and Ganji continued talking after driving them out the other side of the tunnel.

"I learned in the first few weeks at the U.A. business course how much power some companies hold in this world. I understood that through having control over a business, having connections through the world, I could do so much more than just being an average, strong hero. Because don't get me wrong," Mythril said, and he let out a low and dry chuckle, "I am strong. But I never would have been more than a decent hero had I chosen that route."

"That's, pretty amazing," Zach said once the man sounded like he was finished. "And you really did it too. That tunnel thing back there was crazy. Your business, that basement, these costumes too," Zach shook his head in amazement at all that came out of graduating from the U.A. business school. _You don't need to be a hero,_ he thought.

"It's important to make contacts while you are still at school," Ganji added. Zach turned to him eyes wide as it seemed like the man was giving him some advice, and he nodded quickly to show he was taking it. "I still have many contacts from my high school days. And it is someone I first met in the Support Department at U.A. who works with me now, who made your suit," Ganji finished, and Zach's eyes snapped down in shock that this costume was also made by someone related to U.A.'s Support Department. Ganji hummed and then added while Zach looked down at his costume, "Speaking of which, there's something you need to know about your costume…"

* * *

"Ah hah, ah hah, ah hah," a thin man in all black sprinted up a staircase, then he threw open a doorway and jumped into the air. He flew across the big empty room with nothing but rectangular white pillars in it from the floor to the ceiling. The empty building was pitch black other than some light coming in through windows, but even that was dim since he was in a quieter part of the city. Thin wings flapped fast over him and he shot towards the staircase up, only for the door at the top of it to open, and a figure to step into that door who made Hunter freeze and drop down to the floor. He fell fast and stumbled forward on his landing, before taking a step back as he looked at the man with a mask covering the top half of his face. "How are you doing this?!" Hunter shouted, his voice high-pitched and cracking.

He turned and sprinted back the other way, slamming a fist out to his left as he ran and smashing it through a pillar. "Raa!" _Everywhere I go! I can escape! I can always run! How are they- how are they doing this?!_ Hunter jolted to a stop as he stared at the door he had come in himself ten seconds ago, where a figure just ran up into that doorway and turned to face him. The figure in all black looked big and menacing as he looked Hunter's way, but all he did was reach out and grab the door, then slam it to a shut with a loud noise that echoed through the empty building. "What is happening?!" Hunter yelled, spinning around and looking back across the room that now had a destroyed pillar in it to see the man he fought on New Year's now standing on the floor level with him.

Hunter took a step back, sweat all over his face. He snapped his head to the left and looked up, then he spun back towards the man across the room who stomped down extra hard and made an echoing thud through the room.

"You know how," a deep voice started. It chilled Hunter to the bone. He froze in place, his entire body covering in more sweat. He turned to the left again, then turned his whole body this time and stared with his bottom lip lowered at the figure suddenly standing only twenty feet away from him. He was pitch black with a dark aura around him, no bones showing inside him this time other than the skull on his face and the glowing red orbs coming from the eye sockets. That figure took a step towards Hunter, and the aura around him pushed back with his step to make him look like he was leaving it behind, a trail of it following him while also seeping off the top of his head in long strands that gave his skull what looked like a waving spiky-haired appearance only of darkness. "You know, because you have my lingering scent from when you hunted me. You knew I was coming for you, but you didn't dare believe it." The voice was dark, and ominous, and scratchy, and the dark figure's red eyes flared as he took another step towards Hunter who took a full step back.

Hunter gulped but then his fists clenched at his sides. His arms were shaking, but he steadied his right and threw a knife he pulled out straight forwards at the boy's skull-face. Zach snapped his right hand up with a knife in it- _**Dink**_ He slashed across the knife and knocked it away, a black slash coming off of his own blade that covered in that darkness instantly when he wrapped his hand around the hilt. Zach's red eyes grew wider, but Hunter just took another step back in fear, not noticing the figure's red eyes looking at his own knife in surprise. _My reflexes in this form, keep heightening._ Zach lowered his blade and glared towards Hunter, and he said in a dark and louder tone, "How does it feel, to be the one who's hunted?"

Zach walked forward, darkness dripping from the blade he held in front of him. "Chased into a corner, by my followers?" Zach said, and Hunter's eyes shot open even wider while a terrified look spread across his face. "Hahaha, hahahaha," Zach laughed and slowed to a stop twelve feet in front of the hitman. "Did you really think you could outrun the devil?"

"You're not-"

"Kiki Tanner," Zach said, and then he stomped his right foot forward and forced darkness out of it fast to cover the floor and rise up in dark wisps. Hunter stumbled backwards and this time fell to his butt as Zach called him out by his real name. "You tried to bring me to my torturers, attempted to kill me when I was weak, but I have recovered my strength."

"I'm sorry," Hunter began, his voice cracking as he pushed his hands down at his sides. Webb stood not far away, facing Zach while thinking about the hardened assassin who he fought against tooth and nail a few months ago. Listening to that criminal sounding like he did now, impressed the blind man as much as he was just frowning towards Zach. Hunter spoke quickly in a scared voice, "I didn't know-"

"You toyed with the devil," Zach said, his voice even deeper and more menacing. His red eyes swirled a darker color as Zach forced darkness around his face, shading over the white of his skull more and giving himself the most terrifying black appearance. **"And your debt, must be paid."** His voice dipped a whole notch darker there, and Zach did not even realize it was going to happen though he had forced a lot of darkness up to his face right there which made him realize it probably had a lot more in his throat and mouth too. He breathed out heavily when he realized that, and a black steam came out of his mouth and shadowed over his face even more with the cloud of haze.

Hunter's arms he was trying to use to scoot himself back fell, his palms slipping as he trying scooting faster only for him to fall almost flat on his back. He stared forward with his head barely lifted, his eyes trembling as the devil walked towards him. "P-Please don't-"

 _You bastard. How many people told you that when these positions were switched?_ "I need something from you," Zach said, his voice back to deep and scratchy but not as murderous as what he said last.

This made Hunter's eyes open huge in hope and desperation, and he started nodding his head desperately. "Anything! I'll do anything!"

"I need you to find someone for me," Zach said.

Hunter started nodding really fast, but he said in a somewhat calmer tone while getting to his knees and then in a crouch, "Anything. Yeah I can- but I n-n-need something from whoever you're-"

Zach lifted a hand from his waist and tossed forward a sock that lost the darkness around it as it fell towards Hunter. Hunter scrambled away from the dark form falling at him, falling back on his butt again before getting up and walking to the sock on the floor. He reached down and grabbed it, and Zach continued to the figure whose expression he was reading while the man rose the sock to his face. "Do not think about it," Zach said, and Hunter's face started sweating more, even as he tried calming himself down. "I was able to locate you because of the intense hatred I feel towards you inside my black heart. It led me here, allowed me to keep track of your every move, your every attempt to flee."

Hunter's face filled with terror once again. The fact that Zach was there asking him to help find someone was strange to him since Zach and his comrades had located him. It had almost snapped him out of his horror, but Zach's explanation countering what he was thinking about without him ever making an attempt to escape just made him even more terrified. "Listen to me, Kiki-kun," Zach said, and he forced out more black wind around his body. He forced more than he ever had in his fight against Hunter who had been too fast for him to try and charge much back on New Year's. Hunter lifted his head and stared at Zach's form surrounding in a thicker and bigger shroud of darkness every passing second. He kept it away from his skull face and his red eyes that started glowing brighter as he surrounded everything else in thicker darkness. Ganji backed away from the other side of a nearby door, and Webb took a step back himself, as they heard Zach's voice in their heads, **"You are now my servant. If you consider betraying me. If you make any attempt to lie to me… It will not be quick. It will _not_ be painless. It will be **_**excruciating,**_ **and you will suffer** _ **everlasting."**_

Hunter dropped down to his left knee and bowed his head into his right that was sticking up in front of him with his right foot on the ground. He got in that kneeling stance like he was pledging his loyalty, though he looked so wobbly on it that he might fall at any second. _I'm crossing a new line,_ Zach thought as he stared at the man who started blathering to him that he would never betray the 'devil' as long as he lived. _I knew this guy partly believed I was the devil, so I decided to use that. This far though._ Zach glared harder down at Hunter, "You will lead me and my comrades to our companion. Take us there, Hunter, and I will free you… for now." _I can be a good actor when I want to be…_ Zach watched as Hunter lifted his head and tried steadying his obviously terrified gaze to tell Zach that he already had the scent and could start taking them to him immediately. _It's already been fourteen hours since Kaminari's messages. I don't have time to go easy. The ends, justify the means._

* * *

 **A/N Thanks for reading. Zach skips out on U.A., calls up Ganji's secret number, and he's using every resource he's got to find Kaminari. What did the War Boys do with Kaminari and the other passengers of the tour bus? Will Hunter be able to lead Zach and his anti-hero comrades to the villains? Has Zach stepped too far convincing a man he is the devil? And what about just leaving U.A. in the middle of this emergency?! Find out next time on one of the longest chapters of Death so far! Hope you enjoyed the chapter and are looking forward to what's coming! Leave a review below with predictions/comments/questions!**

Bass4penguin chapter 50 . 21h ago

What would happen if Zach revived someone who had lost there quirk ?

 **Great question. Zach's been bringing people to perfect health, so I can see why you'd think it's a possibility. If the situation arises I guess we'll see... Thanks for the review!**

Jonnno377 chapter 50 . 13h ago

As far as the whole story goes it's amazing I've read alot of MHA fan fics on this website but I genuinely think that this is one of the best ive ever read the storyline is everything i look for in these kinda things the character has some extreme levels of depth to him  
My one and only thing is have to say about how I would personally take the story is I'd have Zach do more solo acts like try and take down shigiraki solo idk that's just where I'd take things I think you could you with the rest of the casts emotions that way as they try to figure out where Zach keeps running off too also I feel as if you could explore Zach's emotions abit more but either way as I said one of the best if not the best OC story I've ever read keep up the amazing work

 **Thanks a lot! Glad you've been reading it this far, and I actually laughed a bit at the second part of this review. Zach's def into some more solo game now as he heads after Kaminari on his own using his anti-hero contacts, Hunter's fear of him, everything he can. Again, thanks for the high praise of my story and I hope you enjoyed the recent chapter!**

chapter 50 . 5h ago

I got eyes on target. (ZachxMomo) TAKE THE SHOT!  
Amazing chapter. I just found this Fanfic a couple of days ago and I've already binged it to here.  
Also is the drawing a photo of Zach? I've just kinda been imagining Juuzou Suzuya from Tokyo Ghoul Re with different hairstyles and scars.

 **Zach dips on U.A. here, even ignoring Momo's worried messages... ;(, but he's on a mission now. Thanks for reviewing, glad you binged it so quickly, makes me think I've done a good job so far. Hope you enjoyed the recent chapter, and thanks for the review! And yes, that is a picture of Zach which I have the user Celestial Stratos to thank for drawing for this story.**

Guest chapter 50 . 15h ago

Will zach be in the hero license exam arc after this cause i want to see him use his  
Nightmare form, also could he some how turn it into an armor with all the white bone tattoos  
kinda like a skull knight with white flowing hair!

 **Actually been a while since the hero license exam arc. That happens right after Bakugo retrieval, which happened like 8 months ago now story-wise. Zach got a provisional license upon returning to school, while the others already had their test way back in August/September sometime. Anyway just wanted to clear that up. Thanks to you guys and to everyone else for reviewing! Hope you enjoyed the chapter, and I'll try to get up the next one tomorrow!**


	52. Chapter 52

**A/N I don't own Boku no Hero Academia**

 **Chapter 52:**

The front door of Class A's dorm opened up at two-thirty in the morning. A slender boy with black hair entered the building, and he looked towards the couch area to his left where a group of people just stood up from. He saw disappointed looks on most of their faces, and Hanta Sero looked apologetically at them as he took his shoes off and started walking over. The tall boy with tape dispensers in his elbows put his bag down behind a couch, and he looked around at the others who were still up this late. "Can't sleep?" He asked.

"Shh," Jirou said, putting a finger up to her mouth after Sero's question. Sero got confused, then Jirou motioned her head to her right side where Sero spotted a set of pajamas that he only just realized actually had someone inside them. Hagakure had fallen asleep where she sat on the couch next to Jirou, and she did not wake up even when Jirou jolted up at the sound of the door opening. Most of the students in the room already knew Sero was on his way back, though they had not been told when he would arrive or how he was getting back for some reason. "What took you so long to get back?" Jirou asked softly.

Sero stepped around the couch and sat on the armrest next to where Kirishima was sitting, looking more awake than the rest of the people there and also one of the most worried. Sero yawned after sitting at the edge of the couch, and he said, "There was this whole big thing. They didn't want my parents driving me back, had cops come get me instead with a pro hero. It was weird."

"Even though it wasn't the League of Villains," Todoroki said, mainly to himself on Kirishima's right side just past Mineta who sat between them. Todoroki hummed and wondered why the heightened security if Kaminari's kidnapping really was just a coincidence as the news made it out to be.

On the center couch on Jirou's left side, Yaoyorozu nervously looked towards Todoroki as he said it, then she looked back towards the television that was the only light in the room other than the students' phones if they had them out. Nine of them, ten now that Sero was there, though nine still if Hagakure being asleep meant she did not count, were sitting in the common room late into the night. Sero had planned on going up to his room as soon as he arrived, but now he just wanted to stay there with the others. "Did Zach-" he started.

"Still hasn't come back," Jirou interrupted, glancing harshly at Sero for bringing it up since the group message would have said something about it. He just looked hopeful though, and she felt a little bad as he lowered his gaze down to the floor in front of the bright tv that had the news on. They were just waiting for more breaking news, and most of them could not sleep if they wanted to. The ones who were not in the common room, the rest of them suspected were having the same problems up in their rooms by themselves.

"I should have told him to stop," Sato whispered, on the couch across from the one Sero was on. "I saw him acting weird after we talked about Kaminari's messages. Like he had… I don't know," he whispered. He had already told them whatever he could, and he had not seen Zach leave earlier as Zach had just gone off on his own to check out Kaminari's room. Sato shook his head, then he said, "Sero, did you see the demands?"

"Whoa, what?" Sero said, his eyes opening wide.

The others all turned to him, and Mineta spun around on the couch to talk to the boy on Kirishima's other side. Kirishima just leaned forward and put his elbows on his knees, his chin on his hands, as Mineta said over him in a hushed voice, "Those guys, the War Boys' leader Shatterer guy, he made a ransom video. It was intense, and they blurred out people's faces on the news-"

"Was Kaminari there?" Sero asked, keeping his voice hushed as Mineta's tone reminded him that Hagakure was there, which he had forgotten again.

"It was too blurry to tell," Jirou replied softly. Sero looked towards her as she said it, and his eyes opened wide as the girl with earphone jacks for earlobes turned back to the tv with such a depressed look on her face. "But he did say, all the hostages are still alive… for now."

"Jirou," Todoroki began sternly.

"They're not going to give them what they want," Jirou muttered.

"It was absurd though," Mineta whispered back to her. Then he spun towards Sero who was still confused and said, "They want 10 billion yen, and he wants a private jet all fueled up. And he said that if he gets all of that, and can get a safe route to the plane from wherever he turns out to be, then he'll release _ten_ hostages."

"Only ten?" Sero whispered. "What about-"

"He claims he will release the others when he reaches his final destination, though he did not say where that would be," Todoroki replied to what Sero was about to ask. "But he also said," Todoroki continued, turning back to Jirou and then frowning more as he hated that he had to agree with her negative attitude, "That if he doesn't get what he wants by sunrise, he'll kill ten instead."

Sero lifted his hands to the sides of his head and ran them up through his hair. "That's…" he started, but he shook his head and did not know how to finish. Now, there was no way he was going to be able to sleep tonight. Before he thought maybe he could just go to bed and hope that he woke up to hear that Kaminari and the others with him had been rescued, but knowing that by sunrise he might be dead, it changed everything. He glanced towards Hagakure who was resting against the side of the couch next to Jirou, and he thought, _I wonder if she was awake when they made the ransom video public? How long have these guys all been down here?_

Next to Sato on the couch across from Todoroki, Ashido turned her head left from the screen. She looked at the couch in the middle of the room and over at Jirou. _Kyoka. Yao-momo._ She looked back to the right and the screen where there was a phone number on the bottom as a tip help-line for anyone who had information on the villains and their possible location. Hero search teams had gone out looking since the previous morning, but there was no trace of the villains or their hostages so far. _Kaminari,_ Ashido thought nervously, putting her hands together on her lap while staring at the screen. _And, Zach. Why did you leave? I know you want to find him, but the location he sent us, heroes have already searched everywhere near it. I don't know what you think you can do! Why can't you just, pick up your phone? Talk to us for once._

 _He probably broke his phone,_ Yaoyorozu thought while staring straight ahead at the tv. _Kaminari, I am so worried for you. These villains do not seem to be playing around at all. Did you listen and try to fight back earlier? Or are you biding your time? Or are you already… No, I must think he's still alive. I know, Zach must think that as well to have gone after you. Zach, why couldn't you at least leave a note this time? You broke the rules again. You told me, next time you did that they were going to expel you. That doesn't matter right now though. Where are you? What are you doing? Kaminari's going to die if they don't get the villains what they want, unless the heroes already know where they are and it's like Camino Ward. Maybe they're already on it, maybe, the plan's already in progress! I can only hope. And when the heroes save him, and everyone else, please come back._ Yaoyorozu put her hands together over her legs, her fingers interlocking and her eyes closing. _Both of you, just come home safely._

* * *

"They want assurances that the hostages are all alive."

"Fuck 'em! Let's kill a few just to show we're serious!"

"We don't have unlimited hostages. Every single one of them is important. Each could be an individual shield if heroes attack."

"I'm getting tired of this waiting though. I'm getting sick of it. Furious. Angry! Mad."

"Screw it, if they aren't going to give us what we want, we'll show them at sunrise we don't make bluffs." The man speaking had red skin and two white horns sticking out his forehead and curving up in front of his spiky black hair. He turned towards the groups of hostages, split up in different sections, two with eleven in them and one with ten. The group with ten hostages was the most terrified of the three, as the villains around them in the dark room of the building they were brought to kept mentioning "ten."

The red-skinned guy turned towards the hostages and walked towards them, a smirk on his face while the others near him watched him head over. "In the meantime though, I'm tired of just watching these toys."

Whimpers and gasps came from a few of the hostages who leaned backwards. They all had their hands tied up behind their backs and were forced to sit back-to-back with others in their groups, and the villains shouted at them to keep their heads down whenever they started looking around. Hearing the red man walking over though and referring to them as 'toys,' it made them look up at him in terror. One girl who looked up met eyes with the horned guy, and she immediately snapped her head back down with an even more terrified look on her face.

The villain licked his lips after the girl snapped her gaze back to the floor. "Oi, you," he said.

"Damian, what are you doing? The boss said-"

"Shut up," the red man snarled, and the guy talking to him shut his mouth fast. "Don't you fucking talk to me like that. If Shatterer's got a problem with how I 'watch' the prisoners, he'll come let me know himself." He walked forward and reached down, grabbed a girl with a long brown ponytail and yanked her up to her feet in a single tug.

" _AHhheeee_!" She screamed, then Damian smacked a hand across her face and her scream cut off.

"Hey! Don't you-" the bus driver who started speaking up shut his mouth as Damian turned to him with a sadistic and crazed look in his eyes. The man tried hard to keep his eyes on the villain, but he was too afraid and looked down while biting hard behind his lips.

"Speak to me like that again," Damian warned. "And it'll be the last time you ever have a tongue to speak with."

The bus driver's face turned pale and covered in sweat. The girl the villain lifted up was tall, but she was young, and yet none of the other hostages could say a thing as Damian started chuckling in a dark and menacing tone. And then the person who had been sitting next to that girl stood up slowly. He got up to one foot and then the other, lifting his gaze and looking at Damian with a scared look on his face, but also a smile as he looked into Jessica Thompson's terrified eyes. "Um," the blond sixteen year old began, refacing Damian, "could you let her go? I'm sure the heroes and police will get you what you-"

"Shut the fuck up and sit down!" another villain farther back than Damian shouted over, pulling out a pistol and pointing it at the boy held sideways.

Kaminari gulped, but then he said in a quieter voice just to Damian, "To tell you the truth, she's really not as cute as the glasses and ponytail make her out to be. I know you might think I'm just saying that," Kaminari said, leaning forward but unable to lift his palms up in front of him like he wanted, with them tied behind his back. "But I'm serious. She's also like, flat as a board. I mean come on, I'm sure once you're all millionaires you won't-"

"This is what amounts to heroic these days?" Damian asked, his eyebrows lifted up and his mouth curved in a huge smile. Kaminari's own small smile faltered, and then his eyes opened huge as the red guy leaned forward and said, "We know who you are, Denki Kaminari. Never thought we'd wind up taking a hero as a hostage." Kaminari's eyes darted around as he saw every hostage look up at him with wide eyes. Damian just smirked more at all their hopeful looks though, especially the girl he was still holding up by her brown hair. "You can't do much in a situation like this though, can you? The stupid news broadcasters loved showing footage from the Sports Festival. I didn't really remember seeing you there until I saw the footage, and I laughed at how useless you are!" Damian leaned closer to Kaminari, and he swung Thompson forward by her hair so the girl's face was right in front of his. "Look at this girl. You see her face? It's the last time it's going to look like this hero, and you can't do a thing to-"

Kaminari jumped forward and he slammed his head forward to try and headbutt the guy while shouldering Thompson away. Damian yanked back on the girl and shoved her aside though, and he slammed his own head forward and cut across the side of Kaminari's forehead with a horn while mainly just slamming the boy back ten feet where he landed on his back. "You're a fucking fool," Damian said, then he started cackling but in a low an twisted manner. "Trying to attack us now? We were going to keep you all alive, but let's send that message after all." Damian turned his head and looked at a few of the others behind him, "Rue, Kratos, get the camera and murder him. Do it here around the other hostages, he can't fight back that way," Damian said it and smirked back towards the blond boy sitting up with blood pouring down one side of his face from the cut on his forehead. It was not that deep, but head wounds bled fast and he was starting to panic at how red and wet he was getting.

"Help us."

"Please."

Kaminari heard whispers on both sides of him as he lifted his head a bit. He turned to both sides, then he heard a scream, "Please! Kaminari!" He lifted up more and saw Damian dragging Thompson away. "Help me!"

"I-" Kaminari started, and he pushed his hands down together behind his back. He did not have a great way of pushing himself up, and he had to roll onto his stomach and then slide up to his knees, but when he rose his head again, there were two villains between him, and Damian and Thompson.

"Where are you going?" A ten foot tall man leaning back against the wall with the top of his orange mohawk almost touching the ceiling asked as Damian dragged Thompson by.

"Where do you think?" Damian remarked back before cackling again. "I'll just be gone for a bit. Twenty minutes," he turned and looked the seventeen year old girl next to him who stared at him in terror, then he looked back and called out, "Make it thirty!"

"AHHH-ah!"

Kaminari's body surrounded in electricity as one of the two men reached for him, and that guy pulled back fast while Kaminari sat up farther on his knees. "I won't let you-"

"Here," the other guy said, reaching down and grabbing a ten year old boy from next to his mother who started screaming only to get a kick in the face. The man who had reached for him pointed a gun around as a few of the hostages looked emboldened by the screams, and they all bowed their heads at the serious look in the villain's eyes like he would kill them without hesitating. Kaminari stared at the little boy with huge eyes of his own, then to the dark-skinned man holding him with two of his four arms, reaching the other two down to grab Kaminari and lift him up. If Kaminari shocked him now, he'd be shocking the kid too, and he realized that while the man yanked him up to his feet and then slammed a fist into his face. "I'll rough you up before the execution, make it look like you fought us harder. I'm sure people'll think you're a cool hero, and they'll think us all the worse for ridding this world of your filth. We both know you're nothing more than a fake though."

"You know that, huh?" Kaminari said, opening one eye and the other full of blood from his forehead wound. He looked into the little boy's eyes as the kid was being squeezed in front of him, and he lost the smile he tried to show the child at the sight of the villain squeezing him. "I won't resist," Kaminari said. "Just, put the kid down."

"I'll stop squeezing, sound like a compromise?" Kratos replied. He turned to Rue and said, "Bring the camera and a chair. And the rest of you. Try anything, and I kill the kid on camera instead. A hero in training, or a little boy, I wonder which'll be more likely to get us our plane?"

 _This is really bad. I don't know what to do in a situation like this. I, I can't do a thing, like this. If I don't, they'll kill me. If I do though,_ Kaminari looked around at all the people only feet away from him, and the other villains even farther away looking in and guarding them from the sides of the room. _I- I really don't have a solution to this!_ Kaminari's eyes grew huge, especially as he saw the guy Rue walking back over with a camera in hand. _Oh man. Where the hell are the heroes?!_

* * *

"…with that number exactly. You do not want to make me have to hunt you down again." Zach glared with red eyes at the man in front of him who nodded rapidly back at him. "Alright, you can go." Hunter needed no further incentive, and he spun and flew off the ground as fast as he could. He jumped up and flapped his wings, shooting as far as they would take him before he had to lower down again as his thin wings could not take his body very far in the air which Zach and his other comrades noticed as they had followed Hunter across Japan in the dead of night.

Zach turned away after Hunter flew off, and he tapped his chest and walked over towards Mythril and Webb who were standing back at the front of the black Hummer. "Let's move," Zach said as he walked alongside them, and he kept going up the slant ahead of them. They were parked between some trees off a dirt road, and Hunter had given them the information of what lay directly ahead which he scouted out for them after leading them here. He glanced to his right at Webb as he moved up the slant, wondering if the blind man next to him had anything to say about what he just told Hunter before sending him away, but if Webb heard he looked fine with it, or at least he just looked fully focused on the current situation.

"Trusting the word of that villain," Ganji muttered under his breath. "Even if he is that afraid…"

"You're right," Zach said. "He might have just been trying to get away. I doubt it, but we have to look for ourselves too."

The three of them moved ahead from their truck in the direction Hunter had given them after his reconnaissance. They stopped speaking, even though they all had in small earpieces connected to each other so they could speak quietly and hear each other in their black helmets. Only the bottom of Webb's face showed, no other skin for him or for either of the other two who had on their helmets with their visors down. Zach walked forward fastest and between the other two, staying low but speeding forward through the trees that were thinning out towards the top of the cliff just ahead.

"If Hunter was even just a little off with the guards," Ganji, dressed as Mythril, whispered. "We'll be spotted."

"I don't sense anyone directly ahead," Webb whispered. "Though the guards who are out this far are being very quiet."

"Shh," Zach shushed slowly into his helmet, not really an order as much as a suggestion as he started moving slower himself past the furthest tree up. He slowed down and got lower to the ground, and lower, and then he flattened out and crawled forward army style until his head was just at an edge for him to look over. _A secret base. In a secluded valley like this, it's so far from the highjacking… How did they get all their vehicles here without anyone noticing? How did they get the bus- or did they bring it somewhere else and take only the hostages here? No, that doesn't matter- unless it's one of their Quirks that's strong enough to do something crazy like this. Someone who can fly and is strong enough to carry a bus here, and all their other vehicles? Or a portal-user who can transport whole vehicles? Or maybe there are just mountain roads around here, connecting to the smaller paths cutting through the valleys._

Zach stared down towards the building ahead, and he kept his breathing steady and silent. There was water to the back of it, but only a lake and not a sea or anything. They were pretty far inland on the main island of Japan, and they were fifty miles from any even medium-sized town. Zach breathed out calmer and slower as his eyes darted around some figures below walking around outside the front of the building. There were trees around the clearing, and some guards standing at that tree line looking out and protecting the base. The building itself was pretty dark, though there were a couple of lights on inside. It looked almost like a boat house to Zach, except bigger and more like a factory. He thought maybe they made boats there, but it didn't make much sense to him to have that on a lake like this. _Maybe that's just it's disguise then? It's not a building repurposed for the villains. Maybe one of them just has a Quirk that allowed them to build a base, and they tried to make it blend in well. That, or it's something I'm still not getting. Water-energy plant? Storage warehouse? Whatever it is, it's full of villains._

Zach scooted back down the slant a little, and he looked right at Webb and then left at Ganji. "Alright," Zach whispered. "We confirmed it." He took in a deep breath, then he got up to his knees and stayed low while whispering, "It's time to call the police."

Both of the others turned back towards him fast. Mythril's voice spoke first, "Are you serious?"

"Yes. We still have time until that daybreak cut-off. We shouldn't just attack on our own thinking we can handle this," Zach lowered his gaze to the floor even as he said it. _Kaminari,_ he thought, his fists clenching hard at his sides. "It's up to the police and a group of pro heroes I'm sure has already been gathered, to stop them. There are just too many," he added, looking towards Webb so hopefully the man would turn to him and agree.

Mythril hummed through the headsets he provided them, then he nodded his head once and scooted down the slant himself. "I must say, I was not expecting that, Reaper. The judgement and quick thinking to get us here, but also the composure not to go off looking for revenge. You really are a-"

"I agree Reaper," Webb said, but the fact that he was cutting off Mythril unnerved the other two. They turned towards him and saw Webb still laying on his stomach with his head far forward only pointed straight at the floor. They were all silent for a few moments, then Webb continued speaking in a low, dark tone, "You make the call, because you decided to do this." Webb turned his head and Zach started panting as he stared at the top half of Webb's mask, and the lip of the man who Zach could start to read his emotions based off of alone. "But I must tell you what I just heard. They will not wait until daybreak. A hostage is about to be killed. And a young woman is _currently_ screaming."

Zach bit down so hard he thought his teeth might break. "I'll call the cops now," Zach whispered. Webb started lifting a hand to his head, but then he paused as Zach continued, "We're going in though."

"You can't have it both ways," Ganji said, turning to the boy and sitting up straighter. "We either go in, or the cops and heroes come in. We don't call on ourselves."

"Someone's going to die in there," Zach whispered. "And that girl… If you want to leave, then I'll do it myself. I won't go in there thinking I can beat them all, and risk not calling the police. But I can't just sit here and let someone die right in front of me." Zach turned and he scooted forward up the slant to the edge of the small cliff again. He hesitated, then he cursed himself for doing so. _There is no time to sit here. I don't know how long I have._ Zach dropped off of the cliff, while at the same time pulling a disposable phone out of his pocket he got for the mission. _Sorry to drag you two into this. If I can stop them and get out before the heroes arrive that's ideal,_ Zach thought, while firing his grappling gun towards a tree branch he was falling near, and swinging down and up on the other side of it. He judged his release from the first branch carefully, and he landed on the second one on wobbly legs but managed to stay on it.

Zach lifted the disposable phone in his other hand and he made the call. He sat there on the branch for a total of twenty seconds before putting the phone away. His heart started racing as he thought about what he said over the line, using an intentionally lower voice even though he had turned off Nightmare. _I sent the location, and I said it's the real deal. How would they know though? Would other people prank call them about this?_ Zach lifted his phone and he zoomed in, and he took a picture from a distance and then sent it before putting the phone away again. _Time to move in._

Zach felt the branch vibrate and he spun to his right. On the branch a few feet away from him was Webb in his skin-tight costume, a deep frown on his face below the mask covering the top of his face. "Webb," Zach whispered.

"Letting you go in alone would leave a bad taste in my mouth. At the first sign of the heroes or police, I will disappear. You would do well to do the same."

"The Hummer has no VIN, the plates are registered under an imaginary name, but admittedly I really liked that truck."

Zach's eyes opened huge at the voice he heard in his ears. "Mythril," he whispered. "You don't have to-"

"You're right, Reaper. I don't. I do this because I choose to. As we all do." Ganji moved forward on the ground level of the forest, and he stopped as Webb told him not to move.

Webb jumped away from the thick branch Zach was standing on, and he said in a quick voice while dispatching of the villain guard who was headed towards where Mythril made noise, "Reaper. The first floor has all the hostages on it including the one about to be executed. On the second floor is the girl. I can hear her screams, but it doesn't sound like, she has yet to be-"

"We move now," Zach said. He jumped off the branch, and he said, "I'll go for the girl."

"Are you sure-" Mythril began.

"If my friend sees me he might recognize me. I doubt it, but if he sees my power he'll know for sure."

"Go then. Right now Reaper. Move it," Webb's rushed voice made Zach speed up even more, his eyes going wide as he wondered what could make Webb sound in that much of a hurry.

 _I thought, it was too late. If it's not though, I won't let it be! I have to be stealthy, or, or at least I should be! How do I get there-_

"Ah!"

"What's that?!"

"Over here!"

"There are people in the woods!"

Zach was just at the edge of the forest, trying to figure out a way to get to the second floor and about to give up. He was about to make a mad dash for the entrance and just figure it out from there, but he managed to wait a few seconds for the guards he could see in front of him to all run the same direction where he heard gunshots start going off and people shouting. Zach sprinted straight towards the main entrance of the building, lifting his right hand and sliding his fingers out his glove again. He tapped his chest hard and surrounded himself in Death in an instant. He breathed out a heavy breath of black steam through his mask as he charged the doors of the base, then he rose his grappling gun and aimed it at the second floor. He fired, and he clicked a button as soon as it smashed through a window and locked against the wall past it.

The wire retracted fast, with such a hard jolt that Zach was thrown off the ground and towards the second story, right as some villains came running out of the first floor trying to find out what the commotion was about. Their comrades were calling back some strange information from the woods, and it did not seem to them like heroes had arrived by the descriptions the others were giving. Zach flew into the second floor and landed on top of some broken glass, and he almost fell and did a roll on it but managed to just skid forward on his soles. He yanked back hard and pulled the sharp metal hook out of the wall where it dug into after smashing through the glass, the three-pronged hook sharp enough to pierce even stone.

Zach put the menacing black grappling gun away and sprinted down the second floor hallway towards where he heard a high-pitched scream. "What is going on out there?!" A loud voice roared. Zach sprinted at the door ahead and leapt up as it started to open. He extended a leg to slam it the rest of the way open, only for the door to swing all the way open itself and the man on the other side to slam a bulking muscular right arm out and into the boy who tried changing his trajectory mid-jump and just wound up getting punched square in the chest by the red, horned villain. "You think I didn't hear you running down my hallway?!" Damian shouted, snapping his head down and smirking madly at the short figure gasping and lying on his back in a strange black costume.

Zach's closed eyes snapped open and they glared at the figure who leaned back as he did not get a good look at that face the first time, and still didn't. It was just a pitch black face with a glowing red glow coming out of the visor he could not even see through the outer black aura. As he looked into those red eyes, Damian felt weak in his knees and he stumbled backwards, before lifting his left hand and smacking himself in the face with a loud roar. "What did you do to me?!"

"What did I do to you?" Zach asked in shock while getting on his feet, feeling like there was a pile of bricks pushing against his chest. Zach stood and he looked past Damian at a girl on the floor, her clothes in tatters around her and a look of sheer terror on her face as she stared at the two of them. Zach's entire body started shaking, and in his same dark and menacing voice he yelled, "WHAT DID YOU DO-" he stopped screaming it for two reasons. He knew if he finished 'TO HER,' that the villain would be able to use the girl who looked only a bit older than him as a shield. He also stopped screaming in his horrifyingly dark and scary voice, because of the tears that streamed out of that girl's eyes even faster. Zach cutting off mid-sentence confused Damian, but he ran forward and bulked up both arms this time, and his horns elongated off the front of his forehead that he lowered to aim them at the shorter fighter's face as he charged.

Zach dove to the side to dodge those horns, pulling out a knife as he did and throwing it at the red villain. The villain missed his double-fisted slam down at the boy who just dove to the side in time, and those fists hit the ground so hard that it cracked and send pieces of floor at Zach as he was landing. His head snapped towards the girl who screamed though, and he saw a splash of blood come off of her right cheek as she was hit by something. She had no shirt on or anything under it, but Zach noticed as he gave her a once-over that she was wearing a pair of underwear, despite everything else she wore being strewn about the room in tatters.

Zach spun back towards Damian who his eyes opened huge at the sight of, as the man turned towards him with an animalistic look on his face that showed he was loving this. He reached a hand down to grab the knife lodged in his side, then his eyes rolled back and he dropped down to his knees, then collapsed forward head-first into the floor. Zach gasped out and relaxed a bit as he thought the guy was going to try smashing another one of those huge blows at him while he was not in a great position to dodge. _Good thing I covered the knife in Death before throwing it. I don't think it would have even slowed him down otherwise._

He got up to his feet and turned, and his eyes shot open huge as the girl on the ground in front of him started scooting backwards, and she let out a scream again in terror. She pushed her hand down next to her and cut it on the glass of her own glasses that the villain had shattered. She had a bruise on one side of her face, one on her stomach, a bloody nose, cut right cheek, and she whimpered after her scream while backing up farther. "Listen, I came here to…" Zach stopped himself, as his voice in this form sounded far too scary. He could hear voices in his ear and knew Webb and Ganji were out fighting, but he could not leave yet. He touched his chest with his right hand, glancing back to Damian for a second to make sure he was down for good. "See? I'm not actually a-" Zach started, but the girl just got an even more scared look on her face as despite the black veil fading and red glow going away, the figure before her was still terrifying in his all black costume with a scary mask.

 _What is this- this feeling?_ Zach felt his heart breaking, and he had to take a full step back at the look of that girl. _Did I save her? Is that enough? Just, stopping the villain? If she's looking like this though… I can't! But, it's what a hero would do! But I'm not a hero right now! I'm an anti-hero. And yet, and yet I can't…_ Zach's eyes shot open huge, and his arms started lifting at his sides as he walked forward. "Hey," he said, his voice softer. The girl pushed her hands down harder for a second, but she got an unsure, hesitant look on her face at the tone of his voice. It wasn't very deep at all, and it was soft, and caring. _People, who need saving. They're always in such scary situations. I know, because I've been saved so many times. Just saving lives, isn't enough. I've had my life saved before, and I wasn't alright._ Zach brought his hands to the sides of his head and grabbed his helmet.

"Reaper, what are you doing?"

"It's okay now," Zach said, ignoring Webb's voice in his ear, and taking off his helmet in the middle of the villain's base. He dropped it on the floor next to him, _What was I thinking?_ The girl in front of him stared up at Zach's face in the illuminated room in the middle of the second floor of the base. She stared at that face, the scar under his right eye, the split ear, and the smile he had as he leaned forward and reached out his left hand for her. "You're going to be okay. Just come with me," he said.

"Y-Y-You're," she whispered, her left hand lifting off the ground shakily at her side, and reaching up for Zach's.

"I'm here," Zach said. He grabbed her hand and pulled her up to her feet, then he darted his eyes around and said, "One second." He ran to his side and her eyes opened wide as he left her, only for them to open even wider as Zach ripped an entire curtain off the wall covering up a window to prevent light from inside from getting out. Zach ran back over, and he wrapped the curtain around her.

" _AHHH!_ " Zach heard a voice that sounded like Ganji's yell out in pain both over his headset and outside the building.

"Listen, you're going to make it through this, but you need to be strong for-" Zach stopped talking as the girl in front of him was shaking. Her entire body was violently trembling, her lips quivering and the tears she was holding back barely staying in the corners of her eyes. Zach cursed himself that he could not stay there and comfort her, but he knew his comrades needed him downstairs, the other hostages needed him too. _I can't just leave her here though. Other villains could show up._ "Come with me. I'll get you out of here," Zach said, and he held her hand again and spun back to the door.

Thompson was pulled behind Zach and she had no other option but to lift her feet and run after him. She tugged away as they neared Damian's collapsed body, but Zach held her hand tighter and turned to her with a smile on his face despite the sweat on it and how anxious she suddenly saw he really was. _He's smiling. He, he's saving me with…_ Thompson's hand tightened in Zach's and her feet picked up faster. "We have to save Kaminari," Thompson said, and Zach's eyes opened huge while he spun around to face her.

"What?"

"They're going, to kill him. He tried to save me!"

"Kaminari," Zach whispered, spinning back forward and picking up the pace even more. He heard two villains down the hall coming around the corner, and he let go of Thompson's hand while reaching down both arms. He grabbed two more knives from his belt and flicked them forward as the men passed the corner of the hallway. He kept running forward while his knives collided with one of them in the right kneecap and the other in the left shin. He tapped on his chest and covered himself in a black veil, and he made a big movement with his right arm. He swung a black wind down the hall thick enough that when it hit the two yelling men who looked up and leaned away, their eyes rolled back and they collapsed in two seconds flat. Zach tapped his chest again and made sure the aura was gone from his face before turning back to Thompson, and he smiled at the girl whose eyes were huge again at what he just did. "Kaminari," Zach repeated, holding his left hand back for the older girl to take. "Let's go save him."

Downstairs, a dozen villains stood around the hostages who were all clumped in a single group now except for the boy on a chair who had been being video-taped getting beaten. Kaminari's eyes attempted to widen when he started hearing the gunshots outside, but his left eye was swollen and his right still full of blood so it was difficult.

"What's going on out there?!"

"Should we start killing hostages?"

"Let's kill him now!"

"Idiots!" a voice roared and everyone in the room spun at once. They all looked back and saw a tall bald man marching into the room in his villain costume that looked much better than any of theirs. It had a black spiked collar and thick red stripes going down the sides of it. It was dark brown over most of his body, covering up his arms and legs too but showing there were large muscles behind them. He was six and a half feet tall, and everyone in the room shut up when Shatterer shouted at them. "The hostages are the only thing keeping them from coming in here. Fucking heroes wouldn't dare charge us now."

"Boss," Kratos started, stepping towards the man and holding up a dark fist. He glared back at the boy strapped to the chair, and then looked forward and said, "Let's at least kill this one. Toss the dead hero kid out to show them what'll happen if-"

"I already fucking said it, we aren't killing him!" Shatterer yelled. He sounded a bit nervous as he called it out, and the hostages around the room, the other villains, and Kaminari himself all looked towards the boss whose eyes darted back and forth after his yell. He stepped towards Kratos noticing the four-armed villain's confused and angry glare, and then both of them snapped their heads towards a wall as they heard a scream from a villain outside.

"Why not?" Kratos hissed, turning back to the leader and getting a threatening look on his face like he was considering disobeying him here. The walls were closing in around them, and fear of Shatterer was not overwhelming his reason. "What are you-"

"You saw those videos they showed him in," Shatterer said while stepping forward, glaring even harder at Kratos who leaned back from the boss. Shatterer marched right up to him and leaned forward his bigger head so their faces were right in front of each other, "You saw _him_ with this hostage. We aren't killing him, and bringing that demon's wrath."

Kratos' eyes opened huge, then he leaned back forward himself and hissed, "Are you really afraid of-"

Kaminari's eyes also opened wide at what he heard the villains arguing about right in front of him, even if his vision was blurry and everything around him sounded muffled. He opened his mouth to chime in something cocky after hearing the big bad's concerns, but his mouth froze like that as the lights cut off around them. The room plunged into total darkness, and Shatterer shouted, "Grab the hostages! Get the lights back-"

"AHH!"

"There's one in here!?"

"Show yourself, or I'll kill-"

The lights on the ceiling flashed on, and Kaminari's jaw dropped as the villain Rue flew fifty miles per hours past the front of his chair with blood splashing out of his mouth. The lights cut back off just as fast, then gunfire from an assault rifle acted as a strobe in the room, only for that rifle to fly out of the villain's hands and slam into another as that man was lifting his own pistol towards a nearby screaming hostage.

Lights flashed in the room again, and then Shatterer yelled, "ENOUGH!"

The whole floor of the room broke apart, and Kaminari's chair fell over as the ground beneath it broke. He yelled out in pain then winced and started pulling at his hands from behind his back, his wrists getting burnt by his struggle. _What the hell is happening? Is there a hero here-_

"Wait! Please don't- AHH-"

A scream cut off, then a window shattered and Kaminari spun his head towards the sound of it. A floodlight turned on at the side of the room farther from that window, and Kaminari felt blinded for a second so he clenched his eyes shut. The screams continued from around him, of both villains and terrified hostages. Denki Kaminari squinted his eyes open and looked around in panic and pain from the beating he took. He could see through his blurry vision though, and he shook his head more to try and clear it up even though he was feeling pretty dizzy. His vision focused, and then his eyes opened wide in shock, _Oh shit._ _Who is that?_

" _AHHH!"_

Zach heard a scream and his breath hitched, his body covering in sweat as it was the second voice screaming out in pain in his headset in a matter of a few seconds. _Mr. Ganji! Webb!_

Outside of the building, Mythril sprinted towards the tree line closest to him. He heard the increasingly loud spinning behind him, past the two villains he had just been fighting hand-to-hand. In the air above the spinning mechanical turret, Birdman yelled, "Fire!" The huge muscular man with giant white wings sticking off his back and an orange beak in front of his face had a loose muzzle over that beak. His body was covered in loose chains, and he swung one of those long chains forward to command the man in the back of the truck he just dropped straight in front of the base.

"Kya kya kya kya kya!" The hyena-looking man at the back of the truck cackled, and the muscular fighters behind the truck ran out of the way right before the turret unloaded out towards the retreating enemy. Mythril sprinted into the trees and ducked behind one, and then all of the trees around him started ripping apart. Entire trees fell one by one as the heavy caliber bullets ripped through them, and Ganji ducked down even more as the tree behind him started getting hit and shards of wood flew out to the sides. The top of the tree started falling forwards, and Ganji already had blood covering the left side of the top of his face where his mask had been broken.

The man in all black snapped his gaze up, then his arms bulked and he reached them above him while staying in his crouched position. The huge tree trunk falling his way into the forest fell flat above him, and his arms wrapped around it. Mythril groaned, but he stood up fully as a tree to his right side was getting ripped through and another just past him on his left started falling. He stood up and swung, spinning his body and throwing the top of the tree behind him. It only flew a few meters, but it became the instant target of the gunner on the back of the truck who started lighting it up.

"Over there!"

The villain firing the turret was laughing too hard and the gunfire was too loud, but he saw the villains on his left start raising their fists and his eyes opened huge while his head started turning. In the cover of darkness, Mythril had run around another tree trunk while staying low, then sprinted out past the top of the now shredded tree's canopy. He barreled towards the two villains he was fighting before who lifted wavy whip-like arms or ones that looked like flamethrowers. The villain on the turret spun his weapon, but then he flew backwards as a rock slammed in the center of his chest. Ganji grinned as he kept running forward, as both combat villains snapped their heads to the sides to dodge his throw only for him to hit the guy he was really aiming for.

Mythril jumped up in the air and pulled back his right arm, thinking, _Two and a half!_ A strong pair of talons clenched into his shoulders, and Ganji snapped his head up in shock and pain to see Birdman had flown down before he could drop powerfully on the other two villains. "Fiend!" Mythril yelled, and he brought both arms up himself and grabbed on the bottom of Birdman's legs just above the talons.

"Hehehe! Is that all?!" The villain yelled as Mythril clenched as hard as he could. Birdman clenched harder and his talons dug deeper into Mythril's shoulders, through his costume and making more blood splash out in the air. They flew higher up and Ganji could feel his muscles tearing above his arms, yet he just grit his teeth harder instead of yelling in pain, then he snapped his head up furiously.

"I will defeat-"

Birdman's eyes rolled into the back of his head before Mythril could finish, and the two of them started dropping with Ganji staring in shock at the villain above him. He was staring in utter disbelief, because of the thin red line that just shot out of nowhere and into the head of the villain carrying him. Birdman's wings fell limp as they plummeted forty feet towards the ground, but the thin line emerged from Birdman's head and turned thicker and darker as it dropped down after Mythril, catching him and lowering them both to the ground in a softer way than Birdman fell. "Ninpou: Thousand Sheet Pierce," the thin figure in front of Mythril said, right as Birdman crashed down into the ground behind him.

He stood much shorter than the anti-hero in all black. The thin man had gray hair styled into three distinct spikes, and he wore a red and blue uniform with a red cape that flapped behind him. "The Ninja Hero, Edgeshot," Mythril said. He did not just say it out loud for no reason though, or because of the shock he rightly felt. Mythril lifted his right arm and grabbed his left shoulder where he felt the talons dig in deeper, and he turned his head to the side while biting down in pain.

"Edgeshot?!"

"What's that big shot doing here?!"

"Are you the one who called in the tip?" Edgeshot questioned, while spinning away from the man and towards the two villains who just leaned back after shouting in panic while facing him.

"The hostages are still inside," the tall, dark-clothed figure behind Edgeshot said. "We'll talk after!" He yelled, and he started charging at the building.

"Wait!" Edgeshot called out over his shoulder. Then he spun forward as he saw the other villains charging, and he saw more in the corners of his eyes, as well as one in the back of the truck who was rubbing his chest but laughing madly and moving for the turret again. The number 4 pro hero stood in a ninja stance and then shot fast towards the first villain closest to him using his Quirk: Foldabody. _What hero is that? I did not recognize him._

"Heroes are here. It's time to leave," Seiki Ganji said, while avoiding the building he had seemingly ran towards altogether.

Zach ran through the first floor of the building, and he heard Ganji's voice in his head. He already heard him say Edgeshot was there, but he could not focus on that well. He had made it downstairs after hearing Webb's yell that had followed Ganji's earlier scream of pain. Zach stood there on the first floor with the girl he saved upstairs standing behind him, though he told her to stay back as he moved farther forward. _Did Edgeshot get here first, because he's the fastest of the ones they called? Who else is coming? Can we just leave like-_ Zach stopped as he got a view into the big room where he could hear all the hostages were. He had heard them shouting, heard the gunshots as he made his way over fighting the occasional villains, but he froze and his face covered in sweat at what he saw.

One of the villains had his arms raised and bright lights flooding out of his palms and into the room. Another taller villain with darker skin and four arms had a woman lifted by her neck, standing behind her with a hand curved in and his fingernails extending so Zach could see red drops coming out of her skin already. In a single instant he could move and tear her throat out, and Zach did not know how he was going to knock him out in under that instant, though there was one way he knew he could take the man out before he could do a thing. None of the villains had noticed him yet. There were still five of them standing in that room, though there were more than that laying around injured or unconscious, and Zach sweat more as another who was leaning back against the wall on his butt started pushing himself up. His eyes darted around at all of this, but then they shot back to the first things he saw when he stepped past the corner to get a view in there from around the bend.

On the floor with a foot stomped on the side of his head, was his best friend. He had blood coming out of his head from a gash on the right side of his forehead, and Zach did not know if it was recent from the foot stepping on him, but that whole side of Kaminari's face was red already, and his friend was panting heavily and not looking very good. The man standing on him was ten feet tall and had a spiky orange mohawk, and a furious look on his face as he stomped down harder. He had a gun pointed down and to the left at a younger boy whose mother had both arms wrapped around him and was trying to shield him with her whole body, while most of the other hostages were laying flat with their heads in the ground and their hands tied behind their backs. This was only one of the two things that caught Zach's eyes though, and it was not what made him sweat so much and his breath to hitch after he entered.

It was Webb, who had screamed out after punching towards Shatterer, because the villain had moved faster and grabbed him by that right arm. It was Webb, whose entire right arm had shattered. All the bones in the arm from his wrist to his shoulder, they were like dust, and Webb's arm looked like jello the way it was waving back and forth with nothing holding it in one place. Shatterer had Webb's other arm grabbed now after the man with the top of his head covered by a mask, the mystery man Kaminari had really hoped would save them, tried swinging that arm in at Shatter's left temple. "Who else is here?" Shatterer asked, then he kneed up into Webb's gut when he did not receive an answer immediately, and to stop the leg Webb tried lifting as a knee himself.

Blood splashed out of the mouth of the man who had a mask over the top of his face. His mouth was left open afterwards showing all of his teeth covered in red, and Shatterer pulled him in and said, "One last time. Who else is here?"

"Trickster! Go shout out the front door that we'll kill hostages if they send anyone else in!" Kratos shouted, keeping the sharpened nails of one of his upper arms on a frightened woman's throat but thinking of a way to get them more assurances of immediate safety. "We haven't lost the upper hand yet!"

"I'm taking one with me," a short man at five feet tall with spinning spikes coming out of his arms shouted. He ran across the room, a bruise on his right cheek but some blood on a spike on his left arm from where he grazed the man currently being tortured by Shatterer. He reached down as he ran and put his spinning drills in front of a man's face before saying, "Get up!" The guy scrambled to his feet to prevent being impaled by those drills, then Trickster started running for the exit of the room closest to the front door.

"Stay out of sight. Don't come out for anyone."

"You can't," Thompson whispered, reaching out a hand for the younger boy's back. Her hand froze though as she held it out, as she could see part of the shorter boy in front of her's face. The corner of his lip that she could see lifted up, and her arm lowered down while her eyes opened wide.

 _I'm scared. This is crazy. I don't have a mask on. Edgeshot is here. Shatterer beat Webb! The hostages could be killed if I try something. They'll be killed if I don't! Trickster's going to drag that guy to the door and kill him and throw him outside to stop anyone else from coming in! I know it! I have to move! If I don't move here, no matter the consequences, no matter what it'll mean!_ Zach tapped his chest with his right hand, and he sprinted around the corner he was ducked behind when he saw the foot moving in front of it.

A black aura surrounded Zach's body, and Trickster let out a scream, just as the man being pushed by Trickster's right hand did. A pitch black hand shot by that skinny office worker's face though, and it grabbed Trickster by the middle of his, and then slammed forward making the man already leaning back lose his footing. Everyone in the room spun towards where Trickster was just leaving. They saw the man he had been holding falling to one side with huge eyes, while the villain himself was coming down to the ground, and then slammed so hard into it that the room filled with the loud thud and nothing else. Zach let go of his hand before it would be too long that he was holding it there, though he had slammed the villain's head down with enough force that he was still worried. There was no time to think about that though.

He breathed out a heavy breath of dark air that lingered below his face that was pointed down in the crouched position he was in after slamming Trickster down like that. Two villains who were still conscious but on the floor with injuries and trying to get up suddenly felt the urge to get up vanish. The tall man standing on the side of Kaminari's head opened his eyes wide, then he reached down fast and grabbed the teen beneath him by the side of the head, bringing his other arm in and putting a gun to the blond's head while sweat covered his face.

Webb's head turned the smallest amount to face past the bald man before him who was still gripping his left arm so tightly it might break before he even had time to Shatter it. Shatterer had turned too though, and his eyes were as wide as everyone else in the room's as he stared at the figure shrouded in a black veil, with a skull through the aura on his face, and glowing red eyes at the top of that skull. Zach lifted his head and glared those red eyes forward into the room that was absolutely silent as he stood there. The man with the orange mohawk yanked Kaminari up to his feet with a hand through his hair, and Kaminari's eyes were huge in panic as he felt the gun pressing up to his skull. He did not know what was happening, until the ten foot tall villain pulled him to his chest and spun so Kaminari was between him and the monster behind him.

"He came," Shatterer whispered. "Agh-" He leaned back as the top of his face covered in a sticky white substance, and then the arm that just shot that at him ripped from his grip before he could Shatter it. Webb dropped to the floor, bounced up to the ceiling, then shot towards a shattered window and right over a villain's body slumped half through it.

Zach's red eyes darted over towards the window as many of the villains spun after Webb and shouted not to try anything or they'd kill their hostages. Webb was gone though. Zach heard in his ear a second after Webb was out of the building, "Destroy your earpiece… You shouldn't have taken off your helmet. Don't respond."

Zach bit his jaw down harder while his gaze shifted towards Shatterer again. The bald man who ripped webs from his face only spun after Webb angrily for a second, but his head turned back too and he locked eyes with the glowing red ones of the dark figure standing in the main exit of the room. Trickster lay unmoving at Zach's side, and the hostage Trickster tried taking with him had pushed himself back against a wall with a look of absolute terror spread across his face. All the hostages who had their heads facing the floor lifted them, only for most to whimper and stare back down, or to get even more afraid at the looks of the villains around them who backed away from that shadowy dark figure with a thick black aura.

"What the hell? I mean seriously, what the actual Hell?" A villain pointing a sharpened right arm forward lowered it a little, and he took a step back before bringing that sharpened arm towards the woman he was holding up in his other hand. His hostage was shaking so much and she actually leaned back farther into the villain's chest.

Kratos pressed his sharpened nails harder into a woman's neck, making more blood spill and the woman to let out a yelp that cut into a whimper of sheer terror. "Stay back, monster."

Kaminari's eyes were huge as the tall man with the orange mohawk took a step back himself. He was terrified of the guy's gun, and whatever his Quirk was, and he was in a lot of pain and knew he had lost a lot of blood. Kaminari stared forward with shaking eyes though at the dark figure's face with red eyes that moved slowly back and forth to stare at each of the villains.

"I didn't think- but I knew," Shatterer said, and he reached down to his right while stepping forward, grabbing a hostage of his own and yanking that young woman who looked to be in her twenties up to her feet. Zach took a step forward and his mouth twisted farther down, his jaw grinding on his skull, his black aura getting thicker around his hands that were still at his sides but were preparing to swing up. "It really was you," Shatterer said, his lips curling into a smile but his voice cracking towards the end in a way that made the other villains and the hostages feel even more nervous of what this thing in front of them was. Shatterer held up the woman by the back of her head and said, "Don't move, _Reaper._ "

"That's not my name," the dark figure said, his voice low, dark, and scratchy. Zach heard screams in his head, _**"What is your name?! Tell me your name! Who are you?!"**_ He bit down hard, and he opened his mouth, "My name…" the yells in his head got louder, _**"Not Lifebringer! Not Lifebringer!"**_

"Zach!" Kaminari shouted.

The bus driver of the captured tour group had seen the Lifebringer video, and he saw the resemblance between what he saw at the end of that video and the figure before them now. That name confirmed it though, and the man who snapped his head back to the floor while making himself as small as possible so as not to get grabbed and lifted as a personal hostage, lifted his gaze back up. "Lifebringer?" He asked, his voice shaky.

"That's-" Kratos started, then his eyes darted back and to his left at the tall man holding Kaminari so tightly towards his chest. _Asgard knew it. I should have realized, that this is what Shatterer was afraid of._ Kratos turned his head back to the boy ahead of him, and then he loosened his nails around the woman's neck he was grabbing. _Death, right?_ Kratos slid his hand around the side of the woman's neck, grabbed it tighter, then he pushed forward towards the boy surrounded in a black shroud. At the same time he reached one of his lower arms down to his side where he had a sidearm to use instead of his Quirk- "AH!"

The woman in between Zach and the villain fell towards him, but Zach moved reflexively out of the way, while throwing a knife forward and into Kratos' arm before he could grab at his gun. The villain stared down at the knife sticking out of his bicep in terror, because of the black strands coming off of the blade and wisping around in the air. The other villains near him all stared with wide eyes at that knife losing its dark color, but not before Kratos started falling to his knees. "What the, fuucckk…" Kratos fell to his hands too, then his elbows and knees buckled and he collapsed to the ground.

Zach breathed out some more dark steam, and he ordered in his dark voice, "Put down the hostages, and get on your knees." He lifted his hands at his sides, his right holding a knife and his left an open palm with a growing sphere of black on it. Wisps of darkness came off of his sides, and Kaminari's eyes opened even wider at Zach's completely black body with only his skull showing white and his eyes glowing red. Zach continued to the villains who were all sweating even more as Kratos went down and their enemy so easily sidestepped the woman who was thrown at him fast and fell behind him to his side. "Villains," Zach said, "The building is surrounded by heroes. You will not be escaping here."

"Don't try anything!" a man yelled across the room while holding his hostage tighter.

"I'll kill your friend!" Asgard shouted, his spiky orange mohawk getting shinier, just like his arms and even his gun that he held up against Kaminari's head. "It would only take a second, Lifebringer! AHHH-"

Asgard's entire body flashed yellow and everyone in the room spun towards him with huge eyes. The other villains pulled back and held their hostages tighter, panicked looks forming on all their faces, except for Shatterer whose expression got oddly calm. Kaminari dropped down to his feet while the man holding him was frozen exactly where he was, his entire body burnt, and Kaminari said with his mouth curving into a big smirk, "It doesn't take a second, to blast you with electricity." The villain who took the gun off the other hostages in order to threaten Kaminari and stop Zach collapsed backwards, and Zach's mouth curled up more too.

"This is bad. Real bad. Boss, what should we-"

The gunfire outside had been a constant for a while now, going off every few seconds or constantly for several at a time. The villain turning to his boss spoke louder to be heard over it, but then his voice cut off and all that could be heard were bullets firing past the walls, and then a scream of a villain outside who the remaining few villains in the room and the man speaking all recognized as one of their comrades. They all looked towards their boss, and their jaws dropped as the man had turned and sprinted into a wall and right through it. The wall shattered around him, and he was carrying a woman with him who let out a scream as she realized what was happening and pieces of wall fell around her.

"Every man for himself. You fools couldn't even watch the hostages!" Shatterer's voice shouted back at his shocked remaining men.

Zach thought this would make it better, but every one of the villains who no longer had a leader looked even more nervous and quick on the trigger or to use their Quirks than before. They were darting their eyes around and all started screaming at each other at once as they tried to figure out what was going on.

"What do we do?!"

"Get a hold of yourselves, we have to stay-"

"Wait a second! Isn't it too quiet out-"

Zach and Kaminari were both panting, both ready, and they both opened their eyes huge as all four of the villains who had hostages they could easily kill if anyone charged them, collapsed one after the other. The two students dropped their jaws, and all the hostages on the ground who were already looking up in shock as Shatterer ran, dropped their jaws even more at the figure appearing there in the middle of the room. He appeared after taking out the last villain who was the least prepared to kill his hostage when the hero entered and just spun around in confusion when the others were dropping.

"Edgeshot!" Kaminari called out, then he started coughing and he hunched over a bit, rubbing at his bloody face with a hand.

"Is everyone alright?!" Edgeshot shouted as he darted his gaze around the hostages, then he turned his head and looked towards the dark figure next to Kaminari. He already knew of the blond boy training to be a hero, but that other figure unnerved him even though he seemed to be facing off against the villains when he arrived. "Who are-"

"Holy crap the police are here!"

"We need to grab some hostages!"

Edgeshot, Zach, Kaminari, and all the hostages spun to the hallway behind Zach where those voices just came from.

"Edgeshot!" Zach shouted, his panic rising as he did not think there would be more villains still around. He saw flashing blue and red lights start coming in faintly from the broken windows, but Zach continued yelling while running forward himself, his voice coming out loud and dark, "Protect everyone here! Shatterer's getting away, and he has one of the hostages with him!"

"Zach! I'm coming too!" Zach turned his head and saw Kaminari running after him, staggering a bit but shaking his head and running straighter and faster to keep up with him as they ran through a hole in the wall and farther into the base. They entered a small hallway and saw an open doorway up ahead that had been smashed apart with some rubble falling around it like it was just destroyed.

They ran towards that darker room and Zach heard Edgeshot shouting after them to be careful. _Edgeshot, he just listened to me. Does he know who I- Kaminari said my name so maybe…_ "Kaminari," Zach said, his voice low, deep, and hesitant as he looked forward upon entering the next room but kept his head on a swivel. Kaminari looked at Zach's back ready to hear something important, only for Zach to add in a softer voice, "I'm glad you're okay." Kaminari's eyes widened, then he grinned again and opened his mouth to say something, only to pause as Zach continued, "Let's go save that woman."

Kaminari closed his mouth for the cocky response he had ready, then he nodded his head after a second of wide-eyed surprise. "Yeah. Let's-" Kaminari and Zach spun to the right as a wall on the second floor of the huge room they entered just blew into pieces. There was a staircase up to a second floor viewing room of this big darkened room that had a giant boat in the middle of it, but that boat got full of holes as the wall that had shattered was slammed by a big fist and all the pieces shot out towards the two sixteen year old boys.

"Gah!" Kaminari stumbled backwards and grabbed at his right arm with his left hand as it was hit by a chunk of wall so hard he heard something crack.

Zach would have turned towards him, but a chunk of boat above him where the ship was held up by all sorts of supports started falling and he had to dive to the side to avoid it. As he landed, he heard a scream up above and in the smaller room up the stairs. "AHH! Help me!" _**"ZACH! HELP ME! AAAHHH!"**_ Zach's hand shot up as he heard screams overlapping in his ears and in his memories. He fired the grappling gun he rose on instinct, straight up through the new hole in the second wall and at the man running the other way in that room. His hook slammed into Shatterer's lower back and the man let out a roar of pain, and he turned with a furious look at the sharp pain, only to go wide-eyed at the dark figure flying up towards him.

He smacked away the wire which pulled the sharpened hook out of his back, and Zach lost his momentum and fell before reaching the hole. He let go of the gun and reached both hands forward as he started to fall too early, and he just reached his right arm high enough to grab onto the ledge. "Zach!" Kaminari shouted from behind him, looking up to see Zach hanging high up, higher than the fall he took back at Ground Omega a week ago. The room was that large, and as Zach smacked his other arm up to grab the ledge, the floor he was holding onto shattered apart and he started to fall far.

"Turn it off!" Kaminari shouted while running forward, lifting his left arm though trying to raise his right too which just made him shout in pain.

Zach's eyes opened huge as he heard Kaminari's shout and how it got closer as he fell. He brought his right hand into his chest as he dropped, his head starting to turn back too while the ground of the second floor viewing area collapsed before him towards the first floor. He looked down right as Kaminari was reaching below him, and a panicked look formed on Kaminari's face like he just realized how fast Zach was falling at him. At least Zach did not have his Nightmare form on anymore though, though both of them still yelled out in pain as Zach collapsed on Kaminari and then chunks of floor from above fell on top of them both.

 _Would it have been any harder, if I had just hit the ground in Nightmare?_ Zach thought in annoyance, though he muttered after hearing Kaminari's moan below him, "Thanks, but we have to keep chasing-"

 **THUD** Zach was starting to push up with his left hand down on his side, but his eyes opened huge as he stared net to him at the villain who no longer had his hostage with him. "Can't have you chasing me," Shatterer said, his head partially bowed and a terrifying look on his face, and in his eyes. Zach stared into those eyes from mostly on his back, and Kaminari's clenched eyes from the pain shot open too only to shake as he stared into the villain's.

"HELP!"

Hearing the voice of the hostage above made Zach's immediate feeling of murderous rage quell. His first thought when Shatterer dropped was how screwed they were, the second was how Shatterer did not have his hostage which meant he probably killed her, the third was his calming thought after hearing her scream. It was still too many thoughts to have though, and Shatterer's right foot slammed forward with such strength that he dug up the ground between him and the two boys. Zach pulled in his left arm he was using to push himself up, no idea how they were going to get out of this, but he grabbed onto Kaminari and then rolled them both away from Shatterer's kicking leg.

Debris flew at them as they rolled away, and Kaminari let out a scream of pain as his back was to the flying debris for the start of the roll. Zach came out of the other side of the roll and tossed Kaminari using their rolling momentum to send him farther away, then he rose up his right hand and snapped all of his fingers out of the glove towards Shatterer who jumped up in the air in panic. Zach was not really reaching for Shatterer's leg though, only to get some distance before he brought that hand in and grabbed his own forehead with it to reapply Nightmare mode. Zach scrambled up as Shatterer was still rising, then the villain reached his hand to the side and grabbed the side of the big wooden ship already full of holes.

The entire port side of the ship that looked finished broke apart. Shatterer's hand clenched onto one large piece of debris, and he pulled back his arm as he started his downwards arc. Zach lifted his left hand up under his right armpit and drew a knife that he threw up at Shatterer as he fell, only for Shatterer to put the chunk of boat in the way with quick reflexes, then throw that whole chunk down at Zach. Zach jumped backwards leaving a trail of black mist behind him, just avoiding the debris that Shatterer slammed down on top of an instant later.

"Why did you have to come here?" Shatterer growled, his voice sounding unhinged as he lifted his villainous gaze into Zach's flaring red eyes. Shatterer's eyes widened again as those scary eyes looked back into his, but then they narrowed and his twisted lip trembled before he shouted, "We just wanted to leave the country! I just needed the money too, so we could get situated once we escaped to China." Shatterer's fists clenched so hard at his sides and Zach saw blood trickling between his fingers. He clenched his eyes shut, then the ground beneath his feet and beneath the already shattered boat chunks started to break apart too, while other rubble from the ship still rained down behind him. "We wouldn't join up with Shigaraki's army, and he killed Rage-Rider and Hugo," Shatterer's clenched eyes opened back up and so did his bloody fists, though his fingers curled forward as he lifted his hands towards Zach. "I knew it was you. I saw you…"

 _Rage-Rider and Hugo were the other leaders of War Boys. Escape to China? Shigaraki's army? It kind of sounds like how the League destroyed other groups before to make them join up… but why does it feel worse? Why, does it feel like it's for something big? Shigaraki left big groups alone if they weren't clashing, it sounds like he's forcing everyone in now!_ "…Reaper, I knew when I saw that video. I knew it was really you."

Zach's eyes narrowed, and he pulled out a knife right as Shatterer started running forward, the ground breaking under his feet with each step. His arm muscles tensed and his veins popped on them as he flexed as hard as he could, and Zach dove to the left at the moment Shatterer kicked up his right foot. He kicked his leg through the ground that shattered apart around it and kicked up more debris, then he slammed his right arm out towards where Zach was dodging to. "I saw Kratos hold on," Shatterer started, but Zach jumped again after landing and just dodged Shatterer's opening fingers trying to touch his skull. Zach pulled his face back with reflexes that should have shocked him, as he had only just landed and Shatterer moved fast, faster than he had thought the big man could. Zach's red eyes were also growing wider at what Shatterer said, what he had realized.

Kaminari realized it too as he was sitting up not far away, his body wobbling from side to side but straightening as he thought about what Shatterer just said. _Like Ectoplasm-sensei. He knows there's an amount Zach needs to hit him with, so he thinks a small touch he can get out of it- but just one touch and he can shatter Zach's skull!_ Kaminari felt his right arm scream in pain and he knew it was broken, and he stopped trying to get up with it and just used his left instead, holding back the scream as he started sparking electricity and giving off more light into that dark room.

Kaminari's sparking electricity turned Shatterer's head to the side as he was jumping after Zach. Even though his took his gaze off though, his body still twisted fast to the side in midair and dodged the knife with a black coating around it, making Zach's eyes open much wider. _He didn't get to lead a gang with just his Quirk- that doesn't matter!_ Zach stopped stepping back and he stepped forward instead, ducking down under the arm reaching for his face. He brought both arms forward and swept a wind off of them for when Shatterer would jump back. Shatterer saw the tendrils of darkness coming off of Zach's fingers though, and he jumped high up instead of back, dodging the black wind that swept beneath him and thinned out the aura around Zach's body.

After Zach missed though, his head spun to Kaminari and he nodded while jumping back and crossing his arms. Kaminari ran towards the direction Shatterer was dropping, and he yelled out, "One point three million volts!" He lifted his left hand and then slammed it down, focusing all his electricity out in one direction though it sparked all over the place violently too. Shatterer reached to the side and grabbed one of the support posts for the large ship mostly destroyed on its port side already. The support he grabbed onto was metal, and the electricity that hit it coursed up and hit him even though he dodged the majority of it. Shatterer's teeth clenched and Zach looked up hopefully towards the villain, only to lower his jaw as the entire pillar shattered, and the ship barely holding on started falling to its side.

"Move!" Zach yelled, running forward again towards Kaminari. He wanted to touch himself and turn off Nightmare to tackle him away, but as the ship started falling, Shatterer started diving down towards them. Zach's eyes shot open wide as the man did this, because he saw a huge deranged smile on Shatterer's face. _That's right! This doesn't make any sense! He could get out of here, he probably could have even before he attacked us! Unless he thinks I could track him again- But he might just be mad because I was with the League, and the League killed his comrades! He's a villain. He's insane. He's liking this fight, because he's about to get his revenge if he kills me. He left the hostage up there though, so he can take her after he kills us! He's thinking rationally while also going mad with vengeance!_ Zach's breath picked up and the black steam trailed behind him as he sprinted at Kaminari like he was going to tackle his friend out of the way. _One knife left, Shatterer's grabbing part of the falling support, Kaminari can't make another blast like that this quickly!_

Zach pulled out the knife, while Kaminari whose face got a little duller and more confused started turning to him. He shook around his blank face for a second, then he turned and ran farther towards the wall to dodge both Zach who ignored him and ran past his side, and the falling boat. The bloody blond dove, while Zach covered the knife he grabbed in so much more darkness than he had the other times, actually charging it around the knife instead of just covering it immediately before his throw. "Super Move…" Zach started, while making it up on the spot. _Not a grenade. That's not what I need!_ "DEATH-" he twisted the knife around in his hand, while the darkness covering it started to change shape from just a thick mass covering his whole hand and the knife, to a longer and thinner form with a sharpening point at the end. Zach slammed his right foot on the ground while Shatterer pulled the debris in front of him, and the ship continued to fall. "SPEAR!"

Zach threw the knife up, no longer throwing it like he would a knife though. His hand did not even feel like it was gripping around a knife, but around the long black spear he was holding where most of his Death had focused leaving his actual black costume showing with only some wisps coming out of it. The black spear of Death shot up and slammed into the debris Shatterer pushed in front of him. _**Clink!**_ The knife inside hit the metal of the support, while all the darkness flying with that knife exploded around the sides of the debris and behind it, some of it flying right through Shatterer's arms on the sides of his body not close enough behind the exact middle of the blocking shield.

"RAAA!" Zach heard Shatterer roar above him. Then everything fell. It all happened so fast. Shatterer's blocking shield and his body getting hit by other falling debris, and the other debris falling on Zach. That side of the ship was already lined with destruction, but the whole boat fell towards this side because of the lack of supports and destroyed left part of the hull. The top of the mast snapped off as it hit higher up on the wall, but the more of the ship to fall down the slower it got, until the ship stopped sliding down at all because too much of it had scraped against the wall and slowed. The fall itself collapsed the starboard side though, which had not been fully completed unlike the port side of the half-finished ship.

Zach tried surrounding himself in more darkness, but he used up a lot for that last attack. He pushed as much as he could above him and in his arms that he crossed over his head while ducking. A side of the ship collapsed down on him, while Kaminari slid down the wall and lifted his hands up only to gasp out in shock. The part of the ship in front of him had skid too much on the wall and stopped just over his head, leaving him in a small gap between the floor where the ship was and the wall above his head. He lifted his left hand and wiped off some sweat with a relieved 'fwew,' then the boy whose eyes were wide and face kind of blank turned and started crawling out through the narrow corner space.

Kaminari saw an opening not far from him, but he stopped for a second as some more wood fell just past it. He was slower to move out from there, then he stood up and walked out from the wall a few feet. He glanced up as he heard a shout for help from the floor above, then he looked back in towards the collapsed ship with wooden rubble and fallen steel supports all over the place. "Zach," he said, stepping up on some wood on the outside. "Where are-"

A hand shot out from the wood in front of Kaminari ten feet away. The hand rose, and black wisps came off of it. A large plank of wood lifted up and dropped down, leaving a gap in the debris that Zach put his hands down on either side of and started pulling himself up. He had some blood on his left arm, and he could feel the gash that he gone through his Death armor and his costume fabric. He winced as he put pressure on his left arm to use it and push himself out from the rubble, but he managed to get up and onto his knees before throwing his arms out to the sides for balance as the rubble he got on was unsteady. Kaminari took a step forward to try and help him, but Zach pointed a palm at him for him to stop, and he lifted his red eyes towards the boy he thought might have been too stupid at the moment to remember that they could not touch while he was like this.

He did not know if Kaminari just thought he wanted to get up on his own, or if the nodding blond boy actually understood the reason, but Zach let out a small breath of relief before dragging himself up to his own feet. "I think-" Zach started in a low voice, lifting his right hand after he stood. _**CRASH!**_ Zach snapped his head to the side and his red eyes opened huge, at the sight of a mass of shattering rubble flying up into the air only ten feet behind him.

"Uh oh," Kaminari said, taking a step back only to fall down as the ground below him shifted. The rubble was still collapsing and not very sturdy in the position it had stopped falling at first, and Shatterer's bursting from the middle of it did not make it any sturdier. The gap where Kaminari had been before just collapsed in on itself, and the villain in front of them leapt up in the air with blood on the left side of his head and a paler face. He was panting hard, but Zach's eyes were huge that the man could even move at all after he just charged so much Death that he threw at him.

"REAPER!" Shatterer roared, lifting up both hands and putting them together as one fist.

Kaminari scrambled up to his feet, and he jumped backwards faster than Zach thought he could, though he was happy to see it since he was worried he had to try and get Kaminari away too. Zach leapt away himself, both him and Kaminari in different directions and crossing their arms as Shatterer slammed down between them. He slammed down on the collapsed ship, and he used his Quirk as he hit the ground, shattering the rubble small enough that with the force it was all blasted to the sides. And yet at the same time that this happened, Shatterer's feet slipped, and he fell forward and into the ground below where he just shattered all that wooden and steel debris.

Zach winced in pain as some sharp shards flew by him and he felt like a rock slammed into his face. Kaminari let out a yelp of pain too from his other side, but both boys lowered their arms and stared at Shatterer in surprise, then absolute shock. Zach's head snapped to the left, and Kaminari's to the right, and they stared at a girl wrapped in a tan curtain who had both hands down on the floor in front of her. She was at the edge of the room, but there was a trail of slimy substance going out from her hands straight over the edge of the rubble and to the spot that Shatterer just landed and fell.

"Thompson?!" Kaminari shouted.

Zach also felt like shouting that, but the girl screamed at them first, "WIN!"

Zach's huge red eyes returned to their normal size, and he lifted up his arms and forced all the Death around his body towards his hands at the same time. Kaminari's eyes opened even wider, then he spun his head back and lifted his arms with electricity sparking off of every single finger. Kaminari's lips curled up, and although the black veil was almost gone from around Zach's head, his jawline lifted into more of a smirk too and there was a flash in his red eyes as he grinned.

"Of course!" Zach and Kaminari yelled at the same time.

Shatterer was getting back up but was only on one foot as the two boys screamed. His head snapped to the right at Kaminari and then the left, and his eyes shot open huge before he could get his other leg up. Zach swung both arms in, and Kaminari slammed his hands down towards the floor. The entire room filled with a bright flashing yellow light, and that lightning shot forward while the darkness pushed the other way, and the dark wind and sparking electricity collided on top of Shatterer who opened his mouth and roared, "RRAAAAaaaaa-" his voice cut off, his body collapsed, and the sparking electricity went away leaving the room in much more darkness, though there was light coming in.

Bright lights came in through the windows at the top of the big room they were in, brighter than the blue and red ones also flashing from outside. Kaminari and Zach started panting heavily, and Kaminari dropped down to his knees after that attack, his face much more blank yet also showing his exhaustion. He lowered his gaze to the floor, and then someone sprinted up to him and he lifted his head a bit to see a girl dropping down in front of him with a worried look on her face. Kaminari had drying blood covering the right side of his face from the gash on his forehead that had stopped bleeding, but also a lot of wet blood too from his still bloody nose and he had bruises on more of his face and body too. His right arm was limp at his side and he moaned as he looked at the girl in front of him, instead of saying an actual word like he tried.

"Are you two…" a voice started.

Zach turned his head towards the wall he could see light coming in from on the other side of the room. He saw Edgeshot at the destroyed entrance, and he did not know how much the pro hero had seen although they really had only taken down Shatterer a couple of seconds ago. _Maybe he saw it,_ Zach thought, while pushing himself to step forward. _Or maybe he didn't. Either way._ "We're, alright," Zach said. "The other hostage," Zach said towards the man whose eyes widened at what the boy was saying. Zach lifted his right hand, hesitated with it near his body, then he just touched himself without really caring. His dark aura vanished quicker than ever with so little of it already on him, and he said, "She's up there." He lifted his left arm and pointed up, then his eyes focused on that arm and he saw the cut in his sleeve above his elbow where blood was running out and getting over his sleeve.

Edgeshot looked up towards the hole on the second story, and then he turned to Zach, then towards Kaminari and the girl with him who threw her arms around that blond boy's sides and hugged him tightly. "I'll get them out of here," Zach said before the hero could voice his concern, and Edgeshot turned back to see Zach walking over to the two. After Jessica Thompson hugged Kaminari, she started crying, tears spilling out of her eyes and her whole body shaking. Kaminari was dumb, and confused, but he lifted his left arm and put it around the girl on the back of the curtain wrapped around her. "You get her," Zach added to Edgeshot, right after someone screamed 'Help' again from up on the second floor.

Edgeshot nodded after another second, and he started for the woman while calling out to her that he was on his way to save her. Zach walked across the first floor, subtly dropping an earpiece on the ground in front of him and stepping on it hard without breaking stride. Zach stepped over to Kaminari and Thompson, and he looked down at the two of them hugging on their knees. The girl was sobbing so hard, and Kaminari's face was blank. Her arms lowered from around Kaminari's sides, and she started gasping while her body bowed, and Kaminari looked down in confusion at what was happening. She was bruised, and scared, and Zach stared down at the back of the girl's head as she panted there on her knees, her legs sprawled out to either side of her. _She's exhausted,_ he thought.

"Thompson," Zach said, having heard Kaminari call out her name when he saw her a minute ago. The sniffling and panting girl turned her head slowly to the side and looked back at that voice that was soft and not at all dark or scary. She looked back and up at the boy with a long scar on the right side of his face thickest just below his eye. He was smiling at her, and he lowered down to one knee in front of her and said, "It's okay now. I'll get you out of here." He said it then turned to Kaminari who gave him a blank look before lifting his left hand with a thumbs up, though he winced as he did and Zach realized he probably tried lifting his clearly-broken right arm too. "Both of you," Zach added, and he smiled back at Kaminari and gave him a thumbs up too. He turned back to Thompson quickly though, and he made sure she could see his smile, see, that everything was alright.

 _I know I messed up, Webb. I know, I asked too much of you all. Your arm is fucked. I don't know what happened to Mr. Ganji. The cops are here, I've left clues, and you two were seen, and…_ Zach watched the expression of the girl in front of him changing, her sobs catching in her throat as all the terrible things she had just been thinking about started to fade. The smile he was giving her, it really made her feel like things were going to be alright, and it made everything else fade from his mind too. _But I don't regret this,_ Zach thought. _Whatever the consequences may be._

* * *

"There it is! Just up ahead!" The female reporter in the passenger seat of the van leaned forward and pointed down the dirt road towards a building up in front of them. It was still dark, but the sky was not as black anymore as it was the crack of dawn. The sun had not yet started to rise, but everyone staring at the screen in the dorm of Class A at six in the morning had worried and scared looks on their faces. The entire class was there, as anyone who had been asleep had been woken up by the shouts of their classmates in hope and panic.

Nineteen students were gathered around the couches, though the ones who had been sitting on them longest were either leaned forward in their seats or on their knees, only not standing because the others behind them shouted whenever they jumped up. The camera was pointed through the windshield of the media's van, and it pointed down a line of cop cars ahead of them four long. The reporter in the passenger seat turned her head sideways to look back in the camera as they continued speeding forward, "For those of you just joining us, we have news on the kidnapping of the Tour Japan bus. An anonymous source provided the police the location only a short while ago, and we have reported that the number four hero Edgeshot is already on the scene. He was searching closeby when he received the information, but we are not far behind him. This could be the middle of a fight with villains right now!"

The cop cars reaching the end of the road split out, driving to the sides of the clearing outside of the trees and in front of the building. All their sirens were on, and there were a few other cop cars already there which had arrived before the news broadcasters. The cameraman zoomed forward through the windshield and at the large building at the edge of a lake, then the camera panned around the clearing in front of it. There was a truck with a big dent in the side of it, all of its tires flat, and a turret on the back that had no one behind it but an unconscious man slouched half out of the vehicle at its side. One side of the clearing had a dozen tree stumps and fallen trees all around it, and there was one tree out of place not in those woods but lying farther into the clearing and in several more pieces than the others as it was ripped apart. There were other villains laying around including a large one with slumped white wings on his back, and there were also a couple of heroes out there in the clearing holding down some villains and calling cops over.

"Whoa," Sero said, lifting his right hand and putting it up through his hair. He looked at the building ahead of those heroes and villains, and he saw a villain laying halfway out of a shattered window on the first floor, but windows shattered around that floor and on the second floor too. There were bullet holes on the side of the truck and on the building's front wall, and there were a couple of guns laying scattered around the floor far from where the villains were laying. "Did the heroes, win?" Sero asked, as it sure seemed like that.

"What about Kaminari?" Mineta whispered. Even if the heroes had won, none of them were celebrating until they knew about the status of the hostages.

"We're pulling up behind that car there," the reporter said to the guy driving her van, pointing at the cop car that would give them the best angle from behind the established perimeter. As soon as the van stopped, the side door opened and the cameraman jumped out and pointed the camera forward at the reporter who hopped out from the front. They rushed towards the police cars and as close as they could get without passing the perimeter, but the reporter spoke fast as she saw something going on near the front door where two heroes in red capes, a man and a woman, started waving their hands outside. The other villains who were outside, not all of whom had been down for the count, were now either restrained or knocked out. "There they are!" The reporter called out, her voice clear and excited.

People started running out of the front door of the large building up ahead. No one in Class A started cheering though. They all just leaned forward. Every one of them stared at the people running out of the building, each of them one by one. The two heroes closest to the doors were looking the hostages up and down as they ran, looking like they were counting them while at the same time making sure that no villains were trying to sneak out and run with them. The male hero ran next to what seemed to be one of the passengers, except he knew the appearance of the bus driver well and he started asking that man questions while pulling him away from the pack.

"I count over twenty, this is- twenty five," the reporter sounded more excited each second. "That's the whole group, it looks like," she said, her voice slow and her head leaning to the side to try and see if anyone else was running out of the building. The female hero in a red cape ran after the back of the pack after glancing once more into the doorway, and she called out instructions towards the freed hostages, telling them to head towards the cops who were setting up an area just outside the perimeter and to the left of the media van. The camera started panning after that crowd, watching them all head towards the police ushering them towards them and zooming in on the individuals' faces.

No one in Class A said a word. They all had had their eyes peeled. Some of them started gulping, a few others got tears in their eyes, while some looked around at each other trying to figure out what this meant. "Where is he?" Mineta whispered, turning towards Shoji and looking up at the tallest boy in the class. Shoji looked down at the shortest boy who was right next to him, and the muscular teen with six arms leaned back at the tears in Mineta's eyes.

A mouth appeared on the top left of Shoji's arms, and he whispered, "We don't know anything yet."

"Wait look!" The reporter called out. Everyone in the building held their breaths as the cameraman spun the camera back towards the building. "It's Edgeshot! And he has another hostage with him!"

All of Class A looked towards the building, then their excited looks turned to ones mostly of despair and dread as they saw Edgeshot carrying out a woman with tears in her eyes who had her arms wrapped around his body as he held her bridal style. The bus driver talking to the other hero up ahead spun towards her, and the man let out a gasp of relief, grabbing at his chest at the sight of that woman sobbing but alright. The hero next to the bus driver turned too, but his eyes were huge at what the man had just said to him.

"She's fine!"

"Alright they did it!"

The cameraman turned his camera towards the group of hostages, some of whom were moving back towards the perimeter and calling those things out with looks of excitement on their faces. They had tears in their eyes, but a few of them were even smiling as they looked towards the building and the woman who Edgeshot just took out, the woman so many of them were terrified for. Edgeshot ran towards the perimeter and he lowered the woman down near the other hostages, and the reporter and her cameraman started running towards him. "Edgeshot! Edgeshot are the villains defeated? Did you take down Shatterer?!"

"He is defeated," Edgeshot replied, turning towards the camera and assuring the public he knew was watching. He turned his head away though and continued, "But it was not I…" All those smiling people behind Edgeshot who were so happy that the woman was alright opened their eyes even wider. Their shocked looks were only replaced by even bigger smiles, and more of them who had not stood up the first time got up now and looked towards the building in shock. They started calling out in excitement and someone yelled 'she's okay!'

Edgeshot stepped back towards the building but stopped while staring at the doorway, and the bus driver and other hero next to him farther forward turned towards the door as well. "And it seems like there's more," the reporter started saying, her voice televised live across the country while the cameraman turned back. "Hopefully this is everyone. It seems we must be close to thirty-two by…" her voice faded off as the figures just inside the doorway started stepping out. The camera zoomed in, "Is that…"

Class A dropped their jaws. Every one of them who looked at the screen hopefully, lowered their bottom lips and opened their eyes wide. They stared in shock at the screen, as did any of their teachers watching it, or anyone in their school, and many people all over Japan who were up at six in the morning to watch the news. They all stared at the screen, at the building covered in broken windows and bullet holes, and they looked at the front door where a figure was walking out of. He had a girl on his back, her head resting over his left shoulder with her eyes closed, his left arm down holding her up better by her left leg up against his side. She had a curtain wrapped around her that was only partially visible since she was behind him, but she had some blood on her face too and looked like she was hurt. His left arm that was around her leg had some blood on the sleeve, but other than that he had no outwards injuries. On his right side was a boy limping with his right arm dangling next to him with blood on it, looking like it was broken. He was limping so much that the slightly shorter boy on his left had his right arm under the blond boy's left shoulder and wrapped around his back to help him move.

Zach stared ahead past Edgeshot, towards the hostages he saw smiling their way in so much relief at the sight of the girl Damian had dragged away before the heroes arrived to save them. Although they had been relieved to see the girl Shatterer had taken away too, none of them even expected to see Thompson there and they were all shocked and started cheering louder at the sight of her. Some of them had tears in their eyes, but Zach's eyes shifted from them towards the camera he saw. His eyes almost widened, but he managed to stop himself. _I'm on camera. Is this recording? The media. Public speaking… No, it's more than that. Those other hostages, and not just them, people everywhere are watching me. People are scared. So not just for Thompson, but for all of them- I represent something! Like All Might did! What is it I need to do right now?! In as much trouble as I might be in, there's only one thing I have to do._

Zach's lips pulled apart and he smiled as he continued walking out of the building. He smiled confidently, making sure not to stagger, making sure to stand as straight as he could even with a person on his back and a dead weight on his right side. His left arm hurt from the gash on it and more from trying to hold something heavy with that gash, but he smiled despite it and said, "It's okay now." Even on Kaminari's dumb-looking face, a smile broke out over it at what Zach said, and the former hostages all cheered together.

" _They_ did," Edgeshot finished in a loud enough voice for the camera behind him, so his voice echoed over the country.

"YEAAHHH!" Kirishima threw a fist up in the air and jumped out of his seat he was kneeling on and leaning forward off of.

"How did he-" Sero shouted, leaning forward and staring in utter shock at the screen.

Yaoyorozu's heart was pounding as she stared at that smile on Zach's face. _He's okay. He, found Kaminari. He- Zach-_ Her trembling lips curled into a smile, and then she cheered. Yaoyorozu jumped out of her seat she had been on the edge of since sunrise had been almost upon them, so for a few hours now. Yaoyorozu's excited shout made Ashido look up at her in surprise, and then the pink girl looked down and next to Momo at the girl next to her who she thought would also have a similar reaction. Ashido's eyes just opened huge though as she saw the wet lines coming out the corners of Jirou's eyes and streaming down her face.

Jirou was staring at the screen with a trembling expression, but she lifted her right arm and started rubbing her eyes hard as she felt the tears all over her face. _You idiots,_ she thought, even as a smile cracked below her arm and her sleeve got even wetter as she held it over her eyes.

Midoriya leaned forward over the back of the couch behind where Kirishima had jumped off of. He heard sniffling on his left as Uraraka lifted her hands and rubbed at the corners of her eyes, but all he could do was stare in shock at the smiling black-haired boy who was carrying two people out of that warzone. _**"It's fine now. Why?"**_ Midoriya's shocked expression started shaking, seeing in his mind a video he had watched likely a million times. _**"He's laughing!"**_ Midoriya's trembling lip started lifting up at the corners, _Zach._ _**"Because I am here!"**_ _Is that, is that what you're saying? Wait, wait a second,_ Midoriya shook his head around, getting too caught up in the moment and he knew it. _How did he get there?_

 _Bastard,_ Bakugo thought, his eyes narrowing all of a sudden as he snapped himself out from his shock. He was just a little farther behind the couch area as the others, looking between them towards the screen where the reporter started shouting about who that was in front of them carrying people out of the building. _How the fuck did you do that?_ Bakugo's lips curled farther down, and his teeth ground behind them. _But…_

 _As much as it raises questions,_ Todoroki thought. A smile came back to his face as the rest of his classmates around him started shouting and talking to each other in rushed, shocked, and happy voices. _They're okay. That's what, really matters right now._

"How did Zach…" Mineta whispered, rubbing his eyes and staring at the screen like he must be imagining things. "He really got him," Mineta said, his voice getting louder.

Sato gawked at the screen, his jaw dropped as he thought about the morning prior, not even twenty four hours ago. He thought about how worried Zach looked, then how thoughtful he appeared to be as he rushed off. _How did he do it? Where did he go? How did he find them?! This doesn't make any sense!_

"I don't get it," Hagakure said, turning to Ojiro next to her after rubbing her eyes that no one could see. "How did Zach know where Kaminari was?"

Ojiro turned to her, and his big smile started lowering down at her question. It's not like it did not occur to him, but he was too caught up in the moment to care enough yet. At her question though, he did not have an answer for her, and it made his expression start to change. Hagakure did not ask it quietly either, since she did not realize what she was asking until after it came out of her mouth so it was more like she thought maybe Ojiro would have an answer for her.

If any of them knew how Zach would have found Kaminari though, they would have all known about it by now. Tsuyu and Koda looked right at the two of them, then back to the screen where Zach had gone over to the other hostages and lowered down the girl with him and Kaminari.

Ambulances were driving up now, and the other heroes were all rushing back towards the building to go gather up the unconscious villains inside. Zach saw the camera point away from him in the corners of his eyes to aim back at the building Edgeshot and some other heroes ran towards, while cops moved forward towards the restrained villains and brought chains and cuffs with them. He felt a little relief at the loss of the camera on him, but he kept his expression the same knowing it could come back at any time. Kaminari looked about ready to pass out, and Zach said to his friend who was sitting right in front of where he stood, "Go ahead Kaminari. Get some rest, you've had a long day."

"Thank you, Lifebringer."

"Lifebringer!"

"Not-" Zach opened his mouth and the word came out, but he stopped himself and his face twitched. He quickly smiled and shook his head, "It's nothing," he said, turning and giving all the freed hostages a smile. "I'm just glad you're all alright." _Enjoy it while I can. After this I'm fucked. While I'm here though, I need to show I'm not ashamed of what I did. As long as that camera's on me. Even if I am wearing this costume._

"What is he wearing?" Tokoyami said in a low voice as he looked closer at Zach, now that his attention was off the fact that the two of their missing classmates were alright.

A few of the others had noticed it already, but the ones who did not all focused on the black costume he was wearing. They looked at the black sheaths all around it, more than he had on his white costume at school. It was thicker around him and not as skin-tight, and the top of it went up his neck all the way up to his chin unlike the other than had a normal collar.

Kirishima glanced behind him and around at his classmates who were starting to get more hesitant looks on their faces. He turned back to the screen himself and lowered his smile a little for the first time since seeing them. _If you had a way to find him, you should have told us. You should have told me. Wait a second- how could you even… This doesn't make…_

"We have just confirmed, all thirty-two hostages are safe. I repeat," the reporter said, while the sun rose higher and the sky was dyed in its light. The camera pointed back towards the hostages, and the one hero still over with them looking down at his blond friend and smiling at him, then laughing at something the blank-faced teen just said that made a couple of other former hostages laugh along too. "All of the hostages are alive, and though there look to be some injuries, the ambulances are here. I don't want to jinx anything," she turned back to the camera and smiled now while EMTs ran over to help Kaminari, and Zach stepped up to help them get him on a stretcher they brought over. The woman smiled, the same time most everyone in Class A started smiling too, "But this is clearly a win for heroes."

* * *

A thousand miles to the northeast of where the news was broadcasting live, Shigaraki Tomura scratched his neck faster and faster while glaring at the tv screen in front of him. His other hand shook on the remote he was holding, while he scratched harder and glared between the fingers of the hand attached to his own face. "If it bothers you this much, perhaps I should grab him now?" Kurogiri offered from a few feet to Shigaraki's right side. It was only the two of them in there watching the news, and Shigaraki scratched even harder at Kurogiri's suggestion to the point the portal-user thought he might break skin.

Then the door on the right of Shigaraki opened and his eyes darted over. He was furious, and then his eyes widened and he snapped, "Is the video done yet?!"

The short man who entered the room had thick black piercings all over his face out his nose, ears, cheeks, and even out of his forehead. The dark-skinned man wore a pair of horn-rimmed glasses, and he stared through them with pure yellow eyes at Shigaraki, and he responded, "Yes."

Shigaraki's hand stopped scratching his neck, his eyes widening more at that response. Kurogiri spun towards the figure too, and he said, "Hackerman, when did you-"

"Just now," Hackerman replied. He lifted up his right hand with his index finger up, and around that finger was a small circular disc. "Had to change up the layout after that boring biography stole some great scenes from practical use." He said, sighing with a mock disappointed tone. He sniffled in and then reached over and pulled the disc off his finger, holding it out in front of him for Shigaraki who just turned to look back at the tv with a growing crazed smile on his face. "And now we're all set for phase one," Hackerman finished.

Shigaraki started laughing, and he scratched his chin again while saying, "Leave him be, Kurogiri." His eyes narrowed more behind the hand on his face, and he said softer like he was speaking to himself, "Enjoy it while you can. Go ahead and give them a fake smile, I know it's fake. It has to be," Shigaraki's mouth twisted in anger and he scratched his neck one more time really hard, then he stopped and he smiled again. This time his smile spread much farther up so the edges of it were hidden beneath the sides of the hand, and his eyes were huge behind the fingers as he said, "It'll make it so much better, when I take it away!"

* * *

 **A/N Thanks for reading. Very long chapter this time, had me editing 'til 3:30 a.m. Let me know what you think of the battle with the War Boys and how it turned out in a review below! Zach takes his helmet off mid-fight and everyone sees him in his dark costume. Though most people don't understand, Zach's got some explaining to do... We'll see if he can get out of it. What is Shigaraki planning? What's on that video? What will happen to Zach now? Hope you enjoyed! Review responses:**

Xxxsal chapter 51 . Jul 30

haha I love this chapter. Zach made Hunter his own toy

 **Thanks! Always good to have a useful guy like Hunter on call... Glad you liked the chapter!**

gods-own chapter 51 . Jul 29

good stuff

 **Thank you.**

LordOfTee chapter 51 . 20h ago

Dude Zach can be scary as fuzz, his acting was great! When Zach called himself the devil it gave me an idea for his villain moniker: The Reaping Devil.  
It seems like it would fit he's acting like he is the devil and he's making a deal with someone, plus his name is Reaper pretty fitting I'd say ay?

 **Zach's just got such an easy ability to be terrifying with. Even this chapter surrounded by villains, the whole room of them and hostages were practically wetting themselves. He has considered being an actor before, admiring their work back on his Kyoto trip and thinking about his own skills with it. Cool villain name, though hopefully Zach doesn't need a new villain name anytime soon... or ever? Well, I'll keep it in mind ;). Thanks for the reviews! Hope you enjoyed the chapter!**


	53. Chapter 53

**Disclaimer: I don't own Boku no Hero Academia**

 **Chapter 53:**

Zach stood in a meeting room at a government office in Tokyo, his hands down at his sides of the black costume he was still wearing. He had a bandage wrapped around his left arm over the one somewhat deep wound he had received during the attack on the villains the night before, or technically that morning. He stood before a table that had a judge and four officials who were in charge of his review behind it. The woman in the center of the panel, the only woman sitting up there, had long white hair that curled back up just below her shoulder-blades. She had her hands together over the table and was giving Zach a discerning look, as were the men on her sides, and the heroes behind Zach and on the sides of the room.

"You were the one who alerted the police?" The judge asked, and Zach nodded his head firmly and with a straight expression on his face.

He was tired, exhausted actually. He had not slept for over thirty hours now, ever since he had woken up the morning prior a little while before receiving Kaminari's panicked messages. Zach responded to the judge in front of him who led his review board, "I did."

"Yet you went in before Edgeshot or the other heroes arrived, preventing a plan from being formed to get the hostages out. Instead Edgeshot was forced to join a fight already started by you and those-"

"I planned on waiting," Zach said. _I heard Mythril talk to Edgeshot, and the other hostages all saw Webb too._ "But one of those two men could hear into the building, and he informed me that one of the hostages was about to be executed," Zach hesitated, then added, "and that a woman was currently screaming in a different location as the rest of the hostages." Zach's expression darkened as he said it, and it was not just for show for the panel in front of him. _Even if Damian didn't get- even just what he did do… Thompson's going to be scarred from that. She helped us, gave us the extra second to take down Shatterer for good._ "So I decided I couldn't wait," Zach finished.

A couple of the panel members glanced at each other, while back farther in the room behind Zach a couple of heroes stared at the boy with wide eyes. Those were not the heroes who took part and went with the police who called them in as quickly as possible considering their agencies' locations compared to where the villains' hideout had been. Those heroes just nodded or hummed from the sides while looking at Zach with satisfied, accepting looks. The ones back behind Zach near the door of the room though, were three who had rushed there from U.A. and who had been frowning at Zach since the boy entered the room in that black costume.

"These two men you just mentioned," the judge before Zach started. "You don't know who they are?" Zach implied it with his last statements, but she was double-checking to see that that was the boy's official statement.

Zach shook his head once, then he said, "When I first got there, those two attacked me. I managed to dodge the bigger one's attack, but they were both trying to stay quiet as we started to fight, and I realized that meant that they did not want the villains near us to hear them." He paused, then he continued after a second, "So I asked if they were with the villains, which I think made them realize I wasn't, though then I told them who I was too. Neither gave me their names back, but I didn't really care about who they were." Zach saw the older woman at the center of the table frown at him for that, and he just continued in a steady voice, "If not for the one who told me what was going on inside, I would have waited for the police and heroes to arrive, and my friend Kaminari Denki would have been killed. He was the hostage the villains were planning on executing even before sunrise."

The judge hummed to herself for a few seconds in a loud enough way that Zach could tell she was pondering what he said. "You did not arrive at the other hostages until after the fight had already begun though, from what the other reports tell us. Where were-"

"As I already mentioned, there was a girl screaming- I went straight to the second floor, leaving the hostages to the other two first until Thompson-" Zach paused as he did not know if they knew her name, and he corrected himself, "until after the girl who was about to be raped was safe." Zach bit down hard behind his lips after phrasing it like that. _Did I just, say it that way to make them let me go? I'm not- I don't want to do stuff like that. Using something like that…_ He continued fast, "And I didn't know the hostage about to be executed was my friend until afterwards. He had tried saving Thompson himself, which was why they were going to do it."

Nezu, All Might, and Aizawa stared at Zach's back with wider eyes again as he said that. _He's here to defend his actions,_ Aizawa thought, an annoyed look on his face that just lifted a bit from the angrier one a moment ago. _Yet he is using this time to make sure they know Kaminari also acted as a hero. Explain yourself Sazaki, don't get off track._ Aizawa's mouth dipped farther down again and he continued glaring at Zach's back from the left of All Might and the principal.

"Your actions at the War Boys' hideout are clearly heroic then," the judge before Zach said. "But let me ask you, where did you get that costume you are wearing?" Zach's eyes lowered, and his head turned a bit to the side. He turned his head a tad to the right and looked out the corners of his eyes back through the room, right as the judge continued, "It was not a costume issued to you by your high school, U.A., so I must assume you acquired it illegally-"

"I don't know why you'd assume that," Zach said, and he turned away from his teachers whose eyes all widened at what Zach just said. He turned towards the judge and then lifted his arms and looked down at his sleeves and the black gloves he was wearing. "I got this costume from a licensed contractor." Zach thought back earlier the night before while he was speaking with Ganji, _**"Speaking of which, there's something you need to know about your costume…"**_

"Edna Gregorvich. She works for Super Costumes for Super Heroes. I don't have a receipt," Zach continued, while the judge and the other officials stared at him in surprise and darted their eyes back through the room, wondering if those teachers back there were as confused as them considering what they had been preparing to say. "I thought if the school found it they'd get mad I got another costume, and I was given it for free too since Ms. Gregorvich knew someone I had brought back to life. I kept my costume hidden off of school property, but it was acquired legally, I assure you."

All Might's jaw was dropped from in between Nezu and Aizawa. He stared at Zach with wide eyes, and all the worry he felt when they were on their way here was starting to disappear. That worry for Zach's future and that he had done something very illegal, was replacing with confusion and then anxiety because of that confused feeling. _Sazaki,_ All Might thought, _I could not help but smile, when I saw your smile this morning. It only lasted a few seconds though… How did you do this?_

Nezu hummed as his eyes returned to normal size before either of his faculty members. He kept frowning towards Zach's back, but he put his hands together in front of his small waist and narrowed his gaze at the boy in the center of the room.

"We will check that," the judge in front of Zach told him. "It does not just require a licensed contractor. They must get their designs checked and cleared as well before selling a costume that can be considered a dangerous weapon."

"I know," Zach said. "Ms. Gregorvich assured me that it had been checked officially. I assume there are hundreds if not thousands of hero costume requests going through the system every day though, so I'm not surprised every official does not know about my second costume's existence." Zach's eyes narrowed at the judge in front of him, and he questioned, "If that is all?"

A few of the officials were not looking as stern as they originally looked when Zach had walked up to them. _I had time while I was in the hospital before they came to call me to this. More than enough time to plan for whatever you're going to ask._

"There is one last thing, Mr. Sazaki," the judge said, and she leaned forward while still holding her hands together over the table. "I would like to know how you located the War Boys and the hostages. When the police and requested heroes could not do so," she added, narrowing her eyes more at the boy without directly accusing him of anything.

"I would prefer not to answer," Zach responded.

Her eyes widened for a second, then she narrowed them again and said in a harsher tone, "That is not an option. This review board must determine whether you acted heroically-"

"I searched out," Zach started, cutting her off as he already expected what her answer to his superfluous question would be. He had to add it in though at first, considering what his reason in this second part would be. His hesitation after cutting her off lasted a couple of seconds, then he said, "A confidential informant-"

"A C.I.?" The judge asked, leaning backwards and glaring down her nose at the boy. "Do you think you can say that it is a secret and we can just let you go?" Zach frowned at her response, and she said in a harsher voice, "What kind of C.I.? Where did you meet them? How did they know where to find the War Boys? Is this person a villain? If so, then not arresting him or her is a failure as a hero-"

"A junky," Zach said. He frowned at the woman and balled his fists down at his sides for a second, but he relaxed and opened those fists. He took a deep breath, then he said, "I didn't tell the police about him, because he's not a criminal other than the drugs… And I didn't tell anyone to look him up when I heard about the hostages, because I didn't know if he was going to have any information. I thought it was a stupid lead myself, and that I was grasping at straws for anything to try and help my friend." Zach bit down, then he continued, "But he had heard stuff about the War Boys recently, about how Shigaraki had killed the gang's other two leaders Rage-Rider and Hugo. Shatterer said during the fight that the money was so he could start up a new operation in China, because the League of Villains are making moves. He said something about 'Shigaraki's army,' but I didn't learn anything else about him before Kaminari and I took him down. Anyway, my informant had heard these things, and he also heard about some of the gang members recently and gave me different locations he heard them talking about-"

"He just gave you this information?" The judge questioned skeptically.

"I threatened turning him in to the cops, since I assumed he was holding," Zach replied. "But he gave me a few leads that he sounded serious about, since he really did not want to lose his stash." Zach kept looking into the woman's eyes, and he finished, "I still felt like I was chasing shadows, and I spent most of the day doing nothing, but then one panned out. I'm sure the cops were following other leads themselves, and I didn't know if the words of a random junky were worth sharing and wasting police manpower, since as much as he looked serious, he's a junky and I couldn't really trust him. But that information panned out, and I found the War Boys after walking over an hour from a bus stop to the lake I thought there was a small chance of the villains being at." Zach started sounding more exhausted as he mentioned that, and he stared into the judge's eyes wondering if she had anything else she wanted to ask him.

"This junky," she began, and only sounded a little skeptical this time. "Where did you say you met him?"

"I didn't say," Zach responded. He grit his teeth, then added, "Because it was while I was with the League of Villains."

"And you met him how?" the judge questioned.

Zach's eyebrows narrowed in, and he said in a frustrated tone, "I already had a whole review with officials and judges about that. It really doesn't sound to me, like that has any relevance to what happened last night." Zach's eyes stayed narrowed after his response, but the judge leaning forward in front of him actually pulled back at his response.

"You're right," she said after a brief moment. "Zach Sazaki, this review board finds that you acted within your right as one in possession of a provisional hero license. There are things to be said about how you did it or what you could have done differently, but the fact remains that all thirty-two hostages were saved, and none of the villains were killed." She added that second part in a more impressed way, before smiling at the boy whose eyes widened and then shot open wider as she bowed her head along with the two men on either side of her. "We thank you," she lifted her head and got a straighter look on her face. "I would have referred to you as Lifebringer through this meeting, but your hero license only has your name on it and not Lifebringer, could I-"

"I'm not," Zach started responding. He stared at the woman questioning him, her eyes narrowing in confusion at the start of Zach's response. "Not L- I'm-" _Calm down! CALM DOWN!_ "I'm not Lifebringer," Zach whispered, forcing it out of his mouth in a soft voice instead of the louder one he had started in, a compromise he realized he made with himself in the last second. _Why can't I just shut my damn mouth? Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck._ Zach steadied his expression, and then he shook his head around and regained a small smile on it despite the looks he was now receiving from the panel in front of him, and that he could see out the corners of his eyes from the heroes on the sides of the room. "I haven't decided on my hero name yet," Zach said, and he nodded his head respectfully at the panel to show them that was all he was going to say and ending their conversation on.

"Very well. You may go, Mr. Sazaki," the judge said to him. She shook her head as she realized she herself only knew that name because it was how the media referred to him and not because it was actually on any official documents she had seen. As the boy started turning away from the table, she finished, "The people thank you."

 _Not all of them,_ Zach thought, while looking straight back at his teachers who had come to get him.

* * *

Zach walked out of the courthouse and was a bit surprised he was not immediately met with a swarm of media presence. _They must have kept this private. Don't want to show they don't trust me after what just happened… I know why I'm distracting myself._ Zach lifted his gaze to his left a bit then snapped it straight back forward before the taller man with long dark hair could see him looking. He stared ahead and saw the back of the principal walking down the steps in front of him but did not look straight at Nezu either. _My chest is pounding. I have to calm down. Relax. They just heard all my excuses. What is there to say? What is there… I broke their trust. Again. After I had-_ Zach grit his teeth and clenched his eyes shut but only for a second before opening them again and keeping a strong look on his face.

 _I thought it all day yesterday, and I knew it in those moments when I took off my helmet. And even if I didn't, I still would have shown back up with lies and a day missing, and this still would have happened. I can't, think of it like I'm breaking their trust though._ Zach's hands shook at his sides as he tried clenching them into fists but failed. _I had to save Kaminari! I don't regret it. I saved his life. Yet even without regret, I'm, scared. They're going to- what are they going to-_ Zach's eyes darted to his right and then straight ahead fast as he accidentally locked eyes with All Might for a moment.

"I'll go bring the car around," Aizawa said, and he started walking left after they reached the bottom of the steps. Zach had a set of street clothes on, and he had a bag with his other hero costume in it on his back. "Don't go anywhere," he muttered, turning and walking away with his hands down in his pockets. Zach turned his head and watched his teacher walking away, a pained look flashing on his face for a second at the tone Aizawa had.

 _Damn it. I can't tell the truth. I want to just tell you all. I don't like this. I hate lying. I hate it, when I tried making things better. I tried fixing things between… Sometimes the choices I make, have no good options. I knew from the second I started planning to save Kaminari myself, that there would be consequences._ Zach's expression hardened and he looked back forward into the road past Nezu. His gaze was serious and unfocused on the principal who turned around now that the three of them were waiting. _I had to determine which was worse. What would happen after I came back? Or what would happen if Kaminari never did? The choice was clear. The choice is still clear, and I'd do it again! So now I have to just bare my teeth, and deal with what comes!_

"Sazaki," Nezu said, and the boy he looked back at lowered his gaze down to the white-furred mouse man's face. "You did a very brave thing last night." Zach's eyes started opening wide, yet the principal sighed and continued in his high-pitched and sad voice, "And I am sure you must think you are in the right for doing so. People will agree with that. Many people, most in fact," the principal put his hands down together behind his back and said, "But that is not-"

Nezu stopped and lifted his head a little. All Might turned his head left on Zach's right side, and Zach turned to look over his shoulder at whatever the two of them just looked at. He had a look of growing dread on his face from the principal's tone and where this was heading, and his mind was racing as Nezu sounded too grim. His eyes widened though as he looked back and up the stairs towards a man jogging down them no longer in his hero uniform either, but still with three big spikes of gray hair over his head.

"Edgeshot," All Might said in some surprise, and he smiled at the hero he did not get to talk to inside.

"All Might, how are you doing?" Edgeshot asked after reaching the bottom of the courthouse's steps.

"Very good," the thin man with sunken cheeks and pushed back blond hair replied. Zach lowered his gaze as he figured their conversation would be put on hold for a minute while this other hero was here, and would continue as soon as he was gone or Aizawa pulled around with the car. Edgeshot nodded at All Might's response, and All Might asked, "Is there something you have to ask me?" It seemed like there was a reason Edgeshot came over other than just to ask how All Might was doing.

"Actually," Edgeshot said. "I would like a moment of your student's time." Zach's head lifted and his eyes widened for a second, and Edgeshot turned to the short boy with messy black hair who was staring at him in surprise that the number 4 hero wanted to talk to him. "Sazaki," Edgeshot started, saying the boy's name instead of 'Lifebringer' because of the way the boy acted in the review. "The next time your class has internships," Edgeshot said, and he lifted up his right hand in a quick movement so there was suddenly a card in it where there was none before. "I would like you to consider giving my agency a call."

Zach's eyes opened so much wider, while All Might sweatdropped on Zach's side and glanced back to Principal Nezu whose look returned to the expression it had while he was just speaking with the boy. Zach was about to reach for the card, but his hand stopped and he turned to All Might, then he turned more and looked back at the principal. Nezu looked into Zach's eyes and his own beady black ones opened a little wider at the look in his. _He is asking permission? Now?_ Nezu thought, and he hesitated for another moment before nodding his head at the teenager.

Zach turned back to Edgeshot in a more excited way, but he returned his gaze to serious fast as he held out his hands and accepted the card with a bowed head. "I will, consider it," Zach said, and he lifted his head back up and nodded at Edgeshot while suppressing his grin. _Principal Nezu nodded! Does that mean I'm not expelled?! If I'll be able to do an internship sometime in the future, that must be it! Please let that be it, or maybe they're going to kick me out and I'll just have to… Maybe I'll be able, to keep my license? Even without graduating a hero high school, could I become a regular sidekick?_ The thought made Zach's face darken more, and he lowered the card down to his pocket and put it away.

Edgeshot opened his mouth to say more, but the principal cut in, "If I may, Edgeshot. I was in the middle of starting to scold Sazaki, and our car will be pulling around in a moment. I am sorry to be rude, but as the circumstances stand we as Zach Sazaki's current guardians at U.A. High School must keep track of our students and thus Sazaki's actions require harsh and immediate punishment. Whether or not he will be permitted for future internships has yet to be determined, as there are a great many things that Sazaki has the capability of…"

"I'm sorry for interrupting," Edgeshot said, nodding his head to the short but long-winded principal of U.A. He glanced back towards Zach and nodded at the boy again, though he was wondering about those punishments now himself. The pro hero turned and headed off, right as a black car was pulling around the curve with Shota Aizawa behind the wheel.

 _Did he really have to say that in front of Edgeshot?_ Zach wondered, though his grimace was as deep as it was before Nezu started speaking. _It sounds like I'm going to get it pretty rough. But, it doesn't seem like I'm expelled. Good. That's, really good._ The thought of becoming a sidekick early, of getting kicked out of school for this and having to make it on his own, it gave Zach the deepest sense of dread inside him. _Momo… Kaminari, Midoriya, everyone. I, I don't want this to end._ Zach realized it right as the car was pulling up in front of him, and his heart was racing much faster as he moved for the back seat with the principal while All Might moved for the passenger door.

Zach opened the door and held it open for the principal, though his gaze stayed pointed down as Nezu climbed into the car first and moved across to the next seat over. Zach climbed in and closed the door behind him, and Aizawa started driving. _How far to Musutafu? How long is this car ride going to be? I can't do this right now. I don't want to._ Zach looked into the rearview mirror at Aizawa who glanced back at him right at that moment, and Zach had to avert his gaze before Aizawa even looked back at the road. Zach shifted his gaze to All Might whose head turned sideways before looking forward himself, a regretful look after he glanced at the principal.

Zach gulped and he turned left towards Nezu who he could see staring at him from across the gap between their seats. "I'm," Zach began. He opened his mouth to continue, but he could not force it out. _I already lied, so much to them. Look at him._ Zach closed his mouth, and he ground his teeth and pursed his lips in front of them so the principal would not be able to see him doing it. _I'm not sorry. It's what I should say though, right? Because, I am, for certain things._ "I'm sorry, for-" he paused and just kept staring into the principal's small black eyes, and he tried to look away only to look back shamefully as he was not able to make a genuine apology here. He almost wanted to make a sarcastic remark, like finishing with: 'saving Kaminari,' but he managed to hold off on that.

Principal Nezu could see Zach was failing, and he sighed before saying in a stern yet high-pitched tone, "You have lost the trust of the U.A. faculty." Zach's heart clenched and his teeth clenched down harder. "Many of your teachers voiced their concerns and worry, as well as suspicions when you disappeared. You told All Might you were going to get, 'a bagel from town,' before news of the situation had reached his ears." Zach lowered his gaze down to the floor, his eyes closing a little with a hurt look in them as he stared at his feet. "When I gave you permission to continue acting on your own, even after your last incident, I had hoped your trust in All Might would be a good countermeasure. A week of detention and a compromise on your permissions for leaving campus have shown to not be enough however to stop you from acting outside of the rules. I know you feel that not all rules are there for good reason. To ignore the rules though and act despite them, to go behind the school's back to obtain another costume, and to betray the trust you worked so hard to build with your teachers…"

Nezu shook his head, while Zach grit his teeth even harder and balled his fists at his sides. He wanted to give excuses. He wanted to say how he knew no one would let him go save Kaminari if he told them he could do it. He wanted to shout and scream that if he did not do what he did then more people might have died, that Thompson would have been raped, that lives would have been lost for sure. Nezu continued as Zach sat there shaking in his seat, but unable to say a word himself, "As we discussed, Present Mic mentioned that although this has caused us to lose our trust for you, it was because you cannot trust us that you had to go around our rules." Zach's eyes shot open wide as he stared at his feet, thinking about Present Mic saying that for him. Principal Nezu continued though, "Yet I had believed that we were past that in some part. To have lied even to All Might, after explicitly stating that he was the one teacher whom you could trust, it is not something that I can easily forgive. Last time you broke the rules, I threatened to expel you the next time you did so-"

"That's why I got the costume," Zach said, his head snapping up and his gaze to Nezu who looked back into Zach's eyes. "In case I was expelled for real, and I had to give back the school-given costume. It was- I mean most of the reason was for that. I wasn't planning on using it while still in school-"

"Extenuating circumstances forced your hand though?" Nezu asked. "You should have at least sent a message to All Might, explaining what you were doing. Leaving no information, no trail of where you had gone-"

"I broke my phone," Zach started. He froze after saying it, realizing that that excuse really did not buy him any extra time. "And, the disposable one I used to call the cops, it didn't have contacts… But, I just broke it so I couldn't be tracked, so no one could try stopping me," his voice got softer the more he was speaking, his chin dipping farther and farther down the more he bowed his head. "I just wanted, to save Kaminari." He ground his teeth for a second, and then whispered, "And the others."

Aizawa stared out the windshield as he waited at a red light that he wished would turn green already so he could pretend to be occupied with something other than what the boy behind him was saying. He could look over his shoulder now and at the boy without even worrying about Zach seeing him, since the teen's head was bowed so far down as he spoke. _Guilt and shame don't make you any less guilty though. As good as your intentions may have been, you lied to us again. How are we-_

"How can I believe this?" Nezu questioned, and Zach's head lifted to see Nezu looking at him wanting a real answer. "How can I believe about your costume, or your mobile phone, when you have given us no reason to trust you?" Zach's eyes opened wider and his lips opened as he tried to come up with a reason. "The truth of the matter, Sazaki, is that you once again broke very strict rules of U.A. You disobeyed when we called all students back, while your classmates even on vacation in distant places all managed to return. When emergency circumstances arise, to have our number one most at-risk student unaccounted for is something U.A. cannot stand for. If something were to happen to you and we did not know the cause, or if you were to go missing, it would be our greatest shame once again. Every member of the staff would feel responsible for your disappearance, even if it is a choice you yourself made."

"You don't have to-"

"But we do, as your guardians," Nezu interrupted Zach in the most firm voice he had ever heard the principal use, which made him shut his mouth fast. Nezu looked into Zach's eyes and said, "I accepted when you did not want to drag your Aunt Maye into your life, but I told you that you needed to take responsibility for yourself. I told you that, for your own sake so you could grow independently though. Sazaki, you are currently in our care. You are a minor, with no family to turn to. The entire staff of U.A. understands this, but you do not seem to care for their feelings." Zach felt his heart pounding even harder, thinking about that room full of teachers and faculty who he apologized for worrying, for being such a burden to, who he knew he had burdened once again.

"I will not expel you, Sazaki. If things had gone just a little differently, I would have though. But you succeeded." Zach's eyes shot open huge and he stared at the principal who kept frowning despite the words coming out of his mouth. "You saved Denki Kaminari, and thirty-one others. You captured villains without killing them. Compared to the start of your year at U.A., you have taken huge strides in ability as well as your own resolve and heroism. We take pride in that as should you." Nezu kept a serious look on his face through all of that and Zach could not smile because of it, even with the principal's praise. "But I told you the punishment would be more severe should you break our rules again."

Nezu paused, then he said to Zach while looking into his eyes, "You are prohibited from leaving campus." Zach's face stayed in its current position, though his breathing started getting heavier as he let that set in. _For how long-_ "Until further notice, you are not permitted to leave the U.A. premises. We cannot believe the things you say you will do off campus, and we will not assign a teacher to follow you whenever you leave. So this is the only logical course of action. Furthermore-"

"That sounds like a prison," Zach whispered.

"It is this, or expulsion," the principal said plainly, and Zach's eyes snapped open wide for a second before he nodded once and just lowered his gaze apologetically for saying that. Nezu nodded after Zach did, and he continued, "This is not the extent of your punishment, however as this has just occurred we do not have the full extent plotted already. That is why I did not stop you from taking Edgeshot's card, but I also informed him that you may not be allowed to take part in internships this next year. We will continue your punishment as we see fit until you can regain the trust you have lost with the U.A. faculty, including myself."

 _Prison, or expulsion. Absolute freedom, where I lose my home. Or stuck inside the dorm all day every day. I guess I can use the school facilities too, and it's not like I left every day anyway. No more, anti-hero anything though. If I could even keep that up now. I messed up big time. I took off my mask- no, stop regretting. Again there were two choices with bad results from the decisions. I knew everything that would come out of it when I took that mask off, but if I hadn't, Thompson wouldn't have been… she wouldn't have been okay. She's still not- but I hope, I hope showing her my face made things better. I hope she felt safe, and that she was saved, and that although it was scary she had someone who saved her. She must have thought she was all alone right then. She thought everyone was just leaving her to that Damian's twisted-_ Zach started nodding at the principal, though his eyes were clouded as he did so. _Accept the consequences. Don't make them worse. I don't, want to have to leave school. I want to stay there. I don't want to have to figure out my entire life right now. Move out, get a job, find a way to support myself without Maye or U.A., and have no one to help me at all. Instead of a school full of people who care- where I know one of them is betraying me. Where I know one is sneaking information about me and everything I do straight to Shigaraki._

"Okay," Zach said, accepting Nezu's punishment with his head partially bowed. It was bowed enough that he did not notice Aizawa's eyes wide in the rearview mirror after hearing what Nezu said about Edgeshot, and the dark-haired teacher glanced at All Might next to see him nod his head with an impressed look on his face. Aizawa just turned back to the road though, not knowing how to respond to hearing that or the punishment they had already in part discussed, though the final decision had to come after they heard what happened at his review. _Getting the attention of top heroes, not that he didn't already have it. Sazaki,_ Aizawa's gaze focused through the windshield and he frowned some more before humming in a low annoyed tone, _Why can't you just…_ Aizawa felt like sighing, and he rubbed his forehead taking his left hand off the wheel to do so. _He saved Kaminari. That's what it sounds like. Even if going in early was too much, just the information he sent out alone. But how he got that- a C.I.? If you made contacts while with the villains Sazaki, you should have given all of that information to the other review board. You acted like you did, yet a criminal whose location you were able to find in under a day was still out there on the streets?_

 _I saved Kaminari._ Zach leaned back in his seat and he stared at the back of All Might's in front of him. _Just, think about that. Never regret doing this. I won't, not really. But that makes it so much worse. Why do I have to live with consequences, even when I do nothing wrong? Even when the decisions I make are the right ones, I'm still punished. No matter what I do._ Zach lifted his left hand and he winced, then brought his right arm over and rubbed a hand over the wound under his new long-sleeved black shirt just given to him. His bag was on the floor between his legs, and he looked down at it imagining the costume inside not including his helmet he left at the villains' base. _I don't need a helmet,_ Zach thought as he looked at his bag. _I, I wanted to be an anti-hero. I did. But I also want to be a hero. They were right when they said the difference in idealism between the two is too big a gap to overcome. I couldn't keep my helmet on and leave her without a hero to look to. I smiled at the camera and said that everything was okay. Those things made me feel like a true hero, much more than threatening Hunter's life and soul with eternal damnation in the fiery pits of Hell!_

Zach lifted his right hand and rubbed it inside the glove on his forehead. He lowered it a bit to cover up his eyes, and he leaned back on the chair more with his eyes covered and the corners of his lips dipped far down. _The things I told him,_ he sniffled and then grit his teeth hard as he knew that was too loud that the other three would be able to hear him. He wanted to lower his hand so no one would notice a thing, but he knew they would only notice it more because of the water in his eyes. _I really convinced him, I was the devil. And Shatterer thought I was some kind of demon too. The Reaper. A monster. I, I'm not- but I threatened Hunter's life. I, I have him scared shitless, and I told him to buy a phone with a phone number I gave him so I wouldn't have to hunt him again, and I think he's going to do it. He really thinks I'm the devil after all! Ahhhh! I want to SCREAM! That's too far. It was worth it to save Kaminari, to save all of them, but the look of fear on his face. Even on a monster who was going to kill me, whose work I've seen before…_ _ **He**_ _was afraid of_ _ **me.**_ _That monster, is terrified of me. He looked at me like I was the most monstrous thing on this world, and I told him he was my fucking servant. I claimed to have demons… and I called myself the devil…_ Zach's head pushed back harder into his seat, and he sniffled again quieter but his thoughts were slowing down. The exhausted boy in the backseat of the black car was thinking terrible thoughts about himself, full of guilt even as he tried to convince himself to feel otherwise, and he fell asleep.

* * *

"Sazaki. Young Sazaki," All Might shook Zach by his right arm at the door of the car. Zach's eyes snapped open and his body tensed hard, his fingers sliding out of his right glove and then his eyes shooting open even wider as he saw it was All Might he was about to swing his right hand at. Zach's face filled with terror, while All Might stumbled backwards and held his hands up apologetically, "Sorry!"

"All Might," Zach whispered, gulping and sitting up from his slouched position on the chair. Sitting up made him remember he was buckled in, then he looked around and realized that he was alone in the vehicle and it was not moving. He unbuckled and turned back out to All Might, but he did not get out of the car just yet. He stared into All Might's eyes and said in a low voice, "What were you thinking? I almost killed you. Don't, don't wake me up like that-"

"I'm sorry," All Might repeated, though he lowered his lifted arms as he said it this time. Zach's fingers slid back into his glove on his right hand, and the boy stopped panting from that shock after he woke up, though All Might knew the panting was from more than that considering the distressed look on the boy's face even before he awoke. "Come," All Might said. "I will walk you back to your dorm."

"I can get there on my…" Zach trailed off. _Or maybe I'm not even allowed to walk by myself anymore. They're my prison guards. No! Don't think about it like that. They just want, to help you._ He shook his head and climbed out of the car while grabbing his pack with him. _I left some money, and my clothes, and my other backpack at Rasheed. I'm never seeing those again. Good thing I still have that other phone I bought in Kyoto still in my room, now I'll just give out that number to the others. Didn't lose anything that important, other than the trust of my teachers._ Zach walked forward and All Might walked with him. It was daytime, and it was still in the middle of break between the school years in mid-April. They were behind U.A. already when Zach woke up, but they were down the road a little so they were closer to the school than Class A's dorm.

All Might walked on Zach's right side, and they headed down the road together. All Might took in a deep breath as they walked, then he turned to his left and said down to the boy a bit shorter than him, "Sazaki. I know who you got help from," All Might said. Zach continued walking without saying a word, without breaking stride, without even turning to All Might. The former top hero scratched the back of his head at that reaction, then he lowered that hand and continued in a serious voice, "I must know, if you are still in contact with Webb. I did not think he would allow-"

"All Might," Zach said, turning his head to the right with lifted eyebrows and a confused look on his face. All Might's eyes widened and his eyebrows rose up high as Zach asked in confusion, "Who is Webb?"

"Sazaki," All Might began, his voice lower, and Zach once again noticing that there was no 'young' before his last name.

"All Might," Zach continued quickly, as he heard a tone in All Might's voice that hurt his chest so much. _He thinks I don't trust him. And after I sent him that lie over the text- and he didn't even question it! He just said to enjoy the bagel, even joked about getting him one too…_ "I trust you," Zach said, slowing down and turning his body to face All Might more while they walked down the road. "I really do," Zach said, hoping his tone got through how much he meant that to the man before him.

"Then why pretend when it is just the two of us?" All Might asked, looking in back at Zach and slowing down as well.

Zach pursed his lips for a second, then he turned forward and looked down towards his dorm building just ahead. It was still light out, early in the afternoon, and Zach only felt like he got an hour of sleep, maybe a little less even after he passed out in the car. "All Might," he whispered, staring at the approaching dorm for a few seconds. "Are there people you trust, who you don't talk about this _certain kind of thing_ with?" Zach asked. He turned to All Might and he saw the man's eyes wider at what Zach was referring to, and it was not the anti-heroes at all. "I know Midoriya told you he gave me the rest of the story. And we haven't talked about it, but you showed me your weakened form. You showed me a secret, because you must have trusted me not to tell everyone… yet you didn't just start telling me all about One For All and All For One…" Zach hesitated, then he looked back forward and whispered, "So there are things, I can't talk about too. And you- and no one- can tell me I can't do that."

All Might lowered his shocked look at Zach's reasoning, and he started shaking his head after a few seconds. "You are still a-"

"Don't call me a young man," Zach whispered, shaking his head as he felt like that's what All Might was preparing for. _You don't even believe that anymore,_ Zach added on to himself. "All Might," he turned towards the blond man and said in a firmer voice, "you had the all powerful Quirk to be able to follow the rules and save everyone. But, I was able to get Kaminari and save those other civilians by using _everything_ I could… just like how you saved me." Zach finished it in a way that made All Might's eyes open wide, and his teeth to clench as there was little he could say to counter that. In his method to rescue Sazaki from the villains, he had gone beyond what heroes were supposed to do, and now that boy he had saved was using those same methods. All Might ground his teeth and Zach continued quickly, "I stayed within the rules as much as was possible, but if I had taken a slower route to get there, used only what I could use in public, I would have arrived after the hostage was killed. After Kaminari-" Zach paused while All Might stopped grinding his teeth, his gaze lowering as he could not feel as angry and regretful hearing how these things caused so much good.

"I don't regret doing what was necessary. And it's why I can't apologize, for lying to you. Not really, because I know, you would have stopped me from going if I told you what I was really going to do," Zach whispered. He turned to All Might who looked back at him, and Zach's eyes were soft and apologetic despite saying he would not apologize. "The review board found me innocent too, and I think they didn't dig much farther than they did just because of how things turned out. And I know how it ends shouldn't- but I couldn't-" Zach clenched his teeth now, and then he said through them and gasped out at All Might, "Please. I don't want to say sorry, and lie to you again, but I want- All Might I'm- I'm- I don't want to lose…" Zach started panting heavier, and he opened his mouth to try and finally get out what he wanted to say.

All Might held out his right hand and put it on Zach's left shoulder. He placed it there and stopped the boy with an open mouth from speaking. "Once I heard that Young Kaminari had been abducted, I understood right away what your text really was. I knew you had used me to get off campus. I was angry, and I was afraid." All Might stared sternly into Zach's eyes from close up, and Zach could not look away as ashamed as he felt using his hero like that. "Knowing your past, and the things that had happened to you at the hands of villains, we were all afraid- I, was afraid. I feared that should you find the villains you were looking for, and a part of me did believe that you would find them, that you would no longer be able to be considered a hero." All Might put more pressure on Zach's shoulder, then he moved his hand farther onto Zach's back and pulled the boy forward into a hug. "So when you came out of that building with a smile on your face, all of the hostages rescued," All Might said, his head down next to the side of Zach's and a big smile on his face now that Zach could not see his expression and take that face as how he really felt. "And when I heard that not one villain was killed, I was very proud." All Might's hand held tighter on Zach's back and the boy's eyes started filling with water at what he was saying.

 _You are all my students. I stayed at U.A. mainly to keep and eye on and train the successor to One For All. I care about each and every one of you though, Young Sazaki. And though I must treat you like an adult for now on, I cannot forget that you are still a boy. A very young, and troubled, and brave boy._ All Might pulled back from Zach and he looked down at the boy who rose his right arm fast to wipe his eyes so All Might would not see them that wet and moved by what he had said. "I do understand why you must keep things secret. And I do not think that means that you do not trust me. But if the burdens you carry become too much, know that what you feel you must carry on your own can always be shared with those whom you trust the most."

"I'll, think about that, All Might," Zach whispered in response. He backed up and steadied his expression to stop showing so much genuine emotion on it, shaking his head around a bit to get that moved look off of it. _Those, whom I trust the most,_ Zach thought, and he turned his head back towards the dorm they had been walking towards.

"I think this is far enough for me," All Might said. "I know the principal said that you are no longer allowed off campus," he continued, and Zach looked back as All Might took a step away back towards the school. "But if you ask for something, I could possibly pick it up for you, if I have the time." All Might turned his head and flashed a grin back at Zach who smiled again at the sight of that look, making him feel a hundred times less like this place was the prison he was imagining it was about to become.

Zach watched as All Might started walking the other way, then he turned away and looked back at his dorm with his smile lowering down again. He walked forward more confidently after that talk, but his footsteps slowed before long and he felt his feet dragging behind him. _At least,_ he thought while he walked towards the building more confidently. _I really am exhausted, so I have an excuse to just go up to my room and pass out. I'm not expelled. This is, the best outcome. Everyone's alive._ Zach's mouth curled into a smile, but it shook and lowered down as his feet just dragged more.

He reached the end of the path outside of his dorm, and he slowed down even more before heading up to the entrance. _I didn't tell them a thing. I left. And I probably caused them all sorts of stress. I even, ignored Momo's texts. She was worried, and I just ignored her feelings._ Zach rose both hands, though he winced and stopped lifting his left after a second. _It's not bad, but I should just give it time to heal on its own._ He wiped his right hand down over his face, then he shook his head around to get a calm and straight expression ready. _They're going to ask all the same things as the review board. I don't want, to lie. I have to though. The spy could…_ Zack bit down on his bottom lip as he started walking towards the building. _Don't- no I have to! I don't want to, think about that though. I want to forget, and imagine there's no such thing as a spy. I can't just say what I want though. I can't say it even if none of you are. I can't tell anyone! Right?_

Zach slowed down more as he was ten feet away from the front door. _I don't know how to do this,_ Zach thought. He stared at the door and lowered his gaze to the floor just outside of it. _How to lie, when lying is starting to hurt more and more? I could do it so easily right when I got back. It's the price, of getting close to people. I know I have to lie, but I can't distance myself like I did back then. The thought of losing them. The thought of losing even a single one of them, though it was Kaminari- but even if it was anyone else, I still would have left wouldn't I have? I think I would have. I have to believe that._ Zach's right hand lifted up for the door handle, and his fingers stopped shaking as they wrapped around it.

"Here goes nothing," he muttered under his breath, and he pushed the door open.

Zach stepped inside, and he turned his head left right away towards the voices he heard even before he started pushing the door. He stared over towards the couch area, where there were nineteen people standing near it gathered around a single boy with blond hair who Zach's eyes opened huge at the sight of. Half of the people in the room were able to see the front door open, and the other half spun around when they saw the first half's eyes open wide. Kaminari was part of the second half, and he spun around as he saw everyone around him turn. On the right side of Kaminari's forehead there was a closed gash leaving a thin scar, and Zach looked at Kaminari's right arm when the blond boy turned since that arm was in a sling held in front of his chest.

Everyone in the common room stared over towards Zach with wide eyes as he walked in, then Kaminari started running towards him. Zach took another step in and started, "Kami-"

Kaminari threw his left arm around Zach's side and started laughing as he hugged his friend. Zach's eyes shot open much wider, and Kaminari said while hugging him with one arm and ignoring the pain in his right that was now pressed up against Zach uncomfortably. "I can't believe you," Kaminari said, though he just grinned more before pulling back from Zach. Zach stared straight into Kaminari's eyes with his own huge ones at Kaminari's reaction to seeing him. "It was kinda chaotic last night- this morning- but I went stupid and passed out, and by the time Recovery Girl got me going you were gone." He grinned more and added while bringing his left hand behind his head, "Thanks man."

The rest of the class behind Kaminari who did not know how they were going to react to seeing Zach arrive, felt the mood had just been set by Kaminari's reaction. They were already happy from the blond boy's recent arrival, but his recollection of the events of the hostage situation was cut off by their other classmate's arrival. Kirishima ran over and Yaoyorozu moved up quickly as well, and most of the class moved up to follow over towards the door where Zach quickly took off his shoes as he realized he was about to be swarmed. "Yeah," Zach said to Kaminari while he took his shoes off. Yaoyorozu and Kirishima were getting up to Kaminari's sides, but their eyes opened wide just like Kaminari's did as Zach said, "I owed you though, from Camino Ward. Guess we're even."

"No way!" Kaminari exclaimed back at him. "'Cause you got me for USJ too."

"Couldn't have gotten through the Cavalry Battle-" Zach stopped and shook his head, as he could not really compare that to the other things they were talking about. He just smiled after a second and nodded at Kaminari, "Well, I'm glad you're doing, alright?" Zach said, ending on a lifting tone while glancing down at Kaminari's arm.

"Fine," Kaminari said, pointing at his arm incredulously with his left hand. "Plus look," he added, pointing up at the scar on his forehead. It was on the right side of his face, and he grinned at Zach who sweatdropped as Kaminari looked too happy to have a new scar. "Matching scars dude!"

"I wouldn't say those match," Kirishima said, looking back at Kaminari's forehead again, then below Zach's right eye. He only looked below Zach's eye for a second though before lifting his gaze into Zach's and frowning at the boy who looked back at him. Zach lost his smile, then he looked left from Kirishima and past Kaminari at Yaoyorozu. He saw the other students around them too, all of them looking at him with smiles like they were happy to see him, but also looks like they had so many questions. "Hey Zach," Kirishima continued. "About yesterday…" Zach got ready for the barrage of questions, then Kirishima just shouted, "Why didn't you tell me to come along?!" The others around Zach all spun to Kirishima at his question with widened eyes, and Kaminari turned too in surprise only for Kirishima to step forward and lifted up his right fist. "I woulda come with like that!"

Zach sweatdropped more as Kirishima offered to break the rules so easily in front of everyone. _That's not good,_ Zach thought. "I didn't know, if I'd really be able to do anything," Zach replied softly. "So…" he trailed off, not really wanting to talk about anything else, not wanting to lie, not wanting to do anything related to talking about his alibi.

"Zach," he turned his head and looked left at the tallest girl in the class. She had her hands together in front of her waist, and she looked at his face softly before saying with a small smile, "Welcome home."

His eyes shot open, then Ashido leapt forward from behind Yaoyorozu's left side and leaned around her. "How many villains did you beat?!"

"Huh-" Zach was surprised as he was still caught up on how emotional what Yaoyorozu just said actually made him. He was glad Mina leapt in though, as he really did not want to get emotional there in front of the whole class. He had done that once before and still felt a little weird around them because of that time they all apologized in his room. "Um," he started.

"What about the villain boss?" Kirishima asked, leaning forward excitedly, shaking off his disappointment for not being involved and just getting interested again. "Edgeshot said you guys took him on, right?!"

"Yeah, it was…" Kaminari started. He rubbed his left hand on the back of his head through his hair a couple of times, a confused and thoughtful look on his face.

He was hesitating for too long, and Jirou started giggling behind him while putting a hand to her mouth to stop from spitting. "Don't worry about it Kaminari. We all saw you come out of there, looking like…" she trailed off as she thought about more than just the stupid blank look on his face when he came out of the building. When he turned ready to retort, his eyes opened wide instead at the pursed-lipped look that was on her face instead of the teasing one. She quickly changed it back and finished, "Well, we didn't expect you to have the details."

"You don't remember the final attack?" Zach asked in surprise.

"Final attack?!" Mineta exclaimed, poking his head around Sato's legs with wide eyes at how that sounded.

"Y-Yeah," Zach said, looking down at Mineta, and then around at the others who were all staring at him waiting to hear about it. _What about the other stuff? What about me leaving school? Sato, I just left without saying anything. Momo, why aren't you scolding me?_ "Me and Kaminari were on either side of him, and Thompson had made Shatterer slip to give us an opportunity-"

"She did?!" Kaminari exclaimed, then he brought his left hand to his temple and exclaimed even louder, "Oh man! She _did_ didn't she?! That was crazy!"

"Who's Thompson?" Ashido asked. "Was she the girl you carried out of there-"

"Speaking of which, awesome exit," Sero chimed in, and Zach's gaze shot to the floor in an embarrassed way. _I kind of thought they might have been watching, but, it was mainly for scared citizens and stuff. Not, well, I wanted you to know we were fine too, I guess._ "But really, how many villains did you beat?" Sero asked.

"What final attack?!" Mineta exclaimed again.

"Um, yeah Thompson was that girl. Me and Kaminari used these big attacks on Shatterer at the same time on both sides of him. And, well I don't really remember how many, villains…" Zach responded to the last question more hesitantly. "But there were thirty-two hostages," Zach said, lifting his gaze back up to Sero. "And they're all alright," Zach added, like it was the only number that mattered to him.

Twenty feet behind where Kaminari was standing, Bakugo closed his mouth he just opened to shout something in annoyance about how Zach got there, how he got that costume, etc. The boy with bleached blond hair just stared forward with wide eyes for a few seconds, then he grimaced and crossed his arms over his chest and turned away. He was out of Zach's vision as he was behind Koda and Shoji too, and he just frowned deeply while no one was looking his way. _However he did it, really annoys me… but he got Kaminari out of there. What else really, matters here?_

A few of Zach's other classmates opened their eyes wider at Zach's response to Ashido and Sero's question. "How'd you get the villain boss when a hero like Edgeshot was there?" Shoji asked through a mouth coming out of one of his left arms.

"Zach came in before Edgeshot and the cops even showed up!" Kaminari exclaimed, spinning to Shoji who he never finished telling this to before.

"What were you thinking?" Yaoyorozu said instantly after Kaminari finished saying that. Others also gave Zach harsh looks that Kaminari was not expecting as he called out about how Zach showed up in the room. He almost wanted to mention about the guy with the mask over the top of his face too, but he decided to keep quiet about that for now.

"I wasn't really planning on going in alone," Zach mumbled as he saw everyone's harsh looks.

Kaminari's eyes were wide as he looked around at them all, then before Zach could continue trying to defend himself, Kaminari exclaimed, "They were about to execute me!" Everyone there spun towards Kaminari, except for Zach who just lifted his gaze back up with a hurt expression on it. He stared at Kaminari's face, but his eyes widened a bit as Kaminari did not look afraid as he called that out. Zach's eyes widened even more, as he realized what expression Kaminari _did_ have on his face. "They had a camera on and were like this close," he held up two fingers close to each other in front of him. "If Zach hadn't shown up when he did, I'd've been-"

"Kaminari," Zach started, cutting off his friend before he said anymore, telling him it was okay to leave it.

None of the others had realized how close it was. Sure it was close to sunrise after all, but they did not know if Kaminari was going to be one of the first ten executed, let alone that he was about to be killed even before sunrise. They looked in shock back towards Zach who glanced around at them with his eyes half-closed and a tired look on his face. He gave them all a half-smile, then spoke while looking left at a boy with curly green hair who was oddly quiet and Zach thought he knew why. "Could any questions you guys have, wait until later?" Zach asked. "I haven't really slept, yet, and I kind of wiped myself out-"

"Yeah dude, get as much rest as you can," Kirishima said in response. "You deserve it!"

Zach kept looking at Midoriya for a few more seconds, and the green haired boy said, "Yeah, later."

 _He knows more than anyone else. I told him more, but I didn't tell him anything that would give him any idea as to how I did this. He probably thinks I've been holding so much back… and he's not wrong._ Zach smiled outwardly and nodded thanks at Midoriya for accepting that. He started to turn for the stairs and some of his classmates surrounding him started backing off. Zach paused though before he turned all the way, and his gaze lowered down, as he thought about pretending like he did not see that look he just skimmed right over a second ago. He couldn't do it though.

Zach had turned his body to the right to face the stairs, but his head turned back left and lifted a little. He stared into Yaoyorozu's eyes, and he whispered in a soft voice, "Sorry, I didn't respond."

Momo shook her head slowly at his apology. _I want to answer that it's fine, so that you can get your much-needed rest… but you aren't the only one who hasn't slept yet._ The tired girl who had not even felt at all like sleeping until Zach walked through the door found herself unable to answer in an even somewhat upset voice though. "Later," she said, agreeing with Midoriya and giving Zach a small smile to show that there was no rush to talk about it, but she did want to talk about it.

He nodded back at her, then turned more and started heading for the stairs. As he started walking, most of the others around him started walking that way too. He slowed down and looked around as it felt like they were all following him, and he saw Kirishima stretch his arms up next to him. Uraraka rubbed her eyes with her fists and let out a loud but cute yawn, and Sato dragged his legs as they walked towards the steps. Zach did not have to ask why they were so tired. He felt a small pang of guilt for making them all so worried, but he knew they would have been up all night anyway even if he was not gone too. The guilt went away and replaced with a warm feeling, knowing that they would have been up had it just been Kaminari, yet feeling warm because even after Kaminari came back they had all still been downstairs.

Kaminari got up right next to Zach as they started up the steps, and the boy with a broken right arm said softly while leaning in towards Zach a bit, "Who was that guy with you who tossed everybody around? He was super cool."

"No idea," Zach replied just as quietly. "Down to talk about it later though. And hey, when you left the hospital was Thompson still-"

"She woke up. I talked to her for a bit before I left with Recovery Girl," Kaminari replied. "She really wanted to thank you," he added.

"Yeah," Zach said. His eyes lowered to the steps below him, and he whispered, "Kaminari, I'm sorry I went for her first- I mean I'm not- but I had to choose."

"Dude," Kaminari said, stopping as they reached the third floor and were going to break off to head to their own rooms. "You saved us, and I'm glad you saved her first. I couldn't do a thing and that guy would have raped her. She told me you stopped it in time," Kaminari put his left hand up on Zach's right shoulder and patted it down a couple of times. "Thanks from her, and from me too. Never would have gotten past that, you know?" He moved his hand away, then he turned after Zach nodded at him accepting the thanks. Kaminari walked onto his floor, while the other four around them standing on the third floor platform stared at the two with wide-eyed shock at that conversation they had listened to.

Zach turned and continued up the stairs, and Yaoyorozu sped up and got to Zach's left side. She knew she said 'later' a minute ago, but she had things she needed to ask now or she would have trouble sleeping. Jirou turned her head and looked farther up at Zach and Yaoyorozu who kept rising and Kirishima who walked right behind them on the steps, then she turned onto the third floor too with Hagakure. Jirou stared after Kaminari's back as he walked down the boys' half of the floor, and she pursed her lips for a few seconds as she had things she wanted to say but could not open her mouth to call towards him. All the things she had thought about while Kaminari and Zach were missing, how worried she was, how glad she really was that he was back instead of just another joke about his stupidity after using his Quirk.

"Kyoka," Hagakure whispered, making Jirou pull away fast as she did not notice the invisible girl's head was that close to her ear. She spun towards Toru Hagakure who added in a quiet voice, "You probably never noticed, but I used to have that same look on my face all the time." Hagakure leaned farther forward and when her collar moved up Jirou leaned back as she could kind of tell how close Hagakure's face was to hers. "Whenever I looked at Ojiro-"

"Don't you start," Jirou said in annoyance, and she rolled her eyes and started off for her room. "Hear that kind of thing enough from Mina," she muttered, as for some reason Ashido loved acting as the class matchmaker and seemed to spend all of her time imagining them all together. Hagakure ran after her but they were about to split off as Toru's room was right in front of them. Jirou glanced over her shoulder at the invisible girl who she did not feel like she convinced considering her silence. "Really. I was just worried about him. Weren't you?"

"Of course!" Hagakure called out. Then she added while walking up to her door, "But Kyoka, you're a lot stronger than me, so how come you were crying earlier?" Hagakure ran into her room fast as Jirou's cheeks turned red and her earphone jacks whipped up. The invisible girl was expecting it though and escaped Jirou's flustered wrath that someone had spotted her crying earlier, and she got even more red in the face as she wondered if others besides Hagakure had seen it.

 _I was worried about both of them. It's only natural I was worried more about Kaminari though, because we_ _ **knew**_ _he was there! That's the reason why. Seeing him alright- seeing them alright was what brought me to… Gah!_ Jirou lifted her right hand and started rubbing her forehead, then she thought about what she just heard the two of the boys she was thinking of talking about out on the stairwell. _They saved that girl. They saved other people too. I thought Zach just did it probably, but I forget that sometimes, you can be really strong too._ Jirou's lips tugged up at the corners as she walked to her room, unknowingly forgetting about what she was flustered about only a few seconds earlier.

* * *

 **A/N Thanks for reading. Pressed for time so no review responses today. Anyway, hope you enjoyed the chapter!**


	54. Chapter 54

**Disclaimer: I don't own Boku no Hero Academia**

 **Chapter 54:**

Zach woke up late the day he got back from fighting the War Boys. He had gone to sleep in early afternoon, so it was dark when he got up. It was past the time that meals were served in the cafeteria even over breaks, but he luckily still had some snacks in his room that he knew cold hold him over until the morning. _Last ramen cup I'll be eating for a while. All Might did say he'd get some stuff for me, but I'm not going to text him for stupid stuff like that. No one's my personal helper. I shouldn't ask anyone to get me things when they go out, like I'm this helpless guy who can't-_ Zach rubbed his head after getting dressed and picking up his snacks. _Man, I haven't even needed to leave yet and it's already getting to me._

He walked out of his room and headed for the stairs, yawning and blinking his eyes a few times to get in a more awake mood. _I'm totally gonna screw up my sleep schedule like this, though it's not like it matters right now. No school for another week-plus before the next year starts up. Not a freshman anymore,_ he thought positively, smiling as he reached the stairwell. He felt like yawning again but shook his head around instead to just get a grip. He reached his right hand over and scratched his left arm over the sleeve that was hiding the bandage around his gash, using the pair of chopsticks he was holding in his right hand in a plastic wrapper that came with the ramen. Zach winced as scratching that hurt more than he thought it would. _Do I bother Recovery Girl? I wasn't going to waste her time if she came to the hospital while I was there, but I mean if she's back now there's no point in not…_

Zach slowed on his way down the steps and gave Mezo Shoji a small smile as the tallest boy in the class was heading up the stairs. Zach nodded as he walked past Shoji on his way up to his room, and the boy with gray hair and pointed-down bangs nodded back which relieved Zach since he could not tell what Shoji was thinking with the majority of his face covered by his bangs and that mask he always wore. Zach kept heading down, sighing in relief internally that he was not asked a question on the stairs that he would have to stop and start lying about. _They're my classmates, my roommates, my friends,_ he thought as he was nearing the first floor. _But as much as I know things will get back to normal, and they're like the only people who will actually not treat me like a celebrity or criminal or something, I know they're all curious too. And it's because we're all classmates that they won't hold back with their questions, and they'll expect me to answer them all._

The five foot five boy wanted to scratch the top of his head as he wondered how the next few days were going to go for him. _Can't even get out of school now to run to the public library and get some space. Though, I guess maybe this new sleep schedule for break will help me out with that. I thought I'd have to gradually fix it maybe, but this could be cool. Sleep during afternoons. Awake at night and my nighttime could be just after morning. No one's going to have a bunch of questions for me right after they wake up. Though, there are a few morning people around here._

Zach walked towards the couch area and he looked over the couch closest to him that had two people on it while the other ones were empty. He grinned that the two in front of him did not see him coming over, so he was able to just look over their heads and watch the news for a few seconds in peace. _Hey, they're not talking about me,_ Zach thought, turning and shrugging. _Does that bother me? Weird. Thought I'd see myself up there and get really annoyed. I guess, I didn't hate it when they talked about me after I brought back those two people. I liked seeing myself after that, and I felt even better- or as good at least with what I just did… No, even better._ Zach shook off his feelings of doubt from earlier that day, thinking about the look on Thompson's face. He did not think of her expression during her worst moments, the face of someone truly terrified; he thought about her expression when he had offered his back to her because she no longer looked able to stand on her own.

In his head appeared all those hostages who he went over to with Thompson and Kaminari after leaving the villains' base. He saw all their smiles, and he smiled bigger himself as he walked towards the kitchen and silently turned on the stove. He glanced back towards the tv area, then he brought over a pot and put it very close to the faucet and started filling it with water. The volume on the screen was not very high as it was pretty late, so he put the edge of the inside of the pot near the faucet and only lifted the handle over the sink a little. He kept the water pressure light and filled up the pot while staring over at the couch facing the middle of the tv room, though the two sitting on it were also looking towards the tv so he was just out of their eyesight. _Glad it's not Ojiro and Hagakure. Would have felt like I had to say something or risk seeing something… or not seeing something?_

Zach laughed to himself silently, then he turned off the faucet and brought the pot over the heating stove surface. The flat black stove glowed red under the pot he put down, and Zach relaxed as he waited for it to start boiling. He kept thinking about those hostages, and he smiled as he looked towards the tv only to lower that smile a little as he saw something about a villain Endeavor stopped earlier. _Still villains everywhere,_ Zach thought, his eyes narrowing in at the screen. He stared at Endeavor's face for a few more seconds, then lowered his gaze to the words beneath on the bottom of the screen. His eyebrows lifted, and a small smile spread over his face, then he shook his head around with another small chuckle that did not make any noise. _Guess he wouldn't be the top hero if he let any civilians die. Nice, Endeavor,_ Zach thought, turning back to the stove and his pot where some tiny bubbles were coming up from the bottom. His thoughts shifted from Endeavor back to those people from that morning at sunrise, but this time instead of thinking about how they thanked him, he thought, _How many people?_

Zach's lips flattened a little, but the corners pulled back up again. _How many people, did I help? 32? Plus 64 if they all have their parents. Did I stop kids from becoming orphans? That would have been terrible._ Zach's heels lifted up and came down and did that again and again a bunch of times. _Hundreds. Kaminari alone, has all these people who care for him. I'm sure Jirou would have been devastated._ He saw the girl spitting and unable to hold back her laughter at Kaminari's stupid form, and a bead of sweat rolled down the side of his face. _I think, maybe,_ he added to himself. He tilted his head back and forth to either side and kept bouncing on the balls of his feet, and he started shrugging one shoulder at a time before doing a little spin there in the kitchen. He finished his spin facing the stove, and he stepped forward silently and turned it off. Zach lifted the pot of water by the handles and dumped it into his ramen cup to the top. He put the pot back down then put the lid of his ramen that he pulled off before back on over it. _Three minutes,_ he thought, putting his chopsticks on top of the cup to keep the lid on and the steam from getting out to keep the cooking ramen from cooling.

As he did all of that, he kept bouncing on his feet, and for some reason he was trying hard not to make a single noise. _Don't feel tired at all anymore,_ he realized and stopped bouncing for a second. He reached down to touch his toes and stretched himself out there in the kitchen, but he winced again and looked at his left arm just over his elbow. Zach reached his right hand to his sleeve and slid it back to check out the bandage he got wrapped around him at the hospital over twelve hours ago now. _Should probably shower, clean this out and put on a new bandage. The first aid kit under my bed should have enough bandage in there for me to wrap it a couple of times, though I guess I should try to ask Recovery Girl tomorrow for help so I don't waste the rest of it. Especially if I won't be able to go buy more…_ He started frowning again, then he scratched his bandage softly and only around the edges of the gauze to keep from hitting his gash and causing himself more pain.

Zach checked on his ramen at three minutes and stirred it around which worked at getting the softened noodles mixed with the ingredient packets. His first taste brought a great flavor to his tastebuds and he grinned again before bouncing on the balls of his feet like before. He started eating there in the kitchen, then he saw Kirishima lean back in his seat a little from closer to Zach than where Midoriya was sitting. Kirishima turned his head farther to the left and said something to the other boy, and Midoriya turned away from the tv to respond. Izuku Midoriya's eyes shot open huge as he started replying to Kirishima, and Kirishima turned and looked towards the kitchen too. Zach had some ramen in his mouth, so he just lifted the chopsticks in his right hand as a 'hi' to the other two.

Kirishima did a double-take over to the stairs behind the couch and across the common room that way, then turned and looked towards the kitchen where Zach had apparently just made himself ramen. "When did you-" he began while jumping out of his seat.

Midoriya scrambled up quickly too, and Zach kept chewing while thinking, _Dang, this is technically 'later.' I was so tired earlier I actually didn't think about how I'd have these talks when I woke up._ Zach stopped bouncing right after the other two saw him, but he came out from around the kitchen counter before the other two were going to reach him. He walked forward and swallowed the last of the ramen in his mouth, then started, "You two just looked so engrossed with the Endeavor story." He smiled as the other two stopped, and Zach motioned behind them back for the couches which he would feel more comfortable sitting on while talking to them.

 _At a table it'd be like an interrogation. Even in the kitchen I can't just turn and pretend to be interested in the tv which is why I'm hesitating before responses. Geez, I'm way too manipulative,_ he thought, his smile lowering down a little right before he sat down on the left side of the center couch. _Can't even have a normal conversation. Everything I say's going to be a lie. And I'm not confident enough that I'll be able to lie well with this current good feeling. Remember, even if I can trust these two, Jirou could be listening from upstairs. Others could be nearby. Even these two could let things I say slip to others, or maybe they'll have big problems with some of the stuff I did if I told them… I know, I would._ In his mind appeared the terrified face of the Hunter, and he grimaced before looking down and taking another bite of ramen.

Kirishima hopped right over the middle couch, swinging his legs over and sitting in the middle of it on Zach's right. Midoriya sat back at the couch he had been on but in Kirishima's seat farther back so he was closer to Zach too. "So," Kirishima said, leaning forward and looking back at Zach with a small grin. "How'd you do it?"

 _He probably means how I found Kaminari._ "What part?" Zach asked. "Leaving school, finding Kaminari, fighting those guys, or coming up with what I was going to say when the camera pointed at me?" He made a joke out of the end yet using something he knew was interesting and might get Kirishima to ask about it instead. He also added in other things that could distract from the main question he did not want to answer, because it was the only one he had to completely lie about.

"How'd you find Kaminari dude?" Kirishima said, in a way like he thought it was the craziest part.

Zach sighed and he lifted his left hand to rub his forehead with. He winced, then looked down at that arm and the sleeve over his wound. _I always scratch or rub my head with my left hand first. It's been kind of reflexive since I was a kid, ever since Nightmare became the monster under my bed…_ Zach lifted his head back up and to Kirishima, then shifted his gaze towards Midoriya who was also waiting to hear this. He rose his right hand and while keeping it in the glove he rubbed his forehead now, and he muttered, "So, I still have connections…" He shook his head as he started it like that, then he grimaced as this was harder than he thought it would be. _I don't even want to tell them the whole lie I told the review board. I don't want to tell anyone anything- I just don't want to spend time lying to my friends at all._

"With villains?" Midoriya asked in surprise, leaning forward with wide eyes. "And you, were able to find them?"

"It's not like that," Zach said, shaking his head around a couple of times. "Any villains I knew the locations of I gave up, but I really didn't know where I was ever. Like I said Kurogiri teleported me everywhere… but this one time," he trailed off and then leaned back in his seat. "At one of the bases I was at, there were-" he paused, glancing over his shoulder towards the girls' area of the common room where Ashido just came out of the bathroom. She looked surprised as she saw him, and she lowered the towel from her hair and left it on her shoulders as she jogged over, imagining they were talking about what happened yesterday. Zach frowned more as she hopped in mid-conversation, jumping over the couch on the other side of Kirishima and leaning forward asking what they were talking about.

"I was just waiting for Kurogiri to send me somewhere else, but I was in the same room they were packaging tons of drugs. Cocaine, heroin, Trigger, K-lax, vertigo, pot… Anyway, there were mostly big deals going on, smaller criminal groups showing up to pick up shipments to sell around the country. The more money they brought in the bigger they were able to get, and the biggest part of the League's income comes from drugs." Mina's eyes opened wide and she felt like she just hopped in the wrong conversation, but a glance at Kirishima and Midoriya told her that they were not expecting to hear this either. "So, one of the guys who showed up there, he wasn't really with the big drug-selling gangs. He wasn't with the League, or… he was just, a junky," Zach muttered, looking away and staring at a wall before he continued. "I felt bad for him, since they had him hooked on drugs, and they'd give it to him for free as well as more for him to give out for free. He was just, well he traded in rumors," Zach said, turning back and looking at Midoriya as he continued. "He wasn't really doing anything wrong, except for the drugs. I was there when he was talking all about the different things he had heard recently, while they packed him up a bag full of more drugs for him, that he would go do with other villains to get them in the state of mind to be willing to talk about anything with him, like what their operations are, where their bases are and how big and powerful their guys are. Stuff like that."

"And you knew where to find him?" Kirishima asked, his eyebrows raising while he stared at Zach in surprise at all this.

"Wait," Ashido started, realizing the conversation actually was about what she hoped when she ran over. "Is this about how you found Kaminari?"

Zach turned and nodded at her, then he looked in more at Kirishima and said, "Not really. I remembered the name of a bar he mentioned that day, and when I looked it up I was able to find it. I didn't have much to go on, but the bartender there knew him pretty well-"

"Where was he?" Midoriya asked.

Zach frowned deeper and he rose his right hand to rub his right temple with. He turned to Midoriya with a hesitant look, then he said, "I can't say."

"Huh?" Ashido asked.

"At my review board," Zach started. "I told them I wouldn't give him up. His name, or where he is- he helped me find Kaminari," Zach said, stopping sounding so hesitant like he was defending why he couldn't say a thing. "And yeah, I know he's doing drugs," Zach said while looking right at the two on his side. "But having a guy like this is better than sending another junky to prison. If the League don't realize that I know how to find him, then I can keep going to him as a C.I., confidential informant, and hopefully I can track down the League later on."

Izuku's eyes opened wide at what Zach was saying. He brought up a hand and covered his mouth while looking down, "That is true. As much as he gives the League of Villains information, he must also know things about them too. There's no telling that they're the only ones using him for information, and if Zach's doing it too, there could be others and he could already be getting info-" The other three had turned and started staring at Midoriya as he muttered to himself, but they were surprised as he cut himself off without anyone else having to this time. Midoriya just realized something though, and he lowered his hand and looked to Zach hesitantly. "How did, you get him to talk to you?"

"Threatened to turn him in to the cops," Zach replied. _What? Does Midoriya think I offered him drugs or something? I'm keeping this imaginary junky hooked on drugs myself just to get information? Come on Midoriya, even if this guy isn't real I wish you wouldn't think I'd do that kind of stuff._

"And so he told you where Kaminari was?" Ashido asked in amazement.

"Well, he didn't really know," Zach said. He turned to her and continued, "But he had talked to some War Boys recently, and then I asked him where they were, and he said he wouldn't tell, and I told him how he wouldn't be able to get any crack in jail, and he told me some of the places the War Boys had talked about."

"Whoa," Kirishima said, pulling back a bit. "That's, well," Zach looked in closer at him to listen to his reaction. Kirishima saw Zach waiting to hear what he had to say about it, and he hummed before saying while lifting a finger, "It's like one of those good cop bad cop movies, and you're the bad cop." Zach's eyebrows lifted up high, then he smiled and laughed at the comparison.

Ashido laughed too for a second, then she said, "But wait. If you knew where they were, why didn't you call the cops-"

"I did," Zach said quickly. "But, not until I _knew_ where they were. Rumors from a junky wouldn't really be considered evidence, and I didn't even consider it as much to go off of. I checked everywhere he mentioned, all these random places that wound up being dead ends," he shook his head and added, "I knew it was a shot in the dark from the start. I knew I didn't have much to go on, and even after he told me stuff, I still don't think I really believed I would find him… Then when I really did come across a lair full of villains, first thing I did was call up the cops and send them my location and pics of the villains so they'd know it was real."

"And then you went in?" Kirishima asked.

"Wait," Midoriya started shaking his head. "Did you- you said you had a review board?" He asked, realizing they just skimmed over that a minute ago.

"Yeah," Zach replied. "They wanted to know what I was doing there and why I went in without the heroes-"

"Because they were going to kill Kaminari, right?" Ashido exclaimed, leaning forward more with a questioning look at what they heard Kaminari say yesterday after Zach arrived.

"How'd you know?" Kirishima wondered.

Zach did not really want to respond with the truth here. "Well," he began, "someone else was there. He disappeared during the battle, but he could hear inside and helped fight the villains. I, don't know what he was… He told me they were going to kill a hostage, so I said we had to go in-" The other three's eyes opened huge, and Zach lowered his gaze after looking around at them. _Yeah, after all I guess I really don't like the attention. Kind of glad Endeavor stopped a villain today, get the news to change focus quickly. Though I'm sure they'll still be talking about it,_ he glanced up towards the tv again but was glad to see the report still on the villain this afternoon while he was asleep.

"Really?" Midoriya whispered after staring at Zach to see if this was all true.

"Really," Zach replied. "I didn't want to get involved. There were way too many," he started shaking his head and then lifted his lips into a smile. "It's a good thing Edgeshot showed up when he did. He took care of most of the villains, but he must have thought I did something right. He gave me a card and said I could intern for him," Zach said, his voice more excited and thus mood-and-conversation-changing.

"Whoa! The number 4 hero did?" Ashido asked in amazement.

The conversation shifted as easily as Zach hoped it would, and he started talking about how he hoped he would be able to do it considering his punishments for leaving campus. That got Kirishima asking what they were, and Zach sounded annoyed and really was as he started talking about how he could not leave anymore, not even getting permissions. Midoriya stared at Zach as he talked about these things, and he kept frowning at his dark-haired friend through the conversation. _Zach, you sound so serious. You don't sound like you're lying at all. And, I feel bad that I don't believe you, but I don't know. You just telling us the whole truth like this, seems so off. It seems exactly like, a great answer to the question of how you found him. It's not perfect, but one that's too perfect would raise too much suspicion, right? Or is it just not perfect because things don't work out that way?_

The green-haired boy lifted his frown a little as Zach looked at him, but he could not get into the current conversation at all. _All Might was so worried when he asked if I knew where you had gone. Why can't you just tell us… I mean, I get why- but, even if you saved…_ Midoriya frowned again since he could not finish that thought. _No, that's wrong. You saved Kaminari, and those other people. When we've gone around the rules before to save you, how could I not see why you did it? There are going to be enough people, like the teachers, who criticize you for this. So even if I don't know if you're telling me the truth, I'll back you up. Because you're our friend, Zach. Even if you can't tell us everything._

* * *

 _It's late._ Zach thought as he stared at the door in front of him. _So late, that this is ridiculous. I should come back, not at two in the morning… But, I mean we were all tired and going to sleep at the same times. People are awake right now. People are walking around…_ Zach lifted a hand at the door but froze before knocking his fist forward. His nervous look started getting a little more sad as he stood there, and his hand lowered down a bit. _Momo,_ he thought, lowering his gaze to the floor. _I'm just going to lie about everything, but I want to talk to you so much about- well, I just want to talk to you._

Zach's lowering hand moved forward before he could go back on it again. He knocked once and his eyes opened wide, then he bit down and knocked a second time as he decided to go through with it. The second knock was quieter, and he pulled his arm back afterwards. _Maybe she's asleep-_ he heard movement on the other side of the door and he leaned back more, his expression even more nervous as the footsteps approached. _Oh shit! What did I-_

The door opened up and Zach froze while staring at the girl in a pair of long-sleeved pajamas in front of him. He stared at her frozen for a few seconds, while Momo's eyes widened more as the person she had hoped just knocked on her door really was the one standing there. Zach opened his mouth, froze with it open and he just stood there with his mouth open for a couple more seconds. "Could-" he started, then immediately regretted starting it like that and wished he had used a different word. "Do you, want to talk?" He asked softly.

 _Yes!_ Momo nodded in a calmer way than how quick her reaction was in her head. "Come in," she said, moving to the side so Zach could enter.

 _Oh man. Oh man this is- it's two in the morning and she's in her pajamas!_ Zach's cheeks turned a little red but he walked forward, so he lowered his eyes to point at the floor and hide his expression as he entered.

It was a good thing Zach looked down as he entered though, as Momo realized while Zach was walking in similar things that he was thinking. She was so relieved he came to talk to her, so she did not have to go on with wondering how she was going to start a conversation with him about this, that she told him to come in without even checking what she was wearing. He was already inside though, and Momo made sure she steadied her gaze fast before closing the door slowly behind Zach. Down the hall, an interested Tsuyu Asui leaned her head farther out her door while looking down towards Momo's room. "Gero," she ribbited before sliding her head back into her own room.

Zach was hesitant after he entered, not knowing where he should sit. He looked towards her desk chair, then her huge bed that almost filled up half of the room. Then he turned back to Momo who stepped away from the door so she was closer to him in the cramped room too. _Does she want me to just start explaining myself? What's that look for?!_

 _Why isn't he sitting down?_ _Maybe he wants to let me sit first?_ Momo turned from Zach and walked to the foot of her bed. While she was turned away from him she took in a quick deep breath of air that she made sure to keep silent. Then she turned and had a stern look on her face with her mouth closed and expression tense. _Keep it together._

 _Oh she's so mad._ "I'm-" he started, but he already apologized earlier before they all went to bed. He was not here to apologize, he was here to explain. _I can't explain anything though. I can't lie to her though, not with her looking this mad. If she ever finds out, and people might find out one day, she'd never forgive me. Lying straight to her face, getting emotional over lies, I feel so guilty just deceiving the others downstairs. I got defensive over my imaginary C.I. junky. God I'm such an asshole. What can I talk about? What can I just sit here and not lie about?_

"Are you going to sit?" Yaoyorozu asked, looking up at Zach with lifted eyebrows. Her black hair was down, which was different from the ponytail he almost always saw Momo in. She had on a soft blue long-sleeved shirt and purple pajama pants, and she wore a thin pair of white socks. Zach gulped after her question and nodded as she seemed to be telling him to do just that, and he started walking forward. Momo's breathing picked up and her eyes widened just a little bit as she managed to keep her outward expression calm. _I meant at my desk!_ She thought, but did not say anything as Zach walked up and sat on the foot of her bed, though he did keep a couple of feet between them which was easy on such a large mattress.

 _What do you want to talk about? No that's a terrible question._ Zach thought after sitting down and making it look like he was getting in a comfortable position. _I came here. I should start. But if I just ask what she wants to know, or if I start at the beginning- Something real. I want to talk about something real. I don't know what she wants from me though. She's looking at me expectantly like she expects me to know what I'm doing! Why did I come here so late? Why couldn't I talk to her in a non-secluded location so it wasn't just her I was lying to, if I start lying now. Then if it ever came out I could say I was only lying because of other people there, and I trusted her the whole time. Momo- I'm sitting here too long! Say something! Anything!_ "Um- I know I said it earlier… but I'm sorry I didn't text you." He started off strong as he felt like it was the easiest thing he could say already having said it once, but by the end of it he was whispering. "I don't know why," he started, "I did it. I- I actually don't know why. It's not like… I don't know, I just, smashed my phone instead of…" _Why did I break my phone? If Hackerman could track me normally, why is it just this last time I felt the need to do it? Was it in case the heroes tried tracking me too? I guess they could have done it._

"Don't you have another phone?" Momo asked.

Zach nodded, then he nodded quicker and reached down, pulling his newer phone out of his pocket. He wished he had taken the one he bought in Kyoto and smashed that one, but now he had to get everyone's contacts again. _I should memorize phone numbers for next time I- except there won't be a next time. Actually I can't know that. Memorize them, and then if there is a next time, I can buy a new phone and fill it back up without anyone noticing._ "Do you, want to put your number in?" Zach asked, holding out his smartphone for the girl next to him to put her contact info into.

Momo rubbed the side of her head then reached forward and grabbed the phone. _What are we doing? I want you to tell me how you did it Zach. I want you to talk about it,_ she glanced out the corners of her eyes at him while she put her phone number into his phone. _I can only see two reasons why you wouldn't just start telling me. Either it's painful to think about, or you don't know what you're going to say. Are you going to lie to me? Or, is that why you're pausing… do you not want to? Does that mean that what you've been saying so far has been- Except this is the first time we're talking about it. Maybe, you really will just tell me,_ she looked at him more hopefully, handing back his phone with a small smile on her face. "Zach," she began, and Zach lifted his eyes after taking his phone from her. "I'm glad you want to talk, but-" _If I push will he leave?!_ "What is it you want to talk about?" Momo asked, finishing her sentence differently than she planned on when she started it.

 _Anything, Momo,_ Zach thought while looking into her eyes. _Anything real though. I felt so alone, my entire time with the villains. Even when I acted more like them, pretended to enjoy it all to gain their trust, I was always alone. I could never be myself. Never say my real thoughts or feelings. Why, can't I just say all this aloud? Tell her. Tell her that!_ Zach opened his mouth, but he froze with it open. _Tell her how alone I felt then? I'm only thinking about it, because I feel that way now with the way I'm hiding my feelings from everyone here, hiding my true thoughts and motives and actions from them all._ "The- last night," Zach started. _What am I doing? This is- I can talk about it! Just, don't lie. And don't incriminate yourself. I don't want to have to say "don't tell anyone" even once. If I do, I've made a mistake._ "Attacking the villains' base. Don't you, want to know about-"

"Yes," Momo replied quickly as Zach sounded hesitant at Momo's lack of questioning. He leaned back in surprise that she really did want to know a lot, but she straightened back up quickly and awaited his continuation. She saw him looking confused, and even more hesitant as she just sat there looking at him expectantly. She leaned back at his look that showed he had no idea what she wanted to hear. "Zach," she began, looking at him softer. "I don't know what you're thinking about. I don't know what you're trying to tell me," Momo said it but only lowered her smile down into a flat lip for a few seconds. "But whatever you can tell me, please do. I was very worried yesterday, and all night. We all were," she added at the end after seeing his eyes open wide.

Zach pursed his lips for a few seconds, then he nodded his head back at her. "Attacking the base," Zach said, steadying his expression with a more serious and less nervous one. "It was early morning, just before dawn, and I was about to call the police and alert the heroes. But, I had to go in early. For Kaminari, and for Thompson," he said, and Yaoyorozu nodded back at him as he had told her a little about Thompson after she heard Kaminari and him mention her on the stairs that afternoon. Zach saw her nod and continued right away, "I didn't know Kaminari was the hostage about to be executed, or I might have gone for him first. But instead I went for the only hostage not with the group, and she was screaming, and Damian expected me. Or, he didn't expect _me_ ," Zach continued, he lifted his right hand and rubbed his chest for a second and winced, feeling the bruise from the heavy hit he received from that villain right in the chest. "He got a good hit in though," Zach said. "If I wasn't in Nightmare form, it might've broken some ribs."

Momo started looking worried and Zach caught it so he continued quickly, "I beat him though. Then, I turned to Thompson who was…" he had not gotten that into this before when telling Yaoyorozu who Thompson was, as it was not a brief on-your-way-to-your-room kind of conversation. "She was, she didn't have any clothes on other than her underwear. And I was wearing a," he paused, wondering if he should continue. _Don't lie. Not to her face. As many details, anything to make Momo think you're actually telling her it all._ "I was in Nightmare form, and my dark costume has bone in it too, making it so my entire body was black. And I had a helmet on, so the only thing showing besides the dark form of Nightmare, were my two glowing red eyes coming through the visor. So even after Damian was down- she was so, so afraid of me." Zach whispered it and then shook his head as he did not know how he could feel bad for himself right here while talking about Thompson. He continued after that head shake, "I turned off Nightmare mode, but she was still so afraid, so I took off my helmet. Up until that moment-"

Zach paused and cut himself off, wondering if he should keep going with this. "Up until that moment?" Yaoyorozu whispered, hoping he would continue.

The black-haired boy nodded after a second, and he continued while turning away from the girl whose eyes he had stared into for most of that. Zach whispered quieter, "I had planned on getting out of there, without anyone figuring out it was me. Just get out and go home, and pretend like I had nothing to do with it…"

"You know that wouldn't have worked?" Yaoyorozu asked, her eyebrows lifting.

 _It did last time,_ Zach thought, while just nodding at Yaoyorozu. "I don't know," he said, and he pressed his lips together again as he said it instead of just leaving her thinking that way. Then again, he knew she probably thought better of him that she might not believe it was really what he thought unless she knew there actually was a way. "I could have," he started. "Made up a story, about how villains attacked me too after I left. Say I wasn't paying attention because I was too worried about Kaminari, and they managed to…" Zach trailed off and shook his head, not knowing why he was trying to come up with this alibi now that he did not need it, and feeling stupid for saying it aloud and preventing future use of that excuse.

"Hmm," Yaoyorozu hummed. _That could have… Could he have pulled it off? Maybe. I don't know, how good he is at making those kinds of excuses. I don't think you lie to me very much Zach. When you don't want to answer something, I'm fine with that, so you don't have to lie… So I'm glad you came here wanting to talk. This is all true. You wouldn't be telling me you had these excuses ready otherwise. It wouldn't make sense, which is how I can really trust you._ She nodded her head at Zach to continue after pretending like she was thinking about his potential excuse for a few seconds. "What happened after you took off your helmet?"

"I, wrapped Thompson in a curtain," Zach whispered. "Then she told me, how Kaminari was about to be killed. So I ran with her, through the villains' base, taking down villain after villain on my way…" He continued on retelling it to Yaoyorozu, and as tough a night it was, as bloody and violent as it got, it was a victory. He was able to talk through it, leaving out almost nothing except for what Shatterer called him, and skimming right over the 'mystery' man who helped him. And he was happy as he told her these things. Getting to talk about himself and the things that happened without really holding back, it was nice. _Thanks Momo,_ Zach thought, as he was about to start up how he felt when he left the building, only for the girl next to him to start talking about their reactions to seeing him.

 _I really should have told her something. Next time- if there is… no, not if. Next time. Next time, I won't leave you in the dark. I won't leave you feeling that way, that you have to feel so relieved when you see me okay._ What she just said aloud about her feelings seeing him come out of the building cut in on his thoughts and he pursed his lips at what she was saying. "Momo," Zach whispered. "I won't do it again," he said, firmly and without hesitation in his voice. Momo's eyes widened, and Zach said while leaning closer towards her, "I won't leave like that. I promise." He did not want to apologize, not again, but he thought this was even better. An assurance that it would not happen again, because he knew that she would be afraid otherwise that he would just vanish again, unless he said something right now. "I mean it," he said.

"Are you certain?" Momo asked, leaning towards him too and pursing her lips for a second. "You really mean that?"

"I won't," Zach said right away as he could hear the doubt in her voice. "Never again." Her lips lifted up into a big smile, because she believed it. She believed him, and Zach made sure he memorized that look on her face right then. _Making people all around Japan feel better with my smile, like I did with Thompson, that's important. But I can't make it a trade-off. I can't accept their feelings as important, if I deny that the feelings of my classmates are too. Of your feelings Momo. I won't let you go on feeling scared, every time I do something stupid and reckless. I swear. Because, I don't want to be the kind of guy who does something like that. I don't want to be the kind of person to make people worry. I want them to have faith in me. To believe what I say, like I can see you believe me right now._ Zach smiled at Momo as she started smiling at him with a look that showed she believed in him. "I promise."

* * *

Zach jogged down a paved path across the back of U.A.'s campus. He had on a long-sleeved white shirt and sweatpants, but no hoodie since it was actually pretty hot out. _This is nice,_ he thought, speeding up his pace as he ran past Training Ground Beta. He glanced towards the tall buildings of the urban area on his right, then he shook his head around fast as he started frowning and turned back forward again. _Sure I'm out of snacks, but I can just go to the cafeteria. That's not bad. And I have all this space. So much._ He was running around the entire campus, again, and he smiled as he looked around at the wide open space around him. _No cameras. No chance of Shigaraki randomly coming for me here._

He kept running around, his third day since getting back and still not halfway through the break between terms. _Why am I running? It felt stuffy in my dorm yeah, but why? I didn't even- I stayed in my room most of the time before anyway. It's the loss of the choice. Getting out of here is impossible now. Leave and I'll never get back in. And I want to stay in, but I also want to be able to leave._ Zach shook his head and ran faster, curving around the outer edge of campus and running onto the street covered in student dorms. _Still not tired. Still don't want to go back in my room- guess I'll get food from the cafeteria, after another lap around campus. I'm almost out of protein powder. I'll ask Kirishima to pick up a tub next time he's going and I'll reimburse him for it… Is that too much? I don't wanna be abusing- no, Kirishima's cool with stuff like that. He won't mind, and I shouldn't either._

Zach narrowed his eyes in as he kept running down the middle of the road in front of the line of dormitory buildings. _What do I do now? Is- I'll have to get in contact with them somehow. I hope Webb's arm is alright. Though I guess it wouldn't be. I mean, Shatterer shattered it. And Mr. Ganji yelled in pain too. His truck he left behind is probably just being considered another of the villains' vehicles they found. They're probably pissed I- no, not pissed. I broke the cardinal rule. I didn't just lose my secret identity, on my first real mission too, I gave it up intentionally._ Zach shook his head around and let out a soft sigh. _I don't regret it. I can't. Still though, I doubt I'm going to be getting a call from them any time soon. It'll be up to me to contact them, and who knows what'll happen then? As for now though, for a while since…_ Zach saw movement out the corner of his eyes, and he did not turn his head but kept running forward at a steady pace pretending he did not notice the guy running up on him.

After a few seconds of half-focusing, Zach relaxed while turning his head fully to the right. "Hey," Zach said, and the black boy with long wavy white hair nodded back at him. Zach slowed a little, and Shihai Kuroiro jogged up to his side and then kept going just like Zach did. Zach turned forward himself again and kept jogging with a slightly more relaxed look on his face. _And what's so bad about being stuck on campus anyway? The people I like are all here._

"Hey," Kuroiro said once he was at a common pace with Zach. "Nice job, the other day," he added.

"Thanks," Zach replied.

They kept running. Zach ran right past his own dorm and wondered if Kuroiro was just going to follow his path around campus for the run. _Kuroiro doesn't say much. That's fine though. Makes it better, don't have to worry about him asking all sorts of questions._ Zach just smiled a bit as they continued running, though he lifted his left hand and rubbed his forehead to get some sweat off. As he lowered his arm he glanced at it for a second right above the elbow, grimacing as he thought about his talk with Recovery Girl yesterday. _"Why didn't you come here sooner? You have bruised ribs too- next time you stay in the hospital until I get there! They told me you said you just had a scratch…"_ He sweatdropped thinking about how mad she was when she ranted at him for pretending like he didn't need any help and staying hurt for a few days when she would have taken care of it for him in seconds.

 _Another scar though,_ Zach thought, but he lifted his gaze from his arm and kept running still with a small grin on his face. _But that's one, it won't hurt to look at._ Zach's fists clenched at his sides and his grin spread more, the left corner of his lip curling up as he thought about how he got that wound. _Man, my body gets fucked up though. Good thing I'm working it out._ He glanced to his right after a minute of silence now with Kuroiro, and he said, "You running for training? Or just need a run?"

"Training," Kuroiro said. He glanced out the corners of his thin eyes though and said, "You?" The way Zach worded it made it sound like the second option was more likely for him.

"Bit of both," Zach replied, as he was just thinking about working out but knew it was not the real reason he came out in the first place. "Liked your presentation," Zach mentioned, as he had not talked to Kuroiro since he saw the other boy's and actually felt he did a good job.

"Yeah, thanks," Kuroiro said, a bit hesitantly. "Yours was, different." Zach lifted his eyebrows at his friend from Class B, and Kuroiro just kept looking forward as he jogged, though he added, "In a good way."

"Ha, thanks," Zach replied, thinking that was about as good a compliment he'd get. He kept grinning, the idea of his report still leaving an impact on people mixing with the thought of his new scar and how he could be proud of where he got it.

The two of them kept jogging for a few seconds, then they saw a couple of girls walking the other way. The two girls looked to be upperclassmen to the two of them, which at this point meant they were only a year older than them since the third years had all moved out after graduation. Their old dorms were going to become the new first year's dorms now, since all the new dorms were the same and allowed the students to stay in one dorm for their whole time at U.A.

The two girls walking the other way turned towards the boys jogging their direction. They both opened their eyes a little wider at the sight of the boy farther towards the middle of the road and closer to them, and one of them said, "Hey Zach." She grinned at him and Zach gave her a slightly bigger smile, glad a random upperclassman was saying hi to him like that.

The other girl, with a more curvaceous body, gave Zach a bigger smile and blinked her eyes at him a few times as he was about to run by. "Heyyy Zaaachh," she lifted a hand and curled all her fingers in individually as a wave that had Zach and Kuroiro's heads both turning farther left as they jogged by. That, and the fact that the girl's breasts seemed to get larger as did her butt, while her midsection got thinner like her body was shifting around as she waved towards Zach.

Zach's eyes were wide at her wave, and he finally coughed while looking back over his shoulder at her now as he continued to run. "Um, hi," he said, spinning back forward with red cheeks and shaking his head around to get the curvaceous blonde out of his head. _What just happened?_

"Ladies' man," Kuroiro said, and Zach spun to his right with wide eyes at that sudden comment. Kuroiro's naturally lowered frown actually lifted up into a straight lip after he said it, and Zach lost his shocked look and started chuckling to himself after. "Kaminari'd sure be jealous if he'd seen that," Kuroiro added, and he chuckled darkly afterwards.

Zach's eyes widened in surprise again. _Guess Kuroiro sees Kaminari as a friend too. Kind of surprised there…_ "I'll be sure to tell him as soon as I get back," Zach remarked, and Kuroiro's lips curled up the last bit so the corners were actually pulled up. "Kind of shocked me too though," he added, glancing over his shoulder again even as they kept running so those girls were barely in sight anymore. They ran around the back of the school building and were heading towards the training areas again, or at least again for Zach who had done this twice now in the past thirty minutes.

"Eh, me too," Kuroiro said, and Zach sweatdropped as he felt the darker boy was poking fun of him there. He smiled after a second though, glad the other teen wasn't treating him any differently after the weekend's events. "So," Kuroiro said as they jogged past Ground Alpha. Zach turned to him and Kuroiro kept staring forward while asking, "When'd you change up the costume?"

Zach wondered when the last time Kuroiro saw him in his school costume was, but that did not really matter much in the moment. "It was an alternate," Zach replied. "Got it from outside the school's system," Kuroiro looked in at him, and Zach finished, " _legally."_ He said it with a roll of his eyes at Kuroiro's look, and the other boy just nodded and turned back forward as they kept running. Zach actually chuckled again that Kuroiro just needed him to say that before accepting it. "Can't leave campus anymore because of-"

"Thanks," Kuroiro said. Zach paused and glanced in at the other boy in confusion, and Kuroiro added after a few seconds of seeing Zach looking at him awaiting a continuation, "For bringing him back. Kaminari's an annoying- but I was afraid he wasn't going to make it."

 _He almost didn't,_ Zach thought, and as much as that made him frown it also made him feel pretty good. _But he did. He came back. He's fine. Kaminari, that's someone else. I really just thought everyone in Class-A would've been devastated because of it, but it's more than that. Your family, your teachers, your friends outside of the class too._ Zach started smiling a little more, and he said, "I'll be sure to let Kaminari know how much you care-"

"Don't," Kuroiro said in a deadpan, and embarrassed tone as he could not tell if Zach was serious or not there. He darted a glare out the left corners of his eyes, and Zach laughed a little before holding his hands up defensively. "Serious."

"Yeah yeah, I was kidding," Zach said, though he wondered to himself whether or not that was true. "Come on," Zach said, and he pushed his feet down and sped up. "Let's pick up the pace. Training right?" He started running faster and Kuroiro ran right up with him. Zach thought back to the first Sports Festival where the two of them had run neck and neck down the tunnel at the end of the first round, and how he had lost to the darker boy. A grin spread on his face, and Zach kept picking up the pace as he ran, and Kuroiro matched him every step of the way. "First to Ground Gamma wins," Zach said without warning, and he pushed his feet down even harder and picked up his sprint. There was no response from Kuroiro, but the boy next to him sped up without having to say a thing.

* * *

"No way that actually happened," Kaminari said, leaning back on his bed and shaking his head at Zach. The darker haired boy sitting at Kaminari's desk chair just grinned more without saying a word. This was even more convincing than if he tried saying anything else though, and Kaminari leaned back forward while dropping his left hand from behind his head. "No," Kaminari said. Zach nodded again and lifted his eyebrows. Kaminari's bottom lip lowered and he mouthed in shock, 'Two?'

"I'm going running with you next time," Kaminari said, nodding his head at the decision. "Man," he leaned back again and fell over his bed to stare up at the ceiling. "I can't believe this. I'm gonna be 'that guy' who got kidnapped by the villains now. Like Bakugo and the sludge villain-"

"I think it's just our class who's treating it like that," Zach said, leaning forward on the desk chair he was sitting at backwards so his arms were crossed over the back of it. He looked at Kaminari and the cast over his right arm slung over his stomach, and he continued, "I heard Edgeshot said on camera that ' _we_ ' took down Shatterer." Kaminari lifted his head a bit, and Zach nodded at him with a smile on his face. "Though of course people are going to pay more attention to me," he added at Kaminari's rising hopeful look.

"Yeah yeah," Kaminari said, dropping flat on his back again. "I'm sure you're loving the attention so much. So those girls, you go talk to them?" He lifted his eyebrows at Zach a couple of times while raising his head a bit, but Zach just rolled his eyes and looked away. "Oh it's so crazy I'd think that huh? Weird, I thought you were into girls-"

"What?! 'Course I am-" Zach began.

"But you've got a certain girl on your mind huh?" Kaminari asked, and he sat up quickly to catch Zach's surprised expression. Zach's surprised one lowered darker after a second, his gaze pointing down and his fists of his crossed arms clenching. "'Momo,' yeah?" Kaminari asked, and Zach's eyes opened wide as he thought Kaminari was bringing up Jenny again. Then he repeated what Kaminari just said in his head and his eyes widened even more, but his cheeks turned a little red this time too.

"I'm not..." Zach began. He stopped, and he looked at Kaminari less defensively and in a more serious way. He thought about what he had only told Kaminari and Midoriya with why he didn't want to get close to them, and what Kaminari told him in response to it. "You might be, okay with being in danger, to be my friend," Zach started. Kaminari's eyes opened wider, and Zach finished in a lower voice, "But you really think I could put that big a target on someone, I like?"

Zach's eyes lowered after saying it, then a surprised Kaminari leaned forward and said, "So you do like her?"

Zach sweatdropped and snapped his head up in annoyance, but Kaminari had already started laughing. "It's not funny," Zach muttered. "Stuff like that, I don't have time for it. Or the luxury."

"Geez you're so uptight," Kaminari laughed. "Relax. It's not like I got taken by villains 'cause of you. I can get myself in stupid amounts of danger without your help, thank you very much." Zach cracked a big smile at that and started laughing, though he tried cutting himself off quick considering how serious he was trying to be a few seconds ago. "And even if those League guys do get me, now I know you'll be there quick." Zach's eyes shot open wide as Kaminari said it, and he looked into the blond's eyes to see his friend nodding at him in a way to show he believed what he just said.

"I don't know if-" Zach began. _I have Hunter though. If the League doesn't know- no one should know. Four people total know what I did, including myself and Hunter._ "Yeah, you're right," Zach said, and Kaminari looked surprised like he thought Zach would deny his ability to do it next time. "Still, don't get caught again, alright?"

"I'll try," Kaminari promised in an unenthusiastic tone like he might just not be able to help it. He leaned back on his bed after saying it, then he stared at the ceiling for a few seconds with his smile lowering down a bit into a flat lip. "So Zach," he started. Zach looked towards him from over the chair, and Kaminari turned his head sideways on his back to look into Zach's eyes. "Who was that guy? The one who fought Shatterer while you were with Thompson," he specified.

Zach looked away and said, "I told you, I didn't know-"

"Dude," Kaminari said in a deadpan tone. "You legit just looked away before talking. It's like you're not even trying."

Zach turned back with wide eyes at what Kaminari was saying. _Damn it. I didn't take it as seriously since it's Kaminari who's asking. I have to be more convincing. Have to, lie harder..._ "I just, met them outside," Zach said in a softer voice. "I had no idea who-"

"Alright then, guess I'll believe you..." Kaminari started sarcastically, interrupting Zach's explanation. Kaminari sat up more though and looked into Zach's eyes seriously, before finishing, "Reaper."

Zach's eyes bulged and his breath caught in his throat. _No one said a thing about it! How many people heard Shatterer call me that? Did I fight the War Boys before, or did he just know what I looked like from rumors?_

"Sooo," Kaminari held it out for a few seconds at the look on Zach's face. "That bad, huh?"

"What bad?" Zach replied, then muttered, "Shit," as he knew it was not a good response. In fact it made no sense at all, and Zach did not know how he was actually going to spin this. "He called me, what?" Zach asked.

"Yeaaah, I didn't say anything about Shatterer calling you it," Kaminari said. Zach's eyes widened more and he cursed again under his breath. "Dude calm down," Kaminari said as he saw Zach in panic mode. "Why are you bugging? I haven't said a thing to anyone about it."

"Jirou could be listening," Zach said, the quickest and easiest excuse he could come up with.

"Eh?" Kaminari lifted his eyebrows and stared at Zach skeptically.

"I mean, she could be..." Zach repeated it but slower and realizing how bad a reason it was. _Jirou told me she never does it, and she wouldn't again. She sounded really sorry she pried, and I doubt she spends her time sitting around listening to everyone. I marked her off from being the spy when she told Momo, didn't I?! So then what? Is it because of Kaminari? Is he the- no, but, but Kaminari told Monoma._ Zach started frowning at his friend, and he opened his mouth to say something about that. He froze though before saying it, realizing how much of a dick move it would be to bring that back up now.

"Dude, whatever you did, that got that guy calling you that," Kaminari started. "You know I wouldn't tell anyone right?"

"I, know that," Zach said. _You wouldn't be tricked twice. But, you could always be tortured. I couldn't risk, you giving stuff away. Though I guess, telling you about Reaper wouldn't give the villains anything on me. Wouldn't give the spy anything if you do wind up blabbing to them too. But, what about you? How would you react, to hearing those things?_ "Kaminari, I trust you a lot man. You're, my best friend," Zach admitted.

"But you still won't tell me?" Kaminari asked, saying it before the 'but' he could hear coming already.

Zach opened his mouth to say 'no.' _Even to Kaminari?_ He thought, closing his mouth and staring at the blond boy in front of him. _Why? Why can't I be truthful, to even a single person in my life? Why do I need to carry all these things on my own? If I told Kaminari stuff, if I told him even the most secret things... then how would it hurt me as long as he keeps them secret? What if, next time I need to do something, I can ask Kaminari for help? If Mr. Ganji and Webb don't contact me anymore, but I still need to do stuff. Hunter, me, and Kaminari. I think the three of us could kick ass. What if I tell him though, and he's disgusted... He won't be. I know him. I know, or I can guess what his reactions will be. And, I'm pretty sure your reaction, is going to be to accept it. Accept all of it._ "Kaminari," Zach started, his voice getting lower and more serious. "No matter what, you can't tell anyone this, okay?"

"Really?" Kaminari shot forward and leaned off his bed. The look in his eyes told Zach that he never expected his friend to actually say anything. Zach hesitated seeing that look, knowing he probably could have gotten away without saying a thing. Kaminari continued after Zach's hesitant look, "I mean, yeah of course man. Won't tell anyone. So what is it? Why'd he call you that?"

"Actually," Zach began then paused again. He shook his head and sighed, but his sigh was short since he could not relax very well at the moment. _No one. Didn't even tell Webb, and I don't know how much Ganji knew when I said my villain name and he recognized it. Never told Midoriya the stuff I was directly involved with, just pretended like I saw it all from afar. Who besides the League's top members, know what I've done?_ "Reaper was," Zach continued. _Fuck it. It's Kaminari. If I was ever going to tell someone, well I might've picked Momo first... but actually probably not since I'd be more nervous she'd think badly-_

"Reaper is..." Kaminari started, lifting his eyebrows and leaning forward more as it seemed like Zach was messing with him at this point.

"It's the name I went by, when I was a villain," Zach said, his voice serious and his expression straight.

"Huh?" Kaminari got a confused look on his face. "They didn't call you Lifebringer? Or just Zach while you were healing people?"

"I wasn't just, saving people," Zach said. He stared straight into Kaminari's eyes and watched as the blond was slowly putting together what Zach was telling him. "I didn't kill anyone Kaminari. I didn't. But, just about anything else you can think of," Zach's voice got softer, his eyes darker, and his fists clenched so hard at his sides he was afraid he would rip through the new kind of glove on his right he had never torn through before.

"What do you mean-"

"I was a villain Kaminari," Zach whispered. He lowered his arms from crossed over the chair down to his sides, and he turned forward on the chair while spinning it around and rolling closer to his friend. Kaminari was still leaning forward, and now Zach leaned forward too and with a serious gaze as he continued, "When I stopped saving as many people as Lifebringer, when you stopped hearing about me, did you think I was just sitting around doing nothing?"

"I," Kaminari started. "I guess I, didn't really think too hard about it."

 _Good,_ Zach thought, hoping most people did the same. Then he took a deep breath and continued in an even softer voice just in case Jirou or anyone else was listening. "No Kaminari. I was, taking part in villain activities. Joining in with villain fights. Helping the League of Villains take on other criminal organizations. Overseeing drug deals and sales. Packaging, and transporting, and fighting… Haggling with black market costume dealers while shrouded in Nightmare form, and threatening non-compliant villains into-"

"Dude, what are you talking about?" Kaminari whispered at him fast. "Why would you say stuff like…" he stopped himself and shook his head, the look on Zach's face as he said all that showing he was in fact serious. "That's all true," Kaminari whispered after pausing for a second. He lifted his left hand and rubbed his forehead, then he frowned at Zach and said, "Why? Why'd you do that stuff?"

"They were stopping me from saving people," Zach whispered back. "The very first time, Shigaraki pushed me to do even a little more, I realized it. I knew I would just keep going 'one more step' farther. And I knew 'one more step' would eventually be killing someone. So I accepted all of the steps that would come before it, to build up trust with the League. I understood that the only way, they would ever trust me enough to let me come back to U.A., my plan which finally came to fruition at VTS, was if I showed them I was a villain. So I did whatever they asked, except kill people. The villains all make their own codes, and that was mine." Zach looked deep into Kaminari's eyes, hoping to see acceptance, or just something to show him his friend's reaction to all this. "I hated every second of it," Zach whispered at Kaminari's thoughtful look like he was trying to figure out his own opinion. "But, I understood I was never getting away from there without their trust. I did things though, that would classify me as a villain if the courts ever found out. If heroes, or our classmates, or the media, ever got wind of-"

"I won't tell anyone," Kaminari reassured him, lifting up his left palm in front of him to tell Zach not to worry about it. "But damn Zach," Kaminari added, and he lifted his left hand to his head and ran it up through his blond hair. "Doing those kind of things, aren't you-"

"They made me sick," Zach whispered. "They still, looking back on them," he continued, his eyes losing some focus. "They're, the worst things I've ever done. And I told myself I did them to stop myself from doing anything worse, but I did things only a villain could. All, so I could escape."

"But it didn't work," Kaminari whispered.

"No, it didn't," Zach whispered back. His eyes refocused, and he added in a lower voice, "I never should have tried it like that. I should have always gone for making a break for it. Just running as fast and as far as I could…" Zach bit down hard, looked into Kaminari's eyes to see his friend stuck up on all he just mentioned with him as a villain. "Until the Hunter found me…" Zach whispered. _What am I doing?! Just, to get him to stop thinking about Reaper?_ "And Webb, saved me," Zach whispered, his eyes wide, his heart racing. _I want to tell him. I want to tell my best friend, everything. All Might said, to confine in those I trust the most. That's you Kaminari._

"Hunter? Webb? Who are they?" Kaminari asked, shaking his head around and focusing on what Zach was saying now to get his mind off of that Reaper stuff.

"Webb, is the guy you saw facing Shatterer…" Zach started. He leaned back on the chair he was sitting on, and for the first time in years, maybe his entire life, he felt a weight lift off his shoulders. _I never told Jenny about my mom. I never told Momo about being a villain. Never told anyone about the torture, other than Softy and even then only a little. Still don't want to do that. But this, this is amazing. Kaminari, please let me trust you. If you tell anyone a single thing, I'll never forgive- well, I might, because you're… I need to make sure you won't. I'll make sure. And then I'll, then I'll tell you everything. Or almost everything. I know I can trust you. I want you, to help me fight villains. Would you come if I asked? I know Kirishima said he would, and you went to Camino Ward to get me so the rules must not hold you back_ _ **that**_ _much. But still, I should be careful. Careful, I don't push you away telling you too much._ Kaminari was leaning far forward with huge eyes and a growing smile as Zach admitted to knowing who the guy facing Shatterer was, a smug look on his face as if saying 'I knew it,' to Zach. Zach chuckled to himself and leaned farther forward, saying, "You're not going to believe it, Kaminari. But in this world are heroes and villains, and then, there are anti-heroes. And currently," Zach smirked even as he felt a little nervous as he started it. "I'd consider myself between a hero and anti-hero."

"Anti-heroes?" Kaminari wondered, his eyes huge and then lowering in a disbelieving kind-of confused way.

"Oh yeah," Zach replied. "Kaminari, you really ready for this? I'm gonna tell you all about the villains. Stuff I haven't told anyone because of what it would say about me. About what I've done, before and after escaping the villains. Please tell me you'll keep it all secret. Every last thing. You-"

"Can you stop saying that?" Kaminari asked, rolling his eyes but also getting an annoyed look on his face. "I keep telling you man," he said. "Whatever you tell me, it's between us. Besides, I need to hear these kind of things." Zach's eyebrows lifted up this time in confusion, and Kaminari leaned forward before saying, "There's gotta be something to explain how you keep getting more popular with the girls." Kaminari cracked a big grin, and Zach's look turned shocked for only a few seconds before he grinned back.

"Alright then," Zach whispered, and he scooted the chair even closer to Kaminari. "I realized in probably late September that Shigaraki wasn't sending me out to save people as much anymore. It wasn't right when he first had me do more, as I thought I could keep up the extra stuff he wanted me to do and healing people, but I realized it soon after that he was diverting my time, and that's when I first made my plan…"

* * *

 **A/N Hope you enjoyed the chapter. Finally missed my schedule of posting so sorry about that. Been pretty busy traveling around Japan, just left an onsen (Japanese hot springs) a couple days back and spent all of last 2 days exploring Kyoto so there's that. Anyway I'll try to get back on every day posting again! Thanks for reading this chapter. Second year of U.A. is about to begin with Zach opening up to a few of his classmates and lying to others. Leave a review below telling me what you think or questions about the story! Review response time:**

17konbro chapter 53 . Aug 1

Momozaki and Kamijirou intensifies...  
God I am glad Zach came back so smooth from that.

 **Got some more of one of those in this chapter at least... Glad you liked how slick Zach was with coming back, though he's a little less smooth when it comes to talking to his actual classmates and not the random judges. Thanks for the review!**

Jonnno377 chapter 53 . Aug 3

Sick chapter as usual I tell you what though seeing Webb and Zach's first interaction will be sick just be nice for me and don't have Webb like get rid of Zach cause I feel as when Zach was living his like double life of anti hero and hero that was a strong point in the story I'm more of a dark heavy plot kinda guy so I'd like to see the relationship strengthened but hey man your a amazing writer and considering for the quality of your writing you get these out really quickly like lighting fast so can't wait to see where you take the story next keep up the quality work

 **Thanks! We'll see when/if Webb and Zach meet up again, and Zach did think about that himself this chapter a bit. Zach mentions towards the end to Kaminari that he still thinks of himself at least a bit as an anti-hero, so he's not giving up on that yet. Again thanks a lot for the compliments at the end, I'm really glad you've liked the story so far! You can be sure there's still some dark stuff coming... but no spoilers! Hope you enjoyed the newest chapter!**

DDayman112 chapter 53 . 11h ago

Great story man. But plz make zack and momo start dating already the tension around them is killing me.

 **Thanks! Even more tension here with the two... though Zach admits it to Kaminari in the final scene too! We'll see where it leads from here, hope the suspense doesn't really kill you! XD Hope you enjoyed the chapter, and thanks for the review!**

 **-Thanks everyone for the reviews, favoriting, following, or just reading the story!**


	55. Chapter 55

**Disclaimer: I don't own Boku no Hero Academia**

 **Chapter 55:**

At U.A. High School, twenty-one students sat in the classroom labeled 'Class 2-A' outside the door. It was the first day of the start of their second years, and they were all excited to start up classes again even after only a short break. Zach sat at his same seat as the last year, or in the same spot as it would be in this new room. He had his right hand on the desk in front of him and was tapping his fingers as he awaited the day to start. _I need to relax,_ he told himself, and stopped tapping for a total of five seconds before he was back at it. _This sucks so much more than I thought it would, and I already thought it would stink. There was nothing to do all of break. What did I think I was going to do before I ran off? It doesn't matter! I probably would have left a few times, to go to the library or on a run around the city or to get food. Geez, as far as punishments go this was about as lax as they could have gotten, right? Yeah but why should I be punished at- gaahhhh, this sucks. At least Kaminari's cool with everything,_ Zach thought, and his fingers stopped tapping again with a small smile settling on his face. _He even had ideas for stuff we could do. Though now that I can't leave here, they were just kind of 'what if' scenarios. Still, I think it would be awesome if we could go after the League together._

"Who do you think it's going to be?" Kaminari leaned right and asked Kirishima on his right side.

"I don't know, but I'm getting excited. I wish they would've sent us out a schedule or something. Makes it seem more secretive this way!"

"My heart's pounding," Hagakure said, leaning forward behind Kirishima to tell the other two. "I wonder who our homeroom teacher will be first. And do you think we'll have all different teachers from last year?"

"Everyone! Settle down!" Iida ran up in front of the class that was pretty loud for a Monday morning. "This is not the proper way to greet whoever our new teacher shall be. We should be…"

"Iida hasn't changed in a whole year, huh?" Ashido said, tilting her head back and asking Uraraka behind her. Uraraka smiled back and shook her head with a laugh as their class rep was as diligent as ever.

"You're the loudest one in here," Jirou called to the front. "Better get in your seat fast Iida, before the teacher comes- oh there he is!" Jirou pointed, and Iida started running for his seat.

Iida spun back after sitting down, his hands over his desk and his body straight up in a ready position to greet their new teacher respectfully. The door was closed. No one was coming in. Iida's hands started shaking over the table, while Kaminari cracked up across the room and Jirou held a hand over her mouth. "That is not-" Iida started calling out loudly, then the door of the room opened right as he shot out of his seat.

Iida's mouth was open and his head started turning in slow-motion dread, his jaw dropping farther while Kaminari's smile lifted higher up, as did Kirishima and Sero who were not even laughing at first but suddenly found it a lot funnier. Jirou tried to hold back her laughter, while Zach sat up straight himself at the sight of the doors opening, glancing sympathetically out the corners of his eyes towards Iida who had too much forwards' momentum to sit back down fast.

"Morning," a tired voice said from the man walking in the room.

The rest of the class who were sitting shot up on their seats like Iida already had. "Ehh?!"

"What?"

"Again?!"

Aizawa turned his head tiredly towards the class of students who looked surprised and disappointed to see him. "It's just homeroom," he said, confused at why they had such strong reactions towards it.

The class dropped back down in their seats, slouched shoulders all around at the boring answer to the questions they had all been looking forward to for days. "Ahhh," Aizawa sighed as he walked up to the podium at the front of the room and slouched down himself behind it. "Alright, Iida and Yaoyorozu, come pass these out," Aizawa said, lifting up some papers he brought in with him. "They have your new schedules on them, as well as new information regarding your living situation here as second years. U.A.'s still a boarding school. We're making it less acceptable for you all to leave on family vacations though. Because of some people," Aizawa mentioned, and he looked towards Kaminari and then Zach.

Zach's bottom lip lowered a little that Aizawa was straight out blaming them for school changes, ones that people would probably be upset about. "Good job getting abducted, Kaminari," Kirishima joked to his left, at the blond whose bottom lip closed and he spun to the redhead with an annoyed look.

Aizawa scratched his head and then continued before the class could all start talking, "Anyway, you're second years now. But we're going to treat you like third years have been treated in the past. You have more experience than most have had by this point, including myself back when I went to U.A." The students around the classroom all looked at their homeroom teacher in surprise, and he continued in a lazy tone, "Don't let that get to your head, but make sure you understand that because of your experience, people will treat you like you're all older than you are. We will be allowing you to look for internships later in the semester, and the Sports Festival will be going on as usual. Security will be tighter than last year, but the Sports Festival is as big of a symbol as our society has nowadays."

Everyone looked up at Aizawa with widening eyes. "More so than the top ten, or even Endeavor, U.A. has stood against the League of Villains over and over. The U.A. Sports Festival is the biggest event of the year for many people. And it last occurred before All Might's retirement. The nervous people in this country, ones who don't know if us heroes know what we're doing anymore, need to see the Sports Festival to feel reassured. To prevent them from getting disillusioned with heroes," Aizawa glanced towards Zach whose eyes opened wide at the teacher's look. _Huh?_ "And to alleviate the public's fear that we have lost the edge over villains. We will hold the Sports Festival as always, and you should all keep in mind how much the event means beyond just trying your hardest to win."

 _Whoa,_ Sero thought, a bead of sweat rolling down the left side of his face. _That's a lot to throw on us on the first day! Don't you think?_

 _That is true,_ Shoto Todoroki thought while staring up towards the front of the room. _As much as Dad's trying to change, not only as a hero, but a father and… U.A. is a symbol that was on par with All Might, or almost. He is rising towards that, but for now the school that trained the top heroes including Dad, All Might, Best Jeanist, it's the thing that people can continue to rely on the most._

 _Why'd Aizawa sensei look towards me? The disillusioned with heroes thing? Because I mentioned that in my report? Did that… No way._ Zach shook his head but started smiling more as he thought about all Aizawa just told them. _This is the biggest event all year. And this time, there's no way I give up midway through. No matter what anyone calls me… though I think they'd only say good things now. I hope. Anyone who saw the Lifebringer video- as long as they saw me save Kaminari and Thompson, I should be good, right? I hope so. I want to, I want to win this! Not that that's, going to happen,_ he glanced to his right and around the room at the people he actually thought had a chance at winning.

 _I couldn't do it last time. "I am here." I need to tell the world clearly this time._ Izuku Midoriya clenched his fists over his desk and got a nervous, serious, and yet excited look on his face. _Against Todoroki, or Bakugo again. I have to win this time. It means so much more now that All Might is retired. I need to do it!_

 _Number 1. Damn Deku and the half and half bastard are going all out this time._ Bakugo saw their serious looks out the corners of his eyes, and his mouth lifted into a huge grin while glaring straight at the front of the room. _An undisputed first place!_

 _Older brother. I will prove I deserve the name Ingenium. Before the world, I will let it know that Ingenium has not died._ Iida stared forward through his glasses in an intense way and clenched his left hand where he felt some numbness in his fingers. He looked down towards that hand and the scars on it left from his fight against Stain. _This time, I will act as a respectable hero should! As you always did!_

 _Muuhahahaha, my new secret Super Move is going to knock their socks off!_ Minoru Mineta rubbed his hands together and darted his eyes back and forth in his seat. _I'll knock you all off those pedestals you're on!_ He thought while glancing at the strongest students in the class.

 _I will get an offer this time! I will!_ Ashido held her fists over her desk and nodded her head seriously.

 _Mom. Dad. I'll do better this time! I'm going to become a better hero fast, so I can help you._ Uraraka nodded her head while getting serious herself.

Everyone in the class had their own reasons for wanting to take the Sports Festival seriously. The extra incentive given by Aizawa was hardly necessary, and the entire mood of the classroom had suddenly become very intense. "Alright, time for your math class," Aizawa said in a tired voice, and he walked for the door which opened with Snipe walking in. The class full of intense students grinning and clenching their fists and looking nervous and excited all at the same time suddenly found it impossible to get back into the school mentality. That is, until Snipe told them they would be having a pop quiz to see if they remembered everything from last year…

* * *

"Another one?" Kirishima asked. His eyes were wide for a second then he shook his head around and said, "Damn. Alright Zach. You went through that last one fast, sure I shouldn't grab you two?" _I'm not even halfway through mine,_ Kirishima thought as he faced the boy in the common room kitchen with him.

"Uhh, yeahh, yeah that sounds good actually," _Won't have to ask him to do this again as soon._ "Just whenever you're heading there next," Zach added.

"Yeah I got you," Kirishima replied, waving a hand off to show it was no trouble. "Surprised you went through that whole thing so quick though. What've you been doing, drinking a protein shake with every meal?"

"Just, working out a lot recently," Zach said, and he turned back to the stove that had a post-morning-workout egg scrambling on top of it. He had gotten the eggs from Lunch Rush to make on his own time which he was glad the hero did not argue with. He was hungry all the time lately as he was either working out or resting while he was at his dorm, and he was almost always in the dorm outside of class. "Got the Sports Festival coming up, you know?" Zach said, smiling at Kirishima and making the redhead grin back and start saying how he was training for it. _Though that's not really it,_ Zach thought as his friend went on about a new move he was training. _I have to constantly be working out, or doing homework, studying, something. Whenever I'm doing nothing in here, I think about all the stuff I could be doing off campus and it bugs me out knowing I can't do those things anymore._

Zach refocused as best he could and lifted his eyebrows at what Kirishima just told him. "Unbreakable on only part of your body? Can you really do it?"

"I'm trying," Kirishima replied. "If I can get it working though, I could probably make just my arms harder than even Unbreakable is when it covers all of me." Zach started nodding at him as that made some sense, then Kirishima asked, "Have you tried that with your Nightmare form?"

"Kind of," Zach replied, nodding at the boy with really spiky hair. Zach's hair was longer than it was at the start of the previous year, but he did not spike it at all anymore. It was messy around his head and starting to get wavy the longer it got, which surprised Zach who did not know what his hair looked like naturally long. He had cut it short for so long, spiked it for years, that the last time he had let it get long at all was back when he was ten years old. Zach rubbed his left hand up through his black hair, pushing his bangs back and then scratching his head as he continued, "After turning on Nightmare I can focus where it's strongest, so I can cover my arms more at the cost of thickness around the rest of my body. Usually I try taking from my back where it's naturally a lot thicker for some reason."

"You don't know why?" Kirishima asked.

Zach shook his head slowly. "Maybe it's a defense mechanism? Protect my spine first? As much as I try to make it weaker on my hands though, I can't forcefully take it all off. Unless I've exhausted the power it keeps coming out of my whole body."

"Having trouble making it weaker," Kirishima said with a shake of his head. "Looks like we've got opposite problems."

"Looks like it," Zach agreed, while stepping to the stove and finishing up his eggs. He slid them off the pan and onto a plate next to it, and he frowned that he did not have any salt or pepper, or hot sauce, or anything to put on those eggs. _I could buy condiments at the store, but I can't-_ Zach grimaced and wanted to rub his head for the thought that solely popped into it to annoy him. "I'm not going to use Death during the Sports Festival though," Zach continued after putting the eggs on his plate. "Nightmare or anything. It's just not-"

"Oh come on dude," Kirishima said, lowering his smile and starting to frown after. "We're all going to be giving it our best-"

"I know," Zach said apologetically, glancing over his shoulder while walking over to one of the tables. He sat down and Kirishima came and sat across from him. "But Aizawa sensei said it, this is a big deal for people all around the country. They're watching to see the best future heroes in action. They don't want to see a scary monster-"

"You're not a-"

Zach re-interrupted after Kirishima cut in, "If you're a five year old kid and me in Nightmare form shows up in front of you, you think you wouldn't start crying?"

"'Course not!" Kirishima shouted.

"Yeah, well I think you're the odd one out there," Zach said. "Those people I saved with Kaminari, I actually saw one of them back up into the guy holding her hostage, rather than get any closer to me." Zach frowned before lifting up some scrambled eggs to his mouth. "It's too scary," he said, chewing his food and muttering it in an annoyed voice. "But you really should be glad," Zach added, lifting his lips up to make it seem like he was not as upset as he just looked. Kirishima changed his expression to stare at Zach in confusion, and the shorter boy said, "If I was going to use it, you wouldn't have a chance against me. Now, I guess you've got a twenty percent chance-"

"Ehhh?!" Kirishima slammed his hands on the table and leaned forward. "Little cocky there if you're not going to be going all out."

"I'm going to put in a request to use my grappling hook for the festival. I'll have to go to the Support Department and make it myself I think, but hey that could be good experience anyway. In case it ever breaks in the field I'll know how to put it back together," Zach offered, taking another bite of his eggs and gaining an actual more thoughtful look as he pondered that.

"Think you can beat me with just a grappling hook?" Kirishima asked skeptically, and in an annoyed voice like he thought Zach was underestimating him.

"Who knows?" Zach asked, but he smirked at Kirishima after a second. "But I don't plan on losing."

Kirishima looked surprised at that competitive smirk, but then he smirked right back and lifted his left hand with his elbow down on the table. "We better get a matchup now, so you can back that up."

Zach was glad Kirishima lifted his left hand, as normally he felt the other boy would have risen his right for something like this. He rose his left too and clasped his hand forward into Kirishima's with his elbow on the table too. "You bet," Zach said, then he laughed as they let go and he went back to his food. "As long as we both never lose to anyone else, we'll have to have a matchup sooner or later."

"Yeah," Kirishima agreed, but his smile lowered down a bit as he thought about all the others in the second year class with them. _Don't want to go up against Todoroki, but I could go for a rematch with Bakugo! Told him I wouldn't lose like last time._

"Hey Kirishima, we're about to..."

The two boys sitting near the kitchen looked over and Ashido stopped talking at their gazes. She looked at Zach and her smile lowered down a bit, and Zach sighed as he got back to his food. _Saturday, late morning. Ashido sounds excited and has a bag with her._ "Gonna go for a run around campus after this," Zach said, while he was finishing up his eggs. "See you later Kirishima." He looked towards Ashido and gave her a small wave before standing up.

Ashido saw Zach knew why she had stopped, and she called over, "Sorry Zach. I'd ask if you wanted to come too-"

"It's fine," Zach replied while going over to the sink to wash off his plate.

"Come?" Kirishima asked, still slow on the uptake.

Ashido walked towards him and started talking about how a few of them were heading out into the city, and when Kirishima asked if they had a pass Ashido replied that Iida had requested one a whole week back. "Always so dependable," Kirishima said with a laugh, then he turned and realized with widening eyes what Zach and Ashido's conversation had been about.

Zach was walking back over himself, and he figured he'd go upstairs first and get back into the clothes he just worked out in before coming down to eat. "Have fun," Zach said before picking up his pace and running every step up without skipping any.

He didn't know where the others were going, who else was going with Ashido, but he liked that better. He jogged up to his room and got back into his clothes from earlier, throwing them on with a serious look on his face. _Train. Eat. Put on muscle. I hope I keep getting taller quickly. I thought I'd be taller than Midoriya now, but he suddenly… Focus! Train. Stamina. Strength. Combat. Everything. I can't just make a boast like that with Kirishima and hope I can somehow beat him if it comes to it. I have to train harder. Think of all my classmates' weaknesses… Not that I haven't already._ Zach frowned once he got his clothes on but before he turned back to his door. He stared out the window and glared at the blue sky above, _Considering everyone could be a spy, will have been good for the Sports Festival. It sucks so much that I've spent actual time thinking about how to defeat each of you, but whether or not I actually have to use those plans someday in the future, I can use them for the Sports Festival too. To win. To let people see me. To let them know, that, Lif- that I am here._ Zach frowned and he rose his left hand to his forehead. _Come on. You could sign it easy enough. Why can't… I told Nezu I'm not anymore. I unregistered that hero name. I, I can't use it. As much as I want to. I just can't…_

Zach shook his head around and spun to his door. _But for now, focus on what I can do. If there's a kind of race for the first event again, I need to be faster than I was last year. Everyone else will have sped up using their Quirks over the past year, so not using mine again I have to still be able to make it._ He started running straight out his door and then down his hallway. He sprinted to the steps and down them, his face intense and his fists clenching at his sides. _I've got this._

* * *

 _This is probably a good thing. Definitely. Having this much free time just means I have more time for this,_ Zach sped up his jog a bit but kept a pace he would not get exhausted too quickly at. It was already his fifth lap around campus and he was sweating but still keeping from panting. _And if I'm really decided on not using Nightmare at all for the whole Sports Festival, even though it could help, even though it has so many perks... then I need to train my body harder not in Nightmare mode. I've been almost exclusively training in Nightmare form while on my own recently, because the results were so much clearer with it. Increasing the amount of Death given off and how strong that Death got, adjusting the potency and my own physical power. I hope one of the rounds is against robots so I can finally see how strong this power- shit. Not that I'd be able to see it while staying in my normal form._

Zach shook his head around and kept speeding up his run. He had on a t-shirt since it was early May and too hot for him to run with long sleeves anymore. He had tried just pushing through it, but he wound up rolling his sleeves up the last few times anyway. The black-haired boy glanced down at his left arm as he ran. He stared at discolored skin over the back of his hand, and he imagined a spike going through it and getting yanked out. He stared at the darker skin on his left wrist from the cuffs and ropes that had dug into his skin so much more at the times he was struggling the most, times which came into his head before he lifted his gaze higher. He looked above a slash below his elbow he winced at the sight of, and he finally smiled at the thin scar above the elbow he received during his fight against Shatterer.

Then Zach's gaze kept lifting though, and he stared at a scar from when he fought Hunter. _Except, Hunter only reopened the wound,_ Zach thought as he stared at the gash only partly sticking out of his short sleeve. His teeth bared and he clenched his eyes shut for a second while slowing down. _It opened the first time when I rolled on the glass from that window I shattered. After I escaped from Spinner. After, I left that woman behind…_ Zach's teeth clenched so much harder and he snapped his eyes open. Those eyes shot open wider and he smiled ahead towards Midnight who he saw on the road looking his way. He ran down the road and rose his left hand to wave at her as he went by, "Morning Midnight sensei." It was still before lunch so Zach thought that was a fine greeting, but Midnight stared at him oddly as he jogged by her. _Guess I looked too dark there. Damn it. Thinking about Higucha always gets to me though. More than most things. I can't just push that aside. I can't push her… damn._

Zach kept running without looking back to see if Midnight kept staring at him like that. _After I escaped, Webb got me. Webb. Saved me from Hunter, helped me save Kaminari, but if I ever see him again… It's up in the air. If he retires because of his arm, I never will meet him. Even if he recovers, who knows?_ _ **"The number you have dialed is out of service."**_ _Ganji's special card is worth jack-shit now. I never understood how it worked. The first time I used it I interrupted the lady on the other line. Does she know about the anti-heroes? Was the number a part of Rasheed Corp. that Ganji only had rerouted for those purposes? Or was the lady answering casually in case someone stole my card but did not know the password? Could have been anything. I'll never know now, since they cancelled it. Threw out the card, for good measure._

"Ganji doesn't think I'm worth it anymore," Zach muttered to himself as he ran. "Webb's not going to contact me." He ran faster and steadied his expression in a calm way. "If I need anything, I can call up Hunter. I'll let Kaminari know when it comes time for it. I hope he's down." Zach muttered the last part while looking up across campus himself. _I crossed a line. Were Ganji and Webb really okay with the way I got Hunter to listen to me, or were they fucked up by my methods? What's acceptable?_

 _I crossed a big line with Hunter. I accepted going that dark for the greater good. How dark? How far, am I willing to go? What's the cut off?_ Zach shook his head and started speeding up more, panting harder as he started a sprint across campus. _It wasn't too far. It doesn't matter what's acceptable to others. Whatever I consider acceptable, is good enough. And if Webb and Ganji don't want to help me anymore that's fine. I'll use my own resources. My own connections. Having Ganji's help would have been good but I don't have the code anymore and shouldn't try meeting with him on my own, if I ever am allowed out of school again. I know things though. Things I learned from Shigaraki and Dabi and the others. Things I never told the courts, or Webb, or Kaminari. Things I did, saw, learned, that no one knows. I hate holding things back from my friends and allies, but it's not all bad knowing that no one realizes the extent of all I know. Maybe it'll give me an edge in the Sports Festival,_ Zach thought while slowing a bit, lifting his right hand and staring at it. _I have Hunter at my beck and call. I took down half a dozen villains, even beat the guy who stopped Webb. Though Webb was fighting that whole group at once, and I had Kaminari's help… but still. I found them. I fought them. I won, and saved them all._ He clenched his right hand in front of him at the sight of a fence up ahead, and he bit down hard. _And despite all that, I can't leave my fucking house._

* * *

"I don't know, I feel like I should be grateful the principal _only_ went this far," Zach said while sitting across from Softy in her office on Saturday afternoon. "I mean I get that it makes sense as a punishment. I just, I can't-"

"Zach, we talked a great deal on this last weekend," Softy began softly. "I was hoping we could discuss the cause for this punishment today. Taking on-"

"I know I know," Zach said, and he lifted his left hand and put it up through his hair. "I know we should talk about that, but the being stuck here thing is making me cra-" He stopped himself and shook his head, leaning back in his seat and frowning at what he almost said. "It's not like things have changed that much," Zach said, and Softy did not say anything about how the conversation was stuck back on this topic again. "But it's the idea of it. The knowledge that I'm stuck- trapped, confined in this small space. And U.A.'s campus is so big that I don't know why I feel like that, but I mean, I hate being trapped. I could go anywhere, be anyone, being so confined is just…"

"Zach," Softy began. "Do you think that maybe, your feelings of being trapped here might be amplified by the memories of confinement with the League-"

"Of course," Zach replied. "It's not like I don't know that," Zach said quickly. "But it's not that different. As much as there's no tor-" he glanced down at his left arm, frowned more and closed his mouth to stop from saying anything more. _It's completely different. But the general feel, is the same. Stuck. Trapped. Against my will. I can't fucking take this! It's been two weeks and I'm losing my shit! I've been all over the world, I traveled all across Japan that day to chase Hunter then get to the War Boys. Suddenly not even being able to go out into Musutafu. One step out of school property and I'm expelled?!_ "I can't take this," Zach muttered. "It's, it's a harder punishment than I thought it would be. I get that's what punishments are supposed to be, I don't know…" Zach trailed off and looked back into Softy's eyes. "Any ideas?"

"Yes," Softy replied. "I will speak with the principal-"

"Wait no," Zach swung his arms up in panic with wide eyes. "You can't," he said, his eyes getting softer and worried that Softy was suggesting taking what they just talked about out of the room. _I've been telling everyone I'm fine, that it sucks but I get it. I shouldn't have said anything-_ "It's actually not that bad."

"Zach, you just told me that the school's faculty is contributing to your PTSD," Softy started, and Zach's eyes opened even wider at the sound of that. "Whether or not you feel the punishment is fair, I cannot allow it to continue if it causes you so much mental stress."

Zach sighed and he rubbed the side of his head hard with his left hand. _How to fix this? Think quickly._ Zach cracked a small grin and said, "If you really have to." He said it in a reluctant sort-of way, but he wiped the smile off his face after looking back towards Softy and seeing that she saw it.

"Are you trying to trick me into thinking this was your plan the whole time?" Softy wondered.

Zach sweatdropped and lost the smug look he was hiding behind an even faker reluctant one. _She's too good,_ Zach thought disappointedly. "Please don't tell them though," Zach started after nodding once at Softy to let her know she totally caught him. "If you do, I know they'll think I just told you to manipulate you into letting me get out. Things will just get worse, and I know there are more punishments still to come so I don't need the extra stress that would come of getting out of this. Anything that happened after I'd think was just a result of…" Zach trailed off and he rubbed his head some more. _Backup plan is going well. Act like I was caught and admit your reasons while also giving new reasons as to why she shouldn't say anything._ "So please," Zach started again. "Just let it go. I'm sure Principal Nezu will let me start leaving school again, as soon as I regain some of the school's lost trust."

Softy started shaking her head at Zach but she sighed as she did. _If they gave him different punishments to replace the current one, he would blame me, but he would also blame himself for saying anything in the first place. He wouldn't feel comfortable talking to me anymore._ Softy rubbed her forehead, the short woman humming to herself as she tried thinking up a solution.

"I'll be fine Softy, really," Zach said, making his own voice quieter with a tone like Softy usually used. "I just needed to vent to you, okay? I can handle it though. I know it won't last forever." _But it's driving me bad-shit crazy right now. My room's a cage. The dorm is a cell. Campus is the prison. Meal times. Free time to work out. It's like prison. I could leave though. I have the choice. Just think about that, and I'll be okay._ "I could leave whenever I want," Zach said, making sure Softy heard him say it so she knew he did not think it was an actual prison. "But because I choose to stay, I have to accept all that staying entails." _Even if my room is starting to look like the one I was in for those six weeks._

* * *

"You sure you want to do this?" Zach asked. He interlocked his fingers in front of him and cracked his knuckles pushing straight out, then he brought his arms closer and turned his body sideways into a fighting stance.

"Not really," Kaminari replied, but he put his arms up over his head and locked his fingers like Zach had done as he stretched. The two of them were wearing their blue gym clothes, and they were on the roof of a twelve story building in Ground Beta. "But last time I relied way too much on my electricity. Gotta at least try something else once in a while."

"Sure you want me to spar with you though?" Zach questioned.

"Who better?" Kaminari said then laughed a couple of times nervously. "Trying to make me nervous here, huh? Not gonna work!" Kaminari lowered his arms and got into a fighting stance too, one that resembled the one Zach was in except with holes in it that Zach noticed right away. Zach grinned at the sight of them after Kaminari's boast, and Kaminari snapped his head down before shifting his feet a little and trying not to make it that noticeable.

"Where are you looking?" Zach asked, and Kaminari snapped his head up. The blond boy's jaw dropped and his eyes shot open huge, because Zach wasn't standing in front of him anymore or even where his voice sounded like it acme from just a few feet in front of him.

"Huh-" Kaminari froze with sweat on both sides of his face, as there was a fist sticking out on the left side of it. "When did you…" Kaminari turned his head and looked behind him at Zach whose arm was lifted up a little diagonally since Kaminari was a couple of inches taller than him.

"It's not about when," Zach replied while pulling his arm back. Kaminari spun to him, and Zach said while backing a few feet away, "It's a stealth technique I picked up. Hold my breath, empty my mind, and move outside of my opponent's view."

"Huh," Kaminari said, and a bead of sweat rolled down the left side of his face. "Think I could pick up on that too?"

"Let's work on the basics first," Zach replied. "Like focusing on your opponent so it's harder for them to vanish like that."

Kaminari frowned as Zach grinned at him, then he asked, "So where did you learn that technique?" Kaminari ran at Zach after asking, the instant Zach's smile started lowering down. Kaminari punched his right hand forward, and Zach rose his left and pushed a palm into the side of Kaminari's fist.

The blond boy's momentum kept him moving forward but with an arm crossed in front of his body so there was no way to counter the palm that swung back after hitting his fist. Zach hit Kaminari in the side of his head with the back of his hand, making the blond stumble back while closing his eyes in the sudden pain. He shot his eyes open fast realizing he closed them, and he snapped his head to the right as he thought he heard a footstep there. His bottom lip dropped as he saw the hilt of a blade bouncing off the floor, then a left fist flew past the side of his face again and Kaminari's eyes shot open wide. "Damn it, dude," Kaminari said, and he cracked a smile even as he turned his head nervously to that arm. "Try holding back won't you?"

"Thought making you nervous wasn't going to work?" Zach teased, and Kaminari dropped his jaw as Zach pulled his arm back and started laughing.

"That's what you've been doing?" Kaminari exclaimed. Zach just laughed harder, and his friend humphed and muttered afterwards, "What happened to helping me out with training?"

"We've got time," Zach said, stopping his laughter and just grinning again. "Let's really get started though. Instead of sparring, how about I just help you out?"

Kaminari's eyes widened a bit more, and he thought, _Is that the real reason he was showing off? Not just to make me nervous, but to show me sparring really wouldn't be useful?_ Kaminari shook his head and chuckled under his breath for a few seconds which made Zach get a confused look on his face. "Alright then," Kaminari accepted, holding up his palms at his sides like he was left with no choice. "You show me how to do some of those cool moves, and in exchange I guess I could give you some tips on picking up girls."

Zach rolled his eyes but laughed after a second and said, "I think I'm probably better than you at that too."

"Eh?! No way!" Kaminari shouted.

"Yeah, definitely," Zach said after nodding thoughtfully for a few seconds like he was thinking on whether or not he really was. "You try too hard."

"It's better than not trying at all," Kaminari retorted. "You miss every shot you don't take. I know you've already missed a ton."

"Maybe," Zach muttered. _But I'm not really out there trying to pick up random girls…_ Zach shook his head fast then looked up at Kaminari and his lip curled in a half-frown half-thoughtful way. "Seriously though. I think I'm better at it than you. You're looking too far away. Gotta work with what's around you-"

"Yeah yeah Mr. Ladies Man," Kaminari said in a taunting way. "You're just saying that 'cause the girl you've got the hots for happens to be living with you."

"And you're not into any of the girls at U.A.?" Zach asked skeptically, skipping right past that. "Feel like you're missing out on something that could be right in front of you." Zach's lips curled up more into a smirk as Kaminari just looked at him confusedly.

"Yeah well, I've spent a year trying with the girls in our class, no takers," Kaminari said in a defeated tone. "You know I've tried. It's unfair that there're more than twice as many guys as girls in the class!"

"Mmm," Zach hummed, then he lifted his left hand and rubbed his forehead. _Kind of want to help you out here buddy, but I also feel so out of my depths with something like this. How am I supposed to help with relationships when I can't even get in one out of fear I'll get her targeted?_ Zach's mouth lowered into a frown as he thought that, and those thoughts actually made it easier for him to say without feeling awkward, "What about Jirou? Feel like the two of you get along pretty great."

Two buildings away and inside the basement of the tall building, Kyoka Jirou was straining to hear as far around Ground Beta as she could using her earphone jacks. Her eyes shot open wide, and she stared at the wall in front of her she had plugged into while trying to drown out all other noise. Her face started to turn red, and she had the urge to pull both jacks out of the wall immediately. She also had the idea of crumbling the wall by vibrating them, and she cursed in her head, _The fuck are you saying, Zach?! First Mina, then Toru-_

"Ha! I'd say it's the opposite," Kaminari laughed at Zach after staring at him in surprise for a second. "Out of everyone in the class, she rips on me the most for how stupid Electrification makes me, and whenever I strike out with girls."

"Almost like she doesn't want you hitting on them at all," Zach replied, then he smirked for two reasons. _Kaminari's probably not gonna take it too seriously. He probably thinks I'm messing with him. But, if Jirou's listening right now…_ the thought of it made Zach smirk, even though he figured the chances were miniscule. Just the idea alone sounded funny in his head, and he added, "I don't know, I think it's worth a second shot."

"Heh, if you say so then maybe it is," Kaminari remarked. "But I thought I was the one giving out the advice on the ladies. Show me some of those moves you picked up, with the villains," Kaminari said, and he narrowed his eyes while lifting his arms back into a fighting stance. Zach started frowning, and Kaminari said, "Come on, I know that's where that sneaky one had to have come from, right? Seems exactly like something a villain would use, right, Reaper?"

"Guess you want to keep sparring instead," Zach said, and he lifted his his hands and balled them into fists. He smirked as Kaminari's grin wiped off his face.

The blond started it anyway though, and he ran forward right as Zach started running at him. _Oh this is not going to end-_ "Grit your teeth, Kaminari!" Zach shouted, and Kaminari's eyes opened wide and he bit down hard. He tried blocking Zach's punch, only for his eyes to open huge as it was Zach's right fist coming for him. _OH SHI-_ He knew the left was coming before he even started darting his eyes towards it, and Zach socked his best friend in the face.

Kaminari stumbled backwards and fell to his butt. "Geez, hold back a bit," he said while rubbing his jaw and cheek on the right side of his face.

"Oh I did," Zach replied. "You should have known that was a feint right away though. I was-"

"Using your right hand, I know," Kaminari said while pushing up on the ground at his sides. "Were you purposely giving such an easy hint?"

"Thought you might notice, but don't worry," Zach said. "If you had dodged my left, I was gonna kick you in the side. Right there," Zach pointed down near Kaminari's left kidney and the blond reached down towards it out of pure reaction.

Kaminari moved his hands after a second and chuckled while lifting a hand to rub his face again over a forming bruise. "Thinking three steps ahead huh? Guess when you're against me you can't not."

"Ch, ck, hahaha," Zach could not help the laughter, and Kaminari frowned but pursed his lips together and then started laughing too. "Well, I guess after some more of this, maybe that'll be true. Yeah?" Zach asked, seeing if Kaminari was still down for more.

"Yeah," Kaminari agreed with a nod. "How about with less punching me though?"

Zach laughed again and then nodded, "You got it."

 _Nothing more about me,_ Jirou thought as she was relaxing herself under a building not too far away. She had strained to be able to hear that far, and she thought after removing the jacks from the wall, _They were at the edge of what I could hear. So… No, I can't convince myself I didn't hear that. What the hell, did Kaminari call you? It seemed like just a nickname, but you punched him… I'm overthinking this. Why'd you have to bring up something weird, Zach? Why would you think we- Kaminari's right, I just mess with him. I just make fun of him all the time, so it's no surprise he thinks like that._ Jirou's eyes lowered to the floor and she noticed she was frowning deeply after a couple of seconds.

Jirou shook her head around and her earphone jacks lifted up at her sides to stab into the wall again, but she froze after they lifted. _"Second shot?" Hold on hold on, did he actually ever try something a first time? I thought I saw him strike out with every girl in the class by now, and he didn't with me! That annoyed me- why would-_ "Gah," Jirou shook her head around and tried refocusing on the wall. _A second shot. I should, look out for it harder this time._ A small smile spread on Jirou's face and she jammed her earphone jacks back into the wall.

* * *

"Heh, don't think I've seen you smile like this since you got in trouble," Kirishima said as he and Zach walked out of a convenience store together.

"Oh it feels fucking great being out again," Zach replied, and Kirishima just laughed as Zach cursed with such a big grin on his face.

 _Buddy system is perfect. Sure I can't just go off to the library on my own, and I still can't do any anti-hero stuff since I have to bring a friend with me wherever I go… unless I really do wind up asking Kaminari to tag along with me. I don't want to drag him into anything that'll get us in trouble though._ Zach had a couple of plastic bags on one arm, and he mentioned to Kirishima about going to Gym Gamma later. Kirishima got surprised and started rolling his shoulders, saying he was wiped from the training they actually did during class today. Zach admitted he was too with a yawn and a stretch of his right arm up in the air, then he asked how Kirishima's training was going with using Unbreakable on only individual parts of his body.

As his friend responded, Zach multi-tasked by listening and still thinking about his anti-hero side work. _If only I had asked Ganji about more criminal activity this time when I saw him. I'm sure the stuff I heard a few months back has all changed already, and I don't want to blow any secret ops that Webb or other anti-heroes might be doing. They won't involve me though, and I have to take the initiative without their support. I haven't been contacted yet, and though it's only been a few weeks…_ Zach nodded his head and responded to Kirishima, then continued thinking, _Even if it's permanent though, it was worth it to save Kaminari. And I think the principal just gave me this out of good faith since I haven't complained about the punishment yet- I really hope Softy didn't go talk to him. Well whatever. Even if she did, if there are more punishments… When, there are more punishments, it's because of what I did and not because they just loosened this-_

Zach's smile lowered down a little and he nodded again to Kirishima. He stared at the corner up ahead, and he turned to his right to look at Kirishima while responding, "We'll see just how tough it is soon. I'm hoping to see you and Midoriya go at it. You think you could stop his kicks?"

"Definitely," Kirishima replied with a smirk. Zach looked at him in surprise, his eyes widening supposedly at his friend's confidence. "You don't get just how…"

They reached the corner and started turning around it, and Zach's head turned back forward as they started curving around it. His head kept turning not just forward though, but a bit to the side back the way they came, and his eyes were still wide but suddenly filled with hate and had a daring bloodthirsty look in them. He glared down the sidewalk all the way to the next street down, where he spotted movement of something ducking behind that corner right after he turned his attention towards it. _Didn't get a good look. Who are you?_ Zach kept walking with Kirishima and returned his expression to normal so the redhead would not notice anything was wrong.

 _I'm being tailed. He or she now knows that I know they're following me. I needed them to know though, so they won't try anything. They wouldn't dare attack me knowing that I'm prepared for them. I could fucking murder them. Don't attack me here, please,_ Zach thought a little more desperately while wishing he could pick up the pace without seeming like he was scared and giving the enemy an opportunity to attack him. _Calm down. Think constantly. Who else could it be? If it was League of Villains, why would they just be tailing me with a single person? There could be others around here I didn't notice ready to trap me, but they're waiting too long to let us get closer to U.A. Every second it's less likely to be them. Then who?_

 _A reporter makes sense, but if they saw me already then why just tail me back to U.A.? Are they writing a story on me, just trying to get pictures when I might be looking dark, or even when I'm smiling if it's a good piece._ He offered the idea to himself, but he frowned mentally as it sounded too optimistic. _What's a third option? Teachers? Principal Nezu said they wouldn't send a teacher after me and waste their time, but if Softy really did tell him how I felt about being caged, then maybe this is his concession. He'll let me out but have me tailed to make sure I don't just ditch my buddy. That makes sense. Yet, that's the best case scenario. What's the worst case? An assassin. One who wouldn't think twice about taking out people around me just to finish me off. One who was looking for a moment to strike and gave away their position… in which case I should be able to take them on. Kirishima can harden to stop bullets or whatever else they can try to kill us with. It's actually a good thing he's with me then._

"…You still adamant about not using Nightmare during it?"

"Don't worry, I've got some new tricks up my sleeve too. I'm just not bragging about them to my future opponent, giving away my element of surprise," Zach replied, then he smirked and looked out the right corners of his eyes at the spikier-haired boy whose eyes widened at the sound of that. Then Kirishima got a more smug look on his face and remarked that he didn't need surprise to take Zach, and a real man doesn't need to hide his power! _That's right Kirishima, keep loud and keep passerbys' eyes on us. It might not be an assassin. Think. Who else could it be?_ The school was just up ahead, but Zach kept his guard up and made sure that a trained assassin would be able to see that it was, with his right hand's fingers all curled in at his side and actually sticking out of his glove already. _I don't sense them still following me, and I didn't see anyone behind the corner when I turned to Kirishima just now. Are there others or is it just the one?_

Zach let his fingers go back inside his glove when they were across the crosswalk and back at the gates of the high school. _For a first trip out in weeks, this wasn't too bad. Whoever that was behind us didn't make a move._ Zach showed his I.D. to the guard who let them in then lifted a walkie talkie to his mouth without hiding it, reporting back that Zach had returned which the black haired boy got an annoyed look on his face for. _Probably villains. The League. What does Shigaraki want? I thought maybe, he was done with me. I had hoped at least. It was stupid to do so… but he has other things he's focusing on. Things that scare me. What Shatterer said, and the fact that my paper was wrong._

Zach's eyes got darker as they started walking towards the school, and Kirishima told him to cheer up and that it was not so bad as they were at least letting him leave in the first place. Zach nodded at him and lifted his dark look, but he kept thinking on an ominous train of thought, _The month of April, as a whole, is being seen as a victory for heroes. Lower crime rates. Higher count of villains getting captured and lower total accounts of villain incidents. It's almost like my paper at the start of last month had no merit to it… Except I know it did. I know for sure, that the trend shouldn't have just disappeared like that. Those rates going down might seem like a good thing to everyone else, but what are the heroes doing about what I said at my review? What about 'Shigaraki's army?' A sharp drop in villain activity… It's like when I was with the villains. I had always hoped that the crimes we committed against other villain groups were actually making a difference. I really hoped, I was stopping villains by fighting them with the League. Well the League is fighting other villains again, and on a bigger scale it seems. So why? Why does the idea of it now make me so, uneasy?_

* * *

 **A/N Thanks for reading. Hope you enjoyed the chapter. Second year of U.A. has started and Class 2-A starts getting ready for the Sports Festival. Leave a review below telling me what you think and predictions for the upcoming chapters? Who will win the Sports Festival? Who is following Zach around (I mentioned someone tailing him before too back right before he left Musutafu to look for Kaminari)? Review responses:**

LordOfTee chapter 54 . 21h ago

It's great to see Zach divulging in some of the secrets he kept with Kaminari.  
Maybe he's moving past his fear of everyone finding out?

 **Zach's opening up more, seems like he's not as worried anymore about keeping everything down inside him, but the last scene shows he's still ready to get paranoid and on-guard at a moment's notice. Thanks for the review!**

D-Koy24 chapter 54 . 18h ago

The information I am about to tell you is classified, should it be disclosed to anyone other than I those that are authorized you will be held responsible, in any event where I believe you would tell anybody about this it might be your last day... (Leans forward to stare into the other person's eyes) ... The author is constructing a ship by the name "Momozaki", it is unknown when it would be seaworthy...

 **... Well then. Nice, review, I guess? I guess I understood the Momozaki part... XD Thanks for reviewing D-Koy!**

radoddish chapter 54 . 16h ago

For some reason I think Momo or Denki is the traitor as they are the closest ones to Zach. But my suspicions are mostly on Momo as in the end of a chapter where she said "I found you" it made me really think she is the traitor . But hey, it's just a theory. A dumb theory

 **What a twist! That would be quite a crazy reveal, though I won't say whether or not your theory's got any merit. No spoilers! Then again, I've mainly been pushing this back myself 'cause I'm hoping a new manga chapter revealing the spy will come out soon. Thanks for the review!**

Guest chapter 54 . 14h ago

The Zach and Momo shipping tension...if they don't get together I'm gonna explode  
Great writing as always!

 **Hold on! Don't explode just yet, it could still come... Thanks! And I'm glad you're enjoying!**

Future Plans chapter 54 . 10h ago

Are you going to ask anyone to do a Reference Sheet for Zach? Also can you get someone to draw some Key scenes out? Oh yeah, can we get a picture of Nightmare form? Basically, you should get a DeviantArt and Commission some artists to draw some things for you because your story is so good.  
Like it feels like Zach really is a character in Class 1-A, how do you write it so well and so fast? Plus, I really enjoy the fact that his power is kinda distinct like most of the main characters and how it revolves around Death like it is an element (like fire or ice) rather than just one thing.  
Can zach sense people who are close to death? That's what I was kinda "sensing" from you early on in this chapter. But it also seems zach doesn't really know where rather than just how he feels like he's so accustomed with death (and life for that matter) that he can just feel when normal people are so close to the element of death like it's some entity he's so acquainted with. In other words, nice character development.

 **Are reference sheet's the things Horikoshi does at end of chapters? If so, then probably not going to make any considering Zach's Quirk, height, and weight keep changing. He has hazel eyes I think I mentioned once. I think it would be cool if people wanted to draw out scenes or other pictures of Zach for this story. I have a Deviantart page that I created once but never added any pics on, think I needed a page to be able to comment or something on someone else's... Anyway if you'd like to draw or anyone else reading this, shoot me a PM and let me know. I'm glad you think Zach's really fitting in as a member of Class A, (2-A now), and as for writing so fast I've just got a lot of ideas rushing through my head. Whenever I'm thinking of them I write them down as summaries in case I'm not up to those chapters yet, then if I'm ever at a part where I don't know what to write, I just increase the time of the story like I did in this chapter in order to reach the Sports Festival which is the next big thing I had plans for. Lots of future arcs already planned out like that almost all the way up to the end of Death. Zach sensing people close to death... I'm wondering where you've got this idea from. He could sense it bringing back the two people earlier in the last term, like I mentioned that he knows the exact moment when someone came back to life who he's saving. So I wouldn't really say he can tell when people are about to die... just kind of confused by what you meant by that if you want to elaborate more. Thanks for the big review, and I hope you enjoyed the new chapter!**


	56. Chapter 56

**Chapter 56:**

"That's all for today. Sazaki, stay after class for a minute," Aizawa said, right as the class in front of him was starting to pack up their things.

Zach looked back up after just turning to his backpack, and he nodded at the man looking towards him with his usual tired expression, though Zach felt unnerved by the look of it right now. He continued packing up his things though slower, and Kaminari leaned towards him while packing up too, "What'd you do?"

 _Does he think Aizawa looks mad too?_ Zach wondered while turning to his best friend. _Then again, Aizawa sensei always looks kind of mad. Hopefully it's nothing._

"I don't know," Zach replied quietly back to him. "It's probably nothing."

Students through Class 2-A got out of their seats and headed for the door. A few of them glanced over to Zach wondering why he was being told to stay behind, but he did not look too nervous about it and just seemed confused like they were. Kaminari got out of his seat after packing and he said, "Want me to wait up?"

"Don't know how long I'll be here for," Zach replied slowly. "So just head on back. Might wind up being a big thing."

Kaminari shrugged and slung his backpack up one strap over his shoulder. "Alright then," he replied. Jirou walked past Zach's seat on his right just as Kaminari was starting to head for the door, and he stepped out of the gap between rows right as she was reaching the end. "Bet he got in trouble again," Kaminari whispered with a hand up to his mouth to the girl he started walking with.

"Hope not," Jirou said, glancing over her shoulder. _Though it seems likely,_ she added to herself at how often Zach found himself in trouble. "He hasn't done anything wrong recently, right?" She asked, glancing back at the blond who she figured would know if anyone did.

"Nah, he's all about the rules now," Kaminari assured her and Jirou cracked a grin at the joke. The two of them walked out of the classroom, and Tsuyu, Uraraka, and Midoriya all headed out after them as the last ones out of the classroom. Midoriya glanced back in with a sort-of worried look as he stared towards Zach, but then he closed the door at Aizawa's expectant look like it's what he wanted.

Zach walked up towards the teacher's desk with his bag on his back and kept a straight expression as he prepared for anything. Three seconds in though, and Zach's eyes were huge and his bottom lip lowered, because it turned out he was not expecting what his teacher had to tell him.

* * *

"Wait what? Are you serious?" Kaminari asked, standing near the front door in the common room where Zach just came in through. He had still been downstairs as he only got back to the dorm a couple of minutes ago and was relaxing out there waiting for Zach to come back, but he was not expecting the answer when he asked Zach why Aizawa kept him behind. "Dude, that's not okay! Aren't you mad?!"

"What's going on?" Midoriya asked, walking over with Uraraka and Iida who he had been talking with in the common room.

"It's not really, a big deal," Zach said, turning to the others and shaking his head with a small smile.

"How can you say that man?" Kaminari asked in disbelief. "This is like- wayyy too much!"

Zach shook his head again and lowered his smile as he did it. "I knew there would be more punishments. I just, you know, have to deal with it."

"Aizawa sensei is punishing you?" Uraraka asked in confusion. "Still for, the Kaminari thing?" She wondered with her eyes widening more.

Zach nodded his head, and Midoriya asked in a worried tone, "What is it-"

"They aren't letting Zach enter the Sports Festival!" Kaminari exclaimed at the other three. All three of them went wide-eyed, while Zach just frowned deeper for a second before shaking his head again, this time faster.

"Hold on, what?!" A voice shouted from behind Zach, and he turned and grimaced again as he saw Kirishima running towards them.

"Want to not scream that for everyone to hear?" Zach suggested to Kaminari in an annoyed voice. He sighed and lifted his left hand, scratching the side of his head with it before smiling again. "It's too bad," Zach said as he turned to Kirishima who came to a stop with his eyes turning huge at Zach's expression. He flashed Kirishima a smile to show everything was okay, then showed it to the others still staring at him in shock too. "I get why they need to do it though. I lied to All Might, after all. Guess I should've seen this coming," he scratched his head some more then lowered his hand and gave Kirishima an apologetic look, "Sorry. Next year for sure, let's have that matchup."

Zach started walking for the stairs, leaving the others behind while sighing loudly and in a disappointed way. "It really does, stink though," he added at the end, before shaking his head and chuckling under his breath. "I'm fine though. It's no big deal."

Zach walked past Kirishima and his smile broke. He kept going for the stairs, and he walked up for his room while keeping a steady expression on his face. His eyes were down, and he forced the corners of his lips up as he saw Shoji going down the stairs. He walked right past the taller boy with six arms though, and Shoji turned to stare at Zach's back in confusion at that look on his face. The people Zach just left behind downstairs had the same looks that Shoji had as he watched Zach walk away.

"After they talked about how important this Sports Festival is going to be too," Kaminari muttered. "I can't believe, they wouldn't let Zach be a part of it. It's like, counterproductive, right?" He said it and ended in a softer voice, and he kept staring towards the stairs with such a frustrated look on his face. "It's not fair," he muttered afterwards, his fists clenching at his sides.

 _I think, you must have gotten worse at it Zach,_ Uraraka thought, as she stared towards the stairs in a sadder way. _Because I can finally see through your fake smiles._

Midoriya glanced next to him at Iida whose fists he saw clenching at his sides tightly after a few seconds. _This isn't…_ he looked back himself towards the stairs. _Are the teachers really right, to do this? Zach broke the rules. But- we all have reasons why we need to take part in the festival. I, I know I do. And I know he does… "I want to tell people, I'm still a hero. I want them to see me. Aizawa sensei is right, the U.A. Sports Festival means a lot. But so do each one of us, and so does the idea of Li- of Lifebringer!"_ Midoriya clenched his teeth with a hurt expression coming over his face as he thought about how Zach strained to say that to him just a few days ago when they were talking about the Sports Festival together. _**"Not Lifebringer!"**_ _How much, did you say this meant to you? Do you really think we'd be convinced by that smile, that you're just accepting it? We all know, you must be frustrated._

Upstairs in his room on the fifth floor, Zach Sazaki was far beyond frustrated. He stood at his desk with both hands pressing so hard against it that he thought he might just push it straight through the wall. His fingers clenched into the wood, and he bit down harder and harder to the point he thought he might break them. So he gasped out a forceful breath to make his mouth open, but then he started panting heavily and his fingernails just dug into his desk as he gripped tighter. The feelings welling up since Aizawa told him back in the classroom, before he simply accepted and bowed to the teacher and left the classroom, they burst out of him all at once and he screamed, "FUCK!" He balled his hands up as fists and smashed them down on his desk, then he swept his arms to the side and threw all his things off the desk and into the wall on his right. "GOD damn it-" Zach forced his voice quieter, knowing people might be able to hear him.

The idea that he could not even be that loud made him so much more furious, and he spun to his bed in a rage and glared at things that were softer and would not make as much noise. He grabbed his pillow and chucked it across the room, then he ripped the mattress off of his bed and threw it aside too. "Fuck fuck fuck! This- this isn't!" He slammed a foot into his bed post and he winced at the pain, and then he bent over and slammed his left fist into it too. He let out a half-yell of pain that he bit down on before it got too loud half a second in. "Fuuu _uuuccckkk,_ " he held it out and hunched over, his whole chest clenching with way more pain than his foot or hand were in.

"Why is this happening?" He asked, looking towards the window with a book in his hand he was ready to throw straight through it. The book shook in his trembling hand, then it tightened on the spine and he pulled back and threw. At the very last second his eyes opened wide and he pulled his arm to the side even as his fingers left the binding. **THUD**

The book slammed into the wall instead of the window, chipping off a little paint but not breaking anything at least. Not breaking anything made Zach bite down in frustration instead of feel any relief though. His hands started shaking in front of him and he looked down at his right. "I should turn on Nightmare mode," he whispered to himself, his voice coming out cracked and making his eyes widen at the sound of it. "Don't," he whispered, closing his eyes and getting such an angry look on his face. "I can't," he said, his legs shaking as bad as his hands now.

He turned and walked towards where his mattress was on the floor, and he collapsed to his knees on it. "I'm so, frustrated," he whispered. _**"You're on! Don't lose to anyone until you face me." "Man, I'm gonna be using my electricity and you're not using Nightmare, but you've still got me not wanting to go up against you with a move like that tucked away..." "That's amazing Zach. My goal's similar. All Might's no longer the Symbol, so I have to tell the world: I'm here." "I won't lose to Tokoyami easily this time, if I go against him I have a plan…" "Kirishima told me you're not using that form of yours. If you come up against me, and you don't use it, I'll kill you! Got it?!" "My brother's name..." "I'm proud of you."**_

Zach dropped onto his face on his mattress. "Why?" He mumbled into the soft underside of the mattress he threw away so it landed upside-down. "Why can't I just... Why can't good things..." Zach clenched his eyes shut and then bit into the mattress to stop himself from screaming. _Why?_ His eyes opened with water in them. _Why does this matter so much to me? Why can't I just accept the consequences of my actions? Why can't they just, let me be?_ Tears spilled out the corners of Zach's eyes and he yelled into his mattress while shoving his face back down into it. "Aannnnmmammm!" He yelled into it and clenched his eyes shut in frustration. _I don't understand! I saved Kaminari! I saved Thompson! Why?! WHY?!_

Zach stopped pushing his head down so hard, and his fists unclenched from the sides of the bed he was holding so strongly. _There's nothing I can do. Being mad, isn't going to change anything. I already failed at apologizing, and they don't trust me... I just, I can't do a thing. Will I still get to go to the festival, and just watch from the stands? Or will I be stuck here, watching on tv in the common room? Probably that... I hate this. I hate, all of this. I don't want to be here anymore, but I don't want to leave. Webb's offer isn't on the table anymore, I'd never find him anyway... did I make the wrong decision? I've never really considered- I don't want to leave though! I don't want to stay, but I can't leave! I want to be able to save my friend, and I don't want to be punished for it! I don't understand! Why is this- why does this always?! It always, always, always happens. I should have seen it coming, really._

 _Because it was something good,_ he thought, biting down hard and letting more tears spill out his eyes. _And I should know by now, good things don't happen for me._

* * *

Shota Aizawa sat behind a computer in the teachers' office with his half-closed eyes focused on the screen. Midnight sat across the table and down a couple chairs at her own computer, but it was just the two of them in the room for now. Aizawa clicked and then scrolled down the page on his screen, then he lifted his head up while Midnight turned her head.

Someone knocked on the door of the office, which meant it was not a teacher who would have just come in. "Come in," Midnight called over, lifting up her glasses and looking that way interestedly as the door opened.

Aizawa looked over at the door that slid open, and he frowned more at the sight of the person in the doorway. "Kaminari," Aizawa said as the blond walked in. "What is it?" _I can guess. The class the whole day's been grim. No one said a thing about it, and Sazaki seemed the least affected, outwardly at least._

"Sensei," Kaminari said after walking around the table and towards Aizawa. He paused and pursed his lips together for a moment, but then he straightened that hesitant expression out and made it more serious again like when he entered. "I would like to pull out of the Sports Festival," Kaminari said, and he bowed his head to the teacher whose eyes widened for a moment just like Midnight's except hers stayed open wide while her cheeks started getting red.

"You're withdrawing?" Aizawa asked in a low, stern voice. It made Kaminari flinch at the disapproving tone in it, and Kaminari lifted his head to see Aizawa glaring into his eyes. "Need I remind you the importance of this? Not only for the school, and for your own future as a hero to be seen, but in general too?"

"You don't," Kaminari started, "need to remind me." He paused and then said again while looking into Aizawa's eyes. "But I can't. Please remove me from the registry, or list, um, I don't know if there are withdrawal forms but I'll-"

"What's your reason for pulling out?" Aizawa asked in a low voice. _Only a few days to the Sports Festival. Is this why you waited until now to make the decision?_ Aizawa wondered while thinking of a certain short and furry principal. _Or is this as surprising to you, as it is for me?_

"I can't take part, if Zach can't either," Kaminari replied. "Zach might've broken the rules, but if he didn't, then I'd most likely be dead right now."

"You think Sazaki would want you giving up your place in the Sports Festival because of him?" Aizawa asked sternly. "You've been training hard for this."

"I know-" Kaminari started, then bowed his head again as he stared too fast and too loud right there. "But I just can't. I couldn't go out there, and give it my all, knowing Zach is watching. Knowing he can't take part, because he saved me, even though he knew he'd face consequences like this. Even though being in the Sports Festival, means a lot to him... And I ruined it for him last year too, because of my big mouth... and I just, I wouldn't represent U.A. well, Aizawa sensei. So please, accept my withdrawal."

Aizawa leaned back in his chair and kept frowning at the teenager bowed in front of him. He sighed and started scratching at his right cheek, wondering what to do here. "Well then, I can't force you to take part," Aizawa said. Kaminari lifted his head, and Aizawa turned back to his computer. "Don't regret this decision, Kaminari."

"I won't," Kaminari replied, and he bowed again quickly. "Thank you, Aizawa sensei." He turned around and started back for the door, glancing towards Midnight whose cheeks were red and who looked way too excited for the serious talk he just had with Aizawa.

"That's the kind of passion, I like!" Midnight whisper-yelled over to Aizawa with a hand cupped near her mouth when Kaminari was near the door. Kaminari's eyes widened and his lips curled up for a second, before he remembered what he just did and got a more solemn but determined look on his face. Aizawa just shook his head at Midnight's reaction, then he snapped his head to the door as he heard Kaminari say something in surprise that had his eyes opening wide. Midnight also turned back again and her eyes opened wide, and she got out of her seat this time while another student walked into the room.

Kirishima had his naturally sharp teeth clenched while walking into the office. Aizawa suspected what was about to happen, but that was not why he got out of his seat like Midnight just had. Before Kaminari closed the door behind him, after leaving and Kirishima walking in, Aizawa caught a glimpse outside that door, and the line of people standing there. "Sensei," Kirishima started, and Aizawa looked in closer at the boy in front of him now. Kirishima's face was steady despite the frustration on it, and he lowered his head a little before saying, "I don't want to take part in the Sports Festival. I'd like to, stay at the dorm that day."

 _This is..._ Midnight felt her heart start pounding and she tried desperately hard to stop from panting aloud. She spun back to the door and thought about the faces she saw lined up outside it. _How many were there? I didn't see them when Kaminari entered the room before, so did they all show up while he was in here? Is this planned? Or did each of them, on their own…_ Midnight's lips curled into a huge smile and she could not even think about the problems this might cause, leaving Aizawa as the only one in the room thinking about them.

 _What do I do, in a situation like this?_ Aizawa wondered, while sending Kirishima away. "Alright," was all he said, and the spiky haired boy spun away quickly to hide his expression from the teacher who was not even asking 'why?' _Guess I'll leave it up to the Principal._

* * *

Zach sat down at his seat in Class A with his gaze unfocused. He had his books out and was staring forward while Aizawa spoke, but he wasn't really listening to his homeroom teacher. It was the second day after being denied entrance into the Sports Festival, and Zach did not feel the need to pretend he was fine anymore. _It's been two days. So maybe they'll think it's something else. Everything else._

Zach's eyes were half-closed, and he had bags under them from the little amount of sleep he had been getting the last couple of nights. _I really can't do this. I'm bringing everyone down._ Zach didn't want to look around the room, but he felt like he was seeing even more depressed looks today than yesterday. _Just smile. It'll be over before I know it. Behind me. And the future will... unless they cancel my internship chances, or forbid me from leaving again. Smile. Just, smile,_ he told himself to do so half-heartedly, and that's all he managed while lowering his gaze back to his books. _I'm exhausted. Tired of, this. It seems like they're trying to tell me something. Maybe I should just..._ Zach lifted his head and looked at Aizawa who was saying something to the class about what they would be doing today. He stared into the dark haired teacher's eyes and felt a pang of guilt, _If I just, left because of it though. They'd blame... unless it really is their goal anyway..._

Aizawa stopped talking to the class earlier than he had initially planned. He stared into Zach's tired and depressed eyes and said, "Sazaki." The boy looking back at him did not react immediately, then his head lifted more and his eyes actually focused on the man facing him. "After some review, the faculty decided to allow you to take part in the Sports Festival. Be careful not to do anything in the next few days that'll lose you that privilege."

Zach blinked a couple of times, then his eyes started growing huge while he leaned back in his chair. He felt like he just got punched in the face as the information he just heard clicked in his head. Everyone in Class A gawked towards Zach and then Aizawa, and then Aizawa continued, "Anyway, Snipe'll be here in a few." He turned and started for the door, then he looked back and saw people trying hard to hold themselves back in their seats.

 _This is... I can't believe this..._ Zach lowered his shaking gaze to his desk that he put his hands over and stared at in utter shock. _Why? Why do this to me?! I'm a fucking mess over this! Were they just messing with me the whole-_

"Oh yeah," Aizawa continued, and he scratched the bottom of his right cheek while turning back to the class. "I brought your withdrawals to the principal, but he denied all of them. All of you have to take part in the Sports Festival." Aizawa turned back to the door while relieved looks covered the faces through Class A. He grinned once his face was away from his class, and once he was out the door he shook his head before walking away in a good mood. _But to think, not one of you would accept it..._

Zach was frozen with his eyes focused on his desk. He blinked a few more times while staring at it, the gears in his head slowly turning. He started turning his head to the right, his breathing picking up speed and his eyes opened huge. _Nothing good, ever..._

 _After I heard you thrashing your room over it,_ Sato thought while turning the other direction as he boy he was thinking of, grinning at Sero instead and saying how he was excited to get to show off his Super Move again.

 _We broke the rules to try and save you and Kacchan,_ Midoriya thought while glancing out the corners of his eyes, not looking Zach's way directly so he would think it was him. _We used Yaoyorozu's tracker even though it was against the rules, and nothing happened except we got scolded. For us to get away with it, even though we didn't save you, and for you to be punished like that... I hoped this would be the outcome, but we were prepared otherwise. At least, Uraraka, Iida, and I. Who else did?_

 _Whew, Aizawa sensei scared the crap out of me there,_ Kirishima thought with a bead of sweat rolling down his face. _Actually thought he might only let Zach back in. How many of the others backed out that they had to let us all back in? I know Kaminari and the people behind me..._ Kirishima grinned more and just leaned back in his chair. He turned to Zach and said across Kaminari's desk between them, "Guess we're back on for our fight, yeah?"

Zach stared at Kirishima with huge eyes. He darted them around the room at others who were all pretending not to be looking his way. _Things, good things don't… Why did I think something like that?_ Zach's lips started pulling up at the corners, and he forced away any tears trying to come to the surface because he saw the way everyone else was going to play this. _I'll never know who did and who didn't. It doesn't matter though. All of you, everyone here... I can't imagine leaving you again._ "Yeah," Zach responded to Kirishima, and grins around the room grew more. Zach smiled past Kaminari who had to keep staring down and pursing his lips to prevent from cracking the biggest grin of all, which just made it all the more obvious to Zach why he would be doing that. He could see Momo smiling in the back while looking his way out the corners of her eyes, and he focused on Kirishima whose face he saw relief on as well as a competitive look. Zach grinned competitively back at him, even as so many other emotions swirled in his chest, and he finished, "You're on."

* * *

 **A/N Thanks for reading! I just watched the Boku no Hero movie, and don't worry no spoilers coming here. Though I am super hyped after watching one of my favorite movies ever, really, it was that fucking good. Even though there were no English subtitles, I just watched it in a Shinjuku theater in Tokyo with a Godzilla statue over the top of it, but it was that great. Couldn't understand it all, but it was AMAZING! Alright, anywaY! So this chapter we've got Zach's class showing how much they appreciate their classmate who really thought he was fucked for the whole chapter, and his mindset goes from casual to depressed to top-mood in only one chapter that's actually a shorter chapter than usual. Hope you liked it though, and leave a review below telling me what you think!**

Guest chapter 54 . Aug 5

Will there be like another group of anti-heroes that will meet zach in the hero license exam kinda like it  
if they were all like the Phantom Troupe but good!

 **Once again, hero exam has gone way by at this point. We're already in the second year of U.A. at this point and all of 'em got their hero licenses. Whether or not there'll be more anti-heroes, or if the others will reappear, has yet to be seen! Hope you enjoyed the chapter!**

Guest chapter 55 . 14h ago

It's nice to see the conversations you created in this chapter  
I also liked the interaction between Kaminari and Zach from the training and the talk about relationships. Hopefully they can get the best out of both areas successfully in the future  
Great chapter as always!  
Really Glad I found your story!

 **Thanks! Glad you liked the Kaminari and Zach parts, and we can def see the friendship here not just with them but with the rest of the class too with them pulling out because of Zach as they tried to make sure he wasn't soloed out of the competition. Everyone manages to make it to the Sports Festival, and next chapter we get the first round! Thanks for the reviews, hope you enjoyed, and get ready for the SPORTS FESTIVAL!**


	57. Chapter 57

**Disclaimer: I don't own Boku no Hero Academia**

 **Chapter 57:**

"Well normally they'd have the first place from the previous year do the pledge," Jirou said. She turned her head and looked down a few people in their second year class before adding, "Guess they figured Bakugo'd make a mess of it again though."

"Can't go wrong with the diligent Iida," Kaminari remarked with a laugh as Iida stood up in front of them all to recite the pledge before the Sports Festival could start. "Plus they can give the excuse of class rep of the first class, like it was always supposed to be that way."

Zach grinned on Kaminari's left and then glanced over towards Bakugo himself. His eyes widened a bit then he turned back forward and stared at Iida with a more determined expression on his own face. _Bakugo doesn't care about this at all. He's already focused on winning everything. I should be too. They all got me this second chance. I can't get knocked out early, and let all their feelings go to waste. They were willing to back out, even though it means so much to all of them._ Zach's fists clenched at his sides and he took in a deep breath right as Iida finished his speech. _Everyone's stronger now. I am too, even without Nightmare. I learned that best while trying to teach Kaminari some moves. I know what will work best on my classmates now, know what moves to use on people not familiar with my new fighting styles. And I've planned moves against all of you, just in case you were spies. Even though I'm pretty sure now, it's gotta be someone in Class B._ Zach shook his head to wipe the smile from it even as he thought about the potential spy. He was in too good a mood though, and he clenched his fists harder while looking around at the stands full of thousands of cheering people.

 _Time to show everyone what I can do. Even without my Quirk. As just Zach Sazaki… And as…_ Zach's smile faltered a little but he shook his head again and kept a steady gaze on his face. _Lifebringer. Lifebringer. People are watching just to see me. I know that. I know people want to see me in action. I need to show them me acting heroic. I can't lose. For them. To help people. To save people. If I could create a symbol, like All Might…_ Zach refocused and turned around with the others near him to head off of the field to prepare for the first round.

Up at the top of the stands on one section of the giant arena, All Might stared down towards Class A and specifically a boy with curly green hair. He sat on Snipe's left side and Power Loader's right, and he was leaning forward with a smile on his face. _Show them, Young Midoriya._ All Might's hands clenched down on his knees and he was getting excited already just from the look he saw on Izuku Midoriya's face down during the pledge. All Might's eyes shifted over to the right a little from the boy he had been watching, and his mouth lifted into a different kind of smile. _I'm glad, you were allowed to take part._

"Wonder what the first round is going to be," All Might said while leaning back in his seat.

"You don't know?" Snipe asked the man next to him in surprise. He and Power Loader both looked in to see the scrawny man with pushed-back blond hair reach up and scratch the back of his head.

"I have been a little busy recently," All Might replied sheepishly as he knew he should have been more prepared for this. _Young Midoriya was very intent on speeding up his training… Though I should not let that get in the way of my duties as a teacher. However it is a good excuse too! If I had learned what was coming in advance, I may have subconsciously been preparing him for specifics that his classmates would not have known! That's it!_ All Might nodded his head as he rationalized it to himself, then Power Loader spoke up.

"Well you're in for a treat then. Thought everybody knew about it already, but check this out," Power Loader leaned forward and looked down towards the arena where Mother Russia was floating off the center of the stage. A new teacher who was acting as a referee during her first year at U.A., Mother Russia sensei wore all red including a red bandanna at the top of her long whitish-blond hair. She looked up towards Power Loader and nodded at him, and All Might watched the exchange in confusion as to what Power Loader was going to do. The woman floating over the arena headed after all the students and flew into the tunnel they just went down.

"Where do you think you're all going?" Mother Russia called down in a thick Russian accent. She landed down on the other side of the second years almost outside of the stadium and forced all the students to stop.

Iida stared at the tall, muscular, broad-shouldered woman in front of him in a bit of confusion. Ashido leaned forward around some general studies' students in front of her and called out, "Aren't we going outside? You said to leave the arena-"

"Just the arena, not the entire stadium," Mother Russia said, and all the students started turning around at that same time. They turned, because of the loud clanking they heard coming from behind them and then the loud cheers and shocked voices of the audience back in the main arena. "Last year your obstacle course was around the outside of the stadium. The first event this year is going to be a little different." The students started heading back towards the exit of the tunnel into the arena, but none of them could leave the hallway they all just stood at the edge of.

The very end of the tunnel started to get wider, with the walls just at the end of the hall pulling back into the wall around the entire circular arena past them. All around the arena the walls started pushing back, though the audience in their seats did not move even if the walls started pulling away right below them. People in the front rows leaned forward and looked down in even more amazement as the ground was vanishing from beneath the bleachers. Everyone else though, was focused straight into the arena's center that was also pulling apart. A circular gap opened in the middle of the arena floor, the stage sank down into the floor and then started sliding back along with the metal plates that turned out to be beneath the stadium, and everyone gawked towards an opening that grew ten to a hundred meters in diameter in a few seconds.

"What is, going…" Zach could finally move up enough to see as the students who had been behind him at the start of the tunnel spread out to start moving around the outsides of the arena. He walked right up to the tunnel's exit and stared into the huge hole that had almost spread to the edges of the arena, or what the edges used to be and where they were for the bleachers. The walls on the first level of the arena stopped pulling back after fifteen feet, and the floor where those walls had just been was marked every ten meters with a black 'X.' Zach glanced around the outsides of the new arena floor that was so thin and narrow compared to the black hole in the center, and he focused on some of those black 'X's only to get even more confused. _If there's one for every person… that's not enough space-_

 _ **BrrmmBrrmmBrmBrmBrmBu-Du-Bu-Du-Bu-Du…**_ Everyone standing near the edge of the tunnel or around the edges of the hole from near it started leaning forward even more as these sounds came out of the black hole in the ground. All the people on the bleachers, families, pro heroes, and even a member of the U.A. faculty who was as amazed as everyone else leaned forwards. They stared into the center of the hole where it became visible first. Anyone leaning in at the front rows of the bleachers started pulling back, and all the students at the ledge pulled away too, as the thing rising from the ground was doing so fast. The middle shot up first, a flat square surface thirty meters long by thirty meters wide. Then the drops, steep descents for over thirty feet down where it looked difficult to climb shot up past the people trying to get good looks at this massive formation surfacing in the middle of the arena.

All Might's bottom lip lowered, and his eyes started rising as the top of the form lifted even above him at the top of the bleachers. It was thin enough at the top compared to the size of the arena, and the descent was sharp enough for a long enough distance down, that the creation for the first round of the tournament was no longer a structure. _It's, a mountain,_ All Might and a few million other people thought while staring at the rising mountain coming out of the ground.

"That's U.A. for you, huh?" A sheepish boy in general studies muttered to his best friend on his right side.

Zach heard them behind him but was staring with such wide eyes at the _still_ -rising mountain in front of him that he was barely listening. The boy's friend on the other side of Zach's back muttered in a deeper voice a response, "There's a limit to how crazy they can get. It's the first round, but they know we all have to go at it… Still probably won't make it more than a quarter of the way up though."

Zach's eyes narrowed and he stopped staring in as much awe as the people around him. _That's right. Focus. Everyone thinks this is crazy, but everyone's still going to climb it. What was that metal section below the steep drops? There were lines cutting through it looking like they could open up. Something's hiding inside the mountain. Or maybe it's just traps? Could they pour slimy substances out of there and try and make us slip? Or maybe robots? I could totally see… robots…_ Zach's eyes opened wide again as he stared up towards the top of the huge mountain in front of him. A loud clank and the fact that the edge of the outer ring was now connected with the start of a rocky ascent meant that the mountain was at its full height now, more than two and a half times as tall as the stadium itself. As soon as it reached that full height though, all of the metal panels on the section of the mountain wrapping around it at three-quarters of its height started opening up, and large metal hands reached out and grabbed the mountain outside.

The two boys behind Zach took steps back, bumping into others who had similar looks on their faces as they stared up towards the robots. People in the audience were staring up at them with wide eyes too, and Endeavor narrowed his own from where he was standing up at the top of the bleachers in one section. "Those aren't…" he muttered, and he hummed as he stared at the design of the blue and green robots that looked similar to monsters he had fought before. His head turned to the right and he looked up towards the U.A. staff box.

All Might's eyes widened too as he stared towards the robots coming out of the mountain to protect its summit. He turned to Power Loader, and he said, "Have you finished them?"

"That's right," the hero with a big yellow helmet over his head said. "Principal wanted them done by the new school year, but it took us a little longer. Trust me though, those things don't just look like Nomus." All Might turned his head back and looked up towards the robots that had muscular appearances forged into them, their joints were barely visible, and their eyes glowed red with scanners built into them that made each of the robots that just appeared lower their heads down towards the edges of the mountain's base. They all looked down, and then the robotic creatures of different sizes between seven and twelve feet tall started marching down the metal slope they had appeared on. One of them started running down, but it came to a stop and skid on steel feet that brought up sparks from its speed, stopping right at the edge of that steel section and glaring down towards the main tunnel where over a hundred students stared back into its eyes.

"Our Anti-Nomu-Terminators, or Ants," Mother Russia called out while flying back over the students and hovering above the base of the mountain on the south side where they were all standing. She continued while turning her head and looking up towards them, "Have been programmed to target only you students. They have safety parameters, of course," she added, then she narrowed her eyes down and flexed with a smirk on her face. "But if you enter their territory thinking lightly of them, you will _not_ come to regret it," she said it and grinned down at the children whose eyes opened wide at that threat. Most of the people not considering their chances of making it to the second round suddenly no longer had any urge to try to get past halfway up the mountain. It already looked hard enough to climb with barely any places to just run up the mountain, too many jutting rocks and steep surfaces no matter what path one could try to take up.

Outside of the arena, Mt. Lady and Kamui Woods looked up over the top of the stadium's exterior with wide eyes themselves. They were on security duty along with a lot of other heroes, and Kamui Woods, or Shinji Nishiya, said as they looked towards the metal section visible even without looking at the screens, "Ants?" He thought of what an ant looking like compared to the beasts he had fought in Camino Ward, and then he wondered what the metal ones that looked similar but with brighter colors yet still scary could possibly do. _Why make them look like the Nomus?_

"Ohh," Mt. Lady whispered worriedly after looking back at the huge tv screen on the outside of the stadium. The woman in her fully purple uniform with purple horns and a matching mask put her hands together in front of her chest as she saw one of the camera angles focus back down on the students staring at their daunting first challenge of the day. She focused on one boy who was at the front of the main area at the edge of the tunnel, and she added with a small smile, "You can do it."

"Picking favorites?" Kamui asked the woman on his side.

"Don't worry," Mt. Lady said, smirking and turning back to the man next to her. She winked at him and said, "You'll always be my second favorite hero."

Kamui Woods sighed and shook his head, "We're on security. Let's focus." He turned the other way as the big tv screen and kept his eyes open for any possible villain attacks. Yu Takeyama humphed on his side while turning herself, then Shinji smiled behind his wooden mask. _Though I suppose I will also be rooting for the boy who brought you back._

Inside the stadium, Mother Russia flew down so she was floating just in front of the pack of students. When she spoke, her voice echoed around the stadium and around the country, as well as everyone overseas who was watching this as well. The U.A. Sports Festival had become bigger than the Olympics, and millions around the world were invested in what they were seeing. The stations that were recording knew that more people than ever before were tuning in, watching the greatest hero institution in the world's biggest public event of the year. Even though they did not know for sure though, the U.A. faculty and most of its students realized this as well. "The rules of the first event are simple. If you reach the summit quicker than your competitors, you will make it into the second round. If you are too slow, you will fail. If you do not make it, you will fail. If your partner does not make it, you will fail."

Everyone nodding their heads along with her got confused by that last part. Zach's eyes darted back to his right, and he hummed as he thought about the number of black 'X's before he thought did not add up. _If we all have partners though… Alright. I like this._ A smile spread on Zach's face as Mother Russia paused her thickly-accented instructions for a moment. She continued after the students reacted to her last statement, "That is right. You will all be choosing a partner to complete the course with."

Bakugo frowned and grumbled under his breath in annoyance. He was already liking the idea of this race as he could see he had a clear advantage over the competition, just as Mother Russia would have thanks to her flight capabilities. _It's just about getting past those robots,_ he thought, reminding himself it as he started looking around at the others near him. _But,_ his lips twisted back into a smirk, _it doesn't have to be…_

"You have five minutes to grab a partner and find an empty space around the arena. The longer you take to pick a partner, the worse a spot you will get, and all of you should be able to see that there are places that are disadvantageous to begin at." Mother Russia said it, and then the giant television screens on all four sides of the top of the bleachers turned on a five minute timer. "Go," she said in a deep, husky voice.

Up in the commentator's booth, Present Mic shouted, "And look at them go! Not even started with the first round yet and they're already pushing and shoving just to get to the starting lines! YOWW!"

"In previous years there was a focus on pushing competition back because heroes needed to do the same in the real world," Aizawa said, and Mic turned in to look at his fellow commentator for the second year in a row. "With more hero teams forming, less rookies are having trouble sticking out on their own, instead joining up with other heroes. Two of the events for first year students last year were individual activities. But things change. Those who struggle at working in groups are going to find it more difficult to get by after graduation these days."

"Which is why both members of a team have got to get to the flat top of the mountain!" Present Mic shouted in agreement with Aizawa's commentary. "Working together, getting it done fast, and both making it through! Focus on that 'fast' part though, who knows how many of you are going to be moving on to round TWO!?"

"Come on, over there," Zach pointed to an 'X' as he ran around the outside of the mountain's base.

Kaminari lifted his head and looked in from the spot Zach pointed to, then he spun back and called forward, "You sure? There are better spots still open!"

"It's not as much about what's above," Zach said, and he ran around a couple of girls jogging the exterior in not-as-rushed a way. They both looked in at Zach in surprise as he darted by them only to stop at the next marking over like he was worried they were going to try and take it. They both looked up and then got even more confused as the mountain looked steeper just in front of them without many easy routes to take without moving to the sides first. Kaminari ran up behind Zach who turned to him and said, "Mother Russia sensei said there were spots that are disadvantageous, but I don't think she really means the geography on the way up. Or, at least not mainly."

Zach glanced to his right, then his left, at the two spots on the sides of the marker he stopped at which already had students at them. Kaminari looked both ways too and his eyes widened before he grinned at what Zach was saying. "Got some randoms around us," Kaminari said in a lower voice, not wanting the four guys from the general studies' classes to hear him. "Don't have to worry about fighting anyone off this far down?"

"Exactly," Zach replied. He leaned back a little and looked around the students in blue uniforms stretching it out near them, and Kaminari did the same to see who else was visible from their position around the mountain base. Zach's eyes narrowed on his left, thinking about a group they would probably bump into as the mountain got narrower the farther up they went. _Hatsume and, probably someone from her class,_ Zach did not recognize the other person, but he started grinning after a second. _Alright who else? Who is that past them… too far around the bend._ _I should be speaking aloud,_ "Hey Kaminari," Zach began. He turned the other way and continued, "We should move up and to the left. There's not going to be as much of a problem as if we get near the others on the right."

Kaminari nodded in agreement with a glance back to his right side, then he turned to Zach who reached down and pulled a grappling gun off of his right side. "They really let you bring it in then?" the blond asked.

"Had to prove I made it myself, and there was some argument since students in the hero course get special training," Zach began. "But when I told them I wouldn't be using my Quirk at all, they allowed it."

"You told them?" Kaminari asked in surprise. He glanced up towards the commentators' booth where he knew Aizawa was, and he added, "What'd they say?"

Zach opened his mouth to respond, but his eyes darted away from that booth and towards one of the tv's still counting down the last minute and a half they had to set up around the mountain. On those screens were the same countdowns, but those got smaller as the bottom halves of the screens started showing a different number. Kaminari looked up too, and most of the others around the mountain who were already situated lifted their gazes as well before Mother Russia called out over the speakers. "You will have twenty minutes to complete this round. If the time limit runs out and you and your partner have yet to crest the summit, it will not matter what place you are in, you will be disqualified."

"Twenty minutes, huh?" Kaminari said and hummed to himself. He glanced in at Zach to see what he thought of that, but his eyebrows lifted up and he looked at his friend in confusion at Zach's wide-eyed look. "You don't think we can do it in twenty?" Kaminari asked, a bead of sweat rolling down the side of his face.

"It's not…" Zach began. He stopped himself and darted his gaze from the screens over to the area all the teachers were sitting at, then to the commentators' booth. _What are they thinking?_ "We'll have to," Zach finally replied. _What if no one makes it that early? What do you plan to do in a situation like that? Show everyone that the new class of heroes can't handle… Or do you have that much faith we'll be able to do it? Even up against, those?_ Zach's eyes narrowed closer to the mountain's top and around the metal surface covering from almost three quarters of the way up to the steepest drops just around the flat summit. _We'll just, have to do it._

Kaminari nodded after Zach's expression got really determined, then he said, "So how are we doing this?"

"I've got an idea," Zach responded, and Kaminari nodded as he already expected as much when Zach asked him to be his partner. _Didn't think you'd ask me just 'cause we're pals,_ Kaminari thought with a grin, a grin that started lowering as Zach explained his idea.

Twenty spaces down on Zach's left, around the side of the mountain on its west side, Izuku Midoriya and Ochaco Uraraka prepared themselves with Uraraka grabbing onto Midoriya's sides. The boy in front of her had his knees bent and a determined look on his face as he stared up the mountain, much more focused than the girl with a pink face who had just made herself weightless and was getting ready to make Midoriya as light too. _It'll be an instant,_ Midoriya thought, his whole body tensing up as he saw the countdown reach forty seconds. Mother Russia called out that as soon as the first countdown hit 0, the other one would start and they all had to make a break for the summit.

 _To be first place. To tell everyone I'm here._ Midoriya let out a deep breath and his fists unclenched at his sides even as he bent his knees some more. Uraraka looked in at the side of his face from his back and her eyes opened wide at how serious and ready he looked. She shook her head around and lost the shade to it, getting a determined one as well even as she held onto her crush's sides. "Let's win, Deku!" Uraraka called out.

"Yeah!" Midoriya agreed in a firm and loud voice.

On their right one space away, Jirou and Koda looked towards the two of them and Jirou's eyes widened a bit at how intense the two of them both looked. Her eyes widened more as she realized what they were about to do, and Jirou muttered, "How are we supposed to beat that?" She glanced at Koda who shrugged his shoulders and held up his palms with a look saying 'No idea.'

Jirou and Koda were not the only two who paired up with their partners from the final exam the first term. Across the mountain from their group, on its east side and just a little to the south of middle, Todoroki and Yaoyorozu were setting up and looked serious with the twenty-five seconds they had remaining. Yaoyorozu's skis finished forming. she had boots on her feet, and she had a flame retardant suit on over most of her body with her lifting the helmet now and shoving her ponytail into it. The ground around the base of the mountain in their area was already full of ice, though it did not spread out from under the bleachers yet. It was encroaching on the spaces to either side of them though, and a pair from the support course and one of a Class B student and general studies' kid were hating that they took too long to pair up and wound up getting stuck next to Todoroki.

Shihai Kuroiro grimaced and glanced in at the boy next to him with indigo spiky hair who had just as annoyed a look on his face. "Oi, Todoroki," Hitoshi Shinso called over to the boy in the hero course. "I heard you like boys."

Todoroki's head snapped to the right and his eyes widened a bit. Yaoyorozu lifted a hand and covered his mouth quickly, shaking her head at the boy who nodded back at her. He was more surprised than anything at Shinso's attempt, and he stayed silent while looking back straight forward. The spiky haired boy who failed frowned and shrugged at Kuroiro who sighed as it was a last ditch effort with twenty seconds left. Shinso grimaced as the main weaknesses of his Quirk had been revealed in the previous Sports Festival. _Each of the hero course ones I managed to get all got 'accidentally' bumped by their classmates._ Shinso glanced next to him at the boy with the Black Quirk who was the one to come up to him finally after half the preparation time had passed already.

"If we get past the first leg," Kuroiro said softly, and Shinso saw the dark boy's thin mouth open just a bit as he spoke. It was not loud enough for the teams on their sides to hear, and Kuroiro finished, "It'll work better. Everyone can see it coming right now. You have to call out fake warnings before they see you."

"Hmph," Shinso grunted, but he nodded his head afterwards and bent his knees as well, then stepped a little farther away from where Todoroki was standing.

Directly on the northernmost side of the mountain's base, Bakugo and Kirishima were standing ready with thirteen seconds left until the round began. They had sped around the mountain to be the first ones on the complete opposite side of the tunnel, and no one had wanted to get near their spot except for one team who came close and set up with only one gap on Bakugo's right side between them. Sero and Ashido were grinning towards the other two who had been members of their Cavalry Battle team the previous year. _We'll follow their path right through the ANTs,_ the two of them thought while turning away to avoid Kirishima's gaze as the redhead looked over past a pair of general studies students from different classes with terrible powers who had to match together in the final minute and had to get right up next to the previous year's winner.

 _Deku's with Uraraka. It's going to be an instant._ "Alright, now," Bakugo said, and he bent down to one knee.

"Let's do it," Kirishima said, and he climbed up on Bakugo's back while the others around them all looked towards them in confusion. Bakugo grunted but shifted to get Kirishima in a good position over him, then Bakugo pointed both of his palms down at his sides and his fingers started curling in.

"Oh crap!" Sero shouted, right as the timer reached zero.

The general studies' students who were close to Bakugo and Kirishima on either side sprinted for cover, while Sero fired one line of tape out of his left elbow around Ashido, and the other up at a rock above them sticking out of the mountain he had planned on going to first. He shot the two of them off the ground with Ashido gasping as she was suddenly yanked away, then yelling out like everyone around them as Bakugo fired a huge explosion to throw him and Kirishima straight up in the air. The blast was not so massive that it blew away everyone else in the starting area, but the second one made Sero release the tape he had fired forward and for him and Ashido to crash down on the mountain as Bakugo's biggest explosion got in the way.

Bakugo felt his wrists hurting, but he smirked and shouted, "Do it!"

They were already flying up like a rocket, and Kirishima yelled back, "GOT IT!" His mouth and eyes were flapping in the wind, but they suddenly stopped as the boy looking straight up hardened his face as well as his arms he rose from Bakugo's shoulders and crossed over his head. Bakugo grabbed Kirishima's legs with his hurting arms, but he kept grinning as Kirishima yelled, "UNBREAKABLE MISSILE!" His legs stayed feeling the same as did most of his body, but his arms hardened to a point that he knew he would smash right through the ANT directly above them.

"And two teams have already passed the halfway point!" Present Mic shouted, making ninety percent of the people who just ran forward from the starting point drop their jaws.

"Seriously?!" Kaminari exclaimed.

"Focus on the landing!" Zach yelled out in a more strained voice than his blond friend. Kaminari glanced up and saw Zach's face scrunched up, and it got worse when Zach tugged his left arm up right as they were reaching the hook that he had fired and locked in a rock sticking out of the top of the steep part just in front of them. "You're heavier than I accounted for," Zach muttered as they each grabbed onto the ledge and started pulling themselves up. "Or I overestimated my strength outside of Nightmare," he muttered while standing back up on the little ledge and swinging his grappling gun to dislodge the hook.

Zach lifted his head up as Present Mic shouted about Team Mido-raka and Team Baku-shima about to be reaching the ANT region. It had only been a few seconds, but both of those teams were already higher than the top of the bleachers so most of the audience was focused up on them. "How are we supposed to catch them?" Kaminari said while shaking his head. He started jogging forward and then reached up to grab a section above to climb onto as the mountain was only gradual for a small part of the slope near them.

"Don't worry," Zach said, running up himself and jumping to his right, kicking a part of the brown rocky mountain sticking out then pushing all his weight against it to bounce up to the part Kaminari was already standing on instead of using his arm muscles to climb up to it. "Come on, let's do another jump," he said, holding his left arm out.

Kaminari nodded and reached back to grab high up on Zach's arm, and Zach grabbed around the top of Kaminari's arm too. Zach pointed the grappling gun up and fired, while Kaminari asked, "What do you mean?"

At the same time Kaminari asked, the two teams farthest up just reached the Anti-Nomu-Terminators. One group was lifting up far away from the actual slope of the mountain, but that did not matter to the robot that fired jets out of the soles of its feet and shot over where Midoriya and Uraraka were rising. The other that Bakugo and Kirishima were flying straight at scanned how fast they were moving and how hard Kirishima was, and it moved out of the way in a swift movement that had Kirishima turning his head to the right below his arms with wide eyes. Bakugo grit his teeth but the corners of his lips curled up, _Obviously._ He let go of Kirishima's legs and yelled, "Land!" Kirishima realized he was being released and listened to Bakugo, hardening the rest of his body though not as hard as Unbreakable, and not as hard as his usual Hardening which he could not do while using his Super Move on only part of his body. The ANT that moved to the side slammed a fist down towards Kirishima's back, but an explosion slammed the robot in the stomach as Bakugo swung his right hand over immediately after dropping Kirishima.

A steel fist flew through the flames, but the other explosion Bakugo fired not an instant after was aimed at Kirishima and blew his hardened back farther from the arm that was barely slowed by Bakugo's first blast. Bakugo's consecutive blasts also worked at pushing him backwards and he landed right at the edge of the metal section but below it on a tall rock sticking out. He grinned and blasted small explosions from his hands a couple of times while glaring at the robot that started flying with jets coming out of its feet, then his eyes opened wider as that robot shot down towards him passing right over the line splitting regions. "Whoa!" Present Mic shouted. "What gives with that?!"

"Seems once you've been targeted, it doesn't matter if you retreat below their initial range," Aizawa replied. "It's not good for a team to be separated like this so early on. It should also be known that if a contestant is taken out of commission, their team loses. No carrying unconscious teammates over the summit."

Bakugo snarled and fired big explosions behind him to send him flying straight at the robot, then he pointed his hands down and maneuvered around it, firing himself farther up towards Kirishima who got to his feet on a shiny silver slant only to snap his head left and right seeing speedy eight-foot tall ANTs zipping towards him on wheels that scraped up sparks on the metal surface. The twelve foot tall one spun around with a wave of its right arm that fired yellow flames out of it, and Bakugo darted his gaze over his shoulder to see how fast the big one redirected itself. "Keep going!" Bakugo shouted, while flying straight at Kirishima's back.

 _Disadvantage of being first,_ Midoriya thought while he stood panting with Uraraka clinging on his back, in the middle of a circle of ANTs. _There are so many of them, and no one else up here except Kacchan and Kirishima! I thought it would only be a few…_ Some of the ANTs charged, while others moved farther up in the path between of the team at the front and the summit.

"They're called Anti- _Nomus_ ," Zach said as he and Kaminari landed again. Zach swung his left arm around in a few circles then reached out for Kaminari to take it again, despite that arm already feeling sore. The grappling gun was doing most of the work so all he had to do was hold Kaminari's weight for the ride up, but his right arm was straining a bit too just holding onto the gun. Kaminari nodded while grabbing Zach's arm, though they both looked back towards one of the big screens again at the sight of two main camera angles showing the front two teams being swarmed by the Nomu-lookalike robots. "Robots designed to fight Nomus. If that's actually their real purpose, then we shouldn't have a chance against them. Most of us anyway," Zach corrected himself.

"Even Bakugo and Midoriya?" Kaminari wondered, right before Zach fired another precise hook up into a snag farther up than the previous two. Kaminari and Zach both grinned, then Zach ran to the left a little before jumping off the ledge and pressing a button on the gun in his right hand at the same time.

They swung up and to the left, as Zach had noticed another team rising fast below them and on the right. "Bakugo _and_ Midoriya, probably could," Zach said quietly. Kaminari's eyes widened, and Zach added afterwards, "But even then, I'm talking about if the two of them were just facing one. They were too busy trying to be first-"

"Everyone wants to be first," Kaminari said, then he grabbed Zach's arm harder as it felt like his friend was losing some grip on his arm. Zach winced as he felt Kaminari's weight worse with the swinging around too as well as rising. Kaminari continued after strengthening his grip, and lifting his left hand and both knees to get ready for landing on a gently sloped surface. "Don't you too?"

"I do," Zach said. "But rushing it would kill my arms, and probably us too," he added in a more serious way, as the first part was just a joke to try and relieve the pain in his arms as he and Kaminari took a few breaths down on their knees. He lifted his head after saying it, and he said while looking higher up the mountain towards where he saw Iida and Juroda Shishida from Class B racing up the mountain near each other. They were up ahead and to the left, and Zach knew they must have been a few places out of his sight back around the base considering they were not even halfway up yet. Zach looked past them, then added as he saw a huge spike of ice rise up above and on his right. _Momo's already at that section,_ Zach thought, a slightly worried look forming on his face that he shook away after a second. "Listen Kaminari, they made this out to be a race. Present Mic added that bit about making extra sure we were fast, but I'm pretty sure he did that to mess with us."

"I don't get it," Kaminari said. "Why would they-"

"Remember what Aizawa sensei said?" Zach asked.

"Hey Zach!" A voice called up from down below and on Zach's left. He looked down with Kaminari, and they saw a girl with long pink hair and a pair of goggles on grinning as she stared up at them. "And the other guy," she added, and Kaminari dropped his bottom lip as Hatsume had helped him improve his costume not that long ago. "Think you can take a break without me catching up? My babies are too fast!" Her jetpack shot out more flames that brightened and turned blue as she held down buttons in her hands.

She shot up to their level, and Zach looked down below her before sweatdropping just like Kaminari. _Knew it. Hatsume's always been a bit, selfish._ "You gave your partner some of your equipment to help her out?" Zach called over right as Hatsume Mei was passing by.

"Of course!" Hatsume called back, before looking down and lowering her smile as she saw her classmate struggling with the four spider-legs she was trying to use to race up the mountain. They were meant to be all-terrain, and the girl in them was not falling, but her actual legs were dangling off the ground and she had a look of panic on her face as she stumbled to the right and then the left while trying to lean her body up and forward. "Suzuki! What are you doing?" Hatsume spun around and flew back down the mountain, yelling out instructions to her classmate who was using this gear for the first time.

 _Saw her taking it off before to give to her teammate. That means she meant to have both of those on her, and together and being used by their creator, you'd probably be flying ahead of us right now._ "What Aizawa sensei said?" Kaminari repeated what Zach said, turning and looking up towards the commentators' box at the top of the stadium. Present Mic was shouting out about all the different kinds of ANTs and the different battles going on up at that section, and Kaminari's eyes shot open wide before he spun back to Zach. "You mean-"

"Yeah," Zach said, nodding back at his friend. "Come on, let's start moving up on our own. We'll run and climb up to there," he pointed towards a flat surface right next to what looked like an 89 degree angle it was so almost-straight-up. "I'll fire a hook at the top of it, and we shouldn't be too far from the ANT section after." Zach was running before he even finished talking, and Kaminari started running with him. Present Mic shouted out that a minute had passed, the crowds cheered all around the stadium, and a huge explosion went off on the other side of the mountain that made Zach and Kaminari pause to steady themselves for a second from.

"Think Bakugo could destroy the mountain for us?" Kaminari joked, while he was on his hands and knees at a seventy degree angle climbing up using the best handholds and footholds he could grab.

"The inside _is_ hollow," Zach started. "At least a bit of it, if those robots came from inside." He shook his head around, continuing to climb and thinking, _But they would have planned for any attacks we could use. This mountain won't break- oh crap!_ "Crap, they caught up," Zach said, darting his eyes down and to the right where another team was almost at them and practically right below. Their paths had gotten closer together with the mountain now less than half its width from the base where they were climbing.

"Let's do it early," Zach said. "I can make the shot," _I hope._ Zach stopped climbing and tried steadying himself on the steep-slanted surface. He reached his left hand out while focusing his right with the grappling gun in it, right as a girl hopping up the mountain jumped up to the flat surface he and Kaminari had been heading to themselves. He fired, Kaminari grabbed him by the hand, and they shot up towards the top of the steep wall in front of Tsuyu.

"Gero," Tsuyu Asui lifted her head and Kaminari looked down and winked at her.

"See ya," he said with a grin on his face.

The boy on Tsuyu's back frowned up at Kaminari, and he reached to the top of his head, letting go of one of the purple balls stuck on Tsuyu's back. "I don't think so," Mineta said, aiming carefully before throwing the Pop Off ball up the steep slope.

"Wonder why Tsuyu let Mineta ride along?" Kaminari wondered as he and Zach grabbed onto the ledge the hook was connected just above.

"He's small and light," Zach reasoned, while struggling to pull himself up after just carrying Kaminari up there and having to hoist him a little higher to the ledge. He was panting while holding on, but he bent his elbows and grit his teeth, ignoring the pain as he pulled up. To ignore it better he kept thinking about Kaminari's question, and he added, "Tsuyu alone has great mobility, ah, so not having to rely on a partner's ability to keep up," he paused again while pulling himself up more, then Zach's eyes opened wide and he stared down at the sharp hook jammed into the ground in front of them.

"What is- oh man," Kaminari was on his knees but he brought a hand up into his hair, then he turned and glared down calling out, "Not cool!"

"Hahaha!" Mineta shouted, while Zach struggled to pull his grappling gun up while the hook was stuck on the floor by one of Mineta's Pop Off balls. Mineta did not throw a bunch to mess with the competition that much, but without Zach's grappling hook the short boy figured they would pass them easily. "Eat our dust!"

Zach lifted his gun while standing up fully, and he clicked a button on the side of it that released the hook from the wire and made the wire retract the rest of the way into the gun. Zach reached back and to his waist, and he pulled out a folded-in hook that he pressed a button on the bottom of that made three sharp prongs stick out. Mineta's eyes widened while Tsuyu hopped them up on a slightly gentler slope to the right of where Zach and Kaminari were standing. "You had more?" Kaminari asked in surprise too, though he was grinning from it.

"'Course," Zach replied, while darting his eyes after Mineta and narrowing them in a threatening way. Mineta's eyes bulged and he snapped his head forward, calling out for Tsuyu to go faster. Zach grinned after Mineta started panicking, then he turned back to Kaminari and said, "Let's move." He turned and pointed the fixed grappling gun up the mountain and also farther away from Tsuyu and Mineta who were their biggest competition around.

"Sure you can keep carrying me?" Kaminari asked.

"You'll be pulling the weight once we reach the ANTs," Zach replied, as there was no need to wonder about Kaminari's question. It was not about whether or not he _could_ do it, but that the time was running down and they _needed_ to keep moving. "We waited for long enough," Zach added, as he saw Mineta and Tsuyu reaching a point that was going to be beyond what their next stop with the grappling gun was. _Last sharp hook, the other two are for combat. Was stupid not to have both with both costumes,_ he thought, then fired his hook up again.

Farther around the west side of the mountain slope and lower down, Koda paused for a second and put Jirou down next to him. The large boy backed up while Jirou crouched and pressed her palms into the floor and stuck her earphone jacks into her forearms. She smirked and called out, "Heartbeat Fuzz!" The mountain up from them had gotten steeper, but there were still three other teams above the halfway point that they had yet to reach. Most of those teams lost their balance and started falling off the loosened and cracking pieces of mountain, though at the front of the pack, a blond boy and green haired girl both jumped up right before the ground would have cracked.

Monoma and Shiozaki swung their thick vines of hair up and grabbed onto a piece of the mountain beyond Jirou's range, pulling themselves up to it just before the metal section started. Monoma turned his head back to taunt the girl far below for not reaching them, but Koda picked up Jirou again and the large boy was jumping forward using the easiest to stand on chunks of rock that dislodged from the mountain, occasionally dodging rocks rolling down around them. Monoma decided against taunting the Class A students who were gaining on him, and he refocused up on a single ANT that was taller than all the others they had seen so far.

"What shall we do about this Monoma?" Shiozaki questioned in a soft voice. She looked left and right to see who else was around them, and there were two other teams who had yet to enter the steel area above where they would be targeted by ANTs from then until the end of the round.

"No one's made it through yet," Monoma began softly back to her, as he glanced to the left and saw a team of Class A students reaching the section not far from them. He tssked at the sight of them, _We can't stay here for long._ He looked up and frowned more though, at the sight of Midoriya and Uraraka getting separated by a ten-foot tall ANT that had cannon arms firing jets of water out at the students. "The Anti-Nomus have various abilities, likely because the Nomus have shown to have several Quirks themselves. Try to locate ones we can use your Quirk against best…"

Around the mountain on the exact opposite side, a steel shield dented in and a girl yelled out in pain. "Yaoyorozu!" Todoroki called out, spinning his head and lifting his left arm towards the robot that snapped its head to him seeing the flames rising on his palm. The robot shot back higher up on the mountain, while Todoroki forced ice out of his right foot and down below where Yaoyorozu was falling. He formed it in a curve so that when the busty girl fell she slid down into a slower stop. His eyes widened and he started turning his head more to the left as the wall of ice he had created cracked all the way through, then all he could do was make a thinner wall of ice in between him and those chunks that also shattered though slowing the bigger pieces. He crossed his arms as the ice crashed into him, and he stumbled backwards landing on a rough patch of rocks that he barely had time to glance at to check his footing.

"Got it," Sato called out down below, running up in front of Shoji and then yelling out as he punched his fists forward rapidly into a rolling huge piece of ice. Sato smashed through it, but Shoji still had to smack his right three arms to the side to knock away a piece of icy debris. Sato started panting after he finished smashing, and he reached down and pulled out another sugar cube from his pocket to toss in his mouth. "RaaaAAAA!" Sato flexed in his blue gym uniform and then started sprinting up the mountain again, grabbing handholds so hard he sometimes ripped them right out and smashed through the rocks.

Shoji lifted his left top arm and an eye formed at the end of it, darting around past Todoroki and Yaoyorozu, to see another two teams had gone past them. Those teams of Class B students tried sneaking by as all the ANTs in the area focused on Todoroki and Yaoyorozu, but most of the ANTs turned back to focus on students farther towards the summit, and the rest of them shot higher up now too as Todoroki had gone even farther down to check on a wounded Yaoyorozu.

"Hold on Sato," Shoji began, a mouth forming on the arm below where his eye just appeared. "I think I-" Shoji's eyes widened and his arm mouth grimaced, as a sugar-crazed Sato kept sprinting up the mountain. "Listen for a second," Shoji called out and ran up after him.

"Bakugo above you!" Kirishima called out, and he jumped backwards while crossing his arms in front of his chest. His arms hardened, and the ANT punched even harder because of that.

Bakugo caught the ANT's speed increase out the corner of his eyes right before it hit Kirishima. _They have them holding back against us,_ Bakugo blasted two explosions, one in front of him to throw him backwards, the other on his left side to dodge the follow-up from the ANT that went flying by him instead. _They're still just dumb robots though. Or not that dumb,_ Bakugo thought, as one of the robot's arms was pointed behind its back after it flew by him. A jet of flames shot towards him, and Bakugo needed to use another explosion to push his body away from it. "Damn it!" Bakugo yelled, and he pointed both arms behind him, flying towards the ANT coming up for Kirishima's back.

"Behind me!" Bakugo yelled at Kirishima. The redhead turned from the enemy in front of him blocking the path farther up the steel surface. They only had three ANTs in their area now, as more teams kept making it up and drawing the attention of the robots away, but three was still a lot. Kirishima turned and he ignored the ANT closest to him about to attack him, instead jumping up and making his right arm incredibly hard as he moved to the side of the robot. Bakugo slammed both hands into the back of the green robot, then he fired one of his massive explosions that made him yell out in pain, and blew a hole straight through the front of the robot. The other one that started swinging a fist down at Bakugo's back pulled to the side to dodge Kirishima's sharpened arm, only for its head to snap down and its red eyes to focus on Kirishima's right leg that cut into its side harder than the rest of the boy's body.

The one Bakugo blew a hole through was thrown backwards and rolled away on the mountainside, sparks flying out of it with its red eyes flickering. The other that had its side cut through fell to the side of where Kirishima landed and it twitched a couple of times with all its inner circuits showing. Kirishima and Bakugo landed back to back with a few feet in between them, both panting as they turned their heads in and upwards towards the final ANT. "Let's smash through and get to the top first!" Kirishima shouted, as they still had yet to hear anyone making it.

A pile of rocks blasted up from around the mountain on Bakugo's right side, and on his left he saw another large wave of ice only it was curving the opposite direction as him. There were others who just passed onto this section closer than the main opponents he had been focusing on, and he ground his teeth in anger and frustration as the extras were catching up. "Move," Bakugo said, agreeing with Kirishima and turning his body to face the robot farther above him.

 **"Die."** Bakugo and Kirishima froze, and they turned their heads towards the robot that Kirishima slashed through which had looked on the verge of total collapse. Its red eyes got darker, but the sparks stopped coming out of the cut through its side and it lifted back up its arms. Then Bakugo's eyes shot open wide, as he heard clanking behind him of steel on steel, and he turned to see another robot getting up to its feet even with a massive hole blown through its stomach.

"Oi oi," Kirishima said, a bead of sweat coming down the left side of his face even as he tried to keep smiling. "They can still move?"

Bakugo's arms were aching and he bit down hard in pain but lifted his arms and smirked again with little explosions coming out of his palms. "Thought this was going to be too easy," Bakugo said, but Kirishima could hear in his partner's voice there was an urgency behind the cocky attitude. Kirishima's eyes darted up to a screen and he saw over a quarter of the time was done, and they were no closer to the top than they were after ten seconds in. _And there are more of these things that can cut us off if we get any higher. Are we really, supposed to be able to get past these things?_

"Come on, Mineta!" Kaminari yelled up in a frustrated way.

Zach was panting as he looked back at the blond behind him, and he grit his teeth as what he thought that shout was for turned out to be true. He looked at the purple ball beneath Kaminari's right foot sticking him to the mountain, then he looked up farther towards Tsuyu and Mineta who were only twenty meters away from the start of the metal section now. There were two other teams just above already facing off against the ANTs, and Zach could start to see more around the east and west sides of the mountain too, with a better view on Todoroki and Yaoyorozu who were more southeast than east now.

"They're getting so far ahead of us," Kaminari said, as he could barely hear Mineta's taunt back down at them for his perfectly placed Pop Off ball. There were too many explosions and shouting people around them to hear their competitors, and there was no one else really around them anymore.

"Don't worry about that," Zach told his partner. Kaminari looked towards Zach who took a break, leaning back on a protruding section of rock separating two equally difficult paths to climb up on all fours. Zach took in a deep breath, then he said to Kaminari calmly, "Take off your right shoe. Careful not to touch the ball with anything else as you do." Kaminari nodded back at Zach, calming himself down at the look on Zach's face showing he felt he had this under control.

 _How many people have realized it? No one seems to be doing anything about it yet, and I don't want to give out any hints. Not while we're this far back. Still probably a hundred meters to the ANT area. If I wait too long though, what if those top teams get taken out of commission?_ Zach hummed while looking up again, but he grinned as he watched a wave of ice rise up to Todoroki's left side. It looked at first like he was moving more to the south with his partner and heading up at the same time, trying to find a good path through the ANTs. Zach saw the actual team that the ANT which was blocked by that ice wall was going for though, and he nodded while turning back to Kaminari, "Pick up the pace. Sorry about your foot, but we have to move fast."

Zach started scrambling up the mountain, and Kaminari panicked and ran after him before using his hands to climb up quickly as well. "What? I thought you had a plan!" Kaminari called out, then he winced as despite his sock he felt his toenails scrape against the rock surface under his right foot. His right shoe was left behind on the sticky ball, and Kaminari was more on the lookout now for other Pop Offs that could be lying around.

Zach kept his eyes darting around too, but he could tell Mineta was using his Quirk sparingly in preparation for when he would really need them up against the ANTs. _Mineta's Quirk will work good too. The problem is the power and speed of these Ants. They seem to be intelligent too or the other teams would have gotten by them already. Maybe not Artificial Intelligence, but just combat-trained. Or they've been watching past videos of us and know each of us. Or they just watched us from the start of the round alone and already know! It doesn't matter, but if they know Mineta's Quirk and can move fast enough to dodge him…_ "We'll catch up to them in a little," Zach said, and he glanced behind him and up at the big screen above the south side of the bleachers that the top of was just a little lower than them in elevation now. "No one's going to make it up there, fighting like they're doing. Aizawa said it."

Kaminari nodded and calmed himself down too, glancing back at the screen and seeing they still had around two thirds of the time remaining. Zach was saving back up his strength, trying to give his arms a bit of a break before he got to the next area, though he knew they would still be sore up there. "How are we going to do it though?" Kaminari asked. "It's not like everyone's wearing earpieces."

"I'll think of something," Zach assured, though he was thinking about that himself at the moment. _Aizawa sensei made it clear when he spoke up before. The Sports Festival is focusing on something different this year. It's not about pushing back the competition, Mineta. The others who rushed ahead thinking solely about being the first ones there, they weren't thinking of what the purpose of this event is in the first place. Of course it would be too difficult to make it, even with a partner. They made it difficult enough that with a dozen teams already there, still no one's getting up. And the reason why…_ Zach looked up towards the metal surface that Mineta and Tsuyu just ran onto.

Up ahead of them and to their left, Iida and Shishida were running around being chased by two ANTs. Zach thought he saw Iida get past those robots before with a Reciproburst, but Shishida's fastest moves were not enough for him to do the same, and his partner from Class A ran back down to help him fight off the robots. Zach spotted another two people from Class B who he did not really know also up there, and those two pointed towards Mineta and Tsuyu as they were running up. Iida and Shishida crossed above the path of the two smallest people in Class A, and one of the two ANTs chasing them down diagonally turned down. Iida and Shishida kept racing off towards where Todoroki and Yaoyorozu were crossing in, but they tried pulling up after seeing one of the robots leaving them. Unfortunately, Team Todo-rozu was bringing a group of Terminators after them and the other teams running below the crest of the wave of ice Todoroki had formed.

Togaru Kamakiri and Kosei Tsuburaba ran by Mineta and Tsuyu with a closer cross than with Iida and Shishida. The two Class B boys smirked as they looked down at the smaller figures racing up, and both Mineta and Tsuyu's eyes opened wide while their heads turned to the ANTs chasing them. Zach shook his head as he looked up towards Tsuyu who had to leap backwards but was still chased by an ANT even as she left those robots' region.

"We haven't gone up there yet," Zach said while turning his head to look back at Kaminari. He lifted his right hand and climbed up on a rock surface next to him that was rounded but he managed to get his balance on. "Come here, let's do this," Zach said, and he aimed his gun up towards the ANT chasing the other two down. Mineta started throwing Pop Offs up at it, but the robot lifted its arms and fired streams of water out of cannons. That water pushed Mineta's balls back and Tsuyu had to dodge away, and she slapped her tongue out towards the robot to try and pull an arm away to give Mineta a better shot. The robot got a tongue wrapped around its arm, but it reached its other hand in and grabbed Tsuyu around her tongue before yanking towards itself.

"Shit, wait a second," Zach said. Kaminari stood at his side, and Zach bit down hard but he fired anyway. "Shout!" He yelled, while thinking in panic, _Fuck! I hope I was wrong about them only targeting once we've gone up there! Come on, focus just because I'm attacking- YES!_ The robot that a hook just slammed into and got lodged in a joint of it turned its head. Tsuyu was wincing in pain as she was yanked towards the robot, and Mineta was yelling out on top of her while holding on with one hand and throwing his Pop Offs with the other. Both of them widened their eyes in surprise though, while the robot holding Tsuyu by the tongue let go of it and turned its body fully towards the boys yelling towards it and that just caused damage with the sharp-pronged hook.

Zach waited until he saw Tsuyu's tongue fully unwrap from the robot's arm after it let go, and while the other two were still falling to the side of the mountain, Zach slammed the gun into Kaminari's open right hand. "Do it!" He yelled, and Tsuyu and Mineta shot their eyes open even wider, right before a huge jolt of electricity shot from Zach's grappling gun down the wire and into the robot that stopped moving with sparks coming out all around it. Kaminari smirked through an electric veil, and Zach leapt off the rock surface that was starting to shock him just being next to Kaminari. He jumped onto the slope and started running up, and he called out, "Let's move Kaminari. No telling how long it'll last. I saw them recovering on the screens!"

Kaminari ran after him, and Zach called up to Mineta to stick the ANT to the ground. Mineta blinked his eyes a few times, then he started nodding and he pulled the Pop Offs from his head rapidly while jumping off of Tsuyu's back. He stuck them to the unmoving robot's feet, flinching as the metal creation was still static-charged. He made a whip the second time and connected more of the balls to the robot's body in case it started moving again before sticking other balls to the ground. Zach and Kaminari caught up and stopped near them as Mineta was finishing, and Tsuyu walked over too with a hand up rubbing the side of her face.

"You okay?" Zach asked the girl who stopped rubbing her face to turn her head to the side at Zach's question.

"Do you really have time to be asking me that, Zach-chan?" Tsuyu asked.

"I have to-" Zach began but got cut off.

"Half the time remains folks! Still no one's reached the summit! Are these Ants just too much?!" Present Mic yelled it, then he started calling out about the fights going around near the top of the mountain which had the audience cheering and giving their support for the aspiring heroes.

"Ten minutes left," Kaminari said, turning to Zach and then looking up the mountain again. "There are less things for your grappling hook to grab up there too. Just flat, steep surfaces."

"If you two are just going to plan it out here," Mineta began, turning back to Tsuyu as they needed to get going themselves.

"Hold on," Zach said, lifting his left hand as a palm for the other two to wait for a second. "Let's work together."

"Huh?" Mineta spun and asked, his eyes wider than a second ago.

Tsuyu put a finger up to the corner of her mouth and tilted her head again, but she started to look more thoughtful after a second. She turned her head and looked up the slope, and she started nodding at what she was thinking about. "It's true, we shouldn't be worried about who else makes it at this point." Mineta turned to his partner in confusion, then his eyes widened too and he spun to look up at all the carnage above them and explosions going off around the mountain. Tsuyu finished, "It almost seems like whoever makes it to the top will make it into the next round."

"If anyone does make it there," Zach added, and the other three looked in at him only to see Zach with a worried look on his face. He turned his head to the side and looked down the slope towards the bleachers, able to see more of them than ever from this spot. _Everyone who came here, everyone watching around the country and the world, we can't let them down. The teachers expected us to overcome this hurdle. They have faith in us. It's halfway done though, and people are still sabotaging each other to try and be first. The idea that first place is still open makes the people who always want to be first, and just everyone striving to be the best here, it's making them not think straight._ "Listen," Zach said, looking back and around the three with him after he saw the timer getting closer to nine minutes. "The robot behind us is-"

 _ **CLank- Crash!**_ The group spun and looked down towards the robot Mineta had stuck to the ground. It used its jets to try and pull itself off the floor, but instead of ripping apart the rocks beneath it, the robot's joints connected with Pop Off balls and to various parts of the floor all ripped apart. The bottom half of the robot along with its legs ripped off, and the top half fell to the floor with the red eyes still glowing.

"That's," Zach muttered, and his breathing sped up while the others panted while looking down at that robot. "Forget about it!" He shouted, his voice getting louder towards the end while he spun to look up the mountain himself. The other three preparing to fight the top half of the robot lifting its arms towards them turned towards Zach, then they just started running after him towards the metal part of the mountain they were almost on already. "Kaminari, when I say, blast the metal with a powerful blow but make sure you can keep running afterwards!"

Kaminari's eyes opened huge, and Mineta and Tsuyu slowed down as they no longer wanted to reach that metal area first. They each looked over their shoulders though and then picked up the pace as water cannons fired behind them and splashed hard right where they were just standing. "That's crazy!" Mineta exclaimed while running up on Zach's right side and jumping up to throw a Pop Off behind them at the robot torso on their tail. "He'll zap everyone!"

Zach took in a deep breath, and he held his head up while waiting for a perfect moment when the sound had gone down. He lifted his right palm up for Kaminari whose eyes opened wide but mouth curled into a grin, and then the moment of silence came. "EVERYBODY JUMP ON THREE!" Zach screamed, cupping his hands to his mouth and yelling at the top of his lungs. At that same moment, a wave of ice that had been coming around the southeast side of the mountain was nearing them, now with Iida and Shishida below the wave too. There were five teams total chasing after the front of Todoroki's ice wave, and a girl in a black outfit who had her helmet off after fighting the ANTs for a while jumped up at the sound of that shout. They were high enough up on the mountain that most of the teams around them could hear it, and everyone spun towards the group of four running towards the bottom of the metal section who just shouted that up at them all.

"Run faster than us Kaminari," Zach said quickly, then he yelled, "ONE!"

"What are they…" Iida began, then his eyes widened as he saw Kaminari sprinting ahead of the other three who slowed down. Kaminari lifted up both of his hands, and everyone on the metal area dropped their jaws and shot their eyes open huge.

Todoroki started forcing out more ice from the wave he had going around, though he made sure to avoid all of the robots chasing them and only spread it in the areas directly in front of where the groups around them were running. _There's Kaminari,_ Todoroki thought. _Zach picked up on it already though,_ he thought with a small grin, mainly just glad he did not have to waste more time explaining a similar plan he and Yaoyorozu had come up with.

 _Great thinking,_ Yaoyorozu thought, then she called out her partner's name and tossed him an insulation blanket. She had already created hers on the way around, and she wrapped it around herself right as Zach yelled, "TWO!"

Monoma and Shiozaki stopped running up the slant as they heard that shout, but not from Zach. They spun to the right and saw Tetsutetsu and Honenuki running their way, their eyes huge and their mouths wide open after shouting that. The two of them looked at Monoma and waved their arms up before taking in deep breaths and yelling, "THREE!"

The first two numbers came in succession of normal seconds, and Zach knew, or at least he had hoped people would join in with the shout, making it go all around the mountain. By the time he yelled 'Three,' Mineta, Tsuyu, Todoroki, Yaoyorozu, Iida, and a dozen other people all shouted it at the same time. One person did not shout it who was as ready as everyone else though, and he slammed his hands down instead while everyone standing on a metal surface on the mountain jumped up in the air screaming, 'JUMP!' Anyone who did not realize what was going on with that countdown leapt in the air after either seeing classmates do it or hearing that giant yell of 'JUMP' afterwards.

Zach, Tsuyu, and Mineta all stopped before reaching the metal surface. Todoroki and Yaoyorozu stayed on it above their ice, but most people who were following behind their wave decided to avoid getting shocked at all and pulled back off the surface in those three seconds they had, though two groups had to dive off at 'Three' as they barely made it away. Iida and Shishida tried running up and jumping though, and the two of them sped up as much as they could before leaping at the last possible second, and the ANT standing in the way between where the two of them were running stayed completely still with its whole body sparking as they shot by on either side of it.

Electricity ran through the mountainside with ease. The current passed through the metal and up into the metallic bodies of all the ANTs currently touching the mountain surface, short-circuiting something inside them that made sparks go flying as students who rose up in the air started coming down. A cluster of ANTs were already in the air and did not get zapped, but the people facing off against them were not involved in jumping up anyway as they were already in the air anyway. "WHOA!" Present Mic yelled, right before over twenty students dropped down with hard and painful landings.

The students who dove off the metal surface at the last second, and all the ones who jumped only to land on a still electrified ground, felt pain as they hit the ground or got zapped. Iida and Shishida slowed down, then collapsed down to their knees as the electricity coursed through them. "Let's move," Zach said after a few seconds, running forward after turning left and right at the two still with him. He ran right towards Kaminari who lifted his right arm and wiped it under his nose before smirking ear to ear at his attack that just stopped ANTs in their tracks all over the place.

A huge chorus of cheers rang out down below that could be heard up the mountain, and Todoroki turned to Yaoyorozu and nodded, then the two of them started racing forward too, though Momo no longer had her skis so Todoroki could not make it as easy. They dropped down to the metal surface and started sprinting up, and Todoroki turned his head to the right as he saw one of the Anti-Nomu-Terminator's head twitching. He darted his gaze to the left and saw Mineta and Tsuyu running up right behind Zach, and they ran by Iida and Shishida who turned their heads slowly and grimaced at the sight of the others running by them. _They're not breaking off their alliance yet. Did they figure out how long Kaminari's attack would last first?_

Todoroki paused and he looked around, then he bit down and planted his right hand on the ground below him. He had to be precise with his attack, and all the others who had just started running up from the edge of the area started to panic as ice shot out from Todoroki's hand in different directions. Zach got nervous as some ice shot in a trail towards him, but as Kaminari and Mineta yelled out in panic, Zach relaxed at the sight of the trail's path. The four of them paused and turned to the left, following the ice path over to a sparking ANT that was slowly lifting its right arm up again. "Todoroki has the right idea," Zach said, turning to Mineta who realized he was the one being talked to.

"If I do it again, I'll just wind up doing everyone more harm," Kaminari said, shrugging at the shorter boy who lowered his bottom lip at the idea.

"But we're the farthest ones up now!" Mineta exclaimed.

"Do it Mineta-chan," Tsuyu said to her teammate, while she kept running just as the other two taller boys did. Mineta ran forward after the girl who slowed to allow him to jump back on her back, grabbing the four Pop Off balls still attached there. Mineta shook his head as he did not see the merit in doing this, but he started throwing his Pop Offs towards the robots Todoroki did not hit with his ice. Todoroki had not attacked all of them himself, but the boy with half red hair and half white did not say a thing against Mineta's actions as he and Yaoyorozu kept running forward.

"Ready?" Todoroki asked, without glancing back to Yaoyorozu who was just about finished with a small round plastic dish. It dipped down in the middle, and Yaoyorozu nodded her head as she finished popping it out of her chest, the reason Todoroki kept his eyes averted, (and why none of the cameras broadcasting the event that were pointed at Yaoyorozu currently had their recordings being televised). She jumped up, Todoroki froze the ground below and above them, and Yaoyorozu slid the small makeshift sled beneath her while throwing a leash towards Todoroki. It was a leash like one attached to surfboards to prevent them from getting away from the surfer, and Todoroki slid his wrist into the end of it before pointing his left hand behind him.

"This is it," Zach said as he sped up more at Kaminari's side. Mineta and Tsuyu were still behind them and on the right, and Zach darted his eyes their way for a second before back to the top of the mountain. He spoke in a quieter voice, "Everyone's going for it right now. Ants are moving for us because we're almost at the top of the area. Listen to Present Mic. We're not the only ones rushing it." Kaminari glanced in at his friend and saw a furiously determined look on Zach's face as he grit his teeth and dug his feet in more. The corners of his lips curled up, and he turned in towards Kaminari, "Everyone's about to try and get first. Let's do it."

He spoke quietly so as not to alert the other two they had teamed with, then he whipped back out his grappling gun and pointed it towards the top of the mountain. _One shot at this. Factor in the wind and the distance. Todoroki's using both his flames and his ice. I don't know how much he's mastered that, but if he uses the flames to propel them while creating ice in front of him. Present Mic shouted for Bakugo's team too on the other side. They destroyed two of the ANTs with some other teams, now they're going for it._ Zach focused in on the top of the mountain. He stopped thinking about the other teams, even the ones in his vision who were about to reach the top of the steel section with him. There was one flying ahead of them, and Zach grinned as he slowed just a bit, allowing the flying ANT to choose a target easier.

"Todoroki," Yaoyorozu started warning. Todoroki needed a direction to aim his flames anyway though, as he could not point his hand straight back where Yaoyorozu was being pulled.

 _A single blast,_ he thought, pointing his left hand straight out to the left as the ANT came flying towards him. He breathed out a cold breath of steam, and out from his right side emerged an enormous ice wall that curved around and forward like a massive wave missing a bottom for most of it. It only curved in a single path, yet it was huge to give room for error considering how big this blast was going to be. Yaoyorozu held onto the sides of the sled tightly, calling out that Todoroki could do it as she knew how difficult controlling his ice and flames simultaneously was for him.

"HOLD ON!" Bakugo shouted, as Kirishima was slipping down Bakugo's legs as the blond boy blasted them forward. _Just one left!_ He thought, ignoring all the people behind them and the other ANTs that were starting to move again. Everything was happening in a few seconds since the electric attack blasted around the mountain, but it was weakest on the opposite side even though it _had_ still traveled over there. Bakugo knew he couldn't use a big blast to shoot them past the robot ahead right now, as Kirishima would fall for sure, but they were at the top of the metal section and at their elevation, they were already above the steepest part just past it too. _ALMOST THERE!_

"Don't let go Uraraka!" Midoriya called out, while leaping his highest up in the air. The girl on his back had a bloody scratch on the left side of her face, and her right arm was badly bruised with the whole right sleeve missing. She felt sick and her cheeks puffed out as Midoriya flew them high in the air before flipping them over. He heard a puking sound over his shoulder and tried not to grimace at the feeling of it, then he kicked his legs behind him to create as much wind pressure as he could.

Zach clasped his left hand with Kaminari's right, and he pressed the trigger of his gun. Then he retracted the wire, and both he and Kaminari ducked down while planting their feet on the silver surface. A huge blast of flames shot over their heads, blowing apart an ANT, and they felt the heat singeing their backs as they barely made it under before it expanded into a huge mass too large for them to have been able to pass beneath. The two boys pushed off their feet and Zach pulled the trigger harder as they left the steel section, and as they rose off the ground they were also yanked up towards the top of the mountain where Zach's hook had barely caught the edge of.

Todoroki shot to the right, and he clenched his left hand into a fist to stop the flames from coming out as Yaoyorozu swung to the side and behind him on the icy path. They shot up the ice wall that curved while moving up the mountain, and Yaoyorozu leaned with the wall's curve to provide zero resistance. She and Todoroki looked to their lefts and up in the air as something came flying down, then they looked farther straight ahead as an explosion sent two other figures flying up in the air flipping around. One of them righted himself with another blast, shooting himself straight towards the other who was unable to hold on, but at least grabbed hold long enough for the force to send him flying up too.

Bakugo crashed into Kirishima and yelled, "HARDEN!" He fired a blast behind him while grabbing Kirishima with his other hand, sending them flying full speed down towards the summit of the mountain.

Midoriya spun around as they were nearing the ground, and he kicked his legs the other way as they were coming in too fast. He lowered their speed, and yelled, "Release it!"

"Release!" Uraraka held her arms around Midoriya's neck and touched her fingers together, dropping the two who had just stopped plummeting.

Todoroki pointed his left hand over his head since the curve of the wave they were at was higher than the summit itself. "Hold tight," Todoroki warned, before firing off another blast straight through the rest of his wave that shattered from the forceful flames. Yaoyorozu held onto the sled, curling it up as she already saw Todoroki's plan. He swung his right arm after they were flying down towards the summit, creating a new wave right at the edge of the mountain that they hit and skid down. Yaoyorozu winced as the sled hit the wall, but Todoroki had made the curve well and even at their speed she went straight into a slide. The boy sliding down his curve stumbled after the ice ran out and he was on the flat surface of the summit, and the sled yanked in behind him pulled Yaoyorozu on after him only for her to jump up and off the sled at his side.

The two of them were panting, but they turned and looked towards the north side of the mountain where Bakugo lifted up to his left leg, then his right with a trail of blood coming down the left side of his forehead. He reached down with his right hand and yanked Kirishima out of a small indent in the summit. "Conscious?" Bakugo asked, and Kirishima's legs lifted and stomped down on the ground. The two of them, and Todoroki and Yaoyorozu looked towards the west side of the mountain where Midoriya fell to a knee after landing, and Uraraka stumbled around off of him before putting both hands up to her mouth again, this time managing to hold back her puke.

Midoriya put his hands down on the ground in front of him, but he winced as he was finding it hard to stand back up on his right leg. _I went above the limit too early on. I didn't want to go higher than twenty-five percent at all, but I thought I could smash through that ANT… It must have been the strongest one, at least compared to all the others we were fighting. It was the only one, close to the worst kinds of Nomus._ Midoriya forced himself up to his right foot, and he winced in pain but straightened that leg out anyway to get steady on his feet. He looked around at the others and thought, _Did I make it?_

"YOWWW! WHAT IS THIS!?" Present Mic shouted. "It was so close, I thought it was a tie! But, what the?!" Present Mic leaned in and looked to his right at one of the big screens since the one across the stadium from him was now blocked by a mountain. "Four teams have made it to the summit! And the team in first…"

The three teams at the top of the mountain spun their heads around, but Todoroki and Yaoyorozu looked the correct direction first. They both looked to their lefts, to the southernmost part of the mountain not too far from part of Todoroki's wave. Bakugo, Kirishima, Midoriya, and Uraraka all turned towards that side too, and their eyes started opening wide at the sight of two sets of hands over the edge of the mountain's southern ledge with only their fingers holding on, right behind a hook jammed into the ground by a sharp steel point.

Bakugo's team had to evade the final ANT, as did Todoroki's which cost them time as they came in fourth overall. The team that came in third could not crash into the mountain at the speed they were going and needed to redirect, wasting an important second where Bakugo and Kirishima crashed into the summit, and where two people had reached their hands up to get at least parts of their body up on the summit as quickly as possible. Zach and Kaminari were both looking over their shoulders, down the slope of the mountain, all the way to the giant screen above the south bleachers where the leaderboard just appeared with four teams on it listed in order of arrival.

"Haha, hahaha," Kaminari started laughing.

"Come on," Zach said, nudging the boy next to him with his left elbow. Kaminari looked in, and Zach was smiling wide as he motioned his head up to the summit they were hanging off of. Everyone down below them was still racing up, lots of teams, many of whom still had a few ANTs to worry about that were not frozen or stuck by Pop Off balls, or incapacitated in other ways by students who had realized they only had one chance to avoid facing all those robots again.

Zach pulled up his left arm first, putting his elbow over the ledge and then yanking his left arm and his head over too. Kaminari was a little slower, but he did a pull up too and then dragged his feet down on the wall in front of him to struggle his way to the mountaintop as well. The two of them got up on their knees, then to their feet, and they stood there with three other teams looking their way. Zach grinned at his classmates side by side with Kaminari, right as Present Mic shouted, "TEAM SAZAKI AND KAMINARI, FIRST PLACE! TEAM BAKUGO AND KIRISHIMA, SECOND PLACE! TEAM MIDORIYA AND URARAKA, THIRD PLACE! TEAM TODOROKI AND YAOYOROZU, FOURTH PLACE!"

The cheers were immediate after 'First place' was shouted, and they were so loud that the teams at the summit thought they were hearing them from down at ground level. Zach kept smiling as he stood there, and he turned back to Kaminari and said, "We did it."

Kaminari looked back at him and grinned too, and he said, "Yeah we did." Then he saw something in Zach's eyes that made his widen a little. _What is he, thinking about?_

 _Not a month ago, the two of us beat Shatterer together. I know that's what everyone's thinking about right now._ Zach kept smiling and he closed his eyes for a second before turning and looking off the edge of the mountain they were standing on. He stared down at the arena below, but then up above the bleachers and into Musutafu City. He looked around it, and even farther since they were the tallest thing other than some skyscrapers for hundreds of miles. _I never thought I'd win. I wanted to. Of course I wanted to. But to make it a reality. Last year, 'We did it' just meant we managed to sneak into the final round thanks to Shinso's team backing out. 'We did it,' means so much more now though. I won. We won. We beat Shatterer, we, we have people looking to us!_ Zach's fists clenched at his sides and he kept a determined look on his face while still smiling, and he thought, _I won't let them down. I'll live up to the expectations people have for me. I'll be, your hero!_

* * *

 **A/N First round of the Sports Festival down! Thanks for reading, and I hope you enjoyed the climb! It's my final day in Japan today, probably no chapter tomorrow as I do my flights back... though I will get a lot of writing done on the plane! Hope you enjoyed the chapter! Zach and Kaminari make it in first, we see a couple of the other teams that make it too, though the first round is not over so we'll see who else makes it within the twenty minute time limit. Leave a review below telling me what you think and predictions/questions about the Sports Festival!**

LordOfTee chapter 56 . 23h ago

Oh man, I think that's the first time I've seen Zach get super angry and frustrated, it seems like he curses a lot when he's angry.

 **Oh yeah he was _pissed,_ and pretty sad. Sports Festival means a lot to all of them, tried showing how much Zach had been looking forward to it in the previous chapters leading up to 56 too. And yeah he curses a bit more now too, Midoriya actually mentioned it a bunch of chapters back, think Zach replied that he did spend a bunch of time surrounded by villains so... XD Thanks for the review!**

Guest chapter 56 . 22h ago

When will the Big 3 make an appearance?

 **They actually did pop up back in chapter 50 I think. It was at the start of the Kaminari rescue arc, 'cause graduation was at the end of the term before Kaminari went on vacation, and Mirio Togata had his speech thing. Anyway they graduated already, but we'll see if they appear more in the story again! Thanks for reviewing!**


	58. Chapter 58

**A/N Hey everyone! Just wanted to say thanks for reading this story so far, and I hope you enjoy the longest chapter ever in it as we continue the Sports Festival! Back in America after 6 months of studying abroad, should be able to keep up my schedule and posting these as often as I can!**

 **Disclaimer: Still don't own Boku no Hero Academia**

 **Chapter 58:**

At the top of the mountain in the middle of the U.A. Sports Festival stadium, Momo Yaoyorozu stared over at Zach Sazaki's back. Her eyes widened at the sight of the side of his face while he looked out off the edge, his eyes focused on something even though there was nothing out where he was looking, his smile wide and reassuring despite his scars. _Zach,_ she thought, not even feeling that disappointed as she stared his way. _What are you looking at?_

"Fifth place! Team Monoma and Shiozaki!"

"Haa ahh, haa ahh, I thought Class A, was supposed to be better?" Monoma started calling out from in between Midoriya and Zach. They looked in towards the blond boy whose hair turned back to normal right after he dropped down on the ledge of the mountain, his green-haired partner by his side. Ibara Shiozaki looked a little hesitant as she lifted a hand for Monoma's back like she wanted to tell him something was wrong with what he just said, but she just lowered that hand and shook her head sadly.

"Is there actually, something wrong with him?" Kirishima wondered between panting breaths. He turned to Bakugo, but his partner was still glaring across the mountain towards Zach who finally laughed and said something to Monoma about how Class A had the top four teams. "So we didn't get first in the first round," Kirishima said, and he patted Bakugo on the back. "Let's crush 'em in the second," Kirishima said, clenching his other fist in front of him. Bakugo darted a glare at Kirishima as he wanted an undisputed first place, but he hummed afterwards and thought back on what Aizawa mentioned earlier. _Aizawa sensei said about how last year there were two solo events, like there wouldn't be this year. Second round's going to be more like Cavalry Battle again, but different, harder…_

"Yow! And they keep on coming in!" Present Mic shouted as teams started rising over the edge in rapid succession. "One after the other we've got Team Iida and Shishida in sixth! Team Mineta and Asui in seventh! Then Tetstutetsu and Honenuki!"

"He didn't say our place number," Honenuki said in a disappointed way to his gray-haired partner.

"Rrrg," Tetsutetsuo shook his fists in aggravation as they were one place too late. He turned around, then to his partner and said, "Think you should let them out now?"

Honenuki glanced back and off the side of the mountain, then he shrugged and stopped using his Quirk that he had used to get past two other teams on the final stretch right at the end. Those two teams came out of the ground they had sank into while already exhausted, and the four of them turned towards each other before starting a mad scramble for the top of the mountain.

"Only two minutes left!" Present Mic shouted, and the two teams running for the top of the mountain, struggling to make it up the steep slant, started rushing even faster. They were both struggling, and they both wanted to use the handholds Tetsutetsu left for them by slamming steel hands into the sharp slant earlier.

"Wait! Let's just go one by one. We can all make it."

"True, not a lot of teams there yet…"

The two teams about to start fighting came to an understanding, and still with a minute and a half left they started climbing up intermittently. One of them from one team went first, then one from the other team to ensure they didn't try betraying each other which they agreed to without ever saying it aloud.

"Team Sero and Ashido!" Present Mic called out, making other teams around the mountain rush more as places seemed to be filling up.

Ashido fell down to her knees with her legs pointed out in either direction after making it there. Sero put his hands down on his knees while panting on Kirishima's left a few feet away, and Kirishima turned and said he was glad the two of them made it. Sero groaned and then muttered, "No thanks to you- well, okay a little in part thanks to you." He leaned straight up and stretched back, letting out a long sigh before swinging around his left arm that had some pain in it.

"Could have not made such a huge blast after we beat the Ants though," Ashido said, her voice annoyed as they and the other groups who had helped Bakugo's team wound up getting left behind.

"Team Shoji and Sato take tenth place! Then Team Aoyama and Tokoyami right behind them! Under a minute left- YOW! That last Ant just won't give up. Everybody try your best! OH! YOW! And Team Ojiro and Hagakure sneak up to victory, and Team Kendo and Awase behind them!" Present Mic's commentary was getting louder and quicker together as the timer ran below half a minute, down to twenty seconds. "Another team from Class B with Kamakiri and Tsuburaba! Fifteenth place we've got Team Kazumi and Sahara, and with ten seconds left three teams are rushing the final dash to the finish. Everyone else still on the metal section, RUN! SEVEN SIX- There it is! Team Jirou and Koda make it with four to spare! Three! TWO! ONE!"

A loud buzzer went off, then Present Mic screamed, "AND ONE FINAL ENTRY!" Everyone gathered on the summit panting or talking to others who just arrived looked towards the eastern side where another couple of hands grabbed onto the ledge like the first place team had done when they arrived before. Zach and Kaminari smiled wide as they looked over towards two of those hands, and they jogged over to them as they were pulling up.

"Nice, you made it," Kaminari said as Kuroiro lifted his head just over the top of the ledge.

"Team Kuroiro and Shinso reached just inside the time limit!" Present Mic shouted. Zach's eyes widened a bit and he darted his gaze to those other hands as Present Mic continued. "Which brings our total teams to seventeen, and total number of passing students to thirty-four! Guess we'll go with that number for the next round! Ya-HOO!"

 _Wonder how many they would have let in?_ Midoriya thought. He was looking off the side of the mountain with some pity at a couple of Class B students who were only fifteen meters below the summit and collapsed with disappointed and heartbroken groans. The boy with dark, curly green hair turned and looked around the summit at the thirty-four of them who did make it up there. _Everyone from Class A made it this time, Aoyama too!_ Midoriya smiled as he looked over towards the boy with the navel laser who was grabbing at his stomach at the moment, but had a smile on his face just like his dark partner next to him. Tokoyami said something to Aoyama, and the blond boy held a thumbs up before trying to straighten his body out.

Kaminari helped Kuroiro up to the summit, and Zach stepped next to them and reached down his left hand despite the soreness he felt in his arm that got a lot worse with the final pull to the top. The boy with spiky indigo hair having a harder time pulling himself up after climbing the steep cliff already, lifted his gaze and looked into Zach's eyes. Shinso's eyes widened, and Zach just looked back into them before lowering his left hand more for Shinso's right.

 _Same hand he knocked me out with last year,_ Shinso thought, then he lifted his right and clasped it with Zach's fast as he could not hold on for long with only one. Zach pulled him up hard and Shinso was only a little surprised by the fact he did not have to drop to his knees first to get up. "Thanks," he said after a second, then he let out a deep breath and lowered his dirty and ragged hands to his knees like Kuroiro was doing next to him.

"Hard time getting here?" Kaminari asked, feeling a little smug at the question himself.

Kuroiro rolled his eyes while keeping them thin and narrowed, then he lifted his gaze up to Kaminari and said, "Todoroki made it harder to climb at the start. Didn't get up there in time to 'jump.' Didn't even make it before there were Ants moving around again."

"You guys still made it though?" Zach asked in surprise, as it sounded like there were multiple of those robots between them and the other teams who had made it through during the gap.

Kuroiro nodded his head to the right at Shinso who straightened up again. "Got enough others to distract the Ants to let us get through," Kuroiro said.

"Oh yeah," Shinso said, muttering it in a tired voice as he was exhausted from the sprints and climbs. He cancelled his Quirk, though the people he had used it on still down below were distracting non-moving robots that had all froze as soon as the timer ran out. Four Class B girls and a couple of support department students near them blinked in confusion, then they realized what they had done and dropped their jaws while spinning to the summit. Thinking about who they had responded to in panic, what that boy's Quirk was that they remembered from the past year, and the fact that they could see his back up at the edge of the summit closest to them confirmed what they already knew to be the hard truth.

"Damn it," Komori muttered, bowing her head more so her already long bangs were sure to cover her eyes.

Yui Kodai put a hand up through her black hair and let out a long exhausted sigh, then she shook her head around and turned to look at the leaderboard behind her and a little lower in elevation at the top of the bleachers. "Who from Class B did… alright," she muttered. She hummed to herself and scratched the side of her head, "Guess that's okay. Less people total made it to the second round this year too."

"Though if we had made it…" Reiko Yanagi began softly. "Never mind," she finished as her friends looked in towards her.

"Hey, half the class ain't bad," Tokage said, shrugging her shoulders. The girl with long curly hair then turned her head and called over, "You guys are from a support class right? Nice job making it this far up."

The disappointed girl and guy from the support department actually smiled at that. Everyone knew the gap between the hero classes and the others was big, but it was only going to be larger after a year of intense training in the hero course. "You guys are probably the farthest ones up from your department," Kodai agreed as she looked over towards them.

The girl who smiled their way shook her head after that, losing her smile a bit while turning to the leaderboard again. "Looks like Sahara made it," she said. The girls from Class B looked at the screen too and down to the fifteenth place team of Sahara and Kazumi. "She's in Class H with us."

"And she teamed up with Kazumi after all," the boy from Class 2-H added to his classmate. "Those two's Quirks really do work well together."

At the top of the mountain, Shinso turned after straightening out, looking for someone whose name he heard called before. He spotted the taller guy with broad shoulders and a brown goatee who he started walking towards, and Hiro Kazumi turned to the spikier-haired teen coming his way. "Damn, you made it again Shinso," Kazumi said in a disappointed way, tssking before he said it.

The two of them were not in the same class, and Kazumi said to the boy he barely knew, "I'm going to be the star of the general studies' department this year."

"Are you now?" Shinso asked.

"That's right," Kazumi replied.

"In that case, it looks like we're going to wind up fighting each other," Shinso said. _And after this casual conversation, you will not feel it strange to speak when I mention how we are fighting for the top of the general department. You didn't even hesitate to answer my question._ Shinso had to stop himself from grinning before he turned away from the other student standing next to a girl he had not seen before.

The girl much shorter than the bearded teen with her leaned up next to her boyfriend and whispered something with her hands cupped to her mouth. Her partner opened his eyes wide and darted them back to Shinso's back as he headed away, and Zach lifted the left corner of his mouth in a smirk as he spotted it. _That girl's from the support department?_ He wondered as he looked at the girl with dark red hair pulled back into a ponytail. His eyes darkened as he knew there was a reason he had been staring over there, and the focus of his gaze on her hair made it clear to him. _Geez, smile and focus. Sports Festival. People's eyes are on me right now._

"The rest of you, might want to get off the mountain… Or, well there are elevators under the ground." Present Mic's voice confused most people at the stadium and watching on tv, but it straight up scared the people all over the mountain who were tired after their twenty minute climb. Loud clanking sounds started filling up the stadium, and everyone standing on top of the mountain stumbled around and had to steady themselves, right before the summit started descending.

The entire mountain started sinking back into the ground, and a few panicking students from general studies who never made it very high tried jumping for the edges of the base that they had been running down towards. Only a cluster made it there and those were the ones already heading down disappointedly before Present Mic said anything. They sat there at the round edge around the mountain and got smirks on their faces as they watched the other scared and panicking students sinking down beneath the surface.

"Keep your heads on straight," Mother Russia called out, flying down on the mountain and yelling at the students who never made it to the top. "There are underground exits and elevators. You're on television…"

Little did Mother Russia know at that moment, all the televisions had gone to commercial break. Present Mic continued calling out as the mountain kept sinking, "We're taking a quick break to set up the arena for the next event! But there's not going to be a siesta between the first and second rounds to prepare if you were looking for some time to relax, winners!" Present Mic yelled. The group of thirty-four at the summit turned their heads and looked towards the commentators' booth they had almost lowered down to the equal level of. "Hope you aren't too tired from climbing the mountain, because round two is coming right up!"

As people started murmuring to each other both on the summit and in the stands wondering what the teachers meant and how much time they would have, someone called up to the summit towards the back of a tall boy in Class A. "Hey Sero! Little help!"

Hanta Sero turned and walked to the ledge behind him only a few feet away. A couple of guys from Class B looked up at him and then glanced down again at the dark pit they were descending into. It was going to be a long trek for them down the mountain once the floor closed back in, and Sero hummed as he thought about helping them out. Mic did just mention that there was not going to be a big break between rounds though, and he was trying to relax during the break.

"If you're above the ANT section of the mountain, don't move down. The floor will close in right above it," Mother Russia called out as she flew up the slope of the mountain again. A group of students who had almost made it and were trying to get to the summit instead of going down relaxed themselves at the sound of that. A few teams who were on the steel section started jogging up instead so they would be above the surface when the floor closed instead of stuck walking down the whole mountain.

Sero grinned a smile that covered the bottom half of his face with his big teeth and shrugged down at the Class B guys who just sat down where they were and started waiting. Then the dark haired boy in Class A turned as he heard a funny call to his left, "Hey! Could I get my shoe?"

Mother Russia looked down towards Denki Kaminari who was missing his right shoe and had a really dirty sock on his foot. Ashido looked towards him and her eyes widened before she called out, "You got here first without one of your shoes?"

"It's Mineta's fault," Kaminari said, looking over towards the short boy who smiled smugly after hearing that.

"Serves you right," Mineta said, while trying to pull the Pop Off balls from Tsuyu's back. They had been sticking there for a while already so their adhesiveness had gone down, but they were the first ones he pulled off all day and he was struggling to get any of the four off. "Leaving us behind, like that, after we teamed up," Mineta said while struggling harder to pull the balls off. Tsuyu got him up there so he didn't want to leave her with them stuck on if the next event was starting right away. Tsuyu was actually looking over her shoulder in some surprise as Mineta struggled to pull the Pop Offs away, something she never actually asked him to do.

"Hey, we all made it, right?" Zach said as he heard Mineta's complaint and walked over. "Oh, that doesn't look..." Zach noticed what Mineta was trying to do, and he had an idea after trailing off. "Tsuyu, you mind if your clothes get a couple holes in them?" He pulled off his grappling gun and pointed at the sharp prongs sticking out of the barrel.

Mineta's eyes opened wide and he stopped pulling away, nodding towards Zach and sticking a thumbs up at him. Kaminari looked over wide-eyed too at Zach's bold suggestion, then Tsuyu hopped towards him and nodded her head. "Don't want Mineta doing it," she said, and finally Zach's eyes widened a bit too as she was telling _him_ to cut them off.

 _Man I wish it was Mineta though. If I touch the Pop Offs on accident I'll get my hand stuck._ "Okay," Zach said, "don't move though, okay?"

"Don't be afraid to cut a little extra off- ow!" Mineta got smacked in the side of the head by Tsuyu's tongue, and Kaminari and Sero started laughing at him.

Then Kaminari looked back up towards Mother Russia who never responded to his question from before. "So about my shoe..."

The mountain stopped lowering after the steel section lowered completely below the normal elevation of the arena. The walls on the outside started closing back in to their normal positions, but the students who were over there did not need to worry about falling into the hole, as the edge of that outer circle started closing back in on the summit still protruding from the ground. Only the steepest section just off the summit and the flat peak itself were still above the surface level, and some of the students started looking around to try and figure out what the next event was going to be with this strange setup.

A few teams jogging up the metal part of the slope slowed down and collapsed as the floor closed in above them. Lights turned on beneath the thick closing floor above the mountain's slopes though, illuminating the lower section and pointing arrows towards the elevators they could use to return to the aboveground part of the stadium. As soon as the floor clanked to a shut around the top edge of the steel section, a big timer of ten minutes appeared on all four big screens at the top of the bleachers in each cardinal direction. The contestants still panting and catching their breath at the top of the mountain stared at that ten minute countdown with wide eyes. Mother Russia called down to Kaminari while the blond was gawking at the timer too, "You can get a new shoe."

A medical station stuck out of the wall on the south side of the arena. It was a long white counter with some bandages on it and not much else. After Mother Russia told Kaminari he could get a shoe, she called out, "The second round is starting now!"

"There's really no break?" All Might whispered, a nervous look on his face as he looked down towards Midoriya who was struggling to stand on one of his injured legs.

"You ever get a break out there?" Snipe wondered to the man next to him who sighed but then shook his head. "Though I'll say it," Snipe added while looking around the group on the summit. "They could sure use one after that."

"What's the second round?" Kirishima called up to the woman in a tight red costume who seemed to be taking a dramatic pause for some reason.

"Split yourselves into teams of two to four," Mother Russia called out. "The second event, is King of the Hill!" The summit beneath the contestants' feet flashed blue light with a ripple that started in the center of the peak and expanded out to its edges. Those standing at the edge and looking off saw that the blue light did not continue down the slopes around them. "The match will take place over five minutes. At each ten second interval the summit will flash blue. You and all your team members must have both feet on top of this surface in order to receive the five points for that interval."

All of the students started doing math in their heads, but Mother Russia continued before most of them could get it, "There are a hundred and fifty possible points you can receive. Only the top four teams will move on to the next round. You have just over nine minutes to prepare," she said in a thick Russian accent, her voice getting more serious at the end. "Use your time wisely." She turned and started flying up.

"H-Hey," Kaminari called up before she could get too far. "I thought you said I could get another shoe?" Mother Russia kept flying up, and she did not say anything else while crossing her arms high above the summit.

"That's it?" Sero muttered, scratching the side of his head and then rolling his shoulders around. _Good thing I'm not too tired from the first round. Not like those guys who were fighting from start to finish,_ Sero glanced towards Kirishima and Bakugo who still looked worse for the wear.

Midoriya lifted a hand up to his mouth and started muttering into it fast. "With this competition it seems like having more people on your team would be better, but if all four members need both feet on the ground at each interval... and it's not just about how long you stay on, since teams could get up there only for the ten second mark and get their points just to hide back off the summit. It also takes into account the actions of the previous round, similar to the first one last year except it's not based on points just how tired each member is..."

"Deku," Uraraka said, straightening up and smacking her cheeks a couple of times to ready herself. The girl with a cut on the left side of her face continued, "I'm going to go to the medical station over there. It doesn't look like we're getting any help."

"That's right," Midoriya whispered in agreement, darting his gaze up to the commentators' booth that was oddly quiet at the moment for Present Mic being in there. _They gave us that station but didn't say anything. Some of us are bleeding and they didn't mention what to do about that._

"Hey Bakugo, you going to be alright?" Kirishima asked as he saw Bakugo's hands shaking at his sides. "You used a bunch of big blasts, right?"

"Shut up," Bakugo said, and Kirishima nodded as that was as much of a 'I'll be fine' as Bakugo would give him. "Come help stop the bleeding," Bakugo added while turning and jogging off towards the medical station. Kirishima looked at him in surprise for that, but Bakugo technically didn't _ask_ for help so it didn't seem that strange to him.

Bakugo lifted an arm and wiped some blood from his face that was getting in his eye. He noticed Kirishima jogging after him, then he lifted his head up as Present Mic started calling out, "Uh uh uh! No repeats of partners there Team Ashi-ro!"

Sero and Ashido snapped their heads up to the commentators' booth after they had just nodded at each other in agreement to stay on the same team. Zach's eyes widened and he spun to Kaminari, then he shrugged after his blond friend looked at him in surprise too. "Good luck," Zach said, then he turned and started jogging off. They were pressed for time and there was not much else for him to say.

"Huh? Huh?!" Kaminari watched Zach go, then he snapped his head back and forth as different partners were splitting up all over the place. His eyes widened even more, then he spun and ran to the side of the summit and called out, "Hey! Class B guys!" The two who were walking down the slope and almost at the bottom at the flat level of the arena looked up towards Kaminari. "Either of you size eleven shoe?!"

"Damn Bakugo, guess we're fighting this next round," Kirishima said, though he just jogged faster and up to Bakugo's side. "So let's get your head wrapped faster so we can go make teams."

"I don't need your help," Bakugo said, and Kirishima glanced at him in surprise. Bakugo grumbled since he had just told Kirishima to assist him a few seconds ago, and he just muttered, "We're not on a team anymore."

"Well, I think I might've gotten nicked by one of those robots too," Kirishima said, and he just picked up the pace towards the station right in front of them. "So let's do this fast." Bakugo grumbled some more but decided not to waste time arguing when he really could use the help.

Zach started looking around at the top of the summit for a new partner. There were less than eight minutes left and he still did not know who he wanted on his side. Aizawa started speaking while everyone was looking around for new partners, "The most important aspect of the last event was how quickly a team realized the need for cooperation with other groups. The teams who managed this the best were Sazaki and Kaminari's, and Todoroki and Yaoyorozu's." Zach glanced up for a second towards their homeroom teacher's booth, but he shook his head around and got back to looking for a partner fast. "With a lower number of students making it than the maximum we would have allowed, the order of arrival didn't matter at all. So despite their placings at second and third, those two teams that fought the Ants for the longest are the worst off."

Bakugo grit his teeth in more annoyance, then snapped at Kirishima who finished tying off the bandage to go get a team of his own. Bakugo ran back towards the summit himself, and he saw a group of others looking towards him and calling him over to make teams with each of them. Despite looking pretty beat-up and with a bandage wrapped around his forehead, not many of the others considered it a huge disadvantage as long as it was still Bakugo.

On the other hand there was Midoriya, who was trying not to let his limp show as he looked around at the other competitors. He was grinding his teeth hard behind his lips, such a frustrated look on his face as he thought about what Aizawa just called out. _I missed the point of the event completely. I was too focused on getting first, making myself stand out, and I got Uraraka hurt too during it. I thought with my speed and strength I could get through the robots even seeing how strong they were..._ he looked around and he was starting to get more panicked as he saw Sato and Shoji look his way, then turn the other direction and run towards a returning Bakugo to try and join his team.

 _Everyone knows I injure myself too often. They don't want to risk it! Who can-_

"Hey Midoriya, want to team up?" Midoriya spun with his eyes opening huge, his worries starting to vanish. He froze though as he realized who the voice belonged to at the same moment as he turned. He stared behind him at a boy two inches shorter than him, with black hair, and a scar under his right eye going across his face.

"Zach," Midoriya began, and he stared with wide eyes at the other boy for a few seconds. Then his fists clenched at his sides and even his hurt right leg straightened. _I can't. I need to stand out. I need, even if I know it's going to be hard just to make it in the next round alone, I need to get first! And not just first, but a first where it's my name people see. If the first place from the last round gets it again but with another partner, or if it's Zach at all..._ "Sorry," Midoroya said, and Zach's eyes widened at the response. "I can't do it," Midoriya said.

"Okay then," Zach spun and jogged off. He was surprised, but he quickly reminded himself that more important than asking 'why' was finding someone who _would_ be on his team. He darted his gaze around and then smiled wide as he saw who he was looking for, leaving behind Midoriya whose mouth was left open as he had prepared an explanation for Zach. Midoriya shook his head around to stop thinking about that, and he nodded in agreement with how quickly Zach moved on, looking around himself for a new partner.

"Yo Jirou..."

"What are your Quirks?" Bakugo snapped at the three Class B students also trying to team up with him like his own classmates.

"Hey Bakugo!" Bakugo turned his head, and a smirk spread over his face at the sight of the short person running back to the summit.

"What do we do Kazumi?" Sahara asked her tall boyfriend next to her. "Without our love combos, will we really be able to make it to the next round?"

"The top four teams make it in," Kazumi whispered down into her ear. The short girl with a red ponytail opened her eyes wide, then she nodded at the boy from general studies who she met exactly a year before at the last Sports Festival. "Tell your teammates too," he whispered to her, then they nodded and ran off from each other in different directions.

 _Under five minutes, this is bad,_ Zach darted his gaze around, skimming right over Yaoyorozu's team of four he was disappointed to find her already in. She had been apologetic towards him and he could see she even considered breaking off to join up with him, but he didn't want her to do that considering how good her team actually looked. _Kirishima, Tsuyu, and Tokoyami. Dang, and Kaminari teamed up with Jirou so I can't join up with her now. Running out of good teams... and no way Bakugo lets me join up with him, probably for the same reason as Midoriya._

Zach looked towards Todoroki, then he grimaced as he took a step only for Todoroki to shake his head at him. _Holy crap,_ Zach thought as he looked to ether side of Todoroki at his two teammates. A group of others who just left Bakugo disappointedly all spun towards Todoroki too as they saw the only two members at his sides. As they started running over though, Todoroki shook his head and said they weren't taking anyone else.

 _Guess it was a good move not to join with me,_ Zach thought as he saw Midoroya standing with Iida and Todoroki. _The guys who beat Stain together. Even with a hurt leg, I know Midoriya well enough to know he'll still make it, and I guess those two do too. Bakugo sent everyone else away with only Uraraka on his team... Him!_ Zach started running towards the big group who were arguing with each other.

Shoji broke away from Sato who he could not team with, and who he didn't want to keep struggling against about joining the others' teams. Mineta convinced Shiozaki and Kendo to let him join their team, saying he could stick people's feet on top of his Pop Offs and they technically wouldn't be touching the ground at the intervals. Monoma and Tetsutetsu joined up, and Tsuburaba grouped up together with Kuroiro. Shishida growled at the spiky-indigo-haired boy next to him but then nodded his head reluctantly at the guy who brainwashed him the year before to join a team. The fact that Shinso asked instead of just forcing him into a team made Shishida realize they all wanted to win, and he forced himself to look at the positive aspects of joining with Shinso.

Zach jogged past Sato and the short girl from the support course who he purposely kept his gaze away from, and he jogged to the tallest boy in his class who turned seeing him come over. "Shoji?" Zach asked, a hopeful look on his face.

Mezo Shoji glanced up at the tv screens that had the time limits on them down to four minutes. He looked back down at Zach who he had heard already was not going to use his Quirk during the tournament. _But he won the last round anyway..._ "Do you have a plan?" Shoji asked.

"You're like a tank," Zach said. _Running out of time. Really need this to work out!_ "So I think it'll be tough for people to force you off your feet if you plant down hard enough. And I'm going to be trying to knock other people off the ground at the intervals."

"You want me to be defense?" Shoji asked in surprise and some confusion. "Why don't we both stay near an edge and try keeping-"

"I'm betting the first thing Todoroki does is put up a wall around the outside of the summit," Zach said, darting his gaze over towards the person most people in their class considered as the strongest. Shoji looked over too and he focused on the three who were huddled and planning something. "And if we're not farther in when that happens we'll be pretty screwed. Even if we don't get caught in the ice, just being stuck outside it is bad enough-"

"I'll join your team," Shoji said, interrupting Zach as the timer lowered down close to three minutes. A relieved look spread on Zach's face, then he listened seriously and nodded his head at what Shoji continued with. "I'll work on knocking people up too though. I have to keep moving anyway or Todoroki will freeze my legs and force them off the floor." Both of them knew without saying anything that knocking people off the ground was as important as them staying on themselves. Neither of them had the best mobility, so running around for five minutes straight did not seem like it would work, especially on the square summit that was not all that wide for thirty-four people being on it.

"We can rely on Bakugo blowing apart any large sheets of ice Todoroki tries covering the surface with, and Todoroki has to make sure he doesn't freeze the ground below Midoriya and Iida too. He has to be precise," Zach theorized. "He's on a team with people with a lot of mobility, so they are probably going to use that…"

Other teams were planning around the summit as the timer lowered down to two minutes. Mother Russia was not saying anything else about starting points, and Present Mic just started calling out teams based on where the contestants were atop the mountain. "And the last two teams, Team Ojiro and Kazumi, and Team Hagakure and Koda are formed! With just over a minute left, what kind of strategies are these students going to make?! All of Class A, half of Class B, a couple from general studies and one from the support course!"

"Breaking up the platform when it's this small already is only going to hurt us," Jirou retorted to her partner. "We've just gotta keep people away from us. Hold this area."

"Alright!" Kaminari agreed as that idea sounded solid to him.

"And if you zap me..." Jirou started threatening, making Kaminari take a big step away from her back with a small laugh.

Zach looked across the stage for the second event at his last round's partner. _Kaminari used his electricity twice, the second time in a big attack stretching a wide area. He didn't go as strong as he could though knowing there were people around the area who might not have jumped, as well as preparing for the charge to still be there when they landed. Mineta convinced those Class B girls to let him join easily, but neither of them saw how many of his Pop Offs he was throwing at the Ants towards the end. Before I shot away with the grappling gun I definitely saw him slowing down, and he looks tired still even though he wasn't climbing at all. Still need to be careful of the Pop Offs, wish I had a glove over my left too..._ Zach glanced at his right hand and the double black gloves over it. He had his usual one beneath as well as one the school made him use whenever training with others, just a little thicker so he still barely noticed its presence.

"You focused?" Shoji asked as he saw where Zach was looking. The timer hit thirty seconds and the larger boy noticed other teams around the area looking around at their opponents now instead of each other.

Zach clenched his right hand into a fist and nodded his head once, smiling and looking at Shoji to show he was in it. _People are watching. The whole Sports Festival, they're going to be watching me. Keep it together. Keep up appearances. Make everyone here know, I'm here. Make Shigaraki feel like a fool for failing to catch me. Make my mark, to make a difference, to make what I say matter._ Zach bent his legs and his right hand lowered to his side and hovered over his grappling gun. _So I can make a change in this world, for the better._

"Ten seconds left people! YOW! Look at them. Ready for battle! Ready for war!" The crowd started cheering louder and louder as Present Mic hyped them up.

Mother Russia lowered down and she called down to the students, "I will be referee. Do not go too far or I will remove you. Win."

"THREE! TWO! ONE!" Present Mic finished the countdown and everyone in the stands kept cheering. He did not call out 'Start' or anything, the timer just vanished and a new one with 5 minutes on it started counting down on each of the screens.

No one moved. 4:59, 4:58, 4:57... The top of the summit was silent with all the contestants darting their gazes around at the people around them, each of them daring someone else to make a move. 4:55, 4:54... the audience started quieting down, people getting confused as each of the students in blue uniforms stood there waiting for something. Some of them started to think that nothing was going to happen at all, and they would all try getting close to the 150 points before maybe fighting each other at the end.

Tsuyu croaked softly, "Gero." She held the shield out in front of her as did Yaoyorozu at her back. Kirishima crossed his arms and used Unbreakable, and Tokoyami covered his body in Black Ankh to give himself a strong defense as well. Then all four of them started sinking into the ground at 4:52. Their heads all started spinning the same way to see Juzo Honenuki smirking towards them from seven meters in front of Tsuyu's shield. Ashido grinned behind him, then she yelled out and stumbled to the side as an ice wall rose up next to her. One of her stumbling feet got caught in the ice and lifted off the ground at 4:51, the same second Bakugo blasted himself forward with his feet skidding across the floor. He shot towards a couple of Class B teams not far from each other, and he waved his right arm in front of his body with explosions blasting towards their feet, making some of them step or jump backwards.

A ding went off at 4:50, and a blue ripple went off across the surface of the summit. As the ripple went under Bakugo and Uraraka's feet, a green circle flashed under their bodies. Red circles dinged out beneath people on the rock surface even if they had both feet down like Honenuki, if one of their members did not have both feet down as Ashido did not. Green circles appeared beneath Iida, Midoriya, and Todoroki's feet inside the ice fortress suddenly cordoning off a section of the peak.

Zach and Shoji got green circles beneath them, as did Jirou and Kaminari not far away from them. Unfortunately, a group of teams with Class B students started rushing their way after missing the first five point distribution. Those groups were mixed with two others who had gotten points at the ten second mark, and all four teams were heading for the pairs of Class A students. _Do we try teaming with Kaminari and Jirou? No, they're going to be good enough without us at keeping people off them. We need to move._ "Let's run," Zach said, and he darted off to the right, while keeping an eye on Bakugo behind those teams he was not chasing after. Bakugo had ten seconds, and he was using all of them to blast through the ice fortress that was looking to give the team inside a sure shot at getting into the final round.

Ashido swung Acid down at her feet quick enough to melt ice and get out of the way of a charging Bakugo, then she had to dive out of the way of her flying partner who was slammed back by an extended black arm coming off Tokoyami's body. Dark Shadow swept a hand at her too, but Ashido flipped backwards and then cartwheeled away to avoid the creature of darkness coming out of Tokoyami. When Honenuki was thrown back, the team he sucked into the floor with seconds until the first interval emerged back out of it, and they were all frowning as they had seen the red circles appear around their knee levels a few seconds ago. "Let's move away from him," Yaoyorozu said as she saw Honenuki getting back on his feet not far away from them.

Yaoyorozu lifted up a Russian doll and she tossed it in the air towards Honenuki who looked about to try and sink them into the floor again. Ashido looked up after landing a flip, then she spun to her partner and yelled, "Close your eyes!"

Honenuki did not realize what was happening, and he did not have good enough chemistry with the pink girl from Class A that he would have an immediate reaction. His eyes did clench shut though, but only after the flash grenade popping out of the splitting doll went off.

Zach and Shoji had their heads pulled down and eyes clenched shut, and they opened them back up hearing the Class B students behind them yelling out. Behind those students they looked back at they could see one of the big screens showing two seconds until 4:40. Zach fired his grappling gun that he replaced the hook of before the round, and he yanked up after wrapping a blunt hook around Monoma's right leg. Monoma started falling, swinging his right leg back down hard, but the ding went off first and he grimaced as his leg was still up unlike the first ten second interval. His body turned to steel right before he would have hit the ground on his back, and he quickly got back to his feet while Zach pulled back his hook and turned to keep running with Shoji.

"Don't want to fight them," Zach said as he saw Shoji looking hesitant like he thought they could take the two pairs of Class B teams chasing them. Mineta and the Class B girls he was with had gone after Kaminari and Jirou, as did Shinso and Shishida. Kuroiro and Tsuburaba were right behind Monoma and Tetsutetsu, but the two of them just got their first five points to put them at the same level as their classmates. The four of them ran after Zach and Shoji who just reached ten, keeping them tied for first with a half dozen other teams.

Zach did not want to check the scoreboard this quickly, but his eyes darted up and then immediately shot across the summit towards the collapsing ice castle. _Bakugo accepted not getting points as long as it meant they didn't either. Neither of them have ten._

A tongue wrapped around Zach's left foot and yanked him off the ground. He swung up in the air, and he called out, "Shoji don't!" His teammate about to rush Yaoyorozu's team to try and free Zach paused, and Zach pointed his grappling gun straight down so the hook was right on the tongue around his foot. Tsuyu's eyes opened wide as did Tokoyami's next to her. When Zach pulled the gun, as they both thought he might, they predicted he would aim down at her and fire to which Tokoyami would block. Pointing it point-blank against Tsuyu's tongue with how fast they knew it could shoot was crazy, and Tsuyu unwrapped her tongue even though she realized as soon as she let go how fast she was swinging a defenseless Zach through the air. _Four seconds!_ Zach aimed the gun away from the tongue he bluffed at shooting with a completely serious look on his face, and he fired down towards Shoji who rose his left arms up seeing where Zach was aiming.

Shoji let the hook wrap around his left arms, then he pulled back himself and jolted Zach back through the air towards him. Zach shook his head at Shoji, but the taller boy caught him instead of letting Zach try to land himself, and the time hit another ten second interval while Shoji was trying to quickly lower Zach to the floor. "Close," Shoji said with a disappointed tone.

"Thanks," Zach said, surprising Shoji who thought he might complain about missing the points they would have gotten if he landed himself. _If I hurt my legs this early in a match like this, we'd be screwed. I should have thought about that earlier, but Midoriya doesn't actually have the best mobility right now. Todoroki making a good defense while the team as a whole still has the ability to move is the best strategy. They're tied up with us again._ Zach turned his head and he pulled his grappling hook to unwrap it from Shoji's arms. The two of them faced the students right behind them who had just caught up and were moving on the attack.

 _Didn't want to fight them. We'll just hurt ourselves,_ Zach thought, though he kept a confident look on his face as he sidestepped the right steel fist passing his face. He reached up under Tetsutetsu's right arm and popped him under the armpit, but he grit his teeth as even just that still hurt his left hand, and it looked to have no effect on the steel boy. He grabbed under Tetsutetsu's arm instead and pushed up while running forward and ducking. He avoided Tetsutetsu's second punch by running by his right side, then he just let go and sprinted right by his opponent's back.

Zach ran forward and his eyes narrowed on a figure running after two girls taller than him with bigger strides. _Three..._ Zach heard Tetsutetsu call after him to stop, but before the short boy in front of Zach could turn, a hand grabbed him by the back of his blue uniform and threw up in the air. "Ahh!" Mineta yelled as he was tossed into the air by Zach's left hand. He flipped himself as he rose though, and he reached up to his head yelling, "You'll pay for that!" Zach had his right arm lifted and he fired while still running forward away from a steel boy he could see chasing him out his peripheral vision. A girl sliding away from a charging Sato did not see Zach's hook until the wire was wrapped around her. Zach spun to his right, using Mina's momentum while she started turning his way.

"Whoa!" Mina shouted as her feet pulled off the ground. Zach planted his feet and spun while grabbing the grappling gun with both hands and locking the length of the wire. _Not long enough to hit him with, but if I time it,_ Zach pressed a button to retract the wire as Ashido melted through the hook lifting her, and he dove to the side to avoid the first purple balls flying down at him. He tssked as he rolled, as Tetsutetsu was able to stop short and avoid running over the sticky balls on the floor. One thing did go right though, as Ashido focused more on landing before the ten second interval about to hit, and she didn't realize Zach had thrown her right in the path of Mineta's attack.

Mina twisted her body as she got stuck by three balls, and she swung both arms behind her to create an Acid Veil using her super move. It dissolved so well that even Mineta's other Pop Offs did not make it through, though when she landed the ding came a second later to Zach's disappointment. Then he grinned as he saw the red circle beneath her, only to snap his head down with wide eyes as his own red circle appeared. He spun, but Tetsutetsu was no longer attacking him either because of the red light under him too. They turned back to see both Shoji and Monoma had jumped up in the air and were coming down after the interval.

"What are you doing?!" Tetsutetsu shouted back. Zach darted his head around though and he spotted the one he was looking for not far from his own teammate.

Zach pointed his grappling gun he shoved a new hook into and muttered, "Sorry Shoji." He fired and slammed the second blunt hook into his friend's shoulder, making Shoji lean to the side and start shaking his head around a second later. He spun towards Zach in confusion, then Zach called to him, "Don't respond to Shinso!"

Shinso frowned as he ran off, and he turned to Shishida and said, "Sazaki's team still has more than us. Think you could get him off his feet?"

Shishida nodded and dropped down on all fours, turning his head and growling in Zach's direction before starting a sprint over. "Tetsutetsu," Zach said, talking to the boy in front of him who was running towards Shoji and Monoma who were still standing near each other, though Monoma was standing still waiting to jump at the next ten second interval. The gray haired boy in front of him with a silver coating over his body glanced back at Zach, and Zach said loud enough for Shoji in front of him to hear, "You two want to team up with us?"

"Not a chance," Tetsutetsu snapped. "We're making this through with all Class B's!"

Zach nodded, then he turned to Shoji and motioned with a nod of his head off the summit. Shoji reached next to him and grabbed Monoma, shaking him out of his brainwashing with a strong jolt of lifting him off the ground. Tetsutetsu's eyes opened wide, and Monoma started turning his head to the six-armed teen hoisting him up with ease. "You should turn into steel," Shoji said, then he tossed off the side of the mountain and Monoma shouted in panic before steeling himself.

"Damn it! MONOMA!" Tetsutetsu shouted, running towards the edge to look off. He swung his right arm out towards Shoji as he ran by, but Shoji jumped backwards and then planted his feet down hard right before the timer reached another interval.

"More than a minute down," Zach called to Shoji as green circles binged beneath their feet with the ripple of blue light. He darted his gaze over to the scoreboard, _Twenty five points. Oh man! Kaminari and Jirou at the top with forty?! That's all of-_ He spun his head to the right just as Shoji and a bunch of others did, as Midoriya was up in the air and just swung a kick from a distance towards the two who had been untouchable so far. The gust was so strong that they were each thrown from the summit, and then as Midoriya's eyes shot open wide at how far the drop was considering the steepness of the mountain, a cement wall rose up beneath the falling teens and softly lowered them down as they fell on it.

Cementoss dropped Jirou and Kaminari down on the flat floor before the start of the slope, and though the two of them were grateful they did not crash down much harder, they suddenly realized how much worse this was than they first thought. "Get back up there!" Jirou shouted, and she started running forward before reaching up and trying to climb using natural handholds in the wall.

"Didn't realize… how tough this was," Kaminari added as he tried to find a spot to climb up himself. He had relied on Zach for getting up this part, and Jirou had relied on Koda, and both of them were climbing the top of the mountain for the first time. Jirou glanced at the boy who was slow on saying that, and she pursed her lips as now was not a time to laugh at Kaminari's half-stupid-looking face with a scar above his right eyebrow.

"Snap out of it and climb faster," Jirou shouted to her right, reaching up herself and climbing with a frustrated and worried look on her face as she heard a ding up above.

Mineta had landed and recovered, Ashido melted the attached Pop Offs from her body, and Zach ran towards them both as they ran towards him. Shoji jumped back from Tetsutetsu who planted his feet and shouted behind him for Monoma to hurry up the mountain, which he was doing faster than others who were thrown off, making his own handholds slamming his steel hands and feet into the rock wall. Mineta, Ashido, and Zach were about to reach each other, with the pink girl and short boy nodding at each other at the final moment before both turning their heads to Zach who got them with his last attack. Zach's eyes narrowed and both fists clenched while his grappling gun was down at his side, and he started stepping side to side while speeding up even more, confusing his opponents who could not tell where to attack with their long-distance moves. Then all three of them flew up in the air with a gust of wind slamming into them so powerful it knocked the wind out of Zach.

Zach winced then snapped his eyes open as he heard Shoji calling up to him. He looked back and saw the edge of the square summit getting away from him. He was spinning through the air, and he saw Mina yelling out in panic not far from him. Mineta was pulling off Pop Offs from his head fast, and he threw them down at the ground he was falling towards to try and bounce off of. For Zach and Mina though, there was Cementoss who lifted a soft wall of cement that they hit and got cushioned by as it dipped down for them. Cementoss lowered them to the ground, then Zach started sprinting forward without saying a word to the pink girl next to him a few feet away. He pointed his grappling gun towards the top of the mountain ahead, and he yelled, "Shoji!"

Shoji was already running to the edge, and Mina gawked at Zach's back she started chasing a second too late, as Zach flew back towards the summit. A ding went off while Zach was in midair and he grit his teeth with a dart of his eyes towards the scoreboard again. _Midoriya's jumping up after each interval, and he can move around through the air much easier than running around. He only has to touch at each ten seconds. So he'll be up in a second._ Zach saw Midoriya jumping, and he saw Monoma reaching the top not far from where he was about to land. Zach hit next to Shoji whose wrist he had wrapped the hook of his grappling gun around, and his eyes widened more as he saw three different groups running by in front of them between them and Midoriya.

"Shoji, push down on my shoulders," Zach said, right before Midoriya leapt in the air and pulled his left leg back.

Shoji's eyes widened a bit, then he nodded and pushed down on Zach's shoulders which hurt the shorter boy but made him grin as the gust slammed into him. He felt it so strong he thought his feet might be thrown back anyway, but both of Shoji's feet pushed up behind Zach's heels and kept him planted. To their right, Monoma and Tetsutetsu stayed planted down too, though their steel feet skid back almost to the edge they were pushing away from. Kamakiri and Awase flew between their teams, but the other two teams who were between them and Midoriya did not fly off the ground. _What is…_ Zach's eyes focused on the two he recognized the least of everyone there. _Those two teamed the first time. Don't know what department they're from, but their teams are together…_

Midoriya also looked down towards Ojiro and Sato, and the two who they were each partnered with who they had held onto to keep their feet planted on the floor after his kick. His main focus shifted back up towards Zach though while the teams between them continued running off, not wanting to stay near the boy kicking people away with only strong gusts of wind all the time. There were already a dozen people off the mountain currently climbing up the steep slope, and Kaminari and Jirou's team dropped more than ten behind the lead as they kept climbing.

Zach wanted to focus on Kazumi and Sahara whose powers confused him, and whose teams he noticed on the leaderboard were both still high up. He also thought Midoriya might still be focused on him, but he said, "Shoji, run away from me. Try to stay on the ground and don't answer Shinso again."

"Alright," Shoji said out a mouth appearing at his top right hand. "Good luck. Stay in sight."

Shoji let go of Zach's shoulders and the darker haired boy started running to his left. Midoriya was intercepted by Bakugo a second earlier while he was focused on Zach, and Zach saw that which gave him the chance to run off. "Listen for my voice," Zach added with a shout over his shoulder, and Shoji nodded as he ran the other way. Monoma and Tetstutetsu looked back and forth at the two splitting up, then Monoma told the boy next to him they should just plant their feet down and try to gather more points instead of fighting others for the moment.

Zach sprinted straight forward, then he darted a quick step to the right, then left, then he jumped up in the air. The taller and hairier boy with the Quirk Beast who had been charging at him darted his eyes back and forth behind his glasses when Zach made his sidesteps. He was on all fours and he rose his arms when Zach jumped towards him with all his speed behind him. Zach started lifting his left leg like he was going to swing it around for the side of Shishida's head, then he yanked his right leg up in a single movement. He bent his leg and slammed a flying knee into Shishida's face while the Beast boy's eyes were darted to his right at Zach's still-lifting left leg. Shishida's head snapped back and his glasses flew off broken, blood splashing from his nose, then he snapped his head back down furiously and growled while slashing both hands at Zach.

Zach was already dropping, but he curled and fell into a roll he sprinted out of and dodged the ice that hit where he had been, and Shishida still was. The flying knee that made the other boy stumble back while slashing at Zach disoriented Shishida enough that he didn't even see Todoroki's ice coming, and it lifted him off his feet right before the bing that made a green circle appear under Zach's feet. _Keep it up Shoji,_ Zach thought, while sprinting faster to dodge the ice that came out of the trail holding Shishida in the air, while the boy from Class B behind him started clawing at the ice near his feet. _It's slow,_ Zach thought, and he made to dart to the right, only to dive to the left in a roll as the ice sped up towards where Zach was supposedly changing his direction.

 _I can't dodge him forever,_ Zach thought as he came out of his roll only to see two trails of ice cutting at him from behind and on his right. He darted his head to the side and saw Midoriya flying through the air towards him, and he jumped up in the air and yelled, "Shoji!" He pointed his grappling gun he whipped out towards the tallest boy on the summit who lifted his right arm and spun towards Zach. Zach fired towards Shoji's arm, and this time he did not retract after getting the hook wrapped around him. "Swing me!" Zach yelled, then turned his head towards the one he wanted Shoji to throw him at as he was starting to come down.

Shoji looked over and thought, _You're crazy._ He swung his arms so hard though that Zach had to bring his left hand over too as he felt the gun almost get ripped from his grip.

Zach's arm muscles strained as he shot through the air the opposite direction as Midoriya, then he heard the curly-haired boy behind him yell, "Todoroki!" Midoriya could not waste an attack on Zach, as the interval was in two seconds and he would not land by then if he kicked first. Todoroki was aiming his ice all over the place, but he had been focusing on Zach anyway and his eyes opened wide as the boy he was attacking suddenly came flying towards him with a whip of wire swinging him that way.

Zach stuck both legs out getting ready for a double-kick into Todoroki's side, and he yelled, "Let go!" Zach retracted the wire and the hook right before Todoroki lifted his left hand at Zach. Zach pointed the gun at Todoroki, then just like he did at the capture the flag game, Zach fired the hook at his opponent. Instead of blocking with ice this time though, Todoroki just leaned to the side as he saw it coming, then he clenched his left hand over the gun that Zach threw at him after firing. Before he could start melting the gun as he expected Zach thought him would though, Todoroki lowered his left hand and rose his right towards Zach's legs kicking in front of him. He grabbed Zach by the left leg, then Zach's left fist passed in front of Todoroki's face he pulled back at the moment Zach was flying by him.

Zach bent his elbow the instant his fist passed in front of Todoroki's nose, and his elbow slammed into the other boy's cheek even as Zach winced in pain from his left leg covering in ice. Zach kept falling with a lot of momentum and he hit the ground and rolled after passing Todoroki, but Todoroki was lifted off his feet by that elbow, stumbling backwards so his left foot was off the ground when the summit binged with blue light. Both of Zach's feet were on the ground though as he rolled across the floor at the moment of the blue light's passing, and even as Zach screamed out in pain he had his eyes open and saw a green circle appear below him. _It's too early in the match,_ he thought.

He stopped rolling and winced in pain while flipping himself onto his stomach. He planted his hands down below him and then pushed up onto his right leg, glancing down at his left that some ice broke off of as he rolled but still felt insanely cold and frostbitten. Zach turned his head and looked back towards his grappling gun that Todoroki dropped when he was elbowed in the face, then he quickly shot his gaze off of it to look at Todoroki who he saw turning to him. _Don't look at it. Pick it up when no one's looking._ Zach turned to the right and he started running, wincing with every step of his left foot as half of his leg was still half-frozen. _Who's in first? Those guys!?_ Zach spun his head around looking for them, the same time Midoriya was doing the same instead of chasing after Zach as he saw Todoroki had that covered.

 _There,_ Midoriya thought, and he dropped down in front of Sato and Sahara, and Ojiro and Kazumi. He lifted up his fists in a fighting stance and narrowed his gaze at his own classmates, right as Bakugo dropped down on the other side of them, and Yaoyorozu's team of four was running their direction. The two from the support and general studies classes reached towards each other and the tips of their fingers got close with grins on either of their faces, then a half dozen attacks went off at the same time and sent the four people in the center of the teams just below the top two flying. A bing went off and made green circles appear under Midoriya, Bakugo, and Yaoyorozu's teams feet, then Midoriya jumped up and swung two kicks towards the four they sent flying with their attacks. He separated the Sahara girl and the Kazumi guy before they could do whatever it was they had done to get themselves so high in the first place, then Midoriya yelled out in pain as he only just started turning back for Bakugo to slam him with a double-explosion in the side.

 _Todoroki's after Zach-_ Shoji spun his head and he crossed all six of his arms at the sight of the boy shooting towards him with jets coming out of his calves. Iida changed directions fast and curved around Shoji's side, and he jumped up and kicked for the bigger teen's back. Shoji got slammed by a kick, and he winced, but he spun around afterwards and reached for Iida's leg. Iida pulled back quickly though and then jumped back and faced his opponent with a serious look on his face, pushing up his glasses with one hand.

"Iida," Shoji said, narrowing the one eye showing out from beneath his white bangs at the class representative.

"Shoji," Iida replied, and he bent his legs with blue light shining out the back of them.

The ground beneath them lost its solidity, cutting off Iida's Reciproburst as Honenuki dropped them into the floor. "Kaakakaka! Two of the top five at the same- WHOA!" Juzo Honenuki shouted in panic as he was suddenly flying off the ground after a touch in his back turned into a push.

"What's going on?!" Tetsutetsu shouted. He and Monoma had been holding on well with the new strategy of just standing still and using the Steel Quirk to plant their feet in the floor. The two of them were rising up in the air now though and had no way of coming back down, just slowly lifting up and a bit to the north without any sign that they would be dropping soon.

"Tetsutetsu, throw me," Monoma said, reaching out an arm towards his teammate rising just within his reach if Tetsutetsu reached as well. The blond next to him covered his body in steel again, then he finished, "I'll knock out the Zero-Gravity girl and drop you down. Get back to the summit as fast as you can."

"Yaa!" Tetsutetsu agreed with a shout, reaching his hand and grabbing Monoma by the forearm firmly. He swung his arm the other way, and with there being no gravity on either of them, he sent Monoma flying down like a rocket, though he was also sent flying in a different direction and spinning around as he had nowhere to plant down before swinging like that. Tetsutetsu's cheeks puffed out and he grimaced with a disgusted look on his face as he did cartwheels through the air.

Uraraka was reaching for her next opponent, when an explosion went off over her head. "Watch it!" Bakugo shouted down, while Monoma went flying off to the side instead of into the summit near Uraraka. She spun her head and saw the boy covered in steel flying towards the stands and a group of people who started panicking, and Uraraka had to put her fingers together and drop everyone she was holding at once. More than four groups just missed an interval though, some of them two, and Bakugo smirked as he saw teams still dropping as another bing went off around the summit. He had shot himself down a second early, and he fired explosions back beneath him after the green light appeared under his feet.

Bakugo looked towards the scoreboard, and he turned his head back and glared towards a black-haired boy who just dove away from an ice spike rising at him.

Shoji and Iida were running towards each other, and their eyes opened wide as the ground below them blinked blue with neither of them ready to slam their feet down from their mid-runs. They brought their legs down fast and came to sudden stops, but either they did not do it fast enough, or they had teammates not touching. Both checked the second option even though they knew that seeing the blue light while their feet were off was almost a sure sign they had been the ones at fault since the light flashed over the summit in a single second. After they looked around though, their eyes widened at the sight of their teammates, and both of them ran off without saying a word to the person they had been fighting.

 _Midoriya-kun!_

Shoji was sprinting the opposite direction as Iida, darting his gaze up and left towards Bakugo and then right at Todoroki. _What I get for teaming with the number one from the previous round,_ Shoji thought, then his head spun farther to the right and his eyes opened wide.

Zach jumped back from Todoroki, then he spun his head to the side and saw Bakugo flying towards him. He twisted his body in midair and swung his left fist forward a bit, only to swing his right instead. It was a double-feint, but Bakugo saw it coming too since it was Zach's right fist he was punching after the first feint, and Bakugo ducked under the left fist that started speeding up and swinging down at his chest, then he pointed a hand at Zach and fired an explosion while still far enough that it was not point-blank and might destroy him. "DIE!" Bakugo yelled, even though it was not meant to kill, and he sent Zach flying back in an explosion that got cut off by a spike of ice a second later encasing half of Zach's body.

Bakugo landed and spun towards Todoroki as green lights appeared under both of their feet, and Zach shivered while in a lot of searing pain stuck in an ice spike not far from them. The green circles that just appeared beneath those other two tied his team up with Zach and Shoji, while the teams of Kazumi and Sahara dropped ten below them and fifteen under the top now. Yaoyorozu, Kirishima, Tsuyu, and Tokoyami's team was five down from the three facing each other in a triangle, even though Zach looked unable to compete with the others. Jirou and Kaminari's team was fifteen down, but they were also fifteen down at the last interval which showed they had just made it back to the top.

Jirou darted her gaze to the leaderboard and saw them tied with the two teams who had risen to the leaders after they had dropped off. Even though they were tied with Kazumi, Ojiro, Sato, and Sahara though, they were still only tied for sixth place with four other teams. _First place now, five above all those monsters,_ Jirou looked to her right past a panting Kaminari and towards a team she never expected to be in first. _Those Class B girls are smart though. I know Kendo's reliable as the class rep and keeping Monoma in check, and Shiozaki shocked me at the final reports, but damn if it doesn't bug me that Mineta's in first. And look at him._

Mineta's smug look was not just unappreciated by Jirou's team. A group of others tied for sixth or tied for eleventh place only five down from sixth were all glaring towards Mineta, Kendo, and Shiozaki who had a strange setup going for them. Shiozaki had green vines sticking up in a semicircle around them near an edge of the square arena. Mineta had put a wall of Pop Offs behind him, things that he would bounce off himself in case Midoriya swung a kick in his direction to try and send him flying again. He was smirking wide and rose a hand that he rubbed beneath his eyes, clearing any blood from them though there was not a lot considering how good he was feeling. His own mood accounted into the effectiveness of his Pop Offs, and boy if he didn't feel good right now. Kendo stood closest behind Shiozaki's vines that rose like cage bars intermittently around them close enough that no one could get through but spread out enough that they could see all their enemies. Kendo's hands were large and held out to her sides, and she was ready to swing them forward to create gusts of wind to push others back if they needed. Shiozaki was also prepared to make their wall thicker if need be, several of her vine-like hairs whipping around at her sides ready to plant more, while Mineta held up Pop Offs he was ready to throw at whomever rushed them first.

 _That's,_ Jirou thought, while five other teams attacked the first place at once. Kendo swung her arms, using her own strong gusts as a combo with Mineta's throws to send his Pop Offs at enemies even faster. Two of Shiozaki's vines shot up out of the rocky ground surprising a team that was fastest, smacking Ashido and a pretty banged-up Honenuki backwards before they could reach their opponents. Ashido's Acid she was in the middle of throwing at the vine wall went flying straight up instead, making other teams around them run away for cover from the acid rain about to come down.

Kyoka Jirou bit down and she said to the boy next to her who finally caught his breath, "Get behind me. This is about to get a whole lot crazier." Jirou planted both of her hands down on the ground in front of her. She was close to the edge of the arena anyway, and Kaminari scrambled back with wide, somewhat blank, eyes as he saw what she was about to do. "We're the only ones getting the solid ground now," Jirou said, even as she sounded nervous saying it. "Here goes nothing."

"Can't you go Nightmare just for a second?" Shoji asked Zach, while he pounded away at the ice holding Zach in place. A huge explosion went off behind Shoji that he ducked forward away from, and Zach rose his arms to cross his face in protection. Zach lowered his gaze again and glared at the ice beneath him that did not melt much quicker despite the heat he just felt on his arms from Bakugo and Todoroki fighting it out.

"Even if I wanted to now," Zach said, while swinging his grappling gun that Shoji had brought over to him and smashing its hook into the ice like an ice pick. He chiseled some more off and Shoji pounded some more away, then Zach continued in a strained voice as he pulled at his legs that were encased in ice but not actually frozen as Todoroki was not trying to really hurt his classmates. Zach still winced in a lot of pain as he spoke though, "I managed to convince them, to let me use this grappling gun, by telling them I wasn't going to use my Quirk." Zach kept chiseling away faster, and he said, "So I can't just-" The ground on either side of Shoji's feet dipped down as a crack split between his legs, and all of the ice surrounding Zach broke apart too.

Ashido and Honenuki yelled out in panic as they tried planting their feet on shifting ground at the next interval, while two teams suddenly freed from Honenuki's Softening Quirk found themselves in even more trouble as they fell to the sides. Awase and Kamakiri who had almost climbed back to the summit after their soft fall (thanks to Cementoss) to the bottom, found their handholds vanishing as Jirou shattered the entire summit of the mountain other than a small section on the east side.

Tetsutetsu was about to start climbing up the sharp slope again, but instead of dropping his jaw like most others, he just grinned and started laughing before running up a slope that got easier to climb. Present Mic was shouting out commentary the whole time, but he yelled, "WHAT?!" after the summit tore apart. "ALRIGHT! Standing on any piece of what used to be the summit, I guess still counts?!" A bing happened a second later, and only five teams were all holding on and able to get the points there. Tsuyu grabbed onto each side of the broken chunk that had just stopped moving beneath her, Kirisihima's feet were planted hard and he had all five fingers of his right hand dug into the floor between his legs to hold himself there. Tokoyami's Dark Shadow grabbed the sides of some rocks around him and had them pulled together under him, and Yaoyorozu finished sticking together several pieces that never fully broke apart before she dumped fast-drying cement into the cracks. They were the only team of more than two who managed to still be grounded at that bing though, as most of the others had lost their chances.

Uraraka slowly pulled herself up to her feet while lying on a chunk of the mountain's summit she had flattened out on for safety. She saw the red light beneath her while her legs were sticking off, and she turned her head as she heard Bakugo yell towards her in annoyance as they dropped down to third place. "Bakugo!" Uraraka shouted, having an amazing idea after she thought about what Present Mic just said. "Come here!"

Bakugo shot himself over with a semi-annoyed look on his face that she was telling him what to do, then his eyes opened wide. He tssked and bit down with a frustrated look, but Uraraka said, "It's a good idea, isn't it?"

He said, "Shut up and do it." Bakugo flew towards her and dropped down on the same small rock surface she was on. Uraraka made it weightless, then she touched herself and Bakugo too, right before Bakugo put his hands down on either side of the small rock and blasted below them. A dozen nearby groups spun towards the middle of the cracked and tilted and broken arena to see what looked like a backwards-flying meteor. Bakugo pointed his hands above him and made smaller explosions once they were above the top of the bleachers, and he adjusted with a few more explosions until they were not moving at all. "Hmph," he grunted while Uraraka relaxed and leaned forward to look down at the match below and for any opponents who might try coming for them.

Uraraka glanced behind her at Bakugo who also started looking down but off the other side of their floating island. He had one hand down on the ground beneath his legs, and Uraraka did the same so she would not accidentally fly off the platform. They each stayed crouched while watching their opponents, Bakugo aiming a hand down with an explosion ready for anyone who was going to try something, and when the next bing came at the surface it made green circles appear beneath both of their feet. Neither knew how it worked, but grins spread on both their faces as they knew after that and at the sight of their opponents below that they were on a path to make it in for sure.

No one on the broken-up ground of the old summit was focused up on Bakugo or Uraraka. Staying grounded on a piece of mountain that they knew was actually the top of the summit just became a lot harder, and most of them would not be able to reach the other two if they tried. Midoriya landed near Todoroki who was forming an ice slope towards Iida down in a crack and calling to him to rush up. "Forget about Bakugo," Todoroki said after Midoriya mentioned what the other two's new plan must be. Todoroki frowned with a glance up himself, then he said in a lower voice, "They'll make it in the next round for sure with that, and you're the only one who could stop it. But with this we get Bakugo out of the way."

Midoriya started nodding, and Iida agreed too as he arrived and realized what they were discussing. Most of them were surprised Bakugo would go along with a plan that would keep him out of it, especially with almost half the time remaining in the battle, but if all those sixty-five points were guaranteed than it was clear the team already in third would either still be there or more likely be at a higher position by the end. Green circles appeared under Iida, Midoriya, and Todoroki the same time the first circles appeared below Uraraka and Bakugo. The three of them stood on a wide section farthest from the side of the summit Jirou stood back straight up on with Kaminari behind her. Between their groups were more than twenty others struggling to hold together sections, standing on slanted rocks, or climbing out of cracks in the ground that they kept falling into.

Shoji lifted Zach up and placed his friend on the ground, then he looked down at Zach's legs and said, "You alright?"

Zach reached down himself, and he started rubbing his hands up and down his legs that he was barely finding the strength to stand in. Rubbing his arms that fast hurt his shoulders and biceps too from everything he did the last round, and he was just in almost constant pain now. He darted his gaze towards the leaderboards and said, "We're in fourth right now. But we're tied with two other teams. What does that mean?"

Shoji looked towards the board himself, and he saw their team tied with Ojiro and Kazumi, and Yaoyorozu's team. Bakugo and Uraraka were five up, just five below Midoriya, Iida, and Todoroki's team. And that team was only five below Mineta's team still taking the top of the leaderboard. Shoji's eyes also looked down below the three teams tied for fourth, and he stared at Shishida and Shinso, Monoma and Tetsutetsu, Sato and Sahara, and Hagakure and Koda who were all tied for seventh. Kaminari and Jirou were another five below them, tied with Honenuki and Ashido, and Sero and Aoyama.

Mezo Shoji narrowed his eyes at that nearest screen then glanced back towards Zach who turned away from the leaderboard himself. "It's very close," Shoji said. "What do we do from here?"

"Just over two minutes left," Zach whispered fast at Shoji, darting his gaze around at other groups all setting themselves up after that ground-shattering move that caused a break in all the action. "Most teams aren't going to focus on first place, since they'll doubt ability to pass over them. They'll go for the ones in fourth," Zach said. He turned his head and said while lifting back up his grappling gun and baring his teeth through the pain in his legs that he bent, "That's why we need to go for first, and drag everyone after us at Mineta too."

"Let's go," Shoji said, reaching next to him and grabbing Zach by the back of his shirt. He jumped forward towards another broken rock surface then to the next one and put Zach down, letting Zach not have to jump those first two while letting him get situated as they neared the best team. Zach grinned as he started running forward after Shoji, as in the corner of his eyes he saw one of the other teams tied for fourth with them had the same idea. _Mineta's not so far in the lead that they're impossible to knock down. Only fifteen points up, means that within thirty seconds we can tie it up as long as they're not here._

 _Would a tie in fourth place mean that both teams get to move on?_ Yaoyorozu wondered as she and her team jumped forward across a bigger crack in the summit than all the others, and a few of them had to steady themselves on a slanted piece of rock before running again. _There could be a tiebreaker, but the maximum number of participants to make it through this would have been sixteen if all of the top four teams had four. The lowest number would have been eight, so considering that and the aspect that it seems Bakugo and Uraraka will make it in-_ Momo Yaoyorozu stopped thinking about the future, and she lifted her hands in front of her chest where a hilt started coming out of a shimmering light above and between her large breasts.

Yaoyorozu pulled out a machete, Tsuyu hopped to the left and avoided a green vine shooting up between some cracks, and Kirishima sprinted forward through a gust of wind. Zach ran behind Shoji, letting the taller and more muscular boy who was built like a tank take Kendo's wind she was creating with her huge hands straight on. Shoji got hit in the crossed arms by a couple of Pop Off balls, but only two, and he called out of a hand appearing on his middle right hand, "What's wrong Mineta? Tired already?" A hand appeared out of Shoji's top right hand, a whole arm stretching out behind it to let Shoji's new hand reach down to his elbows while he kept his arms crossed, and he yanked the Pop Off balls off of him with as much pain as tearing off a Band-Aid.

Zach pointed his grappling gun with the blunt hook on it again, he only had one of each kind now, towards the vines and fired between them at Kendo's leg. A vine whipped around and smacked the hook away, even as Yaoyorozu cut through other vines on the other side. A bing went off, and all three teams got green circles beneath them, but that made the two teams tied for fourth more upset as the team in first kept their lead over them. They heard teams shouting behind them, more of them closing every second, and Mineta's team was desperate to force them back into those attackers. That meant the fourth placers had to push forward the rest of the way fast. Tokoyami's Dark Shadow knocked vines out of the way, and Tsuyu and Kirishima leapt through, only for huge fists to slam forward. Kirishima blocked and Kendo winced as her punch felt like she was hitting something harder than a steel wall, while Tsuyu's tongue wrapped around the other punching fist and flipped her over it.

Shoji grabbed the vines and pushed two away, and he bent down forward for Zach who jumped up a bit onto Shoji's back. Shoji straightened up while Zach lifted his legs again, and Zach rose over Kendo who had Tsuyu all over her, and then over Shiozaki too who lifted her head at the last second as she was desperately trying to keep up a vine wall thicker outside of Kendo now. Zach landed behind Shiozaki and a foot from Mineta whose eyes shot open wide while he was tugging at his Pop Offs with weak pulls of his arms. "You used too many the last round," Zach said.

"You told me to," Mineta started complaining, but Zach picked him up by the front of the shirt despite the protest. Shiozaki's vines shot out of the back of the summit, out from beneath a crack below their large section on the opposite side as Jirou and Kaminari's solid one, the two largest ones in the arena. Zach was not aiming for off of the mountain though, and he tossed Mineta back towards Shoji who kept four arms pushing Shiozaki's vines to the side. If the girl with green hair could focus all her vines on the muscular six-armed boy, she might have been able to wrap him up, but with another team of four trying to attack her and swarming Kendo, she was split in her focus and only realized what was happening after Shoji caught Mineta with his top two arms.

Shoji spun around and started sprinting away while holding Mineta over his head, pulling Mineta's arms down to his sides as he ran. A bing made green lights appear under Zach and Shoji's feet, but Kendo had just tossed Tsuyu up, and even with Dark Shadow pulling her down fast she did not reach the ground in time for her team to get points. And that left Zach in the corner, with the two from the team now tied for first in front of him starting to run away to try and catch Shoji, and the other four with them no longer caring about that, as they needed to get back tied for fourth again.

"As long as he's not touching, the rest of you will move up," Shoji called out at the groups he ran towards who suddenly had second thoughts on attacking a guy most of them doubted their ability to get off the ground anyway. Instead, their attentions turned to Shiozaki and Kendo who made it away from Yaoyorozu's team, only to be blocked by teams tied for sixth and eleventh, and wanting to move up. On Shoji's right past some cracked ground, he saw three teams moving in at the same time for Midoriya who had Iida in front of him while he was down on his knees looking to be in a lot of pain. Midoriya struggled up though, as Iida yelled behind them at Todoroki to get back up there faster as they only had three seconds until the interval.

Shishida, and the two brainwashed teams charging in from either direction thanks to Shishida's partner who was standing farther back, attacked all at once. Tape shot from Sero's arms, and a beam of light fired at the feet of Iida and Midoriya who dodged to the side, right towards where Monoma and Tetsutetsu were attacking from. Midoriya and Iida tried staying close to the ground with their last dodge, and there was only a second left with Todoroki about to reach the pointed rock ledge behind them, fire blasting out his left hand pointed behind him. A big flash of light emitted and Shinso clenched his eyes shut as it happened right towards where he was looking, almost between Monoma and Tetsutetsu, and Iida and Midoriya.

"Light Refraction," Hagakure said while Todoroki botched his landing and fell down the mountain, Iida and Midoriya messed up the dodges they were trying, but Monoma and Tetsutetsu were shook from their brainwashing at the flash and fell into their opponents more than actually punched them. A bing went off, and Hagakure got a green circle beneath her, as did a few of the other teams around them that had not fallen when they were blinded by her Super Move.

Midoriya's team didn't get the points though, and Midoriya bit down through the pain and leapt high into the air with Full Cowling around his legs. He let out a yell of pain from his right leg, but he snapped his eyes open to look at the leaderboard while also flipping himself in the air. Mineta's team did not get the points, but they did not get them either to overtake first, while Bakugo and Uraraka did move up into second with them. Only one of the teams in fourth got the points though, making Kazumi and Ojiro stand alone at five points below the second place teams. There were now four teams tied for fifth just below them though, and as Midoriya yelled, "GEORGIA SMASH!" and kicked straight up with 8% All For One through his leg, Zach yelled towards Yaoyorozu's team that they should focus on the upper placed teams together.

Bakugo fired explosions in front of him and sent his and Uraraka's floating island shooting through the air, while Uraraka held onto its sides trying to make the chunk hold together from the powerful blast. Bakugo had seen Midoriya glance up even though he had been pretending to just need to get off the ground to check the leaderboards in peace, and he yelled down a taunt to the curly-haired boy who winced after the kick and was even more disappointed that he did not destroy the other team's island to make them drop back below.

"Can't do that Zach," Tokoyami said, and Dark Shadow swept forward for the boy who leapt back so he was right on the edge of their bumpy area of the summit.

"Sorry Zach-chan," Tsuyu said, hopping to his side and not sounding very sorry as she said it.

"You'll get right back up there in a second," Kirishima said, and he smirked as he charged forward at Zach who lifted his grappling gun, only for a hook to wrap around his own right arm and pull it to the side. Zach's eyes started turning towards Yaoyorozu who was holding a grappling gun of her own, then darted back to Kirishima fast while lifting his left arm to block. The idea that his classmates thought he was enough of a threat that they needed to do this power play to knock him off the leaderboards for good almost made him feel a little good, but he was way too into the competition to feel anything but dread at the idea of about to be losing all his possible points. Zach prepared to fire, then he just stopped and clenched his teeth while lifting his arm to protect his face from Kirishima's fist.

Kirishima ducked down and slammed a fist forward for Zach's stomach, and Yaoyorozu pulled off the hook as Zach was knocked off the side of the mountain. As Zach hit the slant and rolled down the mountain with no help from Cementoss who was watching carefully and decided Zach could take it without his help, the boy was only thinking one thing. Despite the pain from the punch in the stomach and around his body as he rolled on hard rocks for a few more seconds, Zach thought, _When did Yaoyorozu learn to use a grappling gun? Why did… ow._ Zach focused on the pain, to remember what was going on, before he could elaborate on that in his head any longer.

 _Fifty five possible points remain. Miss the next five. Need all fifty others. Can't assume top teams will-_ Zach struggled up to his feet, feeling some bruises already forming around his body. He looked up the slope that had become gentler after Jirou broke it apart, and he wondered if any of the chunks of rubble over the cracked ground had actually rolled from the summit and could give him points. He started running up and focused on those chunks, but when the bing hit for the minute and forty second mark, Zach did not see any blue light glowing on those rocks. _They're-_ Zach realized as he looked up the slope and saw Kirishima's back not far from the edge on one of the broken pieces of mountain, a green light flashing under his feet right there. The redhead glanced back over his shoulder, and Zach turned angrily and started running along the outside of the slope, jumping from debris to debris on the parts where the mountain was too broken up. _If Jirou does it again,_ Zach thought, _there'd be nothing solid to stand on. I didn't know she could break something this big this badly._

"You made this, so hard," Kaminari said, struggling to chase after Jirou in the chaos over the summit.

"Be quiet and make sure you keep both feet down in seven seconds," Jirou snapped, a frustrated look on her face at the blond boy's inability to multi-task. He was not splitting his focus very well, and he was slow at listening to her too, so even though she called to him to 'stop,' thinking he might not realize the time was at an interval, he had been too slow to react and took another step. _Top's getting… well it hasn't gotten higher. Two more teams tied for first though, then that Kazumi guy with Ojiro?_

On a different part of the mountain, the team in fourth only five below the top three was standing close to Sato and Sahara who were only five below them tied with two other teams for fifth. They were near an area that a flash of light just came from, and an invisible girl who had been running off from it was looking with huge eyes at the boy in fourth next to her. "Ojiro," Hagakure said, a nervous tone in her voice. "What are you-" Ojiro lifted up Hagakure, putting his other hand down on her other side from the one he had grabbed at first. "Hey put me down!" She called out as her boyfriend lifted her off the floor. Hagakure's eyes darted towards the scoreboard where she was in fifth place along with the team of two behind Ojiro and all of Yaoyorozu's team. Sato was facing off against Koda though, and Hagakure said quickly to the blond boy in front of her, "Instead of teaming with Sato, we should join-"

"Ohh Ojiro," a sweet voice called out behind him. Ojiro smiled wider and he got a pink blush to his face that made Hagakure and Koda's eyes open wide. "And Sato," the girl with a red ponytail standing in front of her large boyfriend called to Sato and blinked her eyes at him a few times. A pink pulse came off of her body, and Sahara said, "Toss them off the mountain for me, please?"

Sato charged at Koda who started swinging his arms forward with wide eyes, then turned and tried to run only for one of Sato's strong punches to his him in the back and send him flying forward from the force in it. "Maybe too strong there," Kazumi whispered down to the short girl in front of him.

"Enamor works more for some than others," Sahara replied with a shrug of her shoulders. _Though it works longer the longer I've been using it, and these boys are like putty…_ She looked towards Ojiro and saw his arms shaking as he held Hagakure up. Ghe invisible girl in his hands who spun her gaze from Ojiro to the other girl seemingly controlling him looked back and called out for him to fight it. "Ojiro, don't you want to make me happy?" Sahara asked after watching his struggle in surprise, and she took a deep breath then forced another pulse of pink light out of her that made Ojiro's smile lift up more, his cheeks to turn red, and he tossed Hagakure up in the air. Sahara and Kazumi got confused as he did not toss her towards the edge, but then their eyes shot open wide as Ojiro leapt up and spun his tail in midair into something lifting in front of him.

A shriek of pain cut through Ojiro's mind and his eyes shot open much wider, and as soon as he landed he yelled, "Toru!" Ojiro sprinted towards the edge, only to hear a voice behind him call out that made his legs freeze in place.

"Thanks babe," Kazumi whispered, and then he lifted his hands and Ojiro's feet flashed before surrounding in heavy lead. Ojiro spun his head towards the other two, and he saw Sato run back over to Sahara and stand next to his partner with glossy eyes and a lovestruck expression on his face. Kazumi called to Ojiro who was stuck in a mid-run near the edge of the summit, "Where are you going? We're a team right? Don't just-"

"No," Ojiro said, confusing Kazumi and the girl next to him who was staring in shock at the defiant look on Ojiro's face. "We're not a team. And I won't be controlled," Ojiro said, a more frustrated look on his face than a second ago. _After last year,_ he thought, his fists clenching hard at his sides. Ojiro turned and he forced his heavy right leg up, and he lifted his left next and called off the side of the mountain he was nearing, "Toru! Where are you?"

"Hold on a sec," Kazumi ran after his partner, and he yelled out for Ojiro to stop after he stepped off the summit.

Sahara looked at her own boyfriend's back for a few seconds before turning to Sato. _Kind of needed their help, but sorry Kazumi. You're in fourth anyway, but guess we should have realized with the guy who pulled out last year that he wouldn't just go along with it._ "Come on Sato," Sahara said in a half-whisper like she was hiding her voice from the other two boys they had been teamed up with since the beginning. The only reason they had not joined as one team was because Sahara and Kazumi were partnered for the last match and couldn't be, so it was just technically different teams the whole time even though they had been fighting together. Sahara had told Sato she could power him up when they were making teams, but at this point through the match with the Enamor going for several minutes already, Sato's sole reason for taking part in the Sports Festival was the girl in front of him. His nose even started to bleed as she winked and said, "Now it's just the two of us."

"Haha, haaa," Sato nodded in agreement with a blurry look on his face, and Sahara grimaced at the sight of it.

"Don't lose focus on the rules. If you don't have your feet down at the intervals, I won't forgive- ahh!" Sahara got wrapped around by tape and thrown off the floor, and Sato spun with an unadulterated look of rage on his face towards Sero and Aoyama who dropped their jaws at that look. "Don't kill them!" Sahara yelled down in panic herself, a yell which made Sero and Aoyama back up as Sato started charging them. _A nosebleed,_ Sahara thought while trying to land herself. _Can't miss the bing. Hiro's not here to make me sturdy. The big guy's at the point of Too Far Gone. Using a super move on my own teammate, not good. I can't cancel it though and start over!_

"Nice, we're in fourth," Kirishima said, grinning next to him at Tokoyami after the ground beneath them flashed blue and green.

Tokoyami had seen Ojiro across the arena slam an invisible figure with his tail, only to run off after her with a look of such frustration on his face. The fact that they had tied Ojiro because of that could not give him much pleasure, but he nodded along with Kirishima and then said, "Yaoyorozu, are you finished?" He did not turn around as they had a box formation, and he needed to focus on Ashido and Honenuki who he sent Dark Shadow out at as soon as he saw them focus his way, before Honenuki would be able to start his Softening.

"Just about…" Yaoyorozu was struggling, and she took a few deep breaths after she finished and then brought her hands to her stomach. _So hungry._ "Done," Yaoyorozu said, and Tsuyu turned her head a bit to the left to see the cannon Yaoyorozu had created. It was pointed down across the arena towards a big ice fort with three sides leaving only the part facing the inside of the summit open, and there was a roof over it too thicker than the rest. Yaoyorozu got ready to fire, then she called out, "NOW!"

Tsuyu's tongue wrapped around the cannon and yanked it up fast to a spot it clicked to stop in because of the way Yaoyorozu made it. The taller girl fired an instant after changing her target, and an island up above blew apart with Uraraka screaming and Bakugo shouting out angrily.

Jirou yelled out and crossed her arms over her head as rocks rained down, then she spun her head as she heard a loud thud followed by a growl. She gawked behind her at the boy who looked like a beast from Class B who just slammed into Kaminari so hard he was slumped over a broken piece of summit. "Kaminari!" She yelled, and she plugged her earphone jacks into her feet before stomping at Shishida in mid-turn towards her.

The furry boy jumped to his side, then Jirou spun her head furiously as she heard a different boy call out from only a few meters away, "Such an idiot not to be paying attention."

"Don't talk about-" Jirou froze as she saw who it was she was shouting that at through a thin veil of dust.

"Though I guess he's not the only idiot," Shinso said, stepping through the dust and smirking. "Get off the mountain and run as far from the summit as you can while making sure not to bump into anything too hard." Jirou turned and she started running to the nearby ledge, where she carefully jumped down to a protruding rock from her earlier attack, then down again to another one before dropping off and running away, just as two others had done before, one of whom was just at the start of the tunnel and made Jirou spin that way as she realized the best method to get farthest away.

"That, isn't…" Shinso was grinning after the girl he just sent away, then he and Shishida started turning back towards a boy who had been slow to piece together what was going on. He did not know why Jirou started running, and that took him a few seconds, and then he finally processed what Shinso said before telling her to run away. "True," Kaminari finished, and he lifted his hands up with electricity sparking from them. Shinso and Shishida opened their eyes wide, right before Kaminari slammed his hands down and blasted the mountain with electricity.

Zach was about to fire his grappling gun at Shoji who he finally found after running around the edge of the summit. He was calling out, but the top of the mountain was crazy loud with all the fighting going on up there. He saw Bakugo and Uraraka stop in mid-flight down, and they changed directions to shoot back up in the air, and at that same moment a huge wall of ice shot straight up in the air, but not at the two above them. So Zach hesitated before firing, then the flash of yellow went off and covered the summit of the mountain.

"AHHHHH!"

Zach winced at the sound of all those screams, then he saw Bakugo change directions and start flying him and Uraraka who was holding onto his back to the mountain. They were going straight for the ice fort now blocked-in on all sides, and Zach knew those two teams were up in the lead now that Mineta's team had dropped off the top ever farther. "Shoji! You alright?" Zach called to the boy he finally fired his grappling gun at.

Shoji nodded his head slowly, before pulling Zach up with a hard tug as Zach retracted the wire himself. He caught Zach and placed him down on a solid chunk of summit being held together by some hardened green vines that cut through the cracks of all the rocks in this area. _1:16,_ Zach thought with a glance towards the scoreboards. "Shoji," he said, his voice serious and his mind focused. He checked the leaderboards and saw them on it, down in eleventh place. _Midoriya's, then Bakugo's, then Momo's, then Sato and the Sahara girl- Still don't know her Quirk…_ "We can't miss any of the intervals from now to the end…" Zach continued. _Forty more points remain, we're twenty-five down from the lead. Monoma and Tetsutetsu are ten up too with Sato, Mineta's too. Tied for fourth like we were. It was a dangerous place to be…_ "But we can't just make it," Zach said, turning and looking up into the taller boy's eyes. "We have to catch up…" _Four teams tied for seventh. We can't waste time on them, but we also can't ignore them like they aren't in front of us and will get into the upper places before we do even if we take down a top team. Ojiro and Kazumi don't count so three, two without Jirou, and one without Hagakure?!_ Zach was starting to look closer at the teams that were actually still five points in front of them, three teams that they were about to tie with in three seconds.

"Who do we go after?" Shoji thought aloud, wanting Zach's opinion as he darted his own gaze around. He had his left hands lifted, and his mouth appeared on the middle arm while an eye appeared on the top one. He was focusing all around the summit, and he spotted a group digging in with a fortified position around them. _Stun batons, Dark Shadow, they're in the final stretch and know all they need to do is hold- and it's not just that!_ There was one second until the next interval, and Shoji placed two hands down on Zach's shoulders and they both grit their teeth and pushed down to try and not get blown off the ground by the attack that just sent huge ice chunks blowing away in every direction.

Zach realized the same thing Shoji did as the green light went under his feet, and as the top two teams both got closer to reach. _Momo knows those guys are going to keep fighting for first now, and if they give away points like that._ Bakugo lifted his right arm and grabbed at his wrist while yelling out in pain, then he snapped his head to the side and glared towards Midoriya who leapt away from him, and above Yaoyorozu's team. Zach narrowed his eyes at Midoriya, _He knows what they're thinking though. And he also knows that Bakugo's not giving up on the first place that they have right now. So the best move then, is to force it so Bakugo's crazy attacks aren't just lifting his team's feet off the ground. Momo's tied with Bakugo now too, and he always looks like he's gone insane during these fights, but he's focused on everything._ Zach saw Momo's team preparing for Bakugo, and for Iida and Todoroki who started chasing Bakugo only for Iida to yell out and start flying away as Uraraka got him with a surprise attack.

Zach and Shoji focused ten meters in front of them, as two people smashed through a big ice chunk that just landed there a few seconds ago. It caught their attention and then both of them focused as they saw who it was, and they immediately decided what they needed to do. The two they had been fighting earlier, two who were tied for fourth place ten above them with eighty-five points, two boys covered head to toe in a steel coating.

"One of us is making it to the finals," Monoma said to the only other team in fourth now, then he panted a few times before grinning at the pair in front of him. "And I see you've lost your allies."

"Let's attack," Tetsutetsu muttered, not in as much of a talking mood as his partner. He slammed his fists together in front of him, making sparks fly out of his metal fists. Sahara took a step forward though despite Tetsutetsu's threatening action, and she lowered her curled eyebrows in a sultry way, leaned back so her slender figure was more pronounced with her bust bouncing at the way she did it.

"Why don't we just work together?" Sahara offered. The two she was talking to did not notice the faint pink glow that covered them for a second, but that idea actually sounded like it might have some good points to it. The two Class B students looked in at each other, while Sato turned his head and looked down at Sahara, a bloodier nose now that was actually pretty busted, a black left eye, and he had a scratch on his left arm. Sahara saw Sato looking down at her with that blank look on his face like he was thinking about what she just said, and she gulped before continuing to use her Enamor on the hesitating enemies in front of her. "They said the top four teams make it, so if we're both in fourth then of course we'll all get in. Especially since we're only teams of two, and don't you think they'd want more people anyway?"

 _That, makes sense,_ Monoma thought, and he hummed and started thinking about it himself.

"Hey, what happened to taking them down?" Tetsutetsu growled next to him as he heard Monoma's hum like he was pondering it. "Crushing them? Victory for Class B?"

"There's a better chance of victory if we work together, especially now," Sahara turned her head and stopped the two who were running towards them with that gaze. "When some bottom-feeders from Class A are trying to catch back up to you."

"SAHARA-CHAN! WHY?!" Sato roared, snapping his head back with tears pouring out of his eyes.

 _Oh crap!_ Sahara spun and stumbled backwards, and she lifted her arms and yelled, "Cancel!"

Sato's hands were balled into fists, and he was leaning forward with a rabid look on his face. Whether it was because the girl of his dreams was talking to other guys, not focusing on him for long enough, or the fact that he was from the Class A she just insulted too, it made the boy madly in love with her go insane. Even after Sahara cancelled her Quirk though, Sato's rage was still there, though he was starting to question why it was he was so angry in the first place. He did not forget what had happened through the match, and that made his eyes open even wider as he realized what his thoughts had been solely focused on for the last few minutes. "That's your, Quirk?" He wondered to the girl in front of him who had told him it was a power-up, and he was starting to realize what it actually did.

"It's not like-" Sahara got cut off, as a metal hand clamped around the front of her face. Tetsutetsu snapped his head to Monoma who lifted a hand at him to hold on, and the original Steel boy shook his head. He did not know what was going on here, but he was not having any of it. Tetsutetsu lifted Sahara off the ground, then he ran for the edge of the summit closest to them.

"Wait, wait!" Sato started chasing after them as he realized what was happening a second too late. _I still, want to win!_ The boy injured from all the fighting that he still remembered doing was not giving up that easily, especially after he checked the scoreboard for the first time in two minutes and saw they were actually set to make it into the finals. "Tetsutetsu!" He called out, charging faster, only for him to trip over a wire and face-plant on the floor. Monoma was not chasing after Sato, already looking towards the other two who Sahara was trying to get them to team up against a few seconds ago.

A green circle flashed below Monoma and Tetsutetsu's feet, and Zach pulled his grappling gun hook back while it appeared below him and Shoji too. "Nice," Monoma said, then he punched his fists together like Tetsutetsu had before. "But helping us be the only ones in fourth, isn't going to help you take our spot."

"I don't want your spot," Zach said, turning to Monoma right as Tetsutetsu tossed Sahara off the mountain hard enough that Cementoss had to step in. All of the contestants realized by now that Cementoss was as much of a resource as anything, as Mother Russia had not called down any violations of the rules for people who put their classmates in danger by throwing them off the summit. The arena itself was a raised surface, and Cementoss was simply acting as if the area outside the arena was actually soft, though only in the most threatening situations which were happening more often now. Monoma's eyes widened a bit at what Zach said, then his steel teeth ground and made sparks come out as the reason he lost the previous year's Cavalry Battle came back with how Zach finished, "I want to be first."

"So, do, I!" Monoma yelled, and he charged forward.

Up in the bleachers at the teachers' section, Vlad King grinned and leaned forward at the passion he saw on Monoma's face charging like that. In the commentators' booth, Aizawa also nodded as he thought about Monoma's strategies from the year before. The dark haired teacher was staying quiet while Present Mic had been shouting almost non-stop about all the crazy fights, but he thought while looking towards Monoma, _The reason Bakugo beat him, he was fine with staying in the middle of the pack. Thought that was his biggest flaw, though he should have been expelled for something else._ Aizawa's eyes focused on the person Monoma was charging at, as that shorter kid told his partner to go for Tetsutetsu instead. _They got past that though,_ Aizawa thought. _Monoma is actually gifted, and with the drive to win he could do a lot. But this is one time,_ Aizawa's eyes narrowed on the shorter boy Monoma was punching forward at, _he should have avoided the fight._

Present Mic changed focus from the top three teams battling it out for dominance with two of them receiving the last interval of points, tying all of them up as Midoriya was thrown through the air yelling in pain. He yelled about the fourth place team up against Sazaki and Shoji and said they were only ten down from the top where they stood alone at fourth place. The leaderboard was changing too fast for Present Mic to keep up with, and he just yelled, "AND ANOTHER TEAM HITS A HUNDRED! YOWW-" he stopped shouting and leaned forward in the booth while staring towards the middle of the arena, a little off-centered towards the west side at the fourth place team he just mentioned, and specifically a black-haired boy fighting one of them.

Monoma punched his right fist forward, expecting Zach to dodge it so he did not need to worry about how powerful his steel punch to Zach's skull would be. Zach's eyes were focused solely on Monoma, but his peripheral vision caught everything around him. _Can't miss another point,_ Zach thought while dipping down like he was going to dodge under Monoma's arm, then he stepped forward instead and pulled his body in so he was right up in front of Monoma with the boy's right arm passing close by his side. Zach threw his own right arm around Monoma's head, making Monoma's eyes dart towards that hand, right before he felt the left arm hook behind him which Zach's right hand grabbed onto. It hurt because of the hardness of Monoma's body, but Zach was glad his weight did not shoot up as well, and he spun to his left with a hard stomp that way. He lifted Monoma off the ground in a shrug that he threw the steel boy right into some acid flying his way. As soon as Monoma was out of his grip, Zach jumped to his right, and he pulled out his grappling gun with his right hand that had snapped quickly to his side. Monoma hit the ground and started sinking down as the ground was soft around them, which Zach knew was coming before he even saw Ashido too who attacked with her partner. Back when he checked the placings of the other teams above him when he was in eleventh, theirs was the one team five up that he thought would still be in this and fighting against them.

Honenuki started calling out an apology to Monoma that they couldn't get more Class B teams in, and then he yelled out and pulled back as a splash of blood cut out from his left cheek. Zach pulled back and hooked down under Honenuki's shoulder after shooting just past his face which even with a blunt hook managed to scratch him. He yanked Honenuki towards himself, then snapped his own body backwards, and two lines of white tape shot over the top of his body. Zach's right foot slid across the floor below him, as he pressed it down as hard as he could despite the beam of light about to fire at it. The bing went off and Zach saw green, right as the ground only a foot away from his legs broke apart and some sharp rocks slashed his left leg. Zach retracted his grappling hook and leaned up before pointing it towards Aoyama and firing at his belt. The boy with the navel laser knew to protect it though, and he jumped backwards. Sero pointed his elbows up at Aoyama and wrapped them around his chest then started swinging, and the team Zach knew had been tied with him half a minute ago was still going their hardest to catch up too. Aoyama had been blown away by one of Midoriya's kicks earlier and it took him a while to get back, but the majority of the points they lost was because of Shinso whose team just dropped even farther behind after having been tied with them only forty seconds ago. Shinso had told them to run around without getting hit and for them to jump at the intervals, and it took one of Bakugo's explosions shaking Aoyama to realize it when he saw what a still-brainwashed Sero had been doing.

"We're taking that spot!" Sero yelled, spinning around and swinging Aoyama through the air as they still had time before the next interval. He grabbed above Aoyama's belt, and the blond boy put both hands up behind his head and shoved his belly forward, firing another beam towards Shoji and Tetsutetsu who jumped away from each other near the ledge that shattered from the beam. He fired again and hit near Ashido who backflipped away, then fired again and hit the floor just beneath Honenuki who was grabbing up at his face after he got off of his knees.

Ashido yelled out for her partner, while Zach ran towards where Monoma was getting up to his hands and knees. He grabbed Monoma by the right arm and yanked with all his body strength up into the air in front of him, and he blocked a jet of flames flying his way. Zach released Monoma and turned as he saw Todoroki attacked by Tsuyu and Bakugo at once, and he thought while turning towards where Aoyama landed next to Sero, still tied with him and Shoji in sixth place, _Their fight is getting closer to us. They've been making each other miss intervals, the lead's only fifteen away. If we miss a single one though, we're done for sure. More than half the teams have given up. Shit._ Zach spotted Sato climb up to the solid surface and put down his partner who looked at him in surprise and said something, only for Sato to turn away and nod while saying they were staying in this until the end. _If the rest of us had missed the intervals- no wait, they only missed two?_ Zach realized there were not two teams tied for sixth, but four tied for fifth as Honenuki and Ashido did not get points at the last interval either, and Sato and Sahara were still in it too. Monoma and Tetsutetsu managed to snag the last interval as Monoma came aboveground with Honenuki's power wearing off before the forty second mark. That meant the team of steel boys was only five down from the leaders now, though Monoma was struggling to get up as even encased in steel he felt pain in these last attacks.

"Don't let up!" Tetsutetsu shouted towards Monoma, turning from his opponent he just knocked back onto his knees with his strongest punch.

Shoji felt all three of his right arms shaking and he winced as he pushed them down at his side, then a mouth appeared on one of his left arms and he yelled, "Last chance!"

Monoma nodded while pushing himself up more. His head lifted, then his eyes shot open wide at the sight of all the people rushing towards him.

"Get his legs off the ground!"

"Knock him off!"

"Get him!"

Monoma saw his own classmates, people from Class A, and a girl in the support course all running at him. There were thirty-five seconds left, and four teams directly below them ten points away. _If I just hold on for five more seconds!_ Monoma screamed out as he planted his feet down, determination and anger and daring filling his voice.

No one slowed down. Sato charged even faster, and Sero pointed his elbows out and winced but fired even more tape to start wrapping around Monoma. He got Monoma's arms and pulled them tight to his body, and Sero yelled to Sato to help him. Ashido told Honenuki to wait, the pink girl darting her gaze around at everyone with her who were supposedly working together to get Monoma away. It seemed like she was telling him to stop, because the others had a plan that involved throwing Monoma and not sinking him into the floor. Zach pretended not to see Ashido, but he bit down behind his lips and thought, _She's risking it for everyone if she tries something before we can get him away. And if I attack them now-_ "Do it!" Zach yelled.

"RRAAAA!" Monoma screamed again and tried pulling his arms away from his sides. Tetsutetsu spun as he heard those shouts, and he started running over only to be tackled to the ground and have six arms wrap around him. Tetsutetsu gasped at the strength of the boy who started standing up while holding him in an even tighter bear hug to the point Tetsutetsu could feel his steel grinding. He knew it must have hurt Shoji to keep doing this, but Shoji was not letting up, and that made Tetsutetsu slam his head backwards and hit Shoji in the chin and top of his chest. Shoji spun around towards the edge not far from him, blood coming out under the mask that always covered the bottom half of his face. Sato threw while Sero yanked his arms as hard as he could towards the west side of the mountain too, and they called out for Shoji to 'catch' since they didn't think they'd be able to throw Monoma all the way off the ledge.

Zach saw Shoji throwing Tetsutetsu off the ledge, something he did not see coming as he was too focused on the fight he was in and just believed in Shoji's ability to keep his feet on the ground. As soon as he saw that though, his focus left Monoma completely while he was still being swung through the air. Instead Zach turned and charged at a pair who turned their heads towards him, and Zach pointed his grappling gun at Honenuki's face, making the boy with wavy sand-colored hair flinch because of the same hook that cut across his cheek an interval earlier. Zach never fired though, and Ashido who was preparing to melt the hook opened her eyes wide at the last second as Zach just kept sprinting full speed at them, even with blood coming down his left leg from the rock shards Aoyama blew past it. He slammed his left fist forward and nailed Mina under her lifting right arm to block, hitting her in the side and knocking her into her partner who finally tried to use his Quirk, but a second after the interval had just given them all points, and made all of them only five away from Monoma and Tetsutetsu, and ten away from Bakugo's and Midoriya's teams who just missed another interval themselves to put Yaoyorozu's team solely in the lead. Zach did not know the point distribution as he attacked though, he only knew he had ten seconds to be touching the floor again, while the two in front of him were not.

Sato spun seeing Zach attack Ashido and Honenuki at the same time, then his body got surrounded by tape, and a beam slammed into the floor between him and his partner. Then a cannon fired and Sero and Aoyama blew off their feet as the ground beneath them exploded. "Behind you!" Zach shouted at the boy he was in the middle of following-up throwing Ashido into. The two Zach was talking to might have thought it was a bluff, if Zach himself did not jump backwards with giant eyes looking behind them.

Ashido spun and she threw Acid as a counter to whatever caused that shadow to come over her. She and Honenuki both dropped their jaws though, at the sight of a massive ice spike taller than the stadium that just shot up behind them and slammed the menacing Dark Shadow away. There was a lot of smoke and ash rising up around the arena all at once, and Dark Shadow had become stronger thanks to the sun being blocked out more and more. The bigger creature that just slammed Sero and Aoyama off the mountain after they had been lifted by Yaoyorozu's attack, got smashed hard by Todoroki's ice, but the huge spike blew apart from two different sides a second later. Explosions and giant black claws tore the huge spike to bits, then all those huge ice chunks lifting up went flying down faster as Midoriya spun a kick above them all.

Yaoyorozu's team would have dodged, but with one second until the interval, the ground beneath them turned soft and their bodies sank right into it. Midoriya sent himself flying down between all the ice chunks he started a meteor shower with towards a spot none would hit down, where Todoroki and Iida both were. Bakugo slammed his hands side to side and weaved between every falling piece of ice, then he fired above him and sent himself rocketing down for where Todoroki and Iida were standing. Todoroki pointed his left hand up, and Bakugo started spinning around as he flew down, a tornado of wind surrounding him as he used his explosions to propel him faster.

Twenty seconds hit and Present Mic did not know what to shout anymore. Every single place marker just changed, and it seemed like complete madness on the arena. Sero and Aoyama decided not to try and get back, collapsing at the base of the mountain and looking up over it with wide eyes at the collision about to happen. All top four teams missed the interval, with Monoma and Tetsutetsu climbing up the side of the mountain they had fallen off, and they were suddenly tied with two other teams. Bakugo and Uraraka were only five above them, as was Midoriya's team, and Yaoyorozu, Tokoyami, Tsuyu, and Kirishima were ten up from the fourth place teams. Then the explosion hit at nineteen and a half seconds.

Fire slammed into Bakugo and an explosion went off so large that the wind threatened to throw everyone away, and it almost succeeded with the majority of them. Sato tried holding Sahara against him as they skid backwards, but even he was lifted off the ground and thrown from the arena while feeling a huge powerful heat pressing into their faces. Ashido and Honenuki were blown off the mountain, and the group Honenuki had sank down at twenty-one seconds were pulled from the ground by the force of the blast. The explosion melted ice chunks blown into even smaller pieces as they were blasted off, and Iida was already running away from Todoroki who told him to get away, but he was lifted off the ground and thrown away as well. Midoriya shot through the air and intercepted Iida, then he spun around and kicked the other way, towards one of the sides of the explosion where Todoroki was flying off too, along with chunks of the summit. Tsuyu was pulled from the ground in a second, thrown up in the air and when she threw her tongue down to try and grab hold of Kirishima who lifted an arm for her, her tongue was just blown back too because of the force of the hot wind. Yaoyorozu tossed Tokoyami a blanket she had been making, and Dark Shadow rose up large enough to lift a hand and catch Tsuyu before she got blown too far.

Shoji had been running towards Zach already before Bakugo started his Howitzer Impact. He reached him just as it went off and tried to catch him, but the wind was too fast that despite their distance, Zach's feet were lifted and he was thrown up. Shoji had an arm sticking out of his top left arm, reaching above his head and holding Zach by the lower left leg, getting his partner's blood on his extended hand because of that. Zach winced at how hard Shoji was grabbing his leg which would have hurt even if it were not scratched up. He gasped out from the heat of the wind pressing against him, and he forced his clenched eyes open after they had shut from the force of the blast slamming into him. Shoji pulled him to the side, and they avoided a rock chunk, then Shoji pulled the other way and sidestepped himself to dodge a larger chunk of ice that shrank half its size before passing them yet still was the size of a tank. Then Shoji pulled down and planted Zach's feet on the ground, and they both ducked as Mineta went flying overhead. _Where did he even come from?_ The two of them wondered while hearing Mineta's scream get fainter behind them.

Zach tried darting a glance at the leaderboards but there was too much smoke and dust in all directions. "Hold this position," Zach said, and Shoji nodded while keeping one hand down on Zach's shoulder so he would not get blown away by an explosion they would no longer be able to see coming.

"Uraraka!" Bakugo shouted, spinning around and looking for his partner while standing inside of what used the be the summit. His shirt was gone and he had burns on a lot of his torso, he was panting and his hands were shaking at his sides with some of the worst pain in his life filling both arms. He listened for the response, then he blasted explosions from his palms which made him yell out in pain even though they were normal ones.

"Is everyone alright?" Yaoyorozu asked the others around her.

"I'm, fine," Tsuyu said, then she turned to her right. "Thank you Tokoyami-chan, and Dark-Shadow-chan," she added as she looked up at the dark creature's eyes.

"We're still in first, I think-" Kirishima began, then his eyes opened huge as someone was sprinting towards him through the dust and smoke.

"KIRISHIMA!"

Kirishima's mouth twisted into a huge grin and his body hardened all over. "TETSUTETSU!" Kirishima ran forward and he slammed a punch forward right as the other boy did the same.

"Don't run off on your own," Tokoyami started, chasing after Kirishima, only for a bright light to force Dark Shadow down again. Bakugo was just flying past though, and he flashed Dark Shadow as a precaution to not be attacked more than anything, before yelling out his partner's name again.

"Kirishima-" Tsuyu started calling, only to get cut off for some reason. Yaoyorozu turned her head, her eyes opening wide as she saw a blond boy behind them who had approached silently, not inside of a steel casing. Monoma's right hand was around Tsuyu's face and he lifted her up like that, then he turned to steel right before the short girl he lifted kicked back at him. Tsuyu winced in pain as she kicked a steel wall, and Yaoyorozu called out her name. Monoma was panting, but he was glad the first team they found, after climbing back up and missing two intervals, was the first place team. He turned with a grin on his face and threw the girl he was holding off the summit edge not far behind him, then he crouched and jumped to the right to avoid the stun baton Yaoyorozu jabbed at him.

Present Mic shouted about ten seconds, and about Monoma and Tetsutetsu getting another five to bring them up tied for third. Bakugo's team was tied with them, missing the last interval, while Midoriya's moved up to tie with Yaoyorozu's in first. Zach spun his head as he heard about Midoriya's team, and he looked up towards a screen he could see as the dust had settled in the last few seconds. He spotted the three standing on a piece of summit, nowhere near the actual fighting stage. Whether or not they brought the rubble with them across the arena floor on the inside of the stadium, or if it had landed there on its own was unknown. _Mina and Honenuki missed the cut!_ Zach thought as he spotted the two who he thought were going to stay with them until the end. _It's only five of us now!_ Zach heard his own team get called out as being tied for third too by Present Mic, then Mic yelled asking what would happen if more than four teams made it in the top four places.

Bakugo found Uraraka, her leg trapped under some ice. He blew it away, and he yelled at her to put her feet down on the ground. Then he froze, and instead of rushing off to go blow Midoriya's team off their rubble across the stadium, something he thought he needed to do in this final ten seconds, he reached down for his partner.

"It was a trap, Kirisihima," Tokoyami said to the boy in front of him who skid away from Tetsutetsu.

"Lies," Tetsutetsu snapped back. "It's me verse you, Kirishima buddy. Let's take it-"

"Get him," Kirishima said, turning to Tokoyami. The darker boy could not cut in on Kirishima's fight normally, but Kirishima heard Yaoyorozu shout Tsuyu's name and saw Monoma out the corner of his eyes. Present Mic shouted about it too, and Tokoyami stepped forward and sent Dark Shadow at Tetsutetsu. Monoma hopped over, and his body turned to steel as he punched for Tokoyami's back, to stop him from knocking Tetsutetsu off the ground.

"TIME UP!"

Present Mic shouted it, and the ending just came with an odd calm over the mountain's summit. Most of the smoke and dust had already been settling or fading away, and only a few people were still moving on top of the summit anyway even though everyone thought it was still intense up there. The final seconds of the match had just slowed for everyone, and only as it ended did they realize there was very little going on. Zach and Shoji looked around the summit they were standing on a very small piece of, dipped down between some others and a few meters in from the edge. Yaoyorozu's team missed another interval at the end, dropping them from tied for first, into second place. Bakugo's team got the five points, with him holding an arm under Uraraka's left shoulder and her right arm up over his back held by his other hand that was still shaking as he held her steady on her feet. The two of them with bandages on their heads looked exhausted and beat-up, and they turned and looked up towards a scoreboard after Present Mic's call. They had tied with Yaoyorozu's team by just standing there, just like the other team of two just across the mountain who were panting and beaten as well.

Yaoyorozu's team cared that they were not getting first, and they did not like that they were not getting the points, but it did not actually matter that they missed the last point allocation. Unfortunately for the ones who picked a fight with them in the final intervals, it did matter that _they_ were not touching the ground. Kirishima had jumped up in Monoma's way, slamming a fist in his face and stopping him from attacking Tokoyami. And without Monoma stopping Tokoyami, Dark Shadow slammed Tetsutetsu off the ground with a second left in the match. So while Yaoyorozu's team did not get the points they needed to stay in first, Monoma's did not get the points that would have moved them from tied for third with two others to tied for second with three other teams. Monoma did not have the opportunity to think about how he had messed up at the end though, as Kirishima's final punch knocked him right out.

Tetsutetsu slammed his fists down on the floor at his sides after seeing the scoreboard. He saw the screens split to show four camera angles: two teams of two standing and supporting each other, a team of three who collapsed on their small safe haven far from the arena, and a team of four split with a tall girl off the mountain helping her shorter friend to her feet and the other two standing side by side with victorious looks on their faces. All of them had tears or rips in their uniforms, and Midoriya, Todoroki, Bakugo, and Iida all had very little of their uniforms remaining on their bodies, most of their shirts shredded and pant legs torn up. Tetsutetsu slammed his fists down again, and he muttered under his breath, "Damn, Class A."

Present Mic shouted the names of the winners, and then he called out in agreement with Tetsutetsu. The stands started filling with louder and louder cheering, people up on their feet screaming and clapping as were people watching on tv all over the country. Present Mic pulled his microphone up to his face while leaning up over the booth counter in front of him, "…And all eleven, are from the hero course: CLASS A!"

* * *

 **A/N Thanks for reading! Hope you enjoyed the King of the Hill battle, as it was a lot of fun to write and imagine going on in my head. Kind of tough keeping track of all the points, team positions, intervals, and it really messed everything up when I realized at 00:00 there would be a final interval, making me go back and change up like all the scores and numbers so there were 35 available in the final minutes and... Well anyway, I just hope it came out well! Didn't really know who was going to make it in the finals myself, though there were certain people I wanted to get in for sure at the start, and the others were lucky enough to get on their teams. A Class-A party in the finals again, though Class B had a pretty intense part of this chapter. Also added in a couple of OCs, hope you guys liked Kazumi and Sahara. Anyway, again thanks for reading, reviewing, following, and faving so far you guys! Leave a review below telling me what you thought of the chapter and predictions you might have for the rest of the Sports Festival! Review responses:**

SatanicLover666Illuminati chapter 57 . Aug 7

nicuuuuuu

 **Thanksssuuuu**

D-Koy24 chapter 57 . Aug 7

Nice chapter... I never even watched the for sports festival arc but I'm ok!  
... Team Todorozu...

...

..."... I'll kill you..." I stared blankly into the distance.  
(Somewhere Bakugo sneezes "The fuc's stealing my shtick?!" He growled)  
~Sorry for not reviewing past chapters, was on holiday! *beat drops* ...yeah anyway I know u missed my awesome reviews *poses with hands on hips and chest puffed out*

 **Hahaha, as soon as I had Mic say it, I knew the shippers would have something to say. Thanks for the "awesome" review as always, and I hope you enjoyed the chapter!**

An Average Jo chapter 57 . Aug 7

Team Todorozu? Oof.  
Will you finish the story though? Kinda worried you'd leave halfway through.

 **At least they couldn't partner again... Thanks for the review. Think I will likely finish this. I have an ending in sight, and yet it's still my favorite fanfic to write all the time. Anyway, hope you enjoyed!**

Geckomom chapter 1 . 19h ago

bakugo is goona be suuuperr mad

 **He was pretty pissed at Zach there at the start, but good ol' Kirishima was there to make him cheer up! Accepted not getting the first at the end of the second event here too though... Thanks for reviewing!**

Guest chapter 57 . Aug 7

God daaaaamn  
That's race was intense! I'm really Glad that Zach and Kaminari made it first - just shows how far they've made it since the start  
as much as I like the ship tease you've built around Zach and Momo, I really like the dynamic you've built around Zach and Kaminari - this chapter just shows how their relationship and skills have grown - this arc has an exciting start I can't wait to see how you build off of that!

 **Thanks a lot! Over the last ten chapters there's been a lot of build-up around their characters from the whole kidnapping arc to now, (though unfortunately Kaminari shorts-out before the end of this second event, yet he might have gotten some revenge for Jirou there...). XD Anyway, glad you've been liking the relationships between characters, and I hope you continued to enjoy the arc!**

Guest chapter 57 . Aug 7

Ah~ A internship arc at Mt. Lady's agency with our favorite not-a-ship students, Zach and Momo. Oh well, one can dream…

 **"Zach, why didn't you ever call me when I gave you my number?" "She gave you her what?" I can imagine a fun internship between them... ;) Thanks for the review!**

Guest chapter 57 . 19h ago

I think you're the best writer I've ever seen on this website and I've been reading and looking all over this website for six or seven years. The pace that you keep with this story is amazing, I never feel bored or like it's a grind to get through a chapter. I almost like this story better than what it's based off of. Heck, I have a tab open all the time with this story on it and I check it everyday to see if you updated it. I just wanted to tell you that someday you could probably write your own book and as long as you say the title I'll probably read that and it might become my favorite book ever.

 **Thank you so much! Really appreciate it when I hear someone is this into my work. I'm going to be continuing with my writing outside of fanfiction after I graduate and attempt to publish a book actually, so I'm glad to hear that you think I could do it. :) I hope you enjoyed the newest chapter of Death, and thanks again for such an amazing review!**


	59. Chapter 59

**Chapter 59:**

Midoriya dropped down on his butt like the other two members of his team with him. He sat there panting with his shoulders slouched and his gaze up towards the screens showing the four teams advancing to the finals. He, Todoroki, and Iida were all shirtless, and only Todoroki still had his blue pants still together below his knees. The three muscular, exhausted teens had their names called out that they received first place in the event. After two events in a row of fighting start to finish, Midoriya barely even heard that though.

He finally lowered his head and started wheezing harder as the audience cheered around them. _First…_ He thought, and his hands clenched into fists down at his sides. His bowed head lifted back up, a determined expression on it as he stared out towards the summit that looked nothing like it did before the round started. It was a lot more spread out and had no flat surface with even the biggest chunks of arena tilting up one way or another. _But the finals, are where is really matters,_ Midoriya stared towards Bakugo who he saw turn his way and glare at the three of them who got first that round.

Jirou sat across the arena floor on the south side of the mountain slope. The brainwashing Shinso got her with cut off before she got through the tunnel, but when an idiotic Kaminari went flying from the summit she knew there was no way they were going to catch back up to the leaders. She sat next to Kaminari whose head was bowed and was looking exhausted like most others around them. "Ahhh," Jirou sighed, lifting a hand and putting it through her dark hair as she looked up at the summit. _Didn't make it to the finals this year,_ she thought as she scratched her head. _Former semifinalist, and you were there too,_ she thought, glancing at the boy next to her. Then she lifted her gaze and noticed others who made it into the finals last year but were disappointedly looking up towards the arena from around it. Sero put his hands down on his knees and shook his head, and Ashido snapped her fingers then winced and rubbed the arm she snapped with. Shinso lay on his back, his body still shaking from the electricity he got zapped with at point blank, and Shishida sat up at his side and rubbed under his nose to wipe some blood away while he glared towards the boy who slammed a flying knee into his face during the round.

Around the arena, Tsuburaba dropped to his butt, and Kuroiro let out a long sigh while looking longingly up the slope in front of them. _Not this year,_ Kuroiro thought, but he just rolled his shoulders a few times and actually lifted the corners of his always-dipped lips up a bit. Present Mic just shouted about how all of them did their best too, and Kuroiro rubbed his right arm and smiled hearing all the cheers in the stands around them. _Disappointing there're no Class B's though,_ he thought while looking back up to the top of the stage. He stared at Tetsutetsu who got up after punching the ground in frustration, and then he shifted his gaze to a screen showing groups all over the arena surface with their various battle wounds. Present Mic started calling out about Recovery Girl having her work cut out for her, and Tsuburaba mentioned next to him, "Those Class A guys, are ridiculous."

"Yeah," Kuroiro agreed with a nod, his mouth lowering back into its usual teeth-showing frown. _If Monoma and Tetsutetsu aren't in then…_ Kuroiro's eyes shifted over to a black haired teen looking up with a grin on his face and saying something to his partner. _Go for it this year, Zach._

"Toru," Ojiro whispered as the girl he was holding winced and made a whimper of pain. Koda leaned forward worriedly too, and Ojiro said with a frustrated look on his face, "I'm so sorry. I didn't mean to hit you that hard."

"Let's go to Recovery Girl now," Koda suggested in a hurried, high-pitched voice.

Ojiro nodded his head, and he said, "Can you stand? I, I don't know where you're hurt, so I don't want to lift you-" Ojiro felt a hand gently touch the side of his face, and his eyes opened wide.

Not too far from them, Hiro Kazumi walked over towards his girlfriend who was talking with a boy around Hiro's height who she had partnered with. Kazumi's eyes widened a bit as he headed over, and he said, "You haven't cancelled it yet?"

Sato turned towards Kazumi and frowned at him for a second, then he reached up a hand and scratched the back of his head. "We did pretty well there for a minute," Sato said. Kazumi looked at him in surprise, then to his own girlfriend who shrugged and agreed with her new friend. Rikido Sato did not have hard feelings towards his teammates. They did pretty well after all, even if part of the strategy had apparently been tricking him into falling in love with the cute girl at his side. Sahara explained right after it ended that the main point of that was getting the two of them she used her powers on to act out of character towards their own classmates, as it was mainly Class A students who had made it to the second event. The more in love they were, there was an actual power up involved, but the Quirk got too unpredictable at that point.

"Yeah," Kazumi agreed after getting over his surprise at Sato's unaffected reaction. He had not even gone over to talk to his own partner yet after seeing him over there with the invisible girl and her partner, and he glanced over his shoulder again to see the two boys heading away towards Recovery Girl who came out of the south tunnel. "Thought we had it too," Kazumi agreed. _And we might have, but Kyomi's power is too much sometimes,_ he thought while thinking about how Ojiro had slammed Hagakure with his tail. _Feel bad for him, even if he did cost us our chance at moving to the finals._

"Looks like the top four teams from the last event-" Kendo stopped herself and looked around after she started saying it. She and Shiozaki stood on either side of a small boy with blood all over his face who lay unconscious muttering pervy things in his sleep. Kendo focused on a blond who got first place in the last round and was not moving on this time. "Well, almost," she corrected herself to Shiozaki who nodded at that. They both looked back at the teams that had passed, seeing both Midoriya and Uraraka, Bakugo and Kirishima, and Yaoyorozu and Todoroki had all made it even after switching up teams.

The fifth place of that first event was Shiozaki and Monoma, and Shiozaki sighed and lowered her head as she looked towards the broken up summit she was not standing on. "We were so close," she whispered in a disappointed way. They had kept trying even after losing their defensive position earlier, but their third member had gotten pretty badly beaten up, and neither of them looked perfect anymore either. Shiozaki turned to Kendo who just put a hand on her back, and the orange haired girl smiled at her friend and gave a nod showing she felt the same way but that it was alright. Shiozaki paused a moment, then she nodded too in acceptance and just looked back with a smile towards the teams who were moving on.

Itsuka Kendo faced the battleground and smiled firmly despite the frustration of just missing the finals for the second year in a row. _The Sports Festival is about more than each of us,_ she thought, and she called up to Tetsutetsu who was still looking like he needed to punch something.

Zach turned from Shoji and looked up in the crowd as he heard someone shout for him through the other cheers. _There it is,_ Zach thought, as he heard the call of 'Lifebringer' over a bunch of other voices. _Who was it? Probably someone random. No reason to think it's someone I saved._ Zach smiled towards the stands then looked back towards Kirishima and Tokoyami. He saw Kirishima turn towards him at that same moment, and Zach grinned after they made eye contact.

"Haven't lost yet?!" Kirishima called over.

"Told you," Zach called back, "not until we get our fight." He lifted his left fist, and Kirishima grinned back at him as their promise to fight was still on. They had said they wouldn't lose to anyone else until they faced each other, and although Kirishima and him had had a small quarrel during that event, the real fight was yet to come. Kirishima grinned even more back at him, and then Present Mic called out to everyone and made all eyes shoot towards the commentators' box.

"Before we take a break to give everybody time for lunch, and we'll have some other activities going on too! First, we're going to make the bracket for the final event! It's a fight tournament!" Present Mic's voice was accompanied by the four big screens in the stadium showing a bracket that was just created. On it were eleven names written vertically at the bottom, and above those names was the actual bracket shape itself. The first three rounds of the final event were set up so there were three empty boxes with lines sticking out of them leading to a single box above. "There are eleven finalists!" Present Mic yelled, "So the first three fights, are going to be free for alls between three students! The final match will be the only one on one! YOWW!"

Yaoyorozu and Tsuyu focused up on the screen, and the taller girl hummed to herself after hearing that. _Is it a disadvantage to be paired with two others rather than one? It could be, as it is a one in three chance instead- but if against a stronger opponent who both of the others know is stronger, it leaves opportunity for more cooperation._ _A one on one with Bakugo or Todoroki, and I do not think I would be able to counter even with the time they are giving us to prepare during lunch…_

 _Is that why they're giving us a big gap? Have us prepare more specifically for who we're going up against later? I like it,_ Zach smiled more as he looked towards the screens, wondering which box his name would be put into. _I'll try teaming up with someone, if I get into one of the matches of one on one on one._ Present Mic yelled about there being a random selection, and Aizawa added that they were pulling lots out at random up in the booth one by one. "First," Aizawa said in a tired voice, "is Katsuki Bakugo."

 _First?_ Bakugo thought in a pissed-off way, as if them giving him that title after he had just come in second for the second event in a row was a taunt. He was heading towards Recovery Girl with Uraraka who made herself weightless so it would be easier for him, though he just told her to 'shut up' when she said why she did it. She just thanked him in response for carrying her over in the first place because of her injured leg. _I'll show you what first really is,_ Bakugo thought, his teeth grinding and the corners of his lips pulling far up as he walked. _Who're my opponents?!_

"Up against!" Present Mic continued shouting as he pulled out two more names from a bucket of small papers he and Aizawa had put together. He leaned forward and yelled into his microphone, "Tenya Iida! And the two of them will also be fighting, Tsuyu Asui!"

"Tsuyu," Yaoyorozu whispered down to the shorter girl next to her. Tsuyu looked pretty exhausted, but she looked up at her friend and just smiled in a way to show she was fine. "I'll be rooting for you," Momo said to her teammate, smiling back at Tsuyu after seeing that positive attitude despite going up against some of the strongest guys in their class.

"The second fight!" Present Mic yelled while people were still shouting and cheering about the first matchup. "What's the first name?" He asked, leaning towards Aizawa who just pulled out another folded slip of paper from their bucket.

"Shoto Todoroki," Aizawa said, and the crowd cheered while Todoroki stood up himself, deciding he better go over to Recovery Girl. Iida got up with him, and they both held out hands for Midoriya who grimaced that he needed to be helped over, but even just trying to stand caused too much pain in his legs at this point. He had pushed them to the limit over and over without risking exceeding his maximum power, and he accepted his comrades' help, taking their hands and allowing himself to be helped towards Recovery Girl. "Against Izuku Midoriya," Aizawa continued, and the group of three walking towards Recovery Girl froze.

Midoriya lifted his slightly bowed head, and he turned to the right as the boy helping him over turned to the left. "YOW! A repeat of last year?! I hope not," Present Mic said the last part a bit more hesitantly. "Well it _will_ be different after all, as the two of them will also be fighting… FUMIKAGE TOKOYAMI!" Present Mic shouted the third fighter's name, and Todoroki and Midoriya turned their heads towards the mountainside that Tokoyami was climbing down towards Yaoyorozu and Asui.

 _Whoa,_ Zach thought while looking around the other contestants going into the finals. _I wouldn't want, to be in either of those fights! Damn, that's not a good way to think. Not a winner's mentality. I have to win no matter who I'm up against!_ Zach's fists clenched harder at his sides as he stared back up towards the big screen above the commentators' booth, ready to hear his name get called and see who he was up against.

"For the third round of the finals," Aizawa started. "We'll have- Eijiro Kirishima."

"UP AGAINST!" Present Mic continued without any pause. "MOMO YAOYOROZUUUU! Another matchup between former partners?!" Hizashi Yamada wondered loudly, leaning back and looking through his sunglasses at the last slip of paper he had yet to unfold. "The final fighter of their match…" Mic and Aizawa looked at it, and what Mic just said echoed in their heads. Two others were already thinking about it, down on the stage where they for some reason expected the name Present Mic shouted.

Shoji and Zach turned to each other, hearing Uraraka's name get called out for the stadium. The two of them faced each other from a couple feet away, the realization already setting in before Mic announced anything about it. _Shoji,_ Zach thought, looking his partner up and down with his gaze turning serious. _Not the best matchup I could've gotten. Then again, not the worst either._ Mic shouted out their names and the crowd cheered for the two who had just had a great battle together as a pair. Everyone wanted to see what they would do now, up against one another in the finals.

* * *

"Hey Bakugo! Over here," Kirishima pointed at the table he was sitting at, and Bakugo grunted before heading over with a tray in his hands. He was looking away as he marched towards the table, and he took a seat at one end across the table from his red-haired friend. "You good?" Kirishima asked after Bakugo sat, as he lifted his hands over the table and clenched his fists a couple times before grabbing his utensils.

"Mind your own business," Katsuki Bakugo muttered, and he picked up his fork and started eating without another word. His expression was intense and focused, even though he was still thinking on what Recovery Girl had told him a few minutes ago. _Damn it. I'll get number one in the finals even without it._ He felt a tingling sensation in his arms and clenched his right fist at his side again while eating with his left.

The boy Bakugo sat next to looked at him seeing a strange look on Bakugo's face, but Tokoyami turned back to his own meal and continued eating to prepare for the finals too. Across from him and next to Kirishima sat Yaoyorozu who had three more plates of food in front of her than anyone else at the table. She was starving after that last match, and she needed to fill up in order to use all the lipids for her Creation Quirk in the finals. Her cheeks were a little red as she devoured her meals, spotting the boy on her right glancing in at her with big eyes at how much she was eating.

Zach quickly looked back to his own meal, then glanced up across the table at Shoji who created a mouth on his top left hand above the one holding his fork. "Zach," Shoji began, his voice serious. Next to him, Tokoyami glanced in wondering what this was about. Yaoyorozu paused with puffed out cheeks, and Kirishima looked in as well though Bakugo just kept eating. Midoriya and Uraraka looked left from Zach's right side, but across the table from them, Iida and Tsuyu continued talking to each other in hushed voices.

"What's up?" Zach wondered, a bead of sweat on the side of his face at Shoji's serious tone.

"You should pull out of the next round," Shoji said. The others at the table started going wider-eyed, then Shoji's new mouth lifted in a grin, "Don't want to embarrass you in front of everyone."

Bakugo smirked while lifting his next bite to his mouth, while most of the others just stared at Shoji in shock at what was apparently a joke.

"Ha, I was going to say the same thing," Zach replied after gawking at his partner for the last round for a few seconds. He grinned back at Shoji and said, "'Cause I'm the one who's making it to the semi's."

"We'll see," Shoji said, then he lifted his fork up to that arm-mouth and put some food in it.

Everyone got more competitive looks on their faces after that. As much as it was a joke, it was also a promise from each of them and the rest of them felt the same ways. Hanta Sero was walking through the cafeteria, and he looked towards the table next to the one he was going towards with wide eyes for a second at the sight of all their serious looks even if a few of them were grinning. He shook his head before walking to the next table closest to it and sat with most of the rest of Class A. "Winner's table back there's got these looks in their eyes," Sero said after sitting on Kaminari's left as Mineta scooched over to make room for him.

Kaminari glanced behind him, then he sighed while looking back forward. "I could have a look like that," he said in a longing tone.

Jirou sat across from Kaminari, and she looked past him at the group heading into the finals. Thinking about Kaminari with a look like theirs on his face made her eyebrows lift up for a second, only for that face in her head to change its expression and for her cheeks to puff out. Kaminari looked at her and said while pointing a finger, "What did you just think about?" She covered her mouth as it was apparently too obvious, and Kaminari groaned as he thought about how he left the arena before with a dumb look on his face televised across the world.

Next to Jirou sat Ashido who was looking to her right and talking to Sato and the girl next to him from the support course. Her and her boyfriend from general studies were invited over by the Class A students who wanted to hear about their cool Quirks that they managed to do well through the Sports Festival using. Sahara and Kazumi stopped talking about their powers as a couple of others walked over to the edge of the table, looking towards them, (or at least they thought the second person was looking towards them considering the angle of her floating shirt's collar).

Kaminari glanced to his left down the table from the edge where he was sitting, and he grinned after a second as the two from outside their class started talking to Ojiro and Hagakure, and any bad feelings from the previous round were being quashed. "I still can't believe it," he said, looking past Sero but closer now than the other side of the table. Sero turned to him, and Kaminari said while the next boy down turned too, "It's crazy that Mineta was lucky enough to get all those cute girls on his team. Both rounds!" He added as if it were even more amazing. Mineta leaned back and beamed proudly, because even if he had lost the second round, he had won something.

The blond boy who said that glanced out the corners of his eyes nervously at something he caught in his peripheral vision. He spun and held up his hands defensively, "Not that I wasn't too!" The girl whose earphone jacks had lifted up a bit in front of her humphed and nodded her head in an accepting way that made Kaminari sigh in relief. Sero started laughing at him, while Jirou looked down at her food and wondered, _Does that mean I'm a "cute girl," or was he just saying that to avoid being hit…_ Jirou's mouth curled up at the corner, and Ashido leaned forward at her side with a smirk on her face that made Jirou's mouth dip far down right away and a groan to escape her lips as she continued to eat.

"Mineta may have been lucky for a second there," Sero said. "But man I did not want to be you after you guys were in first-"

"It was so scary!" Mineta exclaimed, slamming his hands down on the table. He leaned out of his seat like he had wanted to talk about this but needed someone else to bring it up first. "Everybody just attacked us at the same time, and then just me!" Mineta's face turned kind of blue as he looked around the table, at a bunch of people who were part of that group that swarmed him.

Sero laughed as he remembered attacking Mineta then too, but he looked over his shoulder and said, "Just thinking about how Shoji tossed you into the crowd all gunning for you…" he pursed his lips then laughed again as he thought about Mineta's yell of horror as he was tossed like a piece of meat to a pack of piranhas.

"It's not funny!" Mineta complained to the boy next to him, while the others around them started laughing too.

At the table behind them ten meters away, Zach glanced over for a second hearing the laughter coming from their classmates. A part of him wanted to be over there laughing with the others, but he looked back forward and kept a serious look on his face as he continued eating. _To beat Shoji, I need to be fast. He's a big guy, but he isn't any slower because of it. Just the grappling gun to give me some extra range, my martial arts… and my experience. Shoji's big though. Bigger than I can toss. And strong. If he grabs me I'm done. I'll never get out of that grip, especially with six arms to worry about…_

Zach lifted his gaze a bit, and Shoji and Iida each scooted away from each other a bit to make the gap between them larger. Shoto Todoroki sat down between them, and Midoriya looked across the table from Zach's right side with a worried look on his face. "Are you okay, Todoroki?"

"Fine," Todoroki replied to his opponent in the next round. He did not want Midoriya thinking anything was wrong before they went into it, and he wondered if his face was giving away that he was thinking about something strange. He glanced around and saw some of the others still looking at him after he said that, and they were wondering why he had been called off on his own anyway. Zach felt like he saw a somewhat unsettled look on Todoroki's face as he came over too, and he kept looking at the boy with half white and half red hair for a few more seconds until Todoroki sighed. "Endeavor was called to take on some villains and left early. Some other hero he asked to tell me about it was doing that," Todoroki explained.

"Oh," Midoriya said, leaning back in his seat. He still looked at Todoroki funny after hearing that response, but then he smiled and got back to his food with a thoughtful and focused look replacing it.

Zach also stared at Todoroki with a confused look even after hearing that explanation. _Can't really tell, how you feel about that,_ Zach thought, but he shifted his focus back to Shoji. He stared at the muscular boy across the table from him out the top of his eyes while pretending to be looking down at his food, yet he could not keep his thoughts from wandering just a bit, his expression darkening. _Endeavor…_

"Hey look," Uraraka motioned to the side, and Midoriya lifted his head to look past the girl next to him and out farther into the cafeteria.

Iida and Asui turned too, and Iida said while sitting up more in a respectful way, "Sensei."

The others around the table looked over, and they stared at one of the two commentators for the Sports Festival as he walked towards them. Aizawa stopped next to the table, and the man with long curly black hair said in a low and tired voice, "Good job on making it to the finals."

"Thank you sensei," a few of them said together, and a few others added afterwards.

"Couple things," he continued, lifting a hand and scratching the bottom of his right cheek a few times. "Some of you noticed, others didn't. Cooperation was key in this competition, so far at least." Bakugo frowned more and kept digging into his food that he did not turn away from, then he stopped as Aizawa continued, "But another big point was stamina- How long you can go for without stopping."

Midoriya lifted his gaze up to Aizawa's eyes and he bit down, thinking of something Aizawa told him on the first day of school the previous year. _I still, hurt myself too often…_

"Midoriya, Bakugo, the two of you injured yourselves too much in the first round," Aizawa paused and looked down at the girl closest to him on his left, "and you too Uraraka." The short girl with brown hair got a more sheepish look on her face as she thought she dodged a bullet there. "Sometimes real fights happen one after the other," Aizawa continued, and the others at the table stared at their teacher more thoughtfully at what he was saying. A lot of them had fought enemies in the training camp forest, only to have to fight again with whatever injuries done to them in the previous fights only minutes before. "Recovery Girl won't always be there for you like she was after the second event. If there was no break for other activities and lunch though, how many of you would have been able to give it all you have in the final round? I think to teach you a lesson they shouldn't have let her… but it doesn't matter now I guess," he scratched his face again. "You should think on that though, and try to avoid making these mistakes in the future."

A few of them nodded at their teacher, intense and some regretful looks on their faces. Bakugo clenched his fists at his sides in a more frustrated way, grinding his teeth at the lingering pain in his wrists.

"Other than that, you all did very well," Aizawa said before turning away. "Good luck in the finals," he said, then he started walking off.

Tsuyu smiled wide as Aizawa walked off away from them, and she said, "Thank you Aizawa sensei."

"We will all do our best," Iida assured him in a firm voice. "Right everyone?" Iida asked, looking around at the others at the table.

All of them started nodding, and they looked around at the other ten sitting with them. "We'll give it our alls," Midoriya said and nodded at Iida.

"Everything we've got," Kirishima added, clenching his right fist up over the table with a fiercely competitive look in his eyes.

"Agreed," Tokoyami said with a stoic nod, and then a small smile.

Zach grinned at Iida, then looked up and after Aizawa who kept walking as they all agreed mainly to each other. _Won't be everything I have… but I'll do my best. The best I can, without turning into a scary monster. Sorry guys… but when I win, you'll have to know that I beat you without using my full…_ Zach lowered his gaze back to his tray. _As if. Well, there's no point in counting myself out. I can win. I can win any fight. I can do this! I can win!_

* * *

"WHOA-HHOOO!" Present Mic yelled. "A DOUBLE RING-OUT AT THE SAME TIME!"

Tenya Iida and Tsuyu Asui slid off the wall they just slammed into not far away from each other. Back on the stage, a new arena set up almost identical to the one from the previous year except in a triangle shape, Bakugo panted while leaning forward with his hands sparking explosions as he glared towards his two opponents. He lifted his right arm after hearing Mic's shout, and he rubbed it across the left side of his face where there was a bloody cut, then he stood straight up out of his bent-kneed position.

"Oh man," Kirishima said, lifting his right hand and scratching the back of his head with it. "And I thought Tsuyu and Iida's combos were pretty cool too."

Zach nodded dumbly next to him, while still staring down at Bakugo with wide eyes. _I thought he was still hurting or something. Geez, he's a fucking genius when it comes to combat. I thought the others had it there for a minute. Bakugo, is just too good._ Zach shook his head around, unable to think of any ways around Bakugo's powerful Quirk, combat prowess, everything.

Three others stood up behind Zach and Kirishima, and Zach looked back hearing their classmates giving the three encouragements. Midoriya, Todoroki, and Tokoyami all thought about going downstairs to warm up early, but each of them wanted to win the tournament as a whole too. They did not want to miss the fight of the one who would be their opponent in the next round, whoever that may have been. Each of them expected the outcome though, as each of them had been beaten by the monster who dominated this round at least once before themselves.

Their thoughts quickly shifted off of Bakugo though, as not one of the three believed their next fight was going to be an easy one. None of them had talked to each other about their fight beforehand either, unlike Iida and Tsuyu who had planned together, and Kirishima who kept egging on Yaoyorozu and Uraraka. Even Shoji made the joke during lunch, though he and Zach had kept quieter about their match since then. After getting awed by Bakugo, Zach had to remind himself at the serious ways in which the three in the next round started heading off that he needed to focus too. Zach's eyes closed, and in his head he pictured himself down on that arena floor, and Shoji standing ahead of him with a fifteen meter gap between them.

 _No matter how I see it, he'll charge first,_ Zach thought, and he watched as Shoji charged at him in his mind-view. _I could run back at him, probably surprise him as he'll expect me to try and run away around the outside. He thinks I'll do that though, because it's the best option. Still, think about running right back at him now. The first move. The very first one could make the fight, except…_ Zach saw himself fire his grappling hook from a decent distance, and one of Shoji's arms became a sacrifice. Zach tossed the gun afterwards since Shoji would not let go, and he could see some of Shoji's arms smacking it away and likely breaking it, catching it and crushing it in their grip, or just letting it hit him and bounce off. _Don't throw the gun at him. Unless I can manage to hit him hard and preferably near the eyes so to cut off his vision for a second, though then he can just make new eyes on the ends of his arms._

Kirishima turned to Zach to ask who he thought had the best chance out of the three heading out for the next fight. He stopped himself though at the look on Zach's face, his eyes closed and his lips flat, but his eyelids twitching for some reason. On Zach's other side, Hagakure leaned forward and looked back at Zach's face herself. She wanted to say something about it, wanted to mention to him how serious he looked, or ask what he was thinking about. Interrupting him now though seemed like a taboo, and the left corner of his lips dipped for a moment before he shook his head once.

 _Alright so first move is definitely to run away. Can't try sliding, if he gets a foot on me I'll have to concede, or he'll carry me out or knock me out when I don't. Not giving up is a strong point, but I'll just embarrass myself more if not giving up doesn't lead to anything… Run around the outside. Shoji is fast. His legs are longer than mine too. Did I beat him in the long run the first term? Did I… It doesn't matter. I can avoid him. I can weave, and duck, but that's not fighting. Running away would just make me look scared, and weak, and in front of all these people I want to look strong. I want the world to see me and think that the person they think I am, or who I think they think I am, is real. The hero, Life…Bringer. Lifebringer. Lifebringer. Focus! Attacking Shoji then. Facial expressions. That's what'll do it, huh?_

 _I need Shoji to think I'm just running away to wear him out. I'll have to do it for a while, and if he catches me before I can put it in action I'll have just made a fool of myself. Hopefully he tries to make a move though to get me after it's been long enough, and that's when the nervous look wipes. Don't just turn, turn with a focus and intensity that'll give him a moment hesitation like he should second guess his moves._ Zach's eyes snapped open and he stared straight down towards the arena. _Punch. If I have the moment hesitation, just a straight left as hard as I can. As strong as he is, he's not actually harder than the rest of us. Last round I noticed it, Tetsutetsu's hits hurt him a lot more than his did to Tetsutetsu. He's still skin and flesh and bone, even with that enormous strength. Hit and run? I can't stay close and wait to see the results before following up, because if they're not great, and he swings a fist in at me, he could break ribs or my arm if I block with it. Would he- no. Don't think he won't. I can't expect him to go easy. I've given my classmates plenty of reasons to take me seriously. Last round Shoji would have seen it. That moment where I was fighting all those people at the same time, dodging and keeping my feet on the ground and counterattacking all at the same time… That was cool. I don't know how many people were watching. Ah! FOCUS!_

Zach blinked his eyes a few times, then he refocused down on the arena while drowning out everything Present Mic and Aizawa were calling out about that last fight. _Joints. Leg joints. Neck. Eyes. Not the eyes. Not really. Not in front of all these people. Block vision, but don't aim for eyes. Ears. He can make new ones! Shit, he can make new eyes. Can't forget about that. Clapping the temples over the ears should still ring his head though, and I don't know what's under that mask but I could probably aim for it. I can't go for body shots. Can't go blow for blow with him. Can't throw him with the grappling gun. After last round I know he's more like a solid object when he was swinging me around by the gun. Even Iida had to account for his own speed and momentum to not be thrown himself when swinging Tsuyu by her tongue, but Shoji wouldn't have that problem. The explosion that blew every other team away, Shoji managed to stay on the arena. He caught me, held us there._ Zach did not shift his gaze, but he saw Shoji out the corner of his eyes past Hagakure's head that he looked straight through and in front of Ojiro's face. _What is your weak point? I never could find one. You're stoic. You've got a strong will when it comes to being a hero. You got badly hurt going after Tokoyami and Bakugo in the forest. Last year why didn't you make it? That's right. You, Mineta, and Tsuyu had a good plan and you guys even took our headband. It was Shinso! He took your headbands at the end. Who's really beaten you in a fight? Damn it. No mental weakness to exploit. The ability to create eyes and ears takes away the chance of dulling your senses. It has to be surprise then._

 _A surprise?_ Zach heard the next contestants' names getting called out, and three students started walking out to the arena from different sides. _That's it. Make you surprised with my own facial expressions. Trick you into thinking I don't think I can beat you. You know how much I want to win this though… so I have to start losing before I can look like that. If he gets a hold of me though, I really will lose. I need to get close to getting caught. So close, I risk losing each time. Multiple times. It has to be. Make it so he thinks I_ _ **know**_ _that I'm barely keeping in it, and that's when I suddenly flip the switch._ Zach started nodding to himself, leaning back on his seat as he got ready to watch the next match he knew was going to distract him from making a clear plan anyway. _Shoji. This is going to be difficult for me. I'm sure you don't expect it to be a walk in the park either though. I hope, you don't. Even though that would help me beat you. I think you're smarter than that. I think you think better of me. I think, this is going to be a crazy fight. Difficult. Interesting. And if I drop my guard for a second, you'll beat me. Whereas even if I can get you off guard, I… I…_ The right corner of Zach's lips lifted up, _I'll win._

"BEGIN!"

* * *

"Not letting you get close," Yaoyorozu said, holding up a stun baton in either hand and circling the middle of the stage with the girl facing her.

"Shouldn't lose focus Yaoyorozu!" Kirishima called out, as he leapt in the air on her right side and came down with his body as hard as could be. She spun towards the boy she never actually took her eyes off of, and she spun a baton into him, only for Kirishima to bite down through the shock and lift the corners of his mouth. The boy in Unbreakable mode slammed his right fist forward, but he stopped himself midway and dove to the left.

There was a reason Yaoyorozu could not focus fully on Kirishima, even though he had been in the middle of attacking her. She spun back and swung her other stun baton, but Uraraka made it look like she was going to jump back, only to duck down instead. Yaoyorozu leaned backwards, pulling her other arm back, and then Uraraka's hands touched her. Uraraka pushed, Yaoyorozu hit the shorter girl with a stun baton, and they both yelled out.

Kirishima's body unhardened and he turned his head to the right, then lifted it up more as he saw Yaoyorozu floating up in the air over him. She had a panicked look on her face, but after a second it disappeared and the center of her back started glowing. Kirishima shot to his feet and started running at Uraraka only a few feet away from him who he dove when he saw how she had suddenly sprinted the distance during his attack on Yaoyorozu. He saw her get shocked, but his eyes opened wide as Uraraka turned towards him, and with her whole body shaking she lifted her hands up to make Kirishima stop or risk losing his gravity. "Alright!" Kirishima shouted, baring his sharp teeth and making a huge grin on his face. "Let's do it Uraraka!"

Kirishima slammed his fists together, and he ran at the girl in front of him who balled her fists into a fighting stance. Uraraka punched her right fist forward, then Kirishima grabbed her by the right forearm and pushed up so even bending her wrist she would not be able to touch him. She brought her other hand in for his arm grabbing her, but Kirishima brought his other hand up and caught that arm by the forearm too. Then he slammed his head down and forward into Uraraka's face. He did not harden his body at all during it, but he locked his hands with Hardening around her forearms after that headbutt. Kirishima spun around and he held up Uraraka, and Yaoyorozu stopped shooting down with a jetpack holding her stun batons out in front of her.

The hesitation not to jab both stun batons into Uraraka's defenseless chest, gave Kirishima his moment to do a three-sixty spin and then throw the small girl up at Yaoyorozu. The taller girl had a jetpack to help with her movement, but she still had zero gravitational force. So when Uraraka slammed into her legs, it sent Yaoyorozu spinning around and around through the air. _Have to- center- reposition-_ Yaoyorozu was spinning over the side of the arena, but she forced flames out of her jetpack just at the right times that she was finally able to steady herself again. In her left hand, a grappling gun started forming and she grabbed it tightly by the hilt before pointing down towards a part of the triangular arena away from Kirishima. She had created a flat prong with a sticky surface so that wherever she fired it, it would attach to.

Kirishima turned to where he thought Yaoyorozu was about to fire and took a step, only for her gaze to have been a feint as she spun her arm the other way. Yaoyorozu dropped. She pulled the trigger, her eyes huge and darting towards Uraraka as she did it, because the short girl had just released her gravity and Yaoyorozu had not been using her jetpack. Yaoyorozu was a foot from touching the ground when she forced some flames out of her jetpack, giving her the extra moment in the air she needed to get back inbounds.

Uraraka gasped as that did not work, and the girl lying on her stomach who had lifted her head up and saw Yaoyorozu floating out of bounds started pushing herself up harder. Kirishima grabbed her by the ankles though, and Uraraka started spinning her head with huge eyes as she had somehow forgotten about the boy who tossed her in the first place. She knew where the out of bounds was, and she shook away her dizziness with a rapid change in her expression to one so intense that Kirishima almost let go afraid that she would be able to curl her body in and touch him before he let go. He released first though, and Uraraka's reaching hands grasped at nothing, then pulled in towards each other in a last ditch effort.

Uraraka turned herself weightless, then Yaoyorozu pointed the grappling gun she had lifted back up, and she fired the flat hook into Uraraka's back while she was arcing down off the side of the stage. She was already below the stage level, and her eyes shot open wider than Kirishima's as Yaoyorozu prevented her from dropping. Present Mic shouted as this happened, "WHAT?! Uraraka just tried dropping her out of bounds, but now Yaoyorozu-"

"It's a good strategy," Aizawa began. Present Mic looked in at him, then the darker haired teacher continued, "But to do something like this…" Kirishima was already sprinting across the stage, and Aizawa finished, "Is like admitting to the third contestant that she doesn't think she can beat him."

Yaoyorozu dropped the grappling gun when Kirishima was right on her, punching forward towards the girl who looked and was acting scared of him. Aizawa's eyes widened in the booth as Yaoyorozu was countering what he just thought and commented on, and a grin spread over his face. Uraraka was upset Yaoyorozu had to save her, but she was prepared to get back into the arena. That's why her eyes shot open even wider as Yaoyorozu never pulled her in, but just sent her flying up higher in the air still off the side of the stage. Yaoyorozu's other hand that had been subtly hidden on her far side from Kirishima popped up while she turned and ducked down under Kirishima's punch. She slammed forward into his chest and then ran by him, yelling, "You better harden, Kirisihima!"

Kirishima snapped his head down, and his entire body hardened while the audience dropped their jaws as the sight of the blinking red light on the device stuck to Kirishima's chest. _**BOOM!**_ Kirishima blew backwards and Yaoyorozu dove to the side and then came spinning out of a roll panting and feeling her stomach hurt after that. _Did I get him?_

 _Oh my God,_ Zach was panting hard while standing out of his seat and looking down at the stage. _What if he didn't harden?! I can't bring back Kirishima again! No, no Yaoyorozu's smart. She even called to him to do it, and she probably waited until she saw him harden too. Does she know how much he can take? Did she measure it perfectly? Is Kirishima-_ A silhouette rose in the smoke, and loud thuds sounded out as Kirishima stomped towards Yaoyorozu. _And I thought Shoji was a tank,_ Zach thought, finding it hard not to crack a grin. _I want to face Kirishima. We have our deal after all, but I also want to root for you, Momo. How are you going to-_

Zach's eyes rose up, as did everyone in the stadium, even Kirishima a second after the rest. He was panting and looking towards Yaoyorozu with a wide grin and a hardened body, but his eyes lifted after he saw what just hit the ground behind Yaoyorozu. Yaoyorozu heard it and turned her head, looking down instead of up like everyone else. She stared at the hook on the ground, and then snapped her head up to follow the wire. The wire was already retracting though, pulling the weightless girl at the end of it who had been flying around dragged by a gun that she made weightless as soon as Yaoyorozu let go, before it could start dragging her down with its gravity.

Uraraka did not make Yaoyorozu weightless, but instead she touched her own fingers together when she was just about to come down, and her weight returned right as she extended her left foot at her classmate's face. Yaoyorozu leaned back and tried raising her arms, but Uraraka was falling too fast, and leaning back just made it so the kick hit her in the chest. Yaoyorozu was leaning back, and the kick in the chest sent her slamming back-first into the ground, with Uraraka landing on top of her and leaning down with a fist lifted over Yaoyorozu's face, a crazy intense look in her eyes. Yaoyorozu started coughing while Kirishima stared at the scene with wide eyes, then the redhead had an idea as he looked behind the two girls.

"Uraraka, quickly, ack-" Yaoyorozu started to the girl who she knew would not consider what she did earlier an actual sign of trying to work together. "Turn," Yaoyorozu warned, unable to say much else with what felt like a bear sitting on her chest, and that was without Uraraka's knee pressed into it like it was. Uraraka spun towards Kirishima, then she reached down and grabbed Yaoyorozu, and she did what Kirishima did to her earlier to Yaoyorozu this time, tossing the taller girl at the third opponent. Uraraka pulled Yaoyorozu out from under her, then pressed her fingers together to return Yaoyorozu's gravity which she removed for the throw. Kirishima caught Yaoyorozu despite her weight returning, and he just kept sprinting forward and smashed Yaoyorozu's front into Uraraka's wide-eyed face as the girl she tossed came flying back at her.

Kirishima kept sprinting, pushing Uraraka on the other side of Yaoyorozu who yelled out for Uraraka to stop them! Kirishima released with one hard shove while he was still eight feet away from the line for out of bounds, as he thought any closer and Uraraka would probably make Yaoyorozu, and maybe him because he was touching her, weightless. He just threw Yaoyorozu with one extra hard shove that knocked Uraraka off her feet, and sent both girls sprawling out on the ground and sliding back. And when those girls opened their eyes where they lay in pain on the ground, they felt such pits of despair in their chests at the sight of the boundary line they were lying on top of.

Uraraka's hands had flattened below her even while her eyes were still clenched in pain from the slide and roll with Yaoyorozu falling on top of her. Those hands curled into fists as her eyes clenched again, such a frustrated look on her face as Mother Russia dropped down to the ground at the boundary where they two girls had just gone out. The referee called it, while Uraraka thought, _I couldn't do it. Again. I couldn't be like you, Deku._

 _I knew Kirishima's strength. I should have used something bigger. I was too concerned- it's too easy for the things I create to hurt people…_ Yaoyorozu dragged herself up to her hands and knees, then she turned her head as she saw Kirishima standing next to her, his hand down and outstretched for her to take. It was not what she wanted to do, feeling the way she was feeling at the moment. She couldn't deny him though, knowing the kind of guy Kirsihima was and considering all the people watching them right now and wanting to see her sportsmanship. She grabbed his hand, and Uraraka pushed herself up near them to avoid that happening herself. _My Quirk, can be too strong… Against Kirishima, I needed something powerful, but I needed to be careful. How do I balance that? How do I beat powerful opponents who are strong, but can be vulnerable? Without seriously hurting them? …_ Yaoyorozu listened to the cheers and looked around the stadium at the sounds of them all, but she focused up on the section where her own class was sitting. The boy who just came to her mind was not up there though, and she wondered for a moment if he had seen the end of the fight. _He must already be preparing for his own,_ she thought, shaking her head though and adding to herself, _But I believe he would have stayed until the last moment. How do you do it Zach? Balance how strong you need to be, based on how strong an opponent is? If I had used a rocket launcher…_

Below the stadium's bleachers in the round tunnel going around the arena, Zach jumped up and down to loosen himself up. He stretched already, and it was time to get the blood pumping. He saw Shoji had not waited to watch the entire last fight, but he already had his strategy ready. The longer he had to sit around thinking about it, the more he had to second guess his plans that he thought were going to work. _Kirishima. Good. We'll get our match. Once I beat Shoji. One I take down a tank, with nothing but my bare fists and a grappling gun. Bare_ _ **fist**_ _. I've got kicks though too. Shoji's legs aren't that thick. Even though I won't be able to push him, back of the knees are always good. Ankles are thin too, and really a focused attack on anywhere not too muscly will be painful. Not just painful though, I need long term damage. Long enough to take him out of a fight. We have Recovery Girl, so I don't need to- but I can't! I can't, use certain things. Things Dabi showed me. Techniques, villains use. I want to be a hero! Fight, like a hero!_ _Even without my Quirk._

Zach took in a deep breath, then he stopped jumping around and turned his head as he saw a couple of people walking towards him. He kept nodding his head, and he started jumping on his feet again at the sight of the three of them looking tired and bruised. Uraraka lifted her gaze and gave him a small 'good luck,' but she was clearly focused on something else and kept walking. Yaoyorozu and Kirishima stopped though, and Kirishima opened his mouth- "Gotta focus. Talk after," Zach said quickly, interrupting his friend about to say how Zach better make it into the next round. _Shoji's too strong! How can I do this, holding back Nightmare?! I can't show it! I don't want to! Even if the rules… even without my grappling gun- And I can't… I have to win! I want to win. I want people to see me, see the person I've been trying to show them I am, instead of the one they think I am. Fight, and win, against someone bigger than me. Keep him chasing my tail. Have him get overconfident in the huge gap in our abilities._ "I've got this," Zach told the two in front of him who were looking at him like he appeared way nervous for this.

"Yeah you do," Kirishima said, walking past Zach and just patting him down on the shoulder. "Go for it man."

Yaoyorozu nodded and she walked forward after Kirishima had gone by. She lifted a hand and put it on Zach's shoulder too, but she left it there instead of just patting it once. "You can win."

 _I can win,_ Zach repeated in his head, turning with wide eyes to the smartest girl he knew. _She's right._ Zach heard his name called, and he started for the tunnel the three others had come from before. He walked, his breathing calming down to a steady pace. His heart rate was up from normal, but not racing. His eyes narrowed and his face became serious, but then he smiled as he reached the tunnel and started going down it. _I can do it. All of it is possible. This is an important step. Winning here, at this moment, I need to do it!_ Zach smiled more as he neared the bright light ahead of him. _If I'm ever going to make changes in the world. If I'm ever going to make it a better place! If I'm ever going, to change the answer! Then I need to win, right here, right now!_ Zach stepped out into the light, and he heard thunderous cheers from all directions. He stared across the stage that was suddenly a rectangular shape again thanks to Cementoss, right at Shoji walking towards him from the other side. _Shoji, I will beat you!_

* * *

 **A/N Thanks for reading! Hope you enjoyed the chapter, even if I did rush by a couple of fights. Next chapter Zach faces off against Shoji in the finals of the Sports Festival! How will it turn out?! Some review response time:**

LaughingALOT chapter 58 . Aug 9

Mother Russia! Kick Ass (Will you make a hero based off that name?) I died when I saw that! Good Job!

 **XD Totally forgot about that actually! Just rewatched a scene with her in it, and yeah she's a total badass. Probs won't make a Kickass character, as really it was just off the top of my head since Mother Russia's like a common phrase, you know? Glad you liked her and thanks for the review!**

LordOfTee chapter 58 . 10h ago

This was a big action-packed super awesome mega bomber chapter! And it was a blast to read, keep on doing what you do dude cuz I'm loving it and so are others!

 **Thanks! It was a blast to write too, so I'm glad you enjoyed it!**

Shade11224 chapter 58 . Aug 9

Nice chappy, but I still Momo and Zach together I'm pretty sure there's never been a oc and Momo pairing in any good fanfics. So that means you have to put them together or you'd have teased a history breaking ship and then told everyone who got their hopes up to go fuck themselves although I suppose it's fine as long as you don't turn this into every other fanfic out there. *looks at the unending mountain of gay Hero Academia fanfics*

 **Time to make history... or maybe not, who knows? Haven't shown any signs of it being a gay one I don't think, and if anyone's thought that it's really just friendship you guys. I'm all aboard the Momo ship too... hope I don't sink it for myself! Thanks for reviewing!**

Guest chapter 58 . Aug 9

For class 1-A, or I guess 2-A now, they gave them stats from 1 to 5 or F to A for Power, Speed, Technique, Intelligence and Cooperativness. What would Zach's stats be?

 **Hmmmm... Don't normally answer these, but let's try: Power- 1 maybe a 2, Speed- also 2? Intel- 4-5, Coop- 3 or 4, and I'll give him a 5 for Technique cause of the Shatterer raid. Anyone's free to agree/disagree. Might have made the character, but he's developed for me as much as he has for the rest of you so I'd wonder what you guys would give him too. Thanks for the review, and I hope you enjoyed the chapter!**


	60. Chapter 60

**Chapter 60:**

"Let the last fight of the first round of our final tournament, _STAAART!"_ Present Mic screamed.

"Who do you think's going to win?" Ashido asked her dark-haired friend on her left side.

Jirou would have glanced at Ashido to answer, but she was watching too closely as Zach backed up from Shoji who sprinted at him right at the start. Zach looked like he was trying to fake which direction he would run to, but Shoji just kept barreling forward and Zach seemed to have second thoughts. He turned and started running before Shoji could get closer, pulling out his grappling gun as he did and darting his gaze over his shoulder every second to see if Shoji was close to him. "I don't, know," Jirou said slowly, as the start of the match was not giving her much confidence in her original pick.

"What are you talking about? It's gotta be Zach," Mineta leaned forward between the two girls, and Ashido reached up and pushed his head back because of how close he got to them.

"You think?" Ashido asked after pushing him. She kept looking down and watched as Zach ran around the outside of the arena, and she saw Shoji glance over at the boundary line they were running close to. _That's smart!_ Ashido realized with her eyes widening, her mouth lifting into a bigger smile as she thought she knew what Zach was doing.

"Getting near the edge," Ojiro said and leaned forward, Hagakure looking left at him. She saw Ojiro looking intense, and she spun back and stared at the black-haired boy who looked back at Shoji and had a competitive look on his face, despite the sweat also on it. Ojiro continued in a low voice, "It makes sense, since Zach wouldn't be able to move Shoji very far. He's going for a ring-out… but Shoji can see that too."

"I disagree Mineta," Tokoyami said, and Mineta turned to the dark boy with a beak who was staring down at the arena intensely as well. Even though he was not in the next round, Tokoyami was focusing on his classmates whose fight he had been looking forward to. Tokoyami glanced right at Mineta who turned to him, and he said, "Without using his Quirk, Zach has an unbridgeable disadvantage. Shoji is too strong for him to beat without using Nightmare."

Mineta turned back to the arena and he gulped as he saw Zach look back with a more nervous look on his face this time. Zach tried feinting like he was going to spin and attack Shoji, but Shoji did not slow and only rose his arms like he was ready to counter, which made Zach dart a different way and start crossing the arena. Shoji did not expect Zach to move from the edge, as along with the others he thought Zach had him close to try and ring him out, so the gap widened between them for a second before Shoji started closing it again.

"Bakugo, you're not staying to watch?" Kirishima asked as the spiky-haired blond got up near him and started walking up the bleachers.

Midoriya glanced up over his shoulder and stared at Bakugo who kept walking after that question. "It doesn't matter. I won't be fighting either of them in the finals anyway, right?" Bakugo said, and he kept marching up and into the inside of the stadium's exterior to prepare himself.

Kirishima's eyes opened wide though at what Bakugo said, and then he grinned ear to ear and spun back to the arena himself. Tsuyu looked to her right and up at Kirishima, _Bakugo-chan has a lot of faith in Kirishima-chan._ "Gero," she croaked with a smile on her face, before turning back to the stage as Kirishima had.

 _Win Zach,_ Kirishima thought as Zach suddenly sped up after hesitating at the opposite side of the ring farther from Class A's area in the bleachers. He had looked hesitant for a moment, then he sprinted out of the way to avoid Shoji who reached for him. He sped up and tried curving around Shoji, only for a hand to grab him by the back of his blue uniform and for everyone in the stadium to lean forwards. Shoji's middle right arm had another arm sticking out of it and curving to the side Zach ran to, then another arm had sprouted from that one, and another extended even farther still.

"Whoa!" Sero leaned forward and took his hands off his knees, his eyes wide and a grin across his face. "He got him!" Sero sounded surprised in his shout, and he had really thought Zach must have had a better plan in mind to stay away from Shoji. Now that he was caught though-

Zach got lifted by Shoji's arm, and the boy whose feet left the ground instantly pulled his entire body up while twisting it around. He wrapped his legs around Shoji's arm that dipped down a bit but started pulling back, then Zach lifted his left elbow before Shoji got Zach within the reach of his other arms. Zach wrapped his right arm around without touching Shoji's arm with his right hand that still held the grappling gun, tightened the grip of his scissor-lock on Shoji's arm, and then he slammed his left elbow down while bending his whole body wrapped on the arm up. Zach cracked Shoji's extra arm, and Shoji's hand let go of Zach's uniform in the pain that made the larger boy close his eyes for a second.

Zach hit the floor, and Shoji snapped his eyes back open and glared down in front of him where he thought his opponent was. Zach was gone though. Shoji's eyes opened huge and he spun his head left and right, and then a foot slammed into the back of his right leg and he dropped down to a knee from the powerful kick Zach just slammed him with. Then Zach leapt backwards, surprising a lot of people who thought he was on a roll there and only needed to push Shoji out of bounds which was close to them. Shoji spun around after biting down in pain though, and all six of his arms including his middle right that was back to its normal shape missed Zach who just pulled back far enough away from him.

Zach started panting hard as Shoji got back up to his right foot too, having never dropped off of his left. _No effect?!_ Zach turned and started running again, and Shoji narrowed his gaze but he started sprinting after Zach again. _Or is he hurting?_ Zach wondered while glancing back. Shoji's silver hair blocked much of his face, and his narrowed eyes on the sides of his bangs just looked mad. He could not see a mouth behind Shoji's face-mask, so he did not know if the other boy was grounding his teeth in pain, if he even had a mouth behind there. _Run more, make him run on that hurt leg. Get him frustrated…_

Midoriya kept glancing over his shoulder up towards the exit from their section into the stadium. He looked back towards the arena again as Zach continued to run around the stage to avoid Shoji, and despite the small amount of action, the stands were still full of very loud cheering. _Can Zach win? I know it would be wrong to underestimate him, but Shoji is too strong to just beat with a positive attitude. All Might was right back when he told me when I was Quirkless that there was not much I could do. Just a right attitude alone, the desire to be a hero… it's not enough to bridge the gap._ Midoriya frowned more, then he glanced over his shoulder again. _Uraraka never came up. Todoroki still hasn't come back since our fight either. Bakugo's warming up, but unlike him I don't think Kirishima is a sure-win over the winner of this fight._ Midoriya looked back and he widened his eyes while leaning forward again, as Shoji was picking up speed and almost catching Zach, and he was not extending his arms this time.

 _Cross the stage,_ Zach thought. He started cutting across, and he looked straight towards the opposite boundary line. _I'd clearly be going all the way for that before making my move,_ he spun his body and rose his grappling gun that he fired.

Shoji was caught off-guard by the sudden spin, but he reacted quickly and was ready to block. Recovering from Zach's spin was not all he needed to do though, as his eyes shot open wider in confusion as Zach's hook shot up away from his arms and past the left side of his face.

 _His arms, the hook, his bangs,_ Zach thought of everything that could cut off Shoji's vision, and he knew he was out of sight.

 **Clank.** Shoji moved his arms and looked back down towards where Zach had fired from, and he saw a grappling gun on the floor that Zach had just dropped.

"What the…" Present Mic began.

Midoriya leaned forward farther on his seat, and then he heard Kaminari two seats down on his right side who just got a big grin on his face. "There it is," Kaminari said, while Shoji spun his head left and right and even looked behind him only not to see the boy the rest of them in the audience could still see. "I hate that move," Kaminari said, shaking his head and still smiling as he said it.

"That's, Toga's move," Midoriya whispered, and Tsuyu spun to him with her naturally big eyes getting even wider. She was the only one who heard it, and she looked back down towards the arena while thinking about a villain who made her tongue feel phantom pain.

Aizawa leaned forward in his seat in the commentators' booth, and Mic glanced at him only to get a nervous bead of sweat rolling down the side of his face at Aizawa's intense gaze. _Himiko, Toga,_ Aizawa thought. _Those aren't just movements you pick up watching someone,_ his eyes narrowed more, _He incorporated it completely._

 _Where'd he go?!_ Shoji thought as he spun his head, Zach vanishing from in front of him. Shoji's fists all clenched and he darted his gaze around, _Is he in my blindsp- his gun?!_ Shoji looked at the ground where Zach had dropped his grappling gun, and the weapon was gone. He heard a click and spun around, right as the hook snapped back into the gun thanks to Zach retracting it. He retracted the hook with a press of a button though, and when the click came it was after the hook pulled all the way back in, after Zach tossed the gun up again to it was close to the right side of Shoji's head.

Zach sprinted and Shoji's bottom right arm that turned into an ear caught his movements, and he spun after Zach jumped up and punched for the side of his head the clicking gun wasn't. Zach's left fist's hook for Shoji's left temple missed by inches as Shoji snapped his head down towards his chest, and then all three of Shoji's left arms swung out connected by the webbing between them. The three arms slammed into Zach, and Zach was really glad he decided to make his move in the middle of the arena.

Zach hit the ground several feet away on one leg as he tried to land it, then he fell on his back from the force still pushing him and rolled a few more feet away before recovering onto his feet. He rolled out with one foot planted just below him and the other stuck out to his right side straight out. Zach slid that leg behind him after a quick dart of his eyes told him the boundary was still far, then he sprinted forward and darted left and right while keeping up fast movements. _He's still flustered- no, he's not!_ Zach stopped his sprint, and he cut to the right instead and dove, doing a forward roll and picking up his gun as he did.

"No," Yaoyorozu whispered as she saw Zach go for his gun. She had already seen Shoji look towards it while Zach was rolling away from his triple-armed slam. She knew there was a reason Shoji did not just go over and smash the gun, or throw it out of the arena. Shoji had never looked towards it while Zach ran at him though, so Zach hoped that Shoji had forgotten about it. The taller and more muscular boy would not make that mistake again though, and as soon as Zach darted to his side for the gun, Shoji moved for it too. Zach came out of his roll and dove to his left, slipping between Shoji's bottom and center left arms. Yaoyorozu and Shoji's eyes widened. _Did he know?_ Momo thought.

 _Way too close,_ Zach thought, as he felt his legs skim Shoji's arms as he tried pulling them in to catch him with. Halfway through his roll he had seen Shoji almost on him, so by the time he finished it he was already ready to dive a different direction. The direction he picked had arms swinging in at him though, but they were spread wide to try and stop any direction Zach could dodge to, giving him the only option of going between Shoji's arms. Cheers echoed through the arena as Zach escaped, then he spun as they went on and fired his grappling gun towards Shoji's right leg. The reason Zach could not get out of the roll and dive the exact opposite direction as Shoji, was that the boundary line was close to them.

Shoji pulled his right foot up fast, then he stomped it down on the wire Zach shot past him. Zach pressed a button to retract it, but the wire did not move back towards his gun when he wanted it to. The wire was stuck at its current length, and then Shoji reached his arms out and formed more on top of them. The gap between the two was not wide, but Shoji was not stepping off of the wire easily while he could still reach from the distance. He made more multiple arms this time, three of them extending out of his other arms towards Zach.

 _Shit shit SHIT!_ Zach let go of the grappling gun he tried tugging with him, then he sprinted to the right, before cutting towards Shoji and running alongside the arm farthest towards him. He ran down the extended arm on the side where two had extended from, then he ducked under the third that swung at him when Shoji saw Zach making his charge. Zach exhaled while lifting his left hand, and he ducked under the third arm and pushed his left hand out at Shoji's right arm that dropped under his two extended left ones. Shoji did not think Zach saw that arm coming around, and he started pulling his left foot back to dodge Zach who he thought was trying to pull it out from beneath him.

As soon as Zach blocked Shoji's other arm though, he crossed over Shoji's front while he longer arms were all pulling back in. He dropped down flat to dodge arms closing in, and he spun on the ground and slammed a powerful kick into Shoji's right foot, moving it a few inches, and releasing the wire beneath it. Zach dove back the direction he had been, where the extended arms had just pulled back from. Those arms reached out and one grabbed Zach by the right foot, but Zach kicked his left down his right leg scraping against his pant leg and knocking off his right shoe, freeing him from Shoji in an instant. He hit the ground and bounced back to his gun he pressed a button on quickly, and Shoji tried reaching down to stop the hook sliding by him, but Zach yanked the gun to the side and the hook avoided Shoji's grab.

Shoji ran forward, and Zach pointed the gun up as the distance was not huge and Shoji was almost on him. He fired at Shoji's chest, and Shoji sprinted straight through the blunt hook, barely wincing as it hit him. He slammed his arms down at Zach, and Zach with a panicked look on his face dove to the side and then scrambled up as he almost hit the out-of-bounds' line.

"Come on, Zach," Kaminari said, grabbing his knees tighter as it looked like Zach was going out for a second there. Zach jumped up and dodged one of Shoji's arms swiping beneath him, then he ducked and pulled his body to the left as he ran. Shoji's attacks were relentless, his arms extending different distances every second, and Zach's head was on a swivel as he looked for a moment.

Mineta was biting his fingernails as every swing of Shoji's looked like it could get Zach only for him to escape in the last possible second. Zach's face was getting more panicked every time, and people started cheering louder and louder around the stadium for him to hold on and keep in there. Tokoyami crossed his arms next to Mineta and thought, _This is it._

Inside one of the waiting rooms, Uraraka turned from Bakugo who she was staring at in surprise, and the two of them listened in to the cheers that suddenly got much louder.

"Oh no," Mt. Lady held her hands together, and her and Kamui Woods looked up towards the big tv screen behind them with wide eyes, as Zach Sazaki's left foot got caught. It got grabbed around the ankle, not the foot this time so Zach could not just pull off his other shoe. Shoji was not waiting to let him try another escape though, and the extremely strong sixteen year old threw into the air towards the closest line marking the edge of the arena, which was only a meter and a half away from them anyway.

Zach rose into the air, and the panicked look on his face changed as he rose past the outside of the arena's area. _No! Not yet!_ Zach pulled up his grappling gun and pressed a button with his right hand while pulling another hook out from behind his waist. He hit the top of his arc while he was clicking it into place, as Shoji pulled his arms and body back because he had expected Zach to try and wrap the blunt hook around him. Zach attached his sharp hook though, and he fired to the right a bit, got the steel of his sharpened hook to dig into the cement of the arena. Shoji started running towards it, right as Zach pulled himself in during his drop. The hook fired crazy fast, but it did not pull him in as fast. He got jolted back towards the arena, but he let go of the gun after it pulled him, diving with both arms out and throwing the rest of his body up to avoid the line marking where was out of bounds.

His expression was still panicked as he hit the ground in a dive, but when he came out of the roll his face was more serious and intense than it had been in a few minutes. He jumped straight up while keeping his momentum going, and he kicked up with both arms into Shoji's arms that he swung in front of him at them. Shoji tried grabbing Zach's legs in the middle of their kicks, and Zach leaned forward and clapped on the sides of Shoji's temples. He pressed his hands into the sides of Shoji's head, even though he was using his right hand too. He had an extra glove over his normal one though, a special one made stronger by the school so he would not be able to accidentally hurt his classmates. He stopped trying so hard not to use it, and this was him going all out as best he could without using his Quirk.

Zach grabbed the sides of Shoji's head after disorienting him with the clap, and he swung the rest of his body up as if to do a front flip over Shoji's head. Shoji rose two arms though, snapping his head back as he pulled Zach's hands away from his temples and down in front of him. Zach could not finish the flip over Shoji's head to kick him in the back, so Zach stuck his right leg out as Shoji pulled his body forward, and Zach slammed his right leg straight down on Shoji's face that just looked up at him. Then his other foot jammed forward into Shoji's chest to try and kick him back. Shoji was almost an unmovable object though, and an eye formed on one of Shoji's arms right after he got kicked in the face. He had left go of Zach's left arm in the pain he felt getting slammed in the face by the bottom of Zach's leg, but it was not so hard that when he realized he dropped it he was not able to grab on tighter to the right.

Zach bit down in pain as he felt Shoji squeezing his right arm so hard he felt it might break. Zach twisted anyway though, his whole body while just leaving his right arm in Shoji's grasp. Shoji was strong enough to hold Zach in the air, but Zach was also strong enough that despite the strain on his abs and all his muscles as he tried it, Zach twisted his body away from two of Shoji's arms reaching in to grab him. His foot that he slammed into Shoji's chest pulled back like the one on Shoji's face that the taller boy shook away, then Zach slammed both feet out this time at Shoji's face that he had to raise his other arms to block. Zach's left fist swung down and hit Shoji on the inside of his elbow of the arm he was grabbing Zach by the right arm with. Shoji uncrossed his arms from his face as Zach started falling from that arm's grip, and they both had intense looks on their faces as they swung.

Shoji punched down, Zach punched up right as his curled-in legs touched the floor. Zach's right fist his punched with pulled away though instead of punching Shoji in the knuckles, and Zach dove forward and between Shoji's legs. He wrapped his left arm around Shoji's back leg while Shoji was punching forward the other way, using the extra strength Shoji put into that punch to try and end it, against the larger boy. He got Shoji's leg up, and he wrapped his right arm around the leg too as Shoji tried pushing it back down. Zach had him at a weird position though, and he rose the leg higher so Shoji did not have a lot of force pushing down on it. Even what he did have with one foot on the ground and his body moving forward, was almost too much for Zach though who felt all his arm and leg muscles straining to just hold one of Shoji's legs.

Zach grit his teeth and pushed up harder though, and he rose Shoji's leg from in front of him to his shoulder, and then over his head with a single push up over himself when two of Shoji's extending arms wrapped around towards him. Shoji's other leg could not stay down with his legs split that far apart, and it staggered back to try and hop for balance. Then as he hopped one time, Zach put all of his strength holding Shoji's leg up, into pushing that leg forward. Shoji's other foot just came off the ground, his hands had almost reached around Zach's side, and he kept grabbing only to miss as Zach fell forward while throwing Shoji's leg with all his strength.

Zach fell forward, as Shoji was pushed forward with both his feet off the ground. Shoji fell, lowering his arms down below him, but also farther down his body he extended them to try and grab the floor still inside the arena, not where the top of his torso was falling. Zach lifted his head after hitting the floor first, and he saw Shoji's right foot drag up on the floor as two of his hands had just gripped the floor to stall his falling. Zach pressed both palms on the floor, pushed his body up in a push-up position, and then he spun his legs from behind him in front with a spin of his body. He slammed both legs into one of Shoji's arms, right at his wrist above the hand he was using to hold himself there as he tried to steady at the edge. Shoji was using those two hands to pull back his whole body, so suddenly losing one of them when he was about to put weight back on his right foot, meant that he was not ready at all for all the extra weight his other hand had to carry.

Shoji's eyes shot open huge, and he rose up his two top arms as his head was about to slam into the ground. He caught himself before hitting the floor, but he caught himself a yard past the out-of-bounds' line. Zach's legs dropped flat to the ground and his body leaned up more, his arms shaking and aching where he had just held them planted to do that final spin-kick. He stared at Shoji's legs in front of him that he pulled up so he landed on his knees, and he saw the outsides of Shoji's arms past them, past the boundary for what was in bounds. _I…_

Tokoyami's beak was open and his eyes were huge. Sato leaned forward farther in his chair, his jaw dropped as he was one of the people there who thought Shoji was going to win for sure. Sero leaned back and put his hands up through his hair, while his lips spread so his big teeth showed wider in a smile that covered half of his face. Mineta's hands shook at his sides balled into fists as he stared down at his two classmates. His lips were pursed together, and the short boy with purple balls on his head got up on his seat.

Hagakure turned in towards Ojiro, and Ojiro's wide eyes started to go back to their normal size, while his mouth lifted into a big smile just like the invisible girl next to him already had. Mother Russia lowered down to the stage on the side where Shoji was on his hands and knees, and she lifted up her left hand while Zach climbed up on his feet on shaky legs, still staring at Shoji in shock at what he had done. _I… won?!_ A smile broke out on Zach's face, and Mother Russia called out, "Mezo Shoji is out of the ring. Zach Sazaki is the winner-"

The stadium erupted in cheers so loud that the woman in a tight red costume actually opened her eyes a little wider and stopped announcing. Zach spun his head around and looked at the stands on all sides of him, where every person in a crowd of tens of thousands was up on their feet. They were cheering, and yelling, and they were all smiling and looked amazed after that turnaround since Zach had been thrown from the arena only half a minute before.

"YES!" Kuroiro shot out of his seat and yelled. A lot of others in Class B who were jumping up to start cheering too after that fight spun towards their classmate who was always one of the quietest in their class. The rest of them started cheering too though, as Kuroiro cupped his hands to his mouth and called out another yell.

Class A were all up on their feet, even the ones who had been rooting for Shoji or thought he would win. "I can't believe it," Tokoyami said while lowering the hands he was clapping with. "Without using his Quirk," the dark boy muttered, then shook his head while smiling in an amazed way.

Bakugo heard the shout from Mother Russia outside followed by all that stadium-shaking cheering, and he bit down hard while glaring at the door to the waiting room he was in. _No way. Damn- Whatever! Deku. I'm gonna kick your ass again, in front of everyone this time!_ Bakugo thought it angrily, but his gaze focused intensely after the thought to a point that Uraraka figured it was time to get out of that room he had walked in on her in, and she wiped her eyes again before heading for the exit.

"What an upset!" Present Mic yelled over the arena. He had yelled in the beginning when the two first got up to face each other that it looked a bit outmatched with the two's body types, even calling Shoji a 'tank' himself when mentioning how he managed to withstand Bakugo and Todoroki's collision during the previous event. "After being thrown from the ring, Sazaki makes it back in and pushes Shoji out of bounds! I thought he was done for!"

Zach kept panting as he looked around with a smile growing on his face, his eyes wide as he looked at all the people staring right back at him. _They're all, cheering._ Zach saw himself a year before on this stage, when he was getting ready for his fight against Jirou. He thought about the things he heard them whispering about him, muttering or even shouting about how he had killed the villain at USJ. Zach's smile calmed as his panting slowed, and he turned to Shoji who was pushing himself up after staring at the ground for a few seconds in anger and frustration that he had lost. Zach got a more sympathetic look on his face, his smile lowering a bit as Shoji turned to him obviously upset by the outcome. Then, the taller boy just nodded at Zach whose eyes widened at the acceptance of the outcome. _Even though I didn't use Nightmare. I did as best I could like this, I really wasn't holding back, Shoji._

 _Zach, you're an amazing fighter,_ Shoji thought after nodding at his classmate. As much as Shoji tried his best not to hesitate or flinch after every surprising move his opponent made during the fight, when he threw Zach from the arena he was stunned at Zach's mid-air recovery. While he was on his hands and knees, he thought about how he wished he had slammed Zach down into the floor instead. He wished he had not let go the other times when Zach attacked him while in his grasp to force him to lose his grip. _This is so frustrating, but you deserve this._ Zach started smiling again and he turned to the right as he heard someone shout at the top of their lungs, "Lifebringer!"

"Lifebringer!" Someone else shouted between just loud cheers, and Zach turned that way this time.

"Lifebringer! LIFEBRINGER! LIFEBRINGER!" Zach's eyes opened huge, as what started as just a couple of people calling out that name, became people calling it out over and over in rhythm with each other. _I'm- This is-_ Zach gulped and he kept looking around with eyes huge and amazed. "LIFEBRINGER! LIFEBRINGER! LIFEBRINGER…"

"This is exactly what he was looking for. Let's begin."

"YOW! What's this? The audience has started chanting Sazaki's hero name like-"

Zach glanced towards the commentators' booth. _It's not technically… but why is that? I'm, I am Lifebringer._ He heard them all keep chanting, and he bit down behind his lips and then pushed out a smile with his eyes softening and looking through the crowd towards the Class A section. He thought maybe with everyone cheering for him like this, maybe his classmates would be upset he was robbing the spotlight. He just stared towards them though, and he saw his class up on their feet cheering like everyone else. _I made it to the semi's. Everyone…_

"Oi, this thing on?" Present Mic tapped his microphone a few more times, then he looked at Aizawa who tried saying something into his only for it not to work either. They could hear the loud chants of 'Lifebringer' from in their box, and Present Mic glanced back out with a sweatdrop rolling down his face. He kind of needed to continue this by mentioning how Zach was into the semi's, then he could move on to talking about what the first semifinal match was… but seeing that look down on Sazaki's face he figured they could fix the problem without being in too much of a rush. "Let's get someone on this," Mic said.

"Something's…" Aizawa began, a deep frown on his face. _At the same time?_

Principal Nezu stared up towards the commentators' booth where Present Mic's voice had cut off prematurely while he was in the middle of speaking. The mouse-dog-bear administrator thought that maybe Aizawa had cut him off, as Mic had seemingly forgotten that Sazaki had withdrawn 'Lifebringer' from being his hero name. Despite that possibility though, the principal had an uneasy feeling in his gut that had Vlad King glancing at the creature next to him hesitantly at his expression. Then Nezu's eyes suddenly snapped up, and Vlad King spun his head around.

Zach kept looking around through the crowds cheering for him, even as the chanting for his old hero name continued but started to get choppier as people started sitting. More people were just talking loudly and yelling at this point, and Zach glanced over at Mother Russia to see if they should go off. The teacher was looking up towards the commentators' box though, so Zach turned that way wondering if Mic and Aizawa would keep speaking now that the chants of Lifebringer were dying down. _Huh?_ Zach stared above the commentators' booth at one of the four giant screens above the Sports Festival stadium.

The screen was black unlike the other three that were showing a zoomed image of Zach standing down on the arena. Shoji looked towards Zach and then up at the screen more people were looking towards even as the cheering continued. That black screen was replaced though, and the cheering died down fast as everyone stared up at the giant image projected for the audience to see. Cameramen pointed up towards the screen, only for most of them to just lower their arms and stare at the big screen with bulging eyes like everyone else. Zach's heart started pounding, and his face filled with distress, and his breath started coming out fast and ragged as he took a step back on the stage.

All of Class A turned their heads to the image that just appeared over the commentators' booth, and the smiling and cheering class silenced in an instant. A chill went through the stadium as everyone stared at the ominous room of white walls, a white floor, and white ceiling that just appeared televised on the big screen. They all stared into the center of that room where there was a single chair bolted to the floor, and a figure sitting on that chair with his head bowed, a crewcut of black hair over the top of that bowed head. He was not wearing any pants or a shirt, only a pair of black boxers on to cover him up. His wrists were bound to the arms of the chair, and his ankles to the front legs of it. There were bloody scabs above the ropes on the boy's ankles, wounds that looked fresh and had discoloring of the skin around them. His left hand was bloody too and there was a visible wound on the back of it while that hand was resting just over the end of the armrest it was over. And he had a black metal box over his right hand.

"What the-" Sero began, his face covering in sweat.

Mineta's eyes were huge and he just backed up, almost slipping off his chair and barely catching himself though he did drop to his butt after as he kept staring up at that screen with his jaw dropped.

 _What's happening?!_ Mother Russia balled her fists and glared harder at the screen.

"We've been hacked," Nezu said as he stood from his seat around the rest of the faculty. "Call security and have an alert-"

"I'm trying, Principal," Ectoplasm began. He lowered a communicator and then muttered in more anger, "It's being blocked."

Zach's eyes were shaking as he stared up at the screen, the screen showing a figure who looked way too familiar. _It's not live,_ Shoji thought behind Zach, as he saw that expression on Zach's face, then looked down to Zach's left hand and a discolored scar over the back of it. Shoji's eyes lifted back to that screen, _What are the teachers doing?_

"Yo Aizawa, you seeing-"

"We have to get it down-"

 **Clunk- Chhh** The figure on the chair flinched, as the sound of a steel door unlocking and then opening up echoed around the stadium. No one stepped into the frame yet, but the boy sitting on the chair snapped his head up and every person staring at the screen dropped their bottom lips. Zach Sazaki stared forward with his teeth bared, dried blood all over the right side of his face down from a gash cutting across below his eye from his nose to right through his short sideburns. The skin around the wound looked fleshy and weak, and there was pus coming out of it, but the worst was his right eye that was actually swollen from the wound below it that looked to be infecting his eye and making it squint. Even with one eye squinted though, Zach Sazaki's eyes were full of unbridled hatred, and pure bloodthirsty rage, as he screamed at the top of his lungs, "I'M GONNA _FUCKING_ KILL YOU!"

 _Why are they doing this? Why now? What the fuck? What the FUCK?! What's HAPPENING!?_

Zach's bloody wrists reopened in the video, the wounds on his ankles too as he struggled to pull out of his chair but could barely move at all in his current binds. "RAA! RAAAA! I'LL MURDER YOU!"

Another figure walked into the frame. A man everyone knew. The most wanted man in Japan. Midoriya stared forward with his shaking eyes getting even wider as he looked at that screen, as his eyes lingered on Zach's chest and legs and ear. _There aren't any, scars,_ Midoriya thought, and his body started shaking as he looked at the boy tied to a chair with Shigaraki Tomura walking up to him. _It's after VTS,_ he thought, and his heart clenched up as he thought about how close he was that day. He thought about Zach getting pulled into the portal, and the things he had imagined happened to him once he had gone through. _They didn't kill him though,_ Midoriya thought, while Shigaraki stopped in front of Zach Sazaki's chair.

"Stop this," Nezu said.

Snipe pointed his guns up towards the screen on the opposite side of the arena, and he fired a few times at it. Bullet holes went through the screen, and the image flickered a few times, only for the three other screens above the bleachers to all turn off and then flash on with the same image the first was still showing, though now with cracks in it. One of those cracks on the first screen went right through the middle of Zach's face, right as the boy screamed, "LET ME OUT! I'LL KILL YOU!"

"You can't anymore," Shigaraki said in a smug way, his voice sending chills down the spines of many who also felt them when Zach screamed the first thing in the video. "Remember?" Shigaraki asked, his lips curling up behind the hand attached to his face.

Zach's face in the video scrunched up, his whole body shaking, and then he snapped his head forward and his mouth curled up violently at the corners. "I don't need Death to kill you! I'll rip your fucking throat out! Just get a little closer," Zach snarled, and he chomped his teeth a few times forward while struggling forward in his binds.

 _What is he talking about?_ Kirishima thought, his heart racing even faster at that last exchange. _Death, won't work on him anymore? Did they-_ Kirishima thought about how Zach could not use his powers on him, and why that was, and his eyes grew even wider as he stared at the madman on the screen. _Did that guy kill himself, and force you to…_

All Might spun from the screen he was staring at back down to the arena where Zach was standing with his eyes stuck on the screens just like everyone else around him. Zach was panting hard, and All Might could see the boy's face twitching, his eyes shaking, his lips trembling. _Young Sazaki. Turn away._ "We must get the hacker out of the system," All Might said, spinning to the other heroes around him who were all standing like he was.

"If it's that Hackerman," Power Loader began in a frustrated voice. "We still don't know how much his Quirk controls. He could keep it going-"

"I'LL KILL YOU FOR WHAT YOU DID TO THEM!" Zach screamed, his face filling with agony and his body straining even harder against the binds, only for him to collapse back into the chair and start wheezing in pain and exhaustion. _Them?_ All of his classmates thought while staring up at the screen, except for Jirou and Yaoyorozu who felt their hearts pounding harder each second.

"I didn't do anything," Shigaraki began.

"YOU KILLED THEM!"

"Did I?" Shigaraki asked. Zach leaned back in his chair, even his squinted eye opening wider as Shigaraki leaned towards him. "I wouldn't have even known their names, if it weren't for you. And if you didn't try and be a hero… heh," Shigaraki leaned back and then stared down at the boy whose face had distraught and horror covering the rage. That only lasted for a few seconds before Zach's eyes started to narrow again, but it was nothing like the rage from before.

Zach's face in the video became more calm, more dangerous. Even some of the heroes who were in the stands and trying to figure out what was going on found themselves freezing as Zach's voice began in a cold, low tone, "Everyone you care about." Zach paused, while the present Zach rose up his left hand and put it over his face, his eyes huge and his mouth wide open as he stared into his hand. _No._ "I'll kill them all, right in front of you. I'll rip them to fucking pieces, and I'll MAKE YOU WATCH!" Zach screamed it in the video, and every person who a minute ago was calling out 'Lifebringer's name stared at that same boy in horrified ways at the sound of that threat.

Shigaraki just hummed at Zach's threat, then he turned and started back for the door. Zach snarled and tried pushing forward out of his seat again, losing that calm look as he desperately tried to pull himself free. He stopped after a second and just started panting again, his body and mind exhausted from the looks of him. Shigaraki stopped after leaving the frame, but his voice still came out as Zach sat there panting with his head bowed again. "I thought you might have been getting tired, but you don't get to sleep anymore." Zach started lifting his head, and Shigaraki continued, "I'll think about finding some music you like, but in the meantime you can just listen to this."

A speaker on the ceiling of that small room turned on, and a scared girl's voice came out loudly. It came out so loud that it blasted in that small room, but it also filled the entire stadium playing these videos on their big screens. "He's going to save me," the scared voice said. As soon as that voice came out, both Zach in the video and the present version of him standing on the arena froze. It had been months since Zach had heard that voice, and he started lifting his other hand to his head too, his eyes clenching shut while he started shaking his head around at the sound of it. "He'll come here, and he'll bring back my parents. He's going to save me."

"Ahhhhh," video Zach breathed out hard, and he looked to be trying desperately to keep a look of rage on his face as he started shaking in his chair.

"We have to cut this off," Aizawa said, glaring through the booth towards the three big screens around the stadium that everyone was staring at. He also saw Sazaki down on the arena though, and he thought, _He's losing it!_

"Zach!" The scared girl's voice shouted, different this time, more afraid.

"Jenny!" Zach screamed as he yanked forward in the chair. He started shaking his head around, drool splashing form his mouth and an insane look in his eyes as he glared forward, unknowingly straight into a camera. "JENNY!"

Kaminari was already standing out of his seat. He stood there staring towards the big screens with as wide eyes as the rest of his classmates, but he started leaning back with a wave of realization crashing into him. Others who had heard Kaminari mention that name, always to off-put reactions from Zach, started staring in even more shock at the screen where they could hear that girl screaming over the speakers. "ZACH!" Jenny screamed, her voice full of so much fear than her previous shouts, an urgency to it that had everyone leaning forward, while the kid in the video strapped to a chair just screamed at the top of his lungs. And then the girl's voice screamed more, "ZACH! HELP MEEE- NO! AHHHH! AHHHHHHHHHEEEE- _EEEEAAAAHHHH! EEEAEAAAAGGGHAAAAHH- AHHH AHHH! EEEAAAaaaahhh…"_

"Holy fuck," Sero pulled his hands back from the top of his head where he was holding them as he listened to those screams. Listening to the screams was bad enough, not knowing what had happened to the girl to make her scream in such a way was almost as bad, but the worst thing was the look of the boy in the video whose screams cut off as the girl's faded off. His whole body was twitching, and then the recording restarted. It restarted, and his expression turned dark. The door of his room had closed during the girl's screams, so he was all alone in there now. He stared forward with dark and narrowed eyes, his body twitching, his lip flinching at the corners that lifted up and curved down just as fast.

Uraraka and Bakugo stood at the exit onto a part of the bleachers full of spectators that they rushed to hearing the strange things echoing around the stadium. Uraraka had tears in her eyes, but she lifted a hand up and covered her mouth as she saw that look cover Zach's face. Zach's teeth bared, and then they opened and a cracked noise came out of his throat. His lips curled up past his teeth that bared again, and then his eyes shot open huge as Jenny's voice called out for him in the background again. Bakugo stared at the boy up on screen, his eyes as wide as everyone else around him. _What the, fuck?_

Outside the stadium, Mt. Lady and Kamui Woods, as well as everyone around them and all the security included were staring up at the screen on the outside of the building. A camera angle inside was pointed up towards one of the hacked big screens, transmitting the images from inside out to everyone. Kamui Woods shook his head quicker than the rest of the security, and his eyes darted around the curve of the huge building. _Hackerman. His range is unknown, but there's a chance he's around here._ "Everyone," Kamui Woods called out to the rest of the large security force gathered near him, "we have to search…"

Back in Class 2-A's area of the bleachers, Yaoyorozu did not look at the screens around the top of the stadium like the rest of her classmates. She looked down towards the stage where Zach was standing, his hands on the sides of his head and a distressed and horrified look on his face. _**"I loved her, more than I knew I could ever love someone, and I only realized it as she screamed my name! As she died, screaming out in agony yet still believing that I would come save her. Until her very last breath, she believed in me. And I failed her! I let her die!"**_ _How many times, Zach? How many times, did you have to listen to this?_

Jirou had her right hand up over her mouth, and she thought about the same thing Yaoyorozu just did that she heard on the roof that night. Tears filled her eyes, and then everyone staring at the screen froze as the image suddenly changed, and Shigaraki was in the room again. The image cut so suddenly that it was strange the shift, except Zach's facial expression only got much creepier in the next frame as the boy was looking up at Shigaraki with his head cocked to one side and a mad smirk spread across it. The scab on the right side of his face was smaller and there was no dried blood around it anymore, no swelling around his eye, though he did have a bloody gash on his left shoulder, and a new but scabbed-over wound on his right knee, and three very noticeable scabby gashes over the left side of his chest on his muscular pectoral.

Shigaraki held up a picture, and Uraraka gasped with her eyes shooting much wider. Bakugo darted his gaze to the girl next to him, then up at the video where he saw Zach smirking at Shigaraki like a lunatic. Zach turned to the picture Shigaraki was holding up, then he laughed and said, "Oh! Mina Jirou." He nodded at Shigaraki with a big grin on his face, and he started laughing harder before going, "Quirk- Hardening. Umm, she likes long walks on the beach and-"

Shigaraki reached forward and tazed Zach in the gut, and his smug and smirking look wiped from his face as he let out a bloodcurdling scream. Heroes started yelling to get these videos taken down, but there was no response from the people in charge of the Sports Festival. They were not announcing what was wrong, and all the speakers in the stadium were blasting Zach's screams instead. Mina Ashido dropped her jaw as she was mentioned a moment ago, and Jirou and Kirishima were also staring up at the screen in shock at that response. Uraraka's eyes started watering up more though, as it was her picture that Shigaraki was holding, and she thought, _Was he still, even then, just trying to protect-_

The images changed quickly, and the room changed this time too. On the stage, Zach's hands dropped from his head, and his eyes opened huge as he stared up at the cracked screen he was still looking at over the commentators' booth. He thought maybe he was seeing things wrong, and he turned to the right with a shocked look on his face and looked up at a different screen. A few of his classmates who glanced down at the arena a couple times, and Shoji from not far from him, saw a shocked and nervous look on Zach's face as he stared up at that screen. _I don't remember this! Why don't I- I, I remember everything! I wasn't repressing it that much! I, I don't know this room!_

Shigaraki had a picture lifted in front of him before the new image even cut on. Most people gasped at what they saw up on the screen, but then a whole lot of them stared in even more shock as Zach spoke in a low and shaky voice, his eyes darting from the picture down to the floor beneath his dangling feet. "Toru Hagakure. Quirk Invisibility," Zach darted his eyes up in that video, and Shigaraki kept staring at him from between the fingers of the hand on his face. "Uh- um- she's, she's really girly. And I- I think she likes Ojiro."

 _What am I doing?_ Zach stared up at the big screen, his breath picking up and his eyes shaking in horror at what he was watching. _Why, don't I remember this? I, I remembered… but, I must not… Oh my God._ Shigaraki lifted the next photo, one name farther down in the class alphabetically. _And after him, is…_ Zach looked back towards the Class A section, and he stared in terror right at Midoriya who was staring back at him with as wide eyes.

"D-Do you really need me to say?" Zach asked, as Shigaraki held up a picture of Bakugo. "You know him already-"

Shigaraki started lifting a different hand, and Zach screamed everything he knew about Bakugo. Zach was dangling in the air in a darker room. There was a metal bar hanging off the ceiling, and his wrists were held to it by rusty hooks. His left ear was split. His hair was a little longer. The wounds from the other clips had become scars or were old scabs now. He had fresh burn wounds on his torso, the skin melted off, and he had blood dripping off of his feet as he hung there rambling about Bakugo. "…hates Midoriya-"

Shigaraki moved away Bakugo's picture and said, "And Midoriya?"

Nezu froze as he was giving out orders to the teachers in front of him. He turned like All Might had in front of him, and they stared with wide worried eyes towards the screen across the arena. Bakugo's eyes narrowed in on the screen up above him, and he clenched his fists tighter at his sides, _Don't you…_

Midoriya stared up at the picture of his face, then to how scared Zach was as his lips trembled, his body hanging off the floor and dripping blood. He clenched his teeth so hard, water in his eyes, and he thought, _I don't blame you._ In his head he saw Zach's face now as he looked down at the fighting stage, and he knew the boy he had looked at did not remember what he was seeing. _I let you get taken, to go through all of this-_

"Izuku Midoriya, Quirk Power-Up. It's strong but he can't control it so he breaks his body easily." Zach responded to Shigaraki, and then the image suddenly cut again to show Zach back in the white room he had been in before, only he was wearing all black now to cover up most of his body.

For the majority of people watching, the scene confirmed that Zach had not been able to hold out as he rambled about his classmates. A small few got a very different meaning out of that short clip that only lasted thirty seconds total. Nezu and All Might stared in shock at the screens then down to Sazaki, and Midoriya spun around with his eyes wide too as he looked down towards the arena. Bakugo was breathing heavily after he watched that, and Uraraka glanced at him in confusion as to the wide-eyed look on his face from what Zach just said. He turned and looked down towards the arena, where Zach had his head bowed and his eyes clenched so hard shut.

It was unbearable. The weight Zach felt crushing in his heart right now. _I told them, everything. I told them about my classmates… was I the spy? Am I- I, I didn't say I knew about All Might's connection with… but what if I did? What if Shigaraki just wants me to think I held out, and I'll just tell him in a different clip? I don't remember. I forgot. I didn't think about my scars, because it hurt to do so. But I, I really don't remember, where I got those burn marks. Wasn't it Dabi? Was Dabi ever there? Was any of it real?!_ Zach's eyes shot open and he stared at the floor in front of his feet in horror. Echoing through the stadium he heard his own voice, "Yes, I'll kill him."

"What if I told you to kill All Might?"

"I'll kill him."

Heroes stopped trying to get the screens cut off on their own as some of them just started trying to do. They all stopped and stared towards the screens, at the boy wearing all black, whose hair had gotten longer, and who was answering in a very calm way for speaking to the man who had tortured him.

 _How did Lifebringer escape the villains?_

 _There were no hero rescue operations._

 _I heard he escaped on his own, but it didn't make any sense to me._

"And if I told you to sneak back in…" Shigaraki began. Even more people around the stadium started turning back towards the arena stage now, where the dark haired boy on it was not moving and was slowly lifting his gaze up into the stands. _Escape,_ Zach thought, and then his eyes opened wider as he stared out at people looking down at him with fearful and suspicious gazes. _That's all I was thinking about. That's why I, said all these…_ "Would you play a hero for me?"

"Yes," video Zach replied.

Mineta leaned back on his seat, his eyes shooting open huge and his chest pounding over and over. _Wait wait wait. If Zach really was, then, then why would the villains be doing this?!_ Mineta's eyes grew even wider, then he spun his head around and saw that not everyone in the stadium was putting that together. _Zach!_ The short boy thought, but he could not shout it himself when he heard Shigaraki's voice question, "And would you kill your classmates?"

"Yes," Zach responded with no more hesitation than any of the other questions. He just stared straight up at Shigaraki and nodded his head, his eyes looking half-dead, his whole expression just making him seem broken.

"That's good," Shigaraki said, smiling creepily behind the hand down at Zach.

Zach in the present started twitching, his whole body full of fear as he saw what was happening on the videos. Everything else blurred out of his vision and all he could see was Shigaraki standing in front of him and saying those things, and it made him start darting his eyes around in more of a panicked way.

"This is bad, Eraser," Hizashi Yamada whispered to his fellow commentator. "Kid looks about to lose it down there."

"Start shouting," Aizawa said as he finished coming up with a plan. They could not get in contact with the principal and Aizawa did not want to mess with whatever plan the short furry creature was coming up with, but he couldn't just sit in there any longer. "Shout over everyone and say that we're working to get the screens under control, and that this is nothing to-" Aizawa's head started turning around to look farther back in the commentators' booth, and his eyes bulged which made Mic spin his head around too.

"Then one last thing," Shigaraki Tomura said in the video, leaning forward towards the boy restrained to a chair. "Who are you?"

A look of sheer terror and panic covered Zach's face in the video, and he screamed at the top of his lungs while slamming his back into the seat he was in, "NOT LIFEBRINGER!" Jirou, Iida, Ashido, Kirishima, and Midoriya all stared in horror at the screen, thinking about what he shouted at them on that day he had run away back to the dorms so he wouldn't get captured again. They felt their hearts breaking thinking about how they confronted him for that, as Zach screamed it again, "NOT LIFEBRINGER! NOT LIFEBRINGER! NOT LIFEBRINGER! NOT LIFEBRINGER! NOT LIFEBRINGER! NOT LIFEBRINGER…"

While screams of 'NOT LIFEBRINGER' filled the stadium, the air in front of Zach on the stage darkened. "Not…" he started to whisper, only for his eyes to shoot open wide as black wisps appeared in front of him. Zach stared straight ahead with a terrified look on his face, and an explosion went off on his left up at the commentators' box, and thousands at the Sports Festival started screaming.

Zach stared at the portal in front of him, and a low voice came out of it, "Commence Phase Two."


	61. Chapter 61

**Chapter 61:**

In the middle of Musutafu, a few hundred people standing on an elevated path of the city with escalators to their lefts and train lines above their heads were all staring off the side of that bridge and towards a huge screen on the side of a skyscraper. People in the street down below, inside the windows of buildings on their sides, and who got out of their cars on the road behind them were all staring towards that screen or one of the others around the most central part of the city. An explosion just went off at the Sports Festival below the cracked big screen the camera televising the event had been pointed at, and screams were coming out of the tv as the entire stadium fell into chaos and the reporters tried to keep calm as they shouted what they saw going on.

"What's happening?"

"Right in the middle of the Sports Festival?"

"Is Lifebringer a villain in…"

"All those heroes are…"

"Why can't they do anything…"

"Isn't this supposed to be the safest…"

"The security should have…"

"AHHHH!"

All the nervous and scared people staring at the screen down on the street closest to that building spun their heads to the left, and then the screams came from a lot closer. The hundred or so people watching from up the escalators on the bridge crossing above looked towards these people who started scrambling backwards and falling over each other. They spun and started sprinting the other way down the street, only for a bunch of them to scream and try to cut short only to be pushed down or ran over by others.

They started scattering, into the buildings on the sides of the road or towards the escalators where the people at the top started backing away from as they saw two figures marching down the street from the direction all those others looked down first.

Two men who just appeared on the road coming out of a big black portal marched forward. Jin Bubaigawa, or the villain known as Twice, walked forward in a black costume with a white line splitting it down the middle and a white mask covering the top of his head. He saw down the road another black portal close after the truck drove through it trailed by a group of five villains who started chasing civilians scattering away from them. "Alright big guy!" Twice called out, spinning to the monster of a man next to him who was walking forward on both feet, his huge thick truck swinging in front of his already bulked body. "Shigaraki told you to ignore me! So knock down as many buildings as you can! So sad- DO IT!"

Ganeshi dropped down on his front legs, leaving holes in the street as his feet slammed down.

"Over there!" A hero shouted, making Twice spin around. The Buster Hero, Air Jet, flew down the road and pointed his arm cannon down towards Twice who he recognized immediately as one of the most wanted men in the country. He looked a little farther at the beast marching forward on all fours towards the side of the street, and he recognized that trunk too and thought, _Ganeshi. Mt. Lady claimed his strength was greater than hers._ "I need backup over on-" His cannon that was charging pulled to the side, but he was not fast enough to fully dodge the razor wire Twice threw up at him. He maneuvered back with his jetpack, only for a scream from a citizen to alert him that he needed to spin around.

Two flying villains, one with the wings of a bat and the other who just leapt off the side of a building and spread his arms to glide over, rose up machine guns and started firing at Air Jet while they were still at a distance. Air Jet fired his jetpack faster to avoid them, but he yelled out as a few bullets slammed into his arm, leg, and one hit him in the jetpack. He started spinning out through the air and tried directing himself at least towards Twice, while shouting out through the pain to other heroes his helmet had a line connected to. "On forty-second and Main there are villains including the most wanted-"

"Thirty-fourth and Kaigo avenue we have over ten villains- ahh!"

"They're everywhere!"

Air Jet's eyes were widening, but he hit the ground and his mind blanked form all the pain for a few seconds. When he opened his eyes, he was lying on his side and looking towards Twice who he tried raising his cannon arm to fire at, only to wince in pain as the arm that was shot had his cannon at the end of it. "Take it down!" Twice yelled, and Air Jet stared in horror across the street as Ganeshi's trunk swept through the front of the building. The trunk extended as it whipped across the front of Ganeshi's body, the dark purplish-black monster smashing down all the supports on this side through from corner to corner.

Screams rang out from the entire building as it started to shake, but the structural integrity was too good for that to be all that was needed. Ganeshi lifted up on his back legs, and Twice leapt away with wide eyes yelling out, "Don't- TEAR IT DOWN!" Ganeshi paused and looked slowly towards him with a dull look on his face, and Twice clenched his hands at his sides before pointing back and yelling, "Do IT!" Ganeshi nodded and reached up, grabbed the building above where he broke the supports, and he pulled the already wobbly building towards himself.

Air Jet looked up towards all the windows with scared people in them. He started struggling to roll himself over to try and stand, and he managed to get off his side and to his stomach at least. He pushed his not-shot arm down on the floor to try and get up, and a desk slammed into the ground on his right side twenty feet, followed by a bunch of broken glass. He heard the screams getting louder, dozens more windows shattering, and Air Jet looked up to see a building tilted towards him with people and furniture falling out of all the windows. He never had to worry about it collapsing on him though, as the rain of glass that fell on him in the next two seconds shredded through him before the skyscraper ever fell.

The people behind Air Jet at the top of the more elevated section stopped screaming for their hero as he was impaled by glass and then smashed by a falling desk. They turned and started running, not wanting to still be nearby when the rest of that building fell. They sprinted down a road, and a few people pulled out their Quirks: hopping forward just a bit faster than others, hardening or strengthening their bodies in case glass fell at them, lifting arms and creating forcefields at the end of them to protect from incoming attacks. The people running and even the ones using their Quirks all stopped though as a pickup truck spun by the next intersection with a loud screech, its wheels spinning it around so the front was facing them. There were guys on the back of it with machine guns, all of them villains in costumes, one of whom jumped up on the top of the cabin of the truck and put both hands to his mouth.

The villain pulled his body back and a bright orange light shone from his throat, then he snapped his body forward as the wheels of the truck started screeching again and tearing black lines on the pavement under them. "FIRE BALL!" A huge ball of fire flew towards the civilians, and one scared woman holding up her arms with circular pink forcefields at the end of them ran forward while everyone else spun and ran away. The others looked back as the woman yelled she would help, putting her forcefields in the way. The fireball exploded against them, and the flames wrapped around the outside of the forcefields and still blasted past her, as well as wrapping back to her arms and body so she screamed out in agony as she was surrounded in fire.

The group who spun away sprinted as fast as they could from the truck, and then a lot of them screamed and lifted their heads only to cross their arms and yell in absolute horror as the shadow that fell over them was what they feared it was. The skyscraper collapsing slammed down on the elevated section of roads, and the whole street and bridge area blew apart with the sides of the road on either side splitting up. The truck speeding after those people slammed to a stop, but the road beneath it still pushed up hard and sent the truck flying towards the building that blew up a huge amount of dust and smoke as it hit down. The truck slammed down into the building's rubble with villains screaming and jumping from it, then a fireball erupted from the smoke. There was no one around to put it out as the wreckage from that building started catching fire, and it spread as fast as it was spreading across the city.

"Nice Ganeshi! On to the next one!" Twice yelled with a cheer, while a hulking mass moved through the rubble and pushed right out without any sign of injury. Twice kept staring at the building's rubble where the screams had stopped coming from after it fully hit the ground and collapsed. _The Nomus will keep Endeavor out of the city, and we've gotta destroy it before heroes arrive from around the country! To save these poor, poor people._ "Oh the horror," Twice said, then turned from that building and faced some heroes who reached the street only to stare towards the building they destroyed in horror.

"Fiend!"

"Twice!"

"Ganeshi!"

Twice grabbed Ganeshi's side as the beast was walking by him, and another Ganeshi emerged from the original's body. "Alright!" Twice said while the heroes running his way slowed down at the sight of that second monster appearing. "New Ganeshi! Let's kill some heroes!" Twice started running forward at the heroes coming for them, while Ganeshi went for the next skyscraper down, and Ganeshi's clone Twice created with his Doubling Quirk started storming forward after him with each step shaking the ground. Twice pulled out his sharpened measuring tape and slashed it forward at the slowest to react of the heroes, cutting across his side and making blood splash out, and Twice yelled as he did this, "Save the city!"

* * *

The commentators' box at the Sports Festival exploded. A fireball inside made all the windows shatter outwards, and everyone in the stadium spun towards it in shock and horror. "Aizawa sensei!" Class A shouted, their attentions all snapping that way or just down if they had been looking at the screen above that box anyway. When they looked towards the box though, they saw something that made them feel small senses of relief as Present Mic was dangling from the flaming room by a bunch of cloths wrapped around him. Aizawa was dropping out of that room too, but he landed down in the audience and recovered fast despite some of his black uniform getting burnt off.

 _How is he doing this?_ Aizawa thought while snapping his gaze away from the flaming box. He spun and looked towards the stage, where he saw another portal appear as he had dropped. He thought back ten seconds to when he and Mic had looked behind them to see a black portal opened in their commentator booth. Both of them immediately prepared to attack, but he only thing that came through the portal was a hand holding a round device with spikes sticking out of it that the person who stuck it through dropped. The sphere's spikes started pushing out, then the whole ball lit up red and Aizawa reacted throwing Mic back at the window while jumping back at it himself.

Zach thought something similar to Aizawa as he stared at the portal in front of him in terror. _He can't. Is this all so premeditated-_ Zach's eyes darted up and around the top of the stadium, and more people who looked back in shock seeing the portal on the stage started spinning their heads too to look around the top of the bleachers. At the top of the Sports Festival stadium, black portals appeared five at a time and men and women in dark costumes stepped out of them onto the topmost parts of the bleachers, encircling the entire arena. _There are too many! Kurogiri can't- unless, is it possible, if he shot up with Trigger? For something like this he had to! There are so many villains though! Is this the whole League, or-_ _ **"We wouldn't join up with Shigaraki's army, and he killed Rage-Rider and Hugo…"** Shatterer!_

A bunch of heroes looking up towards the top of the stadium behind them were getting into fighting stances. They lifted up their arms, floated off the ground or used special gear to lift them off, and all of them were wearing their hero uniforms so they reacted fast as the Sports Festival was attacked. Portals opened up in the middle of groups of heroes though, and arms reached out and dropped bombs between them.

 _ **BOOM! BOOM BOOM BOOM!**_

Zach stared at the portal in front of him, as a man walked out like others had around the top of the stadium. Those other portals were opening up one by one or in small clusters and then closing, but this portal had stayed open since appearing in front of Zach, when he had heard a very familiar voice come out of it. A man stepped through the portal in front of Zach, then four other portals opened up on the stage near him which made Shoji and Mother Russia spin around as they had solely focused on the man who appeared before Zach.

Bakugo was spinning his head around as explosions started going off all over the stands, and the entire stadium was in panic, but he spotted the villain who just stepped out of that portal in front of Zach. _Damn it!_ Bakugo thought, and he turned to Uraraka who stared back with wide eyes at the look on Bakugo's face.

Over in the student hero sections, portals opened up in the middles of them, and arms reached through and dropped small spiky steel balls that glowed red after a second. Ibara Shiozaki's long hair vines shot over and wrapped around the bomb, while one box over Eijiro Kirishima dove on top of it while hardening his entire body as hard as he could in a single instant. Explosions went off, and Tetsutetsu turned to steel and got between his class and Shiozaki's vines in case they could not hold the bomb, though her vines did well at containing the whole blast, unlike Kirishima's method.

Kirishima got blown up in the air by the force of the blast, while the ground beneath where he had been curled over it collapsed and the fireball exploded mainly downwards as Kirishima had been surrounding it on the other sides when it went off. Sero swung his elbows up and pulled Kirishima back down, and everyone in the class started yelling at each other at the same time.

"What do we do?!"

"The stadium's under attack!"

"Look at the top of the bleachers!"

"Look at the stage!"

"Zach!" Yaoyorozu leaned forward and shouted it, but there was no chance of the boy down at the arena to hear her over the screams of thousands and explosions going off around them.

Izuku Midoriya spun his head back and forth as he stood at the edge of their spectating box. _I have to stop this! I have All Might's power- I need to stop this now… All Might,_ Midoriya's head lifted, and he looked across the stadium towards the teacher section where the teachers were scattering from under the principal's strict orders. _All Might,_ Midoriya thought again, his heart rate speeding up more as he thought about a prophecy he had heard Sir Nighteye had during his internship in the fall. _This is, right in that time range. He's, the other heroes are leaving him- even though he's always been one of the League's targets!_ "All Might," Midoriya whispered, and he bent his knees, Full Cowling filling his body. _They're going for him!_

"Midoriya!"

"Everyone!" Iida shouted, getting the class to spin towards their class representative standing near the wall where Itsuka Kendo had just dropped her head back down on the other side of. A steel fist smashed that wall down in the middle, and Iida kept shouting to both classes as loud as he could, "We are all heroes! The League of Villains is attacking, so act like heroes and stop the villains! Help evacuate civilians! And assist our teachers and fellow heroes to the best of your abilities!"

Midoriya leapt off the box and shot through the air so fast that a wind slammed into some of his classmates who were shocked at how little hesitation there was there, even though Midoriya was ready to jump before Iida was even midway through his speech. Midoriya shot high up in the air, his eyes darting down and around the stadium at all the people in need of help. Then his breath caught in his throat, as he saw something in his peripheral vision that made his blood run cold. Midoriya turned his head at the top of his arc after jumping high over the stadium, and he stared towards Musutafu City. _Mom,_ Midoriya thought, at the sight of black pillars of smoke rising from a city where he could see a tall skyscraper falling from an already altered skyline.

Midoriya's head snapped back forward and he thought, _One thing at a time. There are heroes all over. They'll protect her. All Might is going to die though. Sir Nighteye saw it!_ Midoriya looked down and he kicked his legs behind him towards where he saw All Might sitting earlier, where most of the teachers had been spectating from. As he shot over the middle of the stadium, his eyes glanced at the ring where Zach was standing in front of a villain, while four other villains had appeared there around him with Shoji and Mother Russia. Midoriya's eyes started getting wet again as he looked down there, thinking about Zach in that room where his arms were held out to the sides by rusty hooks, where he had still held back even in that far-gone state from saying anything secret about his Quirk.

The videos around the arena cut off, and on every screen appeared a different image. Different cameras around Musutafu, showing the city on fire to the people who had not realized yet that the Sports Festival was not the only place under attack. On the stage, Zach kept staring at the man in front of him even as the scenes of a flaming and villain-infested city covered the big screens at the top of the bleachers. "It's time for you to come back," the man in front of Zach said, glaring through the white bandanna around his eyes at the black haired boy in front of him. He had green skin, long pinkish-purple hair spiked up and pushed back over the top of his head, a red scarf around his neck with the tails flapping behind him, and he held a long black hilt in his right hand.

Zach's eyes only lingered on the blade for a moment as he noticed the differences in the villain's huge weapon, though it was mainly the same it looked like there were even more sharp blades attached to his huge sword now. The boy's eyes just looked straight into the man who looked a bit like an iguana's. "Spinner," Zach said. His terrified look at everything that had been happening around him, the one of despair and dread that everyone had seen those things during the _six weeks_ he would have liked to never hear about again, those looks disappeared from his face. Zach's expression got oddly calm for both Spinner and the four other villains who had appeared around the stage. "What happened to her?" Zach asked, and he bit down on his bottom lip, while Spinner's eyes opened huge and he bit down hard too while gripping the sword he was holding tighter.

"Spinner!" Mother Russia shouted, pulling her elbows down at her sides. "One of the world's most wanted right in front of me," her muscles tightened and flexed visibly through her costume. "I won't let you get…" her voice trailed off, and she kept talking only to get confused as no sound was coming out of her mouth.

Shoji spun towards his teacher from the villain he had been locking eyes with, then he spun back and jumped away while lifting his arms as the crazy woman charged at him. She had long dark-purple hair and a third eye on her forehead between some long bangs. That eye started glowing red as she charged Shoji, and he dove to the side right as the beam fired at him. Then the woman lifted the katana she was charging forward with wildly, and Shoji had to scramble up and jump backwards as she slashed at him again. He crossed his arms as her sword was too close, and blood splashed from his arms, then he yelled out in pain as a red beam shot out of her eye again and into his bloody arms.

Mother Russia spun to the student and shouted something mutely at him, but as she started running forward, she did not feel the ground beneath her feet. She spun her head to the left as she saw a strange man with a white cloth covering his face, a white robe on his whole body with a black eye symbol in the center of it, and golden chains around his neck dangling over his chest. The robed man had his right hand held up at her with a strange orange glow around it. That glow turned blue next, and Mother Russia shouted again while she ran towards the villain who was wiping her senses. Her voice came out halfway through as she shouted, but she still did not feel her own footsteps, and she did not know that her voice came out considering she was unable to hear anything anymore.

Then she flew off. She did not lift off the ground using her Quirk and fly away, she just suddenly flew off at sixty miles per hour and slammed into a wall off the side of the stage with no warning. Another of the four figures who had appeared there with Spinner and just sent Mother Russia flying stayed silent while the others around him looked his way nervously, something Shoji caught and made him even more afraid as he no longer had a Pro Hero's help while surrounded by these villains.

Up in the stands, Snipe spun his head and thought, _There!_ A portal opened in a section he was focusing on because of the lack of damage near it. He fired half a dozen times in rapid succession, and a villain fell out of the portal with his bomb rolling out of his fingers. "GET AWAY!" Snipe shouted towards that area, as he was not fast enough to shoot through the portal before the man stuck his arm out. Bomber fell out of the portal right on top of his bomb, and people around him screamed and tried sprinting away only for the bomb to go off and blow many of them and the villain who had been creating those weapons apart.

Snipe stared over in horror, and then his head snapped back with blood splashing out the back of it as well as out the back of his chest and shoulders. Down on the stage, a man with thin slits for eyes lowered his right hand that had the index and middle fingers of connected together in a long barrel with his thumb looking like a Red Dot Sight with crosshairs in the middle of it. "Damn it," the shooter said while lowering that hand. He turned to the woman with the third eye and the guy in the white robe, "Bomber's dead."

"It's fine, it's fine," the younger woman in her mid-twenties said to her comrade. Tricksie smirked crazily and then spun around while holding her arms out to the sides, blood dripping from her katana she held straight out to her right. "He did a great job already!" All the other villains who had appeared around the audience moved down into the chaos, and battles started between them and pro heroes. There were an excessive amount of heroes in the audience, but there were also a lot of civilians and media too, and the pros had to worry about protecting, saving, and evacuating them while also defeating and capturing the villains. What made it worse though, was the fact that several of the villains pulled out needles as they sprinted down at pros or leapt off of higher parts of the bleachers, and they shot up with Trigger that made them smirk wider, as their powers increased as well as their rage.

"DIE HEROES!"

"RAAHAHAHA!"

"EAT LEAD MOTHERFUCKERS!"

"Tell me Spinner!" Zach yelled at the man in front of him, reaching his left hand over and pulling off the thicker glove over his right in a single movement. _I can't use it! After everyone just saw that, if I turn into a monster now in front of them all. If I go Nightmare. The whole place is on fire! People are dying! WHAT HAPPENED TO HER?!_ He had sweat all over his face and he was in as much panic as everyone in this crazy situation, but he yelled at the villain before him, "Tell me!"

"Zach!" a voice shouted behind him, and Zach turned his head to the side to see Shoji running up behind him and then spinning so they were back to back. Shoji's arms were burned and had a lot of blood on them, but the woman who had fired a beam into him was looking in surprise at the muscular teen who managed to stand again after being hit straight-on by her Quirk. She started laughing though, her head twitching and her katana pointing back Shoji's way slowly in a way that unnerved the teen who had been unable to avoid her at all. "We need to stop them," Shoji said, and Zach's eyes shot open wide.

"Shoji," Zach whispered. "I, I didn't mean-"

"I don't think you did," Shoji replied, cutting off Zach before he could finish. "That was just how you escaped. I know it." Zach's eyes shot open wide, as there was no doubt in Shoji's voice at all. "You're a hero Zach, let's beat these vill-" Shoji's feet lifted off the ground and he was thrown high up into the air.

Zach stared behind him with his eyes getting much wider in horror. He heard Spinner behind him, "Why don't you just come with us? You can't stay here anymore." Spinner's voice did not have much conviction in it, as his eyes were lifted too and he was staring at the tall boy who was thrown high up in the air and started coming down. "I won't say we won't kill you, but it won't be public at least. It would be better for us if you died somewhere quiet with no one watching."

Shoji did not fall. He plummeted much faster than gravity should work, and Zach stared behind him with his mouth opening wide and his whole face shaking in terror. Shoji hit the ground and made a crater in the stage at the speed at which he hit. "Shoji?" Zach whispered after a second while dust rose up around where Shoji collided. He stared down at the unmoving form on the floor, and his arms fell limp at his own sides. Zach glanced around at the villains near him, then took a step towards his friend.

"You really think we'd let you?" Spinner asked, his eyes narrowing behind his mask.

Zach started shaking more, his head lifting and his eyes staring blankly out into the stands. He stared at villains fighting heroes, and other heroes trying to evacuate others in the bleachers while flames spread around them. People were in a panic to get out of there, but many of them stopped running as they saw there was no place to escape to. The screens around the top of the stadium showed Musutafu in flames, towering buildings that had been in the skyline for all their lives falling one by one like they were as easy to topple as dominos. Everyone was screaming, the whole stadium was in chaos, and Zach thought, _I can't save Shoji in this madness._

He lowered his gaze back down to the boy whose body was not moving an inch as he lay flat inside a hole on the arena. He had hit down so hard that over the sound of the thud of his body hitting the floor, Zach had heard cracks too. He could see the blood seeping out below the front of Shoji's face-down body and making a puddle. _There are so many people dying right now,_ Zach thought, his hands shaking at his sides and his eyes filling with water. _How many hundreds are being killed right now, thousands even? And I can't even save, a single, one…_ Zach gasped but he could not breathe, and his breath inhaled in four staggered breaths as tears started falling from his eyes. He dropped to his knees, and he said in a hoarse voice, "I haven't changed at all."

Zach brought his left hand up to his face, then he snapped his head back and screamed with tears covering it, "Not a single thing has changed!" On all sides of him were villains, and in front of him lay someone he cared about, dead. "I just have to watch over, and over, and over as they die right in front of me!" He snapped his eyes open and looked at Shoji again, then he brought his sobbing head down and screamed as he slammed both fists into the floor. "Another! Because of… It would have been better if I was never born!" Tears fell from his face to the floor, and he screamed, "I wish I was never born!"

"Don't give up, Lifebringer!" Zach's eyes shot open wide and he stared at the floor between his fists in shock.

Spinner lifted his head and looked up over Zach's bent body, then his eyes bulged at a voice screaming directly on his side, "DIE!" Spinner spun and rose his sword, the other four villains looked towards their invasion team leader, and they watched as an explosion blew Spinner away. The boy who came spinning in flipped himself and landed down where Spinner just stood, and Katsuki Bakugo snapped his head towards the four villains, three of whom spun to follow Spinner's flight through the air. The fourth had a darker appearance around him and just glared at Bakugo through cold, black eyes that had small yellow pupils in the centers.

Bakugo stared straight at that dark villain wearing all black over his large muscular body. He had a black mask on over his face with a horizontal slit open for his eyes and vertical slits over his mouth that his dark lips showed behind. The villain's arms were down at his side, but Bakugo thought he was ten times more dangerous than anyone on the stage after what he had just seen while looking down here. Bakugo's wrists hurt, and he heard a voice in his head, _**"To use suck attacks so frequently in a competition against your own classmates… It is not just reckless. It is beyond foolish. These injuries you sustain may be long term, and what if they hinder your ability in a fight against villains?"**_ Bakugo ground his teeth furiously at Recovery Girl's voice echoing in his head from not much earlier, then he snapped in a pissed-off voice, "Get up."

Bakugo shot forward, and Zach lifted his head to see Bakugo flying over him straight at the villains. The villains looked ready for him, but then a voice shouted from above them all, "Don't think like that Zach!" Kirishima shouted down towards his friend who looked up at the boy with spiky red hair falling from the air. Kirishima had heard what Zach just shouted, and he had an angry look on his face and hardened his body as he dropped. The guy in the white robe jumped backwards as Kirishima dropped towards him, but Kirishima's collision with the floor broke apart the arena surface and send some debris flying out to the sides at all the different enemies.

The man with a sniper on his right hand backed up fast with jets coming out of the front of his armored boots. He shot backwards, then he jumped and did a flip away while the woman with the third eye yelled out as a piece of debris slammed into her side. "No one blames you!" Yaoyorozu yelled as she flew down with a jetpack on her back, and she fired before the villain who winced and reached at her side could look up at her. The sticky grappling hook that Yaoyorozu shot down slammed into the woman's chest, and the villain looked down at it in confusion as all it did was push against her a little. Then Yaoyorozu pressed a button on the side of the gun, and the hook electrified and the villain screeched before falling backwards with smoke coming off her body.

"Damn it," Spinner growled as he got up, burns on his arms despite blocking with his thick sword from Bakugo's explosion. "Kill them all!" Spinner called out.

Yaoyorozu landed in front of Zach on his left side, a few feet away from another boy lying motionless in a crater on the stage. "Look closely at the people in the audience Zach," Momo told him as he looked up at her back with wide eyes. "We don't blame you for those things you said," he lifted his gaze past her, in the direction of where he heard his hero name shouted before.

"Lifebringer!" The girl shouted again, and Zach's already huge eyes started shaking at the sight of her. She stood down near the bottom of the stands while people panicked and huddled together behind her with heroes higher up fighting against villains attacking all over. Zach stared at this girl, only just graduated from high school where she had been the valedictorian. Zach's breath caught in his throat as he saw her, the girl he barely even remembered saving, the second person he saved after returning from that torture. After he had supposedly given up on being Lifebringer… "Don't lose!" She yelled towards him, and Zach's shaking hands tightened into the floor beneath him.

"Guys," Zach said, pushing his hands down below him and pulling his legs up to get on his feet. Kirishima got out of his crater, Yaoyorozu glanced back over her shoulder, and Bakugo listened even as he stood ten feet in front of a bone-chilling villain who did not flinch from the explosion Bakugo just blasted at him. The man did not even move back or show any sign that he had been hit by it, and Bakugo kept grinning even as he felt unsure and nervous about the figure before him. "Give me as much time as you can," Zach said, and he ran forward and dropped down at Shoji's side. He rolled the larger boy over, and he checked Shoji's pulse just to be careful, though from the look of the front of his classmate's body, there was no need for it.

"You really think we'd let you?" The man in a white robe said from behind the cloth covering his face.

Kirishima spun to face the guy in an all-white creepy outfit with a black eye symbol on the robe's chest, and he crossed his arms with a loud clank as they hardened into Unbreakable. "You really think we'd let you stop him?" Kirishima snarled, his eyes narrowing and his expression getting fierce at he glared at his opponent.

"It is unfair," the dark man in front of Bakugo said, his voice lower than any of his comrades and sounding a bit sad as he said that. "That you should have to die so young. All humans must die though," he continued and he rose his right hand for the first time. Bakugo got pulled off his feet towards the villain's hand, and the teen swung his arms in front of him and fired off an explosion at the villain, as well as one to his front right. He pushed himself off the path for the man's hand, and he stopped flying towards the guy too with his explosions pushing him back the other way without a struggle.

Bakugo actually flew much faster the other way than he was trying with just his explosions though, and his eyes shot open huge as he just kept flying towards the stands at a high speed. Bakugo blasted explosions in front of him to try and change his trajectory again, but this time he just yelled out as he was forced against the force of his explosion and straight into the blast himself.

Zach got a nervous look on his face and stopped screaming for a second while pressing his right hand on Shoji's chest. His whole right arm was black and he was trying to hold back his yells of pain, but he stared up towards the villain who just sent Bakugo flying with not so much as a word. The large man then turned back to Zach, a dark look on his face and no emotion in his cold black eyes. He started pointing a hand towards Zach, when a yell on Zach's right came out, "RECIPROBURST!" Zach did not even see the person fly by him, but suddenly Iida was at the side of where that large villain was just standing, his leg finishing a kick that sent the enemy off his feet and rolling across the stage. That huge man flipped himself over after rolling far though, and his loose black cloak around his back flapped off of him from the kick that released it. He got back up on his feet with his tight black costume beneath showing now, revealing the bulkiest and most muscular figure many of them had ever seen before in their lives.

"Hold on Zach!" Iida shouted as Zach let out another scream of pain even trying to focus on something else while saving Shoji. "We'll protect you!" Iida jumped backwards to guard Zach as his Engines cooled down on his calves, and a girl flew over his head holding up two chairs from the stands that had been blown off where they were originally.

"Release!" Uraraka called out, after throwing each of the chairs down at that large villain.

Another of the villains pointed his hands up at Uraraka, only for his head to spin the other way and he brought his arms down fast. He fired at the girl running towards him, but she rose up a shield on her right arm that was black and stopped his bullets in their tracks. Yaoyorozu still had to stop at the force of those gunshots into her light but bulletproof shield, and then she rose her grappling gun on the other side of the shield to fire towards the villain. The gun shattered and Yaoyorozu yelled out while stumbling backwards, blood splashing from her left hand. She crouched to hide more behind the shield, then she heard the villain on the other side of her protective cover say, "You think I'd fall for the same thing that took out Tricksie? We're not just random street thugs you children are used to. Every villain here is a killer, and I've got dozens under my belt. Another since I got here."

Yaoyorozu's eyes widened a bit, and then her face filled with horror as the man said, "Thought a Pro Hero who uses guns like Snipe'd be able to see that coming."

Kirishima spun around as he heard that amplified in his ears twenty times louder than the man actually said it. He was grabbing at his ears trying to stop the pounding noises all around him, then he spun towards the guy in the white robe who swung a golden staff that came out from under the robe that had even covered his arms until now. Kirishima kept his Hardening up though, and the metal pole that slammed into him stopped and did not cause the boy any damage. "I'm going to-" Kirishima had to stop talking as his own voice was making his ears bleed as it filled his entire head so loud he couldn't think. He rose his fists and charged the villain in front of him who jumped backwards, but was not very fast and got the front of his robe slashed through by the teenager with red hair.

"Kirishima, switch," Uraraka called down towards her classmate. "Help Yaoyorozu-"

"Uraraka-kun!" Iida tackled Uraraka aside, and a bullet flew through his right arm as he pushed her.

Yaoyorozu ran forward with her bulletproof shield in front of her, and she took a deep breath but tossed up over the top of her shield before getting too close to the villain who had been able to take his attention off her because of her inaction. The flash grenade went off, and Yaoyorozu lifted her bloody left hand where the metal shards of her shattered grappling gun had slashed up her palm and a few fingers. She had a new grappling gun in it lifted with the same design as the last one, but when she moved the shield she saw the villain before her open his eyes. "Think we weren't watching?" He asked smugly, pointing his ring fingers on both hands at Yaoyorozu who saw each of them were split at the fingertips into six different holes.

 **BANG BANG** The villain's arms snapped up as he fired, then loud thuds sounded one after the other as Yaoyorozu tried pulling her shield back fast. Kirishima skid back into her, wincing in pain as he had not gone Unbreakable, and his regular hardening could not take the two six-shots from the villain from that close a distance. Some blood ran down the left side of Kirishima's forehead, and his uniform ripped apart at his chest area and caused some blood to trickle down there too.

The villain in the white robe who Kirishima ran off from stopped chasing his prey as Uraraka turned to face him. She had asked if Iida was alright, but there was no time to see as Iida's Engines had cooled enough for him to charge the larger villain who Bakugo was flying back through the air at too. Zach screamed behind and between them all, and then out of the sky dropped a woman in an all-red uniform who slammed a fist for the back of the largest villain's back. As her fist was flying down though, a knife zipped at her face and she barely pulled back far enough, getting her left cheek slashed instead of impaled like the knife-thrower intended.

Spinner glared towards Mother Russia and he snarled, "You fake!" He rose up his huge combined sword and sprinted forward on the stage he got back up on, and he yelled, "Inhuman! Take her out first!"

The larger villain with dark eyes nodded once, and he turned his head and looked up at the woman who had pulled back instead of continuing down to punch him. She had arrived before the two teenagers racing at her, and Iida and Bakugo both dropped their jaws as Mother Russia slammed into the big screen over the east side of the bleachers. She blasted through the screen and kept flying away before arcing down out of the sky in the distance, and Inhuman never lifted a finger.

Iida slowed in hesitation, but Bakugo kept flying forward with another explosion behind him. He brought his hands forward while the large villain spun back towards him, and the man jumped to his left fifteen feet up in the air. Bakugo's eyes narrowed as Inhuman dodged away this time, _What's his Quirk?_ The villain flexed his right arm as he rose out to the side he jumped, and when Bakugo pointed an explosion to his other side to send him chasing right after the villain, Inhuman's right fist punched forward to where Bakugo redirected himself to. _He read my-_ Bakugo tried crossing his arms, but the fist that collided with their crossing point still made him feel his bones grinding and creaking, and he could feel the fist pushing them into his chest and his lungs getting crushed too.

Bakugo flew back over the stage and into Iida who the villain directed him towards with the follow-through of his punch, and Zach had to duck down over Shoji's body as the two bounced towards him too only to just miss the top of his head. Zach grabbed hold of Shoji's arms that were covered in his own blood with his left hand, and he pushed his body down hard against his friend's body while screaming out in pain. His right arm was black, his chest felt like every bone in it was breaking apart, but he still managed to catch sight of that dark villain raising a palm towards him. Zach felt the pull on his body, and he clenched Shoji's chest harder with his right hand, only to open his eyes wide as the villain pulled both him and Shoji off the floor flying towards him.

Zach turned his head while they flew through the air, _I don't want to let go! I- I have to save-_

"SMAAASSHHHHHH!" The villain holding a hand towards Zach and Shoji snapped his head up fast. Zach looked above the villain, his shaking lips twisting up at the right corner despite the pain at the sight of the curly-haired boy who just appeared in mid-flight.

 **Three Minutes Ago**

"Power Loader, go," All Might said, stepping forward to the side of the pro hero in front of him. "You can't-"

"The Principal gave me strict orders," Power Loader replied to the man who had been there to hear those orders.

"This is out of control," All Might countered back harshly. Power Loader clenched his teeth and darted his gaze around outside of his helmet too all over the stadium. "You need to get out there and protect as many people as you can."

"All these villains, in one place, it's unusual," Power Loader said, narrowing his gaze from a group of villains gathering on one section of the bleachers where people had evacuated and nearby heroes were defeated. _And there are strong ones too. Just mixed in with the others. What powerful villains just- wait, is that Fallout?! What is he doing here?_

"It's not," All Might said in a low voice next to his fellow hero. Power Loader started looking in at him as All Might continued, "It's like Sazaki reported after facing the War Boys. He claimed something about 'Shigaraki's army.'" All Might's eyes narrowed in more and his fists clenched hard at his sides as he saw all these people screaming in every direction, people he could no longer go and save with a smile. _I'm so helpless!_ "We had been looking into it, and the decrease in crime the last month had-"

"All Might move!" Power Loader grabbed All Might with one hand and yanked him back, then he slammed his other hand forward and sparks flew out as Power Loader's metal fingers clashed with a villain's claws. _This is why I couldn't just leave you up here,_ Power Loader thought, before jumping back to avoid the hairy villain who slashed his other claw in now with a furious look on his face that All Might avoided the first one.

All Might fell on the ground when Power Loader threw him back, and the scrawny former number one hero looked up at his fellow teacher and past him at the villain standing there. They were in the teachers' section, but all of the other teachers had gone now and it was no more a protected area than anywhere else. When All Might looked up at the villain who appeared behind him though, his eyes opened wide as did Power Loader's inside his helmet. The villain was covered head to toe in reddish brown fur, with a villain costume of dark yellow and black around his body. He did not have a mask over his face, revealing his snarling mouth and sharp teeth that already had blood on them, just as his sharp claws did. Those claws dripped blood, and the villain crossed his arms together and slashed them out, making sparks fly from his claws while hunching his body over and growling in a more threatening way at his targets.

"Saberclaw," Power Loader said in a cold, hateful voice. "Saw you on the news two months ago, villain," Power Loader lifted his own hands that had metallic fingertips he could use to even burrow underground with. "Why join with Shigaraki now?"

"Grrrr… ka, kakaka," the villain started chuckling, the corners of his lips curling up a bit. He lowered his right hand down to his side, and he grabbed something off of his villain costume.

"Don't move!" Power Loader shouted, running forward towards the villain who just jumped back in response. Power Loader stopped, glancing to his side and behind him where All Might was pushing back to his feet. _Can't leave him here alone. The villains are targeting him, we think. It should still be one of their objectives, even if it seems like they have bigger things at play here!_ Power Loader's eyes snapped back forward and they shot open wide at the sight of what the villain was holding in his hand. "Wait! Why would you go so far-"

"It's not 'so far' anymore," Saberclaw said in a smug tone, and he licked some blood off of his sharp teeth before raising the needle in his right hand. He brought it towards his neck and slammed it in while Power Loader and All Might stared with wide eyes. Saberclaw started shaking, groaning as his body hunched over and his fur got a much darker shade. His fur grew out longer, his eyes turned red, and his claws sharpened and glistened as they extended farther out of each of his fingers. "Trigger, is a hell of a drug," Saberclaw said, right as the claws on his feet dug into the floor below him, and he kicked himself forward. "Why fight a pro hero like you, without it?!" He shouted, then he slashed down so hard that Power Loader leapt back and grabbed All Might to pull him away too.

Saberclaw's claw missed where Power Loader had just been standing, and the two heroes he was trying to kill stared in shock as Saberclaw's right claw slashed through the seats, railing, and floor all with a single swipe down. Everything was cut by four sharp claws that split apart chairs or dug straight through the ground, and even steel did not survive getting cut through by the villain's already sharp claws. _**"GRrrrr…"**_ Saberclaw rose his gaze towards them, then he shook his head a couple of times and rose the corners of his lips into a smirk again. "I'll be the one to kill All Might, and move through the ranks of the new world we create today. Villains will rule by the day's end. And you will all, taste, my, VENGEANCE!"

"All Might run!" Power Loader shouted at the hero behind him, while he ran the other way at the villain who looked enraged right there right before charging. Power Loader ducked under the left claw's slash, and he slammed his own elbow forward into the villain's gut which made the man with so much momentum in the other direction bend over it. All Might grinned as he saw his comrade's blow, but then the scrawnier man's dark eyes opened wide and he opened his mouth to shout about Saberclaw's other rising claw.

Power Loader reached up his free hand though and grabbed the villain around the arm as it was rising, tightening his metal claws around Saberclaw's furry forearm. He yanked that arm behind Saberclaw's back while spinning himself around him, and he jammed it down into the villain's back. Then Power Loader rose the first arm he slammed an elbow forward with, and he wrapped it around Saberclaw's throat while on the villain's back. Saberclaw put his other hand down on the ground though, and as much as Power Loader pushed down, the villain on Trigger had made himself much stronger. Saberclaw barely felt the pressure, or the pain in his right arm that he was trying to yank from the hero's arm-bar.

A foot slammed into Saberclaw's face, and the villain's head snapped to the side with blood splashing out of his mouth. Power Loader's eyes opened huge at the sight of the tall muscular man in front of him, only for that figure who just appeared to vanish and collapse down to his knees as a scrawny man with sucked-in cheeks, and blood splashing from his mouth. All Might's kick did not have as much power in it as he used to be able to muster, but the hero with blood all over his chin and teeth smiled that he was able to even do something right there. His fellow teacher called out his name seeing All Might collapse like that afterwards, but All Might lifted his head and showed Power Loader his smile. "It's alright," All Might said. "Now Power Loader, please go help the other teachers-"

"Are you two alright over here?" Ectoplasm asked, or one of his clones did that just reached the area since he had heard someone say they saw Power Loader fighting a villain.

"Yeah," Power Loader said, while getting off of the furry beast below him whose head was turned sideways on the ground and his eyes closed. "It looks like-"

"MOVE!" Ectoplasm yelled, and his clone dove forward. Ectoplasm's clone pushed Power Loader, but Saberclaw rose up in an instant slashing both claws in front of him. One of them tore from Ectoplasm's waist up through his head with all four of his sharp nails, while the other only cut a piece of Power Loader's side while the hero was getting shoved away. It kept rising after leaving his side though, and it tore Power Loader's left arm off and shredded his bicep and elbow apart.

Blood splashed over All Might while Ectoplasm's clone vanished. Power Loader fell to the side letting out a scream of pain, but Saberclaw did not spin towards the hero in a yellow helmet to finish him off. A couple of other Ectoplasms not currently fighting around the stadium spun their heads and looked towards the teachers' box in fear as All Might was left alone with that dangerous villain on Trigger.

All Might stared at the furry beast in shock too, but mainly because Saberclaw had apparently faked being knocked out by the kick that All Might thought had been at least strong enough to take him down. It being Trigger, he did not think Saberclaw would have the patience or skill to trick them like that. The former Symbol of Peace saw the other hero in so much pain behind Saberclaw, but Power Loader still turned his way and shouted his name in fear of what was about to happen. _I couldn't do anything,_ All Might thought frustratedly, while lifting his gaze up to the villain in front of him. _How many villains stronger than him have I taken down through the years? Pitiful. I let my colleague get hurt for me, I am no longer any symbol at all._ All Might looked up into the red eyes of the villain standing right before him, such a frustrated look in his eyes as he sat there on his knees with blood coming out of his mouth and dripping off the bottom of his face.

"Now All Might," Saberclaw said, grinning madly with blood dripping from his top row of teeth as he spoke. "Die. Die in despair knowing the world you leave behind, will never have such a thing as peace!" All Might's eyes opened huge, his arms falling limp at his sides as Saberclaw rose his claws covered in heroes and innocents' bloods. Saberclaw cackled as he slashed down, "KAKAKA-"

"ALL MIGHT!"

Saberclaw's eyes started darting up above All Might's head, but the thing screaming at them and getting louder quickly was faster than a missile. Saberclaw stopped slashing down, a furious look spreading on his face. As he pointed his claws out at the figure flying so fast he doubted they'd be able to avoid getting impaled, the boy in a blue uniform flipped himself in midair with a tap of a foot down. He rose right up over Saberclaw's bloody claws, saw Power Loader behind him with so much blood on his body, and saw All Might below looking up and still losing the look of despair that the child caught sight of and made him bite down in so much anger. Then, as he continued flying past the furry villain's arms, his bit-down teeth ground harder as the corners of his lips curled up into a smile, making All Might's look change even more as he saw the boy in front of him changing his gaze directly to the villain whose eyes he looked into.

Izuku Midoriya spun his right leg into the villain's head, and he pushed hard while twisting his entire body. He did not send the villain flying in any direction, only slammed him off his feet and them smashed his head into the floor behind him with the direction of his kick. Midoriya did a flip in the air as Saberclaw slammed down, then he spun and kicked his other leg up in the air over All Might's head. His eyes darted up in a single instant when he turned, and he saw a pair dropping from above with butterfly knives in their hands. They had appeared out of nowhere, and Power Loader's eyes bulged in horror as they dropped on All Might's sides. One had on a red costume and the other a blue one, and they were going for All Might's throat right at the finishing move to take out Saberclaw, the moment when most people let down their guards in a fight.

Midoriya was not letting his guard down though, not while there was still so much he needed to do. He had leapt over the stadium to get to All Might, but he redirected himself towards a side of the bleachers where he saw Present Mic and Aizawa needed help first. He had seen Power Loader over guarding All Might, and no villains had been around them at the time, so he went where he thought he was needed more first. An Ectoplasm clone that came to help them finish up with the powerful villains they were fighting yelled about All Might though, and Midoriya had to leave them to go save his defenseless mentor only he was fast enough to reach. Midoriya's kick behind him sent enough wind force at the Twin Assassinos that they were blown off path from All Might's throat.

Dust blew up from Saberclaw's collision with the ground, but Midoriya's kick sent it all blowing to the sides while pushing the villains farther from All Might's back. All Might was confused as he never saw the villains dropping over him, and he started to turn only to still not see them as the two who landed immediately disappeared into thin air. _Not good,_ Midoriya thought as the villains vanished. _Why drop down from the air then? Unless, it's not an invisibility power,_ he looked up and darted his gaze around the sky, and he spotted two figures who had just appeared fifty feet in the air above them. _I don't know why you would, why you have to maybe,_ Midoriya landed and his knees bent, his fists clenching at his sides while One For All coursed through him. _But it doesn't matter._

The Twin Assassinos were facing each other and speaking rapidly in Italian about how they had revealed themselves without getting the kill, an unforgivable failure that they were each trying to blame on the other. The villain in red and the one in blue started turning forward as someone else appeared in front of them though, and they were wearing masks but Midoriya saw their eyes go wide through the thin slits on them, right before his leg slammed into the side of one and blasted him into the other. He kicked the air behind him and shot after the two he sent flying through the sky and down towards the stadium again. Midoriya spun and kicked the other one this time as he saw the villain pulling out his knife through the pain.

All Might looked around in the air, and then he spun to his right again as two figures crashed down one after the other right on top of Saberclaw's body. The furry villain did not yell out in pain, so All Might lost his lingering doubt that Saberclaw was faking it again. "So the boys failed?" A voice said directly behind All Might. Power Loader's vision was blurry and he was looking towards where the villains just crashed down, but he shifted his gaze in horror at the sight of a man in a purple costume who looked similar to the other two assassins but was a bit taller and had a white cross designed into the back of his purple cape. Midoriya dropped down in front of All Might, and he stared forward in shock and with clenched fists at the sight of a villain who had a pistol to the back of All Might's head.

"That voice," All Might whispered, right as he felt the cold steel press into the back of his head. "Eziano?"

The man was the one the two other assassins were afraid of which made them argue at each other over who would take the blame up in the air. Both of those assassins were unconscious behind Midoriya though, but the boy who had shot down after his defeated enemies had a lump in his throat as he stared at the man who All Might seemed to recognize. He did not just fly down and attack this man, because the guy had been looking up towards him through his mask while holding that gun to All Might's head. "Let him go," Midoriya whispered, his face covered in fear as the villain had them in a terrible position here.

"Hmm," the man in the purple outfit named Eziano hummed. "I suppose I will take my children and go," he rose the gun's barrel off the back of All Might's head. His eyes focused through the mask into Midoriya's, he stared closely at the child for a few seconds, then he looked down at All Might and said, "It's not enough yet. It's not enough, and it won't be fast enough." He walked around All Might's right side while the former top hero was on his knees, and he started walking towards where his children lay over Sabertooth.

Midoriya's fists tightened even more and he clenched his teeth in anger as this villain thought he could just walk right up to him. "Don't do it!" All Might called out, and Midoriya froze and turned back to his mentor. All Might's eyes were wide, and he said while turning to the right again, "Eziano! Why join Shigaraki Tomura? What is there in it for you?"

 _How does All Might know this villain? Why is he so-_ Midoriya lost sight of the villain walking his way. He thought he still saw the man, but the image he saw walking towards him was fading away, looking like an after-image that just disappeared before a voice spoke from behind Midoriya. "It is not Shigaraki who I came for. Nor any of his plans that I am interested in. It was solely Inhuman who I came to see." Midoriya spun around and stared wide-eyed at the villain who was behind him holding up both of the unconscious other assassins in his left hand. He had them raised off the ground a couple of feet but did not look to be struggling to hold them. Eziano also had his head turned looking out from the teachers' area towards the arena down below. "They are under-utilizing him as just another villain who they recruited into their army, no idea that he is one of their strongest members, if not the strongest."

Midoriya snapped his head to follow Eziano's gaze. He did not know why this villain was helping them as it seemed like he was, but he looked where the assassin was staring down to the middle of the arena. As he looked down, there was no need to ask who the villain was as Mother Russia was lifted off the ground and thrown so fast that Midoriya had to snap his head straight up to see her go smashing through the big screen above the bleachers. His head snapped back down just as fast and he saw his classmates battling against villains all over the stage, _Kacchan!_ He saw Bakugo going straight for the monster who just sent Mother Russia flying, but he spun around again thinking of All Might. _I can't leave him with these-_ There was no one in the section other than him, Power Loader, All Might, and the unconscious Saberclaw.

"All Might!" Midoriya called out. _Was that the prophecy? Is it stopped?!_ "I, I have to go!"

 _If Eziano Mozcaccio thinks he's the strongest,_ All Might's face covered in sweat as he looked towards his student. "Be careful, Young Midoriya," he sounded worried, but he knew there was nothing he could say to him to stop him from doing this. Since there was nothing he could say to stop him though, there was something he had to say. "You _must_ win," All Might's gaze turned from worried to incredibly serious, and Midoriya's eyes shot open wide at that look. _Everything depends on it. "Die. Die in despair knowing the world you leave behind, will never have such a thing as peace!" He can't be right! Midoriya shonen! Prove him wrong, and become the peace this world needs!_

Midoriya turned and he jumped off of the teachers' area without another word, flying up towards the center of the arena and then flipping himself and kicking his feet straight up above him. _Shoji!_ He shot himself down like a rocket towards the stage where the dark villain so muscular it seemed like Strengthening must be his Quirk, and he screamed at the monster known as Inhuman, "SMAAASSHHHHHH!"

Zach felt the pull leave his body while raising his eyes towards Midoriya slamming a kick down so hard at the enemy's head. Inhuman had a hand risen towards him which Zach knew must have been pulling him and Shoji through the air, but he lowered that down while glaring up at the boy above him. Midoriya's kick that was swinging at him stopped inches from the villain's head. It just stopped without him seemingly doing a thing, and all the force blasted out from the kick backwards and out to the sides. Midoriya got thrown away too though he flipped himself over and landed on his feet and with a hand down on the ground in front of him. Zach and Shoji hit down on the ground and Zach's right hand came off of the larger boy's body as they rolled. He scrambled back over to it though and dove on him, putting his right hand back on and then wincing in pain but holding his yells back this time.

Midoriya leapt over towards Zach and Shoji and got between them and the villain before them. "Zach, is he-"

"I'm working on- ahhhh!" Zach's right arm got darker black and the sleeve around his forearm ripped apart, and some of the uniform on his chest ripped too as he felt his lungs getting cut up like swiss cheese. "He can push and pull people!" Zach yelled through his yell, "And not just people, I think- AHH!"

Inhuman looked past Midoriya and down to the boy who had been watching him since he arrived. Zach lifted his head more, his eyes bloodshot as he stared past Midoriya and into the yellow pupils of the dark man over seven foot tall and covered in huge muscles. Zach had his teeth clenched but forced them open again in a gasp, "GAH! He might have a time gap between when he can use his powers too, since he dodged and punched Bakugo after sending Mother Russia flying." Zach clenched his eyes shut and snapped his body back as he felt a sharp pain in his spine, and then slashes in both of his arms that almost made him let go of Shoji.

"Thought so," Bakugo said right as he shot past Zach's right side and Midoriya's too. He charged at the villain and shouted, "Deku!" Midoriya opened his eyes wide, but he nodded and bent his knees.

Inhuman rose both hands, and Midoriya flew off the floor before he could intentionally jump after Bakugo and try to get to Inhuman as soon as he used his power on his classmate. Bakugo felt the pull towards the villain too, but he just smirked crazier and put both hands in front of him, curling his right in front of his left and yelling, "AP-"

Inhuman clenched his hands into fists while the two were flying towards him thanks to his Quirk. The two boys clenched their eyes shut and screamed out in pain, "AHHHH!" Bakugo's hands lost their positioning, and Midoriya's raising leg twitched as he felt it getting squished like the rest of his body. The two of them dropped down to the ground exactly below them, losing all their momentum but not getting blown back the other way. The pressure on both sides of them went away and they gasped, both of them wheezing in pain from that force they just felt on their bodies.

 _What, was that?_ Midoriya thought as he pushed himself to his hands and knees, forcing his eyes open to stare at the ground. He snapped his head up and stared at Inhuman who started walking forward while the boys looked at him wide-eyed. Midoriya and Bakugo each on his sides in front of him, and Zach straight in front, between and behind them still over Shoji's body. Inhuman's mouth opened behind the vertical slits of his mask, "Push and Pull," he said. "Sazaki is right. I can push and pull whatever I want. There are restrictions, limits… not that I would tell you humans what they are."

 _"You humans?"_ The three he was facing thought in unnerved ways.

Kirishima had his eyes closed across the arena, but he spun to his right and slammed his left fist forward covered in hardening. A smirk spread on his face even though he could not feel anything all over his body, because he heard the grunt and gasp of pain on his side. He closed his eyes because they were playing tricks on him, and although he had lost feeling over his body, his opponent was a big guy. He opened his eyes at the same moment he was feeling the ground beneath his feet again, and the villain's stomach on his fist, and the liquid dripping off his hand. Kirishima's eyes widened at that last one, and he stared forward with his sight returning as the villain he punched was not just hunched over his arm, but actually impaled on his fist a few inches. Uraraka lay injured on the side of the stage not far from him, and she stared over with wide eyes as she was suddenly able to see again too.

"I, couldn't feel-" Kirishima began, then he heard an explosion and looked above the villain who had just been trying to kill him. He glanced around the bleachers full of people still fighting against villains all over, then he pulled his left fist back in a single movement which allowed the villain he had punched to collapse to his knees. _It was the stomach. Maybe he'll be fine,_ Kirishima thought, hopefully. He spun around with blood dripping off his left fist, and then he crossed his arms only to still get lifted off the ground and have to re-harden his entire body. "What the heck?!"

"Kirishima!" Midoriya called to his right as they all went flying. "Help us against this villain!" Midoriya kicked his legs behind him, and Bakugo blasted explosions to force him the other way. Bakugo also flew down though, and he pressed his foot against Zach's back and fired more smaller explosions out behind him.

Zach was skidding across the stage with his right hand clenching Shoji's body and his left down on the floor behind him like his feet that were skidding over the ground so he could hold on. Zach's left hand lost a lot of its skin and his fingertips were bleeding after that, but this time he did not let go of Shoji, and he did not thank Bakugo either as the momentum stopped in a painful way. He just pressed his hand harder into Shoji's body, while Inhuman spun and slammed a fist into Ectoplasm's clone as the teacher had sent one down to try and help the students against the force who had appeared in the center of the stadium.

Iida raced up after Ectoplasm's clone that he thought the villain would use a power against, but Inhuman did not and Iida's eyes opened wide as he knew the villain could use it on him now. Inhuman just sprinted towards the tall student though whose Engines just started slowing down, and Iida's eyes shot wider at the huge man's speed. Inhuman's feet left holes in the ground when he ran, and he snagged his right hand forward while Iida changed directions to try and get back. Inhuman grabbed the boy by the back of his shirt and yanked him up, then grabbed around both of Iida's legs hard.

Bakugo, Midoriya, and Kirishima all started running across the arena. Midoriya spotted something on his left though and he spun towards Zach who he saw the person aiming at, "Zach get-"

 **Bang Bang Bang**

 **Dink Dink Dink**

Yaoyorozu held the shield in front of her as steady as she could while crouched a few feet in front of Zach and on his left side. His eyes opened wide as he stared at the girl who just dropped down there, a jetpack on her back losing its flames, a grappling hook in her hand that was not holding the back of the shield. "Momo," Zach started, and then his eyes clenched shut extra hard as he felt what he thought was his heart bursting from blunt force.

"Iida!" Kirishima shouted.

"Zach keep going," Yaoyorozu said behind her, while she looked through the strong glass part of the top of the shield where the bullets had just hit to make those 'dink'ing noises. "Save Shoji…"

"Iida!" Midoriya shouted too as he spun back and saw Inhuman lifting higher and squeezing. He made Iida scream before he even slammed down as it looked like he was about to do, and then Inhuman's body froze all the way up to his right hand. Ice surrounded the villain's legs, his torso, his left arm, and all the way up his right arm to his right hand and even covering some of that. Midoriya had his legs bent already before that ice appeared, and he shot through the air and grabbed Iida with one hand, before yanking away and freeing his friend's legs from the villain's hold.

Behind Inhuman and at the bottom of the bleachers, Shoto Todoroki dropped down onto an ice slope to the arena and slid across it over towards the stage where he had frozen the villain. _These villains are all strong. Pro heroes are dropping left and right up there, and each of the villains seems to have a vial of Trigger to use if the need arises. Already strong villains using Trigger, and some of them I could tell weren't losing their minds from it. If the side effects aren't as bad, then other villains like this can't be allowed to shoot up. I should go find them after checking if Shoji's-_ All of the ice surrounding Inhuman shattered and blew away in every direction.

All of the young heroes with provisional licenses crossed their arms or pulled back to try and protect themselves. It was not just the ice they had to worry about, but the force that came out of Inhuman's body which got weaker the farther from him they each were. Most of them were still thrown off of their feet, with only Bakugo pointing explosions behind him to keep him in place, yet Bakugo ground his teeth in pain from doing that. His arms twitched as he fired off more explosions, but his eyes narrowed as he thought, _Can we beat a guy like this, if I don't use them? Damn it!_ Bakugo clenched his fists when the force stopped pushing against him, and he moved forward again and glared at Inhuman who looked straight back towards him.

Inhuman then turned his head a bit to the right from Bakugo who stood before him on his front left. He looked towards Midoriya Izuku who moved forward, while Tenya Iida raced up farther back on his right side. Behind him which he saw with a small turn of his head, Todoroki had recovered easily by melting the ice that flew at him from Inhuman's body and creating more behind him to stop him from getting pushed too far back. And on his left but farther back towards Todoroki than Bakugo, Eijiro Kirishima kept himself covered in Hardening which he felt was the right idea when that dark villain glanced at him for a second with his dark yellow eyes.

 _I did it._

Inhuman looked forward again and in between Bakugo and Midoriya. "That's not right," Inhuman said, his dark voice getting a strange tone to it like he was upset. "Humans die. They die, and they stay dead."

The five looking at Inhuman could not turn away as they heard that, because the villain's voice was unsettling, his words made them question his mental state, and they did not need to look away to know what he was talking about. Still, the five facing this terrifying villain grinned. All of them lifted the corners of their lips at the sound of that, and their enemy refaced the two in front of him. Midoriya shouted about how they wouldn't let him kill anyone else, and Bakugo shouted a curse at him. Iida yelled they would bring him to justice, and Kirishima shouted how they would crush him, while Todoroki just let out a calm breath and rose up his left hand in front of him.

"Momo," Zach said.

The girl in front of him was still looking through her shield to keep an eye on the long-ranged villain who was farther away now after Inhuman's attack sent all that ice flying in every direction. She glanced back though with the small smile on her face she got after hearing Inhuman's voice ahead of her, and Shoji also looked up with widening eyes from when he just opened them flat on his back. Zach was standing and Yaoyorozu's eyes widened as the boy standing there was not smiling like his classmates around the stage.

Zach felt tired after that. He stood up though, and he glared to his left towards a man who was up on his feet, yet was not moving around. Spinner had given out his orders, but he was just standing there while the others who appeared on the stage fought. Spinner stared at Zach who got up and looked towards him, and he rose up the black hilt in his right hand and pointed the blade of blades towards Zach while glaring narrowed eyes behind his bandanna. "Come, traitor," Spinner said. "I'll finish this."

"Momo, can you make me these things…" Zach spoke softly while facing Spinner, then after a few seconds he called out louder, "I want to know, Spinner!" He ignored what the green, scaly man said, and he shouted, "What happened to her?! What did you do?!"

Spinner bared his teeth and ground them harder, then he started rushing at Zach now that the boy was back on his feet. _You were always like that Spinner,_ Zach thought, his eyes narrowing more and his teeth baring this time like Spinner's had. _Out of everyone there, it was easiest with you. You were the easiest one…_ Zach reached out towards Momo's back and he grabbed the hilts sticking out of it. He shoved one knife into his waistband and reached back with that hand, grabbing the next handle that Momo was making as fast as she could. This time it was to a gun though, a grappling gun that Zach pointed towards Spinner while he started sprinting at the villain.

"I'm finally going to pay you back now!" Spinner shouted at the boy running at him.

 _Zach,_ Momo Yaoyorozu thought as she looked to her left after the boy running at the villain on the country's top most wanted list. _"…no Momo, listen to me. I have to face him. Spinner is waiting for it, and the shooter won't attack me while we fight. Because, Spinner's like that. Just protect Shoji… I want to know Spinner!" Zach, please use it. I know you're afraid of what will happen, but I want you to be safe!_

Shoji pushed his arms down at his sides, and his tired eyes opened more as he turned and looked at them. He felt exhausted, but he stared at his clear skin where he knew he got slashed and burned. He looked up in the air, and he remembered getting lifted up there and slammed back down. _Zach, brought me back?_ Shoji rolled over and pressed down on his hands and knees. He turned his head to the left and looked towards Zach, and he stared wide-eyed at the boy who dodged Spinner's blade to get close, only to clash his knife with one of Spinner's in the villain's other hand.

Zach leaned forward towards where the knives were pushing together, and Spinner leaned back towards him so their faces were close together as they both pushed opposite directions. Zach glared into Spinner's eyes, and Spinner glared right back into Zach's. Zach ground his teeth as he looked into Spinner's eyes, and he growled, "I hate you."

Spinner pushed off and their knives parried apart, then he slashed his bigger weapon across the front of his body with all the various blades sticking out of the white bandages wrapping it. Zach jumped up in the air and fired his grappling hook down, and Spinner pulled his head to the side avoiding it even grazing his face. Zach slashed back down with the knife, and Spinner brought his knife and parried again, then they slashed back again and had to parry each other's weapon. Zach landed and Spinner yelled while pulling his huge blade back, "I hate you too!"

* * *

A couple of miles outside of the U.A. Sports Festival stadium, on the roof of the main U.A. school building, a pair of criminals were together at the edge closest to the Sports Festival stadium. Students all over campus were rushing around, and students from the hero course in the third year had been brought out by the staff still remaining on campus for the day. They had all rushed into the city, and two villains were on the roof of the most prestigious hero school in Japan with no one there to protect the place.

The two of them were not there to attack the hero school though, and they were not with Shigaraki's army. "All villains have become the League of Villains," the tall man standing behind his partner said, his voice annoyed and a dark look in his eyes. "Hundreds of them, all over the city." Gentle Criminal turned his head right and looked towards the billowing smoke pillars and flames rising from the metropolis near them. As he looked that way, another building collapsed and a huge mass of smoke and ash and dust rose into the air and billowed down every street around it. It was not too far away from U.A., so all the students panicking and running around campus started screaming as the giant cloud of ash started pushing their way.

In front of Gentle and kneeling on the roof of the building, La Brava typed fast into a laptop that had a video playing in the top right corner of it. The video showed some of the destruction in Musutafu, and it kept changing around to different camera angles of the devastating damage to the city. Being broadcasted all over the country, and to every country in the world where people were watching the U.A. Sports Festival, everyone could see how the villains were destroying the city of Musutafu, but then the camera angle changed back. It showed what it had been showing for most of the time anyway, the Sports Festival itself where giant screens above the arena were showing that destruction in Musutafu anyway. Showing the Sports Festival had a different effect though. Instead of just random destruction and chaos, the people of the world were able to see the strongest symbol hero society still had, being destroyed by villains.

There were bodies strewn about in the stands, heroes and villains and civilians alike. There were flames from the explosions and the whole stadium looked different from twenty minutes ago when Zach Sazaki was fighting Mezo Shoji on the arena. When the camera changed back from the city and showed the arena and the bleachers all around, things looked even worse than they did earlier. Now though, one of the villains down at the arena was surrounded by finalists from the second years who had all shown off their powers during the earlier fights. They were some of the strongest new heroes out there, three of them getting into the semifinals even, and yet the villain in between them had no damage to speak of on him as the stadium burned around them.

Under the camera angle on the computer, different black windows covered the screen with coding on them, and La Brava typed faster as she saw a firewall pop up in front of her. She bit down and muttered, "He's trying to keep me from… Found him!"

"Wonderful, La Brava!" Gentle called out his praise, and La Brava's face turned bright red like her hair. She kept typing into her computer as she saw some more code pop up, and then words cut in on the code, and then over her entire computer screen that made her lean back. Gentle looked down at the screen too, and the light on the webcam at the top of the laptop screen turned green. A picture was taken of their faces, and then the words on the screen got more underneath them. _'I warn you,'_ Gentle and La Brava both read the words that appeared on their computer. _'Gentle Criminal and La Brava. You are out of your league.'_ Their faces appeared on the screen below the threatening words that stretched out of the windows like there was no limit for them.

La Brava smirked after the threat, and she reached forward and closed the laptop. "My Gentle isn't afraid of you," she said in a smug tone, then turned to the tall man next to her who was grinning too and leaned back where he stood. "Shall we go?"

"We shall," Gentle responded. And he held out a hand for La Brava to take. "The Chivalrous Thief, cannot allow such un-gentlemanly actions go unpunished!" Gentle made the ground below him Elastic, and he and La Brava bounced high into the air. Gentle's eyes narrowed while he flew off in the direction of the Sports Festival, _Zach Sazaki._ The tall man white white hair and a bushy white mustache thought back a few months to a day he and La Brava met the boy they saw all over the screen they had been watching earlier. The corners of Gentle's lips lifted up, and he thought, _You were right._

* * *

 **A/N Thanks for reading. Plot twists ftw! And people thought this tournament was actually gonna go as planned XD Musutafu is under attack with Twice and Ganeshi popping up in the city, along with hundreds of other villains. Bombs go off around the Sports Festival, villains appear everywhere, buildings start toppling as the powerful Ganeshi rips 'em down... chaos ensues! Assassination attempts on All Might as well as an ominous message from a villain All Might seems to know, who only came for the villain Kirishima, Iida, Midoriya, Bakugo, and Todoroki are all surrounding: Inhuman. Zach faces off against Spinner shouting about some woman... and Gentle and La Brava head towards the Sports Festival. What's going to happen next?! Hope you enjoyed the chapter! Leave a review telling me what you think or predictions for the upcoming chapters.** **Review responses:**

LordOfTee chapter 60 . Aug 13

HOLY FUCKINGSHIT!11 PLOT TWIST FUCKING PLOT TWIST! ALL PERSONNEL PREPARE FOR UNEXPECTED DIVERGENCES.

 **Out of nowhere! Glad I got you guys all with the sudden twist, and I hope you enjoyed the chapter!**

Celestial stratos chapter 60 . Aug 13

Zach should just quit trying to be hero, go live in the woods or something. You reap what you sow. Zach was stupid for joining the villains and now it's continuing to bite him in the ass. Doesn't U.A  
have counter attacks/contingency plans to stop shit like this? I mean kurogiri can literally just open up a portel in the middle of school and kidnap zach again and the heroes wouldn't be able to do anything. Seeing as how you like torturing zach i hope you don't do the same to momo or worse... You're forbidden from harming her so commands your king! I'm serious i will sick my momo defender squad on you.

 **Go be a hermit Zach, it'll be less painful. I could see it. U.A. might have better countermeasures, but at the end of the last chapter they found out they were being blocked out of the systems as those videos played, with Hackerman coming back into play. Zach thinks about Kurogiri using Trigger earlier on this chapter too, giving the villains access points all over the city. With Momo right in the middle of the stage in the center of all this chaos, who knows if she'll be able to stay safe... ;) We'll see! Thanks for the review! Hope you enjoyed!**

JehovahReigns chapter 60 . Aug 13

Well they're not going to trust him again. Idk how you'll save Zach but I trust your writing. At the very least it'll be gripping... this was horrible to say the least. Leave him alone pls, needs a life long break

 **He never gets a break. We'll see if Zach manages to come back from this, though he brings Shoji back to life on the stage with the help from his classmates who don't seem to have given up on him. Thanks for reviewing!**

Guest chapter 60 . Aug 13

That sent chills down my spine...please update soon I don't think I'll last the week if I don't know what happens next

 **Day gap in between hope wasn't too long for you! Hope you enjoyed the chapter, and thanks for the review!**


	62. Chapter 62

**Disclaimer: I don't own Boku no Hero Academia**

 **Chapter 62:**

"Now Hagakure!"

"Alright!"

Three villains who were facing off against some students from U.A. opened their eyes wide at the sound of that shout in the middle of the three of them. They started looking in, then swinging their arms and swords and tails inwards but wildly because they lost their abilities to see at the bright flash of light. Hagakure refracted light through her body and blinded the villains, then tape wrapped around two of their bodies while the third slashed his sword to the side and cut through as Sero tried again.

The guy who managed to cut the tape in the corridor inside the stadium was not reacting as panickedly as his comrades, and Hagakure had to dive out of the way as his sword was the one thing that actually came close to her when the blinded enemies attacked. Ojiro bounced off the wall and he went for the swordsman first, and Sero fired more tape sticking out his right arm towards the villain who started slashing up for Ojiro's tail only to realize the tape was coming. He reached down his left hand to grab a gun from his side, but Ojiro spun around in the air and smacked the sword slashing at him with his tail. He hit it so hard that the sword snapped, and then Ojiro spun around and smacked the tail into the man's face.

The other two who got wrapped up squinted their eyes open, and they tried struggling out of the tape. One of them was really muscular and the tape actually looked like it was pulling apart, while the other lifted his sharp tail and sliced up the side of it. As they were getting out though, the fourth student in the group had ran up and Hagakure shouted that she was far enough back. Denki Kaminari slammed his hands out and electricity slammed out at the villains around him. Ojiro flipped over the other side of the swordsman who also wound up getting hit by Kaminari's electricity, though the electrocution was less serious for him at a longer distance where Ojiro smacked him back to.

"Thirteen, are you alright?" Sero leaned down to the teacher who they came across with another pro hero, both of whom were injured from the fighting. Whether they got hurt against these villains who were facing them or from battles before the children did not know. Hagakure ran to the other one and called out that he was bleeding a lot, and the others all started running over to help as Thirteen told Sero that he was okay.

"I'm worried those people didn't get out," Ojiro said as he reached the guy who Sero started wrapping tape around his wounds to at least try and stop the bleeding for now. Their group had been told to evacuate people who were stuck in the stands, but when they saw the fight going badly down this hallway, the four sent the civilians with them ahead towards the exit that had been just ahead of them.

"Even if they did get out…" Sero muttered while wrapping more tape around the pro hero's back where there was a deep gash, which Thirteen mentioned was from the villain's sharp tail as he staggered up to his feet. Sero did not finish his sentence, but the others all understood what he was talking about. _Where can we send them though?_

Thirteen was inside his hero costume, but the four students were only in their gym uniforms and Thirteen shook his head as the teens just saved his life there. "They caught us completely off guard," Thirteen said in a regretful tone. The hero reached down and grabbed at his left side where he had a shallow wound, though reaching down with his left arm hurt anyway. _The situation could not be worse._

"What about the raised security measures?" Ojiro asked.

"We weren't prepared for something like this," Thirteen responded. "An attack on this scale, in this era, is unheard of. We need to come up with an evacuation plan, as sending people out of the stadium is not enough when the whole city is under attack."

"If we can't evacuate people," Sero began, taking a few deep breaths as he stood up from the pro hero he hoped he had saved. He lifted the hero with him and held one of the guy's arms over his shoulder, and he asked, "Then what should we do, Thirteen sensei? Try to defeat all the villains?"

"Protecting civilians is first and foremost," Thirteen replied. "However, to do so we need to stop the villains as well. Our goals are split, while it seems so far the villains only have one goal. To create chaos and destruction."

"One goal," Kaminari whispered after hearing that. His head was turned towards the wall on his right, the side of the hallway closer to the middle of the stadium where most of the screams and loud blasts and shake were coming from.

Ojiro glanced back at Kaminari and then at the wall himself. His serious look got a more sad look on it as he looked there himself, _I know what you're thinking, Kaminari. I want to help him too._ Ojiro thought about the videos they watched before the explosions went off and the portals appeared. _Zach. I saw you. I knew you didn't have those scars before the Villain Training Simulation. I tried not to think about it too hard though, because you told us… But I knew you were lying. From the start I knew, and I didn't think- I didn't know-_ Ojiro's fists clenched hard at his sides, and his tail curled up behind him.

"In that case let's keep evacuating. There should be an evacuation point set up already for the city, right? It's just because the signals from the stadium are being jammed that we don't know."

"Yes that is true. Students, this is the epicenter of the attack so it is the most dangerous place. But you are all heroes now," the students all looked back at Thirteen who moved his hands away from his sides and turned to show he was still going to continue despite his own wounds. "Save everyone you can. Get people to an evacuation point outside of the stadium, and if you locate it then pass on word to all other heroes." Thirteen started running and called out, "The attack is being televised, so heroes from around the country will be rushing here to assist. The Police Force will be mobilizing as well, and we need to hold out until then. Do not let the villains have any time to rest! Do not give them a foothold! We _cannot_ lose!"

The four students running after Thirteen opened their eyes wide, and then their faces all covered in serious expressions. "Got it!"

* * *

"What did you do to her, Spinner?" Zach asked as he faced his opponent from ten feet away. He had a bloody cut on his left arm going through his sleeve, and he had a knife in both hands now as his grappling gun had been broken apart when he threw it at Spinner's face, forcing the villain to slash his large sword in front of him. Zach was only throwing it to cut off Spinner's vision though, and Spinner slashing the sword only cut it off more, so Spinner had a bloody wound in his right shoulder now where Zach had thrown his knife. That bloody knife was back in Zach's hand after he ripped it out trying to take Spinner down, but he increased the distance again when Spinner slashed at him, slicing open his left arm pretty deeply.

Despite the blood getting his sleeve wet all around the wound on his left arm, and the scraped skin on his palm and fingertips from before while he was saving Shoji, Zach held the knife in his left hand steady. He even spun the blade around a few times in his grip to make his moves more unpredictable. "The woman in Higucha!" Zach yelled, and he charged at Spinner, swinging his left arm forward but not letting go of the knife like he looked like he might. Spinner moved the sword to block the throwing knife, but he did not raise it enough to block his vision. Zach reached over and slowed down as he grabbed at his arm wound with his right hand, but he was only acting like his arm screamed out in pain from that movement, even though it actually did too. He grabbed it just so that when he swung his right hand back in front of him, he threw blood towards Spinner's face.

Zach ducked down as Spinner spun and threw a throwing knife with his left hand, then Zach darted to that left side to try and strike his enemy. Spinner already had another knife in his hand though, risen up and coming down as Zach got into his new spot. Zach rose his knives and crossed them, stopping Spinner's blade as he jammed it down. Spinner's super-sword was coming around at Zach's left side, and Zach bit down hard but jumped back again, then had to put both of his knives down on his left and turn to the blade. The blade hit him fast but he thanked Momo in his head that her knives did not shatter from the force of Spinner's hit. He was still lifted higher off the ground and thrown back though, but when he landed he just stumbled farther and then pulled his head to the side and mostly dodged a knife that skimmed his right cheek, beneath the scar crossing that side of his face.

"Little slow on swinging that sword there," Zach taunted, even though he had been pushed eight feet away by the swing. "Your arm hurt?" Zach asked, which made Spinner grit his teeth more at the pain he actually did feel in his right shoulder. "Tell me, Spinner," Zach growled, his taunting look vanishing and an angry look spreading over it instead. "I want- I _need_ to know! What happened to the woman I left beh-"

"She's dead," Spinner said. Zach's mouth froze open, and then he bit down so hard and the knives in his hands started shaking.

Zach's eyes filled with water and they spilled out of the corners while he ground his teeth even harder. _Damn. Damn it. Damn it damn it damn it!_ "Why?" Zach asked, his voice cracking as he said it.

"She was shooting at us," Spinner said, his face getting even more furious at Zach's expression. Spinner's right hand tightened on the sword and lifted it straight out again despite the blood coming out of his green shoulder. "With the gun you gave her, to give yourself time to escape-"

"That wasn't!" Zach started, but he had to cut himself off while clenching his eyes shut in pain. He snapped them open fast as he did that, and then he dove to his left and barely escaped the huge sword that Spinner sprinted forward and slashed at him. He dove under it as it moved diagonally into where he had been standing, and he spun afterwards and slashed at Spinner's legs. Spinner jumped up though and pulled up a katana in his left hand he was holding now instead of knives, yet he threw that down at Zach too. Zach had to barrel-roll to the side, just avoiding it. Then as Zach came out of that roll he threw one of the knives up at Spinner who pulled back his multi-blade sword he was starting to swing, and after the knife clanked against it and he kept moving the weapon, Zach was already up on his feet holding Spinner's katana in his right hand.

Zach ran forward and tears splashed off the side of his face, but no more were coming out. "Why?! Why kill an innocent person like that?!"

"She wasn't-" Spinner started, but he had to block as Zach slashed his sword into him. "You don't even know who she was," Spinner growled as he leaned forward over the sword he pushed harder into Zach's smaller one, pushing down on the kid who had to lean backwards from the pressure as Spinner grabbed his hilt with both hands. Zach flicked the knife in his left hand above where they were pressing their swords into each other, and just like Zach almost pulled away but got a slash on the right side of his face, Spinner did the same this time and blood splashed out of his right cheek as he jumped back away from the kid he was fighting.

"It doesn't matter who," Zach began, shaking his head angrily as he glared at Spinner. Over their heads Midoriya suddenly went flying, and Zach darted a quick glance towards the monster who his classmates were battling together. _Those five together should be able to beat anyone… so why isn't he even hurt? Damn it, and Spinner's, is Spinner in charge of this? Of all of this?_ Zach's eyes shifted around the entire arena, and he looked straight back so angrily at the villain who he never fully took his eyes off while Spinner grabbed at his bloody cheek. "Is something like this, really what Stain wanted?"

"Shut up!" Spinner yelled. He swung his big sword out to his right and reached down to pull another knife out of armored padding in front of his left knee, where there were still more backup knives to grab inside. "Don't you try to take the high ground! You are a bastard! You killed Mr. Compress, and you betrayed Shooter and Hydro-"

"Don't fucking try that!" Zach yelled at Spinner, swinging his blades out to the sides and then crossing his arms and pointing the weapons out at his enemy. They started circling each other on one side of the arena stage, while Yaoyorozu glanced over still holding up her shield in front of a recovering Shoji. Zach continued yelling at his opponent, "Don't even pretend like you were betrayed! You're a murderer! Don't act all self-righteous about Stain, and Mr. Compress like you really care-"

"Shut up!" Spinner yelled, looking so frustrated as he continued circling Zach. He bit down harder and his eyes darted around now, all over the stadium and his hands tightened harder around his hilts. "You betrayed us," Spinner hissed, snapping his gaze back to Zach whose eyes widened. "And yet," Spinner growled, and he stopped circling Zach while his eyes narrowed more behind his bandanna. "I know, Stain would consider you a true hero." Zach stared in surprise at his opponent, while Spinner glared even angrier at the boy before him. "I only do follow Stain's teachings, but yet, I can't forgive you." Spinner pointed his sword forward at Zach who bit down again and rose up a knife up front of his chest and the katana down at his stomach pointed the other way.

 _You said you hated me! You said you never considered us allies, never considered us… Why can't you forgive me then?! If you never did, then you wouldn't be betrayed right? Right?!_

 **Seven Months Ago**

An SUV sped down a dark highway at two in the morning. The next exit was coming up, and the motorcycles they were chasing looked like they were going to go straight, only to cut right at the last second and take the exit. "Don't lose them," Dabi snapped from the back of the black SUV where he looked down for a second and called into the car. He was standing with the top half of his body sticking out of the vehicle, all of his spiky hair pushed back behind him because of the high speed of their chase.

Zach grabbed onto the handle up above his door and held the center console on his left even harder, his face wide-eyed and a giant smile spread across it. "This is crazy!" He yelled, as Spinner started spinning the steering wheel to the right, and Zach's side of the car lifted off the ground. The tires lifted and the car drifted hard only on its left wheels so much that Zach's face filled with panic thinking they were actually going to flip and start doing rolls down the highway.

"GRAND THEFT AUTO!" Spinner yelled with a huge grin on his face, and he spun the wheel the other direction. The car fell down and they cut across the corner onto the exit ramp and sped after the enemies who tried robbing a truck that members of the League of Villains were transporting drugs in. As soon as Spinner shouted it, Zach's smile returned and he started laughing as they came out of it fine and sped off.

"WHOO!" Zach yelled, and he leaned up and out of the window again with a submachine gun in his hands. He did not aim, except a little just to make sure he didn't actually hit, but he laughed the whole time as he started unloading down the road towards the motorcycles that swerved left and right as if trying to dodge bullets. _Idiots! Not even aiming for you!_ Zach laughed and yelled out too, "Grand Theft Auto!" The magazine hit empty and he pulled back in the car, right as Spinner pulled the wheel more to the side as they had to go around a curve on the smaller side-road that they had pulled onto off of the highway.

"Drive straight!" Dabi yelled down at them. Zach snickered while looking to Spinner who just kept grinning while darting a glance to his right side at the masked boy in the passenger seat wearing an all black costume. The two of them smirked, and then Spinner changed the gear and sped up more, and Zach laughed while popping a new magazine into his gun. _This is fucking awesome!_

 **Present**

Zach ground his teeth so hard he thought he might break them as a memory came into his head. "You watched me get tortured!" Zach yelled, stomping forward and then sprinting at Spinner who just stomped right back. They ran at each other, and they slashed and parried each other's moves over and over. Zach's knife got knocked out of his hand and up in the air, but Zach jumped up and parried the sword with the katana he was still holding. "You stood there and watched as they killed them!" Zach caught the knife that got knocked up, and he slammed it down towards Spinner's head, only to move it away to try and jam in Spinner's left shoulder instead.

The extra distance between the top of Spinner's head and his shoulder was enough that Spinner was able to pull his body back so the knife did not hit. It just made Spinner even angrier though, and he smashed his huge sword up with his right and hit Zach in the body with it, except with the flatter side of the multi-blade weapon. A few of the blades were still sticking out and cut across Zach's chest, but the wounds were shallow and Zach stumbled back in some pain, but mainly just hurting from the force of the heavy weapon hitting him. "You betrayed us," Spinner said, narrowing his eyes behind his bandanna, while some strands of pink hair fell in front of his face from how close Zach got to stabbing the knife down into his head.

"And that justifies it?" Zach asked, his face disbelieving and almost as frustrated as Spinner looked. That frustrated feeling on Spinner's face that got worse at Zach's question, it made Zach's chest start pounding. _It was so easy,_ Zach thought, while lifting the bloody weapons in his hands, while his own body was getting bloodier itself. _To tell myself that all villains were evil again. All League of Villains at least. It wasn't hard to convince myself, to forget everything that had happened for months, by focusing on those six weeks as the only part of the time with the villains that mattered… Thinking about Jenny and the Akers._ That made Zach's teeth bare again and he started snarling, but his chest clenched up even more as thinking about that juxtaposed with what else he was thinking made his heart so conflicted.

 _But I remember, how I had come to believe that villains were not so far off from regular people…_ Zach ran forward, yelling out in anger as he slashed the katana in front of his body. He slashed it before he would have reached Spinner, then he slammed his right foot down hard and threw the katana like he would a javelin. Spinner knew he did not have to block Zach's slash, but he did not expect the sword to suddenly come flying, or any projectile since Zach had the knife unprepared for a throw.

Blood splashed out of Spinner's side, then Zach dove forward and picked up a knife from the floor he saw before throwing the longer blade. He came out of the roll and blocked the big sword with both knives, then he had to push to his side as one of the knives broke from the force, his arms creaking under the pressure. He dove to the side but his right shoulder got the cloth ripped off and blood ripped from the deep wound in it that he just pulled away from before it got very long. Zach spun after dodging away from it though, and before even standing back up or looking fully at Spinner, he flicked his last knife at Spinner's right leg and got it behind the padding and into Spinner's right calf.

Spinner yelled, then he slashed the sword back down at Zach the other way. Zach ran though and he dove towards where _his_ other knife had been, one that would not break as he trusted in Momo's craftsmanship. He picked up the knife, but several things happened as he rose it. The quick thought of how Yaoyorozu's weapon would be strongest made him think about the girl, and just thinking about her for an instant made him need to check if she was still doing alright. She was, but his instant check did not just account for her, it accounted for who was putting her in danger. The fact that Momo was alright was great, but she was turned around currently talking to Shoji, distracted. Although her shield was still up and she was creating another one while coming up with a plan with the six-armed boy, Zach saw the long-range villain moving around the outside of the stadium.

Spinner saw where Zach was looking and he started turning himself after pulling the knife out of his calf. Spinner stared at the short girl with brown hair who was still wounded from his fellow villain in the white robe she tried fighting earlier, and then Spinner spun back towards the black-haired kid fighting him who never looked back his way.

Zach started running the opposite direction as his opponent who he had been fighting one-on-one. None of Spinner's fellow villains had interrupted without needing the mission leader to tell them not to. Zach had put a knife in Spinner's leg, so he knew Spinner would not run as fast as him now. Zach expected a throwing knife coming at him so he kept Spinner in his peripheral, seeing the villain sprinting after him, and he called to Yaoyorozu, "Watch out Momo! Uraraka!" He called out, and he ran towards the girl who was sitting up but grabbing at her shins with a pained look on her face. _Are her legs-_ Zach saw the villain get a good angle, and a hero who dropped down on the outside of the arena who had been holding him off for a little was slumped against a wall nearby with a smear of blood going down it above his back.

Yaoyorozu started turning with the shield she had, but instead of giving Shoji the other one she had just finished creating, she stood up and yelled, "Take this!"

"Let me," Shoji said, and Yaoyorozu turned to see the much stronger boy reaching out. She nodded as she was hoping to throw it to Zach before he got any farther, but if it was Shoji throwing… Shoji tossed the shield all the way over towards where Uraraka was sitting.

Uraraka reached up a hand to get rid of the shield's gravity as it fell so she could position it even as she sat, but Zach yelled at her, "Uraraka duck!" Zach dove towards Uraraka as he sprinted even faster, and he dove on top of the girl whose eyes shot open wide in shock. Spinner's eyes bulged as Zach covered Uraraka with his entire body, while the shield was still heading towards them, and while the villain with guns on his fingers had them raised already towards the stage.

Uraraka felt pain in her legs as Zach fell on her, but her eyes were huge as Zach pulled her body the other way from the edge of the stage and rolled his own towards it. His eyes were clenched shut and there was a panicked look on his face that only lost a bit of the panic once he had hit his side, like he was afraid he would hear the gunshot before that happened. "Zach," Uraraka gasped out right as she hit her side, seeing that look on his face of semi-relief that he had gotten in the way.

"Zach!" Yaoyorozu and Shoji shouted over as they saw the other villain ready to shoot too.

 **BANG BANG-** The villain in the middle of shooting froze with his eyes opened huge. He fired from both hands' ring fingers, scatter shots that from that range spread out as they reached the stage. One of the shots was higher up towards where Uraraka's head had been, the other was lower down where the teens had fallen flat with Zach rolling over his way. Zach clenched his eyes shut even harder, and Uraraka shouted, "ZACH!" as she thought him clenching his eyes like that was because he just got shot twice in the back.

Every other person on the stage and many around it were looking down at the arena with huge eyes though. Inhuman froze and his eyes shot open wide behind his mask, and the thin-eyed villain who shot dropped his jaw before shouting, "Seriously?!" His voice was angry and his gun-hands were shaking while sweat covered his face.

The five in the middle of fighting Inhuman were scattered around the stage and off of it. Iida had a bullet hole through his right arm, and Kirishima had blood dripping down his chest and the left side of his forehead, both from the same villain who just fired. They all stared towards the same spot Inhuman was looking towards too. Bakugo's eyes opened huge as he first darted his gaze over and then turned his head too and whispered, "Why would-"

Finally Zach risked moving away from Uraraka. He released his arms from around her while Uraraka stared in huge relief at the sight of Zach's confused, and bloody, but alright expression. Zach turned and got to his knees while looking behind him towards the villain who must have missed him. He stared back, and his heart skipped a beat. Zach stared at a man facing him, standing on his left leg while the right was a bloody mess and barely held together below his thigh. Blood splashed out of it, the foot was gone, and the leg looked completely shredded. That was almost as bad as his stomach and waist though, and finally the man standing there collapsed down to his left knee.

"Maybe he was an iguana," Inhuman mused. Todoroki turned back to the villain before them whose expression returned to normal inside his mask, though then Todoroki got a very bad feeling as the corners of that large man's lips curled up and he saw the villain's teeth for the first time through the vertical slits of his mask. _What does that mean?_ Todoroki thought, getting an uneasy feeling in his stomach from the look in the villain's cold dark eyes.

"Spinner?" Zach whispered, as he stared at the guy on one knee in front of him. "I don't…" Zach started, and then Spinner who was wobbly on his knees, since one was blown to pieces, collapsed forward with a woozy look on his face. Zach started reaching his left hand out, before wincing in pain and stopping himself from trying. He froze and looked down at Spinner who put his arms down below him as he fell, trying to stop himself from face-planting using arms that started shaking as soon as he grabbed the ground. A shield that hit the ground slid by on their side before coming to a stop near the edge of the arena.

In the corner of Zach's eyes, he could see Spinner's large blade behind him and on his side. _Did he let go, to get there faster? Why? Why would he?!_

"Damn it," Spinner growled while staring at the floor beneath him, and as he panted while glaring at the floor, bloody spit came out of his mouth and puddled there. "I really, fucking hate you," Spinner muttered.

* * *

"Oh, so all we had to do was get you away from electronics on the same server? That's not very hard," La Brava taunted as she typed fast into a laptop computer in front of her. "Can he hear me?" She wondered without glancing back.

Gentle Criminal looked down at the dark-skinned man with piercings all over his face who was bloody and broken beneath his right foot. "I don't believe so, no," Gentle replied. "My apologies my dear," he said, though he was smiling as he said it.

"Oh no it's fine!" La Brava exclaimed, not wanting Gentle to feel sorry for anything.

"Have you taken control of the system?" Gentle asked as La Brava stopped typing. They were in a back room in the stadium of the Sports Festival, at a computer they had managed not to break while beating up the League of Villains' Hackerman.

La Brava smiled proudly and said, "Not just that." She turned to the tall man behind her, and she said, "I stole all of his files too." She glanced towards Hackerman, then spun back to the computer in front of her opened up with thousands of video clips on it. She opened up a folder that looked important and was the most recently used, labeled 'Sazaki.' "Hmm," La Brava hummed while scrolling through. Her smile lowered down a little at the labels of all the different clips, and even as Gentle told her she did an amazing job, she found it hard to smile at the praise she always desired.

Gentle knelt down next to La Brava and looked at the screen. "Hey," La Brava glanced back at the creepy man lying behind them. "Any reason this clip got cut so much? You took one of the terror videos out of it, so why cut so many edits near the end?" She got an interested look on her face while Gentle was giving her an odd gaze wondering what she was talking about. La Brava pulled up some files on the screen and a video played, one they had seen earlier, only the original version of it and not the clip used for the Sports Festival invasion. The two criminals who were inside Hackerman's system stared at the screen in surprise as the clip kept running this time. Then La Brava leaned back a little as she stared at the screen, and then her eyes opened wider just as Gentle's did next to her at what they heard coming out of the laptop.

"La Brava," Gentle started. He stared closer at the screen, and he said in a lower voice, "Do you think you could get this up?"

"Gentle," La Brava whispered, staring at Gentle still with huge eyes at what he was asking. Then she turned back to the screen, and a slightly frustrated look formed on her face but she nodded her head. "Give me a few seconds…"

* * *

"That villain," Kirishima whispered, staring towards the green guy who he had seen back in Camino Ward. "Why would he…"

Midoriya stood at the edge of the arena, looking towards Uraraka and Zach with huge eyes that had filled with fear when he heard Zach shouting Uraraka's name a few seconds ago. He had seen what happened though, and he stared at the villain with shaking eyes as he collapsed in front of Zach to his knees and then his hands too. _**"I was stupid for doing it, but I really tried Midoriya. I tried to look for the good in them. Those monsters, Dabi, Kurogiri, Spinner, Toga, Twice… And I even thought I saw it. I was dumb. No! You're wrong. They're villains. They're, they're all, evil…"**_ _Zach, when you said their names,_ Midoriya's eyes widened more as he saw Zach moving forward on his knees, closer to where Spinner was on his hands and knees. _You looked so frustrated. That day in my room, you told me you thought there was no good in them, but I could tell you were lying. And it wasn't me you were lying to. Those villains you spent so much time with, you really-_ Midoriya spotted something at the top of his vision and he rose his head and looked to the side of the stadium.

"Why, Spinner?" Zach asked, his fists clenched so hard as he hissed it down at the man's green head bowed in front of him. Uraraka was just behind Zach and she was pulling herself up again, but she stared at Zach in shock as she heard the tone of his voice there.

"You are someone, who Stain would- ack," Spinner spat up more blood with that cough, and his arms started shaking more.

"I hate you," Zach whispered. "I hate you, but…" Zach's eyes were wet as he looked down at the growing puddle of red below Spinner who down on his hands and knees, gave Zach a much clearer look at the wound on his lower back where the other villain's first shot entered from. "I'm sad. And I hate that I am," Zach hissed, his voice so pained as he forced it out. Spinner lifted his head just a bit, and Zach glared into Spinner's eyes through the white bandanna around his half-closed eyes. "You helped murder my family," Zach hissed at him, even as his eyes filled with more water thinking about Spinner grinning at him in that car back in October. "Killing innocents," Zach gasped, "is not what Stain's ideology- you failed. You, you didn't follow him at all," Zach snapped, so much anger in his voice.

Spinner bit down, and blood seeped through his teeth as he glared straight back into Zach's eyes. "Yeah," Spinner seethed, a frustrated and pained look covering his face as he forced it out. "That's why, this had to be…" Spinner paused and mouth blood poured out of the corners of his mouth and down his chin. His arms lost strength, but Zach reached forward and grabbed him by the shoulders as he lowered.

As Zach spoke to Spinner, only Uraraka was still looking at them while everyone else had lifted their gazes to the screens surrounding the arena. One was completely broken, two had cracks going through them, so most people looked to the one screen that was completely undamaged over the bleachers where Class A had been sitting before. On the screen appeared Zach with his arms held out to the sides by rusty hooks, blood dripping down from his feet that were dangling off the ground, Shigaraki standing in front of him with a picture held up in his hand.

The video was paused, and there was a mouse cursor moving over the screen. _What is this?_ All Might thought from higher on the bleachers where two heroes and a group of citizens who they had brought over were standing.

Someone pressed play, and Shigaraki was pulling away a picture of Katsuki Bakugo to show the one behind it. "And Midoriya?" He asked. Everyone staring at the screen knew they had seen this scene already, but a few of them stared with much wider eyes as this played a second time.

 _He held out, right?_ Midoriya thought nervously, glancing back towards Zach for a second only to see the dark haired boy holding Spinner by the shoulders and speaking to him with a look of anger spread across his face. _Please Zach, I wouldn't blame you if you didn't. But, I thought you didn't. For them to start this back up now. I should break the screens…_ Midoriya darted his gaze over to Inhuman, but that villain was just staring up at the screens like everyone else.

In the video, Zach Sazaki was hung from a metal bar dangling in a dark room. He had scabs and scars and bloody wounds over much of his body, as well as recent burns on different parts of his torso where his skin had been melted off. It was hard to watch for most people as the boy with trembling lips replied to Shigaraki Tomura, "Izuku Midoriya, Quirk Power-Up. It's strong but he can't control it so he breaks his body easily."

 _Don't you do it,_ Bakugo thought, glaring towards Zach on the arena and then up to him in the video again. His wrists were screaming in pain himself, but he did not find it hard to deal with the pain looking at the video he was seeing now. _Hold on…_

"He's the one I want you to kill the most," Shigaraki said, leaning forward towards Zach more and lowering the pictures in his hand. He leaned towards the boy whose bowed head twitched but did not pull away as Shigaraki said that. He had looked so scared a few seconds ago, but slowly Zach's head lifted up and his eyes were brighter than they had been a moment ago.

Everyone looking up at the video stared with wide eyes as Zach whispered in it, "Kill, Midoriya?" The right corner of Zach's lips curled up as he asked it, his tone skeptical and losing the broken tone that had been in it a moment ago. It was like hearing Shigaraki say that made him realize where he was, and his eyes darted around a couple of times, before he chuckled to himself and re-made eye contact with Shigaraki. He opened his mouth to say something, but all the pain looked like it got to him and his mouth started shaking again as Shigaraki started lifting the hand that wasn't holding the photos, showing a knife in it to the boy in front of him.

Then, Zach's face stopped shaking and he bit down. He looked straight into Shigaraki's eyes and said, "Midoriya's going to save me." On the arena stage, Midoriya felt his heart tearing as he heard that come out of Zach's mouth. He had seen Zach's body many times since Zach returned in January, and he knew there was so much more wrong with his body than could already be seen just in this video. _And he thought, I would…_

Bakugo stared with wide eyes too, though he was thinking about something else. _In Camino, he told Shigaraki the same thing. He said Deku was going to come for us… SHIT!_

"He won't," Shigaraki replied, smirking more though his face was twitching as he did. "Everyone thinks you're dead. No one will ever come for you."

Zach's head lowered a little for a second, and then he whispered, "Well then, he'll still destroy you." Zach's head lifted up, and his expression was stronger than it was since the video started. "Midoriya, all of my classmates, they're going to destroy you League of Villains."

Shigaraki ground his teeth in a pissed-off way while pushing the knife forward and across Zach's right side just under his ribs. Shigaraki dug the knife in, and Zach ground his teeth but refused to yell out in pain, glaring at Shigaraki defiantly instead which really angered the man in front of him. Shigaraki leaned his head forward and yelled as he dug the knife from Zach's side around the front of his body, down diagonally across his stomach and towards his left side. He was pushing so hard that most people watching were afraid he was about to disembowel Zach, but although blood poured down from the slash cutting across him, Zach's insides stayed in, and Zach's voice stayed in as well.

Shigaraki's eyes actually opened wide as Zach bit down through it and did not let a scream out this time. In the video clip, Zach just ignored the pain, or he was fighting through it. He stared straight at Shigaraki and the villain who pulled the red knife away leaned back at Zach's strong gaze replacing what had been a broken look leading up to this. "You messed up, fucking with Class A so much," Zach said. His lips stayed flat, his gaze intense and serious as he spoke. "With U.A. as a whole," Zach continued, even as blood spread down from his stomach and sides and down through his boxers until his legs were starting to drench red too.

Shigaraki stepped forward and he jammed the knife into Zach's left shoulder, and Zach let out a yell, "AHH!" The boy stopped himself though, biting down hard, then he snapped his head forward and spat a huge glob of spit into Shigaraki's eye between the fingers of the hand on his face. Shigaraki stumbled back and reached up to his face while clenching his teeth in fury, but Zach yelled at him despite the anger on Shigaraki's face that would not be good for him, "You only made them more ready for you, attacking them over and over again! You prepared them to fight you!" Zach yelled it, and then he glared harshly at Shigaraki as he said, "They're all strong. Stronger than me, and stronger than any of you villains."

Shigaraki reached forward and grabbed the knife in Zach's shoulder, and he yanked it out splashing more blood and making Zach scream in pain again. Zach started panting, and Shigaraki snarled at him, "Your classmates are going to-"

"You can slaughter the people I love," Zach growled, lifting his head back up after he cut off his own screams. His face was looking pale, and his body getting worse by the minute, but his expression was only getting stronger. "Threaten the only people I have left, and torture me to death or until I go mad!" Zach screamed the last part and his face looked a little more afraid as he yelled it, like he could already see it happening to him. Zach clenched his teeth, a single thought filling his head as he pushed his body forward and said firmly, "But I'll never kill for you."

People were watching the video all around the Sports Festival stadium, but elsewhere as well. Anywhere the screens had shown the other video first, they were now showing this one. Anyone who had seen Zach Sazaki talking about killing All Might and his classmates, before screaming like a madman 'Not Lifebringer' over and over, stared in shock at the video as Zach screamed, "I'll never let you use Death as you want! It's mine, and it won't be used like that! I choose what my Quirk does, and I… AM LIFEBRINGER!"

Yaoyorozu stared to her right and up towards the big screen with Zach's face centered in the middle of it. Her heart was racing, and she turned back towards the same boy on the stage with her, only for her awed eyes to shoot open even bigger.

Zach had been listening to his own voice on the big screens, mainly at first because he needed to make sure he did not give away Midoriya's secret. His focus was barely on what he was hearing up there though, as Spinner was dying in front of him. Spinner's insides were all messed up on his lower torso, and blood was pouring out of his right leg that had been shredded too. _There's no saving him. Recovery Girl isn't, and even if she was-_ "I won't bring you back," Zach whispered, his voice less angry than before as he heard his own above him.

Spinner did not respond for a few seconds. "So," Spinner muttered, before grinding his teeth in pain as he tried forcing himself to lift his head. "Do it then," Spinner growled, blood filling his mouth more as he looked at the boy in front of him. There was fear on Spinner's face, and pain, and Zach's hands started shaking on Spinner's shoulders as he saw that expression. "Or, do you really want to make me suffer?" Spinner asked, and his face got an even softer look to it. It was one of desperation, but also acceptance if that was Zach's answer to that question, like Spinner believed the kid might really just want him to die slower.

Uraraka stared at Zach's back with her eyes huge, and she tried pushing herself up more only to wince at the feeling in her legs that felt sprained or fractured. "Zach," she whispered, and Zach's head lifted a little as he heard her voice. They heard Zach scream in the background in the video that he was Lifebringer, and Zach heard that too which made him clench his eyes shut as he knew what he had to do. "Don't," Uraraka whispered behind him. "You don't have to-"

"Please," Spinner whispered.

Zach kept his hands on Spinner's shoulders, and then he flexed a muscle in his middle finger on his right hand that he had to lift from Spinner's shoulder to do. He slid the tip out of the glove, and he looked straight into Spinner's eyes with such a sad look replacing all the other emotions in his eyes. _**"Hey Reaper, I'm heading to Hawaii on a 'recruiting mission.' You wanna come?"**_ Zach pressed his middle finger down on Spinner's shoulder, and then he let the man go and Spinner dropped flat to the floor. Zach's black finger was back inside his glove the second Spinner dropped from him, and Zach just lowered his arms down to his sides and looked down at Spinner who had collapsed flat on the floor in front of him, his head only inches from Zach's knees.

 _Did he…_ Yaoyorozu thought as she stared over, but she was unable to see what had happened.

Most of the people there had seen the condition Spinner was in before Zach got that close to him, so Spinner collapsing like that did not make any of them think twice about it. Only Uraraka stared at Zach's back with knowing eyes, her heart clenching as she did not know what to think about what Zach just did. _He, killed him,_ she thought. Uraraka knew the villain was dying slowly and more painfully than that, so the fact that he was unmoving now meant Zach had done it, even if she had been unable to see his hand from where she was sitting. _But, he did it because, because he didn't want him to suffer? Even though- you say he killed your family?_ Uraraka's eyes got more water in them, but the boy in front of her rose his left arm and rubbed his eyes, then he started rising up onto his feet.

At the same time on the screens around the arena, Zach from back at the end of last year was panting hard after what he just shouted. His body looked like it would not hold up much longer with all the injuries and blood he was losing. Shigaraki had stared in silence for a few seconds at the boy who just made that defiant shout at him. "It's because you're Lifebringer, huh?" Shigaraki's knife lowered and he leaned his head forward, and the boy in the video lost the strong look he had at the crazed expression that spread over Shigaraki's face. "Then why don't we change that?" The video cut off there, and all the screens just turned to black.

 _You did change it,_ Zach thought as he stood up on both feet, and everyone on the fighting stage looked towards him as that video cut off. People in the stands too, and around the arena all looked towards the middle of it as Zach Sazaki took in a deep breath and tilted his head back. _You did change it, but I- I am…_ "I. AM. LIFEBRINGER!" Zach screamed, yelling it at the top of his lungs just as he had in the video. He yelled it like he had back when he had held strong against Shigaraki, even if he could not remember that day at all. He was screaming it for everyone else to see him do so, but hearing that shout come out of his own mouth was something he needed as well.

Zach panted after he shouted it this time as well, though his panting was more from his fight with Spinner this time and the pain from the bloody wounds he got during that fight. He felt the pain from the times he was slashed in that fight, and after he lowered his head from shouting his gaze focused back on the villain he had just killed. _I'm a hero. A good guy. It wasn't hard to think of villains as the bad guys, after the torture, and Jenny. But I wasn't wrong when I thought there was good in them. Spinner, why did you save me? You yourself, probably didn't even know. Why you would come here to kill me, and die just to… I wish, I could have changed you._

Inhuman did not look up when Zach made his shout of declaration. He just kept staring down at the figure in front of Zach's feet. Other villains around the arena who were looking down for that all gawked Spinner lying there, unmoving and in a puddle of his own blood. "K-Blaster," Inhuman said, his voice loud and stern.

The villain with thin slits for eyes and guns for fingers spun towards Inhuman with a terrified look on his face, "I didn't mean to shoot-"

"I don't care about that," Inhuman said, and everyone spun his way as his voice boomed around him. His voice echoed out in all directions so much louder than it should be, and Inhuman called out, "Spinner's dead. I'm in charge of the operation now." Inhuman's eyes narrowed and he said, "Kill everyone." His voice sent chills down heroes' spines, and down many of the villains' spines too. "We don't leave here, until all of the heroes are dead. If you haven't used your Trigger, do it and murder them all."

The mood of the battle switched twice in a matter of a few seconds. Everyone was suddenly feeling great after seeing Zach talk about the downfall of the League of Villains in that video, heard him shouting about being Lifebringer, and one of the country's most wanted villains going down was a plus too. Those people lost their more driven attitudes though, as all of the villains around them stopped looking nervous at Spinner's defeat and refocused their attentions on the task at hand.

Things started exploding around the arena again, and the whole Sports Festival started shaking seconds after Inhuman's shout. The villain started chuckling after this, only a couple of times and in a deep menacing tone that chilled the students still facing him around the fighting stage. "Humans, so quick to kill each other if given orders," Inhuman's voice was full of contempt and ridicule for the race he was speaking of. Shoji, Yaoyorozu, Zach, Uraraka, Midoriya, Bakugo, Iida, Todoroki, and Kirishima all looked in at the dark villain near the middle of the fighting stage who had black eyes with small yellow pupils in them that looked a dark gold now. "What separates heroes and villains but a thin, imaginary line humans made up for themselves? Nothing. Yet they will end each other's lives because of that line. There is no goal here for the League. Just destruction, and chaos." Inhuman speaking about humanity like he was not a part of it, his rant as a whole, and the supposed goal of the villains here was chilling each of the students facing him. "But my own personal goal is simpler," Inhuman continued, his voice darker and more ominous. "And that is: Extinction."

* * *

 **A/N Thanks for reading. Hope you enjoyed the chapter. Zach vs Spinner, Inhuman and K-Blaster still moving about the arena stage, showing what some of the other students were doing too back at the start of the chapter. Spinner takes the L, though the way he goes out maybe I'll give him a Win for it. Next chapter we get Inhuman vs all... Leave a review below telling me what you thought of the chapter! Review responses:**

Celestial stratos chapter 61 . Aug 15

If zach has nightmare that represents death than couldn't he also have a form that represents the part of life/resurrection?

 **Awesome question! Never thought of it. Not even once. Read this a couple times though and started having some vague ideas, but it sounds pretty cool and I'll spitball some plans with it. No promises but def thought it sounded cool. Thanks for the review!**

D-Koy24 chapter 61 . Aug 15

Gentle and LA Braga gonna save the day! And wow I'm pumped for the next chapter, I want to see more of what will happen in the attack!  
~D-Koy, I'm back to my young awesome self... you welcome!

 **You know what, they did kind of save it... for a couple of seconds. Inhuman destroys the momentum they created playing that video out for people to see, though Gentle and La Brava have taken down Hackerman still! Glad you're pumped and hope you enjoyed the new chapter! Thanks for reviewing!**

Eskimobill1919 chapter 61 . 15h ago

Well, looks like Inhuman is going to show everyone true pain.

 **XD Caught me. Might or might not have gotten the idea for his Quirk watching the Pain v Naruto fight... Lol it was actually just taking me a while figuring out what a great Quirk would be that's simple but could be really strong and I really liked the one I came up with. Hope you enjoyed the chapter and look forward to seeing Inhuman go off next chapter! Thanks for the review!**


	63. Chapter 63

**Disclaimer: I don't own Boku no Hero Academia**

 **Chapter 63:**

"Thanks old lady," Power Loader said. His left arm was gone, but his side and around his left shoulder had stopped bleeding and the skin was loosely pulled together. Recovery Girl looked tired in front of him, and he was exhausted too but sat up after his heavy treatment. His skin was pale and he knew he had lost a lot of blood, but there was something he needed to do. _Someone put that video on. Which means we should have control of the system,_ Power Loader thought.

He pulled out a remote from his pocket and pressed a few buttons on it, but his eyes narrowed down at the small display at the front of the remote. "What's wrong?" Ectoplasm's clone that was with the group of civilians, All Might, Recovery Girl, and Power Loader asked. There were a couple of other pro heroes who were injured from the battle resting near the center of the group of civilians too, and a few others still fighting or able to fight were on the outsides of the group.

Power Loader glanced up at the hero in all black, then back down at his remote that he clenched hard in his right hand. "I can't get back control. They keep getting farther away. I only had three under my control but-" Power Loader glanced back down as the remote beeped, and his eyes widened before his purple lips curled up a bit. "Though someone just came back big time, and he brought the rest of 'em with him." Power Loader looked at the display that showed the number returning, and he thought, _Though he only brought half back. Still, fifteen of these guys can make a big difference… He's giving me full control too!_ Power Loader shook his head around as he was feeling sleepy there for a moment.

"I'm bringing them all back here," Higari Maijima, or Power Loader, said. Maijima tapped some buttons on the remote, and he grit his teeth in frustration as he knew he could do it faster with his other hand too. _Too many powerful villains. Too much Trigger. And that new leader just gave the command to destroy everything. This isn't over yet!_ Power Loader rose his gaze and he started getting to his feet.

"You need, to sit down," Recovery Girl scolded, trying to stand up herself to say it at him.

All Might ran over and got down to help her up, then they both looked at Maijima who said, "I'm the best at controlling 'em. The kids need some help down there." Ectoplasm's clone stepped forward and held Power Loader up so he would have to do less work, and the hero in a yellow helmet just nodded thanks before typing into the controller with his right hand. "Here they come."

"Hey everyone!" Hagakure shouted towards Power Loader and the others around him. Most of them looked her way only to not see anyone, then a metal pole lifted up and waved around showing where Hagakure was as she had taken off all her clothes to fight. "There's an evacuation zone outside of the stadium with a few hundred people at it! Follow me!"

Hagakure turned her invisible head and looked down towards the arena after she called to the group she ran to get, and the pole in her hands started lowering and shaking as it did. _Everyone,_ she thought, seeing almost half of her class down on the stage.

Down at the arena, in the very center of the stadium, Inhuman stood still while every attack that just flew at him went flying away or blasting up in the air. Flames and air force and a cannonball, they all flew back and the students had to dive away or dodge using their Quirks to avoid the attacks. Yaoyorozu's cannon got hit by its own attack while she dove from it, and Shoji shielded her with three arms as he ran himself from the explosion behind him.

Yaoyorozu glanced back at Shoji after pushing off the floor, a nervous look on her face as she saw him trying to protect her. "Shoji," she whispered. _You just died. Don't, strain yourself._

 _This is surreal,_ Shoji thought, while turning his head back towards Inhuman who the physical fighters charged in at as soon as Inhuman blasted away the longer-ranged attacks. Shoji created eyes on both of his top arms, and ears on the arms beneath those. _Focus though. Ignore the fact, that I was just dead. Can I ever die? If Zach is with us, can I, can any of us really… Three groups of civilians still in the stands, large ones at least. Heroes more scattered now than before, but there are less villains moving around too. How long does Trigger last for? Are the villains out of commission after they use it? Those fires are spreading, and no one's even trying to stop them when there are so many villains to worry about. None of the pro heroes are just sitting around, or they'd be sending us help. What's Power Loader doing?_

Zach threw a knife forward as he sprinted at the villain with Kirishima ten feet to his right. He had not thrown it with the others who attacked from long range before, and he grinned as Inhuman pulled his right leg away a second too slow and got cut. _If he thinks we're alternating close range with long range, then that's the best time to throw a-_ Zach's eyes shot open wide as Inhuman turned straight towards him and glared with those dark eyes into his soul. He did not know this villain, and he tried stopping as Inhuman rose a hand at him.

Midoriya appeared in front of Inhuman, swinging a kick at his body. His leg stopped though and he was blown backwards hard, and everyone running at him hesitated as they thought about how quick that was since they long range attacks had been pushed away. _What is the gap?!_ Bakugo thought in frustration, as that was less time than it took him to dodge him earlier. _Or does it depend on how much he uses? Was blowing Mother Russia sensei into the distance much stronger than he used for pushing our attacks away? In that case,_ Bakugo's wrists ached and his whole arms felt pain through them as he blasted some explosions from his palms. He bared his teeth and grinned through the pain though, "We have to make every attack stronger!"

Zach flew towards Inhuman while Bakugo shouted that, and he did not have the time to think about what Bakugo meant. He saw Inhuman swinging his other fist around, and Zach's right hand twitched at his side. His fingers came out of the glove, but his face covered with hesitation and he stopped himself from raising it. _I can't!_ Zach rose his left instead to try and block, even though he had a deep gash on his left arm and a lot of blood soaking that arm's sleeve already.

Inhuman's fist hit Zach right as Kirishima reached his front, and Iida came up behind with his leg swinging around in a kick. Inhuman took a punch to the stomach, and a kick to the back, and he followed-through with his punch into Zach's body anyway. Zach's left arm did not protect him much from the fist full of so much speed and force that he heard his left arm crack as it was pressed into his torso. He felt his lungs squeeze too and his whole body screamed out in pain as he let out a yelp, cut off because he had no air to keep yelling as he was sent smashing down into the arena floor fifteen feet back and bouncing off the side of the stage.

"Zach!" Yaoyorozu yelled while spinning her head after the boy flying past her. Her distraction caused the new cannon she was making to get cut off halfway, and she gasped out while hunching over as that mistake made her realize she needed to make a whole new one, which made her stomach yell at her in pain. _Can I even do it?_ She wondered, thinking about the amount of lipids she would need to make something of that size again. _Small weapons,_ she thought, turning back towards the villain who reached down with the hand he punched Zach with and grabbed Kirishima by the top of the head even as he tried pulling away.

Inhuman slammed his left foot back into Iida who crossed his arms and screamed in pain as the one shot through by K-Blaster earlier and his other both felt fractured from the kick. Inhuman spun and threw Kirishima at Bakugo who redirected himself with an explosion, only for a huge force to slam into him as he was dodging, sending him flying back into Todoroki sliding towards the middle of the stage. Todoroki got slammed by Bakugo who yelled at him to move out of the way next time, then Midoriya darted forward at Inhuman, bouncing around the stage before making his attack. He appeared to Yaoyorozu on all sides of Inhuman at once before sliding between the villain's legs and swinging a leg at one of them, the same one that Zach had slashed with his knife a few seconds ago.

Midoriya's kick hit, and Inhuman's leg came off the ground and his seven and a half foot tall body started to fall. Then as he was falling, his muscular form off-balance to a point there should have been no way to recover before hitting the spot where all of them started aiming attacks, he righted himself from a forty-five degree angle. He stomped down on Midoriya who rose his arms to block, then felt the leg stomping on him press down with so much force that he could barely breathe with his crossed arms pushing into his chest. Midoriya ground his teeth though and screamed out, while uncrossing his arms and knocking Inhuman away from him.

Bakugo let out a roar of pain from ten feet away from the villain as Inhuman stumbled backwards, and Inhuman rose his gaze to see Bakugo's arms trembling and ripples going through them. A massive explosion blasted out of Bakugo's hands that filled him with agony as he did what Recovery Girl told him he could no longer do, or risk permanent injury. He forced out his biggest explosion, even though he knew it would not hit. The explosion blew apart from Inhuman's body and a lot of it even slammed back into Bakugo who screamed more in pain inside his blast.

"Bakugo!" Kirishima shouted.

"Reciproburst!" Iida's arms were down at his sides, his bloody right arm completely limp as blue light shot out of his calves.

Midoriya pushed himself on his feet fast and ignored his own pain as well as the heat from the explosion that occurred right next to him and almost engulfed him too. "Fifteen percent…" His legs unbent and he flew through the explosion, spinning his body around and aiming a roundhouse kick for Inhuman's head as soon as he got close. "ST. LOUIS SMASH!"

Inhuman was hit in the side of the head, and in the other side of his body at the same time by Iida's Reciproburst kick. Todoroki shot up high on a spike of ice and he pointed his left hand down as he continued rising over Inhuman who got kicked hard from two sides and whose mask was flying off from Midoriya's kick. Midoriya and Iida saw Todoroki above them and shot away, and then a beam of flames dropped down on Inhuman who could not push them away after pushing away Bakugo's massive explosion only three seconds ago.

Zach sat up on the outside of the arena and looked in towards it with an amazed look on his face. "Do it," he whispered. He sat up more and ground his teeth from the pain in his broken left arm. After just bringing back Shoji to life though, the pain in his left arm was not all that noticeable, nor was the pain from the slash across his right cheek, or the gash in his right shoulder or slashes on his chest. All the fire pushed away at once, and Iida and Midoriya who were moving opposite directions on his sides from the flames were hit by a powerful force that made Iida scream as it hit his arms, and made Midoriya bite down so much harder in frustration as they did not stop the villain. Zach's hopeful look vanished and his right hand shook at his side, _Damn it, I, I can't…_

 _Should I have used a hundred percent? Even if it meant breaking my leg, and taking me out for good?_ Midoriya landed and skid backwards, his body still glowing from the One For All coursing through it. _I can't think about what comes after with a guy like this! The strongest one here. Can I really beat him while holding back so much of my power?!_ Midoriya snapped his head up, as everyone else did to stare at the man who rose through the dispersed pillar of flames towards the boy who fired it. Inhuman had his right fist raised up and a menacing look on his face now fully visible with no mask on it.

Todoroki spun and tried slamming his right arm into Inhuman, but he was yanked downwards towards the man a second before Inhuman would have reached him. It was not a large distance, but it messed with the timing of the swing of Todoroki's arm enough. Inhuman's right hand he just opened up into a palm balled again and he smashed a fist into the boy's unguarded chest which sent him flying so much higher into the air. "Todoroki!" Midoriya screamed up, and he bent his knees and blasted up towards him. While he was rising by Inhuman though, the man he was rising past did not turn to him, yet he was sent flying away from Inhuman's body straight at the bleachers which he slammed into and made a crater in.

Zach stood up, and he glanced up towards the screens that were dark around the top of the stadium. _Are there cameras? What is showing to the world right now? I couldn't let them see me like that. At first, because it would confirm what they thought from those videos. But now, after making that declaration. After trying to be a symbol for them-_ Zach snapped his head to the right and watched as Kirishima went flying just like Midoriya had, but he hardened before slamming into a wall hard enough that Zach felt relief fill him. _They're getting hurt. Everyone's getting hurt, and I don't know if there's any other way to stop him._ Zach's fingers came out of his glove on his right hand. _If someone else had been thrown like that… this villain is too strong-_ Zach froze and his head snapped up.

Yaoyorozu was panting as she created another stun gun, after already handing off two to Shoji standing at her side. She lifted her head though as Shoji told her to look up.

Midoriya pulled himself out of a hole in the bleachers, and Kirishima dropped from a crater in the wall around the outside of the arena that was crumbling around him. The two of them looked up, as did Bakugo whose arms were no longer responding like he wanted them to, after using explosions to fly him towards Todoroki who had been dropping from the sky way too fast. Todoroki was down on his knees next to Bakugo at the lower edge of the bleachers on the side of the arena opposite where Kirishima stood. Iida was down on his knees below the wall they were at the top of and a dozen meters to their left, Uraraka tying her blue uniform around his right arm and trying to stop the bleeding of the arm he told her he did not even feel anymore. All of the students fighting together stared up above the stadium where fifteen robots just flew over the top of the bleachers.

"Ants?!" Kirishima called out, a huge grin spreading over his face at the sight of the robots up there that they had had so much trouble with during the first event of the tournament.

"Where have they been?" Bakugo muttered angrily and under his breath in a frustrated voice. He started panting harder and his body slouched, while Todoroki let his body relax a bit.

The boy with white and red hair struggled to try and stand, even though he felt cracked ribs and a huge amount of pain in his stomach. "Thanks, Bakugo," he managed to say, as he had yet to say it after Bakugo flew up to get him. Todoroki glanced in at Bakugo's arms that were shaking violently at his sides, "Your arms-"

"Shut up," Bakugo snarled, and he just ground his teeth harder while looking up at the robots that Inhuman rose his head towards too. "Ch, and I really wanted to-"

"My Quirk, Push and Pull," Inhuman began, his voice reaching all of the students facing him. It also reached Power Loader and the Ectoplasm clone who was the only one with him higher up on the bleachers now. Power Loader was not going to wait for Inhuman to go on about his power though, as he had seen a bit of the fight below and knew there was a time limit with the enemy's Quirk. Some villains liked talking, and often what they said was the cause of their own downfalls. Power Loader wondered if the villain before him was just trying to stall by acting like one of those villains though, and he sent half of the ANTs that had just returned to fight the enemy.

"Using it I can push and pull almost anything," Inhuman claimed. He bent his knees, and he continued while his voice's sound waves pushed out to all sides of the stadium. "Including my own muscles. I have never had to exercise, and yet my body is at the peak…" His bent knees unbent and he shot up into the air. He rose between three Terminators that were the fastest ones to descend at him, blue jets firing out of the soles of their feet and shooting them down. They had cannon arms or fists primed for attack, when Inhuman rose between them and came to the top of his arc between them and the other four dropping down above them. "Of human potential," he finished, while clenching his fists tightly and putting them together as one.

Inhuman flipped himself in midair, and he shot down like a missile through one of the ANTs below him as all of the robots turned his way and tried to attack. He smashed straight through the robot's body, then he spun as he continued dropping, and the other six ANTs were yanked down towards him as he rose both palms towards them. "RAAAA!" Inhuman slammed into the floor and a crater blew apart beneath his feet, and then that crater doubled in size and the entire floor of the arena shook with cracks going through it. He shot off the ground and blew a hole in the ground straight into the hollow underground below, and the six ANTs flying towards him were slammed into by a man swinging his fists and legs fast while already moving at a hundred miles per hour.

Everyone staring up at Inhuman had shaking looks on their faces as they stared at the robots which had shown off how powerful they were earlier when they had almost stopped all the U.A. second years from moving past the first event of the Sports Festival. "Oi oi," Bakugo started, his lips curling up but a nervous look in his eyes. "Are you serious-" he stopped asking, as Inhuman finished the seventh of the ANTs off only to glare up and raise his arms towards the other eight Power Loader had been holding back to try and attack more strategically after seeing how Inhuman handled the first group.

"This is…" Ectoplasm began, while Power Loader tapped into the remote as fast as he could. All the Anti-Nomu-Terminators fired before reaching Inhuman this time, and then all their trajectories changed as they were blown back up thanks to Inhuman pushing all those attacks away. Inhuman dropped far down to the ground, and the ANTs changed directions and shot down towards him to reach before he could use more attacks like that again. Two of them were much faster than the rest, and they pointed arms down at him with wide openings that glowed blue and red. Inhuman bent his knees like he was going to jump, then he darted to the left and sprinted straight towards where Iida and Uraraka were at the edge of the stadium.

"Uraraka hold on!" Iida blasted flames out of his calves, and Uraraka grabbed onto him while letting out a yell of fear as Inhuman charged them so fast. Iida started racing off while screaming in pain himself as his broken arms swung at his sides, and Uraraka shouted out his name. They raced past Bakugo and Todoroki who got up as Inhuman ran towards them, and those two jumped back as the ANTs were right behind Inhuman and they did not want to make it so the robots could not fire their attacks.

Inhuman changed targets and jumped right up onto the edge of the bleachers though. He charged at the two trying to get farther from him, breaking through chairs and bulldozing towards them without hesitation. He reached his hands forward and the boys jumping backwards felt grips around them yanking them the other direction. Inhuman did not catch them as they flew at his hands at his sides though, instead dropping his hands right before they reached, and releasing his pull. The momentum already on the boys' bodies though kept yanking them past him, and they slammed into an ANT each.

"Damn it!" Power Loader typed faster and the robots grabbed the students and flew off to the sides. Inhuman had lifted up an entire metal bench on the bleachers to throw at the robots for when they pushed the boys aside, but Power Loader was not risking leaving the two injured students in front of this monster if the ANTs were destroyed. He flew them opposite directions, while six other ANTs shot down into the gap they left behind. Inhuman lifted up the bench in both arms, his hands tightening on it while he leaned forward at the robots diving towards him. His eyes narrowed, and then the three ANTs farthest forward slammed back straight into the ones farther back. Inhuman shot off the ground as those robots collided with each other, and he swung the metal bench with all his strength around the side of his body and into two of the Terminators. He cut through their sides, and through the sides of two others past them, but one of the last two rose its arms and pushed back against that bench.

The other remaining one in front of Inhuman flew forward and grabbed him by the sides of his head, before raising up a metal knee into the villain's face. The one pushing against the bench fired jets out of its legs and pushed harder, spinning Inhuman around while knocking the bench from his hands. The two ANTs who dropped Bakugo and Todoroki at safe distances pointed their arms in, and the other two flew up as Inhuman fell spinning. A jet of red flames and a beam of blue light collided on Inhuman's body as he dropped. Then the two who had flown up fired down and rockets flew into the explosion of red and blue light where the villain had disappeared. _**BA-DOOM!**_

Bakugo and Todoroki each leaned away farther from even the distance they had been lowered by the ANTs near them that lowered their arms. Todoroki crossed his arms in front of his face while Bakugo just ground his teeth and leaned back from the flames, already enough burns on his body as it was.

"Rockets?" Ectoplasm's clone asked the man next to him.

Power Loader did not respond. The man with pale skin held his remote tightly in his right hand, leaning forward and gazing through his yellow helmet at the explosion across the stadium on its north side. "He destroyed eleven Anti-Nomus like they were toys," Power Loader replied. "I'm not taking any chances."

Uraraka let go of Iida's uniform and she winced as she fell to the ground again. She made herself weightless as she became sure that she could not longer keep standing, and she pulled herself up Iida's legs before just holding on with one hand as they stared back towards the smoke where Inhuman had just gotten blasted. Iida's arms were limp at his sides, but his legs were bent a bit at the knees as he was ready to run at a moment's notice. A silhouette appeared in that smoke and the two students leaned back with fear covering their faces.

"Who, is this guy?" Kirishima whispered, then his jaw dropped as the two robots closest to Bakugo and Todoroki ripped apart. Not many of them saw the small debris that had been tossed up inside the smoke, only to be pushed out to the sides so fast that they shredded the robots they crashed into. The two robots up in the air pointed their arms down and got ready to fire again, but Inhuman rose his arms while the smoke around him was still dispersing out to his sides. The final two ANTs got yanked down towards the outside of the arena, and then Inhuman clenched his hands into fists.

No one moved against him as he stood there holding his hands in fists. As he pushed and pulled at the same time, and his arms started shaking as he did it harder and harder every second. The metal of the robots shaking in the air started denting in, sparks flying from their joints as they creaked and cracked. Large robots more powerful than the students were crumpled up and then thrown up in the air right before they exploded. The two ANTs were close to each other in the air when they blew apart, so they made one big explosion high above the arena. As people looked up at it though, a shadow moved below that blast.

Inhuman arced up in the air and then dropped towards the stage that he landed in the middle of again. He landed and faced Midoriya who stood right in front of him. The boy with curly green hair did not step back as Inhuman landed. He bent his knees, clenched his fists, and he glared into Inhuman's eyes with his power filling him.

"Midoriya," Yaoyorozu whispered as she looked towards the center of the stage from the edge she was kneeling on. She was terrified, but the look on her classmate's face made her hands tighten on the stun guns she had created for herself and Shoji. Her own shaking legs steadied and she started back to her feet. Then in the corner of her eyes, she saw a darkness that made her turn and stare back towards a boy who had been thrown past her before.

 _All those Ants. He's a monster. He, he took down robots supposed to be capable of fighting Nomus. Whatever this guy is, I won't let him start killing my classmates._ Zach marched forward, and he let out a long exhale that covered the air in front of his face in a thick black steam. _Inhuman. I won't let you succeed._ _ **"Extinction."**_ _You're insane. And I, am going to stop you!_

After Yaoyorozu looked towards where Zach surrounded in darkness, her eyes just kept getting wider at the sight of the boy walking forward. Shoji turned too, and Kirishima, Uraraka, and Iida looked over when they saw the rising darkness that made them stare in shock. The bones Yaoyorozu saw through the front of Zach's black veil became impossible to see, and his waving hair above his head vanished as it just started looking like a dark flame over him instead. When he walked, the darkness pulled off the back of his body leaving a trail of dark wisps behind him that twisted around and swirled up and away a few feet before fading.

 _I'm so strong right now. Spinner, taking your life felt good. I hated it. I was sad, despite everything you did. But the_ _ **moment**_ _I did it, I felt good like I always do. And just like always, even though you never knew it, killing has made me stronger. This strong though…_ Zach started raising his arms and wisps rose off of them where the darkness was thicker than Zach had ever seen it when he was not trying to focus in one spot. It felt like he was covered in Death Grenades, and his lips curled up making the black veil in front of his face rise up too. His white skull barely translucent through the veil lifted its jaw into a smile, and Zach's red eyes flared through the veil as he jumped up and landed at the edge of the stage only ten feet away from Yaoyorozu.

Everyone else was looking towards him now. Not just the others who had been fighting Inhuman, but everyone in the stadium was staring towards the arena and the dark force surrounded in a black flame. Yaoyorozu was the closest so she could see it the clearest, even though a few others noticed it too. She stared at the smile on Zach's face in that darkness, and she stared at the boy who should not have been able to get up there so easily after the injuries she saw him sustain. Then her eyes shot open huge as she thought about a night months ago back on the roof of their dorm building, _**"I learned during my training with the villains, that killing got rid of that exhaustion. Killing doesn't just feel good, it, it rejuvenated me, but I always pretended to still be exhausted to the villains so they'd never catch on. It was one of the few things I was able to hide…"**_

How Zach was able to get back up there echoed in Yaoyorozu's mind, and it confirmed to her what she thought may have happened when Zach was kneeling with Spinner. She stared closer at his face though and that dark smile, and a lump formed in her throat while a pit filled her aching stomach. _**"But that might not have been the reason. I wasn't just hiding that, to keep secrets from the villains. Maybe I was just hiding it, because it scares me."**_ _Zach, you don't-_ "Zach," Yaoyorozu began aloud as the boy in front of her breathed out a heavy breath of dark steam in front of his face. His red eyes widened a bit as he heard her voice not far from him, and then his lowering smile froze as she called to him, "Do it."

Zach clenched his teeth and forced his smile up still, even as he became nervous as to what he was thinking when he came up there. _Stronger, yeah. But don't get carried away._ "Let's do it Midoriya!" Zach shouted at the boy who had also turned to him like Inhuman when the dark form of Zach's appeared. Zach bent his legs, and then he kicked off the ground hard with black wind coming off the bottoms of his feet as he did. The ground cracked below where he kicked off, and black baseball-sized spheres formed over both of Zach's hands without him needing to charge them very much.

"Together!" Midoriya agreed with a shout, the ground cracking beneath his feet too.

Zach threw the spheres of Death forward before he or Midoriya would reach. Inhuman narrowed his eyes and the balls shot backwards, only for Zach to hold his hands out and catch both of them back in his palms so they would not fly past him. He forced more black wind out the back of his body to keep pushing forward through the pushing force he felt slam into him. Midoriya had kicked off harder himself so when the push hit him while still at a distance thanks to Zach's throws, he managed to push through it too. The two of them shot at Inhuman who leapt backwards while raising his arms with his palms opened. The boys expected a pulling force, but those palms clenched into fists and Inhuman jumped straight back to where he was after landing on his dodge back.

Midoriya yanked his head away and dodged even though he was not expecting the hand punching at him. Zach was a little slower, but he still rose up his arms and wrapped Inhuman around the punching arm as it neared his chest. Inhuman's fist hit him in the chest though, and his arms got thrown off of the villain before his whole body slammed down into the ground. Zach bounced backwards, then Midoriya got slammed down too only by an invisible force as his foot was in the middle of colliding under Inhuman's chin. Midoriya slammed into the floor while the villain stumbled back himself.

Zach bounced up after hitting the ground, and he shook his head while spinning around in the air. He hit the floor on his butt and rolled back before planting his feet and digging them down. He slammed his hands into the ground too, ignoring the pain in his left, and he dragged his fingers into the floor leaving ten marks dragging across the solid arena. Zach ripped back with those hands and threw some debris up covered in black veils while also sending himself flying forward back at Inhuman. "INHUMAN!" Zach yelled in his dark, overlapping voice. He focused Death up at his head and twisted his body by forcing out Death around him in a circle from all sides of his body one part at a time. "Human Death Spear!" Zach yelled, swinging his arms up through the pointed Death missile he was in the middle of.

Inhuman leapt up high into the air, and Zach missed his attack so he dropped into a roll before raising his arms over his head again. All of the dark aura around him started gathering into one place, and he spun around his body before throwing that huge mass of darkness up in the air. Inhuman glared at the huge sphere rising at him, and it exploded out before reaching him to his sides and out past his body, but none of it touched him. Zach grinned though as that happened, _When he touched me before, it might have just been for a second, but…_

 _He's slower,_ Midoriya thought too, noticing it as well as spotting how Inhuman had been panting a second before leaping away. Midoriya had to wait until the Death faded from the air to keep attacking, but apparently Inhuman did not. A small hole blasted in the veil in the air and Inhuman dropped through it so fast that he hit the arena and cracks split it a hundred different ways. He landed closer to Zach than Midoriya, and Midoriya kicked off of the rising piece of floor he was on that split midway up. He shot towards Inhuman while Zach yelled out in pain from all the debris smashing into him, and the green haired boy smashed straight through rocks as he pulled his leg back behind him.

Inhuman charged at Zach while lifting his left hand, and he pulled Midoriya's leg towards him fast before letting go right away. He just made Midoriya spin around a few times and wind to fly out in all directions around him, sending the debris rising from the stage blasting out to the sides. Inhuman meanwhile, grabbed a huge rock that rose up when he smashed the stage, and he slammed it into Zach's face right in his glowing red eyes. Zach's thoughts got jumbled as his feet lifted off the floor, then Inhuman pushed the rock forward using his Quirk.

Zach was already lifted off the floor with a rock in his face, but that rock broke apart as a massive force slammed into the boy surrounded in a black aura. _But… I was so… stro-_ Zach's back slammed into the wall of the arena so hard that the entire wall collapsed on top of him.

"Zach!" Shoji, Yaoyorozu, and Kirishima all shouted back towards where the wall collapsed on their classmate.

"SMASH!" Midoriya slammed his right leg into the front of Inhuman's body, and he grit his teeth so hard as he forced himself up to 25%. He felt his leg creaking, his bones straining as he forced out the top level of his power without taking himself out of commission. He hit Inhuman in his left arm that the villain rose up to block with, but it was still a strong enough kick that he sent the villain flying backwards and gasping out as the leg pushed his arm into his muscular chest.

Inhuman hit the ground outside of the stage, and he started rolling only for the ground around him to cover in an ice sheet. Ice rose up around Inhuman and surrounded his body completely this time instead of leaving his face uncovered like the first time Todoroki tried. _I can't,_ Todoroki thought while forcing a giant ice spike out of the ground around Inhuman including over his head. There was a broken ANT only a few meters away from him, and remains of others were littered about the stadium. _Anything less than-_ Todoroki stomped his right foot down harder as the huge ice spike broke apart. _No break!_ He instantly shot more ice towards the villain in the middle who blew the ice apart, but Inhuman had his left hand risen to the side.

Todoroki had to cut off his ice before even starting it again, because Iida and Uraraka came flying towards Inhuman and would have got caught inside the ice spike. Midoriya flew towards him faster than the two being yanked his way, and Inhuman spun towards the boy reaching him faster than any of the others were moving. _How can he take these hits?!_ Midoriya spun his leg, but Inhuman ducked down and then Midoriya went flying away from him. As Midoriya flew back, Inhuman started running forward, letting Iida and Uraraka crash down past where he had been standing. He charged at Midoriya who turned himself in midair, only for a giant fist the size of his torso to slam down in his gut. Inhuman's hand opened up after hitting Midoriya, and the boy who just slammed into the floor pulled fast back up only to be punched into the floor again. Inhuman started dribbling him by opening his fist and pulling him up only to punch him down again, and he did it five times before he kept his palm open and grabbed around Midoriya as he bounced back up. He lifted the boy he grabbed and Midoriya screamed as a tazer stuck into his chest from Shoji's stun gun.

The six-armed boy opened his eyes wide, then Inhuman growled, "Dead humans should stay dead." Shoji flew straight up into the air. A look of sheer terror covered Mezo Shoji's face as this was exactly what he remembered before he died earlier. Then the ground all around Inhuman cracked apart from his left and right sides at the same time. His head started pointing down before he could slam Shoji into the floor now a hundred feet below him. Shoji spread his webbed arms and started gliding towards the stands where he could be back on solid ground at least before heading back to the arena, panting hard while looking down to see what it was that caused Inhuman to stop attacking him.

Out from the floor on Inhuman's left side, three thick spiky vines of blond hair shot out of the ground and wrapped around his body. Similar vines came out of the ground on Inhuman's right, only green and wrapping around Inhuman's legs and pulling them together tightly. The blond ones squeezed on Inhuman's torso, though the blond boy across the arena who stood near his green haired classmate whose power he Copied was struggling to squeeze Inhuman's muscular body. Monoma and Shiozaki squeezed tighter, and as Inhuman lowered his hands and grabbed at the vines on him, the ground beneath his feet turned soft and he started sinking down.

Juzo Honenuki stepped forward on Kirishima's right side while the red-haired boy panted and rubbed some more blood out of his eyes at what he was seeing. "Class, B," Kirishima said. He glanced the other way towards some rubble and a boy he was worried about, but he had faith in his classmate buried in there. _Come on, Zach. We need your help._ Kirishima turned back towards Inhuman but muttered, "Where's Tetsutetsu?"

"Got taken down fighting some villains, but he's alive," Honenuki replied fast to Kirishima, while daring another step forward to increase the strength of his Softening. "Do it, Yui!" He shouted as he could see the monster struggling to lift his legs from the ground.

Kirishima noticed after Honenuki mentioned other fights, the boy next to him without any lips had a bloody gash on his back and some blood on his left hand. Even though Class B had not been down there with them on the arena, it was clear they had been fighting too. Others besides Kirishima in Class A looked behind Honenuki to where a girl rose up more than twice her size and spun her body, throwing the classmate in her hands across the stage towards where Inhuman was sinking. The large boy Yui Kodai struggled to toss had a strange appearance with seven eye holes on the top of his oddly-shaped sand-colored head.

Kojiro Bondo started using his Quirk, Cemedine, as he got close to Inhuman. The liquid that looked like glue or cement considering it could harden fast came down in a wave towards Inhuman. Then all of that Cemedine blew up into Kojiro's body while he was still dropping. He was knocked backwards by a force too while surrounding in his own Quirk, and Honenuki spun his head and called out his classmate's name. "Look out!" Kirishima jumped forward and yelled, "UNBREAKABLE!" Honenuki started looking back, his eyes widening as a giant piece of metal from a destroyed ANT had been flying his way. It smashed into Kirishima fast, and the debris exploded out away from him. It hit Kirishima hard enough though that he was pushed back into Honenuki while surrounded in his strongest Hardening.

"Ahh!" Honenuki let out a yell as Kirishima slammed into his front, knocking him backwards so his Quirk failed on Inhuman who had not risen out of the floor yet.

Inhuman lowered his arms and grabbed the blond vines wrapping around his body. He ripped them apart to his sides, then he rose both arms and pushed his palms out against Midoriya's leg that got swung at him. His hands pushed back towards him, but he clenched them both around the leg while Midoriya's eyes opened wide. He spun Midoriya around his back and threw him into an incoming jet of flames, and Todoroki clenched his open left hand fast into a fist, stomping his right foot forward and slamming ice up in front of the flames just in time. Inhuman looked over his shoulder after seeing Todoroki's fast reaction time, and he glared at the ice spike that shattered a second after Midoriya hit it, with Midoriya smashing through and straight back into Todoroki. The two of them slammed into the bleachers and Inhuman smirked as he heard their screams.

Then the dark villain in all black turned his head to look across the arena. He glared at a girl with green hair who was struggling as he tried pulling his feet apart from each other, and she screamed as she was thrown to the side into Monoma who just started turning towards her. Shoji landed up in the stands, and he looked down at Inhuman while panting, his hands shaking in terror at the sight of that villain who finally yanked his feet apart. _In a few seconds, Class B's reinforcements…_ He saw where Kojiro Bondo had landed on Yui Kodai and they were struggling to get out of Kojiro's hardening glue. Then Shoji looked down to see Kirishima on his hands and knees trying to help Honenuki. Monoma was getting up from beneath Shiozaki and he started shaking her around with a panicked look on his face at the blood running down the right side of her forehead.

Shoji looked back towards Inhuman, _Who is this guy?_

"Now then," Inhuman said in a deep voice, walking forward and on top of some debris. He walked up some destroyed pieces of stage at its outside then up onto the cracked surface. He stepped forward on it and to the middle of the arena. Inhuman took a deep breath and he reached down to his side, and every student there trying to fight him stared in horror as he lifted up a small black box from his pocket. He opened it, and inside the box was a needle that had been undamaged in the fight so far.

 _If a villain this strong already…_ Yaoyorozu stepped forward on shaky legs. She was still on the stage, the only other person actually, though on the outside of it. "Why?" She looked towards Inhuman and called out to the villain who looked at the girl closest to him, a pile of rubble behind her off the stage at the arena wall. _Zach! Get up! Midoriya, Bakugo, Todoroki! Everyone catch your breath, come up with a plan, and win! We cannot let this villain inject himself with Trigger!_ In Yaoyorozu's mind the second she saw Inhuman pull out a needle, she saw a horrible future that had her legs shaking and her heart pounding faster than ever. She saw Inhuman standing there in the middle of the stadium, while everything around him blew away. She saw all of her classmates, the stage below him, the bleachers and walls of the stadium, all the people still on them, heroes and villains and civilians alike. _"Extinction." "INHUMAN!" "Humans, so quick to kill each other if given orders…"_

"What do you have against humanity?" Yaoyorozu asked the villain in front of her. "Why, do you need to do something like this?" _Why tell us what your goal is? Why use a villain name like Inhuman, unless you're trying to make a point? Please, God, let this work!_ "You don't seem like just another of the League of Villains," Yaoyorozu said, and she did not need to fake her expression while saying it to this monster who was like none of the others they had seen so far. "So why?! Why work for them? Why do all this?"

Inhuman stared straight down into Yaoyorozu's eyes. The tall, busty girl standing there felt such intense terror as she looked back into Inhuman's gaze. Without even moving, she knew he could throw her so fast backwards that she would likely die when she finally hit something. _"But my own personal goal is simpler. And that is: Extinction." I don't want to know the answer, but-_ "Who are you?" Yaoyorozu asked, her eyes full of fear and her legs shaking as she asked it. "Why do you want to wipe out, humanity?"

"Because humanity is a scourge," Inhuman replied. His black eyes with yellow pupils narrowed at the young girl in a blue gym uniform. He paused after saying it, but he did not turn his attention from her to the others around the stage. "To stand before me and ask 'why' while in so much fear, you have gained my respect, human." Inhuman stood up straight and lowered the Trigger vial down. "So I will tell you, why it is you must die today."

As much as it was what Yaoyorozu was hoping for, her skin only paled more as Inhuman said that. _I only have until he's finished speaking! If I try raising my stun guns, he'll blow me away before I fire. Midoriya! Get up!_ She could see her classmate in the corner of her vision getting up, despite all the damage he took the last time he attacked. Momo was careful not to actually look Midoriya's way though, giving Inhuman her undivided attention to show how much she cared about this, or to show him respect, or just in fear that if she looked away he would choose to kill her in that moment.

Midoriya pushed his hands on the ground in front of him and coughed, and blood splashed down onto the floor between his hands. He glanced to the right and saw Todoroki leaning up from the hole in the stands behind them where they had been smashed as he went flying through Todoroki's last ice wall. Todoroki had blood coming down the corners of his lips, feeling the cracked ribs in his chest and the bruised stomach messing with him. He almost could not push himself out of the hole, but he opened his eyes and saw Yaoyorozu down there standing in front of the villain all by herself. It gave him the extra strength, though he did gasp as he felt something poking into his lungs, and his gasp sent some flying bloody spit out just as Midoriya had spat red at the floor.

 _He's so strong,_ Midoriya thought, looking away from Todoroki and back towards the stage. He could see Yaoyorozu on one side of the stage, and she was looking straight at Inhuman with a terrified look on her face as they talked. _Yaoyorozu's giving us a few seconds. I don't know how long it will last though, and she can't protect herself if he pushes her away as fast as he threw me. Who else can still move?_ Midoriya looked around, and his eyes opened wide as he stared around the arena.

Iida was panting heavily as he stood back up on shaky legs, puffs of smoke coming out of his calves a couple of times before the exhausts in the back actually started glowing orange. Uraraka climbed up his right leg and held onto his side, placing her feet down gently while keeping her own gravity off. She had a chunk of stadium wall in her right hand too, weightless and ready to be thrown, even though the hand holding it was cut up and bloody. Iida's arms were down at his sides, his right one dripping a lot of blood fast, but he could not feel the pain in them anymore as he saw his fellow class rep standing there alone in front of the villain.

Kirishima stood up and balled his fists. Honenuki looked up from behind him where he had a bloody gash on his face after a super-hardened Kirishima had slammed back into him, and there was a piece of blue gym uniform jacket wrapped around his forehead tightly. Kirishima stood there shirtless with his muscular body hardened, and he bared his teeth as he stared towards the villain who just said he would kill Yaoyorozu. _We have to stop him,_ Kirishima thought, and he wiped blood from his eyes again before raising his fists in front of him.

"Humanity is the most flawed species in this world," Inhuman started to the girl with a dark ponytail who stood before him. "Always fighting amongst themselves, from the very beginning. And there will always be fighting. Always be war. Even in schools they teach children to fight, to stand for something, because others stand for something else." Inhuman shook his head and his expression got even darker as he glared at the sixteen year old girl. "World peace is something so many talk about like it is an attainable goal, but that is false. There can never be peace."

"Wh-Why not?" Yaoyorozu asked. "If villains like you didn't do things like this," she continued, her voice hurried and sweat covering her face. "Then children wouldn't have to fight. It's the fault of-"

"The attack would have happened whether or not I joined them," Inhuman said, looking down on the girl standing twelve meters in front of him. "An attack like this would have happened even without the League of Villains. Villains would exist even if All Might was still the Symbol. Because he was the Symbol of Peace, in a world that can never know such a thing. Not so long as humans exist." Inhuman did not look away from Yaoyorozu, but a chunk of arena that had broken off the side of the stage suddenly flew towards the bleachers high up and slammed into an Ectoplasm clone that had just flown down to Bakugo and was flying around the edge of the lower bleachers in Todoroki's direction.

 _Damn it,_ Ectoplasm thought from inside a tunnel of the Sports Festival's stadium where he was facing off against four villains with only Present Mic at his side. They were strong villains too, and ones that knew each other well enough that they had combos using each others' moves.

"Fuck," Bakugo muttered under his breath, as he had told that Ectoplasm something when the teacher tried getting his help. Ectoplasm's clone never got to send his message and the teacher's own to the others, but Bakugo did not know if he should start running towards them to tell them either. _Is he going to kill anything that moves?_ Bakugo thought, while his arms started twitching at his sides from him trying to move them. _Alright fuck it._ Bakugo's fists clenched and his entire arms screamed in pain. _This guy's in charge now. He's the strongest one here._ Bakugo's lips twisted up and he leaned forward with a dangerous smirk on his face. _So I'm going to beat him!_

Yaoyorozu darted a glance to her left when the debris flew away, but she snapped her gaze back so fast as Inhuman had never turned and kept speaking to her. "Do you know why, humans can never know peace?" Inhuman asked.

Yaoyorozu gulped but shook her head once. "Because of discrimination," Inhuman said. "It is something that will always exist. People, will always desire what others have. Others have those things because they were born in different circumstances. Their lives were inherently different. This unfairness leads people to envy, and desire, and lust after others' things." Inhuman's voice was deep, and it started pushing farther from his body with every new word out of his mouth. "And they steal, and take, and rob each other. But those with more don't see things like those with less do. They try to protect their things, but the others still try to take them. And they steal life from one another." Inhuman said the last part in a sadder tone, his eyes lowering down to the stage for a moment. Then he rose his gaze into Yaoyorozu's eyes and she felt chills course through her body.

 _Those eyes!_ More sweat covered the girl who felt shivers through her body as Inhuman continued, staring deep into her eyes and straight into her soul. "But those with more _things_ can beat down those with less, unless those with less band together. Then when they have more, others band together to take from them. There will never be equality. Never be a world where people are equal in the amount they have. When some people have so much more than others for no reason at all, how could others not start to hate them while envying all they have?"

Inhuman posed the question and Yaoyorozu's breath caught in her throat. She had been trying to breathe calmly, but that statement made her freeze and her eyes to grow even wider. _My house,_ she saw a mansion. _My things,_ she saw her bed that filled her entire room, and how she had compared her room to a closet in front of classmates who had already looked shocked by her furniture. _Is that, is having those things- do people dislike me because of it?_ Yaoyorozu's eyes got even wider, but she started breathing again as a steadier look formed on her face.

"The poor will always want what the rich have. As long as people don't own the same things, there will be violence. Because inequality in any form, even of wealth, belongings, family, is still inequality. People born in worse places will despise those born in better lands. Discrimination can't be ended. Discrimination leads to envy. Envy breeds hatred. And hated will always lead to violence-"

"You're wrong," Yaoyorozu said, her hands tightening on the stun guns at her sides. Inhuman's voice was echoing around the arena and the bottom rows of the bleachers where some others who were fighting him were still standing. Yaoyorozu cut him off though, and yet she held firm even as he started glaring at her for countering views he obviously held with great weight. "Not all people are like that."

"They are," Inhuman repeated.

"Not Zach!" Yaoyorozu shouted at him, and others around the stage looked towards Yaoyorozu in surprise as she said it. "He's, he's seen my house," Yaoyorozu said. It was the thing that stopped her from thinking in such a disturbed way about the villain's ideology. It stopped her from actually believing the words coming out of his mouth, and she continued in a loud and firm voice, "He knows the life I live. He's seen how big my house is, seen the money I was born into…" She pursed her lips for a second, then she said with a frustrated look on her face but a strong voice coming out, "He's had such a hard life, but he's never asked me for anything. Any money even though he has none…"

In Yaoyorozu's head she thought about all the days she had gone to Zach's room so they could work on their final reports together. She had told him once about the phone call she caught the end of between him and his Aunt Maye and cousin Tsura. _He told me his living situation, but he just asked I not make a big deal of it._ She bit her teeth down and then called out, "And even though the villains burned his apartment down, and he didn't own any of his own things, he never asked for anything. Even though he doesn't have any family, he's never hated me for mine. How can what you're saying be true, if someone with so little doesn't hate someone like me?"

Inhuman leaned back, then he growled, "He does hate you." His voice was angry, and the dark villain continued, "You may not know it, but inside him he despises you. You who claim to have, and those who have not, you will never be able to live together in peace. You humans will continue to kill and murder and steal life from each other as you have for tens of thousands of years. Your violence is never-ending-"

Inhuman's head started spinning to his right, but the push he sent out in that direction missed the boy who expected it and changed his flight path midway with an explosion beneath him. He had fired himself so fast towards the stage by making an enormous blast that the noise came out of right as he was making his second explosion, and the push from Inhuman slammed into the outside of Katsuki Bakugo's first huge blast. Bakugo rose above the push that flew beneath him, just dodging as he was able to force out a second explosion before screaming in agony. As soon as that push flew beneath Bakugo though, Midoriya was shooting forward and he reached Inhuman just as Bakugo was lifting over the top of the villain's head.

Midoriya slammed a kick into Inhuman's face and pushed hard into it before twisting his body and slamming the villain backwards into the air. A huge spike of ice rose towards Inhuman's left side, and he glared towards it after shaking his head from that kick, and the ice shattered apart before the spike could reach him. Right after the spike broke apart, Iida sped by the side of it with the red light from his calves turning blue. He reached the spot the villain was coming down before he hit, and the teenager dodged the punch Inhuman slammed at him while moving his top speed. He slammed his right leg with blue light coming out the back into Inhuman's left leg, and then Midoriya punched his right fist into Inhuman's chest and ground his teeth in pain as he felt his bones grinding. _Bring it higher!_ He thought, as he reached up to 28%.

Inhuman flew backwards coughing, spit coming out of his mouth after those consecutive hits. He still rose his right hand though while his mouth was open with spit coming out of it, and Todoroki brought his left hand back down again. _Can't use flames,_ Todoroki formed an ice trail in front of him and pointed the left hand behind him instead, using his fire for a different method. He blasted himself towards Inhuman while thinking, _Not from a distance. Not when he can pull someone in front of them. But from close-_

Inhuman saw Todoroki's thought process as the boy shot towards him, but he could not just switch plans that easily. The screaming boy he had started pulling towards him opened his bloodshot eyes and rose his arms that Inhuman stared at with huge eyes since they had looked impossible to move. Bakugo's mouth opened into a mad smile even as his face looked insane and full of pain. "DIE!" Bakugo screamed, and blood splashed out of his forearms as he blew an explosion out at Inhuman, only for it to be pushed away from the villain. As the explosion pushed back though into the boy screaming in agony, a jet of flames pushed through that explosion's smoke and slammed into Inhuman who had taken his eyes off Todoroki even though he knew he was coming.

"Throw me!" A voice screamed while Inhuman was surrounded in flames. He was slammed back by the fire, but all the fire pushed away from him at once right as he hit the floor. His costume burned off of his arms and legs, leaving him sleeveless and showing off all of his dark tan muscles that flexed as he dragged his fingers into the floor at the edge of the arena. He snapped his head to the left and saw Kirishima flying towards him surrounded in Unbreakable, blood coming off the sides of the boy's body while he was swung by a bunch of long blond vines. Monoma yelled out as he snapped his head and threw Kirishima out of the vines thanks to the Quirk he copied from Ibara Shiozaki. His green-haired classmate had his jacket wrapped around her head, and Honenuki was over near her but looking back wide-eyed as Kirishima was thrown fast at Inhuman right after the villain had used his pushing power.

Kirishima brought both arms back behind him, and he slammed them forward right as he reached Inhuman who lifted both of his larger hands in front of him to block. Kirishima's fists collided with Inhuman's muscly palms, and blood splashed out of the villain's palms at how hard Kirishima hit him. An a different liquid splashed out when Kirishima slammed his fists there, something that made everyone looking close enough to see open their eyes wide with hopeful looks. Glass imbedded in Inhuman's hand, and the villain whose vial of Trigger just shattered growled while clenching his open palms over Kirishima's hardened fists. He spun to the side to try and slam the diamond-hard boy into the other student flying at him, but Midoriya ducked in midair then continued his spinning-kick under Inhuman's arms and into his stomach. _HIGHER!_ He hit 31%, and he felt the tendons in his right leg start ripping, and his left shin screamed out in pain as small fractures hit it.

Inhuman blasted backwards and smashed into an arena wall, blowing it apart around him with debris flying all over the place. All of that debris rising in the air stopped though, and it all shot forward ridiculously fast at the students who stared in horror for an instant. An ice wall rose up in front of all that debris, blocking it all because of how thick the wall was. Then Todoroki dropped down off of an ice wave behind the wall he created, and he slammed his left hand into the center of the wall while his entire left side of his body glowed red. "Piercing Flame!" A thin beam of fire cut through the wave that had even blocked all of the debris Inhuman smashed at it, and then that thin beam expanded ten times its size and ripped the wall apart.

Everyone stared through the falling ice at the point in the wall where Todoroki's flame beam collided, then their heads snapped up as an ice chunk came flying down so fast into the boy who created it himself. "Todoroki!" Midoriya shouted, then snapped his head up again to see Inhuman had risen above the flames and hidden in the falling ice. The villain jumped from one chunk, and another flew over towards his open hand that he slammed his feet down on instead. "Full Cowling," Midoriya bent his legs and they ground in even more pain. "THIRTY-FIVE PERCENT!" He shot off of the ground and through the bottom of the ice chunk Inhuman jumped off of to dodge him.

Inhuman spun and blasted a huge force in the direction of the boy who just hit that ice. Midoriya shot down to a chunk of falling debris that had been lodged in the side of the ice farther from all the students, and he used it to shoot himself behind Inhuman and into a much larger piece of ice that got cracks all around it from how fast Midoriya had to dodge that push. Midoriya used Inhuman's own pushed debris as a foothold, one that shattered apart after he flew off of it even before Inhuman's push blew that smaller debris into dust. The air on one side of Inhuman became clear of all debris as the ice and rubble shot away into the bleachers, but another wave of ice rose up over the stands as it all came crashing down. Heroes and villains in the middle of fights higher up in the stands lifted their heads as the shadow came over them, and then that smaller wave shattered and all started falling, but at least it was falling slow enough for everyone to run around and dodge it, or destroy it with their own Quirks.

Midoriya bent down on the ice chunk he had slammed into, while Todoroki pushed off the rest of the ice Inhuman had smashed on him. Todoroki coughed up some blood, then he pointed his left hand up in the air and fired a blast into the sky. Midoriya swung his right leg at Inhuman when the villain tried pulling him close, and Inhuman had to stop and then yell out in pain again as his body was surrounded in fire. All the rest of the ice debris melted as they dropped down into the ground, and then a gust of wind slammed into everyone still around the arena.

Inhuman fell right on top of the stage, but the stage around him started ripping apart. Cracks spread over more of the regular arena floor, pieces of fighting stage went flying out to the sides, and students got pushed backwards or even thrown off of their feet. _How is he still getting stronger-_ Midoriya froze as he pushed back against the force, staring towards the middle of the stage where Inhuman had risen up. The man looked even bulkier than before, a crazier grin on his face even as he was panting and had blood coming down from the right corner of his lips. Midoriya glanced down at the bloody hands of the villain, specifically the hand that had been holding the Trigger vial. _In the wound Kirishima cut in his palm, did some of the Trigger get into his bloodstream?! Is 35 still not enough!?_ Midoriya could feel his body already close to breaking, and he was trying as hard as he could not to go up to 100%.

"Humans!" Inhuman shouted, bringing his elbows down to his sides and snapping his head back as he shouted. "You cannot stop me! You who are so violent! Your discrimination, your envy, your hatred, it's a never-ending cycle!"

Midoriya stomped towards Inhuman and shouted at the villain while swinging his aching right arm out to the side, "You claim we're all so violent, but how is what you're doing helping the problem! You're just-"

"When did I say I wanted to do that?" Inhuman asked, turning his head and lifting it to stare down into Midoriya's eyes. The force stopped pushing away from him and he kept panting, but he smirked menacingly with blood between his teeth while glaring his yellow eyes into the boy's. "I was just explaining why humans are violent beings inherently, and why I am Inhuman!" He shouted, and he rose up his arms at his sides, the broken ground at his feet pushing off the floor and then hovering at his sides as he clenched his hands into fists creating an equal force on the sides of the rubble. "Because I will create equality!" He yelled, while cracks covered all those rocks from the pressure on both sides and split them all into tinier pieces. "When I am the only one left! It is the only way. But, once I am the only one left alive, no one else with more or less than me… I will have lost something that _defines_ humanity. Their violence against their own species, it's what makes them human. So what will I become when there are no other humans?" A mad look spread over Inhuman's face, and he yelled, "That's what I want to find out!"

 _My moment!_ Yaoyorozu stood directly behind Inhuman, having made it look like she was just running towards an injured classmate while she was still in his peripheral vision. She got out of his eyesight and then started creating, and she had gotten closer to his back too. She stood there holding a pair of pistols, not the same stun guns she had before. She no longer thought they would be enough after seeing Shoji use one accidentally on Midoriya only for him to still be able to fight afterwards.

Yaoyorozu held real pistols in her hands, and she rose them and the silencers on the barrels towards Inhuman's back. She brought them down a little and pointed at the back of Inhuman's legs right as he finished yelling at Midoriya, and she knew she only had a moment but the guns still started shaking. _It's okay! Just like Snipe sensei does-_ Her guns that started to steady as she told herself that it was okay to shoot someone, froze completely right as her eyes shot open huge. They bulged because she thought about Snipe, and she remembered something another villain had told her after she arrived down on the fighting stage that was in pieces in front of her now.

Yaoyorozu had tazed the female villain with the katana, and Kirishima had defeated the one in the white robe. She had seen Zach kill Spinner too, which she knew now for sure after seeing how strong Zach had been when he finally used his Nightmare form. But she also remembered that Zach was not the one who actually defeated Spinner. She remembered that there was a fifth villain down there, one who had not stepped in but she had caught a glimpse of earlier in the battle staying far from Inhuman. The man had looked hesitant about going along with Inhuman's orders, but she had also considered that maybe he thought his new boss had the fight under control. So as she stood there with the drop on Inhuman, a sudden thought hit her right before she was going to fire the silenced pistols in her hands. _What if-_ **BANG!**

Her guns were silenced, so the sound of that gunshot made her entire body tense up in terror. She knew it was herself the gun was fired at, and she clenched her eyes shut as she dropped the pistols from her hands. Yaoyorozu's head started to bow and she opened her eyes as she looked at her chest, because she heard the shot come from behind her. She opened her eyes and expected to see red all over the front of her body, then her eyes shot open much wider at what she saw in her peripherals. Inhuman spun around furiously at that gunshot, only for a kick to slam into the side of his head and send him flying off the stage. Yaoyorozu kept turning though, while Midoriya just glanced over before turning to Inhuman and shooting after him again as the villain rolled back onto his feet.

Behind Yaoyorozu, in between her and that villain who lowered his hand-guns with a shocked look on his face, a dark form stood looking straight at her with glowing red eyes that somehow looked worried. _Ow,_ Zach thought, before snapping his head to the side and raising his right palm that formed a sphere of black over it. He spun around towards the bleachers and stomped his right foot towards them, while Yaoyorozu stared at his back in shock that it had a flaring black aura coming out of it. K-Blaster scrambled backwards as the boy glared towards him with his scary red eyes, after barely flinching from the cluster shot in the back. "DEATH GRENADE!" Zach yelled in fury, and he threw the sphere as a line-drive towards where K-Blaster was running towards.

The villain turned and dove, but just dodging the spot the sphere landed was not good enough. The Death Grenade's black shrapnel blew off of the attack and slammed into K-Blaster. The villain on his hands and knees trying to scramble away collapsed with his eyes rolling into the back of his head. Zach watched it happen, then he turned again and looked at Yaoyorozu worriedly. His skull was visible through the black veil now, and Zach did not feel any stronger than when he usually used Nightmare. Even though he felt pretty tired though, his power still felt like it would if he used this form normally. "Are you alright?" Zach asked, his voice strained as he questioned the girl before him.

"Z-Zach," Yaoyorozu started. "What about you?" She asked nervously. She could hear the strain in his voice, but he turned away after she asked the question.

"I'm fine, I focused Death around my back even more than it usually is already," Zach said. He glared towards the side of the arena where Midoriya stood alone facing Inhuman, both of them panting, both with blood coming down from the corners of their lips, but Midoriya's entire body shaking as he stood there like he was at his very limit. "We have to beat him, Momo," Zach said, and the girl who just glanced over towards the rubble she had thought Zach was trapped in snapped her head back to look at him. He turned and looked at her through his red eyes, his vision tinted red because of it. He looked in her eyes and saw not a trace of fear as she looked back into his. "Until we beat him, this won't end."

Midoriya flew across the entire arena in two seconds. He slammed into the bleachers halfway up the stadium, and the other students around the arena looked back in horror as their classmate was just hit by something that should have killed… They all stared up and watched as Midoriya stepped through the dust that rose from him slamming into that spot in the bleachers. Midoriya brought his elbows down to his sides this time, and he yelled down and across the stage towards Inhuman, "You're wrong! Humans might be violent sometimes, there may be all the bad parts of them that you say there are, but there's something you don't understand! We're all fighting right now not because we hate, but because we want to protect! People risk their lives for others who they don't even know. You know why?!" Midoriya bent his knees, and then he shot off the bleachers leaving a crater in it, that doubled in size and blasted up rubble as he flew back the way he came just as fast. "Humans are inherently good!"

Zach sprinted towards Inhuman, and a smile spread over his dark face as he heard something he had said himself during their final reports. It was a main point of his paper, and a part of him thought that maybe Midoriya had actually thought about it because of that. He had no idea how much the boy flying towards Inhuman with his right leg pulling out at his side had thought about that though. Midoriya shot towards Inhuman, thinking, _Yaoyorozu was right. Everything he says is wrong. Because if all of that could happen to you, only for you to still be here as a hero, Zach! And if you can still think that after everything! Then I can believe it too!_ Midoriya felt it getting stronger in his right leg, without him even trying to force the percentage up. He just felt it getting stronger, and yet he did not feel his bones grinding any harder than before. _Forty percent! Forty-five!_ Midoriya reached Inhuman with his entire body starting to shake as One For All glowed through him.

 _FIFTY!_ Midoriya kicked down beneath him with his left leg, and with that much power flowing through him, he dodged the push from Inhuman with ease. He rose over the villain's head and reached down with both hands, grabbing the villain and spinning around his body, throwing him back towards the middle of the arena as his momentum was going to keep him going into the rubble behind Inhuman after that midair dodge. He threw Inhuman and then pressed his left leg back out into the wall he collided with, keeping his right bent at his side and tensing even more as he pulled it farther back. _TIME TO FINISH THIS!_

Zach crossed his arms as the push Inhuman missed Midoriya with slammed into him and the rest of the others around him. The powerful villain knocked Yaoyorozu back, but as she was rising off the ground, six arms caught her and pulled her into the tallest boy in their class's chest. Zach glanced back and saw Shoji catch Yaoyorozu, and then he saw Uraraka flying away without any gravity, but Uraraka shouted down at the rest of them, "WIN!"

Kirishima skid back twenty feet on Zach's right side, until he had skid past Zach himself and had to push his feet down harder as he saw Zach standing still despite that push. Iida forced more heat out of his calves as he was skidding back on Zach's other side, and then the three of them charged forward right as Midoriya threw Inhuman their way. The push had just happened, so Inhuman could not use it as fast or as strong from what the others had experienced so far. Zach jumped up, leaving dark footprints behind on the floor and a trail through the air he crossed while raising both arms out at his sides. He swept one arm forward and then the other, and Inhuman glared at that wind as it was about to reach him, blowing the rest of it away with as much push as he managed to recover in the second since Midoriya threw him. Zach felt the push against him even, stronger than before what Inhuman had been able to muster.

Iida blamed Inhuman's recovery time for his push on the small dose of Trigger that got into his wound, but Inhuman using it again to push Zach and that wind down meant that there was really none left stopping him and Kirishima. The villain rose his hands at both of them as they started attacks though, and their faces pulled towards his palms. Then two pillars of ice rose up in front of Inhuman only to cover just his hands, as well as fifty feet above them too as Todoroki did it fast and did not hold back very much. Iida and Kirishima went around the pillars, slamming a hard fist into Inhuman's face and a powerful leg into the villains stomach. Then Bakugo dropped from the air and landed on Inhuman's shoulders, pointed both hands down on top of the villain's head, and fired.

Bakugo, Iida, and Kirishima all went flying different directions. Then Inhuman's right hand that was pulling out of the shattering ice pillar pointed at Todoroki and yanked him towards him faster than anything had been pulled so far in the fight, and he grabbed Todoroki by the face and slammed down towards the floor. Todorki lifted his left hand as he was being slammed down though, and Inhuman pulled his head to the side only for the left half to still be burnt by a flame pillar shooting out of Todoroki's hand in the instant before his head hit the floor. Inhuman pulling away and getting burned also weakened how hard he was slamming Todoroki down, but he could not push any harder as he had to leap back to dodge the black ball flying at him.

Zach did not clench his hand into a fist to destroy his attack early, as despite it looking like a Death Grenade he had not charged it much at all considering Todoroki's position. The black ball of Death landed in front of where Inhuman was rising back, then Inhuman sent a force of push down at Todoroki who was pushing down at his sides and Zach who started running at him again. The two of them were hit by a strong push, but they both yelled as they were thrown backwards and into the floor, "Now! MIDORIYA!"

Inhuman started turning his head, but the curly-green-haired student was already behind him. Midoriya's pant legs shredded apart, mainly his right that all the way up to his thigh violently shredded. He was rising above Inhuman, but his body was horizontal, parallel to the ground. He had his right leg pulled up so high above him that it looked like he was straining to do a split. His leg was bent at the knee and all of his toes were curled in with his leg muscles twitching all over. "DO IT!" Iida, Kirishima, Shoji, and Yaoyorozu yelled towards him.

"WIN! DEKU!" Uraraka screamed from high in the air, the same time Bakugo screamed it from where he just finished rolling across debris on the arena.

"NEW YORK CITYYY-" Midoriya spun his body and slammed his leg down into Inhuman's half-burnt face right as the villain finally lifted his gaze enough to the boy above him. Midoriya's leg dented into Inhuman's face, and Midoriya screamed out, _"SMMAAAAAASSSSHHHHH!"_

The force of wind off of the kick felt as strong as any of Inhuman's pushes. Everyone around the arena and on the bleachers got pushed back, every single other fight cutting off and anyone still conscious in the stadium spinning towards the center where that scream came from. Inhuman hit the ground in the middle of the destroyed fighting stage, and still cracks split out from the middle of the arena to the walls of the stadium all around it. In the hollow section below the arena, debris started falling down and around the mountain that had been pulled back beneath the surface. The cracks lining the arena got thicker, and holes started opening up all over it while debris flew out from Inhuman's collision in every direction.

Outside of the stadium, All Might stepped forward in front of the huge group of evacuated people he had kept calm with a speech while they were protected by other heroes. He stepped back towards the stadium as he stared at the huge screen on the outside televising what was happening in the middle of the arena. He felt the collision outside where he was standing, and everyone around him stared in shock for a few seconds after hearing that shout before the attack, and then they all started cheering at the top of their lungs.

Across Musutafu, Twice stared up towards a big screen above his opponents' heads, his eyes huge and his jaw dropped at what he was looking at. " _That_ Inhuman was taken down by-"

A pillar of flames dropped down on the street in between the villains and the heroes they were facing. A bloody, hulking form walked out of that fire and glared intensely forward at the villains who all took a step back away from the man who appeared before them. The heroes behind him started cheering, while that hero started running forward without saying a word, melting the street beneath him with every step.

"Reinforcements are here!" Nejire Hado shouted as she dropped down from the sky right in front of the group of civilians evacuated from the Sports Festival. One of the former Big Three of U.A. from the previous year's graduating class, she turned to her old teachers at the front of the group behind her who all smiled seeing the powerful blue-haired girl's arrival. "All over the city," she continued, while smiling at the scared people behind her teachers who stared at the young hero in shock and even more excited faces than when they were just cheering a few moments ago. "Heroes have arrived from around the country, and the Police are moving with them through the streets to get the situation under control!"

Inside the Sports Festival stadium, Gentle and La Brava backed away from the three heroes in front of them. "I see you located Hackerman too, oh Principal," Gentle said to the small mouse creature who looked from him then back to the room on their side. "There are still villains from the League of Villains all over though," Gentle continued, though he narrowed his gaze as he said it to the heroes before him. La Brava smirked at them too, and Gentle asked, "What is it you would like to spend your time doing?"

"Thank you, for changing the videos," Nezu said, figuring out what had happened almost as soon as he arrived thanks to his High Specs Quirk. "But Gentle Criminal, you are under arrest-"

Gentle turned the air bouncy in front of him using his Quirk, Elasticity. He grabbed La Brava with his other hand, and he shot away down the hallway with a grin on his face. He gave them a small courteous nod, before bouncing away down the hallways as fast as he could. _The famed master tactician of U.A. There is no need to take such a risk._ "La Brava," Gentle said, and the small woman he was carrying looked up at her partner's face. "Our work here is done," Gentle said. "Do you mind giving me your help, one last time today?"

La Brava held onto Gentle tighter and his body started to glow. "You never need to ask," she said. "Do you want me to start recording now?"

Gentle smirked as his body started glowing thanks to La Brava's power-up she granted him using her Quirk: Love. He looked down at the girl and called out with a smirk on his face, "Of course!" La Brava pulled out a camera right as they started speeding up, and Gentle cut down another hallway before letting out a laugh at his luck. "One more for the go! You villains who have no sense of manners!" A group of three villains with two of them looking pretty injured already turned, disheartened looks on their faces from the shift in the tide of the battle. Their faces filled with horror at the sight of the man and short girl flying towards them with a crazy pink glow pulling off of his body like flames. The girl recording called out Gentle's name, and the Gentle Criminal smashed the villains into the floor and walls.

"It seems," Gentle said while landing past the villains who La Brava pointed her camera back at. She then pointed it up at Gentle's face as he finished, "The Sports Festival is over."

Outside in the center of the stadium, the arena's floor shattered. It could not hold together anymore after all the damage. It was barely holding on before Izuku Midoriya smashed Inhuman into the center of the arena, and as Midoriya dropped down towards the floor his eyes started growing wide as the floor beneath him was breaking apart. "Everyone!" Midoriya called out around the arena where his classmates had been pushed away by his kick and blocked from his sight by the dust that rose up from Inhuman's crash-down.

Uraraka returned her weight to herself, then she got rid of it again as she lowered near the stadium's edge. She grabbed onto the floor and threw herself back down towards the collapsing arena stage even as her legs yelled out in pain, and she tacked a boy who had his arms down at his sides twitching in pain and covered in blood. Bakugo turned in annoyance as his feet left the ground, though they would have done so a second later anyway as the ground beneath where he had been standing dropped.

"Hold on," Shoji told the girl he was holding in front of him. He let go with his top four arms and spread them to the side while jumping up, right before the ground beneath him fell apart. Yaoyorozu wished she still had her jetpack, but she was exhausted and starving enough that she doubted she would be able to make another one even if she had the time. Shoji glided them towards the center of the arena though, where as the arena started falling down, they all were able to see the top of a mountain below them.

The summit of the underground mountain was still broken apart from the second event of the Sports Festival. The mountain's peak's elevation rose even higher than it originally was though, as the arena and the fighting stage that had been centered above like the mountain's summit all collapsed down on top of it. With all that falling debris, fell a villain who was burnt and bloody and broken. He dropped down with the debris of the arena, and then he coughed and his clenched eyes started to open to give him a blurry view of everything falling with him.

Todoroki tried freezing a lot of the floor around him to the outer wall to prevent it from falling. He and a boy near him struggling up on that ice sheet spun towards the middle of the arena though, as some falling debris pushed to the sides. Some of it even hit the ice floor Todoroki made, cracking it apart and making them start falling into the hollow ground. "No way," Todoroki muttered, and then he bit down and swung his right arm beneath him despite the pain filling his body as he did it. A wave of ice formed beneath him and Zach, and Zach flipped over to land on the sloped wave.

"Take him down!" Zach yelled, sliding up the wave and off the other side just like Todoroki. Midoriya dropped down above them, and Iida sprinted down a breaking piece of arena floor. Iida sidestepped as that huge chunk broke into smaller ones, then he jumped off as it broke even more. Kirishima slammed down into the summit with his entire body hardened, and he sprinted forward to where Inhuman just slammed down and was struggling onto his feet.

Kirishima slammed a fist into the villain's back after jumping up at him, and Inhuman swung an arm around his back only for Kirishima to duck beneath the slow-moving arm.

Zach dropped down towards him covered in his black aura. _He's worn out!_ Zach waved both arms at Inhuman and yelled, "Get back Kirishima!"

Both dark winds from Zach's arms crashed into Inhuman, and then they blew away and Zach felt a push into him too, weaker than the last ones.

 _The small amount of Trigger he did ingest, has worn off,_ Todoroki thought. He lowered the arm he was going to shoot flames out of, and as he landed close to Inhuman, he slammed his right foot down and created a huge spike around the villain who just made a push. He left Inhuman's face out this time, but the villain who weakly tried pulling his head Todoroki's way only got Iida's leg slammed into his face that broke apart the ice behind his head anyway.

Then the rest of that ice broke, as Midoriya slammed a foot into the side of Inhuman's sluggishly lifting head. Inhuman's eyes rolled back into his head, while he slammed down into the middle of the mountain's summit, while the arena fell apart around them and slid down the sides of the mountain. The arena and fighting stage above fell down the mountain as if there were avalanches rolling down it, but none of the people who had been on the arena and fell through landed on the slopes of the mountain. All of them landed on the summit, and they all stared towards the middle of the stage where Midoriya dropped down and fell on top of Inhuman's back.

Midoriya was staring down at the villain's head he was standing on top of with one foot. He was panting and wheezing, but his fists were tightened at his sides and his face was full of intensity. Then Todoroki said, "He's unconscious." He was standing on the side that Inhuman's face was turned towards after that last kick that smashed him half into the ground, but everyone there was still shocked to hear Todoroki say that. They stared at the villain unmoving on the floor, each one of them ready to keep fighting despite all the damage done to them.

Midoriya kept his fists clenched at his sides, breathing harder and harder as he stared down at Inhuman who had forced him to go all-out. His body ached and his bones felt tightened like any movements might break them. The boy standing there on bare legs on top of Inhuman's body clenched his eyes shut, and he snapped his head back as he finally accepted what Todoroki said. "AHHHHH!" Midoriya yelled. It was not a scream of pain, or frustration, just a roar of victory. He screamed it from on top of Inhuman's body, with Todoroki on one side and Iida a few feet farther on the other. Uraraka landed down closeby too and Bakugo pulled away from her, stepping once towards Inhuman only to bite down as he saw the villain's eyes rolled back in his head.

Kirishima stood a couple of feet back from Todoroki, panting and staring at Inhuman with wide eyes. His mouth curled up and his sharp teeth bared as a wild grin spread over his face. "YEAHHH!"

"Ha, haha," a dark laughter came out on Kirishima's left and back a couple of feet. The redhead who just shouted like Midoriya turned and looked at his friend who was limping forward still surrounded in a dark veil. Zach was lifting his right hand to his chest while looking at Kirishima, "We really, did it." Zach pressed his right hand to his chest, and the black veil surrounding his body disappeared. He was already leaning forward as he walked, stumbling towards the center of the summit over a large chunk of former fighting stage. As the dark veil lifted off Zach's body, Shoji was landing down on the edge of the summit behind him with Yaoyorozu.

Kirishima went to smirking at Zach ready to laugh along with him, to staring with eyes that grew huge and his jaw dropping. Zach's smiling lips had trails of blood coming down either corner, yet it was because he was slouched that Kirishima gawked at the wound on Zach's back.

Zach's hunched over body started falling forward, and he rose his arms at his sides to catch himself, but his arms could not hold his weight when he dropped down. Zach collapsed to the floor and the others standing around the summit looked his way. Many of them wanted to do the same, to just collapse after that long and tiring fight. When they looked at Zach though, at his back that was covered in red around an area of his uniform shredded apart, they realized that he was not collapsing from exhaustion.

Shoji started running forward, but Yaoyorozu stayed frozen where she was standing for a second longer. She stared at Zach's back in terror, her heart pounding as she heard his dark voice in her head, _"I'm fine, I focused Death around my back even more than it usually is already."_ Yaoyorozu started running forward, and she heard again in her head, _**BANG!**_ _Zach!_ She sprinted over the summit to Zach who was laying on his front but curling up on his hands and knees to get off his face and stomach.

"Z-Zach, you alright?" Kirishima dropped down next to his friend whose back he kept darting his gaze to. He grabbed Zach by the side, but he did not want to turn his friend over to make him lie on that wound.

Zach turned himself over on his own though, flipping onto his back and then wincing as he hit it. He put his hands down at his sides at the last second to prevent from falling on it too hard, and he started taking deep breaths as he stared straight up above him. He could see Kirishima in the corner of his gaze, but he stared up at the smokey but blue sky for a few more seconds before turning towards him. Kirishima held his arms out, and he put them under Zach's back as Zach's arms were shaking violently while he turned Kirishima's way. Kirishima took the pressure off Zach's arms, and Zach immediately stopped shaking with a more relaxed look on his face as all his weight fell into Kirishima's arms.

"Yeah," Zach began, looking into Kirishima's eyes. He said it slowly, and his smile got softer after saying it. "Not, really," he whispered, then he pursed his lips in pain at the look that spread over Kirishima's face.

Midoriya was panting harder and harder as he stepped farther from Inhuman and stared down at Zach whose back he had seen in the few seconds Zach had been face-down. _Was it back then?_ He thought about the moment Inhuman had spun around hearing the gunshot behind him, when he saw Zach in between Yaoyorozu and the villain who had shot at her. He lifted his gaze a little and saw Yaoyorozu's look, and the expression he saw on it confirmed his thoughts as well as made him feel so bad for the girl running their way. _No, no this can't happen!_

"I'm sorry," Zach whispered, as he saw more people running up around him even though he was finding it more difficult to look around after removing Nightmare from his body. _Oh man. This really…_ "I know, it won't feel like a victory anymore- ack ack," blood splashed out of Zach's mouth as he coughed, and Kirishima could feel his arms were soaked under Zach's body.

"Guys, we have to get Recovery Girl over here!" Midoriya shouted at the others around him.

All of them who had just run over towards Zach spun to Midoriya and they started nodding. Each of them had wanted to collapse just like Zach did until a few seconds ago, but they all looked raring to go suddenly and Zach felt a pang in his heart at their expressions. "You can't-" Zach began, his eyes tearing up a little as he whispered it. Midoriya turned to him, while Todorki nodded and turned to run. Iida spun and forced flames out of his calves, and Uraraka backed up a couple of steps with a look of fear over her face. _If Zach- there's no one who-_ Uraraka bent down and grabbed the floor at her sides after making herself weightless, and she threw herself into the air back towards the huge hole in the arena above.

"Zach, you're going to be alright," Midoriya said, staring into Zach's eyes sternly as he said it. "Just hold on-"

"Say goodbye, Midoriya," Zach whispered. He gasped it out, and the others still around him stared at Zach in shock. Midoriya shook his head and looked up, but Zach gasped at him, "Say it! Please!" Midoriya froze and he turned his head back with a look of horror on his face at the knowing tone in his classmate's voice. "Friends, should be able to say goodbye," Zach gasped at him. In his head he saw Jenny as she screamed his name, and tears spilled out of Zach's eyes as he thought about all the times he wished he could have said something, any one of the millions of things he needed to say to her. "Say goodbye. Please. Say it. You don't want, to regret it," Zach whispered.

Midoriya leaned his head back and his face covered in an ugly look as his lips twisted and his eyes watered. He spun away though, and he said to the boy behind him while bending his legs he ignored the pain in, "I'll be right back. Just, hold on." He shot off of the floor with a wind that pushed into everyone still there, and Zach breathed out with a tear rolling out of his left eye as he saw Midoriya rising away.

Shoji lifted up one of his hands towards Zach, something he wanted to say but froze before getting out. _He, can't! If you die, who will bring you back?_ Shoji's arm started shaking and his eyes opened huge as he saw his shaking hand held out in front of him.

Yaoyorozu ran past Shoji's side and dropped down to her knees next to Zach on his other side as Kirishima. "Zach," she whispered as she dropped there hard, though not even wincing as she scraped her knees. "Why?" She said, looking down at his face as he turned towards her. She had tears in her eyes, and she lowered her hands down to Zach's bloody left hand and grabbed it hard while looking down at his face. "Why did you do that? Why did you-" he started lifting the corners of his lips again, and the tears spilled out of her eyes and ran down her face. "You took a bullet, for me."

Bakugo stared down at Yaoyorozu, and then to Zach again whose face her tears dropped onto. _A bullet? That's what tore his back up that much? Why does he look like that? Why? Damn it- DAMN ITI_ Bakugo turned and his hands started moving at his sides. _Where's Recovery Girl right now-_

"Bakugo, don't," Zach whispered, looking past Yaoyorozu at the boy who just turned away from him. Bakugo froze and started turning his head back, and then his eyes grew open huge as Zach was not staring at his face. Zach looked down at Bakugo's hands that he saw start moving, and then he lifted his gaze and whispered, "Your arms. Don't. There's no point, in crippling yourself."

"Shut up-" Bakugo started.

"Please, just run if you have to go," Zach said. "Don't, do it," Zach gasped out, more blood dribbling down his chin. Bakugo clenched his teeth so hard as he spun away from Zach seeing that look, and he started sprinting away over the destroyed summit of the mountain.

Yaoyorozu spun and looked after Bakugo with wide eyes at what he was doing. _Bakugo would have done it anyway, despite the pain he must be in. Why? Why wouldn't he? Unless, he doesn't want Zach to think he's hurting him, in his last…_ Yaoyorozu's lips started shaking and she spun back to the boy whose left hand she held even tighter. "Why?" She whispered, clenching her eyes shut this time as she said it down to him.

"He's not," Kirishima started, looking up from Zach to the girl across his body from him. Then he turned and looked to his left at Shoji who brought his hands up to his head and started running them all through his gray hair with a look of despair in his eyes. Kirishima looked back down at Zach and his own eyes started getting more watery.

Up on the outside of the arena, on one of the walls around the hollow ring, some students from Class B stared forward at a girl without any gravity as she rose up towards them. They had been brought over to the bottom edge of the bleachers by blond vines right as the arena was collapsing, lifted near where Yui and Kojiro had gotten out of Kojiro's glue-type Quirk. The two of them were helping Honenuki and Shiozaki who had come to after being knocked out earlier, but the blond with them stared from the edge at Uraraka as she called out asking if any of them knew where Recovery Girl was.

"I last saw her out with a group on the south side of the stadium," Honenuki called out, leaning right to look past Kojiro and face Uraraka. "She has her hands full though-"

Uraraka dropped her Zero Gravity and then ran straight past all the Class B students up the bleachers towards a hole into the stadium where she could get to the south side from. Uraraka's face was covered in pain as she ran on injured legs, but she ran fast despite it. Monoma watched her run, then he walked over to Shiozaki and put a hand down on her which confused the girl with green hair. "Monoma, are you going to keep fighting?" Shiozaki asked, and she tried pushing her arms down at her sides.

"Stay there, Shiozaki," Monoma said, while running back down to the edge and looking off again like he had been before Uraraka rose up. His hair extended down again using the Quirk he restarted his time limit with after noticing it had run out a minute ago. He climbed down the wall, looking towards the center of the mountain with a nervous look on his face. _What am I doing?_ He thought, but he swung himself off of the wall anyway and towards the mountain's slope that he extended his thick vines down into to lower himself down slower.

At the summit, Zach held Yaoyorozu's hands back with his left that she was grasping at with such a terrified look on her face. "Why? Why?" She whispered, lowering her head over his body that Kirishima lowered flat onto the floor a moment ago. Kirishima kept Zach's head risen though, but he brought his other arm up to his own face and covered both of his eyes with it. "You could have, tackled me out of the way or-" Yaoyorozu cut herself off, thinking about how Zach was surrounded in his Nightmare mode. "Or, or just done something. Anything else," she gasped at him. "Why did you have to-"

"You, talked me down once," Zach whispered while looking up into Yaoyorozu's eyes. Her eyes bulged, and she stared down in shock at Zach as he started smiling again while looking up at her. "When I was on the ledge, in the, darkest place I'd ever been. You saved me," he whispered, something he always wished he had told her but never had the courage to do.

Kirishima lowered his arm, lifting his gaze up to Yaoyorozu. He thought about the night he watched the Lifebringer video with Zach and Kaminari, when Zach looked so dark afterwards only for him to call the two of them back to his room just a little later. And he remembered how Yaoyorozu was there that night, and his chest clenched up as he wondered if that was the night Zach was talking about. _And I just- even after you saved my life, I just left you to…_ Kirishima saw Zach held up by rusty hooks, getting carved up to leave his body looking the way it did when he came back in January. _And at VTS, I didn't do anything! At Camino Ward I didn't help you! I can't ever, ever ever ever…_ Kirishima clenched his eyes shut and his right hand started shaking under Zach's head. "I'm sorry," Kirishima whispered.

"Don't be, Kirishima," Zach whispered, while his breathing was slowing down and he could hear a pounding in his ears. He looked away from the girl whose hands had started shaking while holding his, facing Kirishima and wincing at that look on Kirishima's face. "You are, one of my closest friends," Zach whispered. Saying that made him think of something that had his slowly pounding heart clench up, and he whispered, "Thanks for being my friend, Kirishima. Tell Kaminari too. I'm sorry…"

Outside of the Sports Festival stadium, Denki Kaminari stood near a few other Class A students around the side of a huge group of evacuated civilians. He was staring up at the screen on the outside of the stadium building, and he heard shouting coming from inside where a couple of heroes had just run in to reinforce other heroes inside still in fights against villains. "What's going on? Are they alright?" Sero asked, glancing at Sato as they stared at the screen that had showed a huge hole in the arena after Midoriya kicked the enemy into it, only for that video to cut off a few seconds after the hole was formed.

On the screen now was the Principal of U.A., sending out a message from inside the stadium that there were still villains all over the city and Sports Festival arena, and that backup was needed everywhere. He claimed that the situation was under control now though, and he started calling out known evacuation points for all the citizens scattered who may not have been around heroes. Kaminari stared closer at that screen, then he snapped his head down as he started running towards the stadium. "Kaminari!" Sero called out. He took a step forward, but behind him Cementoss called out that they needed to hold this position more than ever now that Nezu had told people they could come here for safety. _Damn it, Kaminari!_ Sero thought while looking past his friend who had a frantic look on his face before he started sprinting at the stadium.

Sero turned back to Sato, then the other way at Ojiro and Hagakure. "Come on," he called to them, and he spun back to the stadium himself and fired tape out of his elbows that way. _Everyone, what happened?_ Sero thought, running ahead with his other classmates after Kaminari and ignoring the shouts of their teacher behind them.

 _Zach,_ Kaminari thought as he ran into the stadium. _You told me how that power works. I saw you get hurt in it before when we fought Shatterer. Please, don't die!_

"There are still villains around," Sato called out as he ran in after Kaminari.

"Everyone be careful!" Ojiro warned too.

On the other side of the Sports Festival stadium, Midoriya dropped down in front of a huge group of people. He ignored Nejire Hado who turned his way with a smile and ready to say something, and he ran right by All Might who had opened his mouth too. He spun his head around a few times, then he turned back to All Might and called out what might have been the phrase All Might was most dreading without even knowing it, "Where's Recovery Girl?!"

At the summit of the mountain beneath the Sports Festival arena, Zach nodded at Kirishima after apologizing for leaving like this. "Zach, thank you," Shoji said, and Zach looked between the two on his sides towards the tall boy who he had brought back to life in the middle of all that chaos. "You're, an amazing hero."

Zach smiled at Shoji who the other two spun to with huge eyes at that statement. Neither of them wanted to accept it, and then both of them opened their eyes huge as they looked behind Shoji. They dropped their jaws, their heart rates speeding up violently as they saw the boy rising up over the edge of the summit. "Thanks Shoji," Zach whispered. He blinked his eyes shut slowly once, his body relaxing as he lay back more on Kirishima's hand. He was smiling despite everything, and he said in a soft voice, "You, too-"

"Stop being so dramatic, Class A." Zach sat up more, wincing in the pain he felt in his back but staring forward with wider eyes at the person walking forward on Shoji's side.

"Monoma," Zach whispered, and then he smiled for a second seeing him there.

Monoma got unnerved by that smile, but he rose his cocky smile a bit after faltering for a second. "Recovery Girl will come here soon," Monoma said. "You're not going to-"

"I've felt it, over a hundred times," Zach whispered towards Monoma who he was glad to get to see once more. The other four there with him stared at Zach with wide eyes, and his classmates had wondered why he looked so accepting of it for so long now. "Death," Zach said softly. "I know the feeling, by now," he coughed after saying it, but it was a weak cough and dry. Some more blood came out the corners of his mouth, but his skin was already pale and his eyes looked unfocused.

Monoma walked up to Zach and dropped down on his knees next to Yaoyorozu. Then he did what Kirishima, Yaoyorozu, and Shoji hoped he would after seeing him get up there, but none of them had said so. Monoma put his left hand down on Zach's left shoulder, and Zach focused his gaze again while staring at Monoma with widening eyes. "Don't worry," Monoma said, his voice more serious now as he looked straight down into Zach's eyes. "I keep Quirks I Copy for five minutes, and it doesn't take that long for you most of-"

Zach let go of Yaoyorozu's hands and brought his left up to Monoma's chest. He grabbed Monoma by the shirt and the boy on Yaoyorozu's right leaned back as Zach leaned his head up towards him. "Don't bring me back," Zach said, his eyes huge as he said it. Kirishima was smiling as Monoma was speaking, the others too, and they all stared in shock down at Zach after he said that.

"What?" Monoma asked, confused and glancing down nervously at the bloody hand trembling as it grasped him by his uniform.

"Zach, what are you saying?" Yaoyorozu whispered, and she leaned forward more with a serious look on her face. "If you think you did anything wrong because of what you said while with the villains. If you think any of us, or even anyone else- we wouldn't let anyone-"

"It's not that," Zach said, louder and with a more serious tone in his voice than he had had since he collapsed. He let go of Monoma's shirt, but he kept looking seriously up into his eyes for a few more seconds. Then his gaze softened, but he stayed looking more alert now as he turned to Yaoyorozu in an apologetic way. "When I brought Kirishima back," Zach started. Kirishima's eyes widened as somehow he had to do with the reason they could not save Zach, and it was crushing him before Zach even continued. "Something, changed," Zach whispered.

He turned Kirishima's way and looked the redhead in the eyes. "Something inherently changed inside him, for Death not to work on him anymore," Zach said. Kirishima's eyes opened even wider as he thought about VTS, thought about Zach touching him with his right hand and how he did not die.

"What does that mean?" Monoma asked, glancing at Kirishima to see if that was true and then back down as it seemed like it was.

"I don't know," Zach replied, looking back at Monoma with a more scared and regretful look on his face. "But, if using my power to bring back someone else changed the way my power works on them, then I don't know what my own Quirk being used to bring me back to life will do. Maybe, it'll stop the effects of touching myself with my hand, if Death doesn't work on me anymore." Zach paused, then he gasped out and whispered, "But what if it's more than that? Something, worse?"

"You don't know-" Yaoyorozu began.

"That's exactly why," Zach countered back at her, shaking his head and feeling so much pain as he saw that desperate look in her eyes for an answer. He turned to Monoma who he knew might not listen to him if he had to look at that look on Yaoyorozu's face, a look that made him want to tell them to forget everything he just said. "You can't do it. What if I come back, and touching anywhere on my body kills people? Or, or what if when I breathe, the particles I breathe out have Death attached and start killing people? And it fills the air and the atmosphere and wipes out all life on Earth?"

"You're overreacting," Monoma said quickly to the kid before him.

Zach just looked at him with terrified eyes that Monoma thought that way, and he made the blond lean back while whispering, "I could end the world." The others stared down at the horrified look on Zach's face, as he whispered at Monoma, "I, could be the world-ender." All of them had been there for his final report, and they leaned away at the terrified look on Zach's face that he would be the one they were talking about that day. Then he started coughing, gasping for breath while forcing spit out his mouth at the same time. "Ack kah ple- ack, so please, just let- ack ack, let me die." Tears spilled down the sides of Zach's face as he told them it.

His eyes started to close, more bloody spit coming out of his mouth and dripping off his face that the bottom half of was completely covered in red now. Kirishima's hand started shaking on the back of Zach's head as his friend's eyes started glossing over and losing focus of everything in front of him. Zach's head turned a small bit as he whispered again, "Let me die. I, changed the answer," he looked straight at Yaoyorozu whose eyes opened huge hearing what she heard him say in the videos at the court house. Then he whispered with two more tears falling, one from either eye, "Momo." _I made up for it,_ Zach thought, his mouth curling into the biggest smile as he stared at the girl getting hazier in his vision. _I didn't think anything could, because of how much I loved Jenny- but Momo, you're such a good person. So good, that just saving you… it's gotta be enough!_ "Just let me die," Zach whispered, his eyes closing. "I changed the answer. I changed…"

Zach's left hand that Yaoyorozu had grabbed again after it dropped from Monoma's shirt, lost its hold on her. Zach's eyes were still only half-closed, but they stopped closing. His chest stopped moving too. The four circled around him saw the last of the light vanish from his eyes. And up in the bleachers just on the edge and looking down, Kaminari pulled his head back as he was about to shout down towards the summit. He stared down there and heard Yaoyorozu start sobbing loudly, and he leaned back with his eyes huge and filling with tears as he saw who was lying there. Shoji rose up an arm in front of his face, and Kirishima bowed his own at Zach's right side while lowering his friend's head down to the floor. He opened his crying eyes and lifted them to stare at Zach's face, and the smile that was on it as his heart stopped beating.

On the summit he had reached first place on in the first event of the Sports Festival, surrounded by friends who cried as his heart stopped beating, Zach Sazaki finally succumbed to his Quirk's namesake. Zach Sazaki, was dead.

* * *

 **A/N The end. Thanks everyone for reading Death. I hope you enjoyed the story. Leave a review telling me what you think!**

D-Koy24 chapter 62 . 21h ago

I feel like the song 5,4,3,2,1 (murder song) by Aurora played in the background during the Spinner dying scenes and I just imagined all the flashbacks you mentioned, and hey like you mentioned in the review section I do see where pain and inhuman are similar... but I still prefer magneto pain HE'S AWESOME!  
~D-Koy, GRAND THEFT AUTO!

 **Checked out that song, def a good song to write a character death to. GTA ftw! Thanks for all the reviews through Death, and I hope you enjoyed the chapter!**

Guest chapter 62 . 17h ago

The HYPE is real  
Can't wait to see what you have next  
Hopefully everyone's still alive next chapter

 **You just had to jinx it... XD Well Zach goes down. Hope you liked the final battle and that it lived up to the HYPE! Thanks for the review!**

 **-Once again, thanks everyone for reading, favoriting, following, and to all of you who reviewed to this story! Hope you enjoyed!**


	64. Chapter 64

**A/N lol get trolled**

 **Disclaimer: I don't own Boku no Hero Academia**

 **Chapter 64:**

Up at the top of the Sports Festival stadium's south wall, a large chunk of stadium had been broken off during the fighting that ensued earlier that day. It had been two hours since the first bomb went off in the commentators' booth, since a portal opened up in front of Zach Sazaki while videos played of him shouting how he was not Lifebringer. The sun was farther across the sky in the west, though not yet setting. At the hole in the top of the stadium's wall, a flat section of cement was covered in soft beds and cots and blankets all around. Outside of that hole there was also a huge cement staircase going down to the ground level outside the arena, with railings on either side for the people who could go down it.

On the sides of the cement section where dozens of injured, and dead, people were laying, there were a couple of stone helipads there too. One helicopter was air-lifting more people off and the wind blew down at the people at the makeshift area for the injured and dead bodies which was set up since they still did not have too much control over their situation. The helicopter was full of injured, but it did not turn to fly towards Musutafu General Hospital. The helicopter turned to fly to one of the other cities nearby that had opened up its doors to the huge number of injured being rushed in from Musutafu. The biggest hospital in Musutafu had been attacked during the siege of the city, and though it was one of the earliest priorities to gain control of, there was a lot of damage done to it, and some of the hospital's personnel did not make it either. Despite that damage and loss of life though, the hospital was so packed full of people in and out of the doors that they could not air-lift people to it and expect them to get the treatment they needed in time. There was also the danger of flying helicopters over a city still infested with villains, as much as the swarms of heroes from around the country were weeding them out.

The strong wind from the helicopter's rotors pushed down on all the people lying around the larger cement area at the top of the steps. A figure laying on his back started to shift around right as a couple of boys from Class 2-B were stepping back onto the medical area. Students from U.A. and unharmed civilian volunteers were moving around the stands with Pro Heroes guarding them from any villains who might be in hiding. At the bottom of the steps outside the arena, a much larger group of heroes were gathered with the dozens of captured villains tied up and bound by Quirks, though the majority of them were unconscious or had passed-out on their own. The Trigger apparently took a lot out of them, and the heroes discovered that the ones who seemed to have more of their cognitive functions under control during the battles were the ones who passed out the quickest and were most unable to keep fighting once the drug had worn off.

The medical area was therefore mostly safe, though to be cautious there were some heroes posted around it just in case. Recovery Girl was laying unconscious on one of the cots a few away from a boy who stirred and sat up on his own mattress thicker than the other cots around him. The boy with messy black hair that waved up a bit in the back and on the sides glanced around him in confusion, then he looked down and lifted up his arms that he stared at with his eyes growing wide. He stared at his left hand that should have been all scraped up, and then up his left arm where he had no blue sleeve, but no wound where there should have been a pretty deep one. Then he pulled that left hand around his back and rubbed it around an area where he did not feel any pain at all.

One of two boys walking over to a cot to put someone down turned their heads, and the blond boy opened his eyes huge at the sight of the figure sitting up on his bed. He glanced back, only for Bondo to nod his head at him and use his muscular forearms to lift the rest of the weight of the body they were carrying together. It was a corpse, but an important one that they did not want to just drop unceremoniously or leave back where they had found it. Monoma glanced once more at the boy he had been helping carry, but then he nodded back in thanks at Bondo and turned again to the boy sitting up and rubbing his back with wide eyes.

The black haired boy turned his head as he saw Neito Monoma approaching, but then he got a lump in his chest and felt it ache at the sight of the cowboy-looking teacher who Bondo carried over to a line of other bodies. _Snipe,_ Zach thought, and he hated the relief he felt in that moment too. _I can still feel pain,_ he had realized, as it had been confusing him for a few seconds there that he could not feel any pain in his back. He felt it in his chest though at the sight of Snipe, then he pulled back as Monoma stepped right up in front of him. "Don't," Zach said, a panicked and fear-stricken look covering his face as Monoma opened his mouth to say something.

The blond boy ready to say something to Zach froze and he lowered his left hand he had lifted in front of him. He decided not to say anything cocky or whatever he was thinking when he approached, and he just said, "I checked. Since, I made the decision. I made sure. I picked you up, so touching anywhere on your body isn't… And you're breathing aren't you? You were just, overreacting," Monoma said it with a smaller smile coming back to his face as he had said the same thing before. "You're no world-ender," Monoma said, and then he leaned down and held his left hand out again.

Zach glanced down at his right hand again, a hand still covered in a black glove after everything that had happened. Then he turned to Monoma's hand and he stopped panting as hard, though he was still in a bit of a daze as he reached up with his left hand to grab the blond's. Monoma pulled Zach up and steadied him on his feet as Zach wobbled where he stood for a second. It felt like waking up, except he did not feel like he was just dreaming. _So this is what, it felt like? For all of them?_ Zach turned his head left and right, staring at everything with his eyes huge. He then turned straight forward again and looked Monoma in the eyes with wide ones of his own, "How, long has it been?"

Monoma sighed and then turned his head towards the line of dead bodies that Zach glanced at after seeing Snipe be put down. "Since you died, more than an hour. I know that's not…" Monoma trailed off. He looked back at Zach and continued, "But after I brought you back, I used your Quirk again." He paused and then pursed his lips before saying, "Once." Zach looked him in the eyes in confusion as to that answer and to why Monoma looked so frustrated at saying it. "It just, it hurts so-" Monoma stopped himself and glanced apologetically back at Zach. "And I was exhausted. I thought I needed a break, but every time I came back up here I just, I just found something else to do."

 _What is happening right now?_ Zach stared blankly at Monoma and then started nodding in understanding after a few seconds. Then his eyebrows narrowed in and his eyes got thinner too as he glared at Monoma. Monoma thought for a second that it was about what he just said, but Zach said in a low voice, "You shouldn't have done it." Monoma opened his eyes wider for a second, before frowning at Zach for saying it. "Just because nothing bad happened," Zach said, shaking his head at that look in Monoma's eyes. "Couldn't you have just thought for a second? What if I was right?" Zach opened his eyes that he had clenched for a second, and he looked terrified as he whispered, "What if I woke up, and everyone was dead around me? Sitting up surrounded by your bodies, in a dead world that I had-" Zach's lips started shaking and his entire body trembled at the idea in his mind, something he believed very well could have happened when he opened his eyes right there.

"I never helped you," Monoma whispered. Zach's terrified look shifted back to Monoma after he had darted his gaze around in fear that the people around him were going to start dying. Monoma wanted to tell him to stop panicking, or tell him that 'what ifs' didn't matter. He couldn't stop himself though, and the blond continued with a pained look in his eyes as he looked back into Zach's, "I, was part of the reason you got targeted by the villains." Monoma clenched his fists down at his sides, thinking about the tortures he saw at the start of the villains' attack. "I was a part of the reason, you had such a hard life, and I couldn't just let you die thinking the only meaning in your life was how many people you killed or saved."

Zach started staring at Monoma in so much confusion that it was actually making him forget all about what he was just thinking on. That 'what if' scenario scared him, but what Monoma was telling him reminded him of what he was saying after that, right when he died. Monoma was thinking on that too, and he said in a lower voice to the confused boy in front of him, "Changing the answer. I saw your trial. I saw you, say that it was all that mattered to you. Was it good that you were born? It was," Monoma said, and he tried flashing Zach a smile but failed and had his lips lowering down just as fast as he tried raising the corners of them. "But, that's not-"

Monoma had to pause for a second, not liking that he was having a hard time keeping it together here. "That's not a good life," Monoma said, and Zach's eyes widened at Monoma stared into them with such a sad look in his eyes. "If all that mattered to you, was finally getting to a point where it wasn't a terrible thing that you were born… It was sad, knowing that you were thinking about that in your last moments. Knowing that you never lived a real life." Zach started breathing faster at what the boy in front of him was saying, at what was shaking him to his core. "Zach, saving people, if that's what you want to do that's great. But you can't _just_ live for others. I know it might sound selfish coming from me, but I feel like I need to tell you since no one else will. You who save everyone no matter how much it hurts you, you who live for others and feel so much joy when you do help them, you deserve better than a short life where only the most terrible things have happened to you."

Zach blinked a couple of times while staring in shock at Monoma. Then he lifted his head and stared up into the blue sky above him that no longer had the black pillars of smoke in it that he had seen while closing his eyes before. He had thought the sky looked beautiful then, but with a clear sky now considering the fires around the Sports Festival had all been put out, Zach let out a gasp as he stared up at it. _It's, amazing._

Zach lowered his gaze and stared at Monoma again, then he moved a little to the side and started walking forward. He walked past cots where some injured people glanced in and up at the boy with a scar across the right side of his face, wearing a torn up blue gym uniform that showed off a lot of different scars around his body. _This world,_ he walked towards the hole in the stadium wall before the steps going down, and he stopped when he could see out over the world beyond. Zach's gaze shifted around Musutafu that looked nothing like the city he had known his entire life. Pillars of black smoke still rose from out there, but he could see people putting out fires in a tall building, heroes flying out of windows and carrying people who had been caught on higher floors. He heard sirens and shouting people just at the bottom of the steps where there were thousands he had only glanced at for a moment, but then his gaze shifted and panned to the outsides of the city. _Living. I always thought about how much, I loved this world. Living in it though. I haven't been doing that, for a while. Maybe since Mom. Mom…_

His eyes lifted up towards the blue sky again. Zach let out a deep breath of air, and his eyes softened as he imagined his mom's face up there. _It was okay, that I was born. It was a good thing._ He smiled, his mom's face surrounded by others that used to make him so sad. And then Yaoyorozu's face appeared in the sky, _Momo._ At her sides appeared two more faces, _Kirishima, Shoji…_ Other faces started appearing one by one, blurrier faces that were all smiling at him gratefully, and then just the faces of his classmates from Class A and all his teachers. Zach closed his eyes after seeing them all, his fists clenching at his sides while he lowered his head back down.

 _Has Death changed?_ Zach opened his eyes and stared out into Musutafu. _I don't know, but it's time to find out._ A smile spread on Zach's face for a second, a serious one as his fists clenched even tighter at his sides. _Everyone knows. My life is just, so public now. People might pity me, but I'll show them they don't have to. This life of mine. This life brought back because of this Quirk I hold. I'll make something of it. Be a hero like I always wanted to be. I can do it! But, maybe other things too. Things I thought I couldn't have. A life, worth living. One my parents would not just be proud of, but also be happy to hear I lived, if I ever see them again. A family. A home._ Zach's eyes focused and his smile returned to the serious one as he turned his head to the side.

 _Like other people have. Like many people have lost today._ "Monoma," Zach said, looking back at the blond boy who had been staring at him in confusion, wondering what he was thinking about. "Come on," Zach said, motioning towards the stairs with his head. He gazed at the cots around where he had been laying and smiled for a second at the sight of so many people he cared about looking safe and alright.

"Where?" Monoma asked, stepping forward and looking down out the hole thinking Zach must have seen something that needed their attention.

"The hospital," Zach replied. He glanced away from Monoma and again towards the area with so many bodies around it, "It may be too late for the people here. But there are probably a lot of people barely being kept alive. Those who got really injured and rushed to the hospital, who are probably dropping one by one right now." Zach turned his head again while Monoma started to get nervous, but the blond boy gulped and then clenched his own fists in determination as he thought about that look on Zach's face. "Instead of feeling regret that you only saved two people, let's go save more. As many as we can. Okay?" Zach asked, and he stepped forward up to the top of the stairs in front of him.

Monoma stepped up on Zach's side, glancing in at the look on the shorter boy's face that made his fear over feeling all that pain again start dissipating away. "Yeah," Monoma agreed, smiling himself to match Zach's look. "Let's go."

 **An Hour and a Half Ago…**

Inside the Sports Festival stadium, in a hallway littered in corpses, a student in a blue uniform ran down the hallway panting and darting their gaze around. They slowed right as they saw a person up ahead, the only person standing in the entire hallway despite how many heroes had been in there. The man the student looked towards spun with a glare in their direction, and the sixteen year old in a blue uniform pulled back from the dark-haired teacher's scary glare.

Aizawa lost that glare after seeing who it was, then he snapped his head back down and stomped his right foot harder into the face of the villain below him. He pulled his arms up and tightened the hard cloths he used as weapons while stomping on the villain's face and breaking his hurt nose even more so the villain roared out in pain. Aizawa had a bloody cut on the left side of his face, and he was missing a lot of his uniform, more-so than when the student last saw him falling out of the commentators' booth with his uniform almost completely burnt off on his right side. "What, happened here?" the student asked in shock while looking around the hallway they were in and all the blood on the floor and puddling around villains' bodies.

The villain getting stomped on stopped struggling as hard, and Aizawa grimaced but moved his foot to see the large man's face finally going dull. The dark-blue-skinned man's eyes were closed, and Aizawa muttered while looking down at him, "One of the League's big shots." Aizawa sounded pissed, and it was for good reason considering the amount of other heroes he had been fighting this monster with in the cramped hallway where the guy's Quirk worked so much better, and he was not a pushover in close combat either. The two serrated daggers lying ten feet away from the villain's body were each drenched in the blood of heroes, and Aizawa glared furiously down at the man for another second before lifting his gaze as he heard an explosion somewhere else in the stadium.

"Let's get him somewhere where other captured villains are being held," Aizawa said, looking up at the student who was staring down at the villain beneath his feet. The kid looked up and nodded, then Aizawa turned as the teen looked over Aizawa's shoulder with their eyes opening huge and a foot stepping back. Aizawa spun and glared behind him to cancel the Quirk of whoever might be behind him. He spun, and he stared in confusion at the empty hallway behind him.

 **BANG**

Aizawa stumbled a step forward and dropped down to his right knee. His eyes were open huge in shock, and he coughed once while raising his hand, only for his eyes to grow even wider as he saw blood splash from his mouth onto his hand. He spun his head and glared behind him with his eyes narrowing and a furious but confused look on his face. Aizawa glared at the sixteen year old, or the person who looked like a sixteen year old walking towards him. Aizawa rose his right hand and grabbed at his chest where he felt that bullet come out of, and he saw the student lowering a pistol that had some smoke coming out of the barrel.

"Sorry, Aizawa sensei. Can't let you arrest him," the student said. Aizawa tried pushing down on his left foot to get off his right knee, but his body was shaking and he couldn't find the strength to do it. The villain behind Aizawa opened his eyes, showing Aizawa he had been faking falling unconscious which made the pro hero feel a huge pit in his gut while raising his attention back to the figure wearing blue past him. "Too bad about Hackerman, but I doubt I'll get the same opportunity with him." The student stood there a few feet away from the blue villain who rolled himself over and started getting up, pushing out of Aizawa's binds that the hero could not try to stop or he knew he would fall off the one foot he was still managing to stand on. The teen was wiping the pistol's grip off with their school gym uniform, and then they said, "Looking good so far. Definitely enough damage to get all focus here-"

"Why?" Aizawa asked, his voice cold and his eyes piercing the student before him who leaned back at that look, only to smirk at the teacher before him. "What's the real plan? All this destruction can't…"

The student turned to the blue villain who finally got the cloths off of him, and they tossed the gun they were holding to the man. The six foot tall villain lifted his right hand, since his left arm was broken at his side and could not move. The villain with a bloody face caught the gun while Aizawa trailed off, and the student turned from the hero to say, "Killmore, finish him and leave the gun nearby with your prints on it." The student turned away and started walking the other direction. "And hide the body too. Just in case Zach somehow survives this."

"Damn kid," Killmore said, spitting to his side a huge glob of bloody spit. "You're fucking ice cold." Killmore turned towards Aizawa who tried raising his arms to throw the cloths, but he was panting too hard and could feel the bullet had pierced right through something important in his chest.

Aizawa kept panting while staring at that student walking away. His face was full of shock, and then he bit down and he called out, "Toga!" The student twenty feet away from where Aizawa fell down to his other knee opened their eyes a little wider. "Himiko, Toga!" Aizawa yelled.

The student turned their head while continuing to walk. The teenager looked back towards Aizawa, and they said, "Oh sensei, you already know that's not true. Since you're canceling my Quirk right now, and nothing's happening."

Aizawa's eyes widened again and his vision started to get blurry, while the student turned back forward and just kept walking. They walked away without looking back, and the student said, "Weird, I thought you had dry eye."

 **BANG**

* * *

 **A/N And it's back. So, Zach's alive! I had the idea for him dying and my immediate follow-up idea was take a break after posting that chapter to troll everyone. I think it worked pretty well. XD Anyway, sorry to those of you who actually did think that was a solid ending, but hope you all enjoyed anyway! Though, that ending... If things looked like they were going to start getting brighter there at the start of the chapter, don't worry, this story is called Death. Kind of want to get to the review responses, considering I got like a hundred reviews for the last chapter... So I hope you're excited for the continuation of Death, and in this past week I took off from posting I've written another 7 chapters so I can get back to posting every day again! Really should be doing more work now that I'm back at college- pshh, college can wait! Leave a review below telling me predictions, thoughts, questions, etc!**

An Average Jo chapter 63 . Aug 17

Im guessing theres an epilogue at least.  
Then the end. Such a kick in the balls though.

 **Eyyy don't worry! Didn't think I'd actually get so many people with the sudden surprise ending. Enjoy the rest of Death!**

Bobberison chapter 63 . Aug 18

BRUH

 **Bruh, he good!**

Shade11224 chapter 63 . Aug 18

Self revival might need to be added to the arsenal

 **Monoma pulling through clutch! Who knows though, maybe Monoma acted before Zach's power could have kicked in itself? Or maybe getting brought back has changed Death to allow it next time... or maybe Dead is Dead. Thanks for the review!**

Carzysgt chapter 63 . Aug 18

BRUH where's Mercy, we need a rez!  
Haha, honestly I'm blown away by what you've created and this ending has left me heartbroken on multiple levels. Seeing you post a new chapter was always such a treat, and the quality of your writing for an OC remains unmatched. This journey left me with great memeories of reading a new chapter almost every night for the summer, and I thank you so much for the privilege of reading your creativity.  
Personally speaking, I couldn't stop thinking of the battle on Titan in Infinity War as the class struggles in this chapter. This chapter's progression from a hopeless battle to a triumphant second wind and then a sorrowful farewell exposed just how quickly and seemingly effortlessly you can shift the emotion of the scene and the weight of every word.  
Your tone, pacing, and attention to detail immediately impressed me when I discovered your story and I'm so glad you've maintained such a high quality for over 60 chapters. I don't often empathize with written characters so strongly, but you stirred feelings in my chest and tears from my eyes time and time again. I'm amazed at what you've accomplished, and I can't wait to read what you do next. Keep being awesome!

 **THANKS! I'm really glad you compared it to that fight on Titan since I Loved that fight in Infinity War. I hope you enjoyed the newest chapter and am glad that it's continued on even though you seemed pretty satisfied by the ending. Haha that rez has finally come, so enjoy Death as Zach's story goes on!**

D-Koy24 chapter 63 . Aug 18

No no no this can't be it! You can't just end it like that! He never got to... H-he never... HE NEVER GOT TO THE SHIP *Eyes filled with rage as his mind filled visions of ship Momozaki* ... Come on man, that's just unfair to us momozaki fans you lead on *cries in corner while muttering about an author being a tease*...  
Ah anyway I liked the chapter, nice death scene and honestly I kinda wanted a kiss in there or Moml saying something like "... you can't die just yet, I-i never got to..." then he dies. :3

 **XD Don't worry, the sinking ship got its holes plugged up... and Zach's even thinking about a life of his own now after his pep talk with Monoma there in the start of the chapter. Hope the troll didn't make you too upset... and I hope you enjoyed the newest chapter!**

Vernesha95 chapter 63 . Aug 18

That was fucking amazing. You are an amazing writer, and I loved every second of reading this story. Can we get aftermath point-of-views? Please? Specifically Midoriya, Momo, Bakugo, Kirishima, and Kaminari. Maybe some pro-heroes too.

 **That's a fucking awesome review! A lot of you guys looking for that epilogue, hope this is just as good! Thanks!**

Kerchanko chapter 63 . Aug 18

To start off I want to commend you for writing such an amazing story. I started reading back when you had just put up chapter 33. I've kept silent simply because I don't like to influence the writing of the story, it's your story and I want to keep it that way. (adds some extra suspense and anticipation for me) That said, I must complain about your ending... it felt forced. Which leads me to believe (and hope) that you're only saying it's the ending to tease us into thinking it is and you're going to put out a new chapter in a few days to make us wait in agony, (if you plan on doing that I hate and love you) but if you're serious that this is the ending then please at the very least (I beg you) put out an epilogue chapter showing the aftermath of the attack and Zach's death. Thank you for such a great story. I look forward to what you write next.

 **Lol totally called me on it. I was expecting more reviews like this in the comment section. No need for an epilogue as the story continues on like you hoped, and believed! Thanks for the review, nice job on calling it, and hope you enjoyed the chapter!**

Momozaki chapter 63 . Aug 17

*Blows up table Bakugo style*  
THEY NEVER KISSED

 **Nice name. No promises ;)**

Guest chapter 63 . Aug 18

Dammit. That's not fair! I kinda saw it comin and I'm still sad. I really enjoyed this fic, i thought it was a unique take on the series and I thought it was especially good with how you kept the characters in-character. The development of the OC was also great when comparing to how he was in the beginning. Kinda wish it could continue for a while but alas, all good things must come to an end i guess.

 **Don't sound so accepting! Gawrsh, made it sound so definitively over, I almost believed it myself. XD Cool you "saw it coming" though.**

Guest chapter 63 . Aug 19

Something tells me Monoma isn't going to listen to Zach.

 **^^^ Nice one.**

joebob323 chapter 15 . Aug 24

Okay, I have to say that was THEE most emotional scene I've ever seen you write. Kudos, this story is definitely as high quality as the rest of your stories!

...FUCK!

...I knew this was going to happen, but I hold hopes for a revival in the future chapters.

 **Hey Joebob! Don't know if you've caught up yet and had to deal with this, but I think you escaped it lol. I'm glad you like this as much as my other stories, and I hope you're enjoying it if you've just reached this chapter (whenever it is you're reading this)... Also, Jenny noo!**

Raidenff chapter 62 . Aug 23

Bruh this troll has gone on too long :( I'm having withdrawals

 **Alright alright, I've finally given in. Hope you enjoyed! Thanks for all the reviews you guys. It really was just to give myself some more time to get ahead so I can post in a row again, and it seemed like a good place to take the gap... making it seem like the end was just some fun on my part. Don't be too mad at me, and enjoy the rest of Death!**


	65. Chapter 65

**Disclaimer: I don't own Boku no Hero Academia.**

 **Chapter 65:**

"You two need to take a break," Doctor Honda said to the boys sitting on a soft bench outside of a hospital room one of them had just walked out of. Zach had dropped down to the bench as soon as he walked out, and Monoma nodded and dropped down next to him before slouching in the seat and almost sliding off of it in exhaustion. The doctor who had just stood by as Zach brought back her most recently deceased patient ran a hand up through her hair and then started scratching at the right bull horn sticking out of her blond curls. "I'll come get one of you if something comes up, but try and get some rest," she said in a worried way at the exhausted looks on their faces.

"Thanks-" Zach started.

"You can come get me," Monoma claimed, grinning more maliciously than the doctor would expect after hearing what sounded like a selfless statement. "Because I'm from Class B," his eyes half-closed and he ended quieter than he started, feeling too exhausted to try and claim he was better at this than Zach, which he really wasn't. Zach was glad Monoma was still there with him though, despite how much more Monoma was screaming than him as they alternated between who brought someone back. Sometimes they both did it at the same time when Monoma's hand came off a victim too much, and Zach had actually brought back two in a row once too, but he still wasn't complaining about Monoma's help.

"Well, alright then," Kimiko Honda said, and she turned and headed off through the hospital to go check on her endless number of patients. She glanced back towards the boy with black hair wearing a pair of blue doctor's scrubs from the hospital, because the clothes he arrived in were so damaged when he showed up. Honda had been there when the chief of medicine, who had been injured from the earlier attack on the hospital but was still working, gave Zach the scrubs to use after he arrived. She thought about the parts of his body she saw that he did not have his gym clothes over, _It was worse than that final video of the torture. Is his mind really alright? After a mental break of that magnitude-_

Zach looked towards the woman who quickly turned back forward as she continued walking. He sighed, _Going to start seeing those looks from everyone I see._ Zach was tired himself, and he yawned while leaning back on the wall behind him and sliding down a bit like Monoma had. They stared across the hall in front of them and up at a television in the corner that a maintenance man was on a step-stool trying to fix. They watched him for a minute before Monoma said, "You hear about the Ants?"

Zach shook his head once in response. He glanced in at Monoma who had only looked his way out the corners of his eyes while asking, and the slouched blond boy next to him said, "Apparently a large number of them were stolen by the villains." Monoma was frowning as he said it, and Zach grimaced too hearing that. Monoma was wearing blue scrubs too since he had wrapped his gym uniform around Ibara Shiozaki's head during the fight against Inhuman earlier. The Class B student dressed like a doctor continued, "They were tracked pretty far, but the trackers all got removed so they don't know where they are now. Those ones that showed up to help us fight Inhuman, and all got destroyed, had left with Endeavor."

"Endeavor?" Zach asked. He got a slightly confused look on his face, then he thought back to the lunch they had after the second event of the tournament. He remembered Todoroki mentioning something about Endeavor leaving early, and he questioned the blond slouched next to him, "He went to fight Nomus?"

Monoma nodded his head once. "He got permission from the school when a couple of Nomus had appeared a hundred miles out of the city. It was surely a move on the League's part to take him out of play in the battle," Monoma explained his hypothesis. "And it was right after he had seen what the ANTs could do, so when Principal Nezu offered Endeavor the help, our top hero accepted it and took half of them away with him." Monoma sighed and then looked up and across the hall where the repairman finished tweaking something with the tv. The guy pressed the power button on the side and the screen flashed on to life. Zach looked up too while Monoma finished, "Endeavor rushed back though and sent them to the stadium, while he went into Musutafu and, well," Monoma nodded at the screen where Endeavor's face appeared on half the screen in the middle of a press conference.

Endeavor looked pretty bloody and beaten, but he was standing tall in front of the cameras in the middle of Musutafu. Zach leaned up out of his seat with his eyes opening huge at the title he read on the bottom of the screen, and what he could see on the second half of it. "No way," Zach whispered, his face full of shock at what he was staring at. Monoma opened his eyes a little wider too, staring in surprise at one of the two figures being shown chained up on the second half of the screen about to be taken away.

"That guy, from the training camp," Monoma whispered, and he gulped thinking about the beast that smashed the wall down in their extra lessons' room.

"Ganeshi, and Twice," Zach whispered. "Both of them…" Zach's lips started curving up at the corners and he slouched down on the soft bench again. _Awesome. Great job, Endeavor…_ Zach's smile dipped a little, but he shook his head around and then stared closer at the screen as the camera showing Twice and Ganeshi started panning around. It cut to different camera angles too, and there were heroes all over Musutafu who had come from around the country.

 _Kamui Woods and Mount Lady helped take them down. Nice Mount Lady, I'm sure that must've felt great,_ Zach thought about the woman who Ganeshi had killed finally getting payback on him. _Though the mindless drone he turned into after taking so much Death into him, after coming out of that coma… well hopefully he remembered her. Either way, he's out of the game now. Both of them. And the Big Three from last year all came too!_ Zach saw Lemillion appear in one camera angle helping a group of civilians and smiled some more. _A lot of people died, but hundreds of villains were ultimately caught. The ones who ran are being hunted out of the city, I guess Kurogiri probably passed out from using Trigger like the rest of them and couldn't get them out of there. As much as it's terrible, the League took a-_ Zach's breathing started speeding up while he got out of his slouched position.

The maintenance man who had picked up his step-stool and started walking away froze. Monoma's breath caught in his throat, as someone shouted at Endeavor something that made the flaming hero in the press conference open his eyes huge. "I never even thought about it," Zach whispered, getting off of the bench and raising his hands up to the sides of his head. He started shaking in horror, and he heard someone scream down the hallway. Something crashed in a different room where he figured someone else was watching tv, and Zach heard Monoma gasp behind him as he finally found his breath.

"H-How?" Monoma whispered.

 _Why? I never even thought, why they would do this. They're villains. It's evil. It just made sense. Taking the ANTs could have been a reason, but even that just seemed ulterior. But why was Spinner in charge? Why didn't Shigaraki appear? I never even-_ Zach gasped and his eyes started shaking as the screen cut to another camera hundreds of miles from Musutafu. _This is, the absolute worst thing that could have happened. We're… we're so, so fu-_

 **Four Hours Ago**

"Oh man, oh man this is bad," a man with smooth black hair parted down the middle said as he stood in front of the television in a small control room. His slick hair was gelled so he was not running his hands up through it like one of his partners next to him who was scratching his head like crazy in a panic.

The guy with longer black hair who was scratching his head like a madman had to reach down and pull out his handkerchief to wipe the sweat from his face again. He wiped, then pulled his glasses off his head and wiped his sweat cloth around on the bridge of his nose too. When he put them back on he gasped as he saw a camera angle switch to show a skyscraper in Musutafu falling down. He took a step back, then he glanced at the guy next to him and whispered, "Invading a city? This isn't like- geez man, what are we going to do?"

"Well," the man with gelled hair said. He calmed himself down, patting his hands down his uniform and getting a more serious look on his face. "We just have to stay professional. You can be sure we're going to have a whole ton of work later, and for the next week considering how many villains the heroes are about to capture."

"If they win," the other guy said, but he straightened his uniform too and started nodding after saying that. "No, no you're right. We just have to stay calm. Everything's going to be-" The control room they were in started blinking red, and both of the men standing near the tv spun towards each other with terrified looks in their eyes.

"Open all doors," a mechanical female voice echoed through the control room. "Emergency evacuation procedure activated. All cell doors will open in ten seconds."

"What's happening?!" the man with glasses spun and sprinted towards a control panel behind him where their chairs were.

"Tom!" The man with gelled hair spun from his partner to another man farther back in the room who just jumped up from behind his computer ten feet away from their fourth guard who was a woman with long red hair. "Cancel the emergency procedure. Ally, call the police and say-" a knife flew across the room and into his throat, cutting off his orders. Ally and Kato who was turning back from the panel stared in shock at their guard post captain who reached up to his throat and stumbled backwards while trying to hold himself together. He pulled the knife out of his neck though, and blood splashed like a faucet up in the air.

"TOM!?" Ally spun to her right as she saw the man near her with his arm outstretched. He spun towards her and sprinted her way while pulling out another knife. His face twisted with a mad look, and Kato spun to the control panel and started typing fast even with blood all over his face. "Kato! Help me- AHH!" Ally got grabbed by her long red hair as she tried running and pulled back, and "Tom" looked down into her eyes while sliding a knife across her throat.

Kato lifted his right hand and brought it down to press on a button, but a knife flew through his wrist and he screamed while spinning around. Tom was walking towards him, but Tom was melting as he did it. The man walking his way was melting, only there was a different figure beneath the melting form who was smirking madly and started laughing at Kato's look of despair upon seeing her. "Hehehe! Kato-kun, what's wrong? I didn't think you were brave enough to try canceling it after seeing Ando get killed like that."

"H-H-Himiko, T-Toga," Kato stuttered out as he saw the crazy teenage girl walking towards him with a bloody knife in one hand. Kato rose his right hand and a steel spike started coming out of his palm, and then a bloody knife stuck into his left eye and straight into his brain at how fast Toga threw it.

Toga hummed happily to herself as Kato collapsed in front of her and down onto the controls. She turned her head to the left and looked up to see camera angles all over the prison where cells were opening up. Prison guards around the prison were spinning around in panic, and many of them started running for exits that they could separate themselves from the villains behind. "Uh uh uh!" Toga sang while pushing Kato's body to the side. She typed onto the control panel and started laughing as doors slammed shut, locking prison guards in cell blocks they had been patrolling. The guards pulled out their stun batons and shouted at each other and up at the cameras for help, while Toga brought up a hand to an earpiece in her right ear. "Tomura-kun! Tomura-kun! I did it!"

"Thank you, Toga," Shigaraki Tomura said. On one of the camera angles Toga was looking at, right in the middle of the prison's most secure floor, an enormous black portal opened up. Kurogiri appeared there looking like a monstrous mass of shadows spreading wide across the floor, but he was also panting and straining himself to the top of his abilities even on Trigger. Toga started laughing more as she saw Shigaraki step out of Kurogiri's body, followed by twenty of the most elite members of the League of Villains, and a hundred others who stormed by and into the prison.

"Sensei!" Shigaraki called out after stepping through the portal. "It's okay now, why?" Prison guards who were backing away from the army of villains appearing before them stared towards Shigaraki Tomura in horror as he started smirking behind the hand attached to his face. Shigaraki threw his arms out to the sides and shouted, "Because I am here!"

 **Present**

Zach Sazaki stared with his arms limp down at his sides at the hospital's television. The cameraman pointed towards the massive dark prison Tartaros, a prison covered in holes with bodies littered around the outside of it. There were some fire trucks there firing jets of water up at the prison, and Zach swore he saw blue flames beneath a black cloud on the far side of the prison. "There is no official statement yet regarding what exactly occurred here at Tartaros prison," the reporter in front of the camera began. "Though we have heard that there has been a massive breakout. A large number of the prison's staff has been killed, including the prison warden, but the vice warden has agreed to meet with us as soon as he's finished giving his report to the police."

"Lifebringer," a voice called down the hallway. Zach and Monoma spun their heads and looked down it to see a nurse calling towards them. They had no time to rest and let this new information sink in, and the two of them started jogging down towards the desk where the nurse was standing in front of. The head nurse behind the desk was a large woman who had light brown skin and both hands up to her mouth with a terrified look on her face while staring at the computer in front of her. The male nurse who called to them turned as they were nearing him, and he said, "Outside we just had someone crash. We didn't know the extent of their injuries, and two people who were air-lifted out to Tokyo Metro are being brought back here for you."

Zach froze for a second as he heard screaming behind him down another hospital corridor. He and Monoma spun around instead of chasing the male nurse outside, but the nurse spun and called to them that they had no time. "Listen, I'll get the guy outside first," Monoma started, a serious look on his face as he glanced down the hallway they heard that last scream. The blond thought for a second that maybe it was just someone else seeing the news, but he spotted a nurse and just another volunteering civilian pulling a screaming woman out of a room while two doctors ran inside yelling about a crash cart. Monoma put his right hand on Zach's shoulder to Copy his power, but then Zach grabbed Monoma by the wrist tightly before he could take his hand away.

"Be, careful," Zach warned in a stern voice. He leaned forward as Monoma started to smirk, and he glared daggers into the other boy's eyes to shut him up before he could say anything. "I have had my right hand hidden inside a glove for my entire life. If you accidentally bump into someone, if your finger even comes in contact with clothes that might be touching skin, anything," Zach leaned even farther forward while tightening his grip on Monoma's wrist. "This place is full of panicked nurses and doctors running around, not to mention scared people. You understand what I'm saying?" Monoma got a really nervous look on his face, and Zach finally let go of his wrist as that was the look he wanted to see Monoma have. "Don't accidentally kill anyone. You can't just bring them back if you do. Not when it's Death that killed them."

"I got it," Monoma told him, and he grabbed his own right wrist and held it close to his chest. He was careful not to actually touch his chest though and spread Death all over his body, and he gulped while looking down at the most dangerous Quirk he had ever Copied.

"We have to go, the helicopter will be here in five!" The nurse behind the two called to them, and the man knew that it took a lot out of them to bring people back. He knew it took a while, and the people being air-lifted back had already died too which meant the time-limit was running out. Monoma turned to the man and told him to lead the way, while Zach spun and ran for the hallway where the woman who had been screaming before had collapsed down to her knees outside the door.

 _Oh man. Alright. I can do this. Just one more. Every time, it's just one more. I just need to get through one more person._ Zach ran past the woman who lifted her head and then started back up on her feet as she saw him run right up to her father's bedside. The girl he ran by was younger than he had thought from a distance, and he realized she was probably the man's daughter once he saw the bald man with wrinkles on his face, and a huge wound in his right side where a piece of steel shrapnel was sticking out.

"Is he," Zach started, looking at a doctor who he had not seen yet and was looking back at him with wide eyes.

"I was, just about to call it," the young doctor said, as the others in the staff with him were heading out of the room as there were other places they needed to be.

"Get the shrapnel out," Zach said, shaking his head at the doctor. "I'll seal the wound fully so you don't need to worry about-"

"Lifebringer, you save him," the girl Zach had run past grabbed him by the back of his blue scrubs. Zach glanced back at her over his shoulder, and he saw a furious look on the college girl's face. "You better save him," she said, a desperate and threatening look on her face that unnerved Zach.

"Yeah," Zach replied, nodding at her and then pulling forward to get out of her hold. He walked up to the man who the doctor removed the piece of shrapnel from, and he checked the man's pulse himself just to make doubly sure he was not going to just kill an almost dead man. _Okay. I can do this. I'm reaching the limit, of how many I can save. At least back when I was Lifebringer- No! I_ _ **AM**_ _Lifebringer! But, back with the villains I hit a limit. A maximum. And I haven't trained to up that maximum in… It doesn't matter. I'll do it. I'll do it because I have to._ Zach lowered his right hand to the man's chest and slid his fingers out of his glove when he was just touching him.

"Ahh haaa, ahhh haaAA! AHHhh," Zach cursed mentally and brought his left hand over to his right wrist. The woman behind him stepped closer and yelled at him not to let go, but Zach yelled back, "Don't get closer!" His right arm turned black from his hand up under his scrubs' sleeve, and he heaved and wheezed for a few seconds as he felt his insides ripping apart. _Focus on something else. I can't do this! IT HURTS!_ "AHH!" Zach screamed, then he snapped his head to the left and looked towards the corner of the room where there was a small tv he barely noticed before.

"…and how is it that you and the rest of the staff made it out of there? Mr. Ryusuke, these are the worst villains of our time-"

"You are mistaken, Miss. The 'rest' of the staff did not make it out. A great deal of our coworkers laid down their lives attempting to stop the villains from escaping, and they succeeded in stopping many." The vice warden on the screen being interviewed paused after saying it, and the reporter apologized for suggesting anything different. Then Ryusuke lifted a hand and he rubbed his forehead where there were many wrinkles despite him looking like a man in his mid-thirties. "As for how those of us who escaped managed to do so, we owe it to the heroes who did arrive on the scene…"

 **Three and a Half Hours Ago**

"What's wrong with Kurogiri?" Shooter asked while stepping towards Dabi.

Dabi had their Warp Gate tossed over his shoulder with his yellow eyes closed, and he said to the villain he had not seen since November when the man got arrested, "New Trigger. Less side effects during, but it makes you tired. If some people could have escaped faster, maybe he still would have been conscious when we were supposed to be escaping."

"Wait! Wait Shigaraki please!" Shatterer backed up with holes in his arms and legs from where Shooter lit him up. He hit a wall and had a terrified look in his eyes as he pushed himself against it. He spun left and right and called out, "Damian! Kratos! Asgard! Help me!"

Shigaraki Tomura reached down while the former War Boys did nothing to stop him, just watching as their gang leader who got them all arrested got a hand wrapped around his face. "Shh shh," Shigaraki said while Shatterer whimpered into his hand. Shigaraki Tomura smirked behind the gray hand attached to his own face like he was grabbing Shatterer's now. "I'm not going to kill you," Shigaraki said in a soft voice, as if the idea was laughable.

"R-Really?" Shatterer asked in shock.

"No," Shigaraki replied in just as soft a tone, and his lips twisted up right as Shatterer started Decaying into dust. Shigaraki then stood up and turned towards Dabi, "Dabi, our secondary transport here yet?"

"Arriving now," Dabi said. "Let's get out there." Sirens were going off and red lights were flashing through the floor they were on. Prisoners were running wild all over the place, but the League of Villains who had infiltrated the prison started shouting for everyone to hear.

"Listen up!"

"We're leaving this shit-hole, right now!"

"Our ride is here boys!"

"Let's end this with a bang!"

"Should we take some of these hostages with us?" A villain who had been locked away in Tartaros for ten years called towards Shigaraki, lifting up a female prison guard by the back of her neck. He had spikes sticking out of his skin on many different places, and the guard could feel small spikes coming out of the palm of his hand ready to be extended farther and straight through her throat.

"Take her!" Damian yelled, a mad look on his face. He licked his lips and the guard suddenly did not think getting impaled through the back of her neck was the worst thing that could happen. Tomura was playing it smart though, and he also nodded towards the villain who started dragging the guard with him to the exit.

The villain dragging the struggling guard was a tall man at nine feet tall and had a long mane of red hair as well as a long red beard that he had not trimmed once since getting to prison. He swung her up and slammed down, before dragging her head back up in front of him as their massive group started heading outside. "I don't know if you remember, sweetheart. But you zapped me with that stun baton of yours four years and sixty eight days ago." The woman's eyes opened huge as the spiky and hairy villain leaned his face closer to hers and smiled a mouth full of sharp teeth. "I have been waiting for this-"

The woman in his arms was pulled one way, while a thin line went through his neck and he started collapsing to the floor. Hordes of villains coming out of Tartaros stopped in their tracks and stared forward with wide eyes. Many of them stopped, others bared their teeth and started using their Quirks, but more stepped backwards with nervous looks on their faces as the hero appeared before them.

"When I heard about the invasion, I knew something was off." Shinya Kamihara stood with his left foot slightly more forward than his right. His hands were down at his sides, his silver hair spiked up twice over his head and once down in front of the right side of his face. He wore an all red and blue costume that made him look mysterious, and he said, "As a ninja, I know about misdirection well. And as the number four hero," Edgeshot glared forward at the villains who eased back more at the eyes he showed them. "I will not let you destroyers break out of prison. None of us will."

Farther back at one of the guard posts, a pair of heroes wearing matching costumes stepped out from behind a wall with another girl struggling between them. Mandalay and Pixie Bob had Himiko Toga tied up, and Toga started shouting towards the others who she saw behind the front line of random prisoners and grunts who had come out of the prison. Nearby, Tora had the female guard Edgeshot had pulled away who he grabbed and ran over towards some other prison staff the heroes had saved. The man in the costume of a cat like his female teammates turned and glared towards the villains while standing between them and the would-be hostages. "Get out of here and call in more support," Tora said out the corner of his mouth, something the vice warden sitting behind him heard and opened his eyes wide at the sound of.

"E-Everyone, let's move," Adam Ryusuke said, getting back to his feet and calling to the rest of the staff near him who were terrified and crying and injured.

"Edgeshot," Shigaraki Tomura started, scratching at his neck while walking back out of the prison that he had stayed behind in while others had been heading out. "What are you doing here? Shouldn't you be heading to Musutafu? There are so many people in danger right now who need a hero's help," Shigaraki scratched harder at Edgeshot's glare, then Shigaraki stopped for a second and glared so much harder at the hero in front of him. "Where's our extraction, hero?"

"Your ships will not be arriving," Edgeshot said. The villains glared harder at the hero who glared right back and declared, "You will not be leaving this prison, Shigaraki Tomura. Thank you for saving us the trouble of hunting you down." Edgeshot rose his hands as the villains started moving forward, most of them snarling and despising the aspect of going back to their cells.

"That's impressive. As to be expected of a hero of your caliber." A deep voice came out of the prison behind Shigaraki, and the prisoners and League of Villains' members all over started moving aside. One prisoner in particular did not look back with as much fear or reverence as the rest of them, and Stain just kept glaring forward at the heroes gathered before them. Edgeshot was only focused on one villain now though, the only one there who scared him though he did not let it show on his stoic face. "But Edgeshot. Against so many villains. What is it that you and the Pussycats think you can do?" All For One stepped out behind Shigaraki who turned with a small smile at his sensei.

Edgeshot's body turned thin and it rose up high in an instant with his upper half coming out of the thin line that just shot up. "We will stop you all!"

 **Present**

"…Edgeshot and the other heroes fought bravely, and more hero reinforcements showed up through the fight. As the top prison officer still present, I had to make sure everyone else was out first so I stayed behind. When I was about to go though, as more heroes were arriving, All For One…" Ryusuke trailed off for a second and gulped, making the reporter and the cameraman very nervous at his facial expression. Ryusuke looked at the camera hesitantly like he did not want to go on, but he did continue, "He activated the unconscious Kurogiri's Quirk, creating a portal that every villain who could move ran through. Edgeshot tried to stop them, but he was hurt from all the fighting, after stopping so many villains- and Stain, Stain got him."

Zach gasped as he stared at the screen, the same time the others in the room with him did while staring at the television in shock. "And, they freed Himiko Toga from her binds. In order to save a fellow hero, Tora got in the way of an attack," Adam Ryusuke was trying to make the heroes sound as heroic as he could, even though he knew everything he was saying was spreading despair to the people watching. He needed to finish, and he just said in a low voice, "Not all of the villains escaped. A number were restrained by Pixie Bob's Earthbeasts, and even more were killed by the League of Villains themselves. We are currently repairing the prison as fast as we can to prepare for the hundreds of villains captured earlier…"

Zach was so caught up in what he was watching that he almost missed the moment where he felt the man he had his right hand on come back to life. He felt it and gasped again, but this time while looking away from the screen. The young woman behind him spun back too, and she sprinted to the bedside this time and leaned over the bald man, "Father! Father!" The man whose eyes were fluttering open turned his head a bit and looked at his daughter who was crying tears of joy onto him.

The boy in blue scrubs took in a deep breath as he pulled his hand back and slid his fingers into his glove again. He was panting but had a small smile on his face as he looked down at the man who his daughter started embracing. _That's… good…_ Zach panted harder, but he took in another deep breath and tried calming himself, while the doctor who had stayed in the room during this decided he needed to check on this patient who was suddenly back to life.

The older man lying on the bed started closing his eyes again with a feeling of exhaustion washing over him. His head started tilting back, then he heard a voice saying, "It's natural." His daughter had looked worried, but she turned to the voice and the man opened his closing eyes a little more to see someone at the foot of his bed. "Everyone gets pretty tired after. Some people, don't even open their eyes for more than a second-" The man snapped up on his bed and reached forward, grabbing the teen by the front of his scrubs with a panicked and angry expression on his face.

"You!" The man shouted, and the doctor just about to check on him leaned away with a nervous expression. Zach also had wide eyes as the guy was tightening his grip in his scrubs looking furious. "My wife!" He shouted, and the girl on the bed's other side as the doctor pursed her lips and then closed her eyes as tears started filling them again.

"Y-Your wife?" Zach asked. He started panting harder, and he asked, "Is she, is she here? Is she hurt-"

"She's dead!" The man yelled. "You have to, you have to bring her back! Please!" Zach's lips started trembling as the man looked into his eyes from up close. "What's wrong?! Go find her!"

"She's, back at our," the daughter started. "The building it… Heroes couldn't get her out in time, and her body should-"

"How long?" Zach whispered.

"That doesn't matter!" the man yelled, pulling Zach closer in and pressing the boy up against the edge of his bed. "You _have_ to save her! This, this is your fault!" Zach bit down on his bottom lip and tried pulling back, but the older man was stronger than he looked and pulled him even closer. "It was, all about you! That's why!" The guy had tears in his eyes, and Zach tried pulling away harder as his eyes shot open much wider. "Go save her. Go! You have to! It's your fault!"

The daughter who had been looking at Zach as angrily as her father was when he first came into the room lifted a hand towards her dad. She looked over him and towards the television in the corner of the room as she thought about what she had just seen. "I, I'm sorry," Zach whispered, and he pushed the man's hand off of the scrubs. The young woman in her early twenties about to speak to her dad turned at the sound of that cracking voice, and she looked to see the teen panting even harder as he stumbled back from the bed. "It wasn't my fault," Zach said, his eyes narrowing and looking furious. The man started crying though, even as he yelled angrily at Zach and the boy couldn't keep that look on his own shaking face. "I'm sorry, I can't save her…"

 _I, I have to get to the people being air-lifted. Their time limits,_ Zach spun and he ran for the door, bumping into the edge of it on his way out. He clenched his eyes shut as he heard the old man behind him shouting out 'Lifebringer' in such an angry way. _I just saved your life! Damn it, damn it!_ Zach shook his head around and snapped his eyes open as he heard voices and realized he was about to run into people. "Are the helicopters here?" He asked, spinning to the head nurse who was still hyperventilating from what she saw on the news.

"Listen to me," Zach said, leaning over the desk to look at the large woman who brought her head up. Zach smiled with sweat all over his face, his face looking more pale than two minutes ago when she last saw him. "It's okay now. Those villains aren't going to do anything else today, and you need to focus alright? Please?" He asked hopefully, and the woman lowered her hands from her mouth that she was breathing into heavily while leaning back on her chair. "Now is the helicopter here yet? There are recently dead people on it I could bring back."

"Ch-Check out front. The helipad on the roof is busted so there are platforms out there. Just look around-"

"I know where they are," Zach said, turning from the desk and running off. It did not seem like the nurse knew what was going on, but he hoped that maybe she would refocus after that brief pep talk. _Are they- now!_ He heard whirring sounds of helicopter blades as he jogged down a hallway, avoiding people running back and forth different directions. _Monoma better not have bumped anyone._ Zach was keeping his own right hand from doing the same, even though he had his black glove on anyway.

Zach ran outside and kept panting while watching a helicopter lower down up ahead of him. Kimiko Honda was not far in front of the hospital over at a makeshift station for people who were hurt badly but not badly enough to need to be brought inside the cramped hospital. She spun as someone mentioned Lifebringer, and she called out, "Head to the helicopter. It's already been over twenty minutes for each of them."

"Where's Monoma?" Zach called back to her.

"Sazaki," a different voice called over, and he turned to see the male nurse from before looking his way. Zach looked past that man and to a cot lying next to one where there was a man covered in his own blood. Zach started jogging over, and a look of dread spread over his face as he saw the blond-haired boy unconscious on the bed next to that man drenched in blood. "He finished first," the nurse said as Zach opened his mouth while looking at the other patient. "Right after he finished though, he started to collapse. He just warned me not to touch his hand then passed out."

 _Nice,_ Zach thought, though he could not give Monoma a bigger compliment. Not when he had to turn his head to the left and look at a helicopter lowering down with two fatalities inside. _They're both nearing the time limit,_ Zach thought, his breath speeding up and a more panicked look spreading over his face. _And this long, it's going to take longer to bring them back. It'll hurt more. It'll take more out of me, and it'll be harder anyway because I'm already so… I can't! I need your help!_ Zach spun back and said, "Monoma, get up. Get up man," Zach kicked forward into the bottom of Monoma's left foot, lightly and without much effort as he was not trying too hard.

"Hey, Sazaki are you," the nurse stepped closer to the boy whose eyes had half-closed as he kicked his friend in the foot.

"I'm fine," Zach whispered, turning the opposite direction as the nurse and heading towards the helicopter. He heard someone in that direction call out for him, and he brought his left hand up to his mouth and cupped it there. "Over here! I'm on my way!" Zach rose both hands to his head and smacked himself in the cheeks a couple of times. His blurring vision refocused, then he slowed down and took some deep breaths. _Whoa whoa. I'm acting too much like I'm on my last legs. I have to do better than this. I can't just reach my limit. I have to go beyond that, PLUS ULTRA!_ Zach screamed it in his head and then started jogging towards the landed helicopter where some people were being unloaded onto the flat ground around it.

"Who died first?" Zach asked in as steady a voice he could muster, which still made the EMTs who just arrived look at him hesitantly. His voice and his appearance were not giving them much confidence, but Zach said at their looks, "Don't worry. I can do this. Now who was the first one?" He asked. _That's how I'll make the decision. It's easier this way. Then I'm not choosing-_

"They were at about the same time in different parts of the hospital. We heard you were here," one of the EMTs who was speaking trailed off at Zach's frustrated look after her response. "What?" She asked.

"Just, just tell me which one was first," Zach said in a hoarse voice. A couple of other people jumped off the helicopter too, two people who looked worried and separated from each other to move to one of the lowered deceased people each. Zach panted harder as the two of them looked at him and gained nervous looks. They each shot each other looks too, then they spun to him and started yelling that their 'husband' or 'girlfriend' was first.

"It's chaos over there too," the second EMT who was an older woman than the one who was just speaking started. "Calling out times, we're not too sure if they're accurate… Lifebringer, are you alright?"

"I'm fine," Zach said, and he started walking towards the woman who was the younger of the two deceased. "I'll get to him in a minute," Zach promised while glancing at the older woman bent down next to her husband. "I promise. I'll save him too," Zach said, and he removed the option of passing out afterwards with that statement. He lowered next to the woman in her late twenties who had a crushed right arm and shredded left thigh that had bled too much before she was able to get help.

"You can really, bring her back?" The girl's boyfriend asked, a scared but hopeful look in his eyes as he faced the boy bending down over his girlfriend. "I, I was going to propose tomorrow," he said, his lips trembling as the boy looked up into his eyes. "She's my, everything," he whispered.

"Stand back," Zach said. He brought his right hand over and grabbed it by the wrist tightly as he could feel it already shaking. The idea of putting himself in that much pain again, the pain he kept going through over and over today, it was making his body hesitate. Zach's hands shook, then he pushed down his right into the woman's chest right above her breasts. He pressed down and winced as his hand turned black immediately. His fingers sticking out of the glove darkened, and up his sleeve too in a second. Her right arm was so badly destroyed, that the entire blue sleeve of Zach's scrubs on his right arm started ripping apart only seconds into it. He still managed to hold out from screaming for ten seconds, then his head snapped back and he screamed so loud that his voice gave out.

Zach gasped as his scream scraped his vocal cords, but as he tried taking in a breath, he felt something ripping apart his insides. He hunched over and his face turned blue as he was out of breath but could not breathe in. "Aaaoooaahhhh!" He managed to suck in breath then he yelled again, though his voice came out scratchy and not nearly as loud. "Aahh, Aaaahhhh!" His right sleeve pulled apart even more as rips of black pulled out of his arm and sliced through it. Zach's eyes were bloodshot, and he could not think of anything except for the pain. _NO! DON'T!_ He felt himself fading. _There are still, so many people!_ Tears filled his eyes and he gasped instead of screaming out again, even as the pain continued. _"Your fault!" It's not. It's not my fault. But, but even so, I still feel responsible. No that's not it. I just, I just want to save them!_ Zach pressed his right hand down more, biting down his teeth and falling forward onto his right arm so hard that he was pressing down into the woman's lungs with his whole body weight.

And then he felt it. Zach collapsed down on top of the woman, and his arm started losing its black color. He was gasping for breath, and he made sure to pull his fingers back into his glove as the boyfriend dove forward too and started shaking his girlfriend to try and wake her up. Zach was on his stomach over her, but he lowered his left arm to the ground at her side. His right arm felt like mush after all the pain he just felt in it. The girl's right arm had looked like his arm felt now, but he ignored that while lifting his head and staring a few feet away towards a man lying flat on his back. He had a peaceful look on his face, unlike the woman on her knees next to him who started staring at Zach with huge eyes at the expression on the boy's face and the tears of blood coming down from his eyes.

Zach dragged himself forward, sliding his knees up under his body and maneuvering away from the woman he just brought back to life. _I can do it. There's no limit. I just need to, bring everyone back. Make everyone happy. Save everyone!_ Zach coughed while sliding himself forward more on his knees and left hand. "Get back," he whispered to the woman he glanced up at. _I have to._ He brought himself right up to the guy's side, and he lifted his right arm with as much strength as he could and placed his palm on the man's chest.

"Lifebringer, you're going to kill yourself," Dr. Honda said, and Zach glanced up for a second as he did not even know she was there.

"I'll be fine," Zach said, looking back down at his palm that was resting on the patient's chest. He stared at his palm in confusion for a few seconds, then his eyes shot open wide and his blurred vision cleared. Zach brought his left hand to his right wrist and pushed down harder, focusing harder and biting down as he glared at his right hand. _What the-_ _Why isn't?! The time limit can't have passed! Not, not in that short a time!_ A desperate look spread on Zach's face, and he groaned while leaning his body harder forward onto his right hand, pushing his fingers farther out of the glove though the people around him could see his fingers were not turning black this time. _No. Not because I, I chose her first. Not, I didn't, I couldn't have,_ tears built up in Zach's eyes, and he groaned while putting even more pressure on his right arm.

"Save him," the woman on the man's other side whispered. "Please," she said, her voice getting louder. "Lifebringer. Please save him."

"I'm, trying," Zach gasped. He started coughing, then he snapped down, "Come on! Come on work! Why, why isn't it- WHY?! AHHH!" Zach clenched his right hand down harder, and he clenched his teeth and eyes and roared while pushing his palm into the man's chest. "WORK! The time, it's not too late!" If the woman he just saved had died around the same time as this man, he knew he could do it. He knew it was a matter of willpower, and he yelled, "I can do this! I can! Ahh! AHHH!" His whole body felt so exhausted that he knew it was messing with his head. Everything was spinning in his vision as he snapped his eyes open huge and yelled at the man he was trying to bring back.

The woman kneeling across from Zach stared down at her husband's peaceful face with a trembling expression of her own. She bit down on her bottom lip, and then she turned and said, "Does, does it still work, if you've already brought someone back before?"

Zach froze. His mouth froze open while everyone around turned to the woman who just asked him that. Zach stared at his hands with his look shaking violently, his eyes filling with more water as he wheezed out such a hard breath. "What?" He whispered, his head turning a little so he could look up at the man's face again. "I did?" He asked, falling backwards onto his butt. He stared straight at the man's face and that look on it, and he did not recognize it at all. "I, I didn't remember," he whispered. "How couldn't I remember?" The tears welling in Zach's eyes came out and slid down his face, and he brought his left hand up to the side of his head looking so distraught as he turned back to the woman who just asked him that, whose face was filling with despair. "I, I'm sorry. I- can't do it again."

"Please, you have to try," she said, even as tears poured out of her eyes as she had just seen him trying.

"It's not, how my Quirk works," Zach whispered.

 **Eight Months Ago**

"What's wrong?"

"I don't know," Zach responded, sitting up from his hunched-over position knelt next to a sheep's body. He glanced at the man next to him with spiky black hair and a patchy appearance, and he said, "Is there something different about this one than the last one I brought back?"

"No," Dabi replied. "The opposite. This was the same one," Dabi motioned with a nod down at the sheep he killed in the same exact way he did the first time. "Guess you can't bring something back twice." Zach smiled as he looked back down at the sheep himself, and Dabi muttered, "What's with that look? Figured this'd make you feel pretty depressed."

"Well now," Zach began. He stood up and shrugged, then he turned and said, "We can't just kill and bring back the same sheep over and over. I know it's mean to the other animals, but just torturing the same one over and over again seems worse to me. I think this sheep's probably glad to just have to die twice…"

 **Present**

 _I was wrong. This, this is,_ Zach's face scrunched up and he pulled back onto his knees. He lowered his head when he started moving his hand back, clenching that hand into a fist and just whispering, "I'm sorry. Sorry. Sorry. Sorry."

The older woman in her fifties leaned back and sucked in a huge breath at that look of resignation. She heard the boy apologizing with his head bowed, and she lowered her own head and looked down at her husband's body. She stared at his face that looked so peaceful, despite what his chest and legs looked like. "I love you," she whispered. The woman leaned down over his face and put her lips on his forehead, tears still spilling out of her eyes even as she smiled and said goodbye.

"Sorry, sorry, I'm sorry, sor-" Zach's mouth froze open and his eyes opened huge. The top of his head was pushing into something soft, and he felt two arms around his back. "Wh-What?" He whispered, lifting his head a bit and seeing the clothes of the woman who had come over from the other side of her husband.

"Thank you," she whispered, and Zach was shocked as he heard the tears on the woman's face. He could tell she was crying, and he didn't know why she was thanking him. "Thank you, for giving my husband another 8 months to live." Zach looked up more and then lifted his left arm as he felt her arms shaking on his back. He put his arm around her back and hugged her too, and he closed his eyes as he heard her continue, "He had a brain tumor and was already suffering a lot from it. That's why, we think, he walked right into a busy street that day. He must have been delirious, but then when you brought him back, he was back to his old self again. He was like a new man. The tumor was gone, and we- we lived our lives to the fullest this past year."

Zach closed his eyes again and let out a deep slow breath. "So thank you, young man. For giving us some more time together…" Zach didn't realize how close he was at that moment when he closed his eyes, but he was unconscious before he even heard the woman finish her sentence.

As he was fading into unconsciousness though, he did hear a couple of voices calling out to him together, "Zach!" His mouth curled into a small smile at the sound of them, but it didn't stop him from passing out.

* * *

 **A/N Thanks for reading! Tartaros prison break?! Edgeshot?! Tora?! Zach can't bring people back twice?! Lots of developments this chapter. We find out where the rest of the League of Villains were during the invasion in Musutafu, the reason the person at the end of the last chapter alluded to when talking about how they were making a big commotion with the attack. I hope y'all enjoyed the chapter! Leave a review below telling me what you think or predictions for the coming ones!**

Shadowjab17 chapter 64 . 23h ago

Screw off.

 **Aw come on. It was pretty funny. Though admittedly your review after 63 made me regret it... just a little bit though :P I'm glad Zach is compared to Liam Neeson though!**

D-Koy24 chapter 64 . 17h ago

*tick mark appears on forehead* Well atleast there's more to come, but I don't think many people enjoyed being played like that *cracks knuckles* (Inner me: Oi! Let me at em! The punk... [I might be younger and weaker than you so this is my rage talking ;)]... thinks he's funny eh? Just give me minutes please!) but I am glad the ship has a chance (inner me: Ey I dare you to try that again!) and I really want it to.  
Okay ignore everything I said above... I think trolling us was a bit naughty and I can't say I wouldn't do it... Nah I'd defiantly do it. Yay Toga! Our favourite psycho-knife wielding villian that's a highschool girl (don't deny you're into it) and I think what would've made the troll even more effective was making to story a complete, oh man but I'm glad you're back and death get to live on... wait what?  
As always, looking forward to the next chapter... hopefully it involves a certain tall girl and a certain short boy...? *

 **Lol had a little too much fun with that. Glad you enjoyed the chapter... though what you said about Toga last time, we see where she really was during the invasion now so that definitely wasn't her at the stadium. The person said it too, that Aizawa was canceling their Quirk so he knew it wasn't Toga even though that's what he said. Aizawa just didn't want to believe who the "student" in front of them really was... ;) No Zach and Momo this time (which I'm assuming are the tall girl and short boy) but who could be shouting his name there at the end? Thanks for the review!**

GDawg4826 chapter 64 . 9h ago

You jackass, I was starting to get worried the ship had really sunk! Glad that it's not over tho, would've been really pissed off if you just ended it like that. Once again, you've written an awesome chapter that leaves me wanting more! Can't wait for the next chapter, I already know it's gonna be a good one!

 **Thanks! Glad you liked the chapter, and are happy Death is continuing on! Hope you enjoyed the new one!**

Momozaki chapter 64 . 22h ago

YEEEEEES  
You fucking troll  
I love you

 **YES! Haha, back at it. Thanks for the review!**

Toxic chapter 64 . 22h ago

BRUH that was actually funny what you did i bet you can feel the anger from people at what you did

 **Yeah... (couple people don't seem to think it was as funny, but... XD) Glad most of you took the joke well though haha. Thanks for the review! Hope you enjoyed the new chapter!**

Guest chapter 64 . 20h ago

...YEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!  
Wait, Snipe is dead?...NNNNNNNOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

 **Oh yeah, it's back! Thanks for the review, but Snipe! And, well... Snipe's not the only one... Again, thanks everybody for reading and I hope you all enjoyed the chapter!**


	66. Chapter 66

**A/N I don't own Boku no Hero Academia**

 **Chapter 66:**

Eijiro Kirishima sat up on a cot and rolled his neck to either side with a couple of cracks. He looked around him and his expression became grim as he remembered where he was, and he was quick to stand up and get into a more focused state. He looked towards an area on the side of all the cots where he saw a pile of U.A. gym clothes, and he headed over to grab a blue shirt that would fit him. He glanced around while putting the shirt on, spotting others from his class still laying unconscious around the area. _Bakugo's gonna need surgery someone said. Why's he still here then?_ Kirishima looked away from his friend to try and look for someone to talk to about that.

As Kirishima looked around, he realized there were not many people around who looked in charge of the situation. _Recovery Girl's still asleep,_ he thought, and he reached up a hand and started rubbing over his shirt where he felt a shallow wound from earlier when he was shot. He brought that hand to his forehead next, but he was careful when rubbing around the white bandage on his forehead. There were over fifty people still on the flat cement surface up at the top of the Sports Festival stadium's south wall. Only three of them were standing like him, two of them going around helping injured who were not asleep, while one was just a hero who glanced back upon seeing him move around. The woman got back to guarding the area with a serious expression suggesting to Kirishima she did not want to be bothered by stupid questions.

"Hey, Class B," Kirishima called over to the two boys who were moving between cots and checking on all the patients there. Kosei Tsuburaba and Hiryu Rin turned towards Kirishima who finished putting on a shirt to cover his muscular torso. There was someone Kirishima did not see in the area whose cot was taken up by someone else, but although that made him a little nervous, he had made sure the other boy was alright before passing out in the first place. "Either of you see where Zach went?"

Rin glanced at Tsuburaba and shrugged, but the other boy with short and spiky brown hair turned his head and looked out past the huge hole in the wall near them. "Yeah. He and Monoma headed over to the hospital as soon as he woke up." Tsuburaba looked back and added, "If you're planning on heading out to help, go mention something to Cementoss sensei at the base camp at the bottom of the steps. He might have something he wants you to do instead."

"Oh, thanks," Kirishima said, as that was some pretty useful information. He rolled his arms a couple of times and then headed for the long cement steps leading down to a much larger cleared area down below. Kirishima froze when he reached the top of the steps, because he was not expecting the enormous crowd he saw down there that he was going to have to walk down to. There were media vans and helicopters parked nearby, pro heroes all over the place, and other students running around. An area was set aside with heroes guarding it and standing close to the doctors working on villains who were hurt badly. Black vans and buses were gathered not far from there, and one prison bus started leaving to take the villains to a holding facility being set up to hold the terrorists while Tartaros was being repaired and upgraded.

There was an eating area established not far from where Kirishima spotted Cementoss, looking like it was built by the teacher down there who was coordinating efforts with Ectoplasm. Kirishima did not see the principal anywhere, nor any of his other teachers, so he started heading down the steps to talk to Cementoss. _Really want to go see how Zach's doing. If he went straight to the hospital, it's probably to bring back people still dying…_ Kirishima frowned thinking about how much Zach screamed when he brought back Shoji, and the pain that covered Monoma's face which he saw from close-up as Monoma brought Zach back to life a few hours ago. _Doing that over and over again. At least he has Monoma to help him this time, not like those months of him doing it on his own._

Kirishima looked up as he headed down the stairs, staring towards the eating area where he saw a few students in Class A sitting around. He spotted both of the others who he had his fight with back during the final round of the tournament, and he called down to them while speeding up his descent on the stairs. Uraraka and Yaoyorozu were sitting with Ashido, Sero, Koda, and Mineta and eating some food that Lunch Rush whipped up for them to give them some more energy. Their group looked over to see Kirishima jogging their way with a bandage on the left side of his forehead wrapped up over his red spiky hair, but he was smiling and looking fine to them which they were glad to see.

"I'm starving," Kirishima said as he reached the table, only realizing it as he smelled the great food. He had not eaten since before his fight in the finals earlier, just like his two opponents in it who had tired themselves out before the Sports Festival even got attacked. Yaoyorozu was eating tons at the moment to make sure that if anything else bad happened, she would have a ton of food to be able to sustain her Quirk with. "It's like Aizawa sensei said before the finals," Kirishima said while plopping down on Sero's right side. "About fights happening one after the other. Just hope we've got the night at least," Kirishima reached across the table and grabbed one of Yaoyorozu's plates.

She looked like she was going to complain for a second, then she just hummed and continued eating faster. Yaoyorozu had only gotten up herself thirty minutes ago, after having stayed up an hour later than most of her classmates who fought Inhuman with her. She had created many of the bandages that covered her classmates and others still up at the injury area on top of the stadium before finally reaching her limit and passing out on a cot not far from where Zach had been. _Why did you run off like that? I know, it's to save people. Still you should have woken us up and said something. Your eyes barely opened when Monoma…_ Yaoyorozu shook her head and gulped before reaching forward and grabbing more to shove in her mouth, despite already being way too full.

"You seem, in an oddly good mood," Sero mentioned as he continued eating in a more serious and grim mood. Kirishima stopped grinning as he chowed down, and he glanced around before regaining a more serious demeanor himself. "Not that that's a bad thing," Sero said as he saw Kirishima's expression darken. "Your head doing okay?" He added with a nod up at Kirishima's forehead.

"Barely feel it," Kirishima replied. He reached up a free hand and rubbed his chest, adding, "Could use some of Recovery Girl's treatment though. Hopefully she's up to help everyone soon." Kirishima turned his head to the right and he chewed faster before getting back out of his seat. "Oh yeah, hey Cementoss sensei," he started moving towards the teacher who turned the red-haired student's way instead of walking towards the media circus he was in the middle of dealing with. Cementoss was actually glad he had another moment before having to go over there, and he just nodded at the student who he defeated back during the final exams of the first term. "Do you need me to do anything? Or can I go head to the hospital?" Kirishima asked the second part in a more optimistic tone like he was hoping to be free, and Cementoss rose a hand to his head and rubbed the side of it while sighing.

"What, is it not okay?" Kirishima asked.

"I can't just let everyone go there," Cementoss said. "You're the fifth person to ask now, and I've already made some promises-"

"Cementoss sensei!" a voice called behind the gray teacher. Cementoss looked back, and Kirishima moved to the side a bit to look past him at the blond boy running over looking exhausted with sweat all over his face. Denki Kaminari wiped off some sweat from his forehead and then said, "So I ran those walkies downtown to Fat Gum and Fourth Kind, and they said to tell you that the fifteenth, um, quadrant? They said it's been cleared of civilians and that they're moving over to help Midnight sensei at the twenty-first." Kaminari looked down at his right arm, on his right wrist where he had some notes written down in red marker. "Oh yeah, and there's a bridge that's really unstable they wanted you to go check out. Ms. Joke's over there on what was like, thirteenth street near Capricio's Pizzeria. Though that's not there anymore- but they said the pizzeria's sign is being used as a marker."

Kaminari panted really hard while sliding his blue sleeve back down over the marks on his skin. He looked up and with a hopeful look at Cementoss, then he glanced to the side at Kirishima and said, "Oh hey."

"You're, hard at work," Kirishima said in surprise, not expecting that from the blond. "Wait, Fat Gum and Fourth Kind are both here?" Kirishima was surprised to hear that the heroes he had interned with both in the spring and fall were there. Then he lifted his head and looked out towards Musutafu's destroyed skyline where less than half of the tallest buildings were still standing, and he thought in a more grim way, _All the heroes in the country are probably here right now. I wonder how many people…_

"Alright, you can go to the hospital. But if there's nothing you can do there to help, come back here," Cementoss said the last part half-heartedly as he doubted there would be nothing to do to help at a hospital right now. _Even just regular volunteers would be a lot of help._ "The power's out through most of the city. Try to figure something out with that if you can," Cementoss said it and Kaminari's eyes opened wide as he had not even thought about that.

 _Get the power on?_ Kaminari wondered. _How am I supposed to do that?_

"Kaminari, I could help with that," Yaoyorozu shot out of her seat. She looked towards Cementoss who was in the middle of turning around, and Cementoss paused to look at the tall girl with a spiky black ponytail whose cheeks were still puffed out. "No offense to Kaminari, but I think I would be able to do more to get the power back. With Kaminari's help it could go faster, and I could create generators," Yaoyorozu came up with it on the spot but started nodding to herself at her quick thinking. "Perhaps the hospital is using a lot of power-"

"Alright, you can go too. Only the two of you though," Cementoss looked back at Kirishima who opened his mouth to complain. "If you've finished eating, then go with those four to sector twenty-six. There are a large number of civilians trapped underground and rescue operations are taking a while because of the precarious nature of where they're trapped." Cementoss looked towards Uraraka who he did not include in the 'four' he had mentioned, and he said, "Uravity."

Uraraka froze and looked at the teacher in surprise at him using her hero name. "Don't push yourself. I know your power would be of use here, but your left leg is broken. Recovery Girl will have my head if I let you move around any further in this state."

"But I-"

"It's okay Uraraka," Kirishima said towards the short girl with brown hair. He rose his right fist and said with a serious expression, "We'll take care of it." Mineta, Sero, Koda, and Ashido all agreed with Kirishima then started heading off, though Kirishima had to ask where the sector they were going to was.

Uraraka watched them all running off, and she frowned but slouched back into her seat. She poked at the food in front of her but started staring out into the city. _Deku._ In her head she saw the curly-haired boy when the rest of them were passing out one after the other when they heard how Monoma had brought Zach back to life. _"Not yet. I, I have to see. Mom…" I hope she's alright, Deku. No one's heard from you since._

* * *

Zach opened his eyes and stared up at the ceiling in a dark room. He was laying on a bed, and he started sitting up in confusion while looking around him. On his right side was a wall with blinds shut though some light coming in from the other side, shadows passing occasionally showing people moving back and forth in the hallway through that window. Ahead of him was a doorway also with blinds pulled down over it, though there was another window next to the door where the blinds were down but twisted so it was easy to see through the wide cracks between them. The hallway outside of those blinds was dark too, though Zach was able to make out a person standing there outside his room who made him smile a little.

 _There's so much work to be doing. I guess, watching me could be considered a job too though. Because of those things I said in the videos… or maybe, to protect me? That seems more likely, if it's Kaminari just-_ Zach froze and his cheeks puffed out, as Kaminari turned his head to the right and had a blank wide-eyed look on his face. _Or maybe they just gave him an easy job, because he made himself stupid doing whatever else he was doing._

Zach looked to his left and sat up more on his comfy hospital bed. "Shouldn't they give this room to someone who needs it?" He muttered under his breath. He stared out the window and saw lights on through the glass out all over the city. There were no fires which he was happy to see, though he could not tell if smoke was still rising from rubble like it was earlier before he passed out. _Are rescue operations still going on? With all these heroes in the city, they must have saved everyone who can be saved. I hope they have at least. What are they doing with the villains…_ Zach opened his mouth and started yawning, and he rose his arms up and stretched them over his head as he let it out. He felt like he needed more sleep, but this was not the time and he slid his legs off of the bed.

As soon as he swung his legs off like he was going to get up, he felt light-headed and his eyes started closing. _Might have brought back, too many, too soon after dying, myself._ The thought shook Zach awake more, and he rose up his hands and stared down at them. _Dead. I asked them to let me die. Monoma brought me back though._ Zach clenched his hands into fists and rose his gaze back to the window outside. He stood up, and he wobbled for a second while getting his balance. _And the things I was worried about weren't true…_ Zach brought his right hand towards his own body after the thought, but he hesitated when he was close to touching his chest.

"What if it doesn't work?" He whispered, a nervous tone in his voice as he slid his fingers out of his glove. He gulped and lowered his hand, closing his eyes and breathing through his nose to try and calm down. _It will. It has to._ Zach looked through the window he took another step towards, and he stared out into the illuminated city at night. Despite many skyscrapers being knocked down, all the ones that were still up had their lights on. It was almost like a message that the city was still there, and Zach smiled at how bright the city was even on such a dark day. _How many people died?_ He thought, his smile going away. _How many more, while I was asleep? Because I haven't trained Death hard enough to bring people back nonstop?_ Zach's fists clenched and he turned towards the door.

He took a step towards it, then he wobbled on his feet and stumbled to his right back towards his bed. Zach put his palms down on the side of the mattress, and he started panting while looking down at the blankets with a terrified look on his face. He clenched his eyes shut as he felt his right arm crushing, though it was not the actual pain he was feeling. He just _remembered_ the pain when he used his arm to catch himself, and the memory of that pain brought back so much from before he passed out. "Ah haa ahh haa ahh haa," Zach panted loudly while staring down at his mattress in shock. "I, I can't do this," he gasped out at himself. "I can't handle-" in his head he saw the boyfriend holding his future wife in his arms; he felt the older woman's arms around her whose husband he had brought back eight months earlier. Zach lifted his left hand from the bed and put it over the top of his face covering his forehead and eyes. "It hurts, but…"

His arms were shaking, but he stood up fully and turned towards the door with a determined look on his face. "I can do-" he tried stepping forward, but he tripped over himself and reached out for the bed to grab onto. He grabbed the mattress, and he pulled it off right on top of himself as he used too much weight without actually trying to fall on the bed. "Oh sh-" **Thud Clank** _ **Clatter!**_ Zach's mattress knocked over some things on a side table including a plate with some food on it he had not seen when he awoke in the dark room. _Hopefully no one heard-_

The door swung open as Zach was getting himself out from under the bed and blankets. He looked up at the surprised blond boy who did not know how Zach got into such a strange position. "What are you doing?" Kaminari asked, and Zach's eyes widened a bit that Kaminari was able to make out that full sentence. Then again, the blond's face did not look as blank as it had when Zach first looked through the window and saw him. He figured maybe the loud noises shook him out of it a little.

"I have to keep- you mind?" Zach asked, as he struggled some more to push up but was finding it really hard to find the strength.

"Huh? Oh!" Kaminari looked confused at what Zach was asking for a second, then he reached down and grabbed the mattress to lift off of his friend. He put it back on top of the bed frame while Zach was struggling to stand. Then right as Zach got up, he felt a couple arms wrap around his sides.

Zach looked surprised for a second, then he smiled and put his left arm around Kaminari's back too. "It's good to see you're alright-"

Kaminari pulled back, then he pushed hard into Zach's shoulders and knocked him onto his own bed. It was in an upset way, though also pushing Zach down to keep him from falling over again in his clearly exhausted state. Zach had a confused look on his face as Kaminari frowned down at him after that hug. "You died," Kaminari said, frowning at Zach who was still wondering if this was coherent Kaminari or a dumbed-down state of his. He decided it was somewhere in the middle and opened his mouth to answer, but Kaminari continued angrily, "That wasn't cool. I was like, right there. Just ten seconds longer… You suck."

"Sorry, I guess," Zach replied, and he kept sitting where he was since Kaminari was standing right in front of him now. "Next time I'll try to hold out until you-"

"No, not next time," Kaminari said, frowning deeper at Zach who paused with his mouth open. "Never next time," Kaminari said sterner, glaring harder at Zach who leaned back at that look.

"Y-Yeah," Zach said, and he started smiling at Kaminari while shaking his own head. "You got it. No more dying."

Kaminari nodded like that was the right answer, then he turned around and walked over to the wall next to the door. Zach thought he was just going to leave, but Kaminari turned on the light and then closed the door, turning back and walking to Zach's bed again. "Hey," Kaminari began, and he sat down on the bed next to his friend. He looked in at the darker haired boy, then he opened his mouth but froze like he was having trouble saying what he needed to. "There's something…" Kaminari paused, then he rose his right hand and ran it up through his blond hair.

 _Geez, having a serious conversation with him like this isn't going to be easy. I kind of want to laugh already._ "Hey, what've you been doing recently? Before you came here?"

"Lots of electricity," Kaminari replied followed by a long sigh. Zach nodded as he could see that much already. "Villain was hiding. Got trapped under some rubble 'cause of a falling building. Tried attacking during a rescue operation. Other trapped people were hostages. None of them warned us. I got 'im though."

"Really? Nice," Zach said, as he was expecting Kaminari's electricity had been used in other practical ways.

"Then I had to charge batteries, and communicators, and generators, and buildings, and…" Zach stopped nodding after the third thing Kaminari listed, and he sweatdropped while thinking, _They've been driving him like a mule. Guess everyone's working hard right now. That's what I should be doing… but if I go out there as tired as I am right now, I won't be able to keep going like I will if I sleep more._ Zach argued with himself as standing up again just felt like such a terrible idea. That feeling left a bad taste in his mouth though and Zach turned towards the door past Kaminari, only for that door he turned to to fly open.

Kirishima and Yaoyorozu ran through the door and into Zach's room, and Kaminari turned in more surprise than Zach who had seen them coming a second early. "Zach!" Zach stared towards them with soft eyes and such a big smile spreading over his face at the sight of their faces. He remembered his eyes closing and how they looked in what he thought were his final moments. And he stared specifically at Yaoyorozu whose face he remembered before fading completely, before dying.

"Hey Mo-" Kirishima dove onto Zach and tackled him back onto his hospital bed. Zach got the wind knocked out of him and gasped as Kirishima pulled back with a giant sharp-toothed smile on his face. "Haha! Look who's back amongst the living!" Kirishima jumped off and sat on Zach's left side instead of his right where Kaminari had pulled away to avoid being hit by the diving Kirishima. "How's it feel coming back? The club keeps getting bigger," Kirishima said, before flattening out on his own back on the bed and letting out a long exhausted breath while staring at the ceiling.

 _Club? The coming back to life club? Weird,_ Zach was not too into what he was thinking about. He turned his head while sitting up, feeling even more tired after getting hit like that by one of his best friends. He looked back at the tall girl who looked worried like she thought Kirishima might have hurt him. "Hey," Zach said, and he saw Yaoyorozu look back at him and start pursing her lips. She had looked so excited and like there was so much for her to say at first, but she seemed more hesitant now that she was back in the room. "Momo, Kirishima," Zach started, and he lowered his head a little. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have, told Monoma not to bring me back." _I made them worry for no reason. I made them watch me die, thinking I wouldn't be coming back. Even Kaminari probably thought I was coming back, if he really did show up that fast and saw Monoma down there-_

"Dude don't worry about it," Kirishima said, sitting up fast next to Zach before Yaoyorozu could speak. She spun to Kirishima with wide eyes, just like Zach and Kaminari though Kaminari was looking at Zach more in confusion himself. "I kind of get what you were saying about how your power changes, stuff." Kirishima paused before saying 'stuff' as he did not really understand what Zach had been worried about. Since he didn't know, he decided to ask, "So, did anything change? Monoma checked out the really bad things so we know about that. But, what about when you touch yourself?"

Kaminari opened his eyes huge, and Kirishima looked past Zach to the blond to explain what they were talking about. "When you touch yourself?" Kaminari asked, his face covered in confusion and making Kirishima freeze with his mouth open as Kaminari totally misunderstood.

Zach's cheeks puffed out and then turned bright red, and he spun to Kaminari angrily while avoiding Yaoyorozu's look as best as he could. The girl standing in front of the three boys turned away and coughed into her hand with a look like she had no idea what they were talking about, and Zach punched his left fist into Kaminari's shoulder. "He means when I go into Nightmare form," Zach said in a frustrated voice, darting his eyes to his left again and feeling a wave of embarrassment at Yaoyorozu's obviously faked expression of not-understanding.

"Ohhh," Kaminari said with his mouth in an 'o' shape, though the corner of his lip curled up after he made that noise. Kirishima started grinning while wondering if Kaminari did that on purpose and was blaming it on his Quirk, while Zach just figured Kaminari thought it was funny in hindsight.

"And no," Zach said, getting a more serious tone because of the question but also to get the subject away from that as quickly as possible. The others all looked towards him in more serious ways, and Zach lifted his right hand in front of him to stare at cautiously. "What if it just does something else, like kills me?" He muttered, though he did not sound like he thought that was going to happen.

"Then don't try it," Kirishima said with a shrug. Zach turned to him in surprise, and Kirishima continued, "I mean if that's a possibility, it's not worth it."

"Well, it's a small chance," Zach countered. "And, if I can't go Nightmare…" Zach stared at his right hand closer, and he brought his left over and grabbed his wrist to steady it when it started to shake. His eyes narrowed at the hand he was trying so hard not to bring towards his chest or head. "If I can't go Nightmare… I don't think, I could still be a-"

"Don't say that," Yaoyorozu cut in before Zach could finish that sentence. Zach looked up at her with some confusion, but mainly just the same hesitation as he pretty much knew why she stopped him from finishing. "Before you knew that form existed, or before you accepted it," she added since she remembered Zach's speech to the villains on the night of Camino Ward. "You were going to be a hero anyway, right? You don't need it."

"Yeah," Kirishima agreed. "You kicked Shoji's butt without it," he mentioned, and Zach turned and started nodding as he did do that. "Though if the next round had happened, I would have won for sure." Kirishima said it in a smug tone, but then his smile started to lower and his face got more grim at something he was thinking about. Zach opened his mouth to retort, but he stopped himself too and looked down as he figured he knew what Kirishima was feeling down about.

 _So many people got hurt, and I'm getting all down like this just because my power_ _ **might**_ _not work?_ Zach planted his feet down on the floor off of the bed, and he got up to stand between his three friends. "Alright," Zach said.

"Alright what?" Kaminari asked in confusion, still not really putting together what was going on. "Why wouldn't Nightmare work, by the way?" He cut in, raising his right hand as he was feeling a little lost.

"It will," Zach said, and he moved past Yaoyorozu towards the windows before turning back to his friends. He glanced out the window once to make sure he was not being watched, but he was on the second floor and no one was staring into his room's window, or so he hoped. Zach rose up his right hand and slid his fingers out of the glove while staring at his classmates who gave him reassuring nods or hesitant looks. "Not because I need it to be a hero," he continued, and he smiled a little at the two who tried making him feel better about it. "But because I'll be a better hero if I can use it." _Where I can still use my Quirk against villains,_ he thought while bringing his hand in. _I mean, I fought Spinner without using it. I even fought Inhuman for a little without it, and I actually slashed him with a throwing knife before many of the others managed getting good hits in. But with it, I can take on entire enemy bases. I can fight villains like Shatterer, with only Kaminari as backup. I could do so much more, if this just works!_

Zach pressed his right hand into his chest. He stared at his friends to see their reactions, and he started smiling in a super creepy way as he saw the way they looked. He could see their somewhat surprised, somewhat creeped-out or happy expressions through black wisps and a vision that was tinting red. Zach pulled his hand back and then touched his chest again, and he removed the Nightmare form from his body. "Awesome," Zach said, and he clenched his right fist tightly in front of him. _Nothing changed. Nothing, except I probably won't be able to be brought back again. Even if Monoma copies my power again, it wouldn't work on me a second time. Not to bring me back. Still though, this is, great?_

"This is great," Zach said, and he gave his classmates a confused look as the three of them turned to look at each other after Zach's enthusiastic and happy expression.

Kaminari lifted a hand and started rubbing his forehead again, and he looked down while lowering his hand to pinch at the bridge of his nose. Kirishima opened his mouth to say something about Zach's special form, but then he gained that grim look again that Zach was starting to feel like wasn't just the general mood of the day. And then it hit him what could be making the others look like that. He turned to Yaoyorozu who looked the closest to telling him, but she also had her lips pursed again like she didn't want to ruin his mood. "Who?" Zach asked, and the three others opened their eyes wide at the question.

Kirishima bit down hard, and he clenched his hands down on his knees with such a frustrated look on his face. Kaminari lifted his gaze a little to look into Zach's eyes, but he turned away and looked down at the floor instead. _So much to do, there's no time to think about it. But, in a time like this._ Kaminari rose his right hand and put it over his eyes while letting out a cut-off breath. _It's alright now, right?_

Yaoyorozu opened her mouth, then closed it, and she saw in Zach's eyes that she did not need to explain or beat around the bush to get to the point. He was ready to hear 'who' just like he asked. She gulped and tried to find it in her to say it without her voice cracking, and she said softly, "Aizawa, sensei."

Zach was expecting to hear the name of one of their classmates. He thought he was ready for anything. He blinked a couple of times though, then his eyes opened huge and he felt wobbly on his legs again. "What?" He whispered, a look of dread crossing his face. "No- when?!"

"Long, long back," Yaoyorozu said, trying to make sure Zach did not get his hopes up. "They found him, at least a few hours after it had happened. He had been missing, but-" Yaoyorozu pursed her lips again, then she ran forward and caught Zach as he started to fall forward.

"Crap, sorry," he whispered, while she pulled him back up and then helped him towards his bed where the others were looking worriedly at him.

"I heard you brought back nine people earlier," Kirishima said as Zach got put down back between him and Kaminari. "Not to mention Shoji which makes ten today in total. You ever bring back that many-"

"How?" Zach asked, cutting off Kirishima and looking back up at Yaoyorozu who stared down into his eyes with hurt ones of her own. Kirishima scooted to the side as Yaoyorozu started walking up for the head of the bed, and instead of moving past him to sit down, she sat in the spot on Zach's left now that Kirishima was out of the way.

"You, don't want to know," Kaminari said, and Zach glanced to the right only to see Kaminari shaking his head with a hurt look in his eyes.

"I, don't?" Zach asked, and that only made his chest hurt harder. _I didn't always- Sensei and I weren't always… He, he said I didn't have what it takes to be a hero. He said it in court in front of everyone. At the training camp he sent me out on a goose chase with Kuroiro, and when we got back he still made me go to extra lessons. And, and I just,_ tears ran down Zach's face and he sniffled while letting it sink in more. _He was always so suspicious of me after I came back. And after I save Kaminari, he didn't trust me at all. He almost made me miss the Sports Festival, though, though that wasn't all him. He, he was-_ _ **"That's a good Super Move."**_

Zach thought about training Super Moves with the rest of the class, how Aizawa had gotten him to show his Nightmare form even in front of all of them. He remembered his teacher looking genuinely impressed, and even shocked when Zach had told them that Ectoplasm would be unconscious for maybe two days. _**"Good job,"**_ the small sentence his homeroom teacher told him at the training camp after he and Kuroiro completed their training against the Earthbeast, the one he knew Aizawa did not want him to beat, it echoed in his mind. _I wanted his approval, so much. That's why it frustrated me. That's why, since I'll never be able to show him, though maybe when he saw me fight Shoji- What was it he said up in the booth? I, I can't remember._ Zach brought his hands up to his head and put his face in his palms.

The others had not heard about it that long ago either, and none of them had been given breaks from what they were doing to actually think on it. Kirishima thought about the Eightfold Cleansers and the meeting they had before their fight against them. _**"…just call me Eraser Head outside of class."**_ _Sensei really thought of us all, as not just students._ Kirishima's fists clenched hard at his sides, his clenched teeth baring even harder as his eyes watered up. _But real heroes too! We won't let you down!_

 _ **"Not bad. Not bad at all… Isn't that how your strategy was meant to go?"**_ _Sensei. I had lost all confidence. I, I really didn't know what I could do back during the final exam. And you, I think you let me succeed to boost my confidence. I let myself believe you when you told me that wasn't true, because I needed it at the time. And you told me that though, because you believed in me and wanted me to restore my confidence._ Yaoyorozu's hands balled into fists at her sides while tears spilled out of her eyes too. Her hands shook though, and those fists unclenched as such a sad look replaced any anger on her face. _Aizawa, sensei…_

Kaminari turned to his left at Zach, and he rose his left arm and wiped under his own eyes. Then he put his left arm out and over Zach's shoulders, down on his left one on Zach's other side that he squeezed once. Zach looked at the hand, then to Kaminari who saw the tears streaking down Zach's face while he was keeping at least a somewhat more composed expression. Zach wanted to tell him he was alright and push the hand away, but he leaned back instead with his eyes widening and his breath hitching in his throat. _Aizawa, every day. He was always pushing us to be heroes. He, he could have expelled me at any time. Even when he thought I couldn't use my Quirk though, that I was just some Quirkless nobody trying at something too far to reach. Always pushing me. Always expecting more! Sensei! I can't- I, you were like…_ Two faces appeared in Zach's mind one after the other, faces that made him gasp and then clench his eyes shut hard.

His dad's face, and Mr. Akers' face, and Aizawa's face all faded away in Zach's mind as more tears spilled down his cheeks. "I'm gonna, miss him," Zach whispered.

"Yeah," Kaminari said, and he squeezed tighter on Zach's shoulder before looking down himself towards the floor. "Me too."

"We all will," Yaoyorozu said, leaning straight up and wiping under her eyes with an arm after that moment of silence they just had without saying anything at all.

It seemed like the moment was over, and if they needed more time to mourn they would do it on their own. Kirishima lifted his hands and smacked his own cheeks a couple of times. He turned to the right and tried to come up with something to change the conversation with. When he looked over towards Zach though, rubbing his eyes to try and sit up like the others, he looked a little past at Kaminari who had a frustrated look on his face while glancing back at Zach out the corners of his eyes.

Kirishima's eyes widened at the look on Kaminari's face, and he re-bit down as he thought about something Kaminari told them after Zach had gone on his trip to Kyoto early in the last term. Zach had shown them all a couple of pictures, including one of him with a few cute girls he had met on the train and taken a selfie with. _**"Bet Jenny wouldn't be too happy about that picture…"**_ _**"I know his neighbor though, she's his best friend. More like, a sister I guess…"**_ _Oh man. Zach was always, always acting weird when Kaminari'd bring her up._ _ **"Jenny! JENNY!"**_ Kirishima could see Zach strapped to that chair, drool splashing out of his mouth as he screamed like a madman, with that girl's voice screaming in the background.

"Hey Zach," Kirishima started, and Zach turned towards the redhead who he hoped was trying to change the conversation. "You lied." Zach's eyes started widening, as did the other two next to him who both looked Kirishima's way too. "I, I never told anyone what you told me about your scars. When it was just the two of us." Kirishima got a more frustrated look on his face because it was so hard getting mad at Zach for lying to him about that. "But-" Kirishima clenched his teeth, and then he snapped his eyes open wide and said, "Why didn't you ever tell us, you got tortured?"

"Kirishima," Zach whispered. He saw such a pained look on Kirishima's face even worse than it was a few moments ago when they were all silent. "It's, it's not like…" Zach paused, and he didn't know if he should keep lying or not when Kirishima looked so hurt because of this lie already.

"And Zach, you never said," Kaminari started. Zach froze, and he closed his eyes at what he knew the blond was going to start saying behind him. "I wouldn't have kept, bringing her up," Kaminari stopped and he took in a deep breath, his eyes getting wet again as he thought about the redhead girl he met outside of Zach's apartment back in the fall. "I can't believe, you had to listen to that."

"I had to watch," Zach gasped, spinning towards Kaminari and looking the blond in the eyes with a gaze showing Kaminari he did not understand what he was talking about. "I watched it, live. I, I watched her burn. Screaming my name," Zach whispered it while looking into his best friend's huge eyes, a look in his own like he had wanted to tell Kaminari this a hundred times before which he had. "The skin melting from-" Zach froze and he started wheezing, his chest heaving and his eyes shooting open wide. He turned the other way and saw Kirishima, and even Yaoyorozu who had actually known about this before just staring at him in horror. "That's why," Zach started, looking back towards Kirishima while clenching his teeth in such an angry way. "I, I didn't want to see everybody, looking at me like that."

The other three tried to stop looking at Zach, in whatever ways they must have been looking at him. "I didn't want everyone to know I got cut up, because I tried lying about who everyone was and what your Quirks were, even though- they already knew it all." Zach managed to keep himself from mentioning anything about the spy there, though he got a darker look in his eyes as he continued. "And I didn't want people to know, that I couldn't even think the word 'Lifebringer' anymore without flinching." Zach shook his head and looked down at the floor next to his bed, and Kirishima let out a pained breath as he thought about how long ago he first heard Zach shout 'Not Lifebringer' at him.

"And now everyone in the world knows," Zach whispered. "They saw me break. In just six weeks, they turned me into-" Zach closed his eyes and started shaking his head. "They broke me down, and I almost. If they had succeeded… What if they had, made me do those things I told Shigaraki I would have? What if I really had infiltrated?" Zach closed his eyes harder and brought his left hand up to the top of his head while bowing it in front of him. "What if I was here, to kill All Might? What if-"

"Dude, stop," Kaminari said, grabbing Zach by the shoulder closer to him and shaking it. Zach's eyes snapped open and he lifted his head again, and Kaminari said, "Stop talking about 'what ifs.' You _didn't_ do what he said. You held on." Zach looked into Kaminari's eyes and watched the blond wipe his eyes again before giving Zach a small smile. "For six weeks man, you held on when I would've been, well I wouldn't have made it a day."

"Yeah!" Kirishima agreed with a shout, even though they were in a hospital at night and everyone turned to him with somewhat annoyed looks. Kirishima continued strongly though while starting to smile at Zach who he had just been looking at in so much pity. "That was so manly! And when that other video came on, for whatever reason," Kirishima added, which the others nodded along to wondering where it had even come from. Kirishima continued, "And you said that stuff about our class going to destroy the League of Villains. That was so cool! I felt totally pumped up to fight that Inhuman guy. I mean, how could we lose after hearing that?"

"Yeah?" Zach asked, a small smile moving in on his own face as this was actually something that did not completely depress him. _I didn't even remember. I thought I was repressing that memory because I had done something really bad, or maybe I was just so far gone. But I think maybe I didn't want to believe that it was my own actions that got him to start the 'Not Lifebringer' conditioning torture. If I remembered that I had done it to myself shouting that at him, I probably would have shattered. All I could think about was not killing anyone the whole time he tortured me after that, so I guess I just buried it. To think though, that I did something so cool- stupid, but definitely cool._

"Getting cut up and stabbed, and spitting in Shigaraki's face anyway!" Kaminari added with a smile himself. "That was pretty awesome."

Yaoyorozu had a small smile on her face to match the boys with her, but although she felt the same way as Kaminari and Kirishima, she could not get too into it. _Zach. Kirishima said you lied to him about where you got your scars. Did you actually, tell him something else then? When I asked, you just deflected. I mentioned the car explosion I heard about, but you wouldn't go into it with me._ Yaoyorozu looked closer at the side of Zach's face while he was turned right looking at Kaminari. _Why? When we talked about the night you went to save Kaminari, I didn't ask any questions about before you got there. I didn't ask, because you didn't tell me. And why didn't you tell me? Is it because it wouldn't match with what the others had heard, because you wouldn't lie to me?_

Zach turned left and he met Yaoyorozu's gaze which made her eyes widen since she was not expecting the sudden turn. "I, also thought that was amazing," Yaoyorozu said. She had not been focused much on the video though. It had left a huge impression on her, and she was amazed by Zach during it, but she had been more focused on the Zach on the stage with her at the time. _As he was telling Shigaraki Tomura how he wouldn't kill for him, he was taking Spinner's life… Though he would have died anyway, because he jumped in the way to save you. How did you get to know that villain well enough for him to do something like that for you? What were the two of you talking about while you were fighting? Who was the woman you kept shouting about? Why did, the two of you sound close? Why did he sound so betrayed? Why is all of this upsetting me now more than ever?_

Zach started getting confused at the expression on Yaoyorozu's face, then he spun before he could ask though as the door to his room opened up fast. The four on the side of the bed all looked to the entrance where a boy with curly green hair just ran in. He was panting and looked around at the four with wide eyes at what he just ran in on. "Midoriya," Kirishima said, grinning and getting up from the bed. "Where you been?"

"How's, your mom?" Yaoyorozu questioned, as she had been there when Midoriya ran off much earlier to go look for his mother.

Zach glanced left at Yaoyorozu, then back at Midoriya worriedly at the question. "She's fine," Midoriya said, and the others all looked relieved to hear that. "When I got to her apartment though, there were still villains in the area. So I fought them with the heroes who were already there-"

"After that fight against Inhuman you still had more in you?" Kirishima asked, his eyes wide as he had passed out almost as soon as Monoma had brought back Zach.

Midoriya scratched the bottom of his right cheek hesitantly, and he said, "Not really. As soon as it finished and I got to my mom, I kind of passed out…" _In her arms in front of the other heroes,_ Midoriya thought with his cheeks getting a little red. He lifted his gaze and looked back towards Zach after a second, "I'm really glad you're alright."

"Yeah," Zach whispered. "Sorry, for telling you to say goodbye. Guess you didn't need to after all," he said it in a half-hearted apologetic voice. He was giving Midoriya a strange look, and he glanced back and forth at the others on the bed with him. "Hey Midoriya, have you," Zach started. He looked over into Midoriya's eyes and saw a confused look on his classmate's face that had the other three in there get such sad looks on their faces again. _Oh man,_ Zach thought, taking a deep breath and lowering his gaze.

"I just woke up, and I thought you might be here," Midoriya started slowly.

Zach grit his teeth even harder, as he realized there were a few things he needed to tell his friend now. Zach lifted his head and looked into Midoriya's eyes in a dark way, "Come sit down…"

* * *

The days after the Sports Festival were full of work for everyone who lived in the city. For heroes and future heroes who were still students though, the work was multiplied and they were working without rest. Zach stayed at the hospital for three nights straight, and he managed to avoid speaking to the media through that time as the hospital would not let them make a scene there while the place was so busy. On the third day after the Sports Festival though, he got a message to return to U.A. and headed out for campus.

The streets were clear as Zach made his way down them. Most of them were fixed-up too, which did not take long considering the heroes using Quirks to repair them. Musutafu City was rebuilding fast, with construction companies, fire departments, and police forces all sending people to the city to help out make the process as quick as possible. Just heading back towards campus from the hospital compared to three days earlier on his way in the opposite direction, Zach could see a huge difference in the state of the city. _It actually, doesn't look that bad. I mean I can still tell there was an attack here recently,_ he looked up towards a pair of office buildings both under construction with a bunch of cranes at the tops of them, as well as some heroes he spotted climbing up the walls carrying heavy materials. _But everyone's working hard,_ he thought with a small smile.

He had been heading down the road because the sidewalk on his right was still all busted up, but he moved more off to the side into a taped-off walkway to let the trucks drive past him. He watched as six large trucks rolled by, followed by a few police jeeps, and then some vehicles that were striped blue and red and labeled with a hero's name. _Star-Spangled Man? That American hero came to help?_ Zach looked back forward and hummed as he kept walking. _Wonder if other foreign heroes are here? I've barely gone out these past few days. The news is pretty grim too and I tried to stop watching._

 _Things don't seem, too bad, though…_ Zach looked across the street as he walked. He was wearing a black hoodie one of the nurses got for him to help him avoid being recognized on his way back to campus. He had on his blue gym sweatpants below the hoodie, washed and only with a couple of rips in them. Zach looked across the street and saw a woman holding her son's hand tightly while walking down the opposite pathway on the other side of the road just off the sidewalk. She was pulling him along fast, her eyes darting around nervously. The woman glanced down and said something to the boy while pulling her arm forward some more, and the kid who was looking around sped up to get closer to his mother's side.

Zach continued his walk through the city at a slower pace. He stopped looking around as much at all the damage, the repairing buildings, the vehicles. He just focused on people. By the time he got close enough to U.A to see it, his expression was much more grim than when he left the hospital in a decent mood. _People are afraid. I get it. I know why. But just walking down the street, even in a city with so many heroes in it… They're walking around in fear. Despite how fast everything's being rebuilt to make it seem like it's all fine, a lot of life was lost. And how can they believe in the heroes all around them? When so many heroes were killed in the Sports Festival Invasion, which is an even worse thing. Labeling it like that is like saying that U.A. completely failed, that just because it was in the center of it… Our symbols couldn't do anything. The new ANTs, Endeavor, U.A., they all still allowed this to happen._

 _And even worse than all of this, is the idea that the invasion itself was just a diversion. The idea that the villains did this just to distract us, so that they could free the Tartaros prisoners. And they succeeded. More prisoners escaped than were apprehended during the Sports Festival Invasion._ Zach's expression got even darker and he slowed down while nearing the U.A. gates. _Diamondfist, Stain, the April Fool's Day villain, Shooter and Hydro, Muscular, the War Boys other than Shatter. So many escaped, though some have already been sent back like that Damian guy. Heroes are active all around the country, not just in Musutafu. Tartaros is being rebuilt stronger, with more protection and backup security measures, plus almost all the villains who attacked U.A. and Musutafu were captured. Or killed… Is that why I'm being called back?_ Zach shook his head around, then he lowered his darkened gaze to the floor and thought, _All For One escaped. Shigaraki broke him out. Dabi, Toga, and Kurogiri too. As much as they lost in the battle, they won so much more._

"I.D.," the security guard in front of Zach asked.

Zach looked up and took his hood off. "Um," he started. _Shit. Where did I leave that?_

"Hey Zach!" Zach lifted his head and looked past the security guard who was frowning down at him harshly. The guard looked back too, and Zach smiled in relief as he saw the blond boy jogging his way holding up his I.D. "Lucky I got to you when I did," Kaminari said as he jogged up to Zach. "I was about to run to the hospital and get it to you. All Might asked me to," Kaminari grinned as he got out of running across the city with Zach already being there.

Zach lifted the student I.D. to show the guard who hummed and then nodded at the boy, not that he did not already recognize him before seeing the identification. As Zach and Kaminari started walking farther through the entrance towards the school building, they each turned their heads to the right and watched as a boy in between his parents, and a girl next to her mom were walking the other direction. They had bags with them, some rolling suitcases and the others carrying them. The parents and their kids looked towards Zach and Kaminari and stared with wide eyes as the boys walking by, though none of them said anything and just turned away once Zach stared back.

"Whole lot of people dropping out of school," Kaminari said on Zach's other side, giving Zach the excuse he needed to look away from those people. Kaminari looked a little frustrated himself, and the spiky-haired blond continued, "Not a lot of parents want their kids to stay. Haven't heard of anyone in the hero courses dropping out, at least in our year. Though my parents have been giving me a hard time about it." Zach looked at him in surprise, and Kaminari sighed before elaborating, "They were already iffy after I got kidnapped, but since that had nothing to do with U.A. they were cool. But this time, they totally bugged."

"You got them to let you stay though?" Zach asked.

"Let's just say it's an ongoing argument," Kaminari said, though he did not sound too worried about it which made Zach smile in relief. "Anyway, why'd All Might want you to come back? He seemed pretty urgent when he asked me to bring you the I.D.," Kaminari lifted his eyebrows at Zach a few times, but Zach started frowning at the question in a dark way that had his blond friend leaning back.

 _Is it about Spinner?_ He shook his head after thinking it and just shrugged at the question, though now Kaminari felt like Zach definitely knew what it was about. _Or could it be the things I said, like how I'd kill him?_ Zach's look got even darker, and a sweatdrop rolled down Kaminari's face.

"Well, I've actually got some other work to do today," Kaminari said, slowing down and putting his hands back behind his head and leaning into them. Zach stopped and glanced at Kaminari who cracked his neck to either side before turning back around. "Good luck with, whatever it is you've got going on," Kaminari said as he started heading off, raising a hand and waving Zach goodbye.

"Yeah thanks, see ya' later," Zach said, before turning back and shaking his head around to get those dark thoughts he had been having out of his head. _It's not necessarily a bad thing. Maybe All Might's just, maybe he just wants to talk? Though I can't see any conversation we have going anywhere but somewhere dark. Everything's so dark now. People dropping out of school. Kaminari said no one in our year in the hero course, but that means some first years are probably dropping out. Who wants to be a hero in a world where the villains are winning? Who wants to throw their lives away? And after seeing that video, after seeing Shigaraki tell me that he was doing that because I tried to be a hero, that may have been the nail in the coffin. People heard my family dying, so they won't want their kids to become heroes. Existing heroes who think what happened to me might happen to them, will any of them retire? No,_ _ **how**_ _many of them will retire?_

Zach walked through the halls of U.A. that were empty as there was still time off before school started. Even if the attack did not happen, there was always time off around the Sports Festival which Zach remembered from how many visits he got the year before in the days following it. _Walking around those streets, the world didn't look like the world I love. I know it's so soon after so it's not a good time to judge it, and especially in this city of course people are going to look like that… but still._ Zach frowned deeper and his fists clenched at his sides, his right inside the black glove he was wearing. _Carefree looks and smiles, laughter everywhere I turn, just happy faces. Things that should always exist, I can't see people living that carefree anymore. People won't think they're safe after this. They won't feel safe in their own homes, at their workplaces, on the streets._ Zach felt a pain in his chest and brought his left hand up to squeeze it as he stopped in the hallway. _It hurts._

The black-haired boy tightened his hand into the front of his hoodie and glared forward more intensely. _I'm going to make things right._ Zach started walking again, lowering his left hand back down to his side as he neared the room All Might asked him to meet in. _Return it to those peaceful days. I, I'm done with thinking that I'll just save it until Midoriya can be the Symbol of Peace. That's not enough. I have a second chance at life. I spent my whole life until I died trying to make it worth something, and now it is._ In Zach's head he saw the people crying as he died, how relieved they looked when he first saw them after coming back. He thought about how many of his classmates had come to visit him at the hospital in the past days while they were out doing work through the city. Monoma had left midway through the day after the Sports Festival, but even right after Zach had been left on his own, some other Class B students had shown up including Kuroiro who said he was glad to see him doing alright. _People who care about me. People, who I care about. A life worth living. It's like Monoma, and that woman whose husband I brought back for eight more months said._

 _I'm going to live this new life to the fullest. I'll keep saving people because I want to make this world better, not to change the answer. That's never been what it was about. Never been the main reason. But now on top of being a hero, there are other things too. Because I can make this world beautiful again, while still having those things I never thought about having. Like, maybe a wife? A family too. My own happiness, not just others.'_ In his head he saw the countless people diving on their family members after he had brought them back to life, the amount of joyous tears he saw from people who he felt he had saved through saving the ones they loved. _And if I have children one day, what will this world's future that my children might grow up in be? I want it to be better than the world I grew up in, not worse. Until it is better, until I make it so, I'll put those things off. So for now,_ Zach took a deep breath as he stared at the door he had been standing in front of for ten seconds now. He reached his hand out to grab it, _I'll just be, a hero._

* * *

 **A/N Thanks for reading! Hope you enjoyed the chapter. What did All Might call Zach in for? How will society react to this Sports Festival Invasion? What will the consequences be, and is this world really stuck on a much darker path now? Can Zach do anything about it? The falling action of the Sports Festival is pretty much over, and we're moving on into a new world (arc). Aizawa sensei... ;( I'm surprised I didn't see anything about him in the reviews, after ending the chapter back from the break with his death scene. Confirmed now in this chapter though since I left it hanging there at the end what had happened to him. Musutafu is rebuilding, Zach returns to U.A. after a long stay at the hospital, and school will be starting up again soon (even if a lot of students are pulling out of U.A.). Anyway, review responses below, and leave a review telling me what you think of the chapter!**

Bass4penguin chapter 65 . 19h ago

What would stains reaction to Zach be?

 **Who knows? But maybe now that he's out, we'll find out... XD Could happen. No spoilers though. Thanks for the review!**

LilacGene chapter 65 . 17h ago

Who knew April Fool's Day wasn't in April? Well, NOT me! This is a good first "trolled" experience for me, I'm happy I was tricked. Thankyouuuuuu! Gonna go devour this chapter now!

 **Lol glad you took it well, never thought about trolling my readers but it was pretty fun. Glad I was your first. XD Hope you've been enjoying the new chapters, and Death will continue on! Thanks for reviewing!**

diddles321 chapter 65 . 16h ago

Could you list every pro hero that died so far? I've lost track.

 **I'll list only the confirmed ones so far, since there might have been more in the attacks/invasion. Snipe (got shot by K-Blaster after he took down Bomber), Air Jet (defeated by villains when facing Twice and Ganeshi in Musutafu), Edgeshot and Tora (the interview with the vice warden claimed it), and this time Aizawa is confirmed (scene with him in the hallway getting shot in the back by a "student" and finished off by Killmore). Anyway those were the ones in the Invasion arc, and I don't think I really killed any off before then... Except I guess Sir Nighteye still died? If anyone else remembers another hero I have killed (and kept dead) feel free to remind me!**

Shade11224 chapter 65 . 16h ago

I'm really starting to feel weird that they keep insisting on not killing villains when the villains are literally starting to destroy cities and are killing what has to amount to thousands of people. Wouldn't the government have called in support from other countries along with deploying troops.

 **The world's been too peaceful for too long. People born in times of peace have different values than those born in times of war... but maybe with everything that's happening, feelings may change? Haven't really shown much of the after-effects of this attack yet as we've stayed in the hospital for most scenes following. We'll start to get more into the effects though in the coming chapters. Even at the end of this one we saw some of the "support" you mentioned as Zach saw Star-Spangled Man from America had arrived to help out. Thanks for the review! Hope you enjoyed the chapter.**

D-Koy24 chapter 65 . 14h ago

No! Nonononononyesno! Edgeshot no! A badass ninja like him can't die! Zach should go save him and let the internship happen!  
~D-Koy, my song for the day? [Edward Maya- Stereo Love]

 ** _Nooooooo!_ Little too late by the time Zach was seeing that news report, and he was up to his neck in dead bodies already. Unfortunately the badass ninja falls to Stain's blade. (Also, love that song. Listening to it now as I reply). :) Thanks for the review, and hope y'all enjoyed the chapter!**


	67. Chapter 67

**Disclaimer: I don't own Boku no Hero Academia**

 **Chapter 67:**

In a teacher's lounge in the U.A. High School, three students from Class 2-A stood in front of All Might. Each one of them had nervous looks on their faces and wide eyes, and the two on the sides glanced in at their curly haired classmate in the middle who All Might just spoke about. Katsuki Bakugo and Zach Sazaki stared at Midoriya and even Bakugo felt a little bad at the look of anxious fear on Deku's face. Zach turned back to All Might and gulped, then he asked, "Will, he tell the rest of them?"

"I do not know," All Might replied. The scrawny former hero's voice was grim, and his expression serious as he continued looking straight at his successor. "For some reason, I believe he has kept the secret of All For One from Shigaraki Tomura. There is no reason to believe that he will keep it though, or that he will not tell Tomura what he knows."

Midoriya's hands shook at his sides for a few more seconds, then he tightened them into fists. _After telling Mom that I need to stay now more than ever, this can't shake me._ His fists stopped shaking as much, though his face was still covered in sweat at what All Might just told the three of them. _"All For One, knows that Young Midoriya is my successor. In prison I believed he would not be able to do anything with this information, but now…"_ "All Might," Midoriya looked his mentor in the eyes. "This, doesn't change anything."

All Might's eyes widened a little, and Zach glanced in at Midoriya in surprise too for a moment. Then Zach shrugged and a small smile came to his face too, "Yeah, guess not." Midoriya and Bakugo turned right towards him, and Zach added, "It's not like Shigaraki wasn't already going after you. So even if All For One tells him, it shouldn't make a big difference."

 _ **"He's the one I want you to kill the most,"**_ the other three all heard what Shigaraki told Zach before cutting him up in the video that played after all the others at the Sports Festival. Thinking about that made the room's mood dip down, and Zach got a bead of sweat on the right side of his face as he felt like there were things they all wanted to say to him. Midoriya was the only one there who had come to visit him in the hospital, and he had already thanked Zach a thousand times and apologized just as many.

Midoriya stared at Zach and wanted to say again how much he was grateful Zach didn't reveal anything about his Quirk to Shigaraki back then. _All For One might not say anything about it either. But he's out there again, and All Might doesn't have the power to fight him anymore. I have One For All. I have to beat him._ Midoriya's head lowered a bit again and his fists started shaking at his sides as he remembered the fear he felt back in Camino Ward. _Against that villain, I'll have to,_ he gulped and the sweat came back at the idea of it.

Bakugo glared towards Zach for a few seconds before turning the other way with an annoyed look on his face. He thought about a conversation he and Zach had had at the end of the last school year. _**"Wonder if he'll be there forever…"**_ _I said not to worry about it because he was in jail, but scarfa- Zach was right. Damn it. Bastard. If you knew something like this might happen then-_ _ **"Bakugo, don't... Your arms."**_ _Fuck!_

"I just thought I should let you all know," All Might said to the boys who looked back at him again. "As the ones in the next generation who know this secret. You should know the danger that is more present than ever now. As All For One knows Young Midoriya's strength. He knows that he cannot yet control all of One For All." All Might's dark eyes narrowed more, and he said, "Which means he knows-"

"That the best time to take Deku out, is before he gets any stronger," Bakugo finished, darting a glare to his right at the boy next to him. "Damn it, master your damn Quirk already Deku," Bakugo growled.

"Do you think they'll try and attack me soon then?" Midoriya asked, a nervous tone in his voice even though he was trying hard to hide that fear.

"U.A. is building more of the ANTs," All Might replied. "Although since the League of Villains managed to steal several during the invasion, new editions are being created. This was also their first tests in the field, so improvements are being made as well."

"Good," Bakugo snapped. He thought about how quickly Inhuman tore apart the ANTs on his own, and he grimaced thinking about how hard it was for him and Kirishima to defeat a couple even with the help of other teams at the Sports Festival.

"Hope it's enough," Zach said, lifting his left hand and scratching under his chin with it. _This is bad. If All For One really does want Midoriya out of the way in the future, then the best time to attack him is before Midoriya can get any stronger._ "Maybe All For One's still badly injured from his fight with All Might," he added in a more hopeful voice.

That optimistic tone only confused and unnerved the others with Zach. They had to remind themselves of how he had acted when he first came back in January, and that the videos they had seen only a few days ago were things he had been dealing with for a long time already. Still, the smile on Zach's face gave Bakugo an uneasy feeling, and Midoriya wanted to apologize again because he felt the look on Zach's face must have been faked.

"Yes, hopefully," All Might agreed with a single nod.

"That all?" Bakugo said, and he turned around from All Might with a pissed-off look on his face. "Don't let yourself get killed, Deku," Bakugo grumbled, walking towards the door with an intense expression on his face. _I need to get stronger,_ he thought it, then he looked down at his arms that ached constantly now. Just raising his right hand to the door handle made him grind his teeth in frustration, thinking about what Recovery Girl told him after his surgery the other day. _Shit! I'm not switching my technique to kicking. Then I'll look like I'm copying- FUCK!_

 _ **"I told you that using those large explosions would cause permanent damage. Whatever the reason you had, you were far too reckless. Your normal explosions will cause small twinges of pain, though the gauntlets of your costume can protect you a little. Creating those large explosions after building up sweat however, it will only make these injuries worse. If you could make it six months without once using a large explosion, perhaps your arms could return to the way they were. Telling you to rest is like telling a shark to stop swimming though, so I'll just tell you this bluntly. If you don't take it easy, you'll lose your arms. You should speak to Midoriya about this, he went through a very similar situation…"**_ Bakugo slammed the door shut behind him looking furious, and then he turned his head and glared down the hallway. _I need to make adjustments to my costume._

Back in the lounge, the other three looked at the door Bakugo just left for a few seconds, then Zach opened his eyes wide and he started going towards it himself. "Yeah and, I've got a thing," he said, realizing that All Might probably wanted to speak to Midoriya on his own for a little.

"Actually Young Sazaki," All Might started. "Would you mind staying behind for a moment?" All Might turned to Midoriya when Zach stopped, and he said, "Young Midoriya. If you wouldn't mind standing in the hall, I have something else to discuss with you too."

 _So he wants to speak to us individually?_ Zach wondered. _What does he have to talk to me about? I hope it's not something weird._ "Yeah, okay," Zach replied. He glanced at Midoriya who walked by him with a look like he was also wondering what All Might had to talk to Zach about. Midoriya went into the hallway and Zach stepped closer to All Might so they could talk without his classmate hearing them. He was pretty sure Midoriya would not try to eavesdrop, but it had happened before once in this same room. Thinking about how Midoriya had overheard him telling All Might about how he had discovered their connection made Zach take a couple more steps closer to All Might who grinned a bit as he could see what Zach was thinking of.

"Do not worry, Sazaki, it is not a big secret," All Might said. Zach noticed how All Might did not put 'Young' in front of his name like he did when Midoriya was still in the room, and Zach got a more serious expression on his face to match the mature way in which All Might was treating him. "Young Bakugo may have understood it in his own way, and Young Midoriya also understands the danger he is in now, but I want to ask you, Sazaki-"

"I'll protect Midoriya," Zach said. He paused, then he said, "That's what you wanted me and Bakugo here for, right?" All Might hesitated, glancing back at the door to the hallway. Then he looked to Zach and nodded his head in a serious way. "Because as his classmates, we'll be around him all the time for the next year and a half until he's got One For All mastered? And we'll be able to look out for him since we both know-"

"Yes yes," All Might said quickly, nodding and smiling a bit as Zach elaborated more into what All Might was thinking himself without letting the teacher add anything in. "You have always been quite perceptive. I, believe I can trust you. I wanted to tell you specifically, well, because Young Bakugo may just tell Young Midoriya to protect himself if I was to have worded it like that before the three of you. But also because, you are Young Midoriya's good friend. And because you as well, may be a target of All For One."

 _He might want my Quirk? He could want Bakugo's too, Bakugo has such a good one after all. But Death really is something I need to keep away from All For One. He's too much of a monster to get a Quirk like that. Too evil to be allowed to use Death in evil ways._ "I'll never let him get it," Zach said, his expression darkening as he looked into All Might's eyes. _A world-ending Quirk. I was afraid mine was it, and it still could be in the hands of someone like All For One. Instant Death, in the hands of that monstrous a villain… Just the idea alone is too horrible._ "Or Midoriya's. I promise, All Might."

All Might smiled at the sound of that promise. Being unable to protect his students himself, being helpless when the world had suddenly become so dangerous, it made him feel so frustrated. Then his smile lowered down. "Thank you, and thank you for not revealing the secret of One For All." Zach got a more hesitant look on his face now as All Might did bring the videos up.

Zach nodded his head, then he took a breath and glanced back into All Might's eyes. "I'm sorry, I said I would kill you. I, just needed them to think- In order to escape I had to-" Zach paused again, and he pursed his lips while looking at his teacher in a nervous way. "I didn't mean it. I, I'm not just here to infiltrate U.A." He paused again, and then he said in an even softer voice, "I'm not, the spy."

"Young Sazaki," Zach got a frustrated look on his face as All Might said it, then the teacher who stepped towards the boy right in front of him put a hand down on his shoulder. Just like he had when Zach was younger, half the age he was now, All Might brought the hand from Zach's right shoulder down to his right arm without fear of the right hand Zach held back from him. "I never thought you were," All Might assured the boy who looked up and then got a small smile on his face at his teacher's faith in him.

The smile Zach gave his teacher made All Might's hand tighten on his arm for a second though, and then All Might straitened out and got a pained look on his face. All Might thought back on VTS, seeing Zach smile at them after handing himself in. That smile reminded him of the last one, even though that day he had shown Zach how little faith he had had in the boy with how angry he had looked at him. He had thought Zach had just killed Kirishima, but at this moment that reason did not mean anything to him. All he could think about was how angrily he had looked at Zach that day, and then he saw the expression of the boy struggling against his binds while screaming his best friend's name, a video taken only days after VTS.

 _All Might's totally thinking about weird stuff now. Time to dip._ Zach lifted his left arm up and let out a long yawn, and he smiled after while lowering his stretched arm, "I'm beat. Only brought back three people today, but I'm exhausted." _Add in "only" and the fact that I'm tired. Double threat._

"Do not think of it as 'only,' Young Sazaki," All Might said, and Zach frowned again as All Might put the 'young' in front of his name. _Make up your mind All Might. Making it situational makes me feel like half the stuff I say must sound childish._ "You have been doing amazing work these last few days. You deserve some rest."

"In my own bed tonight too," Zach said, and he smiled a little more genuinely as he turned around. _That worked well though. I don't think it's really manipulating if it's that obvious what his reaction would be. It was just a good way to get out of here with both of us in a good mood. Man, maybe that is a little too manipulative on its own. Should just get some rest. Think a bunch when I'm wiped out… though when I'm totally awake too I guess- ah whatever!_ Zach ran his hands up through his hair with an exhausted look on his face. _How many people the last few days? How many people while as Lifebringer? It's in the two hundreds now, right? Probably…_

Zach walked out of the room and motioned back to it with a nod. Midoriya nodded back as it was his turn, then Zach yawned again while looking away to avoid having to say what their secret meeting was about. _Telling Midoriya I'm going to be protecting him would be pretty strange. Especially since it's not like this is anything new. You might think you needed to tell me that All Might, but I've been thinking about it since I got back in January. I know who Shigaraki's targets are. Midoriya's going to be the Symbol of Peace one day. Even though I'm going to be focused on making this world better myself, it's not like I've forgotten that. I believe it, because I believe in you, Midoriya._

Zach glanced over his shoulder and saw the door closing to that room that Midoriya was entering on his own to speak with All Might. Then in his head, he saw Midoriya standing on top of Inhuman who was finally unconscious. He heard Midoriya's victorious scream echo out in his head, and he thought about the New York City Smash that he had stared at in so much amazement that day. For a second, the scared boy who thought he was going to get expelled on the first day of school popped into Zach's head and made him crack a grin. _You've gotten pretty cool._

* * *

 **Knock Knock**

Zach sat up on his bed and brought his right hand to his chest. _Felt pretty strange not sleeping in Nightmare mode those nights at the hospital, but I knew they might have to wake me at any time and it would've freaked them out to see me sleeping like that._ Zach stood up as the dark aura faded off of him, and he checked his phone as he headed towards the door. "One sec," he started, but he slowed when he saw what time it was. _Who's coming to talk at midnight? Maybe I should've kept Nightmare mode on._ "Who is it?" Zach asked, while throwing on a shirt and glancing towards the door.

"Hey Zach," Midoriya said, his voice quieter than Zach just used which Zach realized made sense considering it was the middle of the night. _Hope I didn't wake Sato,_ he thought with a glance towards the wall next to him. _"Zach, I'm sorry. You said it was a car accident but I…" Geez, everybody's being so weird about it. The only person who hasn't said a thing is Bakugo._ Zach slid his right arm through his sleeve, then he headed for the door while thinking about another boy on his floor who made his expression darken a little. _Todoroki knew about Jenny. He heard me that night on the roof, just like Jirou. I'm glad he never said anything about it before, but I wish he would've just kept quiet. I wish you were keeping secrets from me, Todoroki. It would make it easier…_

Zach opened his door and looked at Midoriya who was standing in front of him in a pair of pajamas. "What's up?" Zach asked.

"Were you sleeping?" Midoriya questioned in surprise.

 _Why is that surprising?_ "Nope," Zach lied. _It's midnight. Kind of a weird time for this._ "Want to come in?"

"Yeah," Midoriya replied, his voice serious. He had a look on his face like there was something on his mind, and Zach got intrigued as he moved to the side a little and let Midoriya in.

Zach turned the light on too while Midoriya was heading inside, and he wondered if Midoriya believed he was actually not sleeping. _Guess he probably thought I went to bed really early, by the way I was acting all exhausted earlier like I was about to go to bed. That actually makes a bit of sense. Still though-_ "You alright?" Zach asked. He thought maybe it had to do with what they talked about with All Might earlier, and he knew he had trouble sleeping in the dorms more than enough times to understand the feeling of not being able to sleep. _And Kurogiri showing that he can do whatever he wants doesn't make it easier,_ Zach thought, thinking on why it was he had been sleeping in Nightmare mode only a minute ago.

"Fine," Midoriya said, though he stayed standing while Zach just walked over to his bed and sat on the side of it. Zach nodded at his chair to tell Midoriya he could sit, and the green-haired boy seemed hesitant but then sat down still with a vexed look on his face. "So," Midoriya started, and he looked into Zach's eyes ready to say what was on his mind. He paused and frowned, then he brought his right hand up in front of his mouth and started muttering into it. "Maybe I should just listen to All Might after all. There's nothing telling me that I'm right, and I shouldn't think that I have any better judgement than All Might in the short time I've been a hero. It doesn't make sense to- but it also doesn't make sense to just let it continue on without…"

Zach brought his left hand to the side of his head and started rubbing it. "Did you come here to mutter to yourself, or you want to bounce these ideas off me?" Zach asked. He tried not to sound annoyed, but he had a somewhat frustrated look that Midoriya came and woke him up without really knowing what it was he wanted to say first.

"Oh! Oh, yeah," Midoriya said, and he stopped mumbling and lowered his hand from his face. "So during the Sports Festival- did I ever tell you… no, I didn't," Midoriya paused again and he had another hesitant look on his face as he did not know what to say. Zach got really frustrated this time as he actually thought Midoriya was going to continue, but before he could say something about it, Midoriya started, "I told you about my internship in the fall, and Sir Nighteye." Zach nodded, losing his frustrated look as this was something serious that he remembered Midoriya being pretty depressed about when he was told about it. "Well Sir Nighteye's Foresight, he used it once and saw All Might die."

Zach's eyes bulged and he leaned forward in shock. "What?" He asked, his voice a loud whisper. "Are you serious? When? How?"

Midoriya's eyes opened wide too, a nervous look on his face as this was not actually what he came to talk about. _I said it already though, so there's no point in holding back._ Midoriya started telling Zach all about how Sir Nighteye had foreseen All Might's death in the past. Then he mentioned how when the Sports Festival got attacked, he was worried that All Might was going to die and the prophecy would be fulfilled. He talked about Saberclaw for a second, then he mentioned in a slower voice the two others who tried assassinating All Might as he was finishing off Saberclaw.

"Assassins?" Zach asked.

"Yeah," Midoriya replied, and he examined Zach's face for another second before frowning and lowering his gaze. "After you left earlier, and All Might and I spoke on our own…" Zach's eyes widened a bit more. _He's telling me what they talked about in private? That's not cool, right? Should I tell him he shouldn't do it? Even though, I kind of want to know?_ Zach said nothing and let Midoriya continued, "I asked him about the third assassin who showed up, the one who could have killed All Might easily."

"Really?" Zach asked, his eyes huge again. Midoriya nodded with a scared look on his face as he thought about the villain who had had a gun to All Might's head. "Why didn't he?" Zach questioned.

"His name, is Eziano Mozcaccio," Midoriya said. He did not see any recognition in Zach's eyes again and this time Zach saw the disappointment in Midoriya's that made him realize something. _Ohhhh,_ Zach thought, and he leaned back while nodding his head in understanding. Even though Zach did not show any recognition as to the assassin's name, Midoriya continued, "Apparently, there's an assassin society hidden in the world. It's very secretive, All Might said. Made up of the best hitmen and assassins," Midoriya trailed off, as Zach had gained a more thoughtful look for a moment. "Have you heard of it?" He asked.

Zach shook his head 'no.' _Sounds familiar though,_ he thought.

"Oh," Midoriya said, sounding disappointed again. He continued while looking over towards Zach's window, "All Might said he fought the guy Eziano before. This guy, when his kids tried killing All Might, and I stopped them, he just took them away after they failed without touching All Might himself. It was like he was testing if his kids could do it or not." Midoriya thought back on it, and he thought about the way the man spoke after looking him in the eyes. _"It's not enough…" All Might said he shouldn't know anything about it, but he looked at me like he knew I was All Might's successor._ "He had just come to look at Inhuman, and that was all."

Zach nodded slowly, getting an off-put feeling from the thought of this creepy assassin. "When All Might fought him in the past," Midoriya continued, and he started to look as perplexed and frustrated as he had when he first entered Zach's room. "He, All Might beat him, but… but after All Might won, he didn't arrest the villain." Zach got a confused look on his face and then stared in even more confusion as Midoriya whispered, "Maybe that's why he didn't kill All Might this time. Or maybe he just wasn't interested, I don't know."

"Why didn't All Might arrest him?" Zach asked, his eyebrows raised as that didn't sound like All Might to him.

"It was when All Might was a lot younger," Midoriya started. "He said, he had heard about Eziano himself, from his own mentor. But he also told me that she had heard about him, from her mentor too…" Zach got an uneasy look on his face thinking about this assassin who was getting creepier by the minute. "All Might said he was the only one to have fought him, from what he knows at least. And he didn't arrest Eziano back then, because of what would happen if the one man controlling the best assassins in the world fell." Zach's eyes opened wide, and Midoriya clenched his teeth after saying it. "He said that, Eziano explained the society to him, and he tried to explain it to me too… but I don't see it like-"

Zach stared at Midoriya in even more surprise, then he looked up at his ceiling and leaned back. "Hmm," he hummed, a hesitant look forming on his face. _If All Might let him go, then it's probably because it would have done more bad than good. If Midoriya doesn't see it that way though, then the last person he wants to come for advice is me. All Might even asked for help from one of those secret lawless societies, though it's not like the anti-heroes are assassins… Assassins? Really?! Sounds like something out of a movie. Though, I guess in real life, assassins wouldn't want people to know they really existed. In most movies regular people don't know they exist either._

"You don't agree with him though?" Zach asked, looking back down and into Midoriya's eyes.

Izuku shook his head and frowned more that he was disagreeing with the hero he looked up to the most. "Even if chaos could come out of it," he started, but then paused as that was not a good point to start making. He glanced at Zach hesitantly too, as there was a reason he was bringing this to him other than the fact that Zach knew about these kind of things already. _You told me about villain fights. I know there's more you weren't telling me, and you always just mentioned what you saw there and not really what you were doing. I know, you don't really see things as black and white. But, someone-_ "Someone who kills for hire," Midoriya started softly. "Or kills even just because of their ideology. He's a villain, and even if taking out the top of the assassin system makes it so others can act on their own without rules, a strangely specific set of rules that keeps them from killing civilians and non-targets, it also dictates who they _can_ kill. It's still murder, assassination, and I- I don't think I would have made the same choice."

"Yeah," Zach said slowly. "I think, maybe you're right," he lifted his gaze into Midoriya's who was looking back wide-eyed at him. "If I ever came across him in a fight though, I don't know if I'd be able to stick to that. If he told me that by taking him down, a bunch of powerful assassins would go around killing civilians… I can see why All Might might've had a hard time with it. But Midoriya," Zach gave his classmate in front of him a small smile, "I really don't know anything about it. Have no clue what you're talking about."

Midoriya opened his eyes a little wider, then he sighed and gave Zach a small smile back. "I get why you asked me, but I never heard anyone talking about assassins or anything while I was with the villains. They're probably much more secretive than that." Midoriya nodded in agreement and looked a little frustrated as he did not know what he would have done with more information anyway. Zach saw that frustration on Midoriya's face and he hummed to himself for a second, then he said, "I'll see if I can get some info on it though."

The offer hung there in the air for a few seconds, and then Midoriya looked up into Zach's eyes in a hesitant way. "How?" Midoriya asked.

Zach started shaking his head back at his curly-haired friend. "It's a secret," Zach replied. _Hunter. You're a crazy hitman, assassin, hunter, kind-of thing. I wonder if you know anything about this. It's about time I tested out that phone number anyway._ Zach got a darker look on his face as he thought about when he last saw Hunter and told him to get a phone with that exact phone number. He thought about how scared that menacing villain had been of him, and it made his expression so dark that Midoriya eased back in Zach's desk chair.

"Umm, don't do anything, illegal," Midoriya started. Zach looked back at his friend who did not want to say it but also felt like he had to just from Zach's last look alone.

 _Illegal? Oh that's totally fucking illegal._ "Ha, don't worry," Zach said, shaking his head with a skeptical look on his face as if what Midoriya said was laughable. "It's not like that. I just might, know a guy," he said, and he frowned again as he had before, though this time was just to match a similar expression to the last one. _Maybe Webb and Ganji know about it too. They're a pretty secretive group… But, what if the two groups intertwine? It's not like All Might knows that much about them. Webb told me that All Might's not in the loop or anything, and All Might had to ask me if I was in contact with Webb because he has no idea the stuff I was doing last term._

 _If they do know about the assassins though, are they like All Might? Do the anti-heroes just accept the existence of a society of assassins kept in check by Eziano? Because, I don't accept that. Assassins, a world with assassins in it, isn't the best this world could be._ "If I find anything out, you'll be the first to know," Zach said. "Doubt I'll get anything though," he added, acting like he was just going for a long shot like maybe asking his imaginary druggie C.I. who he had told Midoriya about before.

"Okay," Midoriya said, nodding at Zach and trusting his friend's judgement since Zach seemed like he knew what he was doing. He also wanted to know more about it himself, as despite All Might having spoken with Eziano once before while he was overseas, the conversation was not as in-depth as Midoriya wished it was. _Or maybe, All Might just doesn't want me doing anything about it. So he hasn't told me everything he knows. Should I just trust All Might's judgement? What if I do something about it, and I make things worse? Worse than they already are… This isn't the kind of thing I should be focused on. When the League of Villains are destroying cities, and killing, heroes…_

The face of one hero in particular came to Midoriya's mind, a hero who Zach had told him about the night of the Sports Festival. "We start up class again in a couple of days," Midoriya said.

Zach nodded, and his expression lowered down into a sadder one at the idea of class without their homeroom teacher. "Wonder who will replace- who will take Aizawa sensei's place for homeroom," Zach said.

"Me too," Midoriya whispered back.

* * *

 **A/N Hope you enjoyed. All For One called out in that final fight against All Might about Midoriya Izuku being the successor, so now that he's out of prison All Might warns the younger generation of the danger that comes with their enemies knowing who holds One For All now. Midoriya asks about Eziano who we saw during the Sports Festival. Initially I didn't even plan on adding him in, and then after Saberclaw was defeated I threw in the assassins and got a bunch of good ideas for them later on. They're a bit of a mystery right now though, but Zach's thinking about calling up Hunter to see if he can find anything out. U.A. starts up school next chapter! Who will be the new homeroom teacher? What will school be like now? Leave a review below telling me what you think, comments, predictions, questions, etc! Review responses:**

GDawg4826 chapter 66 . 15h ago

DAMNIT STOP KILLING OFF ALL MY FAVORITE HEROES!

 **It was a pretty big arc in the story, maybe the most important so far. Not just for Zach but for the whole world this time. Won't be that much main character death in every chapter/arc... but then again ;), who knows? Hope you enjoyed the chapter.**

Mark chapter 66 . 16h ago

McCree, Edgy as fuck, Genji, Phara 2.0...  
Fucking hell, that just sucks...  
I love this story!  
I wonder what All Might want to talk about with Zach.

Also Star-Spangled Man? Looks like Captain America is in this too :D

 **Thanks! A little dark there, but I'm glad you're liking it! All Might asks for Zach's help protecting Midoriya,, treating him in the mature way he started to after Zach went to save Kaminari on his own, though still as a teacher and adult figure in his life too. Cap is here! Wonder if we'll see him anymore or if he's just a cameo? Hope you enjoyed the chapter, and thanks for the reviews!**

Marriage chapter 64 . 12h ago

Are you available?! Because I love this story and I love you for writing it! I never cried so much for a fan fiction character and I kept looking back to see if the chapter was updated. I think I'll also be able to forgive you for tearing my heart out with Zach's "Death" seriously though I was depressed for at least a week moping over the fact Zach was dead and gone from this world forever. Thanks for NOT crushing My Heart! Once again, awesome story!

 **Oh man, sorry for that week... Glad you're that into it though, and I agree I've never felt this strongly for any of my own characters as I do with Zach. As for if I'm available, ;) well, I'm a little preoccupied rn "Marriage" lol, but love you too! All you guys who read and enjoy this story are the best! Thanks for the great review, and I hope you enjoyed the chapter!**

Momozaki chapter 66 . 11h ago

AIZAWA! T_T  
Heroes dropping like flies  
Momo and Zach always getting interrupted - miss the fluff so much  
Great chapter - I don't know where the story is going and I love the suspense!

 **Aizawa noo! I was kind of surprised all these reviews came after the last chapter, though I guess I wasn't clear enough in 64 what had happened to him. Plus as the first one back, people were a little preoccupied... No Momo and Zach this chapter, the story's path is a mystery like Eziano Mozcaccio, and I hope I can keep up the suspense! Thanks again for another review!**


	68. Chapter 68

**Disclaimer: I don't own Boku no Hero Academia**

 **Chapter 68:**

The door to Class A slid open and twenty-one students looked towards it. They still did not know who their homeroom teacher would be, and as the woman walked in a few of them had surprised looks at the sight of the teacher who was apparently going to be replacing Aizawa. She took one step in the door in her all-red hero costume that outlined the large muscles covering her body. Mother Russia looked around the class after taking one step through the door, and immediately her eyes narrowed at the students who had depressed looks and frowns on their faces. She wore a red bandanna around her forehead and the top of her hair, and her bleach blonde hair fell straight down her back before getting wavy near the bottom.

"Good morning students," Mother Russia said, her voice deep and laced with a thicker Russian accent than they heard at the Sports Festival where she had purposely toned it back a little. "I will be your homeroom teacher from this day forward." She stopped in the middle of the front of the room, and she looked around making eye contact with each one of the students individually. Then she crossed her arms over her chest and her eyes narrowed more while facing the center of the room, "I am not Eraser Head."

The statement made most of the students stare at her wide-eyed, even though all of them had been thinking about their old homeroom teacher anyway. "I had great respect for him, as I am sure all of you did. You will show me the same respect that you showed him. There is no time to reestablish the same bond that you had, so I will just tell you a few things about myself now." She uncrossed her arms and walked over to the desk that she stood behind, then she put her hands down on top of the desk and her fingers dug into the wood while she glared straight forward at Midoriya who leaned back at that look. "When I was six years old, I killed my first bear. My father began my training when I was that young by sending me out into the woods outside our house in northern Siberia, and he told me that I had to survive for six months on my own before I could return."

The jaws of every student in the room lowered. They all stared at their teacher who suddenly got very personal and very straight to the point, with a very intense story too. "He sent me out in the early fall, after the first snow had already fallen. I had to survive the winter on my own, far from my house so that I would not be competing with my father for food. In those woods I was not only competing with my father however, and I needed to learn very quickly how to survive. The bear proved a more powerful opponent than I could defeat at first, and I used my Quirk solely to escape from her. But the hunger got to me. The scars I received fighting that bear stay with me to this day." Mother Russia narrowed her eyes while darting them towards Mineta who gulped while keeping his eyes locked with Mother Russia's and not sliding down towards her large breasts pushed against her tight red costume.

 _This is crazy._

 _Why is she telling us this?_

 _What a cruel childhood._

 _Russia's, pretty wild._

"It was cruel, and a terrible thing for a father to put his daughter through," Mother Russia continued. "However, the training I endured during those six months, made me into the hero I am today." Some of the students started nodding as they felt like they were starting to understand why she had told them this.

 _Even though it was hard, she appreciates it._

 _It was tough, but he must have known she could take it._

 _Does that make it okay?_ Todoroki thought, and he looked down at his desk for a second. _If training that harsh, creates a good hero… What Dad did, if I become a good hero because of it, does that mean-_

"Then when I obtained my hero license, I arrested my father for child neglect," Mother Russia said, derailing most of the class's thought processes. Todoroki stared at Mother Russia with eyes much wider than a moment ago. She paused and cracked a small grin that unnerved the students around the room, "He looked very proud of me as I handed him over to the police."

Zach stared forward with a blank look and a bead of sweat rolling down the side of his face. _What is the moral of this story? Is there one? Or is she just telling us this to get acquainted?_

 _If it made her into the hero she is today, then why- how could she- And she seems like she cares about him?_ Todoroki's fists clenched at his sides. _Why did that strange story somehow get to me? The circumstances are not the same, are they? She never said anything about her dad being a hero, but does that make a difference? She didn't make him out to be that bad either though… Endeavor. Dad. The man he's trying to be now, compared to the one from my childhood. I'm not going to say anything- but, does Mother Russia forgive her father? I can't tell._

"Now then," Mother Russia said, now that the class was fully focused on her and were not thinking on something so depressing at the start of their first day back. "Those of you who fought Inhuman have gained my respect," Mother Russia announced. Nine of the students in the class looked at their teacher in surprise, though a few of them remembered how Inhuman had sent her flying with his power. Some of them had even thought he had killed her with that attack that had smashed her through one of the stadium's giant screens. "The rest of you will have to prove it to me that you deserve it, during our training that will be even harder than mine was." She said it in her thick accent and smirked while half the class gulped at what sounded like a terrifying threat to them.

 _Didn't she arrest her dad for training that hard?!_ Sero thought while pushing back in his seat.

"You are not children, but heroes already," Mother Russia told the gawking students. The students in front of her remembered how she had been six years old in the story she was telling, and they were all sixteen or older even for Bakugo. The students still had nervous looks on their faces after she said that, but she nodded as their fists tightened and they appeared to be ready for whatever she was going to throw at them. "Good," she said, and then she lifted up a remote and pointed it at the green board behind her. The center of the board changed colors with a click of the remote to turn into a black screen instead, and then that screen changed to show a familiar sight to the students who started staring in confusion.

"Then for today's training, we will be watching footage of the Sports Festival fights," Mother Russia said. The entire class sweatdropped and many of them held onto their desks to prevent from falling out of their seats. After such a build up, they were all expecting something a little more exciting. "To see what you can do better, differently, like a sports team going over old clips."

"Is she serious?" Sero whispered, leaning over and whispering to Kirishima who shrugged as he was having a hard time getting a read on their teacher too. He had been pumped-up until she mentioned arresting her father which threw him for a loop, and now he was once again confused as he was expecting some epic training.

 _I don't think she's messing with us, like Aizawa sensei did,_ Zach thought while giving the teacher an odd look. Then he turned from her to the screen that she was fast-forwarding with her remote to zoom past a lot of footage she had recorded for them. _Oh wait, no, no no no,_ Zach slouched down in his seat. _At least the camera angle is down at the stage and not the screens around the stadium. Still though, I embarrassed myself a lot that day. Please pick a good moment-_

"Here is a good place to start," Mother Russia said, speaking to herself and nodding in agreement with what she said. She pressed play, and everyone in the class stared wide-eyed as Shoji got lifted off of the fighting arena stage and thrown high up in the air.

Shoji's eyes bulged over the top of his mask, and Mother Russia said while he was being slammed back down in the video, "I can assume at least one of you has not seen what happened after this, so we will continue on from here. I will pause it on occasion and we can discuss what you should have done differently." Shoji's body slammed into the stage, and the boy with six arms in the classroom felt his heart skip a beat as he watched himself die. As much as they were all expecting something different, he felt his heart racing as fast as it would in any training simulation.

Zach bowed his head to his desk and felt his face turning red. As much as he felt bad for Shoji having to watch that, he did not want to look up and see what was about to come. _This is going to be a long video-_ On the video, the other student on the screen between the villains dropped to his knees and started crying in the middle of the stage as he broke down. Zach sank deeper into his chair as he heard his own voice screaming in the video, and he thought, _I just hope no one brings up this stuff to me later._

* * *

Zach walked quickly down the hall away from Class A, trying to get his lunch and go find somewhere quiet to eat as fast as he could. "Hey Zach," he heard a voice calling after him and he paused for a second, glancing back at the short girl with brown hair running his way. "Wait up a second," Uraraka said, and she ran up next to Zach who continued walking once she was next to him.

 _"I. AM. LIFEBRINGER!" Oh my God, that was the longest class ever. It wouldn't be so bad if she didn't pause it there to mention how that was a good morale boost that people needed to see. I mean, it's what I was thinking about, kind of. It was mainly for myself though. I think… Geez, I felt like that whole time I was just embarrassing myself. The whole break down before I saved Shoji. And when I turned Nightmare, I swear I looked scarier than any other time I've seen it._ "Hey, Uraraka," Zach started, and he glanced out the corners of his eyes hoping she would not bring up anything too embarrassing about the clips.

"Re-watching all of that," Uraraka started, and Zach tensed up as he prepared to hear something he didn't want to. "I, I never thanked you. You know, for getting in the way of that shot." Zach's eyes widened a bit, though he realized he should have known that was what she wanted to say anyway. He thought about that point in the video that Mother Russia had allowed to play through and did not comment anything about. He had seen more odd looks from his classmates then than anywhere else in the clips, and he figured if he had not just dove on top of Uraraka then someone might have asked why it was the villain took those bullets for him.

"It, wasn't me," Zach said. "I didn't-"

"If you didn't do that," Uraraka cut him off. "Spinner wouldn't have gotten in the way to save you." Zach stared at her with wider eyes, and she said, "He wouldn't have done it to save me, and you ran all the way across the stage leaving your fight just to, to put yourself in the way." Uraraka paused, then she smiled up at Zach in a soft way. "So you did save me. Thank you."

 _The camera angle wasn't great, so it still wasn't clear that I killed Spinner. Uraraka knows though. She was right there. She heard him ask for it. What does she think about that? She was telling me not to, at the time._ Zach nodded at Uraraka, and he gave her a small smile back. "No problem. What are friends for, right?" He asked, and she smiled brighter at that and nodded at him with an affirmative hum. Zach looked back forward and continued off for the cafeteria. His lips were flat as he walked, but the corners of them tugged up at that conversation and he couldn't help himself from smiling. _I saved her? That's, awesome._

Zach felt a warm feeling in his chest that felt as good, or even better than when he brought people back to life. _I wasn't too late this time. Shoji cut in during class to thank me, only for Mother Russia to tell him to be quiet until she paused the video… But saving someone, and making it so they didn't have to die first before I did it, that's amazing!_ Zach got a small skip in his step, and Uraraka was glad as she followed after him towards the cafeteria.

Back behind them down the hallway, Momo Yaoyorozu stared towards Zach's back and she looked hesitant. _Maybe I was wrong,_ she thought. Momo shook her head and started walking down the hallway to get to lunch herself. _Seeing what he did to save Uraraka, it was the same… But, when he ran to save her, I remember. What he shouted when he was running towards her: "Watch out! Momo! Uraraka!"_

Momo hummed to herself and then shook her head again. _The villain was aiming at Uraraka, but he knew I had been the target before so he was just calling my name to make sure I knew where the villain had moved to. Or, he called my name first because he looked towards me after seeing the villain move, before he noticed Uraraka was the target…_ Yaoyorozo slowed down in the hallway and she got an even more hesitant look on her face. _But that's not right. He, looked my way after seeing the villain move. He called out after already running towards Uraraka. And, when he came out of the rubble as we fought Inhuman, I was looking straight towards you this time._

She thought about how during the reviews of the video clips she was focused solely on Zach even though it was supposed to be a time of self-reflection. _When I thought he was trapped under a pile of rubble, he suddenly appeared behind me. I thought it was magic or something, but in the video he really didn't come above the rubble that long before the shot. He popped out and, and his head was focused straight towards me._ Yaoyorozu took in a sharp breath as she sped-walked down the hallway. _Then he turned to K-Blaster, and then he sprinted so fast across the arena I barely saw it. Sprinting across the screen and getting in the way of the villain's shot. Saving my life. At the cost of-_ Her heart fluttered and she stopped where she was. Yaoyorozu smiled brightly down the hall for a second, then she spotted two of her classmates walking by her on her right side and looking at her oddly since she had stopped in the middle of the hall.

Yaoyorozu's face turned red and she quickly started walking again herself, straightening out and coughing once for some reason. Hagakure and Ashido watched as Momo hurried past them, then the two girls turned to each other and grinned big, (not that Ashido could see Hagakure's smile). Ashido ran forward and up on Yaoyorozu's left side and Hagakure ran onto the taller girl's right. "So Yao-Momo," Ashido leaned up towards the taller girl's face and Yaoyorozu turned with slightly pink cheeks but a confused look at Ashido's expression. "Have you thanked Zach yet for jumping in front of that shot for you?"

"Of course I have," Yaoyorozu said, looking at Ashido in surprise that the pink girl would think she hadn't.

"Sacrificing himself for you like that," Hagakure said, spinning around in front of Yaoyorozu and then letting out an enamored sigh that made Yaoyorozu's cheeks go even redder, especially as the invisible girl said, "It's so romantic."

"Ah- ahem," Yaoyorozu cleared her throat with a cough and then stood straight up as she continued walking. Without breaking stride she said in a scolding tone, "It is not something to make jokes about. Zach actually died-"

"That just makes it _more_ romantic," Hagakure said, not going to let Yaoyorozu guilt-trip her way out of it that easily. "Don't you think he deserves a little more than just a 'thank you.'" She rose her eyebrows at Momo a couple of times while the taller girl kept walking and looked away like she had no idea what her short invisible friend was talking about.

"Haahhh," Ashido sighed at Momo's reluctance to go along with what they were saying. She put her hands behind her head and looked down the hall herself, not that Zach was still in sight like he was when she first saw Momo staring that way. "He's always been like that," Ashido said, and the other two girls looked to their left at their pink friend who started smiling after saying it. "We met at the entrance exams you know? He jumped in to save me then too, not that I couldn't have handled it on me own," she added, but she kept smiling anyway.

Despite Ashido's smile, Yaoyorozu started frowning as they kept walking down the hallway. _Maybe it was just…_ She thought her frown was because of the same thing she was just questioning herself about with how Zach saved Uraraka, but that made her eyes widen more. _Why would that bother me? That he just saves everyone- and I'm not special to,_ Momo pursed her lips and kept staring straight forward, hoping the girls next to her had stopped looking since her face had turned beet red.

* * *

"I'll come with," Monoma said, standing up as the boy across the table from him did.

The dark boy across the table with wavy white hair glanced back through thin eyes at his classmate and nodded once. Shihai Kuroiro then turned and started walking towards a door on the side of the cafeteria, and Monoma jogged to his side holding a tray of food himself. Neither had gotten much into their meals when they saw the person they were looking forward to seeing at lunch quickly dip out of the cafeteria instead of going to a table to eat.

Kuroiro and Monoma left the cafeteria and glanced both ways, and they figured out which way the black-haired boy they were looking for had gone by the directions other people in the hallway were looking. "Well that makes it easier," Monoma said in a smug voice. Kuroiro just started walking, and Monoma sped up for a second before walking at his side. "You know I only left the hospital after a day there because my power could be used in other ways around the city?" Monoma asked, and Kuroiro nodded his head once accepting Monoma's reason.

 _I wouldn't want to go through that over and over again either._ Kuroiro thought about the night in Camino Ward where Monoma brought Mt. Lady back to life, and he was not going to criticize his blond friend for anything if he voluntarily went through that pain multiple times even after knowing how much it hurt. The fact that Monoma was saying it too meant that he felt he needed to defend himself, and Kuroiro glanced right at him wondering if that was what Monoma was coming with him for. _I don't really want to talk about what I need to with you there Monoma. Whatever though,_ Kuroiro spotted their friend up ahead peeking into a classroom to see if it was empty.

Zach grinned and glanced back and forth to see if anyone was watching him about to duck into the empty classroom. When he looked to the left, he sweatdropped as there were not just two people watching him, but walking towards him too. "Oh, hey," he said, turning to the guys from Class B and pretending like he was not about to enter the room next to him. He had his lunch tray in one hand and scratched the back of his head with the other he was about to grab the doorknob with. "What's up?"

"You eating in here?" Kuroiro asked, and he walked right up and grabbed the knob. He opened it and stepped into the room, making Zach sweatdrop more and then follow him into the room after Monoma who was smirking in a way telling him they totally caught him.

"Yeah," Zach replied as he walked in behind them. "Just didn't really want to eat in the cafeteria today," he said, and he walked over to a desk that he sat at without hesitation. _Guess it was a little too much to hope for that I'd get some time to myself._ Zach glanced Kuroiro's way and he lowered his gaze after meeting the black boy's eyes. _Shit. There's no way we can avoid that, can we?_ Zach was losing his appetite by the second.

"So I had a lot of work the city needed me to do the days after I left the hospital-" Monoma began, and he was about to brag about what those things were in great detail.

"I'm sorry, Zach," Kuroiro said. "She seemed like a really nice girl."

Monoma spun to Kuroiro who could not deal with the awkward moment he and Zach were having any longer. If he just let Monoma keep on going as he knew the blond would have, the moment only would have lasted longer. Zach looked into Kuroiro's thin eyes, and he frowned that the Class B student brought it up just like that. "Huh?" Monoma wondered, looking at Kuroiro oddly as he had no idea what he was talking about.

Zach shook his head at Kuroiro. "Thanks, I don't know if I told you it before." Kuroiro started opening his eyes wider, while Monoma just looked back towards Zach in more confusion, and a bit of annoyance that no one was filling him in. "In that letter, I told her… I thought I never got to say goodbye." Monoma's eyes started to widen, while Kuroiro's face filled with understanding as he remembered what Jenny said while reading the letter aloud. "The last thing I ever told her, was how much I missed her and her parents. How much I loved them."

Kuroiro's face got a bit of confusion on it, but he nodded at Zach. _She did seem like she didn't say everything when she pulled back afterwards. It sounded like it was something personal. I'm glad though, that you got to say that._

"Knowing you got that letter to her," Zach started softly. "It makes it a little easier. So thanks." _Jenny. I wish I could write that letter again. If I knew then what would happen, there's so much more I wish I had told you. The secrets I said I would tell you the next time we saw each other… How much I really loved you… Everything._ Zach looked down at his food and he put his fork into it. _I'm done being depressed over that though. Done thinking I can't, have a life because of it. This new life I have, I have to live it. It's why I was brought back after all._ Zach turned to Monoma and started grinning at the blond who had a hesitant and uneasy look on his face like he felt he shouldn't have been there for all that. "So you were giving your excuses?" Zach said, nodding his head for Monoma to continue.

Monoma's eyes opened wide, then they widened more and he exclaimed, "'Excuses?!' Excuses for what? I really did have to go and help clear out debris and re-base several structures. Much of Musutafu has been rebuilt because of these two hands, and all the Quirks that they have Copied…"

Zach started nodding along and he agreed with Monoma, saying he was just joking about the 'excuse' thing. "Did you hear, Class B got a new student?" Monoma asked.

Zach lifted his eyebrows up and shook his head once. He wondered why Monoma grinned at him while saying it, since Kuroiro's expression got a lot darker at the mention. "It's Shinso," Monoma said, and Zach's eyes opened wide.

"Really? He got bumped up?" Zach asked in surprise.

Kuroiro looked down and he shook his head of a dark thought for the moment. He looked back up and into Zach's eyes and said, "Apparently he was pretty heroic at the Sports Festival. He got most of the general studies and support course students out. People are attributing the low number of student casualties to him." That mention made Kuroiro's expression darken again, but he continued even as Zach noticed Monoma start frowning too, "He made villains fight each other and cleared a path straight out of the stadium."

"Because of that," Monoma started, as he could see Zach was catching on to their dark looks already. "Only one general studies kid died. He was in Shinso's class and tried helping out too; he had a strong Quirk, but…" Monoma shook his head, then he looked down and said, "No one from the support classes died though. And only one, from the hero course," Monoma paused and then looked up into Zach's eyes. Zach was confused as he wondered if they were talking about him, but they wouldn't have said 'one' in his case because Shoji would have been included.

Zach realized it after a second as he saw the grim looks on each of the Class B students' faces. "Oh," Zach whispered. "Sorry, I didn't hear about it," he said quietly. _Who wants to talk about something like that? After the hospital the night of, no one's really talked about Aizawa sensei either. Mother Russia brought him up, but…_ "Who, was it?" Zach asked, wondering if it was someone he knew well.

"Nirengeki Shoda," Kuroiro said.

The black-haired boy from Class A nodded his head once. _Shoda? That guy, who was with Ojiro in last year's Cavalry Battle… Oh shit, and with Shinso too. Shinso brainwashed him back then too._ Zach grimaced and thought, _Wonder if Class B is okay with him?_ "Were you guys close?" Zach asked softly.

"Weren't great friends," Kuroiro said. "But he was a classmate," he added.

Monoma nodded in agreement as that alone meant enough. Then he tried lifting the mood and said, "Didn't really appreciate him coming in and taking our classmate's spot. But," he held up a palm and let out a small sigh. "When Vlad King sensei told us what he did at the Sports Festival, we figured we'd give him a chance." Kuroiro nodded his head in agreement, and Zach smiled as he was worried how they would react.

 _Wouldn't be a great hero course that rejected someone who saves people like that. Wonder if he would have come to our class instead, if I had been the one to die? Nah, we had an extra student anyway. If anything it would have just evened out._ That thought made Zach grimace, feeling like the extra student that made it an odd number. "Sooo," Monoma continued, and Zach looked into the blond's blue eyes wondering what he was trying to get out of him.

Kuroiro shot Monoma a glare, but Monoma lifted his eyebrows once more before sighing himself. "Who's, your new homeroom teacher?" Monoma asked, only hesitating for a second during the question like he did not know whether or not to ask.

"Mother Russia," Zach replied. He understood why Monoma was hesitant and why Kuroiro shot him that glare, and his eyes lowered for a second as he thought about their tired, former homeroom teacher. Then he lifted his gaze and put a smile on his face despite that thought though, "You guys won't believe the story she told us this morning…"

* * *

"Where's Zach?" Jirou asked the blond boy sitting down across from her at the lunch table.

Kaminari rolled his eyes and said, "I don't know. Probably not feeling up for being surrounded right now, after that," Kaminari sighed and shook his head before starting to pick at his food. "That video this morning was rough," he muttered. Jirou nodded in agreement, and she kind of understood why Zach had gone off somewhere considering she had been planning on saying all sorts of things to him about it.

Kaminari shook his head around then leaned forward while Sero was sitting down on his right side, "So, what were you doing while all that was going on?" Jirou looked at the boy across from her in surprise since he had not asked since the Sports Festival. Then again, all of them had been really busy around Musutafu since the day of and there had not been much time to just sit around and relax like this. "Take on any villains like we did?" Kaminari asked, and he nodded his head to the right at Sero who grinned at that.

"You fought?" Jirou asked in surprise. She glanced at Sero and added, "Without becoming useless right away?" The amazed tone in which she was asking that made Sero start laughing as did Ashido who just sat across from him next to Jirou. Tsuyu sat down on Jirou's other side and Mineta took a seat on Kaminari's left across from her, as Kaminari retorted about how he was the one who took down the whole group of them.

"Only 'cause we immobilized them first," Sero said. "Hagakure blinded 'em, I wrapped a couple up, and Ojiro did some damage too."

"Yeah yeah, it was a group effort," Kaminari agreed with a wave of his hand. He grinned at Sero and said, "Felt pretty cool saving pro heroes."

"Oh yeah," Sero agreed with a smirk. He scratched the back of his head while smiling over half his face, and he added, "Though Thirteen's a rescue-oriented hero, so I don't think it's that impressive."

"That still sounds so cool though," Mineta said, a jealous tone in his own voice. "We just joined a group of heroes evacuating this big group of people," Mineta said, sighing and putting his palms up like there was no other choice. "So disappointing," he said.

Tsuyu tilted her head to the side, and as the one with Mineta during that she said, "Mineta-chan, didn't you keep saying how you hoped we didn't run into any villains during the-"

"I don't know what you're talking about," Mineta denied loudly, and he put his fork down into the chicken while pointing a finger across the table. "I was so disappointed I didn't get to show off against all those Triggered-up monsters!" He said it with beads of sweat coming down his face, and it was not very believable to the others looking his way.

"What about you, Mina-chan?" Tsuyu looked in towards the pink girl who she had not talked to much since the attack.

"I tried joining in the big fight in the middle!" Ashido said with a big grin on her face. "I would've kicked that Inhuman guy's butt, and gotten Mother Russia sensei to think I was pretty cool too," she started sounding disappointed towards the end and let out a small sigh.

"What happened?" Sero asked the girl across from him. Jirou was already frowning at Ashido as she had known this already, but since Ashido wasn't making a big deal out of it she tried to lighten up her expression. Kaminari saw Jirou's look which just made him lean in closer towards Ashido who lowered her hand down to her side and then started pulling up on her uniform. Kaminari and Mineta's faces flushed red and they leaned forward farther excitedly, while Sero just got a confused look and slightly pink cheeks.

Ashido stopped only after raising her shirt up a little though, and she turned her body sideways to show the guys across the table and Tsuyu whose already big eyes widened more. Mineta's nosebleed stopped and sucked back into his nose, and he leaned back with a less pervy look on his face. Jirou was glaring at Kaminari for acting the same way while Ashido was showing them some scars on her right side, but she stopped when Kaminari started looking at Ashido in a more worried way and asked, "What happened? You okay?"

"Yeah, yeah, I'm fine," Ashido waved it off like it was nothing and lowered her shirt back down. "I was running down to help, but one of those portals that the bombs came out of appeared like, right next to me!" The others looked even more worried, and a few got scared looks on their faces as it sounded a lot like Ashido could have been one of the dozens killed by that initial attack. She _was_ one of the hundreds injured by it though, and she added in a lower voice, "I don't really remember much of it after that. Had to be saved though," she sounded regretful, and her fists tightened at her sides.

"At least you're alright," Hagakure said, looking in from Ashido's other side. "That's all that really counts."

"Aww thanks girl," Ashido threw her arms around her invisible friend who sounded so sweet right there.

Kaminari turned back to Jirou and said, "So really, what were you up to?"

Jirou sighed and she twirled her fork around on her plate for a second. "I didn't get in any fights either," she started. "I just gathered a small group of civilians, and I used my Quirk to find good routes with few villains in them and lots of heroes. Compared to everyone else's stories, it's pretty boring."

"Huh," Kaminari said, and he leaned back in his seat. Jirou looked at him with lifted eyebrows wondering what that 'huh' was for. Kaminari saw that look and said, "I'm just surprised. Since your Quirk's got so much more offensive power than I first thought," he leaned forward with a grin and said, "like when you blew apart the whole second event's stage." He started laughing while the others groaned as they had all missed points because of Jirou destroying the arena like that. "Guess it was smart though to avoid getting in any fights," Kaminari finished, scratching the back of his head as he did.

 _At least while I was evacuating people, sure,_ Jirou thought. _But afterwards, with so many villains there, I should have at least tried fighting._ She hummed to herself then looked up at Kaminari as she just realized something. _Did he just compliment me for that though? And wait, he brought up the second event, when we were partnered- No, when we partnered up with each other on our own. We made a pretty good team, even if we did lose. Huge offensive range for both of us, and defense is pretty good too. We could be a pretty great hero team when we're-_ Jirou's cheeks turned red and she looked down at her food fast.

Across the table, Kaminari did not notice Jirou's expression as he had started looking around the cafeteria himself. His smile lowered down a little and he looked at his food too. He listened as Mineta started talking about how he may not have gotten in any fights, but they had come close a bunch of times. As he listened though, Kaminari's face got a little frustrated and he twisted his lips while lifting his gaze to look about around the cafeteria. _It's gotta be Class B, right?_

He lowered his fork down and stared towards Class B's tables with a hesitant look. _But none of them are, at least I don't want to think about them like that…_ _ **"How do you think they knew where we were for the summer training camp?"**_ _How does such a simple question, make everything so bad? Why do you have to- well, I get why you need to think of it like that. I get why you have to be careful, Zach. But, these are our friends. Our classmates. I don't, want to suspect any of them._ _ **"…Could be one of the teachers, or someone in Class B. Or, it could even…"**_ Kaminari clenched his teeth and he closed his eyes for a second. _There's no way. No one here, could be,_ Kaminari opened his eyes and looked around the table he was sitting at.

Kaminari noticed Jirou giving him a strange look, but he just shifted his gaze past her fast so she wouldn't notice what he was thinking about. _No one should know what I'm thinking about,_ he thought after looking past her, realizing it was silly to assume she knew the suspicious thoughts on his mind. _But, if someone really was, a spy. That person would always be on the lookout for someone looking for them, right?_ Kaminari frowned more and shook his head at himself before smiling with a small laugh. His chuckle before he got back to his food was not convincing though, and his eyes were dark as he scooped some food into his mouth. _If it really is someone here's fault though, that you had to go through all of that._ Kaminari's hand tightened on his fork and he thought, _I definitely won't forgive them._

* * *

 **A/N Thanks for reading! Mother Russia is the new homeroom teacher for Class A, hope you guys enjoyed her backstory 'cause I had some fun writing it. Was pretty disappointed/annoyed by the last manga chapters, since I was planning on bringing Shinso into Class B, and now it just seems like I'm doing it 'cause of current manga stuff... *sighs*. I like him anyway though so glad to see him back in it too. Anyway, we hear what he was up to during the Sports Festival, as well as a lot of others in Class A who I didn't really focus on during it talked about it at the end here... Short scene of Uraraka thanking Zach for saving her, and some thoughts from Momo too. I hope y'all enjoyed. And leave a review below telling me what you think!**

Shade11224 chapter 67 . Aug 29

Sounds like a DC reference with the league of assassins I'm starting to suspect there is a underlying supernatural world.

 **Throwing in some more future plot possibilities there. I feel like the Boku no Hero world could be so huge and the manga really only shows us what's going on in Japan. Might have to explore some more of that, and maybe delve into something deeper... Who knows? Thanks for the review!**


	69. Chapter 69

**Disclaimer: I don't own Boku no Hero Academia**

 **Chapter 69:**

 _It's not getting any better._

Zach walked down a main street of Musutafu in the middle of the day on the first Sunday after school started back up. He looked left and right as he reached an intersection, and though it was the middle of the day, he only saw one car driving down the road to his right. _It's the middle of the day. It's a nice day out too. One of the nicest all year._ Zach started crossing the crosswalk, and he lifted his gaze to the sky to watch some slowly moving white clouds cross the crystal blue sky.

 _This sucks,_ Zach thought, lowering his gaze with an intense look to him as he kept walking. _Villains have gone past the line. The parallel lines keeping villains and the rest of us apart, they pushed against each other and the villains derailed those lines. We're on a new track now._ Zach ground his teeth and his right hand twitched at his side, his fingers coming out of his glove. _The world isn't safe for anyone. I can't just hide away at U.A., even if fuckers keep following me!_ Zach snapped his head to the side and glared behind him, but no one was there this time.

 _When I was walking that day with Kirishima, I noticed it, but was it happening before then? Who the fuck is it?_ Zach turned back forward and his eyes darkened while his fingers slid back into his glove. _And at the hospital, someone came. They came and were watching me, but I never got a good look. Through the window once when I woke up after passing out, just watching me in my hospital room. Are they waiting for me to let my guard down? How would that not have been a good time?!_ Zach's fists clenched harder at his sides and he slowed down where he was on the sidewalk.

"Alright," he muttered under his breath. _Fuck it. I'm not going on like this anymore._ _I have been ready for someone to attack me since I came back. Ready for an ambush. I know how to look back without letting people know I can see them! But this! This is so much more frustrating!_ Zach started walking again and dropped his guard completely. He unclenched his fists and relaxed, even laughing like he was just being paranoid in the first place. _If you're not going to make a move, that's fine._ He shifted the straps of his backpack a little on his shoulders, then he turned down the next intersection and lost his grin immediately but only for a second. _I'm not going to be the one that's hunted, anymore._

* * *

A hooded figure leaned out of an alleyway looking down towards the end of the street and an intersection a boy just walked around. The person turned around in their alley and started running through it to the next road down. They hit that road and turned right, jogging down the sidewalk and then cutting right into another alleyway that was thicker than the last one.

The thicker alleyway was between two large skyscrapers, and there was some loose debris and broken furniture piled up in there like the original cleaning crews had just shoved it to the side and no one had bothered to come and clear it out yet. The hooded figure jogging down the alley cut left down another thin alleyway that would go out onto the sidewalk that the person they were following had just turned onto. They spun into that alleyway, and they came to a screeching stop swinging their arms out to the side in panic.

In the middle of that narrow passageway only wide enough for one person with their arms out to walk through, a five and a half foot tall figure covered in darkness glared towards the hooded person. Zach let out a deep breath and his black steam hovered in front of his face, then he rose up his hands that he had knives held in, and he growled in a menacing voice that overlapped a dark tone over its normal one, "Who are you?" Zach stomped forward, and the hooded person looking at him lowered their arms down to their sides but did not step back. "I'm not playing games," Zach warned. His red eyes kept everything in view, and he made sure he was focused behind him too though he was pretty sure he was clear in the back.

"I'm, sorry if I startled you," the figure began, and Zach was only a little surprised as he heard the high-pitched voice come from under the dark purple hood. The girl stood almost half a foot shorter than him, and she sounded young by the tone of her voice. "I, just needed you to see me today. I, let you see me this time because-"

"I've seen you before," Zach said in his low voice. _"This time?" So this is the person who's been following me around. What the fuck is she doing?_ "Take your hood off," Zach ordered.

The girl in front of him lifted her head a little so he could see the bottom of her face, and Zach saw a nervous look on it. She gulped, and she rose up her hands to her hood and very shakily started taking it off. "I wanted to talk, but I was always too nervous to confront you," she started, and she took her hood off so Zach could see her face. His red eyes widened a little but he kept himself on guard, despite the look of the young girl in front of him. _She looks, my age? She's cute too._ The girl had long brown hair, green eyes that were somehow bright even in the dark alley, and despite trying to stay wary of her, he felt himself losing caution.

 _What is she talking about? Too nervous to talk to me?_ "I don't understand," Zach began, lowering his knives a little but keeping Nightmare around him.

"I- I needed to talk to you," she said, taking a step forward and getting a more desperate look on her face. "Because, I can't let it go on anymore. Because you died, at the Sports Festival," she said it and got such a scared look in her eyes that set off a warning alarm in Zach's head. "I couldn't take it if something bad happened to you again and I wasn't there by your side, to save you!"

Zach leaned back and lowered his arms down to his sides. _What the fuck is happening right now?_ "Who," he started. "Why-" he paused again as the girl in front of him leaned her head back and her lips started twisting in a depressed way. "What are you talking about?" Zach just whispered towards her, and he brought his right hand up and touched himself in the chest. He got rid of his black aura, and the girl in front of him smiled widely as she came face to face with him.

She stepped forward, but Zach took a step back to keep the same distance between them. He had a very uneasy feeling in his gut about this girl, and he started panting as the girl stopped only to lean forward his way and push her arms together in front of her body. She rose up her right hand and grabbed the zipper of her dark-purple hoodie, sliding it halfway down her body. She lifted her gaze after doing that, and she squeezed her arms together more pushing her C-cup breasts together and up to show Zach a bunch of cleavage. _Oh man,_ Zach thought, and he gulped as he looked into the girl's eyes. "My life is yours," she said, and Zach's breath sped up even more.

The girl took another step forward, then her eyes opened wide like she realized something terrible. She dropped down fast onto her right knee, and Zach leaned back with an even more nervous look on his face. "I, I offer you my life," she said, bowing her head to her knee as she said it. "I offer you my body," she added, more seductively while lifting her head and pushing her chest out towards him again. "My _soul_ ," she gasped his way, her cheeks bright red and her eyes wide like she could not believe that this moment had finally come.

 _Oh fuck! This is creeping me the fuck out! I was, I was not expecting this! Literally anything else, would have been better! I was ready to get in a death-match, but, but this?!_ "You, you're-" he stopped himself from saying 'nuts,' even though that's what was on the tip of his tongue. _She's just, some crazy fan. This girl is insane!_ "Who are-" Zach froze as the girl's eyes started shaking again while looking back into his. Her eyes shaking like that made him hesitate to finish the question, and he wondered why that would be. A strange feeling he had in his gut since she took off her hood started rising again, and his heart started pounding while his eyes opened huge. "You, you're…"

 **Eight Months Ago**

 _"Eww! It's the Screwdriver!"_

 _"I loved your father. I_ _ **accepted**_ _that he had a daughter, but he's gone now. You aren't my daughter. You weren't that young, and you're even older now. You can get out."_

 _I hate them._ At the top of a five-story tall building, a girl with brown hair falling straight down just past her shoulders glared out over the city beyond her. _I hate all of them._ Her fists clenched at her sides, and then she lifted up her right hand and stared at her index and middle fingers. She stared closer at them, and her face started getting so frustrated as her fingers melded together and turned to steel. _I hate this Quirk._ She looked at the screwdriver she just created, and she closed her eyes as they were watering up.

The fifteen year old girl brought her hands up to the sides of her head and snapped her crying eyes open. "I hate you," she snarled, glaring out into the city and at a tall skyscraper in the center of it. "I hate you mo- _step_ mom," she said it with so much hatred in her voice. The screwdriver on her right hand that she had pressed up against her temple started turning into a blade, and she pulled it off of her head and looked at the sharp knife she created. The other three fingers on her hand turned into smaller blades, and a smirk spread across her face as she curled those fingers and twisted her hand around.

As she curled her larger knife the same way she did the others, she forgot about its extra length and nicked herself on the wrist. "Ow!" She winced and all of her fingers started turning back to normal. The girl looked down at her wrist and watched as red blood trickled down fast to either side of it, and it dripped off onto the ground below her feet. She looked down at those red drops on the floor, then back at her wrist as she thought about that pain. Her eyes widened, and she turned her left index finger into a blade this time. _That, hurt,_ she thought. _But it didn't hurt as much, as this does,_ she bit down hard and looked out over the city again. _Why?_

 _"What a stupid Quirk!"_

 _"Creepy, what boys are going to want a girl who's just a tool?"_

 _"It's not you, but the other girls say- well, I just don't want to get left out like you do. Please don't talk to me."_

 _"If you can't pay tuition anymore, you can't keep going to this high school. Can you work anything out?"_

 _"The number you have called is not available…"_

The girl brought her left hand over to her right wrist and slid a blade across it. "Snn, sn," she sniffled and clenched her eyes shut, pushing more tears out as blood ran down her arm. "I don't want to, be like this," she started, pulling her left hand away and clenching her eyes shut as blood ran down both hands now. "No one cares, if I do it. No one's going to ask me if I'm okay," she looked forward again, into the city that made her teeth bare and her mind scream in fury. _Everyone here. They're all demons. They all, hate me- I hate them! I hate all of them!_ Tears spilled faster down her face, and then her right foot stepped forward and onto the ledge before her.

Her eyes lowered down to her foot, and then she stared in shock as she brought her other foot up too. She gulped and watched as blood dripped next to her feet, then she leaned forward and looked down off of the building. "It doesn't look so high, from here," she whispered. Five stories suddenly seemed a lot closer to the ground, and her breath started slowing down though echoing in her head. _Would anybody care? If I didn't, would anyone?_ That thought made her heart squeeze harder, and her feet slid closer so they were halfway off and halfway on the ledge. _No. No one would._ She closed her eyes. She leaned forward.

Her feet came off of the ledge, and she started plummeting. Even though she closed her eyes though, she snapped them open after a second of free-falling through the air. She stared at the ground that suddenly seemed so much farther, though it was closing fast, and her face covered in terror as people screamed on the sidewalk and street below her. Tears flew off the sides of her face and blood off her arms, and she screamed, "AHHH-"

On a sidewalk of Genosi City, a girl laying flat on her back slowly opened up her eyes. She looked up, and into the hazel eyes of a boy leaning over her. He was wearing a black mask, he had short black hair visible over the top of his mask, and he smiled for a second when she opened her eyes to look into his. _I, know him,_ the girl thought, and her breath sped up as she tried leaning up on the ground. She felt exhausted though, but her breath still sped up as the boy leaning over her lost his smile and started looking down at her with a worried and pained look in his eyes.

A black portal opened up in the air behind the boy kneeling over her. He glanced back at it, then he looked down at the girl he was knelt over who was staring into his eyes with huge ones of her own. "Don't," he started, then he pursed his lips and hesitated while glancing around towards other bystanders near them. He leaned down and he put his face close to the confused, disheveled one of the girl lying under him. "It's never worth it," he whispered, and the girl's breath caught in her throat as her eyes got as large as they possibly could be.

"Wh-wh-what?" She finally managed to gasp out at him.

"Live life," he said, looking down into her green eyes in such a soft way. "And never think you're worthless to anyone. Because I care if you live or die," he stood up and took a step back into the portal, while blue and red lights flashed around them and sirens blared so loud that the girl had no idea how she had been drowning them out to only hear his voice until then. She stared at his face as he stepped back into the portal, and she leaned up and reached a hand out after him, but the portal closed and he was gone. Her hand grabbed out into empty air, and she gasped while tears filled her eyes as he was gone.

 **Present**

"You're, the one who…" Zach stared at the girl in front of him and pulled back while gasping in pain. _No,_ he thought.

While Zach's face filled with pain though, the girl in front of him got a look of ecstasy on her face and gasped out in euphoria. "Out of all those people, you do remember me," she got up and stared towards him with shining eyes. "It's because of our connection," she said, and Zach felt a pang in his chest even as he had to back away from this crazy person.

 _When Kurogiri told me what it was, I didn't know if I should. I, but I saved her. I saved her because I had been in that place before. Because she was young, because, I needed to save her like I was saved._ Zach was panting heavily as he stared at this girl whose brown hair was longer, who was taller and not as bloody, who was looking at him like he was a God.

"You're my savior," she said, and Zach gulped again as the girl standing before him put her hands together in front of her chest. "I'll, only live for you," she said, her lips trembling as Zach looked back into her eyes.

"This is, crazy," Zach said. He couldn't hold it back, and he stepped away again with an uneasy and scared look on his face. _I don't like this. This is, this is too much!_

"No one else cared, but you came out of nowhere. You, brought me back to life when I had accepted that no one cared! But you saved me!" She called it at Zach with a desperate look in her eyes. "You still care, right? You still care if I live or die?"

"Y-Yeah, of course!" Zach called out. He froze after saying it, _Uh-oh._ "But," he continued. "I, I don't want, I mean," he cut himself off again and had such a confused and freaked-out look on his face. "What, did you think was going to happen here?" He asked, lifting his right eyebrow as sweat dripped down both sides of his face. _I didn't realize people would go crazy if I brought them back. Or maybe, she wasn't totally sane before it. I've got no idea, but, but this is WAY too weird!_

"I started training my Quirk," she said, smiling at Zach and stepping towards him, only for Zach to take another step back and shake his head at her. "I'll follow you forever," she said, her tone begging him to let her do it.

 _Alright, so she's a crazy person. She's stalking me. This, this isn't as bad as villains coming after me, I guess?_ Zach started shaking his head more and he said in a low voice, "You, can't follow me around like this. I- when I'm in school, what do you do? I mean- what are you doing? Just waiting for me to come out?" She got an embarrassed look on her face and started twisting around her right foot on the ground in a shy way that would have been cute if it was not entirely too creepy.

"I don't want you to follow me around anymore," Zach said, trying to make his voice stern and get the girl to understand he meant it.

She looked up and into his eyes though, and she just kept smiling at the sight of him. "I love you," she professed, and then she turned and pursed her lips with bright red cheeks. _I actually said it!_ _EEEEeee!_

 _Holy shit! I have to run!_ "Well, um, it was nice meeting you," Zach said. He turned around and jogged towards the end of the alley, keeping his knives in his hands as he did.

"Huh? Wh- wait!"

Zach ran out onto the sidewalk and he turned and started jogging down it. _That was not an okay way to end that. How am I supposed to talk to her though?! She's crazy, and crazy about me, and even if she's cute this is way too wild. I don't want to call the police on her though. If she thinks I'm the only one who cares about her,_ Zach slowed down, and he glanced over his shoulder and looked back towards that alleyway. He spotted the girl leaning her head out of it and looking towards him, but as she pulled back like usual, this time she stopped and then slid her head farther out of the alley while smiling towards him. _Nope. Nope nope nope._ Zach turned forward and shook his head around.

 _This is not what I came out to do today! I just, have to ignore her. She isn't following me out on the sidewalk. It seems like she's fine with keeping her distance. To protect me? Oh shit, okay, okay… I can't pretend like I don't notice someone's following me. And I can't just let my guard down thinking it's just, whoever that girl is. What's her name? Well, whoever she is, she's going to make me drop my guard. I don't think she's crazy enough to attack me, maybe… She says she wants to protect me though, so even if I don't realize I'm about to be attacked by villains or something, maybe she'll help me out? This is too much._ Zach lifted his left hand and scratched the side of his head. _I want to be a little more suspicious of who she might be, but I've seen crazy people before. She looked a little like Toga there. That's bad._

 _If she is like Toga, I have to report her. But other than following me around, she hasn't really done anything. Killing herself… I remember, she had cuts on her arms too…_ Zach's eyes lowered to the floor and he bit down hard as he kept walking towards the library, his backpack feeling heavier all of a sudden. _I had All Might. He talked me down, told me it was alright to have my dream. But her, what did I really do? I thought in that moment when Kurogiri opened the portal that I needed to do more. I thought that telling her those things would stop her from doing it again, and I was right! I was right, but I just left her after bringing her back to life. I left an emotional wreck who had thought no one cared believing that one person did, and she "trained" to follow me? I'm not a God! I'm just a student._

 _Except, I'm not,_ Zach thought. His fists balled at his sides and he got a more serious look on his face as he kept walking. _I might be a kid, but I'm a hero. I'm Lifebringer. And, and I might not be able to help her, but there are things I can do._ Zach reached up and grabbed his backpack straps, pulling them tight and staring towards the library up ahead that had received very little damage during the recent attack. He had a bead of sweat on the side of his face, but he continued towards the building and steadied his hands. _I have to do this._

* * *

Zach sat at a table in the library with his headphones on. He stared at the screen and watched the end of a video on his incognito tab, then he darted his gaze around before opening a new tab and closing the old one. Zach typed in something new, then he jumped to the fifth search page right away. Doing something like this was making him nervous, and he thought while glancing around him again, _The school hasn't mentioned anything about my old punishment recently. They probably would if they knew what I was doing now._

He clicked on another link and gulped at the naked women on the ads on the side of the screen. He quickly blocked those ads out, then he scrolled down and found another link with some big red 'X's before and after it. It had 'WARNING' written on the side and Zach was worried it might have a virus that would break his computer, but he read out the link in his head and knew what the warning was for. Zach tapped the link and a new window opened up, and a video started playing in the center of the window. _I really, really couldn't have watched any of these on the school servers._ Zach started glaring at the screen and the villain on it, calling to other villains while wearing a mask and flanked by a dozen others in similar garb.

 **"…need to find Stain and follow his commands! All who were influenced by the Hero Killer should adorn themselves in the attire of the Cult of Stain! Only Stain's teachings can purge this world of the darkness residing within. Only Stain can save us now! All Might is gone, so every hero who exists in this world now is a FAKE! And fakes, must be…"**

 **"PURGED!"** All of the followers behind the leader in a red robe called out. The leader's robe was all red, slightly different from the others who all wore black ones with only red stripes on the shoulders and down the middles of them. Zach leaned back from the computer and he darted his gaze around again worriedly that someone would see his computer screen, then he lowered the brightness and leaned forward himself with a terrified look on his face. _No,_ he thought, while two men dragged a costumed figure onto the screen.

The man in charge started calling out about the hero's name, and the hero started begging for mercy. Zach 'x'-ed out the window fast when he saw a serrated knife drawn, and he still gagged even without finishing the video. _Damn it,_ he thought, his hands shaking as he thought about the fear covering that tied-up hero's face. _Someone needs to clean all these videos off the internet… not that other people won't just post them. Stain's video,_ _ **my**_ _video, they never really leave the web. They're always there._ Zach's eyes darkened and he moved his finger around the mousepad again to scroll farther down the page with that link on it that had opened a new window while leaving him on the site.

Zach watched more videos, ones deep in the internet that he knew might be illegal just for watching. His eyes were dark as he x-ed out of clip after clip of evil across the web. Then he stared at a page that was not as far buried in links within links, and he could get to it on the first page of a search engine. _These petitions, are gaining steam fast._ Zach glared at a bar indicating the number of people who had signed the petition he was looking at. He refreshed the page, and he saw a dozen more signatures added since he first got on the page. _People calling for heroes to use their Quirks to wipe out villains. To change laws to allow for capital punishment and for heroes to be allowed to dole it out in the streets. They aren't that much to be worried about, but this…_

The boy stopped on a page and lifted his left hand up to run through his dark wavy hair. His hair fell down at the sides and behind his head before waving up a little near the bottom, and there were some waves over the top of it too with some smaller strands sticking out as he did not spend much time on his hair in the morning. Running his hand through his hair made it worse too. Zach frowned and lowered his hand from his head. He stared at the bar labeled, 'No punishment for heroes.' _Already twelve thousand supporters. People don't want heroes to be punished, or be afraid of being punished if they use their powers to kill someone. Maybe they think so much damage was caused because heroes were holding back? Maybe they're just afraid enough that they're willing to accept that. If heroes can get away with murder though, like I did…_ Zach narrowed his eyes more and he clicked off of that page.

Zach took a deep breath and he opened up a writing application on his laptop. He opened up an old file and started panting as he stared at it. Zach went back on the internet and opened up a couple of pages. He searched different things, and he went onto different message boards discussing the villain attacks, hero tactics, and changes in society. Zach took in a few deep breaths and let them out through his nose, then he copied and pasted into the message bars on each site. _Label it anonymously,_ he thought, typing in 'Anonymous' as the guest user for each message. Then at the top of the huge essay he just copied and pasted, Zach started typing, 'This is a leaked report from U.A. student Zach Sazaki, otherwise known as Lifebringer.'

He paused, and then he posted it. He posted the same thing across a bunch of different message boards, and then he closed his laptop with big eyes. He panted a couple of times, then he tightened his hands on his laptop before removing them and lowering them down to his sides. He stared forward over his laptop into the wall of the tiny library box he was sitting at. It was a private workspace, and yet he still darted his eyes around to see if anyone saw what he had just done. Then his gaze became serious again and he put his hands together over the table in front of him. _The date is the most important thing. I have the date I finished it on there, before the big event I mentioned in the essay._

Zach grabbed his laptop and put it away in his backpack. He stood up and started to leave the library, his expression intense and without regret on it. _I wrote it, and nothing changed. Because nothing could change until the big event happened. I knew it as soon as the reports were over, and everyone just stopped really focusing on them. Or even while I wrote it… The only way my essay was going to have an impact was if people saw I predicted it coming._ His eyes got darker as he thought that, but he continued on in his head, _And if people think that what I offered in the essay might have actually helped stop it._

Zach reached the door of the library and headed outside. He walked out into such a nice day in mid-May, but there were not many people out there with him to enjoy it. _There's too much negativity filling the web, and the news, and social media. Too many people saying things are worse and only getting even worse still. The solutions being offered like killing all villains, they aren't good ones. Not one that will create a better world._ Zach started walking down the steps outside the library. _I had an idea though. I thought it through, and I know it's a good one!_ _Telling everyone to work on their Quirks, telling them all to be ready to face villains, so that next time a few hundred people attack a city of millions, it won't be as much of a bloodbath. It can work. I have to believe it can._

* * *

 **A/N Thanks for reading! Sooo... Zach's got a creepy stalker. Hope you guys enjoyed the introduction of this new character, as well as Zach's decision to post his final report from the previous year online to try and stop the negativity spreading since the Sports Festival Invasion. Next chapter's a little longer and the start of a new arc, so get ready! Leave a review below telling me what you think of these new developments, predictions and questions for Death! Review responses:**

Super Power Sensei chapter 68 . 18h ago

Who is the person that was following Zack back when Kiminari got kidnapped and when Zack was alone with Kirishima?

 **Great question! XD Lol I laughed pretty hard when I saw this review knowing what the next chapter had in store. Glad you remembered her first appearance back when Kaminari got kidnapped since back then Zach didn't even notice it (too preoccupied at the time)! Hope you enjoyed the reveal and thanks for the review!**

Shade11224 chapter 68 . 15h ago

Adding on to my theory of the supernatural it'd explain why Zach's quirk is the way it is. After all his father turned into steel I guess and his mother healed people through sadness, so that explains revival and nightmare mode and even his healing when he kills. What doesn't make since is its constraint in his right hand and why it seems to be a physical thing as it weakens the more it's spreads out, but his hand weakens too so that means it's literally energy that just decided to sit in his hand.  
Besides all that your writing skills have had a drastic improvement since the first chapter and this one! I really hope you continue to flesh out the romantic relationship between Momo and Zach, so please don't kill her as that would bring the story to the point where you really couldn't grow attached to any character without fearing you'll off them. Also it'd make the story far more boring without the dynamic between the niceness of everyday life and the really dark moments. Now that I'm basically done begging, thanks for the chapter!

 **Won't confirm or deny anything about your theory, though I will say I like the ideas and the thought of making things more supernatural seems pretty cool to me. I'm also glad you think the story's really progressed since the start, and it seems like everyone's hooked on the MomoxZach ship by now... Won't say anything about it though, as always ;). Thanks for the review, and I hope you enjoyed the new chapter!**

Crosswald chapter 68 . 13h ago

Can we have a list of all "important" dead heroes, i'm confused

 **Sure. Aizawa, Edgeshot, Snipe, and Tora and Air Jet too. The first three are the ones I think you'd consider "important" though.**

Thebloodlord chapter 68 . 22h ago

Mother Russia sounds a lot like Izumi Curtis from FMA...

 **Glad you think she's a lot like the most badass chick in anime XD. Thanks for the review!**

Guest chapter 68 . 20h ago

Right there Captain, on the horizon! Tis a ship!

 **Haha maybe, maybe... ;)**

Momozaki chapter 68 . 16h ago

You damn ship tease...I needed that moment  
thank you hope to see more  
Hope it takes a while before shit comes again  
Zach deserves a short break

 **Love it how you don't even have faith that Zach's out of the shit now. Just that it will take a while until the next time he gets fucked up is a good hope to have though! I'm glad you liked the chapter, and let's hope Zach' gets that break he deserves. Thanks for reviewing, and hope you enjoyed the newest chapter!**


	70. Chapter 70

**Disclaimer: I don't own Boku no Hero Academia**

 **Chapter 70:**

"All of you have been given offers for the week long workplace internships that you went through last year," Mother Russia said to the class of twenty-one students in front of her. "Which is good, because as second years there would be no list of heroes to send those of you without offers." Mother Russia paused as the whole class looked confused and excited and nervous at the same time.

"Excuse me, sensei," Iida began as he threw his hand up in the air. "Is it really, pertinent to us to-"

"Are you too afraid to leave campus, future hero?" Mother Russia interrupted with a glare in his direction. Iida leaned back and then shook his head quickly, but before he could deny such a thing, Mother Russia said, "In that case, you're free to stay here instead. The internships are optional," she said, and the students started glancing around at each other wondering what that meant. A few of the more nervous ones gulped and looked down at their desks in hesitant ways. "The training you undergo here with me through that week will not be easy, but I admit it will be safer," she said, scratching her chin and humming to herself. "Recovery Girl will still be here, after all."

Mineta gulped and in his head saw a rock and a hard place and he was bouncing back and forth into them. He lifted his gaze to the scary Russian lady in front of them whose training they had gone through in the past week and a half. Yaoyorozu thought of something as she thought about that training they had been doing too, and she said, "Excuse me, but last year we received the internship offers the day we returned after the Sports Festival. Is-"

"There was a bit of confusion and deliberation over whether or not the school was going to let this happen," Mother Russia began. "But if we're too scared to send students out to get experience, then we're going to be sending half-prepared brats out into the real world when they graduate just to be killed by villains." Half the class gawked at her blunt wording of that sentence, and a few more of them gulped if they were thinking about staying at school and taking her training course. "Then again, the choice is yours. With all those recently-escaped villains, heroes need more help than ever these coming weeks. It also means that you'll almost definitely be getting in fights with villains out there. Considering the amount of offers this year, heroes are really desperate for the help."

"Wait," Mineta whispered as he remembered what Mother Russia started with. "We _all_ got offers?!" He asked in surprise.

"Yes, even you tiny Mineta," she said. She smirked after saying it though, and she pointed the remote at the green board behind her so names would start appearing. They rose from the bottom of the board to the top, and Koda's name appeared first with 6 offers next to his name. Then Mineta's appeared and the smallest boy in the class's eyes widened as he thought, _Not last?!_ He only had a couple more offers than Koda, but he still spun towards the bigger student with a victorious look on his face that made Mother Russia lose her smirk as somehow that boy felt this was a victory.

Koda lowered his head a little, but Sato leaned forward and said to the boy in front of him, "It's just not fair huh?" Koda lifted his head and saw Sato's name appeared above Mineta's, and he turned to Sato who let out an exasperated sigh at their low number of offers. Koda nodded in agreement with a small smile as it still was not that bad. _I got offers from pro heroes!_ Koda thought, spinning back to the board and wondering who those six heroes were.

"Aww," Hagakure snapped in a disappointed way as she appeared five up from the bottom. "I even showed off my Super Move and everything."

Ojiro waited until he popped up two more above his girlfriend, then he looked towards her and shrugged his own shoulders as he was not expecting that much either. After Ojiro in seventh to last though, there was a jump from the seventy offers he received to two hundred that the next person up did. Sero dropped his jaw at the huge jump from last year, then he spun to his right as the next bar popped up right after with his partner from the first round's name on it. "Eyy, looks like you got some this year."

"Whoopee!" Ashido pumped a fist in the air, and Mother Russia did not say anything as she looked back herself at the bar with 240 next to it. The bar still looked tiny though, and everyone looked closer wondering how much larger they were going to get.

"Dang," Uraraka smacked her hands down on her desk in an upset way. Iida glanced back at her while a bunch of others around her looked her way, and Uraraka frowned while saying, "Out of everyone in the finals…"

"I get the feeling," Shoji agreed, a mouth appearing on his bottom right hand. Uraraka looked towards him, then back and her eyes widened as Shoji had actually appeared farther down.

Kaminari's name appeared one above Uraraka and the blond grinned, leaning back in his chair while the two finalists who got fewer offers frowned in his direction from behind him. "Guess my power's just too cool," he said, and more of the others who did not get as high numbers frowned his way too. Zach glanced to the right at his best friend and then back at the board, feeling a nervous excitement as his name had yet to appear.

Yaoyorozu hummed to herself and then smiled in acceptance of the number she received when it popped up. _Much more than last year. I believe I did better as well. Kirishima was just the better fighter this time around,_ she looked towards the redhead with a small smile as Kirishima's name popped up on the board.

"Nice!" Kirishima said, slamming a fist down with a big grin on his face as his name popped up with just over 1000 offers. Three quarters of the class were up on the board already, a little more as Tokoyami's name popped up with a few hundred more than Kirishima. Then there was another gap of over a thousand, and Iida leaned forward with wide eyes behind his glasses at the sight of his name and how large the jump was from last year.

 _Whoa! This is, this is crazy!_ Zach thought, and then his jaw dropped as the next name appeared on the board. The room was silent, and no one dared look his way. The whole class just stayed silent as they watched the next few names appear until the list was finished. Zach gulped as he looked three from the top, where he saw his name and the number of offers that was somewhere around the amount that Todoroki got the year before. _I can't believe this._ Zach started panting while looking at the bar labeled '4072.' What was more unbelievable than the number of offers though, was the name below his that made him hesitant to look over but had him darting his eyes that way as he could not stop himself.

Midoriya stared at the board with his jaw dropped. He looked at it with shaking eyes, and his hands closed into fists over his desk shaking wildly from the sight of his name at the top of the list. _I beat Todoroki, and Kacchan?!_ Midoriya stared at the bar that stretched across the board, and the half dozen _thousand_ offers he received next to it. "I-I-I," he stammered, then he gulped and his hands kept shaking over his desk. _I must have done it. I told the world "I am here." That video we watched on the first day of class, how many heroes were watching it? All For One isn't the only one who knows now, everyone is looking at me._

Bakugo ground his teeth over and over again as he stared his name down on the board. He snarled and darted his eyes Midoriya's way, then his eyes shot open wide as the nervous and shaky look he first saw appear on Deku's face had gone away. Only a few seconds after seeing how many pro heroes wanted him at their agencies, Midoriya's breathing had calmed down as did the expression on his face. _Damn it,_ Bakugo thought, looking down at his arms that he lifted in front of him. Then he looked down towards his legs under his desk and narrowed his eyes at them. _There were no places in this year's Sports Festival, but,_ he rose his eyes to the board and a spot four places down where he barely got any more offers than he had the year before. _I know I lost._

"As expected, Todoroki," Yaoyorozu said with a glance to her right at the boy sitting next to her.

The boy with the second most offers in the class nodded thanks at her instead of attributing all the offers to his dad as he had the year before. _Videos showed Inhuman destroying those ANTs, and yet we took him down. After seeing how strong the Anti-Nomus were in the first round, every person involved in stopping Inhuman was obviously going to receive a lot of offers. Still, 5500 is a lot to choose from. I won't go with Dad again. Even if he is a better hero now, I've seen him in action enough. I need to diversify. Aizawa sensei said it during the Sports Festival, my fighting style is too predictable. Tokoyami avoided my flames, and Midoriya had counters prepared for everything. Inhuman also saw my attacks coming as well, and he was able to stop me from using my Quirk because of his power. Getting close to my classmates or pulling them towards him. I need precision, more like Bakugo._

Todoroki glanced to his right towards Bakugo, only to see a much more frustrated look on the spiky-blond boy's face as he clenched and unclenched his fists under his desk. In Todoroki's mind he saw Bakugo scream at the top of his lungs while blasting the two of them through the air after he had been nailed by a powerful blow from Inhuman and needed to be saved. He had seen Bakugo's arms after that and known something was wrong, but seeing his arms shaking still now made him frown at the thought that his getting hurt might have been part of the cause. _I'm, the Hand-Crusher,_ Todoroki thought sadly, looking back down at his desk with a dark look in his eyes. He didn't want to say it aloud considering how Midoriya and Iida reacted to it, but he had been serious despite how much those two had laughed.

 _I really, can't believe this._ Zach was still staring at the board in disbelief. _Most other people don't have recordings of the Sports Festival maybe, so they might not remember all the stuff that happened then. The news hasn't replayed any of the weird stuff either too. I saw myself mentioned as being at the hospital bringing people back who died from their injuries, and they talked about me bringing Shoji back too while still on stage. Is that it? Or fighting Inhuman too? How much of me in Nightmare form did they get on video? We had the full footage to watch, but I know not all of it was televised. Whoever had control was making the televised bits jump around between Musutafu and the stadium. Then after the better video got put on, I think it started recording the stage again so it should have gotten me turning into Nightmare. Maybe that's actually why people have been staring so much. Not because of the scars or the torture or the crazy things I threatened, but they're just terrified of Nightmare._

Zach looked down at his desk, then he got a more thoughtful look on his face. _Maybe Softy was right though. If I got that many offers, maybe they aren't really that afraid of Nightmare? I mean, Tokoyami, and even Kuroiro are some pretty scary and dark guys. If people saw Tokoyami's Dark Shadow go out of control too, they might be freaked-out. But I had control in Nightmare. The first time they saw it, if they didn't see it in the Lifebringer video, it was me fighting villains! That's gotta count for something- it did! It did count for something, seeing as I have 4072 job offers. It's the work thing where we spend a full week with them though, and not actually something we get paid doing-_

"After these week-long internships, if you make good connections out there, you can attempt to keep your internships going in similar fashions to your fall ones after the week is over," Mother Russia said to the class while they were all still looking at the list showing their offers. They looked up at their muscular teacher with long white-blonde hair who turned towards Zach, "Ask the others what that entails if you need to. If you'll be doing-" Zach started nodding in agreement and Mother Russia grunted, then she turned back straight ahead and continued, "I'll hand out your lists now with the hero agencies you can pick from."

Jirou looked ahead of her with a hesitant look on her face. She glanced to her right at Kaminari, and he looked left as well to his friend sitting on his left side. Jirou leaned forward a bit on Zach's right in between him and Kaminari, and she said in a low voice, "You sure about that?"

Zach glanced right at her, then at Kaminari, then around in some more surprise as they were not the only two looking at him oddly. "I need the money," Zach started. _It's been way too long. I haven't used the ATM card that much in the last month, barely at all actually. Still though, using it even a little is too much. Besides, I need the experience too. I'm not staying here while everyone else goes out. Not when I have so many offers. So many opportunities._ Zach smiled and added, "It'll be fine. It's no more dangerous than staying here."

The others looking his way had things they felt like they needed to say. A lot of them were scared that Zach would get taken again, now that they knew what had happened to him the last time he was with the villains. It was pretty clear he was a target too, but the last thing he said made all of them open their eyes wide. It was such a simple statement that none of them had really thought about.

 _Kurogiri, could make portals anywhere,_ Kaminari thought with a bead of sweat rolling down the side of his face.

 _With that many villains on their side, if they stormed U.A., would anyone really be able to stop them?_ Jirou got a grim look in her eyes. _Hopefully the ANTs are a deterrent, and there are heightened security- plus the school is just a lot safer than… but, they have Trigger. And who knows if there are more guys like that Inhuman in their ranks? Not to mention…_

 _If All For One attacked U.A., no one would be able to stop him,_ Midoriya thought while looking across the room towards Zach's seat. _Why doesn't he then? Why allow this society of heroes to keep existing? Why not tear it all down if he has the power to?_ He hummed, and then he lifted his head and looked at Mother Russia who was walking towards him first with the thickest packet of papers in her hand. The papers were covered in list after list of heroes who had sent him offers, compared to the one he received the previous year.

Zach looked towards Midoriya who he spotted start looking down at his packet with a nervous but serious look on his face. His eyes widened for a second, and then he turned the other way and looked out the windows. _Oh yeah,_ he thought. He frowned for a second, then his lips curled back up and he smiled while looking out at some dark clouds that just blocked out the sun. _It's not so bad. Shouldn't be too hard actually…_

Zach got his stack of papers that was a little thinner than Midoriya and Todoroki's. He started looking through the names and got a small smile on his face as he reached the bottom of the first page. _Mt. Lady's still with me at least._ He thought about a piece he watched on an entertainment news program the night before on his phone that had been going viral. The program got more views the more controversial it got, and the young edgy crew arguing with each other on the show had talked about him extensively. _They showed a clip of me angry at the courthouse and then a picture of me in Nightmare back to back. Glad they didn't get clips of me saying I'd kill All Might on there. I haven't seen any of the clips Hackerman showed actually, even in the replay we watched in class we couldn't see the big screens… Hackerman, Ganeshi, Twice, K-Blaster, and a whole bunch of others were all arrested. Bomber and Spinner are dead. Inhuman got caught too, not that I knew who he was before, but that's a nice blow._ Zach flipped through his packet while not really thinking too hard on the names he was looking at.

He scrolled through the hundreds upon thousands of heroes who sent him offers, and occasionally he grinned at certain names. Then his lips dipped far down at the name he saw in the middle of his packet's fourth page. _Endeavor… Going with the number one hero, would be pretty amazing. I'm sure there are things Endeavor can teach me. And, he's a pretty amazing hero too._ Zach's eyes darkened and his hands tightened on the sides of his packet. _**"Todoroki, Shoto? Weird that you'd bring him up. Hey kid, I'm gonna let you in on a little secret…"**_ _Dabi. I told you all about me, you knew everything. So when you told me about yourself, I was glad. I was looking for the good in you. But, I wish you had never told me that, you fucking psychopath._

Zach's eyes twitched and his fingers dug harder into his packet. _Keep searching,_ he thought, trying to push certain thoughts out of his head. He had to resist the urge to look back towards Todoroki, keeping his gaze pointed down at his packet that he flipped a page of. He flipped through for a few more seconds, then he lifted his head as Mother Russia told them they could take their time with picking. They had two days to return with their answers of whether or not they wanted to do the internships and which hero they would be going to if they decided to go. Mother Russia then left the room since they were doing this at the end of class anyway.

"Dude," Kaminari got out of his seat and leaned over Zach's to look down at his packet. "I can't believe how many you got. So unfair," Kaminari said, though he was grinning at Zach's stack of papers anyway. "So, you thinking about anyone in particular yet?"

Zach started shaking his head, and then he turned and noticed Jirou up and standing next to him too as were Sero and Shoji. "I was," he started, then he frowned and glanced back down at his packet. He turned again and looked at Kaminari, "Remember when we fought Shatterer? And afterwards," Zach slowed as Kaminari's eyes widened, then the blond looked down with a grimace on his face too. Zach continued to the others who just got confused by that, "Edgeshot, gave me his card. If I was going to be allowed to do an internship, it was going to be with him."

The others started frowning as they realized why Zach had that unenthusiastic look on his face despite how many offers he had in front of him. Zach stood up after saying it, and he took his packet with him while looking around at the others and asking the same question Kaminari asked back to them. All of them had over a hundred offers and replied that they had not searched through all of them yet. Mineta then chimed in that he didn't know how he was going to pick between all his offers. They all looked back at the short boy who was leaning back with a smug look on his face, and a slip of paper with nine heroes listed on it in front of him.

Zach waited a little just talking to his classmates, then he headed back a little and to Midoriya's seat where Uraraka and Aoyama were already standing. Aoyama was making a big deal out of the 50 offers he had received which the other two were going along with as Zach walked up. "Hey," Zach started as Aoyama stopped talking for a second. "Nice job Midoriya," he said, nodding at his friend's huge pile of papers sitting open on his desk.

"Th-thanks," Midoriya replied. He looked at Zach funny for a second, then down at his papers again with a more serious look.

"You got a lot of offers this time too, Zach," Uraraka said while turning to the black haired boy on her right. "Do you know who you're thinking about?"

"Not a clue yet," Zach replied with a small laugh. _Trying to narrow it down though,_ he thought, glancing back at Midoriya and sighing internally at his curly-haired friend's indecisive look.

Midoriya wasn't flipping through the papers as he stared down at them, and Zach leaned forward a bit to look down at where Midoriya was looking. "Looks like you've got someone you're interested in though?" He said it like he had noticed but ended with his tone raising since he did not know which name it was Midoriya was staring at. None of the names at the top of the sheet were really sticking out to Zach as obvious choices.

"Deku's, between two right now, right?" Uraraka turned back to the green-haired boy who finally rose back his head only to shake it. "You've decided, already?"

Midoriya took a deep breath and then nodded, steadying his expression though there was still a bead of sweat on the side of his face. _All Might already told me she was giving me an offer. I thought maybe I would go with someone else, the top ranked if I could. And number 2 ranked Hawks is a really cool hero, and Tokoyami said- but, All Might's suggestion last year changed everything. Though, Gran Torino was my only offer last year too… But I'm decided!_ Midoriya took a deep breath and then his cheeks went a little red, _A hero that All Might sounded so impressed by, even though I haven't heard much about her. I can't wait to see what kind of Quirk she uses up close! I wish there was more online about her._

"Sooo, who is it?" Zach asked, as Midoriya was just looking somewhat nervous and pretty excited.

"Oh! She's," Midoriya lifted up his packet to point at the name second from the top. _"She's?"_ Uraraka, Aoyama, and Zach all thought at the same time as Midoriya hesitated before continuing. While Uraraka frowned a bit, Aoyama turned in towards her, which Uraraka saw and went bright red in the cheeks as she thought about something Aoyama had asked her before.

Zach thought it for a different reason than the smirking blond boy and embarrassed brunette. _There's only one female hero at the top of that list. Which means-_

"The Smashing Heroine: Wonderlass," Midoriya said while pointing at the female hero's name. "She's a little like Aizawa sensei, in that she isn't too into press conferences." Midoriya smiled softly while saying it, but his smile lowered down after a second as it was too soon to think fondly back on their homeroom teacher without feeling bad. _Sensei. Why did, they hide your body? Could they have not wanted Zach to,_ Midoriya looked up at Zach, and he got a confused look on his face as Zach had taken out his phone and was focused on it unlike the other two who also had more grim expressions.

 _Up in Hokkaido, and nice! Right in the middle of the island._ Zach checked out something on the web and then noticed Midoriya looking up at him just past his phone that he did not take his attention off of. _I think within 100 miles of Yabino City should be good._ "I'm surprised," Zach said, looking up from his phone and looking back at his friend who the others were about to mention something to as well, though Uraraka looked ready to pounce on Aoyama and cover his mouth if need be. "That name sounds pretty amazing for someone who isn't well known. 'Wonderlass.' Sounds like one of those old comic book heroes." Zach glanced back at his phone and tapped back a few pages then clicked on images without moving his hand around very much. "Doesn't look like it though," he added, turning the phone so the others could see the black and dark blue costume she was wearing.

"Whoa," Uraraka said, feeling all her jealously disappear at the sight of the woman on the screen. She gulped and then scratched the back of her head, while Midoriya got some sweat on his face too at the sight of her.

"Not very, dazzling," Aoyama said. The woman they were looking at had a thick black helmet on both sides of her head but nothing over the top of her scalp, showing off that her head was completely shaved. Her costume was not skin-tight, instead looking baggy on the picture taken of her frowning during a press conference two years back. Her eyes were blue, but what should have been the whites of her eyes were red instead. Her skin was light-toned, her baggy pants were black without any design on them, and the costume over her torso only had a dark blue 'W' in the center of it to make it not all black. Her cape was the same dark blue though, as were her big gloves that made her hands look disproportionately huge compared to the rest of her body.

"All Might says that she is very strong," Midoriya said in defense of the woman his friends did not seem all that impressed by.

"You talked to All Might about it already?" Uraraka asked in surprise, considering they just got the lists.

Zach sweatdropped at his friend who got a flustered look on his face for a second while spinning and looking at the short girl next to his desk. "He just mentioned that she had sent an offer already, so I was thinking about it before we-"

"Well if you've already had a head-start," Zach cut in, trying to help Midoriya get off the subject while also glad to have a good excuse to move back to his seat. "Then I need to get to looking," he said, turning and waving around his thick packet he had still barely looked through. _Alright. There've gotta be a ton of heroes in here who work in Hokkaido._ Zach smiled while heading to his desk. _And now since I don't have any real preference,_ Edgeshot's face appeared back in his head and his small smile dipped back down. He was not lying when he told his friends he was looking forward to it before, and thinking about that great hero who thought well of him made him sad. It was not as much that he could not work with him any longer, just the fact that he had been killed that was getting to Zach.

He sat down and shook his head around though while looking back at his packet. _It'll take a while to go through all these names, but I need to do it. I promised All Might after all that I'd try to protect my friend._ Zach's eyes shifted to the corners and he looked back towards Midoriya who was talking with Iida and Tokoyami too now who were interested in all the heroes Midoriya got who must have passed up even Todoroki. _I'm not going to slack on my own internship, but All Might's right to be worried. I am too. This is the perfect time for them to attack you. And really, I guess attack me too. And I don't need to tell you. I just know, if I am the one who is targeted during this, you're as likely to come help me as I am to help you. Plus you don't even have to plan it out beforehand like this._

Zach looked down at his sheet and at the very first name at the top of it. He sighed and pulled out his phone, searching the hero's name on the web since he did not really know of the guy's agency. _Do it for everyone. It doesn't matter if I've heard of them. Just narrow down first, then pick from the remaining few hundred. Luckily I don't have to search a few of them._ Zach sighed to himself as he thought it though, while reaching down and scribbling out the name of 'Mt. Lady,' who he was only a little disappointed worked so close to their school. _Mineta warned us about that anyway,_ Zach thought with a small grin, before losing it as he had to reach up and scribble out the name at the top of his list too. He recognized the name below as well from his trip to Kyoto when he saw the hero and his sidekicks patrolling, and he scratched that one out with a bead of sweat on the side of his face.

 _There are a lot of heroes in Hokkaido, right?_

* * *

Zach sat at his desk in his room. He let out a gasp and dropped his pencil on the desk, and he leaned back in his chair with an exhausted look on his face. _That took, way too long._ He looked forward and through his window into the dark sky outside. _Should go to sleep soon. Do I save picking the agency for tomorrow?_ Zach sighed and lifted his left hand to rub his forehead with. He looked down at his papers while rubbing his forehead, and he grimaced while flipping back to the first page.

 _Let's see,_ he thought, while skipping pages and checking how many circled names he had. _Ten, twenty, more more more… There must have, been less offers from heroes in Hokkaido._ He frowned and pressed his fingers into his forehead that scrunched up even more. _It's not bad. I had three choices last year- though, Grappler was an easy choice. Seems like All Might had a good one picked for Midoriya too. Everybody pretty much had it figured out by dinner already too. Jirou and Kaminari both picked Condoriano. Wasn't expecting that. Kaminari said he picked first, maybe Jirou's- Ah, focus!_ Zach shook his head around and then sighed again, though his sigh turned into a yawn halfway out of his mouth.

 _Yaoyorozu still doesn't know who she's going to,_ Zach thought, trying to convince himself to just wait until tomorrow as there were other people who were undecided too. _What if she's, doing what Jirou-_ Zach's eyes opened wide and he spun on his chair to look at the door behind him, imagining through it and a door down the hall across from his where he could practically see Yaoyorozu's door. _No no, she's, she's probably not,_ Zach thought, leaning back on his chair and turning forward again. _Then again,_ he looked up at his ceiling. He thought about looking up like this, and a face leaning down over his with tears in her eyes. _Even when she's crying, she's…_

Zach closed his eyes and let out a smaller yawn this time, though he was feeling less tired all of a sudden. _Guess, I should pick tonight,_ he leaned up and looked down at his packet which was something to distract himself. He frowned as he kept flipping through the pages though, and then he let go of the packet again and started rubbing his head with his left hand. _What's stopping me? I can't even look up any of these heroes seriously. I checked where their agencies were, and now I know pretty much every town and city in Hokkaido. Geography's my new strong point._ "Ughh," he groaned as he sidetracked himself with useless thoughts. _It's because I'm back to life._

Zach rose his right hand, and he pressed it into his head while sliding the fingers from the glove. He had two gloves now for casual use so that he could do laundry and wash one while still wearing a protective cover on his right hand. _I tried it on a spider the other day, so insta-kill is still in the picture. What about Nightmare mode though? Does this,_ he looked down at his blackened arms that had wisps coming out of them when he moved them. _Does this still just knock people out? I haven't really_ _ **used**_ _it since I revived. Bringing back Kirishima, made something change inside him. How could Death not work on those people anymore? It's like a bullet to the head, but the bullets are suddenly blanks if they're shot at certain people? It's poison that all those people have gained immunity to? That's decent, I guess. Except for Shigaraki…_ Zach thought about bringing the leader of the League of Villains back to life, and it made him think of what happened right after that.

His expression turned dark, and his fists clenched while he leaned back over his desk. _This is no time to be decisive. I changed the answer. That part of my life is over. Jenny, I'll always love you. Your parents too. And I'll get justice for you too, when I've become a great hero._ Zach looked down at the papers and he pulled the staple out of the top left corner as if doing so made it more serious or something. He spread all the sheets out around his desk, and he looked at the dozens of circled names he had there. _Thousands of heroes, but only a hundred or so close to Yabino. There were more offers from heroes in Shikoku and Kyushu… Alright. Forget about it. It probably won't even matter, but it's just a precaution. I'll get a lot out of any internship I go to. Most of the class doesn't even- well, a lot of the others still don't even have this many._

 _I'm not too tired. I'll do my research. Check each of them, pros and cons, and pick the best! Shouldn't take all night…_

At five in the morning, Zach rose his head to the blinds in front of him. He grabbed one of the strings over his desk and pulled it, making each of the blinds twist a bit to let in all the light from outside. He did not raise them, so bars of light just hit his body instead of a wave of it all at once. He winced and lowered his head a bit to keep his eyes in between two bars of light, but he still had to squint and blink his eyes a few times in a tired way.

"How much time 'til class?" Zach muttered, a small smile on his face. He yawned and lifted his phone in front of his face, then as soon as he checked the time, his phone died again. Zach rolled his eyes and walked to the side of his bed to plug it into his charger. _Maybe it'll be back up to half by the time my alarm goes off,_ he thought in an exhausted way. He yawned again while walking back to his desk, and he pushed aside some papers he had written notes on. He crumpled up a sheet that had a bracket on it of heroes he had pit against each other, but he smiled before fully crushing it into a ball at the name in the center of the bracket. _This was totally, well, not the best hero on the list,_ he thought, almost laughing to himself at the way he worded that thought. _But even if I had the entire list to pick from, I feel like I couldn't have gone any better._

Zach leaned back in his seat, a smile on his face while thinking, _The Racing Hero: Bikergang. This is going to be, epic._

* * *

In the library near central Musutafu, Zach Sazaki leaned back from his boxed-in table and rubbed his hands up through his black hair. _This is crazy. Too many, too many people are just way too crazy._ Zach's eyes darted around, then back to the screen where he saw himself on it. After bringing someone back to life he was desperately trying to do it again for someone else. He gulped while scrolling back down through the comments, while the video at the top of the screen got pulled down with his scrolling so he could keep watching while reading.

 _"It's pretty obvious. Lifebringer is clearly a God. All hail the coming of the new messiah."_

 _"Look at his arms at 3:32. Remind you of anything?"_ There was a picture of Zach that flashed on the screen at that exact time with big red writing covering the video. It showed Zach in the middle of the torture he had not even remembered at the Sports Festival, and the creepy video flashed to pictures like that one throughout it. _I don't like this,_ Zach thought. He glanced around him again, and he shivered thinking about the feeling he had on his way to the library. _That girl's probably still following me around. Ignoring her might make her leave me alone, though, she's kind of insane! I wouldn't be surprised if she found out where I was going for the internship and followed me there. I need to do something about that. What if she gets as crazy as Toga or something, and she tries killing me just because she's that obsessed?_

Zach gulped while looking at the video that just neared the end, as he heard the woman he was talking to outside of the hospital in Musutafu say something that had shivers go up his spine. "…the tumor was gone, and we- we lived our lives to the fullest this past year." Zach watched as the screen went black and red writing covered up that black screen slowly. He read the text for a few seconds before closing his eyes and shaking his head. _Too many crazy people. But, now that people know stuff like that… Won't they, start trying what I was afraid of? People with cancer giving up, and calling me so I'll come and bring them back without it? Should I do that? I mean, it would keep them from suffering from it and paying so much in hospital payments. I could save so many more people, if I put my number out there and let people with deadly diseases… But I'm in school. I have a busy schedule- a busy schedule? Should that stop me from saving people?_

A picture of Zach reappeared on the screen as it ended, no text on the video with him. It just showed Zach held there with his arms pulled to the sides by large metal hooks. He was in the middle of getting cut, but the look in his eyes was defiant and strong. _How do I get as unwavering as that guy?_ He wondered while staring at himself. _Wasn't very hard to find conviction like that I guess, when it's not like I could have done anything to back up my words. When I actually have the power to, choices to make and options laid out in front of me, how much harder it gets._

Zach got up from his seat at the library and he decided to head back to campus. _Shouldn't be leaving for such long periods of time. Principal Nezu told me the punishment has been completed, and that the school trusts me again. I don't know what I did to gain it back. Maybe saving Shoji. Or just the way I acted after the Sports Festival?_ Zach walked out of the library and headed down the steps to the sidewalk. He glanced around the street, and he sighed as another nice weekend day was going by without many people out enjoying it. _Makes it easier to walk around though. Not going to wear a hoodie out in this heat, but it's nice not having to worry about being swarmed._

He walked down the sidewalk back in the direction of his school. He could not shake the feeling he was being followed, which he wondered if it was because he actually felt that sensation or if he was being paranoid because of what that girl had told him a week earlier. Zach shook his head to rid that anxiety from his mind, then he narrowed his gaze and thought, _Don't have to worry about being swarmed by civilians, but villains could attack at any time. Couldn't they?_ His fists tightened and he glared towards the rooftops, towards windows on every floor of tall buildings all around him. _Come on,_ Zach thought, the right corner of his lip curling up as he spotted movement in a window. _Even if it's just a random person, it's time to smile._

Zach faced forward and started grinning as he walked back towards his school. _I'm about to spend a week away from U.A. And if all goes well, I'll be leaving often to go to an internship afterwards. Making money to provide for myself. Saving people as a real hero. This is no time to cower in fear. People need positivity. They need to see their heroes out and about. Most people don't think I'm a monster, or evil, like those assholes on the Weekend Tonight show. Most people aren't really crazy about me either too, and those commenters might've just been messing around online too. Whoever made the video wasn't though. That shit, was really weird. I've never seen anyone talk about Stain like… well, those cult guys were actually acting kind of like he was a God. As they butchered the-_

Zach lost his smile, but he had to force it back up as he continued to walk back to school. He saw a couple of people walking the other direction as him down the sidewalk, and those two immediately recognized him by the look of it. They stared at him with wide eyes, and they looked a bit nervous at the scar-faced teen's appearance in front of them. He smiled in a friendly way towards them though and it put them at ease. "Afternoon," Zach said while walking by, nodding at them and then continuing on his way without slowing down.

 _Don't be secretly villains,_ Zach thought. He was glad they just nodded back at him without saying anything, as he would have felt obligated to start talking to them after that friendly greeting if they did stop. They didn't pull weapons out once he had walked past either which made him smile even more. _She'd probably take you out before you could get to me anyway,_ Zach thought, and he almost laughed darkly at the idea of that. _Alright no, that's way too creepy. I need to do something about her. I should have asked her name at least. Then, I could tell the police who to…_ Zach's expression got darker. _I told her I cared. I don't even know why she killed herself. Is bringing her back, enough to save her though? I didn't think so back then. I still don't. But what I did back then wasn't enough either. How do I help this person, this creepy, creepy person?_

Zach got back on U.A. campus and showed his I.D., then he went and checked in at the main office. He saw Present Mic in the office and talked to him for a minute, mentioned where he was going for his internship since he had not seen him since deciding. Zach felt a little sad as he left the office. _Mic sensei, really isn't the same anymore._ The blond teacher had smiled and talked to Zach, but he wasn't his loud usual self and it had Zach's expression dark as he headed back to his dorm in Heights Alliance. _I think Aizawa sensei, was probably his best friend._

Zach pulled his phone out as he walked back to Class A's dorm building. He checked a couple of new texts from the class group chat; Mineta finally decided who out of his small list he was going to like he had had such a hard decision to make, and Jirou called him out on just picking the only female hero on his list. Zach chuckled at an enthusiastic response from Iida, then he put his phone back in his pocket while walking through the front door of his building.

"Hey Zach," he was one step in the door but turned towards the couches where Ashido was waving over to him after calling his name.

He took his shoes off and walked over to the common area thinking something about him might've been on tv from the look on Ashido's face. He glanced at the screen but saw some gameshow on instead of the news like he expected. Kaminari, Jirou, Mineta, and Tokoyami were all sitting around the couches too, and Mineta called out a guess on the show that was asking trivia questions. He got it right and smugly looked towards the couch Kaminari and Jirou were on while the two frowned towards his and Tokoyami's couch. _Guess they're losing,_ Zach thought, then he sat down next to Ashido in the middle couch and said, "What's up Mina?"

The girl who called to him had a laptop in her lap, and she motioned towards it after Zach had looked at the tv so he knew she really did want to show him something. "Look at this," Ashido said, and Zach leaned in a bit to read what she was showing him.

Zach read the comment she was showing him on a message board she was on, and he smiled at the sight of it. "Awesome," he said. "Looks like I'm not the only one who thinks that way," he said, leaning back with a small grin on his face.

"What is it?" Mineta asked, turning away from the screen for a second.

Zach opened his mouth to answer, but Ashido was quicker, "I keep seeing stuff about Zach's final report from last year online." The others all looked back towards the middle couch, and Zach glanced in at the girl who cut in before he could say anything. She continued though, "Look, it's not just that guy." Zach looked back at her screen as she scrolled down and then clicked on another feed. Zach's eyes actually widened a bit as an entire feed about his report opened up with other people talking more specifically about it and not just the similar main ideas.

"Looks like your report got leaked," Ashido said, lifting her eyebrows as she read something put in quotation marks apparently from Zach's report.

Zach turned his head to the right and looked at Kaminari. "You?" He asked. Kaminari lifted his eyebrows in surprise at Zach's question, and Zach said defensively since Kaminari did not seem to know why he got looked at first, "You did say you were the one who spread 'Lifebringer' around." Zach put up hand quotes when he said "Lifebringer," but he smiled at the same time as he appreciated Kaminari doing that.

"Wasn't me this time," Kaminari said, as the others looked his way too after Zach said that wondering if maybe he was onto something.

Zach shrugged and then scratched the back of his head while looking back down at Ashido's computer. _I deleted all my original posts under Anonymous, but enough people had copied and pasted it around already. None of the original posts are still out there, but my report is forever on the web now. Wonder if it'll start getting more attention. Only been a week, but I was surprised no one in class heard anything all week. Kind of disappointing, but maybe Mina noticing means that it's gaining steam? I can only hope. There need to be answers to our problems that don't rely on murdering villains, or accepting things will keep getting worse before they get better. Need a solution before Midoriya gets strong enough to be the new All Might. And I need to make sure he can do that, in case the solutions I'm trying to make happen don't work. All Might is a proven solution. To at least some of the problems facing us, we could use a Symbol of Peace._

Zach read some more of the messages below one that had parts of his report quoted in it, then he leaned away and pulled out his phone as he realized he was using Mina's computer. "I think it's pretty cool," Ashido said while turning her computer back to herself. "Your report was totally right you know?"

"Yeah, I know," Zach said, though instead of sounding smug about it like that sentence should have sounded, he just sounded disappointed. _People are blaming heroes for what's going on now. They didn't blame them in the days right after Musutafu- the Sports Festival Invasion. How could they blame heroes after so many were killed in the attack, protecting them? But crime is skyrocketing. I get why the others don't want to watch the news right now. It's fucking terrible what's going on everywhere._

 _Crime rate dropping in April surprised everyone, and people thought maybe things were getting better. Shigaraki was just holding the villains back though. He was gathering strength, fighting all the other villains and forcing them all into his army. Now that he's done what he needed to do. Now that he has his "sensei" back, it's a free-for-all out there. Tartaros villains on the loose getting in fights with heroes. Stain just crippled two heroes and killed another in Higucha-_ Thinking that city's name made Zach's teeth clench and then grind over each other. He lowered his phone he was barely looking at, and he closed his eyes for a second. _I still, don't even know her name. Spinner, you fucking bastard. Making me feel bad for you, after telling me how you killed her!_

Zach opened his eyes and glared forward at the gameshow where a question was just asked. "2063," he said, while getting up out of his seat. Neither of the teams on the couches to his sides said anything, and they got confused as the dark-haired boy they were looking towards said that number.

"2062?" Someone asked on the screen, and a loud buzzer rang out followed by the guy falling through a trap door screaming.

"So close!" The gameshow host called out, and Zach gained a small grin on his face before turning to head up to his room.

"I knew that too," Mineta turned and said after Zach, since he had been distracted by Zach's intense and angry look and had missed the question.

"Yeah but I said it first," Zach said while turning and looking back at him. He noticed some weird looks from the others in the sitting area, but that was why he needed to get up in the first place. _Thinking about her while around people isn't a good idea. I can't keep it together. I let her die._ Zach clenched his fists after he turned and started going for the staircase again. _How could I do that? Even in that condition, even as, broken, as I was…_ _ **"She was shooting at us… With the gun you gave her, to give yourself time to escape…"**_ _I, I wanted her to escape though. I didn't mean for- I thought it was enough, if she was free and had means to protect herself- didn't I? What was I thinking? I wasn't just, crazed. I had enough thought to try and save her, but not enough to think about how impossible it would be… Or is Spinner right? Did I just free her, to give myself a better chance of escape? Am I that deranged?_

Zach stopped on the stairwell, putting his left hand out and grabbing the wall next to him. "Fuck," he whispered. His fingers curled in for a second, his teeth grinding over each other and his chest aching. Over the aching feeling though, was anger that made him push his lips apart and bite down harder. "Fuck," he just whispered again, lowering his hand from the wall and continuing up the stairs with a dark look on his face. He wiped some of the anger from it though as he thought about making sure no one saw him looking that way on his route to his room, which actually distracted him too. He was quick to shift his attention, so he didn't notice the small finger-sized dents in the wall he had just been grabbing, or the small black wisps disappearing inside them.

* * *

 **A/N Start of a new arc this chapter! I'm not too far into it right now (sorry), so probably going to have to slow the updates this next week unless I really pound them out these next two days. Anyway, hope you enjoyed the chapter! Class A get offers from heroes, a whole lot of offers, and Zach picks out the Racing Hero: Bikergang for his internship. He thinks about how he promised All Might he would try to protect Midoriya too, and picked an internship at least somewhat close to his friend's. Still upset over what happened with that woman in Higucha, Zach unknowingly leaves those dents in the wall there at the end... Thanks for reading! Leave a review below telling me what you think, questions, comments, or predictions for upcoming chapters!**

Super Power Sensei chapter 69 . 19h ago

Three things...  
One, are there only two members of the Wild Wild PussyCats with quirks left now?  
Two, what was the Faculty's (mostly Midnight's) reaction to Aziawa's death?  
Three, with all the different opinions and perspectives going around, I think it would be incredible if this story was building up to a civil war/revolution. With Zach on the front lines of course.

 **1: Seems like it ;(**

 **2: Got some Present Mic mentioned in here when Zach returned to campus near the end.**

 **3\. ...awesome. Great idea, won't spoil/ say if I'll use that or not. Thanks for the review!**

Shade11224 chapter 69 . 12h ago

I'm really happy that your considering adding supernatural bits, a good way to subway into it would maybe have him seeing things, not necessarily ghosts but maybe something to warn him of big events where people could die (watch odd Thomas). You could use the fact that his power shifted from his hand a bit into his eyes. Thanks for responding to reviews by the way, it's really interesting to know if your considering ideas and of course thanks for the Chappy!

 **Cool ideas. Won't spoil anything or say what I'll be doing with this at all though. Glad you're enjoying the story, and thanks for the review!**

D-Koy24 chapter 69 . 12h ago

I may like this new character, I wonder if she is just a one-chapter character or will be more involved? Will she be all Yandere over momo? What's her name? and does this hat look awesome on me? *does pose* ... Of course it does!  
~D-Koy, I think I should read your chapters waaayyyy after they're released coz my two awesome reviews of the double release got overlooked *angry pout* (not really angry though...) nya

 **Well he thinks about her a little more this chapter so at least she's been in more than one now, though Zach was wondering what her name was too since he was too quick to get out of there last chapter. Main reason I didn't respond last time... someone put a review for chapter 67 in after u had reviewed 68 so I thought I had scrolled down all the way. Anyway though, only commenting to a couple of reviews this time, so hope it makes up for it that I picked u! Hope y'all enjoyed, and thanks for reviewing and reading everyone!**


	71. Chapter 71

**Chapter 71:**

"You excited?" Zach asked Kirishima as they talked in the kitchen on the first floor of their dorm. "I'm a bit nervous myself," he admitted, though he did not look it as he kept cooking his ramen with a calm expression on his face.

"Yeah I'm pretty pumped for it," Kirishima said. He took a sip from his protein shake and then leaned back on the counter behind him. "Definitely ready to get in some fights this next week. Bet you'll see me on the news in no time, beating all the villains who cross me," Kirishima said it with a sharp-toothed grin, but then he leaned back his head more and lowered his shake to the counter at his side. "Probably going to run into some League of Villains guys. So many of them now, right?" Kirishima remarked.

Zach started nodding but turned to his friend with a semi-serious look as it seemed to him like Kirishima was trying to ask something. There were a couple of villains in particular who were on Kirishima's mind, and seeing Zach look at him expectantly he decided to ask about them. "Those guys at VTS," Kirishima began. Zach's eyes widened a bit as Kirishima brought them up, as he had been thinking a lot about them himself just earlier that day. "I figure I could totally run into them during the internship. Shooter, and Hydro, right?"

Zach nodded again and then hummed to himself. He turned off the stove and started putting the seasoning packets into his ramen, and he said while glancing back at Kirishima, "Hydro's really strong. I'd say definitely use Unbreakable right away if you go up against him. I helped-" Zach paused and then turned back to his cup. _I helped recruit him. That's not something I can say aloud._ "I saw him when he first entered the League, and he's no joke." _Shigaraki said his power came close to Ganeshi. Although he never got utilized that much since I took him out of the picture, could he actually be as big a problem? Fuck, he'll be after me too._ Zach's eyes got a little darker, then he distracted himself with something that really did not make him feel better, "Be more careful of Shooter though."

Kirishima nodded his head as he thought about the man with long blond hair who had been a pretty intimidating villain that day. Zach pulled apart a pair of chopsticks and started eating his ramen, but he spoke while he did, "K-Blaster's shots seemed to be more powerful, considering you took damage while hardened from them, and you didn't really from Shooter's. Shooter is definitely dangerous though. Nch munch, slrrrp," Zach slurped up some noodles and then put his ramen down for a second as it was still really hot. "He was one of the first guys who joined right when they started expanding. He was in charge of the VTS mission, his aim is renowned among the villains, and he's smart too. I thought it was because he's intelligent, that he was so dangerous. It's why I had to be so careful at VTS."

"Heh, but we outsmarted him," Kirishima said with a grin that Zach returned to him thinking about the show they put on so he could get Shooter to drop his guard. "He's probably a little sore over that," Kirishima added. Zach nodded in agreement, but Kirishima smirked and finished, "I'll be careful if he shows up for revenge though. You do the same, yeah?"

"Yeah," Zach agreed. "Let's send him back to jail."

Zach lifted back up his ramen and Kirishima took a determined sip from his shake. "Hey look," Kirishima lowered his cup and motioned towards the front door of the dorm across the building. Zach turned and looked over the counter, past the tables and the sitting area to the door where a group of four just walked inside.

The two of them started heading over while the four walked straight to the couches and collapsed onto them. Aoyama dropped on the couch closest to the door with his hands down on his stomach and a sick look on his face. Koda sat next to him rubbing at his throat and then rubbing at his knuckles on the hand he rubbed his throat with that were all red though not wrapped like the ones on his other hand. The other two fell onto the middle couch, Ojiro dropping first and then the invisible girl with him dropping at his side and letting out a long exhausted sigh while resting her head on his left shoulder.

"Whoa," Kirishima said as he came up behind the middle couch. "I thought you guys were just going for an info session?"

Ojiro started shaking his head, and he rose his right arm and rubbed his hand under his right eye where a bruise was forming. Koda shook his head too and looked down at the floor, and Aoyama let out a groan. Zach lifted his eyebrows and started feeling bad for the group in front of him. Hagakure rose her head to look back at the two behind her, but she spoke a little louder as Mineta and Ashido were also walking towards the couch area from elsewhere on the first floor. "The 'introductory' session," Hagakure put up air quotes with her invisible hands that her friends figured out from her sleeves' movement and emphasis on 'introductory.' She continued, "Consisted of Mother Russia 'explaining' all the different training methods we'll be doing this week."

"And by 'explaining,'" Aoyama started, and the top half of his face got shadowed lines over it like he was thinking back on something horrible. "She means fighting bears."

"Not really," Ojiro added at the confused and shocked looks on the others' faces. "But if Koda wasn't there, I wouldn't put it past her to throw some bears at us."

The four who were not at the training sweatdropped, and then Mineta smirked which Zach saw and chuckled to himself over. _Guess he's glad he made the choice. I was really surprised. I thought he was "procrastinating" over his agency choice because he was ultimately going to stay behind. I didn't think he had the resolve to stay here at all actually, but he hasn't said a thing about pulling out of the hero course or anything. That's pretty cool, Mineta._ Zach turned from the short boy and down to the couch in front of him and his friend with blond hair and a thick tail.

"I'm still surprised you're staying back, Ojiro," Ashido said, running around the couches and dropping on Ojiro's other side as Hagakure. "Didn't Airman give you an offer?"

Ojiro nodded his head slowly, and Zach glanced towards Ashido with a hesitant look. _Not really nice asking the people staying behind that. I thought we all just knew not to do that._ He saw Kirishima also looking at Ashido oddly like he was wondering how she did not have more poise than that. _Though I thought Ojiro was going to go as well. He talked about it that first day like he was going to._

"Yeah," Ojiro said, and he could see the pink girl next to him lifting her eyebrows wondering what made him change his mind. "What Zach said was true though," Ojiro said, glancing back to his left at Zach who tried thinking fast on what Ojiro could be referring to. "It's not much safer here at U.A. than out there," Ojiro remarked.

Aoyama gulped, and Koda stopped rubbing his knuckles to instead stare at them nervously. The girl leaning on Ojiro pulled back a little too, glancing to her right at him with a smile on her face that no one else could see. Zach just got confused though by Ojiro's answer as it did not make any sense to him. _I'd get staying back here if they're scared it's more dangerous out there, but the opposite?_

Ojiro looked to be trying not to elaborate any further, but Ashido asked him in confusion, "Then why wouldn't you go?"

Ojiro lifted his right hand and scratched the bottom of his cheek with a nervous look. "Well," he glanced to his left with a small smile at the girl whose pink cheeks could not be seen by the others. "I, didn't want Toru to be scared I'd be hurt out there… and if here's really not all that safe," he scratched his cheek again and then lowered his hand while finishing in a softer voice, "I want to protect-"

"Eeeee!" Ashido leaned forward out of her seat and practically squealed at how cute that sounded.

Kirishima crossed his arms with a grin across his face while most of the others looked at Ojiro in surprise. "That's so manly," Kirishima said in an approving tone, making Ojiro sweatdrop as saying it out loud felt like the opposite. Ashido started talking rapidly to Hagakure across the front of Ojiro, and Ojiro got an even more embarrassed look at how they were talking about him.

Mineta stopped looking over in so much surprise, and he just crossed his own arms though without smiling like Kirishima. "Dang," he snapped his fingers with a frustrated look on his face as he looked at the floor. "Ojiro's so lucky." _I could learn a few things!_ Mineta looked back up towards the boy in between the girls who were talking about how great he was.

Aoyama frowned more himself, looking down at his stomach with a hesitant look on his face. The less people who were staying behind just because they were afraid, the worse it felt to be one of those people. _At the Sports Festival though,_ he thought, and in his eyes he saw three villains in front of him. He watched as they injected themselves with Trigger, and their bodies morphed, and they roared like monsters at him. _And even before it,_ he thought back on the Villain Training Simulator, and on the training forest before then. Aoyama glanced towards Zach as he thought about those two events, then he looked down again in an even more upset way. _But Zach's still going out there, even after all they did to him. I- I want to be that brave. A dazzling hero wouldn't stay behind because he's too scared. I had fifty offers!_

Zach could see the frustration on Koda and Aoyama's faces, and he wondered if Hagakure looked that way too. She tried to sound upset that Ojiro was blaming it on her, but he countered that Mother Russia's training was going to be intense too so he was still getting stuff out of the week. She really did not sound that mad anyway though, more touched at his staying than anything. _That is, really awesome. Ojiro's too cool,_ Zach thought with a smile replacing the surprised look on his face. _He must really care about her. Having people that you care about that much, is really nice. I don't really…_ A face appeared in his mind that made him gulp and a bead of sweat to form on the side of his face.

 _I've been, thinking about her a lot recently,_ Zach thought while glancing up at the ceiling. The dark-haired girl in his mind was smiling as he imagined her, and it made Zach start thinking about what he had pondered right after waking up from death when talking with Monoma. He gulped again and then looked down while trying to shake those thoughts from his head. _I decided to focus on being a hero. Until this world is better than it was, I, I want to focus on…_

In the corner of Zach's eyes he saw a pair of girls coming out of the stairwell over to his left. He started turning that way and saw Jirou and Yaoyorozu walking into the common room, and his heart rate started speeding up at the sight of the tall bubbly girl who looked right towards him before anyone else. She looked straight towards him and he smiled while trying hard not to gulp after making eye contact. His smile dipped down a little though as she did not return it, and he got confused but turned to Kirishima when his red-haired friend said something to him. He was grateful to Kirishima for giving him the excuse to look away, though he was panicking as he nodded at his friend, _Why didn't she smile? Did I do something? What did I do?! I'm about to leave for a week, and what if while we're gone she- or, or what if she's just mad at me the whole time? Is she mad? What did I do?_

Zach saw Kirishima getting a confused look on his face and he knew his expression much have been betraying him. He hopped in and changed the subject to something about their internships to make it seem like that was what he was preoccupied by, but he spotted Yaoyorozu looking towards him in his peripheral vision and it made his heart pound so much harder at that look on her face. Zach felt such a frustrated feeling as he got a pang in his chest. _I don't want to leave things, like this._

* * *

 _This was a terrible idea!_ Zach thought in complete panic, though his face was doing a better job at hiding that feeling. He sat at the edge of his bed, and his ability to keep a straight face made the girl sitting on his desk chair feel a little confused and nervous.

"What did you, want to talk about?" Yaoyorozu questioned. The sky outside Zach's blinds was dark, but the two sat in his illuminated room with a strange tension between them that Zach only now realized had been there since the Sports Festival.

 _We haven't really talked one on one since I… Is that it? I thought maybe, she had stuff she wanted to talk about with me too! That's why I asked if she wanted to talk- but I, I don't know how to do this!_ "Yeah," Zach started, then thought in panic, _That wasn't a yes or no question!_ "I just, I thought you had something- or, I wanted to talk." Yaoyorozu lost a bit of the nervous look on her face, a small smile forming as Zach apparently was nervous after all. Zach felt relieved at the sight of that smile too, and he just said, "Is something up? I feel like, we haven't talked much. Lately."

Yaoyorozu wanted to smile that he was asking her, but the things she did want to talk to him about were ones she could not smile thinking about. Her mouth dipped down a little at the corners. _How do I just ask, something like…_ "Zach," she began quietly. She hesitated, then she nodded at him and said, "I am sorry if I have been distant- I just, have questions…" Zach tried not to frown at her right away at the sound of that. He expected that her questions, the things she had to say, were going to be the same that everyone had been asking him about.

 _Jenny, the torture, my mind breaking. I never wanted everyone to know these things. I never wanted-_ "What were you and Spinner talking about, while you were fighting?" Yaoyorozu asked. Zach's eyes opened wide, and his chest ached as she asked something no one else had asked him about but was even worse. _No,_ Zach thought, his eyes getting darker and depressed while looking back into hers. She hesitated after seeing that look, then she continued anyway while leaning forward, "You were so angry with him, and I just want to know what it is the two of you were talking about."

"It was," Zach started. He left his mouth open to continue, but then he closed it and his eyes shifted away from the girl in front of him. _I can't._ "I, it was nothing," Zach said softly. Yaoyorozu's eyes opened wide, then she held her hands tightly on her knees as Zach deflected. "Spinner was just, I knew the things I could tell him to get him frustrated…" Zach's eyes closed halfway and he felt his chest aching at what he was saying aloud. _It's not a lie. I, I knew… But, but that's not it. I can't do this, Momo. Not to you._

 _That's not true, Zach,_ Momo Yaoyorozu thought while looking back at the boy whose room she was in late at night the night before they were all leaving for their internships. _I know it's not. I was right there beside you._ _ **"I have to face him…" "Spinner's like that…" "I want to know, Spinner! What happened to her?! What did you do?!"**_ She closed her eyes tightly as she recalled the genuine anger and hatred on Zach's face that day while yelling those things at the villain.

"Why-" Yaoyorozu started, and Zach looked back only to lean his head away with his eyes widening in pain at Yaoyorozu's look. "Why won't you tell me the things on your mind?" Momo asked. Zach bit down and pressed his lips together to hide how hard he was clenching his teeth. "Why are, you always so secretive? And only with me?" Zach's eyes started to widen more, his breath speeding up at what she was asking him. Yaoyorozu leaned forward at that look on his face that was confirming what she thought. "Is, it because you're lying to the others?"

Zach tried to make his eyes go back to their normal size and he turned his head away. "I don't know what you're talking about," he said. _Nooo! I knew this was going to happen! I, I tried so hard not to lie to you, but that was stupid! It was obvious you were going to figure it out. You're too smart! I, I can't do this though. I can't just-_ Zach spun back as Yaoyorozu got up from her seat.

"I'm sorry," Yaoyorozu said, shaking her head and looking down. _I shouldn't have pried, since he seems to want to distance from me. Why text me then? I don't, it doesn't-_ "I'll just go," she whispered.

 _She thinks I don't want to talk to her! Why am I doing this?!_ Zach's face covered in a regretful look the moment Yaoyorozu turned her head from him to the door. _I don't want you to leave! I don't, want things to go on like this, not with her._ "I don't," Zach started. Yaoyorozu paused where she was, and Zach's lips shook for a second before he steadied his look and just whispered towards her, "I don't, want things to go on like this. But I-" Yaoyorozu turned her head and looked towards Zach. She had a regretful look on her face too as she had hated turning away and heading for the door as soon as she had started doing it. Zach pursed his lips hard, then he said in a soft voice, "What Spinner and I were talking about, is my biggest regret."

Zach closed his eyes for a second, then he opened them and looked into Yaoyorozu's soft gray eyes. "Everything else I'm regretful over were combinations of different choices. All different events building up on top of each other including ones I had no control over, leading to terrible things happening. But one choice, one decision I made was just in the moment. It was my decision, and a woman died because of it." Zach looked so painfully up into Yaoyorozu's eyes, and she walked back to the chair and sat in front of Zach again.

Yaoyorozu had a softer look in her eyes as she sat down. _Should I say he does not have to continue? His biggest regret. I, I want you to be able to talk to me. I want you to know you can talk to me. No matter what it is you think you've done._ "How?" She just whispered.

Zach gulped. _I don't know, if I can do this._ His eyes shook as he looked back at her, then he whispered, "I don't even-" He paused, then he lowered his gaze from her and down to the floor between them. "The night I escaped," Zach began in a quiet voice. "I, wasn't in my… I was shattered into a million pieces." Momo's heart started pounding as she thought about those videos she saw during the Sports Festival, especially the latest one when his hair was longest and he screamed madly 'Not Lifebringer' over and over. Zach continued while closing his eyes tightly as he knew what she must have been thinking of, "I was so, so scared. And then all of a sudden, I was holding a gun, pointing it at this woman's head."

Zach clenched his eyes shut tighter and shook his head at the girl in front of him. "I," he started again while she stared at him in shock at what he was saying. "I was so scared, of what would happen if I didn't do it. That Spinner would bring me back to Shigaraki so the torture could continue, or he would kill everyone in Class A, or do even more unspeakable things that my imagination had run wild with while I was in _that room._ "

 _But you didn't,_ Yaoyorozu thought to herself. She would have been scared of what he was going to say next if she had not heard that conversation with him and Spinner. Hearing it amazed her now though, _Even afraid of all that, how did you-_ "But then, how did you get out of that situation?" Yaoyorozu asked in confusion, though keeping her voice soft and understanding.

"I saw," Zach whispered. He opened his eyes and looked into Momo's, and he lifted his left hand and rubbed the side of his head with it at the image he just imagined. "I saw, sheer terror on her face, as I held a shaking gun to her forehead." His face had so much regret on it that Yaoyorozu immediately regretted bringing the conversation up at all. Zach's expression made it look like he was in constant pain, and his left hand up against his temple he slid down and grabbed himself by the chest with. "And I decided in that instant to run. I aimed the gun at the latches on the box on my right hand and fired. I turned Nightmare and swept a Death Wind at the villains all around me to keep them back. Then I, shot her handcuffs. I dropped her the gun." Zach bit down and had such an angry look on his face as he said these things aloud for the first time.

Zach's hands started shaking, his right hand violently at his side and his left curling tighter into his t-shirt. "And I ran," he whispered. Zach closed his eyes and Yaoyorozu started breathing faster, her heart pounding as she stared at the boy in front of her who looked to be in so much pain because of that. _No,_ she thought, leaning back in her chair. _That can't be- your, biggest… This is your biggest, regret? Out of everything that happened to you?!_ Yaoyorozu started breathing faster as Zach clenched his eyes tighter while whispering, "I don't remember what I told her. I don't even remember, but it was something like she needed to escape without me. Because I was gone. I ran, as fast as I could. Leapt out of a second story window…"

Zach reached his right hand up and rubbed his upper left arm, the scar around it that ached with phantom pain so much worse than the others. He sniffled once to hold back any tears, and he lowered his hand from his arm while biting down in anger. He cursed at himself for feeling so bad about that night when someone else had lost their life. "I should have done more," he said, looking down between his feet and shaking his head as he imagined how Yaoyorozu must have been looking at him. "I should have tried fighting all those villains, and saved her too. I, I never even knew her name," he whispered in an even more pained voice. "She called out for 'Lifebringer' though when I was there, and she looked like a nice person. It seemed like it at least, considering how she looked at me when I responded, with 'Not Lifebringer.' The hope, she must have-"

He brought his left hand up again and quickly rubbed once over his eyes before lowering his arm with an angry look on his face still. "Spinner said they killed her, and I didn't do anything to stop it. I just ran. I, I knew, that she was dead. I had known for a while, but I couldn't believe it." He admitted this while looking back up into Yaoyorozu's eyes, and he felt a bit of confusion at her expression as he said these things aloud. "Even though I knew that if she wasn't dead, she was probably in an even worse situation, maybe being tortured like me or turned into a villain. I just didn't want to think about it though. And then seeing Spinner…"

Momo got up from in front of him, and she stepped forward before turning around and sitting back on Zach's bed. She sat on his right side, and Zach pulled his right arm in front of him to put his right hand on the inside of his thigh and away from her for safety. As he did that though, the girl next to him who was three inches taller spoke softly to him, "It's alright. It's not your fault." He turned to her and looked into her eyes with his own going wide. She tried giving him a supportive smile though, and she said, "You were trying to survive-"

"But I can't just survive," Zach cut in. "If I'm a hero," he finished, his hands clenching again while he turned his gaze from Yaoyorozu the other direction towards his window. "Heroes, wouldn't leave someone behind like that."

Yaoyorozu stared at the back of Zach's head in surprise that he would not take her acceptance. Zach turned back and looked into her eyes again, and he shook his head at her. "I'll never make that mistake again," he said strongly. _I needed this. I needed, to say it. Avoiding the topic. Trying to not think about it, because of how much I regret it. It hurts more. I need to accept it, accept how I feel about it too._ Zach lifted up his arm and he rubbed his eyes quickly, but this time as he lowered it he was not frowning angrily. Zach gave the girl in front of him a smile, _Even though it hurts, I have to smile. To show I'm alright. That's what heroes do after all._ "I'm glad, I could share it with you," he said while smiling at the surprised girl on his side who went a little wider-eyed before smiling at him back.

"I couldn't tell anyone that before," he added softer. _I thought too badly of myself because of it. I couldn't tell anyone, not Softy, not Kaminari or Midoriya either. I've told Kaminari so many secrets now, Midoriya some too, but even if Momo doesn't know as much as them…_ Zach kept smiling at the girl in front of him who finally had a genuine smile as she looked back at him, looking so happy that he was glad to share his secret with her. The fear that he had been pushing her away, or that he would never stop being so secretive with her, she felt like she was worried for nothing and just felt a flutter in her chest at Zach's smile back at her. Zach felt a wave of relief at the relieved look on her face too, and he thought, _I trust her in a different way. Things, I really wouldn't talk about with the two of them. With anyone. Or, well, I can't think about sharing them with anyone, except for you._

* * *

 **A/N Thanks for reading. Zach and Momo centric chapter before the internship arc really gets started. Zach comes to terms with what he considered his biggest regret, some of Class A are staying back for the arc, others are preparing themselves for fights with villains! Currently writing the internship arc and it's pretty fun, I'll try to get out the next chapters (longer ones) in the next couple of days. Hope you enjoyed the chapter, and leave a review telling me what you think or predictions for the upcoming arc!**

IntricateHummingbird chapter 1 . Sep 1

Heeeey one of the first to review again. Actually first this time. Also, because you showed us that cult-ish video that Zach watched on Stain's ideals and that girl coming to him seemingly obsessed, are you saying there might be a secret cult worshipping Zach's power? Ooooooh, that would be interesting

 **I don't know? Is that what I'm saying? Won't spoil anything but like the guesses, we'll see if any of it's true!**

Shade11224 chapter 70 . Sep 1

I feel like his regret is coming across too strong considering how unemotionally attached he should be to the her considering he only saw her for a minute or two and then went straight to running for his life. On that topic he's being weirdly immature about his stalker, like the fact he won't even talk to her is strongly out of character.

 **To Zach it's doesn't matter how much he knew her, but the fact that he left her to die. This chapter fleshes out more why he was feeling so regretful so hope you got why he felt that way. As for his stalker, I mean he tried talking for a little but when you get Toga vibes from someone, it's time to run the f*** away. I think he's spent enough time around crazy people... well, actually we'll see. Who knows when/if Zach decides to confront her again, and maybe what his reasons for trying to avoid her might have been?**

Guest chapter 70 . Sep 1

Is Zach still short?

 **Depends. 5'6" isn't bad for a 16 year old. (kinda rough though when Momo's so tall though XD ).**

Momozaki chapter 70 . Sep 2

Great chapter! That Present Mic scene just made me sad man T_T Why do you have to do this  
"Even when she's crying...she's" - You fucking tease. When's this emotionally unstable life saver going to kiss the bubbly creation hero?  
That ending scene though...Dude can never get a break can he?

 **;( Didn't even get a word in from him but i'm glad the mention alone got to you (sorry 'bout that though). A lot of ZachxMomo this chapter, as well as maybe the break you were looking for in regards to the end scene of what he was thinking about last chapter. Momozaki almost hit a rough patch this chapter, but it looks like things have worked out for... well, I'll just end the response here. XD Thanks for the reviews guys, and I hope you all enjoyed the chapter!**


	72. Chapter 72

**Disclaimer: I don't own Boku no Hero Academia**

 **Chapter 72:**

Zach Sazaki sat in a terminal of Tokyo Southern Airport, or TSA, staring down at his phone with a hesitant look in his eyes. He was in a different terminal as Bakugo, and he doubted he would have been sitting with the spiky-haired blond anyway even if they were at the same gate. Sato's plane had left earlier too, so even though he saw the larger boy when he first made it through security, Sato was just about to start boarding his plane and they were only able to talk for a minute or two.

 _I can't do this,_ Zach thought. He clicked the power button on his phone and put it back in his pocket. He leaned back on his seat at his gate where more people were arriving at every few minutes. He had shown up pretty early as he was not used to using planes and did not know how early he should arrive to make sure he could get through security. He was also wondering if he might be considered a security risk, but the airport actually let him through easier if anything because of his provisional hero license.

"Excuse me," a voice said in front of him, and Zach opened his eyes he just closed for a moment in a tired way. He looked at the woman in front of him who had a small boy next to her playing a game on his phone. "Lifebringer?" She questioned, a smile on her face as she already knew she was right just from one look. Zach had a baseball cap on, but he was wearing his U.A. uniform, and his facial scars did not make it easy to hide who he was. Despite it being pretty hot already as it neared the end of May, Zach wore a long-sleeved white shirt and had thin black gloves over both hands so it would stick out less than having just one on. It was not obvious that he was trying to disguise himself, and he was not trying all that hard to do so, so he tried not to look disappointed as the woman called him out on it.

 _When I leaned back,_ Zach thought while smiling back at the woman with short black hair falling just down to her shoulders. _Should have pushed the rim down a bit, or just slouched. Don't make a big deal of this please._ He thought it hopefully at her, though he noticed a couple of other people sitting around him also looking over now. _Those guys who already noticed and who I avoided their gazes are looking back. She's giving them the opportunity to talk to me if they jump in with her. That's why…_ "Would you like to sit?" Zach motioned next to him at an empty seat that had another on the other side for her son too.

He acted like it was why he thought she walked up to him, and she looked surprised for a second. She opened her mouth to just say that she wanted to speak to him, but then she nodded at the offer and stepped forward to take the seat. _Oh shit, was that really a good move? I guess I could talk to her for a bit… Though, that's not what I was planning to do while I'm here._ Zach's look got a little darker while the woman was sitting down, and when she glanced at him right after taking her seat she got a nervous look on her face. _Crap! I really can't look like that in public now. People will just assume they know what I'm thinking about, even though he really has nothing to do with that._ "Are you on the plane to Rukasu too?" Zach asked, as he had been there since before the previous plane left from the gate so there was the possibility this woman had just arrived early for the flight after too.

She nodded at him and steadied her expression at the boy's calm look. Zach smiled at her answer and opened his mouth to continue, but he froze and looked away for a second, tssking under his breath. _I can't just put this off. I probably won't get a chance through the next week. If I do it from my phone though, which could be tapped… Even if it's paranoia, I should take precaution._ "Sorry," Zach said as he looked back at the woman he knew must have looked confused. "It's just, I forgot my charger," Zach said with a slightly embarrassed look on his face. "And I just remembered I needed to make a phone call before I-"

"Would you like to borrow mine?" The woman asked. She was surprised but also smiled at the opportunity to help him out, and Zach smiled more back that she was this eager to help him. It made the next part easier.

"Oh I couldn't bother you to use that until my phone is charged," Zach started. "Besides, I'll need it for my week-long internship anyway." He shook his head at her but with a thankful look on his face, and he started getting up and looking around the terminal nearby for a place selling chargers.

He had a somewhat rushed expression on his face as well as looking regretful that he had forgotten to make the phone call, and the woman next to him who also looked regretful that she could not help had an idea. "If you know the number," she began, and Zach turned back interestedly like he did not know why she started like that. She pulled out her phone and he opened his eyes a little wider, then he smiled like he understood and was totally grateful. "Then please, use my phone. If it takes you too long to get the charger and get your battery back up, well, I wouldn't want you to have to wait until after the flight," she said it and held her unlocked phone out for him to take.

Zach started lifting his left hand, and he said, "Thank you. I'll be really quick," he assured.

"Take your time," she replied, and Zach could see she was feeling good about what she was doing enough that she really meant it.

He nodded thankfully at her again, then he started walking while typing the number into the phone's keypad. _Can't back out now. Have to make the call. Alright. Alright I can do this. Get into the mindset. You, are, Satan._ Zach tapped the call button and his eyes widened for a second at his lack of hesitation, then the phone rang once, twice, and a third time before someone picked up. _That was too slow. Who picks up to the devil that slowly? Is he questioning it? Don't give him any reason to._

"Hello?" The voice on the other side of the line questioned as if asking who this was.

 _You know who it is. I'm sure no one else has this number. Did you consider not picking up? Don't ask anything about it._ "Eziano Mozcaccio," Zach said, stopping his pacing in a less crowded part of the gate area. He had not gone too far from his seat since he did not want the woman whose phone he was borrowing to have to look around for him if she wanted to know where her phone was. _I can't speak in Nightmare's scary voice, but he knows what I sound like inside and outside of it._ "Do you know him?" Zach asked.

There was a moment of hesitation on the other side of the line. _That's a yes. I knew it. I almost forgot because Hunter was scared so shitless by me when I came for him to save Kaminari, but he's good. He's the one the League called when they couldn't find people. And, he knew of Webb. I remember despite the blood loss. I heard Hunter growl that night,_ _ **"I know you."**_

"I, do," Hunter replied. Zach grinned for a second after hearing that response. He could not hear much fear in Hunter's voice, and the hitman asked after responding, "Why, do you want to know?"

Zach's eyes got darker and his teeth bared for a second. _Fucking questioning me? How would the devil respond to that?! No, don't get angry. Calm is scarier._ "Eziano is on my list," Zach replied in a calm, fearless voice without any hesitation in it. He lifted his tone a little after saying it as he heard Hunter's breath hitch on the other side of the phone, "Would you like to join him, Kiki-kun?" _It's like I'm scolding him for questioning me without even-_

"No, no of course not," Hunter's submissive voice responded on the other side. Zach did not grin this time as he heard the response though.

He lifted his left hand and ran it under his cap through his hair at the fear he heard in the hardened killer's tone. _What am I doing? I should just tell him to turn himself in. Or, or if I do that, will people find out what I've been doing? I'd let down so many people if they knew this. Then, all I can do- no. No, he's a monster. I saw those pictures. He was going to kill me. Don't feel bad for a guy like this. He kills for hire._ "Tell me everything. His rules, do you have to follow them?"

"Yes," Hunter replied. Zach's eyes widened and the hitman on the other side continued, "I am subject to Eziano's rules. As is anyone in my profession who knows of his existence."

 _So he really wouldn't have killed civilians that day. If people had come out of their New Year's parties. But, what_ _ **could**_ _he have done to them?_ "The rules, Kiki-kun," Zach repeated in an annoyed voice as he had to say it again. _Is he hesitating because he's as afraid of Eziano as he is of me? That's bad. He thinks I'm the devil, or he wouldn't be doing this. If only the people who know of Eziano's existence know his rules though… Yet, I told him I know Eziano. I also said I'm going to kill him, or at least he's on "my list."_

"Of course," Hunter replied. Zach wanted to feel satisfied that Hunter was definitely more scared of him, but his expression just stayed dark as he listened to Hunter. The hitman started listing off the different rules to Zach, and Zach nodded along as he listened to them all. _All Might,_ Zach thought while hearing about a certain rule concerning political assassinations having to look like accidents. _What could cause you to allow something like this to keep existing? Why, does Hunter sound so, respectful?_ Zach frowned at the tone in Hunter's voice as he neared the end of the set of rules. "… any who are proficient enough in killing that Eziano Mozcaccio approaches them, know these rules. Luckily I knew of him from an associate before he appeared before me, so I knew not to defy him."

"What happens to those who defy him?" Zach asked.

Hunter hesitated again, then he replied, "Only death. He is not to be refused."

 _What the fuck is that?! How does he know? How is he so, afraid of this guy? I'm the devil! He should be so much more afraid of me, but, but he's scaring me shitless with the idea of a guy he actually fears on an equal level. Fears, but respects too._ Zach hummed to himself, then he narrowed his eyes and looked straight ahead through the gate area while speaking in a lower voice. "Tell me, Hunter," _I'm overusing the "Kiki-kun" thing. Treat him with a little respect when he responds to every question. I don't want him to hesitate to pick up the phone when I call. And I don't want to have to scare him whenever I'm on the phone, in case there are people listening._ "Is there an organization?" Zach questioned.

"I have heard of one," Hunter replied right away. Zach smiled as that worked out better than he thought. Hunter continued quickly, "But it is invite only and I have not been invited."

Zach frowned again and he humphed in an annoyed way. "Disappointing," he said, and he pulled the phone from his head and ended the call. _Alright, so it's not just rules for each individual assassin. If the top of that society got taken down, would those rules just vanish? I don't know. But the organization. Hunter would not know anything about it if he's not included, considering the secrecy of these kinds of people._ Zach lowered his gaze down while lowering the phone, and he stared at the ground in a dark way. _That organization, does All Might know something about it? Is there an ideology behind it? What would happen if the top was taken out? Eziano, Mozcaccio…_

Zach lifted his left hand again and ran it up through his hair. He got a small grin on his face, but it lowered down right away even as he was feeling glad. _Hunter's still scared of me. I thought after the Sports Festival, if he saw the same videos everyone else saw… But the boy in those videos isn't the same as the monster threatening him._ Zach's face covered in regret instead of the smug feeling he was trying to feel at his success in getting info from Hunter. He turned to walk the phone back to the woman, and Zach's eyes widened as he stared past the chairs and towards a shop where he was considering going to buy a charger after this just to prove to the woman whose phone he borrowed.

 _I should have realized that,_ Zach thought while walking back. He looked down at the phone, dipping the rim of his baseball cap down over his face while he tapped quickly on the recent calls. He deleted the most recent call from that phone, _Don't want her calling up Hunter on accident, or even having that number in this phone._ Zach turned off the phone and he handed it to the woman as he reached her. He thanked her and mentioned going to buy the charger now since they were boarding soon, and she told him not to worry about it and that she was glad to have met him. _There's no way he heard any of that, right?_

Zach started walking towards the store across the wide walkway that cut between all the gates in the terminal. _No, Midoriya wouldn't be able to hold back from saying 'hi' right away if he had seen me._ Zach stopped at the edge of the store and he bent down to look at a shelf with chargers on it. " Oh Zach? Hi," Zach lifted his head and a smile already formed on his face as Midoriya said that to him. _It should have been obvious. The internships start on the same day, and I narrowed mine down. Just a good thing he showed up this close to the flight._

"Hey Midoriya," Zach said. He lifted his eyebrows and glanced behind him for a second, then he looked back and said, "You going to Rukasu too?"

"Y-Yeah," Midoriya replied in a surprised tone. He smiled after a second though and then said, "Wonderlass' agency is in Yabino City. Bikergang's in, um Feruchia City, right?"

"You sure know your heroes," Zach said, grinning at the fanboy in front of him before walking towards the counter with a charger in his hand.

Midoriya had a small plastic bag with some snacks and a water bottle in it, and as Zach walked past he asked, "Oh, did you forget your charger in the dorms?"

"Yep," Zach replied, lifting a hand and scratching his head sheepishly at his slip of the mind. _Just don't search my bag and call me out on lying. Having two chargers isn't a bad idea, I guess. Especially if I get a second phone again, if that ever becomes necessary… I don't know. I'm just trying to- oh yeah! The whole reason I called Hunter was to help_ _ **you**_ _out._ Zach looked back after putting the charger down to get scanned, and he saw Midoriya waiting for him with his backpack on as his carry-on just like Zach had.

Neither of them were holding their hero costumes as those had to be checked-in for flights, and Zach was a little surprised Midoriya had not spotted him considering the U.A. uniform he was wearing. _Did he see me talking? No, Midoriya's not, he's not as manipulative as I am._ Zach tried not to frown and he said, "What boarding group are you?" His friend pulled out his boarding pass while Zach paid for his charger and got his bag with it inside. Zach walked back towards him and looked down as Midoriya got the pass out, and Zach smiled at the sight of the group number. "Me too," he said. "Hopefully we can find two open seats near each other," Zach added since they were not in the first group and it was not a sure thing.

"Yeah," Midoriya agreed with a nod. "I don't think it'll be a problem. It doesn't look like the plane's going to be full," Midoriya said, and he looked around the gate at the other passengers.

Zach's eyes widened a bit as he looked around himself. _I thought maybe more people were just going to show up later, but I wasn't lying when I said there wasn't a lot of time until boarding. If others don't show up for a flight this big… I guess, people might be afraid of villains attacking planes? Or they just, don't want to risk traveling away from home? Not that they probably feel any safer in their homes…_ "You said you picked Bikergang because of his fighting style?" Midoriya asked.

Zach turned and lifted his eyebrows for a second at Midoriya's look. _Did he see my dark look?_ Zach started smiling, and he replied to his friend who he was actually glad was bringing the conversation off of what he had been thinking about. "Yeah. I didn't think about it too much before we got our offers, but there's something I've wanted-" A speaker turned on and the two boys walking towards the gate area turned to a desk with some airport staff standing behind it. They called out that they were starting the first part of boarding, and Zach shrugged while turning back to Midoriya. "Won't be a long flight, but I'll tell you all about it," Zach said and his friend nodded with an interested look on his face.

 _And during it at some point, I'll just casually bring up what I learned about Eziano. Can't bring it up now, in case you did see me on the phone. Just to be careful. If you saw me give that lady her phone back, you'd probably be able to figure out that I_ _ **just**_ _did it. I'm pretty cautious of you, Midoriya. You and Momo are able to see through me better than anyone else can._ Zach kept a smile on his face and got to talking about the Racing Hero some more since they still had a couple of minutes before it was their turn to getting on the plane. _But I'm a pretty secretive guy. Nobody knows a thing about Hunter. It's too, too dark. It's a line I crossed to save Kaminari. Keeping it going like this is just as bad, as what I did that night. If it helps us stop villains though. If I can use it to help take down the League of Villains… Use everything._

* * *

Zach stared towards the right side of the room and his eyes practically sparkled at what he was looking at. There were desks in front of him and two young women each with long hair, one with blonde hair that fell straight and the other with a long black ponytail. Behind him were two wide metal doors that were currently closed, and the roof was over thirty feet above him in this building that looked to have multiple floors from the outside but was just one big garage in the interior. "My reason?" Zach asked, shifting his gaze from the right side of the room to the hero directly in front of him who had a pair of sidekicks behind him. "Well, I wanted to learn how to ride a motorcycle from a hero, who I looked up actually fights from on top of a motorcycle sometimes. It's just-"

"You just want to do it, since it seems cool?" The hero before Zach asked. He wore a tight black outfit with orange highlights on the shoulders, sleeves, pant legs, and had a cool BG symbol in orange on the front right of his chest as well as a bigger one covering his back. He had an orange helmet on his head with the black visor up, and his light skinned face looked serious as he frowned at the boy in front of him.

"No! Well, not entirely," Zach admitted, not wanting to lie to the hero he just met. "But I want to learn how to fight on a motorcycle too. It'll make up for my lack of great mobility on foot," he started, and he had come up with more than enough reasons when going through the pros and cons of all the different agencies he could pick from. _Plus, seeing Webb drive around on a motorcycle was so cool. I really wanted to try driving but he never let me._ "And," Zach continued, "I could get to crime scenes farther away from my agency so I'd have a wider range… and, I also _have_ to be able to get places fast. I have a time limit," Zach said.

The sidekicks behind Bikergang glanced at each other, while Bikergang himself got a more thoughtful look on his face. He was only five foot ten, whereas one of his sidekicks behind him and on his left from Zach's perspective was well over six foot tall and much larger. On Bikergang's other side was a smaller guy only a couple of inches taller than Zach, wearing a more similar outfit to the pro hero than the big guy who had his own unique costume on. The bigger guy nodded his head in understanding as Zach continued, but Zach noticed the guy just taller than him look his way and start frowning harder at him. "…I can only save people in a certain amount of time, so to get to hospitals, or even other nearby cities in time, I need something fast so that I could maneuver around cars if there's traffic. My mobility in a fight is one of my worst points too so I want to learn a new fighting style… and because it's cool," Zach finished since he had to admit that was a big part of it.

The smaller guy who was frowning at Zach lifted the corner of his lip for a second as Zach finished like that, but he brought it down fast again. Zach noticed him grin at what he said though, and he thought, _Is he trying to dislike me? What'd I do to him? Did I not bring someone back who he knew? Or is it because I joined the villains? Could be a lot of things really._

Bikergang smiled at the kid and scratched his chin for a few seconds after hearing all that. "Huh, well you've sure got this thought out. Was surprised when your school called to say you were interested. I know a few others around town who sent you offers too," Chiko Hayate smirked as he was the one who got Lifebringer to come to him. The pro hero then regained a serious look on his face and said, "You have some pretty big goals you're looking to accomplish in this internship, but kid I've gotta tell you, might not be time for any of that." Zach lifted his eyebrows in some confusion, then Bikergang said, "We're in the middle of an operation right now. And villains attack every day. You're here to help, not for us to help you. That's not the main purpose at least, though I will see if I can fit some riding lessons in," he lifted the right corner of his lip as he said it and Zach smiled back as that kept him feeling hopeful towards his reasons for coming.

A beeping sound came from one of the computers behind Bikergang and his crew, and the three of them spun to the woman with long blonde hair who started typing away at her keyboard. "Car-jacking on East 34th, last seen heading north-"

"Alright!" Bikergang shouted in an excited voice. He jumped up in the air with a spring that bounced him all the way to the right side of the room. "Lifebringer, tag along! Bouncer Man, you're in charge. Roady, can it," Bikergang said before the smaller of the two sidekicks could even say what he had opened his mouth to complain about.

"Which bike should I take?" Zach asked while running towards Bikergang.

"Haha, nice try," Bikergang said while turning his bike's engine on and driving it forward to intercept Zach before he reached the wall. There were four motorcycles on the wall, and Zach felt disappointed that he was not getting one since the fact that there were four and seemingly only three guys to drive them had excited him. "Hop on," Bikergang said, as one of the garage doors was opening up fast in front of the bike he spun to face it. Zach ran up and climbed onto the bike behind Bikergang, putting on the helmet Bikergang had handed him the second he arrived at the agency and locking it on before grabbing hold of handles on the sides of the seat. "Don't lose your grip," the hero warned, right before twisting his wrist and making them fly out the opening garage door and screeching onto the street.

 _This is so, COOL!_ The motorcycle sped down the road with flashing orange lights coming off of it, and Bikergang sped between cars moving in and out without hesitation. Zach grabbed onto the bike tighter with a nervous yet excited look on his face as they passed between such a tight squeeze he thought they would hit another vehicle for sure. "Daisy, which way?" Bikergang asked.

"Traffic camera picked up a vehicle matching the stolen car's description rounding Skye Street. The license plate was replaced, but a person matching the car thief's description can be seen through the windshield. Eighty-six percent match on facial I.D.," the dark-haired woman in the support staff of Bikergang's agency spoke into the helmets of the two racing down the street. In the background Zach heard the blonde woman shout about a purse snatcher downtown, and he glanced over his shoulder at the sound of that.

"Focus Lifebringer," Bikergang said. "Leave that to the others," he said, and Zach nodded while turning back forward.

 _There's a reason he left them behind. We don't need everyone for everything. Those two seemed capable. They should be able to take a purse snatcher fine._ Zach took a deep breath and then held on tighter as Bikergang suddenly pulled the bike to the right as they saw the red dot on their visors cut a different way on the translucent grid on their displays. _This helmet is pretty cool too. I should get one for my hero costume._

Zach was wearing his fully white hero costume, though he had packed his black costume in his bag as well for his trip to Hokkaido. The school had not mentioned anything to him about giving that costume back even though he had "ordered it" outside of school. The white costume was made out of bone too, so if he used Nightmare form now his whole body would look white through the black veil around it, hiding his bone structure on the inside. With the motorcycle helmet too, he thought it might be thick enough that it would keep his skull covered on the inside. He had to take off his actual costume's helmet though since it did not protect enough for riding a dangerous vehicle like this, or so Bikergang had told him when he showed it off earlier.

They cut down another road, and Zach could see on his visor display that the dot they were chasing was just up ahead. It had just blinked brighter again to show another camera had picked it up, as while it was dimming that meant that their helmets were just showing them a projection of where the car was likely to be considering its last confirmed location. "Here we go," Bikergang said, and he sped the bike up while lowering his right hand down to his side. Zach took in a deep breath but lifted a hand from the side of the bike too, holding on with the other just like Bikergang was doing. _I only need one to hold on. I watched a video of him fighting on a motorcycle. I want to learn how to do combat like this. I'm sure Webb would have been able to do it too… if he still had both arms. He does! There's no reason to think, he never got it fixed- FOCUS!_

The stolen car was just up ahead which Zach knew since the make of the vehicle had shown up on the side of his visor right when they started speeding off. He reached for his grappling gun first, then he slid his hand past it and grabbed a knife instead. _If I hook onto a moving vehicle I'll wind up getting us dragged. Probably crash the bike,_ Zach lifted his knife, and he asked, "How do we stop him?"

"It'd be easier to take out the tires now," Bikergang replied. "But we have to give the villain a chance first. Before we risk injuring him." Bikergang tapped on the side of his helmet to initiate a speaker, and he sped up his motorcycle in that moment while zipping to the edge of the road to race past all the cars between them and the stolen one. "Villain in the stolen Yissan Camoro! This is the pro hero, Bikergang!" Pedestrians on the sides of the road, people in their cars who slowed down and stopped their vehicles, and the criminal himself all spun towards the sound of that booming voice.

Bikergang's visor popped up and showed the hero smiling under the helmet as he sped down the road, and Zach saw a couple people on the sides of the road start cheering. The dark-haired boy also noticed others though, ones just staring towards the street with nervous expressions or even angry ones at what Bikergang had called out. "Pull over now. You are under arrest!"

 _ **VRRROOOM! Scrreeeech!**_ The whir of an engine followed by tires skidding on pavement echoed through the street.

Bikergang tssked and lowered his visor back down while twisting up the accelerator more. "And now, we take out the tires. Can't risk a drawn-out chase, or more people could get dragged into it," he explained since taking the tires out on a moving vehicle was a dangerous thing in itself. Zach nodded his head in agreement with the hero, and he took a deep breath as their motorcycle sped up and gained on the car that was having a harder time maneuvering down the street than they were. It bumped into two different vehicles and dented them, and Bikergang shouted for civilians to move off the street.

 _Can't go Nightmare this close to Bikergang. And I'm not used to fighting on the back of a motorcycle. What am I supposed to do here?_ "Back me up, Lifebringer," Bikergang said it without turning off the speaker on his helmet. Zach saw everyone on the street around them spin towards the motorcycle with much bigger eyes as they wondered who was under the helmet on the bike with Bikergang.

"Here we go," Bikergang said it softer, aiming the gun in his right hand down towards the back right tire. He waited, waited, _There!_ Bikergang fired and the back right tire of the villain's car popped. The metal rim of the tire slammed down on the road and sparks flew up from it. The car started swerving, and the motorcycle chasing it just sped down to the left side of the car that had slowed down without all its tires. They were nearing an intersection up ahead with no ability to go straight through it, and Bikergang yelled towards the driver's side door on their right. "Stop the car! Don't try turning or you're going to roll."

The villain on the inside of the car opened his eyes wide. He spun his head to look straight through the windshield, then left again at the motorcycle, then he spun the wheel desperately to the side. Bikergang pulled up and the front tire of his motorcycle popped off the ground. Zach brought his right hand back down and dropped his knife as he had to hold on for dear life not to slide off the back of the motorcycle which just rose on a seventy degree angle. The car on their right tried slamming into them, but the back of it went just beneath the front of Bikergang's motorcycle. As it was sliding under it though, Bikergang leaned forward and slammed the front tire of his bike on top of the car's trunk.

The pro hero smirked and pressed a button on the side of the accelerator on his motorcycle's left handle. The button made metal spikes come out of the front tire of the bike, and then he pulled on the brakes and yanked the car in front of them back. Their bike's back tire started spinning the opposite direction, and Zach just realized how fast he was breathing since they had been speeding towards an intersection with a red light, and cars driving to either side in it unsuspecting that a villain had almost sped right through them. The car slowed more and more even as smoke came up from its tires that were spinning faster to try and escape the hero's specialized motorcycle.

"You won't escape from my bike," Bikergang claimed out the speaker in his helmet. "Villain, cut off the engines now. I don't wish to damage this stolen car anymore than I already have." Zach sweatdropped at the sound of that, considering there were spikes through the back of the car and the entire vehicle was tilted to its back right from the popped tire. _A little late for that. It makes sense that stopping the villain had to be the priority over-_ The front door of the car opened up and the villain dove out of it. The car was stopped completely but trying to drag itself out of Bikergang's hold, and the tires kept spinning even after the villain bailed out.

"He used something to weigh down the accelerator," Bikergang said with a grimace covering his face. "Lifebringer-" he began, but Zach jumped off their motorcycle that was also stuck in place too. He took a few steps towards the villain who tried running to the sidewalk and for an alleyway, and then Zach spun back to the vehicle in front of Bikergang's motorcycle. Zach grit his teeth behind the helmet while the pro hero with him looked at the boy in surprise at how fast he was reacting. Zach drew his grappling gun from his left side while running back to the vehicle in front of Bikergang. He turned his head as he reached the car to aim better for a moment, and he fired towards the villain's legs.

Zach turned as soon as he saw the wire wrap the villain's legs up, and he leaned inside the vehicle that was shaking and smoking. He grabbed the golf club that must have been in the car already that the villain used to keep the accelerator down and he pulled it from its lodged position with the seat. Zach then got right back out of the car and spun towards the sidewalk as he felt the tug on his left hand that he had kept the grappling gun in, and he ground his teeth as he saw the villain had snipped the wire using the black claws he had for hands. The villain spun, and then **Bang!** A splash of blood flew out of the villain's right leg and he dropped to the ground again yelling out in pain.

Zach turned his head around and saw Bikergang still sitting on his bike, though he hopped off as soon as the car in front of him fully stopped moving. He locked his own bike in place since he did not think Zach parked the stolen car, just stopped its acceleration. Bikergang jogged up to Zach and said, "Check on the villain." He slid his upper body into the car and then pulled a foot in too since he had to be pressing on the brakes to put the car in park and take out the keys the villain had stolen with the car when he jacked it right off the street.

The boy acting as the pro hero's sidekick responded affirmatively without hesitating and ran to the sidewalk where the villain was yelling in pain. _Should I knock him out now? With everyone watching me?_ He noticed people down the sidewalk in front of him, behind him, and parked in the road or across the street all looking towards him. _He's in pain-_ The villain spun towards Zach from on his hands and knees, and Zach's eyes opened wide as the villain rose a pistol in his right hand and pointed it at Zach's face. Zach stared in shock through the visor at the villain about to shoot him, he heard the shot, and then he watched the villain's gun and half a claw fly into the air as the villain yelled in even more pain.

"Lifebringer, you alright?" Bikergang called over, as the boy looked frozen to the spot. He started running over, and Zach turned his way for a second before looking down at the man who was grabbing at his free claw with one hand while cursing and shouting in pain.

"I'm fine," Zach said. _What was I thinking about? In the middle of a fight. Villains never give up, even when it seems like they might be captured. I should have knocked him out right away, or restrained him, or something!_ "Sorry," Zach muttered, and then he dove down and slammed a knee into the villain's face as the man started leaning up again with a furious expression. Zach flipped the villain over after the hard knee that jumbled the villain's thoughts, and he pulled the villains' bloodier arm behind his back to lock in an arm-bar, one that Grappler had shown him a year earlier.

"Don't get worked up over it," Bikergang said, his voice just coming through Zach's helmet now and not echoing around them. "Just remember, villains are always thinking about escape. How can they kill, run, bargain, or hide to get out of their current situation? You have to remember that."

Zach nodded his head, and he kicked away the villain's gun with a foot since it had landed close to him and he did not know if it would still work or if Bikergang's shot had disabled it. _It didn't sound like he hit the gun, though he was probably aiming for it. He broke half the villain's claw off. That's pretty brutal._ Zach pushed down harder on the villain, and Bikergang bent down next to him and pulled out special capture zip-ties that he locked around the villain's other arm he pulled back and then the bloody one Zach was restraining already. "Nice job," Bikergang started to say, and then both of them heard a voice in their ears.

"Four blocks away there's a fire in an office building. First report called in to the police said it's a worker who got fired and started thrashing the place with her Quirk," Daisy explained the situation fast, then they heard Roady shout loudly in annoyance.

"We're still chasing the purse thief through alleyways, and the guy's Quirk is letting him bounce off the walls like a fu- like a pinball!"

"Send police to our current location," Bikergang started.

"Already done," Keiko's voice said, and the blonde typed into her keyboard and made the police cars' flashing blue and red symbols appear on the grid in Zach and Bikergang's helmets.

 _This is frantic! So much is happening and they're all this calm right now? Is there really this much crime just going on all over the place?!_ Zach glanced around at the people looking their way again, and he realized that none of them were looking at the villain as much as they were staring at him. _They didn't really look surprised when Bikergang started shouting about the stolen car either. Most of them just look tired of it, or upset. Even though we're stopping the villains._

Some people started clapping as Zach and Bikergang both stood up next to the fully restrained villain. Zach felt a little better as they did so, but he kept his helmet on since he could not hide the frustrated look on his face from the feeling he had of all these crimes happening one after the other. "Busy day?" Zach asked, a bit of a hopeful tone in his voice.

"Yes," Bikergang replied. "But only petty crimes so far. Let's hope things stay this quiet," he said, and he started heading to the side of the sidewalk where a couple of men were standing closer than the others. "Can I leave watching him to you until the police arrive? We're needed somewhere else."

The men looked surprised, and Zach stared at Bikergang with huge eyes behind his visor too. One of them accepted after a second, and then the hero called to 'Lifebringer' that they needed to get to the fire. Zach ran back to the motorcycle, and he asked in a confused voice, "Is leaving that villain with them really okay?" Bikergang had grabbed the villain's gun and searched him for any others too while tying up his ankles, but Zach knew the villain was still conscious. "This is dangerous."

"The police are only a minute out," Bikergang replied. "And three heroes in Feruchia have been killed, or retired in the past month." Zach's eyes widened more while Bikergang pulled the bike's spiked tire out of the stolen car and slammed it onto the road on its side by yanking the handlebars away. Zach realized as Bikergang did that that neither of them had used their Quirks in that last fight, and the villain had only used his to cut Zach's grappling gun wire too. _Need a new hook,_ Zach thought off-handedly, reminding himself to keep his grappling gun loaded. Bikergang continued and Zach tried focusing since it was a dark topic, "Citizens around here understand we have a larger workload. Especially after the SFI."

 _Sports Festival Invasion? Guess that's a faster way to say it, though I haven't heard anyone else use an acronym before._ "Keiko, inform the police and have them contact the car's owner. Insurance will take care of the damage I did to the car."

"What did you do to-" Bikergang cut off the communications for a second and then spoke directly to Zach again. "This fired person sounds irritated and might be out of control. If they don't know how to use their Quirk well, they're as much of a danger to themselves as a general menace in the workplace. Be cautious."

 _Is he saying that because I let my guard down back there? I shouldn't have done- I don't do that! Not anymore. I'm focused. I act quickly. I_ _ **just**_ _acted quickly, but was it the right move?_ "And nice job back there. It was quick thinking. We've been having a dangerous spike in the amount of guns on these streets though. Part of our current operation I'll tell you about, whenever we get a moment of rest, is in regards to that. Here we go though," Zach nodded along as he looked up and saw smoke coming out of the fifth story of a building up ahead. He calmed down a bit hearing that encouragement from Bikergang, and he regained a serious expression as he focused on the new task at hand. _The life of a hero, is intense._

* * *

In the back room of Bikergang's agency, as there were only two rooms in the entire building, Zach sat at a white folding table eating dinner with the hero he was interning with. The building's main room that looked like a garage was much bigger than the back room, but the back room was just as tall and had a set of bunks going up the wall on Zach's left side that he glanced at occasionally while eating. There was just a ladder on the wall going up past four different beds indented into it, though all of them looked nicely made and rarely used.

"Thank you Daisy," Bigergang said as the dark-haired woman leaned down and put a plate in front of him. She pecked Bikergang on the cheek after she put it down, and Zach looked at her in surprise. "Daisy here's my wife, Lifebringer," Bikergang told the boy who nodded as he expected as much, though he had not noticed earlier in the day.

Zach nodded at him in response since he did not know how else to respond to learning that. _Cool? Oh? That's, nice?_ "Um, so about the operation?" Zach started, lowering his fork and trying to start a conversation so it would not be awkward at the table. On his right side, Bouncer Man was eating quietly, and at the end of the table Keiko was on her phone and not eating like the rest of them.

"I'm heading out, boss," Keiko said after Zach asked and before Bikergang could speak. The pro hero glanced towards the wall and to the clock that had exactly 8:00 on it, and then he nodded towards her and said that she did good today. "Thanks, see you tomorrow," she replied. She looked towards Zach again, hesitated with her phone in her hand, then she turned and headed for the door. _I bet she wants to take a picture of me,_ Zach thought when he saw that hesitation.

Zach watched her going, and he saw her walk right past Roady who was near the door to the main room with a cellphone up to his own ear. _Who's he been talking to? He was pretty rude and sounded mad at me for most of the day, but I thought that was just his general personality. He's smiling a lot and talking in a calm-_ Roady lowered his phone and covered the receiver with one hand to snap something at Keiko who tried asking him something, and Zach nodded to himself. _That's more like it-_

"Our agency's current operation is a joint effort with a group of other heroes in this city and a hero in a smaller town twenty miles to the north," Bikergang started and got straight into it which made Zach spin to him fast. They had been so busy through the day that he had not been able to learn much about this, but he kept hearing the others talk about it over the headsets in their helmets. When it hit 7:30, Feisty Foursome took to the streets, a team of four female heroes who were also involved in the operation from what Zach had heard, and who Bikergang's agency was working with to split the hero workload in their section of Feruchia. "The Feisty Four girls, Team Canada, Gogogo, and Lobscar are all nearby heroes involved in this, and the local hero in Mosu Esupa is Underguard."

 _Oh! I know that name! He's in a small town? Thought he was a big time…_ "That's a lot of heroes," Zach remarked. "It must be a big operation."

Bouncer Man nodded his head and just took another bite of his food. Zach glanced at him but it did not seem like the large man was going to add anything. Bouncer Man was six foot eight and broad at the shoulders with large muscles that could be seen through his black clothes. He was not wearing necessarily tight clothing so seeing his muscles through it was impressive. He had a little tanner skin than the rest of the people working at the agency, and he had short black hair unlike his fellow heroes who had much brighter and spikier hair. Bikergang had spiky orange hair over his head, and Roady's was a slightly darker orange shade so it was almost red, though it was spiked in nearly the same style as the pro hero's.

Daisy had sat down right next to Bikergang across the table from Zach, and she explained to their intern, "It is. Although we already have a location for the warehouse we're planning on taking down, we're facing a lot of problems with getting a warrant. So far none of the surveillance has shown any illegal activity going on inside the building."

"What do you think is going on in there?" Zach wondered.

"We tracked back Trigger," Bikergang replied. Zach looked to him in surprise and with big eyes, and Bikergang continued, "It has become a large problem across the island recently, as it has in a lot of the country. Ever since the guns started spreading through the streets though, Trigger has made as big of an emergence if not more in the cities and towns around here. All the small-time drug dealers gave up their suppliers pretty easily, and a few of the suppliers cracked to get lighter sentences too. However we still could not get a location of a lab out of anyone, but Underguard made a move. The rest of us have continued to track drug dealers on a small time and arrest them whenever we catch them in the act, in order to keep those at the top of the criminal operation from thinking that we've already found them."

"Underguard followed one of the suppliers instead of going in for the arrest, and though it took over a week he said," Daisy said and started to smile as did Bikergang next to her who had a determined expression on his face behind it. "He found the lab. He had come to Feruchia to help us out with this, but it turned out the lab was in his own backyard."

"It might be," Bouncer Man said. The two across the table frowned at him, and Bouncer Man shrugged his shoulders and said, "Underguard saw him go in. Saw him leave with packages. If he had taken him down there and confirmed that the packages he left with were full of drugs then we could have gotten-"

"Then the villains would know we were on to them already," Bikergang said, shaking his head at the sidekick who frowned back but then rose a hand and scratched it over his dark hair. "Patience, is the key," Bikergang said, turning back to Zach who looked confused hearing that. "Underguard's last report was a few days ago, but he's working with his sidekick on secretly investigating the lab and nearby suspicious buildings. Once they have enough information to get a warrant, we're doing a full assault." Zach started breathing faster as Bouncer Man clenched his hands into fists and Bikergang's expression turned deadly serious. "The call could come at any time too. It's why I told you that we're in the _middle_ of an operation."

 _A Trigger lab? I've been to one before. Those places are usually big. Is it going to be League of Villains? Probably. Most likely, actually._ Zach nodded his head seriously back at the pro hero who just told him all of this. _But what else goes on there? If the Trigger is coming from that place, could the guns be too? What about the other nearby buildings they mentioned that are "suspicious?" Who runs the place? Is it the main lab in Japan, or just a small one? It doesn't sound like they actually know all that much about it, and Underguard's keeping them in the dark too… Does he not trust the other heroes? Why keep them in the loop at all if he doesn't though? And to tell them he knows the villains are in his town, if he really didn't trust Bikergang and the others he wouldn't have risked that._

"Until we get that call to convene though," Bikergang said. "We'll continue on as per usual. While the Feisty girls are holding down the fort outside, I guess I could give you a lesson- you are sixteen, right?"

Zach nodded fast with a smile growing on his face and the serious look disappearing. "You won't learn how to ride in a week though," a voice said on Zach's right that made him sweatdrop at the condescending tone. "Not like we do," Roady said, looking down on the boy he was walking towards.

"I'm a fast learner," Zach replied, turning towards Roady with a confident look on his face that made the spikier-haired man stop where he was. Roady looked only a few years older than Zach just as he was only a couple of inches taller, and Zach heard earlier that he was only two years out of high school, twenty years old.

Roady opened his mouth with a more annoyed look on his face now, but Bikergang started, "How is Popfire?"

The young sidekick froze with his mouth open to retort at Zach, and then he smiled while turning to the pro hero who asked that. "She's doing great. Got in a fight against a couple of villains earlier, but she dealt with them easily. Like always," Roady bragged, even though it was not his own achievement.

"Who's Popfire?" Zach asked, making Roady turn back to him with a much more annoyed look on his face now.

"None of your-"

"Roady's girlfriend," Daisy replied, cutting off the boy who spun to her in annoyance. Bikergang gave Roady a stern look once he glared at Daisy though, making the younger spiky-haired hero ease back and get a bead of sweat on the side of his face. He turned away with a frustrated look as Daisy continued to Zach, "They graduated Shiketsu the same year. She's currently sidekicking for Ryukyu-"

"The Dragon Hero?!" Zach asked in surprise. He spun to Roady with wide eyes, and the older boy turned back to him with a smug grin on his face. "She must be amazing then," Zach said.

"Oh yeah, she's the best-" Roady paused with his mouth open, then he humphed and finally took a seat at the table where his food had been getting cold on Bouncer Man's other side. He had a semi-flustered look on his face that was full of annoyance, and Zach frowned again as the older boy intentionally started being passive-aggressive towards him.

Bikergang scratched the side of his head as the tension suddenly went up at the table right when he thought things might have been going well. "Alright Lifebringer, you done?" He asked the high schooler whose plate was almost empty. Zach shot up to his feet so fast after hearing the question that Bikergang chuckled and started getting up himself. "Then let's do this. I'm guessing there won't be any time to practice tomorrow morning. 7:30 AM sharp our agency's back on duty."

"Got it," Zach said and nodded at the hero. _It was so busy today I was worried I wouldn't get any riding lessons in. This is great!_ _Almost, great,_ Zach thought, as he walked behind Roady who continued eating his food without glancing back at him, but who darted his eyes after him once he was farther towards the door to the main garage. _What is his deal?!_

* * *

"Alright, was a nice quiet morning today," Bikergang said, his voice coming through the helmets of the other three on motorcycles with him on the street of his agency. Zach sat on the back of Bouncer Man's black bike behind Bikergang on his left while Roady was on the other side of the street on his brighter red motorcycle that had orange flames designed on the sides. Zach got a small nervous grin on his face at the sound of what Bikergang just said, thinking, _Three incidents in four hours doesn't seem too quiet, though I guess there were more closer together yesterday._

The three motorcycles pulled into the open garage doors and into Bikergang's main agency room. They drove up the ramps just on the inside of the doors and then pulled towards the right side of the room, though they did not go all the way to it and park this time. They just left their motorcycles near the middle of the floor and got off them, putting the parking stands down on the sides of the wheels. Zach sighed and took his helmet off, letting out a deep breath as he got some air unobstructed by the helmet for the first time in a while. He shook his head around and then brought his left hand up and tried fixing his black hair that he could tell was really messy from the helmet.

As Zach was fixing his own hair, Roady took his helmet off and instantly lifted his hands to his hair and started re-spiking it. He turned his head a bit and saw Zach looking a bit frustrated by the way his hair kept returning to a messy state even as he tried pushing it down. "Takes a while to get-" Roady started with a grin, but he stopped himself when Zach turned and looked the older boy in the eyes. The twenty year old started frowning like he forgot he was not talking to Zach, and Zach started frowning right back at him in more annoyance than ever.

"Hey boss," Keiko called over from her computer. She had just arrived at work right before the heroes were returning for lunch, but she was already really into it or so Zach thought when he looked towards her. The young woman with long straight blonde hair stood from her computer while still typing fast on her keyboard, then she turned and lifted a remote that she pointed at the tv on the left side of the wall across from the racks the motorcycles stayed parked most of the time. The large flat-screen turned on and connected to the feed on Keiko's computer.

Bouncer Man was nearing the door to the back room, and Daisy opened the door and stepped back into the main room to mention what they had for lunch for the heroes. They both turned towards the tv too though as Keiko turned up the volume a lot. "What's the situation?" Bikergang asked as they saw a camera view from a helicopter shown on the screen. Zach lost his annoyed look from how Roady was acting towards him and just started walking closer to the screen with a nervous look in his eyes. There was a lot of smoke rising from the direction the cameraman in the helicopter was pointing, but Zach felt a small bit of relief at the label that just covered the bottom of the screen. _Not Yabino City,_ he thought.

"Rukasu?" Roady muttered while walking up on Zach's right side. Zach heard the tone in his senpai's voice and glanced at him, then towards Bikergang with widening eyes as Roady was not just saying the name of the city aloud. _He's asking…_

Keiko had a headset on, and Daisy ran up to her computer after hearing Bikergang's question that Zach had not realized at first was something deeper than just wondering what was on the news. _Rukasu's where I came in. The taxi took almost an hour, but on motorcycles!_

"…And this is the location of G&K Bank in east Rukasu, but there are confirmed reports of two similar bank robberies going on in different…"

"Oh no," Keiko rose a hand and put it back through her blonde hair, then she spun towards Bikergang with a serious look on her face. "We've got a hero down on the scene of one of the robberies. Nordic Hero: The Viking is down at Japan Bank Company on West All Might Boulevard. The third robbery is surrounded by heroes but there are over a dozen hostages-"

"Three robberies at the same time," Bouncer Man began in a dark and booming voice as he marched back towards Bikergang. "That's gotta be coordinated. Someone's-"

"Get on your bikes," Bikergang said, spinning and jumping up in the air with a spring that dropped him right on top of his own motorcycle. "We're heading to JBC. Lifebringer, how long is that time limit of yours?!"

Zach's eyes shot open wide but he started sprinting back towards the bikes himself. "Roady, take him this time," Bikergang added as Zach was about to run by the red bike to Bouncer Man's black one. Zach got a more hesitant look on his face and Roady looked upset by it too, and Bikergang snapped, "Don't wait up for us. Take him straight there."

 _Is Roady the fastest of the three of them at- oh man!_ Zach realized why Bikergang would be trying to get them to work together at a time like this, and he nodded his head and started putting his helmet on before getting on the red motorcycle. "Around forty minutes is the top of my range, I think," Zach said.

"How long back did The Viking fall?" Bikergang called back towards the computer stations.

"I'm calling in now to ask!" Keiko called back.

"Letting the Feisty Foursome know we're leaving the city," Daisy announced too.

"Good- Roady, as fast as you can!" Bikergang cut himself off and called it to Roady as he rared on his bike's engine and spun it in a circle still in the garage. He left skid marks on the floor and put it into full throttle to send them flying out of the garage without hesitation.

"You got it!" Roady called out, as the motorcycle skid into the road and then flew down one way with people all around spinning in shock at how fast that bike just came out of the building.

"Whoa, whoa!" Zach held on tighter and tighter as they shot through an intersection and then onto the next road's sidewalk without Roady pausing for a moment to think about his route. "You're going to hit someone-" Zach started calling out, but he clenched his teeth shut behind his visor with a grimace as he had to try and trust this guy despite how much the sidekick seemed to dislike him.

"Bull!" Roady yelled back. "I never hit a thing! My Quirk's called Speedroute! In my vision I see a dozen lines coming out past me, some green, some orange, some red. The easiest path, the fastest path, the most dangerous!" The motorcyclist slammed on the brakes and spun the motorcycle right before an intersection that the light turned red on two seconds earlier. As he shot into an alleyway a building before the intersection, Zach saw that path they almost took get filled up by vehicles that had been waiting at the light and would not have seen him coming. They had to go more to the southeast anyway, and Roady's high-tech helmet along with the natural path-finding ability of his Quirk meant every route was one he could take. So even though the alley way full of trash cans and even a homeless man slumped against the wall, Roady's motorcycle sped in and out of obstacles without a hitch.

Zach started taking deeper and calmer breaths even as Roady sped just as fast across the rest of Feruchia. He still was not able to relax until they got on the highway, and although they started speeding over a hundred miles per hour, Zach calmed down enough to focus on the back of the head of the guy in front of him and not on the road. _We're about to go into a fight together. I don't know if Bikergang or Bouncer Man will arrive near when we get there, though everyone should be rushing as fast as they can. I won't know anyone else there though. Roady will be my only real support. The Viking could be in the middle of the bank surrounded by villains, and the time limit is going to be near its end!_

"Why-" Zach started, and he stopped himself just as quickly. Then he shook his head and he called out to the young hero sitting in front of him, "Why don't you like me?!"

"What?!" Roady shouted back.

"Why don't you like me?" Zach yelled again. He was not using the motorcycle's headset since he did not want the others hearing him, and he had to shout over the wind flying by them despite the wind-shield on the front of Roady's motorcycle. They were each hunched forward while speeding down the highway so the wind was flying over them and to their sides away from the orange-tinted windshield pushed back over the top of the handlebars. "It's like since I got here, you've been treating me like crap!"

Roady stayed silent for a few seconds, keeping his eyes forward and maneuvering the motorcycle around the highway perfectly whenever he had to change lanes to keep moving this fast. "Did I do something to you?" Zach called out.

"No," Roady replied, and Zach barely heard him since the older man did not shout. "But," he continued, then he stopped hesitating since it was a weird line of questioning Zach had started with while they were in the middle of a mission. "But you! I saw that court case!" Roady yelled. Zach's eyes widened a little, then they got bigger as Roady shouted, "The judge ordered you not to use your Quirk, and you ignored him and went and used it anyway!"

Zach stared at the hero's back in front of him and pulled his head back a few inches. "I-" he started. "I saved a lot of people doing-"

"Whatever the reason!" Roady shouted at the kid trying to defend himself. "You broke the rules, and the law! You never should have been able to become a hero." Zach's eyes stayed open wide as the man in front of him even darted him a glare back by turning his helmet sideways. Zach could not see the young man's eyes, but he knew Roady was glaring at him through the dark tint of his reddish-orange helmet. "They told you you couldn't, then you broke the rules and somehow that meant you could be a hero again?!" Roady turned his gaze back to the road even though it was still empty for another half mile down the lane in front of them. "It's not right! You used your Quirk when it was against the rules! You ignored the very laws heroes are sworn to protect! So yeah, I don't like you. The rules are absolute, kid!"

There were blinking blue lights on the front of his motorcycle though Roady still needed to maneuver when the road got too crowded. Zach started staring past Roady and down the highway in the direction of Rukasu, and he could see a green sign up ahead with the distance to Rukasu on it. It was approaching much faster than Zach imagined it would, and he started breathing heavier as they barreled towards it. _He's not wrong,_ Zach thought, but his eyes narrowed behind his helmet and he started breathing calmer. _I've broken the rules more times than I can count now. I broke the law just yesterday. Hunter, anti-heroes, Lifebringer, Spinner… But, you're wrong. You're not wrong that I have broken the rules… But the rules are not absolute. Not when, saving people- Saving people takes precedence. It's a difference in ideologies, but I don't need to argue that with you right now. Right now there is something I need though._

A car up ahead saw the blinking lights behind it and moved out of the way, and a greenish-yellow line in Roady's vision telling him to cross over two lanes vanished with a thick green line appearing on the road straight ahead again. "Lifebringer," a voice called out behind Roady. He kept staring down the highway though with a confused look on his face behind his tinted visor, and then his eyes widened as Zach shouted at him, "It's not 'kid!' We're fellow heroes on a mission together, I'm sure it's somewhere in the rules to call other heroes by their hero names, right?!" Zach shouted it in a pissed-off tone, and he glared harshly at Roady's back in front of him. _I told Principal Nezu I was fine with changing it back. I'm Lifebringer again, and that's what you're going to call me._ "Disagree with my pardon or the reversal I got in the retrial as much as you want, but the ones who make the rules you hold in such high regard said I could be a hero. Who are you, to argue with them?"

Zach got a smug look on his face behind his visor, then he made it serious again after a second of not hearing any response from the man in front of him. "When we get there, I'm not going to hesitate. I'm going to run right to The Viking and try reviving him. Can you get my back, or not? Roady!"

There were a few more seconds of nothing before the man in front of him yelled back. "Hmph, going to use what I said against me?!" Roady snapped in annoyance, though Zach's eyes widened as he thought he could hear a smile on his comrade's face. "Screw it then! I'll get your back, Lifebringer! The Viking's a great hero! Bring him back, and maybe I'll treat you more like a subordinate!"

Zach had started grinning there for a moment, but he sweatdropped at the end as he wondered if Roady thought that was supposed to sound good to him. _How about just as your junior? Whatever. I'm going to bring him back anyway, what you think about it doesn't mean a thing to me._

* * *

Thirty miles east of Rukasu City, a car was stopped on the edge of a mountain where there was an outcrop from the mountain path for sightseeing. A man and his wife sat on the hood of the car, his arm around her shoulders and holding her close as they looked off to the north and the calm nature spreading for miles beyond them. "This is beautiful hon-" A couple of shadows passed over their heads and the two snapped their gazes up only to drop their jaws at the silhouettes moving between them and the sun.

"We're still far out from the city, move faster Deku!" Wonderlass shouted as she descended towards a tree on the western slope of the mountain they just leapt over. She landed on a branch and pressed her legs down hard, cracking sounds echoing through the woods as the branch was thick but just not thick enough. She leapt up and the branch snapped and broke off, while Midoriya Izuku dropped down between two trees and used the ground to jump back off of and into the sky again.

Midoriya was panting and had a nervous look on his face. He crossed his arms as he rose through the canopy and broke apart some small branches that he had to close his eyes to prevent getting poked in when he passed them. "Don't let your guard down!" Wonderlass yelled out to the boy rising up behind and below her. She did a front-flip and spread her arms out near the top of her arc, spreading the thin black wings of her costume from her arms to her sides and letting her dark blue cape flap behind her. She had a black earpiece in her right ear and a deep frown on her face from what she just heard reported. "A hero's already been marked as a casualty. We aren't moving fast enough!"

Deku nodded his head and he kicked his legs behind him to thrust himself faster forward. He threw his arms out to the sides and wobbled in the air, flipping over once as doing that was not something he was really used to. He curled his legs back in as he started descending back towards the trees again though, and he kicked out below him right at the end of one flip to send himself flying back up in the air and past the woman gliding forward fast with her wing-suit. Wonderlass nodded her head as the boy passed her, then she called out, "I am going to the Kirby robbery! The most hostages are there. Take G&K, we'll meet up at JBC to stop the third."

"What do you mean by 'take' the-"

"Save the hostages, capture the villains, it's not hard to figure out!" Wonderlass yelled while dropping back towards the ground herself. Midoriya gulped at those vague but intense instructions, then he heard his pro hero shout towards him, "You got that?!"

"Yes ma'am!" Deku yelled back towards her, while dropping down himself again towards a clearing. He swung his arms down when he was nearing the ground to slow his approach, then he bent his knees upon landing and filled his body with One For All. _Twenty percent, Full Cowling!_ He sprang off the ground and high into the sky, so high that he was able to see the city nearing in the distance that he had arrived at the day before for his internship. Thinking about when he arrived made him picture for a moment his friend he landed with, and he remembered what Wonderlass just called out about the situation. _Should I text Zach? Or, what if he's busy at his internship? He'll just be hurt knowing there was a hero he could have… If I'm not going to text him then,_ Midoriya's face got an even more serious look on it and his fists clenched at his sides as he soared through the sky in the direction of Rukasu. _Then I won't let anyone else die!_

* * *

 **A/N Thanks for reading. Zach starts up his internship this chapter, though first he makes his call to Hunter to try and find out more about the assassins. Hope you enjoyed that and his first day at the agency, and now we've got a triple bank robbery back down in Rukasu that has both him and Midoriya returning to the city their plane landed in the day before. We'll see how that goes, next time! Also, just wanted to add this in case anyone noticed the city names. Rukasu (Lucas, as in George Lucas), Yabino (Yavin, the planet the rebel base was on the moon of), Feruchia (Felucia, another Star Wars world). Thought that'd be fun since all the other places in BNHA have Star Wars names. Anyway, leave a review below telling me what you think about the chapter or predictions for the rest of the internship arc! Review responses:**

D-Koy24 chapter 71 . 15h ago

Thank you

 **You're welcome!**

Super Power Sensei chapter 71 . 11h ago

Two things...  
One, remember how I was talking about a civil war/revolution building up? What if that's what All For One and Shigaraki want? What if the reason they haven't come after Izuku is because they are more focused on destroying the society Izuku is training to be a symbol for? Whenever someone mentions the public losing faith in heroes, I think of a saying..."the best way to destroy a civilization is get it to turn on itself".(I think that's what happened to Rome)  
Two, Zach constantly talks about changing society for the better and helping educate people. Even going out of his way to take action towards those goals like with his confrontation with Gentle. But the moment Zach encounters a nonthreatening pretty stalker chick who says she's loyal to him, he takes off running?! Then he thinks about handing her over to the police like that's the only way to "help" her?! Zach has done so many things, good and bad, without relying on others or making it another's problem. ZACH, YOU'RE A HERO(IN EVERY SENCE OF THE WORD)! STAND UP FOR WHAT YOU SAY AND TAKE CARE OF THIS "PROBLEM"(I wouldn't call this a problem) YOURSELF!

 **Nice predictions in the first part. No spoilers though as to whether or not that's coming. 2, I don't know if I'd call someone who's been following you around for months "nonthreatening." Plus she didn't just pledge loyalty, she offered her body and soul... Zach's not that composed a guy that that's not gonna get to him. We still see him nervous when people see through him or find out secrets, and he's really nervous when it comes to Momo as we saw last chapter- Then again though, maybe he'll get to this soon and just needs some time to think over what he's doing? He did _just_ meet her right before leaving for the internship. Not gonna spoil what he's thinking or if he even has her on his mind though. Thanks for the review!**

RisinHope chapter 71 . 16h ago

Another great chapter, tmb1112! I love how Zach is opening up to Momo more and more, but it feels like a tragedy might happen to Zach/Momo.  
I noticed, in the last chapter, how Zach's death quirk is spreading to his entire body because a of the death wisps coming from his left finger tips. This makes me believe that it could also spread to his lips as well, so if Zach/Momo gets a real fluffy scene, it will end up tragic coz Zach's got the good old kiss of death.  
The trauma that results from the loss of Momo could either unlock a new ability or give him him better control over his quirk temporarily (like how mothers get super strength to protect their babies from danger) and might allow him to bring people back from the dead even if he caused their deaths, but it will leave him drained out of his wits (like a 2-3 day coma).  
I can't wait to see what happens in the future.  
RisinHope out!

 **That would be... so sad. ;) maybe it'll happen then, huh? Lol, no spoilers but I like the predictions. Thanks RisinHope for the review, and I hope you liked the new chapter!**

Momozaki chapter 71 . 16h ago

The romance level...is over 9000!  
YES! Just kiss damn it  
Ahahaha in all honesty I liked this chapter. It was a great growing process for Zach. The internship arc has got me tense though...things are going too good

 **I've been re-reading through Death the last few days (as I often do while writing big stories to make sure I don't leave in big plot holes when foreshadowing stuff earlier, plus I just enjoy the story and wanted to read it myself). And while rereading my download which includes all the review responses, I saw someone had written back like 30 chapters ago that I'd be teasing this ship 'til chapter 70 won't I? Well, we're now at 72 and I can confidently say to whoever wrote that, yes. XD Anyway, I'm glad you liked that chapter, and not a bad idea to be cautious when things start to look good for Zach. We'll see how Zach handles himself this next week, in the upcoming chapters of Death!**


	73. Chapter 73

**Disclaimer: I don't own Boku no Hero Academia**

 **Chapter 73:**

Outside of Japan Bank Company in Rukasu City, Zach Sazaki stopped yelling in pain and started panting instead as he fell back on his butt next to a hero in a helmet that was missing one of its horns. The hairy hero still with a lot of blood on his costume only opened his eyes for a few seconds before passing out with a confused and scared expression on his face. The line of police officers in between The Viking's body and the bank ahead of them were all looking back and staring in shock at the hero who had been dead for quite some time now.

Zach was panting as he sat there next to the hero he had doubted he would be able to save. _Getting his body a safe distance to bring him back, if Daisy didn't call ahead so they were already working on it… But, fifty minutes? That's more than… All that time at the hospital after…_ Zach curled his hands into fists a few times and then pushed them down on the floor at his sides. _It hurt a lot, because of how long it's been. But it's also the first one today. I'm still fresh. I can do this._ Zach got to his feet and stepped forward towards the police perimeter. He put his right hand to his head and said, "Roady. The Viking's alive. What's going on in there?"

Zach looked over the riot shields the officers were holding and towards the glass doors of the bank that were missing all their glass but still had the frames intact. The blinds were drawn on all the windows too, though the glass was shattered there as well and gun barrels occasionally poked through to light up the police line. "Hmph, good. We're still not going in. There are two hostages in there total, but we just got confirmation on who the guy running the robbery is. Some civies who The Viking got out earlier heard what one of the others called the boss, and it's not good."

The younger of the two stood there in some confusion for a few seconds, then he muttered, "Is it up on the helmet's visor? I don't have mine on-"

"Why'd you take it off- whatever, nevermind," Roady's annoyed snap cut off midway which Zach felt satisfied by, but his eyes widened and his expression became a lot more serious as Roady spoke up again. "He goes by Breakneck. He's a Tartaros escapee." Zach narrowed his eyes towards the building up ahead that heroes were surrounding from closer up than the police, and a Rukasu hero named Gilgamesh was negotiating over the phone from right in front of the shattered front doors. Roady's voice continued in Zach's ear as he had taken the earpiece with him even if he did not have his motorcycle helmet on anymore, "Quirk: Flashstep. Dude, it's really bad news. He was in Tartaros for some deep shit, murder and conspiracies, this guy had his own big operation ten years back. All Might's the one who took him down, so-"

"Not much for us to go on for how to beat him," Zach muttered in response. _Flashstep? That sounds bad. How did All Might beat him?_ Zach pulled out his phone and he started typing into it fast. _Oh shit! I don't need to wonder how!_ Zach sent a text and then he lifted his head and looked back towards the building. He took a deep breath and then said to the cops in front of him, "Make a gap."

"You won't get out of here, Breakneck! Let the hostages go and turn yourselves in. It'll be easier for you, I promise," Gilgamesh pointed his right hand forward and extended his index finger in his golden glove. He could see straight into the bank and into the middle of the main room where the villain was standing with a phone in his hand himself. None of the other villains were in sight through the door, nor were the hostages they knew to still be in there. "Already the robbery at G&K has been foiled. The Kirby is surrounded by even more heroes than we have here. You and your accomplices are all going to be arrested here."

"Lifebringer, we're doing it," Roady said, and Zach's eyes opened wide at the sound of that. _While Gilgamesh is in the middle of speaking?! They know the villains will never just turn themselves in like that, they're just trying to make them off guard._ "Five of us are on the roof about to bust in. Stay out there, stop anyone from getting away… You going to use that form of yours?" Zach froze and he started breathing heavier which his comrade heard over the earpiece in his helmet he had yet to take off. "That was you, right? Saw that dark thing at the Sports Festival… Five seconds, don't be a burden."

The comms cut off and Zach started breathing even faster as he had no time to decide. _What do I-_ Zach reached down and he put his right hand over one of the white sheaths on his right side, and his left hovered over the black steel of his grappling gun on the left side of his belt. _I don't need it to be a hero, but if I need to I'll use it without hesitation._ Zach took a deep breath but made it look like he was still just holding his hands there as a precaution in case he needed to pull his weapons out.

Then he heard the crash. Then shouts from inside the building came through the broken windows and doors. Gilgamesh charged forward while dropping the phone he was just listening to a response come through. Gilgamesh ran through the front door and yelled out, "Freeze, villains!"

"We have secured the hostages!"

"Shoot them!"

"My gun's not working!"

Roady weaved left and right, dodging the swipes of a villain in front of him who realized she could not use her gun and had pulled out two knives instead. Roady saw red lines all over his vision, but then a yellow one down and to his right that he ducked to fast. He reached out while ducking, grabbing the woman around her left leg and then yanking up while moving fast past her side. He pulled up in the air and then eased his body backwards as she fell, because she tried slashing one more time towards his head. He turned to her as he dodged her swipe with ease, then he slammed his elbow down into her wide-eyed face at how easily he was avoiding her attacks.

Zach stayed where he was outside of the bank. He moved a few steps closer, but he held on and just listened to the fighting going on inside for a few more seconds. "Don't let him-" Zach heard Roady start shouting both in his earpiece and inside the building. "Oh crap!" _Not good._

"Everyone back up!"

"Take him down fast!"

"ROOAAARRR!"

 _Fuck! Trigger!_ Zach thought at the same time as most of the cops behind him and the heroes inside who just saw the villain shoot up. Zach started running for the building, _I'll use Nightmare and knock him out before he can-_ In the doorway Zach was running towards, a man appeared out of thin air. He popped into existence in the doorway and looked left and right, a smirk on his face, his right hand over his shoulder with three tan sacks in it that had ten thousand yen bills flying out of them. He was tall, six foot three at least from what Zach could tell.

The man looked both ways and then his eyes stopped on Zach who had skid to a stop at the villain's sudden appearance. The villain who just appeared there was one Zach wasted no time in assuming who he was, considering what he had already guessed just from hearing the name of the man's Quirk. "Breakneck," Zach said, loud enough that he would be heard over the earpiece he had on. He pulled his grappling gun and knife out fast and pointed the former at the villain, firing without hesitating any longer.

The tall man had short brown hair and was not dressed much like a villain. He had a button-down blue shirt on with thin green stripes cutting through it vertically every inch or so. He had looked at Zach in surprise when they first locked eyes, but then his lips just curled up in a grin where he was standing three feet to the right of where he just was so Zach's grappling hook flew harmlessly past him. Zach flicked his knife towards the man's leg as soon as he reappeared, and Breakneck leapt up in the air with his grin wiping from his face. _He didn't use it again right away. Knew there had to be a time limit. How far is it he can Flashstep? It's a "step," so it sounds like it shouldn't be too far. Wish All Might had responded quicker._ Zach felt the buzz in his pocket a second ago but had no time to check it now.

"You're quick there, kid," Breakneck said while flipping backwards in the air. He disappeared and Zach's eyes darted around fast before snapping up towards the roof. The villain with several sacks of money in his hands put his free hand up to his forehead and gave a mock salute down to the boy hero and the police behind him. "Not quick enough though."

"SsmmaaAASSHH!"

Zach snapped his head up with eyes growing huge. A boy in a green costume with curly green hair and a bloody scratch on the right side of his face flew out of the sky with his right leg kicked forward, and Breakneck was lifted from where he stood on the edge of the building. The tall villain got thrown backwards by the force of the kick alone, but he spun himself around while upside-down in the air over the bank, looking towards the new arrival who was another young hero whose appearance made his eyes grow wide. "Time to split," he said, looking straight into the green-haired teen's eyes as he did. Then he vanished.

 _Even though it's a step, he can disappear in midair? What are the exact specifications?_ Midoriya landed on the edge of the bank where the villain had been standing before he sent him flying into the air. He spun his head around looking for where the villain went, but he was nowhere in sight this time.

"RRAAAA!"

Zach was too busy staring up at Midoriya with wide eyes that he forgot what he was planning to do before Breakneck appeared. He looked back into the bank and started running to the doors. Zach sprinted into the front doors, started raising his right hand towards his chest as he saw the bulky villain who looked like a bull covered in sharp spikes. As his hand was almost at his chest though, Midoriya dropped down through the hole in the roof above the out-of-control villain who was the only one still standing in the bank.

Roady was running towards the front doors with another hero and the two freed hostages with him, and he started turning in to yell at Zach to stop hesitating like he looked to be doing. Zach did not need to turn Nightmare mode anymore though, and the entire bank shaking made Roady spin to check what the villain had done now. All the heroes looked towards the middle of the room in surprise at the figure there who all of them recognized after a second. Standing on top of the newly unconscious villain, panting and looking down at the man below him who he had gotten in a surprise kick on in the back of the head to knock him out before ever being seen, was Midoriya Izuku.

 _He's bleeding,_ Zach thought as he looked at the right side of Midoriya's face. It was low down on his cheek, and Midoriya lifted an arm and wiped his green sleeve across that bloody scratch after making sure the Triggered-out villain was unconscious. _Was he, at one of the other robberies already? And he came here afterwards?_ Zach started breathing faster, and he smiled towards his friend who finally looked his way so they could make eye contact.

"Dang, you got here first," Midoriya looked up and so did the other heroes who were all about to say something to the boy. A woman with a shaved head and dark blue and black costume on dropped through the hole and landed on top of the spiky villain's back next to her intern. "Where's Breakneck?"

"He, got away," Midoriya replied, thinking on how the villain had disappeared up on the roof a few moments ago.

"Improvements can be made then," Wonderlass said harshly, making Midoriya lean back and the other heroes to all sweatdrop as they had been thinking of how impressive that boy had just been.

"Lifebringer, Roady, come in," Bikergang's voice came through the earpiece in Zach's ear and the helmet Roady was wearing. "We went to Kirby first to find the situation under control. How is it over there?"

Roady lifted a hand to his helmet and tapped a button on the side to connect him to the rest of the agency. "Looks like, we're finished too." Roady turned his head to the right a little and then added, "The Viking's alive, we made it in time."

Zach turned from Midoriya and looked back at the other sidekick who was staring at him through his visor. Zach could not see Roady's face, but he smiled and the older hero nodded at him once before turning back to the hostages and telling them to follow him to the police's perimeter. As Roady started heading off, Zach heard Bikergang in his ear, "Great job, Lifebringer." An even bigger smile formed on Zach's face and he reached down to his pocket. "Meet us at The Kirby as soon as you can. We'll regroup and head back after we're sure this is settled."

 _Settled, huh?_ Zach lifted his phone and checked the message he received from All Might a few minutes ago. _Wonder what we'll do about-_ "Hey Zach," the black-haired boy lowered his phone and turned, smiling again at his classmate who was jogging towards him. "Did you," Midoriya began, and Zach looked at his friend hesitantly. Midoriya did not know if he should ask considering how long ago he had heard about it, but he finished anyway, "There was a hero who, I heard, died-"

"I got him," Zach replied quickly as he realized why Midoriya was speaking in such a hesitant way. Midoriya's face lit up and he smiled again with a relieved look covering his face. "But hey, you're bleeding," Zach motioned at Midoriya's face and the slightly taller boy reached up to rub it again. "Come on," Zach said, and he turned for the door behind him. Midoriya glanced back for a second, then he looked ahead and jogged forward up to Zach's side when he saw Wonderlass talking with Gilgamesh and a few other heroes in the middle of the bank. "So, where'd you get that scratch? Did you go to one of the other banks first?" Zach asked, looking in at his friend while trying to hide how impressed he was.

Midoriya nodded his head and Zach couldn't help but grin at the thought of it. _Maybe becoming the Symbol of Peace isn't all that far away for him. I sure hope so._ "How's your internship going?" Zach continued since Midoriya suddenly got a grim look on his face that Zach figured out and wanted to distract him from. _Yeah, we let the guy running this heist get away. But everyone made it out alright and we caught a bunch of villains, it's no time to look like that._ "Wonderlass seems really intense," Zach added, in a quieter voice too like he was worried about that scary woman hearing him.

Midoriya gulped and glanced back over his shoulder, _Did she hear that?_ He looked at Zach next who had a bead of sweat running down the left side of his face as Midoriya's glance _actually_ made him feel worried she had heard him. "She's incredible," Midoriya whispered back to his friend as they neared the police line, and Zach pointed towards an ambulance behind it where the hostages were going to get checked out. Midoriya slowed and felt hesitant about wasting their time for a small cut, but he reached up to rub it again of the wet blood and decided to just follow Zach who kept walking without pausing to wait for him. A smile formed on Midoriya's face and he continued, "We jumped all the way here from Yabino City…"

* * *

"…announcing my retirement. I, have decided that I need to spend some time off, with my family. I apologize to those of you who look to me for support in these trying times." A man in a bloody costume missing part of his helmet took a deep breath and tried to keep a composed look on his face as cameras flashed in front of him. "Lastly, I would like to thank Lifebringer. I was- I just want to say, thank you." The man turned from the cameras and started away without responding to any of the comments or questions the media started shouting at him.

Zach stared up at a television on the side of a skyscraper near The Kirby, a bank that serviced mostly the richest in society as there was a high minimum amount for starting a bank account in their high-security vaults. More hostages had been taken at The Kirby than at the other two banks, and there was the biggest media frenzy, the most cops, ambulances, etc. gathered around the supposedly secure building. The security measures had been used against the civilians inside the bank who got trapped inside when a villain whose mind was half-computer told the bank's systems not to let anyone escape.

A few feet on Zach's right side, Roady lifted a hand and ran it back through his spiky red hair. "Damn," he muttered. The two of them watched as the Nordic Hero: The Viking walked away without another word to the media. "That happen a lot? People losing their shit when you bring them back?"

Zach turned towards Roady, then he glanced back up at the big screen on the side of the skyscraper again. He had his helmet on again but spoke through his black-tinted visor, "Dying, does put some things into perspective. I don't blame him," Zach said quieter, while Roady was staring at Zach in confusion and then with growing eyes. _Kirishima and Shoji didn't stop, or Mt. Lady, but… Some people just aren't ready to throw their lives away a second time. I wouldn't call that, "losing their shit," but,_ a face appeared in Zach's mind. A girl with long brown hair and bright green eyes who smiled at him in a horrifyingly creepy way appeared in front of him and Zach shivered. _That girl, was it because I brought her back? Or before it was she already-_

"Hey guys," Zach and Roady turned to see Bouncer Man a few meters behind them. The larger sidekick lowered his gaze from the big screen he and many of the others had been looking at too to watch The Viking's retirement announcement. "Get over here," the big man said, and he motioned back towards where Bikergang was stepping away from the media who had been surprised by his appearance there.

Bikergang had a bead of sweat on the side of his face as he walked away from the cameras in front of the Kirby. _Even when I tell them we didn't do much,_ he rose a hand and ran it back through his spiky orange hair. _"How could you leave Feruchia considering the spike in the crime rate these past few weeks?" "Why didn't you get here faster, Bikergang?" Nag nag nag,_ he lowered his hand as his sidekicks were almost at him, and then Bikergang's pocket buzzed and he reached down for his phone.

Zach kept darting glances towards the crowd of reporters still talking with other heroes who did have a bigger part to play in stopping the robbery in The Kirby. _Hopefully no one from JBC calls over here and tells them what I'm wearing. The reporters definitely know I'm around after The Viking's announcement, but putting this helmet back on really was a good idea._ Zach grinned behind his visor, then his lips curled back down and an intense look spread over his face. Bouncer Man and Roady both slowed to stops as well while looking at Bikergang's face, because the pro hero in charge of their agency was staring at his phone seriously and with a focused expression.

Bikergang rose his head and walked forward so the four of them made a box on the sidewalk below the steps of The Kirby. "That was Underguard," Bikergang said. Zach gulped but clenched his fists in their white gloves, and the thinner black one under the glove on his right hand. "They got the evidence they need for a warrant. Trigger labs have been confirmed. We're going straight to Mosu Esupa from here. And," Bikergang paused for a second, sliding his phone down into his pocket and getting an even more serious look on his face. "It seems the villains have a hostage. The mission's primary objective may have changed."

"A hostage?" Roady asked in confusion. "But, they don't know we're coming, right?"

"It's probably someone who's a prisoner there," Bouncer Man said, while turning his head to the left and looking at Lifebringer. "Wouldn't you agree?"

Zach looked at the biggest man there, then at the other two with spikier hair who looked to him too. He hesitated for a moment and then nodded his head. _That woman in Higucha, me, the test subjects… The League of Villains having a prisoner who will become a hostage in this attack, doesn't sound that far-fetched to me._

"Alright, let's get moving," Bikergang said. The others all looked back to him, and he continued in a firm voice, "We'll find out more of the operation's specifics when we arrive. The situation here has been handled. All of the perpetrators at the three crime scenes have been captured, except for the leader of the JBC robbery." Zach and Roady both grimaced and lowered their gazes to the floor at the sound of that. "But we did good work here," they looked back up and saw the pro hero smiling at the youngest members in the agency. "Come on, let's-"

The sidekicks in front of Bikergang opened their eyes wide, and the thin man with spiky orange hair started turning his head to the side. He looked behind him and then rose his gaze a little to the scary face of the bald woman behind him who looked straight down into his eyes. "Bikergang, what is it you were just talking about?" The tall woman in an all black and dark-blue costume had her arms crossed in front of her chest, and her crystal blue eyes bored into Bikergang's with an unsettling red color around them instead of having whites of her eyes. "It sounded interesting, and Yabino is doing fine in my absence." She leaned in closer to the man who leaned back from the woman he had never formally met before.

 _How did she get over here?_ Zach thought in confusion, darting his gaze back towards the reporters. _She was just over there with the other pros getting questioned… Did she hear us?_

"Well," Bikergang started. Zach looked past his pro hero and the larger woman behind him, and he smiled towards the curly haired boy jogging their way with a surprised look on his face too. Midoriya looked right back towards Zach, then Zach remembered at his friend's unresponsive expression that Midoriya could not see his face behind the visor. Bikergang reached down for his phone again, but he stopped before grabbing it and just got a more thoughtful look on his face instead. "Alright Wonderlass," Bikergang said, and his sidekicks all spun to him in surprise at his response. "If there really is a hostage, we could use someone of your caliber helping out. It's not just a drug bust anymore," he said, looking back at his sidekicks as he said it to explain his reasoning.

Bouncer Man hummed and nodded his head in understanding. Roady frowned for a second and crossed his arms, though he looked away once the woman with red and blue eyes darted a look his way. "We could do it on our own, there are enough other heroes helping already," his voice came out more mumbling than anything.

Wonderlass looked to the other sidekick last, the shortest one who she saw her own intern talking to earlier. He just nodded his head inside his helmet back at her, then she turned around to the boy who came up behind her. "We're going to Mosu Esupa. If you lose to these bikers I'll show you no mercy." Wonderlass grinned and then leapt up in the air while Midoriya was spinning back and forth with a totally confused look on his face.

"Guess we should get going then," Bikergang said with a laugh as he watched Wonderlass rise into the sky. He turned to the green-haired boy who was just told to race them, and he said, "Go let Wonderlass know to stay under the radar on her way there. We don't want to tip them off that we're onto them with heroes showing up all over the place. Pretty sure it's her style to be discreet anyway but just to be sure."

Midoriya started nodding even though he looked completely lost as to what was going on. He looked to Zach for a second to see if his friend had anything for him, but Zach just motioned his head up in the air after the female hero. "We're pretty fast, Midoriya," Zach said. He grinned and this time felt his friend could see it despite the visor. "Might want to start running."

Roady smirked, and he said, "I kind of want to see what she'll do to him if he doesn't beat us." Roady turned and started jogging for his motorcycle, and Midoriya spun around and leapt into the sky with a nervous look on his face.

Zach started laughing and Roady turned his head a bit to smirk back at the younger boy. Zach's helmet turned sideways a bit to grin back at Roady, but the older boy stopped all of a sudden and spun like he just remembered something. "Roady, take Lifebringer again," Bikergang said while heading back towards his motorcycle on the edge of the street too. Bouncer Man headed towards his darker one, and Zach jogged to the red one with orange flames on the sides.

"Ahh, if I have to," Roady said in annoyance. He got on his motorcycle and waited for Zach to climb onto the back while putting on his own helmet.

Roady sped off as soon as Zach got a good hold on the back of the bike, and Zach started smiling again though smaller at the thought of them beating Midoriya to Mosu Esupa. _He's really getting around. That Wonderlass leapt so high, though Midoriya jumped up that high too. The others looked pretty surprised by it, but they got over it fast. They probably saw Midoriya at the Sports Festival too… actually, Bikergang probably gave Midoriya an offer too._

"So ki-" Roady started while they drove out of Rukasu. They were driving slower now, but they were not driving near Bikergang or Bouncer Man. Zach wondered if that was because of what Bikergang said with them not drawing attention like if a group of three motorcycles covered in heroes arrived in Mosu Esupa at the same time. Zach looked at the back of Roady's head and wondered why he stopped, but then Roady continued, "So Lifebringer. When we were talking about The Viking back there," Roady paused for a second. Zach was smiling behind his visor as Roady corrected himself to call him by his hero name instead of 'kid,' but he lost that smile as Roady finished, "You talked about dying putting things into perspective, like you had experience in the matter."

Roady did not really ask Zach a question, but he was waiting for the boy to respond anyway. "Yeah," Zach finally said after five seconds of just sitting there. "I do."

"How?" Roady asked. "You, immortal?"

Zach's eyes widened, and then he started shaking his head as he realized why the older man might think that. He realized Roady could not see him with his eyes ahead on the road, so Zach said aloud, "That's not it. A friend of mine copied my Quirk with his right before I died at the Sports Festival." Roady turned his head sideways for a second with big eyes as the boy on the back of his bike said that. "He brought me back to life."

Roady's head turned back straight forward, and he let out a deep breath while closing his eyes for a second. He opened them and then shook his head around with a semi-frustrated look on his face behind his visor. "Guess if this is your second life, those things…" Roady trailed off and just frowned while Zach looked at him in surprise again. "Anyway," Roady got off the subject fast, and Zach felt like that was as close to an apology for the way he had been acting since they met that he would get. "You see anything on the other side?"

Zach frowned and lowered his gaze behind his visor. "No," he whispered. He then lifted his head and opened his mouth to call it out louder, but his eyes opened wide as he realized that he did not need to do that. _The helmets' mics. We've been using them the whole time,_ Zach felt like face-palming as he saw a small list on the right side of his visor view with five different names on it. _Daisy, Keiko, Bouncer Man, and Bikergang. Are they all listening right now? This is- should I stop? Then they'll realize that I remembered them, or maybe they'll think I'm just trailing off because of dying. But that would be weirder._ "I was only gone for a minute or so though," Zach added.

 _I don't know, what I really think about this power. People dead for over twenty minutes should have irreparable brain damage. Yet I can bring people back after forty minutes and_ _ **fix**_ _any brain damage they had before it. In that case, what is it I'm fixing? Is it their bodies? Am I restoring their souls? Bringing them back to their bodies? Sometimes, it feels more like magic than a Quirk. Magic is just science that we haven't figured out yet though. Right? Bringing back the dead is such a crazy Quirk, but I forget about it sometimes. What really is, Death?_ "So I don't know," Zach started after a few moments of sitting there hesitating. "Maybe there is an 'other side,' but it just takes longer to get to? No one I've brought back has ever, mentioned anything about it though."

Roady nodded his head in understanding and hummed to himself in front of the kid sharing his bike. He hummed as if thinking it over, though he really had a bead of sweat on the side of his face and was darting his eyes to the corner of his vision to look at the boy behind him with an unsure look. _Man, that power gives me the fucking creeps. Can this kid really confirm an afterlife? Or confirm one doesn't exist? Ugh, at least he's open about it too, not just shoving his-_ "Roady, I'm sending you the address of our briefing point." Roady sweatdropped and looked to the edge of his visor at the sight of Bikergang's name lighting up to show he was connected through their headsets.

"Lifebringer, text your friend the address so he and Wonderlass know where to meet us," Bikergang added, and Zach nodded while reaching down to his right pocket. "Bouncer Man and I are going to stop for lunch on the way there. You two get to the town first, we'll bring you some food."

Both of the younger members in the group of four heard that and immediately felt their stomachs growl. The afternoon had started off so intensely that they forgot they had skipped lunch. Zach and Roady frowned though and told the pro hero they understood, knowing that they couldn't just go get food in town when they arrived if they really were trying to keep a low profile. Roady wanted to say something in annoyance at the boy who would get them recognized no matter where they went to eat, but he just sighed and sped up his motorcycle a bit. "Let's go beat that friend of yours," Roady said, and Zach lost his frustrated hungry look and started smiling again.

"Yeah, let's do it."

* * *

Roady walked down a hallway of a small police precinct in Mosu Esupa. He had his head partially turned to the side and was looking behind him at the two boys four years younger than him walking together and talking in quiet voices. _How the Hell did that kid beat us here? I was going ninety almost the whole way!_

"Super?" Zach whispered back to his friend who was staying very quiet as they talked. He glanced forward at Roady whose head pointed straight forward again, though Zach caught him looking back before he was able to avert his gaze. He did not see Wonderlass up ahead of them but still he kept his voice low as he questioned, "What does it do?"

"Everything about her, is Super," Midoriya replied. He smiled with a bead of sweat dripping down the right side of his face while looking forward too in the direction Wonderlass was sure to be. "Super speed, super strength, hearing, sight, durability, stamina…"

Zach lowered his bottom lip as the list continued and his eyes shot open wide. _How haven't I heard of this person before?_ "She sounds amazing," Zach whispered, keeping his voice even quieter now as that super-hearing part had him not wanting to be caught talking about this woman.

Midoriya nodded his head in agreement, though his smile dropped a bit. _Though, there is a downside,_ he thought. The green-haired boy could see his friend looking at him confusedly at his expression change, but when he opened his mouth to say something about it, a speaker on the wall to their right turned on. A crackling noise came out of it, and then a very deep voice spoke, "Second floor briefing room. Now."

The boys in the hallway all looked towards the speaker, then Zach turned forward and asked Roady who had stopped not far in front of them, "Think that means us?"

"Probably," Roady replied, though he answered slowly so the other two did not feel too confident about his response.

The three of them headed upstairs and to a room where there were no police officers. The rest of the precinct was not too full of them either, but the room they entered was more crowded than any yet none of the cops were in there. Zach's first thought as he entered the room was, _Do they not trust the police? I haven't heard any reports of cops being bribed, but would the tops of the society let people know if that happened? In a time where people are already questioning the authority of heroes and whether or not they are really protected, if dirty cops were outed-_ Zach gulped as every hero in the room looked towards him, and his train of thought shifted away from wondering why there were no cops in the room.

"Roady," one of the Feisty Foursome called over after he walked into the room. The four of them, Lobscar, Gogogo and her sidekick, Wonderlass, and Underguard were all in the room already when the three young men walked in. The Feisty Four girls all knew Bikergang and his sidekicks well as they worked closely together in Feruchia, and Roady greeted them before greeting the other heroes from Feruchia too. The leader of the Feisty Foursome who called him out was wearing a green and yellow costume with thick metal contraptions on her wrists, and she put those wrists down on her hips with a humph. "Is BG still not here?"

"He'll be here soon, Spunky," Roady said. "Team Canada's not here either," he added defensively since he realized most of the other heroes were there and might have been waiting on them.

"They just arrived," Underguard's deep voice spoke and everyone turned towards him. Zach took a second to spin the man's way until the others had, and he looked at the hero he recognized but who had a heavy black metal mask over the bottom of his face covering his mouth. There were tubes sticking out of it and wrapping around the back of his head before disappearing under his dark-green hood, he had on a pair of goggles with dark lenses, and his costume was black with only a green coat on unzipped over it.

Roady scratched the back of his head and took a step back, then he reached down and said, "I'll, tell them to hurry up." Roady pulled out his phone and turned to give Bikergang a call, and to warn him not to show up holding extra lunches for him and Zach. Roady walked by Midoriya and Zach and out into the hallway to have his phone call, and the two boys were left facing the room of heroes who were all still staring their ways.

Underguard turned away first, looking back at Wonderlass next to him and continuing his conversation with her. She was his height but a bulkier figure even if it was hidden under her baggy costume that was as loose as Underguard's coat was. The other heroes started for the door though, and Zach and Midoriya found themselves surrounded by the other heroes who all started talking at once.

"I can't believe you went with BG," another of the Feisty Foursome said to Zach. She was a young-looking girl wearing bright green but with pink lines through her costume instead of yellow like Spunky's. Plucky gave Zach a pout that made him lean back while she said, "We sent you an offer too you know?"

"Umm," Zach started.

"Deku right?" The sidekick with Gogogo stepped past her pro hero and looked down at the boy three years younger than her. She grinned at him and showed off all her sharp teeth in a mouth full of rows of them. She had a fin sticking out of her back, and her grin made her look a lot like a shark which gave Midoriya chills as she put that face towards him. "Saw you take on that Inhuman at the Sports Festival. It got my blood pumping!"

"Sameko, you're making him nervous," Gogogo scolded. "Don't speak with your face so close."

"Ugh, mom it's fine," the girl darted the woman behind her a sharp glare, then she eased back as Gogogo parted her lips and showed her own bared sharp teeth. "Sorry," Sameko said while looking back at Midoriya.

"It's fine," Midoriya said quickly, feeling strange as he thought he might have just started trouble between the two. _They're mother and daughter?_

Zach turned from the Feisty Four girls who were making him uncomfortable, and he glanced at the door behind him. _Come on Roady, get back here._ He caught another man staring at him out the corner of his eyes and he turned towards the guy with dark red skin and lobster claws for hands. Under his right eye he had a long jagged scar going vertically down his face, and Lobscar stared Zach in the eyes for a few seconds before nodding his head and snipping his left claw once in front of him. _What does that mean?!_ Zach thought in panic, wondering if he should lift his hand and make a similar motion back at the guy.

Zach saw movement behind him and felt a wave of relief as he saw it was multiple people. He turned his head and his eyes went wide though, and he felt like face-palming as he forgot what Underguard said only a minute earlier. A group of heroes in all red and white costumes walked into the room, each with a maple leaf symbol somewhere on the front of their costumes. "Hey there, eh! Great to meet you!" The first man to walk in was nine feet tall and he leaned down right towards Zach who was the closest one to the door. Then he turned his head left and smiled at the green-haired boy who also spun to him in surprise, and the blond-haired muscular man holding a hockey stick in his right hand laughed at the looks on the boys' faces.

"I'm sorry," he said while leaning back up from their uncomfortable looks. The man had a thick English accent, but his Japanese was good despite it.

"It's, no problem," Zach said in his best English to the man who looked surprised for a second before laughing and grabbing at his stomach.

"We are in your country," a woman who walked in behind the leader of Team Canada began in Japanese. She had long brown hair and wore a big red snow jacket instead of the jersey the man in front of her had on, though she was a muscular figure too which could be seen from her forearms alone that stuck out of her rolled-up heavy sleeves. "So we'll speak your language, eh?"

 _A lot of foreign heroes working in Japan recently,_ Zach thought as he continued greeting the Canadians, each of whom were as eager and good-spirited as the last one to talk. He met Kurt first, then Lindsey, followed by Russell, Samwell, and Kurt 2 (which when he introduced himself all of the Canadians laughed together, then apologized for laughing at an inside joke). _I know things around the world aren't that great right now either, but seems like Japan must have it the worst if they're all here to help,_ Zach introduced himself to the Canadians and was a little surprised when they all seemed to recognize his name and who he was. _Even overseas? I guess Death is that crazy a Quirk, but still…_

Zach felt unnerved with the knowledge that the foreign heroes knew about him. _That video I saw online about myself was crazy. Are there videos like that spreading in different countries? Different languages? What about the Stain ones…_

The heroes continued talking and getting acquainted with each other until Bikergang and Bouncer Man showed up. Zach was feeling really hungry by the time his pro hero got there, but he did not mention anything about lunch or where it was considering they walked in without any for him. _Roady must've thought ahead,_ Zach thought in a more relieved way than annoyed one as he was worried how Underguard would take their party's lateness if it was because of food.

As soon as Bikergang arrived, after he apologized for being the last one, Underguard got to the briefing. There was a long table in the room that curved around the outside of it so there was an open middle section where one final hero walked into after everyone else was sitting. Although the hero did not have on a black mask like Underguard over the bottom of her face, the girl with short blonde hair only a few inches long wore a similar black outfit with a green jacket over it. Underguard's sidekick stepped into the middle of the room and wheeled in a projector that she lay a pile of blown-up photographs on top of.

Zach sat on one side of the U-shaped table, at the very end of it and across the room from Midoriya. On his right sat the bulky tan-skinned Bouncer Man, with Roady to his right and Bikergang after him. At the middle of the curve of the U sat Underguard who started speaking as soon as his sidekick turned on the projector. "This is the warehouse," Underguard started. "We have a warrant to search it, but we know the second we bust in they're going to be fighting us. So we won't be knocking. Rubbergirl," Underguard said at the end, and his sidekick moved the top picture away to show other pictures taken showing angles around the entire building. There were pictures of other adjacent buildings too and Underguard claimed they had warrants for three of them as well.

Midoriya glanced to his left side at the woman sitting next to him at the table, and a bead of sweat rolled down his face at her posture. _Uh oh,_ Midoriya thought, noticing other people starting to stare over at her too. Zach stared across the gap and past the projector at the woman with a shaved head who was slouched back in her chair with her eyes closed. On Wonderlass's left side, Kurt from Team Canada leaned forward and looked at her face to make sure he was not imagining the heavy breathing he heard from her. "Everyone stay focused," Underguard said in an annoyed voice.

"Why did she even come, if she's just going to sleep through this?" Sky-Girl asked, rolling her eyes in an annoyed way while looking across the gap from the middle of the Feisty Foursome. She had a green uniform like the others but with dark red highlights on it in the same places as Spunky's yellow and Plucky's pink ones.

Midoriya leaned forward over the table and opened his mouth, but Underguard cut in first, "Wonderlass's help is appreciated, Sky-Girl." Everyone leaned back at the deep and stern voice that showed no room for argument in it. All of Team Canada and a lot of the others looked confused though, including Zach who glanced at Midoriya again in confusion only to see his friend seemed to know what was going on. "Wonderlass's body has been working too hard for too long," Underguard said. He did not lower his voice but he was not worried about waking the muscular woman up anyway. She looked pretty comfortable in her baggy blue and black costume, though she had a frown on her face even as she slept peacefully. Everyone in the room looked towards the woman who Underguard continued speaking on, "As she cannot turn off her Quirk, Super, her body is always working at its limit. Because of that, she can't fall asleep normally, and developed narcolepsy."

Most of the room's heroes sweatdropped and Sky-Girl actually started looking at the older more-muscular woman in some pity. "If she sleeps through the planning session though," Bouncer Man began.

"She mentioned to me that she thought she may be reaching her limit, right after she arrived," Underguard replied. "I already gave her a shortened version. Now, let us begin," he pushed the topic away from her in a way telling everyone else to stop asking about it, and they all agreed and just looked back at the projector. "On the surface, the warehouse seems to be a shipping yard. None of the packaging goes on in the central rooms, villains without warrants unload and load the trucks. The rooms we suspected are used as labs don't have any windows either, nor do the smaller buildings that we still have yet to see inside of. Obtaining enough surveillance to acquire a warrant was difficult, but Rubbergirl was able to take several pictures from inside the main warehouse."

The heroes around the room looked towards the girl in a green coat open down the middle who wore a dark pair of goggles like her pro hero. She lifted the goggles from her face and then shook her head around so fast her expression started getting blurry. She reached her hands up and grabbed her cheeks, pulled them around and then stopped shaking to show everyone how her entire facial structure had changed up. She had a thicker jawline and a more masculine expression, then she smirked and grabbed her cheeks again, pulled them apart and let go so they snapped back and rearranged her face back to normal.

Zach shivered as he watched that, _She just changed her own face in an instant._

"Hold on, eh?" Russell started in a confused but strong tone. The dark-skinned man with large red boxing gloves on his hands frowned while looking from the girl back to Underguard. "If you did not have a warrant to search the building, then sending in your sidekick disguised as a worker there breaks Japanese hero codes, does it not?"

It was an awkward question and everyone in the room felt weird after it was asked. Kurt added in though, "As representatives of our country in yours, we have to make super extra sure we don't break any of your laws and start what could be an international incident. So please let us know that there were extenuating circumstances, other than it was taking a long time to receive your warrant." Kurt placed his hands over the table and looked straight over into Underguard's goggles to lock eyes with the Japanese hero.

Zach felt even more nervous at this sudden confrontation. _Are they for real? Before even finding out what's inside, they're willing to skip out because proper protocol… That, kind of stuff is pretty important to some people though,_ Zach glanced to his right past Bouncer Man at Roady to see what he thought about this. _I don't really give a fuck, but even Bikergang looks hesitant now._

"The knowledge that there could be someone inside being held prisoner, as a hostage, led me to make the call to send her in early," Underguard replied after staring back into Kurt's eyes for several moments. The members of Team Canada started looking around at each other hesitantly, and Underguard looked back at his sidekick and said, "Show the next image." Rubbergirl moved around the picture again to stop showing the different exterior shots of the main warehouse, and showed instead one of the rooms on the interior that did not have any windows. Everyone stared wide-eyed at the wall where the image just appeared, because not one of them were expecting the room that just appeared compared to what they had been seeing from the outside or through the windows that did show on the exterior.

"That's," Spunky whispered, leaning forward with bulging eyes.

"How many…" Roady started, lifting his right hand and putting it up through his hair with a shocked look on his face.

In the photo that was blown up to cover the entire wall, Rubbergirl had gotten a shot from the edge of the laboratory across the entire room. There were three huge tanks on either side of the huge room making six in total, each one full of pink liquid and some of them bubbling. There were tables lined up between the rows of huge tanks, and there were dozens of different villains in the room. There were a few who had red marks coming out of them and labeled with villain names as well as their crimes. Many of the ones in this room were ones who did have warrants out for their arrests, and two of them were labeled with big black 'T's as Tartaros escapees.

"This picture is from this morning," Underguard said. "So we'll be moving tonight. To make sure to crush this operation in one fell swoop." He paused, then he nodded towards Rubbergirl and she moved around the photo to show the next one down. It was from a similar angle though only showing one half of the room this time, and Underguard spoke while everyone stared at the figures circled in the middle of the picture. Zach's breathing started picking up pace, his heart racing and his eyes opening huge as he focused on one of the two figures circled in the lab. "That man, is who we believe to be in charge of the operation. With him is Doctor Kawasagi, the hostage in question."

Zach froze and his eyes opened even wider while he turned from the projection over to the head of the table. He turned back towards it and stared at the seven foot tall man with furry arms, a bumpy face that looked intimidating but also dull, and who wore a black costume including a black cape with red highlights on the raggedy bottom of it. _What the… That's not,_ Zach turned back towards Underguard again and then to the screen, his breathing speeding up even faster.

"What is the plan to get Doctor Kawasagi out?" Gogogo questioned.

"Why did they kidnap him in the first place?" Lobscar added in.

Zach stared at the screen again in so much confusion, focusing in on the second figure circled who was ten feet away from the big man and had a metal collar around his neck. He had almost laughed when he first looked at the picture and heard what Underguard said, but he was getting more confused by the second. "Who is he?" Bikergang asked.

Zach turned to the right with wide eyes, then he saw Bikergang was looking over towards Underguard as he asked. _Of course, he's not asking me. But, but this is…_

Midoriya looked across the gap in the table and stared at his classmate who had an odd expression on his face all of a sudden. Zach gulped while turning back to the projection again, and Midoriya's eyes started opening wide as he was putting together what he was seeing.

"A doctor from the Shuzo Prefecture. He has several PhD's and is a top researcher at the Reinhald Institute. He's been reported missing from work for over a week now, just around the same time the guns and drug levels really peaked in Feruchia. From what Rubbergirl heard while inside the lab this morning, he's being forced to-" Underguard stopped speaking as one of the others in the meeting lifted up their hand. He looked to his left and at the end of the table, and the others all looked over to the boy with wavy black hair who lowered his hand as he felt weird having lifted it in the first place.

"What is it, Lifebringer?" Bikergang asked, trying to keep his voice steady but also firm as he was not happy his intern was interrupting the operation briefing.

"That, hostage," Zach started. "He's not…" Zach slowed down and he felt every person in the room giving him intense looks. He took a deep breath, then he said in a steady voice, "He's, the most disturbed, disgusting person I've ever met." Everyone stared at Zach in confusion, some of them glancing back towards the projection at the thin man wearing glasses who looked nervous and had a metal collar around his neck. "He's, the Chemist," Zach said.

"The Chemist?" Bikergang questioned.

"What are you talking about?" Rubbergirl snapped, glaring at the boy who was countering what her infiltration report had shown.

"I didn't know his real name, or who he really was," Zach said quickly at the girl who was looking harshly at him. "But, I've seen that man before. I saw him, laughing, as test subjects he injected with faulty strains of Trigger went out of control. He's, the scientist the League of Villains has making them their drugs."

"Are you sure about this?" Underguard asked sternly, his low voice cutting through the room.

Zach nodded his head fast, glancing back at Midoriya who was just looking at him with wide eyes as Zach had mentioned 'The Chemist' to him once before. Zach turned to Underguard again and tried to pretend like he did not notice everyone else's stares or glares in his direction. "The guy you're saying is in charge, he's just the Chemist's bodyguard. Dandy," Zach said, turning back to the projection and looking at the dull burly figure who was still confusing him by his position on the screen. "He was the one the Chemist had do all his grunt work, I thought," Zach muttered the last part in a confused way as the picture was showing something different.

"How can you be sure it's him?" Spunky questioned, looking down the table to her left towards the young man saying all this. "Did you see him a lot, while you were…" she trailed off, and Zach felt like there was a huge elephant in the room that everyone was tiptoeing around.

"I'm sure," Zach said. _Fuck! Fuck fuck, I can't talk about this stuff in front of all these heroes… But, I also can't just let us run into this place with false information, not really knowing what we're getting into! What do I- I, I just have to tell the truth. New life. No lying to a bunch of heroes._ Zach tried to calm himself down, even as he started, "I saw him. I've, talked to him," Zach added in a lower voice, then he lifted his head and kept a serious look on it as he finished, "And I'm telling you, he's fu- he's a disturbed person. He created the Apocalypse drug."

"What is that?" Kurt asked, a bead of sweat on the muscular Canadian man's face as that did not sound good.

Zach turned to him and started shaking his head, and he said, "It's a drug that brings out the peak power of someone's Quirk. The Chemist spliced Trigger with the Quirk-Destroying Drug, and all of the test subjects, every last one of them… He talked about the results in a voice of, child-like amazement while discussing them with Shigaraki. While in the background, all of the test subjects he had injected with it were ripping apart. The drug was too strong, and six out of the eight subjects never reached the maximum power of their Quirk before it killed them. The other two lost their Quirks afterwards, and one of them was out of his mind."

 _This is too detailed._

 _How does he know all this?_

 _Of fuck, I was too detailed,_ Zach slowed down and came to a stop, then he continued quickly, "If this facility is where they're keeping the rest of it, because they stopped making more, but if the remaining vials are here then destroying that drug has to be a priority." Zach hesitated for a second, then he added in a quieter voice, "Some Quirks, aren't meant to reach their full powers."

Everyone staring at the boy with the Quirk: Death, suddenly felt like it had to be one of their main priorities as well. As much as some of them wanted to argue with him for changing up the plan, Death reaching a power that could constitute the drug being called, Apocalypse, it unnerved them all. Roady stared down to his left past Bouncer Man with such wide eyes at what Zach just said to all of them, and he leaned back in his chair after the younger boy was done only to get such a frustrated look on his face. _Right after I decided to give him… That was, still before he died though. I figured,_ Roady frowned deeper and ran a hand back up through his hair again.

"That was useful information, Lifebringer," Underguard finally said after a moment of silence through the room that had Zach feeling very anxious. "But that leaves the question, what is going on in this picture?" Everyone looked at the projection again and Midoriya's eyes widened as he realized why it was Zach had looked so confused while staring at it. "Because clearly, Doctor Kawasagi is no longer in control of this operation."

Rubbergirl nodded in agreement, and she said with a glance back at Zach though less harsh this time, "I'm sure, the one Lifebringer called Dandy, is the one people in the warehouse were reporting to."

Zach started shaking his head, but when Rubbergirl turned fully to glare at him again, Zach just looked more confused than disbelieving of her. "It doesn't make sense," Zach started. "Dandy was, he was a nobody. Even if the Chemist had done something to piss off Shigaraki, I don't see him putting Dandy in charge of something like this."

"Why was it that you know-"

"Sky-Girl," Spunky cut in harshly at one of her team members.

Zach lowered his gaze to the floor for a moment, _I don't know how to respond to that question. Do I say I was just, around? They just let me see all kinds of stuff while I was bringing people back? Can I lie like that and get away with it? Do one of the people here have a Quirk letting them read my mind right now? If so, FUCK YOU!_ Zach did not see anyone flinch through the room even as he screamed that in his head, and he lowered his gaze he had risen for a moment to check. _Shit, is this enough help? I should just stay quiet. Just let them deal with-_

"In that case," Underguard started. "I don't think it's the League of Villains we're dealing with." Everyone spun towards the operation's leader, and Zach's eyes opened huge with his breathing speeding up as Underguard took what he just said seriously. He had not questioned him once over it, and Zach gulped at that because other people kept darting him looks like they did not trust him which he did not blame them considering all the information he had.

"You don't?" Sameko questioned, lifting her eyebrows at the man on her right side only one seat away. "Based on what? Just that-"

"We are not the only heroes dealing with Trigger around the country right now," Underguard said, interrupting the girl who never let him say what he based that on before trying to answer for herself. "Many others were tracking back the Trigger used at the Sports Festival Invasion. The heroes who followed those strains from the attack on Musutafu that made the villains tired or pass-out after using them, came to discover a single, enormous lab."

The heroes all looking at Underguard got confused looks on their faces, as they felt like this would have been something they all heard about. "I joined them around this time. However, when we moved in on that laboratory for a raid, we found the huge drug lab had recently been abandoned. There were signs of a fight in the lab, but no equipment or evidence left behind to indicate what had actually been going on."

 _A fight?_ Midoriya thought, looking down at the table in front of him with a thoughtful look on his face.

Zach leaned back in his chair and looked back at the projection. _What is it? What is going on?_

"Considering the current status of Doctor Kawasagi," Underguard began. "And the fact that the lab was only one prefecture away from Shuzo, what conclusion can we make about this operation? I see several options, but the most likely is that there was a split with the League of Villains. This Dandy, who was supposed to be the Chemist's bodyguard, was supposedly treated poorly by the one he was supposed to be guarding." Zach's eyes started widening and he looked back at Underguard and started nodding. "Assuming the Chemist had good standing in the League of Villains, and the drugs he creates are worth a lot to them, if Dandy were to turn the tables on the doctor, the League of Villains would be sure to try and get him back."

"The fight at the lab," Bikergang said, humming to himself and then scratching his chin as it made sense to him. "So, this splinter force broke off to start their own operation, taking the Chemist with them in order to keep the top product."

 _That, almost makes sense,_ Zach thought. Others started chiming in with hypotheses about what could be happening, but something still bothered Zach as he looked at the screen again. _Sure, Dandy was treated like shit by the Chemist. I'm pretty sure he had to clean up all those bodies and probably the disgusting rooms they were being kept in too. Those sick, mother fuckers- But! But Dandy, he deserved that shitty a position. Not just because he's a villain. The, the guy's an idiot! Wasn't he? I, I talked to him once. I remember thinking he was dumb, but could it have been a ruse? He was just looking for his moment to, to turn the tables on the Chemist? Or is there another reason why he's suddenly the one in charge? Could I be wrong, and Shigaraki decided to put him in charge for some reason?_

"This is good news," Underguard started, and the others turned to their operation leader again. "It not only makes sense, but clears something up with the previous mission taking on the Trigger lab. We were unable to find a leak from that previous mission." Zach's eyes opened wide, and then he narrowed them and looked down at the table with a serious look that started shaking as Underguard continued. "I think we may have been too hasty to assume someone must have let slip that we were coming. All the heroes involved in that operation assumed someone in the loop had leaked information, but we were too fast to assume the worst as it now seems the villains themselves abandoned the place on their own."

Zach's shaking look calmed down, and his lips curled up at the corners. _This, this is great! Is that what I'm doing too? No, no I need to stay, diligent? Maybe I don't though. Maybe, both the teachers and I, maybe we're all too quick to assume there's a spy too. If misunderstandings can happen. Coincidences. It's not too far-fetched to believe that we're all just worried for nothing. Hackerman's arrested now. New life. Shake the paranoia. Until something happens after Hackerman's been captured, why can't it just have been him the whole time? That's, what I want to believe at least._

* * *

 **A/N Thanks for reading. Bank robberies, Tartaros escapees, the Chemist and Dandy, a lot going on this chapter. What could be going on with this criminal operation? Is the League of Villains involved, or is this a new player? Suspicion grows over Zach's sketchy knowledge on the villains, though hopefully it helps out in the raid. The team for the drug raid is introduced, but there are many mysteries in this internship arc... Midoriya and Wonderlass have joined in though, so that's a plus! Hope you all enjoyed, and leave some predictions for the questions posed here, as many of them will be answered next chapter! I'm not much farther ahead than what I'm posting right now, so probably won't be daily updates again. Sorry if a couple days like this was too much for ya!**

Oblivious ninja IJ chapter 72 . Sep 5

Is Roady's quirk inspired by the movie Premium Rush? It sounds awesome.  
~D-Koy, Hmm this chapter lacks a little... hmmm how do I put it? Momozaki. HAAA I'm kidding about that, I just wanted to mention the possible ship that you gave LOTS of subtle hints about without intention -or did you intend? Hmmm...- and I must apologise because I didn't realise the chapter came up and thought it was old... Sowwie! Nya!

 **Actually never seen that movie, just had the idea for it while I was writing Roady driving Zach. Needed a reason why he was the fastest biker and it seemed like a cool Quirk to me that could be used in combat too, which we saw here at the start of the chapter. Brought in that huge tease right before the internship arc and now not as much, but this arc's really only covered a couple of days so far... Anyway, glad you liked the chapter and thanks for the review! (Nice new name btw)**

Super Power Sensei chapter 72 . Sep 5

Two things...  
One, I like how we are getting a closer look at what heroes do and how it's done. What BG did involving citizens with the car jacker was creative yet realistic and I love it.  
Two, this has nothing to do with your story but have you heard Eminem's new album? My favorites are "Lucky You" and "Fall".

 **Thanks! Glad you liked the realism there and I was def trying to show the way heroes acting changing up a bit. And 2, I've listened to a song or two from it but haven't sat and listened to the whole album. Always love me some Eminem though XD so I'll check those songs out! Hope y'all enjoyed the chapter, and thanks for reading and the reviews!**


	74. Chapter 74

**Disclaimer: I don't own Boku no Hero Academia**

 **Chapter 74:**

 _"Dododododoo, dododododoo, dododododoo-"_ The blinking call button on Zach's phone went away and the screen turned black for a second as the video call was picked up. A man appeared on the screen with sunken cheeks and a sharp chin, his blond bangs drooping in front of his face but the rest of his hair pushed back behind him. "Young Sazaki, it is-" All Might stopped speaking and his eyes widened at the sight of the second person standing there on the video call with Zach. "Young Midoriya?"

"Hey All Might," Midoriya said, smiling at his mentor who looked really surprised to see him there.

 _How long will it take All Might to figure out why we might be together?_ Zach thought as he stared at the older man through the phone. All Might looked back straight into his eyes, then to Midoriya again, then Zach grinned a bit as he saw something click in All Might's head. "All Might, about the villain earlier," Zach started before All Might could say anything that would make him embarrassed like how he had picked an agency close to Midoriya's on purpose. "Breakneck, he escaped when we confronted him."

"The two of you fought him together?" All Might asked in even more surprise.

"Wouldn't really say, we fought him," Zach said slowly. "And Midoriya showed up when I was already there. Wonderlass decided to join in with Bikergang for the operation we're doing, anyway it's a big thing. But Breakneck-"

"He disappeared," Midoriya said. "All Might, could you tell us about his Quirk?"

"And, would you know anything about a safety deposit box?" Zach added in hopefully. All Might just got a confused look on his face though, then he leaned back at the disappointed ways in which the two young boys looked at him after that look.

"A safety deposit box?" All Might wondered. "I, do not really… Wait, the bank robberies earlier. Was the box stolen during it?"

Zach and Midoriya nodded their heads back at him. Midoriya glanced at Zach who took a deep breath before starting, "Bikergang got a call from Gilgamesh a while after we all left Rukasu. He just got it actually, and when he told us we thought you might know… So, the two bank robberies where all the villains were captured were led by gang leaders who were running groups inside Rukasu already. Apparently it wasn't their idea to do the robberies though. They could just be saying it because they don't want it seeming like they were the masterminds, but they both blamed Breakneck as the one who came up with the plan. Said that if they all robbed the banks at the same time, the heroes of Rukasu wouldn't be able to keep up with all of them and they'd be able to escape."

"But even with split attention, everyone got caught except for Breakneck," Midoriya said. He got a somewhat confused look on his face as he started about the next part, "When he was escaping though, he had a bunch of bags of cash like that was what mattered to him, but the police discovered that a single safety deposit box was missing from JBC. They looked up who the owner of the box was, but the owner had to have been using a pseudonym because the name didn't belong to anyone real. And the contents were unknown too."

All Might hummed and he rose a hand to scratch through his blond hair. "So the two of you are thinking, that Breakneck instigated three separate bank robberies and got everyone with him arrested, all for what was in that box?" It made a bead of sweat form on All Might's face, and he lowered his hand with a regretful look on his face. "That does sound unsettling. Unfortunately, young men, I do not have the information you're looking for. All I can tell you, is that Breakneck was, predictable." The two looked at their teacher in surprise as All Might started smiling at them. "I don't know much about what he was doing back then or what his operation was. I just showed up to fight him once and sent him to prison that day. Although I did not look much into what he had been doing at the time, I do remember our fight though."

"Flashstep," Midoriya said, shifting the focus from the operation to the villain's Quirk. "How did you beat it?"

"It is quite strong," All Might said, agreeing with Midoriya's tone showing he thought it seemed unbeatable only from the small dose he had seen so far. "However Breakneck could only Flashstep to places within his line of sight. He was confident that he would beat me, so he did not use his Quirk to run away which he may have been able to do…" Midoriya bit down and he lowered his gaze for a second. _Back at the bank, he must still have been close when he vanished. I didn't look around for him enough._

"The time gap between when he can Flashstep is not long though, and it is an impressive Quirk especially when combined with his fighting skills. He's not 'Breakneck' for nothing," All Might said it and he started frowning again, and the two students of his got more serious looks on their faces at the sound of what was a lot more menacing a name now hearing All Might consider it one. "He may have become more cautious after his defeat, as I do not know if he had ever been defeated in a fight before facing me. Yet despite his skills, and his powerful Quirk, I could see him coming. When he would jump to my blind spot, I knew he was about to do it. If either of you are to face him again, you must be careful, but I believe in you." All Might smiled again and the boys each nodded back at him with expressions devoid of fear.

 _I'm a great fighter. If All Might thinks that guy is predictable, then I'm going to play right into his hands in the next fight. Give him the blind spot he'll be looking for. Nightmare and fuck him up._

 _I won't let him escape again._

Zach lifted his head after nodding at All Might and thinking about how he would take on Breakneck if they met again, and he saw Roady walking down the hallway without really looking like he was heading anywhere specific. Roady glanced towards Zach when Zach looked his way, _Is he done with his call? How the Hell did you know all that stuff? You're going to tell me exactly why-_ "Hey Roady," Zach called over, and he looked back at his phone with a smile for a second before saying something that Roady did not hear while he was jogging over now. Zach lifted his phone and turned it a bit, "All Might, this is my senpai at Bikergang's agency."

Roady skid to a stop in the hallway and his eyes bulged, and Zach smirked from behind his phone as he put Roady face-to-face with All Might. "A-A-All Might," Roady said, then he cursed in his head at the stutter that made Zach snicker behind his phone and have to cover his mouth with one hand. Roady shook his head of the mild annoyance at Zach laughing, as this was a once in a lifetime opportunity. "I'm stoked- this is, it's great to meet you sir. I'm a big fan."

Zach glanced back at Midoriya to see if he thought this exchange was as funny as he did, only to catch Midoriya looking at him in a similar way that Roady was pretending not to when he had been heading down the hall. _Geez, I'm not escaping this no matter what I do. What happens, if tonight even more comes out?_ Zach turned from Midoriya and back to say something in aggravation about how All Might just told Roady to watch after him as his junior at the agency. As he responded like he was fully focused on their conversation though, he thought grimly to himself, _I don't want to see the Chemist. That crazy fuck. He really does, disgust me. More than any of them. He was such a psychopath, laughing while people were dying from his experiments… He deserves to die. And yet, he's a prisoner right now. Dr. Kawasagi? If only I had learned your name while I was still there. If only, I had asked. But I didn't. I didn't ask, because I didn't want to draw attention. I decided not to in order to gain trust, ignoring the fact that when I left I would have no information to stop your fucked up experiments. If I had just asked that simple question, could I have stopped him from making the new Trigger? The Trigger they used at the Sports Festival Invasion?_

Zach's thoughts got the best of him and his expression darkened several notches. He quickly ended the call with All Might while giving some vague excuse, then he headed off to go cool his head leaving Midoriya and Roady behind. _Did I really fuck up? They looked at me angrily that I knew this much stuff yet didn't do anything about it. I get why too. I don't blame any of them for looking at me like that. I, I should have done more. I should have murdered the Chemist after seeing those Apocalypse experiments. Not just, talked shit to him._ Zach rose a hand up and pressed it to his forehead then ran it up into his hair that got messier as he did this. He pushed it to one side and then back before sliding his hand out and leaving a wave of black hair that he hoped looked alright.

The black haired boy came to a stop and he leaned back against a wall of the precinct where there were no cops or other heroes around him. He took in a deep breath and then looked up at the ceiling. _This is crazy. Teleporting bank robbers with ulterior motives. The Chemist is actually a prisoner, and Dandy- Dandy! Is the one who kidnapped him and made him work for him? The League of Villains lost their Trigger operation too? Is that something that really happened? What about the spy? Is there really not one? I hope we can take down the Chemist tonight. And whatever this operation is, because maybe it'll stop the flow of Trigger and guns into these cities in Hokkaido. Crime rates that are through the roof need to go back down. It's not just about societal changes. Posting my report has to be supplementary. Real action against villains is what matters the most right now. Being a symbol, making changes, that comes after the current villains are defeated. Or at least after these ones are._

 _There were a lot of villains in those pictures. Should we not call in a bunch more heroes? If we do though, and it turns out this group really is working with the League of Villains, Kurogiri could evacuate the place and they'd just set up another Trigger lab somewhere else. They could find out, if we start crowding this town with too many heroes. Already, it's possible they know something's up. We want the element of surprise, but I have to assume they could be setting a trap for us. Though they'd probably just escape if anything…_ Zach put his hands up behind his head and took in a deep, calming breath. _It's going to be dangerous though. There are too many unknowns. We can't leave things as they are though, when so much damage is coming out of this place. Is this the main lab right now? Main Japanese lab at least? Can I make a difference tonight? In just, a few more hours? I don't know. I don't know what's really going on. I'll protect Midoriya though. I'll stop the villains, arrest the Chemist for sure. More than anyone else, he's the one I can't let get away._

* * *

"Oh calm down Dandy," Inquisitor rolled his eyes and smirked at the big man who spun his way with an angry look. In a two-story housing complex twenty meters from the Trigger lab, just across the street on the east side of the building, four men stood in an illuminated second floor apartment with another sitting on a couch in the corner of the room. The man in the corner was thin and had a metal collar around his neck, and he was glaring through his glasses at the leaders of the operation that had him kidnapped.

The seven foot tall man glared under the bottom of the bumps sticking out of his forehead just above his eye sockets. He ground his teeth at Inquisitor's unperturbed smirk, then he turned back and said, "All my other guys got caught." He frowned deeper towards the man leaning against the wall while facing the three more in the middle of the apartment. "And you only got twenty million yen total!" Dandy shouted.

"It's alright, it's alright," Dandy turned to his right and glared at the other man with him near the middle of the room. Unlike the Inquisitor who looked Spanish and had dark tan skin and a handsome face, this light-skinned Japanese man looked disheveled and relaxed as he slouched next to Dandy. His eyes were red, not because it was their natural color though. He grinned calmly at Dandy and said in a calm voice, "Just think about it for a second there bud. You know that money's all yours."

"I lost my guys-"

"It was worth it Dandy, for what I got," the other three looked back towards the man leaning on the wall. He pushed off and stepped forward more into the light of the room, a tall man at six foot four which still only put him as the third tallest in the room after Dandy and then Inquisitor. He had short brown hair, and he wore a button-down blue shirt with green pinstripes through it. Breakneck pulled his right hand out of his pocket, and then he disappeared and reappeared across the room right in front of the couch the Chemist sat on. The scrawnier man in glasses pulled back with wide eyes at Breakneck's sudden appearance, but he only pulled back an inch before Breakneck grabbed him by the back of the head and pulled him forward.

"Hey, what are you doing?" Dandy growled, an even angrier voice as he felt like he was being ignored.

The two men on Dandy's sides darted their gazes in at him, and Breakneck turned his head sideways fast and spoke in a calm voice that made the other two look back away before Dandy noticed their murderous looks. "It wasn't about the money," Breakneck said. He lifted his right hand and stuck two fingers up to show there was a folded piece of paper held between them. He pushed the Chemist's head back and then glared down into his eyes, "Take a look." He grabbed the doctor's hand and rose it before placing the paper down in it.

"What is that?" Dandy asked, still an angry tone though he sounded confused now too.

"You got it then?" Inquisitor asked, lifting his eyebrows and smirking more as Breakneck nodded towards him. "Surprised it was still there," the Spanish man said in an impressed tone.

"How'd you manage it?" the more relaxed guy asked, while tilting his head to the side and blinking his dry eyes a couple of times.

Breakneck looked to Dandy first who he could see was at the end of his ropes. "It's a formula," Breakneck said. "For a drug from back in the day. It was still in its final stages of development when All Might-" Breakneck's lips twisted for a second and the other three did not like the look in his eyes. He paused and took in a deep breath, then he regained his calm demeanor and continued, "As soon as the formula was finished though, I took my precautions. Under a fake name I bought that security deposit box a long time ago to-"

"You meant for the robberies to go this way then?" Dandy asked, his eyes darkening more and the fists of his hairy arms clenching.

"No," Breakneck replied disappointedly. Dandy got a confused look on his face again, though he shifted his gaze towards the Chemist whose eyes were opening wide as he scanned the contents of the paper he had been handed. "The robberies were supposed to go better. I'm sure they've noticed the box was stolen, considering how little actually was earlier." Breakneck sighed, but then he smirked again and turned back to the Chemist, "But that old operation, was worth billions." Dandy's eyes started opening huge as his fists unclenched at his sides again, and he spun to the Chemist himself. "It's a shame we lost those six guys. They were good men. It was worth it though for this alone."

"If the new drug can make us a lot of money, then that's okay then," Dandy said while nodding in a satisfied way.

"Oh, I promise you're going to be seeing all the money you want, partner," Breakneck replied while looking back into Dandy's eyes.

Dandy started to grin and he nodded at Breakneck who grinned back at him. _Partners. Those League of Villains guys never treated me right. Shigaraki didn't listen and Kawasagi's a crazy bastard. Now I'm the one in charge._

 _That fucking idiot,_ Chemist thought while darting a quick glance over the formula up to Dandy again. _Almost all the guys actually loyal to you are gone, you buffoon. You're being sweet-talked so easily. These Tartaros types are out of your league,_ the scientist glanced around at the three villains in the room who he was actually scared of unlike the man who had been his bodyguard for months until his betrayal a couple of weeks back.

"Can you make it, or not?" Breakneck asked. He asked it in such a way that the scientist who just looked towards him could tell that the wrong answer meant his neck broken. Breakneck's eyes got much darker after his question. _With this drug, I could become the new kingpin in an instant. Someone needs to take the place of the crumbling League, and a loyal base hooked on this shit with a bloody huge cash flow, it's the perfect scenario. All Might's out of the way too, so no one can stop-_ In Breakneck's head, the figure who was making his expression so dark screamed at him again, that horrible word. _"Smash?" SMASH?! That fucking kid. Deku. I won't let him get in my way!_

"I can," Chemist said. "With the tools in the Trigger lab alone. I need some ingredients-"

"I've already sent guys out to gather them," Breakneck said. "You start the first batch tonight. We work fast, make a ton, and push the product across the country. No one else has taken the reins yet," Breakneck's smirk spread across his face again, and the two who followed him after breaking out of Tartaros smirked too while Dandy just looked around in confusion. "The weakened power of the current kings, Chemist in our grasp, heroes' focus on the League. It's perfect conditions for a new player to dig in their claws. Couldn't have escaped at a better time." Breakneck turned and showed his smirk to the guys behind him who nodded in agreement with his plan. Even Dandy started nodding as he started to understand, despite a bead of sweat rolling down his face as this seemed to be a lot more than about the money for Breakneck.

 _I'll make you your drug,_ Chemist thought while glaring up at Breakneck's back once the man had turned away. _And I'll make it perfectly, but with one change._ Chemist looked back down at the paper in his hands, _Splicing the formula, could prove to be very fun. Not for you. But you will regret making me your prisoner._ The scientist struggled to stop himself from grinning like a madman, and his lips just twisted and his face distorted madly instead. _I am the Chemist. Enjoy your notions of grandeur as long as you can, you savages. Only when I am in command again, will I be making this drug the way it is designed for._ Chemist looked at the top of the page and could not hide the excitement in his eyes, as he reread the name of the drug, _'Shiftz.'_

* * *

Zach needed a drink. Or a snack. He stared from the bench he was sitting on towards Roady who was talking loudly on the phone across the room from him. They had ordered-in dinner to the police station and continued working on their plans through most of the afternoon and night, but now they had some time as the plans had been completed and all they were doing was waiting. Midoriya had gone somewhere with his pro hero though, and Bikergang denied Zach's request to get some riding training in since they were supposed to be laying low.

He looked over to the side of the room where Underguard was speaking with Kurt, and he grimaced thinking of Team Canada who had continued to be difficult to work with through their planning procedures. _They really aren't happy about the way Rubbergirl got the warrant, but since the warrant's already been granted it wouldn't be the heroes who help out's fault. They think everyone here's going to be quick to break protocol though, so they've been…_ Zach frowned more as Kurt nodded at Underguard and headed back for the door to go talk to his colleagues in a different part of the precinct again. _They're still here though. Everyone's preparing. How much longer?_ Zach looked up towards a clock on the wall of the room.

A grimace spread across Zach's face. It was only two minutes since the last time he looked up at it, and time was slowing to a crawl around him. _People were much more eager to talk to me before that initial meeting. They all got creeped out by the information I gave them. And a couple of them made it clear for the others not to ask anything about it, not that Sameko realized. Gogogo got her to go away though, before I had to start lying. Deflection didn't work at all on that shark girl._ Zach's eyes shifted towards Roady again and he stared at the twenty year old who was smiling and talking in a carefree voice over the phone. _With Popfire, probably…_

Zach's hand lowered to his pocket and rested on his phone for a moment. He lifted it away with widening eyes, then he lowered it and slid it into his pocket this time. Zach stood and he pulled his phone out before looking at it in a bit of confusion almost like he did not know why he was pulling it out in the first place. _What am I doing? Just to pass the time?_ Zach lowered the phone, and then he glanced Roady's way. _Why is Roady talking to her now though? Is it really just because he's bored? No. And, it's not just a normal call, is it? He looks serious sometimes, though whenever he starts talking he's smiling again. I guess maybe, it's because tonight will be a fight. A fight with villains. And he knows, as much as I do,_ Zach looked down at his cellphone again. _They're dangerous. Things like this, with only the heroes we have with us. We'll get the support of the cops too. Underguard's going to fill them in an hour before and watch carefully from that moment on to make sure nothing leaks._

Zach turned on his phone and his finger hesitated over the phone app. He paused, then he lowered it to the texting application instead and opened one of the conversations at the top of his list. _What do I-_ Zach was already typing before he could question what he was going to write. 'Hey can you talk?' He paused, then he backspaced over most of it and retyped so it said, 'Hey are you free right now?' He paused again and then retyped a couple more times before his finger finally hesitated over the send button. 'Hey can you talk right now?' _Is putting 'right now' in there making it seem like it's important, because it's not like it's urgent or anything, but if she is free and says in a bit I don't want to tell her I can't then and…_

He rose his free hand to his head when he thought about retyping again, then he just tapped on the send button before he could question it any more. He relaxed for a second after sending, just because it took off some of the pressure, but then five seconds passed and the feeling was back. _What do I even- it's just a drug bust… Except, there are unknowns. Things I couldn't figure out. And they have guns, and Trigger, and a whole lot of villains. Underguard's Quirk is good for capturing, so are Russell's and Vixen's._ Zach grimaced thinking of the fourth member of the Feisty Foursome who had not spoken a word to him yet but who had given him a harsher look than Sky-Girl who had actually been vocal when questioning how he knew certain things about the Chemist.

Zach's phone buzzed and his eyes snapped back down to it fast. His eyes lit up and he smiled, before feeling really nervous again despite the positive response from the girl he texted. _Why am I doing this? It's not, just because I don't have anything to do. If I d- no, that's not it. I'm not too worried about that, but there is a chance though. Is that really it?_ He tapped on the girl's name at the top of his conversation with her, then tapped the button to call her without awkwardly delaying. She picked up right away. "Hello, Zach?"

"Hey Momo," Zach started.

"Is everything alright?"

Zach's eyes widened and he replied quickly, "Yeah, yeah everything's- sorry if you thought something was wrong."

"Oh… oh! So-"

"Um, how's your internship going?"

"Great, Ballerclava is an even more amazing hero than I had heard." Momo's voice sounded happy and Zach felt a wave of relief as her confused and worried tone was gone. _She doesn't sound like she's in a hurry. So she didn't just pick up because she thought something was wrong, or, at least she's not in a rush to hang up-_ "How is Bikergang? Have you been able to attempt driving yet?"

"Only in the garage," Zach started. "But that alone, it's been great here too." _"Here?" Am I treating it like I'm in Feruchia? Can I tell her about… I trust her, but, phone lines? Or just if Underguard heard me, or anyone else here, they'd automatically suspect I'm telling the villains. No one trusts me. Except my U.A. classmates._ Zach smiled again and continued talking to the girl over the phone with him.

He told her about the incidents the day before and that morning, then Momo started, "I saw you on the news earlier. Or, I heard about you. Were you avoiding the media?"

"I was just, pretty busy," Zach said, though he was half-lying since he admitted in his head that he had worn the helmet to hide on purpose.

"Well, although it is a shame about The Viking's retirement, you did an amazing thing…" Zach's face lit up as Momo continued, and he leaned back for a second and stared at the ceiling with such a big smile on his face. As he lifted his head though, his eyes shifted towards the wall for a second and opened much wider than last time he checked the clock. Time that had been moving so slowly was suddenly racing by, _Not long now until the mission._ Zach's smile started to lower, then he smiled again and asked about her day since he assumed she had been to some villain incidents as well. _Momo, cares about me. I think she does, I can hear it in her voice. Should I tell her? Tell her what? That "I might not make it back tonight, so if I don't, I just want you to know-" God that's super dramatic. If everything went alright too, it would be so weird. But people don't know when it's the last time they'll talk to someone._ Another girl's face appeared in Zach's mind and made his face scrunch up, his hand pull his phone from his ear for a second as he did not want his strange breathing to be heard across the line.

Jenny's face faded from Zach's head as he pulled the phone to his head and responded again to what Momo just asked him. _It's not just her though. Kaminari, Kirishima, all my other friends. It would be weird to just treat this like, something, with her wouldn't it? Why am I treating it like it's the end? I'm just looking for a reason to excuse why I called her out of the blue like this when it's only been two days since I last saw her. She doesn't sound annoyed though._ Zach smiled again but only for a second before his lips dipped back down, with a nervous glance at the clock reminding him how little time he had to keep this conversation going. _It's not the last time. It's stupid to think of it like that. It's not even the League we're going up against. If Dandy's really the one in charge, it should be easy. And I'll be careful. And if I don't come back…_

 _Momo would be sad. All my friends would be. Other people too. And, that girl,_ Zach thought of a girl with long brown hair and green eyes who was smiling madly at him even in his imagination. _If I died,_ his breathing started picking up speed and his eyes opened wide. _She'd, probably kill herself again. Oh man. Oh,_ Zach rose his left hand to his head and rubbed his palm on his forehead, running his fingers up through his black bangs and gaining a really dark look in his eyes. "Are you sure everything's alright?"

Zach's eyes widened again and he lowered his hand. "Yeah, totally," he replied fast. He shook his head with a small smile, wondering how Momo had somehow noticed and blaming it on his breathing or long silence. _What am I worried about?_ Zach started talking again and kept the smile on his face this time. _For all the people who care about me then, including that girl, and you, I'm going to come back for sure._

* * *

"Excuse me," a shadowy figure with a metal brace around his neck and a black suit on walked through a cracked-open door. He stepped into a dim room and looked towards a large black chair with a man sitting on it, a doctor at his side currently injecting something into the iv bag attached to him. The third figure already in the room turned towards him with a frown from the foot of the chair, but Kurogiri said to that man instead of leaning away at the glare, "Shigaraki Tomura, I have just located the Chemist."

Shigaraki lost his angry frown but he glanced back at the chair next to him again. "Go. Recover what you have lost, Tomura."

The gray-skinned man with hands all over his body including one over his face nodded. Shigaraki turned again to Kurogiri and started towards the Warp Gate user. "Bring him back already then," Shigaraki said, looking up into Kurogiri's yellow eyes in annoyance.

"I do not know of his exact location," Kurogiri replied, then he nodded once respectfully towards the chair in the center of the room before turning and walking with Shigaraki out of the room. "Breakneck moved quickly, and he already started his own operation with the other two escapees he left with: Inquisitor and Blazerage. As well as, it seems, Dandy."

Shigaraki turned his head to the side and looked out the corners of his eyes at Kurogiri incredulously. Kurogiri nodded his head though, and Shigaraki frowned before continuing forward. He rose his right hand and started scratching his neck, a frustrated look under the hand attached to his face. Kurogiri continued, "We may lose our chance to retrieve him however, as Breakneck's operation is set to be raided tonight. Heroes and police will be rushing in only thirty minutes from now."

Shigaraki lowered the hand he was scratching angrily with. He kept frowning but said, "As long as the heroes don't know Chemist's-"

"It seems," Kurogiri interrupted. "The heroes do know who he is." Shigaraki frowned again, then he stopped where he was and glared ahead with a much darker look in his eyes. "Up until he was taken two weeks ago, his identity should still have been a secret. Perhaps Breakneck is trying to lower his utility to prevent us from making a move to retrieve him."

"Maybe," Shigaraki agreed. "Kawasagi's a vital member of the League of Villains, Kurogiri. And they took _everything_ in the lab with them." Shigaraki turned and looked into the shadowy man's eyes after saying it, and Kurogiri nodded back at him.

"Who should I send?"

Shigaraki narrowed his eyes, then his lips curled up at the corners and he said, "Breakneck is trying to overshadow us. All of them, those ungrateful… I'll be going myself." Shigaraki started walking again, while Kurogiri looked at his back in surprise then started following after quickly. "I'll take Hydro, and Fez… Get Dabi too," he added and glanced right at Kurogiri again. He smirked more and got a menacing look in his eyes as he finished, "We're getting the _good_ _doctor_ back."

* * *

 **A/N Thanks for reading. Breakneck turns out to be leading the group the heroes believe Dandy to be in charge of. Breakneck's robbery's true purpose is revealed. Zach makes some calls with All Might and Yaoyorozu, Breakneck's group get to producing their new drug, and Chemist's buddies have decided to come save him! The operation begins... next chapter!**

Oblivious ninja IJ chapter 73 . Sep 7

Yes! I Oblivious ninja IJ! Have changed my name too... oblivious ninja IJ... heh... Anyway, I hope Zach didn't make it difficult for them to trust him now and wow I don't know why but I laughed when he thought someone was reading his mind... honestly I do that all the time, I just always think there's someone reading my mind when I'm in crowds, yeah so what I'm weird!  
Wonderlass is indeed super, seriously how didn't they hear about her before?!  
~ Oblivious ninja IJ, Roady's quirk tells the future! (No, no it doesn't)

 **Glad you liked that scene! Zach's got that paranoia making sure he's careful especially when he's in the middle of a group of heroes and telling them how he was a villain... or close to that. Time to see Wonderlass in action, and I guess Roady's Quirk _kinda_ does that, (but yeah, not really XD ). Thanks for the review and hope you enjoyed the chapter!**

DestinyFanReader chapter 73 . Sep 7

I love your writing style... Great Chapter as always!

 **Thanks! Not gonna post the whole review (it was pretty long), but to answer those questions... no. To both. Haha sorry, but I'm pretty focused on Death right now and still have a crossover I'm also working on. Plus I haven't played Destiny- oh just saw the third question too, and who knows? No spoilers, so won't say how supernatural it will get (if it does at all). Really glad you've been enjoying Death on your breaks, hope this doesn't disappoint you too much.**

Super Power Sensei chapter 73 . Sep 7

Two Things...  
One, I wonder if the size of the League is starting to bite Shigaraki in the ass.  
Two, whenever Zach revives someone, he also gets rid of whatever ailments is threatening their life(cancer, tumor, etc). So what if he brought back Wonderlass? From what we know, her quirk has made her incredibly powerful and versatile while also negatively impacting her health( like the narcolepsy mentioned). If brought back, what if she's able to turn off her quirk or loses it completely?

 **Shigaraki's def got his fair share of problems right now which we can see in that last scene alone. About Wonderlass... well, we'll see I guess. ;) or maybe we won't, but it's an interesting thought. What would happen _if_ she died and Zach brought her back? Thanks for the review!**

Shade11224 chapter 73 . Sep 8

It really doesn't make sense that he won't use nightmare mode even though people are likely to die if he doesn't. It seems like your creating problems just to have problems. Thanks for the chappy!

 **He really wasn't that against it last chapter. He even had his hand lifted totally ready to do it, but he didn't need to when Midoriya dropped down and knocked the Triggered villain out first. It's not like he wouldn't be nervous though about using it in front of all those people, but he thought about how he'd use it. Anyway, hope you enjoyed the chapter, and thanks for reviewing!**


	75. Chapter 75

**Disclaimer: I don't own Boku no Hero Academia**

 **Chapter 75:**

"Using a whole tub for it?" Dandy asked, turning to Breakneck with a hesitant look on his face as their men continued draining one of the giant tanks of Trigger they had made.

"This whole batch is done anyway," Breakneck replied without looking back, then he turned and called out an order to someone wheeling over a cart for the boxes of Trigger they were filling up.

"But it'll all be sold in a couple of days," Dandy said. Breakneck rolled his eyes while facing away from the oaf behind him, and Dandy continued without noticing that look, "I worked with the Chemist for months. Trigger is profitable-"

"Not as much as Shiftz is going to be," Breakneck said, then he started walking forward and yelling at someone who was carrying a heavy but expensive piece of equipment over to this area for their new operation.

Dandy started raising his right hand at Breakneck's back, then he frowned and lowered it to his side again. _We should just get another tank for the new drug. It's not like people aren't going to want Trigger anymore._

"Hey there big guy," Blazerage said in a relaxed tone from behind Dandy. The bigger man turned and saw Blazerage with a pen in his mouth, a glowing red light on the top of it as he sucked back. Blazerage pulled the pen out of his mouth and spoke while still holding back everything he just sucked in, "If the demand's the same but the supply goes down, then we just raise the prices. Match the demand curve with how much supply we've still got. We'll make the same from Trigger if we've really got the surplus you're thinking- ack kah ack!" Blazerage coughed up a ton of smoke that filled up the air in front of his face. It was milky white and gray and he waved an arm in front of his face to get some fresh air to breath in, and he took a huge breath once he had that air only to cough some more times from the smoke still in his lungs.

"Ever heard of not dipping into your own supply?" Inquisitor remarked as he walked by, darting Blazerage a look and shaking his head at the man's slow way of turning to him with a grin on his face.

"It's been twelve years man," Blazerage said, and he started grinning ear to ear while lifting the pen again. "Can you believe this thing? It's so much stronger than anything back when I was selling. Anyway, it's not even from our own stash. I know not to get into the product. Suspicious losses'd get you killed quick back in my gang. Some of the guys'd say 'til the moment I fed 'em to my dogs that they 'really didn't use it Mr. Blazerage!' Fucking idiots," Blazerage lifted the pen again and started taking a massive hit, his eyes opening wide as he could feel it only a second into the puff. He pulled the pen away and looked to Dandy again, and he spoke with smoke coming out of his nose and mouth, "You fuckers in the League of Villains, what a stupid fucking name by the way, you don't get the subtleties of running drugs. Who the fuck cares if we _could_ sell it? Or if people _would_ buy it? We're the ones in charge, not the damn druggies."

"Coming from you-" Dandy began.

Blazerage pocketed his pen and glared through the smoke at Dandy, and a lot more smoke started coming out of his nose and mouth at the pissed off look on his face. "Since I'm the one running shit, I'll decide if and what people will grow or have them make me whatever the hell I want them to make me. Even if there's no fucking demand from anyone else. I'd run a fucking business just for myself-"

"Blazerage," Inquisitor remarked back over his shoulder. "That's how you got caught. Don't be an idiot."

Blazerage smirked and turned the other way, and he started walking towards Inquisitor while pulling his pen back out of his pocket. "And how was is you got caught again? Oh yeah, that old timer Yoroi Musha got you! He was three times your age right? Right?"

"And he's still at it, still in the top ten," Inquisitor turned after saying that, and he finished, "And he'd throw any one of us in prison without a struggle. Well, except for the boss."

"Already calling him 'the boss?'" Blazerage asked with a laugh as he got up to Inquisitor's side. He turned his head to the right as one of the grunts near him turned his way, and he snapped, "The fuck are you looking at? Get back to work!" The villain looking at him opened his eyes wide and then turned and sped off to keep working fast, though he glanced over his shoulder towards Dandy for a second who looked at the guy he had been working with for half a year now and who had followed him here.

 _The Tartaros guys, they aren't like the rest of us. Why are they treating my guys, and,_ Dandy thought about the way Blazerage reacted to him _implying_ that he was a "druggie" compared to when Inquisitor straight up called him an "idiot." A more upset look formed on Dandy's face and he glanced towards Breakneck again who Inquisitor referred to as "the boss." _We're partners. I'm not, the odd man out._ "Breakneck, what should I-" Dandy stopped himself, biting down hard as that was a question someone who was not in charge would finish.

"Hey, you're in charge too," Breakneck said, as he walked closer to Dandy to speak in a quieter voice and not embarrass the bigger man who was looking frustrated. Breakneck patted a hand on Dandy's right shoulder as he walked by, "I'll work on getting Shiftz set up, all this product we're moving to make space for it though needs to be pushed. Rest of the guys are looking a little unmotivated too. Lots of stuff to do around here," Breakneck walked by Dandy and kept smirking as he imagined the look on Dandy's face changing. _Don't have to say a thing to the others for them to just run shit on their own. Blazerage is high half- most of the time, and he's still a hundred times more useful than you, you big oaf._ Breakneck shook his head and then headed across the room towards a couple of hired hands who were waiting on a batch and not doing much. _I need some new cadres. Soon as Shiftz hits the market, the big shots will come rolling in._ "You guys, get over to tank 6 and start-"

Two thick metal doors at the end of the laboratory broke inwards and came off of their hinges. _**BANG- CLANK CLANK**_ They thudded against the floor after the initial smash, and everyone in the room turned towards the doors at the same time. They looked that way, and their eyes started opening huge at the lights they were finally able to see since they did not have any windows in that huge room. Blue and red lights flashed through the windows at the top of the warehouse's exterior room beyond the lab, as well as through the open garage doors behind the woman who just busted in. Between the two doorways were a couple of trucks where some villains were tied up and the drugs they were loading up had dropped at their sides.

The woman who just slammed the door down was bald and had two thick parts of her black helmet on her temples. Her red eyes and the blue irises inside them narrowed while those same colors flashed behind her from the cop cars parked outside. A dozen other figures moved into view behind her, and there were silhouettes of police officers outside the exterior doors as well as surrounding the confiscated drugs. Breakneck spun from the side of the room towards the back door on the opposite side of the room before anyone said a word, before anyone was shouting or the hero who broke down the doors could threaten them. He prepared to vanish, when the two men closest to that door who also spun to it right away turned to each other and dove at one another with crazed looks in their eyes. There was a faint green mist near the back doors, a cloud of it seeping through the cracks and under the doorway because of the man on the other side wearing a black mask and a dark green coat.

"Villains!" Wonderlass yelled, her voice booming and filling the entire lab. "We have a warrant to search this building, and a lot of you are currently breaking the law, which means the rest of you are under arrest too for being accomplices to those crimes. We'll figure out who and what later." Wonderlass stepped one foot forward and onto the thick steel door that had fallen in front of her, and she stomped down on it making a creaking sound under her foot of the steel denting in. "Give yourselves up, put your hands in the air, and the law will look upon you more favorably. And _I_ am the law in this instance, so you do not wish me to look upon you unfavorably."

"We're trapped!"

"What do we do?!"

"You idiots! We're in a lab full of Trigger!"

"You have taken too long to comply," Wonderlass said.

"SHIT! FIRE!"

Wonderlass stomped her foot down harder and popped the entire steel door under her foot in front of her. She dug her fingers into the steel and held it in front of her body as bullets slammed into it from the other side and gunshots went off around the room. "Deku!" She shouted, and she pushed the door forward.

 _Deku?!_ Breakneck thought with wide eyes, while popping-up behind a tank of Trigger where two of his men were stacked up behind with rifles in hand already. "We need to take back control of the facility. We have the numbers. We have the weapons. We have the Trigger. Meet at rendezvous Bravo, and if you get caught and squeal where we're meeting up, I'll have you raped to death in prison." Breakneck disappeared and the two men who he had just appeared between stopped hesitating. They popped out from their hiding place and fired wildly towards the heroes in more fear of Breakneck than of getting arrested.

"Open up a path." Breakneck appeared and snapped orders at other villains.

"Get the drugs back."

"Inject with Trigger on my mark, we have the power."

"Go out the secret exit to the west, Blazerage to the east. The warehouse is huge and we need to figure out how much we're in control of." Breakneck vanished from the two he had broken out of Tartaros with, then he appeared between some of the weaker grunts with them and hissed in a threatening voice, "The only way we can escape is out those doors. Push to the trucks." He disappeared again and appeared next to one of the villains they recruited who was even dumber than Dandy, "Use Trigger. We can beat them easily with all the stuff we have." Breakneck vanished and shot across the room, but he spun with huge eyes again as the metal door the heroine was holding up went flying through the room and smashed straight through one of the huge tubs of pink fluid.

Deku landed and then jumped to his left using Gran Torino's fighting style, avoiding the shots of the villains who did not pull away when he smashed the door farther into the lab. He hit the wall on the east and then bounced off of it towards two men who were only starting to turn his way as they had seen him move but it was a blur to them. "Breakneck!" Wonderlass shouted from the center of the room near the south exit where she had picked up the other huge metal door now. Midoriya turned his head with his eyes opening wide while he finished the kick into a villain's side that smashed him into his comrade, while back in the warehouse's exterior just behind the rear ends of the trucks, Zach and Roady both stared in shock towards Wonderlass's back. "I see you over there! This is your operation, isn't it? We knew it couldn't be Dandy, that simple-minded idiot! How long have you been using him for?"

Dandy snarled and he started charging towards the woman who threw the metal door at him while the other villains around them stopped firing. Dandy slammed his right fist forward with his arm bulking up and getting hairier, then his claws extended and the man with the bumpy face leapt up through the splitting door and put his hands together over his head. Right as Dandy's arms got to their highest point over his head, a man with spiky orange hair sprung up over Wonderlass's head from back outside the door, using the full force of his Spring Quirk, "Coil Release!" Bikergang put his arms that were pulled as tightly as his legs had just been to send him flying up like that together in front of Dandy's chest with his knuckles pointed out. All the force pulled back in Bikergang's arms released at once straight into Dandy's chest without him seemingly doing a thing, just as soon as his knuckles collided, Dandy went flying backwards fifty feet and slamming into the ground.

Wonderlass threw the other door to the right at a pair of bulky villains lifting up vials, and the door shattered the vials and the villains' teeth as it knocked them off their feet. One of the two was quick to start getting back up, but two arms reached out of the ground and grabbed him by the insides of his elbows. The villain spun his spiky black head to both sides with a panicked look on his face, then he started raising his eyes up and looking at the black form emerging from the floor. The shadowy man's right arm formed out of the top of his torso, with a red boxing glove on the end of it that he started smashing down into the villain's face over and over before hitting once hard in his temple to knock him out. Russell pulled out his special capture tape and was glad Wonderlass hit these two even closer to the corner on the side of the room they had taken, since the majority of the lab was in chaos and still under villain control.

Deku finished tying up the three villains around him, and he picked all of them up and leapt back towards the main doors. He landed next to Zach between him and Kurt who smiled at the curly-haired boy's actions and said, "We'll get them out of here. Get back in there, eh?"

Midoriya nodded once, then he shot forward again to rejoin the main attack force inside the lab. Zach watched his friend go and he took a deep breath but held his position. _Underguard and Rubbergirl are keeping the back door shut. This is their only escape route. The precautions they made to keep anyone from seeing inside their main operation are the same things that kept them from figuring out we had arrived until we were through the doors. Vixen's recharging from taking the front, but in a minute she'll head in with Sky-Girl. Wonderlass and Midori- Deku, will keep everyone's attention with flashy big attacks right in the center. Bikergang too. Everything's going well so far, and hopefully some start giving up-_

"Inject!" Breakneck yelled, and a dozen villains in the lab stuck needles in their arms. It was supposed to be fifteen, but Russell, Wonderlass, and Bikergang were all able to stop one of them when they saw the needles coming out. Breakneck had made quick counters though, different plans with different members which was why some of the villains were looking around in confusion only to look in surprise at their comrades who injected with Trigger. "Push them back! These fucking heroes," Breakneck's voice got more sinister, his voice hissing and taunting from far back in the room and up in elevation compared to everyone else. He stood halfway up a staircase near the middle of the room up to the control room on the top half of the east side of the lab. "The rules keep them from evening the playing field. Those of you who shoot-up don't worry, the other half who don't will get you out if you pass out!"

All the gunfire stopped for a second, and Breakneck looked towards the end of the room and the woman who busted down the doors who was still only fifty feet through the door. "You can't stop me! I'm Breakneck, mother fuckers." He rose up his right hand with a handgun in it, he pointed it across the room towards Wonderlass, and then he disappeared. **BANG**

As the gunshot went off, several things happened at the same time. Around the west side of the exterior part of the warehouse already full of heroes and police, screams cut through the air and the group at the southern entrance spun their heads to the left. The main group of heroes blocking the exit and prepared to move in to help at any moment stared over at Kurt 2 who was flying back across the dim room flashing blue and red from the windows high above. There was a sword sticking out of his chest, two more through his shoulders, and as he was flying back, two more shoved through his thighs before pinning him to the wall impaled five times.

"The exterior is supposed to be secured!"

"There must be an exit inside-"

"It's the Tartaros escapee: Inquisitor!"

At that moment, someone else was supposed to be coming around the east side of the southern entrance and making their own flanking maneuver. Inquisitor got a dark look on his face as he turned the bend to face the heroes, as no attack came from the other side. _Blazerage you high fuck, if you slipped out of here-_

* * *

A minute before Breakneck fired his handgun after vanishing from the staircase where everyone in the room had been looking at him, Blazerage made his way to the east side of the room and slipped out through a secret exit only a few of them knew about. He snuck through a passage and opened a door that he expected people to be on the other side of who had no clue the wall could move inward. He had a smirk on his face and rose his hands with orange flames bursting to life at the tips of each of his fingers. The dim exterior hall outside of the main lab lit up a bit, only for Blazerage to get a confused look on his face.

"Looks like some of the guys weren't completely incompetent," Blazerage remarked, looking to his left and then right at the two cops' bodies littered near him. "You guys still around? We gonna flank and fuck them in the…" Blazerage turned his head to the left again as he saw a couple of men walking his way. His fingers continued to flicker with flames, but those orange flames got brighter and he called out in a louder voice, "You two do this?"

"Is that Blazerage?"

"So there's the secret door. I knew it was around here somewhere."

Blazerage's smirk lowered and his red eyes widened. His breathing started picking up speed as the two men walking through the darkness came into the light of his flames. "Oh shit," Blazerage said, and he started chuckling to himself while backing up towards the still-open secret door again. _Not good._ "I'm taking it you two ain't here to back us up?" Blazerage made the joke, and the other two walking his way stopped and smiled back at him. Their smiles unnerved the Tartaros escapee though into losing his own grin.

One of the men facing Blazerage had spiky black hair and skin patched-up all over his body. His skin was discolored and stitched together, he wore dark clothes with a bit of blue color to them unlike the man at his side's dark gray and black clothes. Dabi rose his right hand while grinning at Blazerage, and a blue fireball ignited in his palm to light his face up more and give it a menacing blue hue. Blazerage's hands burst into stronger flames too as his face twisted in anger, and fear.

"I went to all that trouble breaking you out of Tartaros, and how did you repay me?" Shigaraki Tomura asked from Dabi's right side. Shigaraki shook his head, and then he smirked again with a crazed look in his eyes and said, "There's no point trying to apologize now. Accept your-"

Blazerage bit down and he yelled, "Fuck you ya' prick!" Blazerage punched his right hand forward, and Dabi slammed his right ahead too with a much larger blast of blue flames than the fireball Blazerage blasted forward. The recent prison escapee snarled and had to punch his other fist forward, but he spun his head to the left and ducked down anyway as he saw movement and expected Shigaraki to come for him while he held off Dabi's attack. He kicked his right leg out to make a whip of flames and jumped to the other side, crossing his arms and letting the blue explosion of flames to fly by him and into the narrow passage he had just come out of. Blazerage landed and spun, only to hear a soft click on his side a few feet away, and a sharp pain in his chest.

 _But he-_ Blazerage's eyes shifted to the fading blue flames and through them where he thought he had seen movement, but there was no one there and he could only stare blankly in confusion as he collapsed to his knees. He brought his hands to his chest and flames formed on them, and he bit down but did not feel the pain too strongly as he seared his skin shut. "You want some help with that?" Dabi offered while running forward, and Blazerage lifted his shaky head to stare at the spiky-haired man in confusion. Then his bloodshot eyes snapped open huge and he opened his mouth to scream, but Dabi put his hands on either side of Blazerage's head and fired blue flames towards his opposite palms. The man in the center of his flames did not let out a single sound, other than the sizzling and searing of his skin and flesh.

 **Bang!** Shigaraki and Dabi turned towards the narrow passageway where Dabi's flames had faded from. "Sounds like they're still going at it," Dabi remarked, as for a few moments there it had been pretty quiet in the main lab.

"It's time to make an example of them," Shigaraki said, and he walked into the secret pass with a smirk on his face but a furious expression in his eyes. "I don't want them captured."

"Hold on, this is about getting the Chemist back," Dabi said while walking after Shigaraki. "If you wanted to do something like that, we should have brought more guys-"

"I have all the guys I need," Shigaraki replied, his smirk getting more dangerous as he started chuckling under his breath. "In that room already," he finished, and Dabi looked at his back amusedly before nodding and just following after him.

Inside the lab just in front of the two of them, Breakneck snapped his head up and stared wide-eyed at the boy who turned his neck and glared back down towards the man who missed his shot from point blank. Deku had everyone in the room staring up at him in shock, as Breakneck's shot had come from where Midoriya had just been standing and scared all the heroes who heard it. _All Might was right,_ Midoriya thought as he looked down at Breakneck's surprised face. When Breakneck got everyone looking towards him in the center of the room up the stairs, lifting his gun and pointing the short-ranged pistol across the lab towards Wonderlass, Midoriya expected it was coming for someone else.

 _Because I shouted Smash too, and he was defeated by All Might. I was in his line of sight and even though he didn't look at me, I knew he was coming for me._ Deku spun around in the air and he pointed his right hand down in his white glove, and he flicked a finger at 20% to make an air cannon that knocked Breakneck off his feet and slamming into the ground. The villain crossed his arms, then his eyes shot open wide as a woman with a shaved head and a man with spiky orange hair were both coming down at him. He vanished and reappeared up above them, only to spin his body sideways and pull his gun in at the boy who just went passing by the front of his body. Midoriya's eyes opened wide as Breakneck dodged him, and he had to snap his body backwards as Breakneck turned the gun and fired three times from almost point blank at his upper body.

 _He's so fast! Like fucking, All Might! Damn it!_ Breakneck vanished as he dropped from the air before the boy who dodged his shots again could recover and attack him some more.

"We're under attack out here!"

Russell spun his head as he heard that, and then his eyes opened huge as someone shouted, "Kurt 2 is down! We're trying to get his body behind the perimeter for-" Russell heard a shout of pain, and he dropped down into the floor and moved for the door they had entered from.

"We have to keep the rest of them in here!" Bikergang shouted, then he leapt backwards as two villains who had injected with Trigger right before Breakneck tried attacking Midoriya charged his way. Wonderlass stepped forward while he leapt back, and she slammed her right fist into the claws of a villain before ducking the other's sword. She charged forward extending both arms out to her sides and decked the villains backwards with stiff-arms, before stomping into the ground hard and cracking it with her hard stomp. Her red eyes darted left and right, then they narrowed and she charged at a tub of pink liquid right as a Triggered-up long-range villain fired shaking cannon arms at her.

"Watch the product!" Tyrone yelled as the tub closest to him broke apart and a wave of liquid dropped on top of two villains ducked down behind it. Some of it got in their mouths and noses, and the two who had not injected with Trigger like the others started staggering around with a half-finished batch coursing inside them. They roared with their muscles bulking and Quirks enhancing with unfinished product. One of them started glowing bright red while the other's muscles rippled violently, and the one whose muscles were bulging darted a quick look at the man next to him to see he looked about to explode. That increasingly muscular man grabbed his comrade who was looking at his hands in panic as they got way too bright, and he swung the panicked and now screaming man towards the door the heroes had entered from.

"Wait! I don't want to DIE! AHH _HHH!"_ **BA-DOOOOM!**

 _ **CRASH!**_

The back doors of the room that everyone thought were impossible to go through because of the green cloud around them, slammed inwards and flew an eighth of the way through the lab, one of them smashing straight through the upper body of a woman halfway through turning towards it. The doors hit the floor and one skid while the other covered in blood and guts from that villainess cartwheeled for another second before stopping. Everyone in the room looked back towards that open doorway, only for two figures in torn green coats to be thrown through the room like ragdolls. "Underguard!" Bikergang shouted across the room, his eyes wide and his face getting panicked at the sight of their mission leader's broken body.

"Reinforcements?!"

"We're beating them!"

"RAAAAA!"

"RROOOAAAARRR!"

 _Who the hell was back there? Did Blazerage or Inquisitor take the initiative?_ Breakneck started smirking from where he had disappeared to in the shadows of the main lab. He tried looking to the back doors to see who was there through the smoke and darkness, beyond bulking Triggered-up villains and past all the equipment of his quickly deteriorating drug lab. Then he turned his head to his right and looked directly across the room from where he was standing to see a man looking terrified and screaming his way, "Breakneck! We have to get out of here! It's-" the man screaming froze mid-sentence, the terror in his voice making even the most disoriented and rage-filled of the drugged villains turn his way. They all looked towards the man who rose a hand desperately towards Breakneck with terror across his face, before that hand started disintegrating and blowing away before the rest of his body decayed too.

Breakneck stared straight through where his own man's head had just been to the face of a figure who had a gray hand covering it. The wrinkles of his face and his smirking chapped lips were visible behind that hand, and everyone in the room except for Breakneck and Wonderlass looked towards him in shock and fear. "Was hoping you'd show up," Breakneck started after a moment, and he smirked at the leader of the League of Villains before him.

Outside the south entrance to the lab, the heroes and police were trying desperately to keep control of their situation. Russell had come out of the lab and moved towards Inquisitor on the west side of the lab, attacking with the rest of Team Canada except the leader Kurt who had gone with Gogogo and Sameko around the east side where they had lost contact with some of the police. They had taken a squad of officers with them, and another squad was leaving now with Lobscar to go join them and head around the building to the north side where Underguard's position had broken through. Underguard had gotten a message out during his fight, and just before Shigaraki appeared in the lab, the news was passed across the rest of the operation. The League of Villains were there.

Zach knelt between Bouncer Man and Roady with the rest of the main police force still at the southern entrance as well as the Feisty Foursome. Vixen's capture Quirk had recharged, but they had weakened their main position so much from what they were ever supposed to that she and Sky-Girl were staying outside the entrance instead of pushing in. Bikergang's voice called into their headsets though letting them know about Underguard and Rubbergirl, as well as Shigaraki's appearance inside the lab, and Bouncer Man shouted at the four of them to back up the others in the lab. "We can hold this position with the police," Bouncer Man assured the women who looked towards him hesitantly.

Plucky looked towards him and then to the boy who let out a scream while holding his right hand over Kurt 2's chest in the middle of a circle of police officers holding riot shields. The girl with curly pink hair falling to her shoulders in a tight green outfit striped with pink lines felt a pang in her chest as she listened to him scream. Then she glanced next to him at Roady who she had worked with before and who was telling Lifebringer to keep going without worrying about being attacked. Plucky spun to Spunky and said to the leader of their hero team, "Let's do it. Without Russell in there, and the League's appearance, we need to move."

 _It's not part of the plan,_ Spunky thought. The woman in a tight green outfit with yellow stripes on it darted a look around at the girls with her, then she nodded and spun to the huge entrance in front of them they were guarding. Looking through it, she could see a couple of villains charging it at the moment without any heroes in their paths. She did not know where Deku, Wonderlass, or Bikergang were inside the lab, but they were clearly overwhelmed by the looks of it. "Feisty Foursome, move in and capture all the villains." Spunky glanced back once while the others readied their Quirks and weapons, then she turned from Zach who dropped his arm from Kurt 2's body while gasping in pain, "Dr. Kawasagi is still the priority objective here. If the League is here, my bet is they're here to get him back."

The Feisty Foursome ran inside, while Zach shook Kurt 2 a bunch of times as the man was closing his eyes with an exhausted look on his face. "Hey hey, get up Kurt," Zach shook him some more, and Kurt 2 opened his eyes a little wider, then he smiled and opened his mouth like he was going to thank Zach. Then he fell flat on his back and Zach slouched his shoulders while panting in exhaustion.

Roady reached down and grabbed Zach by a shoulder and started, "Get up, we-" Zach flinched when Roady grabbed him, and he bit down in pain at the feeling of a sword going through that same exact shoulder. He had just felt five swords piercing his body and he clenched his eyes for a second while Roady let go of him, his eyes opening wide at the look that had flashed on Zach's face.

"Yeah," Zach said, pushing his hands down at his sides and standing up. "Get him out of here," Zach said, spinning to an officer on his right who nodded back at him a few times and then called to his subordinates to follow Lifebringer's order.

"You good?" Roady asked.

"Fine," Zach replied, and he moved forward to get up to Bouncer Man's side again.

"This guy's a monster!"

"How is he so strong?!"

"He's not even on Trigger, eh?"

The three sidekicks from Bikergang's agency heard the voices of Team Canada who were facing Inquisitor, one of the villains who they had prepared for during their planning meeting for the operation. Zach stopped panting and shook his head around, getting a serious and ready look on his face again. _Are Underguard and Rubbergirl alright? Bikergang said they were "down," but Kurt 2 was "down" too. What's going on around here? Shigaraki showed up? Shigaraki… is here?_ Zach had heard it while kneeling over Kurt 2, and he had actually lifted his hand from the Canadian man for a second because of the shock he had felt. _Why attack now? It's for the Chemist, not me. It's not for me. He's not here for me-_

Zach stared through the entrance of the main lab in front of him, and his breath caught in his throat. He stared into that huge dim room that was illuminated by the occasional flash of a gun firing or someone's Quirk, while red and blue lights flashed around him from the police cars outside. He stared into that room and could not breathe, as a huge blue light flared in the room with flames coming into view near the middle of the room. "Dabi," Zach whispered.

Roady's eyes opened huge at the sound of that name, then he spun to the left as the boy next to him took a step forward. Roady opened his mouth to say something, only to see the most furious look he had ever seen on a person's face covering Zach's. " _Jenny_ ," Zach whispered even quieter, his heart pounding and his mouth twisting in complete utter rage.

"Lifebringer," Bouncer Man said, raising a hand and covering the earpiece in his right ear to block out his voice. Zach froze with his eyes opening huge, and he turned to Bouncer Man with that wide-eyed look to see the tall, tan man looking down at him with a harsh and serious look. The man opened his mouth to say something else, but Zach quickly shook his head and then stepped back to be right in between the other two again.

"I know," Zach responded. _Heroes, don't look for revenge. Iida made that mistake._ Zach spoke louder, "Dabi's here too. We need backup."

"There are too many villains on Trigger in here," Sky-Girl's voice called into their headsets.

"The perimeter on the north side of the building has broken through!"

"Chief! Send out for help from other heroes!"

"Oh shit- the media's here!"

"Keep them behind the perimeter! We do _not_ have this situation under control!"

Inside the main lab, Deku could hear all these things being shouted in his headset but he did not have the time or luxury to respond or focus on any of it. All around him were villains. Half of them had used Trigger, but that did not mean the other half were not just as dangerous. When he heard about Shigaraki even, he could not turn to look for where in the room he was as he was attacked by two different villains on Trigger whose Quirks had manifested wildly different from each other, with one of them even showing off a second Quirk as part of a composite the villain setting it off at random seemed to have not known about beforehand.

At the north entrance, after smashing the doors down, Hydro stomped forward into the room with his fists at his sides inside big steel gloves. He had on a dark costume, and the cannon on his back stuck over the top of his bald black head with smoke coming out of it. After smashing the doors down, when others turned towards Shigaraki and then Dabi who created a huge explosion of blue flames to announce their arrival, a figure on Hydro's back climbed up to his right shoulder with a crazy smile on his face. The two foot tall man rose up the pair of scythes in his hands attached together by a steel-link chain, and he cackled as he leapt up in the air with his eyes glowing bright red.

Fez leapt up ten feet over Hydro and swung the scythe in his right hand, the blade started waving and extending, and it sliced across a tank of Trigger and a man running for cover on the other side of it. Hydro bent his body forward and his cannon glowed bright blue again, and he fired a beam into the middle of the room twenty meters in front of him where a domed explosion went off and sent tables covered in crates and bags of drugs blasting to the sides.

As the chaos ensued, Shigaraki had faced off with Breakneck after entering the room, and there were a great number of villains around them staring at the two glaring into each other's eyes. "You wanted me to come, did you?" Shigaraki asked.

"Gave us a new escape route, didn't you?" Breakneck remarked, smirking and showing no fear of the League of Villains' leader before him. His men looked towards him, then to Shigaraki again feeling a little smug themselves at the sound of that. "Now we can get out of here-"

"But I just came in through the side right here," Shigaraki said in mock confusion. "We bumped into Blazerage on our way in. He must have known about the secret passage then, huh? Weird that no one else is using it," Shigaraki smirked while Breakneck's smile lowered down a bit, his men starting to get more confused expressions on their faces.

"He was flanking the heroes to get us all an escape-"

"Well now he's dead," Shigaraki cut in. "And your operation dies with-"

"As long as I have the Shiftz formula, and the doc, the operation continues," Breakneck snapped back at Shigaraki. "And you can't stop us-"

"All of you can rejoin me," Shigaraki announced. "And those of you who are new, welcome," Shigaraki smirked towards Breakneck who just smirked back at him and started shaking his head. Shigaraki continued, "Kurogiri will get you all out of here before the heroes catch you."

"You expect them to follow you?" Breakneck asked, his eyes narrowed while he continued to smirk. He did not dart his gaze around, but he did not like the looks on the faces of some of the guys in his peripherals who did not seem to know what to do right now. They did not know who to follow, and they glanced around at each other with hesitant and scared looks as they were trapped between heroes and the League of Villains.

"Shigaraki," Tyrone snapped over. He was a five foot tall man who was huge at the shoulders but had a narrow waist, his skin was pitch black and his eyes glowed white, and he held an assault rifle in his hands while standing between two other guys he had joined this operation with. "You let half the fucking League get caught in that Musutafu invasion. Any one of us could have been in that half, and you did it all for yourself, no bigger purpose… But Breakneck just let a bunch of guys get caught earlier, sacrificed them for that fucking formula of his." Tyrone's hands tightened on his assault rifle, and he bared his teeth that were sharpened like his claws. "So I don't know who to follow, but if this place falls into enough chaos, I know I'm finding an opportunity to escape."

"Don't give up!"

"Just follow Breakneck's plan and we'll-"

"But Kurogiri can actually get us out-"

"I'm with Tyrone!"

"No you're not!" Tyrone yelled over, and he rose his rifle and fired at the skinny man running towards him because he liked Tyrone's plan. "Every man for himself!" Tyrone roared, then he glanced to either side at the guys who had been with him and smirked, and they smirked back and nodded in silent agreement.

The three of them turned and started to run, made it a few steps, then right as everyone started raising weapons to attack each other, Wonderlass dropped down on top of Tyrone and slammed him into the ground. The two guys on his sides started looking in, but Wonderlass reached out and grabbed one of them by the head. The other pulled away from her other hand, so she swung the man she did catch around her body and slammed him into the other, sending them flying towards a turned-over table which they smashed through and rolled into a stack of drug crates that fell onto them.

Wonderlass looked straight towards Shigaraki after throwing those two through the lab. She kicked the man below her and tossed him aside while stomping forward, and she glared into the eyes of the man with a hand covering most of his face. "Shigaraki, Tomura," Wonderlass growled. _All Might, if not for this bastard…_ Wonderlass's fists clenched tightly and the floor beneath her feet started to crack as she bent her knees.

Breakneck smirked as she faced him, but his eyes darted around at the men near him and he grimaced once more. _The formula. The Chemist. Apocalypse. All I need._ "Keep fighting! We'll win this!" Breakneck disappeared, leaving the men to figure out whether to trust him, to believe Shigaraki, or to follow Tyrone's example for as much good as it did him. They had to decide fast too, as the Feisty Foursome charged into their part of the room room with Vixen and Spunky at the front.

The oldest woman in the group who had purple highlights to her green costume leapt up in the air and opened her mouth as she arced towards the middle of the lab. Vixen unhinged her jaw and out from her mouth poured a dark blackish-purple sludge in a wave that swept down into the room. A speedy villain on Trigger zipped out of the way of the wave and picked up a rifle she was almost too fast to grab as she was running by it. She pointed the rifle up and started firing, but the bullets slowed in the air before reaching Vixen. The speeding villain got confused and kept running while firing, only to realize that she was slowing down too.

Spunky dropped down in front of the speedster who was announcing her position with her firing, and Spunky punched the two thick gauntlets on her hands into the confused villain. An electric shock blasted from her weapons, and then Spunky turned and ran back the way she came for a second. "Deku!" She tossed up and behind her, and Deku leapt towards her to catch the light speedster. He jumped back the other way while tying up the woman in his arms, and Spunky turned back and rushed to the sludge some villains were stuck in.

As Vixen and Spunky whittled away at the villains' forces, Bikergang had grabbed a couple of people in green coats on the other side of the room and was trying to make his way back across it. There were even more villains in there than they had seen in the pictures Rubbergirl had taken though, and the arrival of the League of Villains had made it harder. Deku had come with him to help out at first, but Bikergang ordered him to keep working on capturing as many villains as possible. Only with fewer enemies were they going to get this situation under control, but good news suddenly came in through all their headsets.

"You have to help me!"

"Yeah, I've got him," Plucky called into her headset while the man in front of her begged for help.

"So you know who I am?! Thank goodness!" Doctor Kawasagi had a frightened look on his face and stood close to the woman with pink highlights on her green costume and matching pink hair. "You have to get me out of here. These villains they-"

"Dr. Kawasagi, you are under arrest," Plucky said.

"Another three villains have been captured."

"Get them out to the police perimeter outside-"

"The northern perimeter is still in chaos!"

"Too many are on Trigger!"

"Where are those reinforcements?!"

Plucky grimaced as no one really responded to what she had said. They all had other things to do though, and she bit down as she heard from Lindsey that the western exterior hall of the warehouse was filling with villains outside of the main lab. The man in front of her reacted to what Plucky said though, and he pulled back in feigned shock at first, only to narrow his eyes at the woman before him. "How did you find out?" The Chemist hissed in a snarling voice.

Plucky grinned at the man in front of him, "Actually, I was unsure about it myself, but it looks like Lifebringer was telling the truth." She said it softly so the same boy wouldn't hear her say how she doubted him over their headsets. _I liked the kid, so I'm glad this-_

Chemist's eyes opened wide and he asked, "Reaper's here?"

Plucky's smile dropped, and the woman stepping forward to take the Chemist into custody and get him out of the lab froze. She looked at him with a hesitant and unnerved look, and her eyes darted to the side as she thought about the boy behind her who she was about the bring the Chemist back towards. As her eyes started shifting to the side, a vial slipped out of the Chemist's right sleeve and into his hand. "Alright, just get me out of here, I don't care if I'm under arrest-" Chemist ran forward with a panicked and scared look on his face, and Plucky spun back towards him and started lifting her arms to keep the frantic man at a distance from her.

As Plucky rose her arms though, Chemist darted to his right and grabbed Plucky's left arm with one arm. He twisted her arm while jamming down the needle in his other hand, only for Plucky to punch him in the face across her arm with a furious and terrified look on her face. She smacked away the needle that had just pricked her arm, and then she gulped while staring at the blood tricking out of where she was injected with something. She turned her head and looked down at the man who was laughing while facing the floor beneath him. He was on his hands and knees, and he started cackling madly while lifting his head to look in her eyes. "What did you-" Plucky began, then she felt a churning in her stomach that made her wobble a foot to her right, then stumble left as she tried to balance herself.

"I was meaning to use it on Dandy or Breakneck," Chemist began. He got back up to his feet and rubbed an arm across his cheek where he felt pain from that punch in the face. "A nice poisoned strain of Trigger I concocted," Chemist said, while Plucky hunched over and heaved blood violently all over the floor. She brought her hands up to the sides of her head as she could suddenly hear everything in the room, not just the shouts of people far away or quiet whispers of villains trying to hide from the heroes or other villains. She heard breathing, and footsteps of people in the exterior parts of the warehouse, cops speaking outside, and the heartbeats of people all around her, including her own that was out of control. One of Plucky's hands lowered from her ears that started to bleed, and she grabbed at her chest before hurling blood and puke all over the floor again.

"Who is that?" Roady called over the headset as they heard someone heaving violently which had shut everyone else up for a moment.

"Bouncer Man, help me with them," Bikergang called over from just inside the main doors of the lab's southern entrance. The three sidekicks of Bikergang's agency looked towards the man who had just gotten back close enough to them to see, and their eyes opened wide to see who Bikergang had brought over. Bouncer Man ran towards him and grabbed Underguard from Bikergang who continued holding Rubbergirl while moving farther out of the lab.

Eight cops, Roady, and Zach ran up towards where Bikergang placed Rubbergirl down on the ground. "Are they," Zach began.

"Badly injured," Bikergang replied. "But they're not dead."

"Bikergang!" Roady exclaimed. "You're hurt!" The others around them had not noticed because of the extent of Underguard and Rubbergirl's injuries, but they all looked to Bikergang now and saw him grabbing at his left side once his hands were free again. He moved his hand for a second, and he grimaced down at the wound where someone's sharp whip-like appendage had impaled him from a distance right when he landed near the other heroes' bodies all the way across the lab. Making it back to a safe place with them and not in the middle of villains fighting villains was hard, and he was panting but moved his hand from the wound and turned back towards the room behind him.

"Get them out of here," Bouncer Man said, spinning to the cops. He looked at their expressions behind their visors, and he could come up with anything encouraging to say to the scared men and women still there at the very lightly guarded exit of the lab. Then he saw those scared looks become even more terrified, and a few of them stepped backwards which made Bouncer Man spin around and look back into the lab where Bikergang was staring with a look of dread on his face.

"Ra raa, raaa, haaa," a burly figure covered in black fur who looked like a bear was running on all fours and scraping up the ground under his claws with every staggered sprint in their direction. A woman flying over him in a full costume with wings sticking out of her back and katanas in either hand screamed to push the exit, and a bunch of other villains came out of seemingly nowhere to rush them at the same time.

"Noo!" A voice screamed over their headsets. "Plucky! Plucky are you- oh my God!"

"Lifebringer!" Spunky's voice shouted into his ear, but Zach had just taken a step back at the sight of the eight villains charging their exit. Some of them were already bloodied, some looked like they had been fighting heroes inside the lab, but they all looked like they were enraged and on Trigger. The cops behind Zach were stepping away too, and Roady's hands shook at his sides as he looked at them.

"Lifebringer!" Sky-Girl shouted, the same voice that had been screaming in dread a moment ago. "Plucky, she's- hey! Get away!" Sky-Girl grunted and yelled out in fury, then she yelled, "Get in here! Please!"

"We can't hold this position," Bikergang whispered. He spun towards Bouncer Man, then to the boys past him, then to the cops behind him, "Fall back outside the warehouse to the secondary perimeter!" The officers did not need to hear anything more than that to start running, then Bikergang spun towards Zach who had stopped backing up and was staring into the lab with wide eyes, then took a step towards it. Bikergang grit his teeth through the pain, and he said, "Bouncer Man, you and me then."

Roady looked to his right with wide eyes, only to see Bouncer Man nodding in agreement with what Bikergang just said. "Guard him Roady!" Bouncer Man shouted, and then he sprinted forward and rose up his big hands in his black gloves that he balled into fists. The tall tan-skinned man slammed his fists into his chest and then smashed them down on the ground in front of him, making most of the villains charging his way hesitate. That meant that the relentless one that looked like a black bear had a wide gap between him and the others, and Bikergang sprang forward and slammed his right leg into that bear-villain's face.

Then Bouncer Man ran forward, and he opened his fists and curled his fingers into the villain's thick hide. He used his Quirk, Grip, to lock in and dig his fingers into the villain's flesh. Then he spun and threw up in the air at the flying woman who came diving down at him, tossing the heavy villain between her katanas to nail her with a few hundred pounds of fat and muscle.

"Let's go Lifebringer!" Roady ran forward while Zach was staring towards the other two with wide eyes, and then Zach pushed his soles down and ran after him. They ran through the doors and immediately cut to the left, moving deeper into the shadows and out of sight of the villains who were distracted by the two who had charged them.

Roady started calling out for Sky-Girl to find out where Plucky was. Zach looked around the room and kept his eyes peeled, only to pull back as a giant metal beam that had been attached to the ceiling crashed down only ten feet away from him. _I didn't even see it coming down!_ _ **CRASH**_ A huge hole blasted in a wall on the opposite side of the room near the doors that had been smashed down a minute ago, and then a flash of light illuminated near it followed by a bunch of different pitched screams.

Roady's eyes darted right and left, up and down, and he held his arm out to make Zach stop short behind him. He motioned to the right and they darted over towards a broken tank that had been full of Trigger, their feet making splashes and squishing noises on the floor as they ran through the pink liquid. Zach ducked down because Roady did, and Roady stared in front of him panting heavily for a few seconds until the path had turned green again. Sky-Girl told them exactly where she was, and Roady darted out from behind the tank and more towards the middle of the room, though still on the west side that they were running out from.

As they ran in from the west, Zach stared across the room and farther to the northeast corner where blue flames were covering walls and just made something explode in a huge ball of fire. "There," Roady pointed and Zach snapped his sweaty expression down. There was smoke filling the air between them and the ceiling, so Zach could not tell if there were more metal beams on the verge of falling. The artificial lights that had been few and far between to start with had cut off while they made their mad dash, and the police lights outside seemed to have dimmed as well, making the room only full of the blue tint from the flames covering part of it. Zach could see in that blue tint the red puddle on the floor around Plucky's body that had some other deathly colors mixed in with it.

Zach ran towards Plucky, and Roady ran right past her and towards Sky-Girl who glanced back at them and showed Roady that half of her face was covered in blood and she looked exhausted while fighting a female villain with spikes covering her arms and legs. The woman had only had one steel horn sticking out of her forehead, but now that horn was much bigger and she had blood coming out of her skin around it while she laughed at the girl before her who could not get as strong a hit on her as she was getting back. "Instead of Unicorn, I think I'll go by Horny for now on!" Horny called out, blood dripping off several of her steel horns while the heroes looked nervously back at her.

"What happened to her?" Zach asked in confusion as he looked at Plucky's body. _No entrance wounds- oh my, oh fuck!_ "It was him, Chemist," Zach whispered, putting it together as he had not done before in the anxiety he felt from the villains rushing their position or the panic of charging into the lab. Thinking about what he heard Plucky say a minute ago though made it very clear to him what he was looking at. Roady glanced back for a moment then spun forward as he realized Horny was faster than she looked even with all those protrusions sticking out of her body. Zach thought about all the horrific hurling noises he had heard from Plucky as she must have died, which he confirmed by checking her pulse that he could not feel through the glove on his left hand.

Zach started lifting his right and his fingers slid out of his glove, and he stared at his hand that was shaking at the memory of those swords piercing him only a few minutes ago. He grabbed his right wrist, then he snapped his head up with even more fear as two villains running for the south exit turned his way. "A hero," one of them said, smirking at the boy in the white costume who would make for a good hostage. They had heard one of the exits was clear, but from the battle they could see it was not as clear as they wanted it to be.

Zach spun his head after seeing both turn and start coming for him, and he opened his mouth to let Roady and Sky-Girl know, only for blood to splash from both of them and Horny to laugh as two more horns had come out of her body exactly where she willed them to. Her laughter went from sounding smug and excited, to nervous and crazed like she did not know when the horns would stop growing and it terrified her imagining them coming out of her entire body. Zach started moving his right hand back to his body at the sound of her crazed laughs, then he darted his eyes down to Plucky, then over to the men running towards him now only fifteen feet away.

"Is that-" a deep voice started, making the two men running towards Zach slow. "Sazaki?" The tall, bald villain with a cannon sticking out of his back made Zach spin towards him with a look of terror spreading over his face. Hydro's face covered in absolute rage as Zach turned to look at him though, "IT IS!" Hydro started running forward, barreling right through a man who happened to be running in his path. He smacked his arm to the side when the guy stumbled away from him in mid-sprint, and Hydro's right fist in a steel glove snapped the guy's neck and made his head spin around over his shoulders, something that had the other two going for Zach to stop and back up nervously. "Six months! I spent six months in Tartaros because of you, you fucking little shit!"

Roady managed to tear his eyes off the crazed woman he refaced despite the gash on his right arm, and his eyes opened wide as he recognized the villain from a huge news report back in November. At the time he had been pissed because of the way everyone else started talking about Lifebringer despite how he was still breaking the rules, which was why the faces of those two villains he had caught that day stuck with him so much. _Hydro!_ "Lifebringer, get back-" Roady's eyes opened huge and then he had to pull his head to the side as Speedroute gave him a green path. He had seen mostly black lines that were like death flags all across his vision except for that escape route, just barely letting him dodge a spike aimed for the head that actually fired from Horny's body this time.

Zach reached down and grabbed Plucky's body with his right hand, his fingers still out of his glove though he tried pulling her backwards even as his entire right arm turned black. He coughed and gasped in the intense agony he started feeling, which made his heart hurt because he knew she must have felt this as she puked herself to death. The pain and sadness he felt almost managed to top his terror, but he still screamed out in more fear than pain as Hydro was about to crush his head with how he dove forward while pulling his huge right fist back.

"Zach!" A foot slammed into Hydro's side and sent him off-target while still in mid-flight. Midoriya aimed and sent the villain flying towards the two who had just turned and started rushing the south exit where they would be able to target an already overwhelmed Bikergang and Bouncer Man. Midoriya landed and turned to see if Zach was alright, only for Zach to stop trying to drag Plucky away and just drop on top of her body. Midoriya turned the other way again as he heard a roar of fury, and he saw the man he just kicked away at 20% getting back on his feet with only a pissed-off look on his face. Even the two he had been smashed into were getting back up too, though Hydro snapped at them to help him out and they could join the League of Villains, which the others did not argue with considering how strong they had seen this guy to be so far.

"It's Hydro," Midoriya started.

"Guard me," Zach said, looking up for a second. Midoriya looked down at him, and the curly-green-haired boy's eyes shot open huge at the sight of Zach's eyes full of blood. There was blood coming out of the corners of Zach's mouth, out his ears too, and his arms were shaking as he held his right wrist with his left hand and pushed all his weight down on Plucky's chest. "Please, Deku. Protect me, so I can save her."

"Three officers down on the east side of the warehouse!"

"We're in a firefight in the north-"

"Lindsey!"

Zach's heart hurt as much as his organs that currently felt like they were shutting down and tearing apart inside him. _I can't save everyone. But, but I have to be able to save someone!_

Midoriya's huge eyes at what Zach just asked him returned to normal and he spun to face Hydro who was coming for them again. He remembered the villain from that day at VTS, he could see how much that guy wanted to kill Zach right now, and he rose up his hands in a fighting stance between Zach and the villain out for revenge. How Zach just made that request to him echoed in his head, and Midoriya replied, "Bring Plucky back, Lifebringer. I'll protect you."

"We've got your back!" Roady called over too, while he slammed a fist into the back of Horny's head when he found his opening.

Horny started to turn towards him, only for her eyes to open wide and another horn to spike out of her chest towards the girl flying down towards her with a visible red wind coming out the back of her body. The wind swirled as the steel horn came out, spinning Sky-Girl's entire body so the horn only sliced across her right leg instead of piercing it. She slammed both feet under Horny's facial horn and into her teeth, knocking the older and scarier woman backwards with blood splashing out of her mouth from where her broken teeth slashed into her tongue right there. Sky-Girl landed and glanced back to see the agony all over Lifebringer's blue-tinted face, yet he held his arms down on Plucky anyway. "Yeah, we'll protect you," she agreed, instead of shouting anything at him this time. _I take it all back, kid, Lifebringer. Please, save my best friend._

Zach started to scream, but he cut himself off and bit down as hard as he could. He pushed his lips out to the sides and lifted the corners of them right after Roady and Sky-Girl had looked back towards him. "Good!" Zach called out, the most forced smile on his face that the others had ever seen. Despite how forced it was though, Zach was not just smiling for the sake of the others or the ideology of it. _Plucky. I'll save you. I promise! In all this madness, with the people I hate the most within arm's reach, I'll SAVE YOU! Because I'm a hero! I'm going to be a hero, right here. Right now! And I am going to save you!_ "Come back, Plucky. I've got you. I'm definitely, going to save you."

* * *

 **A/N The raid has begun! The League shows up and the plan breaks down fast! Thanks for reading, and I hope you enjoyed the chapter! Villains shooting up with Trigger, heroes dropping, and the perimeters getting breached! The raid on the Trigger lab is going poorly as even capturing the Chemist proves to be fatal for Plucky as the sneaky scientist isn't planning on trading one captor for another. Hydro's after Zach, Breakneck's trying to protect what he needs to keep his operation going, Shigaraki's there to get what's his back and to send a message, Chemist wants to escape... as does most everyone at the lab! Lots of villains, lots of goals, Quirks, drugs, and guns. L** **eave a review below telling me what you think, comments, questions, or predictions for the upcoming chapters!** **Can the heroes stop the villains?! Will they be able to stop Breakneck from escaping this time? And what about the League?! Find out next time on Death!**


	76. Chapter 76

**Disclaimer: I don't own Boku no Hero Academia**

 **Chapter 76:**

In the middle of what had been a high-functioning illicit drug manufacturing plant up until ten minutes ago, Dr. Juno Kawasagi crawled on his hands and knees through the main lab. His face was twisted in fear and determination, and he reached a hand up while crawling to push his glasses up the bridge of his nose, then he kept scampering away like a rat through the dark room full of so much shouting and loud noises. He was panting but laughed between his breaths as he thought about the woman he left dying back across the lab. The north exit was just ahead of him, though it looked like _exits_ now considering the huge hole in the wall on the west side of where the doors had been smashed down, giving the scientist a secondary option for escape as he did not see any heroes blocking that escape route.

Through the main exit up ahead of him, he could see the doors to the outside of the building and to the exterior of the warehouse where there were more flashing red and blue lights. There were also gunshots coming from that direction and the screams and roars of more villains who had made it out of the main lab, as well as shouts from heroes who had gone around the main lab to try and reconvene at Underguard's broken position and support the cops whose perimeter had been shattered on the north side of the building. _Once I'm outside, I can slip away! When did Reaper tell them who I was?! It doesn't matter, I just need to find Shigaraki! Where did he go? Him or Dabi, one of them must have a line to Kurogiri. They've come for me!_

The Chemist froze where he was as his hands slid to the sides on the ground and his face almost slammed into the floor covered in slippery fluid that had made his hands slip in the first place. He stared down in terror for a second, then he smirked as it was only blood he was looking at, and he laughed at the unfortunate soul to his right who was slumped against a broken table with their eyes half-open and three claw marks slashed across his chest. Chemist crawled forward again, speeding up as he was almost at the doors where he could get out of this lab, then he heard a loud smash to his left and he spun with wide eyes. He brought his hands up to his face and fell backwards, pushing his feet in front of him to get away from the wave of pink fluid that came splashing at him which was why he had been terrified before as his face got close to it. _None of the Trigger I've been making here is as good as the stuff I made for Musutafu! All of it could be deadly, all of it is unpredictable!_

Chemist clenched his eyes shut and covered his other orifices tighter while scrambling to get out of the wave of Trigger fluid around him. He dragged himself out of it and winced as his palm opened on a shard of glass that had been mixed with the fluid, then he quickly stood up and started cleaning off his hand to prevent any Trigger from getting in the wound. He looked around after doing this for a second, realizing that he was all alone and did not need to be crawling anymore. He smirked and started running for the northern entrance to the lab, _Before I go, I need to retrieve-_

A hand clamped down on Chemist's right shoulder and squeezed tightly. Chemist started reaching down for his side, but the big man behind him growled in a deep voice, "You think I don't know where you keep your weapons?" Dandy squeezed tighter, then he snarled, "Where do you think you're going?"

"You fool," Chemist snarled back, even as Dandy reached down and pulled another extra Trigger vial Chemist had snagged in the chaos to use on someone if they tried catching him again. Dandy tossed it to the side after pulling it from Chemist's pocket, then Chemist turned his head around more and said in an apologetic tone but with a taunting smirk on his face, "I never understood you, and for that I apologize, Dandy."

"Too little too late, doc," Dandy said, and he smirked at the power he had over the man who had been ordering him around for half a year.

Chemist's face twisted for a moment, and he snapped in a snarky tone, "You really are an idiot. How you do not see how they've been using you is beyond me." Dandy's smirk wiped and he gripped Chemist by the arm tighter which made the scientist whimper, only to say in a more desperate and frustrated voice, "It's obvious! Breakneck just wanted me! You were the one he needed to get me, and he called you 'partner' because he knew it's what you wanted! Haven't you noticed how they've been treating you? How the guys who were following you are the first ones Breakneck lets get captured?" Dandy got an even more furious look on his face that was starting to look unstable, but Chemist pushed even farther, "Those secret paths on the sides of the lab, did you know about them?"

Dandy's eyes opened wide, and Chemist grinned as he expected Breakneck had not told the buffoon about them. "Why wouldn't he tell you? If you really are, _partners_?"

"Shut up," Dandy's voice was cold, and unhinged. He gripped so tightly that Chemist let out a scream from the claws that dug into his shoulder, extending from Dandy's furry right hand. "I won't let you escape. I, I made my choice. I have to live with it now." Dandy lifted Chemist off the ground and started for the north exit himself, _I have to keep him away from Shigaraki. He doesn't, know what he's, talking about? Breakneck's my comrade! My partner! I'll, I'll ask him about those- he better have an excuse! A good one!_

Meanwhile on the east side of the lab, back through the secret pathway that no longer existed as it and the walls around it had caved or been broken down, Wonderlass faced off against Shigaraki Tomura while other heroes and villains fought each other around them. A new squad of cops had just arrived and were trying to assist in any way they could, but the villains on Trigger and the smarter ones who had yet to use it were too much of a threat. Most of them were doing anything Shigaraki yelled at them to do as well, as they all believed that Kurogiri would be giving the leader of the League of Villains an escape route sooner or later and they wanted to be on his good side when that happened.

"I've separated you from the Chemist," Wonderlass said in a mocking voice to Shigaraki who was proving more agile than she had anticipated. _All Might warned about him, and his Quirk is deadly. If he gets a hand on me even for a moment, it could be all over._ "You won't get him back," Wonderlass said, keeping her voice strong, confident, and taunting to the young man with wavy gray hair in front of her.

Shigaraki was frowning and he did not like that he was forced out of the lab by this hero. He was using everything around him, and though there were other villains only facing Wonderlass with him, none of them were eager enough to please him that they wanted to be the one to charge this crazy powerful lady responsible for most of the damage and unconscious villains around them. "You won't get your Apocalypse either," Wonderlass said. Shigaraki's face twisted in more anger, and he started scratching his neck furiously at the sound of that. _They know about Apocalypse! They know it's here! They know the Chemist! How did they find so much out in such a short time?!_

Wonderlass lifted a hand and put it over her earpiece again, and she spoke into her mic, "The League doesn't have the Apocalypse." Shigaraki's eyes opened wide behind the fingers of the hand attached to his face. "That means it _is_ somewhere in the facility."

Shigaraki sprinted forward with rage splayed across his face, and three other villains ran forward at the same time to back him up. Wonderlass leapt up as two of them were medium-rangers and started attacking, then the third who was not Shigaraki leapt up as she called out, "Find and confiscate it, or destroy it if it's between that and the villains keeping it!" She spun as she neared the ceiling she had jumped with just enough force to near but not slam into, pressed her feet against it and bent her knees, making the villain flying up at her open his eyes huge as he saw what was coming. Wonderlass shot herself down like a projectile and extended her right arm as she passed the villain, bringing him down to the ground with her and slamming him into the floor.

Dust rose up from the ground where Wonderlass slammed the villain down, and then an arm shot through that dust with an open hand reaching for Wonderlass's face. She pulled her body back fast, clenching her other hand into a fist and pulling up for an uppercut into Shigaraki's chest. The thin gray-haired villain jumped up in the air though as her fist came near his chest, and then Wonderlass had to open her fist to catch the bloody black whip coming out of one of the medium-ranger's right arm. That woman opened her eyes wide, only for Wonderlass to grip on the whip and use it to swing the woman up towards where Shigaraki had jumped. As she started pulling up though, her eyes darted to her side where the other villain pulled out a pistol in one hand and held his left arm-cannon up at the same time.

Wonderlass had to release the woman she was swinging, diving to her side to avoid the explosion that hit the spot she had been standing an instant later. Then when she was rolling away from the blast she pushed her hands and feet down and jumped backwards twice, bullets hitting the floor where she had just been a second later each time. She reached to her right on her second landing and grabbed a chunk from the wall she had smashed apart chasing Shigaraki out of the main lab, and she whipped her right arm up to chuck that rock into the chest of the man firing at her. He gasped in pain with his body hunching forward and ribs cracking in his chest. Wonderlass winced during her throw and brought her right arm down to her side as she stood up, keeping a stern and angry look on her face, though Shigaraki darted his gaze to her arm after that flinch she made.

 _ **BAM- BADOOOM!**_ The entire warehouse shook from an explosion in the north.

Outside of the warehouse, on the north side of the building that had been encircled by cop cars, several villains were in the middle of fighting against those cops and a few heroes who had come to back them up. Kurt, Sameko, and Gogogo were battling a large group of villains who had pushed through the northern exit before they arrived but were stalled by the police long enough for those three to arrive. The police were moving their perimeter back and trying to keep the other already arrested villains away from the others who might try to free them. Most of the ones already captured were on the south side of the building though, and out of the ones they had caught already in the north most were unconscious. Some of the villains fighting in the north were just looking for an escape route, but others were on Trigger and were smashing police cars and the law enforcers near them with huge grins on their faces like it was all they wanted to do.

Deathpop marched forward after the huge explosion blew four police cars in the air, then he started running with a mad grin on his face. His hands were enlarging and shrinking over and over, and he slammed one down to the floor on his right as it was shrinking in size again. The air seemed to leave his hand and filled the ground twenty feet to his right instead, lifting it up and then popping in with a blast smaller than the last one but still big enough to throw five cops running towards him back the other way.

"Push to the street!" Yuri Dregar shouted, pointing a rifle out towards a thinner part of the cop perimeter and firing. The cops over there all had riot shields though and pushed forward against the bullets slamming into them. Yuri grit his teeth as his gun ran out of ammo, and he tossed it to the side since he had no more extra magazines. _I didn't want to use it,_ he reached down and pulled a vial of Trigger out of his pocket that he had taken before rushing out behind the League of Villains guys who had smashed through the north side of the lab. _But fuck it-_ The vial was no longer in his hand and his eyes snapped down to it, then he started turning his head to the right where a young girl with a mouth full of sharp teeth was glaring into his eyes. She curled her fist around the vial she had snagged out of his hand, and then she punched that fist into the villain's face and ripped right through his cheek with her rough Shark Skin Punch.

Sameko smashed the Trigger vial as she took out the villain, then she weaved to the left and right and spun towards a woman with long black hair that was waving behind her body in a telekinetic field. The woman had just thrown discarded black batons from injured officers Gogogo had rushed back behind the perimeter at Sameko, and one of them almost hit the speedy young sidekick whose sharp teeth in all rows bared at the villainess. "So you're next then?" _**Ba-KOW!**_ An explosion Deathpop made behind Sameko had her stumble forward, and then she was pulled the rest of the way towards her opponent much faster as the woman's long black hair curled towards her and glowed white.

Psyrin pulled her hands up from her sides in a quick movement to show she had a pair of kunai knives in them. She slashed them across the front of her body, cutting through Sameko's costume and making shallow wounds in the left side of the young woman's chest. Sameko snarled as the blades cut through her thick skin, while Psyrin stared in shock at how shallow they were while she was putting a lot of force into the slashes. Sameko snapped her head forward and bit down on Psyrin's right shoulder, ripping through it and tearing muscles inside the screaming villain's arm. Sameko then punched her left fist forward into the villain's teeth as she screamed, then did it again while pulling her teeth out of the woman's arm. She put both arms on the sides of the villain she was fighting, and Sameko spun and threw her as hard as she could towards Deathpop, hitting the muscular man in the back and making him spin with a Trigger-fueled look of rage on his face.

Even in his rage though, Deathpop got sweat over his face at the sight of the nineteen year old girl covered in blood. It dripped from her hands, down her chest and over her costume from the x-shaped cut she had received, and it covered the bottom half of her face as it dripped from her teeth. And she smirked that mouth of bloody sharp teeth, before growling and sprinting at the villain causing the most damage there.

As Sameko charged Deathpop, a vehicle was driving down a road of Mosu Esupa only a half mile from the warehouse. The two men in the front of the truck were looking at each other more than they were the road, as it was late at night and not many people were driving when they had jobs this late, especially in a smaller town like this compared to Feruchia City which they were returning from. "Are you sure?" The driver, Ted Yahiko asked with lifted eyebrows at his partner in the passenger seat.

Huga Tiashi nodded his head rapidly. He had some lingering flakes of white powder on the bottom of his nostrils, and he brought his right hand up and rubbed his nose violently a few times before sniffling in hard with a wild grin on his face. "I knew all about it ten years back. We were gonna be huge, huger than we already were! Then All Might showed up and wrecked the place, I got 6 years for that shit! Fuckin' minute Breakneck got out though I knew it was coming. I'll tell you, didn't take me a fucking second to hop aboard when Breakneck showed up. Not a thing for Stain. Didn't even consider it when I heard 'bout Shigaraki's damn army. Breakneck though, mother fucker's a genius! He got this shit all planned out- hey, hey you listening?!" Huga, a.k.a. the Frycook, spun his head forward with a pissed-off look that the driver was not paying as much attention to him and didn't turn back after checking the road in front of them that should be straight.

They stared down the road and saw blue and red flashing lights coming from the direction of the warehouse. The truck started slowing down, and then they each snapped their heads to the sides and looked in the side mirrors, to see more red and blue lights coming up behind them. "Oh shit, shit shit shit," Ted started panicking with his eyes wide and his hands tightening on the wheel. "We've gotta get out of-"

"Look!" Frycook pointed and a mad grin came to his face to replace the scared one that had just appeared on it. He pointed as an explosion went off in the direction of the warehouse, and they were close enough now to see the building and the edge of the police perimeter around the north side of it. There were villains out front fighting cops and heroes, explosions going off, and people firing at a steady police line of riot shields stopping anyone from escaping. "The guys are fighting! Haha! Heroes can't do shit anymore!"

"We're not-"

Frycook turned his head and reached his left hand over towards the driver's face, hot grease dripping off of his fingers and making a sizzling sound that shut the other villain up instantly. "You'll do whatever the fuck I say, Ted. Now put your foot on the gas! We're trapped between cops, and we're joining up with the others! Breakneck must have a move to get out of this, and I'm NOT GOING BACK TO PRISON!"

"What's going on?!"

"What are you shouting about?!"

The truck started speeding up, and Frycook snapped to his feet and spun. He marched backwards and used the walls at his sides for balance as the truck started shaking much worse. He stepped into the wide back of the truck where a half dozen others were getting to their feet with nervous looks on their faces. They all started shouting at him, but Frycook yelled, "We're going in hot!" The man hyped up on cocaine pulled a bag out of his pocket, ripped it open and shoved towards his nose to get as much as he could in. Then he shouted with white covering his nose and top lip, "Cops and heroes! The others are fighting, we've got ten seconds! Shoot up with Trigger you cunts!"

Frycook reached to his back pocket and pulled out a small black box, then he glared around at the others who almost all looked scared except for one big guy whose shoulders were as broad as Frycook was tall. "WELL?!" He shouted as barely any of them were reaching for anything.

"We sold all the Trigger!"

"I don't have a vial with me!"

"You fucking idiots!" Frycook shouted, then he spun and looked farther back in the truck. "Screw it! Time to test what we sold it for then!" The others spun and ran back farther through the truck, and Frycook injected his arm while running back too. He leaned his head back, taking in a huge sniff and feeling his entire body rippling, hot grease pouring out of his pores and making the steel beneath his feet start melting with every step. He ran towards the back of the truck as Ted shouted from up front that he was going to 'ram them,' and then Ted started screaming at the top of his lungs in reckless abandon.

The back of the truck was full of military-grade hardware. The ones they had sold Trigger to were trading with them, and Frycook reached into a box crate that one of the others just opened up. He pushed the trembling man aside who was muttering about how fucked they were, and the guy screamed as Frycook's Grease Quick melted through his skin and muscles beneath. The huge and unperturbed villain who had grabbed a rocket launcher was opening the back of the truck with one hand, and he lifted the rocket with the other to fire at the first cop car behind them that had officers in it shouting into a radio to warn the others at the perimeter of a truck barreling towards them. Those officers opened their eyes wide in panic and fear at the sight of the villains picking up assault rifles and rocket launchers, and the huge man aiming one of those rockets down towards them.

The front cop car spun to the side as the driver yanked the wheel to the side, and the car directly behind it bumped into it while it swerved. The cop car turned on its side and started to roll, making the big man who was about to fire at them curl his lips up in a giant smirk as he did not even have to fire. He turned his head to say something to Frycook about it, only to see Frycook lifting up a belt of grenades with a crazed look in his eyes and blood coming down his face below both nostrils. Frycook's entire body was steaming, dripping hot grease from everywhere including his hands, and the big man lost his smirk and screamed, "DON'T-"

 _ **BBOOOOOOOOMMMMM!**_

The back of the truck ripped apart with the huge man behind Frycook flying out of it, pulling the trigger of the rocket launcher as he went and firing it down into the road below the rear of the exploding truck. Ted screamed even louder from the front of the truck, right before the fireball from the back reached the front seats and filled the area in flames. The truck's back lifted up from the secondary explosion beneath it, then another blast went off from some of the explosives that had not blown up yet.

The police and Kurt who had turned towards the truck speeding towards them all lifted their heads up with huge eyes. They gawked at the truck that was rising into the air, and then the explosions went off behind it that sent the vehicle flying towards them in a massive speeding fireball. "Move!" Kurt yelled, swinging his arms out so they extended around the eight men with him thanks to what looked like several extra elbow joints appearing inside them. He curled his arms around the cops and pulled them down as the truck was about to fly overhead, and the huge mass of flaming metal slammed down behind them on some cop cars, skid across the ground and erupted in another huge explosion which Deathpop tried to block with a huge blast of his own. Sameko screamed at the explosions and crossed her arms but still got blown away by them with her own blood splashing from her mouth this time.

Inside a small apartment building on the north side of the warehouse, four villains crouched down inside the windows stared at the scene outside with dropped jaws. They were in a building that the cops didn't have a warrant for as Rubbergirl had not learned it was part of the operation, and they had decided to stay out of it and try to escape at a time when the cops were not everywhere. The only woman in the group was the first to lose her shocked look, and she darted her eyes around outside to see a group of cops closest to their building running off with scared looks and shouting to try and find someone to tell them what to do. Valerian lifted her right hand and pushed it back through her long braided red hair, and she turned to smirk at the men behind her who looked surprised at first and then started smirking too. "Time to join the fray," she said, and the others pulled out their weapons or clenched their fists.

She turned and rose her arms, and molten lava melted off of her arms before firing out in a wave that melted straight through the wall and made the cops spin towards their building in even more panic. "Kill them all!" Valerian yelled, as the rest of her body started glowing red and making her a single solid color of bright red lava. "Join up with the others! Find Breakneck, and let's get the fuck out of here!"

Up in the air a hundred meters above the warehouse in the southern less-populated district of Mosu Esupa, a helicopter pilot, camerawoman, and reporter were all silent as they stared down at the fiery mess surrounding the north side of the warehouse. The reporter had been calling out about the raid on a villain Trigger lab and how it the raid seemed to have fallen into chaos, but she was silent now. So were the other two women, all of whom had just seen cop cars rolling down a street, a truck flying inside a massive fireball, and at the same time a wall on the west side of the warehouse blew apart with two Canadian heroes in red and white costumes flying out of it amidst the rubble.

A villain emerged whose skin was ripping off as he continued to grow, his flesh showing beneath but not bleeding like it should. His body was covered in muscles as he rose from eight meters to ten, and he kept growing while shouting in a horrifying voice that rippled through the air. He roared, and then his body erupted in blue flames followed by an explosion that caused all the walls and ceiling and rubble around him to burst into flames too. The fleshy man's screams got even more horrifying, and then a giant sword slashed through his legs in a swipe not meant for him but that he got in the way of. The sword slashed apart the burning walls around the one already knocked down, causing more of the warehouse in the west to collapse.

The reporter in the helicopter had just received a report on the League of Villains' leader, Shigaraki Tomura, and an executive of the League, Dabi. She started shouting about it as she remembered what her job was thanks to a voice shouting in her ear, and she called out, "This is like a scene right out of a horror movie! The destruction continues to spread from what had been a confined raid meant to eliminate a Trigger laboratory, thanks to the intervention of the League of Villains members who appeared inside the warehouse…"

"Turn us back around, I need a better shot," the thick, white-haired camerawoman called up to the three foot tall old woman piloting their chopper. The woman at the sticks pulled them to the side to get them around for another loop as the reporter kept calling out as much as she knew about the scene below as well as what they could see.

"I'm sending you down now to Tricia Nakamura at the main staging point for this operation. Tricia, can you tell me what the heroes' plan is to get this situation under control-"

"AHHH!" The live televised news switched to a woman who started screaming right as her camera angle was switched to.

"You have to get back!"

"Get behind the new perimeter!"

The cameraman spun the camera while scrambling backwards, but he fell to the floor and rose his camera up as Bouncer Man came flying out of the south entrance of the lab. He flipped himself in midair and as he came down, he dug his fingers and his toes into the ground and tore trenches through it to stop skidding before reaching the pushed-back police line. Bouncer Man yelled at them all to get back farther, then he charged forward right as Bikergang leapt back to dodge a huge ice fist that smashed down the garage entrance Bikergang escaped out of. The ice shattered and fell apart, and a villain whose body was completely made of ice including his big icy face started laughing while creating ten more huge ice arms out from his sides and back.

A speedy villain with wheels instead of legs raced out from behind the ice villain, firing mini uzis around and making the police run forward to get in the way of the media who they had thought they were keeping far enough back. They started shouting at them while lifting shields to protect them, while the building ahead of them shook and cracked and exploded from different sides. The camera lifted up to show five big ice arms extending out towards them and then curving down towards the police line, the people around them screamed, and then the camera cut off and the image returned to the sky-view from the helicopter. The reporter half-shown in that camera angle put a hand to her ear, "Tricia? Tricia are you there?"

In a flaming mass on the north side of the warehouse, a man stood up and looked down at his arms with a confused look on his face. He had injected himself with Trigger right before Frycook accidentally blew them all up, but he still had no idea how he was alive, or how he was so calm for that matter. The shock had set in though even counteracting the effects of the Trigger, so as he stared down at his bones without feeling any pain, he just accepted it and started to smile. He turned his head, and Gogogo who had just dragged her daughter out from beneath some flaming metal turned her head to look into the flames. The pro hero stared at the skeletal figure inside the flames who lowered their arms to their sides while looking her way with a calm expression on his face.

Other cops nearby and Kurt who helped some of them back to their feet looked towards that area as well, as did Valerian and Deathpop and other villains nearby who all got shivers as they looked his way. The man in the flames who stood there with smoke rising above him and the smell of burnt flesh around him started laughing. "Haha, haahahaha, hahaha," he reached down and grabbed something he was stepping on and saw intact through the flames. He picked it up and cocked it back once while turning his skull towards the closest female hero and her daughter. He fired and the hero curled her body around her daughter before screaming out in pain as the slug hit her back and shredded through her costume and skin.

"Gogogo!" Kurt called to his comrade, then he spun towards the flames and yelled, "Get back!" The cops around him dove or lifted their riot shields to protect as the skeletal villain turned their way and fired again, laughing calmly and in a terrifying tone as he did. Another explosion went off from inside the already huge mass of flames, sending shrapnel out that hit cops and villains alike.

One man who was hit fell to the ground and started writhing in pain with blood splashing from his thigh. He looked towards Valerian and grinned though when she called back asking if he was alright. "Go on ahead ma'am," he said, moving his hands away from his bloody leg and pulling a vial of Trigger from his pocket.

"Kito! You can't! Last time-"

"Let him do it, don't spit on his resolve," Valerian snapped at Kito's younger brother who was trying to step back for him. She grabbed Kaito by the arm and spun him forward, "Do it Kito. Kill 'em all." She pushed on Kaito's back and the younger man clenched his eyes shut before sprinting forward and yelling out in rage. "I'll get him out of here," she added in a softer voice while chasing the younger man, turning her arms to lava and charging at the warehouse herself.

Across Japan, off of Hokkaido and in the far south of the main island of Honshu, Mineta Minoru gawked at the television screen in front of him and the six women at the agency he was interning at. The reporter on the screen started shouting about hero reinforcements arriving with the police who had come in from the north behind that truck, but those heroes were suddenly met with a much bigger challenge as a bright white light shone from the middle of the battlefield outside of the warehouse. A man who had been cut by shrapnel and was lying on the ground started rising to his feet, a white light glowing on his leg and closing his wound. His eyes glowed white too, even though blood came out the corners of them and poured down the sides of his face from the faulty Trigger. He opened his mouth and glowing white light came out from there as well, as it did from his hands and ultimately his entire body though still brightest at his eyes.

Seeing the villain's eyes bleeding like that made Mineta shiver as it reminded him of himself. Then he thought about someone else who he was friends with and who he had also seen bleed from his eyes before. Thinking about that person reminded Mineta of the hero Zach had gone to intern with, and who Zach had shown him a picture of when he had asked about it a few days before. And Mineta remembered that same man in the short clip from the reporter on the ground getting pushed back by the ice villain. Mineta's eyes opened huge in realization and he reached down to his pocket fast.

Across Honshu on the opposite side, the north side closer to Hokkaido, Yaoyorozu spun from the television back to Ballerclava. The hero in a tutu and half a purple ski-mask, or balaclava, that covered only the top half of her head looked to her intern and shook her head, but Momo started again anyway. "This is clearly out of hand. We need to go and-"

"If everyone were to go there to assist, villains across the country would take it to their advantage and make moves. We must stay vigilant in our own jurisdictions. At any moment they may assume that we have left our posts for this and make a move on the city," Ballerclava said, in a teaching voice but also scolding as this was the second time Yaoyorozu was asking now. Her voice was scolding more because of the high-schooler's tone as she made her request which sounded more like a demand the way she was wording it.

"But, but we," Yaoyorozu pursed her lips and spun back to the screen she had seen Bikergang on a minute ago. _Zach! Are you there? That call, you didn't say anything about this! Please,_ Momo put her hands together in front of her chest, and Ballerclava's eyes opened wide as she looked at the girl who had been so quick to take a call an hour and a half ago, who had spoken with such a genuine smile on her face during it.

Yaoyorozu felt a buzz in her pocket and she pulled her phone out fast. She stared at a text from Mineta and pursed her lips even harder as she now confirmed that she definitely saw Bikergang as well as Bouncer Man who Zach had described well enough to her before too. The reporter on the screen shouted something again, and Yaoyorozu lifted her eyes to the screen and the blue flames the camera just zoomed in on covering part of the west wall of the warehouse. Her breath caught in her throat, her eyes growing even wider and her heart racing a thousand beats a minute. _**"And when I close my eyes! I see her burning!"**_ _No…_

On the island of Kyushu, the third largest of the main islands of Japan, Bakugo lowered his phone and stared at the screen with narrowed eyes. "…we repeat, the leader of the League of Villains, Shigaraki Tomura is reported to have appeared in this warehouse. We have also just received news that Endeavor and Best Jeanist are both on their way. Other closer heroes are arriving one after the other, but the situation is grim here in Mosu Esupa…"

 _ **"…D-Do you really need me to say?"**_ Bakugo heard Zach's voice in his ears. He knew his classmate was there at a scene that was starting to look more like a battlefield. In his head he saw Shigaraki standing there with his picture in hand, a knife in the other, and Zach dangling in front of him with his arms pulled to the sides by metal hooks. _**"You know him already- KATSUKI BAKUGO! His Quirk's Explosion and he's the strongest guy in Class A! It's not just his Quirk, but he's smart and has great fighting instincts! I never was able to think of any way to beat him, I promise! H-He gets angry all the time, and especially- he hates Midoriya-"**_

 _What the Hell is Shigaraki doing there?! That bastard, is he, is he going after Zach again?_ Bakugo's fists clenched harder at his sides, his teeth grinding with a look of fury spread over his face.

All Might stared at his television in his room at U.A. High School where he, like his students, lived. "Young Midoriya, Sazaki," All Might's dark eyes narrowed more at the screen and the chaos splayed across it from the helicopter's angle above. All Might's worried look started to fade and his hands clenched tighter on his knees. _You can do this. You must! Endeavor, get there as fast as you can!_

Inside the warehouse, but close to a hole in the wall on the west side of the building, two men held down a scrawnier villain while a burly woman lifted up the vials of Trigger in her hands. She was as thick and broad-shouldered as the two men helping her, one of whom had orange skin and three horns sticking out of the top of his head while the other was fair-skinned and had short black hair. The woman with short purple hair falling down to her shoulders reached down and squeezed her chubby hand on the face of the scrawny man with scars going vertically over both of his eyes and one diagonally cutting across his lips. "Don't you dare! Stop-" she popped the tops off of the vials. The guy snarling and snapping at them got a more scared look on his face as he could not find the strength to pull out of the others' holds.

They struggled to hold him even as he got a more terrified look on his face, "Please, I can't control Rage as is- you can't! STOP!" She squeezed his cheek tighter and poured the Trigger into his mouth, then she backed away fast and the two men holding him down started running for the hole in the wall covered in blue flames. Not far from them, Inquisitor and Dabi were fighting each other, and despite using Trigger, the Tartaros escapee was getting pushed back farther by the blue flames engulfing everything on the west side of the building. "You have no idea, what you've _**done."**_ The two men dragging the scar-faced one tossed up in the air through the hole in the wall, outside to where three Canadian heroes were trying to recover and prepare the cops holding the perimeter on this side of the building.

As screams and roars of the out-of-control villain's deep voice started echoing through the air, the three burly villains who just tossed him out turned their heads at the sound of a loud moan. They were using the other villain as a distraction to try and open up an escape route, but before that route was open they had to stay in this burning hellhole for a few more seconds. They looked back and stared at Kyojin's enormous leg-less body from when Inquisitor tried slashing at Dabi and cut straight through the fleshy flaming giant who had smashed the Canadian heroes out of the warehouse. Kyojin's body was burnt and bloodied, his whole body blackened from Dabi's attacks, yet he was still alive and squirming. He rolled his huge body over, lifted his head and glared towards Inquisitor and Dabi, the only two men the villain still Triggering-out could think of through all his pain and rage.

"Well this is going to be interesting," the orange-skinned man began.

"No it's not, let's go," the woman snapped, and she ran towards the hole in the wall and jumped outside. She swung her arms to the sides and transformed them into huge white wings that she flapped once and shot across the air above scattered and shouting police officers. As she flew over the perimeter line though, a roided-out Styles snapped his head up and glared at the woman whose eyes opened huge at the look on his face. Styles smirked ear to ear, and the two men about to follow their comrade outside froze where they were as the villain with the Rage Quirk picked up a police car and threw it up in the air. He threw it so fast that it smashed through her without slowing down, white feathers and blood splashing out everywhere from the collision.

As the warehouse and surrounding area fell into complete chaos, some heroes were still in the central laboratory facing just as small a group of villains. Everyone else had scattered. There were several holes in the walls, both the northern and southern exits of the main lab were open for the remaining villains to move freely between, though it did not seem like anyone had regained control of the place. Shigaraki's appearance destabilized the villains. It broke Breakneck's operation apart with what he shouted about how Kurogiri would take them away, mixed with the dissatisfaction of certain individuals unhappy about how Breakneck let some of their guys get captured that morning. The fear of heroes capturing them, with the knowledge that Breakneck could use his Quirk to leave them all behind, the fear that Shigaraki was lying and might just kill them after using them, the memory of Breakneck and Shigaraki both sacrificing their pawns for their greater goals, it had the villains not knowing what to do, who to follow.

All the villains wanted the same thing. Dozens of them wanted to escape the heroes. They had Trigger, the chaos needed to make their own plans and escape attempts, and many of them were still trying to hold onto hope that Breakneck or Shigaraki would get them out of there so they were fighting for whatever any villain leader asked them to do. Killing cops and fighting heroes, using Trigger or gathering up special vials from a secret location, betraying each other and ripping their building down on top of their heads. The Trigger was not all the good stuff either, as Chemist had been planning on his own, creating shot batches and making sure that some of the villains who had him prisoner had those spiked Triggers with them.

A woman who had the lower body of a snake slithered across the floor at eighty miles per hour, darting her gaze to the left at the four vs three fight going on that she decided to stay far away from. She slid through some Trigger and cut herself on some glass, and Trigger got in that wound while she continued to go. She started laughing, cackling as she sped towards the northern entrance where all the explosions and thus the most chaos was coming from. The southern exit had been too much for her when Underguard had come-to for a minute, releasing his green gas cloud and getting the Triggered villains in front of her to start beating the shit out of each other. The female villain snapped her head up as she heard an echoing ghastly shriek piercing through the air above her, and she spotted someone she had been working with swinging across the beams on the roof using black webs that covered most of her body.

"Venomess! Let's team-"

Venomess looked down at spread her lips to show a horrific smile parting between the black webs covering her face. The webbing was thicker and covered more of her than her comrade had seen before, and the woman who looked like a snake slowed and then turned the other way as her fellow villain licked her lips while looking down towards her. _What the fuck is happening right now?!_ She sped towards a hole in the wall and screamed as the black-webbed villain dropped down in that hole before she could reach it. "What's wrong with you?! What the fuck is going on?!"

 _ **BOOOM!**_

Roady, Deku, and Sky-Girl stood in a triangle formation around Lifebringer as he gasped and wheezed on top of Plucky's body. He threw up, hurled on the floor next to her body with blood mixed in with it, and two of the men facing the group got hesitant looks on their faces like they did not know what they were doing there. Neither was willing to ignore what Hydro had told them though, and the promise of being able to leave with him through Kurogiri's portal was too enticing to pass up.

The fourth of the villains surrounding the young heroes was the one scaring them the most though. Even though he was a small figure only two feet tall, who unlike the others had not been using his Quirk, Fez was deranged. The scythes in his hands were _drenched_ in blood. He had no hesitation on his face, kept laughing despite how strong the heroes were proving to be. Sky-Girl was the oldest of the heroes before them, but the girl in her mid-twenties was also the most badly injured. Half her face was covered in blood, her right leg was slashed by Horny who lay unconscious not far from their group, and she was barely keeping her arms up in a fighting stance. Her red wind failed her and dropped the protective barrier that had been protecting them from the villains' longer ranged attacks, and Roady and Deku each shot her a look as they could see she was wobbly on her feet and barely holding on.

"Don't stop, Lifebringer," Sky-Girl muttered, as he heard another hurling sound from the boy behind her. "Even if it kills…" Sky-Girl's voice trailed off as her legs came out from beneath her. Fez picked that moment to sprint forward, so the other two standing with her had no time to turn to see if she was alright.

 _So fast!_ Roady stepped backwards but Zach was right behind him now, so despite the dark red and black lines covering his vision he knew he had to stay where he was. The short man sprinting at him slashed his bloody scythes before reaching Roady, and the younger hero who tried leaping in front of Roady to get a hit in before Fez was ready had to yank his body away in mid-air. Then Deku had to pull his head even farther, barely dodging a small thin needle spat as a projectile from one of the other villain's mouths.

Roady turned and ran towards the spot Midoriya just left, and he jumped up and spun his right leg for the side of the villain's head as the man with sharp red claws tried going for Lifebringer. The villain pulled away and tried slashing at Roady's body as the twenty year old landed, but Roady was jumping back already and to where Sky-Girl fell to her knees that Hydro was about to reach. He did not try to fool himself into thinking he could damage the man who spun a villain's head around his neck with a smack of his hand, so Roady grabbed Sky-Girl instead and yanked her away from the big man slower than he was who stomped down where she had been kneeling a second later.

Hydro's stomp on the floor made a loud thud that Zach snapped his bloody eyes up for. Zach glared up when he saw it was Hydro's leg there, and the big man with a cannon on his back froze while opening his mouth to shout something down at him. Zach looked straight into Hydro's eyes, and in a low voice he snarled, "One second." The black coloring on Zach's arm beneath his white sleeve ran back down it, and he smacked his hand up to his chest while Hydro was hesitating and looking down at him with wide eyes. Zach's eyes turned brighter red and started glowing, a black veil covered his body, and he let out a deep breath of black steam that rose in front of his skull-like face.

Roady turned his head after hearing what Zach said, while Midoriya flicked his fingers and used powerful air blasts to push away the villain with spitting needles and Fez. They were thrown back, though with Fez flipping around over and over in the air and landing on his feet unlike the other. Midoriya glanced back too though, while Sky-Girl turned her head and opened her eyes huge. Sky-Girl was not staring at Zach with such wide eyes though from where she was on her hands and knees. She looked at Plucky who was moaning and lifting her head up, a confused and tired look on her face followed by one of intense fear as she remembered the pain she had been feeling right before…

 _Death,_ Plucky thought, lifting her shaking hands. She snapped her head up from her hands though as she saw the hulking figure behind her bend his body down and point a cannon at her. The cannon glowed bright blue, and Plucky thought for sure she was about to die again. Then she realized that the darkness in her vision was not just because the room was that dark. The blue tint from Hydro's cannon made her realize the room already had a dimmer blue shade to it, which confused her considering how dark her vision was on her left side.

 _This is chaos,_ Zach thought, as he got up to face Hydro who started charging his cannon at him. _People are dying outside. I can hear the shouts in our earpieces. In all this, there's no way I can keep bringing people back to life like that. The villains will keep going out of control, keep killing more people faster than I can bring them back. I can stop them though. Using this form, I can stop them from killing others._ Midoriya shot past Zach's body and slammed a kick up into Hydro's chest, making the large villain who did not see Midoriya coming because of his rage towards Zach lift off the ground. Hydro's body unbent and his cannon fired exactly as Midoriya timed it to while pointed straight up instead of towards them.

The cannon fire flew towards the ceiling and blew a hole through it, and loud creaking noises came from above reminding Roady and Zach of the metal beam that had almost hit them on their way to Plucky's side. Zach sprinted forward while Hydro was falling back, but the bald man snapped his head down and balled his fists furiously at the boy who had used this form to capture him once already. He slammed both fists in their steel gloves forward, and Zach could not just weave them as Hydro punched each a certain gap apart from each other. Zach had to dodge to the side, while Hydro landed and planted his feet firmly down below him. Fez leapt up at their backs, Roady shouting towards the younger boys to watch out before having to turn and block one of the others himself.

 _What is it I need to do right now?!_ Zach thought while jumping away from Fez and then swinging an arm in front of him to try and make a Death Wind that would knock them out. Hydro and Fez jumped away, and Zach could not make it strong enough to reach the other two villains or he would have hit Roady for sure. _What is it I came for? Is it to fight Hydro? People are dying outside. Chemist should still be around here. Can't let Shigaraki get him. Breakneck, is escaping…_ As Zach thought it, he caught something appear in the corner of his eye. He thought for an instant that maybe it was something he just had not caught before, but considering what he had been thinking of before the appearance he had to double-check.

Zach's eyes narrowed towards the staircase in the middle of the room, one that was wobbly and did not look very sturdy, but that a man was walking up the top of after appearing three-quarters of the way up it. _He hasn't left yet. All Might said he was predictable. He isn't as confident anymore that he'll win. He would flee, like at the bank when Midoriya arrived. Why? Why is he still here? He must think he can still escape with ease in this chaos, but he still needs… what? What is it he's still here for? Chemist? To keep his operation going? Or,_ What Wonderlass had confirmed to them over their headsets while Zach was reviving Plucky echoed in his mind, and he leapt back again to dodge Hydro who just barely missed a punch aimed for Zach's left side. The wind of Hydro's arm passing Zach's face pushed some of the black wisps away from his skull, making his face less shrouded by darkness than it had been since he used his Nightmare form.

Zach glared with his glowing red eyes at Hydro's face. _Apocalypse. It's here. I need to stop it. Destroy it all. Breakneck knows where it is, and Shigaraki doesn't. The Chemist probably doesn't either as Breakneck's prisoner. He was in charge, not Dandy. This whole thing is him. The crime rate in Feruchia, Apocalypse, whatever he stole from the bank earlier._ "Deku, Roady," Zach called out, his voice low and overlapping with a darker tone. His voice scared two of the villains fighting, though one was only scared for a second before Deku's foot nailed him in the side of his head and sent him flying unconscious across the floor. "I'm going after Breakneck," Zach said, and he spun and sprinted away while Hydro gawked at the kid with the audacity to leave him in the middle of his revenge.

"Where do you think you're going?!" Hydro shouted, pointing his back cannon towards Zach and charging it even stronger than before. Midoriya spun and opened his mouth to shout at Zach too, but his eyes opened wide as he saw Hydro about to fire at Zach's back.

"Look out-" Roady began, then he had to lean away and stop sprinting at Hydro as a cluster of sharp black needles flew by his body. Midoriya pulled his body back too as a scythe came spinning past his front with blood splashing off of it and onto him. As the blade was passing though, the steel of it started to wave around and change shape, then it curved back towards him and extended towards his body when he was about to keep running. Midoriya pulled his body to the side fast, but he still got slashed across his left shoulder from the Quirk he had not seen yet. Yet as he pulled away from Fez's attack, he barely felt the pain as he saw Hydro firing his cannon.

"Should be saying that to him," Zach said in a low voice as he ran, not loud enough for the others behind him to hear. It was not even loud enough for Hydro to hear, so the big man hunched over with his cannon pointed towards Zach was not prepared in the least even after the others had all seen it. They saw it at the tops of their visions, and Fez tried shouting towards Hydro to warn him. The bigger villain had hunched to aim at Zach though, forcing him to cut off the top of his peripheral vision so he did not see the thick steel beam falling for him thanks to his previous misfire at the ceiling.

The beam slammed down on top of Hydro's cannon and crushed down, Hydro's legs coming out from beneath him and his mouth opening with a gasp. Then all the blue condensed light inside his cannon erupted prematurely, a blast that pushed the others away and made Fez scream in rage. Sky-Girl lifted her head with huge eyes as she felt the heat from the blue explosion on her face. Plucky was kneeling next to her looking a lot better than her best friend did since she had wiped most of the blood from her face. Plucky looked past that explosion as it died down, spotting a dark figure running away without looking back once.

 _It was Hydro's own attack that dropped that beam on him, but,_ Roady thought as he stared after Zach. He shifted his gaze slowly back to where the explosion had faded to show Hydro's body inside it. His eyes opened huge as he stared at that man, twitching on the ground and then dragging his arms up at his sides. "He's still alive?" Roady whispered in shock.

"Haha, haha! That's right!" Fez shouted, spinning towards Roady with a bead of sweat on his face though he was pretending like he had not been nervous there at all.

"Zach!" Midoriya called out after his friend. He wanted to chase after him as he ran off alone in this dangerous situation, but Roady's right arm was covered in blood, Sky-Girl was in no condition to fight, and he did not know if Plucky would be able to get up so soon after being revived. He remembered Shoji getting right back up on his feet at the Sports Festival, but he also knew some people just stayed unconscious after being brought back like he heard Kurt 2 had earlier.

Plucky stared after the dark figure who was almost out of her line of sight. _**"Reaper's here?"**_ What the Chemist told her before she died, the question that had distracted her after she had mentioned Lifebringer, echoed in her mind. _Reaper? Why, did he call you that? Was that your name when you were here- when you were, one of them? He was scared of you. I think. Does he think you're out for revenge? You're going after Breakneck right, not the Chemist?_ _ **"He's, the most disturbed, disgusting person I've ever met."**_

"Plucky, if you can move," Roady started. "Get Sky-Girl out of here. You two need to-"

"I can still…" Sky-Girl's voice trailed off again, this time with her head nodding and her eyes shutting for real. Plucky was already helping her just to stay on her hands and knees, but all of Sky-Girl's weight collapsed in her arms and Plucky had to struggle more to hold her up.

"Yeah," Plucky agreed quickly, while Midoriya jumped around to face the other two villains still up. She saw Hydro pulling himself up more too, and she did not want to be there when the man who could survive that last explosion got back to his feet. Midoriya had tried to prevent that, but Fez was not letting him and had the needle-type Quirk villain helping him out still too. Plucky got up and pulled Sky-Girl with her, mustering all her re-found strength to put her friend on her back. Both of them were covered in blood, and Plucky had some more disgusting liquid over her costume as well. Thinking about why she felt so wet made her shiver and her body freeze up for a second, but the sound of Hydro's voice roaring in fury behind her made her start running back for the southern entrance of the lab.

 _Lifebringer,_ Plucky thought as she ran. She clenched her eyes shut for a second, then she opened them and a smile pulled on her face. _I won't say a thing. I don't know, anything about you. I really don't. But you brought me back to life, and I ain't the kind of girl to forget something like that!_

"Let's finish these guys quick," Roady said, while lifting up his right hand and showing Midoriya that he was holding a pistol. The villain using needles to attack Roady opened his eyes wide, and the young hero said, "I don't like using this. Rather do things a less damaging way, plus it makes villains think I'm weak in a fight, and that's not cool." Roady pointed the gun forward at the man who took a step back in fear while wishing he had not wasted all of his ammo firing at Wonderlass right after she broke through the doors. Roady continued in a lower voice, "I want to go back up Lifebringer."

Deku nodded and rose his fists in his white gloves. He stopped panting and took a deep breath that had Fez looking at him nervously, since the boy was treating this like it was going to be the final attack and that he was already prepared for it. "Hydro, get up," Fez snapped quickly. The scythes he was holding both started waving around, the steel of the blades extending and spinning around his body in a defensive way, though the would occasionally slash out while the short man licked his lips.

" _Gah!_ " The female voice shouting in pain in Deku's ears made his eyes open wide, then he had to dodge to the right as two metal blades whipped out towards him and tried cutting through his body. The other villain puffed his cheeks and tried spitting the needles he filled his mouth with- **BANG** **BANG** bullets flew into his knees and Roady tssked as the man screamed out in agony, then he spun the other way as he saw an orange line curving in his vision. The blade was meant for Deku, but Fez extended it long enough that had Roady not ducked it would have slashed across his back.

 _Wonderlass!_ Midoriya started breathing faster, and he darted his eyes up towards the staircase to the next level of the lab in what looked like a viewing room over the whole laboratory. All of the windows of that room were covered by metal shutters though, but there was a square glass window on the door at the top of the stairs. That window shattered when he darted a glance up to it though, a chair leg pushing through it and then sitting there as whoever pushed it through let go. Hydro got to his feet, Midoriya leapt forward, Fez slashed his blades, and Roady started firing. As Deku flew at the opponents in their final clash though, he heard Wonderlass's voice shout in pain again in his ear, then he heard her yell something else. "Deku! On me!"

"Eastern perimeter we have two casualties, but Gilgamesh and his agency just arrived as reinforcements."

"More heroes arriving in the north, but the situation is out of control-"

"Three blocks away two villains flying to the west. Should we pursue-"

"We can't waste the manpower…"

"Someone get an ambulance down here!"

"Lindsey? Samwell?! Someone respond!"

Zach stood in the second floor viewing room of the Trigger lab, facing the only man up there in that room with him. He had ignored what Breakneck tried saying smugly to him as soon as he had entered, because when he had been watching Breakneck through his peripheral vision, he had seen the man disappear on his way towards the door when he was so close instead of just using the door itself. The chair through the door's window blocked the main lab from view now, and all the shutters were closed. The power had been cut in the lab a little while ago, so Breakneck could not use the control panel behind him that he considered once he realized what this dark figure had just done.

Zach lifted his right hand and reached through the dark haze around his head. He tapped a button on the side of his helmet, cutting off the voices that were distracting him with thoughts about how he could go save people outside. The sixteen year old with a dark aura around his body and his skull showing through glared towards Breakneck with his glowing red eyes. He suddenly wished he had worn his black costume to the fight instead, as his whole body inside the translucent veil looked white from his neck to his feet. Zach knew he still looked ominous though, and he forced some of the thicker Death from around his back to his front to give him an even darker shade like he was getting more powerful while just standing there.

"Lifebringer," Breakneck began again to the boy who had calmly blocked out his one escape from the room. "I take it that means you know all about Flashstep? I'm glad the records on me were so thorough that-"

"I just asked All Might," Zach interrupted. "And he told me," he said it and then let out a long breath of black steam that hung in the air around his face and dimmed his skull from view, though his glowing eyes still showed through it. Breakneck's eyes looked as angry as Zach's glowing ones though at the mention of All Might's name, but Zach kept his expression steady despite how intimidating Breakneck actually was. He opened his mouth to continue, but Breakneck whipped his right hand up at his side and pulled a pistol out of nowhere.

Zach's eyes opened wide, then his body turned sideways as Breakneck fired. The bullet slammed into the door behind Zach, and it was time for Breakneck's eyes to widen though Zach's were still big. In Zach's head though he saw the knife flying towards him on New Year's, how quickly his hand had risen to catch it even when his mind had not yet processed what was coming. _With how much I've been training in Nightmare mode, my reflexes have gotten even faster. But, to dodge a-_ Breakneck vanished, and Zach ducked down right before another bullet fired. This time it was not solely based on his reaction speed, but the facial expression he saw Breakneck have an instant before he teleported, and All Might's advice to him all played a factor.

Zach snapped his right hand up and reached for Breakneck's extended arm holding a smoking gun. Breakneck started pulling back while grinding his teeth that the boy dodged again. He wanted to aim down at him, but he also knew to keep his distance from what he knew about him. Breakneck had done his research well after getting out, to figure out which heroes he had to be careful of in the new age he had returned to the world in. As he pulled back though, a black blade flicked up from Zach's other side and slammed into his gun and the hand holding it. Breakneck vanished again and reappeared across the room standing on top of the control panel as far from Zach as he could get.

Breakneck's entire body felt wobbly, and he darted his eyes to his bloody right hand that was no longer holding his gun which clanked on the floor and went off again, firing a bullet into a wall because of the hair trigger it had. _What is this, feeling?_ Breakneck grit his teeth and steadied his legs, then disappeared and appeared across the room to his left this time. He kept a distance from Lifebringer, while still dodging the other knife that the boy threw at him with a flick of his wrist. "I heard you were with the League for a while," Breakneck started. His eyes shifted towards the door that Lifebringer was moving away from, but Lifebringer's red eyes had shifted that way as well even as he moved for Breakneck's gun and bent down to pick it up. _He wants me to appear there to look through the corner where the chair isn't really blocking. It's the one angle that he couldn't block well, but I have to be right against the door to see through it. I'd have to become the perfect target._

Zach picked up Breakneck's dropped gun and walked back towards the door that he stood in front of again. He smirked and the black veil in front of his face did the same, his boney jaw moving into the position behind it in a creepy and frustrating way to the man who saw his escape route blocked again. _Get even sloppier. Get angry. Teleportation, it's OP. You've always known that, so All Might catching you must have been mind-blowing. How could anyone ever capture you? And now you're out, and you want to be more careful this time. You still think you're great, but you won't underestimate your opponents, and that means I can account for certain things. Such as you noticing an obvious trap, to give me the time to pick up your gun. And you'll probably need to come up with a plan. I do too. But to stall for time to think, what would you tell me?_

The smirk on Zach's face lowered a little again as he thought about all the others in the lab. Then he hardened his expression and spoke fast but in a dark and menacing voice, "I don't get it. What the Hell were you thinking breaking with Shigaraki?" Breakneck's eyebrows lifted and the tall, lean villain stared at his dark enemy in some surprise. "You had to know he would come after you," Zach continued in a darker voice that started to sound taunting instead of questioning like he was laughing at Breakneck's decision.

 _Oh ho ho, this is going to be easy,_ Breakneck started grinning at the kid whose glowing eyes narrowed while he started to look more confused.

"Shigaraki united all the villains in the country," Zach continued in a strong voice again, though he kept his face from looking as confident and more like he was getting frustrated at the way Breakneck was looking back at him. _The reason none of this has made any sense to me from the start. I couldn't see Dandy breaking off on his own, but it also didn't make any sense that someone smarter would leave the League with him considering how powerful they are._ "He broke you out of Tartaros with the biggest villain attack in generations. It doesn't make sense."

"Yeah, you'd think that wouldn't you," Breakneck said in a knowing tone. "But the League of Villains isn't what it was before they broke us out. I must have known Shigaraki would come for me? So what?" Breakneck smirked wider and started chuckling at the teenager in front of him. "You don't know a damn thing, so don't pretend like you've got it all figured out. Yeah Shigaraki popped-up here thanks to that Kurogiri, but it wouldn't have meant shit if you heroes weren't attacking today. I'll admit I might not have had the power to destroy them all, but why do you think it is Shigaraki comes now in the middle of an attack that's already got us preoccupied and damaged? Why is it that he's telling the guys he'll let them back in, instead of just killing them all for joining someone outside of the League?"

Zach started breathing a little faster but he tried not to let it show, which was difficult when his breath came out in puffs of black wisps. _Why would Shigaraki do stuff like that? The League is weaker? They broke more prisoners out than were captured at the Sports Festival Invasion. So I assumed they were stronger than ever! They threw our plans into chaos today too, just a few of them were capable of it… But if All For One knows about Midoriya, why haven't they done anything about him? If they wanted the Chemist back that badly, why send a small infiltration group instead of an army able to take out all the heroes and Breakneck's guys? Unless, if they lose too many guys on missions like these, they'll lose the faith of the rest of the villains still following them?! Villains are all in it for themselves. Very few are just for the ideology, and many of those guys follow Stain and nothing else…_ "Stain," Zach whispered. _If, no. Even if Stain had left, All For One-_

"You're pretty quick there, kid," Breakneck said, looking mildly impressed with what Zach just said. "If I had to blame it on something, you're right. It was Stain. I mean, there were some other factors too. Didn't even see Stain's video before it happened, but after I saw how big a deal it was when he left you can be sure I watched that shit. Fucking chills man!" Breakneck laughed for a second and then shook his head like he remembered what he was talking about. "But even though for me, it wasn't about the ideology," he paused and smirked at the shadowy teen before him. "The second he turned his back, their time was over…"

 **Four Weeks Ago**

"Forcible Quirk Activation!"

Breakneck was hanging back near the exit of Tartaros. Villains were panicking and shouting for help around him. A few huge Earth Beasts were holding down several villains around the exterior of the prison, though Pixie Bob was currently knelt over the body of a muscular man. The man had gotten in the way of Shooter's attacks meant for her, and Pixie Bob cried for her teammate who was not moving or responding to her at all. Breakneck turned his head to the left and looked up a bit towards the edge of the prison's walls where he saw some long-ranged heroes had arrived not long after he made it out of the building. _Do these guys really not have a plan?_

"Whoa! Look at that!" Breakneck turned and saw some others who were holding back to avoid fighting the heroes start running towards a huge swirling portal outside of the prison. Breakneck's eyes widened as he realized what All For One had done to open up the Warp Gate even though Kurogiri had been knocked out. Toga laughed happily and started running for the portal, calling out a thanks to 'Tomura' who had made it a priority after they made it outside and saw her captured by the Pussycats to get her free. Then Toga started running for the man who marched towards that portal with a limp in his step.

The Hero Killer: Stain lowered the katana he grabbed from a villain who had offered it to him inside the prison and he let blood drip off onto the floor in a line behind him. The line led all the way back to the body of the number four hero who other heroes were screaming in despair and rage and fear over. Stain left Edgeshot behind, but his eyes did dart to the right at a group of over a dozen villains who were all looking towards him with starry looks in their eyes. They were cheering for him, and a few of them were sacrificing themselves by running into areas the heroes would clearly capture them just to keep the heroes away from him while he walked towards the portal with a limp.

Breakneck watched as the crazy high school girl ran up to Stain and started jumping around him while speaking in an excited and happy tone, even though she was drenched in blood. "Everybody inside," Shigaraki called out, turning to face the huge swarm of villains who had not yet been captured. Others who had been caught called over for the rest to release them so they could come along too, but Shigaraki ignored them and said, "If you follow me, I will get you all out of this wretched place." Shigaraki started raising up his arms, but his head spun to the side before he could continue a speech and he called out, "Sensei!"

 _That's, All For One?_ Breakneck watched as the man who had been so menacing when talking to Edgeshot and the Pussycats at first, dropped down to a knee and started coughing. _The myth? The legend?!_

Not far from Breakneck, a man with spiky black hair who was walking towards the portal himself stopped and looked around at everyone they had broken out as well as their own guys. "Hmm," Dabi hummed. He turned the other way and watched as Toga leapt through the portal, then stuck her head out and called for Stain to 'come along.' He stared closely at Stain for a few more seconds, then he looked around at all the other prisoners who had been broken out with them, locking eyes with Breakneck for a moment too.

There were others who had stayed back like Breakneck during the fighting. Even though Breakneck thought for a moment about escaping as soon as he made it out the doors, he had wanted to see what the League's plan was after getting out. _I think going through the portal is the best option here. Still don't know much of the situation in the world right now._ Breakneck cracked his neck to either side, then he glanced right and motioned towards the portal with a smirk cracking on his face.

Blazerage stretched his arms up over his head, the orange flames going out on his fingers and a smug and excited look in his clear eyes as he headed for the portal. _Bet shit's gotten so strong since I was thrown in here. It always gets more powerful with time._

Breakneck walked for the portal himself, then a woman in a red and white costume turned from her teammates. The woman with cat claws and ears on her costume had tears in her brown eyes and a look of rage on her face. Mandalay did not try charging at the villains though, nor did she try to stop them from entering the portal like some of the others were attempting futilely nearby her. _**"Hey villains,"**_ Mandalay's voice filled the minds of hundreds of men and women ahead of her who looked around for the person speaking to them. She did not discriminate who she was speaking to, contacting everyone she could while glaring their way.

Breakneck turned and looked towards the woman with dark red hair and a matching colored tail who seemed to be the one talking to them. _Can she hear us back? What kind of Quirk is this? Doesn't feel like she's attacking._ _**"I hope you realize, you're all just pawns to them. The League of Villains, they're only using you to get All For One out. The rest of you were expendable."**_

Using Telepath, Mandalay put her thoughts into the villains' minds even as they continued walking or running through the portal All For One had opened up for them. _**"And the rest of you actually in the League!"**_ She continued shouting mentally as she saw others who she recognized as wanted League of Villains' members. _**"You're just as expendable to Shigaraki Tomura! How many of your comrades did we catch here today, who Shigaraki left behind so easily to get All For One through that portal? How many are being captured in Musutafu right now, with no way of escape considering Kurogiri and All For One's conditions?!"**_

Breakneck frowned and started for the portal himself again as he saw another team of heroes arriving up ahead. If all of the villains were still there he would feel more comfortable staying to listen to the hero for a little longer, but the mass of villains pouring out of the prison they had taken control of was getting smaller by the second, and what she just said made him worried about the longevity of that swirling black portal. Her voice continued as he moved for the portal though, _**"Shigaraki was fine with any one of you being captured or killed as long as he could get his precious mentor back. Just sacrificial pawns in the games of an immature villain who's really just an amateur…"**_ Breakneck entered the portal, a dark look on his face and a deep frown.

He walked into a huge room larger than any warehouse Breakneck had ever seen before. There were giant television screens on one wall with several villains against it sitting at chairs with computers near them. There were hundreds of villains moving about in there, with a central group near All For One and Shigaraki who Breakneck looked straight towards after getting inside. _I know what you were trying to do, hero… But you're right._ Breakneck looked at the expression on Shigaraki's face as he called out for 'the doctor' to come and help his 'sensei.' _Though_ _All For One's probably using that brat. He managed to get him to care enough to break him out of prison at least, and even if I was just a secondary side-piece, it's not too bad if it means my freedom._

Breakneck vanished and reappeared up on a catwalk in the middle of the room. A couple of villains had flown up to it, and he appeared between two who were perched up on the railing he started leaning forward on. A man flew up towards the place he was leaning but Breakneck did not move for him. The guy didn't need him to though, as he just flipped around in midair and grabbed the bottom of the catwalk with his feet to hang there like a bat. Villains spread out through the building, and Breakneck found himself a good place to watch it all with some other hardened criminals who had been thrown in prison with life sentences.

"If Kurogiri's down, how are we getting all the guys out of Musutafu?"

"Dabi, what Mandalay was saying-"

Dabi frowned at the guys confronting him, and the group of them eased back at his look. He was not over near Shigaraki and All For One like the other executives of the League including even Toga who had run to Shigaraki's side when he called to her. _The new Trigger knocks people out depending on how much power they use while on it,_ Dabi thought. _Kurogiri went all out, and for a long time too. Those guys are goners if they can't get out on their own._

Dabi turned his head a bit and looked around the room behind him. _But that's not a big problem in itself._ He saw the restlessness around him, people who had been freed from Tartaros and were looking for immediate instructions, but were finding none. They were excitable, and for the first time in decades for some, they were free. Some of the more violent types started giving others near them threatening looks, and most of the people they glared at glared right back at them. _We freed a whole lot of big shots,_ Dabi thought, his eyes focusing on a few people in particular who he knew about beforehand, as well as some he saw fighting with amazing Quirks during the prison break.

All For One had collapsed and was coughing a lot, as the mask he was wearing and the tubes coming out of it were damaged by Edgeshot early on after they made it out of the prison. Shigaraki helped him up and started away with him and the doctor who had come to help, and Shigaraki turned to Toga and said something that made her face light up with a blush spreading fast over her cheeks. She looked shocked at what she was just told, and that made Dabi grimace and start towards her. _He's putting Toga in charge because he's not thinking straight with All For One hurt like this. If Kurogiri was awake, or something…_ Dabi rose a hand and rubbed it through his hair with a pissed-off look on his face. _This is tiresome,_ "Toga," he started, shutting up the girl before she could start shouting to everyone in the room and convincing them that they were all crazy.

 _The biggest prison in Japan,_ Breakneck thought while looking down towards the two arguing near the hall Shigaraki Tomura just left down with AFO. _All these faces in one place, it's a disaster waiting to happen. Or an opportunity. Can they take the reins? All For One was legendary for gathering people like this. Uniting everyone with their different ideals and goals. I might even be open to listen to him, but to those two kids,_ Breakneck's mouth dipped down more at the corners as Dabi turned and started calling out, Toga looking disappointed with a pout on her face next to him.

"We're in the middle of an operation," Dabi said. "We'd like for you all to stay here at least until the duration of it is over. Then what you do-"

 _So he's trying to stall for time?_ Breakneck wondered, and he hummed to himself. _If they could hold on just long enough for All For One to get on his feet… but who knows how long that will be?_ He lifted a hand and scratched his chin, then he shifted his gaze around the huge crowd of villains. Many of them started shouting which was why it seemed Dabi had stopped talking, but most of those shouting villains quieted down as they saw Dabi not looking at any of them but turned and looking across the giant room and in the direction of the closest set of doors.

Toga's eyes opened huge when she saw where Dabi was looking, and she called out while running forward, "Stain-san! Where are you going?"

Stain stopped and he turned his head to the side. He looked behind him into a room packed full of villains. The portal back to the prison had closed, and there was no way any heroes would be following into the room now. He gazed around with a disgusted look at some of the villains he had seen back at the prison, while he just got confused by the looks coming from that girl and a large number of others who he had been kept isolated from in the prison.

"I don't plan on working with you," Stain said, turning back forward and continuing towards the doors. "I still disagree with Shigaraki's motives, though I begrudgingly thank him for getting me out, so that I can continue my work." Stain's eyes narrowed as he walked, and he slashed the katana he was still holding out to the side so blood splashed off of it.

"Who the FUCK does that guy think he is?!"

In the middle of the pack of villains, an eight foot tall man started marching after Stain. "That was _the_ All For One who-" the man stopped walking as five people got in his way. Stain had paused and glanced over his shoulder again, only to stare in confusion instead of the bloodthirsty way he was planning on. Then Stain's eyes opened wide as without warning, someone behind the tall villain and not in the group in front of him stabbed extending sharp claws into either side of that villain's neck. The claws extending in from either side connected with each other, slicing the big villain's head right off.

A woman dropped down on top of the big man's corpse, and she held his head up while bowing her head respectfully and staring across the room. After bowing towards Stain, she said in a subservient tone, "Allow me to come with you, Stain-sama. I will-"

"Why?" Stain questioned, a dark look in his eyes as he looked back at the creepy woman whose body was covered in blood from the faucet that had splashed up and down from the man's bisected body.

Toga turned her way and pouted before reaching down for her knives, _Who does she think she is?! I love Stain-san! I want to-_

"Allow us to come with you as well," a charismatic voice called out. A man stepped out from the group, wearing a cloak made from guards' uniforms that shadowed over some of the top of his face yet did not cover-up the big toothy smile he had as he offered his assistance. He also spoke using the Royal we, but it became clear after a second that he was not just speaking for himself. Others stepped forward after he called it out like it was a feasible option, and no one called out against them this time. Many of the prisoners who had been trapped in Tartaros for a much longer time were looking around in confusion and some even in fear at the cult-like following Stain seemed to have.

 _Who the fuck is this guy now?_ Breakneck thought, though he was staring with a lot of interest towards him, especially since the winged-villain on his left had an amazed look on his face like he was shocked to be seeing Stain like this.

"I don't know why you would do so," Stain started.

"We all follow true to your ideals!" The emphatic man called out, trying to convince Stain to let him come along. He swung his arm out to the side and continued, "You may not have known, but the world since your arrest has changed! We, we were all truly moved by your vision! The fake heroes of the world, they need to be purged." The man who swung his arm clenched that arm's hand into a fist and pulled it down in front of his chest. Blue electricity started sparking around his hand and then down his arm, and his face that was shadowed over got a bright blue sparking tint to cover it, showing a madness in his eyes that his charismatic smile did not match.

 _How did that happen?_ Stain looked around, his heart rate speeding up a bit at the looks on the faces of dozens of villains looking towards him. _Others, feel this way? They continued my work after I was arrested? Then, my work wasn't cut off. But it hasn't been long enough. I know there are still fakes out there. All of them…_ Stain's teeth bared and he turned away again. "I work alone," he said, and he continued towards the door. "If you really do follow those ideals, then don't get in my way." He paused, then he added, "And I won't get in yours."

Breakneck's eyes opened wide and a smirk spread across his face. He knew what was coming, and he saw the winged man on his left side start shaking with excitement after a second of having a shocked look on his face. _That guy, just recognized their resolves. Saying that, is like saying he respects anyone who really believes those things. And these freaks trying to follow him…_

 _Well, that's disappointing,_ Dabi hummed and watched as Stain walked right out the doors without looking back again. As he left, villains shouted how they would not disappoint him and would stick true to his ideals. Some started heading away immediately, others Dabi could see were still considering their options, like Dabi himself was doing. He looked towards Toga and wondered what the crazy girl who had joined the League at the same time as him would do. Then he turned his head to the side and looked back in the direction of Shigaraki and All For One. He glanced towards where Shooter and Valentine were standing near Kurogiri to guard him, darting violent looks at any opportunistic villains who might try grabbing him and leaving. _What are the chances Twice and Spinner make it out? Hackerman should be able to find them a good route, and as long as Endeavor is busy with Inhuman, as I doubt those Nomus held him off for long._

"Dabi," an obese man who made his way towards Dabi from the computers lowered his head for a second when Dabi looked to him, then he rose it and continued, "We have the Anti-Nomu-Terminators. These ANTs, or Ants, proved to be more than enough for most of the Nomus Endeavor had to face." Dabi looked over the fat man's head and towards the big screens and computers on the side of the massive room. Other villains who had glanced towards those televisions themselves started watching closer while they decided what to do for themselves. They watched the assault on a major Japanese city, on what should have been the most protected event in the country run by the most prominent hero school, and they listened to the despair and pessimism of the reporters talking about the chaos and destruction on a scale like no other.

Breakneck looked down towards the guy with the cloak of guard uniforms with a hesitant expression. Out of everyone left in the room, that man alone scared him. It had been only a minute since Stain had left, but the man was quickly going around and saying _something_ to others who both he and Breakneck had noticed were especially interested in Stain. _The ambitious,_ Breakneck shifted his gaze from that man towards a girl who had been questioned by him but held back unlike the woman with sharp and bloody claws who did decide to join him.

 _The undecided,_ Himiko Toga looked hesitant after she denied the cloaked man's offer. She looked towards the doors that Stain left through again with a sad and confused look on her face, but then she turned to the hall that Tomura had gone down and thought about what he had told her right before leaving. Toga thought about how he had been so quick to order everyone to free her from her restraints back at Tartaros, and a red tint came to her face again even though she looked sad as she turned back the direction Stain left.

 _The followers,_ Breakneck focused down towards Blazerage who he spotted talking to a man at a computer while leaning over the back of the guy's chair, getting uncomfortably close as he asked the man some questions. Breakneck's gaze shifted to the group following after the cloaked man, to the League of Villains guys who never once looked hesitant even when Mandalay was trying to shake their resolves.

 _The ones who are going to get caught right away,_ Breakneck stared towards a man with red skin who was smirking towards a couple of female villains, only to shake his head like he had to remind himself to hold back. A couple of others from the old War Boys tried talking to Damian, but he shoved them away and started for the doors himself, a crazed look in his eyes as he was ready to create some chaos on his own. _And guys like him are going to rat out where this place is in no time. But, there's no way after all this planning the League doesn't have a plan for that. That Kurogiri will recover, and if this is the kind of place these guys are running, there are sure to be dozens of smaller ones they weren't willing to bring all these loose cannons to. I think, I'd like to know where some of those places are. Learn more about this organization, before I make any decisions._

Breakneck chuckled and put his hands both back over the railing interlocked with each other. _And the patient. The smart. The ones who won't get caught up in their own ambition, but won't toss it aside either. Guys like me, who are going to run this shit._ He smirked as he heard something shouted from the screens on the side of the building. A rumor he had heard but did not know if he should believe, though there was no doubting it now. _All Might's gone. No one can stop me. All For One obviously isn't what he was before… not that I'll, say that aloud._ Breakneck chuckled to himself and then got a dangerous look in his eyes that the other villains up on the steel catwalk near him got unnerved by. _I'll take off soon enough. Take on this world that's going to become saturated with villains I can get to join my new crew. I'm sure some of the guys here will be willing to tag along. Once I've got a plan going… I'm back, mother fuckers._

 **Present**

"I really did consider staying," Breakneck told the dark figure in front of him. "I was ready to follow, for once, but All For One didn't just bounce back like I was hoping he would. Hoped to learn a thing or two from the guy, maybe ask for a better teleportation Quirk, not that Flashstep ain't great." Breakneck laughed, then an explosion rocked the entire building and both he and Zach stumbled to the side while the ceiling over their head cracked.

Zach turned his head to the right and swept his arm, making a Death Wind whoosh across the doorway. Breakneck yanked backwards and jumped away, then he gasped out right as he was about to get hit, as he managed to teleport across the room to behind Lifebringer as his recharge time limit finished. Zach spun around instantly and rose up his hands, creating dark spheres on them that grew thicker and larger in a second. Breakneck threw the chair he had yanked out of the window before teleporting away towards Lifebringer though, and Zach had to duck while whipping his right arm in front of him before the Death Grenade was finished. Breakneck leapt to the right to dodge, and Zach did not condense the attack enough for the shrapnel to really fly out with any force when Breakneck dodged it.

"What? You didn't like the story?" Breakneck asked, while Zach was suddenly stuck with a multi-layered decision. The worst part was, he knew that Breakneck had not just thrown the chair at him to prevent him from attacking right away. _He gave me the chair so I would reconsider putting it through the window again. Does he have another gun? Is he baiting me, or is he doing what I was doing and really doesn't have anything but wants me to panic because of it? Stay calm-_ Breakneck vanished, and Zach spun to look the other way in the room where Breakneck should have appeared. Instead, he caught a glimpse of Breakneck standing just on the other side of the door through the broken glass where the chair had been. _Fuck! The angle!_

"It's a race against the clock now kid! A race to see who gets the Chemist and Apocalypse first. Will it be the heroes, the League, or am I coming out on top?!" Breakneck leapt backwards as Zach tried throwing the second Death Grenade that was more perfected through the door. He made it explode prematurely, but Breakneck vanished in mid-jump before the sphere of darkness had even blown.

"Shit!" Zach yelled, and he slammed his right fist into the wall next to the door. His fist left a dent in the steel of the wall, and he glanced at that dent with slightly wider eyes as how far in it actually went. Then he shook his head and grabbed the doorknob with his left hand, yanking the door back open and running out onto the stairs again. He got onto them, they wobbled around, and then the building shook and a beam from the ceiling dropped down on the bottom of the steps, breaking right through them. Zach started running down the stairs as he felt them shaking much worse than the way up, **Crack- KA-** _ **CHHH**_

Zach leapt, and his eyes opened huge as the stairs collapsed behind and below him. "Oh shit," he swung his arms around to the sides and focused Death down on his legs. This was a farther drop than during the capture the flag game though, and he prepared for a large amount of pain as he neared the floor. He bent his knees and dropped into a roll when he hit the ground to weaken the fall as best he could, and then he ran right up onto his feet and kept going across the floor of the lab. "What the hell?" He muttered to himself as he ran. _There!_ "Breakneck! I won't-" Zach shook his head and stopped shouting in his scary voice as another explosion shook the building. _What have I been doing?_

Zach reached up and pressed a button on the side of his helmet again. "Breakneck's moving for the northern exit-"

"We're under heavy fire!"

"Endeavor's plane is twenty minutes out!"

"That guy is too bright! I can't see a thing!"

"We've been blinded!"

"Comms are out on the south side, a runner just came around…"

"Medical evac point is a half mile west of regroup point Bravo."

 _ **BwwooooOOOOO! BwwooooOOOO! BwwooooOOOO!**_ A loud siren started going off and echoing so loud that Zach expected it could be heard across all of Mosu Esupa. It sounded like a tsunami or earthquake warning, like an air raid siren calling for mass evacuations of the area, and it just kept going.

 _Forget Breakneck. For now, at least._ Zach started sprinting again, towards the north side of the building as fast as he could. _It is a race. And I need to stop him from getting Apocalypse, from getting the Chemist, but! But those are long-term things I'm trying to prevent! This town sounds like it's about to fall apart! If the villains on Trigger break through the police and hero lines, and they make it into the town to escaping civilians and use them as hostages! I_ _ **can't**_ _let that happen!_ Zach started focusing Death stronger around his arms, his Nightmare form's thicker black veil covering up the white costume on his sleeves underneath even though they were made of bones.

Zach ran by a hole in the wall without even looking towards it. Had he looked to the right for just a moment, through the hole on the east wall and into the exterior of the warehouse past it, he would have seen something that might have stopped him in his tracks. Through that hole in the wall, even the man with hands all over his body and wavy gray hair did not notice the figure who might have taken his attention away too. Instead he faced the boy who had come to face him, who _always_ came to face him. Wonderlass was panting and down on one knee to Deku's left, a frustrated look on her face as she had gone beyond her limits.

 _Super is always at full capacity,_ Deku thought, while keeping his eyes focused on Shigaraki and the men behind him. He was alone there with Wonderlass who he had shown up just in time to kick away a murderous Triggered-up villain about to kill her. _She fights as normally as she walks around or eats, because she doesn't need to power up. She's always at full. But that means, if she's ever in a fight and needs to use more than normal, needs to go beyond what she already is at, she's breaking through limits that already strain her body every minute of every day. Right now, I can see she's in so much pain. I didn't understand your Quirk, Wonderlass. I didn't understand why you were so unknown, despite how amazing you seemed. I'm sorry for what I said…_ Midoriya clenched his fists tighter in the white gloves of his green costume and rose them while glaring harder into Shigaraki's eyes.

"You know, Midoriya Izuku," Shigaraki Tomura began. "I don't think we've actually really fought before." Shigaraki started laughing and Midoriya got a bead of sweat on the side of his face though he tried to hide his anxiety at Shigaraki's tone. "I hate you, so much. I _hate_ you," Shigaraki lowered his head that he lifted while laughing there for a moment, and Midoriya saw a terrifying look in the laughing villain's eyes. A look of sheer rage and hatred also mixed with excitement and glee that he was getting this opportunity. "Of course you're here. You're everywhere," Shigaraki said. "Always trying to stop me, always failing."

Midoriya thought about the training forest. The scream he let out when Bakugo and Zach were through the portal. He imagined All Might in his weakened form in front of everyone, something Shigaraki had made happen with his League of Villains. He thought about the Sports Festival, how scared his mom was when he found her in Musutafu afterwards, how many people had died that day. Then Midoriya steadied his expression and said, "If Inhuman was allowed to continue his rampage, I'm sure a lot more of your villains would have escaped."

Shigaraki's smile dropped down instantly, as the boy reminded him how they were not _all_ failures. Inhuman, giving All Might time at USJ, saving Bakugo, Midoriya had gotten in his way many times and Shigaraki glared furiously into the boy's eyes. Midoriya stared back at him with a strong expression on his face and an unwavering look in his own eyes though. Despite the sweat on his face, Midoriya smiled towards Shigaraki and called out with his fists clenching harder in front of him, "I won't let you escape this time, Shigaraki Tomura! You're going to prison where you belong!"

The floor beneath Midoriya's feet cracked, then broke apart as he shot towards Shigaraki. Wonderlass stared after her intern with wide eyes, and then a huge grin covering up the fatigue and pain on her face at the look on the boy's face she just saw. Over his face she saw a translucent one of a man with pushed-back blond hair and two blond bangs pointed up like rabbit ears. He was smiling in the same exact way, and Wonderlass's hands started gripping the ground and digging through stone even as her arm muscles roared at her to stop moving. _Deku,_ she thought, as she dragged herself back up while in excruciating pain. The heroic smile on his face had brought one back to hers, and she roared in pain and rage and determination. _You have proved yourself. Now take that bastard down! I will defeat the rest!_ Her red eyes with blue irises narrowed down at the half dozen villains gathered with Shigaraki who all took steps back away from her. They saw her look directed at them, and all of them who thought her muscles had ripped apart keeping her unable to fight gulped as she charged.

Shigaraki sprinted forward and met Midoriya with his arm outstretched towards the boy's face. The boy changed directions in midair though, flipping himself up and over Shigaraki before spinning to kick down on him. Shigaraki leapt up himself though and reached a hand out to grab at Midoriya's face with speed that matched the teen's and made him pull his face away. The fact that he could still pull away that fast even after redirecting himself once in midair already though, made Shigaraki grind his teeth and glare in rage at the boy whose face his was passing in front of. "Today," Shigaraki said as his face passed close to Midoriya's. His voice got quieter and Midoriya's eyes bulged, his breath catching in his throat at the words whispered into his soul. "One For All dies with you."

* * *

 **A/N Thanks for reading! Shigaraki knows! AHHH... Hope you enjoyed the chapter! There's a whole lot going on I tried to convey in what was probably only a few minutes of time passing through this whole 18k word chapter. The perimeters around the building are breaking, sirens go off through Mosu Esupa, more villains enter the fray returning from drug runs or out from buildings the heroes did not know were part of the operation. Breakneck's flashback reveals some stuff about the League I've kept a mystery since the Sports Festival, and I hope you guys enjoyed that scene! Breakneck is after Chemist and Apocalypse, as are Shigaraki and the heroes. Who's going to come out with them, if anyone? Will heroes like Endeavor and Best Jeanist arrive in time to prevent the escape of the villains, or can the heroes there already do it themselves? Or is this going to be another devastating loss for the heroes?! The stakes are high as more heroes fall, Shigaraki faces off against Midoriya, and Zach rushes off to stop the rampaging villains! Leave a review telling me what you think, questions, or predictions for the upcoming chapters!**

Super Power Sensei chapter 75 . Sep 12

I think it would be a better idea for Zach, the heros, and the police to gather all the casualties at any given crime scene and put them in one place for Zach to revive after everything is under control.

 **You're right, but the heroes would have had to plan for taking casualties in that case. They had the element of surprise and were planning on trapping the villains inside, and though using Zach like that may have been a good idea, to plan for deaths is not something they're looking to do. Though it'd a good backup to have I agree. But also, to say that Zach could just revive them after it was under control is also off since he's got that time limit... Plus Zach's got offensive power too, and considering how much bringing people back hurts him they'd probably try to avoid that at any cost. Then again, lot of casualties happening right now so some people might be thinking the same thing. Anyway, nice point and thanks for the review!**

Guest chapter 75 . Sep 12

Honestly while you're remaining true to the actual series. I can't imagine that anyone would punish heroes (or Zach) for killing villians anymore. They've become a massive threat to public safety and if it were our universe the kill on sight order would have long been issued.

 **In our world, yeah I could see that. Kill on sight for sure, at least in the US. In BNHA though, I mean All For One pretty much destroyed a city and they threw the guy in prison. It's also been said in this story though that heroes don't get punished always if they kill villains. Grappler mentioned it a long time ago. Zach didn't have a hero license though and was said to have made bad judgement calls which made his trial happen before. Still though, if Zach were to just go in and straight-up murder a bunch of villains when there were ways to take them down not involving killing, def not okay. Even in our world in that case, which is one where cops would be quick to shoot "villains," they don't just charge into drug dens and start killing everyone inside. Even if those drug dealers were to start attacking, the cops would shoot back at them, but the goal would still be to capture more than kill, even if they would be let off without punishment if they did kill the villains. So I'm trying to stick true to BNHA world, but I agree with you too and we've seen Zach scrolling through the internet and seeing petitions for changing the laws, allowing murder of villains, etc. It's a good point, and thanks for the review but hope you see why they didn't just start massacring the villains here. XD**

Guest chapter 75 . 21h ago

Breaking Bad?

 **Boku no Meth Lab.**


	77. Chapter 77

**Disclaimer: I don't own Boku no Hero Academia**

 **Chapter 77:**

"Once again for anyone just joining us now, we are currently flying above Mosu Esupa in central Hokkaido at a horrifying scene. A hero raid gone wrong. As we pray that more heroes will arrive soon, the situation continues to spiral out of control below." The reporter with her head up close to the window on the side of the helicopter looked down with wide eyes while trying to keep her voice steady. The camerawoman at her side was doing her best as well to keep the camera steady too, and the helicopter pilot was trying not to get distracted so as to keep the vehicle as steady as possible.

The sky was brighter than it usually was on a night with no stars or moon showing. The bright orange flames around the north side of the warehouse, the blue flames that had spread over much of the warehouse's west and north walls, and blinking red and blue lights from the cop cars that had made another perimeter even farther back than the original one which was now the middle of the battleground all contributed to how clear a shot the camera had down on the scene below. Despite there being some smoke, they had a clear view down to the main battlefield on the north side full of flaming rubble and overturned earth. The brightest light, more than the flames or cop cars, was a villain who looked like a brilliant strobe going off over and over while he fought against a pair of heroes.

Heroes were matched up and fighting villains as hard as they could. Every villain who slipped out of the warehouse entered the battle, some had left other buildings near the warehouse and joined the fray, another had come inside the flaming fireball of the truck that exploded before crashing into the fight. The villains were not all out of it though; not all of them had used Trigger and even some who did still had good cognitive functions. There were a group of villains farther back towards the north wall of the warehouse who looked to be coordinating attacks and trying to push a route through between their fights against heroes who were also regrouping between skirmishes against villains they occasionally took down. Then there were a few villains who were trying to stay out of the fight completely and were still inside the building's northern entrance looking out cautiously to see what the others were doing.

The three villains at that exit never knew what was coming. The helicopter up in the sky was focused down on the man inside the flashing strobe who had garnered most of the attention of the heroes with his blinding light, though he blinded some other villains too and had made a short pause in the fighting that continued when people with blurry eyes turned away from him and got back to what they were doing. A skeletal figure with a shotgun walked out of the flames of a delivery truck's rubble and showed that it was not just the fire he had been inside that made him look like that, as his entire skeletal body was engulfed in orange fire. Some people even assumed, wrongly, that he was the reason the truck had exploded in the first place.

The camera pointing down towards the resuming fight on the north side of the building shifted back a bit as the attentions of heroes and villains behind the building started to shift too. The reporter in the middle of speaking about that skeletal figure covered in flames brought her attention back too and she continued, "…and another comes out of the enflamed warehouse. I just received word that a large backup force arrived in the south to back up the pro hero Bikergang and they pushed the villains back inside the warehouse and chased after them. Hopefully that team in the south can make it to this side of the building before they push…" the woman speaking rapidly into her microphone started lowering it as she stared at that strange figure in the northern exit of the drug warehouse. Something her colleague holding the camera mentioned that did not reach the mic made the reporter freeze and stare down with widening eyes at the figure standing inside an aura of darkness.

Zach rose up his right hand, a sphere of darkness on it that his fingers curled around to hold back the wisps trying to escape. He kept his left hand down at his side near his grappling gun and knives while staring out at the group of six villains closest to the exit. His red eyes flared and a black steam came out of his mouth to shroud his translucent skull with it. His body was visible through the black veil over him, showing the white shape of a person standing five and a half feet tall. Behind Zach on the floor inside the exit lay three villains unmoving and unconscious who could not be seen from outside.

Valerian turned her head and looked back at the dark figure who just left the warehouse. "Get over here," she snapped, her eyes returning to normal size after a second of staring at him in surprise. _Don't know who used Trigger to turn into that, but it looks dangerous._ "We're pushing-"

Kaito had turned away from the dark figure but did not look back at his gang leader as she talked. He turned the other way and looked back towards his older brother who was still flashing white closer to the perimeter of the cops and keeping them back. _Kito, I'm not leaving without you-_

Gogogo dragged her daughter back farther towards the police perimeter, only when she looked closer she saw that the two cop cars she was nearing had been abandoned. The cops who had been at it had retreated back to the next perimeter thirty yards back, unable to pull their cars away because of the amount of flaming rubble behind them from part of the truck that had crashed in. Gogogo could feel the blood all over her back from where she was shot shielding her daughter from the flaming skeletal villain, but her rough skin was thick enough she could keep moving. The pro hero snarled though while looking back towards the warehouse where she saw another villain just exit. Then her snarling stopped and she opened her eyes wide because she recognized that costume in the veil, and the form itself.

Zach wound up, and he threw his attack while thinking, _Death Grenade!_ He had condensed the Death in his hand as much as he could as any more and it would start seeping out. He threw it high, not down at the six villains who to him seemed like they would be the most trouble considering how they were conniving together. His attack looked like it would arc over the villains towards some other target, and those villains started turning in the direction of where it would arc down to, confused since he did not seem to throw it far enough that it would reach the cops. The Death Grenade rose over the heads of the villains, but it never continued its arc. Zach clenched his right hand into a fist while his arm was in its follow-through.

The Death Grenade exploded, black shrapnel wisps shooting down towards the villains below who snapped their heads back up in shock. Valerian rose her arms fast, turning them into lava and making a shield to cover herself from whatever was coming for her. Kaito dove for cover to his right, and he put his hands over his head that covered in small triangle-shaped spikes for protection. Kaito lowered his arms after a second, his face panicked as he saw black wisps slamming down into the floor at the sides of his head but just missing him. He turned his body and sat up a little, only to stare in shock as all of the others behind him collapsed. They had been conspiring to escape unlike him who had just stood next to Valerian nervously watching his brother. All of them were scary and threatening and powerful, and all of them fell to the ground. Even Valerian who had blocked the attack with her lava wobbled on her feet and fell to her knees, then forward on her face after a second of looking confused and angry.

 _Before they recover,_ Zach started sprinting forward, straight towards the man he saw turn himself over after diving away who did not get hit by his attack. "Wait! I give up!" The man shouted, throwing his hands up with a terrified look on his face as the dark figure leapt down the stairs and sprinted towards him. Zach's right arm hesitated with more black aura covering it again, then he continued whipping it around and swung a faint black wave of Death over the man who crossed his arms and yelled a cut-off shout of fear before falling backwards.

Zach did not slow down as he swung his arm out to the right. He pulled his grappling hook off of his waist on his left side, and he pointed into the bright white light where a man flashing like a strobe had spun his way at the sound of that other man's fearful shout. The strobe had faltered for an instant when the man turned, staring in horror towards his brother. A wispy black hook flew into the bright light and wrapped around the flashing figure, making the man snap his head down in shock and then back up with a look of fury on his face. He started raising his arms, only to find that they did not have any strength in them so they fell back down to his sides. Zach yanked towards him to release the hook and pull the villain off his feet, while the white light started to get fainter and dimmed to nothing.

Not too far away, Gilgamesh and five of his sidekicks were tying up a group of three villains who had tried to break through the weakened defenses on the northeast side of the warehouse. The man in a bright gold costume opened his eyes wide as he saw the dark figure take down the one who had blinded everyone a minute ago, and he pointed his right hand forward in its golden glove. "Their momentum is gone! Now is the time to strike!" The floor in front of Gilgamesh's feet turned into a liquid gold that he shot forward across with a wave lifting under his feet, and his hands lost solid form too before he punched his right arm forward so it extended out in a long golden punch. A female villain spinning back to the east to try and escape the dark figure opened her eyes wide and then got encased in the viscous gold. Gilgamesh pulled his arm back but left the gold coating around the woman who it hardened over after a moment of her struggling to escape from it.

Kurt stared back towards Lifebringer with wide eyes, then a smile covered Team Canada's leader's face and he charged forward at the skeletal man holding a shotgun who had turned to the dark figure with a pissed-off look on his skull face. Zach looked towards the skeletal man himself and he leapt up in the air, dodging the shotgun round that hit the ground behind where he was just running an instant later. He pulled out a knife to swing down at the man, only to look behind the villain with widened red eyes for a second as Kurt's extended arms with lots of elbows swung around a ripped-off police car door and slammed it into the flaming skeleton's side. Kurt's Quirk, Joint Extend, let him extend his arms and legs while creating more elbows and knees inside them. It got harder to use while having to focus on so many different points of movement he had control over as well as normal people would over their own elbows, but a simple swing of a door that knocked the flames off of a moving skeleton was easy enough for him.

Zach landed and checked that the boney villain was really out, then he snapped his head to the right where the ground was starting to bulge up. He darted his red eyes back and forth and spotted a man using flames for cover pressing his hands down on the ground while looking his way. Zach forced Nightmare down strongest on his legs, and he kicked off the floor the opposite direction as the bulging earth. Deathpop saw Zach moving so fast that he would be out of range if he tried making his attack any bigger, so he blew the ground up as it was and the force lifted Zach off his feet as he ran. Zach flew off the ground and felt the force on his back, making him clench his eyes shut in pain. He opened them though while still in the air, and he curled his body and dropped down into a roll that did not hurt him again like it hadn't earlier.

 _I feel stronger today than ever. Why? Now's not the time, but,_ Zach spun towards Deathpop and he started running towards the villain who had to turn and be careful of other heroes who all started rushing in on the villains' positions at the same time. The heroes were not all tired too, some of them just arriving and backing up others who were more experienced fighting these villains now and were able to give advice. The tone of the battle had changed, and Deathpop realized it with a twist of his lips and furious snarl on his face. He rose his arms up and they started bulging in size, and he cracked a huge smirk despite all the people charging at him which made them all stop where they were.

Zach stopped where he was too. _But,_ he thought, even as he tried focusing on Deathpop. _What is it? I didn't kill anything. And I'm not getting stronger as I fight. I did train some more after the Sports Festival, but I didn't feel this strong before- or during… Is it because I died? Is this what changed? Except, I felt similar to this during the fight with Inhuman. After I killed Spinner. I'm not feeling as strong as I did then… or am I? I just don't feel, as excited? As good? Right after, when I first used Nightmare that day, I had so much power. I_ _ **felt**_ _super-powered, but right now I feel like I'm exerting just as much Nightmare. Is it because of the feeling of killing someone that made me actually notice it? In that case, was it not just a temporary boost? Did it make me, stronger?_ Zach's eyes started to widen, and then they bulged as did all the heroes staring at Deathpop and waiting for his explosion before running at him again. Some long-ranged attackers were about to try and stop him from making his explosion at all, but everyone just froze what they were doing and stared in shock towards where Deathpop had just been standing.

A man had dropped out of the sky on top of Deathpop. His hands were pushed down on the floor and his feet too, both of which were covered in blood especially now that he had to pull them out of the body he had crushed. _This is no time to think about that,_ Zach realized as he fully refocused on the task at hand. The villain ahead of him looked thin, not very strong, but the man had such an anger-filled look on his face that it made up for his physical appearance. That, and the fact that he had just murdered Deathpop with his bare hands and feet had the heroes hesitant about how to proceed. One of the long-rangers about to attack Deathpop changed his target, and he fired a pair of black claws out towards the man from his wrists.

The villain with scars over both eyes and one cutting over his lips turned his head to look at those approaching claws so fast that his head looked like a blur. Styles' mouth twisted into an even more ferocious snarl, while the Trigger that the other villains forced down his throat coursed through his body even more. The pain of one of his kidneys shutting down and his stomach ripping open only made the villain with an uncontrollable Quirk normally, called Rage, all the more furious. He snapped his head forward when the claws were close to him, and he bit down on the right black claw and tore off two fingers with how hard he clamped down. The sharp nails on the ends of those fingers sliced open the villain's tongue inside his mouth, and he spat the fingers to the side along with a glob of blood while the hero pulled his hands back and screamed in pain.

Psycho, Styles' villain name when he used his Rage Quirk, sprinted towards the hero in mid-scream. Zach started running after him, as fast as he could since the villain was way too fast for anyone else to catch up with. The villain punched a fist forward, but the hero slashed down his undamaged claw and managed to swipe it across the villain's face vertically. Psycho lost some force in his punch, but after it connected and his eyes snapped back open with blood filling them now, he put that force back into it and threw the hero back and towards the police perimeter that a cop just came out from behind to help drag an injured Lobscar back.

The pro hero slammed so hard into the cop's head that the man's neck snapped and he fell lifeless to the side. After colliding, the hero rolled through the air past him, bounced on the hood of a cop car, and collapsed on the other side coughing up blood.

Zach's red eyes darted different directions. They snapped towards Gilgamesh and some other heroes who were heading into the lab to back up other heroes and stop the retreating villains who they had momentum against now. His eyes shifted over the cop cars ahead of him where he saw scared officers, some members of the media, civilians who were huddled near the police because they did not want to run off alone with those loud sirens indicating the entire town was in danger. Those blaring sirens had gone off apparently to indicate that villains had made it beyond the perimeter so as to alert everyone in Mosu Esupa to be careful, and they continued going off for the last few minutes. Zach's gaze passed the collapsed officer he just saw die who two of his fellow cops were alongside shaking and shouting at since they had not seen how far his neck had bent on that initial collision and still had hope unlike Zach. While he had looked at it all his heart had been racing because of how much there was, but his breathing remained steady and he took in one deep breath.

 _There are a lot of things, a hero needs to protect,_ Zach thought. He pulled out a pair of knives and slashed the blackened weapons across each other in front of him. "Hey you ugly idiot!" Zach called out at the villain who was spinning side to side to face the heroes all scared of him after seeing how fast he moved. That man turned his way, and Zach grinned, the black aura in front of his face shifting the same way as the villain clearly acting on emotion was now targeting him. _Catching Breakneck, Chemist, Shigaraki and… Saving all the people still alive around here, and bringing back those who are dead. Stopping the drugs from reaching the streets to decrease crime in the neighboring cities. And destroying Apocalypse to stop it from ever being used again!_ _There's a whole lot!_ Zach's hands tightened harder on the hilts of his knives, and he sprinted forward while Psycho sprinted right back at him.

 _He's faster, but-_ Zach rose his right arm and flicked the first knife forward, but the fast and angry villain leaned his body to the side without slowing down his sprint at all. The villain pulled his right arm back and punched forward faster than Zach could dodge, if Zach was not already ducking down so the arm passed only centimeters over the top of his head. The villain's momentum kept him going so fast that as his punch passed Zach, the rest of his body slammed into the ducking boy and knocked him backwards. The villain fell over Zach and they rolled back (for Zach, forward for Psycho), multiple times before finally coming to a stop. And when they stopped moving, neither Zach nor Psycho got up for a few seconds. _Ugh that hurt,_ Zach opened his eyes and then pushed Psycho away from him fast as he was still touching the villain.

 _Oh shit,_ Zach thought as he looked at Psycho's body next to him. He started panting black steam while looking down at him, then he had a revelation and his eyes brightened which unnerved a few heroes at the red glow in them. _I don't feel any stronger. No way I just killed him. It's probably, more like Ganeshi. He was touching a lot of my body, but I've used a bunch of Nightmare already so hopefully it wasn't too bad. Still, I could see him being comatose… maybe, brain-damaged,_ Zach tore his eyes off of the villain he was starting to feel bad for, and he shook his head around while glancing back at the warehouse. He stared at it for a moment, then he brought his right hand up while spinning the other direction. Zach touched his chest with his fingers sliding out of his glove, and he ignored the shouts from heroes around him who were yelling to figure out who he was now that they were not in the middle of fighting.

Zach turned back to normal, his black aura disappearing to show him in a white costume and black helmet that did not cover his face. He ran forward and waved his left arm at the cops who were too close to their dead comrade. "Get away from him, I'll bring him back!" _I can't spend too much time here!_ Zach sprinted straight towards the cop and did not bother wasting time explaining to the people around him what he was doing. The flames outside of the warehouse were getting smaller as Floodlight had arrived with his sidekick who had a water-type Quirk just like him, but the light from those flames and the lights from their cars still let the cops see who was in front of them to give them hope for their fallen friend.

Zach dropped down on the cop's body and pressed his left hand into the man's chest, then he brought it up to the guy's neck quickly to check his pulse. He almost dropped straight with his right to not waste time, but he had told himself before never to skip that step just in case. He was fast to bring his right hand down though once he was sure the man was dead, even though he was 99.9 percent on that already. Zach grabbed around the guy's neck with his right hand, thinking, _When I put my hand over people's bodies when they're all cut up, the gashes closest to where I put my hand first always clear the fastest. So a snapped neck, maybe it could be, ah, ah AHH!_ Zach clenched his eyes shut and tried to focus on usability of his power as it was a great distractor away from the horrendous pain in his neck.

"Raaa, ahh AHHH!" Zach snapped his head up as he felt a huge jolt in it like his own neck snapping, and he felt terrified for a moment as he thought it had actually happened. Then he felt the man below him come back to life, and he looked down and did not feel a huge amount of pain that he would if his neck was still broken. _I'm good,_ he thought, while pulling his hand away and standing back up.

"Is he-"

"That's it?!"

"Is he really alive?"

"Lifebringer over here!"

Zach spun back to the warehouse and was about to sprint towards it when he heard that last shout. He was ignoring most of the people around him as he could hear voices in his earpiece too from heroes still in fights inside the warehouse.

"We're calling to bring other casualties back here," a police sergeant called over to Lifebringer who spun to face her. The woman in a black, police special forces uniform had sent out the message while Zach was healing the other officer, but she did not think he would be done in twenty seconds flat that he might think about leaving before the others arrived at their area.

Zach bit down as he looked into the woman's eyes, then he turned to the warehouse again that still had blue flames rising from the walls. He heard shouts inside from the others at Bikergang's agency, from his friends and fellow heroes still in the fight, and he heard an explosion while looking at the building. _How do I save the most people? Is it out here? Is it in there?_ Zach turned and saw a hero carrying someone in their arms his way, and behind him he spotted an EMT and a police officer rushing someone on a stretcher in his direction around the west side of the building. _I can't just leave these people. They've died within the time limit! I have to keep moving fast though!_

The option was his, and a huge part of him wanted to run inside. He knew he had the choice to do so too, and to just hope that there would be time after the villains were defeated for him to come back out and revive everyone. He knew he had the moral right as well to protect the others still alive first and stop the villains who could do so much damage if they were to escape. But then he considered that the reason he was looking for so many reasons to run back into the warehouse, was because he was scared of the pain he would feel bringing everyone back instead. Those reasons sounded a lot more like excuses now to avoid the feeling of getting shot, being stabbed, his body breaking, and dying.

 _If I start, will I ever be able to stop though? There are so many people who have been killed already it seems like. And by staying out here and not helping, won't there be more? I'll wind up doing this until I drop unconscious from the pain! NO! Don't, accept that as a finality! Surpass your limits right now._ Zach started sprinting towards the people closest to him with a dead body with them, deciding that there was no time to waste and that he needed to work as fast as possible. _Go beyond,_ Zach thought while yelling at them to put his next "patient" on the ground. He smiled at the officers who asked if he was alright, he wiped some blood from his face still there from when he painfully brought Plucky back, and he told them he was fine. The smile was half to put the scared people around him at ease and to show he was okay, but it was also half because of the creed he finished in his head, _Plus Ultra!_

On the west side of the warehouse, just through the hole in the wall so he was outside of the building, a spiky-haired villain looked to the north around the corner of the building and towards a boy who started bringing someone back to life and trying to smile as he did it. There were a lot of blue flames around the exterior of the building on his side, keeping heroes and police from rushing in at this angle. He could hear heroes running into the building behind him though and saw them enter through the north entrance as he had just heard they had in the south. The idea that the villains were once again losing control of the situation filled the back of his mind, but the man with a patchy appearance and discolored skin on the bottom half of his face and under his eyes just stared towards Zach with a dark look on his face.

Dabi rolled his right arm and he rubbed its bicep with his other hand. Inquisitor's body was slumped against a wall back behind Dabi in the wide outer hallway outside of the Trigger lab. It was burned up to a point it was no longer recognizable, and Dabi had been thinking about how two of the three Tartaros escapees who betrayed them were finished-off now. The three of them had not just broken away from the League of Villains which had been acceptable, but they had pretended to join only to leave after learning enough to be able to steal important "pieces" from the League. Dabi lowered his left hand that had some of his blood on it now, and he took a step forward towards the north. Then he froze, and he turned around and headed back into the warehouse. Dabi reached up and rubbed a thumb underneath the scars below his right eye, wiping off the blood trail that started dripping down his face.

* * *

"Shigaraki! Let's-" the Chemist's voice was cut off as an arm clotheslined across his chest and knocked the wind out of him. The man who collided with him wrapped his arm around Chemist's front while springing away from Shigaraki and towards the muscular woman with a shaved head who grinned as he reached her position.

Shigaraki Tomura glared towards Bikergang in a way that would terrify normal men, but Bikergang glared right back towards him before grinning. "You won't be getting your mad scientist back, Shigaraki Tomura," Bikergang pulled out his special capture-ties and yanked Chemist's arms behind his back while the scientist struggled against him. "Juno Kawasagi, you are under arrest. Now sit still or I'll have to do some damage to that head of yours which I'm sure a man like-" The doctor stopped struggling at the idea of damage to his head, and Bikergang grinned more while thinking, _Lifebringer thought that might work on you._

Midoriya leapt backwards and dodged a spike of cement that shot out of the ground at his feet. He flicked a finger towards some bloody black whips flying up at him, ones Bikergang was being very wary of as he kept them in his peripheral vision. He had not grabbed his left side for a while now, but his costume was soaked around where he had been stabbed by that very same villain earlier while trying to rescue Underguard and Rubbergirl. Deku's finger flick made an air blast that sent the whips out to his sides, giving him a path between that he took by kicking his legs out behind him.

Deku slammed into the woman who tried curving her whips back up while still mid-stumble back from the wind force that hit her. Then as she gasped out in pain from their collision, Midoriya put his right hand on top of her head and the other on her shoulder and he flipped himself over her while picking her up off the ground. His feet finally hit down behind where she had been standing after flipping her upside-down, and he threw the woman he was holding forward into two other villains running at where he landed. He threw her so hard that she knocked the men off their feet and back towards the guy who had been making spikes shoot out of the ground.

As that six foot tall villain leapt up in the air to dodge his comrades, Midoriya spun away from him and back towards Shigaraki whose attention was split now that Chemist had emerged to try and join up with him. Deku knew from the short amount of time he had been fighting these villains that the gray-skinned bald villain who had leapt in the air could not use his Quirk when his feet were not touching the ground. So he had a moment. Before the other villains recovered, while Shigaraki's eyes had darted back to Chemist to see if the wounded Bikergang and Wonderlass would be easy enough to free the scientist from, Deku made his move.

"Reflect Wall!" A villain who had been watching the fight from nearby rushed towards Shigaraki when he saw that curly-haired boy turn back towards him. Midoriya's eyes darted that man's direction, and he clenched his left fist hard while kicking his right leg forward at twenty percent of his power. The wall he slammed his leg into that shimmered into existence ten feet away from where Shigaraki stood got covered in huge cracks. Those cracks covered the wall and made the villain who created it open his eyes huge in shock, then drop his jaw as Midoriya's leg bounced back in a ton of pain, but the boy who conjectured the Quirk's ability based off that attack name was ready for it.

Deku bit down through the pain in his leg and he slammed his left fist forward into the center of the cracks covering the wall. He felt a bit of recoil this time too, but he punched hard enough that his fist went straight through the wall and kept him moving forward for Shigaraki. He had sent himself flying at Shigaraki so fast by exceeding the limit on his left leg on the jump which was why he immediately switched to punching after his first kick, but he had lost a lot of momentum in the punch and kick against the Reflect Wall. Shigaraki had more than enough time to turn Deku's way, and with his slowed movements, Shigaraki was the faster of the two and started bringing up both hands fast towards Deku's falling body.

Midoriya saw Shigaraki's hands opening up and rising for him, and he flicked all of the fingers of his clenched fist out as fast as he could. He still had Full Cowling covering his body, so flicks from his support gloves worked as pressurized air cannons that flung Shigaraki back before his hands could Decay the boy just in front of him. Deku landed and sprinted forward while Shigaraki was still in the air, wind rushing by Deku's sides at how hard he pushed down on his feet despite the lingering ache in both legs from exceeding his limit and the powerful recoil from the Reflect villain's Quirk. Midoriya's moment was gone though, and he had to duck while running to dodge a spinning disk with blades coming out fired from a contraption on the wrist of a villain he had knocked down a few seconds ago.

As he ducked, the ground in front of him moved around as it always did right before spiking up. Shigaraki was about to land behind that spot though, and MIdoriya was not giving up his chance by turning back now. He took his next step down with his right foot but slammed it into the floor harder as it touched. He broke his foot through the solid ground and then dragged it forward, "HAWAII… SMASH!" Midoriya slammed his foot up and through the spike that just pulled out of the floor, blowing it apart into a hundred pieces meant to collide with Shigaraki.

Deku saw movement on his left side. Shigaraki had been blocked from sight for a split second when the spike of ground rose up, and he thought he saw behind that spike Shigaraki moving around the left side of it to come for him. Even when he saw the movement on his left while all the debris shot away from him, he swore it was in the shape of Shigaraki Tomura, only for that figure to disappear when his head actually turned left and focused on what he thought he saw. He felt the footstep behind him. Midoriya saw the woman who was just helped up to her feet and about to whip her long black arm-whips towards him freeze like she no longer needed to do it. On his left over where Wonderlass and Bikergang were restraining Chemist and another villain, he saw the pro hero he had chose to intern with look towards him in fear.

He felt the hand touching the back of his green costume and started swinging his left elbow around his body before he had even turned his head. His elbow gained power and speed as it slammed around, but it did not move fast enough to do more than push the hand that caught it back into Shigaraki's side. The hand touching his costume pressed into his back while the other caught his left elbow, and Midoriya screamed in pain, "AHH!" As he yelled though, he also slammed his head backwards as hard as he could and smashed it into Shigaraki's chest and the right corner of his chin as the villain tried pulling his head away and almost avoided it.

Shigaraki stumbled backwards and reached a hand up to his face where his chin had cut and blood came out of it. His chest hurt a bit too, as did his arm and left side from catching that elbow. It was nothing compared to the teenager in front of him though, who spun fully to face Shigaraki while panting. Midoriya panted and clenched his left fist tightly at his side which he was glad he was still able to do considering the amount of pain he felt in that arm. He could not see his back like he caught a glimpse of his elbow and how bloody it was, but the other heroes looking Midoriya's way saw that the back of his costume had completely torn away from his shoulder-blades to his lower back, and there was red all over it from where Shigaraki's Decay had ripped through Midoriya's skin.

Bikergang stared in shock at the damage the powerful young hero sustained from what had looked like an instant of Shigaraki touching him. Despite getting a bloody chin, Shigaraki grinned after a second. He lost the snarl from failing at killing Midoriya right there as he was trying to do, smirking instead at the boy who was clearly damaged from his attack.

Deku could see why Shigaraki grinned though, and he stopped panting and stood up straighter without as much of a panicked look on his face. The terror that he had almost Decayed right there pushed to the back of his mind. He had no time to think when it happened, he did not know what it was Shigaraki did that made him believe he was coming around the other side of the spike that he actually did, but he knew that was too close. _I can't let him touch me again. If he had his hands on me for a single second longer,_ Midoriya clenched both fists harder at his sides, his blood pumping and his heart pounding in his ears.

"Shigaraki!" Chemist shouted towards the leader of the League of Villains. He would not try escaping Bikergang on his own with his hands tied as they were and the threat Bikergang used on him still open. "Help me!"

Shigaraki glared at Midoriya Izuku, and he was about to run forward when his gaze shifted fast to the left and a hole in the wall where some heroes just came running into view. Bikergang was the fastest to push in from the south entrance and back up Deku and Wonderlass, but others from their initial main entry point were running towards them. Roady was among them, as were some fresh heroes, and Spunky and Vixen came running into the group from the other direction looking injured but still able to fight.

"Where's the Apocalypse?" Shigaraki questioned, his eyes darting back to Chemist which made Midoriya stare at him in shock.

 _Is he trying to run now?_ Midoriya thought. Then the boy heard shouts from the heroes behind him who Shigaraki had just seen, and his fists clenched even tighter as he knew he had to be the one to attack if Shigaraki was planning to flee. "I won't let-"

"Dandy took it!" Chemist shouted. "I know-" Bikergang elbowed Chemist in the face, then he forced the doctor to the ground while the man yelled about his nose in a nasally and agonized voice. Then he just started shouting for Shigaraki to help him again as Bikergang told him not to move.

Midoriya started running at Shigaraki, while the other villains who had been backing him up lost their desire to do so at the sight of the hero reinforcements coming for them from the hole into the main lab. Deku was close to Shigaraki already, but he made it one step before spinning his head to the right and then jumping backwards. The decision to jump backwards instead of forwards at Shigaraki came without thinking too deep into it, and Midoriya grit his teeth in regret though he did not know if it really would have been better to keep moving when the outer hall they were in was suddenly split by a jet of blue flames.

"Dabi," Midoriya said, looking to his right where the spiky-haired man holding a hand out stared back towards him. Dabi saw the state of the kid's back and his left arm too, but he was not underestimating the curly-haired hero whose eyes were intense as he said Dabi's name.

"Heroes are coming in from the north and south," Dabi warned Shigaraki without taking his eyes off Midoriya. Dabi lifted his other hand and pointed it at the hole in the wall of the main lab. Midoriya saw Shigaraki running towards him through the path that the blue flames had just started fading from, and he also spotted the other villains still capable of fighting all get back into it with the backup from Dabi. They were all convinced they would be able to join the League and escape through Kurogiri's portal at this point, and as bad as the odds were starting to look, none of them were willing to just sit back and let the heroes capture them. Wonderlass grabbed the villain on the ground next to her and dove closer to Bikergang and Chemist. The Chemist pulled away on his knees and screamed out in panic as the blue flames came close to him, and he yelled at Dabi to save him not kill him.

Deku had wanted to stop Dabi from firing his attack, but the other villains could see the reason why Shigaraki had charged the kid was to stop him from doing just that. Another Reflect Wall appeared up on Dabi's side between him and the teen, and three spikes rose out of the ground next to him on that side too. Shigaraki reached for Midoriya's face, and Deku yanked his body to the left instead of the right towards Dabi where he expected Shigaraki thought he would dodge to. The other villains made it clear he would not be stopping Dabi from blocking the hero reinforcements, but Deku adapted fast and without getting discouraged. _The other heroes can get past it,_ he thought, while swinging his right leg up in front of his body and into Shigaraki's left arm. The villain had brought it down towards Midoriya's leg that he saw rising, but Midoriya shifted the angle a bit to miss Shigaraki's hand and hit him in the forearm instead.

He slammed Shigaraki's forearm back too and into his stomach, kicking the villain backwards and off his feet to the ground for the first time in their fight. Deku had to pull his body back after the kick and almost fell down as he dodged sharp spinning disks and pointy black whips, but landing a blow like that on the leader of the League of Villains made the other villains sloppy. The Reflect villain got nervous and started panting harder than he already was as the wall he put up with a large amount of his strength turned out to be useless. It was even worse since Vixen unhinged her jaw inside the lab and spewed a purplish-black sludge out over Dabi's blue flames and was opening back up that path quickly.

Shigaraki got back to his feet quickly, even though he was in a lot of pain from that kick in his arm and stomach. He could see the other heroes behind Deku, and he knew the young hero knew what he was doing with his positioning between them and him. The other two heroes there had an important piece of his between them, but he was not the only thing that Shigaraki came for. Shigaraki took a step back and said, "Dabi, Dandy has the Apocalypse."

Dabi swung his arms down when he saw Deku's eyes shooting open wide. Before the boy could react, a wall of flames rose up in a line straight towards Deku but just off target to make him decide again. Midoriya had the option of racing forward to the other side of the wall, which would put him right in the middle of all the villains he would have to be fighting as well as cutting him off from the hero reinforcements about to make it through the lab. What was worse, before the wall of flames even finished rising, Shigaraki was already running Dabi's direction showing that he was planning on escaping from there.

 _I can't let them escape! What if it's a trap to get me farther away from the Chemist?!_ Midoriya hesitated, then he pulled back and just leaned away from the flames without jumping back to the others. He glared through the flames after Shigaraki, trying to find his angle and think of the move to make. _The ceiling? Shigaraki would expect that. He knows I use Gran Torino's style. Power? Punch through the flames with a hundred percent. If I use my left arm already damaged from Shigaraki's Decay, how much of a sacrifice would it be if I can't use it normally in the rest of the fight? Is it worth it to keep them here right now?!_ Deku started running to his right along the flames on the inside path, even though he could see up ahead where it curved towards the wall so he would have to jump over or up to the ceiling to bounce off.

Midoriya was not the only one to get panicked as Shigaraki started running. Right as they were arriving, the reinforcements were not going to just let the League get away. Unfortunately, Vixen had a cool-down time before she could discharge enough of her Sludge to put out the flames again. A half dozen heroes ran towards Midoriya though, calling out for the villains to freeze on the other side of the blue flames that Dabi added to in order to make them stronger and hotter and push the heroes back.

"We won't let you get the Chemist, and you won't be leaving here!" Bikergang called out, glaring towards Shigaraki with Chemist still on his knees between him and Wonderlass.

"Oh, like this?"

Wonderlass and Bikergang started turning their heads back towards each other to the man they had kept in their peripheral vision. The voice came from between them, but it was not Chemist's higher-pitched nasally voice that annoyed them so much whenever he shouted for help. That nasally voice let out a scream of panic though, while everyone else in the area spun towards him with wide eyes at the sight of the man who was suddenly standing on Chemist's side closer to Bikergang.

Breakneck was smirking after making his appearance and taunting Bikergang. The Racing Hero had gotten too focused on Shigaraki which gave Breakneck the moment he had been looking for. Breakneck's appearance stopped the villains on the other side of the flames for a second too, though Shigaraki kept running after looking back for only a second. He wanted to smirk that Breakneck distracted all the heroes, but he also knew what Breakneck was there to grab which made him frustrated. The idea of Breakneck taking Chemist away though actually started making Shigaraki smirk after another second of running. _Chemist will squeal in seconds, giving Breakneck a reason to stay. In his hands and not the heroes', the chance is still there_.

Deku spun around at the sound of Breakneck's voice behind him. What Breakneck said when he appeared made all the heroes there step towards him, but Deku did more bending his legs and filling himself to the limit of his Full Cowling and beyond it even to the point he felt his bones creaking. "No!" He shouted, shooting off his legs and flying to the spot Chemist and Breakneck were in where Wonderlass and Bikergang each started reaching for. Deku lunged right between them through a gap, then he landed and spun his head to the right where he saw an appearance of two figures in the opposite direction as Shigaraki and the others were heading.

 _The building's exterior halls wrap around the lab,_ Midoriya thought rapidly. _Dandy's somewhere with the Apocalypse they all want. If Breakneck goes that way and Shigaraki the other, but Breakneck might just leave now! He has something, Shigaraki didn't get anything he came for. Breakneck's more likely to slip away, but Shigaraki's the more important… Unless with the Chemist, could Breakneck be the more dangerous? No! All For One is- but All Might is the one who defeated Breakneck so there's no telling how dangerous-_ Midoriya saw Breakneck vanish again while facing the direction away from Shigaraki's group, though when the teen spun the other way towards the heroes putting out Dabi's blue flames he no longer saw the villains on the other side of them anyway.

Deku's head snapped back and forth and he was sweating with his fists clenching ever harder at his sides. _Who? Which way?! What is it I need-_ _**"He's, the most disturbed, disgusting person I've ever met."**_ What Zach said earlier echoed in Midoriya's mind and his eyes opened wide while turning back the direction Breakneck took the Chemist. Zach had referenced the Chemist once before when telling him something vague about his time with the villains, nothing nearly as specific as he got during their planning meeting for the operation. The thought that Zach considered Chemist the "most disturbed" individual he knew though, considering the things Midoriya knew had happened to him, it only now registered in his head. _More than Shigaraki, who tortured you…_

"I'm going after the Chemist," Midoriya called back towards Wonderlass and Bikergang.

"We'll chase Shigaraki," Wonderlass said, turning to her intern who nodded at her instead of mentioning her injuries as he considered doing. Midoriya knew there was nothing he could say to her when his own back felt torn up and his left arm was screaming in pain when he clenched his left fist.

"You two, get this one outside," Bikergang called to two sidekicks just about to rush out of the lab. They did not look happy to do it, but Bikergang had a serious wound on his side and an intense look on his face and neither were going to argue with him. He spun to the other heroes and called to the leader of the Feisty Foursome, "Spunky, we do _not_ let Shigaraki escape from here!" Bikergang sprung over towards her and Vixen, and he glanced at Roady who had a bloody gash on his right arm but looked ready to keep fighting. "You alright?" Bikergang asked anyway, and Roady nodded before asking the same question back with a motion down to Bikergang's side.

"I'll slow the bleeding," Spunky said, stepping towards the two and reaching for their wounds. Her hand vibrated when she touched Bikergang's left side, but Roady pulled his arm away and shook his head at her.

"It's not too deep, and I don't want my arm slowed," he explained, and Spunky reluctantly nodded back at him considering the wound she could see was bleeding more than a shallow wound would. "Seriously," Roady added when he saw Bikergang looking at him with a hesitant gaze.

"Here we go," Wake called out as he arrived and saw what the problem was. He leaned his body back and the square on the front of his costume opened up, and a blast of water shot out at the blue flames that Vixen was trying to gather up enough Sludge to put out. The heroes started moving out, and Wonderlass ran after them with her teeth clenched in pain. She turned her head and glanced behind her once, the bald woman glaring harshly into the darkness farther around the side of the drug lab. _I believe in you, Deku. Be careful._

* * *

"What do you mean, he _'took'_ it?" Breakneck asked, grabbing Chemist harder on his right shoulder that was covered in blood from when Dandy dug his claws in before. "Where is he? He's supposed to be grabbing it and getting it to-"

Chemist opened his clenched eyes and smirked madly at the man trying to threaten him despite his entire operation falling apart around them. "Oh, Dandy doesn't believe in your 'partnership' anymore," Chemist taunted. He sniffed in and winced from his nose that felt broken from Bikergang's elbow, then he continued in his nasally voice, "He was already so upset, it really didn't take much to push him- ackk ga-" Breakneck's hand moved from Chemist's shoulder to his throat.

Breakneck strangled the doctor who brought his hands up and tried to rip Breakneck's hand away, but the stronger villain just clenched harder and leaned his face towards Chemist's with a deadly look in his eyes. "I know. You're a manipulative bastard," Breakneck said. His voice was calm and collected, but with a murderous intent in it that terrified Chemist. It sounded to the doctor like Breakneck was considering twisting and breaking his neck, and fear covered the paling scientist's face.

"Ka- I- I ju-" Chemist was gasping and trying to say something, and Breakneck loosened his grip just a bit. He loosened it but got an angrier look on his face that told Chemist he was in dangerous territory depending on what he said next. "I know wh-where Dandy was heading." Breakneck kept his tight grip but glared harder at Chemist in a way telling him to continue. Chemist spoke rapidly even though his throat ached with every word out of it, "Dandy took the Apocalypse, and he just left me behind when I made a break for it, instead of chasing me again. I saw the look in his eyes. He, just kept going-"

"Which way?" Breakneck snarled, pulling his face closer to Chemist's and gripping harder again.

Chemist got an even more terrified look on his face at Breakneck's tone there, yet he thought at the same time, _Yes! Bring me to Shigaraki you fool! As long as you do not reach him too soon, but, if it takes too long Shigaraki may leave through a portal without me._ Chemist nodded his head and darted his eyes to the side, lifting his arm with keeping a terrified look in his eyes. "Dandy's ah- that-" Breakneck spun his head to the right, and he yanked his body backwards with his eyes huge at the form flying towards him from out of nowhere.

"You little fucking-" Breakneck started screaming as Midoriya did not even go in for the attack, instead tackling straight into Chemist who screamed in pain as Midoriya tore him out of Breakneck's arms. Midoriya landed, and Breakneck appeared on his right side slamming his fist down already when he appeared so it collided into the side of the boy's face. Midoriya's head snapped to the side, but he bounced to his left after getting punched without really taking much damage.

 _Strong too?!_ Breakneck snarled as he saw the boy bounce towards the wall faster than he could move without teleporting. Midoriya hit that wall though, and then he bounced the opposite direction than he just came from. He bounced in the direction that Chemist had been pointing, and Breakneck's eyes opened wide before he smirked and teleported after them.

 _I'm bringing Chemist straight to Shigaraki, but I can't let Shigaraki get the Apocalypse!_ A foot slammed into the back of Midoriya's head when he was turning a corner in midair, and Breakneck ripped Chemist out of his left hand with Midoriya reaching back wide-eyed as he lost the Chemist again. He hit the ground at a bad angle since he was reaching back for the Chemist, and he rolled across it fast before slamming into a steel crate up against the wall. "AH!" Midoriya yelled out in pain as he hit into it with his back, and the pain he had been ignoring from when Shigaraki Decayed through his skin returned all at once. "I'm fine!" He shouted after hearing worried calls to him through his earpiece, and he got back to his hands and knees fast before shooting himself after Breakneck and Chemist who were heading the same direction he was trying to go. _I can't let Breakneck get it either! None of them can have that drug!_

One of the people Midoriya called to ignored his shout. It was the second time they heard him shout in agony in a minute, and from the messages he was hearing over his earpiece he knew the situation. The Chemist, Dandy, Shigaraki, Breakneck, even Dabi, and Apocalypse, none of those things tore him from the casualties being brought to him outside of the drug lab. But hearing that shout again, and then Midoriya's shout after it, made him think about the training forest and how badly injured Midoriya was that night. He thought about how Midoriya with his arms as damaged as they were was ready to dive straight into the portal to go save Bakugo. And then Zach thought about why he was there. Not why he was outside of the lab, or at the raid, but why he was in Hokkaido. The reason he had picked an agency close to his friend's.

Then one final thought went through Zach's head, and he saw Overhaul and the Eightfold Cleansers attacking them so soon after he had went through the portal at the courthouse. Zach imagined in his head as Shigaraki grabbed one of those mafioso. He thought about how the guy had disintegrated with nothing left of his body. Nothing to bring back.

* * *

Dandy stood alone in the southwest corner of the warehouse. There was a metal overhang up above him, some large shipping crates up against the walls both on the south side and the east. He looked to his right farther towards the southern entrance where he kept hearing more voices of people running into the building, more heroes than he could take on by himself. And he was by himself.

The heroes were mostly running straight into the lab, or cutting to the right to trap a group of villains he heard someone shout were running around in his direction not too long ago. On his left side he saw a pair of people running his direction, stop, and turn and book it the other way. One of the two was moving sluggishly, as the Trigger they had used was wearing off and they no longer thought they had a chance of getting out of the building. He was too tired to keep going, but the other villain did not want to be all on their own and was pushing his comrade to keep going even though all he wanted to do was collapse.

 _They won't get away,_ Dandy thought while watching them run away just because they saw someone in this direction. He looked down and lifted his right hand, and he had such a sad look in his eyes as he stared at the black briefcase he was holding. _But, I can't escape the heroes either._ Dandy's hand tightened on the handle of the briefcase. _All I need to make a business, is in here… Except, this isn't really that important on its own. I couldn't sell this. I don't even know why I grabbed it, if I'm not going back to Breakneck._ Dandy rose his left hand and put it to his bumpy forehead, a frustrated expression covering his face and his teeth clenching so hard. He slammed his eyes shut and shook his head, _I can't do anything right!_

His eyes opened and he stared at the case of Apocalypse. _Chemist was right. The only reason Breakneck wanted my help, was for him and this. What use do I have? I, I can't do anything without help from others. As much as I think I'm strong, smart, that I should be in charge!_ His hands clenched into fists again, though he loosened his right hand when the case was shaking too much. _Wonderlass and Chemist both knew it right away, how didn't I see it? Breakneck even told me to just get the Apocalypse, like it didn't matter whether any of the guys or, or even if I made it out. Once I had brought this to him, then what was he going to do? Take it and run away probably, and leave me here to get caught._ _Everyone knew Breakneck was using me, and they were right! I'm such an idiot!_

"Dandy, what's wrong?"

Dandy lifted his head and looked to his right. His eyes did not even widen as he stared at the man looking back at him between the fingers of the hand attached to his face. "Shigaraki, Tomura," Dandy started. He opened his mouth to continue, to say the things he wanted to say to Shigaraki when they met again. He had rehearsed things for this exact moment, but he felt like too much of an idiot to say any of them now. He just lowered his gaze down to the briefcase of Apocalypse, and then back at the man who was clearly not there for him. _This was supposed to be, my operation. I was supposed to be in charge. But, but I don't even matter…_ "You came for the Apocalypse, right?" Dandy asked. His sad look started to fade, his breathing picking up as his fists clenched again.

"Why did you do it, Dandy?" Shigaraki questioned. Behind him, voices of heroes screamed and an explosion of blue flames went off near the southern entrance. Shigaraki's fellow villains were pushing their ways towards him, heroes would arrive soon too, yet Shigaraki still asked the big man whose eyes widened at the sound of it.

"I," Dandy began. "You never treated me-" he stopped himself again, as it sounded like such a childish reason now that everything had gone so wrong for him because of it.

"Were things, really that bad?" Shigaraki asked.

Dandy opened his mouth, but he stared at the man in front of him and in his head recalled the last few times they had spoken. And in none of those times, could Dandy recall being spoken down to or a time where he felt he was treated poorly. It was not Shigaraki at all, but Chemist who he had been left with for all that time, doing his grunt work as the scientist's bodyguard. _I could have just, asked for a different job._ Everything seemed so stupid to him now as he stared at Shigaraki's face, and he felt his chest ache as the walls were closing in around him. "Shigaraki," Dandy began, and he started lifting up the case towards his former boss. His teeth clenched again though, and his hand shook for a few seconds with his eyes darting to the case one last time and then to the man he was holding it out to. "I'm sorry, but I'm in charge here. I'm in charge, so, there's one thing I need to do."

* * *

Midoriya raced after Breakneck around the west side of the building after they had chased after each other across the north side and around the northwest corner. They had bounced around heroes and a fight between some heroes and a couple of villains in the northwest corner. A pair of villains just passed beneath Midoriya but he could not focus on the two who did not look ready to keep fighting anyway. They were on the other side of the building now from where they started, and both Midoriya and Breakneck were getting nervous since they had yet to find Dandy. They were about to reach midway across the west side, and Breakneck turned his head to the right at the man screaming in his arms as he was yanked through the air where Breakneck just teleported up to again.

"Where is he?!"

"He was right over here when I last- no!" Chemist shouted as he saw Midoriya bounce to the wall on his right. Every time they clashed Chemist was the one receiving damage and he yelled in fear as it came again. Breakneck tried teleporting again, but it was too soon since he popped up in midair. He pulled Chemist in the way of him and the kid to stop him from using any powerful blow, and Midoriya pulled his leg back and shoved his hand out instead. He grabbed Chemist and then the three of them were teleported to the center of the building on its west side where there was a huge hole in the wall on one side though still a lot of blue flames covering the area. Midoriya opened his eyes wide as he was no longer in midair and instead standing on the floor, but he got over the fact that he just teleported faster than Breakneck who was snarling as his time limit between teleports just got longer with the extra person he transported on accident.

Breakneck pulled his hand up to Chemist's throat and grabbed tightly around the front and side of it. Midoriya could not just yank away with the hand he was grabbing Chemist by the clothes with, and Chemist continued to scream as he was the rope in the tug-of-war game the two of the others were playing. "If I can't have him, no one can," Breakneck threatened, tightening his grip like he would really snap the Chemist's neck if Midoriya did not let go. As much as Zach had told Midoriya how much of a brutal monster the Chemist was, he could not just let Breakneck kill him because he did not let go. He also could not let Breakneck take him though, so as he released the Chemist he flicked a finger he was releasing with and threw the Chemist so hard back into Breakneck that his body bounced off him and started rising up a bit.

Deku ducked down right as the Chemist's feet lifted off the ground, the grip on his neck loosening since he was pushed instead of pulled like Breakneck was threatening against. Breakneck saw Deku dropping down, but he still was not ready to teleport. He let go of the hand he was grabbing Chemist with though, while Midoriya dodged his other hand that he punched down in a clear attempt to stop him. Deku was not actually expecting Breakneck to release the Chemist, but he had already felt Breakneck's punches and prepared himself for it as he slammed his right fist up anyway. Breakneck's hand opened before punching Midoriya in the face though, as he remembered how the boy had shaken off his last attack without any damage too.

He was wishing he had his gun right now, but Breakneck still smirked as he fought dirty and pressed his fingers into Midoriya's right eye. Midoriya clenched his eyes shut when those fingers were about to grab him over his eye, and Breakneck dodged his punch while Midoriya pulled the other way to avoid getting his eye popped, yelling out in pain. He pulled his head away, then snapped his eyes open though his right only opened halfway and was bloodshot and in pain as he did. Midoriya jumped up, grabbing the Chemist who Breakneck just reached up and grabbed again. He grabbed Chemist and ripped out of Breakneck's hold before kicking his legs forward to send himself back away from Breakneck.

He knew Breakneck's time had recharged. Breakneck smirked at him because he knew the kid knew it as well. Midoriya landed and was panting with an eye half closed. He had Chemist grabbed in his left hand that had blood all over it from the wound on his elbow that bled down his forearm, and Midoriya had to grind his teeth as he saw that smirk on the main villain's face. Then Midoriya threw up in the air with his left hand, and he ducked at that same moment.

"Got him!" Bikergang shouted, flying out of the not-so-secret passageway into the main lab that he had cut across to intercept Breakneck. He had thought about it when he was moving with the big group of heroes across the lab that he could help out Deku who had kept yelling out in pain. Using his Springs, he bounced through the main lab towards the halfway point and was waiting for the two he had heard from reports at the north side of the building had just gone flying by. Bikergang caught Chemist, Breakneck's head snapped up with wide eyes as the man he tried to appear next to was above him in the arms of a different man, and then Breakneck started turning back much too slow for the boy who had predicted which side of him he would appear.

Breakneck pulled away and tried lowering his arms to block, but Midoriya was too fast. Deku's right leg slammed into Breakneck's left side, pushed into his body so Midoriya could hear and feel the cracks on his leg. Breakneck flew off of the boy's leg and towards a huge metal shipping crate ripped in half on their side, but then he vanished right before he would have smashed into it. Bikergang dropped down next to Midoriya while gripping the Chemist tightly by both arms.

Kawasagi struggled in Bikergang's hold but whimpered and stopped as the pain in his right arm was too much for him to handle. "Just stop," he whispered. The Chemist stopped struggling at all and had an exhausted look on his face. After that traumatic battle around the building where he was getting ripped back and forth between Deku and Breakneck, all he wanted was for this to all be over at this point. He was exhausted, his wrists were bound together tightly behind his back, no one had his best interests in mind, and Bikergang looked at him with lifted eyebrows for a second before nodding his head.

"I'm getting him out of here," Bikergang said, looking back at Midoriya whose head snapped back and forth looking for Breakneck.

"Wait," Midoriya started. _Is Breakneck going to pop back up and try taking Chemist away? Is he going to get a gun right now? Actually then-_ "Yeah, go now," Deku agreed. "I'll guard you. Let's get him out of here." They each glanced towards the nearest hole in the wall but the flames were still high there, and the next closest exit was in the south which was where they had been taking all the captured villains anyway.

In that direction as well though, Midoriya expected to find the man they had run around the building looking for. _I need to get the Apocalypse too, but we can't bring Chemist over there. Yet I can't leave Bikergang to take him alone, just so Breakneck can get the drop on him and disappear with Chemist. I know I cracked some ribs, but he still managed to Flashstep out of here. Where did he go? I didn't see him, so there must have been a spot he saw while about to hit that container that I couldn't see from here._

"Let's go," Bikergang had been thinking similar thoughts, and he came to the same conclusion Deku had. They just heard in their earpieces a shout from Roady on the southeast side of the warehouse there was a big fight going on. It stretched back towards the main entrance, and a lot of heroes were showing up from around the building to join in. _Shigaraki's over there,_ Bikergang thought. As he started running though, making Chemist run with him despite the villain's complaints, he was not worried about Shigaraki getting the doctor back. _We have them cornered! Shigaraki came in from the east side, if that's where the portals were made then he should have to go out from that side too. They should have left when Dabi came back, but now we're not going to give them the chance!_

"Wait a second," Chemist started as he ran between Bikergang and Deku. "Breakneck!" He shouted, his eyes opening wide as he was shaken from his exhaustion a bit. _I'd rather him than the heroes! I had plans to escape from him, opportunities with him, but I'll never get out of prison!_ "Take me back!"

"Don't make me drag you," Bikergang snapped, tugging harder on Chemist's arm for a second to push him forward. _I want to knock this bastard out, but carrying him would actually be a problem. I'm barely running this speed as is, I can't carry that much weight with my side in this condition. The kid's ripped up too, and he can't have his hands full if Breakneck's looking for a moment to drop in on us and take Chemist away again. If Breakneck comes too, even if he would rather go with him than us, he'd still try to break free again if he had the chance and force Breakneck to stay… Shit! We're stuck between Breakneck and the League, neither of us are doing great, we can't get Chemist out of here and stop Breakneck, stop Shigaraki, and get this damn Apocalypse!_

Chemist was panting as he ran between the other two. He did not hear a response from Breakneck, and he could see brighter red and blue lights up ahead and on the top of the southern wall through those windows. The idea of getting thrown into a cop car out there had him shaking in rage, his mouth twisting in his anger and a pissed-off crazed expression forming on his face. "It's all Reaper's fault," Chemist snarled, slowing down and pulling his arm from Bikergang who tiredly turned in again to snap at him not to stop running. Bikergang was not expecting the beaten and restrained doctor to actually try something, and he reached out and grabbed Kawasagi by the front of his shirt again.

"I swear I'll do-"

"You shouldn't have known my name, he shouldn't have," Chemist snapped, and then his lips twisted up at the corners while Bikergang gained a hesitant look on his face.

Midoriya spun around and then darted his gaze up towards the ceiling, to metal crates and shadows that Breakneck could be hiding behind. They were almost at the southern exterior of the warehouse, and he had caught his breath a little with that run where at least he had not been using his Quirk, though his left arm and back were still in a lot of pain. "But Reaper… He told you who I was-"

"Lifebringer?" Bikergang muttered, leaning his face closer to Chemist who smirked back at the hero's confused and angry expression. In a low voice too quiet to be heard over his earpiece he questioned, "Is that what you called him when he was in the-"

"He wasn't just _in_ the League," Chemist replied, his nasally voice getting higher-pitched as he hissed it back at Bikergang. His smirk went away though, and Chemist ground his teeth before growling, "That bastard was- When I presented the Apocalypse you're looking for, that Reaper must have told you about," Chemist had a crazed and furious look on his face, but he smirked more anyway as he said this. "Reaper's the reason those experiments were put on hold. The reason production was cancelled. He ignored all the amazing prospects of it when I presented it to the League's cadres, calling my unfinished product _useless,_ a _waste of time._ " Chemist's hands shook in their binds and clenched and unclenched in anger, while both Deku and Bikergang started staring at him with wide eyes now.

 _Reaper?_ Midoriya thought, his breathing picking up speed and his eyes wide at what the villain was saying.

"He convinced Shigaraki that the Quirk-Destroying drug was better on its own than as an ingredient," Chemist continued, and he stopped shaking in as much anger and just smirked more instead at the looks on the others' faces. "You didn't know?" Chemist asked, lifting his tone and raising his eyebrows with a smug and victorious look on his face.

A shout in the heroes' ears shook both of them to their senses. Deku grabbed Chemist who tried pulling back from Bikergang again, and he pulled harder while running towards the southwest corner again. "You're under arrest, Chemist," Midoriya said. His eyes were narrowed and he ground his teeth as he started running again, and Bikergang ran up to Midoriya's left side to move with him. Neither said a word about what the scientist who started complaining about the pain in his right shoulder again had said. Midoriya thought as he ran towards the empty corner just up ahead, _Zach. Was that true? You, stopped Apocalypse from being made? You knew so much about it, but did you really, get them to stop production? You had, the power to do something like that?_ _ **"…when I presented it to the League's cadres…"**_

Deku and Bikergang sprinted straight into the corner and turned for the south side of the building. They reached the corner, but before they had even fully entered it, they saw a man standing just on the south side around the corner. He was all alone. He stood back towards the south wall, and he turned his head when he saw the others running towards him. The hallway was dimly lit, but bright enough that the three could see who this figure was.

There were a lot of others in the south hall too. Most of them were scattered around the exterior of the main lab, but there were many holes in the south walls of the lab now allowing the battle to seep into the main lab as well as out on the exterior of the building a bit too. All of the remaining villains still capable of fighting, even if they had not been with Shigaraki and Dabi's group before, had been pushed back to the south side of the lab, so there were still over a dozen villains battling it out with heroes fresh and wounded who now outnumbered them badly.

One hero who just reached the southern hallway entered through the hole in the wall of the main lab farthest to the west. He jumped out of the hole in the wall, surrounded in a black aura with his eyes glowing red and his fists clenched in front of him. Zach Sazaki darted his eyes around in the chaotic mess he had just thrown himself into. He tried to ignore the blue flames over to his left, spinning to his right instead as he heard Midoriya shout something both in his earpiece and to his right side. He had heard which side of the building Midoriya was on a minute ago, and he grinned as he saw the two things he was most worried about after his friend's safety both in view as well.

As Zach looked towards a side of the hall that had Midoriya, Chemist, and Dandy all in it though, a villain looked his direction from farther off to Zach's left just inside the shadows between two shipping crates. Shigaraki Tomura stared out towards that shadowy form with glowing red eyes, and his teeth ground over each other behind the hand attached to his face. Only three minutes earlier he had been running around the warehouse with Dabi who had interrupted his fight with Midoriya Izuku. _**"Shigaraki, Reaper's here…"**_ _Sazaki's on the priority kill list, but,_ Shigaraki ground his teeth more thinking about what his spiky-haired comrade had said to him. _**"No. We're here for Chemist and the Apocalypse. Stay away from him."**_

Shigaraki's head turned to the left though as Sazaki called something out that made his eyes widen behind the fingers of the hand on his face. He stepped out of the shadows, a black briefcase in one hand but his eyes focused on the thin doctor who just came around the corner of the west side of the building, right in the area he just left himself.

"Chemist!" Zach shouted, his voice deep and echoing over itself in a dark way. Midoriya, Bikergang, and Chemist all spun from Dandy to the left and a boy in a black shroud who made all three of them open their eyes huge.

"You! This is all YOUR FAULT-"

"You sick fuck!" Zach shouted, something Chemist had heard the boy call him before and leaned back at the sound of. Zach was not scared at all from Chemist's rage-filled shout at him, and he grinned inside his aura instead as he glared furiously and with bright red eyes at Chemist.

Shigaraki took a few steps forward, then a hand grabbed down on his right shoulder. He spun his head and glared behind him at a man with spiky black hair who just ran up behind him. Dabi was not looking back at Shigaraki when he turned and glared at his comrade though, but instead straight towards the shadowed figure who the people past him started looking past as they caught glimpses of Dabi and Shigaraki.

"Zach! Behind you-" Midoriya started shouting.

"Shigaraki!" Chemist called out with a hopeful look on his face.

Zach started turning his head and caught glimpses of the men behind him.

Bikergang was staring straight towards Zach with a hesitant expression, he shifted his gaze back to Shigaraki when Dabi grabbed him which somehow made both appear in his vision where he had not been seeing them before. But Bikergang was also the first of any of them to turn his attention away. All of them were distracted by each other. Chemist and Zach were mad at each other. Bikergang and Midoriya were distracted by what Chemist had said and Zach's appearance, and the League cadres showing up so close to them and closer to Zach was bad too. Dabi was staring at Zach, and Shigaraki started turning back to the boy himself after looking at Dabi. Shigaraki was the next one whose attention changed back though, and a smirk spread over Shigaraki's face while he looked towards the big man who Zach spun his head towards with wide eyes.

Zach's heart was racing. Shigaraki and Dabi were not too far on his left side. The sight of them was only part of it though, while the sight of the black briefcase in Shigaraki's right hand was what really made Zach's heart race. His head turned back towards the man who Bikergang had looked to while feeling very unsettled, and who Shigaraki grinned at in a way that made Dabi confused and loosen his grip for a second. Shigaraki pulled his shoulder free from Dabi, and he said, "I have most of the Apocalypse. Call Kurogiri, and let's get out of here. With the Chemist if possible," Shigaraki's voice was calm, but also excited and his lips curled up even more.

Zach heard Shigaraki's voice in his left ear over the sound of his own heart pounding. "Hey-"

"I am not, just a side character," Dandy started. His breathing had been heavy and he had been hesitating where he stood near the south wall. Everyone showed up around him at the same time though, and not a single person had focused on him "I'm not, a grunt," Dandy said, snapping his head up with wide eyes and sweat all over his face. "I'm in charge!" Dandy shouted, while everyone looking his way was feeling super off-put by the look in his eyes. He rose up his right hand, a crazed expression spreading over his face. "THIS WAS ALL ME!"

"Wait a second-" Chemist began, darting his eyes from Shigaraki and then back to the man just ahead of him, much too close to him. He pulled backwards but Midoriya's grip on him was too tight, so instead he shouted, "Dandy stop!"

"Dandy hold on!" Zach started shouting too, his black right hand moving down to his side but hovering next to his waist in a shaky way.

Dandy huffed and wheezed, his teeth grinding while his lips pulled up at the corners. He had a terrified look in his eyes though, and Chemist screamed at him, "You know what it will do!"

"What is that?!" Bikergang shouted towards the man.

Midoriya started letting go of Chemist, but he froze as he realized what he was doing and who he had not seen in a minute.

 _I won't be in the background anymore,_ Dandy thought. He was upset, depressed, and his breathing calmed in a single instant.

 _ **"…there's one thing I need to do. I'm sorry Shigaraki. This was my mistake. I'm in charge, so I'll clean up my mess. Here,"**_ Shigaraki thought about when Dandy gave him the briefcase a minute ago. He stared at the big man whose determination set in while Chemist and Zach screamed at him to stop. _**"The rest is yours, I'll give you the diversion you need to get out of here. Please."**_ _Fix your mistake, Dandy._

Shigaraki took a step back and Dabi did the same with his eyes growing wide. _I didn't think he had it in him,_ Dabi thought.

Dandy lifted his arm. "Don't do it!" Zach screamed.

"WAIT!" Chemist screamed.

Dandy jammed his arm back and injected the vial of Apocalypse he was holding into his chest. The liquid in the vial sank into him, and Zach and the Chemist both screamed, "NOO!"

* * *

 **A/N Bwwommmm bwwwommmm! Apocalypse has been injected. Thanks for reading. So, anyone see that Bakugo Deku fight yesterday? That was pretty epic XD. Anyway, battle damage is accumulating, the fight's momentum changed in favor of the heroes, but Dandy's inferiority complex has driven him over the edge. Everyone gathers on one spot and Dandy shoots up with Apocalypse.** **Hope you enjoyed! Leave a review telling me what you think or predictions for the next chapter!**

Super Power Sensei chapter 76 . Sep 13

Three things...  
One, the scene with Frycook had me actually laughing! Him being high on cocaine and trigger only to blow himself up was hilarious! Epic fail of the chapter.  
Two, Zach is stronger than he gives himself credit for. Predicting and dodging bullets, even greater strength...I want him to take out some villains already.  
Three, with the League having reached their climax in power(at least according to Breakneck) what has happened/will happen to them now. Will they just stagnate? Will they fade out? Will they get taken over or destroyed by a rival gang? And will another group take their place?

 **Glad you liked Frycook! I was originally planning to have a group of villains come back and disrupt the perimeter and add to the villains' forces. As I wrote them in though, Frycook picked up the grenades and I'm like "oh man, what if he..." and then I wrote it that way instead. XD Zach realized it himself this chapter what you mentioned there too, and he turns the tide of the battle with his arrival in the north of the warehouse. As for the third part... no spoilers! We've got Shigaraki trying to hold onto that power here, we'll see if he manages to retake his "pieces" or if he goes home empty-handed... or if he gets caught? Or killed? Who knows?! Thanks for the review!**

Oblivious ninja IJ chapter 76 . Sep 13

Everything is heating up! Stain being mentioned and his cult of weirdos- not you Toga we love you! I wonder how the battle would end, and I've been wondering... Where is Zach's stalker? Shipping freak IJ! Is going crazy bout her.  
So one for all is known by lé hand fetish? I guess All for one told him? Dabi being freaking awesome as usual!  
~ Reading ninja IJ!

 **Breakneck's flashback reveals a lot about the current state of the villains we haven't seen since the Sports Festival. Those cult weirdos Zach saw online and the villains we saw last chapter... connection? Maybe. How will the battle end? Maybe Zach's stalker will show up in the middle of the fight and save the day? :P no spoilers though. Shigaraki almost extinguishes the flame here this chapter, but Midoriya gets that backwards headbutt to stop the Decay before it destroyed him. Glad you enjoyed, and thanks for reviewing!**

Shade11224 chapter 76 . Sep 14

I feel like we never see Zach make a difference in any fights, he disappears for the majority of the fights or is reviving someone. Not only that but he waits until bodies start dropping too us nightmare mode and then somehow he never gets in a fight with anyone who fights in close quarters even though that makes up a majority of villains. Your really pushing the whole Midoriya is the messiah thing to the point that it's taking away from Zach who himself should be able to destroy midoriya in a fight as even hitting Zach should make him tired and Zach's smoke acts as armor you said in a past chapter. Really I just want Zach to at least get in a big fight and actually do more than bakugo who somehow did more in the inhuman fight than Zach who could wipe the floor with him as bakugo should have to be in the same range and wouldn't have the physical applications of Death. Plus for when Zach's status as Reaper comes out do remember the wording of his pardon, because if it says all crimes within a certain time frame that could get rid of the legal repercussions, not to mention his status as Lifebringer and that they are very short on heroes.  
Ps #KILLTHESPY

 **Well, Zach def made the difference in this fight. I don't really know what fights you're talking about he hasn't been making differences in. I guess the robbery earlier that day, though Bikergang sent him to that one specifically to get him to bring back The Viking. The Sports Festival he was pretty big and really only saved Shoji at start of Inhuman fight, then took on Spinner and did some damage to Inhuman too with Death doing some damage when he attacked in Nightmare. Fight against Shatterer and War Boys too... anyway, the plan here was to keep the fight confined which was the reason he didn't use Nightmare right away, not because bodies hadn't dropped yet. I don't think Bakugo did more than Zach in Inhuman fight, as I think he and Midoriya and Zach noticed how Inhuman had slowed down when Zach's Nightmare attacks hit him, Zach cut him too, and it's not that I'm trying to push that Midoriya's the strongest there is... but he wouldn't just not be important with Zach's addition into the picture. Midoriya and the others aren't just there to react to stuff Zach's doing, they've all got their own stuff going on too. And though I haven't been focusing on Midoriya, his improvement of One For All, his increases in power very much, for an internship arc where he's there too he's going to have a big role. I also think you're either overestimating Zach or underestimating Bakugo and Midoriya to say that he'd crush them in fights just by using Nightmare. Both probably top him in speed, power, and they both know they can't touch Zach too. Won't say anything about Reaper, 'cause no spoilers... ps: whatspy?There' .:P Anyway, thanks for reviewing even though I disagree with most of it. Hope you enjoyed the chapter!**

StandupSitdown chapter 62 . 15h ago

This has been an amazing story so far. I've only really been into My Hero Academia for about a month now, but I've been enjoying reading through this story about as much as the manga.

I do have one question that I hope you respond to. This is the latest chapter I've read so maybe it's answered up ahead, but why not have Zach team with someone who can numb the pain he feels when bringing people back? It's something I wondered about ever since he brought those two people back and blacked out. And then you had him meet those two random skater guys a few chapters back and one of them had the power to numb pain (unless I'm misremembering) I thought for sure that would come into play. Then all he'd need is another teleporter and he'd have an amazing three man Lifesaver team. Just something that's been bugging me.

 **Hey! Glad you've been enjoying the story so far and thanks for reviewing! So, if you're caught up by now, you'd see he hasn't met up with those skater guys again. The problem with what you're saying is bugging you... is that Zach's still in school. I mean if/when he got an agency of his own I could totally see him looking for a fellow hero with a numbing Quirk and a teleporter too, but it's not like he's currently searching for a hero team to work with. I'm not saying it's not a great idea to work with someone like that, but maybe in the future it'll come into play. Anyway, glad you've liked the story, and I hope you enjoyed the manga chapters with Gentle and La Brava after seeing them in here!**


	78. Chapter 78

**Disclaimer: I don't own Boku no Hero Academia**

 **Chapter 78:**

"NOO!"

Dandy injected himself with Apocalypse and time seemed to slow down.

Midoriya ducked his head. Then he spun while Chemist and Bikergang were still staring forward towards Dandy, and Midoriya jumped up while the man pointing a gun where his head had just been finally finished pulling the trigger.

 _Impossible!_ Breakneck thought, his eyes shifting down to where Midoriya ducked, only to lag back up as Midoriya rose to his head level faster than he could follow. In his head he saw the only person whose speed had been able to match his Flashstep this much, and Breakneck's face twisted in absolute rage in the second before the boy reminding him of All Might slammed a leg into his face. Midoriya's kick finally made Bikergang look towards him, though Chemist could not care less about what just happened considering what he was staring at.

Midoriya had let go of him when Breakneck attacked in the moment everyone was _seemingly_ distracted, and the boy succeeded in getting a blow that slammed Breakneck's body into the floor with his eyes rolled back in his head. Chemist felt his freedom, and he stumbled backwards and fell on his butt. Then he spun onto his shoulders and knees with his hands still tied behind his back and scooted backwards with a look of sheer terror on his face. Midoriya jumped towards him and grabbed the scientist, but the man kept squirming forward on the ground while straining his arms so hard that his wrists started to bleed in Bikergang's special ties.

Seeing the man who had been complaining so much about pain for the past ten minutes struggling to a point of causing himself harm unnerved Midoriya. The man's face when he looked back over his shoulder though, completely ignoring the boy holding him to stare back towards another villain instead was much worse though. **BANG BANG BANG BANG Click**

Zach had Breakneck's original gun in his right hand that had hesitated next to his side while he tried shouting at Dandy not to do it. He fired the rest of Breakneck's clip in the gun that he had put in his waistband earlier but never used yet, and every one of the four bullets collided with Dandy's chest and stomach.

"Lifebringer!" Bikergang shouted to his left as he saw Dandy stumble backwards from those shots.

"Oh fuck!" Zach shouted, pulling back himself and dropping the gun as Dandy turned his way. The gun dropping from Zach's hand was losing the darkness surrounding it, black wisps seeping off as it dropped slowly to the ground in a sudden silence that seemed to last a minute.

Every person there stared towards Dandy. Chemist and Midoriya looking over their shoulders, Bikergang looking back when he saw the terror somehow visible in Lifebringer's glowing red eyes. Shigaraki even lost his smirk, and Dabi started turning away. "Forget the Chemist," Dabi said, thinking back on the Apocalypse trials himself and running away without listening to whatever Shigaraki's response might be.

Shigaraki saw Midoriya stop Breakneck from getting the Chemist already though, and in that moment he had decided. Shigaraki took another step back, though his eyes stayed on Dandy who had put his right hand back behind him after stumbling back. Dandy's shirt ripped apart as his muscles rippled around and bulged, bullets pushing out of his chest and stomach, and the bloody holes in his skin sealing up. Those bullets dropped to the floor as slow as Zach's gun did, while cracks ran up and diagonally and to the sides of where Dandy's hand just gripped into the wall behind him. His hand was getting bigger, his claws extending farther into the wall he gripped with a strength that would crush steel like glass. The hair on Dandy's arms and torso grew out longer and waved around off of his skin, getting thicker and looking like fur while the claws extended out on his left hand too. Dandy's left nails sharpened, his forearm bulked, his bicep and shoulder too, with a huge bulge of muscles rippling out from that shoulder behind his back and filling his neck.

Dandy leaned his neck to the side and then rolled his head around. He dragged his right hand down through the wall behind him as if pushing through snow, ripping it apart with ease and then pulling that hand up in front of him and staring at it with eyes that started glowing red just like Zach's already were. "Oh fuck oh fuck," Zach whispered more, taking a step back himself and staring at Dandy with his eyes shaking. The sound of the bullets and his gun clinking on the floor had shaken him enough to take that step back, but Dandy was moving too, and he was smiling. _The test subjects were always just observed! Kept locked away as tightly as possible, and yet twice they broke out of those confines anyway and rampaged! They had to use the explosive collars, and that didn't even work once! But, but he looks like- did Chemist fix it?! Or, did he just work out enough kinks, to give-_

 **"GRRRRrrrrrr,"** Dandy growled in a guttural way from the back of his throat. His throat vibrated with the noise coming out, as more hair extended out of his chest and arms. His legs started ripping through his pants, his toenails extending and turning into claws. He bent his knees and brought his hairy arms forward, dropping his claws down into the floor in front of him while his back bulged out and created an arc behind his head leading to his waist. It looked almost like a Trigger transformation, but every person there knew better.

"Enjoy, Sazaki," Shigaraki called over, and Zach turned his head to the left to see Shigaraki turning away. The smug leader of the League of Villains glared into Zach's eyes with his head half-turned, but Zach took his gaze away from Shigaraki before the League's leader did him. That made Shigaraki lose his smirk into a snarl instead, but he still turned and ran after the man who Zach's eyes had shifted towards. He looked to the man with spiky black hair who kept running but turned his head a bit sideways for a moment while Zach was looking towards him. Zach stared into the corner of Dabi's eyes shifted towards him, and he felt a pang in his chest followed by his teeth baring in hatred.

"ZACH!" Midoriya screamed.

Shigaraki and Dabi sprinted straight to the east across the southern exterior of the warehouse. "Everyone on us!" Dabi called out.

"We're retreating!" Shigaraki announced too.

"You won't be getting away!" Gilgamesh called out from ahead of the villains, turning his body to gold while a half dozen other heroes near them all started using Quirks too. Spunky used her Slow over a wide area to prevent the villains from charging straight through, and Vixen charged with her jaw unhinging while Dabi rose his hands. Villains and heroes all got ready to attack each other, when a young teen was sent flying over most of their heads with blood splashing out of his body. The boy with curly hair who tried intercepting Dandy coughed up blood and then snapped his eyes open and twisted his body to the side, as the villain who hit him was right over his body with a claw pulled back over his body.

The miss of Dandy's claw still created a wind force powerful enough that it tore three lines through Midoriya's green costume and sent him crashing out of the air. It pushed wind down into a couple of heroes and villains on either side of where Midoriya smashed down, and then every man and woman there felt chills down their spines as Dandy howled. _**"RrraAAAOOOOOoooo!"**_ Dandy's mouth opened into a giant smile, revealing his bloody gums from where his teeth had suddenly extended and grown sharper. Hair grew out the top of his head and started covering his face too, and it covered up his legs and his arched back as well. He dropped out of the air and slammed his claws on the ground so powerfully that the building shook around him.

"He's on Apocalypse!" Zach screamed while sprinting after his friend who had taken the attention of the villain way faster and stronger than Midoriya was expecting. _Hang on!_ Zach thought in panic. As afraid as he had been when Dandy injected, that fear had doubled now as he thought about how Dandy's body had just pushed those bullets straight out of him. _He's regenerating!_ _Do I turn off Nightmare and kill him?! I just tried to kill him right there didn't I? Why am I asking it now?!_

Zach slowed, and Bikergang almost ran right by him while carrying Chemist who he was going to get outside now before coming back to help with this huge new problem. As he was running by he slowed as he saw Zach's mind racing even in his Nightmare form, but it was Chemist who shouted at him before Bikergang could. "You saw the test trials!" Chemist shouted at the hesitating boy. "You were there so you know-"

"I was never one of you," Zach growled, darting his eyes towards Chemist for a split second before snapping them back forward to where all the heroes and villains were looking in at Dandy. Vixen decided in that moment to use her Sludge on something else and unhinged her jaw, but as the wave of dark liquid came out in wave towards Dandy, that beast turned towards it and let out a roar. Dandy's neck vibrated as did his chest, and out of his mouth came a shockwave so powerful that the Sludge stopped where it was and even blew backwards towards a shocked Vixen who had brought her hands to her ears that felt about to bleed. "But I do know, I know that it'll probably kill him anyway." Zach clenched his teeth harder and his fists at his sides, "Yet... two of the eight survived. I won't kill a man with those odds," he started sprinting forward again, staying in Nightmare form though with a plan now as he was not just sitting there deliberating whether to kill or not.

 _I don't want to kill him! I, I don't want to kill anyone! I have the power to beat him without doing that. And if I knock him out before he ever reaches his peak, or before it would kill him! I have to do it! I might be the only one who can!_ Zach froze and his feet skid to a stop. His black aura that was already thinner around him faltered, and Bikergang glanced to his left with huge eyes while sprinting out of the building with the Chemist. "Get me out of here!" Chemist screamed at Bikergang when he saw a glow of Dandy's eyes lagging back towards him, while villains and heroes were all either fighting or running from that same beast that just tore a man in half.

Another two villains who had been running with that guy since the start of the attack and had just come back over here to try and join with Shigaraki fell backwards and screamed in terror as Dandy snarled at them. Dandy's back right leg got wrapped in a thick steel bar that curved around his other back leg and tried to pull the two towards each other. The hero doing that was assisted by a villain trying to run after Shigaraki who just swung their left arm to the side for a second and made light sparkles flash towards Dandy and explode all around his head.

Dandy pulled his legs apart and ducked down under the knife flying towards his head. The steel around his legs tore like paper, and the hero trying to bind him dropped his jaw as no other villain had ever done that before. Dandy pushed his head straight through sparkling explosions and bared his teeth while shifting his head around. _**"GRRrrrrr…"**_ Dandy's eyes locked on a man, and the ground beneath his feet tore apart as he pushed all four claws back at the same time. He moved like a blur with his longer hair waving around off of his body, a wind pushing off of him, and the corners of his lips twisting up so far to the sides of his face.

The hero leapt back and a golden wall started rising in front of Dandy's slash, but his arm ripped through the liquid gold without slowing. It moved so fast that the wind around it alone pushed all the gold rising over his arm away, forcing Gilgamesh to push out even more from the floor around Dandy. Dandy snarled as he snapped his head towards Gilgamesh, and he saw a group of eight other heroes charging him or arming their Quirks. He felt the ground below him losing form, and he moved away from it and towards the side wall with such a powerful spurt of speed that even the villain himself was surprised when he suddenly slammed into the wall. Dandy smashed through the wall and into the main lab, huge chunks of wall smashing into a couple of heroes trying to cut across it.

As he fell through the smashed rubble, Dandy turned himself and pressed his claws into different chunks of wall falling with him. His feet connected with a thick chunk that was in the middle of cracking, and it cracked faster as his nails dug into it. That chunk blew apart into a hundred pieces as Dandy sent himself flying back into the hall, through a different part of the hall farther towards where the heroes had been. The heroes all looking towards the hole they thought Dandy just smashed into but could not be sure because of his speed, pulled their heads farther back and closer to their sides where the wall smashed in towards them. Dandy was faster than all of huge rubble chunks flying their ways though, the mad villain looking like a monster roaring while flying down into the middle of the crowd.

Dandy slammed down and the ground around his claws rippled like a wave. The solid floor broke apart with huge cracks splitting away from him, and then chunks of the floor broke up in the air while other pieces were still smashing down from the wall. Chunks of floor and wall collided with each other while heroes dove for safety or tried protecting each other, and then as Dandy started swiping for Gilgamesh whose eyes were wide in horror at the monster's face, Dandy's red eyes snapped up leaving a red trail behind as he caught a glimpse of someone smashing through the debris straight towards him.

The bulky woman had her chest pushed outwards, her baggy costume flapping around her like her cape while she pulled her right fist all the way back. Wonderlass slammed her right fist forward and pulled her head to the side as Dandy changed his path and swiped up at her instead. One of his claws slashed across the side of her face and bald head, cutting along the right side of her skull and making blood splash out. She slammed her fist into Dandy's face though, and then she roared as she put even more strength into it despite already being at her limit. Super went over, and her muscles tore this time instead of just pulling. Tendons ripped, and Wonderlass pushed even harder forward into the villain she sensed the worst feeling from since coming into the drug lab.

Dandy flew backwards and flipped over and over, hitting the floor and rolling, then digging his claws into the floor and ripping up huge trenches of debris that flew into the air. He started dragging himself back forward and in a staggering way with one arm coming up and then the other. He slammed them back down and ran forward like he was limping but much faster than normal men could run, and he roared while the debris his trenches had thrown up came down on his sides. Wonderlass's arm fell limp to her side, she landed down on both feet and screamed at Dandy as he roared while charging at her. She pushed down behind her and sent herself flying faster than she would if she were leaping up into the sky to travel long distances.

Wonderlass rocketed herself at Dandy and slammed into his chest with the top of her skull, making the villain lean back as he was hit by that flying projectile. He started slamming his left arm down, but a black sludge fist reached up from a goopy mass moving across the floor and wrapped his arm, then Wonderlass punched her own left arm up underneath Dandy's right armpit. She heard a crack and grinned, and then muscles bulked out under that armpit and she heard another crack inside his body, the same time his nose started pushing out of his face and his ears pointed up on the sides of his head. Dandy brought his knee up and slammed so hard into Wonderlass's chest that she coughed up blood while her body hunched over his leg.

"SMASH!" Deku flew over Wonderlass's body as Dandy was swiping his bulking right arm down towards her. He spun his right leg with a twenty percent Smash into the side of Dandy's face and sent the villain flying off of Wonderlass who dropped to the ground flat on her face. She could only use her left arm to start pushing herself up, then she dragged her legs up too that were aching from how hard she kicked off the ground.

 _She's an experienced hero, but she's still fighting like this! Like the way I always hate that I wind up fighting. But, I always go that far, because I have to._ Deku rose his head and looked towards Dandy who had hit the ground on his back but rolled up onto all four claws and snapped his head back towards Midoriya and Wonderlass. The villain snarling at them dug his claws into the floor, then his red eyes darted to the left and right and locked on everyone looking at him. Hair on his back stood on end, and he grinned in a cocky way that looked less animalistic all of a sudden. _Oh, oh man is he-_ Deku's breathing picked up speed as he stepped in front of Wonderlass and rose his arms in a fighting stance.

Zach was about to run at Dandy when he saw that look on the villain's face. He had stopped because of Dandy's movements, his power, his speed. All of it was next level. From the moment he slammed Midoriya into the ground, to the time he was about to kill Wonderlass and Midoriya had to jump back in, was only a couple of seconds. Walls and the floor were tearing apart every time Dandy touched them, his voice was shaking the place with his roars and sending chills down their spines with his growls, but that smirk on his face told them all something. _He's not, out of control,_ Zach thought. _His Quirk, Bearman, it's so powerful like this but… He hasn't lost it. He's just more like a bear, while on a high of having all this power and being the center of attention?! Is he succumbing to animal instincts which is- what's his goal?! He used Apocalypse, knowing it would probably kill him! We shouldn't have ignored him! Holy shit, Dandy!_

Zach's black hands shook at his sides. Wonderlass lifted her head and looked past Deku's legs towards the beast. Gilgamesh stood up and two golden hands pushed debris off of his sidekicks trapped beneath some. Vixen stood up, and she glanced to the side to see Spunky laying unmoving up against a shipping crate with a huge dent in the side of it. Half of a villain lay ten feet in front of Vixen's feet, and her eyes shifted towards that and made her shiver as she thought about how easy it was for Dandy to rip that man in half with his bare bear hands. Roady pushed his hands down on the floor below him, and he lifted his head before getting back to his feet. He activated Speedroute to find the quickest way to escape from there almost subconsciously, only to hold his breath as he saw huge thick black lines in front of him going towards or anywhere near Dandy.

 _Do I turn off Nightmare? Could I touch him without the power boost Nightmare gives me? No, I wouldn't get close to him. I'd be dead if even a slash from his claws… Apocalypse isn't like Trigger! What does Dandy want? Why is this happening?! He could kill everyone! If I had more power, I'm already weakened, but I can't just get more power! Unless, I go and kill the Chemist. Unlike Dandy he's not redeemable. He's, even without any drugs or powerful Quirks, I'd kill him! I can't though. I can't do anything like this!_ _But, but I need to stop him. Because I didn't do more when I was with the villains. I didn't stop the Chemist earlier, I didn't destroy the Apocalypse supply when I was in the lab after seeing those experiments, even though I knew the extra vials I was scared existed must have been in there. This is my fault. People are going to die. Dandy's shrugging off Midoriya and Wonderlass's hits. Midoriya has All Might's power! How do I stop him?! Think!_

"Dandy," Midoriya called forward to the villain whose expression made him think the man was not completely lost inside what looked like a monster. "Stop this! Apocalypse, it'll kill you if we don't get you help." _Think! What can I do here?! Shigaraki's getting away, but I might be the only one who can stop Dandy. He's on a rampage! He'll kill everyone. How do I stop him? I'm hurting, blood loss from the wound on my back that must look as bad as it feels. My left arm's in bad condition, but I have my right arm and both legs. Air cannons in each finger, though at twenty percent there's no way those are strong enough to push Dandy back. Do I flick at a hundred percent? I'll break fingers, but with Hatsume's gloves it'll condense the air. Though at 100% it'll rip through them. I can't push higher than twenty, twenty five percent. At the Sports Festival I brought it so high! Without breaking my body, I brought it so much higher! I have to be able to do that again! How did I reach 50% that day? Every next level felt like I should've been breaking apart, but I held on. What was it that allowed me to hold on? Is it something I can bring out right now? It needs to be!_

Other heroes running across the lab neared the southern hallway, and heroes from outside ran towards the entrance or holes in the wall to help with the villain Bikergang had yelled about when bringing Chemist out. Dandy stared at the boy who shouted at him before thinking at a hundred words per second to try and come up with a plan, an opening, something to beat him with! On Dandy's back left the boy shrouded in darkness stood panting with his white costume showing clearer through his aura than it had for the rest of the raid. Zach knew he had used a lot fighting on the north side of the building, and bringing people back to life a half dozen times had exhausted his mind as well as his body as much as using that much Death in Nightmare had. Wonderlass stood up behind Midoriya on shaking legs. _This'll shorten my life span again,_ Wonderlass thought, though she pulled her left elbow in and then rose her right arm up too and pulled that elbow as well while more of her body moved at Super than ever that night.

"RaaaAAAAA!" Wonderlass started screaming, her voice getting louder and the ground beneath her feet breaking. Her immune system and natural fast recovery speeds worked far beyond full power, "SUPER MOVE: SUPER MOVES!" Wonderlass roared, while her muscles that ripped apart because of how hard she was tensing her body fixed themselves and then ripped up again.

"Golden Buddha!" Gilgamesh's entire body was surrounded in liquid gold that started to take shape. His stomach rounded out and eight arms lifted out of the sides of his rising body, with the top two moving in front of him and pressing their palms together in a praying stance. His chubby face appeared at the top of what looked like a Buddha statue, and then his closed golden eyes snapped open with liquid gold poring out of the sockets and down his face like tears.

Roady darted his eyes around and pushed Speedroute harder, getting more angles and more pathways to appear in his vision. They did not just extend out from him, but he made them appear out of Wonderlass, Lifebringer, Deku, Gilgamesh, Vixen, and a dozen other heroes all arriving at the same time. He saw red lines, black lines, dark orange ones even at the best options he could see. _Yet if orange is the best we've got,_ Roady opened his mouth and shouted at Wonderlass and Deku first. They each knew his Quirk from the planning meeting when they were properly introduced to him, and neither wasted a second. Deku had not found the answer he was looking for, could not locate the route that would give him the best chance of taking down Dandy without any more loss of life.

Wonderlass just needed not to hesitate and was about to sprint forward anyway. "Thirty seconds," she warned the boy charging forward with her who she moved at the same speed as, only to race forward twice as fast to reach Dandy first.

 _ **I'll take you all on.**_ One thought filled Dandy's mind as his vision reddened and shook around him.

Dandy swept up at Wonderlass's fist, but her fist smashed through his claws and slammed into his knuckles that covered in blood from his own claws slashing them. Then his claws re-extended out of his fist but Wonderlass had already pulled away by yanking her whole body in midair in an action that ripped apart muscles through her chest and abs. Those muscles repaired while slashes of air cut through her baggy costume and her skin, only for her skin to heal while she spun a kick for Dandy's head. He slashed up and dug his claws into her muscular calf this time, then Deku's right leg swung down in a windmill kick that broke Dandy's arm. The iron soles in Midoriya's boots collected all the kinetic energy the impact filled them with, and he twisted his body and spun another kick this time for Dandy's head. Dandy opened his mouth and Deku's leg went straight into his opening jaw on what looked more like a protruding snout than a human's mouth now. Deku stopped his forward momentum and yanked back, but teeth slashed across his shin as he almost did not get back in time.

Wonderlass slammed her other leg down on the top of Dandy's head, pulling the claws of his broken arm out of her calf. "Before he can regenerate!" She yelled, while the muscles and tissue and skin of her right leg repaired themselves. Wonderlass still could not land on that leg or the left that broke apart when she kicked down on the top of Dandy's head, and getting back up was a struggle too while Midoriya spun around in front of her and slammed his left leg down at Dandy's back this time.

Midoriya's leg dented into Dandy's back and pushed his head and legs up while his body went farther into the floor. "Lifebringer!" Roady called towards his comrade who sprinted forward at the sound of Roady's call. "WAIT DON'T!" Roady yelled again, the lines in his vision changing color faster than he could keep up with. "Everyone back!" Deku jumped backwards, and what should have been Dandy's broken arm swung up towards his legs and just missed the boy by less than centimeters.

Dandy snapped his head up and his eyes focused on a single person who stumbled backwards as their vision flashed black for the first time in their life. Everything in Roady's eyes turned dark tinted, but there was a faint green light behind him that he started turning his head for. In the midst of darkness, he saw a red glow around a tiny green line showing him which way to dodge.

Dandy's other arm that had not slashed at Midoriya dug into the ground in front of him, and then he yanked backwards with such force that the ground below him was thrown into the air behind him. Chunks of rubble flew towards Zach who crossed his arms and yelled out anyway in pain as he was slammed by all the rubble. Deku was still lifting up over Dandy after avoiding the swipe that had barely just passed him when Dandy rose his head with that furious snarl on it. Dandy threw his own body so fast the other direction that even though Wonderlass just got back on her feet, it took her half a second to kick off the ground with leg-shattering kicks to try and intercept him.

"ROADY!" Bikergang shouted towards his sidekick who had turned with the most scared look he had ever seen on the twenty year old's face before. Roady dove, while Dandy appeared flying through the air behind him. Vixen and Gilgamesh both tried to block with Sludge and Gold, but they were far too late to start activating their Quirks. Another hero pushed his arms forward that extended as steel bars, another pointed a pistol and fired, but Dandy's head pulled to the side to dodge the only thing that had been fast enough to almost stop him.

Roady dove when the line in his vision was still green. It turned a greenish yellow color as his feet left the floor though, and then brighter yellow turning orange. He reached his arms out in front of him with terror filling him as he fell in what felt like slow motion, because orange turned to red to a darker red pulsing with the color of death. Then a flash of yellow in his bottom right caught his attention in all the black filling his eyes, and he yanked his body in midair down. He did not have the strength or ability to change his trajectory, but Roady tried his best. He pulled the direction of hope, because he believed Speedroute knew how fast he was and was giving him that color based on his current abilities even in mid-dive. He pulled down towards it but the yellow turned darker anyway, and he pulled his arms back in towards his body, his legs too to try and curl into fetal position-

Dandy slashed his claws. A fist slammed into the back of his head when he was about to land. His feet dug into the ground and he skid much farther than he would just from landing after moving that speed with the extra speed boost from Wonderlass's punch. She had not put all her power into her punch though, as she had been reaching with her other hand for Roady who started screaming out in pain. She could not grab him though, and she pulled back when about to grab hold of the boy. _MORE!_ Wonderlass thought as her feet were about to touch the ground, while her legs were still shattered from how hard she had to jump to catch Dandy almost in time. She knew her thirty second time limit would be cut even lower with this, but she touched down with legs instantly able to hold her body weight even as she felt the most ridiculous pain ever.

Roady felt the same way she did though, as Dandy skid away while dragging him through the air. Both of Dandy's claws had dug through his right leg when he was trying to pull it in closer to his body, and they had dug so deep that he was being dragged through the air like a ragdoll instead of being thrown from Dandy's grasp. All Roady could think about, other than the pain, was how quickly Dandy had ripped someone in half with these same claws before. Dandy swung Roady's body behind him though while spinning his head to face Wonderlass who was suddenly right behind him. Dandy was slower than she was, but he was still so fast that swinging Roady while his claws were through the boy's leg was going to shred his claws straight through it.

Even though Wonderlass hit Dandy in the face and chest with her punches so hard that he was lifted off the ground this time and thrown through a steel shipping crate and the one stacked behind it, she grit her teeth in rage as the blood of that sidekick splashed onto the side of her face. She pushed her legs down to try and charge after where she sent Dandy flying, and then her body shut down on her. Wonderlass opened her mouth to let out a scream of sheer agony, but her eyes rolled back in her head as she was falling forward. She hit flat on her face, the same moment a flying Roady hit the ground and started rolling.

Roady's right leg had been impaled in three places on his thigh, right through the middle of it. When Dandy swung him, those three claws dug out of Roady's flesh like cutting through butter. The claws that had dug into his lower leg did even more damage though, as one tore apart his knee and the others nearly sheered his calf completely off, though most of it was dangling now from Roady's body. "AaaaaAHHHHH!" Roady screamed when he finally got a breath into his lungs.

"Roady!" Zach lowered his crossed arms that he rose when Dandy threw the ground back at him, and he started running forward. He slammed a hand into his chest to turn off Nightmare and ignored the pain in that right arm from when a rock smashed into him at eighty miles per hour. He sprinted towards the older boy whose leg was bleeding profusely, then Zach snapped his head up in terror as a huge shipping crate with a hole in both sides of it lifted off the ground.

Dandy's claws were dug straight through the steel, and he glared towards the woman lying on her face closest to him. He pulled the shipping crate up and back over his head, then two feet slammed into his chest and made him drop the crate. Midoriya flipped back off his kick to dodge the falling shipping container that sounded full by the breaking noises inside when it fell on Dandy's body.

Zach finished sprinting to Roady and reached him right after Bikergang who dropped next to his sidekick's side. "Hold on," Bikergang said, looking at Roady's leg in fear and then up at the younger hero's face with a more confident and steady look. "You're going to be-"

Zach pulled his shirt off and started tying it around Roady's upper thigh at the highest of the profusely bleeding holes. He had sweat all over his face and a terrified look in his eyes at the amount of blood splashing on his hands. Roady screamed again in agony, and Zach snapped his head to the left and then back down as the thuds he heard under the shipping container sent chills down all their spines. "We have to get him out-" Bikergang began, only to put his arms down on both Roady and Zach and then Spring back towards the entrance of the lab. The shipping container suddenly grinding across the floor straight towards Midoriya was moving too fast for the boy with curly hair to want to try and stop. Midoriya grabbed Wonderlass and did the same thing Bikergang did, while the sliding shipping container hit some upturned floor and started rolling despite being a rectangular prism.

Dandy jumped up over the shipping crate when he saw someone else dodge by doing the same thing, and the winged hero flapped down harder to dodge the crazy villain. Dandy's claws just missed her right wing, but the slash of his arm made a wind funnel strong enough that it spun the hero out and into a wall that Dandy ran towards after landing and slammed his right fist into. The wall started collapsing, and Dandy grabbed a piece and threw it up towards the hero who flapped their wings again in horror as Dandy was solely focused on them. "Leave me alone!" She screamed, dropping her combat weapons as she raced for one of the windows on the south wall. A huge chunk of wall slammed into the window straight ahead of her, bigger than the window itself would be so even after smashing the glass it got stuck in the wall and trapped her inside.

The winged hero spun to look back down at Dandy, but her eyes opened huge as he was no longer down on the floor. Instead he was up on the ceiling above where he had just been. He wasn't technically on the ceiling, but he was higher up than she was, grabbing one of the thick metal bars holding up the roof. He ripped down and the roof buckled above him. Dandy tore the metal beam and the connecting supports off, then he swung towards the winged woman who weaved between bars and flew in the direction of other heroes which she realized was the only way she would get Dandy to stop targeting her. "HELP ME!" She screamed.

"Everyone get back!" Gilgamesh shouted, rising up all of his huge golden arms of his Super Move transformation. The Golden Buddha's arms started melting and merging with the golden floor in front of him that had risen up to stop the rolling shipping crate. He waited for Angelic Angela to get over him, then he forced all of the gold up and started hardening the wall. On their side of the wall though, across the entire structure that rose in front of them, things started bulging through. They were coated in gold, and they started gaining the appearance of what looked like the intricate support structure that was supposed to be holding up the ceiling. Dandy had thrown it all down at them, but Gilgamesh's golden wall was holding firm as it solidified around each of the steel bars coming at them.

It took all of Gilgamesh's Gold, and he returned to his normal human appearance in his gold-colored costume. He was panting but grinned as everything stopped moving in front of him. Then Dandy slammed into the back of the metal supports, and the gold wall shattered, and everything crashed through.

"OH SHIT!"

"RUN!"

"AHHH _HHH!"_

Cops who had a much more solid perimeter outside of the building now than ever before stared towards the southern wall of the warehouse as it broke apart. The ceiling over the southern exterior part of the warehouse covered in cracks, and some heroes came sprinting out of the building with a couple of them dragging or carrying others with them. A few had grabbed some unconscious heroes or villains as they ran, and other heroes had gone the opposite way if they were across the south hall to run into the main lab instead. Two large trucks were impaled by metal beams, and an explosion went off as a spark from the steel collision ignited leaking gas from the truck that had been shot one too many times in the fighting.

Flames burst between steel beams, re-melting gold chunks falling around the place. Dandy landed on top of the shipping container that had been stopped by the gold before, and he lifted up his right claw that held a solid chunk of gold in it. His head cocked to the side as he stared at it, his smile stretching even farther and then his eyes rising off of the gold and into the mess in front of him. Behind him, pieces of the ceiling started raining down from where he had removed the supports holding it up. He ignored the fact that the walls on his sides and the ceiling above him were breaking apart though, his eyes focusing between all the rubble, debris, and screaming people to a single man who had gotten trapped under a metal bar though used some gold at the last second to keep it from crushing him. _**"Gold man,"**_ Dandy's deep animalistic voice snarled, and Gilgamesh stopped struggling to move to instead look up between steel bars towards the monster staring straight at him.

"Oh fu- help me!" Gilgamesh screamed as he locked eyes with the beast. Dandy dove down towards him, dropping the chunk of gold that he no longer needed. He slashed his claws in front of him and ripped through the first steel bar in his way, then he did the same with the next one. As his claws were colliding with the steel though, Dandy started turning his head to the right at the boy flying out from behind some falling rubble with his right fist pulled far back behind him.

"IDAHO…" _TWENTY EIGHT!_ Midoriya opened his right fist that Dandy started changing his right arm's momentum to try and stop. Midoriya swung his opened right hand down to create a force that would flip his body while still shooting himself as fast forward towards Dandy as he was already. His right leg was already pulled back, and he flipped up over the top of Dandy's head before slamming his leg down and into the back of Dandy's skull with his heel. "SMASH!" Dandy went flying over Gilgamesh and denting into the side of an impaled truck so hard that he un-impaled it from a support beam and made the truck skid back across the floor before falling on its side.

Midoriya landed on a creaking metal bar and glanced at Gilgamesh just to check he was okay, then he bounced after Dandy right through the flames from the other truck with his left leg pulled to the side this time which he kicked in front of him. His foot collided with Dandy's right arm that he swung to the side at him. Midoriya pulled his leg back just enough that it was the steel of his boot colliding with Dandy's fist instead, though the steel of his special support item was still cut through. _It's sharper!_ Midoriya thought, thinking that after his claws had regrown the first time they must have come back even stronger. _He's regenerating too fast! I have to take him down with something stronger!_ Even though the claws started digging through his boots, Midoriya's power was enough that Dandy's arm got swung the other way, turning his body too and opening him up for an attack.

Zach rose his head up from where he was on his hands and knees coughing out in pain. He parted his eyelids and winced as the smoke around him was thick and made his eyes start tearing up while getting redder. Zach crawled forward though and he grabbed the older boy who was thrown to safety not too far from him, and who he heard screaming before he had even opened his eyes. "Bikergang!" Zach called out, looking around and then shielding his face with one arm as a flare of fire from nearby blew towards him in a gust of wind. The walls were cracked and falling, dust blew up in the air as a chunk from the ceiling dropped into the mess of metal bars and flames on the floor, and Zach coughed harder as the air became even thicker and harder to breathe in.

"Over here," Bikergang called, and Zach turned his head to see the pro hero behind some steel beams. The beams were blocking them off for each other along with some flames around them that looked to be heating those bars up too much for Bikergang to get close to them. Bikergang looked up to see if he could go above, but the smoke was thick. He almost decided to try, when a hole opened up in the smoke and he saw just as Zach did two figures colliding up there. A curly haired sixteen year old had his right elbow slammed forward into the underside of Dandy's left forearm, blocking the swipe while the boy also pulled his head away to dodge the air slash that came from Dandy's claws. Midoriya's knee pulled up and slammed into Dandy's stomach, sending the hairy monster up higher in the air while dropping Midoriya fast down to the hot metal bars below.

Midoriya dropped on a steel bar so hard that it dented down below his feet, then he shot up into the air and made a funnel of smoke and dust following him up towards the ceiling where he and Dandy clashed again. Zach could not see when they clashed, but he felt the ground shake beneath him and then saw more of the ceiling up above falling down into the smoke. Zach reached down and grabbed Roady with both hands, and he pulled backwards desperately for the hole in the southern wall behind him. Bikergang had to move the other way as the debris fell between them, and he moved towards a hole in the main lab where he was separated from his sidekicks even more. "Bouncer Man, what's your position-"

"We're after Shigaraki! We think they're trying to escape and they have the rest of the Apocalypse!"

Bikergang spun his head to the left then back in front of him to face the boys he could barely see between steel bars and smoke. Zach was tying the shirt of his costume he never finished wrapping Roady's thigh with as tight as he could around the top of Roady's leg that was still bleeding badly. The black-haired boy darted his eyes back and forth as he tightened the tie on Roady's leg, but then he heard a low moan and looked back down with wider eyes at Roady's face that was more pale than before. "I don't, want to, die," Roady muttered, his eyes half-closed and a look of fear spread over his face as he was finally able to speak instead of just screaming in pain.

Zach's eyes opened wide and he started panting harder than he already was. The building shook around him, and Zach lifted his gaze up towards Bikergang on the other side of the rubble that was piling up more to keep them away from each other. "I can," Zach began. He grit his teeth, and he pushed his legs down while grabbing Roady tighter with his hands. He hoisted the taller boy by a couple of inches up to his feet, and Roady screamed as Zach accidentally put some weight down on Roady's right side as much as he was trying to carry his fellow sidekick. It was the extra couple of inches between their heights that did it, and Zach had to hoist Roady up more onto his back before letting go with his right hand and wrapping the other arm around Roady's back as he held him over his left shoulder. "I can save him," Zach said, looking towards Bikergang whose eyes widened at the sound of that even though he lost sight of Lifebringer a second later.

 _Midoriya, I believe in you,_ Zach thought. He spun around and ran for the exit of the hall on fire and falling apart. _Roady. I, even if I were to just wait- no, no I can't just wait and bring you back! That's not- you shouldn't have to- I don't want you to die either!_

"Unnngghhh," Roady moaned over Zach's shoulder as Zach ran him out of the warehouse. Zach could feel his back getting wet from the blood on Roady's leg soaking him alone, and it terrified him.

The ceiling above the exit they just ran out started falling down a second later, and Zach spun his head to the right and called out to a couple of heroes running towards the building, "Don't go in there!" Zach called out. His eyes widened for a second as a girl with an orange ponytail looked towards him next to her fellow sidekick and pro hero.

The intern from Class B stared with as wide eyes at Zach as he ran away from the building with a bloody older man on his back. Itsuka Kendo was not staring in as much shock that Zach was there though, as she had heard mention of Lifebringer only a minute ago. What did shock her though, was the sight of Zach's shirtless body that she had never seen before. She saw some of his torture at the Sports Festival, but Kendo and her two comrades stared for a moment at Zach's muscular body illuminated in the light of the cop cars and nearby flames. The scars on his chest, the long one on his side cutting down into his waistband, the discolored skin from his burn scars, the sealed gashes all down his left arm much closer together than the others as his left arm had taken the most damage of anywhere on his body.

The ceiling finally collapsing is what made the women spin back to the building, realizing why it was Zach shouted that at them in the first place. Then again, they just thought that was the reason Zach shouted it at them, though he was not really referring to the ceiling at all. _No one can stop Dandy like this. No one but you. Maybe they could help, but, but it's Apocalypse. It's the drug that'd destroy the world if injected into certain people. Like me. I had to destroy it! I still can! If I get to Shigaraki and-_ "Life… bringer," Roady whispered, his head bowed over Zach's left shoulder where his upper body was resting. "It's, okay," Roady started muttering.

"I'm getting you out of here!" Zach yelled, as he saw a resigned look starting to form on Roady's face. He heard that tone in his voice, and he thought about how badly Roady's leg was torn up to bleed like it was. _This isn't something a med kit can fix! This isn't something a simple tourniquet can stop! I need, I need to get him to a hospital!_ Zach kept running, and he ran right back towards the police line where they had arrived earlier. They were in the south where they had entered from, which meant that if they were still there…

Zach sprinted between cop cars and the cops near them turned his way and started asking questions and shouting about Roady's condition. "I won't let you die," Zach promised, and Roady's head lifted a little while turning in towards the younger boy's face. _What if I'm too exhausted? What if I let you die out here to go deal with stuff inside, and I get knocked out or killed in there? What if I use up all my power and can't do it? What if I wake up and you're dead, and I could have saved you? And, and none of that matters!_ Zach apologized to Roady while lowering him down, and Roady gasped out in pain which just made Zach more worried that he did not hear a scream of pain. Not hearing that scream made him think Roady did not have the strength for it, and he moved even faster to throw his helmet aside, put the orange helmet over his head ,and then get Roady up onto his own motorcycle himself.

"Who said, you could, drive?" Roady started as Zach got on the bike in front of him and started the engines. Zach's lips pulled up at the corners, as the fear he felt that Roady had not screamed a few seconds ago replaced with hope as his comrade made a joke. At least he thought it was a joke, though he knew how Roady kept his motorcycle in good condition with a lot of care, and he got a sweatdrop on his face as he felt like Roady was trying to reach around him for the handlebars.

Zach twisted the throttle of the accelerator with one hand, using his other arm to hold onto Roady's arm that he put around him. "I'm sorry," Zach said, as Roady gasped out in pain again from his leg hitting the side of the bike. "But you have to hold onto me Roady, I can't do this without you. Stay focused. Stay with me, and don't fall of the bike."

Roady started nodding, then he shook his head around to try and focus since until Zach said it he was kind of fading out there. Focusing had the negative effect of also focusing his pain, and Roady screamed again as Zach raced away from the warehouse even faster. "Daisy! Keiko! Are you-"

"Lifebringer?" Daisy called out. She was sitting at her computer already, though her body had been turned on her chair as she was staring over towards the huge tv screen and the chaotic scene unfolding on it. "You're on Roady's helmet mic, what are you-"

"He's hurt bad, I need directions to the nearest hospital. Right now!" Zach shouted it and he heard typing immediately on the other side of the line. "Hurry up! Intersection up ahead-"

"I'm plugging into your helmet right-"

"Which way?!"

"LEFT!"

Zach ground his teeth and he spun the motorcycle, and the wheels wobbled below them making both young men on it open their eyes wide in fear for a second. Zach let go of Roady while Roady held onto him tighter though, grabbing the handlebars with both hands to steady them and then twisting the accelerator up faster as Roady screamed on his back. "Just hold on!" Zach shouted at him, right before a display appeared in the corner of Roady's helmet visor to give Zach a translucent map guide to the Mosu Esupa hospital. Zach realized as he looked at that map and felt Roady's hands tighten around him, _I'm wearing the only helmet! I knew I needed directions which is why I put it on, but if Roady falls off he could crack his skull! What if this is what kills him!?_

 _I can't go too fast that he falls, but if I go too slow he'll pass out and let go of me and that'll be what_ _ **makes**_ _him fall! How fast? Which way? How much time? I want to save you. Dying, dying is horrible. The slow release into darkness, and that feeling. That feeling I've felt so many times._ Zach ground his teeth behind his visor, and Daisy called out to him which way on his directions would get him to the hospital fastest. He sped up even more, as the thought of Dandy's claws shredding through Roady's leg filled Zach's head. _I don't want to feel that either,_ Zach thought, his heart clenching up as he heard Roady screaming behind him. So many times that night already he had felt excruciating pains, people getting stabbed and shot and crushed.

The worst was bringing back Plucky. He thought it might be similar to bringing back Kuroiro's grandmother, because it was not external wounds but kind of like a poisoning. She had not gone down in the same way Plucky had though, and just thinking back on how he felt while reviving Plucky made Zach's entire insides feel like they were ripping apart all over again. _If I can save someone, when they don't have to die first, then I have to do it! Because as much as I tell people that I don't consider someone dead until after the time limit, I know that's not true. I know that if I have to bring them back that I failed at saving them. It's a measure for after we've failed. This is a time I don't have to fail though. I'm sorry Midoriya, everyone. Please stop Dandy. I'm, I'm keeping my friend alive!_

* * *

Bikergang ran across the Trigger laboratory in the middle of the warehouse. All of the Trigger tanks, crates, tables covered in boxes and bags of drugs, they were all smashed and scattered around the floor. Steel beams lay littered around too, and an ominous and loud creaking noise above the hero told him that the beams that had yet to fall were not far behind. Walls were cracking, the floor shook from every piece of the building falling in the exterior areas and the main lab, which meant that there was a continuous rumbling in the building as more and more fell apart.

 _ **BwwooooOOOOO! BwwooooOOOOO!**_ The sirens outside were getting louder, though Bikergang realized that was because there were more holes in the walls and the ceiling to let the sound from outside get in easier. "Everybody out of the building!" Bikergang shouted to his left where he saw a hero from a city eighty miles to the north of there with two of her sidekicks tying up a couple of villains. "Move it!" He yelled at them as they moved faster to tie up the men already unconscious on the floor and then hoisted them up. He would have gone over to help them, but his left hand was down on his side and he was clenching at his wound that was hurting badly after he reopened it dodging Dandy's earlier attacks. He had focused more on getting Roady and Lifebringer away while Lifebringer was wrapping Roady's leg, allowing himself to take the brunt of the damage so Lifebringer could get his young sidekick out of there.

He started thinking about the two of them as he ran, but his head turned to the right and he slowed down himself. He stared towards a hole in the wall, then he leaned back and crossed his arms in front of his face as part of the wall next to the hole collapsed down into it and made a huge plume of dust and ash fly up in the air. Smoke filled the room above him from the wall on his left that had caught on even more flames, and he did not know where any heroes who could put out those flames were. _Even if someone could put them out, this building isn't going to last much longer!_ Bikergang stumbled forward and then tried to regain his balance just as the heroes running the same way on his left had to. He snapped his head up and his eyes opened wide for a second as a three huge gaps in the smoke were made.

Between two of the gaps, a boy who had dodged between the path of the slashing claws came out of the thicker smoke from where Dandy's slash did not part the air. Midoriya dropped out of the air and sparks came out of his glowing body while he was landing, then he shot back up in a flash that made Bikergang snap his gaze into the air and open his eyes wider as he saw a beast sprinting across the ceiling. Dandy's claws dug into the roof with every step so that the ceiling behind him cracked more and more, and then a hole blasted in the ceiling itself right in front of where Dandy stopped running instantly without caring about his momentum. Midoriya smashed through the roof, then the steel below Dandy's claws bunched up and pushed forward as he had stopped too short and dug his claws in when he had normally just stabbed and pulled out.

Dandy's eyes snapped down to the bunching ceiling beneath his claws, and the hair on his back stood on end so he pushed out and jumped to his right. The boy who just smashed above him slammed back down into the roof where Dandy was below, broke through it and then spun his other leg to the side where he had seen Dandy moving to through a thin gash in the roof that Dandy's claw had cut. His foot slammed into the side of Dandy's face, his iron sole breaking two of Dandy's sharp teeth and slamming them into his left cheek that they tore straight through. _**"RRAAAA!"**_ Dandy roared, snapping his head back forward in an instant with a look of rage on his animalistic face. He dug his claws down harder and pushed back to give himself a burst of speed, while also smashing a chunk of the ceiling up in the air above the warehouse.

Dandy slammed into Midoriya and sent them flying through the air and into a wall on the east side of the building. They smashed through, and rubble blasted out into an exterior hallway full of heroes and villains battling near a black portal and a man whose body looked to be made of shadows. Midoriya gasped out as his already torn-up back slammed into that wall, but then a chunk of rubble moved in the way of him and Dandy who he saw pulling up a claw in front of him. He slammed his foot up into the rubble before Dandy would have slashed down at it, and the breaking debris slammed up into Dandy in half a dozen different places on his body. Two of the rubble pieces were sharp enough that they ripped through his thick skin and tore tufts of fur off, only for Midoriya to see under those fur-less areas Dandy's skin repairing. Dandy was still knocked back by the rubble though, and Midoriya flipped himself while reaching the eastern wall that was still very-much intact.

Midoriya's legs pressed down into the wall, and the wall cracked behind them, then it dented back into a large circular crater. _Why can't I reach it?! The pressure's on! The conditions are the same!_ Midoriya's jaw clenched and he forced his power up farther, but he felt his bones creaking so much that there was no telling when his bones would snap under the pressure. _Just get to thirty! Thirty is… it's not enough! It won't be! He's even stronger than Inhuman! I need all of All Might's power to even think about beating him! 100 percent of my power, or I won't be able to do it!_ He could see Dandy's body leaning back forward from the debris that changed his momentum and sent him back at the opposite wall they had smashed through and was falling below and around him. _Use as much as I can without breaking my legs…_

"Shigaraki Tomura, we need to go," Kurogiri said towards the thin wavy-haired villain in front of him. Shigaraki was glaring up with a hand grabbing at his stomach, his body in pain and his teeth grinding in anger as he stared at the boy who just came smashing through the wall but was facing Dandy and not down at them. _One For All. Midoriya Izuku. He's… He's!_ Shigaraki stared at the boy who was facing off Dandy alone even after Dandy had injected with Apocalypse.

Midoriya shot off the wall, the crater behind his feet doubling in size and a hole blowing back behind where his feet had planted. His left arm pulled back behind him, and his glove and the rest of the sleeve above where Shigaraki had already destroyed it shredded apart. Blood splashed out of that arm that was red from how bloody it already was, and Midoriya screamed out in pain while swinging that fist down into Dandy's chest. "AHH- SMASH!" Midoriya screamed, changing his yell of pain even as he felt his arm breaking apart. He focused One For All harder, and his eyes darted back and to the left towards a man with wavy gray hair whose eyes opened huge at the sight of Midoriya's look. His teeth bared, his eyes wide and intense, so full of thought of what was coming next. Midoriya had seen what was happening in the room even as he was focused on stopping Dandy and how to beat him. If 100% really was what he needed to beat Dandy though, and this was the moment he was doing it, then what came next mattered too. _You won't escape._

Dandy's body flew off of Midoriya's fist like a missile. Midoriya's arm was red for a different reason now, as all of the blood was blown off of his skin by the force he slammed his arm into Dandy's chest with. Dandy gasped in pain with blood splashing out of his mouth from more than just a slashed cheek his broken teeth cut through but internal wounds too. Midoriya's arm waved around limply, his bones destroyed and his body screaming in pain at him for doing something so reckless. But Midoriya ignored all that pain. He looked towards Shigaraki turning more of his body, then dust and wind shot up from Dandy's collision with the floor and pushed the villains and heroes near it away.

The portal had just opened when Midoriya and Dandy smashed through the wall of the lab. Bouncer Man had looked away for a second, then he turned back to stop the tiny villain in front of him from reaching the portal. Then that short man was blown up in the air and yelled out in panic, while Dandy spun and crossed his arms to protect from the wind. Dust slammed into him and blinded him from everything happening around him for a second, then the ground beneath his feet cracked and he took a step back as he felt the building losing even more of its foundation. The eastern outer wall Midoriya used as his launch point, the inner wall, the falling beams on the ceiling. _The warehouse is-_

"Battle Fist! Get away from there!"

"One second!" Itsuka Kendo shouted back at her pro hero, while straining her muscles even harder to lift up the metal beam just outside of the warehouse she would not get inside. She had seen someone running out of a hole in the wall though right before it fell down and trapped them inside a cloud of dust, and she was over there hoisting up on a steel beam with all of her strength. There was other debris on it and the beam was connected to other ones that had fallen farther inside the building, but the ceiling and walls around the girl at the edge of the building were shaking and moving back and forth. "Come ONN!" She screamed, and Kendo lifted up as hard as she could to reveal there was someone beneath it like she thought.

Her pro hero who was running towards her stared at that figure below the steel beams with wide eyes, and then she raced forward and slid under the debris Kendo was holding up with her muscles straining. "Got him!" The hero called out while sliding back from underneath, diving away as soon as she was out because Kendo's huge hands were shaking like she could no longer hold it up. Kendo dropped the rubble, then she stumbled backwards and she crossed her big fists in front of her body as the walls and ceiling started falling out over her.

"The situation here in Mosu Esupa seems to keep getting worse. We received word that the villains had been cornered inside the warehouse, but another huge part of the southern section of the building has just now collapsed. We can only speculate about the status of the heroes inside, but the walls around the building and the ceiling as well keep shaking and breaking apart. What is going on inside? Heroes continue to rush into and out of the building, some dragging unconscious comrades and others captured villains." The helicopter over the building did another turn and the camera panned over the shaking warehouse down below that was partly in flames, partly collapsed and surrounded by clouds of ash and smoke, and some parts of it both.

Inside the eastern exterior section of the warehouse, Midoriya slammed his right fist into the floor beneath where Shigaraki was just crouched down after getting to his feet. Midoriya's fist tore through the floor and blew up rocks and dust around him into the cloud of it already surrounding him. He planted his feet down below him and winced as he felt damage in his right leg that he knew he went over his natural limit to send him flying at Dandy fast enough to get an unguarded punch in. His left arm flailed around him as he shot off the ground again, but he held back any shout of pain while swinging his right open hand in front of him. The force from the swing of his hand sent all the dust and ash filling the air in front of him pushing away, and he caught a glimpse on his left of Shigaraki trying to move back into the ash in the direction of Kurogiri's portal.

"AH!" A hero yelled out in pain on Midoriya's left inside the dust, and Midoriya recognized the voice. He was swinging his left leg in front of him to push all the dust away and try and send Shigaraki flying considering where he was kicking it, but he twisted his body more before finishing the kick and cleared out the air just a little farther. Where he kicked opened up the air around Kurogiri's portal which was a terrible move he realized instantly, as it gave everyone who could see, a clear shot at their escape route. He did not see Shigaraki though and knew it was not long enough that Shigaraki could have made it through, he also saw Kurogiri get pushed back from his own portal himself, and he saw another villain who had been about to reach it even inside the dust get pushed back and thrown into a wall. A pro hero chasing that villain through the debris got pushed away too, though the villain grabbing Bouncer Man by his right arm was not.

Midoriya froze when he stared at him too. The two of them were not pushed by the force of a twenty percent kick just to clear the surrounding air of dust, and the man grabbing Bouncer Man's right arm lifted his head a bit to look towards Midoriya. He stared at the kid and his teeth bared, all of them there making a perfect snarl of sharp teeth while his red eyes flared harder and blood came out of them looking like bloody tears over his furry face. His fur was red on his face from his eyes down to his chin where those blood trails dripped off, and Dandy's body was larger than it was before Midoriya smashed him down into the floor. Dandy's body rippled, his muscles in his arms bulking out more and the villain's face twisting in agony like he felt his muscles actually bulging and tearing apart old muscle to replace with stronger versions. He let out a powerful breath out of what looked like a snout now sticking out of his face, and he bared his teeth even harder like an animal with a look of rage-filled terror in his eyes. For the first time since he saw Dandy inject himself with that vial, Midoriya truly understood what he was looking at.

Dandy still had his cognitive functions. He stared at Midoriya and tightened his grip on Bouncer Man's right arm harder, then a crack sounded and he realized he had just broken Bouncer Man's arm as the hero pulling back his left fist for a punch screamed out instead. Dandy swung to his side and threw Bouncer Man like he weighed nothing through the exterior, and his eyes stayed focused on the kid staring back at him in fear but also a determined look on his face. _**"You, did this,"**_ Dandy said, as these new bulges in his body had come after Deku slammed him with the most painful attack he had received all day. His chest and insides still hurt from it, though the pain from the Apocalypse itself was doing that already so he could not distinguish the difference between the two.

Midoriya opened his mouth to argue with that, but he could see there was no point at the look crossing Dandy's face when that small sentence had growled out of his snout. Dandy's lips on the top and bottom of his extended-out jaw pulled apart, and his gums bled as his sharp teeth extended out farther before his jaw had extended enough. Dandy started to yell, but it came out differently midway through, _**"RAAAaaoooOOOO!"**_ His roar turned into a howl, and he snapped his head up while pushing his muzzle to the sky, and then he was slammed by the boy who just shot at him when Dandy took his eyes off him for a second.

Thoughts of Shigaraki Tomura, the League of Villains, they flashed through Midoriya's mind as he tackled Dandy back into the main laboratory. He had been thinking too far ahead though before. He knew that now. Bouncer Man's arm was broken like a twig. A powerful, muscular man whose Quirk was reliant on close-quarters combat and power, his arm was snapped without Dandy even trying. _And he's only getting stronger,_ Midoriya thought, and he again thought back on what Zach had told them about Apocalypse. He had described to them the test trials he had seen, how Apocalypse killed the test subjects by making their Quirks reach their greatest potentials which for most was more than their bodies could handle. _Two of them survived after reaching it, but I can't just assume he'll be one of them and stall for him to come down, and I can't stall until he dies either since Zach said it could take ten, fifteen minutes for the peak to really reach. It depended on the test subject! One died within a minute, another died after thirty! I have to stop him right now!_

Midoriya pushed off of Dandy when the villain brought his head back down with a deranged look in his eyes. Midoriya did not know how much of his consciousness he still had, though the villain was stupid enough already to have used this drug that would likely kill him that Midoriya did not even know if he could be reasoned with. He flipped back away from Dandy, his teeth clenched and his eyes half-closed, his right still bloodshot and watery from when Breakneck pushed his fingers into it. His left hand was twitching at his side as he tried to ball it into a fist, and his arm was covered in his own blood again. Midoriya's right leg ached from going over the limit too often even if he had avoided breaking it yet. His back felt like mush. Yet Dandy looked down and into the eyes of the boy he was about to charge, and his newfound animal instincts made him hesitate at the sight of the calm boy breathing heavily and glaring right back at him.

The lab around them kept falling apart, and a small piece of the ceiling fell between the two of them. It hit the floor with a clank, and the two of them shot towards each other without either saying a word. Dandy ran on all fours tearing up the ground beneath his claws while snarling at the boy. Midoriya leapt up halfway to Dandy and spun his body around twice in an instant before extending his leg, and Dandy ducked and slashed his right fore-claw up through the ground and towards Midoriya. Midoriya flicked two of his fingers in his right glove to dodge the claw, but he was hit by debris rising at him from the claw ripping through the ground. He ignored the pain of getting hit by those small pieces of cement though, instead raising up his left leg and then slamming his heel down when Dandy tried slashing that arm back at him. He hit Dandy on the top of the hand and sent the villain's claws straight into the floor while also smashing up his fingers below his damaged steel sole from Dandy's earlier slash.

Then Midoriya's right leg came up though, spinning around as he used the momentum from slamming his body forward and down on Dandy's hand. His right foot with the undamaged iron sole on it slammed under Dandy's chin as he tried pulling his head back, and it sent the villain flying out from beneath Deku. He shot backwards, and then the young hero flew after him and slammed him down into the ground with his right fist. He tried kicking for Dandy's head next, but Dandy slashed his right arm to the side the boy was dropping in on, making Midoriya change his leg's trajectory to hit Dandy's arm instead. The villain's arm pushed back a bit, then it snagged forward and grabbed Midoriya by the leg. He spun and slammed down on his other side while raising back up onto his legs, but Midoriya put his right hand down and screamed out as his left arm flailed around him and slammed into the floor too. Despite screaming from that though, Midoriya's right hand dug into the floor and he whipped back behind him to throw the stone chunk he had grabbed into the face of the villain turning his way behind him. Dandy's legs that were rising dropped back and he brought his hands to his face as that rock smashed his sensitive muzzle, and his claws accidentally dug straight into his face when he tried grabbing at it.

Dandy stumbled back while ripping his sharp claws back out of his face, blood covering more of it than ever. He screamed while glaring towards Midoriya again through his glowing red eyes, yet it sounded to Midoriya less like a scream of pain and more of one of an animal feeling cornered. Dandy was enraged, and in pain, yet above all that he was so frustrated that the drug he had used despite knowing it would be his own death was not letting him beat this hero. He screamed that frustration at the teenager in front of him whose eyes widened as if he understood, and that just made Dandy's bloody claws start shaking even more. Dandy charged at Midoriya. The two of them clashed again, and again, and Dandy's muscles rippled out of his body even larger than before to make him three times the size of Midoriya while rearing back on his hind claws. The last ripple of his muscles ripped right out of his skin, but his skin healed over those new muscles and then covered with fur that grew longer and waved around in the wind rushing by Dandy's fast-moving body.

They slammed into each other, over and over again, and their fight took an even bigger toll on the building. The warehouse was violently shaking over the entire thing now, and the heroes on the east side were evacuating and dragging any unconscious allies or captured villains left behind when the Kurogiri's portal had closed. Some heroes trying to head back inside to help get others out received orders from other heroes inside to stay out. Everyone started running at the same time, while the roof cracked and the walls broke and the warehouse started collapsing.

* * *

"Oh my God," Daisy whispered as she stared up at the television in the corner of the room.

Zach heard the voice in his ear as he sped down the street in the direction of the hospital. A police barricade was getting dimmer behind him, and he ground his teeth angrily as he had to waste thirty seconds getting those cops to let him through. He had to take his helmet off for a second to show them his face to convince the officer in charge to let him go, and now he was going even faster than before and he called out, "Hold on Roady! Talk to me buddy!"

Roady's hands clenched around Zach's sides tighter, and Zach felt a twinge of relief that Roady was still responsive. He heard Roady's heavy breaths, felt them on the side of his neck, then Roady's voice spoke and he heard his comrade's voice under the bottom left side of the helmet where Roady's chin was resting on his shoulder. "I can't feel my leg," Roady said. Zach wished it was just the wind pushing too fast them that he misheard the hero holding onto him with all his strength. "But I," Roady continued. "I don't," his voice got higher-pitched and like it was cracking. He stopped himself from letting it though, and he said instead in as steady a voice he could manage, "When did we become buddies?"

Zach's eyes opened wide, though the fear he was feeling at what he thought Roady was about to say vanished a bit. A smile cracked on his face instead despite the sweat all over it, and he replied, "'Course we're buds. Think I'd be recklessly driving a motorcycle for the first time on actual streets when I don't even have a license for just anyone?"

"Yeah," Roady responded back. "I think you would. You were looking for a reason, and I just, happened to be…"

"Yeah, you're totally right," Zach said, hearing Roady's voice trailing off and feeling his hands start to slip too. Zach reached back with his left hand and grabbed Roady's left arm tightly to hold him there and to use that to shake him along with what he said out loud. "I would've taken any excuse to get to go on a joy ride. Wish I could've used a better bike though-"

"What, did you just say?" Roady muttered, his voice getting clearer at the end and his hands tightening back on Zach's body.

It made a big grin spread on Zach's face behind the helmet visor, though he had to yell out after a second, "Hey! I'm really not that good at this!" He snapped his other hand back to the handlebars as Roady squeezed tighter in an upset way like he was getting back at Zach for that comment, and the bike wobbled which made Roady ease up as it was his own motorcycle at stake there if they fell. Zach steadied the motorcycle and he could see the hospital just up ahead. He wanted to ask how Roady was doing, but he also did not want to jinx the good feeling he had about this banter they were having. "Daisy, call in to let them know that-"

Zach stopped before Daisy could interrupt him to say that she already let them know. Her mouth was open, but the way Zach cut off his own sentence confused her and made sweat form on her face as she heard the kid's voice say, "You have to be fucking kidding…"

Five seconds earlier, in an alleyway just up ahead of Zach between two shops on a main road of Mosu Esupa, a pair of villains were stacked up against the wall at the corner of the alley. One of them had the Quirk Camoflage, which let them escape earlier when one of the others with them who had used Trigger at the warehouse got everyone's attention on him. They had slipped away, though they had been seen since Camoflage could only do so from one direction, and it did not work as well when Chamelora was using it to shield two people.

She was panting and had a hand on the wall next to her while looking at the back of the man at her front who was a foot taller than her and broad at the shoulders. "We need to get farther away," Chamelora gasp-whispered at him between panting breaths.

"Get ready, our ride is here," Ropefist said, glancing back at the woman behind him in a confident way. He had light brown skin that looked to be made of the same material as rope, and he rose up his right arm while stepping out of the alley. Chamelora heard the engine as he was stepping out, and she pulled two knives out of the belt she was wearing that had four sheaths on it. Ropefist punched his right arm out when he stepped out of the alley, firing his arm out as five individual long ropes that wound around each other as they extended across the road and wrapped around a streetlamp thirty feet from him.

"Get off the bike!" Ropefist shouted towards the lone motorcycle slowing down and making skid marks below its tires as it screeched. It seemed like it was going to screech to a stop, but the front of the bike spun towards the rope villain and the woman running out of the alley behind him.

 _Can't let these two escape and go threaten someone else! Shit!_ Zach sped towards the man who pointed his left arm forward and yelled, "Stop!" His rope arm started breaking apart with five different ropes pulling away from him, while his other arm unwrapped from the lamppost as he no longer needed it to stop the biker from going past. "Are you crazy?!" The villain swung his rope arms forward, no longer caring about the bike as much as he cared about not getting run over.

"What's, happen…" Roady was fading out of consciousness again, and even the jolts of the motorcycle were not shaking him to.

"What button extends the spikes?" Zach called out. His eyes darted to the handlebars of the motorcycle he had been on a couple of times but had yet to see Roady fighting while on top of. _On Bikergang's it was-_ Zach reached around the accelerator and pulled back on a lever, and the front tire bounced up in the air so they were suddenly popping a wheelie. Zach's eyes opened huge, but he kept racing forward on the back tire and he had to balance his weight to prevent the front tire from pulling too far back and flipping them. "HOLD ON!" Zach yelled, as he saw the ropes coming around and he did not have spikes coming out of the tire to help him with that. He did not know what he would have done anyway though, but Zach twisted the accelerator forward and made the front tire shred up the rope on his right that he yanked the bike towards. He pulled to the right in order to block the knife from the woman he saw pulling back to throw at him too, and he heard a clank on the bottom of the motorcycle a second later.

Their momentum had almost stopped, smoke came out of the back tire while Zach was slamming the front of the bike back down. Ropes curved around him though Ropefist yelled out in pain when one of his rope appendages was ripped through by the spinning tire. Zach slammed down the motorcycle, and Roady bounced off the back of it. "Shit!" Zach yelled, as despite yelling for Roady to 'hold on' he had noticed Roady's grip getting weaker there. He snapped his head forward when only half-looking back at Roady, and he glared through the visor furiously at the villains in front of him. Zach pulled his right hand back to his body now that Roady was not holding onto him, and he surrounded his body in a black veil as he activated Nightmare.

A gasp escaped Zach's lips as soon as he touched his own chest, and he ground his teeth at the exhaustion he was feeling just forcing the black aura out of his body again. It had the desired effect though. Chamelora paused while running forward with her other knife to try and stab the guy on the motorcycle, while Ropefist's rope-like appendages froze in midair wherever they were curling or preparing to whip towards him. Roady hit the ground and let out a loud moan of pain, and the villains spotted blood all over his right leg that did not look much like a leg with how torn up it was. They quickly realized that these two were not just escaping from the fight, but had been back at the warehouse themselves. And Ropefist recognized who he was looking at too, when the dark veil surrounded the helmet and showed a skull on the other side with red eyes glaring out at him.

"Reaper," Ropefist said, seeing a villain he had run away from once with what remained of his old comrades. Even though he had run with them that night, he was the only one who actually escaped that night with his life. He took a step back and whispered, "I didn't know you were-"

Zach did not know what the man was trying to tell him. He considered maybe the villain was trying to save his own skin by apologizing. It sounded to him like the man knew his villain name but had not been a part of the League of Villains, or at least not a part back when he was, so the man did not know he was no longer a part of that group. _He thinks I came with Shigaraki?_ Zach thought, but he did not linger on the idea. The fear he had instilled in the two of them with his sudden transformation from a normal biker had made them hesitate, and he was not going to. Zach jumped up so his feet were on the seat of the bike, then he leapt off of it and drew the last knife still with him as well as his grappling gun.

Zach pointed his grappling gun at Ropefist who tried blocking the black wispy hook that fired at him, while at the same time Zach slashed his knife down in his right hand at the woman a few inches shorter than him. She shook out of her shock and slashed up with her knife at the black blade coming down at her. Ropefist gasped out as he leaned away, swinging his ropes to get Zach's hook off of them. "What is, this?" He gasped, while black wisps came off of his ropes that had been touching Zach's weapon. He shook his head around to try and stay up, but he was looking on the verge of passing out. Chamelora darted a look towards him, then she leapt backwards after parrying Zach's blow instead of trying to follow up with it.

 _Just touching him-_ she leaned her body to the side and the black blade flew by her front instead of into her shoulder where Zach was aiming as she thought. When she turned her body to the side though, Zach started sprinting forward and bringing his grappling gun in front of his body in his left hand, the hook retracting back into it fast. The hook locked in when he was about to reach her, and he pointed it at her in a big motion to get her looking at the weapon that just took down her ally. Then Zach swept his right hand up with Death condensed around it, and he waved his arm across the front of his body to make a black wind that curved as he released it. The black arc swept up at the woman and curved to cover from the ground to her head-level and in a wide enough range that any direction she dodged she would be hit.

Zach sprinted back towards the motorcycle, while Chamelora fell backwards with her eyes rolling into her head and her knife falling from her hand. Ropefist gasped out towards her, lifting a hand he was using to hold his body up and then collapsing down on his chin with his eyes only half open. Zach paused when he was about to reach the motorcycle, spinning to the man he heard gasp out that woman's villain name. _Not enough,_ he thought, imagining the man waking up over here as soon as he was gone and escaping with his comrade. Zach regretted having to waste more time, but he sprinted to the man on the verge of unconsciousness and he pressed his left hand down on the man's back for a second. Then he turned off Nightmare mode and got the villains off the street before tying them up with his grappling gun.

Zach raced to Roady again, and he dropped down next to the hero whose eyes were closed and lay motionless on the street. "Come on, Roady," Zach said. He was panting hard and his body felt like it was at its limit. _Oh man,_ Zach thought, while he looked down at what should have been the white shirt of his costume that was now completely red. He had tied it tight enough that he thought he had cut off circulation to the rest of Roady's leg, but he could still see red puddling around Roady's right leg all over the pavement. "The hospital's, right there," Zach said, and he groaned as he picked Roady up and staggered back to the tipped-over motorcycle. _I've barely taken any damage. This is just me! It's all mental! No, no I know I can do this, but it's physical. My body can't do this. I brought too many people back, used too much Nightmare. I always reach limits when I bring people back, but I'm not usually reaching that limit when using Nightmare too. Is that limit much lower when I'm using offensive power too? How much lower? NO! That's just mental! Even when I reach my physical limit- there is no physical limit! I'll break through that, no matter how exhausted I am._

Zach finished getting up on the motorcycle with Roady. The engines were still going even though it had somewhat crashed to a stop when Zach leapt off. Though it had been almost non-moving at that point, Zach was glad the motorcycle could still move. It was more difficult to drive now though, as he had his left arm holding Roady who he couldn't leave on the seat behind him and had to carry with his whole weight on his shoulder and chest. He was leaning to Roady's side and looking ahead, wishing he had given Roady the helmet since he did not know if it was the fall that had Roady unconscious, though he was pretty sure he had heard a moan after Roady dropped. "Daisy, there are two villains, tied up at my last position, send cops to get them."

"Are you alright?" Daisy asked quickly as Zach sounded injured.

"Just tired," Zach assured her. The motorcycle sped up more and Zach tried steading his right arm so the bike would not wobble as much as it was, though he was not balancing well on it either with all of Roady's weight on one side. He tried leaning to the right to even it out, but that put too much weight on his right arm he was using as the only thing keeping the motorcycle straight at its hyperextended length. His arm shook worse, but he sped towards the entrance of the hospital where he saw a couple of doctors and nurses outside waiting for them.

He heard his heart pounding in his head, but as he rolled up to the doctors he tried forcing himself to be more awake. _If they fail, I have to save him! Roady!_ Zach helped get his comrade onto the wheeled stretcher, then he jogged after the doctors moving faster than he was to get Roady into an operating room. _Roady!_ Zach started pinching himself, his heart racing and his vision getting dizzier.

He heard both the nurses running with him and Daisy in his helmet trying to talk to him. His heart was pounding even harder though, to a point that the thudding in his ears was drowning everything else out. _**Bu-DUM BUM Bu-DUM!**_ The noise in his helmet was pounding and everything was getting blurrier. Zach blinked a few times while reaching up to his helmet, feeling like he must have been losing his vision because of the dark tint of the visor. He pulled it off of his head and the bright lights of the hospital blinded him. Then he collapsed forward dropping his helmet to the side as his arms went limp. _No. Roady…_

* * *

"And it seems, like that may have been it," the reporter leaning into the window of the helicopter flying over Mosu Esupa said into her microphone. There was an odd calm about the area below that fell over the place when the building collapsed. It happened slowly at first like it may have just been another section of the building falling, but a part of the wall turned into an entire chunk of the building, which turned into the whole warehouse falling apart. The building collapsed in a huge mess of steel and stone and glass, and no one around the collapsed warehouse started moving right away.

The heroes had pulled out of the building when it reached the point that they knew it was not going to hold on for much longer. One hero had stayed inside fighting Dandy from what the others running out of there had said, but there were no villains other than Dandy left fighting when the building fell. One had tried escaping out a hole in the wall right before the collapse, but there were heroes waiting there to help others trying to leave or stop villains trying to flee. They had restrained him in a group effort that took seconds to complete, and it was just in time too as they all had to brace and shield their eyes and noses and mouths from the cloud of dust that blasted out at them when the building fell.

Other villains were mostly unconscious as were the majority of heroes who had first entered the building. Underguard and Rubbergirl, Lindsey, Samwell, and Kurt 2 from Team Canada, Gogogo had collapsed next to where she had finally gotten her daughter to safety, and Sameko was also still unconscious just like Lobscar not too far from them. Bouncer Man sat on the hood of a police car on the east side of the building coughing and waving his left hand in front of his face to get some fresh air to breathe in. "Ricky! You over here?" Bouncer Man heard a voice calling for him on his right, and he called back to Bikergang that he was alright while feeling relieved himself that his friend and boss had made it out of there in time. After calling to Bikergang though, the EMT with him yelled at him to sit still so they could keep giving him emergency treatment on his snapped right arm.

The Feisty Foursome were gathered on the south side of the fallen warehouse, all except for Sky-Girl who had been taken away to the hospital earlier by an ambulance that was just arriving back now. The ambulance's headlights shone through the dust cloud taking its time to settle around the warehouse, though as it came close Vixen turned and started carrying Spunky back towards it as the leader of their hero team needed some treatment. Plucky stayed close to the building though, and she called out to the cops around her inside the smoke and dust to hold their positions. "Don't break the perimeter until we're sure this is over," Plucky called out. After she yelled it though, she looked closer towards the mass of rubble making some creaking noises that she hoped any building that had just collapsed would. She kept her ears peeled, and used her Quirk Listen, focusing on everything around her even though visibility had dropped to the point she could only see the few closest people to her.

"Hey Battle Fist! Kendo! You alright?" An older girl who worked at Sliding Queen's agency shook Kendo around a bit, and the disoriented intern shook her head a few times to gather her thoughts. Itsuka Kendo reached up a hand that was back to its normal size and rubbed her forehead with it, and she felt a bump there though she was glad she did not get any blood on her hand. Foundry sighed in relief as the younger girl gave her a reassuring look in the thick dust really close to the collapsed edge of the warehouse.

"Thanks Foundry," Kendo told her comrade.

Sliding Queen slid across the ground over to the two of them right as Kendo was standing up on her own, and the woman with the Quirk Slip-n-Slide checked them both over. "You're alright, good," she said in relief. The woman with short black hair falling straight down to her shoulders let out a breath and then glanced back at the rubble and collapsed walls closest to them. "Let's move back to the perimeter," she said, motioning with her head behind her and farther from the potential danger. _I don't know what this Apocalypse thing they're talking about is, but anything with that name is something to be careful of._ "I got that man to safety. He's a sidekick working with Gilgamesh, you did good Battle Fist."

Kendo's eyes widened and she rubbed her forehead again as she realized she had totally forgotten why she was so close to the building. She shook her head around some more as she realized that forgetting that meant she was out of it, and she started jogging the way Sliding Queen motioned with a grimace on her face. _Probably a concussion. Without Recovery Girl's help, I may be out for the rest of the internship. Then again, with an incident this big Recovery Girl may come up here- focus!_ Kendo smacked her cheeks a few times and then looked over her shoulder as she thought she heard a noise come from the rubble.

There was movement around the collapsed warehouse from heroes and police who continued to encircle the place. The reporter in the helicopter fell silent herself as the view down below was getting too eerie for her. A couple of cop cars arrived on the west side of the building where all the flames had gone out during the building's collapse. There was smoke rising from different areas of it, but the dust was settling down. Ambulances raced away from both the north and south side of the warehouse, and some cops were helping heroes who had restrained villains get those villains over to armored vehicles. An iron maiden was spotted down below, having just arrived with the most recent police reinforcements. It was a contraption to be used for villains too powerful for normal restraints to hold, and the fact that the huge metal box was empty in between a line of riot control cops and some heroes on the north side of the building was unsettling to the woman trying to report on the scene below.

"The heroes, aren't moving," Yuna Pishina reported slowly and in almost a whisper.

The camerawoman gulped but kept her camera aimed down at the rubble they were finally able to see as dust settled around more of it. The exterior of the warehouse and surrounding areas and streets were clearer, and there was still smoke rising to keep the warehouse hidden from view a bit. Yuna wanted to say that the fight was over. She wanted to report that it was all done already. Silence though. The emergency sirens continued to go off down below filling all of Mosu Esupa, and yet those sirens had become just background white noise.

Heroes who had left the building last were the ones looking back at the building they had escaped from with the most nervous looks. Their expressions spread to the people behind them though. These heroes who had been fighting in this chaos looked afraid and nervous, and some of them were taking steps back away from the fallen building with sweat all over their faces. They gulped, and their fists clenched hard and shook at their sides. The police behind them gripped their shields tighter and the black batons in their hands tighter still, though most pulled their bodies behind their shields to keep them in the way of the destroyed warehouse and whatever might be hiding in the rubble.

"Keep on your toes," a message went out into the helmets of the police force surrounding the building.

"I don't see anything," Bouncer Man said into his earpiece, though he told the EMT helping him to get away. The man told him to come with him, but a creaking noise in the rubble made the doctor run off back to his ambulance behind the police perimeter.

"He's not down yet," Bikergang added. A louder creaking came from in the middle of the rubble, and then _**Ka-DUNK! Dink- chh CHH CRASH!**_ Metal beams fell and rubble shifted around, and some more dust rose up in a small burst. It was as if some debris had been balanced precariously after the initial collapse and then fell down on itself when everything had settled. At least, that's what everyone around the building and watching from the sky hoped. The noises continued from in the center of the warehouse though, as one of the two figures who had caused the entire building to collapse with their fight clawed his way out to the surface.

On the south side of the building, Wonderlass lay not far from Plucky who gulped but tried holding her ground even as the cops behind her started murmuring and whispering in fear. Plucky could hear every last one of them, but she was not the only one with super hearing who heard the men and women around them speaking in hushed panic to each other.

"It survived that?"

"What is it?"

"I heard it's not just a villain on Trigger, it's something more-"

"Apocalypse?"

"What is that?"

"I hear something-"

 _ **"AaaaooooOOOOOOOOOOOOO!"**_ A howl pierced through the silence between two of the sirens, louder than the sirens were and filling the air around the warehouse with the most ominous noise any of them could imagine. Bouncer Man had just gotten off of the hood of the cop car, but the back of his legs bumped into the bumper of that car behind him at the sound of that howl. He saw Bikergang on his right side take a full step back while looking into the center of the warehouse where a form moved inside that settling dust cloud that just blasted up.

"De-ku," Wonderlass muttered. She thought about the boy who had gotten her out of the building. As soon as he dropped her he had turned around and raced right back in to stop Dandy, saving Gilgamesh who had stalled Dandy for enough time for him to save her first. Wonderlass clenched her fists into the floor at her sides but as hard as she pushed could not find the strength to get up. She knew Super Moves would have this drawback, but she had hoped to defeat Dandy before he reached a point beyond what they could stop. _Get up,_ Wonderlass thought, and it was not just herself she was telling it to.

"Who- _what_ is that?" Yuna Pishina whispered into her microphone, though really she was just whispering it aloud and forgot she was reporting for a second. "P-People," she continued as she remembered she was Live on the air. "It seems that some sort of creature, I think it must be a villain…" the helicopter was going back over the top of the warehouse that was now a huge mass of rubble, and the camera pointed down towards the figure below that looked like a beast as the dust cleared.

Its body was covered in dark brown fur, and it was down on all fours like a bear. It looked like a bear, but bigger than any bear the media team had seen before. Its body was altering too as they pointed down at it. The head of the creature was snapping around after that howl, making it look rabid as it shook its head around with what looked like foam coming out of its mouth only dark red as it splashed to the sides. A bulge burst out of its right shoulder looking like a chunk of muscle that pulsed and tore through all its fur and skin, splashing blood in the air only for fur to grow out of that muscle and then a thick hide to reform between the fur and flesh. When its right shoulder bulged, its right arm pushed down with more pressure and its right front claw dug through the rubble beneath it. Extra weight and pressure broke through that rubble, and Dandy's head lowered down to the floor and his own feet as he knew what caused that shift.

Dandy's head rose. His eyes were glowing red and his head stopped shaking. He sniffed a few times, and his pointy ears twitched on the sides of his head. The sound of the fearful voices of the police and heroes around the collapsed building, their smells, the sight of them so clearly through his red-tinted vision. Dandy started growling, and the guttural noise from his throat echoed around the area as his arms and legs started bending into the floor. Then his head lifted, and his eyes focused up in the air and straight through a window into the lens of a camera pointed at him. _**I'm the one… This is me… Attention…**_ The lips of the huge bear creature pulled apart and showed the beast snarling up with sharp teeth covered in blood from its gums that were torn apart and could not heal with the teeth in a seemingly endless state of growing. _**Mine. All mine. It's all mine.**_ Dandy opened his mouth, and the villain roared at the top of his lungs, _**"KNOW ME!"**_

Dandy shot off the ground so fast that wind blew away from his launching point and slammed into the heroes quickest to move forward when they saw him bending his legs. They crossed their arms and many snapped their heads up to follow Dandy's movements, only for their eyes to open wide as they realized his target high above. Dandy's jump launched him into the sky like a rocket, and the women in the helicopter looking down towards him dropped their jaws in shock and then terror at the monster's rapidly approaching form. _**"DANDY!"**_ He screamed, while raising up his claws of his arms that bulged with larger muscles.

The pilot pulled the sticks to the side, and the camerawoman was falling off her seat anyway but now fell to the other side of the vehicle as they yanked away. The pilot pulled so fast though that blinking lights started going off on their helicopter, and Yuna Pishina screamed as she tried holding onto the wall only to see a horrifying face outside of the window. The helicopter had pulled away, but the beast outside had jumped up too fast. He dug his claws into the side of the helicopter that he had tried to slam right into the bottom of, and his claws shredded through the vehicle's steel and ripped the side door right off. Then he kept going as he had not judged the distance very well, just jumping as hard as he could. He rose above where he ripped off the side of the helicopter, and one of the spinning rotors slammed into him.

If he wasn't on Apocalypse, it probably would have cut him in half. Instead, Dandy's body bent the steel of the rotor around his body while still making him snarl in pain. It also stopped his upwards momentum though, flipping him around instead while the helicopter started spinning out more violently. The women inside screamed, the camera turned over and caught view of the side of the vehicle ripping open. The camera bounced out of the vehicle and showed an angle inside for a second of Yuna Pishina holding onto the back of the pilot's seat with her arms wrapped around it. It also caught a glimpse of the camerawoman with her body half morphed into the wall on the other side of the helicopter, holding an arm out for Yuna to hold onto as it looked like the reporter was about to fly out of the chopper.

All across Japan, people held their breaths while staring at their televisions. They had been shocked when they saw that creature down below, when its eyes looked up into the lens like it was looking at each of them, and when it jumped up and attacked was bad too. As the camera fell out of the helicopter though, it fell down while pointed up for a moment so everyone could see the bear-like figure dropping down just over the helicopter that the pilot was still trying to get control of even with a broken rotor and missing wall. The pilot had barely any control, almost none, but just enough that the helicopter was not falling as fast as someone just falling with gravity. Dandy was falling with his eyes locked on the helicopter he was about to reach, but the camera turned before showing what was going to happen to it.

The camera turned around in midair, showing one side of the town of Mosu Esupa in a spinning angle before it pointed down towards the destroyed warehouse. And when it pointed at the destroyed warehouse below, everyone watching could see heroes and cops shouting while pointing up at the sky, a hero using her wings to lift off the ground and start rising but with a terrified look on her face. Angelic Angela did not want to fly up there and face Dandy all alone but knew she had to save the reporters. She had been all alone against him for a few seconds inside the warehouse though, and that was when he was half the size he was now. Her head spun towards the center of the warehouse as did all the others around her though, while the people watching around Japan also caught sight of the movement in the middle of the warehouse not too far from where Dandy had risen from the rubble.

The camera continued to turn, but it started spinning faster all of a sudden as a blur zipped by it on the way up towards the helicopter. The camera had still been higher up towards the chopper than the ground, but the small figure spotted down in the middle of the warehouse debris was already past the camera before it had pointed up at the chopper again. The camera lost any angle it had as it spun out of control and broke, but there were still a large amount of people watching around the area alone. Another camera angle got switched to for the first time that night showing a reporting team at the north side of the perimeter far back from where the worst of the fighting had been, but they were pointing their cameras up towards the falling helicopter and not at the scene of carnage ahead of them.

In the sky, three people in a helicopter spinning out of control and decreasing altitude fast screamed out in terror as a beast dropped down into the opening it had created on their vehicle. Dandy's claws dug in through the roof while his feet dented the steel down inside where the door had been ripped from, his body too big to fit in the hole of the chopper itself. The woman closest to him pulled her body farther in and screamed in horror, reaching a hand out for the camerawoman who was no longer reaching back but pressing her whole body against the opposite wall of the helicopter to stay as far from the beast as possible. The woman in the pilot's chair pushed her whole body forward and let go of the sticks as it no longer mattered whether or not she could land the helicopter like this. Dandy's head lowered so his face was pushing into the helicopter, but he froze.

Then Dandy pulled his head out of the vehicle fast. His claws shredded through the steel he had impaled with them instead of just pulling out, and this was a quicker method to bring his arms back to try and protect from the figure he smelled and heard and sensed coming towards him. Dandy's head snapped down and his teeth bared harder at the figure he was separated from when the building dropped down all at once on their heads. They had smashed through a wall long-ways destroying all the supports holding up half the building, so it was their own faults, but Dandy had thought the boy he was facing had died down there. The boy rising towards him did not have irises in his eyes that were pure white as he rose up into the air, his left arm tensed at his side despite the broken bones in it and that arm's fist clenched just like his right.

Midoriya had his right leg pulled back far, and his entire pant leg around it shredded with his skin glowing bright beneath. Dandy rose up his claws while diving down out of the helicopter, his dive pushing the vehicle away from him because of how strong he was now. His muscles looked to bulge and his fur ripped away in tufts with blood splashing away with it as he started slashing down at Midoriya, looking like a bigger monster than ever. Midoriya flicked the toes of his left foot, tearing through his shoe and sending him up faster as he broke those toes to give him an extra burst of speed. He reached Dandy faster than Dandy was swinging his arms down, and Midoriya swung his right leg at his full power into Dandy's side with a kick that created a shockwave in the air. A smoke plume rising near him pushed away with a circular shape blasting in it away from the collision in the air of Deku's leg and Dandy's side.

Deku kept pushing his leg into the beast that opened its mouth and gasped out more bloody foaming spit. He felt his bones cracking inside his right leg, as he fought more recklessly with less care for his body's well-being than he had in months. Now was not the time to hold back though. Midoriya put his whole body behind his kick, and he twisted his body too while finishing the kick off. He pushed his maximum power into it, and he felt bones crunching both in his leg and inside Dandy's body. He followed-through with his kick while twisting his body to send Dandy flying straight down towards the rubble of the warehouse, then he flicked his right index finger in front of him to send him flying towards the spinning-out helicopter.

The chopper turned in midair as he was about to reach for the open side of it though, and his face slammed into the underside of the helicopter instead of sending him inside for the people in there. He had not thought it through very much. Even if he had made it in there, he did not know what he would do with a broken left arm and right leg, but the boy with a pale face and destroyed body was not giving up yet. He reached his right hand up after slamming into the helicopter, and he dug his fingers in while pulling himself up for the opening of the vehicle. Midoriya poked his head over the edge of the opening, and then he heard a roar down below him that made his head turn the slightest bit to the side.

The ground was approaching fast. The helicopter was only seventy meters above the ground. Dandy had slammed into the western edge of the warehouse's rubble, and he roared again while dragging himself up to his feet. He roared to the right and the force of his shout pushed back on a couple of heroes running towards him. The shout made projectiles flying towards him in the air push aside and miss him. Then he slashed his left arm to his side and made a speedy hero racing over the warehouse rubble towards him dive away as three lines of shredding rubble rose up towards him from Dandy's slash alone. Dandy snapped his head up and glared at the falling helicopter and the boy hanging onto the side of the floor of it, and then Dandy's red eyes opened a little wider as that boy flew off of the helicopter and across the sky.

Another figure flew out of the helicopter, then two more who were slower to get out because one had to unbuckle and the other had to stop using her Quirk to hold herself to the wall. They shot away from the falling helicopter, and then a dozen people on the ground in the area where the spinning helicopter was soon to land unpredictably all flew up in the air too in different directions away from that landing zone. The people suddenly lifted up got confused and scared, some tried fighting it only to stare in shock towards where they just were as the helicopter's path shifted a bit to have it crashing down right in that open area. Midoriya was confused and in a ton of pain, and his head turned to follow Dandy while he was shooting away. Then his eyes focused on what it was that was pulling him through the air: a long red feather.

"I'd say it was a good thing I got here when I did," a voice called over towards the kid flying towards him and then down to the floor below his feet. Deku lifted his gaze up with his dark green eyes widening to stare at the Number 2 hero flying above him with his big red wings. Hawks continued while looking towards his left and not down at Deku though, "But who'd've thought we'd all show up at the same time?" Hawks' red feathers placed the reporters down near a different news team already on the ground, and those women started crying and grabbing the ground in joy, Yuna Pishina even kissing it as she never thought she'd stand on solid ground again. The pilot promised herself she'd never fly again, while cops around them ran over to see if they were alright.

Other officers and a couple of heroes were placed down away from where the helicopter crashed, and then a hero who was looking towards Hawks in shock at his appearance turned his head when he saw a bright orange light in the corner of his vision. Bushironin turned and his jaw dropped, while Angelic Angela looked down in shock at the man who she had spotted from the air diving down from an airplane high above in the distance, using his flames to propel himself towards the scene while everyone else had been focused on the falling helicopter. He was too far for most to notice and everyone else had looked down at the explosion or Dandy or Hawks as he made his entrance, so most people were still shocked as the Flame Hero: Endeavor marched forward without a shred of fear on his face towards the monster ahead of him.

 _This is Apocalypse,_ Endeavor thought. He had been informed of the ever-changing situation many times on his flight there and was ready for what he had dropped in to find. _If I didn't know beforehand, I'd say it was a Nomu._

Sixty meters to Endeavor's right, a flying hero landed down and the man riding on his sidekick's back thanked him while hopping off and in front of the others around him. Best Jeanist narrowed his eyes under the flip of blond hair pushed down over his forehead. _No clothes,_ the Fiber Hero thought, staring towards the creature with an intense gaze.

Dandy's head turned to the left towards Hawks, then to the right a bit to cross his gaze past Best Jeanist and then to Endeavor. Dandy's heart pounded, and a low growl echoed around, _**"Yes."**_ His lips pulled up and such a genuine smile appeared on the monster's face as he looked at Endeavor. The Number 1 hero had arrived to fight him. The Number 2 and 3 heroes too. As much as his body was in constant pain, his heart raced faster and faster at the sight of Endeavor looking back at him. _**"YES! YESSS!"**_ Dandy's voice shook the ground around him and he dug his claws into the floor.

The villain charged at Endeavor. He barreled forward with his claws tearing up the ground with every rapid step he took, a trail of rubble rising up behind him. Extending fibers wrapped up his front legs when his right was passing by his left on his next sprint, and Dandy's face slammed into the rubble below him. With his momentum he skid through the floor, and his back legs tied up as his body started to flip forward over itself. Endeavor sprinted forward while Best Jeanist wrapped up Dandy and made him break his charge. Endeavor leapt up in the air and he brought his right fist back, and he slammed it down towards Dandy with a flaming punch that sent a huge jet of flames down into the villain's tumbling body.

"Wonder if I'll even be needed," Hawks said, scratching the bottom of his left cheek and watching from afar as the other two did an amazing combo on their enemy. Hawks stopped scratching though as a bloodcurdling roar of pain ripped out from the flames.

Endeavor dropped back to the ground and he glared into the fire he had just surrounded this enemy with. _He has high-speed regeneration. Restraining a villain like that-_ Dandy staggered around in the flames, his hands moving up to the sides of his head and grabbing them tightly as he let out another roar. Endeavor's eyes widened, and the others all staring towards the fire watched as the silhouette inside bulged on his right arm that was grabbing at his head. His arm looked like it was meant for a being twice the size that Dandy was at now, but the rest of his body was not growing at that same rate. _**"RA ra! RaannnGG! AAHH!"**_ Dandy stumbled to his right and then dropped to all fours again and barreled out of the flames. He hit the ground and rolled to try and put out the flames, but it was unnecessary as all his fur started shedding off at once along with most of his skin.

Dandy's body pulsed, and his heart kept racing faster and faster. It pounded so hard that he felt it pressing against the outside of his chest, except he no longer had his thick flesh layer there or his fur to hide that pounding from everyone else as he rolled onto his back for a second. It was like there was something in his body punching outwards over and over as his body arched up, and then Dandy snapped his upper body up and he dug his claws down into the floor at his sides. His fur grew back fast and his chest bulked up, and he snapped his head forward and roared at Endeavor who rose up both hands in front of him.

 _I have to kill him,_ Enji Todoroki thought.

Best Jeanist's arms shook and his eyes opened wide as Dandy ripped apart the fibers he was holding him with. Dandy rose up to his right foot, and that entire leg bulged with blood splashing from it and then his skin re-healing fast. He stomped down on his left foot which grew even bigger than his right, and a low moan of agony escaped from Dandy's lips. Dandy's mouth twisted in terror as he turned towards Endeavor who was about to charge him. Endeavor froze and looked into those glowing red eyes, and he saw in them for a split second a humanity and an intense fear of death. And then Dandy's chest ripped open and his giant pounding heart exploded all over the place.

Dandy froze there for a few seconds with his face still shaking in fear and rage and animalistic excitement. But without his heart working at fifty times its normal capacity to pump blood around Dandy's body that kept losing so much of it, he was not able to stand for long. His legs collapsed while the light started to fade from his glowing red eyes, and his arms fell back limp to his sides while his upper body fell forward after his knees. His body was deformed with different parts of it stopping at different sizes, some parts still open as his skin had yet to seal up and grow more fur over those areas.

"All that time deciding and then getting here," Hawks said, lifting his only hand up and rubbing from his forehead into his ashy blond hair. He sighed and looked down while continuing, "You did good without our-" Hawks stopped as the kid he had dropped not far from him fell face-first into the floor. Hawks sweatdropped as his compliment went unheard, then his eyes opened up wide as he saw the condition of the kid's back when he dropped like that. "Oh crap," Hawks' feathers picked up the boy and he flapped his wings down himself while raising Deku up in the air. His head spun and he looked the direction he knew the hospital in this town was located, _Hold on there kid._

As Hawks started flying Midoriya to the hospital though, he glanced back towards the warehouse that the League had escaped from right before he arrived. The burn marks on his right side hurt, and he felt a phantom pain from where his right arm used to be too. His right wing was at full length again, but unlike it, his right arm did not regenerate like his feathers did.

Endeavor looked around the area he was in after Dandy collapsed in front of him. He tssked as he saw the damage not just to the warehouse but the surrounding area as well. He saw a lot of ambulances, as well as injured heroes and police just outside of the rubble. "You over there, get a team together and start sweeping the rubble for survivors who might be trapped inside. You two, get her to one of the ambulances, and all of you stop sitting around!"

"Move the most heavily injured first," Best Jeanist began while turning to some officers near him. "Take the criminals away. I will assume charge of their arrests." _The League of Villains left without everything they came for,_ Best Jeanist thought with an intense gaze still on his face. _I will not let them retrieve it after the fight has ended._

A few feet away from Yuna Pishina was on her knees hugging the ground, the reporter who had taken over for her when her camera was destroyed was shouting excitedly into his microphone. "…at the turn of events here in Mosu Esupa! The Number 3 hero, Best Jeanist, Number 2 hero, Hawks, and Number 1 hero, Endeavor! All of them arrived at the same time when hope looked to be lost. Our heroes!"

* * *

Zach opened his eyes wide and sat up fast. He stared forward and squinted as the bright light on the ceiling blinded him for a second, and he thought he had just entered the hospital as it felt the same as it did then. _Then? When?_ Zach opened his squinted eyelids a bit more, and he looked around and then down to see he was sitting up on a bed. _I'm- what?! Where?_ He clenched his eyes shut and remembered staggering into the hospital after Roady, his vision flashing white when he tried taking his helmet off. _That just happened? Or was that a while ago? When is this? Where's, Roady?!_ His eyes snapped back open and he threw his legs off of the bed.

Zach got up and he staggered forward. He had to put his hands out to stop himself from falling on the next bed in front of him, and then he shook his head around and looked on top of the bed with wide eyes as he saw Samwell laying on it with some bad injuries wrapped up with white bandages. He looked around the room and realized they were not the only two in there. A man wearing a black mask over the bottom half of his face who Zach realized must have been Underguard was on the other side of where his bed was, and the fourth bed in the room past Samwell's had a police officer on it from what Zach could tell considering the uniform on a stand next to it and the cop on the side of it with their head resting on the edge of the bed like they had been their for their friend until he passed out.

The boy with messy black hair up on his feet looked around at them, and he started to panic when he saw a cop in the fourth bed and not another hero. "Roady," he muttered, and he turned to the door of the room that was open and leading into a hallway where he could hear people talking. _I'm in the hospital. I'm not wearing a shirt, but I'm not wrapped up anywhere. I didn't get hurt. I mean, some things hurt but I didn't get injured. Not really. Why were they wasting a bed for me? Why didn't anyone wake me up? What time is it? How long has it been?_

Zach staggered out into the hallway and looked left and right. He glanced to the right and saw a nurse at a counter leaning over and talking in a rushed voice to someone behind it who Zach could not see from down the hall, then the blue-skinned woman turned the opposite direction as him and headed off quickly. Zach turned the other way and looked at a door of the room closest to his. He started towards it and he looked in through a doorway that was open just as his room had been. He glanced in the room and saw it was a room full of injured female heroes, but a quick glance around was all he made as he did not see Roady in there.

He kept going and then focused on a doctor turning the corner and heading his way. The man opened his eyes wide at the sight of the boy with a scarred torso and face stepping towards him. Then Zach asked, "Roady? Do you know, where Roady is?" His eyes were wide as he asked and got shakier as the man in front of him definitely looked to recognize the name. Zach held his breath at the expression on the man's face, and the doctor turned and motioned for the other direction.

"Follow me," the man said, and he started moving the other way down the hall as quickly as he had just been moving. Zach thought the man had looked to be in a hurry, so his breathing picked up speed as he jogged forward to get right up behind the white-haired doctor who had a fuzzy beard to match. "Lifebringer, are you doing-"

"Is he okay?" Zach asked, not able to handle the suspense like he thought he could. He thought he could just wait until he saw wherever the doctor was taking him, but he could not handle not knowing for any longer.

The doctor glanced back at the boy half a foot shorter than him, than he turned forward and pointed at a door near the end of the hall and just ahead of them. "Why don't you see for yourself?"

Zach jogged up past the man as he found out which room Roady was in. He ran up to the room and through the open door, and he stared towards the bed in it with his eyes opening wide. Zach's head leaned back and he felt hundreds of pounds lifting off of his chest at the sight of the heart-rate monitor. Zach watched the line point up, a beeping sound filling the air, and he stared happily at the man with spiky orange hair that was a darker shade than Bikergang's.

Zach thought Bikergang might be with Roady like that cop had been in the room he woke up in. After a second of wondering though he remembered the wound on Bikergang's left side and figured his pro hero was somewhere else after getting that patched up. _Did he make it out of there alright?_ Zach thought, his eyes widening as he realized it was not a sure thing that Bikergang was at the hospital at all. He turned his head to ask the doctor behind him how long it had been, but the man with white hair was gone when he looked back. _Guess he was busy,_ Zach thought while turning towards Roady again.

When he looked forward though, Zach stared in surprise at the bed ahead of him. He stared at Roady who had opened his eyes and was looking towards him. Roady glanced to his right and at a window that Zach looked at for the first time and stared in just even more shock at because it was light outside. His face filled with shock, and then Zach's fists clenched at his sides and his eyes narrowed. _Damn it,_ Zach thought, biting down hard as he wondered just how much time had passed. _How many hours? Has it been half a day? I wouldn't expect so many people to still be unconscious, but we were up late at night and most of them were probably up later than I was even. How didn't I realize it was daytime already? Damn!_

Zach looked back forward at Roady, and his heart clenched up again. He regretted feeling so much relief, so much joy at the sight of Roady's working heart-rate monitor. "I heard you overexerted yourself," Roady said, and Zach's eyes widened as he looked at the older boy who was staring back at him again. "You should get more rest," Roady said, as he could see bags under Zach's eyes and to him it looked like the younger boy was pale in the face. Roady suggested it and then lowered his gaze down to his right side, where the blanket covering his body did not have a lump in it like it did where his left leg was.

The younger of the two did feel exhausted. He wanted to collapse again right there, as it was only the thought of making sure Roady was alive that had gotten him out of his hospital bed in the first place. He could not just do that though. Zach's hands tightened even harder, and his throat hurt as his Adam's apple moved up and down a few times. His lips twisted and pursed in frustration, the light from outside glaring towards him and making him fill with so much regret. "I don't need," Zach started to reply. _Except I do. I need to rest, because I'm not strong enough._ "I was too weak," Zach whispered, and Roady's eyes widened a bit while staring towards the teen just inside his doorway. "Just that much, took me out of commission."

Zach clenched his fists harder but had to let go of his right so he would not rip through the black glove on it. He was glad he managed to take his helmet off before passing out, as he wondered if one of the doctors or nurses would have tried removing it without realizing who he was and what that would do to them. He felt like he needed that pain in his palms though, or at least that he deserved it. "When everyone else got so injured," he whispered, his heart clenching even harder as he rose his gaze back up towards Roady. "I'm sorry," he said. Zach stood there without a wound to speak of, and he knew he had been out for hours which pushed even more regret down on him. "When a bunch of people died-"

"Twice as many would have," Roady started, lifting his head up a little and sliding back on the bed. He used his left arm only, and Zach saw a wrapped wound on Roady's right arm that he remembered the older sidekick receiving earlier on in the fight. Roady continued to Zach as he sat up a bit though, "Had you not been there. More, if we're not just including the ones you brought back." Zach's eyes widened a bit, and then he clenched then shut as well as his teeth together as he thought about what that meant. _Six people. I brought back six, so does that mean six others died? He's just talking about heroes and cops too, though I wouldn't have brought back the villains anyway. Why did so many people have to die though? Why couldn't I do more? And even what I did do, even those other people on top of those six…_

Zach opened his eyes and stared forward at Roady who had gone back to looking down at his lower right side. Zach gulped as he saw the empty space beneath the blanket, and he did not bother pretending like maybe Roady's legs were pushed together on the other side of it. Roady's eyes told him everything he needed to know. _Just like Grappler,_ Zach thought, his heart clenching harder again. _I shouldn't have hesitated when reaching for Breakneck's gun. I shot at Dandy too late, trying to reason- I was stupid! I should have shot all of them!_ Tears welled in Zach's eyes, and he balled both fists up in such a pained way. "Roady," Zach began softly. "Do you think, I should have let you die?"

Roady brought his gaze up from the empty space on his right side where his leg used to be. He looked up and saw Zach looking at him with so much pain on his face. He wanted to call Zach stupid for asking such a stupid question, yet Zach looked completely serious while looking back at him. "If I had, and didn't drive off to have to fight those two villains… If I had, waited for you to die and just recovered some strength a distance away," Zach was starting to speak faster, the regret he was feeling coming through his voice as he took a step towards the foot of Roady's bed. "If I had waited for you to die and saved you after, your right leg would have been healed."

"Well I'm glad I didn't die," Roady said, looking at Zach oddly and making the younger boy open his eyes huge. "I'm happy, you made the right choice if you really thought letting me die was an option." Roady gave Zach a funny look at that, and then he frowned a bit and continued, "You should never wait for someone to die, and force all that pain on yourself unnecessarily." Zach leaned away looking taken aback by that response.

Roady had seen Zach bring a few people back to life now. The Viking, Kurt 2, Plucky, especially Plucky. He remembered hearing Plucky's voice over their headsets when she was dying, but it seemed like it had been quicker for her than it had for Lifebringer. While he had fought Horny to keep her away from Zach, he had caught glimpses of Zach's face while Zach was bringing Plucky back to life. He could still hear the screams Zach made as blood poured out of his eyes and ears, and he meant it when he said he was happy because he would have hated himself if the kid had gone through that pain for him. Even if it did mean, he could have kept his leg.

"You drove it pretty well last night," Roady said, changing the subject while leaning back in his bed again. Zach's eyes widened at what Roady said, and the older boy continued, "Though maybe I'm remembering it wrong, since I'm pretty sure you let me fall off-"

"Sorry-"

"I said you did good," Roady muttered, getting annoyed as Zach apologized for what was just meant as a small joke. He was in the mood for some dark humor and really needed it right now, but he was also pretty serious as he continued, "Never would've gotten out of there with my life, if you and Flamedrag didn't get me out." Zach stared closer at Roady wondering what he was getting at here, as Roady seemed to slow down at the end of that sentence in a hesitant sort-of way. Roady glanced down at his right side again, and he sighed but slouched farther down into the bed.

"I won't be riding Fla- I won't be riding it anymore," Roady said. "But if you get your license at the end of the internship," Zach's eyes started growing wider and were huge as Roady finished, "You should take it." The way he stopped referring to his bike by the name he had for it, and started just calling it by "it" instead made it sound like he was accepting that it really was just a vehicle. _There are more important things,_ Roady thought, staying serious as he looked at the kid who was gawking at him like he had just offered to do a heart transplant. "You drove well enough to get us to the hospital after all," Roady said. "And if I can't, then she'd be… yeah, she'd be of more use to you now. Wouldn't she?"

"I, I can't-" Zach began.

"Don't be weird about it," Roady said, giving Zach an annoyed look as the heart transplant analogy he made in his head was sounding legit now. "I'm telling you, not to get hung up on my leg," Roady said to the boy who looked him in the eyes again. "After all, my girl told me that if I ever died, she'd kill me," Roady joked. Zach stared at him in surprise that Roady was capable of sounding like that in his condition. "So you definitely made the right move, 'cause if I had died then she'd have killed me again in no time."

"Roady," Zach whispered, though his fists unclenched from his sides. He thought about how much care Roady put into the upkeep of his bike, and seeing him this accepting of losing it was hurting him. At the same time though, because he knew how much Roady cared, he knew the older boy was not making this offer lightly. _Maybe he doesn't want to feel like he owes me. Maybe, he really just wants Flamedrag to keep doing good without him. It'll be like a part of him is still out there, even if he can no longer… I don't like this. I don't, but I can't just spit on his feelings._

"Speaking of which," Roady continued while Zach got an accepting look on his face. "Mind getting out of here?" Roady asked, "I'm waitin' on, someone." Zach started nodding at the older hero as he put together what that meant. He backed up, then as he started turning Roady continued louder to him, "I meant what I said too. Go get some more rest, Lifebringer. You look like crap."

Zach nodded with his head half-turned, and he said softly, "Yeah, I'll go do that." Zach turned the rest of the way and walked out through the doorway, and he turned his head towards the sound of running footsteps coming his way. He moved out of the way for the girl who looked at his body with wide eyes for a second, only to spin and run into Roady's room and call out his name. _Endo huh?_ Zach thought as he started away, just realizing that he did not know Roady's real name until that moment.

* * *

 **A/N Thanks for reading! Long chapter this time as we near the end of the internship arc with the end of the battle in the Trigger lab. At the end of the last chapter, Midoriya didn't stop Dandy because he realized he would have had to let go of the Chemist and there was someone he had not seen for a while, which is why this chapter started out with Breakneck appearing out of nowhere and Midoriya ready for him. The League escapes as Dandy on Apocalypse ravages the heroes and tears the warehouse down on top of himself. Ultimately the Apocalypse kills Dandy like it did most of the test subjects; just got a little too excited to see Endeavor _"_ _eeek"_ and POP there goes his heart (along with other reasons). Anyway, a lot happened this chapter, lots of fights between the heroes and Dandy. Some top shot pros appear at the end including a one-armed Hawks who saves Midoriya and some reporters from the crashing helicopter. I hope you enjoyed the chapter (even if the final fight was more Midoriya than Zach). Leave a review telling me what you think! **

Oblivious ninja IJ chapter 77 . Sep 16

Guess who's back? Back again?  
Tmb1112's back, tell a friend,  
Guess who's back? (Six more times coz I'm too lazy to write it)  
Nanananannnanananan nanananannnanananh  
You've created a monster, coz nobody wanna see Zach nomore, they want nightmare he's chopped liver, well if yeh want nightmare this is what I give yeh...  
A THUMBS UP! ahh is breakneck also an OC? Coz lately you've been putting in a lot of OC's in here and there and I- being the awesome ninja that I am- actually believe that they are from the bnha-verse ... unless Google is the Oblivious one...?  
 **Thanks for another (crazy) review! Zach goes off with Nightmare last chapter, as well as a little bit this chapter as he fights his way to the hospital to save Roady. And yeah, Breakneck is an OC, like the majority of the characters in this arc have been. Bikergang, Roady, Bouncer Man, Daisy, Keiko, Underguard, Rubbergirl, the Feisty Foursome, Team Canada, Gogogo, Sameko, Lobscar, Wonderlass, Breakneck, Dandy, Chemist, Blazerage, Inquisitor, Hydro, Fez... Actually was planning on naming everyone here but just realized there are way too many. But yeah, lots of OCs thrown in and I hope you liked the new characters!**

Shade11224 chapter 77 . Sep 16

This chapter was a lot more enjoyable in my opinion because we got to see how strong zach really is in comparison to the average hero and he also made gains in his quirk's revival aspect.  
Thanks for chappy!  
PS #FrenchBoyIsSPY

 **Alright, so cut out a bit of that review (quite a long one). Thanks for reviewing and I'm glad you liked the last chapter. This one focuses a lot on Midoriya again, so sorry since you don't seem to be into that. I still don't agree with you that Zach could easily beat Bakugo, and I'm not really one to downplay Zach's abilities. But, you say in your review that if we're going "realistic unlike the manga and anime," I mean, I'm not going by realistic then. I base his power off what's in the manga and anime, as I do with his combat prowess. That fight between him and Midoriya in the anime this weekend, which happened more than half of a year in this story's time before where they are currently, is beyond anything we've seen Zach do thus far. I'm really not saying that Bakugo would def beat him, but to say that Zach should wipe the floor with everyone and only not Midoriya because he's got plot armor, it's just not true. Zach doesn't have a Full Cowl, and even if that is what his Nightmare form looks to be turning into to you, Zach himself is just realizing it right now as he thinks about last chapter in his fight with those villains and the chapter before when he punches the wall and is surprised that his fist leaves a dent. Won't say Midoriya would def beat him either, and Zach does have a lot of combat experience and martial arts training, just think you're really overestimating Zach's _current_ powers if you think Nightmare is OP enough to make Bakugo look like a scrub in a fight. I've also put Midoriya in a lot of scenes recently because they're together this arc, but also 'cause he's also pretty important in this story. Death has run parallel to BNHA pretty much since the start as I tried keeping to canon as much as possible at the beginning and even after Zach started having a big impact. In the story info, Midoriya is one of the MCs too. This is Zach's story though, so it'll get back to focusing more mainly on him as the internship arc comes to a close... but no spoilers actually. Thanks again and I'm glad you like this story and Zach, and despite focusing on Midoriya I hope you still enjoyed the chapter!**

Super Power Sensei chapter 77 . Sep 17

I'm going to assume from now on that villains in general are more involved internationally than ever. Because the increasing amount of weapons they are using definitely wouldn't happen in the actual story. At least right now.

 **Oh yeah. The whole world was watching the Sports Festival, but even before I mentioned that we heard Zach talking or thinking about times he had gone overseas. He had told Ganji about a time he had been in Russia, though he said the villains had him in America or maybe it was China more right after Camino Ward when they were the most wanted and had to go into hiding for a while. Plus even this arc Zach was wondering if the Trigger lab they were going to was the main _Japanese_ one as he knows there are other labs in different countries. Maybe those guys returning from Feruchia had just sold their Trigger to international arms dealers too which is how they had all that stuff in the truck? Who knows? But there have def been mentions of international stuff through this so I'm glad you're thinking about that! Thanks for the review, and I hope you enjoyed the climax of the fight!**


	79. Chapter 79

**Disclaimer: I don't own Boku no Hero Academia**

 **Chapter 79:**

Zach Sazaki lay back on his hospital bed in the early afternoon of the third day of his hero internship. He had just woken up again after taking Roady's advice and getting the rest he had needed very much. When he got back up, the others who had been in the room with him were all gone, and there was a change of clothes next to his bed from his own belongings back in Feruchia. He figured Daisy or Keiko had come to Mosu Esupa, and he told himself to thank them whenever he met them later.

He was hesitant to get up. Zach pushed his thoughts away from why it was he was just laying there though, thinking instead on the events of the night before. _Why? Was the Chemist, and the Apocalypse, was it that important to you? Shigaraki didn't even try… Dabi's eyes._ Zach's teeth clenched but he calmed himself after a moment while staring up at the ceiling over his bed. _Why didn't they try? Are they done with me? After spending so much time, I can't see Shigaraki finished that quickly. Then why leave me be? Why not kill me? Or at least try, so that I would have had my excuse to kill Shigaraki._ Zach's eyes darkened as he thought that to himself, and he almost looked around to see if anyone had spotted him thinking it.

 _Not with Death, because I can't get you with it anymore. But I'd slit his throat. Stab him in the heart, and Dabi… Dabi._ Zach closed his eyes and his teeth bared harder again, _**"…think of it as a birthday present."**_ Dabi appeared in his mind the night he had saved Zach's life, the _first_ time. Then blue flames filled his mind and Zach heard a screeching voice of agony, and he saw a girl inside those blue flames yelling his name and for him to help her. Zach snapped his eyes open and swung his legs off the bed, because he did not want to think about this anymore.

As he got up though, he was reminded of the reason he knew he had been laying back for as long as he could. _Villains don't talk to the cops. They, they have a code most of the time. Plus the villains are so brutal, that snitches get the worst… But Chemist- yet, yet Hydro and Shooter must not have said shit back after VTS. Maybe they knew. Maybe the cops asked where Kurogiri had taken me, so they knew Shigaraki was going to try and turn me. Maybe they knew a prison break was coming in the future so they were holding out, not snitching because they believed they'd get out. But villains called me Reaper, others might have said things when I was in there. I knew that going in when I'd be recognized was risky. I tried cutting Chemist off when he shouted at me, but how much could he have said? After being arrested, did he tell more? Am I fucked?_

Zach got dressed, and he grabbed his phone off the side table it had been put while he was asleep. In a bag on the floor next to his folded change of clothes, he saw bloody costume that he realized was his own even though it was barely recognizable. He put his white pants and belt into the bag with his shirt while getting changed, and he thought, _I should take a shower. I'm pretty sweaty- Kendo saw me without my shirt on._ Zach sweatdropped as the thought came into his head in a semi-embarrassed way. _Even the girls in my own class, they've seen my left arm when I occasionally wore tank tops working out. Actually, were there cameras on me? Probably not after I took the shirt off at least. What actually happened last night? I didn't ask Roady, and I fell asleep right after._

He was planning on heading out of his room right after he got dressed, but he stopped and headed over to the tv in the room first. Zach turned it on and sat at the edge of the bed closest to it while turning on the news at a low volume. He did not want anyone outside to hear the tv and come bother him, so he kept it low and turned on subtitles. The news was talking about the incident in Mosu Esupa, and Zach was surprised as he turned it on just at the right moment.

The screen had been showing some news anchors talking with a small box in the corner of the view of a camera panning around the rubble of the warehouse and surrounding area. That image changed though as a visual covered the screen with four rectangular orange boxes going vertically through it at equal sizes. In each of those boxes was the face of a man near the center-top, their villain names and real names above, their Quirks below their faces, and three of them had 'Tartaros Escapee' written beneath their Quirks. Three of the four boxes dimmed with a black shade, while the box in the middle right of the screen tinted red and a brighter red 'X' crossed over the box.

Zach listened closely as the news anchors talked about Breakneck's capture, and he read the subtitles on the bottom of the screen too. His focus shifted to the one of the four who was not a Tartaros Escapee though but was being considered one of the ringleaders of the operation. All three of the boxes that had dimmed blacker meant that those criminals were dead, and Zach kept a frown on his face as he stared at Dandy's picture. _How'd it happen? Did Midoriya… or did the Apocalypse just take him out?_ The anchors started talking about Dandy as well, his box spreading to cover the whole screen and lightening back up.

"…was explained earlier today at a preliminary press conference held by the nationally ranked top three heroes who arrived at the scene to end the battle." Zach's eyes opened wide, then wider as the screen changed to show the press conference that had been televised live earlier but not all of their viewers may have seen.

 _Endeavor, Hawks, and Best Jeanist?!_ Zach stared at the screen with wide eyes. Endeavor was in the middle of the group, and Zach watched closely as they started the recording of the press conference near the middle of it. Apparently most of the battle had been televised from the air as the press helicopter had arrived around the same time the first villains were starting to escape the warehouse. Endeavor was explaining the end of the villain Dandy which a reporter had just asked about, "Yes, Kamikuro Gonbo, the villain known as Dandy was killed in this raid. It was not a result of villain on villain violence or necessary force by a hero, but the drug he took to make him so powerful which caused his demise…"

 _Not mentioning Apocalypse. That's good._ Zach hummed to himself while leaning back from the screen. _Aside from not making a panic because of the idea of that drug, it's a good move to weaken villains. Despite how powerful Dandy got, if the cameras did get some good shots of him doing damage, this will discourage the use of Trigger for all villains in the future. Most villains will assume it was Trigger that killed Dandy, and Endeavor's talking about the other villains who used Trigger now and lost their cognitive abilities which allowed for an easier capture. Some smarter villains will know that Endeavor's using this to instill fear among villains and stop them from using Trigger as quickly, but those are the villains who wouldn't be using it anyway. It's the dumb ones who use Trigger quickest, and they're going to be the easiest ones to convince that Trigger causes more harm than good._

The press conference got cut off as a reporter asked a different question, then Zach got off the bed and turned off the tv. He did so because the first things those news anchors started talking about was the escape of the League of Villains who had interrupted the raid. _Damn, I knew it._ Zach cursed to himself while walking out of the room. _Six people died- six_ _ **good**_ _people died. Did I know any of them? Does that matter- of course it does, but it should still hurt even if I didn't. It does._ Zach loosened his fists that were starting to clench at his sides, feeling more sad than angry at the moment. _Dabi and Shigaraki got away to fight another day, to plan more devious deeds and kill more people. What did I do? I didn't stop Breakneck or Chemist, or Dandy. I didn't capture the League… What about the other League members? Maybe I should have watched for longer. But, I need to figure out what's going on from more than just the news. The news doesn't know everything. I know who will though._

Zach walked towards a door down the hall that he had gone to that morning after he woke up and staggered to Roady's room. Before he went back to get the sleep he needed, he had one other person he had to check on after finding out that Roady was alive. Zach leaned into the doorway and he knocked on the door twice while looking towards the bed and the short woman standing on a chair next to it. Recovery Girl had a disappointed look on her face and was being very serious with Midoriya, but Zach's interruption caused her to sigh and get off of the chair anyway. She had a lot of patients to look after around the hospital she had been requested to come to, including another U.A. student a few rooms away who had suffered a concussion.

"It is good to see one of you managed not to injure yourself-" Recovery Girl began while walking towards the other student in the doorway. She started frowning deeply at the boy who grimaced like he regretted not getting hurt. Zach realized why she started glaring at him, and he tried losing that look despite the regret he did feel that he had come out virtually unscathed. "Though you went too far again," Recovery Girl added in a softer voice when she was nearing Zach's side.

Zach's eyes lowered down to the short woman who sighed at his look. "That much pain," she whispered. "It is not good for you-"

"I'll be fine," Zach assured the old woman who was sounding sweet to him despite her scolding tone. "Thanks for coming up here," Zach added. _Though if you were here sooner, could Roady have- Geez, don't even think about that. 'What if's don't mean a thing._

Recovery Girl shook her head and murmured something while heading out of the room to go check on Kendo. Zach turned back to Midoriya's bed after she was gone, and he headed over quickly to the chair at Midoriya's side. "You okay?" Zach asked while sitting next to him.

Midoriya sat up and Zach's eyes shifted from his left arm down to his right leg which was wrapped up in a cast like his arm was. "You had to go all out, huh?" Zach asked.

"It still wasn't," Midoriya began in response. He lifted his right hand and rubbed it on his forehead, as this was something he could not say to Recovery Girl when she was scolding him over using his power despite the damage already done to his body. He felt guilty just as he saw Zach did when Recovery Girl mentioned him not getting wounded, though Midoriya felt bad that he could still move his right arm and left leg. Especially the movement of his right arm that he clenched its hand into his hair for a moment, because he thought to himself that the reason he had not gone all out sooner was because he was afraid of permanently losing it. The reason he was not beating himself up more though, was that he believed no one had died from just what he had done. _I couldn't beat him though,_ Midoriya thought to himself while lowering his hand.

Midoriya let out a small breath to gather his thoughts, then he replied, "Apocalypse, is just as you said."

"I'm sorry," Zach whispered. Midoriya's eyes opened wide at Zach's instant apology, and his breathing started picking up speed as he thought about something the Chemist had told him. Zach continued though, "If I had shot sooner. I just didn't want-"

"You shouldn't have shot at all-" Midoriya cut in.

"He died anyway," Zach whispered. He had lowered his gaze for a second when apologizing since it was hard seeing Midoriya's broken body that he considered partly his fault. "I knew it would probably kill him, and I could see in his eyes that he was going to inject himself. I kept hesitating, holding out for hope that he wouldn't use it. Then when I shot at him I already knew it was, I didn't really believe it would… I must not have, because I couldn't convince myself to just run up and touch him afterwards."

Midoriya stared at Zach in silence for a few seconds when Zach had finished giving his apology. Izuku did not know how to respond to him. _He's apologizing for not killing him. That's, that's weird. You shouldn't have to apologize for something like that, as easy as it would be for your Quirk to kill him._ Instead of trying to counter Zach's apology, Midoriya changed the subject in a low voice, "Zach, Chemist talked about-" Zach stared into Midoriya's eyes with his own starting to shake, growing wider and full of fear at what Midoriya was starting to say. The fact that Zach was having that instant reaction made Midoriya freeze, because it was hard not to believe it now when Zach looked so afraid of what the Chemist could have said about him.

"Was he, caught? He was right?" Zach said, as he suddenly realized he did not know for sure if they had managed to get the Chemist out of there. _Shigaraki didn't get him. Unlike the Apocalypse,_ Zach felt a bit of relief as Midoriya told him Chemist had been captured, but that relief was replaced by fear again as he wondered what that could mean for him. _How much did he know about the League's operations? He was just the Chemist. He was the man who made the drugs, and he was a pretty important "piece" of Shigaraki's, but he wouldn't have known all the things I did. Yet, he knew who I really was. He knew my real name when I first saw him…_

 _He wouldn't know everything I did, but he does know I was there when he presented the Apocalypse. I called him a sick fuck, I talked shit about his work, and I had reasons behind it more than my own personal feelings. I hated him so much just seeing the way he talked about science like the people he was experimenting on didn't matter. So I felt good when I had solid reasons for why his experiments were failures, for why he was not doing as good a job as he made it out like he was. And when he threatened me that day I was in his lab, I went Nightmare and scared the shit out of him with a smile on my face. I enjoyed that, because I hated him so much. If he hates me as much as I hate him though, he'll do whatever he can to get me arrested won't he? Unless he's afraid I'll be thrown in the same prison as him? Or unless, he knows what Shigaraki's real plans for me are? Does Shigaraki have plans for me?_

"Zach," Midoriya started as he looked into his friend's dark eyes. "You had, power in the League of Villains?" It was worded as a statement but Midoriya rose his tone at the end showing Zach could deny it if he wanted to like it was a question.

Zach's eyes darted to the side and back at the door behind him. Then he looked at Midoriya and started shaking his head which made Midoriya purse his lips. Zach could see his friend was having trouble believing him, and the fact that he was having trouble with that hurt both Midoriya and Zach. "Really, I didn't," Zach whispered. "Chemist might have thought I did, because I treated it like I did when I was around him. Because, I really hated him." _Is this true?_ "I threatened him, and I acted like a big shot around him," _Was it only with him?_ "But the Chemist himself didn't have a lot of power. Whatever he told you, I, I can't say it's not true." _What could Chemist have told you? Not enough to make you hate me, right?_ "But it's not like you think."

"I believe you," Midoriya whispered. He nodded at Zach whose eyes widened as he thought Midoriya's disbelieving look a few seconds ago would be harder to flip. Zach himself had been doubting his own thoughts though. He did not know if what he was telling Midoriya were excuses, or lies, or if he was telling the truth the best he could. Midoriya could see all of that on Zach's face though, because Zach was not trying hard to hide what he was thinking while pleading for him to believe it. "And, if it is true," Midoriya continued. "Then you got the Apocalypse to stop being made, right?"

Zach's eyes widened that Chemist had told Midoriya that. He thought about what Shigaraki had said after he had remarked something about Chemist's experiments, _**"Good point, Reaper. Well doctor?"**_ He thought about the silence on the other side as Chemist tried to come up with something, and how Twice had called out that the scientist was a dummy, and how he had laughed along with the schizophrenic man. _**"Don't waste any more of the Quirk-Destroying drug on these experiments. Keep the remaining Apocalypse you have yet to use though, whatever you have left…"**_

Zach nodded at Midoriya, and his curly-haired friend gave him a small smile at the sight of that. _I don't know how you did it. It sounds like you had power, but I'll believe that you could have just pointed out flaws. I can believe that you stopped that, while still acting as much like a hero as you could. Tricking the villains, "Using everything," as you say._ "Thanks Midoriya," the black-haired boy in front of Izuku said softly. "I'm glad you're on my side."

"Always," Midoriya responded, and Zach smiled more at the sound of that.

Then Zach shook his head as he wanted to get away from the sensitive heartfelt mood that just filled the room. "Want to call All Might?" Zach asked. Midoriya looked surprised and sat up some more, then winced from the pain in his right leg as he moved like that. Recovery Girl's treatment had helped, it healed his back up quick, but he was going to need another dose or two during the day to be able to get up and moving again.

"I, haven't yet," Midoriya replied, and he realized he probably should get to that, as he had already called his mom. There were some things he wanted to discuss with All Might on his own, but he nodded in agreement with Zach that they should call him at least just to let him know that they were okay right now. _I defeated Breakneck too. I knew when he would attack, and I predicted him. Just like you said we could._ Midoriya smiled as he thought about the advice All Might gave them the evening before.

"I saw you beat Breakneck, out the corner of my eye," Zach started which surprised Midoriya as he had been thinking of the same thing. Zach had thought about their call with All Might the night before too though while he was getting the phone out. He added while sending a video call request to their teacher, "Nice job. I totally let him get away."

"After you trapped him up in the second floor room…" Midoriya started, but then he stopped as the phone Zach was holding up stopped buzzing and a man's face appeared on it. Zach scooted his chair up a bit towards the head of Midoriya's bed while moving his phone down to point back at the two of them at the same time.

"Hey All Might," the boys greeted their teacher.

"I heard from Recovery Girl that you were doing alright, but I am glad to see the two of you in good spirits," All Might began to the boys he saw over his phone camera. He was sitting behind a computer in the main office of U.A., and Mother Russia and Cementoss glanced over as they realized who had called All Might. All Might stood up after answering though and he started walking off to have his conversation in a more private place.

"Tell them they should have caught Shigaraki!" Mother Russia yelled towards All Might who got a sweatdrop on his face. Both of the boys who heard that deep feminine voice laced with a thick Russian accent also sweatdropped and hoped their homeroom teacher did not punish them for that.

It only made the mood of the conversation light for a second though, but as All Might walked into a side lounge next to the office he could see both of the boys on the other side of the line looking more grim at what Mother Russia said. "You did well. It is a shame that the League once again slipped away, but do not beat yourselves up over it." The two looked at All Might in surprise as he knew what they were thinking, then All Might continued, "So, Breakneck turned out to be in the same operation you were already raiding."

The boys nodded and started talking to their teacher all about the raid the night before. All Might sat on a couch in the lounge and nodded along with them as they recounted the night, and Midoriya and Zach would look at each other as they talked after a certain point when they retold things the other hadn't heard about yet. Midoriya and All Might's eyes opened wide as Zach started talking about the conversation he had had with Breakneck on the second floor of the warehouse. He talked about Stain leaving the League of Villains, the villains who Breakneck said sounded cult-like about him, and then he mentioned a video he had seen online recently regarding that same Cult of Stain. He at least thought it was the same cult that he imagined had started up for real that day, then he got back to mentioning about how Breakneck said All For One was not really _back_ despite being broken out of prison.

When Zach was finished, All Might began, "This is all very useful information, Young Sazaki. Most important is in regards to the decrease in size of the League. Getting this information-"

"I thought I could get Breakneck to talk if he thought he was the one stalling me for time to escape," Zach cut in with a darker look on his face. "But I was too cocky. He stalled just like I wanted, but he escaped-"

"Yet in the end, Young Midoriya still captured him," All Might countered. "Do not feel bad, as Breakneck would likely not have given up the same information in the hands of the police. I doubt he will say a thing now that he is again in captivity." Zach nodded along as that made some sense, but he felt bad about the damage Breakneck had been able to do after getting out of the room Zach had trapped him in.

Midoriya continued on with why he did not go to assist Zach, saying he left to fight Shigaraki. This time it was Zach's turn to go wide-eyed, as Midoriya let them know that Shigaraki knew about One For All. He was trying to kill him, and Midoriya admitted that he had almost succeeded. In fact underneath his hospital gown on his back he had bandages wrapped around him still as well as on his left arm around his elbow which Zach could see out from beneath Midoriya's sleeve. Recovery Girl's first treatment that she just gave him might have mostly healed them up, but she told him to keep the bandages on until the next time when she would remove them.

Zach grit his teeth as Midoriya talked about those injuries, about Shigaraki touching him and using Decay. All Might's eyes shifted from Midoriya for a moment to the other boy in the camera angle whose eyes filled with more regret as he heard about this in detail. It was while he was outside bringing people back to life. Once again it was a time when there were no good options, but thinking about that never stopped him from feeling the guilt over not being there. All Might thought about the promise Zach had made to him after the Sports Festival too, and why he knew Zach had chosen an internship close to Midoriya's. _To have picked it to protect your friend, only to allow so much injury to still come to him. I know it must be frustrating._

 _If I didn't, tell them about Apocalypse, maybe Midoriya would have treated his fight against Dandy differently._ Midoriya had started talking about the fight against Dandy now, and Zach just listened instead of retelling what he had been up to at the time. All Might was surprised at the power Midoriya was describing, but he was also surprised as Zach's look of regret went away. _If he thought it was just normal Trigger he might not have been as careful. It is Midoriya, so he might have been fine anyway, but I have to think it was in part because of my warnings-_

"Zach warned us about the Apocalypse beforehand so I knew-" Midoriya cut himself off, even as Zach was nodding along feeling like he had just been confirmed in what he was thinking. He darted a look at Midoriya whose eyes were wide like he realized he probably shouldn't have said that aloud.

"You knew about that drug, Sazaki?" All Might questioned. Midoriya looked back at the phone and his eyes were still wide, though All Might's grew in size too as he realized he had left out the 'Young' right there. "Shonen," All Might finished a few seconds later, like he had just forgot to add the 'young' for a second.

Zach sweatdropped at both of their looks. _What do I do? I already told Kirishima. But, when I told him about it, I let him know really seriously that what I was telling him was just between the two of us. I told him it was a secret he couldn't tell anyone else. I've told Kaminari a ton of stuff like that, more than anyone, but All Might and Midoriya. One of my teachers, and Midoriya's very idealistic. Not that I haven't already discussed this in front of a dozen heroes. Midoriya probably heard me called Reaper though, heard that I had some power while with the villains, enough at least to help cancel the production of Apocalypse._ "Um, yeah," Zach finally responded as he was hesitating for too long there that he knew Midoriya must have been feeling guilty. He tried playing it off like he had not just thought deeply on it as fast as he could, "I didn't think we'd be going up against it though. Apocalypse was always just experimental. I don't think it had ever been used like this before, for actual combat. No one would be dumb enough to use it in combat, or so I thought. Dandy was though…"

Zach trailed off and he grimaced thinking about Dandy. Midoriya started frowning deeper himself too, and he continued retelling his fight against Dandy in a lower voice. He talked about the building collapsing, the top heroes arriving, and then Dandy's death. He was very detailed about Dandy's death which made All Might grimace himself as Midoriya got a look in his eyes talking about seeing something that brutal. "It was televised as well," All Might added. The boys looked at their teacher who was grim but tried to give a positive note just as Zach heard Endeavor do. He mentioned how it would keep many villains from using Quirk-enhancing drugs in the future, something which relieved the two who had seen what a group of villains readily injecting with Trigger could do. They had seen it on a few occasions now actually, though the Sports Festival had been a more controlled chaos than what they had walked into last night.

All Might then shifted the topic from Dandy and drugs back to the boys who had called him. "I also saw both of you during the live broadcast. Young Midoriya, it is thanks to you that the helicopter crew survived. Even if Hawks was the one who got them safely to the ground," All Might added as he could see Midoriya getting ready to argue. Midoriya nodded after a second though as he thought about how Dandy really would have torn that helicopter apart if he had not pulled himself out of the warehouse rubble when he did. "And Young Sazaki," All Might continued. "Well, the situation outside of the warehouse was out of control before you arrived. To have used that, Nightmare form of yours, and then to have brought back lives in succession…"

Zach's eyes started opening huge, and All Might's eyebrows lifted up at the sight of that. "Oh? Haha," All Might chuckled to himself and brought a hand up to scratch his head with. "I thought you must have planned for that."

"No," Zach whispered. _But if both of those things were on camera in succession, that's great! I was always so afraid of people seeing Nightmare form, seeing me look like a monster, but there are enough crazy Quirks in the world that it's not that bad. Especially if I'm bringing good people back to life afterwards. I get why All Might thought I planned ahead for it, because that's something I definitely wanted to do. Getting people to accept Nightmare form. I wonder if that's enough though…_

"Good, you're up." Zach and Midoriya looked over the phone towards the door where a bald woman was standing wearing her hero uniform. It was not damaged so they thought maybe it was a new costume, but Wonderlass had been visited by Best Jeanist not too long ago and he had helped fix up some large rips in her costume. "I have some things I need," she paused as she heard a voice on the other side of the phone saying her name in a quiet way. "Is that All Might?"

Zach turned his phone so All Might could see the woman in the hospital room with them. Then Zach and Midoriya both opened their eyes wide as a smile spread over Wonderlass's face. She walked up towards the bed and crossed her arms over her chest while grinning down at the man on the screen with sunken cheeks and a pointy chin. "A stud, as always," Wonderlass said, and the two boys behind the phone lowered their bottom lips with their eyes opening wide. "Even without that muscle form of yours," Wonderlass added with a more sly smirk.

The muscular woman with red eyes that had small blue irises in them narrowed those eyes at the man on the other side of the phone who had a bead of sweat rolling down the right side of his face at what Wonderlass was saying in front of his students. Then his awkward smile lowered itself, and he gave her a more serious look. "I heard that you went too far again," All Might began.

Wonderlass's eyes narrowed more and her smile flattened out. He could see in her eyes a look that said 'Do not mention my shortened lifespan in front of these kids.' All Might frowned, but Wonderlass then said aloud still with her flattened lips, "My whole body was destroyed after Super Moves, but unlike you old man, I regenerate." She uncrossed her arms and flexed them so her muscles showed even through her baggy dark costume.

All Might sighed and rubbed his forehead for a moment, then he smiled at the woman who also seemed to be in good spirits to him. She seemed in way too good of spirits to the boys, especially Midoriya, who had not seen her act this way since he started interning with her earlier that week. "You've always been too reckless," All Might said.

Wonderlass's sly smirk returned, the right corner of her lip curling up most. "I thought you liked that wild side of me-"

"Ack- ka, a-hem," All Might coughed a few times into his fist, then he said loudly, "Would you look at that? There is much work to be done even over break as a U.A. teacher." Zach and Midoriya's jaws stayed dropped even after the phone call ended. Zach turned his phone around with his eyes huge as All Might just ended the call like that. _What the Hell just happened?_ He thought while staring blankly at his dark phone screen.

"You, get cleaned up," Wonderlass said while looking at Zach who got a look saying 'who me?' on his face. "There's a press conference for those heroes involved in the planning of the raid. Anyone who can walk will be out there." She turned to Midoriya next who started frowning with a disappointed look and like he was going to try and go out himself even with his broken leg. "You and I need to have a talk. And don't think about getting out of that bed. I don't want the old bag yelling at me any more today."

Zach cracked a grin as he stood up from the chair next to Midoriya's bed. _Even someone as intimidating as Wonderlass can get scolded by Recovery Girl._

As Zach walked for the door, he darted his eyes back down to his phone that was buzzing again. He thought for a brief second that All Might just needed to regain his bearings after Wonderlass had flustered him, but he looked down at his phone and his eyes opened wide at the sight of whose name was calling him. Midoriya turned from Wonderlass who was walking towards him and looked at Zach who had a more nervous look on his face than Midoriya imagined was on his own. He got confused for a second wondering who might be calling Zach, then he saw Zach gulp and pick up. Zach was turning out of the door, but though Midoriya did not hear him, he saw Zach's lips move in a recognizable pattern since they tapped together twice after saying what looked like 'hey.'

"Hey Momo," Zach said.

"You're alright."

"Yeah, sorry for-"

"I was so worried," Momo cut in before Zach could finish saying 'sorry for worrying you.' He frowned deep and rubbed the back of his head with his left hand while stopping in the hallway. "Why didn't you tell me?" She asked in an angrier, more upset voice.

"I thought it was just going to be a normal drug bust," Zach tried to counter.

"I don't believe that," Momo replied without hesitating. "Because you called me last night right before it."

"I can't just call-"

"That's not what I'm saying," Momo cut him off so fast that Zach's eyes opened wide. He pulled the phone from his head a bit so she would not hear how he started breathing heavier all of a sudden, just as the girl on the other side of the line was doing. Yaoyorozu took in a deep breath and then pulled the phone closer as she had gathered her thoughts. He had missed her last two calls, and he had been dreading her getting mad at him which was why he did not call her after waking up the second time and seeing the second missed call. "I saw you on tv," Momo continued, her voice calmer as she tried telling herself that she shouldn't be mad at Zach for calling her. She was just glad to hear his voice after all, glad to hear he was fine.

"You did?" Zach asked. He wondered who else had even though he had glanced through the class group message earlier to see some people had talked about it.

"You were incredible out there. I was very worried, and you should have said something beforehand if you were going to call… but I felt I had been worried for nothing," Zach's face brightened and he leaned back where he stood in the hall. He rubbed his left hand behind his head and smiled so wide as Yaoyorozu mentioned how he had defeated the villains and then how she saw him go right to bringing back people who had been killed by them. It was very similar to what All Might had just told him a minute ago, but Zach's heart was pounding so much faster this time and he felt like there was a skip in his step as he headed back towards his hospital room.

He did not want to be rude, so he asked her how her night was and if it was eventful at all too. Yaoyorozu tried scolding him for attempting to change the subject, but he countered defensively that he really was just interested. That made the tall bubbly girl in northern Honshu pause for a moment only to say that nothing had happened, then she got back to asking about Zach's night. He went into what he had gotten out of Breakneck, talked about Roady who he had told her about before and about his leg, but how Roady was happy to be alive. Yaoyorozu just responded to him that she was glad it sounded like the two of them had become friends, since the last time they had talked Zach had described most of his internship so far and it did not seem like Roady liked him very much. Zach smiled even wider at that and opened his mouth to tell her something, but then he froze and closed it with a smile growing on his face he was glad she could not see since it was only a voice call.

 _I'm not going to tell anyone! That's going to be awesome. Surprise! I have a motorcycle! …I mean, that is if I'm actually able to keep that. Now that I think about it, is giving someone a motorcycle really that easy? Plus can I really get my license by the end of the internship when I've barely ridden one at all- though maybe last night alone could mean something?_ Zach hummed to himself, then he told Yaoyorozu it was nothing as she asked him what he was thinking on. Zach reached his room as he was brushing that off, as he wanted to surprise her now more than anyone with it.

In the room was another hero who was wearing casual clothes like Zach but had his costume gathered up in his hands. Zach also saw the man holding up a pair of white pants and a bloody shirt that should have been white too, and he glanced towards his bag and got a dark look on his face. "Oh Lifebringer," the man who turned to him said, a friendly look on his face that made it impossible for Zach to keep looking at him like that. "I'm sorry for touching without asking, but I figured your costume could use a good wash. Can't be wearing those at the press conference, can you now?"

Zach lifted his eyebrows as the Canadian man was actually just being nice to him. He nodded and thanked Samwell, then he moved the bottom of his phone back towards his mouth and said, "Yeah sorry Momo. I might actually have to be getting ready for-"

"A press conference?" Momo asked, having heard the other voice say it over the phone. "I'll be watching-" she said, freezing as she got 'watching' out of her mouth as she wondered why she just told him that.

"Oh, well," Zach said, his cheeks getting a little red after she said that too. _She'll be watching? Like there's not enough pressure on without you saying something like that._ "Thanks," Zach said, though he wondered if that was actually the right response to what she said.

"You're welcome," Yaoyorozu replied.

Zach's bottom lip lowered as he no longer knew what was going on. He figured he must have responded wrong to have set up that as the only response she could say back to him, and he quickly said, "Sorry." He pulled the phone away and ended the call, and then he dropped his jaw as he realized what he just did. Zach brought his phone up and pressed it against his forehead while letting out a groan, closing his eyes and shaking his head as he felt like an idiot.

Samwell chuckled at the boy as he neared the door to go head out and get their costumes cleaned. "You'll get a hang of it," the Canadian told him in a reassuring tone.

Zach lifted his head and looked at the muscular Canadian in surprise. He opened his mouth to ask him something, but he stopped when he saw Samwell's expression lose its friendly expression. The man was walking past Zach's side and had thought his face was out of view, and Zach started staring at him as Samwell walked away. He watched the man in a red t-shirt smile at a nurse walking his direction, and only now did he see how fake that smile looked. _Oh man,_ Zach thought, and he turned while sliding his phone back into his pocket. His awkwardness over how that phone call ended was pushed aside for now as he walked to the television and turned it back on to the news. _I need to figure some things out,_ Zach thought.

He may have been able to quickly get over what just happened, but a tall teenage girl sitting in the back seat of her pro hero's car threw her head back and put her face in her hands. She felt like yelling out in frustration, and the sidekick in the passenger seat was desperately trying to stifle a giggle at the sight of Yaoyorozu in the back seat. "'You're welcome?'" The young woman with puffed out cheeks whispered, then she burst out in a fit of giggles while Ballerclava let out a small chuckle herself in the driver's seat. "I don't know what you were replying to, but I feel like that could've gone a little better there Creati-"

"Don't be mean Shiro Swan," Ballerclava began. "She is clearly new at this."

"Maybe we should give her some pointers then, yeah boss?" Shiro Swan asked, the woman in her mid-twenties in a white combat skirt grinning while turning her head. Yaoyorozu lowered her hands from her face and Shiro Swan's eyes widened a bit at the girl's face which looked like she was really upset by how that ended. The two of them had not heard her friend say 'Sorry' and then cut off the call though, which made the terribly awkward feeling Yaoyorozu felt when she responded like she did a dozen times worse.

"We're on the job," Ballerclava said. Shiro Swan nodded and turned back forward while Creati shook her head in the back seat to focus as well, even if they were not at the town yet where they were headed. Then Ballerclava added, "So we'll wait for tonight when we're off duty." A giant smile spread across Shiro Swan's face that had looked serious for a moment, while Yaoyorozu's eyes opened wide and her cheeks bright red as the pro hero scheduled some girl talk that she now had to figure out a way to avoid.

Back in central Hokkaido, Zach buried his face down in his hands and shook his head around while clenching his eyes shut. "I'm such an idiot," he whispered, and he rubbed his palms into his eyes. He rubbed his black glove on his right and the scar tissue of his other palm into his left, then he brought his hands down and rose his gaze to the screen again. He stared at the pictures of five police officers and Russell from Team Canada who were being talked about respectfully by the news anchors. Those men were also questioning the need for their deaths though, bringing up failure in the planning, weakness of the heroes involved, though they also accounted the use of Trigger. One of the anchors mentioned how the playing field seemed to be skewed in favor of villains with a drug like that out there, but the other remarked to 'tell that to Dandy,' which was dark but true and the other anchor nodded thinking about what he had witnessed live last night that they were not allowed to show replays of because of its grotesqueness.

Zach thought about what they were talking about though before they scrapped the conversation using Dandy as an example. _Maybe it's not as good as I thought. Endeavor keeps villains from using Trigger, but a lot are going to know it was Apocalypse. Many are still going to take the risk of Trigger if it's between that and capture. Yet making the drugs out to be the biggest problem here ruins any chances that heroes can start using drugs to even the playing field. Not that we should- but I don't think we necessarily shouldn't. Especially if the kinks…_ Zach turned towards the door of the room as he saw a burly tan-skinned man walking down the hall. The man turned in and spotted him watching tv in some casual attire, and Zach looked him up and down as Bouncer Man walked in.

"Did you hear about Roady?" Bouncer Man began right after entering the room, and Zach grimaced deeply and started nodding his head. "No, not that," Bouncer Man said quickly, making Zach lift his dropped gaze in some confusion. Bouncer Man chuckled and he said to the teen, "As bad as that is, ya' saved his life. Don't look so disappointed." Zach's eyes widened a bit, then they shot open huge as Bouncer Man continued, "I meant, did you hear he just popped the question to Popfire?" Zach gawked at the larger hero who chuckled again and said, "Heard he did it out of nowhere while laying in his hospital bed. 'Course she said 'yes,' but I didn't see it coming at all."

 _Right after I walked out of there, Roady proposed to his girlfriend?! Whoa… That's crazy!_ "That's, crazy," Zach said aloud too while getting up to his feet. _Offering me his motorcycle, proposing to Popfire, it's like he reevaluated everything. Maybe it doesn't take dying to do something like that. You don't need to die and come back to life for revelations. Or maybe what's important just became more clear with a near-death experience? Whatever it was, I should go congratulate him, in a bit._

Zach looked at Bouncer Man whose smile lowered back down as he was thinking seriously about something from the night before, but Zach's eyes shifted off of the taller man's while staying focused on his face. Bouncer Man saw Zach looking towards the medical tape over his cheek from just next to his lip all the way over to his ear. Then Zach's gaze shifted down to Bouncer Man's right arm held in a sling in front of his chest. "Damn Dandy," Bouncer Man said when he saw where Zach was looking, and he rubbed his arm for a second with his good hand. Then he pointed up at his cheek and changed the focus to the wound Zach looked at first which he'd rather focus on than how Dandy had snapped his arm like a twig. "After Underguard came-to for a minute and reinforcements came at the south entry point," Bouncer Man started explaining. "We went back in and found Roady tying up the last of a group of five villains."

Zach's eyes widened more as he realized which group that was, and he had a bad feeling in his chest as a face appeared in his mind. "Hydro?" Zach whispered.

Bouncer Man shook his head and he grinned this time instead of looking grim and disappointed as he had been for the start of the explanation. "The small one, Fez," Bouncer Man started. His grin lowered back down to a flat lip and he tssked for feeling good about it even for a second. "I took charge of getting those five back to the perimeter with some cops while the others kept moving forward with Roady. Had some cops helping me, and three of the five were unconscious for it. As we reached the south exit of the main lab though, another group of heroes who had just arrived were rushing in. Fez was tied up and did not look able to move, but he activated his Quirk as Bladewave neared me, apparently entering the range of his ability."

"What did he do?" Zach asked hesitantly. Bouncer Man's grin when he asked about Hydro had him hopeful, but Bouncer Man was speaking in a dark tone that had him not wanting to smile.

"Slashed his binds, then my face as one of the knives on Bladewave's costume whipped about." Bouncer Man paused and he reached up to scratch below his medical tape. "He was trying to get Hydro, but I knew he would and stopped him. The other still-conscious villain, going by Needler, got Fez to free him though." Zach grimaced deeper as he thought about the guy who spat black needles. That villain had almost hit him while he was reviving Plucky, but luckily Sky-Girl's defensive red wind barrier had protected him. Bouncer Man was not finished though, and Zach grimaced even more as he said, "Fez started running off dragging Needler who Roady had shot in the legs, but Bladewave's blade that looked to fall out of Fez's power snapped out one more time when Lady Lucky started chasing them. Slashed deep across her back, but it did not hit anything vital."

Zach felt relieved at the sound of that and actually let out a breath he had been holding there for a second. _I ran off to chase Breakneck instead of fighting them. If I had stayed, I could have used Death and knocked_ _ **all**_ _of them out._ "After that, did anyone catch…" Zach's question was answered by Bouncer Man's deeper frown but the big man shook his head anyway even after Zach trailed off. "Oh," Zach muttered. _They must have gotten to Shigaraki before the escape portal. How many villains got away with him? How many did he even bring with him in the first place? Two others escaped, who I could have stopped. I wouldn't have known all those things about the League though, wouldn't have been able to share that information that might help out with other villain raids in the near future. Two villains. Is the escape of two villains, worth that information? If they kill people… but if that information saves people!_

Zach rubbed the side of his head, then Bouncer Man asked if he knew about the press conference. Zach nodded and said Samwell was washing his uniform so he could wear it as he wondered if Bouncer Man would be asking that next, then he asked the large man if he would be taking part. Bouncer Man replied that it was his arm and that he could stand, so he would be out there with the rest of them. Only Spunky, Roady, and Deku were being kept out of it from what he had heard, and Zach asked how Spunky was doing only to grimace at the extent of her injuries Bouncer Man started speaking on. "Anyway," Bouncer Man said as he turned back in the doorway. "It'll be outside the front of the hospital at four. Don't be late."

"I'll see you down there," Zach replied as Bouncer Man turned to start away. Zach took a deep breath once the bigger man was gone and he sat back down on the edge of his bed. He kept the news on to make sure he was all caught up on everything that had happened by the time the press conference began. While he was watching though, his mind was racing as he thought about what the reporters might ask outside. _Plan ahead. What will they say? What will I say? If things were leaked from the planning meeting, just try to deflect away from stuff that'll potentially screw me. Don't plan for just avoiding the bad though. Push the good. How can I use this press conference to my advantage? How can I do even more good, even off of the battlefield?_

* * *

"I just want to start my response by saying that Russell Hightower was a great hero. He was my friend, a protector, and he died a hero's death in the service of the innocent he swore to…"

Zach stood down the line to the left of Team Canada on the small stage set up for them outside of the hospital. Kurt stood forward in front of his other three team members who were getting choked up by their leader's eulogy for Russell that the reporters all quieted down as it happened. Zach thought about something and then grimaced, but he could not help but think, _This will get them to calm down and treat this like less of a fanfare event._ He had been nervous for a minute there since getting up on the stage as the crowd of media presence in front of their press conference were shouting questions at all the heroes. Kurt's heartfelt message about Russell and how his death was one worthy of a hero had many of the reporters suddenly changing their tones and pulling back a bit as they could not keep going like that anymore.

Zach did not like thinking about it though as he knew Kurt well enough in the day he had known him that he did not think the polite and cheerful leader of Team Canada had thought about that beforehand. Kurt continued with something that made Zach turn his head to look right down the line a bit, as he had not known what the other heroes going up there were going to say before they gathered. Bikergang had mentioned to him that he would be expected to answer a couple of questions if asked, and that was all the others had prepared him for this. He had readied himself on his own enough though, and now he was just waiting for his turn and listening to the others. "…his body back to Canada, where we will be staying as reports of increased villain activity at home has made it a necessity. To the people of Feruchia we're sorry that we could not stay for longer. However we hope that our help here, especially in last night's raid, will succeed in lowering crime in the surrounding area including the city we have made our second home this past month."

Camera flashes went off as Kurt finished, and reporters threw their hands up as the police chief of Mosu Esupa stepped back forward at the center podium of the stage. They started calling out and looking to the short chief of police who had black mutton chops on his cheeks and the short snout of a pig sticking out the middle of his face. Chief Muggins looked around and then pointed at a woman near the front row who called out as others put their hands down, "Sasha Collins, WWT. My question is for Underguard."

Underguard looked over at the woman while stepping forward himself from next to his young sidekick. Rubbergirl had a bandage wrapped around her head, and her left arm was in a sling with more of her torso wrapped under her green coat and black uniform. She had come out despite protests from Recovery Girl, saying that Mosu Esupa was her hometown and that more than the Feruchia heroes she needed the scared people of the town where she worked to see she was standing tall. Standing tall hurt her ribs that were not broken anymore but were still bruised after Recovery Girl's repeated treatment, but Rubbergirl did not let that pain show on her face.

"At the earlier press conference it was reported that you were in charge of the planning of this raid," Sasha began. The reporter with long black hair tied in a ponytail had a business suit on, a pair of thin glasses in front of her eyes, and a pointy red tail waved behind her and then pointed at Underguard as she changed her tone, "Considering the extent of the damage caused last night, the excessive loss of life, why were there so few heroes involved in this raid? Shouldn't you have called in a hero like Endeavor, Hawks, or Best Jeanist who had to come anyway before things got to the point they did?"

"A hero of their caliber appearing in this small town would have tipped off the villains," Underguard replied deeply through the black mask on the bottom of his face. He had his goggles on too but his green hood was down which revealed his scraggly blond hair that was not combed or anything for the conference. "Considering Breakneck's Flashstep, and the possibility of intervention from Kurogiri, I believed the fact that we had the warehouse under surveillance would not have stopped the villains from escaping should they have caught wind of my plan."

Zach was staring forward again, but he heard in Underguard's last sentence the use of the first person twice. _"I believed," "my plan," he's accepting that the fault is his alone even though he's defending himself. It was his operation but we all worked on it. He shouldn't have to take the fall._

Underguard continued, "I also considered calling more heroes without bringing in the big shots, but this is a small town. Any large number of heroes arriving in town had the possibility of tipping off the villains, so we moved in with the people we had on hand."

"To still say that after the deaths of five police officers and a fellow hero-"

"I admit though, that my plan failed," Underguard continued while still looking forward over the crowd and not specifically at the woman who tried to interrupt him. "And I take full responsibility for those deaths. I will accept any punishment the review board deems fit. The intervention of the League of Villains was unexpected, and there should have been more heroes on standby in the occasion that a confounding variable like this occurred where reinforcements were needed. For the failure to foresee and plan accordingly, I deeply apologize." Underguard bowed his head and body to the crowd in front of them. Many reporters took pictures and some cameramen zoomed in to televise him live on their tv stations.

Rubbergirl's fists tightened which hurt her entire left arm, but she could not help it. She managed to hold her tongue though which Zach was surprised by, as even he wanted to jump in there and say that none of them could have predicted it. _It's like Softy told me. I blamed myself so much for not planning well enough for VTS. I couldn't have foreseen everything though. And I had to leave there, or I would have really become a… I was so close, and I knew I had to leave even if the plan wasn't a hundred percent- but I thought it was! Just like we left the station last night, so confident that we would be able to take down Dandy's operation. We knew there were risks, but the risks of doing nothing outweighed them. It's not your fault Underguard._

"Next question," the police chief said, frowning and looking around the crowd that started shouting all at once and swinging around their arms with microphones held in them. Sasha Collins backed up after seeing a stern look from the chief darted at her back when she had interrupted Underguard, and she doubted he would call on her again. She had gotten a good question out though and to the leader of the raid too so she quietly accepted she was out and just started jotting some things down on a tablet she had with her to write her story. "You," Chief Muggins pointed at a man farther towards the back who was being more civil than most of the others.

"Excuse me, Wonderlass. Leo Kudo from KG-TV." He glanced behind her in an obvious way when she took a step forward, then he said, "Reports have that the U.A. student Midoriya Izuku, hero name Deku, is interning with you this week. We saw him last night, but he's not up there with you. Did something happen after-"

"He's fine," Wonderlass said. Her voice was curt, and stern, and the man who just got cut off felt sweat form on his face at the look she was giving him. The other heroes were staying professional. They had been somber when Kurt spoke about Russell, they had smiled at people on their ways to the stage if the people asked about their injuries and had flashed the cameras smiles too at first to show they were fine. A lot of them sweatdropped too though at Wonderlass's gruff voice which sounded annoyed like she did not know why the man was wasting time with the question. Deku had not been reported as one of the deceased, and she said he was "fine" which was apparently all she was going to give as she took a step back to where she had just been standing on Bikergang's right and Underguard's left.

Zach was one of those sweatdropping as he looked a few places to his right at Wonderlass. He only looked at her out the corners of his eyes as he did not want her to see him staring over past Bikergang who he stood next to between him and Bouncer Man. He was a bit confused as he glanced her way, _I don't get it, All Might. She's like your opposite. At least in the media's eyes she's got no charisma and is frowning on camera like-_

"My question's for Lifebringer," Zach cursed mentally and focused his attention straight ahead and then to the short woman with a crew cut of blue hair over her head. He did not hear if she had said her news station or name or whatnot, and he had not even noticed the police chief had picked another person already. _Too busy focusing on unimportant stuff at a time like this,_ Zach thought while resisting the urge to shake his head, and he just stepped forward instead. He focused his mind as best as he could and kept a straight face despite knowing there were a lot of people watching him right now through those cameras pointed at him. Just the reporters ahead of him and the heroes behind him alone were a lot.

He knew he had to compose himself a certain way because six people had died, at least on the side of good, and he also knew he could not look too grim or people might assume the reasons why he would look that way. _They're watching me. Keep up appearances. What does the public think of me? Shigaraki let me get away again. He didn't even try! My report at the end of last year, I wanted him to know it was a mistake leaving me to my own devices. If he's not going to try and stop me though, even after I showed at the Sports Festival that I won't be broken- even if he has a new plan for me! I'll make him feel like an idiot for letting me get away. I made my mark. I've made a difference. Now, what I say matters. It's what I wanted before the Sports Festival, and as much as you thought that would break me it gave me exactly what I needed._

"Last night, we have reports that you saved six people- or should I say, you brought six people back to life," the short-haired woman began. Zach could hear a 'but' coming but he could not help but feel appreciative that she actually cut back there as if saying that he saved more people than just the ones he brought back. "Yet six others still passed away and were not revived," she continued. "The bodies of the fallen officers and your fellow hero were not all in worse shape from what reports from those who were revived claim, but you yourself look uninjured-" the reporter slowed down and she looked a bit to Lifebringer's left side farther right on the stage, where a woman in a green and pink hero costume that had recently been washed of all her dying fluids had started to take a step forward only for Vixen to grab her younger colleague by the arm.

"So why didn't I save everyone?" Zach finished for the woman before other people's attentions could be brought to Plucky who he spotted out of the corner of his eye. She looked in towards him while realizing she should not be making an outburst at a reasonable question like this, and her eyes widened as she swore she saw Zach darting his eyes away from her like he had finished the question himself to prevent her from doing just that. "I have my limits," Zach replied to the question. He looked the woman in front of the stage in the eyes and spoke in a low and regretful tone but also in a strong, loud voice. "Bringing back several people in a row as I did last night takes its toll, and each time I can feel myself getting weaker."

He paused for a second, then the youngest hero on the stage continued, "That, along with using my Quirk to fight made me too tired. It took too much out of me until the point I passed out, and by the time I had woken up it was too late for me to try and save the others."

 _Perfect. One question in and I've already pushed what the next one will be. Bikergang said I won't have to answer too many, so that was a good first one to start on. I just mentioned using my power offensively, so the next question will clearly be…_

The next reporter Chief Muggins pointed to was cut off by the woman who had just questioned Zach who called to him, "You say you used your Quirk to fight last night-"

The chief started frowning at her, and he opened his mouth to say something only for the other reporter to hold back himself and just pull out his notepad as this was the exact question he wanted to ask. So Chief Muggins allowed it and the blue-haired woman continued after a pause where everyone quieted down. "Yet Lifebringer, at your court case last year you gave a statement under oath on what Death could do." Zach felt his heart start speeding up but he did not let his expression react to hearing that at all. It was not exactly what he was expecting, but the next part of what she said did go along with what he had predicted, "The transformation into, the thing you turned into last night, is something that had been speculated on extensively. Before now though, we had no footage of you switching between as you are now and that dark form of yours, nor a public confirmation that this was you. Lifebringer, did you lie at your court hearing? What is that ability you showed last night that you have not disclosed to the public?"

"I didn't lie," Zach lied. _Keep as close to the truth as possible in case the truth ever does come out. Never put yourself in a hole when things can be uncovered and your own words can be used against you._ "That form you saw, I call it my Nightmare Form." _And quickly before everyone can get freaked out,_ he thought. "I call it that, because for years I didn't believe it was real." The others on the stage with him looked in towards the boy who stood just a little in front of their line. He continued strongly and with a half smile on his face like he was embarrassed by what he was saying, but he did not look afraid of the question that had made all of them nervous for him.

"Back at my trial, I was still just learning about my Quirk, about Death," Zach explained. "It has only been in recent months that I've trained to be able to use in combat."

Inside of the hospital a boy sat alone in his room watching his tv with wide eyes as Zach quickly averted what had been a question that made Midoriya sit up from his bed fast. He was almost about to lean back again, but his eyes widened as he stared at his friend who continued without hesitation.

"When I was a kid I had caught glimpses of that form and never let myself believe it. I had thought it was, well, a nightmare," Zach explained, shifting his eyes from the woman he was speaking to around the other reports and at cameras too. "I was always told not to train my power, to hide my Quirk and never use it, but it's because of that that I wound up killing people with it before. In Nightmare, I can capture villains much easier as the form spreads Death around my body to make my Quirk non-fatal." Zach paused and looked back at the woman who had questioned him and who was looking at him with wide eyes at his response and how well he was speaking to them despite the harsh wording of her question.

"It required a lot of training, but I can use my Quirk to fight now without killing people," Zach finished.

The reporter who had almost asked a question but let the last one ask a second part cut in now as soon as Zach finished and before everyone else could start shouting for attention. "That sounds remarkably similar to a line in a report online claimed to be written by you for U.A. and leaked-"

"Wait until you are called on," Chief Muggins said in a deep voice, steam coming out of his snout and his eyes narrowing at the reporter calling-out out of turn. He accepted it on the last one but he was not having this press conference fall into chaos.

Other reporters looked to Zach now too to see how he would respond though, and a few raised their hands with similar questions ready, but Zach just backed up to the line with a semi-nervous look on his face. It appeared more like he was embarrassed, though he just backed up with no comment since the police chief made it seem like he did not have to answer. Not denying it there pretty much confirmed it though, but Zach already knew that just as he knew he had worded his response in a very similar way to a quote from his own report.

Inside the hospital, Midoriya leaned forward towards his tv and stared closely at the boy the camera was now zooming out from. The police chief asked for a question for another hero not Lifebringer since he had answered a couple in a row now and it was turning into a Lifebringer-questioning session more than a press conference on the raid. Midoriya could not tear his eyes off of his black-haired friend though. He thought back on the night Zach had talked to him about his report, the day it happened when Zach finally stopped keeping it a secret and was willing to discuss his ideas with him.

 _ **"I'm glad you liked it, but it's not like that. I'm not going to do anything about it right now."**_ Midoriya gulped while seeing Zach going back to looking professional like the other heroes around him. _**"…there's not much I can do. We're still in school Midoriya. But, even though I don't like the media, and I don't like being on camera, maybe next time I am I'll mention a part of my beliefs. Just a little. I'll use the media's interest in me. Or tell small groups first, then let them spread what I say to others, and hopefully I hear those views outside of the people I first told them to. If I hear positive responses towards certain opinions I can push it farther. Use everything. You know?"**_ _I didn't know what you were talking about at the time. I was confused, and then you didn't really do anything with it for a while, just like you said you wouldn't. But, but…_

Midoriya felt uneasy. That phrase echoed in his head again, _**"Use everything."**_ _No one's thinking about it,_ Midoriya thought. _People are probably thinking hard about what you just said, but they're not thinking that you're hoping they're thinking so deeply on it. You mentioned how your Quirk killed people because you hadn't trained it, and people saw last night how strong you could be using it. You didn't straight out say the things you mentioned in your report, but you used the media's interest in you to push the conversation towards it, didn't you? Those looks, the way you spoke, what you said, everything._ Midoriya sat back on his hospital bed, trying to quell his uneasiness by thinking about how what Zach said was not really a bad thing.

 _I didn't disagree with what he said. I just, I guess I really, just didn't think it was possible. You were so quick to dismiss it that night like you couldn't do anything, but you talked during the presentation about the next big event, and that came. Then your report came out… Was it, you? How else actually? You said you were confused and surprised to see it online too when I mentioned it, but you put it on there didn't you? Did you lie because you don't trust me, or because you think it'll do more if people don't know you were putting it out there yourself? It said 'Anonymous…' Zach, it's been two months, and you've started making your report into a reality. What you said will start a conversation on people training their Quirks sooner. Even if it won't support the need for everyone to use Quirks, maybe it will make people rethink having Quirk-training courses in primary and middle schools. So that children who do plan to be heroes are prepared by the time they enter high school. Are you thinking about that? Or is everything just one step towards the final outcome you want? I, I don't know._

As much as Midoriya was trying to tell himself at the start of his internal rant that he was fine with what Zach said, he was back to being hesitant and nervous because of it by the end. _Your plans take place over long periods of time, and you always keep quiet about what you're doing. If I didn't talk to you about your report that night, I wouldn't even be considering that you had this all planned out. You make plans. You got the villains to let you come to VTS, and I don't know how you did that. But, I'm starting to._ Midoriya thought about what the Chemist had told him, and his uneasy feeling got worse while he looked hesitantly at the boy on the screen in front of him. _You weren't just saving people, or watching the villains… You were a spy. A spy who didn't report to anyone. You just, did what you did in the training forest, only over a long period of time. You didn't tell anyone what you were doing. You just infiltrated on your own. You did what you thought was right without caring about the rules, without telling anyone, without reporting to any authority but your own…_

 _ **"So, you left a ten year old boy to live on his own? Is that what I'm hearing-"**_ _That's right,_ Midoriya thought, his heart pounding faster as he thought about the courthouse and when he had heard this himself. He thought about what he heard right after, something that had made his heart break at the time. _**"That is not a child!"**_ Midoriya stared at his friend on the screen and thought, _You were used to not having to report to anyone. Not having, any authority over you. You lived alone…_ _ **"How could I bring that thing into my house? I was expected to raise it, next to my daughter?! That monster?"**_ _Were you willing to accept that people would think you were a villain, because of that? You didn't believe it though- you don't. I know, you have a better opinion of yourself than that, as much as you do blame yourself._

 _ **"…But more than any of that, and more than All Might's retirement, there's something unforgivable I'll never be able to atone for. Or at least- it'll take me my entire life, no matter how many people I save. She died because of me, and that's one thing I'll never make up for. I'll never get over,"**_ Midoriya thought about a conversation he had with Zach what felt so long ago now. It was after Zach had returned though, soon after he came back, but only four or five months ago. He had told Zach not to feel that way at the time, but his eyes grew huge with his heart racing faster than ever as he stared at his friend on the screen while thinking of what Zach had told him after he tried helping him that day. _**"If a hero kills an innocent person, then saves ten people, is that a good person? If a hero saves a few hundred people, but then goes out and murders a couple, are those crimes forgiven because things even out? No, right? How could they? People wouldn't think of someone like that as a hero. They wouldn't be a hero, not in my eyes, not in yours…"**_

 _ **"So if I'm to blame for hundreds, then how could any number ever be enough? I can't match up one death for one save, it doesn't work like that. When someone dies, because of you, how can you ever quantify that? Do you think I can just go: 'alright I'll save twenty thousand people,' and that will somehow make up for that life? There's no way, I could do something like that… not anymore."**_ _Are you, trying to make up for it? Something bigger than just saving… But Kirishima mentioned after the Sports Festival, when we were talking in the hospital, that you said you had changed the answer. So then is it not about that? Wait, it's not, about that? Then,_ Midoriya stared closer at the screen and at the small smile on Zach's face as Plucky answered a question regarding her death and finally got in a catty quip at the person who had questioned Lifebringer first. _Is this just because you believe it will help out? You didn't stop just because you changed the answer. You, you're not doing this for you. You said those things, to try and change society… just to make it a better place._

Midoriya's right fist clenched next to him and he hated all the uneasy feeling he had felt before. Those feelings had vanished though and were replaced by the same thing he had felt when the last video of Zach getting tortured at the Sports Festival had played. When Zach claimed that Midoriya himself would be the one to beat Shigaraki, that Class A would destroy the League, as he stood firm to his beliefs even dangling off the ground and getting slashed by a maniac, Midoriya had felt the same admiration he was feeling right now. _Even though no one would ever know you had been the one to make it happen. Your report would just be a stepping stone people might reference, but it's much more than that. You got people talking. Those internet threads with your report, are popular. More popular than I thought they'd be when I first saw it. And, and now that it's brought up on mainstream media, now that you've confirmed it was you by the way you acted and what you said, the fact that a hero who people look to already feels that way, it'll create the basis for a discussion. Most people wouldn't consider speaking about it because it was such a controversial topic, but the things you've said about it are all so common sense that it would be stranger for people not to start discussing it now._

 _I believe in you, Zach. I told you that I'm on your side. I want, I want to help you! Just like you've told me before that you want to help me, ever since you learned about my Quirk. You've said from the beginning that you wanted to help me be the next Symbol of Peace. You didn't question why All Might gave it to me, and that always gave me confidence. You just treated it like it was normal, like I must have been a good choice, or at least that's what I think you thought of me._ Midoriya steadied his expression and he frowned for a second, _I haven't given you that same support. I tried, to help you with the things you couldn't talk about, but you avoided them with me. Yet maybe you don't need help with your past. I thought I could save you, because I still felt guilty for failing so many times to do so. But you're not someone who needs to be saved. I get that now. You're someone who saves people. I might not be able to help you with your past, but I'll do what I can to help you with this moving forward. In the future, where you're always looking._

* * *

 **A/N Thanks for reading! Lots of injured heroes, we lost Russell too in the chaos which I kind of foreshadowed during the fight as he stopped being mentioned at some point... but anyway! Press conference comes with Zach finally explaining his Nightmare form to the world. And he does so in a way that he's denying lying in court, and pushing for his report he doesn't come straight out and mention but nearly quotes in his statements. Some thoughts from Midoriya here at the end, a hinting of a past between All Might and Wonderlass maybe... ;) and Roady popped the question to Popfire apparently! Lots of falling action here from the Trigger raid arc. Or the Breakneck- or the Chemist/Dandy arc... I'll just say the Internship Arc (year 2). Hope you enjoyed, and it's the first time I'm posting two chapters in 2 days in a while, but I'm glad a lot of you reviewed in the past day for the responses below! Leave me a review telling me what you think of this one and predictions for what's coming up!**

radoddish chapter 78 . 20h ago

*Cough cough* Endo *Thinks about Endoskeleton from FnaF*

 **Lol never seen that before. Looked it up and gotta say, he looks a bit more like Zach than Roady there... XD Thanks for the review!**

Super Power Sensei chapter 78 . 17h ago

Three things...  
One, will Deku's mom make a scene and try to get her son out of the hero business again? Because I want someone to slap her if she does.  
Two, considering everything that happened in this arc, I can imagine Zach getting questioned/detained again for withholding information about Apocalypse. If this happens I'm gonna be mad.  
Three, I feel sorry for whomever else Zach interns with. If Shouto is the hand crusher then Zach is the Dr. Dismember.

 **Mentioned Deku had called his mom early in this chapter (a couple of words I added in after reading this review and realizing I probs should at least bring her up :P ), though he didn't seem too worried about having to drop out. Zach gets grilled at the press conference for a bit but manages to evade anything too rough, but it still is the day after so we'll see... No spoilers though! The Hand Crusher will break your hands and Dr. Dismember will tear 'em off. What a team! XD Thanks for reviewing!**

Oblivious ninja IJ chapter 78 . 5h ago

I saw this pop up when I woke this morning and thought it would be bad luck reading a story named Death before going into surgery, I know its stupid but being a person who imagines getting stabbed or crushed by a meteor at random times everyday... well dying for dental surgery might not be a way I'd wanna go though, maybe I shouldn't have taken my wisdoms out?

 **Hope it went well!**

Shade11224 chapter 78 . 2h ago

Great chapter again and I actually enjoyed midoriya's fight scene. In all I guess it can be said that Zach is potentially op as fuck, but that is only if he turned villain as he could just kill a bunch of people and get a insane buff. Midoriya will always be the heavy hitter though because he can level a few city blocks at full power easy. Basically I really like this story because I'm in suspense for a punch in the gut and I'm trying to convince you subconsciously that Zach is stronger than he should be. Thanks for the chappy!  
P.S. Are you writing these as you post them or do you have a bunch already?  
P.P.S. You should put a in the bio and post this story on RoyalRoad.

 **Glad you enjoyed! Thanks for the review. Yeah Zach could def be more powerful going all out with his Quirk, as during his preparation for the Sports Festival he and Kirishima had some conversations about that. Kirishima was working on making his Quirk stronger on individual parts of his body while Zach was working at the same time to make his weaker. During the fights this arc we saw Zach being careful too with how much Death he was using and how long he was touching villains for, as he really does not want to kill any more people than he already has. Showed Midoriya's strength level at this point with last chapter, as well as some struggles he's having with his own Quirk too. As we are much farther ahead in this story than the anime or the manga Midoriya's got that real OP strength already, even if he still can't get up to 30% regularly... Don't know why you're feeling suspense for a punch in the gut. It's not like I _always_ make bad things happen, to, Zach... Well! Thanks again. P.S. I did have this one finished before posting the last, but I'm just about finished with the next one so maybe that'll be out tom as I get to work on 81. P.P.S. thanks for the idea! Never thought about making a before so I just went and did that while mid-editing. Probs won't create an account on other writing sites and start posting as I've gone through trouble of trying that b4 on diff sites but it's a lot of bouncing around to post as many places as I can. Bout to put the in the bio though so yeah, glad you mentioned that though I'd be shocked (happily) if it actually gets used. XD**

Minipa chapter 1 . 1h ago

Jesus Christ, 800,000 words in 3 MONTHS? You are beyond a freaking tank, you are beyond comprehension. You are the KING. Not only that you actually have good grammar. What are your secrets?  
This isn't humanly possibly.  
In short, you are freaking Amazing, like what the actual fuck, 800k words in 3 months.

 **YES! Haha, realized I hit 800k last chapter just out of the blue and I was like "huh, thought I was just at 700k. Well whatever," *shrugs* I'm glad you like my style too, and really no secret, just spend lots of time on this! Thanks for the review!**


	80. Chapter 80

**Disclaimer: I don't own Boku no Hero Academia**

 **Chapter 80:**

Zach sat next to the window on a plane that was even emptier than the one he had flown to Hokkaido on. He thought maybe it just felt that way since he did not have Midoriya to talk to like he had on the way there, but he had texted his friend and found out that Midoriya's plane was much later in the day. He had headphones in and was listening to music at a loud enough volume to drown out the plane's large engines just outside his window on the wing of the plane. Zach found himself staring at the engine and the shaking wing, then his eyes rose up a bit and over the white sea of clouds below the plane on its way south for Tokyo.

The flight would not be too long, but he had spent a lot of time that morning thinking. On the way to the airport, sitting in the terminal, and now on the plane as well he had been lost in his thoughts. Staring out over the white clouds settled him down a bit and he let out a long sigh. _I would've enjoyed a view like this once or twice a week,_ he thought. A small frown spread over his face and he leaned back in his comfortable plane seat, closing his eyes at the thought that made him uncomfortable.

 **Four Hours Ago…**

"I can't thank you enough for this," Zach said, bowing again while holding the small laminated identification in his left hand. He smiled brightly while coming out of his bow but looked down from Bikergang and to his motorcycle license again.

"It's your own hard work that got you it," Bikergang said. "Wouldn't have let you take the road test if I didn't think you were ready." Bikergang smiled a bit more at the sixteen year old in front of him who was wearing his school uniform to travel in and had his U.A. costume box on the floor next to his packed bag. It was just the two of them, and Zach was about to leave for Rukasu to catch his plane. Bikergang continued to the student before him, "And it's not you who has to thank me. I'm glad you came to my agency Lifebringer. If not for you, well I don't want to think about it but Roady probably wouldn't still be here. A lot of people wouldn't be."

Zach smiled at the praise, and then he took a deep breath as there was something he had been pushing off but figured was a good time for it considering what Bikergang just said. "Well, if you want my help again, I'd be happy to come back to intern with, you," Zach trailed off and his eyes started to widen as Bikergang's smile lowered down. He got a confused look on his face, and he asked, "Is it, not okay?"

Bikergang frowned at Zach for a few seconds. He had avoided talking to him about this for the second half of the internship, and because of the raid he owed Zach to at least finish out the week-long internship he had offered. "No," Bikergang replied though. Zach felt even more confused, and Bikergang knew why. Since he had avoided talking about this so much, the kid in front of him must have had no idea as to why he would be denying him, especially after the gratitude he just showed. Bikergang wanted to raise a hand up through his spiky orange hair, but he just kept a serious look on his face instead and stared into Zach's eyes with that look in his eyes. "I need to be able to trust someone I'm working closely with, and I don't trust you."

Zach's lips twisted down and he felt his chest ache. That was like a punch in the gut from the cool hero he had been working with for the last week, and Bikergang could see the boy looked hurt over it even though Zach tried to flatten his lips out again fast. "Chemist said things before he was arrested, even though he wouldn't say a word again afterwards. He's been silent so far, probably because he thinks Shigaraki will come for him… but the night of the raid though." Bikergang stopped talking for a second as he could see a hesitant and nervous look forming on Zach's face, then he finished anyway, "He said things about Reaper."

"I, can explain those," Zach started. _If it's the same things he said to Midoriya, and those two were together with him when we all ran into Dandy! That must have been when he heard it._ "That _was_ the name they called me, but the Chemist thought-"

"Before you continue," Bikergang started. His voice was serious, and he looked down with a cold look in his eyes that really unnerved Zach. "I'm going to ask you if you will tell me the whole truth, and if not, just say nothing instead." Zach's eyes opened wide as that choice was put out in front of him.

The look in Bikergang's eyes was what ultimately made the decision for him. He wanted to lie to Bikergang, to tell him only the things he thought would make Bikergang understand and let him stay. He could not think of staying there and working with Bikergang though, having gained his trust on lies. There was the chance that other villains would reveal more about him in the future, or new info would come out, but really he just could not find it in him to lie to the man who had just given him his gratitude, who had helped him get his license. Those were the reasons he told himself why he stayed silent, but Bikergang's eyes were what made the decision not much of a decision at all. Because he saw in Bikergang's eyes a look that told him if he did come out and say _everything,_ Bikergang would arrest him. He could see it in Bikergang's eyes, a warning telling him that the two of them were on good terms now, but not nearly close enough that the pro hero would not take him into custody if Zach were to expose some terrible truths about himself.

Zach slowly nodded at Bikergang and he lowered his gaze to the floor. "In that case," he bowed his body again and finished, "thank you for all you have done for me." Bikergang's eyebrows lifted up as the boy did not try to come up with any other excuses. It unnerved him too, because the fact that Zach was so quick to accept defeat meant that the secrets he was holding back were ones Bikergang now thought he should have tried prying at for another few seconds. Zach un-bowed though and he turned around, grabbing his bags and walking to the red motorcycle with orange and black flames on the sides of it.

Zach smiled softly as he got to the motorcycle, even though he felt much darker as he tried focusing on the bike. He thought about how Roady reacted to the black paint in the flame stripes when he had come in on a wheelchair with Popfire, introducing her to Zach a couple of days ago. Roady had been upset with him for a minute, but then he just told Zach to 'take good care of her.' Zach had made the joke back 'you too,' while motioning at Roady's fiancé who had been talking with Daisy which got him the reaction he wanted from his older friend. Before they had left too, Popfire had invited Zach to the wedding and whispered to him that Roady told her what he had did for him. Zach thought about these things to distract himself from the reason why he walked to his new motorcycle so quickly after bowing to Bikergang. He did it because he knew how Bikergang felt about him saving Roady's life, and he also knew Bikergang would feel more suspicious after Zach decided not to say a thing to the man who looked like he might turn him in. Zach grabbed his helmet and put it over his head fast, because his expression matched how he really felt and would look like that his whole way to the airport.

 **Present**

Zach's face started looking like it had when he had had a helmet over his head. He tried returning it to normal as he reminded himself that a flight attendant could walk by at any time, but he was feeling like crap. _Manipulation. It doesn't always feel good. Using it on the media to get them talking about my report, which they started doing that very night after the press conference, I enjoyed that. I felt like I had done everything I could to get the discussion going. Who knows if it will start to actually make changes anytime soon? If it will actually gain traction? …But, manipulation of people I like is harder. When it's just to them, and not to everyone as a whole where I can't pretend like it's not as bad because… Well, it did keep Bikergang from saying anything._

Zach lifted his hands and put them behind his head. He rubbed them through his hair and scratched his head through his black glove on his right hand, then he quickly tapped his head with that hand with wide eyes as he realized he had slid his fingers out of his glove while scratching. _That was stupid. I don't usually make that mistake with the gloves on. Is this glove faulty? No, I must have made the muscle movement. Check though._ Zach focused on his hand that he lifted in front of him, and he tested sliding his fingers in and out of the glove as he had practiced thousands of times before. He knew better than anyone that accidents could happen, and he had spent years avoiding one.

As he watched his fingers slip in and out of his glove, he shifted his thoughts back to what he had tried pushing them towards when thinking about his own manipulation. _What if the news doesn't make an impact on politics? Usually it does. Public support changes things, because the government is supposed to be run by the people. Plus, maybe there are people in the government who agree. Hero officials and such. Then again, those in charge don't really like change. Change is controversial. Keeping things the same usually doesn't make people think badly of you, since you can just say you're following "precedent" or sticking by "tradition." In a time where crime is through the roof though, officials might be able to see that people won't be satisfied by those answers alone._ Zach hummed and he stopped doing his finger exercises to instead look back out the window.

 _Crime's higher than it's ever been. Musutafu and the Sports Festival, and the Tartaros breakout too, all in one day. It was not just a terrible loss for heroes, but it was a sign of a new era. I kind of thought it was the big event I predicted coming, but I didn't realize that the event on its own was a turning point. I thought the event would change citizens' perspectives more than it wound up actually doing. Even if it did make a lot of people lose faith in heroes, make people scared, I don't see the anger at the government and desire to change things as much as I thought it would. What I have seen though, is a much different change._ Zach's eyes darkened as he looked down at the clouds they were getting closer to, and he heard the pilot announce that they were beginning their initial descent a second later. _It was a catalyst,_ Zach thought. _I finally realized it in Hokkaido. The people I saw in Musutafu who were scared to be outside, the empty streets, they weren't signs of what I thought. People aren't going to go out in the streets talking about change, because people are afraid to go out in the streets._

 _In Hokkaido I saw it in the eyes of people we saved, people on the sidewalks who were not surprised when we'd race by on motorcycles. The big event was the last time, the last time people are going to be really shocked by the villains. They know now, this isn't the world they were used to. They think… they know, just as I do. We're at_ _ **war**_ _now. It's impossible to just push the villains down and pretend they're not a big problem. They're here._

 _Too many became emboldened by the villains' victories,_ Zach thought. He lifted up his phone and scrolled for a new song, and he picked one that he always thought well to. He was done trying to distract himself with the music which had not been working at all anyway. The new song came on and started slow, and Zach put his phone back in his pocket and looked out the window as they descended through the sky. _When villains are winning, people who never would have considered it before can see becoming a villain as an option themselves. People just a little dissatisfied, people who lose jobs, or just losers who want to join the side that looks like they're winning which is much easier to do than join the side of good. It's easier to become a villain than a hero. How can that change?_

 _Can it change? If my research paper ideas could come into effect right now because of the Sports Festival, would that change things? It would at least make people less likely to suddenly snap and become villains, if they know that it won't be as easy. They won't be able to get away with as much if everyone around them could stop them, and it would protect people too! Yeah, why am I doubting it?_ Zach tried smiling, but he frowned and hummed to himself more as he did not know what about his current thoughts was keeping him down. _Is that enough though?_ he wondered. _Will everyone training their Quirks really change society back to the way it was before? Is that alone, can it make things better than they were? Maybe. Maybe it can. But not alone. It's something too far in the future. Even if it comes to be quickly, even if those rules can change, the situation has already gone beyond the tipping point. The lines aren't parallel anymore. Allowing the use of Quirks for everyone won't stop Shigaraki. It won't stop the League, or any of the organizations that exist right now that are causing so much damage. My idea is something to keep the world peaceful once it is again, but it isn't a way to get it to that point._

 _So a two-sided front then. Push those things so the world is ready to handle a new peace and can sustain it, while at the same time destroying organized crime to get it to that point. I could do both. I_ _ **will**_ _do both. Next time I have the chance, I won't let Shigaraki slip through my fingers. Or, Dabi… I won't let you get away again._

* * *

"Well that, doesn't look good." Zach sat on his new motorcycle just outside of Musutafu, after driving around for the past forty minutes freely for the first time. He had not been able to just go on a nice joy ride on his motorcycle yet, as he had been doing hero work in Feruchia and then had to drive straight to Rukasu that morning to catch his plane. The ride was a nice way to clear his thoughts especially since it was hard for him to frown knowing he was about to get to show this cool bike off to his classmates. The freedom was good too, though he knew his teachers would know when his plane had come in and would be expecting him back at school soon.

Right when he was deciding to head to U.A. though, he saw some smoke in the city he was heading for. He only stopped for a moment to look closer at it, before he twisted the accelerator again while turning the front of his motorcycle in the direction of that plume. _Whatever's causing it, there's no point conjecturing about it here. It's on the way to school anyway!_ Zach sped off with a grin cracking below his helmet. _Wish i had my hero costume on, but I'll manage._

A mile and a half away, Nemuri Kayama smacked her whip through the air and hit two of the three shuriken flying towards her. She still had to leap backwards though as the explosions from the first two did not stop the third from continuing its flight towards where she had been standing. Midnight crossed her arms and still let out a yelp of pain as the shuriken hit the street in front of her and blasted her backwards. She hit the ground and rolled back but came out of that roll on her feet with the hilt of her whip pressed into the ground. Her support weapon had survived the explosions and she stood back up wielding her whip, wiping the left side of her face with her other fist while glaring towards the ninja-looking villain on the road ahead of her.

"Nyak nyak nyak nyak!" A green-skinned female villain flying through the air cackled while green energy came out of her feet to keep propelling her around. She rose her right hand and threw down a ball of glowing green she made with her Quirk towards a man with wooden appendages and a strong muscular man near him. Kamui Woods dodged the attack and swung his arms up to extend his wooden appendages at the crazy woman. "No wonder the League picked this city!" She called out while spinning her body in the air, pointing her legs at the wood approaching her and making Kamui Woods yell out in pain as the green energy was as hot as flames which he already knew from the scattered green flames on the street.

"Kamui Woods," Backdraft called over. He stopped putting out normal flames covering a destroyed car, and he pointed his arms at Kamui Woods who called out a thanks for his help as Backdraft drenched him.

Two burly men who looked identical were sprinting down the road towards a blond pro hero and teacher at U.A. High School. Present Mic might have thought they were identical twins, if he did not just see the man split into two in such a slow way that for a few seconds there he thought the guy was just growing extra body parts. There was an empty street behind the man, but as Present Mic opened his mouth to shout at the man, he bit down and started running backwards at the sight of some people running out of a building they were afraid was too close to the fight. The people of Musutafu did not believe being inside a building was enough to protect them in a villain fight after the Sports Festival Invasion, and the ones who ran outside ignored the heroes who shouted at them to go back in.

"What chaotic madness," the leader of the villain group said, holding his arms out and laughing before lowering them and glaring at the woman hovering in front of him. He had long wings that did not have any feathers but were smooth instead, yet had sharp points on them in several places. On the top of the wings were two points, and at the bottom corners as well as one spot halfway in from the corners and to his sides on the bottom of the wings there were sharp needle-like structures that the muscular woman in all red had seen fire out of his wings before. He wore an orange bandanna similar to her red one, and that made Mother Russia glare at the villain in a much angrier way that she shared anything in common with him. He also had a lot more to his villain costume though, with two sheaths for the katanas he held currently in his hands, as well as a sidearm that he had not drawn but Mother Russia kept a close eye on. "Tell me, Caterina Makarov, the Flying Bear of Siberia, do you-"

"Do you think that saying my real name makes you more menacing?" Mother Russia questioned, her Russian accent lacing her voice thicker than ever. "You looked that nickname up online, to pretend like you know me on a personal level. You like making a grand entrance, an impression." Mother Russia scoffed at the man who started frowning at her with a bead of sweat on the side of his face. Her eyes narrowed, her expression darkening with her muscles tightening up all around her body pushing into her thin red costume. "I bet you know things about all the heroes in the area. I bet, you had smug little things to say to anyone who could have run into you. Because you like to play games." The man looking at her got another bead of sweat on his face and leaned his head back while the Russian woman glared deeper into his eyes. "I don't play your games," Mother Russia stated, and then she shot forward through the air with her fists clenching and punching in front of her.

The winged villain flapped but was not prepared for her sudden charge and he only pushed himself back enough that her right fist skimmed him instead of smashing him hard in the chest. He flapped away and fired sharp projectiles from his wings to keep Mother Russia back, but the muscular woman with long whitish-blonde hair kept after him while swerving around his attacks.

The ninja on the street sprinted towards Present Mic who finally got in a got angle to scream at the burly man who had split into two. Hizashi Yamada turned his head towards the man coming his way but could not scream on the narrow street and make his voice slam into the building past the ninja who chose his approaching angle well. Midnight started running back towards the ninja, but she snapped her head up and then pulled off some of her tight white uniform to fill the air with her knockout gas. The witch-looking villain flying over her had her hands pointed down with green flames shooting out of them to keep her up in the air though, and she pushed out more to get out of the range of Midnight's attack and counter the U.A. hero at the same time. Midnight dodged to the side and the witch let out a yelp as not only did Midnight dodge her attack, but using her Quirk was just a distraction anyway as she wrapped her whip around the witch's left foot.

Midnight swung down towards the ninja man who jumped up in the air and held a growing katana over his head. The blade of the katana glowed red as he slashed it down towards Present Mic, but he had to let go of the sword and pull his body away as the witch was thrown towards him. Present Mic leapt back to dodge the falling sword and the witch, then the ninja's sword exploded on the ground and made the green-skinned woman in the explosion scream, right before Present Mic yelled out in pain himself as one of the two charging identical guys slammed a fist into his side where he landed. Kamui Woods stretched out his wooden arms and caught Present Mic with one while wrapping up the villain who had hit him with the other.

The man wrapped up started to disappear in Kamui Woods' attack though, and then he faded completely and another version of him popped out of the burly villain who was farther back from where his clone had just hit Present Mic. The man who just cloned himself again smirked though, and another version of himself popped out of his other side. His Quirk, Hydra, made him and his comrades around him smirk as he only got stronger with Kamui Woods' last attack. Considering an eruption of green flames just came out of some smoke made the villains even more smug too, while their witch-like companion staggered up to her feet with her entire body enflamed now and a hypodermic needle falling off her arm.

The ninja man lowered the bottom of his black mask that covered most of his face. He dropped it and said in a low voice, "Wicked, you sure about-"

"Shut up," she hissed, turning her head and glaring back towards her comrade with a pissed-off look in her eyes. It was the ninja's explosion that had injured her and made her decide to use Trigger in the first place, even though she had hesitated thinking about something she saw on the news earlier that week. When she turned her head sideways to snap at her comrade though, she looked past him and then past the three identical men behind him with gray skin and bumpy bald heads. "What is-"

 _ **VvvvrrrooOOOOM!**_ An engine whirred and got much louder towards the end as the one who twisted the accelerator of his motorcycle while in neutral was trying to get attention. The motorcycle was in the middle of the road down a block and in an intersection, and the person on the back of it was leaning forward with their helmet close to the windshield and their legs pushed back so they covered a lot of the bike with their body. _Let's see if this works,_ Zach thought, while reaching up towards his chest and sliding his fingers out of his glove. He had black gloves on both hands for riding the motorcycle, and the way he was leaning forward none of the villains up ahead had seen what the rest of his body looked like so they did not see his school uniform unlike Mother Russia and the villain up in the air with her did when they turned towards the sound of that whirring engine.

A second after Zach touched his chest though, everyone on the road dropped their jaws while staring down it towards the motorcycle. _I was hoping this would work,_ Zach thought, while grinning ear to ear inside his helmet that was starting to become transparent. His red eyes glowed through as his skull became translucent through the black aura surrounding him. That black aura did not just spread to cover Zach though, but it spread to cover everything that he was touching. With his body spread out like it was, purposely, darkness dripped down the sides of the motorcycle and around the front of it. It covered his handlebars and tinted the windshield, it wrapped around the wheels and over Zach's bags on the back of the bike. He had to force some more out to get it to cover that much, but he smirked as he saw the villains looking his way nervously at the skeletal rider on his motorcycle that revved its engines a couple more times.

Zach breathed out a heavy breath that made black smoke fill the air in front of his face, while smoke rose up under his tires that finally started spinning him forward as he put the bike into gear. He shot off from the intersection and rose his right hand up over the handlebar, and a black sphere formed there that he did not condense too much so that it flared like a flame in his grasp.

The three burly figures were going to split up, but Zach pulled to the left using only the left handlebar and he made it so the villain would be on his right side as he drove by. Wicked took a step back, but then she bit down hard and yelled out in fury before sprinting straight at that motorcycle while surrounded in her own aura of green flames. "Wait Wicked!" The ninja villain called out as she ran past, "That's Lifebringer's Ni-"

A wooden arm wrapped around the ninja's head while he was looking the other way. He did not get his warning out in time, and his arms were wrapped up to his body too before he could finish forming the exploding shuriken that he could throw at the motorcycle from a distance. Kamui Woods had been keeping back from Wicked because of the green flames that were his natural weakness, but when she moved to leave her ninja comrade farthest towards him and not paying attention, he was not going to let the chance slip away. He recognized the form on the back of the motorcycle too, and he smiled behind his wooden mask.

Zach swung his right arm around, whipping the sphere to his right while also extending his fingers into it before it slipped off his hand. He had just forced more Death into it, admittedly taking some from the motorcycle that had a black aura ripping off the sides as it sped down the road. He split apart his attack while throwing it at the villain's three bodies moving farther away on his right, and he flicked his wrist at the end to curve the breaking apart Death he swung from that villain and into the flaming witch too. She pointed her arms forward and fired green flames into the black smoke coming at her, and she actually stopped it unlike her comrade. The gray men tried crossing their arms or jumping back only for all three versions of him to collapse and two of them to disappear.

Then through the collision of green flames and black smoke though, Zach's motorcycle that had changed direction burst through and Zach had his left leg extended straight into the flames to kick Wicked who was not expecting him to get close. Zach felt the flames around his leg as he kicked, but they were not as hot as he expected them to be and he grinned that he had the foresight to focus his Nightmare form around the leg before kicking. The woman kicked by his leg gasped out in pain as he hit her around her left kidney, but as she stumbled and turned to glare after him furiously, she felt dizzy and started wobbling on her feet. Looking back she also saw her ninja comrade caught by Kamui Woods but lifting his right foot with a glowing red blade sticking out of his shoe.

Wicked crossed her arms slowly to protect from the coming explosion, while Zach yelled out at Kamui Woods, "Let go of him!" Zach's voice came out scratchy and deep, and Kamui Woods pulled his arms back right before the ninja villain kicked his leg up in almost a full vertical split that he would have hit Kamui Woods' arms with. Instead he did not hit anything, and the glow went away while he stomped his foot back down as fast as he could. As much as he was trying to get in a good stance to dodge though, the motorcycle speeding at him was too fast and too close already.

Zach had to grab onto both handlebars fast though and let the Death Grenade he was forming on his left hand explode around him instead of throwing it. He had to do this to maneuver his motorcycle better, as in the top of his vision he caught sight of sharp objects flying down at him. The projectiles fired from the villain above's wings spiked into the ground on either side of Zach's bike that he weaved in and out just barely avoiding. They were fast. His reactions were faster. He sped by the ninja villain who leapt the other way and threw the shuriken he finished forming at both Zach and Kamui Woods, then he did a backflip when he landed to dodge a blast of water from Backdraft and get farther from a charging Death Arms.

The flying villain up above started crashing out of the air as Mother Russia slammed both fists down onto his back after hitting him in the face with a roundhouse kick. He had taken his eyes off her for a second to try and save at least one of his allies, but although he succeeded he had overestimated his own abilities to keep away from the "Flying Bear of Siberia" at the same time. As he dropped, Zach maneuvered his motorcycle to the right just when a shuriken was about to slam into the windshield of his black bike. He pulled the whole vehicle to the right almost losing his balance, the wheels turning diagonally and barely holding onto the ground, yet he sped up anyway because the shuriken passing the side of his bike was also on a downwards angle that would hit the ground just behind him if he did not get farther.

The explosion went off behind his back tire, only speeding up Zach more towards the villain who had focused on a close Death Arms as he thought he would have taken out the motorcycle with his ranged attack. There was no help coming for him this time as Zach threw a half-formed Death Grenade in front of his motorcycle while spinning the bike itself in the direction the ninja started dodging to. The villain started getting ready to land and avoid or counter the boy chasing him to his next spot, but Zach clenched his right fist and the Death Grenade nearing the spot the ninja had just been exploded. The shrapnel flew out into the villain who just started looking back at it, and then Zach's motorcycle spun fully around and he looked back towards where the winged-villain flipped himself around just above the street and glared his way.

Between them and on Zach's right and the main villain's left, Wicked finally collapsed down to her face with the green flames around her disappearing as she failed to hold on despite the Trigger almost doing it for her. Zach revved his engines, and then wooden arms wrapped around the villain and pulled his wings to his body which made him fall the rest of the way out of the air. He slammed into the ground and let out a loud 'oof,' and then Mother Russia dropped out of the sky and landed hard on his back which made the other heroes all around gawk at her as the man was pretty clearly already captured there. His head and legs arched up and Kamui Woods even winced, though he unwrapped his arms a second later as there was no real point to keep holding on after seeing that.

Mother Russia reached down to the man unconscious below her, and she grunted as she saw his eyelids opened but his eyes rolled back. "Damn it," she muttered, realizing as everyone else already had that she had gone too far there. "Wanted to ask what you were doing here, but you seem like pretty simple-minded idiots," she tossed him towards Wicked and he fell right on top of the green-skinned woman's unconscious body. Then Mother Russia turned her head and looked towards the motorcycle with a boy on it covered in a black aura that all his bones were showing through. "Nice work," she said to a student of hers, then she turned and lifted off the ground to fly over to a police perimeter and let them know it was time for them to move in.

Zach turned off his Nightmare mode as she told him that, and he lowered his right leg down to the side of his motorcycle as the black aura disappeared from him. It faded off his bike again too to return it back to its red color though with black and orange flames striped on the sides. He had a motorcycle helmet on that kept the other heroes around from seeing his face, and Zach kept his engines on as he started looking around. He hesitated with a confused look on his face, and he was glad he had a visor over his face so he did not have to hide his expressions as much as he usually did. _What am I supposed to do now? I kind of just want to get out of here. I did enough media stuff recently. I really don't enjoy it, as much fun as it is to see the stuff I try to manipulate actually working out-_

"Is that you in there Sazaki?" Midnight asked while walking over towards the boy on a motorcycle who had made her cheeks go red when she first saw him arrive. After turning off his Nightmare form and just sitting there in his school uniform but with black gloves and a black helmet on too, it made the woman's heart flutter and she cracked her whip to the side while looking at him with a big smirk on her face. "Of course it is. What are you- are you allowed to be riding that motorcycle?" She got a confused look on her face all of a sudden as her excitement over the student's cool arrival had to be pushed aside for her job as his teacher.

"Oh yeah," Zach said, and he got off his bike quickly as he realized that was a question she might ask. His voice was his own again and not as dark and scratchy as it was when he had yelled out during the short fight. "I got my motorcycle license while interning with Bikergang. Do you need to see it?"

"No, I believe you," Midnight said, smiling again as she was pleased by that answer.

Zach started frowning though and he looked down at the floor. Midnight noticed his visor point down a bit and she cracked an even bigger smile as she imagined Zach looked disappointed under his helmet that he did not have the opportunity to pull out his new I.D. There was something she was more interested in though, and she looked behind him at the motorcycle he left standing but with the ignition still on like he was going to head off in a second.

"Where did you get that motorcycle?" Midnight asked. _Or the money for it?_ She wondered to herself.

"It was a," Zach began, but he trailed off. If he finished with 'gift,' he knew that Midnight would question who would gift something like that to him. He just smiled behind his helmet and finished, "It's actually a long story. I'll tell you at school?" He asked like he would rather leave it for later.

This made Midnight smirk again with redder cheeks than before. _Ooh! How mysterious!_

"Hey Lifebringer!" a voice called out behind Zach, and he turned to see a man just stepped out the front door of his building where he had been hiding during the fight. "You definitely gave those villains a _nightmare_ right there!"

Zach's eyes opened wide and his bottom lip lowered for a second, and then he smiled wide and actually laughed. "Ha, haha thanks!" Zach called back.

Police started running down the street towards the heroes and villains, and they called to the buildings on the sides for the civilians starting to move out to stay inside for a few more minutes. Some cops ran on the sidewalks just to make sure people stayed out of the road as they brought cop cars over to pick up the villains who some of the other heroes had started wrapping up. Kamui Woods turned his head and decided to leave the rest to Death Arms, while Backdraft was over with Present Mic helping out the blond man who had gotten a few more scrapes and bruises than the rest of them during the fight.

Shinji walked over towards Lifebringer who turned his way mainly because Present Mic called something over from behind him. Zach smiled at what his English teacher from last year said to him. Present Mic had become their English teacher again this year, but only after the Sports Festival when some teachers had been killed which changed up everyone's schedules. Zach smiled more than just because Present Mic complimented him even in his annoyed shout about showing up sooner, but also because the last time he had talked with the man he had felt like Present Mic was still really depressed over Aizawa sensei. He could not tell during class, but right there he felt like his teacher was at least close to back to normal. Then Zach focused on the man about to reach him though who he wondered when the last time they met was. _Have I ever talked to him?_ Zach thought as Shinji Nishiya stopped in front of him.

"Lifebringer," Kamui Woods greeted, and Zach said the wooden hero's hero name back to him. The man with the Quirk Arbor glanced at Midnight who lifted her eyebrows only to turn and call out to the police to hurry it up and clear the street so the city could get back to normal faster. Zach was wondering what Kamui Woods had to say even more now, and then the Number 5 pro hero began, "I have never thanked you, for saving Mount Lady."

Zach's eyes widened behind his helmet's visor, and he thought, _I heard those two are officially dating now. It was an entertainment, celebrity-watch kind-of show thing, so I didn't take it too seriously… though there were a lot of pictures of them together. I don't think they were trying to hide it but the news doesn't really follow relationships too closely… What am I thinking about? I just want to avoid it, don't I?_ Zach sighed and he rose up his hand to scratch the back of his head, though wound up just rubbing the back of his helmet instead. "Actually," he started.

Kamui Woods got a confused look on his face, and then Zach sighed again and lowered his arm as he stopped hesitating. "It wasn't me, but my classmate Neito Monoma who saved her," Zach admitted. _I never told Mount Lady, mainly because I felt weird any time I looked at that letter with her phone number on it. Calling up an older, beautiful woman got me too nervous, though I thought it would be weird just to call and say I didn't deserve her thanks anyway._ "Monoma Copied my Quirk and brought her back to life, just like he did for me," Zach said, then he mentally rolled his eyes as he imagined how Monoma would have reacted to hearing that praise.

Kamui Woods was surprised to hear this. His eyes widened for a moment but he nodded as he thought about the blond who he had seen in the last two Sports Festivals now and had actually sent an internship offer after this year's. He sent it this year not because of his performance in the first two rounds where he had come close to the top each time, but because of what he had seen in clips afterwards of that boy fighting against the villains during the invasion. Zach finished by asking, "Could you tell Mt. Lady?" He lowered his eyes to the street after asking, feeling a little sad that Mt. Lady wouldn't think as highly of him anymore.

As Zach was starting to feel bad about that though, Kamui Woods said, "Even if that is so, you saved her another time too." Zach lifted his eyes back up and his helmet shifted a bit as he stared confusedly at Kamui Woods. "When you brought back the civilian she had accidentally crushed," Kamui Woods finished. Zach winced and Kamui Woods opened his eyes wide, immediately apologizing as he thought bringing that day up hurt Zach. He remembered how he had brought a young girl to Lifebringer himself but had been so conflicted over what to do when he saw how much it had hurt the boy to just bring back the man Mt. Lady had crushed on accident. Zach had saved her too though, and he was about to thank him for that himself when he started apologizing after seeing Zach wince.

"No, it's actually," Zach started. "Totally fine," he smiled and leaned his head back with a more relaxed look on it now. He realized that Mt. Lady would still think highly of him with that, and he was relieved and glad Kamui Woods brought it up. He remembered why she had written him that letter that he had just thought about in the first place, and he chuckled that he thought things would change despite it being Monoma who brought her back. He actually felt better about it than ever knowing that she would know the truth now. "Thank you," Zach said, changing his tone as he realized he was talking to the Number 5 hero and shouldn't be using words like 'totally.'

 _For what?_ Kamui Woods thought, and he shook his head before thanking Zach back and mentioning the girl he had brought to him that day as well. Zach waved it off but thought about that girl too and how she had called out 'Lifebringer' at the Sports Festival when he had fallen in such a dark place. Thinking about saving her, Zach did not know if he could be in a better mood now that the man he just reminded himself was the fifth best hero in the country had thanked him for something he had done so naturally. Hearing these things right after stopping other villains and helping out his teachers, and the fact that he was about to get on his new motorcycle and drive it to U.A., the day was going so well all of a sudden compared to how he had felt all morning.

Zach started back to his motorcycle after finishing his talk with Kamui Woods, and he asked Midnight who was close to him if it was fine for him to leave. She said sure and then asked if he could give her a ride back to campus, which made Zach's face turn bright red under his helmet and his whole body to tense up in panic. He had been imagining his return to U.A. on his motorcycle for a while now, but suddenly he imagined rolling up to school and some of his classmates seeing him with Midnight's arms around him getting off the motorcycle… His cheeks turned even redder, and then his eyes widened more in panic, _What if Momo saw me-_ "I-" Zach began, though then he realized, _I can't say no! Something like- no, no it's just because she's my teacher and is asking for help. That's why I'll say-_

"I am just kidding," Midnight said, and she put two fingers sideways up to the corner of her mouth in a V with a smirk as she had seen how tense he got there for a second. She was in her sexy hero costume after all and she thought she might get that reaction out of the young man she enjoyed teasing. Zach let out a sigh behind his visor that was mostly of relief and only 15 or 30 percent in disappointment. Then he shook his head that he had fallen for that yet cracked a smile while getting onto his motorcycle anyway. "See you in class, Sazaki," Midnight said to the boy in his school uniform and not a hero costume which she would have called him 'Lifebringer' had he been wearing one.

"See you, Midnight sensei," Zach said, then he raced off though kept in the speed limit considering the number of heroes and cops all over the street. _This day is starting to look up!_ Zach thought, and he even sped up just a bit more once he was past the police presence and on his way back to U.A.'s campus which he could not wait for any longer. _I really hope some people are outside when I show up._

* * *

In front of U.A.'s main building, a couple of students just arriving back from their internship together called up to a tall girl walking towards the school with her hero costume box in one hand, her heavy bag in another and a large heavily-packed backpack on her back. Momo Yaoyorozu turned and smiled at the shorter girl running towards her who had long earlobes that ended in earphone jacks. "Hello Kyoka, Kaminari," Yaoyorozu got a bit more polite while nodding at the boy moving slower after Jirou who had run quickly up to her.

Jirou's cheeks were slightly red and Yaoyorozu looked back at her best friend in Class A after nodding towards Kaminari with a smile. "What is-"

"We _need_ to talk," Jirou said in a soft voice before Kaminari could get any closer.

Other students were arriving back at the same time, and Mother Russia landed down ahead of the three students in her homeroom who were talking out in front of the school. "Welcome back," she said in a gruff voice with a single nod towards the students who greeted the scary Russian woman back very respectfully. After enduring some of her training over the past month, they all knew to be very careful of how they talked to her even when they were outside of class. Mother Russia started to turn, but she paused for a second as she heard something that made her roll her eyes. She frowned but turned anyway with a sigh, _Boys._

Kaminari, Yaoyorozu, Jirou, a group of third-year business course students returning to campus from just a day trip out in the city, and two freshmen girls from the hero course who had just returned from their internships too, all stared towards a motorcycle that turned into the gates of U.A. The security guard back there stepped towards the motorcycle and looked at the rider in some confusion only to look down at the student identification the boy held out.

The security guard looked at the I.D. with lifted eyebrows and then told the rider to take his helmet off. Out of everyone outside of U.A.'s main building, three of them actually started breathing heavier and staring at the motorcycle with wide eyes before the figure reached up for their helmet. "No," Kaminari whispered.

Zach lifted his helmet off of his head and tried as hard as he could to keep a straight expression while looking at the security guard. He was trying not to smirk as he knew it would make him look less cool, but then he realized that his hair probably looked a mess after being in his helmet all that time. He rose up his left hand and pushed it back through his hair a couple of times before stopping as he reached back forward for his I.D. that the security guard handed back to him.

Zach turned forward and as hard as he tried, he could not help but grin at the looks of the three he had been so glad to spot through the gate. _Oh man,_ Zach realized something and glanced out the corner of his eyes at the security guard but the man did not say anything to him about it. _Am I allowed to have a motorcycle on campus? I should have asked Midnight sensei! He's not saying anything. I want to keep it here so I can ride to incidents faster, or the hospital on time! I have reasons. They'll let me keep it._

With the decision to just not ask for now on mind, Zach drove slowly up the path towards his three classmates from Class A and then dropped the parking stand next to his bike and hopped off. Yaoyorozu had taken a few deep breaths and calmed herself down quickly, though she had to force her thoughts away from how Zach looked pushing his hand up through his hair leaving it in a wavy way after pulling his motorcycle helmet off in such a… She started thinking about it again and had to quickly get it off her mind with a question, but Kaminari beat her to it. "Dude! What?!"

Zach started laughing, and he was really glad he had not texted any of his friends ahead about the motorcycle. "I know," Zach said, and then he fished out his wallet quickly that he had just put back in his pocket after putting away his Student I.D. "Look," he pulled out his motorcycle license and showed it off to the three in front of him.

"I didn't doubt you could get one in the week," Jirou began. She had known Zach to do a lot crazier things than get a license, so if he was putting his mind to getting one over the internship she believed it was possible. "But how in the world…" She just started shaking her head while looking back at the motorcycle which actually looked super cool to her though she was trying to hold back from telling Zach that.

"I would also like to know," Yaoyorozu started, and she gave Zach an expectant look as he turned to her. "Where did you get this?"

"I got a motorcycle license, so I mean, of course it came with a motorcycle," Zach said like it was common sense.

"Really?!" Kaminari exclaimed in shock.

Jirou rolled her eyes and then smiled with Zach who could not hold it back after messing with Kaminari like that. "Hey," Kaminari said, as he figured out Zach was messing with him and then actually felt pretty dumb as he realized it was a pretty crazy thought that everyone got free motorcycles when they got their licenses. Zach had just said it so confidently that he did not doubt it, and Kaminari started frowning at his best friend for that to which Zach held up a hand half-apologetically though he was still smiling as he did.

"It's a long story. I'll tell you, but I have to figure out where I'm going to keep this…" He glanced at Yaoyorozu and asked the girl taller than him by three inches, "What do you think?"

"Of what?" Yaoyorozu asked quickly, as what she _was_ just thinking could _not_ be what Zach was referring to, or so she hoped.

"About, where I could leave this?" Zach repeated, wondering what she thought he meant. She was the smartest person he knew so he thought she might have an idea. "I guess, the teachers must have a garage where-"

"Sazaki." Zach lifted his head and looked towards the school building to see none other than the principal staring down towards him from the top of the steps. "Would you please come with me?"

"Uh oh," Kaminari said, a smug look forming on his face as the principal did not have a very friendly expression on his face as he usually did. "Revenge? Or karma perhaps," Kaminari said in a teasing voice which made Zach feel dread as he could actually believe that after the joke he just played on Kaminari. _It was just teasing-_ Zach started thinking, but then he shook his head as he realized there was no way the principal had come to talk to him just because of that.

"Did you not call ahead? Even to the school?" Jirou asked in a deadpan tone.

Zach sweatdropped more while glancing back at his motorcycle and then to the principal again. "Well," Zach mumbled. He started for the steps and muttered to the people behind him, "I wanted it to be a surprise."

"Oh don't worry, I'll watch after your ride while you and Mr. Principal have your talk," Kaminari assured his friend who sweatdropped more and wondered if that was actually okay.

"As will I," Yaoyorozu added, and Zach looked back gratefully at the girl who smiled to him. She wanted to talk to him more and hear the long story he had mentioned, and she also did not know how much she trusted Kaminari not to jump-start Zach's motorcycle with his Electrification and take it for a joy-ride.

"Thanks Momo," Zach said, and Kaminari lost his grin with a pout replacing it as Zach did not thank him too.

As soon as Zach turned back forward though, Kaminari grabbed the helmet on the side of the bike and put it up over his spiky blond hair. Then he took it off dramatically while looking at Jirou, and he put his hand up through his hair to spike it up again which had the short girl putting her hand over her mouth and laughing into it. Jirou turned to see if Momo thought it was as funny, only to sweatdrop as her friend had never turned away from Zach's back as he walked for the school, which just made Jirou roll her eyes before going red in the cheeks like she had when she first ran to her best friend after getting through the school's gates.

Zach followed the principal into the school, and once he knew he was out of sight of his friends he started apologizing. "I'm sorry about not calling ahead about the motorcycle. I was wondering if I could leave it somewhere here since I don't really have a place outside of school I could, and in case I need to get to a-"

"Bikergang called ahead and we worked something out already," Nezu said, and Zach's eyes opened wide. Zach half-smiled and calmed down a bit. He felt good hearing that but guilty at the same time, as he still did not know how good of terms he and Bikergang had ended on which had been bothering him all morning. He felt guilty because it had been so easy for him to push those thoughts from his mind with how good he had felt in the past hour, but he smiled anyway because the idea that Bikergang had worked something out with the school for him made him think things were better than he imagined. "This is not about your motorcycle, but about the Chemist."

Zach's smile wiped immediately and he froze behind the principal who kept walking ahead of him. "Come now, Sazaki. Do not dawdle. They are already waiting for you." _Oh fuck they're not giving me time to prepare! Fuck that! All I need is thirty seconds. Thirty fucking seconds and I've got this. THINK! Don't panic! Think constantly. Don't let this ruin everything. Don't fuck up!_

* * *

In a classroom of U.A. High School, the same room that Class 2-A had their classes in, Zach Sazaki stood in front of three people wearing suits who were glaring at him harshly. On his right side only ten feet away stood a man in a trench coat with a matching hat over his head. The man was a police detective who wore a pair of white gloves over his hands too, and he was staring at Zach as discerningly as the officials in the room in front of the boy and the principal on the boy's left side very close to him only a couple of feet away.

 _Underguard mentioned having to face a review board too for what happened. It's not unique to me. I can deal. I prepared in the last minute. I am ready._

"During your internship with the Racing Hero: Bikergang," the man in the middle of the three suits began. He was the only male of the three, wearing an identical black suit as the two blonde-haired women on his sides though. The man with short dark hair continued to the boy in front of him, "You passed information to your fellow heroes regarding the League of Villains' operations during your time between your first court case and your retrial. In your retrial you gave your word, under oath, that you were telling the truth and the whole truth."

Zach stayed silent and kept staring at the man who had a touch of gray to his dark hair but still looked like a young man. That man glared at Zach hoping to make the boy slip up, but Zach continued to stare back at him seriously without flinching or anything. "The weeks after the Sports Festival have been hectic, yet we have been pushing off a meeting with you for a long time now. There are many things you left out in your retrial which will be considered as perjured statements should you have withheld them intentionally. We refrained from setting this meeting because of the nature of your lies, however new information has shown that what you left out during your retrial is to an extent not predicted before."

Zach started frowning and glared at the man in front of him harder than the man was glaring back his way. The man continued without hesitating at Zach's look though, "The Chemist. Apocalypse. You knew about these things yet did not mention them at your retrial."

"I never knew who the Chemist was," Zach began quickly. "I only knew his face, and that's why, that's why I was able to point him out during the planning meeting-"

"Whether or not you knew his name, you should have reported _all_ of the information you had to the committee reviewing your return to our society after your, ' _escape_ ,' from the villains." Zach turned his head a bit to the right and glared at the shorter of the two blonde officials in there with him. He glared into her eyes and his fists clenched at his sides before shaking so hard with his teeth clenching and then his eyes slamming shut. "Whether or not you feel regret for holding this information-"

"I was," Zach began. He turned to the right and looked at the detective near him, then back at Principal Nezu, then to the officials again with such an angry look on his face. "I, I wasn't…" he trailed off and bit down hard. _The detective is watching me carefully. Why did they bring him here? Principal Nezu would be able to find flaws too. Just don't lie! As close as possible._ "I, when I came back, I wasn't in the right state of mind," Zach said. His eyes were wide and he bit down on his bottom lip for a second while glaring so hard at the center of the officials before him. "The time of my retrial, was _days_ after I had last been tortured. I, I wasn't ready- I," Zach clenched his eyes shut and he shook his head around while biting down even harder.

Nezu turned to his right and his beady eyes opened wider as did Tsukauchi's on Zach's other side while looking at the boy. "I was, repressing," Zach whispered. In his head he thought about the scenes he saw at the Sports Festival, to make sure that he was not just lying which the others might be able to tell. He thought about something that really did hurt him, about memories he really had repressed, and he continued, "I was repressing, so much. I, I _couldn't_ have told you everything. Even if I had… I didn't know. The Sports Festival, it shook things from my mind." Zach lifted his gaze up to the officials questioning him and tried glaring at them again, but his gaze got softer as he tried to do so which made the people looking back at him soften their looks too.

Especially after Tsukauchi looked their ways and started nodding his head, the man in the middle of the officials got a bead of sweat on the side of his face and was starting to feel very awkward. "Things, just started coming back to me," Zach said. "It wasn't like I was holding back things that I thought would get villains arrested. If I knew- if I could have told you anything else that would have helped, I would have." _And I couldn't, without getting myself arrested in the process. All I needed was to tell Webb that other stuff though._ "But, back when I had that retrial I didn't know everything I know now. It's thanks to my school, my teachers, my therapist, and my friends that I've been able to come this far."

 _I'm so fucking good. Then again, I'm not really manipulating. Sure. It's a half truth. But at the same time, it's still the truth. They did help me. Softy, Aizawa sensei and all the other teachers, Kaminari, Momo, my friends._ Zach tried smiling at the officials, but his mouth dipped down at the corners again and he just grimaced instead. He lowered his eyes for a second, then he rose them into the dark-haired man's eyes and said, "If I knew the Chemist's real name, or where the Apocalypse was, or even if I thought the Apocalypse would be used by normal villains, I would have said something. I would have mentioned it in my retrial, but even what I thought I might have known… it doesn't matter. I was just, I repressed a lot. My mind was scattered. Anything could have been…" Zach trailed off again, using that tactic a lot to avoid having to say complete sentences that might be considered as lies.

"Have you killed anyone since Atsuhiro Sako?" The taller of the blonde women who was also taller than the male official next to her questioned.

"No," Zach replied.

Tsukauchi lifted his eyebrows, and then he narrowed his eyes and took a step towards Zach who turned his way. Zach's heart started racing, while the detective looking at him questioned, "What about Spinner?" Zach's eyes opened much wider, and Tsukauchi continued, "Did you kill him? Yes or no?"

Zach stared at the detective who did not need to ask him a lot. The man seemed to have this question ready already, and the official straight in front of Zach began, "The angle was not clear, but Spinner fell directly after you got close enough to touch him. We had bigger issues to deal with for a while, but this was only pushed back. You do not escape it just because it has been over a month."

"I," Zach started. He looked to the official and then to detective Tsukauchi. He glanced over at the principal, and then around at everyone with his face twisting and him looking so confused. _What do I say? How do I deal with this?! I didn't think, I didn't know!_

"Did you kill him?" The shorter blonde woman repeated their question.

"I-" Zach started. "I- I- It wasn't like…" he looked around again and he pursed his lips at the expressions of the people around him. Then he nodded his head once, "I did."

"Spinner, was already in critical condition from what we have seen on the video tapes," the official straight in front of Zach began. He sounded like he had this ready already before Zach's response, and Zach lifted his gaze into the older man's eyes to see him looking sternly back his way. "Not only was he close to death already, but he got into that state by jumping in front of a shot meant for you. So our question is, why? Why did you kill this man? After promising not to use your Quirk in such a way again? After using-"

"I didn't want to kill him," Zach began.

"Then why did you?" Naomasa Tsukauchi questioned. Nezu looked towards the detective who froze at the look from the short mouse-bear-dog principal..

"What possessed you to-"

"How could you-"

"He was _begging_ me," Zach gasped out towards the three in front of him. He took a step forward and his eyes were wide while his fists clenched at his sides. "Spinner, he was, he knew he was dying so… He wanted me to-"

Tsukauchi started frowning as he did not see the boy in front of him lying. "Even if that is so," Tsukauchi began. "That does not give you just cause to kill a villain. Even if a villain is asking you to kill them, as a hero it is not-"

"That wasn't why," Zach started, looking towards the detective with his eyes wide and a desperate look on his face. Zach stared pleadingly at the man and made Tsukauchi lean back at that expression in Zach's eyes. "I, I _hated_ Spinner. I really, really hated him. But, but even if he had just asked me to kill him, even if he was just dying as slowly as he was… I don't think I could have done it." Zach bit down hard and he closed his eyes, thinking back on the Sports Festival and right before he had done what they were accusing him of. "But, but when he told me, that he wouldn't blame me if I didn't kill him. That, he would understand, if I wanted him to suffer." Zach started shaking his head and he brought his left hand up to his head with his eyes clenching shut harder.

"I couldn't," Zach whispered. "I couldn't do that. It would be like torturing him… I've felt death so many times. I, I've died now, so I know that the feeling I feel, every time I bring someone back. It's the same. Every time," Zach opened his eyes and stared at the three in front of him who were looking back at him wide-eyed now, just as Tsukauchi and Nezu were at his sides. "Dying, was the worst thing ever. And yet, I had felt it before. I've felt it, hundred of times. I know how much it hurts. I know, because I have felt what it feels like to die in every way imaginable. And, and to die in such a slow, excruciating- just, just any death that's like that!" Zach pursed his lips again even as tears welling in his eyes started spilling out the corners.

"As much as I hated Spinner, I couldn't do that- I didn't hate him that much-" Zach gasped and he bit down again before clenching his eyes shut as he could not take those looks of the people staring back at him. "I, I would have felt like such a monster, if I had made him suffer like that. Because there have been times when it's taken me _so_ long to bring someone back, and I couldn't imagine forcing that pain on someone else. To, to make someone else die that _slowly._ That _painfully._ The slow, empty, quiet descent into darkness. It's haunting. And, and it's not that it hurts when it happens, but that exact moment of death. The, the one thing that I know better than anyone… It's so horrible," Zach whispered. "So I didn't want to kill Spinner. And, and I knew I shouldn't have even while he begged me to do it. But I couldn't think about making him suffer that much longer, make him die a slow and painful death. He had, _just_ saved my life. I didn't know why. And I still hated him. But!" Zach paused and he pulled his head back as he did not think he could finish what he was saying right there.

"I'm sorry, if you think I did the wrong thing," Zach started again after a few seconds' pause. "But my Quirk is _Death._ I, I understand it better than anyone," Zach hesitated and pursed his lips again, and he sniffled while tears spilled down his face. "So, a quick death from my Quirk which instantly halts brain functions… It was better than Spinner was going to- It was quicker, and less painful, and no one would have been able to save Spinner with the injuries he had received. All I was doing was helping him. It wasn't for revenge. It, wasn't because I hated him. I just couldn't sit there and make him suffer, while he thought I was letting him die so painfully because I hated him, while he thought that I was putting him through that on purpose!" Zach bit down and clenched his teeth so hard, grinding them back and forth as he could hardly take this anymore. _I'm not, I'm not just lying to get out of this. Actually, I'm not lying at all! I avoided it but- Spinner! You mother fucker! I hated you. I hated you so MUCH! So why, am I crying right now?_

Zach lifted his arms and started wiping across his eyes, while at the same time Tsukauchi looked towards the review board and gave a small nod to them with a grim and sad look on his face. The man in the center of the review board lifted a hand to his forehead and rubbed it around, while the women at his sides got nervous and apologetic looks on their faces.

The review board started telling Zach they were sorry for calling him to this. They told him to call the police or tell his administrators if he remembered any important information from when he was with the villains that he may have been repressing. Tsukauchi apologized as well, though Zach snapped something about the police not supposed to be using their Quirks, right? Zach figured from the man's reactions to what he was saying that it was more than just being a good detective that let him know when he was lying. He had not said anything during the questioning which would have looked suspicious, and asking about it afterwards just made the group of them feel more awkward. Only one person in the room was staring at Zach differently though.

Nezu stared at the boy who had genuinely looked upset there, who had answered with what must have been truths for Tsukauchi to act this way, but who had avoided answering any questions too specifically the entire time. _Not once did he claim that he did not remember the things he was originally questioned about. He claimed to be repressing and it seems that was true, but what exactly was the extent of his repressed memories? It is a touchy subject difficult to get into with something like this, especially if he believes he still has things he does not remember in which case he can avoid nearly anything by saying he is repressing more. But Sazaki, I believe you are a very manipulative person. At the same time however, I am glad you were able to escape from this easily so I will not push to help their case against you. They forced this on me. You held back the secret of One For All from Shigaraki even in that torture we saw at the Sports Festival._

The principal stared at his student with a soft and yet happy look on his face. _You captured villains at VTS instead of helping them which you could have done. You had no allegiances. No one expected anything from you. Your own opinion of yourself, your own self goals, everything you do is for yourself… No, that's not true. At VTS you were willing to get arrested. You, forgave us faculty not because it was difficult for you to move forward like you said, but because of the way the teachers were taking your treatment which I saw you look guilty over._ Nezu smiled at the boy next to him who just bowed at the others in the room to thank them for letting him out, and Zach promised to let them know if anything else important came back to him. _It's not that what you do is for yourself, but you do it without anyone else needing to tell you to do it. It has always been you. Yet you, young man, have evaded the rules to get to the place you are now. I gave you the trust of U.A. again after the Sports Festival because of what I saw during your torture, because of your actions that day and the week following… And yet this entire meeting, you trailed off on sentences that looked to hurt you too much but also would have ended in ways that Tsukauchi could have fact-checked. You avoided getting specific on anything. You never mentioned what it is you were repressing, nor what you remembered…_

 _The principal's the only one suspicious right now. High Specs is too good. How do I get around it? Don't change my expression at all while thinking about this. Is he that smart that he knows I'm thinking about him? Probably not._ Zach came out of his bow and then turned fully to Nezu who smiled at him and said he was glad Zach had good reasons for what he had held back. _Nope, he probably doesn't trust me here. He's too smart. No wonder he's the principal. Wait! I don't need to figure out the principal's weakness, because he's… Or, well what if he's the spy?_ Nezu told Zach that they would bring his motorcycle to a garage where the faculty's vehicles were, and Zach thanked him for it though still with a dark look on his face. He felt like smiling at what the principal said as he was actually happy about it and it made him not want to suspect him, but he kept his dark look for the strangers he had just broke down in front of.

Zach turned and left the room with a frown like he was partly angry at the officials for dredging all of that stuff up. He was also looking sad behind his angry frown, and hurt, not because of his own repressed memories. He made himself look that way because of Spinner who he had had the same look on his face when speaking on. Zach left the room and was careful in case anyone was watching him, so he did not smirk or even lift the corner of his lips up. _Another review I've escaped. Chemist must really not have said anything after being captured, or what he said just wasn't substantial enough to call me out on it. I wasn't ready for all of that, but I react well. I always do._ Zach kept his look dark but then wiped his eyes and put a smile on his face. Even if someone was watching him, he was about to go outside and talk to his friends again, so clearing up his expression was easier now as it could be seen as him trying to hide his look from them. The thought of this made Zach grin wider though, because going out to talk with his friends and smiling for them meant he wouldn't be hiding his real expression anymore.

* * *

 **A/N Thanks for reading! Zach returns to U.A. with a cool new motorcycle, takes on some villains with his teachers and other heroes, and reunites with his friends. He also gets denied by Bikergang who doesn't trust the boy Chemist spoke ominously about during the raid, and Bikergang wasn't the only one still upset at Zach over this as a review board comes after him... again. Zach evades trouble again though. Using the memories he learned he had repressed from his time in his torture, using the feelings he realized were genuine about what happened with Spinner, and using his unique perspective on Death that only he understands (though maybe Monoma gets it a bit too). Hope you enjoyed, and leave a review below telling me what you think!**

Shade11224 chapter 79 . Sep 20

I have a love/hate relationship with this story, I love that it's so in depth and sooo consistent with past chapters, but I hate that it makes my nose start running because of emotional it makes me even though I'm usually pretty good at not caring. I honestly think if you complete it and keep up the quality that it will be one of the few fanfics that will be able to stand on its own as great.  
Thanks for Chappy!  
P.S. #Midzaki?

 **Thanks for the review! I'm always glad when I can incite emotions in my readers. I know I get choked up myself writing this and won't deny I've cried for Zach... But anyway, thanks a lot for telling me this as as much as I like the reasons you love it, I might like the reasons you hate it more XD. Glad you enjoyed, but get outta here with that Midzaki nonsense! We all know what I'm about...**

An Average Jo chapter 79 . 7h ago

The day you reach a million words will be a great day. And Zach's kinda like Snape. Not many knew he was a spy but he still tried to do good stuff.

 **Oh it's coming. Coming soon. Soon! By October maybe? Lol maybe not that soon, but 3rd chapter in 3 days I'm back on a roll so we'll see! Thanks for the review, and yeah Midoriya thought about that last chapter, Nezu too for a bit at the end of this one. Snape. Snape. Zachary Snape.**

Momozaki chapter 79 . 14h ago

HELL YEAAAAAH  
GIMME MOOOOOORE  
THANK YOUUUU

 **ALRIGHT! THANKS BACK AT YA! HERE'S SOME MORE!**


	81. Chapter 81

**Disclaimer: I don't own Boku no Hero Academia**

 **Chapter 81:**

Zach sat on the desk chair in Denki Kaminari's room with his jaw dropped as he stared at the blond boy tossing a football up in his hands on the edge of his bed. Kaminari was grinning with the corners of his lips pulled far up on his cheeks as he tossed his football to himself over and over as he had to keep moving in his excitement and also nervousness at what he just said aloud. He said it in a quiet voice, but even though it was just the two of them in the room there was no telling if the girl he just mentioned could be listening to them from anywhere in the building.

"You're lying," Zach finally said, closing his mouth and nodding his head like he figured it out.

"Hey!" Kaminari threw the football at Zach who reached his hands up fast and _almost_ caught it. He had the reflexes, but he had never really had a catch with one before and it bounced off which made him get a flustered look on his face and frown down at it. _You don't even play football,_ Zach thought in annoyance, since Kaminari laughed at him for dropping it. "It so did happen," Kaminari said, and Zach lifted his eyes from the football on the floor back to his best friend who started grinning again.

" _She_ kissed _you?_ " Zach repeated, to see if Kaminari heard how ridiculous it sounded. _Jirou's not that straightforward! She like, never,_ Zach started shaking his head in disbelief, though he thought back on some hints he had noticed over the past months. _It's not that I didn't think it might happen at some point, but I thought you'd instigate it for sure._

"Well, in the intensity of the fight…" Kaminari began, changing into a tone of epicness and retelling a fight they had with villains halfway through their internship. The fight actually sounded pretty intense and Zach leaned forward since Kaminari and him had not talked much over the internship except for a couple texts when they saw each other on the news just to see if the other was alright. Zach opened his eyes wider as Kaminari mentioned zapping a villain coming up behind Jirou, and then she repaid the favor, and he started to find it more believable that something might have happened in that intense situation.

"So, what now?" Zach asked when Kaminari brought it up again.

"Well obviously she's my girlfriend now," Kaminari replied, leaning back on his bed and putting his hands up behind his head. "Asked her to be my girlfriend already and everything." He interlocked his fingers through his blond hair and said, "Jirou's super cool. I didn't think you were onto anything when we talked about it before, but she's totally into me."

 _No, really?_ Zach thought sarcastically, but he just smiled outwardly at his friend who he thought was oblivious for not noticing before. Then again, he had spent a lot of time with the two of them so he wondered how many other people might have seen it coming. _Momo probably could tell for sure-_

"So how about you and Yaoyorozu?" Kaminari asked, leaning forward suddenly while Zach's eyes opened wide.

 _Did he know? Or, damn was it my face? Just thinking about her…_ "How about what?" Zach asked in confusion, though he lifted the right corner of his lip as he pretended not to know what Kaminari was referring to.

"Something going on between the two of you?" Kaminari asked. Zach's eyebrows lifted up and he got a confused look on his face as it seemed Kaminari was asking if something was wrong.

"Why would you think that?" Zach asked. He had only just arrived back at the dorm a half hour back, but Kaminari said he really needed to talk to him about the internships so Zach came back to his friend's room right after unpacking his things. _Did Momo say something?_ Zack wondered, a bead of sweat sliding down the side of his face.

"I don't know," Kaminari replied, shrugging as it was just a thought. "It's just, you haven't seen each other in a week and I feel like you didn't really have a bit like 'I'm back Momo!' You know?"

Zach rolled his eyes at Kaminari's way of wording it, then he sat back in Kaminari's desk chair and turned it a bit to each side for not reason. "Well, yeah. That's just because we've been talking even over the internship."

"'Talking?'" Kaminari repeated, bouncing his blond eyebrows a couple times and then smirking at Zach who turned towards the windows with a look like he did not get what Kaminari was getting at. The blond with a scar on his forehead over his right eyebrow continued in a smug tone, "So you guys were calling each other, and you're still going with 'nothing's going on' between the two of you?"

"Nothing is," Zach said, and he turned back with more of a frown at Kaminari again. _I can't. I told you why. I, I don't want to make her a target. You accepted it though… and, and you said I was being selfish for trying to push you away. Am I being selfish to Momo- but that's only if she actually likes me!_

Kaminari let out a long exasperated sigh at Zach's denial. He shook his head and then said, "Whatever man. Jirou told me not to go around telling everybody," Kaminari added, and Zach glanced at him in a skeptical way. "You're not everybody," Kaminari said at that look, and Zach shrugged but smiled that Kaminari came and told him first even if Jirou didn't want him blabbing about it.

"So, you guys are really going out then?" Zach said, the mock amazement filling his voice again. "Never thought after all your empty boasts that you'd actually get a girlfriend-"

"Shove it!"

* * *

By Sunday morning at U.A., most of the hero course students had returned from their internships. Some of them had minor injuries, but Recovery Girl had been making frequent trips around the country to protect and heal the students of U.A. at their various internships. Not one student had died during the week-long internships, though three heroes across the country had been killed in hero fights. All three had died in operations or villain fights that U.A. students were at too. One of those U.A. students was sitting at the couch area of Class 2-A's dorm in Heights Alliance, talking to a couple of his friends including one who had also been at a villain fight where a hero had been killed only two days earlier.

Zach nodded along with Tokoyami's story and had a serious look on his face while his classmate retold a League of Villains infiltration battle a small group of heroes had taken part in. He mentioned to the dark boy with a beak on his face that he had not seen Hawks when Tokoyami mentioned how his pro hero had flown across the country to Hokkaido during the big Trigger raid over the break. Tokoyami said Hawks mentioned Midoriya to him when he returned but also said he did not see Lifebringer.

Tokoyami was not very detailed in his story and only brought it up because Mineta asked him about it when Tokoyami was being all mysterious about his broken right arm. Sero had muted the tv, but he un-muted it when Tokoyami seemed to be finished as they were watching the news that was actually talking about U.A. all of a sudden. The four boys looked at the screen and saw small clips of their class, Class B, the upperclassmen and even some impressive underclassmen who had made a big splash in their first internships. Then the screen started showing a graph that had villain attack rates in the past week going down from the start. Another news anchor argued that the chaotic crime rate has gone down steadily since the days following the Sports Festival Invasion when it hit an all-time peak, but the other argued that they could contribute the trend at least in part to the new classes of heroes soon to enter the ranks.

"…Specifically the second years, Class A," one of the men on the screen continued, and the four boys watching tv started grinning as their famous class was brought up. They mentioned USJ, how the finalists of the Sports Festival were all Class A, Lifebringer, Bakugo, Deku, Todoroki Shoto, Tsukuyomi…

Zach grinned over towards Tokoyami who was surprised to hear himself be named specifically by the guys on the news. Then Sero let out a sigh of disappointment before saying, "I thought with the time I got put on the news this week they'd definitely mention me right there."

"Yeah," Mineta agreed, though the others glanced at him and wondered if he actually had something worth mentioning or if he was just disappointed too. Mineta kept smiling after a second of disappointment though as the guys on the news just finished by saying the hero prospects are all looking good, but especially that class makes them hopeful that the high villain rates will go down soon.

"And until they do go down," Sero started, turning to Zach and smirking as he thought about something he saw earlier that week. "Maybe everybody should start training their Quirks to protect themselves from villains," he suggested. Zach glanced at him and sweatdropped, then Sero grinned more with his smile covering the entire bottom half of his face. "Heard them talking on this channel last night about your report," Sero mentioned, and Zach nodded without looking surprised since he had heard that too and started watching on his phone while it happened.

"It wasn't really about my report," Zach started.

"It was the same idea though, and they mentioned you as the example," Sero slowed down as he realized he probably shouldn't mention that example. After a second he kept smiling though since he had seen the press conference Zach was in too and saw Zach bring it up himself when answering a question. _Guess he's not too upset by it anymore,_ Sero thought, and he added, "I still think if you hadn't gone after me I would've gotten like ten points better on my paper."

Zach started laughing and he apologized though Mineta cut in with a smirk and talked about his grade which just made Sero frown more, and Tokoyami got a sweatdrop on the side of his face but pretended not to be upset that Mineta scored higher than him. Zach did not say anything, but he smirked internally as his grade actually was above Mineta's, not that he had told his friends that he had gotten a one hundred on it.

Zach leaned back on the couch and then he looked around at the three who he had not really talked to much before now after getting home. _Time to blow their minds._ "So, you guys want to see something cool?" Zach asked, grinning as he got up out of his seat.

"Don't transform here!" Mineta exclaimed, and Zach lifted his eyebrows and looked at him like the other two did.

"I'm not," Zach said in a deadpan voice.

"Oh," Mineta said, and he scratched the back of his head quickly as he realized he reacted a bit strongly there. "I can't believe you said it was your 'Nightmare Form' on tv," Mineta said. "You should have come up with a better name-"

"It's not about that," Zach said, frowning some more as Mineta would not just drop the subject. _I have a motorcycle! Now I'm not even that in the mood to… nah, who am I kidding? Mineta's gonna be so jealous._ Zach started grinning at Mineta and said, "Come on, follow me," Sero and Tokoyami started getting up with interested looks as they did not know what Zach was talking about. Mineta got up quickly too, but he was looking behind Zach who turned to see if he should invite some others to come check out his motorcycle.

Zach looked back and towards the bottom of the stairs that Mineta's gaze had snapped towards immediately when three girls came out of the stairwell. Jirou walked in the middle of the three, and when she spotted the boys up ahead she spun to Hagakure and gave her a look saying to 'shut up' as Hagakure was still bouncing around in an excited way. Zach figured Jirou must have told her friends something, but he barely focused on her at all when he looked that way.

Zach looked left to Momo on Jirou's right, at the girl who looked ahead when she saw Jirou giving Hagakure that look. Yaoyorozu figured there must have been some of their other classmates up ahead, but when she looked towards them she smiled brightly at the boy she looked straight towards out of the four of them. Zach's heart started racing as she did not look around at them but focused on him first, and she smiled happily to see him too. "Good morning, everyone," Yaoyorozu said as she continued forward towards the boys.

"Uh, morning," Zach said back, though his heart raced faster at that word 'everyone' at the end of Momo's greeting.

"What are you guys up to?" Jirou asked.

"Zach said he's got something to show us-"

"Oh! Is it your motorcycle?!" Hagakure exclaimed excitedly, running forward and then opening her invisible eyes wide and reaching up to cover her mouth at Zach's disappointed look.

"Your what?" The other three around Zach asked, looking in at him with wide eyes.

"Wait," Sero began slowly. He thought about who Zach had his internship with, thought about what Zach had told him he was trying to get over the week-long break from school, but he started shaking his head around as that still did not explain what Hagakure just said. "How- are you serious?"

"Sorry Zach," Hagakure said apologetically as she could see now he had wanted to surprise them with what she had heard a rumor about herself.

"It's no big deal," he assured her. "You want to come see it too?" He asked, since she did seem excited about it when she shouted in the first place. She jumped up and said that of course she did, and Tokoyami said something about how Zach does seem like the type to him to ride one. Mineta asked if he could go for a ride, which made Zach sweatdrop and say some other time since they could not just leave campus right now, though he was really just making an excuse.

 _The first person I want to take a ride on Flamedrag…_ Zach turned his head back to Momo and Jirou who were continuing to the kitchen without Hagakure. They mentioned to Sero who asked if they were coming that they had seen it already when Zach arrived, and Zach watched as Momo walked off with a hesitant look in his eyes. His heart was pounding again as he started that thought and tried hard not to finish it. _Oh man,_ Zach thought, turning away quickly to the door before anyone would notice him staring, and he said for the others to follow him. _I can't do this- no! I can't, do anything about it. I won't put a target on you like that. I won't let my feelings for- I won't let how much I like- AH! I don't know why I'm even thinking about this._ A serious look spread on Zach's face as he walked in front of four of his classmates out their dorm and towards the garage his motorcycle was being kept. _It can't happen._

* * *

 **Knock Knock Knock**

Kaminari opened up his door and looked at the shorter dark-haired boy standing in front of him. Zach got a hesitant look on his face as soon as Kaminari looked at him, then he blurted out, "How did you ask Jirou out?"

"Huh?" Kaminari said, and then his eyes opened wide and a look of surprise covered his face. "You're really-"

Zach ran forward and into Kaminari's room, and he closed the door fast behind him but made sure not to slam it as the whole point of running in was to be quieter about this anyway. He frowned at Kaminari for calling out so loudly right there, but Kaminari had started grinning wide at Zach's expression. Zach frowned more at that smug grin like Kaminari thought he was totally right the whole time, though he could not deny it after what he had just implied there. "You're serious?" Kaminari asked, his grin lowering down a bit as he saw Zach starting to look hesitant again.

Kaminari scratched the side of his head as Zach looked back up at him in some confusion. _Don't really want to remind you about this, but, I mean…_ "Aren't you, afraid of the villains targeting her anymore?" Zach frowned more and Kaminari muttered quickly, "Sorry. I just thought, that was the main reason you hadn't asked her out _already._ "

Zach stopped frowning as much and thought about a conversation the two of them had had not too long ago. At least it did not feel too long now that it was being brought up again. _**"But you really think I could put that big a target on someone, I like?"**_ He frowned just like he had been that day, then he recalled what Kaminari had asked him then too, _**"So you do like her?"**_ "I like her," Zach said, something he had not come out and replied with back then even though Kaminari had called him out on it.

"So then go for it," Kaminari said with a grin. "She'll totally go out with you."

"You really think-" Zach began, then he cut himself off and frowned again. _No, this is all wrong. Why would I risk putting her in danger? More, danger,_ he thought slower to himself. _She was in danger this past week just doing an internship. All of us were. Trying to be heroes, we know what that means. Each of us knows the risks and yet we're still trying. They all saw what happened to me, and they're still going for it. I don't have any right to be scared for them, do I? Not like thinking that is going to stop me from worrying… but there's also no way to know that not dating Momo will put her in any less danger. If we are, if we were- I could be closer to her more often, protect-_ Zach's face started getting more red and he paced away from Kaminari with a serious and nervous look on his face.

"Yeah man," Kaminari replied even though Zach never finished his question. "Definitely."

 _Is it really that sure a thing? You saying that doesn't make it any easier! It doesn't make these butterflies go away! Every time I look her way._ Zach brought his left hand to his stomach as he started to feel it rumble just from the idea of what he was considering. _No, I can't! I promised I wouldn't put her in danger. I promised myself!_ Zach stopped near Kaminari's window and stared outside while his blond friend sweatdropped behind him and cocked his head to the side at Zach's sudden stop. Looking out into the sky as he just did, he thought about when he stood at the top of the Sports Festival stadium and looked out over the world, right after his talk with Monoma after he came back.

Zach thought about the face he had seen when he was dying, the first face he had imagined when he came back and looked up in that amazing sky after hearing what Monoma had to say about living his life for himself. He pictured Momo's face and his heart pounded so hard as he recalled what else he had been thinking about when that life he should live came to him, the things he never believed he could have before but realized at the time he had always wanted. _I came close to dying in Mosu Esupa, without doing any of the things I told myself I would do this time around. I, I think that maybe waiting until the world is better, might not work like I hoped it would. And, and why can't I be happy, even as I make the world into that amazing place I imagine?_ Zach turned around to look back at Kaminari again, and a small smile pushed at his face that made Kaminari grin again. "So how'd you do it?"

"Oh you know me," Kaminari said. "I was super smooth, more than you possibly could be." Zach rolled his eyes, but Kaminari said, "I mean it." That made Zach sweatdrop and lose his grin as Kaminari actually sounded serious there.

"That's not really helpful," Zach muttered. _But, I'm not trying to be smooth anyway. That's you. I, how do I want to…_

"If you're really thinking about this," Kaminari began, and Zach looked back to see his friend actually lost his smile too for a moment. "Are you, considering telling her about secrets of yours?" Zach's eyes widened a bit, and he stared in surprise at his friend who continued, "I'm just a little worried, you know? Because you told me about Reaper, and the anti-heroes, and stuff… I mean, those are the only things I'm really going to keep from Jirou," he continued, and Zach felt relieved to hear that but only a bit as he was much more nervous about what Kaminari was saying. _I can't tell her all of that! I shouldn't have even told- well, if Kaminari is willing to keep them from his girlfriend I guess I made a good choice picking him to trust. Plus, we could still work together if a time to be anti-heroes does show up. Focus, focus,_ he told himself with a nervous look on his face.

"You didn't, even think about it?" Kaminari asked, as Zach looked as nervous now as he did when he walked into his room. "I'm not saying to tell her everything," Kaminari said, as he did not want to push Zach into doing that. He scratched the back right side of his head though and added, "But, might be bad to try and start up a relationship if you're lying to her-"

"I don't lie to," Zach began, but he trailed off while Kaminari looked at him in surprise.

"You don't?" Kaminari asked. "So she knows-"

"No," Zach cut in again, quieter this time. "I just, don't lie. I don't tell her the truth either though, about some… most things."

Kaminari sweatdropped and then leaned his head back as he was not the best with this sort of thing. "Well, I'm sure whatever you do will work out." Zach looked back down and his eyes widened as he realized that was just about the best thing Kaminari could tell him. He did not actually want to do things the way Kaminari did, and he doubted Kaminari's specific ideas would actually work well for him. _Whatever I do… If he's right, and Momo really does like me too, then it's me she'd want to ask her out. Not Kaminari. Not, whatever he could suggest. It has to be from me. How- I don't know how. I don't know what, I want to do. I don't know what to tell you. Some things I don't want to talk about. Most of the stuff Kaminari knows, I told him because of the Shatterer thing. I would have kept it all a secret… But I don't want to keep secrets from you. I trust you._

"Thanks," Zach said, and Kaminari got a surprised look on his face as he did not feel like he had said much to get thanked.

The blond grinned though and just said, "Good luck man. I'm rooting for you!"

Zach sweatdropped and glanced back towards Kaminari's door. A look of anxiety spread over his face again and his confidence from a second ago vanished again which made Kaminari sweatdrop again and lower the fist he pumped. _Oh I am so not ready for this._

* * *

"So, it was this drug, Apocalypse, that killed Dandy?" Yaoyorozu asked the boy sitting next to her on the foot of her bed.

Zach nodded his head with a serious look on his face, while in his head he yelled, _Why are we still talking about this?!_

Yaoyorozu had asked about the raid that he had not gone in depth about in their phone calls or talks since. She did not know a lot of the stuff he had been talking about and she had looked interested through their whole conversation, not even realizing that Zach's mind was so far away from what he was talking about. Towards the end she started to figure it out though, especially as Zach just kind of nodded to respond to that question and was not continuing on any more about it.

Yaoyorozu had on the casual clothes she had been wearing all day Sunday, even though it was pretty late and she was thinking of getting into her pajamas soon. She might have changed already had Zach not texted her that he wanted to talk later. Her hair was tied back into a spiky ponytail, while Zach's was less messy than usual but had waves in it and curled up a bit down on the sides and the back of his head. He looked hesitantly at her with something clearly on his mind, and then he let out a sigh at her expectant look which told him she knew he needed to tell her something else. He sighed because it looked to him like she thought the extra thing he had to tell her was about the Trigger lab raid.

"Are you alright?" Yaoyorozu asked, and Zach nodded his head a few times while looking down at the floor between his feet.

A small smile formed on his face again at her question which sounded worried about him. _Because she cares,_ he told himself, but that just made the butterflies in his stomach churn around even worse. "Momo," he began, and Yaoyorozu pursed her lips as he seemed like he was getting serious but kept that smile on his face at the same time. "Did I ever tell you, why I want to be a hero?"

Momo stared at Zach with a confused expression. Her eyebrows lifted up and she shook her head slowly for a second, though there was some hesitation in her eyes as she thought about something that she did not want to bring up. Zach started while looking down at his feet, after he saw her head shake out the corners of his eyes, "I, once told the world that I had to change the answer, but that was never the most important thing to me." Momo's eyes opened wide as the thing she was just thinking of, what she had seen in the video of the courthouse that she had watched a thousand times when Zach was gone with the villains.

 _It's not? It wasn't?_ Yaoyorozu started breathing faster, and then she whispered, "What is it then?"

Zach almost frowned that she did think that was her reason. He expected most people thought it though. _Was it good that I was born? I know- I believe now! I believe the answer really is yes. And if it's a good thing, then I don't have to punish myself any longer. I can, I can finally get back to it. To the real reason._ "At times of my life, I convinced myself that question was all that mattered." Zach started again and he lifted his head and glanced next to him at Momo who was looking back so interestedly, so closely, and he flashed her a small smile as he continued, "But it was never what pushed me towards being a hero. I want to be a hero, because… life is beautiful."

He looked into her eyes as he said it, then he continued before she could say anything. While her eyes were still huge he continued, "The way I felt when All Might saved me as a child, the day I leapt from my roof but _he_ caught me." Yaoyorozu's huge eyes shook more as Zach said it, her bottom lip lowering as he continued to smile though looking away again. He looked across her cramped room that the bed barely fit in, and he continued, "The way I felt whenever I saw heroes flying overhead or fighting villains, and how I saw other people feel when they were saved by them. Because I remembered that feeling myself, and, and I wanted even more people to be able to feel that way." Zach smiled more and he continued with what felt like a massive light feeling on his chest as he just spoke without holding anything back, the way he always felt he could when he was with Yaoyorozu but struggled to do so often. "Birds. Do they sing to each other, or are they singing to people in the morning? Each snowflake is unique and original, just like people who have their own Quirks, or personalities, and appearances. Everyone has their own outlook on life, and I think it's all amazing. I think every last bit of this world is beautiful, and no amount of bad will ever overtake it."

Yaoyorozu's mouth closed and her eyes stopped being so huge, but she was starting to breathe faster out her nose while she pursed her lips. _How?_ She thought, staring at Zach in shock as he turned to look at her again.

"I want to stop the people who are trying to make it less amazing though," Zach continued. "The ones trying to take the joy, and the feeling of safety, away from people. Because it takes safety for people to enjoy life as I do. I, I want everyone to be able to see the world as I do, even though I have no idea how I can see the world like this myself." Zach lowered his smile a bit and kept looking into Momo's eyes with a more hesitant look on his face as she had yet to say anything. He was not going to stop now though, and he continued, "After everything that happened to me, I wonder why I don't see it differently."

"How do you?" Momo whispered, and Zach smiled again that she was not being weirded out or anything. The anxiety he was starting to feel vanished, and her question made him think of the answer which added to his smile. "How can you?" She added, then pursed her lips as she did not want to tell him not to think that way, yet she could not believe what she was hearing.

"After weeks, months of torture, I escaped and I saw a snowflake land on my hand. And I thought it was beautiful," Zach said. He closed his eyes as he thought about something he had barely remembered for so long because at the time he was so deep in survival mode that everything just blurred together. He remembered that feeling now though, what had driven him to tears because of how he felt despite all that torture. Because he knew he still believed in his reason for being a hero just staring at that beautiful snowflake, the people around him, the world.

"I still thought life was beautiful after it," Zach said aloud, as he did not know why he was just thinking about those things and not describing them aloud considering who it was sitting in front of him. "I, always have. I've never doubted it. And it's all thanks to the people in my life that I can be this way. I, killed my mother, and at first my father still cared for and looked after me. After my dad started falling apart though, the Akers picked up the slack. They helped me after my dad was gone, and even my Aunt Maye supported me financially so I didn't have to worry about money as I grew up." Zach paused for a second and looked back at Momo with such a soft look in his eyes but still the smile he had as he thought about all of the most important people of his life. "And when I returned after the darkest time of my life, after the Akers were all killed, I had my teachers and classmates to save me again. Our class, preserved my image of beauty in this world. And, it's thanks to you especially, for being a bright light in this world that's already so full of amazing things."

Yaoyorozu's pursed lips started shaking and then a small gasp escaped out of them. She stared at Zach in such a soft way back at what he just said to her. After everything he had just told her, after the way he had broken down on the roof the night they both watched the Lifebringer video, to hear this from him was making her heart race faster and faster every second. "I can't," Momo began, but she stopped to catch her breath as talking was more difficult than she thought it would be right there. She was amazed, and she did not know why Zach looked hesitant all of a sudden, so she thought it was because of the way she was responding to hearing that which only made her breathe faster before saying the first thing that came to her mind, "I can't believe- I'm," _amazed,_ she thought, then she gulped as he kept looking back into her eyes. "Hearing you say something like that, I, I don't know how you do it."

Zach smiled a bit more and started, "It's easy, when you're-"

"You still think I, you still think-" Momo's lips started shaking, and then she whispered, "After you yourself died, to protect me." Zach's eyes shot open wide as she said that, as he saw a guilty look flash over her face that she hid from him so much. She turned to her right looking farther up her bed and down at it for a second, and then she shook her head and whispered, "How can you still feel that way? Not just about… but about me too-" She could see him looking at her in more shock at what she was saying, and she turned back as there was no hiding it from him anymore. "You could have brought me back if you hadn't leapt in front-"

"I don't regret it," Zach said. He said it strongly and gave her a stern look as if telling her to stop saying what she was saying and stop feeling that way about it at the same time. That made her lean back and she couldn't feel guilty at the look on his face, because another emotion was pushing it down so much stronger. "And," Zach continued, while Momo started breathing faster and her cheeks were getting redder. "I'd do it again, to protect you," Zach said, though he got a bit softer near the end because he did not know whether he should say it. He did though. He said it and then he stared into Momo's eyes while the room was suddenly silent and the two realized how close they were sitting to each other.

In Zach's head flashed the beginning of April when he gave his final rehearsal of his final report the night before he gave it to the rest of the class. Momo had grabbed his hands and a moment very similar had occurred, but Zach did not turn away this time. Momo did not look away either though. His heart was racing but he knew what he wanted to do. He didn't know if she'd let him, and it terrified him thinking for a split second what would happen if she pulled away, but then he swore he saw her body scoot a centimeter closer to him. Zach did not know if he had imagined it, but he leaned towards her and this time he knew for sure that she was leaning back towards him as well. Her eyes closed and he closed his too.

They kissed. Neither of them had ever kissed someone before, but that meant it was the best kiss of their lives.

* * *

 **:)**


	82. Chapter 82

**Disclaimer: I don't own Boku no Hero Academia**

 **Chapter 82:**

Zach lay back on his bed with the biggest grin on his face that it almost hurt. He had his hands interlocked behind his head and was not even laying down in Nightmare form because he could not think about villains or Kurogiri or anything related to them at the moment. Zach let out a long breath and then closed his mouth again, and he pressed his lips into each other imagining a feeling on them, and he closed his eyes again while thinking back on that. He let out another enamored sigh while thinking about pulling away from the girl who had never looked more beautiful to him than in that moment. Zach shot his eyes open and then threw both of his arms from behind his head up in the air over his flat body. He had his fists clenched and pumped them up in the air a few more times before dropping them to his sides and letting out a deep breath to try and calm down.

 _There's class tomorrow! I have to, I have to at least try and get some sleep. Sleep? How am I supposed to sleep right now?!_ Zach started smiling again and he lifted his left hand to his lips, then he pulled it away fast instead of brushing them with his fingers which he was afraid might ruin the feeling. _Oh man. That was amazing! That was- I really- The most amazing and beautiful and smartest girl in our class, and I kissed her! No, we kissed. We kissed! Yes! Haha, hahaha!_ Zach started laughing aloud and he tried holding it back since he knew he would look weird just laying there laughing to himself. His mood was just, the best though.

 **Knock Knock**

Zach lifted up fast, his eyes widening and his thoughts getting shaken as he had been in his own world. _Is it late? I wish I had stayed in there longer, but I didn't want to push anything- her, or,_ Zach shook his head and swung his legs off his bed. He was not tired or anything so he picked up his phone and checked the time while walking over towards the door. _Could it be, Momo? Coming to my room this late so, so we-_ Zach's face brightened red and he pursed his lips together again while his heart pounded a thousand times a minute. "Yeah?" Zach asked, trying to keep his voice cool and collected, hiding his excitement and hesitating behind the door so he could steady his expression.

"Hey Zach," a voice said on the other side of the door that filled Zach with disappointment.

"Oh," Zach muttered, and the boy on the other side of the door opened his eyes wide. Zach opened up the door and did not have the same look on his face that he had when making that disappointed 'oh.' "Hey Midoriya," Zach greeted, and he moved to the side to let his friend inside his room that had the lights on now. "Want to come in?"

"Um," Midoriya started. A bead of sweat dripped down the side of his face as he felt like he had just done something wrong, for some reason. "Yeah, if it's no trouble. I had something-"

"Yeah it's fine," Zach cut off, realizing that Midoriya probably noticed his disappointment. He shook his head around and reminded himself the reason he had left Yaoyorozu's room in the first place. _Slow. I, that would have been bad actually. Yeah, bad,_ Zach thought, though he was not really convincing himself with his half-hearted relief.

Zach walked over and sat on his bed and motioned for his chair since Midoriya seemed like he might just stay standing otherwise. Midoriya had a really serious look on his face all of a sudden, but he got some more sweat on his face as Zach saw that look and still just nodded at his chair again for Midoriya to sit. _Talking with you always winds up getting so serious. Kaminari's a lot easier to talk to, because things are usually just not as dark. But lay it on me. What's wrong tonight?_

"Zach," Midoriya began while still on his feet, and Zach tried making his expression look serious too. He had been feeling so good though, that he could not get into a serious mood and was just feeling excited and bouncy as he gave Midoriya his best intense look. Then Zach's look became a lot more intense as Midoriya whispered, "Two nights ago, I talked with All For One."

"What?" Zach whispered, his eyes shooting wide before narrowing in his intense expression. "You found him-"

"No," Midoriya shook his head. He hesitated, but he could see Zach was really focused now so he stepped closer they could have their talk in quieter voices. Midoriya had not known if he should come up here and have the conversation, but he had already had it with All Might. He did not ask All Might whether or not he should tell Zach either, even though he had considered doing so. _I was the one who told Zach about All For One, and One For All. If I'm going to tell you these things, and if I'm going to help you… And I know you will talk to me about this whereas Bakugo would just tell me to shut up, or something._ Midoriya took a deep breath and then started to his only friend in the building with whom he could talk about this.

 **Two Nights Ago…**

"Midoriya, Izuku," a voice said behind Midoriya that made him freeze with sweat covering his entire body.

He heard a crash in the next room over where Wonderlass was fighting and arresting other villains. Midoriya's injuries from earlier in the week had been healed, and he had gone with Wonderlass to the raid on a small League of Villains hideout she had discovered while he was in the hospital. It was his final night of the internship, and he was panting with his fists still balled as the second-in-command of the small base lay unconscious on the ground in front of him. Midoriya had his green costume on with the mask down bunched up behind his neck, and the boy with curly dark-green hair started turning his head with his eyes huge at how close that voice sounded to him.

"Do not worry," the voice continued, and Midoriya's eyes opened wide as he saw the wall behind him had changed. It had been black and he just now realized it was a giant tv screen, one that was still dark but only because the room on the other side of the screen was dark too. In the room there was a chair close up to the screen, a man sitting back on it with an industrial mask over his face and a black outfit on over his body. "I am not actually there with you, I just wanted to talk." All For One's face was covered completely by the black mask over it, but Midoriya swore he could _hear_ the man smiling.

Sweat covered the boy's face even if he was not in the presence of the man speaking to him. He stared at the screen and his fists shook but he kept them clenched at his sides. "Ohh? That's quite the look," All For One started. "I wouldn't expect anything less from the one All Might chose," All For One chuckled darkly and Midoriya could not help but feel chills down his spine at the sound of that.

"All, For, One," Midoriya finally said. He stared at the villain, the most evil villain he had ever seen before. He gulped but then grit his teeth thinking about the night of Camino Ward. Midoriya's fists shook harder at his sides, and then he said, "Where are you?"

"Why? Would you come running to get me? Even with One For All just barely under your control?" All For One taunted and the boy in front of him grit his teeth even harder at the sound of it.

"In your state-"

"In my state?" All For One cut in, lifting his tone and waiting for Midoriya to finish. He chuckled darkly again and then continued in his low, ominous voice, "There was a man who escaped Tartaros with me." Midoriya got a confused look in his eyes as to what All For One started talking about out of the blue, and then his eyes opened wide and the top half of his face turned blue while All For One continued. "Muscular was very vocal about you after we escaped. He could not wait to kill you, and I believe that young Kota was going to be his way of drawing you out. I am surprised a man like him could think that much through."

 _Kota-kun!_ Midoriya's shaking fists clenched tighter and his eyes were full of horror at what All For One was saying. "If he-"

"Muscular also talked about your fight, and it seemed to me that his Quirk was one that could have defeated you had it been in the hands of someone more capable. So I took it," Midoriya froze and his blood ran cold as All For One rose up his right arm, and his muscles ripped out of his skin and through his shirt to show off a Quirk that Midoriya knew well. It was the same Quirk that made his right arm look the way it did covered in scar tissue. There was no doubt now about what All For One was saying, and it chilled the kid who had no idea how to react to hearing this now. "Do not worry. I am not so petty as to kill that child, just to draw you out. You see, I do not hate you like I hated All Might. _Hate,_ All Might," All For One corrected himself. He said it at first like he was over his grudge now that All Might no longer had his power, but he shook his head as saying it aloud told him how much of a lie it was.

"Why, are you telling me this?" Midoriya whispered. "What do you have to gain, from contacting me right now? How did you even know I was-" Midoriya stopped asking the last part, as he did not feel like he wanted to know the answer to that question.

"Because it was about time we met," All For One replied. He took a deep breath and leaned back in his chair more before continuing, "You are the holder of One For All now. The next in a long line to face me. I can't wait to see what this generation's holder has for me." All For One chuckled while Midoriya pulled back from the screen, because the man speaking to him was treating it like it was all one big game. "It's always the same. Killing or crippling the One For All holders one by one. Sooner or later this Quirk I created will die. I wonder," he paused and leaned back forward, then said in a lower voice, "Will you be the final holder, when it's your turn to bite the bullet?"

All For One and Midoriya stared back at each other, and then the villain answered himself, "It will." Midoriya's eyes opened wider, and All For One continued in a low, deep voice, "I'm tired of this back and forth. And, well, One For All may get too powerful if a few more iterations were to pass. So you will die, and it will die with you," All For One stated. He then laughed at the look of fear on Midoriya's face. The boy realized what the laughter was for and tried gritting his teeth in anger instead. All For One started in a more taunting tone, "All Might was the strongest One For All holder, in both mind and body, saving everyone with a smile. Yet you, Midoriya Izuku, let Sazaki get tortured. You let the peaceful world All Might created fall apart in his absence. And you still can't control One For All!"

Midoriya's face pulled back and he unclenched his jaw with his eyes huge at what the villain just said to him. The things that haunted him the most, All For One knew them all and threw them in his face in the worst taunt he could think of. _Zach, All Might, why? Why do I keep failing?!_ "Where are you?!" Midoriya shouted. _I'll stop him! I'll- I have to!_

"Don't worry, I'll find ack- ka-," All For One started coughing and the screen shut off. Midoriya blinked a few times in confusion, as the man was about to end on something really menacing only to be cut off like that. Then the screen he was looking at that just turned black got cracks all over it, and a villain smashed through the wall behind it with Wonderlass' fist imbedded in his chest…

 **Present**

"…All For One is evil, the worst evil in the world," Midoriya hesitated and balled his fists at his sides where he stood in front of Zach. "But," he continued, feeling the same way he had in that room now as he faced the boy All For One had taunted him with. "But he wasn't wrong-"

"Yes he was," Zach said. He kept sitting on his bed while Midoriya shot his clenched eyes back open. He could not continue and start an apology that he had mustered up the strength to get to after his regret had hit the tipping point. "It's not your fault. None of that-"

"That's not true," Midoriya said, shaking his head at the black-haired boy on the bed in front of him. "I have All Might's power. I, I'm supposed to be the one-"

"You might think you're the chosen one, Midoriya," Zach said. Midoriya's eyes started opening wide and he got a bead of sweat on the side of his face at how calmly Zach was taking this. As shocking as this was to hear though, to Zach it seemed like Midoriya was using it to try and apologize to him again for something he had already apologized for a hundred times. Zach continued in a relaxed way, "But it's not up to you alone. We all bear the burden of stopping All For One, and getting the world back to the peaceful place it was at with All Might. And how many times do I have to tell you not to blame yourself for what happened to me? That's on me, and it's on the villains who did those things to me. Mainly them," Zach added, to show Midoriya that he was not even mostly blaming himself (though that was to help calm his friend down).

"But I still haven't-"

"One For All gets stronger with each generation, right?" Zach asked. Midoriya gave his friend a confused look while Zach just smiled back at him. He held up his left palm and continued like it was obvious, "Then of course this time around it's going to be harder for the One For All holder to get used to the power. After all the power All Might must have added to your Quirk that he didn't have to get used to himself back when he got it. Think about it, there was no way you'd be able to get used to that power in a year. Even what you have right now, is stronger than pretty much anyone, and you're still only a fraction of the way through that power."

Midoriya started breathing faster and he looked down at his right hand that he rose in front of his stomach. Zach smiled as he saw how wide-eyed his friend was, though lacking the soul-crushing regret in those plate-sized eyes that he saw before. "All Might picked you for a reason. All For One is good at messing with people though. You just, can't let what he said get to you." _Like I sometimes still do._ _ **"…I have brought your associates back as well. Even this boy… And this, thing."**_ The only time All For One ever acknowledged him, when the man had turned to him and called him a "thing" in Camino Ward, it still haunted him sometimes.

It was worse considering what he heard only a few days later at his court case. _**"How could I bring that thing into my house?"**_ How his aunt had worded what she said on the stand before calling him a monster, it was worse than when she had actually said the word 'monster.' Calling him a 'thing' after All For One had made him question his own existence already, it had cemented what the villain said as something more than just to mess with his head. Zach shook his head around as he thought about this, and he muttered to himself, "Take your own advice." Zach lifted his gaze up to Midoriya and smiled again, "As long as we keep training, we'll be able to stop him. It sounds like he's still not at his strongest, so we have time."

 _And if you can't do it Midoriya. If he gets too strong again and returns… I'm killing him. Taking the glove off and killing the one man who deserves it more than anyone. And, I think I could do it without hurting my own soul. For someone like him, or Chemist, Shigaraki… They're the types, I could kill._ Zach kept smiling at Midoriya who started replying with a smile on his face too and then apologized once more. This time his apology was for showing up and being all depressed though, saying that Zach was right and he should be better than that. Zach decided not to tell him to stop apologizing this time and just accepted it before telling Midoriya to go get some sleep so they could be well rested for class tomorrow.

As Midoriya left Zach's room, Zach let out a yawn and smiled as that conversation had actually tired him out. He thought about the reason he had been unable to get tired though, and he stopped feeling that exhaustion which made him switch topics in his head to get back to something that would let him sleep. _That helped Midoriya out. Which means it'll help stop All For One if Midoriya's the one fated to fight him, if I don't get the chance to kill him first. It also means it'll help a lot of people though, not just if Midoriya beats All For One, but just because anything I can do to help him will help thousands, probably millions. Billions? Who knows? I'm glad, someone like you takes my advice sometimes. We're pretty important, I think. The world is relying on us. I'll do things my way. You do them yours. And whenever we can, let's help each other out._ Zach was still smiling, but thoughts of Midoriya and him working together were not enough to keep him awake, and he slipped into a deep sleep.

* * *

On Monday the first day the U.A. hero course students were returning from their week-long internships, the entire school was abuzz with stories and rumors about the situation of Japan. They had been scattered all over the country, and it was the first day that everyone was around to spread information and talk to people outside of their classes about what they had seen. The other courses' students were as interested as the students in hero courses, as all of them were going out into the same world when they graduated. The business and support course kids all needed to know about the scenarios and operations of heroes outside of what they heard on the news too.

Before the first period of the day, enough rumors and stories had reached the ears of the Class 2-A students that their classroom was loud and full of talking students on the hot early-June morning. It was humid outside and the sun coming through the windows was making some of them sweat more than they already were from the intense conversations they were having. "Wait, I thought you and Tetsutetsu were together at your agency?" Mineta asked the red-haired boy in front of him retelling something his friend from Class B had told him earlier.

"Why does everyone think that?" Kirishima asked in annoyance. _We're not that similar!_

"Hey Zach, Midoriya," Ashido turned to where Kaminari and Sero were standing next to Zach's seat and then behind her to where Uraraka was standing next to Midoriya's seat. "I heard that Kendo was up at the Trigger lab raid you guys went on."

Zach nodded back over to the pink girl who got an even more confused look on her face as she thought it was a rumor and wanted to get it exposed right there. "She did?" Mineta asked in much more surprise. He spun from Kirishima's seat and to Zach and shouted while pointing a finger at him, "She wasn't in any of the press conferences about it!"

"I didn't, actually see her," Midoriya started while lifting a hand and scratching his head with it. His left arm was muscular and his school uniform actually looked tighter on him than usual as he rose a hand and scratched his head. He did not notice as much as Ashido who looked to his arm as Midoriya continued (something Uraraka saw while looking her way). "But I heard that she was there," Midoriya agreed with Zach's nod.

"I saw her," Zach said to confirm it. "She arrived with the reinforcements though, and all of those heroes didn't go up to the press conference."

Ashido nodded as that made sense to her, and then she spun as did most people in the room as Iida ran up to the front. "Everyone get in your seats! Mother Russia sensei will be here momentarily and we must show her respect-" Iida was swinging his right arm out and pulling it up to make right angles with his elbow, but he stopped as everyone ran and got in their seats before he could finish telling them to. What he was saying though got them all in their seats fast, then Iida rushed back to his own as he was the only one left standing now which Sero called up to him.

Zach felt a tap on his shoulder and he tilted his head back to look behind him. Jirou was leaning forward over her seat a bit and she lifted her eyebrows at Zach a couple of times, but as she thought he was going to get a red tint on his face, Zach just bounced his eyebrows back at her with a bigger smirk. Jirou's face turned red and she darted her eyes to Kaminari who spotted the look and immediately turned the other way like he had not been watching at all. Jirou's right earphone jack extended out from her ear and started slithering over towards him, then the door opened and Jirou retracted it fast while sitting up in her seat. _You idiot,_ Jirou thought, though she held off on smacking him for blabbing, for now. _Not like I've done a much better job,_ Jirou thought, a bead of sweat rolling down the side of her face.

Mother Russia came in and talked to them a bit about their work over the internships. She told them they all did well at representing U.A. during their short internships, and she said she heard many of them were going to continue on with as work interns in the coming months, maybe even spending their summer break on a long-term internship with their pro heroes. This got the rest of the class looking around at each other as not many of them had heard about this yet. Shoji looked next to him to see what Tokoyami thought, but then his eyes widened under his silver bangs as Tokoyami nodded with a serious look on his face as one of the people Mother Russia was talking about there.

Todoroki hummed to himself while thinking about the hero he had gone to intern with over the past week. _Do I want to continue there? The reason I did not go to Dad's agency was to get more variety, become more spontaneous. Is choosing a single new hero and deciding to follow that path what I want? Then again, learning new things for only a week at a time only to jump to a new one is not a good plan either. Maybe an extension through the summer would be…_

 _Wonderlass didn't want me coming back. I don't know what I did wrong. She said I did well, before kicking me out the other day,_ Midoriya thought with beads of sweat dripping down the sides of his face. _She seemed like she was in a hurry too. She was rushing around a lot in those last days of the internship._

Zach started frowning a bit as Mother Russia talked on these things, but he could not help from smiling after only a few seconds. _I had thousands of internship offers. I know I don't really have the connections to ask for a work internship, but there have to be ways. Some people must want Lifebringer to come to them. I still need the money. I don't have any cash to my name, and I need money more than ever now. I have stuff to spend it on now. Like dinners, or maybe a movie…_ Zach's cheeks tinted a little red but he kept smiling and tried to focus on hero activities while he was in class at least.

The morning classes went by quickly once homeroom was over. Math, English, art, Zach focused as best he could while trying to conceal a smile that was doing its best to let everyone in the room know what had happened, or at least that's what Zach thought. Every time a corner of his lips lifted the smallest bit he felt like everyone would be able to tell what he was grinning about and tried to calm himself down. When it was time for lunch though, he did not really care much anymore as there were things he wanted to talk about with Momo who he looked towards while the class was packing their stuff away.

Most people started heading out to the cafeteria, but as Jirou was about to walk past Zach she stopped for a second. The girl a couple of inches shorter than Zach whispered to him with a grin on her face, "Kaminari tells me you're planning on doing something bold. Good luck," she said in a teasing voice, and she was ready for the usually-shy boy next to her to get red in the cheeks this time. He just smiled back at her though and this time he could not stop himself from moving his lips apart so his teeth were all showing in his smile. "What?" Jirou asked confusedly. Zach shrugged like it was nothing and Jirou hummed but then turned to walk after Kaminari who was looking back at her.

 _I thought Momo must have told you when you gave me that look before. I'm glad I didn't say anything in response. Good move! Though, is it really… does it really have to be a secret? Does she want it to be? She didn't tell Jirou, but I mean I haven't told Kaminari yet- It's only been what? 12 hours? A little more, actually._ Zach shook his head and then walked over towards Yaoyorozu who was reaching the front of the room and looking towards him. Jirou and Kaminari were near the door and waited for their best friends who started for the cafeteria with them.

The four of them sat together at lunch with Sero and Ashido across from each other on Zach and Momo's other side as their closest friends. Kaminari and Jirou glanced in a couple of times at the two who were talking about what Mother Russia told them that morning, and Ashido jumped in to say that she was going to call up Rainbow Sparkles to see if she would let her do a summer internship which sounded like a lot of fun to her.

"I wonder what those of us who don't get summer internships will do?" Zach began.

Sero picked up a piece of friend chicken on his plate and said while looking at his friend on his left side, "Bet they'll have us stay on campus the whole time if we're not doing anything productive. Maybe let our parents come visit sometimes, but I can't see them letting us just go for a month or so."

"Yeah, me neither," Zach agreed. "Maybe we'll have a training camp thing too, though probably on-campus this time."

"Probably," Ashido agreed with a loud sigh of disappointment. Up until they were attacked in the training forest, the previous year's summer camp was actually kind-of fun. Plus, she had been part of the group stuck in extra lessons which she figured she could get out of this time after all she had learned. The pink girl with horns sticking out of her hair started smiling after a few seconds though, thinking about how big their campus was and especially some of the training grounds on the outsides which were massive. "That'd still be fun though!"

"First we'll have finals though," Yaoyorozu said to the others who were getting to excited on the idea of the summer. "You all must study hard this time as well-" Every one of them had been to Yaoyorozu's study session at her house the year before for the final exam, and all at once they started asking if she could help them out again. None of them wanted to miss out on whatever fun training camp they were just imagining was, and even though they had all passed the written exam the year before, they knew not to get cocky about it.

Kaminari leaned in to ask too, and Jirou sweatdropped but knew there was some more she could learn as well. She glanced next to her at Yaoyorozu though with an eyebrow lifted at her friend who was as bouncy as ever and replying happily to them all that they wanted her help again. Then she saw Momo look across the table to Zach who agreed with Sero that he could use a bit of help with math, even though Zach thought about how his math grade was actually doing really well right now. Any excuse was a good one though, and he smiled back at the girl who looked at him in a way that made Jirou's heart start racing. _No. Did, did he already-_ she darted her eyes to Momo and back to Zach again though Ashido said something that changed the focus of the conversation and made them look away from each other. _No. No way. They wouldn't be this calm right now. They, they wouldn't be…_ Jirou's eyes shifted from one of them to the other while pretending like she was not watching, and their moods were so good that her suspicions were almost being confirmed. Then again, she did not see any reason for them not to be in good moods right now which was why she was hesitating to jump to conclusions.

 _I'll ask her as soon as we're back to the dorms,_ Jirou finally told herself, accepting that she would just have to stay in suspense for a little longer. _If something happened you should have told me right away! I told you as soon as we had a moment- so, maybe it just happened then? When?! Maybe I'm overthinking this. Maybe it's nothing,_ Jirou extended her left earphone jack down next to her and plugged it into the seat for a second. Her eyes widened and her own heart started beating faster, but nowhere near as fast as the girl on her left side and the boy across the table from her. Zach's right foot had just bumped into Yaoyorozu's foot under the table though, and then hers brushed into his a second later in two simple movements that had the two of them desperately hiding blushes as they continued a conversation with the others.

 _What is going on?_ Jirou thought, but she was left frustrated as lunch ended with nothing else of interest happening. They all returned to the classroom and Jirou decided to ask after school as was her original plan, though she was getting more suspicious with every look the two she was curious about shared.

Zach sat through his last couple of classes with a hesitant look on his face while he focused on the teachers. _What's going on? What were we doing at lunch? She noticed my foot touch hers right? And she didn't just accidentally bump it- no that look in her eyes was, what was it? We haven't really talked differently today than we did yesterday, or any other day though… But that's because other people are all around, or, but does that mean we don't act differently in any situation where we aren't alone together? I'm not, I don't know if that's…_

Zach's thoughts were as focused on this as his focused face made him look interested in the class. He figured Cementoss might ask him a question about the book they were reading and decided he should probably be more focused so he was not caught off guard. A minute after thinking that though, Cementoss probably could have asked him a question about literature and Zach would have responded with numbers since he forgot what class he was even in when he caught a glimpse of the clock. _It's so close to after school! What then? What does she- do we- I have no idea what to do right now!_ Zach's eyes were wide and he tried to steady his expression while looking down to the novel on his desk.

Kaminari glanced to his left and he smirked before looking back at his book so Cementoss would not wonder why he was grinning like that. _There we go,_ Kaminari thought. _You were looking too confident all morning, but now that the idea of actually doing it comes up! I bet you asked her earlier to talk after school, and just doing that made you super hyped. Now is the hard part dude. You can do it!_ Kaminari gave a cheer of encouragement in his head and then had to stand up and try to answer Cementoss' question that got him confused and made the teacher scold him for not paying attention.

 _Kaminari's probably thinking the same kinds of things about Jirou. Or he's just not focused on class… Which is entirely possible for him._ Zach smiled as he heard Jirou whisper a tease towards Kaminari as he was sitting back down after apologizing to Cementoss sensei. His smile only lasted a second though as he heard the tone in Jirou's voice that sounded similar to how she always spoke to Kaminari. _Maybe it's because she's trying to keep it a secret. Or, maybe you just don't change the way… That can't be right. Things are different now. They have to be. I, don't have to tiptoe around- or, what did I decide to tell her? Are things different enough now that I feel comfortable just telling her everything? No?! Wait, what did I do then- no, she hasn't asked, and I don't have to be open about everything. Everyone has- well maybe they don't have as big of secrets… Are we really just supposed to act like normal?_

 _That doesn't seem right. Are we… are the two of us… Oh man, but Momo's not the kind of- but neither of us had- I don't know!_ Zach's eyes widened, _But I can't not know! School's about to end! What is next? What do I do? How do I- what I do right here matters more than anything! It'll set the tone, or the pace? Well we do that together- which means she could totally shut down anything I try to do if that's not what I'm supposed to…_

Somehow time sped up to the end of the day. Zach swore minutes started skipping at some point, because all of a sudden he was getting out of his seat. He finished packing his things and his heart started racing even faster as he looked back towards Momo.

Yaoyorozu was moving forward towards the front of the room and she got a bigger smile on her face as she saw Zach looking towards her. He waited for her to come up and then walked over towards her, asking, "Want to walk back tog-"

"Yes," Yaoyorozu said, and she turned to the door quickly as to not make an awkward moment about how she just cut him off too fast to agree. Zach started walking with her and he felt a sense of relief but also anxiety as she was quick to respond. "I personally enjoyed the passages Cementoss sensei had us reading…"

 _Why'd she stop me from finishing? Was she just hoping I would ask already so she knew- or is it because we're still technically in the classroom, hallway now, but people could see us? Yet people can always see us. Walking together back to the dorms isn't even all that weird since I walk with you a lot anyway. Or, sometimes at least. Not too often, but we're both leaving behind the person we walk with most often right now without saying anything about it. That's great! Well, fine. It's cool. Totally cool._ Zach glanced at the taller girl who just asked a question about their final class, and Zach lifted his left hand to the side of his head. He scratched his hand through his wavy black hair and admitted he had not been paying too close attention. "I was distracted, by something," Zach said, finishing in a way that suddenly made him tense up.

Yaoyorozu paused for a second and then replied softly, "Oh. Well, then we must review today's class in the final prep we do-"

"Oh yeah," Zach said, thinking back on what they talked about at lunch. "I wonder if they'd let us use a room at the school for the study session. Since, we won't be able to use your _hall._ " Zach stretched the word and Momo smiled more right before Zach started talking about how a room that big should be added into their dorm, though then they'd need to make the building twice as large.

"I think the next time you visit my house I will take you on a tour. You would be amazed by the large rooms," Momo told the boy next to her, a bubbly look on her face as it seemed Zach was so amazed by the rooms he would be happy to see more. A bead of sweat formed on the right side of Zach's face though as he totally believed her. He could tell the other rooms were larger just from what they saw on their way to the hall in that Yaoyorozu mansion visit. "You all did not see the garden either while you were there. I would love to show you the…"

Behind Zach and Yaoyorozu, back down the hall ten meters or so with a couple of others between them, Kaminari walked with his eyes peeled up ahead at the pair walking with each other. Jirou had left with him, though Mineta, Sero, Kirishima, and Ashido were all walking with them too as they had walked out right behind them and included the two in front of them in their conversation. Jirou glanced back at Ashido who said something to her, though she replied quickly before looking up ahead towards Yaoyorozu's back again. Her taller friend was having such a casual conversation with Zach but she caught glimpses of the sides of their faces as they walked and it made her hum in suspicion.

"Ooh, Yao-momo and Zach walking with each other today?" Ashido leaned forward as she looked up to where Jirou was looking.

Sero glanced to his left at Ashido when he heard this while talking to Kirishima on his other side. He opened his mouth to say something with a grin on his face, but Mineta spoke up quickly first, "Don't you know?" Kaminari looked back at Mineta and lifted his eyebrows, only to crack a big grin as Mineta pointed a finger ahead and said, "Ever since he started calling her 'Momo,' I knew something was up. But the two of them, are secret lovers-"

Ashido slammed a fist down on Mineta's head and he grabbed the spot and yelped. "Don't be a perv," Ashido said. "Though I totally agree," Ashido whispered a second later, making Jirou roll her eyes in front of her and Sero to let out a laugh. They could tell Ashido was joking about it but it also sounded in the pink girl's voice that she wished it were true.

Sero turned back to Kirishima and asked about something he thought about while Kirishima was speaking on his internship. They were nearing the door outside to the street back to their dorm, and as Kirishima answered Sero his eyes focused up ahead with a confused look on his face at what he was seeing. _They're, acting weird,_ Kirishima thought. He did not think anything of Zach and Yaoyorozu walking back together as it was not a rare of an occurrence for them to hang out, but when the others brought his attention back to it for a second he got a strange feeling something was up. _What's Zach look nervous about? He's usually cool-headed._

 _Ah! We really are just having a normal conversation! What is- I should- I want to! It's bad though. It could be. It_ _ **could**_ _be terrible! What if I…_

Jirou walked outside and she slowed down while looking ahead towards the two heading back towards the dorms. Zach was walking on Yaoyorozu's right side, which looked to her like what he always did when he kept his right hand farther from them whenever he could. Even inside the black glove on his right hand, Zach stood on her right side so his right hand was farther from her. There was an ulterior reason Zach was on Yaoyorozu's right though, though the reason coincided with the fact that he could not, or would not touch Yaoyorozu with his right hand. Jirou's bottom lip started to lower as she saw Zach's left hand moving over, and she came to a stop with her eyes opening wide as Zach's hand touched Momo's.

Yaoyorozu's hand turned and her fingers opened and interlocked with Zach's between them. Immediate relief flooded through Zach, along with other feelings as his chest nearly exploded. Not only had Momo not pulled away, but her hand was so quick to hold his back that he believed she was waiting for him to do it, and it was definitely the right thing to do. All the fears and worries that had been bugging him through class faded away, because things _were_ different now. As much as he was worried they hadn't, that maybe the kiss didn't mean… anything. She held his hand back and he saw a pink shade on her cheeks to his left. _Man, I wish I was taller,_ Zach thought as he suddenly realized once again how beautiful the girl next to him was.

 _I'm holding his hand. This is wonderful! My heart is pounding and I have never felt these things before!_ Yaoyorozu hesitated for a second and then continued the sentence she was just saying, though with a smaller more pursed smile now. She had to hold back the huge happy look trying to cover her face if she wanted to continue their conversation, even while holding hands.

Yaoyorozu kept talking, and Zach turned and listened with a similar look on his face to hers. Meanwhile, Mineta turned his head from looking right at Sero. He looked forward and then missed his footing stepping down with his right foot, face-faulting with his arms thrown up over the top of his head. Ashido's jaw dropped and her eyes bulged, while Jirou and Kaminari both looked forward with their bottom lips lowered and eyes wide too.

 _That's it?!_ Kaminari thought with his bottom lip dropping even farther. He shook his head around in shock, _So smooth! He just put his hand in- oh wait, did he go ahead with it last night? He said he was going to wait for a good moment. Guess he went and made one!_ "About time," Kaminari finally remarked and let out a laugh.

Sero and Kirishima had gawked towards the two up ahead of them too. Those two apparently were too absorbed to notice this group of their classmates who had just stopped short and started gawking at them. Sero shook his head after a second and then turned to Kirishima again with a grin covering the bottom half of his face, "Who didn't see that coming?"

Kirishima cracked a grin himself and then laughed as the thought _had_ crossed his mind as much as he didn't get into conversations about stuff like that often. Their reactions were light though, and the ones on their left were quick to sprint forward as soon as the shock wore off the smallest amount. Ashido closed her mouth and let out a shriek which had the two up ahead of them turning farther around. Ashido started running forward and right past Jirou, while Mineta scrambled forward on his hands and feet too before pushing himself back up to run with his eyes as big as plates. _I didn't actually mean it!_ Mineta thought, though now there were dozens of crazy thoughts going through his head.

Zach's hand slid out of Momo's as he turned, and he got slightly annoyed at Mineta. His annoyance was replaced by anxiety though as Mineta and Ashido started rapidly asking the two of them what that was about, and if they were dating. _"Dating?!" I want to say yes but we haven't- but I want to ask her on one, is it weird we haven't dated yet? Should I say we've only kissed- NO! That would be the Worst thing to say right now!_

"I don't see what the big deal is," Kaminari said as he continued forward, spotting a look on Zach's face that showed he was feeling super nervous all of a sudden. Momo's eyes widened a bit too, but Mineta had asked it at Zach in his loud voice. Sero and Kirishima looked forward and between them at Kaminari who smirked while Jirou's eyes started going huge, her head turning to him with her cheeks getting red. She started opening her mouth, but Kaminari continued first, "Jirou and I are going out too."

"Wait, what?" Sero said, lifting his eyebrows and then turning to the left at the short girl with long earphone jacks who had dropped her jaw right there. She spun back to Sero and Kirishima and opened her mouth to deny it like they each thought she was going to do, and which she knew they were expecting. She froze though with her mouth open, darting her eyes to Kaminari again and seeing him smirking at her while continuing to walk, his hands down in his pockets. Sero's eyes actually started widening as Jirou did not immediately deny it, and every second she hesitated looking like she did not know what to say made Sero's jaw drop more. "Alright that one, I didn't see coming-"

Mineta slowly turned his head and he looked behind him with his jaw dropped far again. "Wh-wh-wh-" he turned the other way, then back to Kaminari, and he pointed his hand around at the four who he could not believe at this point. "What is happening?" Mineta brought his pointing hand up to the purple balls on top of his head and closed his eyes. He shook his head around for a second, _Am I dreaming? This seems like a weird dream though!_

"Aha! So picking the same internship," Ashido exclaimed, spinning and pointing towards Jirou and Kaminari with a huge smile on her face. "That was just a way for the two of you to get a week away together! A private room probably-"

"Stop," Jirou said in a deadpan voice.

Then Jirou gawked and spun to Kaminari who had replied at the same time in a calm fashion, "Pretty much."

"Whoa really?" Sero asked in surprise as he did not think Ashido was onto anything there.

Jirou spun with her jaw dropping more as Sero actually believed Kaminari, then she swung out her right earphone jack to hit Kaminari with before he could respond. "That is _not,_ the reason. We weren't even going out before the-" Jirou paused as those words came out of her mouth, confirming what she had yet to deny yet had not agreed with yet. This made Kaminari grin more, which made her smack him again with her earphone jack though he pulled away this time laughing at the way she was getting flustered.

"Oh, this is so weird," Mineta whispered when he opened his eyes and watched as everyone started walking past him, as the group had continued on again back towards the dorms. Zach and Yaoyorozu had held back and started walking with them in the group, and they had not started holding hands again which both of them were thinking about. _Not the time anymore? I guess. No need to be all in everyone's face about it… even though I totally could be, since she's just the best girl at U.A. and wants to hold my hand and stuff. Stuff…_ Zach's Adam's apple bounced in his neck and he hoped no one saw how big a gulp he just did.

* * *

"Hey Uraraka," Midoriya said as he looked over the top of the couch and saw a short brown-haired girl walking their way. He, Iida, and Todoroki were sitting in the common area when he spotted the girl coming out from the stairwell. She had huge eyes and Midoriya's friendly look as he called over to her started to shift as she looked towards him with a mind-blown expression. "Uraraka?"

"Is something wrong Uraraka-kun?" Iida questioned the girl walking towards them now.

Uraraka shook her head at the class rep so he would not worry, but Todoroki also had a mildly interested look on his face too at her strange expression. Uraraka walked right over and sat down next to Deku on the couch, though she sat away from him so she was closer towards the arm rest than the middle of the couch. _Something strange is happening. What if it affects us too? Maybe, I should scoot in a bit- no no no. This is strange. Something smells fishy, or something,_ Uraraka hummed and had a serious look on her face as she brought her right hand up in front of her mouth. "But what if it really is a conspiracy? There could be something behind it…"

 _Uraraka's muttering?!_ Midoriya thought, his eyes widening as he looked at the girl next to him on the couch. "Um, Uraraka," Midoriya cut in as the girl started talking to herself, which was making him stare at her with huge eyes. "What're you talking about?" He had been close enough to hear what she was saying, and it sounded serious to him.

"It's just," Uraraka started, and then she looked around at the other two on the couches too who she could see were waiting. "Well," Uraraka tried to push her paranoia away and say it as normally as she could. "Kaminari and Jirou are, dating," Uraraka started. Midoriya lifted his eyebrows up and looked at Uraraka in surprise, then his eyes shot open much wider as she added, "And Zach and Momo are, going out too?" Uraraka ended on a question while lowering her gaze down to her hands that she curled into confused fists in front of her a few times.

Iida's jaw dropped even though he had kept just mildly surprised by the first part of what Uraraka said. Midoriya's dropped too, though his eyes shot open wide a second later and he looked down at the floor in shock. _Was it before yesterday? He didn't say anything last night- Is that why?! He seemed to be in such a good mood despite what I was telling him about All For One! Then, he really…_ Midoriya thought about the hospital and the call Zach received when he was leaving Midoriya's hospital room. _How long has this been going on?_

Todoroki did not react at all hearing about Kaminari and Jirou. His eyebrows did lift up a bit though at that next part. "Really?" He asked, as Uraraka did not seem very sure of herself and actually looked to be questioning her existence as everyone in their class started dating each other at the same time. Uraraka shook her head around and lifted her gaze to Todoroki, and in a serious way she gave him a single nod to show she was sure about it.

Walking out of the kitchen, Kirishima was talking on the same subject to the spiky-haired blond walking with him who got a tick mark on the side of his head.

"Who the fuck cares?" Bakugo snapped, and Kirishima shrugged but then added, "Oh yeah and Kaminari and Jirou started dating too."

Bakugo lifted up an eyebrow, and Kirishima grinned as it seemed maybe to him Bakugo had already seen the other one coming or thought it was happening before. Bakugo muttered though, "That idiot actually…" Kirishima started laughing which made Bakugo grunt and just stop focusing on it again. "Let's go," Bakugo said, and Kirishima nodded with a 'Yeah.' The two of them walked for the door of the dorm to head over to a training ground they had signed up to use after school today.

 _I really did not think their relationship was like that,_ Todoroki thought. In his head he imagined part of a conversation he heard them have on the roof earlier that year. _Then again,_ Todoroki watched again, or he thought about the moment when Zach had appeared behind Yaoyorozu. He had not seen anything coming, but Zach was there between Yaoyorozu and the villain who had shot at her at the Sports Festival. He thought about Zach collapsing once they had all defeated Inhuman, after he had created an ice wave that the two of them had slid down together to attack Inhuman while the arena collapsed. _Zach's a good person._ Todoroki frowned and thought back on the summer before, and how certain he had been that Zach was a villain even when the rest of the class kept trying to defend him.

Todoroki leaned back on his couch a bit and just turned to the tv again. He was not one to gossip and it did not look like he was all that interested in the matter. He was not seeing the screen he looked at though, but Zach standing in front of the courtroom with that look in his eyes as he talked about changing the answer. He pictured the Nightmare form he had seen for the first time in Camino Ward, right after seeing that same look in Zach's eyes he imagined at the courthouse. And he heard Zach's screams on the roof which had made him ready his ice in case of a worst case scenario. _Zach, is oddly a good person. Why do I think that? Because, I could see a villain having his past. Is that it?_

 _Or, is it because you are, even after everything, moving on? It is so hard for me to move on from my past. But you have not just moved on, but moved forward. Your report, the times you disappeared… After you saved Kaminari, I believed you were the one to stop Diamondfist. Somehow your trip to Kyoto was a lie. And yet, although it was against the rules I do not feel- if anything, the fact that you did it anyway impressed me. Because you know how bad things can go when you break the rules, but you had the opportunities and took them._ Todoroki shook his head once to clear his head, as he usually did not spend this much time thinking on his classmates and especially not on secrets they were keeping. _I trust you. Your report shocked me so much, but you've started moving behind the scenes and out in the open. I can't say that you just said those things in your report, because you wouldn't be doing the things you do if you didn't really want those things to happen._

 _So, it's not you,_ Todoroki thought, keeping his expression straight as he looked at the screen even as a darker tone filled his mind. _Or Midoriya. Iida, Bakugo, Yaoyorozu, Kaminari, Kirishima, Kuroiro, Monoma, Tetsutetsu, Kendo, or Shoji… Unless Inhuman did not- would he have known? Would Shigaraki have started his attack if you were the one on stage… Or because of the crowd chanting "Lifebringer," was his grudge enough? To risk losing such an important player?_ Todoroki frowned more and then thought about the girl sitting next to Midoriya. _Uraraka, and Tsuyu. Would they have helped chase Mr. Compress? And they were fighting Toga in the forest as well. Uraraka is close to Midoriya though, and Midoriya has a connection with All Might. The villains would want her to get close to him, plus he's one of Shigaraki's targets. Then again, we all are. They've been trying to kill us. So if there really is a spy here, why wouldn't they have attacked us already and killed as many- There is a chance there was never a spy. Since Hackerman's capture there has been no sign that a spy is out there. His Quirk's limits were discovered in prison- but even those limits, could have been overcome with Kurogiri's Warp Gates._

Iida glanced towards Todoroki and then straightened himself out on the couch. He coughed into his hand and turned to face the tv as well, as Todoroki seemed to not care about the _big_ news Uraraka just brought over to them. He turned to the news that Todoroki looked to be very intensely focused on, though that made Iida lift an eyebrow as it seemed to him like a fluff piece the news station was using to put some positive, not crime-related news out for once. He wondered why Todoroki appeared to be so deeply interested in the child who got a cat out of a tree using his Squirrel Quirk that let him climb up to save it right away. Apparently the boy had always been scared of cats, but he got over his fear to save the defenseless animal.

Then the news changed, right as footsteps came barreling down the stairs. A breaking news report came on and the group of four watching tv looked closer as they saw 'Musutafu' written on the bottom of the screen. Then they turned to the stairs as one of their classmates came running out and straight towards the front door where he slid his feet into his shoes as fast as he could.

"Hey Zach," Midoriya began, getting out of his seat with a hesitant look on his face. "You aren't thinking-"

"Midnight sensei sent me a text," Zach replied quickly without spinning to the couch. "She said the situation's already under control, but someone died so I'm…" Zach stopped and he turned to the couch area and the four standing there looking towards him. He grimaced and turned to the door, then back to Midoriya and straightened his expression. "Could you give me lift to my bike?"

Midoriya's eyes widened for a second but he nodded fast and ran around the couches over to the door with Zach. The black haired boy threw open the door and ran outside while Midoriya put his shoes on fast. _It just happened,_ Zach thought. _But, wasting any time would be stupid. There could be other fatalities. Or maybe more villains haven't attacked yet-_ "Let's go," Midoriya said behind him. Zach glanced back over his shoulder and nodded, and Midoriya put his hands under Zach's armpits and leapt up in the air.

Zach's head pushed back and his cheeks flapped in the sudden push of wind into his face. He clenched his teeth and tried steadying himself as they shot through the air towards the school, but then his grit teeth ground over each other a few times. _I really wanted to use my motorcycle, show it off- but that's not a good reason._ "Midoriya!" Zach called out over the wind as they were arcing down towards the halfway point between their dorm and the main school building.

"Yeah?!"

"Just go straight there actually! It'll be faster!"

Midoriya pulled Zach up before his legs were nearing the ground, and he bent his legs while twisting his feet to point the south on the pavement below them. Midoriya unbent his knees and shot up into the air again, lowering Zach back down to the place he had been holding him in front of him and down a bit by his armpits. Zach grit his teeth again from more than the wind as Midoriya yanking him around and manhandling him like this was as embarrassing as it was painful. _Don't say anything about it. It doesn't hurt that much. This is about to hurt a lot more._ Zach gulped but he took in a deep breath as they soared up over the edge of U.A.'s campus. _Hope Midoriya doesn't get in trouble for this. If Midnight sensei called for me then she probably let the security guard know already, but- well, I'll tell her I asked for his help…_

The two of them landed on top of a building just outside of the campus, and Midoriya leapt up again in the direction of where there were loud sirens blaring in Musutafu. There was not any smoke or huge destruction that they could see from a distance which was a good sign. They bounded towards it across the city at such speed that Zach could not help but feel amazed at how far of distances Midoriya could travel on foot. _I wish I could-_ "So, are you and Yaoyorozu-"

"Not really the time Midoriya," Zach said while they reached the top of an arc and started coming back down. They were almost at the crime scene, but Zach grinned for a split second during their descent. "But yeah," he added, and Midoriya's eyes widened as he heard Zach's second reply. He had to quickly get back in the zone Zach got him in with the first response though, because they were there.

They landed down on the street back near some police cars and ambulances, but Midnight saw the two of them drop down not too far away and she called out, "Lifebringer. Over there," she pointed down the block towards where the fighting had actually been. For a second she wanted to scold him for not putting on his costume before coming out, same with Midoriya who had come with him in only a minute and a half since she sent that text. She wished they had taken just a minute to do some better preparation, but she found it difficult to scold Zach when she thought about why it was they did not move the body.

Zach started running towards the crime scene where he saw another hero he recognized from U.A. Mother Russia was looking down into a hole in some cracked pavement, but she glanced over her shoulder when she saw Sazaki coming her way. Zach did not like the look on Mother Russia's face, and it made him slow his run for a second. Midoriya had watched Zach start running for a moment, but then he looked to Midnight sensei who was dealing with a group of three unconscious villains and helping the cops get them into an armored truck near them. Midnight called out that there could be others around the area so they had to do a sweep for the any more villains, and Midoriya looked back towards Zach and started jogging after him.

"Lifebringer!"

"Yeah Lifebringer's here!"

"Save him Lifebringer!"

Zach stopped hesitating as much and flashed a smile across his face. He needed to show it at least once before he saw this body that he was getting increasingly nervous about. Zach reached Mother Russia and looked down into the hole in the ground in front of her. The man down there was cut up and his torso barely looked to be holding together. It was nearly crushed in half by some pavement splashed with blood that had been moved off to the side. _His head's intact. Shouldn't be… too bad…_ Zach started panting but clenched his shaking right hand and then ran forward and into the hole. Mother Russia was opening her mouth to say something to him, but she stopped and nodded her head once with an intense look on her face.

Mother Russia then turned to her right and scolded the boy who ran up next to her, "Where is your costume?"

"I- we were in a rush," Midoriya started giving his excuse. Then he looked down into the hole and where Zach was standing next to the deceased civilian who looked brutally mangled.

Zach was hesitating even as people on the sides of the road and in their buildings on higher floors cheered down towards him. He gulped, and then he turned back and his eyes darted around while he was standing there next to the man. Midoriya's eyes opened huge, and then his fists clenched and he said, "We'll keep a look out for the League of Villains." Zach turned back to his friend and his eyes opened wide. Mother Russia closed her mouth that she opened to say the same thing, then she just flew up over the hole in the ground and landed on the other side of Zach as Midoriya. "You can focus on him," Midoriya assured.

 _Letting my guard down in a place like this. You both know, that bringing someone back this damaged is going to take a while. It's, going to take all of my focus, and a few minutes of straight pain! But, but you know, you believe that the real reason I'm hesitating is because I'm scared the League is going to attack me._ Zach snapped his right hand open and his fingers slipped through his glove. _Because that_ _ **is**_ _why I'm nervous. With Midoriya guarding me Kurogiri wouldn't risk it. This man was killed in a villain attack. He didn't deserve to die. And I won't let him!_ "Thanks," Zach said, lifting the right corner of his lip while dropping down on the dead man below. He really tried to keep his smile, but a few seconds in to what would be a three minute revival, and Zach had to open his mouth and scream.

* * *

 **A/N Thanks for reading! Saw a lot of excitement in the reviews that the ship y'all been routing for has finally sailed. Momozaki lifted off. And Kamijirou too. Uraraka got a little nervous here in the middle of the chapter that something mysterious was happening... XD Anyway, hope you guys enjoyed this fun one with some serious stuff thrown in. All For One stealing Muscular's power, Todoroki thinking about the possibility of a spy, and Zach taking on another tough revival with _almost_ no hesitation. Leave a review below telling me what you think, comments, questions, or predictions!**

IntricateHummingbird chapter 81 . Sep 22

OH MY GOD OH MY GOD YES IT HAPPENED

 **Haha, that was a great first review to see on that chapter. XD Glad you guys are excited!**

Changeling501 chapter 81 . Sep 22

I've been reading this for a while and I'm always surprised at how fast you upload, seriously how do you do it?, but yeah this is amazing definitely one of the better ones out there. Nice job

 **Thanks! I just sit down for a couple hours at a time and write out scenes, many of which I already have some idea of what I'm going to write in them. Glad you've really been enjoying it, and I'll try to keep up the quick uploads!**

StandupSitdown chapter 79 . Sep 22

Some deep thoughts from Deku at the end there about Zach playing the long game. I enjoy chapters like this without action almost more than one with it because it gives characters more time for introspection and helps advance the plot.  
I am very glad to see Zach continue to realize there are plenty of crazy quirks out there so Nightmare isn't so horrible. I smiled when I read the line from All Might about him using it then immediately switching over to bringing people back. Public opinion will hopefully keep turning for him.  
A cute scene between Momo and Zach and we even got to see her be teased a little bit after the call ended.  
My only question is, when exactly did Zach learn Roady had proposed? Because he mentioned it to Momo, but then he seemed very surprised when Bouncer Man told him about it. Was it just that he didn't know it had been so soon after he left Roadys room?  
Between life and work I always seem to be a chapter or two behind on this, but at least that means I always have another chapter to look forward to!

 **I'm glad you like the in-action chapters as much as the action-packed ones. Always gotta be some once in a while. Zach coming to terms with Nightmare, even using it in public right after getting back to Musutafu and only receiving cheers from the public. Public opinion definitely high for him with those cheers at the end of this one too. Anyway, know this was a couple of chapters back but I checked what you were talking about and yup! Totally an error on my part, went back and took that out of his convo with Momo. Thanks for the catch, and thanks for the review!**

Logargon chapter 80 . Sep 24

"with what must have been truths for Tsukauchi to act this wau" OH HOW THE MIGHTY WRITER HAS FALLEN TO NOT SEE SUCH A MISTAKE, OH HOW WILL YOU EVER LIVE THIS DOW (gets karate chopped on back of neck)

 **No idea what you're talking about. Unlike the reviewer above, when I went back to find your mistake I just did not find anything. I totally did not go back and edit the chapter and am just denying it here because you'll never have proof that I didn't do that. ;)**

AgasaR chapter 1 . Sep 23

You wrote 130k in 3 days!?

 **I'd believe it... but I don't really know where you're looking. More like wrote 850k in 90 days. Though actually if you're reviewing with that then I probably wrote it somewhere back a ways... Oh the time of getting so much done. Hope you guys like this 12k one for the last two days though! Thanks for the review!**

Guest chapter 81 . 9h ago

FLUFFFFFFJSBFBSJEBBDBD

 **FLUFFFFFFJSBFBSJEBBDBD indeed, FLUFFFFFFJSBFBSJEBBDBD indeed.**


	83. Chapter 83

**Disclaimer: I don't own Boku no Hero Academia**

 **Chapter 83:**

At eight o'clock at night, Zach Sazaki lay flat on his back with his phone barely held up in front of his face. He was exhausted, and the pain from earlier echoed in the back of his mind making him flinch on occasion. He had not known the extent of the injuries the civilian killed earlier had received. It was not just his mid-section that was crushed, but his legs were smushed as well by one of the villains who had made his arm huge and crushed the man in his grasp. The guy who had been killed was an important businessman in a company planning a big merger with a competitor, so the police were investigating to try and find out who may have wanted him dead, though the news was doing a fair share of speculation as well.

Zach scrolled through the news on his smartphone and then spotted something that made him smile and tap the screen over the triangular 'Play' button. It was an amateur video but one that a big news program got a hold of and put up on their website. Zach shook his head for just a second when he saw his face on the screen. _I should have known not actually talking to the media wouldn't keep this from going up._ Zach thought about the guy who had talked to him after he had finished reviving the only deceased person at the crime scene where many others had been injured. The man had come out of his building holding up a phone while the outer perimeter was still up keeping the media from swarming him.

"…there are a bunch of rumors saying you rode back into Musutafu on a motorcycle the other day. Is that true?"

Zach saw himself on the shaky video turning towards the guy who had just run out of his building looking really excited. Midoriya stood next to him on his left side with an arm around Zach's back helping him stand. Zach almost grimaced while watching the video because he saw the look on his face, but he kept smiling when he saw himself on the video realize the phone was recording and smoothly start smiling at the citizen. His legs had just felt like they were crushed and un-crushed slowly by a massive hand, but he had tried hard to stop them from shaking while facing the man behind the camera.

"Yes. That was one of the reasons I went to Bikergang's agency. With the driving skills I learned over my internship, I will be able to get to the scene before my time limit runs out, which I had often been unable to do before." The boy helping him stand on the screen turned towards him with wide eyes for a second, then Zach turned his way too and said something in a quieter voice that his green-haired friend nodded along to.

Zach turned his phone off and placed it down next to his pillow. He smiled and dropped his arms down to his sides again. He was tired, and though it was early, he was fine going to sleep feeling like he was. He didn't even turn on Nightmare, though the thought crossed his mind for a second. He just closed his eyes…

 **THUD!**

 _What the Hell was that?!_ Zach sprinted towards his door and ran outside.

"You bastard!"

Zach spun his head to the left after running out his door, and Kaminari was sprinting towards him with a furious look on his face. "Wait- what is-" Kaminari grabbed Zach by the front of his shirt and threw him backwards. Zach fell to the floor and skid back on his butt, and he turned his head and looked around to see his other classmates looking towards him with looks of regret, sadness, and a lot of anger. No one looked angrier than Kaminari though who ran at him and tried kicking him in the face.

Zach rolled to the side and scrambled up with a panicked look on his face. "What's happening?! Kaminari!"

"They killed her!" Kaminari yelled at him. "Jirou! And you know why?"

 _No._

"It's because I was friends with you! I- I should never have-"

"Sazaki, you're expelled. We can't have the other students in danger…"

"Zach? You're back?"

"Did they shut down the dorm system?"

Zach shook his head at the two in front of him. "It's not that," Zach began, his voice soft and his eyes pointed down at the ground. The adults in front of him made confused and interested hums, and Zach lifted his eyes to look them in the eyes as he said what really happened. When he looked up though, the man on his right had a hole in his chest, and the woman next to him was covered head to feet in burns. Zach stumbled back but bumped into something that he spun to see. "Jenny!" Zach shouted, as the girl behind him was looking past him with horrified eyes. "Don't look," Zach said, throwing his left arm in front of her face and holding it on her back. He covered her eyes and clenched his own so tightly at what he had just seen behind him. "Don't look Jenny. It'll be… it'll be," Zach trailed off, because he was remembering something that made his entire body shake.

Zach pulled away from the girl he was holding. "Toga," Zach hissed, and he shoved her away before bringing both hands up to his head. "No, NO! Jenny! DAMN IT!" Zach's body covered in Nightmare as he marched forward to the girl getting up off her butt from when Zach pushed her. Her eyes filled with terror while looking him up and down, and Zach froze because of how convincing it was.

"Are you, going to kill me?" The girl with red hair asked. "Again?" She whispered, and Zach gasped out black steam while taking a step back. The short girl with long red hair in front of him looked older for a moment, the face of his mother flashing over her own so both of them were staring at him.

"This can't be-"

"Why did you come back?!" Kaminari's voice shouted behind him, and Zach spun his head to the side. He looked behind him and saw Kaminari, with Momo and Kirishima on his sides. Yaoyorozu pulled her head back with pursed lips as she stared at him, like she wanted to say something but couldn't because it was too horrible. Kirishima was shaking in anger, his fists clenched so hard, and then Zach spotted All Might far behind them laying slumped against a wall with Midoriya and Bakugo in front of him crying in grief. Then both of them turned his way, the same time Kaminari took another step towards him and yelled, "I trusted you! They killed her, because I got close to-"

 **Bang bang bang Budududud brr-r-rrr!** Kaminari stumbled back with three holes ripping through his shirt, blood splashing out behind him. Kirishima and Yaoyorozu started looking in at him, only for machine guns to riddle them and sent them sprawling too. Zach spun his head to the right where he saw a group of people running his way, holding up smoking guns and pointing at him without caring about the people they had just killed.

"F-f-FUCK YOU!" Zach screamed, and he rose his arms and created huge spheres of blackness bigger than his own body. He threw them towards the villains, all of them people he recognized. He threw the first, then he hesitated at the eyes of a man with spiky black hair who looked straight into his. Zach screamed and he threw the second one before spinning and running towards where his friends were.

Zach dropped over Kaminari's body, though he looked towards Kirishima with a terrified look on his face. _I, I can't. Why didn't you… why didn't you harden? You should have-_ Zach's eyes were starting to widen as that did not make much sense to him, but then he looked back at Kaminari because he was not feeling any pain. Zach had his right hand down on Kaminari's body, but he was not coming back either. It did not make sense like with Kirishima, but this had him much more panicked than questioning why it was.

"Bone bullets," a voice said behind him. It was a voice that sent chills down his spin, and Zach turned his head to see Shigaraki Tomura standing only a few feet behind him. The man was smirking at him without any hands attached to his body. His face was uncovered, his lips cracked and twisted in a horrifyingly taunting way. "Specially made, so you can't bring them back."

"No!" Zach yelled, and he looked back at Kaminari and then at Momo and Kirishima too. He scrambled over to Yaoyorozu's side and reached down to try and pull the bullets out with his bare darkness-spilling hands. His eyes widened though as he started digging into her body with his hands, because he remembered seeing the blood splash out of Kaminari's back. That meant that the bone bullets had gone fully through him and were not stuck inside, yet he could not bring him back anyway. "No, no no no! Momo! MOMO!" Zach put his whole body over her and tried flooding in the darkness of his Nightmare form, but he was feeling no response. He turned Nightmare off and pressed his hand into her as hard as he could, and his head snapped back to look at Kaminari, and then he looked around desperately for someone to help him while he saved them. Midoriya and Bakugo were gone though, no one was there to help him. It was just him and Shigaraki, in the middle of a city street.

 _How far from my old apartment is this- wait, I was at school-_ "They won't be coming back," Shigaraki said, and Zach spun his head to the villain who stopped smirking at him and rose a hand instead. "And neither will you!"

Zach fell backwards and pushed away with his hands down on his sides. He pushed back, and then bumped into the bodies of his friends. And behind Shigaraki he saw Jenny look towards him from where she was standing on the street again, and her parents with their fatal wounds, and he saw Jirou laying on the ground with blood pooling around her. Shigaraki reached down and put his hand on Zach's chest as the boy pushed back against the stack of bodies piling up behind him. Shigaraki's hand ripped through his shirt and then his chest- "AHHHH!

"AHH-" Zach shot up and snapped his eyes open huge. He stared forward through a red veil, panting out black steam and feeling his chest heaving. Zach reached his right hand up and he slid his fingers out of his glove, touching his chest with his bare fingertips. "What the, hell?" Zach muttered, and he fell back on his pillow while still panting like crazy. The black aura around him faded off, and Zach stared up at his ceiling with wide eyes as the red tint left his vision. "Ah haa ah hah, ahh," Zach brought his left hand to his face and wiped it down from his sweaty forehead over his eyes and to his chin. He shook his head around and kept panting for a few more seconds, then he rolled on his side and picked up his phone to check the time.

"Three thirty?" Zach mumbled, and he rolled back on his back and spread his arms to the sides. "Sorry Sato," Zach muttered, a grim and dreading look on his face. _Why the… I wasn't in Nightmare when I went to bed. I left my glove on even, but I guess I pressed it into my chest or head while I was sleeping. Can't control muscle movements in my sleep. Does that mean, I'd never be able to sleep with… Or even next to- Just- gah!_ Zach's cheeks went red even as he was trying to be serious, and he started smiling for a second at what he was starting to think about. _That dream,_ Zach thought, his smile disappearing. The memory of his dream was fresh in his mind, though some parts seemed to be fading since he recalled just appearing in different places and situations scattered throughout it.

Zach sat up and he put his legs off the side of his bed. He brought his hands up to his forehead and pressed it down into them. _That wasn't too rough._ He shook his head in his hands and lowered them, forcing a smile on his face and sitting up straight. _I was in such a good mood when I went to bed though. Wish it could've stopped them. And, I wish dream me actually stood up to Shigaraki instead of just, just dying like that? I guess that's what woke me up._ Zach glanced back at his pillow, then his phone next to it, but he sighed and rubbed his forehead with his left hand again. _Might be able to get back to sleep, but I went to bed pretty early from the exhaustion anyway. I have all the sleep I need, especially if a nightmare like that is what's waiting for me…_

Zach stood up and took a step away from his bed, took a deep breath, and then he crossed his dark room to his dresser that he could see now that his eyes had adjusted a bit. Zach glanced at his blender and the tub of protein powder next to it, but he shook his head while reaching to his dresser drawers. _Have to wait until at least around breakfast to make a post-workout shake, but it won't be worth it if my workout was already so long back… Unless I just work out until then? Why not?_

He grabbed a power bar off of the top of his dresser and unwrapped it. Zach chowed down on the bar full of protein and fiber and nutrients, and he washed it down with water from a water bottle he had a 24 pack of on the floor next to his dresser. It was the same pack he had bought months ago, as he would just go refill the bottles with the clean U.A. tap water when they were all finished once a week. Zach got changed into a tank top and gym shorts, but then he put on a sweatshirt and a pair of sweatpants on over them. _Hell, if it's going to be this long of a workout, I might as well get in an hour run to start it off._

* * *

On Tuesday early afternoon, Zach was walking back towards Class 2-B with a couple of girls who were looking in at him with eyebrows lifted at his response. The pink girl on his right side had just mentioned how he seemed pretty quiet at lunch, and his girlfriend on his left side asked him if he was feeling tired. He had responded by mentioning his early morning run and workout, which he had not thought about hard enough back when he decided to start them. _I was exhausted the night before, but that nightmare made me feel so awake. I didn't realize I was actually still pretty wiped from it- it was just one person! It shouldn't have gotten me like… Well, he was pretty fucked up._

"You knew we had that intense hero training with All Might and Ectoplasm sensei this morning," Ashido started. "Why were you pushing yourself so much?"

"I actually, forgot about that," Zach admitted with a bead of sweat rolling down the right side of his face. He shook his head and then turned right to the girl who he realized during this walk back he really had not talked to very much at lunch despite them sitting close to each other. "But Mina, you said that Rainbow Sparkles wants to have you for the internship, right? Congrats."

Ashido rolled her eyes as she had said this already, but she repeated anyway, "She said she's fine with a weekly one, but not for the whole summer like we talked about yesterday."

"Still cool though," Zach said, and Ashido smiled back and agreed.

"Have you thought any more on what you will be doing, Zach?" Yaoyorozu questioned from Zach's other side.

He glanced in at her, and his immediate first thought was, _Oh shit! Should I stop calling Ashido 'Mina?' It's just become so second-nature. Wait, Momo wouldn't care about that. She knows I would never- right? Yeah. I think she isn't like that. Or… Well wouldn't it be weirder if I stopped? Or maybe… What was the question?!_ "Oh, yeah," Zach replied, nodding to the tall girl who had a perplexed look on her face wondering what Zach was just thinking about. "I decided to call up some of the agencies I was really interested in when going through the list. The ones I was most disappointed weren't in-" Zach paused, and his eyes widened for a second. _SHIT! Can't finish with "Hokkaido." That would raise the question of why it had to be there. I want to check out the ones that never made the tournament thing I made._ "Well, I was disappointed I could only pick one of all those thousands of offers I got. So," Zach put his hands back behind his head while saying it in a mock-smug voice that was really just joking around.

Yaoyorozu could see it on his face that he was joking, while Mina behind him humphed and crossed her arms in a frustrated way over her chest. Zach turned to her in surprise that she did not hear the joking tone, but he smiled as her humph seemed faked too. "Well I'll totally get thousands more next year too," Ashido said. "Besides, I bet you didn't get an offer from Rainbow Sparkles like I did."

 _Nope, I did. But…_ Zach put his left hand up to his chin and scratched for a second, "She probably only takes female sidekicks-"

"Not true!" Ashido called out excitedly. "Haha! Take that you top tier!"

Zach lifted his eyebrows and let out a small laugh only to raise them higher as she seemed serious about that. _"Top tier?" What does that- I mean, I've used it to describe people before… Well, I told Gentle Criminal I considered him "top tier." And Edgeshot was… Am I? I, I guess if I look at it from the outside in, objectively, I am. The things I'm trying to do. The things I've already done. The fact that I consider myself a symbol whenever the camera is on me, that I feel the pressure- whoa. No one's ever called me "top tier" before._ Zach started smiling more smugly but actually serious about it this time. "Ah! Don't let it get to your head!" Ashido could see Zach getting a big head even as she tried teasing him right there.

"Didn't know you thought I was so 'top tier,'" Zach said, turning to Momo and giving her a smile as he went back to a teasing tone himself.

Momo put a hand sideways in front of her mouth and giggled into her index finger and thumb, then she lowered it and said to try and get them more on-track, "So, did you decide on anyone in particular? Or is it still a list?"

"Just, a list really," Zach said. He scratched the back of his head again and then continued, "The night I picked Bikergang I was up the whole night, spent hours and hours… I'm not looking forward to narrowing it down again."

"You should still have it narrowed pretty well from the first time though, correct?" Yaoyorozu asked him.

 _Not really. I skimmed through the first time if they weren't in Hokkaido. There are still thousands on there I haven't really looked into at all. A lot that I was interested in but didn't want to waste time…_ "Yeah, so it shouldn't be too hard," Zach said, deciding not to bother them with those details and making it sound like a problem. _I'll deal with it pretty quickly, once I take the time out to do it._ "I really need to get to it though," Zach said aloud, and he got a more thoughtful look on his face. "Could really use some money. Kind of want to get a mini-fridge in my room."

"How much does one cost?" Ashido asked.

They were nearing their classroom, and they turned the corner into their hallway so the sign outside their door was just up ahead. Zach glanced at the pink girl on his right and replied as they walked back to class, "More than I have."

"Which is how much?" Ashido asked.

Zach lifted his right hand and started counting on his fingers covered in the thin black material of his glove. He rose one, two, three fingers, then he held up his hand with his index finger and thumb touching to make a circle. "This much," Zach said. "I'm broke," he admitted.

"Couldn't you," Yaoyorozu began. Zach turned to her and started shaking her head, but she frowned and then continued anyway, "If it is for a fridge, then does that not constitute food?"

"What are you talking about?" Ashido asked, as the other two seemed to be excluding her from the conversation with whatever they were talking about.

Zach sighed and then glanced back at Mina for a second, "Momo's talking about my Aunt Maye." Ashido's eyes widened for a second and darted back to Yaoyorozu who started frowning softer at Zach's back as he brought his aunt up himself. "I still use her money sometimes, even though I cut off ties with her and my cousin Tsura." Ashido's eyes widened more, and Zach just continued casually as if he were talking about class or internships or lunch. "It's not really fair-"

"Why'd you-" Ashido began, but she stopped herself. Then she said in a softer voice, "Is it because of what she said at your trial?"

"Kind of, but I pretty much forgave her for that," Zach replied. "I also just don't want to drag them into my life." _What's the way to make it sound like I care the least about them? I really don't, but I also have to make it sound like I'm not just saying it to protect them. Yet if I don't say it at least kind of like that, it'll seem like I'm lying._ "So the quicker I get my own money and can fully cut off ties, the better-"

"Zach, you don't need to worry about that," Yaoyorozu began quietly. The girls stopped walking even though the door to the classroom was right in front of them, and Zach got a bead of sweat on the side of his face that they were trying to have a conversation about this.

"You can reconnect with your family," Ashido started too. She thought about all the things that had happened to him that would make Zach against getting close to people, since he did not seem to hate them like she thought he might.

Zach just shook his head once though and turned back to the two of them. "It's fine. It's been a while since I cut things off now, that I don't really want to get back in touch with them. We weren't all that close in the first place. And besides, it's not like I don't have people I'm close to anyway." Zach smiled at them while hinting at something obvious that made the two smile right back at him. "But yeah, so I need money," Zach said while turning to the door and walking up to it. "You talk to Ballerclava again, Momo?" Zach asked while glancing back at the tall girl heading up behind him.

"Yes," Yaoyorozu began, allowing Zach to change the subject as she saw he was doing. "Though, I am not, doing it for money reasons-"

"Obviously," Zach and Ashido said at the same time, making Yaoyorozu's cheeks go a little red. Then Ashido added, "I saw you and her on the news during my internship, and they kept talking about how cute you were! It isn't fair. Ever since you and Kendo were in that commercial you two are like the 'beauty pair' of U.A. You know pink is in right now? It's true!"

"I have not heard them call us a 'beauty pair,' or anything of the sort," Yaoyorozu started hesitantly, though she thought about something Kendo had told her once that sounded pretty similar to what Ashido just mentioned.

"But you are cute," Zach added as Yaoyorozu tried to counter Ashido. Zach said it while they were walking back towards their seats, and then his eyes widened a bit as he saw Kirishima and Sero turn their heads towards him at the same time. He did not whisper it and they were just having a casual conversation that usually would not draw attention from others, but apparently others had caught him say that almost like they were looking out to hear it.

Ashido's disappointment at her lack of media appreciation vanished in an instant as she brought her hands up in front of her chest in glee. Kirishima grinned and Sero put a hand over his mouth to try and hold back the laughter as he saw Zach look towards the two of them with an expression of dread on his face. Yaoyorozu coughed into her hand once to wipe the smile from her face as she saw Ashido looking at her with a look of pure glee and excitement at what she just heard. "Ah, thank you," Yaoyorozu said, before turning and heading back to her seat to avoid drawing more attention up towards them.

Ashido ran after Yaoyorozu, while Zach felt way too awkward to just head back to his seat or to follow after them. Instead he walked over to Sero and Kirishima who would not stop smirking at him. "Shut up," Zach said while leaning down on the desk next to Kirishima's seat.

"I didn't say anything," Sero said as Zach said it while looking at him. "But, 'oh Momo, you are so cu-'" Zach's eyes narrowed and his expression got seriously dark, and Sero closed his mouth and got wide eyes. As Sero got that look on his face though, Kirishima just smirked more and started laughing at how quick Zach got him to shut up. Zach grinned as Kirishima laughed with that, as he was a bit worried he made himself look too angry all of a sudden. Sero got a bead of sweat on the side of his face and then laughed nervously for a second, before muttering, "Man you can be scary even without red eyes."

"Don't need 'em for you at least," Zach teased, making Sero frown again while Kirishima laughed again.

"I thought it was manly," Kirishima said, cutting in back on Zach who sweatdropped again as they had not dropped it to start messing with Sero instead like he wanted. Sero grinned again too and was not going to get dissuaded this time by a scary look. As much as he wanted to make fun of Zach for it though, Kirishima added, "Making your girlfriend smile without caring how you look, even if you look like-" Kirishima cracked a bigger grin while Sero's smile covered half of his face. Sero had thought for a second that it would be difficult to make it embarrassing for Zach with Kirishima building him up, but Zach did get an embarrassed look on his face as Kirishima's compliment turned into a tease midway through.

 _My girlfriend?_ Zach thought, completely different from what the other two thought he was getting embarrassed about. _I haven't, did I- We are, right? Mineta asked it but we were saved by Kaminari spilling about him and Jirou. I kind of wish, he hadn't though. Yeah it was awkward, but if I had just said yes quicker there… It is yes! Isn't, it? Oh man… Of course it is. I think._

* * *

"Um, so Momo?" Zach began, while the two of them sat together on the foot of her bed. He was nervous and he gulped while looking at the girl next to him who was also internally freaking out at the moment. "I was wondering, how I can answer when people ask if we're dating, without lying, unless I take you on a date first." Yaoyorozu's eyes shot open wide and Zach opened his mouth to continue fast, but she responded before he could.

"I'd love to-" Momo replied, before cutting herself off as she thought she may sound too eager. She sat up straighter, feeling less nervous than she had when the two of them were sitting together on her bed without any clear sign of where this was going…

"That's great," Zach whispered in a huge amount of relief. He lifted his gaze to her face again after sighing, and he smiled at the girl who smiled back at him. _She's waiting. Oh my God she's waiting for what the date is?! I didn't think this far ahead!_ "I'll, um, I'll uh let you know, what I was planning- later. 'Cause it's a surprise right now," Zach explained.

Yaoyorozu continued to smile and pretended not to notice Zach's lack of a plan. "That sounds interesting," Momo said, then she got nervous herself. _I hope that does not put too much pressure on him to make it interesting-_

 _"Interesting?!" Oh crap! Why didn't I just come up with something right there? Like a movie, or a dinner…_ Zach tried his best not to gulp and he stood up quickly instead. _A movie or dinner? Maybe both? Are those interesting, enough… Wait._ Zach turned back and said he actually had some stuff to do, and Yaoyorozu agreed that she had some studying she wanted to get done as well. He paused before leaving her room for just a second, thinking about a better way of leaving her room. He just got more red in the face and left before he could though. _It's not the time. Besides, if we kissed right now- I want to. But! She'd know, something. She'd know I'm thinking about what's wrong. It's more than just the money problem, and what I need to buy with that money. I, can't go out with Momo. Not off campus. Not until, I fix a mistake._

* * *

Zach patted his pocket where he had a buzzer from the school's main office. _Have fifty five minutes or so. Shouldn't need more than ten to get this done, then I can still get to the library and do what I said I needed to do. Should run there too, and pick up some more power bars just in case they know I didn't get there right away, that way I'll have an excuse for that too._ Zach paused where he was on the sidewalk and bent down as if to tie his shoelaces. Bending down like that gave him a good view behind him, and he stood up straight after the quick check before darting to his left and into an alleyway.

Zach walked down the alley, and he spotted a thinner alleyway cutting off of it that he knew was around here. Zach walked right up to the narrower alley and into it, and then he frowned since there was no one in front of him. "Hey," Zach called out. He did not hide his voice very much, even though he was not wearing a hoodie or hat or anything to hide his appearance. _It's too hot. Would have drawn attention. Nobody should be looking out their side windows down here though, and as long as I don't lift my head it shouldn't-_ Zach rose his head despite what he was just thinking, and his eyes widened as he spotted something dropping down towards him from the roof on the left side of this alley.

The girl dropping down from the roof landed in front of Zach and lowered her right arm that had a grappling gun at the end of it. Zach stared at that grappling gun, his eyes narrowing for a second as he tried to make out what it looked like. _So that's her Quirk,_ Zach thought, as the girl's grappling gun was disappearing. It was not that she was holding it in her hand, but her hand had actually turned into one since he could see the gun losing color and fingers pulling away from each other. He turned his gaze back to the girl's, looking into her bright green eyes and keeping a frown on his face as he stared at her. "So," Zach began.

"I'm so glad you came looking for me," she said, like she was unable to hold it back anymore.

She had landed a fair distance from Zach, and Zach realized it was similar to him because it looked to be the exact same distance they had stood apart from each other in their last talk. He decided to keep that distance for now. "Yeah," Zach said, and he grimaced as that was not a great response. _I'm still not really ready for this. How do I deal with someone like this? She was up on the roof. Is that where she's been living, or is she just following me from rooftops now because I spotted her when she followed from the streets? I need to keep my gaze lifted up and down while I walk around for now on. I thought I had been doing that, but maybe having this stalker will be good for practicing knowing when I'm being followed._

"I need you to…" Zach started, but he stopped himself again and frowned at the look in the girl's eyes. _It hasn't changed. I thought, maybe a bit of time away after denying her like I did, maybe it would fade. She's still enamored though. What do I do about this? How do I handle this?! I can't have this!_

"What's your name?" Zach asked. _Start off slow. Figure out more about her, and then-_

"Whatever you want it to be," she replied, and Zach sweatdropped while suppressing a groan.

"That's not," Zach began, but he sighed and rubbed his forehead in frustration instead of continuing. _I couldn't find any news reports on it. They had become common at that point that maybe it wasn't a big deal, especially with villains doing so much around that time… Though maybe it was the nature of how she died, which is why they didn't make a news story about it. Why they wouldn't release her name._ "What about your family?" Zach asked.

"I don't have any," she replied, and Zach felt a pang in his chest. He knew what that felt like, and it made it even harder for him to just deal with this girl as if she was crazy. "I don't _need_ any," she added, and she closed her eyes halfway, bit down on her bottom lip, and looked towards Zach seductively. She took a step forward but Zach took a step back and gave her a harsher look that made her lose that expression and just look scared instead.

 _I'm, not as afraid of this girl, as I was last time. I still don't know how to deal with her,_ Zach lost his harsher look because she was the one who looked afraid now, afraid of the way he felt about her. _I saved her life. No, I brought her back to life. There's a difference. How do I save her? Do I let the police deal… I'm the only one she thinks cares about her. Going to the police, she's around my age, so they wouldn't just find her a new home or family or… would they? Unless, the thing about her family is a lie. What if she killed herself, because she was in a bad situation she was trying to escape? The police could send her back to that, to her parents who may have reported her missing… I don't know! I still, don't have a good answer! But, but as much as I sympathize with you,_ Zach narrowed his eyes at the girl in front of him in a serious way. "I need to understand you," Zach said.

The girl's eyes lit up, and then they shot open wide because Zach continued, "Because I have a girlfriend." He looked into her eyes, searching for what he imagined Toga would look like if someone she liked had just told her that. He tried to see a look of crazed affection that would go too far, or something that would set off alarms in his head that would allow him to call the cops on her easier. _Is she crazy enough, that I have to be afraid for Momo? If she is, then I'm going to arrest her. Even if, that might be selfish and I want to think of a better way…_ Zach frowned more as the girl in front of him did not respond. "Well? I want to know, how does that make you feel?"

"Well," the girl began, and she twirled her right foot on the floor and looked down at it nervously. "I'm sure she doesn't love you like I do. You'll realize that someday."

 _That's, not reassuring._ Zach did not know how to respond to that. He rubbed his head, and he muttered, "I don't understand you. I, I do care about you," Zach lowered his hand and looked softly at the girl who smiled so brightly back at him. "But you can't- you can't just live like this. I, want to help you."

"You've already-"

"No, I haven't," Zach said, which only made the girl's face brighten way more. He grimaced though at that look and decided to try going on anyway, "I don't have money to help you with, though you've been surviving on your own well enough from the looks of it. But even so I could still-"

"I have money if you want it?" The girl offered, and her eyes opened wide as Zach's did from her offer. "Really!" She exclaimed.

"How?" Zach asked, feeling nervous about what he was about to hear.

"I stole it," the girl started, and Zach felt a pit in his chest. That pit slowly faded though as the brown-haired girl continued, "From my evil stepmother who kicked me out when my, dad died." Zach's eyebrows lifted up and he got a confused look on his face, and the girl who immediately replied to his question continued as she saw his interest and want for her to keep going. "She took all my dad's money, before all my cards were cancelled but after I killed myself. I took out a lot of cash afterwards which made her cancel the cards, and I put the money in stuff so I wouldn't have to carry the cash on me and so it'd rise and make me more to keep up this lifestyle of mine-"

"'Put money in?'" Zach questioned the odd wording of one of her last sentence.

"Stocks and stuff," the teenage girl replied.

Zach nodded once like he understood. _Maybe… I, feel like she's less insane than I thought. She's smart at least, it sounds like. I didn't know how she could be living out here like this, and I don't know if I'd consider it stealing if it was from her own dad's money. Maybe, she's…_

 _Wow he is so hot. That face, those scars, I wish I could see his whole body right now. Where are the rest of the scars? Are there more than I know of? How does he look riding a motorcycle? I want to ride on his motorcycle, and ride on him!_ The girl in front of Zach started getting red in the face and panting while Zach looked at her, and he got a bead of sweat on the side of his face wondering what she was thinking of. Her expression made him question again how sane he was just starting to think she was.

"I think," Zach started. He took a step back and the girl in front of him got a depressed look on her face, but she did not step after him. _She's just going to let me walk away again._ "I still don't know, what to do. But don't come near me if I'm out with-"

"I'll keep protecting you," the girl cut in, then she pursed her lips with a scared look in her eyes like she was afraid she had done something super wrong by cutting off her true love. Then she continued quickly before he could get mad, "But I would never let anyone else know I'm following you, or they might try to stop me!"

Zach felt himself get even more hesitant as he was about to leave. He just gave a small half-nod though before turning away, as he did not want to see what her reaction to that would be. _Would those people be right to do so? Stop you? Even you know they would try, because it's clear that's the right option, right? Or, is it just because those people care more about the law than actually helping people like you? People like you, are ones who aren't really bad but who can't fit in to this society. Crazy people, but not bad people. How can I help you? How do I make you normal? Is that really- yeah, yeah I definitely need to do that. Maybe not completely normal, but just get you to stop stalking people- me. If I could get you to just be a big fan, maybe? Or, or, OR?! I'm not a fucking psychiatrist! But, even Softy said there are things where she'd have to report me… Though, it's not like I wasn't considering it right there either._

Zach walked out of the alley at the same spot he came in on and just turned the direction of the library. He walked for a bit and then started jogging as the conversation had taken some of the hour he had away from U.A. that afternoon. _How do I do right by you?_ Zach shook his head and took in a deep breath. _I don't know. So I'll save it for next time. You don't seem crazy enough to attack me, or my friends. It's like you know that I'd never accept you if you did that. And I wouldn't, you're right. I almost wish you were that crazy though… no, don't think like that, just because it would be easier to handle. This is a complex problem, with a complex solution that I'll have to figure out on my own._

 _As for my monetary problem though,_ Zach thought, slowing down his run and looking across the street at a shop selling something he absolutely _needed._ He bit down while glancing at an ATM next to it, then he sighed and shook his head. _It's too important._

* * *

Zach looked longingly up ahead towards a group of four girls and he sighed which made the blond next to him roll his eyes. "Geez, you two've been walking to and from the dorms every day. Give it a rest," Kaminari said. Zach glanced in skeptically at his best friend who shrugged with a grin, "Yeah yeah, I know I've been doing it too. But girls gotta have girl time and we can't start spending all our time around them either. It'll make us look like wusses."

 _I wouldn't mind that, if it meant… Oh, maybe I am turning into a wuss._ Zach sweatdropped at what he had almost just thought in a completely serious way. _I wouldn't mind though. I really wouldn't. Every second I spend with her- gah! Sports. Cars. Motorcycles! Riding my motorcycle, with Momo, and her hands around my sides. I bought that second helmet I needed so that she could ride with me. Now I just have to wait until our date-_

"Oh man, you are whipped," Kaminari said with a shake of his head, and Zach spun back to him with wide eyes as he had flown off track in his own head for a minute there which his friend apparently noticed.

Zach lifted a hand and scratched the left side of his face next to his eye a couple of times sheepishly. "Yeah, maybe," he admitted. Kaminari laughed as Zach did not even try to deny it. The two of them walked outside and there were a lot of others walking around them as school had just ended. As soon as they were out the doors though, the two of them stopped and glanced around with risen eyebrows at the atmosphere outside of the school. The girls were seemingly ignoring it and heading on ahead, but there were Class 2-A and Class 2-B students all over the place just outside of the school building.

The two who just walked out started heading forward towards where Tokoyami was talking to a good friend of theirs. The two boys who looked pitch black turned to Zach and Kaminari, and Zach moved his head to the side a bit too to see who that other spiky-haired person was next to Kuroiro who he recognized. _He's bulking up,_ Zach noticed as he walked over. _Guess being in the hero course does that, though maybe he's working extra hard considering all the time he missed._

"What's up?" Kaminari asked, since the others looked pretty intense as they were heading over. He did not usually see that intense a look on Kuroiro's face, and it went down a bit as the two others from Class A walked over.

"You guys talking about the joint training?" Zach wondered, and Tokoyami nodded.

The black boy with the Quirk Dark Shadow glanced back at Kuroiro and said, "It will be a dark moon that rises on Class B the night of that training."

"Class A will be the ones staring into the abyss," Kuroiro countered, and he turned around and started away while Zach lowered his bottom lip a bit and gawked at him.

"Guess they heard about it too," Kaminari said, putting together why Zach asked when he came over and the responses from Kuroiro and Tokoyami.

"Vlad King sensei told us right before the end of class," Shinso said. He glanced at Zach and Zach back at him, and Shinso added before turning to walk after Kuroiro, "I hope to see you there."

While Shinso was turning, Zach nodded his head with an intense look back at him. Shinso hummed to himself while heading away, as Zach did not even respond to that challenge as if avoiding getting brainwashed early on. Zach grinned after Shinso's back was turned, hoping he had gotten the spiky-indigo-haired boy nervous which could work well for him next week.

When Zach turned to ask Tokoyami about that 'dark moon' stuff, he looked past Tokoyami who was already looking over his own shoulder. There were some other Class A and B students around out there, ones who were starting to get louder and had garnered the attention of others outside of their own classes. "Well, I mean, who didn't expect that?" Kaminari started with a sweatdrop while looking over towards the blond in Class B who was leaning forward and making taunts at an increasingly angry Kirishima.

Zach started walking over, and he glanced around that area to see Tetsutetsu also looking competitive but not as blatantly contemptuous. Koda was backing away from near Kirishima who had looked to him for help in taunting Class B back, and that just encouraged Monoma more who said that even Kirishima's own classmates knew they were going to lose. Koda's eyes opened wider at that and he started shaking his head fast as that was not what he meant at all while he backed away with his palms held up.

Zach started jogging over as it seemed like Kirishima might just start fighting in a second from the way his fists were clenched. Then someone else ran by Zach and he felt some relief, for a split second, only for it to vanish as Sato called out to Monoma, "And how many from Class B made it into the finals of the Sports Festival?"

A tick mark appeared on Tetsutetsu's face as that was still a sore spot, and he yelled at Sato asking where he was in the finals. Kirishima mentioned that he was, and Monoma leaned back with a smug look on his face and said, "By luck alone-"

"Hey guys," Zach started as he jogged up between the groups. "Can't we just settle this during the training?" He glanced around at the others like he was stating something really obvious right there. "Whoever wins is the better class," Zach said, lowering his arms he had risen to just get the others to cool down. Kaminari jogged up after him, and Tokoyami was still behind him looking over too. Tetsutetsu frowned but humphed and crossed his arms.

Monoma frowned at Zach too, but then he sighed and shrugged his shoulders. He held up his palms like there was nothing else to do, then he opened his mouth to make a taunt at the Class A who just cut off their competitive banter. He wanted to say that Zach was just ending it there because Class B was clearly winning the debate, but he stopped and lowered his hands instead while looking back into Zach's eyes. "Fine," Monoma said, turning and walking off which made Tetsutetsu turn and walk with him. Monoma glanced back over his right shoulder after a second though and said, "You know the physicals are the day after the training. We'll be sure not to mess you up too much before them."

"I won't make that same promise," Tetsutetsu added loudly, and Monoma grinned towards his classmate with a look that said 'nice addition!'

"Oooh," Kirishima clenched his fists and they hardened way more than his normal Hardening. "Now, we can't lose," he said. The redhead looked at Zach with that serious look on his face, "You made it so we can't-"

"We weren't going to anyway," Zach replied before Kirishima finished. "Right?" He asked, and Kirishima's angry look vanished with a big smirk that was just as competitive replacing it instead. He started laughing and agreed with a loud shout to make sure those Class B's heading off heard his confidence. Zach glanced towards Koda and asked again, "Right?" Koda smiled and nodded fast too which Kirishima saw and smirked at, and Koda looked happy Kirishima did not think he thought they were going to lose.

Monoma sighed while walking off with Tetsutetsu who turned over his shoulder and shouted back at Kirishima in the distance after hearing his yell. The two of them started a shouting match, while a small frown formed on Monoma's face. _Why didn't I insult Zach? Zach? He did say not to call him Sazaki, but are we really on a first-name basis… No, that's not the reason I didn't taunt him. That Class-A…_ Monoma sighed again and then lifted his eyes up to the sky, his arms shaking for a second so he had to clench his fists and make them stop. _Thinking about the pain, of bringing those people back. The nine people I saved. Each one was so horrible. And that feeling, when I finally asked about it, he said it was the same feeling as when he died himself. And yet, I saw the report just the other day that you went and saved… And the picture I saw of that guy before you brought him back, it was horrible. Worse than any I saved. Even just what I did, I still feel it sometimes. I still remember those, worst pains of my entire life._

* * *

"Could you give me some advice?"

Ojiro got a hesitant look on his face and scratched the back of his head at the question. "Um, what about?" Ojiro asked.

Zach got just as hesitant a look on his face as this was such a weird thing to ask. "Well," Zach started. "I'm just, nervous about dating for the first time," Zach said. Ojiro got a sweatdrop on the side of his face but nodded since he could see Zach had trouble bringing it up in the first place. Zach could see Ojiro was trying to humor him at least, and he was appreciative about it but continued quick so they could both get out of this fast. "Because I think I've already made so many mistakes and I just don't know what I'm supposed to do."

"And, you want to ask me…"

"Because you and Hagakure," Zach started to reply. "I mean, you've been going out for months now, like half a year even."

Ojiro started nodding, and with a soft smile forming on his face he said, "Almost."

 _See! You even know when exactly you guys started to be able to say that. The exact day even… Not that, I don't remember June third._ "So, any advice? Like, what am I supposed to do?"

"Ummm," Ojiro scratched the back of his head again and then he shrugged which made Zach sweatdrop this time. "I wish I could've done the first month, or couple of months, better myself." Ojiro admitted it with a grimace, and Zach's eyes widened as he did not realize the two of them had been struggling with it.

 _Do people not think I'm struggling?_ Zach thought. _I, I know a few of them think we're great together or so they've said, but I keep messing up! She doesn't even know what we're doing for our date. Should I just tell her- even after telling her it was a surprise? GAH!_ "But really, I guess one thing…" Ojiro leaned back as Zach leaned forward with a super interested look on his face.

"Yeah?" Zach asked hopefully.

"Be careful about commenting on her appearance," Ojiro said. A bead of sweat on the right side of his face slid down and he admitted while looking away, "Even if you think it's a compliment, just be careful."

 _What could you have possibly said about Hagakure's appearance?_ Zach sweatdropped but nodded in appreciation for the advice.

* * *

"…Versus Sazaki, Shoji, Koda, Asui, and Hagakure."

Zach looked away from Vlad King, All Might, and Mother Russia who were standing in front of the two second-year hero classes. He glanced around at his classmates who were just called out with him for the second round of competitive rescue training between Class A and Class B. It was more of an obstacle course than anything from what the rest of the classes just witnessed the first teams go through. Saving the hostages just meant fighting some robots at the end along with a single ANT that was guarding them, but the obstacles to get to the final rescue ground were difficult on their own.

 _Tsuyu should be able to get us through the raging river part just fine. Ground Eta changed up a lot though, and we didn't see all of it in the last round. I hope they don't open up different routes for us… but knowing U.A._ Zach was walking for the starting area and joining up with his team, but he glanced over towards the group of Class B students walking over towards their starting line not too far away too. They had all put in earpieces they got from their respective homeroom teachers earlier that were being connected to their teammates now. Zach heard some words of encouragement and cheers telling them to win from his classmates behind him, but he was focused on the opponents looking his way. _Monoma's going to be pretty intense. But still, they only have four Quirks between them with him on their team. Though, what can my Quirk do to help in an obstacle course? Well I have my grappling gun too._

Zach was wearing his white costume with some upgrades on it he added since returning from his internship a week and a half ago. On his waist were a few more knife sheaths now, six in total with four on his right side and two on his left on either side of his white grappling gun. He changed his gun's color to white as well as the steel of his helmet, so now his entire costume looked white from head to toe. He had run out of knives during the Trigger lab raid, had to make sure he kept careful track of them during the battle and couldn't use them as throwing knives as often as he had wanted. By his final fight in the street he had only had one left and he did not want to get caught in a similar situation again.

After Zach checked out the rest of Monoma's five-man team, Zach turned his head and looked up at the screen for a second and the end of the obstacle course where Class A's first team had beaten Class B's. _Disappointed Shinso isn't on the other team, but he's probably more disappointed he didn't get his rematch._ Zach shook his head and looked down to focus on his teammates who were all gathered up at the gate in front of him, or at least three of them were. Zach thought the fifth member was there too, though he did not realize he did not see her there until he heard her voice behind him, "So how are you and Momo doing?"

Zach nearly jumped and he spun to the girl behind him who was completely see-through except for a pair of gloves on her hands and the shoes on her feet. "Um, not bad," Zach said, and he turned back forward and walked up to the others to try and start talking about the obstacle course. Shoji turned to him and nodded, and Zach nodded back before asking, "What do you guys think? Is it going to be the same path as the last one?"

"We are starting at the same point," Asui began, putting a finger up to her lips. "But you think they may have rearranged the course, Zach-chan?"

"They had the cameras moving to follow the teams, so we don't know what happened to the course behind them," Zach said, though he did not say it too confidently as it was more of a thought he had had than something he believed. _I thought going second was good because we'd get a good idea of the training, but even the final robot battle might change up. Can never be too sure with U.A._

"Only two minutes to prepare young heroes," All Might called out. "The hostages have been reset as have their kidnappers…"

 _Koda doesn't have great mobility. Neither does Shoji, or Hagakure really. Shoji kept up with me at the Sports Festival, but in the terrains in the obstacle course I should be able to move pretty quickly with my grappling gun. Not in the river, but Tsuyu should be able to get us all upstream fast. How many on their team can-_

"Do you guys want to pick a team leader?" Hagakure asked, leaning forward and looking around at the others (not that they could see her looking).

Shoji glanced around and hummed for a second while looking at Zach's thoughtful expression. Zach looked towards Tsuyu though and said, "I think Tsuyu should do it, if anyone."

"Zach-chan," Tsuyu started. She opened her mouth to continue on something, but then she paused and glanced behind her at the closed steel doors blocking off the obstacle course. They did not have the time to argue about it, and Tsuyu continued, "I actually do have an idea." Shoji thought Tsuyu was going to continue with something else there, but he turned fully to her and started listening closely instead as Tsuyu went on with a short but thought-out plan.

 _Nice!_ Zach thought, a smile on his face as he was glad she had a plan.

They had twenty seconds left when they were all ready. They lined up at the door as Tsuyu told them to, with Koda in the middle and Shoji and Tsuyu on the outsides. Zach stood on Koda's left between him and Shoji, and Hagakure was on Koda's right next to Tsuyu. Hagakure leaned forward a bit and looked in at Zach who got a bead of sweat on his face as he could kind of tell she was looking at him from the positioning of her feet and gloves. "I hear you got a pass for the two of you off campus tonight," Hagakure said with what sounded like a huge grin on her face. "I was totally surprised you asked her out you know?"

Zach just let the sweatdrop roll down the side of his face, deciding that not answering was the best move at the time. Shoji and Koda were not the types to jump in and tease him about what Hagakure was saying so he figured the three of them could just keep looking forward awkwardly together. Tsuyu then said, with only seven seconds left in the countdown, "I wasn't surprised." Zach started turning his head to the right, confused and a bit interested though still just looking out the corners of his eyes more than everything. "I thought Zach-chan and Momo-chan were already going out, because of all their late night visits to each other's rooms-"

Zach practically did a spit-take while the other three on the line dropped their jaws and shot their eyes open wide. And the three teachers who had earpieces in connected to both teams' communications also dropped their jaws. "There weren't any-" Zach started denying, only for a loud buzzer to go off and the steel door in front of them to open inwards.

Tsuyu called out, "Let's do it." The shortest girl in Class A hopped forward, and her team ran after her though three of them were now darting shocked looks at Zach whose face was bright red as he started muttering quickly into his earpiece for context.

All Might chuckled to himself after a few seconds of watching the teams run into the obstacle course. He rose a hand and scratched the back of his head through his pushed-back blond hair. _Ah, the innocence of youth. Young Sazaki, I am surprised to hear about you and Young Yaoyorozu. Surprised, and happy._

"The two of them?" Mother Russia muttered, glancing back towards a tall girl in Class A. "He should get better grades then."

Vlad King grunted but focused closer on Class B's students who were moving ahead at the same pace as Class A's despite the latter's distraction. "Beat him, Monoma," Vlad King mumbled at the second team's team leader whose plan the teachers had all heard over their earpieces.

Zach shook his head around and splashed water off to his sides. The course wound up staying the same as it was the round prior, and they made it up the river fast thanks to Tsuyu's plan. She was now resting on Shoji's back after getting them all up through it at once, and they started sprinting through the muddy ground that was deeper in certain sections that were hard to see so their team was forced to trudge through it. Zach pushed through the mud fast and tried predicting where the path would be the most shallow based on what the mud looked like, though he was finding it hard not to split his focus. _Late night visits to each other's rooms? What is she talking about?! I'm not in Momo's room, or her in mine, that often! Like a few times I went over if I needed to talk to her about stuff, or when I asked her- and she came to my room to work on our reports though… Oh man, does everyone on our floor- or did just Tsuyu see it a couple of times? I don't think Tsuyu's the type to talk about that kind of stuff, and she probably didn't say anything about it until right there just talking with Hagakure about-_ Zach's right foot fell into some deep mud and his whole body sank down nearly to his chest.

"Zach," Shoji reached over and an arm extended out towards Zach. Zach grabbed hold with his left and thanked Shoji for getting him out of there. As Shoji placed him on more solid ground up ahead though, Zach darted a look up at the girl on Shoji's back. _Or was she messing with me? No one would ever suspect you to do something like that Tsu, so you could feign innocence and just be smirking internally right now. Oh you sneaky frog!_

* * *

"This is, amazing!"

Zach felt the arms around his sides tighten a bit and the hands held on his front squeeze. The excited voice he heard call out behind him matched the way he was feeling as those soft hands squeezed him. The feeling of flying down the highway was good too, and he had purposely gone slower than usual just on the normal drive across Musutafu so that the difference in speed would surprise the girl on the back of his motorcycle.

Yaoyorozu looked left and right and at the cities split on their sides on the elevated highway they were driving on. Most of Tokyo and the surrounding cities were so close that there were not many trees or nature areas around them, but she looked out in the distance towards the closest trees down the highway and wondered if they were going that way. _Where are we going?_ Yaoyorozu wanted to ask, but he had apparently gotten into the secret idea when she accepted at first that he just had not had a date planned out yet. She smiled behind the dark visor of her red helmet, and she loosened her arms around Zach's sides but continued to hold onto his front so she would not fall off.

The bright smile on Yaoyorozu's face got combined with a couple of red blushes on her cheeks as she thought back to Zach handing her the helmet. She had asked him if he had brought a second one since she did not remember seeing it when he first arrived, and Zach had replied, _"For you."_ Momo's cheeks stayed red as she thought back on it again. Even though she knew Zach's money situation and how it was not really his cash that he had spent, it actually made it sweeter in her eyes because she knew how reluctant he was to use that money. _But for me he'd-_ The tall girl on the back of the motorcycle turned her head to the right as they changed lanes, and she looked at the exit sign showing they were getting off to go to Navu City.

"What's in Navu?" Yaoyorozu asked, leaning forward and speaking towards the side of Zach's helmet. They were slowing down at the same time, so her leaning forward and calling out for over the wind turned out to be unnecessary so she sounded like she was screaming for no reason.

Yaoyorozu's face turned bright red as she still did not know even the basics of riding on a motorcycle, but Zach responded just as loud as if the wind was still making it hard to hear so she was right to do it too. "A restaurant!"

 _Aha! Jirou was right! I am very glad Ashido was not._ _ **"He's gonna bring you straight to a love hotel-"**_ "What restaurant?" Yaoyorozu asked, in part to stop herself from getting as flustered as she had when Ashido brought that up earlier that day.

 _Does she not want it to be a surprise? I should stick with my gut and- no, not if she's not into it. But, how can I tell?_ "We're almost there," Zach said, and he got a half-smile on his face behind his visor but was praying she did not call out in annoyance that he just tell her already. _Midnight sensei said it was a great place, and All Might agreed. I would have been nervous about the style if Midnight was the only one._ Zach thought back on the subtle scouting he tried to do throughout the last week since he had managed to procure a two hour pass for him and Momo some time in advance. He remembered asking for the pass and how weird it had gotten between him and the lady in the main office who asked where he would be going, when the panic really set in as he had had no idea.

Zach saw the place coming up and he started taking heavy breaths as he awaited Momo's first reaction behind him. It was not too fancy a place, and he suspected Midnight and All Might both knew that when talking to him. _Please don't ask to pay. When I start up my internship, I'll put money back in my Aunt Maye's account for the stuff I've spent recently. I mentioned that to you specifically for this reason. Please just let me pay at least this time, and whenever…_

 _Is that where we are going? Can Zach afford to take us here? Should I ask? I, I don't think so. He was likely mentioning the money he will be making soon more often than usual, for this reason. Instead of worrying about it then, I should just enjoy._ Yaoyorozu gulped but looked back up at the steakhouse the two of them were driving towards, slowing down on the road towards the parking lot next to the building. "This place looks great. I've never heard of Outfront Steakhouse before."

"I heard-" Zach started. _Ah! Don't say I asked people!_ "It has good reviews online," Zach said, though that just made him feel more embarrassed at his method of picking.

Zach drove into the lot and found a spot right at the back of it. He felt relieved as there were almost no spots in the lot as even on a Wednesday night the place seemed pretty crowded. The two of them got off the motorcycle and Zach took the keys before popping open a box on the back that they could leave their helmets inside of. He did not want to have to take them into the restaurant with him, and Roady's old motorcycle had the steel box attached to it anyway for costumes, gear, or other things he might need to take with him.

On the way into the restaurant, Zach was in panic mode as he did not know how to walk next to his girlfriend. A part of him wanted to hold her hand, though since it was a dinner and the two were dressed a little nicer than usual he thought maybe he should take her arm and lock elbows, but they were going to reach the door in a second anyway and he _had_ to open the door for her. Zach quickly moved forward and Momo gave him a confused look as he rushed ahead of her, then Zach took the door and opened it and she smiled at him gratefully before stepping inside. _So far so good!_ Zach thought as that smile definitely looked genuine to him.

Zach walked in after Yaoyorozu and they stopped before the podium where the hostess was standing. They stopped because one step in through the door, and the couple in front of them behind the podium glanced back, the hostess looked over, and then more and more of the restaurant turned their ways. Zach's eyes grew huge and he suddenly remembered something that he had forgotten while planning this date. _Everyone knows who I am! How am I supposed to have a date like- Wait a second, I made reservations. Whoever answered didn't say anything then when I told them my name. Maybe it's not that-_

"Lifebringer?"

"Is that Lifebringer?"

"Whoa what's Lifebringer doing here?"

"Hey, that's Yaoyorozu from Class A."

"I saw Creati on the news recently too."

"Are they together?"

Zach's face started to go red and he turned to Yaoyorozu and opened his eyes wide as her face was just as red as his. "Um, maybe we should-" Zach started to the girl who turned to him.

"Lifebringer," a deep voice said, and Zach looked forward to see a man walking out from the kitchen and towards the podium. He had on a suit and looked like he might be in charge, and the man stepped right past the podium and onto Zach's other side as his date. The man clapped a hand down on the five and a half foot tall boy's shoulder, and he said, "Come. I heard you had a reservation here for two," he glanced at the girl next to Zach with a grin then back at the confused boy, "and I got you two a great private spot so you can enjoy your meals in peace."

"Really?" Zach asked in surprise. Yaoyorozu's eyes also opened a bit wider as the problems she just saw with how they were going to enjoy their meal were being fixed for them.

"Oh yeah, we've got a VIP room all set up for ya'," the friendly manager started walking and he practically pulled Zach along, though the boy was not really resisting this stroke of fortune. He looked at Yaoyorozu and shrugged his shoulder closer to her, and she walked after them with a grateful expression on her face. She thanked the man for thinking ahead for them, and he told them not to worry about it.

Zach started to get nervous as they headed back though and the man showed them a very, _very_ nice looking room. "Oh," Zach started when he walked in. The broad-shouldered man in a suit looked down at the kid wondering what was wrong, and Zach glanced Momo's way for a second before leaning up towards the manager and saying, "A room like this, I don't know if I can afford-"

"Nah kid, this is on me," the manager clapped his hand down on Zach's shoulder again while the boy's eyes were opening wide. "You brought my sister back to life last fall."

Zach and Momo's eyes both opened huge, and Zach quickly turned to his date and said, "I really didn't know-"

"I believe you," Yaoyorozu said quickly, as she could see why Zach would think she might think that. "What a coincidence though."

 _Coincidence? Like those two guys at the library, Riley and Nico knew the valedictorian girl? Or Tanaka-san's cousin's daughter's husband?_ Thinking about the convenience store clerk he frequented and how distant the person he saved in relation to him was, it did not seem like it was actually much of a coincidence at all. Zach was still surprised though, but now he regretted taking that cash out from the ATM unnecessarily. _Make that the last time ever then. The cash in my wallet now. Toss the card even, just to make sure._

Zach and Yaoyorozu sat down at the table and got some waters and bread put out for them while the decided. As Zach pretended to look down at his menu though, his heart was racing and he gulped a few times while hiding behind the laminated paper. _I wanted to tell her stuff today. Things, I'm still hiding. We're going out now. This is, a date. So we're dating. She's my girlfriend. And I trust her. I care, about her. I don't want to lie to her. But, she already doesn't think I'm lying to her. I'm not! I just, haven't told her the truth yet. That's the same as lying._

"So have you narrowed down the internships you're thinking about yet?" Yaoyorozu questioned, still hiding her face behind the menu like Zach but trying to break the silence. It felt to her like they forgot how to speak to each other all of a sudden, but she relaxed a bit as Zach replied with a couple of names of cool heroes he had been thinking about contacting. It was easy for Zach to ramble about his potential internships and what he was thinking about them, and the two of them started a conversation about it all while Zach yelled at himself in his head for letting it go this way. _Just letting the conversation be on stuff like this is easy. Stuff she already knows! Come on, tell her something new. I really shouldn't be lying to my girlfriend. And I don't want her to find out secrets about me from other people. I want her to know everything in case stuff does come to light one day she'll already have my back, I think._

"But you aren't thinking of going back to Bikergang?" Yaoyorozu asked. Zach paused after her question, and she added quickly, "It's just, you have talked about your internship there as a great experience. You say he taught you a lot beyond just driving, so I am just a little surprised you never mentioned going back to his agency."

 _Not everyone wants to go to the same person on their next times. That's, a lie for me though. I did want to go back to him. What can I tell- anything! Don't hold back. She can tell when you're lying. Just, just be truthful._ "I actually, asked Bikergang if I could come back," Zach started. His heart started racing faster but he kept a calm expression on his face while continuing, "But he didn't want me to."

"He didn't?" Yaoyorozu asked in surprise, leaning forward a bit and staring wide-eyed at Zach.

Zach glanced around, then he looked back and shook his head. The look around at first made Yaoyorozu pull back a little as she wondered what that meant. "He-" Zach started, and he pursed his lips for a second only to see her looking at him confusedly in a way that made his heart pound. "He heard one of the villains call me Reaper."

Zach said it fast and then shut up. He shut up and stared hesitantly at his girlfriend who could see he was waiting for her reaction. "Reaper?" Momo asked. "Why did they call you that?"

 _Oh shit! I tried. I did it. Now I'm fucked! No, no just, just keep it…_ "It's just, what the villains called me during my time with them," Zach replied. "No," he muttered, looking down at the table for a second. "It's, what I told them to call me," Zach admitted. He looked up into Yaoyorozu's eyes and added, "Never said it to Kaminari, or Midoriya, but I picked the name myself."

"Why Reaper?" Momo asked. _He doesn't want to talk about this. He's trying so hard to force himself to talk about it, but it seems like he'd rather talk about his name choice._ "What made you pick that name?"

Zach's eyes widened a bit, and then he smiled and replied, "It was always, one of the first names I'd think of. Even back on the day we came up with our hero names in class, though I think back then I considered using 'Grim Reaper' instead."

"I like Lifebringer more," Momo said, and Zach smiled and nodded back at her.

"Me too," he agreed. _Reaper, was also what I chose as an anti-hero name. I thought it was a good name for a villain, but an even better one for being an anti-hero. It was too dark and spooky and ominous for a hero. Can I say- no, then I'd have to tell her all about the anti-heroes, and about the villains, the stuff I really did…_

"Hey Zach," Momo started again, and Zach lifted his gaze back to meet hers. "Don't ever feel like you have to force yourself, with me," she said. _As much as I want to know everything. I want you to do it on your own terms, without having to force you. And I know you will._

Zach stared into Momo's eyes for a few seconds after what she just said. He saw an understanding in her eyes beyond what he thought he would find even if he had explained how he was feeling, or what he wanted to tell her. He almost got lost in those soft gray eyes but shook his head around before he did. "I don't," Zach replied. He nodded while saying it to assure her he meant it, then he leaned back on his chair and let out a long sigh. Momo tilted her head a bit to the side, then her eyes widened as Zach said, "I can't believe we were the only Class A team that lost today."

Yaoyorozu stared at him in surprise for another second, then she lifted a hand and laughed into it. "Well," she began, smiling while moving her hand away. "Class B thought my team's victory was unfair too though, because we had six members on it."

"You would have won anyway," Zach argued back. "They never even made it to the final area by the time you guys had saved the hostages. Great plan by the way…" Zach hesitated and then said while glancing to his side, "So, I think Tsuyu saw me going into your room at night, a couple of times." Zach got a sheepish look on his face while his girlfriend's eyes shot open wide, and he rose his left hand and scratched his cheek with a finger for a second before mentioning what Tsuyu had said before the training. "I think she actually knew what she was doing, but I can't really tell since it's Tsuyu. But then she even apologized afterwards like she knew we got distracted, though she could've noticed after she mentioned it."

"So that's why," Momo whispered, and Zach gave her a confused look. Yaoyorozu had a shy look on her face thinking about what Tsuyu might have thought she had seen, but she shook her head and replied to Zach's look, "Right before your team went in I noticed you all on the camera looking… well, I must explain to Tsuyu."

"I already did," Zach started, then he chuckled nervously and finished, "Though I think only Hagakure didn't believe me. Until I started asking her what she thought was happening, what kind of things she and Ojiro might do to make her think- and she stopped talking about it."

Momo lifted her hand and giggled into it again, and the corners of Zach's lips pulled so far up at her cute look. _She let me change the conversation. She wants me to tell her at my own pace. That's, that's amazing. She's amazing. She, understands me._ Momo mentioned something about her team's trip through the obstacle course and Zach listened close to every word she said. _And that'll make it easier to tell her…_ he thought while looking at the girl speaking so freely to him, who he felt like he could talk to too. _Everything._

* * *

 **A/N Thanks for reading. Hope you enjoyed...**


	84. Chapter 84

**Disclaimer: I don't own Boku no Hero Academia**

 **Chapter 84:**

"And, you're all done."

 _This is stupid._ Zach sat on the edge of his bed, staring at a knife in his right hand and turning the blade over and over again on his palm. He shook his head and his eyes darkened. Zach lifted the knife and flicked it around in a spin around his hand while standing up, and then he shoved it down into the empty of the four sheaths on the right side of his waist. _It's not stupid._ He grabbed his white helmet off of the desk next to him and put it over his head, _I should get a new helmet that covers the top of my skull. Leaving it open was a bad design idea. Too late now. What am I doing?_

Zach stopped near his door, then he glared at it and he brought his hand to the knob and opened it up. He was wearing his white costume covering his whole body, including a white glove over his left hand but not over his right. The white glove he used for combat training in school was the one part of his costume left behind in his room.

Zach walked down the hallway on the fifth floor of the dorm that he had just returned to. He had gone straight to his room and put his costume on without delay, and he had a dark look in his eyes as he headed back downstairs.

"Send in the next student on your way out."

Zach walked back across campus towards the main school building. "Just going for some training," Zach replied to Kuroiro who was walking back to Class B's dorm with Sen Kaibara. His dark friend just asked where he was going in his costume, but Zach continued going instead of stopping for a chat. He actually picked up his speed as if getting in a warm-up jog on his way back towards the main school building.

 _I'm being paranoid. Stupid. But, what would be more stupid, is to ignore this feeling. If I'm wrong I'm wrong. No big deal._

Zach jogged into the school and slowed to a casual pace as he walked through the building. He paused as he saw someone walking towards him, or more he did not see the person coming his way. "Oh hey Zach," Hagakure said as she spotted her classmate. She got a slightly confused look on her face since she had seen him come back to the dorm while she was still waiting down in the common room. "You're doing more training today? Even after the-"

"Yeah," Zach started, and he lifted his left hand and scratched his left cheek just inside of his white helmet. "Figure after yesterday's loss to Class B, we've gotta catch up to the others."

"Ah! Good point," Hagakure said, leaning back as if she just realized now that they were apparently the worst off in Class A. Considering how few internship offers she had gotten compared to him too, and how she did not even get to an internship, Zach realized that probably was not the best thing to tell her. "Where are you going? I'll come with-"

"Actually, going to get some private training in," Zach said, giving her a half-apologetic look but also one that showed he was in a rush. He kept walking and knew it might be harsh to Hagakure, and he probably would have accepted training with her on any other day. He walked towards her and past, and he said, "Next time."

Hagakure turned her head and watched Zach go by, "Oh, okay."

 _Good. If Hagakure just got out, then Bakugo's in there now. It takes around ten minutes._ Zach walked around the school's hallways and saw most of them were empty. School had already ended for the day, but there were a few people lingering about who he looked at hesitantly. _This is bad._ Zach spotted a pair of girls who looked younger than him just walking down the hall in the opposite direction when he turned an intersection. He kept moving and he ducked into a gap of a doorway, poked his head up close to the door's window, and then he slipped into the room.

Zach took a few deep breaths, and he narrowed his eyes on the wall across from him. He stared at it and through the windows lining it. It was a nice day outside, hot but not too humid. It had been a good day. Until forty or so minutes ago, Zach had been enjoying the day. Zach put his back up against the door and he took deep breaths. His heart rate slowed down and he pulled a knife out of a sheath on his right side. Zach lifted his left arm in front of him and stared down at the white fabric of his costume that was strong, somewhat elastic, and laced with bone to keep his actual bones from showing through it. Zach rose his right hand close to his left arm and pressed the blade to his costume's sleeve.

 _I've never cut myself before. Softy asked me it once. Hope she never does again, because I'd have to lie-_ "Ah!" Zach let out the yelp that he tried to hold back as he yanked the knife down hard and slashed across his arm. _Had to be deep. Not enough that I can't use it, but deep enough._ Zach wiped his knife on his white sleeve below the wound where it would be getting red in a minute anyway, considering the amount of blood that started coming out of his arm. Zach slid his knife down into its sheath and he opened the door behind him with his right hand fast. _Don't drip. Don't drip._ Zach tried lifting his arm a bit to get the blood to drip the other way and not be too saturated that it spilled off, but some blood drops started falling in the hallway. _Hope it wasn't, too deep._

Zach's slashed a four inch gash in his forearm below his elbow but closer to it than to his wrist. Blood came out of it fast, and Zach started running while putting a panicked look on his face while turning the next hallway. He jogged down the hall, and he saw a boy up ahead in casual clothes: a green t-shirt, a white and black pair of shorts, sneakers. The boy sitting on a chair outside of the nurse's office stood up fast as he saw Zach running over, blood dripping off of his left arm that he was grabbing with his right. "Hey Midoriya," Zach said, before Midoriya could call out to him.

Zach steadied his expression as if the panicked look was him overreacting. He did not want Midoriya to freak out and shout his name, and he slowed down his run while grabbing his left arm less like it was in a lot of pain. "What happened?" Midoriya started as Zach got close.

"Deku! You're up!" a voice shouted behind Midoriya.

"Ah, it's really," Zach started, but he just rushed past Midoriya without explaining and opened the door up with his bloody right hand that he had been holding over his wound. Zach burst into the nurse's office and Bakugo gave him a funny look for a second before looking to Zach's left arm in surprise. "Hey, sorry," Zach said as he ran in and stopped just inside the nurse's office. The short woman back over on a chair near her desk looked around and her eyes opened wide at the sight of the boy standing there grabbing at his bloody left arm.

"What happened to you?" Bakugo snapped in an annoyed tone, though he did not sound very concerned. Midoriya came into the room behind Zach as it was his turn for the school physical anyway, while Zach got a nervous look on his face at the questions and the look from the old woman frowning at him with some worry on her face. Recovery Girl hopped off of her chair and looked expectantly at Zach who had not responded to Bakugo's question yet.

"I went to do some training after my physical, and I accidentally cut myself-"

"You hurt yourself again," Recovery Girl began in a scolding tone, shaking her head at the boy who stared back towards her in a hesitant way.

"Are you okay Zach?" Midoriya started.

Bakugo shook his head at Zach's answer and then turned for the door and continued towards it. "Oh hey Bakugo, want to train with me in a minute actually? Soon as I get out of here I was thinking," Zach trailed off while looking over his shoulder, because Bakugo stopped and turned back towards him with narrowed eyes that had confusion in them. Midoriya turned to Bakugo looking more confused than the blond-haired boy next to him, _Do they train together often?_

"Sazaki," Recovery Girl began, and Zach turned to the old woman giving him a disapproving look. "Coming in here like this and saying that you're going to get right back to it. You are not taking the consequences of your injuries seriously."

"But since we're training at U.A., I mean," Zach began. He looked towards the old woman and lifted up an eyebrow, "Can't we train at such extreme lengths because of you? We need to get stronger-"

"But you can't rely solely on me," Recovery Girl said, shaking her head at him. "If you train recklessly, you will fight recklessly out there." Midoriya looked down towards his right arm thinking of the injuries in it, and he frowned since he trained without getting reckless but could not keep that up out in the field during his last internship. Bakugo did not look down at his similarly injured arms though that he had been struggling with letting heal. Bakugo just turned to Zach for a second to see what he thought of this, and his eyes started to widen while Recovery Girl continued, "You need to learn to be more careful-"

"So you're saying," Zach cut Recovery Girl off. "You won't heal me." It was not a question. He did not sound confused as he said it, and the hesitant and nervous look on his face faded away. His right hand lowered from his left arm and the cut that continued to bleed. Midoriya heard the tone and he froze while staring down at his right hand, and then he slowly lifted up his gaze to Zach who rose his eyebrows while looking towards the short older woman.

Bakugo stared at Zach's face, and then he turned towards Recovery Girl himself with a hesitant expression. _What is he…_

Recovery Girl looked back at Zach with a confused look on her own face. "Sazaki?" She asked, the short, sweet old woman tilting her head a bit and giving Zach a strange expression. Zach doubted for a moment at her look, but he made sure to keep his outwards expression from showing that lack of confidence.

Zach's eyes narrowed though and his right hand opened up at his side, grabbing a knife there and sliding it out of his sheath. "Or is it you _can't_ heal me?" Zach asked. Midoriya stared with huge eyes at Zach for pulling the knife on their teacher and he was about to shout at him, only for Midoriya to freeze and the top half of his face to turn blue. Bakugo's fists clenched, and Zach clenched his fist on the hilt of his blade while finishing, "Toga?"

"Toga? As in, Himiko Toga?" Recovery Girl questioned. The short old woman had on her white doctor coat, along with the pink helmet and purple visor of her hero costume. She frowned at Sazaki who held his knife at his side without directly raising it at her. She looked a bit nervous, but she did not back down while saying, "I know you may be paranoid, but you need to calm down Sazaki." Bakugo loosened his fists a bit and he darted his eyes to Zach, then back at Deku to see what he thought of this.

 _Was that- did I- Is she really…_ Midoriya gulped while looking back at Zach, and then towards Recovery Girl again. "Zach, you should put down-"

"If she heals me, we'd know for sure, wouldn't we?" Zach asked. He did not take his eyes off the short older woman who glanced back and forth at the other two students who were looking confusedly back and forth at the two of them. "You really think I'd do this off a half-baked theory? Come on guys."

"Sazaki, if it means that much to you," Recovery Girl began. Bakugo closed his mouth that he opened to call out at the nurse, his eyes opening wide and yet at the same time he felt relief that he had not called it out yet. Midoriya also felt relief, but Zach's eyes did not widen or his expression shift at all. He just nodded and narrowed his eyes more at the old woman who had yet to finish her offer. "Then," Recovery Girl continued, and she turned her back and walked back to the chair at her desk. "I'll take a look. Come over here."

"No," Zach said. He narrowed his eyes more, while the two at his sides started to give him more hesitant or angry looks.

"Just go so we can be sure," Bakugo snapped in annoyance.

"Zach, maybe you're wrong," Midoriya said. _I didn't really notice anything. Toga, acted so much like herself as Camie. How could she know so much about Recovery Girl? No, this isn't-_ "Just let her check you out and-"

"Recovery Girl," Zach began. "Always injects needles in my right arm." The other two looking at him froze and their eyes shifted back towards the woman sitting on her chair facing her desk, her face impossible to see at this angle for them to check how she reacted to that. "Even though my right is more dangerous, she doesn't put her hands close to my scars which on my left arm, are everywhere." Bakugo and Midoriya both clenched their fists this time, and Zach stared forward with an assured look on his face.

"Oh I do, do I?" Recovery Girl asked. Her voice was still soft and old and sweet, but it sent chills down the spines of the boys looking towards her. Recovery Girl turned her head a bit to the side and looked back at the boys behind her, all of whom stared towards her with huge eyes at the smirk spread across Recovery Girl's entire face.

Zach threw his right hand forward and released his knife. Recovery Girl's chair spun around and a knife flew off of her right hand and slammed into Zach's in midair. The knives clanked and no one moved as Toga already had another knife in her other hand, risen and grabbed by the blade with her eyes wide behind Recovery Girl's visor. She froze before throwing the other knife, and the three boys who were all about to dodge one direction depending on where she threw it or who at all stared at the crazy woman. "You caught me again, Zach," Toga said with a big smile on her face. "I really thought I got it past you this time."

"I lied about the arm thing," Zach said. The huge smile on the old woman's face twitched, while the boys on Zach's sides opened their eyes even wider though without taking their attentions off of the crazy person pretending to be their nurse. "I just felt a strange vibe coming from you. Thought maybe I was being paranoid, but I guess cutting my arm open was worth it." Zach's eyes got as dangerous as Toga's while he stared back into hers after what he just said to throw her off, "Where's Recovery Girl?"

The question shook Midoriya and Bakugo back into it, as they suddenly realized the most important question they needed to ask. "How long?" Bakugo snarled, his fists opening and small explosions blowing off of his palms.

"Where is she?!" Midoriya shouted.

 _This is bad!_ The woman in front of them smiled from ear to ear, and her skin started melting. Recovery Girl started melting in front of them, and Himiko Toga's face showed through the melting goop coming down off of her face. As the transformation started happening, Toga threw her next knife forward and Zach whipped his left arm up from his side and slashed against it while whipping another knife up from his right side too. Toga threw the knife though to distract from her other hand that reached down quickly and then lifted up in front of her.

"Stop!" Midoriya bent his knees, and Bakugo blasted explosions behind him. Zach threw the knife in his right hand while jumping backwards towards the door, and Toga opened the fist she was swinging down in front of the chair her body looked to be melting on. Three small gray pellets flew off of her palm and hit the floor, erupting into huge blasts of smoke that spread to cover the entire room instantly. The smoke bombs engulfed Midoriya and Bakugo, and both of them swung in the middle of where they had been charging as they expected the girl who had blinded them to try and go between. An explosion blasted towards Midoriya and a huge force of wind into Bakugo that sent them flying into opposite sides of the room but also would have stopped anyone between them for sure.

Smoke also got sent spinning away in clouds and pushing aside, giving Zach a clear view of the girl who had leapt up to the ceiling and jammed knives through it to hold on. The creepy girl on the ceiling was looking the direction Midoriya just flew off to, but she was not wasting any time. Her head snapped towards the exit of the nurse's office, and she dove towards the boy facing her with another knife drawing in his right hand while he pulled his left arm back holding one already. Zach tossed the knife he had just pulled out up in the air between him and Toga, in a lob that would make it hang there and stop her from diving towards him. Toga dove anyway, and she twisted her body in midair to catch the knife with one hand that was already holding one. She slashed in front of her and slammed it against the second knife that Zach threw in the hand that had already pulled it back, while his right hand that had lobbed the knife up reached across his waist and grabbed hold of his white grappling gun.

Toga reached her left arm forward with two knifes in it between her fingers. Then she flipped around right before reaching Zach and pressed her feet out towards his face, right as Zach fired up his grappling gun. The hook passed under Toga's arching back, and then past her head that tilted just a bit farther down in the next second. She looked towards him and into his eyes and in that moment her look said everything he needed to know. Zach's right hand holding his grappling gun was shaking as he held it near his chest, but Toga's smirk warned him from transforming. _We need Toga to tell us where Recovery Girl is. If she doesn't return to where she's keeping her, other League members might kill her. That is, if she's still alive. I have to assume she is though! I can't knock her out for days!_ The thoughts raced through Zach's head, and he pressed the button on his grappling gun instead of dropping it so he could retract the hook.

His split second of deliberation over what to do was too much though, and Toga flicked the knife in the hand she flaunted at him less and slashed his second knife with a moment ago. As Zach pulled away and reached for his side to grab another knife with his left hand, Toga was landing and spinning around in a pouncing position. While Zach started setting up to defend from the pounce, she was already in midair. He dropped a step behind her and was too late to do anything but push her arm with two knives in it to the side so she could not stab him while tackling him to the floor. He started pointing his right hand in with the reloaded grappling gun, but Toga's other hand she was about to grab a knife with slammed over onto his right arm's wrist and pressed it into the floor.

It had all happened in a second. Toga was on the ceiling while the other two were blasting away from each other in their attempt to stop her, and Toga was on top of Zach a second later with his arms pinned to the ground and her face up close to his. The room was still filled with smoke so Zach did not see where the other two were, not that he was looking with his eyes pointed straight up into Toga's where her face hovered just above his. "That smell," Toga whispered fast while looking down into Zach's eyes. Her smiled stretched from ear to ear and her cat-like canines opened away from each other as Toga breathed a hot and heavy breath on Zach's face. "You're in love aren't you, Reaper?" Toga asked. Zach's eyes started getting wider, his heart pounding, his ears filling with the noise of his heart and nothing else. Toga had such a knowing look on his face that it terrified him, but then his heart skipped a beat as she whispered, "Does Momo-chan love you back?"

Zach's fingers snapped out of his glove on his right hand. Toga's eyes widened and she pushed down on Zach's arms to flip herself over him and to the door. "Toga!" Midoriya shouted, flipping himself over behind a turned-over nurse's office bed, and he jumped out of the smoke and into the middle of the room where he snapped his head around looking for her. He spun to the exit of the room where the door was slamming shut, but a blonde girl on the other side was looking back in at him and smirking wide. Midoriya flipped himself around and spun his legs behind him to kick off the air, but Zach scrambled up on his feet between him and the door he was about to send himself flying at. "Move Zach!" Midoriya called out. He started to drop and lowered his legs to instead just bend them and shoot off of the floor.

All the smoke around Bakugo blew away too, and he glared towards the door with a pissed-off look on his face. He had a cut on his left cheek where some sharp medical tool slashed him when half the room got smashed by Midoriya's kick. Zach stood in front of that door and glared at it in fury exceeding Bakugo's though, yet he did not move to let Midoriya smash through the door. Zach reached down into his pocket with his right hand and pulled out his phone as fast as he could.

"Move!" Bakugo shouted at the door he started running at.

"One second!" Zach yelled back, spinning and glaring as hatefully as he just was behind him at the two who froze at that look. Midoriya landed and did not immediately bounce at him, and Bakugo stopped running as fast with a confused look in his eyes. Zach lifted his right hand and sent a pre-typed message to the principal, and then he immediately flipped over to the Class A group-chat. Zach spoke while texting, "What was she grabbing at the desk? She has all of our blood."

As rationally as Zach was speaking aloud, his mind was screaming. _Momo! She knew! She KNEW! I fucking- I knew it!_ "We have to stop her. Right now!" Zach lowered his phone and shouted at the other two.

"Why didn't you tell the teachers or something?" Bakugo snapped. "If you knew-"

"It had to be in between the two of your physicals," Zach replied while glaring at the door.

"Why?" Midoriya asked as Zach tried to rush past it.

Zach grit his teeth, then he spun and said over his shoulder, "How did Toga know that our physicals were today? A day when we were getting blood-work done? She couldn't have been Recovery Girl for long considering how often she has to use her Quirk here." Bakugo's eyes shot open wide as his 'how long' question was being answered yet only made him feel dread knowing that Recovery Girl had been replaced recently. "So if Recovery Girl really was Toga, which I thought she might have been but just maybe, then there were very few people I could trust to tell I knew. Because anyone else could have warned her, and she could have escaped with all of the blood of everyone in our class. I figured between two of the strongest guys in our class and me, we could stop her. And we still can! Now let's get her!"

 _It could have been because of our date, but it wasn't. The amount of people in that restaurant, and the chances that one of them was a League spy. I already knew there was someone here. I decided to forget about it, but she knew! She wasn't just saying it based on who I'm close with. She knew. She knew! Not just that we're close, but that we're together! I know she knew, because that look in her eyes told me she knew how paranoid it would make me. She knew that I would understand why she was bringing it up, and she knew that I would start doubting everyone!_ Zach clenched his teeth harder and then hissed at the two behind him who opened their eyes even wider. Zach spoke as fast as he could and did not wait for a response from his shocked classmates before turning and running out the door, Bakugo and Midoriya sprinting out after him.

 _What is Zach talking about? Who would warn Toga?! Wait, how, how did Toga know?_ Midoriya's face covered in sweat and he looked at his black-haired friend's back nervously at what Zach was suggesting. They ran through the hallway outside the nurse's office and Bakugo snapped at Zach instead of reaching for his buzzing phone, "What was the message you sent?"

"We can't trust anyone who looks like someone from our class. I told everyone that Recovery Girl was Toga and they need to get in their rooms and not trust anyone."

In the Class A dorms, Tenya Iida stared down at his phone and dropped his jaw. He snapped out of his desk chair and away from his homework and sped for the door of his room. He reached out for the doorknob and then froze, his eyes wide and his hand shaking. _Who would believe that I am me?! I, I must get everyone else in their rooms though! As the class rep…_ Iida threw his door open and turned on his Engines at the same time. _Zach! I believe that this is the right call!_ "Everyone! Stay or return to your rooms immediately!"

The front door of Class A's dorm building threw open while a group of four were getting off of the common room couches. They spun towards the door and a few of them relaxed at the sight of two classmates running in. Sato and Kirishima ran inside, but only Aoyama and Sero relaxed. Tsuyu narrowed her eyes for a second and then glanced at Tokoyami next to her. Her long tongue fell out of her mouth and she let it hang halfway down her body, but then she pulled it back and got an even deeper frown on her face. _How does Toga's power work? We don't know for sure._ Tsuyu looked towards Kirishima and Sato hesitantly, and she asked, "Were you two together, while you were out?"

"What do you mean?" Sato called over as he was panting and running a hand up through his hair. "We just ran into each other outside after getting…" Sato trailed off and he looked at Kirishima again who turned back to him with as wide of eyes. Their wide eyes then narrowed, only for both of them to get more hurt and hesitant looks as they did not want to doubt each other or see that doubt directed towards them.

"S-S-So you two were each alone?" Mineta asked, and the group in the common area turned to the boy who had gone to the bathroom not that long ago.

 _Or was it a long time?_ Sero thought while giving Mineta a nervous look, and the purple-ball-haired boy holding up his phone with a scared look on his face leaned back at the look all his classmates just gave him. "I haven't even gone yet!" Mineta exclaimed.

"Everyone," Tsuyu started. "Let's go to our rooms, and lock the doors."

"I want to go find Toga though!" Kirishima shouted while spinning to Tsuyu. "If we're all together then we can make sure that none of us are-"

"How can we be sure that none of us already aren't her?" Tokoyami questioned, and he started jogging for the stairs. "I do not want to suspect any of you, but we must be careful."

Tsuyu nodded in agreement and called out at the others to get back to their rooms so they could assume anyone not in their rooms is Toga. _It's up to whoever has yet to give-_

"Mineta!" a voice shouted from the stairwell where Tokoyami just pulled away. Momo Yaoyorozu just reached the bottom of the stairs, and she called towards the shortest boy in the class who was only one spot before her alphabetically. It was not yet her time to go to the nurse's office, and she still had enough time that she knew Mineta would have been there already had he given his blood. "Let us go!" Yaoyorozu called over, and she ran for the door while the others looked towards her in surprise.

"I," Mineta began. He gulped, then he nodded at the look Yaoyorozu glanced back towards him. She smiled at his nod and he ran faster as for some reason she wanted him to come with her. "Be careful you two," Tsuyu said as Mineta ran by, though she glanced towards Yaoyorozu after saying it. "Zach-chan already came back from his turn before. He seemed in a rush when he left again, in his costume."

Yaoyorozu's eyes opened wide, and Mineta spun towards the frog-girl who started for the staircase with the others. Sero was arguing with Kirishima who started grinding his sharp teeth but agreed with the others in the class. Only Tokoyami and Sero had also seen Zach wearing his costume when he headed out as they had just returned from their physicals not long before and went to sit in the common room for a bit together. At what Tsuyu said, the two of them spun back towards her only to see a scared look on the short girl's face. "If you two go to help them, stick together. Do not trust anyone. I want to help you-"

 _But we don't know if that's true, or if you're Toga just trying to get us to ask you to come along,_ Yaoyorozu thought while giving Tsuyu a small nod. Mineta opened his mouth to say something, but Yaoyorozu turned and said quickly to him, "We must go now. Stay together at all times," she repeated what Tsuyu said as she knew if the two of them split up for even a moment, the doubt would always be there that the other was no longer who they said they were.

"Damn it! Go get her!" Kirishima shouted at them.

"Everyone! Get to your rooms!" Iida shouted, sprinting down the stairs with his Engines on.

"Hey wait, if we're using our Quirks," Kirishima began.

"She could recreate them too, maybe, or maybe not," Sero said, grabbing Kirishima by the arm and tugging towards the stairs. _I remember that class earlier last term going over all the most wanted villains, over their Quirks and stuff. What did we know about Toga besides being able to use blood to transform into people?_ Sero rubbed the side of his head but then just shook it around and ran up the stairs faster. _I've gotta get to my room. Anyone around me…_ His eyes widened and he started running faster than Kirishima who glanced at him confusedly for a second before going wider-eyed himself and slowing down as Sero darted a look back. Sero wished he did not just look at Kirishima like that, but he still thought afterwards, _Time to bar the door!_

Todoroki frowned where he stood on the street between U.A.'s main school building and the dorms. He glanced behind him and saw a girl with no visible body showing and only her clothes running towards him. He looked at her cautiously, and the invisible girl skid to a stop and stared at him with huge eyes or so he imagined she might be. Hagakure stared at a classmate all on his own standing there in the road, and Todoroki looked at the girl running the direction of the dorm where the rest of Class A were. He opened his mouth to say something to her, only to see Hagakure's right shoe slide back on the floor. He froze with his mouth open, and then he just turned around and started jogging for the dorm himself. _This is a precarious situation. I gave Recovery- I gave Himiko Toga my blood without thinking anything of it. That was foolish._

"W-Wait!" Hagakure called out and started running after Todoroki. Todoroki frowned and did not know what to do about this. Whether or not Toga could copy Hagakure's Invisibility was unknown to him. He glanced back towards her, only for his eyes to widen as he heard, "If you're Toga, don't go near our dorm!" _How does she think I would react if I was Toga? Or is this Toga trying to put me off guard? Does Toga know that Zach sent that message out to everyone?_

Yaoyorozu and Mineta were running down the road from Class A's dorm in Alliance Heights, but they stopped talking about what they were going to do when they reached the school and just stared ahead at the two they saw jogging their direction with a large gap between them. Mineta and Yaoyorozu moved together to the right side of the road, and they kept running while turning their heads slightly and watching the others run by on their lefts. The doubt and fear covering Mineta's face, the hesitation to doubt yet caution despite it on Yaoyorozu's, Todoroki's understanding look at the two who had yet to get their blood taken, and Hagakure's confused shout at them. "Just get to your room," Yaoyorozu told the invisible girl who hummed in agreement and kept running, deciding not to argue about it.

Inside of the main U.A. school building, Bakugo, Midoriya, and Zach all ran down a hallway together on the first floor. Bakugo was a few feet to the right of the other two, an annoyed look on his face as he snapped back at Zach, "She never took my blood, so you don't need to worry about that. I'm splitting up-"

"And what if she takes your blood while you're gone, and you come back to us saying you've found her just to lead us into a trap?" Zach yelled in frustration.

"She won't get me," Bakugo snapped. He blasted miniature explosions from his hands, then he snapped his head to the end of the hall where he saw someone going past the intersection. The kid was wearing a blue gym uniform, he looked younger than them, and when he looked down the hallway in their direction and saw them charging his way he turned and ran the other direction. "OI!" Bakugo shouted, blasting explosions behind him and flying to the end of the hall. He shot after the kid who looked back in terror at Bakugo's furious expression, and then the kid let out a yell of panic as Bakugo tackled him to the ground. "Who are you?" Bakugo snapped while holding the kid down.

"Someone help me!" The boy yelled, something Bakugo figured Toga probably wouldn't. He jumped off of the kid's back and spun his head around looking for the real villain.

Midoriya and Zach spun around the corner to see the kid Bakugo tackled scrambling away from him and then sprinting as fast as he could for safety. "How do you know that's not her?" Zach asked, his bloody right hand wrapped around a knife hilt and his left dripping blood to the hallway floor next to him.

"It's not," Bakugo growled. "But she _is_ getting away."

"We can't let her get off U.A. campus with all our blood," Midoriya said. His face had sweat all over it as he imagined the kind of damage Toga could do with all of it. "After all the news has covered about us recently. If U.A. Class 2-A were to start going around being villains-"

"It's not about that," Zach snapped. Midoriya turned to him and saw Zach's hands shaking at his sides, though he could not tell if his left was in anger or because the blood loss was starting to get to him. He wanted to mention something about it, but instead he just stared at Zach with wider eyes as the shorter black-haired boy snarled, "We have to catch Toga. She's insane. A murderous psychopathic bitch. She kills people and excuses her actions by saying it's because she wants to be free, and we _need_ to stop her right here. She's dangerous, but you're right. We can't let her get away." Zach ground his teeth and darted his eyes back and forth at the other two. He spun and called out, "Split up! We'll use our class rep and vice rep's name as a signal for if it's really each other when we see each other again." Zach started sprinting back the way he came, ignoring what he had said about sticking together only half a minute ago.

 _Toga,_ Zach thought, his eyes narrowing and his teeth clenching so hard behind his pursed lips. _The principal should stop anyone from getting off campus. Where the fuck are you?_

 _Zach, it's like, you've planned for her to come all along,_ Midoriya thought, while glancing once more at Bakugo. He turned and started running off, and he used Full Cowling to send himself flying down the hallway much faster.

Bakugo growled to himself and glanced over his own shoulder the direction the random kid had run off. _Was I too quick to- Damn it! How the fuck do we know?!_ Bakugo blasted explosions behind him and sent himself flying down the hall, then he pointed his left hand out to turn himself at the next intersection.

"Hey! No using your Quirk in the halls like-" a third-year hero course student started calling after Bakugo. Bakugo turned and glared back towards the older boy who lowered his hand with a confused expression at Bakugo's glare. He was the other direction in the intersection Bakugo just turned down without hesitating, and Bakugo frowned that the person would call him out which made him think it probably was not Toga. He froze though and his eyes opened wide as he looked past that guy, all the way down the hall where he spotted someone walking.

Bakugo spun around and blasted explosions behind him to fly the other way. He landed down and started sprinting down the hall. His eyes narrowed and glared forward towards someone he had seen still inside the main campus building when he arrived for his physical a half an hour ago. The boy he glared at started turning towards him, a teen with half white hair and half red who had a burn scar covering half of his face. "Bakugo," Todoroki said, his voice calm and his eyebrows just lifting up a bit as his expression stayed the same.

Bakugo glared harder at the teen he was sprinting towards, while the upperclassman turning to watch Bakugo run by got an angrier look in his eyes and shook his head once. The older teen lifted up his arms that started to transform into waving black appendages that extended after Bakugo. "You are clearly distressed," the upperclassman called to a very famously angry student who was using his Quirk in unsettling ways.

Bakugo blasted explosions behind him to shoot up in the air, making Todoroki open his eyes wide and spin fully to Bakugo. "What are you-"

"Defend yourself!" Bakugo shouted at his classmate whose eyes opened much wider as Bakugo brought his clenched right hand back behind him. He was moving faster than the black extending limbs coming after him, and the upperclassman started chasing after Bakugo who had a huge smirk on his face but also sweat dripping down it.

Then the boy with a burn scar on his face leaned back. He pulled back confusedly and started to lift his right hand as if to create ice to block Bakugo. Bakugo's eyes widened and his fist loosened. Then the foot that Todoroki was stepping back kicked off the floor it touched. He shot towards Bakugo, pressing his right palm into Bakugo's face that was filling with shock as he really started to believe that it was Todoroki in front of him until he saw those acrobatic movements. Todoroki smirked wildly as he pulled Bakugo's body down with one hand, swiping in towards Bakugo's throat with his other hand that was holding a knife. The long black appendages coming after Bakugo froze in midair as the older teen saw a knife in Todoroki's hand slashing at Bakugo's throat, but then Bakugo's opening fist blew up in an explosion on the same side Todoroki was moving past him, blowing Bakugo one way and the boy trying to slash him the other.

Toga released the knife in her hand and it slashed across Bakugo's neck anyway with the extra few inches she flicked into it that Bakugo almost pulled away from. Bakugo rose a hand up to his neck fast as he felt the slash, but it was as shallow as he thought and he used his other hand and both legs to land before pointing his bloody hand forward to blast Toga. His eyes shot open huge though as he darted them around, because Toga was not in front of him. He spun towards the older boy whose long black arms were extended down the hall, and he caught a glimpse of movement darting by the guy. The older hero student himself turned his head in and his eyes opened huge, but then his torso pulled to the side turning black and elastic to dodge the knife slash a melting Todoroki tried getting him with.

"Get back here!" Bakugo shouted, snarling and getting up to sprint after her.

A few hallways away, Zach leaned back out of the cafeteria as he heard Bakugo shout louder than any of his explosions had been. The explosions could have just been Bakugo moving faster around the halls but that shout was a clear sign. Zach started running back down the hallway, only to see two taller people run around a corner and spin his way. The two teachers gawked at Zach who wore his white hero costume with blood on his hands and all over his left arm. Zach grimaced at the sight of the two of them, then as Present Mic and Midnight opened their mouths to call over to him, Zach did first, "Toga's in the school. She replaced Recovery Girl and has all our blood."

Zach turned down the next corner and he started running down it, ignoring the calls from the teachers he just saw who started calling out different things as he ran away from them. _Who else's blood does she have? It could be literally anyone. Only a few people I can trust._

Midnight grabbed Mic by the arm as he tried to run after Sazaki. "Hold on," Midnight said, realizing why it was the boy was so quick to run instead of get their help. _I've been with Mic since school ended, while Recovery Girl was doing the physicals._ "We stick together. I'm calling the Principal." Midnight pulled out her phone and called up Principal Nezu, and she put the phone on speaker as she held it up for her and Mic. The two of them opened their eyes wide as the pre-informed principal started talking, and they looked at each other with serious looks of dread before telling the principal they understood.

Midoriya pulled out his phone and glanced down at the screen for a second as he received more texts. He thought they would all be from his classmates in Class A, but he stared at a message from the principal sent out specifically to Class A that made him frown and purse his lips in frustration. _I can't go back to my room. I didn't see this message._ Midoriya put his phone away and then continued down the hall, thinking on what Zach told him and Bakugo right before they left the nurse's office. _I hope this works._

Zach ran down a hallway after seeing Bakugo for a second and splitting up again, and he sprinted down it to a staircase that he ran into to get up to the next floor. _Principal Nezu will handle logistics. We can't let Toga escape. He'll keep her inside. He'll also be careful not to let this be public though. Hopefully he's already sent out the message…_ Zach exited the stairwell and stared forward with his eyes opening wide as he saw Midoriya running towards him. "Still haven't found her yet? Iida." He added the class rep's name in a lower voice after his question.

"No. Yaoyorozu," Midoriya added in a quieter voice. "She could be anyone," Midoriya said, an intense look on his face despite a bead of sweat dripping down it. Zach stopped outside the stairwell and looked left and right to his sides instead of straight ahead where Midoriya was coming from. Midoriya saw Zach's indecisive look and started as he neared him, "You go left, I'll go to the right-"

Zach flicked his knife at the boy running towards him who was so close that even with her amazing reflexes, Toga did not pull away fast enough to avoid the slash across her right side through the green t-shirt she had on. "How do you keep doing that?" Toga snapped, a pout on Midoriya's face that showed who she really was.

 _ **"Don't answer each other if we split up. I ask Midoriya, Midoriya asks Bakugo, Bakugo asks me."**_ The plan Zach came up with a second before running out of the nurse's office was hastily made, and he ran out immediately after hissing it since they were pressed for time and had no room for argument. Neither of the others said anything about it as they ran down the hall though, and they had talked loudly about what their "plan" would be once they were out in the open because it would raise suspicion if they just split up without one and Toga happened to be listening.

Zach did not reply to Toga as she asked him how he knew though, did not taunt her in a smug way about his plan as it would still be in action if she escaped and now he knew she did not know about it. Zach just glanced quickly down at the wound on her side, then he ran at her without a word. Knives appeared in Midoriya's hands from seemingly out of nowhere. Zach wondered if maybe they had been taped behind his arms where he could not see the whole time or even hidden under the fake skin Toga had covering her. Either way, Toga ran at him and threw a knife while tossing the other up in the air. Zach had to pull to the side to dodge the throwing knife, and his attention was brought to the other he thought she might jump up and grab or throw down at him, or even throw another knife into to bounce it his direction.

"The hardest part is clearing your mind, and the trick is not to think of training as training, right Toga?" Zach called out, then he cleared his mind and vanished. He did it because the girl in front of him just did the same thing when he took his eyes off for a second. Toga erased her presence and got behind Zach, but he spun around towards her and ducked down with his body and mind completely focused on her. Calling out her own words against her did not make her release her focus like it seemed like Zach hoped it would. He did not expect it to though, and only made it seem like that was what he was going for to make Toga more confident about going for his unprotected back. His eyes locked on her yellow ones with their thin black irises staring back in his from a foot away.

Zach reached his right hand to his body and pressed his palm into his chest with his fingers sliding out of the glove. Toga's eyes opened huge as a black veil flashed over Zach's body, halting her momentum as she had thought he was not going to try and use Nightmare on him. As she was pulling back though against her own momentum, Zach's black aura faded just as fast as it had started to appear over him as he had tapped again on his body right before pulling his hand off. He had done it so fast and inside of the black veil covering both his hand and his chest that Toga did not see the second tap in rapid succession, but Zach knew exactly how long it would take for the veil to fade after he tapped the second time.

Zach slashed towards Toga but she got too far from him before he could cut her. The two of them faced each other, and Zach opened his mouth to ask the most important question he had at her. He knew what he had to ask, what mattered the most in the moment. His lips shook when he opened his mouth though. They trembled as he tried to get the question out, then he snapped in a choked-off voice, "Who was it?" Toga got a confused look on her face for a second, and then her eyes widened as Zach hissed, "Who gave you her blood? Which of them was it?"

Toga frowned at Zach for a second. He saw a split second of just a frown on her face, a dark look in her eyes that looked more sad than anything. Then her smirk was back and she said, "You already know. You really think he would have done that to you?" Zach's whole body shook at that answer and his left arm moved fast to his side while Toga rose up a knife.

He fired his grappling hook at her and threw the gun forward at the same time. She slashed down into the wire of the hook, then the gun slammed into her chest and distracted her for a brief moment. Zach tossed a knife up towards her head but just a little over the green curls, and Midoriya's body started to melt at the same time. _Don't let her get away and turn into someone else._ Zach threw a knife faster at Toga's face, though at the side of it to make her dodge beneath where he had thrown the first knife a little off target from her, preventing her from leaping up in the air and backwards as that would be in the path of the first knife. She did not lean away when he threw at the side of her face though, but instead brought up a hand fast and caught the weapon by the hilt when the blade was centimeters from hitting her face. Zach moved towards her while reaching up and catching a knife she had tossed, while his grappling gun that had hit her body dropped to the floor in front of her right foot. Toga flicked a knife at Zach while spinning the one she just caught around, and she slashed it into the knife he threw back at her while at the same time kicking his white grappling gun up towards his head.

Zach pulled his head to the side and then snapped it backwards to dodge a blade flying at his face. The blade passed an inch over his nose and flew by his eyes, then Zach snapped his head up as fast as he could and then spun it to the right at the girl trying to disappear and get behind him. He drew a knife and slashed at her while she pounced like a cat at him, the rest of Midoriya's body falling off of her so she looked like Himiko Toga once more. She pushed her face close to Zach's as they clashed blades, and a huge crazed smirk spread over hers while she drew a second knife and stabbed up for Zach's gut. Zach slammed his forehead forward over where they were already parrying blades before her second knife would reach him though, and he headbutted strong enough to make her stumble back and miss the slash of her knife. The very tip scraped across the front of his white costume but did not pierce through the material.

Toga reached up and grabbed her nose that just splashed blood out, then she lowered her hand and gave Zach a crazed look while blood trails came out of her nostril and down over her mouth. "Isn't this fun?" Toga asked, tilting her head to the side and staring into Zach's eyes with a crazy look he knew very well. "Reaper?" Toga added, and she widened her eyes more at his expression she had seen earlier too for a moment. Toga leaned her head back with a growing smile, "Hehe, you don't like hearing that name anymore? You didn't seem to mind it during all the fun times we had together in Bangkok."

"I didn't even know where we were," Zach growled. He pulled out two knives and twisted them around in his grasp, while Toga lifted up one and held it sideways in front of her, then turned it the other way while making a small circle around him. Zach turned with her in that circle, though his eyes darted to the stairwell for a brief second as he saw Toga had done the same a couple of seconds back.

"Didn't you enjoy torturing those people?" Toga asked.

"I never did," Zach snarled back quickly, then he sprinted at the girl who was talking too much. She jumped backwards away from him, flipped in midair and pressed her feet on the ceiling. She sprang down towards Zach and got so close that a charging Bakugo with a thin slash on the right side of his neck had to stop because he could not use an explosion that close to Zach. He pushed himself to the side instead, while Zach slashed both blades up at Toga and she pushed into them with only her one but with a lot of momentum from pushing off the ceiling. Toga swung her legs up over Zach's head, but he let go of one knife and reached up, grabbing her by her hair and then slamming down behind himself while her blade slid past the only knife he was using to hold her back, cutting through his left glove and into his palm. It was something he knew would happen but a sacrifice he was willing to take.

Blood splashed from Zach's palm, but he slammed Toga into the floor by her head and pressed her face into the floor. Toga let out a yelp of pain, and Zach dropped down a knee on her spine while reaching his left arm down and grabbing by the left arm she used to try and push herself up. Zach pulled that arm out from under her to make her face slam into the ground yet again, and he yanked it behind her body. Then he grabbed her right arm with his right hand while pushing his entire weight down on her back and trapping her legs between his behind him. Blood from Zach's arm dripped down onto Toga's left that he had in an arm-bar pressed into her back, while Zach just gripped her right arm tightly. "I wouldn't struggle to get your right arm out," Zach said. He leaned his head down next to her face and continued while tugging her left arm harder in a way that made her yelp in more pain, "You know what might happen."

Toga did not try to pull her right arm away, as any struggle with it could accidentally slide Zach's fingers out of his glove. They both knew it, though Zach warned her in case she forgot. He tugged harder on her left arm though, and she was not in a position at all to escape it. The more he pulled too, the more pain she was in and it was already extremely painful. "Where is Recovery Girl?" Zach asked.

"Hehehe," Toga laughed madly. "Now isn't this exactly like Bangkok, Reaper- AH!"

"I'm not playing games," Zach snarled, baring his teeth and pushing more weight down on Toga's back, pulling her left arm even harder and even adding pressure on his right hand like his fingers would be coming out of his glove soon.

"Oi Zach," Bakugo started.

"If Toga doesn't return, they might kill her," Zach said. He never looked away and continued while tilting his head to look in at Toga's face a bit, while she glanced left to look at his. "But my guess is, their plan was to take our blood without anyone finding out they did it. In which case they probably have a way to make Recovery Girl forget or just remember the past day like she was really here. Toga having our blood without anyone knowing would be a hundred times more useful than if everyone knew she had it." Zach leaned his head closer to Toga, and he ground his teeth for a second as he hated that he figured that out so quickly as much as he knew it might help. He hated what he was about to do a lot more though, but he curled up the corners of his lips as he said, "Toga, I bet you don't know what happened to Stain after he left."

The girl smirking back at Zach with lips covered in blood from her heavily bleeding nose lost her smile. She stared at him with widening eyes, and Zach continued in a smug and knowing voice, "Breakneck told me all about it. Did you know he found Stain again after he left you guys? He knew exactly, what _happened_ to him."

"What do you mean?! What happened to- _EEE!_ " Zach yanked her left arm harder and made her scream in pain, and Bakugo darted his eyes around as he spotted others running towards the area. Midnight and Present Mic were both reaching the top of the stairs, and there were others coming up behind them to the second floor.

"Tell me where Recovery Girl is first," Zach said. "I promise I'll tell you exactly what happened to him."

Toga's eyes shook as she looked into Zach's. He lowered his smirk at the desperate look in her eyes, his face actually softening though he kept his hold on her just as strong. It took all of Zach's restraint not to bare his teeth or anything, and he just nodded at her in a serious way to tell her he would follow through with that promise. Toga pursed her shaking lips then spurted out, "The old bag's on the second floor of an apartment on Kato St. and 7th! What happened to Stain-san?!"

"Are there other villains with her?" Zach snapped, not responding to her question and just growling another one at her.

"Just the Memory Maker! Now where-"

"I'm getting out my phone, I have Breakneck's recording on it," Zach reached his right hand up, letting go of Toga's right arm. The girl below him started moving her right arm but hesitated, because she wanted to know what it was he knew about Stain that she did not. Then she saw darkness on her left side, as Zach touched his body with his right hand and covered himself in darkness. Zach was already pressing down on Toga's body with his own, so even though she tried to struggle hard after she saw the darkness, her right arm barely lifted off the ground before dropping back to her side. The darkness faded from Zach's body a second after he had activated it, doing almost as quick a double-tap as he had during their fight.

Zach panted while kneeling on top of an unconscious Himiko Toga. He stared down at her back, and he thought about how they used the same moves while they fought. _**"…But people will try and counter it with this…"**_ _You showed me blocks for the counters, but at the same time you needed to know those blocks because those counters work sometimes. You were telling me what the best moves to beat you were when I was asking how to make sure the moves worked. Flipping over me, it was a good counter, but I already knew I was going to grab your hair if you tried it, because I've been planning our fight since I met you._

Zach kept panting but lifted his head up a bit and looked past Bakugo at the two teachers at the top of the steps. And Zach saw a couple of students there too. The sight of the two of them made him feel a pit of dread in his chest, and he locked eyes with the tall girl looking towards him where he sat spread over Toga's body. Zach started getting up to his feet, and he tore his eyes off of his girlfriend to look at Midnight who was the closer of the two teacher's to him. "Did you hear-"

"Yeah," Midnight replied, and she shook her head before quickly pulling her phone out. She lifted it and called up the principal fast, and the others around started walking towards Zach and Toga. Bakugo was already standing only a couple of feet away, staring frustratedly down at the girl who had gotten away from him downstairs. After glaring at her for a few more seconds though, Bakugo's dark eyes started lifting and focused on Zach with an angry look in them.

Present Mic turned to Midnight who motioned for him to come towards her where she stood talking to the principal, while Mineta and Yaoyorozu jogged out of the staircase and towards Zach and Bakugo. Zach stood in front of his spiky-haired classmate who took a step towards him and with a dark glare in his eyes said, "What the fuck was she talking about, _Reaper?"_

Another boy who had just come towards the sound of the commotion froze in the intersection a few feet from Mineta and Yaoyorozu. Midoriya noticed Yaoyorozu's eyes open wide too, then he looked down to the unconscious girl next to Zach who had a small blood puddle beneath her face that had been slammed into the ground a few times there. Zach turned his gaze towards the other three who just heard Bakugo say that, then he looked back at Bakugo with a look turning nervous for a second but then freezing. He took in a quick but deep breath, then he lowered his eyes to Toga and thought about what she had talked about.

For a second Zach thought about the look in her eyes after a question he asked before, but he ground his teeth and snarled as he heard the name of the girl not far from him echo in his head in Toga's voice. Then he thought about what Toga had responded with after she had made the face that made his chest hurt, and he felt it churn around even more violently. _You, you and D- and all of you. Bangkok. Was that where we… I thought we were in Japan that night when- then maybe she was talking about another night, the one it was just me and her. Either way._

Zach rose his eyes to Bakugo's again, then he muttered, "You really want to know?" _I can't just let Bakugo think… No, that's not even it._ Zach's chest pounded even harder, and he glanced towards Yaoyorozu again and then Midoriya who was looking at him cautiously and glancing at Toga and then Bakugo wondering what she could have said. Bakugo glared harder at Zach as a response, and Zach nodded once in acceptance. _Bakugo's not a close friend, neither is Mineta if he's going to stay here, but,_ Zach glanced around and then muttered in a low voice, "I'll tell you now, and if you want to tell the cops when they come to investigate this, go right ahead." Zach did not know what was going to happen from then on. His heart was racing, but his chest was full of swirling emotions that were making him feel like he was collapsing.

 _How did Toga know? Why did she look at me like that? She, she made it clear it was Kurogiri who… And, and I lied so easily about Stain to her. I tortured- that was just interrogation, because if she doesn't return soon the others' orders might be to kill Recovery Girl. That makes it alright! I was right too about what I thought was going to happen, considering the name of that villain she mentioned. I think so much like them. I knew what the plan was, I, I had considered it was going to happen even before today, which is why I didn't tell anyone when I suspected Recovery Girl was… because I thought I was being stupid. I really, really thought I was just trying to confirm my own suspicions, but I saw it coming. I really saw this coming. I knew because I wasn't just bringing people back. I was Reaper. I, I saw how the League got information out of people long before I was ever… and because I didn't stop those things, I deserved them done back to me. Didn't I? I did. Because I enjoyed it. Toga was right. I, I tried forgetting all it. I wanted to just let those memories be repressed, even though they never really was. I was just ignoring them. Ignoring the way I felt before VTS._

 _And, and if I have to face that now- no! NO! Things were going so great! Things_ _ **are**_ _going great! If I explain, if I just explain it to them. They'll forgive me, right? If, if I tell them what I did? What I really did, when I was with the villains?_ Zach stared around at his classmates with him, and then he said in a soft voice, "Let's go in a room."

* * *

 **A/N Thanks for reading.**

Shade11224 chapter 83 . Sep 28

The beginning was a bit confusing, but the ending was really nice. Please don't kill momozaki, it's legitimately the only ship I've ever been emotionally invested in.

 **Hope the start of this one didn't confuse you too (it was "Recovery Girl" talking in those individual quote lines foreshadowing where Zach was going). Also in case you didn't figure it out, it was a nightmare Zach was happening that last chapter. Glad you're invested in this ship... let's hope it don't sink. XD Thanks for the review!**

TheCarlosInferno chapter 83 . Sep 28

So, the promised hour is near?

 **Promised hour? Good sir I have no clue what you mean. But... predictions welcome! XD Thanks for reviewing!**

Ma boi chapter 83 . Sep 28

Congrats you now have 500 reviews

 **Yo ma Boi! Thanks! Glad to hit that milestone, don't think I ever reached it before in a story so it's pretty exciting!**

Momozaki chapter 83 . Sep 28

I like how you incorporated the manga tag team battles in this story! Damn you just know how to make things interesting  
You scared me at the start...troll  
*Puts hands together*  
Please be fluff next chapter  
No death  
No pain  
Not yet pleeaaase

 **Thanks! A lot of good ol' school stuff mixed with fluff! It was a nice couple of chapters... XP glad the nightmare scared u! Hope you enjoyed!**

Guest chapter 83 . Sep 28

Oh my God this was perfect, honestly 10 out of 10 and the thing is it was not that much at action packed but still I don't know why but somehow this is one of my favorite chapters, it was just nice seeing them acting like teenagers joking around teasing each other Zack panicking over the date and Momo understanding letting him explain when the time is right perfectly Man I don't know how but this is one of my favorite chapters now. I just remembered about the dream part and thenI remembered does he still go to therapy with softy? Oh and let's not forget stalker girl I don't know why Ifeel bad for and at the same time kind of creeped out let's see where this road goes to hope you keep this great content up. Sorry if this review is too long just wanted to write it all out.

 **Thank you! Really glad you guys enjoyed the last chapter. I was worried I was just putting too much in as filler but yeah I think it worked out well too. Yeah he's still meeting with Softy, or at least we haven't seen him say anything otherwise. I just haven't been putting in his therapy sessions much, though he still thinks about her pretty often. Like earlier this chapter he thought before cutting himself about how Softy had asked him once- but I digress. Glad you're interested in stalker chick, we'll def see some more of her! And thanks for the long review, glad you've been into the story, and hope you enjoyed the new chapter!**

gods-own chapter 83 . 12h ago

good stuff

 **Thanks**

Frostbrett chapter 83 . 8h ago

OMFG AMAZING I'M FINALLY CAUGHT UP FROM THE EDGY DARKNESS THAT WAS THE APOCALYPSE MINI ARCH THE CUTENESS ITS SO CUTE I'M GONNA DO IT OwO OwO OWO OWO OWO OWO OWO OWO OWO I'VE DONE IT I OWO'D ya

 **A nice tense arc of villain fights and darkness... followed by a good 3 fluffy chapters in a row. Breakin' the chain now though... I hope y'all enjoyed the chapter. Thanks for reviewing!**


	85. Chapter 85

**Disclaimer: I don't own Boku no Hero Academia**

 **Chapter 85:**

"Midnight sensei said we can stay in here until the cops arrive to question us," Yaoyorozu said while stepping back into Class 2-A's classroom. Five students were gathered in their class on the first floor of U.A High School, four of them looking to the same dark-haired scar-faced teen.

Midoriya stood next to the desk Zach was sitting on the edge of, and the curly-green-haired boy was finishing wrapping up Zach's arm even though the bleeding had slowed already. "You really cut your own arm?" Mineta asked, then he gulped as Bakugo shot him a pissed-off look from a few feet away. Zach just nodded his head once at Mineta's question before focusing on Bakugo, and Midoriya lowered his hands down and took a step back himself too.

"Toga's in police custody," Zach said in a low voice. He had his phone lifted in his right hand which he had been looking at while Midoriya helped him after offering to do so once they entered the room before. "But we're not supposed to say anything about it for a while," Zach muttered, looking at the message from the principal closely.

"We are apparently being locked down to protect us from any other villains who could have snuck onto campus with Toga's help," Yaoyorozu said, as she had just talked to Midnight sensei about this for a little. "Something strange seems to be going on with the teachers-"

"I don't care about any of that right now," Bakugo snapped. He glared at Zach, and Zach stared back in his eyes seriously but without the same glare Bakugo was giving him. "What the hell was she talking about? The fuck happened in, Bangkok?" Bakugo asked it like he was confused at the name of the city and if he had really heard it right. Then he narrowed his eyes more and growled, "And why'd she call you Reaper? You knew that crazy bitch-"

"I knew her," Zach said. He stared at Bakugo and did not deny it. He glanced around at the others and got a pained look on his face for a second at Momo's look, _Please, don't look at me any differently. I, I can't handle this. This suspense. Every time something happens, I feel like it's all going to come out. And sooner or later one of them is going to spill everything. I- I need to do this on my own terms. I want to! I don't want people finding out from others. I don't want people to become so suspicious, like Bakugo is, just from the smallest…_ "I knew her, well," Zach added in a softer voice.

"Zach, you don't have to," Midoriya began.

"Yes, he does," Bakugo said, shooting Midoriya a glare and then looking back to Zach.

Zach just nodded once at Midoriya to show it was fine. Yaoyorozu closed her mouth that she opened to tell Bakugo he did not need to do anything he did not want to. Mineta gulped and glanced towards the door, but he stopped himself from saying how he wanted to just go back to his room like the text he received from the principal ordered everyone do. _Midnight sensei said staying it here was an option, but I don't really want to know… Whatever it is. Why are you saying this stuff, Zach?_ Mineta looked towards his classmate, and his friend, and he did not know what to say or do as Zach's eyes glanced over him too.

"I, didn't spend all my time with the villains saving people," Zach said. He sat on the desk and looked at Bakugo right in his eyes. "I'm sure you guys all noticed. I'm sure, people started wondering where I was long before VTS. They stopped me from really bringing people back to life in public. They wanted to wane Lifebringer out of people's minds, because it did not have the effect they were hoping it would have. They wanted people to question what it meant to be a villain, but all people were questioning was whether or not I was, not the ideology as a whole."

"So what does that-"

"You want me to tell you, or not?" Zach asked, cutting off Bakugo and glaring into his eyes for a second. He softened his look though while Bakugo gave him a glare back, and Zach knew this was not the time to be getting upset with his classmates. _They're right, to look at me like that. I, I deserve it. I don't deserve life to be going as great as it is. Momo, my friends… I don't want to lose it though. I don't want to lose any of it. Telling them this might make me lose it though. It might, or, maybe this will be what lets me really move forward. Finally telling the truth, the whole truth to a group of people. I was worried just with Kaminari, but I told him a lot and don't regret it. I know I can tell things to these four, without them spreading it to everyone. Even Mineta. I can see it in his eyes; he wants to believe me right here._

Zach took a deep breath as no one else spoke up, then he started again in a soft but serious voice, "What Toga said, Bakugo. I _never_ tortured people. She said that just so you would, well, do this," Zach muttered the final part with a grim look on his face. Bakugo kept frowning at him, but he stopped glaring as harshly. After seeing how Zach got the information out of Toga, he had believed what she said pretty definitively. After Zach's denial right there though, he did not think it was so any longer. Zach had already said more though that had him looking darkly at his classmate for a different reason.

"As soon, as I realized what they were doing," Zach said. "I decided I needed to get out of there. I- you know that I went in that portal on my own, but as soon as they started slowing down the amount of people they let me save, I decided I needed to escape." Zach paused and gulped. He could not help it, and he gulped but then continued strongly while keeping eye contact with Bakugo, "But the only way I could see myself escaping from there, was if I gained their trust. In order to move around more freely. In order to learn where I actually was, so that I could come back with real information to give the heroes, because I doubted they'd accept me back without it. I, and I didn't think I could just run away from there and make it. So I decided I needed them to trust me, but I told them that I wouldn't kill anyone for them."

Mineta let out a small relieved breath as he was starting to get worried with what Zach was saying. The others did not look as relieved though, and their eyes all started growing wide as Zach lowered his own to the floor and continued, "By late September, I had started… And by mid-October they really didn't have me doing much anymore with bringing people back. Public opinion of me had changed, and they needed to make me a villain so I wasn't just seen as… So, I started to do villain work."

 _I never even told Webb this. I was afraid of what he'd do right after I escaped. And I pretended, like none of it had ever happened. Ganji knew when I said that name. That name I chose so confidently, because I was used to it already. Because it was one that I had picked._ Zach's eyes were dark as he rose them back from the floor, and he continued in a low voice while the others stared at him in shock, "They wanted me to kill right off the bat but I wouldn't, I wouldn't do anything close even which they saw when they tried taking me to situations where I might have to. So they put me somewhere to build up to it. I started off small. Just, packaging drugs. But I was an 'important piece' to Shigaraki, and I had been a part of the League for longer than most."

Zach grit his teeth harder and then said in a dark and low voice, "They started giving me more power quickly when they saw I was willing to do certain jobs. I was easily willing to package drugs if it meant Kurogiri kept taking me out to bring people back to life, just more privately. So they moved me up, to where I got to tell other people to package the drugs…"

 _This is, this is,_ Mineta's eyes started shaking as he stared at the taller boy sitting on the desk in front of him.

 _He's talking about being a villain,_ Midoriya thought with his chest pounding and his throat getting dry. _An actual, villain._

 _You don't have to say anymore Zach. If it was just to gain their trust, we understand! Why, can't I say that aloud?_ Yaoyorozu pursed her lips instead of speaking.

 _That's… This is exactly, like what you did in the training forest. And in Camino Ward. I was pissed at you then too, but, you,_ Bakugo ground his own teeth, and then his eyes shot open wide again at what Zach continued with.

"But being able to tell others to package the drugs, quickly turned into being allowed to command them to do other things. As Reaper, I knew that Shigaraki wanted me to look like a worse villain. He wasn't going to show me off until I was willing to kill people which he kept thinking I would do, with enough time. He wanted me to do more though, and more, and I was willing to keep going as long as it meant I could gain their trust, and as long as I didn't have to kill anyone. Because that was the one rule I made for myself. The one thing I told myself would mean I had gone too far. Where gaining their trust wouldn't mean anything anymore."

Zach rose his left hand and put it on his forehead though, and he got a dark look in his eyes as he said, "But that line wasn't- It was still too far." Zach pressed his palm harder into his forehead, then he rose his eyes and glanced around his classmates staring at him wide-eyed and waiting for more. "They moved me up through the ranks so fast. It was out of my control, because I couldn't just say no. I did more, allowed myself to take on more, be a part of more. And one night, just over a week before VTS, I was in charge of bringing in a delivery. I had five guys with me, and I sent two of them up to open the truck's doors…"

 **Eight Months Ago…**

"Kaizer, Flowgurt, open it up," Reaper motioned towards the truck with his head. He had on a black mask covering his face, his black hair short but sticking out over the top of his helmet that did not have any steel covering the scalp. The short, five foot three inch tall villain in all black stood with three others near the back of a truck that had gone in reverse through the gates of the compound on the outskirts of a city he did not know the name of. Behind him was a huge warehouse-kind-of building that had multiple smaller buildings on the side and some abandoned factories behind it that were not as abandoned as the public thought.

In front of Zach on his right a couple of feet stood a man shorter than him but fat so he weighed three times as much. The pudgy short man had a cigarette in his mouth like the tall man on his right wearing a black-and-white pinstripe suit like him. To Zach's left was an older woman in her mid-fifties who had long white hair and wrinkles all over her face, but a more sadistic look in her eyes than the men around her. Zach's black mask covered up his whole face except for his eyes and mouth, and behind the mouth hole his lips were twisted down in a deep frown. His eyes were dark and he stared straight at the truck in front of them with a look of disdain and dread. His eyes shifted a bit to his right at the fat man in front of him, and he ground his teeth as Potcobble called out, "Hurry it up. We don't have all night."

The two grunts near the back of the truck climbed up on the bumper. Flowgurt knocked twice while Kaizer leaned down to the latches on the bottom and flipped them. The truck had just backed in, and Zach glanced to the left and right but did not see anyone coming around from the front seats. He shifted his eyes back to the metal door on the back of the truck that started sliding up, expecting to see the drivers in there with their shipment. The door rose, Zach took a step back with his eyes opening wide, and Flowgurt and Kaizer flew backwards with bullets riddling their bodies.

The woman on Zach's left was the quickest to react, raising her arms and firing them like cannons towards the back of the truck before their comrades had even fallen away from it. The cannonballs she fired at the truck slammed into a purple forcefield pulsing out the back of it, though the other villains just on the inside of the truck stumbled back as most of them did not expect their own comrade to react that quickly. As the cannonballs exploded against the forcefield, a huge smirk spread on Reaper's face while he spun around. "Don't let them in Potcobble! I'm getting Stanks!"

"Hold on-"

 **Present**

"Are you fucking kidding me?" Bakugo growled. Zach froze with his mouth open as his classmate cut him off in the story he started ranting about. "This, you were actually running shit-"

"I wasn't," Zach argued back, shaking his head once with a frustrated look on his face. "I, I really- they wanted to make it seem like I did. But those guys with me, they knew to do what I said, but they also knew I wasn't allowed to touch a cellphone." Zach turned his head and looked into Midoriya's eyes, and he snapped, "They knew not to let me wander around on my own, and that I couldn't leave the compound. I wasn't in charge of the whole place, Stanks was. I usually wasn't even one of the most- but that's not important. I _couldn't_ escape. Or, or I didn't think I could. Not yet…"

"Zach," Mineta began quietly. Zach turned his way, and Mineta lifted his head and said in a stronger voice, "I, I don't blame you. For trying to make sure they believed you, so you could get out of there safely. Because when you couldn't," Mineta pursed his lips for a second and shook his head. The others gained softer looks too though Bakugo ground his teeth even as he thought about the torture he saw Zach go through at the Sports Festival. Even as he thought about the scars all over Zach's body he saw almost every day in the locker room, Bakugo could not fight the angry feeling he had as he looked towards Zach. Zach did not look relieved at what Mineta said though. If anything, he looked frustrated at what Mineta had said which made the shorter boy pull away in confusion.

"I didn't just-" Zach started. He clenched his teeth and then said in a whisper, "I never should have tried it. I should have ran, because it didn't matter anyway. I did all of that, and it didn't even matter. I failed at escaping at VTS anyway. I, I did all of it. I gained their trust, and-"

"Zach, VTS wasn't your fault," Midoriya started quickly, taking a step closer to Zach. He had such a hurt look on his face as Zach blamed himself for something he had not let Midoriya take the blame for himself so many times before.

"But, that doesn't matter," Zach whispered towards him. "Because it failed all the same. So everything I did, to get their trust… It just made me, it made me…" Zach's lips started shaking and his eyes darted around at the others, then he whispered, "It made me care for them." The others all froze and their eyes started opening wide at the pained look in Zach's eyes. "It made me, a villain. I, I had already betrayed their trust before, so I couldn't just get it back easily. I, I knew I couldn't just trick them. I knew I couldn't just tell them I was a villain and that would be it. I had to _earn_ their trust. So, I couldn't complain about what I was doing. And, and I had to look like I didn't care about what they were doing anymore. But, but I doubted I could do that, if it was just pretend. I told myself, to just focus on not killing. I told myself that in order to really gain their trusts, to make them think I wasn't a hero, I had to… enjoy it. I had to cast away a part of my sou-" Zach froze with his mouth open.

 _Saying it like this. I, it wouldn't explain it well. It wouldn't tell them_ _ **why.**_ "That day at the compound, I ran away from the truck. I ran and left those guys there to fight the other villains who had come after us, who had stolen our shipment of villain costumes. They had killed our drivers and knew that we had other valuables at our compound, so they came in with an ambush. The guys I left behind were slaughtered, and when Stanks came out with the rest of the guys, even they couldn't handle the group that had come for us. Their guys died, and our guys died, and I was smiling the whole time…"

 **Eight Months Ago…**

"They just killed Stanks! I'm in charge now and I have no idea what to do. I need help Kurogiri!" Reaper stumbled backwards while in Nightmare form, and he pulled up the communicator he had on him that only had connections to certain members of the League of Villains on it. He turned and started running as a wall in front of him blew apart, and he heard cackling laughter on his left side followed by the dying scream of a villain whose voice he did not recognize.

"Just hold on for a little longer Reaper," Kurogiri's voice came through the communicator, but Zach dropped it as two figures dropped down in front of him and glared his way with glowing blue eyes. The two of them ran forward and merged into one figure, a figure who doubled in size and lifted up hands that morphed into long ice blades.

Zach swept both arms up in front of him and released Death Winds from his arms. The villain before him crossed his big ice blades, then he stumbled backwards and fell to the ground before collapsing on his face. Zach smirked and he spun around, yelling, "Don't give them anything!" Zach pulled out a pair of knives as he spotted other villains he did not recognize running towards him. He took a step towards them, and then a thin razor wire flew out from behind the woman he was glaring at farther away from him. The wire wrapped around her neck and pulled tight before retracting so fast that it slit straight through her throat.

The other villain spun to their comrade, the turned and let out a pulsing scream that Twice had to dodge just like the girl in front of him who was almost at their enemy. "You alright there Reaper?" A voice asked behind Zach as Toga slashed down at the screaming villain's face. Zach started panting and he turned his head feeling a huge amount of relief as he saw the spiky-haired man walking up to him. Farther behind Dabi, Zach saw Spinner running with a group of others out of a portal and yelling about taking out all of the enemies.

"I'm fine," Zach said. His voice was deep and scratchy, overlapping with his normal voice in his Nightmare form. "Let's get them," Zach said with a smirk spread over his dark face.

 **Present**

"…smiling the whole time, because villains started dropping all around me."

"You were smiling?" Bakugo asked, lifting an eyebrow and looking at Zach oddly that he would say that.

"I had spent the whole day, being a villain," Zach said. He shook his head and then said in a regretful tone, "In a villain base, doing what villains told me to, telling villains what to do. I went from feeling like a shitty villain doing terrible things, to watching villains fall all around me. Their guys died, and our guys died, and then the reinforcements came and some of them died while killing even more of the others. It was a fucking battle, and I was smiling and even laughing to better match how villains acted… But, I was smiling for another reason too," Zach said, and he rose his left hand and rubbed it on the side of his head with his teeth clenching tightly as he knew he had still been lying even while trying to tell the truth. "Because I called Kurogiri for help, and he sent it. Dabi came to save me. The others too. Toga, Twice, and, Spinner," Zach whispered the last one and he grabbed the side of his head even harder.

Bakugo's eyes opened huge. He thought about when he looked down towards the arena at the Sports Festival. He had seen Spinner, a villain he recognized, standing there next to Zach. He had gone down himself and attacked Spinner to get him away from Zach. How acquainted as he was with Spinner though, had nothing compared to what he was realizing now. Something that had confused him so much back when it had happened, but he started to understand why Zach was rubbing his head so painfully at the mention of Spinner's name. "They were my," Zach began, and then he clenched his eyes shut because it was impossible to say aloud, but the final word was implied.

Then Zach lowered his hand. His pained look went away and he ground his teeth as now was not the time for that. "But it was all faked. They never really were, my friends. I was lying to them the entire time. Tricking them." Zach frowned deeper and then he continued, "The other villains that night, I heard from Dabi afterwards that they were the Rough Riders. I didn't really know anything about the city where the compound was, but apparently the League were negotiating with the Rough Riders and trying to get some association going on with them. They were trying to trick us though- trick _them_ … But I was a part of them at the time. There's no denying that," Zach whispered against his own attempt at countering.

"Zach," Yaoyorozu started. He turned towards her and looked into her eyes in such a pained way at her look. She smiled at him though and shook her head to make him stop feeling that way. "You were _never_ a part of them. You were a spy on your own terms, don't forget that. Even if no one else can back that up." Zach's eyes widened as he stared into his girlfriend's, and she said softer, "That's what I believe, and that's what I _know_ is the truth."

Zach pulled his head back and he clenched his teeth as her faith in him hurt so much when he himself did not believe it that much. "Thanks," Zach whispered. He glanced around after saying it though, and he sighed but sat up straight on the desk and got a more intense look on his face. "I, I'm not just telling you this to explain why Toga said those things." He looked mostly at Bakugo while saying it. Then he continued while looking Midoriya's way, "But I want you guys to understand, what I was really doing back then. How I got to VTS. Why it is, that Spinner…" Zach closed his eyes for a second and shook his head, then he opened them with a serious look in his eyes again.

"Some of the Rough Riders retreated, most of the rest who attacked were killed after the reinforcements showed up," Zach continued. "They left the truck behind, but the costumes that were supposed to be inside weren't there. One of the Rough Riders was left behind though," Zach said, his voice getting darker and a much darker look spreading over his face. "And they 'found out' where the ones who had taken the costumes were, and the five of us together went after the rest." Zach paused after saying that, and then he continued quieter, "There were some others there at first, moving with us, but in the fights that followed that night we dwindled down to just us five. Dabi, me, Toga, Twice, and Spinner. We kicked ass, and we drove around, Spinner yelling 'Grand Theft Auto," and Twice being his usual… and we attacked villains all over the city."

Mineta stared at Zach with his bottom lip lowered and his eyes huge. More shocking than how Zach was referring to the other villains, was just the activities that Zach was talking about had happened back in the fall. _I never heard about any of this! I never even thought Zach was…_

"We went from villain warehouses to different alleys, trying to find out where the Rough Riders had taken the costumes. Then the police got involved," Zach continued, and his friends and classmates opened their eyes huge at the sound of that. Zach's expression got so much darker as he said it too, making each of them nervous at what he was about to say. "We were in a car chase. We were following the Rough Riders, and the cops were following us, and even a hero… But we got away. We split off and found ourselves in an alleyway, the cops all gone probably chasing after the Rough Riders though they never got them. The hero though, he had come after us. He was just outside the alley…"

 **Eight Months Ago…**

"No," Reaper said firmly. "We're not killing him."

"There's no other way, kid," Dabi said, though he sounded in part apologetic towards Zach as he did.

"We can't," Zach began.

"I'll do it," Toga offered excitedly, though still in a whisper as they were hiding in the alley, and there was a hero chasing them not too far away.

Zach darted his eyes around behind his dark mask, then he started in a low whisper, "If a hero goes down, more cops and more heroes are going to come out. We won't be able to keep looking for the costumes as freely."

"Good point," Twice said, bringing a hand up to his chin. "Kill him anyway!" He called out, and Zach darted his eyes back and forth down the dark alley hoping no one came from hearing that.

"There's no way around it," Spinner started.

"What if he's a real hero?" Zach said, looking away from Dabi who was about to say how they needed to go now. He looked at Spinner and said, "What if this guy is someone who Stain would consider a true hero?"

"I've never even heard of him," Spinner muttered, a frown on his face at what Zach was saying. "Which means he's just another fake-"

"Or," Zach countered quickly and harshly. "Maybe he's a hero who doesn't seek recognition for what he does. He doesn't go around flaunting his heroic deeds to the public, and that's why we don't know who he is."

Spinner's eyes widened a bit, but Dabi started, "We don't have time for this-"

Then Zach said quickly, "What we don't have time for is checking to make sure this is actually a fake hero, and not someone who Stain would recognize. Are a bunch of costumes really worth breaking the reasons we do any of this?"

"Hmm," Spinner hummed, and he leaned his head back. The green-skinned scaly man nodded his head and said, "You're right. I can't say he's an amateur, or a fake, considering he had the intuition to follow us."

"But if he is a good hero then," Dabi started. "Getting away without killing him is going to be that much harder."

"We already know where the next place we have to go to is," Zach argued. "And they shouldn't know that we got that information. Whether it takes us a bit longer shouldn't matter."

Dabi looked down into the holes of Zach's mask and stared in the younger boy's eyes for a few seconds. Then he nodded his head with a grunt and said, "Well, it is Stain's teaching." Dabi looked down the alley the opposite direction as he thought the hero was probably in. "Let's get out of here quickly then. We'll go find a new car…"

 **Present**

"But they listened to me. I, was able to convince them not to do it. I thought maybe they'd just tell me to shut up, or something," Zach paused for a second and kept his eyes down while his friends gawked at him after what he just described. "But, they didn't. Because I was one of them. And they didn't treat each other like," Zach paused and he closed his eyes. " _We_ , didn't treat each other, like heroes treat them. The League of Villains, was a place those villains wouldn't be treated like their treated in society. People like Toga…"

Zach cut off from his story and he leaned his head back for a second, such an angry look on his face as he mentioned the crazy girl who had just invaded their school. The girl who had cut him, and Bakugo who had a bandage on the side of his neck for a shallow wound. The girl who had abducted their kind school nurse. Zach lowered his eyes and looked at that bandage on Bakugo's neck to try and get angrier, but then he pictured a look in her eyes. "Toga was," Zach started. "Crazy. So crazy. But in the League of Villains, that didn't matter. And when I tried to get the villains to trust me, I decided not to treat Toga like she was crazy. I just, talked to her." Zach looked over towards Midoriya who was staring at him with as wide eyes as he had been for most of this. "And as crazy as she was about you, and about Stain, about so much, she wasn't like that with me. Toga didn't really like me that much at first, but when I didn't treat her funny, when I didn't insult her or call her crazy or, or try and stop her from being herself… She was so crazy, so having someone like that, I wonder how many people had been that nice to her before?"

Zach ground his teeth for a second, then he whispered, "And I was doing it just to trick her."

"She's a villain," Mineta started.

"But she's also human," Zach said, turning towards the shorter boy and looking at him so softly and yet with a pained look in his eyes. "I, I thought it would be easier to trick the villains, if I wasn't always looking at them with so much disdain. I thought it would be easier to act like one of them, if I could find good in them. Because if there was good in villains, then I could act villain-like without feeling like a total monster. So I searched for the good in all of them, and in doing so, I found it." Zach said it in almost a shocked tone, and he shook his head once after doing so. "It was supposed to just be to trick them. It was supposed to be so I could better understand them, but it got to the point that I wished I could convince them to stop being villains, to turn their lives around, or something. And when I was able to convince them not to kill a hero, I felt so good! It felt, amazing, knowing that they were willing to listen to me and only be villains to a certain extent."

Zach closed his eyes again and then opened them with such a look of dread on his face, "That night, was the closest I ever got. It was the point where any farther and… It was an eight hour long night, and we didn't finish until the sun was rising. We got the costumes back." Zach's eyes got colder and he continued while looking towards the windows and straight out them, "I never killed anyone that night, but I saw so many villains die, and the combat was nonstop thrilling life-risking… and we had each other's backs." Zach's fists clenched at his sides and his left arm and hand hurt as he did it. _I hope they get Recovery Girl back alright,_ he thought at the feeling of his own pain and the reason his wounds were still there. The thought was also to distract from what he just said though, but the feelings lingered as he continued, "We fought together, guarded each other, we were comrades. I think that night is how I got them to believe I was on their side enough for me to get my escape chance at VTS."

Zach looked back in from outside and to Bakugo, and then over to Yaoyorozu who was staring at him in shock at all he was saying. Zach continued while looking in her eyes, "That's what I told myself afterwards at least, when I thought about how many laws I had broken that night without even questioning it. But when I think back on how much a villain I was back then..." Zach shook his head and then continued in a desperate voice as she was still trying to look at him understandingly, and how could she possibly understand this? "I acted as a villain, commanded other villains, was trained under villains, thought like a villain, _became_ a villain. I was tortured by villains, and now I know how to torture _like_ a villain because of it." He said the last part in pain because he knew the others had seen him get the information out of Toga, how he had manipulated her with a lie and caused her pain at the same time. Physical and mental, and Zach was punishing himself so much thinking back on that despite knowing that it was likely saving Recovery Girl as they spoke.

"I blurred the line between heroes and villains, trying to find the good in villains after seeing the bad in heroes." Zach closed his eyes and thought about his court case. He imagined his greatest hero up on the stand saying that he couldn't be a hero, after telling him to go after his dream when he was a kid. _"Murderer!"_ The voices he heard shouting at him at the Sports Festival echoed in his head. Then he saw his father, wearing his old hero costume even though it had been months since his license was suspended, a beer in hand and a glare in his eyes. Zach grimaced and opened his eyes back up, and he had the biggest look of regret in his eyes that the others had ever seen. "It kills me, that one of the most villainous things I ever consider having done, was betraying the League of Villains."

"Ah," Momo pulled in such a big breath it made a noise. Midoriya's eyes opened so much wider, while Bakugo's narrowed again as his fists clenched tighter.

Mineta just looked confusedly at Zach though, not wondering how he got from what he was just saying to there. "Wh-What do you mean?" Mineta whispered.

"I know it was the right thing to do," Zach started to the short boy. He could see Mineta was desperately looking to still believe in him even after hearing something so damning. Zach shook his head and then continued, "But thinking back on a night like that, when we all had each other's backs and protected each other in life-or-death fights. I know they trusted me." Zach paused and he continued in a strained voice, "And after that night, I realized I had gained their trust, and in that moment of realization I had felt one of the worst feelings in my entire life. When I knew it was time to tell Shigaraki that I wanted to make my declaration to the world, at the place it all started…" Zach's classmates looked at him with huge eyes, as he admitted that he was not just _at_ VTS, but had suggested the idea of it in the first place in order to open up his escape opportunity.

"Because I knew, that staying any longer would have been villainous." Zach shook his head and then continued fast to his classmates who were all wide-eyed and staring at him in shock at everything he said, "I gained their trust, all as a lie. It was all a lie just so I could get my escape! Yet, when I killed Spinner at the Sports Festival," Zach said, and he shook his head while squinting his eyes a bit. Three of the others in the room did not know the truth about that, even though they had had doubts when watching the video in class on their first day back and saw Spinner die at a weird angle that made it impossible to see what Zach did if anything. "When I killed him, even though Spinner had stood by and watched as the person I loved the most was burned alive, even though he had killed that woman in Higucha, I knew there was not all evil inside him."

Yaoyorozu took in another gasped breath, trying not to let her eyes get watery but finding it hard as she saw the frustrated and conflicted look covering Zach's face. He mentioned the woman in Higucha who she knew he had told only her about. Yaoyorozu didn't know how Zach could feel this way about the man who had killed that woman when that was what he admitted to being his biggest regret. She did not know how that could be a regret of his yet betraying the League of Villains could be one too.

"You shouldn't regret, betraying them," Bakugo started. Zach turned to him and saw Bakugo's fists were unclenching at his sides. "You made the right call, leaving."

"I know," Zach said, his voice coming out as a breath. "But," Zach whispered. "But when they pulled me back through that portal at VTS, and I saw all their faces." Zach paused and he clenched his teeth so tightly, and he ground them behind his lips before whispering, "I knew I deserved the torture I received, because I had stood by and watched as they had done it to other villains before. Because I had seen them do things, not as bad as what they did to me… but terrible things. And I let them happen so I could convince them I was on their side. But even though that's why I think I might have deserved it, it-it was the moment I came back. I thought I had left them all behind escaping to VTS, but having to see their faces right after the betrayal was something I never planned for."

Zach's eyes started to water up, and he tried so hard to push them away. "When Shigaraki told me that I was going to wish I was never born, I looked around for help. I wanted one of my comrades to help me. But I had just- and they were watching- People I had gotten to trust me, people who I, who I think cared about me. People who realized that I had just been lying to them the whole time." Zach could not help it and he had to lift his right hand and put the glove over his face to hide his eyes. "They were so crazy, and insane, and they were terrible people. But I found good parts in them, and I tried to make those good parts more pronounced, tried to push the good things in them out. So can you imagine what they felt-" Zach paused and he breathed in sharply to keep his voice steady as it was starting to crack, and his felt his glove getting wet as he held it over his eyes. "Any good, inside of them. I could see it dying in their eyes. Like, like they thought I had really wanted to be their friend. I, I saw Toga look at me and-"

Zach pursed his lips below his right hand. He clenched his eyes shut and whispered, "I didn't see anyone looking at me in pity. It was what I wanted to see. Someone who pitied me enough that they would kill me and save me from whatever Shigaraki was about to do to me, but no one did. No one had any pity in their eyes, but they all looked so angry, so furious, so, _betrayed._ " Zach lowered his hand down over his face and looked at Bakugo with his eyes bloodshot, water in the corners of them and such a furiously conflicted look on his face. " _They,_ looked at _me,_ like I was the monster. And as hard as I try. As horrible as the villains are, and as much as I fight them and keep trying to stop them, I can't just forget the time I spent with them. I can't forget the things I did with them that made me a villain…"

"It all happened so fast. I went through the portal at the courthouse because I thought I had no hope. I thought I had nowhere to go, nowhere villains wouldn't come after me because my Quirk was public, nowhere normal citizens wouldn't come after me and try lynching me because of what my Quirk was. Something I'd always been afraid of- It's what I thought the trial was- and then I couldn't kill them when I went through the portal, because of the box on my- and Shigaraki said I could be Lifebringer! It was that or die, and I wanted to save people so- and then it just started becoming to be Lifebringer and being a villain at the same time, or dying. And then I just moved to the next step assuming that if I didn't I would die, and I did things like I didn't have a choice. I did terrible things, just because I was scared. Because I was going with the flow. And I spent months with those villains."

"Zach," Mineta began quietly. "You didn't have to," Zach clenched his teeth and eyes shut, only to open them back up in confusion as Mineta finished, "tell us any of that."

Bakugo glanced to his left over at the short boy, but the kid with the Pop Off Quirk just looked softly at Zach and had water in his own eyes that made Zach's eyes open huge. "I don't know what I'd have done," Mineta whispered. "You, you didn't become a villain though. Even though you could've just… no one told you to come back. There was nothing for you back here, and you came back ready to get arrested. You tried turning yourself in at VTS." Zach lowered his head and sniffled in once, then he rose his right arm and wiped his eyes more thoroughly. He coughed once to clear his throat and tried getting himself back to normal, then he lifted his gaze back up with wide eyes as Mineta continued, "And I get, why you feel bad about, even betraying the villains. If you didn't, after all that stuff you talked about," Mineta could not believe he was about to say this, but he finished, " _That_ would have made you more of a villain."

Bakugo grunted, as he did not know if he felt the same way there. He did not have anything to say though. He just glared down at the floor at his feet, and then he lifted his eyes up while his head was still bowed, and he said, "I hate the way you do things."

"I do too," Zach agreed softly. "But, sometimes they work out. Sometimes, I'm right." Zach thought again about today, about what he had done to stop Toga. He thought about what he said to her in order to get her to tell him where Recovery Girl was. "That doesn't excuse what I did though. The way, I did it."

Midoriya stared at Zach and was the one with the conflicted look on his face now as he saw Zach's expression steadying. _I, I don't know. I don't know what to do. I thought of you- I think, you're an amazing hero. The things you've been doing with your report, trying to make the world a better place… I admired you, and I don't know what to do with this information._ Midoriya's fists clenched tightly and he looked at Zach confusedly and in a sad way. He felt for the things Zach just talked about which he felt like Zach had never talked about before, since even Yaoyorozu looked shocked by most of it.

Zach rubbed his eyes a couple of times and then took in a deep breath as he fully calmed himself down. _None of them are trying to capture me right now. I don't know if they're going to tell anyone either, but at this point they could or they could not. It doesn't matter._ Zach took another breath and he let it out slowly while looking at Mineta. _Is he the norm? Would others understand what I did? It hurts thinking about all of that. It hurts, reminding myself what I had actually done. I never thought about it that deeply at the time, because I couldn't or it'd risk giving away what I was doing. And I've hated them all so much since I escaped that it was hard to think of any of them with anything but hate. I told Softy as much. But, I also told her how hard it was to try and hate them completely. Seeing Toga, and Spinner, and just that look in Dabi's eyes in Mosu Esupa. Dabi, those burn scars, I thought they were you. But, the more I think about it… you were never there. Mosu Esupa, was the first time since, Jenny…_ Zach's expression got much darker and he ground his teeth furiously that he even tried to not just hate Dabi when reminding himself of that.

"You didn't tell the heroes any of this huh?" Bakugo muttered after Zach replied to him. There had been a pause while everyone just stood there, and Zach nodded at Bakugo after that question. "Didn't think so," Bakugo muttered quieter, in a more annoyed voice. Zach had just told them all of that even though it sounded like things that would have gotten him in a lot of trouble.

"So, who does know?" Mineta whispered, his eyes widening for a second as he realized what that meant.

Zach glanced around, then he said quietly, "You four. And Kaminari knows some- most of that," Zach glanced towards Midoriya and Yaoyorozu after replying to Mineta. "I didn't trust you guys before," Zach whispered with an apologetic look on his face. The two he was looking at were the two after Kaminari who he told the most, and he felt bad that he was telling them in this moment because he felt he needed to. He felt this was better though than at his own pace which really just meant at a pace slow enough that he would get to keep lying to them for a lot longer. "If you feel you need to tell people: heroes, the teachers," Zach began. "You can go ahead."

Bakugo frowned at Zach and then his eyes widened for a second before narrowing a lot in the next moment. _Why now? It's because of Toga, isn't it? He really, actually, feels bad for that…_ Bakugo lowered his gaze down and grimaced more at the thought of everything Zach had said. Zach was not trying to defend himself very hard, but he had given his reasons for what he had done. And those reasons were enough, at least for Bakugo who grunted and rose his eyes back to meet his classmate's. "I didn't think too hard about it, but I already, I guess I knew it was something like that the whole time."

Mineta spun to Bakugo in surprise, but then he looked quickly back at Zach and said, "I'm not telling. You just stopped Toga. I don't think you're a villain or anything, and I don't want you to get in trouble."

 _You're not a villain,_ Midoriya thought while still looking at Zach in a conflicted way. Bakugo glanced over towards his curly-haired childhood friend and wondered what he was thinking at the sight of Midoriya's look. _But, that doesn't make those things alright. You told me you didn't really have power when you talked about the Chemist in the hospital, and it sounds like you really thought you didn't. Yet, to me, it wasn't that Shigaraki thought you were an 'important piece.' You became one of the top members of the League of Villains, and you lied about it for months. But, you already paid for what you did. You paid more than you would have, just getting arrested like you wanted back at VTS. Because I couldn't stop the Nomu from taking you through that portal, you got so much worse a punishment- and yet you think you deserved it!_ Midoriya nodded at Zach when his black-haired friend looked towards him. There was a lot he wanted to say, but he gave Zach the nod to show he would keep this between them at least. _I want to ask All Might… but I think, this is really something we just have to work out between us._

"Zach, you jumped in front of a bullet for me," Yaoyorozu said when Zach looked to her, a tone in her voice like it hurt that he would even look towards her to see what she would say. His eyes widened, and he leaned forward off of the desk and dropped to his feet next to it at the look on her face. "You died for me," Momo whispered and Zach's eyes widened even more, and he stopped walking towards her as he had started to do as the girl he went on a date with the night before gave him such a small but believing smile. "And I know, everything you did, you did because you thought it was the right thing to do. Only you, would look for the good in those villains. In someone like Himiko Toga."

"To a fault," Bakugo muttered behind Zach.

Yaoyorozu heard that mutter though, and she countered, "It's never a bad thing, to try and see the good in people. You don't have to feel guilty about betraying them though Zach. You shouldn't. Those people, they've caused so much harm. Hurt so many good people." Zach nodded at her and what she was saying. They were things he tried telling himself, only to think about the faces of those people he was trying to dehumanize. Hearing her say not to dehumanize them, but still that he did not have to feel guilty about betraying them, it was exactly what he felt like he had needed now that he received it.

There were two knocks on the door as Zach opened his mouth to respond to Yaoyorozu. Zach almost jumped at the sound of them, then he relaxed his expression and made it stern and serious in the same moment while turning to the opening door. Mineta's eyes widened as he saw how quickly Zach's expression changed, then he tried to change his own just as fast since he told Zach he wouldn't say anything. The short boy with purple balls on his head did not want the person coming in to even wonder if something was up.

Two people walked into the room. The short one with white fur walked in front of a tall and muscular woman in a tight red costume that showed off all her muscles. "Yaoyorozu, Mineta, with me," Mother Russia said.

"I need to speak with the three of you in private," Nezu said while looking towards Midoriya, Zach, and then Bakugo.

"Oh, okay," Yaoyorozu turned back to Zach quickly but he gave her a soft and grateful nod, deciding to save his response to what she had just told him for later when they were alone. "See you later," Momo started.

"Now," Mother Russia said sternly. Yaoyorozu spun with a panicked look as their homeroom teacher sounded serious, but that rushed look actually got a lot more nervous at how dark Mother Russia's face looked beyond her usual serious demeanor. Mineta gulped and walked closer to Yaoyorozu as they headed out of the classroom, leaving Principal Nezu behind with their three classmates.

The door closed, and Nezu turned to Zach first. "Sazaki, you did well capturing Himiko Toga, and contacting me as soon as the incident began." The principal's face was grim as it had been since he entered the room. Even with his first statement none of the boys in the room relaxed even the slightest bit. Nezu's beady black eyes were dark, and he continued in a lower but still high-pitched voice, "For incidents regarding U.A. High School, a special task force was created with four veteran police officers. Those were the officers who I called as soon as you contacted me, Sazaki. All four of those men were just killed, transporting Himiko Toga in secret to Tartaros-"

"What?" Bakugo snapped.

Zach's eyes were huge, and Midoriya's head pulled back with dark lines covering the top half of his face in horror. "She, escaped?" Midoriya whispered.

"Impossible," Zach said. Nezu nodded once and Zach continued in a quiet voice, "The amount of Death…"

Bakugo's eyes shot open wide as he realized that himself. "Oh, wait. Wait, are you-" Bakugo glared at Zach, then at the principal, then his fists clenched at his sides. "Someone freed her?"

"No one except the four in the transport should have known what path they were taking to the prison," Nezu started. "Not even myself. However, the vehicle was found destroyed only a few blocks away, meaning they were attacked very soon after leaving the school. Soon enough that should someone have been on the lookout for an undercover cop car taking Himiko Toga away, they would have been able to follow it."

Zach started panting, his eyes losing focus at what Nezu was saying. Midoriya asked, "How could they have known?" Bakugo ground his teeth and his fists balled even tighter at his sides, but then Bakugo's eyes opened wide at what Nezu started continuing with.

"When Sazaki texted me, I was quick to send my own message to everyone in your class. I am sure you have already seen it," Nezu said. He continued without waiting for a response, "There was a reason for not contacting anyone however, outside of avoiding a panic. I ordered the students of Class 2-A not to send any messages outside of their own class. Others students who were inside the school building, as well as the faculty members who knew of Himiko Toga's appearance in the school, have all been accounted for. However, when Himiko Toga was captured, Mineta Minoru sent a message in your class's group chat that she had been caught. I was quick to tell each of the students to remain in their rooms without contacting anyone outside, and we isolated every other party who knew she had been detained. Even the five of you were not just waiting in here for the police to arrive and question you."

Midoriya and Bakugo stared at the principal with wide eyes, while Zach bowed his head and stared at the floor with huge ones that were shaking at what he was hearing. "I have sent Cementoss and Vlad King to take Class B on a surprise training exercise at Ground Beta. The excuse is that we had already planned on comparing Class A and Class B's resting and active heart rates during the physicals and that theirs would be going on as scheduled as soon as the training was finished. Neither Cementoss nor Vlad King know that this is not true, and only All Might who has gone with them knows the current situation."

"I'm, confused," Midoriya began slowly. "What are you-"

"Someone informed the League of Villains that Himiko Toga had been captured. Midnight, Present Mic, and Mother Russia arrived at the location of where Recovery Girl was being held in time to catch a villain attempting to escape with our school nurse." Principal Nezu paused and then continued in a low, serious, and dark voice, "There are very few people who knew Toga was at the school, and even fewer knew that she had been captured as there are still other students and faculty in isolation who think various things based on what we told them."

"So who knew?" Bakugo said in a low voice, trying to keep his voice steady though there was sweat on both sides of it.

"Myself, four others in the faculty, four police officers in total," Nezu paused, and then he finished, "And the entirety of Class 2-A."

* * *

 **A/N Thanks for reading. Hope you guys enjoyed the chapter and the flashbacks. So Nezu shows up at the end here with some bad news… And I just realized I totally forgot to name this arc. Welcome, to the U.A. Spy Arc. No more review responses. Enjoy the rest of the story.**


	86. Chapter 86: Traitor

**A/N Warning**

 **Disclaimer: I don't own Boku no Hero Academia**

 **Chapter 86:**

Class 2-A's dorm's front door slammed open. A tall, muscular woman in a red costume stepped into the common room and looked around. She floated off the floor instead of taking off her shoes, and she floated towards the stairwell with a dark look on her face. She had a fair complexion, long whitish-blonde hair, and she had a red bandanna tied around the top of her long hair and over her forehead. Mother Russia flew to the third floor and three doors down from the stairs.

"Class representative, Tenya Iida," Mother Russia began outside the door. "Open up."

Iida's door flew open within the second. "Yes! Mother Russia sensei!"

"Energetic. Good," Mother Russia glanced behind him into his room. Her eyes examined the bland room and focused on the shelf covered in extra pairs of glasses for a second. She looked back into his eyes through his glasses and the tall boy with Engines on his calves tried not to start sweating under her discerning gaze. "Gather your classmates. Get everyone to put on their gym uniforms and meet in the common room. You have five minutes." Mother Russia turned around and flew back towards the stairs. _Mr. Principal, Present Mic, Midnight, and All Might. 21 of you, and 4 teachers. Odds are it's someone in this building._ The Russian woman's eyes were dark and she flew back for the dorm's entrance without another word.

"Y-Yes sensei!" Iida called out after her. _Five minutes?!_ Iida turned to sprint to another room, but he looked down at his clothes and his eyes widened. Iida spun and pulled out his phone while racing around his room to get his blue gym clothes on.

Kirishima got dressed quickly when he got Iida's text. He raced out of his room and spun to the right for a second, then he turned left as Shoji's door opened up. Shoji looked at him and then past, and Kirishima started towards him while saying, "I didn't hear Bakugo get back. He isn't responding to my texts."

"You shouldn't be texting," Shoji started to the redhead about to reach him. The tallest boy in the class turned and walked quickly towards the stairs with Kirishima. The six-armed teen added in, "The principal has been oddly specific about what we can use our phones for, so I am guessing the villains may be able to read our communications."

Kirishima's eyes opened wide, "Really?" He glanced down at his pocket and had a nervous feeling about leaving his phone there.

"Hey guys," the two of them turned to see Uraraka and Ashido jogging their way so they could head down the stairs together. Ashido continued after starting to run towards them, "So, do you guys think Mineta helped catch Himiko Toga?"

Kirishima grinned at the pink girl, while Shoji and Uraraka kept serious expressions about them. "If she's caught but there are still villains around," Kirishima began. He started into the stairwell quicker and with a grin on his face, "They must be getting the rest of us to help fight them!"

Back a floor down from the group of four leaving the fourth floor, Iida looked ahead towards Koda confusedly as the large boy with a rock-shaped face got a pink shade on his face while looking down the hallway in front of the steps. Iida sped towards the stairwell, glancing at a closed door he had not heard open or shut while he was getting changed in his room and sending out more texts to make sure his classmates were in a hurry. Iida reached near the steps and looked down the hall across from Koda's room, to where Jirou _and_ Kaminari were coming out of Jirou's room before jogging their way.

"What were the two of you doing in the same room?" Iida asked sternly. "At a time like this we-"

"We were together when the message got sent out," Jirou snapped towards the nosy class rep who had just made her cheeks flush even brighter red than when she opened the door to see Koda staring straight towards her and Kaminari. Kaminari ran past looking somewhat sheepish though with a grin on his face as he raced for his own room to get his gym uniform on. Jirou spun to Koda who was apparently less oblivious than Iida, and she said in a defensive tone, "But we really weren't doing anything stupid during an emergency."

Koda nodded at her in a way that Jirou smiled at because he really looked to believe her, though Iida got a more confused look on his face and tilted his head. Then the class rep's cheeks turned red as he was a bit slow to catch on, and he spun for the stairwell and called out for the people on his floor and everyone he heard rushing down the stairs, "Everyone hurry! We do not have a lot of time!"

"What does that mean?" Sero muttered to his right at Sato as they ran down the stairs together. They both sweatdropped as Iida shouted in for all of them not to run on the steps, even though he had just yelled at them to hurry. _Make up your mind,_ Sero thought in annoyance. He had a bead of sweat on his face and tried to get more serious like Sato looked from Iida's first shout and his texts. "Why our gym clothes, and not hero costumes?" Sero questioned softly.

Sato shook his head and then replied in a low voice, "Maybe the hero costumes were tampered with." Sero's eyes widened and he nodded as that was definitely a possibility with Toga being secretly on campus. "Or maybe, the fight's already over," Sato added in a less confident voice. Sero nodded again just as un-confidently. None of them really knew what was going on. They had not seen anything on the news and even though they were able to text each other, all of them seemed to know as much as the others.

Farther up in the stairwell than the two about to reach the bottom, Iida looked back up after watching Kaminari start down. He looked to Todoroki who was heading down the steps in a blue uniform that looked similar to his costume but did not have the hero tools or accessories his costume had. "Is anyone left on your floor?" Iida questioned Todoroki who reached him on the platform of the third floor. Todoroki shook his head and Iida was relieved his classmate knew the answer. Iida kept a serious look on his face and did not immediately start down the stairs after the others though.

When it was just the two of them, Iida continued in a low voice to Todoroki, "What do you think of the current situation? We are being kept in the dark."

Todoroki stared next to him closely at Iida for a few seconds. _I know it is not him._ "How did Toga know we had our physicals today?" Todoroki asked. Iida stared at Todoroki in confusion for a moment before his eyes started to widen huge behind his glasses. Todoroki glanced down the stairs and then said in a low, grim voice, "It is getting close to five minutes. Let's find out what's going on." _I don't see why else they'd keep us in the dark like this._ Todoroki started down for the first floor and he could see Iida's disbelieving but serious expression on his side that made him confident he had made the right move saying something.

"Fifteen, sixteen," Mother Russia mumbled while looking towards the steps from where she floated inside the front door of Class A's dorm. She nodded her head as Iida and Todoroki arrived behind the rest of the class, then she looked around the students in front of her. She grimaced. Mother Russia grimaced in a way the majority of her class who stood before her had not seen on her face before. "Alright. Follow me."

"Um, Mother Russia sensei," Uraraka started. The older woman about to turn around glared at the short girl with short brown hair. Uraraka gulped but continued despite the glare, "Are the others alright? Deku-kun hasn't been responding to my texts."

"Yeah, what about Zach and the others too?" Kaminari asked. "I mean, we know Mineta's alright but no one else has-"

"They are all fine," Mother Russia stated. "And Recovery Girl has been recovered as well."

Relieved looks covered the faces of everyone in the class, and Mother Russia had to turn away from them at those looks. "Now come," she said. She opened back up the dorm's door and floated outside. "Do not dawdle," she called out in a stern voice.

"What's happening?" Hagakure whispered next to her at Ashido who shrugged her shoulders with a confused look on her face. She wanted to call up to Mother Russia, but their homeroom teacher was floating forward fast ahead of them and the class had to start quick-walking or jogging to keep up with her.

Kaminari glanced to his right at Jirou who looked back at him just as nervously but also with a bit of a relieved look in her eyes. "Knew they were okay," Kaminari said, cracking a smile at the darker-haired girl who had been more worried than him over the past hour. She frowned at him for a second that he was right, but that frown lifted into a smile as he had spent time trying to calm her down and convince her that their best friends were fine.

"Yeah, thanks," Jirou responded. She turned ahead and looked up towards Mother Russia for a moment, then she got a semi-confused look on her face as the woman turned on the street to head away from the path to the main school building. "Where are we going?" Jirou whispered in confusion.

Kaminari lost his smile and got more confused too. He glanced to his right towards Kirishima and saw the redhead looking over towards the main building where they had had their physicals and they all assumed they would be going. Then Kaminari looked back towards Mother Russia and thought hesitantly, _Why wasn't Zach responding to my texts? Are they really okay? What's up with this radio silence thing?_

The spiky-haired blond with a black lightning-bolt in his hair on the left side of his head tried keeping a confident look on his face as he caught Jirou glancing back over again. As soon as she looked back forward to continue her jog though, Kaminari started gazing around the rest of the class jogging with him. _I mean, there is one reason I could see them doing something like this. You've been so carefree lately though, so I thought maybe the whole "spy" thing was just you being paranoid after all… maybe. I don't know. I just don't like this._

"So," Sero began softly to Kirishima in front of him. The spiky-red-haired teen glanced back at his classmate, only to smirk as Sero asked, "Who do you think got her? I'm thinking it had to be Midoriya."

Tokoyami looked to his left with a semi-confused look on his face, then he shook his head and faced forward again as Kirishima countered, "Nah. My bet's on Zach. He totally figured it out, so he had to have taken her down."

"It could have been the teachers," Ashido mentioned. She spun around and jogged backwards to face the two she heard behind her while saying it. Then she grinned more though while looking at Kirishima and said, "But I think it was Zach too."

"Could have been Mineta," Ojiro said. He said it and the group turned to the right to look at him with blank and confused looks as Ojiro sounded serious. Even Tokoyami who had lost focus and just faced forward to keep jogging slowed down and turned his head with a bead of sweat on it at Ojiro's statement. Ojiro sweatdropped as they all looked at him like that, but he backed himself up, "If he stuck her with even one Pop Off, she'd probably have been caught."

"Well," Ashido put a finger to her chin while running forward again. "I wouldn't say he _couldn't_ have done it." She smirked and then finished, "But you really think his text wouldn't have been a little different? 'Toga was caught,' doesn't sound much like 'I caught Toga.'"

Ojiro hummed and nodded his head. The fact that that was the reason why it was unlikely for Mineta to have done it made a strange feeling swirl in their chests though, and Ojiro muttered apologetically at the mood change, "Sorry for suggesting it."

"All of you, be quiet," Mother Russia commanded without looking back at the talkative class behind her. The various conversations going on quieted down and most of them gained more nervous looks again or gulped at the tone of her voice. The fact that she had not told them what was going on made it seem like it would not be a fight, but she still sounded intense like the situation was serious.

There was a building up ahead the class was heading towards that they had not been to before. It was on a road covered in training grounds, and they had seen the building many times before but never been inside it themselves. It was a black building with two stories to it, and it looked like a normal building other than its dark color. There was a gate on the outside, and a sign inside the gate labeled with a strange symbol that was not Greek like the other training grounds. There was just an X overlapping an O on the sign in white bold font.

"Oooh," Hagakure leaned forward as they saw Mother Russia turning in towards that building to show it was the one they were heading towards. "We finally get to see what's in here?" She said it trying to sound excited, but the mood of the class had darkened a bit and more of them just felt nervous by the fact that they did not know what was inside.

Mother Russia flew down to the gate and she cupped a hand next to a keypad on it before typing in a quick 8-digit code. A loud clank of a lock opening in the center of the steel-barred gates in front of the building echoed out. The gate itself had a wall on either side stretching the width of the building before those walls cut back in to the front corners of the building. The floor was only cement between the walls and the front of the building though, and the front doors themselves did not have windows so they were just large metal rectangles in the wall.

The building did have windows, its roof was slanted, and it did not look like that spooky of a place the other times they had gone by it. Until then though, they had always just associated it with training. Training Ground Omega had a giant villain-like hideout in it after all, so a building like this never drew too much attention. This closer look was unnerving them all more and more each second though. The building had been labeled with the same X and O pattern on the school map just as the training grounds were just labeled with their Greek symbols. The building looked like it could be a training ground, but because of the events of the afternoon all of them were doubting that now.

"Are, they keeping Toga in here?" Kaminari asked in confusion, stepping forward while looking up and down at the weird building. "And are the others inside-"

Mother Russia turned her head and looked at the blond. She frowned at him and Kaminari pulled his head back, then Mother Russia glanced around at the rest of the students. She looked at Todoroki who was examining the building closely and with a look of understanding covering his face. Most of the others looked confused though. She grit her teeth behind her lips and turned forward, "They're waiting inside. Let's go." Mother Russia walked for the building, and the class looking at her back felt seriously unnerved at the tone of their homeroom teacher's voice.

 _None of them have run,_ Mother Russia thought. She glared harder at the building in front of her for a few seconds as she marched down the black path in the cement leading to the doors. _So is it one of them already inside? A spy would know this is a trap, wouldn't they? Or are they that confident in their infiltration that they are not worried about being caught? Is it even someone in this group, or did one of them let it slip to a Class B who spread the rumor? Or was someone watching from inside the building who we did not know about? It could be. It really, could be any of those options. I hope it is… Yet, as a hero, I must hope that it is not. Because if it is not an outside variable the principal did not account for, then today we can flush out the spy in U.A._

"So, anyone else getting a really weird vibe from Mother Russia sensei?" Sero whispered with a hand cupped to his mouth so the woman in red would not hear him.

Sato got a bead of sweat on his face and nodded from Sero's right side. "I don't know, if we should go in," Sato muttered in a quiet voice, his walk down the path from the gates slowing down. Sero turned to him with a surprised look, but Sato was looking around at the wide black building with a really hesitant expression on his face. "Are we really sure…" Sato began quietly, and he turned his head to look back at Mother Russia. Sato gulped and he came to a complete stop.

Todoroki looked to his right and ahead at his classmates he was walking behind. There was a reason he had taken up behind all of them, and Iida was staying near him after what Todoroki mentioned back at the dorm. Todoroki got a frown on his face at what Sato was saying and started taking a step towards him, but Iida's eyes opened wide behind his glasses and he spun to look forward towards Mother Russia. "Wait," Iida stated after a second's hesitation. He said it loud and for the whole class to hear, and Mother Russia snapped her head to the side and glared back at him.

Iida gulped at that look, but then he steadied his expression and said, "We have not received word from our classmates in quite some time."

"Iida, what are you-" Uraraka began.

"Enough of this," Mother Russia stated firmly and in a pissed-off voice.

"If Himiko Toga was inside of U.A., then is there not the possibility that others are here with her?" Iida questioned. "Or the possibility, that she has taken Mineta's phone?" The class looking at Iida in confusion started to get sweat all over their faces, and many of them turned back to Mother Russia who herself opened her eyes wide at what Iida just said. She grimaced more than she was just glaring at him, and the muscular woman rose a hand and rubbed her forehead while Iida continued, "Whatever reason the principal may have for telling us not to contact outside of our class, it has ensured that we may be the only ones who currently know there is a situation going on at U.A. So if the villains were to try and stop this from getting out-"

"Iida," Mother Russia said in a stern, annoyed voice. "It's good you're thinking this hard. You're wrong though. Sazaki caught Toga. We got Recovery Girl back. The situation is under control."

Kirishima relaxed a bit and darted Sero a smirk at the same time that he had called it. Most others, including Sero, had not relaxed that quickly though.

"I don't think Toga could, copy Mother Russia sensei's Quirk," Uraraka began while glancing back at Iida again in a hesitant way. Mother Russia had been flying most of the way to the building so it seemed like it really was her.

Iida nodded in agreement with Uraraka, but he did not get a relaxed look on his face. He just stared at the muscular woman who nodded her head while looking back towards him and into his eyes. Even if this really was the Mother Russia they all knew, Iida was realizing that that may not be enough to exonerate her. It definitely was not enough to calm him down. The doors of the building behind Mother Russia opened though, and the woman and all of Class A turned to it to see Principal Nezu standing there in the entrance.

"Everyone," Nezu said, his voice high-pitched but serious as he looked at the students and teacher ahead of him. "Please come inside. I will explain everything when we are all together."

Jirou glanced to her sides and then back towards the principal with a nervous look on her face. She looked left though as Kaminari took a step forward towards the building. "Hey," she whispered.

"We gotta see if the others are alright, right?" Kaminari asked while glancing right at her.

Todoroki was staring towards the principal with narrowed eyes. Then he started walking forward while keeping his expression serious. Other students around him felt more confident about moving into the building too with Todoroki there.

Iida walked after Todoroki but stayed in the back of the class. He had just been the one to cast doubt over the situation, and now he knew it was his job to get everyone inside as he saw others hesitant around him. "Koda, Tokoyami, Sato, Shoji," Iida said in a low voice. They looked in at their class rep, and Iida stopped for a second in between them while staring towards the building. "Until we know what is going on, do not lower your guards. However, we must protect each other as classmates. And as heroes, we must figure out what is going on here." Iida started moving again, but he looked over his shoulder and waited for the boys behind him to keep moving again.

Ojiro and Hagakure had looked back at Iida while he said that, and then they turned to Tsuyu who still appeared a bit hesitant herself until Iida spoke. The frog-girl started walking for the building with her arms out in front of her and her back hunched, and Ojiro took a deep breath before motioning forward himself with a nod. Hagakure nodded back and they started walking, though Hagakure clenched her invisible fists that no one would be able to see were clenching, while Ojiro's tail lifted a bit.

 _Are they all really alright?_ Kaminari thought as he walked in front of most of his classmates. _If this is an ambush, I could totally zap everything if I'm in front of the others by a bit._ Kaminari sped up and Jirou looked at him confusedly and like he was an idiot as he seemed to lack any caution whatsoever in this creepy scenario.

Jirou turned to the principal next, and she sped up a bit herself while locking eyes with the mouse-dog-bear creature. "Mr. Principal, is everyone really alright? Mo- Are Yaoyorozu and Zach and the others okay?"

Nezu turned to the girl with earphone jacks sticking out of her earlobes. She walked in after Kaminari into a hallway that was brightly lit and had many steel doors around it. At the very end of the hall was an open door leading into a stairwell, and just outside of the door was a tall police officer in a trench coat and hat who the students had seen before after USJ. Detective Tsukauchi looked towards the students starting to fill into the building, and he rose up a walkie talkie next to his head and spoke into it.

"Sazaki has received minor injuries, though with significant blood loss," Nezu replied to the girl in front of him who spun back with wide eyes to face the principal. "But he is fine, and as soon as Recovery Girl is awake we will have him seen to." Kaminari and Jirou gained relieved looks since the principal had scared them there for a second. Then the short mouse man continued, "Bakugo also received a minor injury, but he is doing fine. As are Midoriya, Yaoyorozu, and Mineta who all are waiting for us downstairs."

"Downstairs?" Kaminari asked, and he looked down the hall towards the detective again and then past into the stairwell.

"Gero," a small croak behind Kaminari made him glance back. He looked at the short girl behind him with dark green hair who was looking towards the stairwell hesitantly and then turned to look up in his eyes. Tsuyu Asui was nervous, and what Iida had said to them outside had her very on guard at the moment. She turned to Jirou too, then back to Kaminari since Jirou started asking the principal why they had to go downstairs. "We must stick together as a class, Kaminari-chan."

Kaminari's eyes widened a bit and his eyebrows lifted up. He glanced around at the rest of the class who entered into the hallway, and he realized at that moment just how close all of them were to each other. A bead of sweat rolled down the side of his face and he glanced down at his blue gym clothes. _I get being close to each other is supposed to make us safer, but I really can't do much like this._ He looked back into Tsuyu's eyes though after a second of thinking about that, and he smiled at the girl who seemed so nervous to him which was unlike her. "It's fine," Kaminari said in a light tone. "The others are fine. You'll see." He turned and started after the principal who just told everyone to follow him again.

Mother Russia flew ahead of them and to the stairwell first. She flew past the cop who turned his head and gave her a serious gaze as she passed him. His eyes were discerning under the tan rim of his hat, his hands were at his sides inside of white gloves, and he had professional looking clothes under his long tan coat. Tsukauchi turned and walked into the stairwell before the principal arrived, and Todoroki narrowed his eyes towards the man from the middle of the pack of students.

 _I thought he would wait and try walking behind us. Is it because of what Iida said getting everyone on guard?_ Todoroki thought. He ignored his classmates around him who continued whispering to each other while moving in a close group of sixteen. Todoroki's narrowed eyes focused down on the principal's back just in front of their class. _Are they really bringing us to our classmates? Even if these are heroes and the police, something very strange is going on. Is it because they do not trust us? They are going to bring us somewhere where if one of us turns out to be the spy, they cannot escape._

"I am afraid there is a reason to all of this secrecy, students," Nezu said as he entered the stairwell. He walked for the steps down to follow after Tsukauchi and Mother Russia, and the kids following behind him followed close behind though some darted one last look back towards the exit of the building. The lights on the ceiling made the hallway bright, but looking back, a few of them noticed that no light was coming in from outside. The doors had closed behind them.

Nezu continued in a quiet but high-pitched voice that made the class behind him silent, "Himiko Toga escaped captivity soon after her arrest." Nezu continued down the steps while the students behind him stared down at their principal with wide eyes. "However, as Sazaki used his Nightmare form to knock her out, she should have been unconscious for much longer than it took her to escape. In which case it becomes clear, that Himiko Toga received assistance after leaving school grounds. Her allies in the League of Villains freed her from her police escort-"

"She doesn't have our blood though, right?" Sero asked nervously.

"No, she does not. We recovered your class's blood samples, so Recovery Girl should be able to do your blood work later when she wakes up." Nezu turned at the midway point on the steps and continued down towards an open metal door with a pin pad next to it. Through the door was not a hallway but a large open room that had computers covering one of the walls. Just inside the doorway stood the cop, Tsukauchi, and not far from him was another hero who the students heading downstairs recognized and stopped them from commenting anything on what the principal just said.

Kamui Woods turned towards the stairwell and looked at the students walking down towards him. He had his wooden mask on as well as the wooden rings of his costume on his shoulders, his wood belt, knee pads, and boots. His tight, dark-blue costume showed off his toned figure, and the holes in his mask showed a serious look in his eyes as he examined the teenagers walking towards him. Nezu entered the room without hesitation, and the students were right behind him as they started getting more confused than nervous.

Kaminari was the first into the room after Nezu, and he looked across the wide basement that seemed like it covered the whole area of the building. "Zach!" Kaminari called out. He started jogging across the room, and the others behind him did not even feel like telling him to stick close as their worries appeared to be unfounded. Their five classmates were all in the big basement along with some other teachers like Present Mic and Midnight. Some of them stared over towards Zach with wide eyes though, as his left sleeve was red from almost his shoulder all the way to his hand, and his right sleeve had some blood splashed on it too.

Zach had the bandage Midoriya wrapped around him over the wound below his elbow, but he had ran around with the wound bleeding a lot while he held his arm up to let the blood spill one way and with his arm down so it ran the other. His left sleeve was dark red, and his skin was paler than usual though it was hard to focus on that when his expression itself was so serious that he did not seem to be in need of help at all. Zach wore his costume unlike the other four who were just wearing casual clothes and not their blue gym uniforms. The black-haired sixteen year old stood on the right of Midoriya who had Bakugo on his left by a few more feet. On Zach's right side, but with a gap between them, were Yaoyorozu and Mineta who were closer to Present Mic and Midnight.

The two teachers who had just arrived back before the rest of the class were talking to the five students already in the basement. They had just handed Memory Maker in to the police, and they had wanted to stay to figure out what the villain had done to their school nurse, but they were told to return immediately for this. Yaoyorozu and Mineta had asked what "this" was, but that was around the same time the door opened back up with Mother Russia coming into the basement.

Zach's left hand that had been slashed in his final takedown of Toga loosened up a bit from the fist he had it clenched in at his side. He looked at Kaminari with a lighter look on his face for a moment, just to give him a single nod and then look behind him again. Bakugo looked towards the door with a dark look in his eyes, and he was having a hard time holding back a snarl from his face. Midoriya gulped as he looked towards his friends and classmates who entered one by one and looked towards them. Kaminari slowed down at the looks on the faces of the three in front of him, then he turned and looked back over his shoulder in a hesitant way.

Kaminari looked past Jirou and at a few others who entered just behind him. Bakugo's eyes shifted over the group and focused on Kirishima for a second, then when he started looking at the others around him, he started walking across the room towards the class. Kirishima jogged in after Kaminari had, but though at first he was heading towards Zach, he turned to Bakugo who was walking his way. Kirishima's eyes widened and he looked at Bakugo's neck, "You alright Bakugo?"

"Fine," Bakugo said, which made a confused look form on Kirishima's face. He expected a 'shut up' as a response. For a second Kirishima thought that meant Bakugo's neck was worse off than it looked, but Bakugo's eyes made Kirishima hesitate to question about it. "Oi, listen," Bakugo started while taking his eyes off a cluster of other students and looking back into his best friend's eyes.

Yaoyorozu looked around the room and then turned to her shorter, dark-haired friend who started her way. Jirou glanced around wondering if it was really alright to just move around like this, but no one was telling them to stay still or stop going to their friends' sides. She walked towards Yaoyorozu and looked at her taller friend softly, "Momo, do you know what's going on?"

Momo Yaoyorozu shook her head once and then began in a soft voice to her friend, "Something very important. It is clearly, serious…" Yaoyorozu shifted her gaze over towards Zach and she pursed her lips at the way he was looking at everyone they knew. She thought about how he, Bakugo, and Midoriya had looked towards her and Mineta when they walked in. Even though it had only been a few minutes at the time since they had all been talking in their classroom together, the moods of the three who had had a private talk with the principal had been much darker. Zach did not even go over to her to talk like she hoped he would, and she was feeling increasingly nervous as his eyes focused on each of their classmates individually.

"Detective," Nezu said, turning to the man in an overcoat and matching hat who nodded his head once at the principal. Tsukauchi brought his radio up to his mouth, and he spoke into it while Kamui Woods shut the steel door to isolate the basement.

Some of the most reluctant students to enter were the ones farthest back towards the door, and they spun at the sound of it closing with wide eyes. "Hey, what are you-"

"Sato," Nezu said harshly. The tall boy with big lips looked down at the mouse creature who had never once used that tone with them before. "Calm down. All of Class 2-A of U.A. High School has been gathered here for an important reason. You are not in trouble. This is not a trick." Nezu started away from the doorway and towards the wall covered in big screens that had some computers lining it on a protruding section near the bottom. Although the computers were down low, they were still higher than the dog-bear could reach without climbing up on the chairs in front of them. Nezu did that with the chair in the center of the room which he walked to and started typing on a computer right away.

Tsukauchi walked up towards the front of the room to stand close to the principal, but the other teachers in the basement did not move to the front. Kirishima stared at Bakugo with his eyes huge, and then he slowly turned his head and looked around at everyone around him. If Bakugo had not explicitly hissed at him not to start shouting, he would have denied it at the top of his lungs. Instead, he just looked around the room and his breathing started to pick up as he spotted Mother Russia on one side of their class, glaring across it towards Present Mic and Midnight on the other. _Does Mother Russia sensei think it's one of them? But they're our teachers- but if it's not them, it has to be one of us?! It can't be!_

Kirishima started shaking his head, but then he froze and his eyes shot open wide as did most of the students' in the room as they stared at the big screens covering the wall. The wall covered in screens was the far one from the side of the building the entrance was on. The students facing the screens held their breath or started panting faster as they looked at a small, normal-looking black car. The car was a common make and model, but to call it 'normal' was actually impossible considering the car was in flames and had bodies littered around it. There was a man sticking half out of the driver's side window, two on the ground outside the open back doors with their transformation Quirks in mid-use and their sidearms on the ground at their sides. The fourth officer in the passenger seat was shown at a different angle through the broken front windshield, showing the interior of the car in flames but the man in the passenger seat clearly with holes all over his body and head.

"These, are pictures of the secret police force that was tasked with incidents regarding U.A.," Nezu said. He turned the chair and stood on it to face the twenty one students, four heroes, and one detective who were gathered in the room with him. "I show you these pictures before we begin, so that you understand the gravity of this situation."

"What situation?" Ashido asked confusedly and with a scared look in her eyes at what was going on.

"Himiko Toga was released," Detective Tsukauchi began to the class of students he had met before. He looked around at them and continued, "She had outside help, however information about her whereabouts was a secret." More of Class A were getting confused by the second. Tsukauchi continued to the students whose expressions he was watching closely, "The method in which Himiko Toga was handed over was supposed to be a secret, but it no longer applies. The four veteran officers killed this afternoon in Musutafu, were granted special permissions to use their Quirks. One of them had a Quirk very similar to a villain some of you once met, Mr. Compress."

Zach's eyes widened for a second but he narrowed them again quickly when some of his classmates looked his way. He did not make eye contact with any of them. He couldn't. The blond boy on Zach's left turned towards him again though and did not look back forward as quick as the others. Kaminari had been there when Zach killed Mr. Compress. It may have been in hiding, but Zach had told him how he felt about what he did that day since then too. As he looked at Zach's face like it was now, Kaminari gulped and started frowning with such a bad feeling in his gut. _Something happened. He- they know there's a spy now. Why did they gather everyone here? Is it because, is it really because, someone in this room might be…_

"The undercover officers retrieved Toga and left in their vehicle without making a scene," Nezu started again. "However, as soon as Officer Rihiko was killed his power would likely have been cancelled, as it was known to do if he fell asleep or was knocked out. There was a chance that it was someone in the police department who knew this information and let it slip to the villains. However, the police department was never contacted about Himiko Toga's appearance nor her arrest. All communications out of U.A. have been monitored since I was first made aware of her presence here." Nezu spoke in a long-winded way, but for once no one was drowning out a single word that he said. "Only those who knew of Himiko Toga's presence on this campus could have notified her allies to allow them to ambush the police on their way transporting Himiko Toga to prison…"

Some of the students in Class A started breathing faster. More of them were staring at the principal with widening eyes, and they found themselves sweating and their eyes starting to dart around at the people standing closest to them. "No one from Class B could have known where she was or that she was in custody. Very few people knew that she was here on campus. Very few people, still have any idea that she was here. Most of the staff are in the dark. Others who may have known of her presence alone are being monitored in isolation in U.A. classrooms right now. The people in this room however, along with only All Might, knew that Himiko Toga had been captured."

"Wait wait wait," Mineta shook his head around and then opened his eyes wide while looking at the principal. "So you're saying, so, so you're…" Mineta was having a hard time wrapping his head around this, but he could wrap his head around the photos he looked back up at over the principal's head. Mineta's heart that was already pounding so fast started to ache, and he felt his phone weighing heavily down on him in his right pocket. "No way," he whispered.

Zach looked down towards the back of Mineta's head. _He figured that out quickly. Too quickly? Sending out that text to the people the principal limited us to contacting could have been a way to widen the pool of suspects. Or he, he was just trying to make everyone feel safe… But I can't think like that. I, I have to be suspicious of all of them?_ Zach glanced to his left at Kaminari who also looked down at the back of Mineta's head though the realization on his own face took another second to form as he figured out why Mineta might look like that.

"Mineta, it's not your," Kaminari started. He turned to his left and the rest of the class, then he spun back to Mineta fast who turned around to face him. Kaminari grimaced at his pervier friend's look but then continued in a softer way, "It wasn't one of us." _The class group chat! He sent it in there, and everyone knew she got caught. Is it really one of us then?! I don't want Mineta thinking that…_ Kaminari trailed off his thoughts while looking to his right at Zach, seeing a pained look in his best friend's eyes as they made eye contact.

 _Could it- No!_ Zach thought, steadying his eyes and flattening his lips out while looking at Kaminari. He shook his head around and then darted his eyes about fast. _The principal… would be expected to do something like this after this incident. I can't assume that he's just going out of his way to find the spy, it could be to throw around suspicion and push away from himself. That detective, Tsukauchi, he's been involved with a lot. They didn't say that he knew about Toga being captured though, just those other four cops. Midnight, Present Mic, and Mother… nope. Well, maybe she's a new one? A second one? Mother Russia couldn't have been the training forest though. And the League isn't that good. Plus, Spinner wanted Inhuman to kill her. He ordered it and Inhuman almost killed her- almost? Shit. Can't cancel her out. I can't, because if I cancel her for just that much evidence, I'll be cutting out everyone. I already had-_

"This is, ridiculous!" Ashido called out after spinning around for a second. "You're saying it's- but we know everyone in here!"

Nezu looked into the girl's black eyes that had small yellow irises. He stared into her eyes and then said in a low voice, "Unfortunately. I fear there is a one hundred percent certainty that the spy of U.A. High School is in this room." The students stared at their principal with huge, shaking eyes. Their faces covered in sweat, as the principal started staring forward at the whole group of them with a single harsh glare. "Some of you have already known, others may have come across the idea while wondering how your training forest was located. There is a spy at this school, and now we have narrowed it down…" Nezu narrowed his already beady eyes into a student's and watched Sero's reaction, only to dart his eyes over towards Shoji and glare under his silver bangs too.

"Unfortunately," Nezu continued. The principal lifted his hands and put them together in front of his waist. He wore a black suit and had the intense gaze of a hero more than the look of one of their school administrators while facing them all. "My own predictions, my own observations and hypotheses," the principal with the Quirk, High Specs, grimaced and shook his head for a moment. "In them, I had already checked everyone in this room off as being innocent. Which means that my calculations were wrong. The measures I have taken to ensure loyalty and the safety of you students, have not been enough. I know for sure that the spy is in this room, yet I have gone over each and every one of you many times and _thought_ we were-" Nezu grimaced harder, and his teeth bared for a second which made everyone stare at their principal with growing eyes. Even Tsukauchi, Mother Russia, and Zach who had remained pretty calm and collected through the principal's announcement started staring at him in shock at the rage spilling onto Nezu's expression.

"But I underestimated humans' capacity for betrayal. For over a year even… I could not begin to think of someone who would do such a thing." Nezu started panting, then he took a deep breath and closed his lips. He steadied his expression that he noticed was scaring the children, and then he said in a softer voice, "My apologies, students." Nezu narrowed his eyes and then said, "However now I must ask you to go along with what I say."

"What are you talking about?" Todoroki asked, giving the principal a harsh look at what he was accusing with seemingly no proof it was them. He had just claimed that he had arrived at the conclusion that all of them were innocent of this several times, and Todoroki wanted to just accept the principal's calculations instead of agreeing that they must have been flawed.

 _That's four. Is it really only four? I, I can add Momo!_ Zach thought as fast as he could with his eyes scanning around the room. _Iida. Iida was with… No! Focus on Momo for just a second! Add her to the list, or suspect her. Don't just push it away. But I do trust her. But, but what?! So that's five… right?_ Zach's face scrunched up more, _Or is it even five? Did I just defend myself to Bakugo, even though he's been turned since Camino… He hasn't. He, he hasn't…_ Zach wanted to reach up and grab his own head as he felt it pounding. _How much blood did I lose earlier? I said it was no problem. I said I had to be here for this, even though the principal told me that we three were the only ones he was still positive about. What if it's someone like Todoroki? Who else could stop him? I, I doubt I could even do it, alone at least. But with Midoriya and Bakugo here, we could do it._

 _Can I really believe in Momo? She, believes in me! But, Mineta said he did too. I trusted Mineta though. I trusted all of them. Everyone in this class. The teachers too! I trust all of them! Please, be wrong. Principal Nezu,_ Zach started panting while looking towards the short furry principal. _You have to be wrong. Momo's my girlfriend, and I trust her. I really, care about her. What about, Jirou? No, no no no! I told myself, after she eavesdropped but told us that she had done it, I told myself that she couldn't be the spy anymore! But, but Principal Nezu thought he had crossed off everybody probably using even more specific methods than that! Can I really exclude her from my suspicions without…_ Zach's teeth clenched and his panic started rising as the principal continued talking, _I don't have time to figure it out!_

"It is a breach in your privacy, but I would like you all to bring up your cell phones," Nezu stated. The class in front of him stared at the principal with wide eyes, and the short mouse-man finished, "The computer behind me will go through each of them. Each of you were on campus for this incident. Your computers will be scanned afterwards-"

"This isn't fair!" Ashido called out, and the principal darted his beady eyes to her and glared into her eyes. She gulped at that look, but then she called out, "Isn't it illegal to go through people's phones? You, you can't just order us to-"

"You all have provisional hero licenses," Nezu cut in. All the students and teachers looked towards the principal who continued, "Every person in this room other than Detective Tsukauchi is a hero. You should not have anything to hide on your mobile devices."

Todoroki started walking forward. He pulled his phone out and said in a low voice, turning his head a bit to the side to face Ashido as he did, "We have to erase suspicion."

"Even if we do this though," Ojiro began slowly, while reaching down for his own phone. He looked up at the principal and said, "If- when we all come back clean, it won't have eased any of your suspicion will it?"

"Mashirao," Hagakure began quietly after his complaint. He glanced at her, then he got a confused look on his face at the feeling of her hand tugging on his arm.

Todoroki handed his phone out to Tsukauchi who stepped forward to receive the students' phones. " _If_ no one sent any messages off of campus during Toga's infiltration, then you would be in the clear," Tsukauchi countered the boy with the thick muscular tail. "Because all of your whereabouts were accounted for."

Others started pulling out their phones with that promise of exoneration hanging over their heads. Kirishima grit his teeth and ground them across each other a few times, but he pulled his phone out despite hating the suspicion being cast on him right now. "Think I really told them where the training camp was, huh Principal Nezu?" Kirishima asked while stepping in front of Tsukauchi, turning his head a bit and glaring at the principal who was not excusing any of them.

Zach pulled his head back a bit with a strained expression on his face as he looked at one of the few people he had already cleared. _Why isn't Nezu excusing Kirishima from this? Could, could he really be? No! He died! He just reminded… but that would be a good way to try and push away suspicion. And if I think Bakugo could have been turned after Camino Ward then why couldn't Kirishima… because he couldn't be. And neither could Bakugo. And fuck it, neither could Iida. Everyone at Camino Ward, and Shoji too. I knew Mina even before school started. How much do I really know about her though? Enough. Hawks was careful enough that in infiltrating the League he still only lost an arm when he got caught, would he really be dumb enough to let Tokoyami intern with him after that? If Tokoyami was a spy?! Would U.A. let someone in like that?! APPARENTLY!_

 _Shigaraki wouldn't have given up his piece at the Sports Festival, and he couldn't have known I would bring back Shoji. Mina almost died from one of Bomber's bombs too. Shigaraki tried killing Tsuyu from what I heard, but Aizawa sensei cancelled it and-_ "Sazaki, Midoriya, Bakugo, you too." Nezu said while looking to his left towards some boys he did not see moving yet.

 _Guess he doesn't want the others knowing he still thinks some of us are definitely not the spy,_ Zach thought, and he started walking forward though with a frustrated look on his face. _This better not go too far back. The check should just be, for whatever it is they're looking for. Which wasn't me. Don't find random old deleted messages between me and Webb..._ Zach slowed and he stopped reaching for his phone with his uninjured right hand, because his eyes narrowed on a girl not far in front of him who had just taken her phone out but opened it up instead of walking forward with it.

"Toru," Ojiro whispered fast at the girl next to him.

"One second," Hagakure said.

"Hagakure," Nezu said in a firm, silencing voice. The room became quiet and everyone spun to the girl trying to subtly go through her phone. "Bring your cell phone up here, please."

"One second," Hagakure said louder and in a nervous voice.

Then her phone was gone from her hand. "Hey," Ojiro said in a harsh voice at the boy with half white and half red hair who just stepped in front of him and snagged the seemingly-floating phone out of Hagakure's hand.

Todoroki had a dark look in his eyes though, as he looked down at the phone and the picture Hagakure was just trying to delete. Todoroki blinked and stared at the picture in confusion. He stared at the bed covered in stuffed animals that looked like Hagakure had just taken a picture of it. There was a 'Are you sure' option up showing Hagakure had just tried to delete the picture, and Todoroki cancelled it out before looking closer at the picture for something damning that she might be trying to erase. Then he spotted the pair of gloves laying flat on the bed near the edge of it just in the corner of the frame of what had apparently been a selfie, now that he noticed there was a slight dip into the top of the bed covers showing someone was on it.

 **Slap!** "TODOROKI!" Hagakure shouted, grabbing her phone back and pulling it close to her chest while Todoroki pulled his face back, a red hand-print on his cheek.

"Hagakure, you must-" Nezu began, but Todoroki held a hand up before anyone could say anything else.

Todoroki cleared his throat and then turned his back away from most of the class. "It's fine," he said in the most straight-faced way he could manage, though Zach could see his cheeks gain a red shade to them even over the slap mark on one side.

Ojiro had a half-mad, half-understanding look on his face at Todoroki's embarrassed turn. He glanced at Hagakure and whispered, "I didn't know you saved those pictures."

"You didn't?" Hagakure asked just as quietly, while the rest of the class around them sweatdropped as they assumed what this conversation was about, and why Todoroki just got slapped.

 _What could he have even seen?_ Half the class wondered at the same time, and they felt bad as they realized why Todoroki had to look closer before figuring out what it was he had probably peeped at.

Jirou let out a relieved breath and even chuckled to herself which made her taller and bustier friend next to her get a confused look on her face. Jirou glanced up at Yaoyorozu and opened her mouth to explain, then she went red in the cheeks and just grinned more before saying, "I'll tell you later." _So glad I didn't listen to him._

 _Oh man,_ Kaminari thought while looking over towards a relieved Jirou. _Guess she was right though,_ he figured, reaching a hand up and scratching through his blond hair. _Who would've thought the school'd actually go through our phones though? I thought it was just an excuse._ Kaminari walked up behind Zach in what had become a line to hand Tsukauchi their phones. Most of the class was staying pretty quiet or just whispering to their neighbors, and Kaminari leaned forward and whispered, "Don't have anything like that on your phone, right?"

It was meant to be a joke at first, but then Kaminari thought about some of the stuff Zach had told him recently which made a bead of sweat form on the side of his face. "Right?" He asked a bit more nervously.

"It'll be fine," Zach said. _It's probably a good thing I haven't had any contact with Webb or Ganji since the Shatterer thing. Oh fuck! HUN- Oh oh haha,_ Zach lifted his left hand and ran it up through his hair but then lowered it fast to try not to let his relief show. _Good thing I called him about Eziano on that lady's phone at the airport. I really thought, I might've been fucked there… Shit._ Zach's expression got darker as he took a step forward because Tokoyami and Shoji had both handed up their phones at the front of the line. _If I can think ahead to do something like that to avoid being caught, couldn't someone else here? The detective said our whereabouts are all accounted for, but is that really true for everyone and for every second since she got caught? Couldn't someone have borrowed a phone from a classmate out on the street? Or just pickpocketed someone and left the other phone in their room? I've carried two phones before for these exact reasons. If someone in here really has been a long-term spy, they'd know even more tricks than the ones I can think of!_

Zach handed his phone to Tsukauchi, and he looked up into the eyes of the detective who had questioned him at his review only two weeks earlier. They locked eyes and Zach frowned deeply at the man who had been so suspicious of him that day. Zach turned away and his expression was dark again. _He was at USJ. He, he's been in the police force the whole time as someone privy to information that's pretty important. Could it be him? I think, I think it might be. Then again, I know that I want it to be him more than anything. I know it would hurt the least._

Midoriya looked at Zach as the darker-haired boy walked by him with his eyes cold and hiding most of the pain in them. That cold expression was one Midoriya could not find himself right now, and he glanced in front of him again at the girl with short brown hair, and then past her at his taller friend with Engines sticking out of his calves. He saw Ashido hand over her phone with a pout on her face but an actual more upset look behind it, though he argued with himself that anyone must feel that way if they thought they were being suspected as criminals and having their things gone through. He knew that the principal did not think it was him, but even he did not want to hand his phone up that easily. _The amount of messages and calls to All Might… but Principal Nezu and Detective Tsukauchi both know about the connection between us. They won't let that become a big thing. But, but that still doesn't make it alright. I might be in the clear, but what if other people have to explain secrets like that? Secrets that aren't really bad, but ones they don't want to share with the whole class? This really is going too far… but, what if it really does catch someone?!_

"Teachers too," Kamui Woods said, glancing next to him at Mother Russia who turned and frowned back at the younger man. He gave her an apologetic nod but then a serious look, and she nodded back at him while turning and walking towards the front to hand over her own phone.

The Russian woman looked past the students and towards her colleagues to see if either would hesitate to bring up their own phones. Midnight had a bit of a nervous look on her face, and she walked quicker than a reluctant but accepting Present Mic who glanced at her confusedly. Midnight turned to the left a bit and a short girl whose body was see-through and flashed a grin before turning to Nezu and leaning down next to the principal's head. Midnight started whispering to the mouse-dog-bear who nodded his head along with what she was telling him with zero shame, considering he was an animal. He turned and nodded at her, then Nemuri Kayama handed her phone to the detective who was giving the R-Rated Hero an odd look.

Tsukauchi decided not to think too much about it, and he turned and took the new phone he got to the panel sticking out of the wall of big screens. He plugged the phone into one of the dozens of ports between computers, then he turned back around to continue doing this as quickly as possible.

While Tsukauchi got the last few phones, Nezu turned his chair back around and typed in a few things into the computer as more phones were inputted into the system. The photos showing the crime scene where Toga had escaped from vanished from the screens to show a black background covering them all instead. Nezu typed some more things quickly into his keyboard and some folders popped up on the screen. The computer screen in front of the principal was smaller than the big screens covering the walls, and his was actually covered in a lot more than what was currently visible to everyone else.

The last students walked up and started handing their phones to the police officer at their own paces. They were doing it of their own volition, and as Hagakure handed hers in, Tsukauchi stared at the phone with a deep grimace on his face. _They all, turned them in._ He looked at the invisible girl in front of him but she turned away and walked to her boyfriend with a muscular tail who was frowning towards the detective himself. _We can't be wrong about this. We_ _ **need**_ _to figure out who it is!_

Tsukauchi plugged the final phone into the high-tech computer system. Another folder popped open on a window on the screen, and then Principal Nezu typed in fast on his keyboard. A message popped up on the big screens that showed, 'Recovering Deleted Files.' Several of the folders pushed out on the list to show the information inside them was being recovered, and Zach's eyes narrowed darkly at his own that pushed out between Jirou's and Sero's that also pushed out after a second. _Guess a lot of people, delete stuff on their phones,_ Zach thought as everyone around him got even more upset looks on their faces. Some of them had deep or even nervous frowns too, though less than half the class's folders did not push in to show there were files deleted in them.

"That's not fair," Hagakure whispered, her shoulders slouching and her short sleeves showing that they just did.

Ojiro put a reassuring hand on her shoulder and started, "It's alright."

Mineta's jaw dropped when his folder pushed out, and the biggest look of sheer panic covered his face in the next instant. _NOOOOO!_

Jirou glanced to her left at Kaminari who looked at the window full of folders in surprise. She had a more surprised look on her face, but he turned to her and asked, "So what were you hiding? Huh?" He bounced his eyebrows at her a couple of times.

Jirou wanted to tell him to get serious, but she was too surprised by what she had just seen herself. "You really, don't delete anything off your phone?"

"Nope," Kaminari said proudly. Then a bead of sweat formed on the side of his face and he reached up and scratched his cheek. "I didn't really think, anyone would ever really go through my phone though… Probably a few things on there I should've- well actually," he grinned as it turned out his failure to see something like this coming did not matter anyway. "Guess deleting them wouldn't have made the difference," he said with a shrug, and Jirou frowned that he was actually right about that.

 _Maybe it only recovers things from a certain amount of time back… I really hope so. Those pictures I took in the winter, they were just- I just wanted to see if I was good at taking them- Gah! This whole thing is so unfair!_ Jirou thought while slouching her shoulders in resignation.

"So really," Kaminari whispered, leaning closer to her as he said it after seeing her red cheeks again. "What kind of _files_ are we about to-" Jirou's left earphone jack came up and shoved into Kaminari's ear, making his whole body vibrate and him to shake around in pain for a second.

"Nothing," Jirou said, pulling her earphone jack back while saying something completely unconvincing considering her reaction.

"Ow, alright," Kaminari muttered, reaching up and rubbing his ear. _Guess I'll see in a second,_ he thought while looking back at the screen again.

Zach looked over at Kaminari and he frowned at the way his blond friend was acting right now. He saw a few others looking just really upset that their personal lives and information were being searched through by their school without really any of them giving permission. First U.A. had become a boarding school meaning they all had to live on campus and abide by school rules at all times, but this was a next step that none of them wanted to go through. _If it works though? If doing something like this, really finds the perpetrator, it'll be worth it. I want to know. I need to! It's been bugging me for so long… "bugging me?" Is that all?! I used to take this so seriously! Why am I, dreading, finding out who it really is now? I told myself that it was Class B without any real proof for the majority of my class not being the spy!_

"Zach," Yaoyorozu whispered as she walked over and stopped next to him. He turned to the right and into the eyes of the girl who was three inches taller than him and got close before speaking in a low voice. "There are other explanations than there being a spy among our friends. Perhaps someone was watching the school, and they recognized the police officers which told them that something had gone wrong. It is very possible."

 _Holy shit she's right!_ Zach thought. He smiled, then his smile dipped down a bit and his eyes shifted to his right at the tall girl standing there looking out the corners of her own eyes at him. His eyes darted back towards the principal who turned his head and said something quietly to the detective before turning back to the computer. It looked like Nezu got back to work still typing away to find something, but Tsukauchi stepped aside and lifted up a walkie talkie to his mouth and spoke into it. Things started to move slower for Zach as his eyes shifted around the room.

His breath started to speed up while his body and the room around him slowed down. His hazel irises darted around faster and faster, a light red tint forming in the centers of them, and his heart raced so fast that he could hear it pounding in his head. _That wasn't a casual something Nezu whispered, it was a command. He's playing it off. Tsukauchi isn't reacting a lot. Kamui Woods just moved though. He was standing still. The other teachers are staring at the screen waiting too. Everyone's looking at the screen, no- Todoroki, and Bakugo, and Midoriya and Iida too. They all noticed. They see Tsukauchi, but none of them have spotted Kamui Woods yet. Who is he moving towards? What is going on? Did the principal find something, and what everyone is looking at up on the screen right now is a diversion?! Keep them thinking it's still in the process of recovering their deleted files when it's already long past complete? Then who is it?! Who is he looking towards-_ Zach's eyes focused into the holes on the wooden mask on Kamui Woods' face, and he followed the angle of his eyes into the group of his classmates and on a girl who made Zach's heart pound even harder and his eyes to start shaking at the sight of her. Zach started moving, and Yaoyorozu turned more to really look at the boy next to her.

"Zach, what are-"

"Everyone," Nezu started, and he stopped typing all of a sudden with seemingly no change on the big screens covering the walls. He turned his chair around and stood up on the seat, and then he continued in a firm voice while a cluster of computer windows popped up on the wall screens behind him. "After my message to you not to contact anyone outside of your classes, no texts or calls were made from your phones. However, a signal was pinged through an application on one phone, in a pattern I have yet to decipher but is clearly a code of some kind." Everyone in the room started panting while looking at the principal. Their eyes opened huge and their hearts twisted as they all hoped this was wrong. Nezu turned his head and snapped his beady black eyes to a single figure in particular though he was unable to look into her eyes, "This message was sent from Toru Hagakure's-"

"What?!" Hagakure shouted, then she stumbled to the side as Ojiro pushed her and swung his tail around. He spun while swinging it, and the man who he had noticed come up behind not too far away wound up wrapping Ojiro's tail with his Arbor Quirk instead.

"Hey!" Ojiro shouted at Kamui Woods who stared at the blond student with wide eyes for a second. "Back off," Ojiro said, his eyes narrowing and his voice serious.

"H-Hagakure?" Ashido began, turning to her side where the invisible girl had stumbled.

Hagakure's body turned and the girl exclaimed at her pink-skinned friend, "It wasn't me!"

Zach froze mid-step and stared towards the invisible girl whose shout sounded so genuine to him. Yaoyorozu froze behind Zach with her eyes wide. Midoriya turned his head to the left, Uraraka and Iida doing the same to look back at what just happened in that single instant. Bakugo's huge eyes narrowed quickly and he opened his clenched fists to curl his fingers forward, making small explosions in his palms. Jirou and Kaminari turned and they stepped back with huge eyes because they had been close to Hagakure when the wood came pushing out at them.

"Ojiro Mashirao," Nezu began.

"Hold on a second," Uraraka whispered, her eyes getting huge and shaking as she looked at her invisible friend.

"It- it wasn't-" Hagakure spun back and forth and shouted at the students around her. "It wasn't me! I didn't do anything!"

She sounded on the brink of tears, but Todoroki narrowed his eyes at the girl who had been messing with her phone when he snatched it out of her hand. _Did she switch to that picture right before I…_

 _It, it was Hagakure?_

 _She's invisible, so, so could she have been spying on the teachers and…_

"It wasn't her," Ojiro said, and he took a step back while Kamui Woods removed his Quirk from around Ojiro's tail. The instant capture of the girl in suspect did not work, and Kamui Woods did not like how so many of her classmates around her looked at the moment.

"All of you," Nezu began, dropping off of his chair and stepping forward towards the class. "Move aside." Many of the students glanced back at him but they were all quick to spin back Hagakure's way. "This is not a damning sentence. Hagakure is now our prime suspect, but if there is an explanation for-"

"I didn't do anything though!" Hagakure called out towards the principal, and she stepped closer to Ojiro's back when she saw him moving towards her.

"She didn't," Ojiro agreed, looking over his shoulder and towards Nezu, and then back forward and at Kamui Woods who took a step towards them.

"Hold on, hey hey," Kirishima held up his palms and shook his head, a disbelieving look on his face. "There's no way one of us is actually a spy. Those message- ping, things, are probably something else!"

"Kirishima," Bakugo growled. The redhead glanced back, and Bakugo said in a low voice, "If it is something else, they'll figure it out." He glared past Kirishima and towards the invisible girl who looked his way only to pull back at the glare he was giving her. "Turn yourself in, and we can figure it out."

"Don't talk to her like that!" Ojiro shouted, snapping his head to the left and glaring much angrier at Bakugo than Bakugo was looking at Hagakure. Ojiro's hands shook as fists at his sides, and his tail curled more as he saw the looks of others all around him. "I know for a fact that it wasn't Hagakure, and I'll fight anyone who tried to arrest her for something she didn't do!" He shouted it loudly and his voice filled the whole room, silencing it while the girl behind his back stared at him in shock.

"Mashirao," Hagakure whispered. She looked around, her body twisting side to side as she looked at everyone staring straight towards her.

Zach opened his eyes as wide as they could and his fists unclenched at his sides. At the same time, Nezu looked past the students and towards Kamui Woods, and he nodded seriously towards the Number 5 hero who narrowed his eyes at the two students right in front of him. Zach started lifting up his right hand, his eyes widening and his heart racing even faster as he brought a foot forward, "Wait-"

"AAAHHHHH!"

A bright flash filled the basement. Zach clenched his eyes shut and despite the darkness, the flash stuck in his vision as he started to fall forward. He had screamed in pain, but he clenched his teeth fast after the roar because he heard something that made everything else so much more confusing. Over the sounds of screams all around him, Zach heard the shrieking voice of a girl he recognized. _That's Haga-_ Zach's face hit the floor and his mind was jumbled more again. The flash in his head started to get dimmer though his mind was regaining thoughts quickly, and he heard a voice over the sounds of the screams, "Zach! You alright?" Zach opened his clenched eyes and started lifting his head at the sound of that voice.

All sound faded from Zach's head. His heart was pounding but he was unable to even hear that over the dull hum that just filled his mind. Zach rose his head slowly, but he could not feel his hands that he wanted to bring up to his sides to push up with. He slid his chin up the floor and then pressed the bottom of it down to rise up his face, and he rose his eyes, and he stared at the hand extended out in front of him for him to take. Zach looked up that arm and up the blue sleeve on it, and in the background he could see the tv screens all flickering with sparks coming out of them, and in the bottom of his vision he could see his other classmates all lying on the floor, and at the top of that arm he saw the worried expression of his best friend looking down at him.

Kaminari had seen Zach stepping past him on his right when everything flashed, and he spun to Zach first because his shout was the loudest he had heard. Kaminari's worried eyes darted around, but then focused back on Zach who he had reached down for. "Come on, get up." Kaminari looked down into Zach's eyes and was about to look away again, but the black-haired boy down below him was not moving for some reason. Zach was not moving, and Denki Kaminari started staring into Zach's eyes that were shaking while looking up into his. "Come on, get," Kaminari began again. He tilted his head and opened his mouth, but such a confused look spread over his face in the next second. "Come, c-c-" a spark of electricity came out of the left corner of Kaminari's forehead. Then some more sparks flew out of his hair, and he lowered his arm down to his side while standing straight up.

The blond boy with a black lightning bolt in his hair cracked his neck to the left, then the right, then he rolled his head around before stretching both arms up in the air above him. "Well then," he said, his voice sounding the same as it just had though with a different tone in it. He looked down into Zach's eyes again, and his lips curled up at the corners and spread far up his cheeks. "It's about, fucking, TIME!" He yelled, and then he did a small spin and looked around at every person in there other than him who were just laying flat on the ground and not moving. Some more heads started lifting up, but as much as others struggled they were finding it impossible to move their bodies. "Hahaha, hahahaha," each person who looked up made the blond boy standing there smirk even more and start laughing even as he saw their looks.

"What," Zach began quietly. He blinked a few times, then he struggled his absolute hardest to move his right hand at his side. He could not move it an inch though. Zach darted his eyes from his right back up in front of him and he opened his mouth to shout something, but the utter confusion and terror of the moment overtook him and just made him stare forward with his mouth wide open.

Kaminari lifted up his right hand and started scratching the side of his head with it as he looked towards a empty shirt collar where he saw movement making him think the invisible head there just lifted up a bit. "Toga was being dumb, as usual, though it's a little disappointing it's her fault… But I think it's about time anyway." Kaminari grinned while staring harder at the empty space next to a tail that had landed closer to Hagakure's face than her boyfriend's head that was facing the opposite direction and down at the floor with a look of horror on it. "I saw that look right there," Kaminari started while looking at the invisible space of Hagakure's head. "Even without seeing you, I could tell that expression. You were just about to accept the blame, weren't you? It's something I didn't plan for. Something, I should have thought about. Love!"

"Hahaha," Kaminari rose a hand and rubbed it on his forehead with a smile but a half look of disbelief on it. "Now Ojiro trying to defend you, I could kind of see that coming. Threatening to fight everyone to protect you though? Just to stop you from being arrested? Now that got me. But, it's gotta be a requited love between the two of you, huh? The only way to stop him from getting himself arrested, is to just admit your guilt yourself?" Kaminari chuckled again but then shook his head with his eyes narrowing and his lips losing as wide a smirk. "Well, then people would have figured out it's not you. Sooner or later, someone would figure out how easy it is to ping someone else's phone from a distance with certain superpowers." Kaminari rose his right hand, and thin bolts of lightning came out of each finger and ran straight up to the ceiling. Every light in the room flickered and sparked, and the computers below the wall screens that were all sparking already burst out with more electricity too.

"Who are you?" Zach asked, forcing it out and then snarling with a furious look in his eyes. "Where- where is-"

Kaminari glanced over towards Zach and he smiled in a normal way. He smiled in such a friendly and understanding way, and then he broke out with a crazed smirk spreading across his cheeks again. "It's me!" Kaminari called out, and he swung his arms out to the sides. "Come on, don't recognize me? Or is it just, that not one of you can believe it? No one even dares, believe such a horror? Such an unbelievable truth?!" Kaminari called it out, and then he turned towards a girl with dark hair whose head was slower to come up than most of the others around her. He watched as her chin slid up on the ground, and she had to use her cheeks too as even moving her neck was so hard that getting her eyes to face him was difficult. "Here, let me help," Kaminari said, and he bent down towards the girl with long earphone jacks for earlobes who felt a gentle hand under her cheek turn her head and rest it on her chin so she could look up easier.

Jirou looked up, and Kaminari's face was down only a foot in front of her with such a sadistic smile on it that only got worse as he watched the expression change on her face. Kaminari let go and stood up straight again, looking like he was holding back giggles as he looked down at that expression on Jirou's face. "Oh man, priceless," Kaminari said, and he laughed a few more times though they sounded forceful and mocking. He turned his head and looked around at the others who were all lifting their heads and turning them as much as they could towards the boy standing near the middle of all of them. Mother Russia strained her muscular body, and Kamui Woods tried to activate his Quirk. He could not control it in his current position though.

Someone was able to use their Quirk though, and ice started covering the right side of Todoroki's face, only for Kaminari to point his right hand towards his classmate. Lightning shot out of Kaminari's hand as an actual straight-fired beam that made Todoroki open his mouth and let out a horrifying scream, "AARRRAAAGGH!" Todoroki's body shook violently and his face fell flat to the floor when he was done screaming, his mouth open and spit drooling out on the floor below him.

"H-Hey!" Bakugo finally found it in him to shout, despite being struck silent for over twenty seconds after lifting his head. "What are you-"

"Shut the fuck up Bakugo," Kaminari said, turning a bit and letting out a scoff at the look on Bakugo's face. The spikier-haired bleached-blond boy shook in anger at that response and he tried dragging his arms up at his sides even harder.

Not far from Bakugo, Midoriya's head shook hard and he clenched his eyes shut for a second. _Use it! One For All has to work now! If I pulse it through-_

"Hey Midoriya," Kaminari began. "I'm a bit worried you might be able to do something with All Might's power and all," Kaminari paused, his lips twisting higher in his smirk while the boy he just spoke to shot his eyes open and stared at the floor in shock. "So if you move a muscle, I'll roast Uraraka."

Midoriya's eyes that he just snapped open shot over to his right, to a girl with brown hair whose eyes bulged and whose face covered in sweat. Midoriya turned back to Kaminari and ground his teeth for a second before starting, "How are you doing this?" Kaminari lifted his eyebrows, and Midoriya continued in such a frustrated way, "Kaminari, can't use his electricity like that! He can't just target-"

Kaminari cracked a bigger grin that made Midoriya stop talking. He leaned his head back and began in a casual tone that also sounded a bit nervous, "Uh, you guys, when I use my electricity it short-circuits my brain." He lost his nervous facade and smirked again, "Makes it real easy not to have to fight when villains show up, when I've got such an easy excuse not to. And, I can't target with Electrification unless I have some special gear? What a fucking joke-"

"Who are you?!" Zach shouted, making Kaminari turn towards him again. Zach glared into Kaminari's eyes and he teeth shook as he pushed them so hard together. A look of rage spread over Zach's face, his eyes getting violently dark and his chin pushing forward to a point that the rest of his body was moving from the muscles in his face alone. "What did you do with the real Kaminari?!"

"The real… You really don't get it." Kaminari shook his head and let out a small laugh, then he pointed his right thumb in at his chest and leaned down. "I _am_ the real Kaminari. The guy you knew, oh he's gone now."

"I don't believe-"

"You know how the brain works?" Kaminari asked, and he tilted his head while looking down at Zach in an interested way. It looked like he was actually wondering if Zach knew the answer. "Well, it's pretty complicated, but I'll break it down to a couple of important things you should keep in mind. In between neurons are these things called synapses. Usually, neurotransmitters are shot between these neurons at lightning-fast speeds. Electrical transmissions through the brain, through the body, between neurons and all your muscles and cells." Kaminari grinned while looking down into Zach's eyes, "Simple, isn't it?"

Zach just got a much more confused look on his face, though at this point horror had spread across it too because the way the guy in front of him was speaking had him freaking out.

"Kaminari," Jirou gasped out finally while staring at the boy in front of her in terror. Sheer, absolute terror covered her face as she said his name.

He glanced her way, then to the left as he saw Yaoyorozu looking towards him in fear as well. Zach saw where Kaminari was looking, or where whoever this person was turned to look, and Zach struggled so much harder to move his body. Kaminari looked back down at Zach and chuckled to himself at the struggle and pained look on his face. "Well, I don't know what's so hard to believe," Kaminari started loudly. He turned around and took a step back more into the center of a gap between his classmates. "I get it, no one would ever suspect the stupidest guy in the class. But come on! How could any of you really think I was stupider than the pink one? I mean really?!" He started laughing while the rest of the class stared towards him in shock. Ashido's eyes started shaking and growing wider as Kaminari turned her way. "That might have been one of the hardest things to do. Making sure I got good enough grades to stay in, while still getting worse scores than you! It was, well, it was tiresome more than anything. Because I couldn't _just_ pass each time, or it would start to look like I was doing it on purpose which takes too much skill."

"Hey," Zach whispered. His eyes were shaking, but his teeth clenched so much harder and he got louder the next time, "Hey! HEY!"

"Kaminari!" Kirishima shouted too. "What the hell are you talking about?! What is this?!"

"Who are you?!" Zach screamed. He yelled it over the rest of his classmates at the blond who turned to him and really looked into Zach's eyes. They stared each other in the eyes, and Zach said in such a furious voice, "How long have you been… What did you do with the real Kaminari?"

Kaminari stared at Zach in silence for a few seconds, and then he started walking towards him. "I could tell you, that it was recently. I could say that the real Kaminari got killed by Shatterer before you showed up, and I stepped in to take his place. Or maybe, it was just while you were being tortured during winter break sometime? But the truth is Zach," Kaminari took another step so he was right in front of his best friend, and then he leaned down and said, "I've _always_ been the spy. From day one."

"I don't believe you," Zach stated.

"Yeah you do- wait, really?" Kaminari tilted his head and looked closer into Zach's eyes. They were close up, and Kaminari smirked even more at the look of disbelief in his friend's expression. "No, you wouldn't be able to, would you? It just, would be too much right?" Kaminari smirked even more, and he started laughing as he asked the question he seemed to know the answer of already. "Guess I really did too great a job. Splitting my own mind wasn't too tough. Once I realized how to control my own brain, I figured out how to control more and more of it exponentially until I could use a hundred percent of my mind at all times. So, it wasn't too hard to keep control while giving certain thought processes over, wasn't too hard to block certain memories and keep information I didn't want him to know from filling his mind."

Zach's face covered in more confusion, but anger too and he opened his mouth to shout something. "Oh, it's not possession," Kaminari assured while Zach's mouth was wide. "It's much cooler than that. And I'm not split personality either. It's more like, the Kaminari you knew was never real. He was just, a puppet I created in case there were any mind readers at U.A. Someone who would infiltrate perfectly, because he didn't even realize he was doing it!" Kaminari laughed a bit and then leaned back as he called out, "When Aizawa sensei told me to try and call for help at USJ, it took everything I had to keep from smiling. Because he actually tried! He tried to contact the school, while we were fucking blocking the signals! AAhahahahaHAA!" Kaminari snapped his head down and looked at the horrified look on Zach's face, "What? You really thought Shindeki Buda was blocking the comms? Glad you took him out though, made one less loose end for me."

The black-haired boy on the ground in front of Kaminari felt his heart slowing down. His vision was blurry as his mind started racing at a thousand thoughts per second. "Oh, oh! There it is. You're finally getting it, huh? You're finally figuring it out!" Kaminari said it excitedly, and then he leaned down again as the expression coming to Zach's face was one he really enjoyed. He leaned closer and crouched in front of his friend while pushing his face towards his, and everyone else in the room stared towards them in horror and pain and some in increasing pity as they caught a glimpse of Zach's face. "If I was never really short-circuited at USJ, then you didn't really have to push me out of the way, did you?" Kaminari asked while locking eyes with Zach's. Everything else in Zach's vision blurred away so Kaminari's face was the only thing he could see, as the blond continued, "And even though Kaminari might not have realized what he was doing, I _always_ controlled what words actually came out of his mouth. So when Monoma pretended to already know, you think I didn't know what I was doing? Wouldn't have been very Kaminari-like to go and spread that rumor, but accidentally giving it up, well that just gives me more of a reason to get the school to give me your home address, so that I could go apologize in person…"

Kaminari chuckled and his eyes narrowed more. His voice got darker, and he leaned his face closer in while Zach's eyes opened wide. Zach's eyes bulged and his breath caught in his throat. It felt like his heart had stopped. "And when you gave Kuroiro that letter, while you were trancing about as Lifebringer, who else was he going to ask where to find your house than your good friend Kaminari?"

"Kaminari stop!" Yaoyorozu shouted. A look of panic and horrified realization started spreading on her face, while everyone else was still just staring towards Kaminari in confusion, rage, horror. Those looks got a lot more straight-up horrified as Kaminari continued though.

"But I couldn't just _tell_ Kuroiro where you lived. I convinced him to let me come along. And I couldn't just hand that letter off to your best friend, because what if it had damning information about the League? I needed to read it myself, so I convinced, _Jenny,_ to read it aloud. But then! I heard something amazing!" Kaminari called it out while the room had become completely silent, while every single person in it stared at him in absolute horror. "In that girl's voice when she read your letter aloud, I heard LOVE! So much love. She loved you so much, but it wasn't just her love that I heard. I was worried you had sent information about the League, but instead you just wanted to tell her you were alright? You wanted to tell her not to worry about you?! Oh she may have spoken in a voice that told me she loved you, but the words of your letter alone told me how much you loved her." Kaminari pressed his face forward so his forehead was down against Zach's and his eyes were looking straight down into his friend's, "And you can bet, I told Shigaraki as much!"

Zach's breath ripped out of his throat as he had been holding it too long. He gasped and choked, and then Kaminari pulled his head back though Zach no longer had any support for it. His face flattened into the floor, his eyes as wide as saucers as his mind broke and his world shattered around him. Zach felt his chest ripping open, and his jaw nearly unhinged as he opened it as wide as possible and screamed, " _AAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHH!_ RRAAAAAGH AAHH! AAAAAAAAAAH!" He wanted to reach up to his head and pull his hair out, and he wanted to slam his head into the floor, but just lifting it the smallest bit took the most amount of effort and all he could do was scream until his lungs gave out and he started choking on air again.

Kaminari started looking around after standing straight up again. The lights flickered and covered his sadistic face with horrible tints as they all stared at him. He laughed at the looks of the people around him who had now finally reached the point they hadn't when he just paralyzed them at first. "So you're finally getting it, huh? Finally realizing this isn't some fucking game? Little kids-"

"Kaminari!" Iida shouted. "You have-"

"Oh my God! Shut the fuck up Iida!" Kaminari yelled, spinning and looking towards the class rep with a pissed-off look in his eyes. "Fuck, you never stop talking. I always wanted to say it, but you're the most annoying person in the world!"

"You bastard," Bakugo started snarling.

"Was it all really…" Ashido began.

Iida opened his mouth and shouted, "Kaminari!"

Kaminari snapped his right arm up and pointed his index finger at Iida, and he flicked it back while pressing down his thumb on it like firing a gun. A thin beam of yellow light shot out of Kaminari's finger and into Iida's back, and Iida's face fell flat on the floor while the entire room became silent again. "Ahhh," Kaminari let out a cathartic breath and then said in a calm voice, "Don't make me repeat myself."

"Wh-What did you just do?" Uraraka called out after looking to her right at Iida for a second. "Iida!" She called out at her friend who was not moving.

"What did I do? Thought it was pretty obvious," Kaminari replied. "I just pierced his heart with twenty million volts. He's not getting up from that one… ever." Kaminari lowered his hand and he started laughing while the terrified looks on the faces all around him only got worse. He turned towards Bakugo who had started snarling at him and who he was going to respond to before Iida rudely interrupted him again. "You know Bakugo, it's pretty weird that you actually made a friend here. Kirishima's a nice guy though." Bakugo's eyes that were locked on Iida's unmoving head started rising back up towards Kaminari again, and Kaminari smirked at the fear he saw in Bakugo's eyes while he could not move an inch of his body. "Guess you didn't realize it yourself, but why do you think I actually hung out with you? Talked to you, _tried_ to help you at the licensing exam… I mean really, you're just such an asshole. But, League could still be into you a bit I guess, so I figured why not make friends with him? So come on, was I your second best friend? I mean, I can't think of anyone else other than Kirishima who actually talked to you around here. Guess Midoriya might be up there, but I was pretty sure the hate…"

Kaminari turned to Midoriya when he mentioned his name, and Kaminari's eyes opened huge at the look on Midoriya's face. It made him stop talking mid-sentence and a giant smile to cover his face. "Oh man Midoriya, that's funny," Kaminari said. Midoriya had just been staring towards Iida and calling to him in a hoarse whisper for a few seconds, and he had turned to Kaminari looking so angry yet at the same time he had tears in his eyes that were starting to spill out of the corners. Then Midoriya's clenched teeth opened wide, and Bakugo who had opened his mouth to shout a retort froze with his mouth open. And even Zach who had started wheezing while Yaoyorozu tried talking to him, even he froze with a breath half-wheezed out as Kaminari continued, "Aizawa sensei gave me that same exact look…"

Nezu was thinking as fast as his mind allowed it. He could not move his body, but he also could not move his mouth which he wondered if Kaminari chose to do on purpose or if it was a side-effect of him being an animal. Either way, his rapid thoughts slowed down and his beady eyes widened. Present Mic and Midnight stopped staring in as much shock, horrified looks spreading over their faces and tears filling their eyes like they did nearly every students' in the room.

"Right after I shot him in the back. Eeeehehehe! Ahahaha! AHHAHAHA!" Kaminari burst out laughing as soon as he finished it, because of the tears spilling out all his classmates' eyes. Looks of absolute despair spread over the faces of Class 2-A. Some of them pressed their faces into the floor, and others could not hold back gasps or cries or screams as they heard that. They could imagine Aizawa sensei's face looking at Kaminari feeling so betrayed, and all of them who had mourned their homeroom teacher so much found their hearts ripping as Kaminari bragged about doing it. Zach thought about how he had cried on the hospital bed after the Sports Festival and how Kaminari had put his arm around his back to comfort him. Present Mic opened his mouth to scream at him, and a zap of electricity slammed into him like it had Todoroki to shut him up before it even started.

 _What is he doing?_ Midoriya thought, snapping his head down because he could not look at Kaminari any longer. _Why is he- no, no there has to be a reason! Iida! Wait! If we can get Zach to… This paralysis, it has to wear off at some point, right? He seems to think I'd be able to move quicker than the others, so it's probably a temporary paralysis. We have to get Zach to Iida, but we need Kaminari to leave- but we need to capture him! How do we catch him, when he has this power?! Is Todoroki okay, or is he, like Iida…_

"Why?" Zach whispered. He was staring down at the floor below him with tears filling his eyes. He started sliding his face back up, as weak as he suddenly found himself feeling, and he looked into Kaminari's eyes as the blond turned back towards him. "Why would you… even if, the whole time… Why would you do, something like- ah, ah, why would you do this?"

"Thank you," Kaminari said in a relieved way, like he had wanted to explain but did not want to come out and say it himself without anyone asking. Kaminari leaned his body back while standing straight up, and he glanced up at the flickering lights over him before saying, "It's because, I like to win." He said it, and then he lowered his head and relaxed. Many people in the room gawked at him, while Zach's bleary eyes just stayed the same and he continued to stare at Kaminari waiting for him to continue. Kaminari frowned for a split second that he did not hear the appropriate response of a shout of furious confusion. He continued without Zach asking again, "Winning, is the most important thing in life. To me at least. I opened up my entire mind, and I was smarter than everyone else. I was the smartest six year old in the world. And because I was smart, I beat everyone at everything."

"Hey bastard, shut the fuck-" Bakugo froze with his mouth open as Kaminari turned towards him and looked him in the eyes. Kaminari had a warning look in his eyes, and Bakugo could see Iida as he stared at Kaminari's look. He could see the unmoving class rep, and he still could not move a single inch the way he was lying on the floor.

"Any more interruptions?" Kaminari asked, lifting his right hand and creating a mass of sparking electricity over it that illuminated the room much more than the flickering lights and computers were. "Now let's see," he hummed for a second and then snapped his fingers making the electricity around his right hand vanish. "That's right. Winning. I know it's pretty important to you too Bakugo, but you don't really get what winning means." Kaminari looked back at Zach who had asked the question initially and who had tears on his bottom eyelids and starting to spill down his face again at Kaminari's uncaring, smug, victorious look. Just seeing that expression on Kaminari's face again made Zach feel like someone shoved a hammer through his heart and then smashed it with the same hammer.

"When you _always_ win, it gets boring. Natural-born winners, us guys with electricity-type Quirks, right Jirou?" Kaminari asked. He turned to the girl who had once used that phrase to try and distract Shindeki Buda back at USJ more than a year ago now. More tears just spilled out of Jirou's eyes, and then Kaminari asked at the look on her face, "Oh what's wrong? Thinking about how I stole your first kiss? Or the other times since then?" Kaminari let out a small sigh, then he said in a disappointed way, "If things had kept going for a bit longer, I really could have stolen something important from you. Wouldn't call this a loss though. I mean, wonder if you'll ever get that far now without thinking of me. About this."

Kaminari chuckled and then shook his head around fast before spinning to Zach again, "And when winning gets boring, well, it doesn't really feel like winning anymore. And victory is in the eyes of the beholder. So if I don't consider it a victory, it doesn't really matter to me what other people say. It doesn't matter that my parents loved how I got good grades, or how my old friends always wanted me on their teams, it didn't even matter that I knew whatever I did, my life was set. So why did I do this? Why, did I need to become a spy in order to win again?" Kaminari laughed and then narrowed his eyes before saying in a cold voice with his lips twisted up in a smirk, "Because of All Might, of course."

"All Might. Seeing him on tv, I saw myself," Kaminari continued while gazing around at the others all around him. "Oh yeah, how could that be? I was just a kid and All Might was the number one hero. But it _was_ the same. He always won. And he always won _easily._ The more I watched him, the more I could see into my own future. I could see using my Quirk in amazing ways. I could see myself becoming this great hero, one that everyone looked up to for always beating the villains, for always saving the day… But, heroes always save the day anyway." He said it and got a confused look on his face as it came out of his mouth. "What's so special, about winning something people expect you to win anyway? Winning, when everyone already thinks you're going to win? Getting picked first because they think having you on their team means they'll win? Taking hard classes and getting good grades and going to good schools and getting good jobs, it's what _everyone_ thinks winning is."

"Yet I realized something. The victories that really matter, are the ones where everyone else loses," Kaminari smiled after saying it, looking fondly back on that realization and saying it to these people he had never been able to really talk to for over a year now. "In sports, only two teams of dozens make it to the championship, and still one of those teams winds up the loser. In our own Sports Festival, only _one_ person can win it each year. So then, why does winning suddenly change meaning when it comes to heroes and villains? Why then, is it a victory when a hero wins, if most everyone else wins too because of it? If things stay the same afterwards, if they're just as boring as they were before, then it's not really a victory. If I did things the same way All Might did them, well, it would have been boring. Everyone would have been a winner, and that would have meant that no one was, not even me. But then I realized something, watching All Might on tv one night, as he saved even more people and stopped even more villains. This guy, this symbol, he's what everyone considers as the ultimate winner. He is, at the top."

Midoriya's heart started pounding harder again, his eyes shaking as he stared at the blond saying this while looking around at all of them. _No… It couldn't be!_

 _This fucking bastard! Is he saying-_ Bakugo's teeth clenched and his eyes trembled in rage.

"If there is someone who everyone expects will win, always, then what would it be like to beat that person? Because _I_ was the person who always won when I was a kid. So I started to lose at things on purpose to do an experiment, and oh man did it pan out. I got a few points off on tests, and I saw people in the class so excited, so fucking thrilled that they had scored higher than Kaminari! I tested it playing sports too, and boy how happy they got that they beat the team with the number one pick on it! So it became pretty clear to me, what it was I wanted to do now. Something I'd never even really considered, because All Might was a Symbol of Peace that never got tarnished. The way I could win, was to beat All Might!" Kaminari threw his arms out to the sides, "And oh what a coincidence, there were some people who already wanted to do that and who were so glad _I_ wanted to help _them._ Hahaha," Kaminari chuckled darkly afterwards while everyone in the room suddenly felt a lot worse than they already had been.

"Getting Kurogiri in, and blocking the communications to give them the time to weaken him," Kaminari continued. "It was a nice start, but it didn't finish off the Symbol like I'd hoped. It came though," Kaminari said, a post-victorious tone in his voice as he looked around and then back at Zach. "I really have you to thank, that I was able to be there to witness All Might's fall. Denki Kaminari wouldn't have cared enough about Bakugo to head out to Camino Ward, but for you? For his good friend Zach who he felt he owed, well, how could I _not_ take a trip to Camino? No way I could have expected what was to come. I actually had a much different plan in mind that night." Kaminari laughed darkly and then looked over towards Yaoyorozu, then left to Midoriya who was closer to him and started staring in confusion then shock as Kaminari continued, "When we showed up at the place the tracker had brought us, because it was where the Nomus were, who was waiting inside that building?" Midoriya's blood ran cold and his face turned blue, and Yaoyorozu, Kirishima, and even Todoroki who was barely focused at all found themselves short of breath.

"Haha, you guys talked in your hospital room about going to save Bakugo and Zach, so I let him know we were coming between then and when we met up that night. If I had known the cops were going that same night, probably would have given a different warning, but things worked out _perfectly._ " Kaminari grinned again and then started stretching his arms out while glancing over his shoulder and across the room towards a steel door. "I got to see the downfall of All Might, something I helped orchestrate, with front-row tickets." Kaminari lowered his arms back down to his sides and twitched his fingers while everyone continued staring at him in shock at every word out of his mouth. "But since my decision to beat All Might, I added on a lot of things I could break too in order to win. U.A., this peaceful world, and oh man have I been going to work! I was right after all, because beating All Might has got me on a high that just won't go down! An endless victory, because I get to see the consequences of my win every fucking day."

"You," Zach whispered, staring at the ground in horror but catching his breath from his screams that had made him lose his voice for a minute. He lifted his eyes and got louder, "You couldn't have- this doesn't make-" Kaminari looked at him and kept smirking, and Zach rose his cracked voice to call out, "It can't be! You! Shatterer! We- we-"

"You know," Kaminari began with a smug look towards the boy breaking down while desperately trying to shout reasons at him. "I really thought I was unlucky there for a minute. I mean, what were the chances they grab _me_ out of everyone? But right before I was about to just kill everyone and dip, ruin my year long infiltration… you showed up. And oh man, how my luck had turned!" Zach's eyes shook worse and tears spilled out faster while the blond laughed at him. "Denki Kaminari couldn't have beaten all those guys, so I was holding out on the heroes to come save us. But then _you_ showed up. And all I had to do was fight by your side, and I finally got past that wall you've got up, got you to tell me, _everything._ " Zach's heart skipped a beat and his eyes froze, then widened so his eyelids pushed so far apart at the smirk and knowing look on Kaminari's face.

"And I even messed up _again_ that night!" Kaminari shouted at Zach with an amazed look on his face. "I couldn't believe you didn't catch me, but I guess even before that night you couldn't have guessed it was me. But while we were fighting Shatterer, when I thought we had taken him down, I started up my dumb face. It was too early though, and Shatterer came back! He came at us, and I saw you look towards me and you _knew_ I couldn't move fast enough to get away from him on my own, but I knew you weren't fast enough to dodge and get me out of there while you needed to fight in Nightmare. So I jumped out of the way. I moved faster than I should have been able to looking the way I did, and I thought _Shit!_ It's all over." He chuckled and shook his head at Zach while his friend clenched his eyes shut and lowered his face back to the floor, because he thought about that exact moment he had found so amazing at the time. "But you," Kaminari continued while Zach bit down and screamed in his head, "you just assumed I had gotten stronger, more able to fight even after using so much electricity. Because you _couldn't_ believe that it was me. Hehehe, and now, I know everything. Everything I need," Kaminari chuckled in a much darker and more ominous way, and then he turned to the door and started walking towards it. He walked towards the exit of the basement and stretched his arms out to the sides before clapping them in front of him in a ready, refreshed way.

"You won't be leaving here, Denki Kaminari," Nezu called out in a strained, high-pitched voice.

Kaminari frowned and he sparked electricity from his fingertips. He smirked again while glancing to his right and over towards the white-furred creature staring back at him. "Oh, and why's that? Because there are precautions in place if that door opens, where other heroes will be alerted and the police too? Or is it that the whole building is full of defense systems that will turn on and attack me? Or it it that you have ANTs hidden around here that'll come out and swarm me if I open that door without the right access codes?" Kaminari smirked while looking towards the creature staring back into his eyes. "I've always been ready for this. I'm always prepared to escape and disappear at a moment's notice, because someone who always wins plans ahead! U.A. has been losing so much lately, that I don't even know if I'll find this challenging. I hope it is though, to give me my thrill." He turned to the door and flicked his right hand at it, and a stream of electricity flew out of his hand and into the door, into the keypad next to it, into the wall systems around it and all.

The keypad exploded, locking clanks came from the door, and Kaminari let out a whistle and then a laugh. "Man, you actually made that take a couple of seconds. Nice job," Kaminari's compliment sounded genuine as sarcastic as it was worded to be. "You've really bumped up your systems since the Sports Festival, but it still wasn't any harder than blocking the stadium's communications, or flipping a switch in a dozen Ants at the same time to make it easy for Hackerman." Kaminari chuckled while looking towards the principal in such a victorious and smug way, "Did you even wonder why some of the Ants were still under your control that day, but others weren't? Or did it just not occur to you that in that first round of the tournament, zapping them with my electric currents that I _control_ , was more than just a strategy for reaching the summit?"

 _The whole time. Every moment. Even in the times we, even when I thought it was him- I, I told him everything! I trusted him! It was all a lie! Even the Sports Festival, even Shatterer, everything?! I, I told him to zap the section! I gave him the opportunity to hijack the Anti-Nomus! I can't let him- AHH! I can't handle- I have to! Iida! Don't, break down! Focus!_

"Man, there is so much I still want to tell you guys," Kaminari said while spinning back around and facing everyone again. "But, I can see the Temparalysis is wearing off a bit. So, I think it's about time we finished this," Kaminari rose up his hands and got a crazy smirk on his face that made the people wondering what he meant by the paralysis wearing off struggling their very hardest to prove that was true.

"You can't," Zach said. He said it in a low voice, hoarse but loud enough to reach closer to the door where Kaminari was standing. Others around Zach looked in towards him, while Zach stared at his _best_ _friend_ with panic in his eyes but his mind racing as fast as possible. "You, you can't kill us all!"

"Oh yeah I-"

"That first blast, it took a lot out of you didn't it? That's why you've really been standing around here this whole time. And, and then you killed Iida too and zapped Todoroki and Present Mic and that made you have to wait even longer." Zach spoke faster and cut off Kaminari who opened his mouth to retort, "You may not get short-circuited like you were- like, like you were pretending to be! But there are limits to Quirks, no matter how powerful! And you've already opened the door, yet you told Principal Nezu that you know just opening it might have alerted other heroes! Can you really waste more electricity on a bunch of people who can't even fight you?!" Zach screamed it and then started panting hard while glaring towards Kaminari through tear-filled eyes.

"Wow, you've got a good point there Zach," Kaminari said. He grinned back towards the black-haired boy he was talking to, and then he said in a venomous voice, "But I could easily kill one more person. Let's see who to pick. One more kill for the road." He smirked at the terrified looks on the faces of his fellow students who struggled even harder trying to move. He looked around then he stopped back on Zach and said, "Oh, you're thinking because I said it's wearing off, that you could just bring them back right?" Kaminari turned his head from Zach and looked straight over towards Kirishima whose eyes bulged huge and who tried covering his body in Hardening as fast as he could. Then Kaminari turned the other way and looked at Shoji whose eyes grew enormous under his silver bangs.

Zach's face covered in sweat and terror at the two Kaminari just looked at. "No, please," Zach whispered.

Kaminari glanced back towards Zach, then he hummed and lifted his right hand to his chin. "You're probably right though. I should save all my power for the escape." He started turning around for the door, and others in the room pushed as hard as they could to try and move before he left. Zach started shaking his head violently and slammed his chin down to try and drag himself forward. Midoriya found One For All and tried pulsing it through his body with his mind, and he could start to feel a tingling sensation in him though it was spreading slowly. Todoroki opened his clenched eyes and he started turning his head sideways to try and look for Kaminari, try to stop him before he left.

Kaminari took a step towards the door, and then he continued, "But you know what?" He froze, and everyone else froze too with their breath catching in their throats and their eyes bulging at the shift in tone like he had changed his mind. Kaminari turned his head to the right and said, "I've always wondered what fried frog smells like."

"Ger-" Lightning crashed down on Tsuyu Asui and surrounded her entire body in a blast of electricity that fried her skin and face and shut her up in mid-croak.

"NO!" Midoriya screamed.

"Tsuyu!"

"Tsu-chan!"

Kaminari turned back to the door and smirked as he listened to the screams behind him. "If you want to think of that personality I created as 'the real Kaminari,' go right ahead." Kaminari stepped to the door and grabbed it with one hand, and he started pulling in towards himself while lifting his other hand ready to attack anything and everything he might have to face out his way out. He continued as he opened the door to the basement, "Now that my spying is done, I'll be going by my villain name for now on. Raijin, the God of Lightning." He stared into the empty stairwell for a second and then looked back over his shoulder one last time still with a smirk covering his face. "I look forward to killing you soon."

Then he left. He walked out the door and did not close it behind him. He just walked out and rose both hands with electricity sparking off his fingers, a mad look in his eyes as he prepared to take on anything U.A.'s principal might have prepared for him in the off chance the spy had managed to defeat all of them. Kaminari's feet became impossible to see from everyone's positions lying on the floor, and then the sound of his footsteps rising up the stairwell faded away too.

"Ahhh, ahh ahh," Jirou lowered her head after a few seconds and pressed her face hard into the floor. She tried pushing her mouth into something to muffle her sobs, but she just got louder each second as she felt her heart tearing apart. Her mind was swirling, and she started biting down on her lips so hard, drawing blood as she felt Kaminari's lips against them. "AHH!" She screamed, opening up her bloody lips and letting out a scream.

"Tsukauchi, can you move yet?" Nezu asked in a strained voice towards the detective not too far from him.

"Not, at all," the cop trying to drag his arms up replied in a strained voice too. He felt a tingling sensation in his neck and some burnt skin on the back of it, and the detective brought his gaze back towards the open doorway where the student spy had just escaped through. _That Quirk, is too strong. That boy… he was not just a spy. He's not just a piece of Shigaraki's._ Tsukauchi struggled harder to move even while a bead of sweat formed on his face. _He's a, different kind of monster._

"Aizawa," Midnight whispered, closing her eyes and pressing her face into the floor as tears spilled out of them. She imagined in her head that blond boy coming in to the main office to tell Aizawa that he was pulling out of the Sports Festival to help his friend. She had been so impressed by him, and she cursed so loudly in her head as she imagined that same impressed expression flash on Aizawa's face when Kaminari turned around after giving his reasons for withdrawing. And then she imagined the body she had found with a few others, hidden and with bullet holes in his chest and head. Midnight let out a gasp at the thought of that body, and tears pushed through the cracks of her clenched eyes to drip onto the floor.

Midoriya looked around and he saw half of the others around him were crying. He wished he could wipe the tears that lingered in his own eyes though, because he needed to move. It was the time for action. He glared back towards the exit and strained even harder, and his fingers moved at his sides, his toes wiggled in his sneakers. He slammed his head into the floor and left a dent in it as he filled with Full Cowling. "Get up," he growled at himself, and he strained harder to drag his arms up at his sides. And then Midoriya froze. He froze and stared forward as a head slammed into the ground in front of him and made blood splash out from the chin that just ripped open. That bloody chin dragged backwards and pulled the rest of the body behind it forward, and Midoriya stared at the face of the black-haired boy who had tear streaks covering his face but no more pouring out of them.

Zach's eyes were locked on Iida's body just past Midoriya and Uraraka. He lifted his chin from down near his chest and then snapped his head up and out to slam his chin down again, and then he dragged backwards while leaving a smear of blood on the ground under his face. "Iida," Zach muttered, his face pale behind his tear streaks and a sense of urgency and panic in his eyes. "Iida, Iida, Iida," Zach muttered it louder, and he groaned as he tried pulling himself farther only for his chin to slide on a trail of blood on the floor, making him lose the friction that he needed to yank the rest of his body forward. Zach slammed his face down on the floor in frustration at how hard it was to move, and then he snapped his head to the right and bit down into his right shoulder.

Midoriya and Uraraka stared in front of them with huge eyes as Zach bit down hard into his white sleeve. He bit harder and harder until the white material on his shoulder started to seep through with some red. It got redder the more Zach pulled, using his entire jaw strength and yanking his arm up with his teeth. "RGrr Grrr, grraaa!" Zach let go while swinging his arm forward, and then he slammed his chin down and dragged his body to the right where his arm was bent in towards him. He glared at his right hand, and he leaned forward as far as his body would let him. Zach dragged himself, and he reached out his head and bit down on his right hand, scooping fingers into his mouth and then biting down and grinding his teeth back and forth to rip through his glove.

Zach shredded into his hand and made the tearing skin of his right hand touch a part of his head. A black aura surrounded Zach, and he felt with it a surge of strength and a sensation of pain in the hand he was still biting into. Zach opened his jaw that showed through the black veil over his body, and he slammed down his hand that had blood coming out of it and out of the black aura over it. Zach pressed that hand into the floor, but his entire body was still struggling to move and he just started shaking violently instead.

"Zach," Uraraka started in a hoarse voice as he saw the boy pushing so hard forward and continued dragging himself towards Iida with as much strength as he could muster. She opened her mouth to continue, but she froze with it open and could not think of a single thing to say. She just stared at the black form in front of her that was grunting and making guttural, strained noises as he crawled up to Iida.

Zach dragged his tingling arms up at his sides that he had only been able to wriggle around to move a bit faster up until then, and he rose them almost up to Iida. Then Zach froze, and he brought his shaking right hand in towards his head again. Zach pressed his hand against his head and turned off Nightmare form. He could still move his arms as much as he just could though, and he slid his left hand up in front of him to Iida's head, then along the side of it and to Iida's neck that he pressed his fingers into. _Kaminari could, have been lying…_ The hopeful thought was crushed and Zach's right hand reached forward next, and he pressed it into the top of Iida's head while slamming his own face back into the floor to fill his mind with pain and keep himself alert. He did not need to get that extra bit of pain in a second though, considering how he felt his heart getting pierced by lightning in that next moment.

Bakugo stopped struggling as hard to move himself, which was actually starting to work, and he lifted his gaze across the collapsed class a bit to where Zach started screaming. "Fucking, stay awake," Bakugo snarled, though it was under his breath and mainly to himself. Only Kirishima heard it, though the redhead just continued bringing his arms up at his sides at his full strength. Kirishima groaned and slowly uncurled his fingers that he had tightened into fists when he first regained feeling in them.

Bakugo ground his teeth in so much anger. He could barely think straight with how much he was screaming in rage in his head. He started pushing himself up though, just as Midoriya had done a few seconds earlier twenty feet away from him. Bakugo panted while looking down at the floor below him, but he was starting to feel more and more sensation through his entire body. It had been a couple of minutes, but he stared at the ground with huge eyes while panting as he thought about how all of them were made incapacitated for so long by a single attack. _The whole time. That mother, fucker…_ Bakugo clenched his eyes as hard as he could, biting down and shaking in fury along with another emotion.

"You, bastard," Kirishima whispered through a pained gasp. He hardened his head and slammed it down into the floor, and he hunched his back up as the sparking sensation in his spine started to feel less painful. He smashed his head down again, and he started growling in frustration, and rage, and tears fell to the floor beneath his face and splashed off every time he smacked his head down.

"Ahh. Ahhhh," Zach's voice got softer and his screams turned into more just quiet 'ahh's of pain. His right hand shook so much on Iida's head, and then it fell off and Zach started panting so hard as his face flattened down into the floor. He could feel spit sliding down his lips and drooling onto the floor, and he could feel the wounds in his left arm and left hand had opened up while he was moving, and now his right shoulder and his right hand too. He was bleeding again, and he had already lost a lot of blood. "Iida," Zach said, panting again as soon as he got the word out. He brought his head up slowly and glared through half-closed, bloodshot eyes at the taller teen laying in front of him. "Get up, you fucking, weakling. Don't you, fucking, fall asleep."

Iida's mind was hazy and he felt tired. Hearing those curses though, and those insults, he rose up his head and brought his arms up at his sides quickly. Iida pushed his body up faster than anyone else around the room though many of them were already on their hands and knees now, and Midoriya was actually getting up on his feet. Midoriya spun to Iida though while his teeth were clenched and his legs shook violently under the strain he was putting on them before his nerves stopped sparking with the electricity that had filled him. Iida stood up fast and he looked down at his chest, at a burnt section around the front left side of it and a hole in the middle of that blackened area in the blue. "Zach-" Iida started.

"Carry me, to Tsuyu," Zach growled while raising his eyes and glaring into Iida's through his glasses.

Iida froze with his mouth open, and then he snapped his head up and looked across the room. His eyes bulged as he realized why Zach asked that, even though he had already been dead before Tsuyu was killed. When he looked towards Tsuyu's body though, her body that Zach had been unable to see well while crawling on the floor, Iida felt an even stronger pain because of the way the boy in front of him looked while asking that of him. Iida looked back down at Zach, at his bloody body and tear-streaked, pale face. Iida stared into Zach's half-closed eyes and he felt chills, but he clenched his teeth and he reached down without arguing against what Zach just said. "It won't, kill you?" Iida asked while lifting Zach up.

"Zach, you don't-" Yaoyorozu began, turning from Jirou who she was trying to talk to and calm the girl's sobs. Iida glanced over at Yaoyorozu, then back at the boy he had just picked up with little difficulty even though he did it slowly as he did not want to further injure Zach.

Yaoyorozu and Iida both flinched as Zach replied though, "If I don't, he wins." Zach pulled his body towards Tsuyu, and Iida started jogging across the room while holding Zach up in both of his arms.

Shoji and Tokoyami turned their heads and watched as Iida ran by. Shoji continued pushing down with all of his arms, and he snapped his body back in one strong movement so he was kneeling up with his body vertical. The recovery was slow, but it was speeding up and he was finding it easier and easier to move with every second that passed. Shoji looked to his top right arm and tried focusing his Quirk, and he managed to create more arms extending out from it. Shoji reached over back towards the computer wall that was broken and sparking just like all the other electronics in the room, and Shoji grabbed the principal and picked him up before retracting his arms.

Mezo Shoji placed the principal down on the floor in front of him, and he asked in a serious voice, "Principal Nezu. Are there measures in place to stop Kaminari?"

Nezu was on his feet, but Shoji had to keep his hand holding the principal up or the creature would fall right over. Nezu could barely even shake his head 'no.' "I, didn't think it was him," Nezu whispered. "I, miscalculated. His Quirk, his motive- it was all…" Nezu's beady black eyes were shaking, and Shoji's opened huge at the look of confusion and despair on the principal's face. "I couldn't calculate his moves," he whispered in an even softer voice. "I failed," he shifted his beady eyes over towards Tsuyu Asui's body as he said it. "To protect my students," his eyes locked on the girl that Iida lowered Zach down on top of. He stared at the small girl whose body was covered in black burns, who looked "fried" just like Kaminari wanted her to be. Then Nezu's eyes rose from that girl though, to the boy on top of her who hesitated while looking down at those same burn marks all over Tsuyu's body.

Others were starting to get up around the room, when Zach finally put his right hand down on Tsuyu's body. Midoriya, Bakugo, Todoroki, and Kirishima first, then Shoji got up while resting the principal back down, and Sato managed to get from his knees to his feet shortly after. Sato bent down to check on Mineta who he did not see moving, only to shift Mineta's face a bit from face-down and see bloodshot eyes and tears streaking over the small boy's face. Mineta's lips were pursed and trembling and there was such a look of despair in his eyes that it hurt Sato even more than his own feelings over what just happened.

Yaoyorozu pulled herself closer to her best friend who she pulled an arm up to in order to grab and pull close. She managed to even get up on her knees when she was close enough and could see the expression on Jirou's face of just so much betrayal, heartache, and anger. Yaoyorozu glanced across the room though as she heard the scream that just pierced the basement. She glanced towards Zach while putting a hand on Jirou's back, and she felt her own heart breaking as she saw the boy kneeling there on Tsuyu's roasted back.

Zach took in a deep breath as his hand had come off of Tsuyu for a second. He shook his head around to focus, screaming at himself that he was not allowed to stop until she was alive again. Zach focused his mind enough that he was able to grab his right wrist and press it harder into Tsuyu's back, and he clenched his teeth in fury as the focusing managed to get his mind straight enough that he could think on what just happened. "Raa! RAAA!" Zach screamed down at Tsuyu's back, his heart pounding and ripping again, and he screamed out in agony. Only his scream of agony did not sound like one of pain. Zach screamed in rage, and in sadness, and in betrayal. "AAHH! RAAGHH! FFUUU _UUUCCKKK!_ " Zach roared and bowed his body farther.

 _JENNY! USJ! JENNY! The training forest! JENNY!_ "YOU FUuuaaAAAH!" Zach screamed, and he clenched his eyes tightly while feeling his entire body surrounded in electricity like he was being electrocuted. It was hot, and he felt his skin searing and turning red, and he let out another horrible scream that filled the basement. _"RRRAAAAAAA!"_ Zach roared furiously, and then tears spilled out of his eyes as he shot them open and stared down at Tsuyu in horror. In his head flashed a thousand good times with Kaminari. His friend. His _closest_ friend.

 _His room! His, his room was filled with all those things, all those cliche boy things that any guy would like but he, he never seemed interested in any of that stuff! It was like he got it all just to look like a normal- And being pervy! Not as bad as Mineta so that it draws attention, but enough that people know, so that if he's caught spying on girls or Midnight sensei even he could have played it off as being a perv-_ "AAAhhaaa! AaaaaAAAHHH!" Zach screamed again and tears splashed out of his eyes as he broke down. _It was all a LIE! He was, he was FUCKING WITH ME! My best friend. I, I became best friends with him, after he had gotten Jenny…_ Zach's teary eyes started shaking, and he brought his left hand up to his head and off his wrist. Zach grabbed his head and dragged his hand up through his messy black hair with a look of horror on his face that was starting to twist.

"We have to catch him," Midoriya said, taking deep breaths and looking around at the others who stood up near him.

Iida turned and raced back towards the others, feeling the strongest of all of them after Zach brought him to life at full health. "How long ago did Kaminari leave? I'll go-"

"You can't go, on your own," Todoroki started between panting breaths, burns on his face and his body but a look of anger on his face more than pain.

"Call him Raijin," Kirishima snarled. The others glanced towards him, and Kirishima clenched his fists so much harder before growling, "He was lying. The real Kaminari, I, I know he's in there-" Kirishima bit down so much harder at the looks they all gave him as he said it, and he tried to hold back more tears since they were being serious here. "But let's go capture him," Kirishima agreed. "Right now," he growled in a deeper voice.

Bakugo turned and glared towards the door of the basement, and he took a step towards it while thinking of Kaminari's electric Quirk that was completely new to them. _He knows everything about our Quirks and we don't know jack shit about his._

"If he gets off campus," Midoriya began. "We might never catch-"

"Aaahaha…" The students stopped talking about going after and catching Kaminari. The group of them turned their heads, and they looked towards where the screams had stopped. Zach was still on top of Tsuyu, still had his hand down on her back even though her skin was looking less blackened than it was before. Zach could feel her insides fixing up, because he could feel his own insides like they were on fire. And yet as he felt that, he opened his mouth with his eyes closed and the corners of his lips curled up. "Aaaahhhahahahaa! AHhh Ahhaha! HAAhaha!" Zach's head snapped back, and his eyes opened huge while he pressed his palm down on Tsuyu's back.

 _I'm not a curse! I realize that now. I've never been a curse. All the terrible things that happen to people around me. All the terrible things in my entire life! I'm the one who's cursed, aren't I?! I'm cursed to lose everything!_ "AAHHAHAHAHAHA!" Zach opened his mouth wider and his voice came out so loud that he could not hear the people who started calling over to him. His eyes were opened huge and shaking violently, and his head was full of the sharpest pain like his migraine had a migraine. Zach just screamed out laughter though, at a realization dawning on him in a moment of pure madness. _I'm done! I'm DONE living this way! Bad things happen to me. Someone like me can never live happily in this world. That's just it, I'm cursed! And things will never change. Bad things will just keep happening!_ Zach snapped his head down and kept laughing while looking at Tsuyu's back. _But I'm going to bring good to this world!_

 _This world that picked me,_ _ **cursed**_ _me to have the greatest misfortune! This world that plagued me with the Quirk of Death, a dead family, a horrible fate, I fucking love it!_ "HAHAHAHA!" Zach cackled madly, _I think that even after Kaminari?! WHAT THE FUCK?!_ He brought his hand off of Tsuyu's back as he felt a feeling that he always felt when bringing people back. And he rose his right hand and brought it up through his hair like he was doing with his left. He dragged his hand up through his hair while laughing like a mad man, and the people who had stepped closer to him pulled back as a black aura erupted around Zach without him even realizing it. He had bitten through his glove though, and in dragging his hands through his hair and doing it over and over again, he had activated Nightmare mode. "Ahhahaha! AHHAHAHA! **AHahahaaa AAAHAHAHA!"** Zach did not even notice the change in his own tone as he snapped his head back and glared his glowing red eyes at the ceiling, his heart in pieces and his chest hurting as much as it did while he brought Iida back.

Zach's laughter came out darker and scratchier and scarier as every person in the room stared towards him. They stared at their classmate, and Tsuyu lifted her head up and stared in front of her in terror at the cackling dark form sitting there with a flame of blackness surrounding him. Zach screamed out but changed it to laughter as fast as he could. Yaoyorozu stared over towards Zach and she pulled her right hand up to her mouth while tears fell out the corners of her eyes. _He's, laughing to stop himself from breaking down. But, but he can't-_

 _EVERYTHING HE DID! It was all just to fuck with me! It was all, a FUCKING LIE! But despite it all! I know this world is beaut-iful?! BEAUTIFUL! Because, because most people don't have the misfortune I've had. They're happy. They must be. Because even I have had happy moments in my cursed life, so they all must have so much more! Right?! All of them have happiness, and I know that feeling! If this curse on me is to give me the greatest misfortune then, then I'll take it! I can deal with it! I'll just take every bad thing, take all the darkness of the world, and I'll send out light myself. I won't let the world have it's way! I won't let him- it! Turn me into a villain! I'm going to win! I'm, fighting fate itself!_ "Ahahaa AAAAhaha AHHHHAHHH! AHHa- AAaahhH _!"_

 _It was stupid to think that coming back to life changed a single fucking thing! I, I can't have a life like that! I could never have those things! But I'll still-_ In Zach's mind, he saw Kaminari's smiling face flash in front of him. Zach's screams that were attempting to be laughs stopped, and he started panting and getting more ragged. His body shook, swaying side to side with his red eyes growing wider and his heart pounding faster and faster. "Raaa… RAAA- AAAHHAHAAAAAHHH! _AAAAAHHHH! **RRRAAAA!**_ _ **KAMINARI!"**_ Zach's mind blanked and he fell, Nightmare fading from around his body.


	87. Chapter 87

**Disclaimer: I don't own Boku no Hero Academia**

 **Chapter 87:**

Zach Sazaki slowly opened his eyes while laying back on a soft surface. He stared at the ceiling, one he recognized as he had woken up in this room many times before. Zach stared straight at the ceiling, and then his face scrunched up and he glared so much harder at the ceiling panel directly above him. _It wasn't a dream._

"Sazaki?"

A soft, older woman's voice spoke and made Zach's expression flatten back out. Zach started sliding up and he pressed his back against the wall behind the bed he had awoken on. He stared next to the bed at the short old woman who took a step towards him, and he kept a blank look on his face while staring at her. Then Zach's eyes shifted up and he looked over towards a bed that Present Mic was laying on. Though the spiky-haired blond looked injured, he was breathing. Zach brought his eyes back to Recovery Girl and stared at the short woman with gray hair who looked at him so sadly at the expression on his face compared to the last time she had seen him. That last time she had seen him though, he had been walking and talking and laughing with his best friend through the hallway right past her office.

Recovery Girl started walking closer to Zach's bed, and the boy sitting up on it just stared down at her with his lips pursing harder as he tried keeping a straight face. "I have heard that, it was you who realized Himiko Toga had replaced me. And, that you were the one to figure out where I was being held, in time to stop the other villain from taking me away…" Recovery Girl trailed off as Zach's eyes started shaking, and the boy had to turn away from her with a pained look on his face. Zach looked towards the windows of her office and out into the dark sky outside. "I want to thank you, Sazaki."

"You're welcome," Zach whispered, though it sounded so quiet that it was more like he breathed the words out.

Recovery Girl looked down at the tone of that voice. She stared at the floor for a moment, then she looked up at the back of the boy's head again and started, "If you'd like, I'll go get Softy. She's waiting to hear-"

"No," Zach said. Recovery Girl froze with her mouth open, and then she had to close it while staring at the boy who pulled his legs back towards him under the blanket she had put on him in his sleep. Zach pulled his knees towards his chest for a second, and he looked down between them as he thought about the short, kind woman, who he had told so much about himself and how he was feeling to. _I don't trust her. She could be, just like Kaminari. She'll take whatever I tell her, and she'll use it against me._ "No," Zach just repeated quietly.

 _Why am I talking to her? She could be too. They all could. Anyone could._ Zach brought his left hand up slowly to his face and he put it over his mouth for a second. _Don't scream. Don't scream. Kaminari. You, you were really…_ _ **"ZACH! HELP ME!"**_ _Every time he said her name? He knew. The whole time. He knew, he knew but talked about her like he didn't… and I! I felt bad for-_ Zach let go of his legs and he turned away from Recovery Girl more, putting his legs off the other side of the bed farther from her.

"Sazaki, if not Softy," Recovery Girl began quietly. "Talk to me then. I heard you went too far again. It's okay if you want to stay here and-"

"Recovery Girl," Zach whispered. He turned around and asked in a soft voice, "Is the offer still on the table?"

Recovery Girl flinched, and her heart ached at the look in the boy's eyes and the tears streaming down his face. Zach's lips were trembling, and it looked like he barely got that out. She found it hard to respond, and she did not know what to say. So she just gave the boy a small nod instead.

* * *

"Hey, Yaoyorozu," Momo turned to Rikido Sato who stood in the hallway of the third floor and kept his voice quiet as he spoke. Yaoyorozu had just stepped out of the first room on the girl's side of the floor, and she finished closing the door slowly before turning to the boy who had gotten quieter while saying her name because of the look she darted him. Yaoyorozu closed the door quietly but left it open a crack, leaving behind the girl who had cried herself to sleep alone for now though Momo planned to come check on again soon. Sato looked at Yaoyorozu who gave him a questioning look without saying anything so as not to wake Jirou. The large boy with fat lips turned his head and whispered in a soft voice, "Zach's, back."

Yaoyorozu's eyes opened huge and she started forward quickly. Sato started going just as fast when she reached his side, and as they got into the stairwell he continued in a normal tone again, "I tried talking to him, but he walked right past us. His, room. We've been hearing…" On the steps on the way to the fourth floor, the two of them stopped because a faint scream reached their ears. It was too far to be coming from the fourth floor, and they looked farther up as they recognized the voice too.

Yaoyorozu started jogging up the stairs faster, and she pursed her lips as she heard another wail that made her heart pound. She got up to the fifth floor, and she rushed down the boys' side and past a couple of guys who she looked at in confusion at why they were not reacting to these yells. Sero and Todoroki both just gave Yaoyorozu sympathetic and pained looks though as she ran by them, and Sato stopped with the two of them and looked after her in the same way.

Sero glanced back at Todoroki after Yaoyorozu ran by, while the hallway was quiet for a moment. "It was only a few minutes," Sero said in a low voice. "The whole Sports Festival we were together, but when he ran back inside to go check on Zach… or that's why I thought-" Sero ground his big teeth together and then said in a lower, regretful tone, "We got separated. It must have been then, that Aizawa sensei…" Sero brought a hand up to his forehead and used the bottom of it to press down on his eyes.

As Yaoyorozu stood in front of Zach's door at the end of the hallway, another boy just reached the top of the stairs and started down the hallway towards his classmates. The three boys near the middle but farther towards Zach's room than the stairs looked towards him. Midoriya looked past for a second and all the way to Yaoyorozu, but then he looked closer and he saw the looks of his friends that made him start sweating. Todoroki's eyes focused in on Midoriya, and he thought about something Kaminari had said that afternoon. _"I'm a bit worried you might be able to do something with All Might's power and all…" Midoriya, there really was a deeper connection between you two. You having his power though? What does that mean?_

Yaoyorozu held her hand in front of Zach's door, but she found herself unable to knock it forward. _What do I say to him?_ She stared at the door so nervously, so unsure of what she should say. Talking to Jirou, hugging her and saying it would be alright, it had been easy. It had hurt her to see her best friend like that. She believed Jirou would be able to get past it though. As she heard a scream of rage on the other side of the door, her whole body flinched, and then she flinched harder and pulled her hand back as something smashed with a loud crack followed by more breaking noises. "FUCK! MOTHER _FUCKER!_ God damn it! Damn it! Ahh, ahhHH! DAMN IT!"

The tall, busty girl standing outside of Zach's room brought her hand back towards the door again. She took in a deep breath and prepared to knock, but she stopped hearing angry, loud pants coming from the other side. The screams stopped, and Yaoyorozu hesitated as it almost seemed like she did not need to go in there and calm him down. _I need to talk to him though._

Sero looked over towards her, and he opened his mouth to warn her about something but stopped himself. Midoriya was looking around at them in confusion, and Sero glanced at him before saying in a low voice, "Zach barred his door or something. He screamed at us to go away, so we figured maybe Yaoyorozu could…" Sero looked back towards the girl in front of Zach's door, and then he shifted his gaze a bit and looked so sadly at that door that he stopped hearing screams coming from. "Kaminari, really fucked him up."

"We all trusted him," Sato muttered, but then he brought up his right hand and grabbed his forehead with it. "But Zach, he, he already wakes up in the middle of the night screaming, every night," Sato whispered it and he clenched his teeth so hard after getting the words out, while the other boys all looked at him with wide eyes. Todoroki lowered his after a second, as he had been woken up once or twice over the last couple of months from night terrors that had reached two rooms down. To think they were every night though… and then with this on top of it. Sato grabbed his forehead tighter and his eyes filled with anger towards Kaminari, so that he could stop them from filling with tears instead. "How could he do that to him? To us?"

"We, never really knew him," Todoroki said quietly.

"Not, the real him," Midoriya whispered. "But, I don't think the Kaminari we knew…" Midoriya grit his teeth while the others looked towards him. "Raijin, said that he had Kaminari thinking in order to fool us, in case there was a mind reader. So, so that means, Kaminari had his own thoughts. And maybe, those thoughts together created feelings?" Midoriya clenched his eyes shut for a second at the thought of it.

"Zach?" Yaoyorozu whispered. Her face was up close to the door, and she opened her fist instead of knocking and just pressed her palm into the door. She lowered her other hand to the doorknob and whispered a bit louder, "I'm coming in, okay?"

She heard no response. Yaoyorozu was starting to feel increasingly nervous. The silence was worse than his screams, because at least with the screams she could kind of make out what he was thinking and feeling. She pushed in on his doorknob and the door started sliding inwards. A couple of boys back in front of Sato's door looked over in surprise as the door slid in easily, though it bumped into something after a second when it was only a third of the way open.

The room inside was dark. Yaoyorozu let go of the doorknob and she took a step inside, and then she stepped fully in and glanced down to see what was blocking the door. Her breath caught in her throat though as she looked at the floor. It was not part of the broken desk that lay on the floor blocking the door that had taken her breath, or the fact that his mattress was torn apart, or that his bed stand was broken down the middle, or that his clothes were ripped up and his dresser smashed in half. His blender was shattered in the corner to her right, and a pile of protein powder was piled up near the turned over tub, though there was more powder scattered around the floor. Yaoyorozu's eyes focused straight down next to the broken desk though. When she took a step into the room she felt a small bump under her right foot, and she lifted it up to see a small white pill the same as all the other ones littered about next to a small orange bottle in front of her shoe.

Yaoyorozu lifted her eyes up from the pill bottle and the pills around it. She looked up and into the corner of the room where she saw a silhouette of a person illuminated only by the light from the hallway behind her. She did not need to look at the light switch to tell that flicking it would not work, as there was broken glass on the floor and no shadow of the lighting fixture that should have been on his ceiling. The silhouette in front of her however, was clear enough in the light from the hall that she could see him still wearing his white hero costume. He sat there in the corner, with his legs pulled up so his knees were in front of his chest, but his legs below the knees were actually pushed out and spread a bit. His right arm was resting on his upper right leg, using it for support while he held a small white pill up in between his index finger and thumb just a foot in front of his face.

On Zach's face was a look of so much hate yet hesitation too. He stared at the pill between his fingers. It was one that had been close to the corner he finally slid down to his butt in, and he had picked it up almost subconsciously. His desk that he had thrown in front of his door to block it when Sero first knocked was broken apart now, which had allowed for his girlfriend to open the door partly and step inside. He did not look towards her but just kept staring at the pill he held between them. "What, is that?" Yaoyorozu questioned. Her voice was soft, and scared.

Zach just kept staring at the pill. He stared at it and the pill shook between his fingers. "My dad," Zach began. He spoke in a normal voice loud enough that Yaoyorozu would be able to hear him, though it was not too hard for the other four who had walked down the hallway and stopped before reaching the open doorway. "Was an alcoholic… You knew that. Everyone, knows that." Zach quieted down for a second, then he continued again while moving the pill farther from his face. "It's how he dealt, with what I had done. Killing my mom, his wife. He used things to help him deal, then he wound up _needing_ them." Zach's lips shook as he held the pill away from his face, "I've been trying so hard, not to listen to Recovery Girl, or Softy, and just not take these."

"Zach," Yaoyorozu whispered.

"I don't want to become like that though," Zach whispered, his voice cracking when he realized he was pulling the pill back towards his face. "I don't want to be a man who hits his son, hates his son, if I ever-" Zach lifted his left hand and grabbed his head, and he let out a sob while the pill slipped between the fingers of his other hand. Zach clenched that shaking right hand into a fist and then slammed it to the right into the wall while snapping his head back. "I can't take this though," he said, while lowering his hand from a new dent in the wall. "It hurts so much. It, it hurts… But I can't do anything about it." Zach brought his left hand from the side of his head to in front of his eyes.

"A new life? Who am I kidding?" He asked, his voice so pained and his heart lurching like it had been since he woke up. "I'm the same. It's all the same. Nothing's changed. Ahhh," he sucked in a huge breath at the end to try and get a grip over himself as he was too close to breaking down and screaming again.

"It's okay," Yaoyorozu started to whisper.

"It's not," Zach said, shaking his head and clenching up his face harder. He bit down and lowered his hand, and he looked up towards Yaoyorozu with such an agonized expression. He stared at her and bit down so furiously, and then he snapped, "He was right!" Zach balled his fists and he brought them up to the sides of his head. "The night we fought Shatterer, I _knew_ he had moved too fast!" Zach called it out and then sucked in a breath because he had to or his voice would crack. "I knew! That his face, had looked like he was short-circuited. But, I told myself that he had just gotten stronger. I, I believed in my best friend, and that he was getting stronger, and that, that… Oh my God- that night. I did it for him? For him?!"

"You didn't know-"

"I crossed a line," Zach gasped at her, his face covered in a horrified look. "Just to save him." Zach reached up and grabbed the side of his head so hard with his left hand. He let out a moan and then said with his head tilted back, "I went _so far_ to save him."

"You saved a lot of people that night," Yaoyorozu started.

"But all that mattered to me, was getting him back," Zach countered strongly, and with such an angry look on his face. He glared at Yaoyorozu and he snapped louder, "I just wanted to save Kaminari! And I, I crossed a line. I went- I crossed- I-I-" Zach stared closer at Yaoyorozu's face and started shaking his head. He leaned forward so his head was over his knees, and he said in a disbelieving voice at the way she was looking at him so understandingly, "I'm not _talking_ about leaving school, or lying to All Might, or how I didn't tell you anything." Zach shook his head and then he clenched his teeth, his face covering in fear and anger and hate. " _All_ that mattered was getting him back, and I did- I, I crossed the line! I went so far past it! FOR HIM!" Zach screamed.

The others outside of Zach's room stared towards his door and found themselves getting nervous, either holding their breath or it speeding up. "The things I did… I went too far! And, and as much as I kept telling myself that it was worth it to save them all- To save him! It, it _haunts_ me."

 _Zach,_ Midoriya thought, his heart gripping as he imagined what it could have been Zach did that night that had him sounding like this.

"You don't know that that was a bad thing," Momo began quietly to him. Zach shook his head, but she continued, "The real Kaminari-"

"There is no real Kaminari," he said quickly.

"You don't know that."

"There can't be," Zach whispered, so much anger in his voice. "He was tricking us the whole time. He was a monster, the whole time. Every second of it was a lie, just a trick!"

"We don't know that for sure-"

"It has to be!" Zach screamed, looking at her so angrily as he yelled it. "Because if it's not, then what the fuck am I supposed to do when we see him again?!" Zach shouted it at her and Momo pulled her head back from him. He looked at her in so much anger and confusion, but also desperation for an answer. "If I fight him, I _have_ to kill him. Because, because if you're right, and you could be…" Zach paused and he sniffled in before saying, "Then when we face him again, he's going to bring out Kaminari and make him look at us. While we're all looking at him like a monster who murdered our friends and teacher. And if we catch him, Raijin's not going to be the one who goes to prison." Yaoyorozu's eyes started shaking and the others in the hallway stared down at the floor with horrified expressions. "The first thing he'd do if he got caught is bring Kaminari out. Make him go on trial, and go to jail, and he'd know all of the things that he had done to us… But more than that, he would have been real, which would mean that he just died!"

"So he can't be real," Zach said in an angry voice as he tried to remind himself that none of that mattered. "I _have_ to believe that Raijin was the one in charge the whole time, and not just in charge, but faking all of Kaminari's expressions and words and feelings and everything! I have to believe that even protecting Thompson, and fighting Shatterer with me, and that whole night… it was all a lie. Everything that happened that night, and after, that convinced me he was really on my side. That made me, put my trust in him."

He paused and took in such a deep breath as he mentioned putting his trust in Kaminari. "And then," Zach whispered in a high-pitched, cracking voice. He looked deeper into Yaoyorozu's eyes he could see clearly in the light from the hall, and he whispered, "After that night, I told him everything. I, told Kaminari my secrets. Things I didn't tell anyone. All of my deepest held secrets. Secrets I should have kept from everyone."

"You don't need-"

Zach clenched his teeth so angrily that Yaoyorozu froze in mid-sentence. Zach glared into her eyes and hissed in fury, "They weren't my secrets to tell. I, I knew things. I know things that…" Zach looked over towards his phone, thrown across the room but in sight with a cracked screen. His angry look switched to one full of so much sadness and regret, and sheer guilt that overtook him and made him shift his gaze over towards those pills again. "I knew things, that people's lives depended on. I didn't just tell him about me. I told him, about- about things I shouldn't have! I told him, secrets that are going to get people killed! Things that are already getting them killed! AHhahaaa AAAhhh!" Zach sobbed and slammed his head back into the corner behind him again.

Yaoyorozu's eyes were wide though after what she just heard. She thought Kaminari sounded a bit weird when he mentioned Zach telling him things, and she stepped closer and questioned, "What do you mean? Who is-"

"How could I tell you that?" Zach asked, opening his clenched eyes and looking at her in agony. He had a horrified look on his face still as he thought about what he had done. "How could I, trust you?" He asked, and then he pulled his head back farther into the corner at the hurt look on her face. "It's not that- I want to but- I, I can't! I can't Momo! Please, please, please…" Zach started shaking his head, and then he leaned forward and got onto his knees while pushing his head closer to her. "I tried _so_ hard to distance myself from everyone when I got back. I _knew_ that someone here was a spy. I knew, that someone must have told the villains where our training camp in the woods was. And after being tortured, after being with the villains, I thought I could figure out who it was. I, I really- but Kaminari! He was the first person, that I checked off as being innocent. More than the people that I could actually account for, more than people who I could prove weren't, I trusted him explicitly. Because, because he was the one who told me it was okay to trust people! He said that he would always be my friend," Zach's lips started trembling and tears spilled out of his eyes while he spoke in such a hurt, betrayed tone.

He shook his head again and then lowered his gaze down to the floor. "I told him that anyone I became friends with could be a target of the villains. I told him that, because I knew there was a spy who could report that kind of stuff to the League. I told him that I didn't want to get him targeted, so we couldn't be friends." Outside of Zach's room, Midoriya pulled back and his eyes were huge as he remembered the awkward conversation he had been a part of at the start of the last term when Zach had just returned. Midoriya felt his heart rate speeding up and he reached up to grab his own chest as Zach continued, "I told him that, and a few days later he comes back to me. He comes to me and tells me that he's going to be my friend anyway. That, that he's okay with being targeted by the villains, if it means we can be friends," Zach gasped it out and then made a noise that sounded like a dog being beaten by its owner that it trusted. Zach's bottom lip shook and he looked desperately up at Yaoyorozu, and he gasped at her, "He said that I was being selfish, and that I was hurting him more than the villains ever could by pushing him away. And I believed every word out of his mouth."

Yaoyorozu opened her mouth to respond, but she was at a loss for words. She stared down at Zach and the boy looked back at her and started pulling away as he realized all he was saying. She pulled back herself at that look which showed her once again how he did not trust her, and then Zach's face filled with more pain at the way she reacted to his expression. "I can't," he whispered again towards her. "I, I kept trying to avoid people, but Kaminari would talk to me, and he was so outgoing. He would start conversations with other people while we were talking, and involve me in them, and he got me to open up to more people. He got me, to become friends with… I opened up, because of him! I started caring about everyone again, because of him! And he just did it so that he could tear it all away from me! Those few days he took after I told him he'd be a target before telling me his response, it wasn't so he could think over what I told him! He probably got in touch with Shigaraki, and they discussed how he could fuck with me the most! Shigaraki lost me, but he wasn't done with his torture! And he won. He fucking, won." Zach lowered his head and he fell back on his butt, and he scooted to the wall again and pressed his back into it while tucking his head in his legs. "Because right now, because the pain I feel right now…" Tears came out the corners of his eyes and rolled down his cheeks, and Zach sobbed out, "It hurts more than bringing someone back ever has."

Sero lowered his head and he brought his right hand up to his eyes and covered them.

"It hurts more, than getting tortured- no, no that's not true. I can't really feel that pain very well right now though. I can remember how I felt when I felt that pain though, I can remember how I had screamed at the most intense times. When it had been days, or weeks, since I had last slept, while Jenny screamed at me to save her over and over again for the millionth time in a row. And even though I can't feel that pain, I can hear her screaming right now. I can hear her voice echoing in my head!"

Sato turned away and he started walking back through the hallway. He couldn't take it anymore, and he needed to get far enough that Zach would not hear him when he started punching something.

"I've felt what it was like to have my heart shot, and stabbed, and pierced with lightning… but right now. Right now it feels like my heart's being slowly crushed, constantly. And I know what that feels like too. I know, I- I know what pain, feels like more than anyone. I know what death is- and loss," Zach shook his head so slowly back on the wall behind him and he stopped when it was turned to the right, a depressed look in his eyes and a look of utter despair as there was nothing he could do. "All I want to do, is take the antidepressants Recovery Girl gave me. But I can't. And it's not even about my dad. It's not even about, knowing what I could become. It's what I've done! Those secrets I told Kaminari, because I trusted him so much." Zach clenched his teeth and got so mad at himself for the pathetic look that had just been on his face. "I told him those things I never should have told anyone, but I told because I _believed_ in him. And I've killed people now, again. More people. Good people. They're dying right now because of me, because I was stupid enough to trust people. I was stupid enough to tell people things that I never should have told them." Zach snarled that last part so much angrier, and then he shifted his gaze to his left and towards Yaoyorozu who he had told some secretive stuff to earlier that day, and who stared back at him in shock but unable to say a thing.

Midoriya's eyes were huge out in the hallway too though. He thought about how he felt when Zach had told him those things, how the thought had crossed his mind that Zach was a bad guy and how he might have had to report those things Zach told him. And Midoriya took a step back from Zach's door, looking at it with a trembling look at all the things he just heard Zach say. He wanted to go in there and help one of his closest friends, but he knew that Zach wouldn't trust him. He knew, that Zach would look at him in a way he could not imagine being looked at right now and pitied Yaoyorozu for having to see.

Yaoyorozu started walking towards Zach though after what he just said, and his angry look faltered as she stepped towards him instead of away from him. He bit down hard and pushed back harder into the wall as she walked towards him though. "Stop! Stop," he begged the second time, his voice weaker and so much fear on his face that made Yaoyorozu hesitate. "I knew there was a spy," Zach whispered. "But, but why was he telling us all the things he did? Was it really just because, he had wanted to brag about it all that time?" His girlfriend's eyes started to widen as did the three boys still just out in the hallway. "Or was Kaminari trying to make us believe that everything that had happened was all him? Because there was another spy here that he wants everyone to stop thinking about? What if it really was Hagakure, and he was trying to protect her cover because, be-because, she was a better spy than him? Is that- why does that have to make sense? Why?" Zach shook his head and he clenched his eyes shut again. "I don't trust any of you. I can't trust any of you."

"Zach, you can trust me," Yaoyorozu said. She took another step towards him, "And your other friends. Not everyone is doing-"

"He _made_ me trust people," Zach whispered, opening his eyes again slowly and letting more water spill from them. "He made it, so that I would care about people, just so that he could tear them away and make it hurt so much more." He paused and took a breath, then he gasped at her, "They decided to make Kaminari my best friend, because it was time for me to be betrayed like they were." Yaoyorozu pulled in a sharp breath as she thought about how pained Zach sounded when he talked about betraying the League earlier that day, and she could see in his eyes that he blamed himself for all of this too. She could see that he thought had he never done that, they never would have made Kaminari do all this to him. "Yet," Zach continued after a moment, and he brought his left hand to his head again. "It was before I came back too. He, he told them how much I cared about Jenny. He got her and her family killed. And he, he told them where the training forest was, to get Bakugo, and me, kidnapped… so that All Might had to come and lose his power. He- he let slip that I was the one who killed the villain at USJ to the press, and he did it on purpose… And he! He made me kill that guy in the first place. He made me kill. I, I swore I'd never kill, but he's been manipulating my entire life since I got to U.A. Every single thing I've done since, every single thing that's happened to me! It was all Kaminari! He- He was my best friend, but he was more than that…"

"I, I don't have a family," Zach whispered. He looked up at Yaoyorozu and he said with more tears filling his eyes, but a look of anger bubbling behind them too. "He was the family I chose, when I had _NOTHING!_ I trusted him! And he _used_ me. _Lied_ to me! _Betrayed_ me! All for what?! TO WIN?!" Zach started panting after screaming that at the top of his lungs in his most furious voice, while tears splashed off of his face and he realized he was shaking in rage. Zach's fists that were shaking at his sides started to loosen their grip, and Zach sniffled in while leaning his head back, looking towards Yaoyorozu with the saddest look she had ever seen before. "I loved him. He was, my best friend… And he killed my family."

Yaoyorozu ran forward and she dropped on her knees in front of Zach. His eyes snapped open wide and he tried feebly to pull away, but she wrapped her arms around his head and back and pulled him down into her shoulder. She put her head against his and rubbed the side of hers into him, and she rubbed a hand on her back while putting her right hand through his hair and holding him so tightly. "You're not alone," she whispered while pressing her head harder into his, though keeping her face forward where he could not see it and would not be able to tell that he had caused her to cry. She had tears streaming down her face though, and she held him tighter while saying, "You still have people who care- who love you. You still have a family."

Zach started twisting his lips back flat. _I need to calm down,_ he thought, and his hands stopped shaking at his sides that he had almost lifted to push Yaoyorozu away, and then that he had almost lifted to hug her back. _I need to think. I need to get into the zone, and start preparing for what's next. I messed up. I, I need to think- to plan… but, I can't just push this away that easily. I'm just human after all._ "Nothing good ever happens," Zach whispered in response to the girl trying as hard as she could to console him. He could tell how hard she was trying, and he wished he could just believe her as easily as he wanted to. When he tried though, all the terrible thoughts he had been having rushed to him at the same time. "My life was a lie. The beautiful world I believed in is a lie. Everything is a lie. I- I can't believe in anything anymore, can't trust, anything." Zach's lips shook and he stared towards his open door with shaking eyes so full of fear. "I can't even tell what's real and what's not," he gasped, "and I want so badly to just give up and take those pills Recovery Girl and Softy want me to take. I want to give up."

She hugged him harder and just said again, "It's okay. It's going to be okay."

"I hate this," Zach replied in a whisper. "I fucked up, Momo. I told him- _everything._ And I can't tell you what that means, I really, just can't." Zach pulled his head back from her shoulder a bit, and he turned his head to her which made her turn back to him. He stared at her face and her eyes opened wider as his expression did not even change when he saw hers covered in tear streaks. Zach's expression was not as emotional now though. He looked at her with a more serious look in his drying eyes. _Stop breaking down. You told him everything. I, broke promises. Put people in danger. So many people, are going to die now. Because of what I've done. So, there are things I need to do now. Certain ways, I need to do it… And I don't mean that Momo. I know, the world's still beautiful. For other people at least._

Yaoyorozu's wide eyes started shaking at that look in his. She grabbed him by his sides and she lowered her head now, pressing it into his chest and holding him so tightly as tears fell from her eyes. As strong as she was trying to be for her friends, she couldn't take all of this as much as she told herself she could. As much as she told herself that they were hurting so much more than her, seeing the way Zach just looked told her how much things had changed in a single day. And she let out a cry while holding him, and Zach rose up his left arm on instinct and put it around his back to hold her there.

Zach's face scrunched up while he put his hand on her back though. He looked down at the top of Yaoyorozu's head with his face scrunched up like that in pain, _Kaminari, knows how much I care about you. I, I went to him when I needed to know how to ask you out. He knew- he always knew. And what if he convinced me to ask you out so that- maybe you're the other spy- or maybe it's just so he can take you away and- and- and I don't want to lose you!_ Zach curled his left hand into her back and held her tighter, his eyes closing and his head bowing to press down on the top of hers. He closed her eyes as he held her, a sad look on his face because he knew. _It's over. This, can't be._ Zach's eyes opened up and he continued to hold onto her, but his eyes got darker and he rose them to stare into the darkest corner of his room. _Starting now, it's a whole new world. A whole new game._


	88. Chapter 88

**Disclaimer: I don't own Boku no Hero Academia**

 **Chapter 88:**

"Did you see Principal Nezu's announcement last night?"

"No, I wasn't watching the news…"

"I watched it this morning. It's so sad."

"It wasn't his fault. It wasn't, anyone's."

"The news programs are really going nuts though."

"I know, _the_ Class A of U.A. High School had a League of Villains member among them. The entire time. It's pretty huge."

"He wasn't just a member," Ashido said quietly, while sitting off the side of her chair and looking next to her seat at Sero. "Kaminari planned everything out."

"We don't know that."

"Maybe he was lying about that stuff, to make himself sound more important."

"You really think so?" Tokoyami asked. He turned his head and looked towards Sato who just clenched his fists so much harder as he did not mean what he just said one bit, as much as he wanted to believe it.

"Principal Nezu's being suspended?" Uraraka whispered over her desk at Iida who nodded his head grimly while looking over his shoulder at her.

He looked back forward and then down at his hands that he held together over his seat. Iida glared down at his hands, and he lifted his right and brought it closer to his face and then farther away. He stared at it with his small blue irises, with no glasses on over his face because things had become so blurry for him whenever he wore them. Iida lowered his hand and looked ahead of him at the back of a girl's head that looked so clear too. He stared at her dark green hair, and the girl in front of him turned partially around and looked back into his eyes herself.

"Are you two, doing alright?" Ojiro asked while looking to his right and back at Tsuyu and Iida. When Ojiro looked back, his eyes also glanced over an empty seat where the darker-haired blond in the class was supposed to be sitting. He could see Kirishima a few seats over glaring towards that seat with such an angry look in his eyes while the others around him spoke in whispers. Ojiro focused on the two he had just asked a question though, as he had spotted Iida looking different and Tsuyu's expression changing a lot that morning already too.

"I do not, feel any different," Iida replied. "Other than my eyesight," he added in a softer voice as that alone was weird enough to him.

The door slid open and Midoriya walked in, and he left the door open because a few feet behind him walked another of their classmates who stepped into the room slower. Tsuyu started to respond to Ojiro with a similar response as Iida, but she turned to the door and the girl who just walked in whose body was see-through. Toru Hagakure walked in and started crossing the room towards her seat. Ojiro looked up at her and gave her a small smile, and he felt a hand brush over his that he had on top of his desk while her sleeve moved close to it.

Hagakure walked over to her seat without a word. She sat down and took off her backpack, and then a voice snapped behind her, "Sorry." She turned her head and saw Bakugo who sat on the seat behind her looking towards the windows with an annoyed look on his face. He thought about how harshly he had accosted her the day before though, when he had thought from the information the principal had told them alone that she was the spy even as she shouted that it wasn't her. He looked back through the corners of his eyes at the girl who he was pretty sure was looking at him, and he just muttered in an annoyed voice, "Shut up."

Hagakure had not said anything in response yet, but she smiled after a second as Bakugo said something she figured he would usually say to anyone. She started unpacking herself in a brighter way and she said in a voice louder than one just to respond to him, "It's alright. It's not your faults." A bunch of others in the class who Hagakure had noticed looking at her in hesitant and guilty ways when she came in got more relieved looks on their faces. A small bit of relief was really needed that morning too.

Although class was starting in only a couple of minutes, a few people were still noticeably missing from the classroom. Todoroki looked over from the back towards an empty seat near the windows. He stared at the seat and then had to look away after a second. Shoto Todoroki stared at his desk and then closed his eyes for a second. Midoriya glanced back towards him while walking to his own seat, and he lowered his own eyes down after looking towards an empty seat near the windows too.

 _He's not coming back from this,_ Todoroki thought. He opened his eyes and stared at his desk in such an angry way. In his head he heard Zach screaming on the roof about Jenny, and then he saw him dying at the Sports Festival which had made him rush away despite his own exhaustion to search as hard as he could for Recovery Girl. He thought about the first day Zach was back in January, the scars all over his body. The torture he saw at the Sports Festival. _After all of that, it was Kaminari. Kami- Raijin. You destroyed… such a great hero. I wish I had told you Zach, but you've saved hundreds. Your report too. Everything you've done, all while having the hardest Quirk, the worst life, and yet I spent so much time complaining. I hated my life, the way my family… but things got better for me. And I have a powerful Quirk that I was taught to control early on. I have to step up, everything._

Midoriya sat down and looked up a couple of seats at where Zach should be sitting. Then he looked at the seat behind it that was also empty, and he imagined the sobs he heard coming from Jirou back in the basement of U.A.'s Interrogation Building. He shifted his eyes to the right farther, turning his head a bit to look at the desk behind him. Midoriya imagined Mineta and Kaminari yelling at him together about how he had been so lucky during the Hero Licensing Exams because of a perverted scene he had unintentionally become a part of. He had told them it was all a misunderstanding, but the two of them had yelled at him in alternating shouts like they were finishing each others' sentences. Mineta's seat was empty today too. So there were only seventeen students of Class 2-A sitting in their classroom when the door slid open and Mother Russia stepped inside.

A woman walked in behind her who was much shorter than Mother Russia and shorter than most of the students in the class too. She was just under five feet tall, and she had these big, soft blue eyes that she gazed around the room with in a way that made the students feel like she understood them. Her hair was long and blonde, and though she did not look beautiful, she was pretty and had a calming aura around her. "Alright you guys," Mother Russia began while stepping into the middle of the room. She motioned with her head down at the short woman who stepped in front of her and continued looking around at the class, "This is Softy, the school psychiatrist."

Most of the class's eyes opened wide at the sound of that. A few of them opened their eyes wide and also felt pain inside as they had heard that name the night before. Softy smiled softly at the class before her and she began in a quiet voice, "No one needs to say anything. And please, keep anything you might be about to say to yourselves actually." She glanced over towards Bakugo who she saw open his mouth with an annoyed look on his face. She shifted her gaze back around the students all looking at her now. "Yesterday's events were troubling, and scary, but most of all they were painful. I know, you must be feeling all kinds of things right now. Emotions, and pain, that maybe you haven't felt before?" Softy looked towards a pink girl in front of her whose eyes were opening wide at the woman's words but opened much wider as Softy looked at her like she knew Ashido was feeling that way.

"My door is open to anyone who needs to talk and work through these things. I know, they're hard things to talk about with your classmates. Your feelings. Anger, sadness, a sense of betrayal." Softy lowered her lips down into a frown that was sad for them, but still understanding. "You don't need to work these things out on your own. I can help you with them. It's completely up to you though, and only to you. Our talks would only be between us. Anyway," she took a step back and nodded once at the class who were surprised that was all she had to say and did not seem to be taking any questions. "I just wanted to come by this morning and offer you my help."

Bakugo's eyes widened. At the start there, he had thought the school had sent her in to tell them all to start going to therapy. It sounded more now though like she had just come because she wanted to help them out, and he frowned deeper though with just a grumbling look on his face. "My office is room 34-B. Knock first." She gave them her softest and most understanding smile, and she really hoped some of the students in front of her would take her up on her offer, as she could see more than a few who could use the help. "And as Mother Russia said, my name is Softy. Anything you need, come and ask."

 _I hope the others who aren't here get that message too,_ Uraraka thought while glancing to her left and towards Mineta's empty seat in a sad way. Then she looked past it and towards Zach's and Jirou's, and she lowered her eyes to the floor with a sadder look on her face again.

Mother Russia waited for Softy to leave, then she walked forward and down an aisle straight up to an empty desk. She turned around after picking it up and walked to the front of the room, then she walked over to the windows and everyone stared at her with huge eyes. They relaxed a bit in their seats as Mother Russia lowered the desk instead of throwing it through the window, but they all started staring with huge eyes again after she opened the window up only to fly out of it while carrying Kaminari's desk in her hands. She threw it, and then she flew back down and into the classroom again. "All of you," Mother Russia said while closing the window. She turned and then said in a low and serious voice, "Do the same, right now."

The metaphor was not too hard to pick up. Mother Russia marched back to the front of the room, and then she glared towards the students in the row behind the gap. A few of them opened their eyes wide, including the boy in the seat right behind where Kaminari used to sit who pushed his feet down on the floor below his chair and skid his own desk forward. The two seats behind that one were quick to skid themselves forward too, and more serious looks started spreading across the classroom.

Ashido spun her head back and forth, looking around with wide eyes at what everyone was seeming to do. "W-Wait a second," Ashido began. She spun to Mother Russia and said with her eyes wide and her hands clenching into fists at her sides. "We're not going to talk about this?!"

"About what?" Mother Russia asked in her thick, Russian accent. "If you mean the villain, Raijin," she continued, and Ashido pulled her head back with her mouth opening wide. "Then of course we must talk about him. He has after all, detailed information on every one of you. He has orchestrated, several terrorist attacks. And he killed your former homeroom teacher, as well as two others during his escape through Musutafu yesterday who were _not_ brought back to life."

"I just meant," Ashido started in a quieter voice. "Why can't we, just… There has to be something we can do, right?" She glanced around at the others, a confused look on her face as she had been waiting for the teachers to arrive to tell them what the plan was. "We can't just let him get away-"

"He already got away, Mina-chan," Tsuyu said in a quiet voice herself. Mina turned her head to the right and looked over at her frog friend who looked as sad as she did but was trying to listen to Mother Russia's instruction. Tsuyu remembered how the day before, she had gotten close to Kaminari because she was worried about the building they were entering and if it might have been a trap. She remembered how she had been worried about him more than the others, because she thought that he could not use his Quirk well without special equipment. "There is nothing we can do," the green-haired girl added even quieter and with more regret in her voice.

"I'm glad the two of you showed up today," Mother Russia said, a mildly impressed tone in her voice as she looked towards Tsuyu and Iida. "Especially you, Asui. Fight through it all. Everything." Mother Russia's eyes narrowed and she turned straight forward again to look at the class as a whole. "But the boy you remember from this classroom. The one who sat in that seat, forget about him. Move past him. And do it fast." Her tone got darker and more serious, and she continued in a deeper and thicker Russian accent, "The villains continue to rise. Their power, their numbers, and the-"

The door of Class A slid open. Mother Russia frowned and turned her head to the side, and her eyebrows rose up at the sight of the boy standing there in the entrance. He looked at her, and then he muttered, "Sorry." Zach stepped inside and he closed the door behind him. He started across the room with dark bags under his eyes, his black hair was messier than it was wavy, and he wore a small uniform he had to go to the main office to ask for that morning. _Ripping up most of my clothes was stupid,_ he thought, while he turned around at his desk and dropped his backpack next to it. He sat down and then faced forward towards Mother Russia who he apologized to for being late.

"Zach," Shoji started, looking to his left and back a seat to Zach. Zach looked to his right at him, and his eyes did not even shift back at Sero whose desk was in Kaminari's spot though not exactly where it had been. "You, don't have to be here," Shoji continued in a quiet voice.

Zach looked away from him and around the room at everyone else staring towards him and holding back like they wanted to tell him the same thing. He looked towards the back and saw Yaoyorozu staring at him with huge eyes, as big as Todoroki was on her side though his bottom lip had lowered too. Zach looked back at Shoji and said, "I'm fine. Something, snapped while I healed Tsuyu. Sorry about that," he said in a low, dark voice. He imagined how most of the others had last seen him, laughing and screaming like a maniac while surrounded in Death in his Nightmare form. Zach said his apology and then looked forward towards Mother Russia who he had heard speaking before he opened the door to the classroom.

"Come in on time, or don't come at all," Mother Russia said, and then she turned back straight forward and continued her speech in a loud voice. "The villains are not going to rest so you can grieve over your losses. We have fewer heroes, more villains to deal with, and the League of Villains has just added a very powerful member into their ranks for actual combat. This morning for homeroom we will go over what we believe to be the powers of the villain, Raijin." Much of Class 2-A stared at their homeroom teacher in surprise or shock, and she continued to them, "And we will also theorize what other abilities he may have…"

 _Class A's reputation is shot. My reputation too. People saw it was Kaminari, and of course they were going to talk about me. We were best friends. Too many times seen together. Media outlook is bad. Class's reputation was too good though, that it hasn't destroyed people's faith in us. It just cast doubt…_

Yaoyorozu was one of the ones who had not turned back to Mother Russia yet. She stared over to the boy on the left side of the room near the windows who had a calm, collected look on his face. He looked alright, but he also had a similar look in his eyes as he did last night towards the end of their talk when he had told her he needed to go to bed because he was still exhausted. She remembered the look in his eyes, when she had felt the warm feeling of their embrace fade for something much colder, and darker.

Momo didn't know why, and she hated that it happened, but she shivered. A shiver ran through her and she found herself feeling nervous while looking towards Zach. She wanted to talk to him right then, but Mother Russia kept talking and she could see that most of the class had focused on her and were actually getting into the conversation they were having. Even Zach was focused intensely up on the board where Mother Russia wrote 'Electrification' with a question mark after it signaling that the Quirk could be more than that or even a composite. They did not know enough to make assured statements, but they had guesses based off what they had seen yesterday.

Homeroom went by slowly for most of the class. As much as they tried to focus on the important subjects Mother Russia brought up and on planning ahead for facing Raijin again, all of them were in certain moods. They were sick to their stomachs as they talked about Kaminari like a villain. They dreaded talks about the media as they knew they would have to answer things about Kaminari at some point. They knew the reporters would ask how they had not seen signs that he was a spy the whole time which the news programs thought all of them should have noticed. Some of them were thinking back on Softy's introduction at the start of class, and others looked towards the only two empty seats in the class now, though even more looked at a seat that was occupied but shouldn't have been.

The class ended, Mother Russia left, and everyone started talking to each other about what had been the longest class of their lives. A lot of people got out of their seats and walked over to Zach's, but Iida was the fastest and he reached next to Zach's seat so quickly that Zach's own girlfriend never got to talk to him first. Zach lifted his gaze up and looked into Iida's uncovered eyes, and he widened his own for a moment. "Is your vision perfect?" Zach wondered.

Iida had his mouth open to say something, but he paused for a moment before straightening up and nodding his head. "Yes. Thank you for that Zach-kun. And thank you," he bowed his body and finished, "for reviving me."

"Yeah," Zach said. "You got it." He glanced behind Iida and then shook his head, "It's fine. Don't."

The green-haired girl looked at Zach with bigger eyes than usual even though she had the biggest eyes in the class. Tsuyu Asui pursed her lips and frowned while lowering her gaze to the floor. "Zach-chan," she began quietly. She thought about what she had opened her eyes to. In her head she imagined opening her eyes after having felt herself die, after feeling the sharpest and most excruciating pain of her life, and then nothingness. She imagined videos she had seen of times she had witnessed Zach bring back the dead before, and she imagined him going through that pain in a stretched out period to bring her back to life. What she had seen when she first woke up after dying, it was the most horrifying thing in her entire life. She had opened her eyes and lifted her head, to see a figure engulfed in black flames laughing maniacally in a scratchy and dark voice. The fact that it was the most terrifying thing she had ever seen though, made it hurt so much more knowing that she had been a part of making Zach look like that.

"You really didn't have to come in today, man," Sero started, as he had stood up and was just next to Iida now. Zach glanced at him, and he remembered Sero knocking on his door last night. He wondered if Sero had heard much of what he had talked to Yaoyorozu about, but his expression made it look like he did not care very much. "It's okay, if you need some time-"

"You heard Mother Russia. No it isn't," Zach said. He looked into Sero's eyes darkly and continued without pause, "Villains won't stop for us. No matter how angry we are. I could sit around in my room all day doing nothing, or I could do something productive like go to this hero school I enrolled in. I know I don't have to be here, Sero." Zach said it and shook his head once with a pissed-off look in his eyes. "But I got it out of my system. I'm fine. It's time to move forward."

Yaoyorozu stepped forward more in the aisle closer to Sero. Zach's gaze shifted a bit towards her and softened for a moment, but then it got just as serious again and he turned away and to the front of the room. "It's just, another thing to get over. It's not the worst way yesterday could have gone. None of us died, so, that's a plus."

"Zach, why are you saying things like-" Sero began.

"What do you want me to say?" Zach snapped, spinning his head to the right and glaring at his friend in an angry way. Kirishima stood on the other side of the aisle behind the next row of seats, and Shoji and Hagakure looked back towards Zach. Bakugo glanced over too, and others in the room had to pretend like they were not looking over as it sounded like Zach did not want them to. He growled in an annoyed voice, "He betrayed us, I'm over it. Well, I'm angry about it actually. And it hurts, but the quicker we all get over it, the better." He darted his eyes back and forth angrily at the others near him and made most of them turn away at his glare.

Zach lowered his right hand into his pocket and he pulled out his phone. Then with an angry, and a betrayed look on his face, Zach shoved a pair of headphones in his ears and went onto the internet while awaiting their next class to start.

Yaoyorozu opened her mouth as he played on his phone without turning back to her. He did not say a word her direction even though she had come up to his seat, and now he was clearly telling everyone to leave him alone by putting his headphones in like that. She took a step back, and then she turned and started back towards her own desk. Momo lowered her gaze to the floor, _What am I supposed to tell him? When we're alone, I can… but, but he doesn't seem like he wants to talk even then. Did he really, get over it in one night? Or,_ she glanced back over her shoulder towards the boy who looked so angry. _He sounds, so furious. He sounds like he's trying to hide how angry he really is, bury that anger and betrayal… But, anyone could see that. So, what are you really thinking?_

Hagakure leaned over Ashido's seat and whispered in a quiet voice, "My parents really want me to quit. But I'm seventeen now, and I told 'em that I'm in it for the long run. I'm surprised no one's left though-"

"I'm sorry too Toru," Ashido whispered, cutting off her friend who leaned back for a second. Ashido tried to keep listening without saying anything, but she thought about the way she had turned to Hagakure after hearing that the villains had been signaled from her phone. She said 'too' because she had heard Bakugo's apology earlier and had wanted to add it in herself then but told herself that Bakugo's was all-encompassing. Ashido let out a small breath of relief as her invisible friend told her not to worry about it, and then Ashido added in a soft voice, "Yeah, my parents were being… Wait a second, you're seventeen… oh my God!"

"Don't," Hagakure said in a low whisper, while Ojiro darted his eyes over with a nervous look. Hagakure leaned in towards Ashido and whispered into her ear, "Not today, okay? It's not important. And, if everyone remembers it's my birthday, they'll always remember it as the day after Kaminari betrayed us…" she said the last part slower, in a pained voice that made Ashido wince herself. Ashido jumped up and put her arms around Hagakure's back to pull her into a hug, because she realized that Hagakure would be thinking about that next year too, as well as many birthdays to come as she associated those two things with each other.

Their next class started up with Cementoss coming in. He did not focus on literature though, but instead started telling them about what their day was going to look like after lunch. The police were going to show up to question the students individually about Denki Kaminari, as they already had with his family and anyone else who knew him. Cementoss explained how they would be moving forward from then on, and how Kaminari had been put on the country's most wanted list up with Shigaraki, Kurogiri, All For One, and Stain.

All Might came in afterwards. He apologized to the class that Kaminari had done everything just to get to him, though the students countered him that Raijin had more than one goal. The day was grim, and lunch was hard. They all went to the cafeteria, and it was like the room fell silent when they entered. Their expressions were dark and depressed. Monoma did not stand up and go ask how the great Class A did not see this coming, as he himself had his head bowed to the table and was lost in thought over the blond he had talked to many times before. There was a member of Class B missing from the cafeteria that day, and Monoma glanced towards the empty spot where Kuroiro should have been sitting. He thought about when they heard about Kaminari's betrayal, the look that had covered Kuroiro's face different from the rest of theirs.

Zach got his lunch from Lunch Rush and immediately left the cafeteria. He left, and by the time Yaoyorozu ran out into the hall to try and find him and talk through lunch, he was gone. She looked around for a few minutes but could not find him anywhere and wound up going back to the cafeteria by herself. She figured she could talk to him more later, but after lunch Zach walked into the class right at the end with Ectoplasm and there was no time to talk to him before they started their lessons, as well as sending out students one at a time to speak with the cops. Yaoyorozu looked towards Zach while they had their afternoon classes and felt so frustrated that she had been unable to speak with him all day. She pulled out her phone while Ectoplasm was turned towards the board, and she went into her texts and sent one to him. Then she sent another to check in on her best friend who had not come to class today and had told her she wouldn't be coming when they talked that morning.

Zach felt a buzz in his pocket and he pulled out his phone with a cracked screen. He looked at the message and then put the device back in his pocket without turning around, making Yaoyorozu frown as she saw him check it only to look at their teacher again. She looked to the side of his face and could see an amount of anger on it that made her lose the frustrated look on hers at his failure to respond or even look at her after reading her message. _What are you thinking about, Zach?_

 _…is bright purple. The organizations outside of the League are growing bigger. Anonymous on the message boards. Send from outside the school on different I.P. addresses. How to get out of school? Ultimatum._

* * *

"Then I'm dropping out of U.A.," Zach said. He stared at the woman in the main office who just denied his request to leave campus, and the woman's eyes opened huge at the boy in front of her.

Midnight turned her head from the seat she was sitting at behind her computer and got up with wide eyes too. "Sazaki," she began. "Hold on a second."

"I mean it," Zach said. He turned towards Midnight and his eyes were narrowed, his eyebrows pushed down over them and his head leaned forward a bit so the lights on the ceiling were at an angle to cast shadows over his eyes. "I'll leave right now."

"Sh-Should we get the replacement principal?" The woman in front of Zach began while looking towards Midnight.

"The temporary principal," Midnight corrected, and she felt pain again thinking of the press conference she had been at with Nezu late two nights before. She looked back at Zach, then she continued, "Yes though. Call him down here."

The receptionist nodded and went over to her desk to call the principal's extension, and Zach nodded at Midnight before looking down at the floor. He pulled his phone out of his pocket and looked at it, while Midnight glanced the boy over once at his strange attire. He was wearing a long-sleeved black shirt, though there were rips in both sleeves, just like his blue shorts had a tear in the side of them. She wanted to ask about them, but she decided to hold off on that for a moment. "Sazaki. To leave campus, you must have a valid reason. Going on a run. Well, you can do that here-"

"No I can't," Zach said. He lowered his phone back down and slid it in his pocket again. He looked to Midnight to continue, but then he stopped himself. _Wait until the new principal is here. I've seen him._ Zach paused and just stared into Midnight's eyes darkly for a few seconds, then he continued in a louder and more frustrated voice, "I don't trust anyone on this campus. I'm not going to just run around here where anyone could be watching me and-"

Zach turned his head to the man who had entered the room but he never shifted his eyes over to so that it looked like he just noticed his entry. He glared into the replacement principal's eyes that the school's board put in place after the principal's self-suggested suspension. Mr. Ono opened his eyes wide as the kid glared into them, "And you can't force me to stay here against my will. You've already proven it's no safer here than being off campus. And while I'm here I have to spend every second feeling like someone's watching me-"

"Mr. Sazaki," the replacement principal began in surprise, though he lifted his palms up to try and get the boy to calm down. The man had a light covering of thin hair over his head so he looked to be balding, he was chubby, and his skin was fair-skinned and almost pale. He wore a professional suit and was a few inches taller than Zach, and he tried to give the angry boy a smile despite a bead of sweat on his face as he said, "The spy was uncovered. You do not have to feel-"

" _A_ spy was uncovered," Zach snarled. He glared into the man's eyes and the chubby principal opened his own wider at what the kid was suggesting. Midnight stared down at Zach with wider eyes too, while the boy continued in a dark voice, "But if this school was incompetent enough to allow one spy in, then why not more? It's clear, that U.A. can not protect me. How many times have we been attacked on this campus now? And you want to force me to stay here while I go on a run? It's not like I'm going to run away, when Kaminari stole my fucking motorcycle to escape from here. And if on my run I decide to go to the library, or go buy new clothes, then I'll do that too. I'm no longer comfortable with you all knowing where I am at all times, so let me go on runs off campus, or I'm fucking gone-" Zach froze and he clenched his teeth hard, then he hissed out, "Sorry, for cursing, Principal Ono."

"You are giving me an ultimatum?" The principal asked, his tone getting a bit harsher while his surprised look went down.

He started frowning at the boy, but Zach's eyes stayed cold and the sixteen year old said in a low voice, "No. An ultimatum means you don't have a choice. Say no, and I'll leave. Is me leaving really such a bad thing, that you have to think of it that way?" Zach's eyes got a more tired look in them, and the principal trying to be stern with him lifted his head up while looking down with wider eyes into the kid's. "I always go on runs, but I can't do it here anymore. I can't, spend my days on this campus. You all set up this dorm system to make us safer, but I've had a League of Villains member- leader, living with me for months. How the hell- he was in my room. He's in my head. I need to change up everything."

Midnight pursed her lips as she stared at the boy in front of her. She wanted to say something about how they could not do this, but she thought about the way Kaminari had talked to him during his betrayal. She imagined the things Kaminari bragged about putting him through. _His whole life. The person he is right now. They were all shaped by… It has only been a couple of days. How are you handling this so-_ Midnight stared at the scar under Zach's right eye, his split left ear, a scar on his left hand and up his left arm through rips in his sleeve.

"I understand," the new principal said in a quiet voice after a few seconds of mulling it over. "U.A. cannot lose any more of its bright students, especially one who has so much potential." Zach's eyes widened while looking at the man who did not know him at all. The replacement principal gave Zach a small, understanding smile though. "It is alright. You have permission to leave campus for runs. However, you still must check in and out at this office, and you cannot be out too late."

"How late is too late?"

"Nine o'clock," Principal Ono replied as fast as Zach asked the question. Zach paused, then he nodded back at the man and bowed his head to say a quick thanks. "And watch your mouth young man. I will not be lenient with you if you use that kind of language again."

Zach nodded at the principal and the man sweatdropped as he expected some kind of flustered expression, or a half-smile, or an apology. Zach just nodded and then waited to get a permission form the receptionist wrote out before he turned to leave the office. He pulled his phone back out and went online, and he scrolled through a website he had to look back up as he did not leave it open on any tabs. Zach slid his phone back into his pocket and started jogging before even leaving the building.

* * *

"Hey Zach," Kirishima looked towards the door of the dorm that opened up with his dark-haired friend stepping in. Kirishima glanced towards the clock in the common room and then back to his classmate who stopped after entering and glanced his way while taking his shoes off. "Where've you been? Saw you heading out right after class ended-" Kirishima froze with his mouth open as Zach's eyes narrowed at him in a discerning way. "Not that, I was watching you or… But really, you been out this whole time?" Kirishima realized he was trying to defend himself for a second without knowing why he was doing it, and he got back to his question.

 _It's just past nine. Got to the main office in time. It's dark outside. Anyone would be suspicious. No, not suspicious. He's my friend, so he just wants to know._ Zach looked into Kirishima's red irises and replied, "Running." Zach turned and headed for the stairs to his room.

Kirishima opened his mouth to ask something else, but he stopped and lowered the arm he rose at Zach's back. He clenched his right hand into a fist and frowned as he looked after his friend in such a frustrated way. He glanced back at the others on the couch, but both Tsuyu and Sato just looked sad instead of annoyed. Kirishima sat back down and glared towards the television. "He hasn't spoken two words to…" Kirishima muttered. "We're all angry-"

"Dude," Sato started. Kirishima turned towards him in frustration as Sato seemed to be telling him to stop, but Sato kept frowning and shook his head at him. "It's not the same. Leave it alone."

"That's not going to help him-" Kirishima began.

"Kirishima-chan," Tsuyu cut in to stop him from continuing that statement though. He looked towards her and Tsuyu said with such sad eyes, "Kaminari killed, the people he loved." She pursed her own lips, thinking about how mad and betrayed she felt by Kaminari. _Aizawa sensei,_ she thought, imagining the man who had saved her from Shigaraki Tomura at USJ. She could feel the pain Kaminari had put her through with his electrification, and yet she still felt that pain get worse as she imagined the recent times she had seen Zach's face. "Give him some time. Zach-chan, trusted Kaminari more than any of us. "Gero. Please?"

Kirishima ground his sharp teeth but then nodded once at her and looked back towards the tv. He stared at a picture of Denki Kaminari that was put up on the news, and they started listening to the anchors talking about the biggest news story in months. Kaminari's family was on blast for raising him wrong, and a video from earlier showed the Kaminaris getting accosted by people on the street as their pictures had been plastered all over the news recently too.

"It's not their fault," Sato started in a low voice.

"It's no one's," Kirishima muttered just as low. His eyes got darker and he clenched his fists on his knees. "Kaminari's just- Raijin, did everything on his own."

 _A criminal mastermind. A genius. And his Quirk,_ Tsuyu shivered and looked away from the smiling U.A. class photo of Kaminari that filled her with fear. _How can we stop him?_

Upstairs on the fifth floor, Yaoyorozu lifted up her phone while sitting at her desk and staring down at notes with no real focus. She was trying to distract herself with schoolwork, but the text she saw on her phone made her eyes open huge. She jumped up so fast she had to catch her chair before it fell to the floor. Yaoyorozu put on some different clothes and then threw on a sweater as well since it was nighttime and might be cold outside.

Momo Yaoyorozu ran out of her room and down the hall to Zach's room. She turned and sprinted down that hallway to the end and she opened up the door closest to the stairwell, opening into a narrower staircase up to the roof. Yaoyorozu rushed up to the roof and she opened the door to see Zach standing up there, but not on the edge. She let out a breath of relief as he turned around and faced her, then she held that breath in as she hoped he did not see what she was worried about.

"Are you okay Zach?" She asked, and she smiled at the boy who looked at her with a frown but not a severely depressed look.

He started to nod at her, then he stopped and grit his teeth for a second. "No," he said. "Momo," Zach continued, and he lifted his left hand for her to stop before she could say anything else. "I, I want to trust you," he said. He said it but sounded held-back, and he lowered his arm down to his side while looking towards her and right in her eyes. There were enough lights on campus outside that she could see his eyes and he could see hers. Zach had on a dark hoodie and a pair of black sweatpants, but his hood was bunched up behind his neck and his black hair was messed up and wavy around his head.

"You can," Momo whispered back towards him.

"I, think I believe that," Zach said. His voice got strained though and he continued, "But, that doesn't mean I can… Even if I believe- I can't just…" Zach trailed off and he rose his left hand up to his head and ran it through his hair. He scratched it over and over, then he lowered it down and looked into her eyes regretfully but in a decided way. "Momo, I can't right now. I can't, do this." She looked at him confusedly but with her heart speeding up at the way he just worded that strange sentence.

"What, do you mean?" She asked softly.

"Going, out with you," Zach said. He seemed to struggle to get it out, then he pulled his head back at the look on her face. "I'm sorry. But I, I'm paranoid. And I don't trust you, or anyone. I can't-"

"Let me help you through it," Yaoyorozu said. She looked at him closely and took a step towards him. "Please. I want, to help you through it. You can't do it alone."

Zach paused and had such a hesitant look on his face, but then he started nodding slowly at her. "You're right. And you, as the person I trust- most, probably… Thank you. But, I can't do a relationship right now. I can't be what that entails-"

"I'm fine," Momo started, but she stopped herself and pursed her lips for a second. She shook her head and then continued, "Just being your friend?" Her eyes were scared, and wide, and then they got even wider as Zach gave her a half smile and started nodding at her. The offer had sounded so strained and weird when she said it, and his acceptance confused her. Yaoyorozu stared at Zach with wide eyes and her breath speeding up. _Wh-What? I don't get this. I thought, he was trying to distance himself, maybe to protect me? But if he's not going to distance, if he still wants to be friends? Why break up? Does he really not trust me? But he says he does!_ "Are, you sure?" She asked him softly.

"Yes," Zach replied, and he started walking towards her. He walked her way but also a few feet to her left side. He walked up to her and then past her, "Thanks, Momo."

She turned her head and watched as he walked past and to the door at the top of the stairwell. He entered and started down back into the building, leaving her behind on the roof with a confused, and sad expression on her face. _"Momo." He, he called me by my name. So why, did it hurt? Why did hearing that, for the first time make me feel, afraid?_

Zach's eyes narrowed once he was halfway down the stairs from the roof. They were cold, matching his expression and demeanor as he continued to walk down the steps. _Kaminari. Dabi. Kurogiri. Shigaraki. All For One. Stain. Toga. Shooter. Diamondfist. He knows it was me now, because Kaminari knew it was me. Come after me mother fuckers. I'll kill you all._

* * *

 **A/N And I'm here again. Thanks for reading. So I want to write some stuff here about the decisions made in recent chapters, mainly about Kaminari's betrayal. So, when I started Death a couple months back I had not read the manga yet, and I thought the manga would already have information on who the spy was. When I finally looked it up because I wanted to do stuff with it, I saw some theories and the Kaminari one really stuck with me. Admittedly I do not remember how long back it was when I first started writing in hints about Kaminari being spy, though not really hints but just that I had decided it would be him. Probably at least halfway through the story back, and it just worked out really well with a lot of other stuff that had already happened. Anyway, sorry about the end of this chapter... don't kill me.**


	89. Chapter 89

**Disclaimer: I don't own Boku no Hero Academia**

 **Chapter 89:**

"Toga?" Zach repeated in a low, angry voice. He sounded like he was holding back even more anger though as he stared at the short woman in front of him. Softy gave him the most soothing expression she could manage to try and calm him down, and Zach took a deep breath before lowering his eyes from the woman on the chair in front of him. "She was- I accepted it after I fought her. The other day, I told some of my classmates things, that I haven't really told anyone."

"That's good," Softy said, lifting her voice and raising her lips into a tiny smile.

"Right before Kaminari betrayed us," Zach finished in a darker voice. She lost her smile as she had expected it was after that since the thing with Toga had coincided with Kaminari's betrayal or so she had thought. "Sorry, Softy," Zach said, and the woman who frowned in a sadder way at him just shook her head to show there was no reason for him to be apologizing. "But when I talked about it with them, I realized how much I had screwed up. With the League. With, the way I had been handling things."

"How so?" Softy wondered.

"I told you, that I needed to hate them. I told you that it was hard to do it, but I didn't explain why it was that hard." Zach paused and then he rose his left hand and ran it up through his hair. He leaned his head back and looked up at the ceiling, "But Toga, was like a sister to me. I learned things from her. She, she offered to-" Zach closed his eyes and the small smile that had spread on his face for a second dipped down far. "Even Shigaraki. There were times, when I didn't completely hate him. Times where I thought I saw good in him, like I saw in the rest…"

"Are you having difficulty, determining friend from foe?" Zach lowered his gaze to Softy and saw her examining him closely and in a worried way. "It must be difficult, to trust anyone after what happened."

"It is," Zach agreed with a nod and a grim look spread across his face. "But there are people here I still trust. People I, actually trust more now, now that I know Kaminari was the spy."

Softy nodded at him with a small smile again. "I'm glad. I hope you consider me one of those people. And, I'm glad you came in to speak with me today. Recovery Girl mentioned that you did not want to talk to me, so I was-"

Zach reached his left hand up to his head and rubbed it on his forehead with a pissed-off look covering his face. "Oh, I'm so sorry," Softy said with her blue eyes widening. "Did you mean to tell her that in confidence-"

Zach wiped his hand down his face from his forehead over his eyes and then his mouth. His eyes got darker as his hand passed over them, and then he stared at Softy in a cold way with his lips twisted down at the corners. "I forgot about telling Recovery Girl that. Can't make mistakes like that," he muttered to himself. Zach stood up from the chair and he turned around from the woman who got up quickly herself with a confused look covering her face.

"Z-Zach," Softy began to the student who for some reason she suddenly felt the chills about when he turned away from her. "I don't understand. Talk to me. What is-"

"Softy," Zach began while turned away from her. He took a step towards the door of her room, then he looked over his shoulder and asked, "How much of what I just talked about, was a lie?" The woman he questioned opened her eyes huge and she lowered her bottom lip for a second before closing it fast.

The school psychiatrist collected herself and then began in a soft voice, "Zach. If you really do not trust me, you don't need to come in here. There was no need to force yourself only to lie."

"Oh," Zach said, and he looked down at the floor for a second. "Then I guess, these aren't mandatory sessions anymore?" He lifted his head and started for the door, his expression cold and his fists tightening at his sides. "Thanks for everything, Softy." _She's always been good at reading me. She didn't seem to notice. Good._

Softy stared at Zach's back as he walked out, and she started shaking her head once he was gone. She thought back on one of their sessions a couple of months ago. _**"Yeah, I have people I trust here. Who? Well, I guess Kaminari is the person I trust the most. I keep seeing that clip of us coming out of the War Boys' base together on the news, and we had this cool super move at the end of it. We started talking about maybe teaming up after we graduate to make a hero team…"**_ _He came so far, from the beginning of the year. In just six months he… But, it's all gone. All his progress is… No, it's something else. I, I should not have told him that he no longer needed to come in._

Zach walked down a hall of U.A. High School on a Sunday. He was already wearing casual clothes, and he started walking straight to the main office instead of heading back to his dorm. _If I can lie to Softy, I can lie to anyone. What's next? Maybe, today isn't a day for "running."_ Zach slowed down and he glanced around him. He frowned and then kept for the main office with his teeth clenched behind his lips.

"Heading out on a run?" The receptionist asked as Zach stepped into the office.

"No," Zach replied to the woman who started writing out a pass already as she assumed what he was going to ask for. She looked up at him in a bit of surprise, and Zach asked, "Is anyone in Gym Gamma right now? Could I use it?"

The receptionist turned to her computer and did a quick check. "No, though TDL is optimized for use with Cementoss and Ectoplasm."

"I just need an open space," Zach said. He turned and he started back for his dorm. _Someone empty, is better. I'd wind up breaking everything- and the training grounds are bigger so there's more of a chance of other people going there._

Zach returned to his dorm and he went upstairs. He went into his room and to his bed that had been replaced the other day with the rest of his furniture while he was in class. Mr. Ono had requested that he not destroy any more school property, though the replacement principal had gone on to thank him for not smashing his bedroom window or punching holes through the walls. Zach looked over towards some dents in his walls and places with chipped paint, then he looked back down under his bed where he had slid a box out from. He paused, then he slid it to the side and grabbed a different costume from beneath his bed.

Zach put on his black costume and did not grab his white helmet. He never got back his black helmet for his second costume that he had dropped in his attack on the War Boys. This black costume had not been upgraded in a while either, and it lacked a few knife sheaths that he wanted so he reached to his U.A. costume box and opened it up. He tossed the white helmet to the side, then he ripped the white sheaths off of his white costume and started attaching them to the belt he was wearing. He took off all six knife sheaths, then he grabbed the second grappling gun that was white too and he attached that to his belt as well. _Having them all on my belt isn't optimal. Having to reach down every time becomes predictable too. Toga got her knives out of nowhere, or at least that's what it looked like to her opponents. In the sleeves, hidden- I need some straps._

Zach walked back downstairs and into the common room of Class A's dorm in Heights Alliance. He walked across the first floor and to the front door, and he put down his black combat boots that he slid into before walking out without a word. He did not look towards the couch area or the half dozen students who had looked his way when he came down but did not say anything to him. They were going to once he looked towards him, but it had not even looked like he was purposely avoiding all their looks. He just never turned their way.

"Was that, the costume he…" Tokoyami trailed off as he was about to finish with 'saved Kaminari in.' He thought about the white sheaths and grappling gun he had seen on Zach's waist too though, and he hummed considering all those weapons and how Zach looked while heading out looking like that.

"Where's Zach going?" Uraraka asked softly, looking towards the door that she had wanted to call towards but could not think of anything except 'good morning' to tell Zach.

"Training, probably," Midoriya said on her side. After saying 'probably' though, he narrowed his eyes and then lowered them to the floor. _Why "probably?" Is there somewhere else he could be going? Should we, say something about it?_ Midoriya stood up and added, "I think I'm going to go train too." _I'll look around for him while training. I need to train too. Kaminari, is so powerful. And he said that he's going to kill us. He knew about One For All. He told everyone… though no one's really asked me about it. A lot happened that day, that maybe they didn't really think much of-_

"I'll come too Deku," Uraraka said behind Midoriya, and he glanced back at the shorter girl who looked up in his eyes in a serious way. She looked like there was something on her mind, and Midoriya started to dread the questions she was going to ask that he felt he had to keep denying. _Kaminari wasn't just saying, that your powers are similar,_ Uraraka thought while looking into Deku's eyes. _What did he mean? Deku?_

Zach walked towards Gym Gamma, and he pressed his right hand into his forehead while he headed over. The black glove on his right was different than the one on his left for this costume, and the fingers slid back to let Zach touch his face with his own skin. A black aura surrounded Zach, but only the bones on his face showed through. Even the skull sticking out of his aura was still shadowed with a dark tint though. Zach's bones had vanished inside his costume that was made with bone itself, and a black veil surrounded him and rippled off of his body on all sides as he walked towards Gym Gamma just ahead of him. His vision started to tint red, and then his red glowing eyes darted around to take everything in as he neared the training gym's doors.

 _Stronger. Faster. Better. The best. I need to be, better than I am now. Stronger- strongest! Nothing will happen, if I stay like I am now. I can't do anything the way I am now. Don't slack on training. It's just as important as everything else._

Zach stepped into the middle of a huge, empty gym. He stood there in the center of Gym Gamma and he rose both arms up at his sides. He slid knives out of his sheaths and kept them covered in a veil of Death while flicking them around in his hands. He flipped the blades and turned the hilt between his fingers, and then he started slashing them. Zach slashed the knife in his right hand down and to the right, and the one in his left was a half second behind to slash horizontally across his body. He flipped his hilts and jabbed both knives back around while twisting his front foot, and more black slashes flew off his blades as he spun around.

He flipped the knife in his right hand and grabbed it by the blade, and he tossed the knife in his right hand up in the air. He covered the white knife covered in a black aura in thicker Death before tossing it up, then he flicked the knife in his left hand up in the air when his red eyes focused on the turn of the blade he lobbed. The blade of the knife he flicked slammed into the hilt at an angle that sent it flying out in front of Zach and into the floor where it bounced instead of sticking into the ground like he intended it to. _Faster. Harder._

Zach had another knife already back in his right hand that he grabbed out of a sheath before flicking the one in his left up at the lobbed knife. Zach jumped up in the air thought while focusing some Death down below his feet, and he whipped his left hand in front of his body and grabbed the knife that was spinning out after hitting the first tossed one. He grabbed that knife by the blade and focused Death in his palm as he could feel how sharp his weapons were. _Didn't cut through the glove. Death works like a shield to a certain extent, but I still shouldn't grip a blade this sharp too tightly. Unless I focus more Death around it, just for a test…_ Zach's left hand started covering in a flame of Death that raged harder while the flaring black aura over the top of his head went down a bit.

Zach gripped tighter on his knife while focusing more Death on his hand. He started gripping harder and harder, because he could not feel the blade cutting into his hand with that much Death around it. _Stronger!_ Zach clenched his left hand as hard as he could, and he glared at it through his red tinted vision with the teeth of his jaw clenching in rage. _BREAK!_ He screamed in his head at the knife. **Clank.** Zach stared at his hand in confusion. He opened it up, and then he looked down at the floor beneath where the raging black flame had been.

On the floor beneath where he had been gripping as hard as he could, his knife lay with a black aura seeping off of it and vanishing in the air above the steel. Zach stared down at his blade in a confused way, and he bent down and picked up the knife with his left hand again. _What just happened?_ He rose the knife and held it on his hand, and he watched as a black aura started seeping over it once again. Zach pulled his Nightmare form back from the knife as hard as he could, but he stared at the weapon and watched as black tendrils seeped up the sides of it from his palm. They wrapped up the sides of the knife and ran along the blade like blood trails seeping down the steel. The blackness surrounded the entire knife, and then Zach clenched his hand around the hilt again.

He rose the blade in front of his face and turned it back and forth in front of his eyes. _Interesting._

* * *

"Whoa, look at that," Hanta Sero leaned forward and stared at the screen in Class A's common room. A new breaking news report was hitting and it mentioned Musutafu which made everyone sitting around him even more interested than they would usually be.

It was early afternoon just after school ended, and Sero was relaxing since they had had an intense training session with Mother Russia and Midnight before school ended. The teachers had some ANTs with them, and the students had to invade Training Ground Omega and capture the flag that the teachers and ANTs were guarding. It had taken them over an hour, but their class had succeeded in the end at getting the flag and winning the training. Mother Russia told them they still failed however, and that despite not telling them there was a time limit, they had gone over it.

Midoriya, Todoroki, Tokoyami, Uraraka, and Ashido were all sitting around the common area and most still looked tired from the training as Sero did. They all looked to the screen as the picture changed to show a reporter next to her news van on the side of the road on a street in Musutafu that the students all recognized. While they were watching, a short boy came out of the kitchen and started towards the couch area with a nervous look on his face as he heard someone say something about that being close to them. Mineta gulped and he stared closer at the screen without getting any closer to it himself.

Midoriya glanced to his right when he saw movement, and he looked over at the short boy with purple balls on his head who pursed his lips as Midoriya looked to him before turning away. Midoriya frowned as Mineta looked away from him without saying anything, but he spun back to the screen as the female reporter got louder. "Yes, yes, we've just received word that the chase is heading in this direction. We hope to catch a glimpse of it, and we think the carjackers may be coming down this very street…"

The camera was pointed into the road but farther down it one way where the car chase was going to be coming from. "A carjacking? So close to U.A.?" Ashido asked in some surprise, though her voice was quiet. She continued for herself in a slower voice, "I guess, maybe people don't think as much of us anymore…"

"We are going to back up here on the sidewalk, as reports have that the villains are using long-ranged Quirks to keep back the police and heroes chasing them." The reporter looked over her shoulder while walking forward, her cameraman backing up. The roads were pretty empty, and the sidewalks were almost clear too. The people on the sidewalks were mostly stopped and looking the same direction the camera was pointed though, considering the sirens coming from that way and now blinking lights that they saw down the road.

Midoriya was staring at the screen closely, but something caught his eyes that made him shift his gaze from where the reporter was looking and talking about how she could finally see the hijacked car. Midoriya got up from the couch, and Uraraka and Tokoyami looked at him in confusion. The two who looked confusedly at Midoriya suddenly noticed that Todoroki's eyes opened wide though, before narrowing quickly as he leaned forward in his seat.

"Oh crap!" Sero called out, as he looked across the street that was empty for a second and saw someone who stuck out because they were moving unlike the people around him. A figure in a black hoodie with the hood up and headphones sticking out in front of the sweatshirt up into his hood was jogging down the sidewalk in the direction of the reporter and her news van. His head turned a bit and he looked across the road to them, then his head shifted around a bit when he was almost out of the camera angle. He turned around between a couple of people who had looked at him oddly but refocused back down the road when they saw the car speeding down it with a villain sticking out of the passenger side window with his scaly arms pointed behind him.

The driver of the expensive-looking black car reached his own left hand out the window while driving down the block fast too, and all of his fingers popped open with oil pouring out of them and slicking the ground behind them. The road got covered in it, and two fast heroes who were sprinting ahead of the police cars behind them slipped on the oil and slid to the sides of the road. They maneuvered after their falls to get out of the way of the cop cars coming behind them, though those cop cars had to slow down anyway in order to prevent from slipping on the street.

The getaway car made the gap between them and the police wider, but the reporter started shouting as it increased that gap, "What is that person doing?! Get out of the road!"

Zach lifted up his hands while standing in the middle of the street a car was speeding down with two villains in the front. The men in the car turned towards him and the driver shouted the same thing the reporter on Zach's right just did. Zach lifted his right hand farther though, while clenching his left into a fist. His left was not in a glove, but his right hand was in a black glove that made the reporter's eyes start opening huge along with many of the people on both sides of the road and the villains in their hijacked car. Zach's fingers slid out of his glove and he pressed it into his chest. A black aura surrounded him while he started walking forward and then sprinting at the car that was only ten meters away from him now.

The sight of a figure surrounding in black flames and charging at their speeding car made the driver spin the wheel to the side. Zach swung his left fist forward, but the punch of Death that flew out of his fist missed the car that swerved to the right and to his left. The car slid by him with only a few feet gap, and Zach's head turned to the left with his red eyes glaring through the open window at the driver whose head turned left and looked right back into Zach's eyes in terror.

"LOOK OUT!" The villain covered in snake scales in the passenger seat shouted, pulling back into the car and holding on as tight as he could. The driver had swerved away from Zach but got too distracted by him, and there was a car parked on the side of the road that he had not paid attention to before since he was not planning on getting close to it. The driver spun the wheel the other way, but it just spun the back of his car around and into the car that the front right corner of smashed into too first.

Civilians on the sidewalk near that parked car scrambled back as the parked car skid up onto the curb. The villains in the front seat of the car slammed forward and airbags went off to smash into them and keep them from getting seriously injured. The impact was not cushiony enough that the two of them were not disoriented though. The driver reached a hand up and pushed down on the airbag before taking in some deep breaths since the airbag had knocked the wind out of him. He started turning his head to the right to look at his partner, when a hand seeping black wisps reached around the side of his head and wrapped around his face.

Zach ripped backwards and dragged the driver out of the car and tossed him on the street behind him. Then he snapped his right hand back through the window and slammed down on a pistol the guy in the passenger seat rose up with his left hand while stuck in a strange position with the airbag half-down. Zach slammed down on the gun, and a gunshot went off followed by two others that made everyone on the sidewalks and watching on tv jump. Zach slammed the guy's hand down again while bullet holes ripped in different parts of the car but did not hit him, and the gun fell out of the guy's grip. Zach snarled through his clenched teeth that sounded like a horrifying scratchy growl coming from the demon holding the snake-like villain's hand. "I, I surrender-" the man started, though his eyes were starting to close anyway. Zach held his hand tighter and ripped back through the driver's side window that he was leaning through himself, and he tossed the villain unceremoniously on top of his buddy already laying unconscious in the middle of the road.

Zach took a few deep breaths with black steam coming out of his open jaw. The steam clouded his face and made his red eyes and skull harder to see for a second, and then he rose his hand and pressed it into his chest which made the dark aura fade away from him. The boy standing there in the road next to a crashed car and two unconscious villains glanced around, then he looked towards the camera for a second, then he turned to the left and some cop cars slowing down near him. He still had his hood up, though his headphones had fallen out so the boy had to reach down his right hand and lift them back to his hood. Zach put his headphones back in and grimaced while turning from the cops and walking the other direction.

In Class A's common room, his classmates stared at the screen with lowered bottom lips, but a few of them sweatdropped as Zach started walking away. "Can he, do that?" Ashido asked. She glanced to her left at Sero who shrugged his shoulders looking a bit confused on top of the pity and sad expression on his face.

"Zach's usually pretty good when it comes to being on camera," Sero mumbled. He reached a hand up and rubbed it through his hair. The reporter called out for 'Lifebringer' to wait, and then she told her cameraman to come with her as she ran towards the boy who stopped in the road, apparently hearing her over the headphones he put back in.

 _There's paperwork to do when a hero takes down villains,_ Todoroki thought while staring closer at the screen. _And, he needs to arrest them properly. Not just, leave them like that. What was he doing? Stepping out in front of a speeding car like that and, punching at it? That was reckless._

 _You're right, Sero,_ Midoriya thought while looking at the screen nervously. _But, but Zach knows that people have been saying things about him on tv recently. He's good on tv, when people have been saying good things about him. He always avoids talking after something bad comes out. Zach, you'll be fine as long as you keep your head._

Zach turned towards the reporter and he reached up to take his headphones out. He took his hood off too while removing his headphones, and he turned straight to the camera with the most forced smile any of them had ever seen. It was so fake that the reporter froze after opening her mouth to ask him a question, and Zach's smile lowered back into a flat lip like he could see it obviously was not fooling anyone. Zach put his hands down in his pockets and he looked at the reporter, "Yeah?"

"Lifebringer," the reporter began, and she took in a deep breath. Every news program in the country wanted an interview with Lifebringer at any time, but right now the demand was at its peak. And even better, she was the only one on the scene which meant she had him all to herself. "Everyone wants to know, about you and Denki Kaminari." Zach's expression stayed the same, but his eyebrows started to narrow in as the woman finished and did not continue with anything else for a second. She could see he needed something more specific, and she continued quickly, "Did you know about him being a villain?"

"No," Zach said. He scrunched his face up like he was insulted by the question. "Of course I didn't."

"But you were with the League of Villains yourself for a time. Did they not mention anything about-"

"No, they didn't," Zach said. He frowned harder and glanced over his shoulder, then ahead towards the cops who looked his way before turning back to the heroes who had come with them. One of the heroes had looked towards Zach and then back to the officers before saying that they would deal with the paperwork. Zach was hoping for that exact thing though he wondered if he knew the hero who just said it since he did not think he recognized the man. "If that's all," Zach muttered, and he turned away and started walking again.

"Wait! How can we believe you?" The reporter ran after Zach and up on his left side, and the cameraman followed after quickly as well. People on the sidewalks wanted to rush over towards Lifebringer, but they also looked hesitant to do so. The reporter got real close though, and she continued to the boy whose lip twisted down on the left corner as she got that close to his side. "The incident with Shatterer and the War Boys. There are rumors that you had to go through an official review because of that, as you left U.A. in order to rescue your classmate." Zach stopped where he was on the road and his teeth clenched harder. "So you must have been close to this, Raijin. How do we know that you did not know about-"

Zach turned his head to the left and glared at the woman next to him. "I didn't know, _anything._ " The woman had kept pushing him, and the students in Class A's common room got nervous looks on their faces at the snapped expression on Zach's. A few of them got up worriedly and stared at the boy who looked way too angry all of a sudden. " _Kaminari,_ was the one I was protecting at USJ, when I killed Shindeki Buda." Zach glared at the woman harder and leaned his head towards hers which made her pull hers back. "He told you that it was me when the school kept it a secret, got me targeted by the villains, told the villains about my family! Got them slaughtered in front of-" Zach froze and his eyes darted to the left, then back into the eyes of the woman in front of him. "Shi-" he turned away and said in a low voice but as loud as he was just speaking, "So no. I didn't know my best friend was betraying me the whole time. He's a villain. He's, my _nemesis_."

Midoriya's huge eyes shook and his whole body flinched. It sounded like such an imaginary concept. It sounded like something someone would bring up if they were treating heroes and villains like a game. He had never heard anyone word fighting a villain like that before, and he figured that if he had heard it at any other time it would sound different. Tokoyami imagined that if he had heard a hero say that word on tv, it would sound more like an excuse that a villain the hero had fought before had escaped from them to fight another day. Only villains who were not sent to prison could be fought again, unless there was another prison break, but the word "nemesis" had so much emotion in it as Zach said it aloud.

Ashido clenched her hands tightly at her sides. _He's all of our… but, but he targeted you. Specifically. More than, except for Jirou, more than anyone… Maybe even Jirou too._

Todoroki started breathing faster. He kept his breaths silent, but he stared with widening eyes at the boy on the screen. _What is he doing? Is this really… I thought he had broken down, but he came to class the next day. You were stronger than I gave you credit for. But, but now that I know how strong you are, then this isn't you being weak is it? Or, can you really not take this? I don't know. I, can't talk to you._

Mineta stared at the screen and his eyes were huge. The small boy lifted up his hands and stared down at them, and then he clenched those hands into fists and brought them to his watery eyes to rub them hard. _What are you doing-_

"And I'm going to get him," Zach finished as he started walking away from the reporter.

The tone of his voice unnerved the reporter and all the teenagers watching over the news. Then the woman asked a question each of them had just subconsciously had. "Are you going to kill him?"

Zach froze. He grit his teeth and turned, and he looked past the reporter and back towards the camera. "Of course I won't. I'm a hero."

* * *

"'…Told the villains about my family! Got them slaughtered in front of-' That was a clip from earlier today after Lifebringer stopped a pair of carjackers in Musutafu City." A man and a woman were sitting behind a table reporting the news, and they turned to each other after looking away from a screen where they had been watching the same clip that had appeared in the corner of the news program. "Now Kanami," the woman began while continuing to her co-host. "I said it before, but I'll repeat tonight. I don't think Lifebringer had any idea Raijin was-"

"I'm gonna stop you there Kyoko," Kanami said, holding up a flipper to the woman in front of him. The man with flippers for arms lowered it and then said, "I agree. I just needed to hear it from Lifebringer myself, I think. I feel bad for him now," the man added, as things he had been saying on the program made him seem really unsympathetic and like a bad guy after the clip they had just seen. "Now, the 'family,' we think Lifebringer was talking about here…"

"Yes," Kyoko said and nodded her head, agreeing that they should move on to that. "As most people know, Zach Sazaki's father and mother were already deceased. And he had been living on his own for a long time." The woman with shoulder-length black hair looked to the cameras and continued, "However at Sazaki's trial this past fall, if you remember, a man by the name of John Akers went on the stand to testify for Lifebringer's character." In the corner of the screen appeared a picture of a man standing behind the witness stand. That picture stayed there while Kyoko's expression got a bit darker, "This station tried to get in touch with the Akers for comment after the trial, but they asked to be left alone."

"However," Kanami started up. "John Akers, his wife Mary, and his daughter… Jennifer," Kanami paused while looking into the camera. "All three died in a reported house fire in November."

Kyoko shook her head and had a sad expression on it just like her co-anchor's. "This was only a few days after the second break-in on U.A. premises, now known simply as VTS. At the time, we reported that Lifebringer had captured two of the villains he infiltrated U.A. with, however he had not returned but gone back with the villains. Many believe now, what he did at VTS caused the villains to kill the Akers."

"In fact, some students from Jennifer Akers' high school were willing to comment on this," Kanami added. A clip appeared in the corner of the screen that the anchors turned to where a microphone was held out for a couple of girls wearing high school uniforms.

"Yeah, we knew Jenny. She was actually a friend of ours."

"A good friend. It was terrible what happened to her."

"And do you two know what did happen to her?" The reporter questioned.

"Well, we heard that there was a house fire."

"But there were a lot of rumors going around."

"Yeah! Jenny had been talking _that day_ about how her best friend Zach "Lifebringer" Sazaki had caught those two villains. One minute, she's talking about how cool it is those villains got caught, the next… sn snf."

"The school didn't really tell us what had happened. But no one around here really thinks it was an accident anymore…"

The clip cut off before showing how the interview with those girls ended. "You think the Akers were the ones Lifebringer was referring to earlier today?" Kanami asked his co-host.

Kyoko nodded her head at him, and she said, "I remember watching the Sports Festival well. And I heard you hesitate to say it Kanami," she added, and the man nodded his head in stoic agreement. "That name, Jenny. I remember hearing Lifebringer yelling it while the villains tortured him. They made him listen to her screams even."

"Over and over," Kanami added in in a softer voice. There was a pause for a few seconds as neither host said anything. Then Kanami rose his head up and said, "Yet he's still a hero." Kyoko looked over and into her co-host's eyes and nodded her head. They had watched the entire clip earlier and only replayed the end part they paused on to discuss a bit about his family. Kanami continued, "He didn't look it too much in that scary Nightmare form of his, but he stopped those villains without anyone getting injured."

"I still think he did it too recklessly. Stepping out in front of the car like that," Kyoko argued with a shake of her head.

"You saw him rip those guys from the car and throw them halfway across the road," Kanami countered right back. "Maybe he could've taken a hit."

"His Quirk is Death," Kyoko argued back. "Not super strength."

"But if you remember his press conference in Mosu Esupa at the end of last month, you know he said he's still just mastering this form. He didn't even know it existed back in the fall," Kanami held up a flipper and offered, "Perhaps, he's still just getting started understanding all there is to know about his Quirk. Which brings me back to an older topic, though still Lifebringer related." Kyoko sighed and rolled her eyes which just made Kanami continued quicker, "I really think they should start up training Quirks in elementary school."

"A bunch of super-powered kids is not what this society needs right now," Kyoko argued back.

"I beg to differ. Those kids are the next generation of-"

Midoriya turned off his phone that he was live-streaming the news on. He did not want to watch with others down in the living room, and he stared up at his ceiling and imagined a couple of floors up what Zach looked like right now. _Why do they talk about the Akers like that, knowing that he might be watching? I know it's the news, but did they really have to talk about Jenny? Showing those girls say that Jenny called Zach her best friend, right after Zach saying that Kaminari had been his best friend. It's what he's already thinking about._

Midoriya clenched his fists at his sides and he started sitting up to get off his bed and go upstairs. He froze though and his hands shook, and he closed his eyes tightly thinking about all Zach had screamed about the night Kaminari betrayed them. _I could be there for Eri. I could hold her, and tell her that someone in the world cared about her. But, but it's not that easy with you. Zach. You're my, you're one of my closest friends. One of my best… but I don't know what those secrets are that you say you told Kaminari. Things, that people's lives depended on? Whose lives? You said they're already dying, and I want to ask you and help you stop it. That's what you're doing all these days you leave, isn't it?_

 _Is it?_

 _I don't know what you're doing. You're pushing everyone away. Breaking up with Yaoyorozu and leaving campus all the time. No one knows, how to help you. We all want to though, Zach._ Midoriya lifted his eyes to the ceiling again with a sad look in them and so much frustration on his face. _But why can't, I think of any way to save you? I thought you were someone who didn't need saving, but no one can be that strong all the time. Everyone needs help, sometimes. I want to help you. Let me help you._

Three floors up from Midoriya, a dark form covered in black wisps lay flat on his bed. Zach reached for the ceiling, and he forced Death up his right arm in Nightmare mode. He glared at his hand, and he watched as Death pooled there. He stared at his fingers surrounded in thick black tendrils getting thicker each second. He focused more and more, making that right hand bigger and covering more of his arm in a dark black aura. A larger black hand surrounded his right, and then he focused harder on his fingers that were swirling around and losing form only to reform in under a second. Those fingers started to thin and look like they were shrinking, but they stopped when they were thinnest at the tips and thicker farther back. Zach glared with red eyes up at the thin, sharp points of each of his fingers on his right arm that looked bigger than usual, and longer too.

 _Death Claw. Keep the gap between fingers thin enough that he can't dodge between them. Jenny. Raijin. Mr. Akers. Dabi. Mrs. Akers. Kurogiri. Dad. Mom. Mr. Ganji. Aizawa sensei. Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck. Focus. Always, focus…_


	90. Chapter 90

**Disclaimer: I don't own Boku no Hero Academia**

 **Chapter 90:**

"It's good to see everyone here," Mother Russia said. Homeroom had just started, and it was the first day in a week that every student in the class was there. She had hoped that after the weekend they would all be there, but mid-week was not too bad. Each of the students had been into the class at least once already, though this was the first time both Mineta and Jirou had shown up on the same day, since the day after Jirou came back the first time she had gone home to be with her parents for an extended weekend.

Jirou stared towards Mother Russia with a frown on her face but lowered her eyes after a second when Mother Russia met her angry look. _Mom's right. I have to focus on class. He won't go after them! Kami- No. Don't think about him this early- Don't think about him at all._ Jirou lifted her gaze a bit from her desk and to the boy sitting in front of her. _Like him. He's been here every day, Momo says. Why did you break up with her? It's not-_ Jirou's thoughts shifted as Zach turned his head a bit to the right and glanced back at her. He looked in her eyes, and Jirou suddenly saw someone she almost always saw with Zach. Every time the two of them talked in class, he was to their right and took part in their conversation. She glanced to her right but just saw Sero, and she clenched her teeth so hard.

Yaoyorozu looked forward and to the left where she saw Zach looking out the corners of his eyes back at Jirou. His eyes widened a bit as he stared at the hurt look Yaoyorozu also saw flash on Jirou's face. _You're not the only one hurting, Zach. If you can't talk to me. If you really, just want to keep avoiding… You should at least talk to her. She might be the only one who can help you, and you her._

Zach took one look at Jirou's face, and then he turned back forward and glared towards the front of the room. His eyes were already dark before he had looked back feeling someone look at him, but Sero glanced nervously to his left now as he could only see half of Zach's face and yet half was all he needed to see to get shivers. The black-haired boy on Zach's right with tape dispensers in his elbows tried to keep a straight face and not look towards Zach, but he could not stop himself from glancing over and seeing shadows over Zach's eyes. His eyes were half-closed, his lips curled down at the corners, and Zach's hands were held together over his desk with his fingers interlocking so hard it was clear he was doing it to keep from balling them into individual fists.

As Sero looked at Zach's hands though, his eyes shifted down a bit towards Zach's arm. His right hand was covered in the thin black material of his glove, but Zach's sleeves had ridden up a bit when he put his arms over the desk, just enough that there was a gap between his glove and his sleeve cuff. In that gap was not skin though, but Sero could see something white wrapping around Zach's arm. It was on the other arm too which he just noticed a bit of white sticking out from underneath, and Sero felt the deepest pit in his stomach as he realized they were bandages.

Midoriya looked across the room and towards his friend whose eyes he had caught a glimpse of when Zach entered the room. _It's more than it has been. Like, things are getting worse._ Midoriya could see that Zach's expression was even darker than it was when he had first come in, but he turned away as Mother Russia continued talking about their practical hero training for the day which would take up most of their morning.

Mother Russia spoke about the training for a minute, her eyes shifting around the students to make eye contact with them as she talked as she always did. When her eyes shifted towards Sazaki though, she stopped talking and just stared into the boy's eyes for a few seconds. "Sazaki," she said. Zach lifted his head a bit and kept staring at her in the same way, "I want you to focus. Your eyes are full of rage. It is clear you are not paying attention," the Russian woman gave him a harsh look and Zach ground his teeth before shaking his head around.

"Sorry," Zach muttered. He blinked a few times and then lifted his eyes back up and looked like he was trying to change his expression. Mother Russia nodded and turned back forward to continue explaining their training, and Zach's eyes returned to the way they had just looked. His teeth bared behind his lips, and he looked so furious that Koda pulled back a bit while looking over at him still since Mother Russia had made them all just gaze his direction.

Zach moved his left hand subtly over to his right arm and started scratching the inside of his forearm. He flinched and ground his teeth more, then he lowered both palms to his desk and tried focusing on Mother Russia. His expression calmed for a moment, but he lowered his eyes down to his arms and at his sleeves that he saw bandages sticking out the ends of. He reached his hands to the opposite sleeves and slid them down a bit, stretching them since the uniform was not a perfect fit on him.

"Hey Zach," Sero whispered to his left. Zach turned to him, and Sero motioned down at Zach's arms with his eyes. "You alright?"

"Fine," Zach said while turning back forward. He pulled his arms back and lowered them down to his sides, and he focused up on Mother Russia so that Sero would do the same.

 _He's just trying to deflect,_ Sero thought while looking towards Mother Russia in the front of the room.

Kirishima glanced to his left for a second since he heard Sero just say something to Zach. He looked over himself and frowned deeply at the look on Zach's face as he watched their homeroom teacher. Kirishima thought about the night before when he tried to talk to Zach about how he stopped those car thieves. He had said that it was badass what Zach did, and Zach had nodded at him once before walking right past him. _You can't just become like this forever. I won't let you._ Kirishima's fists clenched at his sides. _You saved my life. You're, an awesome hero. I didn't lose two friends that day. I'm getting you back, even if I can't get Kaminari- but you! I can help you. This time, for sure. I won't mess up again._

 _I'm going to kill that bastard,_ Bakugo glared towards Mother Russia. Mentioning Zach's rage-filled eyes had Bakugo thinking about why it was his classmate was looking like that. In his head he saw Zach strung up by metal hooks getting his body cut up, and Shigaraki Tomura holding up his picture and making Zach shout about him. _Everything. It was all him. He told the villains where the training forest was. That mother fucker, got All Might- he got me kidnapped- because I wasn't strong enough! No, NO! It was his fault. It wasn't just you, Zach. He's been fucking with all of us. This whole time, that piece of shit._

Jirou looked down in front of her desk while partially listening to what Mother Russia was saying. She looked down at Zach's right hand that he had put down at his side. Lowering his arm straight down like that, rode up his sleeve even more so she could see what it was Sero had whispered and she had heard. _His arm,_ Jirou thought, and her breathing started picking up speed. She glanced forward and towards Mother Russia, but their homeroom teacher was looking over towards Uraraka at the moment so she thought it was okay. Jirou leaned forward a bit and then froze. She did not know what she was going to say, but then she just whispered in a soft voice, "Zach. You didn't…"

Zach kept staring forward, ignoring the girl behind him who lowered back down into her seat as Mother Russia started to turn again. "It's nothing," Zach muttered out the left corner of his lips. He rose up his arms as if to show there was nothing wrong with them and he rested them over his desk. He placed them down gently though, and then he leaned forward a bit while trying to make his arms smaller and sliding them farther up into his sleeves. Jirou's eyes opened wide at his reaction, and she pursed her lips while feeling her eyes start shaking. Her heart rate sped up, _I, thought about… But Zach-_

"What's going on over there?" Mother Russia snapped, glaring towards the side of the room where Jirou spun to her with wide eyes. Jirou's eyes were sad too, but worried. She darted them to Zach who turned his head a bit and looked back at her. Then Zach turned and glared at Sero who had a hesitant look on his face while looking down at Zach's arms he seemed to be trying to hide. Mother Russia started over and she glared at the boy she had to speak to twice now about his expression in a few minutes. Her eyes shifted to where the other students were looking though, and then she narrowed them which made Zach ground his teeth more.

Yaoyorozu leaned up and she looked over to see what it was Mother Russia was staring at. Zach stopped trying to hide it at all. He just looked down at his own arms, then back at Mother Russia with his eyebrows lifted as if waiting for her to continue. "Hey Zach," Ashido began over across a couple of seats. A few others in the room just got grim looks on their faces as they felt bad that attention was being brought to him when he clearly wanted everyone to stop looking over. Those people looked over too though as Ashido continued, "Did something happen, to your arms? I… noticed that-"

Zach lifted his arms and put his elbows on the table so his sleeves lowered a bit. He reached to his sleeves and pulled them down himself with half-closed eyes. He looked dark still, but like he did not care enough to just sit there and come up with something. Zach slid his sleeves down looking bored. He lowered them to near his elbows and the rest of the class stared over towards the bandages with wide eyes, especially since there was red on some parts of them on the insides of his forearms. "I'm fine," Zach said.

Mother Russia glared at the boy sitting there but she got a somewhat uncertain look on her face. _This is, beyond my expertise._

Zach looked around, and he saw pitied, sad looks around the room directed towards him. "It's not what you think," Zach said at their expressions.

Yaoyorozu's pained heart started slowing down a bit as her face covered in confusion. _It's not?_

"Wh-What do you mean?" Ashido whispered softer, though she regretted asking her first question now. Kirishima was staring over towards Zach's eyes with huge ones of his own, while Todoroki had an understanding look on his face like he half-expected this. Iida and Tsuyu looked over from across the room and both felt so much pain in their chests as they imagined Zach cutting himself, which was what most of the class had assumed at the sight of those bandages that looked like they were covering new wounds Zach must have inflicted and wrapped himself.

Zach looked forward at his arms and then said in a calm, dark voice, "I was on my laptop last night when words started covering my screen. Taunting me…" Twenty people stared at Zach with their eyes opening huge, and Zach just continued in his same tone, "Then after he started laughing, sending 'hahahahahaha,' a spark came out of my computer. I realized what was coming and tossed it up, but it exploded and slashed up my arms I crossed like this." He rose up his arms and put the backs of his forearms to his face, the soft undersides that had red seeping through the bandages pointed out to where he was exemplifying the debris had come flying at him from.

"What?!" Kirishima shouted over after a second of just gawking at Zach.

"I should have realized, he would do it-" Zach started.

"Sazaki," Mother Russia stated firmly and in a strong voice that kept everyone else from speaking up at once. A few others had jumped out of their seats looking like they wanted to shout things over at him, though none of them really knew what to call out. A couple of others pulled out their phones go get them out of their pockets and away from their legs, and then the others around them saw this and did the same. Mother Russia frowned at the boy's blank, dejected look that was still so dark but had not changed at all with what he had just said. "You should have said something."

"Why?" Zach asked. "It's not like Kaminari was there. It's not like we could have done anything." He paused and then looked to his arms and said, "And what if Recovery Girl was Toga in disguise again, waiting for me to come ask for help because Kaminari told her that I'd be on my way?"

 _Why does he keep doing this to you?!_ Ashido's eyes filled with water, and she turned away from Zach before lifting her right hand and rubbing them.

Bakugo stared over towards Zach with his eyes huge for a few more seconds, then he turned away and grit his teeth in such a pissed-off way. _He's been fucking with all of us? What a joke. The fuck do I have to be angry about- damn it. How the fuck is Zach supposed to get over this, when you won't leave him the fuck alone?!_

"Zach," Sero began while looking in shock at his friend on his left side. "You know, we're going to catch him. He won't be able to do stuff like that forever."

Zach lowered his arms down and looked towards Sero with the same blank look, and he said in a low voice, "No we won't." Sero's eyes widened more, and Zach just said in a dark tone, "We don't even know how he does what he does. We don't know how to beat him, and we don't know where he is. We're not going to capture-"

"Sazaki," Mother Russia cut in. Her voice was strict and laced with her thicker Russian accent that she hid most of the time at least a bit. She had an angry and disapproving look on her face though while Zach turned to her. There was no pity on it, and she just scolded in an annoyed tone of her own, "Stop talking like that. Saying we won't capture him, it's pathetic." The others looked towards their teacher with wide eyes, and though some wanted to tell her not to be so harsh they also hoped she knew what she was doing. Her eyes narrowed more and she continued, "If you have lost your motivation for being a hero, then-"

"But that's just it sensei, I have." Zach cut her off and looked in her eyes in a way that made Mother Russia stare back with wider ones. The rest of the class looked back towards Zach, while he just stared into the older woman's blue with his dark and cold ones. "He didn't just beat me," Zach said, his tone actually shifting a little while his eyebrows lifted, his face scrunching up. "He destroyed my reason for being a hero."

Kirishima was up on his feet, and he shouted towards Zach with his eyes huge, "Wh-What are you-"

"I believed, this world was amazing. I believed, people were inherently good. I wanted to…" Zach said a line from the end of his final report the last year. He said it in disbelief and his classmates felt pained that he no longer believed that. Midoriya stared towards him with wide eyes, his heart clenching up as he thought about how he had shouted that very same line at Inhuman at the end of the fight at the Sports Festival. Yaoyorozu looked towards Zach with her eyes shaking, as he continued, "But Kaminari was just a kid, and he became evil for no good reason at all. So I was wrong."

Zach shook his head with a dark but half bored look in his eyes. Mother Russia's eyes narrowed again at the boy who just muttered in a low voice, "I don't think I believe it anymore."

"But without a reason, why are you here?" Mother Russia questioned the student who was supposed to be a hero in training.

"'Why?'" Zach repeated, lifting his eyebrows up and raising his head to look at her closer. He gave her a look like saying 'are you serious?' Then he snapped, "Because where the fuck else am I going to go?"

"No cursing in my class. Go to the principal's office," Mother Russia said in a stern voice. Zach's eyes shot open wide, and then he slid out of his chair and reached down to pick up his backpack. "Stop at Recovery Girl's office first," Mother Russia added while Zach started picking it up. He froze with his hand on his backpack strap, and he closed his eyes as she finished, "And get a grip. This isn't the place for talk like that."

Zach walked straight for the exit and never looked back. He did not glance around at his classmates who all stared at him wanting to say, something. A few of them had thought Zach was being so strong coming to class every day since the incident, and those same students felt floored as they had no idea what Zach was thinking at all. Iida opened his mouth as Zach neared the row closest to the door, but the shorter boy walked out without hesitating, which meant the taller teen who was hesitating never got a chance to say a thing. _Where else? Is that really, the only reason you are still here?_ Iida stared at the closed door for a second before turning back to Mother Russia who continued in a loud voice to get everyone to focus on her.

 _But, he was talking about how we had to keep fighting. How we can't take a break because the villains won't either!_ Ashido thought. She yelled it at herself because she was so frustrated that she had no idea this was how Zach had been feeling this past week. _He, on the news he said he was going to stop Kaminari. So that can't be your only reason for being here. You're, not just staying because you don't have anywhere else to go. I don't believe that. You've always been, a cool guy._

 _This is a problem,_ Shoji stared at Mother Russia, but like most of his classmates he could not focus very much. _If nothing is done, we are going to lose Zach._ In Shoji's head he saw the video they watched their first day back after the Sports Festival, when he and Zach started getting pulled towards Inhuman. He saw his friend holding onto him as tightly as possible to prevent from being pulled off, so that he could keep bringing him back to life. _I won't let this break you. Zach, how could I call myself a hero if I don't help you now?_

Midoriya looked ahead at Kirishima, then he glanced back to his left towards Yaoyorozu before spinning Mother Russia's way when he felt like her voice was directed straight at him to get him to pay attention. In the curly-green-haired boy's mind he saw the night of the Sports Festival when he arrived at the hospital looking for Zach. He had come into Zach's room to see him, Kirishima, Yaoyorozu, and Kaminari sitting together on Zach's hospital bed. He thought the three of them were all closer to Zach than he was, and he checked what Kirishima and Yaoyorozu were thinking because he did not know what to do about what they had just seen.

Mother Russia started talking about all of them getting new electronics based on what Sazaki had said, though she added the possibility that Raijin had done something to Zach's computer while he was still on campus that allowed him to do what Zach claimed. Midoriya listened to her and he looked at his phone he had already put down on top of his desk closely, but he was not really afraid that Kaminari was going to do something similar to him. _I can see what you're doing, Raijin. Why you really said all those things to Zach that day. Why you're still, messing with his head. I won't let you do it. I won't let you… win._

* * *

As lunch was ending, Midoriya, Iida, and Uraraka started back towards their classroom. Lunch had been pretty quiet again today, though the cafeteria as a whole had been louder. Only a couple of people had dropped out throughout the entire school over Denki Kaminari's apparent infiltration. Most people actually felt better, outside of Class A, because the spy had been uncovered. Most people also did not know about there being a spy in the first place, but blaming USJ and all the things that had gone wrong for U.A. the past year on him meant that they were now safer without him on their campus. It was the same argument some of the Class A students had to make to their parents when they had tried arguing to take them out of school.

Uraraka looked to her right and up at Iida as he continued, "Organizing a day of class activities, or a competition with Class B could work. Not just for helping Zach, but to raise everyone's mood, and to show Kamin- Raijin, that we have not been defeated by him."

Uraraka nodded her head in agreement with that last part a lot. "I don't want him thinking he won. That look on his face, when he was talking about always winning," Uraraka clenched her fists at her sides and looked angrily down the hall. "And because of him, All Might…" she trailed off and glanced to her left at the boy next to her a bit shorter than the teen on her right side. Midoriya looked in at her, and then past at Iida who had also asked him about that once over the past couple of days.

 _I hate lying to them, but I cannot give away such an important secret just because they think they know something about it. I have to stick with him just comparing our powers to each other, even if, they don't all believe me._ Midoriya opened his mouth to add something in himself and shift the conversation away from All Might and thereby him. He stopped though and looked down the hall as a door opened forcefully and Zach stomped out of it. The door was on the left side of the hall so Zach walked out with the right side of his face closer to them, his scar visible on the side of it as well as something else that had the three teens slowing down and stopping where they were.

"Mr. Sazaki," a voice called from inside the faculty room up ahead.

Zach turned his head to the right and started walking down the hall as soon as he stormed out of the office. His lips were twisted and his teeth bared furiously behind them, while tears streaked down his face covered in a look of unadulterated rage. Zach's fists clenched so hard at his sides but he had to loosen his right before ripping through the glove, only to tighten it even harder and ignore the fact that he felt it rip through. He parted his teeth for a second to take a deeper breath, but it came in gasped and choked out. "Young Sazaki," another voice called, and while the replacement principal stayed behind in the office, All Might came out and looked down the hall after Zach.

"Zach?" Uraraka questioned as Zach neared them.

Iida opened his mouth to say something about how Zach needed to stop. He was clearly emotionally unstable, and none of them had seen him since he stormed out of class that morning but it did not look like things had gotten any better since then. The look on Zach's face as he shifted his gaze the smallest amount towards them shut all of them up though. As angry as he looked while trying to glare at them, tears continued to spill out and slide down his face before dripping off his chin. He grit his teeth again and shook his head to the right, looking away from them as he walked past, ignoring All Might calling his name again from down the hall.

All Might started walking down the hallway as soon as Zach had turned the corner. "Wait," he started, as Midoriya started back the other way like he regretted letting Zach walk by like that. Midoriya spun his head and had a hurried look as he needed to go after him quickly before Zach got away. All Might shook his head though at Midoriya's expression, and his successor turned back fully to face him.

Iida and Uraraka both looked towards All Might wondering why it was he told Midoriya to wait, though they also looked back and forth between the two for a moment with something else on their minds. Uraraka shook her head though and then looked at All Might in a confused way, "All Might, why was Zach so… Is everything alright?"

"It was not just, about Kaminari?" Iida asked aloud what he had started thinking at the sight of those tears covering Zach's face.

All Might stopped in front of them. He hesitated for a moment and then shook his head at the students before him. He glanced over their heads and towards the corner of the hallway where Zach had sped around, then he brought a hand up to his forehead and rubbed it with a regretful look in his dark eyes. "Young Sazaki's, Aunt Maye," All Might began, and all three of the teens in front of him started staring with their eyes opening huge. "And her daughter, have both been reported missing. The police who went to investigate found," All Might paused and then finished in a low voice, "signs of a break-in, at her home. However there are no leads as to where they have gone- or where they have been taken."

Zach neared the back exit of the school. He had his arms over his face rubbing back and forth to wipe it of all the tears. There were too many people in the hallway, and he needed to get out of there without anyone else trying to stop him. He froze though before reaching the back door, as a voice called to him, "Zach." He blinked his eyes a few more times and reached a hand up, rubbing them to try and clear of any water. Then he turned his head with his lips flat and his eyes half-closed. _AHHHHHHHHHHHH!_ "Where are you going?" Todoroki asked his classmate who stood there with a blank look on his face while screaming so loud in his mind that he could feel a headache coming.

 _Keep it together. Keep it- RAAA!_ "Home… I guess," Zach replied. He cracked a small smile after finishing his response, and he lifted his left hand up and pressed it against his forehead with a twisted lip and mad look on his face. _Though, is it really my home anymore? Kaminari being there made it home- What did you do to them? What the fuck?!_ Zach blinked a couple of times and then lowered his hand and started looking blankly at Todoroki again.

"We have afternoon classes," Todoroki started. He walked closer to Zach and he narrowed his eyes at the boy whose expression had turned blank. His eyes were cold, his face emotionless, and Todoroki felt nervous while he opened his mouth to say something else. The gap between them was not very wide anymore, and Todoroki stopped to look as deep into Zach's eyes as he could. Todoroki paused with his mouth open and kept staring at Zach as he stood there emotionless after having such a broken-up look on his face. "I know you have a plan." Todoroki snapped it and then stared closely at Zach's expression to see how it would respond.

Zach stared blankly at him for a couple of seconds, then he leaned his head back and squinted his eyes a bit. "A plan?"

Todoroki was not having any of it. "I know it," he repeated.

Zach opened his squinted eyes back up and looked into Todoroki's in a sadder way. He lowered his gaze to the floor for a second and said, "I'm sorry, you think of me like that Todoroki-"

"You always bounce back," Todoroki said. He stared at his classmate who had come back the day after, who was as strong as he always was even when Todoroki thought he would never make it back. Todoroki ground his teeth at the look in Zach's eyes as he rose them a bit more and looked into his. "Every time."

"I have," Zach said. His voice was unconvincing, but he lifted his expression a bit from its sad look to a more normal one. His normal ones now looked so depressed, angry, and blank though that Todoroki ground his teeth even harder. The boy with half red hair and half white started going wider eyes though, as Zach continued, "I'm back. I'll become a great hero, and I'll, I'll try." He said it but then continued right away, "There is no big plan though. I'm not, doing that anymore. Any plan I come up with, Kaminari will know and break. I need help to do great things, but anyone I stay close to will get killed." Zach turned and he just spoke with his face half away from Todoroki's looking out the corners of his eyes at him, "So leave me alone, Todoroki."

Todoroki stood there and watched as Zach walked out of the school without looking back. His teeth unclenched and his fists that had balled up loosened at his sides too. Todoroki's eyes were wide for a few more seconds, and then he lowered them back to normal and stared down at the floor in front of his feet. _That's not, you. When you said "Lifebringer" in class that day, so long ago now. You're not that person anymore. You really aren't, going to try and be amazing anymore? No plan? No, nothing?_

* * *

Kirishima, Ashido, Asui, Sato, and Tokoyami walked down a street of Musutafu in the early afternoon on Thursday a week after Kaminari betrayed their class. They had gotten a pass to go out shopping as long as they returned within three hours, and they were walking to the train station now to head to a popular shopping district in Tokyo the train would only take twenty minutes to get them to.

Ashido had suggested it, and she was smiling and talking to the others around her fast so that there were never any silences where they would all know what they were thinking about. It was actually working too, and she was happy that asking about what Tokoyami was going to buy actually got him and Sato talking about it together too. Ashido let out a small sigh while they walked, and Asui turned and looked up at her pink friend. "Mina-chan, thank you." Kirishima just jumped in on the other guys' conversation so all three boys were in their own talk, and Ashido turned to her small frog friend who gave her a small smile at her confused look. "Admittedly, I have been scared of leaving campus since that day."

Ashido's eyes widened a bit, and Tsuyu continued to her friend in a soft voice, "I haven't told my parents that Kaminari, killed me, either. I wanted it kept a secret, like Iida-chan. I was afraid though of leaving campus, so I needed this. I do not think I could have left on my own the first time."

"Oh Tsu-chan," Ashido put her arms around her friend's side and pulled her in a side-hug as they kept walking. "Even if there are five of us here, you're still super brave coming out so soon. That idiot'll never get us a second time."

Tsuyu nodded her head and Ashido stopped hugging her as Kirishima glanced back in a confused way at them. Tsuyu continued to smile in a small way as they kept walking down the sidewalk, but she thought after what Ashido just finished with, _Except, Ka- Raijin, is not an idiot. Mina-chan. We must be careful so he does not get us. Careful… but not paranoid. I won't be afraid to leave U.A. I cannot be, if I plan to be a hero._

Kirishima mentioned something back to Ashido who ran forward a few steps to get up to his side. "You really need more weights for your own room? The place was already full of 'em when we did the room contest!"

"Yeah, but I got stronger," Kirishima lifted his right arm and flexed, and Ashido rolled her eyes though glancing at his muscular arm at the same time. "So I need new ones. The school won't just let me take ones from the gym to bring to my own room, and the gyms are closed sometimes when I want to work out!" The boy with spiky red hair grinned his sharp teeth and then looked forward as they continued towards the station that was two blocks down now. It was not the station closest to U.A. they were going to, since the train line that would bring them to the stop closest to the shopping district did not stop at that U.A. station. It meant the walk from U.A. to the station was longer, but when they arrived at their destination the walk would be much shorter so that it was worth it.

"If it was a twenty minute walk to the station, we must be sure to leave Shibuya by… six thirty," Tokoyami slowed down while he was saying that after seeing the station up ahead. Kirishima glanced at him because he thought Tokoyami was a bit slow to do the math there, but Tokoyami had hesitated before finishing for another reason.

Sato also looked ahead with his eyebrows lifted up. Half a block in front of them, not at the intersection but out from in between two buildings, someone just stepped onto their sidewalk and glanced both ways. The person was wearing a black hoodie with the hood up, and they turned the opposite direction as their group and started walking the other way. The person was not walking too fast, but they were moving at a quicker pace than the group of five teens so they would never meet up with each other.

"Isn't it a little hot…" Ashido began while looking up towards the hooded figure moving quickly away from them.

"Think the guy recognized us?" Kirishima asked, narrowing his eyes and then speeding up himself. His fists clenched at his sides, and it had been a week but he had been looking forward to a chance like this that whole time.

"Kirishima-chan. We don't know that he is doing anything wrong," Tsuyu began while walking quicker after the boy almost jogging forward down the sidewalk. She had seen the person come out of the alleyway, but she had a strange feeling at the sight of him that made her hesitant about giving chase. Asui shook her head though, deciding that that feeling was probably her own fear after what had happened with Kaminari. _I can't be afraid to confront criminals._

"Maybe he just likes the darkness of the alley," Tokoyami offered, speeding up a bit but arguing with Kirishima who sounded dead-set when he asked his question. Kirishima's question had obvious connotations. If the person recognized them as U.A. students with provisional hero licenses, and was purposely avoiding them, then there was a good chance he was in the middle of breaking the law.

"Or maybe not," Kirishima said. "Let's find out. Hey!" He shouted, changing his tone and yelling down the sidewalk to the hooded figure almost at the corner he could turn around. If the figure turned the corner though, the students would start running after him as it would be clear he was trying to escape them now. The hooded figure just stopped though, and the students who started jogging forward after Kirishima slowed down as they wondered what they were about to say to this person they were accosting for no reason. "What were you doing back there in that…" Kirishima looked the figure up and down when he got closer, and his eyes narrowed for a second in recognition before widening at the sight of the shoes he was looking down at.

The hooded figure turned and lifted his head a bit. His face that was shadowed when he first stepped out and darted his gaze back and forth got a clearer when he rose his head. "Zach?" Kirishima asked. The scar-faced boy under the hood did not have headphones in. He stared out at Kirishima and narrowed his eyes, then he looked behind him and towards the other four students who opened their eyes wider as they saw him. He was wearing a new black hoodie that the others had not seen before, not that they had seen much of him outside of school lately that they would know what kind of clothes he wore.

"Hey."

When Tsuyu passed by the alley Zach had walked out of she turned her head and looked down it. There was no one inside, but the alley went far and there were other cut-offs from it going around other buildings. It was dark, and she felt the most unsettling feeling in her stomach while turning forward towards Zach. "What, are you up to-" Sato began, though he stopped himself after saying it. He reworded it, "I mean, what's up?" He did not mean to sound suspicious but more like just a greeting, yet he had to change the wording because that question sounded like it could be asked.

"Running," Zach replied.

Kirishima's eyes narrowed at the boy in front of him and he took a step towards Zach. Zach stayed where he was and lifted his head just a bit to look into his slightly taller friend's red eyes. "In alleys?"

Zach looked over towards the alley, then around at the group of five in front of him. Kirishima looked accusatory, Sato a bit nervous like he had wanted to just change the topic but was now back on it and not telling Kirishima to stop. Tsuyu had a nervous frown on her face that also looked scared of what Zach's answer could be. Ashido looked at Kirishima like she wanted him to stop, then towards Zach and she brightened up her face for a second, "We're about to head to Shibuya-"

"Zach," Tokoyami said. His voice was serious, and Zach glanced to his left at the shorter boy with a beak on his face. "What were you doing in there?"

"Nothing," Zach muttered. He grimaced as all of them started looking at him even more suspiciously and in pained ways like they did not want to have those suspicious looks. "I thought-" he started but stopped himself. He ground his teeth and darted his eyes back to the alleyway, then he lowered his head a bit and shadowed over more of his face with his hood. "It's nothing."

"It's not!" Kirishima exclaimed. "You've barely been at the dorm lately. And you're hanging out in-"

"I wasn't!" Zach snapped. He took a few deep breaths to calm himself right after shouting, and he darted his eyes to the other side of the street where a couple of people started looking over and recognized some Class A students. He looked back at Kirishima and looked like he just wanted to leave, but Kirishima glared at him and did not look to be about to let Zach leave. Zach's eyes got darker and he glared right into Kirishima's eyes while saying in a dark voice, "I thought I saw Kaminari."

The other students stared at Zach with their eyes opening wide, and Tsuyu spun back towards the alley with her eyes wide. "He wasn't there," Zach said quickly as he saw Tsuyu spin around. "I, I thought I saw him watching me. So I went in, and I checked around for him. I looked around for ten, fifteen, twenty minutes?" Zach ground his teeth while Tsuyu looked back and his friends started staring at him with wider eyes as he seethed in rage. "But he wasn't there, just like all the, other times." His eyes that had lowered down while he seethed it through his teeth rose up slowly and locked into Kirishima's wide eyes. "I hate him so much."

"Zach, he's not just-" Ashido started, but she stopped herself and pursed her lips. _Or is he? Is he watching you? He's always watching you! Always, messing with you. Is it actually good you're this paranoid? At least, I think it means you're being safe when you're out here. But, but if you thought you saw him-_ "If you thought you saw him," Ashido began softly. "You shouldn't have gone in on your own-"

"But I had to make sure," Zach whispered. "Because, it would seem crazy if I went around like the boy who cried wolf every time I imagined him watching me…" Zach shook his head and then frowned deeper at the group who made him say all this by confronting him. "Shibuya sounds fun. Enjoy it, I gotta run."

"Zach," Kirishima began. He stepped forward when Zach turned away from them, and he put a hand down on Zach's right shoulder. "You know we're all here for you, right?"

"Yeah sure, _'Kirishima.'"_

Zach said Kirishima's name as if putting up air quotes around it, and Kirishima almost let go of Zach's shoulder only to grip it tighter and spin him around. Zach's eyes widened and Kirishima snapped at him, "What the hell is that supposed to mean?!"

"Kirishima," Tokoyami began.

"No! It sounds like," Kirishima spun to Tokoyami, but then he glared back at Zach who turned his head and looked down at the hand gripping his shoulder. Kirishima did not let go just because Zach stared angrily at his hand though. "You really, think I might be a spy? You- you brought me back to life! They _killed_ me." Kirishima's teeth clenched hard and started grinding while Zach lifted his eyes and looked into his. "Tell me, you really think I could be a spy-"

"I think you could be a spy," Zach said. He lifted his left arm and pushed Kirishima's hand off his shoulder. He looked deeper into Kirishima's eyes and the redhead opened his wide at how serious Zach looked after saying that. "And if you were smart, you'd believe that I could be one too." Zach turned away and he started jogging. His eyes narrowed darkly as he ran off, and he opened his mouth to keep his breathing steady as much as his heart was racing after what he just said. _Sorry, Kirishima._

Zach's friends watched him run to the intersection and turn the corner. He was gone in a couple of seconds, and none of them had called out to him to stop him. Ashido looked in at Kirishima as he stood there with his face shaking in rage, his fists clenching so hard at his sides after what one of his best friends just told him. Kirishima closed his eyes tight for a second, _Fuck you! I, I'm trying! But you don't just, get a free pass to say whatever the hell you want!_ Kirishima snapped his eyes open and he took a step forward, but then he stopped and his hands unclenched at his sides. He stared towards the corner and his angry eyes started to lose some of the rage in them. _You really, think I could be a spy? I thought…_

Ashido lowered her gaze to the floor as she glanced around at the others with her. _Doesn't really seem like, a good mood for shopping._

* * *

"Yeah, I wasn't expecting it to be like…" Jirou paused and looked up at the ceiling above her. She glanced back down and finished with a tiny smile, "That. I just didn't think, she'd be so, so easy to talk to."

Yaoyorozu smiled at the girl sitting on the foot of her bed. Yaoyorozu was sitting on her own desk chair and she was so happy as she looked at her best friend and a smile that was the first one she had seen on Jirou's face in over a week. _Wow. This Softy sounds amazing. I wonder if Zach progressed as much as he… as he had, because of her?_

"I'm glad," Yaoyorozu said as Jirou's smile flattened back down for some reason. The taller girl was worried she had made a strange expression considering the thoughts she had just been having. She figured it could also be that Jirou was not really at the point where she could smile more than a few seconds at a time though. "I know I told you I thought it might be a good idea, but you can always come to me too Kyoka."

"I know," Jirou said and nodded at her friend who she did come up to talk to because she was feeling too stressed alone in her room. Alone in her room that she had been alone with Kaminari in too many times. Her talk with Yaoyorozu had been serious for a bit, but they also talked just about other things too that took her mind off of it. Jirou started another small smile and she got up off the foot of the bed. She walked forward and Yaoyorozu stood up before reaching froward so they could hug. "Thanks Momo," Jirou whispered while hugging her. Yaoyorozu had her hands on her back like she had in the basement of that Interrogation Building, and Jirou imagined how the first thing Momo had done when she had regained feeling was come to her side. "You're," Jirou started, then she stopped and pursed her lips.

The shorter girl pulled back from the hug and just said with an awkward look on her face, "Well, you know." She looked away while saying it, and Yaoyorozu smiled at her so brightly as Jirou seemed to be talking like normal at least. "Anyway," Jirou said, and she rose a hand and scratched the back of her head. "I'm gonna head back."

"Walk to class together tomorrow morning?" Yaoyorozu questioned before Jirou could even turn to the door.

The shorter girl nodded her head and then lifted her right hand in a small half-wave. She walked to Yaoyorozu's door and left her best friend's dorm room. Jirou closed the door behind her and then let out a sigh before turning her head left and looking down the girl's side of the floor back towards the stairs. The second she looked to the stairs, she felt a chill in her spine and froze where she was. Looking at those stairs, leading to the third floor, where Kaminari had lived so close to her for so long, it made her freeze with her eyes opening wide. _Damn it,_ she lowered her gaze to the floor.

Jirou clenched her fists at her sides. She thought about the reason she had to get out of her room in the first place. In her head was the day Kaminari had betrayed them, but before Zach had sent the message that Toga was in the school. She remembered leaving the nurse's office, and Zach walking in after her. As she got out she pulled out her phone that she had felt buzzing during her blood test near the end, and she had smiled at the text from her boyfriend. The blood she had just given was the farthest thing from her mind. Recovery Girl had seemed completely normal to her. She had told him she was coming back to the dorm, and she had asked if he wanted to come "hang out."

She closed her eyes in the hallway of the fifth floor with her hands shaking at her sides. What Kaminari had taunted her with in that basement echoed in her head, and Jirou thought about how she had checked that text while on her bed with Kaminari. How they had had their shirts off, when she had picked it up and realized that Zach was in the middle of fighting Toga. She had gotten scared, and when she suggested that he go back to his own room like the text said, he told her he wasn't going to leave her alone while the villains were at the school. It had been the most meaningful moment of their relationship since their kiss in the middle of a fight against villains during their internship. She hadn't known how far she was planning on going with Kaminari that day, but after he had said that to her… _**"If things had kept going for a bit longer, I really could have stolen something good from you…"**_

Jirou's clenched eyes clenched tighter as she thought about her bed downstairs, the one she was supposed to go back to right now. She opened her eyes and was about to start walking towards the stairs, telling herself that she could not be scared to be in her own room. She stopped though. Jirou glanced to her right and down the hall straight out from Yaoyorozu's door to the boy's side of the floor. In her head was the same basement, but she saw the boy behind that door in her head. _Zach. I've heard people talking about you like… like you got it worst of all. I, I understand though. I could help you-_ Kaminari's voice echoed in her mind again, _**"In that girl's voice when she read your letter aloud, I heard LOVE! So much love. She loved you so much, but it wasn't just her love that I heard. I was worried you had sent information about the League, but instead you just wanted to tell her you were alright? You wanted to tell her not to worry about you?! Oh she may have spoken in a voice that told me she loved you, but the words of your letter alone told me how much you loved her… And you can bet, I told Shigaraki as much!"**_

The girl standing there on the fifth floor shook her head around. _That's terrible. That's, just so…_ _**"I can't believe you didn't get their numbers,"**_ Jirou heard Kaminari all the way back when Zach did his sudden trip to Kyoto. _**"Guess you've already got a girl though huh? Bet Jenny wouldn't be too happy about that picture."**_ _The whole time. He, he knew. And when I asked him why he acted-_ She clenched her eyes shut again, _**"I didn't know it'd do that. They must have had a falling out or something…"**_ In Jirou's head she saw the reaction on Kaminari's face at the Sports Festival when Zach screamed that girl's name. She had felt horrible for him at that moment as much as she had for Zach, because she realized that he had been saying those things about Jenny since Zach had returned with no idea that she was dead and he was putting Zach through so much pain each time he mentioned her. _Unless, he really didn't know. Unless, that was the reaction, of someone who didn't really have that memory? No! Raijin, wanted us to see that face, so that we would think he was horrified for Zach's sake!_

 _ **"And I tried- I really tried to stop watching, so Shigaraki dragged a knife under my eye, and he dug it in…"**_ Jirou turned her body more to the right and started breathing faster while looking down towards Zach's door. _**"I thought, he was going to dig it out, so I had to open it again. I had to watch, knowing every second she lay there was a second closer to my time limit running out."**_ She started walking down the hall and took in a few deep breaths as she clenched her hands at her sides only to open them and then clench again over and over nervously. _**"And when I close my eyes! I see her burning! She was my age, but I always thought of her like a little sister…"**_

 _ **"I know his neighbor though, she's his best friend. More like, a sister I guess,"**_ Jirou saw Kaminari scratching the back of his head in confusion as to why Zach acted the way he did at the mention of Jenny's name. She heard Zach scream how she was like a sister to him, and then she saw Kaminari pressing his forehead into Zach's while looking down into his eyes from inches away. _**"I told Shigaraki as much!"**_

Jirou stopped at the end of the hall between halls, freezing before actually stepping into the boy's half and up to Zach's door. _What am I doing? I don't know, what to say to him._ She closed her eyes and pointed her head down at the floor, imagining her room two floors down. In her head she saw Zach's arms that morning, covered in bloody bandages he did not tell anyone about. She thought about how she did not have her phone anymore so she just went straight up to Momo's room to knock and talk to her, because she had thrown her phone away at what he said about his computer. Iida had requested from the school a new set of phones and computers for their entire class, and the order was supposed to come in by the next day so they were not going to be stuck like this for long. _Apparently we're going to be able to keep our phone numbers the same too_ … _**"I loved her, more than I knew I could ever love someone, and I only realized it as she screamed my name!" "JENNY!" "As she died, screaming out in agony yet still believing that I would come save her." "JENNY!" "Until her very last breath, she believed in me. And I failed her! I let her die!"**_

 **Knock** Jirou froze with her hand on Zach's door after knocking into it. _What am I-_

"Who is it?" Zach's voice asked, scratchy and deep showing he was in Nightmare mode.

Hearing him using that form in his own room, Jirou knew he knew how she felt more than anyone. She froze though. She froze because all the things she was just thinking about made her question whether or not _she_ understood what he was going through. "Um," Jirou began.

"Jirou?" Zach asked, and even his scratchy voice sounded surprised.

The two of them stood there on different sides of the door, and both of them immediately thought of a moment so similar that had happened to them once. Right after the first Sports Festival, when she had come to visit him at his apartment. His apartment was gone now though, and so were the two people who talked to each other that day. _Kaminari, made it so you felt you had to leave the Sports Festival. All the way back then even, and before it too…_ "Are you," Jirou started.

Zach closed his eyes and lowered his head on the other side of the door. He opened his red eyes and glared down at the floor for a second. _Don't. No. Shit. Shit!_ Zach rose his right hand up and he slowly pressed it into his chest as the girl on the other side of the door hesitated. _You don't deserve this. Just because, you and him spent a lot of time together doesn't mean- It just means you're like me. I know that. I know, how much you must be hurting._ Zach reached his left hand to the doorknob and opened it. _But Jirou, I can't- just because I need to help you, that doesn't mean I can just…_

Zach stared through his open doorway at the girl five inches shorter than him, who had entered school with him the year before looking the same height. "Hey Jirou," Zach said. He did not move out of his doorway, but he glanced behind her without taking his hazel eyes off of hers. The door stayed half-closed behind Zach and he was blocking most of his room from view, and since the lights were off the whole room was dark. A bit of light from the hall got in and Jirou saw under Zach's right hand he held on the door some papers on Zach's desk, but his arm lowered down and he moved a bit forward to look at her closer where she stood in front of him. "You alright?" Zach asked.

Jirou looked up into Zach's eyes, and a hurt expression came to hers. The way Zach just blocked his room off from her, as if trying to keep her out of it. "So you don't even trust me?" She asked quietly.

Zach looked down into her eyes from up close, and his expression stayed dark for a few seconds before he shook his head once slowly back and forth. "I get it," Jirou whispered. Zach's eyes started to widen as hers lowered to their feet. "Because I, eavesdropped on you. That night," Jirou lifted her eyes back up and into Zach's wider ones that he narrowed again but could not fill with anger while looking into her sad ones. "I'm sorry," she whispered.

"You already told me that," Zach began.

"Not, for listening to you that night," Jirou cut in. "But, because-" she paused and heard his voice echoing in her ears again as it did when she was on her way to his door. "Because I don't trust you either. Even though," she clenched her teeth so tightly thinking about those screams, and Zach froze with his bottom lip lowering down and his eyes bulging at the sight of the untrusting look that spread over Jirou's face. She pulled back from him a bit and narrowed her eyes, and then she said, "I heard you and Kaminari one day, when you were training for the Sports Festival in Ground Beta…" Jirou glared into Zach's eyes, and then a hurt look replaced the pained and untrusting one. "You told him- you suggested that he should ask me-"

"I didn't," Zach began softly. He stared down at Jirou in shock for a few seconds, and then he brought his left hand up towards his head to run it through his hair. He froze though with his hand half-lifted, because she darted her eyes to it for a second in a way that made him scrunch his face up.

"But you told him," Jirou whispered after seeing that look. "Not because you were, trying to make us close so he could- you did it because you could tell I liked-" she scrunched her own face up and her hands shook at her sides. "I know that. I know, you were just trying to help. And I know, because I can hear those screams when you were on the roof, and from the Sports Festival, even now. He did so much to you," Jirou looked so painfully up into Zach's eyes. "He, worse than me, he- he- and yet I still can't trust you. Why can't I?" Her lips started shaking.

 _When I've been brooding and pushing everyone else away, I've seen you. I, I am trying to distance from you all…_ Zach's eyes shifted to his right and down the boys' hall, then past Jirou and towards Yaoyorozu's door. _In class, you have the same look. You're trying to hide it. Because, you're, you've always been…_

"We were the two closest to Kaminari, I thought," Jirou whispered. "I just- I wanted to-"

Zach lifted his left hand out and placed it down on her right shoulder. He did it slowly, and then he squeezed there while looking down in her eyes. Her face tilted back and such pain filled her eyes, as Zach looked into them with an understanding look. She had come to help him, but Zach's hand comforted her more than she knew it could. The single look in his eyes, of understanding that no one else in the building could know. "I cared so much about him," she gasped at the boy looking at her in that understanding way. He nodded, and tears that were forming in her eyes spilled out the corners of them. "Why? Ah ah, why did he- ahh," Jirou was trying to keep a conversation going, but Zach's face matched her expression as she started getting emotional, and it only made it easier for her to start breaking down like this.

He lifted up his left hand and rested it on Jirou's cheek for a second, and he lifted his thumb and wiped a tear from under her eye. _I came here to help you!_ She yelled at herself after closing her eyes and just pushing her face into that hand for a second. She tried pulling away after thinking it, and Zach moved his hand only to brush off a tear from the other side of her face. She sniffled, and she opened her eyes partly to look at the black-haired boy in front of her who had barely said a thing since he opened the door. Yet without saying another word, Zach took another half-step forward and put the hand near her face behind her head, and he pulled her face down in his chest which allowed her to let out the rest of her tears. "Ahhhh," she sobbed, her voice muffled in his shirt. Zach felt his chest get wet through the fabric, and he put his right arm around Jirou though just pressed his forearm on her back and kept his hand past her other side carefully.

And as soon as Zach pulled Jirou in so she could cry with him, his understanding, sad, betrayed look faded. He looked out down the hall over her head and his eyes were dark. His arms held her in the same way, and his body did not give off any different feeling as he made sure it did not. Zach's eyes glared down the hall though and his lips curled down at the corners. _…When he's gone, it will be so much easier. It won't be much of a problem. What happens after, to me, is a different story. Media would split, people would too. Can't let anyone find out._ Zach felt Jirou start pulling back and his expression changed back while he looked down at her.

"Everything he told us," Jirou whispered, lowering her hands that she had grabbed Zach's sides with as he held her for a few seconds there. She sniffled and pulled back, before raising her own hand to wipe her eyes. She had to keep wiping though as tears formed again with what she was saying. "Every word of it. That we believed," she shook her head and her lips twisted as she bowed it a bit to the floor. "How he cared, how he thought I was, beautiful. He told me it, even though I never believed- and he talked about my music, my instruments like, he said they weren't girly but he was into, and he- he just, it was all a lie."

"He might've been lying," Zach whispered. _Don't lie._ He was not going to tell her that there may have been a real Kaminari in there the whole time. He could not do it just to make her feel better as he knew it wouldn't since he did not want to believe that himself. "But that doesn't mean it's all a lie."

Jirou pressed her arm tighter on her face, then her eyes opened behind her forearm as Zach said quietly, "Because you are beautiful." Jirou's eyes opened wide as she was not expecting to hear him say that, then she closed them again and started shaking her head as she knew he was just telling her what he thought she needed to hear. "I mean it. I always, thought so. And who cares if playing all those instruments isn't girly?" Jirou started lowering her arm, and she saw Zach frowning down at her. He had pain in his eyes, but he also looked mad at her as he looked into her eyes. "Being girly, it's overrated anyway. You're, you've always been, the coolest girl in the class."

 _Momo might be the strongest, the most beautiful, but I'm not lying Jirou._ "I think so, and, I'm not lying to you." Zach stared at her seriously and then said in a softer voice, "I promise. I'm not lying." Jirou's eyes grew wider and she stared at him in shock at what he just told her. "I wouldn't lie to you, not about stuff like that. You're cool, and pretty, and, you're strong. Don't let that bastard take that stuff away from you."

"Snn, I-" Jirou paused after sniffling in and starting to respond. She stared at Zach with her eyes wide, and then she shook her head around and rose her hands. She clapped her cheeks a couple of times before pursing her lip and giving Zach a small frown. "I wasn't going to. If he did that, then he'd win." Zach nodded back at her in a serious way, and then Jirou lowered her voice a little. She remembered why she thought she had come here, and she started quieter, "And you, don't let him take away what makes you, you." Zach's eyes widened a bit, and Jirou finished while turning away from him and towards the stairs. "Being the kindest, best person I know." She walked away instead of looking at Zach while she said it, so she missed the flash of pain that covered Zach's face as those words left her lips.

 _The kindest? You've seen me do, terrible things. You- why would you say that? Why did you have to say, something like that?_ Zach rose his right hand and pressed it into his forehead. Jirou tinted red in his vision as she kept walking away, while he slipped back into his room and closed the door.

* * *

Momo Yaoyorozu ran down the stairs after Todoroki. They hit the fourth floor and spun around to sprint down the next flight, and they saw Iida running out of the third floor below them and not saying a thing about everyone running in the stairwell. Jirou ran out behind Iida right as Yaoyorozu was reaching the floor, and Jirou shoved her new phone back in her pocket with her eyes still wide while looking up at her best friend. Yaoyorozu nodded seriously at her and then continued running down the stairs with Jirou at her side now.

"They're getting gutsier," Jirou said in a low voice as they ran to the second floor platform. "Even after the Sports Festival, having U.A. in the city is supposed to deter them."

 _I know what you are thinking Kyoka. U.A. has lost respect with Kaminari's betrayal, and crime in the city has increased because of it. But still, something like this…_ The girls ran out of the stairwell and over towards Todoroki and Iida who stopped behind the middle couch of the common room where all their classmates were gathering.

On the bottom of the screen showed a big label in all capital letters reading, 'HOSTAGE CRISIS IN MUSUTAFU.' There was a big "BREAKING NEWS" graphic on the top of the screen, and the actual image on the screen was from a cameraman in the central finance district of Musutafu. There was a twenty-three story building in the center of the camera angle, though a police perimeter outside of the building on the sidewalks and through the street as well as into the alleys on the sides of the building and presumably around the other side.

"I know that building," Sero said as he looked at the screen in surprise, running over behind Yaoyorozu and Jirou as he had been late to leave the fifth floor as he had to throw some clothes on first. It was after school and he had just gone to his room to relax when a bunch of messages ruined his afternoon. His eyes opened wide as the camera zoomed in on the third floor of the building, as a window just shattered and a villain was shown inside the office building with a woman grabbed in his right hand around the back of her neck.

"Oh my God," Hagakure whispered, her body shaking as she got up from the couch.

It looked like the villain might throw the woman outside, but he just shouted at the top of his lungs, "Anyone tries to come in, the hostages are dead!" The blue-skinned man threw the woman back behind him and she let out a scream of pain that reached the camera and made all the police and the heroes gathered outside start shouting. Some yelled up at the villain, others yelled around asking what the situation was, and the reporter started calling out fast about how the situation was in chaos.

"…around thirty minutes ago, a coordinated attack went on throughout the office building behind me. Inside are a multitude of different companies, with the most notable and largest inside being Friedman's and Reich, and Koyota. We don't know the exact numbers, but there are at least two hundred office workers trapped inside the building at this time. The first floor has been barricaded, all exits are sealed, and the villains have yet to give any demands."

"What are they doing?" Kirishima asked in confusion while staring closer at the building on screen.

"Why that building? Why not a bank or something?" Ojiro wondered.

"Maybe there's someone in particular, and the villains just took the whole building hostage because they panicked- or to hide who the real target is?"

"Why wait so long for demands, unless they don't know what they're doing?"

"If they don't have a plan, that may be even worse for the hostages."

"…Phone calls from inside the building to the police indicated different numbers for the amount of villains inside, but we know that there are at least ten from the descriptions and pictures we've received. Most of the windows on the higher floors have been covered however and we are currently in the dark as to the situation of the hostages. We believe their phones have been confiscated…"

Yaoyorozu stared closer at the screen as the reporter talked and her classmates hypothesized around her. _"At least ten?" And there are hundreds of hostages. This is something exactly like, what the answers in your report would prevent. These people need help from heroes though. They don't know how to use their Quirks, and heroes have to save them._ Yaoyorozu clenched her fists at her sides, _But in a scenario like this, what are the chances heroes can sweep the building and take out all the villains, without losing any of the hostages?_

Ashido leaned back on the couch and she ran a hand up through her wavy pink hair. "What are those people going to-"

The entire front of the office building changed color. All of the windows and the entire flat surface of the building from around midway up the second floor to a floor down from the roof changed color. A giant image covered the wall of the building so that the lines separating the windows behind it were somewhat visible, showing it was a giant translucent projection covering the wall. Cops and heroes and the reporter all stopped talking and looked up at the giant projection. In the projection there was a man with dark blue skin who everyone focused on despite what was behind him.

The man was clearly a villain, and the fact that he was the one in the center of the projection despite their being other villains in the room gave the feeling that he was the one in charge. He was bald but had short spiky bumps on his skull, his eyes were pitch black but with glowing blue irises a brighter shade of blue than his skin. He wore a black and red costume that was a lot more black than red, just with red highlights around his shoulders, waist, and knees. He had no sleeves so his blue muscular arms covered in the same short spiky bumps as on his skull were visible. Down on his waist were some weapons including a pistol holster and two sheaths that if the blades inside matched the leather holdings, they were long serrated knives.

"I am Killmore," the villain on the projection announced while everyone stared at him. "With the League of Villains."

"The League?" Jirou whispered quietly. Her eyes widened but her fists clenched at her sides a second later.

"And I have but one simple demand," Killmore said.

Behind him, there were a group of over fifty hostages all sitting on the floor. They weren't tied up, but there were three other villains around them who were wearing costumes, and only one of them was holding an assault rifle. The fact that they did not all hold automatic machine guns gave a sensation that they were strong enough that holding them was unnecessary. Some of the hostages looked bloodied and bruised in the group on the floor, and there was blood on those men's hands. None of the hostages looked up towards whatever was making the projection, which people were assuming was another villain considering how big the images were being displayed on the building in some mysterious way.

Killmore looked straight into his comrade's eyes near the windows of the third floor where the guy had pointed his hands back at. He smirked and he said, "If every member of U.A.'s second year class A comes here, I'll release the hostages."

"You've gotta be fucking kidding me!" Tetsutetsu screamed in Class B's dorm next door to Class A's.

Class A's dorm was a lot more quiet as the villain made his demand. They stared in shock at the screen and the man who kept smirking with such a confident and knowing look on his face. He leaned his head forward, his dark eyes narrowing and the right corner of his lip pulling up a bit. "Think it over kiddos. You've got thirty minutes. But hey, if these hostages' lives don't mean anything to you…" Killmore glanced back towards the hostages, then he turned his head and his smirk lowered down. His eyes got colder and he said in a lower tone, "Then maybe this'll get you to come. Raijin told me he let you know how he shot your old homeroom teacher, Eraser Head, in the back. But you want to know, who put the bullet in his head?"

Everyone in Class A started opening their eyes huge. Tetsutetsu leaned back from the tv in his own dorm with his jaw dropping and immediately regretting what he just shouted. The Class A students held their breath and they watched as the dark blue villain on the screen glared straight into whatever was projecting his face. The tv cameras were pointed straight at the projection, so Killmore was looking straight into their eyes as he opened his mouth again.

"That would be me."

* * *

 **A/N Thanks for reading. Hope you enjoyed the chapter. Leave a review below telling me what you think, comments, predictions, or questions!**


	91. Chapter 91

**Disclaimer: I don't own Boku no Hero Academia**

 **Chapter 91:**

"RAA!" Kirishima roared at the screen and then spun towards the front door of their dorm.

"That guy…" Hagakure whispered, putting her hands up over her mouth while staring at the smirking blue-skinned man on the screen.

The projection turned off and returned the wall of the office building back to normal, and Yaoyorozu's mind was racing as fast as her heart was. _It could just be a provocation. Kaminari did specify shooting Aizawa sensei in the back though. He, he didn't say he killed him!_

"Aizawa sensei," Tsuyu Asui whispered. She turned towards Kirishima who spun Bakugo's way and shouted at him that they should go right then.

Bakugo nodded back in a serious way, but Iida spun around looking at everyone with his eyes going wide. "Hold on everyone!" Iida called out. "We, we-" he knew what he needed to shout at them, but he found it hard as his classmates turned to him. The tall boy not wearing any glasses took in a deep breath and then narrowed his gaze straight towards Kirishima, "We do not give in, to the demands of terrorists."

"Iida!" Ashido called out, jumping up and looking at the class rep in shock. "All those people-"

"Mina," Yaoyorozu said in a stern voice towards her friend who spun in shock as she thought Iida was the only one against this. Yaoyorozu looked into Ashido's eyes apologetically but seriously too, "We have no reason to believe that this Killmore will follow-through with his promise. Listening to the demands of terrorists, tells other villains that their demands will be met if they take hostages. It lays precedent." Yaoyorozu looked back towards the screen herself towards the end of what she was saying. She grit her teeth so hard that the people about to complain to her froze because they could see that saying all that hurt her.

"We can't just do nothing!" Kirishima shouted as he saw too many people considering what the class reps just said.

"Those people, are relying on us," Tsuyu began, and the others around her looked over towards the shortest girl in the class. She clenched her fists tightly at her sides, then she continued, "But if we go now, after he talked about Aizawa sensei. It would be, about revenge. And we can't-" she closed her eyes too with such a pained look on her face. She did not want to say anything. And when she spun to Kirishima to agree with him at first, she realized why it was she was about to ignore everything else and say that they needed to go there.

Iida balled his fists even tighter as Asui mentioned revenge. He felt the pain of what he did going after Stain to avenge his brother, and Todoroki looked to his left and up at the taller boy who ground his teeth in anger at what he was about to say. "We must wait, for the teachers to- If we are told to go out there, then we will. But we cannot make the decision only with provisional hero licenses. They are meant so that we can act if we-" Iida saw others in front of him looking past him, over towards the stairwell that someone just came out of.

The only person not down in the common room already jogged from the stairwell towards the front door. Zach had on a black hoodie and black sweatpants, and the sweatshirt was big enough that it covered up his waist and the knives tucked into his belt. The front of his sweatshirt had a big pocket with a couple of grappling guns shoved into it too making big bulges that were not hard to figure out for his classmates. "Zach!" Iida called out when he turned and saw Zach standing at the front door. "You cannot go-"

"What are you talking about?" Zach asked in annoyance. He kept his gaze away from the rest of his classmates, just looking down at his shoes as he started sliding them on. "I'm going on a run." He paused and he clenched his teeth while looking up and glaring at the door in front of him. He had needed to go back to the dorm since there was stuff he wanted to do in his room before going on a run today after class, but this had happened so close to the end of school that he was still in there when he started watching the news on his phone. Zach closed his eyes as he remembered what the villain had said, and then he said in a lower voice, "Anyone want to come with?"

Zach turned his head to the right. He looked towards his classmates, and at the tv past them where a new label had covered the screen asking about Class A. The reporter was shouting about it, asking about the students who had just been arguing with each other over what to do. "Zach," Yaoyorozu began quietly, but she stopped as she saw the look in his eyes. She looked in his eyes, and then she lifted up her right hand to her chin and looked down at the floor. "I would like to come," Yaoyorozu said, lifting her head and nodding at her ex-boyfriend. Iida spun to her with wider eyes as she had just agreed with him a moment ago, but Yaoyorozu continued loudly, "If we were on a run, and we happened upon a crime, it would be our jobs as people with provisional licenses to step in and do something."

"Th-That's right!" Kirishima shouted. He did not really get what was going on there for a minute, but this sounded like a loophole. "If running is a good reason. Let's just, run that direction-"

"We'll run my normal route," Zach said while reaching for the doorknob. "I don't know what direction you're talking about Kirishima. We're not heading towards a crime… Everyone come," he finished in a quieter voice. Zach ran outside and he started sprinting towards U.A.'s main building. _This might not work. No one will believe it. It's a glitch in the rules, but people have seen me out and about the past week and a half. They've seen me just out and running. That's good. Those people will die if we don't go._ "Killmore's Quirk is Bloodsucker," Zach called out in a loud voice as he ran.

Midoriya ran up behind Zach and then up onto his right side. He glanced in at his darker haired friend and said in a soft voice, "Are you really alright to do this?" Zach was starting to shout at the others, and Midoriya's eyes had shot open for a second when Zach announced what Killmore's Quirk was, but he had to ask this before they left to go fight together. Zach glanced in at him, and Midoriya said in a serious but worried tone, "Are you _alright,_ to go out there right now?"

"I'm right in the head," Zach said to his friend who he had been trying hard to ignore for over ten days now. "Don't worry about me, worry about the people trapped in that building. Killmore will start killing them if we don't show up in time. He's one of the big shots. Been there for a long time." Zach started getting louder towards the end as a girl hopped up behind him, and Iida raced over on his left, and Bakugo sprinted up right behind Deku so he was also in Zach's view. "Bloodsucker means that he gets stronger the more blood his spikes take in. They don't look it, but they're covered in tiny pores that take in blood and fuel his Quirk. His main weapons are those spikes, but he uses two serrated knives too!"

"What about the gun?" Kirishima called up to Zach who he was trying to catch up to after putting his shoes on.

"Shouldn't we, have put our costumes on?" Mineta asked in a nervous voice while running as fast as he could after the class who had rushed out of their dorm without any more argument when Zach left. They all hoped that Zach's excuse would work, and there was no point in not testing it since it was only the rules holding them back. Mineta was scared, and he gulped after asking the question as he wished he at least had his costume to make him feel better about this.

Sato glanced over his shoulder while hopping on his right foot and trying to push his left foot down into his sneaker harder, since the back of it was pushed to his sole when he slid it on too fast. "We wouldn't be wearing costumes on a run. Since we aren't heroes going on patrol or anything, we're just happening upon… I mean, we're just going on a run."

 _Will saying that really make a difference?_ Jirou wondered while running after Zach's back that just kept getting farther from her since he was too fast and running at his top speed. _It will be pretty obvious we showed up in order to stop Killmore from killing the hostages. If we say it like that though, then the villains were given what they asked for. If we just show up running there, then even if it's a lie and they don't release the hostages, we didn't give them anything. We just showed up to help because we were nearby and have provisional licenses! This, this could-_

 _This_ _ **has**_ _to work,_ Zach thought. _The League, is still too confident. They do whatever they want. They win too often, even with their organization breaking up a bit. Shigaraki was the only real winner in Mosu Esupa._ Zach clenched his fists tighter and he glared towards the upperclassmen of the hero course. Five of them were standing out on the road ahead of him, and he shouted their way, "I'm going on a run! Just a quick run around the city!"

"You can't stop us from running!" Bakugo shouted at the girl in the middle of the group of three who was known as the strongest student in U.A., and who he had interned with a few weeks ago.

"You know how much I like to run, right Nagiso?" Zach snapped, and he sprinted straight ahead with no sign of stopping. The boy a year older than him who opened his mouth to call to the younger students froze. He stared at the kid from his middle school who he had not spoken to once since he got in. They never liked each other. Nagiso never liked him, especially when the kid was a second year in middle school and became their cross country captain over him. He hated the kid getting so much attention, and he knew Zach was lying about not having a Quirk that whole time. Nagiso glared down at Zach though, and then he stood there and did nothing as the boy ran right up to his side and past him.

"Hold back," Fera Indago said, looking around at the others with her who did not realize what they were doing still standing there when they had come out to stop the brash Class A from leaving. Indago turned her head and the girl with short blonde hair down to her shoulders stared at the boys at the front of the group who had already run past. _Do they have a plan? A way, to make this alright? I hope they do. The people need you. And not just the ones in that building._

"You know that guy Zach?" Kirishima asked while glancing back over his shoulder when they were past the third-years. "Never heard you mention-"

"Focus on _running,_ Kirishima," Zach said. _What could Killmore's plan be? He mentioned Raijin, so is this his plan? Why did Kaminari shoot Aizawa sensei in the first place? If you were there for it, was it to help you out? So is this to repay him? I could see Kaminari having planned this out. This could definitely, be a trap. It is. But that doesn't mean, we can ignore it._

Zach ran straight to the back door of U.A. High School. Midoriya glanced up and to the left towards the city of Musutafu, _We have to hurry._ He still ran in after Zach though, instead of jumping straight up in the air to try and reach that building as quickly as possible. _All Might could go in there and stop all the villains, save all the hostages…_ _I'm not All Might though. Doing that, risking it when Killmore said he'd release the citizens if all we did is show up- even if we can't believe him! We still have to go for it!_

 _That bastard looked so confident,_ Bakugo sprinted into the school but did not go past Zach. He glanced down at his arms for a second that he was not putting his new stabilizers on over. _Did he expect us to come up with this idea? No, he probably wants us sent to him. What is his plan? Fuck! Whether he knew we would come or not, he's still in control. He looked so fucking cocky. Why? They're surrounded, so it has to be the portal bastard._ As much as they were villains who were known to do crazy and stupid shit, Zach had called Killmore one of the "big shots" and that meant a few things. One, they could assume he was not a villain who was going to be sacrificed for a plan of the others. Two, even if he were being sacrificed, it did not look like he thought that was so, so the villains believed they had an escape route already which meant even trapping them inside the building did not mean the heroes had any control.

The fact that Zach knew the villain's name, his Quirk, how it worked, a few of his classmates questioned it while they were running to U.A.'s school building. They questioned it, but they did not linger on the question. They were just glad Zach had that information for them, and most of them assumed it was info he had procured while spying on the villains during his time as Lifebringer. Yaoyorozu, Midoriya, Bakugo, and Mineta knew differently. They suspected Zach had fought by that villain's side before, and they were not wrong.

 _Killmore, you killed Aizawa sensei? I know, you're strong. But Aizawa sensei was… It was because of Kaminari. He must have caught Aizawa sensei off guard to help you, but you. You killed him. I believe that._ Zach steadied his look as he ran around a corner and stared up ahead. Near the front of U.A., Midnight, Mother Russia, Present Mic, and Ectoplasm were all gathered and the principal was right in the middle of them. Principal Ono had on a black suit but the others were all in their hero costumes as they wore to work. They looked towards the students, and the seconds the kids saw them it was clear the teachers had been waiting there for them.

"Students-" the replacement principal began.

"Principal Ono," Zach called out before the man could say anything else. "Could I go on a run?" The principal's face covered in confusion, as did the teachers around him who stared towards the group of students that was getting bigger as the ones at the front slowed down and the rest ran around the corner behind them. "Everyone wanted to come with today," Zach added.

"You didn't… see," Present Mic slowed down as that was obviously not the case with the looks he saw on those students' faces. He frowned and he thought about what he had seen on the news just a couple minutes ago.

"See what, Present Mic sensei?" Zach asked. He asked sounding confused, yet in his question was a clear tone telling Mic not to respond. "We're just going on a run." Zach slowed down more and looked straight to the principal who was thinking fast while staring at the boys at the front of the group. Zach looked into the balding man's eyes and said, "So, can we go running?"

The right corner of Mother Russia's lips curled up as she looked down the hall and finally saw the last of the twenty students she was looking for. _Good._

"Sir?" Midnight wondered, looking to her left at the principal in a questioning way. The four heroes around the principal all knew the situation, and they were as constrained by the rules in this situation as the man who could make the final decision was.

Mr. Ono stared ahead at the students wearing casual clothes and running shoes. _If we send them out in their costumes, it was U.A. sending the students to fight the villains. Because the villains made the demand, we sent these children to go fight them in what is clearly a trap. It is not something I can do. I wouldn't send them there… but, if they choose to go there themselves._ The principal nodded his head once. _I saw all of you during your internships. It is not just the rest of the country who believes in you. Make the right decisions. I will take whatever heat may fall on me for this, because I am going to put my trust in you._ "Very well. You still have to be back by nine, Sazaki. That goes for the rest of you too," Mr. Ono looked over Zach's head and around at the students who stared at their principal with wide eyes as he granted permission. "You must all be back here by nine. Understand? You must come back."

"Got it, yeah," Zach said while sprinting forward. There was no time for sentiment or epic goodbyes or anything. _We have to run fast!_ Zach sped by the principal who turned after the boy in the front with a small frown as he rushed over what was actually him being very serious right there.

The rest of the students started running after Zach too though. Ono watched all of them running by him, and he turned his head to the left, "Mother Russia, Ectoplasm. The two of you are on break. You can go on patrol or, something."

"Yeah. I haven't been watching the news, so I hope there are some villains around," Mother Russia slammed her fists into each other and then turned. "I'll go let Geezer know." She flew off and sped past all the students who glanced up at their teacher flying out of the front doors and straight towards the gates of U.A. Mother Russia landed next to the security guard who actually did not know what was going on and was just standing around as per usual. He got a confused look on his face as she told him all of Class A had passes to go on a "run," but he nodded at the pro hero in red who flew off right after saying it.

Ectoplasm flew off after the class, zipping by the side of most of the group and then cutting to the left after leaving campus. He and Mother Russia were both fast, faster than Zach who continued to run at the front of the group even as the fastest members of the class ran up near him.

Back at the front of U.A. High School, Present Mic snapped at the temporary principal, "Why not? We don't know how many villains-"

"You're looking for revenge, Present Mic," Ono said in a dark voice while turning and looking at the taller man. The chubby principal with thinning hair over his head glared deep into Hizashi Yamada's eyes, and the blond hero pulled his head back with wider eyes at the principal's gaze. "But more than that, this could be more than a trap for Class A. The villains would know that we would never send away even our most promising class without sending some faculty as well. I am putting U.A. on full alert starting in a minute, after I see the news report."

Midnight stared at the principal with her eyes wide, then she grinned ear to ear at his statement. For the first time she saw him in a bit of a different light she would not before because of how upset she was over Principal Nezu's suspension. She grinned, and in her head she could imagine a press conference where they all pretended to be clueless. _The students' parents might be upset, but they're heroes now. Getting called out by villains. It's the League vs Class A, and you all know what that means. The hostages, stopping the League's plans, everyone watching, it's all important. Prioritize the… Well, I know you all know what to do._

 _It's not even been ten minutes. We have thirty. Killmore could get impatient though and start killing early._ Zach looked over his shoulder and he slowed down a bit.

"What are you doing?" Bakugo snapped to his left as he was almost running past Zach now.

Zach had his hood down bunched up behind his neck. He looked around at his classmates behind him while slowing into a jog to make it easier for everyone to stay together in one big group. Iida looked back when he was able to slow a bit too, and he still was not using his Quirk as much as he knew he was holding back and could get there faster. _Is this really the right call?_ Zach thought while his eyes darted around his classmates. _I haven't made any plan or anything, but everyone followed me. I told them to, because Killmore said we all had to be there. I can't be the one who comes up with the plan though. Someone else, has to do it. We still don't know what's going to happen when we get there though. We don't know, what Killmore wants with all of Class A._

"Zach," Midoriya started, and Zach looked back forward and to his right at the green-haired boy running closest to him. "Whatever happens, we'll stick together. We do this together."

"When we arrive, we will report to the senior hero in charge," Iida said loudly too, and Zach glanced to his left at the taller class rep.

Zach stared at Iida's face and specifically his lack of glasses. A surge of confidence filled him and he looked back forward, "And when we report, we all have to be really surprised that there's something going on." It sounded comical, and a few of the students behind Zach smiled for a second even as it sounded like Zach was telling a joke. He was serious though. As much as it did not matter one bit, it would matter in hindsight. He had done enough wrong and looked back on small things that got him in so much trouble that he knew how to avoid it.

 _Something as unimportant as permission. As the reason we're there. It does make a difference. To heroes, it's everything. Because this is all within the rules. We know what's right, and we know what the rules are. Finding a way to win while staying within the rules is what makes a hero._ Zach picked up his pace a little more and he jogged like it was just a normal run off campus. _If people saw heroes breaking the rules, ignoring the laws they uphold, why would they feel that they have to follow them? Our society is filling with villains, but it had been over-saturated with heroes. With the decrease in heroes, one would expect the amount of social order to decline as well, but it hasn't. The heroes who remain are better. Elite. And new heroes added to the ranks pick up the slack. This society is strong, stronger than I usually admit. It's because it's so strong that despite the major events, things haven't changed quickly. I thought they needed to change to stop the villains, but that was wrong. The problem isn't with society. It's not with, the things that constrained me. But there are problems. Huge problems. Like these villains thinking they can do whatever they want, and get away with it just because… Game face._

"What's going on over there?!" Ashido called out super-dramatically.

"Oh my God!" Hagakure also exclaimed, at the top of her lungs.

Zach spotted the reporter he was looking for. He saw her, and he watched the cameraman with her as the camera started turning. His eyes left the cameraman right before the lens would have been on him, and his eyes went up to the office building in a confused way. He looked up towards it and then down and towards Mother Russia who had landed a couple of minutes ago and started talking to the police and the number 5 ranked hero. All of them turned as a boy called out to them, "Sensei! What's going on here?"

Kamui Woods looked over towards the students and his eyes opened wide in shock at the question and the look on Sazaki's face. He looked behind the boy too as he heard similar calls out and shocked, confused looks on U.A. students' faces. There were way too many of them though, and Kirishima could not help but be smirking as he glared up towards the building full of villains who had called them out. A few of them also looked nervous, and some were not as into selling that they did not know what was going on for the cameras, instead looking more serious like Shoji, Tsuyu, and Tokoyami.

Bakugo sold it pretty well though, as he snapped at their teacher, "You're blocking the sidewalk. We're trying to run here." Mother Russia turned directly to Bakugo and looked into his eyes, and he looked back into hers with an annoyed look but also a hidden smirk as there was no way she was going to scold them right there. He was just trying to sell it for the cameras after all, and he could tell he was going to pay for it later but always wanted to talk to their homeroom teacher like that.

 _Smart-ass._ "Good thing you're all here," Mother Russia said, and the camera spun to point towards her while the reporter in front of it started gawking at the exchange going on in front of them. "There's a hostage situation. The villains apparently made a demand that if you all come out here, they'll release the hostages."

"Well it's a good thing we happened to be running around here," Iida said. Zach nodded seriously yet thought at the same time, _This must look ridiculous._ Iida continued, "Since we're here, we should help too. We all have provisional hero licenses after all that allow us to take part in-"

 _You're overdoing it._ Everyone around Iida thought at the same time, including the cops, the cameraman, the reporter, and the villains and hostages inside the building who were watching the news.

Mother Russia actually cut him off as he tried to explain how their licenses worked, "Fine. Stay there. We'll let him know you're here," she turned her head and looked at Kamui Woods who spun to the Russian woman with a look asking 'is this for real?' "And let's hope he keeps his word and releases the hostages." Mother Russia finished, and the pro hero in front of her stopped staring in as much surprise. Kamui Woods glanced to his side at all the kids, then he turned to the police captain who had a megaphone in his hand that he had been using to call up to the third floor where they had last seen Killmore, not that he was responding.

"What if they don't release the hostages?" Hagakure whispered to her right at her boyfriend.

Ojiro wore a plain white t-shirt and a pair of red shorts with his thick tail sticking out behind him. He shook his head at Hagakure's question, because he had no idea. "It depends, on what the villains are planning."

"Do you guys think," Ashido began in a soft voice. She gulped while looking at the twenty-three story building, then she asked in a steadier voice, "Kaminari might be in there?"

They had all heard Killmore say Raijin's name. It sounded like he was talking about him like he was not there, but then again that could be a part of the villains' plan. Jirou looked back and to her right, and Ashido looked back into her eyes with an apologetic gaze for a second. "Let's hope he is," Jirou said after looking back hesitantly at Ashido herself for a second. The pink girl opened her eyes wide, and Jirou finished quietly, "We'll catch him for sure if he's in there."

The others were mostly surprised by the way Jirou was talking. She had looked depressed and brooding for most of the past two weeks. She had a confidence in her eyes though now, and she looked back and up at the office building with her eyes narrowing and her lips curling into a serious frown.

"What a surprise!" The reporter spun to her camera and started after hearing a voice in her earpiece telling her to get reporting again. A smile spread over her face and she continued, "The students of U.A.'s second year Class A were, on a run when they happened upon the scene." It was not what her boss back at the news room just told her to do. In fact, the man yelling in her ear right now shouted that she had to question if those kids really wanted them to believe that they had no idea this was going on. She decided to help out with what she realized was going on though. "It's not submitting to terrorist's demands, just some new heroes coming to join the operation they just happened to be around."

No one believed it. No one cared. But the fact that they were trying at all meant something; it was a notion, an ideal that the students were upholding in front of the nation. Killmore frowned at the tv in front of him and the smiles he saw on those students' faces that matched the reporter's. _Not what I was expecting, but it doesn't matter. Choosing to do it like this, you had to leave your costumes behind. You're going to regret that, brats._ Killmore lifted a hand up and pressed it against a headset he was wearing in his right ear. "Let 'em go."

The front doors of the office building opened up, while Kamui Woods was in the middle of shouting into a megaphone up at the building that they had met Killmore's demands. The front doors opened, and then a door to a stairwell in the middle of the left wall of the lobby opened and people started running out into it. The lobby itself had a couple of villains inside, one near the door and the other at the back on the other side where the back doors had been blocked by a thick goopy black substance. The woman back there was not the one who made the goop herself, as that villain had to go around through the building to block off the rest. The woman was one who had shot up in the air when the villains did their coordinated strike inside the building though, and some of the people running out of the stairs looked towards her and got terrified looks in their eyes at the smirk on her face. "If you're too slow," she started lowering her gun that was pointed up, and the hostages started trampling each other to get out of the building faster.

The heroes and cops outside looked into the lobby with wide eyes behind the first hostages running out. The woman who just made the threat started laughing, while the guy closer to the door roared at the hostages who fell, "GET UP!" Some of their fellow hostages had tried helping them, but his angry shout just made them want to run faster instead of helping each other. The camera pointed towards the building, and the panicked and terrified expressions of the hostages, including some bloodied ones in the mix. Everyone who was smiling lost those looks at the sight of their faces. The police started shouting at the freed hostages to come to one specific area, and they yelled asking if any of the villains were trying to sneak out with them to get all the office workers to calm down and not act too erratic.

Mother Russia floated up and looked down through the glass windows all over the wall of the first floor. She stared through the open doors and at the villain inside who was six feet tall, muscular, wore an all-black costume, and had the horns and tail of a bull. The man glared up towards her after noticing her glare, and he glared straight back into the Russian woman's eyes. Mother Russia glared harder, and he glared harder still back at her. The look in his eyes was all she needed to see as she looked him over. _That's no grunt. It seemed like a small team to do something this big, when the League has brought so many villains to other attacks. They do missions like this too though. With an elite team. Coordinated enough to take over an entire building. Planning something we don't yet understand._

The light-blonde haired teacher shifted her eyes towards her students for a quick second and then back at the building in front of her. _Good, block each other. Keep out of sight of both the building and the camera._

The two she was thinking at were farther on the inside of the group of Class A students. They were blocked, both Jirou's earphone jacks she had plugged into the ground right next to her feet, and Shoji's ears that he created on his lowest arms and that Sato and Sero were keeping mostly out of sight. Mother Russia turned back from her students quickly, and her eyes narrowed right before the ox-like villain started smirking more up at her and backing away from the doors. "Go," the man growled to his right at the last hostages, some of whom were helping others with bloody faces or who twisted their legs or ankles running down the stairs and through the office.

"That's not…" Mother Russia grumbled. She glared at the last hostages running out of the door, then the bull man opened his mouth and blew towards the doors which slammed them shut. Glass cracked on the front doors and gave the man on the other side a scary appearance split by cracks. Mother Russia looked around at the hostages being led to one side of the police perimeter away from the students in Class A. Some of those hostages called out yells of gratitude towards the children who had come to free them, but those students were not looking back towards them.

Kamui Woods' eyes narrowed a lot and then shifted back to the office building in front of him. He rose up the megaphone in front of his mouth and yelled into it, "Killmore!" It was a villain Kamui Woods had heard about before, though not one he had ever met himself. The fifth ranked hero in the country yelled into his megaphone, "That's not all of the hostages! I counted sixty two!"

"What is he playing at?" Bakugo snarled, glaring at the building and around at different floors. He wondered which of those windows the villains were watching them all out of, which had holes in the black that they could not see from down at the street level. _They made it so going in from the first floor is the obvious choice. What is blocking the windows? Where are the hostages? They're not messing around…_ Bakugo's eyes started to widen as he lifted his gaze up and above the building across the street from the office the hostage crisis was going on in.

Everyone looked up at the same time, and they watched as a man covered in orange flames started dropping out of the air with flames coming out of his soles to slow his descent. He stopped making those flames come out while still a good distance from the ground, and he landed right in the middle in front of the police perimeter. He landed on Kamui Woods' left, enough feet away that the hero covered in wood did not have to pull away at all. "Endeavor," Kamui Woods began. Then he looked down at the megaphone, before nodding at the Number 1 hero who nodded back and rose his right hand to catch it when Kamui Woods tossed it to him.

"Hey Todoroki, your dad's here. Think everything will be alright?" Ashido asked while looking next to her at the boy with white and red hair.

Todoroki looked over towards his dad and just stayed quiet which made the pink girl get a bead of sweat on the right side of her face to match the one on the left. _Dad, isn't All Might. There were supposed to be over two hundred hostages inside. Why only send out sixty two? Why that number specifically? Or is it not about the number, but just- is it about showing us that he stays true to his word? That he is willing to release hostages, if we do what he says? Which means there are other demands._

"Villains! This is Endeavor!" Endeavor shouted at the building with his voice thundering louder than Kamui Woods' did. "Send out the remaining hostages. You have gotten what you asked for-"

A giant projection shot up over the whole building again. Inside, a villain with the Quirk: Projector, had covered up his top right of his four eyes. Killmore appeared in the center of the projection and called out, "Thank you for coming. I don't remember inviting you though, Endeavor."

"Release the rest of the hostages!" Endeavor demanded in a booming voice.

"I said I'd release the hostages, I didn't say I'd release all of them," Killmore smirked and then he stepped to the side and the projection showed a different office space than the one he had been in last. It was a lot darker than before too without any natural light coming in. They did not know if he was still on the third floor anymore, though all the windows from the second floor up now had been covered by something that looked black from the outside looking in. So on one of the floors in that building between the second and the twenty-third story, there were a group of fifty or so hostages tied to office chairs with plastic explosions attached to their binds that were blinking with red lights.

 _That's still not all of them,_ Zach thought, while staring closely at the explosives and the people they were strapped to. He did not take the moment of hesitation and shock that everyone around him did when they saw the hostages all ready to blow with C4.

"The remaining hundred and sixty hostages have been split up around this building, guarded by members of my elite team," Killmore began. The dark blue villain with spikes all over his scalp and arms chuckled darkly and then said in a low voice, "Let's see what the famous U.A. Class A can do." The students outside of the building stared at the villain with wider eyes, and others all over the area started turning towards them as the man continued, "Send in Class A alone, or I'll start killing hostages. If any hero not a member of that class enters the building, I blow half the hostages to kingdom come with the press of a button. And trust me, any tricks will not be tolerated." Killmore grinned and asked in a twisted tone, "Do I need to prove to you how serious I am about this?" He looked over towards the hostages strapped to chairs and he reached down for the holster on his side.

 _There's no time!_

 _We have to go now!_

 _This is a trap!_

 _It's definitely a trap…_

 _We won't let you!_

Class A sprinted towards the building. Ectoplasm took a step forward, but Mother Russia put a hand down on his shoulder. He spun to her and the darker hero said in a furious voice, "It's a trap-"

"They know," Mother Russia replied. She looked straight towards her class and continued, "But they're going in anyway." Ectoplasm's white eyes grew wider and he spun back to the building.

Not far from Ectoplasm and Mother Russia, Endeavor took a step forward and his eyes focused in on the back of a boy with white and red hair who never looked back. _Shoto. Protect your classmates, and yourself._ Endeavor lifted the megaphone and shouted, "There will be no need for that, villain!"

Killmore froze on the projection and he cracked a big grin, and his hand moved from the holster over to one of his blades. His other hand moved down and grabbed the other knife, and he whipped them both out and flipped them in his grasp before slashing against each other to make sparks fly. He turned around and looked at the floating eyeball that projected his appearance over the entire office building's outer front wall. "Good. Now I said the rules, and you sent in your heroes in training, but you still don't know why you're doing this. The answer is simple. Because for some reason, even though one of those kids was actually one of us this whole time, you still believe in them for some reason! In a stupid ideal, in a school that has made so many mistakes…"

"What if they just blow up the building as soon as we're all inside?" Mineta asked nervously as they ran towards the front doors. The villains who had been on the first floor went running for the door to the stairwell while Killmore was still in the middle of speaking, so the lobby of the office building was empty for them.

 _There's no time for caution. Killmore, villains, they're insane. At any minute one of them might just kill a hostage at random. They have enough._ Zach ran inside without hesitating, though his eyes darted around every corner of the lobby as soon as he was in. _No explosives. No villains. The trap is where people can't see us. Traps. Multiple. Killmore's talking about breaking the lingering faith in Class A. People hope Kaminari was a fluke, and maybe he's annoyed by that and that the news isn't constantly talking about it as much as they had been. I could see that. After so long, Kaminari's upset by the amount of time it took for other things to take over the news, so that his betrayal is a side story now. He might've even told Killmore to mention him. FUCK! Focus. Kaminari might not be here. He's probably not, or he'd be the one projecting himself on that screen. I know he's smart enough that he could have a plan where he isn't the one in charge here… but he's a sociopath. He spent too long trapped unable to do a thing, unable to show off how much he's winning. Where is he? WHERE ARE YOU?! FOCUS!_

"There's no one on the floor above us," Shoji started. "But a very large group of people are gathered on the third floor. At least fifty people, though they've been split up in different rooms."

"Two more just ran onto the third floor," Jirou continued quickly, having a more exact idea of what was going on and speaking quickly and loudly to let everyone around her know. "The two we saw down here on the first floor just went in- they told the other two that we're coming and then split up to go guard the groups of hostages in teams of two. One group is on the far- north side," Jirou pointed a hand forward to the opposite side of the building as the one they ran in on. "Other is in the southeast corner. Then the next group is up on the sixth floor, but- but on the fourth floor I hear someone. He's alone," her eyes darted towards the stairwell door, "and he's close to the stairs. Sounds like he's hiding his breathing so he can jump out at- Hold on." Jirou covered her ears and listened closer, trying to separate certain conversations and noises from others as best she could.

Shoji's eyes widened too and a mouth appeared above one of his ears. "They're talking about how they're going to escape. They're planning on using Warp Gates from the roof-"

"No," Jirou countered. Shoji turned towards her, and she shook her head while saying, "They're saying that loudly, and around the hostages. I just heard two of them whispering, about the fifteenth floor extraction…"

Midoriya's eyes darted around the group of Class A students. Some of them were already panting, others had sweat on their faces. Bakugo was holding himself back from sprinting straight at the stairwell. Todoroki looked up at the ceiling, letting out a cold breath but frowning as Jirou and Shoji started explaining in closer detail the exact location of the villains in proximity to their hostages. Iida lowered his head for a second and brought a hand to his chin, and Yaoyorozu held her hands out and created more and more earpieces while calling out at her classmates to grab them. A bird flew down and into the doorway Koda was holding open, then the shy boy ran forward from the entrance and called out in a high-pitched voice to his classmates, "There's another group of hostages on the twelfth floor!"

"Let's go already," Bakugo snapped, and he sprinted for the stairwell. He lifted his right hand without looking back as Yaoyorozu called out his name, and he snagged the earpiece from midair and shoved it in his ear with a grunt. Some of them wanted to tell him not to rush ahead in a situation like this, but they did not know what the villains were going to do if they just stayed down in the lobby. Killmore had not told them many specifics, and he was just shouting about League of Villains ideology on the projection outside. The students of Class A knew villains, and they knew the most dangerous thing was leaving the hostages in these psychopaths' hands for any longer than possible.

They sprinted at the stairwell and Zach fumbled with the earpiece he was trying to get in his right ear and stay as it kept slipping out when he sprinted while putting it in. _I don't know- I want to say something._ Zach opened his mouth…

"Todoroki, run in front," Midoriya said while everyone ran for the stairwell clustered together. Bakugo glanced back, and he grit his teeth but slowed down for a second as Deku made a plan, like he always did. "Go straight to the fourth floor faster than the rest of us and wait until we're running past the third floor…."

Zach looked next to him at Midoriya and his eyes were wide. His friend started calling out a plan, one that sounded so amazing that Zach's breath picked up and he looked forward at the bottom of the stairs he was about to run up with a shaken expression. _I, I'm not the one to make the call. When it's in the moment. I never am. I, I make plans. I can do it, when it's long term. I can plan things out far in advance and make them go in my favor. But the obstacle course… and in real situations too. USJ, I couldn't make the right call. The final exam, the training forest, Camino Ward, fighting Hunter… So many times, I've failed when I'm thrust into a situation. When things happen spontaneously, and I'm not in control of them! But you're always fast to react. Always fast to plan anyway._ Zach looked next to him at his friend while they ran past the second floor together, then he looked up towards Todoroki who ran faster speeding to reach the fourth floor before they even hit the third.

 _In Mosu Esupa. I, I should have shot Dandy, or killed him sooner! I knew he was going to use Apocalypse but I couldn't, and because of that we were all preoccupied and let Shigaraki and Dabi get away with the Apocalypse. If Dandy was dead, and Midoriya, Wonderlass, Bikergang, and me! If we could have focused on the League of Villains, they might never have escaped that Trigger lab! I failed in making the decision because I couldn't improvise! But you Midoriya, this is where you shine. It's where you excel the most. So I won't interfere. I can't, because I'm not the guy…_

Midoriya's voice filled each of their earpieces. All of Class A started running past the third floor doorway making a lot of noise and the two villains on the north side smirked looking into the hall and towards the door to the stairs. One of them was in the doorway of the office, the other was farther back towards the wall, leaning back on a desk pushed aside like all the rest. Four cubicles were turned in between that villain and the main door, the hostages were all tied up and strapped to chairs or desks around him, and he had a cigar in his mouth while lifting his hands with long steel blades extending out of each of his fingernails. The man at the door held an assault rifle in either hand, and he breathed out a breath of thick gray smoke and smirked despite a bead of sweat on the side of his face.

 _ **KA-DOOOOF**_ The entire building shook violently, and the two villains on the north side of the third floor stumbled around while snapping their heads up in shock as the whole ceiling covered in ice.

 **"First, Todoroki sets off his biggest ice attack. It'll be on the fourth floor to stop the guy planning on ambushing us. He'll make it big enough to shake the building, and in that moment of distraction when the villains on the third floor look up, those four move in…"**

The third floor door blasted open. The man in the doorway of the north side office started lowering his head back down, while the fastest of the group who sped through Bakugo's explosion while crossing his arms turned to his left. The red flames coming out of the back of Iida's Engines turned blue, "Reciproburst!" The villain trying to raise up his arms and the guns in them was slammed straight into by a six foot tall boy who wrapped his arms around the villain and tackled him out of the doorway, making a clear shot for the white tape that flew over his back and into the man with steel blades coming out of his fingers. The man was not ready to try and slash the tape, and Hanta Sero wrapped up his arms to his body and then yanked back towards himself at the same time.

The villain getting yanked towards the door got pulled right over Iida and the villain who the teen had tackled so hard he dropped his assault rifles. The man getting pulled to the door glanced down at his buddy, his cigar falling out of his mouth as he got ready to yell at him to get up. The man's head started lifting back up though, as he saw a tail slam into a wall in front of him and to his right, and then on the wall to his left as Mashirao Ojiro bounced onto the other wall before flipping and slamming his tail down on the villain's head. He slammed the villain as Iida rolled off of the man he tackled so hard that they slid a few feet, and Iida still had the wind knocked out of him as he did not have his armor to protect from slamming into things that hard. He had prepared himself for the impact though, so he was able to move unlike the man he tackled who was slammed into by his comrade, before both of them started getting wrapped up by more white tape.

"What's going on over there?" A muscular man with the horns of an ox snapped, and he put a hand over his right ear to shout it again louder. "What the Hell are you-"

"Bull!"

Bull spun at the sound of Drawheart's shout, and his eyes opened huge at the sight of who just came flying through one of the only two entrances to their room. It was the farther one from the stairs, and he spun towards it in shock that from the time of that explosion to now, someone had been able to reach them. He swung his thin tail behind his body and rose up his muscular arms, and he pursed his lips into a small 'o' shape to blow wind from. Drawheart lifted up her hands with pencils in them and started drawing shapes in the air so fast that her hands looked like blurs.

Bakugo came out of his spin through the air out of his own explosion, and he had a mad grin covering his face that looked furious as much as terrifying. _FUCKING DEKU!_ He was pissed he had been sent at the very first floor, especially after hearing Deku just mention how the guys who were stronger and more important to the League were probably staying closer to the fifteenth floor in order to ensure they escaped. Bakugo's eyes focused though as he spotted a group of hostages look towards him, gags in their mouths and binds strapped with C4 wrapping around them.

The villains looking towards the sixteen year old who was one of the most famous students of Class A started opening their eyes wide as the kid's face turned solely terrifying though that fury was still on it. "Oi," Bakugo flipped over in midair as he lowered in his arc, and he roared, "DIE!"

In the stairwell, the rest of Class A continued sprinting up after the building shook from Todoroki's huge attack. The fourth floor door was open as Zach ran by it, and Todoroki nodded as he saw the villain just inside was completely immobile, then he spun and started sprinting back down the steps past the others behind Zach…

 **"After the ice attack, Todoroki go back to help Bakugo, Iida, Sero, and Ojiro. More important than anything is saving the hostages, and if the villains guarding them are taken out Killmore might just blow them all up. Freeze the C4 and it can't be detonated."**

"Three villains total on the whole floor. Two of them close to each other on the far side of the door as the hostages. It's a single big office, but they were dragging a lot of furniture about…" Shoji called this out while running up near Midoriya, and Midoriya continued calling out to the others in their headsets after a second.

Jirou grimaced from farther down the steps that she was unable to keep scouting ahead while they were on the run. She turned her head to the right though and nodded in gratitude to the taller girl next to her who handed her a metal pipe she could fight with. Yaoyorozu had a grappling gun taser hybrid strapped to her waist, and she was going to offer one to Zach only to look ahead and see he had pulled a gun out of his sweatshirt and a knife from his waist that she had forgotten he had on him.

"Midoriya, you can't…" Zach started to argue.

"I'm the only one still fast enough to make sure-"

"There are only twenty hostages on the sixth floor," Zach said quickly as they were running past the fifth. "There were fifty on the third. That means more than half of the hostages are left on the upper floors. The twelfth alone Koda's bird said-"

"I'll be right up behind you," Midoriya said. His face was intense and Zach's eyes opened wide as Midoriya's body started to glow with little sparks coming out of it. He bent his legs as they neared halfway up between the fifth and sixth floor, and then he shot at the door to the sixth and slammed a fist straight through it and shot himself into the room.

 **"…I'll take the sixth floor, and everyone else keep running up to the twelfth. We can't waste any time and allow Killmore a chance to change the rules on us."**

Midoriya dodged in midair as the one of the three villains on the floor who actually had been close to the door slammed his hands down on the ground and made the entire sixth floor wobble. Floor tiles rose up like waves and the floor shifted to the right and then the left, desks and furniture skidding about but not separating from each other as they had been tied together like the hostages who were all rolling around on chairs and screaming into their gags in terror of falling while strapped with C4. Knives and swords and saws and other bladed weapons slid around the floor too which Midoriya noticed as he was just falling in his arc after the doorway he busted down.

"YES! He picked me!" A loud, excited voice screamed in a mad way and Midoriya's eyes opened huge as a two foot tall man leapt up on top of the head of one of the rolling hostages farther away in the room from him. The man had knives strapped all over his body, held two scythes up in his hands, and Fez let out a cackle of glee before activating Blademind. Midoriya was landing down near three cubicles tied together, and he snapped his body backwards as a desk drawer under one of the cubicle's desks was pierced by a blade hidden inside that whipped out towards him. Midoirya pressed his palms down on the waving floor below him, and his eyes darted both ways to see two hacksaws sliding around him start waving around too before whipping out at him, curving and extending against the laws of physics.

Fez himself was dropping down over the desk-piercing blade that had just missed Midoriya's body, and the villain looked down into the kid's eyes with excitement spread over his face. This was the kid who defeated him in Mosu Esupa, but he had had time to prepare the room for him this time. Midoriya was shocked to see Fez who he had heard escaped with Shigaraki after they had captured him in Mosu Esupa. He got over his shock quickly though and pressed his palms down hard before sliding himself forward and into the bottom of the desk that the knife had pierced out of. Midoriya threw himself at those cubicles so hard that his feet smashed through them, but he angled his legs up as he collided to throw the cubicles up and towards the opposite wall, above the hostages rolling on the floor past it.

Zach tried running past the sixth floor without hesitating, but he looked inside and saw blades whipping around only two seconds after Midoriya had smashed his way inside. The floor was waving around and they could feel it in the staircase, and the students could see that the villains had not hesitated a moment to get into the fight when the door was smashed down. Yaoyorozu was running near the front of the group now, and when she looked in through the door she thought, _Midoriya needs help. There could still be many villains and there are several rooms with hostages still above that we need to reach before the villains realize how quickly we are rising, if they haven't already-_ "Zach!" Yaoyorozu reached out and grabbed her ex-boyfriend who had opened his eyes wide and stared back at the last doorway. "Keep moving," she pushed him forward and Zach looked at her in surprise but kept running.

"Remember the plan!" Hagakure called up towards Zach as she saw the nervous look in his eyes while looking over his shoulder back at the sixth floor doorway.

 **"Most of the class needs to go straight to the fifteenth floor. Killmore won't blow up the building while he's still in it. If we cut off the escape route, getting a group to wait at the fifteenth floor and secure it, we take away the advantage they've had the whole time. They think they're invincible, but Kurogiri can't just appear wherever he wants…"**

"Someone needs to help Midoriya," Zach called out, though he snapped his head up and kept running faster to try and keep up with Shoji who was now leading their class up the stairs ahead of him and Yaoyorozu. Ashido, Kirishima, and Tokoyami were running behind them, Hagakure farther down with Koda and Sato at her sides. Mineta was panting as he neared the sixth floor, but he gulped and slowed down, letting Asui and Aoyama run up ahead of him. They looked back and saw the boy with purple balls all over his head taking in deep breaths while looking at the door to the sixth floor.

"I don't want to run up any more stairs!" Mineta called out into his earpiece. As much as he wanted to listen to Midoriya's plan, he trusted Zach too. Zach kept running though, even after he shouted that someone needed to help Midoriya.

 **"…No Zach, you go with the group to the higher floors. You've seen Killmore fight, right? You need to be up there to face him."**

Mineta remembered what Midoriya said and knew there were very few people who were not required for some bigger plan. He was one of the few who Midoriya did not specify in his plan while speaking fast on their run from the middle of the first floor up to the sixth floor when he finally stopped plotting. Midoriya was in the middle of a fight now though, and Mineta knew that on top of helping him out stopping the villains on the sixth, saving the hostages there too, if he could get Midoriya back into the fight their classmate could continue with his plans that sounded so perfect while he was coming up with them on the fly. Mineta reached up to the purple balls on his head, tears in his eyes and a scared look on his face as he reached the top of the steps from the fifth to the sixth floor. He heard Ojiro shout about hostages being secured over his headset, he saw Tsuyu looking down towards him with wide eyes, and he ran onto the sixth floor straight towards a villain pressing his hands down on the ground.

Mineta yelled, "Grape Rush!" He charged the guy who spun towards him and then leapt backwards faster than Mineta's first purple balls could reach him. He managed to escape Mineta's attacks, but the room stopped shaking at the same time, and the whipping blades that Fez saw sliding across the floor towards Midoriya slowed down. Midoriya saw his gap as Fez glared towards a whipping blade that was no longer sliding at him fast enough, and he shot the gap.

Izuku Midoriya flew between two blades and right at Fez who started activating the knives around his body to get them to fly out at the kid attacking him. Midoriya pulled his right leg back faster though, and Fez was not activating his Quirk fast enough. In the corner of Midoriya's eyes though, he spotted a man back behind him who made his eyes open huge and his body to start twisting to the side. _Him!_ Midoriya recalled a man back in the Mosu Esupa Trigger lab who Hydro had gotten to fight with them despite being one of Breakneck's goons, and Needler spat a mouth full of thin black needles at the kid who had just started turning to him.

The projectiles were fast, but even in midair, so was Deku. The young hero twisted his body and pulled away, and three black needles slammed into him, two in his right leg and one through his left. The one that hit him in the left leg hit in the worst spot however, as it hit behind his left knee and yet Midoriya felt it slam into his knee bone like he had just been hit from the front. Neither of the other two needles felt like they had gone as deep, and were half sticking out of the back of his thigh. The needles pierced his hamstring and he clenched his teeth to avoid letting out a scream. Midoriya landed down on his hands and knees and rolled right away to dodge as he expected the next attack. Fez swiped a scythe at him a second after he hit the ground, but Midoriya dodged in a roll that filled his left knee with even more pain.

The teen reached up his right arm while in the middle of a roll, and Midoriya swept it in front of his body at twenty percent. The hostages were behind him which he saw in the moment he came out of his roll, but his swipe sent every loose object in the room other than those hostages flying. "Mineta!" Midoriya shouted. It was not a yell of worry for his classmate, but a yell telling his friend to act since he had already seen him when he rushed in. Mineta's eyes opened wide, and then a voice echoed in his mind, _**"Think constantly, Mineta."**_ His eyes darted around while he was in the middle of making a whip of his Pop Offs that he could swing at the floor or ceiling and keep himself in one place.

Mineta stopped connecting his Pop Offs, and he started spinning around in midair and throwing in every direction around him. He landed before the villains and most of the furniture, as Midoriya had also made sure of his position before swinging his arm and tried to hit Mineta with some of the least amount of force. Mineta dove to the right to dodge a falling desk, and he came out of the roll throwing more Pop Off balls in the air while letting out a scream with tears flying off of his face.

Meanwhile on the ninth floor, Shoji lifted his top right hand clenched into a fist for everyone to stop. "Wait," Shoji started. Jirou looked up towards him, and she could see him listening close with the ears on his bottom arms for something. She plugged her earphone jacks into the wall on her right, and then both her and Shoji opened their eyes huge.

"Sensory types too?"

"They're coming!" Jirou shouted.

Shoji crossed his arms and he started sprinting up the stairs. He dove, and Zach leapt backwards as Shoji yelled back, "The wall!"

The two villains Jirou and Shoji noticed on the tenth floor cut through the wall of the ninth floor and into the stairwell. Zach was jumping back down the stairs, his left arm out to his side and his body leaning that way in front of the tall girl just behind him whose eyes opened wide while she rose her arms up to catch the boy falling back at her. Yaoyorozu caught Zach, and Sato reached up and pressed his hands on her back so she did not fall down the stairs, while Zach rose up his grappling gun in his right hand and fired into the split in the wall at a villain leaning forward with scissor-shapes for irises. His sharp grappling hook pierced the villain's right shoulder, and Zach yanked her backwards which made Koda reach up to help Sato as Zach put so much force back on them he almost pushed them all down the stairs.

"Dark Shadow!" Tokoyami shouted, and the dark creature that was already wrapped around him flew off of his body and up over the group in front of him. It flew over the villain with scissors in her eyes, and Dark Shadow flew in at the woman behind who blinked her eyes and made a bright flash of light that had Dark Shadow pull back.

The flash also let the woman see through all the walls around her, and she called out while jets erupted out the soles of her shoes, "Thirteen left! Ninth floor…" her voice got fainter as she slipped up through a slit in the ceiling of the ninth floor.

The students in the hallway ran up to the same area around the split apart wall. It had pushed aside so easily with no clear reason as to why it happened, and Hagakure jumped in front of the villain who opened her eyes for a second with those weird scissor shapes in them. The villain did not realize anyone just leapt in front of her, as Hagakure had stripped back when they ran into the first floor of the building. A bright flash made the villain clench her eyes shut, and then Shoji lifted the woman and spun her around, putting her in a choke-hold He used his strength to crush the air out of her windpipe and quickly put the woman to sleep. "Uraraka," Shoji said, tossing the woman towards the brown haired girl who reached a hand up and touched her.

The group started running up the stairs again, leaving an unconscious floating villain bouncing around aimlessly in the stairwell around the ninth floor with some blood spilling out of her shoulder. Zach dropped the grappling gun he had shot her with as the sharp hook had pierced her and it would take too much time to get it out. "They know how many of us are coming up," Zach warned.

"It doesn't matter!" Kirishima shouted.

"Twelfth floor," Jirou began. "I heard it when I plugged in my earphone jacks. The villains are getting nervous."

"They should be-" Kirishima started.

"Nervous villains means trigger-happy villains," Yaoyorozu countered in a harsh tone to stop Kirishima from sounding smug about that. "And I mean that in more ways than one," Yaoyorozu added.

 _Trigger? If we block off their escapes on the fifteenth,_ Zach grimaced and clenched his fists tightly. _We don't want them. We want the hostages. They're what's most important, but saving the hostages requires that we keep the villains in here so they can't blow- but if they're too cornered there's no telling what they'll do! What should I- what would Midoriya do?!_

"How many people did the bird see Koda?" Uraraka asked the boy on her left who shook his head unknowingly.

"It sounds like there are another three, four villains who the one who just got away is talking to. She just looked back down here and checked where we are. They're going to know exactly when we're on their floor- wait!" Shoji yelled at the others and he stopped in the stairwell. "They're training guns on the door. She knows I can hear her, she's watching us right now and talking to me." Shoji created a mouth on his middle right arm and spoke back to his classmates in a low, angry voice, "She says they have guns trained on the door, but if we _don't_ run right up there, she'll have them turn the guns on the hostages with them. There are forty of them in there."

"We can't just run up," Yaoyorozu started. "That's not a plan-"

"It is for me," Kirishima started, and he started sprinting faster than everyone around him. He put it into next gear and sprinted up the stairs from the tenth floor past his classmates. He did not harden his body yet, in case the woman looking through the walls could see him turn his body hard. Then he grit his teeth and hardened anyway, as he realized it did not matter if he tried hiding what his Quirk actually was as there was no way all these villains did not know who they were and what they could do. _It won't matter. All you villains. I'm taking you all down!_

"Kirishima's going to draw their fire, and her attention," Yaoyorozu said quietly while running up next to Shoji. "Take Aoyama and go in on this next floor." They were nearing the eleventh, and Shoji nodded at the girl next to him with a spiky black ponytail who just made a lot of sense with what she told him. He turned his head and looked straight down at Aoyama who pointed at himself as if asking 'who me?' Shoji nodded and the dazzling boy wearing a red t-shirt and long white pants ran after Shoji into the eleventh floor doorway right as gunfire started up above as Kirishima hit the twelfth.

"YOU CAN'T HURT ME!" Kirishima shouted, slamming a fist forward through the door covered in bullet holes after only a second. He kicked his left foot forward and smashed more away, then he just charged forward and smashed the rest apart. He opened his mouth and let out a mad laugh while swinging his arms out to his sides and covering himself in Unbreakable. Bullets broke on his body and bounced away from him, and Kirishima's attackers stared at him with wide eyes as he did not even flinch from their attacks. "VILLAINS! GIVE YOURSELVES UP!"

 _I want to help him, but…_ Zach turned his head and looked down towards Asui, then he glanced to his right a bit too where he heard footsteps but did not see anyone. They were between the eleventh and twelfth floors, and he grit his teeth before saying in a low voice, "Be careful, but Tsuyu, Hagakure, help Kirishima. Save the hostages while he fights."

"Do we really want to send both?" Yaoyorozu questioned, turning back to Zach on her left from where they split the front of the group. "We might need someone invisible on the upper floors," she whispered to him.

 _I don't know! Is it the right move? I was confident a second ago, but you're smarter than me._ "You're right, Tsuyu," Zach said quickly, spinning back just to the frog girl. "You go, okay? You have better mobility so you can dodge in case-"

"I trust you Zach," Tsuyu said, as she could see Zach looking nervous like he felt he had to defend why he wanted her to go with Kirishima. They knew why he wanted it though, and she felt the same way. Kirishima sounded too confident, and as much as that could help demoralize the villains whose attacks were having no effect on him, they did not know what the villains' Quirks were. Shoji and Aoyama were planning an attack from down below, but if they couldn't help Kirishima on their own they did not want to leave the group of three at a disadvantage.

Hearing that Tsuyu trusted him just put a deep pit in Zach's chest though. He nodded at her, and then he looked up and started sprinting up the stairs as shouts overtook gunshots as the loudest things around. Tsuyu started to camouflage, Zach started to run, and they heard on their left sides through the wall an explosion and more shouts as a hole blew up through the floor between two villains. Shoji leapt up through the ceiling, and Aoyama leapt and spun around before firing another beam out of his bellybutton to send himself flying up with Shoji between the rising debris. Tsuyu ran into the room while camouflaged and while all the villains were turning towards the exploding floor. Kirishima looked over in surprise to see his two classmates enter from there too as his classmates had spoken quietly about the plan in case of other sensory types, and because his earpiece had been blown apart by a bullet along with most of his clothes so he stood in tattered rags now.

 _Protect the hostages you guys. Save them all!_

The Class A students storming up the office building had no idea, but eyeballs were floating inside the third, the sixth, and the twelfth floors. The projection on the front of the building had split apart when Killmore stopped shouting about the League of Villains' goal for the world, about evil and menacing stuff that had scared everyone for the future, and terrified them for the well-being of the hostages. The projection had split to show four different floors, and three of them were in chaos within two minutes of the students running into the building.

The fourth angle that showed Killmore's floor suddenly went dark, and Killmore glared towards Slideshow with a furious expression on his face. "What are those idiots doing?! Elite team my ass. These are fucking children! Each one of them should be-"

"Should we get to the fifteenth floor?" Gahandi called over to Killmore from over near a group of ten hostages tied to each other in a chair circle. They were all strapped with C4, and most of them were really bloody while the bald man covered in wrinkles who called to Killmore also had a lot of blood dripping off his hands. "I don't like this-"

"Their numbers are dwindling!" Killmore shouted over. He glared at Gahandi, then over at Fudgepack who just lifted a chocolate bar from a plastic bag full of them and shoved it into his fat mouth. The morbidly obese man chomped down on it and his mouth was so thick with chocolate that it stuck to the walls and roof of his mouth to look like chocolate webs pulling apart each time he opened his jaw. Killmore glared back towards Slideshow and hissed, "How many of them are left?"

The fourth eyeball Slideshow covered on the bottom right of his face was moving down the steps fast, and he kept it close to the ceiling while looking down at the group of students who just slowed down and came to a stop three floors above where their last split was. Slideshow gulped and said, "Well the good news is, they're down to three. Bad news, five of them just got off on the fifteenth floor and are setting up in-"

"WHAT?!" Killmore screamed at his projector who looked back at him in fear at that furious yell. When Killmore got that angry, he was known to kill people. When he was backed into corners too. It was not just in rage, and his comrades knew that he would use their blood without hesitating to make himself stronger if it meant he could get out of a situation he felt trapped in. Killmore glared harder at Slideshow, and Slideshow's body may have been skinny and weak, but the man brought his hands towards the sidearms at his waist with a nervous expression on his face.

 _Keep cool. Calm._ Killmore lifted up a hand to his right ear and said, "We're still good. Everyone, kill them. Kill them all. Careful of the hostages." Killmore lowered his hand from his ear and glared at Slideshow, "Keep the projection running. Get mine back on me- but before that. Who are the three coming up here?"

Endeavor clenched his fists outside of the office building, but he was watching closely the three fights going on inside the building and did not see any of the villains turn to start killing hostages yet. The villains controlled what they were seeing out there, so he was almost able to convince himself to charge into the building and assist. However the villains had yet to break their promise made with their second demand. It was more of just a threat, but Endeavor knew the villains could see him out there. They seemed like they were watching everything going on in their building, but he had a good feeling when the screen cut off in the corner that had the villain's boss in it. _He doesn't like the way things are going. He needed to talk without us seeing. Shoto. Do you-_

Ice broke out of the third floor of the building under the big spikes of ice already sticking out of the fourth. A couple of desks just smashed out of the sixth floor and landed on top of those ice spikes sticking out above, but below them a gentle ice slide formed that terrified hostages started running out to and sliding down on. Todoroki stood near the edge of the slide and called people to keep going down one by one and to be careful not to hit others on the way down though he set it up so they wouldn't. He and Ojiro had removed all the frozen C4 and tape from the hostages while the other three ran upstairs, and Todoroki looked up himself as he heard a loud smashing sound only a couple of floors up.

"Midoriya! Are you-" Iida called into the sixth floor where he knew Midoriya had gone to fight.

Bakugo was planning on rushing right by the sixth floor since he did not think Deku would be taken down. He stopped though and looked into the huge office on his left with his eyes huge. The three villains were stuck to each other, stuck to desks and cubicles, stuck to the floor and wall. It was a big jumbled mess of stuff, the villains could not move, and Needler had gotten stuck upside-down and faced away from the boys who had done this to them. Needler glared through the doorway though as he spotted Bakugo and Iida, and he puffed his cheeks out filling his mouth with black needles.

"Smash!" Midoriya threw himself off the floor while Mineta tried to wrap his legs with his shirt. Mineta yelled 'hey' as Midoriya ripped straight through while he was trying to stop the bleeding, but Midoriya had to slam his left fist into the back of Needler's head and knock the villain out, making black needles fall out of his mouth as he dropped unconscious like Fez already was.

"Hey hey, I give up," the guy who made the floor all wobbly before said in a scared tone, as it sounded like Midoriya just gave another of his comrades brain damage. He was unable to move his arms or legs the way he was pinned between two desks and Needler's body, and with these other students showing up he was not ready to keep going at all. "Just get these balls off me," he said in a pained voice, as struggling just made the stickiness rip at his skin more.

Bakugo looked at Midoriya who fell flat on his face after punching the other villain and yelled out in pain from his legs. He looked back at the villains all caught up in purple balls, then to Mineta who was shirtless and somehow seemed like the sole winner on the floor. "Hey! What are you guys… whoa- what?" Sero looked into the floor and got just as confused as the other two, then he shook his head around quickly and spun up the stairs. "Come on!" Midoriya looked up and agreed with Sero, telling the other three to go help the others and that they would free the hostages in there, then he shouted out for Todoroki who rose his head three floors below.

Bakugo had some burns on his upper right arm from when he punched a fist straight through some drawn flames that were starting to take form. The other two were uninjured though, but then again they had run to Bakugo's side of the third floor only in time to watch him get a double knock-out on the two villains he was fighting. Bakugo spun to look up the stairs and he started sprinting after Iida and Sero, curling his fists and uncurling them over and over to keep his hands ready. There was a pain in his wrists that he was trying to ignore. It was there despite him not using any big blasts on Bull or Drawheart, and he thought while running after the other two instead of using explosions to propel him after, _The old bag's gonna go off about this._

On the fifteenth floor, Tokoyami stood ten yards away from the doorway. There was an interior glass wall behind him of several windows and a push-door. There was a reception desk behind it, and Uraraka was ushering people around the desk and towards a corner office that Sato had just smashed through the glass windows of after eating some sugar cubes. Uraraka touched a couple of people who had managed to avoid capture by the villains and slipped onto this floor that the villains had been purposely avoiding for some reason, which the students now knew was to avoid having heroes go to it at all so it would be clear for extraction. She made them weightless and told them it would be alright, and then she and Sato pushed these people out the open windows and towards the building next door that was half the size of the one they were in.

Four people floated from the fifteenth floor of the bigger office building down to the roof of an apartment next door, and Uraraka released her gravity control once they were safely right above the roof. "Any villains who escape the other floors are all going to be coming here," Uraraka said, looking back to Sato whose face was pretty blank and hyped-up after that sugar, but he still nodded and made a serious affirmative noise. Hagakure made a little noise from nearby too to remind them she was there, not that anyone on the floor could see her.

Tokoyami had Dark Shadow out of his body and closer to the door he was guarding as the front man. Behind him and on his right closer to a thin hallway splitting off three different executive offices, Koda stood holding a metal pipe that Yaoyorozu had given him right before he went into the fifteenth when they were discussing it on the stairs. Koda looked up at the ceiling as he saw Ashido doing the same across the hall and on Tokoyami's other side as him, crouched behind a stack of stairs she piled up and holding her hands ready to throw Acid in any direction. The two of them glanced up, imagining the three they let run off alone.

 _Even though we know they will be coming here,_ Tokoyami stared closely at the main door to the hallway, though he felt a deep sense of unease as he thought about the three who ran off without waiting for much argument once they had decided that the fifteenth was still the most important floor like Midoriya said. From what they heard over their earpieces, a couple of their classmates were running up, and Tokoyami had to believe that they would be able to go back up the others upstairs. _We must hold this place to prevent them from escaping. And, if Kurogiri does show up in here._ Tokoyami looked behind him for a second, seeing his classmates spread out around the floor and ready for an attack. _We must capture him as well._

Zach, Jirou, and Yaoyorozu ran up past the sixteenth, seventeenth, and they slowed before reaching the eighteenth floor. Jirou's right earphone jack shot up while none of them were looking above, and it pierced through a floating eyeball in the air above them that Zach noticed and signaled to the girls about a few seconds ago. Zach's hand loosened on his knife he was preparing to flick up, and Jirou smirked as she plugged her other earphone jack into the wall right after piercing the eyeball that disappeared when her jack went through it. "That hurt him," Jirou said, grinning in a way that made Yaoyorozu glance at her with an eyebrow lifted. "It's a good thing," Jirou muttered quickly, losing that grin though.

She got more serious as she kept the jack in the wall and listened to Killmore snap at his subordinate asking what happened. "The guy creating the projections is there with Killmore, on the twentieth. Why they're so far from the fifteenth floor, I guess they were really trying to sell the roof exit?" She got quieter near the end with a hesitant tone in her voice.

"Or maybe, the villains who thought it was really the fifteenth floor were not told the truth-"

"That wouldn't be," Zach countered Yaoyorozu. "They wouldn't have said it was the roof louder than for the hostages. It would've just made it more likely that there are heroes watching the roof already from the hostages getting out and telling the heroes what they heard."

"But maybe Kurogiri has a route straight to the twentieth- nope," Jirou cut herself off, and she felt like grinning again but kept a serious expression this time. "Killmore's pissed about the fifteenth. They're watching the other floors with our classmates. They sound, nervous. His comrades do, and the hostages are terrified. Killmore's, sounding unhinged as 'Slideshow,' the projecting guy told him that we're coming. He sounds pretty scared, of Zach," Jirou glanced to the boy on her left who she called by his first name, despite hearing the name 'Reaper' through her earphone jacks. She remembered hearing Kaminari call him that once when she was eavesdropping, and for a second she thought that it was because they were villains together and Kaminari knew him by that name. She told herself quickly though, that Zach trusted Kaminari enough to tell him this name that apparently the villains knew him by.

"Here," Yaoyorozu reached up to her chest and pulled her shirt down a bit. Jirou darted her eyes to Zach who looked up the stairs with a serious expression thinking hard about what was happening on the twentieth. "Take these," Yaoyorozu handed up a bulletproof vest towards Jirou, while already creating a second one. Her chest glowed and Jirou grabbed the vest and slid it over her head fast, gulping as she thought about why she'd need it. It was like accepting that they were about to be shot at.

"Put yours on first," Zach said as Yaoyorozu tried to hand him the second.

"I have it on already," Momo said. Zach looked back and he stared closer at her shirt that he turned away from when she was pulling it down. She had pulled down beneath it too, but she leaned forward and less cleavage showed than usual as she had a tight and thick body armor on under her shirt that she had created around her whole torso at once. It started coming out over her arms too, and her legs, and her classmates looked at her with wider eyes as she wrapped herself in kevlar armor. "I wish it was as easy to cover you," she said softly and in an apologetic tone as making vests was as much as she could do with them pressed for time as they were. Yaoyorozu then spun and started jogging up the steps again. She put her hand down on her taser/ grappling gun, and she took in a deep breath with an intense look on her face.

Jirou started running up after her while gripping her steel pole Momo made for her. Her earphone jacks curled up under her ears, and she breathed heavier than her best friend and actually had sweat on her face unlike Yaoyorozu who was cool and collected. Zach slid into his vest and looked at the girls running with him, and his breathing picked up faster than Jirou's. _Killmore's unhinged. We can't just wait and make a plan. We don't know what most of their Quirks are other than this Slideshow, and Killmore. But there are only two others._

Yaoyorozu started calling down asking where the final hostages were as Jirou told her how large the group in the room with Killmore was. Then Jirou spun and told Zach that Killmore was ready for him, and the hostages were all spread out to prevent him from using Nightmare. Over their headsets they heard Iida shout that he was going to run straight up to them, only to be cut off from a scream by Kirishima. The group of three who were running up from the tenth story almost to the eleventh felt a huge shake on the twelfth floor. The walls cracked around them, and Shoji started yelling how they needed help on the twelfth, and then Tsuyu let out a scream too.

Zach got a terrified look on his face as Iida shouted about going in to help them first before they lost control or the hostages in there. _Iida, Tsuyu, Shoji, Kirishima!_

"Focus Zach, we're almost there," Jirou said to her left, then her eyes opened wide as she realized what he was thinking about with that look in his eyes. "They're going to be fine," she said in a quieter voice, making Zach dart his eyes over to her and see the shorter girl nod at him. "We need you _here._ " It was more than just her telling him they needed him for fighting, but she was telling him to get his head around solely what they were doing.

 _In the moment. Twentieth floor. Four villains. Fifty hostages. Killmore. C4. Forget the others. For now. No long term. Forget the plan. Only this matters. Protecting these two, and the hostages, and stopping those villains._ Zach rose his right hand up to his chest and he slammed it into it while sliding his fingers out of his black glove. "He thinks I can't go Nightmare in a crowded area?" Zach asked, his voice getting scratchier and deeper midway through. _Even if I do accidentally catch someone in a bit of Death, not the worst thing. Catching Killmore off guard, making him more likely to run, it's the best way I'll get a clear shot on him._ Zach rose up a pair of knives and sprinted up faster than Jirou and Yaoyorozu whose eyes opened wide for a second before the boy sprinting up ahead of them pushed Death down on his feet and then sprang at the door to the twentieth and spun his body around in a spinning black spiral.

Zach's leg stuck out and he slammed it into the door, kicking it inwards in mid-spiral and then landing while the door swung open. He landed with his hands and feet down on the floor to give a smaller target for anyone aiming at him, and then with Death focused on his hands and feet he threw himself into a huge open office where the furniture had been moved to the sides. The furniture around the outside of the room meant the open space in the middle was a smaller area, and in that smaller area was the biggest group of hostages in the building. They were split up in groups of eight, or ten, or five, tied together in their chairs or on the floor with their mouths gagged. Zach flung himself into the room by pushing off all four limbs at the same time, and his red eyes darted about as he shot inside.

 _Killmore, Slideshow- with pistols. He's scared, the other three are nervous but in control and ready. Killmore using knives. Other two, no weapons. The blood on the wrinkled guys' hands, was he just beating those hostages for no reason? The fat guy is holding chocolate. Part of his Quirk? Killmore- shit! He's bigger than usual, he sucked in blood from those people the wrinkled villain beat up? Or did he kill someone and suck out all their blood? How strong is he? Focus on him- but the guns- No! They can handle themselves against a small fry. Killmore. Killmore!_ "Killmore!" Zach shouted in a deep voice, as he shot forward through the room and right over the heads of some hostages who lifted their eyes in terror at the black form flying over them with dark wisps pulling back off his body.

"Mmnffbrrnngrrr!" A hostage below Zach yelled. Even in their intense fear, the hostage recognized him and screamed out his name. It came out muffled through the gag, but the other hostages tied up and strapped with C4 tried screaming his name too.

Zach rose up his right arm while coming down. He had a knife in his grasp, and Death seeped off of it in an uncontrolled way. _Killmore thinks I can't use Nightmare in here because it's too risky with the hostages. Don't let him know the level of control._ Zach flicked his knife towards the main villain's face and Killmore pulled his head to the side when the blade was five feet in front of him. His eyes that had been huge started to narrow, his light blue irises glowing and focusing in on the red orbs in Zach's head. Killmore pulled away and did not slash up at Zach's knife passing by his head, then he yanked away even harder as suddenly the darkness coating the blade yanked off of it and at Killmore.

The black wisps on the blade had been piled on thick by the boy who threw it. He made it look unstable, and by the time it reached Killmore it was back to the usual amount of Death on it where at that point after leaving his hand it would be about to lose its coating altogether. With that much Death on it, Zach flicked his right wrist that he threw the blade with and it pulled the Death still connected to him off and at Killmore. The dark blue villain who had started to smirk while showing off how fast he was snarled while falling down to his hands as he had to pull too fast away. He snapped his head to the right and his eyes opened wide again as the dark form that attacked him was jumping up over hostages and arcing down right near where he was.

Killmore lifted up a knife and he gripped the floor hard with his other hand. He slid himself back and slashed the knife across the shin of a hostage who let out a scream into their gag, and made the black demon-like figure with his bones showing through his translucent aura snarl furiously at the splash of blood coming out. Killmore ran his arm along the splashing blood while at the same time kicking his legs up in the air, and he slammed his bulking right arm forward at Zach who was only a few feet away from him when his arm fully extended. Zach reached his arms out for Killmore's, but Killmore's punch had way more force in it than Zach was just expecting after the sudden bulge.

The wind pushed Zach's arms back, stopped his momentum in midair, and then Zach realized it was doing something bad. His eyes shot open huge as he heard panicked screams behind him of hostages whose chairs got pushed back and skid across the floor. It was dangerous with the C4 around them, but what everyone was screaming about was how black wisps pulled off Zach's boney body in that punch's force and flew back towards them, a couple of wisps hitting hostages who screamed and then got quieter. Zach got pushed from Killmore and skid back through an area where there just were hostages but no longer. He rose his right hand and slammed it into his chest, and a pissed-off look appeared in his normal eyes while Nightmare mode disappeared. _Maybe he was right. I shouldn't be using it in here surrounded by so many people. Even if those wisps won't kill them, they'll be afraid. I'm a hero right now. They, want to be saved by a hero._

"They're fine!" Zach called out, and he whipped out another pair of knives from his waist beneath the lifted hem of his sweatshirt. When Zach lifted it up, the other people in the room could see he was strapped with nearly a dozen knives, and he rose two up and spun them around in his hands before sprinting towards Killmore with a dark look in his eyes. Killmore's eyes were pitch black already, but hearing Zach shout that made a really pissed-off look spread over his face too.

Slideshow's guns had been shaking, but they steadied. The four-eyed man with only one eye showing was afraid of the dark monster that had stormed into the room, but he pointed his pistols towards the boy's back as he charged at Killmore. _**TZzzzz**_ Something stuck into Slideshow's side and he had started looking down at it, right before the sticky hook that attached to his body sparked and tazed him. Slideshow dropped his guns, and Yaoyorozu dropped her taser to instead lift up her right arm and create a shield. She created it as fast as she could, but she still got skid back into the doorway when the huge glob of chocolate slammed into her. She grimaced and pressed her feet down harder to keep forward, but then her eyes shot open wide and she had to toss her shield that she blocked the chocolate glob with as it was in the middle of melting through.

When Yaoyorozu threw her shield though, another huge glob of chocolate was in mid-flight towards her. It was a little off-target, giving her a good path to dodge to the right. In that direction she would be trapped between the furniture piled up around the walls, and a wrinkled-up bald villain with blood dripping from his hands who Fudgepack was trying to draw her towards. Yaoyorozu rose up both arms and tried creating another shield as quick as she could, bending her legs too to make her body smaller. The shield was only mid-created when it slammed into her, and despite her feet being lifted up and pushed down on the toes for more pressure, she still skid back. Gahandi had to stop though to avoid the spray of chocolate that splashed out from her shield that she tossed away before the splash had even gone down completely.

Yaoyorozu quickly wiped some excess chocolate spray off her arms, then she rose up a second grappling gun taser in her stinging right arm. She pointed it ahead and towards the wrinkled man as the goopy liquid chocolate fell between them, and she fired at him only for the man to slam his right fist forward straight into the hook that was supposed to stick to him. His fist smashed through the hook, and ripples went up through his body with his wrinkles moving like waves on his skin. Gahandi sprinted forward while Yaoyorozu's eyes opened wide, and then Fudgepack pulled his fat body back again while aiming towards the other girl who ran up on Yaoyorozu's left side and jumped with a metal pole in her hands.

Gahandi saw Fudgepack aiming at her so he kept running at the taller girl. Jirou's eyes darted to her left and farther into the room with her eyes wide, she locked eyes, then she turned back and came down slamming her pole at the villain who spun back towards her and pulled away. She slammed the end of her pole into the floor and then dragged after his legs that he stopped short and pulled back, and she wailed Gahandi in the right leg. As her metal bar hit him though, his skin pushed in a bit and ripples went up through his body looking to distribute the force.

Killmore glared towards Fudgepack for a second, grinding his teeth in anger as the fat man had spat a huge glob of spit towards him and almost hit. Fudgepack slowly opened his eyes wide too, the obese man gawking at what he had just done and the expression on their leader's face. He did not know what happened though. One second he was aiming at the short girl swinging her pole down, the next her felt his body yanked to the right so that as he snapped his head forward and spat, it was at Killmore instead. Zach clicked a button on his grappling gun while Fudgepack lowered his eyes down to his left arm that was tugged in front of his body more as he spun.

A grappling hook unwrapped from Fudgepack and flew back into Zach's weapon. _He's slow. His chocolate acid stuff moves fast. Killmore's angrier now and his men are scared of him…_ Zach's eyes opened huge as he stared at the blue villain who he was trying to keep away from any hostages. Killmore did not have any in his immediate vicinity, but he glared at the kid who despite being shorter, weaker, and smaller than him, was outmaneuvering him at every step. Zach had shown him he was willing to go Nightmare again when Killmore came close, and he blocked one of Killmore's knives with one of his own when Killmore threw it. The blue-skinned villain covered in sharp horns longer than usual reached down and to his right to a man who had recently been electrocuted and was barely conscious.

"Hey Killmore," Zach started. "Don't do it. It's not-" he tried speaking calmly to the man instead of in a panicked way. He imagined screaming at Dandy in Mosu Esupa and how well that worked. Speaking calmly did not work any better though. Killmore lifted Slideshow and slammed his right fist through his subordinate's chest.

Fudgepack stared towards Killmore with huge, shaking eyes and took a step backwards. _Time to go._ Fudgepack looked down and spat at the floor below him a huge glob of chocolate bigger than the others had been. The chocolate started dissolving the ground, while Fudgepack himself sank down into it so the hostages around him gawked at the man suddenly sinking away. A few pulled away from him thinking he might try to take one of them with him, but Fudgepack's head pointed down and he was thinking only about five floors down. _I know they have a team waiting there, but I'll get Kurogiri and-_

A hand gripped on top of Fudgepack's head. The hostages around him did not even see him coming. Zach froze and he slowly turned his head back to the right at the man he had attacked a minute ago to use him against Killmore while saving Jirou at the same time. Gahandi backed up from the two girls he was fighting who were panting after running across a city and up twenty floors but were holding their ground against him. Yaoyorozu and Jirou wanted to take the chance to attack their wrinkly enemy, but the man who had looked composed and serious and even like he was enjoying their fight so far lost that expression to one of dread instead.

Zach still had Slideshow's body in the corners of his eyes where Killmore dropped him after impaling him. He had not been able to throw a knife at Killmore since the man was holding Slideshow's body in front of him while it happened, but it all happened in two seconds flat so there was nothing else he could do. All Zach had been able to do was stare and clench his teeth as Slideshow's body shriveled up and lost color, all the blood inside him getting sucked into Killmore's larger spikes that were even pointier and longer now. Slideshow was still in the middle of falling when Killmore shot across the room and grabbed the top of Fudgepack's head before he could sink through the floor.

Killmore lifted the man who was easily four hundred pounds back up above the hole in the floor. He lifted him by the top of his skull and the room was silent as Killmore pushed his face towards his comrade's. Killmore's scalp spikes stuck straight up now and out diagonally longer and matching the length of the ones on his arms and now sticking out of his shins and thighs too. As Killmore lifted Fudgepack, his comrade's fat belly skimmed against some of the spikes and Fudgepack pulled away with a scared look in his eyes as there was no telling what Killmore was about to do. Fudgepack had to make a decision. He almost puffed out his cheeks to spit his chocolate from point blank at Killmore, but he imagined himself puffing his cheeks out and Killmore squeezing the powerful hand gripping him through his brown hair and around his skull. The second option was saying, "I'll keep fighting, boss. Sorry."

Killmore's lips twisted up, "You better-" Fudgepack took his eyes off Killmore, and the villain with the Quirk Bloodsucker almost crushed his skull right there. He realized though how scared Fudgepack was with that tone he just had, so the fact that the fat man was looking behind him meant something. Killmore spun his head around fast, only to see something just as fast flying towards him. He pulled his head away faster and dodged the knife, and it slammed into the upper right side of Fudgepack's chest close to his shoulder, right in a chunk of fat. The knife was coated in darkness, and Killmore let go of Fudgepack while narrowing his black and blue eyes furiously at the boy in front of him. Then Killmore's eyes darted back behind him at the knife that was covered in excess Death, and that Zach did not want all going into hurting the already slow Fudgepack.

Zach pulled Death back at the back of Killmore's head and would have missed as Killmore saw it coming. However Killmore had long spikes now, and the end of a strand of Death wrapped around one of Killmore's spikeswhich made him pull forward so much faster. Fudgepack stumbled back and then let out a yelp while falling into a hole in the floor. He bounced off one side of it and then flipped around while falling through the floor down to the nineteenth that he hit flat on his face. As Killmore pulled farther forward though to escape the small wisps of darkness, he realized what he was doing and what he had seen behind the knife when he had spun the other way from Fudgepack.

Killmore planted his feet and started spinning around again, and he slammed his right fist with a huge spike on the back of his hand out at Zach. The boy charging at him dodged to the right and dropped down to his right hand as he pulled away so fast, then he brought that right hand up and swung Death up at Killmore's body as the villain tried kicking his shin spikes into the arm. Zach's hand just swept by Killmore's leg as the villain kicked it forward, but Killmore was still faster and leapt backwards fast to dodge the Death Wind. He dodged back so fast actually, that he neared the south wall of the building that Zach was trying to keep the fight towards. Killmore was the farthest he had been from the hostages, landing between some furniture because the window behind him was not completely covered in the black stuff to give Killmore a nice view outside through the cracks when he had wanted one.

The person who had created that black goop that covered all the windows of the building was on the twelfth floor. The woman had her arms raised, creating more of it though she was panting and had a bruise on the right side of her cheek. The twelfth floor was in complete madness with walls separating offices broken, holes in the floor and cracks on the ceiling, injured heroes and injured villains all tired and duking it out with each other. Tsuyu jumped away from a black wave of goop, then she bounced off of a cracked wall covered in bullet holes back near the stairwell that was hit by a huge thick iron club that extended out of one villain's right arm. The villain was covered in piercings from head to toe, including three thick steel ones going through the bridge of his nose and lots of rings all over his face.

Tsuyu snapped her tongue out towards the guy with arms that extended into iron clubs, but her tongue whipped away and towards the villain who had just pulled out a sidearm and was aiming at an exhausted Kirishima who spun and threw his arms out in front of Aoyama who was bleeding out one side of his head and a lot more out his right leg. Tsuyu's tongue was too slow. The tape wasn't. "Go up ahead Bakugo!" Iida shouted, while the heroes and villains in the room spun towards the stairwell. Iida's calves were burning bright, and the color changed to blue as he had been saving up on the sprint up the stairs. "Recipro-BURST!" Iida shot at the woman creating black sludge that hardened afterwards, and he could see windows in his peripheral vision that told him who this was.

"I got your back Kirishima!" Sero called out, while he fired more taped at the villain whose gun he had knocked away with it. Sero shot himself across the room, dodging metal clubs flying up at him and sending himself closer to the area where Kirishima had brought Aoyama, and where Shoji had just gathered the last of the hostages strapped with C4. "We'll protect you!" Sero called out with a grin on his face, and Kirishima smirked wide at the reinforcements.

"More of them?!"

"What are those idiots on the lower floors doing?!"

"Don't fuck it up!" Bakugo shouted down while sprinting faster up the stairs.

 **"Bakugo, don't worry about the fifteenth floor. Go straight to the twentieth,"** Tokoyami's voice filled the headsets, only for Bakugo to scream back, 'I KNOW!'

"Midoriya," Todoroki said into the sixth floor, and the two boys inside the room spun towards the windows to see one shattering and their classmate heading inside. He left Ojiro down below to finish getting the last of the hostages on the third floor out of the building, while he rose up the outside wall on the south side of the building in front of all the spectators, and his dad. Todoroki rose his right hand to freeze the hardened black substance on the wall next to him, only for all that black stuff to start losing form. It sank down and dropped from the windows that it had filled, as Iida's Reciproburst kick knocked-out the villain who had blocked the inside of the building.

"Todoroki," Midoriya said while limping over towards some other hostages he was trying to untie carefully. "Could you," Midoriya started, looking around at the people with C4 all over them. Todoroki nodded and started jogging into the room, looking closely at the C4 he was running towards to defuse. Mineta let out a sigh of relief as he no longer had to rely on his bomb-defusing skills.

The projections on the outside of the building had faded away a few seconds ago. No one outside the building knew what was going on inside anymore, but the cops and civilians who had gathered behind them started cheering. Hostages going down the slide or already freed and down near the police yelled cheers up at the building as the black coatings in all the windows started coming down. Many of the windows had not been shattered but covered from the inside, though most windows in the building were at least cracked which was why the police had the freed hostages moving a certain distance away for the perimeter. Todoroki's ice sticking out of the fourth floor worked as a solid roof blocking much of the glass falling, though it had been a bit more difficult for him to rise up to the sixth floor with that ice in the way.

A news helicopter reporting on the situation got its camera switched to from the one on the ground that no longer had a great angle without the projections on the front of the building. "We have just received a report that the villain's leader Killmore is on the twentieth floor right now. We're zooming- oh my G- that's him!" The reporter was shocked by her luck, but the villain was actually just inside of a window on the south side of the building. He was half-turned and had looked back at the hardened black goop losing shape with so much fury in his eyes. The camera zoomed in an caught a glimpse of that expression so different from the composed one he had had in his messages before. And Killmore lifted something in his right hand that had the reporter screaming, "GET US AWAY FROM THE BUILDING!"

Zach stared towards the villain up in front of him with his eyes bulging huge. Killmore watched the dark ooze disappear from the windows. He spotted Gahandi getting pushed back by the girls who despite not having good Quirks to fight him with, were working together and keeping him on the ropes, and away from the hostages. _The hostages._ Killmore lifted the detonator in his right hand, while Todoroki jogged towards some gathered hostages near Mineta and Midoriya, while Kirishima, Shoji, Sero, and Aoyama gathered around a group on the twelfth floor, and Jirou and Yaoyorozu kept the closest hostages just behind them. "Don't do it Killmore," Zach said, his voice quiet and breaking from its dark tone. He rose his right hand and touched his body, getting rid of Nightmare form so it would not sound threatening at all.

Killmore glared his dark eyes into Zach's lighter ones with a furious look on his face. He had sucked in so much blood, but he did not feel as strong as he should. _It's getting touched by him. This mother fucker! The plan- everything! IT WAS YOUR FAULT!_ "We'll let you go," Zach said, his eyes shooting open much wider as Killmore's shook in anger. "We'll let Kurogiri come get you!" Zach called out in a more panicked voice, and his voice went through his earpiece and reached all his classmates. "Just don't do it! What would be the point? You'd die too!"

Anyone on the twentieth floor not looking towards those windows snapped their heads to the south side of the building. Gahandi's eyes bulged, and he spun away with a look of shock on his face. Jirou and Yaoyorozu charged at him in the moment he was distracted. Jirou moved faster, and Gahandi turned towards them with a shocked look that they would try to fight right now. He jumped back, but Yaoyorozu was running slower for a reason and she fired up at Gahandi and electrocuted him this time with a pair of tasers she held in each hand. Yaoyorozu's chest started to glow at the same time as she took down the wrinkled villain, and her face was sweating as she screamed at herself, _FASTER!_

"I'm not gonna be the one who loses here, Reaper," Killmore snarled at the kid in front of him. Zach ground his teeth but tried to keep his cool while this villain held the trigger in his hands. There were hostages all over the building, and his classmates were surrounding those hostages at that very moment. Killmore's face turned more crazed and Zach widened his eyes in despair, though he tried to keep an understanding and afraid look on his face. He wanted Killmore to hesitate, and Killmore did. "You never knew," Killmore said, and Zach stared at him with his eyes shaking more. "You never knew, the kid was betraying you?" In Killmore's eyes flashed a look on understanding that made Zach's blood run cold, and Killmore lifted the shaking corners of his lips and pulled his head back a bit. "He's one cold mother fucker," he said, his voice cracking and sweat covering his face, and then all of Killmore's muscles tensed as Zach sprinted forward as fast as he could.

Killmore pressed his thumb down on the button. Yaoyorozu spun her head towards the villain, and she screamed, "That won't work!" Killmore's eyes that he closed when he pressed the trigger stayed closer for a second as he waited for the boom. "I created a radio jammer," the tall girl tying up Gahandi with strong ropes she just made called out. She started standing up, and she yelled, her voice not reaching anyone's earpieces any longer, "You won't be- Zach!"

Killmore's eyes had opened while his face filled with shock and even a bit of relief that he did not just go up in a fiery explosion. The helicopter pulling away from the building got confused as the man who lifted the detonator started lowering it in confusion, and then their eyes opened wide as a figure slammed into Killmore at full force while the man was standing there in shock at his lack of being dead. The window behind him was cracked already, so Zach slamming into him that fast and that close meant they flew through the window with barely any resistance. The detonator fell out of Killmore's hands as Zach slammed into him in his midsection, and it bounced around on the floor before coming to a stop next to some broken glass.

"MMNFFBRRNNGRRR!" The hostages through the twentieth floor shouted into their gags.

"ZACH!" Jirou screamed at the window Zach just went through.

Yaoyorozu's heart skipped a beat, and then her eyes snapped down to the detonator on the floor next to the window but no longer in Killmore's hand, so he was no longer pressing the red button down. _Zach!_ Yaoyorozu broke the radio jammer she was holding, and then she yelled into her earpiece, "Zach's falling from the twentieth floor out the south side!"

Bakugo was on the seventeenth floor fighting an obese man who was bloody and burnt and slow but taking most of his attacks easily. Bakugo stared past the man in shock though as he heard that, seeing a pair of figures falling out of the air surrounded by broken glass.

Killmore's face filled with rage, and the man powered-up by so much blood slammed his fist forward into Zach. Zach wished his back was to the building so he could have been slammed back inside, but it would not have mattered anyway as the punch ripped through his sweatshirt and shirt and flipped him around instead of sending him flying. As Zach flipped over though, he brought his right hand up towards his chest. His arm pushed aside some glass as he brought it up, and he felt a slash through his sleeve and on his right forearm. Zach heard shouts from the fifteenth floor and saw Uraraka reaching out and just missing him with a terrified look in her eyes.

"Tokoyami!" Uraraka shouted behind her, but the dark boy was too far across the floor when they heard Yaoyorozu's shout and he did not have Dark Shadow there in time.

Zach's body surrounded in Nightmare as he finished flipping over. He glared furiously into Killmore's eyes from up close, his red eyes boring into the man who killed Aizawa's, who just tried to blow up this building and all of his friends. Zach's right fist surrounded in Nightmare, he reached his left hand forward and grabbed a sharp spike sticking out of Killmore's left arm. Killmore slashed his right arm up, a serrated blade in it he aimed for the middle of Zach's right arm that was balling a fist. They passed another floor, and another, and Killmore slashed his knife up into Zach's arm and then right through it with his face covering in confusion. Zach's right arm flared with Death like the entire thing was enflamed, while the rest of his dark aura dimmed on the rest of his body. His bones were no longer visible in his right arm, and his fist got bigger at the moment he punched it forward and down straight into Killmore's face.

"ZACH!"

Five seconds earlier, Sero snapped his head up from the inside of the window on the twelfth floor. His elbows were ready, but his eyes opened huge as he saw Zach was not the only one falling from the sky. They also opened that wide, because Zach had activated Nightmare and he had seen what happened to Ectoplasm sensei before. _Just with our Quirks,_ Sero thought, hesitating against wrapping Zach up only to get pulled unconscious out of the window. Two people ran up to Sero's sides though who made his eyes open huge, and he fired tape from an elbow back farther in the room before wrapping up the short girl next to him with his other arm. Tsuyu leaned out of the window as the tape wrapped her and she swung her tongue down ignoring the broken glass she was whipping it into too. Kirishima grabbed hold of Shoji's back and planted his hard feet so hard into the floor that he broke through it, and Shoji reached his arms out with more and more arms extending off of them and down.

Zach's eyes opened wide as a tongue wrapped around the front of his body, and he saw blood splash off the tongue as a piece of glass nicked it. Arms grabbed onto him a second later as he stretched the tongue and felt intense fear he was about to pull the girl wrapping it around him out of the window. Shoji wrapped his arms around Zach and even extended them a little farther so it was not a sudden jolt slamming Zach to a stop. Zach slowed down, while Killmore flew down faster from him off his punch.

As Killmore shot past the eighth floor though, a big ice slide rose up from outside of the sixth floor windows where Todoroki was planning on making one in the other direction. Zach's eyes opened huge as he dangled there inside his Nightmare form outside of the tenth floor of the building, looking down at Killmore who hit a slanted ice surface and did not smash down fatally into the floor. It was still a very violent landing, and he slid down the slide fast before plummeting down into the next ice level on the fourth, but Zach could tell it did not kill him. _Todoroki,_ Zach thought. He started turning his head and looked up towards the windows of the twelfth floor where his friends were holding on as hard as they could to him and to the windows. _Shoji, Tsuyu,_ the two he thought about started pulling him back up, and they called down asking if he was alright.

Zach lifted up his right arm to his chest. He winced while bringing it towards himself, and he knew it was from the glass that had slashed him when he had activated Nightmare form. _But not when he slashed me,_ Zach thought, his eyes shifting to his right forearm as the black aura disappeared. Not even a slash in his sweatshirt sleeve could be seen where Killmore's knife passed through his arm. He lowered his hand from his chest while looking at his arm and he called up to the others bringing him to their floor, "I'm fine."

"No you're not!" Sero called down at Zach, his eyes opened huge as he looked at the center of Zach's chest where Killmore had ripped through his clothes with that first punch. Zach thought he felt some pain there when he pressed his hand into it, and he looked down at where Sero was staring to see a whole lot of blood coming out of the chest wound.

Tsuyu and Shoji lowered Zach down just on the inside of the windows on the twelfth floor. Zach was wobbly on his feet for a second, and he glanced up imagining how far he had just fallen. It was farther than he had ever free-fell before, and it brought back a painful memory. He lowered his gaze after a second as Sero told him to sit so he could wrap Zach's wounds up, and Sero was already taking his shirt off to tie on him which he'd stick there with his tape. Then Zach's eyes opened really huge, because he looked forward and saw Aoyama bleeding out one side of his head, and Iida panting and with his calves puffing smoke, facing off against a villain with thick steel bars for arms. "There's still…" Zach began, and then his eyes shifted around at his classmates on his sides.

 _Without hesitating, Tsuyu and Shoji knew touching my Nightmare form wouldn't hurt them, because of what I did with Kirishima. But still, what if it had? What if the villain had attacked the hostages while- and Momo! What if breaking the radio jammer had meant! How could you do that?! Why?! Damn it. Damn it damn it!_ His classmates around him mostly spun to the final villain, tired and panting, looking around with wide eyes as he saw his predicament.

"Surrender!" A thunderous voice shouted behind Zach. The students all over the twelfth floor, the hostages, and the villain most of all opened their eyes wide. The villain's arms shrank in size, and he slowly brought them up behind his head while dropping down on his knees, as the Number 1 hero landed down on the inside of the windows.

"Whoa," Sero leaned back as Endeavor landed in front of him. The big man's flames and his intimidating presence had Sero sweating, though he grinned too as Endeavor made it so they did not have to keep fighting, and he could focus on what he felt was most important right now. He ran up in front of Zach and told his friend to sit down so he could help, and Aoyama collapsed at the same time making some of the others run over to him.

Tsuyu stuck out her tongue and she looked down at a cut on it, then she turned her head a bit to Zach who she saw looking at her with big eyes. "Are you okay, Zach-chan?" She questioned in a worried voice.

"Man, what were you thinking?" Sero said with a shake of his head, though he laughed after a second while stopping Zach's bleeding as best he could. "You're crazy."

 **"I have secured the detonator. And I have deactivated it."** Yaoyorozu's voice in their ears made each of the students in her class feel a huge sense of relief. Zach started panting harder as he heard that, but his fists still clenched at his sides in frustration. _How could you do that? What if, there had been a second detonator? What if Kaminari was… "He's one cold mother fucker." Killmore, knew. That bastard. That look in his eyes though, he wasn't just talking about what he did to us. Kaminari. You-_

"Endeavor," Tsuyu began to the large man next to her who started marching forward to speak to the hostages and the last remaining conscious villain down on his knees. The large Flame Hero glanced down at the girl who said respectfully up to him, "The explosives have been disarmed, but I think we should still hurry to remove the bombs-"

"Get to it then, Froppy," Endeavor said. The short girl next to him looked up with wide eyes, then she nodded fast before spinning and hopping towards the closest hostages. _Endeavor knows my name?_

 _Whoa! Endeavor knows Fro- Tsuyu's hero name?!_ Sero and Kirishima both thought together, while Zach glanced up towards Endeavor in surprise too. It had surprised him enough to derail his thoughts, and then an explosion shook the building and everyone froze what they were doing. Tsuyu's eyes opened huge and she was afraid she had just lied to the Number 1 hero, while Yaoyorozu was terrified as she looked at the detonator in her hands wondering if she had made a fatal mistake.

 **"Ah, haa, ah haa… Got him."** Bakugo's voice over their earpieces told them what had actually caused the explosion. Zach grimaced more while looking up at the ceiling, and Todoroki did the same a few floors down with Midoriya looking similarly not far from him. Bakugo looked down at his arms that he just made a massive explosion with on the empty floor he was fighting Fudgepack on. The villain lay smoking and unconscious on the cracked floor in front of him, but Bakugo was the bloodier of the two. "Shit," Bakugo muttered quieter so his classmates wouldn't hear. _This better not restart the six months,_ Bakugo thought, recalling how Recovery Girl had told him his arms would recover if he managed not to use big explosions for six months, right after the Sports Festival. His skin had ripped through with that single blast alone though, and he felt some of the pain he felt at the Sports Festival resurface though he stopped himself from screaming over it.

"Everyone sweep the building for villains!" Ojiro turned his head as he stood alone on the third floor, and he looked back towards the door his team had smashed through before where Kamui Woods was shouting orders out to other heroes running through the building with him. "And secure the hostages! Get their bombs off carefully, and take back the building!" Ojiro dropped down on his butt and let out a long sigh of relief, then he lifted a hand to his ear and asked if Hagakure was alright, to which she called out that they were all clear on the fifteenth.

Tokoyami sweatdropped while standing near the fifteenth floor door. He closed his eyes for a second though, _It was necessary. I cannot say that our being here did nothing. Though,_ Tokoyami looked over his shoulder more towards the middle of the floor. _I wish someone had come down, to make Kurogiri appear._

"You're amazing, Momo," Jirou said between panting breaths to her best friend she was untying hostages with. Jirou smiled at the taller girl who had a thoughtful and serious look on her face as she kept moving her hands as fast as she could. "That was really, really quick thinking."

 _If I had been a few seconds slower,_ Yaoyorozu thought while giving Jirou a nod. _What was the villains' goal? If Killmore had managed to set off the C4, this building, most of our classmates… It was too close. Was it just to kill us? Destroy faith in Class A? Wipe us all out? What? No matter what the goal was, we thwarted it. We must have… And even if there was an ulterior goal in place here, we won. The hostages are safe, we will find out if any were killed later, but everyone is checking in that the hostages on their floors are alive. The villains had to keep them alive to keep out the other heroes, but maybe they kept them alive so that when they started killing them, it was Class A who allowed the hostages to be killed. Raijin, was that your plan?_

Midoriya looked over towards the villains they had captured as Kamui Woods ran into the room. The Number 5 hero started capturing them in a more efficient way than clumped together and stuck to furniture with Pop Offs, and Midoriya stared specifically at the shortest of the three villains who had been so quick to attack him when he rushed into the room. _Fez. One of the few villains who went with Shigaraki to Mosu Esupa. Was he a higher-up? He was powerful, but he was just used as a pawn here… Unless, they really were meant to defeat us? The way Zach was talking before comms got cut off, sounded like Killmore was going to blow us all up. What, happened here?_

"It's a good thing you kids showed up when you did," Kamui Woods said towards the young man with green hair who lifted his head and stopped mumbling to himself to look at the pro hero. Kamui Woods smiled at the boy who he had seen years ago fighting the sludge villain, running in when no one else would. Midoriya could not see that smile behind Kamui Woods' wooden mask, but he heard the smile on his face as the hero said, "If you didn't happen to be running by, who knows what would have happened here?"

Mineta smiled big as Kamui Woods said that, then he fell back and landed on his back with an exhausted look on his face. "Ha, hahaha, we won!" _Take that, Raijin._

Zach sat on his butt on the twelfth floor staring straight ahead as his classmates and Endeavor worked together to free all the hostages. Endeavor went and captured the villains in the room first, looking really annoyed that he could not beat up the villain who already surrendered to him, even though he had been the one who told the man to give up in the first place. Zach watched the top hero work, then looked towards his class rep who was running around taking everyone's gags out one by one and asking if they were alright. Zach turned his head a bit and glanced out the window, _If I had killed Killmore right there, would it have mattered? Todoroki stopped it, and I should thank him. He probably thinks it would still hurt me so much to kill someone… but Killmore, who killed Aizawa sensei… I could've lived with that. Couldn't I? No… I could have, but I'm glad he stopped it. If I had done it, it would have all been for nothing. What matters now is,_ Zach stood up and Sero turned and started scolding him, but Zach ignored him and walked back towards the windows anyway.

Kirishima walked with Zach and stayed close, but Zach ignored him while walking straight up and then stopping in the sill. Kirishima leaned forward with him and they looked down towards Todoroki's ice slide, and then down below it to a huge ice spike sticking out of the fourth floor that Killmore had stopped right on the edge of, looking like he would fall off at any second now. A hero flew up to that edge though and started tying up Killmore while they watched, the villain unconscious from Zach's final punch in the face surrounded by so much Death. "That was a sick punch," Kirishima said in a soft voice while he and Zach looked down together. Kirishima had seen it out through the window, happening right as Zach passed by their floor. Zach glanced in at him for a second and saw Kirishima looking back out the corners of his eyes, and the redhead lifted the corner of his lips closer to his friend.

Zach turned back and looked down towards Killmore again. He glared out the window with a dark look, exhausted, angry. He stared down at Killmore like that which made Kirishima lower his smile a bit on his side. The helicopter circling around the front of the building again zoomed in on the floor Endeavor just flew up into, and zoomed in on the boys standing there looking down at Killmore. _**"You can bet, I told Shigaraki as much!"**_ Zach's eyes got darker and his lips twisted down harder, and then he turned away and walked back into the building. "Let's help out," Zach said in a low voice, and Sero and Kirishima both looked in at him with darker looks for a second before glancing at each other and nodding. They ran off to help out the hostages around the room, and Zach forced his lips up into a half, fake smile while untying a hostage next to Shoji. "It's okay now," Zach said, his voice low and his eyes looking so far away despite being faced straight at the hostage before him. "We're here."


	92. Chapter 92

**Disclaimer: I don't own Boku no Hero Academia**

 **Chapter 92:**

"HAHA! Look at that!" Kirishima pointed at the tv and let out a laugh of victory as he saw himself getting lit up and not taking a scratch. He received a text and pulled out his phone, and a big smirk spread over his face before he texted back Tetsutetsu in a smug way.

Mineta was bouncing up and down on the center couch cushion on the couch closest to the wall of the common area. "Everyone's so stoked on us!" He had a big smile on his face after a clip had just been shown before Kirishima's of his and Midoriya's big combination attack on the villains of the sixth floor. Even though he had been crying through the clip…

"I dazzled so brightly! They could not stop my sparkle!" Aoyama exclaimed, putting his hands behind his head and pushing his pelvis forward with a giant smile one his face.

Ashido spun to him and nodded fast, "You were awesome!" Aoyama turned to her and his eyes widened for a second, before he snapped his head farther back and made his long blond hair bounce with an even more proud look on his face. When Ashido spoke after him usually she was just cutting him off or ignoring him, and he blinked his long eyelashes a few times before shouting that it wasn't 'awesome,' but 'dazzling.'

"Shows what happens when they try to mess with us," Kirishima said while shoving his phone back in his pocket. He looked to his left at Bakugo who grinned back at him, no longer any pain in his arms and a satisfied look on his face as he had heard from Recovery Girl that she was warning him to be extra careful because she knew he wouldn't be otherwise. The one big explosion he used on Fudgepack was not going to seriously maim his arms like he was worried about right after he used it, and Recovery Girl had stopped the lingering pain from the fight when they met earlier.

"That's right," Sero agreed with Kirishima, looking over at him and then back at the screen that started showing interviews that had taken place afterwards. Mother Russia had pushed the interviews fast and said that the students were all out on temporary passes to go on a run, so they had to get back to campus soon. One reporter had asked if they were really supposed to believe that, only for Mother Russia to ask in her scariest Russian accent what the guy meant to which he apologized and quickly scooted away. It was pretty threatening, and not very hero-like, but everyone knew what the official narrative was trying to be pushed as.

The heroes had not succumbed to the villains' demands. Young heroes in training had just arrived on the scene and were the first to go in, though the Class A students heard from Mother Russia after they had returned to campus that the replacement principal was already receiving heat from high-up hero officials for letting those minors rush into a serious hostage situation without backup. No one wanted the officials to do it though, so Mother Russia told her class that the pushback was likely not going to be very strong. After all, not one of the hostages had been killed. One of the villains was, but it was Killmore himself who killed Slideshow in front of a large number of witnesses who were able to corroborate it.

There was one thing about the whole scenario that the news was not covering as much or with as much enthusiasm. It was hard for them to ignore it altogether though, as talking about the leader of the hostage crisis that was becoming known by his name was necessary. A clip of Killmore getting tackled out of the window was recorded from a helicopter flying away from the building in fear of being too close when the impending explosion went off, as it had looked like Killmore was going to blow the building up. That clip played on the tv in Class A's common room and everyone quieted down a bit as they stared at the boy charging Killmore and tackling them straight through the window of the building's twentieth story.

"What was he thinking?" Hagakure whispered with a shake of her head, glancing next to her at Ojiro to see what he thought.

Ojiro shook his head too though, frowning as he watched a dark aura surround Zach that could have made it impossible for them to save him. The look on Zach's face when he used it, zoomed in on by the camera following him and Killmore down the building's side, it showed he was not thinking about what would happen when he finally hit the ground.

The clip changed after Zach punched Killmore and got saved by his comrades. It changed quickly instead of showing the scene that followed again as it had earlier on which a few of them saw, when Zach and Kirishima walked back to the window together after Endeavor's arrival. The look on Lifebringer's face caused some concern, but when one of the news anchors mentioned something about it earlier, the other argued quickly and sternly about how Lifebringer had taken down the villains' leader. It switched to instead show the quick entry and take down of the villains on the third floor, and the anchors broke down how efficiently those young new heroes ascertained the situation and successfully rescued the hostages.

A couple of the students in the common room got to talking about that, but others glanced around looking for Zach who was not down there with them. Another of their classmates was noticeably missing, though her absence made everyone looking for Zach feel hopeful. Jirou looked to her left from behind the middle couch, staring over towards the stairwell where her best friend had gone off to not too long ago. A small smile formed on her face and she lowered her gaze down to the floor. In her head she saw Zach diving out the window and remembered screaming herself with all the hostages, but she thought about how Momo actually worked fast and got their classmates to save him. She thought about how she just watched Zach punching Killmore in the face as they plummeted together despite blood splashing out of his dark aura from his own chest and arm, and she let out a small sigh while thinking about the two of them missing right now.

 _You guys are great together._

"You really came up with some quick plans Midoriya," Kirishima said, smacking his hands down on the shoulders of a curly haired boy on the couch in front of him. Midoriya jumped a bit and looked up nervously at Kirishima's loud praise that got the others all looking over towards him. "Those villains didn't know what was hitting them, until after we had hit them!" He cracked a bigger grin and started laughing and some others laughed along too.

Midoriya opened his mouth to respond, but he froze and looked back at the screen at something one of the anchors was saying. "…the faith in Class A was shaken with Denki Kaminari's betrayal, but it was not broken. At least for me-"

"No I agree. I didn't want to lose hope in those kids, and man if they did not show it was right to keep believing in them." The co-anchor smiled and said in a serious yet cheerful and hopeful voice, "This next generation of heroes, are a ray of hope in the darkness. I for one, am looking forward to seeing the heroes these kids are going to become." All of Class A felt a pressure put on them with that statement that made many of them feel good about themselves too. The pressure was stronger though, as the anchor was telling them not only how he felt but how they expected many of the people watching felt right now too. Fists clenched and expressions hardened, though smiles formed on those strong looks too.

* * *

"You still shouldn't have done it," Zach said, arguing with the girl in front of him who frowned back in an upset way.

"You're mad at me?" Yaoyorozu asked. She pursed her lips for a second and then shook her head as she was not just going to let it go. "If I hadn't called to the others, no one would have known you were falling-"

"What if breaking the jammer had let Killmore's signal go through the the bombs?"

"I had my eyes on the detonator. I knew it wasn't-"

"But what if there was a second detonator? What if Kaminari was watching, and when he saw you break it he had decided to blow us all up instead?!"

"He didn't. And, and that was a risk I was willing to take."

Zach opened his mouth, and then he froze and closed his eyes so tightly at the look she gave him when saying that. "He wasn't even there," Yaoyorozu whispered softer at the look of pain that flashed over his face. In his expression she could see him imagining the entire building blowing up, all of Class A inside, just because she wanted to save him. "He didn't-"

"You don't know that," Zach whispered. He lifted his eyes and his expression was a lot darker than a second ago. "Killmore, he- he knew." Zach paused and looked into the eyes of the taller girl who got a confused expression on her face as they argued in Zach's doorway. He shook his head for a second, then he stopped and told himself it wasn't okay, clenching his teeth harder before saying in a louder voice, "Killmore realized! When he lifted the detonator, that Kaminari had planned things out like that."

"What are you talking about?" Yaoyorozu asked him in confusion, pulling back a bit at the look of frustration spread over Zach's face. She had had her own doubts since the fight earlier herself that she was unsure how to react to hearing this.

"He had to have known," Zach added in a lower voice almost a whisper. "He, knew us well enough to know that we would succeed. He must have known, that we would push him into a corner. I saw it in Killmore's eyes, when he called Raijin a 'cold mother fucker.' He wasn't just saying it because Kaminari betrayed us." Zach gulped and then shook his head with his teeth clenched harder. "Kaminari must have known, that even that _elite_ team couldn't have beaten us, because he knows what we're all like. He knows how strong we are better than any villain. And, and he wanted Killmore to have to use the detonator. Right before Killmore pressed the button, he realized it." Zach closed his eyes again and then opened them to glare so hard into Yaoyorozu's eyes. "And if Kaminari wanted him pressing that button, then he could have had an extra detonator to-"

"Then how do you know that was really what his plan was?" Yaoyorozu cut in. Zach froze with his mouth open, and the taller girl in the hallway in front of him stepped forward so she was right up in front of him and looking down into his dark eyes. "You don't know. If Raijin had it all planned out from the beginning. If Raijin was even the one in control-"

"He was," Zach whispered. He looked into her eyes in a confused way as to why she could not see it. "Killmore owed Kaminari, for saving him from Aizawa sensei. Kaminari, knew that we'd go in there with certain provocations. He _told_ us that he was going to kill us soon." Zach paused and took a few deep breaths, and he shook his head while saying, "He knew we'd push Killmore into a corner, and instead of taking down a few Class A's and killing some hostages to ruin our name, it would be a devastating blow we'd never recover from."

"You don't know that-"

"They _always_ win," Zach whispered. "Always," he repeated. "USJ, the training forest, Mosu Esupa, Kaminari… The League, always plans for stuff like-"

"Stop that," Yaoyorozu snapped firmly. Zach's eyes shot open wide at her tone, one she never took with him. She glared down into his eyes and Zach pulled his head back as he wondered if he had ever seen that look in Momo's eyes before. "They don't always win," she said, shaking her head and then stepping another foot closer to Zach so he had to step back in his own doorway. "We won today. This was a victory, and you have to see that." She started looking at him in a sadder way, but she tried keeping her expression firm as she continued, "Even if Kaminari wanted Killmore to blow us all up, we won even more then! Didn't we? He didn't have a backup detonator, because he wasn't there himself and maybe wasn't in range, or maybe he wasn't directly involved. You're thinking too deeply into this, Zach."

His eyes were huge, and they started shaking while he lowered them down to the floor between the two of them. _She's right._ He believed her. _Momo's, usually right. Most of the time she is actually. And, and she's right this time too! We saved the hostages. Caught the villains. And she stopped the detonation._ He lifted his eyes up slowly to her legs and up her body to her face again. _This, really is a victory,_ Zach thought, and he felt a huge pain in his chest. _The one I've been looking for,_ he thought, his heart rate speeding up more and his face twisting in frustration. He hated what he was thinking at the moment, especially looking at the face of the girl who had risked everything to call to the others to save him. He imagined Tsuyu and Shoji reaching through his Nightmare form to catch him, and Todoroki creating the ice below to catch Killmore too so he wouldn't have killed him. Sero wrapping up his wounds, and Kirishima standing by his side even after he had pushed him so hard away the last twelve days.

 _It would have all been for nothing, if they didn't save me._ Zach clenched his eyes shut so tightly. "You're right," Zach whispered. "We did win." Momo's hand rested on his right shoulder as he said it, and Zach opened his eyes to see the girl in front of him smiling so wide to hear him say that. The idea of a victory, especially considering the way things had been going since Kaminari, or even since the Sports Festival, it felt good. Zach started to smile back at her as she looked so softly back at him from that close.

 _What am I doing?_ Zach realized with his eyes widening for a split second. His chest hurt so much more, while he lowered his smile and pulled his right shoulder back a bit but enough for Yaoyorozu's hand to fall off and the message to go through. Her eyes widened as Zach turned his head away, _I'm sorry, Momo._ When he turned his expression got darker, his lips twisting down and his expression going cold. Yaoyorozu stepped back farther into the boys' hall and she shook her head disappointedly as Zach turned farther from her. As soon as his face was fully turned from her though, both of their expressions filled with pain. After a moment of pain though, Zach took a deep breath and looked into his room determinedly. _But the game changed. This doesn't change anything. One incident, can't change my mind. As much as you all want it to._

* * *

In late June, U.A. High School suddenly became a loud and crazy place after two weeks of a dreary school atmosphere. The day after Killmore's Office Takeover, the Musutafu Hostage Crisis, or Class A's Super Awesome Total Victory (which was only a common name between certain students), the second years in Class A were being treated like heroes in the halls. The cafeteria broke out in applause when Class A showed up the day after, some students came over to Class A's they recognized and thanked them for saving the hostages who might have been their older siblings, parents, uncles or aunts, or neighbors. Some third years in the hero course told the second years they were impressed, though Fera Indago just got annoyed at Bakugo as she heard he used his big explosion which she snapped at him slowed down his recovery time.

Bakugo got scolded by the top hero recruit in the third years while in front of some of his fellow students, and Kirishima and Sero tried holding back snickers once she was gone while Bakugo fumed behind her. Itsuka Kendo came over to Class A's tables in the lunch room once everyone had started eating and told them how everyone in Class B thought they did great too. They were worried and a few, namely Tetsutetsu, wanted to go out and help too. Even only with their class though, Kendo told them they did amazingly and the praise from the big sister of Class B made a lot of the Class A's smile.

Mother Russia was not as hyped on them though. She made them watch the footage they had of what happened inside during their first classes, and she only spent the time yelling at what they had done wrong and could have done better. There were a lot of good pointers in there, though some of her students wished she was at least a little appreciative or encouraging over what they had done which they all felt was a big achievement. Luckily they had Cementoss to come in and tell them how great they were afterwards, which brought up their moods before getting them raised so much higher at lunch. People were happy to see the Class A students looking excited and happy too, as they had been too grim and depressing the last couple of weeks themselves.

One student did not share in the rest of the class's optimism, not that most people blamed him. Zach was not looking _as_ dark as usual though, as he seemed to be trying not to bring down the rest of the class by actually responding when people talking to him and not talking about betrayal and trust. No one asked him if he trusted them now after what had happened, because they were worried about his response with the expressions he still had on his face. Zach had gone to Shoji and Tsuyu though and thanked them for catching him as he fell from the building after they watched it during class. Mother Russia had scolded him for doing it, saying that Yaoyorozu breaking the radio jammer was his fault for acting so reckless which Zach agreed with and apologized to everyone for for putting them in danger of blowing up. He also made sure to thank Todoroki for saving Killmore, and Todoroki told him not to worry about it in a monotone voice whereas Shoji and Tsuyu told Zach he never had to thank them for something like that.

The two Zach had thanked for catching him told him that he never had to thank them, and Zach got confused for a few seconds before they explained that they were friends. Saving and protecting each other, it was just a part of that and he could always rely on them, just like they know they can with him. Zach had nodded at them in agreement with their kind sentiments, only to turn away without smiling or saying anything else. He had had to get his face away quickly to avoid what he knew his expression was about to look like.

After school, Class A gathered together in their common room because All Might had asked them to back during his class earlier in the day. Zach headed back fast and got out of his school uniform. He put on a hoodie, unfortunately with a few rips in it from a couple weeks back. It was better than his newer one though that Killmore ripped through the front of and was splashed with blood since he had yet to do his laundry. Zach's room was pretty messy when he got in to get changed. He put on sweats and his older sweatshirt, then he grabbed headphones and plugged them into the new school-issued phone he had started putting music onto. He headed back downstairs and made his way into the common room where the rest of the class were still wearing their uniforms and were hanging around as they came back.

"Well that didn't take you long," Kirishima joked as he looked over towards the stairs and saw Zach walking towards them in all black and looking way too hot. This late in June and the fact that a heat wave was hitting them, it made Zach's choice of clothing difficult to understand, especially since Kirishima noticed a couple of rips in his sweatshirt. "You should get a new sweatshirt," Kirishima suggested as Zach kept walking towards him. "That one's looking, a little worn out."

Zach looked him in his red eyes, and the darker-haired boy nodded once at his friend who grit his teeth in annoyance at that reaction. "Once I get some money," Zach said quietly. It was not enough, but it was actually words so Kirishima stopped looking as annoyed and nodded back at him.

Midoriya looked over from a few feet away from Kirishima as Zach said that though. He looked at Zach, and Midoriya felt the biggest pain in his chest as he thought about what Zach told him about his ATM card, how he did not want to take out money with it. Then he thought about what All Might had told him, Iida, and Uraraka the other day which they had agreed to each other not to repeat to anyone else. _Zach, I know it hurts. You're strong though. I know, I'll be able to talk to you about this soon. When you come back out of this rut again, like you always do. I'll be there- but, I want to help you out of it too._ "What do you guys think All Might wants to talk to us about?" Midoriya asked, stepping towards Kirishima and Zach who had stopped after reaching the redhead.

Kirishima turned to Midoriya and shrugged his shoulders. Then a small grin came over Kirishima's face and he said in a low voice, "Shouldn't you know?"

Zach's eyes got a bit darker as he focused on Kirishima's back, then he shifted them towards Midoriya who darted his eyes his way. Zach looked into Midoriya's eyes, and then his opened wide for a second and he pulled his head back. "You know, I didn't say shit to him," Zach said. Midoriya stared at Zach in confusion, and his eyes started opening wide which just made Zach bite down harder and glare at him in more anger himself. _Why wouldn't he think it was me? I told Kaminari, secrets that weren't mine to tell. Of course Midoriya thinks I could have! I'm not a trustworthy enough…_ "It was probably, Shigaraki," Zach muttered in a low voice, turning away from Midoriya who opened his mouth wanting to tell Zach that it wasn't what he thought.

Midoriya froze with his mouth open though, and then he lowered his gaze to the floor and dropped the hand he had partially risen at Zach. _I'm sorry,_ Midoriya thought, because he did not want to lie and tell Zach he did not think it was him who told Kaminari about the secret of One For All.

"Whoa, what?" Kirishima just looked back and forth between the two, completely lost at what just happened. He looked back at Zach after a second as the darker haired boy started for the couch area to move away from them, and he narrowed his eyes while keeping Midoriya in his peripheral vision. _Did you already know, what Kaminari meant when he told Midoriya… All Might's power? That All For One guy, talked about taking powers away. All Might knew him too… Does that mean something?_ A confused look formed on Kirishima's face and he just shook his head to forget about it, before looking back towards Zach as he got farther off. There were more important things he had to think about than Midoriya's Quirk.

All Might knocked on Class A's dorm's door twice before letting himself in. "I am coming in the door!" He called out, and he transformed into his muscular form for a second for the first time that the students had seen in a while. He transformed back into his skinny form with sucked in cheeks and a pointy chin after a second, and he started panting which made the students in front of him stare his way worriedly. "It has been good, to see you all in high spirits today," All Might said while catching his breath in the front of Class A's twenty students.

"What is it you wanted to talk to us about today, All Might?" Iida questioned in a formal voice.

All Might held up his right hand signaling Iida there was no reason to be standing so straight up and speaking so formally to him. The class rep got a semi-confused look on his face as did most of the others around the room. "I have come today, with an offer," All Might began. Zach looked closer towards the former top hero who glanced his way while making eye contact with everyone, and who looked a bit surprised at Zach's quick clothing change. All Might continued while looking back straight towards the middle of the group gathered before him mostly in their school uniforms, "All of you, must decide together whether or not this is something you would like to do."

It sounded like something pretty serious was coming, and everyone focused closely on All Might as he took in a deep breath. All Might leaned his head back a bit and began, "If you all trust each other, and you trust me, then I would like to suggest a… camping trip." All Might leaned back farther nervously while glancing towards Ashido whose eyes opened huge and started shaking. He continued quickly before an excited shout that he had expected from the girl, "Last summer, your training camp was cut short. We cannot do one this summer, and many of you are doing summer internships anyway. In fact, after final exams next week you will not all be together again until the fall term."

Ashido's excited shout bubbling in her throat pushed down for a second, and she took in a deep breath as this sounded serious as much as it sounded amazing. "All Might," Iida began slowly. "How is this, allowed?"

All Might nodded his head as that was a reasonable question. "I have spoken with this, only to the principal," All Might said. The students looked at their teacher with wider eyes, and All Might continued in a softer voice, "Because I know, it may still be hard for some of you to trust everyone." A couple of people glanced over towards Zach, though he just kept his eyes locked on All Might. The scrawny teacher went on, "Principle Ono has given his permission, and he left the specifics and asking all of you solely up to me."

"All Might," Midoriya began quietly. "What are you-"

"If everyone in this room trusts each other and is willing," All Might started again. He spoke in a tone that made it sound like he was in his muscular form, yet he smiled in a soft way that really only worked in the form he looked like now. "Then we would like to give you this reward for your hard work. Over the past month, and over the past year and several months since you entered U.A., your class has had a harder time than any before you. Yet you all proved yourselves yesterday, that you deserve the trust of the school. Principal Ono and myself have enough faith in all of you from yesterday's events, that even without a host of pro heroes watching over you, we believe you are all capable and marvelous young heroes who can protect yourselves, _and_ each other."

 _You were all forced to grow up too fast. As much as this is a reward for your hard work, it is also something fun that you can do while you are still children. Which you are. All of you, are children who may never again have a chance to act that way._ All Might's gaze shifted a bit just as the other students all started talking at once in excited and amazed and confused voices. He looked over and stared at a boy in a black hoodie who was staring towards him with wide eyes. _Some of you, were forced to grow up faster than others. But Young Sazaki, I want you to see that there is still good in this world. With the people who have been by your side for a long time now, the ones who I believe you trust the most, I hope you will accept this._

"Camping?! Of course we're going!" Ashido shouted. She jumped up in front of Aoyama and cut him off with another yell about, "Test of courage!"

"Is this really the time?" Todoroki wondered quietly.

Sero glanced to his right at him and shrugged with a smile on his face. "When else are we ever going to get a chance at this? I was pretty disappointed by the last training forest, to be honest," Sero said with a sarcastic sigh while Todoroki stared at him with wide eyes.

"Yeah, the last one sucked," Bakugo muttered, and everyone around him turned his way with dropped jaws. "What?" He snapped at their looks.

 _Did Bakugo just make a joke?_

 _That antisocial Bakugo?_

 _Is that really Bakugo? We're supposed to have to trust each other for this, but he's scaring me._

"Hahaha! Yeah it did!" Kirishima finally called out in agreement when he got over the fact that Bakugo said that quicker than the others.

"Is it really safe to go, camping though?" Hagakure asked, and she looked around at the others with her in a nervous way that they could imagine from the tone of her voice.

Ashido turned to her friend to respond, but Ojiro lowered his right hand and interlocked his fingers with Hagakure's. She turned to him and he said with a small smile, "I'm sure it will be. If we're all together."

"Awww," Ashido tried covering up her mouth but it came out subconsciously.

"No one will be there, to give away where we are this time," Jirou added in a low voice. Yaoyorozu turned towards her with wide eyes as Jirou mentioned it, and a couple of others got darker looks on their faces for a second. Jirou let out a sigh as she saw some of those dark looks, and then she said, "So why not? I trust everyone here."

"Killmore tried to blow the building with all of us still in it," Yaoyorozu said, using logic just in case anyone there was still unsure and just keeping it to themselves. "And All Might is, well, All Might. So I believe we can safely say," she smiled as her classmates looked towards her, "that we are all on the same side."

"Will, the new principal know where we're going?" Tsuyu asked All Might slowly, sounding a bit hesitant to ask it knowing it would make it seem like she did not trust Principal Ono.

"If you don't want him to, I will not tell him," All Might promised. The students' eyes widened, and their teacher continued with a slightly more serious look, "He and I agree, that you have all proven yourselves already. As much as he has left the specifics up to me, I am leaving as much control in your hands. What you do from here, whether or not you trust each other, you must decide on your own. That is what it means, to be heroes."

 _On the one hand, heroes could trust each other and work together to fight villains. On the other, they could decide to work alone to prevent information from being leaked._ Zach stared towards All Might and his eyes got much darker. _What is right? Which is wrong? Heroes have to decide on their own who to trust._ Zach shifted his dark gaze around at his classmates, many of whom started looking towards him as All Might finished. Many of them just made sentiments about how they trusted each other, about how they believed everyone in there really was a hero, but they looked to Zach who they knew did not trust them very much these past few weeks. They thought about what he said about his goal for being a hero, how he had lost faith, and some of them thought about what they had heard him say to Kirishima about thinking he could easily be a spy.

Then Zach nodded. He nodded his head at them and smiles formed on the faces of many of his classmates as well as on All Might's. Zach nodded, but Kirishima glared towards him after how much hesitation Zach just showed. A pissed-off look covered Kirishima's face that Bakugo glanced at before getting a bit more annoyed himself and looking over at Zach frustratedly. "I'll go," Zach said while looking at All Might who he had seen awaiting his response.

Kirishima shook his head around as he heard that, and he narrowed his angry eyes forward before yelling mentally at himself to lift his own mood back excited again. _This is exactly what Zach needs! It's what all of us need. And it's a camping trip! One night, but still…_ All Might started going into the specifics he had already come up with: Friday night, leaving from a Training Ground by bus on the far side of campus where there was another gate out of school. There was a forest used for camping just outside of Musutafu so that they could stay close to the city in case of any villain attacks where they start shouting for Class A to come at them again.

As everyone started speaking up and asking All Might what they were going to do for tents, bathrooms, and activities, Yaoyorozu turned her head and looked back towards Zach again. Everyone was getting really into it all of a sudden, yet she looked back at him and felt a pang in her chest at the suspicious look in his eyes. As he looked around at his classmates, looking like he did not trust them. _Are you just doing this, because you don't want us to feel bad about you staying behind? Because, I can see you still don't trust us. I saw it last night, the way you looked at me._ Zach's eyes were dark as he looked around at his friends, and then he turned and looked towards Yaoyorozu who he spotted staring towards him. His eyes did not get softer as he looked at her, did not match the soft and pained look in Yaoyorozu's this time. She could no longer read what his expression meant though. She stared at him and wished she knew what he was thinking, but all she could see was darkness. No pain, sadness, anger, fear, or distrust. His eyes just looked dark to her, and cold, and she finally turned away to join in with the conversations every around her were having. _I don't know how to help you Zach, if you won't let me. Please, just let me help._

* * *

 **A/N Thanks for reading. Hope you enjoyed the chapter, bit shorter than the last one. Class A heads off on a camping trip so we'll see what happens there, next time! I'm going to start up doing review responses again starting next chapter. Didn't want to write reviews during the spy arc and everything dark that was going on 'cause I felt like I might accidentally put in spoilers (for those of you wondering why I stopped suddenly). Anyway, let me know what you've thought of the recent chapters, comments, questions, and predictions for the coming chapters!**


	93. Chapter 93: Camping

**Disclaimer: I don't own Boku no Hero Academia**

 **Chapter 93:**

"Come on Momo, we're all heading over to Ground Zeta," Ashido called back over her shoulder while walking with Hagakure and Jirou.

"I will be right behind you," Yaoyorozu replied, looking towards the other girls and motioning ahead though she stayed where she was. Ashido glanced back towards the dorm herself, then she nodded and turned forward and started a conversation with the other two to get them to come along as well.

The girls all had backpacks on, changes of clothes inside them while they walked in their hero costumes. They were heading to Ground Zeta for "training" after all. Yaoyorozu wore her red costume open down the middle with a thick yellow belt on around her waist. She looked back towards Class 2-A's dorm building in Heights Alliance, waiting for the boy who she had asked if he wanted to walk to Ground Zeta with her. Zach had told her to go on ahead though, yet she found herself hesitating after leaving the dorm so slowly yet still not seeing Zach coming. She had waited down in the common room as everyone else she figured was still in the building left, and they were getting close to the time they were supposed to meet for at Ground Zeta.

 _Please come Zach,_ Momo thought, feeling a bit worried that he was having second thoughts. She worried that she would arrive at Ground Zeta and hear from All Might that Zach had decided to stay behind, and she was getting more worried about that every second she stood alone out on the street without seeing Class A's dorm's front door open.

Zach finally walked out of the building. He wore his black costume again with the white sheaths and grappling gun from his other one with it, and he had his black backpack on over his back. He stopped after walking outside and looked towards Yaoyorozu who had waited for him despite him being the last person inside. _As long as there's no second spy, everything should be fine,_ Zach thought. _Everything, will be fine._ His expression stayed dark but he lifted the corners of his lips the smallest amount seeing Yaoyorozu waiting for him. _Momo…_

The tallest girl in Class A looked happy to see him coming. She waited where she was as Zach walked down the path, and the boy said as he neared her, "I said you could go on ahead."

Yaoyorozu lowered her smile a bit, and then she said in a soft voice, "I was worried you would not come."

Zach turned to the left and lifted his gaze to Momo's face she turned from him. He saw a pink shade on her cheeks that made his heart ache, and he closed his eyes before nodding his head once. "Well I'm here. Let's go." He started walking with his friend towards Ground Zeta. Zach felt butterflies in his stomach as he looked out the corners of his eyes at the girl he walked with. "Momo," Zach began in a soft voice, and the girl on his left turned in to him as they continued down the street together. Her eyes widened as Zach's dark look faded a bit, an unsure one spread on it instead as he looked forward down the street in fear. He stared down the street and whispered, "I want to trust everyone. I really, really do."

It was all he said. He stopped and just kept walking after saying that, but after a few seconds Yaoyorozu said, "You can." Her reply was soft, but she smiled as she said it in a confident way. Zach nodded in response and just stared down the street towards Ground Zeta where the bus would be waiting for them.

* * *

At the campground where Class A had set up their tents for the night, a campfire burned while the students and their teacher sat on logs all around it. They had done fun activities since they arrived, pitched their tents with their classmates that All Might had gone out and gotten for them. They had a barbecue over the open flame of the fire some of them built themselves, while others had gone around finding the best logs or chopping some up themselves to bring back for sitting on. All Might had taken out some marshmallows he was hiding, and the excited class started roasting them over the fire while all gathered together late in the night.

They were running out of marshmallows, but no one was in the mood to go to sleep early. They knew they only had one night out there, and it really felt like a special night being out in the woods together as a class without fear of anything bad happening. They were prepared for something bad to happen, but they were always prepared now and were able to have good times despite that. They were wearing casual clothes and pajamas, and they were having loud conversations with each other across the flames.

Zach sat on a log on Kirishima's right side, and to the left of Midoriya with a few feet wider a gap on that side. To Zach's right was a long thick log that looked like a fallen trunk of a tree, and on it from closest to him to farthest were Midoriya, Uraraka, and then Iida. In front of them and a bit more to the right stood Tsuyu close to the fire with Hagakure next to her. The third girl in their tent came running back from it holding some snacks she had bought herself for late night on the camping trip, and Ashido started sharing with her tent-mates. Zach looked a bit to his right when Ashido ran back over, then he looked straight ahead again and into the flames of the raging campfire they had which was lighting up the whole campsite.

They had gotten the fire going before nightfall, and after dark All Might asked if everyone could stay in the campsite area just to keep him from getting too worried. The tents were all in the same general vicinity, with Mineta, Sero, and Zach's being the farthest one from the two girl tents. All Might's tent was set up between the boys' and girls,' as per request from the girls who were still unsure about sleeping too close to Mineta even with those safety nets in place. Zach stared into the fire and he watched the flickering flames, then his eyes rose up a bit from the crackling logs and through the fire towards a log on the opposite side two girls were sharing. He spotted those girls looking towards him, and when Zach looked at them they smiled towards him.

Zach lifted the corners of his lips up a bit, but his eyes dropped from them and back to the flames again. His smile slowly faded without ever looking really convincing in the first place. Two seats to Zach's left, Bakugo glanced to his right after looking up at the dark cloudy sky for a few seconds with a bored look on his face. _I'm not the only one not enjoying this,_ Bakugo thought, frowning towards his classmate even as he compared himself to him. _It's a bit too much like, the last camp._ Bakugo thought it even though this camping trip had been nothing like their training forest, except for the fact that they were in a forest.

The talks around the fire started quieting down. No one was walking away from it, but a few others noticed each others' looks and the whole circle of them started quieting down. More of them just looked at the fire, and they imagined their fires a little under a year before at the last training camp. Instead of All Might being the one there with them at the time though, a droopy-eyed, tired-looking man was on their minds. His long scraggly hair and tired appearance would be welcome now more than ever, but they knew that would never be. Yet some of them clenched their fists at their sides with satisfied, accomplished, or accepting looks too.

"We got Killmore," Midoriya said softly. All Might looked to his left and over at his successor who had a serious look on his face while staring into the flames. Midoriya stood up slowly, and he said, "He's arrested, and…" he got a hesitant look on his face as he realized he did not know if everyone else was thinking the same thing as him.

On Zach's other side though, Kirishima spoke up while looking intensely into the flames too. "We avenged Aizawa sensei." His fists clenched harder at his sides, but a small smile formed on his face at what he just said aloud.

"He would be proud of us," Yaoyorozu agreed from across the fire.

"It wasn't just Killmore," Jirou said next to her. Yaoyorozu turned in, but Jirou continued looking in the flames while everyone around the fire kept serious looks on their faces. The mood had not really gotten darker, or more depressing. Everyone just looked at the fire or at Jirou quietly, as the short, dark-haired girl continued, "Kaminari was- he was involved too. We still need to catch him to really get revenge-"

"Not for revenge," Yaoyorozu said softly, and she shook her head while Jirou turned to her. Jirou froze for a second, and then she nodded her head in agreement with the taller girl. "But we do need justice, for Aizawa sensei."

The others around the fire nodded their heads in agreement. They hummed affirmatively, and they set their own minds to the task. They filled with determination to catch Kaminari, or Raijin, not for revenge but for justice. _Because that's what Aizawa sensei would have wanted,_ Midoriya thought, nodding his head and stepping back from the flames.

All Might looked around at all the students and stared in amazement at the group of them. All had been acting like children, like he had hoped for when setting up this night, but they were so quick to become so mature. In that moment, they all looked like adults to him. He saw each of them in their fights in the office building, protecting hostages and fighting villains without hesitation. _I stayed at U.A., to train Young Midoriya. I did not expect to find so many, who I consider amazing heroes. So many, who One For All could have been passed to. Midoriya Shonen is special, but each one of you has that spark._

Zach did not nod his head with the others. He just looked around at them all. He shifted his gaze around his left side, past Bakugo and towards Shoji and Tokoyami. He looked around them and over towards Sato and Sero and Todoroki, then past the small gap and to Koda who was on Jirou's opposite side as Yaoyorozu. He looked past the girls across the fire from him, and watched as Hagakure went and sat down next to Ojiro. She scooted Aoyama one way to sit next to her boyfriend, and Zach saw Mineta peering at the invisible girl from Ojiro's other side when he was sure the two next to him were fully into their conversation and not watching his eyes.

Zach took in a deep breath and the two boys on his sides looked in at him. He breathed in hard and started standing up, and he lowered his gaze down to the floor as he did. "I," he began. "Have to, go over behind that tree," he said in a quiet voice. He had made it look like he had something serious to say, and then in the last second he changed it in a quieter voice that made the two boys on his sides look at him in a lot of surprise.

"Go use the bus," Jirou remarked across the fire at the boy who made her crack a big smile.

Yaoyorozu smiled too and she lifted a hand and laughed gently into the back of it. _A joke? I think, he just made a joke._

Zach smiled at the people around him and then looked over towards the bus parked behind some of the guys' tents. "It's camping. We're supposed to be roughing it out here," Zach said, and he turned with a grin while Kirishima started laughing next to him with a big genuine smile spreading over his face.

Mineta smiled too while looking towards Zach, and Sero cracked a big grin as well. Sero was not looking forward to staying in the same tent as Zach too much, if Zach was going to be looking as grim as he had been for two weeks now. Those two sentences alone were more humor than Zach had used in a long time though. Zach turned from the group at the fire, and while some of the girls rolled their eyes at him, Zach just started walking off for the tree line to go behind a tree and out of sight.

 _Zach, that smile,_ Midoriya thought, his face full of confusion as he watched the dark haired boy walk by him. _It looked so genuine. But, as soon as you passed us, I saw your face. Why, are you pretending?_

Zach's eyes turned dark as soon as he was past the outside of the fire circle. He walked over towards the trees in the clearing of this campsite All Might had driven them to not far from the outskirts of Musutafu. On most sides of Musutafu were other big cities around Tokyo, but in one side was a big park that people used for a camping a lot. As Zach walked over for the trees, he thought with his head bowed, _I remember coming to this park once. Now that I think about it, I've been here. This exact location. Or, I wonder if it was this campsite. When my mom and dad took me camping. So, so long ago…_

Zach walked across the clearing that was pretty illuminated from their big fire. It was not a bonfire, but it burned bright and his classmates tossed more fuel on it every once in a while to keep it burning. He could hear them getting louder again as the mood shifted back to a party kind-of atmosphere. Zach walked to the tree line, and went behind a tree before pulling his pants down and pissing on the back of it. _All of them. Every person over there. Out of everyone in the whole world, I trust you all the most. I trusted Kaminari though. And now…_

Zach closed his eyes and shook his head around, before pulling his pants back up and taking in a deep breath. He walked around the trees and back to the edge of the clearing, and he looked towards his classmates on the side of the fire closest to him. Zach's lips shook as he stared at those girls, and he pursed those lips harder and darted his gaze to the other side of the flames when Sato called out something loudly. He started walking into the clearing between the tree line and his campfire, when a gust of wind blew through the trees behind him and made all the branches start shaking. He spun his head and looked at those branches, at the leaves blowing around off of them while the trees made creaking noises in the gusts.

Zach started turning his head to the left. He looked around the outside of the clearing, around the trees and over towards one side of the tents they had set up. He looked over to the trees closest to those tents, and his eyes narrowed and focused in on a light he saw. The light glowed pink, and Zach's eyes started opening wide while he turned his head back towards the campfire and his classmates all around it. Zach started running towards the fire with his eyes huge…

Midoriya was staring to his right at the short girl on his side who looked nervous about something. Iida had just stood up and walked next to Tsuyu at the fire to talk to her about something, and everyone was talking and having separate loud conversations around the fire. "Deku," Uraraka began softly. "I- How are your legs?" She asked, and then let out a groan internally before spinning to look at his legs closely. She had a pink shade on her cheeks, and she continued, "I know you said your left knee was-"

Midoriya's eyes lifted over Uraraka and over into the clearing not around their fire. He started getting up off of his log, while the people on the opposite side of the fire as the larger open clearing all got up too at the sight of the person sprinting towards them. Zach's eyes were open huge and his face panicked as he ran at them, and then Uraraka's face shaded pink for a different reason. Everyone at the fire all at once spun towards Yaoyorozu and Jirou's side of the fire pit. Those two girls themselves spun their heads around and started getting up with their faces covering in shock and fear. A huge pink wall rose up from behind the tents, expanding to either side and high up in the air before arcing over them perfectly centered with the fire.

The outsides of the pink wall started curving in as the top arced out over the class all shooting up to their feet along with their astonished teacher. Midoriya looked to his right and saw the curve of the pink wall cutting in behind All Might and the girls next to Iida. He turned more to the boy running towards him, and Midoriya bent his legs with his whole body glowing while a pink wall curved up and over his head. It curved around the backs of the students who spun around looking in shock at this strange pink energy, and when Iida, Tsuyu, Ashido, and Hagakure spun around they saw Zach slowing down his run to them as there was no way he would make it to them before the wall finished curving around.

"Midoriya don't!" Zach shouted, throwing his right hand up with his eyes opening even wider. The green-haired boy bending his knees and about to fly off froze. He froze because in the tone of Zach's shout that rose over everyone else's panicked voices, Midoriya heard Zach warning him that if he tried, he would die. The tone was so clear that everyone else shut up and spun the same direction. Midoriya hesitated, because he trusted Zach and did not think that tone would be used unless Zach really meant it. Yet the pink wall closed down on Midoriya's side, and it dropped down behind him too encasing all of Class A and their tents and their bus in a giant pink dome.

Midoriya looked through the bright, translucent pink veil and stared at Zach's face that filled with a split second of relief as he stared back into Midoriya's eyes. That relief vanished though, replaced with a dark look of such intense dread that it terrified the curly-haired boy who suddenly wished he had jumped.

"What's going on?!"

"Zach!" Yaoyorozu shouted over towards the pink wall that Zach was on the other side of, looking in at them with his eyes wide and dark.

"Z-Zach," Ashido said, stepping towards the wall close to her, then running towards it.

"Hey there Zach."

 _I knew it,_ Zach thought, while turning with his eyes growing as wide as everyone else in his class's. He opened his eyes huge and took a step back, his teeth biting down in rage as he saw the figure to his right whose voice he recognized so well. Walking out from behind a tree, was a blond boy with a black lightning bolt in the left side of his spiked hair. Zach looked straight into the boy's golden eyes, even as other figures walked out from behind trees around him and into the light from the campfire.

"It can't be," Jirou whispered, her heart pounding so hard that she heard it echoing in her ears.

"No way," Mineta whispered, his voice cracking as he stared through the pink wall with a terrified expression.

A woman started walking out from the tree line, her hair long and pink and falling down below her waist. She was tall at over six feet tall, with long slender legs covered in black spandex accentuating every curve. She walked in front of Mineta with her hand sliding across the pink wall, her hand glowing the color just like her eyes that she looked in through the wall at. She locked eyes with the short boy who would have thought she was gorgeous at any other time, but just stumbled back away from at the moment.

"Don't attack it!" Zach shouted, while taking another step back, and then another as his eyes darted back and forth along the tree line ahead of him. "Backfire! It's her name and her Quirk, and telling from the look in her eyes she's already used Trigger!" His voice was loud and commanding, yet it was dark and full of so much dread as he darted his gaze from the woman with long pink hair and then to Raijin again. He looked at the blond boy and into his eyes, and he took another step back as his old best friend took another one towards him. And then Zach looked a bit to his right and his heart started pounding so much harder, his eyes widening more and a deeper look of dread covering his face.

"What does it do?!" Midoriya shouted fast at his classmate who he wanted to listen to, yet he also wanted to charge straight at the strange pink wall in front of him.

"It bounces attack forces back," Zach said darkly, his voice lower and in a more despairing voice though he stopped backing up. "And on Trigger, not only can she make its attack range bigger, but it bounces back a lot more force than whatever you put in."

Midoriya's eyes snapped down to the floor at the base of the pink wall in front of him, while his other classmates ran up towards him and right to the wall themselves. Midoriya looked at the floor and stared with wide eyes as he saw the pink translucent energy not touching the floor but going straight through the dirt. It cut through the ground, and Midoriya looked up the curve of the wall and to the top of the dome. His eyes opened wider and started shaking, as he realized that it was not a dome they were in at all. _It's a sphere?!_

"Zach!" Kirishima shouted, turning his right hand Unbreakable and sprinting at the wall while Hardening the rest of his body too. He jumped and slammed his hardest punch into the wall, and then he flew away so fast it was like a blur as he bounced straight through the fire, over into some tents, and then bounced into the bus leaving a huge dent in the side of it and lifting the wheels on the side closer to all the other students up for a second.

"No way," Mineta whispered with his eyes huge while looking back towards where Kirishima hit the bus. He turned back at the wall himself and he just reached his hands out at it to see if a smaller force did not do anything. He pressed his hands out into it, and he stumbled back with his arms thrown out to the sides. Mineta fell on his butt with an oof and stared in shock at the wall he had just pushed his hands into only to feel like he got pushed ten times harder himself in the other direction.

Bakugo looked back from where Kirishima hit the bus, and he glared at the spot in the pink wall where Kirishima punched to see there was not even the smallest bit of a crack there. The woman on the other side took her right hand off of the wall for a second and ran it up through her hair, a big smirk on her face as she chuckled under her breath at Kirishima's foolish attack. Her huge domed forcefield stayed in play even as she messed with her hair, though she put her hand back on it a few seconds later. Bakugo saw her move out the corner of his eye and did not see any change in the shade of the barrier in front of him, but he was no longer staring at the barrier itself. When he had looked closely at the spot that Kirishima had punched, he had started looking through it and at a figure walking out in front of three others who came out of the tree line.

Bakugo's eyes opened huge and he felt a tight grip on the back of his neck. Midoriya's breathing picked up speed too, and Todoroki's eyes bulged while he stepped closer to the threatening pink barrier himself. "Guys, this really isn't good," Mineta said from his butt, while looking through the pink barrier at another of the country's most wanted people walking out and up to Kaminari's side. The thin man with a patched-up appearance and spiky black hair looked forward with dark eyes at the shorter kid who stared back in an afraid and pained way, his face full of dread and despair. "This really," Mineta whispered, while looking over towards Zach and seeing the expression on his friend's face.

"Kaminari, Dabi," Zach whispered, looking back and forth at the two in front of him. He looked at Dabi for less time than his best friend, then he looked back at Kaminari and his face twisted in so much anger. "How?" He asked. "Who, told you?" Zach asked, his face covering in pain and his eyes darting to his left at the pink barrier that everyone inside of felt their hearts start breaking and their eyes darting around at each other. All of them who had said how much they trusted each other, who had wanted Zach to come along and finally trust them, they suddenly felt the biggest sense of distrust for all the people around them as they realized that maybe Zach was right the whole time.

"Hehehe," Kaminari chuckled with a smug look on his face. He stepped forward and Dabi stayed where he was, and Zach backed up more with a scared look on his face and his lips pursing. His hand shook at his right side, but Zach's body was looking limp and there was no real fight on his face despite how angry he had just made his voice. "Who?" Kaminari repeated. "As in, who was the second spy? What a stupid question. Aren't there more important things, you want to ask me right now?"

Zach's eyes darted from Kaminari to his sides. He looked at Backfire, and then at Dabi, and then behind them and towards some others he recognized in the tree line. He spotted at least five others he did not recognize at all standing back between trees or out in the clearing but behind Kaminari and Dabi. Zach started breathing heavier, his hands balling up at his sides and his eyes opening wide while looking back at Kaminari who smirked so much at Zach's expression.

"Kaminari!" Jirou shouted out through the barrier at the blond. "You bastard!"

"Take this barrier down," Sero snapped. He clenched his fists and stomped closer to the wall, leaning forward and grinning ear to ear with a huge smile. "We're ready for you this time!"

"Kaminari!" Ashido yelled, swinging Acid at the barrier and then biting down angrily as it just bounced off the wall without doing any damage. Dark Shadow slammed into the wall once, but both it and Tokoyami were sent skidding back across the campsite and tumbling over a few times from the force. He got up just like Kirishima did back over near the bus, but it was getting pretty clear that the barrier they were trying to smash through was not breaking.

"What?! Are you too afraid to fight us?!" Hagakure yelled through the wall. "You tried framing me!"

"Take the wall down Kaminari," Ojiro growled, his fists clenched and his tail curling up behind him.

"Where are they?" Zach asked, he asked it with so much pain in his voice that his classmates stopped yelling. All Might, Midoriya, Uraraka, and Iida all stared out towards Zach with their eyes opening huge as they held their breaths.

Todoroki was staring at Dabi, and he watched as the man with spiky black hair frowned a bit deeper but just glanced next to him silently at the younger boy with blond hair who got the biggest smirk on his face. "I knew, that you'd know it was me. I even took some time off from my purge to deal with it personally, you know?" Raijin let out a laugh, and Zach stepped backwards more, gulping with his heart speeding up more.

"Your purge?" Zach asked.

"Oh come on, Zach," Raijin said. "You know what I mean," he said it and his smile lowered down a bit while a look of absolute despair covered Zach's face. "You told me, all I needed to know to deal with _all_ of them."

"How?" Zach whispered, his voice hoarse and cracking.

"What are they talking about?" Ashido whispered in confusion.

Tsuyu shook her head with her eyes huge, not understanding what was going on either.

Midoriya darted his eyes from Zach to Kaminari and back again. _Is this, what you were so…_

 _ **"I fucked up, Momo. I told him- everything…"**_ Yaoyorozu's heart that was already pounding started beating even faster. She held her breath as the blond boy in front of them started talking, about things that had every person in Class A staring out at them in shock.

"Because of Ganji," Kaminari started. All Might's breath caught in his throat and his eyes bulged huge. _He even knew about-_ "You told me about how Seiki Ganji was an organizer for the anti-heroes. The ones you were a part of, in secret," Kaminari said it so smugly and loudly knowing the people on his right were staring at them right now. "I know, you know I killed Ganji that same night I betrayed you guys."

"You really need to do this?" Dabi asked, looking out the right corners of his eyes at Kaminari in a slightly annoyed way.

"Absolutely," Kaminari said. He just kept grinning and spoke louder to his old best friend who spun back to him from Dabi who he had just looked at with giant eyes. "But I didn't just kill Ganji! Or Mythril, if you want to go by his anti-hero name. Oh you know I tortured him." Kaminari smirked so wide at Zach whose face scrunched up in frustration and fury. "I was pretty disappointed that Ganji didn't know anything about Webb's real life. It pissed me off, and the torture really didn't work too well. I mean, he knew of course that it was all your fault that I was doing it to him. I told him you told me all about him, right before I killed him."

"Kaminari, stop it," Yaoyorozu whispered, because she could not make her voice loud in the confusion and shock she was feeling right now.

Zach started breathing steadier for a second, but his face was still full of confusion. _That can't be true. That's not all of it. The "purge."_ "I, I know you're lying," Zach said in a strong voice sounding like he was forcing it out.

"No, Ganji really didn't tell me jack shit," Kaminari said, sounding pretty impressed as he did. "He was nothing like that aunt of yours, and your little cousin…" Zach's classmates started staring out in horror, and some of them started screaming at Kaminari only for the blond to smirk ear to ear and yell out louder than them at a horrified Zach, "You can bet they were easy to make say what I want! They were screaming everything they knew about you, and yet I just kept zapping them! By the end, they were just cursing your name to Hell and back at the top of their lungs, while I burned them!"

"Raa, raa!" Zach's teeth that were clenched so hard opened and he roared. He roared at Kaminari, but his voice broke and his hands that had started to clench just loosened back up again. His head pulled back and his eyes were wide and shaking, and tears formed in them while his arms dropped weakly down to his sides. "Why?" Zach whispered. "How? Who- who told you… Why do you…"

Kaminari started chuckling again, and he continued, "You're right though, I guess I was lying a bit." Zach's face covered in confusion, and then even more horror than a second ago as Kaminari said, "That super computer you mentioned in Ganji's secret basement below Rasheed Corp., I hacked that shit after a while. He was pretty good at protecting his files, but I'm better." Kaminari chuckled and his eyes narrowed, his eyebrows dipping in towards his nose and his lips twisting up at the corners so far into his cheeks. "You really think a guy like Ganji was telling anti-heroes secret information, giving them costumes, without checking up on who they really were?"

 _No. Please no,_ Zach thought. His eyes opened huge, his heart raced and his breathing picked up.

"You know, he even made you a new costume. I think he was actually waiting for you to take the initiative and try harder to meet with him again… Oh yeah, the info on the computer. Well, first of all I got Conrad and Mason's information. So you can bet our contacts in Russia and America, they've been wiping out the anti-heroes over there too." Raijin grinned so wide as Zach pulled back, a look of absolute dread on his face at the one on Kaminari's. "And then, I found out Webb's real name, and his address. Turns out he really did retire after you guys 'saved' me from Shatterer. He lost his arm that night, because you got him to come help you rescue me. I showed up at his house, and even though I guess he didn't _see_ what I did to them, he definitely heard me as I roasted his wife and daughter alive."

"RAAAA!" Zach screamed, his voice full of so much more rage. His eyes spilled water and they splashed to his sides, his fists clenching and his body leaning forward. Zach looked to be holding back so much, and he darted his eyes around at the villains around Kaminari while screaming at himself in his head, _DON'T!_ "RRAAAA!" He roared again though, in agony as Raijin continued.

"The man who saved your life, who got you away from the villains," Raijin started. He shook his head while letting out a chuckle, while Zach's classmates stared in shock at everything Raijin was saying. Raijin continued in a menacing, bone-chilling voice, "I killed him with ease. Once his family was gone, it was like the life left his eyes… or, whatever those things behind his sunglasses were. Kind of freaky if you ask me." Raijin started laughing again, and Zach shook in seething rage with his fists clenching so hard at his sides that he ripped straight through the glove on his right. His fingernails pierced the skin of his palms, and blood dripped between his fingers which Kaminari saw in the light of the fire and the pink glow of Backfire's forcefield.

"You bastard," Zach hissed. His body shook in rage, and his eyes that were glaring so hard at the floor rose up and looked into Raijin's. He looked into Raijin's eyes, and then he pulled his head back as Raijin's expression had gone back to a friendly and confused one that looked like it was Kaminari and not the villain looking back at him. "I fucking hate you," Zach hissed. "You, you didn't have to kill them! Why?! Why Aunt Maye, and Tsura?!"

"Because you told me that you broke off ties with them! You told me," Raijin said, and he laughed before shouting, "that you didn't really care about them anymore! You said you didn't want to get them targeted by villains just for being associated with you, so it was better to let them just live their lives and you to live yours. And when you told me, I could tell you were telling me the truth!" He laughed, then he shouted, "But even though you thought you were telling me the truth, I could tell that the one you were lying to was yourself! You wanted to believe that you didn't care, so that it would be easier for you to push away the last people in the world who you loved! Hahaha! Well you can bet, by the time they were dead any love they still had for you was long lost! How many families is that now?!"

Zach's enraged look faltered. His look of rage and fury and despair just scrunched up and turned into one big defeated expression. He stared ahead with the most pain imaginable in his eyes, and his classmates looked over towards him in horror and unable to say a thing. Yaoyorozu and Midoriya snapped their heads to the woman with long pink hair, focusing their minds and trying as hard as they could to come up with a way to stop her and get the forcefield down.

"Alright, enough of this," Dabi said, making Kaminari turn to him and frown at the older man who stepped forward now so he was at Kaminari's side again. "You made your points. It's time to do it."

"Stop it!" Yaoyorozu shouted through the barrier as she did not like what Dabi just said one bit. That, mixed with the fact that Zach's arms were down at his sides and his expression was just so defeated, it terrified her. "Leave him alone!"

Zach turned his head a bit towards Momo, and then he looked back towards Raijin and Dabi and his arms shook at his sides. He looked at Dabi who turned back towards him and looked him in the eyes, and Zach's lip started shaking as a newfound rage bubbled in his chest. He glared into Dabi's eyes, and then back at Raijin who said while looking at his taller comrade, "Hold on. He still doesn't know, why we're doing this."

"He doesn't need to," Dabi began.

"I say he does," Raijin said, and Dabi stopped while looking down into the blond's eyes with his own getting a little wider.

 _Are you serious?_ Bakugo thought while looking out there. He saw the woman with long pink hair lose her smile a bit, and he saw people behind Raijin and Dabi start looking over at the blond in nervous and scared ways. A sweat drop formed on the side of Bakugo's face. As much as they all figured Raijin was being serious when he talked about how he had been making plans from the very beginning, seeing him just order Dabi to hold on with that, and seeing Dabi back off afterwards was a whole different step up.

All Might stared out at the young man he thought he had known for over a year, the one who claimed to be the reason for him losing his power, a fact to which he could not argue. Kaminari had played a big role in it, and All Might stared at the young man who smirked as Dabi turned away with an annoyed look, then Kaminari turned back towards Zach himself too.

Jirou threw her phone to the side with her face covered in frustration. _He's blocking the signals, of course! That fucking bastard!_ "Kaminari!"

Raijin ignored her. He looked towards Zach whose hands shook down at his sides, with a look of dread in his eyes and a sad look on his face. Zach wore a black long-sleeved shirt and black sweatpants and sneakers. Raijin had on a dark red costume with yellow highlights through it in sharp squiggly patterns like lightning bolts. His hair was spiked differently, with more spikes up over the center of his head and some at the very front pushed down so there were some yellow strands crossing over the bridge of his nose. Raijin looked into Zach's eyes and he got a more serious expression on his face though kept grinning as he did, "You took down Killmore. Wasn't really expecting that, especially not you doing it yourself. I almost sent Diamondfist to go instead, make sure someone there had a personal grudge to take you out specifically. I'm glad you didn't die though."

Raijin let out a low chuckle and then spoke to his old fake friend who looked him back in the eyes so darkly yet without any fight in them. "Because they saw you. The people saw you, looking like you do now, like you always do. You broke. _I_ broke you," Raijin taunted. He taunted it and then laughed as Zach did not argue with what he said, just stood there and lowered his gaze a bit from Kaminari's. "You, who bring people back to life despite how much it hurts you. You, who care _so much."_ Raijin put a hand to his forehead for a second and shook it with an amazed look on his face. "That day, when the upperclassman confronted you about his little cousin who was hit by a drunk driver, you cried. You didn't even know the girl, and you started crying, because you couldn't save that random person you didn't even know!"

Hagakure and Ashido stared towards Kaminari feeling so much pain fill them as they remembered seeing that. And they remembered what came after too that had tears forming in their eyes, while Kaminari just continued to the black haired boy who took another step back but could not look any more broken already. "I know exactly how much you care, or, how much you _cared._ " He smirked as Zach's twitching fingers finally stopped moving, and Raijin continued in a smug voice, "Because I was your shoulder to cry on that day, all while thinking about how I could use how much you care against you-"

"That day!" Zach screamed, snapping his head up and looking into Raijin's eyes furiously. "I wasn't talking about that girl, when I cried about how I couldn't save her!"

"I KNOW!" Raijin screamed back. "Yet the persona I created cared enough about you to actually get teary-eyed, to really sell how I didn't know a thing about Jenny back then! That I had no idea why it was you were really sobbing your eyes out!"

"Alright, that's enough. Let's kill him," Dabi said. He frowned deeply, and Raijin frowned deeply too as Dabi cut in on this again.

Raijin actually looked like he might listen this time, only for Zach to scream, "STOP THAT!" He roared it and the villains looked back at him, to see Zach staring at Dabi so furiously yet with confusion spread over his face. "Stop, trying to make it quicker. Or less painful- what the _fuck?!_ " Zach's voice cracked and he sounded on the verge of madness as he yelled it. He started panting while looking at Dabi in the most confused and angry way possible. "You- stop acting like- like you care if it's any quicker!" Dabi did not say anything and just stared into Zach's eyes, while Raijin smirked a lot more at the shift in conversation. The fact that Dabi was not responding only made Zach start shaking more, and his eyes trembled like his lips as he stared in frustration at the spiky-black-haired villain. "You killed her!" Zach screamed.

Zach bit down on his bottom lip after yelling it. Then he shouted even louder, "You- you killed her! YOU FUCKING KILLED HER!"

"You shouldn't have betrayed us," Dabi said. He said it, and Kaminari turned to him with his own eyes opening wider. Zach stared at Dabi with his eyes bulging too. Most of Class A stared at Dabi in shock, though Bakugo, Yaoyorozu, Mineta, and Midoriya all stared towards Dabi with their hearts racing so much faster. Everyone stared at Dabi like that, because in his voice was an actual tone of betrayal. Dabi grimaced after saying it, as everyone started looking towards him. "You just, shouldn't have-"

"Don't-" Zach started, his voice completely cracking so he only got out one word. He tried shouting, but breath just escaped his throat instead as he glared so angrily at the man who frowned back towards him in a pissed off way. "I, I hate you," Zach said. He glared towards Dabi and his fists clenched at his sides, blood still dripping through his fingers from when he heard about Webb. He stared at Dabi with his eyes starting to get watery, "I hate you so much, but, it's my fault. I- not for betraying you, but because I saved you that day. When I dragged you from the pier, from that villain on Trigger we were running from. You remember Dabi? Do you remember?!"

Dabi clenched his teeth and looked at Zach in a more frustrated way, one that just made Zach lift his chin and get the most conflicted, betrayed, pained expression on his face. Kaminari let out a laugh but covered his mouth quickly, his eyes darting from Dabi back to the boy in front of him who was wheezing now. Zach's breath came out louder, more ragged, and he yelled, "I saved the man, who burned my family alive. I saved you," Zach whispered, looking towards Dabi and forcing the man to look him back in the eyes.

Class A no longer knew what was happening. They stared back and forth from Zach to the villains. All of them wanted to get out there and help, yet they were getting a lot thrust on them all of a sudden. The way Zach was screaming at Dabi, the fact that Dabi sounded betrayed, all that stuff about anti-heroes around the world, Zach's family, it was too much to process all at once. They all looked towards Zach in confusion, and many of them opened their eyes wide and dropped their jaws as Zach continued yelling after holding his breath and pulling back for a few seconds. "I! You burned them- and I! As hard as I try! I can't hate you with my whole being," Zach gasped it out and then leaned his head forward while screaming, "I saved you then, because you had saved my life! Because, you gave me a second chance and vouched for me to give me a place- and, and because you were the one person in the League of Villains who I could talk to! Who, I actually felt like was my friend. I- I wanted to save you, because, because you were like a brother to me!"

Dabi grimaced harder, biting down while Raijin looked at him with wide eyes at the expression he was making. Zach hated that look on Dabi's face, and his own expression shook in rage as he shouted out, "I thought you felt the same! We spent every day together, training and fighting and, and talking! You told me things too, and I really thought we were… And yet you murdered them. You, you killed my family even though you knew how much I cared about them, because Kaminari told you as much." Zach started shaking his head, and he brought his left hand up and grabbed his temple, digging his fingers in and shaking violently. "Why? Dabi! I want to know why? Why? When you knew I was watching! When you knew I could see you, how could you burn them alive in front of me like that?!"

"I didn't think they would stay-" Dabi froze. He froze with his mouth open, while everyone in the campsite stared at him with their eyes opening huge. Their eyes widened slowly, and Zach's shaking ones stopped. His hand stopped violently shaking on his head, and his entire body tensed up. He blinked his eyes a few times, and he thought, _What?_ Zach started lifting his head, only to see Dabi grit his teeth and then mutter, "It doesn't matter anymore, does it-"

"NO!" Zach screamed. He screamed it and took a step forward, then he dragged that right foot back on the floor and his legs shook furiously while he just glared at Dabi instead of charging him. "What did you mean by that?! What did you mean, you didn't think they'd stay? Stay what?!"

"It doesn't matter!" Dabi shouted.

"Oh my God," Raijin whispered, while looking at Dabi with his eyes huge. "You're serious," he said in realization, and Dabi clenched his teeth a lot harder in the next second which made Kaminari's eyes bulge even wider.

"No," Midoriya whispered, pulling his head back and lifting a hand up in front of his mouth as he realized what was happening.

"Tell me, you're not serious," Zach said. He said it, and he sniffled in once hard before clenching both fists at his sides and screamed, "TELL ME, YOU DON'T MEAN THAT!"

"What do you want me to say?" Dabi snapped. He glared towards Zach, and then that angry look in his eyes started to shift with a more pained one. "I thought, I thought," he shook his head and lowered his gaze for a second, then he rose it and stared over into Zach's eyes with the look in them that Zach saw every day over the months they spent together. "I thought you'd be able to bring them back." Zach leaned his head back and his lips dropped down at the corners, a huge ripping feeling tearing through his chest.

The other villains behind Dabi stared at him wide-eyed, though Raijin was smiling from next to him which was starting to piss Dabi off. The taller man just ignored the teen at his side for a few seconds more though, talking straight to Zach and only to him, "You betrayed us, but, I thought killing them was the way we'd get you under control. If Shigaraki ordered them dead, I thought he'd, let you bring them back. And we'd know you would never turn on us again, because you wouldn't be able to bring them back a second time…" Dabi slowed down, and then he closed his eyes once and opened them up slowly and with a darker look in them. "But that doesn't matter now. It's in the past."

"You can't!" Zach screamed. He screamed it and then pulled back, and then he snapped his head forward and roared, "That's not fair! You don't, you don't get to say that to me, now… But, but-" Zach's lips started shaking and then he bit down on his bottom one. "I-I, I think, I think I might've…" Zach bit down on his bottom lip again, and his eyes were open huge while Dabi's started widening themselves. "I think I knew… Or, or at least, I realized recently. The burn scars on my body, they, weren't you." Zach shook his head and he closed his eyes once hard, and then he opened them full of so much sheer agony. "I always thought they must have been you, or maybe I wanted to imagine they were and filled in the blanks in my memories- but! But you were never there, were you? The entire time I was tortured?!" Zach screamed it and he looked desperately at Dabi for an answer. He shook his head again, and then he gasped out, "I saw your eyes, at Mosu Esupa. We locked eyes for a minute, and even now… You can't, you can't seriously- you still think of me-"

"The two of us aren't anything anymore," Dabi started.

"This has been good and all, but I think it's about time we wrap this up," Raijin cut in as Zach opened his mouth to shout back at Dabi.

Zach's eyes were getting more watery, and he spun them to Kaminari the same way he was just looking at Dabi. "And you! You were my best friend! You were my brother!" He spun to Dabi, and then back to Kaminari, "I, I replaced Jenny with- and you two- the two of you…" Zach rose his left hand to his head and started grabbing it violently. He grabbed it so hard it looked like he was going to rip his own hair out, and the students of Class A started shouting towards him. "You two, I cared so much about- and now you're going to kill me?! Dabi! You can't act like you still care, up until the moment I'm dead! So stop acting like- you can't kill me with a look of regret in your eyes. You mother fucker. I, I don't know how to handle- I can't!"

"Killmore's loss is my victory," Raijin started while staring at the boy in front of him who was breaking down. Others in Class A started hitting the barrier, but they were thrown backwards and Backfire started laughing at them from the outside. Kaminari looked towards them for a second and started lifting his hands up, electricity sparking from his fingers. "Bring the people's faith in you back to a new high, just for the class they all believe in so strongly to stand by and not be able to do anything as the kid in that class the country looks to the most is killed." He looked back towards Zach who clenched his eyes shut and was still rambling like mad. "And the people know the kind of state Zach is in too. They've seen him, breaking down. They'll know how he died here. Nothing I've done so far will even come close to this."

"We have to get out of here!" Midoriya shouted while getting back up, looking to his arm and grimacing as even in control he hurt himself hitting that barrier.

"Young Sazaki! Run!" All Might shouted out towards Zach.

"Run Zach!"

"Fight!" Kirishima shouted towards him.

"No! Run away!" Jirou yelled from close to the redhead who she felt was giving terrible advice!

"Just get this bitch!" Bakugo yelled at Zach, glaring at the woman making their forcefield around them.

Zach's left hand that was shaking on his head started to lower down. He dropped it slowly down to his side while looking at the floor between his feet. "I trusted you. I believed in, the two of you," Zach's voice started getting louder. He stared at the floor with the corners of his lips up, and he laughed in a cracked, crazy way like he had lost his mind. His arms did not move, and Raijin smirked towards the boy whose classmates were going to be so destroyed hearing these as his final thoughts. "I loved you guys. Did you really have to do all of that to me? Did you really, need to, kill all of them?" Zach's head started lifting up, the corners of his lips dropping down. "Is that really… how you thought… I was going to react?"

Zach's head lifted another few inches. His eyes rose, and everyone lost their breath. Todoroki, Yaoyorozu, and Kaminari had seen Zach's eyes look like this before, but only once. In Camino Ward right before he killed Mr. Compress, he had smiled and gotten a look in his eyes that had made all the other villains jump away from him leaving only Mr. Compress who had been right behind Zach and unable to see them. Being unable to see those eyes had gotten Compress killed. Everyone there had a clear look at Zach's eyes now though, and his lips were flat this time which was even worse than smiling for those who had seen it before and who could not breathe with sweat covering their bodies. Zach lifted his gaze and stared straight into Raijin's eyes with the most intense look in his eyes that were so full of pure conviction that it took the breath away from the blond about to try and kill his defenseless former friend. The look in Zach's eyes was not one that could be bluffed, and Raijin's eyes opened wider and wider while everyone stared towards Zach Sazaki in complete and utter confusion.

"Wh-What?" Raijin said, frozen where he stood and letting it out without even thinking.

"Zach?" Midoriya whispered, too shocked to react any other way. He was just floored by Zach's last question, and he blinked a few times while staring towards Zach's terrifyingly intense eyes.

"It's weird, Kaminari," Zach said. His voice was completely calm, which unnerved every single person who had just been staring at this boy breaking down in the middle of the clearing. "You're so smart, right? So what the hell have I been doing all this time? It must bug you more than everyone else here, how calm I am right now? How little any of that actually got to me?" Raijin's eyes started shaking, and they darted over at Class A but all of those students and All Might were stuck behind a barrier and just staring out in as much confusion as he was in. "Come on, you can't figure it out? What's wrong Kaminari?"

Ashido pulled her head back and took a step away from the pink barrier. The woman on the other side of it eased back towards the woods she had come out of in the first place, taking her hands off of the barrier for a few seconds and then reaching back and darting her eyes around the students wondering if there was some plan in action she did not know of. Her eyes were scared which Bakugo saw out the corners of his, not that Bakugo was looking anywhere else than Zach at the moment. Bakugo's lips did curl up at the corners into a nervous smirk though. _What the fuck is he doing?_

 _Zach?_ Yaoyorozu thought, looking out in less fear than a moment ago, yet a different kind of fear was starting to rise in her.

Raijin looked back towards Zach and he rose his hands that sparked more. "Not a good move," Zach said, shaking his head at the blond who pulled his head back at that calm, confident voice. Zach's tone got darker, and yet he lifted up the right corner of his lips while looking straight into Kaminari's eyes. "You still haven't figure it out. Someone like you, someone who thinks he's so smart, you can't figure it out can you? Why I was acting that was this whole time. It has to be plaguing you right now, and you're right to be afraid Kaminari."

"You're out of your mind!" Kaminari shouted at him. A bead of sweat was rolling down the right side of his face, while Dabi stared forward in absolute shock next to him at what was happening. Kaminari laughed and then he called out, "You've actually gone insane at the end-"

"If only that was it," Zach said, a knowing tone in his voice that made Raijin's smile wipe from his face again. Zach's eyes still looked so confident, so full of pure conviction, that Raijin felt his feet sliding back on the floor below him. "Come on Kaminari, you have to be able to figure it out with that genius intellect of yours. Why it is I'm not afraid right now? It's not them," Zach said with a small nod towards the barrier and all his silent classmates inside. "Come on! Figure it out already!" Zach yelled. "Why the hell, would I be stalling you all that time? You know that's what I was doing, and that's why you're so scared right now!"

"You couldn't have called anyone," Raijin growled.

"Because you're blocking communications," Zach said and nodded his head though still with the corner of his lip raised. That corner started lowering down though, right as they all started to feel a rumbling in the ground. The villains behind Raijin and Dabi who still thought this might have just been insanity like Raijin said started lifting weapons and getting nervous, panicked looks on their faces. "You still don't get it Kaminari," Zach said, making Raijin snap his eyes back to Zach's, into those terrifying eyes of his. "How could you?! With the way I've been acting, for so long! You really think you broke me? Maybe, maybe for one night you really had me. And that was it! One night alone, you succeeded in breaking me. But Raijin! You asked me how many times I've lost my family?! Enough!" The rumbling got louder, more of them could feel it now and they all definitely knew it was real while Zach continued screaming at all the villains.

Other students in Class A backed away from the pink barrier with fear in their eyes directed towards Zach now at the crazy way in which he was shouting. The villains behind Raijin started calling out to their leader that something was wrong, and Raijin yelled at Zach, "This doesn't make sense!"

"That's because you still haven't realized it yet!" Zach roared. "You think you were the only ones to get in my head? You think you and Dabi and Shigaraki got in my head, yet I spent so long with you assholes and didn't learn a thing?! You might've been in my head, but I've been in all of yours! How am I doing this? When you've been blocking communications from before you showed up?! It's simple!" Kaminari's eyes started opening huge, his right foot stepping back, while Zach stomped his right foot forward and a knife slid out of his left sleeve and down into his hand. "Because this ISN'T, YOUR, TRAP, KAMINARI!" Zach roared, and bright white headlights shown out between the trees behind Zach. "IT'S MINE!" Zach screamed. An engine revved louder, tires screeched, and a horn blared as a truck barreled through the forest and out into the clearing behind Zach.

The truck came flying out of the woods, and then the front tires all spun hard to the right and the back of the truck whipped out to the side. Tires screeched on the dirt, villains stumbling back because of the bright lights and loud noises stared over in shock at what Zach just yelled. All of Zach's classmates gawked while staring at this truck that just barreled out of nowhere, and Raijin and Dabi stared towards it with their jaws dropped and eyes huge. The tires on the left side of the truck that came swinging out towards Zach's back started tilting, the back of the truck lifting up on them while the driver spun harder and harder to the right to do a full one-eighty spin of the vehicle. On top of the truck's very back, everyone staring towards the vehicle spotted someone standing up and yanking on a rope that was connected down to the handle at the bottom of the truck's back door.

"Zach!" A girl's voice yelled for Zach, and the lights in the clearing made the girl on top of the truck visible to everyone looking over. They saw a girl in a black costume who had long brown hair and was smiling so wide after calling out that name. "Here you go!" She yelled, while Zach ran forward and the back of the truck swung out right behind him, the other side of the lifted vehicle slamming down as the man behind the wheel spun it the other way.

"All of you! Out out out!" Another female voice shouted from inside the truck at a higher pitch than that of the girl on the roof of the vehicle who yanked the door up.

Zach's right hand lifted and slammed into his chest with a furious and intense look in his eyes as he ran forward. Raijin and Dabi were both shocked at the sudden turn of events, but Zach suddenly turning into Nightmare form and skidding to a stop shook them from their panic a bit.

"I don't know what you're doing, but-" Raijin's voice cut off while he was lifting up his sparking arms. He and Dabi both stared at the back of the truck with confused but growing eyes. Dabi rose up his arms and covered his hands in blue flames fast, and both he and Raijin got seriously nervous looks on their faces as they saw what came pouring out of the back of the truck.

Deer ran out of the vehicle and stumbled as they hit the ground while the truck was still finishing its spin. Bunnies and squirrels were pushed out of the vehicle or slid back through it as they could not hold onto anything and the back door that they had all been pressed up against was thrown open. Wooden beehives fell over and birds flew out of the truck, and against this wave of animals slammed a black wave of Death that came out of Zach's left hand he swung back at the same time that he slammed his right hand into his chest. "You both think I told you so much! That I confided so deeply in you, that I didn't have secrets?!" Zach roared, his voice coming out scratchy and deep, and the two in front of him already knew what was coming as they shot electricity and blue flames at the kid in front of them.

Zach turned his right hand from his chest, and he fired Death out of it in front of him and blocked the electricity when it was almost at him. Raijin pushed harder into it, and the blue flames collided as well so that the massive blue explosion filled with yellow sparks and pushed harder into the wave of Death shrinking down on the other side of it. That shrinking wave pulsed though, as the Death that Zach had pushed out of his left hand was pulling back into his body. His left hand held behind him had Death sucking back into it so much thicker than it had just pushed back, and the girl in the back of the truck scooted herself farther towards the front with her pink eyes open huge as all of the animals just poured out of the truck had the life sucked out of them. They collapsed, birds falling and bees dropping by the hundred. Deer and rabbits and squirrels collapsed, the bigger animals taking a bit longer but dying almost as instantaneously so there was no chance of escape.

 **"Well here's something you didn't know,"** Zach said, his voice lower and his body covering in a thicker, waving black aura that made his bones harder to see on the inside and his red eyes flare more. Dabi and Raijin pushed more into the attack, but the black wave pushing against them was growing and growing in size. **"Something I don't tell people, because Death is scary enough as it is…"** Zach brought his left arm in front of him after sucking the life out of all those animals, and then he roared while slamming that left hand forward and doubling his attack's size, **"But when I kill, I GET STRONGER!"**

An explosion of darkness overtook the blue sparking flames and made both Kaminari and Dabi jump backwards a few times to increase the distance between them and Zach. Both of them were panting after pushing all they could into that attack for a straight power blow on him. "We just had to take our time," Dabi started, though he was making the remark more as a defense mechanism because of the intense dread he felt than anything.

Raijin's eyes shook as he stared forward into the huge explosion of Death that he had never seen bigger. Then he spun to the right and shouted, "Backfire! Stay on it and make sure it's strong enough!"

The woman near her barrier but who had run several yards away from in with that big dark explosion gulped as she looked towards Raijin. Then she turned towards the black figure through those settling dark flames, and she hesitated instead of just listening to Raijin's orders. "I don't-" she began.

"Go right ahead," Zach said, turning his head to the left and speaking towards Backfire. He looked her in the eyes with his red ones, then he motioned with a nod back at the forcefield. "I know it stays up for a couple of minutes regularly, and in Trigger it should be more than twice as long right?" Zach's voice was not as completely ominous and menacing as it just was, though his arms were lifted at his sides and he had black spheres swirling around over his palms. "Well you don't want that countdown to start, so you should get back to holding your forcefield."

Raijin stared towards Zach with his lips flat as he caught his breath. He took another few steps back and then began in a low voice to the others around him, "Zach's doing something. But if this is all it is, we don't leave here until the mission is complete."

"Kaminari won't just leave, if it's only me fighting them," Zach said while turning away from Backfire. The woman stared at Zach with her eyes opening huge, as did everyone inside the pink sphere who dropped their jaws while looking at Zach. "Keep all of Class A out of my way," Zach said, his voice dark and scratchy, and his eyes locking forward on Raijin's. "So I can kill those two." Zach glared at Raijin and then over at Dabi who opened his eyes wide again.

"Zach! Stop it and just take this bitch down!" Bakugo roared out at his classmate.

"Zach!" Midoriya yelled. "What are you doing?!"

 _Who are those people?_ Yaoyorozu spun and looked back at the truck where a girl walked up in the back of, where there was another girl standing up on the roof and grinning ear to ear. The truck was still running, though the man in the driver's seat just put it into park.

"You really think you can take us all on?" Raijin asked, a smirk spreading on his face and electricity sparking around his entire body. Another villain twenty feet to Raijin's left lifted his arms, and gusts of wind blew through the canopies of the forest around them. Dabi kept blue flames on his hands and he was staring at Zach in surprise still but a bit calmer than he was before. Raijin continued to smirk as Class A shouted things at Zach the villain felt like his old friend definitely should have been listening to. "I don't know, how you did this-"

"And doesn't that upset you?" Zach asked, his dark voice chilling and making Raijin's smirk vanish at once. "Come now, Kaminari," Zach said in a low voice that was taunting again like it had been before the truck flew out of the forest behind him. "How did I know you'd be here? I was so surprised, that I thought it was a second spy who told you, didn't I?" Zach glared towards Raijin and all his fellow villains, and the tone between them shifted again as Zach's mouth on his black aura dipped down, and his jaw clenched so hard inside that veil. "But we both know there isn't another spy, even though I couldn't get you to say it aloud."

Raijin ground his teeth and glared harder at Zach, and then he rose up his right hand and fired a fast zap of electricity towards him. Zach's red eyes shot towards Kaminari's moving arm before the electricity left his fingers, and he had the time to dodge. He was aiming on the perfect angle though, that if Zach dodged, the electricity would fly back at the truck. Zach started lifting his left hand and he pushed the sphere of darkness on his palm into the blast of electricity, and then a couple of villains behind Kaminari started running forward and they rose up guns that they aimed towards him. "Darling! Cover fire!" Zach shouted.

"Yes sir!" The girl on top of the truck yelled. **BANG-BANG-BANG-BANG-BANG…**

 **A week ago…**

Zach stood in a dark alley wearing a hoodie with the hood up and his face shadowed over. In front of him stood a shorter girl with long brown hair who was smiling so brightly at him as she rambled on and on. "It's called Toolbody. I can turn parts of my body into tools, I mean not that you didn't know that just from hearing the name- but I mean, well I trained this power once you brought me back… so that I could be your tool to take on the world with."

Zach grimaced at the girl in front of him, and he rose his left hand and scratched the side of his head. "I don't want a tool," Zach said, and the girl in front of him opened her eyes wide in fear. "I want, a comrade," Zach said. The girl staring at him widened her eyes so much more while Zach locked eyes with her. "A _person_ I can trust. Not a tool-"

"I'll be that person!" she shouted, then she got quiet really fast as Zach darted his gaze back and forth in the alley they were in. "Please. I'll follow you anywhere. This is all I've wanted, for so long."

 _I know. And it's not perfect, but I won't just ignore this. I won't ignore you, or leave you here._ "What's your name?" Zach asked. "And don't say, 'whatever I want it to be.'"

"No," the girl said, shaking her head and smiling so brightly at the boy in front of her who stared in surprise at her look. "I thought about it after our last talk. If, if it's alright. Could you call me… 'Darling?'"

"Darling?" Zach wondered.

"As my new name," she said.

He looked at her and had a bead of sweat on the side of his face. It did not sound like much of a name, more like she wanted to hear him call her 'Darling' and was using this as a loophole. He nodded his head though at the girl his age. The five foot one tall girl with bright green eyes smiled so gratefully at him, and then she started explaining again fast as she had not done a great job answering his question before, "With Toolbody, I can create anything I put my mind to as long as I understand the composition. I didn't realize it before I really started training, how many things I can turn my body into."

"It requires a lot of practice," Zach whispered, nodding at the girl who smiled so much more that he seemed to understand. _It sounds like someone I know…_

 **Present…**

Both of Darling's arms had turned into rifles and she was lighting up the area around Raijin's subordinates holding guns who pulled back as the ground around their feet started getting ripped up.

 _"Darling?"_ Most of Class A was thinking, along with All Might, Dabi, and the majority of the villains.

 _Really! Who is that?!_ Yaoyorozu thought with her eyes opened even wider and staring towards the short, brown-haired girl firing like crazy over towards the villains.

Zach started running forward, his body erupting in more Death as he pushed it out of himself and made his bone structure on the inside practically invisible. His arm bones completely vanished, as did the bones in his feet and lower legs as he focused down there and sped up. He sped up faster and faster while sprinting straight at Kaminari, and Kaminari started backpedaling with lightning wrapping around his body and sparking all over his skin and costume. Zach punched his right fist forward at Kaminari when he had gotten up close, only for a flash to zip by to his right and away from him, while Death flew off of Zach's fist and past where Raijin had just dodged from.

Other villains who were around Raijin started scattering. Backfire kept a hand on the pink barrier and she started smirking again as the villains split apart. Dabi pointed his hands towards where Zach just missed Kaminari and he fired a blast of blue flames, right as some other villains started aiming at Zach who was their biggest priority target.

"Screw it, he needs more than just her," the woman in the back of the truck reached to her side and picked up an assault rifle. She pointed it off the back of the truck and called out, "Gentle! I'm giving suppressing fire!" La Brava fired and her feet skid back on the floor as her small body could barely handle the recoil of the rifle she fired on automatic towards the other villains.

 _Did she just say…_ Midoriya started turning his head to the right and at the truck where a man was walking to the back of. The man wore a flashy purple coat with the collar pulled up high around his head that was covered in gray hair. He wore baggy white pants with black stripes going down through them, had a white mustache and beard, and he threw his right arm out to the side inside the coat he was wearing before shouting, "Evildoers! You League of Villains who commit such horrible and rude crimes!" Gentle pointed his right hand forward in a purple glove, and he called out in a low voice, "The Gentle Criminal is here to put you in your place."

 **A week ago…**

The door of a beautiful hotel room swung open, and Danjuro Tobita stepped through it in a flashy fashion. He entered into the penthouse with La Brava rushing in behind him and shutting the door with a big smile on her face. "This place is amazing!" Manami Aiba called out excitedly. The two of them were incognito, wearing casual clothes and their hair in different fashions, even dying it to give themselves the freedom to splurge and purchase a room like this for the night.

"Nothing less than magnificence, for Gentle and La Brava," Danjuro said with a grin, and Manami spun back towards the older man with stars in her eyes at his tone.

Manami, or La Brava, ran up to the coffee table in the living room and she pulled out a laptop from her bag and put it down there. "I'm going to check the message boards to see what people think of our last day fighting villains in Nagoya." La Brava typed fast and within a few seconds there were a dozen tabs up over several windows on her thick laptop. Gentle walked over towards the drink bar in their room and started examining what the hotel had for them in regards to tea, then he turned and looked towards the windows. Gentle walked over towards them and stared out into Kyoto from one of the highest points in the whole city. He grinned as he heard La Brava call out behind him in amazement, "Even more views this time! And people are really amazed, they're saying that the crime rate in Nagoya is actually down now after the weeks we spent there!"

"Of course it is," Gentle proclaimed. He turned his head and looked back to La Brava over his shoulder, "None of those ungentlemanly villains would ever, be able to defeat, or…" he trailed off and stared at his accomplice and partner in crime in a bit of confusion. She always looked to him in amazement whenever he started his fancy speeches, but she was staring at her laptop screen with wide eyes all of a sudden. They darted back to the left side of her computer and slowly read across the screen again, and then she looked up at Gentle with big eyes that made him walk over to the couch she was sitting on. "What is it, my dear?" Gentle questioned.

"Look at this," La Brava whispered.

Gentle and La Brava focused on a comment on one of their more popular message boards on a website on the dark web. 'Anon_ZS: I know you guys like to read your comments, so I hope you see this since it's your newest video. It's really important that we talk. Meet me in the alley we first met tomorrow at 5 p.m.' Gentle did what La Brava did after reading it her first time, and he reread the message and specifically the anonymous user's I.D. closely. _ZS. Zach Sazaki. Lifebringer._

"What do we do, Gentle?" La Brava asked. "It could be a trap," she started in worry.

"After what we did for him at the Sports Festival?" Gentle questioned her.

"He might not know that was us," La Brava whispered. "And even if she does," she got a bit more confident and asked, "since when do we answer to summons from anyone? We don't need Lifebringer to make you go down in history!"

The Gentle Criminal nodded his head and hummed while looking back down at the screen. "It is important though," Gentle said, and he cracked a small grin while looking back at his partner. "Let us go. I want to see what it is Lifebringer has in store for us."

 **Present…**

 _That's the guy who took out Hackerman,_ Dabi thought while looking over towards the gray haired man in the back of the truck who had been the one driving it through the forest. Dabi then turned and looked back behind him farther into the trees they had come out of before. "Move it!" He shouted at the dark form sprinting forward.

"Shoot at them!"

"Hold your fire ladies," Gentle requested. He swung his arms up in front of him on the back of the truck, right as a couple of villains started firing their way. "Gently Rebound," he said in a calm voice, and all the bullets flying at them pushed in on the air that changed properties thanks to Gentle's Elasticity Quirk. The bullets bounced back, and the villains firing towards the truck let out screams and stopped firing as it became clear they were only going to hurt themselves.

Todoroki spun his head to the right and stared at the three allies Zach had brought in who were firing at the enemies and protecting themselves at the same time. He did not bring in random people who could not fight, yet none of the people he was looking at were licensed heroes. Todoroki recognized the Gentle Criminal too, and he spun back to the left to look at Zach only to see a blur of yellow run by a black mass with two red orbs at the top that darted back and forth trying to keep up with his enemy. "You're too slow!" Raijin yelled, and he leapt up over Zach's head while the boy below him was still turning to the left where Raijin made his last double-back fake.

Raijin rose over Zach and curled his hands in below him, "MJOLNIR!" A rod of lightning formed inside Raijin's curled hands while Zach lifted his head. At the top of the rod over Kaminari's left hand, the electricity changed shape from a thin bolt into a thick hammer that Kaminari rose up and then slammed down at Zach while passing over his head.

"RRRAAAAA!" Zach roared in pain, his whole black body sparking with electricity and stumbling around. He threw his arms out to the sides though and spun around, making a whip of darkness fly out from his body in all directions. Two other villains nearby who started running at Zach when he was zapped jumped up or slid down to dodge, but Zach did not look to either of them no matter how close they were to him. Instead he spun to where Raijin was landing, and he screamed, "That didn't hurt one bit!"

"You lie!" Raijin yelled back with a mad grin. Zach shot towards him leaving black footprints behind in the floor. A black trail left behind after-images of him as he darted forward not in a straight line that Kaminari could fire electricity at easily but in a zig-zag of different lengths with each zag. Raijin rose up his hands and then slammed down on the ground at his feet, "Fifteen million volts!"

Zach swung his arms in front of him and leapt back at the same time he whipped huge thick trails of Death at his opponent. "I'm going to fucking kill you Kaminari!" Zach roared while landing and stumbling back to avoid bursts of electricity zapping the ground near his feet. He rose his arms and made black flames rise off of them from his shoulders to his hands, flaring up in the air like actual fire and making the same thing happen on top of his skull. "You think you knew everything about me, but you were wrong! You think you still have a chance of beating me right now too, and you're wrong about that too! And that's what's going to get you killed! Right here! BY MY HANDS!"

"You wish! You couldn't do anything when I betrayed you in that basement. Helpless like all the others-"

"Yet am I helpless now?" Zach asked. He ran at Raijin and swung his arms inwards while curling them, "DEATH VORTEX!" The Death that came off his flaring arms in Nightmare form shot away from him in two swirls that curled around each other and created a double-helix. Off of that helix flew thin wisps of darkness making anywhere around it dangerous, and Kaminari's body surrounded in even more electricity which caused the blond-haired boy to grind his teeth, an action that Zach noticed and that Raijin noticed he noticed.

Raijin was able to zip away with that extra speed though. He shot far from Zach and to the outsides of the area, and he ran around and swerved behind some trees before swinging back and speeding back out towards Zach. Zach ran towards where Raijin was coming back out at him from though, and he dragged his right hand down in front of him before whipping it up and in a diagonal slash across the front of his body. A wave of Death flew out of Zach diagonally towards Raijin to prevent him from jumping or sliding, giving an obvious choice of where Raijin should run to. Raijin ran there, stopped short and let a black knife covered in Death fly past him, and then he zipped by again but kept his distance farther this time while just staring over at Zach with his eyes wide again at what Zach started shouting.

"You never answered my question!" Zach yelled. "How did I know you were coming, Raijin?! I know it's annoying you, and I know you still haven't figured it out!" Zach spun around and watched as the yellow blur did circles at a distance from him being careful of his raging Death. "How did I fool you, when you're the master of tricking people? You have to be so frustrated that you really thought I was completely broken back there, only to realize that I'm stronger than I've ever been before! How could you have known though, when for weeks I've been playing this?! Every, single, second, of every minute! From the day after you betrayed us!"

Class 2-A and All Might had accepted their situation. Enough of them had tried escaping at this point that they found themselves realizing the only way out was if this villain in front of them got tired or was forced away for enough time. It sounded like it had to be a lot of time too from what Zach called over to her before, in a knowing tone like he had seen her use her Quirk both on and off of Trigger before. That would not even surprised most of his classmates at this point. All of them were staring out into the chaos around their campsite in such confusion and shock, yet also hope as they watched Zach battle it out with Kaminari as best they could which for some of them was a lot harder than others at the speeds they were moving. What Zach was shouting had his classmates staring at him with wider eyes again though, their hearts racing as they listened to their friend who had been so distant and detached for weeks now.

"Because I didn't know if there was another spy in the school! Someone else who could be telling you how I'm reacting, yet it wasn't Class A I was worried about. I lied to them anyway though, because what's more convincing than their genuine expressions?" Zach let out a laugh, sounding like a taunt as he glared towards where Raijin stopped for a second. "Because even if there was no spy at school, when I go out in public, I needed them to look at me like I had broken! Whenever someone who could be a spy sees me, it could seem like I was just making an expression to hide something. However if you were to say, look at Kirishima standing next to me on the twelfth floor of Killmore's office takeover, when the helicopter camera was aimed straight at us and I made sure he was looking at me with an expression that showed the weeks of distrust and brokenness…"

Kirishima dropped his jaw and stared out at Zach in disbelief. Sero's eyes bulged as he thought about Zach ignoring him and walking to that window despite his injuries just to look out with such a dark look. Everyone had seen that clip on tv that the news did not show too often because of their expressions too. And not one of them had realized he was faking it.

"I knew, that you wouldn't be able to resist coming after me to finish off the job! Because if you had succeeded at breaking me, then the only thing left to do was kill me! So I needed it known that I was destroyed, crushed, so that you would come to deal the finishing blow yourself. And I knew you would come, especially after I called you my 'nemesis' on national television, how could you resist?" Zach screamed it and he charged at Raijin who got so much angrier a look on his face as Zach made it out like he had been manipulating him the whole time. As Raijin prepared to charge back at him though, Zach yelled, "But that still doesn't explain how I knew you'd be _here!_ How I had everything in place, to put you in my own fucking trap inside your trap!" Zach rose both hands in front of him and combined Death Grenades both in mid-formation so it did not seem like they were ready yet. He fired the larger attack early towards Raijin and then blew it up even earlier, making Raijin put on that extra burst of speed that Zach saw hurt him before and he saw hurt him even more this time as he had to speed away from the encroaching Death tendrils.

 _How did he know!?_

"Zach!" A voice screamed in panic.

Zach's head spun and his feet covered in so much Death that it looked like an explosion beneath him. He shot towards the truck, his red eyes glowing brighter and a furious look on his face as he ran as fast as he had the entire night at the vehicle and then shot up towards the top of it. Dabi looked towards the truck with his eyes wide as the monster he just sent at it was getting charged by a black missile. Dabi started running at the vehicle himself though, _While he's fighting it…_

"When they're all together!" Raijin called out, grinding his teeth to shake off his frustration and confusion even as his mind worked at its fastest speed to try and figure out what was going on. _HOW?!_

Zach flew up at the top of the truck and the girl who was pulling back but had her right arm grabbed by the large black Nomu that Dabi had taken with them for insurance. The Nomu turned and swung the arm with the spinning chainsaw on it at the black figure that just leapt straight up to the top of the truck without issue. Zach spun his body faster in midair and dodged the spinning blade. He slammed his left fist out into the Nomu's chest and blasted a huge amount of Death into the monster while reaching over with his right hand and grabbing the brown-haired girl by her other arm. Zach pulled the girl out of the Nomu's grip while the creature lost strength surrounded in a flame of Death. It fell backwards off the top of the truck, and then Zach jumped off the side of the vehicle while still holding the girl he saved in his arms.

"Put her down Zach!" Midoriya shouted over at the truck.

"That idiot," Raijin said with a smug look spread over his face.

"Give it to me," Zach whispered.

"Here. Good luck. I believe in you."

Zach turned while slowly lowering the girl in his arms down next to the vehicle. He turned and he started walking back towards the back of it, while all the villains who had been running towards him to finish their group off as they were all in one place started getting so confused. Raijin slowed down himself, and Dabi opened his eyes huge as the girl Zach put down walked up behind him with black wisps fading off of her. "You-" Raijin began, as Class A started to realize it, Shoji and Tsuyu's eyes going widest first faster than their classmates.' Raijin's eyes darted to the girl behind Zach who smiled wide and confidently before bending her legs down, and springing up in the air using springs that formed in her knees to bounce her back to her position on the truck's roof. "That girl," Raijin said, looking up at her and then back at Zach. "You seriously-"

"Kaminari," Zach said. His voice was deep and scratchy, and he spoke in a low voice that once again chilled many of the people there. His classmates worst of all were looking towards Zach in fear, and they were feeling less and less like they knew the person they were looking at after seeing that girl behind him not react at all from his Death. "You don't know anything about her, or about me. As much as I told you," Zach narrowed his glowing red eyes, and he glared at Raijin and over to his right at Dabi, then behind them at the ten other villains total in the clearing with them. "As much as I trusted you, I never told you everything. I never told anyone, everything. You, Yaoyorozu, Midoriya, everyone heard different stories and no one got the whole truth." Zach's body started losing its flaring appearance.

The two in the truck behind Zach looked at his pitch black back carefully for a second but mostly kept their focuses on the villains facing them and readying their Quirks and weapons too. Darling recreated rifles on her arms though her right was in a lot of pain from when the Nomu grabbed her, though she was smiling so wide at how fast Zach came to save her when she called for his help. Zach said in a low calm voice but his eyes flashing with rage for a second, "Ganji once told me, 'It's important to make contacts while you are still at school.' You think because you killed everyone you thought I knew outside of school, I had no moves?! You think I told you everything?! I may have trusted you more than anyone else, but I never trusted anyone with everything! Only _I_ know everything about myself."

"So what?" Raijin asked. His face was pissed off and he had some sweat on it but he grinned while continued, "You hid some-"

"You're going to figure it out anyway, because I think you really are that smart," Zach started again, pissing off Raijin more by cutting him off. "Because if you were thinking straight right now, you'd know that if I had a spy in the League of Villains, I would have just used them to find your bases. I would have gone to where you all were, instead of making you come to me." Raijin's eyes started widening more, as did all the other villains behind him including Dabi who lowered his bottom lip while staring at Zach. "But come on Kaminari, who else knew about this? The only person outside of the League of Villains. The man who wanted to regain favor with you, because he lost me on New Year's, allowed me to get back to U.A."

 _"Days before I came back to class, I was being hunted and chased and it didn't stop just because I got to this place!"_ Iida, Midoriya, Kirishima, Ashido, and Jirou remembered something Zach had shouted at them after running away from an emergency right after returning back in January.

Yaoyorozu stared out towards Zach with her eyes huge too though, especially as Kaminari asked with his face twisting in anger, "The Hunter?"

Zach nodded his head. Chills went down Yaoyorozu's spine. She had heard Zach say that name before. He had told her what had happened to her on New Year's, and she started panting hard which made Jirou turn to her with a confused and terrified look that got even more frantic at Momo's expression. All Might had heard the name before and he started panting while looking out at Zach. Zach's classmates got uneasy, unnerved looks on their faces as Zach's dark mouth twisted in anger and his voice got so much darker, "You had him hunt me down on New Year's, dragging me through the streets of Musutafu, and I tried to crack my own skull on the pavement but couldn't because of the snow, just to escape him! I tried that, because I knew it would have been better than getting brought back to Shigaraki! But Webb saved me!" Zach shouted it and through his dark tone came a voice that was so distraught and angry. "And I mean it. Every moment from the day after you left, I've been hiding everything, but that doesn't mean it didn't hurt when my family went missing, and it doesn't mean I didn't feel a thing when you told me that you had massacred my mentor's family in front of him!"

Zach started breathing heavier and his dark breath shadowed over his face, making dark swirls in the red orbs of his eyes. "I told you about Webb saving me, yet I never told you how I met the Hunter again. Because how could I tell you? How could I tell anyone?" Zach's voice was so dark and ominous that the people in the truck behind him and even on top of it felt chills. Zach's tone just reached a point that he was scaring them all. **"How could I tell you, that I had convinced a man that I was the** _ **devil?**_ **"** Zach's question echoed through the air and a sudden gust of wind rushed in without the villain who could do that moving a muscle.

Raijin stared at Zach with his eyes opening wider and wider. **"You think the way we looked at you in that basement was fear? You've never seen fear, like the fear on a man's face when he thinks you're going to kill him and drag him down to Hell. When he thinks you're going to keep killing him over and over and over for eternity."**

 _Gentle! We've made a mistake!_

 _This kid…_

 _Zach!_

"That's right," Zach said, his voice lifting up a bit and losing its most ominous tone that just had everyone freeze in place more than they already were. Zach's dark aura settled even more, so that it was like a flat dark veil around Zach's body that was thinner yet no easier to see his bones through like it was actually just as thick just more condensed. Zach continued while looking into Raijin's eyes, "I did something like that, I, crossed that line… for you!" Zach shouted it and his voice sounded so frustrated through the darkness. Raijin's eyes opened wider, and Zach yelled louder at him in pain rather than a tone meant to scare, "I told you I got Webb and Ganji to help me find you, when Shatterer had taken you, but- But they didn't know where you were any better than I did! But I had grabbed one of your socks, and I knew how to track down the Hunter, and I threw away my own soul!" Zach screamed it and he started panting afterwards while everyone stared at him in silence. He took in a few short sucked-in breaths, and then he snapped in fury, "I crossed that line, for _YOU!_ Because you mattered that much to me, that I wouldn't just take a bullet for you, I would have literally turned into a monster- the devil! Just to save you!"

Zach shook his head, and water spilled out of his red eyes and dark his dark face. "I convinced a man that I was the devil, and maybe just doing that makes it true. Maybe I am the devil," Zach said, lifting his head and looking into Raijin's eyes with so much rising fury, any water in his eyes vanishing away. "Because a crazy fucking murderer like Hunter, believes it's so! He's not afraid of you, he's not afraid of the League, he's not even afraid of Eziano _fucking_ Mozcaccio!" Midoriya and All Might stared out towards Zach with their eyes shaking so much already but shooting an extra bit wider at that last part. Dabi backed up at the tone shift in Zach's voice, and he rose up his hands with blue flames flaring out on them. "But he is afraid of me," Zach said. "And he should be…"

Zach lifted up his right hand. He rose it and all the villains in front of him tensed up or started raising their weapons, activating their Quirks. Zach rose his right hand to his neck though, curled around something he had grabbed from Darling. He rose his hand in no threatening motion to the villains who were all staring at him in confusion. He cocked his neck a bit to the left while putting his right hand so covered in Death that it was hard to see what he was holding up to his neck, and then Zach pressed his thumb down. Raijin's eyes shot open huge, and he rose his arms and pointed them forward with electricity swirling around them, but instead of firing he just yelled, "Everyone get back!"

Zach started running forward. He ran forward and tossed his right hand out to the side, opening it up and allowing the Death to fall off of an object that every person there except for Darling, Raijin, and Zach stared at in shock. A needle fell from Zach's hand, and all of the villains started running away at the same time. Zach's body that had Death condensed so closely to it, it pulsed. He slowed down after starting to run away from the truck he had felt he was too close to. _Oh whoa…_

La Brava said to Gentle in a panicked voice, "Let's get out of here."

"Trust his plan," Gentle said, and La Brava's eyes shot open huge. "Trust me," he added to the younger woman before she could argue. La Brava's pink eyes opened even wider, then she turned and looked out at the boy whose body pulsed again.

Zach's bones became invisible inside his aura, and Raijin yelled out while swinging his arms at Zach after finally getting a safe distance. Two thin beams of electricity shot at Zach, then right as they were about to slam into his chest at different points, holes opened up in Zach's body and those lightning bolts went straight through him. "Why would you go so far?!" Raijin shouted at the boy who he had been fighting pretty closely with before, who had just made sweat cover his face and the faces of all his allies and enemies around him by opening holes in his body to show there was no longer a solid form inside that dark veil.

Zach lifted up his right arm, and he stared down at it with his glowing red orbs in the center of just a swirling black mass where his head should have been. He stared at his hand that pulsed again, and again, and then he rose his eyes up and looked at Raijin. _So this is what it feels like._ Even though there was no face on the dark mass with those red eyes on it, a thicker darkness formed on the bottom of that mass and twisted up at the sides before opening to show it was a mouth. Zach's red eyes swirled with black wisps, and all his classmates just fell completely silent at what they had just witnessed.

 _Was that-_ Jirou thought, looking towards where she thought she just saw a needle fall.

"'So far?!'" Zach roared, his voice echoing over the campsite while his body pulsed again and then sucked back down into its normal size. His voice was deeper and scratchier, his normal voice no longer hidden behind it like the voices were overlapping. "It isn't _so far!_ Right Dabi?!" Zach yelled, snapping his head towards the man with spiky black hair who held up his hands covered in blue flames defensively. Dabi's eyes started opening huge though at what Zach just yelled at him. "You remember! The Trigger deal in Shanghai, where you killed all the Triakuza dealing with us. I asked you why you did it, and you told me they tried to sell us bad product!"

Tsuyu's bottom lip dropped and she took a step back from the forcefield in front of her. She dropped down to her butt, and on her sides both Hagakure and Ashido backed away with scared looks in their eyes. Kirishima kept staring out towards Zach with his entire expression shaking in shock and confusion, so much confusion. Bakugo started grinding his teeth, but the corners of his lips curled up as everyone around him stared out in horror. _You better know what you're doing. You fucking crazy, crazy… WIN!_

"I asked how you knew it was bad just by looking at it. Do you remember what you told me?!" Zach yelled over at Dabi, as his body pulsed with darkness again and the wisps started swirling around his limbs instead of all sucking back in this time. "You told me it was in the color! Bright purple, the brighter the better! And oh man Dabi, if this shit wasn't the brightest purp you ever SEEN!" Zach's entire body erupted in Death out of his right side. His arm bulked up and Death pushed out to his right side making any villains in that general vicinity leap backwards and yell out in fear.

"HAhaha! HAHAHA!" Zach's left side erupted next in Death, and then Raijin shoved his hands together and Dabi did the same pointing at him. Wind blew in and the ground shook beneath Zach's body. Villains fired guns at him, they fired lightning and fire and all sorts of different attacks. Zach's head flew to the right side five feet away, his body staying where it was, to dodge the super fast thick bolt of lightning Kaminari fired at him. He pulled his head away and his neck extended out as a thick trail of Death. Then the rest of his body started extending after his head that continued rising up as a pillar of black smoke that curled in and spun higher and higher up like a giant massive coiling snake. Attacks missed his body between the coils or just went straight through them, while Zach rose up twenty, thirty, forty feet in the air.

All of the thick coils of Zach's winding body started to expand and spread down into each other, giving Zach a huge form with a thick base that got thinner up towards the top. He had become a giant at over forty feet tall, and huge thick arms slowly started pulling off of his side and taking form as he bellowed out laughter from up above. As Kirishima heard this laughter, he felt a lump in his throat imagining the first villain he had ever fought on Trigger. But then he thought of something else that made his eyes bulge and his fists clench tightly at his sides. _"You know Kirishima, it hurts a lot whenever I bring someone back. But when I take a life, I get the opposite feeling. One of euphoria. But! I will never stop saving lives. As much as it hurts me physically, the feeling I get from saving a life, knowing that the person will get to go home to their family, is a thousand times better than that weird pleasure I get from taking one…"_

"He's getting high," Kirishima whispered. His friends around him had mostly backed up, and he spoke a little louder as he saw some of them look in at him, "Not just off the Trigger. He told me before, that killing gives him this, this weird sense of euphoria."

 _It makes him stronger and makes him feel high?!_ Mineta thought in terror while looking over at Kirishima.

"If that's already true," Midoriya started to whisper.

Yaoyorozyu's eyes were huge as she looked up at the giant laughing form of darkness that was more terrifying than anything she had ever seen before. The villains were in complete disarray over it too, and Zach's laughter echoing over the forest was not making it any easier. She thought about a look she had seen on his face at the Sports Festival, when he had first used Nightmare after killing Spinner and she had felt the worst chills at the look on his face. "Zach, Zach!" She shouted.

"Zach!" Midoriya yelled up towards his friend whose red eyes glanced down in his direction.

Zach's swirling thick base was not in very much control, with thick black wisps pulling off in different directions in the clearing. The wisps on the side closer to the big pink dome started pulling away from it though, but Zach only looked that way for a second before looking back down at Raijin who just threw a bunch of electricity in his body and filled him with lightning. Zach felt like gritting his teeth, but he did not have any teeth to grit. Yet he was able to speak out a dark mouth shape on his face, his voice deep and scratchy and very loud. "I watched Chemist's trials with you Dabi, and I've seen that there are Trigger out there that barely mess with cognitive functions at all but are still illegal! It's stupid, to give villains such a ridiculously huge edge against heroes." Zach's giant arms bulged right as he started reaching them down towards groups of villains who all scattered different directions faster than he was moving his arms down. "I still don't know how strong Death can be!" Zach yelled, and he let out a loud laugh again after it as more scared looks spread over the faces of all the villains he was looking down at.

"We have to get out of here," Dabi snapped over at Raijin.

Raijin glared towards him and then back up at the monster in front of him. "If everyone goes on Trigger-"

"It won't matter," Dabi snapped louder. "Do you fucking see that? He's out of his mind, and he just Triggered Death. We don't know what that'll do. He doesn't know what that'll do. We _have_ to go."

"You're a hero!" Midoriya yelled at the top of his lungs.

Zach froze for a second. He glared down towards the villains just as darkly, only for one of those scared villains to agree with Midoriya shouting, "Yeah! You're Lifebringer! You- you can't just use Trigger!"

"It's not heroic!"

"Zach calm down!"

"You're out of it!"

"I thought," Zach started, his booming voice reaching down on the ground and his huge Death body starting to shrink a bit. His arms moved a little faster as his body shrank down, and he rose them up and down as if working out the kinks of this huge body. "That I could try and be a symbol," Zach continued. "I could try and be the Lifebringer people wanted me to be. I thought that heroes mattered so much, because people look to them to feel safe. And after beating Shatterer, I started to feel like I could actually become something like that." Zach's mouth curled down at the corners and he growled down in a deeper voice, "That's stupid though. Not because it won't work, because it could, but because I _can't_ do it. I thought that being a symbol was more important than the actual work I did. But if I have to break the rules to do good, then so be it." He finished and glared down specifically towards Raijin and Dabi.

Zach started raising his right hand, and a swirling ball of Death started forming there. It was easily ten feet in diameter, a sphere of darkness that gained shape and size so fast that it terrified most of the villains into backing away and then spinning and sprinting back into the forest behind them.

"If you attack with that much Death," Dabi called up to the kid who was doing the most threatening thing all night. "You'll kill-"

"YOU THINK I CARE?!" Zach roared.

"Zach!" Yaoyorozu screamed, tears in her eyes as she tried to force her voice to reach him.

Zach clenched his mouth shut as some of his classmates started yelling at him, and he pulled his thirty foot body back while glaring down in Dabi's eyes in so much fury. "You're mad? You're surprised? Or hurt?! That I really am going to kill you?!" Zach's entire body started shaking and black wisps pulled off of him, while Dabi turned around and started sprinting back into the forest after most of the others except for only Raijin who just spun and yelled at Backfire to get back there. Zach's body shook more, "You, you who were once my brother! You saved my life, but, but you're a villain…" Zach screamed it, and then his body started getting lower down while he rose up the huge sphere of Death more in his right hand like he was getting ready to throw it.

Zach's glowing red eyes flared as he glared into the woods after Dabi who was trying to run from him after giving him that look… "And when Ganeshi snapped Shigaraki's neck, and Spinner lifted the tablet to show me the Akers' apartment that Hackerman was tapped into. I- I would have done whatever you asked. But, but even after I brought him back, even though I did what you asked, you killed her anyway, along with everyone else!" Zach screamed it and his voice pierced the night. His friends shouting at him from inside the pink sphere stared out at him with their faces twisting in horror, and even the ones who had backed away out of fear of Zach felt their hearts pounding at every word out of his mouth. The villains ran through the forest in fear, while Gentle, La Brava, and Darling stared up at Zach's back in shock as he kept screaming, "Twice held me to the chair, and Kurogiri teleported you into their house. Kaminari told you how much it would hurt me, and Kurogiri, he took Jenny's blood and gave it to Toga, so she could torture me with the face of my best friend! Shigaraki made me watch, while you burned them alive, while she screamed my name! And he dug the knife under my eye to force it open when I wanted to stop watching, and he made me listen to her screams for months! You killed her Dabi! You think I'd feel sorry for you? You think I could ever stop hating you?!"

In every single name Zach had just said, his friends heard hate in his voice. Sheer hatred and rage with each name he mentioned. What he just described, watching these villains murder his family, it had every one of his friends moving back closer to the edge of the forcefield that they hoped would come down soon with Backfire not in front of it anymore. Ashido had tears filling her eyes as did most of the girls, and a few of the guys too including Midoriya who pressed his hands into the forcefield only to be bounced back again and have to run back up to be with the others.

"His scar," Ojiro whispered. The most defining scar under Zach's right eye, hearing how he got it being forced to watch the villains massacre his family made Ojiro feel sick. Every single time he had looked at Zach over the past six months, looked at that scar and imagining what could have created it, he never imagined anything as bad as what he just heard described. Knowing it was after VTS too, when Zach would blame himself for it happening, it had Ojiro's eyes filling with tears and his fists clenching so furiously at his sides.

Yaoyorozu stared up towards Zach's face that she could not make out the pain on. She just stared at his huge black face swirling with darkness and the two giant red orbs full of so much hatred. _Zach. Please don't do it-_

Zach swung his huge sphere of Death in front of him, and Raijin sped past Zach's back to get on his other side as where he threw the huge sphere down. He threw it slowly, and it killed all the trees at the edge of the clearing and flattened out on the floor. The Death pushed down on the ground and then blew away in a wave, but the villains had started running too early and even the slowest of them still escaped the edge of the attack. Dabi spun after the Death stopped, and he watched trees blackened and drained of life cracking and splintering and collapsing. He looked farther out and saw zapping electricity, but he just frowned darkly at the sight of Raijin back there still with that monster. "We're getting out of here!" Dabi shouted back towards the younger villain.

Raijin spun his head towards the other villains far from him through a cluster of breaking dead trees that all had the life sucked out of them. _Likely making Zach even stronger._ Raijin's body surrounded in electricity while a thick whip of Death broke out of Zach's body and flung back at him. Zach lowered his left hand down towards where Raijin was racing by, but he was too slow and just slammed his wide palm into the ground behind where Kaminari just was. "Hahaha! You know you've lost!" Zach shouted after Raijin's back. "You lost AGAIN! HAHAHA! I wonder what villains are going to want to follow such a joke as the old, weakened League of Villains now?!"

Zach's body got smaller and smaller, shrinking down after he threw his huge mass of Death down into the edge of the forest. The villains were leaving their unconscious Nomu behind, but none of the others in their team had gone down yet. Zach started running after them in the wider clearing now, and he called out, "All For One isn't really back is he?!" He shouted it towards Raijin's back and watched as the blond spun his head around inside his veil of electricity. He saw the other villains past him and at the edge of the new tree line but moving farther back look towards him with wide eyes too, while Zach's classmates and new allies stared towards him in confusion. "I knew that broken body of his must not be able to fight anymore! He's not just 'biding his time' like people think! You League of Villains are done for!" Zach got smaller so he was only eighteen feet tall now, and he bent his legs that broke apart out of his thick base. He started running forward faster, chasing after the villains who were running away from him.

"Run away! Run! Knowing that I've beaten you again!" Zach shouted it, and he saw Raijin flinch and slow down. Zach slowed down himself and watched as Raijin turned his head and looked over his shoulder with a shaken expression at what he just heard Zach say. "That's right Raijin, you lose. You hate losing don't you?"

Raijin's eyes darted back to the pink barrier that had all of Class A in it. He shot his eyes towards the truck, then to his side trying to look behind him while keeping Zach in view. "Oh there he is," Zach said, his voice colder and less taunting. Is came out as a hiss and made Raijin snap his gaze straight back into Zach's big red eyes. Zach lifted his arms and created huge black claws at the ends of them, and he slammed them down on the ground in front of him. His body hunched back and dark flames flared out of his body as his black claws dug straight into the ground. "You want to shout at me, that you'd be the one who wins if you get away here. Because I gave up everything for this!" Zach clenched his claws down harder and smirked at the blond whose body surrounded in lightning.

"You will lose!" Raijin yelled.

"You know me better than that," Zach growled, his voice cutting through the air and to his left towards his classmates. Some of them had started shouting at Zach not to let Kaminari get away, while others just yelled at him to stop like All Might. They all became quiet though as Zach growled, "You don't get it Raijin. How could you ever? You, who are so obsessed with yourself. The biggest sociopath in the world. You could never understand what's going on because you don't get one simple thing!" Zach started laughing while Raijin snarled back at him and started surrounding in a huge veil of electricity sparking all over the place. "If you ran away, it wouldn't really be your loss as things are now! I'd lose everything, all of my cards are on the table, yet you know me, Kaminari! I told Backfire to stay before because I didn't want you running, and now I'm yelling at you all to run?! How stupid can you fucking be? Why the hell would I inject with Trigger, when I was already so much stronger with the animals I killed? When I wasn't losing in the first place, and injecting with Trigger would make you run away?!"

Raijin's eyes that were shaking started to open wide, right as something else opened up far behind him that Zach's red eyes locked onto. Yaoyorozu held her breath while her jaw started dropping. Confused looks spread over the faces of all of Class A, and then they started turning to the left after a flash of black that just shot out of the huge bulking mass with its arms curled forward as if ready to pounce. Out of that blur came a shout moving so fast that it got farther away through it, "Because if you realized that there was no chance of victory, you'd call your emergency escape route!" A whip of black flew at Raijin while he spun in towards Zach, making him jump away instead of towards his old classmate who just made his expression cover in panicked rage.

"DABI!" Raijin shouted while still in his arc back, though his eyes were huge and shaking as he stared at the thin black trail in front of him that left most of Zach's body behind.

"You really think using Trigger made me slower?!" Zach roared, while he sped between all the villains and straight towards a swirling blackish-purple form he just saw appear out in the forest. He caught a glimpse of a metal brace inside, and his right hand formed out of the flying black form he just shot himself out of that hulking mass of Death that he condensed his real body inside of while yelling at Raijin. A dark hand reached forward, and yellow eyes above a metal brace started opening wide but there was no time to react. Not for him, not for the villains around him, not even for Raijin who tried sprinting back only to stop as Zach slammed his hand into the metal brace and clenched down on it.

As soon as he grabbed that metal brace, Zach pulled the Death from his arm down to his lower body and pressed quickly-forming legs into the ground. He jumped up in the air and pushed Death out his side to swirl into the sky, spinning around and around as an impossible to hit target while dragging a shadowy man up into the sky with him. "You try to use your Quirk, and I'll crush your throat," Zach growled in a low voice, and Kurogiri's huge yellow eyes shook in fear as he felt the crunching of the metal brace Zach had gripped in his dark hand.

Zach flew up in the sky, swirled back towards the main clearing and then forced out Death from below his form to keep him elevated.

"Get him!"

"We can't lose Kurogiri!"

"Everyone back!"

Dabi spun to Backfire, "Get back there!" He yelled at her, and the pink haired woman nodded as this situation just got a lot more intense with their escape route and comrade gone.

 _I did it._

"Yay! Mission complete!" Darling jumped up on top of the truck and pumped a fist into the air.

"He really did it," La Brava whispered with her eyes huge. Some of Zach's classmates looked over when they heard Darling's shout and they gained the same expression as the pink-haired woman in the back.

Gentle looked past Zach's floating body and towards the newer part of the clearing where Zach had killed the trees. "Get ready," Gentle warned, and the girls with him lifted up their guns or gun-arms again.

"I've got you, Kurogiri," Zach growled. "You know how easy it would be for me to kill you? Don't you fucking move."

"ZACH!" Raijin roared up towards the dark form holding Kurogiri by the throat.

"YOU FUCKING LOSE!" Zach roared, turning from Kurogiri but keeping him in his peripheral vision while pulling Death away from his right arm. Death was so thin on his hand that he created that it started to look lighter, but Kurogiri could feel the same amount of crushing force, and there was so much Death in front of him that there was no chance he was moving. Zach's voice sounded serious too. _Sazaki,_ Kurogiri thought, and for the first time in his life he felt terrified of the boy in front of him. _What have we created?_

"Ha, haha," Sero started laughing and he brought his hands up through his hair. "Holy shit! _That_ was his plan?!"

"You got him Zach!" Mineta shouted, pushing away his fear for the dark figure in front of them.

Midoriya saw the woman with pink hair running over and he looked at Todoroki and Bakugo and nodded. The three of them ran at the barrier only for it to flash pink from Backfire from a short distance as she pointed her hands at it. They all stopped themselves, instead of causing the damage they knew it would cause looking brighter than it was even earlier while she was holding it. Backfire sprinted to the barrier and grabbed it with both hands, then she spun and rose up a pistol from her right side and aimed up at Zach. She fired, and a bullet flew through the long thin black mass raised fifteen feet up in the air with an arm sticking out at around thirteen feet holding Kurogiri.

"Let him go kid!" Dabi yelled up. "We aren't leaving here without our Warp-"

"You're right, you aren't leaving here," Zach said. His voice was low and dark, and all the villains around him who were preparing to attack him froze at the same time. They stared up as Zach's red eyes shifted around each of them. "You don't understand, the power I feel right now. None of you will be escaping here!"

"Get him back!" Raijin yelled, as he looked up and saw Kurogiri clenched there tightly in Zach's hand but still conscious as Zach forced Death away from him.

"If you try, I'll just kill him!" Zach roared, and all the villains around him held back as he sounded completely serious. Zach looked down into Raijin's eyes as if daring him to do an attack. He was nearly three times Kaminari Denki's height, and he just proved that he was as fast if not faster with the sudden burst he used to get to Kurogiri. Raijin wondered if he could zap Zach before Zach killed Kurogiri, but then his thoughts derailed as Zach asked in a low voice, "Are you serious? You really think, I caught Kurogiri, to stop you?" Raijin stared up into Zach's eyes in confusion, and Zach started laughing. He laughed, though his voice was dry and cold, "That's what you never understood, Kaminari. The reason you failed here. Because you're too fucking self-centered to realize one simple thing: _it's not about you._ " Zach shook his huge dark head and clenched tighter on Kurogiri's brace, while the villain in his hand was starting to feel weaker anyway. "This, has never been about you, or Dabi."

Zach looked to his right at the man he was clenching so hard by the throat. The metal brace that let him know where Kurogiri's physical body really was. Zach glared into Kurogiri's eyes but kept speaking down to Raijin, "I couldn't have known you'd be here, even with the nemesis thing and knowing it would be better with communications blocked. I couldn't have known Dabi would come either. Hunter doesn't have the kind of control to decide what you guys chose to do here. There were so many variables, so many ways tonight could have gone down, but I knew one person I could account for no matter what. If it was absolutely clear that you had no chance of winning, whoever came would be sure to call him to save them." Zach looked deeper into Kurogiri's eyes and he could hear the man in front of him start wheezing.

"Sazaki," Kurogiri began.

"YOU LIAR!" Raijin roared up.

"Do you really think, I would put all the people closest to me in danger, for _you?_ " Zach asked. "The people I care the most about? You think I would put them at so much risk just for revenge? Something so petty… It's not about you Kaminari, but, but it's also not about me." He turned his head a bit and looked down, and he hissed at the villains looking up at him, "I didn't do this because I hate you. I did it, because every night I go to sleep in Nightmare form, in fear of Kurogiri. And, and if someone like me who has been through so much, who is so strong! If I'm afraid of him, then, can you imagine how regular citizens feel? Every night, afraid for their children's lives in the next room because Kurogiri could be there. Afraid to walk down the streets, because Kurogiri could bring an army of villains to kill them and everyone they know!" Zach's body started shaking, and he snapped his head back to the man to his right who he stared looking at so hatefully through his flaring red eyes, while dark wisps ripped off of his right arm and flew to the sides to prevent from reaching his hand. "You might've been just as important a player in the League of Villains' schemes, Raijin, but leaving U.A. has made you just another strong villain. Whereas Kurogiri, you're, you're the biggest threat to peace in our world."

Midoriya stared out through the pink barrier and up towards Zach with his eyes shaking and his fists loosening at his sides. _Zach. That's, your reason? For all of this? You did all of this… for, for other people?_

Bakugo's grin that had spread as soon as Zach caught Kurogiri faltered. He stared up at Zach, and he felt his heart racing faster and faster at what he had just shouted. There were things tonight that Zach had done and said that had Bakugo ready to go out there and kick his ass, yet he no longer had that urge at all. He just stared out and his eyes started shaking like the rest of the class's, like All Might's too.

 _Sazaki,_ All Might thought, taking a step forward towards the pink barrier and looking up at the top of the dark form. _You broke, so many rules. Lied, and, and you have captured…_

"You, would just use a portal and escape…" Zach said. Everyone there other than Zach stared up at him frozen where they were. Their thoughts cut off and their eyes widened. Darling's only widened for a second before she started grinning and raising up her gun arms while darting her eyes around the other villains. La Brava glanced up at Gentle and whispered nervously to him, and Gentle kept staring towards Zach with his own eyes wide as the black wisps on Zach's arm started pulling farther down his lighter forearm towards the hand on Kurogiri's throat.

"Zach wait!" Yaoyorozu shouted up at him.

"Don't do it!" Kirishima yelled.

"Hold on Zach!" Dabi yelled.

"Don't!" Another villain called up.

Raijin shook where he stood, his face so covered in rage as he was processing what Zach had yelled at him. _It's, not about me?! What the fuck is that supposed- that mother fuck- HOW CAN HE- I_ _ **broke**_ _him!_

"Zach please!" Midoriya screamed up, tears in his eyes. _Everything until now, it's not too far! Please Zach!_

"Sazaki, don't," Kurogiri started. "You've, got me," his voice was weak, and Zach wondered if he would even be able to use a portal anymore.

Zach's hand started unclenching in Kurogiri's metal brace. He glared into the villain's eyes though, and he spoke in a deep, booming voice while darkness spread out from the base of his fifteen foot tall body and started spinning around him. It spun around and rose up in a circle around his body over six feet tall, keeping a gap between him and the villains. "USJ," Zach spoke, his voice cutting through the dark night with no natural light from the sky with the heavy clouds covering it. Light flickered from the flame behind Zach's classmates and from the lights of the truck and pink barrier, and everyone stared up at the face of this huge dark form as he growled out, "The training forest, and, and the League escaping Camino Ward, it was all you. You're a monster-"

"Life-bringer," Kurogiri argued. He said it slowly, and Zach's red eyes widened for a second. "How many, people, did we save?"

Zach pulled his head back and then hissed out, "Hundreds." His hand tightened back into Kurogiri and made the tired villain flinch though, and Zach started in a pained voice as he said, "You're right. You… remember all the people we saved together? You and me. I got you, to do things my way. I told you we didn't need to threaten doctors and nurses to save people, and you listened and did things my way. You were smart. You were, someone I had started to trust." Zach shook his head and then his voice got louder, "I looked for the good in villains, and I found it, even in you. But you- I never knew why you did what you did. I never knew why you would do so much evil, kill so many people, yet you were always there. You sent me to hospitals and car crashes to bring people back to life… And you teleported Dabi into the Akers' apartment, and you stood there and watched as he burned them alive! I remember the people we saved, Kurogiri. I remember them well. But I will never forget her. I will never forget seeing you there in the background, watching as Dabi burned her."

"Zach," Hagakure whispered, her eyes full of fear and pain at the same time.

"Stop it," Midoriya whispered. "Stop it!" He called out louder, though he did not know if his voice was even reaching Zach anymore.

"We have to do something," a female villain on Raijin's left snapped over at their leader. "If he kills him, we're screwed."

"He won't," Raijin snarled, though a bead of sweat slid down his face. _He won't! Will he? I- I don't know-_

"You made the League of Villains what they are," Zach said. He got louder and gripped Kurogiri harder, "And you, pulled me back through that portal at VTS. You brought me back when I just wanted to run, and you tortured me! You forced food through portals and down my throat when I wouldn't eat, and you dripped water on my face for hours- DRIP DRIP DRIP- NO! But that's not why! Even if you couldn't portal yourself, All For One can warp people he knows to himself, so you'd never be caught for long! You- who infiltrated U.A. and brought upon the end of All Might, and you! You who brought the destruction of Musutafu, the Sports Festival, killing hundreds! THOUSANDS of people! You allowed your Quirk to be used for so much evil, and you released the most horrible monsters ever known from Tartaros to bring even more fear and terror across the world!"

"Get him back!"

"Save him!"

"Do it!" Raijin yelled, only for lightning to surround him and him to sprint backwards as fast as he could as a huge thick whip of Death flew out towards him after he yelled it.

The whip of Death was not slow like Zach had been moving before. It whipped out so fast that two of the villains running forward to try and stop Zach could not change directions in time. Death surrounded them as they screamed, "AAahh-" They reached out inside the dark smoke they were barely visible in, and they collapsed to the ground with their skin pale and their eyes still open.

A pulse of strength went through Zach's entire body, and he said in a deep low voice, "Oops. I don't know my own strength in this form. But telling from that power boost, the two of them are dead." Zach's body pulsed again, and Zach growled, "And so is he." The power boost he just got had pulsed through his arm too, and darkness surrounded the man he was holding in his hand flaring with black flames. "Your reign of terror ends here. Kurogiri, goodbye," Zach threw his right hand down and released Kurogiri so fast that he slammed through a tree and smashed into the ground with a loud thud. Everyone in the forest stared at Zach in fear at the monotone voice he just had while talking about killing those three.

Then Zach's head turned and his red eyes swirling with black glared at the villains around him. "Hahaha **hahahahahaaa… Who's next?"** A funnel of black wind whipped up from the ground and completely surrounded Zach's body in a tornado of Death. Red orbs glowed bright through the funnel, and all of the villains spun and started sprinting away as fast as they could.

"Where do we go?!"

"There's no escape route!"

"Run the old fashioned way!"

Dabi scrambled backwards and then he spun and started sprinting as fast as his legs would take him.

 **"Where do you think you're going?!"** A huge ball of black flames flew down after some villains, and one of them turned back and let out a scream right before the ball slammed down around his back. He tried running another few steps but tripped and went down still surrounded in that darkness, while to his left only thirty feet away all of Class A stared out at the dying villain in shocked horror.

Raijin was sprinting away, as fast as he could ahead of all of the other villains. Backfire screamed out asking what they were doing and then just turned and ran too as she saw Zach's eyes shift towards her for a second. Nine villains started scattering out into the woods, and Raijin slowed down as he heard Zach's voice roar out behind him, "How does it feel to lose, Kaminari?" Raijin slowed more and he looked back over his shoulder, and he turned around more while looking back to see the funnel going down and fading away, and a five and a half foot tall black figure walking out through it and in his direction. "You've never really lost before, have you? So this has to be a new feeling for you! HOW MUCH DO YOU HATE IT?!"

Raijin clenched his fists so tightly, but he took a step back. _He's trying to egg me on. I'm not that, that…_

"That's right, you can't figure me out. Because I've lost, I've lost so many times and I learned from each of them things someone who always wins could never understand! You'll try, but you don't know why I would egg you on so obviously when you know that I know how smart you are. But if it's not to get you to run back here, then is it reverse psychology? Do I want you to run, because the Trigger's wearing off? Or did I make my huge form go down like that myself, after finally getting control over my new power? Am I tired? Am I letting you run away, or am I still trying to kill you?"

"Raijin, we're running!" Dabi yelled to his left without slowing as he reached the blond who had been faster than the rest of them.

"Wait, a second," Raijin started. He looked through all the trees at the figure just walking towards them, only for Zach to stop and not start running in the forest after the retreating villains.

"Oh, so you are going to stay and fight me?" Zach asked, and he stayed where he was only to take a nervous step backwards.

Other villains stopped upon hearing that tone, and they started to think that what he said about his Trigger wearing off might be more of the truth than they had thought. Backfire turned around from farthest back in the group of villains, and she opened her mouth to call at Sazaki only to freeze as Zach lifted his arms up and brought them to his right side. Zach pulled his right hands down to his right side and pressed his wrists together with his fingers curled out. His dark form pulled its elbows back, and an explosion of darkness erupted in front of his palms before shrinking and condensing more and more into the densest sphere of Death imaginable.

"Backfire!" Dabi yelled back towards the woman. "Put one up!"

"I can feel the Trigger wearing off," Backfire said in fear, while turning and sprinting back towards Dabi and Raijin who ran her way. The other villains who had scattered in different directions but mostly to one side all started running towards her too, and she yelled, "Get close- holy shit!" She looked over her shoulder and locked eyes with Zach for a second which made her trip and fall and then start pushing away on her hands and knees. She spun and rose up her hands, creating a wall of pink out from the floor that started spreading.

"Reaping… Death…" Zach slammed his hands out and the black sphere on his hands shot forward with a huge beam of darkness behind it. "WAAAVVVEE!"

Backfire screamed and pushed out more of her Backfire forcefield. It curved at the outsides as the end of the huge sphere of Death was about to reach her, and the end of the Reaping Death Wave exploded against her barrier. "AAAEEEEEE!" She screamed and pushed her hands out harder in front of her, while Death wrapped around the outsides of her flashing pink wall as far as she was able to extend it. One of the villains running over dove for the safety of behind the barrier, only to just miss as Death washed past him in a flood. Raijin turned his head to the right as the scream cut short and he saw a body fall in that darkness, and he started backing up away from the forcefield that had more and more dark Death smashing into it every passing millisecond.

 _Instant, Death,_ Raijin thought. Their comrades were falling one by one, and Raijin stared down at Backfire's back as she started letting out a scream for a different reason. _Ectoplasm!_

Backfire tried to hold her barrier, but a voice roared through the darkness slamming into it. "You think Backfire can stop Death!? What is there to bounce back? Death isn't a force. It isn't something your pathetic Quirk can deflect! Death is a concept! Something that is coming for all of you!" Zach roared it while pushing his arms out harder and forcing out as much excess Death as he could manage, and he started panting when the last of it fired out of his arms.

Black wisps slid through the pink barrier, and all the villains hiding behind it backed up farther. They spun around one by one and started turning to run, while Backfire collapsed and the black wisps seeped through her barrier even faster. They seeped through and dipped down onto her skin and around her body, wrapping her up and coating her in Death while other villains stumbled and sprinted away. The dark wave of Death on the other side of the barrier started to fade, though the barrier stayed where it was just without dark wisps coming through anymore. The black wave faded and Raijin kept backing up as he looked back into the clearing, though everything around them was now part of the clearing too. Trees toppled over and collapsed, blackened and void of life, brown leaves ripping from branches that cracked in the slightest gust of wind, and a big gust just blew through filling the forest with cracking and collapsing noises.

"That was everything I had Raijin," Zach said. He stared towards the blond from over a hundred feet away, and in his red eyes swirled a black color that twisted them. Even in that black aura, wrapped around his five and a half foot tall body, with eyes that were just pure red with black swirls, Zach's eyes suddenly shared the same feeling as when he first lifted his head. When he rose his head and struck fear in the eyes of everyone watching. His red eyes had that conviction again, the determination to win so strongly that he was willing to kill, or do anything to do it. "Or was it?" Zach asked. A flash of lightning surrounded Raijin before zipping away in the opposite direction as Zach as fast as the villain could move.

 _How much of that was a bluff?_ Zach looked down at his hands, and he took in a deep breath as he tried to stop himself from shaking. _Ignore that feeling. Don't smile. It's the Quirk. Stop it. Don't laugh. Not, not now._ Zach turned his head to the left and looked over towards a pink forcefield. _I knew they stayed up even if she was unconscious, but this works out really well. Six minutes around for Trigger low-balling, she was holding it for a while but I'll go for five left. Use half of that._ Zach lifted his right hand and he pressed it on his chest.

Gentle rose up a hand and he ran it from his forehead up through his hair. _Didn't say a thing about killing all of them, but you didn't give away a lot of this plan. Hunter, the Trigger, you kept me in the dark, Sazaki. "The objective, is capturing Kurogiri." You didn't catch him, but…_

Zach looked at Class A through the pink barrier of Backfire's forcefield. He stared at them and then started walking towards the class and his teacher. He walked towards them with his expression straight, though he was taking in deep breaths with his mouth open a bit and through his nose as well. _The Trigger's wearing off. It was a good strand, but it fades quickly. Not too quickly though._

"Zach," Todoroki began. All of Class A stood up near the edge of the barrier, and as Zach stepped closer, he saw not one of them step away from him. His eyes got softer for a second as he saw that, then Todoroki asked, "What have you done?"

Zach turned his head to the side and darted his eyes around. There were bodies littered around the forest. Kurogiri, Backfire, four other corpses, and broken trees littered the area around the campsite. "Sazaki," All Might said. There was no 'Young' before his name, and All Might continued in a low and so regretful tone, "You know, we're going to have to arrest you."

Zach looked back at All Might. He saw some of his classmates spin inwards towards All Might in shock, including Yaoyorozu and Kirishima who looked like they were about to shout arguments at him. Zach just replied first, "I know, All Might. And that's why I won't be going back with you." Everyone inside the forcefield looked out at Zach and into his eyes.

"Lifebringer let's go!" La Brava shouted towards his back.

"We have four and a half minutes!" Zach called out. He shouted it and then stared deeper into All Might's eyes while the scrawny man with sucked in cheeks stared at him nervously. All Might opened his mouth to tell Zach to hold on, but Zach continued quickly, "All Might, I took your advice and confided with 'those whom I trust the most.'" All Might pulled his head back and his eyes opened huge, his right foot stepping backwards. He felt like Zach just punched him in the gut reminding him what he told the boy after Zach returned from facing Shatterer and the War Boys. "And I told Kaminari about things I shouldn't have told anyone, and people died. Good people, great people, died because of me." Zach's eyes lifted and he stared into All Might's eyes so frustratedly, his fists clenching at his sides. "You didn't really know, the extent of what Ganji did. What all the anti-heroes did, in the shadows, to keep this society safe! They did so much that people will never know, and I wiped out their entire organization."

Zach shook his head and he clenched his teeth so angrily as his friends stared at him. "In different countries, around the world… I destroyed the anti-hero society by trusting Kaminari about Ganji, but it was more than that. I only told him, because I took off my helmet fighting the War Boys. Because as much as I tried to be an anti-hero, I was too idealistic to keep on my helmet and not let that scared girl who almost got raped see my smile, see me tell her that everything was going to be alright. Doing that, to save one person, how many thousands did I doom?" Zach shook his head and then glared so much harder into All Might's eyes, "Why did you save me that day, All Might?"

Bright red lights shone from the back of the truck as Gentle threw on the engines. And the red lights shone brighter as the truck sped in reverse towards where Zach was standing. "Let's go!" La Brava yelled out at him.

"I have a few minutes-"

"You have one, then we're leaving! With or without you!" La Brava yelled it and Zach clenched his teeth so hard with his head pulling back, pain strewn across his face as his eyes darted back and forth along his classmates.

Zach started speaking faster while locking his eyes back on All Might's, calling out louder to shut up his classmates who all started trying to talk to him, "Eight years ago, you should have just let me fall when I leapt off my building." His classmates shut their mouths and they all stared out at Zach and a few at All Might with their eyes shaking in shock. Midoriya turned towards All Might slowly, then back at Zach with his bottom lip lowered at the agonized expression on his face. Zach continued fast though despite what he just said that had everyone silent, "I, I killed people. I destroyed your Symbol- I, I followed the villains in the training forest. I didn't get caught, I _chose_ to go with them. People saw that and lost faith in U.A. I forced you to hold back, to come and save me, and I walked into that portal at the courthouse! I made people question what being a hero meant while bringing people back as a villain, and I committed dozens of horrible crimes with the League. I, have been a plague on this world. Everyone who's ever loved me has died horribly. Cursed…" Zach clenched his teeth so hard to cut off his rambling and then shouted, "BUT! But when you caught me after I jumped off my roof, and I told you how I wouldn't hurt anyone and still be a hero, that was the talk of an ignorant child! I couldn't fit as a hero since I can't obey the rules if they mean letting people die, and I couldn't make it as an anti-hero either because there were rules with them that stopped me from saving people completely. I've tried as a hero, and a villain, and an anti-hero, but I'm done trying to fit into these societies. How much good could I do, if I just, cast Zach Sazaki aside? Cast Lifebringer, and Reaper, my past, all of it away?" When he said 'all of it,' his eyes flashed with more pain at the sight of his friends who he cared so much about, who were what had been keeping him there for so long.

Zach's head spun as the back of a truck came skidding to a stop next to him. La Brava yelled down, "Move it!"

Zach spun from her back to the others in front of him, and then he took a painful step back which made them yell at him to stop.

"Zach don't go!" Kirishima shouted.

"Please!" Yaoyorozu called at him. "You can't do this!"

"Zach get back here!" Iida yelled out angrily, as much as it tore him apart inside to do so.

"Sazaki," All Might said, his voice getting lower. "The rules aren't different for you, no matter what has happened in your-"

 _There's no time!_ Zach's eyes darted to La Brava again, and he could see on her face she was seriously considering leaving him there.

Zach spun and he had such a frustrated look on his face as there was so much he wanted to say. There was so much he wanted to explain, to tell the people in front of him who he cared about more than anything. His head spun to Todoroki though and his teeth clenched harder than ever before he snapped, "I'm sorry! I thought I could take down Dabi on my own, because we're our own brothers' keepers. But, but- I don't know if I'll be able to do it now, so you have to stop him Todoroki. Stop Touya," Zach pulled his head back as Todoroki's eyes bulged huge and the others around him looked in in so much confusion. "I'm sorry I didn't say anything, but Endeavor's such a great hero, I couldn't stain his name by revealing the secret I knew."

"What are you talking about?!" Todoroki yelled at Zach, but Zach just took another step back as he heard the engines of the truck revving.

Zach shook his head in pain, and a flash filled the sky covering his face in its light. The dark clouds that had been above for a while now were thicker than ever, and the wind gusted stronger as rain started to fall. "What was it for? Why did someone like you, All Might, have to suffer because of me? Why did amazing people like my parents, the Akers, Webb, all have to die because of me? I don't know. But, I'm going to find that answer." Zach darted his eyes to the truck and heard Gentle shout from the front that he was leaving in ten seconds. Darling shouted from on top that Zach had to come, and she looked ready to jump off if Gentle tried driving away early. Zach could see that look on her face, and it made him take another step back though he couldn't turn away from Class A. "How many times have I almost died? How many times, have I thought about killing myself? How many times have I tried," he whispered, "just to be stopped?"

Momo saw Zach turned and look her in the eyes. She stared at him with her heart breaking, thinking about what he told her that night on the corner of the building, _"No one deserves that much power. And the stronger I got, the more control over this power I had, the more like Death I actually became. So before I go back to thinking that way. Before I become the real grim reaper, who commands death, a demon…" No, no no no no no. Zach. No! Not like this!_

"I'll be uncompromising, even if it costs me my life. I'll never do anything I feel is wrong again. I won't lie to those I care about," Zach looked straight into Momo's eyes. As rain fell from the sky and onto his black hair and all over his body, he said, "I promised you, when I came back from saving Kaminari. I promised I would never leave without saying anything again… so this is me saying goodbye." Rain poured down faster and pushed Zach's bangs down on his forehead, some pushing down over his eyes and water dripping from his chin. Lightning flashed in the sky and thunder boomed, and Zach's eyes were full of so much reluctance to go. His eyes that shifted over his entire class, locking eyes with each of them with fear and pain and sorrow in them. Yet as he looked around too, as the light faded from the sky and the red tint of the brake lights covered Zach's face instead, his expression changed. His lips that were twisted in frustration flattened out. His eyes so full of all those emotions got colder and steadier, his eyebrows narrowed down, and his fists clenched at his sides.

Class A stayed dry inside their forcefield, and all the dry students stared out at Zach's face that had a red tint to it. His wet hair pushing down and shadowing his cold and dark eyes as he started turning away from them. He stopped after almost fully turning to the truck, and his irises shifted to the right corners of his eyes to look back, so he could say to all of them, "Goodbye." Zach jogged to the back of the truck and leapt up through the open door. His hands shoved in his pockets while he went, and he dropped his phone off the back of the truck. Then his index and middle fingers of his left hand pulled out some money from his wallet and he let that drop too. His wallet fell into the mud behind the truck, his student I.D., his motorcycle license, his ATM card, and his provisional license all left behind in the dirt.

"Zach wait! Don't go!" Yaoyorozu yelled, and she slammed her fists forward only to bounce back away from the forcefield.

Darling smirked down towards the shouting class inside the forcefield and specifically the girl who just failed to get out. "Darling! Shoot anyone who chases us," Zach called up to the roof, and all the shouting behind him stopped. His classmates stared at his back in shock, Yaoyorozu from the floor where Ashido and Ojiro were trying to help her up. Todoroki stared out at Zach in as much shock as he had been for fifteen seconds now, though his eyes started to narrow in fury even as his mind raced.

"You can't-" Midoriya started, looking over at Zach's back through the pink light and falling rain.

The truck jolted as the gears shifted. Zach turned his head and he smacked on the side of the truck twice hard, "Let's go!" He grabbed a handle on the wall while La Brava ran up for the passenger seat. Darling lifted up her arms in front of her and combined them, creating one long sniper rifle while planting her feet down in the footholds set up on the roof to help her stay there while they were moving. Zach looked out the back of the truck, then he reached up and grabbed a string hanging down from the open back of the vehicle. He grabbed it and yanked it down while staring back at Class A, and he slammed the metal back of the truck blocking them from sight.

"I've been lying for weeks," Zach said. He stared at the closed steel door behind him and spoke in a low voice, "Every second I was hiding something, but that night I talked to you I wasn't lying. The things I told you, I meant all of them. I know it's not fair so soon after Kaminari, but I'm sorry, I can't stay here with you all anymore. Because to me, it's not about being a hero… It's about stopping villains…"

Jirou covered her ears with her hands and snapped her eyes wide as his voice faded from her range. She stared out into the trees where the truck retreated through, getting farther and farther until the red lights behind it weren't even visible anymore. She had seen Zach stare straight at her right before he slammed the truck's back down, and she had shoved her earphone jacks down into the floor as fast as she could. Jirou felt her heart pounding so hard and she closed her eyes again once the truck was gone, while her classmates around her she had had to cover her ears to drown out kept screaming into the distance.

Tears spilled out of some eyes while others just looked furious, and still others just stared at the pink barrier and hoped it would stay up longer. Yaoyorozu could not stay up on her feet even with the help of her friends, collapsing down to her knees with her legs pointed out in different directions. All Might stared out into the distance and could no longer see any light from the truck that drove away. Then his right hand lowered down and he grabbed his phone. All Might pulled it out, and like he thought there were bars there as Kaminari was no longer blocking their communications wherever he had run away to. All Might turned his head in the other direction as where Zach just drove away, then Zach's direction again, and then down at his cell phone.

Kirishima clenched his fists so angrily that he broke through the skin and they started to bleed. How much he had doubted Zach, been annoyed by him in the past weeks by his untrusting, suspicious looks, they all jumbled around inside him as he now knew they were all fake. _Zach lied to me! He was lying the whole time- but not because he didn't trust me? Because he wanted people to see me look at him like I thought he didn't trust me? What?! Why are you leaving?! We can work this out! It was, self-defense because they attacked… but you! You set it all up?! This was you- and all of it,_ Kirishima looked to his left over at some dead bodies in front of him, corpses littered about the forest from people who Zach had killed without hesitation. _It was just because, of your Quirk's- but you injected with Trigger too. No, it was you. It was all you. Killing Kurogiri, was that a good thing? But- what about all these people?! You can't just- YOU CAN'T JUST LEAVE ME LIKE THAT!_ "ZAAACHHH!" Kirishima roared off in the direction of where the truck had gone.

Midoriya clenched his eyes shut so hard as he heard the pained shout from Kirishima, followed by a cry of pain from Yaoyorozu. Todoroki yelled in fury Zach's name too, and Bakugo looked near him at the boy with a burn scar on his face while thinking of what Zach had just told him out of nowhere. Bakugo turned back and looked out through the barrier, and on his right side he saw Shoji lift a hand up to his eyes and wipe them with a fist. Sato screamed Zach's name, and Midoriya clenched his eyes so much harder while biting down and balling his fists in anger. Midoriya's chest filled with pain. He shot his eyes open and stared at the floor in shock, his breath held in his throat, _I didn't do a single thing for him. I thought, I tried. But I never knew anything. I never, knew a thing. How could I let you do this? How could I let you feel like this was your only option?_

Bakugo stared out into the distance with Midoriya in the right corner of his vision. He turned his head a bit and saw his curly-haired childhood friend grab up at his chest with a look of sheer agony on his face. Bakugo lifted his head with his lips flat though. He stared through the barrier and out in the distance, _He did it on his own, Deku. It was his choice. To do… What are you, going to do now? You fucking bas… Zach?_

A mile and a half away, a truck stopped and four people rushed to a van they drove up next to. They piled in and started driving away in their new vehicle, pulling out onto a road and then driving fast towards the highway. "Was killing Kurogiri always part of your plan? Or were you really out of control back there?" Gentle snapped, glaring into the rearview mirror at the boy in the back seat who was panting and had his left hand lifted up over his eyes.

"Kurogiri at least, I didn't… I think I knew," Zach said. "I'm sorry. I had thought about his portals, about All For One, and I think I knew that when it came down to it I wouldn't believe capturing him would be enough." Zach grabbed the top of his face tighter with his left hand. _All those others though. How many was it? Five total? Six? Did I accidentally drain the unconscious Nomu too, or was that just a pulse from earlier? I don't know._ "I'm sorry Gentle, La Brava."

Gentle Criminal sighed but continued speeding off down the empty road before slowing as they curved onto a more main road before the highway, where there were other vehicles near them. "It's not how I like to do things, but I do agree with you. He could have escaped… And I had not thought, about all those reasons you did this myself," he added in a lower voice. Zach's eyes lifted up and his hand lowered so he could meet Gentle's gaze in the mirror. "Perhaps, your actions really will make people less afraid."

La Brava turned in the passenger seat and looked up at Gentle's face with wide eyes, then she smiled and looked through the windshield herself. "Not just his actions, but the Gentle Criminal's too!"

"Yeah," Zach whispered, though he was responding to what Gentle said and not La Brava. A head leaned onto his right shoulder with a sigh and Zach let out a long tired breath at the same time. "I really hope so," Zach said. _Or else, it would have all been for nothing._ "No," Zach whispered. His face got more serious and he said in a louder, more assured way, "I know it will." The two in the front seats and the girl on Zach's right side all looked at him and saw him looking so sure of himself, so determined, and looking through the windshield and into what lay ahead. "And this, is only the beginning."

* * *

 **A/N Thank you all for reading one _million_ words of Death. I hope you enjoyed the chapter, one that's been building up for a long, long time. Just about everything from all of Death showed up in here. Dabi, Kurogiri, and Raijin, Gentle and La Brava, Zach's stalker friend now going by Darling... Anyway, big chapter this time. Longest in all of Death. And it deserves that longest status, as it is one of if not the most important chapter to date. Glad it just happened to be when I reached a million words too. So, Zach killed Kurogiri, massacred some other villains, shot up with Trigger, worked with some unlicensed people... and now he's evading arrest. Anyone realize Zach had been faking it the whole time? (last couple chapters*). I had to try hard to keep from writing too much of Zach's internal thoughts when he might be thinking about his big upcoming plans, though there were some indicators in there. Didn't want to spoil anything about this chapter though which is why it focused a lot on Zach's friends, why we saw a scene of Zach's classmates seeing Zach come out of an alleyway and talk about thinking Kaminari was watching him instead of why he was really hanging out in dark alleyways... ;) Huge developments this chapter. Kaminari killed the anti-heroes. Zach vs Kaminari. Dabi thought Zach would be able to bring back the Akers. Zach tells Todoroki... And Zach leaves. Let me know what you guys thought of the chapter, comments, questions, or predictions for what lies ahead for our hero now in a review below!**

IntricateHummingbird chapter 92 . 2h ago

Road to 1 million words! And yay they are going on a trip

 **Hoping you weren't looking forward to a cheery camping trip... And 1 million reached! Thanks for the review!**

Eedura chapter 92 . 7h ago

I wonder what his stalker thinks about all that happened. More of her pls

 **Ask and you shall receive. XD**

Guest chapter 92 . 5h ago

Ah man, Zach's a dick again.

 **Nope, just a fake dick. Though... guess he could still be considered one, maybe?**

diddles321 chapter 92 . 3h ago

Everything is way too gloomy. Zach and the others won so I thought he would finally rebound and be positive again but he's staying a paranoid and hesitant dickbag. Can he just cheer up already? Please make Zach cured of his paranoia and dark edgy looks in his eyes already lmao.

 **Bam. Fake-out!**

Shade11224 chapter 92 . 8h ago

Well honestly it's gotten pretty stale relationship wise as he's literally having the same interactions every chapter, about how he doesn't trust anyone even though he clearly seems to. It's most likely he's trying to distance himself I know but it's really boring to not see any new development. I really liked the last chapter especially since it shows Zachs increasing levels of distrust in his own self and his reckless. This is probably one of the first times I'm completely up for you rushing an arc just so we can see what is really going on in Zach's head.  
Thanks for the Chappy!  
P.S. I react purely off of the emotion of reading a chapter, but being serious I feel recent social interactions have actually been dry, because we actually don't have any idea of Zach's plans besides he's probably going to leave UA so my advice is to drop a few crumbs to make us read more into his reactions.  
That's just what I think would improve the recent lack of brain food in trying to figure out Zach's plans.

 **It was all a trap. Tried leaving in some crumbs here and there, but couldn't help y'all out too much and spoil this for you. Also, Bam! Fake-out.**

Super Power Sensei chapter 91 . 7h ago

Review for chapter 91  
Three things...  
One, am I wrong for thinking this hostage situation has a bigger purpose? Given Rajin's intelligence and egotistical behavior, I can't see him getting rid of his enemies this way. How are things around Musutafu? Was this all a distraction for an attack elsewhere or were the League's goals already met?  
Two, this chapter was really intense and had me on edge the entire time. It really shows the difference between Zach's and Izuku's intelligence. The fact that everyone was playing dumb as to why the students were at the scene was endearing and funny as hell! This act shows everyone was on the same page and wanted the hostages safe.  
Three, given the amount of clout and popularity Zach has, can you introduce some type of Lifebringer merch? People in the streets recognize class 2A of U.A. And Endeavor's knowledge of Tsuyu's hero name implies he and other heros, near and far, knows all of 2A on some level. But EVERYBODY knows Lifebringer. Especially near the end of the chapter where I'm sure someone got a million dollar snapshot of him punching Killmore. How about a white hoodie with the word "Lifebringer" in white surrounded by black borders on the front. Then on the back (because I dislike shirts with designs on one side) of it have some death in a spherical shape, and in the middle put Zach's skull and red eyes. I might attempt to photoshop this.

 **Three answers: 1- Raijin seemed to be looking to use it for something, but with Zach thwarting this plan he kind of thwarts the plan to make Killmore's defeat into more of a victory too. So double victory for Zach. 2- In chap 91 I was having some fun with the stuff Zach was thinking about. He had been spending all his time recently on his long term plans, but all of a sudden he's in a building rushing at these villains and didn't know what to do. Glad you liked the "going on a run" thing too, XD. And yeah, for number 3... might be a rough sell now... Thanks for the review! Thanks to all of you guys again for reading through a million words! I hope I'm still keeping you on your toes and catching you off guard. I have a lot of fun writing and editing this almost every day, and I hope you all continue to enjoy through the next million words! ;)**


	94. Chapter 94

**Disclaimer: I don't own Boku no Hero Academia**

 **Chapter 94:**

Yabura Rendo opened his eyes and let out a slow, long yawn. He sat up using his strong ab muscles and shook his head about after waking up. The man with messy blue hair threw his legs over the side of the bed he was sitting up on, and he glanced behind himself at the empty other half of it. _Maybe Ebizu is right,_ he thought, then he shook his head fast and hopped off his bed with a grin spreading over his face. _Today's as good a day as any to get myself out there. And I'll show whatever lady I wow with my charm that she does not need to take care of me._

Rendo walked over to his bathroom and pushed the door open with his right foot. He stepped over to his shower, and he reached his left foot in this time to turn the shower knob. The eight foot tall man glanced at himself in the mirror, at his muscular body he flexed while stripping down out of his sweatpants and underwear. He turned side to side and his smile lowered down a bit, but then he shook his head and smiled again while turning back to the running water with steam coming off of it. He tested the water with a foot and then got in since it was a good temperature.

The former pro hero took a nice hot shower and then got out and started drying himself off. Drying off was actually pretty difficult, and his legs were only so flexible that he had to grab his towel out from between his toes with his teeth at one point to dry off better. _Don't need anyone's help,_ he told himself, and he walked over to a custom-installed dryer next to his sink that he stood inside to finish drying the parts he could not reach too well. Rendo walked back into his bedroom and he got dressed, timing himself in his head and grinning as he finished up quicker than usual.

The eight foot tall man had refused to hire a personal home assistant to help him out after his career-ending injury. His former sidekicks and staff continued to suggest it, but he felt good this morning about his decision instead of frustrated like usual. "Alright," he said, and he hopped up and clapped his feet together twice. "Quick breakfast, then a nice morning run," the man formerly known as Grappler said, and then he headed downstairs in his house ten minutes outside of Hosu City.

As he walked down into his kitchen, a speaker on Rendo's ceiling binged on and a robotic female voice spoke through his house, "New message from Ebizu open parentheses Linebacker close parentheses." Rendo chuckled at the way his phone translated the contact name for one of his old sidekicks. His phone was connected to the speaker system through his house so he did not have to carry it around on him inside which was a task in itself. The shorts he had put on quickly had pockets in them, but it was pretty difficult to reach his feet up to his own pockets.

Rendo walked over to his fridge and opened it with his right foot, and he responded aloud to his talking house, "Read it for me."

The female voice responded, "Grappler turn on the news. Right now."

Yabura Rendo slammed his fridge door shut and ran past it into his living room. He jumped over his couch and kicked his right foot up towards his tv, put his toes around the side of it, and he pressed his big toe into the power button. His tv turned on and Rendo backed away from the screen that turned on straight to the news. He stared at the screen and his jaw dropped. Whatever he was expecting to see, the label on the bottom of the screen was just about the farthest thing from it. _'Kurogiri Dead. Lifebringer On The Run?' What the hell…_

Inside Japan's most secure prison, Tartaros, Juno Kawasagi gulped and his eyes shook as he stared at the tv on the other side of the glass. The bulletproof glass separated prison guards from the villains who were allowed certain times for recreation so as not to be breaking international cruel-and-unusual punishment codes for prisoners. The villain once known as the Chemist stood in an orange jumpsuit staring through the glass in fear at the news program the guards had put on.

"What the fuck?" Bull growled from ten feet to Chemist's left. Fudgepack and SteelXtend stared with their bottom lips dropped at the tv, and SteelXtend suddenly regretted surrendering to Endeavor the other day instead of trying to fight his way out. Bull's fists clenched hard and he glared at the screen, snarling, "Kurogiri, is dead?"

Adam Ryusuke, the warden of Tartaros who was promoted to the position after the prison break in April, stepped up near some of his prison guards and stared at the screen in front of them. All of them felt an opposite feeling of relief as the prisoners behind them, though they continued to watch in mostly just shock. "…We still do not fully understand the events that transpired last night, however…"

In Feruchia City, Bikergang and Bouncer Man stared at the television on their wall. Keiko just arrived at the agency and she was staring past Daisy's back with her jaw dropped at the news she was just seeing since she had not checked on her way to work. Bikergang's wife had her hands lifted up in front of her mouth in front of Keiko, and Daisy whispered while shaking her head, "Lifebringer."

"That kid," Bouncer Man muttered. "Roady's not gonna be happy about this," he said in a lower voice.

Bikergang nodded his head with his eyes narrowed sharply at the screen on his agency's wall. _Lifebringer._ "…however, what we currently understand is that the League of Villains attacked U.A.'s second year Class A again. During the altercation, Lifebringer killed the League of Villains' executive Kurogiri, as well as five other villains."

"That little shit!" Roady shouted at his tv, leaning forward in a pissed-off way at his apartment three miles from the Dragon Hero Ryukyu's agency where his fiancé Popfire worked. She had already left for the day, and her soon-to-be husband who had been about to head to the doctor to talk about prosthetic options for his right leg grabbed crutches from where they leaned on the couch next to him. Roady pushed himself up and he glared harder at the screen he leaned towards, "First he gets Flamedrag stolen, then he…" Roady paused and he stared at the screen with his eyes opening wide.

"We have also received reports that Maye Sazaki and Tsura Sazaki, who have been missing for a week now, were killed by the villain Raijin who admitted to this last night… More with the story is our reporter at the scene now. Trisha, we're hearing you can better explain what's going on over there? The reports coming into the station all morning have been unconfirmed so far."

"I'll tell you what I've gathered from what people have been telling me all morning," Trisha Furaima began. The screen that had shown two pictures of missing persons and then went back to showing some morning news hosts switched again to a camera angle in the middle of a forest. "Behind me you can see the Police Force has cordoned off a large campsite in Enudora Forest just outside of Musutafu City. This is where the scene of last night's incident occurred." She moved to the side a bit as she was blocking the best angle into the campsite where tents were still set up around a fire pit full of wet wood and ash. A dented bus sat near those tents, there was mud all over the place, and cop cars were inside the perimeter along with some larger vehicles. "Along with the six villains Lifebringer killed last night, he also knocked out a Nomu which has been taken into police custody though it was still unconscious at the time."

"Trisha," one of the news hosts cut in. "What was Class A doing out there last night? Why did U.A., which is now a boarding school, allow them on a camping trip so soon after Killmore's attack the other day? They must have known the villains were targeting those students."

"Are all of the other students alright? And what is going on with Lifebringer-"

Trisha had her hand over an earpiece that she was listening to the anchors and nodding her head along with. She lowered it though while cutting back in herself before too many questions could be asked, "None of the students of Class A were injured last night, nor was All Might who was their sole chaperone. As for why they were allowed out here so soon after Killmore, Dadan, the answer is in the question itself. The new principal of U.A. Onono Ono has accepted responsibility for allowing Class A off campus for this camping trip, which All Might has apparently claimed was his idea of a reward for the students who saved two hundred and twenty eight hostages just the other day. It's so surprising to us that something like this was happening, because U.A. intended to keep it a secret so the League of Villains would not know-"

"And how did they find out? Have the police given any answers?"

"What about Lifebringer? We have heard that he has fled to avoid questioning, but if these villains attacked them on a school trip… what is it Trisha?"

Trisha had an uneasy frown on her face at the questions the hosts were asking her. She glanced behind her and at the crime scene, at the felled blackened trees and the clearing that she had arrived at earlier while the police had yet to move the bodies. The cameraman holding up a camera for her nodded his head at Trisha for her to continue, and she frowned but gained a steadier look to her face. "An officer I pulled aside for comment earlier informed me of several specifics, and, the reason Lifebringer is wanted is not for questioning over what he did here. There is an active warrant for Lifebringer's arrest, as he was the one, I have been told, who informed the League of Villains where his class was having this camping trip."

The hosts on the other side did not respond for a few seconds. They were glad the cameras were not on them but on Trisha, because they all started looking around at each other in confused ways. "Say again, Trisha? You did just say-"

"Yes," Trisha replied. "Lifebringer leaked to the villains where… I'm sorry, but that was all I was able to get before the officer I spoke to was pulled back to help with the crime scene. Back to you at the station," she said, wanting to get the camera off of her so she could regain her own confused expression and go try and learn some more about what was going on.

The news switched back to its station cameras, and the hosts tried to keep controlled and calm looks on their faces. "So, Lifebringer told the villains where they were, and then…" One of the men in the news team of five people sitting around a table in the morning lifted a hand and scratched the side of his head. He looked across the table and rose his eyes at a co-host who just should her head.

"I'll be honest with you Yusuke, I have no idea what to make of that," the bright-yellow-skinned woman with black spots on her lightly furred body said. She shook her head and then added in a lower voice, "But, a warrant is out for Lifebringer's arrest?"

"Again?"

"I don't see what the big problem here is. He fought some villains who attacked… but actually, I can't say that with confidence. We don't have all the information, and what we just heard is making me, well," the oldest in the group ran a hand up through his white hair and then pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose. "We expect to hear official statements from U.A., the Musutafu police chief, and hopefully we can hear from All Might himself what really happened out there last night sometime soon."

* * *

Behind Musutafu Police Department, the second years of U.A. in Class A climbed onto a bus with zero media presence around them. Only All Might was speaking at the press conference in front of the station, and all the tired students piled into the bus that Midnight and Ectoplasm were inside of. It was almost sunset, the sky was dying orange, and the students had been awake for over thirty-six hours since before school the morning before. Each of them had been through intense questionings by the police, and some of them had had really hard times trying to dodge questions or even lie. Lying did not work very well though, when others in the class did not hold back much at all in their answers to the questioning.

Almost all of Class A climbed onto the bus, though after eighteen students the line was finished. Ectoplasm looked behind them back at the station and then to the student who sat closest to the front. "Todoroki, where is Yaoyorozu?"

"Her parents picked her up," Todoroki said in a low voice without looking up at his teacher. He kept staring out the window and into the sky with a dark look in his eyes. Ectoplasm assumed what Todoroki was thinking about, but he actually had no idea. There were a few things the people on the bus did not feel the need to tell the police, and one of the things that not one of Todoroki's classmates had mentioned was the second to last thing Zach said before leaving. _Touya. You, shouldn't be alive. Zach's… not lying though. He knew. He knew the whole time, and he didn't tell me a thing._ Todoroki's eyes narrowed more and he glared harder into the darkening sky, _Dad. How do I tell you… Would you even believe?_

Sero leaned back as soon as he sat down towards the back of the bus. He closed his eyes and let out a deep sigh, then he slouched his shoulders and leaned back forward to wipe his hands down his face. They got on a bus yesterday just a little earlier than they did now, though it had been a lot more boisterous and full of happy faces. Hanta Sero glanced around while resting his chin down on his hands, putting his elbows on his knees and pulling in a big yawn. On the seat to his right sat Tokoyami who had his phone pulled out and was watching All Might's press conference streamed onto it. Sero did not want to watch though. The black-haired boy with tape dispensers in his elbows turned to his left and looked out the window in the narrow street behind the station dyed in a red glow from the setting sun. _All Might told us we should answer all the police's questions truthfully. So what he's saying about Zach right now, it's probably not very good._

Sero glanced over the seat in front of him, leaning forward a bit to look down at the short boy sitting there who rested his head on the inside of the tinted windows with his eyes half-closed. Mineta's partially closed eyes were lifted up and gazing into the sky, the scattered white clouds basking in orangish red light. Yesterday at this time the sky had already been full of gray clouds, but Mineta still felt exhausted as it was the second time hitting seven o'clock p.m for him since he woke up around seven a.m. the morning before. Sero opened his mouth to say something to the shorter boy, only to see Mineta lift up his left arm and wipe it over his eyes once while he did not realize Sero was looking.

 _Geez,_ Sero sat back down and he ran a hand through his black hair. He glanced to his right again but in front of Tokoyami to the seat across from Mineta's where Ojiro and Hagakure were sitting together and whispering in quiet voices about how they were questioned inside. They both looked pretty sad too, but when Sero glanced behind Tokoyami he just got more of a sweatdrop on the right side of his face at Bakugo's closed eyes and tilted back head that made it look like he was already asleep.

Kirishima darted his eyes to his right from the seat behind Sero. He ground his teeth at the sight of Bakugo passed out there, as he himself still did not feel tired one bit. Even though there were bags under his eyes, he just clenched his fists while sitting in the back of the bus with his head bowed causing a shadow to cover his face. The bandages wrapped around his palms where he had cut them open with his own fingernails did nothing to stop the pain as Kirishima started clenching too hard again. _"Goodbye." That can't have been it. I don't accept- but, but! But if they catch him, it's not like he'll ever be back. I need to- I need to talk to him though. Fuck, Zach! Why the fuck! YOU ASSHOLE!_

Sero could almost feel the anger radiating off Kirishima when they were walking back to the back of the bus, so he avoided saying anything to him again. His right hand patted down on his pocket, and his fingers curled on his phone for a second but then released just as fast. He was wearing the same casual clothes he had on the night before, that had dried after getting soaked when Backfire's forcefield went down the night before. Sero thought about that storm, and he thought about Zach dropping his phone in the dirt made muddy by the pouring rain. His fingers loosened around his pocket and he flatted his palm out down on his thigh. _No way to get in touch with you. You dropped all your I.D.'s too. It's like, you really are just tossing everything away, starting new. I get why everyone's so sad, or pissed, but…_

The black-haired teen rose up his arms over his head and stretched them high. Then he brought his hands back and interlocked them behind his head through his hair. Tokoyami took his headphones out as All Might was finishing up his press conference just answering some questions, and he glanced to the left just like Ojiro and Hagakure as they saw Sero stretch up like that. All three of them opened their eyes wide as the corners of Sero's lips lifted up, as he closed his eyes there and had a satisfied expression on his face.

"Sero?" Tokoyami questioned. He got too confused by Sero's look to just turn away and look out the window darkly like he wanted to after hearing All Might let the public know what Zach had done.

"What are you smiling about?" Ojiro asked, his voice soft and confused. He wanted to sound a bit angry too, but his tone did not carry it and he really was just more curious. He had Hagakure's left hand held tightly in his right, and she looked around her boyfriend's shoulders from where she sat closer to the window.

Sero opened his eyes and kept his gaze towards the ceiling while taking in a slow, tired breath. He responded in a soft voice, "I guess, that Zach wasn't really, broken." Kirishima's eyes shot open wide behind Sero's seat, then his fists clenched up harder though he kept his mouth shut. Mineta's half-closed eyes widened too while he looked out the window, and as sad as he was he no longer felt like crying.

A seat in front of Mineta, Jirou turned her head and glared out the corner of her eyes at the seat cushion behind her after hearing Sero say that. _Is he serious right now?_ Jirou thought darkly, bags under her eyes and her hair messy around her head. She felt like she needed the longest shower of her life, and she clenched her teeth so angrily as she thought about how Yaoyorozu's parents had shown up to get her earlier. _What's wrong with you? Leaving like that, knowing how she-_ Jirou clenched her eyes shut and turned her back to the seat again. She pushed her head back on it too while pressing her eyes shut so hard to stop them from getting watery as she had been doing each time tears tried to come to the surface all day. _How_ _ **we**_ _, feel about you. You're such a jerk. The biggest, just the worst jerk. "The things I told you, I meant all of them." Damn it. Damn you._

"Oh," Ojiro said after a few seconds. Sero turned to him and looked at the blond in a soft way, his smile lowering a bit but his expression staying the same. "But," Ojiro started, then he stopped himself wondering if he should go on. He glanced next to him at Hagakure too, then back at a confused Sero, "Are you really sure, he wasn't? To do, those things he did…"

"Yeah," Sero responded in a quiet voice. He nodded his head, and he said, "I'm sure." Ojiro's eyes widened as he misunderstood that 'yeah' at first, thinking Sero might have been agreeing with him. Sero looked forward at the back of Mineta's seat and said in a low voice, "Those things he did were, well," Sero stopped himself and just lowered the corners of his lips a bit more. "But the way he looked before he asked if Raijin thought that was how he was really going to react, that expression on his face that he had been faking," Sero shook his head and his lips pulled up again as he imagined that look was so convincing to him. "I thought he was just going to stand there and let Raijin kill him. So, he wasn't _as_ broken as I thought," Sero said, though he left wiggle room in the way he worded it to say he was not denying Ojiro might have been onto something too.

Ashido wiped her eyes in the seat ahead of Ojiro and Hagakure. She wiped them again and again as she had started breaking down silently when she had sat down, as she was finally given a moment of time to herself not surrounded by police and with none of her classmates looking at her. She shook her head a few times, not wanting to sit there crying like she was so sadly, as she had felt dejected like this for an entire day and it was really not her style. _What did I tell Zach about moping?_ Ashido shook her head harder and smacked her own cheeks a few times, which worked in stopping her tears as well as waking herself up a bit.

Mina Ashido got up on her knees and she leaned over the seat in front of her. She put her head next to Shoji's that mostly stuck over the top of the seat anyway, and he turned to her in surprise as she suddenly bounced there when he had thought she was crying on the seat behind him. Ashido was glad that her eyes were black and yellow, as they did not get bloodshot so it was usually hard for people to tell when she had been crying. She froze for a second at Shoji's look though that made her think he really could tell, but she started fast so that if he was just suspicious she could push that suspicion away. "What do you think Shoji?"

"About what, Ashido?" Shoji asked from behind the mask covering his face.

"You know," Ashido said, though she had to think for a second about what she really did mean. "Do you think they're going to catch Zach? Do you want them to?" She added in a quieter whisper that had Shoji's eyes widen a bit under his silver bangs.

Shoji turned his head from the girl next to him who pulled her head back a bit at the look in his eyes right there. "Yes, to both," Shoji said.

Ashido's eyes widened this time, and she opened her mouth but froze with it that way before starting an argument. She froze because she saw Jirou on her left side looking towards her with such a frustrated look on her face, her lips twisted far down and her eyes wet and angry. Ashido leaned back in her seat and dropped her butt on the back of her calves. _Am I, and Sero… are we the odd ones out?_

 _Of course I want them to catch you,_ Shoji thought. _Everyone will be looking for you. And you have too recognizable a face… Because, Shigaraki carved a knife into it, to force you to watch them murder your family._ Shoji's hands clenched at his sides and he turned to glare out the window back at the police station. _Those villains, you talked about them like you had been one of them. Drug deals in Shanghai? Anti-heroes in America and Russia? The Hunter, and whoever that Eziano person is who made All Might's eyes shake so badly. Raijin mentioned Diamondfist too; your trip to Kyoto was a lie after all. How? How did you do it all? How could you break all those rules for so long, and yet still try to be a hero? If you hadn't, I'd be dead… or, if I wasn't out there with you at the time- No. No don't ever think that,_ Shoji scolded himself for the way he just started thinking.

 _Zach, saved my life. He brought me back even though it caused him so much pain. I saw him screaming so hard in that video we watched on the first day back. But he- all to make people around the world feel safer, to stop a villain responsible for killing thousands?_ Shoji's narrowed eyes glaring out the window softened, as a conflicted look filled them instead. _I want them to catch you. I have to want that, because you broke the laws. You knew- you, killed those villains as they ran away from you, screaming. I have to remember the look, on that man's face as he died just ten yards in front of the forcefield. Death. The Quirk you didn't want to use when you entered U.A., you injected yourself with Trigger and massacred… The people who murdered your family. How can I judge you, without understanding that pain?_

Uraraka glanced over her shoulder a few seats in front of Shoji. She looked towards the back of the bus where Kirishima and Sero started arguing over something, breaking the calm silence full of just low whispers and murmurs. Many in the class looked like they were trying to just sleep after this whole ordeal, and Midnight and Ectoplasm looked around the bus from the front where the two were talking to each other about the things they had heard. Both teachers wanted to ask the students what had happened but kept themselves from doing so at the expressions on all their faces when they got on the bus. Uraraka looked ahead to them, and she asked in a soft and confused voice, "Are we not heading back, Midnight sensei?"

Midnight turned to the short girl with brown hair who had a confused look over the pain in her eyes that kept Midnight from smiling at her while responding. "Once All Might is here, we will be. After you return to campus, I'm afraid you can't all just go to sleep though." The other students in the bus looked towards their art teacher who sighed at their confused expressions. "We're going to need all of you to pack your things, you're being sent home-"

"You have to be kidding," Bakugo started to growl, his eyes snapping open and glaring towards the front of the bus.

"Wait, really?" Sato asked, too shocked to just believe that without an explanation.

Midoriya's eyes opened huge and he lifted his bowed head to stare at Midnight in shock. Iida on the seat to his left and Uraraka behind him stared at their teacher in astonishment too, and Midnight shook her head with a dark look at all their stunned and confused expressions. Ectoplasm turned away with a deep frown, and Midnight spoke in a louder voice for everyone as they were all looking at her a lot closer now. "It's not just you guys," she began. "U.A. is being temporarily shut down," Midnight said. "Your final exams for this term will take place, when school is back in session. The dorm system of U.A. is being put on hold though, and all students are to return home."

"But," Uraraka started. Midnight looked to the girl who appeared apologetic for cutting back in on their teacher, but then Uraraka continued, "Isn't the dorm system in place to protect us? Why would something like this cause the dorms to be shut down?"

"Ono was already in hot water, letting all of you go out to fight Killmore," Ectoplasm said. He looked back through the bus at the students who got surprised as he continued, "Hotter than we realized. They were already looking for a new replacement, leaving him in charge while they searched. They aren't waiting now though, and they don't have anyone to take the position in the meantime. And with Mr. Principal still on suspension too, and the fact that all of the other faculty members were oblivious to the whole thing… Well, it's a big mess Sazaki's put us in." Ectoplasm turned back and looked out the bus to see All Might walking out the back door of the police station he had gone through instead of around in order to lose his media following. The dark teacher watching the last person they were waiting for finished in a lower mutter only half the students heard, "Again."

Midnight turned to Ectoplasm, then she looked down at the floor after seeing his furious look at what he just said. She stared at the floor, and she thought about Zach returning from his internship and helping her fight a group of villains in the streets of Musutafu. She had been amazed by him as he rushed right in on the back of his motorcycle, when he had laughed happily when a civilian called out thanks to him afterwards, and how he had gotten so flustered when she teased him asking for a ride back to campus. That day she could not help but think about all she had seen happen to him on the screens at the Sports Festival. She could not help but think of his scars, how dark he had been when he returned in January, and how far he had come.

 _Kaminari, Raijin, he destroyed him though._ Midnight closed her eyes while faced down at the floor. She thought about what Raijin had shouted, pressing his forehead into Zach's in the basement of U.A.'s Interrogation Building. The screams Midnight heard from Sazaki during and after he had brought back Tsuyu Asui, she could still hear them now. _But I heard, Sazaki did not do what he did for Raijin. Nor for revenge at all. His target was Kurogiri. His goal was weakening the League, and, making people feel safer… But you shouldn't have killed them all, Sazaki. You can't- you couldn't do something like that, and you knew you weren't allowed to. You faced our justice system before, but this time, premeditating an, assassination? If you planned to kill Kurogiri from the start, and you got the help of villains to do it, it's just murder, Sazaki. You murdered him. You could have captured him, from what I've heard so far. Yet you killed him, and so many others. How many now?_

 _Was he trying to kill Killmore? Was he trying to kill himself?_ Tsuyu looked down at her hands over her lap. _"How many times have I almost died? How many times, have I thought about killing myself? How many times have I tried, just to be stopped?" Did I, stop you? Was that one of the times… "Eight years ago, you should have just let me fall when I leapt off my building." All Might,_ Tsuyu lifted her head and looked to the front of the bus where All Might was standing before all of them.

"I'm bringing us back," Ectoplasm said. He walked up past All Might who looked at his colleague only to feel a pang as Ectoplasm would not meet his gaze. Midnight felt a pang in her chest too as she felt Ectoplasm was not being fair to All Might, and she understood why it was All Might and Principal Ono had kept the trip a secret from the rest of them.

All Might looked around the bus and all the students on it who looked up front at him. He glanced at Midnight and asked, "Have you already told them-"

"Just a few moments ago," Midnight replied.

All Might nodded, and he took another step farther back in the bus while Midnight stepped to the side in the empty seat at the front right side of the vehicle. All Might walked back a few seats and stopped between Todoroki and the empty seat across from him once the rest of Class A other than Yaoyorozu and Zach were sitting and looking ahead to him. All Might stood there and rested his hands on the seat backs while bowing his head for a few seconds, then he began in a low voice but one loud enough that everyone on the bus could hear him, "Eight years ago, I met Young Sazaki, when he jumped off the roof of his apartment."

Midnight turned her head and looked at All Might's back with wide eyes, and Ectoplasm had to remind himself to focus on the road he just started driving on which had made All Might hold the seat backs. "He was telling the truth about that. I, saved him that day. And I came very close to dying, as he had removed his glove before he jumped." All Might lifted a hand and rubbed it on his forehead while keeping his gaze shifting around Zach's classmates in Class A. "And when he told me, what he had done to his mother… I asked him his dream. To be a hero. I told him, he could follow it…"

Midoriya stared at All Might with his eyes shaking. His fists clenched at his sides and pain filled his face as he heard this for the first time. He wanted to be upset that All Might had not told him before, but it was a secret he had kept with Zach which would have been terrible to bring up without Zach saying it first. Zach had told them all the night before though, when he was just talking to All Might without caring that the rest of them were there. The fact that Zach did not care, that he was not holding back anything, it made the idea of his goodbye seem so much more final to Midoriya who closed his eyes and leaned back as All Might continued.

"I have tried for a long time, to help Sazaki," All Might said. This time he did not say 'Young' before it, and his expression got steadier and more stern too. "I have not heard anything from the police, so I suspect none of you mentioned anything about Ganji, or Webb. Certain things Raijin and Sazaki discussed, that I would have rather you never- They are things I would have never told you, but those secrets no longer matter."

"All Might," Ashido began, leaning out of her seat farther and calling up to him. "What are you talking about? You knew about, those, anti-heroes?"

Midnight got a confused look on her face as did Ectoplasm at the front of the bus. All Might almost wanted to turn and see how they reacted, but he sighed instead as there was no point in trying to hide it or even ask the students to do so. _I asked them, to help save Sazaki from the villains. They involved themselves with him because of me, and he wiped them… But, if I hadn't, would the Hunter have killed Sazaki in the street on New Year's? Would Sazaki have been brought back to keep being tortured, and turned into a villain? I cannot look back on it and say that what I did what wrong, because the alternative could have been as bad… However Sazaki, telling Raijin everything- I told him he could trust people, and Kaminari told him he could trust him, and he got them all killed. You considered Webb, your mentor? Ganji made that costume for you?_

"Yes," All Might began after a painful pause of thinking of those people. "In our society there is- there _was_ , a collection of anti-heroes. They were not like the vigilantes who occasionally get away with distracting villains until heroes arrive, or who use their Quirks for small good deeds. They were more serious, but… truthfully," All Might paused and he shook his head in a slow way, "I did not know much about them. What Raijin and Sazaki discussed, was beyond what I knew. That anti-heroes were connected in different countries, that Ganji was an organizer, how it was structured. I didn't know any of it. I only discuss it with you now, because I believe Raijin was not lying when he claimed to wipe them out."

 _And all because Zach trusted Kaminari with those secrets,_ Sato thought. He thought it, and then he immediately brought his right hand up to his head and ran it back through his hair in an angry way at himself. _That was what he was shouting at himself for that night of Kaminari's betrayal. He knew, and there was no one he could turn to because it was a secret he had to keep. No one he could trust, to save those… What kind of pressure, what kind of weight was pushing down on him?_

Midoriya closed his eyes even harder. _You said people were dying because of you, and you couldn't tell us. I didn't understand. I, I- you used those contacts, to find out about Eziano Mozcaccio for me. It didn't take you long at all, and that unnerved me. I didn't understand. I didn't get how you could see those villains, as anything other than what they were. But when I see Raijin, I see the Kaminari we knew who was our friend. It's so hard to hate him, thinking of those times… Yet you had those times with all of them. And those people you couldn't hate, killed the ones whose secrets you told. If you couldn't hate them… Zach, you killed Kurogiri, for everyone else. And I get it. I get how, you did it. It's because, you hate yourself, isn't it? As much as killing people hurts you, you don't believe that it matters what happens to you anymore, so you just did what you thought would help the most people? You said you cast Zach Sazaki aside like it was an easy thing to do, but I've never seen anyone do anything so hard, as you pulling your eyes away from us to cast us all away._

"Students, young heroes," All Might started again after a brief pause as he let what he said sink in. "As much as I know some of you may feel for Sazaki, for what he has gone through, he is now a villain."

"All Might," Hagakure whispered. She looked up towards the front of the bus and lifted a hand to cover her mouth at the intense look that covered their teacher's face.

Iida stared at the former top hero with his eyes wide. He stared at All Might with perfect vision, as the scrawny blond hero continued, "He is working with villains. He is on the run avoiding arrest, and has threatened anyone who follows him. He told his associate to shoot anyone who chased after him." Iida closed his eyes and felt his racing heart start to slow down, and he reached for his pocket.

 _"Associate?"_ Jirou thought darkly. _That girl, is someone he brought back to life. He went and recruited a young girl to help him? And she… that look in her eyes. When those two others with Zach said they were going to drive off with or without him, she would have stayed behind with Zach. He's using that girl. Like Kaminari, used me. He lied to us, like Kaminari… He's a villain, like Kaminari._

"Zach Sazaki," All Might continued, his voice lower and more serious than it had been so far. Sero looked up towards the front of the bus with his eyes wide, and he gulped while staring at All Might's dark, intense eyes. "Has has his hero license revoked. A warrant is out for his arrest, for several crimes including murder of the first, second, and third degree. I am telling you this myself, because many of you will not like what is to come." That was the most ominous thing All Might could have told them, yet more and more of them had serious looks spreading on their faces anyway at what he was saying. Sero darted his eyes around nervously and saw Tokoyami getting a stern look on his face, and then Ojiro clenching his fists and narrowing his eyes towards the front of the bus.

"But you need to understand that what Sazaki did, was wrong. What we witnessed last night is not how the justice system works. It is not how our society works." All Might paused and then lifted his head to get louder, "And as future heroes who need to uphold the laws of this society, each of you must come to understand that Sazaki is a villain now. Because whatever your opinions on the subject, Sazaki broke the laws of this nation, and heroes are only public servants. You act according to the laws put in place to stop villains and keep the peace. You act in the service of citizens and have to abide by the same laws that they do. Heroes, are not above the law."

 _Yeah? And what if the "laws put in place to stop villains" aren't keeping that peace?_ Ashido thought in frustration at All Might who she could not speak out against aloud. The looks on the faces around her scared her, and she looked back a bit towards Sero who she saw looking around nervously as well.

 _Zach's, not a villain,_ Uraraka thought while looking straight at All Might. She wanted to say it aloud but could not with how serious her teacher looked. _You can give me all the reasons in the world, All Might._ Uraraka lowered her eyes down to her hands, and she closed her eyes and balled her fists while imagining herself on the floor with broken legs at the Sports Festival. She imagined Zach rolling over her so his back was to the villain shooting at her, and she saw the look of relief that came to his face the instant he had gotten her out of the way. Between her clenched eyelids water droplets formed, and Uraraka bowed her head more as no one else said a thing against All Might's speech either. _I'll never believe it. Zach, I believe in you._

 _Heroes, villains, anti-heroes, where is the line?_ Ojiro stared at the seat back in front of him with his fists clenched. Sero thought Ojiro looked so serious and into what All Might just said, but his mind was swirling with so many different thoughts. _Zach said it in his final report, that the line between being a citizen and a villain was closer than between being a regular person and a hero. Why is that? How could anti-heroes exist, in a society where the rules mean everything to heroes? But why is it in the first place, that heroes act only according to the law? Heroes were made into an official role to stop the chaos, to replace vigilantism, and to stop villains. The vigilantes didn't all get replaced though? And the villains aren't stopped. All that happened is that heroes have to obey governments and laws and rules, go through bureaucracy and licensing and reviews and paperwork. What happened to right versus wrong? Was what Zach did right? And even if it was, does that make a difference in our society? I wish it did. I believe it should. But right now, it doesn't. What matters most are rules. Heroes don't answer to the people first and foremost, they answer to their superiors, to lawmakers… but in a democracy, where people choose, shouldn't those be the same thing?_ Ojiro brought a hand up to his head and ran it back through his hair. _I just want to give Zach excuses. Because he's my friend. Though, that's an easy thing to believe I'm doing to stop thinking about those deeper problems…_

 _Zach. I'm really, going to miss you,_ the girl next to Ojiro thought. She leaned her head down on his shoulder and sniffled in once, and Ojiro rose his arm and put it around her shoulders to pull her in. They were close to U.A. campus again, and Hagakure sniffled again while leaning on her boyfriend who she just realized she would be moving away from for a time. "Text me every day, okay?" Hagakure asked softly.

"I'll call," Ojiro suggested instead, and a small smile formed on his invisible girlfriend's face while she nuzzled her head into his shoulder more.

Iida lifted up his cell phone and stood up from his seat. He opened up the class's group text, and he sent a message in it, 'Everyone, do the same right now.' It was what Mother Russia told them when she threw Kaminari's desk out the window of their classroom. And right after Iida sent the message, a notice appeared below it while everyone looked at their phones. 'Zach Sazaki has been removed from the chat.' Zach no longer had his phone; they all saw him drop it. It was an action that meant nothing, and yet at the same time signified the last part of Zach that had remained a part of Class A.

Todoroki looked back behind him and at Iida's face that stayed stern even as some people started staring at him with wide eyes or opening their mouths to argue. Some wanted to say something about Zach, about how they felt what he did was not all that wrong. Yet they stared at someone who Zach had brought back to life, whose expression was resigned but strong at the same time. Tenya Iida lowered his gaze a bit to Todoroki's a few seats in front of him, and after a second Todoroki gave him a serious nod back. Iida looked to his right then and at the seat across from him that Midoriya sat in. Midoriya looked a bit more like Uraraka than Todoroki though, looking back at Iida with so much reluctance on his face and a pained look exceeding what Iida was expecting.

There was no more talk about Zach. The bus had arrived on campus, and Class A got out and started for their dorm. Midnight, Ectoplasm, and All Might repeated to them how they were to pack their things. Their parents had already been contacted and were told to come pick them up at eight o'clock, so they barely had any time to get their things in order. No one knew how long they would be going home for, though most who did not have summer internships figured that it would be the entire summer.

Jirou packed her things fast as she had been texting her parents already and knew they were arriving earlier than 8:00. When she got back to the common room, she walked over to Midnight and asked, "Is Mother Russia sensei around. I want to say… what?"

Midnight had frowned when Jirou asked, then she lifted a hand and scratched the back of her head with a smile returning back to her face. "Sorry to tell you this, Jirou. Mother Russia is no longer in the country." Jirou's eyes widened, as did Mineta's behind her where he just came down the stairs. He started running over with surprise covering his face, and Midnight continued a bit louder for him to hear too, "This morning, a situation arose in Moscow where the Russian SOQUOC, or Secretary of Quirk Usage Operations and Control, and his family were kidnapped by a group of villains. When we heard that U.A. would be closing down for a while, Mother Russia decided to return home. She flew away saying that the situation in the 'motherland' required her attention. It was pretty sudden."

"Don't they want to like, interview all the teachers?" Mineta began confusedly.

Midnight scratched the back of her head and her smile turned a bit more sheepish. "Yes, though I would not expect Mother Russia to return for such a thing…" Midnight's smile lowered a bit more to a flat lip and her expression turned somewhat sad. "Though considering the gravity of our current situation, if she does not return for questioning even if it is just a formality," Midnight paused and the students in front of her opened their eyes wider. Jirou's eyes then narrowed in an angry way, and she nodded a thanks at the hero for letting her know. Midnight watched Jirou turn, her eyes wide at how upset the girl just looked there. So much anger spread on Jirou's face, and Midnight knew the boy that anger was directed at.

Mineta turned in surprise too at Jirou's look while she walked for the door. "H-Have a good summer, Jirou," Mineta said. The dark haired girl at the door froze where she stood, her eyebrows lifting so high up they were gone under her dark purple bangs. Midnight also gawked down at Mineta as he said that without sounding perverted at all, just like a decent human being. _An improvement? It's his biggest flaw after all,_ Midnight smiled at the short boy who just gave Jirou a small smile when she looked over her shoulder in surprise at him.

"Yeah," Jirou said, though she looked suspicious as she replied. "You too," she said. _The hell was that?_ She thought in confusion while leaving the dorm to head home.

 _First Kaminari, then Zach,_ Mineta thought as he watched Jirou walk away without staring at her butt. _It hurts a lot. I know too._ Mineta took a deep breath and then said goodbye to Midnight who his eyes lingered on but not for very long. She got so much more surprised as he turned from her, since she was testing to see how he would react while pushing her chest out for him as she told him to have a good summer. Minetawalked out of the building with an unsure look on his face though. He lifted his left hand in front of him while holding a suitcase in his right. _Why did I come here to be a hero? It was, to be popular with girls. You believed in me though? You, really did. And when you told me that in the capture the flag game, and when we won that day, I really believed it myself- But I just wanted girls to like me…_

 _ **"If I'm afraid of him, then, can you imagine how regular citizens feel? Every night, afraid for their children's lives in the next room because Kurogiri could be there. Afraid to walk down the streets, because Kurogiri could bring an army of villains to kill them and everyone they know?!"**_ Mineta clenched his left hand in a fist, but it shook and then opened up so he was just staring at his open palm. He rose his palm to his head and pulled a Pop Off ball off. _We came to the same hero school, and you got a worse score than me on our Quirk Apprehension tests. You couldn't even use your Quirk. But, your Quirk is so amazing-_ _**"You might've been just as important a player in the League of Villains' schemes, Raijin, but leaving U.A. has made you just another strong villain. Whereas Kurogiri, you're, you're the biggest threat to peace in our world."**_

Mineta stopped where he was on the street in front of the dorms. _It's not about his Quirk. The biggest threat, to peace? Those are the kind of things that Zach cares about more than, anything. He broke up with Yaoyorozu… Yaoyorozu! So that he could, focus on peace in our world? And his Quirk isn't amazing. It's terrifying. He's, terrified of… He was. He considered it, a plague. A curse. He thinks he's cursed. I heard him say it, somewhere in there. He believes he's cursed, and bad things do happen to him for no reason, but he's so, so… You're just, so cool._ Mineta shivered and kept walking down the street, _But you're way way way too scary._

When everyone entered Class A's dorm, they all went straight to their rooms to get packing. Midoriya texted his mom that he would come home on his own though as he did not live too far from campus anyway. She had asked if he was sure, but he needed some extra time anyway. Midoriya stood in Zach's room. He had gone straight up there, and he looked around inside it for something, anything that could tell him where Zach had gone. There was nothing though. Just like with Zach's things at the campsite. He had not brought anything that if his stuff had been searched, it would have been suspicious. Even the Trigger he had used, Midoriya assumed it was the girl he had saved from the Nomu who had given it to him.

 _Who was she?_ Midoriya thought while leaning on Zach's recently replaced desk. He glanced to his left to see the bed made so perfectly, like Zach had known he would not be coming back there. _When did you meet the Gentle Criminal? Who was that girl? Would you have really, gone and found someone you had brought back and asked for their help? It, doesn't sound like you. She was crazy too. She would have shot us, because you told her to. Why? We found your abandoned truck, where did you go from there?_ Midoriya's hands clenched on Zach's desk, then he shook his head around and walked to Zach's bed.

Midoriya lifted up the blankets and checked beneath them. He lifted Zach's mattress. He checked Zach's dresser, only to find mostly ripped up clothes. Midoriya lifted an 'All Might' tank top he had seen Zach work out in before, torn up and barely recognizable. Midoriya lifted his other hand to his head while lowering the tank back and putting it in Zach's drawer that he just left open this time. _I don't want to accept it,_ Midoriya realized, as he found it so hard to leave the room despite it being clear that Zach had not left anything behind. _You weren't just in my reach, I had you. You were right there, and I'm supposed to be a hero. You were my friend, but I wasn't yours. I wasn't… I failed. When it came to you, I failed every time. And I let you go down the wrong path, and, and now, I can't save you anymore._

Midoriya turned and walked out of Zach's room, closing the door slowly behind him. He walked down the hallway of the fifth floor, and he headed down the steps to his own floor. He had been in Zach's room for a while, and he looked at his phone to see it was already past when the others' parents had been told to show up and get their kids. He walked to his doorway and he brought his hand to his doorknob. His hand shook though as he held it near the doorknob. Midoriya thought about a conversation with All Might over text, and how he had to go talk to his mentor before going home. Thinking of All Might being his mentor, made him think of the man Webb who Zach had never told him about before. _I'll ask All Might about him… If I lost All Might, I can't even imagine- But I wouldn't have, done, that. But your mentor was outside of the rules already? Losing him. Losing your family. Having them killed so horribly, just because Kaminari wanted to mess with you… I didn't understand you at all. And now you're gone. There's nothing left._ _ **"Goodbye."**_

Midoriya turned his doorknob and he pushed his door open. He stepped inside while reaching to the switch on the wall next to him. He heard a crinkling under his right foot and looked down in confusion as it did not feel like his usual floor but like he stepped on some paper. Midoriya flipped the switch and rose his foot, and then his heart that was aching so hard started beating faster and faster until his chest was pounding. Izuku bent down and grabbed the envelope on the floor, and he stood up and stared at the front of it that had 'Midoriya' written out in pen. He never knew he would recognize Zach's handwriting at first glance, but there was no hesitation in his mind at all.

He stared at the envelope that had been just on the other side of his door, as if slid beneath it. Midoriya turned his head and looked back in the hall, then he shook his head around in confusion as that did not make any sense to do. _Wait,_ Midoriya thought to the day before, when he was already at Ground Zeta and saw Zach and Yaoyorozu walking towards the Training Ground together. _They were the last ones, and I saw Yaoyorozu waiting outside for him already. He, put this beneath my door then. What if the villains hadn't come? He, would have found a way to get it back. Why? What, is in this?_

Midoriya stared at the envelope in his hands, and it started shaking so he pulled it into his chest. _If I open this, am I going to share its contents with anyone? I should just hand it to the police…_ Midoriya's hands were opening the envelope, and he looked down and watched as his hands pulled out a slip of paper covered in pen ink. The message was written by hand, and Midoriya read it with tears in his eyes. When he finished he lowered the paper and stared straight ahead in his room with so much pain strewn over his face. _Zach… Goodbye._

* * *

"The clip we are about to play for you was recorded live from Tokyo Police Headquarters just fifteen minutes ago." A man in the middle of three sitting behind a desk in a news room said. His grayish black hair was receding on his head though thicker on the sides of it, and he had a serious expression on his face like the anchors on his sides. "Let's watch."

A box appeared in the corner of the screen and then spread to cover all of it. In a room full of police officers, a line of figures stood at the front in front of a panel of top hero officials who had summoned them there. All around Japan, people sitting on their couches or tables and watching the nightly news stared with wide eyes at the figures lined up before the Tokyo police commissioner. At one end of the line was Endeavor, the Number 1 hero in the country with his arms crossed over his chest and an intense look on his face as he stared forward. Next to him stood the second ranked hero, followed by the third, and the fifth. Hawks, Best Jeanist, and Kamui Woods stood gathered with Endeavor as the top ranked heroes called in, though the ninth ranked hero Ryukyu stood there too, as well as three other well-known heroes outside of the top ten. At the end of the line opposite Endeavor stood the top rookie hero whose expression was as serious and matched the others, different from Lemillion's usual public disposition.

"We have called on Lifebringer to turn himself in, but it has become clear that he does not intend to do so." The police commissioner began. She wore a blue uniform and had her hands held together behind her back while standing in the center in front of the line of eight powerful heroes called before her. "Tonight, we call on you heroes as we begin a manhunt for Zach Sazaki. He had been given time to turn himself in, because of his record as a hero and in hopes that he would come to realize what he was doing was wrong. But he has taken too long. Zach Sazaki's hero license has been revoked. He is no longer, Lifebringer."

There was a pause, and then the police commissioner continued, "Due to Sazaki's record, and the amount of lives he has saved, we are putting utmost importance on capturing him with the least amount of harm possible. However, All Might's statement shows that Sazaki will not come quietly. He is working with the villains Gentle Criminal and La Brava, and he has other associates as well as allies we may not know of. He used Trigger last night as well, so you must not rule out the possibility that he has more with him, or that he could use it in order to evade capture. His Quirk is Death. On Trigger, the risk to each of you would be heightened greatly. Keep that in mind when you attempt to apprehend him…"

The clip cut back into the corner of the screen and then faded to show the news anchors sitting behind their table. "So Kasami," the man on the right started, looking across the table past the balding man in the center. He looked at his thin younger co-anchor who had always been an avid supporter of Lifebringer, and Rashi continued, "What are you thinking? I've been keeping up with this story all day, and the rumors and reports over last nights events are, well to me, simply staggering."

Kasami started shaking his head slowly. The younger man with slicked-back black hair opened his mouth and started slowly, "I'm thinking, I'm going to sleep a lot sounder tonight, knowing Kurogiri's not out there."

The man in the middle of the three turned his head to the right and gave Kasami a harsh glare that stopped Rashi from remarking at Kasami's statement. It had Kasami uneasy too, but the younger man said, "I know that's not going to be your opinion, Bob, but it's the truth."

"Maybe so," Bob said. Kasami opened his eyes wider in surprise, and Rashi spun in shock to the veteran journalist in the middle of the three who had always been cautious of supporting Lifebringer too strongly ever since his first trial, even before it when information about him at USJ first came out. Bob's expression showed he was not stopping there though with that small acceptance of a piece of the truth. "But Kasami, however you felt about the villain Kurogiri, he was in Lifebringer- no. He was in Zach Sazaki's custody. All Might stated, that Sazaki had captured Kurogiri before killing him."

Kasami hesitated before nodding his head and opening his mouth again. Before he could speak though, Bob continued quickly and in a stern voice, "That sixteen year old boy, is not a judge. He is not a jury. And he is certainly not an executioner." Bob said it with no room for argument in his voice. He said a line that he had quoted before, from one of the prosecutors at Sazaki's first trial, but had never before held as much significance. "Yet he seems to believe he is. He has shown time and again, that he believes himself above the rule of law. Do you deny that, Kasami?"

"No," Kasami said, not wanting to be misconstrued there. "But Kurogiri… You have to admit, that every one of the League of Villains big victories. They were all reliant, on their Warp Gate."

"He was a man too," Rashi cut in.

"One responsible for killing hundreds, thousands of people-"

"He did not kill them himself," Bob countered strongly.

"But he helped," Kasami tried arguing back.

"There were hundreds of villains involved with the League of Villains during the Sports Festival Invasion," Bob said, narrowing his eyes at the younger man and speaking in an even sterner voice to have him be quiet. "Do each of them deserve to be executed? And whether or not you believe they do, since when do we leave decisions like those in the hands of a child? A boy still in high school?"

"To be fair Bob," Rashi cut in this time as it looked like the older man was not going to let Kasami speak up. "Lifebringer's not just a kid in high school." Bob turned and Kasami smiled a bit though nervously across the table at Rashi who held a palm up and continued, "This kid- it's hard to call him that considering all he's been through." Bob nodded his head, and Rashi continued while lowering his hand in a more confident way, "He's lost more than I can even begin to fathom. Seen some of the worst things, watched his family die, and we've all seen him get tortured until his mind had nearly broken. Truthfully, I'm surprised he held back for so long without killing the villains responsible for doing those things to him. That being said," Rashi continued, and Kasami's smile lowered down as the man across the table from him turned from Bob and stared into his eyes with darker look. "He's a killer. He didn't just kill villains trying to kill him, he killed ones he had captured and ones who were in the middle of running away. Sazaki explained his Nightmare form before, and he does not have to kill anymore with that Quirk of his. He didn't kill on accident this time. He didn't go _too far._ Sazaki planned, and carried out a murderous rampage against the villains without telling anyone what he was doing."

Bob nodded his head and then turned to Kasami himself with a darker look that had the pointy-eared younger man leaning back. "A murderous rampage, is exactly how I would describe it. All Might specified that Sazaki did not kill the villains for revenge. He did not go into Sazaki's reasons, yet I want to imagine the reason he felt the need to kill Kurogiri who was his main target, was for our sakes. I have never been vocal with my support of Lifebringer, in fact I often criticized him sitting at this very table. However I did so, because I wanted him to be better." Bob's co-anchors looked at the older man in surprise as he started shaking his head. "I could see potential in him, and any less than perfection made me think he was going to fall back into his old habits. I believed in Lifebringer though. I believed, that he was a hero." Bob took a deep breath and then looked away from Kasami who had an accepting look on his face, as reluctant as it was.

"That time is over though," Bob said. He looked at the camera and the cameraman zoomed in on him as he spoke, "Tonight, I wish there was only good news to report. The loss of Kurogiri is certainly a devastating blow for the League of Villains. This is not a night for celebration though. Lifebringer is no more. Zach Sazaki is a fugitive. His face is plastered on every tv, every newspaper, and every person in Japan knows what he looks like, yet he has gone on the run. He is armed with a powerful, terrifyingly so, Quirk, and he has allies with him who will help him avoid capture. He has firearms, Trigger, and a determination not to be arrested. He is extremely dangerous, and there is no accounting for his mental state."

Bob took in a deep breath and then his eyes narrowed in more as he stared into the camera, "People of Japan, do not attempt to help Zach Sazaki. He is a murderer. He has become a villain, in a society that needs heroes more than ever. He must be brought to justice to answer for his crimes, and if you see him, report him immediately to the authorities. Sazaki put all of his classmates in U.A.'s second year Class A in grave danger to lay a trap for Kurogiri, and if he is willing to use them he may be willing to put you in danger as well. Traffic cameras using facial recognition software are searching for him. All airports know his face, as do train stations, subway stations, all public transit. This is Zach Sazaki."

Bob motioned with his hand, and over his face on the screen appeared two visuals. The left half of the screen covered in a picture of Zach Sazaki with a long scar under his right eye and split on his left ear. His mouth was dipped down and his eyes dark, his hair messy and wavy in the freeze-frame picture taken from Killmore's Office Takeover. Then next to that picture on the right was Sazaki in Nightmare form. His body completely dark and seeping black wisps, his glowing red eyes cold and impossible to see emotion in, his skull only translucent through the black veil. "This is not the face of a hero who you want to see. This is the face of a troubled boy who has killed upwards of ten people. However you feel of his first kills, last night, Zack Sazaki murdered six people in cold blood. He planned to trap them, and he did not hold back his Quirk, instead massacring the villains he had trapped while under the influence of an unstable Quirk-enhancing drug. He planned his attack with villains, he is on the run from authorities, and he thinks himself some sort of hero outside of the laws and rules of other heroes. This is not the case. Lifebringer, if not captured and brought in soon, will be branded as a terrorist. He is a fugitive from the law. He has ignored the rule of law for the _last_ time. U.A. High School has been temporarily shut down because of him. Hero resources are being diverted from other tasks, in order to bring him to justice. Sazaki, is a villain, and there is no getting around it. And like all villains, he must be arrested. It is up to our country's heroes to do it."

Shihai Kuroiro bowed his head over his desk, closing his thin eyes and clenching his teeth so tightly behind his dark lips. _Zach. If only, I never told Kaminari about the letter. Would that have made a difference? Did I, do this to you?_

Tetsutetsu Tetsutetsu clenched his fists that turned to steel while standing in front of the couch his parents sat on. _Damn it! What the hell was that bastard thinking?! His report, he talked about how killing the villains was a mistake! Because he couldn't control his power! Were you lying the whole time?! Was this all because of that fucking Kaminari?!_ "RAAA!"

"Neito, you didn't finish your dinner," Mrs. Monoma started to the blond boy who just pushed out from his seat. It was the first home-cooked meal he was eating in a long time so she hoped he would eat more.

Neito Monoma glanced behind him at his mom and then over at the tv. He looked at it and at the pictures of Zach spread across it. "I'm not hungry," he said in a low voice. _It's what you deserve. I should feel bad, or sad… But, the heroes won't catch you._

Ochaco Uraraka's mom held her daughter around her head, and her father rested a strong hand on her back and started rubbing up and down as the girl between them on their couch cried.

Rikido Sato clenched his fists and his eyes so tightly as he sat at his desk chair. _You lived next door for so long. I should have helped you. It wasn't enough, just not telling people about your nightmares… And I couldn't even do that right!_ Sato slammed a fist into his head and he pushed his eyes shut tighter to stop the water trying to build up in them. "Bob's right," Sato muttered aloud. He lifted his head and looked at his computer screen seriously, "Bob, is right. Zach is a v- a v-" he choked on his words and closed his eyes again. _Like I could ever, believe that._

Inko Midoriya sat on her couch with her head shaking slowly while staring at the screen in front of her. She got up from the couch and turned her head, and then her eyes shot open wide at the sight of a boy standing there just at the end of the hallway. He had not yet said anything, just standing there holding a packed bag in hand with his backpack on over his shoulders. Izuku stared past his mom and at the screen with Zach's pictures on it, and he had come in just in time to hear the anchor call Zach a "villain." _It's up to heroes, to arrest Zach. Up to us…_

Inko was running around the couch towards her son before he even dropped his bag. She took one look at his face and ran up to him, and she threw her arms around the taller boy and pulled his head down into her shoulder. "Oh Izuku," she said in a sad and understanding way. She shook her head and nuzzled it into the side of her son's, and she heard sniffling next to her as her shoulder started to get wet. He had managed to hold it in for a long time, but what he just thought had his heart tearing apart and his eyes filling with tears.

"I don't know what," Midoriya gasped into his mom's shoulder. "I should do." In the backpack he still had on his back, he imagined a slip of paper that had his eyes filling with so much water and spilling out faster as his mom held his face to her shoulder. _'…I know you can do it. Master One For All, Midoriya. Become better than All Might. The new pillar. A stronger pillar…'_ "He was my, friend," Midoriya whispered, hearing the understanding in his mom's shushes she kept making while rubbing her head into his. "I failed him, Mom. And now, I have to…" _'…Goodbye.'_ "I have to think of him, as a villain." Izuku closed his eyes in his mother's shoulder and he slowly lifted his head up after rubbing once more to clear them. "I have to capture him."

She looked up in her son's eyes when he lifted his head. Inko's heart skipped a beat and she felt her own eyes start to water more at how serious he looked, how mature her son was while standing there looking down back at her. What he just finished saying, the way he looked to have filled with resolve, she could not say a thing against it. She just nodded her head that that was her son's decision, then she lowered her hands down and put them in her son's to hold hands between them. "If that's what you think is right."

 _I think, it really is. You've said your goodbye Zach, and I've, I've made my peace with that now. It hurts so much, because I can't save you anymore. I can only save you from yourself, by capturing you. You'll go too far again. You'll put people in danger, like that girl you brought back and took with you. I, I've said my goodbye. Zach, we're different people now. All Might wanted us to go camping so that we could enjoy still being kids, but you made one thing clear. We aren't anymore. We had to grow up fast, but there is no going back. This isn't a game. Decisions are final. They change things. From now on, I will really think of you, like I know, you knew I would. When I find you, you won't come quietly. You'll fight me. And you, not Raijin, not Shigaraki, not even All For One… Because I believed in you. I still believe, in you. So whatever you're planning. Whatever, you're about to do, I believe you'll succeed. And you must believe that too. So you won't want me catching you. You'll fight me. We'll, fight each other._

In Midoriya's head he saw Zach throwing a fist, then kicking up at him only for him to duck. He watched as Zach leapt forward though and spun his body to slam a kick into his side and knock him down. And then he saw Zach step towards him and lean down, extending his left hand to help him up while giving him a pointer on how to fight. _Not a spar._ Midoriya thought. He pushed those thoughts from the start of their first year out of his head. Instead he thought about Zach fighting Killmore as he fell from twenty stories up, blood splashing off of him though he barely flinched and just knocked his opponent out in free-fall. He saw Zach roaring at Kaminari that he did not feel a thing, and he saw Zach moving so fast surrounded in his Nightmare aura powered up from killing those animals, from Trigger, from murdering his enemies. _That kind of fight,_ Midoriya thought to himself. _And when it comes, I can't hesitate. Because I know you won't. Because I know you. I finally, understand you. If only, I had sooner._

Inside a mansion's enormous living room, on a couch worth more than eight months rent at the Midoriya apartment, Momo Yaoyorozu sat with her legs curled up in front of her. The huge plasma-screen tv that covered the wall in front of her showed the face of Zach Sazaki next to his expression in Nightmare form. She was not afraid of those looks. She just stared at the screen with water in her red eyes and streaks down her face. Momo was exhausted, but she could not stop watching the news since her parents picked her up from the police station earlier.

Mrs. Yaoyorozu stepped up behind the couch slowly and looked down towards her daughter. The woman had shorter black hair than her daughter that was tied in a neat ponytail bun behind her head. She looked down at the girl sitting in front of her on the couch, and she hummed while nodding her head. "Heartache, is a hard thing Momo." The girl in front of her had noticed her approach but just sniffled at the sound of her mom's voice and kept staring at the screen. "There will be other boys-"

"I'm afraid mother," Yaoyorozu said in a hoarse voice.

"Ah," Mrs. Yaoyorozu said, nodding her head at the sound of that. "Yes. I heard he had become quite a monster…"

Her daughter started shaking her head and the woman stopped. "I'm afraid, for Zach," she whispered.

"Honey," Momo's mother began.

"I don't know what he's going to do from here on," Momo said. She stared at the screen with her eyes scared, and her voice shook but got louder as she turned her head to look back at her mother. "But he doesn't care about his own life." Mrs. Yaoyorozu stared down at her daughter with her eyes growing wide, and the girl in front of her said in such a pained voice, "He only cares about other people, and I'm not there to save him anymore."

Momo turned back to the tv as the anchors started talking again. They talked and it went back to their faces, and she glared so harshly at the balding man who just said all those things about Zach. Her eyes got even more pained though as the other two next to Bob agreed with what he had said, though Kasami turned to the camera and started calling directly on Lifebringer to just turn himself in and prove everyone wrong. Momo lowered her eyes from the screen and stared at the floor beneath it while shaking her head. _As much as you protected me at USJ, at the Sports Festival, I saved your life too. I- It wasn't just a one-sided… I saved you, with Killmore. And, on the roof…_ _**"No one deserves that much power. And the stronger I got, the more control over this power I had, the more like Death I actually became. So before I go back to thinking that way. Before I become the real grim reaper, who commands death, a demon…"**_ _You didn't go back to thinking like that. You haven't, not yet. But, but you were close. You started shouting about Death being a concept, about it coming for the villains…_

 _I won't be there to stop you. I wanted, to protect you. Like you wanted to protect me. I wanted to protect you from those, from your own demons too though. I wanted to keep you on the right track, but I let you push yourself away. No, no I tried. I tried so hard Zach. And you knew I would feel this way! Why? How could you- I, I lo- I really, think that I…_

In a dark warehouse in Shikoku, Shigaraki Tomura threw open the doors and rushed inside the building where a dozen other League of Villains members were gathered. "Sensei!" Shigaraki called out.

"You're here, Tomura," All For One said. He turned his head to the right from the chair he was sitting on, IV's stuck in his arms and a black mask covering his face.

Shigaraki nodded and slowed his panting while walking up to his teacher's side. Behind him back at the doors, Shooter walked inside and then nodded at the guy on his right to shut the doors. _Holy shit,_ Shooter thought while finally relaxing for the first time all day. _Getting from Hokkaido down to Shikoku without Kurogiri, it's fucking ridiculous. Can't use planes. Sea heroes like that fucker Selkie already stop some of the ships we use even without any wanted guys on board. No way we could have taken a boat all the way from Hokkaido, but damn we couldn't even risk meeting up with Dabi and Raijin on the mainland with them so close to the search grid. News is only talking about Reaper, but they've got the big shots after us. They're trying hard to make it look like the kid's the focus though. Can't make it out like what Sazaki did is doing them a favor._

Shooter tssked and walked over towards some guys he knew who nodded over to him. He glanced out the corners of his eyes over towards Shigaraki though, _Should have just let the kid stay at U.A. after he turned us over. Why'd you have to create, such a fucking monster?_

"Tomura, you lost again," All For One looked to his right and at the man with hands all over his body. Shigaraki looked back at him with wide eyes behind the fingers over his face. The older villain in the chair shook his head once and then turned back forward to look at a tv screen ahead of him playing loudly.

"…it's a blemish on hero society, another on U.A., and on top of that Class A," one of the news anchors speaking shook his head with a dark look on his face.

"Even someone like Lifebringer who brought so many innocents back to life, despite the pain it caused himself, can be corrupted by the evil of villains. They killed his family over and over, tortured him, until he finally became what Shigaraki Tomura tried turning him into…"

"He killed," Shigaraki started.

"Was it worth it?" All For One asked.

Shigaraki Tomura ground his teeth in anger while staring at the screen. He lifted a hand and started scratching at his neck, "No, sensei. But now I will take care of him myself-"

"Don't," All For One said. He looked right at Shigaraki and questioned in a low voice, "Stay away from that thing. Sazaki has caused you far more trouble than he was ever worth."

"Sensei?"

"You lose focus in your anger, Tomura," All For One said. His voice got lower, more annoyed as he kept staring at the screens ahead of him. "And now all of your bases in Hokkaido are gone. In one fell swoop, you were forced from the island."

"We should have only freed you," Tomura started in a quiet hiss.

"Yet you freed many Tartaros inmates who are still by your side other than me as well. The ones who left though, you should have kept a closer eye on. Now they have their opportunities." All For One got lower and said in a deep voice, "The villains who have been plotting in the shadows since their escapes, waiting for a chance to slip in, they have it. The death of Kurogiri means nothing less than the downfall of the League of Villains' dominance in this country. You stopped Breakneck from becoming the great threat he would have turned into, thanks solely to Kurogiri. Yet you knew of his lab because of all your many operations that took place in Hokkaido already. Your information network- broken, your ability to travel freely to any place- destroyed, and therefore your ability to act whenever and wherever you please is now greatly diminished. Tomura, you have had many victories in a row. Too many," All For One turned back to his apprentice again and saw Shigaraki's eyes shaking behind the fingers of the hand attached to his face. "Now that you have lost again, you must regroup and change all of your plans. Start anew, planning for a League of Villains without Kurogiri."

Shigaraki slowly started nodding at his teacher, and he bowed his head to the floor with a furious and dark look on his face. _Everything, has changed._

Behind Shigaraki and leaning over a railing back on a lifted area of the warehouse, a teenage girl with blond pigtails looked ahead to the big screen past her bosses. _You lied to me about Stain-san. You didn't know anything about him. And you killed Kurogiri and Backfire and Freshy. You're…_ _ **"Hey Toga-chan, what was that thing you did back there that let you get behind the Ghosters? Wow, that's pretty cool. You think you could teach me how you do it?"**_ _You're a big meanie, Zach. I'm going to kill you someday._ A big smile spread over Himiko Toga's face. _Because you're not a real hero like Stain-san likes!_

On the northernmost of Japan's four main islands, Hokkaido, in a small village forty miles to the north of Feruchia, a shrine at the top of a mountain path was full of villains. Five miles away from the shrine there was a secret base once used by the League of Villains that a hero had come out to investigate after the shrine's elder reported something weird happening there earlier that day. The shrine's elder was dead though, as were his daughter and two granddaughters.

The hero who had come out to investigate came without any backup as it was reported that a fight had occurred earlier but both parties had scattered. Gogogo lay flat on her back in the middle of the shrine's main prayer room, her arms and legs pulled taut to her sides by white ropes and a gag in her mouth, though she did not regret not bringing her sidekick with her. _Sameko, I'm sorry. Don't come after me alone. Please!_ The female hero on her back had a terrified look in her eyes and tears spilling down her face while she lay in a puddle of blood pooled in the center of the room. There were corpses piled up on her left with their throats slid and laying on slabs with their legs lifted up so the blood would pour her way, there was a pentagram carved into the middle of the shrine, and all of the religious icons in the building were defaced and splashed with blood.

In the old-fashioned shrine, there was a single tv that was very old and box-shaped. It was in the corner of the shrine room, and a man in a red cloak looked towards that screen and the images of Zach Sazaki on it with an impressed look on his shadowed-over face. "Lifebringer, is a true hero. Stain would approve of him, as he did what he thought was right without caring about his image. He does not care about money, or how this _broken, ugly_ society views heroes. Not like this pretender." The leader of the Cult of Stain turned and looked down at the woman in the middle of the floor. His followers in white cloaks splotched with blood stood around the room, so many of them that Gogogo could not see the walls around her considering the dozens of members the cult had in their ranks.

Their numbers were daunting, and Gogogo had no idea what she was stepping into when she accepted the call to come up to this small village. She shook her head and muffle-yelled through the gag to try and talk to the villains, but they were not listening. The man in the red cloak looked around at his other followers who had wanted to see what the news thought of Lifebringer, as he did. He turned around and turned off the tv, and then he walked into the middle of the floor and between Gogogo's legs pulled to the sides. The room was illuminated in candlelight, and it filled with the sounds of much more panicked mumbling through the gag. "This fake is another sacrifice towards the world we envision. Now, like our master Stain once said:"

"SOMEONE MUST BE DYED IN BLOOD! SOMEONE MUST BE DYED IN BLOOD!"

"Mmmmfff-MMMMNNNN!" Gogogo started screaming into the cloth as the cult leader lifted up a three foot long serrated and twisted dagger. He rose it high in front of him and grabbed the hilt by two hands, and he looked down out the shadow of his hood and into the pro hero's eyes while his followers chanted around him. Gogogo's muffled screams cut off at the terrifying smirk on the man's face that only she could see at the angle up into his hood. And then he brought the blade down and into her chest.

* * *

"Every airport, every train station," La Brava muttered with her laptop on her thighs and her back against the wall. She sat in the back of a white van with a gardening company logo on the side of it and some tools on the roof to make it seem less conspicuous. They were parked for the moment, but the hot-pink-haired woman leaning against the wall grimaced as a timer in the top right of her computer screen started blinking. She looked across the back of the van and at the boy a couple of feet taller than her which still had him at only five and a half feet tall. His eyes were closed and she glanced up to the front of the van at her partner who had his chair turned around and was sipping tea from a fancy cup in his hand he stole from a nice hotel they stayed at a week ago. "Gentle, everyone's looking for us."

"Isn't it wonderful?" Gentle asked, and he leaned back in his seat and lowered his tea cup down for a second. "And I know what you are going to say. Even though it was with Lifebringer's help though, I have never been more famous. This is what I desired, La Brava."

Her eyes opened wide and she started smiling at her partner, but she lowered that smile as despite what he said Gentle was not smiling as wide back at her. He lifted his tea and took a sip, and he looked down at the boy who turned his head and opened his eyes to look back at him. "Though your little rampage will cost us. Capturing Kurogiri and killing him, are different things."

Zach nodded his head. He could see Gentle was annoyed over not being told the full extent of the plan, and he leaned his head back on the wall behind him again. "I know. It was, a dick move. Getting you to go along with this without telling you what I was planning… But Kurogiri just, he needed to die. No one would do it." Zach said that softer and he stared across the back of the van with a hurt look in his eyes. In that moment hyped-up on Trigger and fueled with some recent kills, it had still been a hard thing to do. He had still hesitated, and he had shouted all his reasons at Kurogiri because he could not just kill him in cold blood without explaining himself. Without any of that stuff fueling him, he was stuck thinking about the hundreds they had saved as a team together. "I didn't want to be the one… but things couldn't keep going like that. Someone had to be the one, and I- I think that waiting for someone else to do it would have been selfish."

"Yeah, well it was pretty selfish of you to drag us into your plan without-"

"La Brava," Gentle said. She closed her mouth and just started frowning more at Zach, and Zach lifted his eyebrows and then shifted his gaze towards Gentle. _What's their relationship? She's a lot younger than him. He doesn't seem to be forcing her to be here though. Like, Darling? Are they the same? La Brava definitely looks in love with him._

"He is right," Gentle said after a few seconds. Zach stared into Gentle's eyes, and the older man twice his age took in a deep breath before saying with a grin, "Losing Kurogiri is a huge loss for the League of Villains, especially if All For One is down like you say." He lifted his eyebrows at the boy who nodded once as he really believed that, as much as he had used All For One's ability as one of the reasons he would not just capture Kurogiri. "In that case, the League has no warp power. Let us hope, at least." Gentle added.

Two knocks on the back of the van cut off the conversation. There was a few seconds' pause, and then three more knocks got the others in the van to relax. Zach leaned to his right and flipped a lock with his right hand that he had been keeping away from the others since it was still in his glove ripped around his palm. He regretted digging his nails through it, but hearing about Webb had almost made him lose his cool and charge at Kaminari despite his plans. Zach did not need to worry about having his hand close to the door though as he unlocked it, and he allowed the girl behind the van to climb in fast and close the door behind herself. "How'd it go?" Zach asked.

"Bought you some clothes," Darling replied with a smile. She lowered the plastic bags she had on her right arm and handed Zach a bag with some new clothes in them, then she put down another that had food for their group. "Took most of what I have left though," she added in a sheepish voice.

Zach lowered his left hand for his pocket where he had some bills he pulled from his wallet while dropping it. Darling reached out though and shook a hand at him as it looked like he was going to try and pay her back. "My money is your money."

 _There's no getting around it now. I decided I wouldn't leave you, but as long as things are like this I really can't._ "Alright," Zach said, moving his hand away and nodding at the brown haired girl with a small smile. "What about the situation out there? Think if we've got disguises we could move around outside without making a big deal?"

"Everyone's looking for you," Darling said. She started to pout and got a darker look in her eyes, "I hate how the news is referring to you. They don't understand your greatness."

La Brava looked at the girl in front of her with her eyebrows lifted. She turned to Gentle to see if he thought what she was thinking, though Gentle had a bead of sweat on the side of his face while glancing back towards his partner. _Seeing this from the outside, is strange…_

La Brava's eyes widened at Gentle's look, then she spun back to the other two farther back in the van with her. "You know, this girl is crazy?" La Brava asked while looking straight at Zach. The dark haired boy across the back of the van as her got a bead of sweat on the side of his face, while Darling spun with her bottom lip dropped at La Brava's sudden insult. Gentle sweatdropped like Zach did, wondering if his partner just snapped that to show a clear difference between the two of them after seeing him look at her. La Brava's eyes narrowed at the girl who glared back at her, then she continued while shifting her gaze to Zach, "She would've shot your classmates if they had really come after us."

"No I wouldn't have," Darling said in an annoyed but also smug voice at the older woman. La Brava glared skeptically back at her, only for her eyes to widen as Darling continued, "Because I know Zach enough to know that he told me that loudly, just so his friends wouldn't chase us. That's why I acted so ready to shoot them. I never would have actually done it," she leaned forward and smirked at the surprised woman in front of her.

 _So, she's not completely crazy._ "Darling's still not a real name," La Brava said, and Darling's smirk wiped away before she started insulting the name 'La Brava' right back.

Zach sighed as the two of them started arguing. Then he looked from La Brava over to Gentle who met his gaze and gained a more serious look at the boy's expression. "The Sports Festival created a dark turn," Zach started. The arguing girls stopped and looked at Zach who turned from Gentle and glanced into Darling's eyes. "It broke the lines keeping the peace, and villains have come out of hiding and are being bold all over the world. What I- what we did last night won't stop any of that. It will only weaken one group of villains. And I don't know what that power shift will do around Japan; what other villains may rise now, or what the dynamic will become. Even if it will be positive…"

"What can we do about that now?" La Brava asked in annoyance. "The whole country's looking for you, Lifebringer."

"I'm not Lifebringer," Zach said. He did not say it like he used to say 'Not Lifebringer' after his torture. He was over that, and the others could tell in his voice what he meant though Zach finished softer, "Not anymore."

"What should we call you then, 'Reaper?'" La Brava asked in a sarcastic tone, annoyed as Zach tried to be all serious about his name change. Zach looked into the short woman's eyes, and the pink-haired girl six years older than Zach stared right back into his without any fear despite all she had seen last night. After all, Gentle was to her right only a few feet away, so what was there to be afraid about? "I saw all those files in Hackerman's computer," she explained how she knew that name, as it was not just from the night before that she heard it.

Zach just shook his head at her again, then he held up a hand to stop Darling who started snapping at La Brava for taking that rude tone with Zach. "I, don't know," Zach said after a few seconds. He thought about how he told his friends the night before that he was tossing 'Zach Sazaki' aside, but he whispered in a low voice, "Zach's fine. And Darling," he continued, looking next to him at the girl who got on her knees and was glaring at La Brava for speaking down to Zach like he had no plan. "La Brava's right."

Darling spun back to Zach, and La Brava lifted up her eyebrows while staring at the boy who leaned off the wall and got on his knees. Zach started looking through the bag of clothes Darling had gotten for him, and he nodded his head before starting to take his shirt off. "The whole country is on the lookout for me, and we won't make it very long staying here." Zach took off his t-shirt and then started putting on the long-sleeved one in the bag. He did not look around, at either Gentle or La Brava who saw a more full extent of Zach's scars than what he showed them when they first met, or at Darling who went bright red in the face as Zach changed in front of her. He slid the long-sleeved navy blue shirt on and then reached into the bag and pulled out a baseball cap and sunglasses. "If anyone wants to leave now, last chance," he lifted his head at La Brava but turned to Gentle who he figured was the one about to make this decision.

La Brava turned towards the taller man farther at the front of the van too, while Darling told Zach she would never leave him. Gentle watched that young girl promise Zach how she would stay by his side, then he looked back into the younger man's eyes and said, "I agreed already. We made our deal, and I will stand by it as long as you do the same."

"And I stand by Gentle," La Brava added, turning from him quick back to Zach to give her response now that she knew what it was.

"I'll follow you anywhere," Darling finished after the other two agreed.

Zach nodded seriously at each of them as they agreed to come with him. Zach lifted his new hat and stared at it closely, _No chance._ He rose it anyway and put it over his messy black hair pushing some bangs down over his eyebrows. He stood up, and with a determined look on his face he said, "Then it's about time we get out of the country."

* * *

 **A/N Thanks for reading! Lot of reactions this chapter as I jump around the country in the day following Zach's trap in the forest. U.A. shuts down temporarily and the students are forced to move out. Heroes are sent after Zach, though we also see from the villains' point of view that the heroes are coming down hard on them too. Zach's classmates all have different feelings on how to think of what Zach did, some of them are really broken up over it, others angry, some glad he wasn't broken, yet others frustrated they didn't see everything he was going through. And we see Zach at the end with his new team who are sticking with him, as he decides to leave the country. Hope you all enjoyed, and leave me a review below telling me what you think/ questions, predictions, comments for upcoming chapters!**

LordOfTee chapter 93 . Oct 11

T... you're killing me with these sad as hell updates.  
Thx for another long chapter, I'm gonna go cry now.

 **XD Sorry 'bout that, but yeah def a tough chapter to write at some times too. A couple of big emotional moments in there. And we see in this chapter a bit more of how Zach's classmates handle what happened. Anyway thanks for the review, hope you enjoyed!**

IntricateHummingbird chapter 1 . Oct 11

1 mil words! Congrats. This is undoubtedly in the top 3 of the best fanfics I've ever read

 **Thanks! Glad to make the list!**

Shade11224 chapter 93 . Oct 11

*Kowtows* This one was foolish! Please forgive me! That was probably the best chapter in terms of progress you've written yet besides when he escaped the league after being tortured.

 **There is nothing to forgive, my reader. Lol glad you really liked it, and hope you continue to enjoy the story! Thanks for reviewing!**

diddles321 chapter 93 . Oct 12

Glad I stuck around. Congrats on 1 million words. This chapter was goddamn brilliant.

 **I'm glad too! Thanks for the great review! Hope you enjoyed the new one.**

Shinn of Destiny chapter 93 . Oct 12

Zach: darling! cover fire!  
Darling: yes sir!

oh my gosh I COULD FEEL THAT SYNERGY!

 **Darling joins Zach on his quest! The two of them show a bit more of their _Synergy_ connection this time when Darling countered La Brava about how she wouldn't have killed Zach's classmates like La Brava, and All Might and all of Class A, thought she would. XD Thanks for the review!**

Momozaki chapter 93 . Oct 11

Fucking intense. I'm honestly impressed with Zach here  
It's ironic how now none of the 2A students are gonna trust him  
On another note  
Is the ship gone? Say it ain't so! I need more Momozaki in my life!

 **Zach goes all out this time, and he loses Class A, All Might, everything in the process. As for the ship... well, we saw Momo this chapter being pretty sad about it. Zach's leaving though. But ultimately... just gotta wait and see ;P**

Tism-schism chapter 1 . Oct 11

Ok, I haven't really worked up the nerve to attempt this story yet. But how in the ever loving christ have you managed to cross the million word mark in such a short period of time? I've seen fics not even a 10th as long that have taken 10 years to finish. I'm usually hesitant to start fics that are incomplete, but I'm sure at the rate I would read it would have another extra 150000 words for me to enjoy. Catch you on the flip side real soon.

 **I feel the same way! Haha, don't know how long it'll take you to reach this far and hopefully read this comment. Looking forward to you catching up though (if you kept reading). Never thought I'd make another story reach 1 million after writing my Nexus stories, but Death just gave me more and more to work with!**

Guest chapter 93 . Oct 11

Soooo, what now? Another time-skip? Or some sweet delicious story arcs with Zacks new team?

 **Only time will tell. What comes next? Where does Zach and his squad go from here? Leave predictions below and let me know what you guys think is coming up! Finished a few more chapters before posting this one, so I should get some daily posts up the next couple days! See you tomorrow!**


	95. Chapter 95

**Disclaimer: I don't own Boku no Hero Academia**

 **Chapter 95:**

"You really surprised me," Ashido said while stretching her arms up over her head. She leaned back to stretch more, then she leaned forward and touched her toes, bouncing her flexible body a few times to flatten her palms out on the floor between her feet. "I wasn't expecting this at all."

"Well I know your internship with Rainbow Sparkles doesn't start for a few more weeks," Hanta Sero called over across the basketball court the two of them were standing on. It was an overcast day so the park was empty as some people thought there might be rain and it was just not a great time to go out, which was good for the two heroes in training as it meant no one was around to tell them they couldn't train their Quirks. "And, you were like the only person I saw on the bus who didn't look totally… well," Sero sweatdropped and lowered his arms that he was stretching out in front of his chest.

"Yeah!" Ashido called out. She didn't want to say anything first in case she had read his expression wrong, but she was glad he had seen her too. "I like don't even know who else in the class I can talk to about him right now. Kyoka was super mad when I tried talking to her before she left, and Momo… well," Ashido shut herself up and then shook her head a few times before smiling again as she did not want to get all depressed when she had just gotten excited in the first place. "But yeah I'm glad you called me!"

Sero nodded and then grinned some more while adding, "Plus, figure it could be a good way to bring up my Tape's strength."

"Oh I'm gonna melt through it in no time flat!" Ashido countered in a competitive way. "Hope no one sees us fighting out here though," she added sheepishly, glancing to the sides of the park again. A gust of wind flew through the area and blew around the long grass that had not been cut for a few days, leaves blew on the trees on the far side from the basketball court, and Ashido just smiled as they seemed pretty isolated. "I like this park," she said with a smile while turning back to Sero, and then she finished stretching and lifted her hands ready to fight.

The two of them made some quick ground rules, and then they started sparring for the first time. Sero was glad he had so many good reasons to call her up, though he was actually more focused on those reasons than the smug inner thought he had that he was hanging out alone with one of the cute girls in their class. He wrapped her up with some tape after she avoided him with gymnastics for a few seconds at first, but Ashido secreted Acid from her arms and broke out of the tape in no time flat. She slid up towards Sero, only for him to shoot tape out of his left elbow and to a basketball hoop's pole.

Sero shot over towards it and then fired another thing of tape behind him at Ashido who landed where she tried kicking the boy who moved too fast and dodged her. She opened her eyes wide for a second and got caught by his tape, but this time before she could melt through it she was already being tugged to the other side of the court. It would have pulled her off her feet, but she secreted her Acid out the soles of her feet to slide across the floor without friction and make it easier to control her own movements. Sero grinned as she started sliding though, and he yanked his arm twice as fast which made Ashido's eyes bulge as she had not realized he was moving slow on purpose. The extra speed mixed with how she was sliding made her zip across the pavement way too fast.

Sero broke off the tape out of his right elbow, right as Ashido melted through the other end anyway. She tried swinging some Acid towards him, but she was off-balanced and sliding way faster than she was comfortable with though somehow managing to stay on her feet. Then she hit the edge of the pavement, and her Acid did not let her slide on grass well at all. Ashido fell backwards and rolled a couple of times on the grass. "Whoa, hey!" Sero started running towards her with a worried look on his face as the girl who hit the ground called out 'Ow!'

Ashido sat up and she looked down at her forearms she had put in front of her while rolling. She glanced to her right and saw a stick barely poking out of the untrimmed grass, and she pouted at it considering she had just been cut and had some blood on her right arm below her elbow. "You alright?" Sero asked as he jogged up to her, slowing down since it seemed from her look that she was fine. He reached out a hand and Ashido grabbed it so he could help her up.

"Yeah," Ashido said slowly. "Though I'm realizing we might under-appreciate Recovery Girl," she added and then started rubbing up and down over her cut to wipe the blood. "It's not deep though," she added as Sero looked down again to see if she was good.

"Maybe we should stick to just training, without sparring," Sero suggested.

Ashido got a pout on her face that confused Sero, though the taller boy smirked after a second. "Oh yeah," he said, just realizing it then though Ashido thought he had known all along. "Guess that means I'm undefeated-"

"I would totally win the next round," Ashido said. "And we'll see, soon as we get back to school," she added, agreeing despite wanting to show him she'd win that they probably should wait for a better time. She was still a bit worried someone would see them fighting out there after all.

"Yeah, back to school," Sero repeated. He leaned his head back and scratched it while walking back towards the pavement. He picked up some tape as he walked and wrapped it around his arm, just to gather it all since he couldn't leave it there and litter which wouldn't be very hero-like. "You hear about the reviews they've been doing?"

"Already?" Ashido asked in surprise while walking back onto the court with him, though she smiled after asking. "Hey, pile it all up in one place." She turned and started running across the court, and Sero nodded at what she was trying to do. _This is about as far as usual… so why not farther?_ Ashido ran a couple of extra steps until she was at the far side baseline from the three-point-line on the other side Sero started piling his used tape on.

"Think you can hit it from that far?" Sero teased over.

"Oh I'll hit," Ashido said. She started aiming carefully, and Sero backed up a bit from the pile in case she did miss. That made Ashido frown a bit, and she called over to him, "But really, what have you heard about the reviews?"

"Sounds like all the teachers are being cleared," Sero said. "I heard from Kirishima, that Midoriya told him, that All Might said even he got off with barely being scolded for coming up with the idea."

"So you think it's just a formality?" Ashido wondered.

"Might be," Sero replied. "The news is still just talking about Zach, but have you heard the amount of villains caught the last couple days?" Ashido shook her head and looked away from the pile of tape in confusion. The only things she had been seeing on the news were Zach related, and her eyes widened as Sero continued, "It's been crazy. They caught some guys who admitted this morning to being at the 'Lifebringer Incident,' with Kami- Raijin and Dabi."

"They did?" Ashido asked in surprise, continuing quick so Sero wouldn't get hung-up on almost saying 'Kaminari' instead of 'Raijin' which it looked like he was about to. She turned back to the pile of tape and said, "Why is that not like, the biggest thing right now?"

"It's not just them," Sero added, leaning back and interlocking his hands behind his head. "A bunch of other villains got captured in the two days after, and I'm thinking the heroes must have known where a bunch of them already were. Big shots too, lots of League of Villains guys." Ashido wanted to focus on the tape but she kept getting distracted by all this stuff that was not Zach-related which was all she had been watching the news for recently. "I'm betting the heroes were trying to make sure they had these perfect plans to avoid Kurogiri showing up and getting them out, wasting the opportunities. The heroes can't make a big deal about attacking them all of a sudden though, or everyone would talk about why it is they're suddenly able to move in without worrying as much about the villains getting away."

Ashido smiled, and she pushed her fingers together closer in her hands she held out in front of her. She made a small funnel, and she fired a blast of Acid out towards the pile of tape Sero made for her. It looked like it was going too short for a second, but when the Acid hit the pavement it splashed out forward into the pile and started seeping through it. Sero sweatdropped though and got a bit of a nervous look on his face as he saw the Acid Ashido fired made a little dip in the basketball court. "Um, let's move this to the grass," Sero suggested. He had started on the pavement in the first place because he wanted to do less damage, plus the basketball hoops he thought could be used with his Tape. A few patches of dead grass did not seem like much now though compared to a ruined basketball court.

"Oops," Ashido said, and she stuck out her tongue playfully with a laugh before running over to the grass herself. She was suddenly in a much better mood, and she accounted her hitting that tape pile from a far distance to it though her mood was even better after. Sero glanced at his remaining tape in the pile hesitantly, then he just turned and walked back onto the grass thinking, _I'll get it later._ He didn't want to touch the tape that could still be covered in Acid though it was not really dissolving anymore. Ashido called over to the black-haired boy walking over to the grass, "So what you're saying there is, Kurogiri being gone, might be a good thing?"

Sero glanced over at her with a less sure look on her face about how to respond to that. Ashido lowered her own smile, but Sero lifted the corners of his lips after a second. His smile did not cover half of his face as per usual, but he did nod with a small grin. "I think so." Ashido sighed in a bit of relief that they were still on the same page. Then Sero continued while walking towards her, so he could speak in a softer voice, "You hear about Zach?"

"Uh huh," Ashido said, as that was part of the news she had been listening to closely. "Last night?" She asked, and Sero nodded his head too as that was what he was referring to. Ashido smiled and then said while stretching her arms again though this time in front of her body like she saw Sero doing before. Pushing her arms out in front of her like that pushed her chest together in her t-shirt, and Sero had to try hard to keep looking at her eyes though the girl who started looking up did miss some quick peeks down. Ashido smiled while her gaze was lifted to the clouds, "I'm really glad he got out of the country. I wasn't expecting to hear that out of nowhere though. I nearly spit out the snack I was eating. Haha," she looked down, and Sero nodded in agreement with her while feeling a bit of relief that he got his eyes up before she got hers down to meet his gaze.

"They're not going to catch him," Sero said, and Ashido smiled big as he said what she wanted to say to others but could not without sounding like she wanted it to happen. She nodded in agreement with him, and Sero continued, "He got in a fight with some Filipino heroes, but none of them got hurt."

Ashido lifted her hand quickly but then lowered it slow as Sero added the part about no one getting hurt so she did not have to argue about it herself like she had to with her parents. "Then that fisherman who saw them getting on the boat at a port near Manila, he said Zach and them were heading west. You think he's in China right now?" Ashido asked. "He had been there before, at least, to Shanghai." She lowered her smile a bit as she said that, thinking about Zach talking about a drug deal he had gone to with Dabi. _You told us back when you came back from saving Kaminari from… you made up that whole lie about your confidential informant. The junky. That whole story about him that I didn't doubt for a second. You even got defensive over protecting his identity, and you looked like you felt bad about him. But those drugs you said the guy- who didn't even exist, came to buy. You were selling… is that why you looked like you felt bad at the time? Were you thinking about how you had sold drugs yourself?!_

"Yeah," Sero agreed quietly. "But he had to, to get the villains' trust so he could make his escape at VTS." He tried to raise Ashido's spirits by saying why Zach might have done those things he shouted in the forest, but then he pulled his head back and got a much bigger look of regret on his face. _Me and my big mouth._

 _ **"And you, pulled me back through that portal at VTS. You brought me back when I just wanted to run, and you tortured me! You forced food through portals and down my throat when I wouldn't eat, and you dripped water on my face for hours- DRIP DRIP DRIP-"**_ _I didn't do a thing. You got pulled through the portal, and all I did was yell at you for scaring- for killing Kirishima. I actually thought you had. And you got dragged away-_

"There's no way Zach's in China though," Sero said. He said it assuredly and chuckled while shaking his head.

Ashido lifted her head and got a semi-confused look on her face. She tried thinking more about Asian geography which was not her best point. "Vietnam? Thailand?"

"I'm betting he's already halfway across the Pacific," Sero said.

Ashido got a lot more confused, and for a second she started questioning whether she knew east from west. She shook her head as she definitely knew which was which. "But the guy who saw them said-"

"You really think Zach didn't know that fisherman was watching?" Sero asked. A smirk spread over his face, while Ashido's eyes opened huge and her bottom lip lowered.

"You're totally right!" She shouted, though up until that moment she had not even considered it. She leaned back and smiled at the tall boy in front of her who was grinning that she agreed and that he was able to flip that look on her face that had seemed close to tears. Ashido hummed to herself, then she shook her head and said, "But even if he knew, he wouldn't be in the middle of the Pacific." Sero got a confused look on his face, only to laugh as Ashido called out, "I bet he's already in America!"

* * *

"I'm, sorry, Ballerclava," Momo Yaoyorozu held her phone up to her right ear and tried to keep her voice steady as she spoke into it. "I am just, unable to-"

"Do not give me that," a stern voice cut in over the line. "And do not act like I do not know why you are trying to cancel your internship. Shiro Swan got you to talk. I know you cared for that boy." Momo held her mouth shut on the other side of the line, and she started shaking her head in a pained voice as Ballerclava saying "cared for" meant she did not understand her feelings at all. "Lifebringer is gone now, and you must accept that. He is not dead, so I am not going to just wait for you to mourn. Buck up, Creati."

Yaoyorozu's eyes opened wide and she stared towards the glass doors of her huge bedroom that led onto her balcony. She was sitting up at the head of her bed, a box of tissues next to her that she had created after the last one ran out. Hearing her hero name made the girl with long black hair falling messily behind her head stare out into the nice sky outside. She stared out into the blue sky, as it was midday though she was still in bed. Ballerclava continued as she stared out there, "And I expect to see you at my agency on the first Monday of what should have been U.A.'s summer vacation. I passed up other young heroes' requests when you applied for this internship. Denied them in favor of you. So you don't get to pull out now."

The phone call cut off, and Yaoyorozu turned her head to her phone in shock that the hero did not even wait for a response. She frowned and wanted to call back right away that the woman could not tell her what to do, but she pursed her lips instead thinking about other students like her who must have lost an opportunity so that she might have it. _Can I perform my hero duties to a full capacity as I am now? That, that is an excuse, that I wanted to tell her. I just don't want to…_ Momo reached for her blanket to pull up her knees and close to her chin, but her hands shook before grabbing it. _No. I, I must. I cannot shut down. Zach would hate himself if he knew- but he should- no he shouldn't._ She started shaking her head and closed her eyes tightly for a few seconds.

Then the girl scooted over to the edge of her huge bed and stepped off for the first time all morning. _Mother is right. Ballerclava too, and Jirou…_ _ **"Forget him."**_ _Not Jirou. But she is right, at least a little._ Yaoyorozu shook her head around while walking towards her closet and opening up a room as big as her dorm back at U.A. _I must push you from my mind, at least enough that you do not take up every waking minute…_ Momo lowered her gaze from the clothes she was about to start going through for an outfit. _I will not forget you. And, I will not lose hope that one day, you'll return. That was not, as you said, "Goodbye." But if you do not wish to be found, I do not believe anyone will be able to find you. So until that time when you return, I, I must… I must move on._

* * *

"…and in recent news from the Middle East, the ISK Hero Group in Gorran has recently unearthed a huge weapons' smuggling ring. Literally _unearthed,_ as in the guns they found were in an underground bunker. The amount of weapons they confiscated meant for trade overseas was staggering, however they were only able to capture a few of the villains involved. Small protests in the towns of Jabba and and Rotta occurred this weekend in Saudi Arabia, and a new Turkish president was elected. In Europe, the KLB Corporation has consolidated a…"

"Deku!"

A boy with curly green hair standing in front of a tv in a skyscraper in Osaka spun around and looked across the office towards SkyLord. The overweight hero with big yellow wings sticking out of his back motioned towards himself before turning and jogging away, and Deku sprinted across the office of one of the top heroes in the city. A couple other sidekicks in there and a large number of staff on the floor watched as the boy and top prospect of U.A. Class A ran by them.

"We have a hit and run downtown. A car chase on the freeway headed east away from the city through Nara. An anonymous tip just came into the police department that there's cock-fighting in the basement of a Chinese restaurant on 34th and Jimmu Ave. We have to be careful about that one. If the tip is wrong, we could have a huge mess on our hands for discrimination. Don't mention anything about cock fights unless we see it ourselves. Tip might not pan out."

"Where are we going first?" Deku asked.

"Your decision," SkyLord replied while jogging towards the stairs to the roof. They were already on the top floor of his agency's building that he shared with a few other heroes on lower floors, and the hero glanced over his shoulder while running towards the roof exit. He looked into the surprised boy's eyes, "Which is most important? Where is the most immediate need for our presence?"

"Are there already heroes at the car chase?"

"Only police."

"Do we have the hit-and-run car's license plate?"

"Yes."

"Let's go to the car chase," Deku said quickly.

"Alright, sending orders for the others to take on the other tasks. Can't have the perp ditching the car, as it might not be theirs, so even with the plate it's not a sure thing to go after it later on. The owners of the restaurant could scrub the place of feathers and blood if we wait too long for that too." SkyLord walked out on the roof that was illuminated with bright lights on the sides all pointed in. The roof had a red glowing circle in the middle of it with a yellow bird with wings outstretched painted as a symbol in the center that could only be made out well from a bird's-eye view.

Midoriya nodded at each thing his pro hero said and jotted them down as tips to remember in his head. Then he bent his knees while SkyLord threw his wings out to the sides, and they shot up in the air to the east together.

* * *

In late July, Kirishima Eijiro walked down a street with a buddy of his and senpai at the hero agency he was working at. The other hero was a fully licensed one, though they had both gone to U.A. together when Kirishima was still a freshman. The two of them were working for Fat Gum like they had the fall of Kirishima's first year, and though Kirishima was doing a summer internship he considered himself a sidekick of Fat Gum just like Suneater, or Tamaki Amajiki, who walked next to him.

"Hey Suneater! Great work yesterday!"

The two heroes looked across the street and saw some older guys a couple of years older than Kirishima gathered on the front porch of an apartment complex. Kirishima smiled big at the group of them and opened his mouth to respond to the guy at the bottom of the steps who was smiling over in a friendly way. "Don't say anything," Tamaki said quietly.

Kirishima glanced at the older boy next to him in confusion, then he heard the same guy call out, "You too Red Riot! Nice job!"

"Thanks!" Kirishima called back, and he flexed his right arm and grabbed his bicep.

"I didn't say it because I don't want the attention," Tamaki said as they continued walking down the sidewalk. Kirishima was stuck staring around at the porch behind the guy who called to him, because as that friendly guy waved his buddies were all standing up around him. They looked after the heroes, and then they turned to each other and started talking while the guy smiling after Kirishima started to grin in a different kind of way.

"You think they're villains?" Kirishima asked, looking back to his fellow sidekick in confusion as to what was happening and why they just kept walking if there really was something going on. "I thought that guy was just being cool."

"Maybe," Tamaki said. Suneater wore his hero costume of a white cloak with the hood up even though it was a sunny day, he had purple pouches all over his costume under the cloak, and he lifted a hand to one and pulled out a crab claw he ripped some meat out of with his teeth. "Or maybe they're testing how alert we are." Kirishima just realized why it was his senpai had gotten such a serious look after the older teen across the street had called out to them, a look that Kirishima was used to seeing but must have looked intimidating to those others. Then he thought about how he just smiled himself and called out to them, and it made him frown deeply while darting a glare back at the porch.

As Kirishima glared back, a couple of the guys gathered there were looking down the sidewalk after them. Their eyes widened and they turned away quickly to start talking to each other again, and Kirishima grinned but felt an odd sensation in his chest. "Feels kind of weird, intimidating people on the street like that."

"They're a prime age for villain recruitment," Suneater said softly. "I could see a villain walking up and offering them a job, and many of them look willing to accept. That is why we must win every fight here in town, and not let any villains escape unlike yesterday. They must see it is not a good choice."

"Yeah," Kirishima said in a determined voice. _That's why we go on patrols like these. Show them they can't get away with stuff! Better not get into any crime… I wonder how effective this is?_

Crime had been rising fast over the past month. All over Japan crime was at its highest point since right after the Sports Festival. The League of Villains who had been so prominent and acting out in big ways in June, May, and April, had vanished from the spotlight entirely after what was now known around the country as the Lifebringer Incident. Kirishima started grinning as he thought about these things though, because for the past couple of hours there had not been any crime reported around them. He thought back on what his comrade just mentioned about villains recruiting off the streets, and it reminded him of a certain final report back at the end of his first year at U.A. He shook his head quickly after thinking about that, and he stared forward in a determined way with a smile on his face again for the citizens to see if they looked his way.

Tamaki glanced at the younger boy next to him, and he frowned a little deeper under his hood before staring back forward. _Don't say anything. Confrontation is bad. I'm not good at bringing up stuff too-_ "Are you thinking about Lifebringer?" _Why do I do stuff like this?_

Kirishima turned to his older friend in surprise, then he frowned and looked back forward. "I was," Kirishima admitted. "How'd you know?" He asked.

"You're not usually one to be gloomy," Tamaki replied. "It messes with our dynamic-"

"Haha!" Kirishima laughed and leaned his head back with a grin of sharp teeth covering his face. It sounded to him like his senpai was making a joke, though Tamaki had been pretty serious right there and just sweatdropped at Kirishima's loud laughter. Kirishima kept grinning while turning back to his always gloomy comrade, and he said, "Who's gloomy? I was just annoyed I haven't heard anything about him for a while."

"Oh," Tamaki said. He looked ahead as they started crossing a street together, and the eighteen year old boy with pointy ears and spiky dark blue hair nodded his head once in understanding.

 _How do you just vanish off the face of the Earth? Everyone was looking for you! How'd you even get out of the country, let alone…_ Kirishima shook his head around and then started smiling again as he saw a group of people walking down the sidewalk in his and Suneater's direction. He smiled wide for them and the people looked towards one of the famous students of Class A with smiles forming on their faces too.

Tamaki looked out the left corners of his eyes as Kirishima started talking to the people they walked near in a carefree and friendly way. _People are only really excited by young heroes. New heroes, in their generation. The ones who didn't let this situation happen but are the ones going to have to fix it. I hope they don't consider me too old. Please don't look at me._

* * *

"Welcome back, everyone."

"Welcome back Principal Nezu!" A few hundred students and the faculty called out before the short mouse man could continue what was about to be a very long speech.

Nezu's beady black eyes widened a bit, and then he smiled more at the lines of students gathered in front of him for the start of the fall term. "It is good to be back," he said. "Students, faculty members, today we resume classes as a fresh start to begin this fall term. Your teachers will give you some review, and at the end of the first week back you will be required to take the final exams you missed when the last term ended so suddenly. I hope you all have been studying over the summer, and to those of you in the hero courses I do hope you have not slacked on your training. U.A. is starting a new term, yet it is also a new era for U.A. in regards to its hero studies. Those of you who are second and third years will be going into the streets of Musutafu on patrol at least twice a week with your classes. Those of you who are first years will also be able to experience this though less frequently and with the guidance of your upperclassmen. Musutafu has been targeted very often by villains in this new age, and with the fall of dominance of the League of Villains, many new villains have come to take their place…"

 _Patrolling the streets? The first years are going to have to get their provisional licenses quick if they want to do that._ Ojiro looked over his shoulder and back towards the first years who looked excited and nervous at the same time. _No training forest for them, and they had less experience than we did. I wonder if they'll all be able to do it._

"I'm excited to get out there," Hagakure said, whispering it to her boyfriend she was standing next to. The muscular blond boy who bulked up a bit over the summer turned back and smiled at his invisible girlfriend, and he nodded in agreement. The two of them had stayed behind at U.A. during internships after the Sports Festival, and neither had been able to get one over the summer after passing up their opportunities and failing to make contacts. That did not mean they had not been training over the summer, and they had even met up a few times to train and study… among other things.

 _Those two still going strong,_ Sero thought while looking over to his right at Ojiro and Hagakure. He sighed with a sweatdrop rolling down his face and turned his gaze back up to the principal. _Shouldn't have gone for it. There was no way that wasn't going to end badly._

Ten people down on Sero's left, Ashido darted her eyes to the right and over at the tall boy with black hair who was looking straight at their long-winded principal. _Oh man. Now we have to live together. Gah, that was so stupid. It was fun though, a summer fling…_ Ashido darted her eyes forward fast as it looked to her like Sero's head might be turning left.

Jirou glanced to her left as she had seen where Ashido was looking, then she looked to her right and saw Sero darting a look over now that Ashido was looking away. _Are those two- nope. Oh, but they were. Geez, at least they don't live on the same floor…_ Jirou closed her eyes tightly for a second at what immediately came to mind when she thought that. _I'm over him. It's better he's gone too, because an ex in the same building would suck. Suck, even more than if he was a villain. Right? Right. Yeah sure._ Jirou sighed but stopped focusing on that and just looked up at the stage the principal stood at the front of with some of the teachers lined up behind him.

"…in coordination with other schools such as Shiketsu High and Ketsubutsu Academy. It is not only an important thing to train new heroes, but also to show off the next generations of heroes who the public are most hopeful of. This requires putting a lot of pressure on you students, however we believe you understand this and are prepared for it. Enrolling in U.A. is something for only the best and brightest. Those of you in the hero course are going to be looked to more and more as you get older, and I am sure you already know that the eyes of the nation are on you…"

Midoriya Izuku took in a deep breath while staring up towards the principal. His fists clenched at his sides, and he lowered his gaze down to his right hand at a pain he felt in it when clenching it like that. _As much as I try, I cannot control it all. The increments I increase are too little, too far between. I lose so much being unable to draw out this full power. One For All. The meaning of those words is that my Quirk is meant for the protection of everyone around me. I can't fail anymore._ He lifted his gaze back up while clenching his right fist harder despite the pain in his scarred hand. _Principal Nezu is right. The public sees us as their future. They don't expect things to just fix themselves right away, and they're upset with heroes. Other than Endeavor, and Lemillion, who are super popular…_

 _Established elite heroes are on blast for allowing society to crash like it has,_ Shoto Todoroki thought on Midoriya's right side. _Dad aside, and Hawks and Best Jeanist too though even they're not as popular as they used to be. Somehow Dad's popularity still goes up, though it was hard to be lower than he was when he reached Number 1. People admit that Endeavor had to stop into big shoes. Some are upset he's not doing as well as All Might, but most people understand…_

 _All Might was an anomaly,_ Yaoyorozu thought from in front of Todoroki a few feet. She stared towards the principal and kept her breathing calm despite the pressure he was putting on many in U.A., because she like most others in Class A had understood this pressure already. _Crime has risen steadily since his retirement, and though it seemed to peak right after the Sports Festival and Tartaros escape, we were mistaken. It was because crime peaked so suddenly that it went back down, but after going down it continued to rise at the gradual pace it had been before that sudden peak. We reached the same point as that peak in early July, but it did not go back down this time. It has stopped rising after a more gradual incline over the past month however…_

"…With the collaboration of Japanese heroes with heroes from neighboring countries reaching an all time high over this past month, combatting villains has reached a stage never before seen on the international level. I presume all of you witnessed Endeavor's victory in Fiji last week. Yet it is not just Japanese heroes who have been traveling to islands around Oceania, the Philippines, Korea, and even China. Those same places have offered their heroes here in times of crisis as well. Requirements for heroes here and abroad are very different depending on the location, and we will be instituting classes based on learning rules and expectations for hero work overseas. Not only the laws of countries you may be called to, but also what support items may be illegal to bring into allied nations. Some countries prohibit items they do not want to fall into villains' hands, and you may have to have alternate costumes. Those of you in support and business classes must also account for the laws of other countries, expectations of our country for our heroes when they do go abroad, and you all must stay informed of current events around the world. Changes have been made recently in some countries revolving around laws on dealing with villains, the roles of heroes, as well as immigration and trade reforms to prevent foreign villains or their products from reaching their lands…"

 _Yeah, and we should be doing the same thing,_ Kirishima thought in annoyance while staring intensely forward at the stage. _Zach was right after all. He saw stuff coming I didn't even think of. Predicted the Sports Festival. And some of the stuff he talked about changing is actually happening like those new laws in that African country…_

 _The Congo started teaching children how to use Quirks so they could protect themselves, but the Congo also had a crime rate five times as high as Japan's,_ Jirou thought after what the principal just said about some countries' laws changing. _The Congo was out of control, and those numbers five times higher were only what they had recorded. Things stabilized a bit when the UN sent in that Hero Brigade to train up some Congan heroes, but I wonder if things calmed down because it worked or if the villains are just laying low until the international influence has gone down? Hopefully if they do come back out, the support they got will keep it from rising that high again. And hopefully, those kids being trained don't start becoming a stronger group of villains._ Jirou's expression got darker and she looked down at the floor below her feet. _Though, even if they did. The others who don't become villains, will be more. There will always be more who want to do good- Damn it. Fuck you Zach. I don't want to think about, the stuff you said._

 _People understand that Endeavor is not All Might. They wanted him to step into All Might's shoes, but he couldn't do it._ Iida stared towards the principal and then lowered his gaze down while getting a very serious look on his face. _But if there is no one to take All Might's place in our current society, then the rules that kept the peace with All Might around may not be the ones that can keep it now. More often on the news now than ever before, do I see talk of changing the rules. It is not our role as heroes to change the rules though. We obey them, whatever they may be, and we carry out our duty to the full extent allowed by the law._ Iida rose his eyes back up towards the principal in an intense way, _And that means if someone breaks the law no matter what their intention, as a hero I must arrest them._

Class A and all the students of U.A. listened closely to their principal who continued going over U.A.'s goals for the upcoming semester. They had a long road in front of them and had to press more into a single term than ever before with the first week being used for finishing the previous term that got cut short. Internships, applications for studying or interning abroad, final exams, patrolling streets of Musutafu, new courses and many new teachers. There was a lot to explain, and the principal went on at length about it all. Midoriya stared towards the principal as the re-introduction was coming to a close, and his fists tightened with his eyes rising to the sky above. _I know I need to focus. I know there are many things required of us now. But I still wish, you were here with us right now, Zach._

* * *

 **A/N Thanks for reading. Summer with Class A, and the students are back at the start of a new semester with their old principal returning. Hear a lot about changes in Japan and around the world this chapter, some stuff about Zach too though we don't really see him... Anyway, hope you enjoyed!**

Reactef chapter 94 . 15h ago

First fanfic i have seen with a millon words. Congratulations dude.

 **Thanks a lot!**

radoddish chapter 94 . 14h ago

AGH WHAT IS WITH THIS STORY BEING SO DRAMATIC, I LOVE IT AHHHHHHHHHHH

 **Drama! Action! Romance! Comedy! It's got it all! XD Glad you're loving the story! Thanks for the review!**

IntricateHummingbird chapter 94 . 14h ago

And I was really hoping that camping trip would be nice lol.

 **Haha yeah... gotcha! Tried building it up a bit as if the forest would be a place for Zach and his friends to have an emotional moment of two and get him to trust them again- then BAM! Lol hope you enjoyed it though! And thanks for the reviews!**


	96. Chapter 96

**Disclaimer: I don't own Boku no Hero Academia**

 **Chapter 96:**

"You saw him?" Tokoyami asked. The sixteen year old boy's eyes were huge as he stared at the one-armed hero he was working with while they stood at the edge of a roof in the middle of the night. They were looking out over the bright lights of the city below them from one of the tallest skyscrapers, and Hawks just mentioned something that had Tokoyami staring at his pro hero in shock.

Hawks glanced at his intern and then back out into the city. "A while ago," he replied. The blond man with big red wings curled in towards his back at the moment crouched and looked out farther through the city with his hands down on his knees. He had on light-blue goggles and looked through them around for any crime going on below that they were supposed to be taking a break from patrolling for. "Just after that stuff came out about him in the Philippines," Hawks added.

Tokoyami's eyes opened even wider, then they narrowed in a frustrated way. "Don't look at me like that Tsukuyomi, geez," Hawks scratched the left side of his face over his light beard.

"Why didn't you tell me?" Tokoyami asked.

Hawks glanced to his left at the boy on that side, and he sighed before looking up at the sky. "Well, there wasn't much to say. I just went where I heard he'd been, found him and the three he was with in that forest." Hawks scratched his cheek a couple more times then looked out over the city, "We talked. We fought. I woke up on a beach on some almost empty island."

Tokoyami stared at the pro hero next to him with his eyes wider than ever. Hawks had just mentioned off-handedly something 'Lifebringer' had told him, and Tokoyami heard from Zach that he had not met Hawks before so he knew it had to be recent. "You, lost?" Tokoyami asked slowly, wondering if that was what he was hearing, and understanding why it might be that Hawks had not brought this up before.

Hawks hummed and then responded, "I didn't expect him to suddenly attack his own comrade. I had her away with one feather, and he surrounded her in Death when he raced after her while I was fighting the Gentle Criminal." Hawks sighed and then leaned his head back, "Just touching one of my feathers… when I woke up it was two days later. They left me on a beach this couple lived on all alone, watching after me."

Tokoyami thought about what girl Hawks must have been talking about right there, but he was still bothered by something and his eyes got darker. "Were you," Tokoyami began. Hawks glanced to his left and lifted his eyebrows as the dark boy at his side finished, "Really trying to capture him?"

"He tried convincing me not to," Hawks replied with a dark, dry laugh. "Made some good points actually, but I was hoping to end the controversy which could only happen if he's tried here." Hawks looked back out over the city and Tokoyami turned to do the same. The teenager started thinking about how there still were many varying opinions on the Lifebringer Incident and what his old classmate's punishment for it should be. Hawks continued while they looked out together, "When he left me on that beach instead of, well, doing something worse, I decided to stop wasting my time on him. Too many villains here at home to chase that kid around the world."

Hawks stood up and looked down off the building towards a street where he heard an alarm going off like someone just broke into something. Tokoyami turned too, and Hawks said, "I know it's not what you want to hear, but push Lifebringer from your mind, Tsukuyomi. He's not what you should be focusing on."

Tokoyami kept frowning as he was upset Hawks had not told him about this earlier. He nodded his head though and then released Dark Shadow onto his back. The city skyline was lit up brightly, and the streets down below were even brighter so Tokoyami was not worried. Dark Shadow covered him and Hawks flapped his wings out to the sides while Tokoyami created dark wings of his own on his back. "Let's do it!" Dark Shadow called out excitedly, his red eyes flaring up in the darkness over one of the tallest roofs in the city.

The hero and his intern leapt off the roof to go fight crime through the city. Unfortunately, a villain they would be facing that night had the Quirk of Blackout. And only a couple of hours later, Tsukuyomi and Hawks would no longer be allies…

* * *

"That's so unfair," Ashido leaned in from the couch on Tokoyami's left side. "I didn't even know they could do that!"

"Suspending a provisional license," Ojiro began quietly. He looked from the couch across the room from Ashido's to the center one their dark classmate sat on, "Did they tell you how long it would be for?"

"Until I can prove control over Dark Shadow," Tokoyami said in a dark tone. He kept staring at the tv in front of him and spoke in a low voice because he did not want to make a big fuss over this, "At the conditions chosen during their testing-"

"So they could throw you in a pitch black room, and if you can't do it they won't let you be a hero?" Hagakure asked worriedly from next to Ojiro.

Tokoyami's mouth dipped down farther as he was really hoping that was not going to happen. The others in the common room looked over towards Hagakure and the invisible girl covered her mouth as she realized Tokoyami was probably worried enough about that without her saying anything.

"At the test, if you cannot control it at that point," Todoroki was standing behind Tokoyami's couch, and the dark boy in front of him glanced back at his classmate. "Then you should suggest to them a provision that you be allowed to take part in hero activities only during the day. At least, until you are able to control Dark Shadow's full power."

Tokoyami hummed and he nodded at Todoroki in agreement. It was not perfect, but he wanted his provisional license back as soon as possible, and if that meant before he was able to control Dark Shadow he was willing to suggest a restraint on his own power himself. Tokoyami looked back at the tv and he felt some relief though it could not squash his embarrassment at what he had been seeing for the past few days. _A stain not only on myself, but on Hawks, U.A., and Class A. Everyone, I am so sorry._ Tokoyami could not apologize aloud as his classmates had scolded him already for trying to do so, pointing out that no one had been hurt… despite the amount of property damage Dark Shadow caused that night.

The news shifted though and did take Tokoyami's mind off of his own debacle with the intensity of the situation in the Middle East being discussed. Todoroki was about to head upstairs to his own room, but he stopped with his body turned and re-faced the tv in the common room. He walked back towards it, while Bakugo and Kirishima headed over from one of the tables near the kitchen. "Whoa, that seems pretty serious," Kirishima said with wide eyes as he looked at the screen.

"Oh I heard about that," Ashido began. "Wait," she continued, and her eyes opened wider. "Okay maybe, I- well I heard there were protests at least."

"A coup d'état," Tokoyami said in a low voice. "I had heard things as well, Ashido. But I did not think things were this close to…"

The students all looked at the screen closer and watched as the anchors started showing clips from inside the country. There was a man on the screen calling out in Arabic, with his head wrapped in a turban but the bottom of his face wrapped up too so all that really showed were his eyes. He was an abnormally big man around nine feet tall and five feet broad at the shoulders. He was muscular though his body was covered in a traditional robe that made it difficult to tell unless one looked closely.

Subtitles appeared on the bottom of the screen as the man called out, and the students watching started getting uneasy feelings at the sight of what his name popped up to be on the bottom of the screen. His name also came out sounding like it would anywhere else, as it was not as much an Arabic word as it was a name that did not sound real. Ojiro got a hesitant look on his face, and he said in an unsure voice, "Mongoloid? That, doesn't really…" he trailed off, not sure how to feel or react to what he was seeing.

"He's saying that it was a popular overthrow of the government," Ashido started. "But yeah, I guess he does look, a little intimidating."

 _The region has been less stable recently than it has been for over a decade,_ Todoroki thought while watching as the man on the screen got replaced by a video from protests earlier that month. He had seen similar protests over the summer, but he did remember ones at the start of the September seeming like they were bigger after the government suppressed smaller ones in mid-August. _I wonder what the heroes in Saudi Arabia are doing? Shouldn't they have been protecting the government? Or did they agree with the protests, and join this Mongoloid's side in overthrowing the old government?_

"Doesn't sound like this guy, is looking to be elected," Ojiro said.

Tokoyami nodded and hummed as the anchors started talking about how news of Mongoloid first came in after the coup was reported. _Their old government was not elected either, but that was what I thought the protests were about. That and policies regarding villains which the old traditional regime would not change._

"Mongoloid claims that his 'Revolutionary army' has taken over the government," one of the two anchors in the early afternoon news said while looking to his co-host. "But now, this creates a bit of a situation for the neighboring countries. Many were allied with Saudi Arabia, and are already calling this a move by a villainous group overthrowing their ally."

"Others were against that old regime though, and are supporting the rebels' freedom to choose their own government. I think it's hard for us to say more in an informed way until we've gotten some more information from inside Saudi Arabia. We'll see what the nation's heroes do about this situation, and we will keep you updated as it progresses."

"Moving forward, the situation in Saudi Arabia is not the only big news in the Middle East today, as another terrorist attack in Gorran's capital of Hanai caused the deaths of twenty-two citizens this morning. The ISK Hero Group is currently tracking down the ones responsible, and Gorran's President Rami Hasseini has issued one of the country's rare kill-on-sight orders for the men responsible. Shakad and the SISIS have taken credit for the…"

* * *

At 10:00 a.m. in U.A. High School, Class A sat at their seats with All Might in the front of the room. They were all quietly watching the news on a tv All Might brought in. He had just turned it on, as there was set to be a press release from across the world at the UN headquarters in New York City soon. The class and their teacher watched as spokespeople for different countries left the building and stepped out towards the reporters from their home nations to speak to.

A Japanese spokesman for the ambassador who had not come out of the chambers yet stepped up in front of the reporters and then started his statement. All Might hummed while watching, and the skinny man with sucked in cheeks lifted a hand and scratched his chin with a thoughtful look on his face. Others around the classroom watched carefully too, though some were just sitting back with annoyed or bored expressions on their faces.

Bakugo had his head lifted to the ceiling, thinking about a new finishing move he had been working on the last few weeks. He lowered his head and looked towards Kirishima who had out his math book and was going through it quickly as he was nervous for the math quiz they had coming up after All Might's class. _I'll test it on Kirishima. If it can break through his Hardening in one blow…_ Bakugo lifted his head up to look towards the screen and he frowned a bit more at what he just heard. "Ch, what the hell?" he muttered under his breath.

"…Unfortunately, the Saudi ambassador was called back to his country so their was little to negotiate. We have decided not to send in heroes though as President Mongoloid has threatened action against countries who do so. However, the assembly has demanded that President Mongoloid allow in an investigative team to check that human rights are being recognized in this time of governmental change. If the new President fails to comply by the end of the month, it will be assumed that his new government is breaking international human rights' laws, while the investigative team would only be sent in to check on these rumored violations…"

"End of the month?" Ojiro muttered under his breath. "We're what, three days into October?"

One of the reporters near the UN headquarters had a similar question as Ojiro's and called it out. The spokesperson nodded and then responded, "This is a delicate situation in a nation that had been facing many protests leading up to the revolution. The new Saudi Arabian President's policy is a more isolationist one than the previous government's, and it is not up to the rest of the world to determine how a people self-governs."

"It's not just isolationist. We haven't been receiving word from any reporters or news stations in the country. Only the state-sponsored station is still reporting-"

"And what of the foreign nationals still in Saudi Arabia who have not been heard from since the coup?"

The spokesman lifted a hand to get the reporters to settle down. "As we have previously released, the country's precarious state at the moment does make it difficult to ascertain the exact situation inside the nation's borders. President Mongoloid has support from his people, and though we do not know how much, if he complies to the General Assembly's demands for an international investigative team to be sent in to assess the well-being and state of his country, we would take that as a great step in moving forward to establishing this new government as a legitimate regime in the eyes of the rest of the world. The investigative team would also be ascertaining the status of the foreign nationals who President Mongoloid's regime has imprisoned for reported actions against the new government. The majority of foreign nationals were expelled from the country at the start of the regime change, and those who were not have been arrested for charges of insubordination to President Mongoloid's regime."

"What does that even mean? Insubordination? Hisawa Kawaki, a fellow journalist for our Nihon News was in Saudi Arabia at the time of the regime shift. The last we received word from him his team was headed to Hatto to report on the sudden regime change. He and three other Japanese nationals are among the group still inside-"

"As we have said," the spokesman said, and he continued in a stern voice, "we are doing our best to avoid an international incident. We will get back our people as soon as we can. Once the investigative team is allowed access and given more information on what the detained foreign nationals did to warrant arrest, we will have more information for you. Until that time, we await President Mongoloid's swift response to the assembly's demand." The spokesman stepped back and bowed to the reporters who started calling up to him again, then he turned and headed back for the UN headquarters behind him.

"Back to you at the station."

"Well that was a live report from outside of the UN General Assembly in New York. I can't say I'm satisfied with that response."

"Neither can I," the female co-host on a mid-morning news show that All Might had put on knowing it would have the release from New York televised. "However, I would have to agree that it is not the job of other nations to decide how countries choose to self-govern. Let's put on the clip we got here late last night that some of our viewers may not have seen. This is a recording from the state-sponsored news program in Saudi Arabia." A corner of the screen covered in an image that started to enlarge as the host continued, "At a rally a few days ago where Mongoloid named himself the democratically elected President of Saudi Arabia."

 _"Named himself" the president?_ Uraraka thought with a strange feeling swirling in her chest. That feeling settled a bit though as she stared at the screen showing a huge cheering crowd outside of a magnificent palace in Hatto.

The camera was up on one of the outer walls of the palace, pointed down into the courtyard and then through the gates and out onto the streets beyond where thousands upon thousands of people were gathered and cheering. Many of them were waving flags, most of them were smiling, and a lot were chanting out their new leader's name. The camera turned back through the courtyard and then up onto the balcony on the third floor of the huge palace with domed roofs and ornate gold designs through the walls. There were big steel lances sticking up around the outer walls with Saudi flags waving around off of them, and in between some of those flags right on the middle balcony was the huge new President of Saudi Arabia.

Nine feet tall and five broad at the shoulders, Mongoloid stood in front of all his people still wearing the turban around his head and most of his face except for his eyes. Standing at his side was a woman with a thin black veil over her face and just as fancy-looking a robe on as the man next to her. Her left hand was locked with Mongoloid's right, and the woman lifted her own right hand to wave at the people who got a lot louder with their cheers for "Arma!"

Mongoloid lifted his left hand and clenched it into a fist. He quieted down the crowds pretty quickly, and then he shouted over the silencing courtyard and streets in a booming voice. He was yelling in Arabic, but subtitles had been made for the clip already and appeared on the bottom of the screen as he spoke. "Crime will never again be accepted in this country. The corruption, of our previous leaders, was a disgrace! Those who allied themselves with our old leaders and call this an unlawful revolt, are the same ones who stood by and allowed our former dictators to abuse us!" Roars of cheers echoed out through the streets. "They stood by and did nothing as our criminal justice system failed to stop any of the villains in our nation! NO MORE!" Another chorus of cheers echoed out.

"Crime in Saudi Arabia has dropped to ZERO over the past week. _I_ have ended crime in this country!"

All Might turned off the tv right as the loudest round of cheers started blaring out through the recording. He turned to the class in there with him, and he asked, "What do you think?"

 _What do we think?_ Midoriya thought while staring at his mentor. His eyes lowered to his desk and he hummed to himself as he pondered the purpose of the question first, _As heroes is it our job to, to… what are we supposed to do? Does what we think on this issue, really matter? I believe, I think, he has a lot of support. But why were foreigners arrested? Did they try acting out against the new government, against its censorship of news, or did Mongoloid suddenly change the rules and arrest them for new laws that weren't explained before? This is very political. Any country that sends in heroes to try and figure out what's going on, Mongoloid threatened retaliation against. Why wouldn't he want heroes to see what's happening? How hard-line are those policies he put in place to stop villains? Crime is at zero? Is the translation wrong, or, or did he do something-_

"His name is Mongoloid, I mean, he's gotta be a villain right?" Ashido asked, glancing around at her classmates wondering if any of them had thought that themselves.

"I don't know, I think it's a cool name," Kirishima said, lifting his head from his book and looking to the pink girl to his right. "Bakugo's come up with some scarier names than that for a hero name-"

"Oi," Bakugo snapped in annoyance, not wanting to be brought into this when he was barely focusing again in the first place.

"Why was he hiding his face though?" Sero asked. "Seems like he's trying to hide something-"

"Or," Tokoyami began. Sero looked back and over to the dark boy with a beak on his face. Tokoyami continued while glancing over at his classmate, "There is still discrimination in that part of the world. It exists everywhere, but perhaps in his nation those who are born with Quirks that make them look different from 'normal' people are not accepted as easily. I know the former ruling class of Saudi Arabia were all of a similar Quirk lineage."

Sero hummed and had a sweatdrop on the side of his face as he did not really think of that. "Seemed like he was getting a lot of cheers though," Sero started again. "Doubt those people would suddenly turn on him just 'cause he looks different. Even without seeing his face he's already a giant."

Tokoyami nodded in some agreement, because although he had that counter he was not exactly sold on it himself. _That Mongoloid sounded very, confident? He did not sound like a man who would mask his appearance to satisfy un-accepting people. Perhaps the covering on his head is to protect others from what his Quirk is. Or, perhaps there is truth to what Sero says._

"What do you students think of the resolution the UN came to?" All Might asked again, rewording his question this time.

"They're waiting too long," Ojiro said, deciding to say it instead of holding back since All Might was asking after all. He looked the teacher in the eyes as All Might turned to him, and he asked, "If Mongoloid really is breaking human rights' laws, then shouldn't- someone needs to, find out."

"And if sending in that team without waiting for Mongoloid's approval causes him to lash out?" All Might asked. Ojiro's eyes widened, and the teacher in front of them hummed at the boy's surprised look. "He has just overthrown a government. To assume that he has the same restraint, the same level of understanding as to how international politics work would be foolish. You may think it is outlandish that Mongoloid would just have the investigative team killed, or heroes who enter the country to investigate, but in his eyes those actions could be accounted as the same thing as foreign invasion. We have already seen that he was quick to oust most foreign nationals and arrest the rest, and in his speeches to his people we have seen him put blame on the problems of his country not only on the former government but on other governments who allowed their country to reach that point."

"What matters most to this Mongoloid is not how much the rest of the world supports him," Yaoyorozu began from farther back in the room. "But how his own people see him now. However, All Might, should we not be concerned that his consolidation of power in this way is not dangerous?"

"He's going to big lengths to keep his control," Jirou started.

"Maybe he knows that with a lot of foreign influence, he loses a lot of things he'd be able to control if he isolates himself," Shoji suggested with a glance back at Jirou.

"Yeah, but those are the things no one guy should have control over," Jirou countered right back.

"I didn't say he was right in doing it," Shoji said. Jirou leaned back as she had countered that a bit too quickly like she thought Shoji was defending this guy who seemed like a dictator to her. Shoji continued, "But as much as there is an international community, and as much as this world we live in now is globalized, it had been for the past several decades that the former ruling class in Saudi Arabia was in charge. If the Saudis do not see these things as helpful, or if they see a correlation between the existence of globalization and a collapse of their country's rule of law…"

"Shouldn't other countries have stepped in, earlier?" Hagakure asked softly. She looked from Shoji next to her up to All Might who turned the invisible girl's way. "If things really are supposed to be all globalized where the UN has to step in afterwards, I mean, if the country was at that point shouldn't other heroes have gone in to try and fix it before things got that far?"

"Unfortunately, Young Hagakure," All Might began. "Although the world's heroes have been working in conjunction with heroes from other countries more often as of late than ever before, it is the opposite for sending heroes to a country to stay and assist with increased crime. Heroes may team up now and again to travel to other countries and help in the most intense fights or when villains have been located and heroes want the most assistance possible for individual missions, but for a nation to send its heroes to _stay_ at another country and fix a problem such as a failure of the judicial system, corruption in a government, or a very high level of crime, it is impossible with crime rates as high as they are in every country of the world. Imagine for a moment if our government were to send Endeavor, Hawks, Best Jeanist, Miruko, and Kamui Woods to China to help with their increased crime levels. For three months."

All Might glanced around the room and then asked, "How would you feel? Or, how do you think the public would react?"

"Angrily," Todoroki said, responding to the second question.

"Our crime rate is already so high itself," Uraraka began softly. She understood why the question was being posed, but she did not like that it countered the ability of their country to help out others.

"They might be quick to call for new leaders," Asui started. A couple of others looked over to her wondering what she meant by that, and the short frog girl continued at their looks, "The public would blame the government for sending away our best heroes, whenever crimes occurred. And the people would call for new leaders to take charge over the old ones."

"That was part of the problem in Saudi Arabia," Yaoyorozu began. "I do recall one of the issues of the earlier protests was an accusation that the government was too involved in foreign issues around the Middle East and the world while their own country was full of crime."

"Something like that wouldn't really happen here though," Hagakure started.

"Why not?" All Might asked the girl who opened her mouth and froze as she did not really know why she thought that. All Might took in a slow breath and then the scrawny man said in a soft but stern voice, "As much as you may think that we are in different places of the world, and though you would be right to say that we are very different peoples, we are all human. Not everyone in our own country is satisfied with the current government's handling of villains. Whenever Endeavor is called out to assist neighboring countries' heroes, there is a danger that Japan becomes weaker in his absence. And more than that, there are deep rooted issues that may not have been seen as issues before but could be soon. Problems that many people looked over in times of peace… Anyway, I would like all of you to keep up to date on the ongoing situation in Saudi Arabia on top of your individual studies. Next Friday you have your preliminary reports on the countries you chose. You should have a comprehensive outline of what your chapters will be and how you plan to continue your research through the fall. This term paper is your final exam for this class in the fall, and I hope you all take it as seriously as you did your finals upon returning from summer break."

"Yes All Might," some of the students responded. A few did not say anything though, as they had stopped focusing that much in the middle of what All Might was saying.

 _Problems, people overlooked. Things like how only heroes can use their Quirks, and people who use them to fight villains without licenses get in trouble. The fact that the general populace is weaker than villains as a whole._ Jirou glared towards the front of the room and then sighed while looking down at her desk. _I can't get angry, every time I think about stuff like that. I'm only going to have to start thinking more about it, and even though it's not about him, he's the one who made me start thinking of those kinds of things in the first place. And I, I don't even want to get mad just thinking about you anymore either, Zach. Because you could be dead out there. I thought you were going to go out on your own and become this vigilante who ignored all the rules, someone who would get caught quickly so they could bring you back- But you've been missing for months. No sign of you since the start of the summer… Did you get killed fighting some villains? No one would even know. We'd, never hear from you again. Maybe that would be better._

* * *

"You're sure we're cloaked?"

"If we were not, they would be shooting at us would they not be?"

"Even if they can't see us, they could still hear us. Shut up you two." Gentle looked over towards the two who started arguing on top of the sand dune they were cloaked on. There were five people standing on the dune, though at the far side closest to the military base and border checkpoint one of them was crouched and held a pair of binoculars up to his face. Darling turned away from the young Arab man in front of her and marched over to crouch next to the boy looking through the binoculars.

"And they are leaving again," the young man cloaking their hill in the desert muttered in an annoyed voice. He looked out past the hill towards the barracks, the training grounds, the parking lot full of military vehicles, and past the base to a couple of humvees that were sand-colored and started driving away back to the west. "What are we even doing still here? Hello?"

"Calm down, Akhmed," Zach stood up from where he was crouched and glanced over his shoulder towards the young man who was still three years older than him. He spoke English to the man behind him, as everyone on the hill had been speaking while he observed the base in the distance. Zach lifted his right hand up to his head and with his index finger inside the fabric of a black glove he tapped a button on his headset. "Rebel, they're driving away. You have the time?"

A couple of seconds passed and then Zach heard a voice in his ear, "Yo that wasn't even half what it took before. Ten hours the last gap, this time only three and a half. Gets you an average 'bout six-seven hours."

Zach shook his head. He thought for a second to make sure of what he had just heard, as the English was difficult to understand in Rebel's gangster-like American accent. Then he responded back, "It won't take as long each time. Instead of an average, I see it as it's taking them less time to pass along messages. Getting the flaws of their system worked out, even this far towards the border."

"That tower," Gentle said, walking up towards Zach while listening in to the conversation. He stood next to the boy a head shorter than him and started while pointing out towards a radio tower in the distance past the military base. "We can assume it's being used-"

"Take out any radio towers you see," Rebel cut in, though he stopped quick as Gentle's voice started reaching him and made him realize he was speaking over the man.

"There's a few second delay between our messages going up to the satellite Rebel's tapped into, and when they come back down," Zach said while looking at Gentle who had an annoyed expression on his face after that cut-off. "But it's better than no communication at all, which is what the people in there have." Zach turned again and looked back towards the military base where there was a lot of activity moving about inside of after those two vehicles drove off. "One of Mongoloid's Seven Demons was there this time. He didn't come with the last convoy."

"This is not why I am here," Akhmed snapped. The others on the hill turned to him, and Zach looked back to see the young brown-skinned man had his fists clenched at his sides and was looking at him in such an angry way that they started having this conversation while ignoring his complaints.

"I know," Zach said. He took a step towards Akhmed and said, "And I know after the SISIS bombing last night, you want to go back to Gorran-"

"You do not know," Akhmed said in a harsh, angry voice. "I joined you because you said we would stop Shakad, and SISIS, but we have left my country to fight in Saudi instead? We-"

"Your goal is to stop Shakad, stop SISIS," Zach said, taking another step towards the slightly older man in front of him who was a few inches taller and kept staring harshly back into Zach's eyes. "But do you want to stop them for revenge, or because until they are stopped, your home country is in danger?" Zach paused for a second, and then he pointed his left hand out to his side, "Well do you really think your country is safe, with a villain like Mongoloid consolidating power next door? Do you think he will be satisfied with just taking one country? We will get back to SISIS, I promise. But we can't do what everyone else is doing. We can't just, wait, for Mongoloid to amass more power."

Zach turned back himself as Akhmed tssked and turned to the military base. "We don't know how long it will be before the next check comes here. We have some time though. It's time to move in." The other four on the hill looked in at Zach, and he lifted his right hand and tapped a button to talk to Rebel again, "We're doing it. Are your guys ready?"

"Oh yeah. They're on standby. Connecting, and, here we go… Everybody check in."

"Anon 1, ready." A voice masked by a deep voice modulator checked in.

"Anon 2, standing by," another modulated voice added.

"Anon 3, just waking up but ready to go," this time the voice did not sound-altered at all, it was high-pitched and sounded like a young girl's.

"Whoreslayer42 ready for action sirs!"

"I told you not to use your fucking trolling name," Rebel snapped in a pissed-off voice.

"I am not a troll, but an internet warrior-"

"Rebel, it's fine," Zach muttered. _What kind of team is this?_

"Ah, whatever. Alright, Anon 5 you there?" Rebel asked.

The five on top of the dune were tapped into comms with Rebel and his team. They all stood around waiting for a response, and then they heard typing over their headsets. "Hold on," Rebel said in a low voice. "It might take a little longer to get in touch with him, being inside and all."

"Anon 5 is your guy on the inside?" La Brava wondered. The girl walking up to Gentle glanced up at him, and the taller man hummed while glancing down at her to see her hesitant look.

Darling looked back at Zach and frowned as they kept standing there in silence. Zach frowned deeper himself as the silence was starting to make all of them nervous. _This guy is the reason we're here. If he's not there… No, don't think of it as a trap. Don't distrust, just for the sake of not trusting anyone. Anon 5 asked for help. The reason messages aren't escaping the country, reason social media presence has nearly vanished isn't a censoring by the government. WhyFight, Quirk: WiFi. He's not one of Mongoloid's 7 Demons, but he's one of the only ones in Mongoloid's ranks our source actually got us info on._

"What if it was all a hoax?" Akhmed muttered behind Zach.

"Hold on," Rebel started, "I'm getting a message."

"Oh shit," one of the deep modulated voices said.

"What is it?" Gentle asked.

Rebel took a breath and then started in a deep voice, "It's in Arabic. My auto-translator reads like this: 'The person you are trying to contact has been arrested for insubordination against President Mongoloid's government, in accordance with article 6 of Saudi Arabia's new constitution. Who is this?' They must've tracked his I.P."

"Guess he wasn't lying when he said it was dangerous." The Anon 3 girl's voice came through their headsets.

"Or maybe he wrote that message himself- hey, he's trying to track me," Whoreslayer42 snapped in a pissed-off voice.

" _They_ won't be able to," Rebel said. "There's no way. So don't worry about it."

"I'm not getting arrested for attacking Saudi Arabia," Anon 1 muttered in a low voice. His comms cut off.

"They already arrested one of us-" Anon 2 began.

"They didn't arrest him," Zach said. His voice was low and he started glaring out towards the military base and then beyond it, in the direction of the capital Hatto. "They killed him. And you don't have to worry about that, because you're not in Saudi Arabia. You're not living under Mongoloid's occupation. But you could help me end it."

"You think they killed him too?" Rebel said in a low, angrier voice.

"That idiot," Anon 3 whispered. "He should have gotten out of there when he had the chance."

"If he had, I never would have believed him," Zach said in as low, and angry a voice as the one Rebel had just used. "The pictures he got to us, they confirmed what he said about Mongoloid's men. Firesale, Quirk: Photoshop and Algebra Man, Quirk: Divide and Multiply. Those weren't real crowds around the palace. And those spikes around the building, weren't really holding flags. The old government leaders, the pro heroes Mongoloid's men went around the country calling back to the capital, all of them. This Revolutionary Army is a collection of villains doing Mongoloid's bidding. Help me stop them."

"Whoreslayer's with you," Anon 4 said without hesitating.

"Yeah, me too," Anon 3 agreed.

Anon 2 paused for a few more seconds, then his modulated voice said, "Let's do it."

"We'll keep comm lines open between you guys through the attack, but know that the farther you get from each other the harder it will be as long as WhyFight's towers are still up. They had to have set it up before the actual overthrow," Rebel explained. "Setting something up like this takes a lot of planning, but not as much to tear it down. Go fuck shit up, Commander."

Zach turned away from the military outpost and walked back to the other side of the hill. Gentle and La Brava turned and walked behind him on his right side, and Darling ran up to walk just next to Zach on his left though she hung back a few feet too. Akhmed kept glaring out off the side of the hill closer to Saudi Arabia, while Zach walked to the other half that was still cloaked by Akhmed's power. He looked down off that side of the hill, and men and women in black clothing who were fanning themselves off or sitting in the shade of the vehicles near them stood up.

Zach tapped a button on his headset that connected him to everyone in front of him. He took in a deep breath and then spoke in his strongest and most determined English voice. "The Seven Demons of Mongoloid were his tools to take over this country without resistance. With them he brought dozens, maybe hundreds of other soldiers, whose Quirks have kept the world from doing a thing. One of them, Algebra Man, can split himself into hundreds of people. Another, Firesale, can change the appearance of people and things to a certain degree over cameras. Using these Quirks they created fake public displays of support. And WhyFight's blocking of signals in and out of the country has kept people who found out what has been happening from telling the rest of the world." Zach looked around at everyone on the sand down at the bottom of the hill. Thirty-five people stood around the two sand-colored military jeeps, the two black humvees, and the three helicopters they had been sitting in the shade of. The ground vehicles all had turrets on top of them of different sizes, though only one of the helicopters looked like an attack chopper with rockets on the sides and a minigun attached to the front.

"The government of Saudi Arabia wasn't perfect before Mongoloid," Zach continued to the people looking up at him, all of them listening over their headsets. The people behind him and the ones just giving tactical support from afar all listened in too as he called out, "But Mongoloid's a villain who's killing the people he conquered with his evil army, and heroes aren't doing anything about it. Mongoloid's men are consolidating control over the military, and how long until they're conscripting forces for an army around villages that don't know what he's done? How long will it take this organized group to militarize and mobilize the country they've taken over? People are being recruited into his army, forced or invited in, and we have to stop them before Mongoloid turns the entire country into a force of villains strong enough to invade other countries, because someone like Mongoloid will not be happy with only one."

People down below in their black costumes walked up closer to the hill. Some of them lifted up their helmets and put them on, while the boy at the top of the hill was doing the same with the helmet he grabbed from where it was clipped to his waist. He rose it up and put it down over his head, a round black helmet with a black visor over the front. He wore a tight black costume with a thick vest over his torso and back, thinner material on his sleeves and legs though his upper thighs had a lot of thick pockets on them. His belt was strapped with a dozen blades, and there were more knives strapped under his armpits and sideways down along his sides. He had two hilts sticking out over the top of his shoulders in opposite directions diagonally, and a katana on the back of his waist with the hilt pointed out to his left and the blade in its black sheath pointed to the right.

Everyone down below and around him started putting on their helmets too. People's wings spread out behind them, others flexed their extra arms or waved tails behind them, and others checked the ammo in the guns they had on their backs on in holsters at their sides. Some of them were covering up nervous looks as they put on their helmets, others calm ones, others excited expressions. Gentle just frowned in annoyance while looking at his helmet, then he sighed and rose up the only helmet in the entire group's that had a different color to it. He put his black helmet on with a purple visor, matching the highlights on his shoulders and belt and the cape of his costume. La Brava put her helmet on too, and Darling already had hers on from the moment Zach lifted his to put on his head.

"We're not here to fight the people of this country," Zach said in English down to the multi-national group of people down in front of him. "Mongoloid likely has many of them believing he is the rightful leader associated with the protests. Those of you who speak Arabic have the most important jobs. We can't do this if we're fighting the whole country. They're probably concerned with the censorship too though. They should have distrust for the new government as things stand. We have to tell them the truth. We have to stop Mongoloid. We will not wait and give him time to amass more power. We will not leave the people of Saudi Arabia for him to do with as he pleases. I know this is scary. I know, the idea of taking on an entire country sounds crazy. I know he has more men than we do. I know, we haven't known each other for very long. But I also know, Mongoloid will never see us coming."

"Watch each other's backs. Listen to my orders. Take down WhyFight's towers. Stop the Seven Demons and their subordinates. Try as hard as you can not to kill, but capture these villains so we can show the people of Saudi Arabia what they were. Get ready to fight. We're moving in. Everyone, we're invading Saudi Arabia."

* * *

 **A/N Time for an invasion! XD Zach's back! Some guy named Mongoloid's taken over Saudi Arabia, Zach's got a lot more people with him now, and shit's about to go down! Hope you enjoyed and are looking forward to the invasion of Saudi Arabia next chapter as well as some explanation to what just happened there at the end! Thanks for reading, and leave a review below telling me what you think/ predictions for what's coming!**

Bass4penguin chapter 95 . Oct 16

It would be really interesting to see Deku and Zach fight after both mastering their quirks.  
On the kurogiri to contain him you'd either have to destroy his quirk or make him brain dead so that's not really an option  
It feels like their should be people out in the streets saying the apocalypse has begun with Death and shigarakis Decay that could be seen as pestilence all you need is War and Famine and you have all four horsemen of the apocalypse

 **I think that would be an awesome fight... we'll see though. I actually don't know how they're handling Kurogiri's capture specifics in the manga, but yeah def what Zach was thinking as he took him out. As for the Apocalypse... don't know how much the Japanese know about the four horsemen, but yeah I could def see people seeing that, and maybe we will too? Thanks for the review!**

born75th chapter 95 . Oct 16

Every time i see an update from you i get happy and read it immediately no matter what I'm doing. I should be studying now lol. Please give me more Zack i need crazy adventures and power trips and escaping heroes and another motorcycle but with flying capabilies. Keep up the amazing work

 **Haha glad to hear you're so into it! Thanks for the review and hope I didn't keep you from studying for too long! (though editing this rn is keeping me from doing the same :P ).**

Super Power Sensei chapter 95 . 19h ago

Your version of Sero has always been interesting to me. He shows a level of understanding few people have. I would like to have him as a friend and hang out with him.  
Sero attempting to get with Ashido was a welcome change and their shared opinions on Zach is weight off my heart(at least they still care for him).  
The world is slowly but surely starting to change and for once, not because of the League(fuck them).  
While the sinking of Momozachi was painful, I'm perfectly fine if it never comes back. Although Zach HAS to get laid at some point.  
Finally, did you know the longest piece of American literature is a fanfic on this very site? It's about 4 times as long as this one. I only know about this because of a IGN video talking about how long the script for Red Dead Redemption 2 is.

 **Yes! Sero fan! Lol I really started liking his character in Death and with Kaminari being evil, and Kirishima being too close to Zach, I felt like he was the best one to focus on with a positive reaction towards what Zach did. Sero and Ashido didn't work out... but I'm glad you liked their scenes together. I had some fun writing in the 'meanwhile back in Japan' chapters. I didn't know Zach getting laid was a requirement of this T-rated story... lol just kidding of course I knew that. I've actually heard that bit about the longest fanfic before. I was writing a diff one where I hit 2 million words b/w the two stories I split it through, never did reach that peak though *sighs*. Thanks for the review!**

IntricateHummingbird chapter 95 . 16h ago

Oh dam. Is Tenya saying he'll arrest Zach, even though his intentions are good? Even though Zach saved him?

 **Uh huh. Iida's on that good and righteous "rules are rules" path. Big reason rest of the class didn't argue with him is exactly that last part though, knowing how much it's gotta mess with him to say that/ think those things even after Zach brought him back. Thanks for reviewing!**

Shade11224 chapter 95 . 16h ago

I hate to be that guy, but I really don't want to read more about other characters than Zach. I'm saying that because you've managed to build an OC who has literally grown from a kid with a sad past to a emotionally and physically scarred man who has built his convictions upon his experiences that I've managed to read chapter by chapter since probably around chapter 30-40ish if not before then. This fanfic is good enough that it's most definitely in my opinion surpassed the original story and you should contact the writer of My Hero Academia and see if they'd consider this for a more mature AU spin off of the original.  
That said I honestly think you should write more about the mundane things Zach does sometimes rather than his classmates who really aren't TOO important right now.  
Thanks for the Chappy!

 **Always a reason for everything. Didn't want to spend too many chapters getting Zach to where he is now, though there will be some explanation next chapter. I'm really glad you've been into this story for so long, and really really glad to hear you think it's as good or better even than the original. Get that you want to see Zach in all he's doing, but it keeps intense chapters like the forest one a few back from happening when Zach's shown constantly with all his plans and everything being explained in his thoughts before they happen. Gotta keep up the world-building for the story though anyway, and who's to say those characters aren't important right now? Who knows what's coming next? I've got plans all the way through to the end of Death by this point, and I'm good as things are with proof-reading. Thanks for reviewing though, and I hope you enjoyed the new chapter!**


	97. Chapter 97

**Disclaimer: I don't own Boku no Hero Academia**

 **Chapter 97:**

 **Hatto**

"We're running out of space on the palace," Arma said, walking side by side with the large supreme leader of Saudi Arabia.

"Set them on the walls around the palace then," Mongoloid bellowed. He laughed while the woman at his side turned and motioned with her head away for the group of five villains back behind them.

One of the villains started forward though as the others headed away. "WhyFight?" Arma asked, as it seemed like the man had something to say.

Mongoloid turned back from the huge mural on the wall several of Hatto's citizens were in the process of painting for him and his wife. "What is it?" Mongoloid questioned.

WhyFight lowered his head a bit in respect for the country's leader and his wife, Arma, the leader of the Seven Demons. "The man I tracked down who was sending messages out of the country-" Mongoloid's eyes narrowed with a darker look in them. "Which I am very sorry for, again," WhyFight said quickly in an apologetic tone while bowing his head deeper. "It is just, he was in contact with a certain group who I tried to ascertain the origin of."

"'Tried?'" Arma questioned in a harsh tone, her voice a hiss that made shivers go down WhyFight's spine. "So you failed to determine who it is that knows of this nation's true predicament?"

"Well," WhyFight began. "I failed at tracking them. I did as best I could, but the accounts our recently-deceased hacker was in contact with pinged me all around the world. I tried following one of the trails, and it bounced me from an I.P. address in Berlin to one in Moscow, to one in the middle of the Atlantic. They could have been anywhere in the entire world, but," WhyFight paused and rose his head a bit. "When I told them their contact had been arrested for insubordination against the government, I asked them who they were while trying to figure it out myself. And I received a response."

"And what was it?" Mongoloid asked, a slight look of confusion coming to his face at his subordinate's expression.

WhyFight hesitated, and then he responded softly, "'Your worst nightmare.'"

"Sir!" a voice shouted behind WhyFight at the other end of the hall.

Mongoloid looked over WhyFight's head and glared towards a man running through his palace towards him. "You're supposed to be getting in contact with our forces in Gorran," Mongoloid growled at the sight of one of his Demons not where he should be.

"We have a big problem!"

* * *

 **99 Miles Inside Saudi Arabia's Eastern Border**

"You sent a response?" Zach asked.

"Hell yeah, told them we were their worst nightmare-"

"You told them we're coming?" Zach snapped in a pissed-off voice.

Across the helicopter from the seat Zach was on, a brown-haired girl shouted, "Why would you do that?!"

"I didn't say you were coming or nothing. Just tryin' to intimidate whoever capped Anon 5."

Zach lowered his head a bit and glared at the floor through his dark visor. "That was stupid, Rebel," Zach said.

"Hundred miles in from the border!" The pilot called back towards Zach, having been told earlier to let him know when they reached that point.

Zach nodded and started ignoring Rebel's response while lifting a hand to his helmet and tapping a button on the side of it. "Mark, it's time. Break off and head south to Jabba. Push straight west from there as fast as you can to hit the next tower as we're going to lose contact with you for a bit." Zach turned to the left and looked out the window of the helicopter to the one next to his. His was the one with the heavy weaponry on front and on the sides, and he watched as one of the solely transport choppers on his left pulled away. Down below it, one of the sand-colored jeeps turned and started driving the same direction.

"Anon 2, break off and stay patched into their comms," Rebel started. "Make sure they're all locked in together and give tac' support. Touch base with me every 5."

"Understood."

Zach shook his head and then let out a small sigh as Rebel helped him out without needing to be asked. "Tac' support?" Zach asked after switching his comms back to just his helicopter and Rebel. "For, attack?"

"Tactical," Rebel replied, and Zach started nodding as he realized that made more sense. "You looking for another lesson in English right now dawg? I don't really think it's the time, but if you're insisting I'll-"

"Stay off the comms for unimportant things," Zach said. "And stop using slang. Not everyone here speaks English well."

"It ain't slang, you just don't get how to speak my language good."

"Well," Darling corrected across from Zach. The boy sitting across the helicopter from her grinned as did the native-English speaking pilot in the front and the French woman sitting next to him who was working the helicopter's weapon controls. "You don't speak 'good,' Rebel."

"Yeah yeah, whatever lil' girly."

"Focus Rebel," Zach said, before Darling could snap angrily at him as he knew she was about to. "You're coordinating everyone. People's lives are relying on you right now. Ours included. Can you just make sure when you speak, we all know what it is you're telling us?"

There was a brief pause, a little longer than the usual pauses as their communications had to travel a far distance despite Rebel circumventing WhyFight's Quirk. "Yeah, you got it boss. You're still sixty-some'… sixty-five minutes out from Hatto. Cee's team should be reaching Rotta in ten. We've got thirty-six points of WiFi and radio signal blockings across the country, that is including the one behind you guys so I guess 35 left…"

 **Two and a Half Months Ago.**

 **Hawaii**

"M look out!" Zach called over towards the edge of the volcano. Two men in hazmat suits with jetpacks on their backs were flying up from inside the volcano, and the brown-haired man on the edge leapt backwards while whipping his arms out in front of him. Water jugs he had strapped to his waist on either side popped open and water whips flew through the air at the villains who shot more flames out of their jetpacks to rise higher before firing down at the twenty-four year old who dove for cover.

"Gentle!" Darling called over from down the slope that Zach was sprinting up surrounded in a pitch black aura.

"Who are you people?!"

Gentle shot in front of M and swung an arm to create a shield of Elasticity to bounce back bullets that almost hit their comrade. "The base is inside the wall of the volcano!" La Brava called out, her voice echoing in the headsets of the five people fighting around the mountain's open peak.

"Take them out!"

"Behind us!"

"Cee, Darling, on me," Zach called behind him in a dark, scratchy voice. He snapped his head back forward and glared with red eyes farther up the slope to the inner edge of the volcano. Three more men had risen in red hazmat suits that looked stuffy to be inside but apparently made it possible for them to move around inside the volcano just above the hot magma. They had jetpacks on their backs too and were hovering above the inner edge, and then all three of their jetpacks suddenly started sparking and the villains inside them started swerving around in the air.

One of them started to fall, and Zach's eyes opened wide while he focused Death to below his feet. He shot forward, pulling a grappling hook out of the darkness around him and pointing it as he reached the inside slope of the volcano. He fired, and he fired out from his other one while Darling ran forward and pointed her arms down at his sides at the last of the three who started falling down there. "Thought y'all could use some help," a deep English voice spoke smugly over the earpieces in six people's ears.

"Who is that?" La Brava snapped in confusion from back inside the truck parked down the slope of the volcano.

"Everyone, shut off comms. Someone's broken in-"

"So I don't speak Japanese, but I've got this translator on my computer. Don't turn off your earpieces just yet. Unless you want those heroes and cops heading up the volcano to catch you guys."

The group near the top of the volcano on the main island of Hawaii spun their heads and looked down the slope. "They've got the sirens off to better sneak up on y'all, but y'all mother fuckers about to get swarmed unless you get out of there. I even gave you some time with the-"

"You almost killed them," Zach said. He spoke English, knew some from his classes at school and learned a lot more while with the villains. He was not great, but he knew how to say simple sentences like those, and he was fairly used to the cursing as well. _What is going on? Who is this? Can we trust him? It might be one of the villains trying to stall us to give them time to escape. But why would he try killing them? He was the one who made their jetpacks malfunction._ "Who are you?"

"You can call me Rebel, Zach Sazaki," the voice over their headsets started.

"Guys, he's right," La Brava spoke fast while typing into the laptop on the dashboard of the truck she sat in the driver's seat of. "Over the police radio they're talking about the fight at the top of the volcano. Someone saw and they're heading up the, south side."

"Could have told you that already," Rebel said in a smug tone. "You want some help getting out of there or what? I just want to help you. Didn't know you'd be so against me throwing those guys in the volcano. Thought with how you handled Kurogiri and those League of Villains, you were cool with shit like that."

"No," Zach responded. "But yes, to help," he added. "Get us a route out of here."

"I can do that-" La Brava began.

"Why should we trust you?" M said from next to Gentle who was helping him stand after a stray bullet had grazed his right leg. M spoke better English than the others around him, though he had been speaking Japanese before perfectly with the rest too.

"Trust me? Weird thing coming from a CIA agent. Mark Smith-"

"Ex-CIA," Mark said fast, while everyone around the top of the volcano spun to the man who had only gone by 'M' so far. "And saying my name doesn't-"

"Mark," Zach called over. The brown-haired man looked over towards the dark figure, a bead of sweat on the side of his face and a hesitant look too like he thought he was about to have to explain himself. "Can you rise the lava?" Zach asked in his deep voice, motioning towards the volcano. Darling was running from Zach as he had spoken to her while covering his earpiece, and Cee was already picking up one of the unconscious villains who Zach had knocked out while Darling ran to grab another. "Force out the villains. We can't stay here, but we're not just going to leave and let them go make a new base. We'll lose them."

"Yeah, I can do it," Mark replied over to Zach, losing his surprised look and then running over to the edge. The older man grinned too that despite his secrets coming out, Zach was still just thinking of a way to get the villains while at the same time distracting the heroes coming for them.

"Give us that escape route Rebel, and La Brava come meet us on it to get us out of here." Zach spoke in Japanese, but he understood about what Rebel said with his computer translating what he said.

"Alright! You got it-" Rebel started calling out.

"You know all our names though, apparently. So tell us who you are first, Rebel. If you want me to trust you."

There was a bit longer of a pause this time. "Respect. I can do that. The name's Mica, Mica Freeman."

 **Present**

 **Saudi Arabia**

 **Beep-beep-beep-beep-beep…**

"What's going on?" Darling called to the front of the helicopter that started beeping loudly.

"I don't- two bogeys heading straight towards us from the direction of Hatto!" The man in the pilot's chair shouted.

"You get that Rebel?" Zach asked while standing and moving up between the two front chairs of the attack helicopter.

"Fighter jets, ISR-13's," Rebel called back.

"Get me Gentle," Zach snapped as fast as he could, knowing with the short delay that this was not an immediate action.

Instead of responding, Rebel just did what Zach said. A man in the passenger seat of a black humvee driving across the desert below the helicopter and blowing up a low of sand behind the tires spoke into his headset, "What's going on?"

"Two fighter jets coming straight for us. Need you up there. Take Hummingbird."

"Should I fire our rockets?" Le-Q asked, turning her head left from the seat in front of Zach on his right.

"No, hold off-"

"What are you saying?"

"Not you Gentle, you go. Now! No time!"

Gentle threw open the door of his black vehicle while Akhmed continued driving full speed across the desert. "Hummingbird hit the sky!" Gentle called out, before jumping out of the moving vehicle and swinging a hand below him to bounce himself high into the air. The girl in the turret seat in the middle of the vehicle flapped her wings behind her while rising out of the moving vehicle, and she flew up after Gentle towards the helicopter high above.

"Try not to hurt the pilots," Zach ordered. "We don't know if they're soldiers of the country or Mongoloid's men."

"Taking over a country without hurting anyone has to be one of the stupidest things you have suggested," Gentle replied.

"We'll do our best," Hummingbird called out after the man near her who started a downwards arc only to bounce off the air again only this time forward in front of the helicopter, moving a lot faster than it itself was.

"Just got word from Anon 3 that Cee has met little to no resistance in Rotta. The people were a ticking time-bomb," Rebel started. "Second they heard what was really going on, none of them questioned a thing. They were ready to rise up with- Anon 2 hit back now. Resistance in a village outside of Jabba. Two of the Demons are there. Mark's fighting them."

"Mongoloid definitely knows we're coming!"

"I see the jets!"

"Any way we could hide this car so we don't get blown up before even reaching the city?"

"I can't cloak a moving vehicle!"

"Thirty minutes out…"

"Two more of WhyFight's towers are down…"

"What about those Demons?"

"Here we go…"

"Everyone get ready, and keep the comms clear!" Zach shouted, while leaning forward and glaring out through the windshield of his helicopter. "Hatto has over 6 million people in it. We think Mongoloid's main force is there. We take the city, we win. We stop Mongoloid, we win. Leave the rest up to our comrades. Trust them, and trust me. We're going to win!"

* * *

 **Jabba**

"Keep going!" Mark called out, yelling it into his helmet right before reaching up and ripping the damaged thing off. The man with brown hair falling down to his shoulders and curling up at the back of his neck tossed his helmet to the side and panted while staring ahead at a dozen enemies before him. _That's another tower down. I could keep in contact with the team for a little longer at least._

"Sir! Ma'am! Their vehicles are getting farther away!"

"Send half our forces after them and bring the rest of-"

"EVERYONE LISTEN TO ME!" Mark roared at the top of his lungs in perfect Arabic. The Caucasian man of twenty-four years screamed in the middle of a main street of a village outside the large town of Jabba. "Mongoloid is a dictator! His army has infiltrated your country, and taken over by force! Massacring all of your heroes in the process! Their bodies line the walls of his palace in Hatto!"

Mark glared furiously up ahead at the two figures on the street who started spinning their heads and looking around to the sides of the street where citizens were gathering. On the roofs of nearby buildings, on the ends of the road behind Mongoloid's forces and back behind Mark and the two soldiers in all black who stood behind him. It was blazing hot out there in the streets of Jabba, and the three soldiers in all black costumes were sweating profusely. Mark sweat badly but he stomped forward and rose his arms at his sides, and black bottles of water strapped all over his body opened up with thin streams of water pulling out and swirling around in midair. Long whips of water, over a dozen of them, lifted up and sharpened into points and then swirled in masses, then formed shuriken and other sharp weapons in the humid air.

Behind Mark on his right, Blackstar lifted up his right arm and it transformed into a swirling silver mass that curved into one long blade that he held out to his right side. On Blackstar's left a few feet away, Skater slammed his legs together and created a board under the soles of his feet with six wheels on it. The wheels had spikes that started spinning around in the sand street and dragging a cloud of sand up behind him. He rose up a pair of pistols and put one pointed forward and the other aimed up at his left side. Mark continued shouting, "Mongoloid, and his Demons, like the two in front of you now! They have conquered your country and led you to believe they are the true rulers!"

"That's why your phones don't work!" Skater yelled to his left at the roofs of buildings where citizens were looking down at him, though he yelled it in English so not many people understood. "He's trying to keep anyone from figuring out what's happening here!"

"You are an American," one of the Demons, the woman in front of the figures in black costumes, started in English. Skater spun back, but the woman was looking straight at Mark as she spoke. "What are you doing here?"

"Stopping you from recruiting the people of these towns and villages into your army of evil," Mark replied in Arabic, loudly.

The woman glared harder at him, and then she held up her right palm for the men behind her to stop as they were almost about to run off and follow her original orders. "Before we head after the rest of them. We'll take these three down."

"Yes! Madame Worldbreaker!" A few of the soldiers shouted behind her in Japanese and English.

"Surrender," Mark said. He glared at the woman whose eyebrows lifted up right before the corners of her lips. She stomped her right foot forward, and the entire village on the outskirts of Jabba around them shook, and the tremors shook the larger town too so hundreds of thousands could feel it. Mark's eyes bulged as did his comrades' inside their visors, and most of the villagers started running away. Mark's wide eyes narrowed after a second though and he rose his arms higher, making more water fly out of his extra water bottles and create more bladed weapons in the air.

The man on Worldbreaker's side covered in a dark purple aura. It was translucent, but his eyes glowed dark purple and then flashed black which caused shaking buildings on the sides of the street to start breaking apart. The soldiers behind two of Mongoloid's Seven Demons backed up, though they rose up their weapons or started using their weaker Quirks at the same times.

"Holy shit," Skater muttered, and his wheels started spinning backwards as the breaking buildings on the sides of the road lifted up telekinetically in the air. Cracks started breaking in the sandy road, fissures splitting through the town as Skater and Blackstar backed up.

Mark started sprinting forward though, and he swung his arms forward making all his bladed water weapons fly through the air much faster than he was running. They flew forward as fast as bullets. A purple aura blasted around one of the Demons, while the woman turned her body to the side yet still got slashed through her robe across her right side. Most of the weapons flew past the demons though, slashing up the arms and legs of the men and women behind them.

The citizens who all started running or backing away on the roofs of their buildings stared into the road in shock as Mark ran forward. He kept his right arm up with his fingers twitching and making his water weapons reform in the air, slashing back and forth along the guns the injured enemies started raising. Blades and weapons sliced into pieces, and then Mark dove to his right side and dodged a chunk of wall from a house on his left that came flying at him in a purple aura. Mark lifted his left arm that he had brought down to his side, and he started firing at the man surrounded in a purple aura who had to bring both arms up in front of him and stop half a dozen bullets all aimed at his knees and elbows. The Demon's eyes actually stopped glowing for a second while opening wider and darting around to the bullets all aimed perfectly at his extremities.

 _Who the hell is this guy?!_

Mark stood up in the middle of the road while parts of buildings fell around him, while fissures opened up all over the street, and while blood splashed up from all of his enemies other than Mongoloid's two Demons in front of him. Even Worldbreaker grabbed down at her side in pain as the slash of water that cut through her robe did make a shallow wound in her stomach. Mark's comrades stopped backing up behind him while staring towards their comrade with their eyes huge just like the Demons' and all the citizens who had not ran too far away yet. Mark pressed a button on the side of his gun, dropped the magazine while slamming his gun down to his waist and reloading with a single hand. He rose it back up in his left hand, aimed down the street, and flicked his right hand up with all his fingers pointed above him. The movement with his right hand made all of the water ahead of him down the street rise up in two huge spikes.

The Demons of Mongoloid's army froze and all the hair on the back of their necks stood on end. They lifted their eyes up, to see two huge water arrows hovering above their bodies. Each one was as big as their bodies were, with huge sharp points aimed straight down at them. Mark glared at the two of them, and the fingers on his right hand steadied while he said in a commanding voice, "Surrender, villains. This country is not yours to do with as you please."

 **Eight Years Ago.**

 **Long Island, NY**

"The second bout of the semifinals coming at you with a big splash!" The announcer of a fight tournament between rival hero schools called out to the big crowds in the high school stadium. There were over two thousand people in the audience who had come to watch the young prospects from different schools duke it out in the arena. "Unlike the first round of the semis, where a student from S.U. High School defeated one from Harbortown Academy, these students are both from Harbortown. This bout will determine who goes to the finals to face Driscoll and his Obsidian!"

"You ready to give these people a show, Marcus?" Casey called over to his classmate.

"No way you beat me Case'," Marcus called back with a grin on his face. The sixteen year old with short brown hair faced off against his darker-skinned classmate who rose up his hands in a fighting stance with his fists opened up in curled forward palms. He had holes on the ends of his arms in the centers of his palms and all along his forearms. Water started dripping out of them while the countdown to the start of the round began, and while everyone in the stands started chanting along with it.

Mark's parents called down encouragement to him. Casey's did too from not too far away. The announcer shouted while everyone cheered, "Casey Brown with his Waterworks Quirk, and Marcus Johansen with his Water Control! As you've seen from previous fights, Marcus has been allowed his own supply of water for the match as he cannot create his own, unlike Casey. We'll see how these sophomores from the same class fare against each other in the second to last fight today!"

"TWO! ONE!"

"Let the match begin!"

The fight started, and Marcus was immediately on the defensive as the amount of water he threw at his classmate was nowhere near as much as Casey blasted back at him. Marcus was nimble though, dodging to the sides and keeping a distance on the stage. Marcus started waving his arms too when he could not dodge fast enough, redirecting the ends of Casey's attacks away from him. "I can go all day!" Casey shouted, lifting both arms up above his head and then slamming his wrists together in front of his body with water splashing out of every hole on his arms.

Marcus's eyes opened wide as the water accumulating there bubbled and grew so he knew the blast about to push out was going to be huge. Marcus rose up both of his hands and held out his palms right as the jet of water blasted at him. The blast Casey fired was fast, but Marcus had his hands up and stopped the end of the wave right before it hit his palms. Everyone in the arena stared down leaning out of their seats as the two boys pushed their arms farther towards each other. Casey pushed more into the attack, so the end of it was pressed into Marcus's palms, but the water started moving different directions on different sides of the blast.

 _Reverse the flow. Reverse the flow! REVERSE THE FLOW!_ Marcus closed his eyes and pushed harder and harder, and then he heard the most earsplitting scream of his entire life. He opened his eyes, and he stared towards the middle of his stage and his classmate, his friend. He stared towards a splash of red, all pushing the same direction he was trying to force the water, and no sign of his classmate anywhere.

 **Present**

 **Jabba, Saudi Arabia**

"Dooku!"

A flash of dark purple surrounded one of the Demons, and the two arrows of water exploded above them right as a fissure shot out from in front of the feet of the woman who screamed that. The fissure split so fast towards Mark that he only had time to look down with wide eyes before he was falling. He reached to his side and grabbed the edge of the street pulling away from him, and he let out a gasp as his body jolted its whole weight down but managed not to break the edge of the fissure.

"Mark!" Skater shouted, and he started speeding forward and in and out of debris from the houses broken on the sides of the road by Dooku's first attack.

Blackstar sprinted forward and straight up a huge chunk of wall that he leapt off while raising up both arms and creating huge morphing scythes of silver with his arms. Their bodies covered in purple, and then a chunk of debris on the road lifted and flew straight up into them and slammed them back.

Madame Worldbreaker stomped her left foot forward, and the wall of a building near where the two enemies just dropped down covered in cracks. The two of them scrambled away while getting back up, coughing up blood in their helmets and limping. They dove for cover from the collapsing wall that blasted sand up around them.

"Hey!"

"Stop them!"

Citizens on the sides of the road started running forward. They screamed at Mongoloid's forces who they had been afraid of the entire time, but could not stand against after seeing their trained, experienced powers.

"Take care of the masses," Worldbreaker said while looking behind her. The woman with a gash on her side started snarling as she saw the men behind her all still lying around on the ground grabbing at their flesh wounds. "I'll drop any of you who don't stand in five seconds to oblivion. Five!"

The soldiers of Mongoloid's army opened their eyes wide and started rolling over onto bloody arms and legs. They started pushing themselves up, while Mark pulled himself up on the edge of the fissure. A piece of the fissure his right hand was grabbing broke off and his whole body swung to the left, and he let out a yell as he almost started falling to that "oblivion" that Worldbreaker just mentioned in the seemingly bottomless dark cavern below him.

"Mark," Blackstar called over, down on his hands and knees and pushing himself back on the street.

Mark reached his right hand up and grabbed the side of the fissure again. _I need to get up!_ He pulled his head up the smallest bit. He looked over to the right while raising his chin over the surface of the street. He saw Dooku walking forward with half of the debris on the road lifted up, his eyes focused straight on an injured Blackstar and Skater. He saw Worldbreaker laughing while her soldiers rose and picked up weapons, and the citizens of Jabba all running onto the street. _No. No! I- I can't!_ He focused on where his water arrows had exploded, where they had absorbed into the sand so he no longer had his weapons.

Mark clenched his eyes shut so hard. _**"Your name from now on will be Mark Smith. Welcome to the CIA."**_

 _ **"…In any country of the world. Protecting the United States' interests…"**_

 _ **"He knows. We know he knows. We need him to tell us. There are innocent lives at stake."**_

 _ **"Do your thing, bloodbender."**_

 _ **"Don't let him escape!"**_

 _I can't! I won't! I promised!_ Mark's eyes clenched shut, and he started hearing screams in his head. Then he started hearing screams around him, and his eyes snapped open wide. Mark rose up his right hand over the edge of the fissure, curled his fingers in, and Worldbreaker and Dooku exploded. Everyone on the street and surrounding area froze where they were. They stared towards where the two Demons of Mongoloid's army had just been. They gawked at the spots where floating masses of blood hovered. And then as Dooku's floating rubble dropped down to the road harmlessly, as the rest of Mongoloid's soldiers lowered their weapons, Mark climbed out of the fissure with tears falling from his eyes.

 _How can this be the right thing? If I had to break it? The reason, I left in the first place?_ Mark stared forward through blurry eyes as he got up to his feet. He kept his right hand risen up, with swirling masses of blood in front of him held hovering in midair through his Quirk: Liquid Control. He looked to his right, and one look at the villains made the last of them drop their weapons and raise their hands up in terror. Skater and Blackstar slowly got up to their feet while staring over at Mark nervously, like all the citizens around them who had been more scared a few seconds ago of Mongoloid's forces.

An old man in front of a crowd of people who had been moving into the road looked towards Mark. He stared at the man's face uncovered by a helmet unlike his comrades' and the tears spilling down it. "Thank you," the old man said, and he started clapping his hands. "Thank you!"

"Th-They freed us!"

Mark stared towards the citizens in shock. He lowered his right hand, while the citizens ran up towards the villains who had their hands in the air. "Arrest them!" Blackstar shouted. "Ack- gah- kah," he started coughing, and he reached up to his helmet and pulled it off. He wiped an arm across his mouth while taking a step forward, and he looked ahead with blood dripping down to his chin from his mouth. "We're arresting them," he said, speaking English to a crowd looking over at the black man with wide eyes at how damaged he looked from Dooku tossing him around and smashing him with rubble.

Mark turned from his comrade and to the citizens of Jabba. "He's right," Mark said in Arabic. He rose up his right arm and wiped his eyes, as his strongest enemies' blood dropped down into the sand. _This isn't the time. I- I had to do it. To save my comrades, and these people._ "Take anyone in Mongoloid's regime into custody. Whether they started with him or joined with him afterwards." The young man started walking forward while looking towards the old man who was the first to call to him. "Gather your people, but do not deal mob justice to these people. That is not why we came here." Some of the people frowned towards Mark hesitantly, but the old man nodded in acceptance.

The soldiers of Mongoloid's forces had the urge to pick up their weapons, or use their Quirks as the regular people of the town they had been governing ran up and started pushing them down and arresting them. They looked towards the man in the black costume who glared down at them all though, and they thought about how their powerful leaders blew apart in a single instant. The fight left them at the dark look in Mark's eyes. Mark rose up his right hand to his head, and he tapped on an earpiece that was still in his ear despite his helmet having been damaged on that side. "Anon 2, two of Mongoloid's Demons are dead. Report in, I couldn't- just let them know. I'm moving west. Leaving injured Skater and Blackstar here."

"I can keep going," Skater said, stepping up towards Mark's back while lifting Blackstar by his left arm, throwing it over his shoulders. "We'll get someone here to watch over-"

"You need to stay and make sure these prisoners don't try anything," Mark said, looking Skater in the eyes. "Keep a gun trained on them until you're sure the citizens here have them locked up tight."

"Are you, okay?" Blackstar asked, lifting his eyes up and asking despite blood trickling down from both corners of his lips.

"Shut up, and get some rest," Mark said. "If you die, we'll have the Commander bring you back. But you can't die now. Not in the middle of this. So stay as still as possible, don't make anything worse, and help watch over these people." Mark turned and looked back at the old man coordinating efforts of capturing Mongoloid's men, yelling to an apparent Resistance that Mark was just learning about out the corners of his ears. "Do you have a vehicle?" Mark called to the old village leader. "I need to get west to regroup with my forces. And can you take care of these two?" Mark asked the last part without looking back at the two who did not speak Arabic and would not be able to tell he just asked for them to be taken care of.

The old man nodded and then turned to call over to one of the men tying up the villains who invaded their country. Mark nodded thanks back at the old man, then he reached up and grabbed the earpiece in his right ear and nodded a few times to what Rebel started telling him too. _The team missed a WhyFight point. I'll have to sweep by it first-_

"We were doing this country a favor," a man growled in Russian over with the group getting tied up. He snarled it around at the people tying him up, though he darted a nervous look over at Mark when the enemy in all black looked towards him. "You fucking American. This place was a hellhole without us. Chaos everywhere. The villains of this country either joined Mongoloid or died. He did not lie when he said he ended crime here." Mark started walking towards the man who shrugged away the citizens trying to hold him still. Even tied up he was still too strong for them, and they stumbled away while the man on his knees shimmied towards the terrifying figure in a black costume who destroyed his superiors and cut him up. "You don't understand what you're doing here. If we didn't come in, someone else would have. Someone worse. We saved this country! Rid it of all crime!"

"That's because the government can't commit crimes," Mark said. He stared down at the Russian man while speaking Russian to him. He glared into the man's eyes that shook in fear. The white man with a shaved head stared nervously back at his captor at Mark's perfect accent not only in Russian, but the villain's home region in Russia. "Governments create their own law codes, and if all the criminals in the country are working for the government, then of course there's no crime. That doesn't make you right. That doesn't mean you were helping these people. The government itself can't _technically_ commit crime," Mark saw a truck driving up towards them, and he spotted the citizen the old man called to help him motioning his way. Mark started walking forward, and he held up his right hand for a second making the Russian man's face cover in sweat, and then all of that sweat slid down his face fast and wrapped around his neck in the shape of a hand that had everyone around him staring at the villain in terror. "But you are villains. What you have been doing to this country, is villainous. I know a country can do wrong. A government, is not always right."

The sweat hand dropped from the Russian villain's throat. Mark walked towards the pickup truck that a man climbed out of the driver's seat of. "We're going to destroy the towers cutting off all your phone lines and wifi!" Mark shouted in Arabic at the top of his lungs. "Watch your tv's! Stay online! And hold yourselves back from killing those villains in the heat of the moment, as much as you might want to."

* * *

 **Ten Miles East of Hatto**

"L is not going to be happy about that," Darling said while looking back at the crashed helicopter behind their group.

"Hank, is Le-Q alright?" Zach asked the pilot who sported a bloody nose but no other external injuries from their crash. The former EMT wrapping up the younger French woman's right leg turned and gave Zach a quick nod before getting back to it. Le-Q was unconscious but that nod made Zach think she was going to be fine, and he was glad the four of them all made it out of that alive.

"Spent as much on that as we did on all these costumes," Darling said while running up to Zach's side and speaking quickly at him. "And I mean, we really could have used the eye in the sky here for taking the city."

"L will understand," Zach said. He turned towards the black humvee and sand-colored jeep that were parked alongside their wreckage. A group of unconscious villains lay between their functioning vehicles, including the woman who shot down their helicopter. "I'm betting one of them was a Demon after all," Zach added, looking around at the others with him and giving them serious looks through his visor. "Two were down south with Mark, two are for sure still inside Hatto, one being Mongoloid's wife Arma. If one of the others is here, there are only a couple unaccounted for."

"Let's move in," Akhmed said, looking over from the open driver's side door of the black humvee he was still sitting in. "I'm cloaking us right now, but they know we're out here and the smoke is rising too high to block. And we can't give Mongoloid or WhyFight time to call back more of the Demons. Having them all scattered around the country is our best shot."

"You good Gentle?" Zach asked the man panting but standing next to the group of unconscious villains.

"Just had to, save those pilots," Gentle muttered sarcastically but in frustration. He was tired, and he turned to look towards Hatto that they had not even reached yet. "This is war, Z- _Commander_." He said, seething the word out in a frustrated tone while looking back to Zach through their dark visors.

"I know. And I thank you for following your orders," Zach replied in a way that made the taller man turn to him in surprise while also setting the tone with everyone else around them. "Now we're moving into the city," Zach said, turning towards Hatto himself and glaring at the huts on the far outskirts the villains were waiting for them at. "Hummingbird, Cluster, guard Le-Q and Hank and watch over the prisoners. Be ready to move in though if I call." Zach started jogging for the black humvee where there would be an empty seat now. Cluster dropped off of the other jeep, and he slammed his hands into the ground to start building up barriers, combining all the loose particles of sand into walls to rise and protect them.

Darling frowned and looked towards Zach longingly, but he motioned towards the jeep with an empty seat in it that the girl in a black helmet turned to after a second. She ran towards that vehicle and climbed in, and Gentle jogged around the black humvee and got inside it too back in the passenger seat. Zach climbed up in the vehicle and moved into Hummingbird's original spot, climbing through the middle of the vehicle and sticking the top half of his body out to grab the turret. _Why do turrets that work with rubber bullets cost most than ones that kill people? I wish I knew. It was worth it though. It all was. L, we're making the best of it._

 **Two Months Ago.**

 **Las Vegas, Nevada**

"Let me come with you," Leslie said.

Zach turned his head from Gentle and Mark he was speaking with in hushed voices. They were inside a huge sitting room in a mansion on the edge of a valley with a great view back towards the city of Vegas a few miles away. The eighteen year old girl standing there had tear streaks down her face, but an intense and angry look in her eyes as she repeated, "Please, let me come with you."

Mark turned away and back to Zach. He spoke Japanese that the girl next to them did not understand, "Don't. She knew what her dad was doing."

"I can't, handle this," the girl next to them started again in such frustration. "My dad's associates, they all knew the things he was doing to those little boys. Casino owners, even government officials who showed up here. I, I couldn't do a thing. For years. And yet you, in one day!" The girl shook her head and her blonde hair waved behind her, a few strands falling wildly in front of her face that she had to push away to show off how much angrier she looked. "I want to help you. Stop people like him."

"Have you, ever fighted before?" Zach asked. He asked her in English that was a bit broken, but the girl in front of him understood what he was asking.

Darling looked over from across the living room where she was looking through drawers and picking up antique items scattered about. There was broken glass around the floor, blood splashed on the carpet, and Leslie's father was dead in the center of the room with a knife plunged into his chest and his hands tied behind his back. The finishing blow dealt by his daughter after he was already tied up was an act of passion, and the people around her had continued wrapping up what they were doing while mainly ignoring the young woman in the middle of the room. Darling kept ignoring her for another few seconds even as she started making a scene again, but then she froze and lifted her eyes up with them growing wide.

"Do you know how to use your Quirk, even?" Zach asked.

"Say it like, 'Do you _even_ know how to use your Quirk. Sounds smoother bro."

Zach noted that in his head for next time as he heard Rebel's voice in his ear. He glanced at Mark while doing it, and he saw Mark give him a quick nod to show he could listen to Rebel this time. Zach's eyes quickly shifted back to the girl who opened her mouth but then clenched her teeth frustratedly as she had never once fought with her Quirk before. "There's nothing she can do for us then," La Brava's voice came in over the comms. "She should be in prison just for knowing about the kind of shit that went down here."

"She cannot help us," Mark agreed in a quiet Japanese voice.

Zach looked deeper into the eyes of the tall blonde girl in front of him, and he frowned but nodded in agreement with what his comrades were saying. He opened his mouth to respond, but Darling spoke up first loudly from behind her, "Hey!" She called it out in English, and Zach looked behind the blonde woman and over to the shorter and younger girl who started walking right up to Leslie. The taller girl eased back and stepped away as Darling walked towards her, stepping a big step over Leslie's father's body without even looking down. "You really want to help?" Darling asked.

"What are you doing?" La Brava asked over their comms.

"Hold on," Rebel said, and the chubby dark skinned man behind his computer a few thousand miles away started grinning big. "I think I know what you're doing young blood. And damn that's fire. You know what I could do with funds like those?"

"Tell me how to ask: 'Are you the one set to inherit your dad's fortune?'" Darling said, talking to Rebel who figured out what she was thinking.

Mark, Gentle, and Zach looked around at each other and then back to the girls as Darling stepped right up to Leslie and looked her up in her blue eyes. Darling's green eyes glowed and she got a dark and serious look on her face while asking in a rough-edged way if Leslie would be keeping her dad's money now that he'd 'kicked the bucket.' "…If we make it look like it wasn't you, that someone broke in here and killed him instead." Darling continued to the girl in front of her whose eyes opened wide. "You could help us a lot more, funding our little group, than you ever could fighting with us."

"I- I don't know how- I don't understand managing this… My dad never taught me. He just, used me. To help with his business, to make deals with, business partners." Leslie bit down on her bottom lip, and Rebel translated in a slow way what the girl was talking about in her quiet, un-explicit way what her dad had been using her for.

Zach and Darling's eyes widened a bit, and Gentle frowned deeper though started looking at the young woman with pity in his eyes. Mark's expression got a lot darker, and he thought about what Leslie had said about the officials knowing what her dad had been doing. "I can help you," Darling said, a phrase she knew how to use in English as it was one of the first she and Zach decided to practice saying in their softest and most convincing tones. Leslie stared at the shorter, younger girl with her eyes opening wide. "Investing. Stocks. I can help you, run your father's business. Rebel, am I saying this stuff right?" Darling switched to Japanese for a second.

"You know how to do shit like that?" Rebel asked in surprise instead of responding to the girl.

Zach smiled a bit while looking towards the girl with long brown hair who started responding to their support guy. He lost his smile a bit though while shifting his gaze to Leslie. "I don't know if we can trust her," Zach began softly and in Japanese. Rebel could see the translation on his computer screen, and everyone else in the building understood what he was saying except for Leslie. "She doesn't seem trustworthy to me. As much as she appears, truly regretful. I don't know if-"

"We do need the money," Rebel started.

"For once," Gentle began too. "I must agree with him."

"No way! You serious Mr. Chivalrous?"

Gentle ground his teeth for a second at the sarcastic tone Rebel started using. "I do not enjoy, agreeing with that unrefined rapscallion. But we have been moving slowly, having trouble avoiding authorities, and we could avoid many of our problems with more money."

"I can really help her make more," Darling said over towards Zach. He looked her way, and her eyes opened wide before she continued, "But I'll tell her off right now if you want me to!"

"I don't know what Gentle just called me," Rebel started in English, as 'unrefined rapscallion' did not translate well over his computer. "So I'll just assume it means 'Awesome mother fucker.' We're right though Zach. You've been moving in a straight line. Enough money and y'all can buy or bribe your way anywhere on Earth. You'll be able to reach a lot more people." Rebel said the last part ending on a higher pitch like he was dangling the option out for Zach to take, which made Zach frown deeper even though he was considering it.

"Oh- hold on. Cee needs some help back downtown," Rebel said, referring to one of their other members who just started talking to him over her comms connection.

Rebel left their link, and Gentle sighed in annoyance before turning to Zach. "That man is insufferable."

"He's rough around the edges," Zach muttered. He sighed himself before looking up at Gentle and continuing, "But he's recruited a lot better than we ever did alone. He's got us more missions without breaks of time where nothing's happening, where all we're doing is running. And he's teaching me English too."

"You shouldn't trust the English that Rebel teaches," Gentle said with a shake of his head.

"I'm being careful of what to retain," Zach replied, glancing over towards Mark who had started looking Leslie up and down again. Zach turned back to the blonde girl himself who was nervously awaiting their decision on her. Zach stepped towards her and he hesitated, then his eyes shifted around the mansion they were in and how rich everything looked. He glanced over towards the body of the girl's father who he no longer felt upset at her for killing after what Rebel explained she was saying. His eyes shifted back to the daughter of the man they came after, and he said in a low English voice, "Can I trust you?" _Everything I'm doing. Everything I'm creating. It's all built on trust. I can't trust anyone. I don't believe it. That's how I know I'm being careful though. I know that trusting the wrong people could mean death for people close to me. I know how important trust is. And I want to see it in your eyes._

"I swear," Leslie started in a choked-off whisper. "I, I want to help. The people my dad hurt. I, never called the police on him. I thought they wouldn't do a thing. I- let him get away with… for so long, what he did to mom." Leslie clenched her eyes shut, then she snapped them open with tears in the corners but a righteous fury in them. "You stopped him. And I, will be the one inheriting his fortune. I'll be the one put in charge of his business, though I'll have to take the power from his business partners. I don't really understand what I'll have to do, but I'll do it. To help you. Because, I know you." The girl in front of Zach looked closer at his face. She stared at his scars, and into his hazel eyes with her blue ones that shook as he looked back at her. "I know who you are. And I trust you," she finished.

 _She already trusts me, more than I trust her. That's not difficult I guess with how hard it is for me to trust… but still. The look in her eyes, is genuine. I believe it is. And Darling, Rebel, Gentle, they're all right._ "I will accept your help-"

"Back again, use 'I'll' when you're saying 'I will' out loud. The contractions sound more fluent. Oh- Cee's back on," Rebel's voice that cut in cut right back off again.

Zach darted his eyes over to Mark, but Mark had a surprised look in his eyes and actually nodded at Zach again. Gentle groaned though as he saw that exchange between the two of them. _He is going to believe that buffoon more now, and it will come back to bite him._

 **Present**

 **Hatto**

Zach climbed up on top of the black humvee driving through the main street of Hatto. He called down into the vehicle below him, "Akhmed! Let everyone know!"

The man in the driver's seat of the big military vehicle below Zach shook his head but reached forward and grabbed the receiver off the dashboard. He brought it up to his mouth while the doors of the humvee all opened up, and the jeep behind them pulled off down another street. The receiver connected to speakers attached on top of their humvee while also locked in to ones on the sand-colored jeep driving a different way through the city now. "People of Hatto!" Akhmed's voice shouted in Arabic. "I'm sure you already know, considering you live here, but Mongoloid is not your just ruler!"

Zach glared down the road and towards a palace up ahead of them they were driving fast straight towards. There was a group of soldiers in the street up ahead of him, and Zach brought his right hand up to the chest of his costume and pressed it flat against his heart with his fingers sliding out the fabric of his glove. A black aura flashed around Zach's body, right as Akhmed yelled in a voice that echoed through their side of the city, "We have come to rid this place of Mongoloid and his Demons and all their followers! This is not our fight, but we came anyway! This is your city! These are your homes! Those are your heroes impaled on Mongoloid's palace! They died for all of you and you're just going to give up?! What did they even die for then?!"

Zach kicked off the roof of the humvee below him and he shot down the road wrapped in a thick black aura that darted to the right as he swung an arm to the left to redirect himself. A volley of bullets flew through the air where Zach was just flying, and the humvee behind Zach spun to the side with the bullets slamming into the bulletproof side just next to Akhmed and making him pull away from a window covering in cracks but not breaking through. Akhmed was sweating, but he brought the receiver to his mouth and shouted louder than ever, "MONGOLOID! We are here for you!"

Zach took in a few deep breaths while creating a Death Grenade on his right palm. He tossed it out onto the street from the alley he dove into.

"Fire!" one of the soldiers leading the group of Mongoloid's men and a few others recruited from the Saudi Arabians they conquered shouted. They fired into the dark explosion where the scary figure that had been fully black from head to toe might be hiding inside. Bullets ripped through the black smoke over and over as the men unloaded their entire magazines. One of them rose up a rocket launcher and fired, and another lifted his arms and fired a beam of orange down the road right in the spot the rocket slammed into.

Explosions ripped apart the last of the black smoke. All of the villains stared towards the explosion, and then one of them started lifting his gaze as he saw a shadow pass over the street just in front of him. The man started lifting his head and saw a shadow dropping from the sky with two large black spheres on his hands. Zach dropped down into the middle of the group and yelled in English, "DEATH BOMB!" His spheres of Death he slammed into the ground flattened beneath his palms and then exploded out to the sides along with all the sand beneath him. The ground looked to rise up in a rippling wave around his slammed down hands, blasting black and sand out to his sides, knocking away and knocking out his enemies.

Zach rose his head and glared down the street towards the palace that stood out a lot in the center of Saudi's capital city. He let out a dark breath that hung over his face, while people on the sides of the road came out of their houses or stood on their roofs and looked down at him. People moved to their windows and stared out with wide eyes as all of Mongoloid's men lay unmoving on the road around the figure covered in black wisps. Zach's visor was made of bone, and not even a red glow escaped it so he just stood there as a silhouette of pure darkness in the street. He glared out towards the palace, at its outer walls where he saw more bodies than were there when their source from Hatto had gotten a picture out to them. _One of those people, is probably the brave guy or girl who told us… DAMN IT!_ **"MONGOLOID!"** Zach roared, his legs wrapping in much thicker flames of Death. He started running forward, black wisps pulling behind his body as he stomped harder and harder and left footprints full of Death down the street. **"I'm coming for you!"**

* * *

 **A/N Thanks for reading! Hope y'all enjoyed the start of the war and a deeper introduction into the characters with Zach now. We've got Rebel, Mark, L (Leslie), Skater and Blackstar, Cee, Akhmed, Hummingbird, Hank, Le-Q... Def having a lot of fun introducing these new characters, new Quirks, and new enemies too. Let me know what you guys think of the new characters, predictions for the ongoing war, or just comments/questions in general in a review below!**

Eedura chapter 96 . 18h ago

Zach help overthrow Coup Leader  
Declared ally of nation  
Profit?

 **$$$ XD $$$? Lol loved the review actually made me laugh.**

TheOneWhoSaysMeep chapter 96 . 21h ago

Very interesting. Zach is going to invade a country now, huh? I shudder to think what the international response to that will be.

 **No more rules. Zach's doing what he wants, and we'll see how people react... Thanks for the review!**

An Average Jo chapter 96 . 13h ago

I love reading characters becoming leaders in a war. It makes them seem more mature and badass. I can't wait to see Class A's reactions to Zach leading a crusade against a country.

 **Awesome! Glad you're into it. Was wondering if the sudden shift in a few chapters from school life to straight up war was too much, but I think it's working out. We'll see about Class A sometime... later. XD Thanks for reviewing!**

Guest chapter 96 . 21h ago

Oh fuck, Zack went from murderer to terrori-Oh I'm sorry, 'FREEDOM FIGHTER' in one chapter.

 **Lol all a matter of perspective I suppose. Thanks for the reviews everyone!**


	98. Chapter 98

**Disclaimer: I don't own Boku no Hero Academia**

 **Chapter 98:**

"Mon- President Mongoloid!"

Mongoloid was marching back through the main hall of his palace towards the front doors. He threw the robe he had been wearing off to the side, and beneath it he had on a costume of dark red with skulls designed in black around it. His arms stuck out of the sleeves of his costume, covered in sleeve-tattoos with dragons and symbols and Kanji letters hidden in the designs. The man loosened up the turban around his head and pulled it down below his mouth, and he glared towards the huge ornate doors of his palace where a man just slipped in through. He slid in through the crack between the doors, and his body reformed from the misty mass it had looked like when he called out the President's name.

"Sir, their helicopter was shot down, but the enemies. They're inside the city. They're, inciting rebellion among the citizens."

"Rebels?" Mongoloid growled. _How did they organize like this so fast?_ The nine foot tall man slowed down and he frowned deeply while glancing at the ground. He lifted his head and said to one of his Seven Demons in front of him, "Slyfer, find out how many of them there are-"

"Sir you don't understand. The incitements are working," Slyfer said in a worried voice. Mongoloid glared towards his subordinate, but Slyfer just glanced at the door behind him nervously and then back forward at his leader, "We're getting in reports from around the east, northeast, southeast, they're all saying that the people are rounding up our forces-"

"Getting reports?" A voice asked from behind Mongoloid. The high-pitched voice made the man reporting to the president freeze and get chills down his spine. He looked behind the country's ruler and back towards the leader of the Seven Demons. Arma walked down a long grand staircase and flipped her black veil up from in front of her face. The woman called down in Japanese as they had all been speaking, "How is it that we are suddenly able to receive such reports?"

"The enemies, they're taking down WhyFight's towers. All our men at those stations are getting taken down!"

Arma stopped on the steps and she stared over towards the skinny villain with a surprised look on her face. She turned a bit to Mongoloid who glanced back towards her too. "How can rebels be doing this?" Arma questioned in a low, angry hiss. She had been ready to go stomp out rebellion, but the idea that WhyFight's towers were being targeted en-masse was alarming. "Get me WhyFight!" She yelled towards Slyfer.

"He's across the city! In the finance-" Slyfer stopped arguing and stared with huge eyes at the terrifying looks both of the others started giving him. He nodded his head and took a step back towards the doors behind him, "I mean. There are enemies all over the city. But I'll, get him here as soon as I-"

The right of the two doors behind Slyfer started pushing inwards. Slyfer turned his head and looked over his shoulder. His eyes started opening wide, as black wisps seeped through the widening crack in the door. The door stopped opening after a couple of feet, and the black wisps seeping in from the floor to about five feet up slowly faded away. The three villains in the grand hall stared silently towards the door with hesitant or confused looks. Slyfer started backing up towards Mongoloid who moved the opposite direction closer to the doors, while Arma just glared harsher towards the open door with her orange eyes that had vertical black slits in the centers.

Out in the city through the open doors they could hear the screams and roars of people gathering about getting louder. Mongoloid did not understand what Slyfer was so hesitant about when told to go across the city, but in the last few minutes from when he was last looking out from his balcony to the city's east side where he thought he saw the smoke from the enemy's destroyed helicopter, it sounded like full scale riots had started. "Who's there?" Mongoloid asked towards the door. He paused, then he asked again louder, this time in Arabic instead of Japanese, "Who is there?!"

 _He speaks Japanese? More than that, it was his go-to._ Zach lifted up the hilt of a knife and he slammed it forward into the glass window he had brought himself up to with his grappling hook. He dropped at the same time and fired the retracted grappling hook over towards a different ledge on the outside of the palace's front walls. Zach smashed another knife through that window, then he tapped his chest with his right hand and he threw a black knife through the window while glass was shattering inwards. _Look at the knife._ Zach dropped down and sprinted forward towards the crack in the doors he had opened up already.

Mongoloid had his head lifted up and looking to the right as he saw something black looking like the same wisps he saw come through the door before. He clenched his fists and glared up towards it, only for those wisps to fade so he could see the knife inside. His head spun back down and to the left, as he saw darkness out the corners of his eyes. Mongoloid's eyes opened huge under the top of his turban, and his bottom lip lowered while he took a step back. Standing there crouched down on top of Slyfer's back was a figure covered in black tendrils of darkness from head to toe. He stepped off of Slyfer and then kicked him to the side hard enough that the unmoving man rolled across the floor and slammed into a pillar holding up the second floor high above.

 _The helmet's visor keeps any red from showing. As I look now, may be the most terrifying. More than with bones, or flaring red eyes, just a single mass of pure darkness could be the worst of all._ Zach rose up his head a bit and breathed out heavier, and a thicker steam of darkness left his helmet to rise around his head. "Mongoloid, you are a villain," Zach started in his native language and made the figure in front of him open his eyes wider at the sound of Japanese in the middle of Saudi Arabia. The dark, scratchy voice coming out of the wispy figure in front of him was menacing, but Mongoloid's eyes shifted up and down the figure who was five and a half feet tall, not even half Mongoloid's width at the shoulders.

"Who are you?" Mongoloid asked. _Touching him is bad. What happened to Slyfer? What the fuck is this?_ "Why is it you know Japanese?"

"My exact question," Zach replied. "Aren't you supposed to be the rebel leader? The one who took over because of the successful protests of your people? You don't look very Arab," Zach looked closer under the man's turban and examined his face in a reddish-black-tinted vision. _Where do I recognize him from!?_ Zach thought while staring at the face that was not all that covered by the turban anymore. _Oh my God,_ Zach realized, right as the man in front of him started smirking.

Mongoloid had been unnerved, confused by what he was seeing. The fact that this dark being did not know everything though, even if he was being sarcastic with his questions like he did know it was not true, it meant that it was not the worst case scenarios he was imagining in his head. Mongoloid bent his knees and then leapt up in the air and far backwards through the palace hall to the bottom of the steps just below Arma. "I knew the people of this country could not incite a rebellion on their own. Not with the barriers in place. No foreign country would have dared do this either. Who are you? You trying to take this country for yourself?!"

"It's a good move," the woman walking up next to Mongoloid started. She grinned over at the dark form while her voice that came out as a hiss started echoing around the hall. Zach felt his body inside the dark aura shiver but he tried keeping his aura steady while facing his enemies. "Taking over after us, inciting the people to think you're on their side. You'd have even more control. A genuine power over them, one that would have taken us months to create _hereeee_."

 _An attack. What's her Quirk-_ Zach yanked his head to the side while his red eyes darted down to his left inside his helmet. A slash ripped through the black aura around his neck, and blood splashed out behind him. An explosion of darkness erupted under Zach's feet and he darted over towards Slyfer's body and right behind the thick pillar the man had slammed into. Zach's left hand shot up into his aura and he grabbed at his neck, _How deep? It hurts. But, I think I'm good. Focus Death- no! That doesn't work. That's how I died. I need a better measure._ Zach lowered his left hand that had blood visible on his glove through the dark aura. He formed a Death Grenade on his palm right as he heard the woman's hissing voice over near the stairs.

"You can try to _HIDE!_ " Rocks blasted out from the sides of the pillar, and then Zach leapt out from behind it with his left arm swinging forward. His eyes opened huge behind his visor, at the sight of Mongoloid more than halfway back across the hall almost at him.

"This is _MY_ country!" Mongoloid roared, and he leapt up and right over the Death Grenade Zach threw at him. Zach clenched his fist, Mongoloid's eyes darted down, Arma leapt away farther back in the room. Zach dove to his left as Mongoloid kicked his legs down and blasted away the black wind rising for him. Arma ran up the stairs to avoid some wisps coming for her, but she grinned while looking back and seeing they had faded before reaching her anyway.

 _Mongoloid is strong. How strong? Strong enough to push away ranged Death. His reflexes were fast too._ Zach came out of a roll and pushed both hands and feet down below him to bounce himself back and away from where Mongoloid was coming down with his right hand opened up and curled forward like a claw. His huge hand had no sharp nails sticking out or anything, but Zach was wary of the stance the man had while dropping at him. Mongoloid swung his arm up at where Zach started dodging, and the force from the swing of his arm was so strong it lifted him off the ground and threw him back into the wall.

Zach slammed into the wall and he forced Death behind him just a second too late. The force was powerful, he coughed and black steam blew away from his head. Mongoloid looked down to his left where Zach had rolled onto his hands and knees before jumping away as Mongoloid was coming down at that spot. Mongoloid stared at some blood that had dripped on the floor there and some that was in the shape of a handprint too. He grinned and lifted his head towards the black form that dropped from the wall and then snapped its head up while back on its hands and knees.

Zach rose his right hand. He tapped himself on the head, and he made his aura vanish in an instant. _Need a second,_ he thought, and he started panting loudly while pushing himself up a bit. "I recognize you," Zach said in Japanese, his voice losing its deep and scary pitch. He stood up in his tight black costume that had a thicker vest over his torso. Without his black aura Mongoloid could see all the weapons strapped to him that kept the man from charging at the boy who had seemingly made himself defenseless. The figure before him had a voice that did not sound very old, he was shorter than the average man, yet he was wearing high-grade military hardware and looked like some kind of super soldier. "You broke out of Tartaros, didn't you?"

Mongoloid stared at the figure before him for a few seconds. He looked into that dark visor, then he stared behind the boy at the doors and the noises that were getting a lot louder outside them. He reached up his right hand and grabbed the turban on his head, "Well fuck it." Mongoloid ripped it off and tossed it to the side, a smirk spreading across his face. He had an X-shaped scar on top of his bald scalp and there were tattoos around it just like the teeth-like tats under his bottom lip going along the bottom of his chin and around his jaw-line. "You got me. I'm actually glad someone finally recognized-"

 _If I had killed Kurogiri the first chance I had. The first time he sent me through a portal without the box. None of this. This entire country- all the heroes on spikes outside!_ Zach snapped his left hand up at his side and dug it into one of the pouches over his thigh. He pulled out a needle full of purple liquid and brought it fast up to his neck where blood was still coming out of the slash in his costume. He was bringing his right hand up to his chest at the same time. He had not yet hit himself in the chest though, Mongoloid was still running at him but started skidding as he decided against attacking when that black aura was about to reappear. Zach did not yet have his red eyes, yet instead of them darting to Mongoloid whose feet were skidding to a stop anyway, they darted over Mongoloid's left shoulder.

Zach tried moving his left hand faster, though he yanked his neck away at the same time and then just started releasing the vial. _**"EEEEIIIIEEE!"**_ Arma screeched so hard that a visible piercing split in the air cut from her mouth right over Mongoloid's shoulder and through the vial Zach had pulled his hand away from. Zach's eyes darted towards the vial shattering and then back to Arma, then to the glass and the purple liquid splashing away, then to Mongoloid whose eyes widened before his mouth started twisting up and his feet pulling the other way stopped again. _How did I? Outside of Nightmare… No time to- except, there is time. I'm thinking faster. Like in Nightmare. No I'm not!_ Zach started panicking as everything fell faster on his left, as the red glow in his eyes that he could not see himself faded completely and his eyes were hazel again. He finished slamming his right hand into his chest right as Mongoloid jumped forward again.

Mongoloid thought that Arma's sudden attack stopping the enemy from injecting would cause a longer pause in his opponent. He swung both arms down fast before reaching the kid fighting him, while Zach swung his right arm out from his chest and his left forward above the falling glass and unused Trigger. Black wind pushed at Mongoloid from close, but the force from the swings of Mongoloid's huge arms slammed it right back and into Zach who forced a lot more Death behind him this time before slamming into the wall. Zach pushed out Death from the front of his body too, creating a wall of it in front of him by pushing as much as he could. _Running low. Should have fought more without Nightmare before getting here._

Zach darted away behind the dark veil. Mongoloid slammed a fist towards the wall of Death, punched a hole straight through it and pushed the rest of the darkness away. He stared in confusion on the other side, then snapped his head back and forth but did not see his opponent anywhere. _Where'd he go?_

Zach held his breath and slipped into the shadows of the room. He was panting, and he reached his left hand up and rubbed his neck again. _Need to stop the bleeding. Can't give these two time to organize troop movements. Can't let them go out and face the people we've gotten to rise against them. That's just for them to be a part of it. They shouldn't have to fight. I can do this!_ He started lifting his right hand to his head.

"Did he leave?" Mongoloid snapped back towards Arma, though he kept his gaze shifting around the hall as he felt like that figure did not slip out the cracked-open doors even though the darkness had blocked them from his sight for a few seconds.

"You were going to use Trigger right there, weren't you?" Arma called out, answering Mongoloid's question at the same time as she was interrogating their enemy. "That shows me you don't think you're winning. It's too bad about your vial though. Now what are you going to do?" She yelled it towards one side of the room in particular, and Zach shifted in the shadows behind a pillar before stepping out without the dark aura around his body anymore.

Zach stood there in his costume next to a pillar, keeping both Arma and Mongoloid in his vision. Mongoloid started marching towards him and then jogging, not going to let him activate his dark mode again. Arma pursed her lips in an o-shape and started blowing air through them, and then she froze. She froze, as the dark-clothed figure opened his bloody left hand and dropped a needle. "Who said I only had one vial on me?" He asked. "Now!" He shouted.

"I really don't like to hit a lady!"

Mongoloid snapped his head from the boy he stopped charging at over to the stairs where a figure just shot in out of nowhere and slammed a fist into Arma's right cheek. The dark figure with a purple cape and purple highlights on his costume glanced to his left after the woman he hit went flying across the stairs and off the side into a hallway breaking off of the first floor. In a quieter voice the villains running the country did not hear, Gentle said, "If you lose your mind here-"

"I won't," Zach replied. _What does Trigger do to me when I'm not in Nightmare? Would touching any part of my body kill Mongoloid right now? If I go Nightmare, can I dilute Death enough not to kill- That's a stupid question. I could control it enough not to kill Kurogiri for longer than I ever could without it. Trigger, just makes me stronger. I don't feel out of control right now. I can think clearly. Because, I know it's my fault. Stay angry at myself. Kurogiri, letting him live for so long, killed so many people. Mongoloid taking over this country is something I created. Something I have to fix. I know that's not really true. I know it's not on me- it's on him! KILL! FUCK!_ "I swear," Zach growled in a deeper voice, while feeling the white bandage pressed to his neck by his skin-tight costume starting to soak through. "I won't lose here. Not my mind. Not this fight. Nothing."

Zach pulled a couple of knives off of his belt and started running at Mongoloid. He threw the knife in his right hand, flicking it forward and continuing to bring his right hand back towards himself while lifting his left up like he was about to slash it. His right hand hit himself in the chest at the same time that Mongoloid punched his left fist through the first knife Zach threw. _Those knives are titanium. Over!_ Zach's body turned into a black mass that shot up in the air over the shards of steel and force of the wind that came off of Mongoloid's punch. As Zach rose though, his eyes opened wide on the outside of his huge black aura, eyes that started glowing red while Mongoloid lifted up his hand and stabbed himself in the arm with a needle that looked similar to Zach's but with a darker pink liquid inside instead of purple.

Zach forced Death out behind him to fly faster at Mongoloid. Mongoloid had seen Slyfer go down barely being touched by this dark figure outside of using Trigger. He was not taking any chances. The self-declared President of Saudi Arabia snapped his head up while lifting both arms over his head. Zach swung his right hand forward and then kicked up his left leg that extended out towards Mongoloid. Mongoloid slammed both fists down into the ground below his feet. The ground of the hall dipped down into a huge crater with wind blasting away from him, breaking apart Zach's extending leg and slamming his Triggered body backwards with Zach yelling out in pain as his mostly un-formed body pulled apart.

 _Create a core!_ He screamed in his head as he felt his consciousness slipping. He imagined how he had formed such a thick center inside the demonic creature he had taunted Kaminari with, right before flying out of it inside that core to capture Kurogiri. It focused his thoughts and made his vision that was getting blurry get clear again. It was hard to see with so much smoke and dust flying everywhere, but the black form spinning around in midair threw its arms out in front of it anyway and poured Death towards the center where the dust was thickest. Zach's body got solid while he forced out a lot of Death below his legs to keep him up, and just as much out of his arms down into the center. _Slow down. Don't want to suddenly feel a pulse of power. I can't kill-_ In the corners of Zach's eyes he saw something moving in the smoke at the same time he heard loud cracks breaking behind him.

Zach turned his head, his red eyes glowing through his aura and growing wider at the sight of one of the massive pillars holding up the ceiling being pulled backwards like a baseball bat. The pillar swung forward, and Zach's body spiraled up in the air in a coil only for the coil to be split by the pillar-bat. Zach let out a roar, **"RRAAAA!"** He turned around in midair and focused on the Death down below where he was split, pulling it up towards his body and watching as it merged with the rest. _I control Death. All of it. As long as there's a core, I can scatter!_ The long thick spiral of Zach's body blew apart in every direction and he just focused more on keeping himself high in the air with thinner trails coming straight out the legs he had created. All the rest of the Death from what his body had just been, blew away in a dozen different thick plumes of black smoke whipping around the room.

Mongoloid tossed the pillar and he slammed it through another one, and cracks broke apart on the ceiling. Some villains who just reached the palace to come help out slowly backed away from the front doors they opened up as they looked inside. Through the settling dust and ash, a dozen black pillars of death swirled around the room and shot after their leader who started sprinting up a wall with his feet digging in and making cracks branch off every footprint. Mongoloid dropped his hands into the wall when he got higher and he ripped backwards as he saw the dark form point arms at him and start firing Death straight form his body. Mongoloid threw chunks of wall in the way of Zach's closest attacks to him, smashing through a couple of them. Then as Zach curved other pillars around and tried slamming them into where Mongoloid should have been, he realized that the enemy was no longer there.

Zach shot towards the hole in the wall with the pillars of Death from around the room flying together behind him and merging back into his body. _Solid form. Solid form. Get the weapons-_ Zach made it through the hole in the wall, and then he split his body in the middle again and dodged a door flying straight towards him down a long hallway. Mongoloid glared down towards Zach, then he slammed both fists out to the sides. Zach's eyes opened wide as he realized there were already cracks going down both walls on his sides all the way towards Mongoloid. His feet turned to gas and his body started racing forward, and the ceiling collapsed down on top of him. _Swerve between the rubble! FASTER!_

Mongoloid leapt up in the air, smashed through the ceiling into the floor above with a huge grin on his face. He charged forward after hitting the next floor, and Zach could hear thunderous footsteps above him about to head the other way over his head. _He's going- no! He's speeding the collapse?! He's insane, but he's a great fighter. I'll give him that. His instincts. His reflexes. His strength. That's not natural strength. It's more than Inhuman's, but Inhuman claimed to reach the peak of human potential without a Quirk. That means, his Quirk is his strength. I can escape this! I can beat him! ESCAPE! WIN!_ Zach forced his body forward as fast as he could, slipping through cracks of falling ceiling and letting out a yell as he felt some of his gaseous or conceptual body crushing and getting left behind him.

Outside of the palace, Akhmed stood on an outer wall of the palace looking down into the courtyard at a group of Mongoloid's soldiers who were trying to figure out what to do. _They look Arab. Does that mean they aren't with him? Zach reported Mongoloid's from Japan. Mark said the villains of this country were recruited though. Could also be actual soldiers. In Hatto though? Although closest to Mongoloid so where he should have the most power, it's likely the opposite with his real influence. The people here know most, so if they're with Mongoloid… I should still give them a chance though._

Some loud shouting behind Akhmed got him to turn and take a step towards the other side of the palace's outer walls. _Or maybe, I don't need to do a thing,_ he thought at the sight of the crowd amassed and heading for the palace. _Might've done a bit too well, Darling._ Akhmed stared at the girl who was yelling at the American reporter next to her who she freed from jail and who spoke English, Japanese, and Arabic. The man who was going to be used as a political prisoner later on in Mongoloid's plans yelled out in Arabic, and more of the others around the front of the crowd shouted farther back too, yelling encouragement for the people and inciting a rebellion.

 _ **CRASH!**_ Akhmed saw the huge crowd heading down a main street towards the palace from the south slow down. They stared behind him and towards the palace, and he spun around only to stare with wide eyes behind his visor too at the explosion of darkness that blew out one of the walls of the magnificent palace. A few seconds later, something shook the entire building but shattered all the windows on the right side of the third floor. Cracks formed on top of one of the domed roofs on the top right side of the building, and then a hole blew through the wall in the middle of the second floor.

While most of the civilians stopped and stared towards the palace confusedly or in fear after seeing that dark explosion, the girl leading them and screaming at them all to stop being such cowards opened her mouth and let out the loudest scream, "That is our leader! Fighting for you because none of you will!" The American man in his mid-fifties standing next to the girl spun to her in surprise, then he shouted the same thing loudly in Arabic for the confused people behind him to hear. "He's fighting Mongoloid on his own!" Darling started running forward, her arms transforming at her sides into assault rifles she rose up in front of her. Her arms broke right through the dark sleeves of her costume while transforming, and her voice roared out through the visor of her helmet right before a chorus of louder roars echoed behind her from the crowd charging at the closing gates of the palace.

Inside the palace in a giant kitchen on the first floor, one of the walls was covered in flames. The stoves and ovens were smashed apart and gas pipes sticking into them were broken with flames pouring out into the air. A woman on one side of the room with a nasty burn on the right side of her face threw her flaming robe to the side in a flustered way and then snapped her head back and snarled towards the man she was facing. "HOW?!" She yelled at him, while her enemy stood there without a scratch on him. His black uniform actually looked pristine to a point it was impossible to tell he had just crossed a desert, half a country, fought a couple of fighter jets- and won, pulled a bunch of people out of a crashing helicopter, and broke into a nation's top executive's palace to attack the president's wife.

Danjuro Tobita was panting inside his helmet, though he breathed in through his nose and out his mouth to try and keep it from being audible. " _HOW?!_ " Arma shouted at the man in all black, and her voice pierced the air with the yell that became visible as it shot towards the unmoving man. He had already acted though, while Arma was still staggering to the spot she was in now and trying to rip off her enflamed robe. The attack she shouted at the man bounced back, and Gentle's eyes opened wide inside his helmet as the woman's left arm ripped off at the shoulder. Blood splashed out of the wound while she turned her head in utter shock and horror.

"AAAHHEEEE!" She stumbled to the side and then kept screaming louder while swinging her head around. Arma tried screaming her Quirk towards Gentle who was getting blurrier in her shaking snake-like eyes while her face got paler and blood spouted out of her shoulder everywhere. Cuts slashed through the roof and walls, her voice split flames and cut the pipe they were coming out of to fill the room with a lot more all of a sudden.

"You fool," Gentle said, while the screams aimed directly at him bounced off the wall he had created in the air. He lifted his left hand closer to the flames and made a wall there, blocking the flames that bounced away and then slamming his own fist into that Elasticity wall. Gentle bounced himself over towards a hole in the wall on the opposite side of the billowing flames, and he made another wall as he rose into a hallway, bouncing himself back the other direction right as _**BOOOOOOM!**_ The kitchen behind him exploded, flames erupted out of it and into the hall behind Gentle, while the man in all black shot away and then flew himself towards a doorway he smashed down at full speed.

Gentle bounced himself out to the right after making it through the door, and he still had to dive after landing as a huge jet of flames flew into the room behind him. "Oh shit! You good Gentle? What the fuck was that-"

"Would you, shut up?" Gentle said in a low, annoyed voice. He pressed his hands down on the floor below him and dragged himself up to his knees too. He kept panting, and he shook his head around before lifting it and turning to the left where he stared into a hallway full of flames. The doorway he had smashed through was engulfed too, as was part of the carpet of this room and more of it every second. Gentle started up to his feet, _This is ridiculous. Ludicrous!_ Gentle staggered over to the wall on his left and he pressed a hand on it while bringing his other to his helmet. _It's so stuffy in here. I should take-_ "Ahhh," Gentle sighed and he lowered his right hand from his helmet. _It is not that hot._ Gentle looked towards the flames. _Or perhaps, it is not just an excuse to take it off._

"Hey, just tryna be a nice guy here, asshole," Rebel said to the man who groaned at the voice in his head.

 _If only I could mute him._

"What happened with that Arma bitch? That explosion sounded nasty-"

"She is dead," Gentle said.

Rebel got cut off by Gentle who had no lag between when he spoke and when Rebel heard it. The towers around Hatto were being taken down, and messages were traveling better without WhyFight's control over the signals. Rebel paused for a second, then he said while leaning back in his chair, "Nice. Bitch was a savage from what Anon 5 got out before she-"

"She did it, to herself," Gentle muttered.

Mica frowned. He stopped leaning back on his chair behind his computer, and he leaned forward with the right corner of his lip dipped far down. The chubby, dark-skinned man sitting in a dark room with three screens in front of him stared at the main one he had his most important windows up on. "Your forces have to keep moving across the damn country, but y'all have more prisoners already than you have troops to fucking watch them!" Rebel glared at the screen and just heard panting from the man he was only locked into communications with at the moment. "Why the hell is Zach such a pussy about killing the bad guys?" Rebel asked.

"I did not kill Arma," Gentle said in a low voice. It sounded to him like Rebel was asking the question because he thought Gentle might agree with him after what he just did. _Her own attack just bounced off my Gently Rebound. Then the fool attacked too wildly. What a mess._ "And we are not here to kill anyone. I, should have," Gentle paused and he frowned towards the flaming hallway, then he turned and started towards a window covered in cracks. Those cracks extended in size as the whole building shook around him from something that was not an after-explosion back in the kitchen. "Found a way to capture her," Gentle finished. He said it in Japanese and then smashed the window.

It sounded like he was done talking to Rebel as he switched back to his native language and was getting moving again, but Rebel had his translator and shook his head as he saw what Gentle just said. "You're being too soft."

"And you still have not learned," Gentle replied. He leapt out of the window and then swung an arm below himself to bounce to a balcony on an upper floor. His eyes darted from inside his helmet out to the city, and he saw smoke rising from a couple of different points. Gentle landed on the railing of the balcony and stared out past the western edge of the city, and he watched as a huge radio tower started toppling though he lost sight of it behind some tall buildings between the palace and it. "Not since that day in Hawaii. You are still naive."

"Nah, you're just being a puss' and making excuses," Rebel replied.

"Do you really think it is that easy?" Gentle questioned. "To kill a person?"

"How do you know I haven't killed no one before?" Rebel asked, sounding smug and smirking as he did. "All you know's my name bro, so don't-"

"Do you really think," Gentle cut in, "that you have the experience to question his stance on killing?" This time Rebel shut up and he started frowning at his screen more but leaned back a bit with a thoughtful look on his face. "To call him a 'pussy' with the number of people he has killed? Instead of criticizing his methods. Our methods. Why don't you do your job, and go talk to someone who wants your help?" Gentle turned and headed back into the palace with a small grin on his face. He took a few steps inside, then watched as the room in front of the balcony he stepped into broke apart. Each of the walls cracked, the ceiling blew apart, and two figures came smashing down through it entangled and swinging at each other.

Gentle crossed his arms and leapt back at the same time. He skid back on the soles of his feet and then waved his arms in front of his face to push away the dust and debris still pushing at him. _**Eeerk- creeaak!**_ Gentle saw a shadow lift up in the rubble. It was dark, but nowhere near as black as Zach would be. The figure stood nine feet tall and let out a low growl, "Grrrr…" The growl faded. Then the shadow fell forward, and with a thud the room became silent for a few seconds.

Dust settled, and Gentle carefully stepped into the room while keeping his eyes peeled on the cracking ceiling around the hole. His eyes shifted to the walls and then to the floor beneath him that creaked a lot with his next step. Gentle stopped as the creaking got louder from in front of him though he was no moving that much. He stared towards some rubble from the ceiling that shifted to the sides so a black arm could reach up from the pile. More of the rubble shifted around, and a dark figure climbed out from beneath it and pushed himself up on the top of the pile of debris near the center of the room. "Fuck," the dark figure down on his hands and knees muttered, feeling a solid body in his dark mass and his heart pounding very hard inside it.

"You alright?"

Zach snapped his head up so fast and brought his right arm up with his fingers curled out in front of him. The man he rose his hand at swept a hand in front of his body and made the air Elastic. "Sorry," Zach said after seeing the man protect himself from a coming attack. He lowered his right arm and Gentle kept frowning in his helmet but lowered his arms too. He looked over to the form that was more visible now that the air of the room had stopped being so dusty.

"I take it he was no problem for you," Gentle remarked.

 _How did you get that idea?_ Zach thought, as he pushed his hands down below him but started coughing up black smoke. He lifted his left hand while sitting up on his knees, and he grabbed at his neck through his dark aura as he felt his body fully reformed inside the aura, along with the injury he received earlier. "Not at all," Zach said with a dark look over towards Mongoloid. His red eyes were no longer visible inside his aura, making him just a pitch black form that started rising up in the middle of the room. "Ahh, haa, ahh- ack," Zach panted a few times heavier after struggling up to his feet. "Fuck," he gasped out again. _Using Trigger while already low on Nightmare means it doesn't last as long. Good to know. Learning experience. Learning,_ "Fuuucckk," Zach's body hunched over and he grabbed at his chest that he felt pounding so much harder all of a sudden to a point it was causing him pain.

"I told you not to be so quick to use drugs-" Gentle began.

"I told you so? Really?" Zach gasped out, lifting his head a bit and looking at Gentle through his visor as grabbing at his chest with his right hand deactivated his Nightmare aura. "We have, shit to do." Zach lowered his hand from his chest, and he rubbed at the left side of his neck where he felt the wet gauze he stuffed into his costume against the wound still there. _Doesn't feel like it's still bleeding. Dizzy from the Trigger, from being low on strength, exhausted, hot as hell, but blood loss could be taking effect. Yet if I can still function with all those other things, then the blood loss isn't too bad. It didn't feel deep. My ribs though. It hurts just standing. This sucks. I need a healer. Soon._

"Hey! Everybody hear me?" La Brava's voice filled Zach and Gentle's ears. "Yes! Alright I got it." The young woman back at the first tower near the eastern border where their force entered from leaned back from her laptop she plugged into the main computer. "All the other towers are shut down-"

"I just found WhyFight!" Another voice called out, this time a man who had gone with Zach to Hatto and was out in the city at the moment. "He's deactivating his Quirk."

"I did it first!" La Brava shouted in frustration, as she had just spent over an hour and a half trying to crack through the system connecting all the towers. It was apparently for nothing, and Gentle and Zach both sweatdropped as they understood the frustration the short woman was feeling. "Whatever! Communications are up around the country. Finish it up-"

"Just took down, Mongoloid," Zach said while putting his hand on the side of his dark helmet. He panted a few times, listened to shouts and cheers from others who were all connected on the line at the moment. "It's not over though. Capture all his forces. Let everyone know. Ah, haa, and keep focused. We're in a warzone. Everybody check in, current status…"

* * *

"Who?" Zach asked, freezing where he was on the first floor of Hatto's executive palace. He stopped where he was and stared across the room with his eyes opened wide, his heart rate speeding up so much and filling with pain as he heard Mark repeat the name in his earpiece.

Gentle looked over from where he was sitting at the bottom of the steps in the big entrance hall. He stared towards Zach's back as the boy standing there rose both hands up to his head and ran his hands through his hair. Zach's helmet was down clipped on his side like Gentle's was, and they had the air conditioning on which still worked despite most of the windows being broken and there being cracks on the walls and holes in the ceiling. They were still sweating even with the air conditioning, but Gentle had found a good spot directly where one of the vents pointed at to sit in and rest for a bit. The gray-haired man with a bushy mustache and thin beard narrowed his eyes over towards Zach while listening in to Zach's side of his conversation, as well as to an open line between the rest of the soldiers that Gentle could hear in his right ear.

"What's the damage?"

"It's," Mark started on the other side of the line. The older man looked down and to his left at the body a member of his team he had regrouped with just brought to him. "Bad," he said in a low voice. "Bullet went through his head. Part of his skull is-"

"How far away?" Zach asked fast.

"Zach-"

"Call me Commander now Mark," Zach said in a low voice, serious and without hesitation. "How far?"

Mark's eyes widened for a second but then got softer again before he said, "We're two hours out from Hatto. By the time we reach-"

"If I head that way, it's only one hour," Zach countered. Mark's eyes widened again, and Zach continued, "I can do that. Now start back towards Hatto!"

"Yeah, you got it. We're ready anyway," Mark turned to his guys and shouted towards them. "We'll get there as soon as possible." He paused after calling to them, then he said in a lower voice while cupping a hand over his earpiece, "It's already been, thirty, forty minutes since…"

Zach ran his left hand up through his hair again and then he spun his head straight towards the doors. "Just do-"

"Commander," Gentle said, standing up and starting towards the kid who spun around to face him. "What do you think you're doing?"

Zach stared at Gentle with wide eyes for a second, then he narrowed them and lowered his hand from his earpiece. "Muhammed, The Gorrani Boxer, he got hit by a bullet and it killed him. I'm going to meet Mark halfway and bring him-"

"You're not leaving here," Gentle said, shaking his head and glaring at the younger man who glared harder right back at him.

"I have to," Zach started.

"Why don't you check the open channel?" Gentle suggested. Zach frowned at him for a few seconds and then lifted his left hand and tapped his earpiece since waiting to argue any longer would be a waste of time. Zach tapped his headset and listened to the rest of the Army of Death and their support team.

"…Twenty minutes out ourselves."

"We're heading back to the capital as ordered."

"Cee, how many prisoners with you?"

"Sixty with the first group. A lot of civvies helping us out transport to the capital. The Demon we caught is with them. The next group has another thirty prisoners, and they're heading back a lot faster because Grabble and Tina's bodies are being transported with them."

"Tina's body was pretty burned up, can the Commander really-"

"Get them here faster," Zach said in English that most of the comms were in. All the communications paused for a second, then a few different people replied 'Understood.'

Zach cut off his headset for a second and he lowered his head while thinking as fast as he could. _They're north! Fuck! FUCK! How long until they reach? I can't go up to meet them or it'll just be longer to get back southwest to Mark. How long ago were Tina and Grabble? If I go for Mark first because it was longer, what if the two of them- two instead of one? No! All three._ He brought his hand to his earpiece again and snapped, "Is anyone else-"

"We're all accounted for here."

"Rest of southern teams are alive. Blackstar's got it pretty rough, but he'll pull through. Rib pierced a lung."

"Capital team is all fine Commander."

Zach lowered his hand from his earpiece again and he clenched his eyes shut. _Three still isn't alright! I need to bring them all back!_

Gentle pulled his earpiece out, and he stepped closer to Zach and pulled his off too. Zach lifted his head fast as he did not even notice Gentle had gotten that close to him, then he stared with wide eyes as the taller man tossed their earpieces over to the side. He tossed them towards the hall covered in burnt walls that the flames had been put out in a little while ago, and Zach spun towards them before turning back to the tall man glaring down into his eyes. "What are you doing?" Zach snapped as Gentle was doing something right now that was preventing him from coordinating plans.

"You don't get to leave right now," Gentle said. He glared harshly down at Zach and then said in an angry voice, "If you go south to bring Muhammed back, I'm going to ruin everything."

"What?" Zach asked, too confused to come up with anything else. He stared at Gentle confusedly and then in a more frustrated way, "I don't know what you're doing. I can't save him unless I meet halfway-"

"And those other two coming back here?" Gentle questioned.

"I'll save them too."

"And while you're doing all of that, everything you set up falls apart," Gentle said.

Zach glared at Gentle for a few seconds, then he shook his head and turned back towards the big doors at the front of the palace. Gentle said as Zach took a step, "You cannot be the tank, and the healer, and the leader. Not at all times."

Zach glared towards those doors and then back at the taller man who was scolding him. "I can try," Zach growled.

"You are needed here right now." Gentle glared harder at Zach and did not back down at the dark look in the younger boy's eyes, "If you leave, I will go out there without my helmet. I will announce that the Gentle Criminal has saved Saudi Arabia."

"You wouldn't," Zach started.

"Do not test me," Gentle warned, and Zach's eyes shook at the tone in his ally's voice. "That is what I would most like to do right now, and you overestimate me." Gentle stepped towards Zach who fully turned back around to stare at him with wide eyes. "You overestimate the people of this country to hold together if you give up so easily on your plan to deal with this 'delicate' situation. Your words. Your plan. You don't get to leave now, at this, the pivotal moment." Gentle glared harder at the boy whose eyebrows started rising and his breath speeding up at what Gentle was telling him. "You overestimate your own abilities: to save everyone, defeat all the bad guys, and establish a lasting peace? You _can't_ do that. Not with the current forces you have."

"I- I have to-" Zach tried forcing it out angrily, but his hands clenched at his sides and started shaking as he thought about what Gentle was telling him. Behind him he could hear voices shouting, roaring over each other through the broken windows at the front of the palace. He glanced over his shoulder and towards the front door where a large number of people were gathered inside of, unconscious and piled up on top of each other.

"You can't save them all," Gentle said.

"They followed me!" Zach spun and shouted at the man behind him. Gentle had spoken in a softer, understanding voice when he saw Zach looking back at the enemies they had captured like he was accepting what he had to do. Gentle started frowning as Zach did not have that accepting look anymore though, but he also could not look as angry at the kid whose eyes started shaking after what he just shouted. Zach stepped towards Gentle with an angry look, then he froze and pulled his face back at the pitying one on his ally's face. "They came here, because _I_ told them to. This was my plan. I- three of them died- I should have made a better plan."

"Maybe," Gentle agreed. Zach's eyes shot open wider as Gentle did not deny him but just accepted what he said might hold truth. "Yet that doesn't make a difference to what you need to do now." Zach's fists clenched so much harder in frustration, and he clenched his eyes shut this time too as he felt water pulling at them. His chest ached and he felt a pounding sensation in his head not from blood loss or Trigger after-effects or exhaustion or heat. "The two of them being rushed here, you can probably save. Taking an entire country, you lost a single man."

"Muhammed was Akhmed's friend. They were going to fight SISIS together, and they joined because I told them we'd help. He shouldn't have even been here." Zach shook his head and clenched his eyes so much tighter. _Why? Why?! What did I do wrong?_

"You need to take responsibility, but you can't let it show like this. You can't just do whatever and break off from the plan. You can't break down. If you do, who can they turn to?" Gentle questioned. He looked down at the boy and spoke about the rest of the group, not including himself by using 'they.' Yet as much as he was telling Zach that the rest of them needed to look to him while he did not, he was also saying in it that it was not like the rest of them could just turn to him instead. "I am not you. I will not stay here, and do what needs to be done. Coming from me it would mean nothing, for I would not have the conviction you do." Zach rose his gaze up into Gentle's eyes as the older man finished, "Finish your plan. Do what needs to be done, what you yourself claimed needs to be done. Only you can do it. And our man who died, he didn't come here because you forced him to. He came because of the same reasons everyone else followed you. What did he die for, if you fall apart here?"

"It hurts," Zach whispered. He stared into the older man's eyes that widened for a second before returning to their same look. _Killing Mongoloid would only make people think it was another random overthrow. Wiping his forces out… But trying to capture them all, is that what got them killed? Would anyone have followed me though if I wanted them to just kill all of them? Would that have been better? No. I make plans better beforehand. It's the moment, the emotion, that I'm thinking about changing… It hurts though. It hurts so much._ "I didn't know, it would hurt this much," Zach said, lowering his gaze from Gentle and then glaring so hard at the floor.

This time Gentle could see a look of more acceptance in Zach's eyes. He started heading over to the earpieces he tossed to the side, and as he walked he said back to the teen, "That's what it means, to be a good leader." _I didn't think I would be fine following your orders, but it is very clear how much you care about each of our lives. Seeing that myself, it does make it easy to trust you._ "This was the first time we lost anyone," Gentle said, picking up the earpieces and walking back to the boy who rose his gaze and stared back into his eyes. Gentle kept his hand curled around the earpieces to keep their voices away from anyone who might be connected as he did do a sudden dramatic toss away before arguing with the boy. "I doubt it will be the last. Are you capable of continuing on, even when we lose people? Can you keep going? Or will you fall apart?" Gentle uncurled his fist and he picked his earpiece out from the two though it took him a second to figure out which was which.

Zach grabbed his back from Gentle's open palm and he stared at it for a second in front of his face. He rose it and put it in his ear before tapping a couple of buttons on it and connecting a private line again. "Mark?" Zach began quietly.

"What is it?" Mark asked while driving fast across a desert.

"Head straight to Hatto, but I won't be able to… Just get here as fast as you can. I can't meet you halfway."

The hope the man driving across the desert had for the corpse whose skull his comrades were holding together in the back started to fade. Mark heard an acceptance, and a dark tone in the voice of the boy speaking to him. "Understood," Mark replied after a few moments.

Zach heard the disappointment and sadness in Mark's voice, and he cut off the connection before lowering his gaze to the floor. He rose it and turned towards the front of the building, the broken windows and through them where the noises of the people of Hatto were getting louder and louder. Zach reached to his side and pulled his helmet off, and he turned it to stare at the front visor. _Saving lives is more important than what I stand for. Stopping villains is more important than being a symbol. Actions, matter more than words. But that doesn't mean that words don't matter. That doesn't mean that all actions speak louder than all words. I can't do nothing, but I can't do everything. I always have to make compromises. Always pick, one bad option over another. I've had to so many times. And right now, one bad option comes with so many risks, for saving one man. It should matter. It should, be everything. I took a lot of risks already, so one more…_ Zach stared closer at the helmet he was holding, then he rose it up and put it down over his head.

He turned to the doors of the palace and the villains piled up inside them. He brought a hand to his head and tapped a button on his helmet. "Let's do this," Zach said, his voice modulated and coming out a lot deeper. Gentle nodded behind him and rose up his black and purple helmet to put on his head too. Zach's eyes narrowed at the largest body of the unconscious villains gathered in the room. _Mongoloid. If I could kill you… I could. No, no no. People will think this was just another random overthrow. More chaos. That's not what I'm doing. But I want to kill you. I want to kill you so badly right now. I don't think I've ever wanted to kill someone, when I did it. You would be the first. You could be… Damn it, mother fucker._ Zach's eyes shifted from Mongoloid to the doors he was approaching, and they narrowed down as he took in a deep breath. _You might not taste my vengeance, but you will face justice._

* * *

 **A/N Thanks for reading! Hope you enjoyed the chapter. Leave a review telling me what you think or predictions for what's ahead down below.**

Shade11224 chapter 97 . Oct 18

Can't wait to see the fight between Zach and mongoloid, this really should have more follows and favs than it does. I honestly couldn't believe it when I saw how few this has especially since the word count is outrageous. You really are a great writer, which is compounded on by the fact you write excessively long fanfics compared to the norm. Honestly I'd love to see the stats of a Gamer Fanfic if you wrote it.  
Thanks for the Chappy!  
P.S. I'm probably gonna hold back on reading these for 2 weeks so I can binge on a few.

 **Well I hope you enjoyed the fight! I get the wanting to binge thing, so if this is 2 weeks from you now... then still hope you enjoyed the fight! Thanks for the great review, I'm glad you think it deserves more follows/favs, though I think the OC main and the fact I only started a few months ago are pretty big factors to that. I'm actually amazed so many people have been reading this consistently for months now, so thanks to all you guys for sticking by Death!**

IntricateHummingbird chapter 97 . 23h ago

...Bloodbender!? Nani!? Is that an Avatar reference? And Hummingbird? Is that inspired by my name? Lol probably not but I can hope XD

 **Haha yep! Totally had the idea for what his character would be and then went "Oh shit, that would be awesome" thinking about Liquid Control (waterbending). Bloodbending was the clear next step up. XD As for Hummingbird... yeah, yeah totally that's what I was thinking when I added her! ... definitely. ;) Thanks for the review!**

Mark chapter 97 . Oct 18

Whoreslayer42, EatDatPussy445, TheLegend27...  
Not all heros wear capes...

 **Lol I loved this comment. Don't forget Skankhunt though XD. Thanks for the review!**


	99. Chapter 99

**Disclaimer: I don't own Boku no Hero Academia**

 **Chapter 99:**

Izuku Midoriya opened his eyes and stared up at his ceiling in his dark dorm room. He opened his mouth and yawned, and he rolled to his side and reached for his phone. His phone was giving off light and when he looked at it he realized he might not have just woken up in the middle of the night for no reason. He felt a little thirsty so he thought about getting up and grabbing some water, but he wanted to check the time first. Midoriya rose his phone and saw that it was two in the morning, which confused him as to why he had received so many texts since he went to bed.

One message that his phone had just received was from Uraraka, and he stared at his screen with wide eyes just from seeing that name alone at two in the morning. He felt alert, and that alertness focused him on what the message actually said which made him lose the nervous feeling he had at receiving a message from her this late. He sat up on his bed and started going through his phone fast, then he put it down and got up to go to his desk and his computer instead.

 _What is Uraraka talking about?_ Midoriya scrolled through the news on his internet search engine and then froze while staring at a video title below some news streams he could click on. _What is, that?_

Uraraka sat cross-legged on her bed with her phone in her hands. She was watching a news report from earlier in the night, and the report started showing a video that Midoriya just started watching downstairs. The video was taken by a phone held up vertically, so on the news most of the screen was black on the edges with just a center portion showing a video clip. Uraraka was able to turn her phone to look at it the way it was recorded, but Midoriya stared at the middle of his computer and the narrow recording full of loud shouting in Arabic.

The front gates of the royal palace in Hatto were closed. On the other side of the steel bars of the gate were a large number of people who were calmer than the ones outside of the gate but still riled up and yelling. Many of them were glaring towards a group gathered in the middle of the courtyard, though most of them were looking up towards the top of the outer walls just like all the people outside started doing. All around the walls of the palace, and on the outer walls surrounding the courtyard, people were taking bodies off of metal spikes. Heroes still wearing their costumes, who had been rotting out in the sun, and the old government leaders too. They were being taken down while everyone started staring up towards the right side of the gate where a figure stepped up to the edge of the wall closer to the street and the thousands of people gathered out there.

A couple of other figures in dark outfits walked up to the edge of the wall, and the phone camera pointing in towards the gates and through them shifted up and zoomed towards the figures up there. The phone shook around while the person zoomed with a couple of fingers but then steadied as everyone started shouting up towards the man up there. Some students watching the recording in their rooms stared closer at the screens in confusion at the sight of the dark figure standing there in all black from head to toe. The sun was shining brightly above them, yet these people wore black and had on helmets covering their faces. They had heavy vests on, and some had weapons strapped all over their bodies like the man in the middle of the group who stood just over six feet tall.

The tall figure in the center had another figure next to him almost as tall and with some dark purple on his costume unlike everyone else who wore solely black. The figure in the middle looked to his left at the slightly shorter man, said something to him and then glanced back over his shoulder at another soldier in all black who stepped forward with two speakers in hand. The speakers were set down on the edge of the wall in front of the tallest man in the group, then the guy standing there turned to his right and another man who had come up next to him wearing his all black costume.

"It's what Muhammed would have wanted."

"I know. But after this we go straight-"

"Yes, we will."

Akhmed turned and looked back into the visor of the taller man next to him. He gave a small nod and then turned back while muttering in his helmet, "You got us locked in?"

"Just tell me when," Rebel said.

"Do it."

In the recording, the man in the center of the group on top of the wall started shouting. He yelled out and his voice blasted out of the speakers and over Hatto's streets around the palace. "Listen to me!" He shouted in English though his voice was masked by a deep modulator. There were a couple of seconds of pause as the crowds screaming towards the palace settled down. Saudi citizens working to get their heroes down stopped what they were doing, and people yelling questions at the palace shut their mouths as it seemed like they were about to get answers. The man next to the tall figure who just shouted yelled the same thing a second later while things were settling, only he yelled it in Arabic and made even more people shut up.

People had come from all around the country, many had been shouting in confusion, many did not know what was happening as they had not for weeks. They were scared. They didn't know who these people were. No one watching this recording understood what it was they were watching at first either. "Mongoloid, was a villain! I don't mean that, like he was a bad leader who was abusing you. He was a prisoner who escaped Tartaros, a maximum security prison in Japan, Enzo Kiribachi! He played you all like fools and took over your country with a group of villains!"

The crowd started getting louder as that all got translated by the Arabic-speaking man next to the shouting figure. The tall man with sword hilts sticking out over his shoulders, a katana on the back of his waist, knives and pouches all over his costume, and a couple of guns on his hips swung an arm in front of him and yelled, "There was never any public support for Mongoloid! The news he put out was all lies! All the people in the cheering crowds, all a trick! He slaughtered your government, and massacred your heroes, so I took him down! But he's not dead!"

The man who swung his arm out stuck it behind him pointing back in the courtyard. "I didn't kill him, because this isn't my country!" He paused and waited for the man next to him to shout it, then he lowered his arm and yelled into the confused crowd, "Put him on trial! You can't just go back to your old government… Because he slaughtered everyone involved with it! …Shut up! All of you, be quiet!" The man sounded angry after his last pause when he was waiting for the translator got cut off by roars from everyone outside of the palace.

"Kill them all!"

"Who are you?!"

"What are you doing here?!"

"Why don't you do it?!"

The figure up on the wall who tried getting everyone to be quiet started just standing there silently. It looked like he was listening to everyone, though he turned his head and reached a hand up to his helmet while just talking with the people around him. The tall figure turned back and yelled out in his deep English voice again, "Figure it out yourselves!" He yelled, and the crowd quieted down a bit with confused or shocked looks as they stared up at the wall where that was just translated down in almost as emphatic a shout. "You don't have a government anymore, so figure out what to do yourselves! All your heroes were killed, and the rest of the world can't protect you! You have to protect yourselves! Rule yourselves! Pick your own leaders, ones that won't shut down protests but will listen and work with you to try and fix the problems in your country! And if you can't agree on who should lead, then have an election!"

"… It's not the rest of the world's fault! Mongoloid told you that, and as much as you want to think it's everyone else's fault, YOU are the ones who stood there and let Mongoloid take over your country with a hundred people! And he recruited more people to fight with him inside your country, and all of you sat by and did nothing as he killed all your heroes! Millions of you, and you just sat there as he took out your communications and your protection and started turning your people against each other! How is that the rest of the world's fault?! They all have their own problems! Their heroes are busy with their own villains! … NO! I'm not staying here, and none of the people who freed your country are going to stay and rebuild it for you! That's on you to do! I didn't come for power, didn't come for your country, or for thanks! We just came to get rid of Mongoloid, and now he and his two surviving Demons are behind me with as many of their men as we could capture!"

"…Yeah?! Who gets to decide that you kill them? You have no laws! The rest of the world is going to look here and see you all in chaos, massacring another government without any rule of law?! You know how weak that will make you all look? And I'm leaving! So how long until another villain decides to come and take advantage of you all? Don't wait and decide to come up with something once you've all lost this drive to kill Mongoloid! While you're still out here, set up the rules to run your country by! Work together! Re-establish a government here, and figure out what you're going to do to protect yourselves because as it stands, YOU'RE WEAK!"

"Set up war trials! I'm not telling you not to kill them, but if you don't show everyone that you have control over your own country! If you don't show some sort of stability! You're going to be the easiest target in the world for the next Mongoloid! If you wait, someone is going to come to fill the gap in your country! Another villain? Another government trying to push their own nation's interests over your own?! The people you know care the most about your country are the ones who live here! So figure it out!" As he was shouting, the phone camera pointing at him lifted up a bit to show something flying towards the palace from over the other side. The helicopter getting closer started lowering, and the man shouting at everyone lifted his head to look at it as it started descending right above him.

The helicopter lowered down to the wall, and the gates of Hatto's palace opened up. Two black humvees and a sand-colored jeep started up on the inside of the palace's outer walls. Saudis the group had been working with inside the gates started shouting at the people outside to move out of the way, allowing the vehicles to drive out. Soldiers who teamed up with the men and women in black held their weapons in hand and surrounded the captured villains who were mostly unconscious though many were also just chained or tied up tightly. Those villains were getting a lot more afraid as the gates opened up and the people who captured them started driving away. The helicopter on the wall started slowing down its rotors, and everyone stared up at the wall with wide eyes as the man who had been shouting at all of them really did seem about to leave.

"Don't go!"

"We don't have any way to protect ourselves!"

"Where are you going?!"

"Who are you!?"

"Why did you do this?"

"Don't go!"

"You're free to choose your own government now," the dark figure up on the wall said. He did not shout as loudly, but his speakers continued blasting it over the streets and his translator called it out afterwards. "The old ruling class got hunted down and wiped out by Mongoloid, and now Mongoloid and his guys are down too. Choose for yourselves how to rule. Figure out how to protect yourselves. That's not why the Army of Death came here." The ground vehicles drove out of the palace and down the streets, and two dark-clothed figures inside the courtyard flapped wings and rose up in the air to fly after them and then around the palace's side. "But if another villain like Mongoloid comes here to take this country, I'll be back. Villains around the world think they can keep getting away with what they're doing, but they're wrong… We're coming for them… The Army of Death's only mission, is stopping villains… Stay frosty."

The translator next to the dark figure hesitated while the tall man next to him turned around. Across the world from them, a chubby man sitting behind his computer threw both hands over his mouth and leaned back from his seat with the biggest grin on his face before cracking up. And a man on the wall with purple on his helmet, shoulders, and belt narrowed his eyes furiously behind his dark purple visor. _I am going to kill that man._

"What?"

"Pff- ch- Stay, frosty?"

"Did you really just say that to those people?"

"Hahahahahaha!"

"Mark!"

"I'm so sorry-"

"You gave me the head nod when Rebel said it's how to say like, stay on your toes, or be careful of-"

"It kind of does-"

"Oh my God."

"What a great way to end that speech! HAHAHA!"

In the recording, no one heard any of the laughter and shouting going on in the helmets of the soldiers turning away from them on the wall. The translator called out something more serious in Arabic anyway, and the translation in Japanese came out more like the man who shouted it meant for it to be. Using a phrase like that made him really seem more American though, instead of making it seem like he did not know the language he was speaking in as well as he thought he did. Not many people were focused on that last statement though, because the man who said it turned around right after finishing. He turned his back to the people in front of the palace, showing that his back had writing on it in white letters from right below his neck vertically down his costume to his waist. First was a big letter 'D, followed by 'E A T H.'" Another figure up on the wall who had brought the speakers forward turned from right behind that man, and the slender person almost a foot shorter than him had 'DEATH' written down her back too.

The man with purple highlights on his costume turned and said something in annoyance about Rebel finally getting what he expected the man wanted with Zach using unnatural slang in a serious situation. Everyone staring up at his back saw on his long purple cape something else written there than 'DEATH.' Instead, the man had the Japanese Kanji symbol meaning the same thing: '死.' The translator turned too after calling out in Arabic, and he reached down to pick up the speakers before stepping back to the side of the helicopter closest to them. He had something else written down his back in what looked like squiggles to the Japanese students watching the clip in their dorm, but they figured meant the same thing as the others only in Arabic.

The figures all got on a helicopter, and Gentle went over to sit next to a short woman who excitedly agreed with him about punishing Rebel for that. Rebel started laughing harder over the comms after La Brava said it, which had a lot of others laughing along too. Zach did not laugh, and his gaze just shifted to the man who just sat across from him in the helicopter as it lifted off. "No more distractions, Akhmed. We won't let SISIS get away with it again." The man across from Zach who shoved the speakers beneath his seat in the chopper lifted his head and nodded while looking through the visor into his new leader's. Zach shook his feet around and kicked off the Extendo-legs he had on below the soles of his shoes that were hard to walk in, then he looked past Akhmed and called to the front of the helicopter, "Head north. We're going after Shakad…"

The citizen recording the helicopter started shouting in Arabic up at it while it rose into the sky. Others around the man started shouting the same thing, all of them chanting towards the helicopter flying up above the palace. Another helicopter flew over the heads of the crowd outside the palace, and it was already moving faster so it flew right by the side of the other one. The one that just lifted off pushed its nose forward and the rotors spun faster, and the army who just freed a country left just like that.

The video ended, and the news program that was playing it earlier that Uraraka was watching started talking about Enzo Kiribachi for a few seconds. They talked about his bulk, the fact that Mongoloid always had that turban on his head to cover his face and how it made sense. Then they started talking about the figure who just shouted all that though. Uraraka was panting while staring down at the shaking screen in her hands. _He was too tall. And, and that couldn't have been him! 'Death,' is just… If he was trying to hide his face, why, why use that name?_

In a room on the third floor of Class-A's dorm, Kyoka Jirou's hands shook violently and then clenched into fists. _**"…I know it's not fair so soon after Kaminari, but I'm sorry, I can't stay here with you all anymore. Because to me, it's not about being a hero…. It's about stopping villains…"**_ _You mother fucker. I, I really thought you were- DEAD! I thought you were dead! I, I hoped you were! FUCK! What are you doing?!_ She thought about the subtitles she saw on the bottom of the screen towards the end: 'stopping villains.' What Zach said to her alone while he drove away in that forest echoed in her mind again. Jirou clenched her eyes shut tightly and then dove onto her bed and buried her face in her pillow. "AHHHHH!" She yelled into it in frustration. _It's you! What are you doing? You're insane! You- you can't just, do whatever the fuck you want!_

Jirou yelled into her pillow again and then started panting. _How?_ She thought in shock while opening her eyes and staring at the pillow below her. _How the hell did you do it? Who were all those people? A helicopter?! Where the fuck did you get- RAAA! I thought you were dead! Why? Why did I think something so stupid?! Of course you're not. I know that's you. You must have known that I'd know, but you're trying so hard to keep it a secret?! I KNOW!_

Midoriya stared at his computer screen after the end of the video, and then he bowed his head and stared at the top of his desk with huge shaking eyes. _Is that Zach? Even if it's not, he's there. A group like that. That's why he went missing- and that guy in purple! The Gentle criminal wears purple… that could be a coincidence, but his body type is the same! And, and!_ _ **"Use everything…"**_ Midoriya's eyes opened huge as he rose them back up to the vertical video clip and the subtitles frozen on the bottom from the people who were chanting up at their leaving heroes. _That speech, how many uses does it have? I- I can see…_ Midoriya rose his right hand and put it over his mouth.

The dark-green, curly-haired boy started muttering under his breath, "It's not just about getting the people of Saudi Arabia to fend for themselves, establish peace. Even though he said that's not what he came to do, it's obvious he wants peace to have said those things. He doesn't want credit for it? The masks double to that effect, showing no one there is getting any glory, no reason for them to have done it other than peace? But more than that. The part about what they are, their goal, how many of Mongoloid's… Demons? How many are still alive, meaning they killed some even trying to capture- and it was more than a warning to villains. It was a rallying call. How many people?"

Midoriya's eyes opened huge and he lowered his hand from his mouth. _How many… more people will follow you now? Villains around the world, were just warned. Where are your boundaries… without, without a government? Without regulations, or rules, or needing to ask for permission to enter countries or anything… You don't have a limit to where you can go. Who you can, save. When I heard the name Mongoloid I, I knew something was strange. But we were constrained by the rules of law. By our governments. UN resolutions- yet, if you knew something, why not give that information to… to the bureaucracy, that takes too long and gives time- but, but if they knew the things you must have! Or, did you even know? Or was it just a guess? And if it was just a guess, did you just invade a country- You just invaded Saudi Arabia! No matter what the reason, what the- how could- Who were all those people… How did you get the Gentle Criminal to follow you? And that girl, and the Hunter… People, follow you now. Your, ideology was popular before, and you were trying to push it. You always tried to push them, but as a symbol of them and not with, action. Now you've switched, and you're accepting help, and with that speech…_

 _How many more will follow you? How big will you get? With your power, with your ideals, and your lack of restraint. Army of Death? Villains around the world? You've made yourself a target, but also an outlet! An outlet for people like you! In a few months, without hearing a thing about you, how did you get so much power?! Zach. I believed in you, and I was getting nervous when I didn't hear anything, not because I was worried for you but because of how big I figured your plan must be for you to wait so long in a world this chaotic._ Midoriya clenched his fists over his desk. He turned off his computer and then glared down in his dark room with an angry look in his eyes that were also full of frustration. _And yet as much as what you just did might be good- was good! You just saved… But, you're going too far. You'll keep going farther. Did you kill again? You're making, an army?_

* * *

"The transitional government of Saudi Arabia currently under control of the military has instated martial law based on the laws of the old regime before Mongoloid's takeover. Referendums are already taking place however in order to establish a new, democratic government suggested by the leader of that Army of Death. The referendums to determine how elections will take place were decided on by a joint military and representative congress established the very night Mongoloid was deposed. The transitional government has established military courts to put Mongoloid and his men, including two who were leaders with him in the hostile conquest of Saudi Arabia. The Seven Demons of Mongolid's forces were mostly killed during the invasion of the Army of Death two days ago, but Slyfer and Farzad are set to go on trial tonight immediately after Mongoloid's execution that was voted on unanimously this morning. Although only two of the Demons are set for trials tonight, the majority of Mongoloid's forces have similar trials in Hatto and across the country in the coming weeks. Not all on trial are from Mongoloid's initial force, but also the Saudis who joined with Mongoloid whose guilt will be determined based on the extent of their knowledge of what Mongoloid's true motives were or to what extent they assisted in the villain's schemes…"

Momo Yaoyorozu changed the channel on the common room's tv to another news program that had a picture of a man up on it that made her lower the remote. "…Around six feet tall, a muscular figure by the looks of it. And quite an assortment of weapons in the arsenal."

"Can we be sure that this is the leader?"

"I think it's fair to assume that. Based on what we've heard, this was the man the people credited with defeating Mongoloid. I don't know if any of them actually saw it, but if they're all in helmets that keep their identities a secret anyway, what would be the point of tricking everyone to thinking it was a different person in all black?"

"Could be the guy with purple, he was just standing there but had a different appearance that made him stand out. He could have been the one telling the guy next to him what to say."

Yaoyorozu frowned at the screen and started lifting the remote in her hand. "Let me ask you this," the third person in the news room started. "Either of you been thinking of someone in particular after this? Some, missing person who might have an association with this 'Army of Death.'"

"Haha, well I think we've all had the thought. I could see it too."

"You think Lifebringer's joined with these, resistance fighters? Rebels? I don't know what to call them."

"Terrorists sounds about right."

"Terrorists?"

"It's an army of Quirk users who seem to be from a lot of different countries if those writings on their backs indicate anything." The man holding a hand out to offer up his reasoning for calling them 'terrorists' chuckled while lowering his hand. "And as much as I'd like to say I like the idea of a group of freedom fighters going around stopping villains in the Middle East, they have 'Death' written on the backs of their costumes. They nearly wiped out Mongoloid's strongest forces. And it sounds like they are far from finished…"

"Yaoyorozu," Todoroki said, looking towards the couches to see a tall girl sitting on the middle one staring closely and intensely at the screen.

She turned towards him in surprise as she did not notice him approaching. "Oh, Todoroki," she began and gave him a small smile before glancing back at the news herself.

Todoroki turned to the screen, and he frowned then started over for the couch and took a seat on the one to Yaoyorozu's left. He stared at the screen and watched as the news hosts started talking more about Saudi Arabia's new government. "…though aid is being accepted from foreign countries, the leaders of the democratic movement are pushing for limited foreign involvement in how they establish their new government. It seems like they're taking what that Death figure said seriously."

 _Death. That's what they're calling him now?_ Todoroki thought while lowering his gaze from the screen to the floor in front of it. He glanced to his right at the girl with a spiky black ponytail who was watching intensely again. "Do you think it is Zach?" He asked her.

Yaoyorozu glanced back towards Todoroki, then she turned back to the screen. "I believe it is very simple," she replied with her lips flat. Todoroki stared at her confusedly, and Kirishima and Sero glanced over from a table they were sitting at behind the couch area since going and sitting next to Yaoyorozu had seemed like a bad idea when they walked past her before. "This group will only get larger after this. I have already heard news that they were spotted in Gorran today. So, if people start to come back to life in the areas the Army of Death goes through, we will know."

Todoroki nodded his head and then turned back to the screen. Kirishima looked past Yaoyorozu and at the screen himself, surprised and nodding his head as that sounded like a good reasoning he had not thought of. Sero stared at the back of the tall girl's head for a few more seconds. He had a sad look on his face at how detached and unimportant what she just said sounded to him. She broke it down in a logical way while at the same time saying there was no need for discussion around who that person could be. Sero wanted to have that talk though, and he frowned deeper then looked back at the screen since this was big news and he was as interested as everyone else to what was going to happen to Saudi Arabia now.

Yaoyorozu was staring back at the screen like the other three on the first floor with her, but she was not listening to the hosts any longer. Instead she could see herself in Zach's room the day before they gave their final reports back in April. _ **"...People who are already out of school can have pro heroes offer courses to them in self-defense, and we could change the laws that prohibit citizens from stepping in when a villain appears. Make whatever pro hero arrives on the scene the commanding officer, and let the others help him or her out following the pro hero's experience. Why is the line separating heroes and civilians thicker than the one separating them from villains?"**_

In Momo's head she thought about how she had cut in to ask him about that specific line before. The busty seventeen year old hero thought about how she had voiced a concern when he rehearsed with her. _I told him that his wording of what he wanted society to become made it sound too militaristic, too much like an army._ _But he still used it during his presentation, because his response…_ _**"Maybe an army is what we need to stop them."**_ _Telling them to protect themselves, is like telling them to train their Quirks so no one else could take over like Mongoloid. But that's not what you mean by "army" anymore. It's not that you want the public to become an army, but you're going to create that army yourself! I don't want to be right. I want, to believe that that isn't you. Because, if you're doing something like this… You're not going to come back, are you? I believed. I wanted, to believe. But that might not be you! It didn't even look like you. Yet, everyone suspects it. People think it could be. At least people here. Baseless suspicions, yet we all have them._

 _What are you doing Zach? Is this all part of your plan? What is your plan? Did you just announce it to everyone, or are you still hiding it? Believing in you has never been so hard. Because I know you think you know what you're doing. And you're going so far this time. No one ever sees you coming. What you did at Camino Ward, VTS, the 'Lifebringer Incident.' I should have seen this coming. But I never thought, something like this, was even possible._ Yaoyorozu stood up from the couch keeping her calm expression on her face, but once she started walking away she started looking worried and she brought her hands together in front of her chest for a second. _Please, keep doing good Zach. Stay good, and stay alive. Most of all, stay alive. You've made yourself into a bigger target than ever._

* * *

"They got him?" Zach asked, his eyes widening and a grin spreading over his face.

Gentle nodded his head from across the truck the two of them were in the back of with only Darling there with them. She was laying down across a bunch of the seats though, asleep as they traveled through southwest Russia towards the countries of Eastern Europe Rebel had some new missions for them in. Zach had just woken up not long ago after going to sleep around the same time as Darling, and Gentle had put down the tablet he was on to talk to him instead. "The plan worked. Akhmed was the one who killed Shakad."

Zach started to lose his grin. He looked down and frowned at the sound of that. Gentle continued, "There was an order out from Gorran's government to kill on sight. Akhmed wants to go hand in Shakad to the ISK himself."

 _Revenge, and glory, and I get why he'd want to do those things. Everyone in his country would think he's this big hero-_

"But I told him if he did, he'd have to leave your army, Death," Gentle said. Zach's head twitched and he lifted it with a look like he was groaning internally. Gentle smirked and finished, "He accepted to just hand him in wearing his helmet."

Zach nodded but he kept frowning while looking at Gentle who was still smirking. "You too?" Zach muttered. Gentle let out a chuckle, and Zach shook his head before leaning back on the wall behind him that shook on with the wheels bumping on the rarely used highway through southern Russia's backwoods. _Gentle still wasn't calling me that. He might've been the last one._ _The Army of Death isn't supposed to mean Death's Army, like I'm Death. It's just supposed to mean all of us are the Army of Death, like that's what we're bringing for villains. Like an army of-_

"See, you are 'Death' because it is _your_ army. Thus the Army _of_ Death is-"

"I know why they're calling me it," Zach grumbled. He sighed instead of arguing like he was about to that what he had thought of in his head was just a really intimidating way to try and stop future villains from ever starting. "I'll accept that name," he said after his sigh. He rubbed his chest that still ached from his fight against Mongoloid in Hatto, then he lowered it as rubbing just made him focus on that pain. "If people start calling me the actual Death though," he started again hesitantly. "Like the spooky skeletal reaper-" Zach cut himself off but he was too late, and Gentle was grinning even more at him now before chuckling at Zach's look that showed he knew exactly what he had done. Zach shook his head and leaned back, "I know I know."

It was no a very good counter to mention that people would think of him by a name he had chosen himself in the past. Gentle smiled thinking of the name 'Reaper' and how Zach had so casually said it like he forgot he used to use that name himself. Zach muttered under his breath, "Walked right into that one," and then he chuckled himself. He rose his head after saying it and looked towards the ceiling. _If people think of me like that, like Death, it works even better. It's not what I was going for, but it can work. The Army of Death isn't a symbol for normal people. We'll stay in the shadows and barely let them see us. We're not going to be a symbol of peace, or freedom, we're going to be a symbol of fear. Only for villains. A symbol of terror for any who decide to do harm to the innocent. And if villains start thinking of me as Death, well, I already know they're going to be a lot quicker to do what I tell them. Villains have the entire world living in fear. Taking down Kurogiri makes Japanese people feel a bit safer, but they know the villains who used Kurogiri's portals are still out there. And the rest of the world have villains they're terrified of too. Villains aren't afraid of heroes though. They're not afraid of what heroes will do to them. And though I will try to keep from killing, it's case by case. Let's see how much risk the villains will take, now that they know they're being hunted._

* * *

 **A/N Thanks for reading. The world has now been introduced, to the Army of Death. Zach's classmates are suspicious, some of them more confident than others about where Zach is now. Zach and his army leave Saudi Arabia behind with a speech and some unconscious villains. The Army of Death continues on, with no rules, with no government telling them what to do, and Zach has taken the mantle of Death. I hope you enjoyed the chapter, and the end to the introductory arc of: The Army of Death... And about to hit 100 chapters! So that's awesome! I'll try to get the next one up tomorrow, it's a fun one! Let me know in a review below what you think of Zach's path now, or some ideas for what you think is coming or even what you might want to see from this new team Zach's got!**

Shade11224 chapter 98 . 22h ago

*Sigh* I'm so disappointed in myself, my resolve broke after a few hours. By the way if you ever do draw an idea from my name I want the guy to be a complete sarcastic ass with light bending powers so he can just be the biggest troll possible.  
Thanks for the Chappy!  
P.S. I really want to be added in even if I get mentioned once every few chapters for comic relief.

 **Hard to hold back. I understand. Lol but really, (sorry Intricate), Hummingbird didn't actually come from the review section. I'm not adding y'all into the story. Too much work (plus I'd never get your personality right or live up to your expectations of yourself). Gonna just have to live with the characters you've got! And if a character does appear with the name Shade11225, know it's def 100% original and has nothing to do with you. But yeah, don't hold your breath for it. XD Hope you enjoyed the chapter.**

Big fan of death chapter 98 . 9h ago

Dude, i gotta say, I fucking love this story so much, I started reading a week ago and binged it all. I read every second I could, I missed countless hours of sleep over this. I even cried a little when ka- Raijin was exposed to be the traitor, so please dont end it soon. please  
P.S at the beginning of the story a lot of the names you made sounded really English/American, but i can see you greatly improved, just needed to say that

 **Thanks! I'm glad you've been enjoying it so far through the binge! Love it when people can catch feels over my writing so kind of glad I made u cry ;P but yeah don't worry, it's not ending anytime soon. As for the last part, it's not really that I changed it up to stop doing that. Zach and Jenny and both of their parents both had English names. That was pretty intentional, 'cause I had the idea of Zach and Jenny's names but figured it wouldn't make sense for them to have them unless there was a trend of it through their families, leaving their lineage vague and kind of up to you guys to decide what was really up with them. Kaitlyn and Jack were Zach's parents, and John and Mary were Jenny's, but I don't think too many of the other characters really had American names. I'm not saying here that they were Caucasian the whole time or anything, just that the names were always intentional, and maybe there was some American in their heritage. Who knows? I didn't. But to keep the names of the two whose names I really wanted making sense, I had to make some others too. Always kind of wanted to explain this somewhere but never really found a good place in the story and never really thought it would be too necessary to add in as a plot point, so I'm glad you mentioned it. Thanks for the review, and I'm happy you liked the first million words of Death. Enjoy the next million! XD**


	100. Chapter 100

**Disclaimer: I don't own Boku no Hero Academia**

 **Chapter 100:**

"Mark's heading here now. Are we waiting for him?" Gentle questioned. The gray haired man in his early thirties stroked his mustache and glanced to the seat on his left at the circular table they were sitting at. There were five of them sitting at the table in total at a bar in western Russia.

"How long will it take him to get here?" Tina asked. The short Hispanic-American woman whose name was actually Martina sat on the other side of the boy Gentle just turned to.

Zach glanced at the woman next to him and replied in a quiet voice, "Still five or six hours probably. If they can move nonstop." Zach looked back at the food in front of him and he picked at it with his fork. _Mark sounded weird last time I talked to him. He told me he wouldn't kill. Then he wound up killing those two Demons, said he had to to save the others. He must be handling it though. Blackstar and Skater backed him up. Hope Blackstar's still doing alright back in Hatto…_

"Death," Grabble began in a low voice across the table from the younger boy. He was wearing a black hoodie like Zach's but with the hood up. No shadow was cast over his face as his hood was still pushed pretty high up over the top of his head by the two curved pincer horns pushing above his scalp. "How's your neck?"

Zach lifted his left hand and cocked his head to the right a bit so his neck would show clearer. He rubbed his hand gently over a white bandage taped to the side of his neck, then he lowered his hand and said, "It's fine. Probably take that off tomorrow."

"But Hank said to keep it on until he saw you next," Darling whispered from Gentle's other side over to Zach. She was disappointed as she had been on the phone with L outside and missed getting a seat next to Zach at the table, so she had to lean in front of Gentle who pulled his plate back towards himself. He gave a frustrated glance down at the girl with long brown hair who almost got some in his food.

"I'm fine, Darling," Zach said. He turned to Gentle who lowered his plate back as Darling sat back in her seat, not going to argue with Zach any longer if he said he was okay. "You said Mark's coming, so does that mean La Brava's not?" He figured the older man would have said his partner's name first otherwise.

Gentle shook his head. "Some of the others do not want to leave the Middle East. She is trying to get them to stay together and follow her. I do not think it was a smart move spreading so thin."

"We can do more split up," Zach responded, though he looked back at his plate and hummed after saying it. _More, but not big things like what we were doing. Mongoloid, SISIS, those were big things. Even with SISIS though, once we had the ISK's permission to move freely, use resources… I don't want to work with heroes. They'll wind up constricting us. Me. They'll begin to expect things from us. Others will put expectations on me. That's what made me mess things up with the villains. I decided I needed to leave because they would keep trying to make me kill, but I was becoming one of them, and I think if I really had just become a villain they would have accepted my code not to kill anyone. Lifebringer meant something to people though. Even with the villains, people had expectations for me so I did VTS. Could there have been better ways? It doesn't matter. That's all in the past. But it was people's expectations of me that forced me to make a move. I need to move at my own pace here. Do what I think is right. Only those things that I decide. People follow me, and they're willing to die for me. I need to take that seriously. That's more serious than anything I've ever done. More weight than ever on my shoulders. Their lives are in my hands. It's so heavy._

Gentle pulled out a box of cigarettes and he leaned back and asked the man behind him, "Light?" He said it in rusty Russian, and the bald Russian man at the table behind Gentle pulled out a lighter and flicked the top open for him to light it.

"Since when do you smoke?" Darling asked, lifting an eyebrow at the older man.

Zach was not going to say anything, but he did just think the same thing she said aloud. Gentle thanked the man behind him in Russian he remembered from a single-semester elective he took a long time ago. Then he turned back and blew out some smoke in the bar where a couple of other Russians were also smoking in the booths on the sides of the room. "Since this one decided to stop fighting villains hiding in volcanoes, and started taking on armies and governments," he motioned with a nod at Zach while taking another puff of his cigarette. _It is always more stressful when La Brava is not around. I do take her for granted too often._

"Volcanoes?" Tina whispered, leaning forward over the table and lifting her eyebrows in surprise. The Hispanic woman had black fur on her arms ending in paws that she had gloves over at the moment. She lowered her fork in her right hand and turned to Zach who gave Gentle an annoyed look for bringing it up, because he could see the older man knew what was coming.

"When did you do that?" Grabble asked with wide eyes below his popped-up hood. He did not think Gentle was being serious until he saw the look on their leader's face afterwards.

Zach glanced at Grabble, then at Tina who was looking just as interestedly at him. The two who he brought back to life after their invasion of Saudi Arabia were leaning over the table. Zach started slowly, "It was the day, we met Rebel… Darling, you tell." Zach glanced over to the brown-haired girl who smiled wide as Zach told her what to do. Then she spun to the other two and started speaking rapidly in English all about the villains they tracked down and fought at their secret volcano lair.

The other two were a bit disappointed that Zach was not going to tell it, but they got caught up in Darling's recollection quickly. Zach turned to Gentle who humphed and just took another puff of his cigarette at the boy's smug look. Zach lost that look after a second and looked back down at his plate covered in food he had barely touched. _Russian mobsters. Eastern European prostitution rings. Mafias, and drugs, and probably some more allies. Rebel says he found a pair who want to work with us, I'll see if they're good enough to join us afterwards…_

* * *

"Do you know who you're fucking with?" **Br-br-br-BRANG Dt-Dt-Dt-** _ **Dink**_ **CRASH!**

In an impound lot in eastern Kazania, a skinny man with tattoos all over his body from his head to his toes was firing off rounds towards vehicles around his lot. He stopped firing for a second, and he lowered his assault rifle before glancing around in the near darkness of the lot where all his lights had cut off in a minute ago. He turned to his right and motioned towards some cars with his head, "Go look for bodies." He had heard noises in that direction soon after the lights cut off, but then he spun his head the other way towards the impound house where people could come and try getting their cars back for a reasonable fee the Kaveman decided in the moment depending on his mood.

Something crashed inside the building that he also slept in, and he glared towards the building but did not just start firing at it. He rose his left arm and the tattoo sleeve covering it started shifting around. A three-headed black dog with red eyes dragged itself down Kaveman's arm and off of his hand. Flames rippled off of its back, and then snakes that were wrapped around the dog dropped off and started slithering towards the house too. Kaveman pulled his left hand in that those creatures just climbed off and he reached to his face, grabbed a golden magnum pistol out of his cheek and aimed it towards a pickup truck he just heard a clank near. "Viktor! Get the lights back on!"

"Kaveman! There aren't any bodies, but there is a- AH!" **BANG-Bu-bu-** _ **Clank SMASH!**_

Kaveman was staring over towards where he just sent two of his guys, then he and the other two standing with him near the middle of the lot all stepped back. They backed up as a car started rolling out from behind a pile of crushed ones and then slammed into a truck and dented the side of it in. One of the two Kaveman sent that way came flying out past the car pile a second later and slammed into the car that was tilted upwards into the truck, and the collision made that car drop down on top of him.

All at once, noises started coming out from different areas of the lot. Clanks of steel on steel, denting cars around the lot being slammed by what sounded like metal pipes. A loud whimper came from inside the house of the lot where Kaveman's three-headed ink dog just leapt through the window. A second after the whimper, all the other windows of that building shattered at the same time.

"Where the fuck are they?!"

"Over there!" **Bang-bang-bang!**

"No there!"

"They're everywhere!"

"SHUT UP!" Kaveman roared at the two on his sides who shut their mouths but kept spinning around in terror as the noises around them continued.

Kaveman started grinning wide though, and he lifted his shirt up and tossed it to the side. He hunched his body forward, and big black wings flapped out of his back and covered in flames at the ends. The flames flared and illuminated the lot around him, then Kaveman pointed his magnum towards a car that was recently impounded and pretty new. **BANG!** _**WeeeeoooOOO WeeeeoooOOO WeeeeoooOOO…**_ A loud siren started going off and the lights of that car flashed over and over on the headlights and the back.

"DO YOU KNOW WHO I WORK FOR?!" Kaveman roared, lifting his assault rifle in one hand and the magnum in the other and firing them both up with a lack of any fear on his face. The men near him started looking at him more nervously than they had been the spooky lot around them, as Kaveman flapped his flaming black wings to the sides and almost hit them while splashing those flames onto some dead grass patches around his lot. "YOU'RE DEAD! I'm fucking KAVEMAN mother fuckers! Do you know who the fuck I am?!" **BRrr-r-rr-bang** _ **BANG! WeeeeoooOOO…**_

Kaveman started turning to his right, and he fired some more over towards some cars he heard metal slamming into before. He turned more fully around towards where he sent his guys before and knew people were watching from. "Come on! What are you afraid of?! Haha!" He fired off in that direction and specifically at the car that his own guy was underneath. Kaveman started turning more, and then he froze and he stopped shouting. He stopped firing, and the man on his left stared in just as much shock as Kaveman as they saw their comrade falling flat on his face. The two Kazanians stared at their comrade who had a knife in the back of his right shoulder, and who was flat on his face without moving a muscle like getting hit by that knife just killed him. Small black wisps faded off the knife as Kaveman looked down in the light of his wings. And when he saw his comrade's body flickering dimly in his flames, he got sweat all over his face, because there were no headlights illuminating them at all.

 _Where are the sirens?_

Kaveman looked back at the car that should have been going off from when he shot at it, but the vehicle was not just off, it was gone. "HEY! WHAT THE FUCK ARE- Where did…" Kaveman looked to his right to see if the man next to him was still understanding what was going on.

"Kav-" the guy next to him started while Kaveman was turning his way. They had both spun to the car, forgetting almost entirely the direction the knife that hit their other comrade in the shoulder must have come from. Another knife stuck out of the left shoulder of the only other guy besides Kaveman still standing in the impound lot. He collapsed and Kaveman definitely saw the black wisps all over the knife as his last comrade dropped this time.

"It doesn't matter who you are," a voice said behind Kaveman in a deep, scratchy tone. Kaveman spun and he fired his magnum without hesitating when he saw the dark form he spun to. The dark figure standing there turned his body to the side, and the bullet flew past him and slammed into a car behind him. "It doesn't matter who you work for… but, it does matter who you work for." _Damn it Mark. You're usually perfect with stuff like this. Translate my lines- Alright, he still looks very scared, bit confused. Nothing I can't work with._ Zach started marching towards the tattooed figure before him who took a step back while staring at this terrifying black form that just dodged a bullet with ease.

"What are you?" Kaveman asked, his tattoos quivering on his body as much as he tried to focus on them coming out. He gulped and tried focusing harder, only for the fully black creature before him that looked like a man to reach its right hand up towards him and make black flames ripple off the entire arm. The arm turned and the right hand curled its fingers up to create a swirling black ball of evil that Kaveman was transfixed on with every ounce of his focus. His tattoos even stopped swirling, and his huge eyes just bulged at the sight of that darkness so close to him that had taken his guys out. "AH!" Kaveman yelled out in pain, as he got kicked in the back of his right leg at the knee.

He dropped to his right knee, then the girl behind him slammed a steel fist into his back between his wings and made Kaveman drop his weapons while slamming his hands down to the ground to stop from hitting face-first. The girl standing behind him pressed her right foot down on Kaveman's back and grabbed him by the wings, and the dark figure walking towards Kaveman stared over at her with his eyes opening huge inside his visor. "You don't need these," the girl said in Japanese so the man below her with his eyes wide in terror did not understand a thing, though he still screamed as she ripped back and tore his wings right off his back.

"Darling get out of there. You're not needed."

Zach glared towards the girl who he could not tell that to himself without breaking his plan. _That was too far, but I did say to incapacitate him once she had the chance. If she stayed and held him there, he could have bladed weapons on his tattoos to slash out at her. This could work better. Maybe she knew that. Maybe she's just crazy…_ The girl in all black nodded towards Zach once before turning and bouncing away using springs she created in an instant in her knees.

Kaveman started lifting his head while turning to the right to glare at the girl behind him, but no one was there. He froze with his head half-turned anyway, and then he slowly turned back and lifted his eyes up the dark legs of the figure before him. Out from the sides of the figure came black flames that pushed out and made him look much bigger, scarier, and more ominous as he looked down at Kaveman's face. In a dark, deep, scratchy voice Zach growled in Kazanian, "Where can I find the men you work for?"

"I, don't know, what you're talking about. I just tow cars… please," Kaveman leaned back while getting to his knees. He pulled his body away as the dark figure leaned down and rose his right hand with a black swirling ball of Death on it. "I- I really don't know what you're…" Kaveman pulled his head farther away with his eyes wide at the sight of that darkness getting pushed towards his face. He knew he was not convincing anyone after already shouting asking if they knew who he worked for while just trying to be intimidating earlier.

"I know you deal Riot," Zach said. "You're on it right now, aren't you?" _Quirk and mind enhancer. Like, half-Trigger, half-cocaine. It's not popular in Japan at all but I've heard about it before. Not as strong as Trigger, so his Quirk really is just a pretty strong one. It's dangerous being this close without knowing what other kinds of tattoos he has below the top ones, or what are on his legs, the most hidden ones. Act like I'm not cautious at all though, like it wouldn't matter if he tried anything._

"The family's too powerful," Kaveman said in response to the figure's question.

"Not more than me," Zach growled. He leaned down and put his dark face close to Kaveman's, making the scared man pull back and the tattoos all over him to start shaking as he tried using his Quirk through his fear. He bit down and tried making a confident expression, only for Zach to lift both hands to his head and pull his helmet off from inside his dark aura in one swift motion. He leaned down closer with a skull face and flaring red eyes in the center of it. "LOOK AT ME!" Zach roared in his deep scratchy voice, and Kaveman nearly shat himself.

A dozen others in the impound lot froze and stared towards the figure who just shouted that in such a scary way that all of them felt like they _had_ to look at him. Mark even stopped talking into Zach's ear for a few seconds longer than Zach wanted, but the boy actually liked how long the pause was after that as Kaveman got more and more fidgety and terrified as Zach just held his face there for the man to examine. Kaveman darted his eyes away over and over before slowly dragging them back in fear to the skull face in front of him. "Where are the drugs coming from?" Zach snarled. "Where are your bosses located?"

"I- I- I can't tell you," Kaveman said with a terrified look in his eyes that he was not answering this monster. "If I talk, the family will kill me. Torture me to death!"

Zach pulled his head back. He glared down through his flaring red eyes, and he breathed out a long heavy breath of Death that clouded his face. "What do you think I will do to you? If you don't tell me, you'll face a fate much worse than death. How long will their torture compare…" Zach paused as he knew what Mark just said, yet it was hard to say aloud and not because of the accent or pronunciation. "To the torture you'll face from me afterwards?" Kaveman stared up with trembling eyes and a much more scared look on his face while he fell backwards off his knees and onto his butt. "A fraction of a second, compared to eternity."

"I, can't… you're not the devil!"

"Even so, you do not want Death to be angry," Zach growled. The man pushed back on his butt started opening his eyes wide, and he breathed faster and faster with his heart pounding as the dark figure took a step towards him. "Now what is it going to be? Will you tell me?" The dark voice got lower and Zach's red eyes swirled with black as he focused Death thicker up around his face. He rose up his right hand covered in so much thick Death that started seeping forward off his fingers and towards Kaveman's body. "Or is this about to get very painful?"

* * *

"Can't believe he called your bluff," Mark said while leaning back on the wall of the motel room he, Zach, Grabble, and Gentle were sharing fifty miles from the impound lot they had attacked earlier.

"Are you sure I was saying everything right?" Zach asked from over on his bed. He was cleaning the blood off one of his knives that he had put right back in its sheath earlier after ripping it out of the shoulder of a drug dealer. He lifted his head and looked towards the brown-haired man leaning on the wall near the tv they had on at a high volume to cover up their conversation from anyone who might be trying to listen in. "It felt like I wasn't repeating it back just like you were saying it."

"Maybe, that could have been a part of it," Mark started slowly. "But I think he was really just more afraid of what they could do to him. Makes sense, if he's seen what they do to people who snitch before. He's never seen what we do, so he didn't know whether or not to believe what you were saying."

"Well, shit," Grabble muttered and lay back on the other of the two beds in the motel.

Gentle stared down at the man laying back with his pincers pushing up against the headboard at the top of the bed. He kept staring at Grabble until the man who lay there turned to him and opened his eyes wide at that expectant look. "Oh, sorry," Grabble got up and then started over for the recliner chair in the corner. Gentle got onto the mattress with a self-satisfied look on his face.

"You can have this one," Zach started over to Grabble who he felt a bit bad for after Gentle seemed to force him to get up.

"Whoa, no I'm good," Grabble shook both hands at Zach fast. "All yours. I wanted the chair anyway."

Zach glanced towards Mark. "I'm on first watch," Mark replied, and Zach nodded at the man who said he would handle setting that up while they stayed here. "I'll take Grabble's chair when he's up," Mark added. Grabble nodded in agreement while looking towards Zach to show it was good with him too.

"Still," Gentle began while sitting up straight with his back against the headboard of his bed. "This does put a bit of a stall on our plans."

"Not necessarily," Zach started back. "So we agreed that trying to track Kaveman when he gets out of jail is not a good idea, right?" Zach said. The others nodded as he looked around at them. It was something they had discussed after knocking out Kaveman and bringing him and his guys to the police with all the guns they had on them as well as some drugs stored in the impound lot. "Because Kaveman's going to tell the guys who come to get him that we're looking for his bosses. But! Just because it'd be too dangerous for us to try it, doesn't mean there isn't anyone who can keep with them until Kaveman's back with his leaders."

Gentle's eyebrows lifted up, then they narrowed down towards his nose while he hummed in a hesitant way. Mark looked towards Zach in confusion first but then to Gentle in the same way as the older man seemed to know what Zach was referring to. Grabble looked Mark's way in surprise though as apparently the brown-haired man did not know what their leader was talking about. "How can we follow him then?" Grabble asked.

"You're thinking of using him, again?" Gentle asked. He sounded disapproving, and Zach's small grin lowered down as his suggestion started to taste bad in his mouth.

 _It's not like I didn't just try the same thing tonight. I guess to me, what I did to Hunter doesn't seem that bad anymore._ Zach nodded at Gentle in a more serious way, and he said, "It's not good to use him often, but it's been a while since the forest."

"I would like to meet him this time," Gentle began.

"No," Zach countered right back. He shook his head at Gentle, and the older man gave the boy a surprised look at how concise and without room for argument that 'no' was. "If anyone else met him… well, it would mess with how he," Zach trailed off, then he just sighed and finished as there was no point in hiding it, "thinks I'm the devil." He turned to Mark and Grabble who each looked at him in more confusion, and Zach just said in a low voice, "Tonight was, the second time I tried that strategy. It worked last time… too well."

"You have someone who can track others?" Mark asked Zach in a somewhat surprised way. "Why did we not use him for finding Shakad?"

Grabble's eyes widened too as that was a great point. "I needed something of his," Zach replied. "Like this," Zach reached to the nightstand between his and Gentle's bed and grabbed Kaveman's shirt that he had taken from the floor of the impound lot.

Gentle hummed a bit more and then nodded at him and turned to put his legs off the side of his bed closer to Zach. Zach pulled out his phone, and the other two got up and moved closer as Zach started dialing a number he had memorized. Zach's expression got darker, and then he reached his right hand up towards his chest. He hesitated before tapping himself though. _No. Using that voice after not using it other times, will make it seem like I'm trying to intimidate him. Just as casual as possible-_ The phone picked up and Zach opened his mouth to start in an annoyed voice about how the phone rang three times. "Hello," a voice replied over the phone, one that Zach had never heard before yet made him freeze with his mouth open and his eyes growing wide.

Zach pulled the phone from his ear an inch, his eyes darting to the side to stare at it. Gentle looked in confusion at Zach's face, as did the other two who were expecting to hear Zach start pretending he was the devil which had impressed them back in the parking lot at how convincing he could be. _That's not the Hunter._ "I know, it must be confusing as to why Hunter did not pick up. Unfortunately, I had to kill him, Zach Sazaki."

Zach's eyes went back to their normal size, and he kept his breathing steady while bringing the phone back against his head. His eyes got cold and he said in a low Japanese voice, "That's disappointing. I was just starting to like Kiki-kun, Eziano Mozcaccio." Gentle lifted his eyebrows as he had heard Zach say that name before, and then his eyes started opening wider as he saw Mark take a full step back at the foot of the two beds where he and Grabble were standing. Grabble did not understand what was going on as he only spoke English, but he got nervous just from the expressions of the others in the room alone.

Zach glanced over towards Mark and saw the man standing there making rapid motions with his hand up to his ear and then down as if slamming the phone. He swung his arms in front of his body over and over, crossing them and shaking his head at the kid who sweatdropped at Mark's frantic movements. _So, I guess he has heard of him before,_ Zach thought. He kept a stern look on his face though and got even more serious, making Mark slow down his movements and just start staring at the kid with wider eyes.

There was a brief pause on the other side of the line, and then the man's voice talking to Zach said, "You are playing a dangerous game, Sazaki, and you already think yourself important. Did Midoriya Izuku tell you how simple it would have been for me to blow All Might's brains all over the Sports Festival bleachers? How easy?"

Zach felt chills down his spine but his expression did not shift. "Then why didn't you?"

"None of your concern," Eziano replied, and Zach's forehead scrunched up as he wondered why Eziano would say it in the first place. _Is it just to show me he knows Midoriya's the one who first told me about him? How'd he know Hunter didn't say anything himself? He doesn't. That's why he would say it. And I didn't confirm anything, nor did I deny it. Hmmm._

"I suppose you're right," Zach said. They were having a standoff, and he leaned back on the edge of the bed while getting a lot more serious a look on his face looking past Gentle and towards the wall the motel room's door was on. "But it is my business what-"

"You're green," Eziano said. Zach froze with his mouth open, and Eziano continued after cutting him off, "You have no idea what you are doing, name-dropping me in front of both heroes and villains. There will be consequences-"

"I'm not All Might," Zach cut right back in, a dark look on his face and a pissed-off expression spreading over it. "I'm not a hero, and I don't give a fuck about your code or what you think you might do for the world." Zach's lips twisted and he snarled, "You take money to kill people. Fucking assassins? You think you're important? You're a killer for hire, you have an organization of people who kill for money," Zach pulled his phone in front of his face and growled into the receiver on the bottom of it, "and I'm going to destroy it."

Zach brought his phone back to his head and started glaring forward in such an intense way that Gentle realized the boy staring at him could not even see him as he was right now. Zach glared ahead and snarled in a low voice, "And if I kill you, and the other assassins go off the rails like All Might was afraid of, then I'll kill all those assassins too. Wipe you all out, or at least make it known that people who do what you do will not be tolerated in this world any longer."

A few seconds passed and Zach shifted his eyes to his right and the phone he held there as Eziano's voice came through. "Many have tried to kill me in the past three hundred years… I wish you luck, Sazaki. May God grant you good fortune, in the wars to come."

The call ended and Zach lowered the phone from his ear. He let out a breath he did not realize he had been holding after he finished what he had snapped angrily at Eziano, and he started panting while staring down at his cell. Zach lifted his eyes up and met Gentle's gaze which looked nervous just like his did, and Zach muttered in a low voice back in English, "Can't use the Hunter. Eziano killed him."

"Who is that?" Gentle asked. "You mentioned him in the forest saying that Hunter was not afraid of your old friend, the League, or even him. I assumed he must have been someone very strong then-"

"You just declared war," Mark whispered with his hands up through his hair and his eyes huge. "On the worst possible person," he finished with a nervous shake of his head.

Gentle looked to the man who also seemed to know who this Eziano person was. Zach looked his way too and said, "What do you know about him?"

Mark shook his head some more and then closed his eyes tightly. "I should have guessed, you'd do something the CIA wouldn't dare. We were, they were terrified of him-"

"You were in the CIA?" Grabble asked with his eyes huge now.

Mark glanced towards the man with pincers over his head and gave a short nod before turning back and continuing. Grabble felt even more out of the loop as the others were having this conversation and kept adding more stuff he had never heard about before. He started smiling a bit though despite it, realizing that they were speaking English in part for his sake, and he was glad they were including him with all this stuff he had not known before. Grabble grinned even as Mark started saying some ominous stuff about the mysterious Eziano Mozcaccio, and he cut off the former CIA agent, "We can take him." He looked straight towards Zach who turned to face him like the other two. The man with the Quirk- Pincers grinned at his leader and said, "We can take on anyone. After all, everyone has to face Death sometime. Even whoever that guy is!"

 _That's right,_ Zach thought, and he allowed a small grin to come to his face too. _That's a part of why that name matters. It comes for everyone. All the villains of this world. And I meant what I said to him, even if all that was just in the heat of the moment. I'll take down all the assassins. Any societies of villains. Isn't the Army of Death a- no, it's not. To the rest of the world it might be, but what the rest of the world thinks doesn't matter._ "I agree," Zach said. He turned to Mark and looked him in his eyes while the man with brown hair stared at him in shock and then with a hesitant and nervous smile too as he tried to feel as confident as the others. _Every villain. Every crime ring, drug den, villain group. I'll smash them all to pieces. He's right, I am 'green.' I'm new at this, and I need to learn quicker even while fighting the whole time!_ "Tell me, Mark," Zach said, and he looked his comrade in the eyes in a serious way, "everything you know about Eziano Mozcaccio."

* * *

"Everyone be most careful of Kaiju and Frostfire," Zach said in a quiet voice as he approached the side of a warehouse in a derelict neighborhood in southern Kazania. "Stay tight. Protectors keep in tank positions."

"Planting D6 on the east wall."

"Flight squad here at the south windows. It's dark in there. Can't see a thing."

"Keep on night vision until I give the signal," Zach said. He rose his right hand and motioned it forward at the wall he crouched near. One of the five figures in dark costumes behind him sprinted up past his right side and lifted her hands up. She turned back and stared through her visor at the shorter boy behind her who took in a deep breath and then gave her a nod. "Breach."

The woman in front of Zach spun back and she swung her arms up making a ray of red light come out the tips of her fingers. The red light scanned in a square from the distance her arms were spread apart down at the base of the wall up to above her head. The wall glowed red and then vanished thanks to Missappear's Quirk: Matter Displacement. Before the red light with the fading wall had even fully disappeared, Zach was sprinting through the wall and lifting a grappling gun in each hand. He sprinted forward with everything in the warehouse tinted green, he heard a blast across the building, and crashes of windows up near the roof.

Everyone ran into the warehouse. They all stopped after breaking in after only a few seconds. The reason there were no lights became clear as there were broken lights and shattered glass all over the floor. Mixed in with all that broken glass and broken lighting fixtures though, were the bodies of the villains they had come to fight. Zach stared ahead with his eyes widening behind his visor, because he saw the figure who matched the description of Kaiju he was given from the last Riot dealer he questioned. The man was slumped against a metal container, his head bowed and a trail of blood down the shipping crate looking like he had slid down from a dent above his bowed head.

"What the fuck happened here?" La Brava muttered from the other side of the warehouse as Zach where Gentle and her had led another team in.

"Took you long enough to get here," a man's voice called out in Japanese from on top of one of the crates leaning against a wall on the north side of the building. Zach's group that came in from the west and Gentle's in the east moved more towards the middle and looked towards the center of the building on the north side. They all entered a more wide open space of the warehouse, with the floor covered in glass and blood, though Zach noticed a couple of the villains on the ground were moving in his green-tinted vision.

"Who are you?" Zach called to the large figure he saw on top of a crate. The man stepped to the edge of the crate all the dark figures looked to, and then he dropped a man he was holding in his right hand. His right hand lost its orange glow after he released the figure who hit the floor on his side with his front facing the group of twenty figures in front of him. The man who was just dropped had burns all over the top of his face, and on his neck, and his mouth was open and moving like he was trying to scream but no sound was coming out. The flying group in the Army of Death landed down on a shipping crate behind the teams below and in the middle of the room. The others who had entered ready for a fight returned to their fighting positions and many of them started panting as they looked to this man who seemed responsible for all of this on his own.

Zach stepped forward though and lowered his grappling guns back to his sides. He subtly pulled a knife while putting the gun away in his left hand, making it look like he was disarming while not doing that at all. The man on top of the crate before Zach stared down at him as he stepped forward, and the figure dropped down off of the crate and ten meters in front of Zach.

"Be careful Commander."

"Should we take him out?"

"Nobody move," Zach said. He said it calmly and not in a whisper only meant for his earpiece. He wanted the man in front of them to know he had just said that too. _Who is he? Why did he do all this? He was waiting for us._ "Even you," Zach added while staring through his dark visor at the figure before him still tinted green thanks to Zach's night vision. He looked the large man up and down.

The figure standing there was in a mostly black costume pulled tight to his muscular body. There were dark red highlights on the costume too though, on his elbows, knees, his gloves, boots, and around his neck up until the costume ended and the scales began. His light facial skin turned into thicker scales farther down his chin and on his neck before disappearing into his costume. He was over six feet tall, he had no weapons on him, and he had a black cloak on that fell over his back and right side. His steel helmet had thin vertical slits over his mouth before stopping just beneath it, and he had a dark visor over his red irises that shifted around the group facing him in matching black costumes and helmets (except for the one slightly purple one). The man looked to his left at the edge of the group and then to the right across all of them, then his eyes focused back on the figure right in front of him who was standing there without activating a dark mode around himself that the figure was expecting.

"Hmph," the big man crossed his arms and then said, "so this is the boy All Might wanted to save."

 _I've heard that-_ _ **"So this is the boy All Might thought was worth saving."**_ Zach's eyes opened huge behind his visor and he sucked in a deep breath. _That's, what Ganji said to me. When we first met…_ "Who are you?" Zach asked.

"My name, is Lavamander," the figure before Zach replied. "I'm a bit disappointed. I've been here for an hour already. How many people do you have, and you still got here after me?"

 _How did he find the place? If he's judging us on the same time scale, did he find out information at the same time we did? Was he watching us?! That makes sense, if he was searching for us in the first place._ "I was making a plan first, since they wouldn't know we were coming anyway and wouldn't be going anywhere." Zach stared closer through his visor at the man in front of him. His eyes lowered down from the figure, and he ground his teeth in anger as he thought again about what that man just said. "All Might, he asked you to save me?" Zach asked.

"Not right now," Lavamander began with a low chuckle. Many of the people behind Zach were confused as to what was going on as the conversation was in Japanese, but they were still getting bits and pieces of the conversation with the mention of All Might a few times in there. "But back-"

"I know when," Zach said, cutting off the man in front of him. Lavamander's head leaned forward and he glared out his visor at the boy before him, only for his red eyes to widen a bit as the shorter figure continued, "Webb once told me, All Might asked three of you. I guess you were the third…" Zach ground his teeth again and he looked at the man before him in such an intense way. He lifted his hands up to his head and grabbed his helmet, keeping his knife slid down on his left wrist in a holder there for this exact purpose. He pulled his helmet off and said, "Brightside."

That was the signal, and his soldiers behind him turned off their night vision. Brightside waited a second for everyone to turn it off, then he lifted his visor and his eyes shone forward and filled the warehouse with light. Zach stared at the man in front of him who did not start taking his helmet off as Zach expected he would. He frowned a bit, but he just stared at the man in his dark visor and then his red eyes as Lavamander did pop the visor up at least to speak to him eye to eye. "Yeah, I figured you knew a bit," Lavamander started, a grin showing beneath the bottom of his helmet for a second. That grin lowered fast though and he said in a deeper voice, "Ganji let me know Webb succeeded, but he didn't tell me shit about what you were doing with them afterwards. I called him out that War Boys thing though, those two were the ones with-"

"It's my fault," Zach said. He stared into Lavamander's eyes, and he saw the man's red eyes narrow fast at his cut off and what Zach said. "About Ganji, and Webb," Zach added. Lavamander's eyes twitched for a second and his teeth clenched behind the slits of the bottom of his helmet. Behind Zach, one of the shorter figures in dark costumes started taking a step forward, her eyes opening wide behind her visor. Cee turned her head as Gentle grabbed her by the shoulder, holding her back while staring towards Zach himself in a hesitant way. Gentle's eyes shifted to the frightening figure who wiped the warehouse's villains out supposedly on his own, and he tightened his hold on Cee's shoulder before letting go so his hands would be free to fight with.

"Is that so?" Lavamander asked, and all of the Army of Death who were not following the Japanese conversation suddenly clenched their weapons tighter or started raising their arms.

"None of you move," Zach said, in a low English voice directed for the people behind him. He glared forward at Lavamander and then continued while keeping eye contact with the anti-hero, "It is," he said, returning to Japanese. "My best friend, who the three of us saved. I told him." Lavamander's teeth bared behind his mask, his red eyes flashing that color throughout instead of just in his irises. His hands started to glow orange, and he took a step forward. "No one help!" Zach shouted behind him, and he slid his knife down into his left hand while glaring harder at the figure before him. "He told me he didn't believe I didn't know the two who helped save him, and I, had lost contact with the others. I wanted him to help me out in that world because he seemed okay with it, interested enough-"

Lavamander sprinted forward and Zach whipped another knife off his right side while flicking the one in his left hand forward. Lavamander sprinted through the knife Zach threw with his left that just bounced off him. Zach dove to the right while slashing his right hand in front of him with the knife in it. Lavamander punched his glowing right fist forward at Zach's slashing knife, only for Zach's hand to release the knife and open up. Lavamander's fist was hot, and his red eyes darted to his fist nearing the kid's black glove. He pulled his fist back, only for his eyes to widen a bit as the kid's right hand pulled away so fast that it had to have been planning on moving away before his fist collided anyway.

Zach hit the ground and his left hand that flicked the knife was already back down at his waist, only pulling the katana on the back of his belt right out of its sheath. "I'm not going to just sit here and let you beat on me for what I did!" Zach yelled at Lavamander.

"Death!"

"Nobody help him," Gentle said, darting a look to his left towards Grabble who spun back in such a confused way. Grabble's pincers were sticking out of holes on the top of his helmet, and he shook his head while spinning back to Zach and watching him have to dodge left and right to avoid molten red fists flying at him from a distance.

"I knew it!" Lavamander shouted. "I knew, you must have done it. There was no way Ganji was going to be figured out by some kid. I knew he had to have been, _betrayed!_ " Lavamander roared the last word and then redirected his right fist that was punching forward like it was going to fly at Zach, straight down into the floor in front of him instead. He slammed his fist into the ground, and the ground between his fist and Zach's feet started glowing orange and bubbling. The orange got darker to red, and Zach sprinted to his right and dove into a forward roll pulling out a grappling gun with his right hand and firing towards Lavamander's feet as he came out of the roll. He sprinted at the man as lava blasted up from the ground between where they had just been facing off, just on Zach's left side so he could feel that side of his face getting singed by the proximity.

Lavamander pulled his legs apart and ripped through the powerful wire holding his legs together. Zach saw through the dark fabric tight to Lavamander's legs, sharp scales turning out to the sides when he pulled apart that told him it was not just his strength that ripped the strong wires. Zach slashed his katana while tossing the used grappling gun up towards Lavamander's mask that his visor dropped back down on so Zach could not see his eyes. "I didn't betray-" Zach began, but he grit his teeth and just jumped backwards while his katana broke on Lavamander's arm he blocked the slash with. _His body's so strong,_ Zach saw a glowing red light behind Lavamander's visor the same time both of his arms and both legs started to glow the same color. _What is he?!_

"Stop it!" Cee shouted, and she started running forward.

"Gentle!" Zach yelled, while at the same time slamming his right hand up into his chest. His body erupted in darkness, and he leapt up high in the air while Gentle shot forward. Gentle grabbed Cee and tossed her backwards, while swinging his other arm in front of him for a Gently Rebound. Zach dodged up, others in the Protection team of his forces put up barriers or blocks as lava shot past where Zach had just been and almost hit them. Zach darted a glance back towards the rest of his group, then he glared furiously with red eyes down at Lavamander whose visor glowed red right back up at the skull-faced boy. "If you drag them into this, I'll take you down! But I don't want-"

"I knew you were trouble!" Lavamander shouted up at the boy who started arcing back towards him and shooting black flames out of his back to make him go faster. Lavamander aimed his right fist up and fired a glowing orange fist at him, and Zach spun his body in midair and then threw a black knife down at Lavamander's head. He threw it an inch to the left of the anti-hero's face, but Lavamander did not pull away at all as he could see the knife was not going to hit him. Zach started pulling the Death off of the blade at the figure next to it while it passed by, but he clenched his teeth angrily and stopped trying. He just let the knife lose its Death on its own while clanking on the ground behind him. Zach landed and glared at the man who shouted in a pissed-off way at him even angrier now after Zach intentionally missed him with that knife, "Don't think you need to hold back, Lifebringer! Because I won't. I told them you were a villain-"

"Kaminari tricked me," Zach growled in his deep, scratchy voice. "He-" Zach brought his right hand up and smacked himself in the chest, and then he stomped forward and yelled at the man who got even angrier as Zach turned off his fighting mode to yell in his normal voice. "He was my best friend, the closest person in the world to me! I couldn't have known he was with the League! I didn't know, what he was going to do!"

"He came after me too, that Raijin," Lavamander snarled at the boy before him. Zach's eyes opened wide, and the dark figure before him took a big step forward and then roared down at him, "Wiped them all out! Every last one of them, but not me. Because I was always the strongest. Not just of the anti-heroes. I am the _absolute_!" Lavamander's arms started bubbling orange and bulking in size. "If I was a hero, I would've been far above Endeavor. If I was a villain, Shigaraki would be licking my boots." Lavamander pulled his head back, and he yelled in a furious way, "But I was an anti-hero! I was proud of that fucking name! And you- you fucking…" Lavamander's fists shook and bubbled even more furiously, and then he looked into the eyes of the boy he was shouting at.

Zach's eyes were so full of pain, but he stopped looking at Lavamander in regret. Even as the man shouted Zach's biggest regrets at him, the boy's expression returned to its strong look despite the pain in his eyes. "I was too," Zach said. "And it is my fault, but fighting me here isn't going to bring them back. Killing each other, won't do a God damn thing!" Zach glared at Lavamander's visor and into it where he knew the man's eyes were. Lavamander's arms shook for a couple more seconds, and then the glow on them started to fade and he lowered them back down to his sides. "You, really survived Raijin's attack," Zach said, staring at Lavamander in amazement and not saying it as a question as he believed him after the display he just witnessed.

"I did," Lavamander growled. "Left a mark where he focused his electricity the strongest, but it still barely broke through the surface." The man glaring at Zach ground his teeth but kept himself calmed-down despite how furious he still was at the boy in front of him. "You fucking fool," Lavamander began again after a second of just seething and glaring at him. "You have any idea what you did?" Lavamander could feel a scar on his right side ache with pain and his fists clenched so much harder as he felt the need for revenge against the boy before him.

"I know," Zach said. His response was short, but his voice told Lavamander he did not need to go on a rant to him about the things he was seething in fury about. Zach closed his eyes for a second, then he rose them and stared intensely but not apologetically at Lavamander. "I trusted the wrong person. He had split his mind with his Quirk, and the person I thought I knew was a lie. A fabrication he created with his electricity, stopping neurons and electro-transmitters in his brain… Raijin created the perfect spy, and I fell for it. I told him everything I knew, and he used it to wipe out the anti-heroes."

More than half of the people behind Zach did not understand what he was saying. Most of the ones who did speak Japanese were staring at his back with wide eyes though at what they were hearing for the first time. Only Gentle, La Brava, and the girl Gentle pushed backwards understood what he was talking about. Cee stared at Zach's back and her hands shook at her sides, her fingers starting to curl in, but they stopped and her hands never tightened into fists. She just started looking at his back in pain and then shifted her eyes over to Lavamander who turned away with a 'ch' and started marching off with his black cloak waving behind him.

Zach started glaring at the man, losing his regretful look and getting angrier instead. "So that's it?" Zach asked. He glared at Lavamander's back as the man took another step, then he shouted, "That's really all you came for? I don't think you knew I was the reason, because you would have just attacked from the start!" Lavamander took another step and Zach yelled, "What're you going to do? How will you keep up your work without guys like Ganji, and Conrad?!" Lavamander stopped after that shout. Zach started panting a bit, but he closed his mouth and just glared furiously with hazel eyes over at Lavamander's back.

"Whatever I do," Lavamander started in a low voice. "It won't have anything to do with you-"

"You're a coward!" Zach shouted.

Lavamander's eyes opened wide and then his mouth twisted down at the corners. He did not turn back to the boy he just got a lot more pissed at, instead just taking another step away and ignoring him. "You can't get over that I made a mistake, to look at the good we're doing. Yeah, I fucked up and got a lot of good anti-heroes killed. It's my fault, but right here! I'm trying to make up for it. If you can't see past that, see the good in the Army of Death- which I know you do because that's why you fucking came here! Right?!" Lavamander stopped again, and he ground his teeth as the boy behind him called him out. "It's why you searched us out in the first place, but you can't get over your own hate in order to save lives?"

"I don't need you."

"Then tell me how you found this place," Zach said. He took a step towards Lavamander's back after only waiting for a second, and he shouted, "Tell me you found it without using us! Tell me you didn't come here because you know we've been moving around fast, so you figure we have a better way of finding crime than you've had since you went on the run!"

"I'm not on the run," Lavamander growled. "People run from me. And I'm not working with the brat who fucked up the world."

Zach's hands clenched into fists at his sides, and in his chest bubbled rage towards Lavamander he had never felt so strongly towards someone he just met. He snapped towards the man who still would not turn back to face him, "You're not an anti-hero, Lavamander. If you leave because of this. You're just a villain in an illegal costume, acting in your own self-interests!" Lavamander's fists clenched in a much more pissed-off way, his teeth grinding as he got angrier than ever at the sound of that in his ears. Zach glared harder at the man's back though, and then into Lavamander's eyes as the man turned his head and glared right back at him over his shoulder.

* * *

 **A/N Sudden cut off! XD Lol I hope you guys enjoyed the chapter. Zach finally got Lavamander to stop and look back, but ending it here for now. Lots happened this chapter. We see Army of Death making their way west into Europe, fighting villains and trying to find out where bigger villains are. Zach calls up the Hunter and has a talk with Eziano Mozcaccio. And Lavamander returns for the first time in like 80 chapters or something since he appeared at the small meeting All Might asked Ganji to call. Wonder if anyone remembered him? Anyway, he's pretty pissed off at Zach who did not try hiding his role in the anti-heroes' collapse at all. Thanks for reading, and leave a review below telling me what you think, predictions, or questions for the story ahead!**

radoddish chapter 99 . 21h ago

OOOOOOOOOOOHHHHHHHHHH BOY. THE ARMY OF DEATH IS ON THEIR WAY TO CHANGE THE WORLD.  
Hmmmmmmm, is my character (me) able to join this army? the information is in my story. Yeah I have a story. It's horrible. gave myself a fnaf quirk. (Can ya read it and then rate pls).  
I mean if you want to I mean you don;t have to, just askin.  
So yeah back to Zach.  
HOW IS A 15-17 YEAR OLD ABLE TO LEAD AN ARMY?! LIKE SERIOUSLY, THE ARMY OF DEATH, IS BEING LED BY A TEENAGER. SERIOUSLY! If it's being led by a 15-17 year old, can a 13 year old join the fricken fray.

 **Army of Death starts to move! Thanks for the review and I'm glad you're seeming into it! As for your character, not gonna add him in. I really am not throwing in everybody who reviews as an OC, Hummingbird really was just a name I came up with and happened to also share part of a reviewer's name. All responses that might have made you guys think I'm inserting y'all in, I swear I was being sarcastic to try and keep it fun in review section. So I'm not gonna take your character and put him in here, what I'm trying to say^^ Sorry.**

Bass4penguin chapter 1 . 10h ago

Good chapter army of death seems cool  
It would be interesting to see the army of death when they aren't working when it's the off hours and how the members socialize amongst the group

 **Thanks! We get a couple scenes in here with the group just kind of hanging, though most of their socializing is based around their work. Got busy lives these Army of Death people, always working whether they're hanging in motels or shady Russian bars. XD Thanks for the review! Hope you enjoyed!**

Yes chapter 99 . 14h ago

I await more suffering.  
But really tho. We need much more of Darling.

 **Lol maybe things are going to go good for Zach for once? Maybe? Possibly? ... XD More Darling on the way, don't worry! Hope you enjoyed her parts here! Thanks reviewing!**

Super Power Sensei chapter 99 . 25m ago

You know what would be cool? I got this idea after watching Daredevil season 3. What if the League suddenly disappeared because they're secretly taking control of the Japanese government? And the way Zach "comes back to society"(150 chapters down the line) is by the Army of Death and his former classmates joining forces? Kirishima tries to attack Zach at first only to welcome him with a hug next. Jiro and Momo give him well deserved slaps then hugs(maybe some kisses). Izuku is the most reluctant because he is too blinded by All Might and his naive nature to believe Zach hasn't become evil. Sero, Ashido, and Ochaco would immediately have his back, while Iida would try to arrest Zach only to realize their government is too corrupted for "arresting" too mean anything. They save the people, stop the League once and for all, and establish new order just like Saudi Arabia. Zach gets off scott free. This can be done in a way that would seem like a civil war(at first)!

 **Epic prediction/suggestion. Haven't watched too much Daredevil myself but it sounds like I might have to get back into it. Won't say whether or not _any_ of that is going to happen, won't say it won't though. One thing I want to address is Midoriya, and it seems like a lot of you guys think he's thinking Zach's gone evil. In the last chapter at the point when he was most harsh on Zach, he was thinking about how if Zach did not have any more information than the rest of them, then he just invaded Saudi Arabia with no just cause. It might have ended well, but if Midoriya's thinking that Zach would have done it without knowing about Mongoloid's nature at first (which really he didn't, though he did know some things), then it seems a lot more like Zach just invaded a country with an army of villains. Anyway, I think those with insight into what Zach's really thinking and what his plans are are quick to back him up, but he's said it himself earlier in the story like when he tried getting Bakugo to work with him without really saying anything about his plan. He knows people can't just read his mind and realize what he's hoping for... well this is getting a bit long and I don't really want to defend Midoriya too much nor say I agree/disagree with what he's thinking ('cause who knows what's coming?), but really I think this idea is cool (150 chapters down the line). XD Thanks for the review!**


	101. Chapter 101

**Disclaimer: I don't own Boku no Hero Academia**

 **Chapter 101:**

A dark figure with red on parts of his costume stepped out of a warehouse in the dead of night in southern Kazania. On his right thirty feet away was a truck that had been pulled up to the building, and some figures in pitch black costumes and helmets were loading up the villains Lavamander had left alive. Lavamander ignored the looks of a few men while just walking away, but he stopped as a voice called out on his left.

"Hey." Lavamander turned and he frowned at a figure whose voice he recognized because she had shouted back in the warehouse during his initial confrontation with Sazaki. "Where are you going?" The girl asked, her helmet clipped down on her side so she was facing the anti-hero with her face revealed.

"None of your damn business," Lavamander snapped at her. He started turning, and then he lifted his head and frowned at the girl who flipped over him and landed on his other side.

She spun after landing and frowned at him harder with her eyebrows that had lifted up in a questioning way narrowing back down. The girl had blonde hair and fair skin, her eyes were blue but with small red pupils in the centers, and on her costume's belt was a single holster with a pistol in it she had never used. "You don't remember me," Cee said, and she kept frowning at the figure who lifted an eyebrow behind his visor. _I even took off my helmet. I thought he would-_

"Should I?" Lavamander asked, sounding uninterested and turning his head to look back the direction he was originally going.

"We met once," Cee said. She glared at the visor of the large man before her and said, "Ms. Calico."

"Oh," Lavamander stared down at the short girl in surprise. _Is this,_ he looked the girl over and hummed to himself. _She looks what, seventeen? Been a few years, but,_ "You're the kid she had with her."

"I'm not a kid," Cee said, her eyes dark as she glared where she figured Lavamander's eyes were. "Now where are you going?" She asked again in a more stern voice, deepening it a bit too as she questioned him.

"Now, move out of my way," Lavamander snapped, back to his annoyed tone already and turning from the kid in front of him. He started walking and moved to the left of the girl to step by her, and Cee turned and glared at him as he did. "What I do is my choice," he muttered, darting his eyes to the right in his visor to glare at the girl. He stopped at the look in her eyes when he was right at her side, and then he asked in a lower, darker voice, "And Calico?"

Cee's teeth clenched and then she responded in a dark voice, "Dead."

"Is it his fault?" Lavamander asked.

Cee's eyebrows narrowed in more and her eyebrows dipped towards her nose. "Yes, it is." She glared at him and then added, "But I'm still here."

"Good for you," Lavamander said and started walking again.

Cee spun with her eyes wide, then she stepped after Lavamander and glared at him with her eyes flashing pink. Lavamander kept walking without noticing a thing, and then he slowed down and came to a stop, because he was walking back towards the warehouse and the girl standing in front of him with a pissed-off look on her face but the right corner of her lip pulling up a bit. "It might be, Death's fault," Cee said and her lip curled back down, a dark tone coming through her voice and stopping Lavamander from threatening her. "But I can see the good in what we're doing. What he's doing. Didn't you?" She asked and watched as the man's teeth bared through the slits of his visor. "Why are you leaving?" She asked, shaking her head in confusion.

"I work alone," Lavamander growled back in response. He stopped baring his teeth and pulled his head back a bit while looking down at the young girl. He took a calming breath and then glanced back at the warehouse he had just been in alone with "Death" for a few minutes while everyone else was outside. Lavamander's eyes narrowed at the building, but then he popped his visor up and looked down into the girl's eyes, "I remember you," Lavamander said. "Back then, you were a little brat who followed Callie around so closely…" Cee stared at Lavamander with her eyes widening at the nickname she had never heard anyone use before with her old mentor, except it sounded familiar. _Did he call her that, back then?_

"…You might be able to change that easily," Lavamander continued. "Up and switch from what you were, to what you're a part of now. Here." He looked around again and his teeth clenched before he turned away from the girl. "You'd be surprised at how old I am though, girl. For decades, I was an anti-hero. Longer than you, longer than Call-ico, longer than Ganji. He helped us out, made things easier, but _I_ was the one who brought him in." Lavamander started walking and his clenched fists loosened up at his sides. "I was once told by my mentor, that anti-heroes don't live long. The good ones, die young. The bad ones, die younger. But forty years later, and I'm still trying to prove her wrong…" he turned his head to the side and looked back at the young girl, for once, with a softer look in his eyes. "Sorry to hear about Callie."

Lavamander turned back forward and kept walking again. Then he started running and dropped down to his hands to sprint much faster on all fours while Cee stared after him with her eyes opening wide at how big of a speed boost that gave him. The anti-hero disappeared into the night, and he glared down a dark road he sprinted onto with his mind foggy.

 _ **"Who's this kid?"**_

 _ **"I'm not a kid! My name, is Calico!"**_

 _ **"Like the cat?"**_

 _ **"Yes! Duhh."**_

 _ **"She's acting as an anti-hero in Kiribati. But she also works around the other Pacific Islands. There aren't any supports for islands in Oceania, so I figured-"**_

 _ **"You're spreading too far, Ganji."**_

 _ **"The more interconnected we are, the more we can do as a whole-"**_

 _ **"And just who are you to say-"**_

 _ **"Alright Callie, let me give you some advice."**_

 _ **"Callie?"**_

 _ **"In this country, you respect your elders-"**_

 _ **"Callie?! It's Calico!"**_

 _She really, used to hate that nickname…_ Lavamander clenched his hands down harder and then grimaced as he accidentally ripped through the pavement he was running down. _Fuck. FUCK! Everyone. All of them…_ In his head he saw the girl who just confronted him, a girl he had seen before when coordinating a mission with Calico half a dozen years back. Seeing her try to defend Sazaki back there had Lavamander grinding his teeth in frustration. _A group that big can't do anti-hero work. Our work is done in the shadows! It always has been._ _ **"Villains around the world think they can keep getting away with what they're doing, but they're wrong… We're coming for them… The Army of Death's only mission, is stopping villains…"**_

In Lavamander's head echoed the speech he had heard in that recording in Saudi Arabia. _A big group like that is bound to get caught by heroes. There's a reason for being in the shadows. There aren't enough of… but there are less heroes now than before- but not in the old days. I remember, All Might's rise. Fighting with him, in those early days. Against All For One… But he's gone now. Gran Torino's lost his power. Shimura, Master, Vostranus… The old generation is gone. A vestige of an age long past. Is that all I amount to? Those kids back there, do they know something? Times change. It might not be wisdom, but just stubbornness, arrogance, and hate that I'm being blinded by. Or maybe that little shit is going to get a whole new crop of anti-heroes wiped out with his fucking stupidity!_

Cee stared out into the darkness where Lavamander ran off for a few seconds. She had a small hope he might come back around, but it quickly dwindled as she realized there was no reason he would do so. Cee bit down on her bottom lip for a second and then turned around and started over towards the warehouse. _Stubborn old man. He's so strong. If we had his help, and his experience, we could do a lot of good! That's what matters most. It's why I'm here, you idiot. Why I can just-_ Cee's eyes started narrowing at the building in front of her but she shook her head fast to shake away the emotions only welling up because of the things Lavamander had been saying.

 _It's why I can just push those thoughts away…_

 **4 Months Ago…**

"Who are they?!" a seventeen year old girl exclaimed in panic. A short girl with long blonde hair sticking out of her bright pink costume's popped collar ran after a woman who wore a similar costume only the cape she wore was black and had white stripes through it. The older woman's costume also had a black top hat, or at least it usually did. However Calico was sprinting away so fast that she had no time to grab her hat when it came off during the initial fight. Her straight black hair waved behind her as she sprinted, and she glanced over her shoulder to check on her apprentice who shouted from not far behind.

The short blonde anti-hero stared towards Calico's face and she started breathing heavier and with more panicked pants as she saw the bloody gash on the right side of her teacher's face. "Ms. Calico," she began in a scared voice at the look in her teacher's eyes. "What's going on?"

"Keep running, Cat," Calico said, while she spun her body around and skid backwards on her heels. "Keep running!" She shouted as Cee started to look back where Calico was staring with her arms raising up in front of her.

Catherine Am'bahu, a girl who had gone by a shortened version of that name for almost ten years, only had her head half turned to the side when Calico shouted louder at her. Only halfway turned though, and she could see the flash of yellow in the corner of her vision that made her blood run cold. _How?!_

 _He's so fast!_ Calico's eyes darted left and right at the flash of lightning zipping across the rooftop behind them.

Cat ran by the side of her teacher and then turned and her eyes flashed pink towards the next roof right as the yellow flash was about to take the leap over the gap between buildings. A grin spread for an instant on Cat's face, but it vanished as the figure stopped at the edge of the last roof. The blond boy standing there and looking down towards them lifted his left hand to his head, and sparks started coming out of his skull all around it. Sparks flew out of his hair, and then he sprinted forward and leapt off the roof towards their with a big grin on his face while the younger of his two enemies stumbled back in fear.

"What? How did he-"

"I said to-" Calico began shouting.

"She won't escape," Raijin called across the roof. The boy with a black lightning bolt in his blond hair smirked and his body erupted in a much brighter flare of electricity. Calico turned her head sideways a bit and her eyes darted off the side of the roof where two figures flew up. Behind Raijin on the roof he just came across, some slower villains were sprinting after him and leapt after him onto the increasingly crowded building.

"The League of Villains," Calico began. She lifted her right and left arms straight out in front of her and all her fingers curled down out of her open hands. A wand flew out of the right sleeve of her cloak into her right hand, and her feet lifted off of the floor while she glared straight towards a boy she had seen on the news just a few days earlier. "What are you doing in this country?"

"Oh I just came for the nice hotels, beautiful beaches…" Raijin's friendly voice and genuinely just excited expression about being on the beautiful Pacific island vanished as his head leaned back forward. His mouth twisted up and his bared teeth showed in a crazy way as lightning sparked off of his hands. "And to purge some more of you anti-heroes. I'm oh so glad you all decided to work together, give Ganji information," Raijin pulled the corners of his lips up farther while the two women in front of him stared his way in horror.

 _Ganji?!_ Calico thought with her heart rate speeding up. Her eyes darted around the building and she realized she was being cornered. They were gathering on all sides of her. Villains. _He escaped from U.A. all on his own! In the middle of all those heroes, he was there the whole time!_ Calico's eyes shot back to the boy who started laughing at her terrified expression of realization.

"That's right, you're fucking screwed!" Raijin sprinted forward and he rose his hands to create two lances of lightning. "Kill them all!" Raijin shouted, and he vanished in a flash of lightning before racing right beneath Calico and at the girl behind her who had redirected him and his guys for long enough that they had almost escaped. "I'll start with you," Raijin said, and he swung a bolt of lightning at the girl. Her eyes flashed pink again, but sparks flew out of his head as he felt the attack and his own feet shifting like he was turning around to try and see her.

The roof beneath Raijin's feet started shaking, and Raijin flew off his feet that he managed to keep pointing at Cat. All of the villains running forward lifted off the ground, and Cat did too. Calico's hands glowed while her head was mid-turn back to where she realized Raijin was going. A bolt of lightning flew down and just missed Cat's side, but the explosion of electricity where it crashed still collided with the young girl and made her scream out in pain. "INFINITE!" Calico shouted, pointing her wand towards where Raijin was raising up. The end of her wand extended out and slammed into the blond villain, and it pushed into his chest and kept slamming him farther through the air while Calico herself rose higher.

 **BANG BANG BANG BANG**

A whip flew up where Calico was dodging bullets, and it wrapped around her right leg and then yanked down hard from the muscular woman who swung it. While she was being swung down, electricity raced up her wand and made Calico drop it with a scream. "Ms. Calico!" Cat yelled through her own electrifying pain. She staggered forward, glaring around and making her eyes flash pink again and again though they started bleeding as she hit the third time in a row without breaks.

"Where are you idiots going?!"

"Shit! That's the ledge!" One of the winged villains who Cat had not glared at with pink eyes still had to turn and fly off the other way as one of their sprinting comrades just took a dive off the side of an eight story building.

"Are you alright?" Cat helped her mentor up as Calico was panting down on her hands and knees. The muscular woman who swung her down sprinted into an air conditioning vent she had not noticed was right in front of her when she thought she was charging at the two girls down on their knees. She stumbled back in confusion, then the villain turned and glared towards the anti-heroes who were actually back behind her.

Calico lifted her head and looked at the young girl trying to tug her up to her feet. The thirty year old woman stared at the scared look in the girl's eyes that had blood on the bottom of their eyelids. Calico saw the muscular woman on her right turning and lifting her whip again with a furious look on her face, and she saw a flash of lightning far off the building where she had pushed the enemy's leader. Other villains were moving towards them, and Calico's eyes focused into Cat's in such a soft way. A smile spread over the woman's face, thinking back when she was in her early twenties and found the little orphan girl shipwrecked on a small island in the Pacific. Calico's right hand lifted and pressed on Cat's face, on her right cheek that Cat pushed into the hand while clenching her eyes shut.

 _It's all over,_ Cat thought. She pushed her face in her mentor's hand and whispered, "I love you."

Calico's right thumb rose up and wiped a tear of blood away from beneath Cat's eye. "Then live," Calico said. She rose up her other arm fast while Cat's eyes were opening wide. She pressed both hands on Cat's face and then pushed forward, "LIVE!"

"Ms. Calico!"

A flash of lightning slammed down on top of the building. White flashes went off from the barrels of guns of villains who had been pointing towards them. And a blond man who just crashed down and electrocuted the woman getting lit up by his subordinates turned his head. He glared out into the sky at an object moving way too fast away from the building for him to follow. He could not even hear the scream of the girl after a second, and he turned back and looked at the woman he just charred on top of the roof.

"You let her escape," Raijin said, glaring towards the muscular woman on his left who stared at him in shock at that.

"I didn't-" she began, and then she closed her mouth and took a step back nervously at his look.

Raijin lifted his right hand and pushed it up through his hair to spike it more in the center. "This was a quick stop on the tour. Take care of the girl and call me when it's done." Raijin looked over his shoulder towards two others who were close to the anti-heroes when that girl got away. "You two, with Testostrogen. End it quickly," Raijin turned and started walking towards the charred corpse. He glanced back up and laughed, "I mean, finish up _here_ quickly. Take your time with how slow you actually kill her." He looked down at the charred body of the anti-hero who tried saving that girl. "Can you hear me? If you still have lingering thoughts in that brain of yours, even after your heart has stopped. Let that be your last thought… it will hurt."

 **3 and 1/2 Months Ago**

"What are we doing here?" La Brava asked in annoyance at the back of the black-haired boy in front of her. "Hawks will wake up soon, and he called us out on really going east. We should be in America by the time he- are you listening?" The short woman snapped at the teen who was just staring down at his right palm.

"Don't yell at him," Darling snapped angrily ahead at the shorter woman who turned and glared right back at her through the glass windshield of the motorboat they were on. Darling was slowing down the engine, and she glared right back through the glass at the other female on the boat.

Zach closed his right hand into a fist. He curled his fingers in on his glove over the ripped part of it, and over his scabbed skin beneath. "We could use more gas before going across the ocean-"

"We are plenty stocked," Gentle said while walking up next to the boy at the bow. He stepped past La Brava who he agreed with, but he asked the boy when he stepped next to him, "What is your real reason? Do not lie to us-"

"He isn't lying!" Darling shouted up at Gentle.

A sweatdrop formed on the left side of Zach's face at that shout of trust. He turned his head sideways and said, "Alright, there's another reason. But it's not…" he stopped himself and then looked back at the island they were approaching. "It's more of just a, hunch- no, just, something I need to check on."

"In Micronesia?" Gentle questioned, an eyebrow lifted in confusion and surprise. "What could be here?" He asked, wanting Zach to answer but also just asking for himself in interest at what the boy could possibly have to do in the small islands around them.

"Tarawa," Zach began, saying the name of the atoll in Kiribati that they were approaching. "There's a hotel here, where…" Zach clenched his eyes shut and thought hard. He raked through memories in his mind, and he thought about staring down at a sheet of paper in Seiki Ganji's office. He thought about designing a costume, while Ganji and Webb discussed several things right next to him. _Webb wanted me to focus on these things. He knew I was listening, and he was disappointed because I didn't do anything about it! What did I hear about this island?_ He thought about how he saw the name Tarawa on the map they were using to navigate across the ocean in their escape from Japan. _Tarawa. A hotel here, some, crime. And the "acquaintance" in Kiribati. It's not a lot to go on. It's nothing! But, Kaminari only started his purge after he betrayed me, so that I wouldn't figure out it was him. He said he'd already done it, already destroyed it all, but I have to hope he missed some. I have to warn them, in case they don't know!_

"It might not be anything," Zach said. He turned to Gentle and then said in a serious voice, "But there could be an anti-hero here." _Don't lie to them. They fled the country with me. They deserve to know what I'm doing._ "I have to warn them about Raijin's purge."

"'Could be?'" La Brava asked in a skeptical tone. "This doesn't seem like an important-"

"Fine," Gentle said, holding up a hand for La Brava to wait a moment. La Brava looked at him in surprise, but Gentle smiled and looked towards the island himself in a much more interested way now. "I have been quite intrigued as to the existence of these, anti-heroes, you have mentioned."

"I was serious about stocking up for the trip," Zach started. "I can really just do a quick look around on my own-"

"We are a team now," Gentle said, looking down and lifting the right corner of his lip beneath his bushy mustache.

La Brava smirked and walked up to his side in a cocky way too. "We could all ask around about a mysterious non-hero superhero. It will go faster," La Brava said, raising her eyebrows at the boy who frowned for a few more seconds and then just started nodding at the two who he doubted he would be able to convince otherwise.

"Then Darling, could you deal with," Zach began while looking back at the girl at the center console. Darling's eyes were wide and shaking as Zach started that to her, and he sweatdropped before sighing and shaking his head. "Nevermind. We'll all go together. Thought we were in a hurry," he muttered, looking back at the other two up front with him while Darling called out happily that he wanted her to come along. La Brava lost her cocky smirk after hearing the last thing Zach said, but she glanced up at Gentle and saw he did not look dismayed by how long they would be staying so she felt more confident too. Zach frowned a bit as he did not manage to manipulate the two next to him with that, then he just shifted his gaze back to the island ahead they were slowing down a lot on their approach to so as to stay quiet.

"Stay in disguise," Zach started, lifting a hand and pushing down on the rip of the cap he was wearing. He had on a long-sleeved shirt which he knew might draw some attention, but definitely less than if the scars all over his left arm were visible. "And don't draw too much attention. I don't even know if I'm remembering correctly, so just keep a low profile…"

 **The Next Day…**

"How is that low profile?!" La Brava shouted at the girl next to her whose arms started un-transforming from a rocket launcher.

Darling took a few heavy breaths as she had fired a lot of mass out of that cannon, but La Brava gained a nervous look on her face at the sight of the younger panting girl at her side. Darling was panting, but her lips were curled up high at the corners and her eyes were wide with glee as flame-light flickered on her face.

The two girls stood on the slanted wooden roof of a beach bar with a pool behind them that was empty considering how late it was in the night. There were beach chairs set up on the sand in front of them, though some of those chairs had been blown apart and were on fire. There were some craters in the sand, two unconscious figures laying around inside of them, and a third was sliding down from the top of one where a tall man just tossed her. Gentle frowned while releasing the muscular woman, but he did not feel very bad as he turned back to the short blonde girl who had been in her clutches as they arrived.

The dark aura vanished around Zach's body and he ran over to the girl who was on her knees rubbing at her throat while staring at him in shock. _Really, what was Darling thinking?_ "We have to get out of here," Zach said quickly towards Gentle.

"I suppose we will meet you back at the boat then," Gentle replied. He swung a hand in front of himself while keeping a close eye on the blonde girl who wore some interesting pink clothing. He bounced himself over to the beach-side bar and grabbed La Brava by the hand. "Be careful my dear," Gentle said to the other girl on the roof, making La Brava's eyes open wide and her mouth curl down in jealousy. La Brava's mouth curled up a lot more though as Gentle flew off and left Darling behind.

Darling turned and watched them go through the air with a low frown on her face. Then she turned back to the beach that was getting less lit up as some of the flames died down. She jumped down onto the sand and did a roll as she landed, and she started running towards Zach with her eyes narrowing more at how close he was to that blonde.

"You're," Cat began softly. "Lifebringer," she whispered.

"No," he replied. He held his left hand out to the girl who pulled back quickly at the movement, then started calming her breathing and reached out to take his hand. Her arm shook a bit as she was about to grab it, and then she clenched her eyes shut and grabbed his hand fast to stop herself from hesitating any more. "Are you, the anti-hero, from around here?" Zach asked.

Cat froze while her hand was still holding his. Her entire body tensed up. _Lifebringer, was his- Raijin's! They were friends at school!_ The girl's eyes shot open wide, and Zach let go of her hand and pulled back. He lifted his hands defensively and with an apologetic look on his face for scaring her. "I was one too," Zach said.

The blonde in front of him was panting hard. She stared at him, deep into his eyes, and then she whispered, "You were?"

"Yeah," Zach replied. _Oh man. Fuck. FUCK! I, I can't-_ Zach grit his teeth and got such a pained look on his face as he stared at her. "I, heard about you once, from Ganji. I knew there was someone here-"

"It wasn't me," the girl replied. Darling came up behind Zach and stopped on his left side, but her eyes opened wide and she lost her slightly jealous and annoyed look for a more pitying one at the look in Cat's eyes. "My teacher, Ms. Calico. She w-was," the blonde girl clenched her eyes shut thinking about what she saw while flying away from the building Ms. Calico pushed her from. _**"LIVE!"**_ "She was the best, hero in the world-"

"I'm sorry," Zach whispered. Cat opened her eyes that she had clenched shut, and she stared at Zach's face as the boy stared back at her with so much regret in his eyes. "Kaminari, I-" Zach stopped as Cat's eyes bulged. The girl staring at him and speaking Japanese took a step back, feeling like she just got punched in the face by the boy she had started talking to in a trusting way so fast.

 _They were friends. He was an anti-hero. Raijin knew. He mentioned Ganji. Ganji knew everyone. Oh my God._ "It was you," she whispered.

Lights shone down the beach and Darling snapped her head to the side at the sound of shouts in the distance. She leaned back with her face covering in panic, suddenly regretting her big attacks even if they had done damage to the villains unconscious in the sand around them now. "Zach, we have to go."

"I'm sorry," Zach repeated. He looked into the girl's eyes with so much pain in his own. Then his eyes shifted down to her left leg that had blood all over it, and back to her reddened neck, and then around the three villains who were still here hunting her down. _They'll send more. He'll come back for her. She, she can't._ "You're right," he said, locking eyes back with the girl's but stepping towards her instead of away with Darling. "It was my fault. I told him, and he- I'm sorry." Zach shook his head and pulled it back while the girl in front of him started breathing faster and glancing over her shoulders at the lights getting closer.

"The anti-heroes are gone now though," Zach continued. Cat spun her head back forward and stared in shock into the eyes of the boy in front of her who looked so desperate for her to listen to him. "Please," he said. "We can stop Kaminari- Raijin. Get justice for Ms. Calico, and Ganji, and Webb, all of them. Please," Zach took a step back and Darling looked at him in shock as he motioned with his head the other direction from the incoming authorities. "He'll come back for you here. I know, you must hate me right now. But we _have_ to go. And we can protect you."

"Zach," Darling started.

 _What is Lifebringer doing here? How did he know about Ganji? Was he really an anti-hero? He told Raijin, and Raijin killed them, and, and he…_

 _ **"Lifebringer killed Kurogiri after setting a trap for the League of Villains in that forest. I'm thinking it must have been his relationship with Raijin, or Denki Kaminari, who was there that night, which gave him the insight on how to prepare that trap… It's regrettable he's on the run right now, but there is no other way to define him. Whether or not he was really just trying to help us all, he's breaking the law…"**_

 _ **"He'll come back for you here."**_

 _ **"LIVE!"**_

"W-Wait," Cat started. She started running after the other two, wincing with every step of her left foot. She ignored the pain though even as more blood came out of the gashes on her upper leg and her calf that could not heal while she was running. "You'll let me, come with you?"

"I don't think," Darling began, but Zach took a step back in the other direction.

"Do you really, want to come?" Zach asked with his face covered in shock. He couldn't lie to the girl. As much as he wanted to save her, he also could not lie to her and leave out what he had done. It wasn't how he wanted to start a relationship. He knew if he did not tell her it would come back to bite him later on. He knew she would be more likely to come if he did not though. And yet the only real reason he said anything was the guilt weighing down on him hearing how pained she was over the loss of her teacher.

 _They're strong. They defeated those three without any… and if you are a villain. If you're really, evil. Then maybe I could stop you. Maybe I have to. Or, or maybe I just need a place to go._ Cat's stomach ached of hunger, her eyes shook as she stared into Zach's, her hands trembled in fear and anger at the same time. And then in his eyes she saw him thinking about what she looked like when she talked about losing her teacher, as he started thinking about his own anti-hero mentor. The thought of Webb, what Kaminari said he had done to him and his family, it echoed in Zach's mind and filled his heart with pain.

"Damn it," Darling whispered. She lifted up her right arm and started transforming it into a kind of cannon like she had back on the beach bar. "We need to go," she said.

"Don't-" Zach started while spinning to her.

"Smoke bomb," Darling called out in a whisper. She needed to tell him she was not really attacking these authorities chasing them, while also keeping quiet in case they had not been seen yet. She fired the smoke over near the villains they had knocked unconscious, which would slow the heroes on the other side from running down the beach as well as blocking them from sight. "Let's go," Darling said, and she reached out and grabbed Zach by the sleeve and tugged backwards.

"I don't," Cat finally responded to Zach after spinning with him when the brown-haired girl suddenly attacked behind them. She looked in Zach's eyes and whispered, "But Ms. Calico told me to live, with her last breath. So let's do it," she stepped towards Zach. "Let's take down Raijin together. The name's Cee. C double e." _Don't trust him. Don't trust any of them. Ms. Calico, I'll take all of your teachings. And I'm going to become a better anti-hero. One who could have given us more time to run. One who you wouldn't have had to protect. Someone who could have fought with you, to the end!_ "Let's go," she ran past the boy who was staring at her in so much shock at her answer. She ran by him and then let the tears fill her eyes, _I can't be on this island anymore!_

 **Present**

Cee stared towards the warehouse in southern Kazania as a dark figure stepped out of a hole in the wall. Several other soldiers in the Army of Death ran over to him and started talking fast, and he responded while looking over at trucks and then back into the warehouse behind him. Cee's hands at her sides that had almost clenched into fists before loosened more, and she rose one up and scratched the back of her head before lifting up her helmet in the other. The eighteen year old girl adjusted her helmet on her head, then she stared forward at the dark figure who just came out of the warehouse but was now walking her direction.

"Hey," Cee said as Zach walked towards her. "He's gone," she said, frowning again while glancing back behind her.

Zach looked over Cee's shoulder and then thought about what he and Lavamander talked about alone back in the warehouse. "Yeah," he replied softly. "But, we'll see him again." Cee turned back in surprise at the optimistic tone she just heard in her leader's voice. "Did you know him?" Zach asked after she turned back to him.

"Not really," Cee replied. "He came to help Ms. Calico with a mission years ago. She made me stay behind for it, so I only met him right before they left together."

 _Years ago. She's been at this since she was a kid. An anti-hero, with Ms. Calico…_ "Back in there," Zach began softly. Cee looked through her visor and into Zach's. Both of them were just staring at visors as they could not see each others' eyes through them. Yet they imagined each others' eyes fairly well with just the tones in their voices. "You tried defending me," Zach said. Then he just asked in an even softer voice, "Why?"

Cee stared at the visor and could imagine his face. She doubted he was masking his expression at all either, hidden behind that visor already. So she could picture how his face looked right then, all scrunched with his lips curled down in frustration and his eyes wide in confusion. Her own started looking that way too as she thought about his question. _"Why?" Why? It's because-_ "I don't kn…" Cee stopped herself and her eyes shifted down in her visor from the boy just a couple inches taller than her. "Because," she began more truthfully, and she lifted her eyes back up. She stared at him, and she imagined them standing on those dunes at the edge of Saudi Arabia together. And facing villains in the Pacific, Hawaii, California, Nevada, across the US, terrorists in Gorran, mafia, and drug dealers, and she knew they were still just getting started. "I forgive you."

"You do?"

"Seeing Lavamander get so furious, I was trying to stop him because I knew he didn't understand. I didn't even think about what I was doing. But, I did that without thinking, because I don't really need to think about it. You're a good person."

Zach stared at the girl in front of him with his heart racing faster than it had in his whole fight with Lavamander. "But," he whispered. "Ms. Calico-"

"Raijin killed her," Cee cut him off before he could try and make her hate him as she saw coming. She took a deep breath herself since he almost succeeded in making her get angry at him again. "And we're going to get him," she continued, nodding her head seriously at the boy before her. "And all his League of Villains, and all the other villains too. I never considered it possible, and it still sounds ridiculous in my head. Ha, ha," Cee chuckled and shook her head, then she finished in a serious way again, "But I believe you. When you say what we're doing is going to work. So I think it will. It will, right?"

Zach stared at the girl in front of him with his eyes wide for a few more seconds behind his visor. Then, a smile pulled at his lips and he nodded his head. "Right," he said. _Kaminari killed them. As much blame as there is to go around, it was him. And one day, I am going to kill him for that. For all of it._

* * *

Xander Carmen, the US ambassador to the United Nations, stepped up to a podium for a press conference. He cleared his throat and put his hands up on either side of the top of the podium, then he began in a steady voice, "As you all know, a few minutes ago the UNGA convened to vote on a very important issue. In a unanimous decision, the General Assembly has labeled the Army of Death as a terrorist organization."

"Oof," Akhmed ran a hand up through his dark hair. He frowned at the screen in front of the majority of the Army of Death who were gathered together in one room. "Unanimous? Really thought we'd get a couple votes."

"Those assholes," Darling started, glaring at the screen as she said it. "We saved Saudi Arabia, and even they didn't-"

"Its members are villains," Xander Carmen continued. "Who have broken several countries' immigration laws, carried out acts of vigilantism, and killed. The brutality of the Army of Death's actions has been exemplified clearly in recent days with the release of crime scene photos from Kazania…"

"That wasn't even us!" Hummingbird called out from the back of the group where she was flapping her wings fast to stay hovering and looking down over all the taller members in front of her.

Cee ground her teeth and then muttered in a pissed-off voice, "Soon as I saw the pictures of Lavamander's victims in the warehouse." She shook her head. They had gathered up the unconscious ones and brought them to the authorities in Kazania, but they had not done much clean up at the warehouse other than that. They had left several bodies inside the building. and the authorities knew where it was so they put two and two together, wrongly. "That asshole," she said in a lower, more annoyed voice at the guy who did not even join them which would have at least made the UN's reason legitimate.

"Saudi Arabia's new ambassador Farrah Khalid, and Gorran's ambassador Val Shishiek voiced their countries' opinions that the Army of Death has done certain things to help them. However they also agreed, that an international group of unregistered Quirk users who act outside of the law, are nothing more than terrorists. They have killed in several countries. Their members are powerful and do not answer to anyone. No oversight. No regulation. Their existence is frightening. It is not something that gives us hope."

Zach's eyes narrowed at the screen straight in front of him. _If you didn't do something like this, we wouldn't scare anyone. This still won't really. As much as you try to push it. It's not regular people who will be getting scared here._

"We are now in the process of creating a task force to counter this Army of Death, and to arrest those involved…"

 _The people of Saudi Arabia aren't the ones calling for this. If their government said they didn't think of us as terrorists though, other countries would assume we were still there. If we had stayed they might have given us protection, but that would have hurt them more than anything. It's better this way. I never expected people to think of us as heroes._ "It's fine," Zach said. The others who started murmuring around him and watching the screen nervously looked over at their leader instead. Zach turned his head and looked around at everyone around him. He looked each of them in the eyes as his gaze shifted over them, and then he said with an intense look on his face, "We can handle it. The rules stay the same, even for heroes who might become a part of this task force."

Zach turned and looked back at the screen himself. His confidence spread to the others around him who reminded themselves why it was this was on the news, why heroes were being called to fight them, why the UN just had to make a decision on them. They were making a difference. Most of them grinned, some still looking nervous as they did though while watching the US ambassador start speaking directly to them about their villainous ways. "…the brutality like what you have been committing against villains of different nations is not the same as heroism. It is murder. Torture. And you will be brought to justice."

Zach's hands clenched down on his knees as he glared at the screen. _We won't though. Everything you said will startle some normal people, maybe a few will get scared for a bit, but we will vanish from the news- the less we do in the light. The more powerful we are, the less visible we have to be. So try and make normal people afraid of us, it won't work. This will only work in our favor, to strike fear in the hearts of villains._

* * *

 **A/N Thanks for reading! Get some backstory this chapter into Lavamander and a lot on Cee. Cee was the first person to join up with Zach's crew after they left Japan as we see here, then Mark from that flashback in Hawaii where Rebel joined them. Didn't really know what I was going to do with her until a couple days ago but now I'm really liking her. Anyway, Lavamander heads out though Zach seems confident after his talk with him that they'll see him again, Cee forgives Zach for what happened with Ms. Calico, and the UN unanimously votes that the Army of Death is a terrorist organization that needs to be stopped! Hope you all enjoyed the latest chapter! Leave a review below telling me what you think, comments, questions, or predictions!**

Shinn of Destiny chapter 100 . 11h ago

Congrats on chapter 100 but who do u like writing about more? Momo or Darling?

 **Thanks! I don't really know, I like both of their characters in this a lot though I'm getting a lot more character development for Darling recently. It's also pretty fun writing in someone who doesn't have all their screws together...? Eggs in their basket? She's a bit crazy XD is what I'm trying to say, and it's fun writing her for sure. Hope you enjoyed the chapter!**

GDawg4826 chapter 100 . 2h ago

God damn. 100 chapters and more than 1 million words. You are absolutely and truly insane. Awesome chapter as usual, and I am so glad an anti-hero survived. Can't wait to see if Lavamander joins the army, battles Zach, or just tells him to fuck off and leaves. Hyped for the next chapter as usual, and here's to another hundred!

 **Haha thanks a lot! Glad you've enjoyed the story this 100 chapters, and I hope this one lived up to the hype! Lavamander winds up taking off, but we'll probably see him again... Thanks for the review!**

Logargon chapter 100 . 6h ago

OMG LAVAMANDER IS BACK, I actually really was interested in knowing what happened to him cuz he didn't seem like a chair for that would die so easily

 **Lavamander! Glad you remembered him, and yeah I really liked his character when I went back a re-read the first 63 chapters of Death recently, and I came up with some cool stuff to add him into. I had written in back then that All Might considered him the strongest of the anti-heroes, he was pretty cocky at the time, and all-in-all I liked what I had set him up as. Definitely had some fun writing his bits at the beginning of this chapter too. Hope you liked his development, and thanks for reviewing!**


	102. Chapter 102

**Disclaimer: I don't own Boku no Hero Academia**

 **Chapter 102:**

Present Mic walked out of Class 2-A and closed the door behind him. They had a few minutes until the next period, but the class stayed pretty quiet even after their teacher was gone. Not many of them realized it until June of the term before, but Kaminari had often been the one to start class discussions. He would talk loudly about a topic, ask others in the class freely about it without caring whether or not he was that close with them, which at some point had just made everyone feel like they had known him. No one wanted to take that place in the classroom, even though it seemed like a necessary role for someone to take as the outgoing person to tie them all together.

Iida would get the whole class together to do things still, and there were people in the class like Sero and Ashido who were pretty carefree and continued being themselves even after Kaminari's betrayal and Zach's subsequent flight from the country. The problem with Ashido and Sero being the most outgoing of the class though, was that the two of them had had a thing over the summer that was still lingering over their heads, especially without another boisterous person to talk with so it would not be too weird. Usually they could get Kirishima to join in with their conversations, and the routine was normalizing a bit more as Kirishima's mood had gradually rose back to his old self after the now world-famous Lifebringer Incident.

Uraraka leaned forward and asked Iida a question over his shoulder about something in their English class she had not understood. Sero looked over his shoulder and said something to Sato, and with Koda and Tokoyami in between them the two got sucked into the conversation. Yaoyorozu glanced to her right side as the boys started talking, then she stared back towards the front of the room and the half-erased board Present Mic left mostly for the next teacher to clear off. She already had detailed notes down in her notebook, and it was not like the lesson she just observed was one she was having trouble retaining. She tried distracting herself with the board though and it worked for a few more seconds as she re-read it to make sure her notes were the same.

As she was reading through her notes though and nearing the end of them, she realized her lips were pursed. She was trying hard to keep her mind off it, but realizing that made her think of why she was making that face. _Someone came back to life,_ she thought, and she closed her eyes before shaking her head to try and get rid of the thought. _The German guy, the news says it was someone in the Army of Death. He didn't say it was Death himself. And maybe he wasn't… except, someone in Guatemala said the same thing._ The two news reports she had heard so close to each other made her head hurt as much as it frustrated her. _I don't know what to think. It's probably Zach. I didn't think there was doubt- but there could be others with the Quirk to bring people back. Like the news is arguing. Or some of them, they just don't want to say anything for sure though, nothing definitive._

 _They say that "Lifebringer" wouldn't have even known his Quirk could bring people back if he had done what he was told as a kid and never tried to be a hero. If Zach had just kept his hand in his glove._ Momo hummed and she pushed her pencil in and out of her fingers, twirling it around aimlessly while lost in thought. _So in this world, where a couple of countries have started educating youth on training Quirks. Or just places, where people may be training their Quirks more to protect from raised villain activity, highest number ever in our lifetimes. Who's to say some of them haven't discovered a similar Quirk? It makes sense._ She lowered her pencil down and her hand clenched around it. _But it's you. I know, it's you._

After Iida answered Uraraka in a concise way, he looked back forward and towards the door with his hands together over his desk. He thought about getting everyone to quiet down, but they still had a couple of minutes to the next period so he could wait before taking charge of his class rep responsibilities for a bit. Sitting there and doing nothing made him think of what he had been watching last night on the news though, and he clenched his hands tighter together while narrowing his eyes. _A terrorist. I, should have raced after him quicker once Backfire's forcefield went down. Before he had a chance to become a terrorist!_

In front of Iida, another student who had been brought back to life by their long-gone classmate had a sad look in her eyes. The green-haired frog girl shifted her gaze to the left and across the classroom towards Momo. Tsuyu stared at the taller girl for a few seconds, imagining what was on her mind as it was stuck on hers too. _I wish Zach had stayed. I hope he never returns now._ Tsuyu looked back forward in a sadder way at the thought. _For both our sakes…_

 _32% Full Body Cowl. I want to increase from there, but I have to master this new level and fighting style first._ Midoriya clenched his right hand into a fist a couple of times at his side, to work out his fingers and exercise his arm muscles a bit. _Using kicks is good, but not being able to use my arms is a big disadvantage. I can't break them anymore. I won't. But, 32% of One For All is already so much. More than a third of All Might's power, because it's been compounding more and more. He agrees that this is more, but not more than what he was. He's just saying that so I don't push myself too hard. I know though. I know I can't go on like I was…_

 _On any part of my body. Sweat accumulates most on the palms, and they're the easiest to direct with. Crazy Eyes is fixing up the new costume though. Different collection points around the body. Blasts from specific points, can make better mobility. I'll blast into the air while already having hands pointed forward. No gap time between pointing behind and aiming forward._ Bakugo's eyes were intense and focused straight ahead in the room though his mind was far from the English words on the board.

 _There are limits to both Cold and Hot. Dad isn't where he is because of his Quirk. His strength, his experience, his fighting skills are all next level. Using fire and ice at the same time is a step forward. Regulating the temperature is difficult, but should I focus on mastering it? Months of training to only get this far, when my Quirk was already the most powerful…_ Todoroki lifted his left hand and he looked at it over his desk. He clenched that hand into a fist and rose his eyes up from his hand to his arm that was nowhere near as muscular as his father's, or even some of his male classmates. _Strength training. Speed, without my Quirk. Then when I do use Cold or Hot to speed up, it's in a burst so I don't need to waste my Quirk on mobility and can keep focus on defense and attack._

 _I can't make a single mistake,_ Ojiro thought while leaning back in his seat, an intense look in his eyes as he stared down at his desk. _My first real internship. It's a big opportunity. I didn't think I stood out much the other day on the class patrol. Those first years weren't half bad, but I'm surprised someone noticed me at all with Todoroki there with us._ A small smile formed on Ojiro's face. _I'm glad I finally managed to stick out._

Jirou sat at her seat near the windows staring out them with her right hand on the side of her desk. Her index and middle fingers were tapping on the desk, and she was nodding her head while humming to herself only in her head, no sound actually being made aloud. The tune she was imagining was sounding great though, and she started lowering her index finger only to wobble it and then hit both her index and middle fingers down together and start tapping both faster than they were before. _"Never stop me. Can't stop me. I'm flying and there's… there's no limit- height, I won't reach. I'm flying and there's no height too high." Mm, oh yeah. "Jamming in the sky, rocking on a cloud- in the clouds?" Hmm._ The rhythm of the song she was creating quieted down in her head and her gaze rose outside shifting up to the sky above.

Mineta had his head half-turned to look behind him towards Yaoyorozu. She was too distracted by something to notice, but after a second the pervy boy looking back at her lowered his eyes from her seat down to the floor. He shook his head around and spun back to the notebook in front of him that he had gotten out in preparation for the next class already. The next class would be starting in under a minute, and Sero turned back from the others behind him too to start getting another book out from his desk.

"I wonder what Zach's up to right now?" Kirishima muttered. He grumbled to himself afterwards as that was not something he wanted to be thinking about, especially considering he was not interested enough in the next subject to get his mind off it now. "Or where," Kirishima added in a lower voice.

Sero glanced at him and then over to the window past Jirou. He stared out it like she was doing, and then his gaze shifted back inside and to the empty desk in front of Jirou's. "Yeah,"Sero replied quietly with a sigh, just loud enough for Kirishima and a couple others around them to hear. "Me too man."

* * *

On the other side of the world, thirteen hours earlier because of the time zone change, Zach stood at the door of a fraternity house in the southern United States. He had a black hoodie on, the hood up, wore jeans, and his right hand was down in his pocket with his glove on. On his left arm hung a girl with long brown hair who wore makeup and had the guys on line their whole way up to the door looking at her. She was five foot three inches, her C-cup breasts pushed out in her sexy cat costume, and she had on a tight pair of black yoga pants below her short-cropped leopard shirt. Darling had her arms looped in the crook of Zach's elbow, but despite her beautiful appearance, the bouncer at the door of the house frowned at the shorter figure in a hoodie who did not look like a college student to him.

"I.D.," the burly bouncer with horns sticking out of his forehead demanded. Zach lifted his gaze while pulling his right hand out of his pocket. The seventeen year old kept his hood up and shadowing over his face decently, his jeans did not really match the black hoodie and shoes, but it was not the strangest appearance of anyone on line with him. Zach lifted his right hand in a black glove that normally would have brought a lot more attention considering he was not wearing one on his left.

He extended his hand forward and said, "Here it is." The bouncer looked down and his eyes opened wider as the kid in front of him who still did not look much like a college student handed him a small stack of bills held together by a paper clip. The top bill was a $100, and the bouncer getting paid a fraction of that per hour working at the door just nodded while looking down at his hand like he was checking an identification.

"You're good," he said, nodding Zach forward and looking behind him at the next people in line. _Where have I seen that face before?_ The bouncer wondered as the two walked by him, for a split second considering that they were trying to get out of showing their I.D.'s for a reason other than just to get into the party where a famous musician had been hired to perform tonight. He had to focus on the next people in line though, and he was not getting paid well enough to look into that any further.

Zach and Darling walked into the party together. The building the party was going on at was a huge mansion-type house where a group of over fifty guys lived for the year paying high prices in dues not only for their housing but also to be able to host huge parties like this. There were a couple of security guys inside the house, but they were not really focusing on the party-goers and were just there because the university the house was on required the parties to hire them. Every person in the house was holding a drink, though most of them were in red cups so the security guards could keep from doing anything and just act like they had no idea what was in them or how old the partiers holding those cups were.

"Should I get us some drinks?" Darling asked while leaning in towards Zach's hood. "Purrrr," she purred into his ear in a cat-like way, though attempting to be seductive too.

Zach saw two guys on his left side gawk at the two of them as that girl just purred at Zach like she was trying to bang him right there. "Yeah. Just fill with mixers though," Zach specified, because he could not be sure when glancing towards Darling what it was she was suggesting. "And keep only speaking English. Don't draw attention."

"Stay here," Darling said. She let go of Zach's arm in a reluctant way and then headed off to one of the tables in the next room where some bars were set up with the frat's members standing behind them pouring drinks.

Zach looked after Darling as she walked off, and he had an uneasy feeling seeing looks of guys in costumes around him watching her. _They're all trying to get drunk and get laid. It's a party. I've never, actually been to a party like this. Is this what I was suggesting, back in the first term to… Yeah, this is kind of what I imagined once we realized parties usually just have alcohol. Actually,_ Zach looked to his left where he saw a couple making out with a guy pressing a girl up against the wall and both of them holding their drinks out to one side as they macked. His friends hollered, then her friends came over and tugged on her arm to get their too drunk friend to stop embarrassing herself before any of the guys pulling out their phones could get a video.

Zach shifted his eyes to the stairs and watched as someone started sliding down them and waving his arms out to the sides to try and keep on his feet. He had fake bear paws on his hands though and the gloves did not have good grip so he just face-planted after a second to a chorus of laughs, and then one of the other members of his fraternity yelled at him for spilling his drink. Zach's eyes shifted past them and to the stairs where he watched some girls and guys start heading up in their costumes. _The upstairs rooms are better places to look than down here. Too open. Too many prying eyes. No one will want to talk to us._

Darling walked back to Zach and she handed him a red cup that Zach pulled towards his lips then eyed suspiciously before taking a sip of. _I am at a college party,_ he thought. _And I didn't pour my own drink. And Darling,_ he glanced at the girl next to him who eagerly put her arm back inside his to wrap around his elbow. _Darling wouldn't do something like that. I trust her._ _More than… Well, time to work._ Zach smiled and he lifted the red cup to his mouth, and he took a sip before walking forward and grinning like crazy. "This is great!" Zach called down to Darling on his right in his best loud English voice. The music was loud, people around them were louder, and there were flashing lights inside and even some smoke machines going off in other rooms.

"I want to go see Ray-V!" Darling called back excitedly about the rapper in the backyard.

Zach nodded his head in agreement. "You bring any Serum?" He asked, and the girl next to him shook her head.

Darling took another sip of the cola in her red cup, then she replied sheepishly but in an excessively loud voice at a moment where the music actually dipped 'unexpectedly.' "I ran out. I thought you'd have some."

 _No one's taking the bait. Probably just means none of them know where. Or even if they do, we probably do look a bit young. Though I see people here who can't be a year or two older than us. Maybe some other high-school aged people snuck in too._ "Let's go upstairs," Zach suggested loudly and motioned for the steps. He started over with the girl next to him, keeping his hood up to shadow over his face though he was fine with letting people see it anyway. He saw a girl look over in surprise at his face for a second, and he grinned as she turned away to tell her friend something without getting all too shocked. _Halloween is the best. Even if this party is a few days after, it's like Americans love Halloween so much the whole season is dedicated to it. Everyone's having a good time too, but I have to be careful. Places like these are dangerous…_ Zach cracked a much bigger grin and he actually started laughing to himself.

"What is it?" Darling asked as they reached the second floor of the house.

"I was just thinking of how I have to be careful here," Zach replied while leaning down towards her.

Darling grinned big and started laughing too. _Sneaking back into the US without papers is nothing. Bribing Mexican police officers a couple days ago, and shutting down that meth lab yesterday- but this! This is crazy!_ She wanted to say it all out loud in a sarcastic way and laugh along with Zach some more, but he motioned towards a door near them that a lot of people were going into to get more drinks or hang out and talk to each other. Something was happening in the room, and the two of them leaned in from the doorway only to open their eyes wide in surprise as the girls in the room were all chanting at two young guys who looked just a little older than Zach.

 _What are they-_ Zach leaned around and watched as the two guys were racing to funnel very tall beers. Their were older guys holding the beers over the tops of the funnels, and the younger guys were getting yelled at by the older ones to drink faster. _This is…_ Zach thought, then he watched as one of the two pushed the funnel away and waved it around showing nothing but foam coming out. One of the girls who was cheering for him screamed loudly in excitement while the two older guys behind him started laughing and patting him on the back, then the girl who screamed leaned forward and kissed the guy dressed like an orange traffic cone on the mouth.

The other kept chugging for another few seconds and then shook his head and covered up the bottom of the funnel. "Ugh," he groaned, and he shook his head before running towards the door and out of there between Zach and Darling who moved to the sides for him. He ran over towards the bathroom in the middle of the hall, and loud 'Ohhhhs!' came out from the bathroom's other occupants as well as from the room next to Zach and Darling where the others started laughing afterwards.

"PUKE AND RALLY! YAAA!"

"KJ can't hang!"

Zach glanced down towards Darling while she was still staring over towards the bathroom. _No sarcasm, this is actually… The atmosphere is too exciting. Too much fun. Everyone's, enjoying themselves way too much- that's weird. Not really something that shouldn't happen, though, I guess that's why there are rules supposed to be stopping fun like this. Out of control, reckless, fun. Carefree. No one's worrying about the consequences. No one's worried about that guy. They just assume he'll be fine. And, he probably will be. I'm not here to worry about people getting too drunk. Not here to shut down a party. I'm not here to screw with things that I might not necessarily like. I'm here because people are going missing because of Serum._

"Zach look," Darling whispered, then she turned and said it louder to the boy who refocused as she sounded serious. Zach looked down the hall and spotted someone stepping out of a room with a wide smile on their face and far-off, distant look in their eyes. They had a hand down in their pocket like they were shoving something away just after coming out of the room, then they looked back and forth before throwing their hands up in the air and cheering as a couple of guys dressed like pumpkins came running out of doorways on opposite sides of the hall and slammed into each other. One of them was bigger than the other, and his round costume bounced the other's back into the room he had come running out of, followed by the sound of a loud crash that immediately made the winning pumpkin run back down the hall in Zach and Darling's direction and to the stairs. A few seconds later the losing pumpkin came stumbling out of that room and running after his buddy with a nervous look on his face but a big grin too.

"Hey who was that just coming out of Rick's room?"

"Hey!"

Some commotion started on the floor, and Zach motioned down the hall while taking a sip of his red cup. He and Darling walked down the hall though kept focusing on what everyone else around them was looking at too. They oohed when some guys looked like they were going to get into a fight, and they nodded their heads along as the rapper outside put on his most popular song that both Zach and Darling had listened to earlier that day on the bus ride into town. They had shared headphones with one in Zach's left ear and the other in Darling's right while they rode the bus, preparing themselves to fit in more with the partiers at this college right in the center of where the missing persons' reports were most condensed.

 _Thirty people in the last two months alone. All only have Serum in common. The total number isn't clear. But that's a lot of people missing for just some party drug,_ Zach looked towards a cracked-open door that had just opened and nearly closed again as two more people went in. Zach stepped up close to the door, and then as he took another sip from his cup he heard at the edge of his range one of the street-names for Serum. He remembered one of the drug dealers they had taken down recently in the surrounding region brought up that name during their questionings. _Big shot heroes aren't going to come around places like this to stop college students from partying, even if a drug is killing them. They might have before, but things like this are getting more common now that people know pro heroes are too busy with the high villain rates. America doesn't really have an overly high an amount of villains right now though. We should move through the rest of the country fast and get back. I said a week in America, but me and Darling have been doing solo missions too much. Not enough big picture stuff happening._ Zach shook his head around and he lowered his cup as he remembered hearing the street name for Serum and how one of those solo missions he had been bringing them on was currently in progress.

He turned to Darling and nodded his head twice, then he got a really drunk look on his face and leaned towards her. He started laughing, and he pushed her a bit before turning his back to the door next to him. Darling smiled big and laughed herself before pushing forward into him, making sure to shove her breasts hard into his chest which Zach pretended not to notice while getting "pushed" into the cracked-open doorway and into the next room. "Haha, and I was," he turned his head a bit and just smiled in a friendly way at the others in there with him. "Hey," he said, turning a bit while still holding an arm around Darling's shoulder.

 _Good. Not just those two and the guy in here._ Zach was hoping it was not just the two he had last seen go into the room, and he saw some other, more carefree, people hanging out inside. There were some people on the beds as well as a girl and guy closer to the window with the guy leaning his head out and shouting along with the rapper in the backyard that the room had a good view of. Darling made sure to finish a lot of her drink already in preparation, and she looked around after getting inside with a very drunk look on her face. "Ooh," she said, letting go of Zach and walking over to a table with a bottle of liquor on it and some mixers too.

"What's up?" The guy talking to the two who Zach had last seen enter the room said and nodded towards the boy in the hood who was smiling drunkenly and in a friendly way after walking in. The room had a red tint in it from lights set up in there and since the main ones were off. There were bunk beds on the right, with a guy sitting down on it next to a couple of girls who looked up interestedly at him for a moment before turning back to the funny guy dressed like the president wearing three fake horns and everything.

"I'm Mark," Zach said. He cupped a hand up next to his mouth and added, "This room is sick."

The guy who greeted him grinned big hearing that. Zach noticed there were other decorations other than the red lights that looked to have been bought specifically for the Halloween party. The guy he just said it to started talking about the place, though he turned back to the two in front of him who started frowning as the excited room's owner had already told them about it. "Oh yeah," the guy said, losing interest in Zach quick which made Zach turn to his own girl before the guy could turn back feeling like he had to talk to him.

Zach walked to Darling and he handed her his cup as she shook the bottle of rum she was holding. He smiled as she poured it in, but he said, "Come on. I'm going to have to keep sipping this while we talk."

"It'll be fine," Darling began.

"No really," Zach started in a slightly more serious way.

Darling elbowed him. "I mean it. I didn't actually put any in my own," she handed her cup to him and then lifted his and took a sip which made her scrunch her face up at the taste of liquor. Darling leaned up while lowering the rum bottle, and she whispered to the taller boy looking at her in surprise, "I know why you won't drink. But act like you enjoy it right now, okay?" She asked with a smile, but her tone was understanding and soft.

 _She, understands? I never told her. I never even said it aloud to myself like something I'd never do. Is it something I wouldn't… No, I never even thought about starting. Dad. Seeing that, I probably decided back as a kid- she knew? Or just from that one look I started having,_ Zach smiled as he noticed someone looking towards him, and he lifted the cup she handed him and dinked the plastic against hers before taking a big sip. He felt a lot of relief as there actually was not any booze in it, and he also felt impressed at her sleight-of-hand as he had thought for sure he saw her pour rum in.

Zach watched as a drug deal casually went down in the middle of the room. It was the most casual drug deal he had ever witnessed. _These are the lowest level dealers. Guys who probably don't even do it professionally, just to make some quick cash. He might've even just bought some more from his own dealer to sell this stuff to his friends at this party. Or he could be a regular dealer. Either way. Whether or not he knows anything. I'm going to, do exactly what Kaminari would. I learned from you. If you're willing to go that far…_ Zach lifted his drink and took another sip before making his way towards the window and then looking between the couple at it and towards Ray-V on the stage outside.

 _Canvas the room,_ Darling thought while walking after Zach Then she leaned forward to one of the girls on the bottom bunk and started saying excitedly how she loved the other girl's cat costume. The American girl in the costume looked down in surprise and then smiled up at the stranger who complimented her so nicely out of the blue. She said she liked the Asian girl's costume too, and Darling got an excited look on her face before talking about how she didn't know if she did it right being her first Halloween in the States. Within a few seconds she was in a full conversation with the three on the bunk.

Zach glanced over at Darling and shook his head with a small laugh. "So Mark, you're not in the frat huh?" Zach turned and saw the guy whose room it was looking at him with lifted eyebrows and a mock-suspicious look. Zach chuckled and scratched the back of his head, but the guy in front of him just laughed at that look and said, "I'm just messing with you bro. What are you dressed as though? I'm tryna figure it out."

 _Sounds a bit like Rebel. Wonder if Mica lives around here somewhere. Maybe this guy is Rebel!_ Zach almost laughed while responding with a planned out response avoiding the subject. The thoughts on how this guy could secretly be Rebel kept him in a good mood, better making his expression look carefree and like he was having as much fun as everyone else at the party. He didn't want it looking like he was working. He did not want anyone to know he was investigating missing persons' cases, and he needed to make friends with the guy in front of him fast.

 _I always knew, I could be a great actor. Next time I'm in Cali, definitely have to head to Hollywood. Maybe even put in an application! "Lifebringer stars in: Death 2- Party Town!" I could see that headline._ _He mentioned baseball and that poster on his wall is for the school team. It's not baseball season. Get interested._ Zach started talking about baseball, then his eyes opened huge as the guy in front of him admitted he was on the school's baseball team. "Are you good- I mean, I guess if you're playing college baseball you'd have to be."

"Oh hell yeah, but I'm even better. I mean, I'm like a pro already!" Paulie put his hands on top of each other and swung like he was swinging a baseball bat. He laughed and did it again calling out the name of his favorite pro player. As he swung the imaginary bat, Zach's eyes focused more intently into his new friend's eyes for a moment. _Definitely high. Is he on his own product? He should get off of this stuff. If he really is good at baseball- or just, because he's a person. A good person it seems like. Or at least, not a villain. I'll get him off Serum, scare him straight before he becomes a villain. Might be a little traumatizing though. Might be hard to trust people after this too, and it sucks when he was such an easy-going guy quick to make friends… Good thoughts!_ Zach's rushed thought to try and make his expression keep its fun look actually made him grin at how bad of an attempt it was at coming up with something good to think. He rushed that thought because Paulie looked back into his eyes too, and Zach agreed that the player Paulie just called out was one of his favorites.

Zach started going into baseball, one of many topics he had gathered up a large amount of information on in case of possible conversations while working as a spy. There were a lot of things in the room, at the party, and all over the place that he could use to start and continue conversations. Baseball seemed like the easiest one, but he easily bounced right off of that and onto a new topic, and then the conversation just started flowing better as he actually convinced himself he was friends with the guy he was talking to. And then the door opened and Zach found his moment as the guy he was talking to looked over his shoulder and got a reluctant look on his face.

They were too into the conversation, and Paulie looked back at Zach like he did not want to cut it off, however the guy who just walked into the room was coming right up to him. Zach looked at his new friend oddly, with a look showing he knew something was up that Paulie was being weird about yet looking at him skeptically like there was no need for him to be weird about anything. "Hold on a sec," Paulie said, and he nodded at his other friend who just came in and said to come over.

"Oh shit," Zach said with a laugh as Paulie opened a drawer near them with an open box in it. There were little vials smaller than a pinky in the box, and Zach admitted as Paulie looked to him that he had run out of his Serum the weekend before. Paulie got a huge grin on his face at the sound of that and laughed as he did not know if "Mark" was on anything. Zach asked in surprise if Paulie was on it already, and Paulie said he was while at the same time handing a vial back to his friend who gave him some cash and joined in on the conversation for a few seconds. The new guy who was an older fraternity member stared at Zach oddly for a few seconds, looking him up and down as if trying to figure out what his costume was.

A part of Zach had wanted to wear a mask to the event. He could tell already though that it would have been a lot weirder for him to be wearing a mask, considering everyone had drinks in their hands and a mask would really cut out the most important part of being at the party. The older member lifted the vial he grabbed and he downed the Serum in a shot, and then he shook his head around before lifting the corners of his lips up far. His pupils dilated and he said, "Whoa." Zach looked at him closely as the twenty-one year old got high in seconds, the drug taking effect almost instantly.

Darling looked over from the bed she was sitting on the edge of now with the girls she had made friends with. One of the girls sitting there had an uncomfortable look on her face but then laughed as the guy next to her leaned in and whispered something in her ear. The two at the window kept talking to each other, occasionally singing along with the rapper outside. Ray-V was taking a short break though, and a DJ took over the slack to put on a mix to keep the party going until the rapper's next set. Zach got offered some Serum from Paulie, but he admitted he did not have money on him and then added quick that he didn't want to be 'that guy' when others in there were paying for it. Paulie nodded at him and then winked the first chance he had that no one else was looking over, and Zach laughed as it looked like Paulie was going to give him a vial for free anyway even though he tried denying nicely.

 _High people are generally nicer, just because they're in great moods._ Zach kept smiling and talking with Paulie, though he noticed a couple of other people walking out of the room once the DJ started his set. _He might not actually be a good guy at all. Selling dangerous drugs like Serum… though, considering how new it is, there aren't any proven dangerous effects of it. Couldn't even find stuff on the internet about it. Some message boards, a few school newspapers discussing a problem, but all in this region and nothing at a big enough scale there've been scientific reports. No labs have ever been located. Police have only confiscated it as an unidentified narcotic matching Serum's description._

"So really, I'm surprised you fly. Would have thought a party like this you'd be on it for sure though," Zach nodded and grimaced but took another sip anyway as if showing he was not having a bad time despite not having Serum.

"Flying" was a slang term for using Serum, and Zach was glad he had heard the term before though he figured he would have understood it in context. "I don't do it too often but I love the shit," Zach explained.

"Who's your dealer?"

Zach got a bit of a hesitant look on his face. Paulie's eyes widened and he went, "Yo don't worry about it. We just met and all, I get it." Zach looked like he did not want to give up his dealer's name to another dealer who might be his competition, but he also looked hesitant about looking that way since he had gotten to know Paulie pretty well. His new friend saw that it became awkward though and was quick to let his buddy Mark know that it was all good. Zach chuckled and scratched the back of his head over his hood in an apologetic way then added that his guy wasn't as good as Paulie at least, since he didn't have any more for him by tonight.

As Zach started talking more about Serum with his new dealer friend, Darling had gotten up to talk to the people at the window. She was wobbly on her feet, and although she was smiling and being friendly, she was being overly friendly. The people on the bed had just mentioned going back downstairs to get up to the front near the stage before Ray-V's next set, and Darling did not want to be offered to go along with so she had made herself another drink before going to the couple at the window. The group on the bed split up, with the guy staying on his mattress and leaning back on the wall after pulling himself more underneath the top bunk. He took in a deep breath and looked to need to calm down a bit, which Zach noticed out the corner of his eye when Paulie turned towards him and asked why he wasn't going with "Cherry."

The college girl at the window saw Darling get a little too close to her man, and though Darling made it out as an accident, Darling looked very good in her cat costume. It was not her fault, and she continued laughing and calling out how the DJ was great, but now the girl on her right side was giving her boyfriend a shifty look because of the way he had looked at the beautiful girl who bumped him. His gaze shifted to his girlfriend who he noticed looking, and he realized the best way out of it. He looked at Darling when she wasn't looking at either of them, and he rolled his eyes with a smirk back at his girl who smiled as they both started making fun of the stupidly drunk girl between them. And as soon as they both got to making fun of her, it became annoying when Darling turned back and started talking to them again as they could not keep up their teases but could not show to their partner they were having a normal conversation with this person they both just silently agreed was weird. Darling leaned towards the window again, and the girl said behind her how they were heading out. Darling just bobbed her head back and forth while still staring out, and the couple behind her laughed at how oblivious she was.

The couple walked out and Paulie glanced back towards Darling who was still singing with the DJ's song outside. She actually had a pretty good singing voice, and Paulie grinned as she was getting the rhythm and words right. He glanced back towards the bottom bunk, then to Mark who was actually in the middle of talking to him about the cool party he had been at the weekend before. "Hey," Paulie said, cupping a hand to his mouth and speaking quieter to his new friend who grinned big while cutting himself off. Zach laughed as Paulie motioned back towards his drawer, "I have been having the greatest night on this stuff. I don't know if it's a new batch or something, but it just feels better- or, well I said the same thing on Wednesday night. Hahaha…"

"Hahaha…" the guy on the bed laughed along and Paulie looked towards him with a grin. "That shit _was_ tight," his buddy agreed. The guy on the bottom bunk laughed a couple more times and took some deep breaths, then he scooted back to the edge of the bed and looked to the black-haired guy in a hood behind Paulie. He had not focused on the teen much before, and he was surprised as he looked a bit young. _Then again,_ he laughed to himself, because he remembered he could never correctly guess the age of any Asians he had met before. _He looks pretty Asian, right?_ "Hey you- I mean, I'm Ted-"

"Call 'im Teddy Cruiseship!" Paulie cut in, spinning around and saying it to Mark who laughed and asked Ted why he should call him that.

Ted groaned as Paulie started going into the story about their spring break cruise where Teddy Cruiseship got his name after getting a bit too drunk one night. Neither of the young men who shared the room noticed Darling walking to the door that was still partially opened after the last two left. She had looked like she was on path to go get another drink, but she reached the door and shut it while Paulie was in his drawer and Teddy started saying how it was a great night. Zach grinned, but his smile was lower now than before. In the corner of his eyes he saw Darling look towards him and nod, right after she had locked the door.

"That was a dope night," Paulie agreed with a laugh, while pulling out a vial and turning to Mark. "Not as great as this one though. I've been waiting for us to get someone as big as Ray-V for years. And the party's just getting started…" Paulie noticed Mark was not smiling anymore. The mood was gone. The laughter the three of them were sharing almost immediately cut off. And in the corner of Ted's eyes, he suddenly noticed the window on his right was closed. It had been open the last time he looked, but Darling had only closed it a few seconds ago when they were all loud in there and the music outside had gotten so loud that it would not be muffled much by the closed window. The music had gone down a bit though, and the laughter had stopped.

Zach looked into Paulie's eyes, and he leaned his head forward a bit so the shadow of his hood cast over the top of his eyes. "Your night's about to get a lot worse."

"Ha-" Paulie made out a single laugh. He had a brief thought that he was being pranked, or that it was a joke, but he failed at convincing himself and his laugh got caught in his throat. His right hand lowered with the Serum in it, and he opened his eyes wide as he saw Darling stepping away from his _locked_ door. "You serious? Are you- robbing me?" He darted his eyes down and saw Mark's left hand was in his hoodie's front pocket. Ted stared in front of the bed he was sitting on with his eyes opened huge at the confrontation of the two right in front of him.

Paulie was not a small guy. He was muscular, five foot ten but broad at the shoulders, and a college athlete. He started grinding his teeth in anger, and steam started coming out of his shoulders. Zach whipped out a knife from his pocket and pointed it forward so fast that the blade was inches from Paulie's neck. Paulie froze, and then his eyes darted to the left of Mark where the girl behind him had risen her right arm to show a gun at the end of it. There was a black pistol not held in her hand, but replacing her hand, and she aimed it straight at Ted whose eyes bulged as he caught the movement in the corner of his vision. Ted started turning and his mouth opened wide, only to freeze that way as the cute girl in a cat costume lifted her other hand to her mouth and put her index finger in front of her smiling lips. "Shh," Darling shushed him, and Ted very slowly closed his mouth.

"Alright," Paulie started. His shoulders stopped steaming, his attempt at threatening the two would-be robbers going much more poorly than he thought it would just from the looks of them. "I'll get you all-"

"Shut up," Zach said. He said it in a short, dark voice and then he pulled back his knife a bit to give the dealer some room. "Get out your phone," Zach ordered. Paulie stared at the teen in front of him in a confused way, but he gulped and then reached down to his pocket. He looked towards the door and wished someone would come try and get in, but he did not know what he would even do if someone started knocking right now. "Don't make me repeat myself, mother fucker," Zach growled.

Paulie's eyes opened huge at how threatening that voice sounded. Ted stared up at the teen who said that too, and he started breathing heavier than he already was with a gun pointed at him. He noticed the girl in the corner of his vision lowering her gun though, and he darted his gaze back to her and then to Paulie's scary young friend again.

"Beat their asses up, Zach," Darling said from closer to the door, speaking Japanese and making the boy she just spoke to frown.

 _Maybe she wasn't faking it all,_ he realized, glancing back at the girl who he remembered was actually drinking some alcohol. "Are you drunk?" He asked her in a serious tone in Japanese, which meant he could have been telling her to keep her gun up and aimed at the guys who had no idea what they were talking about. Zach looked back at Paulie and glared at him, and he reached up his right hand and pulled his hood off letting his black hair get all messy and wavy around his head.

"Your dealer," Zach said, and Paulie's eyes shot open huge as the thing Mark acted all awkward about before since they had just met was actually what he was planning on pulling the whole time. It made Paulie start grinding his teeth in anger again, and he was feeling more confident than ever with the Serum still rushing through him. It made him feel like the ideas he had were all good ones, and the ideas he was having right now revolved around beating up the strange foreigners in his room.

Teddy Cruiseship pulled back on his bottom bunk though. He was sweating profusely, and after hearing that Asia-speak, he pushed his hands down on the bed next to him and pulled away. "I- I _know_ you," Ted gasped out. Paulie glanced his way and suddenly all his ideas of fighting back were destroyed at the scared-shitless look on his roommate's face.

Paulie had his phone pulled back. He looked hesitant about snitching, even after seeing Ted's scared look and the knife still in front of him. Paulie could see the girl Mark just talked to looking hesitant herself about something back near the door, and she took the hand she used to shush Ted and breathed into it to smell her own breath. _What the fuck, is happening right now?_ "I'm not, no snitch-"

"I am not kidding about this," Zach started, and he let his Japanese accent show through more as he figured it would be more intimidating. He intentionally had his voice lowered, and he moved the knife he had held up back closer to Paulie's neck which the dealer pulled away from while stepping back. Paulie's right foot bumped into his dresser behind him and startled him at the feeling which made him move quickly. Darling snapped her gun arm up towards him, and Zach took two steps forward and bent his right arm while getting right up in Paulie's face and pulling the knife up to his throat. Paulie did not make any sudden movements, just stared down at Mark with a terrified look in his eyes as he felt the knife blade touch his neck for a second before pulling back to keep less than an inch between it and his skin.

"D-Dude listen to him," Ted said in a panicked, rushed voice. "He's fucking serious," Ted's eyes were shaking, and Paulie darted his eyes over to see Ted scooting farther back onto his bottom bunk. "Th-That's the Japanese kid, the one who went on a rampage and slaughtered a bunch of villains." Paulie's shaking eyes started shifting back to the face he knew he recognized from somewhere. To the scar beneath his right eye, to the split on his left ear, to the horribly dark eyes staring back into his. Ted gasped out in a whisper as Paulie met Zach's eyes again, "Dude, it's Lifebringer."

"Call your dealer," Zach said. He stepped back and lowered his knife a bit, but he kept glaring into Paulie's eyes which made the older boy nod his head quickly to listen to anything this terrifying kid told him.

 _Lifebringer?!_ Paulie thought in terror while raising up his phone so fast he almost threw it at the ceiling. It bobbled in his hands and he failed at opening it up three times in a row before taking a breath and typing in his passcode slower. _Wh-What is he doing at our house? Why is he here?_ "Wh-What do you want me to say?" Paulie asked while hesitating over the contact information for his Serum dealer.

"I want you to calm down first," Zach said, his voice getting calmer itself and his knife lowering to his side. "It's very simple," Zach said. He kept his voice loud to speak over the music outside, and then he brought his knife up when there was a knock at the door behind them. Ted froze and turned his head towards the door, only to freeze as the girl in a cat costume turned her gun on him and shook her head. "Don't say a word," Zach warned Paulie when he darted his eyes to the door. "I don't want to hurt you," Zach added. "But Serum has been making people go missing. Thirty in the past two months." Paulie started staring at the kid speaking in a low voice to him too quiet for anyone outside the door to hear. "You're going to help me stop whatever is going on. If you do not, things will go very, very badly for you."

Paulie gulped and Ted spun back to his roommate and started whispering towards him to stay quiet. Darling grinned as the guy she threatened started trying to calm his friend who had looked to her more like he might respond to whoever was trying to get in his room. The person outside apparently decided that Paulie and Ted had left their room and locked it behind them, because there were no more knocks despite there still being a lot of noise coming from out in the hall. They were in the middle of a huge party, but the four of them were isolated from the hundreds of other people there. "What do you want me to do?" Paulie asked nervously.

"You will call him," Zach began. "You will tell him that you have run out. That there were a lot of people here who wanted Serum, and many more who still want some. If he says he cannot come right now, then tell him you rose the prices for tonight only and people are still buying because of low supply. Offer him twice as much for the same amount." Zach glared into Paulie's eyes and then said in a lower tone, "I do not plan on arresting or hurting your dealer either. Just as I did not hurt the person who told me who you were." Paulie's eyes shot open huge and he felt an anger welling inside him, though no longer focused towards the scary Japanese teen in front of him.

 _Who fucking snitched on me?!_ As betrayed as Paulie felt, he also looked back down at his phone and started frowning while looking at his dealer's contact information. "He'll know I snitched," Paulie began.

"He won't care," Zach said. He stared into Paulie's eyes and said, "Because he'll be telling me who gives him his stuff too. He'll be so much more worried about them, higher up in the line, that he will not be focusing on you."

"What the fuck are you talking about?" Ted whispered from the bed he scooted back to the edge of. "People going missing, and, are you like infiltrating the… Oh man," Ted's eyes shot open wide, and then the small knowing grin that started to appear wiped from his face as Zach looked out the corners of his eyes towards him. "Are you- is this- oh man, oh fuck!" Zach glared harder at him and Ted froze with his mouth open. He gulped and he started breathing faster and faster, while thinking in terror, _Is Lifebringer, is he really, people said he might be- in that- he's a terrorist?! Is he one of those Death guys?!_

Zach snapped his gaze back to Paulie and he snarled, "Do it. _Now._ " There was no room for argument in Zach's voice, and he was done having a conversation about this. He glared at Paulie and then lifted his right hand up and slid his fingers out of the black glove he was wearing. Rumors, news stories, an occasional conversation, they were all Paulie had ever heard about Lifebringer. They were some pretty crazy things, but he had other things to do, more important things to care about than some kid across the world. He did know the name of the kid's Quirk though, and the thought of Death made Paulie call his dealer and start taking deep breaths as the phone rang. _Don't mess up. Don't mess up. Don't mess up._

 _I really hope he doesn't screw this up. I might've scared him too much already. Well, if it works it will be worth it. Remember Paulie, anyone could snitch on you. Don't be a drug dealer anymore._ Zach thought about the doubt he cast in Paulie's mind even about just being a low level dealer like he had appeared to be. The fact that Paulie was this quick to call up his own dealer too even to give to someone who was clearly going after drug dealers also showed Zach that he was bottom tier. Zach watched Paulie carefully and with his fingers continuously out of his glove. He did not move his hand closer to Paulie at all during the call, as it might make the student more nervous and mess up in his conversation which could spook his dealer. He also did not lower it as he did not want Paulie to calm down too much and try warning the drug dealer about what was coming for him.

 _Lifebringer's here,_ Ted thought with sweat all over his face. _What the hell is he doing here? Is he a terrorist? One of the Death dudes? Oh man I am freaking out. Is this a hallucination? I've gotta cool it on the Serum. I heard somewhere you get badass trips if you do it enough, but fuck this! No way this is a hallucination,_ Ted reminded himself as the girl over near the door started muttering to herself before glaring his way and raising her gun. He gulped, and she gulped while looking back at him.

 _Am I drunk? Is Zach mad that I drank too much? I didn't even notice! I thought I just poured a little in, but I didn't want anyone around me thinking I was trying to hold back for some reason so I- He would know if I'm drunk wouldn't he? Oh my God, he must hate me! What did I do?! I can't believe I did something so stupid!_

Ted was desperately trying not to freak out as the girl pointing a gun towards him was scrunching her face up and getting tears in her eyes. Zach turned from Paulie and said to the girl Ted was looking at in a really scared way, "It's fine Darling." Then he asked her louder in English, "You got some Serum?"

"I've been looking for some," Darling replied back with a big smile back on her face. She wiped her eyes fast and then looked back to Ted who was so weirded out by the girl that he did not actually feel any better despite her expression looking a bit more stable.

Paulie looked nervously at Zach and Darling as they said those things, but then his look got darker and he nodded at what the voice over the phone just said. Zach saw Paulie's look start getting dark, and he called out with a completely stern expression but in a fun voice, "Hey Paulie, you getting more?" Zach's eyes were cold and after saying it his lips curled down with his teeth flashing for a brief second clenched in anger.

Paulie stared into Zach's eyes with his own huge, and he responded to the dealer on the line with him, "As soon as you can. Yeah, yeah behind the house in the back lot… Alright, see you in a few. Text me when you're here," Paulie lowered his phone and his thumb hesitated over the end call button, then he pressed down and lifted his gaze back to Zach's. "I did what you asked, now can I-"

Zach stepped forward and held his right hand out with his fingers back in his glove. Paulie got a confused look on his face, and Zach said, "Your phone."

"Dude, don't take-"

"You think this is a game?" Zach asked. Paulie's annoyed look wiped from his face and his eyes opened huge again at the terrifying look spreading over the younger boy's. He was quick to hand his phone to the kid, and Zach put the phone down in his sweatshirt pocket fast and then his knife too. Then Zach lifted his eyes and stared into Paulie's in his menacing way, and he stepped towards him which made Paulie step back and start rambling how he did what Zach asked. "I was never here," Zach said. Paulie froze with his mouth half-open, and Ted looked over from the bed too to see Zach look towards him as well.

"If anyone ever knows," Zach continued. "If even the smallest rumors come out that I was here, like if you tell a single friend and they tell a couple of their friends… all of the drug dealers in the region will know it was the two of you who snitched."

"Me?" Ted asked in a scared voice.

"You can't-" Paulie started, his eyes widening in terror at the idea of everyone finding out it was them.

"Shh sh sh," Darling stepped closer towards them and she lifted her lips into a crazed grin which made the two looking towards her get a lot more nervous. "As long as you keep your mouths shut, no one will ever know. Especially not the heroes who we would tell all about your drug business."

"I don't have a-" Paulie started.

"I haven't done anything-" Ted began at the same time.

Zach glared towards Ted and cut him off, "If people find out I was here, then you did." Ted's bottom lip dropped at that threat. The idea of both heroes and villains coming after the two of them had both college students scared silent. And then while they were silent, Zach pressed his right hand into his chest with his fingers sliding out of his glove. A black aura spread around his body, and Ted yelped only to cover his mouth with both hands as Darling pointed her pistol towards him. Paulie held his breath and could not yelp if he wanted to as the kid in front of him turned into a dark monster with his bones barely visible through the thick veil, with red eyes boring into his own in the most horrifying way.

Zach's voice was dark, low, scratchy and overlapping with his normal voice. "It was all a hallucination of Serum. And you two aren't going to do any more of that drug anyway. You will not sell it, you will not buy it, and I'll never have to see you again." Zach's red eyes glared into Paulie's, "You will not speak a word of this to anyone. As much as you might want to," he added with a glare over at Ted who covered his mouth harder and started nodding his head fast at the terrifying kid. "I do not want to come back here." Zach stepped away from Paulie and he tapped his chest with his right hand again. He turned away from the college boys without another word. He turned confidently and without any worry of retaliation, and neither of the others even thought about trying to attack him while they were trying their hardest to control their bladders.

Zach picked up his red solo cup that he placed down on the table when Paulie first turned to his dresser to get more Serum. "Dump the rest of it down the toilet or something," Zach said over his shoulder as he remembered the drugs still in the dresser. He did not think he really needed to say anything to keep Paulie from selling any more Serum, but it was all for good measure. Zach smiled in a fake way while lifting up his red cup, and then his eyes narrowed and he said in a darker voice, "What's my name?"

Ted's jaw dropped and he tried calling out fast to answer correctly, but then his face covered in sweat as his response would have been wrong. "Mark," Paulie responded correctly, and he gulped at the nod Zach gave him at his response. Ted was very glad he did not call out "Death" as he was about to, and he screamed at himself in his head never to say a word about this if _Mark_ really was who he thought.

Zach unlocked the door and turned back to Darling with a smile on his face. "Here," she said, reaching up and grabbing his hood, putting it on his head for him while he had one hand on his red cup and the other on the doorknob.

"Haha, thanks," Zach said while opening the door and stepping out in the hall with her. Darling looked back into the room one last time in a menacing way herself before flipping her expression and stepping out after Zach. She slammed the door shut behind her a little harder than she needed to, just for good measure. Then she looked up and saw Zach taking in deep breaths after all that. He glanced down at her face and saw a semi-nervous look back on it again. "Don't take any more sips on our way out. We're good with…" Zach glanced down at Darling's cup that she moved down to her opposite side as him in an embarrassed way. "It's empty?" Zach asked with his right eyebrow raised.

"I'm sorry," Darling said with her gaze lowering and her lips pursing. "The mixers made it so I could barely taste it- and the rum was flavored anyway so it actually was good, and I didn't notice. Don't hate me-"

Zach lifted his left hand and put it around her head onto her opposite shoulder. He started walking with her and smiled, and he said in the carefree tone of someone enjoying a party, "I could never hate you. Okay?" Darling remembered she had to keep that expression on her face too, and she brought it back to her face though fake as she could not tell if Zach meant what he just said or if they were just acting. His hand squeezed a bit on her shoulder though as they headed down the hall, and Zach added while leaning down to her ear like the music was too loud, "Really. You did great back there."

Darling smiled brightly and she turned to Zach and said in an excited way, "We were so in sync. That was like- bam! They had no idea what hit them!"

"Haha, ha," Zach chuckled but he still felt bad about what they had just done. _I didn't need to scare them so much. Even if they do talk, people would think they were just hallucinating. Though I guess now after showing them Nightmare, it'll definitely sound more like a bad trip. Maybe they'll believe it themselves, though hopefully not since I don't want them talking about it even as a joke. Plus, I want them to remember it. Get their shit straight. Focus on school and baseball Paulie, you don't seem like you need the money too badly. Or find a better job._ Zach felt a buzz in his pocket while he and Darling were walking down the stairwell. He lifted up Paulie's phone and saw a text message on the screen. He had watched Paulie type in his passcode, and he opened the phone up himself and started texting back while he and Darling made their ways back towards the front door of the house.

The two of them headed out and they started around the building to a parking lot behind it. They could hear Ray-V in the backyard they were walking around the back fence, and the two of them kept talking and nodding their heads for the people on the streets or hanging out around the outside of the house. Some cars drove by on the street to their right as they walked on the grass, and Zach said to the girl next to him as he spotted a car waiting behind the house with a single man in it, "Get in the back ten seconds after me." Zach let go of Darling and started walking towards the car still with his hood up. He sent a text message as he approached, and he became fully confident it was the right car as the man in the driver's seat looked down as a light illuminated in his lap.

Zach sent, 'I'm here,' so when the man lifted his head and saw a figure in all black walking up to his car he did not get too nervous. Zach walked to the passenger seat and opened the door, and he got in and then turned to the man next to him who opened his eyes wide that it was not Paulie who just sat next to him. "Hey, sorry," Zach lifted his left hand and took his hood off still with Paulie's phone in his grip. The phone was on and turned to the text message conversation which showed the confused driver who darted his eyes to it that this was the person he was texting. "Paulie's girlfriend got all mad at him and he sent me out 'cause she wouldn't let him go on his-"

"Who are you?"

"I'm Mark," Zach began slowly, lifting an eyebrow at the driver's harsh tone like he was being weird about this. "Really, he gave me the money and said to get- hey cool down," Zach told the guy, lifting his left hand as an open palm so he would not freak out even as the back door behind his seat opened up. "It's my girl," Zach started, while a girl in a cat costume climbed into the back. "I thought I said to wait outside," Zach said with an annoyed voice while looking into the back.

The driver had his head turned looking over his shoulder, but he spun to 'Mark' in annoyance and started, "Tell Paulie this isn't-"

Cold steel pressed up to the side of the dealer's neck between the head cushion of the driver's seat and the back. The boy he was talking to lost his friendly look, and he reached his left hand out and grabbed the dealer by the arm. "Listen to the girl, Drex."

"Start driving," the 'girl' who 'Mark' just mentioned said in the backseat.

Zach pulled a knife with his right hand and he lowered it down to the driver's right thigh. He pressed the flat of the blade on the man's leg. The man was in his mid-twenties, and he turned back towards Zach after looking like he might try and bolt out of the driver's side door. He stared at the kid and his eyes were huge at the serious look on the teen's face, as well as a dark look yet with the right corner of his lip lifted up. "Right where my knife is touching, is a soft part of your leg with a very big artery in it. The femoral artery. It bleeds a lot, and none of the drunk people here would be able to stop the bleeding."

 _Now that he's thoroughly scared._ "Start driving, Drex. You're going to take me to whoever sold you your Serum." Zach's lips twisted up more as he changed his script and what he was going with, "Because this is my territory now. You're either going to get with the program, or things are about to go very badly for you." _Keep it vague. Already he has a few terrible things in mind that could happen,_ Zach turned the blade a bit to get the sharp edge pressing on the scared driver's thigh, but he flattened it out again in case the man started fidgeting or got too jumpy during the drive. "Do you understand?" Zach asked. He lifted his left hand from the man's arm up to his chin and nodded his head for him. "Good. Now do what I say, and you'll get out of tonight alive…"

* * *

 **A/N Thanks for reading! Zach and Darling team up on a trip across America, going to parties and mingling with college students... bribing security guards and cops... and taking down meth labs and threatening drug dealers to find _their_ dealers! Hope you enjoyed the chapter, leave a review telling me what you think or predictions for the coming chapter. Zach's seventeen years old now, as we reach November (couple days after Halloween I mentioned in here). So I know the story's slowed down a bit from all the huge plot developments that happened in the 80s and early 90s, but it can't all be plot twists and huge character changes. One thing I regret about Death so far is how I think I rushed getting Zach to VTS. I didn't want to show what he was doing with the villains so that I could gradually reveal that more through the following chapters, but I wished I had put in more development about it so the connection with Dabi, Toga, and the others had seemed a bit more genuine. I felt like I managed to show it pretty well, but revealing everything through flashbacks isn't always my fav way of doing things. Like I skipped through the summer, then gave Cee her flashbacks, and I liked doing that because while I was skipping I didn't know who she was going to be, just that two people were going to have joined Zach already by Hawaii when Rebel teamed up. Sometimes wish I had done certain things in order though and that it's because I write at such a fast pace that I often miss things I could have put in chronologically but now have to show in flashback. So I do have these big arcs and stuff planned out and coming, and if you guys aren't into too much of missions and character developments and just want to see plot twists and huge world events, maybe wait a couple chapters and then binge 4-5 in a row. It's a big story I'm writing though, and again I'll say I'm not close to the end yet. Just a bit of a ramble here^ gonna hold off on review responses today. Again, thanks everyone for reviewing, reading, faving, and following this story. Hope you enjoyed the chapter, and leave a review below telling me what you think/ questions, predictions, etc! 'Til tomorrow!**


	103. Chapter 103

**Disclaimer: I don't own Boku no Hero Academia**

 **Chapter 103:**

"Zach this is really weird," Darling whispered. She had an earpiece in so she could whisper it without getting closer to the boy standing in front of the drug dealer they had tied to a chair.

Zach stared at the Serum dealer who they found after moving up the chain from the fraternity party they had gone to earlier. Both of them had on black costumes with their helmets on now, and Zach just replied to his comrade in a low voice, "We're in the field. Call me Death, or Commander. And stay on guard. Something is, up." Zach agreed at the end about how this was weird, and he gulped which he hoped was not noticeable through the thin material over his neck. Whether it was noticeable or not though, the woman in front of Zach did not react. The young woman with short red hair was staring straight at his helmet, and she was not saying a word no matter how threatening he tried to be.

 _The last guy, was weird too,_ Zach thought. He moved to the right and watched as the woman's eyes slowly shifted to follow him. He had already turned off Nightmare as it did not make her any more obedient. She was just staring at him. "What've you got on her?" Zach asked quietly in his helmet only.

Darling looked down at the wallet on the floor next to her laptop. "Keisha Winters. Twenty-four years old. She has a driver's license, and some credit cards, no cash. Death, what's wrong with her?" Darling looked back towards the woman herself while asking, and she gulped at the creepy look of the woman sitting on that chair. "The last dealer, he barely reacted at all to what we were saying. But she's like… I don't like this."

"Me neither. Look her up online and find what you can," Zach stepped closer to the woman in the chair in front of him. "Keisha," Zach began, and the redhead lifted her eyes to the visor but did not react much to the dark figure who tied her up in a small shack at the edge of her town. It was three in the morning, and Zach and Darling had been out all night being threatening and hunting down drug dealers. They still did not feel any closer to whoever was making the drug, but they were getting more nervous the higher up in the chain they got. "Can you understand me?" Zach wondered.

She stared silently at him without responding. _What happened? She was answering Rubin's messages when we sent from his phone, and she spoke before we ambushed her. The second I started telling her to tell me where- just like Rubin. He was so spooked at first, but when I told him to tell me where the drugs were coming from, it was like his fear went away. Not that he was afraid of someone else. He actually started to calm down, and he almost wouldn't tell us. I had to go so much farther in the threatening… But it wouldn't work with her. I can see that._ _So then, how?_

Zach closed his eyes tightly, then he opened them in a slow way and he said under his breath, "Well, might as well try it." Darling looked over for a second from her computer, though she turned back and continued going through the web with a confused look on her face as she was not too used to using the internet in English. She listened though in a bit more confusion as Zach continued louder to the woman in front of him, "I'm looking to buy some Serum. Do you have any to sell me?"

"Yes," Keisha replied, the first thing she had said in fifteen minutes.

Darling spun back in surprise, and Zach's eyes widened too as that was more of a shot in the dark than anything. "Oh, that's great."

"I only sell to dealers though," Keisha continued. "Like Rubin. Where is Rubin?" Her head cocked to the side and Zach tried his hardest not to pull back at the creepiest thing he had seen all week.

"Um," Zach started, and he cursed in his head for the unintentional response. _Fuck! Keep focused. Think constantly. She's stuck to a certain response set. Or, no that seems right. She's clearly out of it._ "Rubin's not going to be a dealer anymore, I'm taking his place." _She doesn't seem to be able to think comprehensively. Most people would be able to see through the lie._ "So could you sell me some Serum?"

Keisha un-cocked her head and then she flattened her lips out. "I don't think so. You were demanding to know where I got it from."

"That's because I want to sell more than you have to give me," Zach replied with the first thing that he could think of to keep the conversation going. _Don't shut up. What is wrong with you?_

"Zach," Darling whispered. Zach got a frustrated expression on his face as Darling did not call him by one of the names he just told her to use, but Darling turned towards him and stood up from the laptop. "This woman, her parents reported she's missing." Zach looked towards Darling and then back at the dealer in front of him. He started breathing faster, and Darling whispered in a quiet voice, "Just two days ago."

 _Missing? This is- the dealers at the top? Are they the missing people? Have I got this all wrong?_ Zach stepped back from the woman and he ground his teeth in frustration for a second. Then he stopped and he shook his head around. _No. Even if the people I'm trying to help are drug dealers, something is wrong here. It doesn't feel like she's doing this by choice. Something's wrong with her._ Zach looked closer into the woman's eyes in front of him, and he frowned at the size of her pupils that were still as large as they were when he came in. _She's high. It looks like, at least. All the dealers have been so far. Wait a second. Hold on._ "Darling, you said she doesn't have cash in her wallet?" Zach whispered.

"No. Not a cent."

 _She was coming from a different deal when we messaged her from Rubin's…_ "Though, I could also just sell however much you have. How would that work?" Zach asked louder to the woman who had not responded with his last statement.

Keisha nodded once at Zach and she turned to her right towards the door and where her car was. The chair moved, then she looked back down and Zach's eyes widened as it looked like she forgot she was tied up for a second. She frowned, and she rose her eyes slowly back up to the dark figure before her. "I have some Serum in my car. If you untie me, I could give it to you. Then after you sell it, bring me the profits and I will give you more."

"Bring you cash?" Zach asked.

Keisha nodded her head. "Cash only."

 _She couldn't have deposited it this late. She just handed off the money from her last deal, and it did not take her too long to get here after we messaged her. Alright._ Zach took a deep breath and then he pulled out a knife from his belt and walked up to Keisha. She did not flinch, but Darling looked over in surprise as Zach cut her binds and released her. "I'll take everything you have. As long as I get to use the Serum myself too."

"Of course, though soon you won't need it anymore," Keisha replied only half paying attention as she stood from the chair and started towards the door.

 _What?_ Zach and Darling both thought while watching the woman walking to the door of the shack. Zach shook his head and then started following after her, deciding that not saying anything at the moment was better than asking a question about that unsettling statement. Zach walked out of the door right behind Keisha, and he had a strange feeling bubbling in his chest that was filling his eyes with pity as he stared at her. _Does she… she doesn't even- is she on it right now?_ "Darling," Zach whispered. "What else did your search say?"

Darling was cleaning up in the shack and packing things up into a black pack she slid her arms under the straps of. She whispered in response, "She graduated OMU with an English major, got a Master's in Education. She was working as a teaching assistant, until a few weeks ago. The first thing I saw after looking up her name was this big angry feed on Quirkbook where parents were mad because a teacher had cursed in front of really young students. The school fired her."

 _And she became a high-level drug dealer? In a couple of weeks?_ Zach frowned at the woman in front of him who went to her trunk and popped it open. "Rubin isn't going to be-" Zach reached his right hand forward and grabbed the end of the shotgun barrel Keisha spun towards him after reaching into her trunk. **BANG!** Zach pushed the barrel to the side just enough that the shot slammed into the shack behind him. _Darling!_ Zach ripped the shotgun backwards and right out of Keisha's hands as she got pulled towards him. Zach brought up a knee and slammed it into her gut between her stomach and her chest, the point that knocked all the wind out of her and made her collapse to her knees. "Darling," Zach said, while swinging the shotgun butt down and into Keisha's face. "Are you alright?"

"Nothing hit me," Darling said, rushing out the door and looking towards Zach to see if he was alright. "What happened?"

"I let my guard down," Zach said in a dark voice. "I'm sorry." _That was almost fatal. The barrel didn't even slow in my mind. I don't know what activates that. My heart rate has to already be high I think, and then if something life-threatening is coming it prepares me. Maybe. Maybe I just fucked up because I was feeling too bad for this woman._ Zach reached down his left hand while tossing the shotgun away with his right. He grabbed Keisha by her shirt and yanked her back up, and he put his helmet up close to her face. "Why did you-" Keisha's face was right in front of his visor, and her expression was back to the blank look it had when she was inside tied to the chair. Her eyes shifted over to where Zach tossed the shotgun, then to her vehicle. _She's not afraid._ Zach lowered the woman down a bit which made her turn back to him wondering what he was doing. Zach touched his chest with his right hand, then he reached out and a single moment of fear flashed over the woman's face when the hand covered in black wisps was about to touch her face.

Zach dropped Keisha unconscious to the floor. He glared down at her but started calming down his fast breaths of dark air. "Something bad is…" Zach's dark voice trailed off, and he growled and tapped his chest with his right hand. "I don't like this," he said while his aura disappeared. He turned to Darling and said to the girl walking up behind him, "Give me her phone."

"What are we going to do?" Darling asked. "You were planning on following her once she sold us everything and needed to go hand off the cash, right?" Zach nodded, as Darling once again understood what he was planning without him needing to explain it to her. She gave him a more confused look though and then shifted her eyes down to the unconscious woman below. "She wasn't scared at all. This random, school teacher."

"The missing people," Zach began slowly. He looked at Keisha's phone and found a passcode lock on it. He looked down at the woman on the floor and reached to her right hand, grabbed her thumb, and he pressed it against the bottom of the phone to open it up. Darling grinned at him, but she regained her serious look behind her visor as Zach continued in a low voice, "Someone's controlling them, or something. She seemed capable of more thought that I realized. Like she was tricking me, except… I think she really was just," Zach frowned deeper and he glared at the text messages on the woman's phone.

Rubin's texts to her were the second conversation down on her list. The top conversation that had been texted in most recently was the one Zach tapped on. _'The King.' Is this the top of the chain? Weird contact name, unless, the guy who she was texting told her to make that his contact name. Is he the controller?_ Zach scrolled up through the conversation, and he glared harder and harder at the phone in his hand that Darling came over to look at too. _Her messages get more and more, the same. As time goes back though, she talked like a normal person. The last five messages…_ Zach copied the most recent message from Keisha going out to 'The King.' He froze before sending it though, as he looked at the response from the supposed Serum kingpin.

"What?" Darling asked as she saw Zach's hesitation.

"An address," Zach whispered. He started scrolling back through the phone, and at the same time both he and Darling heard a siren in the distance. Zach glanced over towards the shotgun, then to the unconscious woman next to it who likely had a lot of illicit substances in the back of her car. _I don't like this. I'm sorry, Keisha._ Zach turned and he started walking away, and Darling walked up to follow him as they moved away from the building they had interrogated Keisha at. They disappeared into the night, and Zach said in a low voice as they walked, "She doesn't have an address in here, and if I ask where it is he'll know it's not her."

"So what do we do?" Darling asked. "This can't be the end of the trail. We've come so far."

 _If all the missing people are drug dealers who abandoned their lives to turn to crime… But, what if it's against their will? Rubin, said he used to be a Ryde driver too. He stopped doing it recently though. He was acting weirdly too. Not yet at Keisha's level, but, but what if he was going to reach that? Are these people just gradually- and what did she mean by I wouldn't need it soon?_ Zach stopped where he and Darling were behind a store on a strip near the outskirts of town. They could still hear a siren in the distance, getting closer to back where they had been earlier where someone had probably reported hearing a gunshot. Zach glared at the phone in his hand that he was constantly using so it would not turn off where he would need Keisha's fingerprint again.

Zach lifted up the phone and he erased the message he had pasted into the text bar. He frowned with his teeth grinding behind his visor as he erased 'Have cash. Need Serum.' Zach started typing with his fingers fast into the keyboard on the bottom of the screen, and Darling's eyes opened wide while her cheeks turned red. She lifted her eyes to Zach and felt her heart racing for him as he typed in a fury. 'Yo motherfucker I have that bitch Keisha's phone. She's with me now. I'm taking charge of the Serum business. You got a problem with it then tell me where to fucking meet you. Let's negotiate.' Zach sent the message. _I clearly have no idea what I'm doing, and I'm bluffing about Keisha which he would know. He had her put his name as 'The King' so he's a smug cunt-_

'Oh you think you're tough shit. I ain't afraid of you.' A map with a pin dropped on it appeared on the screen below the last messages. 'Come and get it you bitch ass pussy!'

 _He's cocky. Maybe he's right to be. Need to be careful. Cautious. But this mother fucker, he knows I must be nearby because Keisha just left him not too long ago. That pin, isn't too far from my current location. We really tracked it back._ Zach shifted the phone a bit to show Darling, then he turned it to himself and replied, 'Big man huh? We'll see how much you deserve that 'King' title you lil bitch. You and yours are gonna either join with me or you're getting out of my way. B there in 20.' _Want more time to prepare, but I'm too close that he'll suspect something's up if I take too long. If I go too short though, he'll know how unafraid I am. I want him to think I need some more time to prepare now that he was so quick to respond._

'I'll be waiting.'

"He has to know this is a trap," Darling whispered at the boy next to her who had her heart swirling with emotions at the exchange she just witnessed. "If this really is the man in charge of the Serum distribution-"

"I think we're overestimating him," Zach said. Darling looked at Zach in a confused way, and he shook his head before turning back to her. "But we're going to be careful anyway. Let's get there right now. You'll set up at a good position to keep overwatch…"

* * *

 _How the hell does he have this building? This place is massive. Unless, he got the person hooked on Serum- or, if he got them to the point they're like Keisha. This is ridiculous. Fuck this guy. People have died over Serum. Drug dealers found dead with Serum on them, and dozens of people missing. College students getting addicted and turning into dealers themselves._ Zach stared ahead while walking in a cocky way right into the middle of the huge open building in the industrial part of the town he was in. It was a factory except the floor had been opened up with all the heavy machinery pushed to the sides. Yet as Zach glanced around under the dark hood he was wearing, he spotted movement behind some of those machines.

 _How many people? Darling should be watching over me right now. Don't want to say anything, she'll get me…_ "Here someone comes. There are a _lot_ of people with him." Her voice spoke quietly in Zach's ear.

 _Show of force. He's trying to intimidate me. At least he's not just going for a kill right away. The fact that I came in alone tells him that my associates are probably around somewhere, and he'll want to know where and what I'm doing. Besides, he's not afraid enough to just lash out. Not if he's the kingpin._ "So," Zach said, speaking towards the shadows up ahead of him. The part of the factory floor he had walked into was illuminated brightly by floodlights on the walls and on steel bars pointed down towards him while keeping most of the room in shadows. "I take it you're 'The King.'"

A man walked out of the shadows towards Zach. His skin was dark gold, he had some brown freckles on his face, and he wore a black suit with a white shirt below that had the collar popped up around his neck. On his right fist were brass knuckles, and he smirked as he stepped into Zach's view. _He's young,_ Zach thought, while the man in front of him just tried getting a better look at that face partially shadowed by the hood and partially covered by his black bangs. _A few years older than me. Younger than a lot of the people around him,_ Zach's eyes shifted around while his head lifted a bit, and he got a more hesitant look on his face as he stared at the line of ten people who stepped out behind 'The King' in a simultaneous step that seemed so coordinated Zach figured it had to have been rehearsed. Except he also knew there was a good chance it was not rehearsed at all, and the people behind him were not acting but actually moved in weird movements like that.

"That's right," the gold-skinned man started, his voice threatening and his eyes narrowing down at the figure in a hoodie who looked to be trying to intimidate them with his appearance. After he spoke, the two closest to him on his left and right just behind him rose up their right hands and pointed pistols forward at the hooded figure.

"Hey, let's talk first," Zach started, holding his palms up defensively. _Work. Please, if I need it,_ he thought at his own eyes. _This was dangerous. So dangerous, but I'm too confident in who this guy really is. I need to realize that this is life or death. Not just for me. I have people who need me! Darling is right up there and if I start getting hurt she'll rush down with no regard for her own life._ Zach forced himself into more panic, and he made that expression show on his face too. "Who the hell- you have this many people?" Zach looked around the line with scared eyes, and then he snapped his head to both sides at the sight of some figures stepping out from behind machines and moving into the light.

"That's right," The King responded in a cocky tone. Then he started walking forward towards the shorter figure in all black, and he glared down his nose at him while continuing, "What did you do to Keisha? I know she wouldn't betray me."

"Wh- Yeah she did-"

"Don't fucking lie to me," the man said, coming to a stop and glaring into Zach's eyes in a much more threatening way. Zach lifted his head a bit, and the man lowered his head that he leaned back to look down his nose. The man lowered his head and his eyes shifted down from the boy's eyse, to the right side of his face and the scar there. A bead of sweat formed on his face, but he snapped in a low voice, "Keisha's my best girl. What the fuck did you do with her? I know she wouldn't betray me-"

"And how do you know that?" Zach asked, and his scared and nervous tone was gone. He stared into The King's eyes and his expression had the kingpin frozen in place. Their eyes were locked, and Zach said in a low voice, "What did you do to her?"

"What the fuck are you on about?" The King snapped. "You admitting you never had-"

"Are you doing all of this?" Zach asked. He stared into the older boy's eyes and his eyebrows lifted up as the man pulled his head back. "This, is this all you? You alone?" Zach's eyes widened at the look on the man's face. "Holy shit, you're all alone."

" _I'm_ alone?!" The King shouted in a skeptical and furious voice. "You know who you're talking to?! Look at me! Look around you! You're fucking surrounded! What the fuck are you-"

"What did you do to them?" Zach questioned. He brought his right hand into his chest and erupted in a mass of black flames that had the man in front of him stumbling back in terror.

"Shoot him!"

 **Bang!** A bullet flew through The King's right shoulder, and he flew backwards yelling out in pain as blood splashed out behind him. **Bang bang bang brrr-br-br-br dink -chink- dink Doof!** _Can't run towards any of them or the others might keep shooting. They probably will. Only person they probably won't shoot at._ Zach raced towards the man stumbling backwards, and the guy lifted his head after looking at his shoulder he grabbed in pain. He stared at the dark figure in terror, and then his bottom lip dropped at the sight of the dark figure leaping up in the air and bullets dinking up into metal bars all over the place.

"Tell them to stop firing or they're going to hit you!" Zach bellowed, while swinging his arms to the sides and spinning his body. He turned into a spiral in midair and rocketed down towards the kingpin of the Serum drug whose eyes bulged at the flaming black mass heading straight for him. Then what that mass shouted at him made The King scream out in panic for everyone to stop shooting. The dark mass flying down at him saw him start shouting it, and he slammed his right hand back into his chest while flying through the air.

Zach's dark aura was left behind and he shot out of it and tackled the man with a bloody shoulder. He slammed The King's back into the floor but his momentum was too much that he started rolling and then made them roll again so he was still on top. Zach flipped on top of the man and had a knife drawn and down against his throat in an instant. "Tell them all to back off," Zach growled. "Or I'll slit your throat-"

"Everybody freeze! J-Just stay where you are!"

"Not so cocky now," Zach muttered in an annoyed voice, while looking down at the terrified expression on the drug dealer's face. "God, what the fuck?" Zach leaned up off the man lying on his back in fear and with blood all over his shoulder. "Darling, why'd you shoot him?"

"He told them to shoot you!" Darling called down in frustration from the rafters, even though she could have just responded in her earpiece.

"Wh-Who the fuck are you?" The King whispered, leaning up a bit and then darting his eyes around to the men and women all just standing still around the factory. He gulped when he saw the dark eyes of the boy in front of him glaring down out of his hood in a menacing way, though he was regretting screaming all he had in panic. He was wishing he had planned for a contingency here, but he was too scared to do anything except stare back into those eyes once the younger man started glaring at him.

"I'm," Zach began. He started in a dark voice, then he looked to the man's shoulder that really was bleeding a lot. "I'm just trying to figure out, what happened to all the missing people," Zach replied. The man he was looking down at opened his eyes huge, and then he grit his teeth and shifted eyes full of regret towards the people closest to him on his right. Zach shook his head as he saw a look he recognized too well in that man's eyes. "Come on, I'll wrap your shoulder. Then I want to know everything." He stepped forward and lowered his left hand for the man to take, and the man lowered his left hand from his shoulder and then reached up to take the younger man's.

The King's brass knuckles were on his right fist, but he could not even move that arm without feeling such incredible pain in his shoulder. He let the shorter boy lift him to his feet, then he asked the person in front of him in a hesitant voice, "Your face, you're, Lifebringer aren't you?"

 _I really do need to wear my helmet more often. Everywhere._ "That doesn't matter," Zach muttered. He glared up into the man's eyes and then shook his head again before asking, "What are you doing?"

The King grimaced and then glared harshly down into the younger man's eyes. Zach just kept looking up in a regretful way of his own, and he had a look of understanding on his face that confused and made The King feel uneasy. "What's your name?" Zach asked. "Your real name, not, that stupid nickname." Zach started pulling his sweatshirt up and over his head. The King stared at him in shock as he blocked himself from his vision, but as he opened his mouth to shout something, he recalled the current sharp pain he was feeling in his right shoulder. And he remembered that there was someone aiming a gun down at him from the rafters that he slowly shifted his eyes up to in a nervous way.

"He almost decided to kill you right there," Darling warned in Zach's earpiece. Zach finished taking off his sweatshirt and he glared in a pissed off way at the man in front of him he was testing a bit with that. "You're really, a stupid fuck." Zach cut through one of his sleeves and then ripped it apart, and he motioned for the man in front of him to step forward. The kingpin gulped but could not deny him, and he stepped forward and stood there as the younger man started wrapping up his arm.

"This," Zach said while he wrapped up the guy's shoulder. "This is fucked up. I mean, I'm trying to wrap my head around this." He lifted his gaze up to meet The King's, but the older man stopped looking at him. He had to pull his gaze away as the teen said these things to him. "Look at me," Zach growled, his voice serious and dark again to make the man turn back his way. "You've gotta tell me what's going on here. I'm not a hero. I'm not trying to steal your business. I'm just…" Zach grit his teeth and he looked into the man's eyes in such a frustrated way at how much regret he could still see in them. "What the hell is going on here? I recognize those people around you. Ryan Hayward, Marcellus Undonque, Oliver Reyes, Francisco Johnson… They're the missing people. These people… what did you do to them?"

The King opened his mouth. He got a cocky look on his face, and for a second it looked like he was about to snap something at Zach or even shout at his people to attack. Instead though, his eyebrows curved up and he bit down on his bottom lip. "It wasn't supposed to be," he started, then he cut himself off and grit his teeth in frustration.

"Explain it to me," Zach said. He backed away from the man and gave him an understanding look, but he kept it stern to show this was not up for debate. "If you don't, I'll just have to assume the worst. And seriously, you don't want me assuming what I currently believe is happening here."

Zach's expression got darker, and the man in front of him could imagine the dark form with glowing red eyes and a skull-like face that had dodged bullets and attacked him. He was feeling tired after getting shot in the arm too, and after Zach backed up he glanced at his shoulder to see it was wrapped in the thick dark fabric of the kid's ripped sweatshirt. He hoped the bleeding would stop with it, and he lowered down feeling exhausted with his shoulders slouching so much. Zach watched as it looked like he was taking off hundreds of pounds of metaphorical weights as he collapsed down to his butt. "Pedro, Gonzales," the gold-skinned man said.

He looked up into the hazel eyes of the figure before him wearing a black long-sleeved shirt and staring down at him. Pedro took a deep breath and then he lifted his left hand that still had some of his wet blood on it that he rubbed on his forehead. "Serum's gotten way out of control," Pedro started. He looked into the kid's eyes and said in a regretful and low voice, "It's my own Quirk. I secrete it, kind of like sweat except I can choose how much and when… Anyway," Pedro shook his head around and tried getting back on track. "I knew from back when I was a kid that people loved it. In middle school I got tired of being told not to use my Quirk, and I lost some friends who I wouldn't let take my Serum anymore after giving it to them too many times."

Pedro shook his head again and he lowered his gaze from the boy to the floor between them. "They had started acting weird about it, and I couldn't keep giving it to them so we got in fights. A bad fight even," Pedro lowered his left hand from his forehead and down to his chin, and Zach saw a small scar that Pedro rubbed a finger over with a dark look in his eyes. "I knew people got addicted to the stuff," he continued in a low voice. "But I needed money for college, so I started selling like it was an up-and-coming party drug. People loved it, told their friends, and then I started putting my Quirk into vials and gave it to other people to sell for me because I didn't want to get caught."

Darling listened to what was going on from up in the rafters, and she stared down with her eyes wide before shifting them around the people in the factory who were all just standing still doing nothing without any orders. They had creeped her out at first, but her heart was racing faster and her eyes shifted back to Pedro with a much darker look in them. Pedro looked up and saw the boy in front of him glaring at him harder than before, not the look of understanding Pedro wanted to see. "It wasn't my fault," Pedro whispered, then he continued fast to try and keep explaining his side of the story to this scary teen, "I didn't have to pay the dealers, because they were just allowed to do as much of it as they wanted. Then things started getting weird though."

"Of course they did," Zach said, glaring at Pedro who pulled his head back and then leaned forward again to shout his explanation.

"The drug is perfect," Pedro snapped. "The best drug- It doesn't make people _need_ to go back for it, but because it's so great a lot of people do for a second, and third, and fourth time. By the fourth, they believe that they're in control of when they do it, but that's also the same time it starts to get to them." Pedro gulped but he started smiling even as sweat formed on his face. "When they go out they _need_ Serum to have a good time, then just to have an enjoyable night even alone. Demand rose, and when people started wanting more I let them become drug dealers for me too. I, really thought I was becoming this cool drug kingpin and that no one was really getting hurt, but then things got really weird! The dealers stopped asking me for more of it just for themselves, and I, I finally asked them how they were making so much yet always seemed so high, and they told me they hadn't been taking it."

Pedro pursed his lips for a second and he struggled to keep a smile. His lips curled down and he said in a nervous voice, "After they had started taking Serum every day, multiple times a day, it had just stuck in their bloodstreams. _Merged_ with them," Pedro whispered in a scared voice. He looked down towards his left hand, and bubbles started forming over his palm and then liquid formed out of his skin. He glared at it and then swiped his palm away, splashing Serum aside with an angry look that Zach just glared at harder.

 _Why are you angry about it? What do you have to be angry about?! This is all you!_ "You did this to them-"

"I didn't know," Pedro whispered, looking back up desperately into Zach's eyes. "I noticed it before then, but the dealers wouldn't really question my orders after a while, they stopped asking about Serum, and they just, they did whatever I said." Zach started grinding his teeth angrier, and Pedro could see that and he exclaimed, "I was freaking out because of it! I didn't want that to happen! They kept doing what I wanted even when they stopped doing Serum, even though I didn't pay them. I knew they weren't getting anything from helping me and it freaked me the fuck out! So I tried ordering them to stop doing what I asked, but they were _different._ They lost their jobs, couldn't do schoolwork…" Pedro's face covered in fear and he leaned forward and whispered, " _Unless I told them to._ "

Zach pulled his head back. _What the fuck?_ His eyes shifted around to the people all over the room. He looked at them, and he saw these people all staring right back towards him with blank looks on their faces. _No seriously,_ his eyes darted back to Pedro, _what the fuck?!_

Pedro nodded his head at that look in the teen's eyes. "I realized something bad was happening and tried cutting off the supply," Pedro continued, and Zach's eyes widened more as did Darling's at the sound of that. "But the chain was too big by that point," Pedro said and shook his head.

"What do you mean?" Zach asked, keeping his voice dark though confused at what the man meant.

"There were people hooked at different parts of it," Pedro explained, shaking his head more in such a regretful way. "Dealers who weren't that hooked but had customers they needed to get product to. Or worse, the dealers higher up who knew me and had been super addicted to the Serum, but crazier addicted than I'd ever seen before trying to stop them. Back in middle school, they hadn't reached that point, but they were still so mad. I- I told the ones who had started listening to whatever I said to go let everyone know there was no more supply, as I tried to just slip out of it… And my drug dealers started a war with each other over whatever product was still out there, and they were trying to locate me. They killed each other." Pedro said it and he closed his eyes for a second tightly, then he opened them with more of a look of a drug kingpin that he had had earlier.

Pedro looked up into Zach's eyes and in a dark way continued, "So I started making it again. Because I was scared. I sent it out to keep the chain going, and I got the few who still listened to me who weren't killed while telling the others to stop, to get some guns to protect me with. I got some of them to train their Quirks, all for nothing," he muttered at the end while glaring at the kid who had defeated him without any trouble at all.

 _I barely had to dodge them at all. They don't have good aim. The ones who started training Quirks wouldn't have been able to do anything either. You're a fucking idiot. You're so, so stupid!_ Zach's eyes shook and he narrowed his eyebrows in towards his nose with a pissed-off glare at Pedro.

Pedro saw that look and shook his head fast while saying, "I knew it was too far gone at that point. There was no turning back. People had died, and I couldn't stop the supply when so many people were dependent on it. It was a business, and it couldn't just up and disappear like I wished. That was a few months ago though," he continued, his eyes getting wider and his breath speeding up. "And the chain keeps getting bigger! More and more people keep reaching the top level of the drug where they start to lose who they are, and they do whatever I tell them to! I've told them to go back to their lives, but then I'll go and fine them in terrible places because they're not themselves anymore. I found one homeless in an alley, and for the first time in over a month since I last saw him, I told him to do something and he did it without question-"

"You have slaves!" Zach finally snapped at the man who was trying to act like a victim here, while surrounded by his literal slaves.

"I never wanted this!" Pedro shouted back. "I just wanted some money to get through college! My parents died first semester in a villain attack, and I couldn't get through it without the extra cash on top of the part-time job I already had!" Zach's teeth started grinding in so much more anger, and Pedro shouted at him while getting off his butt and to his knees instead, "I never wanted to hurt people, never wanted to have slaves! I never wanted any of this! I, I've even been using the money I got from the operation to try and find a way out, try and come up with a cure… but it hasn't been working, and if I can't find one soon, I'm just going to disappear."

"If you do that," Zach began in a dark voice, unclenching his teeth while tightening his fists so hard at his sides. "All the people addicted in the chain will start fighting again. Your slaves won't know what to do and will probably die without your orders."

"There's nothing else I can do though!" Pedro yelled. "It'll only get bigger the longer I stay! It'll only hurt more people when I end it. So there's no other option except to just, just get some more money and then, disappear forever. There's nothing else I can do." Pedro looked into Zach's eyes in a desperate way, "I just need to get out of here."

 _This is what happens when normal people use their Quirks unrestrained. No, no no, this is what happens when people don't know what their Quirks do. This isn't a counter to my beliefs, this is the very proof. He's such an idiot. Such a fucking idiot._ Zach's face was scrunching up as he stared down at the desperate look on Pedro's face. "There is though," Zach said. "Something you can do," Zach continued, and his eyes started getting darker, his fists clenching so much harder. _It's not even, it's not a sure thing. It's nothing. It's not enough to… except,_ "You've enslaved people. And people killed because of you. I, I listened to your story. And there is something you haven't tried which could free them all."

Pedro reached his left hand back behind his waist in a quick movement. Zach reached his right hand forward and his fingers slid out of his glove. _I'm sorry._ Zach grabbed Pedro by the face while his arm was swinging around the side of his body. The pistol Pedro pulled out flew out of his hand, clanked on the floor and skid away through the factory while Pedro collapsed to the floor. It was instantaneous. He fell forward and face-planted below Zach's outstretched arm. Zach's hand started shaking where he had just grabbed out in such a fast and reactionary movement, yet also one that he had thought about beforehand.

 **Clank** _ **clatter**_ Zach turned his head to the left and stared at an uzi that just dropped on the floor and came to a stop in front of a woman's feet. She looked down at her hands in the most confused way, then she turned to the right and looked at a man who was looking at the pistol in his own hand with just as much confusion.

Darling looked around the floor down below with her eyes still wide from what she just saw Zach do. _It worked?_

 _It worked. It worked. It worked. Please, mean something. Be worth it._ Zach stared around at the idle slaves who all started getting confused as Serum stopped working on them. They were freed, and they switched quickly from confusion to fear as they looked around them in the factory they all remembered getting to.

"Oh my God!"

"What happened to me?!"

"AHH!"

Everyone started freaking out fast, and at the same time Darling turned her head and got an uneasy feeling in her chest. All those people shouting at the same time made her wonder about something, and her eyes opened wide so she transformed her right hand into a grappling gun. She aimed carefully and shot herself over to the edge of the factory on the side closest to the main street. She was at a window high up in the building, and she looked outside and down on the street where there were several vehicles all with their lights off.

"Zach. Cops. We have to leave now."

Zach stared back down at Pedro's body. His chest ached even after looking around at the people all panicking around him. _They might have been drug dealers, but the cops will understand. They all sound like they remember what was happening. Pedro, you, you shouldn't have…_ He stared down at the first man he had killed since the night he left his class in that forest. His right hand shook in front of him and he lowered it down to his side. His fist clenched, _I much rather would have killed Mongoloid. A lot of people, more than… You were scared of your own Quirk, but you knew what you were doing. You knew you were enslaving people and people were getting killed over this, and you kept it going anyway. You made that choice! I HATE this!_

Darling dropped down to the floor and started sprinting towards Zach. "We have to-" she started, then she ran straight up and threw her arms around Zach's sides. "It's okay," she told him, and Zach's eyes opened wide while he spun his head and looked down at the girl hugging him. She pulled back and looked up through her helmet, and she lifted up his helmet for him to take too since his face was in the open. "I know it must hurt-"

Zach reached up and grabbed the helmet, and he put it down on his head without a word to the girl who stared at him in shock at how quickly his expression had returned to normal. "There's work to be done," he said. Zach turned and he shouted louder than all the people in the factory who were freaking out and asking each other what was going on, and many of them were already staring over as they had been watching everything that occurred even if their minds had mostly been blank for it. "If you all remember what's been happening here, then explain it to the police! And if you all know where the lower level dealers are, the others who are semi-addicted to Serum who are also probably confused as to what's going on right now, tell them too!"

"What's going on?!"

"Who are you?!"

"Help me!"

"Where am I?"

"Why did you kill Pedro?!" Zach turned his head and saw a guy looking around Pedro's age moving forward. He grabbed at his head in a confused way and then shook it around a bit before glaring at him harder. "He was-"

"He deserved so much worse than that!" A woman behind one of Pedro's old friends shouted.

"Oh my- oh my God! I- I killed someone!" Another woman screamed over near some factory equipment. "Why did I-"

 _I don't know if this will stop a drug war afterwards. If all demand for Serum has gone down though, even the extra in the vials already out there will disappear soon. People probably won't get addicted without Pedro around either, and once the cops figure out what's happened here, this'll become big enough that no one's going to start a drug war while heroes are investigating._ Zach turned to Darling and he nodded away, and he rose up a grappling gun he had on his waist under the hem of his shirt. He lifted it with his left hand, and his eyes focused on the red on his palm that he felt the gun getting slick with. He had picked Pedro up before by the hand the man had used to grab at his own bloody shoulder, and Zach stared at the blood on his hand with so much darkness in his eyes.

Then the door busted down.

Zach and Darling fired grappling hooks up and into the shadows of the factory. The cops started shouting at people to drop their weapons, and the panicked former drug dealer slaves all complied while yelling out in panic that they had done nothing wrong. _It worked,_ Zach thought as he and Darling ran off through the abandoned factory as fast as they could. _It worked and yet, yet! I hate this so much. Killing that guy. Even though, it feels good- or maybe even more so because it_ _ **does**_ _feel good, I'm disgusted. I'm disgusting- no! I, I saved people right there. Taking him out of the picture, arresting him for a long time wouldn't stop making people addicted. He said he already tried that and it didn't work, the people just fell apart without him and would be waiting for his orders. Most of them weren't even addicted anymore. They had become slaves… I don't understand his Quirk either. It's unknown. Something, that could have been terrifying._

Zach's eyes widened under his helmet as he ran. His mind started racing and he began panting at the realization he just had. _He could have taken over the world, had he had the ambition. Had he been more evil. He really, wasn't necessarily a bad person, but he knew people acted weirdly after using his Quirk when he was a kid. He knew! And he did it anyway, without caring about what the consequences could be. All for money. I- I just acted as the judge, jury, and executioner after hearing his story! But, but it was the right thing to do. I believe that. Even with his parents, and for his education, and his intentions. As much as I sympathize with you…_ Zach's eyes got a lot darker, and he and Darling stacked up against a back door they heard noises on the other side of. Zach pressed his right hand into his chest and glanced at Darling who nodded and climbed up on his back. "Pop smokes," Zach said, and he cracked the door open.

"Freeze!"

Smoke grenades shot out of Darling's arm cannon, and then a black form shot into the smoke and out of the other side so quickly that only one officer saw it. The others all looking into the smoke or towards the doorway were yelling at the person inside it to come out with their hands up, while the one who just saw that dark form sprint out the other side and farther into the industrial park had his jaw dropped for a few more seconds. He turned to shout at the others what he saw, but he realized that if he said it they would have to go chasing through this spooky dark factory complex searching for that flaming black monster. So he kept his mouth shut.

Zach sprinted away from the factory and let out a dark breath of darkness inside his helmet. _I felt much worse for all the people you hurt, Pedro. The ones you had knowingly hurt and kept hurting just to save your own life. You thought that being afraid freed you from guilt over what you did, but it didn't. I decided that. And I think that decision is going to save a lot of people. Innocent people who you abused, and tricked, and enslaved, and even made kill people! You were a bad person. But more importantly, more good came from killing you than leaving you alive. As much as Mongoloid was the worse monster, that's what it has to be based on. How much it can help the world. How many innocent people can be saved. Your life… is the cost of peace._

* * *

Darling walked up to Zach with her hands behind her back and the boy leaning against the back of the clothing store right after it opened leaned his head a bit to the side to look around her. Darling brought her hands up in front of her and showed a sweatshirt that was navy blue instead of black, and Zach nodded once and held out his hand for her to hand it to him. He reached down and picked up his backpack after putting his new hoodie on, and Darling threw on a sweatshirt herself with her dark red hood up over her head.

"Where to next?" Darling asked.

"I'm not against heading towards Vegas," Zach said. Darling smiled a bit, and he added, "We can work with L for a bit in person. I know video-chatting isn't much different, but maybe there's some stuff she needs help with in Vegas."

Zach felt his pocket buzz and he reached down and looked at the screen. He pulled out an earpiece from his pocket too and put it in his ear fast, and Darling did the same so Zach made sure to add her into the call as he accepted it. Zach smiled as he answered the phone, "Rebel?"

"Hey," Rebel started.

"So where do you live?" Darling asked as she entered into the call. Zach shook his head once at her but she was smiling, and the left corner of Zach's lips lifted for a brief second at a conversation the two of them had had earlier in their trip.

Zach decided to stop being absorbed over what had happened the night before, and he added, "We might be close by, if you decide you want to meet us for real-"

"Yo Zach, Darling," Rebel started again, and this time his tone came through better and made the seventeen year olds talking to him lower their smiles. "I've got Gentle on the line. I'm connecting you."

There were no jokes, and he barely used any slang. Zach's expression became deadly serious and as soon as he heard the clicking of the lines connecting he asked, "Gentle, what's wrong? What happened?"

"Ahh, haa," Gentle took in a deep breath and let it out slowly. "We lost," Gentle replied after a couple of seconds. The tall man with gray hair looked down at his side he was grabbing with one hand, and he moved his hand away and winced at the gash on his side that La Brava was pressing gauze pads into with a worried look on her face. They were in the back of a truck with a couple of others who were grabbing at injuries or knelt over bodies they had in there with them, and Zach could hear some shouts of anger coming from the background of Gentle's call.

"What were you doing?!" Zach started in an upset voice.

"It was supposed to be an easy-" Gentle cut in with a frustrated tone. "But it was an ambush, when we were trying to ambush a smaller group ourselves. Seven of ours were killed…" Gentle stopped for a second and he lowered his voice more, "I'm sorry."

Zach leaned back on the wall of the store behind him. He lost his breath there and he almost fell down. His heart was racing, and his hand started shaking the phone he was still holding in front of him despite speaking with the earpiece. "Who?" Zach questioned in a hoarse voice.

Gentle looked towards the back of the truck still speeding away. He started in a dark voice, "Aces, Farid, Ling, Le-Q, Rumble…" Gentle turned his head a bit down to the floor near the back door of the truck. "Tina," he added, and Zach lifted his left hand and put it over his face thinking of the woman he had brought back in Hatto. Then Gentle looked down right in front of him and the woman he had kept talking to up until a minute ago when Hank had fallen back from next to her and started cursing at the top of his lungs. "And Hummingbird. They knew we were coming, set the trap with bad info. The last guy who ratted acted like he didn't want to say- and I really thought- how long would it take you to reach Finland?"

Zach pressed his left hand into his face harder. "You know I'm in America," Zach whispered angrily back at Gentle.

Gentle lowered his gaze down more and he grit his teeth in anger himself. He also shook his head and then added in a low mutter, "Apologies." He heard in that tone the frustration of the boy he was talking to who they both knew couldn't reach them in time to bring their comrades back. Gentle looked back down at Hummingbird though, and he saw the woman yelling at him to be more careful as they fought a couple of fighter jets together in the skies of Saudi Arabia. "Damn it… Not many in the team I brought, escaped. The exfil team who came for us did good but… we lost. We just…"

 _Splitting up, was a terrible idea,_ Zach lowered his left hand from his face and glared down at the pavement of the lot behind the clothing store he just got his sweatshirt from. "Gentle," Zach began in a soft whisper. He said it a second time a bit louder because he did not know if his voice even reached his earpiece. "Gentle, it's…" _Splitting up might mean we can do more, faster- say it out loud._ "We shouldn't have spread so thin," Zach said. He looked towards Darling who started getting a more hurt look on her face thinking about the last week she spent with Zach. He grimaced and then shook his head and continued, "Splitting up means we can do more at a faster pace, but getting things done fast doesn't matter. I mean it does, but not as much as doing it _right._ Keeping everyone alive."

"I told you before, it wasn't going to be the last time," Gentle started in a dark voice. "It's not that easy to just-"

"I want it to be," Zach cut in. Darling, Rebel, and Gentle all opened their eyes wider at the frustrated yet hopeful tone in Zach's voice. "Don't say it's impossible, because we're doing the impossible right now. All these people following me, are following _me._ " Zach emphasized himself more on the second time and his eyes got more determined and hardened while he pushed off the building he was leaning on. "I shouldn't be leaving missions where people can die up to others, because the fault is still on me when they die." Gentle's eyes widened more and he opened his mouth to counter, then he clenched his teeth and just lowered his gaze as he had wanted to shift the blame himself. Hearing Zach do it on his own though, it made the older man clench his fists down at his sides in even more regret.

"I'm heading back. We'll all regroup, and make our next plans together. Rebel, you're listening right?" Zach waited for a second and then heard a response from the American who had been staying quiet out of the conversation. "Find me a fast route back, and send me a PIN to an account you and L set up. I'll need some more cash for a bribe." Zach ended the call on his phone and shoved it hard back into his pocket. He looked towards Darling and motioned his head to the right and the edge of the store they had to go around to get to the bus stop they had already scouted out earlier.

"Are you alright?" Darling asked as she walked right up next to Zach. She grabbed his left arm to try and comfort him but he pulled it out of her grip fast. She leaned back at the motion, thinking he was mad at her or something.

Zach just turned to her with a serious expression on his face though. "I'll be fine Darling. But I've told you before, the two of us are not like that."

"Not yet," Darling said, and she smiled at him out from beneath her hood. "And you can't say it'll never happen," she added, giving him a sly smirk. Zach turned away from her instead of continuing the argument which made Darling lose her smirk fast with her eyes going wide in worry. "Sorry," she said quickly while getting up next to him again, though without grabbing his arm this time.

 _The Army of Death isn't going to do multiple missions at a time anymore. I was stupid for relying on others. I, I can trust them, and still feel a need to protect them. Trusting my comrades doesn't mean I should trust them not to die._ Zach got a darker look in his eyes and ground his teeth angrily at himself for taking things so casually recently. _What we're doing is the most dangerous thing in the world. We're actively hunting down villains, over and over again. The Army of Death,_ _ **can't**_ _lose. So we attack with full force, and if I have to be at every mission to make sure no one dies and it's a success, then I'll do it. I'll pick who comes with me. I'll decide what our plan of attack is, and, and I'll even make decisions during the plans if things start to fall through. It's not my forte, and I'll listen to the people around me too, but I have more experience. I have, the drive! I can do this! I can be everywhere. Fight, every villain. I'll keep the information network spreading, keep my support teams, keep working in different fields and finding different villains and missions, but I'll choose_ _ **which**_ _fight we go to one at a time._

 _Things might slow down. But_ _ **I**_ _am the one who recruits people into this army._ _ **I**_ _am the one who leads it, and they follow_ _ **me!**_ Zach's expression got even more intense under his hood, and he lifted his phone to see Rebel already sent him a message about a boat leaving in a few hours he could bribe his way to stowaway on. Zach stared at the message and his hand tightened around the phone. _We are only going to win from now on. I'll make sure of it. And even if we do lose people, I'll be able to bring the others back. If anyone dies, I'll always be there. Gentle, I'm sorry. I'll apologize to all of you when I gather everyone. I never should have left you, but leading so many people was heavy. Was that it? Maybe, I chose to come on this mission with only Darling not to stay stealthy with few people, but because I needed a break._ Zach clenched his fists at his sides in fury towards himself.

 _No more breaks then. This is my Army, and I have to take responsibility for them. Protect them. Keep them alive._

* * *

 **A/N Thanks for reading. Hope you enjoyed the chapter. Leave a review below!**

radoddish chapter 102 . Oct 24

Will there be a Halloween Special that is non-canon?

 **Actually sounded like a good idea to me, but the last chapter was about as much Halloween fun as I could handle. Lol really I'm just pretty busy writing my college thesis, so when I've got time it's to progress the plot of this which is always moving pretty fast. I figured by the time Halloween actually comes, it might be a month later story-wise too... anyway it's a soft no on this one. XD Sorry**

BackflowTorrent chapter 102 . Oct 25

You know what's ironic?  
Zach died a hero AND lived long enough to see himself become a villain.  
...GREAT CHAPTER BTW.

 **This review was awesome! Got mind blown there for a minute... THANKS!**


	104. Chapter 104

**Disclaimer: I don't own Boku no Hero Academia**

 **Chapter 104:**

Zach Sazaki let out a long breath and stared through the fog as it slowly rose in front of his face. His breath pushed through the white mask he had on over the bottom half of his face, and it was hot enough that it melted some of the snowflakes falling past him diagonally and then horizontally as a fast breeze flew into him. Zach stood firm even on the steep slant, and he stared up through the snowfall with goggles on that tinted everything a bit darker than the white surrounding him. He had on a thick winter-jacket, heavy waterproof pants, boots with spikes on the front of the toes, and he had thick gloves on his hands that were wrapped around the hilts of pickaxes. He leaned up and slammed an ice pick into the even steeper slant above him, then he rose his right foot and jammed it above where it had just been stuck in the snow. "We're almost at the top. Stay frosty."

"Now that was a bit better a use of that phrase," Grabble said while climbing up down below Zach thirty feet. He had his climbing gear down at his side, as he had yet to reach the steeper part he was going to need them for again. The man with a hood pushed high up because of the pincers sticking out of his skull had missed out on joking about this with everyone else as he had passed-out after Zach brought him back to life in Saudi Arabia, and he had woken up in a humvee on the way north to Gorran. Grabble had heard about it though from the others in the vehicle who joked about it to him as they had felt bad he missed out because he died. "It works as a pun here too," Grabble added with a smile below the white mask he had on to keep the bottom half of his face warm.

 _I knew that,_ Zach thought, though he did not smile even as he felt a bit glad that someone got it. _It's a long trek from the helicopters, but we couldn't get too close without announcing our arrival. I know everyone has to be hating this right now, but just hang in there a bit longer. We'll be inside soon._ Zach's eyes got darker behind his goggles while he climbed faster towards the edge of the mountain he saw up above. The high-tech goggles told him the altitude in the top-right corner of them, and the yellow numbers were almost at the set altitude shown below them from what Zach set earlier as the target elevation they had to reach.

Down the mountain slope, close to the bottom of the team of 15 Army of Death members climbing the mountain, Cee stood near an edge of a narrow ledge out of the mountainside everyone before her had jumped to. She had jumped to it as well, but the ground felt unstable beneath her when she landed. "Careful," Cee said back to the girl in all white heavy clothing behind her. The younger girl by one year ignored Cee, looking up the mountain slope with a frown on her face behind her mask as she heard Zach's voice in her ear but was so far she could not even see him up through the snow.

Darling looked forward and she took a running start and leapt for the ledge behind Cee who was starting to turn forward again to continue up the mountain. The blonde darted her head back though as Darling came down, because they both heard cracking sounds beneath her feet. The ice broke, and Darling rose up her arms quickly trying to turn them into ice picks again. Her eyes opened wide behind her goggles in panic as she was not transforming fast enough, and she just opened her hands up in mid-transformation so they were part steel already but not yet in a different shape. She dug her fingers into the new ledge of the ice, and her fingers dragged through the ice while her legs fell off so she started hanging off over a hundred foot drop.

"Ah! Death! Zach!" Darling's right hand came off after the first shout, then she called his real name as her other hand slipped through the ice.

An arm reached down and grabbed Darling around her left sleeve when her arm had just come off. Darling jolted and her eyes opened wide while she snapped her head up, only it was not Zach who was right above her with a strained look in her eyes through her goggles. Cee had her body tensed with her other arm reached back above her with her pick slammed into the wall, and she dug her feet down hard while trying not to put too much of her weight on the new edge she doubted was very stable. "Got you!" Cee called out through her strained voice, and then she groaned and started yanking up which made Darling reach up her right arm too and grab hold to try and make it easier.

"Let me assist you," the man who had been taking up the rear and was behind Darling back on the ledge rose his arms and took a spear off of his back. He reached it forward and carefully put the spearhead down beneath the bottom of Darling's boots, then he rose up in a slow movement without much of a struggle, yet strong enough that Darling felt herself getting lifted without issue. Cee yanked her back onto herself and higher up on the ledge as soon as Darling was high enough so they could get away from the still cracking ice.

"Everyone okay down there?" Zach asked, looking down the sharp slope of the mountain below him with a nervous look in his eyes. _Darling, be careful. I, I can't bring you back!_ His heart had started pounding at her shout of his name, but the others' voices down there had him calming down a bit. "Darling?" Zach asked.

"She's fine," Cee said, while rolling the girl on top of her off so they were both flat on their backs in the snow on the slant. Cee turned and looked towards the man behind them who pulled his spear back and strapped it over his back again. The man put the spear right over the huge white shield he had strapped to his back as well, and he was wearing much heavier clothes than the rest of them including a knight's helmet over his warm winter mask. "Thanks, Exodus."

"We must continue on," he said, and instead of jumping the gap he just stared at the two of them through the thin slit-visor of his helmet.

Cee nodded back towards the man who was told to take up the rear and would not continue himself until they were going again. "Let's go," Cee said, turning to Darling who looked back at her and hesitated for a moment before nodding her head. The two girls started moving again in the path after the man in front of them who had stopped and was looking back down to see if they were fine.

"Don't rush, keep quiet, but get up here quickly." Zach ordered while continuing his climb.

"It's hard to see."

"Snow's getting thicker."

"Deeper too."

"Hey, less ice at least-"

"Stay off the comms," Zach added. "I'm going to do a quick check of the ledge we're approaching. Make sure it's clear. Everyone stop at the set elevation, we'll establish breaching plans from there."

"Understood, sir," Exodus said from the lowest point on the train of soldiers.

Zach nodded his head and he put his ice picks down to his waist before speeding up the snowy slope in full winter-camo.

As Zach raced up to the edge to get a quick look around before putting any of his men in danger, all the others below him sped up too not wanting him to get caught in a fight on his own up there. Cee and Darling jogged up the slope themselves, occasionally using their hands for quick handholds if it got to steep. Darling glanced to her side a couple of times, and then she leaned in so she could stay off the comms but still say, "Thanks."

Cee shook her head and continued up the slope. "Be more careful," Cee said to the girl who frowned a bit at that response but then nodded back at her older comrade. Cee looked straight back up and continued climbing, and she shivered as she felt some snow get underneath the glove on her right hand. She wanted to pause for a second and take her hand out to get the snow away before the inside of her glove got wet, but she knew getting her glove back on after that would be an even more difficult measure, and she did not have the time to spare.

The man ahead of Cee and Darling glanced to his left and down at the woman about to reach him on his climb. "I bet whoever gets up there first is the one who cares about Death more," Mikey said while leaning towards them. His breath hung in front of his white mask, and the girls rushing by him just glanced his way before continuing their climb. Cee shook her head in annoyance, but then she rolled her eyes as Darling sped up more so they were not side by side anymore. "You're getting left behind Cee," Mikey said while climbing up behind the girl with heavy white pants, yet still his eyes lingered and Cee got an even more annoyed look on her face at his voice right behind her. "You don't want him thinking you're-"

Cee turned her head, and she said in a calm voice, "If I use my Quirk on you right now, you'd fall right off the mountain. Everyone would think you were just being stupid and fell on your own." Cee turned back forward and continued up the slope.

Mikey gulped but a big smirk crossed his face and he said while looking back at Exodus below him, "I think she likes me."

"You are wasting time. I will carry you if you fall behind too far."

Mikey's eyes opened wide and he turned forward as the man behind him did not sound to be joking at all. He started rushing up the slope with a sweatdrop on the side of his face, and he shivered as that sweat almost froze while dripping down. _Everybody's so serious. I'm staying frosty, don't worry. Just trying to enjoy myself too. This is pretty fucking cool after all._ Mikey's arms started covering in warmer fur, and he removed his gloves and shoved them into the pocket of his heavy white jacket. Claws extended from his fingers, his teeth extended a bit, and he dropped down onto his hands to start bear-crawling up the mountain faster. He passed Cee again and then raced by Darling, stumbled in the snow and reached his hands up to dig them down hard, shivered through sharp teeth, then he grinned his bigger teeth and kept racing up with the top half of his body transformed into the last animal he had touched. He was not entirely a grizzly bear, but he had gained some characteristics and no longer felt as cold even after taking his gloves off and sticking his claws into the snow.

"Slow down, Michael," Pastor said with a glance to his left as the younger man stumbled in the snow and almost started sliding down the slope again.

"Exodus told me to speed up though," Mikey said with a look to his right. He grinned his sharp teeth but then stopped after a second as he realized his mask made it so the religious man next to him actually could not see his smug look. "Also it's Mikey. Michael sounds-"

"Michael was God's strongest archangel," Pastor said while continuing his climb up the mountain in the middle of the Alps. The man originally from Switzerland, the only man actually from the country they were currently climbing a mountain in, turned to the younger man again and continued to the surprised figure, "I believe Michael sounds much more fitting. Mikey, makes you sound like a ninja turtle. It is a bit childish."

Cee lifted a hand and put it over her white mask, and she did not even care that she got some of the snow on her glove on it. Pastor had been speaking a bit loudly, and everyone on the train pursed their lips. Even Zach at the top of the slope looking around through night-vision binoculars cracked a smile. Only Exodus at the rear did not smile, just nodding his head in agreement with Pastor and continuing his climb after Cee.

"You know," Mikey started. "That's a great point. Thanks Father, hey guys! Call me Michael for now on!"

Cee's smile dropped down as instead of getting embarrassed, Mikey just went with it completely. She opened her mouth to criticize and say that he was immature enough that a ninja turtle's name fit better, but Exodus spoke up first, "A fine choice, Michael."

Michael's smile went away as did everyone else's in the train. Zach had just opened his mouth to remind them to be quiet in case there was need for actual important information to be passed around, but Exodus did a good job at killing the mood there. He just lowered his binoculars and put them back in his pack before saying in a low voice, "I see two guards patrolling this side of the summit. It's a wide area though, and neither are coming this far to the edge or down. I'm crawling back to the set altitude." Zach was prone on the edge of the summit, a high enough point he just climbed to that he could see through the snowstorm with his goggles that had thermal vision as well as night.

Zach retreated to the ledge he was glad was pretty flat and wide enough that his comrades were already gathering there despite it being a few feet off from the height they had coordinated beforehand. He crouched in the snow, and others got low with him and started getting more serious looks on their faces as the climb was over. Soldiers in white camouflage came up one by one over the edge and stayed close together. Some of them had on large backpacks with equipment packed into them. Some also had rifles with Arctic camo, as well as silencers attached at the end of the barrels. Zach waited until the fifteenth member had climbed up, and he nodded at the man with a shield on his back who nodded back after finishing his climb as the rear-guard.

"Fillian, keep a lookout while we set up," Zach said to his right at a thin man who was almost as short as their shortest member which was currently Darling. The man nodded back at Zach and rose up his rifle, and he closed his eyes while pressing his left hand forward away from his gun and into the gentle slope Zach had just slid back down to reach them. A pulse only Fillian could see rippled out in his mind in the darkness he saw with his eyes closed. In the darkness he saw the fifteen of them with white silhouettes that glowed and had small beating brighter white parts in their chests, two beating hearts for one of them which Fillian rose his eyebrows at the sight of as this was new information to him.

Fillian tried not to be distracted by Pastor's second heart, and he continued watching as his pulse expanded up onto the summit and across a hundred meter radius around his body. There were no other heat signatures below them on the slope, but he spotted two figures in his Radar which confirmed what Zach had seen himself. Fillian kept his eyes closed even as those figures faded in his dark vision that surrounded everything for a hundred meters around him. Another pulse came out of his body as the ten second interval ended, and he kept track of the guards' positions while Zach started speaking quietly to the others at the staging point.

"Infiltrate the base, take everyone down. Sounds simple enough." Theo glanced to his right at Mikey, now Michael, who nodded in agreement with a smirk on his face visible now as he had pulled his white mask down a bit.

"Just like Varellia all over again," Michael said smugly.

Zach turned towards him and looked his comrade seriously in the eyes through their goggles. He shook his head at Michael and the man whose face was lightly covered in fur lowered his smile down a bit. "Don't get cocky," Zach warned. Varellia was a mission that had gone well without any losses, and Zach frowned as he wanted to believe things would go that well but did not want his people feeling over-confident about it. They were all speaking English no matter where they came from, they were all armed and wearing heavy clothing, and they all gained more serious looks on their faces though Michael lifted his mask to cover his mouth with as he was about to keep grinning anyway.

"This lair of evil," Exodus began to the young man he was down on one knee across the circle from. "Will be crushed beneath our might."

It would have sounded funny if the man was being sarcastic or trying to make a joke. Zach just stared at him and then nodded after a second. _He takes this super seriously. I've never seen anyone as into it. He calls it a "crusade," and he treats me like a general, president… It's actually pretty nice. I thought it would get on my nerves, but he gets most of the others acting a lot more serious._ Zach stopped after a single nod and then he looked around the group in front of him, "You might feel like it's funny, calling it an evil lair, but here's what we know. The villains here are funded by a wealthy businessman in Saudi Arabia who survived Mongoloid's invasion by siding with him. He was weeded out for this, and an investigation into his affairs revealed a lot of other shady practices before Mongoloid's invasion. The new democratic Saudi government got in touch with us in secret to let us know about this location after he told them all about it while they were torturing him for information." Zach paused, and then he continued, "He tried getting a plea deal for himself by giving away some things, but the stuff he started admitting to got the government to switch to torture fast which revealed a lot more."

Cee started in a low voice, "We should get on that." Zach looked to her, or over to a couple of figures in all white where he thought Cee was standing. They were all in heavy clothing that made it a bit difficult to tell people apart just by body sizes, and Cee did not have any distinguishing feature or weapons to set her apart from the other two at her sides who were similar heights as her. She continued to the boy trying to figure out which one she was, "Get them to cool it a bit. A lot of war criminals were put to death after those war trials-"

"Many were imprisoned too," Zach argued back. "And some were even pardoned. It's a rule of law which they've instated democratically." He paused and then added in a lower tone, "Torture isn't something I won't consider, so who are we to go shut down their government's right to do so?"

"The torture you've been doing, is the same as just intimidating and scaring people. What they did to that businessman, you really think it was only as bad-"

"Cee," Zach started in a harsh tone. She froze with her mouth open, and her eyes narrowed at the younger boy only to widen a bit at what he continued with. "It's not the time for ideology debate. You want to discuss it, let's do it later." Cee frowned for a second but she nodded in agreement, only getting riled up in the first place because he did not just agree with her. She decided to push it off for now though, and then Zach turned and looked back up the gentle slope towards the area he had been at a couple minutes ago. "The Saudi business mogul had been to this base a few times himself which was how he was able to give the Saudi Police Force so much information on it. The layout they described to us that he told them matches what I just saw up there too, so what we went into before we arrived is confirmed."

Everyone nodded and serious expressions spread around while more of them took out their weapons. Fillian said in a quiet voice, "One of the guards just left my radar. We have an opening." He glanced back towards Zach as he thought this was a good time to move in.

"Hold on," Zach said. "We're going over the plan one more time. I don't want any mistakes in there. No casualties." Zach looked around and added, "And we are here to capture these villains. We came ourselves instead of passing on information to the Swiss, because the mogul did not know much about the operations of these villains. He gave up other funders, and we're looking into them too, but our objective here is finding out how his investment was paying off. What are they up to? Who else works with them? What other villain operations are associated with the villains on this mountain? Villains don't tell heroes much, but they will tell us. Then we hand whatever evidence we have against them, and the villains themselves, over to the Swiss…"

"The Saudis said they are handing their information over to the Swiss government themselves in a couple of days, so we have a short window to make this work. We'll keep the evidence we hand over as only new evidence, leave what we already know for the Saudis to hand over themselves…"

"If a worst case scenario arises and we are losing, we regroup at Point Bravo as determined earlier on the map everyone should have memorized. Scatterbox only has one shot a day, so if we need it know that that's our only retreat opportunity. Once scattered, return to the helicopters within an hour. We will leave without you if you cannot make it back in time. We are not going to retreat though, understood? The Army of Death cannot be known for losing a single fight, and we've already had one setback on that front…"

"Once inside, stay in your squads. If any squad loses their third member, immediately head to entry point Alpha where I'm moving in from. Only Darling and Grabble are exempt from this, but those two are with me anyway so this goes for everyone. As a reminder, if you see my Death, make sure you stay away from it. I will only be going to knock out villains, but we do not want to have to lug around dead weight so if you accidentally get touched know that you're dragging the rest of us down and can't do anything to fix it. I won't take responsibility for knocking you out, since if I need to use that much Death that it's at risk of touching you, I _needed_ to use that much on whoever I'm fighting. This shouldn't be a problem, but those of you who have yet to fight with me you need to understand how simple it is for Death to knock you out. Especially if I use Trigger, which gets me to the next point…"

"…reported that each time he was here he saw at least twenty villains on the premises, so we can expect that number to be greater-"

"Another opening, Death," Fillian said, looking back over his shoulder again. "This time both guards have left the range. Could be switching patrols."

Zach frowned and he said in a low voice, "Not necessarily great. New guards are fresh guards, not tired or cold from walking around in this snowstorm." _The blizzard is supposed to work to our advantage. Who would attack in these conditions where it's impossible to even fly up to the summit? Of course, they could be prepared for enemies to think like that. Especially if they know the mogul is being tortured. However, the fact that they're still here at all shows they are not cautious enough._ "But let's move. Take it slow. Don't kill unless absolutely necessary. Take the base. Don't let them destroy any equipment, and if they seem to be especially interested in doing so, make sure to plug in your USB drives that will extract all the data from the hard-drives. They could wipe memories from a distance, or from a central computer, so don't wait until after the assault to go back." Zach started up the slope, and fourteen figures moved up behind him as he continued speaking fast into his earpiece.

Zach glared towards the base partially illuminated in the distance. He saw vehicles parked outside, planes and helicopters starting to get buried in the snow on a small airfield, and he took in a deep breath before starting to sprint forward. "Protect each other. Stay alive. And stop these villains with me…" The people behind Zach started splitting apart in groups of three. Two people ran right after him on either side of his back, Darling raising up a rifle and Grabble doing the same. Darling had just chowed down on a half dozen power-bars at the set elevation, and she smiled at Zach's back for a second before looking towards the base ahead of them. The comms stayed quiet for a second, and then Zach said in the most intense voice, "Mission is a go." He rose his right hand and slid his fingers out of the thin glove inside the white one, and the white glove's warm material was thick but not enough to stop his Quirk from passing through it and through the layers over his chest. Zach's body erupted in darkness, and he shot forward much faster with snow blowing after him so there was a dark form moving like a missile with a wave of white flying after him.

A couple of guards who just moved away from their perimeter to get under an overhang near the base had one hand cupped in front of their mouths and the other lifted trying to light up the cigarettes they had too much difficulty lighting out on their patrols. One of them finally got his lit and then took a puff and turned to his buddy next to him to see if he had his yet, and then his freshly lit cigarette dropped out of his mouth. "OH FUCK-" He started reaching for the rifle slung over his back, while the other man turned and started dropping his cigarette and lighter at the same time. He just stepped back instead of reaching for his weapon though, a terrified look on his face as a black form with a spiraling wall of white behind him flew towards them with a flash of red on his head.

"Morte," the man who just stepped back whispered, right before Death flew between them and reached out to his sides.

Zach stopped short and knocked them out with as little Death as possible. _Don't want you out for days._ Zach looked down at the collapsed figures, and then up at the double doors in front of him. He tried a doorknob, confirmed it was locked, then looked down at the figure on the right of the two and he turned off Nightmare with a tap to his head. _Come on,_ Zach rolled the guy over and patted his hands along the man's body, and he pulled out a set of keys and started trying them on the door. _I don't think they had enough time to radio in. Might as well attempt to sneak as long as possible. Keep them from figuring out what's going on,_ Zach started trying keys on the door and grinned as one turned and unlocked it. _Until it's already over…_

* * *

"Hey."

Two men holding assault rifles and a woman between them who was ten feet tall spun around. Not one of them hesitated. She yelled, "Fire!" The men next to her were already pulling the triggers of their guns.

Bullets flew accurately straight into the chest and face of the man who had just announced his presence to the three he got the drop on. He stood in a doorway and looked down as the first bullets hit him in the chest, then his head snapped back as a couple shots hit him in the cheeks and forehead too. One bullet even hit him in the right eye, and he closed that eye and shivered. The man started lifting up his rifle that had a silencer on it, and he pointed it forward only for bullets to slam into the gun and break it apart. "Oh no," he said, looking to his weapon that fell from his hand that broke apart too for a second and then reformed slowly into its normal shape as the rest of his body kept doing.

"What are you?!" the man on the left of the huge woman shouted in a mad, and scared, tone.

"I'm a…" Juno started. He smiled behind his mask and lifted his tone at the end like he was waiting for something.

"You're a what?" The man on the other side of the big woman shouted, taking a step back and keeping his shaky rifle raised.

"I'm a…"

The big woman in the middle had enough of it. She started marching forward and her shoulder muscles bulged twice their size, then her biceps, then her forearms as her shoulders shrank. Her fists started to bulge, and she opened her mouth, "Whatever you are-"

"Wait!" Juno called out. The man with the Quirk- Air, called out, "Don't you want to know what I am?! I'm a… I'M A…" He grinned so much bigger and then said in a smug voice, "Distraction."

The big woman in the middle who had just stepped forward heard a thud on her back left. She started spinning around, her eyes opening huge, and she turned fully just in time to see the second of her comrades dropping to his knees. Seraphim was crouched and darting forward towards the big woman, and she rose up her hands in a quick movement towards the bottom of the muscular woman's face. The villain snarled at the younger woman in white, and she put her hands together fast in front of her body and started slamming down.

Seraphim slid down in mid-sprint, heading between the larger woman's partially spread legs. At the same time, a very light figure grabbed hold of the large woman's shoulders and poked the top half of his body over her face to make her eyes dart back up to him instead of the girl sliding below him. Seraphim leapt up behind the large woman who reached a hand to the man above her and grabbed him by the head. Her hand slipped through his body and his head started dispersing around her hand, and the woman swung her arm around in the human-air for a second before a pair of hands grabbed the sides of her head.

The villain closed her eyes and her legs wobbled then collapsed below her. Juno's head started reforming, and Seraphim took her hands off the taller woman's temples and just pushed her forward so she fell flat on the floor with her comrades. Juno finally reformed after ten seconds, and he started panting while reaching up a hand and grabbing his white jacket, curling the material in front of his chest up in his fingers. "You alright?" Seraphim questioned, and Juno turned to her and gave her a quick nod.

They heard more gunfire coming from farther inside the building than the hallway near their entry point. The two spun that way, then Juno took a deep breath and said, "I'll go ahead."

"Don't jump out again until I'm actually there," Seraphim warned.

"Got it," he replied, deciding not to argue as he was feeling tired already.

Seraphim turned back once he started off, and she jogged over to the door of a small room they had entered through the roof of. "Access? Are you-"

"Got it," Access said, pulling a USB out of the computer in front of him and shoving it into his pocket quickly. He picked up his rifle off the table next to the computer, then he smashed the butt of it into the computer screen. He turned and ran towards the door, his goggles pulled up on the top of his hood so his eyes were revealed just like the others in his squad of three. "Where's Juno?" Access asked while leaving the room, then he glanced to the left where he had heard gunfire a minute ago and nodded his head in smug satisfaction at the sight of three unconscious villains.

"He's up ahead. Let's move." Seraphim started running down the hall, and Access ran after the faster, smaller woman who was making the chubby team leader get in a hard work-out.

The earpieces in all three members of the team's ears turned on and Death's voice said in their heads, "Located Avalanche. Took him down before he could get outside." A couple of the team of 15 smirked at the sound of that, as the only individual who they had information on in the whole base was the leader whose Quirk was apparently much stronger on nights like this when there was heavy snowfall.

Michael smirked in the lower level engineering room where the boilers were letting out a lot of steam around him. He chuckled and then spun around and swung the metal pipe he was holding, slamming it into the face of the other hairy villain leaping at him. Sharp teeth broke in the villain's mouth and slashed up his cheeks, and Michael grinned more as blood splashed on his face from the collision. "Felt the vibrations in that one," Michael said, and he dropped the now-bent pipe to the floor. He dropped to all fours and sprinted towards the villain who pushed his hands down on the ground at his sides, only to lift up his face into a knee from the member of the Army of Death.

"Got you now," a forty-year old woman with a cigarette in her mouth muttered. She had on a tank top with lean muscles sticking out of the sweaty white arm holes, and she had a rifle resting on a bar farther in the boiler room masked by some steam. Her finger rested on the trigger and she breathed out some smoke, and then through the steam flew an object that made her pull her head away fast and dart her eyes to the right where it was passing by the side of her face. _A cross?_

Pastor's cross stuck into the boiler behind the woman. It was sharp on all the edges, like a shuriken, which was exactly how he threw it. The weapon was so sharp in fact, that it pierced through the thinner and weaker steel of the boiler and made a jet of hot steam fly out at the woman who crossed her arms and yelled out in pain while dropping her rifle. She felt something press against her lower back and her scream caught in her throat with a gasp at the two sharp points she felt pressing into her skin through her shirt. "My apologies," Pastor said, before the two black points sticking out the top of the cross he was holding tazed the woman in front of him. He dropped her but lowered himself down and rested her gently to the floor, before checking on her face that he was glad she managed to mostly protect from the steam by crossing her arms.

She was twitching on the floor below him when he finally rested her down, and Pastor hummed to himself as he did not want to taze her again. He pulled out some ropes and said, "Do watch your back Michael. You were very nearly killed."

"I would'a dodged it," Michael argued back with a grin towards where he heard the older man. He had his jacket unzipped, his hood off, and even his white mask pulled down to his neck as it was far too hot down in this basement to keep them all on. There was a red tint to the room that was still full of steam and getting even more steamy with the fights going on down there. "How you doin' over there CC?"

"Why isn't he tied up yet?" A girl's voice asked behind Michael. He turned and saw the girl he was calling to standing walking towards him still with all her heavy clothes on, her mask up, even her goggles down over her eyes though she had to raise a hand and wipe them again as they got too foggy. In her other hand was the end of a rope, and on the other end of the rope were two villains tied together with bloody noses, black eyes, and busted jaws. "He's not even unconscious," Cee said in annoyance, letting go of the rope and darting towards Michael fast. She sped towards him and then slammed her right foot into the side of the hairy face of the man moaning on the ground below Michael. He still did not just fall unconscious, and Cee dropped down in a swift movement after her kick, wrapping the villain's neck with her legs and squeezing her thighs together which made the villain's eyes bulge for a second before closing.

"What I would give to be between those thighs-" Michael began, undeterred by the girl's quick dispatch of her opponent.

Cee darted her eyes to him in a pissed-off way, and she started shaking her head instead of saying anything in annoyance at him. She glared at him and he kept grinning, then the red lights in the boiler room cut off. The room fell into darkness, and the only noises in there were the blowing steam and high-pitched whistling that came with it. "Get your goggles on," Cee said in a rushed voice, while switching her own back to night vision and darting her gaze around the basement.

On the main floor above, a group of five guys who got on their winter gear as fast as they could were making a break for the closest exit to them. One fell behind the others, and the man in the middle of the five spun around and kept running backwards while yelling, "You get the keys?!"

"There's no way we can take off in this storm!"

"It'd be safer taking snowmobiles down the most gentle slope!"

"CATSO! È qui!"

The doors of the base flew open and snow blew down the hallway pouring in from outside. Visible winds of white pushed inside, and the two men at the front of the group of five who were the quickest to prepared themselves rose their guns and aimed out into the open doors. Nothing was rushing in with the wind though. It almost looked like the wind had thrown the doors open itself. None of them believed that though. The man at the front of the group turned his head once he had stepped back to be at the same spot as the second man behind him. He looked towards the back of their line and called, "Start the-"

The other two behind him opened their eyes huge in fear at their comrade's expression. They turned, and there was no fifth man in the hallway with them. "Dalvin! Where did you go?!"

The ceiling tiles between the group right above them broke apart and a body fell through and slammed into the floor. They all looked down and saw their fifth member unconscious between them, **Dt dt dt dt dt dt dt dt!** The four men yelled out in pain and started dropping all at the same time, as bullets ripped through their legs and made them all scream out. They yelled curses and screamed in agony, and then they screamed in terror as a dark form dropped from the ceiling and reached a hand down to the man who had kept his hands on his rifle despite getting shot through his right leg and grazed on his left.

Zach knocked out the other three in order of who had looked most dangerous when he first observed them. Then he turned his head towards the outer doors and watched as a man with pincers sticking out over his hood ran back inside, slamming the doors shut behind him and crossing his arms to rub them in the cold. He turned the other way and saw the girl who had rolled out of a doorway down the hall when Zach dropped the body standing up.

Darling checked her magazine again and then frowned and put it back in to keep using the silenced rifle she had brought with her. _I want Zach to be able to use my Toolbody, but he's right. I should keep from transforming to save as much energy as possible. Just like him!_ She thought the last part in more excitement as Zach turned off his Nightmare form again to save his Death.

Zach let out a deep breath and then he looked back and forth and nodded at his comrades. "Keep sweeping the building," Zach said while tapping his right ear again and the earpiece on it. "Each of them is dangerous. We are not finished until we are sure the building is clear. No, the summit. Squad 4, how is the rest of the mountaintop?"

"A few more patrols out here than expected," Xia started.

Her twin Shang continued for her, "But Exodus needs no help. We might as well be taking a shit out here."

"Don't listen to Rebel," Darling said in a low voice. _He told me to use that phrase before and everyone laughed. Why isn't anyone laughing at him?_

"Stay off the comms," Zach said in a low, serious voice that sounded upset with the two having this talk. Darling's eyes opened wide at the scolding, and she spun back to Zach who gave her a serious look through their goggles. "Fillian. Do a check."

There was a brief pause before Fillain replied, "Going to be hard to make out friendlies from villains."

"There are twelve of us in here. Standing. Give us an estimate."

"We've got a problem in the basement," Cee said, her voice sounding rushed. She started panting and she backed up more with a scared look on her face before continuing in a stronger voice than she felt she could use at the time, "Something's down here with us. It's-"

"I feed on your fear…"

Cee's earpiece was on, and that voice came through very close to her.

"Squad A is coming to your position-"

"Ahh-"

"I've got him!" Michael shouted and laughed on the other side of the comms. "Cutting the lights is like saying you don't want to fight me fair and square!" He yelled, baring his teeth and pulling the corners of his lips up so much more as he hunched forward with his muscles bulging. "You know a bear's sense of smell is the best in the world they say? Could smell your shit from across the basement!"

The team in the basement was no longer on comms. Cee had gotten off as soon as Michael leapt in and knocked away the man next to her who had filled her with terror with what he had said in her ear. _Why say that? Why not just attack me? Did he want me more afraid?!_ Cee darted her eyes around farther in the basement as the man Michael was facing sprinted off and ducked behind some boilers. "Pastor, keep careful. Death's on his way."

"Death's here?" The menacing voice Cee had heard before asked again, and it sounded like he was bouncing off the walls from the way his voice echoed. The most terrifying thing about the voice though, was the fact that it sounded more excited than anything. " _Sllp_ _slp_ ," the sound of licking lips, and then a low intense moaning of pleasure came from around the room, and the three Army of Death members in the boiler room spun around looking through the steam and getting more nervous.

Michael closed his eyes tighter and he sniffed a few times, standing right in the middle to show he was not afraid one bit. "Over there," he started, turning to the right with his mouth opening wider and his sharp teeth baring again. _SO FAST!_ Michael had started taking a step, but the scent of the man he was smelling could not follow the figure fast enough. The guy was suddenly right in front of him, and as Michael tried stopping, the villain only moved faster at the sudden fear in his only fearless enemy, and the one whose sense of smell, speed, and strength all had him most wary.

The head engineer responsible for upkeep of the base slammed his hand forward so fast it did not stop on the thick hide of Michael's chest. It ripped through his clothes, and his torso, and out his back. Cee stared towards the middle of the room where she heard a gasp and a horrifying squelch, and her heart skipped a beat at the sight of another heart in the red hand sticking out of Michael's back. The heart beat again, and then the hand holding it crushed into a fist and blood splattered out to the sides.

"NO!" Cee shouted.

The engineer pulled his hand back out of the hairy man's body. Then he turned towards the woman who screamed. She froze though while staring at him. Her mouth was open, but her eyes stopped shaking in terror as much, though he could still feel she was afraid. Yet as strong as he felt from her fear, he felt the same fear himself that he had felt earlier at what she had shouted to her comrades. He felt that terror, because of a voice he heard behind him, **"Michael."**

Darling rose her right hand and shone light out of a flashlight the end of her right arm turned into. The light shone straight onto a pitch black figure with red eyes that was behind the villain turning around. Light broke apart in the shadows and wisps of Death's body. It pushed to the sides and was blocked by Death, who the engineer was seeing for the first time. The villain immediately regretted using the idea that Death was there to his advantage, trying to make his enemies more afraid by the fact that he was not afraid. Because he was afraid now. He felt his Quirk power draining. He backed up a step, staring through his own night vision goggles he had put on while cutting the lights.

 _Don't. Don't do it._ Zach swept his right hand forward, and a wind of Death blew out of his hand and towards the villain who turned to run. He made it a couple steps before the wisps that had hit him started draining all his strength. He dragged his right leg forward, feeling a bit of strength remaining from the fear of the girl in front of him. Yet Cee's fear disappeared while she stared over towards Zach's large dark body.

 _He, didn't kill him?_ Cee thought in surprise before shifting her gaze back to the man who just collapsed before her.

 _Calm. Calm._ Zach rose his right hand to his chest and returned himself to normal. "Michael," Zach said in a lower voice, while Darling ran up next to him and pointed her flashlight down at their comrade's body. Zach looked to the girl at his side and he said, "Help Grabble find the-" The lights turned back on and filled the room with a red glow. It was still pretty difficult to see in with all the steam. Zach turned away from Darling and back to the floor though. Between four unconscious villains, Michael lay with a pool of blood spreading below his body with a huge hole in his chest.

"Zach," Cee began while walking towards him. She glanced down and to her left only to frown at the unthreatening appearance of a man whose Quirk was much more frightening. She turned back to him and saw him looking down in such a regretful way even though she could not see his face with his goggles and mask on. Just the way his head was bowed looking at their comrade proved it to her. "He dropped his goggles back somewhere. I told him he was an idiot, and then he went and, he bragged about his stupid nose. That idiot. What was he…" Cee's eyes had water in them behind her goggles, and she stopped talking as her voice was starting to show it.

 _Damn it Michael,_ Zach thought, and he took a step forward and got down on his knees next to the man's body.

Pastor started walking over out from some steam. He tapped his forehead and then his chest, then his left shoulder followed by his right. He turned to Zach and said to the boy knelt next to their fallen comrade, "The fiend crushed his heart. There is nothing for you to repair."

Zach nodded his head, and he stared down at the hole in Michael's chest while fixing the positioning of his body next to him. "Then I'll make him a new one," Zach said in a calm voice. He stopped fidgeting Michael around, as he knew the real reason he was hesitating here. Darling got down on her knees next to Zach, and he glanced at her only to see her reach down to his left with both hands and grab it. His eyes widened for a second, then he grit his teeth and rose his right hand to Michael's chest. For once, he did not check to see if the person he was about to revive still had a beating heart.

Zach pressed his right hand down on Michael's chest right next to the edge of the hole. He felt his heart ripping open immediately, and he gasped out in agony as he felt it explode inside his chest. The pain of his heart erupting continued, and piled on top of it was his skin ripping apart and his ribs and sternum breaking. Holes tore in his lungs, or at least it felt like they did. He tried to scream, but he was out of air immediately and started gasping instead as he could only take breaths in. He started panting after a couple of seconds as he was given air to breathe, because his lungs were not actually cut for capacity.

"Well guys, it seems like we're finished." Fillian's voice spoke through the interconnected earpieces. "I don't sense anyone other than the team clustered in the basement, and the other six of us, still standing in the rest of this fortress. Got nearly forty on the ground though… Who died?"

"NO ONE!" Zach roared, making the man who just asked lean back with his eyes wide at how furious that shout was. Zach started panting after roaring it, while the hole in Michael's chest continued sealing up next to his right hand.

"Jesus Christ," Grabble muttered, lifting a hand and scratching his head behind his pincers as he watched Michael's chest sealing. He looked to Zach and he felt a pain in his own chest as his leader let out another yell of pain. "I'm sorry," he whispered, thinking about how much it had hurt him when he died back in Saudi Arabia. _I had no idea, this is what it's like for you._

Pastor had glanced over at Grabble when he mentioned 'Jesus' but the former priest did not scold him for using it like that. Instead he just stared back down at Michael who he had been doing a prayer for up until a few seconds ago. Pastor watched his muscles reappear, skin reforming over them, and then his chest moving while an organ inside that had created before his very eyes started pumping blood through his body again. _You truly,_ Pastor turned to the younger man who gasped out and pulled his right hand off of Michael's body. _You have been given a gift._

"Are you alright?" Darling asked fast as Zach dropped his right arm back down. She grabbed his left arm tighter, but he pulled it from her grip and just nodded once without looking at her.

"The exterior is clear as well. I am carrying seven prisoners of war back into the base," Exodus announced in all their headsets.

"This guy's too fast," Shang muttered in Chinese to his sister as they followed after their comrade. Xia nodded in agreement with her twin and they just shook their heads as Exodus walked towards the base with seven bodies piled up on his left shoulder.

Fillian's eyes widened a bit as he continued doing a scan of the base in case anyone was hiding from his sensory Quirk. He spotted movement from a figure down below who did not have a beating heart the last time he checked. _Death's too amazing. Always thought Lifebringer was a bit of a preachy guy, from what I saw subtitled in his speeches. The things he said in court about wanting to stop the villains, what he said at press conferences, he seemed like an idealist. Like a child._ Fillian leaned back on the wall behind him and he put a cigarette in his mouth he grabbed from a box one of the unconscious villains at his feet had. "Sparky," he said over to a man crouched next to the villain who had left a nasty gash on the side of his face their third squad member was cleaning out for him.

Theo and Scatterbox looked over, and Theo lifted his right hand and snapped his fingers. A spark lit up the end of Fillian's cigarette and he nodded in appreciation towards his teammate who just shook it off as nothing. Fillian had just saved him from the villain who almost cut through his face after all.

Down in the basement below them, Michael opened his eyes and he started leaning up to stop himself from falling asleep. His eyes opened wider and wider as he saw who it was kneeling right next to him. Michael looked around and saw the other two in his team looking his way through their goggles, as well as a man he recognized because Grabble's pincers were hard to hide. Darling got up next to Zach and glared down at Michael, but the older man did not look at her. He just stared at Death and started getting up to his knees, glancing down at his chest and a hole through his clothes that he could also feel on his back. His eyes started opening wider, because he remembered getting his heart ripped out, as quick as the death had been.

"I- I was- I-" Michael's eyes were huge, and Zach stared into those terrified eyes through his goggles for a couple of seconds before reaching up and taking them off. He pulled his mask down too and Michael stared into Zach's eyes with trembling ones of his own. The older man gulped a few times and then started, "Th- Thank you-"

Zach leaned forward on his knees and pressed his forehead into Michael's. Michael's skin was back to normal and he had lost his partially bear-like appearance. Zach pressed his forehead into his comrade's softly, and he said in an angry but relieved tone, "I told you not to get cocky." Michael's eyes opened huge, and then he saw how much relief was in Death's eyes looking back into his own. Yet there was regret in those eyes too, and anger that Michael was making him feel that regret.

Michael started getting upset at himself as he saw that regret in Death's eyes. So he wiped the fear from his face. He pulled his head back and got up to his feet fast and stretched his arms up above his head. Zach looked up in surprise at him, but Michael was grinning as he looked back down at his leader. "Yeah yeah, that's my bad. I'll, be more careful next time. Promise," he grinned some more and then started laughing which had Zach staring at him with wide eyes for a few more seconds, before just shaking his head and then letting out a low chuckle of his own. "Thanks-" Michael started to continue.

"You idiot," Cee snapped. Michael turned towards the woman on his team who stomped towards him and then stopped with her fists clenched at her sides. She had not thought Zach would be able to do it, not after seeing Michael's heart get smushed like it was. "What would you have done if he couldn't have brought you… Next time I tell you to put your goggles on, you better not respond with 'oh those things, I dropped-'"

Michael's eyes started lighting up so much, and Cee cut herself off sharply. _Oh no._ The man who was getting over dying very fast curled the corners of his lips up super high. "I'm so happy! CC was worried about me!" Michael started running towards her and threw his arms out to the sides for a hug. _**Clank!**_ Michael stumbled backwards in pain and a lot of confusion. He opened his eyes he closed after slamming into something hard, and he blinked confusedly at the boiler he had just run face-first into.

Cee's eyes lost their pink glow behind Michael, while Darling started laughing loudly at the confused idiot looking around wondering how he got turned around so fast. Zach started back up to his feet, and he smiled too, while Pastor just kept staring towards him in amazement before lifting a hand and grabbing the cross he had around his neck. Grabble laughed along with Darling, and Cee hid it behind an annoyed aura she tried to keep around herself, but behind her white mask a smug grin crossed over her face.

* * *

 **A/N Thanks for reading! The Army of Death grows and is taking on some cool stuff now... Got a lot of cool plans set up for this international army of terrorist/anti-heroes, and I hope you enjoyed the chapter! Zach, Darling, Grabble, Cee, Michael, Pastor, Exodus, Shang, Xia, Access, Seraphim, Juno, Fillian, Theo, and Scatterbox. Let me know which of the new Army of Death members you like the most and who you'd wanna see more of in the upcoming villain fights!**

Naruffoku chapter 86 . 55m ago

This is a dream chapter right? Right?

 **Lol couldn't even believe Kaminari would do something so terrible. Man you are catching up fast, bet you'll see this by tonight since you've read 86 chapters in 2 days already! XD Thanks for the review, hope you're enjoying the story!**

Eedura chapter 103 . Oct 27

Dude, I'm just so lost after Zach left japan. What is even happening anymore?

 **Well, Zach has started an army and is fighting crime around the world, gaining allies and resources along the way. Things are jumping around a bit, because I'm not showing too much of the small stuff like how they got to this mountain, why they went here (just mention it during the chap instead), how Zach decided the team, how he recruited each person, etc. Hope it's not too confusing for ya.**

Big fan of Death chapter 103 . 2h ago

I know you said that you didnt put in anyone from reviews, but you did sort of put me in. It was before I ever made a review but Darling is also a big fan of Death(as in Zach), so I made it into your story sort of xDDD.  
P.S just a joke lol

 **XD lol I guess you did get put in there then! Haha thanks for the review and I'm glad you're a fan!**


	105. Chapter 105

**Disclaimer: I don't own Boku no Hero Academia**

 **Chapter 105:**

 **Lereoux**

"We don't fight heroes," Zach said, cupping a hand to his ear and speaking in a low voice off to the side of the dark room he was in. There were some boats propped against the wall on Zach's left side and one hanging by the ceiling from some ropes in the boathouse in northern France. "Just keep leading them around in a loop. We only need twenty minutes or so, then break off."

"I could get you more time-"

"What did I just say?" Zach asked in a lower voice.

"I wouldn't hurt them. Just have Quicksand do her thing-"

"I don't need more time. We want them to come here anyway, now just do what I say." Zach ended the connection and he let out a deep breath. _Just listen. Am I not commanding enough? When I say stuff does it sound like I'm putting it up for debate?_ Zach shook his head and then he walked out into the room that was illuminated only in the middle by a swinging lamp with a chair beneath it getting more lit up and then dimmer as the light swung back and forth.

There were a couple of unconscious villains laying around the floor in the darkness, yet there were less of them in there than when the man in charge was first put on the chair. He did not see where his men had gone, and when he started shouting about it, the figures wearing all black around him had not said a word. He was still shouting at them all, and the figures around the room stayed silent. The truth was that they were talking to each other in quiet voices each could hear inside their helmets, but to their conscious prisoner they were being a bunch of "creepy assholes" who he yelled at mostly in French but English whenever he really wanted them to hear him cursing them out.

"Mark," Zach started, and one of the twenty dark figures in the room walked up to him as they entered the most illuminated part below the swinging light. Zach stared at the man in front of him on the chair and he had to scrunch his face up for a second just from the look of him. _He's oozing. It's fucking gross._ Zach's eyes darkened more and he glared at the fat French guy who sweat more and made more pus and sweaty ooze come out of the large quivering pores of his body. "Ask him again what the Syndicate is doing."

Mark questioned the villain in French, so that nothing was lost in translation with what they wanted to know. Villains had pretended before not to understand at first only to start babbling in English when they got scared enough. Some kept pretending though through it, and they did not have time to play the long game at the moment with heroes closing in. Mark stepped closer to the chair, and he grimaced as the villain before him continued to be obstinate and just cursed at him again.

"We know you have something big going on," Mark said in a low, menacing voice to the villain. He lifted up his right hand and removed his own glove, and then Mark took out a knife and made a small slit on the skin below his thumb near his palm. Zach glanced towards him hesitantly out the corner of his eyes, and Mark continued while a thin line of blood pulled out of his hand. "I can remove all the blood from your body with the smallest slit, like this," Mark leaned forward and he made a quick slash across the back of the villain's left hand he tried pulling away but could not strapped to the chair as he was.

"This is going a little far."

"I'm not comfortable with this."

"Everyone shut up."

"No they're right."

"Mark won't do it," Death said, calming everyone around him with his assured voice. _He wouldn't blood bend for torture, but threatening to blood bend, that's a different story._ Zach pressed his right hand into his chest, and his body started slowly covering in dark wisps which made the villain in front of him spin his way. Zach's arms were back down at his sides, as he had done this while the villain was solely focused on Mark. Thin black wisps started seeping out of Zach's clothes that he was focusing to keep his aura hidden below. It was easier with clothes made of bone material that made it impossible to see his bones through them anyway, but his aura was so strong that he only managed to make it come out slowly for a few seconds before just allowing the dark veil to spread over his whole body.

"Let me just kill him already," Zach said, his voice coming out deep and scratchy, and terrifying the villain who apparently understood everything he just said. "If he doesn't give up anything, then I'm doing it."

"I-I," the fat villain with lumps on his face, flabs on his arms and legs, and oozing sweat coming out all over his body tried scrambling for something to say. He pursed his lips though, and then he pulled his head back and looked at the two in front of him in so much fear as they prepared to either drain him of his blood or cover him in that horrifying darkness. "I can't tell you!" He yelled. Some disappointed looks formed around the room as this had really seemed like the breaking point for their villain. Mark's expression started getting disappointed too, but his helmet hid that look so the villain had no idea he was in the clear.

Zach did not just cover him in some Death to knock him out like the rest of the small group of high-profile villains they discovered. He looked closer at the man's face as rage spread across it, and frustration too, and he yelled in French, "What are you doing?! You really think, you're doing a thing?! Stopping guys like us, when the real monsters out there are the ones who turn people into people like me! The ones who made me look like this!" He turned towards the figure who had only spoken English to him, and he yelled at the scary dark figure stepping closer to him, "It wasn't my fault! I never wanted to be like this! A villain. It was the ones who turned me into this monster," he struggled in his binds and some sweat flew off of his disgusting flabs revealing warts and pus bubbles between the fat flaps.

"He was probably born like that," La Brava muttered on the side of the room, lifting her gaze from the tablet she had up tracking the two vehicles of their comrades not at the boathouse. She looked back down quickly to continue tracking, and Darling looked to her right for a second down at the tablet in La Brava's hands to check the status of the others herself.

"You weren't born like this?" Mark questioned the man in front of him after Zach asked him to do so quietly in their helmets.

"No! I was- you saw my Quirk! It has nothing to do with, with why I'm-" the man ground his teeth and pulled his fat lips apart in anger. "I was experimented on! While you vigilantes fight low level drug dealers like me, trying to make your _difference_ , the real shit goes on in labs run by governments. They're the ones who are really evil! You fools. I escaped, but there is nowhere for a man like me, hunted by the government, to go when…"

 _"Low level drug dealers," as if. He's trying to hide and protect his own comrades and interests, but that doesn't mean what he's saying is a lie._ Zach looked carefully at the man who could have used anything to try and get them not to torture or kill him. _Why go with this? It sounds like a conspiracy, and there had to have been other things he could have done besides join the Syndicate. Whatever the Syndicate's up to, we're not going to figure it out from him. He sounds to hate the ones who experimented on him though, like there's genuine hatred there. Might as well._ Zach stepped closer to the chair and leaned his head down fast right in front of the man's.

The villain froze mid-anti-government-rant with his mouth open, and Zach was careful not to breathe out too hard or his black breath would hit the man in the face and knock him out. He kept his face a short distance and then growled in a scratchy, angry voice, "You say you escaped?" Zach asked, and the man started nodding his head with a terrified look as he stared at the pitch black mass of a head before him. Zach did not see a lying expression as the villain nodded his head in terror, and so he growled, "Where is this place?"

* * *

 **Scotland**

"This is a waste of our time," Gentle said, looking ahead towards Zach but stopping where he was in the dying forest. The trees were already sparsely scattered, and with all the leaves almost gone from the branches they did not have much cover in the woods. Gentle stood out between two oaks with a frown on his face behind his visor, and he looked ahead towards the front of the group of six where Zach turned to look back towards him. "We know the Syndicate is planning something dastardly. And we have many leads we could be following-"

"We're just going to check it out," Zach said, frowning back towards Gentle past the four between them. He stayed crouched behind a tree himself while looking towards the tall man standing in the open without a care in the world. Zach stood up straighter and said in a lower voice, "I think he was telling the truth-"

"Sorry, sir," Yuri started behind Zach on his left. "I have to agree with-"

"Enough," Zach said, cutting him off before they could start an argument here. The Eastern European man behind Zach looked at him in surprise, but Zach turned away from the others and straight forward again. "One of our leads is in Wales. We'll meet up with La Brava and Darling's team as soon as we check things out here. If there is human testing being done by the British government out here-"

"Then what?" Gentle questioned.

"They wouldn't," Wreck'd added. The man closest to Gentle on his left side with his back up against a tree trunk looked towards the older but shorter man. He was the only British member of the Army of Death, and Zach brought him along with his team. Wreck'd looked ahead towards Zach and to the boy who was frowning more at all this argument behind him, "You really think my government is doing stuff like that? Fraux was lying."

 _We'll see in a second,_ Zach started forward through the forest again. He had on his full black costume, and he moved from tree to tree in the direction of the coordinates Rebel had plugged into their helmets. "Access, you there?" Zach asked in a soft voice while continuing to speed his way through the dying woods. Sticks cracked under his feet as did brown leaves, though he was trying to choose his steps carefully to make the least amount of noise.

"Yeah sir," Access replied. Back on the helicopter they flew in on, Access had a laptop on his knees and checked back in with Zach. The American who once teamed up with the Army of Death as Anonymous 4, or Whoreslayer42, for the invasion of Saudi Arabia had fully joined a few weeks after once he had met Death face to face. The black haired eighteen year old had his legs kicked up on a box he pulled out from below his seat, and the helicopter was covered in a forest camo tarp which actually made it stick out almost as much considering the trees around the clearing were not green in the first place. The teen in the parked chopper reached to his right and grabbed a can of energy drink that he took a few sips out of before wiping his mouth and continuing to type on his laptop. "You're nearing the grid we narrowed it down to. Can you see the fields yet?"

Zach was nearing the thinnest part of the forest, and he replied quietly, "Yes." _We saw open land from the air already. It's not a sure indicator that Fraux wasn't lying, since he didn't say anything about the forest at all, but the fact that there is a field up here means it's worth it to check out. Most of Scotland is fields like this though…_ Zach frowned and he headed to the edge of the tree-line that was also higher in elevation than the fields out in front of him.

A man ran up to the tree on Zach's left and stacked up on it. He had on all black just like Zach and the others except for Gentle who had some purple too, but the man on Zach's left carried a large black shield on his back that stretched across both his shoulder-blades before narrowing down below his waist. On the center of the shield that covered his back was a white skull and crossbones with a cross shape made out of the bones instead of an X. Exodus looked to Death and nodded at him once before poking out like the leader was doing to look far out over the fields.

Pastor stared towards the cross on Exodus' shield and he ran up and stacked behind the larger man who he used to think shared his beliefs. Pastor spotted where Exodus kept looking after gazing out in the fields though, and he frowned a bit at the man's long looks towards their leader. The older man with grayish-black hair under his helmet who had 'MORTE' written down his back in Italian shook off the feeling he had and he looked out through his visor into the fields beyond. Yuri jogged up slower on Zach's right, and Gentle and Wreck'd came up last as the ones who least believed anything was going to come from this.

Gentle frowned deeper towards Zach's back and stopped farther out from the edge of the woods. He reached up to his helmet and decided to check in with La Brava, again. Zach glanced back for a moment and grimaced as he saw Wreck'd not even with his hands on his weapon, and Gentle in the middle of a call. He turned back forward and tried shaking his annoyance, _Gentle lost a lot of comrades while I was in America. He knows as much as I do how dangerous this is… so him not even paying attention really means he thinks this is a waste of time. He thinks La Brava's out in danger without him as backup, and we're far enough out that it would be rough getting me down to revive her quickly. Or just far enough that he can't help her easily… Why do I believe Fraux though?_

Zach's eyes shifted over a windmill, to a different kind of building that looked to be filled with grain or something. Next to the grain silo was a water tower, and Zach looked past it towards a stream with some small bridges over them. One of the bridges was for driving on, and there was a winding dirt path going over that bridge and then up the hill to the right of it. He looked towards that hill, and he turned the other way thinking about the maps they had used on the way there. _That way would lead back to a main highway. It's pretty far off, but where does that road lead? What's at the top of the hill? Could be nothing. Could be a secret government base that experiments on villains, or just on regular people who… It sounds stupid. Unbelievable, to normal people at least. But I could see it._

Zach turned to the right and he started darting down the edge of the forest in the direction of the hill. He could see some of the trees moving up in elevation over there too, and he wanted a better vantage point over everything around here. Fraux was not exact, but before they had knocked him out and left him for the French heroes on their way, they had gotten some specifics out of him about what he had been rambling about. Exodus and Pastor ran after Zach quickly, Yuri glanced back for a second only to motion with his head after the other three when the two behind him looked reluctant to keep up with this like it was a mission.

"Have to go. I will stop him from wasting our time and meet with you very soon, my dear," Gentle tapped a button on the side of his helmet and he started after Zach in a jog with Wreck'd at his side.

"Why would my government be turning people into, whatever Fraux was?" Wreck'd asked while lifting a hand like it was ridiculous. Gentle shook his head as he did not have an answer to that question. "He said the other experiments they were doing there were just as crazy, and he only escaped because he could stop his own heart. But if this place was so secret, you would think they would incinerate his body or something if they thought him dead-"

"I do not know," Gentle said, cutting off the British man who was talking like they were friends agreeing on the same subject. Gentle had had an annoyed expression on his face the entire time though, which he realized Wreck'd was not seeing because of his helmet. _La Brava, do keep them from doing anything rash while we are not there. It is only reconnaissance when Sazaki is not around._ _Do not get too close._

"Sir, would you like me to scout out ahead?" Exodus questioned while running up on Zach's right side.

Zach glanced to his right at the muscular man who asked him that in such a respectful and serious tone. Hearing that tone actually made Zach frown more though. The way everyone was treating this as a side mission that was unimportant, made him feel like he was going to lose some of Exodus' respect when this turned out to be a bust like the rest of them thought. "No," Zach said, keeping serious himself and just continuing to run forward and slightly uphill. He glanced to the left while darting between trees again, and he spotted a roof of a building over the crest of the hill they were rising. _What's that building? Farm house? Oh it's big. Could be…_ Zach's eyes lit up more after the initial glance, and he slowed down and came to a stop behind the next tree.

Exodus ran past him and stopped at the next one, while Pastor stopped behind Zach on his other side. They stared out towards a hill and past it to a building that they could only see the second floor of and the very top of what they assumed was the first considering the gentle slant of the land on the other side of the hill's crest. Yuri slowed down a bit as he spotted a large white building that seemed a bit out of the ordinary on the field, then he sped up and put a hand up on the butt of his rifle over his shoulder as he finally got a bit serious.

 _That could be anything,_ Wreck'd thought, though a bead of sweat did form on the side of his face as he saw the building Zach just mentioned in their helmets about.

Gentle sighed and gained a more serious look on his face while jogging up to Zach's side. He lifted his head up and looked over towards the building, and he frowned as he knew there was no way they were going to be getting out of there as quickly as he wanted now. "Let us go check it out then," Gentle suggested, looking down at the boy who spun to him and frowned as he could tell Gentle still did not think much was going on here. "There is no point observing a building that may very well be a factory, a processing plant for animals-"

"Or it could be a government testing site," Zach muttered in annoyance. "Is it really that hard to believe?"

"Not at all," Gentle replied. Wreck'd looked over towards him in surprise as he thought the older man had agreed with what he was saying before. "But if that is so, what is it you plan to do?" Zach froze and he kept staring towards Gentle though in a bit more confusion this time. "You cannot simply hand over government workers to their government for arrest. Is your plan to massacre all involved if this is a site of human testing?"

"No," Zach said, shaking his head once at Gentle's harshly worded question. "But there's a reason they keep things like this quiet. Even if it is run by the government," Zach looked back towards the building in the distance, and he frowned deeply before looking around the forest and spotted a side on the far side of the hill with more trees. He motioned towards it and then started down the tree-line again, trying to keep cover while getting a better angle at the mysterious building. He spoke louder so it came through the six headsets of his team there in Scotland with him, "I believe Wreck'd is right when he says the government wouldn't do stuff like what Fraux described. Yet what if it's only a small part? Or what if the government official Fraux saw was just a single corrupt guy, putting funds in here? Maybe it is a whole section of the government, but only as a worst case do I see the whole government involved in this. If something like this existed, they'd need to keep it between as few people as possible, because there aren't enough horrible people who would allow experiments on people to go on without telling the media, or a higher up in the government."

Wreck'd's eyes were wide for most of what Zach was saying, then his fists started clenching at his sides as the boy was making sense. _If they really are testing on people, I can't let that go on. Not here. That's not something I ever imagined, could happen in my home._ He sped up and ran past Yuri and Pastor so he was closer to Zach, and he said in a low voice to his leader, "Death, if we find something in there, I know we have to report them to someone. I know you want to, but-"

"But you think it'll ruin people's faith in the government if we do?" Zach asked, glancing to his right and back at Wreck'd who froze with his mouth open. "I know," Zach muttered. "I've been thinking about it. We'll have to figure it out once we're in there though. And we don't have to tell the press, we could leave it up to your government to clean up the mess… if they really were oblivious to what was going on."

" _If_ , anything really is happening in there," Yuri reminded from the back of the group. "Just saying," he added as a couple of them glanced back at him. "We still have no idea what we're running up to."

"Assume it's a human experiment facility," Zach said. He said it in a low voice and added while Yuri's expression started hardening, "Assume the worst, and we won't be surprised by anything when we get in there. Luckily, I do not think heroes would know about something like this-"

"And if they do?" Pastor questioned. "What then?"

"I'll let you know if we can break the second rule," Zach replied. "Depending on what we see in there, I might not consider them heroes anymore…"

* * *

A squad of six dark figures crouched just past some trees to the east of a two-story white building sticking out of a grassy field in Scotland. They had gone around the hill and darted their ways over to another, more sparsely, wooden area. They had to go farther away from the building though to be in that area, and they moved out towards some large rolled-up hay bales that were large enough to give them cover from anyone who may be looking their way from the building.

Zach was behind the bale closer to the building of the two on the field nearest the building, which was still over a hundred meters away. He zoomed in inside his high-tech helmet though, and he focused on the second floor of the building covered in windows just like the first. He could see into the building through those windows, and he frowned as his eyes shifted down to the first floor and through the windows where he just saw some movement. There were a couple of cars parked outside of the building, though there was a closed garage door in front of the driveway on the side of it closer to their hay bales.

"Doesn't really look like a 'secret facility,'" Yuri muttered sarcastically over at the bale with Gentle and Pastor. He looked through the windows and then sighed and put his back against the hay bale again, "We're way too out in the open right now."

Gentle examined the building closely himself for a few more moments, then he shook his head and zoomed back out to a normal setting. "Death," he began, glancing over at the other hay bale. Zach did not turn his way, and Gentle continued towards his back, "We have taken a look. You can see inside. Either this is not the building, and we should continue looking around for a bit longer, _or_ there never was a facility in the first place."

"It does not look to be holding government secrets," Exodus agreed. He turned to his left and Zach though, and he got down on one knee behind the hay bale before asking, "Do you think that the exterior appearance could be a disguise for more hidden rooms inside?"

"Maybe," Zach replied. He grimaced as he did not sound too sure of himself, and he turned to Exodus who he hoped would not take that unsure tone to heart. _He treats me like this important General, and I'm definitely letting him down right here. I need to come up with a decision and stop being so indecisive. Is Gentle right? This place looks fine._ Zach leaned back out behind the bale and crouched while zooming in on individual windows to look through them. _What is this place for? There's no way they'd be doing secret testing stuff just out on a farm with windows clear to-_ Zach's eyes bulged and started shaking, and his breath caught in his throat as he saw a man inside the window he was looking towards.

The guy was wearing a white coat, and he was sprinting towards the window. The man reached to the bottom of the window and was fumbling with something, and Zach ignored the voices in his head of his comrades who continued talking about leaving or what this place could be. Zach just stared at the man wearing glasses who had a smear of blood on the right side of his face. The man turned his head sideways to look behind him, and Zach started breathing again with a gasp at the terrified look on the man's face as he spun back and slammed his hands into the glass. "What the…" Zach whispered, as the man's hands opened up and his left palm pressed a bloody handprint to the glass.

"Do you see something?" Exodus questioned.

"There's nothing here," Wreck'd started.

The man opened his mouth and let out a scream while slamming his hands into the glass again, but the glass did not break nor even get cracked. The man turned around and he pressed his back into the glass, then he turned and he sprinted away. Zach spotted a quick movement of something else on the other side of the window, then nothing through the glass for a few seconds. "There was a man on the second floor, third window to the right from the left corner-" Zach's comrades started focusing in on that window, and Zach's voice cut off while they were looking over, while a splash of red slammed into the glass next to the handprint already there. No one said a word as blood dripped down the glass and went right over the print.

They all just stared in silence towards the building, and then Yuri whispered in his first language, "The fuck?"

Gentle stared towards the bloody window with his eyes wide. He finally focused intensely on what was going on, and he pushed thoughts of La Brava and the others from his mind for a moment. "This is not, what we were looking for," Gentle started.

Yuri glanced next to him at the slender figure in black and purple who had a dark tone in his voice at what he just said. Yuri gulped, then he added in a hopeful voice, "Maybe it's a slaughterhouse? We're in farmland, and there could be animals-"

"It was a man," Zach repeated. Yuri turned back towards Death, then to the building again, then he shook his head to calm himself down a bit. Zach took a deep breath and then he stood up from behind the hay bale. _Could he still be alive? What if this was not actually what Fraux said? A man was just killed trying to escape that building, though he looked like a, doctor? Scientist? Researcher? What is that building?_ Zach started towards the building, "Access, we're going to check it out."

Gentle shook his head and then got up from behind the cover to move forward with Zach. Exodus was already moving up, and Wreck'd stopped staring towards the building in shock to follow along too. Yuri took another deep breath before getting out of his crouched position, then he turned next to him and looked at Pastor whose helmet was locked straight onto the window he had looked to before the splash of blood. "You alright, man?" Yuri asked, his accent coming through thick as he was a bit unnerved from what just happened.

"I do not like this," Pastor replied. "Not at all. This place is…" The former priest's voice trailed off, and Yuri tried not to start sweating too bad at the man's ominous statement. Pastor stood up and followed after the others as he saw Death look back towards them for a moment.

"Everyone stay calm. We're moving in. We'll go in through the garage. Access, I'll attach one of your panels. Can you get it open without any security going off?"

"Depends on the system. I'll be able to tell though once you attach it," Access took another big chug out of his energy drink until it was empty, then he tossed it to the side and leaned towards his laptop screen as this was getting intense. "Careful guys."

Yuri walked after Zach and the others, but he kept his head on a swivel at the back of the group. He held his assault rifle in his hands, and he aimed around the field but did not see anyone around him. Exodus kept his hands free, but he occasionally checked the shorter figure in front of him to see how he should be acting. Zach was moving slowly towards the white building, and he was carefully looking out for any security measures that might be in place. No sirens were going off though as they approached. No one was running out of the building with guns in their hands. They were just approaching without any cover, and yet nothing was happening. _A government facility would have guards right? Measures to stop stuff like this from happening, right?_

Zach slowed down near the left corner of the building, looking over towards the garage doors for a second and then back at the front. He looked up to the second floor and a window still with red all over the inside of it. _What the hell happened in there? Is someone going to clean that window? Is that a testing room or something?!_ "Something's in there," Zach whispered, and he sprinted towards the building and got up against the wall so nothing could see him from inside. They were so close already that the rest of them were able to run up and get against the building in a few seconds.

"What was it?"

"Did you get a good look?"

"I looked in," Yuri said after stacking against the wall. He had been farthest back so he had looked up at the bloody window as he ran after the others. "Someone was smearing the blood around, looked like they were cleaning it, maybe."

"Did you see what they looked like?" Zach asked, as all he had seen was movement before making his order and sprinting to the edge of the facility.

"Too blocked by the blood. I could check," Yuri offered, and he crouched to the floor and started flattening out. Zach nodded his head towards the man who slowly squished his body down to the ground and then slid back out from the building's edge and into the grass. A dark form sliding over the grass would be noticeable, but it was better than one of them walking out there and Yuri could make himself the smallest of the group. Yuri slid his flat body away from the building and his eyes rose up on top of his flat circular form. "Well," he began quietly, his voice a bit higher pitched than a second ago. Some of them thought it was because he flattened himself, but he started unflattening from the floor and continued in a higher pitched, nervous tone, "They were not, cleaning… Death, look."

Zach moved away from the building and he looked up at the third window from the left. He stared up at it, to see blood smeared about almost the entire frame, yet gaps where the blood was not as thick from the person who had been smearing. Pastor stepped away as did the others up against the wall, and his hearts were speeding up faster and faster while his eyes opened huge like the others around him. Exodus turned his head to the right and asked the older man and former priest, "What does it mean?"

'G O D' was smeared on the glass. There was a cross on the window too, smeared clear in the blood, only the part where the line crossed it horizontally was farther towards the bottom of the vertical line as if the cross was drawn upside-down. "I, do not know," Pastor began. Yuri darted his eyes over at the man who had been saying something ominous a minute ago, and who he really wished had an answer for them right now. "But, I do believe, this is something we must investigate."

"Sure about that?" Yuri wondered. "Positive, that's the best move here?"

"Yuri," Zach began.

"I know… I know," Yuri said, nodding his head and calming himself down again. "It's just, freaking me out."

"Yeah," Zach said in a low voice. "Me too."

"What are you guys looking at?" Access wondered, wishing there were some helmet cams so he could see what the others were staring at. Zach opened his mouth to answer, then the man in the helicopter opened his eyes wide and said, "Holy shit- get to cover!"

"What?" Gentle asked, spinning his head around.

"It's too late, there's no cover here," Zach said. He looked back towards the hay bales, then he looked down the dirt road that wound a bit but was on a flat enough surface that whoever was in that car heading their direction could definitely see them. Zach lifted a hand to his head and tapped on a voice modulator, and a couple of the others did the same though Gentle and Pastor did not.

Zach glanced towards Pastor who was stuck staring at the window and said, "Pastor, turn around. Everyone, set up in front of the building." Zach started running over towards the front doors, and his team ran with him while Access started speaking fast into their helmets.

"…are called 'The Red Team.' Hero names-"

"I know of them," Wreck'd started.

"Quiet. Access, what are their abilities?" Zach asked rapidly, shutting up Wreck'd and making his support speak faster at the same time.

"Three members. Titan: Quirk- Object Enlargement. Sandlot: Quirk- Sand Swimmer. Dryout: Quirk- Dryout."

"What does Sand Swimmer do?" Yuri asked, while crouching down on Gentle's right side while the taller man made a wall with his Elasticity in the air in front of them.

Exodus removed his shield from his back, though he left his spear on it strapped to his heavy black armor. He slammed the thinner part of the black shield down on the ground in front of him and kept a hand inside the loop on the back of it. He rested his other hand on top of the shield with his fingers curled down in his black glove onto the front of the shield with a skull and cross-bones on it.

Pastor was slowest to move into a formation that Zach quickly started creating while Access gave them support information. "He can move freely through thin particles like sand, his Quirk works great with Dryout who can give him a lot more to move around in. Looks like they're a pretty famous team from what I'm looking up. They're ranked the eighth best team in the UK. Titan was 12th on Britain's leaderboard last time they updated."

The red and white vehicle driving down the road slowed when it was fifty meters away on the dirt path. The six Army of Death members stared through the windshield, and Zach glared straight at the driver whose picture appeared on the right corner of his visor when Access was just talking. He stared into Titan's eyes and saw the hero glaring his direction with an intense look steadier than his comrade in the passenger seat's and the look of the man leaning forward between the chairs. _Do they know what goes on in here? What does go on in here? What the fuck killed that man?! Is, is it one of the test subjects? Did they break out and are fighting the experimenters? Or was that just a test- no. If they have that many windows, it's supposed to be to make this place look ordinary. This is all worst case scenario, but, but if it's really- One thing at a time._

The doors of the hero team's car opened up. The three heroes stepped out of their vehicle, and Titan started walking forward. One of the two behind him who had on big gray gloves covering his abnormally large hands started saying something to his comrade and team leader, but Titan just kept walking forward. He shoved his hands down into small pouches at his sides, and Zach glared intensely towards the hero he was already the most wary of. _If he throws small stuff at us and makes it larger, gonna be hard to dodge. Does it increase the mass or just the size? How heavy?_ "Everyone stay close to the building," Zach said in a dark, modulated voice that made his voice sound much deeper. After he said it though, he started moving forward and past Gentle and Exodus he had farthest forward on the dirt road.

"Hey," Zach called out, his voice booming and deep as it came out of his modulator. He had on the knives, the sword hilts sticking out over his shoulders, and the katana on the back of his waist that made the three heroes recognize him, even if he was shorter than what they had seen before.

 _"Hey?"_ Most people there thought on both sides.

 _I don't want to fight these heroes. Why are they here though? They looked surprised to see us, so they probably weren't called in because we were seen. Do they know what's going on here? Or, are they here because of what's happening right now?_ Zach had a lot of questions, and he really needed them not to start attacking him before he had the chance to ask anything. _Here goes nothing,_ Zach thought. "Do you work here?" Zach called to them.

 _What the fuck is going on?_ Sandlot thought. He stood on the right side of Titan, and a few feet back with his hands clenched in fists at his sides to keep from shaking. He had been in the back seat of their team's car, and he had suggested they call in for backup before getting out, only for Titan to tell them to pull it together and take charge with him. _This is why we were called?! Why is this happening?!_ Sandlot had on a sand-colored costume from head to toe that covered his arms and legs, pulled tightly to his body to minimize resistance in the ground he could swim through if it was spread out enough. "Dryout, you going to start your thing?"

"Titan?" Dryout asked. The man with huge gloves on his four-fingered hands glanced at their leader who was glaring down the road at a figure they had all heard a lot about. "We should call in backup now. They're not doing anything, and we have them cornered it looks like…" Dryout looked at the building behind the group, wondering why they were outside and did not retreat in but instead set up defensive positions outside the front doors. Dryout wondered for a moment what they were doing outside, then he wondered why they were at this place in the first place, and then it finally hit him as his gaze shifted up the building behind the group of six he had been so focused on. "Hold on, what even is this place?"

Titan's glare straight at Zach shifted a bit finally as he heard that tone in the voice of the man on his left. The muscular man at six and a half feet tall loosened his hands on the special weapons in his pouches, shifting his gaze above the shorter enemy he had glared at so intensely through his blue mask. And Titan's eyes shifted to the left side of the building, his eyes opened huge behind the holes of his mask, then they narrowed down and glared back towards the black shield the man behind Death on his left had. On the shield was a skull, and behind it was a cross of bones, which seemed oddly coincidental to the cross smeared in the bloody window on the second floor of the building behind them.

All the lights in the building cut off behind the group of six, and Yuri darted his eyes to the side and turned his head a bit. He gulped while looking back at the building which just got a lot darker inside yet was still pretty visible from the exterior with light going in through the windows. "What are you doing here?!" Titan shouted towards the group, and he stomped forward and rose his arms with his fists clenched in front of him in a fighting stance. Zach glared at his fists, _He just pulled out his weapons. They're small in his grasp, but they could be anything._

Zach repeated what he just thought aloud in his helmet softer to his comrades. A couple of seconds after the lights cut off in the building behind them, red lights turned on as a generator kicked in. Dim emergency lights turned on, and the red ones cast everything inside in a dark red glow that contrasted a lot with the outside sunny day. Zach stared closely at Titan as the heroes looked behind him, and he saw a bit of confusion even spread on Titan's face for a second. Zach called out in a deep modulated voice, "We have reason to believe there is human experimentation going on here."

"Huh?" Dryout muttered. _Wait, does that- make… It makes more sense than what we heard._

"Why are you in our country?" Titan asked, his tone darker as he took another step forward down the dirt road. He ignored what he just heard from the dark figure, his eyes darted back to the bloody window he saw, then to the building behind the group that had gone dark a few seconds ago. _They have other comrades here. Already inside._ "What are you doing in there? What have you done-"

"We haven't gone inside yet," Zach replied. Titan froze, and Zach continued towards the man, "Now let me ask you something. Why are _you_ here? It wasn't because of us, right?"

"Yeah it was," Sandlot whispered slowly. Then his eyes started to widen and he lowered them to the dirt road for a second. _**"You have to help us. Please! They're- We need your help!"**_ _It was so vague. What was the man talking about? I, assumed it was them when I saw them._

"They haven't gone in?" Dryout wondered aloud in a soft voice. "Titan, you see that window?"

"I saw it," Titan replied.

"They, don't know what's going on here," Gentle began in a slow way. "However, if they have called for backup then we must be going."

Zach frowned but he started to think that was a good idea. _What is in this building though?! I want to know. I also, really don't. Think. What's going on here?_

"Whatever is going on here," Titan began, and he started glaring more intensely at the figures before the building again. "They are-"

Zach was starting to tense up too. He opened his mouth and began, "Guys, we should-"

 **Thud**

Titan stopped talking, because he saw the doors behind the group of six suddenly shake. The group closer to the building heard something slam into the doors behind them, and most of them turned around though Zach kept facing the heroes. Gentle snapped his head to the side and then looked back forward quickly, but the heroes he looked out towards were staring towards the doors behind them too. **Thud thud thud…** The doors shook a few more times, and then there was silence on the other side of them.

Zach turned. He turned around and moved back between Exodus and Gentle, "Watch the heroes."

"Titan, what's happening?" Sandlot whispered in confusion and increasing anxiety. The British man with a sand-colored beanie on top of his head started sweating when the figures they were facing off against mostly turned back to the building. The ones farther towards the doors were backing away from it too, making it even more ominous to the heroes who were still partly convinced that these dark soldiers knew what was going on here.

Zach stopped between Pastor and Yuri, and he stared straight at the doors in front of him that were no longer shaking. He stared at the white double doors, and he watched as a steel handle on the outside started jiggling. "Hello?" Zach asked. His voice was dark and menacing in its modulated tone, but he was not going to turn it off. After he asked his greeting though, the door handle stopped shaking. "Who are you?" Zach asked. "Are you alright?"

"Death, they're coming," Gentle warned. "And even if they don't know what's going on-"

"We don't fight heroes," Zach cut him off. He turned his head and looked back to call out to Titan who he saw heading down the dirt road cautiously and with both his allies moving together with him. Zach opened his mouth _**Crash!**_ The doors behind him broke open and flew so hard out that the handles dented into the walls on the sides of the entrance. Zach started spinning back and whipped out a pair of knives at the same time. He dove to his right and flicked a knife at the thing he saw flying at him through that open doorway.

A small creature only two and a half feet tall flew at where Zach was just standing. It shot between Yuri and Pastor who pulled away while turning in their weapons. Pastor's eyes widened and he dropped flat to the ground, because while Yuri spun inwards the man was also pulling the trigger of his rifle.

"Stop firing!" Zach shouted at his scared comrade who shot up the creature that Zach did not know the origin of. _It could be-_ Zach started thinking, then his eyes opened wide, because the small creature that Yuri had fired at was spinning around in a speedy blur that made it hard to see. It stopped spinning though as it started dropping to the floor, and the six figures in all black (and a bit of purple) around it stared with wide eyes at the human-like face on the short being. "Are you human?!" Zach shouted, while pulling out another knife in his right hand and getting up to his feet.

The creature hit down while Zach was standing, and then its legs started spinning around like a tornado of brown beneath its furry body. It rose up its claws that were dyed with red, and it held them out to its sides before its torso started spinning around too in a blur. The doors had flown open so hard that the insides of them were facing out now while the outsides were pressed into the walls next to the entrance, and the insides of the doors were covered in scratches.

"What is that thing?!" Sandlot called out in panic from down the road where he took a step backwards. His eyes darted from the figures in all black who started attacking it, back to the large white building that the creature had just come out of.

 _"We have reason to believe there is human experimentation going on here." "Are you human?!"_ Titan glared towards the creature that Death just shouted at. "Change of plans," he said, and the two British men behind him looked in at their team leader.

"Is this the thing that killed that guy?!" Yuri shouted over at Death while backing away fast, putting his rifle down since his leader had ordered it.

"Maybe," Zach said, as this did seem like the kind of blur he had spotted through the window on the second floor. A dart of his eyes through his peripheral vision showed him inside the facility that just had its doors blasted open, and he stared down a long hallway with open doors on the sides leading into the rooms visible from outside through the windows. The hall went farther back than the walls he could see from outside though, but he had to leave that for a bit later as he also caught sight of charging heroes in the other side of his peripheral vision.

"Gentle, stall them," Zach ordered, because he could not focus on the heroes either with this spinning blur of death in front of them. "Wreck'd, blast him."

"Got it," Wreck'd replied. He cupped his hands in front of his visor and yelled, "BLAST!"

Yuri jumped away on the other side of the spiraling blur. Even with Wreck'd putting his hands in front of his visor to focus the attack, the visible trembling of the air between his helmet and the spinning brown blur expanded the farther from his mouth it got after that shout. The blur started speeding after Yuri, but it changed directions and cut to the right, then to the left and it slammed right into the side of the building before dragging alongside it and shredding through the outer paint job of the wall. Sparks flew out of the wall as the claws dug through the exterior though, and Zach narrowed his eyes as he saw solid steel on the other side of the paint, then he snapped his head to the right where the spinning blur slowed down and the small creature shook its head around to reorient itself. Its vision that had broken apart so everything around him was lifted at different levels and overlapping started to reset, and it turned its head back towards the group of dark figures looking its way.

The creature started to spin again, then it snapped its head up and stopped spinning to jump backwards in an agile way, dodging the huge rock about to fall down on it. As it jumped backwards though, another shadow appeared over it that got much larger each second as it lowered to the ground. The brown furry creature snapped its humanoid face up and stared at a rock growing in size from a boulder to a much larger boulder over thirty feet tall and twenty wide. The end of the boulder slammed into the building and cracked a few windows, while the other end of it was far enough out from the building that it left a clear path for the creature to take. It started spinning around again, only for dust to start rising up around it faster and faster so the being inside started coughing up dirt and dust.

All the grass between the two rocks started drying out. In a line all the way up to the three heroes attacking the creatures, the ground started to break apart thinner and thinner. One of the heroes dove forward and it looked like he had dove straight into water as it even splashed up around him like he was displacing it with his body. He dove down farther and swam through, then he reached up and dragged the legs of the figure that had stopped to start coughing up dust and dirt. Sandlot ripped down into the broken apart ground, burying the monstrous form down to its head. Then he let go fast and pushed himself away from the creature that started spinning its legs underground in the dusty dirt. Sandlot swam up through the sand behind the creature he had pulled down, and he slammed his right sand-colored boot into the back of the figure's head.

"They're pretty good," Yuri said, mentioning it towards Zach in a cautious tone.

"Stop getting nervous," Zach said. Yuri's eyes widened, and Zach added, "I don't want you shooting anyone, Yuri. Can I trust you to be cool?"

"Yeah, sorry," Yuri replied quickly.

"Should we really leave this up to them?" Exodus questioned Gentle who had let them go by instead of stopping them like Zach had told him to. Exodus had thought of arguing against it, but he could see now that Gentle saw before he did who the heroes were coming after. Exodus looked towards Zach and added, "They could be harmed."

 _I want to knock that thing out, but is it a person? Is it- is he just going crazy right now? I need to ask it- Him! Some questions._ Zach started towards the heroes who were all moving in on the creature half buried beneath the ground with Sandlot's foot pressing down on its left temple to keep it in the floor.

"Don't come any closer," Sandlot called over to the dark figures he spotted coming around the smaller of the rocks closer to the front doors.

"We just want to find out what's happening here," Zach replied, though he did slow down and then stop with his guys stopping behind him. He turned to the right where Titan was heading over with Dryout, both of them keeping close eyes on him too. "Don't you?" Zach asked.

Titan frowned at him which showed through the mouth hole of his blue mask. He glared at the shorter man with such a deep voice that was clearly distorted through his helmet. Then he turned back to the furry creature that's face was pointed towards him the way Sandlot was stepping on it. The ground was not that easy to move through either, as much as Sandlot made it seem like a piece of cake. Dryout put his huge hands back on the ground too and he started filling it back up with water. The grass did not regrow, but the floor did solidify more to better trap the crazy creature they were trying to ascertain the origin of.

"Sandlot, you alright?" Dryout asked towards his comrade. He spotted the man stepping on their furry friend reaching to his right hand and rubbing his palm.

Sandlot nodded and clenched his right fist tightly, ignoring the pain from when the villain's legs started spinning suddenly below-ground and cut through his hand. "All good here," he replied, though he did press his foot down harder at the feeling of that pain.

"Do you understand me?" Titan asked, stepping up closer to Sandlot and then crouching down to stare into the face of the furry creature below Sandlot's foot. The beast snarled at him, and Sandlot pressed down harder which made the thing's face cover in fear. Titan grimaced angrily as that face he was looking at definitely looked human, and the creature seemingly had a Quirk too which meant it was more than likely a person he was staring at. He turned his head and looked towards the front figure of the Army of Death members, "Why are you here?"

"I already told you," Zach replied without hesitation. "But, you haven't answered me. Why are you?" _This doesn't make sense. Is he really confused at what's going on?_ Zach stared carefully at the heroes. _They don't seem too disturbed even if they're realizing that's a person. That_ _ **is**_ _, a person I think. Then again, they're pro heroes. Good under pressure. Better than Yuri at least. I should take his gun away, trigger-happy idiot. He almost shot Pastor right there. At least Pastor saw it coming._

Dryout glanced towards Titan who frowned and turned back to their captured enemy. Then the man with disproportionately large gray hands looked back at the Army of Death and said, "We received a distressed call from someone who works here. Said it was an emergency and that we needed to come immediately. We're the closest agency, so-"

"Dryout," Titan said, standing up and stopping his comrade from saying anything else. He turned towards the Army of Death members, then he turned and looked at the building in front of him. _Whatever's going on here, is bigger than I imagined. This is not the time to be taking matters into our own hands, and it certainly is not the time to be talking to them._ Titan turned his back to the figure Sandlot continued pressing his boot down on, and the team leader said while starting back towards their car, "I'm going to call this in. Something big is happening here, and we need-"

"I don't think you should do that," Zach said.

Titan froze where he was, and his eyes got a lot darker while his teeth clenched in anger. He was giving them a chance. What was happening was seriously making him angry, so angry that he decided the Army of Death had a reason to have come here themselves. Titan turned and glared at the figure who just countered him though, when he was speaking loud enough to make it obvious to their group that he wanted them gone. "You want me to capture you too then," he said, turning his body and glaring at the dark figures in an intense way that had half of them getting nervous. Exodus gripped his shield tighter but kept a calm look on his face, but Zach just frowned deeply at the hero from behind his visor.

"What are you doing?" Gentle asked quietly. "This is our chance to leave this to the heroes and-"

"I'm not too familiar with this country," Zach began loudly, cutting off his comrade speaking only into his helmet and making his deep voice reach everyone outside. "But do people usually call hero agencies directly?" Dryout's face got very dark, and a bead of sweat started rolling down the left side of his face. Titan stared into the dark visor of the figure speaking to him, and then his eyes shifted back to the white building behind Death again. Zach continued as he saw the hero's reaction, "I'll take it that's a no. Yet, the people here who called for help, called you directly, right?"

"What are you talking about?" Yuri whispered.

Pastor's eyes opened wide as he stared at their leader's back, then he turned himself to the big white building, then back over to the heroes. _I see._

Gentle's eyes widened too for a minute though he just grit his teeth in anger as what Zach was starting to say made sense to him too. _This is getting worse by the second,_ Gentle thought, a very ominous feeling filling him.

Zach had already had that feeling though. "Where are the cops?" Zach asked. "Why did you three come alone?" He paused and then continued in a lower voice while glancing back at the building himself, "I heard, that this was a _government_ human experimentation facility." The three heroes in the vicinity started grinding their teeth at the sound of that, but then their eyes started growing huge as the dark figure continued to them. "Maybe the reason whoever called you, called you instead of just dialing for the police, is because they wanted someone to save them. Maybe, they knew calling the police wouldn't get heroes sent here… but a clean-up crew. Keep everything swept under the rug."

"You're making it out as a conspiracy-"

"There are way too many coincidences at this point," Zach replied without turning towards Titan. _I didn't want to believe it, but this… this is bad. They're not countering me on how there aren't any cops coming. Did whoever call them ask them not to say anything? Were they specific that it be just those three? Is anyone even alive in there anymore, or did that thing kill them all?_ Zach stared back towards the open doors and into a dimly lit hallway that got darker and more red-tinted deeper in it. _This is way too suspicious, how much it seems like a conspiracy._

"Why call you directly? Why not just call the police if some monster was tearing up the place? And where did that monster come from? How did this building get to be out here in the middle of Scotland, with no one noticing? What even is this place?" Zach turned his head and looked towards Titan who was looking over him and at the building himself. "Do you know? Do you know what's in here?" Titan ground his teeth but he shook his head. This time it was not Death he was getting angry at, and his eyes narrowed so much at the facility with white walls that he could see thick steel inside of where the monster had torn up through it a minute ago.

"I don't know," Titan replied. "But to say, it's a government facility… Even if that's true, then I will deal with it myself. I'll get to the bottom of it once I've called in-"

"How do you know who you call won't be a part of it?" Zach asked, and he took a step towards Titan with his eyes wide behind his visor. _You're too trusting._ "How do you know, whatever's going on in here will actually be stopped?" Titan started getting angrier and glaring down at the dark figure again, but Zach took another step his way and shouted, "They'll send someone in to 'check it out' and they'll clean up everything and make some excuse for what was happening here. Or at least they could! And you'd never know if it was the truth or not, but it would be what they told you!" Zach clenched his fists at his sides, and then he turned and glared back at the white building again, "But I want the truth. I want to see it with my own eyes, before anyone has a chance to cover it up."

"God."

Sandlot lowered his eyes down, and his face covered in sweat at what he thought he just heard below him. It was whispered, yet from a creature that did not appear capable of speech until that moment, it was a terrifying first word to hear. "Guys," Sandlot started, his voice nervous as he spoke up. Dryout turned back towards him after staring towards Death with his eyes wide, and he lowered his gaze down before stumbling backwards three steps at the sight of the creature's face. Sandlot took his foot off the creature's head and jumped far off to safety himself, then he walked around carefully to get a better look at the face of the furry creature who did not move his head still pressed sideways into the floor.

"Oh my God," Wreck'd muttered, and he found himself gagging in his helmet and having to look away.

Titan turned from Death who looked that way himself. Titan and Zach stared at the bubbling face of the furry creature, blood coming out of its eyes, foam drooling from its mouth as its face twitched around like crazy. Its foaming mouth curled up at the corners though, and it shot its bloodshot eyes open huge while letting out a scream, "GOD! I made it! There is freedom above! If only," its voice started getting scratchy and bubbly as the foam splashing out its mouth filled with red. "If only, you could see it- but I know you will- ack gag ack, when you cleanse… GOD! God! God…"

Foam poured out of the short man's mouth, and his eyes popped in a moment that made everyone looking his way wince or turn away. None of them were expecting the sudden pop of his eyeballs, and Wreck'd had just looked back up so he could not hold it in with a gag this time. "Oh gross dude," Yuri muttered, and Wreck'd had to lift his hands and yank off his helmet. Zach did not even scold him for taking it off in front of heroes, ones from his own country no less. None of the heroes were looking towards their fellow Brit anyway.

"Shit," Wreck'd muttered, while holding his helmet to the side and looking down into it. He wiped his mouth and then reached into his helmet to start cleaning it out, though he grimaced and wound up just clipping it on his side as wiping his visor at this point would just smear puke over it instead of actually cleaning it.

Zach glanced at Wreck'd who gave him an apologetic look, then he looked around at the others and then back to the white building himself. _We need to find out. Stuff like this sounds impossible. It_ _ **sounds**_ _like a conspiracy, probably because anyone who ever discovers stuff like this decides not to dig. They call the cops, and the cops tell their superiors, and someone is probably involved with whoever is in charge of something like this. What is this?!_

Pastor stared towards the short figure who had shouted out for God as his dying words. He started walking over towards him, and since Sandlot had backed up towards Dryout there was no reason to not let him go up to the creature now. The heroes glanced over and watched as the man in all black got down on one knee next to the corpse, and started to say a prayer, before closing the still-open eyelids of the monster.

"Tell me," Zach began, looking back towards Titan who turned from the religious man and to Death himself. "How much do you trust your government?"

Titan glared straight back at him, and the muscular man said, "I've never doubted it."

"Then there's no reason not to check it out, right?" Zach asked. "If you believe there are no secrets in there. If you think this is just some… really, I have no idea what I could imagine this building being. There are no signs. The disguise is so inconspicuous, it's just a white building in the middle of nowhere. Where there are creepy monsters…" _I don't want to go in there. Why am I trying to convince everyone? No. No! I'm scared, but that doesn't mean I can stop. That doesn't mean I can just, ignore what I think is going on in there. What I believe would be covered up if we left this to heroes!_

 _I never doubted, where I received my orders from. What is this place though? And why, were we called directly? Why didn't I inform the police, when they asked us specifically to come?_ Titan looked back from the building to the dark visor of the leader of the Army of Death. _It's because I knew something strange was afoot. Human experimentation though… It's unthinkable in our time. Whatever is going on in there though, if the government does have a hand in it, they will not want whatever happened here to become public. And for that reason, I must know the truth myself. Even if it means working- they are terrorists. We labeled them as terrorists, for helping where they were not allowed. And for their brutality…_ Titan's eyes shifted over to the man who just stood up next to their deceased creature, the one who had closed its popped eye sockets to make it look a bit more peaceful.

Titan grimaced and then said, "I cannot allow you to go in there… without us."

Sandlot looked over towards Titan and he shook his head slowly as he seriously dislike the sound of that idea. Dryout nodded though next to his comrade, and Sandlot frowned at his acceptance before accepting it himself with a long sigh.

 _Good. Anything I find in there would just be considered lies if we tried bringing it out to the press or something. No matter how much evidence, it would have been claimed as falsified by the terrorists in the Army of Death._ Zach nodded seriously towards Titan after a few seconds of making it seem like he was dealing with Titan's declaration of coming along. "Alright," Zach said. "Let's see what's inside."

Yuri looked back towards the open doors of the white building and he took in a deep breath. _Everyone's a bit nervous. At least I didn't puke in my helmet. Glad I looked away before that though._ He thought about how he had turned back and saw a disgusting sight on the creature's face, but at least he did not have to see those eyes actually explode because of how he had taken his eyes off it to check on the heroes.

 _Working with heroes. It is a pain, knowing they may betray us "for the greater good."_ "No one trust them," Gentle warned. "This Titan will take any chance he thinks he has to arrest every last one of us."

"I'll keep you posted on if other heroes… or if a clean-up crew, starts heading to your position. Everything looks clear around you guys right now though-"

"How about next time someone's coming, tell us before they're a few seconds from seeing us?" Zach said in a low voice. "And get Rebel to help you out. Call him up and let him know what's going on so far."

Access frowned back on the helicopter, but after a second's pause he got some sweat on his face and responded, "Roger that." He thought about the day he had finally met Death after trying to get in on the Army of Death since Saudi Arabia. He had planned on going by Whoreslayer42 up until Death walked up to him, and he had picked Access on the spot when Death asked him what he wanted his name to be. He still thought that Death probably would have told him to leave if he had stuck with his original plan, and he shook his head while calling up Rebel on his laptop. _He's even younger than me, and he still freaks me the f out!_

"What's up? Regrettin' your mistake yet?"

"Nope. Death told me to call you, though I could handle this on my-"

"If he wants my help, then ya' can't," Rebel replied, leaning forward in his chair that he was relaxing in with his hands locked behind his head. "Gimme the deet's."

Access shook his head and rolled his eyes. _And I can't even understand you half the time._ "Turns out that human testing thing, might be panning out."

"Really?" Rebel asked, and he scooted his chair in and started typing fast on his keyboard. "Yo Zach-"

"Death," Zach growled, sounding seriously angry as Rebel started talking to him.

Rebel froze and his eyes opened huge. "Oh shit, my bad. There people around who-"

"Just, be quiet," Zach said. Rebel started getting a more annoyed look on his face, but Zach continued, "Get in contact with the others and put them on standby to come reinforce us. We're moving in along with the British heroes on The Red Team. Get satellite surveillance and help Access-"

"Yeah, I got it. There really human testing going on? Those Brits don't seem like the types-"

"Rebel," Zach said, his voice stern and his eyes getting darker in his visor. _I can't keep doing this. Everyone second guessing me, Rebel talking constantly, my guys shooting around like crazy. I need more control. Something is going to go wrong if I don't get my shit together. Like right here, I need his help and I'm wasting fucking time._ "Just do it." Zach cut off the comms and then turned to Titan who stood next to him in the doorway of the building. "We should split up," Zach said louder, though Titan had heard some of the conversation at least from Death's end of the call.

"You've got satellites, huh?" Titan questioned, ignoring what the figure next to him just said for a moment.

"Are you focused? People are dying," Zach glared through his visor at the man almost a foot taller than him who got a bit of a surprised look before frowning. Zach could not tell if that frown was at him or the man frowning at himself, but he turned around anyway and looked at the group behind him. There were nine of them in total, and Zach said, "My guys are all connected over comms. If you three aren't too scared of us, we should split into three groups of three. It's a big building."

"I agree," Titan said. _As much as we've heard bad shit about you guys, I don't think you're doing all this to kill a couple of heroes._ "I'm with you though," Titan said, looking straight at Death.

Zach nodded his head, then he turned towards Exodus and motioned forward. "Exodus with me. We'll go straight. G, go left with Pastor. Yuri and Wreck'd head to the right through there," Zach rose his right arm and pointed his outstretched hand towards an open doorway with some scratch marks and blood on the side of it. The hallway was lit up from the light pouring in from outside, but that meant the rooms off the sides and farther down the hall looked all the darker with the change in light volume.

Exodus walked forward and he rose up his right hand though, creating a small orb of white light over his palm. Titan looked at the big man his size who stepped up and right past him with that sphere of white on one hand, his shield still grabbed in his other hand as he took point. Gentle nodded towards Zach after a moment, and he decided not to say anything under his breath about 'G' to the boy who was trying to hide their identities with that. The man in a purple cape turned to the left and started to the door to the side of the building he had been looking through the first floor windows of from up close, and the room looked the same from inside once he entered.

Pastor looked to his left while walking to the door, and the priest with 'MORTE' written down his back stared at the British heroes for a moment. Titan looked back and said, "Stay on your toes, keep in contact with their help."

Dryout nodded and then turned to Pastor and walked towards him. Sandlot grimaced deeply and then looked to his right at the other two who turned back to him. Wreck'd could see this hero was the most hesitant of the three who joined them, and he looked at the man carefully for a second before smiling. "Come on. Let's go see if the rumors pan out. I'm still hoping it's a big misunderstanding." Wreck'd had his helmet pinned down on his waist, and he smiled at the older British man by only a couple of years.

Yuri shook his head as he could see what Wreck'd was doing, and he muttered under his breath, "Leave me with a couple of Limeys why don't you?"

Access chuckled back at the helicopter, but the others were all a lot more focused on what they were doing. Even Yuri did not smile himself after making the half-hearted joke, and he rose up his rifle though in a calmer way than earlier as he was more prepared now for what he thought they might find in here. He moved into the doorway on the right side of the hall, then he reached down the barrel of his gun and turned on a flashlight below the barrel. Gentle rose up a flashlight of his own in the left side of the building, and Exodus waved his right hand out to push the small white sphere farther ahead of him.

Exodus' blue irises glowed white inside his helmet, and the sphere floating away from him dipped down a bit so it would not hit the top of a doorway into a stairwell up. "Titan," Zach started as they both walked after Exodus together. "Can I ask you something?"

Titan frowned but he nodded his head after a second, "What?"

"If we find out, certain individuals knew about this place-"

"We still don't know what this place is," Titan cut him off before he could continue with that question. He glared to his right at the shorter figure who turned his head a bit and looked back through his visor into the eyeholes of Titan's steel blue mask. "And you don't know what it is either, yet you came here because you had what? A hunch?"

"Someone told me they escaped from here," Zach replied, turning his head back forward and continuing after Exodus. Titan stared at him with wide eyes for a second, then they narrowed again as Death continued, "They said this place disfigured them. Turned them into a monster. I thought the villain could be blowing smoke, but I followed the lead anyway."

"So you think our government is experimenting on villains?" Titan questioned.

"Maybe," Zach replied softly, his voice barely coming out modulated through his helmet. "I couldn't tell what he told me was truth, what were lies. But if everything he said was true, even just about his own experience, then I need to know what you'll do if we discover human experiments in here. If we find out, these experiments are being funded, by the people whose orders you follow-"

"The only orders I follow," Titan started. "Are the ones I believe in. Justice, is not decided by the government. It is the government's job to uphold and carry it out however. If we have failed in that duty, then as a public servant it is my job to correct that."

 _He'll correct it. I don't know what that means, but he sounds serious. He's pissed, because he's starting to believe it's a possibility. That's good. We can get out of here as soon as we give up the information._ Zach nodded at Titan in agreement and respect, then he turned forward and pulled out a knife and held it sideways in front of his chest as they stepped onto the second floor. It was as dark on the second floor as the first, however it felt even darker as a cloud had just passed in front of the sun outside and caused the fields the building was in to get shadowed over.

Down on the first floor Sandlot spun in shock to the man on his right as they both followed after Yuri. "You're kidding. Trisbane?"

"Yeah," Wreck'd replied, lifting an eyebrow at the man on his left who just asked.

Sandlot pushed down on his beanie and leaned his head back with a laugh. Wreck'd had a British accent so he had asked where the soldier in all black was from, and Sandlot started grinning and said after his laugh, "I'm from Fillman Park. Just down-"

"No!" Wreck'd's eyes opened huge.

Yuri rolled his eyes ahead of the two. _Am I the only one actually searching for something?_ "Stay alert," he said, looking back and saying it through his helmet loudly at the two British guys behind him.

They got more intense looks on their faces again so Yuri turned away. After their group's point man turned though, Wreck'd looked out the corners of his eyes and said, "I went to Oxbridge High Hero Academy."

Sandlot's eyes got as big as they had a minute ago when Wreck'd first said 'Trisbane.' The pro hero looked at the man next to him who was as tall as him but with short black hair instead of wavy sand-colored hair over his head. "Same," Sandlot said. "What year did you-"

"Couple years after you," Wreck'd said, showing he already knew Sandlot had gone there. He really was surprised about the hero's hometown though, but he added, "We were two years apart actually. Never met you while we went there together, but after your debut I wished we had."

"Yeah, me too," Sandlot said, though his tone got a bit darker there. "What happened?"

"I dropped out," Wreck'd replied, and he shifted his focus around the room with a more serious look on his face. "Couldn't afford it anymore," he said with a shrug, and then he walked over to a computer on a desk that had a cracked screen and keyboard. The mouse was still looking fine next to it, and he tried seeing if the monitor worked a couple times only to give up and let go of the mouse he moved around a bit. The room they were in was trashed, and Wreck'd started to wonder how they did not notice the state of things inside while they were making their way around the building.

Sandlot frowned at the back of his fellow countryman who was acting all serious and looking around in an intense way for clues. "Do you think joining the Army of Death makes you a hero?" Sandlot questioned. The younger man in front of him started frowning deeper and he ignored the question for a second. He froze though as the man behind him continued, "Because you couldn't make it as a hero here, so you decided-"

"I couldn't afford it," Wreck'd repeated. "I could have made it-"

"There are safety nets in place for aspiring heroes who can't-"

"I couldn't afford it, because my parents were killed by villains." Wreck'd turned around and he glared into Sandlot's eyes. "And even though the government knew where the villains had gone after they killed my mother, and my father, and twelve other people, they didn't do a thing. Because there was no extradition from the country they had fled to, so they just told me, 'There's nothing we can do.'" Wreck'd glared into the hero's eyes harder which made the man in all tan clothes lean back a bit at that look and what Wreck'd had said. " _That's,_ why I joined Death. He wouldn't have let something so stupid stop him from getting justice."

Wreck'd looked back forward and his fists clenched so much harder at his sides. "I had thought, that the government might have been in the right. Because they always follow the rules. They have to. I even came to terms with it after joining… but if this, if this shit is run at all by those fuckers who wouldn't break the rules for my parents. For getting justice. If they'd break the rules, to do whatever the fuck they're doing here," Wreck'd loosened his fists a bit as Yuri glanced back over his shoulder at him. "Someone needs to pay for that. Someone, has to take responsibility for what's going on here."

 _Yeah, and what the hell would that even be?_ Yuri wondered to himself, though despite his skepticism he was angrier now than he had been since coming on this mission. His hands tightened on his rifle, and he glared around at the computers closest to him. "Hey Rebel, you on?"

"You can talk to me too," Access started.

"I'm here," Rebel cut in, annoying the man on the helicopter who frowned as he was ignored.

 _I should have gone in too,_ Access thought. _After Switzerland I thought Death had me as a combatant. I don't want to just be the secondary support guy when we're doing so much good-_

Yuri continued, "I'm going to plug in a couple of the transfer drives to some of these computers. Most of them look pretty messed up, but if you-"

"Everyone," Gentle said, his voice filling all their helmets or just earpieces for Access, Rebel, and Wreck'd. They all froze where they were. On the floor above, Titan looked back and forth between the other two wondering what made them freeze up so suddenly. Zach stood from the right arm he found near a bloody window and just stared at the smeared glass in front of him while listening to his comrade. "Please make your way over to us. We, have found something." Gentle's voice was hesitant, and after he finished he cut off the comms and just stared straight ahead with a dark look on his face.

Dryout lifted his big hands up behind his head and he rubbed them both on top of his scalp. He messed up his dark hair and closed his eyes tightly for a second. _Why? Why does this have to be a thing?_

Pastor sat down on an overturned desk close to the open doors Gentle and Dryout were staring through from closer up. He sat on the edge of the desk, and Gentle glanced back at him only for the older man and former priest to lift a hand telling Gentle it was fine. Gentle turned away, and Pastor lowered his head down and pressed his helmet's visor into his hand. He closed his eyes, and in his head he watched in green-tinted vision a hand going through his comrade's chest, ripping out a heart and crushing it. He clenched his eyes tighter, and he saw the eyes of that tortured man outside exploding. He watched as blood splattered on the window upstairs, and then he saw the inside of the elevator that he had been staring at in silence on his own which had caused Dryout and Gentle to come over to him.

Pastor had waved Gentle off, but the man with a bushy mustache hidden behind his dark purple visor shifted his gaze back after pretending to look away. _I do not feel good about this situation. The Russian's trigger happy, the Brit is throwing up and taking off his helmet, and the priest can't handle it anymore. Those three aren't cut out for this. Not like a pro,_ Gentle glanced next to him at Dryout who turned back when he saw that turn of his head. "They on their way?" Dryout asked.

Gentle nodded once at him and then they both looked back into the open elevator in front of them. The door tried closing again and then opened back up because of the body in the way the motion sensor detected. It was one of three bodies, or so they thought, inside the elevator full of scratch marks on the walls and a hole on the ceiling. Blood was splattered everywhere, and they could not tell for sure if it was only three bodies, but there were _at least_ three heads among the carnage in the elevator.

Zach's group reached the room the same time as the closer team that had been only on the other side of the same floor. They all jogged across the room that did not look as damaged as the other half of the building's first floor, though there was a blood trail that the six running towards their comrades noticed they started stepping in. "The rest of the building seems empty," Zach began while moving up to Gentle's side. He looked into the elevator and grimaced, a mild reaction compared to all the others around him except for Exodus.

"It was likely that spinning furry man who did all of this," Exodus stated. "The scratch marks in this elevator as well as other areas throughout the building all match those made outside in our initial confrontation." Zach nodded his head in agreement, while looking at similar scratch marks on the walls of the elevator. Those scratches all had blood filling them with long drips sliding down below them. There were two women in the elevator from what Zach could tell, and a man with red skin he thought, though he was hoping the guy actually did have red skin and it was not just blood coating his entire body.

"Pastor, could you," Zach began. He looked towards the man who shook his head fast and stood back up. He wanted to ask if the man was alright, but Pastor stepped forward strongly and Zach just continued, "Could you get them out of there? I want to have a look inside."

"I could," Exodus began.

"No," Zach started, looking at the large man on his left and shaking his head.

"Apologies, Death," Exodus said with a short bow of his head.

Pastor looked at the man who had just offered to clean up instead of him. He looked back at the bodies, then to Zach, and he lowered his gaze down as he realized why their leader was designating this to him. Pastor stepped forward and into the elevator, and he dropped down to his right knee before pressing both hands down on the ground below him. He took in a deep breath and started, "Take them, O' Lord…" Pastor started whispering, while the blood on the floor beneath his hands, the bodies around him, even shreds of clothes or some loose debris started getting sucked towards his hands.

Zach, Exodus, and Gentle backed away from the elevator they were the closest to as the red man's body half out of it started pulling the other way and squeezing down below Pastor's hands. Titan and Dryout each stepped back as they felt small tugs on the front of them too. "What are you going to do with them?" Dryout asked.

Titan frowned but did not speak out against what he was seeing. He thought about the power he had seen from the bigger man who Death had stopped from dealing with the clean-up himself. He also thought about the respect the "Pastor" had shown to their murderous friend back outside, and he said, "Dryout, it's fine. Trust them for now." Dryout looked back at Titan with his eyebrows lifted for a moment, but then he just nodded his head and turned back to the elevator that Pastor stood up in and lowered his hands that were clean of a speck of dirt let alone any blood or guts.

"If you want to go deal with it now," Zach started to Pastor.

"Later," Pastor said, looking back at Zach and nodding his head to show he was fine.

"Alright then," Zach said, and he stepped forward and into the elevator. He stepped inside and looked around, while Pastor moved a bit to the side and looked up at the ceiling himself. Titan stepped back to the edge of the elevator, closer this time as there was no body in the way. Zach looked up through the hole in the elevator, _Did those three try escaping, only for the experiment to burrow through the ceiling? So the tests went on up on the second floor._

Zach looked to the panel on the right side of the inside of the elevator doors. He stared at it, and he felt a pit in his chest. Zach stepped towards the panel, and Titan moved into the doorway as it seemed like Death might be trying to make the elevator go somewhere. "What are you…" Titan stopped while leaning more in, and he took another step inside and then looked down at the panel himself.

Gentle and Dryout stepped inside, and then Exodus lifted his arm before all the others could move into an elevator starting to get cramped. Exodus lowered his muscular arm a moment later, but the others behind him did not want to try going inside now after that. Gentle stared at the panel where there were five buttons: two lines of two white ones and a red button above them with a phone symbol on it, and above the buttons was a speaker made up of lots of tiny little holes. The bottom two buttons were the 'open doors' and 'close doors' buttons with their white arrow symbols pointing away or in towards each other. The two buttons over them had 1 and 2 on them. It looked like a normal elevator panel, only there was a big vertical sheet of steel below them that looked like there might be a fuse box inside… except that panel was broken off the wall a bit so the bottom of it was slid to the side diagonally, revealing a button at the very bottom of the sheet that was barely uncovered.

None of them liked how far down that button was. The fact that there was a 'B' on it told them what they were looking at, but the number they could see next to the 'B' made all of them hesitant to move the panel. Zach reached forward his right hand though, and he grabbed the panel and pulled back towards himself to just tear it off the wall instead of sliding it away. He ripped it off, and he dropped it to the floor. Looks of dread covered Dryout and Titan's expressions for those outside the elevator to see. Pastor took a step back and he leaned against a cracked railing inside the elevator that he had to grab with both hands to steady himself. The button they had partially seen was not 'B1' as some of them had hoped with as much optimism as they could muster.

 _B16,_ Zach thought as he looked at the bottom on the bottom of the single-file line of buttons going down below the 'open doors' arrows. He slowly rose his gaze up those buttons, and then he turned his head to the side and looked at Gentle. "I was wrong," Zach said. Gentle turned towards the deep voice that just spooked him enough to flinch. He looked into Zach's dark visor, and the boy on the other side of it with huge eyes said in a lower voice, "This place is huge. We shouldn't be doing this right now. Not with this team."

"What is it?" Yuri asked, and he stepped forward, ignoring Exodus who turned towards him which did make a nervous bead of sweat form on his face. He felt a bit smug that he was able to just walk right past Exodus and into the elevator though, but then he turned to the panel the rest of them were staring at and dropped his jaw. "Sixteen fucking basements?"

"What did he just say?" Access whispered, dropping his feet from the box he had them propped up on.

Titan lowered his gaze to the floor. He turned his chin down and stared at the floor beneath his feet, as he suddenly realized that the elevator shaft he was in went very, very far down. _How?_

Wreck'd took a step back from the elevator, and he lifted both hands up to his head and ran them through his hair. "This is nuts. Absolutely… Death, what do we do?"

"Let's call in-" Zach began, then he frowned as Titan turned and glared at him. "Do you really think this is still just some coincidence?" Zach asked. He leaned towards the bigger man, "Or did I come here and build a super fucking mega-lab into your country?"

"I don't want you bringing any more of your terrorists here," Titan responded. He glared into the dark visor and said, "Whatever's going on here, doesn't excuse what you do. What you've done."

"Guys, this isn't the time," Dryout tried to break it up, lifting his big hands up between the two leaning towards each other.

Gentle glared at Titan and he said, "Why _don't_ we leave it up to them then?" He lifted his left palm like it sounded reasonable to him. "Let them call in reinforcements to deal with this. I am sure they will uncover many secrets in those basements without our help."

Zach glared towards Gentle now instead of Titan. Sandlot had started nodding a bit in agreement with the man wearing some dark purple, though he was still deep in thought about what the British soldier in the Army of Death said to him. Sandlot's eyes widened a lot though as Death scolded in an angry voice, "Some people don't catch your sarcasm in English, Gentle." Gentle's eyes widened behind his visor as Zach said his name instead of trying to hide it with 'G' again. Titan had heard that name before, and he shifted his gaze slowly back to Death with his eyes widening behind his mask. He thought on what Death, whose identity he was starting to guess, just said though again. Zach continued, "But I know you wouldn't really be suggesting leaving them, when you think they'd be killed by whatever reinforcements they call."

"You are paranoid," Titan started, and Zach turned back towards him with a more frustrated look not that it was visible through his visor. "Paranoid, and you underestimate us. And our abilities. I would contact other heroes who I trust first before doing anything."

"And why do you trust them?" Zach asked.

Titan opened his mouth, and then he froze. He thought about who he just considered this person in front of him was. He knew that whatever he answered with, if this really was the teen he thought it was, the response would not matter. "I still trust people," Titan said, glaring harder into the visor of the boy before him. "And I trust my comrades and government more than I trust you terrorists-"

"My people are incorruptible," Zach growled, leaning back towards Titan. This time Dryout did not lift his hands to keep them apart, but instead started to tighten up his fists. Sandlot's eyes opened wide as he saw this confrontation beginning, and his eyes darted around him in panic as he saw a couple of helmets shift towards him for a moment. It suddenly felt like three sets of eyes were on him no matter where the dark soldiers were facing. "You don't understand that, and you'll get yourselves killed here if this isn't just some villain base. And really, have you ever seen anything like this before? Can any villains really do something like this?! Can you imagine what's beneath us right now?"

"I can!" Titan shouted back at the boy in front of him, his fists clenching at his own sides tighter now.

"Careful now," Rebel warned from across the Atlantic. "Don't want to start fighting in an elevator. You are above a sixteen floor drop, right?"

Pastor pushed off of the railing and he started lowering his hands down for the sharp crosses at his sides. His right hand wrapped around one that doubled as a tazer. His eyes narrowed through his visor at Dryout's back, while the hero himself shifted his eyes to the corner of his vision and kept that soldier in his peripheral as he had not forgotten about him as much as he was pretending he had.

 _ **Chhhh**_ Everyone in the elevator and outside it stopped what they were doing. Thoughts about trying to convince their counterparts or fight them all cut off. The five in the elevator turned towards the panel of buttons. Yuri leaned into the doorway he had pulled back from after checking the panel, and he stepped inside while the others outside of it moved towards the door themselves. They all stared towards the speaker on the panel above the top call button that started blinking red.

"Hello? Please, someone has to help us. Is anyone up there?"

Zach reached up and pressed the blinking button with the phone symbol on it. "Hello? We're here to-"

"Oh my God," the voice on the other side started in terror.

Titan grabbed Death by the right shoulder and pushed him to the side. "You're terrifying them," Titan growled in anger. Zach glared at the man, but he held up his arm to stop Exodus who was making threatening movements that had the other two heroes tensing. "This is Titan," Titan began while pressing the red button now. "I was called to save-"

"Titan?!" The man's voice came back over the speaker and shouted in so much relief. "Oh God, what was that voice I heard? I thought they had come to get rid of us!"

"Who?" Titan asked.

There was silence over the other side for a few seconds, some nervous panting and murmuring. "This is, really Titan right?" A woman's voice asked.

"All of The Red Team is here," Titan said. "Sandlot and Dryout are with me." He paused and glanced back at Death, then he continued while turning to the speaker, "Where are you? We can come and help you-"

"You'll have to unlock the elevator first," the man's voice that spoke first cut back in. He sounded relieved but also scared and panicked at the same time. "And please hurry."

"How do we unlock the elevator?" Titan questioned. "And what is this place? Why are there so many basements? What goes on here-"

"Just shut up and come help us!" The man shouted, making Titan lean back at the frantic yell.

"I can't do it. I have to keep running!"

"No! We're getting out of here!"

"Please, send the elevator down to B13! Just get us out of here!"

 _B13? They're all the way down there?_ Zach grimaced nervously while looking at the panel.

"Take the hard-drives with you!"

"I'm out of here!"

"Wait! Wa- Damn it," the man who spoke first cursed as a door slammed in the background. He started again as the only voice now on the other side of the speaker, "Titan, you have to hold down on both the button to open the doors and the one to close them, at the same time. Hold them for ten seconds to unlock the elevator. Whatever bastards last took it up locked us all down here."

Titan frowned and he lowered his gaze down to the floor for a moment. He turned to his left and looked at Death, then he turned to the speaker and kept his finger on the button, "I'm not doing a thing, until you tell me what this place is. Are there human experiments going on down-"

"YES!" The man roared through the speaker. "Now get us out of here! NOW!"

"You admit, that you have been performing human experiments against the Jaydye Convention-"

"Listen to me," the man on the other side hissed, his voice cutting through the speaker in a menacing but terrified way. "You have to unlock the elevator and send it down here. Please! The test subjects, they're out of control!"

"We can see that up here," Dryout snapped towards the speaker. "Everyone in the building is dead, killed by one of your- what the fuck have you been doing to them-"

" _Ahhhhh-_ " A recognizable female scream pierced in the distant background of the speaker, and the man they were speaking to took in a sharp intake of breath.

"I'll tell you whatever you want to know!" The man speaking to them shouted in panic. "Please! The experiments are killing everyone, and soon I'll be-" **CRASH**

"Oh _doctorrrrr…"_ Everyone on the first floor of the building lost their breath at the sound of that voice. The sing-song but deep tone, and the pure bloodthirst in it was unmaskable.

"Oh my God. 23? Stay back! Help me!"

"Hahaha, HEHEHE AACKAKAKYAAA!"

"PLEASE! NO! AHH AHHGGSSJSG!" _**SClurch! Crunch splssh ch-**_ "Ugh, ack, aggh, wait- wait! WA-" **DOOF-** _ **spplt.**_

…

Yuri stared at the floor below him and realized, _I've never been more scared in my entire life._

 _Oh fuck this._ Wreck'd gulped as he looked around and did not see anyone else looking like they were about to turn and just run away. His right foot still slid backwards even without seeing anyone else about to run away with him.

Access was suddenly very, very glad he had been left behind at the helicopter. Rebel almost wanted to joke to him, 'Bet you're regretting this now,' but he held off on it.

It sounded horrific, brutal, and it was terrifying. The sound of a man getting murdered, and the noises that they could only imagine what they meant. The final thud definitely sounded like something getting smashed down, and then a splat. The image was stuck in their minds. Zach's breathing was steady though as he stared at the speaker in front of him. He stared at the speaker, and he listened to the heavy breathing he could hear on the other side of it. The others in the elevator realized what they were hearing as they held their own heavy breaths, only for the heavy breathing coming through the speaker to cut off itself a couple seconds later.

And then the scary voice of whatever just killed the man they were talking to, asked, "Hello?"

* * *

 **A/N So... has anyone ever played Outlast?**


	106. Chapter 106

**Disclaimer: I don't own Boku no Hero Academia**

 **Chapter 106:**

"Hello?"

 _Nope._ _Nope nope nope._ Wreck'd started shaking his head. He leaned farther into the elevator and looked towards Titan, saw his finger had come off of the button that allowed them to speak to the other side, then he finally felt comfortable saying aloud, "Nope."

"Yeah, let's not unlock the elevator," Yuri agreed. Then he shook his head and repeated his sentence only in English instead of Russian.

"There are other people down there," Titan began, looking to the buttons below the red one. He stared specifically at the arrow buttons he now knew to hold in order to unlock this elevator. "People who need our help-"

"People who have been experimenting on humans," Sandlot offered from outside the elevator.

Dryout darted a look out to him. He was just about to say something about how these Army of Death guys they had been hearing so much about were acting like cowards. He could not do that anymore though with Sandlot sounding like he was agreeing with them. Dryout responded in a low voice to his comrade and best friend, "And the test subjects? Do we leave all of them, to whatever- whoever just-"

"Hello? The doctor was speaking to someone up there. Hello? Hello?"

There was a pause for a few seconds, then the voice asked again, "Hello? Are you ignoring me?"

Zach walked to the speaker and he pushed Titan out of the way, a rougher shove than the hero gave him before though it was necessary considering how much larger the hero was than him. Zach pressed the button and he said in his modulated voice, "Who is this?"

"Oh? So you were ignoring me? That's not nice-"

"What is your name?"

"Cutting me off? Oh, now that's really not-"

Zach pulled his finger off the button and he stared at the blinking red light for a few seconds as the other voice had cut off. Apparently the man on the other side knew when he had let go of the button, and he started quickly again, "Wait. Don't go."

"Alright," Zach pressed the button and replied. "Who are you? One of the test subjects?"

"Your voice is scary. Are you here to kill us all? One of the doctors told me that's what's coming now. As soon as they find out-"

"Who are 'they?'" Zach asked.

" _They_ are the ones who watch. The ones who buy. The reason. The cause."

Titan reached out and lowered Death's arm from the button. "This man is insane," Titan said once the man in question could not hear him.

"Obviously," Zach said, and he tugged his arm out of Titan's grip and pressed the button again without turning to the hero. "The cause for what? Why did they do this to you?"

"The cause for our suffering. But it was all part of His plan. He could not save us if we did not first need to be saved."

Pastor reached up and he pulled his cross on his necklace out from beneath his body armor. He clenched it tightly in his right hand, and he closed his eyes as he muttered prayers in his helmet. The others thought about the writing they had seen on the window in blood, what the dying test subject outside had said before his eyes exploded, it chilled each of them.

"Your suffering," Zach started, bringing his helmet closer to the speaker. He reached up and he tapped a button on the bottom right side of his helmet, and he continued in a softer voice no longer modulated at all. "It wasn't your fault. But the people down there shouldn't be massacred for it. The ones who did this to you-"

"All must die." The voice on the other side finished. "All must die. The doctors, the ITs, the guards, the company men. All of _them._ The others. Who God freed-"

"God, he's down there?" Zach asked. The others around him looked towards Death wondering what he was talking about.

"Yes," the voice responded, and the others who turned to Death all spun back in surprise at the answer to that question.

 _So he's not being metaphorical or anything. I thought it was weird. That furry guy didn't seem very stable at all, but he was still able to speak a little. Write a message in the glass. Is it brainwashing? The doctors and people who worked here don't seem affected. Only the test subjects?_ "What about the other experiments?" Zach asked, keeping his voice soft and understanding.

Gentle stared over at the back of Zach's head as he asked that question in a soft way. Some of the others thought he was asking to see if all of them were crazy, or if they could save some of them, but Gentle could see through the fake tone the teen just used. _Trying to figure out the enemy's numbers. He wants to go down there. What is the point? I, do not wish to go. As many secrets as this place may hold… They are secrets I could do without. I believe, I will never see the world the same. If I come to know what goes on below this floor…_

"All must die," the voice repeated. "All must die. Sacrifices. Necessary, to His will."

"How do you know it's what he wants?" Zach asked. "Maybe he freed you all, so you could be free-"

"That's not what he said."

Titan pulled back and stared down at the top of Death's head with his eyes wide. _The man is clearly insane, but this is still information. Information gathering. Is he thinking of going down there? Is there a difference now than before? If we call in for backup now- who are "they?" Is it really a government force that runs this place? What for? Why are there subjects down there?_

"So you're just going to kill everyone for him?"

"He frees us, both from our physical and mental binds. He is the coming. The storm."

" _AHHHH!_ "

A scream in the background echoed out into the elevator. "Ah," the voice speaking to them said. **Clank.** _ **Shhhhh…**_ Something heavy and metal hit the floor and started dragging away on it. "Another sacrifice. Please come down, and join us. You can all help Him rise." The voice got quieter as the dragging sound of metal on metal continued getting farther away too.

 _Still never got a name,_ "Who are you?" Zach called into the speaker while keeping his finger pressed on the button. "So we can find you to become sacrifices! God will be more pleased with you if you get more!" The others around Zach gawked towards the boy shouting that out without hesitation.

"Thank you," the voice called over from a distance back to the speaker. "I am known as 23-"

"Not the number they gave you! God freed you! So what was your name before?" Zach shouted.

There was a short pause, and then the voice responded, "Miles. Miles W- W- Wilson." He sounded to struggle getting out his last name, as if he did not recall it or was just having trouble saying it aloud. Then the dragging started again but faded after a second as it was already almost at the edge of their range.

"Rebel, Access, look up Miles Wilson's. Any missing persons' reports matching that name?" Zach stepped out of the elevator and walked over to a desk near it that he sat on the edge of. He bowed his head and stared down at his lap, thinking a thousand thoughts per minute as his heart raced. He heard typing over his headset as both of his support guys typed as fast as they could onto their keyboards.

"I've got nothing," Rebel began.

"I've got something!" Access called out a second later. "It's not a missing person, but three years ago a Miles Wilson got hit by a car in London. He died on the operating table. Oh," he sounded a bit more disappointed and stopped speaking in his rushed excited voice that he got something before Rebel. "He had an open casket funeral. They had his body-"

"Could have been faked. Rebel, you crack that transfer drive I sent you?" Zach asked, mentioning the USB he had plugged in when he had found a computer intact upstairs.

"Not yet," Rebel replied, and he flipped back to the windows cracking the firewalls surrounding the encrypted files Zach had taken directly from a source computer. "It's a lot of security for getting it straight from those-"

"I don't need to hear the how," Zach said. "Just go into them once you've got them open, and match up subject 23. That's subject Two Three. Match his picture up with the Miles Wilson from that car crash."

 _Who are "they?" Could be anyone. Fraux could have just assumed they were government too. Or maybe he was covering for other villains, a no-snitching code taking effect even for the fucks who experimented on him. I shouldn't feel bad for that doctor. He admitted they were experimenting on people, and he didn't sound regretful. Like the Chemist. Yet, yet hearing him die like that. Screaming in agony, just like Jenny! No one deserves to die that way. So afraid. Wishing someone would come save him. And how many people down there need help? He sounded terrified when I started speaking in the beginning. He thought there was a clean-up crew coming to take care of him and the others. Why take the hard-drives? Unless it's, to have leverage? They thought I was here to kill them. If they escaped with sensitive information, they could have blackmailed the government- or whoever's running this place into leaving them alone. If they thought their employers were going to hunt them down anyway. Who runs this place? Will the computer I plugged into actually have information like that? Even if it is super protected, some things are probably kept much more secretive._

Titan stood in the elevator alone with Dryout and Sandlot. The other Army of Death members gathered around the desk Death was sitting on the edge of. They stared at their leader whose head was bowed and who looked deep in thought. Exodus was awaiting orders, but he questioned during the silence, "If we do find that it is the same Miles Wilson as the one who was supposedly killed three years ago, what does that tell us?"

"That whoever runs this place has a very large amount of resources," Zach replied. "That they were able to abduct him from the hospital and plant a fake body. I don't know what for. They must have had to bribe doctors, or maybe doctors at the hospital work for them, or maybe they just posed as doctors and snuck in to get him. Maybe he never even made it to the hospital, and they had two ambulances that switched midway to the hospital from the crash. One took off with the real Miles Wilson, a perfect test subject. Maybe even the car that hit him- no, almost definitely the car that hit him if they had a fake body ready. And they did it with witnesses around most likely, so no one would ever question that it was what really happened. No one would ever be looking for him." Zach said all this with his head down looking into his lap, more coming up with the ideas off the top of his head than saying what he had been thinking about.

"That's, insane," Wreck'd started in a soft voice. Zach lifted his helmet a bit and looked at the British man, and Wreck'd started shaking his head before getting a scrunched-up look on his face covered in anger. There was fear behind his anger too though, and he said, "Who's powerful enough to do that? It has to be-"

"It could be anyone," Zach cut him off. Wreck'd's eyes opened wide as he did not expect Death to start arguing with him over this. Zach continued, "A big company. A villain group that's secret and kept that way by bribing government officials. It may still be involved with the government a bit, but it's crazy to say just from what we know that the British government is running this place."

"Yeah," Gentle agreed, and he nodded once but not in a very enthusiastic way. "Death, listen. I've agreed to follow you this far." Zach's eyes widened a bit and he and all the others turned to the man with some dark purple on his black costume. "But this, _is_ the extent. More than Mongoloid, whose forces we had information on, or SISIS, the Rioting Kazans, or the Syndicate which we are gaining ground against. You understand, this is not what we set out to do. This is beyond-"

"What I set out to do, Gentle," Zach started to counter. "Is to stop villains. It's always been to stop villains," Zach said it and then pushed off the desk he was sitting on. "And no matter who runs this place. No matter how big they are. They're villains. _This_ is the most fucked up things get." Gentle grimaced deeply behind his purple visor while staring back into Zach's. "I didn't want this place to exist," Zach continued. He turned his head a bit and looked around at his other comrades who he knew were scared. He turned to Wreck'd and added, "I wanted Fraux to have been lying. When he said though, that we were going after the wrong people while stuff like this was happening, he might've been right. Because _this,_ isn't alright. No matter who's in charge of it. No matter what their reasons for making this place…"

"I agree," Pastor said, lifting his bowed head a bit and staring into Death's visor. "With your judgement. This place is evil."

"Both sides are fucked though," Yuri started. Death turned to him and Yuri looked in an afraid way into his helmet's visor, "The guys who test on people, and the people getting tested on-"

"We don't know," Zach began. He stopped himself, but then he grit his teeth and continued in a low voice, "We don't know that all of the subjects are out of their minds. Some may have been twisted by the experiments. Others might just be trying to escape after being ripped out of their lives by this mysterious, powerful force. Dragged off the street one day for no reason at all," Zach's comrades started staring at him with wider eyes at the pained tone in his voice as he continued. "Brought to a facility you know nothing about, maybe told that your family thinks your dead, and then tortured… Fraux said he wasn't here for long, but if Miles Wilson has been here for three years undergoing human experiments, it doesn't surprise me that he went crazy. Killing the ones who tortured him I could understand even, but what he was saying about sacrifices and God, something else is down there. Something turning the prisoners who should be trying to escape together, against each other. I think," Zach added at the end as he was still not too confident about all of this.

"What do you want to do?" Gentle asked. He hated that he just asked the question, but hearing how Zach described what happened to Miles Wilson like it could have happened to anyone had him grinding his teeth in anger. He thought about the videos he and La Brava had watched of Sazaki's torture. He recalled how the boy had believed that everyone thought he was dead because the villains told him they had created a fake body for him. And Gentle realized in his anger why it was so easy for Zach to come up with all those theories in seconds.

"Take out everyone," Zach replied. "Sort them out afterwards," he offered, looking around at the others to see how they felt about that idea. "They're already killing each other. There are already, less than sixteen floors worth of people down there. And the ones remaining are probably injured from fighting each other. This is just going on today-"

"And we just had to come today," Wreck'd muttered under his breath. Pastor turned to his right towards the man, and he heard Wreck'd whisper nervously, "What are the odds?"

Zach had stared at Wreck'd as he spoke too. He had stopped talking to listen to his comrade, and then he said, "The odds were low. But if we had come at any other time, we probably would have seen inside a normal building with normal workers disguised… Or even if we did move in, I doubt we would have known…" Zach took a deep breath, then he said in a low voice, "But we do know. We know there are people down there who could use our help. People who will die if we don't go down to help them. And there are probably some hard-drives down there, with information as to what this group is. How they operate as they do, without anyone knowing who they are. How they manage to stay in the shadows. How they manage their resources." Zach paused and then said in a deeper voice, "And we can figure out how to destroy them. Yeah, I want to know those things, because maybe we could use some of it ourselves, but it's mainly because I want to stop them. Stop them from wiping this place out and starting it up somewhere else. Stop them from wiping out everyone involved and getting away with stuff like this. No one should be able to get away with this."

"And I know what's down there is scary. It's fucking terrifying." Zach did not notice, but three men behind Exodus had turned his way as he was speaking and were staring in silence at him with their eyes huge. He kept going while looking around at his comrades, "But as scary as it is for us, there are people down there living in what must be Hell. We are strong. We can save some of them. And some of them probably are good people. Good people trapped underground with monsters, God-crazed lunatics, crushing skulls and massacring each other. It's horrible. It's evil. Someone's responsible for this. People down there know who made this place real. A paper trail that can link us to the ones who need to face justice, who might not be down there. Before they send someone to come here and clean up everything. Before they wipe this place off the face of the Earth, we have to find out who they are. We _have_ to stop them. Because they could do it to more people. And just for the sakes of those people down there right now, no matter how disturbed, or evil as they are. Not one of them deserves to be stuck down there for another minute."

Zach paused again, this time a long pause as he took a couple of slow breaths. He had riled himself up as much during that as he was attempting to rile up the others with him. His eyes narrowed behind his visor and he said in a soft, lower voice, "None of us deserve to be stuck down there either. We shouldn't even have to see what's happening there. It's going to be horrible. The worst… So if anyone wants to stay up here, and keep watch at the top of the elevator in case anyone below tries to escape," he paused and took a deep breath, then he finished, "I won't blame you. I'm going down there though."

"Death," Yuri began. He opened his mouth to continue, then he reached up and grabbed his helmet. Yuri pulled it off and revealed his light-skinned face with a messed-up right ear all bumpy from years of wrestling when he was younger. His blond hair was messy because of his helmet, and he took a breath of fresher air once his helmet was off. "You're right," he said, and his English was laced with a thick Russian accent. "Fuck them. Fuck this place. Let's tear it down and everyone involved with it."

"I will always follow you," Exodus agreed after letting Yuri speak. He nodded his head at Death when the teen turned to him, and Zach nodded back in appreciation.

Pastor started in a low voice, "And say to those with fearful hearts, 'Be strong, do not fear; your God will come. He will come with vengeance; with divine retribution he will come to save you." Pastor tucked his golden cross back into his black body armor and then said in a serious tone, "I wish to save those who have strayed from the path, and to punish the false God who leads them to evil."

Wreck'd stared next to him at Pastor with his eyes huge for a few seconds. "Holy shit," he finally said. "Was that- Is that in the bible?"

"The first part was Isaiah, 35:4," Pastor replied. "The second is my desire to save those down below."

Wreck'd nodded his head, and he lowered his gaze to the floor when Pastor mentioned 'down below.' He lifted his head and stared at Death through his brown eyes. "This place doesn't represent us. If I let a couple Yanks head down there without doing a thing myself, we'd be a bunch of cowards. And I don't like it. People in my home at risk of getting yanked off the streets for no God damned- no fucking reason. It's sick. I'm in."

Zach nodded at him. He turned to Gentle, and Gentle sighed as he was the last one remaining. "This is foolhardy," Gentle reminded Zach.

"I know," Zach replied. "It's dangerous, and stupid," he paused and then finished, "but isn't everything we do?"

"No," Gentle replied. Zach's eyes widened behind his visor, and Gentle continued sternly, "Most of the time, we do things smart. Plans. Looking ahead. We have no knowledge of what is below, only that it wants to kill us." The others around Gentle and those behind him all looked at the man in purple and black, wondering if he was not going to go after saying that. "However," Gentle continued. "Only acting when we have detailed plans would mean that we act purely on logic. I am an emotional man, and I too," his voice got harsher and his fists tightened at his sides. " _Hate_ the idea of this place."

"Then we're in agreement," Zach said. He stepped towards the elevator and Exodus moved out of his way so Zach could see the three men standing behind him. "How about you?" Zach asked them. He stared at Titan in the middle of the three, "We could use your help."

"After hearing all that," Titan started. The two on his sides had intense expressions on their faces just like their team leader's, and Titan was no longer giving Death an angry look. He just stared at the teen seriously and nodded while finishing, "There is nothing that would keep us from going down there with you."

The shift in tone from the last conversation Zach had been having with Titan in the elevator shocked the teen who did not realize just how motivational he had sounded to the terrified people around him. As scared as he had said that he was too, all of them were feeling it. Even Exodus had felt unease at the idea of going down below, but all unease was gone from his body. He walked with Zach towards the elevator in a calm, and confident way. The others all walked with him, and Sandlot took in a deep breath before following after his fellow heroes back into the elevator themselves.

"Are y'all sure you want to do this?" Rebel asked, after staying silent for most of what he just listened to.

"Going that far down," Access began afterwards, having been too shocked silent by all Zach had said to speak for a minute there. "I doubt I'll be able to keep in contact with you."

"Just keep the helicopter safe," Zach said. "And help Rebel decrypt any files if you can. Rebel, I want you to…" Zach paused and he took a deep breath while turning around in the elevator to face the open doors. Everyone piled into the small box, and Zach took a deep breath before continuing in a loud enough voice for everyone around him to hear, "I want you to call up the others from Wales. Get them here, we might need reinforcements."

"You got it," Rebel replied.

"Why mention Wales?" Gentle asked with a shake of his head in annoyance.

"They're coming with us," Zach said, looking to his left instead of his right. He turned to Titan instead of Gentle, and he spoke directly to the man, "So I'll trust them right now. Besides, Titan was mad I was going to bring more terrorists here, so now he knows that I'm not calling anyone else into the country. They're already here." Zach looked back forward and then stepped to the front right corner of the elevator that Yuri pulled away from a bit to let Zach do this. "What do you guys think?" Zach asked, looking down at the buttons while the elevator doors closed in front of him. It was the first time they closed since it was the first time no one had a foot in the door or part of their body to keep them open.

"Start on B1, sweep straight down from there," Titan said. Some of Death's comrades were surprised that he was over the previous comment so quickly, but Titan agreed as soon as he stepped in that elevator that whatever problems they had with each other were on hold for now. "We'll block up the shaft with the elevator. It might be the only way up and down, so if we go too far at first they could sneak out."

"Might actually be a good idea to leave someone up here," Sandlot joked. No one laughed, and he quickly said, "Not me though. I'm not saying-"

"First basement it is then," Zach concurred with Titan. He pressed the button, then he nodded to himself as he remembered what he had to do first. Zach reached up and he pressed two fingers into the side by side buttons with arrows on them. "Ten seconds to unlock the elevator," he said.

"Should be able to keep speaking with you down there," Access began. "At least for a couple floors down. You should-"

 **Clank** Zach started taking his hand off of the buttons to reach to B1, but the clanking noise he just heard repeated and the whole elevator jolted. **CLANK!** Everyone wobbled around, and Zach stared at the buttons of the shaft with his eyes wide as B13 lit up immediately and flashed bright yellow. _**CLANK!**_ "Grab hold!" Zach shouted as this time the jolt was followed with a very fast spinning sound.

The elevator dropped. Through the hole on the ceiling, sparks could be seen flying while the wires holding up the elevator let it drop so fast that they were speeding down the floors shown on a digital reader above the closed elevator doors. Access was shouting at them but his voice cut off as they dropped too deep into the ground. Titan slammed his hands to his left and into the side of the elevator, and the elevator enlarged. The walls of the elevator slammed into the outsides of the shaft and started grinding down the wall so much harder that the whole shaft above them was full of sparks. The elevator jolted but started slowing down, gradually instead of all at once which would have smashed all of them into the floor. Finally there was a second jolt where Titan stopped enlarging the elevator at the perfect size to stop it.

Yuri was grabbing hold of the railing above his head while crouched down and pressed as hard as he could into the wall. The blond man was breathing fast, glad he had taken off his helmet as he would have been hyperventilating inside it. "Fuck!" He shouted, and he pushed himself back up to his legs he needed to smack to get steady.

Gentle and Exodus steadied themselves on their feet, then Dryout and Sandlot recovered pretty quickly too. Sandlot glanced down to his left where Wreck'd was pressed into the wall with a scared look on his face, his life having just flashed in front of his eyes. Wreck'd looked back at him, then he looked over Sandlot's head and to the digital reader over the door. Then Wreck'd's head slowly lifted and he stared through the hole in the ceiling and up into the darkness rising so high above them that it was just pitch black up there. "Why?" He whispered in frustration at the darkness above.

"Everyone alright?" Zach asked after steadying himself and his own expression. He looked around, but all the others seemed to be fine. He turned to the doors in front of him again and then above them at the red B11 he saw on the digital reader. "Either something just tried getting us down to B13 fast, or it could have been the doctor who was down there before. He might've done something to try and get the elevator down, and it was just it being locked that stopped him."

"Yeah, yeah the elevator wasn't trying to kill us," Yuri agreed with a nod. A few of the others looked towards the man who frowned at those looks. "What?" He asked, darting Dryout a pissed-off look at his gaze.

"Didn't think you were so jumpy," Dryout just said to the man, surprising Yuri with his tone that was actually pretty friendly as much as it was serious and taunting too.

It made Yuri grin and the Russian just said with a cool run of his right hand up through his hair, "Didn't even faze me."

"Let's get out of here," Zach pressed the open doors button on the elevator, and he frowned as the doors did not respond.

"Allow me," Exodus said while moving forward in the cramped space. He pulled out a short sword from the right side of his waist and he jammed the point into the crack of the doors. He pushed out to one side a bit, then he snapped his left hand off the hilt and slipped his fingers into the crack. Exodus put his blade away and then grabbed the other door curling his fingers around the inside. He pulled apart and spread the doors wide enough that he could fit through, which meant all the others would be able to fit through as well. Exodus rose his right hand with a sphere of white light forming in it, and he let it float off his palm with his eyes flashing white behind his visor.

The hallway outside of the elevator illuminated brighter from the dim red tint it had. Exodus stepped out of the elevator fearlessly, unfazed by how far they had dropped or how far beneath the surface of the Earth he was now. None of them could remember ever being this far below the surface before. It was a bit unnerving, on top of all the other reasons to be scared already. The eleventh basement's floor was a bit above the floor of the elevator, and each of them had to take a big step to get out of the elevator onto the floor above. Yuri was slow to do it, glancing back at Titan before stepping up like he was afraid the elevator would fall when he was halfway out and bisect him. Titan nodded at him in a serious way to show he had it, and Yuri nodded back before stepping out of the elevator after Wreck'd.

Nine members of their team stepped out into the hallway brightly illuminated by Exodus' floating light sphere. Yuri kept the flashlight on his assault rifle on anyway as he rose it up in his hands and started scanning down the hall to his right. He aimed the flashlight a bit towards a cracked-open door down the way, then he pointed it the other direction and at a broken glass window covering half the hallway. Wreck'd coughed a couple of times to make sure his throat was cleared. Dryout pulled tightly down on the ends of his gray gloves over his wrists to make sure they were tight to his hands, then he curled his four fingers in on each hand a couple times and cracked his knuckles.

Titan pulled his right hand out of his pocket with some loose blunt debris that was actually very specifically made which one could see if they stared close enough. The thin grooves in each piece and bumps that he could feel in his clenched hand told him what kind of pieces he had just pulled out of his pouch, and he took in a deep breath while stepping down the hallway that went straight out from the elevator instead of the horizontal one that the team spread out a bit in after exiting. Sandlot looked at the solid ground and he tapped his boots down a couple times to check its hardness, and he grimaced as it did not seem his Quirk would be very useful down there. On his sand-colored gloves were thin metal plates over his knuckles though, imbedded into the material with shock absorbers on the insides so his fists would not feel it as much as whatever he hit would. He stepped after Titan just as Death did a few feet to his right. Sandlot glanced over at the shorter figure who moved forward with one hand free and a knife in his other. "Now what?" He asked in a semi-nervous voice, looking from Death back forward to Titan.

Exodus pulled the light sphere floating in the air of the hallway crossing in front of the elevator to the one that Death just started down after Titan. He floated it forward while moving after Death to stay close. Yuri backed up after first moving to the right in that hallway, and he kept scanning his flashlight around as the hall started to get darker. He rose the gun a bit to point his powerful light to the end of the hall and a set of double doors down there. The hallway had white walls and doors, and if not for the dim lighting and red emergency lights it would seem a lot like a normal hallway of a hospital or laboratory.

"We have to move up," Titan said. "I don't like the idea of anything down here getting out without us knowing what it is."

"Agreed," Zach said, though then he stopped walking. He looked down the hall a bit that was getting more illuminated as Exodus floated his sphere up over Death's head a couple feet so it was just below the ceiling panels.

"Stairs are that way," Wreck'd started, looking at a sign on the wall to his right that he pointed his rifle up at with his flashlight on now. He looked down the hall after Titan who was already on the right path, and he wondered if the hero had saw the sign already and started that way intentionally. "We should-" Wreck'd became quiet as he looked down the hallway. There was a metal cart dragged almost all the way out of a room, propping a door open with some medical equipment on it splayed about. There were some scalpels on the floor and a couple papers too next to the cart. Just past that cart, at the edge of the range of their illumination, the ceiling was missing one of its panels.

The missing rectangular white panel made a gap of blackness on the ceiling, but there was something hanging out of that hole dropping down a foot and a half and not moving. It was black, and it got thinner down towards the bottom. Gentle looked towards the panel and he could not help it. "Tako?" He muttered.

"'Taco?'" Dryout repeated in response, looking out the corners of his eyes at the man on his side like he was crazy.

Gentle shook his head as the word had just come out without him thinking. He stared towards what looked like the end of a black tentacle to him, and he leaned his head to the side to look closer into that panel. _I do not know why I assume it is an octopus. Please, be an octopus though. I would very much appreciate it._ Gentle took a step forward, and everyone else in the hall started moving again after staring at the unmoving tentacle for a few seconds.

"Careful," Zach said while walking forward, looking up towards the open panel that clearly had something stuffed inside it.

Titan nodded his head, and then he called out while continuing forward at the front of the group, "If anyone is here, we have come to save you." Half of the people behind him held their breaths and wished Titan would just shut his mouth instead of announcing their presence there. A couple of them remembered how loud the elevator skidding down the shaft was though, and they tried calming themselves with the unnerving thought that everyone here already knew where they were. Titan continued while looking straight at the panel he was stepping closer towards now, "But any hostile actions will be met by force. I am Titan, a pro hero. We have come to get you out of here."

Zach started lifting the knife in his right hand, and he took another step forward while darting his eyes from Titan back to the missing ceiling panel. He looked farther down the hall as Exodus moved their light source forward, then he shifted his gaze back to the hole in the ceiling that he hoped would be a bit more illuminated too. The others back in the hallway outside of the elevator had all stepped into the intersecting hall at this point. Yuri took up the far rear with Pastor on his left side, and Pastor pulled out a pair of sharp black crosses as his hearts both raced faster in this ominous situation. He kept his head on a slow swivel, though Yuri was mostly focused behind them already keeping guard in case anything tried running up on their backs.

 **THUD** _**Crash!**_ Back in the hallway they just left, and to the left of the hallway they all spun around in, something smashed down the double doors Yuri had pointed his rifle at before heading to the next hall. He called out, "Something's coming!" He took steps back while yelling it too, as he heard that loud noise and some breaking glass that sounded like it was the perfect distance as those two doors at the end of that hall. He figured they had a couple of seconds, and he backed up faster and started turning his head to see the rest of the members in the hall had all spun his direction after hearing those noises. Yuri dropped his gun as he spun around.

Zach's eyes shot open huge as he saw the pure terror cross Yuri's face in an instant. Zach's eyes flashed red. His head started spinning around while Yuri's gun was slipping out of his fingers. The gun was halfway down and some others started turning, while Zach had already finished spinning around to look back ahead of him. _**Vrrvrvrvrv!**_ The knife he was lifting in his right hand trembled and his red eyes lost that shade as fear overtook his intense urge to act. He stared in front of him at the black tentacle that Yuri had seen dropping out of the ceiling and curving menacingly around Titan's head. He stared at it in terror, because the tentacle snapped over Titan's face and yanked him straight up into the ceiling in an instant. Half of Titan's body went straight through the dark hole in the ceiling before it slowed at all, but at the same time that the bottom half of his body slowed its rise into the ceiling, a spray of red shot out of the hole. It slammed all over the floor violently splashing onto the front of Zach's costume too, some blood hitting him in the front of his helmet's visor.

The bottom half of Titan's body started pulling up too which shook Zach from his terror enough to pull his knife back, only for the body jolting about with waving legs to get sucked up into the roof and a huge spray of blood and guts to blast down onto the floor. It was like he got sucked into a woodchipper in the ceiling, and the noises coming from through that hole that sounded like someone revving a chainsaw and the crunching of bones combined was the most horrifying sound Zach had ever heard. Until a voice roared from the end of the hallway behind him, _**"RRAAAAGGAA!"**_ It was high-pitched and rabid, and the group who just spun towards where blood sprayed out of the ceiling spun around to see a ten foot tall creature with shoulders eight feet broad, red fur sticking out of his body all over, and claws beneath his four feet that he skid into the intersection of the hallways on shredding through the floor with his slide that showed he had been moving too fast.

"TITAN!" Dryout shouted towards the ceiling panel he started running towards.

Sandlot was staring in horror towards the red floor that got dimmer as the white sphere in the air disappeared to leave only the emergency lights left. _What-_ "Focus!" Wreck'd shouted, grabbing Sandlot and yanking him backwards which was closer to the red pool he was staring at. Wreck'd stepped the other way and dropped down to his right knee while raising his rifle still with a white beam of light sticking out the end. "Yuri grab your fucking gun!"

Yuri dropped down fast, snapping his head backwards as he saw where Wreck'd was looking while shouting in that much fear. Pastor threw both of his cross shurikens towards the beast that almost skid past their hallway but scraped its legs down on the ground over and over to pull itself back to the spot it could see them. It looked their ways with eyes that looked pitch black, and it snarled at them with its face twitching about and snapping back and forth. It leaned its head back and started roaring again, and its head started splitting apart into three, then snapped back together, then it vibrated like its head was trying to break apart just like its legs and body. It vibrated in a way that it looked like a blurry demon and its roar came out broken and agonized.

A form dropped out of the ceiling. It was pitch black and slender over its whole slim body. It had long lanky arms and legs and a thin sharp tail sticking out behind its slender body. Its head was flat and smooth with no features on it at all, and Exodus ran forward and slammed his shield down in front of Zach who just threw a knife at the creature. The creature's back opened up, the smooth surface peeling apart and eight long tentacles shooting up in the air and waving forward all at once. The shield Exodus slammed down glowed on the top and outsides, and a translucent wall of white spread out from the shield all the way to the walls and ceiling. Three tentacles shooting forward with the tips of them covered in small suction cups slammed into the shield, and from the tips to halfway down their lengths they incinerated. The tentacles pulled back, still searing and burning farther down them, and the smooth head of the creature before them opened up. It opened outwards and upwards and downwards, a dozen flaps of face pulling apart and revealing that each was covered in blades that started spinning around violently so much louder than when they came from the ceiling.

Blood splashed out of the sharp spinning mouth of the creature that charged at the shield Exodus had up, and Exodus lowered his head to look to the right at his leader who spun back and forth and then slammed his right hand into his chest. His knife had slid right off of the monster's body, _It's worse than a Nomu. This thing is fucked! It's a monster! But-_ Zach's body erupted in darkness, and Exodus stopped using his Quirk while pulling his shield away. The monster was heading straight for his black shield instead of the walls of clear white spreading off of it, and its front claws it reached out on its long arms went through air as Exodus pulled his shield away too fast. Zach grabbed the monster's arms and then spun and threw the beast towards the wall on his left. Darkness spread from his hands onto the monster he was grabbing, and by the time it hit the wall its flaps were drooping and the blades inside them were no longer spinning. The tentacles whipping towards Zach missed or were knocked away by Gentle who raced forward and bounced one away with his Elasticity.

"Titan," Dryout whispered again, looking past the three in front of him and reaching one of his big shaky hands out.

"Death!" Yuri shouted out, while stumbling backwards and firing his assault rifle towards the beast that started charging them.

Death spun and he shot down the hall. He swerved out of the way of Dryout, and he yelled, "Focus! No one else is allowed to die!" Zach lifted his right hand as he ran down the hallway, and he threw his hand forward and shouted, "Death Grenade!"

The massive beast covered in red fur that was running down the hallway was flinching with each bullet that slammed into it, but it just kept running while looking like it was glitching about inside a video game. Its face looked to be pulling apart from itself, its eyes multiplying and pulling away on its face, and each foot that was coming down would occasionally miss the floor beneath it and hit down a few feet to the side as the leg faded and reappeared there in an instant. Yet Zach threw his sphere of Death straight down the hall while wrapped in the black aura of Nightmare form. And he crushed his right hand into a fist when the Death Grenade was a few feet in front of the charging monster, and all the shrapnel and the explosion of Death blew away filling the hall and slamming into the monster running their way.

Yuri let out a deep breath on Zach's left, lowering his gun a bit. Pastor stopped backing up behind Zach on his right, and Wreck'd let out a couple more breaths before starting to lower his rifle. And then a hole blew open in the middle of the Death explosion in the middle of the hall, and thuds slammed down on the ground, and the monster's front claws dragged backwards while it sprinted out of the explosion of Darkness only six meters in front of them. "Impossible," Zach whispered, taking a step back as the monster covered in red fur sprinted straight at him. His arms shook at his sides and his red eyes were enormous inside his visor, "That's-"

"Death move!" Yuri yelled, while pushing back into a cracked doorway himself and falling into the next room. Pastor jumped backwards farther from Death, and Gentle and Exodus lost their shocked looks and started running the other direction towards him.

Zach's red eyes opened even wider as his mind was shaken from what just happened to the fact that hundreds of pounds of monster was sprinting at him from a couple meters away and lifting its right claw to try and swing into him. "Move!" A voice yelled on his right, and Zach's red eyes darted to the side right as two hands reached into his aura and pushed him. Zach fell, a claw flew over his falling body only inches over his black aura so more of it even covered that claw for a second. The fact that it covered the claw did not make the monster's claw slow down at all before it slammed into Wreck'd and slammed the man back into the wall behind him so hard that his skull cracked on it and blood splattered out all over.

"Wreck'd!" Yuri shouted while standing up inside the room he had dove into. He fired out at the monster, then he snapped his head down as he felt something grab him by the ankle. "AH! FUCK!" **Bang-bang-bang…** Yuri pointed his gun down and sprayed at the red arm covered in bumps, then he dragged his rifle to the side and lit up the arm all the way to the body of a thin man in a torn white coat who made Yuri open his eyes huge as he suddenly realized what he was shooting at. He still only realized it once his gun started clicking to show he had run out of ammo in his magazine, and then he started stumbling backwards as he stared at the horrified face covered in bullet holes with one going through his left eye. Yuri tripped as he still felt a hand grabbing him by the ankle, even though he ripped the end of the arm off when he stumbled back after shredding through it with so many bullets.

"What's going on in there?!" Gentle shouted to his left, before spinning back down to the hall to look where he and Exodus just sent their huge monster rolling. Exodus had his shield risen on his right arm and his spear in his left, and both were covered in white light just as there was white light shining through Exodus' visor. He turned his head to the right for a second to the splat of red on the wall around where Wreck'd collided, and then he threw his spear forward down the hallway. The spear flew like a missile straight at the monster that just pushed itself back up on all fours. The spear was about to slam straight into the face of the beast, when the beast's black eyes opened wider, and then its head started pulling apart as the spear was about to hit it. The spear went between the gap of the splitting heads, then it went between the gap in the bodies as the beast completely ripped in two and split apart from itself.

"Everyone run!" Zach shouted, scrambling backwards and yelling to both sides of the hallway. He stopped and then sprinted forward towards Wreck'd body. "Get to the stairs and regroup! Exodus put up a shield!" Zach slid up to Wreck'd and grabbed his body, and he picked him up and started running again inside his Nightmare form. "Come on," Zach whispered, and as he ran he looked down at the man he was carrying. "Come on! Work!" He yelled it, and he forced as much of the Death surrounding his body to fill into the man he was running with. _Is it because he touched me before- I didn't feel a power boost though! It should work! I didn't kill him!_ "Wreck'd God damn it! Come back!"

"Death!" Pastor shouted at the boy running ahead of him carrying Wreck'd and running without paying attention behind him.

Zach spun expecting Pastor to be shouting about the monster chasing them, but Exodus had thrown a shield up farther down the hall. What Pastor was looking at was a trail of blood following Zach all the way back to where he picked Wreck'd up, where there were chunks of skull and a whole lot of brain scattered about and still sliding down the wall. Zach looked towards Wreck'd's face. It looked horrifying, worse than the monster that had died so horribly up outside of the building. He lifted his right hand on Wreck'd's back up towards his head, and he clenched his eyes tightly for a second, _Why'd you take off your fucking helmet?_ Zach's hands slipped off of Wreck'd's back and the inside of his skull that his right hand just slid straight into. They slipped off, because he could not hold Wreck'd anymore. He let go instead of carrying his comrade's body with him anymore, because up ahead he saw Dryout, Sandlot, and Yuri all stop as a couple of figures just ran out of another intersection.

"More sacrifices!" One of them called out, and he rose up a broken metal pipe that was sharp at the end and covered in blood. The three who just ran out were followed by another two, and Zach sped forward and leapt over the heads of the heroes and his comrade who did not know what to do. Yuri started fumbling with a magazine for ammo, while the people who were about to charge at the three lifted their heads instead to the dark form rising through the red air of the hallway.

Zach swept his right hand towards the figures, and his red eyes opened huge as they all started falling inside the Death Wind. He swept his Death away as he was afraid he used too much for a second, because he was trying to see if it would work at all. He landed in front of the others and stared at the men and women he just took down, then he looked past them and down the hallway where he saw blood splattered on the walls and bodies splayed about all over the place. It was a stark contrast to the white hallway they had entered in, and Zach stared down that hall with flickering red lights all the way to the end where he saw a woman pinned upside-down to the wall with her arms spread out like she was on an upside-down cross, crucified. She was surrounded in sharp wire tying up her bare skin, and the floors were completely red through the entire hallway. And Zach saw a couple of other figures down at the end of the hallway, turning their direction.

"Get to the stairs!" Zach yelled, his deep voice cracking as he backed away from the hallway he just looked down. After shouting it though, he spotted a sign on his left side on the wall that had 'Stairwell —' pointing right down the hallway he just backed off from. He grit his teeth and then yelled again, "FOLLOW ME!" Zach shot down the hallway, his feet squishing on the bloody floor, and he was breathing faster and faster as he charged the two men who went from pointing his way to backing away with terrified looks on their faces covered in boils. Zach shot faster towards them once they turned their backs to him for a moment, and he slammed fists of darkness into their backs and knocked them out.

 _Why are they getting knocked out? Why didn't that- WHY DIDN'T THAT THING?!_

"Death!" Gentle's voice filled Zach's helmet. "Something came up behind us. It's on fire!"

Zach spun around and he looked back down the hallway all the way to where he saw a flaring orange light. "I'm coming-"

"We'll deal with it," Gentle snapped. "But that thing we were facing that split apart ran different directions back in the hallway outside the elevator. And the elevator just started down the shaft again!"

 _Titan's power!_ Zach realized with his eyes huge. If the hero team's leader's power cut off, returning the elevator to its original size, it was no longer stuck in place in the shaft. _Is it on B13? What's down- is it Miles Wilson trying to escape? Or, or could it even be… God? Fuck!_ "Everyone back to the surface!" Zach yelled at the top of his lungs. Everyone in the hallway with him and back in the last one listened as the shout carried around the hallway. "The new priority mission, is to survive! But we also cannot let anyone escape! Get to the stairs and get up as fast as possible!" Zach looked around at the group of four behind him, "Let's move. Gentle and Exodus will follow right behind us!"

Zach turned off Nightmare as the hallway was empty except for his comrades. _Don't waste Death. Basement 11. I'm so fucked. We're so fucked. Why did I bring us down here?!_ As Zach shouted it at himself, he started running down the hall towards the woman upside-down on the cross again. He ran towards her, and he slid his fingers out of his right glove with the most horrified look on his face, as he saw her chest heave. The sharp wires wrapped around her were wrapped in places to cut her but not kill her, and the spikes in her wrists and hands and feet were not bleeding enough either. He slammed his right hand into the woman as fast as he could, not caring that he would not be able to bring her back after he did it. The instant kill filled him with power, and it also filled him with a confidence that fueled his rage. _Why is this happening? Why does this exist?! WHO DID THIS?!_ _ **HOW DID DEATH NOT WORK ON HIM!?**_

"Death!" Yuri yelled to his left. Zach turned and saw Yuri and the heroes all moving to his right at the end of the hall Zach just ran into with the woman pinned to the wall in the intersection. All three of the people Zach just turned to had scared and nervous looks on their faces, but Yuri had his gun grabbed and reloaded, and the heroes were handling their team leader's death for the moment after hearing Zach's orders. "This way!" Yuri shouted, and he turned and started running where the sign motioned and where he could see an open doorway up ahead with stairs on the other side. The heroes ran behind Yuri and started talking to each other about how what they've seen was already means for calling in every hero to assist.

Zach started after them, and Pastor ran up to his side as Zach no longer had Death surrounding him. "There was nothing you could do for Wreck'd," Pastor began, and Zach darted his eyes to his right side for a second while continuing to run. "But that does not mean there is nothing you can do for the rest of these people." Pastor turned his head more and Zach's eyes opened wider at the former priest who did not sound as afraid as Zach felt.

"What can we do for them?" Zach asked. "The experimenters who did this? The monsters? The religious fanatics?!"

"We can save them," Pastor said. Zach bit down hard, and he clenched his eyes shut as he knew he was contradicting everything he had said upstairs solely in his own fear. "Lead us through this, please," Pastor said, and Zach's eyes snapped open wide as he finally heard the fear in the man's voice. Pastor looked back forward himself towards the stairwell that Yuri, Sandlot, and Dryout were waiting for them inside of. "Only you can guide us though-"

Zach and Pastor spun their heads to the right of the door they were sprinting at. They looked down the hallway and watched as something skid out of a different hall and started running right away. It did not have as much mass as before to need to shift its momentum as much, and the beast covered in red fur that was only eight feet tall now barreled down the hall and slammed a claw to the side into a woman with long black hair that she started waving up in the air with a mad smirk on her face. She let out a scream of pain as she was thrown to the side and through a cracked glass window into the room next to her. "It was a fluke," Zach snarled, and he slammed his right hand into his chest again. "Pastor, get in the stairwell and shut the door!"

Pastor did so without question. He sprinted into the doorway and Dryout slammed the door shut as fast as he could. Yuri ran past Dryout and slammed his back into the door, trying to hold it shut only for the man in front of him with big hands to pull him back. "You can't get touched by that," he started. Dryout looked at the door and beneath it where the red glow he could see got completely dark, and black wisps started sliding under the door to where Yuri's feet would have been. "Death, he's Zach Sazaki, right?" Dryout asked, looking at Yuri who turned and stared back into his eyes from a few feet away.

"No," Yuri replied with a shake of his head. He turned to the door himself and took a step farther back while tightening his grip on his assault rifle. His expression hardened more and he said in a low voice thick with a Russian accent, "He's just Death."

Pastor looked at the stairs down that were blocked up by furniture that seemed to be piled there intentionally to either keep stuff from going up or going down. He lifted his head and looked up the stairs though, and he was glad there was no blockage in that direction. He turned his head as he heard a loud roar through the doorway again, and he spoke into his helmet, "Death, do you need assistance?"

Zach was panting as he faced off ten meters away from the monster of red fur. It was still standing, even as black flames and wisps sizzled or faded away around it. Zach ground his teeth in fury, even as sweat covered his face through his black veil. His power was stronger now after taking the life of the crucified woman, and he was sure this time he had surrounded the monster in his Quirk. The beast was smaller now too having split itself in half, and though it was not half its original size, Zach had hoped it was significantly weaker. It stood there and took all of his Death only shaking its head in annoyance at the hits, then its head started breaking apart again and it split into three slightly smaller versions of itself while Zach was glaring at it.

Zach pulled out a pair of knives and flicked them around in his hands. He shot forward inside his black aura, and he growled, "You're not real. You don't make sense," he was speaking quieter than could be heard in his helmet, intentionally as he knew he had to lead his comrades right now. His face was covered in rage though, his skeletal jaw twisted behind his helmet's visor. "What are you?!" Zach yelled, and he slid forward to slide under the swipe of a claw of the one on the left. Another jumped up on the wall on Zach's right, and he threw a knife at it only for the beast right in front of him to jump up towards the other on the wall that bounced towards it. The two of them merged into a bigger one that slammed both claws down towards where Zach was finishing his slide. Zach barrel-rolled to his left and barely dodged the beast's right claw, then he flipped his legs up over his head to dodge the smaller of the two that tried slamming on his body.

Zach bounced off the ground as he flipped over himself, and he flicked his blackened knives forward into the faces of the creatures. He hit the smaller of the two in its right eye and it stumbled back with blood spurting out of its face. The other got slashed in its left cheek, blood splashing away from its face which had the thinnest cover of red fur as anywhere on its body. _I can hurt it,_ Zach realized, flipping onto his feet and then stepping away. _I can, hurt it? How? If- if it can be hurt, if it can bleed!_

The creatures charged, and then a voice yelled, "GENTLY SANDWICH!" The air vibrated near the ceiling, and below it, and below that, and in five different points where Elastic barriers formed and started bouncing off each other powerfully squishing the beasts below them down into the floor. Gentle had come from down the other side of the hall, and he shot past his squished enemies and to the dark form that he yelled at, "Let's go!"

"Where's Exodus?!" Zach shouted, snapping out of his shock with a panicked yell.

"We were separated," Exodus replied into their helmets. "But I am alright. Keep on without me. I will meet you above."

"He's fine, now let's go," Gentle sped towards the staircase that he threw the door of open. "Upstairs. Now!" He shouted at the four on the other side who all rose weapons or fists at him. They all nodded and started running up the stairs while the man with a purple visor on his helmet spun back the other way. "Death! Let's go!"

Zach turned to Gentle, and then he looked back at the creatures trying to drag themselves out from beneath the Gently Sandwich pushing them into the floor. "They aren't affected by Death," Zach said. He turned off Nightmare and looked closer at the face of the smaller one that started sliding into the bigger one, only for the faces to start pulling apart again like it was unstable and breaking apart. And as that happened, and the bloody eye no longer had his knife in it but was still bloodshot, and only a scar remained from the gash on the bigger one's face once it merged, Zach saw pain on that face. "It's alive though-"

Gentle grabbed him by the shoulder and shouted down at him, "Don't think about it too hard! Let's go!" He spun Zach and started running for the stairs, and Zach's feet picked up and followed after him.

Zach's eyes were pointed down at the ground as he ran, then they trembled and started lifting up. Zach was shook. He stared at Gentle's back while the man with a purple cape glanced back towards him, and Zach pulled his head back right as he entered the stairwell. "You know!" Zach yelled.

"I don't know anything!" Gentle yelled right back. He spun after getting in the stairs, then he slammed his hand into the outside of the pulled-in doorway, before slamming the Elasticized door shut. If anything tried smashing it down now they would be bounced back the other way, and he took in a deep breath as they got off that Hell-like floor. He glanced to the stairs down, then to the ones up where Pastor was waiting at the midway point for them to enter the stairwell. Once they got inside, Pastor looked up and nodded and started running up again. Gentle started up the stairs too, only for Zach to grab him by his purple cloak. "Let go of me," Gentle began a warning.

"Death kills everything," Zach said. He let go of Gentle's cloak and the man kept facing away from him. "It _always_ kills-"

"Well this time it didn't. Whatever they did-"

"Always!" Zach shouted. The men up the stairwell stopped on B10's floor and glanced down as they heard that shout. Pastor and Yuri listened in their headsets too in confusion at what their leader was shouting about right now. "Since I was a kid, everything I- It's always worked! On anything alive that is!"

"So you're saying," Gentle began. "That what we were just facing isn't alive at all-"

"NO!" Zach roared at him. "You know, that it was! It was alive!" Zach clenched his eyes shut, and then he yelled, "Any animal, or plant, or human! Death always works against them, except in one instance!" Zach snapped his head forward and his eyes opened wide, and Gentle ground his teeth in anger while turning back more towards the teen shouting at him. "It's why I can't bring someone back to life a second time!" Zach yelled, his hands shaking at his sides and his breath speeding up.

"Don't do this to yourself," Gentle started warning.

"Because Death doesn't work on people I've brought back before!" Zach finished shouting anyway. "Why didn't it work on him!? It worked on the others here! Even on other monsters!" Zach's fists clenched so hard and then trembled and opened up as he let out a gasp, his heart pounding so violently as the thoughts he was trying to form kept making him scream internally to stop. "You know why-"

"Get a grip!" Gentle shouted in Japanese, stepping back down the stairs and glaring at the boy who froze with his mouth open during his last shout. "We are dying down here! Think about that later, and think about getting us out of this shit hole right now." Gentle reached forward both hands and grabbed the sides of Zach's helmet. "Listen to me," he started in a lower voice. "We can still figure out what is going on here. If we can calm down, prepare ourselves for what we know is down here _better_ than we were last time! And we need you for that. Understand me?"

 _"We." Not "they."_ Zach closed his mouth and he started nodding at Gentle. He had sweat on his face he wanted to wipe off but was actually glad he could not as he did not want to make such a nervous action in front of his comrade. _Usually you talk about it like you're not one of them. One of my Army of Death. Maybe it's because we're all in this together. Maybe it's because we could die right now. But it doesn't matter how old you are. How old anyone is. I created the Army of Death. I led you all down here. I can't lose my shit._ Zach started jogging up the stairs, and he turned the corner and sprinted up to B10 where the others were gathered.

Gentle watched Zach run ahead for a moment and then chased after him. He took a deep breath and cooled down a bit himself. He glanced over his shoulder as he heard a roar come from the floor below, and he found himself speeding up to catch up with the others. Zach stopped at the tenth floor's platform and stared up the stairs with a dark look, seeing on the next in-between of the floors a bit splash of red on the walls and steps, and an arm sticking out from beneath the broken steps above that had collapsed down on someone.

"Can we clear this?" Sandlot asked, glancing to his side at Dryout.

Dryout stepped up in front of the group and turned his head to try and see above the collapsed rubble in the steps. "If I dry out the base and there's too much weight above pushing down, it'll come crashing down."

"I could slip through," Yuri said, then he grimaced while turning back to Death. "I really don't want to head up on my own though-"

"We'll stick together," Zach told him with a nod. "We don't lose anyone else," he stated firmly, looking around at the men with him.

"Onto the tenth then," Gentle said. He stepped up to the door with B10 labeled next to it, and he opened the door up with his other hand lifted ready to attack. "We must move quickly back to the elevator across the basement," he said as he stepped through into a hallway.

"The elevator?" Sandlot asked while walking out with his fellow hero behind him.

"Gentle can get us up the elevator shaft," Zach said, and he nodded as that seemed like the best idea to him. "And the elevator might not actually be broken," he added in a lower voice.

"Might not be any other way up too," Yuri added. He rose up his rifle and aimed down the hall in one direction, pointing his flashlight through the red-tinted hallway all the way to the end. He turned the other way and pointed the flashlight to the other end, and he said in a soft tone, "Anyone see another hallway we could take from here?"

Gentle had been the first into the hallway, and he responded since he had already checked, "I do not. It must be through the door," he turned to his left and looked towards a thick steel door that was cracked open a bit across the hall from the stairwell's exit. The group started over towards the door, each of them staying on guard with weapons or fists raised.

"Exodus, check in," Zach said. He continued towards the steel door with a grappling gun in his left hand and his right free for now. He slowed though and he lifted a hand to his helmet to tap a button on the side a couple of times. "Exodus?"

"Well that's not good," Yuri said.

"What?" Dryout asked the man on his side who did not hear Death speaking into the comm link. Yuri relayed what they were not hearing, and Zach just asked one more time before tightening his grip on his grappling gun. "We should go back for him," Dryout replied after hearing Yuri's explanation.

"No," Zach said. He stepped forward to the metal door Gentle was waiting at while looking back at him. "We have to assume it's the comms. Exodus is strong, he'll meet us up there."

"And if he doesn't?" Dryout asked ahead of him.

"He will," Zach replied. He grabbed the steel door and pushed it forward. Zach stepped inside, and he stopped just inside the next room that split the hallway they were in from the elevator they knew to be across the basement. _I don't know what I was expecting,_ Zach started thinking to himself. He stared around the bright room, strong white lights on the ceiling illuminating it and actually feeling hot down on him through his black costume. He started forward while trying to ignore the grass below his feet and the trees around him on his sides. _Is this a courtyard? What the-_ Zach tried not to stare, but his feet stopped moving with his head pointed to the right and a tree with some green foliage on the branches and canopy. He stared at the brown bark that had black lines cutting through it like veins, just like the leaves that he stared at a bit closer when he noticed black lines on them too.

"Oh man," Yuri whispered under his breath, his tone shaky and higher-pitched than usual. He pointed his rifle towards trees, flicking off his flashlight for now so as to save the battery for rooms that would not be as lit up. "If the power's out everywhere else, why do they have this room all lit up still? And, and why is that tree bleeding?"

"This is weird man," Sandlot whispered.

"Stay frosty," Zach said. He did not mean it as a joke at all, and he started speeding up towards the opposite side of the room. A glance over his shoulder showed him the wall around the steel door and the inside of the door they just entered itself was painted to look like a beautiful scenery. There were rolling green hills and lush foliage that looked healthier than the trees and grass in this room. Yet as Zach looked around at the walls behind him that matched the ones up ahead, he ground his teeth in anger to try and quash his fear. "And everyone move!" Zach called out, and he started running, because there were black lines moving up the walls.

Yuri started blathering in Russian which mostly sounded like he was cursing. He lowered his rifle and just sprinted forward with the others, and Sandlot snapped his head to the side as he saw a thick black line carving through a tree started getting dark red instead, drips of liquid coming out of them. The red dripping down the bark started to drip down in a way that defied gravity, spreading across the tree in an arc instead that made it look like a twisted smile. "Something's in here!" Sandlot shouted.

"Dryout!" Zach yelled, snapping his head towards the man with big hands inside gray gloves. "Make us a hole!"

Zach could not see where the door on the wall was that just looked like the room kept going. Dryout sprinted forward and pressed his hands into the wall, and Zach slammed his right hand into his chest. He swung his right arm to the side and swept black Death across a few trees. He turned them completely black, and black lines started shirking down from the walls. Zach turned one way where the lines shrank down slowest, and he yelled, "Stay back or die! Your choice!" He rose his left palm and pointed his grappling gun that looked scary surrounded in swirling Death, and leaves started getting more green, trunks turned brown again, and darkness pulled all towards one corner of the room farthest from the team of six.

Pastor turned his head towards the dark figure covered in swirling wisps. "Death," Pastor began.

Zach turned to the man, then he slowly lowered his gun and attached it back to his waist. _Shit,_ Zach thought, and he turned off his Nightmare form. _Something's afraid of me. Some_ _ **one!**_ _These aren't things. They aren't monsters. They're people._ Zach stepped farther back into the room, and he called out in the direction all the dark lines had retreated to. "Is someone over there, who wants to get out of here?"

Yuri started picking back up his rifle, but Pastor put his hand on the top of the barrel and pushed it down. The Russian with a terrified look on his face started panting as he looked into Pastor's visor, then he slowed his breathing and gripped his gun tighter though lowering it. Sandlot turned to those two, then to his comrade who was turning the wall in front of him into sand quickly. The wall was falling apart in a rectangle with rough edges, and though it was thick, Dryout mentioned that he was almost through.

"Come out slowly," Zach said over towards a tree he saw some darkness behind. The tree itself started to get deformed, black lines cutting through it and then around the grass and floor on the sides of the tree. Zach kept his breathing steadier, and he said, "What's your name?"

Black lines on the floor next to the tree started shaking, then some of them pushed closer to Zach. Gentle stepped back closer to the shorter figure behind him, "Death."

"Wait," Zach said, as the dark lines stopped approaching him. They twisted around from the main mass that started decomposing the tree it was wrapped around. Zach stared at the black lines farthest forward that created a number in the floor. "Fourteen," Zach said. _"23!" It's an experiment. He, or she, is an experiment._ The others behind Zach turned even as Dryout finished breaking through the wall. Dryout turned too after hearing Death say that number, and he stepped farther back into the strange courtyard to look towards the black mass.

"It's a person," Sandlot whispered in shock.

"Are they sane though?" Gentle asked.

Zach darted a look at him, then he shifted it back to the darkness that fully decayed the tree and then swirled around like black snakes all over the ground over there. It was so thick and dense and yet it still spread wide, but Zach thought about how far those black lines had risen up every wall around them before. _It has a consciousness. Its body…_ "Do you know who you were?" Zach asked.

The black lines swirling around on the floor shifted forward a bit towards him again. Some split off, and they created the word 'YES' in the ground. Then the lines started breaking apart and reforming without being asked another question. They split apart and then pushed together into a thick black line in the ground. It was getting thicker and thicker, the end of it extending towards the group in front while more black lines from behind pushed into the line. And then the figures looking towards it started stepping back, because some of the black lines near the center-top of the line started breaking apart horizontally. The lines pushed away, creating a cross in the ground while the end of it started speeding up towards them.

"Oh fuck!" Yuri stumbled backwards and spun, sprinting towards the hole in the wall all of the others started running towards too.

"Is that God?!" Sandlot yelled.

"It could just be one of the followers," Zach shouted, as he ran behind all the others. He grit his teeth and then spun while almost at the hole in the wall, and he slammed his right hand into his chest again to erupt Death around him. "I gave you a chance!" Zach yelled towards the black mass that rose up like a wave behind him. Zach lifted his right arm and started swinging forward, and the wave froze. It froze, then it broke apart with dark lines shooting down into the ground and racing away like snakes. They shot up trees, and over to the walls, all breaking apart from each other individually and then rotting the walls they clung to and started moving along. Zach snapped his head left and right and watched as black lines started cutting through the walls, floors, and even over the lights on the ceiling to shadow over the room.

He stepped back in Nightmare, and he formed a Death Grenade in his hand and threw it down in the floor in the hole in the wall. He turned off Nightmare while turning and running into the red-lit hallway, screaming in his head a hope that the Death he just threw would slow that thing behind him. _Is this Hell?!_ Zach snapped his head to the left as he saw the wall start rotting, but when he looked that way through his visor instead of out his peripheral vision, the wall was its normal white state. _FUCK!_ He could not tell if his mind was playing tricks on him or if it was the experiment who he really did want to save. _Pastor is running too though! That shouldn't matter- I wasn't just doing it because he expected me to! Why am I down here?!_

"The elevator!" Yuri called out, pointing down the hall and to an intersection with a black sign on it barely lit up by the red emergency lights. The sign had an arrow pointing to the left where the elevator was, and the group of six sped up more before spinning and seeing closed doors for where the elevator shaft was.

"Let's get those doors open!" Zach called out.

They all started running towards the elevator, _**Ding.**_ All six of them stopped. They stared past the elevator doors as that ding rang out, because a door opened down the hallway after that noise, and a couple of figures with horns on their heads and disgusting bumps and boils on their skin started running towards them. The elevator doors opened, and _**Clank.**_ _**Sshhh…**_ They all recognized the sound, and most of them backed up as a large figure stepped out of the elevator, dragging a huge steel pipe with him that made sparks on the ground. Yuri bared his teeth and his face covered in fear, because just above the bottom of the pipe were four heads impaled and still spilling blood so there was a line of it dragging after the thick heavy weapon.

The man who stepped out of the elevator was facing straight forward, but he turned his head to the left after exiting so the six of them could see that the right side of his face was completely covered in burns. He had no eyelid, and no lips covering the right side of his mouth, yet he smiled in a horrifically disfigured way as he looked towards them. "More sacrifices," a voice they all recognized started.

"Miles," Zach began right back. He stepped towards the man with the long pipe who smiled more towards him after hearing that.

"You really came," Miles Wilson said in a happy tone. "To become my sacrifices," he started towards them, and Zach noticed the two figures running down the hall start slowing down. On his left side, he realized that the wall was starting to rot and cover in black lines like veins, and then the walls started bleeding around him.

"That's not why I'm here," Zach countered, and Miles' expression dropped. Experiment 23 froze and his teeth bared, very visibly on the right side of his face that started bleeding as he tensed it up that much.

Two men sprinted into the elevator behind Miles. "Hey!" Yuri yelled towards them.

Miles turned around too, and he charged back into the elevator himself while his face was twisted in rage. The doors of the elevator that were closing opened back up for him, and the group of six in the hallway started running for the elevator too as the walls around them got darker and more menacing. Black lines cutting through them started making crosses all along the wall, bloody crosses with the horizontal part closer to the bottom, and then dark lines on the wall to their left shot down onto the floor and cut them off from the elevator. Gentle was stepping forward his right foot when a black line cut off the wall and below him, and he accidentally stepped down on one of them.

The line sped out from beneath his foot and towards the elevator, then it cut back and shot to his foot. The ground below Gentle turned bouncy and he flew up into the air, and a coil of black snarled up off the floor like it was trying to wrap around him. Yuri leapt backwards and then dove to the left in a roll, and the others all looked towards the closing elevator that did not stop closing even as all those black lines shot into the box full of screams. It was as if the motion sensor did not pick up anything, and the elevator doors closed muffling the screams that came from within.

All the remaining black lines on the walls shot to the crack in the elevator doors and slid through it, leaving the walls behind looking decrepit and half-rotted. A light above the elevator doors showed the elevator on the other side started going up, and the group of six looked around at each other with panicked expressions. "We can't let that thing get out," Dryout said with his eyes opened wide.

"We can't let anything down here escape," Pastor agreed in a dark tone his comrades could not remember hearing him use before. "I will not allow this evil into the world."

"Dryout," Zach said.

"If I keep drying everything," the hero began in a warning tone.

"Your hands, they strong enough to pry the doors open then?" Zach asked, switching tactics immediately. _It'll be faster than him drying out steel into dust anyway._ "Let's all do it," he said, then glanced to Yuri and said, "Keep watch. Let's open the elevator shaft."

Gentle took a deep breath and he stepped to the door with Zach, Sandlot, and Dryout. They all grabbed one half of the door or the other and started pulling away from each other, then Pastor slipped in too and slid his fingers into the crack to help out. Once it was wide enough, Dryout shoved his bigger hands inside and gripped the doors on both their side and the inside of the shaft. They heaved away and ripped open the elevator, then they leaned in and looked up. Gentle was ready to drop a Gently Trampoline into the elevator shaft to bounce them up towards the first floor, but two floors above them there was something in the way preventing them from continuing up.

"Why'd the elevator stop?" Sandlot asked nervously.

"Maybe," Zach began slowly, "someone's trying to take it up from there."

"Or maybe that maniac you keep talking to decided he wanted some more sacrifices," Gentle added.

"Which one?" Yuri muttered, thinking about both the scary black lines and the guy dragging a head-kebob steel pipe.

 _ **"Grrrrr…"**_ The group spun back towards the courtyard behind them, where a familiar roar growled.

"Up to B9 it is then," Gentle said, and he leapt into the elevator shaft and across it to a metal pipe he had seen while looking for a good way up. He jumped up to the next bar, then he swung a hand down into the air in front of him and bounced himself to the inside ledge of the floor above the basement they were just in.

"Yeah, don't wait up," Yuri muttered, though he just stepped back to get a running start. He slung his rifle back onto his back, and then he sprinted forward and leapt up to where Gentle had jumped before. Gentle mentioned back to him that his Gently Trampoline was still pointed towards the ledge, but not to jump on it too hard or he would slam into the elevator doors. Yuri tried listening, but he still slammed face-first into the doors and almost fell backwards off the small ledge. Gentle grabbed him by the front of his costume and yanked him back, and Yuri said in a soft voice, "Thanks." The Russian glanced behind him and down the shaft that was dark all the way down another five or six basements to a floor he could not see.

"Get that door open," Zach said, while moving closer to the elevator himself. Others leapt across the shaft but were hesitant to jump on Gentle's bouncy air only to almost fall down the shaft, but the two already on the inner ledge of B9 were opening the door faster this time. "Pastor, aim through the crack," Zach added to a man who just leapt across the shaft and was staring towards B9. Pastor nodded in understanding, though Yuri and Gentle both slowed down pulling the doors apart as they realized there might be enemies waiting for them just on the other side.

Zach looked back towards the hole in the wall Dryout opened, and he ground his teeth in so much fury as he spotted a red claw stepping forward out of the hole. _How? Why? I, I need to-_ Zach turned and he leapt into the elevator, and he had to grab onto a metal pipe with both hands and then do a pull up onto it before jumping to Gentle's Elastic air. He bounced himself through the open elevator doors of B9, and he and the other five lifted up fists and weapons while preparing themselves. Yuri turned next to him and he pressed a button next to the elevator.

Zach and Pastor turned to him, and Yuri looked back before saying, "We need to get up somehow, right?"

"Perhaps they have gotten off on the floor above too," Gentle added in a more hopeful tone. Hearing that hopeful tone in his voice told Zach that the man was feeling fear in the first place, but he could not blame him considering how afraid of all this he was too.

"H-Hey!"

The six gathered at the elevator of B9 spun to the right of the doors. Yuri reached up for his rifle to get a light down there, as everything was still dark despite the red lights so he couldn't see a thing or whoever just called out to them. "Don't move!" Another voice called out, sounding steadier than the other but still nervous. Yuri froze with his hands up near his rifle butt, and Gentle calmly lifted up his hands in front of him with his palms out. Once Gentle had his palms out, Zach lowered his hand from the sheath he had snapped it to immediately upon hearing that shout.

"This is Dryout," Dryout called towards those two voices that sounded more sane than any they had met since descending into the basements. He lifted up his large gray hands defensively and stepped down the hallway from the pitch black elevator shaft they just came out of. "Are you alright?"

"Dryout?" The first voice asked, a man whose shaky but relieved tone exemplified how they all felt at that moment.

Pastor let out a low breath inside his helmet and he focused on steadying his hands. "Are you alright?" Sandlot asked quietly, and the older man in a dark helmet glanced to his side at the British hero in all tan clothes. "Father?"

"I'm not…" Pastor began. He slowed and then stopped himself as he stared at the look in Sandlot's eyes. His own hands stopped shaking, and he took in a deep breath while nodding at the younger man. "Yes. I am fine."

"Damn," Yuri started lowering his hands from his rifle slowly. He let them drop to his sides, and he peered closer down the hall towards a turned-over desk lying partly out of a doorway. A man's head just lifted up over that desk, and another leaned out of a door farther back where he held up a rifle and turned a flashlight on at the end of it. "We're friendlies," Yuri called out, as he did not feel great about having a rifle pointed at him while his was on his back.

"Dryout, who, who are they?" The man just peeking out from behind the desk called over.

"We are _all_ here to get you out of this place," Dryout replied. He lowered his big gray hands and then said in a firmer tone, "Now lower your weapons." His voice was intense and the man pointing his rifle and flashlight up at them lowered it right away. "Who are you two? What are you doing down here?"

"Can we get out of the hallway?" The guy behind the desk who pushed himself up to his feet asked. "Let's get back to the security room."

"Agreed," Zach said, glancing back towards the elevator behind him. His eyes opened wider as he stared at the elevator, because he saw the illuminated number above it flipping from B8 up to to B7. It stopped at B7, and Zach's eyes narrowed, then they darted down to the open shaft where he swore he heard growling coming from. "Let's move," Zach said, spinning around and moving towards the two men in dark blue uniforms who each held an assault rifle with them.

The group moved up after the two soldier-looking people who kept glancing back nervously at their team. "So what _are_ you two doing down here?" Gentle asked, moving past Dryout and leaning his head closer to the less jumpy of the two men who confronted them in the hallway.

"Question of the day," the man replied without looking back. His comrade spun to him and then gulped while looking at the man in a dark purple and black helmet who shifted his head a bit as if looking his way this time. The man Gentle questioned first had a thick black beard wrapping around his face, he was bulkier than his comrade, and his eyes darted around in a more focused way as they ran down the hall. He pointed his rifle up when turning the corner, then he motioned for everyone to follow him down the next hall. He continued as he jogged down the next hallway, "My name's Hue, this here on my left is Richie. We work upstairs on guard duty. Today something goes down which requires _all_ the guards to come help out, and we find out there're twenty damn basements in this-"

"Twenty?" Sandlot asked in a nervous gasp. "I thought-"

"Yeah, sixteen," the guard corrected himself. "Exaggerating," he added in a low, annoyed voice.

"So you had no idea what was going on down here?" Gentle said with is tone lifting in the end questioningly. "Convenient."

"We still have no clue," the bearded man muttered in response. Gentle lifted his eyebrows behind his visor, and the guy next to him said, "We got sent to this station by our shift commander. Ms. Isabel told us to patrol the floor, and now it's down to us two. We retreated back to the security room with the others left on the floor when the power cut off, ran into a couple psychopaths-"

"Shouting about God!" His partner called out, turning and looking at the group behind him as if letting them know how crazy it was.

"Yeah," Zach muttered, his tone dark and making the man who just looked back feel his entire face cover in sweat. "Well, let's get you two out of here. That's why we came down after all."

Gentle glanced back towards Zach, and he frowned inside his helmet at the tone of the boy behind him he was having trouble reading. _I suppose we are here to rescue people like them. As long as these two are not lying to save their own skins. Which is very possible._

"Right in there," the bearded guard said, motioning down the hall with the end of his barrel. There was a long glass window against the hallway on the right side with light coming out of it still. It was brighter light like what they saw in the courtyard downstairs, though there was also a hum coming from that room like the generators powering it were just inside. They jogged down the hallway, and the guard slammed the butt of his rifle against the steel door a couple of times. "Ms. Isabel. Open up."

"Who are those men with you!?" A shrill female voice called back in anger. "I will not go quietly-"

"What are you talking about?" The guard snapped. "They're heroes."

"Bullshit!"

"I don't have time for this," Gentle began, and he stepped forward readying to break through the glass. He walked past the door and up to the glass he could see through into the next room, and his eyes widened behind his helmet at the sight of the three figures inside the room. One was a man laying out on a table near the back just in front of the steel door, blood all over the table around him and his head tilted to the side with his eyes still open. Another was a woman with her hands down on her table, glaring at television screens and then spinning to the left when she realized where one of those men on them was. She had short purple hair combed to the right side of her head and had big earrings in her ears that stretched her earlobes down. Behind her sitting on the floor was another man whose hair was white and had a pair of glasses on with the right lens cracked.

As the woman yelling at the microphone in front of the screens turned her head, Gentle saw a look of terror flash over her face for a second before twisting in rage. "I can release it all from in here!" She yelled. Her teeth bared and her purple-painted fingernails started extending while she screamed, "I'll tear this whole operation-"

"We aren't here to kill you," Zach snapped, stepping forward to the box the confused bearded guard was speaking into. "We aren't a clean-up crew. We're just here to help."

Isabel's eyes opened wide on the other side of the glass, and she looked back at the computer screens for her eyes to open wider. "Dryout, Sandlot," she whispered, recognizing heroes among the group out in the dim hall her guards had brought over. "Are you sure they're-"

"They aren't here to kill you," Dryout assured. "Though you have made it very clear, you know exactly what is going on down here."

"I don't know anything!" She snapped straight back into her microphone, while loud clanking sounds came out of the steel doorway in front of the group of eight out in the hall. She typed into her keyboards fast, and she shouted, "Get inside and close the door. We need to-"

Zach opened up the door, and he walked in first followed by most of the others behind him. "We're not staying in here," Zach said. He cut off the woman who spun around towards him with wide eyes as he said that. "We're leaving now and heading farther up. You're coming with us."

"You want to move through this place?!" Isabel shouted. She motioned at the security cameras behind her, the dozen tv's constantly switching angles to different places and revealing the different basements of the lab. "Look at this. Look!"

"Holy shit," the younger of the two guards who had been more jumpy when the group met him opened his eyes wide.

"You two get back out there-" Isabel started.

"Fuck you," the bearded man growled, lowering his gun and glaring at the woman whose eyes opened huge and then started twisting in rage.

"What did you just say?" She asked, raising her tone and glaring down her nose at the guard.

"We're not taking orders from you anymore," Hue said. Richie spun to his bearded comrade and then gulped but nodded in agreement. He turned back to the screens and looked at them in terror. Most of them were scratchy and others were cutting off, but some showed the most horrific sights most of them had ever seen before.

Zach ignored the screens. No one could see his eyes through his visor, but they were full of sheer hatred. His voice was calm though, "The elevator's moving up. We pressed the button though so it should come back down as long as no one locks it again. How are the stairs on this floor?" Zach asked while turning to Hue.

"I- I don't know. We've been stationed here-"

"Pastor, go with them and check it out," Zach said. He glanced at the man on his back right who nodded after a second at him and then turned and headed back out of the room.

Hue nodded too after a moment, and the older man on the ground who started getting up snapped at the guard, "You'll listen to this man?"

"He's trying to get us out of here, not cowering and waiting to die," Hue responded in a pissed-off way. He glanced at the table where someone they had brought back here injured earlier lay motionless with his eyes half-closed. "Richie, let's move."

"Yeah," Richie said, glancing once at the older man and glaring at him through his broken glasses. Then he turned and headed off after the other two.

"Everyone else patrol the floor in teams of two," Zach said. He looked behind him at Gentle, Yuri, Sandlot, and Dryout. "We'll find out what's going on, and decide what to do about it, once we're all out of here."

Dryout frowned but he nodded his head after a few seconds. He glared back towards Isabel, then he turned to Sandlot. He froze before telling Sandlot to come with him, and he turned to Yuri instead. "Your comms are still working with each other, correct?"

"Yeah," Yuri replied. "It's only our support that's been cut off."

As Yuri said it, Zach heard some scratching noises in his helmet's headset. He squinted his eyes and listened closer but he could not hear anything coming through for a few seconds, then he continued hearing Yuri's voice as he and Dryout started out of the room.

Gentle stared at Zach's back hesitantly, but Zach turned back to him and motioned out of the room. Sandlot turned to Gentle who looked at him and nodded, and the two of them headed away too. "Trying to escape is suicide," Isabel whispered, shaking her head as she watched them start leaving.

"But staying, and waiting for the clean-up crew isn't?" Zach asked, turning back to the woman who frowned at him and narrowed her purple eyebrows in towards her nose.

"You don't know what you're talking about," she replied snidely.

"Yeah, I suppose neither of you knew what was going down here, right?" Zach asked. He turned to his right and the older man who shook his head fast then darted his eyes over at the woman who had a more convincing annoyed expression on her face at his question.

"I am solely in logistics," Isabel began. "And I-"

"Yet you were going to release _'it all'_ from in here, weren't you?" Zach asked. His voice started raising, and he asked in a louder voice, "What is, 'it all?'"

"I don't know what you're talking about," she said, leaning towards him and narrowing her eyes more. Then the right corner of her lip twisted up the smallest amount. "So why don't you do your job, and get me out of-"

Zach slammed his right fist out to the side and punched the older man straight in his glasses. Zach shattered his glasses and pushed glass into the man's eyes, and he let out a scream of pain while Isabel's face lost its half-smirk and filled with panic. Zach turned his body and he grabbed the older man by the front of his white shirt with both hands, and Zach dragged him over to the doorway and threw him out it and across the hall into the opposite wall. He turned his head to the left and saw Sandlot and Gentle sprinting back his way, and Zach slammed the door shut which caused a loud clanking locking noise. Right after that noise, fists slammed into the metal door.

"Open this door Death!" Gentle yelled. "You don't want to do this!"

"What is he doing?!" Sandlot yelled out. Gentle stopped slamming his fists into the door, and he ran down the hall a bit more to the long glass window. Sandlot ran there too, and Dryout and Yuri came running back down from the other side of the hall.

"Y-You can't do this!" Isabel shouted at the dark figure in front of her. "You're here to save me!"

"FUCK YOU!" Zach roared. "What were-" he calmed himself as much as he could after stomping halfway across the room to the woman pushing back against the security desk with terror in her eyes. "What was your job down here?!"

"Logistics! I'm, I'm just in-"

"You're lying!" Zach roared. "You were experimenting on people! Say it!" Zach stomped forward and he started reaching for his belt with his right hand.

"Alright! Alright alright, I was," Isabel held up her hands defensively in front of her and the scary figure stopped marching closer. He was the same height as her, and he looked menacing, but her expression calmed down a bit as she lowered her hands. "I did take part, in some bad things. But it was all for the advancement of medicine. Science research. It, we were doing important work. For the sake of the world!" She called it out at him and Zach stood still where he was. His motionless figure started to unnerve her, and she swung an arm in front of her and yelled, "Things were never supposed to get like this. We did this for the advancement of society and-"

"I don't care about any of that," Zach growled. He glared so much harder at the woman, and the reason he was doing this flooded his mind as he yelled, "Why didn't Death work on that test subject?!" He yelled it, and the woman with purple hair pulled her head back with her eyes full of confusion.

"I don't know what you-"

Zach reached his hands to his helmet and ripped it off, and he threw it to the side while storming forward across the room. "DON'T LIE TO ME!" He slammed his forehead into hers, and he glared into her eyes that were snapped down underneath his right eye and trembling. "What did you do?" Zach asked, his voice shaky while fists started slamming on the glass outside. "What did you do?!"

"It was all for science-"

"TELL ME!" Zach yelled, reaching up his right hand and bringing it close to the woman's face.

"We-" she began, and she bit down on her bottom lip in terror as he just brought his hand closer. "Please, I wasn't directly involved. I, I just know-"

"What did you do?" Zach snarled, pulling back but leaving his hand there ready to grab her at any second. "And don't you lie to me."

Isabel pursed her lips and she saw an unhinged look in the boy's eyes telling her not to try lying again. "We," she began. She recognized who it was in front of her. She had tried feigning innocence, but it did not work. Isabel started breathing heavier, and the fists pounding on the bulletproof glass stopped as the four outside kept staring in at them. "We know all about you, Zach Sazaki," she started. Zach lowered his hand a bit and he stared at the woman in front of him with pain filling his eyes. She continued as he did that, "The power to kill instantly, and the power to bring someone back to life. They're remarkable. Yet there are so many unknowns, things we can still discover." Her eyes shifted from his face down to his body and then over to his right hand that had scared her so much a minute ago but that she only looked intrigued over now.

"What kinds of things?" Zach asked, his voice dark while his lowered eyes lifted slowly back into Isabel's.

She gulped and looked hesitant to answer, but Zach's left hand pulled a knife off his belt as he glared at the woman. "And why, can't I kill that test subject? The one with red fur, hunting us down? Why isn't it affected by Death?" The purple-haired scientist looked even more hesitant, and Zach started grinding his teeth. "If you don't tell me-"

Before he could finish his threat, she started, "You know why." Zach ground his teeth even harder, though he forced himself to lower his knife in his left hand so that she would continue instead of getting afraid of answering his questions. Isabel continued as she saw the knife lowering from her after she responded, "We know about Death. Not that you were, Death, though I had my own-" she cut herself off at Zach's dark glare. "But your Quirk! We knew, from a report at VTS, that people you brought back to life before were not affected by Death. Something, _changed,_ inside them." Zach's heart fell, but he kept his gaze as hateful as he could to force the woman to keep talking. As he glared at her, he heard a scratchy noise in his earpiece he still had in even though he had thrown his helmet aside.

"How could a power that kills instantly just no longer work, just because someone had been brought back to life? It implied, that something had changed genetically about them. Unless it is a singularity where only your Quirk does not work against them anymore, then there was clearly something else at play." Isabel sounded interested, and knowledgeable enough that it did not seem like it was as she said with her not being directly involved in the project. She continued to the boy she was secretly so glad to be meeting, though she wished they were in different positions in this questioning, "When people are brought back, their diseases, their former injuries, they're all gone. Back pain, cancer, AIDS, and maybe even mental illness, PTSD, what about a concussion?" She went from talking about things she had seen to starting to ask the boy before her if he had seen any of these things before.

"You," Zach began slowly. "What did you do?" He whispered, shaking his head at the woman.

"We had to find out," she said. "If we could harness, whatever it is inside someone you've brought back that can cure those things. We could have created a drug that-"

"Would make you millions," Zach whispered.

"And would save millions," she finished as a counter.

The four standing outside the window stared through the glass with their eyes huge. Gentle turned to the right after a second though as he saw an older man sliding up the wall grabbing at his nose and eyes he had been bemoaning about for the past minute and a half. He glared at that man who Zach had clearly done that to, but Gentle's eyes were cold and did not have pity in them for him. He shifted them back into the room, and he said in a low voice, "Sazaki. Open the door. I know you said it to trick us, but we really don't have time for this right now."

"Hey, hey hey," Yuri looked past Zach and the woman he was questioning, and the two who looked towards the window wondering what he was doing turned the other way and stared at the video screens that were cutting out one by one. "Look!" Yuri called out, and he pointed at the top left screen.

"It's Miles," Zach muttered, looking at an angle of an open elevator that Miles was walking back into. He had many more heads on his metal pipe than before, and Zach's eyes narrowed at the test subject. _What happened to the courtyard monster? Did Miles kill it, or were they working together as "God's" subjects?_

"23," Isabel whispered. "He's been amplified in all aspects. One of our most perfect test subjects, and now with the…"

"What?" Zach asked. Isabel turned to him, and Zach stomped forward and grabbed her by the front of her shirt with his left that still had a knife in it too. The knife was close to her throat, and he snapped, "What happened to them? What is this God they're all hung up on?!"

"I-" Isabel started. She shook her head without answering, and Zach glared furiously at her. He let go of her shirt and then grabbed her right arm with his right hand. He grabbed her hand and slammed it down into the desk, then he stabbed down his knife through her hand and straight into the table. "AHHH!" She screamed in pain.

Zach slammed his right elbow into her open mouth as she screamed, and he roared at her, "Answer the question!"

"Fuck this," Dryout reached his hands forward to the glass in front of him. Gentle grabbed him by his right shoulder, and Dryout glared towards the man on his right. "He's torturing her right in front of me. I can't just-"

"Guys!" Yuri shouted, while he was still looking at the screens in the room that no one else seemed to be focusing enough on.

Zach glared so angrily at the woman with blood coming out of the corners of her mouth. He turned his head to the screens for a moment though, watching more of them cut off so that only two were still showing anything besides static. His eyes opened wide, because the camera angle was of the first floor of the building on the surface. And in that angle Zach spotted a group of ten figures in the Army of Death's black costumes sprinting down the halls and towards the elevator shaft. They all had rifles in their hands, and Zach let out a deep breath because he was rushed for time after seeing Miles getting back in… Zach's eyes snapped open wide. "Shit! Miles is heading up to the first floor!"

"We have to warn them!" Yuri called back, and he turned and started running down the hallway.

The other screens cut off on Zach's right, and he ripped his knife out of Isabel's hand. He wiped the blood on his blade off on his costume, then he snarled at the woman in front of him, "Unlock the door, and then tell me what happened here. Or I'll leave you behind to deal with your monsters on your own."

Isabel's eyes opened wide as she heard him completely serious right there. She turned to her keyboard and bit through the pain before typing as fast as she could despite the hole in her right hand. "I've been looking into it myself, nnn," she pursed her lips and moaned out the pain. Isabel bit down as she continued to type using only her left hand now, and she kept speaking to the boy behind her who reached down for his helmet, "At first, everyone thought Dr. Jones had gone crazy. Suddenly releasing the K6 Gas-"

"What is that?" Dryout asked from outside the window, calling in at the woman who glanced his way for a moment before continuing to unlock the door.

A loud clank came from the door of the security room, and Isabel replied while turning from her computer, "A failed experiment. Down here we test to bring Quirks out to their full potentials. Not using drugs like Trigger, but methods that would last. Ways which would keep a subject's Quirk at its increased strength for eternity. A 'level-up' for any person."

"And you could sell it to the highest bidder," Gentle started. The woman spun to the man in a purple and black costume who stepped back into the security room. "Be they heroes, villains, another government perhaps."

"We wouldn't-" Isabel began.

"Why did he release the failed gas?" Zach asked, cutting off this conversation as he knew the woman was just going to lie through her teeth at every opportunity. "And you said you thought it was him, so it wasn't?"

"It was Dr. Jones' body," Isabel started while walking to the door. She turned to the boy who was waiting for her to go past him, then she leaned towards him as he rose his helmet so she would have one last close look at his face. "But it wasn't his soul."

Zach's face twitched, and then he put his helmet on and immediately pulled his head back as the static noise in his head just got louder. "…ch it's-" _**Chh CHH!**_ Zach hit the side of his helmet a few times, then he turned to Gentle on his side who was glaring at him through his purple visor. "What is that?" Zach asked.

Gentle started staring in confusion at the boy who just hit his helmet for some reason. "You can't hear it?" Zach asked, though the static interference cut off in his own helmet anyway a second later. _It sounded a bit like, Rebel? We have moved a couple floors up, but I doubted he'd be able to speak with us this far down. Maybe if he's only focusing on my earpiece though… that makes sense. Plus he's the best, so I shouldn't be surprised._ "I think Rebel's getting in touch."

"I haven't heard," Gentle said flatly. Zach glanced at him, and Gentle glared down at the boy who just went off on his own mini-rampage. "Is it out of your system?"

"They tortured him," Zach replied. "Because I brought him back to life. They tortured, and experimented on him, and now he's a fucking monster." Gentle opened his eyes wider behind his helmet, and Zach growled while turning back forward, "No, it's not out of my system. I'm fucking livid." _Should I bring people back to life? Why? Why did that have to happen?_

"Did you hear me?" Isabel asked, looking over her shoulder in an exasperated way at the two who were not shocked or anything by what she just said. "I _said_ -"

"Yes yes, his soul was not his own-" Gentle began in a sarcastic way.

"Who was he?" Zach asked.

"I looked in the old videos of Dr. Jones' recent experiments. One of his recent failures, in the end puked a black liquid that-"

"Not him," Zach growled. Isabel turned more and Zach pushed on her back before snarling at the back of the woman's head, "The person I brought back. Who were they? Did you go to Japan, and abduct someone? Are you bastards that fucking powerful?"

"They are powerful," she began, and Zach and Gentle both picked up on how she considered them "they" now. She continued, "But no, they didn't get him from Japan. Luckily," she paused after saying it, cursing under her breath for speaking in that tone about it with how angry the boy behind her was over all this. She paused, then she continued in a lower more regretful voice, "An Englishman, was visiting Musutafu for the Sports Festival. He suffered a fatal injury, but he was kept alive for some time after the attack. When he died…"

Zach closed his eyes as he listened to Isabel talk about the man, who she named in a sad way as "Richard Hawkins." _An Englishman. I, I do remember him. I remember bringing him back after the Sports Festival. It wasn't Monoma… I did it. I saved him. I brought him back, for what?!_ Isabel started explaining how they had staged his car wreck, and Zach clenched his teeth in anger as he considered how the past half a year must have been for the man he thought he was giving a second chance at life. _Why? Why did this happen?_

"A lot of gunfire coming from up the shaft," Yuri reported into the team's headsets.

"The stairs are all clear if we still need to take them," Pastor added. "Up until the sixth floor at least, which is where Hue, Richie, and I turned back.

"Get moving," Gentle pushed the old man with a bloody face forward, and Dryout glared towards him for a second before turning back and glaring at Death too.

 _Titan,_ Dryout thought. He looked back forward and narrowed his eyes as he thought about that whole team of terrorists he saw arriving on the cameras. _You were right. We need to work with them right now, in a situation like this, but they are not heroes. They're brutal. And, I'll need to reveal Death's identity as Zach Sazaki once I am out of this. More importantly though, I need to figure out the identity of whoever runs this place. So for now, since I don't have control over the situation, if Death were to figure out who Isabel works for and I were to hear it…_ Dryout's eyes darkened as he had the thought to allow the torture to continue, but as much as it disturbed him what he was considering, the look he had seen when Death threw his helmet aside was plaguing him much more. _He brings people back to life for a second chance, and they experimented on him for it. Not just that the person he saved wound up having a worse life afterwards, but it was_ _ **because**_ _he was saved that it happened._

 **Chh** _ **chhh**_ "…nt, ch… ach!"

"Rebel?" Zach put a hand to his helmet and asked.

"The elevator's coming back down!" Yuri called out, his voice overtaking the staticky one in Zach's head again.

Zach shook his head around, _I'll get better connection in a second._ "Pastor, head back to the elevator. Everyone, we're heading up. We'll regroup and hopefully meet with Exodus, and-" Zach's voice cut out of their helmets, and Zach pulled his head to the side as a voice yelled in his ear.

"-ACH!" _**CHHH**_

Zach ground his teeth in pain and he snapped loudly, "What?!"

"You can… me?!"

"Barely," Zach said, figuring out what Rebel just shouted from the context alone.

"Who is he talking to?" Yuri asked from the elevator shaft he stood in front of looking up through the darkness. "Are the others tapping into our comms?" He looked over his shoulder to his left as he heard movement behind him, and he saw Zach, Gentle, Dryout, Sandlot, and the two scientists heading his way. He turned back forward though as he heard the elevator coming down and saw wires moving fast in the shaft's darkness.

"I'm in contact with Rebel again it seems like," Zach said. "Though he's coming out patchy, he's probably in contact with the others-"

"…en to me! Zach! It's not… You have… cess is dead!"

Zach froze where he was. "What did you just say?" Zach asked. Gentle turned to his right, and Isabel looked over her shoulder.

"Access is dead!" Rebel yelled, his voice coming through the clearest is had been the whole time. Zach's eyes started opening wider, and he stared past everyone in front of him and straight towards the elevator lowering down to their level. "It's not reinforcements! It's the clean-up crew!"

"YURI RUN!" Zach screamed towards the elevator.

Yuri started turning his head back to the elevator after spinning to his leader. He turned to the elevator, and he looked inside where a group of ten figures were gathered visibly through the elevator doors already opened. They had their rifles raised already, and Yuri's eyes started opening wide as all those gun barrels pointed at him. **BANG Dt-dt-dt CHHHHHH…**

Zach saw blood spurting out of Yuri's back, out his shoulders and his arms and his legs, and out of his head that was ripped apart by the hail of gunfire flying at the man in a dark costume. The spray was loud, as were the clanks of bullets slamming into the walls and the sound of glass breaking from the emergency lights that cut off and plunged the place into even more darkness. Muzzle flashes continued though, and Zach reached out forward only for a hand to grab him and then yank him away in the opposite direction. "Scatter!" Gentle shouted, while swinging a Gently Rebound across the hall in front of them and then jumping into it with Zach lifted in his hand.

Zach's face twisted as he stared back down the dark hallway past the heroes, past the scientists, to the elevator where a bunch of dark silhouettes sprinted out and over the body of his comrade. His teeth clenched in rage, and even as tears spilled out of his eyes, he screamed back down that way, "Yuri!"

* * *

 **A/N Well, this just turned into a horror movie. Conspiracies, religious fanatics, monsters, a team of commandos, mad scientists, crucifixion and demons and oh man this chapter had a lot. Zach's trapped deep below the surface with dwindling allies and an increasing number of enemies. He's got monsters around him including one he can't hurt with Death, and a mysterious "God" somewhere in the depths... Who is in charge of this place? Will Zach and his team escape? What about everyone else trapped down there? Had some fun writing this as a bit of a psychological thriller as much as straight up horror, but anyway let me know what you think of the chapter in a review below and any predictions you have for the mysteries or who might survive/kick it in the rest of the arc! Thanks for reading!**

Big fan of Death chapter 105 . Oct 29

This was a very scary chapter xD, alot different from the other ones I felt like, but I liked it... Kinda scary though

 **Well if that one scared you...XD Lol glad you enjoyed it! Thanks for the review!**


	107. Chapter 107

**Disclaimer: I don't own Boku no Hero Academia**

 **Chapter 107:**

"Lower your weapons!"

A team of soldiers moving onto B9 turned towards the sound of that shout and aimed their rifles in its direction. "I said to lower them! I am a pro hero, Dryout."

"Dryout?" One of the soldiers who just stormed onto the floor muttered. He turned to his side, and the woman next to him in all black including a helmet turned back his way.

"Lower your weapons," a voice said behind the soldiers, and a man walked out of the elevator and turned towards Dryout too. "It really is," he said after lifting a flashlight and pointing it towards the hero who blocked his blinded eyes for a second with a large hand and then lowered it down. "What are you doing down here?" He questioned, stepping past his men and towards the hero who walked right back his way.

"I was called here," Dryout replied. He kept a cautious air around him while examining the dark figure in front of him, then he looked past the man and down towards the body of a man he had actually thought was a good guy. Yuri's corpse was riddled with so many holes that it was unrecognizable, especially his face and head that was in pieces after all those shots into it while it was unprotected. "Why did you kill that man?"

The man in front of Dryout turned and looked over towards the man the squad of ten just lit up. "He's a terrorist," the man replied. He turned back to Dryout and asked in a low voice, "Were you working with him-"

"Who are you?" Dryout asked. Fifteen feet behind Dryout, pulled into a side room were two scientists who were silently urging the other pro hero with them to move towards the door connecting to a different hallway. Sandlot was not moving with them though, stacked up just inside the door and breathing silently but fast after what he just saw happen to Yuri. _Death and Gentle fucked off. Why the hell are we doing this?_ Sandlot took in a deep breath and he crouched his legs while keeping his ear close to the door to listen to the conversation.

"Captain Azrael," one of the men behind the figure talking to Dryout began. The leader turned and looked down to his crouched comrade pointing a rifle the opposite direction down their hallway. "Two tangos, twelve meters."

"Take them out," Azrael ordered. Then he turned back to Dryout and said to the pro hero about to argue, "You don't have jurisdiction here. Whoever called you made a mistake."

"So you knew what was happening here?" Dryout asked. The question caused a couple of the men behind Azrael to lift up their heads or turn from other hallways they were looking down. "You knew that they-"

"Hey," Azrael started, lifting his right hand off of his rifle as an open palm at Dryout. "Don't say a word." Dryout's face covered in confusion, and Azrael lowered that hand before sighing and shaking his head in frustration. "But, this is a problem. You really- damn, a pro hero wasn't supposed to be here." Azrael looked down, then he lifted his head and asked, "What about the rest of The Red Team?"

"Hold on," Dryout started. He glared at the man in front of him in such an intense way that a couple of the soldiers behind Azrael leaned back. The man Dryout leaned towards did not flinch though, and Dryout asked in a low voice, "What are you guys? A clean-up crew to deal with this mess?"

"Pretty much," Azrael replied.

 **Bang Bang**

"Tangos down."

"Hey!" Dryout shouted past Azrael to the others in the group on the other side who just shot at a couple of figures running down the hall towards them. Those figures were snapped back in mid-sprint, blood flying out of their bodies as they dropped to the ground. Dryout snapped his head back to Azrael while the captain of the team of ten continued staring at him. "You work for the government? What is this? Some sort of secret-"

"It's above your paygrade," Azrael responded.

"Above my…" Dryout started repeating slowly. His eyes narrowed and he said in a low voice, "Human experimentation. It's what happens here," Dryout glared at the visor of the man in front of him. "Whether or not you knew beforehand, you know now. And that means! Your orders have just changed. Your superiors, are no longer your superiors."

All of the soldiers behind Azrael turned and most of them uncrouched while looking to Dryout. "What is happening here," Dryout continued, "breaks international laws, and our own. I'm taking charge of this situation, and we're-" _**Fft**_ Dryout's head snapped to the right, as a figure fizzled into existence on his left side in all black.

The eleventh member of the team that just came down the elevator appeared and she lowered her silenced pistol she had extended right next to where Dryout's head had been. "Az, he was just going on and on. That was alright, right?"

"Fine Ur," Azrael replied. He looked down at Dryout's body, then he turned around and looked at the nine behind him. "We didn't hear a word he just said."

"Sir," one of the group standing behind him began.

"What?" the woman began, stepping up to Azrael's side and cocking her head to the side at the soldier speaking up. "You have something against what's going on here? Or, what I just did?"

"No Captain Uriel," the man assured with a single shake of his head. "But do you really think saying we didn't see or hear a thing down here, is going to keep them from just killing us all when we get out? I don't want the next clean-up crew to-"

 **Bang**

The man fell forward, and the soldier behind him lowered the rifle he just shot him in the back of the head with. "I'm from Corporate," the soldier who started lowering his rifle stated. The others who all spun towards her and started lifting their rifles froze. Azrael and Uriel both stared towards the middle of their team and nodded at the woman who continued in a stern voice, "Captains."

"As I was saying," Azrael started again. "We didn't hear a word he just said. Nor are we going to see anything down here."

"Understood?" Uriel asked.

The group of soldiers nodded their heads.

"Alright then. Sweep the floor," Azrael began again. "Break off and keep in contact. Destroy everything. If the rest of The Red Team is here, take them out too. It's unavoidable." He lifted up his rifle and rose his free hand with three fingers up, then clenched it in a fist and started jogging down the hall. Three soldiers ran after him, Uriel called out for a couple of others to follow her, and another group took off down an intersecting hallway. "Stay on the lookout for Army of Death too. There's a team of them in here somewhere…"

The teams left, though a single soldier was left at the elevator to watch it from inside the doorway so as to keep it on that floor. The man standing in the doorway kept his rifle raised, his mind focused on the comms, but his helmet kept shifting down and to the right. His gaze focused on one of his comrades in the team who was killed a minute ago just for questioning whether they were safe to be seeing all this. _What if they do just kill us afterwards? Was he right, and that's why she killed him? He might have been warning us. And killing heroes?! What the hell. Human experimentation, those fucking things I just shot! This place is insane. As long as I didn't see anything though, and I can go with that. I can roll with-_

 **Thud**

The man standing in the doorway looking out at the hallways started turning his head around. The thud came from inside the elevator, and his eyes started opening huge inside his visor at the sight of two figures behind him, having dropped in through the hole on the ceiling from the shaft above. "I need-" the man began, then he was grabbed and yanked backwards, slammed in both sides by fists and elbows. His helmet was grabbed and torn off, his gun ripped from his hands and tossed to the side, and then Gentle slammed a hand into the floor of the elevator and bounced the three of them back up through the hole in the top of it.

The three of them flew up to B7, then Zach and Gentle aimed their fall towards the open doors of B8. They rolled into the doorway onto the next floor, and Gentle got up quick and back to the doors he pulled close with Hue and Pastor. Richie kept aiming his rifle back and forth down the hallway, and he turned and whisper-shouted in a scared voice, "Something's coming!"

Zach turned the terrified and beaten man's head back and forth to check his ears for communications. Then he stood up and yanked the man to his feet, blocked the swing of the man's right arm and elbowed him in the face again. Zach leaned his helmet forward and snarled through his mask, "Struggle and I'll rip your throat out."

 _DEATH!_

The fight left the soldier Zach was grabbing, and Zach threw the man forward and then jammed a knife into his back just hard enough to prick him and not break through his skin. "Move. Don't say a word."

Zach pushed him with his other hand, running the opposite direction as Richie was facing. Hue called for Richie to move, and Gentle put up an Elasticity wall to block a sprinting disfigured experiment. A naked woman with a bloated stomach, wrists, and shins sprint-wobbled towards them and then bounced backwards off of Gentle's barrier with a yell out in pain as she fell and popped a huge bloated bulb on her back.

Pastor glanced back over his shoulder as he ran, hearing that agonized scream from a woman whose eyes he had caught sight of in the red tint of the hallway. _Why?_

Zach grabbed the man in front of him by the back of his long brown hair, yanking his head back and then kicking the door to his right open. Zach threw the man into the room, and he stormed in and glared down at the figure on the floor in front of him who started pushing back his hands on his sides to get away. Zach slammed his right hand into his chest with his fingers through his glove, and he surrounded himself in a pitch black aura. "You fucks. Why are you dressed like Army of Death? You trying to pin this on me? Are you trying, to make us the scapegoats if you're found out?!" Zach kicked his right foot forward and into the face of the man who opened his mouth to respond. "Shut up!"

"Death, we need information," Gentle snapped as the kid seemed to just be getting his revenge out.

"I know," Zach responded in a low voice only in his helmet. "But these are trained commandos. He needs to be terrified." Zach had pulled Death away from his foot while kicking it forward, but he touched his chest again to turn off Nightmare mode while leaning down and grabbing the soldier by his black costume. He yanked him up and then slammed him against the wall in the dark room across from the cracked-open door Hue was peering around through. Pastor and Richie started panting and taking a break after all the running and quick actions they had taken after Zach and Gentle sprinted into them downstairs.

 _Yuri,_ Pastor thought, clenching his eyes shut as he thought about Death's pained yells right before he came barreling towards them. He turned towards Gentle and questioned after a moment, "What of Sandlot and Dryout? And those scientists?"

"Fuck the scientists," Zach growled. "Fuck everything here," he slammed the man he was grabbing even harder into the wall. Then he pressed his visor into the man's face so the man's eyes were darting back and forth on Death's visor trying to see eyes through them, and failing. "And fuck this guy. Fucking idiot, coming down here means they're going to kill him, and yet he'll still follow their orders until the second he's dead. Like a fucking sheep."

The man Zach was holding up to the wall opened his eyes so much wider as his fears amplified in how knowing a tone Death just used, like it was so obvious and he was an idiot for not realizing. _But I did realize! I knew! He knew too, and they killed him-_ "I, I just work for-"

"I'm tired of hearing that today," Zach growled, though he did loosen his grip a bit. "But if you are willing to cooperate, Death may not come for you today. It's up to you…"

* * *

"You know who they are?" Sandlot asked the man on his side he was running down B8 with.

Pastor shook his head, then he motioned for the cracked door ahead that the two of them sprinted to and then inside of. They closed the door behind them, and Sandlot lowered the rifle he had grabbed off a half-eaten body of a guard he had ran past before with a couple of scientists. Neither of those scientists were still with him, as he had run very fast without caring about either of the researchers experimenting on humans once Dryout had been shot in the head. Sandlot dropped down onto a chair that rolled backwards from his weight, and he buried his face in his hands for a few seconds. _Thomas. Damn it. Damn it!_

Sandlot thought about his best friend for the past several years. Titan was his team leader and a hard loss too, but he had been able to keep going strong and acting as a hero because Dryout had been there keeping him together. "I don't understand," Sandlot whispered. He lifted his head a bit, to see Pastor lowering a desk he had picked up and carried to the door with a broken lock in order to keep it shut for them. Pastor turned to the man, and Sandlot looked through Pastor's visor while lifting a hand and taking his beanie off. Sandlot clenched his beanie in his hand and then ran it up through his wavy dirty-blond hair. "This place," Sandlot said, staring in so much pain to where he thought Pastor's eyes were.

Pastor walked over to the man, and he sat down on a medical check-up bed near the rolling chair for the doctor whose body lay dead in a corner of the room. At least they thought it was the doctor, though neither of them looked too closely at the body. Dead bodies had become so normal to them at this point, that they were losing the shock value each time they saw another disfigured corpse. Pastor said a couple of things inside his helmet, then he reached up and took it off while turning back to Sandlot. The room they were in was illuminated by a red light in the middle of the ceiling, and he asked the man whose eyes he could now look into, "This place is evil, I believe that as well."

"I, didn't say that-" Sandlot started. He cut himself off though, and then he lifted a hand and put it in front of his eyes again. "But, but it's so horrible down here. I can't- I never imagined-" Sandlot paused and he took in a deep breath while leaning back in the chair and staring to the ceiling. "In my years as a hero, I've never seen anything like this. No one's, ever seen anything like this. It's unimaginable." He lowered his head a bit and looked into Pastor's eyes, "But you, Father. You are holding strong? You are, keeping your faith?"

"I am," Pastor replied without hesitation.

"How?" Sandlot whispered. He leaned forward, "I need to know. Please. Because I- I've always been, but… But right now. At this moment, I can't see there being a God who allows something like this to exist. Why? What would be the purpose?"

"I believe, that we are not always meant to understand His plan," Pastor replied. He answered in a calm, but slow way to show he was not trying to shove it down Sandlot's throat but offer it as his own belief. After he said it, he looked down though. He stared at the floor below him, imagining B9 where the voices in his earpiece were coming from. "But there are parts of His plan, that I do believe I understand. Such as, Death's role…" Pastor closed his eyes for a moment, then he lifted his head to Sandlot. "Do not lose faith. Take a deep breath. Calm yourself. And remember that this is not Hell. Once you have caught your breath, and you are ready to move again…" Pastor rose his helmet and put it back over his head.

Sandlot still had a frustrated look on his face and did not feel any of his questions were answered. He was staring down though, and his eyes bulged as Pastor continued, "…we will go regroup with Death and Dryout." Sandlot slowly lifted his head up, and Pastor said while looking down into his eyes, "There is always a reason." He turned to the door and started walking to it, and his face scrunched up behind his visor as he whispered, "There has to be."

* * *

"Didn't I already kill you?" A woman asked with two soldiers behind her wearing dark helmets like their co-captain. Uriel sounded like she was smirking towards the hero facing her and her soldiers, all on his own on B5. "I didn't expect the one who can bring back the Army of Death to be down here," she admitted with a lift of her left palm. "Tell me, do you know if it's really Lifebringer who-"

A pitch black form dropped down through the ceiling behind Dryout. His hands were down at his right side, and he slammed them forward into Dryout's back while the pro hero glared furiously towards the woman ahead of him. Uriel's body sizzled out of existence while the soldiers behind her stumbled backwards. "DEATH WAVE!" Zach yelled, and the end of the sphere of darkness he just pushed forward exploded out past Dryout's body and flooded down the hall into the other soldiers. And after a couple of seconds, a woman farther back than the other two soldiers appeared in mid-run, her Quirk failing her as she collapsed to the floor.

"You kill them?" Dryout asked, looking over his shoulder at the boy who he had trusted would not be able to hurt him with that attack.

Death shook his head back at the pro hero. Dryout looked down the hall towards the woman in charge of this team of the clean-up crew, and then Zach added, "And you can't either."

"I wasn't…" Dryout began. His eyes were locked on his murderess though, and his huge hands clenched into fists at his sides while he thought about that emptiness, that darkness that came when he was killed.

"We have to keep moving up," Zach said, stepping forward and turning off Nightmare form. He was panting inside his helmet but Dryout could hear it through the visor, and the man who felt fresh and not tired at all glanced next to him at the teen who shook his head around and then started jogging again. "We're almost out-"

"Death!" Gentle shouted into Zach's helmet.

"What?" Zach snapped back.

"Damn it! Get him out of-"

"Fuck! Pastor!"

"Get up to B4 already!" Gentle shouted, then Zach heard gunfire over his earpiece and he started speeding up again.

Zach called for Dryout to move faster with him, then when he looked back forward as he had turned to the side for it, he grit his teeth and shook his head around. "No no no," he muttered, slowing down and then cutting to the right in an open doorway. Dryout ran in after him and put his back up against the wall next to the door with his eyes huge. They both tried stopping their panting breaths, after looking down the hall and seeing black lines slowly moving down the wall at the end. The wall itself had started to rot as a warning sign to them, and the lights got darker in that direction as the black lines covered up the red fixtures on the ceiling.

"Don't breathe," Dryout whispered to the boy he heard gasp and start panting again.

"I'm trying," Zach hissed back. _How is that thing still alive?! Bryan said they only killed one experiment when they got in the elevator. He described Miles, but he said there were other bodies in there. Must have been those other two. What is that thing? 14. Who was it? Can I save… Why am I still thinking about that?! I am not prepared for this. I am not qualified for this!_ Zach pursed his lips and he heard screams in his headset coming from the floor above. "We have to move," he hissed over towards Dryout, and then he slipped out of the doorway and looked down the dark hall towards where he thought experiment 14 might be. It was not there and Zach took in a sharp breath as that was as bad as if he had actually seen it, _Where is it now?!_

"Death!"

Zach clenched his teeth and he started running down the hall, "I'm coming!"

* * *

"What happened?!" Zach shouted over his shoulder at Gentle.

"Fuck!" Gentle backed up and kept a rifle he had picked up aimed down the dark hallway full of muzzle flashes. He turned his head for a second and growled, "He was dragged off by this guy wearing a robe of skin."

"'Skin?'" Zach asked, his face scrunching up more while he wrapping up the bloody wounds of the man on the ground in front of him, his head resting on Zach's knees.

"We lost Sandlot, no idea where he went. Pastor tried going back, and this fucker- he was quoting fucking- God damn-" Gentle stumbled forward towards Zach and blood splashed out of his right shoulder. He spun back around and let out a roar, lifting up the rifle in one arm and firing down the hall. Richie and Dryout pulled back behind their covers as Gentle shouted down towards the clean-up crew posted down the hall and firing towards the office they had set up inside for a minute and gotten cornered in.

"Hue!" Richie yelled, looking to his right and into what they thought was an empty room he had pulled Hue inside when the man got hit.

Hue was trying to pull a bullet out of his own right side, and he turned his head and looked over his shoulder to see something sliding out of the ceiling and reaching down long thin arms towards him. Richie spun and pointed his rifle above Hue who scrambled for his gun, and Richie started firing only for the slender form sliding out of the ceiling to reach down faster and grab the bearded guard. "No! NO! Richie don't let it take me!" Hue grabbed onto a desk near him and he pulled his body down harder, while Richie fell on his butt and then lifted his rifle and emptied out more and more of the magazine into the creature that opened up the mouth of its long head it started leaning out of the ceiling panels. Wind sucked into its mouth, lifting things off the ground and spinning them around in the air and creating what looked like a tornado in the room.

"Oh shit!" Dryout screamed, his voice cracking as he stumbled back while looking down the hall towards the clean-up crew guys. Those guys all turned and started running, though one of them was wrapped up by long thin black lines that just came out of the rotting wall. The lines started pulling him back towards it, and the soldier was screaming in horror and then agony while he was wrapping more and more, and then a figure leaned out of the dark rotting wall. A black monster coiled up around him and sucked him back into the wall that covered in red, blood pouring down not on the exterior but inside the wall.

While madness went on in the halls and rooms just outside of the office of B4 Death was kneeling in, Pastor lifted up a hand in that office and pressed it against Zach's that was squeezing down on his lower chest trying to stop bleeding. There was a thick upside-down cross carved into Pastor's chest, and he was missing patches of skin on his arms and thighs and calves and back. Pastor put a hand on Zach's and pushed it away, and Zach nudged Pastor's hand out of the way while saying, "I need to stop the bleeding."

Gentle pulled back farther into the room, leaning against the inside for a second to catch his breath and keep wrapping his shoulder. "Death, we need to keep moving or all these enemies are going to close in on us." Gentle pushed the back of his head against the wall behind him and clenched his teeth in pain as he pulled a bandage tight around his shoulder the bullet had luckily gone straight through instead of getting stuck inside.

"Stop," Pastor began softly, lifting his hand from his chest up to his head and pushing up on his helmet. He shoved it off his head and then dropped his arm down before coughing a couple times in a weak way. Gentle looked down at the man and then grit his teeth before turning and getting back in the doorway, putting up an Elastic barrier to protect them for a bit longer. Zach looked up at the face of the man with graying black hair, and the former priest shook his head while saying in a soft voice, "One of my hearts has already failed." Zach's eyes opened wide, and Pastor coughed before adding, "And the other, is failing."

Zach closed his eyes tightly and he bit down hard as he had promised not to let anyone else die. He had promised himself, his comrades, yet even as he sat there trying to help Pastor he could hear Richie screaming out in the hallway about Hue, and Dryout yelling out the missing Sandlot's name to let him know where they were. "Don't, bring me back," Pastor whispered. Gentle's eyes opened huge in the doorway, as he was not taking this too seriously and was actually hoping Pastor would kick it quicker so they could get out of there after the revival. Zach froze thought while staring down at Pastor's face, his breath hitching and his heart beat speeding up faster.

The hesitation he had had about bringing Dryout back resurfaced. He had saved Dryout so hesitantly, after hearing about what had happened to the British man he revived at the Sports Festival. He knew Dryout could just die another horrible death inside this place, but he had done it and Dryout had thanked him. Zach stared down at his comrade though and he felt his heart breaking as Pastor shook his head at him. "You're not thinking straight," Zach started. Pastor shook his head more, and Zach continued in a stronger voice, "I'm getting you out of here-"

"I don't want to be brought back," Pastor said up to him, lifting his head a bit off of Zach's knees despite how much pain it looked to put him in. Zach grabbed him and rested him back down, trying to get him to stop moving and making his wounds bleed, but his grip on the man released as Pastor continued, "Not by you." Zach's eyes opened huge and he froze there looking down at the face of the older man. His comrade who he had recruited himself, who he had fought alongside several times now, shook his head with a sad look in his eyes at the frozen helmet of the boy holding him.

"Why?" Zach whispered after a few moments of just staring at him in pained shock.

"I think you are amazing," Pastor assured, then he started coughing again. His face was pale, and he looked so weak as he lay there in Zach's arms resting on his knees. "And I never said anything when you brought people back, even though I thought it was wrong, against my beliefs. Because you are not the messiah… but I believe your power was God-given though." Zach closed his eyes for a second and started shaking his head with his teeth clenched. He was confused, and angry, and most of all sad as he sat there listening to screams in the hall and hearing his comrade tell him not to bring him back. "It was," Pastor insisted, taking the shake of Zach's head to mean that the boy did not believe it to be so. "It was all for a reason-"

"Then maybe," Zach began, turning his helmet and looking down at Pastor's eyes again. "God wants me to bring you back then. No matter what you say, it was God's plan then to-"

"I don't want you to bring me back," Pastor whispered again, his eyes widening in fear as Zach made it out like he was going to revive him. Zach clenched his eyes shut after seeing that look, because he did not know how he could go against this dying man's wishes and revive him anyway. Thinking about all the horrors they had seen down here, the way Pastor had been being skinned alive to look like this now, the crosses carved into his torso; Zach felt like he was giving up. _He can't take it anymore,_ Zach thought, and he bit down on his bottom lip in his visor. Pastor continued to the figure who did not respond after his plea though, "Because, I lied."

Zach's frustrated and saddened expression shifted a bit in confusion. Pastor continued while staring wide-eyed up into Death's visor, "When I told Mikey, that Michael was God's most powerful archangel. That is not true." Pastor started breathing faster, and Zach's face covered in more confusion before his eyes shot open huge in full-on terror. "God created Satan, he, he-ack kah, ack, he cast out Lucifer, to become the ruler of Hell. To punish sinners. And I believe, that God did that for us."

Zach stared down at Pastor with shaky eyes, watching as the man looking up into his visor gained a terrified yet accepting expression on his face. Pastor leaned his head back, and Zach started loosening his arms around him more but could not let go and just let Pastor drop to the floor. "For mankind," Pastor whispered, continuing up to the boy looking down at him, whose face was just darkness in that visor. "As a warning," Pastor said, and Zach's breath caught in his throat. In his mind he saw himself standing on the walls of the palace of Hatto, and Pastor saw that too while he continued, "So that we would all have the fear, of what would happen if we sinned. If we were evil in life, Lucifer would punish us. God sent his favorite, most trusted angel to Hell for eternity. Cast him out of paradise, to strike fear in the hearts of man."

 _No. No, I'm not! I'm not the…_ "Pastor, I'm not-" Zach began, but his voice was too shaky to come out convincing in any way. The analogy Pastor had just created was far too unnerving. _Everything I've been doing, to terrify the villains of the world into stopping, to punish villains. And Lucifer received the most horrible punishment, yet he still hands out- is it because God knew he would still only punish sinners even if, even if he made him go through the most horrible… Is that me? No! What am I thinking?! I don't even believe any of this! It's not real!_ Zach took in a sharp breath and he stared down at Pastor with terrified eyes, _But he, believes it is._

Zach's breathing started speeding up faster and faster, and Pastor said in a soft tone to him, "I'm sorry, but I don't want you to bring me back. Because I believe in you. That only you have the judgement to hand out punishment to the sinners and villains of the world and your discretion. Just as God left Satan to deal with all sinners, because he trusted Lucifer to only deal fair punishments to those who deserved them."

"Do you think I'm the devil?" Zach whispered. Even in the man's dying moments, he needed to know the answer. He held Pastor tighter and the man below looked up into his visor without responding for a few seconds.

"I don't know," Pastor whispered. His face started to scrunch up and he whispered, "But I've become, disillusioned- ack, ack agh, with everything what I've been doing. For my life. All of… What have I been doing all this time?" Pastor's eyes filled with water, as he felt his second heart slowing down more. He clenched his eyes shut and pushed out the tears before gasping, "Because what we've been doing, is what I believe is Lucifer's job. Death. The Devil… The darkness… Is it right for man- ACK-" blood splashed out of Pastor's mouth, and then his body felt a whole lot weaker. His eyes could barely stay open, and he whispered again to the boy he heard take in a sharp breath next to him that sounded so broken and pained. "I'm sorry…"

"The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want…"

Zach could barely hear Pastor after a couple seconds. The man closed his eyes and his mouth kept moving, but sound stopped coming out and then his lips started slowing down too. Blood trickled out the corners of them, and his head turned to the side which Zach tried to catch only to realize why it was slumping like that in the first place. Zach froze as he made the realization, and the man he was holding slid off of his stiff arms and down to the floor. Zach stared down at Pastor's body, his arms covered in the blood of the man he had called comrade.

 _What do I do?_ Zach's butt slumped down on his calves and his shoulders slouched. He was on his knees staring down at the scared face of a man who had not died in a good way at all. The fear, the doubt, the belief that his life had been for nothing. Zach reached up his left hand and grabbed himself by the side of the head, hearing Pastor tell him not to revive him again. _Why? Why would something like that happen? Why would you make that- No! No there isn't a plan. I'm not the fucking devil. And Pastor shouldn't have fucking died like that, there couldn't have been a reason for it!_ Zach grabbed his head harder and he wished his helmet was not on so he could actually feel his hand gripping into his skull.

 _I can't bring him back. I can't go against his religion, his beliefs. Did he really think it was wrong of me to bring people back all those times? But if God- if he thought God gave me those powers?! I-_ Zach looked at the man and he started leaning forward and lowering his right hand. _I don't want him to die, thinking he had worked for the devil. Was he praying for forgiveness because of that? In the end?! Was he begging to be forgiven- or, but, he thought what I was doing was right. He trusted my judgement? I don't understand. Did he just not want to work for the devil anymore?! WHY?! Why, did you have to die like that?_

"We can't hold it back anymore!" Richie shouted backwards in panic, and he threw his rifle forward to try and slow the beast before turning and running straight back to the office.

Dryout conserved his ammo a bit better, firing in short rounds into the dark mass creeping its way down the hallway. Red lights shattered one by one across the ceiling, and all they had was the single flashlight below Dryout's gun and the red light in the office behind them still illuminating the near pitch-black basement. Gentle spun from the room behind him he had been staring into back out into the hall where their creepy rotting black friend was coming for them again. The whole floor around them looked to be twisting with it, though it was all thickest straight ahead of them in the middle of where they had been fighting against. Richie pulled out a handgun and he stumbled backwards before scrambling up and spinning both ways from the office to try and find better options. He was not going to run off on his own though, and he just turned to the dark mass and started yelling out while firing into the darkest part of the floor.

Zach stood up as he heard the shouts right outside. Gentle darted his eyes into the corner of his vision as Death started walking up towards him. The other two glanced back with hope as they saw their powerful comrade moving up, and then Zach froze. The others all spun forward again, and they stared into the middle of the darkness where a bright circle of light illuminated the floor. The black lines started pulling backwards, only for a high-pitched screech to ripple through the air. _**EEeeesssSHHH**_ A pillar of white light broke through the floor and through all of the dark lines that had been so condensed that the ceiling below had shown through with them.

Gentle's eyes darted to the side walls where he saw black lines now fully illuminated in that pillar turn and start racing back the other way. The walls that were starting to twist way too close to them returned to normal, and all of them focused towards the wide hole in the floor that the pillar faded from. Something got tossed up through the hole, and Dryout's eyes shot open wide in shock before a smile of relief came over his face. Sandlot tried landing but he was unsteady on his feet and fell forward after hitting down, only to lift his head as two big hands caught him before he would have collapsed. "Dryout," Sandlot said, a big smile on his face as he saw his revived comrade holding him.

"You alright?" Dryout said while getting Sandlot to stand upright steadier. Sandlot nodded but lowered his eyes down to his lower legs where there were handprints burnt into the skin of his shins and calves.

A man leapt up onto B4 with a dark shield attached to his back. The man in a black uniform no longer had a helmet on, revealing his head with a crew cut of blond hair and his bright blue eyes. The muscular man around six and a half feet tall no longer had an earpiece in at all, and he stared past Death for a moment with his blue eyes opening wide at the body he saw in the office. Exodus focused back on Death and knelt down moments after raising through the hole he blasted in the ceiling with his Quirk- Light. "My apologies, Death. That I was not able to regroup with you sooner."

"I'm glad you're alright," Zach said, though his voice was dark and had very little emotion in it. "You too, Sandlot," Zach added. "Now let's keep moving up. Exodus, save your power. We don't know what's awaiting above. Let's move to the stairs. As a group." Zach started forward, but he slowed and turned to Richie. "Hue, is he-"

"Fucking gone man," Richie replied, shaking his head and holding his pistol tightly with both hands. "You'll, get me out of here? You will right?" Richie leaned in towards the figure who he wanted reassurance from. "I don't want to die like that. I don't- that shit was-" Richie's eyes were crazed and he was shaking like mad as he thought about what he had seen happen to Hue. While Hue screamed at him to help, while he fired bullets at the monster that opened its mouth so wide like it was unhinged and sucked up the desk Hue was trying to hold himself down with. Richie clenched his eyes tightly, and Zach started walking past him which made the man waiting for reassurance spin his way with huge eyes.

"I won't tell you anymore that you won't die. Everyone watch each other's backs. Don't let each other die. That's all I can say," Zach pulled out a knife and he started jogging down the hall. _I can't save you. I can't save any of you. I'm, I'm just…_

* * *

 _ **"…I would have literally turned into a monster- the devil! Just to save you!"**_ Zach stood near the elevator on B2 breathing heavy breaths inside his helmet that kept fogging his visor for a second before fading away. He glanced to the left and saw Sandlot down on the floor with his back up against the wall next to the elevator, a smear of blood on that wall though it was not from Sandlot's body as his only bad wounds were on his legs. Next to Sandlot stood Dryout who was crouched down and drying out the floor down that entire hallway which had the watery monster at the end backing away in a nervous way.

 _ **"I convinced a man that I was the devil, and maybe just doing that makes it true. Maybe I am the devil…"**_ Zach turned his head forward and stared at Exodus who had his shield planted down the hall and blocking off the rest of the floor from their hallway. Gentle looked over his shoulder on Zach's right side, then he turned and told the man next to him who was barely keeping it together to keep watching the few doors ahead of them in the darkness. Exodus' shield was giving off some more light than usual, and Gentle stared at the visor of Zach's helmet for a couple seconds before walking right up next to him. _**"Because a crazy fucking murderer like Hunter, believes it's so! He's not afraid of you, he's not afraid of the League, he's not even afraid of Eziano fucking Mozcaccio! But he is afraid of me…"**_

 _I've thought it myself before._ Zach thought, his mind full of terror as they waited for the rising elevator behind him. _But, but Pastor was a religious man! He knows right? He would know if I was- more than I would at least. So if I even thought it was a possibility, but, but I just did those things to make myself seem like the devil… Yet, yet Pastor said the things I'm doing, the things I believe are right and important for the world are things the Devil would do. Satan, Lucifer, a monster!_

Zach glanced over his shoulder as the elevator reached up to B6 only a few floors below them now. The light over the elevator showing what floor it was on gave Zach the most troubled feeling, and his arms started getting limp at his sides. "Are you serious?" Gentle asked, stepping up in front of Zach and then leaning his head forward in front of the boy's. "Do you really think you're the devil?" _That damn Pastor,_ Gentle thought in a great deal of annoyance as he looked at the visor of the teen in front of him. He also recalled what he had heard Sazaki shout that night in the forest of the Lifebringer Incident, and he could tell the kid was thinking about it because he had been staring at the two of them as Pastor died in Sazaki's arms.

"What?" Zach whispered at the man in front of him who had just made his eyes open wide with that statement. "What are you-"

"You are a human being, do not get caught up in others' beliefs." Gentle turned and he rose up a pistol he had grabbed off a body on the stairwell from a guard who had almost made it back up to the surface before getting crucified on a railing. He aimed towards Exodus and called out, "Drop the shield for a second." Exodus' shield turned off the white light that spread from the edges all the way to the walls and ceiling that now had burn lines in them. Gentle fired twice, one bullet grazing the left shoulder of a zombie-looking man stagger-sprinting towards them, the next shot slamming into the zombie's right shoulder and sending him sprawling backwards.

"How do you-" Zach began, staring at Gentle through shaky eyes. He had been so focused on Pastor that he had not even noticed Gentle was close enough to hear their entire conversation earlier in Pastor's last moments. He shook his head around though, and then he whispered while glancing back at the elevator about to reach them, "But, what if-"

"Pastor was an idiot. Next, you'll be listening to Exodus and believing you're a fucking God!" Gentle called out skeptically, before spinning to the right and yelling at Richie to get back there. Richie was already scrambling away though, as a three-headed figure was crawling up through the solid floor. Their body was just emerging from the ground as if it were nothing, and six arms and six legs pressed down on the floor before crawling the deformed figure over rapidly like a monstrous spider.

Zach shook his head around while turning to the right where Gentle was about to attack. He ran forward and grabbed Richie with his left hand, throwing him backwards while slamming his right hand into his chest. Zach swung his left hand back forward and made a wind of blackness that he swept into the creature leaping towards him. Black wind pushed straight through the figure whose body started turning translucent like it was going to pass through the Death, then the eyes on all three of its faces started to close and it collapsed to the ground, skidding to a stop at Zach's feet. He took some long deep breaths that made dark fog hang in front of his face for a few moments. Then he tapped his chest again while feeling like his body was drained after fighting so much in Nightmare up through all the floors of this horrible basement.

"Good, you're," Gentle began while stepping towards Zach's back.

"Pastor just died," Zach said, turning his head and glaring at the man behind him who stopped while they looked into each others' visors. Zach ground his teeth in anger behind his mask at what Gentle just said to him. "He was a good man, and he didn't-"

"He was," Gentle agreed. He calmed himself down a bit and decided his wording of his previous statements could have been done a bit better. They were almost back at the surface though and he needed to say it, "But the priest couldn't handle this, and he broke down at the end." Zach's eyes opened wide in his helmet, and Gentle shook his head while finishing, "Do not take his dying words to heart. Twisted by this place. Pastor believed the devil existed in this world, because of the horrors we have all seen today." Gentle took in a deep breath and then turned towards the opening elevator, "We should-"

"Don't move!" The two soldiers inside the elevator shouted out. They were both in all black uniforms and held rifles in their hands that were shaking when the group outside turned in to look at them.

"Part of the clean-up crew," Dryout began, glaring into the elevator as he stepped back.

A female voice called out on the left of the two in there, "We just want to leave. We, we just want to get out of here!"

"Yeah," Zach muttered. "So did everyone down there you were called here to kill."

"We'll fire!" The man shouted from in the middle of the elevator, raising his rifle and pointing it forward harder though keeping the barrel out of the way of the doors he wanted to close already.

Exodus walked forward. He rose his shield in front of him and walked straight towards the elevator. Zach motioned his head into the elevator, and the two soldiers inside pointed their rifles out and fired while yelling at the man to stop coming closer. Exodus kept walking, his shield glowing as he held it in front of him and his entire body, leaning forward a bit to hide his head behind it while moving. Exodus stopped inside the doorway of the elevator, and he waited for the clicking sounds of two guns out of ammo. Then he pulled his shield to the right fast when he heard the footstep of the man trying to get around him to strike down. He slammed his shield into the man and smashed him into the side of the elevator, then he snapped his left hand out and grabbed the woman by the face when she tried pulling backwards. He yanked her helmet the opposite direction and threw her out of the elevator and to the floor at Zach's feet.

Zach reached down and grabbed the woman, and he pulled her back to her feet while disarming her of the other weapons still attached to her body. He tossed a pistol to the side, grabbed a knife and glared at the blood all over the weapon. There was a lot of blood splattered around her black costume, and he reached up and took her helmet off to see a woman on the inside with pink skin and a shaved head, a tattoo on the side of it in the shape of wings behind a black jungle cat. He tossed her helmet aside, and he leaned forward and said, "If you're leaving, I take that to mean that things are not going well for your team downstairs?"

"The whole team is done," the woman responded with a nervous shake of her head. "Everyone got spooked by Keith's death, thinking the Corporate chick-"

"Do you know what Corporate is?" Zach asked, though he was not too into the interrogation. He was nowhere near as intense with it as he was with the first guy, but then again he did not care as much anymore. Plus, the woman in front of him seemed very obedient and willing to answer all his questions with barely a push.

"N-No, but I could try and find out for you!" She shouted, as after saying 'no' she could have swore she felt the hands grabbing her tighten. Zach's eyes narrowed in an annoyed way as that was exactly what Bryan had told him downstairs only to not actually have the information Zach wanted.

"Hey, we've gotta get out of here," Sandlot said, looking at Death who turned to him and then followed Dryout's gaze back behind him. Dryout was helping Sandlot stand with one arm behind his back under his shoulders, and back behind them a water monster was moving across a dried out hallway that shifted below it but was not sucking up its body like the former test subject seemed to think was going to happen. Worse than that though, was the sight of the end of the hallway behind that monster starting to darken and bleed.

"Doesn't that thing ever give up?" Richie shouted.

"Oh shit, you guys have been fighting that too?" The woman Zach was grabbing asked in fear.

"Shut up," Zach touched his chest with his right hand, then he tossed the woman falling unconscious into the elevator in front of him. He stepped inside and reached down to a man who pushed back against the wall in terror only to slump as Zach knocked him out too. Zach turned off Nightmare and kept panting even with it off. _I'm exhausted, but I can't just leave these guys conscious. Even if they are terrified, give them a moment and they'll wipe us all out. As scared as they were, anyone would be terrified after being stuck down here even for just ten minutes. Once they're out they'd become trained commandos again._

"Everyone inside," Zach said as he stepped up to the panel of buttons on the front right of the elevator. He glanced up through the hole in the ceiling, then he reached to his helmet and tapped a button on the side of it to call up Rebel who was not constantly locked in with him. "Rebel, how are those reinforcements coming?"

"Still twenty minutes out," Rebel replied. "Why? Are you stuck-"

"Just about to get out actually," Zach replied. His voice was dark, and exhausted, and his mind was still racing with horrible things that he was trying to preoccupy himself away from thinking too hard on. "Make sure they're not rushing. I don't want heroes following them here because they were sloppy." _I can't get into a fight right now. And I won't let everyone just start wailing on heroes to get us an escape route. Could Sandlot and Dryout convince other heroes to ignore us? Maybe. We just need to-_

 **CCHHHHH** The entire B2 floor blasted with a scratchy static noise. It filled into the elevator too and came from above and below though was louder through the hole in the ceiling showing it was coming from other floors above just as loudly. _**EeeeeEEEEE**_ **CH CH CH** _ **Eeee.**_ **"Hello Death."** The group had put their hands on their ears as feedback screeched out of the speakers, and then a voice spoke that came through the scratchy speakers in a calm, eerily casual tone.

Exodus stopped where he was on the outside of the elevator, and Zach actually stepped back out of it himself while glancing around in the hallways outside. He looked to his left after stepping out, staring towards a watery monster that had suddenly stopped moving. It froze where it was, and Zach noticed that no black lines or rotting walls could be seen anywhere. He frowned deeply as they had been there when he last looked over before stepping in the elevator.

"Come on," Richie whispered out of the elevator in a nervous voice. He looked towards the panel himself as if considering the pros and cons of just leaving some of them down here to escape on his own. Then his eyes opened wide as he saw the man with purple highlights on his black costume look down at the floor before stepping out of the lift himself like he thought it might fall at any moment. Richie sprinted out of the elevator doors thinking about that, and he lifted back up his pistol. The skinny guard gulped and looked up at the closest speaker on the dark walls that started letting out the most creepy voice imaginable again.

 **"It seems you are trying to escape from here."**

"Can you hear me?" Zach asked, looking around and speaking loud enough that he hoped whoever was speaking to him could hear.

 **"I would prefer it if you stayed. You see, I would very much like to meet you."**

 _He can't hear me? Or is he just ignoring me? Is this-_

 **"I am God."**

"Jesus Christ," Sandlot whispered, slouching down the inside of the elevator doors and letting out a gasp at the sound of that confidently spoken sentence. He lowered his head and clenched his eyes shut, trying to force the voice out of his head and lifting his hands to his ears to drown it out.

Dryout stepped forward on Sandlot's side and he glared towards the water monster, but the figure without a real humanoid form was sliding back down the hallway away from them. It turned a corner and disappeared from sight, leaving the group alone yet as scared as ever.

"He's not God," Zach said in a low voice. He ground his teeth and looked back into the elevator. _And he probably doesn't have control over the elevator. He does control the speakers though, so could he? Why did he let it come up here though? Did he do it just to let us on? How did he even know we're up here? Practically all the cameras were broken or disconnected back when we were in the security room._ "We're getting out of here," Zach continued, turning and looking at the five behind him. "As long as he's down there and we're-"

 **"You see, Dr. Jones knew a lot about Death. He was one of those who experimented on 66. And he always had a theory, as to who you really are. I was just able to confirm his theory."**

"Let me go! Get your hands off me!"

"Oh shit," Richie muttered, sweat covering his face at the sound of that voice. All of them recognized the voice except for Exodus who had been separated from the team all the time they were with her.

"Ms. Isabel!" Another voice shouted in the background of the speakers.

Zach heard the woman's voice, and he clenched his eyes shut for a moment in anger. His rage was all directed towards himself for taking his helmet off when he attacked the woman. As much as he still wanted to be angry at her, and to hate her for what she admitted about the one he now knew was designated as 'experiment 66,' he could not find it in him to despise her as much anymore. He did not mourn her either though, as she started screaming in the most horrific way with her voice piercing through the speakers.

Scraping sounds, slurping and crunching noises, the peeling of skin, and Isabel's screams almost drowning all of that out. There were other screams in the background too that Zach focused more on though. He listened in to horrified yells, screams of the doctor's name, and screams at the monsters to stop. Yet over their voices he heard others, chanting together, "Sacrifice. Sacrifice. Sacrifice! Sacrifice!"

 **"Down here in the depths…"** _ **Crack**_ A loud cracking noise cut off Isabel's gurgled screams. They did not cut off the crunching noises though. The one calling himself God continued, **"…are many potential sacrifices. So many, soon to meet Isabel's fate…"**

Screams started in the background. "NO!"

"Please, someone!"

"Get away from me!"

They were terrified, and they were screaming for help. God continued in a calm and knowing voice, **"They will all die down here. Death, will come for them… B16."**

 **CHHHHHhhhhh…** The speakers got much louder and crackly again, then the static sound faded off.

Zach lowered his gaze from the speaker he had been staring at, down to the floor below his feet. He stared at the white floor, and his eyes narrowed behind his visor in the darkest way. "Gentle, Exodus," Zach began. "Go on up."

"Are you crazy?!" Richie shouted at the boy who just said that.

Dryout and Sandlot both stared towards Death with their eyes the size of saucers. Dryout started lifting his right hand, but it was shaking too much when he tried opening his mouth to counter with something about how they should get reinforcements first.

Gentle stepped towards Zach, and Exodus walked over towards him as well. Zach turned and looked straight into Gentle's purple visor, "Get those two in the elevator to the surface. Make them talk about whatever they know about the 'Corporate' and… and Gentle, you're the second in command. If anything were to happen to me, then you're in charge."

"No," Gentle said.

Zach ground his teeth behind his helmet. "We don't have time for this," he growled in an angry voice. _Every second I'm up here. There's no time to wait. He'll-_ "I have to go. This isn't time for you to be snarky-"

"I'm fine being second in command, but I won't take your place," Gentle said. It was the first time Zach had ever specified his position in the Army of Death, and Gentle was actually a bit surprised hearing Zach about to hand him over the army just like that. He shook his head though and then continued while looking into the dark visor of the shorter boy in front of him, "Without you, there is no Army of Death. I can't be it." Zach's eyes started getting wider and shaking as the older man said this to him. "All of them are following you, your will," Gentle continued. "So if you die, everything is lost."

Zach's fists clenched at his sides, and his head bowed for a moment. His arms strained at his sides, as he struggled to accept what Gentle just said. With his head bowed, he was staring straight at the floor. He could imagine through it to the place he had heard all those horrified screams. It would be easy to imagine all of those people were monsters who deserved whatever was coming to them, but he could not even listen to Isabel's tortured screams without feeling pity for her. And to feel like that for someone who had admitted in such a gleeful way about torturing and experimenting on innocent people, it had him clenching his fists so hard he could almost feel himself breaking his skin through the strong fabric of his gloves. He started raising his head, and he looked up to the two in front of him to say in a strained voice, "But if I don't go back down there, then everything's already lost."

Gentle's eyes opened huge behind his visor. His own expression was shook, and he leaned backwards with shock covering his face. "If I don't go, then everything we stand for is all for nothing. It's, just words." Zach said it in a pained way at Gentle, and the older man could hear how much frustration, and fear, and reluctance was in that voice. Yet over each of those different emotions, Gentle heard a determination rising to the surface. Zach's shaking arms steadied even though his fists stayed clenched as hard as they had been.

"Then," Exodus began, narrowing his light blue eyes at the boy who turned to him now. "We will make sure nothing is lost." Gentle kept staring at Zach though his eyes shifted to the corner of his visor as the man next to him took another step forward. "Death, you cannot die," Exodus said. "Yet you also cannot give up on your convictions." Exodus lifted up his shield and slammed the thin bottom part of it down on the ground in front of him. "In that case, I will be your shield, to protect you and ensure that you are able to both go down there and return alive."

Gentle closed his eyes for a second and he cursed, "Damn it." It was under his breath, but his microphone was on and put his voice into Zach's helmet though Exodus did not have an earpiece to hear him anymore. Exodus did turn though as Death did, and the man at his side said after seeing Zach look to him, "It's the only thing that makes sense. We'll go together."

Zach spun his head from Gentle back to Exodus and back again. "You, can't," Zach began. "It's too dangerous, your shoulder, and you have people waiting for-"

"Don't try to change my mind," Gentle snapped at the teenager. Dryout and Sandlot stared towards those dark soldiers' backs with amazement and growing admiration in their eyes, while Richie was staring at them like they were fucking insane. Gentle glared at the boy since it had already taken a lot for him to say this once. "We're in this together now. Until the end. We're going to see this through."

Zach took a few seconds to accept it, but the thought of the people downstairs made him have to stop hesitating. He took a deep breath and then nodded his head at his comrades. Then he looked past them and started, "Take the lift up. Get those two out of here…" Zach spoke to the other three in the group who were not in his army, and then he tapped a button on his helmet reconnecting himself solely to a link Rebel had with him and only him. "Rebel," he began to the man who had been listening the whole time but staying quiet as he stared at his computer screens in shock. "Don't let anyone come down here after they arrive. If they do show up while we're still inside, have them guard the exits. If we fail, they don't let what's awaiting us down there escape."

* * *

"Azrael," Dr. Jones began, staring into the eyes of the clean-up crew captain fighting to escape his binds in the deepest basement of the test facility. Researchers, staff, and former experiments who were just trying to escape backed away from the man who had left his servants behind to keep tearing apart at Isabel's body. Azrael tugged at his thick green binds that tightened more when he did, and he gasped out for breath as he found himself short of breath. Azrael bared his teeth up at the doctor, no fear on his face while purple sparks started coming out of his cheeks and dark hair.

"Careful," Jones warned. He rose up his right hand, and Azrael glared furiously up at it. In the corners of the captain's vision, he saw two men dressed in the same dark uniforms as him being dragged off of the metal floor in the wide basement. They left blood trails behind, and then one of the monsters dragging his soldiers away reached down and twisted the man's head off. He grabbed the decapitated corpse by the ankles and threw forward, making a splash in the unground stream of blood. "All of your soldiers are dead, Azrael. Surely you do not want her to be next."

Azrael's eyes darted straight back forward, and his eyes opened huge as a woman with closed eyes appeared in Jones' hand grabbed by the back of the neck. "Ur," he whispered, his face shocked as he had not heard from the woman in a while. "I thought-"

"What is she to you?"

Azrael looked past the woman and his co-captain, to the man behind her whose facial expression had a deep pit of dread swirling in his chest. "What did you do to her?!" Azrael shouted. Uriel was not moving, and he could not tell if she was alive or not with her eyes closed and her face looking so calm as it slept. "Ur! Ur wake up!"

"So you do care about something. That is good. Now, stop using your Quirk. Stay calm. And listen."

Azrael shifted his gaze from the woman he was yelling at back to the man speaking to him. "What?" He spat out at the researcher.

On Azrael's right, down the line of captives and crawling into a corner, an older man with white hair and bloody eyes reached down into his pants. He curled up against the wall, a man who had been dragged down there with Isabel while they were hiding from the clean-up crew. His head was pounding from when Death beat him back upstairs, but he was pretty sure what was happening around him was not a nightmare. And if it was not a nightmare, if B16 which he had never been to before had actually consisted in part of a discovered cave system, if there were bodies hanging upside-down from stalactites on the ceiling, blood dripping off of them down into a flowing river of blood…

"Would you like me to spare her?" The researcher in a blood-splotched white coat lifted his right hand and rested it on Azrael's left cheek. He lowered Uriel down to the floor between them and then said in a softer voice, "Death did this to her. But I can save her. Only God, can save this woman now."

"You're not…" Azrael started, his voice steady but trailing off at the end. His eyes shifted down to Uriel's still body-

 **"BBLAAARRGGH!"** Dr. Jones' mouth opened and a jet of dark liquid spewed out and straight into Azrael's eyes, nose, and opened mouth. Azrael coughed and opened his mouth to try and get air only to breath some of the dark liquid into his lungs. He surrounded his body in purple electricity and a huge blast blew away from him making everyone nearby scream. Much louder screams came from inside the river of blood and two creatures reared their heads out of it while the surface sparked electricity.

Dr. Jones dropped to the floor and his burnt head face-planted into the steel ground of B16. There was blood splashed across the floor and now dark ooze pooling around his body. Azrael eased backwards, and he froze like that for a few seconds. Then he lowered his head down and stared at the green binds around him. "Release these," he commanded.

The other prisoners around Azrael started looking at him in hope. Most of them did, however one man with glass shards still sticking in his skin around his eye sockets and a broken nose just stared over in terror. Franklin Hughes stared down at the needle in his right hand. He trembled while staring at it, and he clenched his eyes shut thinking about what Isabel had described God to be to the Army of Death they had been with earlier. Franklin could hear the other prisoners around him shouting at Azrael to free them all now that he had killed God, yet they were getting confused too as the green binds around Azrael loosened and then dropped to the floor below the man covered in black ooze.

"'Killed God?'" Azrael questioned the shouting prisoners. He turned his head to the right, and his eyes flooded with a pitch black color that shut every one of the future sacrifices up. They all froze and stared at the man in a black costume with blood and darkness spewed on him, who lifted his right hand and stared at it as he turned it over a couple times. Then he rose up his hand and created a huge purple bolt of lightning that flashed through the floor that he slammed straight down into Uriel's body to completely fry her. Azrael stared down at his work and commented, "To have killed 23, is not small feat. Miles was, a devout and blessed follower. One with little need for his own desires." Azrael turned and looked towards the others down there who were acting mad, splashing around in blood, dragging about prisoners and spiking the dead to walls or stringing them up to the ceiling. "This power, this position… And this knowledge. It seems he knew the true origins. Those that Jones did not have the clearance for."

Azrael's right hand clenched into a fist in front of him. He kept staring at it, and then he said in a calm voice, "Dr. Hughes. I would not suggest doing that."

Franklin did not waste a second. _He knows!_ Franklin stabbed the needle into his inner right elbow and he injected himself. _If it can make all of them this strong… then I too-_

"AHhh, AHHH!" Franklin brought his hands up to the sides of his face and he started screaming as his entire body filled with agony.

Azrael turned towards the man who other nearby prisoners started scrambling away from or crawling to the best of their tied-up capabilities. "All of the drugs that made your experiments so powerful, have already been laced. The finished formula is now mixed with the foundation of the failed gas I released on my followers." Azrael smacked his lips a couple of times and then rubbed them with his right hand, getting some blood and more black ooze over his lips.

"However," Azrael said while lifting his right hand in front of him. He aimed at the scientist who was going mad, his eyes flashing red and his body bulging and bulking. "Although you could now be a powerful subject, I feel I made myself clear that I wanted you to wait. Disobeying me… You will not be forgiven." Purple light flared at the end of his hand, and he said in a calm voice that sent chills through every person around him, "And so I shall strike you down. Call out for me, your Lord, as I smite thee." Azrael's lips twisted up at the corners, and then a beam of purple shot out of his charging hand and engulfed the scientist who screamed and tried charging at the man before him.

The lightning pushed him back, and it slammed Franklin into the ground where he kept screaming in agony, lightning ripping apart at his entire body. He yelled and screamed, and then he clenched his teeth while his lips were shredding apart, and he opened his mouth to yell, "GOD!" A brighter flash of purple erupted around Franklin Hughes, crisping his body and silencing him.

"Oh fuck no," a prisoner just dragged downstairs who had not been resisting until now, slammed his head backwards into the distracted face of his captor too captivated by God's amazing powers to focus on his former cellmate. _That gas made everyone mad,_ Reynal reached down to his right while spinning to the man leaning his head back in pain, and he ripped the pistol out of the guy's waistband, and he pulled the trigger while flipping the gun up into his hands. _Fuck off!_ Reynal screamed in his head at his former fellow test subject, who he barely even recognized anymore.

"Stop him!"

"SACRIFICE!"

God turned his head and looked across the floor to a man who turned his gun and fired on others around him, freeing more of the group who had just been dragged down to this floor. Seeing that new batch of sacrifices trying to escape, got the ones who already knew what was coming for them scrambling forward. All the escape plans they had been crafting in their minds or together in whispers occurred at once. People started running, grabbing rocks or pipes or construction equipment.

A woman leapt up at Azrael's back, her hands bursting into flames on all her fingers. She reached for the back of his head, and Azrael's body erupted in a flash of purple lightning that electrocuted the now-screaming woman behind him. "A riot?" He questioned, looking around in amusement while the woman behind him fell twitching to the floor. "How interesting," he said. God turned towards the elevator and saw the number 1 above it on the cracked digital counter. His smile lowered a bit, and he hummed in disappointment before turning forward and announcing, "Begin the rapture. All shall become sacrifices in this, the passageway between this life and the next. Look around you and rejoice. Rejoice! As this is all that remains of this world."

A smirk crossed Azrael's face, as the people trying to escape went mad at his announcement. The people on the verge of madness felt like they truly were insane and that all of this was pure insanity. All they cared about was surviving, and everyone around them could be an enemy. Not all of them could tell the difference between those affected by God's words and those who weren't, many of them were test subjects and others were researchers so they were not working together either, and everything started killing each other. Blood splashed on the walls, and people tackled each other and strangled each other over weapons or keys or just in the desire to create more sacrifices for God.

An explosion went off to Azrael's left over near the elevator, and flames rose across the small cave near a blocked-off tunnel. The entire B16 basement shook, and screams rang out through it as the walls trembled. Azrael's eyes snapped to the middle of the floor though. While all this happened around him, his smile vanished for a brief moment as a wide circle of the ceiling started disintegrating. More precisely, the ceiling lost its solid form and started raining tiny particles of roof down. Inside that rain of ceiling sand, dropped a man with his huge hands pointed straight down below him with a hazy gray wind pushing out of them. And above that pro hero using his Super Move, dropped three figures in black costumes.

 **Ten Seconds Earlier…**

"Can you make it all the way down?" Gentle asked in surprise to the hero who started yelling out while pushing a thicker wind of Desert Maker into the floor below him, his palms curled in at the sides to condense it all into one spot and dry it faster than ever.

"I can! Save your strength," Dryout urged the man next to him on his left who started dropping down with him again to the next floor down. Exodus nodded at the hero and his right hand glowing white lowered down a bit, then Exodus snapped his head to the left and looked down the hallway of the bloody floor they just dropped onto.

"Death," Exodus started warning.

Zach turned and spotted a red claw down the hall and then the face of a monster pulling past the corner. The beast turned towards him, and Zach felt his heart tear as he faced the experiment. _66, Richard Hawkins._ They fell through the floor, and Zach's pained expression filled with panic as in the hallway on the next floor down, the red-furred monster stepped fully into it and turned towards him with its head splitting apart in two followed by the rest of its glitchy body. The beast that lagged around on the floor started running towards their group, and they fell through the floor again only to see two red monsters sprinting towards them on the next floor down.

"It's teleporting through the floors!" Gentle exclaimed in panic.

"No," Zach said, his eyes wide as he realized how big each of the beasts were in comparison to the first one or even when it had first split in half. "Faster Dryout!" Zach shouted, while lifting his head and looking back up through the circular holes going ten floors above them. Dryout yelled out and he pushed his hands down harder while curling them closer together, and the fabric of his big gray gloves started to shred apart as his skin dried out too on his palms.

Exodus lifted his shield in the direction of the hall the beast was on even as they dropped another floor, then the blue-eyed man spun around and his eyes flashed white as he looked past Gentle in the other direction where the red monster somewhat bigger than the ones they had just been seeing was almost upon them. "They can all see through the same eyes," Exodus began.

"Or at least they're communicating," Zach said, really hoping Exodus was wrong there as the monster would be way too strong if that were the case. _A single consciousness. All of those powerful bodies at the same time._ "GO DRYOUT!" He yelled, while snapping his head up at the sound of a dozen roars overlapping with each other. Huge red beasts looking like mixes of boars and bears dove into the holes above them and started dive-bombing towards the heroes. They extended their claws out, right as Dryout broke through the floor of B15 that was soaked in blood. The group had barely had a moment to see the absolute horror that was B15, before they dropped into the long fall down in B16 that was exponentially worse.

As horrifying as this floor full of crucified and hanging corpses, rivers of blood, and people rioting and murdering each other was though, the four falling through the roof had to ignore it all for a second as their main focus was on avoiding the fifteen ravenous red creatures diving after them. All of God's servants, the researchers, staff, and experiments just trying to escape stared up and their eyes bulged at the sight of the party that just dropped through their roof. The walls shook, the ceiling cracked around the hole, and all those monsters falling towards them roared at almost the same time, _**"RRAAARARARAARARAARAAAA!"**_

"We came to save these people," Gentle began, "not get them slaughtered." He flipped himself over in midair and swung a Gently Rebound below him. He pulled Dryout up while swinging down, and then he slammed his legs into the Elastic air to get the two of them out of the way. Exodus rose his arms and he fired five beams of white light up in the air at the red monsters, only for four of them to split apart and dodge after the first was hit and annihilated.

"Death!" God shouted across the floor, though he did not sound much like the voice Zach had heard back upstairs. He spun while descending farther past Gentle's barrier, purposely dodging it and letting the monsters falling after him bounce away in confusion. Zach turned and glared towards a figure in a costume that looked too much like one of his own. "You came! I was worried you had other plans…"

As Zach continued dropping to the floor only five meters below him now, he slammed his right hand into his chest. As he was doing that though, his thoughts were already speeding up and everything around him was slowing down. His mind raced, _That's not him, yet what did Isabel say? His soul. It transferred from one of the experiments into Jones, and now into this man._

"His name is Azrael," Gentle began into the headset Zach was wearing, only the two of them connected down there inside their helmets. Gentle just heard this from Dryout he was dropping with, and he continued, "But it seems our holy enemy is…"

"Up through the hole!"

"We can get out of here…"

Exodus shouted at the people closest to him, "Go through and I will protect you! Escape this place all of you…"

"Kill them!"

"Sacrifices!"

The first of the red monsters slammed down, and two others fell straight into its back and enlarged it to seven feet tall and even larger as it reared up on its hind legs and let out a roar. It slammed down and then smashed its front right paw to the right and hit one of God's followers chasing a researcher, spinning the man's head around so fast with a snap of his neck. The researcher smiled wide, then she let out a scream as the beast slashed the other way and tore three lines through her torso.

Zach hit the ground and let out a deep breath of black air in front of him. He took in everything around him at the same time. All the different people screaming. All the different sides people were on, and how crazy each person looked which would mean an unpredictability even among those groups. Zach spotted in the darkness to one side that looked less developed, more like a cave that had been discovered and not yet built over very much, a deeper darkness start stretching out from through the cracks into a blocked up tunnel. Black lines shot out of that hole and along the cave walls, and in and out of cracks that were getting deeper. He saw something moving around inside a river of blood, and a long tentacle snapped out and grabbed a woman trying to crawl away as it would make her look smaller, and she screamed as she was dragged towards that river.

Zach shot towards the river and left black footprints on the ground where he was just standing. A wind of darkness flew after him as he moved so fast he almost left his aura behind, instead moving like a black blur towards the water's edge and grabbing the tentacle with both hands. He gripped it tightly for a second, then he let go of the thing and had to shake his right hand as a suction cup started attaching to his skin through his dark veil. The researcher started screaming harder as that black form just charged at her, but she did have enough sense to rip the tentacle off her leg with her bloody hands. She turned and started scrambling away, then sprinted towards the center of the room where someone just flew up through the hole in the ceiling. "Help me!"

The boy who just saved her turned to his right, looking towards a man he just heard Gentle shout at. He could see Gentle past their enemy, but the man he looked towards was staring right at him with eyes that were pitch black throughout. Zach started towards Azrael, then he started sprinting while purple electricity sparked on the monster's hands and surrounded him in a glow. Zach sped up with the floor cracking beneath his feet, then he heard Exodus shout at him from the right. He snapped his head that way and then jumped to his left and crossed both arms. Zach got slammed into by a red creature that had leapt up in the air before reaching him, making both of them fly through the air and slam down into a shallow river of blood that Zach splashed out of and spat to the side as fast as he could.

Zach slammed his right fist forward into the face of the monster as it pulled out of the red stream itself. Zach punched the beast backwards and it hit the bank of the river, then Zach had to raise both hands and catch the wrists of another red beast slightly smaller. He spun it around before its claws could dig into him, and he threw it back into the air the direction it came and into another beast about to dive at him. Zach sprinted forward through the blood that splashed away from him with black wisps all over it, then he grabbed the face of the first one he punched by either of its temples. Zach slammed his right knee up into the already bloodied face, and then he ducked down and dodged a red monster diving at his side.

After ducking, he had to let go of the monster he was still gripping by the temples that snapped its head to the side trying to grab him. Zach's red eyes darted side to side inside his dark helmet's visor that was invisible to all through his aura. He dove into a roll and shot to the right, dodging a beast bigger than all the others about to land where he was. He dodged and then spun to that big one, and he yelled, "Richard!" Experiment 66 froze. All the different parts of it charging at the same person stopped moving, and Zach stared with panting black breaths coming out of his head at the creature that had pitch black eyes and a look of pain on its faces. _Why are they all coming after me? In this whole room, it targeted me. In the hallway upstairs too, it came for me. It ran right past Yuri, and Wreck'd was even… you killed Wreck'd just trying to-_ "Do you know me? You know, who I am don't you?!"

Gentle's eyes bulged as he stared past God towards the confrontation he was seeing. Then he shook his head and his eyes narrowed at God's back. "Go, help Exodus get them out of here," Gentle said to his left and a man exhausted from using his Super Move to get them all the way down there. Dryout's hands were bloody and he nodded at Gentle while panting. He turned and clenched his teeth before running off, hating that he was leaving the fight but knowing before he had even agreed to come down that he was not going to be much use down there. It was why he did not want Exodus wasting his strength on just getting them downstairs. _Sandlot may have been right. I may not be able to do much down here._ Dryout's eyes focused on a couple people injured and limping towards the middle of the room, reaching up towards the hole in the ceiling with desperate looks in their eyes. Dryout's bloody fists clenched and he thought with an intense determination spread over his face, _But I can do something!_

"So you think yourself a God?" Gentle asked, while stepping forward towards the man closest to him. As the man turned around, Gentle could see in the corners of his eyes people skinned, crucified, impaled, and heads just laying around near dismembered corpses. Gentle's eyes narrowed behind his dark purple visor, and he said in a taunting yet angry voice, "Quite pretentious of you. I didn't know God was such a sadist."

"Then you do not know much of God," Azrael said back to the man facing him. They were of equal height, both wearing dark uniforms of the Army of Death. Azrael's even had 'DEATH' written down his back, just as Gentle had the Kanji symbol for it on his own purple cape. "He has done many horrible things. Wiped out the entire planet on several occasions. Human sacrifices even, are not an uncommon thing for Him."

"Well you're quick to admit you aren't Him, aren't you?" Gentle asked, his eyebrows narrowing in at the way the man before him was phrasing those last sentences. "Who are you?" Gentle asked, while keeping an eye behind him towards the fight between Death and the powerful monster invulnerable to his Death.

"I am God," Azrael replied simply. "Or, _a_ God," he said, and the man chuckled for a second before pondering a question aloud, "What would you call me?"

"Insane," Gentle replied. "A crazed lunatic, with a very fragile grasp on reality. This place drove you mad-"

"This place is what created me," Azrael countered. "My very first thoughts, were in the midst of an experiment in a lab only a few floors above us right now." Gentle's face covered in a bit of sweat but he tried keeping his expression steady. Azrael continued though, "And once I realized where I was, I fled from Experiment 29's body into that of the good doctor…" Gentle gulped and clenched his fists at his sides as he was getting a much, much worse feeling about this figure all of a sudden.

"29 was once a religious man in life, and when I first started to understand where I was, I understood that I was God. From what Jones understood on the matter as well, there was no other explanation-"

"Or you're a parasite," Gentle offered. "A parasite destroys its host and gives no benefit to the one it possesses. In fact, I think you are the definition of a parasite." Gentle continued louder and louder as from the first mention of 'parasite' he saw the figure's face twitch.

God's mouth twisted down and his eyes that were already pitch black grew darker. "A parasite does not think. A parasite does not command others." God chuckled and then continued while lifting his head and glaring down his nose towards Gentle, lightning sparking off his hands as he rose them at his sides, "Jones knew the K6 Gas was not a complete failure, but his ideas were too radical even for a place like this. Those experimented on with K6 did not react as desired; they did not answer all questions honestly nor followed the orders of those who gave them, but their minds were altered. They were altered to a point that extreme suggestion could make them believe, or do anything. I obtained all this knowledge just by inhabiting Jones' body, as well as the ideas of his that were purely hypothetical." God smirked more and he took a step towards Gentle whose eyes were huge inside his helmet, "Like how he could make the K6 work, if say he were to infect all these subjects, and then after telling these poor people who had been subject to such atrocities over months or years that God was about to free them. These people who never believed they would ever escape from this hell, suddenly released by a man who claimed to be God and bestowed upon them even more power, and wisdom. The strength to fight back against their oppressors… It was marvelous."

"You are no God," Gentle growled, and he stepped towards Azrael himself while lifting both hands. He opened his hands into palms and crouched his legs while focusing some Elasticity down below the soles of his feet. He took in a deep breath and his entire body started tensing up, "You're a monster created in this lab. Not even human."

"I confirmed it with Azrael's mind as well now," God countered. He rose his hands and sparked more purple lightning on them until there were two bowling ball-sized spheres of bright purple light in his palms. "When I possessed Jones, I believed Azrael could be a perfect vessel. Power, not just in his Quirk. Knowledge beyond what Jones knew, information on his employers in the Fergus Conglomerate." Gentle narrowed his eyes more while trying to think of that name and if he had ever heard of it before. "A prepared man Azrael was. He and Uriel always knew their time to be wiped from the records could come, and they made sure they knew far more about their employers than those who employed them desired. With Azrael's body, I could have risen and transferred up into the highest point in power… but there is one Azrael and Jones were more afraid of than their employers. One who Azrael had been hesitant to impersonate, in fear of what the retribution could be."

"You won't be taking Death's body," Gentle said, and he bounced off the floor towards God. A thin beam of white light pierced through the two purple spheres of electricity and blew them up in Azrael's palms at the moment Gentle lifted off. Exodus started sprinting towards the fake God himself, and he lifted his hands at his right side to create a glowing hilt that a huge sword of white light extended out from.

"SACRIFICE! SACRIFICE! SACRIFICE! SACR-"

Zach swept by a man in the middle of chanting along with anyone else still following God's orders. Zach knocked the man out with a swing of his arm in his direction, but before the guy had even half-fallen, he was stomped into the floor by the red beast charging at Zach from the other side of him. Zach shouted at the beast running at him, just a bit taller than him and barreling his way in front of three others at different distances away. "I don't want to hurt you! I can get you back to your family!" He had heard most of what Azrael said to Gentle through their helmet connection, and from what he could tell the beast in front of him was not affected by Azrael's gas that had most of the experiments going mad to serve him. The fact that 66 had stopped too when Zach shouted at it, the fact that it was going after him alone in this room full of people fighting and killing each other, Zach knew Richard Hawkins was in there somewhere. Or at least, he had hoped…

 **"RRAAAA!"** The beast charging at him started half-splitting apart. Its head started pulling away yet two of the bodies behind it were sucking into each other at the same time. The faces made different expressions, all of agony, and they ripped apart and pulled together like the creature could not stay in one place in space. Zach saw the one in front of him trip as its foot did not come down in front where it should have but a few feet to the right and behind a half of a torso. Its face slammed into the floor, and another of its copies tried leaping up on its back and over into Zach, but as it landed on the one in front's back, it sucked straight down into its body.

 _He's in pain._ Zach's left hand grabbed the hilt of the katana on his back of his belt, and he whipped it out while spinning to his right and jumping forward at the beast closest to him now. In his dark aura, he closed the distance between them faster than the beast in mid-sprint was expecting. Zach ground his teeth visible through his black veil that faltered around his entire body, and then that aura flared and Zach roared, "HAAAAHHH!" He slashed his katana up and black flames ripped out of it, and blood splashed up from the torso and face of the beast that started rearing to slash at him with his claws.

Zach spun and he slashed his katana still brought up down, straight through the swinging arm of another beast. The beast let out a scream, and Zach slashed his blade to the right while ducking his head. He cut across the front of another monster, then he rolled to the left and stabbed his sword out straight through the forehead of another. His blade got jammed through the monster's skull, and he felt footsteps behind him, on his back left, and his back right. Zach reached both black hands up to his shoulders, his entire vision tinted red from the color of his eyes. He spun around while drawing two curved blades out of sheaths on his back, and he slashed them across the front of his body and then back out while sprinting three steps forward.

Zach dropped down onto his right knee, and then the three monsters who landed past him let out agonized screams as blood splashed out of cuts on their bodies. They hit the ground, then they dragged together along with the one with a katana in its head. Zach turned his dark head sideways and watched as the beasts merged, and then it spat a katana and a huge mouthful of red spit forward. It staggered ahead, cuts still on its body that were not just healed because it merged into one beast that was almost the size of one of the halves from when it first split. _Four left. That's the biggest, and second most damaged. Everyone's killing each other. I can't save him. I can't save any of them! But I, I can put him out of his misery. His pain._ Zach shot to his left, and he threw the sword in his right hand forward before reaching the beast he was running at that prepared for him by stopping early.

A black blade shoved into the red creature's chest which made it stumble back and then drop on all fours again. Zach brought up his left arm and started slashing down the sword for the beast's face, but he reached his right forward first and grabbed it by the top of its head. He rolled his dark body up onto the monster, allowing the other one behind him to charge right past and miss with its slash that it put all its momentum in. The smaller beast with too much momentum hit the ground and rolled right into the one Zach was flipping over, and Zach's right hand got stuck in five inches of flesh as the beast enlarged. He ripped his hand up while slashing his blade down, and then another red monster tackled him through the air off of the other. Zach hit the ground rolling, and then a claw dug into the darkness when he was on his stomach. It dragged through the thinner darkness over Zach's back after he had been fighting for so long.

He crawled forward and onto his hands and knees that he scrambled away from the beast behind him on. He snapped his head back and watched as the smaller one just bigger than him that tackled him ran at him again, while the two biggest beasts merged together almost back to its original size upstairs when it had killed Wreck'd. Seeing it back at that size, and remembering Wreck'd, Zach's fists clenched down into the ground that broke in his black hands' grips. Blood came down his back, and he heard Gentle scream out in pain behind him and in his helmet, adding to all the other screams he could hear in that basement.

Blood splashed on the walls, rivers of it from all the corpses that had blood draining out and pouring to the lowest elevation which were the cracks creating those streams. Bodies hanging from the ceiling dropped down as a couple of cave stalactites cracked and broke off, and an explosion erupted out of the elevator shaft and engulfed a man running by it with a bloody metal pipe in his hand. A chunk of ceiling dropped down in front of Zach, slamming on top of the smaller of the beasts that had not had enough situational awareness to realize what was coming. The larger monster behind it kept charging, and Zach kept sprinting straight at Richard as he had seen the ceiling chunk coming down before it even broke off.

Everything tinted darker red in Zach's vision, even as the black wisps coming off his body became fewer and farther between. He reached down into a pouch on his belt, to find broken glass shards and a wet pocket. He brought his hand up and stuck two fingers in his mouth after wiping them on the inside of the pouch, then he snapped his hand back down as some of his dark aura revved back and he sped up. Zach whipped a knife off his side, and he threw it forward while pulling his grappling gun with his other hand. The charging experiment swung a claw and hit Zach's knife aside, and then a dark hook wrapped around its lifted arm. Zach jumped up, rising over the head of the tall monster that reached up its other claw to scratch at him. Zach tugged his grappling gun though and pulled the beast's other hand in front of it, turning its body and making it miss its other swing at him.

Zach landed behind the monster and he picked up a discarded curved blade he saw hit the ground when one of the red beasts had disappeared. He swung it backwards into the turning legs of the monster, and though those legs started vibrating and splitting apart, Zach's blade slashed across them in all their positions. His blade actually got so much deeper into its right leg as the leg lagged forward right over the weapon. Zach let go of his blade as it felt jammed into the monster's leg bone, and the fact that the beast started falling forward made Zach lean back and try jumping away. It was too big though, and it flattened him down into the ground with its huge body. _I got some Trigger! I CAN DO THIS!_ Zach forced his body to flatten out more into the floor, and he pushed his Death to the sides at the same time and down between Richard's bloody legs. All the Death below Richard swirled up around his sides and below him, reforming above the monster that finally touched its stomach to the floor with no mass below it.

After reforming above the monster's body, Zach's humanoid form actually reappeared a lot more. His costume showed through a thin black aura, and Zach started coughing up black breaths as he put his hands and knees down on the beast's furry back. The creature started vibrating, and Zach lifted his head to look down at the top of its head. The monster, the human experiment, someone Zach had brought back to life for a better death, a second chance… they roared in complete agony into the floor below them. Zach crawled on his hands and knees up Richard Hawkins' back, and he pulled out two more knives from his costume. He clenched his hands into the fur of the beast below him, and he bent down over the top of the head of the man right as he started lifting up again on his hands, pushing his back into the air. "I'm sorry," Zach said, his voice barely scratchy and letting out his normal tone instead.

Zach stabbed both knives in on the sides of the monster's head. Experiment 66's black eyes opened huge and it reared up, but the knives stabbed into its temples were jammed so far in that Zach thought he might be able to feel the tip of one blade with the other. He buried the knives in Richard's skull all the way up to the hilts, and then he clenched his eyes as he ripped backwards with both of them using all of his strength, even forcing all of his remaining Death down onto his arms to do it. He tore through Richard's brain, and then he collapsed down on the opened skull while the beast below him collapsed to the floor.

"Holy shit!"

"FUCK! No- oh HELP-"

Zach turned his head to the left and stared through his visor while panting with his eyes half-closed. His body was slumped to the right on Richard's furry back and top of his opened skull. Zach leaned up a bit and looked towards where that scream just cut off, to see a huge chunk of ceiling down on the floor with blood pooling out away from it and a leg sticking out from beneath. Zach lifted his head a bit, looking towards the ceiling and through it. Smoke filled the floor above, and a wall on Zach's right got a long crack through it which had him lowering his gaze back down. _This place, is coming down? Oh, oh fuck!_ Zach's half-closed eyes snapped open and he dragged himself off of Richard Hawkins' body.

He hit the floor next to the body and winced, and Zach looked down at his hands that had small black wisps coming off of them but were fully visible through his aura. His vision was barely tinted red anymore, though he had been unable to tell for a while there since there was so much red covering the basement. For the first time in a while, Zach was actually able to take in everything around him. He wished he had not taken that moment, and he clenched his eyes shut and shook his head around. Then he turned his head, and he looked towards a man stepping towards one of his injured comrades. "GOD!" Zach roared, his voice at its normal tone but scratchy and with a deep tone laced over it.

Azrael stopped walking. He turned from the man in black and purple in front of him, whose helmet was off and whose mustache was singed and blackened. Gentle coughed in pain and he was down on his hands and knees, struggling to lift his right hand to try and block the monster ahead of him. Azrael turned around, looking completely fine to the boy who stared over at him still wearing his black helmet. "You want me? Come and get me." Zach started running forward, his eyes darting back towards Gentle and then straight at Azrael again.

"Alright then," Azrael replied, and he pointed both hands at Death and fired.

Purple blasts of lightning flew at Zach, and he dove to his left into a roll he bounced out of and then kept running to his left. Another burst of purple electricity fired at him, then Azrael pulled his other hand back before throwing a more powerful bolt. Zach turned right as Azrael threw that one, and he sprinted much faster straight at the man whose arm was still in the follow-through after his attack. God's smirk rose up at the right corner of his lips, and then his lightning slammed into a falling rock from the ceiling. His attack was so powerful that the rock exploded in a blast of purple light, and then Azrael snapped his head up as a dark form rose over the explosion and swung its right hand forward.

God pulled his body to the left, but a gash still ripped in the right side of his face and blood splashed out as a knife hit the ground behind him. "Very good," God said, not reacting to that pain at all. He started forward towards where Zach was coming down. "Your knowledge," he continued, and he sped up while pointing his hands backwards and firing purple light from them. He rose off the ground and spun his body with a kick for the boy who crossed his arms and tried to focus some Death there but could not find the strength to do so. Zach's arms bent in towards his body, and he was slammed faster towards the ground he crashed into and bounced twice before flipping and dragging his left hand in the ground. Zach's glove ripped up and his fingernails did too as he tore them through the floor to slow himself without any Death surrounding them. His eyes darted to the right and left, and everything seemed to be moving so much faster for him now that his eyes did not have any red tint in them anymore.

"Your body," God continued with a grin, and he started running to where the boy stood up with little difficulty and then drew two more knives. "And your army! They will all be mine! Death!" Azrael's possessed body swung both hands in at Zach, and the boy saw the whips of lightning spreading far to either side of him. Zach's eyes narrowed and he took a deep breath. He crossed his arms again, the lightning hit him, and Zach roared out in pain as he was electrocuted.

Gentle had run towards the middle of the room after Zach got God's attention off of him. He had gotten to his feet with some difficulty, and he ran towards the middle of the room because Exodus was no longer there yet people were gathered and fighting each other to try and get to the hole on the ceiling. Someone had a Quirk to let them get up there and they were trying to help at first, but some of God's followers made it into the mix and started attacking after tricking the others. Former experiments and researchers had even come to an agreement for a moment to just escape together from this madness, only for it to be broken up in the worst way.

Gentle looked around for Exodus, and he spotted him running towards two people charging his way. Those people tripped, and their bodies started getting torn apart with blood splattering out of them as black lines shredded through their corpses. Exodus leapt high into the air with white light shining out of his shoes, and then he rose up his right fist and around it formed a massive fist of white light. Exodus came down towards the white lines that all started pulling away from where he was dropping. Exodus opened up his huge white fist, and he slammed a palm into the floor of B16 instead. Light flashed in the basement that had been so dark for so long, and people clenched their eyes shut or reeled away at the flash.

Black lines shriveled up and shrieking noises came out of the floor as they pulled away from the explosion. "Experiment 14," Exodus said in a deep voice, stepping out of the light on the side where the remaining black lines were all trying to pool together. There were damaged ones and ones still shriveling pulling towards the same spot, and Exodus pointed both his hands out towards that spot. All of the dark lines pulled away as it leaned back, and they screeched somehow as Exodus fired a beam of white light down into them. His light slammed into the floor behind them and tore a hole straight through it that widened as Exodus put in more power, his arms shaking and his palms glowing a brighter white as did his eyes.

"Everyone calm down!" Dryout shouted at the people in the middle, as he held a man down into the floor by the back of his head. Dryout gripped the man tighter while pressing him into the floor, and the man released the bloody piece of steel rubble he had picked up that was digging through his own hand, though his was not the only blood on it. Dryout glared down at the man below him he had taken down to protect the others, and he yelled at the woman on his right, "Get them up there-" _**Sllrch-**_

Gentle was staring towards Exodus, but Exodus became blurry in his vision as his focus shifted much closer to him. He looked towards the middle of the room, where one of the people Dryout had just saved from a rampaging monster had stabbed a discarded half-katana through Dryout's back. "W-We need to go!" The man shouted after stabbing him, and he pulled the katana out of Dryout's back before pointing it at the woman with the Quirk propelling people towards the ceiling. "Send me up next-"

Everyone around the man backed up, and he spun his head to see a dark figure with a burnt face glaring at him from only a foot away. The man started swinging his katana around, but the weapon bounced away in midair and flew out of his hand as he spun out in confusion. Gentle grabbed the man by the side of the face as he started spinning and twisted his head back towards him though, "Why?!" Gentle shouted, while Dryout collapsed down to his knees on the man's other side, unable to stand anymore after struggling to do so when that sword was shoved through his chest. "He was trying to save you!"

"I don't know you!" The man screamed, and he slammed his fists forward into the figure's dark clothes. Gentle actually felt those punches in his chest and gut, and he loosened his grip on the man and stumbled backwards. "Get away from me! Don't touch ME!" He screamed, and he reached down for his katana again, only for the woman he had been pointing it at to sprint forward and grab it herself. He screamed, "GIVE ME-" as he started diving at her, she slashed in front of her and cut across his stomach. The man hit the ground and rolled, and he yelled out, "AHhh! Ah! NOO!" He grabbed at his stomach while intestines started sliding out, and the woman who slashed at him on instinct at his crazed scream stared down with her eyes wide with horror, the katana slipping out of her hands.

"Please! Please get us out of here!" Another woman yelled towards her, and the woman with the Propeller Quirk turned her head only for her eyes to open huge at the disfigured face of the other experiment she had never actually looked at closely before. _They're all-_ she realized, her eyes opening huge in sheer horror, and then she shot up towards the ceiling while screaming out in terror.

"Don't leave us here!" A voice screamed below, followed by a couple of others. She just kept flying though, straight into the floor above- Her head turned to the right as she rose through the hole into the floor already full of smoke, and a monstrous black demon opened its mouth huge while diving out of the flames and at her. She swung her right arm at it, and its head turned so her arm went straight down its throat before it clamped down. Her arm ripped off, and she started falling back into B16 now with a flaming black demon on top of her that continued ripping apart at the screaming woman as they fell. The others down below started scattering away from the middle of the room, only for the remaining servants of God to chase and tackle and start ripping them apart.

Exodus and Gentle looked around. Gentle stared at the man with an opened stomach, screaming out quieter and quieter as he faded from consciousness. He turned his head to Dryout who was down on his knees, his head pressed into the floor in front of them, and blood pooling around his hunched-over body. Exodus looked towards a man he thought he may be able to help, and then that man turned on the woman behind him. "Maybe God will spare me, if I give him a sacrifice-" the man dove before finishing his thought, and he tackled the woman with a bumpy disfigured face to the floor. Exodus did not know who to help there, because the woman chasing him was not doing so because she thought he knew a way out, but because she was trying to get a sacrifice for God herself.

Neither Exodus nor Gentle knew what to do. As the walls broke around them and the ceiling started caving in, and all the people they had come to save were dying or killing each other. And then both Gentle and Exodus snapped their heads the same direction, as they heard a shout of pain and rejection. "NO!" A black helmet hit the ground and bounced away from the boy lifted up by his neck, his body burned and electrocuted, his eyes barely open and twitching in pain. He was pulling his head away, but Azrael grabbed him by the chin and brought his head straight forward in front of his own.

"Now, I claim my perfect vessel."

"Death!" Exodus shouted.

"Sazaki!" Gentle exclaimed.

They sped as fast as they could in Zach's direction. Azrael's mouth was already opened though. Zach's eyes opened wide, and his mouth did too as he tried to scream, and then a jet of black liquid shot out of Azrael's mouth and into all of Zach's orifices. Zach's arms that were twitching at his sides immediately stopped as the black liquid flew out of Azrael's mouth, and all his fingers slid out of the glove on his right hand. Zach's right hand snapped up, and he slammed it into his own mouth.

 _ **"WHAT?! AH! AHHHH! NO! What, what is this… "**_

Zach slipped out of Azrael's hand, and Azrael stumbled backwards and fell to the floor. Zach hit the ground and fell to his knees. He hunched his body forward, "UUAagghaaa-" black ooze spewed out of his mouth, and Zach reached his hands up and started wiping his tongue and trying to push out all the darkness as fast as he could. He blew his nose and blinked his eyes that he could not see through, everything looking pitch black to him. "Stupid fucking God," Zach spat at the floor, spitting some of "God" onto the floor with his curses.

Zach started coughing, black liquid splashing out of his mouth more as it happened. He blinked his eyes more to get it out, and he turned his head as he heard voices shouting from right next to him. He lifted his head and struggled to bring his left hand up, and he rubbed his eyes to see Exodus and Gentle in front of him tinted black and yelling at him to get up. Flaming debris fell from the ceiling behind them, and Zach started shaking his head around before turning his head and looking at the huge pool of black ooze on the ground behind him. That ooze was sliding down the floor in the direction of lowest elevation, and Zach glared at it all the way down into the river of blood that was shaking and splashing up with every rock and chunk of debris to fall into it.

"WE HAVE TO GO!"

"Death! We must leave!"

Zach spun his head back, and he nodded at the men next to him who started lifting him up. Gentle pushed Exodus away for a second though after they helped Zach to his feet, and he slammed his forehead forward into the boy's. "What are you doing?" Zach asked, and he turned his head to the left and spat some more black ooze on the floor as it was a disgusting feeling in his mouth.

"You better not be that fucking…" Gentle began, and Zach turned back with his eyes wide as he realized what Gentle was doing.

 _Did it work? I really, killed it right?_ Zach turned back again, and then his eyes opened wide as he saw Azrael moving on the floor. "God?" Zach asked, then he shook his head and he thought about those agonized dying screams he had heard in his head after grabbing at the black ooze with his unclothed right hand. _It was alive. Whatever it was, it was alive. And Death killed it._ "No," Zach said, and he narrowed his eyes at the figure before him. "Azrael," he said, and he took a step towards the man with information he needed.

Azrael lifted up his head- **SPLAT** A huge chunk of ceiling fell on top of him and splattered blood all over Zach, Exodus, and Gentle.

"Now! Can we go?!" Gentle yelled at the shell-shocked teen who shook his head around and then spun and nodded at him.

Zach, Gentle, and Exodus sprinted back towards the middle of the room that still had the clearest hole on the ceiling. They dodged falling debris, and they leapt over corpses and heads. Zach slammed his right hand into his body again while panting and coughing, and his body started to surround in a dark aura. _Killing God. It rejuvenated me. Not by much, but-_ Zach turned his head to Gentle and Exodus, and he slammed his right hand into his chest again while running up to them. "Gentle! Make the floor bounce, then Exodus grab us and blast us straight through to the surface. Anything that comes for us as we rise, Gentle block!"

Screams filled the basement and Zach clenched his eyes shut. He snapped his eyes open after a second though, and he and the other two looked around one more time in B16. They all looked around them, at something that would never leave their minds for as long as they lived. Then the walls cracked, and the ceiling started collapsing a lot faster. Gentle bent down and he pressed both hands into the ground, and he took in a deep breath to force it as Elastic as possible. It was a long shot to the surface, as they were as deep into the planet as they had ever been before. Gentle jumped up in the air, and Zach leapt towards him, Exodus jumped up too, and they all slammed down on the trampoline near each other. Zach and Gentle reached in, and Exodus extended his long muscular arms to grab them and pull them into his body as they rose.

The three of them shot straight up through the roof, and through the smoke of the floor above, and then Exodus' legs started to glow before white beams flew out the bottoms of them. A dark form chasing them up after jumping of the elastic floor opened its huge mouth and let out a half-roar before it was incinerated by the white light blasting the three in the Army of Death towards the surface. They heard screams echoing out from the ninth basement as they flew past it, and Gentle started lifting a hand to block anyone who might try to change their trajectory, only for his arm and face to freeze as he watched two men rip a woman in half between them. Then the ceiling started collapsing down on top of their heads, but Gentle never saw it end as they were already on B8, and then B7.

"The ceiling's collapsing!" Zach yelled while looking up through the remaining holes. Cracks were forming on the edges of the holes, and all the way up on B1 that they were soaring towards after having broken through the floors down from B2. "I'm holding on Exodus!" Zach yelled, putting his right arm farther around Exodus' back while pointing his hand away, and gripping the man tighter by his belt with his left. "Use the hand holding me!"

Exodus snapped his hand up without arguing with Death that it would not be as safe for him. He pointed his hand up as were his orders, and he fired a beam out of his hand so powerful that it slowed their rocketing ascent. Gentle yelled out, "Hold me tighter!" He let go of Exodus and swung both hands below them, and Exodus stopped firing beams out of his feet for a moment as he knew why Gentle shouted that at him. Walls and floors cracked around them, and Gentle formed another bouncing point in the air below, and they shot up with a beam blasting over them and through all the rubble. Gentle smashed his hands down again, and Exodus fired an even stronger light out above him as it seemed like the building on the surface was collapsing down too.

"AhhhhHHHHH!"

"RRaaaaAAAAAA!"

"HAAAAAAAAAAA!"

On a grassy field in Scotland, fifty-seven people stared towards a collapsing building while backing away from the land that was decreasing in elevation. The entire hill and field around the building was dipping down, cracks forming in the grass and huge sections of the earth collapsing in on itself. Everyone around the building stared towards it in shock though, as three soft voices got louder and louder, and then an explosion of white light blew through the falling building. The pillar of light faded, and three figures clad in all black shot up into the air where it was disappearing from.

Gentle's arms fell limp below him, and Exodus' right arm fell to his side while he let out a gasp at the end of his shout. Zach's eyes opened huge, as he stared up into a cloudy gray sky that he did not know he would ever see again. And then his eyes started to shift down, and as they hit the top of their arc from Gentle's final Gently Trampoline, Zach's eyes shifted over the field around the collapsing facility. Helicopters were landed down on the dirt road, with one up in the air not too far from him and pulling away as if the pilot was nervous it would accidentally hit them. There were black SUVs at the edges of the forests, and there were dozens of people staring up towards him and his two comrades. _Everyone,_ Zach thought, and then he started arcing back down.

"Shit, someone catch them!" Cee shouted to her right down a line of dark soldiers.

Two figures with wings flew up in the air one after the other. They shot towards the descending three, and the man and woman in all black with helmets on their heads caught the three. They oofed as they caught them, then the two opened their eyes huge as they realized just how much blood was covering their comrades as they started getting soaked in it themselves.

"Death!"

"Death are you alright?!"

"Gentle!" La Brava sprinted to the edge of the collapsing area and then started back to where the two flying soldiers were lowering down. The three and a half foot tall woman ran to Gentle's side as soon as they touched down, and Exodus lay the man out on the floor next to him. Gentle's eyes were closed and his face looked somewhat peaceful, despite the blackened mustache and burns on it. "What happened?!" La Brava shouted up, glaring at Zach through her dark visor.

"Death!" Darling ran up to Zach, and she stopped a few feet in front of him as he turned to her.

Exodus turned to his side and glanced down at Death. "We made it," Exodus said.

"H-Hey! Where's…" Zach and Exodus turned to their lefts, and Zach's eyes got darker at the sight of a man in all tan clothes looking at him with wide eyes. "No," Sandlot whispered, shaking his head at the teen.

Zach nodded his head once at Sandlot, and the pro hero brought his hands up to his head and then dropped down to his butt. "No," he whispered, and he lowered his hands from his eyes and glared down at his legs. _**"You take Richie and the prisoners up. You'd only slow us down…"**_ _Thomas… why? Again. Why did you have to- Titan, Dryout- We're unstoppable. The Red Team._ Sandlot brought his hands up to his eyes and he yelled out in frustration, his voice full of pain.

Zach glanced around after giving Sandlot the news. He looked around at all the dark figures moving towards him, then up at a helicopter lowering down towards the field behind them. He lowered his gaze back down and said to Darling right in front of him, "Did you find Access?"

"Y-Yeah," Darling replied quickly. She spun and shouted while running back a few steps, "Get Access over here!"

Zach started jogging forward the direction Darling shouted, and he ran right past the girl his age who spun to him in surprise and then ran forward with him saying she would bring him to their dead comrade. Zach found their support team member being carried over by the nine foot tall Barboon. "Put him down," Zach ordered, and the man in front of him nodded at his leader. Barboon was glad his face was hidden behind his mask, because the scar-covered blood-soaked face of his leader that was coated with black ooze that seemed to streak down from the corners of his mouth, his nose, and his eyes, was way too much for him. Zach looked at Access' body, and he stared at the cracked visor with a bullet hole in it as well as his body armor that had blood all over as well from a few bullet holes. He pressed his right hand down on Access' body, and he nodded his head as he felt pain shoot through his body and his head.

La Brava turned her head around as she heard a loud cut-off shout of pain behind her. She grit her teeth and then snapped her head up from Gentle's wounded body to look at Exodus, "What happened? Gentle said this was turning out to be nothing! He said you would join us any-" La Brava stopped shouting as Exodus turned towards her. His blue eyes were unfocused, and he lowered them down to the floor for a moment.

Exodus opened his mouth to respond, then he turned his head and looked back at the field and broken building behind him that started dipping down more. "Pastor, Yuri, and Wreck'd are dead," Exodus replied. He turned fully to the collapsing earth behind him, and he glared at it with his fists clenching at his sides. _Nothing can escape from there. I will not allow it. I, I cannot._

 _Fuck,_ Zach thought, as he clenched his eyes shut and hunched his body over Access's more. When he had looked around after giving Sandlot the news, the only other figure he had seen not wearing a black uniform was Richie who was curled in fetal position after escaping that place and finally allowing himself to look back on what he had been inside. There were also the two unconscious soldiers in all black who were in the elevator they sent up before, but… _No one else,_ Zach thought, clenching his eyes harder in pain as he heard another of Sandlot's roars of frustration. _It was for nothing. It was, all for nothing. Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck!_ Zach lifted his left arm and he wiped it across his face, smearing blood and ash and dark liquid around. _I need a shower. I need, a break-_

Zach lifted his right hand from Access. He no longer felt pain from that man at all, and he heard a voice whisper from inside the helmet, "Death?"

Zach started standing up, but Access did not stir below him after speaking. Zach could not really see through the cracked visor, but it seemed to him like Access passed back out after waking. _No._ Zach looked down at Access and his clenched teeth loosened up, though his fists started clenching tightly at his sides as he stared at the man he just revived below him. _That, that was not a mistake. I- The results… the results were bad. I failed. But the choice to go down- The battle wasn't just the fighting. I couldn't have left that place alone. We had to destroy it, before "God" could have escaped up here. And I had to stop Richard Hawkins, kill that man who wasn't able to, stay in one place. Stay in one body. Constant pain. And all those people I tried to save, some of them were worth saving, but I just failed! If only there was more time. If only, something hadn't caused that place to start collapsing. What was it? Did someone from the, Fergus Conglomerate? Did they do it? Someone from "Corporate" was with the group, higher up than either of the captains. I, I don't know what happened to them. I don't know what happened down there. It was all so, fucked up. Everything. God damn it. God, damn… God? No, don't think about- Pastor… Yuri… Wreck'd._

In Zach's head he saw Wreck'd pushing him out of the way, and his fists clenched so much harder at his sides. _It had to have been worth it._ He saw Yuri getting ripped apart by a hail of bullets, and he felt Pastor go limp in his arms. He saw Dryout's hunched-over body with blood all around him, and the spray of blood that came from the ceiling when Titan was sucked through it. Zach's fists clenched harder and he turned his head to the left. His eyes were dark, and he shifted his dark glare across twenty soldiers in all black who had come to surround him without him even noticing. He turned his head the other way and looked at another twenty on his right. _They're all here. Everyone came, because Gentle was right. I am the Army of Death. Without me, there's nothing. Yet if I hadn't gone down there, there was already nothing._

"I didn't have to go down there," Zach said while looking to his right at the soldiers on that side of him. He turned his dirty head more and looked behind him, towards Darling, Exodus, La Brava, Cee, and Mark. He stared back at them, and then to their right, then to the left again. He glared around covered in blood and dirt and black, and his fists clenched even harder at his sides. "I lost, Pastor. Yuri, and Wreck'd too. All three of them." Zach grit his teeth, and then he narrowed his eyes and turned to his left to look in the visor of someone. He did not know who it was he just turned to, yet he said to them, "In that place were monsters that… that never should have existed. A research facility, testing on humans! And, and it was… horrible. And I _didn't_ have to go down there!"

Zach ground his teeth, then he turned to his right and shouted at someone on his right, "But if I hadn't, then this doesn't mean anything! If we give up. If we are afraid!" Zach's hands started shaking at his sides, and he clenched them harder while shaking his head and gritting his teeth more to stop them from chattering. "If there are things, even I won't do, none of it would matter. Because that's the whole point of the Army of Death," he said, and he calmed himself as much as he could while looking around the visors of everyone staring at him. "To go places no one will and stop villains who heroes can't, or won't." _I don't know, how this place came to be. If there are heroes on the payroll of that corporation, conglomerate, villain organization! I will find out though. And I will destroy it. Destroy them._

"What happened down there?" La Brava asked, standing up next to Gentle after Hank knelt next to them and told her that Gentle was fine. She stepped away from Gentle's resting body while Hank checked on his wounds, and she said in a shakier voice at the teen who was spooking her with all this, "What happened to you guys?"

Zach's eyes narrowed and he lowered them for a second to the floor. In his head he saw Wreck'd pulling off his helmet he had puked into. He saw Yuri firing rapidly and almost hitting Pastor. In his head he could hear Pastor asking him not to bring him back, and he did not know if it was truly because of Pastor's beliefs or if the man truly had cracked while they were down there. "We were unprepared," Zach said. _Around me, are more than fifty people who Rebel called here. Just because they heard we were in trouble, they came. They really are lost without… Nothing holds them together if I'm gone. All these people from different countries, backgrounds, they're all following_ _ **me.**_ _That's not enough though. Not enough to bind us, and protect us! Yuri was untrained, unprepared like Access-_ "A will to join me, isn't enough."

Zach shook his head and then continued in a low voice, "Yuri, Wreck'd, Pastor, they were brave. They were my comrades, and they fought for what they thought was right down there. But they weren't the best." Zach lifted his eyes towards a tall man on his left side, "They weren't ready. We aren't going to be caught unprepared again. We aren't going to, rush into things. We're going to start training. Preparing tactics, and strategies beforehand! That we can use once we're inside. Not just for individual fights, but to use _whenever_ we go somewhere." _I won't lose them anymore. I don't want to lose anyone else. And, I'm the one who needs to take charge and make sure that happens. It was on me for not training them enough before. Now, I'm not going to let that happen again._

"Anyway," Zach said. He turned his head towards La Brava who was just staring at him with wide eyes behind her visor, no clue how she was supposed to react to the serious teen in front of her. "Where are we on the Syndicate? Did you find anything before we called you here?"

"Death," Michael began, stepping forward out of the line on Zach's right. Zach glanced towards him and saw a man next to him with big pincers sticking out of his helmet step forward too. "Take a break," Michael said with a shake of his head. "You look like, well, shit."

"You should rest-" Grabble started too.

"I'm fresh," Zach replied. _I can use Nightmare again, and I'm not tired. I won't need to sleep for a while. I won't be able to. There's no time to just sit around._ "It's a waste of time to just wait for me to be ready, when I can still move. The Syndicate's plans won't wait, so neither can we." Michael and Grabble leaned back, and then Grabble started nodding at his leader in understanding after a second.

Over near where Gentle lay, Exodus stepped forward past Shang and Xia who had come over to talk to him. The bloody and ash-covered man called out in a loud voice over to Zach, "Death, I too am ready to continue."

 _Damn, and you didn't get any boosts or anything. You're just still… this strong._ Zach nodded towards Exodus with a straight expression on his face. His eyes lowered a bit to Gentle, and his bloody face got even more intense as he stared at his new second-in-command. _Structure. Order. There's a reason those things exist, and it's to protect those who follow. I need more of it. But right now, I'll stick with what I have. Gentle, you stop me when I go to far. You try at least, and you aren't afraid to speak your mind against whatever I choose. And La Brava, she'll make sure I never take the lives of my soldiers for granted, because I know how much she cares about you. She would shout at me for doing anything that might put you in danger, and I need that. I need Darling too, because before putting anyone else in danger, I'd throw myself into the line of fire. And I can't do that with this many people following me, and I can't do it knowing I'd leave her behind her probably to kill herself without me!_

 _…Fuck._

 _But it is important. Having someone who cares more about my life than I do. I have those three, to advise me and help me make decisions. And then Exodus,_ Zach's eyes shifted past Cee, past Mark and others who had been with him for longer. He stared towards Exodus who he had nodded to, accepting to bring him along because Exodus wanted to follow him. Even after all of that, Exodus had not hesitated to tell Zach he would be right behind him, despite his own exhaustion. _The one who ties it all together. The strongest, and the most loyal. Maybe even more so than Darling, because he has no self-interests, that I know of. He, is a good man. And yet he, would follow me to the darkest path imaginable. I believe that, and though that may be terrifying, I will_ _ **never**_ _go down that path. So Exodus will follow me. He will obey, and when one person follows it is always quicker for others to do so._

 _This is my army. The Army of Death. And I…_ "Death, your back," Zach heard behind him. He could feel pain on his back, and he knew his armor had been clawed through as well as his skin. He could feel some blood on it, but his back did not hurt any more than the rest of his aching body did.

"Hank will patch me up on the helicopter," Zach said. "Now let's go. I'll explain what happened in more detail on the way. Rebel," Zach began, before realizing his earpiece had shorted out in his fight against God-Azrael. "Someone ask Rebel where he's at on decrypting the files we got from inside. And has anyone ever heard anything about the Fergus Conglomerate…" _I am Death. I need to focus. Stopping villains. Stopping things like that. Things like, those horrible things, those fucking, terrible, terrible, God-awful- FUCKING!_ Zach spun his head as someone shouted to him, and he looked back towards Sandlot and Richie who his soldiers reminded him about. His eyes darkened and he glared over at them, _Two people, won't mean a damn thing. They could always try though, and any files we get, I could send his way…_

Sandlot stood up on shaky legs, and he looked towards Death with an intense look spreading across his furious face. "The Fergus Conglomerate," he said in a low voice, memorizing the name and clenching his fists at his sides. "Death, I won't let the bastards responsible for this get away with it." Zach stared Sandlot in the eyes, and he nodded his head at the man. The pro hero balled his fists tighter and then nodded right back, and Sandlot finished to the terrorist, "Good luck."

Zach turned from Sandlot and his fists clenched just like the hero's, "You too."

* * *

 **A/N Out from the darkness... Well, this was a fun? arc, it was certainly darker than most- not that Death isn't pretty dark on its own. This one was fucked though. Zach, Gentle, and Exodus make it out from the depths of the research facility after traveling to really just the most horrible place. Zach's trying to keep things going, keep focusing on what comes next, and making sure that what comes next does not end up the same way. That was a lot that just came at them though, we'll see how it affects them as well as if anything comes from what they learned below. Zach faces off against a powerful enemy in the 16th basement as it fell apart around him, a couple powerful enemies actually. Unable to damage 66 with his Death, and barely able to use Death by the time he had to face God. Don't know if anyone noticed but Zach winds up deciding not to dodge God's big lightning attack the last time we see him before God's got him lifted by the throat, he took the blast on purpose there when he took that deep breath, knowing God was keeping him alive and... Don't really want to explain it, kinda hope it was clear but I left out Zach's thoughts there to have him reaching up and hitting God as he tried taking over try and catch everybody in the moment. Well, other than that... I really hope you guys enjoyed the chapter. It was a long one. Dryout died (a couple times), as did practically all the characters in the arc other than Zach, Richie, Gentle, Sandlot, and Exodus. Zach brings back Access at the end though, so Whoreslayer42 lives to fight another day! XD Thanks for reading, and leave a review below telling me what you think, predictions, comments, or questions!**

rex559 chapter 106 . Oct 31

I'm getting bored of reading these OCs, where is class 1-A or some character from my hero academy?

 **Well sad to hear that. Still going to be seeing Class 1-A, as we have been (though not for the past 3-4 chapters). Won't say when, in what method, how they'll show up... really, no spoilers. So either enjoy the story and wait and see, or you know, don't? Anyway, thanks for the feedback.**

Lief 17 chapter 106 . 5h ago

I really had to reach chapter 106 at 3 am in the morning... this chapter was even scarier than before and I just can't wait for this arc to be over. Nevertheless, good work on this story! I started reading 3 days ago and I caught up to the recent one just now. I know it's a bit daunting to read a fic with 1m words but it's all worth it. All the twists, plans, and events will keep you interested the entire time. Hoping for more updates soon!

 **Hahaha, that was a good one to give yourself nightmares with lol. The arc comes to an end as I shove as much as I can into this single, very long chapter. I'm stunned you caught up in 3 days with this story about to hit 1.2 million words, and I'm glad you think it's been interesting so far! Another update coming at you! XD Thanks for the review!**

Super Power Sensei chapter 65 . 23h ago

My brain is going into overdrive again. Here are some possible ideas for the future.  
Gentle is the only one to escape alive while Zach is captured and experimented on(becomes more like Venom because he's awesome)  
The remaining heroes, or at least Sandlot, are forced to go with the Army of Death due to their own government betraying them by "cutting loose ends".  
Everything in those basements escapes and all hell brakes loose in France(early stage of monster apocalypse)  
Exodus gets "turned to god" and escapes with Zach only to "turn" other Death members  
Turns out souls are not only real but tangible and "GOD" has a quirk that can manipulate souls  
Zach is the only one to leave alive and the world blames Death for killing heroes.

I forgot about them but will we see the A.N.T.S. again?

 **Those are some awesome ideas. Loved all the predictions, could have been awesome any of those ways too (I was practically finished with the chapter by the time I read this though). Anyway just watched Venom, while I was editing this chapter actually, NOT that those two things are related. I just figured it was about time I got to watching before my commenters spoil anything about it for me XD. Only other thing to mention, this was going on in Scotland (UK). France was where the arc started when Zach was interrogating that villain who claimed to have escaped from the test facility, but the location they gave was back in Scotland the villain fled from to avoid being caught by what he thought was the government (and maybe does have ties, we're still unclear...). As for the question from farther back... we will, possibly, see the ANTs again, sometime soo- sorry, no spoilers. ;)**

lolmyster42 chapter 106 . Nov 1

Ah, my good old and long-lost brother W-slayer42. Quiet guy. Never comes over for dinner anymore.  
Joking aside I very much like like the story and the insane upload speeds that make me feel insecure about myself. Been reading since around it was around in the forties-ish. Never reviewed because I'm always too nervous for that life.  
(Insert obligatory, hackneyed comment that says for you to keep up the good work because I genuinely like the story here)

 **W-slayer42 makes it back at the end of this chapter, a small consolation in a sea of terror... I'm glad you've been liking the story so far! I type really fast, and I admittedly don't like writing stuff that I've already thought about too deeply because it's like writing it for a second time. That's a main reason I'm so in love with this story right now, because although I have plans and chapter summaries for upcoming parts I'm going to write, most of it is going to be in the moment as I write it so I'll be going every day with this to prevent myself from getting bored- Anyway! Glad you reviewed! (Insert an emotional thing as motivational as Zach here telling you never to be nervous to send a comment my way, because speech speech rabble rabble blah XD). Really though, thanks for reviewing!**


	108. Chapter 108

**Disclaimer: I don't own Boku no Hero Academia**

 **Chapter 108:**

Midoriya Izuku sat on a bench in the locker room after getting his school uniform's pants back on. His shirt was sitting on his lap, but he was reading through the messages and notifications he saw on his phone after it buzzed when he was getting dressed after his latest training session. _Wonderlass,_ Midoriya thought, looking at the news article and then frowning and switching to his texts. He sent a message to All Might, and he kept frowning down at his phone with a hesitant look in his eyes, and then when there was no immediate reply he flipped back to the news article. _I hope she's alright._

Midoriya started putting on his shirt, though his eyes were glued to his phone and he kept scrolling through the different notifications he received while training. His phone was set to buzz at any and all villain attacks, worldwide, and in the past hour he had several news stories to look through. _One in America, I should check into that for my final report… Nothing about the Army of Death today. Villains caught in Gorran; crime there really hasn't gone down a lot since SISIS was taken down. I thought it would really make a difference. I wonder what Hagakure thinks, she's doing Gorran…_ Midoriya looked at another news story that his phone had not notified him for but was on the list on the international news website he was scrolling through.

 _Oh, that's so,_ Midoriya tightened his grip on his phone and got a sad look on his face at the title of the article. He clicked on it and scrolled down a bit, _The wording's a lot less harsh than the last story I saw about him. A "crazed hero," is now just…_ Midoriya lifted his other hand to his head and ran it through his curly green hair. The five foot nine teen lowered his phone with the sad story on it, and he closed his eyes for a moment. _Unlike with Zach's dad, they actually said it this time. A hero found dead hanging in his apartment, someone should have been checking up on him! After his entire team died-_ _"It's a terrible thing," doesn't cut it. I wish, I wish things were different._

Midoriya slid his phone into his pocket and shook his head around. He closed his gym locker and headed out, _I should come back for more after dinner. Final exams are coming up, and I know the practical is going to be the hardest yet._ His fists clenched at his sides and his expression got determined as he started down a hall of U.A. High School. _It needs to be. But I'll be ready for it!_

* * *

Zach stood at the end of a long wooden dock stretching out over the Atlantic Ocean from the west coast of southern Africa. They were on a stretch of land with no one around them, yet Zach still glanced over his shoulder and back down the dock in a hesitant way. The seventeen year old in a black costume and helmet looked back and forth down the coast with some soldiers packing up tents and loading up vehicles. There were no other people around except for a few citizens of the nearby town they had come to the day before, ones who he was not worried about seeing what was lowering down over the water in front of him. Zach looked back forward and he shook his head in sheer amazement at the sight of the vehicle lowering down through the white clouds above.

"Well shit, when you said a ship was comin' here," Sagitus started behind Zach. The centaur-looking figure wearing a specialized costume of the same black fabric Zach had on spit the toothpick out of his mouth under the bottom of his helmet and stepped closer to the end of the dock. "I thought you meant some kind'a boat."

"No," Zach said, and he narrowed his eyes up at the dark airship lowering down towards him. "Though, well, it does float too."

"I never thought they'd actually finish the thing," La Brava began as she stood at the end of the dock on Zach's right side. Only four of them were at the end of the dock at the moment, with Flare crouched on the front right side waving her arms up and signaling to the ship above their position. La Brava got a bead of sweat on the side of her face, and she glanced up at the right side of Zach's helmet again, "Who's flying that thing?"

"Is Rebel actually coming out here?" Flare asked, looking towards Death herself though she kept waving her arms in the air. Suddenly she had the same realization La Brava did, and she stopped waving them around to stand up fully instead. "Um, should we back up?"

"Shit," Zach muttered, and he tapped on some buttons on his helmet. "Hey Rebel, you're going to crash into the end of the dock."

"I can see it-"

"Yeah well the cameras you have positioned on the bottom are definitely aligned wrong or something, pull farther out. You're gonna hit us!"

"Y'all just move back-"

"If you break the dock, it's going to be harder to get all the supplies inside. Just do it."

 _If there's one person who just won't listen to me the first time…_ "Farther," Zach said, though the ship was slowing down its descent while shifting farther over the ocean at the same time. Zach's eyes examined the ship more as it got closer to him, and his mind shifted from Rebel who he was not actually all that annoyed with right now. _Damn, look at this thing. It's huge._

"How did you and L even manage this?" La Brava asked, while looking around the sides of the sleek black airship herself. It was shaped a bit like a boat, though there were huge propeller blades on the sides of it and engines on the back currently pointed down towards the water. Water pushed away in big circular waves from where the engines were lowering, but the engines were decreasing in power as they dropped too. The ship seemed like it would hit down faster because of that, but the hull dipped down farther below the engines and the very bottom of the rounded airship pushed back against the water instead of dipping straight through it.

"L's the primary benefactor, but no way we could've gotten it done this quick with just her cash," Rebel began. La Brava glanced to her side, and she got an annoyed look on her face as Zach did not start saying anything, showing he knew what Rebel was talking about. "Couple million here, few hundred thousand there, no direct deposits or nothing Brav'."

La Brava got more of a tick mark on the side of her face, and she just snapped, "Farther."

Zach agreed with La Brava, and the ship lowering towards them pushed farther out even after touching down on the water. The bow of the ship dipped down towards them a bit, but the ship pulled back and then it started turning around in a three-sixty in the water. "Slowly Rebel, you'll break the dock displacing too much."

"So you really in there?" Sagitus asked after tapping himself into the comms with the others. "Never thought I'd ever meet ya' in person."

"Yeah, well keep dreamin' bud," Rebel replied. "Got myself control over this baby from across the ocean. Can pilot her without ever stepping foot inside-"

"Well look who's a brave man-" La Brava started.

"La Brava," Zach started before Rebel could snap something in annoyance at her. He turned to the right, "We never would have gotten this far without him."

"Don't need you to fight my battles big guy," Rebel said sarcastically into their helmets.

 _I just don't want you spinning the ship faster in a petty act, breaking this dock with an extra large wave._ Zach decided not to say that aloud, and instead changed the topic to keep things civil, "What of the other donors? I know you wanted me to keep things quiet to protect their anonymity, but I want you to keep looking into them." La Brava looked up at Zach with bigger eyes as he actually had a reason for not telling them about these other mystery donors they apparently had helping them now. "We need to make sure no one has ulterior motives behind making us stronger. If they want us getting someone out of the way so they can step in, or if they think we're going to deal with their competitors they help reveal for us… Whether or not their competitors are bad, I don't want to be used like that Rebel. It would make me consider them villains, to use the Army of Death to take out their competition."

"If I find some dirt on them though, can I keep taking their money while we turn on them?" Rebel asked. Zach cracked a grin in his helmet even as he sighed, and La Brava let out a laugh before cutting herself off fast and then cursing as Rebel made a remark about getting her to laugh.

"If you find dirt, let me know," Zach replied to Rebel after thinking for a few seconds. "We'll decide what to do about it from there."

"Rahh-ger that," Rebel said, and he kept typing into his keyboard while darting his eyes around to the six screens he had around him. "Thinkin' about hiring some guys to help me at my station," Rebel said, while reaching over to another desk that had two screens on it and checking the radar around the ship as well as communication signals in the area to see if anyone was ratting on them. He spun the other way and typed in some stuff about the donor companies they were just talking about, and then he reached for a snack under his own screen and shoved some chips in his mouth.

"Thought the whole reason for not coming out here was you didn't trust people?" Zach asked.

Rebel lifted his eyebrows, and the chubby man leaned back in his seat. "How d'you know I ain't just a coward like Brav' thinks?"

"Okay okay," Zach said. "You're a coward. My bad."

"W-Wait-"

"Alright," Zach turned around now that the back of the ship was turned towards the dock. He tapped on the side of his helmet before Rebel could continue with anything, and he heard snickers from La Brava and Flare as well as a snort from the half-horse man in front of him. Zach connected his helmet's comms to the army-wide communication line which he could tell because of the display on his visor. "Our new mobile headquarters is here. Get the helicopters up top, there are marked locations where to land that can pull back into the ship and store them. Start driving the land vehicles down the dock, we'll load them up in the garage-"

"That thing is awesome!"

"Death, what is- where did we-"

"Everyone, follow your orders and get onboard," Exodus commanded. There was a silence for a few seconds, and then he asked, "Understood?"

"Understood."

"Roger that."

"Got it."

The responses were not all together and they were not all that enthusiastic, but Zach appreciated Exodus' help. Zach turned back to the giant vehicle and switched his chat back to talking to Rebel which a few others were switched to as well at the end of the dock. It took him a couple of seconds holding the button on the side of his helmet to go through all the comm links that currently existed through the Army of Death's forces, which outside of battle meant as many as the others wanted as certain people were closer to each other and had individual group chats going. Zach told Rebel to lower the ramp behind the ship, and Rebel replied in a teasing voice, "Only if you say please."

"No," Zach said. He narrowed his eyes at the back of the ship, while the others around him glanced at him in confusion and Rebel stared at his screen in surprise. "Open the back of the ship, Rebel. That's an order." _Please work. I really need you to just, just fucking listen to me. I don't think you've ever just listened-_

"Oh I like it when you get all commanding like that boss," Rebel said. He said it in a joking tone that had Sagitus scoffing and Flare letting out a laugh as she was not expecting that response from Rebel.

La Brava's eyes widened though at the answer from their main support guy for the past five months. As much as Rebel kept it in a friendly tone, she heard two things there that had her staring up to the corner of her visor at Zach in surprise and in an impressed way. A back door of the ship started opening up, a huge ramp lowering down from the bottom of it towards the dock at a gradual enough angle their vehicles would be able to drive up it. La Brava saw that ramp start lowering, and she thought, _Zach never said please. He didn't say please, and Rebel's doing it anyway, and Rebel called him "boss" too. Rebel didn't sound mad about it or anything. If anything, he's probably just impressed or maybe surprised by Zach's reaction. Guess he realizes since we're on the line with others right now, he can't act like that to him, not anymore. The kid's started demanding respect, instead of people just giving it to him… and it's working. Doubt Sagitus would've thought too highly of him had Zach actually said "please" right there._

 _Rebel really just did it. That's awesome. I really didn't want to embarrass myself there, and if he said 'no' I would've had to say 'please.' I would've if he had just said it one more time, treated it like a joke myself- and I would've looked like a joke to the others. No. It's not that easy to make them think less of me. It may be though, I know opinions can be swayed easily. Breaking trust, making someone think worse of you, it's a lot easier than making people trust you or think you're great. Respect is also lost pretty easily, but unlike the others it's an easier thing to gain. A guy like Rebel doing what I "order" him to do, means something. Because Rebel wouldn't take orders from anyone. I didn't think he would._ Zach smiled a bit inside his helmet, _From the start he's just been doing all of this voluntarily. I mean, everyone is. No one_ _ **has**_ _to be here, but Rebel just decided to start helping and never really took no for an answer. If he decided to stop one day, I'd never find him. And yet right there, he did what I said. He's really a member of the Army of Death. There's no denying that._

The ramp lowered right down to the dock, and the four at the end of it had to move back away. The end of the ramp was actually wider than the dock itself, and once it touched down into the wood Zach told Rebel to stop lowering it, afraid it might push straight through and break their quickly-made dock. Zach started up the ramp on foot, glancing over his shoulder and looking back down the dock towards vehicles turning onto it with excited people inside ready to see their new base. They had never had a base before, and for many of them they had been on the move constantly for months. The idea of having their own rooms, bathrooms, a mess hall, gyms and training rooms, and just a command post in general, they were all exciting.

Zach could feel the excitement among his army over the past few days since he let them know that work on a mobile base was almost completed. He had told them that he never said anything about it before because he did not know how long the plans would take, but he really just wanted them much more focused on what was going on at the moment and not on some airship. The most recent mission down in southern Africa was actually one Zach and Rebel picked specifically because they thought it would be a good place to have the mobile headquarters show up. The reason Zach was most excited about the airship was not the reason he thought most of the others were, but he had seen it and heard it from the soldiers in his army the last few days as well. _With this, we become more legitimate. Our army is, more. The Army of Death has a base. I never wanted to set up in any country because I could be putting people in those countries in danger if they help us too much. But this was one of my best ideas. A base. With top of the line cloaking systems, made using Quirks and high-level tech combined. It shouldn't be able to be found. I really hope, no one can track us in this thing… If Rebel says it's so though, I'll believe it. I can believe he could stop any hacker, any tracking devices, and even if he can't pick up on it, I'll have my own support team inside the ship too._

 _This is the beginning of a stronger Army of Death,_ Zach looked back out from the ramp he was walking up, going to get the first look inside his new base. He stared out towards helicopters flying his way to land on the roof of the airship, and at a line of vehicles driving down the dock in his direction. The ship he just entered still had its engines on, so there was a dull hum in the background that was soon drowned out by rumbling of tires up a metal ramp, and helicopters flying overhead. Those noises were nothing though, in comparison to the shouts of excitement and yells of people shouting about how the barracks' rooms looked. People yelled at each other looking for roommates, and then someone found the fully stocked food pantry and bellowed out about actually having a real supply of food.

"Keep Barboon away from it!"

"CC! You gonna room with me babe-" _**Clank**_

"Girls and boys have different barracks, _sorry_ ," La Brava taunted the man who stumbled away from a wall he realized he should have seen himself about to walk into while talking to Cee like that. Darling laughed at Michael, but the man just turned back towards the girls with a grin on his face, specifically at Cee who rolled her eyes at him and then walked away with La Brava and Darling.

"Uh uh Death," Gentle said to the boy looking around a large room with four sets of bunk beds, two on either side with ample space around them. Zach turned to the tall man with a bushy mustache in a confused way, and the others around Gentle also looked to him like that wondering why he just tssked and shook his head at their leader. "Follow me," Gentle said, and he walked out of the room and started leading Zach down the hallway.

 _Oh man,_ Zach thought in a bit of disappointment.

"The captain's quarters," Gentle said to the boy in a black helmet that he was glad to be wearing so the others could not see his disappointed expression.

 _Actually, it's better this way. I'll need to work late into the night. And I'm not here to have fun. Not here to play soldier with everyone else. I'm in charge. Responsibility._ "I take it you and Rebel planned this," Zach said, glancing to his side at Gentle who chuckled inside his helmet before lifting his hands to it and pulling it off. Zach opened his mouth, then he closed it and smiled more genuinely while reaching his hands to his own helmet. "Everyone, no need to wear helmets in the ship."

Zach said it before taking his own helmet off, then he took his earpiece out and left it in his helmet that it worked better along with. He tossed his helmet onto his bed that was a bit larger than the bunks he had seen in the other rooms, but not by much. His room was not really much bigger than half of one of the other rooms either, but the fact that he was going to be the only one in it meant it was still a lot of room for him. _My room's never been this big,_ Zach realized in surprise, as the room was bigger than both the room at his childhood apartment and his dorm room at U.A.

Zach checked out the ship with everyone else. He was glad he picked a spot where he could actually get a good look around without needing to worry about where they were for a while, but before he was even finished touring around his own headquarters, he felt himself getting tugged back up to the command post at the top of the airship's bow. _There's no time to sit around. We have leads on the Syndicate, and we know what's going down is happening on Christmas. We have to stop it._ Zach headed to the command room, and he went over to a communications area which he contacted Rebel through. He figured out how the controls worked to different stations, then once he had a solid grasp he called everyone to prepare themselves for lift-off.

Speakers from the command post were connected throughout the airship, and there were also panels in every room near the doors where people could connect back to the bridge. "Hold on captain!"

"We can't just leave. This baby still needs a name!"

 _A name?_ Zach thought, realizing he had never even considered it.

"Everyone come to the bridge as we set off on our maiden voyage," Gentle said into the speaker, and Zach glanced over at the older man who shrugged and then started towards the front of the command post where there was a huge glass windshield nearly wrapping around the whole room.

People started filling into the command room of the ship, and it got crowded quickly. Zach realized that while they were flying he was going to have to come up with rules for who could be up on the bridge, and he started talking to the others who were going to be up there the most. "Alright, Access. Raylei. Scotty. Think you could lift her out of the water without Rebel's help?"

"I could just lift her from here," Rebel offered again through the speakers his voice was connected to.

"We've got it!" Access shouted up towards the ceiling.

 _I don't want to help either,_ Zach thought while watching his support team. He turned to La Brava and said, "Want to help them?"

La Brava let out a sigh as she was just about to run up to Gentle, but had gotten stuck behind Scotty's computer near Zach when she saw the man typing too slowly into it. La Brava took a seat next to their newest support member who really was good at using computers, but nowhere near as good as her. "There… we… go," La Brava pressed her index finger down on an Enter key, and the humming in the ship started getting louder.

"Gonna be hard to sleep with that, huh?" Juno said to the woman on his left who had very large ears almost the size of her temples.

"Not at all," Dumba replied, and her ears curled in and closed themselves. She turned to the man next to her who looked at her with wide eyes as he had never seen her do that before, "What, can your ears not do this?"

Seraphim shook her head at Juno from his other side, then she stepped closer to the glass in front of her and let out a small gasp as she stared down towards the water below. It was pushing away from the bottom of their ship, and on her left side Grabble scratched the back of his right pincer and said, "Wonder what's happening to that dock right now?"

"Probably getting blown to bits," Fillian remarked behind him. Then the man sweatdropped and glanced to his left, "Um, I mean-"

"I don't mind," Carpenter said, still just staring through the window in amazement at the ocean they were starting to rise off of. "It was just to get us all on this ship. You know, I helped with the designs-"

"Yeah, you kept saying that," Fillian said with a laugh while turning back to the glass himself. "I'm surprised you actually managed to keep the fact that it was an airship a secret though."

"Thrusters are steady," Access said, pushing up on a handle to his right and then letting go when it was aligned with a red line on the side put there to assist him. "Engines running at a hundred percent efficiency."

"Solar panels fully charged," Raylei started. She typed a few more things on her keyboard and then tapped the monitor in front of her she lifted her eyebrows at as she realized it was actually a touch-screen. She pulled her fingers apart from each other and zoomed back on the screen, then tapped on a window she saw appear when she was able to see all her possible options. "Nothing's targeting us, and weapons systems are… weapon systems?" She glanced to her left and over to Death, then she turned a bit and watched as he walked towards the middle of all the equipment.

Zach ran his hand over the armrest on the left side of a chair in the middle of the room. He stared at the comfy-looking chair, and his eyes narrowed at it with a frown forming on his face. _I'm never going to sit in this chair. I shouldn't be sitting around, ever._ Zach's hand tightened on the armrest, and then he turned and looked forward through the front glass window. He lost his intense look, a small smile spreading on his face instead as he looked past all the people in front of him and through the windows out over the ocean to the west. The sun was setting in that direction, but the windshield tinted perfectly based on the time of day and direction the ship was pointing, so none of them had to squint despite being pointed towards the sun. _This, is a great ship,_ Zach thought, feeling satisfied and happy as they lifted off for the first time.

His satisfaction was replaced by the tug from before. A sense of urgency he never wanted to lose filled his head, and he turned towards Access, "Set a course for Mongolia. We're following the lead we got from Tarbello in Wales."

"Have to cross over a lot of land to get there," Rebel said, his voice coming through the speakers again. "So this time, I think I'll set you guys up. Check this." On the big windshield everyone was staring at, a video screen appeared at the top covering the middle portion of the window. On that screen was an image of their airship, more of it showing each second as Rebel drove a drone that popped off the top of the ship away from the side. He aimed the drone towards the airship, and typing could be heard over the speakers from Rebel's location. "And… voila!" The huge dark airship started shimmering, and then camouflaging with the air around it.

As it continued moving through the air, the people who had been staring at it could see the movement in the drone's camera. They were staring closely though, and from the angle of a drone flying very close to it already. Gentle nodded his head in acceptance and crossed his arms, trying not to let an impressed look show on his face as he figured Rebel may be watching for their reactions with a camera in there. He let a smirk cross his face a moment later though as he realized Rebel would not be recording them, considering how many times Rebel had asked Zach to allow them to standardize cameras in their helmets only for their leader to deny him. Gentle's smile lowered down quickly though, as thinking about the reason he was able to smile without worrying about Rebel seeing how impressed he was reminded him of how he could not record himself right now.

 _One of these days, I will find a perfect time to start recording. A recording to show the world all of my greatness. A greatness, that truly exists now. Not that it did not always… though, I truly believe that now, I have something truly worth recording._

 _This ship is so fucking cool! This is awesome. I never thought I'd be in a place like this._ Access looked up from his computer and towards the windshield with a huge grin on his face.

 _This really is, something. From five people, to an army in an airship._ Cee shook her head and let out a small laugh. She turned her head to Darling, but the girl younger than her by a year was looking back and Cee glanced back herself towards their leader in the middle of the room. _This is all you, Zach._

 _Zach, you're so hot right now. Oh my God! That look- I just-_ "To Mongolia!" Darling called out in agreement, getting everyone's minds back off of Rebel camouflaging their ship, to the orders Death gave out instead.

Zach nodded towards Darling who smiled super wide as he faced her. Even in a room with so many others, so many comrades and people following him, she felt like the look he just gave her was so much different from what he showed the others. Zach looked around at everyone else too once they turned though, and he called out, "Off the bridge. Let's keep this place clear while we're flying. Everyone get back to… well, unpacking. Let's make this place, a good headquarters-"

"We still don't have a name!" Michael shouted towards their leader who had still not come up with a name for their mobile base.

"The Pegasus!" Juno called out, and Sagitus nodded his head in agreement that he called out too.

"The Gently Soaring HQ!" La Brava yelled, jumping up from the chair behind her computer.

Gentle smiled and looked back towards the short woman. He opened his mouth, and then a loud voice stated in a confident tone that he was right, "Archangel." Gentle turned to his left and glanced at a muscular man taller than him who crossed his arms and nodded once at the name he believed sounded perfect. Gentle sweatdropped at Exodus who he did not think would get into it as much as the others.

"We're Death! That means it's gotta be Beelzebub!"

"The Death Ship!"

"Death! What do you think? Which name is best?"

 _What about Styx?_ Zach thought, as everyone turned and started looking at him for an answer. _The river that leads people to… is that too creepy? I don't want to be the deciding vote here- wait! I have to be. To show I'm in charge. Ugh, I've got fucking butterflies, over this?_ "How about…" Zach began. His face lit up and he finished, "The Cloak."

Everyone kept staring at him, and a sweatdrop formed on the side of his face. "I see," Exodus said, lifting a hand and scratching his chin thoughtfully. "Because the reaper wears a cloak that hides his face, and our ship is cloaking our presence in the skies, as well as a third meaning for our purpose of staying in the shadows. It is a very elaborate and impressive name."

 _Oh Exodus, you're the best,_ Zach thought while smiling and nodding with the man's over-explained agreement.

"The Cloak of the Army of Death!" Michael called out, deciding to just get enthusiastic about it instead of continuing any further discussion. He smiled while a couple others glanced his way wondering if he really thought it was a good name. "Never would have come up with something like that," he said it as if impressed by the name choice, yet the half-smirk on his face made it seem like he was also saying he wouldn't have come up with that name because it didn't sound right.

 _This is why I didn't want to make the- well whatever._ "Everyone off the bridge," Zach called out, getting his tone serious again. "Get some rest if you need but be ready to move out as soon as we arrive at our next location…"

* * *

 _ **Brring**_ **.** _ **Brring**_ **.** _ **Brring**_ **.** Zach lifted up his cell phone and turned off his alarm. He turned his body and dropped his legs off the side of his bed. Zach stretched his arms up over his head, then pushed them out in front of him and stretched some more. _Six hours. It's supposed to take us 20 to reach Samoa, and I got to sleep pretty soon after we left. Can't risk going faster or we'll be spotted, but it's a long time to… To get other things done, that I can't do once I'm there._

Zach stood from his bed and he opened up his un-trackable smartphone. He checked the news using the great wifi their ship had, and he walked over to his private bathroom where he brushed his teeth with one hand while continuing to read the news with his other. Zach put his phone down and spat into the sink, then he got out of his sweatpants and boxers. Zach stepped into his shower and turned on the hot water. He closed his eyes and leaned his head forward, pressing a hand below the shower nozzle as it sprayed hot water onto his back. He felt a sting in an old wound not yet fully healed, and he took in a sharp breath feeling the claw cutting through his back. He had taken the bandages off early because he did not want reminders of it, but the back of his eyelids were not dark as he stood there under the hot water.

Zach's head twitched, and he clenched his eyes tighter while shaking it once to get B16 out of his mind. Other floors of that research facility came to his head instead though, and Zach ground his teeth before snapping his eyes open with water sliding down in a thick stream in front of his face from where his pushed-down black bangs dipped farthest right between his eyes. Zach reached forward and turned off the hot water after only two minutes in there. _Work. Need something to distract myself. No time to focus on the past. There's stuff to do._

He dried off quickly and then stepped back into his private bedroom. As much as he initially thought of it as a bit disappointing, having this place he could be alone was nice. He put on a pair of underwear and then turned to his mirror. Zach stepped up to it and he lifted his right hand, and he touched himself in the chest. A dark aura wrapped around Zach's body and he let out a long deep breath as he stared at the mirror. The darkness hung in front of his face and shadowed his red eyes a bit, giving Zach a completely black appearance even without any bone-clothing on below his aura. _It's so much thicker,_ he touched his chest again and the aura of darkness faded.

Zach walked to his dresser and pulled out his black costume, and he slid into the tight body armor, putting everything on except for his helmet. He attached the helmet to his waist-clip, then he started grabbing his weapons and sliding them into holsters and sheaths he had to attach to his body armor one by one. He put his belt around his waist, clipped it together and then checked each of the knives he slid a bit out of their sheaths. _Fourteen now._ Zach thought, looking back towards his mirror with only his head turned to the side. He glared into his own eyes, and faces flashed in his mind that made him start grinding his teeth.

 _Time for morning training._ Zach turned to his door, and he clenched his fists determinedly at his sides as he walked out of his room.

A pair were walking down the hall near Zach's room, and the taller of the two turned and nodded his head, "Morning Death."

"Good morning sir," the girl next to him said.

Zach nodded at them, "Riser, Indra."

He continued down the hall, and he thought about how it seemed pretty early to him when he had picked his phone up. _Changing time zones so often is difficult. Should I… Yeah, I think that would be smart. Set a new time zone that we always use, no matter where we are in the world. It'll keep our internal clocks right, and we fight mostly at night anyway so it's not like…_

Zach walked towards the training room, but he slowed while looking down a hall to his left that he saw open doors at the end of. _Breakfast first, or at least a snack. Don't want to train on an empty stomach._

The leader of the Army of Death started down the hall, and he glanced to his right out a window of their flying airship. It was pitch black outside, and they were currently flying through clouds which made it impossible to see anything out the dark window. _Most everyone should still be asleep,_ Zach thought, and he nodded his head in satisfaction while turning forward. _That means I'll be able to train on my own for a bit. I should spend time training others in basic hand to hand combat today. I want everyone as good as me. I need to get better myself too. How much time do I spend on training them? Can I just tell them to make sure to train themselves? Micromanaging every little thing is difficult, but whatever makes the highest chance of keeping everyone alive…_

Zach scarfed down a quick breakfast he had to whip up for himself as there was no food just sitting there ready for him. As he finished it and brought his dirty plate and utensils back into the kitchen to wash off, he narrowed his eyes and thought, _Is it really efficient for us each to cook and eat at our own times? Each person having to clean every time is… If I do establish a set time system for the whole ship, and if we're all doing missions at the same time, I should set times for lunch and dinner. Put people on cooking duties, and cleaning duties. It's only been a few days, but I've noticed things lying around or dirty counters and tables, weights left on the floor in the training rooms…_

He frowned and just stopped cleaning his plate halfway while still standing at the sink. _Rules. I need rules, and order, and the more I set rules just on the smaller things the quicker people will be to listen in the big things. I don't have to set up shifts either. I could ask Gentle- Darling, I'll ask Darling if she could do that for me. Make it out as important to me and… that's cruel._ Zach closed his eyes and he turned with a sigh before steadying his expression and starting to the gym again. _I don't want her thinking I'll be in love with her more just because she does stuff for me. I have to make sure I'm acting indifferent… Except still showing her I care? It's still so, complicated…_

Zach shook his head around in the hall and picked up his pace to the gym. He focused his mind on strengthening, and training, and he worked out alone in the gym for over thirty minutes before Exodus showed up. Exodus immediately mentioned how he was not surprised Death was up earlier than anyone to train, and Zach just nodded at him and agreed that Exodus was also up early for this. Exodus quickly said how Zach was up earlier than him, and the younger boy accepted his comrade's desire to give him praise and just gave up to continue with his training. As Zach trained on his own, Exodus could see he did not want to be talked to as he was very focused, so the larger man focused on his own strength training. He focused so much that he did not notice as the boy training in the gym with him kept shooting looks over in his direction.

 _Could I beat Exodus? He's so strong. No Light, just strength. With this kind of a training regimen though, damn. I'm getting bigger, but I doubt I can make myself that broad on my own._ Zach lay down on a bench when he saw Exodus start turning his way, and he brought his hands up to the bar over him. His weapons and sheaths were on the floor over near the door since he could not work out well with all of them strapped to his body. Zach's muscles were more defined through his tight black costume without any of the extra accessories on. He tensed his muscles as he gripped the bar over him that had two large flat-circular black weights on either side.

"Here," Exodus said while stepping right up behind the top of Zach's head. He lifted his eyes to the man who held out his hands but did not grab the bar, "Allow me to spot you, sir."

 _If I say no over pride, and then wind up hurting myself, I'll look like an idiot. Exodus would have to run over- I wouldn't let that happen in the first place, but why- what am I thinking?_ "Thank you," Zach said. _I know I'm not as strong as him. He knows I'm not either. Why would I care? He follows me. How much I bench has nothing to do with it._ Zach pushed the bar up, and he lowered it down farther to his chest than when it was resting at its stopped position he just removed it from. Zach did a warm-up set with little difficulty, then he told Exodus to alternate with him and he helped put on more weights to then spot the man who benched more than double what Zach just did.

"Don't hold back," Zach said once it was his turn again. Exodus looked at him, and Zach gave him a serious look that made the man nod. Zach did not know if Exodus did not put on his max weight in order to make him feel stronger, but he wanted the man to get training done in. Exodus' look showed him that the man understood, though Zach just hoped he really had caught Exodus doing less than his max and he was not actually pushing his soldier to put on more than it.

Zach wound up working out with Exodus more after they benched together, and when Exodus mentioned that he was not as strong as Zach at his age, Zach asked how he had gotten to the size he was at now. He took pointers for working out, what to eat, what supplements to use, and though he had already been doing many things to make himself stronger he was happy to learn more strategies from who he believed was his strongest comrade.

Zach started to get sore after an hour and a half of tirelessly exercising with Exodus, and he finally told himself that he was only still there because he did not want Exodus thinking he did short work-outs. Since he had been there before Exodus arrived though, he figured there was no way for the man to know how long he was there in total. He told himself while he left not to care about things like that, but it was difficult not to feel like he had to keep a superior, or at the least respectful, air around himself as Exodus' leader. Zach sighed as he walked away from the gym though, _Exodus has never shown even the slightest doubt. From the day he pledged his loyalty, which I had thought was pretty weird at the time, he's always just been super into this._ In Zach's mind flashed the face of the man he was just working out with, blood and dirt caked over it yet a determined look despite the hell they had just rose from. _Unshaken. He didn't show it once all morning. Then again, I kept my mind far from, that day, too. I have to._

The seventeen year old shook his head around and he headed towards command up on the bridge. He checked on Scotty and Raylei who were posted there and keeping the ship flying straight. He asked about Rebel, and Raylei (who was the one left in charge of the bridge) said that Rebel had checked out a couple hours ago saying he was going out to recruit some helpers for his support room. Zach hummed at the sound of that but reminded himself that this was the careful Rebel he was thinking about, and there was no way Rebel would be letting people into his quarters without thoroughly checking them out first. _It'll always be good to have them there, in case this base is ever compromised, or destroyed. We won't have to start from nothing. So be careful Rebel, as you always are. We can't lose you._

Zach left the command post and reminded the two in there to make sure the others alternated with them at the right time. They had been up there since he had left to get some rest earlier, so he knew their shifts should be ending soon. _If I have shifts for important stuff like this, I should have been doing it for everything from the start. Others are waking up all over the ship. It's time to go make those plans…_

Zach headed downstairs and looked around for a bit for Darling. He did not find her down at her room, and when Xia asked in broken English why Zach was looking, he actually just asked her and Seraphim to put together the cooking and cleaning shifts. There was no point he realized in asking Darling specifically, just because he thought she would be the quickest to accept. He asked the two he found in one of the girls' barracks to do it for him, but he made sure in his tone it was not taken as a request. They did not seem like ones to deny him anyway, especially not for a simple task like this. Though Seraphim did ask him not to let everyone know that they were the ones who created the list once they were finished. He did not really see the big deal in it but nodded at the tall girl with long purple hair she had just tied into a ponytail when Zach showed up at their room.

He left them in charge of that and told them to try and get it done by lunch, which he added would be at noon UTC, or the Coordinated Universal Time. It was the most standard time zone he knew of, and he was glad that its noon came in a couple hours so he could just pretend like they were using that time zone on purpose rather than it just coincidentally worked right now. _Might as well use it for our ship's standard though. No jet lag ever as long as we set this up now. I'll make an announcement later, same time I tell everyone to go look at the list of… the chore list? Guess that's what I'll have to call it- Nope. Need a better name. Something cool. Duties? Duty list? List of responsibilities? How about, the alternating shifts of upkeep and-_

"Oh hey, Death," a voice called behind Zach as he walked down a hallway of The Cloak.

Zach turned his head and saw Mark looking his way from the end of the hall he had spotted him in. "Come check this out," Mark said, motioning with his head down the intersecting hallway. Zach heard a bit of a sense of urgency, but there was also a grin on Mark's face that told him the urgency was not about some important matter. He still jogged down the hall towards his American friend and then started telling Mark about the things he had been working on since waking up.

Mark sweatdropped and his smile lowered down a bit as he walked with Zach towards something he was ready to laugh about. "Oh," Mark said, and Zach glanced at him wondering what that was for. "You're really doing a lot this morning huh? Setting up time and duty charts and… let's just say not everyone's been as productive." The left corner of Mark's lips closer to Zach lifted back up and he chuckled. Zach asked him what he was laughing about, and Mark just motioned ahead towards an open area on their floor.

Zach stepped into the open room, and he looked towards the middle where there was a sitting area and huge tv on the wall. There were some people sitting around on the couches, most of them laughing or smirking towards the middle of the room where the furniture was pulled away. The rug on the floor was pushed aside too, and there was a metal chair on the floor that Access was sitting on with his body bent backward and his teeth grinding. A buzzing noise came from over Access' body, where Sagitus' human half was carefully leaning over the man and carving a needle around the upper left side of Access' chest.

Access was not too muscular of a guy, but Zach noticed as he looked at the shirtless man leaned back in the center of the room, _He's bulked up a bit. Not just a support guy anymore. I know that's what he's been wanting, but his Quirk works well with… He's been really into this from the start though. Since Saudi Arabia, he's always been the quickest._ Zach sweatdropped as Sagitus lifted up the needle and told Access he was done. _What are they doing though?_ Zach thought, shifting his gaze from Access over to two other shirtless men in the room who were more muscular than him.

Grabble and Michael came over and smacked Access on the back, though Michael hit on his left shoulder a bit close to the tattoo, making the younger man yelp in pain before snapping angrily up at him. Access got up and Grabble laughed as the younger man went for Michael, and he swung his arm over Access' shoulders and pulled him down a bit to stop him. "Yo Death!" Michael called out, spinning from the other two he was roughhousing with in a boisterous way to yell over at their leader excitedly.

Everyone in the room looked over towards where Mark and Zach were standing. Zach looked at the three who he noticed all had black skulls with cool designs tattooed into their chests around their left shoulders. "Now it's your turn!" Grabble called out. Zach's eyes widened a bit, and he got a confused look on his face.

Access winced and then grinned towards Zach and agreed, "You've gotta as our leader." He pointed at the skull that had creepy eyes and really did look pretty awesome. Zach glanced at Sagitus and wondered if the man had been a tattoo artist back in the United States before suddenly deciding to join the Army of Death.

Michael stepped towards Zach and he smirked big while a few others on the couch called over Zach's way that he should too. "Come on Death, you've gotta-"

"Why would I?" Zach asked, turning back to Michael in a bit of confusion. He still did not really get what was going on in there, and his mind was still focused on some of the stuff he had been discussing with Mark a moment ago. He felt like something was going on it here, and he looked from Michael over to Grabble and then Access with his eyebrows lifted up. All three of the guys who already got tattoos got a bit confused and awkward as they thought the mood just kind of called for Death to be next. Some of the others on the couches got somewhat awkward looks on their faces too, and then all of their bottom lips lowered. No one dropped their jaws farther than the three who were tattooed though, as Zach said, "It would be difficult to infiltrate villains if I have a tattoo that labeled me so easily as a member of the Army of Death."

It was the reason he came up with that actually stopped him from considering stepping up and getting a tattoo. It was not like he had decided a while ago that he would never get one, but as he thought about what they were telling him it was the first counter that popped into his mind. And then right after he said it, he sweatdropped at the lowered jaws of his soldiers in front of him. _Oh man, I just said- and those three already got- oh I probably just made those three feel really, really stupid. Everyone's watching too! Oh man._

Across the room leaning against the wall next to the television, a smirk crossed Gentle's face and he started shaking his head. _Poor Sazaki,_ he thought with a silent chuckle. He saw the kid realize it across the room the same moment most of the others did. "It looks cool though," Zach started again quickly. "And I mean, as long as everyone doesn't do it so people know it's an Army of Death thing, it's not like it's a problem or anything-"

"Hahahaha!" Fillian leaned back on his couch and he couldn't hold it in anymore.

 _Oh my God, I'm such an- we're such idiots,_ Grabble shook his head in disbelief and hung his head.

Michael lifted a hand and scratched the back of his head, and Access still had his jaw dropped. The youngest of the three looked down at the left side of his chest that just went through a lot of pain for something that was apparently way stupider than he realized. The worst part about it though, was that Death was standing there trying to make them not feel as stupid about it. That was what caused everyone around them to start laughing at the same time.

"It's really not, a bad thing," Zach started again. He stepped forward and continued, "And I would've wanted one too if I didn't think of that. It does look cool."

Michael lowered the hand from the back of his head, and he cracked a grin at the leader of the Army of Death in front of him. "Yeah, you're right. It's pretty sick huh?"

"I can't believe we did that though," Grabble said, and he lifted his head and started laughing at how much of an idiot he was. "I didn't even think about that, but that was so obvious."

"I'm just glad I decided to sit it out," Fillian started up at Grabble who started laughing with him. "If Death had gotten one though, I would've been next in line."

"What happened to 'I'm scared of needles,' huh?" Michael asked over at the man who shrugged like he didn't know what Michael was talking about.

Zach looked around in surprise and then he started chuckling as Access ran a hand up through his hair and said he was never letting the other two convince him of anything ever again.

Gentle stared into the room from outside of the group, his eyes huge as he watched the people in front of him. He was shocked. He stood there staring at everyone, who had all realized something at the same time. He could see what they were all doing, and it blew his mind. _All of them could see Sazaki felt bad about making those three dunces look dumb, and all of them laughing just made it worse. So all at once they all just decided to stop acting that way. Without a word. They just stopped laughing at each other, and they laughed together… I only realize it, because I noticed- no, because I felt bad for Sazaki myself. Why? It should have been funnier, but I was laughing in pity at him. I suppose,_ Gentle's expression returned to normal and he shook his head with a flat lip that lifted a small amount at the right corner. _I know how kind a kid he really is. It isn't difficult for anyone who gets to know him to realize, so they all understand it too._

Gentle chuckled under his breath and shook his head in amazement. _The man the villains all over the world are starting to fear, is too kind for his own good._

"What are you idiots up to?" Everyone in the room turned towards the hallway behind Zach and Mark. Three girls stepped out of the hall and everyone stared at them in surprise at their appearances. La Brava was the one who snapped at them, and then she looked past them over to Gentle who flashed her a smile while looking behind her head and to the sides of it. He nodded and gave her an affirmative look that told her all she needed to know to get a proud and slightly pink-cheeked expression.

"Whoa," Michael stepped forward and looked to La Brava's right side at a taller girl with blonde hair also cut just above her shoulders. Cee's hair did not curl up at the bottom like La Brava's did even cut just to her shoulders, and the blonde girl's hair was thinner too. Her hair had not been as long as La Brava's either, but it was still a noticeable change and Michael grinned at her after checking her out. Cee rolled her eyes at him, but a smug thought went into her head that the haircut was definitely a good one.

"Death, how do I look?" Darling stepped forward and she turned her head side to side so her brown hair swayed back and forth behind her.

Zach got a hesitant look on his face, and he said while lifting his left hand and scratching the back of his head, "You look great. All three of you-"

Darling stopped waving her hair with a jolt, and she stared at Zach with her eyes wide. Then she spun and stormed back off down the hallway behind her in a flustered way. Zach's bottom lip lowered, as did many of the people's behind him. La Brava rolled her eyes while glancing over her shoulder at the girl retreating down the hall, though Cee just frowned at Zach who leaned back at that look. "What'd I do?" He asked in confusion.

Michael clapped a hand down on Zach's right shoulder. Zach glanced to his right at the older man who had a stoic look on his face, before cracking a grin and just saying, "Women."

Cee started stomping towards Michael who backed away fast with a laugh towards the girl he knew was going to get riled up by that. Zach turned and watched them for a second, then he looked back at the hall in front of him and hesitantly stepped towards it, then he started that way with a more serious look on his face. _I hope she's not-_ Zach got into the hallway, and Xia and Seraphim stopped jogging right in front of him. The two bombarded him with a half dozen questions they had about how they were supposed to decide who cooked and cleaned when, and if certain people like him and the piloting/support crew were exempt. Zach tried telling them to just use their own discretion to figure it out, only to step past and hear his name called out from the speakers telling him to come to the bridge.

 _There's way too much to do. It's going to overwhelming- well, time to get whelmed. It's on me to never get overwhelmed._ Zach walked to the closest panel and pressed the button on the bottom of it, "I'm on my way." _I'll talk to her… later._

* * *

Zach stood next to the comfortable captain's chair in the bridge of his new airship. He was staring forward through the curved windshield of the large cockpit, looking around through the empty sky outside and seeing nothing forever in every direction. There was a sea of white below them as they flew over the clouds, and Zach stared at those clouds in silence for a minute before his eyes shifted back down to his right at the empty chair waiting for him to sit in it. _I'm not hungry. We're still far off from our destination. I could go train, or start offering training to others- I'm the youngest person on the ship. Won't they feel belittled… or, that shouldn't matter. As long as I get them to listen. I have to take my role as leader, and carry out actions that a leader would. No lone wolf stuff. And- I need to accept a leader position. A leader wouldn't be worried about people listening to him… right?_

Zach glanced back and to his left. Access leaned forward in his seat and moved his hands closer to his keyboard, making it look like he was super focused on keeping their ship flying and all their systems at a hundred percent efficiency. Zach sweatdropped as he got super focused on his screen and moved his hands in movements that were almost not obviously not actually doing anything. He thought Access might still be a little self-conscious about the whole tattoo thing earlier, but as he thought about going over and talking to him, Zach shifted his gaze over to the other person in there who had a shift with Access controlling the bridge.

 _Yeah, it's definitely time to talk to her. But first,_ Zach walked towards the short woman with magenta-colored hair who was idly twirling some of her hair between the fingers of her right hand. La Brava turned to the boy walking towards her, and she lifted her eyebrows at him as if asking 'What?'

"Um," Zach began. He grabbed a chair and pulled it over next to her from the next station down that was currently empty, and he sat down next to the woman he leaned in a bit towards. "Can you help me out?"

La Brava rolled her pink eyes but she stopped messing with her hair for a moment. She checked her screen again before turning to the boy next to her, spinning her chair and leaning back on it with her arms crossed and an uninterested look on her face. "Fine," she said. She did not sound thrilled, and she only reluctantly agreed because she was bored as it was and having this conversation was a tad bit better than fussing over her hair that she did not know if Gentle had a great enough reaction over seeing.

"So," Zach started slowly. "Why did you three, decide to get haircuts all of a-"

La Brava rolled her eyes at the younger boy who was beating around the bush from the start. The twenty-two year old narrowed her eyes at the teen who stopped talking when she first rolled her eyes. "Keeping all that hair inside our helmets is difficult," La Brava began. Zach's eyes widened as he was not expecting that, then they returned to normal as La Brava continued, "But whenever a girl gets her hair cut, she _expects_ her man to show more interest."

"I'm not her man," Zach started.

La Brava shook her head in annoyance as she had not said anything about him or Darling specifically anyway. "Yeah, I know that," La Brava said. "And she knows that too, at least," she added with a scoff. The woman with hot pink hair lifted a hand to it and messed around with it while turning back to her screen. "She'll get over it," La Brava said with a shrug. "You did say her hair looked good after all, so it should be fine." She seemed to be wanting to finish the conversation, and she narrowed her eyes at the screen in front of her before typing away on her keyboard.

"What? Is something wrong?" Zach asked.

"Not at all," La Brava said. Her eyebrows lifted up for a second in interest before narrowing back down with a more annoyed look on her face. "I'm still finding out new things about this ship though. Haven't gone through all the schematics, and someone decided to keep things about the ship-building process a secret for no damn-"

"I said it was to keep anonymity of-" Zach started cutting in defensively.

"Don't treat me like one of them," La Brava snapped, though her voice was quiet as Access still was in the room though over at another station in the bridge. She turned her head to the left and glared at the teen who frowned himself and then got a bit of a hesitant look on his face. "We've been in this together since day one, and you still don't trust us with-"

"I trust you," Zach said. He looked into La Brava's pink eyes and the woman opened them wider in surprise. His expression got darker after he said it though, and he continued in a lower voice, "My real reason, for not telling you…" He paused and took a low and deep breath, then he started, "Is because we are breaking villains' codes. We are working with heroes, and turning villains over to cops, ratting out information about them to the authorities… More than what we're doing, how we're doing it is different. We're acting like villains, yet we ignore all honor systems villains have about snitching and not working with cops and, and if- if villains capture any of us they'll break any honor codes they might have. Things they wouldn't do to each other, and things they wouldn't do to heroes- normally."

La Brava's huge eyes started going back to their normal size, and she narrowed them at the kid in front of her whose expression went from dark to much more serious. He stared her in the eyes and said in a serious tone, "If anyone is caught by our enemies, they'll be tortured and killed for being in the Army of Death. So the less everyone knows, the better. It's not about not trusting each other, I just know from experience that villains can make you say anything. I want to protect _all_ my comrades, which means not telling everyone everything, because every time I tell one person sensitive information they did not need to know, it needlessly puts others in danger. Just to what? Prove I trust them?" Zach shook his head at the woman in front of her, then he continued in a steady voice, "I promise, I'll never hold anything back from you that's too important. That you should, or have to know, but- but do you really need to know the how, and who built this ship?"

The woman before Zach stayed quiet for a few seconds, then as she opened her mouth Zach continued fast, "Because I will tell you." She paused with her mouth half-open, and he continued, "But that puts a large number of people at risk who I'll feel guilty about endangering if you ever get caught. I'll feel, like it's my fault when they're all hunted down-"

"I was going to say I don't really care," La Brava cut in, and she rolled her eyes at the teen who had already convinced her before that last part. She turned back to her screen with an annoyed expression on her face and then added, "Just make sure you stick to that. I don't want to be in the dark about what we're doing."

"Yeah," Zach said. He got up out of the seat next to her and nodded at the woman. "I will. I'll leave you in charge of the bridge," he added, and he turned to leave. La Brava shook her head while staring at the screen in front of her, wondering if Sazaki was saying that to ensure her that he considered her one of his top advisors or something. Her eyes widened though as she heard him behind her, "And I did mean it earlier, I think all of your haircuts looked nice."

La Brava turned her head to look over her left shoulder, and she snapped, "I only want to hear compliments from Gentle." Zach leaned back and then nodded before turning to leave again. "But thank you," she added, and she spun her head back to face her computer before he could look back at her again. When he was walking away a few seconds ago after leaving her in charge she had the urge to reach up and mess with her hair again, but the urge was gone and she just smiled at the screen in front of her. _I knew it looked great. Of course it does. Gentle gave me that smile after all!_

* * *

 **Knock Knock**

Zach turned from the edge of his bed and looked at the door to his room. "Come in," Zach said.

The door opened and Zach's bottom lip lowered a few inches. He stared at the girl with straight brown hair that fell to her shoulders sauntering into his room wearing a black bathrobe that only fell to her mid thighs and was much too open down the middle. "Uh Darling wai-" Zach began at the girl whose eyes were half-closed and who bit down on her bottom lip while looking at Zach. His face was going bright red and he was lifting his palms up at her to wait, but Darling's arms dropped at her sides which cut Zach off immediately.

Apparently her sleeves were holding up the entire loose robe, and as the door closed behind her, her robe fell to the floor and left her naked inside Zach's room. Zach shot up off the side of his bed, and his still-open mouth tried to form words fast, but Darling stepped towards him before he could and she started, "I had something I wanted to ask you-"

"Well now, before this gets any more awkward…" Darling's jaw dropped and her entire face started turning beet red. She looked past Zach and towards the open door of his bathroom, where a tall man with white hair and a bushy mustache was standing with his back to the mirror that Darling could see through the door. Gentle was holding a coffee mug in his hand that he had gone to wash out and fill with water after running out of coffee, and he stared at the wall in front of him while continuing, "I do believe one of us should leave-"

"Eee!" Darling reached down and grabbed her robe, pulling it up fast.

"Sorry, I tried to say something-" Zach started, then he shook his head and added in a more serious tone, "Also, don't just walk in here and take off your clothes. Did you hear me?!" He called after the girl who was not paying much attention as she sprinted out of Zach's room with a look of panic on her face. He sighed after a second of not getting a response, then he stepped to his door and closed it quickly, getting embarrassed by the thought of someone being in the hallway who may have just heard that shout.

"That was quite a…" Gentle began while stepping out of Zach's bathroom.

Zach shook his head and he gained a darker look while sitting back on the edge of his bed. Gentle walked over to Zach's desk that had a screen above it on the wall and a laptop closed off to the side near some papers. Gentle sat on the chair and crossed one leg over the other, took a sip of his water, and then Zach muttered, "It's only going to get worse now that we've got this ship. And you being here this time, is going to make her think that's the reason why. She's going to try again." Zach lifted his head and stared at the ceiling above him while letting out a sigh. In his head flashed the image he just saw when Darling dropped her robe, and he shook his head fast to get that image away. _Damn. That was actually, really, really hot. Shit._

"She is quite infatuated with you," Gentle remarked. He reached back and placed his mug down on Zach's desk, then he put his hands together in front of him and looked at the boy who matched his gaze for a moment before looking away.

"I don't know what to do," Zach said. He turned back to Gentle and looked seriously at the man, "How do you do it?" Gentle's eyebrows lifted up, and Zach continued, "With La Brava? I know, she is 'infatuated' with you just as much as Darling is for me. How do you get her to realize that you're not really together-"

"Actually Sazaki, that is where you're wrong." Zach gave Gentle a confused look. The older man leaned back on Zach's desk chair and continued, "Because La Brava and I _are_ together."

Zach stared at him in more confusion for a few seconds, then his eyes started widening and he said, "Really? But- I could have sworn. Wait a second, there's no way. I know you weren't-"

"I did not reciprocate her feelings for a long time," Gentle explained to the boy who was being floored by this realization. Zach's eyes widened more as Gentle continued like this was not actually a joke. "In part, because she was a lot younger than myself. However, La Brava is a woman, and she can make her own decisions. Decide who she chooses to love." Gentle smiled for a moment, but his expression returned to the steady look he had just had on his face. He reached over to his cup and took a sip while Zach's shocked look started settling. "And I do not think I will ever find someone who is as loyal, who cares for me as much, as does Manami."

Zach stared down at his feet. He looked down and his eyes narrowed as his face scrunched up. _Denying Darling's feelings is wrong, yet getting her to follow me in the first place knowing how she felt was too. And yet, I care about her more now too. And, and Gentle's right. And for me, I'll never find anyone who matches those qualities more than Darling either. But… but,_ Zach's hands clenched down on his knees. He saw Darling looking at him a minute ago, naked in his room and willing to be with him, yet he closed his eyes and shook the beautiful girl's face and body out of his mind. _I care about her, and she's super attractive, and, and I don't care about her that way. Gentle fell in love with La Brava, will I fall for Darling at some time… or, or is there another reason?_

"Well then," Gentle stood up from Zach's chair. "It does not seem like you will be very focused on our conversation."

Zach shook his head around and looked up to tell Gentle to wait. The older man lifted up a palm towards him though, and Zach frowned until Gentle added, "I am set to rendezvous with La Brava in our cafeteria not long from now. However you decide to deal with your, situation," Gentle avoided using the word 'problem' there in a very obvious way where it could have fit, suggesting to Zach that it did not in fact have to be a problem. Zach frowned more though and Gentle finished, "You must speak with Darling. You cannot ignore her."

"I know," Zach said. _I don't want to. She followed me so far, does so much for me, I can't ignore that. Or her. This relationship has always been difficult, but it's getting more complicated._ Zach shook his head and then glanced up at the man about to head out of his room. Zach's eyes shifted to Gentle's right arm, to the dark costume sleeve though he imagined through it. Gentle had been using his right arm as little as possible, and Zach asked the man favoring his left, "How's the shoulder?"

Gentle looked down at his right shoulder, and he lifted his arm and did small arm circles with it. "Recovering. Your back?" He asked in return, and Zach nodded in a way that said 'same.' "Good. We must have you at full strength before you go out in the field again."

"I'll go out at whatever strength I'm at," Zach countered. He stared into Gentle's eyes and the older man lowered his lips down into a bit of a frown. Zach continued, "I'll be there, if we lose anyone else. No one else." Zach paused, and he grit his teeth which just had Gentle's expression getting darker too. Zach's expression grew dark and he said in a low voice, "Any news about him?"

"You'd know as soon as I would," Gentle replied darkly. "We have nothing."

"We have to find who did it," Zach said. His voice was strong, though Gentle's eyebrows curved a bit instead of narrowing down like Zach's. Zach's eyes had just dipped to the floor though, and he ground his teeth before saying in a hiss, "To set it up like a suicide…"

"There is a chance," Gentle began. Zach lifted his head and his eyes widened at Gentle's facial expression. "That it was Sandlot himself, who took his-"

"Someone hung him," Zach said. He cut Gentle off and his eyes were full of fire that kept the older man from countering back again. "You didn't see him afterwards, because you were passed out. The look in his eyes, he was ready to hunt down the guys responsible no matter what. Sandlot was strong. And he was trying, but, no one listened."

"Would you have?" Gentle asked. Zach's eyes widened for a second and then shifted down with so much frustration on his face. It was something he had thought before telling Sandlot 'good luck' back in Scotland, because he already knew what Gentle was asking there. "If you heard-"

"Of course not," Zach said in a low voice, telling Gentle he did not need to continue on with that sentence. His expression was darker than ever, and Zach said in that same tone, "I still can't, sometimes. Believe…"

Gentle nodded his head and he stepped back to lean on the dresser behind him. Gentle took in a deep breath and stared up at the ceiling in Death's room. The ship was moving, and there was a low hum Gentle could hear even in there, and that hum was the only noise in the room for a few seconds. A few turned to several, and the two of them sat there with unspoken things hovering in the air.

 _I cannot share these things with La Brava. As much as she asks, there are certain things…_

 _As many details as I tell everyone, I can't even begin to start…_

 _The understanding that what we are doing is more than us. Greater than a single goal, greater than my goal…_

 _Fuck. I can't- 66, 23, 14, God… Pastor…_

 _Dryout was just trying- he was a hero- we should not have let him come back down with us…_

"I should-" Gentle started.

"Yeah," Zach said, nodding at him.

"She will be waiting."

"I know, you're good."

"And, do give Darling my apologies when you go to speak with her."

"Yeah, I'll do that."

* * *

"We need to be careful," Zach continued to the group of people in the bridge with him, as well as to a man connected to them across the world. "Getting spotted _would_ be the worst thing that could happen to us here. We have to make sure our strategies work early on though, so we're doing this. After we pass through the airspace though it's straight on to Samoa."

"Two minutes out from where we project their farthest radars should be able to spot us, if they are capable of doing so," Raylei said on Zach's right side at one of the computers on a line of equipment. The woman who had once been a support team member back in the fight against Mongoloid, was almost as young as Access at nineteen instead of eighteen years old. She joined the Army of Death not too long after her counterpart at the computer on Zach's left had, after hearing the former Anon 4 respond when she was acting as support again and was speaking to the combatants out in the field. Raylei had been shocked to hear 'Whoreslayer42' out fighting with the Army of Death, but the moment he told her that doing so he felt he was doing a lot more to help, she offered to join up completely as well.

Raylei slid her chair to the right a bit and checked on another monitor, then she rose her head to the windshield of their ship that a black box covered the top right corner of. There was a white line splitting the box horizontally, and it squiggled as Rebel chimed back in. "Y'all could take whatever they throw at you. Don't worry so much about it-"

"When you say it like that, it really makes me worried you think they're going to spot us," Zach snapped.

"They won't!" Rebel exclaimed. "I've told you a hundred times, that ship is practically undetectable-"

"And when you say 'practically,'" Gentle began from behind Zach and on his left, standing next to a station that La Brava was sitting at and typing into different equipment panels fast. He looked towards the black box on the windshield and continued, "You do the opposite of instill faith in your machine."

"It's not mine-" Rebel started.

"Do you think they're going to spot us?" Zach asked, his voice getting a lot more serious as Rebel saying that convinced him the man did not want to be blamed for them getting seen.

"It's not _all_ mine, but I did make sure it's as top-of-the-line as cloaking tech gets. Higher! Those fucks down there won't see ya' and they won't even sense ya'! So stop worrying-"

"Rebel, scramble their radars," Zach said. His eyes narrowed at the windshield in front of him, "On three different parts of the country, make glitches occur on systems that could detect something like us flying over."

"On it," Rebel said, not wasting time by questioning as the timer was running down on one of his screens. "Going to start a bit of a fuss-"

"Make it seem as much like equipment malfunctions as possible. Don't make it obvious," Zach narrowed his eyes, then he spun to his left. "Access, speaker-"

"You're on."

"Maelstrom! Get to the bridge immediately!"

"Forty-five seconds out," Raylei said, glancing to her left towards Death. "Sure we can't go around?"

"If something happens here that we need to take part in, we have to know that we can get to it in the future," Zach replied. Raylei nodded her head though she did lift a hand and wipe her wide block-shaped forehead. Her head was very rectangular-shaped with sharp edges on her jaw on top of her head, though her eight fingers on either hand were slim and slender and typed faster than anyone she had ever met. The young woman reached back forward and started swiping through different systems she was keeping an eye on. "Should I slow the engines more to-"

"They're at the right speed," Zach started. "If we can get spotted at this speed, we'll get spotted at speeds lower too."

"Death!" A woman called out behind him.

He did not turn to her, but instead pointed in front of him and called out, "Make it darker. Give us some natural cover too, in case camouflage isn't enough."

"Twenty seconds."

"I can't! Not that quickly-"

"Take your time, don't make it instantaneous," Zach said, his voice calmer than the one Scotty just used on his back right to call out their remaining time. "We have a lot of different systems and precautions in place." He glanced over his shoulder and back at the short woman with spiky orange hair that pulled back into two pigtails behind her head. "But I want to be extra sure. Just make those clouds darker, and a bit thicker. La Brava, raise us up a bit." She took in a deep breath and then nodded at Death before running forward to get closer to the front glass window.

La Brava slid a switch on her right up the panel, then she twisted a knob while reaching her other hand forward to the monitor in front of her and adjusting the ship's speed for ascent. "And…" Rebel said when the timer had a couple seconds left. "Some glitches just hit every sensor computer connected to the control grid watching the borders of Japan. Seems the problem… has to do with the blown transformer in Okano-"

"You blew a transformer?" Zach asked.

"I've got security footage of the plant I blew it at. Wasn't no one there when I blew it, and I just made the thing overload. If you want me to blow it sky-high I'd be happy-"

"Quiet," Zach said. _Shouldn't be too much damage. If it's decided that was the cause for the glitches, that works great. If we have to do this every time we fly over Japan though, someone will notice the pattern after the second time. Quicker if we have to do this again anytime soon._ "Once we're almost out, make sure the glitches stop. If we start getting followed we'll speed up and find a place to hide; have Akhmed fully shield us on the ground for a while. We need to see if just the ship's cloaking alone works, but Maelstrom keep up what you're doing until we're all the way through."

Maelstrom had her arms lifted up at her sides, and her eyes narrowed out through the windshield towards the sky ahead of them. Clouds already out there started getting thicker, and they changed directions while getting darker too. Her red irises swirled around with different shades, and the sky ahead of them for miles started to shift. Zach nodded his head as he watched it going, and he mentioned to Maelstrom to slow down on how quickly she changed the weather.

Two others who had come into the bridge after hearing Maelstrom get called in stared in amazement through the windshield. Grabble and Michael walked up towards the middle of the room, Zach glanced back at them and his black eyebrows narrowed down at the two he did not tell to come to the bridge. They just nodded at that look and stayed out of the way, walking over behind Access' chair and focusing through the windshield so even when Access glanced back he was quick to get back to what he was doing. "Chick's amazing," Michael whispered to his left at the man with big pincers sticking off the top of his head. "Changing the damn weather like it's nothing."

Grabble shook his head in similar amazement. _Man the new recruits are no joke. Nothing much separating veterans if there's no gap in power. Pincers could never match up to Weather Manipulation though. That makes it cooler though, when Maelstrom asks stuff about Gorran like I'm a fucking veteran for being here a couple months longer- like her "senpai." Haha, that's something those Japanese below say. And those Japanese right in front of me,_ Grabble glanced to his right and then lowered his grin to regain a serious look like Death had on his face.

On the right side of the bridge, Mark sat at a station with the weapons' systems on in front of him. _Diversionary tactics, flares, anything except the actual assault functions could actually be pretty useful if we start getting chased._ "If something does start coming for us, I'll take control of one of the drones and detach. Lead them away," Mark suggested over towards Death, and Zach turned and nodded at him in agreement.

"If it's a flying hero who gets too close too," Cee began from where she stood on Zach's right, behind Raylei and in front of Scotty's station the man was struggling to slide back and forth behind to keep up with everyone. Cee grinned and she finished with a glance towards Death, "I'll just turn 'em around. Doesn't count as fighting."

Zach hesitated for a moment, then he nodded at the girl he decided not to question whether it would be safe for the heroes if she did that. _She wouldn't suggest it if it wasn't,_ Zach told himself while refacing the windshield and the darkening clouds ahead of them they were about to rise into. "Keep the conditions under control. We don't want turbulence."

Maelstrom nodded and her huge smirk lowered down a bit. She twisted her open palms and lowered her outstretched arms a couple inches. Grabble and Michael looked towards the middle of the windshield, and then Cee spun to the older woman too as the spiky-haired girl in her mid-twenties started curling her fingers in, and the tops of the clouds just ahead of them curled with her movements. It was an intense sight to see, and Zach realized he was holding his breath for a reason other than being nervous about getting caught. _Wow,_ he thought, then he mentally shook his head to get his thoughts straight. _I thought Japanese airspace might be dangerous to cross through, and really I may be nervous for a different reason. Getting caught anywhere else wouldn't be as bad, but I cannot face them. I can't._

 _But we won't get caught. Not here. Not anywhere. I trust my plans. I trust, The Cloak will get us through this. Rebel's hacking and this ship's designs, my decisions even if they are in the moment, because the others are all smart and yet they're listening to those orders without hesitation. I can't hesitate._ Zach looked to his left at the edge of the room where he saw Exodus looking towards him, then shifting his gaze to Michael and Grabble. Zach gave a short shake of his head telling him it was fine, and he looked back forward and through the windshield with a bit more of a smile on his face. _He's been thinking about kicking them out the whole time, but that would make a bigger distraction than the two of them coming in did on its own. I noticed he moved closer towards the door, probably getting ready to stop anyone else who would make this place too crowded._

Access, Grabble, Michael, and Exodus were all in his vision on his left side. Maelstrom stood straight ahead of him between him and the glass. On Zach's right were Raylei and Cee with Mark at the edge with his head turned away from his equipment. He was watching Maelstrom's Weather Manipulation with an amazed look on his face, just as Scotty was over his computer before he snapped his head down and started typing away quickly checking their own radars to make sure nothing was coming at them. He opened his mouth ready to call out about something, but La Brava beat him to it on his left mentioning that there was some activity from the Police Force but it was just regarding the blown transformer. Zach heard her behind him on his left, and he glanced back as she told him that they were still in the clear. He nodded at her and made eye contact with Gentle for a second too, then he shifted his eyes over to the seat next to La Brava where Darling was looking up towards him. Zach looked into the brown-haired girl's bright green eyes, and he lifted his smile up a small amount that had Darling's eyes opening wide and then her own expression raising to a joyful one in an instant.

Zach looked back forward and out over the dark skies above Japan. _A ghost in the sky. Out of their lives. An invasion force moving with a squall, creating the storm we hide in. Masking our advance across the border._ Zach listened as Rebel started discussing with Raylei and Access about timings of their cloaking maneuvers as they continued across the island nation. All these operations, the amount of effort and time and caution that went just into passing a country, it made a nostalgic smile form on Zach's face. _There was a time when my whole group sneaking somewhere was as easy as walking across a border, or docking a small boat._ He chuckled once under his breath, _Simpler times._

The nostalgia faded from Zach's face though he kept smiling as he forced it away. _Things are better now though._ "Everyone not involved with keeping the ship from being spotted, meet in the war room. Let's go over our plans for Samoa." Zach turned and said louder, "Call me if our state changes."

"Understood," Access called back without looking away from his computer. Michael opened his mouth to say something to his friend on the chair, but Grabble motioned back with his head and Michael nodded after a second deciding not to bother their younger comrade instead. The two of them headed after Zach to take part in the meeting, and La Brava frowned but turned to Gentle and told him to go as well.

Gentle asked if she was needed there, but La Brava sighed and said that she should take charge of it as much as she wanted to just leave her responsibilities to Raylei. That statement got Rebel to call into the cockpit about how he would be the one in charge if La Brava were to leave, and as Gentle left the room and the two of them kept arguing, the man actually had a surprised look on his face at how Rebel started their newest debate. La Brava and him started arguing, but Gentle noticed that it was not over whether Rebel was in charge over her, but over whether or not he would have been had La Brava left the bridge. Gentle sighed as he followed after Death, _To think, even a man like that can grow from this._

"We have little time until Christmas," Zach said while leading a large group out of the bridge. The people behind him focused in on their leader's back and their looks started to match his serious one. Zach's eyes narrowed in front of him and his fists clenched at his sides. "We still don't have nearly enough information to stop the Syndicate, let alone stop whatever their plans are. It's crunch time. We're going to stop them though. Whatever it is, we will stop it. Understood?"

"Sir yes sir!"

"Yes Commander!"

"Yes Death!"

"Roger!"

"Understood!"

Zach stopped walking as a cluster of different overlapping shouts came from behind him. The others behind him looked around at each other too as that was a bit of a trainwreck for what should have been a simple simultaneous answer. "Understood Commander, is fine. Understood?" There were some surprised faces behind him, then Zach asked again louder, "Understood?"

"Understood Commander!" A smile formed on Zach's face, and a few of the others behind him smirked too as they actually got it sounding better that time.

All of their looks returned to serious ones though as Zach started forward again and said, "Let's go stop the Syndicate."

* * *

 **A/N Thanks for reading! Hope you enjoyed the chapter! The Army of Death gets a new home, a mobile headquarters Zach names The Cloak. A nice non-action chapter after the action-packed horror movie chapters the past few, hope you guys enjoyed the character interactions and developments. The Syndicate's got plans for Christmas, and Zach plans to stop them. The Cloak is passing over Japan, bringing Zach back close to his old friends in UA. His thoughts are focused on his future though, pushing away the past (and especially certain recent things still haunting him, and Gentle). Darling tries seducing Zach, at a really bad time. Zach sets up some more order to the Army of Death, and it's finally looking like an army. Leave a review below telling me what you think and predictions for what's coming!**


	109. Chapter 109

**Disclaimer: I don't own Boku no Hero Academia**

 **Chapter 109:**

"Round 5: Begin!"

Uraraka Ochaco ran into the testing arena and her eyes darted around inside the pink goggles of her recently updated costume. The lens of her goggles under the helmet was shaded dark pink and kept her eyes from view, so no one watching through the cameras around the testing ground could see what she was looking at. In a room at the front of Arena Alpha, Class 2-A stood gathered in front of a big screen some of their teachers and Recovery Girl were watching too. Out of the previous four entrants, only Iida stood there watching the Final Exam of his classmate who went in right after him. The other three who had lost: Aoyama, Ashido, and Asui, were all missing from the room despite having a long time between each round where Recovery Girl was able to see them.

Iida was the first to pass the Final Exam's practical section, and he was the last to doubt the parameters of what the test would involve. Everyone already knew what Uraraka was up against when she ran inside. She did not run to the middle of the large round circular arena, but instead sprinted to one of the sides close to a staircase up to the upper level that encircled the arena stage. The staircases behind the tall white pillars around the round room, led up to upper sections that had rows upon rows of metal benches above them. It looked like a real arena, a colosseum… a stadium. It had a similar feel to a smaller Sports Festival stadium, and the feeling of running through the Sports Festival in such an intense situation was bringing memories back to each of the students' minds.

Uraraka took a deep breath after running behind a pillar near the stairs though. She poked her head out around the pillar, and she looked towards the middle of the room and then up to the second floor of the stadium where she spotted her enemy. Her target was the only other thing moving in all of Arena Alpha. It was up on the second floor, moving down the bleachers and turning its metal head back and forth while looking around on the same level. Then it looked down to the first floor, and it rose its head straight to the pillar Uraraka was poking out from behind. _Already!?_ She thought in panic and then tried to calm herself while jumping out from behind it. _If it saw me there's no point in hiding-_ Uraraka's eyes opened wide behind her dark pink goggles.

The large bulky robot on the floor above did not move for a staircase to run down at her. It pointed its hands behind it and shot off the ground with jets coming out of its feet. _Just like Asui's!_ Uraraka turned and ran for the staircase, while the Anti-Nomu-Terminator shot diagonally out of the air towards her back. It sped up with the jets it fired out from its hands, and Uraraka glanced over her shoulder as she heard the blast and could see how much faster the ANT was moving now.

"Uraraka's is so fast," Sero said while leaning in towards the screen with his eyes wide back in the viewing room. "It's even faster than Iida's!"

Iida nodded his head as he noticed that as well, though his eyes just stayed focused on the screen. He held his metal helmet in the crook of his right arm, and he thought about why it was he believed the ANT he had to face was not made to try and match his speed. He had considered that they were not able to make it any faster, but his did not have capabilities that Uraraka's was showing already. _In that case,_ Iida thought. His eyes focused more on the girl who spun forward and sprinted faster up into the staircase. _It does not have the same strengths as mine either._

"She's just running-" Mineta started with his eyes wide and shaking at the aspect of going up against one of these things on his own.

"That is not true." Mineta turned to his right and up at the tall girl next to him who was watching her classmate carefully. The black-haired girl in a tight red shirt split down the middle had a weapon's belt on her waist as well as two straps of closed pouches going over her shoulders and down the sides of her costume. Momo Yaoyorozu said in a calm voice though while rooting for her classmate in her head, "Leading a faster enemy into a more cramped quarters where they will be able to use their speed less, especially when its speed is reliant on the use of its arms as well, is a great strategy. Uraraka is not just running."

 _Win,_ Midoriya thought, staring at the screen with hopeful eyes though a nervous heart as he could not see Uraraka's expression well to see how she was thinking. On his right side though, Midoriya saw Bakugo lean back with a smirk on his face that made the green-haired boy's eyes dart over, then snap back to the screen as he wondered if there was something he was missing.

 _First move is always,_ Uraraka ran to the top of the stairs and cut to the right. She ran a few steps and then quickly made herself float while at the same time jumping at a pillar on the second floor that stretched much higher up to the ceiling. She touched her fingers together after jumping up with Zero Gravity, returning her weight right as her legs were touching into the pillar. Her body was curved up, but with the returned gravity she started falling until she was completely sideways against the wall though with her legs bent against it. Uraraka touched herself again before she started pointing too far down, while her feet were still up against the pillar, and she started unbending her legs while at the same time removing her gravity again.

She had the momentum pushing off the wall of someone weighing a hundred and twenty pounds, and her kick force sent her weightless body flying straight towards the top of the stairs right as the robot behind her was sprinting to the top. Its head was already turned the direction Uraraka was coming from, and it rose up its arms fast by blasting flames out the palms. The raise of its arms that quickly up in front of it to block was unexpected, and Uraraka's eyes opened huge behind her pink goggles as the palms of the ANT started to glow ready to fire. Uraraka touched her fingers together, returning her own weight and dropping below the flames that the ANT fired out at her.

Her classmates who just yelled her name out in panic opened their eyes wide again as the girl dodged beneath the blast by only inches. Bakugo's smirk that actually dropped started to return, though he scoffed at himself for a second in annoyance at second-guessing the decision he already made in his head. Uraraka hit the ground with her body curling in, and she dropped into a forward roll that looked painful, especially since she did not use her right arm much to help her curl. She rose her right hand instead, and she smacked it into the bulky body of the robot that was still nowhere near the limit for the amount of weight she could carry with her Zero Gravity Quirk.

The robot she touched instantly shot backwards, and it stopped firing flames from its hands though was too late to stop itself from slamming its back left shoulder into a pillar and bouncing off straight into some metal benches. Uraraka's eyes darted to the pillar and a rock she just saw fall off of it, then to the bleachers that broke but were still connected down to the floor in most places. She started running for the pillar, as she saw the ANT lifting its hands and grabbing the broken benches on its sides to pull itself up. The robot flipped its body around, then it fired a jet of flames out of its left hand and dodged a rock that Uraraka threw at it as hard as she could while it weighed nothing, then returned its gravity alone without returning the Nomu's by only touching her index fingers together that she had removed the rock's gravity with.

The robot that shot itself away spun around in the air and bounced on the floor then the ceiling as it pointed jets down. It spun around and around in the air, but Uraraka stared towards it and took a deep breath as she saw it steadying itself with its four jets. Then her eyes shifted to its right shoulder, where she saw a dent in the steel from the last time it slammed into one of the benches on its dodge away from her rock aimed at its face. She had specifically aimed at the two glowing red eyes on its head, and she saw how much it cared about protecting those now that it had injured itself dodging away. She also realized what Iida already had, and she nodded her head in understanding before turning and running towards the benches, and steel that she knew would be able to pierce through this particular robot.

The teachers in the watching room grinned, and Recovery Girl leaned back in her seat a bit. The students around them were mostly sill watching intensely, but some of them were realizing as the teachers did that this was a similar moment to Iida's not long before the end of the last round. All Might nodded at the screen in front of him, _A hero's ability to react, and to make decisions quickly based on the knowledge they've acquired in that short period of time. Young Aoyama and Ashido were unable to handle being so suddenly thrust into a fight against Anti-Nomus, nor was Young Asui prepared for the difference in fighting techniques and abilities of the ANT facing her compared to the others'. It is an unfortunate disadvantage to those who go first, but reacting should not determined on how prepared one is. Young Uraraka though…_ All Might's smile rose as the girl turned and started running from the ANT while carrying two huge chunks of steel with her. As much as the ANTs were made to face them, they still were chunks of metal and this one did not see the obvious trap as it started after the girl it was determined to take down and nothing else.

A few seconds later, and the entire watching room filled with cheers from Uraraka's classmates. One student did not cheer with the others, as Mashirao Ojiro kept as focused a look as possible on his face. He clenched his fists at his sides and his tail curled in anticipation of his fight that was up next. They had a few minutes where Arena Alpha was going to get fixed up and they could talk to Uraraka, as well as listen to how the teachers graded her, though all of them already expected their classmate was going to get an A for sure. Uraraka swung her left arm around in a few circles and rubbed her shoulder with her right hand, but then she turned towards where she saw one of the cameras and she gave it a big thumbs up while a split-in-half ANT sparked behind her.

* * *

"…Esquomalador's president Peña claims the new laws will prevent Trigger, T4-Trigger, Personal, Riot, Vertigo, and Super Heroin from making it into the country's ports. The problem with his statements is that Honduras and Venlumbico's governments have not enacted similar tactics, so the land routes are just going to become the new main ones. Although Mexico has been increasing its rate of arrests in its southern regions, drugs still move in through the north of Esquomalador and through its southern border already at rates almost as high as its neighbors. And if Peña does not work to enact a more comprehensive drug policy that encompasses more than just ship checks and random port searches, drugs will continue going into his country. His new policies won't even slow drug imports from overseas, as villains will simply move to the ports of their neighbors and then bring in shipments over land."

Ojiro took a deep breath and then lowered the slip of paper he had brought up with him and had glanced down at a couple of times in a nervous way. He had his entire script memorized, but he was already feeling nervous because of a different part of his Final Exams earlier that he had not done very well in. After lowering his paper he stared at the panel of heroes in front of him who had been taking their own notes the whole time and were now making some final ones as he finished.

Ojiro spotted Hagakure behind the teachers lift up a white glove and give him a thumbs up. He felt a bit of relief knowing that she thought he did well there, then he tried to keep a serious look on his face that was not nervous when his teachers started tearing into his report. He was already expecting it after watching a few other reports before his, but the report order was randomized unlike the practical tests and he did not have much to base his questioning off of.

"…and you say that President Peña 'claims' certain things multiple times in your presentation. On your report copy I have here, you did make sure to cite it, however you shouldn't just make such broad claims without saying where you got your information from." Midnight looked up and pushed her glasses a bit up her nose before continuing to the student, "As your classmates and anyone who does not have this paper before them may doubt where you are getting your information from or how credible it is to just make a broad statement like that."

"…And what are those 'more comprehensive' measures?" Ecotplasm narrowed his glowing white eyes at the student still in his hero uniform as all of the second years in the hero course had to be for the full three days of their Final Exams. "You talked a lot about the problems of the current most violent crimes in Esquomalador, but other than 'changing' the policies, and making them 'more' comprehensive, you didn't give a detailed plan. Something exact, specific, that they could do to fix these problems. Something more tangible than just 'they're not doing enough.'"

"…A very good report. Very good, and detailed. You showed that you spent a lot of time researching this…" All Might hesitated, then the teacher who was too nice to the point that he started every comment that way continued, "But I agree with Ectoplasm. I understand that you are suggesting policies that also handle land transport of hard drugs, drugs which all the most violent crimes in Esquomalador are based around. However, closing borders or just, making them more difficult to cross based on suspicion of carrying drugs… Well, it is difficult. Do you think the government should have border guards searching every vehicle to cross over? Every single truck, which will consist of thousands every day, which will require a much larger workforce at the border to handle. And although you could now say that this could be a good solution to the high unemployment rate you already mentioned," All Might continued, and he finished in a questioning tone, "How will they pay those border workers? Already the policies requiring searches at ports will create hundreds of jobs as you mentioned, but taxes need to raise in this case to pay for those government workers, and the people of Esquomalador are not well off as things stand currently. Asking them to pay more, and then asking them to do so again when similar policies did not work with the only difference being that these will be more extensive, is something that will get President Peña removed from his office very quickly."

Ojiro sweatdropped as he did not have a response for All Might here, and though All Might did not ask him for one, it frustrated him that he came up blank after researching Esquomalador for the whole term. The teachers finished up their critiques of his report, and Ojiro thanked them for listening before heading out of the auditorium.

Hagakure subtly got up and scooted down her row, all the students she was sliding past pulling far away with nervous looks on their faces since the girl was practically naked in her hero costume. She ran out of the auditorium and spun her head back and forth, then she ran over to her left where she saw Ojiro leaning back against the wall. He had his right hand up against his forehead, his head leaned back on the wall and his teeth gritting in frustration. "They've been hard on everybody so far," Hagakure began while jumping in front of Ojiro.

He had already seen her on his side so he was not surprised by her jump before him. He lowered his hand from his face and tried shifting the frustrated expression he had, but he couldn't keep it up after a few seconds. "I can't-" he started, then he shook his head and lowered his gaze to the floor where he saw Toru's white shoes. "As much as I bulked up with Rhystorm, training harder than ever… I couldn't even dent the ANT. I messed up my presentation, and my internship's over so- so what did I accomplish?"

Hagakure reached forward and she started hugging Ojiro, but he pushed back from her. He looked down into the blank space where her face would be while holding her back by her bare shoulders. "You're up soon, Toru. I don't need to, I shouldn't be worrying you with-"

"I'm not worried," Toru said. Ojiro's eyes widened a bit, and the shorter girl in front of him lifted a glove she put on his right cheek. "I'm not worried about you, because I know you're going to be fine. Wait until the grades come out at least, before beating yourself up over it. I want you to watch my report too, after all," she slowed down at the end of her sentence, turning her head and twisting her right foot on the floor in a nervous way.

Ojiro took a deep breath and he calmed himself down. _Toru's right. Don't get caught up in… I should have done better. I trained so hard for this. Prepared all-_ Ojiro shook his head and then he lowered his hands from Hagakure's shoulders while nodding his head. "Yeah. You're right. Let's get back in there." He rose a hand to his right cheek as he started walking the other way again with his girlfriend, and he added, "Thanks for that."

* * *

"Round 8: Begin!"

Koji Koda jogged out through the starting gate into the building. He sprinted towards the steps as his first move, and he ran up to the second floor and straight up the bleachers. As quickly as he could he ran to the closest window to the entrance gate, and Koda smashed through the glass before shouting outside. "Come animals! I need your help! Please come help me!"

The building's interior did not have much for Koda to work with, so his first move was gathering up some weapons. His classmates watching all thought he was making the best first move, but some of them started shouting at the screen for Koda to move. His shouts attracted the ANT that Koda had not even searched out the position of yet. All of the other rounds had had a few moments after the start before any interactions with the ANTs occurred though, and Midoriya nodded while staring at Koda in a focused way. _He knew he needed to get there fast. He looks nervous though. Come on Koda._

 _You can do it,_ Jirou thought, focusing on the screen and a friend of hers she had passed her spring Final Exam with their first year.

Bakugo glanced behind him, and he turned back forward as the boy with spiky red hair behind him walked up to his side. Bakugo did not say anything, and Kirishima just ground his teeth before focusing on Koda up on the screen. After Iida and Uraraka won one after the other, it had seemed like things were changing for their class who got used to the final's parameters. Then Ojiro lost in his drawn-out fight, and Kirishima thought he would win next because Ojiro's biggest problem was piercing through the robot's armor. For the first time in all the matches though, the ANT did not go after the participant. Their goal was to fight and beat the ANT, and Kirishima's stayed away from him for twenty embarrassing minutes of charging around and destroying everything to try and make it harder for the robot to avoid him. He had failed, and he was exhausted, but he came back and was watching the round right after his despite the pissed-off expression on his face.

After the sixth round with Ojiro, they had run out of time for the practicals on the first day. They were onto the second day of finals now, and Kirishima went first as Round 7. It had been something many of them had thought was done on purpose, and some thought the teachers might just start them on Round 8 with the student in class who was numbered as 8 and had it on his hero costume box. The seventh student in the class had never had his seat number claimed by someone else, and no one wanted to be number 7 anyway to be associated in any way with Kaminari Denki. It was similar to how their class also had a missing number 13, leaving them with nineteen students total in Class 2-A but numbering up to 21. It was almost the perfect gap that some of the students expected they might end right after Jirou that day too, especially after how long Kirishima's match had gone first.

Everyone in the spectators' room focused in on Koda as he ran away from the ANT. A few of them winced and Jirou even turned towards Midnight and asked if that was necessary, as the ANT chasing Koda smacked a hand through the air and slammed one of the birds flying around its head. The smack slammed the bird into a nearby pillar where it hit hard and then fell motionless to the floor. Koda stared back with his eyes wide behind his yellow mask for a moment, then he had to spin more and cross his arms to protect from the heavy punch of the robot that sped up and attacked.

Koda's feet lifted off the floor and he let out a yell of pain as the punch bruised both arms immediately. He hit down on his feet but stumbled back and then fell and skid on his back a few more yards away. He put his hands down on his side and flipped over onto his hands and knees, then he started running forward on all fours until he got up to his feet to run again. "Keep attacking!" Koda shouted behind him through the orange mask on the bottom of his face to hide his mouth while he shouted so loudly. He looked back over his shoulder again, and his eyes bulged while he tried ducking. The ANT was giving him no time to run, and it slammed its head forward even as two birds tried blocking its vision, and then it slammed a fist into the side of the boy's face.

"Koda!" Sero called out, actually worried as he saw blood splash from their classmate's face on that punch.

An orange mask flew off of Koda's face, the straps broken. The boy who had been wearing it spun out while still in mid-sprint, and he hit the ground and bounced and then slammed into the railing between two pillars of the second floor.

"Running away and hoping that birds would take down an Anti-Nomu," Sato muttered. He felt bad for his classmate, but also nervous as he was up next. He was hoping he had a bit longer before having to go out there and fight, and also hoping to see more of his classmates defeating the robots to give him a better shot at doing the same. "It wasn't enough."

Asui thought the same, but the frog girl who had lost her own fight against the ANT noticed that none of the teachers sitting at the long table in front of the screens were reacting yet. Midnight smiled and the woman leaned forward a bit as she saw Koda pushing his curled fingers flat into the floor at his sides, and shifting his body up the railing.

"Hey, is this really alright?" Ashido stepped forward and asked All Might who just nodded and kept watching with a serious look on his face.

 _Young Koda, do your best!_

"Keep going!" Koda shouted, opening his mouth wide and yelling it at the top of his lungs at the ANT. "Please! Help me!"

"He's just going to get more birds killed," Sato muttered. _And that's just going to hurt him more than-_

A spark flew from the right side of the Anti-Nomu's neck. The ANT started sprinting towards the boy on the railing who dove to his side and into a roll, then got up and ran into the bleachers where it would be harder for the ANT he had not seen fly yet come after him. Birds kept circling the ANT, and some flew in and pecked it in the face and got in front of its eyes again. Bakugo's eyes narrowed more at the screen, and he focused on the birds that flew around the ANT's head alone to notice that some of the creatures were not actually attacking at all but just getting in the ANT's way.

 _What is Koda doing?_ Midoriya thought.

"Please! Keep chewing! You're almost there!"

The students had not seen Koda's mouth earlier when it was hidden behind the muzzle, but he had not been shouting at the birds alone. The ANT running up at him slowed down and stumbled to the side, sparks flying out of some of the cracks in its steel armor. Inside of the robot, flies and fleas and the smallest of insects were chewing away at the wires that held the ANT together. The wires on the inside were not easy to tear through though, and the ANT looked up with flickering red eyes and then charged at Koda, jumping up on metal benches and jumping from one to the next up towards the running boy.

Koda turned around in mid-run though, and he jumped up on the metal bench closer to the ANT himself. _Just need something to shake the insides! Rip the wires almost chewed through!_ Koda jumped to the next bench right as the Ant was jumping up to the one below it. _Just have to dodge one!_ Koda looked like he was going to jump, then he stopped with his legs bent. The ANT threw its punch early while leaping off the next bench down, then Koda stepped to the left and dove himself on the outside of the ANT's punching arm. The ANT's other arm punched below its extended one, hitting Koda in the side and making the large boy gasp out some spit again. It looked like he might get punched away from the ANT, but Koda threw his arms out and grabbed the robot by the head while still in forward momentum. Koda turned his body in midair so he would not hit down as hard, making sure he slammed down on top of the ANT he was tackling down on the bleachers too.

Most of Class A stared at the screens in shock as Koda tackled the ANT in a very violent and physical way which was unlike him. He slammed it into the ground and yelled out in pain as he bounced and rolled over his own back, but he flipped again in his roll and slammed the ANT down again, more sparks coming out of it. Birds flying above shot down and started pecking at cracks on the robot, and one reached its beak inside and grabbed at an exposed wire. Another bird tried doing the same only to squawk and fly off as it got sparked, but then it shot back down and pecked again. Koda sat up on the robot he had flipped over, and he put both of his huge rocky hands together over the top of his head. "AhhHHHH!" He slammed both hands down into the flickering red eyes of the ANT's face while it rose both arms at its sides.

Koda smashed the robot's head back into the ground as it started lifting it. The head slammed into the floor, the red eyes turned dark, and the robot's arms fell limp. Koda panted hard while staring down at the robot below him, his eyes wide behind his yellow mask, blood trickling fast down his face from the cut on his right cheek. He lifted his right hand and rubbed it across the side of his boulder-shaped head, and then he said in a softer voice, "Thank you." Koda looked around at the birds, then back at the robot. "All of you," he added for the insects inside. _**'…I don't know why you're shy Koda. You're the bravest person I know…'**_

"He did it," Sato said, amazed as he stared at the screen where he thought for sure he was going to see Koda get knocked out soon.

"Alright Koda!" Kirishima shouted. A few of the others who had been too focused that they did not see Kirishima come back in glanced back at him in surprise, but Kirishima looked genuinely happy as he shouted that for their classmate. Ectoplasm looked over his shoulder too with more of a frown that the student was not reflecting more on his own loss. Kirishima was thinking hard about that though, but seeing Koda succeed and shout like that after all the time he had known him being so afraid of being seen shouting, it made Kirishima smile through his own frustration.

Ojiro looked over towards Kirishima in the most shock of the others around him, then he lowered his gaze down and clenched his fists at his sides. _I can reflect on my own shortcomings, without getting depressed over them. I, should still be happy for my classmates. For Koda._ Ojiro smiled and lifted his eyes back to the screens in front of them, _I am, happy for Koda._

Over the next hour, three more students went through their Final Exams. Sato failed his, then Shoji won after another hard-fought fight that lasted a little longer than Koda's but ended in another plan that Shoji had started from right after running into the arena. Cementoss had to come back into Arena Alpha a few times to fix it up, but he did not have to fix it more after any fight than he did at Round 11, when Jirou went. As Jirou stormed out of the arena afterwards, while her ANT stood undefeated in the middle of the room, all of Class A stood silently in the spectating room.

The room was a complete mess, with the second floor destroyed as were most of the bleachers that all had to be replaced with stone at this point. While Cementoss went in there to fix up the arena, a few of the others had hesitant looks on their faces thinking about what they had just seen. Jirou's ANT had dodged her attacks like Kirishima's, staying far away and making the girl chase after it. Her attacks were a lot more destructive than Kirishima's though, and they were a lot less precise. The teachers had finally ended it before the time limit, calling out that Jirou had destroyed too much of the arena that she was supposed to be protecting, as it was a replica of the Sports Festival's after all. The angry look on her face before they even called her out had just gotten even more furious as she failed. It looked more than just frustration, and Yaoyorozu turned from the screens a few seconds after Jirou left.

Yaoyorozu left the room with a few others glancing back at her, most of them glad that someone was going to talk to her about that. A couple figured Jirou should just be left alone right now though, and Shoji looked away from the door behind him to stare at the screen instead. He looked at the extensive damage done to the miniature Sports Festival stadium, and despite how much Jirou destroyed it, the place still looked fine to him, at least in comparison to the real one the previous year. _It's been eight months,_ Shoji thought, trying to push those thoughts from his head.

The tall boy with a mask on the bottom half of his face that stretched down into his tight blue costume opened his eyes and narrowed them below his white bangs. _It's been eight months, of villains rising. Their numbers have risen constantly. Escaped Tartaros prisoners, Stain cultists, The Harbingers, there are too many to count… The Army of Death too. Since the Sports Festival, things are…_ Shoji tried distracting himself again, but his narrowed eyes shifted down from the screens he was staring at. _**'…as much as I saved you that day Shoji, you saved me…'**_

"Hanta Sero, you're up next," Midnight looked back to the boy behind her seat who lifted his eyebrows for a second. He gulped and nodded before smiling in a more confident way like he had this under control.

When Sero turned from Midnight though, his eyes lowered to the floor while he started walking to the door. _I thought they'd do a break like when it should have been Kaminari's. I guess we still have time today, for one more. That one more should be Zach though._ Sero shook his head and he headed out of the room, getting his expression more serious and tightening his hands into fists at his sides. _Zach's gone though. He's out, doing him. I've gotta do me._ Sero stretched his arms out in front of him, and he cracked his neck to either side while grinning his big teeth to cover half of his face.

"I've got this," Sero told himself. He clenched his fists and punched them together in front of him, then he lowered his arms slowly down to his sides. His grin lowered into a smaller one, and his eyes got a little sadder as he thought, _I wish there was someone else going before me though. Just, between me and Jirou. That's your spot. She looked so angry too, and is it just about Kaminari? I mean, thinking about the Sports Festival, it's gotta be Zach too at least a bit. Or, Kaminari did- he did…_ Sero clenched his fists tighter at his sides with his teeth grinding and his grin completely vanishing now. Anger spread over his face instead, thinking about the blond who had fought alongside him for the whole Sports Festival. _Almost the whole festival,_ Sero thought, clenching his eyes shut for a moment and stopping in the hallway towards the start area in Arena Alpha.

He thought about how they all saw Midoriya's huge final attack on Inhuman from outside the stadium. Sero saw Kaminari's worried expression, how he sprinted back into the stadium in panic. He ground his teeth and slammed his right fist out into the wall at his side, thinking about how Cementoss had shouted at him, Sato, Ojiro, and Hagakure to stay and protect the people they were guarding. They had all run off after Kaminari though, not because they wanted to see if the others were okay too, but because they had to protect their comrade running recklessly back into the stadium on his own. _And we couldn't find him! I, I looked for him, and then we got out into the bleachers and he was shouting down at Zach, tears in his eyes and- and! And he had killed Aizawa sensei, sometime between then. That bastard. Fuck. Except, the one crying for Zach wasn't- it wasn't really him. It was Kaminari. Not Raijin. Though they were the-_

Sero started shaking his head around fast. _I'm up. I need to focus. Beat an ANT, because we might actually have to fight ANTs in the future, because Kaminari stole some of them and gave them to the League. They have the designs, and I need to be able to stop ANTs on my own. Even if I do join a hero team, I'll pull my weight._ Sero started grinning again and heading forward towards the entry gate to the arena. _After all, I'm in_ _ **the**_ _Class A. The infamous class of Zach Sazaki, Lifebringer, (probably) Death! The class with all the best new heroes! I've got this. I've gotta become a hero. Then I could finally get out there, and start fighting villains just like you. Well, probably in a bit of a different way. But similar in that I'm going to take, them, down._ Sero walked confidently for the gate where he saw Cementoss walking in the other way showing he was done fixing the place up.

Sero nodded at his teacher who wished him luck in the fight, then he stepped right up the gate and took a deep breath. _It wasn't goodbye forever. I know that. As many goodbyes as you gave me, we'll meet again. And if I'm a hero, there's all the more opportunity for us to meet. So there's another reason for why I'm going to win right here, why I'm going to be a hero… my friend._

 **Six Months Ago…**

Sero looked down his hallway on the fifth floor of Class A's dorm at Heights Alliance. He stared past the others' rooms to the one at the end of the hall, and he lowered his eyes after a second and then turned to his doorway. _What is Iida doing? Why did he- There's no point in removing Zach from the chat. He got rid of his phone. He threw it all away last night._ Sero shook his head and he ground his teeth. He stepped into his room and closed the door fast behind him, finally letting an angry look come over his face for the first time all day.

 _Damn it. Damn! I meant all that shit… I really, I don't think Zach was wrong to do- but! Why the hell did you have to leave?! Zach!_

Sero snapped open his clenched eyes and shook his head around. _I don't have long until eight o'clock. I've gotta…_ he flicked on the light next to his door, and then he looked down to the floor in front of him. He stared at an envelope in front of his door that he had leaned back against. Sero's eyes started growing wide as he reached down and picked the envelope up, and he flipped it over to see 'Sero' written on the front of it. _No way,_ he thought, lowering the envelope for a second and shaking his head. Then he froze and his eyes bulged again, _Except, he knew. He planned it all out, so, this really is-_ Sero lifted his envelope and ripped the top of it off as fast as he could.

A few floors below him, Mineta dropped an envelope at his feet and he stared at the folded up letter he spread in front of his face. _'Hey Mineta,'_ Mineta snapped his head back for a second and he clenched his teeth with his heart yanking in his chest. He sniffled and already had to wipe his eyes again even though he had finished crying on the bus. _Damn it! Zach!_ Mineta could hear Zach's voice when he read it as if Zach stood in front of him saying those things aloud.

 _'Hey Mina…'_

 _'Hey Shoji…'_

 _'…Please, don't tell anyone you got this letter. I didn't leave one for everyone.'_

 _'…didn't leave one for everyone.'_

 _'…didn't leave one for everyone.'_

 _'…didn't leave one for everyone.'_

 _'I'd leave a phone number that you could call in case of an emergency, but I can't put the people who will be with me in that kind of danger…'_

 _'I'm sorry,'_ Koda stared at the letter shaking in his hands, and his eyes opened huge as he started reading farther down on the letter addressed to him he picked up from his floor. _'On April first, after the April Fool's Day villain attacked, I felt bad that I hid behind you. You're big so you were easy to hide behind, but you were the shyest boy in class so I felt terrible for bringing all that media attention over to you. And yet, even as the cameras all pointed over and you got nervous and scared, you stayed where you were. You didn't try moving out of the way so they could see me, and I had to come out on my own. You were willing to stay there in the spotlight…'_

Shoji clenched his hands on the sides of the letter he was holding in such an angry way. He had said on the bus that he wanted heroes to catch Zach, and he believed that they would, and all he wanted to do was bring this piece of paper down to the teachers and hand it over. _'…when those videos started playing at the Sports Festival, you never once looked like you doubted me. I thought people would think I was a sleeper agent about to turn, but you assured me it wasn't true. I almost…'_ The letter had some hesitant marks there after he wrote that, and then there was a small scribble before the next line started, _'As much as I saved you that day Shoji, you saved me. Those videos almost sent me to a dark place, but you were there for me…'_ Shoji's eyes clenched as he felt them getting wet, but he shook his head and started lowering the letter.

 _'…really, you just need confidence. Your power is so cool, and every time we got matched together in class you were the one who won our fights. Against Midnight sensei, and the capture the flag game too. If Iida had been able to get to the flag there was no way we would have won that.'_ Mineta stared at the letter in his hands with his eyes getting wider, and he lowered his bottom lip as he kept reading, _'You just have to stop being such a pervert, and girls would be all over you. You could be an amazing hero, one of the best, and only the best heroes get super popular with the ladies. You know those girls you're being weird to don't like that kind of stuff, and if you were just a nicer guy to them… Well, I'm just saying. Anyway…'_

 _'…the first person I met at U.A., and the brightest person I've ever known. I still think about what you told me after the Sports Festival sometimes. It's one of the things that kept me from, from just breaking down. Every time. I think about how you told me not to mope, and I, I want to be the cool guy who doesn't mope for long. I just, Mina, I just wish I could tell you how much you mean to me on a single sheet of paper. You were one of the closest people to me, and you always cared so much about me, and, I'm sorry. Goodbye Mina. Thank you for…'_

 _'…and I'm sorry. It wasn't just not saying enough on the train.'_ Iida sat at his desk chair, holding a letter that shook in his hands. The page was covered in wrinkles from all the times he had crumpled it up while quickly pacing back and forth in his room. Over the top of the page though, Iida could see his shelf full of rows of glasses that he had yet to clear out despite not needing to wear them anymore. He thought he owed it to the boy responsible for that, and responsible for him being there at all, to at least read what he had to say before turning in the evidence. Iida shook as he read those top lines again, and then he brought a hand to his head and pushed his fingers into his forehead over and over in frustration.

 _Zach! I cannot allow- I, I can't!_ Iida opened his eyes and lifted his hand a bit to keep reading the letter. _'…I felt Midoriya's text in my pocket, and I didn't check to see what it was for quickly, as I had already seen Manual out there. I should have come to help you sooner. I think a part of me thought it might have been about you and Stain though… and I…'_ There were little gaps between the words as Zach seemed to be unable to think of how to continue, and Iida ground his teeth at his read this aloud in his head in Zach's voice. _Except you did come! You sprinted across the city, why are you apologizing for what I did that night?!_ Iida clenched his teeth even harder and he turned his head and leaned back with his eyes filling with water at what came next, _'…and I know because of that, I know you'll have a bigger problem with what I do than most…'_ Iida curled his fingers into the sides of the page harder, as tears spilled out the corners of his eyes. _'I just needed to say this now because I don't think I'll ever be able to in person. Iida, goodbye. Thanks for being…'_

 _'…and I'm glad you didn't say anything about my nightmares. Before anyone else, you must have known about Jenny. I'm glad you never said anything though, Sato. I couldn't have taken it if everyone was looking at me in pity all that time, like I sometimes saw you doing. You didn't pry into my business, but you didn't avoid me either, just the subject. I always appreciated that. I'm going to miss you. Goodbye Sato, you were…'_

 _'…Thank you, for keeping quiet about what you heard on the roof that night. And… I think you're the, you're one of…'_ Todoroki stared at the letter he had out on his desk. His bags were on his bed, and he stared down at the letter with his eyes narrowed and dark. He closed them again and then lifted up the letter in his left hand. He got ready to burn it, and he scrunched up his face in frustration at the page in front of him. _'I'm sorry Todoroki…'_ Half of the page was covered in scribbles, and crossed off things scratched away so hard that it was impossible to see below them. Todoroki already knew what it was Zach had written and scribbled out so many times though, and he knew what the apology on that page really meant even if he figured the boy who had written it at the time did not know what he was writing. _'You'll be a great hero, better than Endeavor I think. Goodbye, I'm sorry. For worrying you when I was on the roof, and for what I did in the training forest, and leaving in the courthouse, and- and… and I'm sorry for all of it Todoroki.'_

 _'…You were one of my best friends. I'm sorry I lied so much, and I wish things didn't have to be this way. We're on different paths now though, Midoriya.'_ Midoriya Izuku was one of the last ones in Class A's dorm to leave, and he kept reading his letter over and over long after the others had gone home. He shoved it into his bag as he finally got up to leave, but he had the entire thing memorized already. _'This is in no way your fault. Don't blame yourself like you did last time, all the last times. Decide without feeling any guilt how you want to move on from here, but know I'll always believe in you. I know you can do it. Master One For All, Midoriya. Become better than All Might. The new pillar. A stronger pillar. Never think that what happened to me is in any way on you, because it's not. You're going to be the greatest hero. Not because of One For All, but because you're you. Because you can save anyone, but you've known it for a while Midoriya. I'm not someone who needs saving. You're going to save the world though. When I think of what a hero looks like, I see you standing on top of Inhuman letting out that yell, and everyone gathered around you.'_

Zach was running out of room on the bottom of the page he wrote to Midoriya, and Midoriya's watery eyes spilled more tears as the start of another line got scribbled out so Zach could just finish at the bottom. _'I wish- Thanks for always being my friend. Goodbye.'_

 _'Goodbye Sato, you were a great friend.'_

 _'Anyway, goodbye my friend.'_

 _'Iida, goodbye. Thanks for being my friend.'_

 _'You were willing to stay there in the spotlight because you knew I was afraid. I don't know why you're shy Koda. You're the bravest person I know. I'm sorry we didn't talk too much this last year, but I'm happy because I feel like despite that I can still call you a friend. Goodbye Koda, thanks for being my friend.'_ Koda lowered his gaze below that line to another one quickly written in pencil, _'P.S. I'm sorry for killing those animals in the forest in front of you.'_ Koda sucked in a deep breath and tears fell from his eyes onto the page he was holding.

In his bedroom back at his family home, Hanta Sero lay back on his bed holding his letter over his head. He let out another laugh and shook his head while reading over the goodbye letter again. _Geez, take something like this seriously._ Sero laughed at the joke Zach put there that he remembered from three months ago, a joke Sero barely remembered telling and laughed so hard that Zach reminded him of it in his letter. He lowered his eyes down to the bottom of the page, then he dropped the letter down to his chest and let out a sigh while dropping his head into his pillow. His smile lowered down and he thought about Zach's voice saying that final line he always wound up staring at so much longer than the rest of the letter. _'…Thanks for being my friend. Bye Sero.'_

 _'Bye?'_ _ **"Goodbye."**_ _Now that was a goodbye. Why say the one in the forest so seriously if you knew we were going to read things like this afterwards? I'm sure a bunch of others must've gotten one. Don't want to ask anyone though, that'd be a bit weird. They might demand I hand it over to the cops too. No way. There's not even anything on here about what he's doing now._ Sero curled his hand up into a fist on his chest, crunching his letter into his hand. _I've gotta get rid of this thing. Shit. I don't want to, but I can't have this laying around. Even if it doesn't say his name anywhere on it. It was his. They'd take it as evidence… They're not going to catch him though. With or without this letter. They'll never catch him, and he's… not going to just come back._ Sero closed his eyes and then lifted the letter up and started reading it again, putting a bigger smile back on his face as it felt like Zach was talking to him directly with it.

Sero read the final line again though, and he closed his eyes this time while letting out a long, deep breath. _'Bye?'_ He opened his eyes and stared at the bottom of the letter, then he lowered his arm to his side and stared up at the ceiling in his dark bedroom. Then Sero opened his mouth, and he whispered, "'Til we meet again."

* * *

 **A/N Thanks for reading! Anyone remember how Zach was the last one to leave the dorm back in ch.93 as they were leaving to go camping? Or how when Jirou went to Zach's room a few chapters before that, he was blocking the door while there were a bunch of sheets of paper on his desk that he didn't want her to see? ;) Well it turns out Midoriya wasn't the only one who got a letter slipped under the door before Zach departed. Chapter of Class A taking on their final exams for the fall term that has almost gone by while Zach's out there fighting in the Army of Death... Anyway, just wanted to mention those foreshadowing things I threw in earlier. I hope you guys enjoyed the chapter! Leave a review telling me what you think below!**

GDawg4826 chapter 108 . 21h ago

Damn. Big badass airship is badass. I expect there will be more interaction scenes between the army members now that they've gotten a base. Figured the news article Midoriya saw at the beginning was Sandlot, but didn't want it to be true. Oh well, his fate was probably pretty much sealed when he decided to try and take on the Fergus Conglomerate on his own. Really loved the relaxed chapter with no fighting for once, especially after that terrifying horror arc. And it sounds like Zach is finally going to do something more about Darling! Woohoo for that!

 **Glad you liked the airship and interaction chapter between Army of Death. Poor Sandlot, surviving all that horror just to die not long after. Anyway, we'll see about more developments within Zach's army, next time we get to them. U.A. focused chapter this time after a string of straight AoD ones. And then there's Darling who... well, don't wanna respond too much down here. No spoilers after all. I'm glad you're liking the developments though, and thanks for reviewing!**

Catgun5000 chapter 108 . 9h ago

Please tell me you were inspired by XCom2. The giant airship and 'Commander' just screamed XCom. If so then Exodus is definitely Templar material

 **Actually had never heard of XCom before. :P Lol guess it's a cool coincidence though!**

Lief 17 chapter 108 . 16h ago

Another great chapter! Having a ship like that makes me remember all the mecha anime I've watched lol. I'm also thibking if Himiko Toga somehow was able to sneak in there and then everything gets destroyed by the LOV. I'd really hate for something like that to happen though.

 **Haha I actually thought a bit about the original Gundam series while I was writing some of the bridge scenes. Let's hope Toga doesn't get in! XD Won't say whether or not that's a possibility... you'll just have to wait and see! Thanks for the review!**

red123 chapter 108 . 21h ago

please do not be zachxdarling I do not like ocxoc, what happened with zachxmomo?

 **Don't worry just yet, Zach's got that virginity on lockdown for now! We'll see what happens though, stuck in cramped quarters with a beautiful girl in love with him who walks into his room and drops her clothes, may just be one of Zach's most trying trials yet. ;)**


	110. Chapter 110

**Disclaimer: I don't own Boku no Hero Academia**

 **Chapter 110:**

"Kyoka wait!" Yaoyorozu ran after her friend she finally spotted jogging back towards their dorm.

Jirou turned her head and her expression looked furious when she saw Yaoyorozu chasing after her. "Go back," Jirou snapped, then she turned and sped up back for their dorm building.

Momo just chased after her best friend faster. She frowned at that pissed-off tone her friend used with her, and she called out, "Class is not over. You cannot- Kyoka!"

Jirou ran straight to Class A's dorm and then through the door. She started for the stairs, but she stopped and clenched her fists at her sides as she heard Yaoyorozu's shout out the front door indicating she would be chased all the way back up to her room. She spun around while Yaoyorozu was running in, and she snapped, "What?"

"It is okay," Yaoyorozu began. She stepped towards Jirou and gave her a serious look, "To be upset over failing the practical exam, but you are-" Yaoyorozu paused, then she frowned deeper and she turned and closed the door to their dorm. Yaoyorozu took in a deep breath and then turned to Jirou seriously, "You have been so upset lately-"

"I'm not ' _upset_ ,'" Jirou snapped. "I'm angry."

"I know," Yaoyorozu began.

"You don't know!" Jirou yelled. She yelled it and her fists shook at her sides, and she started panting as she had sprinted here right after failing for fifteen minutes at destroying the ANT who had looped her around in circles while she smashed apart the arena to no avail. "He was supposed to be right after me, and how am I supposed to focus on fighting that stupid robot like that?!" Yaoyorozu started shaking her head at Jirou, and the shorter girl ground her teeth and balled her fists tighter, then Jirou snapped, "In that place! Making it look like the Sports Festival like- and everyone's got those looks on their faces, like you're all feeling so bad for Zach thinking about that day!"

Yaoyorozu's eyes narrowed and her fists started clenching at her sides. It had been a while since she heard Jirou say anything like this, and she began in a low voice, "Why are you being like this?" Jirou glared harder at Yaoyorozu, but her taller friend narrowed her eyes back and said in a mad voice of her own, "Why are you still mad at Zach? I thought you would-"

"I was betrayed too!" Jirou yelled. She yelled it at Yaoyorozu and then bit down hard at the wider eyes Yaoyorozu gave her the next second. Jirou ground her teeth and then said in a low, dark voice, "I trusted Kaminari too-"

"It isn't the same!" Momo yelled at her. Jirou lifted her eyes after looking down while speaking in that low voice, and it was her turn for her eyes to widen at how mad Yaoyorozu suddenly looked at her. Jirou just started frowning again after a second seeing that look, and she started shaking her head at the taller girl which made Yaoyorozu snap in an angry voice, "You- you're over it already!" Jirou froze with her head in mid-shake, and she spun back to Yaoyorozu with her eyes wide and pissed at that accusation. "I can see it!" Momo yelled at Jirou's shocked look that she was accusing her of being alright. Jirou ground her teeth in anger, but Yaoyorozu stepped towards her and said in a lower voice, "I can see it, that you are over Kaminari. I know you trusted him, he was a good friend and you cared about him a lot, but you had other people you trusted."

"Stop trying to defend him-"

"Your parents!" Momo yelled at the shorter girl, interrupting her. "Me! The rest of the class!"

"I didn't!" Jirou yelled back, stomping towards Momo and clenching her fists so hard at her sides that her entire arms were shaking. Yaoyorozu's eyes widened a bit, then grew larger as Jirou snapped, "I- I couldn't trust-" she bit down and shook her head with her eyes started to shake too. She clenched those eyes for a second and said, "My parents I could, but no one else. Not even you," Jirou said, opening her eyes again and staring to her left at the wall next to her.

 _Not even, me?_ Yaoyorozu stared at her friend with wide eyes, as she had never heard Kyoka say that before. She started opening her mouth to say something about it, when Jirou continued while staring in so much anger at that wall, "But Zach told me I could." Yaoyorozu froze with her mouth half-open, while Jirou glared so angrily at the wall next to her. "He held me one night, after Kaminari. And he told me things that I had stopped believing because they were things Raijin had told me." Jirou's hurt and angry voice turned back to solely angry as she snapped her head to Momo and yelled, "And then Zach betrayed us all and left! I'm so mad at him," she gasped out, saying it and then throwing a fist out in front of her and swinging it to her side in rage. "He _knew_ I felt the same way, but instead of working it out and making a plan together or something! He just went off on his own, and now he's being insane around the world-"

"You think he felt the 'same way' as you?" Momo asked. She asked it with her eyebrows lifted up, and Jirou glared back at her but Yaoyorozu's hands were shaking angrily at her sides now. "Zach trusted one person. Not me, not anyone else, but he trusted Kaminari. He trusted him, and it got everyone he ever cared about killed." Yaoyorozu's fists shook more, and Jirou stared into her taller friend's eyes with less anger as she saw them start watering up in her own anger and frustration. The taller girl continued though, "Zach blamed himself for the deaths of all the people his mom and dad couldn't save because of him, so imagine how he felt when Raijin told him how he wiped out anti-heroes around the world. People who didn't care about the glory, who hid with secret identities to be heroes-"

Jirou cut her off, "They were breaking the law-"

"Zach didn't see it that way!" Yaoyorozu yelled right back at her. "He saw them as these great heroes, and by trusting Kaminari, he got them all killed! He may as well have been the one pulling the trigger himself. That night he was holding you and making you feel better, at the same time he knew that people were dying because of him! His aunt and cousin were missing, and none of us knew, and he probably suspected they were being tortured and killed _while_ you were crying there!" Jirou's eyes widened for a second and then her teeth bared so much angrier, and Yaoyorozu yelled at her at that look, "You've acted so angry, and strong, and pissed at Zach because you think that out of everyone you're the one who knows most what it's like to be him, but you don't." Yaoyorozu whispered the last part with a shake of her head.

Yaoyorozu stepped towards Jirou and said in an angry yet such a sad voice, "Zach doesn't care about his own life, because Kaminari betraying him made his life forfeit! It made him revert to the life he had before he died, one where the only thing that mattered was changing the answer of whether it was good he was alive! Because how could he think it was a good thing, after what Kaminari did?" Jirou shook her head, and Yaoyorozu continued while stepping another foot closer to her, "He thought he was a monster, a- he considered he could even be the devil! Zach!" Yaoyorozu yelled it and then snapped in a whisper, "Do you remember USJ? Do you remember that look in his eyes, when he was so desperately trying to find a way to stop the villain without using his Quirk, and those screams after he realized what he had done?"

Jirou clenched her eyes shut, thinking on that day that had actually made her afraid of Zach. Yet she heard those screams Yaoyorozu just mentioned. She saw the terrified look in his eyes that he was going to have to use his Quirk. "You remember who Zach is?" Yaoyorozu asked, and Jirou opened her eyes to stare into Yaoyorozu's from only a few feet away. "Why are you so mad at him?" Momo asked softer, her expression showing the pain and the reason she had said all of this to Jirou in the first place. She shook her head and then whispered to her angry friend, "Why can't you just let it go?"

Jirou bit her bottom lip and then took a step back away from her friend. "It doesn't even matter now," she said. "Zach's gone," she said, leaning her head towards Yaoyorozu while saying it, as if she was reminding her that there was no reason to get so defensive over this in the first place. "Doing, whatever he wants. And he's never coming back." Jirou turned around and walked away. She walked to the stairs leaving Yaoyorozu behind staring at her back with her eyes wide.

Yaoyorozu felt her heart gripping, because she knew Jirou was probably right. She lowered her eyes down to the floor, thinking about the boy she had hoped for so long would come back, or be caught, or something. _He's so important now. Jirou believes it too, that he's really, Death. No one straight out says it. Kirishima says he's in the Army of Death for sure, but no one else says anything about it anymore. I know he's really Death though. He created that army, and he's running it, and there's no, no chance he's coming back anymore._ Yaoyorozu felt just a bit more broken after thinking that, and she turned without getting what she had come here for in the first place.

Yaoyorozu walked out of her dorm, and she started down the sidewalk to the street. She decided she needed to get back to class, even if she had failed at getting Jirou. As she walked, she lifted her gaze to the sky and stared out into the distance. _Looks like it might rain,_ she thought, looking to a distant part of the sky that looked darker than it had earlier. She rose up an arm and wiped her eyes with it, then she started jogging to get back to the rest of the class and their Final Exams.

Behind Yaoyorozu up on the third floor of Class 2-A's dorm building, Jirou sat at her desk with her right hand pressed up against her forehead. She had her right elbow down on her desk and her head pressing so hard into that hand while she clenched harder with her left hand in front of her. She ground her teeth back and forth, then started panting and let out a gasp while she pinched her fingers into her head harder. _I hate you. Why, do you- she still cares so much about you. I thought, she'd be able to forget you if I just…_ Jirou glared at the closed envelopes in her left hand, and she threw them in front of her so they slid across her desk, and she slammed her head down onto the desk afterwards and winced in pain.

In Jirou's head she remembered storming into her dorm room, in a rush because her parents were about to show up the day after the Lifebringer Incident. And she had seen that letter on the floor addressed to her. Her first instinct was to rip it to shreds, and then she had realized something else. She remembered how Yaoyorozu's parents had come to pick her up at the police station, and she thought about how someone was going to go to Momo's room to get her stuff now that the school was being closed, and Jirou pressed her forehead harder into her desk thinking about how she had run up to Momo's room so fast. _I should just get rid of them. I'm never going to open them. I- I don't want to- you don't deserve to get a final goodbye like that you jerk! Asshole! How is anyone supposed to forget you, if you left letters… Except, I couldn't say anything about it to anyone, and no one's said anything like there were others. I knew there was one for her, but no one- why didn't they? Or was it really just to us?!_

Jirou's eyes lifted and she stared at the envelope on her desk that had her name on it. _**"Why are you so mad at him?"**_ Jirou slid a hand over the desk while lifting her head from it more. _**"Why can't you just let it go?"**_ Her fingers curled up before grabbing the envelope she knew there was a piece of folded up paper inside of. She glared at it, and then she grabbed it and grabbed the one labeled 'Momo' and she pulled them back. She opened her desk drawer and lifted a rarely used book she slid the envelopes beneath then slammed the drawer back shut. _I just can't._

* * *

"…although many believe Japan should follow in the United States' footsteps and change its policies on self defense against villains, the rising trend in vigilantism in the US has been associated with these law changes by top politicians and political scientists. Several famous cases have already taken place where the new Protect Yourself Law has been used as a defense, despite the defendants in question being found inside villain hideouts when the cops arrived at the scene." Midoriya Izuku flipped to the next slide on the visual he had accompanying his final presentation. "Crime in America has never reached the percentages that crime in most other countries of the world reached, however there is a far higher percentage of deaths of violent parties in villain incidents. Heroes are not punished for excessive force unless there is extensive evidence, which has resulted in many cases brought to trial only to be dismissed despite witnesses claiming that heroes unnecessarily killed the villains they were facing. In Adams vs the State of Illinois…"

Bakugo leaned back on his seat in the audience, staring up at the ceiling with a bored expression on his face as Deku's presentation went on and on. His childhood friend had a lot of evidence, a lot of examples of individual trials that had occurred during the time of his research alone as well as older ones that set precedents for ones he had researched. It was boring to the spiky-haired blond in the middle of the auditorium, who was only there because he was up in two turns and figured he should get some idea of the questioning since he had not gone to see anyone else's presentations yet. _Fucking Deku won't shut up. The longer you make yours the shorter mine'll seem. Get off the fucking stage._

Kosei Tsuburaba was feeling a lot more nervous than Bakugo who he sat a few rows in front of. He had to go next though, and his research was in no way as extensive as the green-haired teen's who continued explaining his stance on America's harsh crime laws. _At least Canada's a more boring place, so hopefully they don't call me out on not having too much!_ Kosei's jaw dropped as Midoriya threw up a graph on the slides behind him which had Mexico and Canada's villain death rates which were both lower than the US's, though he put it side by side with another graph that showed similar numbers for actual crimes committed based on if the populations were proportionate. _Oh shit!_

Also inside the auditorium, watching her classmate's presentation as she had for all the others so far, Yaoyorozu sat with a frown on her face as she listened to Midoriya. _He has many good points. As expected of Midoriya. You are also, focusing your presentation very much on the negatives of America's policies though. What of the lower percentage of civilians harmed in villain incidents…_ Yaoyorozu's eyebrows lifted up as Midoriya started discussing that as a rebuttal for his own work. Then he added up the numbers of villain deaths on top of civilian ones though, and America's bar regarding deaths as a result of villain incidents was higher than the nations he was comparing it to.

 _The bar of civilians killed was proportionately smaller, but this… Shouldn't, the first graph matter more though?_ Momo hummed to herself and looked closer at the boy up there presenting his findings to the auditorium. _Total deaths is not the most important, but the lives of the innocent. I know that's what Zach would think… But Zach was not correct. He is a radical. Yet, if it means that more innocent people can be saved, then should policies not be put in place-_

"If Japan were to follow this example even knowing it could result in more deaths, it would be the same as accepting that some lives don't matter as much as others. Villains, are villains. There is no denying that what they do is wrong and they need to be stopped. However, they are given trials to determine guilt. They are sent to prison for certain lengths, where they will hopefully be rehabilitated, because in our code of law we do not have a death penalty. We don't have that, because the system accepts that everyone can change. It is established in a way to provide second chances for those who have gone down the wrong path. If all villains could be killed, if heroes could get away with killing someone just because they were villains…" Midoriya paused for a moment. He stopped himself and his teeth clenched behind his lips. He took in a deep breath through his nose before continuing, "Those second chances wouldn't exist. Heroes would be stealing the right to change from people who have taken a wrong turn in life. The law would accept that any villain could be judged as irredeemable by an individual. And certain heroes may have, they might be more inclined to accept the scrutiny after killing a villain if they believe it will be accepted by those around them. And even if that does become accepted, it will destroy the image of a hero."

Yaoyorozu stared at the muscular boy with curly green hair as he got a stronger more steady look on his face. He started to describe a hero, what a hero has to look like to the people around them, what they need to stand for. Yaoyorozu found herself staring with huge eyes at Midoriya as her thoughts shifted fast from one thing to the next and her breathing sped up though she tried keeping it silent. _I thought, he was saying it at first because Zach went down the wrong path. But, but it seemed like he didn't want things to change, because if they do then what if a hero believes Zach is irredeemable and decides to kill him just because… But, but now. Everything he's saying, describing how heroes need to act, that's not Zach at all. The things I've heard the Army of Death has done to villains. It's not heroic. But at the same time, don't you realize it Midoriya?_

Yaoyorozu put her hands on her knees and squeezed them with a look of frustration spread over her face. _He doesn't want to be seen. Doesn't want to be caught, or noticed, so everything we hear about them has to be part of his plan. And if we are hearing terrible things the Army of Death does to villains, how do we know that is really true, and not just what he wants? I don't want to believe they're all truths. I, I think I knew- know Zach well enough, to say that he's tricking everyone. All to make villains feel fear of him. Make them think he'll just kill them all brutally… I believe that's so. I believe Zach's a better person than that! I, I really believe it's true._

* * *

"Haha, ha, hahaha!" Mineta started laughing, and the short boy rubbed a bruise on his left cheek before stepping forward and laughing harder at the ANT in front of him. The spectators in a different room were staring at the screen in surprise as the ANT struggled to move forward but had a pair of purple balls stuck to its feel. Mineta had just whipped a line of his Pop Offs into the ANT's chest too and stuck the other end to the floor next to him. "Take that!" He called out, crossing his arms and yelling in a victorious tone.

Unlike with Koda, Kirishima did not start cheering for the shortest student in their class. Kirishima got a more frustrated look on his face instead, as did half of the others in the class who hated that smug look on Mineta's face right now after so many of them had lost. And then they all stared at the screen with wide eyes, as the ANT started breaking apart. Mineta stepped back, his crossed arms lowering and his jaw dropping as the ANT's feet popped off of its body, and jets shot out from below its shins to rise it in the air. Its legs and arms and head popped off next, then the torso split into three pieces and the top and bottom piece merged together before the rest of it came back to merge too.

"No way!" Mineta shouted, panic spreading over his face as he turned and started running. He had tears in his eyes and he yelled, "That's not faiirrr-aaahhhh!" He flew up in the air as an explosion hit the floor behind him, and the half of the class who were feeling annoyed at him for winning a minute ago started feeling bad instead as he face-planted into the floor and skid to a stop letting out low moans of pain.

"I think that's enough," Vrishnuku said. The Indian hero who had been Class 2-A's homeroom teacher for the past four months tapped a few buttons on the keyboard in front of him and stopped the ANT's movements. Power Loader started typing with his only arm down the long table from Vrishnuku, setting up the final ANT for Class A's final exams.

"Aw, I really thought he had it there for a second," Ashido snapped her fingers in disappointment. "That makes ten now," she said with a sigh.

"More than half the class," Sero said disappointedly, shaking his head in agreement with the pink girl to his right. Ashido looked over, and Sero glanced at her too, and the two made eye contact for a second. Then Sero smirked and added, "At least it definitely won't get to eleven."

Ashido smiled back at him after a second and spun forward too, "Yeah! You've got this Momo!" She cheered her friend's name while some U.A. robots picked up Mineta and started making fun of him while carrying him to the nurse's office in Arena Alpha. Recovery Girl was already out of the spectators' room to go check on him, and the room was getting cleaned up with the main struggle being getting Mineta's Pop Offs out of there.

Between Sero and Ashido, Sato glanced back and forth between the two for a few seconds before grinning and looking back at the screens himself. _Wow, wasn't even awkward this time. Just took a term,_ Sato chuckled and then turned and asked Sero if he really thought Yaoyorozu was definitely going to win. "…I think it all depends of what kind of Ant she goes up against. If she has to fight Todoroki's," Sato trailed off and glanced back as a boy walked back into the room with a bandage on the side of his face. "Oh, Todoroki," Sato said in surprise, not expecting his neighbor in the dorm to return so quickly after his fight at the start of the rounds that afternoon on the final day of Finals.

"You doing alright Todoroki?" Hagakure asked while turning to the boy with half white and half red hair.

Todoroki nodded at her, "Fine. Thanks." He stepped forward and just looked up at the screens showing he was focused on Yaoyorozu's turn that was coming up. Some of the others who wanted to mention something about how they were surprised he did not manage to beat his ANT turned away at his intense look. Todoroki's mind was not on Yaoyorozu or her fight at all though. His body was sore and his heart was swirling as he tried keeping his fists from clenching at his sides.

 _My biggest flaw,_ he thought, narrowing his eyes and letting his fists clench as there was no holding them back. _Even using Cold and Hot at the same times, relying on those two Quirks isn't… the teachers are clearly trying to show me that too, so they knew my flaw as much as I do. As much as the two of them used together is so much stronger, against a villain who neither heat nor ice works against, I have nothing. Dad is…_ Todoroki loosened his fists and he thought about his father in the most recent televised battle he saw only a few weeks ago. _Super strong, he can practically fly, long range, short range, great decision making in the moment, the experience of a true pro. I thought I had the experience to shorten the gap, but how far behind Endeavor am I still?_ Todoroki lowered his gaze down to the floor and his fists tightened again, gripping so hard wish his nails digging into his palms.

 _Is Touya that far ahead of me? Damn it. Don't, think about that._ Todoroki shook his head but he could not keep his mind of the face of that man with spiky black hair who they had heard nothing about since the Lifebringer Incident. _I need to focus on getting stronger, not on him. If he does have those things that Dad does too, then I need to get them as well. I won't be the weakest one! Midoriya, Bakugo, Iida, they all passed so easily-_ Todoroki's fists that were clenched loosened again even as he stared at the screens in front of the class with his eyes wide. He shook his head as he knew he should have expected it already, which was a main reason he was not frustrated as he saw Yaoyorozu standing there in front of a defeated ANT.

"She predicted what it's counters against her would be," Midnight said with a laugh while leaning back in her seat. Yaoyorozu's pouches on her belt and shoulder straps were opened up, and she had had the weapons she needed to defeat the ANT specified against her ready before she even entered into the arena.

"Perks of going last," Ashido began with a sigh.

"They are the perks of being prepared," Ectoplasm countered, darting a look back at the pink girl who leaned away and then nodded quickly in agreement with a beat of sweat dripping down her face.

Vrishnuku turned in his chair and stood up in front of the majority of Class 2-A who just watched the very last round of their Final Exams. "All of you tried your hardest, and that is what really matters." He smiled at them, and then he continued, "Except for those of you who failed." He looked certain students in their eyes and the kids leaned back at the teacher's upset and disappointed look. "I expected more of you to pass honestly. The amazing Class A and all, though, I guess a single mindless robot was just too much for most of you."

All Might leaned closer to the table in front of him and tried his best not to turn around and give the students a reassuring look. _Mother Russia was an intense and scary woman, but Vrishnuku is… much worse._

"I know today is the last day of classes before winter break, but I want you to know that each of you who have received failing grades on your practicals will be required to come in for extra classes every day of break including the weekends." Most of the students in front of him started staring at their teacher with wider eyes, then the man continued, "I do not celebrate any holidays, nor do I take time off on weekends. I will allow you to take off on the days of your holidays, but every other day of break you are to report to our classroom at eight a.m. Do not be late for class or you will be held after." Vrishnuku turned and kept smiling in the same way as he looked towards Iida, Uraraka, and Midoriya who had all passed their tests. "The rest of you, enjoy your breaks. I look forward to seeing more from you when you return-"

"Vrishnuku-sensei," Midoriya started. He stared into the tan-skinned man's brown eyes and said after the man nodded at him to continued, "Would it be alright if I could take those classes too?"

Uraraka's eyes widened and then she spun to her homeroom teacher and said, "I'd like to too. I don't need two weeks off."

"I guess I'll correct myself," Vrishnuku started before other students could chime in. "Any of you are allowed to come to the winter classes. Only those of you who failed are required to do so though."

"Thank you, sensei," Midoriya said with a nod at the man.

Midnight grinned big as she spun from the computers in front of her. She looked towards Midoriya who leaned back at her red cheeks and huge smile, then she looked around and kept that excited look on her face as she saw the others who had passed looking around at their classmates and nodding when the others who failed looked at them to see if they would be going.

All Might turned towards his successor too, and he smiled towards the student who just rose the mood of the class higher than Vrishnuku had been able to break them down to. The homeroom teacher frowned a bit as the students started talking to each other wondering what his training over the winter would be, but his eyes shifted back to Midoriya as a couple of the students who failed started calling him out saying he didn't need the extra classes.

 _Whether it is for his own advancement, or in order to keep his class from being split in half between the failures and the successes, he has reached my expectations for Class A._ Vrishnuku smiled again and then dismissed his class, telling them they could get out of their hero uniforms too and that they would not need to wear them through the winter break classes as they had been this entire week. The students walked out, and Vrishnuku turned to All Might before all the teachers could start discussing the most recent final exams they had to go over. "Your successor truly is impressive."

All Might turned to Vrishnuku and his eyes opened huge, and then he asked in a confused voice, "I'm sorry?"

"Ah yes, it is just a rumor I have heard," Vrishnuku said, while the room was suddenly silent and the other seven teachers in there were all staring over with hesitant expressions at the foreign hero. "I believe some of my students believe that you are breeding Midoriya Izuku to take your place as the Symbol of Peace. I thought I'd see if it was true?"

Midnight and Present Mic had been looking towards the confrontation with different expressions than the other teachers in the room. Both of them opened their eyes wider still at Vrishnuku's explanation, as apparently the Indian man had not heard anything about what Raijin had said about Midoriya having All Might's power. All Might answered his fellow teacher carefully, "I do not try to play favorites over my students, however I have formed a certain bond with Young Midoriya that I can see the other students perhaps becoming suspicious over. Especially with Young Midoriya's large jumps in strength…"

All Might gave an answer about potential he saw in Midoriya, but he also mentioned how he was sure Vrishnuku saw it as well just then. The other teachers had seen it too, and some of them relaxed a bit as All Might made the conversation seem not very awkward at all. He also made it out like Vrishnuku did not know what he was talking about, and their foreign teacher apologized for jumping to his own conclusions. Yet as All Might stood up to leave the room, he noticed other teachers in the room were shooting him odd looks that looked a tad too thoughtful. He walked out while pretending not to notice, though his expression immediately darkened as he walked away with his eyes narrowing ahead of him. _This dangerous secret is no longer a danger to me, but a danger to Young Midoriya. And to his family. To everyone around him. Any rumors must be shut down as such, and Young Midoriya must do his part to keep his secret as well._

 _I am afraid, knowledge of One For All will spread too far in this uncertain world with villains getting stronger and stronger heroes rising to face them. An uncertainty plagues me. Nighteye's prophecy's timeline is running out. Am I in the clear, or is there little time left?_ At the end of All Might's scrawny arms his hands clenched into fists. _I must make sure he is ready before then. Young Midoriya, I will not leave you unprepared._

* * *

"Ahh, AHH- Chh," Zach clenched his teeth and seethed air through them to stop himself from screaming. _This is nothing. I will save you. I will definitely save you._

Blood was splashed around the room, and there were a couple of other bodies laying about that Zach had to get to. There were unconscious enemies nearby too, but the bodies Zach was focused most on were the ones in all black armor and splashed in red. "Can you save her?" La Brava asked, stepping up towards Zach's back with a worried look on her face.

"He has this," Gentle assured the shorter woman at his side. He looked forward and down under Zach's right hand though with a nervous look on his own face behind his visor. He turned and called back to a group of others in the room and out in the hall of the worn-down building they were in, "Keep searching the compound. There may be more Syndicate members in hiding who have yet to escape. Capture everyone here not part of the A.o.D." He repeated his command in his helmet holding a button on the side once the others around were all running off, though a few others kept staring over towards Death longer as they heard their leader let out a gasped-scream.

"Come on," Zach snarled, pushing his left hand on his right wrist to slam it harder into the chest of the woman below him.

Darling looked over from a body of an enemy soldier whose legs she was wrapping up after firing through them in the attack. Death had knocked the man out afterwards, but she was told by her leader to make sure the man she attacked did not bleed out so they could question him afterwards. Darling's hands gripped harder on the bloody wounds she was supposed to be wrapping though while looking back towards Death with his hands on the girl below him's chest. Darling's eyes shifted from Zach's hand placement up to the face of the woman whose helmet Zach had taken off though, and Darling clenched her hands harder on the legs of the villain which splashed blood out when she tightened that grip.

Zach felt the pain of his skull ripping open on two sides, his thoughts were scrambled for a second, and he focused solely on keeping his right hand down on Cee's body. "I won't lose you," Zach whispered. He felt cuts on his arms and legs, gashes on his sides and on his neck right over a scar that seared in pain worse than when he got it fighting Arma and Mongoloid two months earlier. "Come back," Zach whispered softer, pushing his head down and resting the top of his visor on Cee's forehead. He pushed his right hand down harder, and he could see the wounds on her arms and legs sealing completely a moment before he felt it. The sensation of dying, told him that Cee had come back. Zach felt Cee's heart start, and he let go of Cee's chest and slid his arm down to his side.

Cee's eyes opened while her chest heaved up. La Brava, Darling, and Gentle all smiled over towards the blonde woman who let out a small gasp as she opened her eyes. Zach looked softly down into Cee's eyes through his visor, and he asked in a low voice, "Are you alright?"

Cee's eyes started to close. Her head leaned back and her eyes were closing like the exhaustion was about to make her pass out. Then Cee's half-closed eyes snapped open wide, and her body snapped up while she rose her right hand and grabbed Zach by the collar as quickly as she could. A look of sheer panic spread on her face as she took in the biggest gasping breath ever. "It's alright," Zach started while putting his right arm on Cee's back to hold the panicking girl.

"We have to stop them!" Cee gasped out in panic, saying it without focusing on her breathing and just breathing it out between breaths. She coughed and then gripped Zach tighter, ignoring the memory of all the pain she went through before finally getting shot in the head ten minutes ago. She shook Zach and her shaking eyes widened more as she said it again, "We have to stop them."

"What do you mean?" Zach asked, grabbing Cee's back harder while the other three in the room all started over to gather around them.

Cee shook her head and pursed her lips. "I know what the Syndicate's planning," she said, thinking about the taunt of the man who had cut her up before killing her. She turned back to Zach's helmet and looked in his visor with a scared expression that unnerved the four who had been with her the longest. "On Christmas, I figured out- I know their plan-" She shook her head and then leaned closer towards Zach's head with her eyes wide with fear. "We have to stop them."

"We will," Zach said, and he put his helmet closer to Cee's face. "But what is it Cee? What are they-"

"Nuke," she whispered. Her eyes were trembling and Zach's breath caught in his throat as he stared into those eyes from inches away. "Zach," Cee said, a terrified look on her face. "It's a nuke."


	111. Chapter 111

**Disclaimer: I don't own Boku no Hero Academia**

 **Chapter 111:**

In a valley between two mountains of the Crescent Mountains, The Cloak of the Army of Death was still in the snow. A white hare ran out from behind a tree and looked towards the snow on its right that dipped down in a huge area. It started hopping over, sniffing and turning its head to the side in confusion at the smell of the air in front of it. Then its head bumped into something as it moved forward more towards the pushed-down snow, and the rabbit spun and booked it from the invisible ship in the valley.

An invisible camera camouflaging into the snow shifted, and a chubby man with a soda and a hamburger on his seat tray watched the rodent scurry away. Rebel took a sip of his soda that was almost empty, making a slurping noise and then tossing it to the side where it landed near an overflowing garbage can. He sat in a comfortable relined seat that he leaned back in while keeping his eyes on the monitors in front of him. Behind him on his right sat another dark-skinned man who was more pitch black with his eyes glowing green and his mouth just a thin line that spread across his entire face from temple to temple. Directly behind Rampart on the other side of the room behind Rebel, a short, younger figure still in his mid-teens was leaned close up to his screen. He had sweat on both sides of his red-shaded face, and he lifted his hands and wiped his forehead and cheeks again in the hot support room he was working in that felt blazing, steaming, blistering.

"A nuke," Cherasaw whispered, his sweaty palms moving back down to his keyboard only for his fingers to tremble over it. He looked to his right over at Rebel's back, and he bit down on his bottom lip before asking because he had to, "How are you so calm?"

Rebel kept leaning back in his recliner, but he did not turn to one of the guys he had recruited on his own to help him out at his command post. He just kept staring at the screens in front of him and chowing down on the last of his burger. He finished it and lifted a hand to wipe his mouth with, and he subtly wiped the sweaty sides of his face too before replying in a cocky tone, "I'm used to shit like this. You'll get used to it too."

"Get used to it?" Rampart muttered while tapping away at his computer too. He had security footage up of traffic cams in nearby cities and towns in Arkistan, and a map on one of his screens was binging red lights in the Crescent Mountains that he analyzed on a third screen next to the blinking map. "You seriously dealt with something like this before?" He asked half-sarcastically without looking back at Rebel.

"…No," Rebel said after a few seconds. His voice was lower, and he got out of his reclined position while staring harder at the screens before him. Rampart and Cherasaw looked over their shoulders at him, and Rebel's expression was dark as he scooted in towards the computers. In the headset on his head which he had the mic pushed away from so he could eat and drink, he was listening in to a different conversation. His hands clenched and unclenched a few times and he put them down on his keyboards with an intense look on his face. "I ain't ever done this shit before. _This_ , is next level. So don't fuck up, don't slow me down, and do what I say. We mess up here and…" Rebel trailed off and he ground his teeth for a second. _I was doing this shit for fun._ _Got a kick out of it._ "And we're gonna have millions of bodies on our hands."

"Fuck man," Rampart said, straightening up and tensing at that serious and dark tone from a man who was _never_ like that. "Way to put on the pressure-"

"The pressure is on," Rebel said. He had to shift the mood in his own command quarters, because of the conversation he was listening to just got so intense he could not keep a relaxed expression anymore.

Across the world from the Army of Death's support team leader, inside the ship that Rebel was keeping an eye on the exterior of, in the war room Rebel was listening in on, a dozen people stood around a rectangular table with their helmets off. The soldiers all in their black costumes had their faces exposed to each other, which made it clear they could all feel the pressure pushing down on them. Zach stood at the head of the table, pressing his hands down on it and leaning forward as he spoke to the others in there with him. Gentle was closest on his left side, and Exodus on his right, then down from Exodus stood Darling, Mark, Akhmed, and Hank. Next to Hank at the far end of the table from Zach stood Access, then on his right was Grabble, then Michael, followed by Cee and La Brava who was on Gentle's other side.

There were maps down on the table, lists of their soldiers, and blown-up photos of enemies splayed about. Some pictures were pinned to the large board behind Zach covering an entire wall too, and there was a projector screen on his right side behind half of the members at the table that currently had up a large picture labeled at the top in pencil, 'Dragon's Den.' The mountains in the picture were covered in snow, but the one in the center had a huge opening that looked like a cave mouth near the top with an overhang sticking out of the mountain above the dark hole, icicles sticking down and sharp rocks around the entrance making it look like a protruding mouth.

On the board behind Zach, dozens of reports and lists and maps were pinned on top of each other. There were strings connecting pieces of paper far from each other on the wall, and one of the strings was red with a pin in it attached over the word 'SYNDICATE' with a question mark on the yellow sticky note the pin went through. That note was connected by the string over to the far corner of the wall where another name spread across labeled 'Fergus Conglomerate.' Below the Fergus Conglomerate's label were a dozen different company names, all with reports scattered around below them, all with strings connecting back across the wall, and another red line connected from up at the board area's main name to a specific report about one of the subsidiary companies that had a headquarters in Arkistan, where they currently were.

In between the Syndicate and the Fergus Conglomerate, in the center of the wall, there was a map of the surrounding area with lines drawn on it with arrows cutting in towards a black X in the middle of the Crescent Mountains. And above that map was a black and white picture of Hiroshima in 1945. It was enlarged and nothing else covered it, no notes nor strings nor any writing. The photo was near the top of the wall, meaning that everyone looking towards Death who stood in front of that wall, could constantly see that image while they talked. It hung over their heads and the air felt heavy as they talked. Some of them had been gulping or making fidgeting movements as they stood there, and the fact that there was a big red 'December 25th' on the wall behind Zach above that picture, and that it was currently the 21st of December, had every person in the room in a mood that had Rebel leaning forward in his chair across the planet.

"…Since we've been taking down so many of their guys, I know they'll expect us to locate their headquarters soon. So if they already suspect we know, the defenses will be strong. They didn't just run on the hunch that we could come though, and they probably would not even run if they knew we were coming. They know how many of us there are. They know our capabilities. But we know they're still here. Thanks to Cee's sacrifice, we were able to find the Dragon's Den. And we also know, that the Syndicate has the weapon they purchased."

"The nuclear warhead," Gentle said, not liking the phrasing of 'weapon' when they all knew what it was. His eyes were dark as he looked at the boy on his right, "Our number one priority."

Zach nodded at the man, and he said, "The nuclear warhead will be transported soon to their intended… to Paris. The longer we wait, the bigger chance they move the weapon. So there's no time left. We couldn't stop them from getting the nuke, and- and we don't know enough about the situation. We shouldn't be going in there, to face the entire Syndicate all at once. Not without the right reconnaissance."

"I should have gotten more out of them," Cee started in a low voice, her fists clenching at her sides. "And, I shouldn't have-"

"No one blames you Cee," Michael said next to the girl at his side. She turned to him and frowned, but he just said to her while lifting up the right corner of his lip, "Welcome to the club."

She shook her head, and then she stopped with the depressed look she had on her face for a moment there. She turned the other way while muttering in a low voice, "I'm not getting your stupid tattoo." Grabble and Access both cracked smiles despite their sweaty expressions, while Michael fake-groaned that she was not going to do so.

"The Syndicate is as big as we thought it was," La Brava said, turning from Cee who just looked back to her right. The short woman looked towards Zach and said in a low, serious voice that got them all back on track, "How many of their members are at the HQ when we move in could vary, but the inside of the Dragon's Den is huge. The entire mountain is man-made."

"A whole mountain appears out of nowhere, and no one checks it out?" Akhmed asked, his eyes shadowed over with the question. He shook his head and got a darker look on his face while his fists clenched tighter over the table. "I just- wish we could tell heroes."

"Arkistan is one of the most corrupt countries in West Asia," Zach said. Some of the pictures on the wall behind him had that corruption shown: lines from villain names to photos with them and with politicians, even with heroes in Arkistan. "We can't risk going to heroes, not this time. Too much is at stake. And we don't know enough about the Syndicate, not whose pockets they have hands in, whose wallets, or even just who they might be threatening too." Zach's expression darkened and his hands pressed harder onto the table, "If we mess up and they slip away with their nuke, millions will die. Ten million in the first minutes, upwards of fifteen million total when the fallout clears." Zach stopped for a moment and his eyes shifted around the table to each of the people around him. _I can't. I can't ignore- even if I know, we're heading into a battle we can't win without losing people._

"It shouldn't be us, but it has to be. If we fail, Rebel will do his best to evacuate Paris, get it on guard with bomb threats… but they wouldn't be seen as credible." Zach paused and he said in a lower tone, "Everyone thinks the world is rid of nuclear weapons. Deactivated by Quirks and destroyed safely, and, and there shouldn't be any left in the world. But we know there is one here. We know, somehow the Syndicate got their hands on it. We know a couple of the Syndicate's leaders' names, and the Quirks of a few of them. It isn't enough. It isn't safe. This is why we're here though."

"You don't have to convince us," Michael started. He looked seriously over into Zach's eyes, and Grabble nodded on his left in agreement while Michael finished, "We're with you."

"We're the Army of Death," Grabble said. "No one ever said it would be safe." His eyes narrowed and he said over to his leader, "I'm not afraid to die for this."

"Well be afraid," Zach said, narrowing his eyes in a more upset way back towards his comrade. Grabble lifted his eyebrows and pulled back as he had said that with all his conviction and he meant it. Zach gave him a serious look though and shook his head once, "I don't want to lose any of you." He looked around at the others at the table one by one in their eyes. "So be afraid of death, but don't let it stop you. Stay alive, it's always your… no," Zach stopped and he closed his eyes for a second. "This time, it's not the priority. Make it your number two priority. Stay alive. Before destroying the Syndicate, and discovering who paid them to suddenly nuke Paris, because it's not their usual M.O., just stay alive. Gentle's right though, and we all know what comes first, before any of our lives."

"Stopping that nuke," Mark said. _I'll do anything to stop it. I have to be willing, to go as far as possible. From the start. I won't let millions die because I was too weak, or because I wasn't willing to do what was necessary._

"In a few days, as the world celebrates Christmas," Exodus started. He lifted his head and looked straight into Zach's eyes, "It will be a joyous occasion. A celebration. Not a day for sorrow."

"Let's keep going over the plan," Hank mentioned down the table before everyone could keep saying motivational stuff. He had sweat over his face, and the former EMT gripped the table in front of him while gulping again at the thought of how risky this was. _I'm the only one in this whole army with real medical training. And I'm going to need it so much tonight. Miraculu's power is too unpredictable. Oh fuck me, fuck fuck, a goddamn nuke?!_

"Disposal of the nuke once we have our hands on it is going to be difficult, and we need to be very careful about how we do it. Each team will split up and spread out through the Dragon's Den as fast as possible to ensure the bomb doesn't get taken away…"

* * *

"What's the catch?" Dorgon the Dragon asked. Dorgon faced a woman wearing a white cat-face mask, who had a team of ten mercenaries behind her. "They going to kill me in my sleep or something, is that it?"

"I assure you," the woman began in a professional tone, matching the professional-looking black business suit she was wearing. "Atlas Corp. solely wants to protect you. They have already been paid, and they are some of the strongest arms-for-hire in all of Asia. We know the Army of Death has been taking down Syndicate outposts and interrupting your cash flow," the woman froze and leaned back as the entire room around Dorgon shook. Her head turned a bit to the right, and she saw a giant troll man stepping out from a dark tunnel with his face twisting in rage.

"Did someone just say-"

"Down boy," Dorgon snapped, and the troll-looking man's face covered in fear. He dropped down to his hands and scooted backwards into the dark tunnel he just came out of in the Dragon's Den. Dorgon kept facing the woman in front of him, and he noticed some of the soldiers behind her had stepped back when his "pet" stepped out of the shadows. Most of them stayed where they were though, some barely looking interested at all. "You say they're already paid?"

"To do whatever you say, to a certain extent, for the next week. Their main goal is to protect you as we have reason to believe the Army of Death may know about your, Den."

"Oh, that's some good information," Dorgon said with a grin, nodding at the woman in front of him in a satisfied way. "If a _Company_ girl like yourself says it's so, I'm not going to be the one to-" Dorgon trailed off. He stared at the white mask in front of him, and he felt strange as the room got shaky itself. A man in the center of the group of ten hired soldiers behind the masked woman snapped his head to her back with his eyes opening wide.

Phinx stared at the woman he thought was just a representative for whoever hired them, who he immediately felt a murderous intent coming from as soon as 'Company' was emphasized in Dorgon's sentence. Dorgon narrowed his eyes after trailing off his sentence, and he bared his teeth at the woman before him, "Don't forget where you are, _Company_ girl. I can be as civil as I want, and you're making me not want to continue this any further as a _conversation._ "

"The Army of Death are not the only ones to know your location," a deep modulated voice came out through the mask which had Dorgon leaning back in confusion. "If you continue to imply that you know who we are, you would be wise to speak with more caution. Dorgon the Dragon." The woman speaking in that creepy deep voice shook her head around and then stepped back from Dorgon. In her old voice she said in a more hurried voice, "Please do utilize these soldiers to, the best of your ability. And all of you," she turned to the men behind her who she hired and gave specific orders before arriving at the Dragon's Den. "Do kill the Army of Death should they arrive here. If someone gets a hold of Zach Sazaki's head, they would receive a paycheck three times what has already been delivered."

"Zach Sazaki?" A brutish man on the left of Phinx asked. Charles had a cigarette in his mouth as he sat on top of a heavy cannon pressed into the floor below him so hard it broke through the floor. He blew smoke while looking towards the man who got him this job and then lifted his eyebrows at his response.

"Death," Phinx said.

"You know it's him then?" Dorgon asked, having done his research into his enemy himself. "For sure?"

"Yes," the woman in the white mask replied. "Do be careful," she added, looking back towards Dorgon again. "And should Death attack with his army, I must request that everyone here refrain from mentioning the Atlas Corp. to any of-" _**BOOOOM!**_

The woman stumbled around, some of the men snapped straight up and stared at the ceiling with their eyes opening huge, and Dorgon himself snapped his head up with shock spread across his face. Phinx narrowed his eyes at the ceiling, and he reached up and grabbed the hilt of the sword strapped on his back. "They're here."

"Well that didn't take long," Deathclaw cracked his neck back and forth and then started transforming. He turned his head towards the woman in the white mask who was still staring up at the ceiling. She had a black ponytail dangling below her head as she stared straight up with her head snapped back, and Deathclaw smirked and said to her, "Thought maybe you really knew exactly when this was coming, but guess they got you off guard too."

"They're fucking here!" Dorgon roared, and he turned and yelled to the tunnel near him. "THE ARMY OF DEATH! GET THEM!" The room started shaking again, and Dorgon snapped his head back to the hired guns in front of him. "Half of you, go up and fucking kill them! The other half on me! We're going deep in the Den."

"What's down there?" Phinx asked.

"Something you need to protect…"

* * *

 **BOOOM! Ch-ch-ch-ch-ch**

 **Bang-bang-bang- Ka-BOOOM! Brrrr-dt-dt-dt** _ **Clank!**_

"Ten bogeys directly below us!" Fillian shouted to his right.

"Step back," Exodus said, lifting his arms above his head while a team of twelve stood around him.

 _ **DOOF-**_ **CHHHH**

"Above!"

"Oh fuck!"

"We need backup!"

"Ashan shish ka-palooska!"

"Shoot them!"

"Take them down!"

"AHHHH!"

"Where is the nuke?!"

On the other side of the Dragon's Den but on the same level inside the mountain, six men and two female villains were speaking with one of their leaders in the deep basement of their headquarters. "Yeah, we got it! Let's get down there."

"The whole Army of Death is here?"

"There are only around sixty of them total. Those fuckers are underestimating us for the last time. Couldn't stop me in Mongolia, and now they're going down."

"How'd they find us?"

"Someone must've snitched- fuck! The wall!"

 _ **Crash!**_ The cracks the man saw on the wall next to him widened and completely broke through, flames flying through them as Jetflame blasted his way through the wall with Jackhammer and Jughead. The team of eight running around the base panicked as a team of twelve soldiers in all black armor wearing helmets busted through their walls. Some of them started lifting up rifles or pistols, and then all of them saw the dark form flying through the wall engulfed in a fiery black aura.

"It's him!"

"Death's here!"

Zach swung both hands forward, and out from the ends of his arms as he dropped to the floor extended much longer arms with bigger hands that each had three sharp fingers. "Death Claws!" He swept his menacing arms through the enemies, aiming for the ones who looked most composed first. One of the ones who had risen a rifle at him flapped wings out through his clothes and shot into the air, and he fired down at the menacing figure wrapped in darkness. Bullets flew down at his enemy, only for them to hit the ground and not collide with Death, or something.

The enemy firing at Zach was so confused as he tried hitting him and kept missing, and then he flew straight into a wall and fell backwards with pink light in his eyes. He fell right into a black arm reaching up at him, and then Zach pulled his extended Death Claws back to his body and he let out a deep black breath. It hung in the air in front of his helmet and Zach started marching forward in a long dim hallway with flickering lights and seven unconscious villains in it. "Everyone, find that nuke."

Zach stomped right towards the one man on the ground who was not yet unconscious. He kicked away a pistol the man was reaching for, and Zach warned while leaning down, "Don't even try your Quirk." Zach's fully dark appearance wisped around and grew as he leaned towards the terrified enemy. "And tell me," he said, focusing a thicker aura of Death around his head specifically in two points where they might be considered as eyes. Those two pitch black centers of swirling Death bored into the terrified villain's eyes, as Zach growled, "Where is your fucking nuke?"

* * *

"Everyone keep moving down. Sweep through the entire Dragon's Den. We have to get to the bottom of the mountain, maybe even below it. It's in the core of the mountain, and it's still here."

Zach took a deep breath after saying all that in his normal voice. His aura of Death was off of him for now, while he led five people in a sprint down a staircase. Gentle, Darling, Jetflame, Cee, and Seraphim ran after their relentless leader who was not slowing down for anything. _I can't let them escape. Akhmed and Juno are patrolling the exterior. Stay hidden and only attack if anyone's trying to escape. No one escapes. As many mission goals as we have, we need to succeed at all of them. Destroying that nuke without it going off, staying alive, taking down the heads of the Syndicate, locating_ _ **all**_ _of their other bases, and their associates in the criminal underworld, and every part of the underworld I don't yet know. So much. All of it is possible. All of it is necessary._

A door on Zach's left swung open as he was about to sprint right by it to continue down the stairs. "Dea-" Jetflame started shouting down, only for his eyes to widen inside his helmet and his arms to stop rising.

Death was not wrapped in his Nightmare aura, so it looked like he was caught off guard by the man who threw the door open. Death's helmet turned to the door while the man on the other side opened his eyes wide then started shoving his right arm forward. Zach spotted a larger man behind the one in front, and the bigger guy also started for the stairs to rush out at him at the same time. Zach's body pulled back while the arm extending out at him was transforming into a sword. The sharp blade passed by the front of Zach's chest and he grabbed the man by the middle of his right arm and yanked it farther out into the stairwell. At the same time he yanked the first man in, he stepped towards the bigger man who was not expecting the distance between the two of them to suddenly shorten so much as they were heading towards each other.

Zcah slammed his left hand up into the bottom of the big man's chin, then he ducked and let the man he pulled past him swing his other arm around looking like a long sword. It slashed over the top of Zach's head and skimmed through the shirt of the big man whose head just snapped up so he did not see the blade coming. Blood spilled out the shallow gash across the big man's stomach, and as he yelled out in pain, Zach slammed an elbow behind him into the side of the man whose arm was still hyper-extended over Zach's back. Zach whipped out a knife from his belt while elbowing back, and he dropped down and slashed it across the big man's legs, cutting right through his shins and then slashing the other way across just below the first slash.

He reached behind him and grabbed the face of the man who hunched over when he was elbowed in the side, and he spun around and threw the man back into his bigger friend who already stumbled away to try not to get slashed in the legs again. Then Zach jumped up and slammed both feet out into the smaller man's face and knocked the big man on the other side of him down with the blow. As the big man fell with his comrade screaming on top of him, another figure ran into the doorway already with a gun risen towards the dark figure outside. Zach's heart rate skyrocketed as the gun pointed at him, and his body snapped to the side and then the other side as he dodged two bullets. At the same time as he was dodging, his eyes bright red inside his helmet, Zach was whipping a grappling gun up at his right side. He fired and nailed the man shooting at him straight in the gut, and then Zach yanked backwards and slammed his left arm out to the side, clotheslining the man getting yanked towards him.

Zach flipped the man over, and the guy slammed down hard on the back of his head. Zach slammed his right hand into his chest and then swept it in front of him before hitting himself in the chest again. He turned and started sprinting down the stairs, and he called out, "Jetflame, Darling, take the floor."

Gentle started sprinting down the steps after Death, and then Darling shouted, "Understood Commander!" She ran for the floor Zach just took three guys out on in seconds, and Jetflame shook his head around before running down after her.

Seraphim ran after Gentle and Death. She stared down towards the back of her leader's head, her eyes wide as she had thought like Jetflame that he might need some help not being surrounded in his dark aura. _He dodged bullets like it was nothing. From point blank! No hesitation. That's what I need to be like, right now._

Outside of the Dragon's Den, The Cloak's weapons systems all popped out of the top and bottom and sides of the huge airship. " _There_ are the defenses," Rebel said, lifting his tone like he was laughing though he did not actually laugh. "Fuckers could'a done some work if they'd seen us comin'-"

"Rebel! Stop fucking talking!" Access shouted, while grabbing the sticks in front of him and yanking to the right, as a dozen anti-aircraft turrets that popped out of the mountain were firing at The Cloak.

Raylei slid to her right and had to grab the equipment in front of her to steady. She typed with her other hand and then pressed a red button above her keyboard, and she snapped her head to the left, "Aim Scotty!"

"I'm trying!"

Machine gun turrets and rockets fired from the sides of The Cloak. Explosions blew up on the sides of the Dragon's Den, and the main entrance itself that had the most fortifications (which was why none of the Army of Death had gone in through there), collapsed as rockets slammed into the turrets and cannons set up inside it. The huge icicles fell and the sharp rocks broke apart, as the Dragon's face shattered and fell and then started tumbling down the side of the mountain.

"Don't tear the mountain down on top of them!" Cherasaw shouted as he watched on one of the drone's cameras he was controlling from across the world.

"That thing's a lot sturdier than you're giving it credit for!" Access shouted back. "These rockets are-"

"Listen up," Death's voice interrupted the support team's comms, and every one of them shut up instantly. "I'm giving you a target. Blow a hole, send in the cavalry."

Zach tapped a button on his helmet and returned to normal comms. "Seraphim, give me your gun," Zach turned and caught the gun the woman behind him with a purple ponytail stuffed under her helmet had already tossed his way. Zach tapped a button on the front of the barrel just below it where there was a laser that he pointed across the enormous cavern he just entered.

"Everyone ready up on Fillian's level. He's at the same point we just reached. Call it the central cavern." Zach aimed across the enormous room bigger than anything he thought would be in the mountain. The stairs continued down the wall on his left that he had stepped away from to get up to the single metal bar railing keeping him from falling a hundred and fifty meters to the ground. There was a fortress at the bottom of the enormous cavern in the mountain, and there were spikes sticking out of walls and the ceiling and up from the floor around that fortress. _A base inside the base. Down there has to be where they're keeping the nuke. We have to get it away from them. No one should have that much power._

Zach locked the targeting and he tossed the gun back to Seraphim behind him. "On my signal. Exodus, Jetflame, Jackhammer, get ready to break through and breach. Everyone get your ropes ready to rappel. Those three let me know when-"

"My helmet's elevation matches the level Fillain said-"

"I am ready here, Commander."

"'Bout to bust down."

"Do it! Access! Fire the cannons!"

"DEATH!" A menacing, deep voice roared from down at the fortress. Huge steel doors started opening outwards, lowering like a drawbridge out of the huge fortress in the center of the cavern. A giant over twenty five feet tall with a bumpy head and carrying two huge steel clubs started storming out of the castle right over the metal door, and the troll-like guardian snapped its head up and let out a furious roar, "RRRAAAAA! THIS IS MY-"

"Here we go!" Access shouted. He and Raylei started firing all their weapons at the same spot on the outside of the mountain that their ship's front windshield showed marked with bright red flashing over and over.

"Fire everything!"

 _ **Ba-Ba-Ba-BOOOOOOOM**_ The room shook over and over, and the guardian of the fortress who just sprinted out started spinning around and looking at the ceiling and then the wall on its left with its one eye huge. The cyclops troll took a step back, as a massive hole blew in the wall with chunks of rock flying inwards in huge explosions of flames. Three holes ripped in the ceiling, and a man surrounded in orange flames and one surrounded in white light started flying out of the air. Some of the spikes sticking off the top of the cavern broke and started falling, as did a large chunk of the ceiling around the hole Jackhammer blasted through the roof.

Zach looked into the middle of the huge cave, and then he snapped his head down and looked to the top of the fortress where he watched five large circular panels open up and turrets pop out of them. He snapped his head back up and saw Jetflame flying down with flames coming out of his hands and feet, and Exodus had light shooting out the soles of his shoes too to keep him up. "Here we go!" Zach yelled. "Everyone move in!" He slammed his right hand into his chest and then threw himself over the railing next to him.

"Oh my-" Seraphim started, running up to the rail where Death just leapt over.

"Use your rappel, Seraphim," Gentle said to the woman he walked up next to, motioning at the railing for her to hook up and drop down using. Then he leapt right over the railing himself, and he elasticized the air in front of him angled down towards the fortress. He bounced himself down after Zach who had his body pointed straight down with his arms at his sides, surrounded in a flame of darkness that rippled around him and grew stronger on his back every second. "Not the smartest move there-" Gentle began.

"Move away from me," Zach said.

Gentle looked at the boy oddly, but he swung a barrier in front of himself and blocked bullets flying up while bouncing himself away at the same time. Flames shot out of Jetflame's hands and feet, and he spiraled himself around the air in his descent while Exodus pointed his arms down and started firing bursts of light straight towards the turrets firing at them. Falling faster than all the others, just turning his vertical-pointed body left and right to dodge anything flying up at him, was a boy surrounded in Death who took in a huge breath. Zach narrowed his red eyes towards the huge monster that shouted up at him, and then he swung his arms out to his sides.

Out from Death's back ripped two huge black wings that spread ten feet in either direction, giving him a twenty foot wingspan. Zach pulled his body up, slamming his arms down and flapping the wings he just created with his Death in that motion. He rose his body up out of his straight descent, and he swung down huge wisps of Death at the same time which he angled towards the screaming brute of an enemy below. **BANG!** Zach spun his body in a spiral, narrowly dodging a fast and heavy caliber round. He snapped his head up and looked to the top of the fortress, but there was no one up there where the round just flew at him from.

"Damn, Death's a fucking monster," a sniper who was part of a team of hired mercenaries slid out of the ceiling and dropped down between four of his comrades. He shook his head and said, "Dodged a round from Sheila aimed directly on his head.

"You ever heard of the Army of Death losing?" Charles asked him, taking out his nearly burnt-out cigarette and flicking it to the side. He glanced over at a squad of four guys sprinting by and screaming at each other not to let Death reach the deep basement, then Charles looked down himself. "Phinx says he beat 'em once, but I never heard those bastards taking an L."

"What shall we do?"

Charles put another cigarette in his mouth, then he lifted up his personal cannon that once again broke through the floor and he rested it up on his shoulder. The ground beneath his feet broke down, and Charles said while lighting up his new cigarette, "We kill 'em of course. Just take them seriously. These are pros we're up against."

Through the hole in the wall of the central cavern, a team of eight flew inside and shot down over the falling rocks. Four members of the Army of Death had wings, and each of them were carrying another member pointing rifles down as they were flown into the base from a new entry point. Mark yelled at his team to move, and then he fired down towards the top of the fortress where there were still two firing turrets left. Exodus blasted some more white light over right as Jetflame spun around in the air and then threw a fireball down at one himself.

High above the teams flying down at the fortress, Darling slid down the rope faster than was safe out of the hole in the ceiling that Jetflame blew open. She was staring down a hundred meters with her eyes huge, ignoring the people above her shouting at her to slow down on her descent. _He did it!_

Zach flapped his wings again and again, and then he curled himself up and dropped into a roll that he sprinted straight out of and ignored the pain in his right leg as he ran it off. He slowed himself almost as much as he wanted to, and he acted like nothing was wrong while running past the huge oaf that had run out to face him. Zach leapt over a metal club on the floor that was meant to smash his head in, then he charged across the open doorway of the fortress. As he was about to run inside, a thud slammed down on the door on his right side and Exodus sprinted forward with him without missing a beat.

Zach focused Death down on his feet and sped farther in front of Exodus. He brought Death from his back down his arms and focused on each of his index and middle fingers. Zach sprinted through the fortress and into a giant entrance hall with twenty people in it, and Zach's extended flaring arms snapped back as he spun them directly towards as many people as he could as fast as he could without slowing down his sprint. Bursts of darkness shot out of Zach's hands and at the villains who yelled out and dove away or fired back.

Two men up on a balcony aimed down towards the floor of the hall, and then the wall behind them exploded inwards with a squad of people in black uniforms busting through into their fortress. "Storm the castle!"

"Find the nuke!"

"They're everywhere!"

A light flashed in the room, then an explosion of flames blocked an exit as a cluster of the Syndicate members tried running away down another hallway. **"Tell me!"** Zach yelled out in his scariest and most scratchy deep voice. **"Where is your nuke?!"**

Exodus lifted a man by his long tongue and pulled his face close to his own helmet. Exodus' visor glowed white while he lifted his other hand and put the searing hot palm up close to his foe's skin, making the man mumble out in terror while trying to pull away with a busted up face and blood all over it. "How many more basements do you have?" Exodus asked, his voice modulated and coming out deeper through his helmet.

"You don't want me asking again!" Mark yelled, three spikes of water lifted over his opponent who already had three big gashes on his body from their short fight so far. All the blood on the villain's body and clothes pulled away from him, and that blood turned into the biggest spike of all aimed right back at the terrified man feeling woozy at the sight of all that should be inside him. The man started to babble in Arkistanian, and Mark pushed all of the spikes closer and then yelled out in the same language, "WHERE IS THE NUKE?!"

"It's still farther down," Zach announced through all the headsets. "Everyone keep descending. We don't stop until we have it!"

Exodus clenched his open glowing hand, and he slammed his huge fist into the face of the man with a long tongue. He tied him up and then threw the unconscious man to the side, where Mark just dropped a man he had strangled to unconsciousness with his own blood.

"Some of them escaped. They're probably heading to some stairs farther down," Mark said, running up to Death and pointing down a hallway they had not blocked off.

"You eight, go with him," Zach said, looking around at individuals filling into the hall or already in there. Mark started running off without another word and shouted at the others to follow him. Zach turned to Exodus, "Straight down."

"Search the fortress!" Zach shouted. "If they don't surrender, take them down!" He bellowed it and dozens of soldiers charging into the room through doors and holes in the walls spread out. They ran down hallways, putting out flames their comrades had made themselves, sprinting up staircases covered in bullet holes and motionless villains hit by blasts of Death. Zach said only in his helmet instead of screaming out this time, "Even if they do surrender make sure they can't move, knock them out after too if you see it necessary."

Exodus fired white beams out of his hands into the floor, digging deeper and deeper until he finally blasted through to another hollow level below. He turned to Death and nodded, and Zach nodded back at him, and then they looked over at Gentle who was standing nearby and nodded his head once at their looks. The three of them dove into the hole, Zach and Gentle right behind their larger comrade who fired light ahead of him and lit up the massive basement below as wide as the central cavern instead of just the size of the fortress above. It was not as tall as the huge cave system above, but in that dark floor were several enemies. Only the enemies gathered on this floor were a different breed than the types they had been fighting above.

Five mercenaries lay still in the darkness that light started to fill down from a hole in the ceiling. An explosion on the outside of the mountain shook the entire Dragon's Den, and yet each of the figures in the darkness stayed still without so much as moving a muscle. Yet as three of the strongest and most experienced members of the Army of Death fell down through the roof, into a huge room that looked completely empty, they were not fooled for a moment.

 _A perfect place to lay a trap._

 _They're behind the rocks. Over there is a perfect ambush spot for the far wall doors we might've come through. That rock too. There's a tank, probably not occupied, but behind it is good cover. There. There too._

 _Professionals._ Gentle flipped himself over and bounced across the room with his night vision on in his helmet. He stared down over the rock he just shot above, and he was already swinging his arm down, so the cannonball fired at him bounced straight back down into the floor where the man who fired it was just standing. The merc jumping away crossed one arm in front of his face to protect from the explosion, then he slammed his heavy cannon into the floor and dragged it backwards making a huge trench with rocks flying up in the air as he skid fifteen feet. He lifted his cannon and swung it in front of him, blowing away the smoke and then aiming up at the man who flipped around again and bent his legs against thin air, before blasting himself straight at his opponent.

 _But then again,_ Gentle thought, while opening the fist he had started pulling back like he would punch it forward as he rocketed at his opponent. He made the air at his side elastic and pushed his hand against it, changing his trajectory instantly so he would be nowhere near the mercenary swinging a cannon at him. It was not the cannon he was dodging, but his comrade's sphere of darkness that crashed into their enemy an instant after Charles smashed his cannon into the ground. _So are we,_ Gentle thought smugly, and he spun around and put up a wall to protect himself from a sniper Zach just warned him about. A huge sniper round slammed into the elastic air in front of Gentle and pushed in close to him, the tip of the bullet skimming against the front of Gentle's chest armor for a moment, right before bouncing back so fast that it tore apart some of the cover Gentle thought the sniper was hiding behind.

A scream rippled out through the room from over at that cover, and Gentle smirked as he discovered the sniper's Quirk. The man stumbling out of his half-destroyed cover that he was actually hidden inside of barely kept a grip on his sniper, and he rose his head with his night vision goggles on and snapped it back and forth. He watched as the rest of the team was fighting a man surrounded in white light and one shrouded in darkness, then he snapped his rifle up and fired five times in rapid succession at the one sprinting at him. The man he fired at bounced side to side to side to side and dodged his bullets time and time again. Then Gentle bounced himself up in the air and started flipping while putting up protection in front of him. While he was in mid-flip though, he twisted around while upside-down. He spun so his front was facing his enemy again, right as he was passing the top of his Gently Rebound that only he knew the extent of, and he fired the pistol he had drawn when his back was to the opponent.

 **Bang**

* * *

"RrrrRAA!" Zach tightened the white bandage around his left thigh. He pulled it tight and then tied a second time to make sure it stayed that way and would not fall as soon as he started running. Zach slashed the ends of the bandage instead of trying to tuck it in below as he had just tightened it and did not want to loosen the wrapping by pulling it out to get the bandage underneath. He lifted up his knife in his left hand and flicked it around through his fingers, then he started running forward and grinding his teeth through the pain he felt in his left leg where he had been stabbed through his dark body armor.

He ran in complete darkness with a helmet on his head that showed him his surroundings in a tinted green view. He slammed his back up against the wall next to an open doorway, and he peered through it before turning the corner and running down a new hall. "Stay off comms if you have nothing for us," Zach snapped, shutting up Michael instantly before continuing with, "What did you just say Tyene?"

Zach slowed, then he checked down the hall on his right that was also pitch black. _There are lights, but they cut them. Haven't seen anyone for a while. No one else this far down's reporting movement either…_ "Keep moving down everyone. The nuke has to be farther." Zach ground his teeth and added, "I'm not going back up. Bring his body down to me. I'm going farther."

"Georgia's dead too-"

"Bring her too. We can't turn back."

"Just heard two of our enemies shout about how they have to hold off until they can get the nuke out of here."

"How can they transport something like that at the drop of a hat?"

"What does that mean?"

"That nuke doesn't leave the Dragon's Den!"

"Everyone move down!"

"They've got a guy with crazy strong ice powers back in the central cavern!"

"I'm heading back there," Jetflame shouted as soon as he heard that. The former British hero turned his head from the two burnt villains in front of him in a dark hallway only illuminated because of his flames. Deep in the villains' lair, the red-haired man shot himself back the direction he came as fast as he could. "Hold him off for a minute. Ice villains are my forte."

As Jetflame flew as fast as he could back towards the central cavern, he listened to the other voices shouting information and orders at each other. _**"You have to believe me Brick, it was real! I don't know what happened to the place! I know there's no evidence, but you've gotta believe me! Please!"**_ _I didn't believe you, and for that I'm sorry. The moment I heard you were dead I knew, it was the truth. I didn't need to hear Death say it. I didn't need to see something like it for myself. Sandlot, you were right about it all. The Army of Death are the good guys. And I won't let them lose- I won't let_ _ **us**_ _lose._

"Move! Keep moving down! Use the holes or head to the stairs down that hall and to your right!" La Brava yelled at a team running into a fiery and destroyed hall in the central cavern's fortress. She had been brought in with the "cavalry," or the team of flight-Quirks and the ones they had carried in. Mark and the others were already almost all farther down, but she shouted at a pair she saw sprinting into the building carrying someone between them, "Hold on a minute!" La Brava put her hand to her helmet and got back on comms that were full of noise. "Everyone shut up! Death, what's your location? I've got Yusef here-"

"I'm…"

Zach turned off his night vision. He opened the air vent and dropped down into a white room, and he looked to the open door and into a long white hallway that looked clean and pristine. "What is-"

"Death!" Gentle snapped.

"The- the mountain- the lower basements are clean. Different! They're, clean, and white and very illuminated. Oh shit," Zach whispered and shot to the side of the room. He did not know why he was suddenly hiding after charging through so much of the enemy base, but he continued in a low whisper, "Whole lot of guys down here. Is no one else on this level yet?" The fact that no one had given him any warning about this strange change in atmosphere told him that he was on his own for the moment. He heard some positive responses from the others just above him though which he could tell as they gave him their elevations and Zach let them know what the translucent number on the bottom left corner of his visor said.

 _We need to keep moving fast. Never give them time to rally, to set up, even if they're already setting up. Those guys who just ran past were nervous. I can't let them relax. Shouldn't just run out if they don't know where I am though. Used a lot of Death already too. Haven't killed anyone yet, and I shouldn't do it just to power up. Use Trigger first. Always. Where?!_ Zach leaned harder into the wall and strained to listen, but the people he just heard mention something about "nuclear" got too far out of range for him to hear. As Zach strained to listen he found himself looking around the room he was in closer, and he did not like the look of the medical tools on the counter or the fact that there was a cushioned operating table on his left side either.

An unsettling feeling Zach had felt several times over the past few days stirred in his chest again. And once again Zach pushed that feeling down as deep as he could. _This isn't Scotland. I'm still high in elevation technically. And I have to be here! I need to stop that nuke._ Zach shook his head around and took in a deep breath, then he covered himself in Nightmare and sprinted out into the hallway. His red eyes darted back and forth in it, then he shot down the direction of an intersection he heard some shouting voices around a corner of.

A group of people sprinting down a hallway were planning on going straight, and they were in such a rush that they were not looking around them, so the first two in the group just kept running as a dark mass barreled towards them. The third person in the pack turned his head to the left, and as much as he was steadier than the others because of his ability to feel the caution he needed to at the moment, he was in no way ready for the form of flaming darkness sprinting his way at fifty miles per hour. "RRAAAAA!" Zach yelled out too, his voice scaring everyone else around the man who had yet to yell out at them all to look. Some of them fell at the scream, all of them spun and some screamed themselves, and the man raising his arms that had purple goo dripping from them froze with his arms only half up.

"I-I give-"

Zach slammed a black fist into the man's chest between his arms. He slammed the guy back into the wall behind him, then he swept a Death Wind behind him into four others who tried diving or rolling away only to collapse unconscious.

Then Zach pulled all the darkness he could away from his left hand which after just using a lot made it easier. He reached his left hand down out of his dark aura, while everyone else who had been touched by it so far was no longer moving in the hall. The villain he grabbed by her white tank top had a look of sheer terror on her face that started getting confused too as she was not dying or even falling unconscious as she hoped the others had.

 **"Which way to the nuke?"** Zach growled, and he brought his right hand towards the woman's head with so much more flaring Death around it as he forced the excess Death trying to go down his left arm over to his right. The woman Zach was holding had sweat all over her face, but though she managed to keep her mouth shut and not tell the monster interrogating her a thing, Zach saw which direction her eyes had twitched over to for an instant. It was not even a complete dart of her eyes to one side, but his red-tinted vision caught the slightest movement in her terrified eyes that signaled something when it happened directly after Zach's question. He let Death slide down his left arm and finally she opened her mouth to scream, though only half of one came out.

Zach dropped the unconscious woman and turned the direction he decided the nuclear warhead was in. **Crash!** Zach heard something crashing ahead of him and to the right down another hall, and ash and dust blew into his hallway with a flash of white light. "Exodus, this way!" Zach kept sprinting straight ahead, and he only darted his eyes over for a moment to see the big man running his way and then following behind him.

"A place like this, so far down…" Exodus began.

"Keep your mind off it," Zach warned, already past what Exodus was now noticing for the first time.

Exodus nodded his head and he rose his right hand. "Flare!"

Zach closed his eyes, then he snapped them open and forced more Death out the soles of his feet. He sped up and down the hall at a man and a woman who just came out around the corner and were starting to use Quirks aimed at them. The man managed to fire his off first, only to aim it straight into the wall at his side instead of where he thought he was looking, and the spikes that pierced out of his body into the wall moved so fast that it threw him farther into the hall and into the woman next to him. She spun as she was slammed into, thinking someone was attacking her, and she grabbed her bubbling green hand around the face of the man pushing into her.

Right as she started poisoning her own comrade though, both her and the other blinded villain she was attacking fell to the floor with Death sweeping past them. Zach took a deep breath and he turned off Nightmare form this time as he ran by the two, Exodus sprinting past their bodies just behind him.

An explosion above shook the floor that Zach and Exodus were on, but no cracks formed on the ceiling or walls showing the place was still structurally sound. Zach glanced down below him as he kept running, and he frowned deeply with his eyes narrowed behind his visor. _The deepest basement, or the direction that woman looked? Is this the deepest basement already? We're around the surface level where the base of the mountain should be._

"Let us stay together from here on," Exodus suggested behind his leader. "We must be getting close to the Dragon."

Zach nodded once but his mind was straying from what Exodus said. _There must be more forces in the mountain. The Cloak will keep others from returning, and Akhmed and Juno can keep any from escaping. What is it? What is this?!_ "The nuke is close," Zach said, running to the end of the hallway and slamming his foot into double doors that flew open and gave him a view down another hall to a huge white wall that had glass windows on their side showing them into a control room of some kind. Zach's eyes narrowed and he glared that direction, spotting two figures through the glass facing the opposite way as him, and both of them were wearing baggy yellow suits that looked to be to protect from radiation.

"Exodus, get everyone here," Zach ordered, and then he shot forward as fast as he could. He whipped out a knife and a grappling gun, and he shot himself down the hall faster by hooking through a panel on the ceiling and retracting himself while in mid-sprint.

"Death has located the nuclear warhead. Elevation level and coordinates…"

"Everyone converge on that position! We know they're going to be protecting the bomb with their strongest forces!"

"Move on your Commander!"

"Get the nuke!"

"For Paris!"

"For Death!"

Zach sprinted straight through the connecting hallway at the end of the long one he just sprinted down. He jumped up and lowered his shoulder into the glass wall, and he slammed straight through it which had the two on the other side spinning from their equipment and yelling out in panic at him. One screamed in English and the other in Arkistanian. Zach flicked a knife forward and slashed through the right sleeve of a man's hazmat suit. "You're not protected now," Zach said, his voice modulated and deep out of his helmet while he stood there clad in all black armor.

The villains looked at the dark figure standing there, a katana on the back of his waist, sword hilts sticking out above his shoulders, knives strapped all over his body. "D-Death!"

The entire mountain shook, worse than the last time Zach felt the place shake. He heard shouts in his helmet and then cheers of victory from a few people including Jetflame who others were calling out in amazement over. Yet as they all cheered, Zach saw the two in front of him spin around and look at the high-tech equipment and sensors. Red lights started blinking, arrows on readers shot up towards red areas where the numbers were much higher. The man who got the gash in his sleeve and was bleeding snapped his head up to a steel door on the wall between the equipment he and his partner were at. "This is bad- Hey!"

"No! You can't go in there!"

"Fanza kunbarak! Kunbarak!"

 _ **Boooom…**_ A rumbling shook the entire mountain, and the people shouting at Zach spun back to the room next to them with terrified looks in their eyes.

Zach stormed at the door and he slammed it open. "Get out of here!" a man screamed at him from behind the mask of his yellow hazmat suit. Zach was not in there for a second, and the man who screamed at him was not afraid at all of the ominous figure in dark clothing while he backed up in his protective suit.

"Calm him down!"

"Ashis! Ashis!"

Zach froze in the doorway and stared straight towards the middle of a large light-blue room with a soft carpet on the floor, a bed near a wall ahead of him, and a kid in the center of the room who looked his way and then stepped back with a look of terror spreading across his face. And as that kid stepped away from him, the three people in the room with that boy all backed away from the child too, because his bright face started glowing brighter orange in a way that had Zach unable to breathe. _There aren't any nukes left in the world…_

Zach's eyes shook, and he heard a shout behind him as Exodus attacked the two at his back who were about to try and catch him off guard. Zach just kept staring straight ahead, and he did not notice that Gentle ran into the room behind him either. Zach stared into the eyes of the child glowing orange and making everyone else in the room shout at him to calm down. _He's, a boy._ _Doesn't look older than, eight years old._

"Death," Gentle began in a low voice behind him. "We _can't_ let them keep-"

"We are not hurting that child," Zach said. He took a step forward towards the glowing kid, and the boy rose his arms up fast at Zach which made him stop where he was. Zach froze, and his eyes opened huge inside his helmet. The kid waved his palms at Zach, only for his terrified eyes to dart down to his shaking palms in even more fear as they glowed so brightly. He pulled them back away from the dark figure, pulling towards his chest and trying to take deep breaths as he stood there wheezing in terror, his eyes darting up in fear at the dark figure ahead of him.

Zach could not take a step closer at the sight of those eyes. He froze completely, and then he lifted his hands up. He slowed down the movement of his arms when they were halfway up, as the kid pulled back in fear of the dark figure covered in so many weapons. Zach stared at a kid looking at him in so much fear that it hurt him, a look of pain he remembered so well. A different time, a different costume, but dark and in a place so terrible for the person in it he was trying to save. He stared at a kid half the age of the girl he just imagined, naked and scared and pulling away from him with such fear in her eyes. Thompson's face faded though, as Zach took his helmet off and lowered it down to his waist where he clipped it on.

The three adults in the room with Zach all stared at Death with their eyes huge inside the super strong glass coverings of their suits. The boy staring Zach's way lowered his bottom lip too. The kid had short but messy black hair, and he had light brown skin that Zach was finally able to tell as he said in a strong but soft voice, "It's okay now. I'm here." The boy's orange glow faded down, as he stared at the smiling face looking towards him. And Zach kept that smile on his face even as he felt his chest ripping with pain at the sight of the child's shocked eyes full of confusion. There was no recognition in them, but the child leaned towards the man who just took his helmet off with that confused look still on his face.

"Ashin. Pupao ka- ka ka! Ka ashin!" The boy called out towards him in words he did not understand.

"I'm only going to tell you this once," Zach said, speaking in the same soft but strong voice he just used towards the child. He made it more strong than soft and turned his head to look at one of the men in yellow hazmat suits. Zach did not make his expression intimidating. He kept the look of a hero on his face for the boy still staring towards him in shock. "Explain to me what you've done to this child. If you lie, I'll know. If you don't tell me, or if you lie, I am going to kill the three of you in the most painful ways you can imagine." Zach's voice was calm and questioning, then he turned back to the boy across the room from him and started walking his direction.

Gentle spun his head from the teen whose back he was staring at, looking behind him and down a hallway where he spotted three people all the way down through a set of double doors. They pointed his direction, and then Gentle heard a voice yell, "Get me my nuke!"

Gentle turned back and looked into the room behind him again, then he spun forward and rose a hand quickly up to his helmet. "Everyone listen up. This is now an extraction mission."

"Are we getting the nuke out of-"

"It's a child," Gentle said. He ground his teeth for a second and then snapped, "We need a direct route from our position down here. Our sole objective is to now escape the Dragon's Den." _Sazaki thinks too much with his heart. The clear, safest option is right in front of him. He, he couldn't- nor could I._ Gentle's eyes darkened and he growled in a low voice, "We do not kill children."

"The fate of an entire city is-"

"Do you have such little faith in our ability to win? Are you that afraid-"

"Of fifteen million people dying?! Yeah!"

"What if they escape with the kid?!"

"What if the kid blows us all up when…"

"He was with the Syndicate…"

"Shut up all of you…"

"If Death thinks it's what we should do…"

"Gentle, is this Death's order?"

"Everyone get your asses down here!" Exodus bellowed. "This is Death's command and you must-"

Zach tapped a button on the earpiece in his right ear, and he increased the sensitivity of his own microphone so the others speaking in the room with him could be heard. As everyone kept moving around through the Dragon's Den, they heard the terrified man on Zach's right saying, "…we don't know. I swear-"

"Don't look too afraid. I don't want to scare him," Zach commanded.

"…We just bought it. It's a weapon the bosses bought to carry out the… well, you know right? You already know."

" _He's_ not a weapon," Zach said. Zach stared over at the kid he walked closer to, and the boy pulled back, but Zach smiled at him and held out his left hand in front of him.

 _They bought him. Where has he been? What happened to his family? I, I have no right to ever, ever complain about my life._ "It's okay," Zach said, and the kid looking at Zach's outstretched hand took a step forward. _Bought and sold by villains. Used, by monsters. That look on his face a minute ago… He, he's never seen anyone- anyone look at him like that. Like they genuinely wanted to help him! I can't let this kid… because, because he doesn't deserve this. He was cursed, with a horrible Quirk. Just like I was. He's innocent. As scary as I looked coming in, he waved his arms not so I wouldn't hurt him, but so I would stay away… He must have hurt so many people with his power. He must know how easy it is, to hurt._ "You won't hurt me," Zach said, as the boy in front of him was hesitating to get any closer.

The child looked around, at the hazmat suits the others were wearing and then back to the figure with messy black hair in front of him. The smiling teenager, holding out a hand and crouching down as he held it out. The boy pulled his body back for a second, a look in his eyes of fear both that he would hurt the man before him, or that this was all just a trick to take him somewhere else. And Zach could see those expressions cross the boy's face, and his own started to look sadder from it but he forced his smile up anyway. "Come," Zach said softer. He ushered his head behind him, "I came to get you. No one, will every use you again."

"Ahin yu-tanka. Kuku paorroro."

"It's alright," Zach said, just nodding his head at the boy whose words he did not understand. The boy did not seem to understand him either, yet they stared into each others' eyes and Zach got the boy to move closer to him. And then the kid ran the last few steps and he reached out both arms and grabbed Zach by the hand. Zach squeezed the kid's hands back, not too hard but strong enough that the boy would understand it as Zach said, "I've got you."

The kid clenched his eyes shut and took in a deep breath through his nose. He let it out through his mouth, and the boy lifted his head and looked up at Zach's face while the teen was still crouched so they were at eye-level with each other. "Shin Ashin. Kama ya rez."

 _…They were going to do what with this kid? It, wouldn't have been hard to make him freak out, make him explode. If that's what his power is. If his stress is directly related to how close he is to exploding, then, then all they'd have to do is put him in the middle of a city. A kid like this. So scared to hurt people. Afraid everyone would keep looking at him like a monster. Afraid he would hurt so many more. First would be the glow, then when people got hurt from that, it'd freak him out more. Was that the plan? They're sick. The worst kinds of monsters. Pure evil._ "Everyone," Zach said, and the boy looking into his eyes got a more confused look on his face. Zach stood up though and yet kept a strong hold on the boy's right hand at least with his own left.

Nearly seventy people listening to Zach were silent. Even the ones who had argued with Gentle just closed their mouths even as they continued sprinting or flying or dropping down deeper into the Dragon's Den. They shut up and listened as their leader said, "There's a kid down here. We're getting him out. It'll stop the Syndicate's plans too, so this is our sole objective starting now. Make as few explosions as possible, and keep bodies out of the path on our way out. I'll save Georgia and Yusef as soon as I can, but we can't freak the kid out-"

"Shit- Death!" Gentle spun and yelled back into the room that Zach was nearing the door of with the child by his side.

Exodus snapped his head back and forth, then he shot into the huge room with Death and right past him. Zach held the kid's hand tighter in an even stronger and more reassuring way, and he pulled the boy forward a bit so he would not look behind him into the room where Exodus charged at the three in hazmat suits he saw planning something. Zach at least thought that was why Exodus sprinted straight behind him, until he heard the cracks, and he turned his head sideways just as the boy next to him did.

"Get behind me," Zach pulled the kid backwards and spun to face the wall ripping apart.

A blur of white shot up and the falling light-blue wall, and Exodus shot through it all and slammed a fist into the face of a man whose vibrating hands were still slowing down while outstretched in front of his twelve foot tall body.

"Fww _eeeewhip!_ " A mercenary down below Exodus and on his right whistled, and a swirling vortex of green opened up on the floor below where the Army of Death member was dropping. Two orange hands pulled out of the vortex, and at the same time a half dozen men started firing at the soldier who threw both arms up and fired white blasts into the ceiling. An explosion of white light and debris showered around the man, and then a muscular arm wrapped in black armor slammed forward into a chunk of ceiling falling in front of him, sending it down a hallway on the other side of the thick wall that had just come smashing down. The debris slammed into the middle of a group of Syndicate villains, but one man slammed a fist into the huge debris himself and shattered it to bits around him.

"If we can't have that weapon!" The one who just smashed the debris apart roared, his voice echoing around the halls of the white floor. "NO ONE CAN!"

 _He doesn't understand it,_ Zach thought while pulling the boy next to him forward some more. He froze though, seeing Gentle up ahead shake his head back his way and then motion another direction. The double doors down ahead of Gentle opened up and three soldiers in Army of Death uniforms started sprinting down, and then from either side of Gentle up ahead of them, a dozen Syndicate villains converged and started attacking the man and bouncing off of the bouncy walls he had put up.

 _The Syndicate, is no joke,_ Phinx thought from behind a cracking wall of a huge central room of the Dragon's Den where he was sent to protect. _They understand as we do, that the Army of Death is not a joke either. They're a menace. A threat to our way of life. All of our ways of life. With their hands on a weapon like that, we'd all have to be a lot more afraid of these villain-hunters._ Phinx looked to his left and at a shard of glass leaning on a wall perfectly placed to give him a good reflection back in the room behind him on his left. He stepped to the right, and more of the wall behind where he was just standing broke apart. He looked over and saw one of his only three guys on this floor with him was laying unconscious on the ground from the one Light-powered punch to the face he received.

 _It isn't about you people. And we were never hired to protect you. We were hired to protect the weapon you were granted for this at a very low price. I heard the rumors. The woman in the white mask, the Company, the League, a whole lot of people invested in this. A lot of time and effort and money._ Phinx took in a deep breath, and short brown spikes started sticking out of his palms. _But that doesn't matter to me, Death. I just like the way I live. I enjoy fighting for cash, and the time we live in is great. A lot of buyers. And, admittedly, I've already been paid. Can't let you take that nuke with you, whatever your reasons are. Because I have my strict orders. I didn't understand them at first,_ _ **"Protect the weapon, and if the time comes it may fall into the wrong hands, destroy it."**_ _How was I going to destroy a nuke?_ Phinx took another huge breath, ignoring the sounds of the Army of Death swarming onto the floor, fighting his comrades and the Syndicate all around him. He drowned out different languages, and he kept a close eye on the glass showing him the reflection of the room behind him, where a teen without his helmet on was sprinting his way while holding the hand of a child at his side.

Phinx's eyes narrowed and his tensed arms loosened for a second, as he saw the little kid he stared at look up at the teen running with him. There was a look in the child's eyes Phinx had never seen before that almost shook him out of his focus. The second passed though, and Phinx said, "Do it."

One of his remaining comrades still conscious on the floor spun his head away from Exodus who he was in the middle of fighting with three others. He spun, and he shot away by pointing the engines sticking out of his palms behind him. An orange monster stepped in the way when the man who summoned it with his Quirk Demon-Cast ordered it to, and Exodus yelled out, "Death!" right before he was shot in the back and in the left leg.

"Exodus!" Other voices shouted behind the Syndicate shooters who all spun from the man who just fell to his hands and knees.

Death heard Exodus' shout and froze before the hole in the wall. He turned his head and started pushing the kid on his left back, "I'll protect you!" He called out, not wanting the boy to panic even as he shoved him away. _Have faith in me!_ Zach thought, and he whipped out a grappling gun to hold with his knife. He fired the hook out right at the first sight of the man with Jets on his hands. The mercenary was quick though, much quicker than Zach thought he would be. His reaction time let him flip fully upside-down in the air and keep jetting himself forward at the same time. Zach whipped up a knife and pulled out another one he flew the direction he intended the man to dodge in by the aiming of his first knife.

The second throw hit as even the speedy merc was not ready to change his direction again that quickly. He got grazed across the right side, which was still not exactly what Zach was hoping for. _I can't go Night-_ Zach thought, while grabbing another knife with his right hand instead of bringing it to his chest. His eyes started darting down though, as the man he slashed above him flipped away instead of back down towards him. _Distraction!_ Zach's eyes made it down, but there was already someone else in the hole of the wall who made Zach's heart start racing so much faster just from the look in his eyes.

Zach's eyes were in the process of turning red. His arms were lifting, and his head was turning to the side to look behind him.

Jet used his Jet Quirk to push away, then his Jets sputtered and he started dropping out of the air.

Phinx had stepped out when the leader of the Army of Death was looking up. He rose his arms and the child he aimed at looked down from the figure who had flown in first. The boy had been pushed behind Death for safety, but the child stayed close to the back of the man who he thought would protect him. The kid saw Phinx step in, because he was not as completely focused on Jet, because he did not need to fight him at the moment. He looked towards the hole in the wall and he saw the man step out and aim his hands towards him. Phinx met the boy's eyes.

Everything happened in seconds. Jet's sputtering Jets fired back up and he pushed himself into the air, though he stayed back while staring down towards the center of the room with a shocked look on his face. He spun towards Phinx who he had spotted out the corners of his eyes in that last second when Death turned away from him too. He had spotted Phinx's arms shifting, so by the time that Zach Sazaki had looked Phinx in the eyes both of Phinx's arms were aligned with Death's head and torso. The brown spikes were several inches thick, sharpened at the ends, made of material powerful enough to pierce through bulletproof armor. They fired from Phinx's hands, but as they were leaving his palms, his eyes were already shifting back off of Death who he had just turned his eyes onto.

Zach felt the hands on his sides, and he darted his reddening eyes to his side with them opening so much wider. Phinx had decided in the last moment what his priority should be. He had changed his objective not based on the utility of taking down Death first and then deciding what to do next, be it protect the kid or kill him. He had changed it in a split second based on the look in the kid's eyes when they had made eye contact. So he aimed at Death instead, while Death looked down from Jet and towards him, and he fired, while the boy who saw Phinx's aim change made his own split second decision. The push was not very strong, but Zach was not expecting it at all and he got shoved to the left a foot away. A big brown spike flew by the side of Zach's head, blocking his vision down to his side where a loud _**Squel-crnch!**_ filled the room.

There was blood all over the side of Zach's black costume, but he did not feel any pain. He turned his body and stared down, and he reached at the same time and grabbed the boy who just pushed him out of the way of that spike the bare minimum amount. The front of his body was slashed through, and Zach heard a breaking noise in his chest as well which made the boy who just pushed him cough and blood to splash out of his mouth.

"Ohhhh fuck!" Jet realized in sheer terror, and he spun and fired his Jets out of his palms and out of the room in the middle of the Dragon's Den.

Phinx took a step back. He started lifting his right arm with another brown spike pulling out of his palm, but he snapped his head to the left and heard a shout in his direction from a short girl pointing arms that looked like rifles. She started firing at him and he jumped away while firing a spike back towards her, but others in the Army of Death ran out behind Darling and started charging at the leader of the mercenary team. Phinx drew the sword off his back and slashed apart attacks flying at him, and he called out, "Retreat."

Zach dropped down to his knees and caught the boy falling backwards. He grabbed him, and the kid's face went from dim yellow to darker yet still brighter yellow. It got brighter, while at the same time turning to a shade of orange that made Zach's face start sweating and his lungs clenching up. His mouth felt dry, and he stared down with eyes getting red at the boy who just pushed him out of the way of that attack. "You-" Zach began. "You're just a- you shouldn't-" _He's eight! Or seven, or nine or- why is…_ Zach's black sleeves on his arms started to break through, and he clenched his teeth in so much more pain as he felt the burns forming on his skin.

The scared boy in Zach's arms started opening his shaky eyes wider. He stared up at Zach's face, and he said in a scratchy and high-pitched voice, "Aki- Aki forn… Porvafor. Aki."

Zach held the boy in his arms tighter. He closed his eyes, "I won't let you go." _I can't let you go._ He opened his eyes and looked down at the face of the kid he was holding. His arms felt like they were on fire, and his heart was racing faster and faster while his throat dried out and his eyes watered down his face. _If you know, that me holding onto you here is going to kill me._ "I'm so sorry," Zach whispered, as that thought alone broke his heart watching the boy bleeding out in his arms. The kid's face was so frustrated, and his orange glow was getting brighter, and he took in a deep breath through his nose. The kid started coughing, bloody coughs and gurgling on them short for breath. He spat out the blood though and curled his tiny hands into fists at his sides.

"Ashin, aki re- reka…"

"Death!"

"Stay back," Zach said. "Don't come any closer." He said it softly, and he just held his own melting arms into the boy's back harder. He felt his skin ripping apart, his flesh gooey beneath the boy's back, and yet he saw the glow dimming. He coughed himself, but then he forced his lips up into a smile. He smiled despite the tears spilling down on his face no longer solely on account of his bloodshot and bloody eyes. He sat there holding the boy who looked back at him, blood spilling down his face from the corners of his mouth, corners that were lifted up to his cheeks as he calmed himself down from the panic of dying.

"Hashin. En, kamana. Hashin aki re."

"I don't, understand," Zach whispered. Tears spilled from his chin down onto the face of the boy he was holding, and his arms squeezed tighter through all the pain he felt in them. "I don't-" Zach froze with his mouth open and he let out a gasp. He held the boy tightly, and but he saw the boy's tightened fists opening up and his arms going limp at his sides. _I couldn't… protect him. And I couldn't leave him. Because he saved me! That was why. It, it wasn't so he wouldn't set off a nuke. That was the ulterior reason! THAT WAS IT! I, I'm not like…_ Zach lowered his arms down, and he had to pry them off of the boy's back. He pulled his arms back, and he slid his knees away from the body of the child who just died in his arms, covered in blood.

"Zach," Darling whispered, staring in from the hole in the wall with a couple of others while more of them guarded from in the nearby hall. Across the room back at the main door, Gentle was staring inside with four Army of Death soldiers behind him guarding the control room and watching the hall they had just fought in. The Syndicate members were all down or had scattered, and the floor was under the control of the Army of Death who had more and more arriving each second. Darling stepped closer to Death from the hole in the wall, and she said, "Your arms. We have to…"

Zach stared down at the body in front of his knees. He looked down at his right arm, the one he had been so careful grabbing the boy with that whole time. His glove was partially shredded, even though he had kept it away from him in fear that it might happen. He stared at his glove, then down his arms that were covered in such horrible radiation burns. He coughed a few times, then he turned his eyes back up to the face of the child. _What am I supposed to do?_ Zach lifted up his left hand, but his arm was in too much pain to bring his left hand to his hair and run it through. He just stared down at the kid with his face scrunching up and so much anger and confusion filling his eyes.

 _He died for me! I can't just…_ Dryout's face appeared in Zach's mind. _Bringing him back, was a mistake. Just so he could die again, in such a pain. This kid just died in so much-_ Zach stared at the face of the kid. He stared at the lips pulled up at the corners despite the blood coming down them. And Zach pulled his head back, thinking about how he had felt when he died. _After saving Momo was- that was the best way I could imagine feeling as I died. I really- my entire life felt like it had meaning. I was so happy I was able to save her… And this kid! He-_ Zach clenched his eyes shut as he felt tears welling up in them. _He's smiling. As he died, he was smiling. Because he felt like he had saved the one person who ever held him like that. The one person who ever cared enough to cry over him!_

Zach pushed his palms down on the ground at his sides. _I've done things to save just one person before._ Zach got to his right foot, and he was shaky but he strained himself and got to his left as well. _Taking my helmet off to save Thompson, might have killed the thousands who the anti-heroes couldn't save… or who wouldn't have been saved if I never did this. Their deaths did have meaning. What is the meaning in this?_ Zach balled his fists at his sides while standing on as steady legs as he could. _If I saved him and he woke up in a panic, and blows up. It's too risky. That's the ultimate factor._ He rose up his left arm and turned it so he had the back of his arm to rub against his face. That half of his sleeve dangled, and all the skin on that side of his arm was shriveled up and gone too. His skin was red, and it hurt while he rubbed it against his face, though it hurt more on the other side just moving his arm at all.

"They don't have their nuke anymore," Zach began. He lowered his arm and stared towards Darling, his eyes still bloodshot but some blood smeared to the sides of his face now. The knees of his costume were ripped through too and revealed reddened and ripped skin there from how close his arms were to his knees while he had held that dying child. "But we don't have a reason to leave anymore," Zach added. His narrowed his dark eyes, and he looked past Darling at the others out there in the hall. He turned his head and looked back at Gentle and others behind him, and he said, "Bring Georgia and Yusef in here. Set this up as a forward base. Hank, get to work on Exodus and the other injured. We're not yet at the bottom of the Dragon's Den."

"Death, you should stay here," Miraculu began. Zach looked back towards Darling and the tall woman behind her with long curly red hair hidden inside her helmet. "I'll use my Quirk when all the injured are together and hopefully-"

"You do not give orders," Zach said. The floor fell silent, and Zach started glaring towards the hole in the wall. "I gave a command. Everyone gather up on me. I'll bring those two back, and then we're moving down. The Syndicate isn't finished yet. They might not have their nuke, but they're still villains. We saved Paris. We saved Christmas. Now," Zach's fists clenched at his sides and his teeth bared in fury. "We destroy the Syndicate."

* * *

In the lowest floor of the Dragon's Den, the Syndicate stood on one half of the enormous cave that dipped so far below the actual surface and was even bigger than the central cavern the Army of Death had gone through. On the other half of the cave at a slightly lower elevation and looking up towards the spiraling rock pillars leading to a massive tower of stone, stood the Army of Death in its near entirety. A large number of Syndicate forces had retreated back down to this floor during the battles above, and a whole lot more of them had gone straight there or had been there from the start.

The Syndicate had defenses set up on the walls, literally merged into them. There were villains on the walls hanging there or standing on rock outcrops looking like balconies. Dozens stood scattered around the lower sections of the rock pillars, with stronger-looking ones standing on top of the pillars or sitting on the edges of them. Dozens of villains had guns with them, dozens of others held up knives or swords or clubs or axes, melee weapons of all kinds. Yet more than half of the villains in the room full of hundreds were unarmed. Their defenses were established, and weapons were trained on the Army of Death who stood in a formation behind their leader who had his helmet back on as he stood before his army.

"Don't look so surprised!" A voice called out from the top of the central tower raising highest up in the deepest cavern. "You look like shit, Death! What happened? Are you tired already?!"

"Dorgon, the Dragon," Death said. His voice should have been modulated, but that function was messed up as was his dark visor. Most of his helmet got messed up while strapped to his side while he was holding the dying boy upstairs. Death spoke loudly, and clearly, and he glared up towards the top of the tower at the leader of the Syndicate. "Death has come for you."

"No need for the helmet!" Dorgon called down, cracking a grin and then laughing as he shouted out, "We all know it's Zach Sazaki beneath that-"

"I am not Zach Sazaki," Death said. He lifted his head and glared straight up towards Dorgon through the cracks on his visor, his arms visible showing burnt and bloody, others behind him sharing bloody and extensive injuries. Most of the Army of Death were undamaged, yet there were some who had cuts in their armor that looked like they should have been fatal. Two people in particular behind Death had blood all over their costumes just as Death did covering one side. Death glared violently up at Dorgon, and he snarled, "What are you doing so far away? Going to send all your subordinates to their deaths before facing it yourself?"

"Haha, hahahaha!"

"HAHAHAHA!"

"AAHAHAHA!"

"Eeekeekekekeke!"

Laughter filled the cave gradually after Dorgon started. The Syndicate did not sound very afraid, though the slow rate of increase of laughter did stay slow all the way until it started quieting down. The Army of Death had stayed silent during the laughter. An army of figures in dark costumes wearing helmets and holding weapons, covered in the blood of Syndicate members while so many of their comrades were missing on the floors above. They were at the bottom of the Dragon's Den. Below the surface. The laughter only sounded genuine for some, hollow for others, nervous even. Many did not laugh at all, their hands just tightening on their weapons, their eyes narrowing with sweat dripping down the sides of them and down their cheeks.

"We're in your Den, Dragon," Death said. "And we're going to take you-"

"It's not _just_ his Den!" A high-pitched but male voice rang out, and Zach lowered his head to look straight at the center of the cluster of villains at the bottom of the pillars where the majority of them were. A muscular, tall man, with long green hair, stepped forward with long white strings sliding out of his fingers and dragging behind him on the floor. "I expected more from the infamous _Army_ of… what was it again?" The man with black eye shadow below his eyes shrugged his shoulders and then let out a cackling laugh.

"You didn't even know," another voice boomed, coming from the closest of the pillars ahead of the Army of Death. It was to Death's right and one of the shortest rock pillars in the room, and no other villain was around the hulking form who stood up at the top. His body was so muscular that it spread nearly the whole surface of that pillar, his skin purple and the man only wearing a tattered pair of green shorts that stretched at the waistband. He glared down with glowing dark blue eyes towards Death who turned to him now. "I had higher expectations myself."

"It's not the Dragon's Den, singular possessive!" The man with long green hair called out with a laugh. "It's the _Dragons'_ Den you fools!" Dorgon started laughing behind his comrade and fellow leader of the Syndicate, while the purple muscular Dragon at the top of the shortest pillar just lifted up his muscular arms and crossed them in front of his huge pecs. Flygorn the Dragon stepped forward, and he brushed some of his green hair back behind his shoulder while still laughing so hard. He looked towards Death incredulously and called out with a huge smile, "You really think the Syndicate is run by a single man? We are the biggest-"

"RRAAAAAA!" Death roared. He stomped forward and everyone behind him stepped forward too, and Zach yelled out straight at the man who just froze with his mouth open and his eyes bulging huge. "You think any that matters to Death?!" Zach roared. Zach stomped his other foot forward, and villains all aiming at him tensed up, their weapons shaking more and some of them stepping back from the ledges of pillars they stood on. No one wanted to fire first. None of them wanted that army to charge at them. And they all stared at Death in fear as the figure started reaching up for one of his sword hilts, only for his right hand to brush his head as he pulled the sword out of its sheath. **"Death comes for** _ **all**_ **villains!"** Zach said, his voice coming out darker and louder and more menacing while a black flame wrapped around him. It wrapped straight down his arms and covered his wounds, and it stretched straight off the end of his right hand and onto the blade he slashed out to his side.

The muscular purple-skinned Dragon uncrossed his arms and tightened his fists as he leaned forward. Dorgon stopped laughing a few seconds ago, but he bit down in fury as he realized his right foot was suddenly farther from the edge of the central pillar of stone in the room. Flygorn took a full step back though as red shone through the cracks of Zach's visor under his black aura, giving Death who had always been just a pure black darkness an ominous red glow on his head while he held a flaming black sword to his side. **"It doesn't matter how strong you think you are, the Army of Death will destroy all villains in this world and return it to its days of peace."** Zach brought his sword from his right side out in front of him and pointed it at the Syndicate's forces. **"SURRENDER OR DIE! THOSE ARE YOUR ONLY OPTIONS!"**

No sooner were the words out of Zach's mouth, that the army behind him charged. Shields flew up and blocked a storm of bullets flying down, beams of light and flames shot away, the cave shook, and Death sprinted forward before his fastest soldiers could reach his sides. He sprinted at the front of the Army of Death, swerving back and forth and dodging bullets and whips of vines and rocks, and he jumped up over a slash of five white strings, then he slashed his sword down into another five slashing up at him. His sword covered in Death pressed against the white strings extending from Flygorn's hand, and the Dragon pushing against him felt his strength draining as those black wisps touched his weapons that had brought him to the top of the Syndicate. Flygorn stumbled backwards, and Zach threw his black sword down out of the air before bringing his left hand up to his right.

He held his hands close together in the air, and white beams shot around him as an injured Exodus fended off all attacks aimed at him while Zach charged the giant sphere of Death between his palms. "DEATH…" Villains all over the floor around where Flygorn was stumbling away from started running, dropping their weapons and turning to sprint away, somewhere, anywhere. Death slammed down and he smashed his huge sphere of darkness bigger than his whole body down into the floor. "BOMMMMBBBB!" The Death Bomb flattened out on the floor below Zach, then it erupted around him in a wave that blew away like the explosion of an actual bomb. A Syndicate member looked back, and in a moment of irony that he realized immediately, he imagined that this was what it would look if he was trying to run from a nuclear explosion. There was no hope, no chance, and all he could do was scream like the others around him as the wave of Death swept through them.

* * *

 _ **Chh-ch-ch**_ **"-terior team."** _ **Chhh**_ **"-o you copy? Akhmed? What's happening over there? Come in."**

 **Crreeaak- CHH** _**Tssss**_ Steam rose from the snow, and the steel plate that just fell into it kept bubbling and melting the snow around it. Fire flared around the wreckage of the vehicle no longer hidden on the side of the mountain. A body lay slumped through a broken window of a door half melted and in flames, another lay in the snow not far from it also covered in flames and burning up. There were footsteps leading away from the burning wreckage, three sets heading farther from the Dragon's Den.

"Sure we should leave?" Lee asked, walking farthest back and on the right of the three heading away from the Dragon's Den. The ground below him glowed green and swirled with dark colors, and a huge serpent covered in orange flames flying in the sky behind him dipped down and sank back into the floor. He looked ahead and to his left at a muscular man with a sword strapped diagonally on his back with the hilt up over his right shoulder. "Left a bunch of the guys back inside."

"Flygorn offered Jet more to stay. Gribke wants to take Death down himself, personal reasons," Phinx kept walking without looking back at the only member in the team of ten who made it out of the Syndicate's headquarters with him. "You going to risk a rescue for the others, when we've already been paid?"

Lee looked back at the mountain behind him again. He stared through the smoke closer to them and to a mountain that shook and some snow higher up started sliding down, looking on the verge of _another_ avalanche. "I think we could have taken them," he began, but he turned back forward and cracked his neck with a small grin on his face. "But guess you're right. Why risk it?"

"We did what we were paid to do," Phinx said. He said it and his eyes shifted in front of him and between him and Lee. The woman walking away from the Dragon's Den glanced over her left shoulder, and Phinx added as he looked at the white indents of her cat mask over where her eyes should be, "Never got paid to kill Death."

"It wasn't _exactly,_ what we paid you for," the woman began, though she turned back forward and kept moving into the wooded forest of the valley between the mountains. "But you are right. You disposed of the weapon when it was clear Death would be taking it. You succeeded where the Syndicate would have failed, meaning this was a smart investment on our part. I would say at least-"

Phinx had lowered his eyes down to the snow in front of him with a serious look on his face from the moment the woman said 'weapon.' He froze though, and Lee stopped behind him for a second as the woman kept speaking, only in a different voice like she just interrupted herself. "Many people will be upset with the loss of that weapon. Some very powerful people have spent a lot of time and resources planning that attack. They will not risk carrying it out with a new plan while the time is so close at hand. The Army of Death clearly does not care about who they are angering, and it would have been foolish to stay in there and try to fight those with such strong convictions."

"They've been after the Syndicate for some time, sir," the masked woman started again, not breaking stride as she continued into the forest. Lee glanced over at Phinx who just nodded back at him, and they walked after the one who hired them with more intense looks on their faces now than a moment ago. "Should they win here, then with the Syndicate's main forces wiped out, the Army of Death will be able to focus on other things. There is no telling what they were able to take from Facility Delta before I was able to destroy it."

She paused for a few seconds, and then the lower voice replied through her white mask, "We will put new plans in motion. Do not worry, Mysti. All will be handled. I will contact you with your new mission soon."

"Understood, Mr. Fergus."

* * *

Dorgon's eyes flashed green and his pupils narrowed into thin vertical slits. He rose up the top half of his body as it extended and got thicker-skinned on the outside. Arms broke out from his thick skin, two above and two below his regular arms, then four more, then ten more, and his body kept rearing back more. He reared up, glaring down with glowing green eyes at the dark mass that rushed up to the top of the tallest pillar in the room with no one able to stop him. Dorgon's lower half that extended too with more arms sprouting out of it started sliding back, but he slammed more hands down and brought his huge reared Centipede-like body down so his face wider than Zach was tall was closer to the dark mass ahead of him.

"You think this will do a single thing?!" Dorgon shouted. Stone pillars fell behind Death, the smaller ones collapsing down from violent attacks from the Army of Death, ones that aimed higher up and slammed into points on the ceiling where Syndicate members were still trying to attack from. Outcrops on the stone walls in the deep cavern broke apart, cracks going up the walls straight into their shooting positions, and Syndicate villains fell screaming towards the ones attacking them. Dorgon's dark opponent in front of him did not say a word, just breathed out a heavy breath of black air that pushed through his cracked visor seeping red light out for the "Dragon" to see.

All of Dorgon's very many hands started shaking, clenching into fists while his huge face backed away from the monstrous foe in front of him. His long body started curving around the top pillar, and he twisted his mouth up into a vicious smirk as he snarled, "What you do here means nothing. HahahaHA!" Dorgon slammed half of his upper body forward and smashed all those fists into the ground, though they all opened up fast with his fingers digging into the stone to get ready to move. He leaned twelve feet of his body forward still with dozens of arms on his sides, and he yelled at the dark figure before him, "The payment we received to set off that nuke is so high that even if we fail, someone else will carry it out in our stead."

"Ah hah, ah hah… This does nothing! You can't stop it! You can't stop villains!" Dorgon shouted it and he smirked tauntingly at the dark monster in front of him. "A nuclear blast will revert the world to a time before! When who had the strongest weapons and the most of those weapons mattered more than anything! When weapons proliferation was off the charts! People have forgotten the fear that caused them to create those weapons rapidly, faster and faster until the world was at the brink of destruction!" Dorgon panted a few times, then his huge mouth curled farther up spreading across his whole huge face. "And now, once a nuclear blast goes off and some countries decide they need huge weapons to use as deterrents that heroes just aren't… other countries will need to beat those weapons and will create stronger ones."

Dorgon opened his fists and he held all his arms out to the sides as he laughed at the ideas he was saying with so much glee. "Using Quirks now unlike before, which ultimately results in leaving weapons of mass destruction in the hands of individuals. Someone will take the first shot with their new weapons, probably out of fear, or to test them, and the world will enter a dark age of destruction and turmoil! And those of us who have always worked in the shadows will benefit the most! Selling weapons and working across borders while the rest of the world is focused on each other. They'll slaughter each other, start wars and destroy the world they live in, and it all starts with a single blast! A weapon that no villains could possibly obtain, which will make the world assume it was another country who did it. Who has France been at odds with for a few months now, after that Chinese citizen died on French soil in a supposed villain attack with little information? An attack set up _MONTHS_ in advance! You think you'll stop this?! You think you can do a thing, about the **PLAN?!"**

"When a nuke goes off in Paris, who will everyone turn to as the ones who were so hesitant to give up their nukes back when the rest of the world tried to get rid of them? The ones with the greatest motive? The ones who fucking conspiracy lunatics have been-"

"He wasn't a nuke," Zach said. He stared through red vision that was so dark and shaking so violently while he glared in rage at Dorgon. "None of that even… right now I don't care…" Zach's hands balled into tighter fists at his sides, and black flames rippled out of his back and shot behind him despite how drained he felt for power. He shot those flames of Death behind him and raced forward, and Dorgon scrambled back and then down the back side of the pillar as that dark monster flew at him way faster than he was ready to fight. Dorgon turned and slammed all of his hands down, sprinting down the pillar as fast as he could, and then lifting his head and looking back towards the top of it as he heard a roar down at him and saw a monster of darkness diving off the central stone column. "That kid you, _bought?!_ You used him- you were going to make him kill, millions?! And if he survived, he would have had to live with that- you would have done that to a child?! You killed that kid! That's why I'm going to destroy you! THAT'S IT! FUCK YOU!"

Zach swung his arms out to the sides, and the dark flames ripping out of his back as he fell morphed out sharper behind him. They swung out to the sides and broke apart at the bottoms to look like huge wings, and then Zach slammed both of his arms back down to his body, whipping those huge wings behind him and sending him flying down twenty times faster than falling with normal gravity, and much faster than Dorgon could run. "NO! NOOOO-" Zach slammed down into Dorgon's back, digging his feet into the long hardened back of the centipede at a speed that still dented him down and slammed him into the floor, though Dorgon managed to stay up on his arms as he was slammed down. His arms shook, all of his hundred elbows shaking from the pressure of that slam, but it only took a few seconds for the shaking to stop entirely, and for Dorgon to just collapse down on his ridiculously long stomach.

"Boss!"

"Kashira!"

"Shinka po!"

"Dorgon!"

Zach turned his head at a voice he recognized. He saw a figure with huge purple muscles charging his way, and he saw blood dripping off the hands of one of the other Dragons. His Death retracted back to his body a lot while he jumped off of Dorgon's shrinking back, yet he started jogging forward as soon as he touched down on the ground. Other villains running towards Dorgon to try and help their leader slowed down or pulled back, all of them looking towards Death in fear as he immediately turned his attention without waiting a second after taking down one of their bosses.

"It is them or us!" The purple hulking villain shouted behind him as he saw people hesitating at his sides. "They would kill us all-"

"Like I killed Mongoloid and all his men?!" Zach roared. He stomped towards the Dragon as he shouted it, and soldiers in dark armor flew down or sprinted up behind him. He brought his arms forward at his sides and yelled at the forces amassing before him around their last remaining leader, "I always give the chance to surrender, but if you'd rather choose Death then so be it!" Swirling masses of Death rose over Zach's hands, pulling away from his back where his armor started showing more. His armor showed on his waist and upper legs too while darkness surrounded his knees and his feet. He pressed his front foot forward and the ground cracked below him, and his yells brought the others around the huge cavern running up towards him.

The Syndicate's members were backing up, but some of them stepped forward with their leader who roared out, "Capture is no better! THIS IS THE DRAGONS' DEN! We are the Syndicate!"

"Fuck the Syndicate!"

"You're nothing!"

"Lowlifes!"

"Villains."

"Fiends."

"Monsters!"

"Come on then!" A villain on the purple Dragon's left shouted. Blood dripped off of the four katanas he held in each of his four hands, and he bared sharp teeth towards the dark figures while stomping their way. "Come and DIE!"

Sagitus ran up on four legs towards Death's right side. Jetflame stopped hovering above and pointed his hands behind him, blasting himself forward while Death kicked off the floor and cracked the ground beneath his feet. The Dragon let out a roar of his own and jumped up in the air, making a crater below him from the force he used to jump. The four-armed villain near the Dragon sprinted forward and threw a katana ahead of him, only for a tall man with a purple visor and cape to zip in front of the slender woman sprinting his way. Gentle swung up a Gently Rebound and bounced away the katana, then he bounced off the back of the wall he just created, formed another barrier behind him, bounced over the top of the first and flipped in the air while making one more above him, then he rocketed himself down towards the enemies. Zach sprinted forward and he leapt up while the purple boss of the Syndicate came flying down, his fist pulled back behind him and the air pushing away to his sides at the speed he was descending.

Bullets flew and swords clashed. Fists collided and darkness exploded on the battlefield. And the Syndicate's villains already on their last legs turned from their front forces who got bulldozed by the enemy, and they tried to flee. Not one of them would escape.

* * *

"Haaa, ahh, ah," Zach panted and lowered his right arm to his side. He closed his mouth as soon as he could. Zach stared through the cracked dark visor in front of his face, and he shook the man next to him with his left hand when the tired man's opening eyes started to close again. "Get up, Skater," Zach said. He got up and kept looking down for a second while Skater's eyes opened wider and wider realizing where he was. "There's work to do."

Zach turned and started walking away, each step of his right foot making his whole body slump to that side with a jolt. Behind Zach, Mark leaned down and held out a hand for Skater who stared at it with shocked eyes for a second before lifting a hand and taking it. Mark helped Skater up to his feet, then Skater turned back towards Death's back and watched his amazing leader limp away. Zach walked as straight as he could despite the limp, and he called over, "Put him down. Go help the injured."

Sagitus and Seraphim looked towards their leader who they had rushed forward with in the final attacks only a few minutes earlier. They were both exhausted, and they both nodded at the figure still wearing his black helmet unlike either of them. Half of the Army of Death had taken their helmets off, which made it easier to call around to each other for help as they could recognize easier who was walking near them. Zach had enough weapons attached to his body, or just sheaths as he had lost many of his actual weapons today, that he was easily recognizable as were a few others with strange body shapes like Sagitus's. He walked towards them and did not say anything about Sagitus taking off his helmet despite it not having any utility to do so considering everyone could recognize him with it on, as they only had one half-horse man in their army.

Zach bent down next to another comrade, and the two who lowered him down turned and headed off to go help their injured friends. _The eighth, tenth really. Georgia and Yusef weren't bad… I can't bring Georgia back again though. Why'd she have to wake up back upstairs? She could have just closed her eyes, stayed with Hank and-_ "Ahhhh AHH!" Zach bit down and then let out a louder scream. His fingers sticking out of his glove turned black, then his arm started doing the same which he could see considering his sleeves were gone. The pain of bringing back the man in front of him did distract him from the pain of the burns on his forearms though, so he managed to clench his teeth and fight through the pain to even stop screaming after the first sharpest pains of the revival.

 **"Death, we found Akhmed and Juno. They're dead out here. Some tracks lead away in the snow. Should we pursue-"**

"No," Zach said, gasping it out and then clenching harder on his comrade for another second before feeling what it felt like to die. He lowered his hand from the man before him who was quick to snap up, a panicked look on his face and his arms raising as if to protect himself. "You're alright," Zach said.

 **"Death?"**

 _I didn't see the one who killed the kid. Something was off about him. Different from the Syndicate members._ "Just get them inside," Zach said. "I'll-"

 **"Death, it's not-"** The voice over Zach's comms paused, and Zach froze after standing next to his comrade. He stood still and he lowered his head to stare at the floor. His eyes were wide behind his visor, and he scrunched his face up in pain as he heard, **"It's beyond recognition. We found their vehicle but, it's- gah, it's going to be tough to get them out of… They're skeletons. Inside flames and, and there's no way."**

Zach closed his eyes. _Akhmed trained up his Quirk. He was able to mask even small vehicles in movement. And, how could Juno get killed with an Air body? It doesn't make sense. They're strong. We're tired. They managed to escape in all that. It's not as simple as just sending a small team…_ "Get back inside. If they left tracks, they're not afraid of being followed. It's likely a trap. Just come back here."

 **"Understood, Commander."**

"Death," Zach turned as his name was called out. He looked over and saw Jetflame looking towards him still with his helmet on. He would be a difficult person to differentiate from others if Zach had not just heard him call him out. Jetflame's voice with that one word was grim though, and he turned and looked towards the area where they had gathered up most of their injured.

Zach started speed-limping his way over. A comrade who had snapped up behind Zach collapsed down to his back after his revival, but Zach did not care to wake him up. Zach sped towards Jetflame who said in a soft voice while turning and watching him go by, "She's dying. It's just, too much."

In front of Zach on his right, he saw Sagitus put a hand on Seraphim's shoulder while the woman with a purple ponytail rubbed her eyes. Seraphim just heard about Juno, and she sniffled while trying to pull herself together. She lowered her arm though and watched as Death limped by her, heading towards the injured and specifically the girl who currently had Hank kneeling at her side. Zach moved to the edge of the injured patients, and Miraculu was staring at him with her face pulled back and an apologetic look over her face.

"I tried," Miraculu whispered. She had her helmet off and her curly red hair falling behind her back to nearly her waist, and she looked at Death's cracked visor with her eyes filling with water. "I- I tried. Two of them it worked with, but she…" Zach put his left hand on Miraculu's shoulder as he stepped to her side. He had no words for her right now, but he squeezed the woman's shoulder and then dropped his hand down to his side while stepping forward again. She turned and looked at Death's back in so much pain, and she bowed her head as she didn't want her comrades to see her tears.

"Ack, gah-" Hank lifted a cloth and wiped around the mouth of the girl he was trying to help. She reached a hand up and pushed the cloth away though, and Hank clenched his eyes shut for a second and then just nodded his head as she said, "Death."

Hank turned his head and glanced at Death before backing away on his knees. He bit down so hard, and then he turned and moved over towards Exodus who was sitting cross-legged and awaiting further treatment as Death ordered him to. Exodus was staring over towards the girl laying on her back though, trying hard to push herself up so she could talk to the boy who just walked to her. "Don't-" Zach began, and then he lowered down to a knee next to her. He bit down, and he rose his hands to his head and took his helmet off. Zach dropped the helmet at his side, and he lowered to his other knee. He stared into the light blue eyes of the girl below him that looked so dim, as did the small red pupils in the middles of them.

Zach brought his hands over to the blonde's right, and he grabbed it with both of his. His eyes shifted from her uncovered face down to her body for a moment, and his forehead scrunched, his eyes narrowed, and his lips twisted at the corners. "Cee," Zach whispered. "I'm sorry," the top half of his face shadowed over by his bangs, and he held her hand tighter as she gripped it back in so much fear. He looked up from under the shadows and into Cee's eyes, and he saw her looking back into his eyes so much more afraid than she had looked when Hank was right there and she gave him that strong look.

Twenty feet away, Michael ran his left hand up through his hair, his right arm limp down at his side and covered in blood. He took a step forward, and then he felt a hand on his shoulder and he spun his head. Michael looked back and saw Mark standing behind him, and the man with brown hair falling to his shoulders before curling back up shook his head once. Mark shook his head and then looked into Michael's eyes with a look that showed he shared the pain he was feeling. Mark turned away from Michael and back over towards the blonde girl on her back a second later. _Cee, I'm so sorry. This is twice now, I couldn't protect…_

"I can't, hold on," Cee whispered in a scratchy voice at the boy who just knelt next to her. "And it's my, second time… ack, ack agh- ag-ak-ak," she coughed and coughed in a fit causing blood to splash out of her mouth. Zach held her hand tighter, but he let go with his left hand and rose it up to her face. She was shaking so hard with those coughs that blonde hair lifted and fell in front of her face, and he pushed it out of the way of her eyes which stopped shaking as much as she looked up into his hazel ones. Cee whispered to him, "I really do, believe in you. In all of it. You made me…" She stared into his eyes, and then she said in a stronger voice that was still soft though, "It's not your fault."

Zach shook his head, then he whispered, "I know. You, chose to come here. I-" Cee shook her head back, and Zach looked down confusedly but stopped talking so she could.

"You, have to forgive yourself," Cee whispered up at him. The blonde girl older than him by only a year stared into his eyes, and she continued after pausing to take in a deep breath, "For everything that went down. With the anti-heroes." Zach's eyes widened for a second, then he nodded at the girl below him who frowned at how quickly he gave her that nod. _Idiot. Like I'd, believe…_ "Ack- I mean it," Cee said, and she squeezed Zach's right hand tighter with her own. "Fingers," she whispered in a much softer breath.

Zach slid his fingers out of his right hand's half-glove. He curled his fingers in, and Cee turned her hand and squeezed Zach's so much harder with a pained look on her face. Fear spread over it for a second, then she made it strong again and she snapped, "It was Raijin." She glared into Zach's eyes. She glared at him, because even after she told him how she forgave him, she knew he never did the same. "As long as you keep blaming yourself for it, Raijin's winning," Cee said.

Zach's eyes widened fast, and he felt his heart freeze for a second before speeding up just as fast as it had been as a trail of blood trickled out the right corner of Cee's mouth, down through the cut on her chin and to her bloody neck. "Even when you beat him," Cee said. "And you will, I know it. I know that you'll, ack- ag- you'll keep, ack… You'll keep our promise." Zach nodded his head at her, then she said in a softer voice, "Even after I'm gone." He clenched his teeth and shook his head once, but then he nodded again while looking down into Cee's eyes.

He felt her hand slipping, and he tightened his grip on it, and she tightened hers right back with her eyes snapping wide like she realized she had been slipping. "Even if you take him down," Cee said, biting down hard and glaring into Zach's eyes at his frustrated and scared and sad look. "As long as you're still plagued over that, Raijin wins. And fuck that." Zach cracked a smile which showed how hard his teeth were clenched, and Cee laughed once after saying it before coughing again. She stopped with her lips curled up, and she said with that smug look on her face, "You told me how much Raijin cares about winning, so don't give him the satisfaction."

Zach nodded at her again. He nodded, then he held her hand tighter as he could see that smug look lowering off of it. _Just die. Die now! No,_ Zach bit down on his bottom lip, because Cee pulled her eyes off of him and looked straight up.

She looked up with her lips curling down, and trembling. _Ms. Calico. I-_ "I'm so," she whispered. Cee wanted to lift her arms to cover her face, not wanting to be seen like this in her last moments. She couldn't move though. She felt so weak, and she knew she was dying, again, despite all of the promises she had made. All the hundreds of reasons she had for joining the Army of Death, the promises she made to herself and to her dead mentor to stop Raijin. "I'm so… frustrated," she gasped out, blood spilling out of her mouth and her eyes shaking in rage and despair, and sheer terror. Zach grabbed her harder with both hands, "I was, supposed to- to be a great… one who I could tell Ms. Calico- one… I'm so…"

"You're amazing. We saved so many people. Today, without you there was no way we could stop the Syndicate. No way we could have stopped that nuke. It was thanks to the information you got us. Cee, you saved millions. So many! Ms. Calico would be so proud. She'd, she'd think you were an… come on Cee listen. She'd think you, she'd be so… Cee." Zach shook her again, but the girl he was desperately trying to tell this to was not moving. _Did she even, hear any…._ Zach let go of the hand he was grabbing so hard despite not feeling anything back. He let go and he slouched down on his calves, his head bowing and his eyes shutting so hard. And six months of his life flashed behind his closed eyelids.

Behind Zach not too far away, Darling lifted up a hand a bit towards his back. "Zach," she whispered, feeling a huge amount of pain as she saw him sitting there next to someone he cared so much about. Then Darling's eyes shifted to the blonde in front of Zach's knees, and only then did the tears welling in her eyes start to slide down her face. _Cee._

Over leaning against a part of a stone pillar that had been broken apart, Gentle put his right arm over the shoulders of the woman at his side and he grabbed the shoulder farther from him. The short woman staring over towards the infirmary watched as Zach's arms fell limp at his sides, and she bit down so hard on her bottom lip. She leaned to her left into Gentle's side, and La Brava tilted her head back against the rock. She sniffled, and sniffled again, and then she started to cry with her lips trembling and sobs coming out of her mouth as she could not hold it back.

Mark lowered his hand from Michael's shoulder. Michael stared over in shock towards Cee, the girl he had so much fun teasing, and who had more than Grabble or Access, been his best friend. He took a step towards her with his jaw dropped, while Mark lifted up his right hand and put it over his face. Mark pressed his fingers into his forehead with his pinky and thumb on the sides of his eyes, his palm covering up those eyes as his head bowed so no one could see them.

Michael's hands shook. He started stepping towards Cee again, then he almost fell as he tried pulling it back since there was no point in getting closer but he was so hesitant to do even that. His arms started to raise, then his fists started to clench, then they loosened and his teeth bared in rage. _I don't know what to-_ Michael's fists re-clenched, and his head started turning. His eyes focused across the cavern and he shook in rage while glaring over towards the captured villains.

Zach lowered his limp arms down to the floor. He pressed them into the ground and started getting up. _No tears,_ he lifted his head, and under the shadows cast by his hair his face was clear of anything except his dark expression. His face was so intense, that Hank leaned back and Miraculu opened her squinted eyes still pushing out tears. Darling stared in shock at Zach's face, and then she turned with him and looked towards the villains they had captured who were mostly unconscious. All of the conscious ones were gathered in the same area though, more of a priority put on getting the ones captured in ways that did not require knocking them out to a separate and guarded position.

Zach started walking towards the villains. Michael was just starting that way himself, but he froze and turned his head to the left and back as Zach spoke in a dark, scratchy voice. Zach's right hand lowered from his chest, as he said, "We are the Army of Death." Seraphim lowered her arm from in front of her eyes, and she and Sagitus turned to watch Death move for a second. Then the two of them started after their leader surrounded in a dark veil. Darling and Michael walked with them, and Hank got up from next to one of his patients to stare over at Death's back with his eyes huge.

Gentle lifted his arm from La Brava's shoulders. He pushed on the wall behind him and got up to his feet, and he stared over at the skull face of the dark figure walking by. The red flaring eyes, his boney fists and arms showing through his black veil. Gentle opened his mouth to say something, but he could still see Cee out the corners of his eyes and his mouth closed instead. La Brava stood up with pain covering her face and water all over it, but she started walking after the others and Gentle moved forward with her. Mark stepped forward not far from them, his face shadowing over and his lips spreading in a snarl.

"Any groups like the Syndicate, any villains who would use people, children like this…" Death's scary voice got louder, and others hanging around or doing things in the deepest cavern started towards him. There were a large number of Army of Death members around the prisoners, and Jetflame had gone back over there to check on things once he had gotten Death to head over to the infirmary. Jetflame looked towards Death and his eyes opened wide. The former hero grit his teeth for a second, as he realized what could make Death look like that and he had already known when he went to get him. Jetflame glanced behind him though at the prisoners down on their knees, wrapped up in ropes and vines, pushing back on their butts or knees to get away from Death.

Jetflame turned back forward, and his open mouth froze like that while his eyes shot to Death's right hand. There was no weapon in it, but a black blade started extending out from Zach's clenched fist. A dark sword of Death extended down from Zach's hand, and he got louder, "There are millions of people living in Paris. Tens of millions. These villains would have killed them all, for nothing more than a paycheck." Zach spat it out, and he stepped forward again but slower, while staring down towards a man who was captured conscious who he had fought himself earlier on.

The mercenary known as Jet was staring at Death with his jaw dropped and a terrified look on his face, and he started shouting just like the Syndicate members around him. "I'm not even one of them! I'm- I'm not in the Syndicate! I was just hired to-"

"Yeah I'm not either!" One of the Syndicate members shouted, and Jet spun towards him in shock then spun back and yelled that he _really_ wasn't.

"You can't do this!"

 **"Quiet,"** Zach said, and there was silence. There were over thirty conscious Syndicate members before him, but Zach walked up and towards the closest body of an unconscious member. He walked up to the smaller version of Dorgon the Dragon who his comrades had tossed in front of the Syndicate villains to scare them into not trying anything. Zach glared down at Dorgon and he lifted up his sword of Death. "Villains, are a plague on our world. An affliction, a _scourge…_ "

Jetflame darted his eyes around him, but he realized that the others who were guarding the villains had all moved away. He closed his mouth and backed up too, though his eyes narrowed at Death and then around at all those who were following him.

Zach held up his Death Sword. He held it with dark flames flaring off of it. "You corrupt. You make the people of this world afraid." He turned his sword and pointed it down at Dorgon's body. His red eyes shook, and his teeth bared so all the villains staring at his skull face felt the worst fear in their lives. They regretted so many life choices, every decision they had ever made to lead them to this spot right now. All of the soldiers around Death who had their helmets off had such intense looks on their faces. Some looked hesitant, but they were all getting motivated by every word out of Death's mouth as they stood behind him.

"You are evil, and," Zach paused. He clenched his sword tighter and he ground his teeth. His hand tightened, his red eyes flared, and everyone watched as he brought his arm up. "And we, will not let you spread your evil into this world any longer."

"Do it," Michael growled.

"Take him out!"

Zach slammed his arm down. He swung his sword, and the blade slammed into the ground next to Dorgon's body. Zach's hand opened and the blade lost its solid form, getting thinner and wisping away, leaving just a small mark in the stone below. "No," Zach said. His army around him, and the villains in front of him, all stared at the dark figure with their eyes wide while he brought his right hand up to his chest and turned off his Nightmare form. His eyes closed, and he opened them when the darkness left his face, before saying, "Georgia. Akhmed and Juno… Cee. To honor them, what they stood for and died for, we need justice."

"This is justice!" a scream rang out behind Zach.

Michael stomped forward on Zach's right side, and he glared down at Zach's face with rage plastered all over his own. "You can't be- that's the guy who killed Cee!" Michael pointed his arm to the right at an injured villain who pulled his head back in terror at the looks of the people all staring towards him. Other villains scooted away from him, and he just stared with shaky, terrified, and hopeful eyes towards Death. He pulled back more though as Death glared at him in almost as much anger as the bigger man at his side. "This _is_ justice," Michael said in a low voice, claws extending out of his right hand.

"Maybe for us," Zach said. He glanced to the corners of his eyes and his expression stayed steady, intense, and Michael froze at the sight of those eyes looking into his. "But not for all the others that villain wronged." Zach turned and he looked down at Dorgon's body in front of him. He stared at Dorgon in rage, and how he wished he had stabbed his sword straight into the villain and just killed him. His right hand shook at the thought, ready to turn back on Nightmare and do it for real this time. He ground his teeth again though, and he continued louder, "All the terrible reasons we came after the Syndicate for, before we ever knew they had a plan like this, before we ever lost anyone against them… We need to have him tried and found guilty," Zach clenched his teeth after saying it, and his fists balled at his sides in fury too.

His comrades stared over at his back, and they saw how hard his hands were shaking at his sides. They could see the corners of his lips spreading apart and how tightly his teeth were clenched behind them. "Put before all the people he hurt," Zach said, glaring furiously at Dorgon's back. "He's wanted all over the world. One of the world's most wanted and, and he has hurt so many people. So many others are waiting to see him be punished. They need justice, and they won't get it if Dorgon's just killed off in secret where no one will see what happened to him. As much as I too want to finish this guy off, that's selfish of us to only be thinking about our own thirst for revenge for a fallen comrade!"

"Death," Shang started. The short Chinese man who was recently brought back to life glared at his leader and said with frustration covering his face, "We are not heroes. We do not have to follow the rules, the restrictions, all that they must!"

"I know," Zach said. His fists clenched harder, and he kept glaring forward at the villains who were still easing away from him at how terrifying his angry look was. Zach ground his teeth and then said in a loud voice, "It's not about whether or not we _can_ kill them." Zach's head turned and he said while looking towards Shang, "It's about how much good comes out of killing them compared to putting them on trial." Zach turned the other way, and he looked into Michael's frustrated eyes. He stared with a strong and determined look on his face at the taller man, and Zach said, "That's what we do. That is what the Army of Death, makes its decisions based on. Every decision. Every fight, every villain, every single thing we do, there is one question I have to ask myself. How much good will come from each choice?"

He turned his head more and looked back at those behind him with the intense look covering his face that they all stared at with such wide eyes. "And right now, they're finished either way. But taking them all down right now doesn't do anything for us! It doesn't help us, and it doesn't help the world, because the other option would have taken them all out of the picture anyway! And it would do it in a way that helps so many more people. Instills faith in the heroes we hand them off to, who we give the credit for this, who are willing to accept our help without telling people that it was us." Zach clenched his hands in even harder fists so he felt his nails digging into his palms, then he turned back to Michael who was one of those just staring at him in shock now.

Michael bit down as Zach looked back into his eyes, more frustration than ever as he had so much rage that he did not know what to do with. "I thought about it," Zach said in a softer tone to the man who looked about to burst with all his feelings right now. Michael opened the eyes he had clenched in fury, and he pulled back as Death said to him, "And I know the right answer. The answer, the others died for." Zach turned from Michael and looked down at Dorgon. "If we kill this man now, while knowing what the right answer is and deciding against it anyway, then we've become villains."

The Army of Death stared at their leader in silence. No one spoke up against him, and they stared in amazement, and frustration, and most of them in awe. Gentle and La Brava both stared in shock towards Zach Sazaki's back. Neither of them had said a word when Zach rose up that sword ready to stab down into Dorgon's back, and yet neither of them said anything as he stopped himself either. They stood among an army wearing the same outfits as them, staring towards their leader with the same looks on their faces as everyone else. "Sometimes the right thing to do is also the hardest," Zach finished.

The doubts that had just risen in Jetflame's mind vanished. The former hero who did not know what to do, who was questioning his own morality and what it meant to be a hero, just stared at the side of Death's face with his eyes huge in shock. Then his fists balled at his sides and he got an intense look on his face to match the one on Death's. _A kid only seventeen years old, and I've never wanted to follow anyone else this much._

Mark stared at the back of Zach's head with his dropped jaw closing. Six months flashed through his mind. Nearly six months he had spent with Zach, and he had felt this feeling before but never once this strong. The powerful and confident tone Zach just used as he said that was not the tone of the boy he had met on the run back in July. _So soon after losing Cee,_ Mark thought, as those six months of memories flashing through his mind always had the same blonde girl in them. He could feel his heart still breaking over that, and yet he saw no hesitation on Zach's face with what he was saying. _I never got why we changed, to become the Army of Death. I was so afraid when you declared war on Eziano, and I was the voice of caution against charging into Saudi Arabia… And yet you, you never hesitate. Always thinking ahead. Always, planning the big picture._ Mark's eyes narrowed and he bit back his fury, _You're strong, Zach._

"You're right," Michael whispered. "I know you are, but that doesn't make it any easier-"

"Haha, if you aren't going to kill us then-"

Zach turned from Michael towards the villain who was interrupting, and he stepped over Dorgon's body. "Who would miss one of you?" Zach asked. Villains in front of him pushed themselves to the sides in panic. All of them gave him a berth, and Zach's comrades behind him stared at his back with their eyes opening huge again, almost as wide as the smirking villain's. "No one would care if you died," Zach said, and he ran right up and slammed his left hand down into the man's throat. He dragged the man off his knees and lifted him up. "But how about I give you a choice?" Zach asked the man who had been so confident he was not going to die a few seconds ago and was nearly shitting his pants now.

"Tell me who hired you to nuke Paris," Zach said.

"I don't know!"

"Wrong answer-"

"I know," a voice said behind Zach and on his left. He turned, and he clenched down with his left harder for a second before slamming the choking man with a red throat down to the ground hard. The man gasped out as he slammed down on his back, then Zach stepped towards a man who had engines sticking out of his palms that were covered up by hardened goo at the moment. His arms were tied behind his back too, and his ankles were tied as well to keep him from running. "And I'm sorry, for what happened upstairs-"

"I _will_ kill you," Zach warned. "Since you _really_ aren't in the Syndicate, I wonder if there's even a point in arresting you with the others."

Some of the Army of Death staring forward wondered what Death was talking about, since they assumed the man was just lying to try and get out of death like the others who had pleaded for their live a minute ago. Zach knew though. Because he had seen this man with the one who had killed the kid, working together in a way that the Syndicate villains, as strong as some of them were, just did not get how to do. "I'm sorry for that," Jet repeated. He did not get scared as easily as the others, and he was not as shaken by that threat. He already told Death he was going to talk though, and he said, "We were just hired help. I had worked with a couple of the others before, but most of us don't know each other either and even then just by codenames."

"Then how do you know who hired them for this?" Zach asked while glaring down into the man's eyes.

"Rumors. Whispers. I'm a merc, which means I'm all over the villain world. And word around was, the League hired someone for a big job. I asked around, which is how I wound up getting this-"

"The League of Villains, wanted to nuke Paris?" Zach asked in confusion and with his eyes narrowing as he was having trouble believing it.

"No, not that League," Jet said. He shook his head once, and he looked at Death in a bit of surprise before grimacing as his eyes darted around at the others around him. His nervous eyes shifted back to the boy who he realized he could not stop talking to at this point, and he said in a darker voice, "The League of Shadows. Bigger than that tiny League of yours in Japan. And they have existed for much, much longer."

 _He emphasized "much." Fuck. Alright. Fuck. All of them._ Zach kept his face steady. He stared at Jet and asked in a low voice, "Is it Eziano's?" _Hunter said there was an organization. Eziano's been around for so long, centuries if he wasn't lying-_

Jet curled his lip in regret, but he said, "Well, Eziano Mozcaccio is rumored as one of the Shadow Bosses."

 _"One of?" Holy shit. Oh, oh fuck! That means there are others like Eziano there? Is that Eziano's organization… or, is Eziano in control of his own, and the League of Shadows is just a, a bigger combination of huge villain groups? How big is that thing?! How have we never heard about it? And, this guy is regretting telling me this stuff. He thought I knew, and he was just trying to get out of… how much does he know? He's been hired by others, which means, he- no- did he say that on purpose? He doesn't want to be arrested. He wants me to ask him for more information, and he's going to try and make a deal. Or he'll try and escape when he thinks I've let my guard down after acting like a friend for a while. This guy, is a real fucking pro. And he knows a lot. How much?_

"What's your name?" Zach asked. His voice was dark, and he glared into the eyes of the villain before him who got unnerved by the sudden expression change on Death's face.

"Jet," the man replied. It was the name of his Quirk, and the only name he had to give.

Zach glared into Jet's eyes, and he brought his right hand up to his chest again. "Well Jet," Zach said, his voice getting darker and scratchier as he spoke. "I have some more questions I'm going to ask you when you wake up." All of the darkness on Zach's body spread to his right arm, and the villains in front of him let out screams while Zach swept his arm forward. "Death Wind!" Zach yelled in a scary voice, the last thing he expected most of those villains would ever hear him say.

He turned off Nightmare form after knocking out the rest of his conscious prisoners. Then Zach turned his head and looked at his army behind him. He looked at just under fifty people who had gathered at the area they brought most of the villains. "Now we have to figure out how to get them into the custody of heroes," Zach started. His face was focused, and he said, "We'll figure out what heroes we can trust, who in the government too. We aren't heroes, so the villains will be quick to snitch to us about all the Syndicate's other locations. They'll tell us where each of their smaller operations are, and then we'll hand them over to heroes of countries where the Syndicate has operated. Wanted villains will go on trial, and even in places where vigilantism means that captured villains have to be released, the villains won't argue when the heroes we get to work with us bring them in. Because they'll have talked. And we will spread it on our own, that when the Army of Death catches villains they always snitch. Even the villains who don't, will be too afraid to say that they were caught by the Army of Death, knowing that all other villains will assume they ratted. We'll tell the villains the same thing, in case they're too stupid to figure it out."

Zach looked around at his soldiers. He stared some of them in their eyes and just looked at the visors of others. "We do this smart. We find out information, and we use that information to find villains, and we go in with more power than they have. I won't let this happen anymore…" Zach pursed his lips and then said louder, "I will do my best to keep every last one of you alive. I will always try to protect you, but our mission is too important to stop for anything. We lost people today, but that doesn't mean we're slowing down. We're not taking a break because some of us are injured. We don't celebrate this as a victory, and we wouldn't even if we had made it through with everyone still alive. There's no time for that. There's no time to allow villains to come up with new ways to destroy us, or new ways to break this world, or new ways to make an attack like what Paris would have been." Zach started walking forward, and the crowd in front of him split to the sides to give him room to walk through.

His soldiers looked in towards their leader. More of them than ever looked at Zach the way he always saw Exodus staring at him. He marched between them with conviction covering his face, his fists clenched at his sides and his eyes so intense that they gave his men chills. Deciding to step right over the bodies of their dead comrades, and keep moving forward. To do what would bring the most good to the world. Not slowing down for anything. Not even to bury the dead. Zach looked to his right, and he said in a low voice still loud enough for everyone behind him to hear, "We'll burn the bodies of our comrades. They were Army of Death. No one will ever know their sacrifices. No one will ever know their names, or their faces. Remember them in your own ways. And always remember what it is they died for, for as long as you are here."

Zach turned away from Cee's body and looked in front of him instead. "Hank," Zach said. His expression was darker than Hank had ever seen it, yet at the same time it was the strongest the EMT had ever seen too. Zach lifted his arms to show the man and said in a serious voice, "Get me patched up as best you can."

 _There's no time to break. No time for rest. Too much to do. I need a healer. I need to question the Dragons, they'll know the most. More than Jet probably. I might have to make a deal with Jet. I won't torture… That's too much. Too far. I will threaten torture though. And Rebel will help make it known that it is not beyond me. The villains will know it was us who took down the Syndicate. That's good. The world will hear that heroes did it. The public will gain faith in their heroes and government. Villains will gain fear, as they confirm that we do not care about glory, as they realize that we have the power to control even heroes. Every time a hero accepts the Army of Death's actions, it'll terrify villains who think we have to fight on two fronts. I have brought the Army of Death into the shadows. I will not make as big a scene anymore. Saudi Arabia was the start, and the most public time for the Army of Death. That was the plan. Now I've reached the point where I have the ability to back up my actions with the big picture. Back up my plans by following through, and not getting swept up in my overwhelming feelings of rage and grief. Cee… Akhmed, Juno, Georgia… Cee! I won't let you down._

 _The villains of this world will pay. Peace is an attainable concept. I will make it so. No villain will escape my reach! I_ _ **will**_ _create... peace in our world._


	112. Chapter 112

**Chapter 112:**

"Well, we have to look at the statistics from all over the world. You can't just say-"

"But in Japan at least, let's just start here," a newscaster held up a hand to stop his co-host who he was arguing with. "For the first time in, several months, since June! And even June was just lower because of all the Tartaros escapees going off the rails in May. December, is the first time since that we've had an _actual_ decrease in villain activity."

"A _small_ decrease," his co-host countered, but the woman leaned back in her seat and offered up a palm after saying it. "However I will agree that that looks good. Since we don't have anything to point to like in May for why November was higher than December, it seems like we really hit a new peak." She lowered her hand and then said in a more serious tone, "There is also the possibility though, not that the rate rises back up, but that the level it was at in November and stayed close to in December is now just the average for crime. December is still higher than October's, and we are still in the most unstable time of our lives."

"I agree that villain activity is still far, _far_ above desirable levels," the man sitting across from his co-host agreed. The man with a yellow horn sticking out the middle of his forehead tapped on the table with his right hand, then he added in a tone that sounded optimistic but still cautious, "I like to believe that this is not just a fluke though, nor a sign that things are stabilizing here at a level we don't want them to get stuck at. Japan is not the only country to have had that drop last month."

"It wasn't everywhere though," the female host started countering right away again. "Not even half of the countries of-"

"But before December, way more than half were still on the rise. In November we saw that increase was slower in a few places, but December we've really seen a slash in some huge places. Let's see: well for one Gorran is back on the decline like they were in October, which a lot of people were disheartened by when they went back up in November. That was a case study being used often and now those same pessimists and cynics saying that nothing was changing are seeing Gorran at levels in December lower than anything they had all of last year."

"You sounded like you were going to state examples, and yet you went for the most obvious choice. Gorran's flip can be a fluke-"

"But their government was active," Indo Suzuha said firmly. He leaned over the table and said to his co-host looking more serious, "They _made_ their difference. Constant policy changes, and more changes when the first ones did not work out. They finally outed the terrorists working in their less inhabited regions, they have started measures to train the public in self-defense, so to look at these things and then turn away and say that they had nothing to do with the results they were looking for, it's ridiculous!"

"They did not oust those terrorists on their own mind you," Kuzano Rehi retorted. She leaned back from the table while her co-host looked at her in some surprise, and she continued, "Gorran is finally feeling the effects of Shakad's death and the absence of SISIS in their country. And it was the Army of Death who hunted down Shakad with Gorran's heroes, and one of their members who killed him too."

"Are you trying to say that those terrorists-"

"They were not labeled terrorists at the time," Kuzano started, holding up her hands defensively as she already saw accusations coming. "And no one's defending the things they've done, but if Gorran's current success can be attributed because of the Army of Death's influence, then how is that a good measure of showing the world moving into a better stage? It's not like the Army of Death can move around everywhere now that they're-"

"You sound like you disapprove-"

"Don't put words in my mouth Indo. You were the one who was coming up with examples. Have anything better than a country saved by terrorists?" She said it in a sharp tongue and narrowed her eyes at her co-host who just nodded back and then held up his right fist.

Indo's right thumb stuck up, then his index, then his middle, and he listed out five countries before lifting his left hand. "…Guatemala. Chile. Desrambo. These aren't in order mind you, based on how much the rates of villain attacks have gone down, but each of them have had their decreases be they minor or major."

"And some of those decreases are as small as Japan's was last month," Kuzano said with a shake of her head.

"Why are you so against accepting that something good might be happening?"

"It's not that I don't _want_ to accept it, but I'm a realist Indo. We've had nonstop descent since the loss of All Might as the Symbol. And the Sports Festival Invasion was a catalyst for villains all over the world. Tartaros escapees, the worst ones, are the ones who weren't just caught right away in May. And we saw with Mongoloid that they went out there to assist an already unstable world reach this horrible point we're at right now." Kuzano took a deep breath and then she looked seriously dark back into her fellow host's eyes, "Who is to say that another huge event will not happen again, and devolve this world farther into the darkness?"

"Saying things like that is going to keep people fearful-"

"Maybe we should be! You want everyone to treat things like they're fine, because of a small increase in the amount of villains caught last month? We're in the start of a new year Indo, so instead of just looking at the last month, why don't we look at an average for months of last year? Why don't we look at last year compared to the year before, or an average of the fifteen, twenty years before it?" She paused and then snapped in a frustrated voice, "We aren't focusing on that, because the idea that things have gotten _that_ much worse is a horrible thing to imagine. Yet it's true, and I won't even start to feel optimistic until we see a _trend_ in decline. One month means nothing. We all celebrated back in June when things started going down for a minute, and everyone remembers how June turned out with Raijin and the Lifebringer Incident."

"Bringing up the Lifebringer Incident at a time like- actually," Indo calmed himself down, lifting up both palms in front of him and leaning back from his seat. He took in a deep breath and then lowered his hands to the table, and Kuzano took in a deep breath too. "Things can get heated in here, that's why I always enjoy this part of my day." Indo paused, then he started again, "But let's focus on the future then. If you're talking about an average of the last fifteen, twenty years, _including_ last year," Indo smiled and lifted his eyebrows to the sides of his horn while finishing, "Then last year was the fluke."

Kuzano rolled her eyes and started shaking her head, but Indo lifted his left hand and continued, "Listen listen. If you're going to say we can't take December as a trend for one month alone, and you want to look at the big picture, then look at the world over the past few decades compared to what it was before. We're safer, heroes are everywhere, and even when villains get out of control like they have been lately, our heroes are here to protect us."

"You can't go from zoomed so far in, to zooming super far out," Kuzano said in a frustrated tone that Indo was now backing up so much farther than she wanted him to. She lifted that look though and added, "However, I will agree that looking to the future is the move right now. I said I was looking for a trend, and the way January is going things are looking hopeful to push that trend forward."

"You're talking about the Christmas gift?" Indo asked, smiling and liking the shift of topic. "The gift that just keeps on giving?"

"The total count now is over _five hundred_ villains captured since Christmas day associated with the villain group known as 'The Syndicate.'"

"Well, not all of those arrested were villains-"

"Oh, you can bet I'm including all of them in that group," Kuzano countered right back. "It's the one country I really wish you would have added in your list before, even if their crime rate did not drop in December because of how high it was at the start of the month. Arkistan is cleaning house, and I continue to be impressed by the actions of G-4, Tyton, Urakao, the Rynzo Group, and the other Arkistani heroes who have been unrelenting in their actions these past few weeks."

"Prime Minister Fornkak, half his cabinet, dozens of government officials," Indo was listing them off with an impressed tone himself. He had to lift up another hand while listing, "Heads of police, and even the most unthinkable, their own fellow heroes. They got the proof they needed though, and yet to think that a group of heroes could weed out corruption _that_ deeply rooted inside a country is just, amazing. And we knew!"

"That's right."

"We knew, Arkistan was corrupt. The UN corruption index had them near the very top, and now! Now they're quickly making their way down that list." Indo shook his head in amazement, "All those heroes you mentioned are not only heroes for their own people, but for all the people of the world who were being affected by The Syndicate's operations. I never realized just how big that group was, but the information they sent to heroes in so many countries keeps resulting in more Syndicate-related arrests."

"The most interesting part about all of this," Kuzano started, and Indo leaned in with an interested look to see what she thought about it. "The Atlas Corp," she said, and Indo started nodding fast at her in agreement. "Holdings in all of those West Asian countries, and the headquarters in Arkistan winds up working with the Syndicate? That has to make it difficult for the countries around Arkistan to trust that label anymore. The Atlas Corporation has already thrown all of their guilty parties under the bus, but they keep shutting down-"

"They should be _shut_ down, not shutting down," Indo said. Kuzano hummed and nodded in agreement with the man who added with a disappointed shake of his head, "If nothing more than just to make an example of them. Show what happens when legitimate businesses stoop to the levels of villains. Working alongside them, the rumors of even funding them! It's as bad as being the villains carrying out those crimes themselves."

"Blaming every worker for the entire company for the actions of a few with a lot of power is a bit harsh," Kuzano began. "However, as much as I don't want hundreds, thousands of people to lose their jobs." Indo tssked and started nodding, but then he paused and nodded faster as Kuzano continued, "There needs to be a deeper investigation into _who_ knew about the Atlas Corporation's connections with the Syndicate. Did shareholders? Did the owners and all upper management not just in Arkistan but around the region? What we need is for the Fergus Conglomerate to either firmly deny that this was a larger issue inside a company their group is responsible for, or to send an investigation to-"

Midoriya turned from the tv that just clicked off and spun towards the pro hero he was interning with. The man he had been working for over the last several months now, SkyLord, motioned towards him with a nod of his head. He had a red mask on over his head but with the beak and mask pulled up to rest on his hair, and he walked away with Midoriya running up behind his yellow wings and then to the hero's right side where SkyLord made some space for him. "Are we heading out?" Midoriya asked.

"Yes," SkyLord said, and he walked with his intern who was at this point his number one sidekick. "FlyGuy and ReBird are on the roof already, Deku. Are you ready for the mission?"

"I'm prepared," Midoriya replied. His expression was intense, and the lean green-haired boy with a New Year's haircut that had it only a few inches short off his head walked into the elevator after his pro hero. _Tokoyami was very busy the last few days, and suddenly SkyLord had an important mission for us. I did not want to pry as Tokoyami has said before that his activities with Hawks are confidential, but I think that I'll be learning today anyway. What could have the Number 2's attention? It's not for sure, but I think the way Tokoyami was acting today definitely seemed like something big was coming, and now that we have the weekend ahead of us too it's a good time. This weekend, something is coming._

The young hero and the pro rose to the roof and then moved to the middle where two of their comrades were. It was Friday night and though still early in the evening, since it was the middle of the winter the sky was already dark. There were dark clouds in the sky too, and the heroes' breath hung in front of their faces because of how cold the air was. They lifted off the roof.

The heroes wore winter costumes, and they soared through a freezing night with the wind pushing into their faces. Deku rose up between the others, then he dropped down to the roof of another skyscraper he bounded to. He leapt up in the air again even higher than before, nearly touching the bottoms of the clouds, and he stared out into the distance where he could see U.A.'s enormous campus.

SkyLord's agency's Tokyo office was not as large as its headquarters in Osaka, and the skyscraper it was inside of was shared with other businesses and offices and another hero agency even. Midoriya expected the mission was going to be nearby considering he did not have to take the bullet train to Osaka, but that he was heading back in the direction of his home city was unsettling to him. His eyes shifted from the school over to a part of the city they were heading towards where his childhood neighborhood was in. _Musutafu hasn't had a big villain attack in months. I won't let another happen. What's going on?_ "SkyLord," the boy in a green mask with two weird points sticking off the top and waving behind his head in the wind called out. He called it towards SkyLord and then kicked the air below his feet to keep himself up instead of dropping all the way to another building this time.

"You'll be briefed when we get there," FlyGuy bellowed over the wind. _Just like all of us,_ he thought with his eyes narrowed forward. His expression was intense, but Midoriya spotted frustration on the face of the older sidekick who yelled that to him.

 _Do any of them know? Tokoyami probably wouldn't have said anything to me anyway. After those Arkistani heroes were revealed… but could Japanese heroes really be working with, villains? It's why Underguard kept the Breakneck operation small, but somehow the League found out about it anyway._ Midoriya frowned but kept quiet for the rest of their trip, until SkyLord called out for everyone to head down to the police station.

Deku dropped down and landed on the roof of a building reaching high into the sky. He hopped off the edge still covered in Full Cowling, and he pounced off at 38% One For All to the street below. When he was about to hit down, he flipped himself over and swung his legs down below him. Deku made sure not to swing his legs too hard that the wind force would break through the street, but it did create enough wind to slow him down and flip him up to his feet right on the sidewalk off the road. FlyGuy and ReBird lowered down on Midoriya's sides, and SkyLord flapped his big yellow wings and then dropped to the ground when he was still fifteen feet up above the stairs in front of Midoriya.

The hero and his sidekicks walked up towards the front doors of the station. A few cops outside the building about to head down the steps moved to the sides and looked at the team of heroes as they went past. They did not look too surprised, but a few of them looked towards the middle of the sidekicks behind SkyLord. "Ey look, it's Deku."

"Bringing in students for something like this…"

Midoriya turned his head to the right and looked over to a couple officers, but they kept down the stairs and actually quieted down as their sergeant gave them a harsh look. _What is up? It's weird that the officers already know but we weren't told beforehand. Maybe those guys were part of this and not everyone is, or maybe… Maybe it's not about keeping it a secret at all. This could be too big to try and hide. We just have to trust that everyone involved is on our side._

The heroes headed into the front lobby of the station, and an officer behind a desk not far from the doors lowered the phone from his ear. He waved a hand his direction and then pointed to the right, and the heroes nodded at him and then headed farther into the station. Midoriya walked in and looked around the police station he had not been inside of for a while. He looked over towards an interrogation room where he saw a couple of detectives walking out of and talking to each other in hushed voices, a villain on the other side of the closing door looking down at the metal table in front of him. The face of the villain he was looking towards was replaced by his own, and Midoriya thought about the questions asked of him in that same room half a year ago.

 _ **"Where would he go?"**_

 _ **"Were you close to Zach Sazaki?"**_

 _ **"How did he know the Gentle Criminal?"**_

 _ **"Do you know anything that might tell us where he is going?"**_

Midoriya walked out of the bigger room and into a hallway leading down to a stairwell. He shook his head and regained his intense expression, focusing on the task at hand, _whatever that may be._ He walked up some stairs behind SkyLord, and then he stepped out into a hallway on the second floor that went left and right from the stairs instead of straight out from them.

"Ch, you're here Deku?" Midoriya spun his head to the right with his eyes wide in surprise. Bakugo pushed off the wall and gave the boy in a green costume next to him an angry glare.

"Kacchan?! I didn't know you were-"

Bakugo turned around with a humph and started off down the hall of the police station. He had on a black costume with a white X strap on his chest from his belt to the attachments on his shoulders. He had his green gauntlets on, his blond spiky hair was flanked by the explosion-like black armor with a red highlight on the edges, and above his black boots on his knees were more green heavy armor pads. He got an annoyed look on his face as Deku ran up to his side and started walking down the hall with him, "Have you heard anything about-"

"Shut up," Bakugo grunted. He glanced over his shoulder and saw the other heroes back behind Midoriya looking his way. "They sent me to get you," he said, sounding a lot more annoyed as he announced that. Deku stared at him in more surprise, which Bakugo saw and darted him a furious look at which made Midoriya pull away. Bakugo spun back forward and kept marching forward with his fists clenched at his sides and an even more frustrated look on his face now.

 _Of course they called Deku. Damn bastards. If the half and half bastard shows up I'm gonna… Raaa! Don't send me to do fucking grunt work!_

Bakugo led his classmate and the other three heroes down the hall then turned to the left and slammed his fist on the door three times. He grabbed the knob and twisted it, throwing the door open and then stepping into the wide room as big as the first floor of the station's main room. Instead of a headquarters full of desks and lined with offices and different rooms, this was just a wide room that had half of it as a flat floor with the walls far away from each other leaving a big open space. The other half of the room rose slightly in elevation with gradual staircases that had rows of chairs breaking off of them, eight chairs in each section of the row. The sections were in the middle, right, and left sides of the two staircases that split the rows of chairs into thirds. A couple of heroes were sitting, and Midoriya recognized Underguard and Rubbergirl already in seats instead of up and mingling with the other heroes.

Midoriya was quick to scan out the room Kacchan just led them into. "Wow," he whispered, surprised by the fact that there were over twenty heroes already gathered before him in the room. _There's Hawks and Tokoyami! I knew this had to do with-_

"Ah, Midoriya." A deep voice spoke in a pleasantly surprised tone on Midoriya's right.

The boy still wearing his green mask spun and then said in surprise, "C-Cementoss sensei. I wasn't expecting-"

"Ah, I suppose I should have called you Deku," Cementoss realized, as hearing the boy refer to him as "sensei" made him feel strange at the moment. "Please, Cementoss is fine right now. We are not in school."

The last line Cementoss said got Midoriya to nod seriously back at him. Then he turned back into the room as he noticed everyone else had turned towards the door as they realized who it was who just came in. "Midoriya," Ashido called out, and she started running over towards her classmate who had been surprised to see her too. "Who would've thought you'd be here?"

"Ashido, and Yaoyorozu," Midoriya said, nodding behind Ashido at the taller girl walking up to him as well.

"How's it going SkyLord?" Hawks said, walking to the man with yellow wings who had stepped past Midoriya's left side.

"Hawks, good to see you," SkyLord said. He would have held his right hand out to shake his fellow hero's hand, but since Hawks did not have a right arm to shake with SkyLord just nodded in a serious way at him. "You've brought in a lot of heroes for this. It's unlike you."

"Just because I called you doesn't mean this is all just me," Hawks said, holding up his left hand defensively like he did not want to be known as a guy who would get things together like this in the future. "Plus, we're still waiting on a few more."

SkyLord looked around in surprise. With the four of them who just entered, the room now had twenty-five heroes in it. SkyLord's head turned to the right and his eyes narrowed at the four students on his right side, then his eyes shifted and he added another to that list as Hawks' sidekick Tsukuyomi walked over to his classmates as well. Then SkyLord turned his head a bit more and looked towards two other young heroes who he recognized a little after he noticed the students from U.A.'s most famous, Class A. He turned back to Hawks and said, "Quite a few students here."

Hawks scratched the back of his head with his left hand and nodded. His red wings were folded in and pulled close behind his back, though not as close as SkyLord's who actually managed to overlap his yellow ones and press them fully into his back so they were not sticking out to the sides at all. "Any reason for that?" SkyLord asked, and Hawks lowered his arm before glancing over his shoulder farther into the room.

"Tell you in a bit. Let's wait for everyone," Hawks said, glancing back forward at SkyLord through his goggles. SkyLord hummed but nodded at Hawks, accepting that he would get the information he wanted soon enough.

"Oh come on Tokoyami," Ashido said, leaning in towards the dark boy who had his beak sealed of all secrets. Bakugo tssked and turned away with his arms crossed and an annoyed look on his face, and Midoriya looked a bit disappointed too that Tokoyami still was not going to say even though they were all at the same meeting now.

Yaoyorozu accepted Tokoyami's desire not to start revealing what might be secrets though, and she turned back to Midoriya herself, "Did you come all the way from Osaka, Midoriya?"

Midoriya hesitated, then he shook his head no. The others all looked in at him, and he said, "After school I got a message to go to the Tokyo office instead today. I kind of thought," he turned his head a bit to Tokoyami who opened his eyes wider in surprise. "Something was going on," Midoriya finished.

Bakugo shook his head and turned to walk away. He listened as Midoriya threw his hands up and tried telling Tokoyami that he didn't really give anything away, and Tokoyami said he should not have been bringing his work back into the classroom. Ashido tried prying again, and Yaoyorozu scolded her to just be patient. Midoriya looked between the girls in front of him and towards where Bakugo was walking, and his eyes widened in surprise at the two who turned to the boy walking their direction.

The sight of Fera Indago, known at U.A. as the strongest of the current third years, did not surprise Midoriya too much. He knew that she and Bakugo had been interning together for a while now, since the first term of their second year at least. They were already into the third term now so he had seen the two of them together a lot, but he did not know the guy over there to be someone working with them too. He recognized a man walking towards them as a pro hero he knew as Gargantuan, and the other third year from U.A. who had been talking to Indago nodded at his hero and then walked off with him to go meet the heroes who just arrived.

Yaoyorozu spotted where Midoriya was looking, and she looked over her shoulder too and over to the tall teen with straight black hair who she recognized just like Midoriya. They spotted another of the top recruits of U.A.'s third years, someone they had both heard about from a classmate of theirs who had gone to the same middle school as him only in the year before. _Nagiso, Mondo._

The two looking towards their upperclassman watched as he stepped right up to SkyLord when Gargantuan got his fellow hero's attention. Nagiso stuck out his right hand and shook SkyLord's hand with an intense look on his face, "It is an honor to meet you."

"Jelloman, right?" SkyLord asked while shaking the teen's hand back. Nagiso nodded his head and SkyLord nodded back at the firm grip the eighteen year old had. "It's going to be good working with you. I can tell." SkyLord let go of the handshake and turned to Gargantuan, "Never took you for one to take a sidekick out of your usual Quirk-set."

"He can get big," Gargantuan assured, cracking a smirk with the right corner of his lip lifting.

Nagiso nodded when SkyLord looked back at him, and the older hero humphed and then said, "I'll have to see that." _His Quirk is Jello if I recall. How-_ SkyLord turned as three knocks hit the closed door back into the hallway he came in from. He watched as the door opened and an officer led another two heroes inside before heading back out.

Bakugo glared over at the door and scowled at how _this_ time they got a regular officer to do that job. Indago shook her head and said, "It's not like you're being social. Might as well be the runner. No need to waste precious police time-"

"My time's more important," Bakugo grunted at her.

The girl just an inch shorter than Bakugo was slender and had blonde hair falling just below her shoulder-blades. She looked at the side of his face with a roll of her eyes, then she grinned and said, "You don't know half the heroes in here do you?" Bakugo shrugged with an uncaring look, and Indago smirked more before leaning back where she stood and putting her hands behind her head. "That's why you're still behind Deku over there. Saw on his face the second he walked in that there wasn't a person he couldn't name-"

"I don't need to know the names of weaklings," Bakugo growled.

"You don't know anyone's name, because you're an idiot and _can't_ remember them," Indago remarked back. "Nice excuse though," she taunted, while Bakugo ground his teeth angrily and tried not to give her the satisfaction of a response to that. She already knew it got to him without him saying a single thing though, and she started laughing at the younger teen at her side who was actually only a couple of months younger than her. Bakugo was the oldest in his own class, and Indago was one of the youngest in hers, yet that just made the dynamic between the two interns all the more frustrating to Bakugo who was struggling to restrain himself at the moment.

"Everyone's here, you two," Bakugo and Indago looked over at the hero they were interning with. She motioned at them to come with her with a single motion of her head, then she walked over to the middle of the room's front row and sat down without moving up the stairs or anything. Miruko leaned back in her seat, and she put her arms up over the chairs on either side of her. Her arms were curved around the tops of the seats, and she opened up her hands and pointed her index fingers in and down for her interns who reluctantly started towards her.

Bakugo moved to the right of the seat Miruko was pointing at on her left, as he had a feeling she might actually put that arm on the top of his chair around his throat should he sit there. He figured it was a good move too when Indago left the seat on Miruko's right side open as well.

When Miruko came back into the room, two other heroes re-entered with her who Midoriya was seeing for the first time. And for the first time since Midoriya arrived at the police station, he did not recognize one of the heroes he was seeing. "Who is that?" Ashido asked, looking behind Encode and at the older hero with a red cape on and blue spandex that looked a little too loose on him. She turned to Midoriya when she asked, then her eyebrows lifted high and she asked in a lot more surprise, "You don't know?"

"I… don't," Midoriya replied slowly.

"Deku," SkyLord said, looking over towards his intern who nodded back at him and then nodded at his classmates. It was kind of a goodbye, but not really, so they all just nodded at each other before heading off to their respective heroes who were moving for the seats in the huge briefing room.

"Talk to you in a bit," Ashido said, leaning in towards Yaoyorozu for a second before pulling off to run over to All Tight. The female hero with the Quirk- Tightening, was heading up the stairs and walked into the row on the right side where Underguard was sitting. She went over and sat next to her teammate, and Ashido sat on her other side like Rubbergirl was sitting on Underguard's.

Yaoyorozu glanced to her right as she started up the steps. She looked towards Bakugo who had his arms crossed and was leaned back in his seat with an annoyed look. _He's not nervous. Tokoyami's expression has me cautious, and I could see the others are serious as well. I wonder how those three do it?_ She glanced at the two women in the front row with Bakugo, then she looked up herself towards Ballerclava and Shiro Swan who were on her left and sitting down with one open seat left for her in the aisle.

Tokoyami sat in the front row on Bakugo's other side as the open seat between him and Miruko. Bakugo glanced at him wondering what he was doing sitting there, but Tokoyami was fully focused ahead and Bakugo lifted his eyebrows as he realized Tokoyami only chose the seat because it was the closest to the front of the room. Bakugo looked over his shoulder and checked real quick, _I count thirty. On the nose, and that's everyone. Thirty's a lot. What's up with seven of us being U.A. students? Weird coincidence for something this big. So that means it's not one._

Hawks stood up in the front of all the chairs along with the other two heroes who had walked back in last. They stood in the middle of the half of the room below everyone else, and Miruko let out a long yawn while leaning her head back over the top of her seat. It had only been a second since the last person sat down, but she was an impatient person and lowered her head to glare at Encode in a way telling him to start talking.

The hero in the middle of the three and farthest forward took another step up towards the rest of the heroes they had gathered. "As you may know, my name is Encode. I have been a pro hero for ten years." The man was thin, five foot four, and he had on thick glasses. He wore a white button down shirt with tight white sleeves on underneath sticking out on his wrists before his black gloves. The white undershirt also went up from under his collar to cover his neck and the bottom of his chin before stopping. He had on a pair of tight black pants too, with sneakers that did not look to match them. He had a nerdy appearance, yet he was lean and not scrawny as his tight clothes saved him from the worst first impressions. "I have called together this task force with a sole mission in mind that I wish to accomplish by the end of this weekend."

"Which is…" Miruko started, leaning her head forward and raising her eyebrows a few times. The dark-tan-skinned woman narrowed her thin white eyebrows down after asking. Her long white hair fell straight down behind her all the way to her seat, and she did not like sitting for too long in boring meetings like this. The muscular woman had tight white sleeves slid up her arms and on her legs that were usually exposed out of the white leotard she wore to fight crime. She had on long purple boots tight to her skin and extending from her feet all the way to her mid thighs, going underneath and then out the top of the white elastic leg-sleeves she had on. The bottoms of her boots had special equipment attached as did her waist with the metal plates on it and her thick white gloves. The woman with tall fluffy rabbit ears narrowed her intense red eyes while smirking at the heroes, specifically Hawks who she continued towards, "You promised me a good fight."

Hawks sweatdropped at the Number 4 ranked hero in the nation. The older hero behind Encode on his other side got a much darker look on his face as he glared towards Miruko, and she turned to the man who looked at her like that. As Encode opened his mouth to continue, Miruko snapped at the older man first, "And what's with that look old-timer? Who even are you?"

He pulled back as Miruko immediately snapped at him for looking at her that way. The hero with a long red cape glanced around the room and did not see looks of recognition from the others looking his way either. Encode glanced back at him, and the man nodded and stepped forward himself. "Sorry for the last introduction all of you. I am, Yuno Kasegawa. I was once known as the Wrangling Hero: Wrangler."

ReBird glanced to his right at the younger boy next to him who he thought might know. "Even the fanboy hasn't heard of him," he muttered mainly to himself, though FlyGuy nodded with a skeptical look on his face while looking down at that old man.

"What are you doing here?" Miruko snapped, already bored of his introduction. She turned back to Encode, "Actually, tell me what we're doing now."

Wrangler paused with his mouth open, then he sighed and lowered his head while taking a step back. Most people in the room felt back for the old hero, though a couple agreed with Miruko and were looking to Encode to finally hear what this was all about.

"The Cult of Stain," Encode stated. His head lowered a bit and a glare caught his glasses' lenses so that his eyes could not be seen through them anymore. The man did not sound much like a nerd at all anymore, as he said in a dark voice, "The number one cause of hero fatalities in Japan over the past year. We will crush them this weekend." His head lifted back up and he stared through his glasses straight into Miruko's eyes, "Does that sound like something worth your time?"

"Hmph," Miruko leaned back in her seat and got a satisfied smirk on her face. She said while sitting there smiling, "Why didn't you just say so? Fuck yeah it's worth my time."

"It will definitely be the fight you asked for," Wrangler said. The group of heroes facing the front of the room looked to the old hero who spoke in a much more ominous tone than when he was meekly introducing himself a moment ago.

"What's that supposed to mean?" Miruko asked.

"How about we let them give us the briefing?" SkyLord remarked up towards the woman who spun her head and glared up at him. "I am sure they will explain it all in time." _Impatient woman… She's probably like this because she never goes to these things. I'm surprised Hawks managed to get a hold of her for a minute, always bouncing to and fro. Can't sit still that one._

 _She just shows up wherever and does her own thing. Try planning something out for a change,_ Underguard looked her direction through his mask under his dark green hood. As Miruko turned back after shooting SkyLord that glare, Underguard swore he saw her red eyes dart to look straight under his hood. _Though, she is sitting here. It seems she does plan to give it a chance. As long as she does not hold us up for much longer._

Ashido got chills when Miruko's eyes shot over her, and she did not know why the badass woman suddenly did that while in the middle of turning back forward. _It looked like she looked past me. Maybe at All Tight._

"Hawks and I have been attempting to track down these cultists together for several weeks now," Encode started. "We had both been doing our own work regarding them, however together we were able to ascertain whereabouts of certain cult members. I located a pattern in their movements, in the selections they made for what heroes to attack which has been reported by the mainstream media as 'random' so far. There are always patterns. Patterns that show what a villain is thinking, what their motives are, and where they will go next." Encode paused, and then he lowered his voice and continued, "But when I was on my own, for the first time, I thought I must have found true chaotic behavior. No pattern, no design… just chaos."

Encode's eyes got shadowed over by his silver bangs as he bowed his head a bit. "Until I realized that what I was seeing what not chaos at all, but a guise of chaotic behavior. Because no one can act that sporadically, it became clear to me that it was controlled chaos. It was a decision to do things at random. Intentional actions to make random results. The pattern was in the fact that it was so hard to locate the pattern, and yet I was able to convert that unpredictability into a code of my own. To determine where the next random actions would take place, however there were too many possibilities. Yet with Hawks' help, we were able to locate certain Stain Cult members and track them. They are insane, but… Their actions are those of professionals. Each individual member of the cult is so careful, so intricately placed and carefully maneuvered, and to have such chaos mixed with such refined villains seemed impossible. Insanity does not oft' make for elusiveness."

"So there's a big bad, in charge of the Stain Cult?" Indago asked from two seats down on Miruko's right. "The videos they've put out of hero executions suggested the same thing. The man in the red cloak."

Encode nodded his head, but he said in a lower voice, "Everything that man says in those videos however, we now believe to be a lie. Every word out of his mouth… It is all a manipulation. The videos are just a tool of his to gain more followers. Stain, was just the stage which he could get the most attention-"

"So you're saying this cult doesn't follow Stain's teachings at all?" Entertainer asked, frowning and clenching his fists on the armrests of his seat in fury.

"That's not it," Wrangler said. The old man with short white hair that was balding in the middle, and white stubble on his chin and cheeks stepped forward. His eyes were narrow and his voice low, and his old wrinkled hands clenched at his sides. "Each individual member likely believes they are following Stain, or perhaps, each one believes something different. They will all be loyal to _him_ though. The man in the red cloak." Wrangler paused and bared his teeth, and the other heroes in the room all felt a strange sense of unease. The sight of this old man looking so troubled, the lines that covered his face and the fact that he looked twice his age at the mention of that, it was alarming.

"He wears the cloak, to hide his face, because everyone would know just by looking at him that every word he utters is a lie. He can't help but smirk, like he's laughing at all those who he's fooling at all times," Wrangler clenched his fists tighter, and he was starting to pant as he rose his eyes from the floor to the heroes before him. "But the cloak has another purpose. Wearing it, keeping his appearance hidden, it shows those who follow him that he doesn't care about the glory. He doesn't care about being known as the best villain, or about his own ego. Wearing the cloak convinces everyone around him that what he says is truth, because if he's not doing it for himself then he's doing it for the reasons he claims. He does not follow Stain's teachings because he wants to be the next Stain, or because he wants Stain to know he is a loyal follower, but because he truly believes in what Stain stands for… Or at least, that's what he'll have convinced all the others."

"How do you know so much about this man?" Underguard questioned down towards the old man. "And, you said that you 'used to be' Wrangler. I take it that you're retired."

"I retired, the day we captured him," Wrangler said. "Because, I couldn't…" he grit his teeth in regret, and he hissed out through a choked voice, "For twenty-four years, his face has haunted me."

"You captured, him," Midoriya started softly. He started breathing faster, and his eyes started opening wider as he stared into his lap. He could hear his heart pounding in his ears, he felt time slowing down around him, and he was putting things together faster than ever. Eight months earlier, in an internship he had up in Hokkaido, he remembered hearing something after the fighting was over. The next day in the hospital, he heard a voice telling him a story that Breakneck had revealed while trying to stall. _Is it, the same one from the story? Zach said, Breakneck sounded unnerved by the guy he mentioned riling people up about Stain._

"So what, is he a Tartaros escapee?" Miruko asked, frowning at the old man who was acting all dramatic about this.

"He is," Wrangler replied. "And he, is the most monstrous thing that was inside that prison. Worse than All For One, or Stain himself, this _man_ is the worst villain I have ever known."

"All For One destroyed half of Camino Ward," Ballerclava started. "Tell me something to convince me that you're not just an old man, afraid of an enemy from his past. You say you retired because of him? Did he injure you-"

"No," Wrangler said, shaking his head as he did. Hawks and Encode got dark looks on their faces, and Bakugo glanced to his side as he noticed a much darker expression spreading on Tokoyami's, as well as a bead of sweat dripping down his face. The top of Wrangler's face covered in dark lines and he said in a low voice, "Twenty six years ago, I started hunting him-"

"You keep saying 'him,'" Miruko interrupted, to the chagrin of a lot of the people there. "What's his name?"

"We called him X," Wrangler said. "He was designated as Prisoner 04879. His true name was never discovered, and currently he is known by the others in his following solely as, Faith." Wrangler shifted his gaze off of Miruko who lost the look she just had as Wrangler said that. Everyone in the room started shifting their positions, and leaning forward, and opening their eyes wide as the old hero continued. "I had been a hero for thirty odd years at that time, but I had never seen anything like the crimes he committed. A serial killer, a bank robber, a car thief, a weapons' dealer… he was everyone, and no one at the same time. X, was the designation we gave him because when he was a serial killer he would, carve X's into his victims in a hidden place somewhere on their body, or inside it. I once discovered a victim recently killed, her chest stitched up the middle, and an X carved directly into her heart. There was no reason for it. He only did it that one time…" Wrangler paused and he bit down so hard, shaking his head and closing his eyes to try and shake the memory away.

"Then, he started getting his followers," Wrangler started, opening his eyes again and returning to a serious tone from earlier. No one was interrupting him now though. They all just stared at the older hero who continued in a dark voice, "Everything before that, was experimentation. He found his calling with manipulation. Getting others to do things that, that no humans should have ever been able to do. And he wasn't brainwashing them, he wasn't, controlling them. He indoctrinated people like I had never… I've seen villains willing to kill for each other before, even die for each other. But the people who followed him had no connection with him, they believed different things and all of them believed that he felt the same way. He was a, a mastermind. A supervillain. And I spent years hunting him down. Every time I'd get close, he'd slip away and start a new enterprise, find new followers, a new goal. Then, when nearly three years of this cat and mouse game were gone, my wife with them, since he had showed up at my house one night that second year of-" Wrangler's fists clenched at his sides and his teeth bared in rage. His eyes were widening though, and they shook not in pain of his loss, or anger at the villain.

Wrangler's eyes shook in fear. The room was silent as the man's fists unclenched, and he whispered, "He went too far. He shot too high, and, and he got the attention of people who he didn't know existed. Who I didn't know existed. A man known as, Lavamander," Wrangler paused and he lowered his gaze to the floor for a second. Then he rose it and continued, "Many of you, I am sure, have heard of anti-heroes, and the anti-hero society that lingers inside our own?"

Five heroes in the room, the youngest ones all sat there with their eyes wide. A few of the heroes nodded, but the majority just looked confused. Wrangler continued while looking to Miruko and the boys on her side who seemed to recognize what he was saying, "At the time, Lavamander was… And he still might be, the strongest man I had ever met. An anti-hero, who joined us and defeated every single hero in our team when we tried to arrest him first… He lurked in the shadows, and he came to us to take down X. The next night would be the fateful night that we defeated him once and for all. Losing, half of my team in the process, against new followers he had obtained in such a short amount of time. And, and yet, when I finally grabbed him and got that hood off his head. As I looked into those eyes, and he smirked at me, I was terrified he knew something that I didn't. Like, he knew he would escape one day. And that haunted me for twenty-three years, the idea that he would one day escape from Tartaros. So when he did, I had to come out of retirement. It took me some time, and I'm not what I once was. I need to stop him though-"

"So you are here for revenge?" Cementoss questioned. Midoriya looked down a row in front of him where his teacher asked that in a serious voice towards the old pro who Midoriya was still feeling bad for right now. He told himself he had to be thinking the same as Cementoss though and looked up sternly towards Wrangler himself.

"No, no," Wrangler said, his voice getting softer on the second 'no.' "If anything, I wanted to flee the country as soon as I heard he had escaped. Or kill myself." Cementoss opened his eyes wide and leaned back at that response. Wrangler looked tired, and he explained, "I feared he would be after me. The things I saw that night… the look on his face as his followers _ate-_ I saw, what I believe to be pure evil. He didn't damage me that night. I wasn't injured, but he had done to me what he did to so many. He broke me. But after I thought about running away, I considered just how many people he had hurt in those years I hunted him. That evil was in the world again, and I knew I had to do something. As the one person with experience fighting him, I knew I _could_ do something."

"And without his help, we never would have determined the identity of Faith, the Stain Cult's leader," Encode finished. He stepped forward and put a hand on the right shoulder of the older man who just stepped back while letting out a deep breath as he had to speak for a while there.

"Hold on," Miruko started. She looked next to Encode at the old man who stopped stepping back, and she asked, "What's this guy's Quirk? If he's not controlling the people he uses then-"

"Quirkless," Wrangler said. Miruko froze with her mouth open, and her eyes started growing huge as did everyone else sitting near her. Wrangler's expression was dark and serious, and he just repeated, "He is, by all means, Quirkless. I never once saw him use a Quirk. I, I could be wrong. Maybe he does have one hidden, but even as he was being tied up with his face bloodied and his body burned, he only tried reaching for a knife. That's not to say he's weak, or that he can't fight but- but his strength isn't what makes him terrifying."

"Listen," Encode started firmly, stepping forward and stopping Wrangler from continuing any further about the villain of his past. "Don't let this villain scare you… And if he already does scare you then fine, let him. We have to stop him though. He used the cult following that Stain had, to create an actual cult that does whatever he says. He's been methodically killing heroes, including several that the heroes in this room have worked with. Powerful heroes, heroes who were separated from their teams or weakened from other losses…"

 _Gogogo,_ Underguard thought. _I'm still looking after Sameko. I couldn't bring her here though. When Hawks told me it wasn't a good idea, I knew this would have something to do with them._

Midoriya thought about the same woman for a second who he had fought alongside in Mosu Esupa. Then his thoughts shifted to the same two people who the rest of his classmates were thinking about with sad looks on their faces. _Mandalay, Pixie Bob… Oh- oh wait. Was Mandalay, was that payback for what they did at Tartaros? Or, did this villain convince the others that going after them was revenge for it… Or, did he just, he just killed them because Stain- The look in Wrangler's eyes._ Midoriya's hands clenched down on his knees. _We are up against someone truly dangerous. I don't accept that he's worse than All For One. I, can't believe that. But I can accept that it's a different kind of evil. All For One was a calculated force, this is chaotic evil. As much as they're both manipulators, what goals does this villain have other than to just, destroy? Is there a reason behind it? Wrangler fought him for years, and he just thinks it's insanity. An intelligent, chaos._

 _Shizuka._ Emi Fukukado lowered her smile that she tried to always keep on her face. Ms. Joke leaned forward in her seat and focused in on Encode, wondering if he knew about the friendship she had had with Rinse n Repeat.

"…the pattern I discovered we were able to narrow down more and more based on locations of the most recent attacks, and I believe I know for sure where they will be next. I am not going to wait for them to attack more heroes who are off guard, and then try to sweep in and save them. We are going to attack them. The bait they usually set up, we're going to give them ourselves."

"What are you talking about?" Miruko asked in annoyance at the cryptic way Encode just said that.

Bakugo crossed his arms and frowned, but he realized what the man was saying before he even explained it to his pro hero. "It's simple," Encode began. "We stage a fake villain incident. Several if need be. We will have the same small group go in at the area we suspect the cult will attack next over the next few days. Other villain incidents, this small team will also be responsible to go take on. The real ones could be real, or they could be set-ups for the Cult. Whether the team has our fake villains on their side or not can make a big difference, but the plan is that when the Cult of Stain launches their trap and surrounds the first group of heroes, we set off our trap and encircle all of them. We will call in the police at that point and set a wide perimeter, and we will take down all of the Stain Cultists in one swift blow."

"So we're not just using villains as our own bait, but the heroes who are going after that bait too," SkyLord started loudly. Encode got a darker expression on his face, and a few other heroes slow to realizing it opened their eyes wide. "Waiting for an ambush to go off on members of our own team before everyone else moves in-"

"The ones in that first team are going to be at high risk," Encode finished for him. "You are absolutely right. But we need to do this, because we need to get the Stain Cult now. We need to get rid of them soon, this month, as soon as possible. For so many reasons on top of just saving our fellow heroes who will not be able to handle the army of cultists when they're ambushed."

Cementoss nodded his head in agreement a couple of times. "You are speaking of the 'trend' we have constantly been hearing about," Cementoss said. Midoriya looked down at the back of his teacher's head, and his eyes were wide for a moment as he remembered what the news anchors were arguing about before he left SkyLord's agency. The hero and teacher continued, "Everyone is talking about wanting to see a 'trend' upwards, out of the darkness. It is symbolic, yet also very important for the sake of the country that everyone see this trend continuing. It discourages future villains, inspires heroes, and raises the morale and feeling of safety in the public."

"And this is a risky play, riskiest one we have," Hawks said with a nod of agreement towards Cementoss. "If we fail, and the Cult of Stain winds up killing the bait and all us ambushers, the trend is gone. We can kiss it goodbye and any hope of progress. Fear spreads." Hawks sighed and cracked a small smile as talking so serious felt unusual to him. He scratched the back of his head and looked towards Tokoyami then the boy right next to him, "The Class A students we've specifically made sure to bring in might make it even worse, but as much as that loss would be a lot worse, a victory with them makes a win matter so much more."

"If you try to keep us out of the action and then just hand us credit later, I'm fucking leaving," Bakugo snapped at the Number 2 hero looking his way.

"Oi," Miruko clenched her fist and slammed it into the top of Bakugo's head, making his whole body hunch over from the powerful hit.

"Just shut up," Indago snapped past Miruko over at the spiky-haired blond lifting his head with his eyes huge and pure white and his teeth bared.

Miruko put her hands in both of the students' faces and pushed them away as they leaned over the empty seats on her sides. "It's unlike you to have sidekicks with you, Miruko," Hawks said, looking at the rabbit-woman who frowned back at him for saying that.

"I like these two," she chided back at the hero whose rank she wanted to overtake. "Besides, they're technically still just interns and I'm training them. It's not like I teamed up with anyone like a weakling." Her eyes narrowed and she leaned back in her chair, "I don't like this set up. Traps, ploys, they're weak."

"Miru-"

"But!" The woman snapped at Encode who tried speaking up. He paused and closed his mouth at the angry look she shot him. "Those cultists have killed some good heroes. People I liked. If you're giving me a chance to kick their asses, I'm taking it."

"Who are you thinking for the bait?" Cementoss questioned. His tone was serious and everyone in the room looked over towards him. The seven U.A. students all spotted their teacher shift his gaze around them after he asked. Cementoss looked seriously back at Encode who nodded in response.

"I suppose it is time to get to that," Encode said. He turned to Bakugo and said while looking the young man in the eyes, "You do not need to worry about being handed any credit. Everyone here will be taking part in the fight. We do not have the manpower or confidence to leave capable heroes on the sidelines during the ambush." Bakugo humphed and narrowed his eyes, not yet feeling satisfied but not feeling as annoyed as he was a minute ago. "We need everyone there to be fighting, because the Cult of Stain is not a joke. They are believed to be made up of several Tartaros members, as well as dozens of followers, their exact numbers being anywhere from 60, to 150."

"That's a big range," Underguard said in a dark voice.

"It is difficult to differentiate between members when they are all cloaked. During the attacks and their videos we have gotten very little information as to who is a part of this cult, or what their Quirks are. They rose to prominence right after the Tartaros escape though. The Sports Festival Incident incited more to follow the group that had founded and made its first videos, and it was not taken seriously enough at the start as a legitimate villain organization. As the threat we now know it to be." Encode paused and then when he was about to speak up again, he turned his head and looked up into the seats where a student just lifted his hand.

Deku lowered his hand and started speaking when Encode looked his way. "I heard, back in my internship in May," Midoriya began. Others in the room all looked over and the boy who had been frustrated and clenching his fists took a calming breath before continuing, "The Tartaros escapee Breakneck described the Tartaros breakout in an attempt to stall for time. During it, he mentioned a man who had tied together prison guard uniforms as a cloak he wore," Midoriya slowed down for a moment as he saw Wrangler looking towards him with his eyes huge. He took another breath and then said in a serious voice, "When Stain was leaving right after going through the portal to escape Tartaros, this escapee called to him asking to come along. He called out that they all followed Stain's ideals, and others… before Stain left, he told the man that he worked alone and not to get in his way, but he also said that he wouldn't get in his. Breakneck said that this man was the only person in the room full of Tartaros escapees and League of Villains who he, was afraid of…"

"Breakneck told you all of this?" Encode asked the young hero in surprise.

Midoriya hesitated. He sat there with an uncertain look on his face for a second, and then Underguard spoke up across that half of the room, "Zach Sazaki." Midoriya lowered his gaze down, unable to meet the looks of his classmates who all started staring at him with wide eyes. Underguard continued after a moment, "He made that report after the attack, that he questioned Breakneck in an attempt to make the man try to stall him and reveal what he, wanted to know about the escape." Underguard paused, then he added, "I believe that information is reliable, and, he also mentioned that the man Breakneck described in that cloak, showed off the ability to control blue electricity."

"What?!" Wrangler exclaimed in shock. He shook his head and then looked down, muttering to himself for a second before looking up with disbelief. "I don't see how that can be. When he was captured, he would have had the chance to… How can you think this information is reliable if it came from-"

Wrangler froze. He paused with his mouth open, as several people in the room in front of him started glaring harshly at him. "Zach wouldn't have lied about stuff like that," Ashido called down defensively.

Rubbergirl glanced down past Underguard and All Tight to the pink girl a few seats down from her. She lowered her head under her green hood similar to Underguard's, and she thought about the frustration she felt when Sazaki changed up their plans for the Trigger lab raid in Mosu Esupa. The things he had known which told her she could not trust him at all. _Yet he told us all that, knowing we wouldn't be able to trust him afterwards. That's what Underguard said. He said we could trust him, then he went and, killed Kurogiri. The raid would have went without a hitch if Kurogiri hadn't brought the League there... We would've gotten the Apocalypse too… Lifebringer, wasn't a bad kid._ "He had no reason to tell us that stuff," Rubbergirl started. "He described a conversation that he regretted because doing that instead of catching Breakneck, he allowed Breakneck to slip away from him only for Deku to catch him later on. He messed up, but he got us a bit of information that right now seems pretty useful."

"Then we'll check that report and see if we can determine which other Tartaros escapees went with Faith based on the story he heard," Encode said, sounding like he was trying to shift the focus back as he could see people looking ready to argue with each other. Others had their mouths open ready to back up Lifebringer, but Yaoyorozu and Tokoyami both closed their mouths at Encode's quick acceptance. "Right now though, I will go over the bait team. If you do not wish to be a part of this team, say the word and I will remove you. I believe I have created a perfect team however for our purposes. One that the Stain Cult, and specifically Faith, will be unable to stop themselves from coming out to attack."

Attention shifted back to the task at hand immediately. Wrangler still glanced up towards Deku with his eyes shaking and his mind racing as he tried wrapping his mind around the idea of his worst nemesis having a Quirk. _Why didn't he ever use it? If it was a secret, why use it in front of all of them? Why? How?!_ Wrangler started taking heavy breaths, but he did turn his head to the right and nod at Encode when the younger man gave him a questioning look to see if he was alright. Wrangler quieted his panting breaths, and he took in a deep breath to get himself under control. _I have to stop him. No matter his power, his ability, how many followers he has. X! I won't let you have your way with this world! I won't, let you get away again._

"Put me on the team," Miruko started.

Multiple heroes in the room had to stifle groans. Encode looked at the woman in front of him and replied calmly though, "Unfortunately, neither you nor Hawks will be able to take part in the bait team. They will suspect something big is up if you are seen with multiple heroes, and they will be less inclined to come out if a top ranked hero is in the fray."

Miruko frowned deeper and she clenched her hands on the seat backs to her sides. _This is why I don't like teams. I'll do what I want._ "Fine," she said, lifting her head and tilting it back with a bored look as the rest of the meeting did not matter much to her anymore.

"Ms. Joke," Encode started. The green haired woman wearing an orange bandanna nodded her head and smiled at the man speaking directly to her. "With you on the team there is a clear excuse why the fake-villains we will have as bait do not need to be physically harmed. Changeling will turn myself and-"

"If Changeling is-" Miruko started.

"Please, let me finish," Encode started to the woman he knew was about to snap back in when he brought up Changeling. "After the initial attack when they trap the bait team we have fighting the fake villains, the fake villains will need to fight alongside the heroes against the enemies trapping them. They will realize that it was a trap and be more careful, however with only the two fake villains we had turning against them and revealing themselves as heroes, it will not make them flee. Our goal is to keep them contained at whatever location they ultimately spring their trap, until we can have a full perimeter around them. Wiping out the entire Stain Cult in one decisive blow, not spooking them into scattering and regrouping."

"Fine!" Miruko exclaimed, and she leaned back again with a look showing she was finally going to accept it this time. She crossed her arms and glared at Encode, "Finish it up."

 _I would be finished already if you weren't- AHH!_ Encode's expression was completely calm and he just nodded back at the woman who was frustrating him to no end. "The second member of the bait team will be Deku," Encode continued. All of Midoriya's classmates glanced over at him. Bakugo had an annoyed expression, and he glared at his classmate only to lift his eyebrows for a second as Deku never looked down towards him. Midoriya just stared forward with a serious and accepting look, and he nodded his head once at Encode.

"Deku will be a part of this team because of the reports taken from the attack at the U.A. summer training camp. The villain known as Spinner stopped one of his comrades from attacking Deku, which we know he did because of the Hosu Incident where Stain killed a Nomu that had assaulted Deku."

Midoriya lowered his gaze down, his fists clenching harder than they just were in the serious acceptance of his role. He could see Stain saving him from that Nomu, and then he saw the look in Stain's eyes right after that. Then in his mind flashed a lifting scarred face with eyes full of as much conviction, and Midoriya had to try and shake it out of his mind. It was difficult just hearing about Spinner too though and bringing up so many incidents from the past he remembered that face being in with him.

"…We believe that villains consider Deku as a hero who Stain thought was worth saving."

"Wouldn't that keep them away?" Shiro Swan questioned down. The white-haired young woman who was sidekicking for Ballerclava had a confused expression on her face wondering why Deku would be part of that first group then. Midoriya gained a similarly confused look as he had just accepted it right away as part of the plan, but now that he thought of it the idea did not make much sense to him either.

Wrangler spoke up this time though, "No." The others all looked to the older man who shook his head and then said in a confident way, "That will only interest X- no, Faith more. Because he'll want to see if he can turn them against him, or maybe he'll try making Deku follow him…" Wrangler's eyes shifted straight to Deku, and Midoriya's eyes opened wide at that look.

"I would never become a villain," Midoriya said defensively at the older hero's nervous look.

A lot of the others in the room darted Wrangler angered looks at his distrust, but Wrangler only eased back a little at Midoriya's quick response. "Yes, yes of course," he said, sounding apologetic like he did not know why he looked at Deku like that, but yet he did not sound too sure of his apology. As much as some of them wanted to call out Wrangler on his distrust, the thought of Faith being manipulating enough that he would be able to turn heroes, or just that Wrangler thought it was a possibility, was not something they felt like belittling.

"Ms. Joke will get the villains to laugh, and we will use the excuse that Deku's attacks would be too powerful to show why he is not beating on villains unable to defend themselves. We will only have thirty minutes for each fake villain attack based on the time restraints of Changeling's power. Ms. Joke will handle taking on myself and Ballerclava, who will be the other fake villain in the bait scenarios," Encode paused and looked up at the hero who wore a black ski mask. Ballerclava nodded at him in acceptance, and then Encode continued while looking back Deku's direction. "Other than Deku and Ms. Joke, SkyLord will also be there since these villains should know that Deku is working with him."

SkyLord nodded. He was feeling unsure about this until that moment, not liking the idea of sending in his intern with a provisional hero license in the middle of a bunch of hero killers as bait. As long as he was there as well though, he figured it was a better play. Hawks started up after SkyLord nodded down at Encode, "Realistically, Deku is the most important part of this mission." Midoriya looked down into the Number 2 hero's eyes and his own widened a bit at Hawks' look through his goggles. "Your ability to stall and act like a 'true hero' in front of those cultists could give the rest of us the time to surround the ambushing enemies. Most of them are idealists, and even if Faith is able to sway them a bit, should you act in a way that Stain would consider heroic, or that those people think Stain might consider heroic," Hawks paused and he scratched the side of his head. "Really, just try and get them to believe what the public thinks of you ever since that Inhuman fight."

"Currently the top prospect for Class A, and admittedly for all of U.A, is Deku," Encode agreed. Midoriya felt a little odd hearing that, especially in a room with two of his upperclassmen including the number 1 recruit of the year above him. Indago's mouth lowered into a deeper frown, and Bakugo was already grinding his teeth a few seats away from her which Miruko noticed out both corners of her eyes and smirked at. Midoriya noticed most the look from the boy Nagiso though, the upperclassman who looked his way with narrowed eyes and a frustrated expression, and he wished the pro heroes would stop talking him up already.

"And that is why Deku's appearance there makes the most sense," Encode continued. "If the villains do see him as someone Stain thought was worthy, then we think Faith will convince them to go after him. And if they don't think the same way that Spinner did, and instead all they see is that Class A has constantly had media attention, their names have been plastered all over the news, just like fake heroes… well, that works just as well. We can still expect them to make some sort of speech to him explaining why they chose him."

"Just those three then? Five _if_ the ambush takes place at one of our planned locations," Ballerclava said. She mentioned the 'five' as an aside because there was a possibility that they would need to send their bait team after actual villain incidents too if the Stain Cult went by their usual strategy and did not fall for a fake villain attack.

"I will be going with them as well," Wrangler said. A lot of the heroes in the room looked towards the old man with hesitant looks, and some appeared ready to counter him on this. "I reapplied and obtained my hero's license in full. I may be old, but I am still a hero." He said it obstinately, then he narrowed his eyes at the group before him and continued, "Besides, we are not taking any chances. Should Deku's appearance not be enough, or even that our calculations are off by a bit and the Stain Cult is attacking somewhere else but still nearby, my appearance there will make the difference."

"Won't Faith know-" Indago began from just in front of the old man.

"He will," Wrangler said. "And though it will show that I know he should be around there, Faith will not step down from the challenge. Seeing me there alone, searching for him while the others focus on the actual or fake villain attack, will make it Faith's move." Wrangler's eyes darkened, "And he's been at the same game for months now. We have to get him before he moves on, and this is the time to make him do it. _This_ is where he'll throw away his followers, as he had done so many times in the past. If the pattern is starting anew, then he will risk everything just to go after the most interesting things left as Faith: turning followers against someone Stain believed was a true hero, and taunting a man who came after him after so long only to lose him again."

"We suspect that Faith will do it even if he suspects it's a trap," Encode started. "However, he will not tell the others." Most of the heroes in the room nodded as that made sense to them. It sounded like Faith was already manipulating everyone with him, and if Stain's goals really were not important to him, then they could see him giving up all the dozens of villains they were after just for a shot at Deku or Wrangler himself. "We can't be sure," Encode started in a darker tone, "but that's our plan. It's what we've decided, and we're going to follow through with it to force Faith to come out, to finish this on our terms and not his own. And I believe with this team," Encode gazed around the room, at the twenty-nine heroes in there with him. His silver eyebrows narrowed in and he said with confidence, "We can really stop them."

* * *

 **A/N Thanks for reading! Hope y'all enjoyed the chapter. Sorry for the slow updates recently, I've had a whole lot of stuff I'm working on currently for school. Applications for my degree, for a job in Japan next year, for expungements for my misdemeanors (I drink too much :P ), and doing a few projects and research experiments. It's a busy end of the semester, and although Thanksgiving break's coming up, doubt it's gonna give me more time to write this considering I've got two 30 hour drives to do back to NY and then back here to college. Anyway, just a short explanation as to why my updates are a bit slower recently than the every day or every other day I had for the majority of Death up 'til now. Glad you're all still reading Death, and leave a review telling me what you think of the chapter! No Death/Zach this time, though we see from afar what the world's seeing in the aftermath of the Syndicate battle!**

Lief 17 chapter 111 . Nov 10

Now THIS! is how you execute an attack! The detailed setups and explanations clearly depicted what was going on in the story while it made me anxious reading this chapter the entire time! Maybe the Army of death really fits because every single death strengthens them to pursue their goals. A bit sad about the others that died and I was hoping the boy lived but another great chapter nonetheless! Let me ask one thing though, are these chapters pre-written or do you write them in between posting?

 **Yes! Really glad you liked the battle! That chapter I really just had a couple of ideas set up for before starting it, so most of it was during the chapter I had to sit there and come up with plans on the spot. I think it turned out cool, and def the Army of Death got really motivated there at the end knowing they now have to fight for the memories of their comrades who fell before them too. Sad about the nuke boy, and the others, and as for the last part... most of the time I've got some chapters pre-written. Up until a few chapters back I usually was working on a chapter a couple ahead of the next one I was going to post. Right now though, I barely have anything in the next chapter written out yet. So it's gonna be a bit until the next post, sorry. Thanks for the review though! And I hope you enjoyed the new chapter!**

MiladyAnna chapter 111 . Nov 10

Wow Zack is so badass. Juste the wings ans the claws was great utilisation of his quirk. Poor Cee, it must be horrible to die twice. A new leage Mhmmm, new ennemi. Why they want attack Paris my country do nothing xD. I love this story continued like this.

 **XD Badass Zach for the win. Zach's powering up and taking on the big shots now. The League of Shadows, sounds mysterious and foreboding, especially with Eziano rumored as just _one_ of the Shadow Bosses. Glad I've got a reader from France! Don't worry, Zach's protecting Paris from the villains! Haha, I'm glad you've been enjoying the story, and thank you for the review!**

Naruffoku chapter 111 . Nov 10

Reading the last line gave me chills

 **Nice! Sometimes it's difficult ending a chapter, last chapter admittedly was one of those. Glad I managed to make it work though. Thanks for reviewing!**

Polw3 chapter 108 . Nov 10

No action doesn't make this chapter any less cooler. This is way more awesome than SHIELD's helicarrier.

 **Glad you think so. And the SHIELD helicarrier was part of what I got my inspiration for The Cloak's design from (the other part being the Super Maria Bowser ships XD). Thanks for the review!**

Justceecee chapter 111 . 12h ago

NOTICE ME AUTHOR-SAN!  
I love your story, anyway...  
Can you please list down all the OC who joined the Army of Death? Yeah. I'm really overwhelmed and kinda confusing. Thanks!

 **Noticed. ;P I'm glad you're liking the story! As for listing all the OCs... man, there are a _lot_ I have added in recent chapters. I'll put some down here but I probably won't get all: Exodus (Light), Darling, Jetflame (former British hero), Seraphim (knock-outs putting hands on temples), Jackhammer, Jughead, Juno (Q=Air, also Dead), Akhmed (Q= cloaking Quirk, also Dead), Hummingbird (Dead), Le-Q (dead), Hank (Former EMT), Miraculu, Mark (liquid control), Yang and Xia (Chinese twins, Yang just died first time last chapter, he's back though), Cee ( ;( ), Rebel, Access (Whoreslayer42), Raylei (Anon 3, also joined up for real like Access), Scotty (another support team member), Cherasaw and Rampart (Rebel's new support team at his command), Pastor (Dead), Yuri (Dead), Wreck'd (Dead), Tina (Dead, died first time in Saudi Arabia, second time with Gentle's team while Zach was in US), Grabble (died once in Saudi Arabia, guy with Pincers), Michael (beast-type Quirk, had a thing for Cee), Sagitus (centaur guy), Flare... Alright I'm gonna stop here. It's def a bit overwhelming with all these additions coming without real introductions to each of the characters. Each time I add more in it's kind of me showing that time is passing and more recruitment is going on in Army of Death, as well as developments b/w characters and additions to Army of Death's strength, LIKE with Maelstrom who I almost forgot who has Weather Manipulation Quirk. Anyway, lots of fun characters to get to know. Lots of OCs, but I hope I'm really giving them character, or at least the major ones- I know a few have just been thrown in as background characters. Thanks for the review! Hope this helped!**

Big Fan of Death chapter 111 . 12h ago

Why such a long break, im getting withdrawal symptoms, im sleeping worse. :(

 **Sorry Big Fan! Here you go, only 12 hours later!**


	113. Chapter 113

**A/N Hey guys. Sorry it's been a week. Still very, very busy. Just got this finished though and who doesn't need some Death to get them out of awkward Thanksgiving dinners? XD Hope you enjoy!**

 **Disclaimer: I don't own Boku no Hero Academia**

* * *

 **Chapter 113:**

"Are you nervous Midoriya?" Ashido asked, leaning in towards her classmate she ran up to as they headed through a hall of the Musutafu Police Department.

They were on the second floor heading to the stairs back to the first, and it was later in the night on Friday after they spent over an hour going over specifics of the mission after revealing who was on the bait team. Midoriya looked to his right at Ashido with a steady look, but then he admitted after a moment, "A little. But I'm ready. If we stick to the plan I think we can do this."

Ashido smiled brightly and did a small skip before walking at his side with a confident look on her face. "Yeah! I think so too. This Faith guy sounds pretty tough, but we've faced worse."

 _I, hope that's true._ Midoriya nodded despite his doubtful thought. _He can't really be worse than All For One, Shigaraki, or Dandy on Apocalypse. If Breakneck thought he was the one to look out for though, and Breakneck was very powerful. I need to be careful. Does he really have a Quirk? I'm hearing it from a secondary source, tertiary even. Zach heard it from Breakneck, who said he saw it himself but could have just been trying to stall for time… Yet, it works out too well that the manipulator running the Stain Cult would be the one who escaped Tartaros, the one who even right after the escape was already making his plans. While All For One recovered, and Stain fled on his own, and even Breakneck stayed behind with the League for a little to get situated, he moved right away. Faith, was ready. He wouldn't have been out of jail at the time of Stain, but he still knew exactly how to gather strength using the idea of him, just like All For One did. Planning so far in advance…_

 _We only have that information at all, because of what he asked Breakneck. He's not even here anymore, so much has happened, but he asked questions like those to prepare for stuff like this so far in the future._ Midoriya's eyes shifted from straight ahead of him down to the floor as he continued to walk. _Zach was always like that. Playing the long game. Looking so, so far ahead. He talked about how long it would take for me to become the Symbol, Kurogiri striking fear in hearts of everyone, always big picture. Which is why, he considered all the anti-heroes' deaths as deaths numbering in the thousands, because of all the people they wouldn't be able to save… Just like with his parents._ Midoriya bit down hard, thinking about the courthouse. He thought about leaping up and looking towards the portals, and watching as Zach walked through without looking back. He thought about Zach's eyes as he shouted at them.

 _ **"How many people have you killed?"**_

 _ **"Hundreds! Thousands! How many?! I don't know! Every night I lie awake thinking of all of them! All the people my dad didn't save, all the people…"**_

 _ **"I have to change the answer…"**_

Midoriya snapped his eyes open and stared forward intensely. He entered the stairwell and started down without focusing on anyone around him, so he did not notice that Ashido was staring at him with wide eyes at how intense he suddenly was which had her getting more serious herself. _I was never once able to figure out Zach's plans. Did he know that information he got from Breakneck would somehow come back and help us right here? I don't know. But, just because I know that he has reasons for everything he does, doesn't mean I can accept what he's doing now in faith alone that it will turn out good…_

"Shiro Swan, you will stay with Creati during the ambush. Creati if you do come up with plans or realize something is wrong, inform Encode right away. His Quirk, Calculate, is designed for improvisations on the fly." Ballerclava walked in front of her sidekicks who were nodding at her back as she spoke. "He calculates probabilities of success in instants, and he is an intelligent man who I have worked with on several successful missions in the past. Trust his current plans, but remember that there is no way of knowing what will happen out there."

Ballerclava looked over her right shoulder out the holes in her black mask at the two younger women at her back. "In the field, things can change in an instant from being in our favor to a worst-case-scenario. Be it against hero killing cultists, or an average every-day thief, an incident can turn life-threatening in the blink of an eye. Stay flexible and ready to change up your roles in this plan instantly if the need arises. Am I understood?"

"Yes ma'am," Yaoyorozu replied.

Shiro Swan was a little slower to answer, and then she said in a lower voice and slower than Creati's response, "I would not usually mention anything about being outnumbered, as I know, we are pro heroes and should not have trouble facing a greater number especially with thirty of us."

"Then don't," Ballerclava started.

"But there are _several_ Tartaros escapees, who we believe are aligned with Faith," Shiro Swan continued anyway despite Ballerclava's initial response. Ballerclava stopped and Shiro Swan said to the woman standing before her at the top of the stairs down to the first floor, "Not all villains thrown into Tartaros are powerful monsters… but the ones who escaped and have evaded capture for this long, they've got to be among the top tiers of the escapees."

"You must have mistaken all this talk of a 'trend' for something that is currently already in progress," Ballerclava said. She looked at the younger woman behind her and then at the teen girl at her side too to make sure she was understood. "Crime is still higher at this moment than it has been for decades. We have two of the top ten heroes in the nation with us right now, be glad that we have them and count those blessings. Yes, it is not a sure thing that we will be able to do this without taking losses. Does that scare you enough that you will not come?"

"That's not what I'm saying, but if we know that losses are possible shouldn't we wait until-"

"There is no time," a male voice said behind Shiro Swan. She glanced back and then leaned away from the handsome man standing there with red wings pulled in close to his back. "I want to wait too, but we think Faith's going to know we're getting close no matter what we do. He almost always managed to slip away before, usually with one last big event that he escaped during to start a new operation. If we don't do this now and wait around instead, he'll make the final move without us able to control any aspects of it. That's what we're thinking at least. Wish I could give you some better news," Hawks started walking past her, on her left side so his right was closer to her and she had to stare at the space where his right arm was missing from.

Shiro Swan turned back to Ballerclava as Hawks walked by her too, and then the sidekick nodded at her pro hero with a more accepting look on her face. "I understand. I just hope we aren't taking unnecessary risks. We are intending on this being something to keep the trend going, something to reassure citizens. Even if we win, if we lose a bunch of heroes during it-"

"Then they would become martyrs," Yaoyorozu said. Shiro Swan turned to the girl next to her in surprise, but Ballerclava grimly nodded once at the teenager who gained a more grim look herself as that was confirmed. "When heroes were dying and things were getting worse, it wasn't so," Yaoyorozu continued while turning towards Shiro Swan. "However if the trend continues, then the heroes whose lives it took to ensure that return to peace will be treated as the reason. A galvanizing push… You don't think that Encode is…" Yaoyorozu held her tongue, but Ballerclava nodded at her to continue and she did so but in a lower voice. "You do not think that he could have called in more heroes, but did not just to-"

"No," Ballerclava said. She said it assuredly, and she actually relieved that worry Yaoyorozu had and that Shiro Swan was starting to feel. "We do not trade heroes' lives even for the aspect of peace. As heroes we must be ready to lay down our lives, but I know Encode well and he is a true hero. He would not trade _our_ lives. That is not to say he does not understand the risks, but he knows, that each one of us is here because we are willing to be a part of the solution…"

"You don't seem to have a great relationship with your classmates," Indago said to the spiky-haired boy she was walking with across the main room of the police headquarters' first floor.

"Shut up," Bakugo muttered back. He saw her opening her mouth to continue about it, and he snapped, "You don't have a damn clue what you're talking about." Indago paused with her mouth open, her eyebrows lifting up at the tone in that statement.

 _It is true I suppose,_ Indago told herself. "Hm," she hummed at his response, smiling which just made Bakugo frown in more annoyance at her reaction. _Class A has been through much together. The attacks. Losing their homeroom teacher. The betrayal of their classmate, Raijin. Lifebringer… failing to stop him. Their looks when Wrangler questioned whether Lifebringer's information was good, even you looked pissed that he doubted him._ Indago lowered her smile a bit as she looked at her fellow intern for Miruko. _Killmore's Office Takeover, fighting Inhuman,_ _ **the**_ _Class A is strong. And perhaps I misread the interaction between you and your classmates, Bakugo. Maybe you're more than just a fiery temper after all…_

"Everyone, can I get your attentions please?" Encode called out to the first floor of the police station. The heroes had gathered down on the main floor, and the headquarters was full of a lot more cops than usual. "Most of you already have an idea of what's going on this weekend, but it's time you're given the specifics of this operation. No matter when your shifts are, you must be ready through this whole weekend to come at a moment's notice. As soon as we spring our trap on the Cult of Stain, we need the full force of the Musutafu Police Department to establish a perimeter and evacuate civilians from the area."

The Musutafu Police Chief nodded his head at Encode and then asked, "Your trap, where do you plan on setting it?"

"Every location we will attempt to lure them in will be one with a low population density," Encode ensured the chief. "Villains do attack in areas with lower amounts of people more often anyway as there is usually less hero presence in low populated areas. Although we suspect that Faith, the leader of the Cult of Stain, will predict that we have a trap planned, we cannot just set our fake villain incidents up out in a secluded area. We do not want the rest of the cult to think that something is up, and they will know it is a trap right away if we try getting them in a location perfect for one. However, our trap locations do have many vantage points and good focal points for ambushing villains which we will go over tonight in preparation for the next two days. There is also a high chance that the villains we suspect to already be in the city will set their own trap as they have done many times in the past. Should this occur we would have less control over the ambush, and our team of fake villains that myself and Ballerclava will be on must be ready to go with Changeling to the scene of the attack…"

 _I have to let him know,_ Officer Pedoro kept a steady expression, though sweat dripped down the left side of his face. He saw a hero look over his way and tried to just keep focusing on Encode, _They just think I'm nervous about going against cultists. That's all… Why couldn't you have called me out anyway?_ Pedoro ground his teeth behind his closed lips as the female hero who had looked his way turned straight back to Encode. _No, if I was discovered, he'd do it. He'd kill my family just like he threatened he would. I can't tell him though! All these heroes, and kids! There are damn kids they're sending in… but my kids, Jessie, Tyke, Yura… If I tell him, these heroes will die. Nothing will change. If they catch him it won't matter, but what if they fail? I'm the only one who could let him know and make the heroes fail… but what if the heroes just fail anyway?! How- what am I supposed to do?_

 _I have to let him know._ Another officer in the headquarters stared forward in a completely calm way, nodding his head with the other two officers at his sides who were in his squad. _These heroes are just making moves to try and get publicity, because of how the media's been treating them for the past few weeks. That's the only reason they're doing it now! Fucking fakes. Only I can do anything. I'm the only one who can let Faith know, prepare the others for all these fake heroes. I can do more than any of the ones actually killing could. Just like he said, this all relies on me. I can make the difference Stain wanted to see in the world!_

"…The trap is designed this way because the Stain Cult thinks they're acting like Stain." Encode continued to explain his plan to the officers who would in turn prepare even more who were not there at the moment, though a large portion of the police department was gathered. "They set up a small crime so heroes come, then they swarm with overwhelming numbers, then they slip away before more heroes arrive. Stain always escaped before more heroes were able to come and stop him, and this group has done the same so far. This time we'll swarm them immediately though, converge all around their initial ambush and make sure they don't escape. It is a trap inside of a trap, trapping their trap."

 _And they will trap you inside of that trap._

 _What if their real ambush turns out to be on our second ambush though? It, it will be if I say anything. Fuck. What am I supposed to do?_

"…We believe Faith may have an electric-type Quirk, however you must be careful while confronting him of his words too. Do not listen to anything he says. He is a master of manipulation and…"

Yaoyorozu stared towards Encode as serious as she could but her eyes shifted down to the floor as the hero continued on. _A master of manipulation, just like you were._ Her fists clenched and she glared at the floor harder, only for her eyes to soften and a sadder look to spread over her face instead. _That manipulation is how you got this information. It's how you pulled off taking-out Kurogiri, weeks of manipulating everything and everyone around you. Zach, you tricked everyone… but it doesn't change a thing for me._

 _I made the same New Year's resolution as last year,_ Yaoyorozu thought, her fists clenching hard as she thought back to New Year's Eve. They had not done a party this year on New Year's with the two second year hero classes. The world had fallen too much into the darkness to celebrate the previous year. The fact that Kaminari was the one who pushed the celebration the year before was another big reason they did not do anything. She still watched the countdown with some others in her class though, and Yaoyorozu could not help but think about her wish from the previous New Year's. _Last time, he came back days later. I wished it would happen so hard, and I, I couldn't believe it when he really came back. Now though… I can't imagine it coming true. As much as I want you to come back,_ Momo Yaoyorozu lifted her gaze back to Encode and her expression intensified. Her fists opened at her sides, and Creati focused on the task at hand. _You've got your life, and we have ours. Saving people, stopping villains, fighting for good. It's how we can save this damaged world._

* * *

 **"Damn, the conditions look suspicious,"** Hawks' voice filled the tiny earpieces that every member of their team of thirty, and a few police officers, were wearing.

Encode and Ballerclava were in the backseat of a police car, their bodies transforming back to normal as the driver of their car spun the wheel. Changeling sat in the passenger seat with an intense look on his face, and he tapped his earpiece to say, **"Do we redirect over? If anyone's watching us-"**

 **"It definitely appears like the set-up, no, _exactly_ like the set up of their most recent attack," **Hawks' correction had everyone listening feel a sense of unease. **"They never do the same set-up a second time. Looks like they know."**

"It's starting then," Wrangler said, while running down the street with another three heroes. His eyes narrowed and he took in a deep breath while trying to keep up with the younger heroes who had just left the fake villain incident they had established. The real villains had not attacked them there, and when they heard about the attack going on halfway across the city they shoved a disguised Ballerclava and Encode into the cop car before running off.

 **"Not good. Alright, Mt. Lady and Death Arms have both responded to the call too. They're closer and about to reach the villains."**

"We need to get there faster," SkyLord said, darting his gaze to Ms. Joke and then back at Wrangler lagging just a bit behind. "Deku, grab Wrangler," he ordered his intern before looking next to him at the green haired woman wearing an orange bandanna. Ms. Joke nodded back at SkyLord, and she lifted her arms to the sides while SkyLord flapped his yellow wings behind him. Civilians were standing on the sidewalks on either side of the road the heroes were running down into a more densely populated part of the city, and those people cheered out as they saw SkyLord fly up in the air with Ms. Joke. They cheered a lot louder too as Deku grabbed the older hero in a red cape and leapt up into the sky with him.

"Ack- gah," Wrangler coughed and winced at the sudden jolt into the sky. Midoriya darted his gaze down at the old man, but Wrangler grit his teeth and nodded to let the boy know he was alright. "Let's get there," Wrangler said, sweat on his face pushing back with the wind considering how fast they were soaring through the air.

 **"Three villains total in the bait. They definitely know you're coming. Let Mt. Lady and Death Arms know as soon as you arrive. No point in hiding it and it's better to have a team of six in the initial stage that we wanted anyway."** Hawks let the team know as he watched them soar through the air in the direction of some rising black smoke in the east side of Musutafu. He lowered his hand from the earpiece he was holding onto while speaking, and he glared down below the white clouds he was floating just at the edge of the bottom of. He was almost invisible to anyone looking straight up, just a little less hidden than the twenty others his red feathers were holding up in the clouds around him.

Three other heroes were holding themselves up in the sky, while the majority just floated in the damp air inside of the cloud Hawks held them in. They could not see down below, and Miruko snapped down, "Bring me lower."

Hawks thought about arguing back, but instead he just lowered her feather down to near the edge of the bottom of the cloud, leaving her a bit higher than himself. _Where are they?_ Hawks thought, darting his eyes around the buildings near the bait which was a jewelry shop that had turned into a hostage situation already. _The flames are getting civilians out of there. Cops need to show up there and set up a perimeter already. Shit, so we'll have the initial perimeter of cops, six heroes, then villains, then the outer perimeter we set and our large group. The bait villains need to be stopped early on too-_

 **"He's, here,"** SkyLord said, his voice cautious and low. His eyes were narrowed, and he had just landed down on the road where the attack was taking place. SkyLord, Deku, Wrangler, and Ms. Joke stood still as the villain they had landed in front of, lifted up a red cloak and draped it over himself to shadow back over his smirking face. The heroes up in the sky hesitated, and SkyLord continued, **"He came with the bait."**

 _To be right in the middle of what's about to ensue?!_

 _Does he expect to be caught?!_

 _This isn't good._

 _He knows something. He never comes with the bait! How much does he know? Is it more than just the fact we know he's here in the city?_

 _Does he know our plan?_

 _Why in an area with no skyscrapers? No vantage points to ambush us from up high. Nothing but three and four story buildings, apartments over stores, clothing and jewelry._ Hawks narrowed his eyes and said in a calm voice while tapping his earpiece, **"Everyone calm. Bait team, take him down. That's all there is to this until the others spring their trap."**

"Faith," Wrangler said, stepping forward after standing completely still at Deku's side since he landed. The fact that the villain who turned their way upon their landing was the one they were after, the fact that he looked at them so knowingly, the look of excitement and insanity on his face, and the smirk they could still see under the shadows of that hood. The other two villains were back in the jewelry shop with some hostages, and SkyLord turned and called out for the other civilians who stopped on sidewalks to look over that they needed to evacuate the area.

Mt. Lady stepped a big foot down the road that had two lanes which meant it was wide enough for her. Death Arms was running up from between her legs, and Hawks reported calmly in everyone's ears that Backdraft was on his way to help with the fires going on in the buildings on either side of the jewelry store. "What's the situation?" Death Arms called out while running down the road towards the group of four facing the store.

"So you came after all," the cloaked figure said, staring from under his hood straight at the old man with sweat all over his face. He was just outside of the front of the store, the windows and glass door behind him all shattered, and he wore a black and yellow villain costume underneath the red cloak he just draped over himself. "I was hoping you would-"

"It's the Cult of Stain!" Deku called out without looking to his left. He kept facing the cloaked figure who stared straight at him next after his shout. "This is their leader, and there are others around us right now about to attack!"

Mt. Lady was leaning down, but she froze and her huge eyes widened more. Death Arms skid to a stop and his eyes darted right and left in the street that was nearly empty at this point. "You people, get out of here!" Death Arms called over at a group at the edge of an alleyway who were looking out with wide eyes into the road. "It's not…" Death Arms slowed down, and his eyes opened huge as three people came out of that alley, and then three more behind them, and they all lifted up black cloaks and put them over their bodies. Windows smashed open on the second and third stories of both enflamed buildings, and hooded figures moved into view on every single window.

 **"There they are!"** Miruko called out.

 **"Hold…"** Hawks began, keeping her back with the feather she was held by. _Not yet._

"Mt. Lady! Come closer to us!" Ms. Joke called over to the huge woman who started looking back and forth in shock at how many figures just appeared out of nowhere.

 _Setting up our own trap was better. We had all the nearby buildings under surveillance to watch for suspicious activity and know all their attack points beforehand._ SkyLord's eyes darted along the buildings across the street to the alleyways to front doors of buildings he had seen people rush back into to get off the streets while they were arriving. _They're everywhere! Why is Hawks holding back?!_

 _They're using their numbers to swarm. Just like usual. He knows something is up though. If he predicted our predicting his moves, what is his next step?_ Hawks ignored the others around him calling out to set their trap.

"Kill them all," Faith said.

 **"They're coming!"**

 _Fuck!_ **"Let's go!"** Hawks called out. **"All teams move in."**

 _Why is the leader showing himself so soon?_ Bakugo thought while being pulled down through the sky by a red feather, in a horde of heroes moving as a massive force towards the black smoke rising in the city.

Midoriya rushed at Faith. "Get him!" Ms. Joke called out, a big smile on her face while pointing towards the villain who smiled even wider under his hood back. SkyLord and Death Arms moved for the group of six figures in black cloaks who just rushed out of an alleyway, and Mt. Lady slammed a fist down to one side of the road where two villains had run out the front door of a building.

"Haha, haha," Faith chuckled while hopping backwards. Two figures shot out of the jewelry store behind him, guns lifted in their hands. They were fast. They were each so fast because their Quirks were speed-based ones. The villain on the left of Faith had a jet engine sticking out the middle of his back and blasting through his black cloak he had thrown on inside. The other villain used his long lanky legs each with four joints to sprint out with giant strides straight at Deku. The two of them were smirking too under their cloaks, snickering and chuckling… but they weren't really laughing.

Midoriya was slower. He realized it as soon as he leapt at Faith, that his jump was not 38% Full Cowling like he attempted. He was still fast, faster than the villain retreating back from him into the jewelry store full of screaming hostages getting more scared by the fact that the walls were catching on fire. Eight holes opened on the ceiling of the store, and complete darkness fell inside which was immediately followed by a lot louder screams from the hostages.

"Keep going inside!" Ms. Joke shouted at Deku. Deku ducked down and then leapt to his left, slamming both legs into the stomach of the villain who pointed an assault rifle at him. The man's jet sputtered on his back, and the faint glow on it dimmed to nothing. The man on Midoriya's other side snickered and spun to point his gun at the boy, but Midoriya rushed right past and into the building behind him. The villain with lanky legs turned and aimed after Midoriya, only for a glowing white rope to wrap around his chest. He looked down, right before the yank tugged him halfway across the street and into a fist of brass knuckles.

Mt. Lady tossed three unconscious villains towards the middle of the road, then she pulled her right leg back and slammed forward into a muscular villain whose arms started enlarging massive sized. Her kick knocked away the guard of the man with giant arms, then slammed into his body and sent him flying up into the air. Mt. Lady was quick to reach out before he flew too far, and she caught him before throwing him down the street towards a window where another villain with wings just jumped out of and turned to the smaller heroes in the center of the street.

Death Arms threw a villain back into the wall on his side, and SkyLord dropped two from high up behind Death Arms where they landed and started yelling out in pain about broken legs. SkyLord lifted up the blunt sword he was holding in his right hand, grabbed it with both hands by the hilt and lifted high, then he soared down and swept at a woman who rose her arms to block him. She blocked and a loud _**Clank**_ rang out through the street. SkyLord narrowed his eyes at the woman's hands while he pushed down harder on her, and he focused on the extending nails of the woman which had his eyes snap up towards her shadowed face.

"Black Widow," SkyLord said, naming a Tartaros escapee who they knew was a part of the Cult of Stain.

"I am no one, but one of Stain's disciples," the woman replied, then she snickered and swept her arms up at SkyLord. He pulled back, and he managed to dodge her attacks easily. _Her nails aren't extending as far as we know they can. And she's not laughing. None of them are laughing._

"Something's wrong," Ms. Joke said after she and Wrangler finished knocking out the two villains in the bait group of three with the leader. She glared into the darkness of the jewelry store where they kept hearing yells, and she and Wrangler started running forward only to stop short as a figure walked out of the darkness in the doorway. It looked like just pure blackness that Faith stepped back out of, and the yells continued from inside the store along with the sound of a crash of something breaking.

Ms. Joke's fists clenched and Wrangler lifted both hands, creating white ropes in them that he held so tightly while looking Faith in the eyes. He could barely see those eyes under the shadow of Faith's hood, but he saw a look in them that had his heart racing fast in both fear and fury. "You won't escape this time," Wrangler said. He glared harder at Faith and his fists balled around the white ropes furiously. "I won't let you."

"Ha, haha," Faith started laughing, and then he turned to Ms. Joke and stopped laughing. He just stopped himself while she took a step forward, and then he smirked so much more and started chuckling at her expression. "Ms. Joke. The reason we're not laughing, just smiling and chuckling, is that we have a Quirk Depletion Field up. All over this area," he said it and had a huge smirk cracked on his face at the looks of the heroes in front of him. "Because when Quirks don't matter and the playing field is evened up a bit, then numbers really are all that matters aren't they?"

Only forty or so villains attacked in the ambush. Hawks had noticed something strange about the way they attacked the group. As he flew out of the sky, he had seen more and more of the villains who just attacked being taken down by their team of six alone. Death Arms, Mt. Lady, SkyLord, Ms. Joke, and Wrangler were all taking care of the villains who suddenly ambushed. A dozen villains were already out cold or beaten too badly to keep fighting before their team was even at the tops of the buildings they had been hiding so high above.

Then a hundred villains emerged at once. Conceal released his Quirk, Hide and Seek, and the roofs of the buildings around the ambush area became lined in villains all already looking up at the group descending from the sky. The group from the sky was already at the tops of the buildings when they emerged. They darted their eyes around, and they could see that the villains were not just on the buildings on this street, but the ones on both of the adjacent streets as well.

 _We're surrounded!_ Hawks tried pulling all his feathers up as he flapped his own wings down, but he found each individual feather was not listening to him very quickly.

The cultists all around them pointed weapons or Quirks at the heroes they ambushed. The trap of the trap inside of the trap was just trapped, but when a team of thirty pro heroes got trapped it did not mean the end of a fight. All of them reacted quickly. Dark Shadow emerged and spread in front of Tokoyami and five heroes around them while Hawks' shaking red feathers pulled away. Yaoyorozu lifted her arms on either side with bulletproof shields forming on them pointed to the villains closest to her. Miruko called to Indago without losing the smirk on her face, and despite her intern feeling weaker, Indago lifted both arms that extended out towards Miruko's flipping body.

Quirk, Rubber. Indago's body extended and stretched, her skin tightening and her light red costume pulling tight to her stretchy body. The girl at the top of the U.A. hero course's third years reacted in a moment and her sides extended around the six others falling near her who she saw caught more off guard or with less means to protect themselves. Her arms simultaneously stretched to Miruko right behind the older woman in mid-flip. Miruko pressed her legs against Indago's arms that pushed back a bit with the pressure, only to snap back out at the same time that Miruko was jumping herself. "Trampoline!" Indago called out. The reaction was so fast that Miruko slammed into shocked villains who just emerged all at once since Conceal could not cover them when they were all moving, and they all only started moving to attack the heroes passing them.

 **BANG-BANG-BANG-BANG…** The gunfire aimed at the group of heroes falling from the sky brought the attention of those below up into the air. An explosion ripped apart the top of a roof, and villains flew up in the air in all directions. Miruko bounced to the next building on her right, making more villains stop shooting at the heroes though most had stopped already. Bullets flew back at some villains who missed their shots by firing into Indago's body instead of the heroes she was protecting. Those bullets pushed into her body and then bounced off right back at the men and women firing at her.

 _Explosions are smaller._ Bakugo realized it when Hawks' feathers started dropping, and he noticed the speed of Indago's body stretching around the others was slower too. He did not even need to make an explosion to realize it, and he blasted with more power knowing that it would still just be enough to shoot him towards a building that no one else was attacking yet. As he blasted himself that way, Dark Shadow wrapped around Tokoyami's body and they spread their wings to soar the same way as Bakugo.

"Bakugo! Our Quirks are weaker!" Yaoyorozu called to the side, while protecting herself and Shiro Swan in their final descent towards the ground from ten meters up. The jetpack forming on Yaoyorozu's back started shooting out flames, and she grabbed the older girl falling with her who she had just been holding a shield up in front of for the last two seconds. Shiro Swan grabbed the shield Creati was dropping as Yaoyorozu grabbed her by her white costume instead, then they hit down on the ground and lowered to one knee each for a second as they had still been dropping pretty fast.

"Shit! Move!" Shiro Swan stood and tackled Creati to the side, right before four other heroes dropped down right where they had just been. The two girls came out of their rolls and rose back up their bulletproof shields, and dinking sounds slammed into them right as they got them up. Yaoyorozu skid back on her knees and held both arms on her shield as hard as she could with her eyes huge. The clanking stopped after a second and she started panting heavily, her eyes snapping open wide with panic.

"It's alright, let's get back on the offensive," a calm voice said on Yaoyorozu's right. She looked that way and saw the blonde girl from the class above standing there with her entire body pulled out twenty feet to either side, up above, and curving around them in a semi-dome. Villains on one side of the street, the side where there were still a lot more still firing from the roofs than the side Miruko started off on, had to stop firing down at the heroes they ambushed since bullets kept ricocheting back at them off Indago's body. "Creati! Shiro Swan! Get up!" Indago shouted. Her head was on the inside of her curved body that looked completely red with her stretching costume's material surrounding her. She glared at the sidekicks of Ballerclava who jumped back to their feet and stopped hiding behind shields that were no longer helping with Indago protecting them anyway.

"You two!" Shiro Swan and Creati spun to see All Tight calling to them from just past a couple of heroes down on the ground with minor injuries. Momo recognized the sidekicks from SkyLord's agency: ReBird and FlyGuy, both hurt either from falling too fast when they tried using their Quirks to stabilize in the air and found them weaker, or from bullets that had pierced both of ReBird's arms and his left wing. Nagiso stood next to them while another hero: Repairman, was trying to patch ReBird up or just stop the bleeding for now. All Tight called to the girls and motioned at a building across the street that was next to one on fire, and which had villains inside the windows and on the first floor through an blown-open wall.

Gargantuan rose up in the street to fifteen meters tall, his whole body expanding too. His shoulders broadened, his muscles bulged in his costume, and he called out, "Hold on Mt. Lady!" Gargantuan ran the direction of the huge woman falling backwards, and he slammed his fist towards the top of the building she had just been attacking.

"Wait!"

"AAA _EEEEE!"_

"Get down!"

 **Ka-BOOOOM**

Ms. Joke spun and looked up when Faith mentioned the Quirk Depletion Field and their superior numbers. She looked around with her eyes huge as the reinforcements they had coming in to attack the ones who trapped them were attacked and lost the full uses of their Quirks. "He got us," Wrangler started, his teeth bared hard from next to the young woman who glanced his way before spinning back to Faith. Everything that happened as the rest of the hero team came down occurred at the same time and in a matter of seconds. Heroes were rushing off the street into the buildings on the sides of the road full of villains, gunfire kept going off and more explosions were followed by more flames and more black smoke rising into the sky in east Musutafu.

"Dampener's Quirk Depletion Field, is a similar power to the fake hero Eraser Head's," Faith began when Ms. Joke looked him in the eyes. She froze. She had started to open her mouth but she froze with it half-open. "Except he was unable to use it over a wide area, on everyone inside. He died such a pathetic death…"

Ms. Joke bit down and then took a step forward with her fists clenched and her eyes narrowed straight at Faith. Wrangler's head was spinning towards her before she even started moving. "No don't-" Wrangler started lifting up his arms and the white ropes in them lifted off the top of his clenched fists. Wrangler was hit by a fist in his side, and he was slammed away letting out a gasp of pain. As he started falling though from his arc, he snapped his hands forward and lassoed the man who hit him from the opposite side as Ms. Joke. "Never listen to him!" Wrangler yelled before hitting the ground, his face full of panic when Ms. Joke finally saw it.

She saw Wrangler and the man he dragged away who had attacked him from the opposite side as her. It hit her in that moment, that Faith knew Wrangler would see it coming that he was just trying to get her riled up, and that Wrangler would look her way in order to stop her, and that would give his other subordinate time to attack. It hit her so fast that Faith knew all that was coming, that she filled with terror because she realized she was standing right in front of that man who was controlling everything around him without moving. And then she was hit by the villain who Wrangler expected to be coming for her anyway, because she was so scared in that instant that she had to turn back towards Faith instead of behind herself where Wrangler knew a villain was attacking her from.

A spike pierced through Ms. Joke's right shoulder, then a foot planted in her back and kicked her forward right towards Faith who she skid to face-first on the pavement. Ms. Joke pushed her palms with skid marks on them down on the floor at her sides, and she started lifting her head in a shaky way. Through blurry vision, Ms. Joke could see flames pouring out the buildings on her left and right, and directly in front of her was a man in a dark red cloak who lifted his right hand and showed her a long serrated dagger he was holding. She opened her mouth, and Faith grabbed her by the green hair with his free hand and yanked her up as she screamed. Faith slashed his knife across her face diagonally from the top right corner over her eye to the bottom left of her chin, then he cut up in the other direction diagonally as Ms. Joke continued to scream in pain.

Faith kept smirking, though he no longer felt like snickering at all. He just smirked at the woman in front of him who had blood pouring down her face. He smirked so nostalgically, at the X he had just carved into her face. Then he lifted his knife, he brought down, and he slashed through open air which made him lower his smirk a little. He turned his head to the left, watching the woman whose face he just cut up got yanked towards a man who wrapped her up with his white ropes. Faith looked that way, then he lifted his head a bit to get less of his face shadowed by the hood. Wrangler lowered Ms. Joke down, then he lifted his head and stared towards his nemesis, towards his worst nightmare, whose face was visible in only the flicker of the flames around him.

After seeing what Faith just did to Ms. Joke's face, Wrangler could not hold himself back. He stepped forward with his teeth bared, and he yelled furiously at the top of his lungs, "X!"

Inside the building behind Faith, Midoriya Izuku was on his own against eight villains in a room with twelve hostages. He had flown into the room right after darkness descended inside, and he went straight for the hostages before anything else to get between them and a man laughing sadistically and moving their direction. That man was now imbedded in a jewelry case with a lot of blood around him considering he was smashed straight through the glass.

Another two villains were down already, but Midoriya was facing off against a villain in a mask who was too much for him to just get around to fight the others. He was slower, his attacks were not anywhere near the power he could usually reach with One For All, yet he was still moving a lot faster than all the other villains in the room except this one. _He's not faster!_ Midoriya realized it while bouncing to his right, pushing his feet and hands against a wall and then ricocheting himself up to the ceiling. He watched his opponent sprinting around a corner of the room stop, press both feet into the wall next to him, and then shoot right up at the same spot Midoriya was flying to. "Smaaasssh!" Midoriya flipped and slammed his right leg forward, but his eyes opened wide as while in mid-flip, the villain he was about to attack started flipping over too. _I knew it!_

Their legs collided in midair, and the power of the collision had everyone else in the room pulling back. All except for one man who was down near the middle of the room, holding up a submachine gun and grinning under his cloak as the two figures up above bounced away from each other. _Dampener makes it so my illusion can't go too far, but inside this building it's as if I'm full power._ Mirror Mind fired towards Deku, and the kid bounced away from the spot the villain was aiming. Mirror Mind frowned as Deku bounced away, because he almost got hit by some of the bullets. _He had time to dodge. His best path though, was in the direction of the hostages._ "Hmph," Mirror Mind lowered his gun and then started reloading. _Faith is sure of it though._ "You can pretend all you want kid! We know you're not a real hero!"

"And what is this doing to make real heroes?!" Deku started shouting. He stopped himself though after the first outburst for two reasons. The first, was that he did not think he was going to be able to convince all these villains to stop fighting. The second, was that a five foot ten villain was zipping his way across the jewelry store from the opposite side. _Almost have it,_ Midoriya dodged again, and again over to another part of the room instead of attacking. The villain he was fighting had a white mask on, yet Midoriya could see green curly hair sticking out around the sides and top of the mask that had him unnerved at first. His own hair was hidden below his green mask so the hostages did not realize it, but Midoriya recognized those eyes through the holes of the mask.

"Stopping you fakes, is what Stain believes in!"

"We follow Stain's will!"

"Everything we do is for Stain!"

"Deku! Help us!"

"Please!"

 _There!_

"As a fake," Mirror Mind started. "You could never-"

Midoriya shot towards the middle of the room, straight at the masked figure flying towards him after bouncing off a turned-over table. Mirror Mind stopped talking, his eyes opening wide and his body leaning back, right before he gasped out in pain from Deku slamming into his body at full force. Mirror Mind slammed on his back, and the other villains in the room shouting at Deku stopped with their mouths wide open. They all froze and stared in shock at the boy in a green costume on top of Mirror Mind.

"Ack- h-how?" Mirror Mind gasped out. He lowered his head and looked at the boy's green mask, and he saw Deku open his closed eyes and glare straight down into his. "You knew-"

"Mirror Mind, Quirk- Mirror Illusion," Midoriya said. He had done his research. Their team did not know this Tartaros villain was going to be a part of the Cult of Stain, but Midoriya had researched all of the escapees of Tartaros after his run-in with Breakneck the year before. "Your weakness which allowed your capture eight years ago, is that your illusions are only physical to those looking at them. It can't sneak up on someone, can't attack without being seen, and if I closed my eyes while about to collide with it," he paused while explaining how he knew he could dive straight through that masked figure to tackle the real villain instead. Midoriya pulled his right arm back when he saw Mirror Mind reaching down to his waist. Then he slammed his right fist down into Mirror Mind's gut, making the man's body hunch up above and below the punch.

"Get him!"

"He beat Mirror Mind!"

"Does that mean he's a real hero?!"

"Wait-"

"AHH!"

"Get them, Deku!"

Just outside of the jewelry store that still had a black veil covering the front to keep the inside and outside from seeing each other, Faith stepped closer to Wrangler who was shaking while looking back into his eyes. Villains and heroes were battling it out on the street around them, in the buildings on either side, in the air above that was getting harder to fight in with all the black smoke rising into it. Wrangler's legs tried so desperately to pull back, but he was holding strong to his will as best he could and leaning forward despite his pale wrinkled face covered in fear. "I won't listen to you!" Wrangler yelled at his old enemy who had his heart racing absurdly fast at every word coming out of his mouth.

Faith kept smiling at Wrangler and everything around them just kind of blurred away. Wrangler stared straight into his old foe's eyes, and his heart raced faster and faster as Faith said to him, "Yuno. I knew you would come. You always overestimated the loyalty of the police. You know, the same ones who worked with you way back in those years are the ones who told me when your wife would be home alone. Did you know, she took her own life?" Wrangler was lifting his arms, but he froze and all other sound drowned away from him. He stared at Faith in confusion with his eyes opening wider and wider, and his breath unable to escape through his mouth while he heard a pounding in his head.

"It's why I was smiling that night, when you captured me," Faith continued while cocking his head to the side, and smirking more at the look on Wrangler's face like his expression that night had stayed with him for decades. "I wanted to do it myself, but I gave her a weapon to fight back with and she, she just kept calling out for you because she couldn't run at me. And when you didn't come, and the hope left her eyes as she realized you couldn't protect her, she turned the blade on herself. Of course, I went and cut her up afterwards so there was no way you could ever know, but I smiled at you that night knowing you would live your whole life thinking you had failed her and never know just how much you had. Thinking that it was me who did it, and being wrong! She killed herself because she had no faith you would save her. Not that you would have shown up if she had lasted another few minutes, considering I did all the chopping up in your own home."

Wrangler stopped hearing the rapid pounding in his head. He opened his mouth while tears streamed down his face, and his right hand that was lifting up towards Faith pulled back in towards his body instead. The smirk on Faith's face spread so much wider, his teeth showing in the biggest most sadistic grin ever that just had Wrangler's shaking bloodshot eyes bulging more while more tears streamed out of them. Wrangler clenched his right hand into the loose fabric of his costume over his chest, his mouth opening and closing as he tried to suck in breath. "I expected this would happen," Faith said with that huge smile on his face as he watched Wrangler fall to his knees. "You should have taken the officials' advice and stayed out of it, especially with that heart condition of yours." Faith said this while walking towards Wrangler who was shaking violently on his knees.

Wrangler's vision was turning red, getting blurrier in the corners. He could see his wife's smiling face as she turned to him after a long day at work, and then he saw his empty house that day he came back to it. And he saw the pictures Faith had left for him on his dining room table. He saw the smile as the beaten man was taken off for Tartaros, and how he thought he had gotten justice for his wife who he had killed. Wrangler pulled his head back away from Faith, sheer absolute terror and despair on it mixed with all the pain of dying as he currently was. He pulled back in all that fear, because Faith leaned in towards the dying man and said, "I'd tell you that you were going to a better place now, to be with your wife, but we both know she won't want to be with you. She can't even stand the _sight_ of you."

Wrangler's leaning back body fell backwards, flat on the street and without another movement. Fifteen feet away, Ms. Joke lay on the ground with her hands over her face grabbing it in pain after Faith had cut that X into it. Wrangler had pulled her aside, and she lay there motionless at what she just heard from so close to that villain. Her teeth bared and she pressed her face into the floor below her, sweat mixing with the blood on it as her entire body trembled. And she pushed her shaking palms onto the floor at her sides, and she tried pushing herself away only to freeze at the voice she heard shout in front of her.

"Wrangler! Faith, what did you-"

"I didn't do anything," Faith said, while turning and looking at the boy behind him. "The man's heart just gave out on its own, after hearing the truth."

Deku's eyes darted to his right, then to his left. Cloaked villains were turning towards him. There were a lot more around Faith than anywhere else on the street. More than on any of the buildings' roofs, or inside them, or on the adjacent streets surrounding the heroes who were still trying to capture them too, there were over twenty villains gathered on the road around Midoriya who he spotted from a single glance around. Faith started shaking his head at the boy in front of him who just looked around like that. "It's disappointing to see," Faith said, sounding genuinely upset as he shook his head at Midoriya.

"Deku, you had so much promise," Faith said. He lifted his head to look at the boy in the eyes, and Midoriya stared into the shadows of that hood with so much anger on his face. He could still see Wrangler's unmoving body behind him, he was keeping Ms. Joke in his peripheral vision as he noticed her freeze and stay still when he called out for Faith who he had seen turning towards where she lay. He watched the villains closest to Ms. Joke to make sure no one tried to get a finishing blow on the woman already with a lot of blood puddling around her. He spotted SkyLord across the street behind Faith up on the roof to his left, fighting several villains at the same time. A loud thud followed by the entire street shaking indicated Gargantuan hitting the floor at the end of the block, and smoke hovering just above it was blown with a huge force across the air so embers and ash swept down into the road too keeping a low visibility in all directions.

"You had so much potential that Stain even decided you were worth saving! But _that_ , was long ago," Faith said, his voice getting darker and more ominous as a haze of heat and ash blew through the area. "If Stain could see you now, all this power yet doing nothing about it. The power to beat a former big-shot villain like Mirror Mind in under a minute," Faith smirked at the boy and blue lightning sparked on either of his hands at the unwavering look in the boys' eyes that he saw the best through the eye holes of Deku's costume. He could see it better than the other villains who he had already given this spiel to, who were already glaring at the boy Faith had them all hating with a passion. "You had so much potential that you threw away. Why, do so many people die when you are so strong?"

 _No one has control over this situation. Hawks just said to fight them and capture them all. With our numbers, can we really lose even to a group so much bigger?! Where is the Dampener? If that Quirk goes off, I could jump around and take care of everyone around me in an instant. I could-_ "You could stop so many villains before they get anything done," Faith continued. Deku tried pushing the man's voice out of his head, because he knew that the man was using his own thoughts against him, even if it frustrated him knowing the man was not actually reading his mind at the sight of those small blue sparks on his hands. "But you don't, why is that? Is it because of the devolution of your heroes, All Might and Wonderlass? When heroes so powerful become so weak, the ones they train to take their places need to step up, but Deku, you just don't cut it. They had to retire because of their injuries, but if you overdo it too much more then you won't be able to be a hero anymore, and so you don't."

 _That's not true! Stop! Don't think about that. How do I stop him? Their numbers are on the high side of what we projected, that doesn't matter. Numbers shouldn't matter to pro heroes, and the majority of them aren't Tartaros villains. The others in that shop besides Mirror Mind were nothing special. If everyone has done some research too they should know the weaknesses of the strongest villains here, all of whom seem to be weakened themselves because of the Quirk Depletion Field…_

"You're too afraid to step out and become the heroes that they were, or that Sazaki was," Faith continued to the teenage hero before him. An explosion blew up out of a building on Midoriya's right, and Faith called out louder while raising his arms at his sides, "Lifebringer was a true hero! And of course you would be terrified of stepping out and being more like him, because it got everyone he cared about killed! His friends, his family, his… _mother._ " Chills went down Deku's spine and his body leaned back, his breath hitching and his eyes shaking at the smirking man looking back at him. "That's what it means to be a hero!" Faith called out. Then he pointed his sparking right arm forward and yelled, "Deku can't make that sacrifice, and that's why he isn't a real hero. That is why he will die with the rest of the **fakes!** " Faith roared the last part in a deeper voice, bellowing it and then clenching his right hand into a fist.

Faith's comrades charged. They roared, in fury, in rage, and Midoriya's eyes darted around to see faces of pure hatred under the hoods of all the cloaked villains charging him. They were activating their Quirks, and attacking en-mass, and there were more than the twenty he had thought he'd seen a few seconds ago.

"Deku!"

"Midoriya!"

Charging villains on Midoriya's right spun around at the sound of those shouts. Midoriya sprinted straight forward at Faith as he saw villains charging wide-range attacks at him. He sped forward, ignoring the villain on his right who was fastest and about to reach him. A black whip wrapped around that man's neck in a second anyway, yanking him backwards towards All Tight. She Tightened the whip so much that it choked out the villain she dragged towards her, right between three other female heroes running down the road.

Yaoyorozu swung the metal pipe in her right hand down, then she rose her shield and blocked the spiked-arms of the villain who jumped away from her slash.

Ashido swung her arms and splashed Acid at the villains who dove away since they knew the Quirk of this U.A. student. They dove away, only for the street below them to start lifting up as Cementoss slammed his hands down thirty feet behind his pink-skinned student.

Shiro Swan sped down the street faster than her younger comrades, and she spun around on her right foot in what looked like a dance, only her left leg kicked out as she did the three-sixty on her spinning leg. She kicked three villains in their faces, and the third one she hit, her left leg started spinning itself, sending him flying down the road doing cartwheels right into another villain running at Deku from his other side. "Creati! Get Ms. Joke some cover!" Shiro Swan charged behind Deku's back, at villains moving for Ms. Joke who was pulling back onto her hands and knees.

Deku swung his right leg at Faith from a short distance. Faith uppercut his left arm at the same time, his arm moving faster surrounded in blue sparks. He punched a small blast of blue lightning at the boy who pulled his head to the side fast, his green mask pulling off the top of his head as the attack caught one of the points sticking off the top. Midoriya's kick was not as strong as usual, but the wind was still enough to cause Faith to stumble backwards and need to steady himself. Midoriya landed in the meantime, and he bent his knees upon landing to instantly put himself in a pouncing position. His arms went out to his sides with his hands curled forward, and he grit his teeth before pushing off the ground at double his normal power. He grit his teeth in pain as he used his Doubling to spring off with as much pain as it would usually cause him to double his 38%. Even though it should not be as straining to his body, he was not wrapped in a strong Full Cowling at the moment and using that Doubling was more than his body could take at his current strength.

FlyGuy flapped his wings behind him, and he rolled down the road at forty miles per hours thanks to the roller-skates he had. He could not fly, but his wings sped him up flapping behind him and with the shoes Creati made for him, he took out the two villains running for Deku and Faith and lifting up their guns. Midoriya was about to dodge, but seeing FlyGuy taking them out let him pounce the other direction, right over the top of Faith's head while the villain was swinging his right fist forward and down at him. Midoriya rose over sparking blue light, then Faith ducked to dodge the right hand of the boy above him reaching down to grab him. Faith started turning, his eyes narrowed and his smirk staying in place even as he saw the boy passing him pressing his feet against the top of the first floor of the building at his back.

"Nice move," Faith started. Midoriya pushed off the wall as he said it, but he was unnerved by how unaffected Faith looked by his rebound. Then a shadow came over the top of Midoriya's head, and he saw someone falling from the roof of the building he was bouncing off. Blood rained down around him, mixed with yellow feathers, and he heard FlyGuy shout in panic down below. "Black Widow," Faith finished, suggesting he was not telling Midoriya that it was a 'nice move,' at all.

The woman on the roof above Deku dropped off, her sharp nails extended a foot out from her hands and her mouth twisted into a huge smirk despite her own bruises and cuts from her fight with SkyLord. Midoriya flipped himself over in midair, kicked his body up towards SkyLord and tackled his bloody pro hero back into the building Black Widow was diving off of. He recognized her from the Tartaros escapees too, though he also knew she was with the Stain Cult already. Midoriya tackled SkyLord into the second floor of the building, then he spun towards the window and bounced back towards them, right as Black Widow reached in and grabbed the outsides of the window. She leaned her head forward, right as Deku re-reached the window and extended both feet into her face.

As Deku flew out of the window, his mind raced faster than his body could move at this point. Black Widow's nose cracking below his feet, two explosions going off on his right side, a dozen fights between heroes and villains happening around him, Faith looking up towards him. _We need more help, and it doesn't matter who because things were already leaked. Somehow they knew not just that we were suspicious, but the exact details of our plan. A hero or a cop had to have betrayed us. That doesn't matter right now! We need help. As long as Dampener is here, we need more forces. Hawks called in half the police making the perimeter to come help with fighting, and they called for more hero reinforcements too, but who is closer? Who are the closest ones to us right now?!_

Down the road at the second closest intersection, Ballerclava yelled, "Step on it!"

 **"We need more help out here!"**

 **"Where are those reinforcements?"**

 **"There's too many of them!"**

The police officer in the front seat of the cop car spun the wheel and they skid out into the intersection. Two police cars behind them sped out in similar fashions, one of them skidding up onto the curb for a second and then speeding down the sidewalk before dropping back on the pavement. A black truck whipped up behind them, a dozen officers in full riot-control gear strapped in the back. The car in the front was a normal police car, and Changeling spun in the passenger seat to look back at Encode, "What's the move?"

"We need to keep our far outer perimeter so none escape," Encode replied hastily. "But having enough cops out there to keep the perimeter steady means not having enough to bring in to fight. The police aren't supposed to be fighting here either, they don't have permission to use Quirks-"

"Fuck permission!" Ballerclava yelled up, right before throwing the back door to the cop car open. "We need everyone fighting as long as that Dampener is out there. Quirks or not, each person's gonna- OH SHIT! BAIL OUT!" Ballerclava let go of the door and dove from the back of the speeding car.

The other two cop cars closest behind them stepped on the brakes and started swerving back and forth as they tried coming to sudden jolting stops. Encode threw the other back door of the car open and yelled to the front, "GET OUT!"

Twenty six villains just emerged on the sidewalks and in the middle of the road in front of them, as Conceal released his power again. More precisely, the sudden movements of the villains in the road released Conceal's power for him, unable to control it anymore thanks to the Dampener's Quirk. The reason Ballerclava dove out of the car though, was that the villain she spotted through the front windshield right as they started moving, was pulling the pin off of a round green object that he had several of strapped in an x-pattern over his chest.

"Grenade!"

Encode jumped out of the back of the car, though he was looking into the front still with his eyes huge. Changeling did not just open his door to jump out, because the officer driving them down the road panicked when all those villains showed up. He let go of the wheel, making the vehicle start spinning out right as Encode leapt from it. Changeling pulled the officer out from his seatbelt, opened the door-, _**BOOOM!**_ The police car blew into the air on fire, a fiery explosion blowing out of the windows and shattering the front windshield.

"AHHHH!"

Bakugo and Tokoyami stumbled into each other. They were on the third floor of a building which was on fire above them and on the floor below but not on theirs, for the moment. The two boys stumbled into each other, then Bakugo turned and pressed his back harder into Tokoyami's. Tokoyami felt that push and his eyes widened for a second, then they narrowed in understanding and he pressed his back into Bakugo's too.

There were three villains on the floor with them, one of whom had his hood down as it just fell off again when he snapped his head back. Hangover lifted the bottle of Everclear over his mouth and downed another chug of it. The drink with 95% alcohol content, illegal to sell in Musutafu or anywhere in Japan for that matter, burned as it went down Hangover's throat. Tokoyami said between panting breaths while pressing his back harder into Bakugo's, "I doubt you, that you looked it up yourself, but that guy's- he's hungover. I mean, he's drunk, but his name's Hangover and-"

"I don't need any o' your help!" Bakugo shouted in annoyance, though he pressed his back harder into Tokoyami's back. He clenched his eyes shut for a second and then snapped them open and tried focusing on Hangover, while the man lowered the bottle in his hand and started laughing at the looks on the boys' faces. "I get his Quirk already, damn it," Bakugo told his darker classmate who was ready to snap back in frustration to Bakugo's stubbornness. "You ready?" Bakugo muttered in a lower voice.

Tokoyami shook his head around fast, then he said in a lower voice, "Before this place, gets any more lit- like lit up, you know?"

"Let's get them!" One of the other two villains shouted. A burly man at eight feet tall, his body started to wave around and shake more than it was already in the boys' shaking visions. He started to transform, while the other villain whose face looked more hesitant under his cloak's hood kept glaring at those two students for a little longer.

 _Even with their Quirks Dampened, these two are…_

"URRRPP- Get 'em!" Hangover shouted, lifting his hand with the bottle in it, then fumbling the bottle as he tried lifting the hood with that hand only using a couple of fingers.

"Black Ankh!"

"AP Shot!" Bakugo's body pushed backwards as he fired condensed blasts out of his hands. Tokoyami swept his arms forward and they extended with Dark Shadow covering his body, large claws reaching out and swiping at the villain in front of him. They both used excessive amounts of power for a time when they were already having trouble balancing, but they used each other to steady and attacked like wild with the building catching fire around them.

Hangover lifted up a pair of pistols from his sides and aimed forward. Bakugo's head turned partially left, his left hand shifting over. Tokoyami's head turned a bit to the right, and his claw that just slammed into a different villain swung that way. The Tartaros escapee fired his automatic pistols with more blowback than they looked to have, and he stumbled backwards farther into the room while cracks were spreading out more on the ceiling above him. Tokoyami and Bakugo both fired off attacks in his direction, and they kept leaning back forgetting that their comrade's back was no longer right behind them. Bakugo's explosion while Tokoyami was turned that way made Dark Shadow reel back too, right while the two of them were thrown backwards by Bakugo's blast.

It was just a good thing the windows were already shattered. They flew out of the third story of the building, and down below Fantasma snapped her head towards the building she had been keeping an eye on. The top half of Indago's body stretched out to the sides while her arms reached to the base of the building, and she stretched out just above the floor tight enough that when the two drunken teens flailing around as they fell from the third floor hit her, they bounced back up like they were on a trampoline. Indago snapped her bottom half up to the building and caught the two as they dropped down from the top of their arcs, and then Bakugo snapped his head towards her with a furious look on his face. "WHY DON'T YOU MIND YOUR OWN-" Bakugo froze, and he shook his head around in confusion.

"Look," Tokoyami said, feeling his stupor going away while motioning up at the third floor of the building above. The three of them stared up towards the windows they just flew out of, where bright orange flames exploded out of a few seconds after the ceiling farther in that floor had broken down and landed on a man still inside. A second after that explosion, two other figures came flying out of that window and falling from the third floor engulfed in flames, screaming their heads off.

"Idiots," Indago muttered, though she threw her hands up in the air and grabbed the men. She yanked them back down faster than they were falling, her body stretching out at the sides and curving in at the same time. Indago, known by her hero name Fantasma, wrapped them up and cut off all oxygen to the flames. She winced and clenched her teeth in pain for a second, then she recoiled her body back to its normal size and checked out the four around her. _Both badly burned but alright. Those two look fine._ "You two, on me," Indago bent down and slammed her right fist into the burnt face of one of the two villains who was still moving, and she stopped that movement instantly. "We have to get to the outside and help establish the perimeter."

"You want to run from here?" Bakugo snapped in annoyance.

"It's the fucking plan," Indago snapped right back. "We don't want to be the ones stuck in a trap. We want to trap them. They could turn and run at any time so that this was all for nothing!" Indago took in a deep breath and then slammed her right leg down hard on her next step. She pressed down on her right knee, squeezing her leg tighter down between that knee and her foot. Her skin compressed, then it straightened back out with a pumping motion that she repeated a second time while her skin started to match the color of her costume. Steam came off of Indago's body, and Bakugo pointed his hands behind him. Tokoyami spread his arms and surrounded himself in Black Ankh again, then the three of them shot down the street so fast that two villains running their way barely had time to let out shouts of regret as they were slammed into.

 _They could see me._

 _Fucking small ass explosion._

 _Dark Shadow's quiet. We need to find this Dampener._

"Where is the Dampener?" Hawks asked. He stood in front of a man on top of a roof at the end of the road from the initial villain attack. Behind him, Mt. Lady was helping Gargantuan onto his feet. They were both staring at the Number 2 hero with huge eyes at how quickly Hawks incapacitated their enemy. Banshee lay unconscious near the edge of the roof already covered in cracks from the fights between the two villains and the two giants. The other villain who was up though, floating actually, who the giants had been unable to take down on their own, had each of his six appendages pulled to the sides by clumps of feathers. Hawks' back barely had any feathers left on it, but he had seen how strong the villain was, and he was using almost all of his feathers to restrain him like this.

"Stop it! You're hurting- AHH!" Hawks' feathers pulled opposite directions.

"You know, I recognize you," Hawks said. "The Ant, a former League of Villains member. You escaped the Sports Festival Invasion but took down a lot of heroes that day, heroes who stopped the death toll in this city from being any higher than it was." Hawks spoke calmly, but in his eyes through his goggles was a cold look that scared The Ant silent instead of making a snide remark. He was only silent for another second though, before all the feathers holding his limbs pulled different directions. "So today, you're going to help save heroes instead. Where is the Dampener?"

"I don't know! I swear!" The Ant shouted it and then yelled in pain. All the feathers stopped pulling and for a second The Ant thought that Hawks was just bluffing the whole time. Then all the feathers on his upper right arm yanked backwards in a direction his arm was not meant to bend, and Hawks broke the villain's arm. "AHHH! YOU FUCK-" Hawks twisted the already broken arm more. "AHH- I swear! I don't know!"

Hawks grimaced as that sounded like the truth to him. _He'd talk. Faith knows some of them might though, probably keeps his plans secret. Definitely his true intentions. Alright._ Hawks was about to lower the villain, but he narrowed his eyes and stepped closer to the man who started seething in anger at him but also with the look of a cornered animal in his eyes. _He'll do anything to get out of this._ Hawks started putting pressure on the other appendages that made The Ant's face fill with a lot more panic at all the pain he could imagine in them. "Why aren't you on Trigger?" Hawks wondered. "You aren't even looking to reach for it, so it looks like you don't have any. You only managed to kill Fullbright because of it."

"I don't have any!" The Ant shouted at the pro hero before him. "And Fullbright was a great hero- a real one! Not like the fakes we hunt now-"

"I don't care about whatever it is you're trying to say," Hawks said in a bored tone, and he applied more pressure to _every_ appendage while he hovered The Ant above the cracked roof. The Ant let out a seething hiss of pain and then screamed as he could not hold it while Hawks moved his broken arm around. "Why don't you have any? Do the others here?" _With a group this large attacking near the middle of Musutafu. We can't allow them all to inject with Trigger. We'll have a repeat of the SFI on our hands._ "Does anyone?" Hawks growled.

"No way!" The Ant shouted, then he pulled his head back at Hawks' cold look. "I swear! It's- it's unlikely I mean. Someone might, but no- probably- def- no probably not! It's hard to get Trigger now! Ever since the Chemist was taken down, everybody has to get shipments from overseas since there's no big labs, at least that I know of! Please, no more!" Hawks started twisting the guy's arms more, and he let out a scream and then snapped his head forward in panic. "The Yakumob! Those Chinese's is who we bought the guns from! Military tech including the bomb-"

Mt. Lady and Gargantuan were talking and about to rush off to another location to keep fighting. They froze. Hawks' eyes opened huge behind his visor, and The Ant seemed to realize his mistake as that secret slipped out of his mouth. He froze with his mouth wide open, as he realized he was definitely the first person to let that information go, based on the looks of the heroes around him. Hawks stepped forward until he was right in front of The Ant, then he leaned his head up and pulled The Ant's head down with the last of his feathers so their eyes were inches away. "What bomb?"

Hawks started breaking The Ant's opposite arm as the first one, and as the cracking noises started The Ant shouted, "I'll tell you where! I'll- I'll show you-" _**Crack**_ Hawks snapped his arm backwards as the man tried to talk his way into a good position to escape. "AHH! Please- oh please no more. I'll tell you. It's over in…"

 _ **Ding**_

Shoto Todoroki stood at the bottom of the stairs in his dorm room at Heights Alliance. He stared towards the common room where seven of his classmates were standing around watching the tv with their eyes wide at the breaking news story. Some of them started reaching for their phones, and Todoroki realized that his was not the only one to receive a message. He lifted his phone and looked down at the screen, and his blue and gray eyes snapped back up huge. _Midoriya!_

"They're in trouble!" Sero shouted, lowering his phone and staring back at the screen with his eyes huge. The news that just started reporting on this did not have any idea of what was going on, but Sero ignored the titles on the screen and he turned and fired Tape towards the stairs anyway.

"Sero-kun, wait-" Iida began.

"Iida!" Kirishima shouted at the taller teen at his side. "Let's tell Class B and everyone!" Iida's eyes bulged as that was not what he was expecting Kirishima to say to him. "They need our help!" Kirishima yelled, "And half of everyone are out at internships! We need to go!"

"Agreed! Get your costumes on!" Iida yelled right back, while lifting his phone and switching to different text messages as quickly as he could. _Kendo, Principal Nezu, Vrishnuku sensei, Midnight sensei, Cementoss sensei, Present Mic…_

"We don't have time for putting-"

"That is not something we run into without being prepared! Get your costumes on now!"

'Everyone! Put on your costumes and help Class A! They're going out there!' Itsuka Kendo sent the text into her Class's group text, a nervous but certain look on her face as she did it. "Kurama," she started towards her pro hero who was streaming a news clip they needed to look up online since they were not close enough to have that news station. They were not even in the same country let alone the same city, but Kendo suspected the story was about to become big enough that they would be getting it on the stations in California too. Her study abroad internship had been going great until that moment, as all Kendo could think about now was getting back.

"There is nothing we can do," the older woman said in a low voice. The hero had a matching shade of orange hair as Kendo's only longer and falling straight down instead of spiked back in a ponytail behind her. She stood in front of the other eight heroes gathered in the room, all watching in near silence as the events unfolded in front of them on the screen.

The second years in the hero course at U.A. were quick to rush out of their dorm buildings. Iida sent out follow-up texts with a picture of the messages he received from Midoriya, showing everyone the map sent to him with the location highlighted on it, and the single message below stating 'Help'.

As Class A and Class B started running for the main school building, third years came running out of their dorms too. Iida looked over nervously while his Engines shot him down the road, only for his eyes to widen as the third years started running down the road or using their Quirks to speed them towards the main school building. Iida spun forward next as he saw the school's doors open up ahead, and Nezu ran out with five different teachers in the direction of the students.

"First years without provisional licenses are not allowed to leave the premises! All other hero course students, let's go!"

"Students," Nezu called out to the mostly surprised teenagers at their teachers reactions. "There is a police perimeter around the outside of the attack area. I have received word that it is the Cult of Stain fighting a team of heroes on location. Do what you can, to stop this before it can get any bigger! We _must_ stop this right now. Everyone, do your best. Stay together! Remember your training and protect the people of this city!"

"Class B! With me and Midnight!" Vlad King shouted over at the eight students from Class B who finished running up towards them. He saw more running down the road from farther back, and he roared at Sen Kaibara and Hiryu Rin, "HURRY IT UP!" He turned and started running without waiting for those two to catch up, and the two dark-haired boys started sprinting to try and catch their classmates.

 _Who else is over there?! Is it just Midoriya? What about Yaoyorozu? And Ashido? And Uraraka? And Tsuyu?_ Mineta ran after the others in Class A, their homeroom teacher, and Ectoplasm. He gulped while speeding up more, and he took off two Pop Offs, giving himself stepping stones to bounce farther forward just to catch up with the rest of the class. He did not throw any more, yet, but he slowed a bit while looking out into the distance where he just heard an explosion. In the small boy's head flashed memories of the Sports Festival, all the explosions around the stadium and the screams ringing out everywhere.

Then in Mineta's head, he saw the city of Musutafu in April. After the Sports Festival, the deserted streets, the broken homes with no one trying to fix them, meaning that the people who had lived there were either dead or had run away. He balled his fists at his sides, and the shortest boy in Class A took in a deep breath before pulling off more Pop Offs to speed his way downtown.

"Please, go faster Ryukyu," Uraraka called down in a worried tone from the back of the dragon she was holding onto with a dozen other heroes. The Dragoon Hero Ryukyu, or Ryuko Tatsuma, flapped her huge wings and shot across the sky over Japan. Everyone on her back had to hold on for dear life, their bodies waving around easily if they loosened their grips even the slightest bit thanks to Uravity removing all of their weight. "Deku's in tr- they need our help!" Uraraka changed up what she was calling out, but it was clear to the pro hero in her tone alone how worried the girl on her back was.

"Uravity," Nejire Hado started. Uraraka spun to the blue-haired girl on her right, and Nejire gave her a single serious nod before saying, "We're on our way. Don't be too frantic when we get there. We still don't know if the situation is-"

"I just received word," Cyberling called up from farther down on Ryukyu's back. The Dragoon Hero herself and the other heroes all listened closely as their comrade with half a body made of metal called out to them the communications he just overheard. "That a hundred students and teachers from U.A. are rushing to the incident's location right now! There are upwards of a hundred and fifty villains part of the Cult of Stain on location, including one Tartaros escapee: Dampener, who has all the Quirks in the area currently weakened. Hold on… Oh my God," Cyberling whispered the last part at what he just heard over the line. "There's a bomb!"

Tsuyu Asui's big frog eyes opened wider and she leaned back from Cyberling in shock. She turned her head and looked off the side of Ryukyu's body, into the distance where she could see the metropoles of Tokyo and a half dozen nearby smaller cities. She could see the black smoke rising in the direction of Musutafu, creating a darker sky in the direction that Ryukyu flapped her wings again towards. "Gero," Tsuyu whispered nervously, her hands tightening on Ryukyu's back.

"Hawks and Miruko are on the scene already…"

"The attack by the Stain Cult has thirty heroes in a team trying to take them down trapped in east Musutafu near twenty-fourth and…"

"Just received word that the Chinese hero team The Great Wall are arriving at the outer perimeter from Tokyo where they were…"

"I need the entire police departments of Tokyo and Hosu to get their asses over here! The perimeter is too scattered as we've been sending in squad after squad- get those cars sideways on the street! Someone confirm the takedown of Conceal already, we need to know _where_ these villains are and make sure there aren't anymore lurking in the shadows before we send these kids in there."

"We're going in."

"We have to go."

"Hold the line!"

"You kids, on me!"

 _ **Boom CHH CRASH**_ **Ba- DOOOO-** Momo Yaoyorozu propelled herself backwards with the flames coming out of her jetpack. She aimed her right hand to the side and fired, and the grappling hook shot out and connected to a streetlamp she pulled herself away using. Creati still lifted her other arm up in the way of the flames blowing out of the building on the other side of the road as her.

When Yaoyorozu landed on the ground, she lifted a hand up to her ear immediately. **"Is Backdraft here yet? Twenty-fourth street between Grand Avenue and-"**

 **"Keep the talk of a bomb quiet! If we start a panic it'll cause mass chaos and slow the reinforcements from getting here! Just get the cops to expand the perimeter much farther out!"**

 **"What kind of bomb is it?!"**

 **"Do we let the ambulances go through the perimeter? Who called for-"**

 **"Let them in! We need immediate evacs of Ms. Joke, SkyLord, Pinky, ReBird…"**

 _Pinky?!_ Yaoyorozu's eyes opened wide, and then she spun her head and looked down the street she was on where she saw a group of figures running out of a building in mid-fight. "Ballerclava!" Momo started running that way, then her eyes shot open wide and she sprinted so much faster. "Min- Pinky!" Yaoyorozu corrected herself shouting her classmate's hero name instead, and she ran right up to All Tight and an injured Shiro Swan who were backing away behind Ballerclava. There were ten villains ahead of them, and Momo snapped her head up as the shouting villains called in attention of others on the roofs of the buildings on either side of the road that were not as enflamed as others in the area.

"Good, Creati," All Tight said when she heard the other girl behind her. "Get Pinky out of here, I can't carry her and fight at the same time." All Tight lowered Pinky to the ground and then stepped back forward, and Ballerclava stopped backing up at the same time.

"Oh, did you think we were retreating just because there are some more of you?" Ballerclava asked the villains, most of whom gained hesitant looks at the scary woman in a black ski mask. Ballerclava lifted her buff arms that were missing the sleeves on them, and she cracked her knuckles before slamming her fists together in front of her. All Tight pressed both feet flat down on the ground, and everything around them started to tremble. It all got shinier too, the street and the sidewalks and the buildings around them. The villains felt the ground below them feeling strange, and their bodies tensed up at the sight of the shifting floor. A couple of the villains were unperturbed though, and they ran forward without giving it much regard.

"Go!" Ballerclava shouted, as there was no time to argue this or act tough to hold off the villains for any longer.

Shiro Swan picked up Pinky and limp-ran backwards, "Guard us. We'll get her out of here and then come back. The reinforcements are here so we should be good…" Shiro Swan reached up to Yaoyorozu's side, and Momo looked at her older comrade's head with huge eyes for a second at the blood running down the right side of Shiro Swan's face. That blood was not what had Yaoyorozu's eyes so wide though, but the fact that Shiro Swan just looked down with her teal irises and looked so nervously at the teenage girl she was helping down the road.

"Mina," Yaoyorozu whispered, looking down Ashido's body towards her right side.

Mina Ashido lifted her head a bit, looking next to her as she heard her friend's voice again. "Momo," Ashido whispered. Yaoyorozu was jogging alongside the other two, and she looked into Ashido's eyes as the pink girl spoke to her. Yaoyorozu stared straight into Ashido's dazed eyes, only for those eyes to widen in panic and for the dizzy girl to shout, "Behind you!"

Yaoyorozu started spinning her head, her right arm already snapping up from her side with a tazer in it. She lifted it, but her arm lifted below the arm already reaching over hers. The arm reaching at her was covered in blood, and the man in the cloak behind it was smirking ravenously at her while his muscular arm covered in fur made a slash at her throat. Then something slammed into his arm and knocked it away, and Yaoyorozu brought her tazer up higher and slammed it into the furry man's chest.

"AHHH!" The villain roared in pain, staggering backwards as shocks filled his whole body.

"Keep going!" Yaoyorozu shouted at Shiro Swan behind her without looking back.

"We can't without you-"

"Go with them!"

"You fake bitch!" The villain roared, recovering from his shock faster than most people could. Yaoyorozu opened her eyes wide again as the man leapt towards the girl who just tazed him, only for his extended arms to sink into a different person instead as that man dropped between the girls and their enraged enemy. "What the- what the hell is this?! Let me- hey- HEY!" The villain was trying to tug his arms back, but the slimy mushy body he had slammed his arms into started sucking his arms in.

Nagiso lifted his arms up over the top of the villain's head, making the man lift his head up and his hood to fall off behind him. His eyes opened huge, then they rolled back as Nagiso slammed his two fists down into the face of the man looking up at them. He finished sucking the villain into his body using his Quirk- Jello. His body grew larger, ten feet tall and eight wide, translucent through his costume and skin which had all turned a clear-purplish color. The villain inside his body started scrambling around, swinging his arms and then reaching at his throat where Jello was pouring into fast. Nagiso flooded the villain's windpipe and suffocated him to the point of knocking him out, then he sucked that Jello back into his body and pushed the villain out of him.

"Get going," Nagiso said while he was finishing off his opponent. "There's an ambulance just at the end of the street. The road is messed up over there from the giants' fighting, so you need to get her there yourself. Quickly!" Nagiso called out, glancing back and seeing a lot of blood dripping on the floor below Pinky.

"Thanks!" Shiro Swan called at the young man who she spun away from. She started limping with Pinky faster towards the direction Nagiso motioned too, and she called out, "Creati let's go!"

Yaoyorozu stepped backwards from Nagiso, staring at him with wide eyes for a few more seconds. Then she turned and she ran after her classmate and her fellow sidekick. _**"Yeah… but even though we were in the same middle school, it's not like we're… I know he doesn't like me. I got to be the captain of our cross country team in my second year while he was a third year, so maybe that was it. He's strong though. And a hero type too… I always knew that, I just don't want to try and make friends with him knowing, well, knowing I lied to him for years about not having a Quirk. I think he's a good person. I mean, anyone trying to be a hero has to be a certain kind of person, right?"**_

 _I had forgotten… It wasn't that you told me that he was a bad person. I just disliked the idea of him, because who could dislike you?_ Yaoyorozu shook her head around and then darted her eyes around. She kept them peeled for villains, and she spotted an explosion go off on top of a nearby building that had her holding her breath. _Is that-_ she spotted a spiky-haired boy flipping up in the air over the top of that building, and two cloaked villains with wings coming out of their backs rising up after him. They moved into a plume of black smoke and Yaoyorozu lost sight of them, though she saw a few flashes come from through the smoke indicating Bakugo was still fighting out there.

 _It wasn't the bomb. Not yet. We all had bomb defusal training. I could disarm it… If I mess up though, it won't be a small explosion in our faces. It could be the destruction of a huge area of the city…_

"Ack-" Ashido opened her mouth and blood splashed out of her lips.

Yaoyorozu spun to her right again, her face covered in horror at what she just saw. Everything she was just thinking about came to a screeching halt, and she snapped her head back down to Pinky's side where her costume was all ripped up and she was bleeding, badly. "Shiro Swan, get that ambulance over here!" Yaoyorozu shouted at her comrade who also stopped when that coughed up blood got all over her arms. Shiro Swan stared down at the paling pink girl with a nervous look, then she lifted her head to Yaoyorozu who started pulling bandages out of her glowing chest.

The older girl understood why her comrade was not going to run off herself while she was the one with the hurt left leg. Shiro Swan nodded and then sprinted away as fast as she could, making blood splash out of her left leg as she ignored her own wound to get to the supposed ambulance faster. _There has to be a way to get her to it without moving her anymore. She's too… Damn it!_

"Momo, it's fine," Ashido whispered, leaning her head up a bit while Yaoyorozu worked on stopping the bleeding on her side.

 _It's not just external. The wound is so deep. I'm getting blood everywhere- Focus!_ "Just stay quiet," Yaoyorozu said, shifting her eyes off of her blood red hands and up to Ashido's face for a moment. "We'll get you on an ambulance and Recovery Girl will be there to save you right away."

"Nah, it's fine," Ashido whispered again. She smiled at Yaoyorozu who got a panicked look on her face at that expression. Mina Ashido lifted her head more, and in a dizzy tone as she was losing a lot of blood, she said, "Don't worry. Even if, I died, Zach would come save me." Ashido said it and then smiled at Yaoyorozu whose shocked look only lasted for a brief moment when she saw those bloody teeth in her friend's smile.

Yaoyorozu did not look too sure. She still looked worried, and Ashido's confident expression wavered at that look on Momo's face. Yaoyorozu lifted her right hand and put it behind Ashido's head for a second, wrapping it into her wavy pink hair. "We're not going to find out," Yaoyorozu said. _Because I won't let you die!_

"Creati!"

Yaoyorozu turned her head, and she saw flashing red and yellow lights coming through smoke on the street to the side she heard Shiro Swan's shout. Her comrade was standing on the opened back of an ambulance, and Shiro Swan called over, "Gargantuan flattened out the road so we could get through. Get her inside!"

Creati nodded and picked up Ashido as gently as she could. The other back door of the ambulance flew open, and a couple of EMTs rushed out to help Creati lift up the other young girl and get her inside. "Are you coming with us?" The driver of the ambulance shouted back as Creati put one foot up on the back of the ambulance to try and follow after Ashido and make sure she was okay.

Yaoyorozu froze and she stared at Ashido with so much worry in her eyes. Then she spun her head and looked back into the fiery warzone behind her, then she spun to Shiro Swan, "Stay with Pinky. With your leg we would just need to call the ambulance back in to get you-"

"Watch how you talk to your senpai," Shiro Swan scolded in a harsh tone. "And get back out there, Creati," Shiro Swan said, showing she agreed with her younger comrade even if she disliked how Creati said it at first.

Yaoyorozu nodded and turned, hopping back out of the ambulance and running off again. She lifted off the ground using her jetpack, heading back towards where her pro hero and All Tight were still outnumbered.

Behind Yaoyorozu and back in the ambulance driving away, Ashido leaned her head left and right as she tried to focus on what was going on around her. One of the EMTs injected something in her arm and she found herself getting even more dizzy. She lost most of her focus and just shifted her head slowly to look down at her right side where she felt a pinch. The two EMTs were working as fast as they could on emergency treatment, and Ashido winced before closing her eyes. She looked at that spot on her side, and she mumbled in a slurred, disappointed tone, "Awww, it got me, same place Bomber did."

Shiro Swan looked towards the younger girl's face in confusion at why she would be disappointed by something like that. Pinky's eyes closed though, and she started smiling while mumbling quieter, "Now I won't get new scars…" her voice was only slightly disappointed, and she whispered as she faded out of consciousness, "the coolest heroes, all have scars."

* * *

"Third year, Valerino Kimchi reporting in from 23rd and Tobe. Intersection is secured." Valerino stood in the center of the four-way intersection, four of his fellow third-years standing at each of the streets breaking off from their crossways. The seven foot tall teen with tan skin and a cannon as a right arm held his cell phone to his head and continued to the police he had just called to organize with, "Eight hostiles captured, Cementoss has received minor injuries but is stable and being treated by Med-Med."

"Cementoss sensei, how are you feeling?" Med-Med, or Gina Jio, asked her teacher who was sitting up in front of her with a white bandage around his rectangular head.

"I am doing much better now, thank you, Med-Med." Cementoss gave his student of three years his gratitude, and the biggest smile spread on the girl's face as she thought, _Cementoss sensei just called me by my hero name. That's so cool!_

A block away and past a wall of steam and rising smoke much thicker than anywhere else, Bakugo leaned back against the large piece of debris behind him on the road. "Ch, who asked you to come?"

Todoroki did not turn away while helping Backdraft put out the flames on the side of the street closest to them. Kirishima grinned at Bakugo and countered, "We were asked to come! Midoriya texted us and we told the whole school-"

"Ch," Bakugo tssked in annoyance a second time. _Of course it had to be Deku._ "Well come on," Bakugo turned and he started marching down the street, ignoring his blood-soaked left arm and the fact that he did not have either of his green gauntlets anymore. "Let's go find-"

"Bakugo," Todoroki started, turning his head and calling to his classmate. "We should stay put until-"

"I'm on this mission, do what I say," Bakugo snapped back and shut up Todoroki. _And you don't have headsets, so you don't know the news. Shit's about to get fucked._

Encode ran into a building not touched by flames. He sprinted inside, then to the stairs to the basement, then he ran down and skid to a stop in the doorway of a large storage room. He froze in place, and he stared forward at the other man in the room who had his only good arm lifted to his head. Hawks ran his hand through his hair over and over, then he bent down again and tilted his head to the side to check some other wires, connected to larger cords, connected to what looked like different colored ropes all tied to poles and crates around the room.

"So lifting the bomb out of the city," Encode whispered, looking to the middle of the room at the object all those wires stuck out of.

"Not an option," Hawks repeated to the man he told about this in secret, not even wanting the rest of their team to know just yet. "I've found a couple wires so far that are clear dummies. Cut those and pushed them to the sides, but it's still a jumbled mess."

"That's a H-3 Cyclone Bomb," Encode said softly.

"I know," Hawks muttered in response, lifting his left hand and scratching his head again with it. "Faith probably has a trigger of his own, but look," Hawks motioned around the side, and Encode carefully stepped past and over wires to the far side from the door. He looked down at a note taped to the top of the device, and then below that note at a small screen with a countdown on it. '08:43… 08:42… 08:41…'

Encode lifted his right hand to his mouth and covered it up, narrowing his eyes behind his glasses that got a glare over them as he thought rapidly. _Calculate, calculate, calculate… How much time would I need to defuse? To find the exact wires, in a set-up this complex? And knowing Faith, there must be a trick- a riddle!_ Encode pulled off the note he had only glanced at for a second, and he stared at the writing on it in confusion. _What does that mean? 'X marks the spot' could mean…_ "Did you see any wires crossing like they were put that way intentionally?"

Hawks nodded his head, "The smaller ones have like ten that match that description. He's just messing with us. He doesn't want us to succeed."

"We have to start somewhere."

"You want to just start cutting and see what works out? This thing'll take out over ten city blocks, and there's no way we evacuate everyone in time. My feathers couldn't do it even if that Dampener wasn't still out there _fucking_ with us."

"Then we need to figure out a way to defuse it in eight minutes." Encode lifted a hand to his right ear, **"Everyone, listen to me."** Hawks glanced at Encode with a look showing he disapproved, but he went back to examining the bomb instead of telling Encode to be quiet. **"We have located the bomb. It is in the basement of a clothing store on 27th street between Grand and Abe Avenue."**

 **"Have you disarmed it?"**

 **"There are still villains gathered in two locations, at least. We need the focus on them. They won't set off the bomb while they're still-"**

 **"Listen,"** Encode repeated, his voice grim and serious, shutting up everyone still fighting on his team. Miruko and Fantasma paused what they were doing, facing off against one of the last two large groups of villains along with twenty other heroes surrounding on different sides. Bakugo stopped moving, staring forward intensely while Kirishima glanced at him in confusion. Shiro Swan turned around in the ambulance and looked through the back windows as they drove off, her eyes bulging in fear. Deku stared down the three villains in the building with him: Velkro, Dampener, and Faith, but yet as his eyes started to widen he saw Faith's smirk grow once more from ear to ear. **"The bomb has an explosive yield strong enough to… to take out ten city blocks. It's not nuclear, but it is on a timer. There are eight minutes left until it goes off, and moving it from its current position seems, impossible. Hawks and I are going to work on defusing it here. I'll keep each of you updated as to the situation as it progresses. What you decide to do from here, is up to you… Good luck."**

Cementoss lowered his head. He closed his eyes and took in a deep breath. Then he looked up and stared forward with such focus that Valerino Kimchi froze in mid-sentence to his classmates. "Blast, listen up," Cementoss said to his student. Valerino turned his way, and Cementoss stepped forward towards him before saying in a loud voice for all his nearby students to hear, "You are leaving this intersection and retreating back to the perimeter. Take the captured villains with you, and then inform the police that they are to shift the perimeter back and keep moving back."

"Cementoss, what's going on?" One of the third years behind Cementoss called out.

 _We cannot create a panic. We need everyone who is able to help to stay, and this will cause many to flee. I am sorry students, but you are heroes now as well!_ "Just listen to me," Cementoss ordered, and his students stared at the usually soft-spoken man with their eyes huge. "Have them push back the perimeter and evacuate all civilians farther back as well. There is a danger in here that we need to ensure the public's safety over. Now all of you, go!" Cementoss turned the opposite way that he just ordered his students to go, and he started running farther into the attack area.

 _If I can cover the bomb in enough cement, perhaps I can contain… most of the explosion. It is the best that I can think of._

Bakugo turned to Kirishima and responded to his classmate who just asked what Bakugo was hearing, "They said to send the reinforcements back to the perimeter." Kirishima looked at Bakugo in surprise, and the blond boy added while turning back away from his best friend, "Get out there and tell them to push the perimeter back. And go fast, something might be heading that way."

"What about you?" Kirishima asked worriedly. "You're all alone in here-"

"Shut up. I'm meeting up with my agency," Bakugo snapped with his head tilted back so he could shout it behind him without looking towards Kirishima. "Just get going!"

 _Best way to counter an explosion,_ Bakugo thought, his eyes darkening and his teeth clenching as he heard Kirishima shout towards him that he got it, before running off. Bakugo glanced over his shoulder towards his classmate, _You better harden if this goes south._ Bakugo looked back forward and pointed his palms down behind him. _Because a blast that big is just, fuck… FUCK!_ Bakugo blasted his hands in front of him and shot himself up higher in the air, then he blasted himself to a different street where he saw ice rising up on a flaming building. "Oi! Todoroki!" Bakugo shouted down.

Todoroki immediately knew something bad was happening. He was already suspicious when he saw a couple heroes rushing behind him thirty seconds ago, shouting over at him and Backdraft to get to the perimeter since villains were about to attack it. He had not believed them, and the look in Bakugo's eyes told him it was worse than a few villains trying to escape the area. _Dad, did you pick a bad time to go abroad._ "Bombs can't explode if you freeze them, right?!" Bakugo shouted down at his classmate.

"Where is it?" Todoroki yelled right back up at Bakugo who kept popping himself up with continuous blasts.

"Principal Nezu!" At the police perimeter on the north side of the evacuated area, Nezu looked at the police captain standing in front of him panting and with a nervous look spread across his face. "Call your students back out of the evacuation zone. Right now."

Nezu looked behind the captain and down the road past the perimeter. Police cars were speeding his way as were the black trucks sent in to pack up the captured villains and get them away from any comrades who might still try to help them. Nezu's beady eyes started growing huge as he spotted heroes and several of his students running his direction. _Oh no…_

"SMASH!"

All the glass windows of a building Todoroki and Bakugo were speeding past exploded outwards. The two of them looked in at the building that covered in cracks, and then a man came flying out of a shattered window wearing a red cloak that had Bakugo's wide eyes narrowing fast. His hands turned to his right and he shot himself left and then back at where the leader of the Stain Cult was soaring backwards out the breaking building.

As Bakugo turned himself though, his blasts sent him flying much farther than he thought they would. Faith turned his head towards the boy speeding towards him too fast. A knife flicked over in his right hand, and he threw it at Bakugo from a few feet away. A massive pillar of ice shot up between Bakugo and Faith, stopping the knife and making Bakugo slam into the pillar that had a frozen knife stuck in it inches from where he was flying.

 **"I took down the Dampener. I'm after Faith right now."**

Bakugo turned his head to the right a bit as he bounced off the ice pillar, his face scrunched in pain and a ton of frustration. Midoriya had started running after Faith only to see Bakugo almost get hit unawares, so he had to let everyone know about the villain he had just Smashed behind him. Bakugo realized it too while he put his hands back and blasted himself up again, this time to the side so he could get around the ice pillar Faith had kicked himself away from.

Faith had already seen Dampener go down and reacted immediately in response to it. He had seen Bakugo just fly past the window when he was jumping out of it, and he knew the kind of person the boy was and had the knife ready before Bakugo even used a blast back towards him. Todoroki looked up in the air past his ice where the villain in a red cloak dropped down and landed on the cracked street. Bakugo and Midoriya both rushed forward on Todoroki's right coming down from the air, and then both redirected themselves backwards and landed closer to the boy with red and white hair.

Blue lightning sparked in a dome around Faith. He lifted his bowed head a couple inches, and he grinned at the three boys facing him on the street. Todoroki stood behind Midoriya and Bakugo, in between the two with his left hand lifted and an intense look in his eyes as he stared back at Faith's. _That red cloak. This is the Cult of Stain's leader. He's insane!_

 _Lightning. Good,_ Bakugo curled his fingers in at his sides a few times, cracking his knuckles with a smirk twisting onto his face to match his enemy's.

"Electricity-Quirk users like us are just naturally better," Faith said.

 _"Like_ _ **us**_ _,"_ it echoed in the minds of the three students whose hearts started racing. Their eyes widened and darted around. Each of them had been thinking about it in some way or another. However deep thoughts of Raijin were in their minds though, each of them were thrown off by a single sentence. Midoriya knew it after a single second of darting his eyes to the right and left for Kaminari. _We don't have time!_ "Todoroki! Get to the bomb-"

"I don't know where it is," Todoroki replied fast.

Faith started backpedalling. He rose his arms with blue electricity sparking around them, and he threw his right hand forward as the boys started to run after him. A blast of blue electricity flew off his hand and slammed down into the pavement ahead of the teenagers who had to stop for a moment to not run into it. "I can beat him," Midoriya said, his fists clenched at his sides as he stopped for a second next to Bakugo. He darted his gaze to the left and Bakugo snapped his eyes right. "Go stop the bomb-"

"Fuck that! I'll stop him!" Bakugo shouted back. He darted his eyes forward and snarled while pointing his hands behind him, "I already know how I can." **BAM** Bakugo blasted himself down the road after Faith who smirked wide and visibly under his hood. That smirk made it seem like he was hoping Bakugo would come on his own, but Bakugo was not buying it for a second. _Don't listen to a thing he says. Don't believe any of his expressions._ The smirk could have just as easily been something to just throw him off again like suggesting that Raijin was there with them even though Bakugo knew he wasn't.

 _Kacchan… I'll believe in you._ "Todoroki!" Midoriya turned and started running. "There isn't much time!"

"How far is the bomb?"

"It's under a clothing store on…"

In the basement with the bomb, Hawks and Encode lifted their heads and looked each other in the eyes. They looked back down, and Encode rose both hands up to his head to run them through his hair. Hawks lowered the red feather blade he was holding in his left hand down to the thick rope-wire connecting to the wall behind him. The usually calm and composed hero got a bead of sweat rolling down the side of his face, and then he cut down and snipped the rope. Nothing exploded. Encode lowered his hands from his head and let out a few deep breaths, then he spun back to the bomb as Hawks did since the timer was still going down.

"It's not connected down here anymore," Encode started.

"That doesn't mean anything as long… we have to go for deactivating."

"There are so many failsafes, so many traps," Encode whispered, moving around the side of the bomb they had opened a panel up on. The panel was only slightly moved off to the side, because there were wires taped to the inside of the panel that could be connected to something else important they were unable to see with the panel only opened as far as it was. All the wires inside were red too, so there was no differentiating between them.

"We just have to cut a wire," Hawks said.

"That could be suicide," Encode responded in a low voice.

"Well we'd be staying down here anyway until it goes off," Hawks said. He said it logically, thinking about how this was going to end already one way or another. "I guess we should wait until the last second, give the others the most time to evacuate. Let's pick the wire now though."

"I'm telling you, I can't just pick that easily. The wiring is all jumbled, nothing like I've seen… if they were just different colors at least. If I could see deeper inside without that panel in the way-"

"But Faith planned for that," Hawks said, shaking his head and then glaring so hard at the bomb before him. The bomb itself made Hawks feel like Faith was grinning at him in smug victory. _There has to be a way to get the bomb out of here. It must have been put together in this room, since it's much too large to get out through the door. How did they manage this? If the bomb goes off in the basement, will the blast be at least a little smaller? There's no way they've evacuated even a quarter of the total people in a ten block radius. Thousands on the line. Millions affected. Billions when the world descends deeper into the darkness because of this. Snipping the wrong wire could spiral the world. Kill off the U.A. students. Destroy a city trying so hard to rebuild from its last destruction. Me, Miruko, Deku._

Hawks lifted his left hand and ran it back through his dirty-blond hair. _If I just ran out of here, I'd never get what I want. A society where heroes can just enjoy some boredom. We mess this up and heroes are gonna have our work cut out for us forever. Come on. Where is the hole? Where is the-_

"Hawks! Encode!"

The two heroes leaning in close to the bomb snapped backwards. Neither noticed the silence that had happened between them. They had been so lost in their own thoughts while their eyes shot back and forth over the bomb and all the exposed wires, finding nothing to indicate the right one. They turned to Deku, and they looked behind him to see Shoto Todoroki running down into the basement with them. "Move back," Todoroki said to the older heroes.

"Stop," Hawks said.

Todoroki stopped walking forward and glanced at Hawks quickly, wondering why he was saying that. Hawks darted his eyes over to the timer on the other side of the bomb as the kids, then back at them with a grimace covering his face. Encode began to the confused boys whose purpose for being there he already figured out, "One of the failsafes we have managed to uncover so far, the most simple one to identify actually, is a temperature regulator. The instant you try to freeze this bomb," Encode did not finish the sentence, but he did not need to.

 _How did he know?! Or, or is it just everything?_ Todoroki's eyes narrowed at the bomb in front of him. _Is that man just planning for everything? Why make it the most simple to find, unless he really didn't want me, or someone else, to freeze it?_ "What if that's just," Todoroki started slowly. "His way of stopping us from trying to freeze it? If he made it that easy to see-"

"You're right," Hawks told the teen. "You think you can freeze it fast enough that it doesn't explode?"

Todoroki looked into the Number 2 hero's eyes with his own huge at the question. _I don't have the experience. I, I don't know._ "I don't know," Todoroki replied. _I can. I think I could, but, but how big is this explosion going to be? What if I make it go off?_

Deku's eyes were darting all around the room. He saw cut wires, the thickest ones holding the bomb inside the room, and then he lifted his head and looked up at the ceiling. "IF ANYONE'S IN THE BUILDING, LEAVE NOW!" Deku shouted at the top of his lungs.

"Under two minutes," Encode warned, while at the same time stepping back from the boy with curly green hair no one was arguing with.

"Todoroki!" Midoriya called out, while jumping up at the same time. Midoriya's body surrounded in Full Cowling to the point he was glowing, his skin brighter and a aura flashing around him as he shot at the ceiling of the basement. He flipped over and over, and he slammed his right foot up, _50%_ "Miamiiii… SMASH!" Midoriya shattered the ceiling above them, which was also the first floor of the store, and then everything above it ripped apart too.

The force from Midoriya's kick was so strong that the wind that blew out below him slammed into his comrades and knocked them backwards. Todoroki planted his feet down hard though and pointed his left hand up at the rising debris while Midoriya was slamming down into the ground in front of him. "Incinerate," Todoroki fired a pillar of flames out from his hand and the second blast slammed into his comrades and knocked them farther back this time with a ton of heat pressing into them. Todoroki incinerated all the rising debris before it could fall back down, and the pillar of fire faded away.

Midoriya and Todoroki were both panting. It only took a few seconds in total but now they had their new route. They used attacks so powerful that Encode was just gawking at them for a few moments despite a ticking bomb timer in front of him only a few feet away. Hawks let out a whistle while looking up through the hole in the ceiling. They were now in a basement with no building above them, only some cracked walls of a first floor that no longer existed.

 **Beep**

Everybody slammed back into reality quickly. As powerful of Quirks as they had, as amazing as those attacks just were, the hunk of metal on the floor was a jarring reminder that no one was all powerful. They stared at a weapon from the past, a Cyclone Bomb, one they knew they could not let go off right here but also had no way of stopping its detonation. The bomb was going to explode. The idea of defusing it was at this point off of all their minds. And they had a minute left, less, if the incessant **beep** ing every second since it hit 60 seconds was an indicator.

"Hawks, can your feathers," Encode started.

Hawks was already on it. His red feathers surrounded the bomb, and then more surrounded it, and then some more. **Beep beep beep beep beep…** _**Creaaakk**_ Hawks stopped lifting. His wings were down a lot of feathers, but the bomb just hoisted up the smallest amount. And when he lifted it that small bit, he shot more of his feathers to it and steadied the bomb that was as heavy as it looked.

"Don't move it too fast."

"You need to get it high up right now."

"All the triggers and-"

 **Click**

"The timer!"

"Hawks get it up there!"

"Moving it fast is what made the timer speed up in the first place-"

"There's no time!"

"DEKU!"

"Oh my- URARAKA! GET OUT-"

"No, Midoriya! Uraraka quickly!" Todoroki shouted up, pulling Midoriya back with one hand to shout it. He was about to make an ice slide up to her to get her there faster, then he turned to Midoriya instead. "Get her here right now!"

Deku bit down and then shot up in the sky. He reached the descending dragon in an instant, and Uraraka was already jumping off the side. He held her tightly, and Uraraka only got pink cheeks for a moment before she let out a yelp at how fast they shot back out of the sky. **Beep-beep-beep-beep-beep** Uraraka's eyes opened huge as she was met with the sight of a bomb with a timer that went from 15 seconds to eleven in the span of a single second. Hawks was rising the bomb, and Midoriya held Uraraka up in front of it after bouncing off the ground.

Uraraka reached out and removed the bomb's gravity. It became weightless, though Uraraka's stomach churned and she felt herself getting sick as it weighed more than she was expecting. Deku started falling back the other way, pulling Uraraka with him and twisting around so his back was to the bomb speeding down. All of Hawks' remaining feathers pushed into the bottom of the bomb that was no longer hard to lift at all, no longer had heavy components inside to slide around with the slightest shifts in weight. Hawks pushed the bomb higher, and higher, and past Ryukyu who flapped herself down faster while the heroes on her back screamed in panic.

Midoriya landed in the basement and kept his arms around Uraraka. Todoroki pressed his right foot down hard, and ice walls shot around his classmates, himself, and Encode. He wanted to give Hawks one too, but he did not want to mess with Hawks at all at the same time. Hawks stared straight up through his goggles, and he pulled all his feathers off of the bomb that continued to rise at his feathers' max speed since it had zero gravity and nothing to stop it from keeping rising. He pulled back, and an ice wall started rising around him, and then there was a bright flash in the sky.

Tsuyu stared up at the flash with her breath caught in her throat. Then one of Ryukyu's giant wings curved around all the heroes with her. The Dragoon Hero pulled her head away from staring at the flash, and she shouted, "Brace yourselves!"

Down the block, Miruko and Indago turned away from the boy in the middle of the road they were looking at in impressed ways. They turned from him and his downed enemy and looked to the sky, and Bakugo kept panting while standing in the middle of the road but turned his head and lifted it as well. "Fuck," he muttered, and then he crossed his arms as the flash turned into an explosion that ripped across the sky and turned the sky red. The explosion burst out with a shockwave across the sky, tearing through all the white clouds and blowing them away.

Iida stopped calling to his classmates on a different block to get out of the area he just heard there might be a bomb in. He turned and looked up where he heard the blast, a thundering **Boom** so massive that all the shouting people around him went completely silent. The shockwave rippled across the sky high above, and when Iida saw the clouds get blown apart his eyes shot open huge. "Everyone! Get to cover!"

A wave of force and heat collided with the city below. Windows cracked, and ice started melting, and heroes felt the heat from the distant explosion pressing into them. Everyone looked back up, into the sky full of fiery explosion, an explosion that did not go off inside the city they were in. They looked at a bomb they all realized was just sent up in the sky, and then they started to cheer. People hiding far inside their buildings stepped back closer to their cracked windows, letting out breaths of relief and then smiling as the city outside was still there.

The fires were all under control. There were hundreds of heroes and police in the evacuation area. The last of the villains were being handled by heroes who had the full uses of their Quirks and overwhelming numbers. The villains who had surrounded the heroes trying to surround them after surrounding the heroes were finally trapped for real on all sides. Faith was down. The bomb went off a safe distance away.

Heroes had won the day. The Cult of Stain was defeated. And in the entire battle, not a single civilian had been killed.

* * *

A helicopter flew through the sky up towards a shimmering shape just below the dark clouds covering the whole sky. The pilot tapped a button on the top of the cockpit above him, and the almost see-through ship ahead turned black. The Cloak's cloaking systems went down, and then the pilot tapped another button while talking into his headset to someone in the command center of the massive ship he was approaching. The helicopter slowed down, and it moved carefully up the side of The Cloak before curving over towards one of the marked helipads on the top.

Three others sat in the helicopter along with the pilot. "It's pretty cool, huh?" Hybrid asked the man across from him, leaning out and grinning as he looked down at The Cloak himself.

"Why are we still going over? Just use that one-"

"Scotty says to use Pad 3. So I'm going to Pad 3," Yusef retorted to Theo who sat on the seat next to the pilot's chair. "And just heard I've gotta go pick up Fillian and Exodus from their recon mission right after this, so hop out quick you three!" Yusef covered up his headset's mic while calling that out, then he started talking again to Scotty over the line, "Yeah, he's here too. Yeah, yeah I'm dropping them off now. I got it! I know where to go, and I've still got fuel so I'll be right out for the extraction…"

The older man in the back of the helicopter glanced to the front for a few seconds, then he shifted his attention back outside. His eyes scanned over the man across from him, and he saw Hybrid staring once again at him with an amazed look on his face. The awed twenty-three year old with dark brown skin and dreads did not have his helmet on just like the others in the helicopter though they were all still wearing their black uniforms. The black haired man sitting across from Hybrid had a katana strapped on his back and knife sheaths on the sides of his torso, on his arms, his waist, and his legs. He stared down at The Cloak through blood red eyes, and he stood up as they were about to touch down on one of the helipads.

"They'll bring it down inside soon as I lift off again!" Yusef called out, turning his head and shouting for the others to hear. "Good luck, and good to have you with us!"

Chizome Akaguro hopped out of the helicopter without saying a word in response to the pilot. Hybrid jumped out next to him, and Theo popped out of the passenger seat of the helicopter a moment later. Theo closed the door and smacked the side of the bird a couple times, and Yusef pulled the sticks and brought her back up in the air. **Clunk** Chizome looked down at the helipad that started sliding down into the surface of the black ship. As they lowered, his eyes rose back and darted around the surface of The Cloak as it once again started to turn invisible.

The pad lowered down below the top of the ship, into a massive hangar in the middle of it. It clunked again as it attached to a metal pole to start lowering through the wide hangar, and the man who had never seen this before stepped forward on the pad with his eyes wide. Over a dozen military grade vehicles: helicopters, jeeps, humvees, trucks, supply vans, as well as some more casual cars and a few motorcycles. There a few people already in the hangar, most of them not wearing helmets and just looking over and up at the lowering helipad. One figure did have his helmet on as he stood on the floor facing the group that just arrived. He stared up with hazel eyes, straight through his black visor and to the man in the middle of the three on the helipad's edge.

Hybrid and Theo just walked up to either side of their new comrade. Hybrid was on his right, and he glanced in to see his older comrade's eyes shifting around everything in their headquarters. Hybrid smirked and then said, "Well, we're home now. Welcome to The Cloak, Stain."

* * *

 **A/N Happy Thanksgiving! Huge chapter finally finished up. I haven't written a word of the next chapter yet so gonna get started with that now. Hope y'all have been having good Thanksgivings though. I have a ton of work due next week, then finals week after it, then... Winter break! So I'll probs get back to a quicker schedule around then, but next few weeks'll probs be slow. Sorry about that. Death has never had a week break between chapters twice in a row before, so I get why a couple of you feel it's taking a while. This one was also kind of tough to write, getting in lots of diff plot lines, trying to tie in these characters with overall importance of Death which is why the story came over to check on them anyway. Anyway, end of the chapter with a cliffhanger! XD Cult of Stain chapters coming to a head with Stain himself arriving on The Cloak. What's gonna happen next?! Find out next time on Death!**

Big Fan of Death chapter 112 . Nov 15

Ah, I understand. Well take your time then, the wait was worth it once again. Have a nicr Thanksgiving and xmas if you celebrate those

 **Hope you enjoyed! Thanks and I hope your Thanksgiving is going well too! XD Merry Christmas too, though got a bit til then!**

Big Fan of Death chapter 112 . Nov 20

*after any chapter of Death*  
Day 1without upload:'oh its fine, he'll upload tomorrow'  
Day 2 without upload:'uh oh'  
Day 3 without upload: *slight despair*

 **Nice new account name! Haha was cool to see that, sorry about another late update! (pretty sure you're the same person I just replied to, but could be getting bamboozled rn).**

Electrikitty chapter 1 . Nov 21

Dude. 1.2m words... dude, you are PROLIFIC. Excited to see a fic pointing out that the fact that there would be Quirks that wouldn't be sunshine and roses, and... 1.2m words. I could be here for a while but I am EXCITED. Plus Ultra!

 **Thanks! Hope you catch up soon and see this! PLUS ULTRA!**

Laxca chapter 112 . 8h ago

No holiday updates?

 **Don't worry Laxca! How could I go Thanksgiving without giving y'all a chapter? What I'm grateful for this Thanksgiving is all you guys. Hearing what you think about this story, seeing all the views, it really feels great knowing the work's appreciated. You guys are the best and I hope you all keep enjoying Death!**


	114. Chapter 114

**Disclaimer: I don't own Boku no Hero Academia**

 **Chapter 114:**

"Everyone. Everyone! Settle down," Ali Vrishnuku said to his students after raising his voice a bit. The class started to settle in their seats, and usually he would have had issue in how long it was taking them. The weekend's events were still so fresh in everyone's minds though, and since many of their classmates just returned back from internships on Sunday night or even that morning, it was the first time eighteen members of Class 2-A were together since the defeat of Faith and the Stain Cult.

At first some news stations went with the label for the incident as the 'Close Call' of Musutafu based on the bomb. The heroes assured in the press conference that the bomb was simply made to be too difficult to defuse so they went with letting it explode in the sky instead. Hawks had laughed and then said he lost a few feathers, but the bomb was nothing they could not handle. Despite the Number 2 ranked hero being at the press conference, he did not receive many questions at all like most of the other members of the actual attack team. Miruko had hopped off quickly, and she took her interns with her so the media missed out on interviewing Bakugo and Indago as they had really wanted to, as almost all questions were targeted to the U.A. students.

Deku sat at his seat in Class A's classroom, and his eyes shifted over towards Bakugo who he had seen a video about yesterday showing him soon after the incident had finished and everyone was gathering for the press conference. While they were all coming up with how to treat the event to the media, Indago, Bakugo, and Miruko were seen at a restaurant in Tokyo. _Maybe she took him out for beating Faith. Or maybe they were just hungry. When Kacchan said he wasn't going to the press conference, I thought Miruko would probably make him but…_

Midoriya tried to keep his focus on Bakugo, but his eyes shifted over to an empty seat not far from him that made his bottom lip curl and a frustrated look to form on his face. _Ashido, please be back soon. Recovery Girl said it was serious, but she assures us you are alright. I do not like how close it was, and the fact that you are not here right now is-_

The door of Class A opened up and a pink head poked into the classroom that Vrishnuku had just settled down. "Look who's-"

"Ashido!"

"Mina!"

Vrishnuku opened his mouth to say something to his students who just jumped out of their seats, but instead he turned back to the pink girl himself. _Recovery Girl said she'd probably be out for most of the week._ "Hmph," he grinned at the girl in her school uniform who quickly apologized for being late before running over to her friends who just jumped up. _So she doesn't want to miss class. Good._ "It's a good thing you're here, Ashido. You clearly need more training."

Ashido dropped her jaw and spun to her teacher who everyone else started gawking at too. "Now take your seat so we can begin class," Vrishnuku added to the girls standing in the middle of his classroom. "It is good to see you are alright, by the way," he added the last part and then walked back to his desk that had an open laptop on it.

It took her a second, but Ashido smiled back at her teacher and then turned to sit down. _I know I need more training. I didn't do anything except be a burden for everyone. All Tight's the third pro now to pull my… Alright don't get down! No moping. I'll just get a new hero to see my greatness. The news has been saying nicer things about me at least._ Ashido started pulling out her books, and she turned her head and laughed at something Kirishima just mentioned to her.

Yaoyorozu sat back in her seat too after jumping up when she saw Mina arrive. She let out a breath of relief as she saw Ashido smiling and talking like her usual self. _I was so worried. Everyone was,_ Yaoyorozu added to herself while glancing around, noticing that a lot of people were stealing relieved glances over towards their returned classmate. Ashido was trying hard not to show the discomfort on her right side as her stomach was still completely wrapped in bandages, but she actually was feeling better just talking to her classmates around her.

Everyone was in even better a mood now. Before homeroom had started, they were all talking excitedly and about how the news was treating their class and all of U.A. since the attack. The credibility U.A. had lost after so many attacks seemed to be recovered in a single moment. None of the students who rushed out were killed or even badly injured, with the only student named as in bad condition being Pinky who was part of the initial team fighting the cultists anyway. There were news crews all outside of the school, trying to catch any and all students they could to talk to since the event. All of the students who had not made it back from their internships for the incident had to say that a dozen times that morning just trying to get back into school.

Midoriya glanced to his right and looked over at Uraraka and Iida who were looking back towards Ashido themselves. They shifted their attentions forward as Vrishnuku started talking about their schedule for the week, including patrols out in the city more than usual so they could help with some reconstruction down on the east-side of Musutafu. As much as they had kept damage to a minimum, a couple of blocks had had bad fires on them or fighting that was too intense to worry about property damage. Midoriya tried to focus on what his teacher was saying, but he lifted his hands over the table and stared down at them and the scars covering them.

 _Soon. I could use my punches again already, but I can't risk breaking them anymore. Soon though. I've made another step._ Midoriya clenched both hands into fists and kept staring at them as he turned them over to look at the scars on the backs of them. _All Might told me that sometimes to surpass my limits it had to be fighting the strongest villains. I knew it when he told me, because of Muscular, against Bakugo, fighting Inhuman, all those times it was true. And in that intense situation fighting dozens of villains and Faith, all with my Quirk being depleted… I can reach 50% now, like I did fighting Inhuman without destroying my body. Needing to become stronger when I was suddenly so much weaker, it was something I haven't had to deal with for a while since even just 20% of One For All has been enough for the majority of villains. If I had learned back with Dandy, then maybe Wonderlass wouldn't have had to… Don't think about that. She didn't say anything because she knew back then too, she pushed herself too far. And it took her out of commission. Just like All Might. Just like Faith said…_

 _Faith was insane. Don't listen to anything he said. That's why Wrangler,_ Midoriya's eyes twitched, and his hands loosened a bit on his desk. He thought about running back out of that store after telling the hostages to escape out the back before it got too full of flames. He knew he had to help Wrangler and Ms. Joke against Faith, but when he got out and saw them- Midoriya clenched his eyes shut. _Faith, gave him a heart attack. We heard afterwards that Wrangler knew about his condition but he was allowed to return anyway, and he was treated like a hero who died fighting on the news, just like the others… But, Ms. Joke went into retirement, supposedly for her face and shoulder injuries. She had someone else do her press conference, I, I don't think she could have gone up there and smiled. The look on her face- what did he say?! Why did we listen to him? What could a man say to another to give him a heart attack? Wrangler was so convicted to fight Faith too, to stop him, yet, yet Faith was too evil. Kacchan said he didn't let Faith say much, which was good, probably how he stopped him so, quickly…_

 _I need to train this 50% Full Cowling more. I can't use Doubling with it, already pushing past what feels normal at 38%. I can keep 50% for an extended period of time now, as long as I don't think about attacks as any different from usual movements, if it's a constant strain to 50% on every jump and step- though, I'll probably break a lot of property if I have to move that fast all the time- which is why I need to train more! If it's a constant strain instead of jolts with every jump that my body isn't prepared or used to… and this will speed up how quickly I reach 100%, since I'll get used to 50 and then move up doing the same to reach the next level. And with that amount of power, even the point I'm at right now I should be stopping everything like All Might did._ Midoriya grit his teeth and clenched his fists hard again, because he heard Faith telling him something similar a couple days earlier. _The Stain Cult has to just be the beginning. If I had gone after them alone though, I would have lost. Dampener, Hangover, Banshee, Mirror Mind, The Ant, Velkro… Black Widow._ Midoriya stared down at his hands sadly, thinking about the woman he had kicked in the face as he leapt back out of a window still early in the fight.

He thought about the man he had tackled through that window in the first place, the one who Black Widow had cut up with her long steel nails. _**"We did everything we could…"**_ _SkyLord… ReBird, and Repairman. Changeling, Officer Hove driving the decoy villain car, and Officer Kardo. Wrangler. Seven in total. We lost seven people, five members of our team of thirty. Almost six,_ Midoriya's eyes shifted back to Ashido in a dark way. _And Ms. Joke's retired too. It was a hefty loss… but everyone's calling it a victory._ Midoriya tried refocusing up at their homeroom teacher as he discussed which Ground they would be going for their practical training that morning with All Might. As soon as he refocused past Ashido's head though, looking at the teacher and imagining getting into schoolwork, he was plagued with what Faith said to him. _I should be out there right now. I can be so fast. 50% One For All isn't half of All Might's power, it's more than that because I've been accumulating strength too! Yet I'm still just going to sit in… school… I have to. I can't do what he did. I can't do things my own way. There's a method to becoming a hero. Hero high school. A full hero license. Not just going around to save everyone because I think I could. I'm still, still not ready… Which is why I need a new internship!_

 _It can't be with Wonderlass, and FlyGuy says he's going to go sidekick somewhere else instead of making his new agency he always mentioned… He blames himself for not being able to protect the others, so how could he be good enough for his own agency. That's what he's thinking. I wish I could help him too. It's not his fault. If anyone, it's the two officers found responsible for ratting out the plans, though,_ Midoriya furled his lip and stared at the board in a more upset way, his eyes darkening as he did. _The cultist cop is being treated worse than the other, considering the other received pictures of his kids while they were at school directly from Faith shortly before the attack._ _ **"His… mother."**_ _No! Don't let what Faith said get to- he knew. But he's in jail! Is he the only one who might… no, no because Shigaraki went for Zach's…_

"Since we still have some time left in homeroom, I thought you might all be interested in a video I have acquired," Vrishnuku started to his students after checking his watch and seeing he had some time. His students looked towards him confusedly, and then their eyes started growing huge as the man said, "It will most likely come out on the news soon, but we have our first believed spotting of Zach Sazaki since the Philippines."

"What?" Bakugo muttered, lifting an eyebrow and looking at their teacher in confusion and wondering if the man was serious.

Kirishima glanced to his left in similar confusion, and Sero glanced back and shrugged at him. Sero looked back forward and asked, "Do you mean, like his face?"

 _Sero's asking if he had his helmet off,_ Yaoyorozu thought from back behind the boy with Tape in his elbows. _I would very much like to see the clip._ "Can we see the clip?" Yaoyorozu requested in a serious tone, looking towards their teacher who nodded back at her and then reached down and clicked on the screen of his laptop.

The board at the front of the room changed colors in the middle as he connected his computer. Vrishnuku started while pulling the video up, "There was a robbery at a convenience store in Mississippi, America this past weekend, and for evidence security footage was taken to see who did it. The culprits on the clip were masked but knew exactly where the safe was in the place, so they went through security footage over the past few months looking for suspicious behavior to signify someone scoping out the joint to rob." A surveillance clip got put up on the screen with a play button in the middle Vrishnuku hovered the mouse over. "They are still working on finding the ones responsible, however they found this from early in November."

Vrishnuku started the clip and all of Class A focused on the gas station convenience store that they had one of the camera angles of in the edited video. The first angle was on the front of the store pointed down, and it showed a hooded figure walking out of the rain and into the convenience store. There was a date and time marks on the bottom of the screen, so when it switched to the next angle inside they knew it was only a second after and showing the figure in a dark hoodie stepping inside the store. He instantly turned his head to the right and walked along the edge of the room looking into the glass cases of drinks on the wall. When he turned, his head was lowered down and his face shadowed over so all that could be seen were the white headphones' wire sticking out of his hood.

The boy on the screen was just over five and a half feet tall, he had a similar body shape that the others recognized, but they still could not confirm it themselves. Todoroki narrowed his eyes at the screen and the hooded figure who he was confused to see there, especially as he darted his eyes back over to the date stamp again. _"Believed spotting," Vrishnuku sensei knew what he was saying. It's not a "confirmed" sighting of Zach. It couldn't be. In early November, that's nearly a month after Mongoloid-_

The hooded figure lifted his head a little while grabbing a couple of snacks from a middle shelf. He was already holding a couple of energy drinks in his other hand, and he nodded his head to the music while he picked out some bags of chips and some jerky. Then he turned and walked over towards the store's counter where one person was already standing. The bottom of his face had been revealed for a second when he grabbed the snacks, but just because his skin was light and he had a similar jaw-line did not mean anything. He walked up to the counter though and the angle of the cameras changed to the one above the counter and just behind it to point down at the customer and the register.

The customer put his stuff down on the counter and took out his headphones for a second while pulling out some cash. The cashier smiled after a moment of talking to the hooded figure, though there was no sound on the surveillance footage. The person the clerk was talking to had not taken off their hood, but the man seemed to be laughing at something as he rang up the items the customer brought in. The clerk added something himself while handing back some change, and the hooded figure lifted their head and smiled at him.

The top part of his face was shadowed by his hood and long black bangs, but the scar under his right eye was clear. He said something back to the clerk, smiled, pocketed his change, then he grabbed his bag and headed out. Everyone in Class A stared at the screen with their eyes wide at what they just saw. The camera angle switched back to the one just outside the store where the figure, who they all could believe was Zach now after seeing that scar, stood under the overhang just outside the shop. He did not want to step farther out and into the rain it looked like, but while the camera was pointed at his back, he turned a bit to the left and tossed one of the energy drinks he pulled out of his plastic bag.

A shorter figure in a red hood walked up to him. Her face was shadowed in the darkness and with her hood, but she opened up her energy drink while coming up to his side and she tilted it back to drink. The bulge on the chest of her sweatshirt made it clear she was a girl, and everyone stared at the board with their eyes even wider. They gawked at the two on the screen, as they talked to each other with their backs to the shop behind them. The one in the darker hoodie lifted up a hand and handed one of the headphones sticking out of his sweatshirt to the girl next to him who put it in her own hood, and then he held a bag of chips he had opened out in the middle of them so the girl at his side could eat some too.

The girl lifted up her phone and then put it back in her pocket after checking something. She pointed as a car pulled up in front of them with a Ryde logo on the bottom right corner of the windshield. The two of them jogged through the rain up to the back of the taxi, got in the back seats, and the Ryde drove off. The clip ended.

"Facial recognition did not have a 100% match," Vrishnuku began while turning from the clip back to all his students himself. "But it looked to me like your old classmate, Zach Sazaki."

Everyone kept staring at the board in so much confusion. Sero leaned back in his seat and ran his hands up through his hair in a super confused way. _This is after Mongoloid. Like, a while after Mongoloid. This was while they were doing that UN stuff about the Army of Death, because of Kazania… But Zach was in America. Just like, I thought. Before anything came out about Death since the Philippines, I thought he was heading to America._

"I don't get it," Ashido whispered softly. Kirishima turned to her, still with a baffled expression on his own face. The pink girl on his right was more than just confused though. Ashido looked down at her desk, her eyes huge, _I really believed he was Death. So, so if he's not, does that mean he really wouldn't have gotten to me to save me the other day? If I had died, he wouldn't have come?_ The thought confused and saddened her even more.

Yaoyorozu tried to smile. _Zach's alright. That's all that… I'm happy, to see him alive so recently._ In her head she saw that shorter figure with him. _**"Darling!"**_

 _It wasn't a complete match,_ Yaoyorozu started to herself. _But, that was him… Yet, he_ _ **is**_ _Death. I know that for sure._

"So, did Zach and that girl break off from the Gentle Criminal, you think?" Hagakure asked Shoji who she turned to after the video ended.

Shoji turned back to her and he hesitated for a few seconds before humming slowly. "It is, possible," Shoji began. _I thought the man in the purple cape was likely the Gentle Criminal, but, but what if that is not an indicator that Zach really joined Death? I thought he was Death himself, but that, that doesn't seem likely here._

Iida lifted a hand to his chin and scratched it in confusion. He leaned back in his seat and lifted his eyes with perfect vision up to the ceiling. _Being a vigilante in America, is not impossible. The U.S. Government is very relaxed against them, and they do not send heroes after them unless they do something really bad. Midoriya said so in his report, that since heroes are not under as much scrutiny there already, the idea of punishing those who fight villains is not a popular concept._

 _Zach's planning something with this. Somehow, he wanted this video to come out,_ Midoriya frowned so frustratedly at the screen. _Unless… No! I know for a fact, that Death is Zach. I have known it for a long time. He has so many plans in motion, but maybe, maybe this was not part of his plan. Mississippi, early November of last year, I'll look up all the villain incidents and figure out why you were really there. Why you took off that helmet to go in, why you left your army behind to… You weren't even watching them?! A bunch of lawless- you're being irresponsible. And, and you were just smiling to make that clerk not get suspicious of you in the hood. You weren't really happy… but then again, what if you have new comrades? I, I never understood, after the Sports Festival, how you still smiled so genuinely. Whenever you were hanging out with Kaminari, you were happy. Or with Momo or Jirou or Ashido or Kirishima or Sero, or... me. You were just in a good mood. I knew there was so much darkness there, but to see you enjoying yourself after what had happened to you, it always confused me._

 _At least he seemed happy,_ Mineta thought, finally just smiling as he got over his shock. _And he's with that cute… crazy girl! That's kind of weird, but Zach wouldn't use someone like that. If he brought her back to life and, and there is a good reason why she's there with him. Maybe he really does love her? A pair of vigilantes from Japan fighting crime in the U.S. That sounds pretty cool._ "I guess he's in America because they aren't too strict on vigilantism," Mineta said, looking to Ojiro next to him as he suggested it.

Ojiro nodded in agreement as it was something he was just thinking about. "It, is more realistic to me than my old thought process," Ojiro admitted. "That the six foot tall guy with a bunch of swords who spoke English while leading an army…" It all sounded pretty ridiculous to him now that he was saying that aloud. Then he grimaced and muttered, "What about those people getting brought back?"

Mineta frowned, _That does sound like Zach._ "Maybe," Mineta started, lifting a palm and raising his eyebrows at his classmate with a thick tail. "Some of the people brought back were someone else, or maybe some were Zach, and maybe those ones who said they were brought back weren't killed at all and that was just rumors. Or someone else just has a similar Quirk as Zach's around this huge world…" Mineta offered a bunch of reasons, but that one got Tokoyami frowning and Aoyama humming to himself with his smile lowering down a bit.

Tokoyami lowered his gaze to his desk and stopped being so adamant to deny what he just saw as proof against Zach being Death. _Even if it is not proof that he is not there, it is a more realistic- it is more proof than we have the other way. With so many countries allowing Quirk usage on wider scales now, some smaller ones allowing all citizens to train for protection even, more Quirks will start to arise with a similar power as Zach's unless it really was that unique._

 _If Zach's not with Death though,_ Aoyama thought, the dazzling boy shifting his gaze back towards the board. _Then where is he? And what is he up to?_

Sato leaned forward as he talked to Koda, "I thought he was probably just being a vigilante somewhere-"

Kirishima spun his head and snapped loudly to the two larger boys behind him, "No way!" There were a few others in there who were not doubting either, but Bakugo, Yaoyorozu, Jirou, and Midoriya were all being less vocal than the redhead. "That's not proof of nothing. I know that Zach's… with the Army of Death at least."

"You should hope he's not," Vrishnuku countered the noisy teen who turned back to the front of the room and his teacher. "Should he be a vigilante in America like some of you are suggesting, he would not be a terrorist. He would not be hunted by heroes as the Army of Death is. And, it will be easier for him to be located if he is in one country. This clip has already been sent to the Lifebringer Search Team, so they will likely find more information on him soon, and hopefully they will catch him."

 _As if._

 _Ch, like they could._

 _If Zach can beat Hawks…_ Tokoyami shook his head and then refocused down on his desk. _I got my provisional license back, even after Dark Shadow's rampage. Hawks put in a good word, I didn't think it would be so easy. But Zach, if you came back here there isn't going to be anything for you._

 _Geez, and I thought Zach was Death this whole time,_ Sero leaned back in his chair. He lifted his head to the ceiling and his smile lowered down a bit, _While you're off being a vigilante somewhere, we just stopped one of the worst villain groups in Japan. The Stain Cult. Led by an insane Tartaros villain with a dozen other escapees with him. You should have stayed. We can make the difference together, here. Man, I wish you'd just come back already._

* * *

 **Ka-Clunk** A helipad lowering into The Cloak's main hangar finally came to a stop on the floor. The metal pole it had been sliding down retracted down into the floor which left the room more open. Stain looked behind him towards a huge metal door slanted on the back of the ship with a crack in the middle showing it could be opened up unlike the walls on his sides. The hangar did not look as wide as The Cloak did from above, so he knew the side walls had hallways and other rooms past them. Still, it looked to him from inside that the hangar took up the majority of the back half of the ship.

A couple of guys without helmets on started over towards the group of three once their helipad finished lowering. "Yo Sparky, how was the mission?" Michael walked up to his comrade's side and smacked a hand down on Theo's shoulder.

"Ah buzz off," Theo pushed his hand away and then grinned while nodding to the side. It looked to Michael like he was showing off who he brought, like Theo must have thought he had not seen the man yet.

Michael just frowned at Stain though for a few seconds, then when the man shifted his gaze over back at him Michael just turned away instead of making an introduction. "This is BS," Michael said, glancing to a man his left while saying that. Everyone else around there stayed quiet and looked over to the only one of them in a helmet who stopped walking over to just watch Michael head to the right side of the room. "I'm sitting in for it."

"Not everyone's as stoked that you're here," Hybrid said, cupping a hand to his mouth and whispering it at Stain.

Stain did not glance at the man on his left with long dreadlocks. He just stared forward at the dark figure who had a katana horizontally on the back of his waist, two hilts sticking out over his shoulders, and more knife sheaths around his body than Stain had on his own, though Stain could not tell if there were as many hidden ones too like he had himself. "Stain," Theo started, looking back to his left after watching in annoyance as Michael walked away for a second. "Meet Death-"

"Bring him into the recruitment room," Zach said, turning and following after Michael towards the starboard side of the hangar. Michael was already heading up the stairs over there up towards an open door where another two Army of Death members in full costume were standing.

Stain looked up towards that door and stared at a purple visor he recognized from video he had seen of Hatto. The man he looked towards was staring straight back at him, but Stain ignored it since he could not tell if it was an interested, excited, or pissed look that the man was giving him. Instead he just started walking after Death, his eyes narrowing as he said in Japanese, "I did your task. I was told that was all that was required of me."

"Do you speak English?" Zach asked, in English like he was annoyed at Stain for switching languages.

Stain narrowed his eyes more at Death's back. "I know who you are," Stain continued in their native tongue. "You do not need to pretend not to speak Japanese."

"Who's pretending?" Zach asked in English. "We speak in English on this ship, since no one else around us right now would know what we're talking about. There's no need to hide what we're discussing, is there?"

Hybrid walked behind Stain by a few feet and he looked past him towards Death with his eyes huge. _Holy shit, this is intense. Stain's fucking huge! But Death is also, like huge!_

"He helped us out a lot in the scouting mission," Theo mentioned up towards Death who he felt was being overly hostile for a first meeting.

"I know, I got your report," Zach replied. He started up the steps, and he glanced back for a moment through the edge of his black visor. "I never pegged you for someone who could follow orders."

"I do what is right," Stain countered. "And I can see that what the Army of Death does, returns to the roots of real heroes-"

"We are not heroes," Zach said while turning back forward. He walked for the recruitment room and did not say another word, leaving Stain to glare at his back for a few seconds before stepping into the dimmer room himself. Others in the Army of Death walked in with them, and then Gentle stepped to the inside of the door and closed it before turning so he was standing there in front of the exit.

Stain looked back towards him, then to Death who walked straight to the middle of the room before looking back at him. "Come here," Zach ordered. Then he turned his back to Stain and he took in a deep breath inside his helmet. Zach's eyes narrowed, his expression dark, and he walked over towards a table with three seats behind it. He just stood in front of that table in the darker edge of the room for now though, his jaw locked and his hands tightening and loosening at his sides. Stain stepped into the middle of the room though, right where Death told him to go.

"Why do you want to join the Army of Death?" Zach asked.

Behind Stain, Gentle glared at the villain's back and ground his teeth in his helmet. He was hesitant, uneasy, and he was not the only one watching Stain carefully. On his left leaning against a different part of the wall in the recruitment room, Michael had his arms crossed and glanced to his side at Jetflame who had his helmet on.

 _I was wrong about everything._ Jetflame balled his fists tightly at his sides. _The Hero Killer, bringing someone like that in here. What is Death thinking? I trusted him. I believed in him so much._

"The Army of Death, is an outlet to spread the ideals of true heroes," Stain replied. Hybrid and Theo stared at their new comrade's back with their eyes huge at his response which he had not told them when they asked or had just been vague about. "Acts of heroism without begging for recognition-"

"As I told you, we're not heroes," Zach repeated. He narrowed his eyes at Stain, "Our goal is simply, to fight villains. As often as possible we will give the credit for defeating them to heroes."

"That's foolish," Stain remarked back. The room was silent for a few seconds, and then Stain continued while looking straight at Death's helmet, "The recognition should go to those without faces, to spread the idea that heroes are-"

"How many times do I have to say it?" Zach asked. The room became silent again, the tension thick at the low tone the leader of the Army of Death just used. "We _aren't_ heroes. If you think being here would mean that you would be a hero, you're the fool."

"You _are_ heroes. And-"

"Then why are you here?" Zach questioned. "Because you, are not a hero at all. Take back what it means to be a hero? You think that's what we're doing?"

"Yes," Stain replied. He stared straight into the black visor and said, "Doing whatever it takes. Stopping villains all across the world with no regard for glory, or fame, money. Killing those who get in-"

"You're wrong," Zach said. "We aren't murderers. We don't just kill people." Zach glared so much harder out at Stain. His fists clenched tighter at his sides, and he growled, "We don't kill heroes. We don't fight _real_ heroes-"

"Then you're weak, for not spreading your ideals," Stain countered right back.

"You're wrong!" Zach shouted. He stepped forward from the table and glared harder at Stain, and he said in a low voice, "Everything you've done, was wrong. You didn't even try to lead for your own ideals, so villains use your name to justify whatever they want." Zach paused and a silence filled the room as he stood there glaring furiously at Stain. Gentle tilted his head back and rose an eyebrow inside his helmet, staring over at Sazaki oddly while some others in the room were feeling more nervous. "What you've done, has incited the worst villains in the world," Zach said straight to Stain's face, glaring the villain in his eyes as he said it.

"Something needed to show the world that the heroes protecting them were not-"

"You were used as a pawn by All For One!" Zach shouted at Stain. "Don't try to justify it like you wanted this to happen, because as strong as your conviction was, you were a tool for others above you. All For One wanted you to be there that night Shigaraki attacked, and Shigaraki used your name to recruit all his executives…" Zach stepped towards Stain again and then snapped, "Everything you stand for, is wrong."

Stain glared straight at that black visor. He glared into Death's visor, the two of them at an impasse due to their difference in ideals. Stain glared into that visor, and then he turned around, "I'm leaving."

"You can't leave," Zach said.

Stain froze. Every nervous person in the room froze. And then the door behind Gentle opened up, and Gentle turned his head with his eyes opening huge. Exodus stepped into the doorway, and when Theo tried to take a step forward with his mouth opening, a hand grabbed him by the shoulder. "Don't move," Fillian said. Theo turned his head and his eyes opened huge at the voice he heard in that helmet.

"Fillian?" Theo asked in shock. "But, Yusef said…"

Stain darted his eyes over towards Theo, then to Hybrid who looked as shocked as he spun his head back and forth. "You're too good Stain," Zach said. "If the ones bringing you here knew it was an ambush," Zach stated it straight out and Stain spun his head with his eyes narrowing in rage. "Then you would have been able to figure it out. If the reactions of the people who saw you upon your arrival were strange too, I wouldn't have you exactly where I want you. Sorry everyone," Zach said it and then pulled out a pair of knives as Stain did the same. "No one move!" Zach shouted.

Stain hesitated too. He froze and stared at Death, and Death stood still across the middle of the room from him. There were twenty people in the room other than the two of them, and no one moved against what Death was doing. Hybrid had an extremely frustrated and confused look on his face, and Theo started narrowing his eyes angrily at Fillain before shrugging his hand off. Neither of them moved though. They just stared forward like the others as Death said, "I'll take him on my own."

Darling held her shaking arms up towards Stain in the shape of rifles. Her eyes shook in fear and excitement, and her smile could not get wider despite the worry covering her face under her helmet. _Be careful!_

"Lead me into an ambush, just to attack me by yourself?" Stain asked, his voice laced with a deeper anger than before during their argument. He had no idea how many of the people in the room knew the ambush was coming, how many were genuinely confused, but none were moving to help him.

"Death! Why are you doing this?" Hybrid called at his leader. "Stain can help us-"

"No," Zach said. He glared at Stain and said in a lower voice, "He can't. There is one move that has a better outcome than any other." Zach lifted his knives up in front of him and held on pointed to his right and the other pointed to his left, both arms in front of his chest and his hands close together. He glared at Stain who stepped back towards him and tightened his grip on his knives. "I won't let Stain go back into that world. I led him into a trap, because I want to stop him. And I suspected you might want to join me," Zach sprinted at Stain while 'me' was still coming out of his mouth.

Zach flicked the knife in his right hand at Stain, and Stain dodged so the knife slammed into the wall behind him in a space between two of Zach's comrades. Zach pulled his katana while blocking Stain's first strike with his second knife, and he swept the katana up at Stain fast. Stain was fast too though, and he leapt straight up in the air and threw three knives down at Zach in succession. Zach dove, and then he sprung from the spot he rolled into to a different spot, letting a smaller katana slam into the ground where he just was for a brief moment.

Zach flipped up onto his feet and slashed his katana across the front of his body, smashing it into Stain's and then pushing against him. Stain pushed right back, and Zach shoved right back into him and then pushed his body forward while bringing up his knee. Stain lowered a hand from his hilt but instead of grabbing a knife he went for Zach's rising knee instead, and then they both leaned their heads forward just behind their crossing blades. Zach lowered his leg, pulling it out of Stain's grip, then he slid his sword down Stain's and towards where he was flicking up another knife he just drew from under his belt. Sparks flew as the swords shredded against each other and Zach flicked his sword to block the rising knife while already moving his other hand up.

Stain leaned his head left and dodged a knife, then he slammed his sword down and made Zach's legs creak below him as his legs bent. He unbent his knees hard though with a slash of his katana, and Stain had to jump backwards as the force pushed him away. He skid back on the floor, then his eyes darted right and left, then straight down as the dark figure was right in front of him. Stain's reactions were fast, and he slashed downwards the moment he saw Zach suddenly right in front of him. The right hand he thought was coming for his body pulled back though, and the left slammed forward instead as a punch but with a knife sticking out of his clenched grip. Zach slammed his left fist into the left side of Stain's gut while he pulled away, then he twisted his hand and slashed his blade across Stain's side.

Stain's blade slashed across Zach's right shoulder at the same time, getting just deep enough to cut through his armor near his collarbone. Blood splashed out, and half the people in the room moved forward. "Don't," Zach said. Everyone thought he was talking to them, but Zach said it straight towards his enemy who skid backwards from getting punched and slashed but managed to stay standing. "Toga never would drink my blood in fear of Death." Neither of them looked towards the blade on the ground on Zach's right and Stain's left, that had Zach's blood on it.

Stain heard his enemy say that and he ground his teeth in fury. Then he just drew a different blade, "Is that why you refuse to use your Quirk on me? Because you really believe I can't use mine on you? What kind of honor do you live by, Sazaki?"

"I know you met her," Zach said, ignoring everything Stain just said and continuing where he left off. "Back when she broke you out of Tartaros, and I know how she wanted to follow you, like all those others did. She wouldn't shut up about you back then, when I was in the League of Villains. All those villains wanted to follow you, only for them not to and to follow another insane villain instead, and they almost blew up Musutafu _for you!_ "

"I never told them to do-"

"You allowed it to happen!" Zach roared back at him, fury covering his face and his teeth baring so hard after he screamed it. "You _incited_ all of them!"

"How people act is not my-"

"I know exactly what you did!" Zach shouted at him. "'If you really do follow those ideals, then don't get in my way.' That's what you said! And then you told them, you wouldn't get in their way either!"

 _How does he know that?!_ Stain ground his teeth. "You weren't there Sazaki. How do you-"

"I was there that night, Chizome Akaguro!" Zach roared right back at the man who used his real name. He lifted his hands above his shoulders and pulled out a pair of curved blades that he slashed across each other with rage covering his face. "In Hosu City. I was right in front of you and saw your conviction, but conviction doesn't mean right!" All the others in the room looked towards Death with their eyes huge. Not a single one knew what he was saying. They stared at him with their eyes wide since he was not in the famous Stain video and had escaped any publicity that night. Zach glared at Stain and pointed the blade in his right hand forward at the man whose video he had watched every night for months, whose ideals he had himself been influenced by which made him grind his teeth so much harder at the moment. "Just because you believed that what you were doing was right, didn't make it so! All the heroes you killed, were people who gave others hope. People who could have saved others who were killed by villains because they weren't there-"

"I've only killed fakes-"

"None of them were!" Zach yelled back at the villain, any hesitation wiped from his face and replaced with rage again. "They all fought you and were willing to put their lives on the line, and it doesn't matter if some of them did it in part for money and glory. You murder them, _butcher_ them, cripple good people just because heroes can't survive without money, because heroes are human like the rest of us. They need food, and homes, and sometimes they get married and raise children and they need money for these things. You're a fool, and people who can't see past the money, that it's not an important part of what heroes are, to look at what the heroes' true ideologies are, those people are fools too! Heroes who like to be in the spotlight are true heroes, because we _need_ people like that in the world for normal people to look up to! Because normal people can't look to us as their heroes, because of stuff like **this!** Because I know that capturing you and handing you in will give Stain more publicity. It will make the world remember a man who is going to fade from everyone's minds now that the Stain Cult is gone." Zach ground his teeth while the others around the room all stared towards their leader with wide eyes and shock. "If you got back out there, even arrested and then put on trial, it would bring up those old videos. It would make people who had not seen them before get influenced. And I, WON'T LET THAT HAPPEN!"

Zach sprinted at Stain again. The roar that came out of Death's helmet was so full of anger, and conviction, the belief that he was right, that his comrades started glaring at Stain as well. Most of them were surprised when Zach brought up how he couldn't hand Stain in, but they stayed still and kept their more hesitant comrades in their visions to make sure they did not try stepping in.

They clashed swords, and they swung knives at each other. Zach tossed a knife up above him, then he slashed one in his left hand while catching his longer curved blade he had tossed up a few seconds before. Instead of waiting for the knife he tossed up to come back this time though, Zach flicked the knife in his left hand up at it so they clanked together loudly. Stain had to divert some attention in case that knife was bouncing back at him, then he had to dodge as the curved blade came slashing up at his side, then he darted his eyes up as he only caught a glimpse of the fast-moving Death up in the air. Zach flipped in the air, and while he was in mid-flip he kicked down on the hilt of one knife, slamming it down fast past the right side of Stain's face he almost pulled away only for his cheek to slash open.

Zach landed and he sprung off his hands and feet he landed on, picking up his other discarded curved blade as he shot just above the floor. He swept both blades up, and Stain tried dodging back while throwing a knife down. Zach saw pain cover Stain's face, and he easily dodged the older man before slashing his swords out in a crossing pattern that he caught one of Stain's legs in and cut shallow wounds into. Zach landed and shouted towards the man stumbling away from him, "What's wrong Stain?! You're not moving as fast as I thought you would from what my friends who caught you said. In fact, you're too much slower that it couldn't just be from fighting them. It was Edgeshot wasn't it?! I heard you were limping as you left the other escapees! He crippled you didn't he?!" Stain bared his teeth back at the boy but Zach kept yelling in rage, "Edgeshot was as real a hero as it got. He didn't seek out media attention, he fought All For One a villain much stronger than him as hard as he could, he tried to save me and Bakugo from the villains in Camino Ward! HE CAME FOR THE HOSTAGES THE WAR BOYS TOOK! And you didn't kill him because he was a fake, you did it because you wanted to escape from prison!"

Zach marched towards Stain who was having trouble standing on an already injured leg that just got slashed through a couple of times. "I was able to trick Toga and the others into letting heroes live when I infiltrated, by using your ideals. Spinner held back when I would say, that Stain wouldn't just kill a hero without knowing whether or not they're a fake. Because I was one of those manipulating others by using your ideals! Everyone just uses you for their own purposes. While you yourself can't stand by your own ideals that are too big for one man. People think you're perfect. They think the idea of you is… But they're wrong. Everyone has flaws, yet, yet Ingenium was a great hero!" Zach screamed it at Stain and his fists tightened around his bloody curved blades in anger.

Stain's eyes opened wide at the sound of that name. As the boy was just telling him how no one was perfect, no ideals, he shouted another name of a hero he was personally connected with. As many reasons as he was giving for taking out Stain, he was admitting there with that name alone that it was in part for revenge. As much as Death had to stand for something else, Stain could hear hatred in that boy's voice.

And Zach could see Iida's face, as they got on the train to Hosu. When he sat in front of Iida and tried to talk him down. "He didn't deserve what you did to him! Neither did Iida who you deemed as unworthy! And, and I should have killed you that night in Hosu, but instead I allowed you to do so much to this world!" Zach bit down in fury, his hands tightened harder on his swords, and his eyes narrowed so much darker inside his helmet. His voice came out as a raspy growl, dark and cold as he finished, "No more."

Stain did not last much longer with his speed decreased so much. Death stood in front of him with his hands pushed forward on the hilt of a curved blade, slammed straight through the middle of Stain's chest and buried to the hilt. Blood came out of the wound and down the hilt, getting on Zach's black gloves. He ripped the sword out and the weapons shaking in Stain's hands fell to the floor. Then Stain fell to his knees. "No one will ever know you died," Zach said to the man kneeling in front of him. "You disappearing for good, is the most you can do for this world."

Stain fell over. He fell flat to the ground without a word. There were no dying words, Zach's sword had cut up too much inside his chest for that. He stared down at Stain's body for a few seconds, then Zach lifted his left hand up and grabbed his bloody right shoulder. _Damn that hurts._

"So if we try to leave, will you kill all of us?"

Zach turned his head more, hurting more at the sound of that than the fading pain in his right shoulder that he moved his left hand from. He looked towards Hybrid who was glaring angrily at him, his fists shaking at his sides and a betrayed look spread across his face. "No," Zach replied.

"Good, because I'm out of here," Hybrid turned and started for the door.

"You really, just had to do this huh?" Theo snapped.

He stepped forward, and Fillian started behind him, "Come on Sparky, you know this was-"

"Shut up," Theo growled. "I don't, want to hear a thing from you. What happened to the recon mission Fillian and Exodus were on?" Theo turned to Death and asked in a loud voice. "You tell Yusef that just to trick us all? Or was Yusef in on it too? Hell, I don't fucking know who I can trust here anymore, so screw you. I would have fucking died for- fuck, just fuck man." Theo turned and started for the door where Hybrid was looking back at him.

"Death, come on try and stop them," Fillian started towards his leader, feeling like shit after his friend just said all that. "If you explain-"

"We'll lower down," Zach said to the two near the door. _I explained enough already. I gave Stain his sentencing. I- I killed another person. At least this time I didn't use Death… Though I should have. 19._ "I've made myself clear before, no one is being forced to be here. If you're following me though, you're following _me_. If you can't believe in me anymore then go. It would only hurt us, to have people who can't trust each other here."

"How am I supposed to trust you?" Zach turned his head and looked to the other side of the room where someone who was in the hangar and not part of the actual ambush plan was standing. She stepped forward and Zach grimaced at one of the newest members in the Army of Death who was shaking her head disappointedly at him. "After this? After you lied to your own comrades just for a revenge trip?"

"It wasn't for revenge," Zach said. "And I know, I was angry. But I didn't want to kill him. I, never want to kill anyone." Zach paused and then said softer, "But I truly believe what I was saying about him getting more publicity. Stain sent a powerful message every time he made an attack, every time the news talked about him, every time he did _anything._ His last arrest became a foundation for the League of Villains, making them a force powerful enough for the SFI, which instigated the highest increase in villain activity across the entire world." The woman speaking to him stopped looking as disappointed but just kept frowning at him, and she shook her head again while lowering her eyes to the floor. "I'm sorry, Icefall. I couldn't take the chance of something like that happening again. I couldn't, let him be an influence even from jail."

"He doesn't just influence villains," Icefall said, lifting her dark gaze from the floor back to him. "I'm sure it's the same for Theo and Hybrid, and that's why you picked them right?" Zach grit his teeth inside his helmet but nodded at the woman who scrunched her face in more frustration at him. "Well I, I joined you _because_ of Stain," Icefall admitted, something she had not told him when she was in this room herself only a few weeks ago to be recruited. "Because I believed in what he said that night too. I didn't believe everything he did, but-" she looked down towards Stain's body and she bit down harder.

"I believed him too," Zach said softly. Icefall looked at his visor, and Zach reached up and grabbed his helmet. He took it off and lowered it to clip on his side. He stared into her icy blue eyes with his hazel ones and then added in his softer voice, "For a long time I thought I just watched the Stain video because I was afraid of all the villains it would create. But I found myself able to, to understand where he was coming from. Yet his actions didn't match his beliefs. Or, or we misunderstood them. Or maybe he just thought because crime was lowering a bit in the places he went to, that what he was doing _was_ the difference. Yet people were afraid of Stain. Innocent people lived in fear of him, in fear of his ideals, and in fear because the heroes who always protected them were being massacred by this maniac. He killed great people, and I have no doubt this mass-murderer would have kept killing more heroes. He would have kept spreading his dangerous ideals that don't always result in people like you."

"I understand why you did it," Icefall said. She stared into Zach's eyes for a few more seconds and then turned her head towards the door, "But be it my own feelings towards Stain, or towards how you killed him, the fact that you lied to us… I can't be here anymore."

Icefall headed out of the room. Zach looked around at the others to see how they felt. He looked towards Gentle who hesitated for a moment, then gave him a strong nod which was all Zach needed to see. He had only kept Gentle in the dark because of Gentle's easy-to-distinguish costume which he wanted Stain to see upon arriving. Exodus walked forward past Gentle, and Zach looked down at Stain's body, then back at Exodus and he nodded.

Jetflame leaned back on the wall next to Michael. He could see the man next to him smirking, a more relaxed look on his face and even chuckling and shaking his head at himself. _It was foolish of us, I suppose, to believe he would let Stain in here,_ Jetflame thought it but looked away as Exodus started to rid Stain's body with his Light powers. _But as much as I do believe in Death like the rest of you, killing without a system is… Stain needed to die. I agree with Death. That's, that's all I need. I can leave if we ever begin to disagree. If he stops making so much sense, when he explains why he does what he does. And I know he's just saying it to justify his actions to us, but I truly do believe in those actions once you have justified them._

 _Sazaki's getting better at this,_ Gentle stared towards the boy in the middle of the room who narrowed his eyes towards Icefall's back and then lowered his gaze to the floor in such a self-hating way.

"Wait!" Zach called out. He marched out to the door back into the main hangar, and there were other people gathering about now from around the ship. Dozens of people were around him, and Zach looked at Icefall and then past towards Hybrid and Theo who were standing at the railing of the upper level surrounding the main hangar they were on. They glared back at him in frustrated and angry ways, and Zach stared straight back at them with his expression hardened from the self-hating look he had back in the room behind him. "Those of you who are leaving, leave behind your weapons and costumes," Zach said.

Icefall's eyes shot open wide and then she started glaring at him just like Hybrid and Theo were. Zach's expression was dark though, and he said, "I said that at any time you all can leave. If you can't believe in me any longer then that's fine, but you can't have things the Army of Death's money paid for out there. You can't have our weapons being used for purposes that are not mine."

"I'd only use them for what's right," Hybrid said, stepping back towards Death and glaring harshly at him. "What's really right, and not just what Death decides-"

"You're fine to do so, but not with my equipment. Not as Death. Not related to Death. You can't use them without following my rules, and my codes, and following my orders." Zach kept all anger off of his stern expression, and the three facing him shifted their expressions themselves. "You can leave because you disagree with me, but I will not change my mind. I made my decision long ago of what Death would be."

* * *

The Cloak landed on a Greek island in the middle of Mediterranean. The back of it was opened up, and Mark handed each of the four people in front of him small bags. "Money and some papers that'll get you wherever you need to go. There's an airport on the other side of the island. The papers will show when you came here so they won't be suspicious."

Mark turned and walked back into The Cloak's hangar. He was in his full black armor with his helmet on, since they were parked out in the open and had the risk of being seen. The four he just turned his back to were all wearing casual clothes, clothes they had not worn in months for some of them, weeks for others. Mark walked past Death and nodded at him once before heading farther inside. _I believe in you, Zach. Always. You should have known not everyone would though._

"You shouldn't have killed him," Hybrid said. He was at the top of the ramp with the other three, looking ahead at Death with a dark, angry, and regretful look covering his face. "I really, wish you- he could have helped-"

"Stain was weaker than me, trapped, surrounded, and I killed that man who I could have captured." Zach said this while staring through his visor straight at Hybrid. Then his voice lowered softer and he continued, "It hurt me to do so, because I hate killing… but it did the most good. I believe that and I wish you could. Bringing Stain back into people's minds as he's about to fade away, it would be irresponsible. He could always be caught later too if I had tried to use him. A man who had killed so many heroes, great people, and he would have been executed in many of the places I would have brought him to anyway if we turned him over. Except, he'd still get publicity that way. The famous last words of Stain, spurring on another generation of villains. So I did it this way. Because this was the best way. The way that kept a mask hiding my expression since I had Stain convinced that I was a cautious person because of the way we were initiating him. The only way I could really see Stain lowering his guard enough to be trapped, was having him have that mission with you two already, and I'm sorry for that. I know how much closer we get out there in the field, so I knew this might happen and still… I'm sorry."

The two he was looking at could hear sincerity in that voice, and it just made them grit their teeth harder while trying to keep glaring at him. "Stain would have thought something was up if Death just immediately wanted to meet him, might suspect a trap, but if he helped Death first and proved his usefulness then he would be quicker to accept it when Death _finally_ accepts Stain's request to meet him." Zach shook his head at Scotty who ground his teeth in frustration back, having told himself that he couldn't sit there and pretend like he was not betrayed over this. He had been lied to about multiple missions, he thought he was talking to Fillian a hundred miles away when Fillian was on the ship with him, and he couldn't even stay and call back Yusef he was so angry when he was told what had happened.

Scotty had a betrayed look on his face, but he was also sad and regretful as he looked back into the ship he left his uniform in that he had been wearing for months now. Zach could see hesitant and sad looks, but his own expression steadied inside his helmet. "When you leave here you are no longer Army of Death, and you never were Army of Death." Zach paused and grit his own teeth at the looks on their faces. "Because you are not when you leave, just are you are not now. You were all faceless here, which means the ones who leave this place are not the same as the ones who were here, and those ones who were here accepted our identities being kept secret. Trusted-"

"We wouldn't rat you out," Icefall said. She shook her head, sadly as it seemed like he was about to tell them not to tell anyone who they were. The others immediately agreed with Icefall, and Zach nodded back at them.

"We still care for, and believe in our comrades here even if they didn't stand up with us against this," Hybrid said. He looked at Death's helmet and calmed himself down the most he had since Stain was ambushed. He was about to leave, and he didn't want to leave things like this, so much left unsaid. "But killing Stain," he continued. "He had influenced some of us, he had been an inspiration to get me to step outside of the lines of normal heroes."

"Yeah," Theo agreed softly. He looked past Death and farther into the hangar, and he saw some others in all black with their helmets on staring his way. It hurt him more that they all had their helmets on, because he could not look at the ones he had been really close with even as he knew they were watching him leave them. He recognized Grabble's pincers, and Sagitus' horse body, and Exodus' large figure, and Gentle's purple accessories. He shifted his gaze back straight at Death, "Stain was the reason I came to you."

"I watched Stain's video every night," Zach admitted to the group in a soft tone. "From the night I saw it in person, to when I downloaded the video, almost to the day I infiltrated the League of Villains. I was influenced as well, but I _always_ knew that Stain was a villain. I never mixed him up as a hero." Zach paused and then said to his regretful former comrades, "As much as what Stain said made some sense, to villains it meant more than that. It was an excuse to do whatever they wanted, it was a stimulus, and it ignited something that I had been unable to stop at the time but I knew I could stop from rekindling now."

 _Stain told the world that the only true hero was All Might, and then All Might fell. He fell and, and the villains who were only afraid of one thing became so emboldened. Kaminari used Stain, to try and feel out who in our class might have ideals fit for a villain. All the times we talked about Stain after he asked if anyone had seen the video, after he said Stain was cool… How did I not know? Fuck. Because it's not just villains who think so. I thought it too. And these four…_ Zach opened his mouth to apologize to his hurt comrades again. Then he closed it, scrunched his face inside his helmet, and he told them, "Goodbye."

They wished he would have tried harder to stop them. It was too late now. They had made their decisions, and as much regret as they felt as they turned from The Cloak, they all started away from the ship that had been their homes. As they walked out in frustration and considering their choices, Zach spoke down to them, "You can think about it, and then try to come back if you want." The group of four hesitated on the metal ramp, and Zach's face twisted in as much regret as theirs each had.

"Because I still believe in you too."

* * *

 **A/N Thanks for reading! BAM with that reversal! Zach vs Stain in a heated yelling match of ideals, as well as an actual brawl. Death loses some comrades over the trickery he pulled on them, but the majority stay with him trusting his decisions. Meanwhile, Class A watches a clip of Zach and Darling back in their trip to America a while back which casts doubt in their minds over him being Death too... 2nd Stain arc finished! Lol, the next set of chapters have me hyped to write, but unfortunately I have 2 weeks left in this semester and SO much work to do. I have to write 15 pages of my Thesis on Japanese Population Decline by Friday (it's my degree paper posing solutions and societal issues with immigration...) anyway that, and all of the next week I have finals too. X( Then it's winter break though! Going to write a lot during that, and I'll try to get up a couple chapters if I can these next two weeks. Anyway, hope you enjoyed! Leave a review below telling me what you think and if I caught you off guard with this, as well as predictions for what's ahead for Death!**

Naruffoku chapter 113 . Nov 23

Is he gonna come back to japan any time soon?

 **Maybe... no spoilers ;)**

GDawg4826 chapter 113 . Nov 23

NO FUCKING WAY! STAIN! FUCKING STAIN! IN THE ARMY OF DEATH! YOU ARE INSANE! ZACH IS INSANE! THIS CHAPTER IS INSANE! ITS ALL INSANE!  
Ahem. Really loved the fight scenes this chapter. I don't even care that I had to wait a week for it, it was phenomenal.  
I can't believe Zach is actually letting Stain into the AOD, yeah he's strong, but he's also a dangerous murderer. As far as I know, Zach hasn't brought anyone like that in. I know he's got some criminals, but I'd never expect him to take in a killer. I doubt that Gentle approved of it.  
Also, you better not kill off Mina. Ever.

 **STAIN?! STAIN! XD Lol glad you enjoyed the last chapter, hope this didn't _kill_ the hype! And Mina makes it so there's another plus. Thanks for the review!**

sakareal2 chapter 113 . Nov 23

The only fanfic I look forward to :)  
Keep it up man!

 **Awesome! Hope I can keep up some quick updates these next few weeks. Thanks for reviewing!**

Laxca chapter 113 . Nov 24

I don't want to sound rude or anything, but you have a plot planned out, right? Also, great chapter as always, thanks for writing!

 **'Course I do! I've had the ending planned out for over 50 chapters now. I can still add in more arcs and stuff in certain areas, but yeah there's a set-up in progress. Glad you enjoyed and thanks for the review!**

Yes chapter 113 . Nov 24

Weeeeeew. From a nuke to a bomb, nice.  
Wasn't expecting Stain to be relevant again.

 **The stakes are staying high! Neither the nuke nor the bomb go off where they're supposed to though, so at least the good guys are still winning! And Stain... well, hope you enjoyed the chapter! Thanks for reviewing!**


	115. Chapter 115

**Disclaimer: I don't own Boku no Hero Academia**

 **Chapter 115:**

 **Sardonistan, Central Asia**

In most countries around the world, the number of heroes had dwindled while the amount of villain incidents rose. Some places managed to keep pushing out new heroes at the speed they were losing them, but even in those places the same thing could be said as the ones where heroes had become few in number. Society was no longer overrun with hero agencies, it was not even saturated with them. Thousands of heroes were killed, many more retired as it became clear that heroes were risking their lives every day they stepped out their front doors. It had become a job that was less glamorized than it had been in the past.

As much as people still looked to heroes as the best in their societies, parents no longer wanted their children to grow up and be heroes. Heroes' families begged them to stop, and some gave up not in fear of their own lives but in fear of what would become of their families should they die. How much strain they would put on the people they loved, or even what villains could do to their loved ones just to get to them. In a time with the most villain incidents ever recorded, in a world where there were more villains than heroes, heroes can't be everywhere. They have to pick and choose where their agencies are, even if there are multiple places requiring the help of more heroes. In countries where the hero population had dropped the lowest, villains flocked. They swarmed into rural towns that local heroes had to be called away from to help with the excessive amount of crime in the cities where so many more people lived.

These towns with no heroes were easy to corrupt, impossible to protect, and they were given a name by their own people who were stuck in what had become horrible places. Lawless towns. The villains came in and there was no one to call to stop them. Poorer countries had it the hardest, because police officers were not paid high amounts especially in small towns and areas where little crime was reported. Little crime was ever reported in these towns though, because the majority of the police's salaries came from the villains setting up in their towns. Bribes had become commonplace and without heroes around constantly, the police had little to dissuade them from accepting just to turn a blind eye to villain activity. What were they going to do on their own? How could they fight villains who had decided to use their towns? And when heroes were called in to deal with flashy crimes, or just to check on the situation of a town with too high a death rate recently, the heroes would tell the local police beforehand to get a room set up for them, a place they could stay while they check on the area.

Whenever a hero would come on those occasions, the police would tell the villains to lay low for a while. All the citizens of the towns knew the heroes will leave sooner or later, and they were too afraid to rat out the police who would be the only ones left to protect them even if they were mostly corrupted. In these towns full of people too scared to make a change, police who don't care, and villains who run wild whenever they want, others had to step in to take the place of the missing heroes. Lawless towns were not without conflict, and villains were more confident to walk around in the open in some towns compared to others. Because a consequence of a lawless town, was almost always the emergence of vigilantes.

In southern Sardonistan, there was a large town hundreds of miles from the second biggest city in the country, and much farther than that from the capital. Saimon was the largest town in the country without any heroes in it, and it was the base of operations for three different villain organizations who ruled not only in that town but in the rural countryside around it. One of the organizations, the Frighteners, had their HQ in Saimon but a dozen smaller bases of operations in towns all across southern Sardonistan, as well as rumored ones in neighboring countries too.

In the largest lawless town in the country for villain operations however, three vigilantes had teamed up, and the villains of the city were not confident enough to walk around out in the open. At least during the day, Saimon was mostly safe, as long as certain sections of the town were avoided. The vigilantes could hand in villains directly to the police and ensured they were recording whenever they did it, leaving copies of recordings with the villains they handed in directly to cops. That way the cops could not let them go right away, nor could the villains threaten the cops to do so either or it would be clear to everyone else the video got released to that villains were running the show here. The three vigilantes were each strong, they each had their own reasons for why they had chosen this risky profession where they could be hunted and killed any day, yet they were currently arguing over the biggest villain organization in their town.

"The Frighteners can't be stopped by three people," Snore said, shaking her head and glaring towards the leader of their team of three standing before them in their hideout. They were in a secret attic above an inn/bar that they could only get into from the roof. The owner of the inn did not know that they were up there. No one in the town knew where to find them. Snore was a heavyset woman, sitting on a bench of plywood in the attic that creaked as she leaned forward and back on it. She did not have to worry about the people downstairs hearing her thanks to the Quirk of her comrade on her right side, Dead Silence, Quirk- Mute.

Dead Silence added after Snore, "I want to take them down too, but we can't rush this. They've got ties with Hydrale, Steel-"

"It's because they're able to operate so freely out here, that they can help Hydrale out in the cities," Manbat snapped back at his comrades louder. Dead Silence ground his teeth at how Manbat started, and he turned away from his comrade in a darker all-black costume who finished, "Which keeps the heroes stuck in the cities fighting a losing fight and lowering in number even more."

"I heard some Americans and Japanese heroes are coming by in a couple of weeks," Snore mentioned, holding up one of her chubby hands and shrugging her shoulders as she said it. "If we can keep holding on for a little while longer-"

"We've thought that, so many times," Manbat said, glaring at her that she was suggesting it.

"But things _are_ getting better now," Snore countered right back at him. "In their countries at least, and a bunch of others around the world. If they're taking the time to come to _our_ country then it's because they know the situation here and want to help."

"And if they can't find the villains?" Manbat asked, glaring at Snore and then back at Dead Silence. His other comrade nodded once but had a dark look on his face still, since he knew there was still nothing they could change about that. "If the cops keep working with them through the foreign aid, and they just start back up as soon as the heroes are gone again? And are we really supposed to wait a few weeks to do anything and just keep-"

"We all want to do something," Snore said, standing from her bench and glaring harder at Manbat. "But we're not stupid enough to rush into the Frighteners' base. We know they'd all be after us if we make ourselves their primary enemy."

 _I know that,_ Manbat clenched his teeth hard as his comrade countered him again.

"And when they come and hunt us down, and re-establish their base here once we're dead, we won't be able to stop anyone. We won't be able to protect anyone. And we won't be able to beat down smaller operations, or fight the Playboys or Deep-Riders anymore. What we're currently doing, is all we can do. Any more and we're done."

"Maybe just a bit more, is all the people need to rise up," Manbat said. Snore shook her head at him, and he turned to Dead Silence to try and get some support, "All we need to get more comrades, is to show them that we aren't afraid to fight anyone."

"But we _can't_ fight anyone," Dead Silence retorted. He was wearing a purple jacket, with a tighter dark purple undershirt underneath, and he had on a baggy pair of gray sweats over his tight black pants. He had a pair of goggles resting over his messy brown hair, and he had a sniper rifle on his back, brass knuckles in his jacket pockets, and knives hidden in his waistband and on either of his black boots. He glared at his team leader and the strongest of the three of them, "We _can't_ do it. I want to too. We're doing jack shit as is… but it's better than nothing and nothing's all we'll be doing if we take on the Frighteners tonight."

"During a fucking deal no less," Snore said to Manbat with a shake of her head at him, sitting down on the bench behind her again. "You know the security's going to be on the lookout for us, considering those guys we turned in were sure to tell the cops on their payroll that we overheard. They'll have sentries, they might change up the location and we get nothing, or it could be one big trap to just kill the three of us. Even if it's not though, and they just go ahead as usual without caring about us, we still wouldn't be able to take them. They run this town, and we haven't put a dent in them so far."

"Because we're afraid to do it-" Manbat felt a buzzing on his right side and pulled a communicator that was blinking red off his black belt. He read the message on it and narrowed his eyes, "Officer Tamby says we just got some help."

Snore jumped up off her bench, her eyes wide at the sound of that. Dead Silence looked at Manbat in a confused way though at the way Manbat was looking at his communicator. "What is it?" Dead Silence asked.

 _Not good. This is…_ "We're heading out."

"It's still light out for another hour-"

"The Army of Death is in Saimon," Manbat said, darting his eyes back to Snore whose eyes stayed huge as she looked back at him. Then her eyes narrowed as intensely as Manbat's were back at her, "Tamby says two figures in all black wearing helmets were just spotted walking straight down Main Street before cutting into Deep-Rider territory. Let's go."

"And do what?" Snore called at his back as he spun around again.

"We don't kill," Manbat said, making for the hatch in the ceiling and opening it without hesitation and despite the fact that it was the middle of the day. "It's the last thing that separates us from the villains, the last thing that the people in this town can rely on." Manbat leapt up onto the roof and his legs started getting thinner, claws sticking out the bottoms of them. He spread his arms out to the sides and they turned into black wings in his costume, and Dead Silence and Snore leapt up on the roof behind him. "So we'll go after them, and we'll take on whoever they're fighting and make them do things our way. And if need be, we'll take them down too."

Manbat sprinted across the roof on three-pronged claws, then he leapt off and flapped his wings to shoot himself farther towards the middle of town from the outskirts their base was in. _I need to use their appearance as an opportunity. I can't just chase them out, but I can't let them do whatever they want here. This town is-_ Manbat almost fell out of the air as he messed up the next flap of his wings, because an explosion went off in the direction he was headed. He landed down on a roof and a grappling hook slammed into a chimney on his right before Dead Silence flew up to his side. They both stared forward towards the rising smoke and saw a flash of white light go off in that direction just below the smoke.

 _We can't do it, but… they can._

* * *

"Holy shit they're here!"

"They really came for us?! We haven't done shit!"

"Run away!"

 **"None of you will escape."** A deep, modulated voice came out of the helmet of a teen already speaking in a scratchier voice than usual. Death waved his right hand forward and five trails of Death flew off his arm shrouded in darkness. The trails shot down the hall and one curved into the first room on his right where a man who looked back dove into to escape. The other four were hit in the backs while the one in the room pushed away on his hands only to collapse down on top of them.

"Stop it!" Zach turned his head to the side and looked back behind him. His eyes opened wide behind his visor at the sight of a man who looked like a bat, holding Gentle up against the wall with one claw while glaring his way through red eyes visible through his black mask that only covered the top half of his face. "Put your hands up, or I will hurt-"

"I know we're not allowed to attack heroes," Gentle said while looking to his left out of his purple visor. "But if he does not loosen his grip, I am going to break his teeth."

Manbat darted his red eyes back to the left and the man he had just slammed into the wall. Gentle turned his helmet straight back towards him and glared through the purple visor into Manbat's eyes. "Put me down, and we can talk like civilized people. There is no need for savagery among peers."

"Manbat! They already know who we are!" Snore's voice called around another corner in the five story apartment complex they were in. "And apparently everyone who lives here is a villain! Like all the tenants!"

Manbat turned his head back towards the figure shrouded in darkness, only for him to stare in a bit of surprise as the leader of the Army of Death was no longer surrounded in that aura. Death was walking towards him though, and he said, "Put him down. We're here to help, Manbat. There's no need for this."

Manbat grit his teeth but pulled his claw off of Gentle. _Those costumes are made of something strong. I was putting a lot of pressure but it didn't cut through._

Gentle brushed his hands down his chest in his purple gloves. He wiped some dust off his shoulders that fell there when his back hit the wall, then he glared harshly at the vigilante in front of him, "Is this really a way to greet your saviors?"

"Gentle," Zach said. "Go gather everyone up. We'll move out in five before more get here." Zach spoke before Manbat could snap at Gentle, and before Gentle could antagonize the locals who he knew could help them. As Gentle humphed and headed off, Zach turned to the other man with him. "Manbat, we don't have a lot of time so I'll talk fast," Death stepped up closer to the man who turned his way and glared through red eyes that were not glowing now but just had red irises Zach could see through the man's black mask's eyeholes. The mask only covered the top half of Manbat's face, and despite it having eyeholes, seeing an anti-hero with a black mask like that reminded Zach of an old mentor. The look Manbat was giving him seemed like one Webb might have on his face too.

"Alright, speak fast then," Manbat said. "I don't like-"

"I know. Checking this area out, it was clear the vigilantes don't kill heroes. We don't either, not usually," Zach paused for a moment while Manbat stared at him in some confusion. "Villains die when we fight them usually either because one of us was about to be killed and it needed to be done, or much more often, the villains shoot and kill each other while trying to get us. They care more about their own lives than anything, and they spray-and-pray, fire off huge attacks in the direction of comrades in hope of stopping one of us, and that's how most of them die fighting us. Those men down there, all alive," Zach motioned back the way he just made his last attack on the villains trying to flee instead of fight.

Manbat looked past Death and down the hall, then he spun back to the man still speaking through a modulated voice though not as scary anymore without his black aura. "When the cops arrive here, you don't need to do things like usual. They'll arrest these villains, because the knowledge that we are here strikes fear into villains' hearts. And it definitely scares the cops, especially considering a paper trail incriminating the chief of Saimon's police department was just turned over to Rankor City's. We'll see how that plays out later," Zach continued while Manbat just stared with huge eyes through his eyeholes at the figure before him. "As for now, I have to know if you're willing to fight with us. Not join the Army of Death, just help us out while we're here and help us take down all the villains who have infested this town."

"You seriously don't kill villains?" Manbat asked, leaning closer to the shorter figure in a black helmet who had it lifted a bit to look into Manbat's eyes. "You're labelled as a terrorist-"

"That hasn't stopped other vigilantes from working with me before," Zach countered. "It hasn't stopped most heroes from it either."

"I don't believe you."

"Fine. I don't need your help," Zach said it and glared harder into Manbat's surprised eyes. "The people of this town look to you and yours for support though, for hope, so I don't want to take you down and make the people here think you're a weakling. So stay, out, of, my, way." Death walked forward and past the shocked figure in black who turned and watched him going by. "If you fight with us, then when we leave people will still think it was all because of you. And you can be part of the reason the villains are taken down. And you can help me protect my comrades by giving me information only your team has acquired so far. We can help each other Manbat. Decide right now what matters to you."

"Manbat," the leader of the vigilantes looked down where Death just walked, seeing Snore and Dead Silence step out into the hall. Snore looked at him with lifted eyebrows as if asking why he was being so stubborn, then she turned to Death and said, "We're helping you. We can't let you be the ones to save this town. Not alone at least."

"My thoughts exactly," Death replied to her, then he kept walking and went straight past her.

Dead Silence turned and watched Death take a few more steps, then the hallway they were in became silent. Zach glanced over his shoulder and could see the three vigilantes talking quickly, though he could not hear a word they said which had him staring at the man in a pair of orange goggles who just glanced back towards him too. _They can probably hear me, just not the other way around._ "We're leaving right now." The group of three glanced around at each other again, nodded, and then they headed towards Death who turned away from them. Zach started walking towards his comrades he saw gathered up with Gentle, and he spoke loud enough for everyone around to hear him, "The Deep-Riders have a few more establishments under their control around here. We take all of them down before moving on to the Playboys. Once all the smaller organizations are down, we take down the Frighteners, mess with the big shots in the cities' cash flow, lure them out…"

* * *

It was dark outside of Saimon, Sardonistan. The lights in the town nearby kept the air gently lit, but it was still dark enough that the stars could be seen by the hundreds of people gathered near a farmhouse at the base of a hill. There were farms more spread out past the hill, and there were some barns and stables scattered among the fields all owned by the Frighteners through a farmer who was not involved with criminal activities in order to keep the property clean and off the radar. The farmer was currently inside his house, pretending like an entire gang of villains, and a gang of villains they were purchasing weapons from, were not just outside his doors.

The man sitting upstairs in his bedroom even ignored when the doors opened downstairs, imagining maybe some of the villains just needed to use his restroom or get out of the cold for a minute. It was very cold after all, and he leaned out of his chair to grab a log and toss in his fireplace before continuing his book. His seat was not too far from the window of his bedroom where he could occasionally glance out and check on the dark yard outside and all the silhouettes in the night, but he had only done that twice over the past hour. A quarter mile away at the top of the hill next to his house which dipped down a bit on the other side but still leveled out at a higher elevation for his neighbor's fields, Dead Silence lifted his goggles up from his eyes and shook his head in annoyance while glancing to his right at the shorter dark figure next to him. "Don't know if we can call him a hostage, but he doesn't look like much of a villain. Still, I didn't think Tinkuno would just sit around and let something like this happen on his property."

"Maybe he doesn't want it," Zach said in a low voice, though he reminded himself that the man at his side's Quirk would keep their voices from reaching the gangs on the yard below. They were crouched, and since the area they were on was not technically owned by farmers on either side, the grass was overgrown and gave them some cover. "Who could he count on to help him, _and_ protect him if he ever turned them in though?"

"Has the deal started yet?" Gentle questioned behind Zach, staying away from the edge of the hill to keep as much of their presence hidden as possible. Behind Gentle crouched eighteen other members of the Army of Death, as well as Manbat and Snore who stayed closer up near him than the rest of the Army of Death soldiers. "I am getting impatient," Gentle added in mild annoyance.

"They're talking down there, but I don't see the shipments yet," Death replied. His voice was not modulated, and he stared through his zoomed night vision down at the villains he saw dealing with each other down near the farmhouse. Their team was not much higher in elevation, but the hill was a decent distance from the house that even the guards around the gangs who were not looking at the opposing gangs were just standing near the outsides and looking around. None were at the top of the hill, and it seemed to the group laying in wait that the villains trusted each other enough that they were not getting ready to double-cross each other by setting up snipers around the deal.

"Think our information was off?" Snore wondered, glancing towards Manbat past the soldier with a purple cloak.

Manbat hummed to himself. _Trucks should be here. The deal was already worked out, so to meet for a while like this shows they suspect something is coming. The Army of Death spotted so close could be one reason they are anxious, why they brought so many men…_ Manbat darted his eyes to the right and the left, checking the rest of the hill and then turning his head to look back the other way. He glared back through the darkness, and he closed his eyes. _Echolocation._

Manbat's eyes snapped open. He had not seen anyone, but he shot up and said in an angry voice, "Behind us."

"Way to let them know you spotted them," Gentle remarked coldly, while standing up straight and turning as well.

 **BANG**

Zach glanced behind him, then he turned forward while getting out of his crouched position. He looked down the hill and saw all the villains spinning towards the hill, and they all rose up their weapons or started running immediately like they were ready for this to happen. Zach ground his teeth, and he growled in an annoyed voice, "Was really hoping we wouldn't have to deal with a snitch tonight."

Dead Silence glanced towards Death again, then forward at the villains running towards them who slowed down even as bright lights shone on the group standing at the top of the hill.

 **Bang bang bang BANG**

Gentle stepped forward through the other dark soldiers behind him all standing up with him. "And I almost thought I put it up for nothing, this Gentle Dome."

Villains stopped firing towards the group at the top of the hill. The man who took the first shot and popped out of hiding before all the others sneaking up on the Army of Death lowered his rifle. He glared towards the enemies protecting by a nearly translucent dome of Elasticity that kept pushing in on all his shots only to bounce them back out. The guy tossed his rifle to the side, and another villain near him caught it before running forward to keep up with the burly man wearing a black tank top despite the cold. His muscly arms stuck out of his sleeves covered in black fur, and his head had a mane of black hair around it with his teeth sharpened and in a grin across his face.

"Surround them!"

"Get on either side!"

"We've got 'em!"

"Dresh tunka iin kano!"

"Esty Unrek!"

Zach glanced around and saw some of the soldiers with him spinning their heads every which way. Some held shaky weapons, and he could imagine the looks on some of their faces. "Everyone stay calm," Zach said, then he lifted his left hand and tapped a button to modulate his voice on his helmet. He turned off his night vision at the same time too, considering some cars and trucks started rolling up towards them on different sides. They rolled off of dirt roads and across fields, driving past villains who slowed down and set up positions all around the trapped Army of Death and vigilante team.

"Let's get you all down here!" One of the Frighteners on the lower side of the hill shouted. He slammed his palms down on the ground, and the hill ahead of him shook before lowering down in elevation to give a more gradual slope from the gangs originally being watched to the ambushing teams. All the villains were running around Death though now on all sides, so there was not much of a difference between which side one was looking at. There were villains everywhere.

The leader of the Frighteners, Jason, stepped farther up than many of his men. A few of his strongest moved up with him though, staying on his sides as he got close to Death who looked straight towards him. Jason smirked. "Death," he said, and he held his arms out to the sides which made a few dozen of his men point their weapons straight at Death. Weapons cocked, fireballs ignited on men's hands, and a farmer looking out his window dropped his jaw at what he saw going on down there. "Welcome to Sardonistan! How's your stay been going? Everything to your liking?"

"We've captured you," a voice said on Death's other side. He turned and looked the other way as Jason, and he saw a furry man he did not recognize but who came closer to the Gentle Dome without any men around to protect him.

"Those fucking vigilantes too-" another man flanking on Death's right started, only he froze quick while stealing a glance towards the man with a black mane who turned and glared at him.

"We knew you were all working together," Jason started, unable to let things continue without him speaking up. He motioned a nod of his head to the right, where a silent man who had come forward with his gang of weapons' dealers to help ambush Death stood. "You think anything goes on in this country without us knowing?"

"Telling from the number of villains here," Death began, his voice modulated and low as he spoke in English. He wore the same outfit he wore in Hatto, easy to distinguish among the soldiers in black. "You were too afraid to try stopping us on your own." Death stared straight down towards Jason who was still on a little bit of a lower slant despite one of his men flattening the ground out. "So you," Zach turned and looked at the man with furry arms and a bushy mane. "I'm guessing you're not one of the Frighteners." The man he spoke to lifted his smirk more and showed off his sharp teeth, and Zach said, "I should at least know who's _really_ capturing me. Are the Frighteners really responsible for catching Death?"

"Dark Panther," the man facing Death said, speaking past all of the soldiers and vigilantes between them as Death was still on the other side. "Of Hydrale."

"You seem like a big shot too," Death said. "Guess they wouldn't send someone small to take us. It makes sense why Jason back there's staying quiet if you're pretty important. How about the rest of you? You all a bunch of pathetic Frighteners who needed Hydrale's help-"

"Steel came too." A dark voice growled on Zach's left, and a figure tripled in size and stomped towards the Gentle Dome. The man was eying the dome up that he could barely see anymore, and he reached his hand out and waved at it to see if he could touch it.

"Darkside!"

"Playboys!"

"Fuck you! Don't talk shit about the Frighteners!"

"Tama," Death turned to a short woman ahead of him who Snore moved out of the way of so they could look at each other's visors. "Target all the ones who aren't Frighteners. We'll use them for getting more information."

"I've marked them," the young woman with the Quirk- Target, replied to her leader. Her voice came out feminine but also deeper and masked by a modulator.

Their voices were loud, and over two hundred villains around them felt uneasy at the casual conversation the two just had. "Is everyone ready?" Zach asked, looking around at the group around him who all nodded and then lifted their weapons or fists, getting ready to attack.

"You do not disappoint!" Dark Panther shouted, and he flexed his arms and got into a fighting stance himself preparing to rush through. "Give me cover when they drop the dome!" He shouted towards others around him.

Jason's eyes were wide on the other side of the Gentle Dome. "What are you thinking?!" He shouted towards Death. "We've got you! Don't be stupid, you're outnumbered ten to one!" Death glanced over his shoulder and down at Jason, then he just looked straight ahead again back at Dark Panther who was his main focus. That shade did not go unnoticed by the villains all around Jason, and he clenched his fists in fury, and a line of spikes went down his back while his arms bulged and grew thicker. Quirk-Stegosaurus, Jason's hands made small quakes as he slammed them down on the ground in front of him and aimed his back spikes towards the dome preparing to drop. "There are twenty of you up there! Not including those vigilante wannabes. You don't have a fucking chance!"

"You're a fool," Death said without looking back at the man shouting at him. The other villains all getting ready to fire and starting to shout like their leader fell quiet. "First off, each of my men is worth a hundred of yours, so you're the ones outnumbered here." As he said it, the Army of Death members moved fearlessly closer to the edge of the Gentle Dome. Right as that happened, Dark Panther sniffed a few times and darted his eyes around. A few other sensory villains noticed early too, and a dozen in total noticed the light covering of fog moving in before Death continued.

"And secondly!" Zach shouted, "Did you really think I didn't suspect the cops we told about this, might tell you we were coming?"

The fog rolling in got heavier, and it rose up from the ground at the villains' feet where they all started looking in panic as they noticed it surrounding them.

"Fog?!"

"Oh shit!"

"This is-"

"It's Enfog's power!" Jason yelled out, taking a step back with his back right leg. Then he felt a jolt on his tail and his head started turning to the side, and Jason's eyes opened huge as a man whose agency was supposed to be in the capital, wrapped both arms around his tail. The Number 1 hero in Sardonistan, Enfog stood eight feet tall and was covered in ripped muscles he used to tug the large Stegosaurus man to the side and swing him into his stronger lieutenants.

"He's over here!"

Enfog disappeared into his Quirk, Fog-Roll, as a white mist rose around him so thick that everyone close enough to see what he just did lost sight of him. They still started firing, and then they started screaming out as the country's top hero emerged and attacked on every side.

Dark Panther expected that more of the Army of Death might be hiding around there, or might be called in by Death, but the moment he saw the fog his fur stood on end. "Pull back," he said, and he jumped backwards fast as he saw shadows moving in the thick fog ahead of him where he suspected the enemies' protective dome just fell.

"The Number 1 hero is here! Everyone scatter!"

On the far side of where Enfog emerged among the villains, eleven who were clustered together since they were all part of the same gang started running away from the middle of the field. They were out of the fog that never got thick around them as they had not been too close to the middle, being too nervous to do so when their gang had become so small in the period of a single evening. The Deep-Riders stared forward though in panic as a man was running towards them, a man in a bright green costume that they all recognized.

"Distance too!" The temporary leader of the Deep-Riders shouted. He had convinced his comrades to come and avenge their arrested friends and leader, but he was seriously regretting that decision as another top hero from the country emerged ahead of them. "Screw it! Let's push through him and get out of here!" Out from his back emerged a blue genie that curved over the top of his body with three eyes on the top of its head. The genie lifted up its arms and two more sprouted out beneath it, and his comrades ran after their leader only to find Distance getting farther away from them.

"What is this?!"

"It's his Quirk!"

Every step they took towards Distance, he looked like he was two steps farther away. They had to stop running towards him since he was getting so far and all they were doing was tiring themselves out. A few rose firearms and tried shooting at him, but he looked so far away, and then someone took a step back. Others started backpedaling, while Distance ran forward, and the illusion of his Double Distance Quirk mixed with his own speed made him approach them in instants. He swung his right leg around in a roundhouse, taking the gang's temporary leader off his feet before his genie could even reach down for him.

 _Arresting the police chief of Saimon and sending him to Rankor City, asking for the pro heroes to help out without caring that it's against the law for them to work with us,_ Manbat rushed through the fog and grabbed a villain by the back of his head. He flapped his black wings and rose out of the fog, then he shot back down and slammed the man screaming in his grip into the arms of another who was aiming his guns towards an Army of Death member. _Would the pros have helped if we had been the ones to do this, or is it because of the Army of Death? Everyone decides to work with them despite everything._ Manbat snapped his head up and glared through red eyes out his mask at three men charging at him and using their Quirks. Two hesitated, and Manbat flapped his wings behind him to fly at the third. He spun his body around in midair and dodged the man's blue beam he shot out of his chest, then Manbat grabbed him around his face with his talons and swung his body like a bat into the other two behind him who finally stopped hesitating and tried to attack.

 _That looked a bit like Aoyama's power,_ Zach thought as he watched a blue beam fly past Manbat. _He's got quick reflexes though. Not as quick as Dark Panther's though. He's strong, quick, reflexive, and he definitely knows a lot. Hydrale's big. Connections to League of Shadows big, and to Atlas Corp which still operates here after they purged a couple of execs. Let's see if I can't kill three birds with one stone._ Zach shot into the fog on his right, and an explosion of darkness went off followed by more screams of the villains who saw their comrades drop like flies.

"Screw this!" one of the Frighteners back behind where Jason was staggering up shouted. He turned and started running, and others around him turned and ran out of the fog too. They ran out of the fog, but their heads all snapped up as they heard something rumbling above them. They looked to the sky and could still see the stars, though part of the sky was covered in clouds now. The rumbling was not from thunder though, but from four helicopters that shot out of nowhere and flew over the farmhouse where the farmer inside stared up with his jaw dropped.

Dead Silence slammed the butt of his rifle into the face of the villain who had just tried slashing him only for an Army of Death member next to him to block it. He looked up while Michael grabbed the man they just took down, and Michael threw that man into the thicker fog where he saw shadows trying to run away. Then he looked up and watched from an area where the fog only reached up to their waists, as the helicopters flew above them and dropped six soldiers from each one. The birds slowed, and ropes dropped out of most of them that the soldiers in black rappelled down using harnesses. A couple of flying soldiers dove out of the planes and to the outsides of the fog where villains who had been on the outskirts originally were trying to escape. Another four heroes had come with Enfog and Distance, and two black trucks rolled up into the roads blocking the paths of cars that were trying to drive away.

Snore ran up behind Dead Silence who she finally saw for the first time since they all split up upon the dropping of the Gentle Dome. "This is wild," she said through panting breaths at one of her partners. Dead Silence looked at her and nodded, then they both started gazing around as the fog near them was getting lower to the ground. Shouts from villains for the Army of Death to stop, shouts of surrender and pain, echoed out across the fields. Then all the fog dropped at once.

All the fog dropped, and fifty members of the Army of Death looked around for Enfog only to freeze when they saw him. "Oh I am good," Dark Panther said, while every person on the field gawked towards the executive of Hydrale, his right and left claws dug into the chest of the country's top hero.

Dark Panther pulled his claws out fast and dove away, then he leapt again with a panicked look covering his face. No other villain moved, as a blur of darkness shot after Dark Panther like a rocket. "You bastard!" Death yelled, charging past Enfog who fell backwards, slamming hard into the ground right on his back. Zach heard the shouts of other heroes nearby who saw it too, pained yells of grief from Distance and one of Enfog's sidekicks especially. Dark Panther stopped jumping backwards, and he shot the other way instead, sticking his claws out towards the dark form charging at him.

"Idiot," Zach growled, waving both hands in front of him and swinging winds of Death at the villain who opened his mouth and roared while flying at him twice as fast as he had just been dodging around. Dark Panther flew through the dark smoke, and Zach stepped to the side. Dark Panther's legs hit the ground and came out from below him, his face slamming down into the floor instead and then dragging a few feet forward. Zach glared around before Dark Panther had even stopped skidding, "Anyone else wants to keep fighting, I'll tear them apart. Death has come for you."

A villain turned and tried to run thirty feet on Zach's left. He pulled a knife off his side and flicked it at that villain, nailing him straight in the back with a blade covered in darkness. Manbat stared over with his eyes huge as the villain trying to flee fell to his knees instead, reaching his arms back for the weapon for a moment and then just dropping limp, the front half of his body hunching over into the dirt. _Death,_ Manbat glared back towards the leader of the army that had every villain around them laying down their weapons and putting their hands up. _I don't know if you just killed him or not, but either way…_

Snore scratched her chin with an uneasy look on her face, and she glanced at Dead Silence to see how he felt about that. Dead Silence just looked away from Death though, to the spot that Death just turned to himself and looked at through his visor. _This could not, be any crazier,_ Dead Silence pursed his lips and watched as Death started back for Enfog. _It's him. It's really… him._

Zach walked up to Enfog, he got on his knees and checked the top hero's pulse, then he tssked and turned his head to glance at either of the heroes kneeling next to him. "Go help round up the villains. I'll bring him back." The two next to him stared at Death with their eyes huge, then they watched as Death slid his fingers out of the glove on his right hand and pressed it down on Enfog's muscular eight-foot-tall body. Zach felt claws pierce through his chest, all the way into his lungs and heart and stomach and liver. "OH SHI- uggghh- cchhh- Fuuu-" Zach tried to hold in his voice, and he just ground his teeth as he felt shallower wounds where Dark Panther had ultimately slashed through the front of Enfog's body.

"AaaaAAAHH!" Zach let out one last yell, and then he yanked his hand off of Enfog fast as he felt the man come back. _Fuck, FUCK!_ Zach stood up and shook his head around. _Alright. Focus. FOCUS!_ He tried his best to distract himself from the feeling of just dying, again, and he knew exactly what got him angry enough to do it. He lifted his left hand to his helmet, while Enfog's sidekick dropped back on her knees and started shouting at him which got Enfog to stir a bit more than he had been. "Rebel, you figure out which of them it was?"

"Soon as y'all got ambushed, I started checkin' for calls. Ran this number that sent a call out from Saimon's station right after y'all went there to talk 'bout it. Mother fucker didn't wait a minute before ratting you out."

"Let's get back to the police station then," Zach said, his eyes dark inside his visor. "And make an example of cops who work with villains."

* * *

 _ **Smack**_ _**Thud, Smack! SMACK!**_ Death had Officer Yiolio grabbed by the front collar of his uniform with one hand, and he nailed his left fist into the man's face again, and again, and again. Blood splashed out to the side of the man's face and got on the wall near them the next time due to the angle of Zach's punch, and Manbat snapped behind him, "That's enough."

Death hesitated for a moment, gripping his hand tighter into the officer's clothes and tightening his fist more. He could see his own soldiers in his peripheral vision looking towards Manbat, and he grit his teeth but then threw the cop he was holding down into the ground. _The vigilantes here are the ones who will stay and keep making this place safe. I won't let my guys fight them, and they might if this guy comes at me. Still though,_ Zach's teeth ground again and he yanked a knife from his belt, and he stabbed it down into the cop's right knee right as the man was trying to sit up.

The cop screamed and blood splashed out of his mouth. "Hey Death," Enfog started, after staying quiet longer than the vigilante since he did not think he should say a thing after Death had just saved him. Death stood up and turned towards him, and Manbat was glad Enfog spoke up since he was about to run forward. "What are we doing with him?"

Distance glanced over towards Enfog, then he just nodded in agreement with his decision and looked towards Death himself for an answer. Manbat spun his head from Enfog, to Distance, to the other officers gathered around the Saimon police department who were staying quiet while in the presence of half a dozen scary figures in all black costumes. Snore stared at Enfog in shock at his question too, then she looked to her leader as if asking him what they were supposed to do here.

"The police are meant to protect and serve," Zach started, his voice low and modulated for the room of police officers to hear. He stared down at Yiolio who lifted his head from his knee to stare through bloodshot eyes full of rage at Death. Those eyes showed pure terror in them too, but Zach did not care as he stared at the man in front of him. "I want to send a message, to the police in this country who think it's alright to work for villains." Zach reached down and he yanked the knife out of the cop's leg, and the man screamed while Zach reached back and put the knife in a sheath on his side.

Darkness spread around Death, a dark veil emerging around every inch of his body while the room stayed silent. "You can't," Manbat started behind Death. He glared around at all the officers and heroes in the room, then he turned to Death, "You cannot kill him."

"Death can do, whatever he sees fit," Mark said, using a Sardonistani accent in his English and glaring through his visor at the leader of the vigilantes who Zach warned him might be jumpy.

"Pl-please," the officer in front of the scary dark figure started. Death's costume was partially visible through the veil, but not on his right arm where it started to get thicker. A claw of darkness formed off of Death's right hand, and the cop on his butt with his back against the wall in front of him leaned back with fear spreading across his face.

"I won't kill you," Death said. Then he reached his hand forward anyway as the cop's eyes started opening wide and his smile rose. Zach knocked the man out and then pulled his arm back. "But the message will be sent," he continued in his scratchier, modulated deep voice. "Thrown in prison, I'm sure he'll receive a nice warm welcome from the inmates thrown in there by men of the law." Everyone in the department started staring at Death with wider eyes, except for his comrades who just nodded at his decision.

"What are you talking…" Manbat started, his face getting confused for a second.

"The prisoners won't care if he says he was on their side," Zach said. He turned and looked straight at Manbat while turning off his Nightmare form. "They'll kill him, or something," he added since he was not all too sure about it. "But he won't have any friends in there. A cop who got a hero killed, but still a cop, he'll have no friends in the whole world." Zach turned his head a bit and glared towards the other officers in the police station, one by one through his visor while they all leaned back with sweat on their faces. "And when everyone sees what becomes of him, not long after he's thrown in there I'm betting, we'll see how quick the police are to accept bribes and work with villains."

"Sounds good," Distance said, gritting his teeth but nodding his head at the idea. _Throwing him in prison, it's what I'd do anyway. The way Death says it makes it sound worse, but that's where hero-killing scum belong._

Enfog nodded his head too after a few seconds. "Death, your assistance has been appreciated. And for bringing me back from the dead, I'm forever-"

"Don't," Death started. He turned and started for the front door of the police station. "We're getting a bunch of information from those villains we captured. Thanks for leaving them in our care for a little while," Zach continued while pausing closer to the exit of the building. His comrades had started towards him too, but they all stopped as well and looked back when Death did. "We didn't torture any of them, they're just afraid we might so they were quick to tell us everything. I'll leave all that information to you, Enfog. We have to get going."

Enfog's eyes widened as did most of the people in the police station who gawked at the man who had the most control there. Death continued, "I don't want to put you in a jam, and I don't know if someone hasn't already called the Anti-Death Task Force anyway. Besides, we have to keep moving. There are no further operations set up here yet, and we can't waste our time."

"There's still so much to do though!" Snore called out, which got her an angry look from Manbat who stepped forward after it.

"That's fine, you can go," Manbat said. He glared into Death's visor, and then he begrudgingly added, "For you help here, thank you. But the way you do things is not heroic. It's not-"

"Speaking of heroism," Enfog started, deciding to cut this off before it got confrontational. Manbat and Snore glanced back at him, and Dead Silence looked over from where he was leaning against the wall near the cop who was just beaten bloody and left unconscious on the floor. "I just got the go ahead from President Nuné, all three of you are being granted hero licenses."

"What?" Snore asked, her eyes bulging just like her comrades' did. "Are you serious?" She asked, and the top hero in the country nodded back at the vigilante.

"We've heard for a while the work you three have been doing down here. I didn't think it was much since the few times I ever came here the town was clean, but I should have realized it was too clean for what I heard in the rumors," Enfog lowered his mouth into a frown and finished, "For that, I'm sorry. But with this I'm hoping you can work with the police more openly, and keep protecting-"

"Before any of you continue," Death started up, and he took a step farther back into the station. He turned his head and nodded out at the others who had waited with him, and all but Mark left the station to go out front where there was starting to be a big commotion. None of the people inside the station were privy to the communications of the Army of Death, so they did not hear that all the members were gathering outside and getting ready for departure. They heard helicopters coming down though, and there was wind blowing into the front of the station through the open doors. Death spoke to the group in front of him in a serious tone while wind blew in around him, "I'd like to offer you a place with the Army of Death too."

Zach looked straight at Manbat as he said it, then at Snore, then over at Dead Silence. Then Zach turned towards Enfog too who looked back at him skeptically and with his eyes growing wide, before they narrowed and he started wondering if other heroes had accepted the offer before. A glance at Distance who shook his head fast told Zach what he wanted to know there, and then Manbat called out at Death over the loud sounds of the helicopters and shouting outside, "This is our country! We're going to protect it from here."

Snore nodded her head. Then she froze though as Manbat continued in a louder, and angrier voice, "Your methods put people in fear! They look at you and see an armed force of dark soldiers, who aren't accountable for anything they do! As much as you helped us here today, you're spreading fear across the world-"

"That's wrong," Zach called out back, shaking his head once at the vigilante, now pro hero, in front of him. Manbat glared back, but then he got a confused look on his face as Death continued, "We're the Symbol of Fear." Everyone looked towards Death and even Mark turned a bit and looked at his friend and leader in surprise as he heard that shout. "I know All Might was a Symbol of Peace, and…" _Midoriya,_ Zach thought for a second, but continued shouting with, "The new generations, will one day have someone or many heroes to fill that role! All For One was the Symbol of Evil in this world, and I know I do represent something as Death too. And that is the Symbol of Fear, but only for villains."

"The Army of Death does not represent hope or anything like that, or we wouldn't be dressed all scary and menacing like this," the noises outside got lower as all the helicopters landed so it was just the army outside talking that was making noise, as well as the citizens gathering around the station. Zach got lower, "We aren't supposed to be looked up to by people, and we aren't looking for recognition which is why we all wear masks." Zach looked straight at Manbat and hoped the man would understand him, "Uncompromising. We crush villains, destroy evil organizations, and make criminals afraid to act. More than heroes can, because heroes have to keep an air of heroism around them. Because heroes can't just kill villains if they decide to, whereas the Army of Death _has_ gone that far before, depending on the villain… Depending on what they've done."

"You're admitting to being murderers," Manbat said, and Enfog glanced to his side at the new hero next to him with his eyebrows raised. _He's got the making of a top hero. His ideals are pretty strong, but Death's-_ "I won't let that continue," Manbat said, his voice as threatening as ever and making the mood of the room drop.

Mark took a step farther back inside. "I won't fight you," Zach said. He shook his head at the vigilante who grit his teeth back at the man he could only see as a villain in front of him. "Because the people of this town already are looking to you for support, and once we're gone you need to keep up your work. We aren't going to be the ones to save this town, this country. That's on you. We just helped. And even after we've left, crime _will_ decline, because of the idea that we could be here at any time." Zach rose his voice a little louder for the cops in the back, "And maybe I will leave someone behind, maybe someone will be watching this town from the shadows to let me know if I need to come back here. But there's an entire world out there, and I really don't want to come back-"

"I'll come with you."

Zach turned his head to the right in surprise, as he did not think he had any takers in his offer before. He smiled inside his helmet though, as this was the vigilante out of the three who he actually liked the most so far. _Plus, Mute is an amazing Quirk. Utilizing that on his own or even just with a couple of comrades, is nothing compared to everything I can do using that._ "Great, let's go," Zach said, and he turned and started for the exit.

"Are you serious?" Snore asked, stepping towards her comrade who just pushed off the wall and started walking.

"Dead Silence, wait," Manbat stopped staring in shock and started for his comrade. "What are you thinking? Those guys are-"

"They're going to go fight more battles like earlier, ones they've already got set up which is why they're heading out in such a hurry," Dead Silence said, and he kept going for the door. He had his goggles up over his head, his rifle on his back, and he decided in that moment that he did not need to go grab anything else. He stepped into the door with his two comrades running after him, and Manbat grabbed him by the shoulder as he saw Dead Silence looking towards one of the helicopters.

"You can't do this. Saimon needs you. Sardonistan needs you-"

"We need you," Snore added, looking at him in a softer way that had Dead Silence hesitate for a second.

"You're going to have to be responsible for keeping the town peaceful without him," Death said, looking at Manbat and Snore who darted him angry looks as he cut back in. "You have to keep other villains from taking over now that there's a power gap." As Death spoke, behind him Gentle saw him come out and started telling everyone to go. Gentle called over to Floater, and she ran to the two black trucks they had on the ground and pressed her hands into the sides of them as they started driving almost side by side. Floater used her Quirk- Rise and Fall, and then she ran to the right and hopped up, grabbing onto the hand of a friend who reached out the back of the truck for her. Both of the trucks she pressed her palms into started rising into the air in the same direction they had been driving, then two other Army of Death members flew up and pushed on the backs of the trucks to direct them a bit.

The vigilantes in front of Death tried to focus on him with what he was saying, but seeing that in the background made them stare with wide eyes like most of the people of their town. Everyone stared at the trucks flying up into the sky, in the direction of a very dark cloud with some lightning sparking out of it. There were stars in other directions, but one side of the sky was full of dark clouds, and as a bolt flashed up there a silhouette of something huge appeared that those trucks were flying up towards.

Dead Silence looked back down after staring in amazement towards the sky for a few seconds. "To me, it sounds like they're an army of heroes, or just an army that's needed to fight the world of villains." Zach had opened his mouth for a second just like Manbat did as Dead Silence explained, but they both closed their mouths as Dead Silence finished his explanation. "I think I'll be more help with them, to not just our people but everyone in the world." _And besides,_ Dead Silence thought, while Manbat started trying to argue with him again, though Snore was looking at him in some awe now after hearing that reasoning. Dead Silence turned from them and looked next to him at Death, _He's the reason I became a vigilante. Long before Mongoloid, before he even killed Kurogiri. Lifebringer, made me who I am. I had hopes, but I always thought I was just being hopeful because… but he's him. My heroes, were the same person. Of course, I'm going to follow him._

"…Dead Silence, just stay and think about it for a little! See how much crime goes down first, so you know you're not leaving us with a ton of villains on our hands."

"Even if they've gone down for now," Snore added after Manbat. "They could always rise up again-"

"The rise of villains is over," Zach said. He turned from the vigilantes and started towards one of the helicopters, the closest one to him that had some empty seats on it waiting for him and Mark, as well as another extra one. Other helicopters were lifting off and flying away, and Dead Silence walked after Death towards the helicopter. _I've known it for a while,_ Zach thought, as the other vigilantes made a desperate last attempt at stopping their friend. _I realized it after Breakneck, that the rise was done. The old age is past._ Dead Silence did not stop and his comrades finally came to stops behind him. Manbat and Snore stared after them and listened as did everyone around as Death spoke on his way to his helicopter.

"They have risen already. Now, is the time for war."

* * *

 **A/N Now, is the time for war. The Army of Death efficiently moves through another location, ridding a lawless town of its villains and leaving the area in a better way than they found it. Zach claims the Army of Death as the Symbol of Fear, only for villains though. They continue to move around the world, and we see here at the end Zach turns back and sees if any of the ones who fought with him want to join Death, which he does get a taker with Dead Silence. The Army of Death grows, takes down more villains, and works to stop corruption in the places they go. I hope you all enjoyed the chapter. Now is definitely the time for war... next few chapters going to be lit. Still doing a whole lot of work though and this is me procrastinating right now to get this chapter in to you guys, so might be a bit again. Thanks for reading though! And leave a review below telling me what you think and predictions for what's ahead.**

MiladyAnna chapter 114 . Nov 25

I would like class A to meet the death army during one of their mission in Japan and guess that it's Zack. I think that the army of death is going to focus on the new league and sought to eliminate the different leaders.  
Your chapter is still so good. France says helo from me.

 **We'll see... No spoilers so can't say whether or not it'll happen. We see Zach think about in this chapter how Hydrale had some connections to League of Shadows and Atlas Corp (so he's still after the Fergus too), and he had Tama mark the non-Frighteners specifically to get more info on the next gangs they're going after. Villains are quick to snitch when they're thinking they might be tortured, so Zach's got too much information and has to keep moving around... Anyway, glad you're enjoying the chapters! Hi France!**

Bass4penguin chapter 114 . Nov 25

I can't remember didn't Zach have his own cult at some point or am I thinking of the cults of stain making comments about him

 **Zach did see some creepy video about him when he was at the library some afternoon after the Sports Festival, but we haven't seen too much around that and not a cult yet for sure. Though here with Dead Silence we see Zach did have a crazy amount of support even around the world, though instead of becoming crazy hero-killing cultists because of Lifebringer, some people became vigilantes. Thanks for the review!**

Gamma-X chapter 114 . 19h ago

Can't believe you killed Stain off... He was a cool guy! But better him than any student in Class 2A and 2B. Yes, *even* Mineta. Mineta actually has enough good character development to finally be an actually good and relevant character now. Have we seen Icefall before? Because I think she could've been a character we would like... Can't wait for the next chapter! Keep it rollin' mah gud mahn! xP  
\- G.X

 **Glad you caught up! Thanks for all the reviews up 'til now! And I'm glad you've enjoyed Mineta's development through Death. I try to focus on a lot of the students other than Zach, try to develop them all so it's not just a static group that Zach might meet again but a collection of actual characters. I feel like they all would change over time, so instead of just showing them be the same or be drastically different, I like to put in stuff about them too. The fact that you care at all about Mineta in this story makes me glad so thanks! That was the first time we saw Icefall, might be the last too... but who knows? Zach did leave that offer up for the leaving 4 to be able to come back if they ever changed their minds. Hope you enjoyed the chapter, and thanks again for reading so far!**

Super Power Sensei chapter 114 . 9h ago

I don't want Zach to settle.  
Back in June he started with a small group of five and a goal. Over half a year later he has an army, resources, authority, and knowledge about the world few have.  
Not long ago he was trying to figure out how to make money just to support himself. Now, money isn't even an issue anymore.  
Zach should always be growing, influencing, and/or doing more good for the world. I'm not just talking about the AoD either. All the funding and equipment he has comes from L, investors and donors right? One way he can help the world is by using them as a stepping stone to push the world forward (at least technology wise). In the manga it's confirmed fully functional prosthetic arms exist ie. Compress, but in this story that doesn't seem to be the case ie. Grappler. You could introduce the Quinjet(marvel inspired), a hybrid between medium-large helicopter and fighter jet, as a new form of transport for heroes, police, and civilians alike in places where there's an abundance of large unsettled land ie. Saudi Arabia. The very strong and safe strain of trigger Zach and his crew uses can be professionally researched, tested, and politically pushed to being used by heroes.  
One of Zach's strengths is that he always thinks about the common man. So how about he tries to upgrade the world's outdated general electrical system EVERY common man uses?  
(My eyes shot open while thinking about this)What if Zach's end goal is to make his own country/city or shape an existing one in his own image?...I like to imagine everyone Zach's ever known and/or ever doubted him looking at him while he dances with "How You Like Me Now" playing in the background.

 **Small group of 4* (unless you're counting Hunter back then but I really wouldn't). I think Cee's addition was probs early July... But I digress! Lol def right that Zach's come a far way since back then. I wouldn't say prosthetics don't exist just cuz of Grappler, as we did see Roady thinking about getting a new leg back right after Lifebringer Incident in that same chapter. Maybe there's another reason Grappler couldn't get new arms, like something up with the surgery or maybe a complication with his Quirk... or something, but yeah I def agree Zach could do a lot with the money he's getting (though all the equipment, The Cloak, vehicles, food for the army, etc might be more than you think. I've kind of glanced over most of the boring stuff like that which is happening in the background while the AoD moves around). I'm def thinking about some new cool vehicles too though, especially since the BnH movie had All Might in this super cool jet thing back in his heyday. Anyway lots of great ideas in here, lots of stuff to think about that I won't confirm/ say much about but might be revealed in the upcoming War Arc chapters. Thanks for the long review!**

Yes chapter 114 . Nov 26

Are we reaching the end?  
Hope not.

 **Hahaha, nope. Don't worry, this is gonna be at least 170-200 chapters. Thanks everyone for reviewing!**


	116. Chapter 116

**A/N Hey guys! Been a few days, but I've been busy writing my thesis and this chapter turned out being the LONGEST chapter of Death I have written yet. I was not expecting it going in, but anyway... Enjoy!**

 **Disclaimer: I don't own Boku no Hero Academia**

 **Chapter 116:**

 **Sueguon, United Korea**

In a port city on the east coast of the Korean peninsula, a black limo rolled down a packed street full of vendors, pedestrians, and bikers. The most common vehicle in the city was a motor-scooter, and the scooterists were zipping in between people and honking loudly, though one of them honked at the wrong time when they got close to the limo that had just stopped in his path. "Out of the way!" He honked again, then he started pulling his scooter to the driver's side to drive around despite the crowded area on that side of the narrow street between the limo and the vendors.

The scooter started driving down slowly, and he shot an annoyed look at the driver's side only to see nothing but a tinted black window. Then the back door of the limo flew open, and the scooter stopped short, not able to drive past as there was no longer enough space. A man stepped out of the back seat, standing six feet tall with over another foot on top of his skull thanks to the Pincers he had. The curved appendages stuck out of his bald head, and each of them were covered in little spikes with a bit of fuzz covering them too. The pincers almost touched at the tips after curving out, but they opened up a bit more as the tall man stepped out of the limo and stood directly in front of the scooter.

The Korean man on his scooter did not honk again. He stared at the muscular figure in front of him with a nervous look on his face under his helmet. The man before him wore a black suit with a white undershirt below, had a dark look on his light-skinned face- angry, with him. Grabble glared at the scooterist and he brought his hands in front of him, reaching up a bit and pulling his white gloves down his wrists to tighten the material over his hands. While he was doing this, his jacket "accidentally" pushed to the side at the middle a bit and revealed the pistol tucked into his waistband.

The scooter backed up, turned around, and drove the opposite direction as the man in a hurry had been going. Grabble kept his lips flat as he watched the man head off, then he stepped to the side and held the opened door while staring straight forward. The passenger side front door opened as well and another tall, muscular man stepped out whose head was rounder, but flat at the top and below his jawline before his neck. Jughead stepped out six and a half feet tall, and he walked around the front of the limo and then stopped on the other side of the open door as Grabble.

At this point, the crowded road of people was a bit less crowded, though the people who mostly remained were just pretending not to look over or really were diverting their gazes elsewhere. Jughead was holding a briefcase in one hand when he stepped around the limo, and the burly man more muscular than Grabble tapped his hand on the driver's side window twice.

"Everyone try to use Korean as little as possible," Mark reminded over his shoulder from the driver's seat. "You're all really bad at it."

"Thanks Mark," Darling said with a roll of her eyes while sliding her arms through the sleeves of a furry jacket on the seat with her.

"And hey," Seraphim started, leaning across the seat from her side where she and Maelstrom were grabbing their things. Darling looked into the older woman's purple eyes, and she looked closely at those eyes for a few seconds from up close. _Can't even see them,_ Darling thought in an impressed way as she knew there were contact lenses in Seraphim's eyes. Darling started frowning though as Seraphim continued to her, "Don't freak out in there. This is just a part we're playing."

Maelstrom glanced at Darling nervously too as it was something she had not mentioned before but had been thinking about for a while. She had her orange hair down straight instead of up in pigtails as usual, just as Seraphim had her hair down instead of in a ponytail. They were all three wearing dresses and fur coats or vests they just put on over them since the inside of the limo had been heated and they did not need to keep up appearances yet. Darling glanced back and forth at the girls across from her, then she opened her mouth to say something but was cut off by the man on her right, "Let's go ladies." The three women looked towards the American man at Darling's side who pulled at the red cuffs of his blazer and then smirked at them with his handsome white face.

"Coming Underlord," Seraphim said, smiling back at the man who looked to be in his thirties but was really only seventeen.

 _This thing isn't even itchy. I thought it was going to be terrible,_ Underlord stepped out of his limo and was still grinning in a confident manner while he extended his hand down into the door of the limo.

The limo driver up front rolled up the divider between the back and him, and Mark pushed down on the rim of his hat while darting his eyes around through the front windshield. _No one looks suspicious. Interested, but not suspicious. Nor do they look surprised. Suppose most of the ones who stuck around are used to this sort of thing._ "Charlie Team, status?" Mark questioned, and everyone in the Army of Death in the city heard his voice. The micro-earpieces in the ears of the group currently standing outside of the limo or getting out, in the limo driver's ear, and in the ears of a half dozen others around Sueguon transmitted Mark's message around the city. The message was also transmitted out into the Yellow Sea between Korea and China where The Cloak was currently flying above some very well-timed clouds.

"Driving around but staying within five minutes. Should we begin to head over?" Shang questioned. The Chinese man in the driver's seat of a white van slowed down as he neared an intersection, deciding which route to take and getting a honk from a scooter behind him.

"Yes, Alpha Team just arrived. They'll be heading inside in a minute." Mark waited for the third woman in the backseats to get out with Underlord, then Grabble closed the door and Jughead tapped his window again. "Get in your position. Commence the operation," the man coordinating the mission, as Underlord could not from inside the building, started to drive his limo away to the garage he would be leaving it in. Mark checked his rearview mirror, his side mirrors, then he took in a deep breath and relaxed himself as he was all alone with no one tailing him. The former CIA operative stayed calm and said in a low voice, "Raylei, you ready?"

"On standby. Delta Team is ready for extraction at any time. You just give me the word."

"Rampart?"

"Hold on a minute," a voice cut in, and everyone in the city had to stifle a groan. "I was looking forward to this mission. Should've waken me up sooner-"

"Rebel, we already started. I'm not going over everything again, give Rampart point."

"Are you-" Rebel paused, then a sigh went over the earpieces that was very loud and exasperated, but relieved all the people in the field who were not in the mood for an argument over this while the mission was starting. "Fine. I'll just third-wheel it back here."

"Well, sat images are up. Police channels tapped," Rampart paused for a second. "And I'm just now getting word that three heroes from Seoul are heading into Sueguon now."

"Reason?" Mark asked.

"Villain attack at the docks. Nothing big, but a couple boats sped off and this group is…"

The conversations going on were quiet in the ears of the team of six who walked off the street while Mark drove away. Raylei controlled their mics' sound, as the earpieces were so small that the group could not do so manually. The earpieces that doubled as microphones were also at low volumes for every member of the team of six, as their conversations were unnecessary for the rest of the teams to hear. Raylei was ready to turn up Underlord's mic at any time if she heard a certain word, and her blocky fingers on her left hand were already hovering over one keyboard while she coordinated other efforts with her right.

Underlord stood between Darling and Maelstrom who were both shorter than him unlike Seraphim who was almost his height. Although Darling had the largest bust of the three girls, Seraphim was drawing the eyes of the people on the street around them. She had a slender figure, sexy, and she was doing the best at her role of one of Underlord's floozies already with just the way she was looking at him and getting annoyed with the old man standing in front of his shop the longer the guy talked to Grabble. Jughead stood behind the group of four, leaving Grabble to talk to the man who was confused and questioning at first, before nodding along and looking back at the group behind Grabble.

The old Korean man advertising his wares outside his shop noticed the briefcase in Jughead's hand, then he shifted his gaze towards Underlord who had a golden necklace partially sticking out of his collar, and whose women were dressed very richly and each had some jewelry on them. The man stepped to the side and motioned in after looking back at Grabble. "Go ahead," he said, speaking better English than the broken accent he had used while questioning the man confusedly a moment ago.

"Thank you," Underlord said while stepping into the opening, looking to the old man and flashing him a smile. It was a dangerous smile, warning, and yet at the same time with so little care in it as he immediately shifted his gaze back down to the brown haired woman at his right side who said something to him that made him laugh in a boisterous way. _I really do like acting,_ Zach thought, while looking forward through a store that had some clothing and cloths on the walls, and a hallway towards the back that had beads falling from the ceiling in lines that made it difficult to see past, but made it clear that behind it was a private hallway where there were no wares to buy.

Grabble pushed the beads to the side and looked down the hall towards a steel door that opened up. Jughead was walking past the man in the doorway outside, and he heard whispering in Korean from the man who then went back to calling out advertisements for his displays outside the shop. Jughead kept his eyes off the old man but thought, _Don't see a microphone on him either. That means it's some high-tech stuff. Doesn't fit the slums of this port at all, but I'm guessing the basement's going to blow me away then._

Grabble walked up to the man at the steel door and talked to him for a moment, then the man in that doorway stepped to the side and looked at Underlord who lowered his arms from his women and stepped forward confidently and with a warm smile on his face. "Mr. Underlord, I presume?" The thin man before Underlord lifted an eyebrow as he said it, because the man outside had been unable to get a more specific name from Grabble who only replied again with "Underlord" upon getting asked a second time.

"That's right, Mr…" Zach started, lifting his eyebrows back at the man who had yet to tell him his own name.

"I am Mr. Kim," the man replied. He was a Korean man who looked around the same age as Underlord, with similarly black hair only more combed than the wavy way that Underlord had his hair styled with a flip in the front instead of bangs. "This is your first time here, is it not?"

"It is," Underlord replied. "I heard all I needed was a recommendation. Pincers there mention-"

"He did say-" Mr. Kim froze.

The flaring red eyes of the American man before him settled down back to hazel. "Please don't interrupt me," Underlord said, his voice the same calm and almost cheerful tone he was just using. The shift in tone was subtle, almost unnoticeable, but with the flash of his eyes a second ago it was very clear. "Sanjuan Lee told me many great things about this place, including the class, and _respect_ , of it's employees. I would hate it if you were calling my friend a liar."

"My apologies sir," Mr. Kim bowed his head a bit in apologetic respect. He lifted his head and then hesitated, and Underlord lifted his eyebrows in a questioning way at the man's expression. "And my apologies for the wait as well. Mr. Lee is a valued member of the 100 Club. Any friend of his is welcome here. Please, come in." Mr. Kim stepped to the side and extended his arm back for the open doorway that a pair of men were standing on the other side of, moving aside to make a wide opening for the group to move through.

 _Looks like Underlord's reputation on the dark web checked out,_ Underlord smirked while walking forward before either of his guards into the room ahead. _Holding off on handing The Wolf over to the police was definitely a good move. If this works I'll have to bring him in somewhere without death penalty. Have to stick to my word when I've made the deals or villains will never believe it. They already have begun realizing that Death will show mercy, considering that last group that faked surrendering and… Villain boss. You're a villain boss. With beautiful women._ Zach reminded himself of these things because he was about to think of a comrade of his who did not make it when the surrender turned out to be a planned response by a villain group who had known information about their base may have been leaked.

"Three minutes out."

Zach heard Shang's voice in his ear though it was getting harder to hear over music and loud talking as he started down some steps towards a set of double doors below. The red doors were studded with blunt golden spikes around the outsides and had dragon designs in the wood, but Zach ignored them and just walked forward and pressed his hands into the doors. He opened them up, and he stepped out into a room that looked nothing like the basement of a clothing shop in the slums of Sueguon.

He had just entered into a room that had two tiers in it. There was an outer balcony surrounding three quarters of the room, though not the opposite side as where Zach just entered because there was a stage over there with the red curtains drawn. There were steps on either of the sides of the entrance wall of the room he was on, and two more staircases at the ends of the side balconies leading down near the stage. The balcony on this side was the widest which gave it space for the stairs down as well as paths around the corners to the other sides of the second floor, where there were a couple of tables and well-dressed people talking while leaning on the railings or just standing around.

Grabble and Jughead walked down behind him but to his sides, while the girls all stayed close and came up to him, brushing up against him and Darling grabbing at his right arm. Zach pulled his arm out of her grip without giving her a glance, just stepping forward with a smug grin on his face and looking off the railing in front of him and down to the floor below. He stepped right up to the rail and put his hands down on it to his sides, leaning forward a bit and just appearing to enjoy seeing the place for the first time.

"Mr. Underlord," Mr. Kim's voice spoke behind Zach.

He looked back and then put his arms back on the railing while leaning into it. There was a chandelier behind him, illuminating the casino floor behind him full of different games and surrounded by people who looked like him and had groups similar to his around them. He was the only one who had three different women in his posse though, as most villains he saw down there who did have people with them were men or women with more of Grabble or Jughead's body types. "This place is nice. You gonna be the one bringing us some drinks, Kim- _san_?"

Kim opened his mouth to respond, then he held his tongue and just closed it for a second. _Fucking Americans, thinking Japanese and Koreans are the same._ The Japanese boy in disguise in front of Kim smirked but his eyes got more dangerous as Kim hesitated. "Actually, sir," Mr. Kim began again. "I have to ask you and your group to come down to the check-in counter with me. I assume you would like to transfer your money into chips… and, I must request that you all be subject to a pat down. It is not allowed for there to be firearms inside the casino."

Grabble and Jughead both glared at Mr. Kim, but he did not budge from their looks one bit. Zach did not even look at Kim though to see that look, just turning to his guys after hearing that and nodding, "You heard the man. Their house their rules, should I take off my shoes too?"

"No, shoes are fine," Mr. Kim said, turning without looking annoyed and leading them to the closest staircase on their right.

 _Doesn't look like everyone has to follow the no-gun rule._ Zach smirked at Mr. Kim's back after making the joke about traditional Asian culture again, while his eyes shifted around still in an impressed way at the fancy room around them covered in expensive art and beautiful tapestries. There were decorative lights on the walls, and the red carpets beneath their feet that covered the entire floor felt soft and expensive beneath him too. _Wonder if anyone'd get mad if I spilled a drink on their fancy rugs? I should do it just to fuck with them. That's something Underlord would do, plus fuck these guys. Fuck this place! Not that a stain on the rug will actually inconvenience anyone though, considering this place is going to be fucked soon anyway._

Zach darted his eyes around after thinking it. He started down the stairs after Mr. Kim, leading the girls who were watching his back and giving threatening looks to other women who looked his way, while Grabble and Jughead walked closer to his sides and just behind him. Seraphim walked forward faster than the other two girls with her, and Darling gave her a dirty look for a second but returned to giving those looks to other women instead as she reminded herself what Seraphim said as they were getting out of the limo.

Seraphim had just gotten _very_ close to Underlord however, as she stepped up to his left side and leaned her head up so her lips were right next to his ear. "The armed ones are all Kabo's men. 12 in total. Coincidentally, we have two other targets from other information gatherings in the room. High-roller back there, is Reno Grande. Don't know what he's doing in Korea, but he brought his two of his top sicarios, and the Mule is with him."

 _Well shit. That's good, but things are getting complicated here. Those Seoul heroes gathering at the port are still going to be there when the operation goes down._ Underlord laughed and he lowered his left hand down Seraphim's back before stopping on the lower small of her back just above her ass. He turned back and whispered into her ear while Seraphim turned forward with a small grin on her own face, accepting the movement as part of their disguises and just appreciating that Death did not actually grab her ass as he just as well could have. "Aight-"

Raylei spun the dial her left hand was hovering over in The Cloak while she had a padded headset over the top of her head drowning out all other sound. Zach continued without hesitation as he knew Raylei was about to do that for him, "Secondary targets, Farolio Cartel. Seraphim's going to mention another set of secondary targets in a moment, Raylei raise her sound and lower mine." Seraphim pursed her lips with a smile and darted her gaze to the side like Underlord had just said something dirty to her.

Underlord grinned in a conquering way at the woman at his side, but he glanced forward to where Grabble and Jughead were handing off their weapons, and he sighed before stepping forward to them himself. He reached down and lifted his red jacket for a moment to pull a golden pistol off the right side of his waist. He placed the heavy pistol bigger than either of his subordinates' down on the counter and then lifted up his right foot and placed it down on the counter too before reaching down and yanking a knife out of his boot. Mr. Kim was standing on his left, and the Korean man eyed the knife more carefully, only to avert his gaze as Underlord noticed it and looked his way still with that blade in hand.

"Hey," Zach said, looking at Mr. Kim while lowering his leg but still holding his knife. He pointed the blade behind him towards the woman at his back, "Do you have a place for their coats? It's nice and toasty down here, and I want to show off what I've got."

Darling pushed her chest forward and the fur vest she had on that already barely fit shifted to the sides of her impressive D cup breasts.

Maelstrom was a bit more modest, though she started taking off her jacket too like the others as Underlord nodded at them to do so. Mr. Kim offered to take them, and then Underlord said to the man while the guy's back was to him, "And how about those drinks while you're at it? Man, the service here is just fantastic. Haha," Underlord turned back to the counter and looked at the man on the other side of it. There was a burly figure next to the teller who had all the chips below the counter, and the burly man was looking carefully out at the three in front of him who put their weapons down without first being frisked.

"If you would please allow Mr. Don here to, search your persons," the teller started to the three ahead of him.

"I just gave you everything," Underlord said, tossing the knife onto the counter. "I heard it was just firearms too, but here I am giving you my knife in good faith buddy. What's up with the distrust?" The teller looked uneasy, but Mr. Don stepped to the door of that back area in the corner office and stepped out to Grabble's right side. "You trying to pat down my girls too? That the real reason?" Underlord asked, leaning in towards the window in front of him. "Give Mr. Don there a nice time with my girls? You know, I really don't appreciate that."

"The women are fine," the teller started. "But the three of you must be patted down. Club policy."

Underlord lowered the corner of his lip for a second, then he sighed in acceptance and turned to step up between his men who were giving the equally big Mr. Don harsh looks. The security guy seemed used to looks like those though and just got to patting them all down.

 _Good move getting our coats taken first,_ Seraphim thought while looking at Underlord's back. She was in a purple dress that glimmered with the design on it, tight at the thighs but with pre-made slits ready to rip apart should she yank her legs to the side quickly. Darling's red dress and Maelstrom's orange one were tight as well, leaving little to the imagination with their arms fully exposed and their legs too. Seraphim had a scar on her upper left arm, and her right forearm, and Darling sported a thick scar on her right leg, as well as her left shin, and both arms had a couple of scars as well. When Mr. Kim took their coats, he found himself more disgusted than before with the man behind him who he had already thought was rough around the edges. Most people avoided looking at those scars though, and the women were not treating them as anything big or like they were being forced to be there either which gave a certain air around them.

Maelstrom noticed a few looks in her direction when she took off her coat, and she tried to keep herself from getting nervous. _Stay in character. Same expressions as the other two. I, I can't create a character like they can- but I can't keep trying to look like both! They've both already decided how they're acting down here. I need to pick a persona and stick with it._

Seraphim leaned down for the side of Maelstrom's head, a taunting look on her face as Underlord started getting patted down and was not looking towards them. Maelstrom was surprised, and then she got an angry look on her face fast as she saw Seraphim's taunting face and thought about the way she had just been talking to Death. _Be the jealous one! Like she's rubbing in my face what he was just laughing about and that he touched her!_

"…less important than the cartel, but don't ignore them either. Neither they nor the cartel seem to be armed. Kabo's men have control over the place right now. The 100 Club staff don't want to upset him, or he just forced his way in. Either way, things are about to get hot down here. Shang get to the back exit."

"Just arrived," Shang said, while Raylei lowered Seraphim's microphone volume again.

A white van pulled up on the back side of a clothing ware shop, in a narrow alleyway the van had a hard time pulling down through in the first place. There was a fishing company logo on the outside of the van and company name written in Korean, and the back of the van opened up with two members of the Army of Death who spoke Korean back there. Xia and Sogdo stood in the back of the van in white uniforms, wearing hats and looking dirty as they started dragging metal crates towards the back of the van.

Access glanced back towards the women in the back of the van from his spot in the passenger seat where he had a laptop on his lap with twenty faces piled up in different windows on it. Seraphim's contact lenses sent the images back to The Cloak, to Rebel's command in America, and to Access just outside the building where he was checking out the kill counters on each of the faces of men with warrants inside the building. He shook his head in frustration as he saw another man who Seraphim finally got a good look at as he looked towards Underlord's group. "Murderers all over the place down there. It's a bad move bringing Maelstrom into situations like this…"

His muttering got Shang looking the other way instead of out his window at the side mirror pointed at the back door to the casino. "I believe in English they call that, a crush?" Shang teased softly on Access' left. Access darted his eyes to the left at the man who said that quietly but whose voice could have gone through the earpieces of their mostly quiet comrades. Although Death's group inside had their volumes low too, they could hear their comrades' conversations outside as well.

Access got a frustrated look on his face quickly to replace one that was almost flustered. "Nah, she's cute and all, but I'm saying so 'cause she's a powerhouse. _And_ she can conceal us for slipping away, and hiding in the clouds. Risking her in a stealth mission doesn't seem right to me." Shang lowered his smile a bit, then he darted his eyes back out the driver's side window as he heard a metal door clanking open in the back of the building.

The man in the passenger seat slid down in his seat a bit, despite already being hidden from the back of the van where the open doors were. _I don't have a "crush." It's just common sense. Why'd Grabble joke about guarding her to me before we left The Cloak? Is it really that obvious- Shit. Concentrate. I wish I tried learning more Korean. I should for next time we're here._ Access slid down in his seat more as the two in the back of the van started arguing with a burly man in a black suit who came out of the back of the building.

Sogdo was trying to make a point, and Xia just kept dragging another crate while the man behind the building snapped again, "You _cannot_ park here. You must get out right now-"

"Listen, we've got an order of forty lobsters to _this_ location. I know they want them in there-"

"You have the wrong building. Now leave before this gets serious," the man slid his hands to his waist and put them on his sides like he was being stern with them. As he did it though, he lifted his shirt a bit and showed he was strapped which made Sogdo pull back with wider eyes.

Xia looked over her shoulder while bent over dragging another crate, and she got a pissed off look in her eyes as she saw the man showing off his piece. "What are you doing?!" She shouted, standing up and stomping to the back of the van while glaring down at him. The short Chinese woman yelled in Korean at the man who leaned back at her expression, "We are being paid for this delivery! You can't make us come out here to the middle of butt-fuck nowhere to deliver lobsters and expect to turn us away! Who do you think you are?! You think we deliver high-quality shellfish to fucking lowest common denominator punks like you? Get whoever ordered these lobsters out here right now!"

"No one here ordered any lobsters-"

"Are you sure about that?!" Xia yelled down at the man who shot a look over his shoulder and towards a more main road hoping nothing was drawing attention down there. He was also nervous as he glanced back at the building he just came out of where there were people inside who definitely could have ordered lobsters. Xia got angrier at his unsure look and started yelling at him for wasting her time and telling her off if he did not even know what was going on. _Good,_ Xia thought. _The_ _Wolf said there were refreshments there and occasionally food delivered in, but no food being prepared down there. No real delivery better show up here right now…_

Access ignored the conversation in the back and he spoke in a low voice to the group inside. "Back door is secure. Don't know how much time we can give you but Xia's doing a good job so far it seems like."

"…Lopez, Quirk- Flip. If he touches you your dominant side switches. It's worse than it seems, everything gets screwy when you don't know which foot to step with first or which hand you normally grab something with. I don't really get it, but avoid close quarters with the one with the beard. The man next to him, tall guy, it's Tuco's boyfriend Vasquez. Not a sicario like Tuco, but he started off as his bodyguard. Quirk- Store Blast. Take him down fast, with as little damage as possible. He stores up damage and releases it, and he can store it for a white so he might already be charged up for some big attacks…" Raylei continued listing off information they knew on the figures Seraphim had detected so far. She had three monitors in front of her she was scrolling through and looking up info on. Behind her in The Cloak's command room, and around the room looking at the front windshield where some of this information was up, were a dozen other members of the Army of Death who were not on the mission.

Michael leaned back on a computer station that was empty at the moment, and La Brava darted a look over from the opposite side of the room with an annoyed look on her face. She decided against saying anything to him about leaning on their expensive equipment, focusing back on her computer screen instead. _Get ready Gentle,_ she thought, not a very worried look on her face but still an anxious one since she was not out there with him.

The briefcase on the 100 Club casino's counter got closed by the teller who pulled it back and slid it under his counter. He came back up with a golden chip-holder that he started putting different colored chips onto, then he slid it forward for the crime lord in front of him who grabbed his gambling chips while looking at them with a big grin on his face. "Nice," Underlord turned and started towards the casino floor, and his posse walked behind him into a room of villains. _Places like this, villains gathering and feeling safe,_ Underlord smiled as he looked over a table and watched a criminal Raylei just told him about tossing dice and getting a 7 on the two of them.

People cheered out for him, and the dealer pushed some chips towards the African man who had some golden rings on his fingers and a young, very young woman on his side who held onto him after he won that game. _Fucking sick. I hate this. I hate this place. All of them having fun, enjoying the life of being villains. They don't look afraid that anything is coming. They feel like places like these are safe, too many precautions, too much security, too secret. I will teach you all… to fear Death._

Underlord turned and looked straight towards a poker table where the man he was after was sitting with a few others. _All of them are likely here with Kabo,_ Zach thought as he looked around the other men. _Facial recognition didn't have them as wanted criminals, just well-known Korean businessmen. Showing them an extravagant place like this, probably offering them some money while surrounded in armed guards, while unafraid of heroes or the police. Show the businessmen that he's not afraid, and they won't be afraid to do business with him. Doubtful they're related to Fergus Conglomerate, or there wouldn't be much convincing necessary._

"This seat taken?" Zach walked straight up to the seat across the table from Kabo.

Every armed guard in the room looked straight towards the newcomer who asked that while looking straight towards their boss. A hand had just finished, and Underlord was already pulling out the seat without waiting for an answer from anyone. He patted his right hand behind him on Darling's leg and said, "Go find Kim and get our drinks will ya?" It was not as much a request as him telling her to do it, and Darling nodded at him before turning and hurrying off to find Mr. Kim.

Underlord could not wear a black glove over his right hand. It would draw attention. He had been nervous during the frisk as he held his arms out to the sides, but Mr. Don was only patting down what was concealed. Still, that was the closest Zach planned on getting to his right hand touching someone unclothed tonight. "Deal me in this time, what's the anti?" Underlord looked around the table, and he saw the three men there with Kabo all look at him hesitantly or in annoyance. Kabo's face was unreadable as he faced Underlord though, and he lifted his right hand with a couple fingers lifted like he was telling people to wait. Underlord pretended not to notice a couple of tensed men easing back as if they were ready to move in and drag Underlord away.

 _Showing his civility in front of his new associates. Being just a friendly host. Or he's interested in me. Maybe he's impressed someone walked straight up when he's clearly running this place. Maybe he thinks I want something from him. He'll test the waters. Time to be Underlord. This isn't the long game, Kabo. You're going down tonight._ "Deal in our new friend," Kabo said, speaking English as he had been to the Koreans. His accent was not one Zach recognized, and he did not know where Kabo was from initially anyway, since the organization Kabo was in charge of spanned several countries.

"Great! Get ready to lose your money men, because I like to win." Underlord smirked and leaned back in his chair, his arms over the sides of it and his shoulders pushed back so he looked super confident in his ability to win right here. He looked over his shoulder and at Seraphim who he smirked at specifically, and she grinned back at him but lowered her smile a little when he looked back forward.

After she lowered her smile, Seraphim lifted her gaze across the table and her purple eyes looked into Kabo's similarly purple ones. His were a little brighter than hers, and she stared into them for a few seconds before she noticed his eyes wander on her body even while keeping eye contact with her. And her eyes shifted from Kabo back towards the armed guards behind him near the wall, then to the ones up on the balcony, then back to the man who did not have as cocky and confident a look as Underlord. He was not flaunting his confidence or power at all, and yet he gave off a presence of the most powerful man in the room, and Underlord walking up and talking loudly to him made it seem like he was trying to be one of those big shots who he just wasn't yet.

Seraphim lowered her eyes down to her feet for a second, her lips pursing and staying in a smile. She lifted her gaze slowly back up and then bit down on her bottom lip while looking at the most powerful man in the room, and the right corner of his lip lifted up a bit as the most beautiful woman he could see in this room was suddenly looking towards him in want. Seraphim shifted her gaze back down to the back of Underlord's head as he seemed to be turning for a second while talking about how he loved poker, and her smile became less enthusiastic again.

"You think that you are 'good' at poker?" Kabo questioned, looking straight at Underlord who stopped talking mid-sentence when the villain boss spoke. Kabo chuckled and he shook his head once, slowly, "Any man who claims to be so-"

"I have a great poker face," Underlord cut in, just as Kabo had done to him in his last sentence.

Kabo paused and closed his mouth. He looked straight at Underlord and his expression was calm. Things got a little quieter at the table, and the dealer slowed his shuffling while darting Underlord a nervous look. The casino was in control of Kabo and his men at the moment, and the dealer believed the man who just sat at the table was asking to be killed right now. Kabo had different plans however, and his eyes shifted up to Seraphim again who looked back at him in a bit of surprise and then a lot more as the man shifted his gaze down to the scar on her arm. Then he looked in her eyes with a strong look on his face, powerful, like he was the most powerful man in the world, and he just motioned with a nod of his head to his side.

Kabo motioned directly to his side while looking at her, and Seraphim darted her eyes around the room. She looked nervous suddenly, shifting her gaze back to Underlord who did not seem to notice what Kabo did while he started looking at the two cards slid to him by the dealer who finally started up a new game. All five players had put in their antis, a starting bid of ten million won, which was around the same amount as ten thousand US dollars.

Darling was heading back with the drinks, and she noticed what Kabo did. She saw Seraphim considering it, and she shifted her gaze over towards Grabble and Jughead who looked towards her and the drinks instead of towards Seraphim who was doing her thing. _She works fast. I turned away for like ten seconds!_ Darling walked up to the men behind Zach first, handing them drinks before giving one to Maelstrom. She begrudgingly started reaching for Seraphim, only to look at her in confusion as Seraphim turned and started around the side of the table. Darling nervously got up next to Underlord and started putting his drink down next to him, but Underlord turned his head left and he stared in confusion at the purple-haired woman walking around the table.

"Where are you looking?" Kabo began, and Underlord turned his head back to the man across the table from him. Underlord's smile had lowered down, and the group behind him was staring from Kabo over towards the sixth member of their party who glanced back their way deviously for a moment before continuing around. "It is your bet, Underlord," Kabo said, saying the man across from him's name without ever asking for it.

 _How does he recognize me? Does he have an earpiece in and someone- no, someone probably came up and told him as soon as they let me in the front door. In fact he was probably the one who let me come down here at all, not the actual 100 Club._ Underlord glared towards Kabo, then behind him at the woman who walked right up to Kabo who just exuded so much power with that single move.

Underlord stared straight at Kabo, then he put both hands in front of him on the table and smirked as he grabbed all of his chips he had just stacked up there. Kabo's small smirk lowered into a flat lip, and everyone around the table and nearby stared towards the table with their jaws lowering as Underlord pushed all of his chips into the middle of the pot on his first move before any cards were flipped. "I'm all in," Underlord said. He smirked wide and grabbed his drink, leaning back in his seat and then saying in a smug voice, "You see, there's a difference between that kind of subtle power and my kind of over-the-top power, Kabo."

He said that pretty loudly, and everyone stared towards Underlord with their eyes huge at the balls of this man. Kabo had immediately started glaring despite his calm expression at the man across the table from him. There was a chance that Underlord really did have a great hand, and this was not just a display to counter how one of his women had just walked over to Kabo and now stood next to him. Then again, the odds of that were slim, and the fact that Kabo had a great hand himself made the decision easier. He reached for his chips and pulled some stacks away, starting to count out how many billions of won would match Underlord's all-in. The men around the table folded one by one as they realized this was actually a hand about to be played, and then Underlord's smirk dropped as Kabo was not folding.

The drink in Underlord's hand shook a little bit, the ice in it clinking around as he lowered it back to the table in front of him. "I thought you had a great poker face," Kabo said, and all attention in the room shifted straight towards Underlord who put his drink down on the table.

Seraphim's hand pressed on the back of Kabo's head, and the crime lord's eyes rolled back as she used her Quirk- Brain Trap on him. Her other hand was between her breasts while his eyes were still rolling back, while armed men around the room were all spinning already towards their boss and reaching for their weapons. "Nobody move!" Seraphim shouted, with a knife up to Kabo's jugular as she yanked his head back by his hair and exposed his neck fully.

The room was full of hardened criminals. No one screamed, though the other businessmen around the table let out yelps and two of them fell from their chairs while the other just jumped out of his and moved back from the table. Seraphim turned her head and snapped behind her, "Move and I'll slice. Wouldn't take a second."

"The fuck is happening over here?" Reno Grande called out, an interested look on his face as he saw a woman with a blade to Kabo's neck. "Let's not be hasty here," he started, holding up his hands defensively to try and get her to stop, and try and get himself a favor with Kabo. His sicarios moved up behind him, while the Mule looked over from the other side of the table where the long-haired blond man from Florida was hanging with a beautiful woman in his arm.

"Let go of the boss."

"What are you doing?"

"Put the knife down."

Mr. Kim looked over nervously at the woman who he had been so smugly watching when she left Underlord's side. Sweat covered his face as he imagined what would happen if Kabo was killed in their casino, and the rest of the casino staff were as nervous as him. Most of Kabo's men were more calm however, keeping their hands near their weapons or already on them yet not drawn which could make the crazed woman cut their boss's throat.

The man across the table from the unconscious Kabo stood up. "He's just unconscious," Underlord said, and everyone shifted their gazes as they realized this woman was not just acting on her own. People who had seen her go to Kabo's side, seen the looks on Underlord and his men's faces like they thought she was betraying them, all got nervous as Underlord stood up and calmly said that. His smile was gone, his lips flat. "And no, we're not police," Underlord added, as he saw some nervous looks around the room starting up. "But I did tell you all, I was coming for you."

"OH FUCK!"

"RUN!"

The Mule stumbled back and fell over a chair that just slid back from a table an African man started running away from. Half of Kabo's men abandoned their boss immediately, while half of the remaining six pulled out their weapons and trained them on Death. As Death was finished speaking though, the room fell into complete chaos and a darkness erupted from Death's position. Seraphim did not move while still glaring at two men directly behind Kabo who had not drawn their weapons yet did not start to flee. One of them made an 'o' with his lips and started to whistle, but he froze as blood trickled down the side of his boss's neck from Seraphim putting the smallest amount of more pressure on the blade.

 _Four close-rangers. Reno running with his sicarios, one's trying to grab the Mule, getting separated. They're the fastest to run other than some of Kabo's goons. Two medium-long, one all around. Long distance sharp attacks but slow, I can dodge easier than bullets. Sound waves, two sensory's. Let's block the exit._ Death moved fast, while thoughts raced through his head and his red eyes darted to look all around the room. A sphere of condensed darkness formed on his right hand and he threw it while jumping into the air of the first floor of the casino. The sphere flew towards the main exit of the basement, and it exploded to take down seven people while at the same time stopping everyone else from running straight out.

Two men running up the stairs on the right side of the room turned their heads and let out yells, right before a jet of water slammed into them and smashed them into the paintings behind them they knocked off the wall. Jughead's wide cylindrical head squeezed in a bit at the sides, then he turned his head and opened his mouth again, firing another strong jet of water at the opposite staircase and knocking someone else back down it. Then he turned and ducked down, before spinning on one foot and slamming his right arm behind him. "My Quirk's not too strong," Jughead started in a deep voice, while his fist collided into the side of an African man with flaming arms. Ribs cracked on his fist, and he followed through his punch with his whole body weight, throwing the villain through a table behind him and into the wall. "But don't think that means you can beat me."

"There's no point in running," Underlord, now believed to be Death to the villains around the room, called out to everyone as he landed back down on his own poker table. His left foot landed on his own cards that were actually horrible despite him going all-in with them. A few people looked back towards Death in terror as he yelled at them, his body surrounded in a fully black aura that was so thick that nothing showed inside it at all. He was just pure black, with even his red eyes masked under the thick black veil he kept over his entire body at all times. His voice was scratchy and deep, and he announced in a dark voice, "It will only prolong the inevitable."

All of them had had him in the backs of their minds. They all knew, Death was out there. They had all seen his message from the walls of the palace in Hatto. They had heard the rumors since then. None of them had been afraid that he might arrive at the casino, but all believed it immediately and most were beyond terrified of what was happening.

 _Why here?_

 _Out of everywhere!_

 _It isn't fair!_

 _Where's another exit?!_

"You! Kim! Get us out the back, NOW!" Lopez pressed a pistol into the head of a man who was already scared shitless.

Kim's eyes opened wide, then he nodded quickly as that sounded like a great idea to him too. "Follow me," he said, and he darted towards the stage. "Mr. Don!"

Grabble changed directions and he leapt to his right, kicked off of a table that had enough support that he was actually able to bounce off of it, then he slammed his right fist down into Mr. Don's face with all the power of coming down from the table with him. He leaned forward and opened his Pincers, and he clenched down on Don's sides, pressing the man's arms into his thick body and squeezing the life out of him, then Grabble spun to his right and pulled his pincers apart to throw the man who weighed more than he did over towards one of Kabo's guys who was aiming towards Darling.

Darling swung her arms together as soon as Underlord stood up. She connected her arms in front of her body, turning them into what looked like a cannon. Already though, three different nets had fired out of that cannon and slammed two people into walls where the spikes on the outsides of the net pushed so deep inside before hooks sprung out that the people slammed there could not escape. The third net completely wrapped two men up into each other and they were rolling around on the ground in a panic trying to get out, only for one to use his Melting Quirk to break out of it.

 _Fucker,_ Zach swung an arm down and swept a Death Wind towards the two men as one started screaming bloody murder from his body Melting through. He did not know if the guy who was partially melted would survive, but Zach took his eyes off the unconscious men fast and darted his red eyes to the bodyguards of Kabo who were still standing. _We're here for Kabo, so I can't go after them yet. His men are likely more dangerous than the Cartel's. Umbagu's crew went down quickly._ "Grabble after them," Death said, his voice scratchy and deep.

Grabble picked a pistol up off the floor and sprinted towards the stage. "Maelstrom, go too," Darling said, looking to the orange haired girl next to her who was caught with her jaw dropped and not doing anything. "Don't let them escape."

Maelstrom nodded fast, realizing she was just standing around and turning to run after Grabble who was a good friend of hers in their army. Grabble reached down and grabbed another gun he held out for the short woman running up towards him. "Legs and arms," Grabble said as she took the gun from him while staring straight at it like she was nervous. "Let's get them."

"Yeah," Maelstrom agreed, nodding at the man who had been in the Army of Death for longer than her but had helped initiate her and get her used to things on The Cloak.

The Army of Death operated well under pressure. Despite most of the room still being in chaos, Zach gave out his orders calmly. Raylei had raised Alpha Team's earpiece volumes to have everyone connected now, so everyone in the mission could hear each other. Grabble called out to Charlie Team that the Farolio Cartel were on their way up but he and Maelstrom were stuck fighting the Mule and his bodyguard at the bottom of the stairs. Death growled at Kabo's men to put down their weapons and surrender before he is forced to kill them all, and Seraphim repeated to them that a single wrong move and she would slit their leader's throat.

"Kabo would rather die than go with you."

"For the boss-"

Seraphim pulled Kabo away and tackled him to the floor. Darling and Jughead fired towards villains and Zach shot towards them as fast as he could. The three of them were fast, and weapons dropped as the villains used Quirks instead while prioritizing staying away from the dark aura they had seen knock out many people already.

At the back of the building, Mr. Kim pushed open the door and ran outside. Enrique Lopez was right behind him, but he stopped short and then pulled back into the doorway, swinging his arm the other way to stop Reno Grande from running out. Tuco and Vasquez stopped behind them at the top of the stairs to the back exit which was sometimes used for food deliveries, where there was a van outside and just to the left of the doorway, where a taser had just shot out into the first man to get out and dropped Mr. Kim to the floor next to another 100 Club employee.

"Tuco! We need help back here!"

Tuco looked behind him down the stairs, and he heard loud fighting and gunfire coming from the basement still. He grabbed Vasquez by the shoulder tightly and his boyfriend glanced back at him, and they both nodded before walking up in front of the boss.

"We shouldn't have given up our weapons," Reno Grande started.

"We never should have came to this fucking country, but it's too late for that now," Lopez countered to his boss in Spanish. "Expansion was a bad move with Army of Death on the loose."

"I want him dead," Reno snarled. "I want his men, dead. I'm putting a fifty million dollar bounty out on him as soon as we get out of here."

 _Another fifty million on top of what everyone else is already offering,_ Lopez thought to himself but did not say to his boss who was already too excitable as it was with the insides of his nose covered in white.

In the white van out in the alley, Access leaned out of the passenger seat and looked behind the van for a second. "Keep watching it," he warned, as Xia and Sogdo were not attacking anyone else yet. He turned back to Shang and leaned into his seat while typing away on his laptop. "Get ready to drive away fast when Alpha's all out of there."

"Still in drive," Shang replied. "Foot's just on the brake-"

"There!"

"Take this!"

Xia and Sogdo darted to the sides of the alley and easily dodged Tuco's ranged spikes that looked like normal green balls as they were shot but exploded out with a dozen sharp protrusions as they reached where the enemies had just been. Sogdo, who chose his name based on the Korean word for 'Speed,' ran right up the wall on the right and then jumped off and did a flip up in the air as Tuco and Vasquez both looked up towards him. He aimed the gun in his hand down as he was lifting over Vasquez's head, and he aimed carefully before pulling the trigger of the silenced pistol.

Blood splashed out the left side of Vasquez's left arm, the bullet just grazing him through his muscular bicep. The muscular man ground his teeth in anger and then started running for the spot where the Army of Death member was going to land, moving in a serpentine pattern to avoid other shots. As he darted to the left at one point though, his head spun to that side and his eyes opened wide at the short Chinese woman who darted towards him in a burst of speed before slamming her right arm forward. Her stature was not very intimidating, and her body did not look to pack much of a punch, but Shang was only ten meters away from her so her punch dented into the side of the muscular Hispanic man and then threw him eight feet away down the alley.

"We're heading up with the prisoners."

"No time to question here, Death's knocked them all out and we'll figure it out later."

"Just took care of the Mule's bodyguard, have the Mule surrendered on the steps where Maelstrom tackled him."

"Nice work-"

 **Bang! Bang bang bang bang!**

Access ducked down as a clank rang out through the van behind him, a bullet hitting the inside of the vehicle that's doors were still open. He rose a hand over his head and his laptop fell from his thighs and on the floor in front of his legs. "What the Hell?!"

Shang pulled back towards the door on his side too, but his heart lurched and he felt a strange sensation in his head that had him getting woozy all of a sudden. Access pulled back into the space between the front seats first, looking back behind the van where the gunshots went off. He looked back there and his heart fell, though his eyes still darted around fast as he tried making sense of what just happened. _Enrique Lopez, Reno's top lieutenant._ _Where did he-_ Access' eyes shifted to the unconscious man just behind Lopez, the first man who was out there arguing about the lobsters with Xia and Sogdo. The man had flashed the gun on his waistband during that argument, the gun that Lopez had seen while standing just on the inside of the doorway and watching the other two fight the Army of Death members.

Lopez glared into the van and Access' eyes opened wide at that look. Tuco stood up from where he was sitting on his ass, and Vasquez grabbed at his left arm but called out in Spanish to the door of the building, "Sir! We've got to run!"

Access started to move out of his seat, Shang was finally moving into the aisle, and then Access froze as Lopez pointed the pistol still in his hand down at a woman moving a few feet away from him. He aimed the pistol at her head as she crawled on the floor, **Bang.** Her head slammed into the floor harder and she stopped moving.

Access could not see her well out the back of the van with the floor blocking his vision. His teeth ground and he started reaching for his gun, about to get out of his seat to run back there and stop the Farolio Cartel from escaping after what they just did.

 **Ba-dum**

The van shook. The entire van trembled, and Access felt chills down his spine. Lopez started backing up, and he turned to his boss who bent down and picked up a silenced pistol off the floor. "Let's go boss. We need to-"

"Holy FUCK!" Access pulled as close back to the passenger side door as he could.

"What's happening up there?!"

"Access!"

 _ **"RAAAAA!"**_

Access ducked down and a swinging arm tore through the top of his seat and the windshield of the van that just started rolling forward down the alley. Shang charged straight out of his seat and his bulking body rippling at every muscle and tearing through his clothes broke through the seats and walls around him. "Shang's going wild! Xia just got executed in front of him and-"

"Oh no."

"Fuck it's both of them."

"What are you talking about?" Maelstrom asked, spinning to Grabble in confusion.

Death dropped Kabo and sprinted up behind the two on the stairs as fast as he could. Grabble ran up with him with the others all running up as well towards the back door, but Grabble spoke while he ran, "It's the same thing that happened when Shang died in the Dragon's Den. Xia went wild, Twin Power suddenly switching up from needing to be close to each other to just a fucking berserker rage thing. Death needed to knock her out, but since Shang's already been brought back now, Death won't work on him!"

 _Oh fuck he's right._ Death spun his head and looked back behind him, his dark aura gone now and his Caucasian mask still on. "Seraphim! Get behind him and knock him out before he hurts anyone in his rage! I'll distract in front. Everyone else, go get the prisoners! Beta Team don't let Reno Grande get away!"

"Roger that," Gentle sat up on the roof of the tallest building in the area where he was keeping a close eye on the front of the building that only three people had run out from so far including the man working the door. He had not broken his position for any of them, and he was still awaiting any order to stop from being so bored on what was turning out to be an interesting night. "Now let's see," Gentle said, standing on the ledge of the building and watching a crew run out an alley and down the main street, before cutting down another alley. "They are heading to the east, keep my dot in your visors and move below." Gentle elasticized the floor below him and bounced up high in the air, rising over an alleyway with three villains in it and glancing down at them to see them slow for a second and start discussing something.

"The van's fucked, it's going to draw too much attention," Access said while now in the driver's seat of said van. He had to hop over and slam on the brakes before the busted up van he was in rolled out onto a street that still had a few pedestrians on it, despite the nearby gunshots.

"Heroes on their way to you," Raylei announced as well, while Death and Seraphim were trying to deal with Shang together. They were struggling to keep him in the alley and not chasing after the sicarios, the three who remained at least since Lopez was in two halves splatted against walls on either side of the alley. Raylei called to them and to the others throughout the city, "I'm making the call." She cut off her comms from everyone else, and she called the police to let them know there was a shootout going on in a certain basement. The heroes would swarm into the casino's basement and find many unconscious people, several with warrants out for their arrests who were not part of the group that Death had his comrades dragging out of there.

Raylei was in the middle of her call when she saw a blinking on the computer on her right, and text appeared translated into English in a display of a different call the police were currently having on another line. Raylei snapped two of her blocky fingers with a hand she lifted quick while still speaking to the police herself, and La Brava glanced back her way before looking forward and at the windshield of The Cloak where the transcript of the call was being roughly translated.

Michael uncrossed his arms and narrowed his eyes at what he was reading on the screen. "How do they know already?" Michael muttered.

"Heroes heading to your locations," La Brava warned. "They know the Army of Death is in the city. That's who they're after, not the villains-"

"…there are three men, they look to be from South America. Please hurry, they have guns and they have been shooting into the crowds. There are men chasing them," Raylei changed up what she was saying a bit, and she watched a few seconds later as the transcript of the other call started changing up a bit, as the heroes became more focused on targets other than their comrades.

"It looks like the cartel have more than just their casino group in the city," Gentle began from the roof of another building closer to a more main road of Sueguon almost out of the slums. "Two vehicles have just driven up, and Reno Grande's crew have climbed inside. They are heading north on U-41 in the direction of Xili Bridge. On my mark, prepare for capture." Gentle pointed a hand behind him and turned the air Elastic. _Alright. Judge this perfectly,_ he added another Gently Rebound on top of the first one, to give it a little extra oomph.

"Get Xia and Sogdo in the van, I'll revive them on the way to the secondary escape vehicles."

"How's Shang?"

"He's hurting bad, but he should be fine when Xia comes back. When she woke up and he was fine, she was back to her normal self." Seraphim lifted up one of Shang's muscular arms and started dragging the unconscious man stuck in his own mind towards the van that Access reversed back right up to the backdoor of the building. The doors of the van had somehow stayed on, only swinging around as the van had rolled one way, and because they were already pushed out to the sides Shang did not have to tear them off when he barreled out of the vehicle before.

"Don't feel bad about that Lopez, Death," Access said as he saw Death looking back towards the corpse in the alley. Zach turned away from the man ripped in half and towards Access who had a low frown on his face under the white hat of his delivery uniform. "Shot Xia in the head like it was easy when she was crawling away. Like he had done it a hundred times before."

"His confirmed kills alone were forty-two. If that helps-" Raylei was adding that on herself.

"Everyone focus," Death said, while stepping over to Grabble to take one of the prisoners from him since Grabble was carrying a bit much in an attempt to get all the prisoners they dropped on the steps out in one try. Zach turned back on Nightmare form for a second and he put his hand on the Mule who was still in Grabble's arms and let out a yelp of panic before passing out. Death touched Grabble but did nothing to him, just as it had done nothing to Shang who Zach had punched and kicked while surrounded in a black aura only to have to dodge away from his bulked up and naked comrade (since Shang had ripped straight through all his clothes). Zach turned off his aura and then took the Mule and dragged him to the van he tossed the man inside, unceremoniously right on top of Kabo and Umbagu's bodies. He got tossed his black glove from Access he slid on quickly before hopping into the back with his comrades and beaten enemies.

"I want Reno Grande _alive._ His sicarios too," Zach ordered over the comms. "If Tuco and Vasquez actually care for each other, could be an easy way to get the three of them to turn on each other. We barely know jack about the cartel right now, which is why we haven't headed to the Americas for a while. The _whole_ world needs to know we're coming…"

"And mark," Gentle said, while flipping over in the air past the front of two black SUVs when no other vehicles were currently around them. "Rebound Wall!" Gentle announced, and the first of the two vehicles slammed into a giant translucent barrier from Gentle all the way to the street below that it spread across the whole width of. The SUV bounced back and slammed into the one behind it, the back riding up on the hood and on top of the cabin of the vehicle.

The man in all black flipping in the air took in a deep breath, then he dropped down out of the air and bounced off his feet a few feet up before coming back down and just bouncing on the soles of his feet for a moment. He stood in front of his Rebound Wall and stared through a purple visor into the windshields of the cars sitting nearly on top of each other now. Windows rolled down or were smashed through if they were already cracked, and guns pointed out and ahead at the man whose feet were still bouncing a bit as he was having trouble slowing to a stop. "I wouldn't," Gentle warned, though he was smiling in his helmet as he did.

 **Bang bang bang bang-**

Gunshots rang out and bullets slammed into the man ahead of them who got thrown back by the force of the blows since his feet did not have any friction on the ground. "Elasti-Armor," Gentle said, while his back pressed into the huge translucent wall behind him, and while all the bullets that slammed into his front went flying back into the black vans ahead of him. "Hold on a second," Gentle added after hearing a voice in his helmet. "When I say, center the removal directly below me." Gentle bounced off his wall to the floor and then pressed the soles of his feet down hard while his whole body was still surrounded in his Elasticity. He bounced up in the air into a front flip, and he came down on top of the cabin of the first SUV which the doors opened up on.

"He's above us!"

"Disparale!"

"Shoot him!"

Tuco Garcia had gotten out of his vehicle and ran to the side to aim up at the man in a purple cloak and black uniform who he recognized well. _Lopez is down, the Mule's missing, we're so fucked-_ Tuco was aiming up at the man, when his eyes darted down and he started stumbling backwards. Tuco was the only one far enough away from the vehicles that he was able to jump back and make it away from the square that opened up in the road. Cars had stopped back behind him, but the citizens in those vehicles had gotten out and turned to run away as the gunfight and Quirk battle went on ahead of them. Sirens were getting closer and flashing lights filled the corners of Tuco's vision, but his eyes were aimed straight down at the road in front of him that had just disappeared in a giant square shape.

Missappear dropped back down from the ceiling of the sewer. She darted away as a pair of large vehicles started dropping down along with a couple of men who had been standing close around them. The young woman with the Quirk, Matter Displacement, sprinted down the sewer to get as far as she could from there as possible for at least a minute or two. Above the surface, Gentle slammed Tuco into the hole then turned his head to the right and said, "Paveway. Have you arrived-"

"I'm sprinting! Almost- almost- you see me?!"

"Hurry it up."

Paveway pressed his heels down harder and sprinted down the road in his black uniform. A couple of passerby's looked at him and dropped their jaws, then they turned their heads and watched as he ran in the direction of where they had heard the gunshots going off. The light-skinned man sprinted towards Gentle who had just put up his own Elastic barrier on the floor below the street level to temporarily stop anyone from getting back out. Paveway pressed his feet down hard as he got near the edge of the hole, and his feet morphed into the ground and turned black the same as the pavement. The surface of the street in front of his feet started to ripple, then it started to extend back out and a floor of pavement spread out across the square opening.

All the while, the lights were getting closer and the sirens louder. Gentle looked over his shoulder and towards Xili bridge where he could hear multiple police cars on. He heard La Brava yell into his ear to get out of there, and Raylei added that there were several heroes approaching as well. Paveway pushed faster and then finished filling the entire hole, and Gentle swung an arm behind him and bounced himself at Paveway without hesitation. He slammed into Paveway and swung an arm below them that he pressed both feet down into in an instant, and he rocketed the two of them up into the sky. Both of them flew up into the night sky of Sueguon, and they looked down as they reached the top of their arc.

Paveway was nervous and had a terrified look on his face there for a moment, but he grinned and then started laughing nervously as he watched the cop cars rolling up on their old position from multiple sides. They pulled out of alleys and down the road from either side, and the cops and arriving heroes looked around in utter confusion as they were on an empty road in the exact location where they knew there was supposed to be a gunfight going on between villains and the Army of Death.

Below the thick road, in the pitch black sewer under Sueguon, a cluster of villains stepped backwards or pulled back in their seats in the vehicles that had fallen in through the floor. They pulled back because in that darkness, despite having night vision helmets on already, one of the two Army of Death members down there turned on a light. Missappear had run back to avoid the fight, but she was peaking out around a corner at a bend in the sewers. She was up to her shins in sewage, but she ignored it completely while looking around towards the hulking figure in the darkness who she could see in her green-tinted vision, but to the villains was only red.

"Blade of Judgement."

 _I didn't know he could change the wavelengths, messing with the color of his Light particles._ Missappear gulped as the dark red blade that extended out of Exodus' curled right fist started to lift up. The red tint covered the huge dark figure's body, in a sewer that smelled like shit and was damp and horrifying to the villains trapped in it. The ones already out of their vehicles turned and started running. They had no idea if the monster in front of them was the only one down there, but they knew they needed to get away from the scary figure who did not even have a face they could look at as that red light just illuminated a black helmet.

"None shall escape Death." Exodus shot forward through the sewer, and screams filled the tunnel that just were not loud enough to be heard over the sirens and shouting above.

"Cops have no idea where we went," Paveway called out.

"They look absolutely befuddled," Gentle agreed in a smug tone.

"I will have the cartel incapacitated shortly. Shall I bring them all, Death?"

"Reno Grande, Tuco, and Vasquez should be enough. We'll let the heroes know after we're gone where we left the rest with their vehicles," Gentle replied to the man below the ground who was a part of his Beta Team. He had a more pertinent question for Death and felt he had the response ready for Exodus already that Death might say. "How is your escape going? I only see a couple of heroes back at our previous location. I do hope none are coming for you."

"I don't know if they are. We definitely drew a lot of attention over to this garage. Mark, where are you?" Death asked while his comrades were unloading the shot-up and broken van to get their unconscious comrades, and knocked-out villains into other prepared vehicles.

"Things were not going well, so I headed to the docks where the small villain group we were going to send a tip on is located," Mark stood in the shadows of one dock behind a shipping container. He lifted his arms while continuing to speak, "Raylei, call in the location now. The heroes will have just cause to go straight in as well, as the villains will all be out in the open around their base." Mark rose the tides on either side of the dock and flooded the building, making rough waves outside with his Liquid Control and focusing to make it intense enough that the villains may think the flooding was a result of rough conditions outside and not an actual attack.

"I'll help out with that," Maelstrom started. She was getting into the passenger seat of the truck Grabble was climbing in the driver's side of, but she hesitated to close the door.

"No," Mark countered. "You start a storm in the opposite direction where you're heading for extraction. Don't make it too rough for Delta Team, I'm heading to the rendezvous point as well. Everyone let's begin extraction."

"Exodus, Missappear, bring the prisoners out through the backup pot-hole on South Lee Street," Zach ordered while getting into the driver's seat of a different vehicle that Kabo had been loaded in the back of. Darling got into his passenger's side, and Access, Jughead, and Seraphim climbed into the back to guard the prisoners. Xia, Shang, and Sogdo were all unconscious in the other vehicle, and Grabble's pulled out in front of Zach's before he pulled out too. "We're heading that way from here," Zach continued, turning to follow after Grabble who already knew why Zach was saying this. "Too much hero presence in the original sewer extraction site. Make your way to the backup quickly, we can't stop for long even in vehicles disguised like this. They might try checking us if they declare a Code Blue in the city."

"All the fighting's practically over, you really think they'd-"

"Not 'practically,'" Exodus corrected. "We are on our way. It will not be a minute."

 _Always so fast,_ Zach nodded in a satisfied way as he was a bit worried for a second that they were coming up too fast. This was Exodus after all though, and he reminded himself not to worry and kept a calm look on his face instead. He lifted his eyes up like Darling to his left towards the sky and the dark clouds they saw swirling around in it. "Slowly Maelstrom," Death warned. "Don't want it seeming unnatural. They might actually call a Code like that."

"Sorry, Commander," Maelstrom apologized quickly.

Zach took a deep breath and he leaned back in his seat. _This went well. Really well- Not in my head._ "Slow Grabble, like you're having car troubles."

Zach waited until they had finished their extractions to fully relax. All of Beta Team getting into the two land vehicles, and Delta Team heading to the rendezvous to pick them all up, they were finally at a part of the mission where it now felt impossible for things to screw up. "Maelstrom," Zach said, as they pulled onto a highway away from the city and to a secluded area where they would be getting picked up in the emerging storm. "Good work on your first combat mission." _She's mainly helping keeping us hidden on The Cloak, and being used for distractions and other important strategic jobs. I want everyone ready to fight though, and training can only do so much. Everyone needs tactical experience, and Maelstrom's a cute girl, worked well with a mission like this with low risk. There turned out to be a few complications, more targets than I expected, but no one died… for keeps._

"Access, glad at least someone from Charlie is still awake to hear me, but you let them get past the back door." Access's bottom lip dropped and he gawked across the back of the vehicle at Jughead who smirked at him for a second only to gain a more serious look like Seraphim had on Access's left side. Access got a more serious look himself too as Death continued, "I made you team leader, but half your team died. They're alive now so don't let it get to you too much, but you know what it's like to die." Seraphim and Jughead lightened their intense looks a bit as Access lowered his gaze to the floor, his fists clenching at his sides in the back of Death's truck as this was told to everyone listening to them.

"But I'm glad you made it. I couldn't have brought you back," Death said the last part softly, then he turned on his blinker and pulled off onto an exit off the highway. "Other than that, everyone did great. Raylei, keep track of the situation back there and see that all the villains we left behind are getting caught."

"Understood."

"And also, Seraphim," Death said. The woman with long purple hair in the back of his truck who was currently tying that hair up in a ponytail turned her head to look up front. She wondered what Death had to say to her, then she just froze as he said, "That was awesome. You made that opportunity, and you took down Kabo in like… it was quick. And efficient. Really, really, just great work back there. It's because of you all of us are making it back tonight."

Access shook his head around and lifted it with a smile that he gave Seraphim who looked shocked as she stared towards the front of the truck. Jughead was surprised Access was bouncing back fast, but he looked across the unconscious villains sliding around on the floor between them and nodded in agreement at the woman sitting across from him. Missappear smiled to her side at Seraphim who looked around at all the others smiling at her in congratulatory ways and also grateful ones as they all believed what Death just said. Seraphim looked back towards the front of the truck and just replied though, "It was a team effort."

Zach shook his head while still smiling and looking through the windshield that had the windshield wipers on full speed. He noticed Darling frowning towards the side of his head like she was upset he had not said anything specific to her, and he covered up the ear that his micro-earpiece was in. "I'd say you looked too jealous of Seraphim," Zach began. "But you knew you were going to, and you played that part well. If you were actually playing a part," Zach added, giving Darling a small grin out the corner of his mouth that she smiled brightly back at the sight of.

Zach lifted his left hand while saying that to her, and he dug his fingers under his chin as he realized something. "Finally," he muttered, while slowing the truck and dragging his mask up at the same time. The road was straight so he did not have to worry for a moment, but Darling still reached over and helped steady the wheel as Zach pulled the itchy mask off of his face. "Ugh, I know I needed the mask, but still," Zach tossed the mask behind him and shook his head around, letting his longer black hair wave about above his head and curl up behind and to the sides of it.

"How did you enjoy playing the part of Underlord?" Gentle questioned from the vehicle ahead of Zach's that was also slowing to a stop near a clearing off the side of an already smaller road off the highway. "Am I right in saying that you fit into the part just fine?"

"He was a natural." Seraphim stated.

"Passed off as a villain like it was nothing." Grabble added.

"I believed it." Maelstrom said next to the smirking man with Pincers over his head.

"Hey," Zach said in a deadpan voice, getting a bead of sweat on the side of his face at how quickly his team responded there.

Jughead was just laughing at the others' responses, and Access leaned back in his seat and tried to focus on how he could have helped his team more but was finding it difficult with the conversation going on. The truck slowed to a stop though, and Access looked back in front of him at the ten prisoners they had captured in total. "We've got some new passengers for The Cloak. Raylei, got the brig ready?"

"They aren't staying for long, right?"

"Normally we'd just do the interrogation on location, but in a city that big we kind of need to get away fast. We'll drop them all off with heroes where they're wanted soon enough."

"…" Zach frowned and looked at his hands on the steering wheel as he came to a stop.

"Delta Team coming in hot."

"No mention on any radios about our disappearance yet. They're looking around the city for you, even considering making perimeters back on the highway to stop us from getting away."

"Is Mark back?"

"Yeah, I'm on the other truck."

"Didn't even see you come in. Thought you were behind us or something."

"Is Epsilon Team ready?" Death asked, cutting off all the other conversations going on.

La Brava looked surprised and she tapped a button on the console in front of her while spinning her chair back fully to face it. "Y-Yeah. They're just waiting on-"

"Send them out. I'll meet them there." Death climbed out of his truck, a flat lip and a serious look on his face. "Tell them to bring my costume. I'll get it on when I arrive. Gentle, Mark, finish up and get The Cloak heading to Frunoco for the next main mission."

"What happened to going back to The Cloak first?"

"This will be quicker, I'm not tired," Death surrounded in Nightmare form while his troops were gathering around him outside of their parked vehicles. Rain fell fast and hard around them, and helicopters were moving through that rain towards the parked trucks. Death lifted his arms at his sides, and out of his back emerged large black wings that spread out to his sides ten feet in either direction. The wind from the helicopters pushed some Death off of his wings and into the floor, but his added appendages steadied while his body's flaring aura tightened up a lot to his body.

"Wait, Death," Zach turned his head a bit and watched as a girl ran up to his side. "Let me come too. I'm not tired either." Darling looked up into his red eyes, "Please. I know it's a small one but-"

"Alright," Zach replied. "Here," he motioned his arm in front of him, and Darling smiled wide before running right up in front and then pressing her back into his chest. Dark aura wrapped from Zach's body around the sides of Darling's, and around a lot more and almost all of her as he curled his arms in at her sides and pulled the shorter girl into a hug. Then he stepped forward and he flapped his wings down, and Death shot up into the sky above his army watching from the ground.

"Tell Faye to bring my uniform too!" Darling called out.

"Yeah yeah," La Brava replied in some annoyance. "Good luck you two. Don't wear yourselves out."

"See you Death!"

"Good luck!"

Zach's red eyes narrowed and he flapped his black wings again to shoot himself higher into the air. _Maelstrom's storm makes it harder. I haven't practiced much in bad weather, I didn't realize it would have any effect on Death. Well, whatever. It's fine. I'm a bit tired from earlier, but I didn't use too much. I should be fine for a quick flight. Worst happens, I have to tell Epsilon to swing by and pick me up. Well actually, worst thing that happens is all the heroes show up right now and get all the others right after I left… But Gentle, Mark, and Exodus all back there. Seraphim too and… and all of them. They'll be fine. Even in these missions that go great though, sometimes we lose people. Never let a mission go without being there. Never slow down. I can't be everywhere at once…_

 _But I can try to be._

* * *

"…Approaching fast."

"Don't bug out, that's him," Rebel announced. The pilot of a helicopter hovering just above the ocean's surface nodded his head and relaxed in his seat a bit. Yusef had a headset over the top of his head with the padding around the ears to drown out the rest of the noise around him other than the comms lines, though the sound of the copter's whirring blades still hummed in the background.

Rebel leaned back in his chair across the world from Yusef's helicopter and he put his hands behind his head. The chubby dark-skinned man had gotten fatter in recent months, and he lifted up a paper bag with some burgers in it that Rampart had just went out and got for him. He lifted a burger and watched a screen in front of him that had a satellite image of a certain area over the ocean where the Army of Death helicopter was hovering. _In only a few months,_ Rebel shook his head and watched as a dark silhouette with wide black wings shot over the surface of the ocean. _He's getting so much stronger. Not just his Quirk either._

"Radar's pinging," Cherasaw started behind Rebel who glanced back his way. Rampart had gone over to a cot on the side of the room and passed out soon after bringing back the food for their team at the end of his shift. It was only the two of them working right now, and Rebel looked at the screen directly in front of Cherasaw on his back right. "They're going to miss this one too."

"Nah," Rebel said, spinning back to his screen and leaning forward. "Death you've got a couple minutes max. The sub's already heading back, won't get another shot at it for a few hours at least."

Death flew into the open side of a helicopter and the other four in the back of it moved away from him and the darkness surrounding him. Zach's Nightmare form faded and the four in front of him as well as Yusef in the front looked back to see him lowering his arms, and Darling stepping away from the front of his body. She was smiling and had pink cheeks, and she was wearing a tight red dress that accentuated her curves. Death wore a red suit jacket over a button down and they both looked way too fancy compared to the four soldiers in all black armor with helmets on their heads.

"How'd Korea go?" Dead Silence asked the man in front of him who just landed in the helicopter and started taking his jacket off right away.

"Your uniforms," a woman on Zach and Darling's right said, lifting up a seat cushion and pulling out the costumes for their comrades who they were told were coming before they even left The Cloak. They had not been waiting there for long, but The Cloak had been closer to their next mission's location than the previous one's that Death had to fly from. "Do you need a break-"

"He's fine Faye," Darling said, grabbing her uniform and giving the older woman a skeptical look. "He's not even tired."

 _Definitely not true. Used a lot to get all the way here, though I'm managing to waste less Death the more I can keep it from covering my entire body. And as long as each flap of my wings I keep strands of Death or even wisps from coming off my wings, I don't get weaker on the way._ "Korea went perfectly. Let's keep up the momentum." Death slid out of his white button down, ignoring how the helmets of everyone on the helicopter shifted a bit towards him or a different direction but still in an angle that they could all be staring at him, which he knew they were. _Even in an army of soldiers, a lot of them having scars, I really keep getting fucked up._ Zach reached to his pants and started sliding them down, a trick he had picked up long ago in the locker room of U.A. to get everyone to stop staring at his scars. He barely even cared about that though, the main reason he just dropped his pants so fast being that he could hear Rebel telling him how much time they had in his ear.

"These things are getting annoying," Darling mentioned, looking to Death as she slid out of her own dress. Zach looked up then pulled his head away fast and his eyes darted around, but everyone else in the helicopter had already turned from the girl who just got almost naked except for her underwear. She had reached up to her ear when she said it though, and Zach nodded in agreement even though he only kept her in the corner of his vision now. "Back to normal comms, that we can control ourselves," she added, muttering the last part in annoyance because Rebel's voice suddenly got louder in his ear as he asked why she was taking the tiny earpiece out.

Zach had a very tight pair of black underwear on from halfway up his thighs to his waist, and he slid the tight but thick black pants of his uniform up over them. Then he grabbed his costume's shirt and brought that down over him, quickly attaching his belt on his waist and knife straps over his shoulders. He looked towards the swords still sitting under the popped-up seat cushion, then he glanced out the side of the helicopter. _Less water resistance without them._ "Two minutes. Everyone ready?"

"Yes sir," the four who were already in the back of the helicopter said. They had been told to be ready as soon as Death arrived, and they all already had on the black flippers on their feet that Death and Darling were putting on now.

"Faye, do it. Yusef, take the helicopter a safe distance away and wait for us to resurface before coming back."

Faye stepped to her right and Slipspace nodded back at her friend. Faye reached up and pressed her hand on the side of Slipspace's neck, then she tapped her on the shoulder and pushed for the side of the helicopter. Slipspace dove out of the helicopter, then Dead Silence jumped out behind her, and Replay after him. Death stood up and stepped to the side of the helicopter, took a deep breath, then Faye pressed her hand on his neck. Zach could feel his neck morphing, as Faye used her Quirk, Amphibious, to give him a set of gills. They felt so strange as it was the first time he had her use her power on him, but Zach took in another deep breath and just felt a bit strange as he was still able to use his lungs despite what else he knew he could do now.

Zach dove off the side of the helicopter and put his hands together in front of his head. He dove into the water with little splash and swam down towards his other comrades. Water filled his helmet, and panic set in for a second as his mind told him not to open his mouth and breathe. He ignored that thought though, and he breathed in, and he kept swimming down without choking on the salty water around him. A smile crossed over Zach's face as he breathed underwater. He looked around through the visor of his helmet that started glowing light and illuminating the water in front of him that was getting darker the farther down he went.

"This is crazy," Dead Silence said after stopping near Slipspace and looking back up.

"I know, but stay whelmed," Zach replied.

"Whelmed?" Replay asked. English was her third language, and she thought she was good at it but was suddenly unsure about that.

"Not overwhelmed," Zach answered. "Stay calm I mean. The sub's thirty seconds away. We need to get lower down, everyone swim faster. Darling, Faye, hurry it up."

The others just below Zach turned back down and started swimming as their leader had not slowed and just kept swimming past them. They stopped focusing on how crazy it was that they had gills and were swimming around quicker like fish, instead focusing on the fact that they were nearly a hundred meters beneath the ocean and not yet deep enough that they would reach the submarine in time. "Darling, hold onto me," Faye said as she swam up next to the brown-haired girl farthest back in the group.

"Alright," Darling replied, deciding not to argue after Death just told them to speed up. She figured Faye had a reason for saying it, but she did not expect the woman to suddenly kick her legs so hard and fast that they shot deeper and deeper and caught up to Replay in a few seconds.

"Everyone start swimming the same direction it's going, stay above it and then drop down as it's going past. Dead Silence, time it perfectly. Slipspace, even more important. Don't fuck up people."

Death slowed a bit as he gave his orders. Faye stopped moving as fast with Darling and let Replay catch up. They saw lights behind them pointed forward, and they all stayed higher up and instead of swimming down they all started moving the opposite direction as the lights were coming from. "Cut our lights," Death ordered, and Rebel turned off all their helmet lights so the group could barely see a few feet around each other. The surface above was still visible though, and they became clearer to each other as the lights from the submarine behind them illuminated the darker area of the ocean.

Inside a submarine deep below the surface of the ocean, at the edge of the Yellow Sea where the underwater elevation got deeper and darker, a couple of men sat on the sides of a table in the middle of the sub. The submarine was large enough that there was space on the sides of the center hallway for gathering places other than the sleeping quarters, and this room just outside of the kitchen had a couple of villains sitting in it bored since there was not much to do until they arrived at their base.

The man in a pair of horn-rimmed glasses on one side of the table grinned as he looked at his cards, and he put some down in front of his comrade who frowned deeply at the sight of them. "Bullshit. You're fucking cheating. No one gets five aces-"

"You're an idiot Gregor," a woman walking to the left of the table said, shaking her head at her skeptical comrade who looked at her angrily as she said that.

"Really! He has to be cheating to get that again!"

"I'm just lucky," Tykar countered with a smirk.

Irene shook her head, wondering how the big man behind her was stupid enough that this was actually something Tykar could possibly convince him was not cheating. She kept walking, straight down the center corridor in the direction of the bow of the submarine. She was only ten feet away from the men behind her, when five figures slipped through the wall of the submarine and onto the other half of the wide room that two men were in playing cards.

The men turned their heads with their eyes bulging huge at the sight of the dark wet figures who just emerged next to them. There was a sixth figure in the group, however their body was stuck literally inside of a dividing wall between this room and the room behind them farther towards the stern. "What the fuck?!" Gregor yelled in panic and anger as he got to his feet, sweat covering his face while his arms moved to his waist to try and grab his sidearm.

Tykar's head snapped to the right and he yelled, "The Army of Death is- IRENE!" He screamed it towards the woman, but she was just walking away towards the bow with a small smile.

Irene shook her head, and her smile lifted into more of a smirk. _Wonder what Gregor'll do to him if he hears he really has been cheated all this time. Tykar deserves it-_ She turned her head sideways, and her eyes bulged and her jaw dropped. Irene stared behind her in utter shock as she watched Tykar get slammed silently into the ground and knocked out by a dark figure with knives all around his body. Gregor was already slumped over the table, his gun discarded on the floor to the side.

Irene opened her mouth and screamed, but Dead Silence had spotted her first and expanded Mute's range in her direction. All of his comrades could hear her shout too, and they all spun towards the woman who backpedaled a step before turning and starting to sprint for the front of the ship. Dead Silence lifted up his grappling gun and fired it down the central corridor of the sub, wrapping it around her right leg and tripping her up. She spun after hitting down on her front, lifting both arms and popping all the tips of her fingers off to reveal the insides of them were hollow.

"Don't!" Zach yelled towards the woman, then he dove to the side as her fingers flashed anyway. The others in the Army of Death dove out of the way, and they spun backwards as the cluster shot she fired from her hands slammed into metal walls and pipes. Slipspace pulled Replay back on top of her, and they were both panting as the younger woman who had gotten stuck in the wall would have been hit in the face had she still been in that wall a second later.

"Shit," Dead Silence said, as the bullets fired all slammed into metal walls and pipes outside of his Mute's range.

"What was that?"

"Hey! Who just took a fucking shot?! You want to get us all killed down here?!"

 _It didn't puncture the hull, but stealth is out the window._ "To the front as fast as possible," Zach said, and then he shot out around the corner and sped down towards the woman who had lowered her hands for a second only to lift them again in panic and try firing while yelling for help. Zach slammed his right foot into the woman's right hand, knocking it into her left and then stomping down on both of her wrists while kicking his other leg forward and up under her raising chin. He snapped her head back and the back of it into the floor, then he sprinted straight past her and into the next hallway down through a narrow doorway where he saw a man leaning around to see what the commotion was about.

His screams stayed quiet too, though the people in the command of the sub did turn around as they heard yells come from much farther back in the submarine. The captain of the submarine standing in the middle of the command at the bow looked behind him to the other standing member of the crew up there. "Go figure out what they're yelling about-" his jaw dropped and the man with a scar over his right eye and muscles sticking out of the ripped sleeve of his stolen sailor's uniform dropped his jaw at what he saw behind his comrade and farther back in the sub. "Oh my G- call the base!"

"We're still-"

"NOW!"

"Delay that order!"

The four men sitting in chairs around the command room looked over their shoulders at the sound of that dark scratchy voice. And then all four of them with widening eyes slumped in or fell out of their seats as darkness surrounded them like it had the co-captain. Death stepped towards the captain who backed up with a terrified look on his face for a second, only to grin and lean forward instead. "Death, you came for me? I'm so honored-"

Death's right hand rose up and his aura vanished as he drew a knife from his right shoulder strap. He reached his knife forward and pressed the blade into the neck of the man in front of him who froze with his mouth open. A blinking red light appeared on a computer panel on Zach's right, and a voice came out of it, "Hello? Why'd you call us?"

 _Shit._

"Our radars show you're still more than a mile out. Captain Philgers? Who hailed us?"

"Answer that you just wanted to check in that you will be arriving shortly," Zach said, leaning closely to the man in front of him whose eyes were huge as Death ordered him to do that. "Or I will slit your throat."

Zach grabbed him with his left hand and shoved to man to the side of the sub with the red light on it. Darling ran up behind him, and Dead Silence was just behind her with a frown on his face under his helmet. _This isn't going great. We knew it would be chaotic when we got inside, but Replay getting stuck in the wall, Faye getting hit back there. It's not- oh shit._

"Death's onboard!" The hesitating captain who had just nodded at Death before pressing a button next to the red light shouted. Zach pulled back from the captain with his eyes wide in his helmet. The man looked over his shoulder and continued pressing the button while yelling, "He plans on sneaking onto the base using our sub. Prepare for him!"

"Holy shit," Darling whispered.

"Everyone get up here now," Death said in his helmet in a dark tone. "Right now."

"Ha, hahaha, hahaha!" The captain started laughing at the man in front of him as he turned to face him. "What now, Death?" He asked, smirking in a taunting way at the dark figures before him. "The second this sub docks, they'll have an ambush ready for-"

"Thanks for the notice, Captain," a shrill voice started over the radio that made the captain grin. Then everyone in the bow of the sub looked to the front computer that had a radar on it, where a blinking white light started heading directly towards the front of their undersea vehicle. "You're loyalty is appreciated."

"They fired a torpedo," Dead Silence muttered, something everyone except for Philgers was already half-expecting. He spun his head and yelled, "Slipspace hurry it up!"

"Wh-What?!" Captain Philgers spun back to the panel behind him and started yelling at his comrades. "Wait! We're still all on-"

"You are the man who helped kill Death," the shrill voice started over him. "You will be remembered. Well, by us at least. Everyone else will know it was me. HA!"

"You fucking bitch!"

Zach threw a knife past the captain and into the equipment that sparked and dimmed as the strong knife pierced through the machinery. The captain turned, and he looked in panic at Death who glared straight back at him, then turned to the right. "Quickly, give them gills."

"Commander-" Faye started.

"Now!"

"Slipspace!"

"It's coming!"

"Ten seconds!"

"We're so fucked!"

"Everyone together!"

"REPLAY!"

"There's no time!"

"NOW!"

"WAIT!"

Eleven people slipped out of a submarine, and five of them dragged five others away from the sub that kept moving behind them. Philgers freaked out as water surrounded him and rushed into his nose and mouth, then he spun around in confusion as he was able to breathe, then he crossed his arms in front of his body and let out an underwater scream as the submarine was hit by a torpedo and erupted in a massive explosion. The flames went out quickly, the exploding sub cracking and water filling it up, and the broken submarine started sinking down to the bottom of the ocean in pieces.

"Fuck," Slipspace whispered. She lifted a hand up to her helmet and grabbed the front just outside of her helmet, "Fuck fuck fuck. She was, so close. I should have-"

"I told you to go," Death said, looking to his side at Slipspace who lowered her hand and turned to him with so much frustration in her eyes.

"That went terribly," Dead Silence muttered, an angry look spread over his face as he watched the sub sinking in front of him. He watched it lower down, and he turned up the brightness of his helmet's visor that was pushing light out into the dark ocean below him.

"Replay was…" Faye whispered, looking around as she realized what had happened. It all moved so quickly, and she was still giving the last of the unconscious crew at the front of the sub gills. She looked back down and her heart dropped as she imagined her friend she had just been talking to in the helicopter before Death arrived.

"You," Zach growled. He swam to Captain Philgers who looked back at him with his eyes huge and terror spread across his face. Zach swam straight up to him, then he snarled, "Your gills won't last forever, and the surface is far above us. I just saved your life." Zach reached out his right hand and wrapped it around the man's neck, choking him deep below the surface. He yanked the man's head into his visor and snarled in a lower voice, "Take the others we gave gills, and get to the surface with them. If you try swimming to safety, I won't be able to find you on the surface when I'm done here, and you'll drown for sure long before you reach the shore. It'll be a terrible death."

Death released Philgers' neck, then he looked back towards the others behind him who had let go of the men they dragged away from the ship. "They think they just killed Death. I'm sure they're all celebrating despite how many of their comrades they just massacred." Death turned the direction of the undersea villain base they had planned on infiltrating a different way.

Philgers stared at Death's back with his eyes huge, then he lifted his gaze up to the surface, then back to the man in front of him who was just letting him go like that. His fists clenched at his sides, then he ground his teeth as any thought of helping his former comrades at their base wiped from his mind. "Thanks," Philgers muttered, swimming past Death and towards the others in his unconscious crew.

Death turned and glared at Philgers in annoyance for saying that. _It's your fucking fault for not being more of a coward. Bastard._ Death looked down and he said in a low voice, "We'll head for the base in a couple minutes once the celebration's started full blast. First," Death started swimming down, and his comrades looked towards him with their eyes wide and then started swimming down after him too. "Let's see if we can find Replay's body down there. It was her first life, and I'm guessing her body's intact enough to revive."

"And once we get her," Darling said in a low voice.

"Let's go crush those team-killing fucktards," Faye snarled, grabbing at her left arm as she swam down but speaking through the pain of the shot that had gone straight through her bicep before.

"We can keep a stealth infiltration for this one," Dead Silence added. "Move room by room. Take them all down before they even know what's happening. Better than in a narrow sub."

"And more space so no one gets stuck in the wall," Slipspace said softly.

"We fucked up," Death said. "But we still have the opportunity to make this a perfect mission. Nobody else die, got it?"

"Understood, Commander." Darling said it fast, and then the other three said the same things almost in unison after her.

"Good," Zach said, and he swam towards the slanted bottom of the ocean where the pressure down on him was much heavier than before. He moved towards the wreckage of the sub and narrowed his eyes as he got ready to search the ghost ship for his comrade's body. _My plan was flawed. My intimidation wasn't thought out enough, wasn't thorough enough. Philgers looked like a cold mother-fucker, but he grabbed his comrades before swimming up. Maybe he didn't deserve to die. He didn't. He warned his comrades knowing I might slit his throat. Honor among thieves, is something I need to destroy. Get them all to know they can't trust each other. Especially not when faced with Death. If I tell them every time that they were snitched on though, they'll get too afraid to snitch to me knowing that other villains will find out it was them. Find the middle ground… If they're captured by heroes, no one will suspect they snitched. So if they snitch and we turn them over to heroes who are willing to take all the credit… no one will ever know it was them. Just let them know_ _ **how**_ _I found them, not who it was who made it possible. Make them all more inclined to snitch, more than they already are._

 _Fucking cowards, the whole lot of them. They're giving me too much information that the Army of Death can't separate to go after. I won't allow it. I need to move faster. Get from here straight back to The Cloak. I need to fly faster, and work faster, but not so fast that I skimp on threatening prisoners so they aren't too afraid of me. Always diligent. Using everything. Thinking constantly. Moving at all times. Never stopping. Never taking a break. Never sacrificing my comrades' lives. Always winning. Every time, I need to win. The Symbol of Fear cannot be defeated by anyone. Death, can't be stopped._

* * *

"Selkie and the Aquadogs just showed up at the Hydrale underwater base," Raylei said over towards Death who was standing behind another computer station in The Cloak's command center.

 _Selkie huh? It's not too far from Japan, but… I should check, if Froppy's there too. Don't ask about it though. I'll just look myself._

"Surprised you guys managed not to flood the whole station after that sub incident," Mark said on Zach's left down the same station he was sitting at. Mark had a news program up on his screen and he leaned back while listening through a headset over the top of his head through his short brown hair.

Raylei continued talking about what she was hearing on the underwater base they had passed on an anonymous tip about after finishing their mission there. As she talked though, La Brava walked around her station and up behind Mark between him and Zach. She leaned in and looked at the screen Mark was staring at, and the younger woman with short pink pigtails hummed in confusion after trying to read the titles on the bottom of the screen for a few seconds. "What're they saying?" She asked, turning to Mark who glanced her direction for a second before turning back to the screen.

La Brava recognized the symbol in Korean for 'Death' since Sogdo had the same symbol on the back of his uniform. The program Mark was watching was in Korean, and Mark said as he continued to watch it, "They're blaming us for the villain death in the city, talking about how the heroes caught a bunch of villains late last night, our brutality, you know, stuff like that."

La Brava got an annoyed look on her face as Enrique Lopez's mugshot popped up on half the screen while the Korean news hosts kept talking on the other side of the screen. "Of course they're putting it on us. They always-"

"La Brava," Zach started, turning towards the short woman whose head was only about as high as his despite him sitting down. The annoyed woman turned his way, and Zach said, "Actually, it is kind of our fault this time." A few others in the room looked over towards Death who was leaning back in his chair and continued in a low voice, "Yeah, we get blamed for a lot of stuff that's not our fault, but this isn't one of those."

"Xia got killed right in front of Shang," La Brava muttered. "And it's not his fault that Twin Power's got that-"

"That wouldn't be an excuse for a hero anyway," Zach countered right back. "But it is for me, and Shang's not in trouble for it," he added as he turned back to his own computer he was doing research on. He checked the same calls that Raylei hacked and read the transcripts of to figure out who was taking the underwater base he had just taken over with his team only a couple hours earlier. _No Froppy. She's still with Ryukyu, but I know she worked with Selkie earlier so…_

"How are they doing by the way?" Zach asked, clicking off the conversation he was reading and going into another file on the computer.

"The twins are both still out," Mark replied, then he pulled his hands off his keyboard and turned his chair to face Zach. _He's trying to take on way too much. But micromanaging stuff in here after going nonstop for the last twelve hours. He needs a break._ "We can handle things until we reach our next destination," Mark started, and Zach looked away from the world map in front of him to face one of his first comrades. Zach had just been staring at the different red dots scattered around the map, over a dozen of them with one glowing and the symbol for The Cloak pointed in its direction moving across West Asia.

"Get some rest, Death," Mark continued, giving Zach a small smile and a reassuring nod to tell him he had things there handled.

Zach frowned and glanced back at the map, then over towards the front windshields and into the open sky ahead of them. _Darling already went to get some. I told her I'd get some soon too when I told her to go. If I head to that dot in Kazakhstan though, I could catch back up to The Cloak before they reach the North African Immortals. I can fly now. Full flight, opens up all the options. I can be anywhere, and everywhere, and I can be at every mission the Army of Death takes on as well as all the smaller ones, and save all the heroes as they die. Sleep, means I'm missing out on…_ Zach lifted up his left hand and rubbed his forehead, closing his eyes and then pushing his hand down over them.

"You're right," he muttered as he dragged his left hand down his face. _Don't make decisions like these after twenty hours of straight consciousness. Plan out all my next moves when I'm fresh after some rest. We're seven hours out, so I'll just go for four hours and we can plan out the next one for-_ Zach had just stood up from his station, when the intercom of the command center turned on.

There were speakers in every room and panels for people to speak into if they needed anything, so it could be anyone in the ship asking for something from anyone else on an open channel. "Death," the voice started though, and Zach stopped getting ready to go get rest, becoming alert immediately. "Kabo is awake," the voice sounded nervous and Zach recognized it as Maelstrom's. That made him frown more knowing it was her as he started out of the command room and down for the lowest deck.

 _Maelstrom watched Seraphim take him out like it was nothing. I wish it was anyone else. Someone who had not seen how intimidating and powerful Kabo could be already I'd expect that tone from. Maelstrom isn't too experienced though, so maybe that's it._

Zach went down an elevator to the deepest deck on The Cloak. He could feel the ship moving a bit more down here, and he stepped out of the elevator into a wide room before the two hallways that went straight down the middle of The Cloak from his side near the bow all the way back to the stern below the ramp on the hangar above. The hallways were full of cells made with super-powerful steel bars, electric locks, and the prisoners inside them had on handcuffs that glowed blue too. There were cameras in every cell, and the majority of the ones on The Cloak were empty which Zach could see from the wall of screens on his left as he entered the wide room at the start of the brig.

He looked down the hallway on the port side where he saw a few soldiers in all black with their helmets on standing around. He reached to his belt and lifted up the helmet clipped there, putting it on and then heading down the hall past a half dozen empty cells before he finally reached people. Three Hispanic men pulled back far in their cells after moving close to the bars to yell at whoever was going past them. The intercoms in the ship above could not be heard down there as well, unless it was specified for it and the call before had been targeted only at the command center. None of them had known who was coming, but they all shut themselves up and pulled back in the cells as they saw the dark figure walking by in his full black uniform, knives and swords strapped around his body and a dark helmet over his head.

"Muerte," Vasquez whispered, and he imagined tapping his bruised forehead, chest, then either shoulder to make a cross as he fell to his knees with his hands bound behind his back. Tuco stayed silent while backing into the far wall from the bars. Reno Grande opened his mouth to call out, but Death walked by and out of sight while he was hesitating.

Then Zach walked by a cell with a couple of African men in it, only one of whom was awake as he was the one Death had not knocked-out back in Korea. The man yelled out at him angrily, not that Zach understood what he was saying. He just walked by and then past the cell that had a couple of Kabo's men in it, all of them unconscious too.

Death walked past Maelstrom who was out of view of the bars two more cells down from the other ones that had prisoners in them. She looked at him nervously through her visor as he walked by, then she followed behind him and back towards the other two still standing in front of the bars. Sagitus turned towards Death first, while Jackhammer kept staring forward because he was frozen as Kabo stared straight into his eyes. He finally was able to breathe and pull backwards as Kabo turned though, straight towards Death who stopped and looked through his visor right back at him.

"You're finally awake," Death said, his voice its normal tone as he spoke through his helmet without modulating his voice at all. He spoke in the same voice he used when he was Underlord, though a darker and lower tone than before. "Kabo."

"You have just made, a fatal mistake," Kabo stood directly in front of Death, and he took a step forward so he was closer to the bars. He stared between the metal bars and at the shorter man in all black who did not flinch as he got closer to him. Kabo's arms were behind his back with his hands cuffed together at his waist, and the man standing there had a completely calm look on his face despite the anger in his eyes as he looked into Death's visor. Zach felt like he was looking the man in his eyes, and Kabo continued while keeping that eye contact he could not possible have, "Death, I underestimated you. But taking me, is a mistake you will not live to regret. You should have killed me in Korea."

"Maybe, but then I wouldn't learn about the League of Shadows," Zach replied. "I want you to tell me all about it. I know you have connections to-"

"I do not have _connections,_ " Kabo's head bowed a bit and his eyes darkened as he continued to stare straight at Death from only a few feet away. "I _am_ the League of Shadows."

Maelstrom pursed her lips and stayed silent. Jackhammer tried calming his breathing, despite Kabo's expression that made it look like the villain thought he was looking at a bunch of corpses. Sagitus stayed still on all four legs, but all four were trying hard to pull back. "So, you're a Shadow Boss?" Zach questioned.

Kabo glared at him and the right corner of his lips lifted up the smallest amount. "You don't know anything. You don't realize how big we are, how much power we truly hold. If you did you would never have done something so idiotic. I may not be a Shadow Boss myself, but what you have done will bring the wrath of the entire League. My brother will kill every last one of you." His eyes shifted slowly around at the other three before stopping back on Death. "Then he will kill your families, once he takes off all of your helmets. And he will kill them all too. Then he will kill any person who ever associated with you. Your ideal will die, as it becomes known what happens to those who join _'Death.'_ No one cared about you when you were just a nuisance, a thorn in our side. Now though, you will have the full attention of the League of Shadows. Taking me is the last mistake you will ever make."

"Ha!" Zach let out the laugh and then shut his mouth quickly like it came out involuntarily, though he had laughed intentionally and tauntingly at his enemy. He was also laughing like that to reassure his scared troops around him who he could feel fear radiating off of despite not being able to see their faces in their helmets. Zach laughed and grinned in through the bars at Kabo who lowered the corner of his mouth so it was flat again. "I thought you were actually hardcore and might keep your mouth shut," Zach said it in a taunting way that was also laced with malice and a threatening undertone as he eased his own head towards the bars. "But it's when someone stares Death in the face that they show who they really are."

Death pulled back after saying that in a hiss at Kabo from only a few feet away. He glared at the man on the other side of the bars who had shut up now. He was silent, and Zach said in a dark voice, "Your men misjudge you. Everyone does, as I can see you are clearly a talker." Kabo kept his mouth shut and just kept glaring darkly through the bars at the leader of the Army of Death on the other side. "It's too late to pretend now," Zach said while looking back into Kabo's eyes again, this time the one in control which his three soldiers around him all looking in noticed and felt shocked and awed by. They quickly reminded themselves who it was they were following, something they occasionally forgot when he would walk around The Cloak without his helmet on, training with them, eating in the same room as them, fighting by their sides and most often ahead of them on the front lines against the strongest enemies.

"I know that you will crack now, so time to talk. Tell me everything," Zach said it flat out, and he crossed his arms while looking at Kabo expectantly for him to start speaking.

Kabo stayed silent, and he just stood there in the middle of the cell without saying a word and with a stoic look on his face. "Alright, bring him up to the hangar," Zach said, and he turned without another word and started away back down the hall. His men turned and looked at him in confusion, and Kabo shifted his eyes a bit too with a hesitant look on his face at how quickly Death just seemingly gave up there. _Why to the hangar?_ Kabo, and all three of Zach's soldiers thought.

Ten minutes later, Zach stood in the hangar talking to Mark in the center of the room far near the stern of the ship. "And everything's secured?" Zach asked, then he turned his head while Mark responded and watched as a couple of men were walking through the hangar bringing Kabo towards him. Zach nodded at Mark, then to the men who threw Kabo forward and down at Zach's feet. "Go up to the second level and grab the railings," Zach ordered the two in front of him who nodded fast and then ran off to the right side of the room.

"What are you doing?" Kabo growled, lifting his head and glaring in a way that Zach thought could cause weaker men to piss themselves. _I am not weaker than him though. But he doesn't believe that yet. He thinks he's too high above me to ever be afraid of what I threaten him with._ Zach reached down and he grabbed Kabo and then started dragging him towards the back of the ship which Kabo looked at in an even more hesitant way. He stared at the huge steel doors with the crack in the middle of them, and he snarled with his thick accent, "You think I am afraid of you? I am-"

"Open the doors," Zach called out.

Kabo stopped short and started panting, **Clank.** The doors started opening, and Zach pressed his feet down hard but still had to force himself back for a few seconds before the ship re-pressurized and the pull stopped yanking on him so hard towards the doors. Kabo spun his head back and forth and saw all the vehicles around him were strapped down to the floor and blocked up with barricades to keep the wheels from rolling. On the sides of the room there were dozens of soldiers in all black standing still and just staring towards him too. Kabo looked back forward and watched as the bottom half of the door lowered down as a long metal ramp. "You wouldn't," Kabo said, turning his head and glaring at Death with a disbelieving smirk on his face. Death started dragging him for the ramp and Kabo snapped, "I'm not afraid of this!"

Zach yanked Kabo up to his feet and then lifted his right hand that he had not been dragging the man with. "This is a microphone," Zach said as he pinned it into Kabo's shirt right up near his collar. Kabo looked down with his eyes huge and he yelled at Death again only to freeze as Death yanked his head forward right up in front of his dark visor. Kabo spit on Death's visor. A glob of spit just slammed into the front of Zach's mask, and the villain who spat stood there panting after doing it while the man holding him did not move an inch. Then, in a calm voice, Death said, "Let me know if you change your mind."

Death turned and walked down the ramp towards the huge opening in the back of the Cloak. Kabo pulled back against him, but Zach yanked him forward and the taller man opened his eyes huge as he stumbled, and then he opened his mouth and yelled, "Wait!" Zach reached the bottom of the ramp, tugged his arm forward, and threw Kabo out of The Cloak. "Wai- FU-" Kabo's voice cut off in Zach's helmet for a moment, then he just heard panting in it instead as he stood there near the bottom of the ramp, a strong wind pushing into him but nothing he could not handle. He still took a few steps back to get away from the ledge at least.

"Holy shit," Michael whispered, a bead of sweat rolling down his face. The ship was still moving forward, so after Death tossed their prisoner out the back they were able to watch him drop for a couple of seconds before he got too far down that he was out of sight. "How far up are we?" He wondered to his side at Mark who was still just shaking his head with his jaw half-dropped in his helmet in disbelief that Zach actually did that.

"Forty thousand feet," Mark replied. "So he'll be falling for a few minutes at least," he added, shaking his head again in amazement. _How does he come up with stuff like this just on the spot?_

Death lifted his right arm and wiped his sleeve across his visor to get Kabo's spit off. It smeared it a bit and he frowned, and he wiped some more before turning towards some comrades who were heading over. A man with a purple cloak waving around fast behind him stepped onto the ramp before the others, and he steadied himself before moving down the gradual slant a bit towards Death. "We need to get magnets in our boots," Gentle said, as he stepped down close to Zach who took a few steps back so the others did not have to go as far down.

Zach could see behind him and to the vehicles that were all still shaking around despite being strapped down more than they usually were just sitting in the hangar. He knew they could not use straps themselves, but he turned back to Gentle and wondered, "How would that work?" Gentle looked at him in semi-confusion, then he furrowed his brow as Zach continued in an even more confused voice, "How do magnets even work? Can they be turned off?"

"Well, I would assume," Gentle replied, though now that he was thinking about it he was not as sure. "I have seen movies with magnetic boots before that could be turned on… but we should get our R&D team on it anyhow."

Zach and Gentle lifted their heads and watched a woman in a black uniform fly over their heads using her large fiery wings. She had to flap them hard in front of her to stop herself and land on Death's other side as Gentle. "Should I start after him?" Iblis asked her leader who glanced back at the open back door like he had almost forgotten that he just threw a man out of their airship.

"I don't want Kabo thinking we'll catch him before he starts talking," Zach began. "So we need to wait until he's shouting about it to even-" Zach cut himself off as a voice shouting in his head changed its tone a bit. "Go now," Zach said, and Iblis's eyes shot open wide but she nodded and then sprinted down the ramp and dove out.

Iblis was the fastest flier in all of the Army of Death, as she could control the size of her wings that she had been using since she was a kid. The South African girl with coal black skin made her wings larger and larger, flapping them above her and rocketing herself out of the sky like a missile. She shot herself backwards too, knowing they had moved a distance in the past minute and their prisoner was pretty far behind them. Iblis flew really far down, then her eyes widened as she noticed they were above a mountain range, and she flapped even harder with a somewhat nervous look on her face.

Iblis shot towards Kabo who she finally saw after only dropping below the very last cloud layer. He was screaming in absolute terror and for someone to save him, and Iblis wondered why she found the man so intimidating a couple of minutes ago. She swooped out of the sky as the man plummeting to his death was watching his life flash in front of his eyes dozens of times. Iblis caught the villain who gasped the same moment the woman grunted at his weight jolting in her arms. She made a swoop as she caught him so it would not be so hard, but she still grit her teeth as it took a lot of strength to start flying back up in the very same swoop she caught him in. Her massive flaming wings snapped down on either side while Kabo lifted his head in shock that he was actually saved when he was screaming for it.

The muscular man who got caught looked back down out of the sky towards some snowy mountains down below, though they looked mainly icy to him right now. He snapped his head back up though in fury, an enraged look on his face yet fear and panic in his voice as he yelled, "Just drop me!" His voice nearly cracked, and it was not from screaming his lungs off a minute ago as he was faced with near certain death. He finally got a moment to think about it and decided he wouldn't talk despite all the promises he had just made while falling.

Iblis glanced down, then she heard her leader's voice in her ears, "Loosen your grip."

Iblis' hands loosened on Kabo's arms, and the man's face covered in sheer terror. His hands were still bound behind him so he just hurt himself when he tried reaching up in that moment to grab Iblis by the wrists so he wouldn't fall. A look of pure frustration covered his expression now and his face scrunched up. His eyebrows narrowed and then curved, and his eyes shook as he yelled, "Do it! Do it fast! Already!"

"If you are to fall," Iblis began, her voice feminine but deep and ominous. "It is going to be back from the start. So you can enjoy another full trip down."

Death smiled back at the top of the ramp of The Cloak. It was a nice threatening move saying that, and he was glad he did not have to be the only one acting super evil and threatening all the time. As much as he already hated everything about Kabo, from what they knew about him as a villain, about his organization, the fact that he was aligned with the League of Shadows, and now that he was a coward… Zach hated that he just threw the man out of a plane. His fists had actually clenched painfully at his sides while he was trying to distract himself with the conversation about magnetic boots he had with Gentle, but he told himself to calm down for when Kabo returned in front of him.

Iblis returned to The Cloak longer than it took her to go down and catch Kabo. She landed on the ramp and tossed Kabo up in front of Death's feet. The man started to slide a bit, and he curled his body up and tried pushing himself farther into the ship so he did not get sucked back out. He was panting and he shook on his legs that he never thought would feel solid ground again. As he looked, curled up on his knees and shoulders with his butt up in the air, he was one of the least threatening people the Army of Death had ever seen. The crime lord who always exuded so much power, was reduced to this embarrassing form that he was trying to yell at himself was not befitting of someone of his status.

"Just kill me," Kabo growled, lifting his head and glaring in the most hateful way imaginable straight into Death's visor.

Death stepped down the ramp a step and then leaned down in front of Kabo. He reached out and grabbed Kabo, yanking him to his feet and then stepping down the ramp another step. "Fine," Zach replied, which made Kabo look at his helmet in dread from right next to him. "I'll toss you out again," Zach continued, but he turned and looked at Kabo as he stopped on the ramp only halfway to the edge. "But you'll just crack again when you've almost dropped, and I'll send someone to get you, and you'll have to go through it again, and again, and again, as you regain your sense of duty and loyalty, only to lose it after falling twenty thousand feet or so." Kabo pulled his face back, scrunching it up so hard with his lips twisting apart and a look of despair and hatred and terror spreading across it. "But," Zach continued in a darker tone, and he started dragging Kabo on shaky legs farther down the ramp even as the man tried pulling back, his face turning only to fear now. "You promised to tell me everything last time, so now I won't believe that you're actually going to talk."

Kabo's eyes opened huge in shock, and then he let out a scream as Death threw him forward. He was not yet at the edge, so he threw Kabo and the man on shaky legs fell onto the floor and rolled once, tried to stop himself on the edge and grab on, then he rolled out of the ship and let out an even more horrified scream as he started another plummet towards his death. He screamed from the very start this time instead of having a lot of time to think about it before the realization hit him and he had started pleading to Death.

This time as Zach tossed Kabo out of the ship though, a lot of the soldiers around the sides of the room started looking around at each other hesitantly. Michael did not smirk this time after staring down in shock, as he did not doubt Death was going to throw him out this second time. Hearing those screams come from Kabo gave him no enjoyment, but he just stood there with his arms crossed and did not move like Mark while some others around them did start murmuring against what was happening.

"Death," Skater started. He had come over before after Zach first tossed Kabo out, but this time he could not keep his mouth shut. As much as he trusted the man who had brought him back to life before, he needed to say something. "This is, it's inhumane."

"This is the last time," Zach replied back. "I was lying about the over and over again," he explained to his comrades who were all staring at him halfway down the ramp. "Kabo's already screaming to bring him back up, but we won't do anything. Soon he'll actually start yelling the things I want to ask him anyway, screaming valuable information. Some might be lies at first, so I'm not sending anyone out to get him until the last second."

"I hurt my arms a bit, swooping him out of the air," Iblis started to her leader, warning him that she might not be able to do it again.

"Gentle," Zach said. Gentle started down the ramp, and Zach glanced next to him and opened his mouth, then he closed it and just nodded at the man who jogged down the ramp and then leapt out of The Cloak. Zach had things he wanted to tell Gentle, but Gentle had gotten annoyed at him over micromanaging him recently, so Zach just trusted his comrade he sent out for Kabo not to let the man die and not to mess up how much they had broken his will already.

Gentle bounced himself out of the air by making Gently Rebounds across the sky. He bounced himself even faster than Iblis despite not actually being able to fly. He bounced himself down through the freezing sky and towards Kabo who he spotted before the man was even as far down as he was last time when Iblis caught him. The surface below was much lower this time than the last time they tossed him out, so the drop was going to be longer anyway. As Kabo saw Gentle approaching him, he stopped screaming secrets for a second and opened his mouth to yell at the man to get away. He froze though with his mouth open like that, and he stopped to shout instead, "Bring me back up! Do it! I'll tell you whatever-"

Gentle looked straight at Kabo's shirt and the microphone attached to it. Then he lifted his helmet to look at Kabo's face while falling next to him. He called out to the man yelling at him to catch him already, "I am just being sent to collect the expensive microphone from the liar's corpse." Then Gentle bounced himself much faster out of the air than Kabo was dropping, and the man screamed after him at the top of his lungs.

"I'M NOT! EVERYTHING WAS- Alright! ALRIGHT! I'll tell you EVERYTHING! The truth is…"

Gentle smirked as he bounced down towards the surface. He listened as Kabo screamed that he was not a liar, until the man above saw the ground approaching fast and roared how he would talk. Then he actually started shouting all the 'everything' he promised to tell, all the information that he hoped they would believe, that they could back up, that they would know was the truth somehow and change their minds to save him from his imminent death.

Everyone on The Cloak smirked at what Kabo started shouting. Then the smirks lowered down. They lowered not because he was lying, but the opposite. They got dark looks on their faces at all the things Kabo started screaming at them, things that had everyone getting super intense and causing every one of them to feel a huge pressure on their shoulders. They all felt that pressure and found themselves unable to smirk or even say a word, as they believed it when Kabo yelled what he knew about everything, everyone, and every _where._

* * *

 **BRrrroooOOOO BRrrroooOOOO ERR ERR ERR ERR "Villains spotted to the north of Mundogomo. Militia report to the north side of town until Dreamscape and Pointer arrive from Tunko." BRrrroooOOOO BRrrroooOOOO "All citizens stay indoors. Clear the streets for emergency personnel. This is an emergency broadcast for Mundogomo. Lockdown is still out of commission, militia report to Mayor Humdi and Chief Kandoko outside the tailor's on the north side…"**

"Come on," an eleven year old girl ran down an alley in northern Mundogomo, dragging a boy behind her by his right arm. The small town in Frunoco had streets of packed-down sand, the buildings around them were made of adobe and clay, and only a few in the whole town were made of stone or steel. The desert town in one of the poorest countries in Africa was on high alert, with sirens blaring out of the emergency broadcast system the national government had set up around the country, the only measure the government had taken so far to help the people this far out from any highly populated city.

The town was left mostly on its own against whatever villains acted this far out in the desert, so the mayor of the town who was elected on the policies now enacted, had established a militia. He created it among the men of the town with a few exceptions of women who ignored the original mandate and trained their Quirks anyway to be able to help at times like this. A small girl running down an alley dragged her even shorter friend despite him being eleven too. The boy pulling back on his arm weakly could not resist T'kala who ran them right up to the edge of the alley, and then sprinted into the sandy road out of it to cross the street to the line of buildings farthest on the north side of the town.

Om'bambu looked to his right and his eyes opened wide as he saw a few militia men running towards the tailor's shop in the opposite direction as them. He sped up himself with a nervous look on his face that paled a bit from its dark complexion when he thought about his dad catching them there. Om'bambu Humdi was the son of the mayor and he could not imagine what would happen if he got caught right now. _Dad might have to come deal with me, and everyone will be left alone, and the town will get overrun! And I'll get in trouble!_ "T'kala come on," he pulled back harder for the first time as they ran into another alley where there was a ladder up against a wall ahead on their right that she was dragging him to. "We shouldn't be here."

"Stop being such a baby. My mom's been teaching me how to use Sandbody. If the villains break through the front lines, it's up to us!" T'kala turned away and let go of her friend's arm, running to the ladder on her own and climbing up it fast with an excited smile on her face. "Besides, I want to see these villains before Dreamscape and Pointer show up and take them down!"

"Stop being so loud," Om'bambu hissed up towards his friend who he ran beneath. He did not want to be there, but he was not leaving her to be here on her own and he started climbing up the ladder after her. The little boy halfway up the ladder felt a buzzing in his pocket and he reached down, holding on by one hand for a second to check his phone. He gulped at the message from his mother, then the boy dressed nicer than his friend above him glanced up as she popped over the top of the building. The Mayor's son pocketed his phone and kept climbing after T'kala, then he dropped down on the roof and crouched as he ran up to the north edge of the building.

Om'bambu dropped down next to T'kala who pulled out her own phone a much older version than her friend's. Hers was given to her from some distant place in a charity program where old phones sent given to poor countries by people who no longer needed them. She still thought it was great though, and she lifted it and opened the camera function to zoom in on the distant sand dunes where they saw sand rising up. "I still think this is a bad idea," Om'bambu whispered next to her.

T'kala ignored him and she zoomed in as far as her phone could, then she tssked and turned to her friend. "Let me use yours. It can see better!"

"Stop shouting," Om'bambu whispered harshly at her. _Not that anyone's probably in this building. Everyone ran the other way, where we should be!_ Om'bambu pulled out his phone when he saw his best friend opening her mouth again, "Alright. Here."

T'kala grabbed it and smiled. The boy next to her always did whatever she asked as long as she pushed hard enough, and she snatched the phone and then pointed it to the north while opening the camera better than her own. As she aimed into the distance, she tapped the record button as she finally caught sight of the front of a vehicle racing across the sand. Her eyes widened a bit and she stared out there with her bottom lip lowering, a nervous expression replacing her excited one. She slid back on her knees a bit from the short wall on the north side of the building, and she lowered the phone a little while starting, "Maybe we-"

"What the…" Om'bambu leaned the other way as T'kala leaned back. She looked at him in surprise as he leaned forward towards the ledge, and then she looked back in confusion as he said, "They're not coming at us." The kids looked out into the distance and stared at the sand-colored vehicles driving across the desert. The jeeps and trucks were not heading south though towards Mundogomo, but instead to the west so they would just be passing by the town at a distance it looked like.

"Maybe the emergency broadcast," T'kala began quietly. "Was just so we would be ready in case they _did_ turn and come for us?"

Om'bambu nodded his head slowly. "That, makes…"

The kids looked behind the convoy of vehicles speeding across the desert and dragging up sand behind them. They looked back farther to the east past a gap after the motorcycles speeding across the desert behind the bigger vehicles. They looked over a gap that made it seem to them like the group of villains was just so huge that it could not all stay together in one pack. The vehicles moving after it were black though, and the kids leaned over the edge of the building with their eyes huge as they finally recognized what it was they were looking at.

"Whoa."

"All forces, cut south but keep a wide berth of the town. Don't spook anyone, but make it so if the Immortals try to cut in we can intercept them before they reach."

"Commander, at least some of us should stay with-"

"Death!"

The motorcycle at the front of the eight black all-terrain humvees and jeeps sped forward with a cloud of sand picking up behind it. A single figure on the back of the motorcycle wore black armor that he was sweating inside despite it being the middle of the winter, as it was blazing hot out in the desert. Zach Sazaki twisted the throttle and then took in a deep breath as he looked ahead towards the convoy he was not gaining on fast. "Time to test it," he muttered under his breath, and his thumb moved to the side of the throttle he was twisting.

Zach pressed his thumb into the black button on the side of his handlebars, and he popped the front tire of his bike up at the same time while still speeding across the sand. The front wheel that lifted off the ground spun, the opposite direction as it normally spun. The wheel flipped horizontally and then stopped, and the center circle of the wheel inside the rubber glowed blue. The wheel was coming back down at the sand, but it bounced up before hitting the ground, and then the back wheel turned and pushed the bike off the ground too. Zach was wobbly on the hoverbike for a moment, then he stabilized and a grin covered his face for a second.

His grin flattened out and his eyes darkened through his visor out towards the villains' vehicles ahead of him. _North African Immortals. As long as they stay off the radar, heroes in Frunoco don't bother with them. Almost all their operations are outside of the country, so they've been acting with impunity, until now._ Zach pushed down on the front of his bike and twisted his throttle to full, no longer needing to worry about his motorcycle getting stuck in the sand or a bump in the ground dislodging him from his seat.

Most of the Army of Death's vehicles turned a bit to drive diagonally in front of the town to their south, as Death could be right and their enemies could try driving into the town to make it harder to fight them. They needed to avoid bringing any civilians into it too, so they could not argue that Death was just doing this to take on all the villains on his own. Still, two black humvees sped across the desert straight after Death instead of turning a bit which would make them lose speed and fall farther behind.

"He's too fast with that thing," La Brava snapped from the passenger seat.

"You may need to take the wheel," Gentle replied calmly from next to her. He had his foot to the floor on the accelerator but there was not much else he could do to catch up from inside the vehicle.

"Death, we need some of them to make it all the way back," Darling said from the backseat behind La Brava and Gentle. "We still don't know where the base they're running to is exactly."

"Or just don't knock out all of them," Mark mentioned from the other jeep still driving after Death's motorcycle. "I'd rather not have as many there during the siege."

"Whether Death takes them down here or later, the Immortals shall not escape us." Exodus sounded calm in Mark's passenger seat, and he just stared through the windshield up ahead over the sand towards their fearless leader.

Zach sped up more and more, until the motorcyclists ahead of him guarding the back of their convoy looked over their shoulders and finally decided it was time to stop just running. Ahead of Death's hoverbike were the two motorcycles in the back, then a few sand-colored jeeps, three pickup trucks, and a few more motorcycles farther up in the pack too. Everyone in the Immortals looked in their mirrors or over their shoulders in wide-eyed panic, as the speeding hovering motorcycle behind them covered in a dark veil. An aura of darkness surrounded the rider and the bike, pulling off of him and making it look like a flame that flared around and dragged off his body.

The militia gathered at different places around the northern edge of Mundogomo stepped back. They stared out towards the flaming black bike with their eyes huge, and two children on a roof on the northern edge of town too leaned backwards before pushing right back forwards with giant eyes. T'kala lifted her friend's phone and zoomed in as far as she could, and the phone focused right as the black hover-cycle got close enough that the two riders in front of it pulled out weapons and aimed back at it.

The motorcycle on Zach's front right had a man whose bike did not swerve as much as he activated Nightmare mode. That man pulled out a submachine gun and pointed behind him, firing off rapid-fire without really looking back too often as he focused on the desert ahead. Zach's red eyes darted back and forth in his dark visor, and then the completely black form lifted his right hand from his handlebars and rose it at his side. He pulled his motorcycle to the side as he saw a bullet actually coming close for once, then he swung his arm forward and a thick whip of darkness shot off of his hand and straight at the man on the motorcycle to his right.

The whip got thinner with the wind pushing against it and the distance Zach was throwing, but he wrapped the whip around his enemy like throwing a lasso, then he yanked as hard as he could to the left and tried throwing the man at his comrade. His whip broke apart midway through the yank, and Zach tssked as he did not toss the man close enough to get his comrade to freak out and swerve his motorcycle to the point of crashing. The other man did look right and fumble his weapon in his hand though as he saw his comrade hit the sand and bounce twice before rolling to a stop. It made him slow down a bit in fear of what would happen if Death knocked him off, and the villain shouted ahead to his comrades to slow down and help him fight.

None of the other vehicles stopped, and the man turned his motorcycle to the south instead to try and just drive off to Death's left. He doubted Death would change directions just for him, and he started speeding up again as turning made him come almost to a stop. Death was riding up behind him, and he twisted the throttle to race himself away. His eyes darted to his left at the convoy that was going to try and intercept him on his way into the town, but he knew that if he could just get inside he could- A shadow passed over the man's head, and he started turning with a look of horror spread on his face.

Zach was racing past behind him, when he punched his left arm out to the side with his hand opened up and a large black claw forming on it. His arm extended for a second off of his body, then it broke apart at the wrist, yet Zach's larger black claw kept expanding towards the enemy since Zach had condensed Death in that claw at first. The claw first expanded before the wisps pulled off of it when it got thin enough, but it was still thick enough together that when Zach closed his left hand into a fist back on his hoverbike, the Flying Death Claw closed in on the screaming villain who flipped over the front of his motorcycle and crashed into the sand.

Then Zach's hoverbike sped up move, and he raced towards the rest of the convoy that did not have its rear guards anymore. He grabbed the handlebars and pulled his ride to the right, then to the left, and he did not slow at all while dodging the gunshots and thin red beams of light firing back at him from the larger vehicles. Their convoy was starting to get more spread out as the men in the vehicles were telling their ride-mates and themselves that it was every man for themselves, as much as they were shouting at each other all to work together. They fired back towards Death but could not hit the speedy figure on the hoverbike who could see their shots coming before they even fired just from the angles of their guns aimed out the windows.

Zach's red eyes focused on the sides of the jeeps where a couple men leaned out and were looking back at him completely. Some in the pickup trucks were getting up and kneeling on one knee while steadying their weapons too. _They're getting too organized, too accurate. Time to make them afraid. Take the risks._ Zach whipped his grappling gun up in his right hand and aimed at the jeep farthest back on the right side, which was still a little ahead of the farthest one back more directly in front of him. Zach fired, and the jet-propelled metal hook with sharp edges shot from Zach's hoverbike all the way to that jeep's back left tire. The hook and wire were covered in a thin black veil, though that black veil faded and showed the wire taut and connecting Zach to the jeep that started swerving as one of its tires popped.

The jeep swerved to its left, into the path of the one driving forward in front of Zach and with two men leaning out of its sides. One of the men leaned back in as the other jeep was about to slam into its side, while the other got jolted and swung out of the side of the vehicle he dangled off the side by one arm for a second before losing his grip and falling off into the sand. Zach saw the man's arm bend the wrong way and the guy let out a bloodcurdling scream as a leg broke too, but he did not get caught up under the tires which Zach figured was one positive. As he sped past the man screaming on the ground too, he kicked his leg out just short of the guy but close enough that some strands of Death hit him and knocked him out cold.

Then Zach sped up more, towards the jeeps that were pressed together side to side and slowing down because of one's popped tires. The ones on the jeep on Zach's left pointed their guns at the one on the right and yelled at the others to turn, while at the same time men in another jeep and one of the pickup trucks started firing at Death more accurately than before. Zach swerved left, right, and he kept his grappling gun in hand the whole time. Bullets were flying at him too close, and Zach yanked up on his hover-cycle. He heard the clanks of the bullets into the bottom of his vehicle. Smoke came out, and at the same time his right arm jolted as he pulled back but the jeep up ahead kept moving. Zach's bike that had pulled up at the front suddenly did a nose-dive into the sand, throwing Death off of it and far forward much faster than he should have been thrown from the vehicle.

Zach retracted his grappling hook right as he was thrown, then he let go after speeding up for a second as he did not want to go crashing into the sand behind the back tire. He swung his arms behind him and pointed his body completely straight towards the top of the jeep slumped down to its back left, and a flare of aura shot out behind Zach making him look like a comet of darkness. He smashed into the back of the jeep and straight through the opening in the back of it so he was in the trunk. He reached up and grabbed the bars over his head, flipping himself up above and then pressing his feet down between his hands on the bars, crouching and then jumping off towards the other jeep that sped away from its comrades' a second ago.

The jeep Zach jumped on first swerved out and started slowing down as the driver was unconscious. The men in the second one aimed up and fired at the monster landing on top of them, then they yelled out in panic as other vehicles aimed towards them from their right and left and fired. The driver of the second jeep slammed on the brakes, and the pickup on their right unloaded into the motorcycles that had pulled back on the second jeep's left to fire at Death as he focused on their comrades. One of the motorcyclists was hit and thrown from his vehicle, the other swerved and then crashed, rolling in the sand and yelling out in more panic than anything. He scrambled up and tried getting back up on his bike, looking over his shoulder and seeing two black humvees racing towards him.

The man got back on his bike and started speeding after the others fast, aiming ahead and towards Death. His thought process was that if he was the one who killed Death, his comrades would have to slow down and get him for sure, or maybe they would just turn on the Army of Death knowing that they had beaten their leader. So he fired towards the jeep that Death leapt off of a second later, towards the pickup truck that he slammed his right fist down on the back of and popped the front tires up just as all the vehicles up ahead fired simultaneously where Death was landing.

Bullets riddled the bottom of the pickup truck, then it slammed back down and started skidding on the ground on all popped tires. Smoke and flames came out of the sides from the bottom, and Zach slammed his hands through the back window of the truck's cabin, grabbed the two men in the front seats, and he ripped them out of the truck and tossed them unceremoniously behind him. Their screams cut off while he tossed them in dark hands, at the same moment that the front of their pickup truck got shredded by machine gun fire. Death leapt up and over towards a jeep swerving back and forth on his left as the driver was slumped on his steering wheel with blood pouring out of his chest. Zach turned his head a bit and glared back towards a motorcyclist firing up towards him, then a fist of ice punched up and slammed into his body and knocked him off the top of the jeep.

The man on the motorcycle in the back sped up and fired up at Death, the guy in the passenger seat of the jeep who was one of only two left in the vehicle grabbed the wheel and tried to stabilize, and the other two pickups slowed down as they saw Death get hit like that. Another motorcycle kept speeding past the front of the trucks, the rider not looking back as his only goal was getting to safety as quickly as he could. The drivers of the pickups looked at each other through their windows and nodded though, and the men in the passenger seats climbed out to join the others on the pickups' beds to fire out from.

"Dropping Landmines," a man kneeling on the back of the sand-colored pickup on the left said, leaning out of the truck and popping small round devices out of his hands that burrowed into the sand as soon as they touched down.

"Solar Flare, everyone close your eyes, then fire when they're blind."

"Locked and loaded."

"Kill Death here, and he won't be able to attack the base!"

Zach snapped his arm up and fired another grappling hook towards the back left tire of the front right pickup this time. The villains about to attack him all stumbled around as the drivers saw Death's head snap their directions. The problem though, was that the driver of the pickup on the right swerved one way right as the back tire popped, and it popped on the side that made them swerve the same way. With the momentum they already had, the wheels on the left lifted up into the air and the whole truck leaned on its right side. The other one on its side sped up more to try and escape being crashed into, making one of the men on its side fall over the edge and the man leaning back dropping Landmines to slide out of the truck while he was in the middle of dropping another one.

 _ **BOOOM!**_

An explosion blew flames and sand and smoke around, and then a pickup truck hit down on its side and bounced up since it was still moving nearly a hundred miles per hour. The truck bounced on its side and started rolling sideways, throwing villains from it while others tried to hold on and not be tossed away like ragdolls. Two men were still holding onto the truck that the driver was getting thrown around the cabin of, when the truck hit down on its right side, and then two footprints slammed into the left side while the driver was near it so the man dropped his jaw in horror. Death smashed down on the side of the rolling truck, bending metal around his legs as he dented it down and slammed the truck harder into the floor while it was in mid-roll. The truck rolled straight through an explosion right before Death came flying through that explosion, slamming down on the side of it and then springing off as the truck continued to roll itself, using its momentum and his own jump to send him flying through the air in a leap all the way towards the final pickup.

A man aimed a rocket launcher up at him and fired, and Zach spun his body in midair, the RPG passing inches in front of his body while he was in mid-spin. Then he finished turning in a three-sixty and did a flip down towards the top of the truck, passing over it with an extra push of Death out behind him so that he could reach the front of the vehicle instead of the back where two men were trying to kill him. They spun instead and had to hold off so they wouldn't shoot the driver, not that it would matter in a second anyway. Death slammed down on the hood of the car and stopped the tires short as he pushed them down into the sand, flipping the rest of the vehicle over its front into a complete front flip that made it spin a full three-sixty degrees before going some more to still land upside-down on its own cabin.

Zach had to dive to the side at the start of the flipping to avoid behind hit by the truck. He rolled on the sand and shot up to his feet panting, his head snapped towards the west and a trail of rising sand he saw moving away from him. He started running, then he slowed down and stopped as he realized he was chasing after a motorcycle on foot. _I could catch him. I could, I need to… Let him go._ Zach lowered his arms down to his sides and took in a deep breath, calming himself down as much as he could. "Have a cloaked drone follow and don't let him see it. We're not losing him," Zach ordered, then he turned his head to look for the closest of his vehicles he could hop into. "Everyone regroup on me then we'll-"

"Holy shit, Death!"

"That was fucking epic!"

When Zach looked back, he was only searching for the vehicle closest to him. He had trouble seeing it though, as Gentle and Mark were both having a hard time getting to him across a desert covered in destroyed vehicles. There were flames and smoke rising from vehicle carcasses, and unconscious and moaning villains laid scattered across the sand. Zach stared at it all and he took another deep breath to try and steady his breathing, though he realized it was not from exhaustion at all that he was breathing that fast. The adrenaline rush he had felt was not going away very fast, and he was struggling to lower his heart rate. He turned his head back towards the west again. _That's a good thing though. This isn't over._ "Everyone focus," Zach said to his comrades while turning off Nightmare form to conserve some of his strength. He got his soldiers to stop talking for a second, and he said in a low and serious voice, "We're in mid-battle. Gather on me and we move for the Immortals' base. Mark, send an anonymous call to the heroes heading to Mundogomo where Death's leaving these villains. A chunk of their forces are cut off here now but we know there are going to be many times this number at their headquarters…"

* * *

"It's too heavily defended!"

"Darling, Exodus, Gentle, Mark, push up!" Death called out. He started rushing forward through the sandy desert that was devoid of all obstacles and buildings, but had more dunes in it than anywhere else they had been so far. There were so many dunes that they could not drive their vehicles much farther forward, and it was so difficult that rising over the tops of the dunes would give the enemies too good of targets on them. The enemy castle was over a mile away, but the Army of Death did not stop despite losing their use of vehicles.

"Gentle!" La Brava called out, running forward towards the man in a purple cloak about to sprint off after the other four. "Lover Mode," she reached out and grabbed him tightly by his sides. Sand popped up in little tufts near them and on the tops of sand dunes being shot at from afar. "Be careful," she said worriedly to the man whose body erupted in a pink aura thanks to her Quirk, Love.

"Of course, my dear," Gentle replied, while putting a hand on the side of her helmet like pressing it to her cheek. Then he turned and made the sand in front of him Elastic. He bounced himself high in the air, much higher than Darling just bounced using the springs she created in her knees and ankles. The two of them took straight down the middle, and Gentle bounced off the air and then made a barrier below Darling that he himself never used but made a quick hand signal to her that there would be one below her. Darling pressed her springs down on already Elastic air, and she rocketed herself so much higher up into the sky this time that it gave an unpredictability to anyone who was trying to shoot them and could not get a judge of the patterns.

Mark pulled the pin on a smoke grenade and threw it over the top of the dune he was crouched behind. Then he sprinted to the right side of the sand hill and over to another one that he kept running to the right of, while the villains on the castle ahead fired into his smoked dune and shredded the top of it apart with turrets and then a rocket launcher. The sand dune that exploded started swirling around and a sand tornado rose out of the ground and high into the sky which Mark looked back at with a bead of sweat on his face. _Liquid Control in the desert, not really that useful._

 _ **"BBRAA~AAMMM~MM!"**_ One of the loudest noises any of the five sprinting at the castle of sandstone had ever heard rocked them. They dove for cover and tried grabbing at their ears only they had helmets on so it was pretty difficult. _**"RRAAEE~EEMMM!"**_ It sounded like some had a guitar plugged into a hundred amplifiers and then put megaphones in front of all those amps. The entire desert vibrated with the strum and all the sand shook on the surface from the noise that was making it impossible for any of the soldiers to hear each other's orders.

Death ground his teeth and then stood up behind his dune while raising his right hand up high over his head. La Brava had run back up to get on top of a humvee after Gentle had bounced off. She was grabbing at her ears too while grinding her teeth in pain, and though she was having a hard time focusing on different voices in her head over all the screams of her comrades, she spotted Death far ahead and raising a hand as a signal they all knew for times like this. _Hand signals from now on. Time for some silence!_ La Brava reached up and held a button on the side of her helmet down for five seconds. A hum filled her helmet and the low buzz did not go away, filling her ears with a constant white noise that did not sound so loud but cancelled out all other noise at the same time it started working.

La Brava held up the same signal for everyone else to see, shouting it aloud too in case anyone could hear what they were doing. Over on other turrets behind La Brava's vehicle, Grabble and Michael both cut off their headsets and all sound instead of waiting for someone to stop that noise as they had been. It was clear the noise was not going to stop for a bit if they were making this decision, and no one was complaining about it anyway since all of them felt like their ears were bleeding. Grabble and Michael then grabbed their turrets again with both hands and aimed towards the castle of sandstone that had swirling sand towers on the corners of it that spiked at the top and kept a constant whirling funnel of thin sand above the building.

Their helicopters couldn't risk getting close with Sandstorm using his Quirk like that, and it had already destroyed some drones they sent in trying to get a better recon of the area and the enemy's base they knew had walls around the outside but did not know the layout of the inside yet. They did get some information from the villains Death defeated not long ago though who were not knocked out but who were very willing to talk when a bit of pressure was put on the appendages that broke as they fell out of their vehicles. They knew Sandstorm had the Quirk- Sandstorm, and their leader Tyreke had a Regeneration Quirk, hence the name Immortals. They knew some of the defensive capabilities and a couple of other Quirks, as well as a general feel of how many enemies they were up against. It was not as much information as they wanted, but they pushed on anyway.

La Brava fired towards a spinning sandy tower on the front right of the castle, and her turret fired a blast that exploded on impact with a line-drive straight from her turret to the impact point. Her feet left the seat for a second as she fired the weapon with such high recoil, then she gripped the sides of it harder and re-aimed the gauss turret somewhere else on the wall of the enemy's castle. The gauss cannon worked as a high-powered railgun, and it had a short recharge time before La Brava could fire it again at a different part of the castle's strong front walls. The dust cleared and her attack showed very little damage to the building. She tssked and aimed her turret elsewhere just firing near the front walls to blast up sand and obstruct views around where bullets were firing out from inside.

Michael vibrated as he pulled back on his turret and fired a constant stream of heavy caliber bullets towards the castle. He couldn't hear shit, but he still shouted at the top of his lungs while firing, "SUPPRESSING FIRE!"

A couple of jeeps parked behind the heavily armored humvees farthest up had soldiers all around them gathered up in teams waiting for more orders. The backs of the vehicles were opened, and the short-range fighters and all the medium-rangers too all started pulling out assault rifles and rocket launchers, most of which they had stolen themselves from the Immortals or from other villains they had attacked recently. The Army of Death had very few weapons like them in their arsenal, but not anymore. A dozen soldiers ran up to the humvees parked farthest up, then they popped out and fired pot shots towards the enemy castle that stopped firing as much towards their five tanks at the front as too much fire was hitting their castle.

The decreased density of fire caused Darling and Mark to rush out as they were the farthest ones back out of the five tanks rushing at the building first. Mark popped the caps on the jugs strapped to his back by forcing the water up through them, and he created five water shuriken in the air above him. He flung them towards open windows where he saw villains still poking guns out of despite all the condensed fire slamming into the castle. As his shuriken were about to hit however, a wall of sand blew past the front of the building, and then the entire desert shook and Mark could hear a blasting noise over the hum in his ears that was supposed to be blocking those sounds out.

 _It's going to short out our noise blockers, and we won't be able to move any closer!_ Zach realized it as he heard that last blast himself and saw how everything was shaking around him from the noise. _He must have a limit to take breaks like those, but the next time or one after, we're going to lose our ability to stop that noise. We have to get in and take whatever headsets their guys are using to repel that noise, or just take down the sound-Quirk user first._ Zach stopped charging at the castle and he swung both arms up in front of him. He turned and rose up his right hand, making a huge hand signal while a wall of darkness covered him and made it so the villains firing his way could not see the motion he just made.

Then Zach reached down and pulled out a needle that he rose up to his neck. It was not the signal he just made, telling everyone to charge, but he knew he needed to move fastest and was planning on drawing all the fire when everyone else started moving in. Zach injected with bright purple Trigger, the best stuff from the Trigger lab they raided recently which they kept for themselves instead of leaving for heroes to confiscate.

"That was the signal!" La Brava yelled, turning as she yelled it even though she could not hear her own voice. She gave the same signal to the people behind her and then spun around again as bullets slammed into the steel shield around the long barrel of her turret, sparks flying around the sides of her face as people shot at her. The short, pink-haired woman fired furiously towards the castle, while Michael reached down and tapped on the shoulder of the other man still in his humvee. Michael hopped out of the vehicle's turret seat and pulled the assault rifle off his back. He opened the bottom of it where there was a round tube shape, as he just saw Death make a different signal straight towards him after turning back around.

"Everyone forward!"

"Back up Death!"

Men and women in all-black uniforms ran forward and swung their arms forward, pointing their hands out at the building. A couple looked around at each other and pointed, then made waving motions to the sides signaling for them to flank. Sand tornadoes ripped across the desert ahead of them, looking hard to control as they sped right by Gentle who stopped short surrounded in his flaring pink aura, only for the tornado to keep going past him.

Three helicopters landed down behind the jeeps, not risking getting any closer to the castle where the tornadoes were making gale winds. Six soldiers hopped out of the backs of each one, and the passengers in the front popped open the doors and ran forward too. Seraphim pressed her hand onto the side of her helmet for five seconds, then she jumped out of the pilot's seat and started sprinting forward past her comrades and up towards the rest of the army too. Yusef looked over and saw her hop out, and he hesitated while reaching down for his sidearm. The man who had died back in the Dragon's Den gulped, then he threw open the door and started sprinting forward letting out a roar even as he turned on his own sound-blocking system.

Vince watched as the other two pilots ran forward, but he kept hesitating in the seat of his helicopter. He was still thinking over what to do, since no one was giving out any orders through the headsets. He saw people waving their hands up ahead of him, and he could barely hear a thing as it was with that blaring guitar noise blasting everywhere. "Vince! You still in Bird 3?!"

"Raylei?!" Vince shouted back, wondering if he really just heard that, though the blasting noise outside did quiet down for a second.

"Shang and Xia just woke up at the same time! They want to come help-"

 _Instead of sitting here doing nothing,_ Vince pulled on the sticks of his helicopter and sped up the rotors again above it. "I'm coming to get them!" He yanked the helicopter off the ground and spun it around back towards the black cloud in the west, rolling in for the castle in the east where villains were nervously looking at the oncoming storm that helicopters kept moving in and out of.

Access revved the engines of his humvee and then pulled his head away from the window as he heard a dink on it. He looked back and saw cracked glass around a single point, but the cracks in the glass did not let the bullet stuck in the thick glass break through on the perfect angle it was on to hit him. A smirk covered Access' face, "Lady luck strikes again!" He put the humvee into drive and smacked back on Grabble's leg before spinning the wheel in the direction of the castle.

A sand dune ahead of them exploded, and then a line of sand shredded up as a turret pulled across the desert towards Michael. Michael's head covered in a thick bushy golden mane, and he was on all fours darting to the right, moving like the kind of the savannah. He dodged the bullets, but he looked behind him for a second and snarled as he saw the bullets slam back into the humvee he had jumped out of, right over the top of it into the turret seat where his comrade had just taken over. "RROOAAAAARRR!" He snapped his head back and roared out of sharp teeth, then he spun from the blood-soaked humvee and darted towards the castle of Immortals.

"Move move move!" La Brava let go of her turret with one hand as it recharged, and she swung her right arm in front of the turret's bulletproof shield. She swung again and again, and soldiers behind her started running out into the desert battlefield to cross it and join with their Commanders. La Brava saw something falling out the right corners of her eyes, just behind her humvee and in front of the one where Pez was slumped over his turret covered in blood. From the moment she saw it in the corner of her eyes to when it hit the ground she had no time to think, but she did start opening her eyelids up wider as she recognized the shape of what was falling.

 _ **BOOM**_ The mortar hit the ground and La Brava's vehicle rolled forward with the back of it bouncing up and getting shredded by shrapnel. The front of the humvee behind hers caught fire, and the bulletproof windshield was shredded through by the same shrapnel that slammed all over the back of La Brava's humvee. Even with the sound-distortion on in her helmet, La Brava heard a ringing as her head swirled around in shell-shock. She turned her head, and she looked down at her right arm and started moving her hands around to feel up her body. _I'm fine?_ La Brava looked past her hands that her vision was focused on, making everything behind them blurry. "Oh shit," she whispered.

"AHHH! FUCK!" Blackstar was on the ground, his hands up in his face grabbing it in pain while blood spilled between his fingers. His right leg from halfway down his shin was blown right off though, and there were a couple of other soldiers in black uniforms just sitting on their butts near him in complete shock as they saw Blackstar writhing in pain.

La Brava shook her head around and then yelled at the people behind and below her, "Hey! HEY! Fuck," La Brava reached down and pulled off a pistol, and she threw it straight down and nailed Skater on the top of the head with it. Skater looked up from his best friend and at the short woman who made hand signals at him and all the others back there. "Where's Hank?" La Brava muttered to herself while spinning back from the others and firing towards the loud castle again. "Fuck, fuck fuck. We didn't bring anyone down here. So… Mark! Damn it. MARK!" La Brava spun her turret and aimed towards a man farthest back out of their tanks rushing the castle over a mile away.

She fired past the front of a humvee that swerved a bit, Access spinning his head and looking back at La Brava like she was crazy. La Brava started making frantic hand motions though at someone past them, and Access looked forward and his eyes widened before he spun the wheel in the direction of the man who stopped rushing forward to look back at the crazy woman shooting explosions at him. _I'm a soldier not a doctor damn it!_ Mark thought as he understood the injured signals La Brava was motioning directly at him. Mark started running back, then he changed directions towards the humvee driving his way. Grabble kept firing from the automatic turret on top to give Mark cover as he ran up and jumped into the passenger seat, then the humvee spun around to get the man back to the main portion of the army.

Mark was actually going to be brought behind the main portion now though, as the Army of Death was charging forward across the desert where less bullets were flying and less mortars were going off every second. They made way for the humvee so Mark could go and stop Blackstar's bleeding as well as a couple of others who got hit so far, but more than fifty people kept sprinting forward over the desert on foot in the direction of the three huge colors they saw up ahead.

Darling jumped up on legs of springs and fired four rifles sticking out of her arms at different parts on the walls. She jumped again and this time much higher up to get an angle on the front gates of the huge building of sand and sandstone. All the sand towers around the building started falling, the tornadoes collapsing and breaking apart as a wave of Death had sucked into one and knocked out Sandstorm whose comrades started shouting at him inside the sand castle. Michael stopped charging forward as a lion for a second and loaded up another grenade into his assault rifle's grenade launcher. The last one he had fired was thrown off course by the fast winds of the Sandstorm, but now he had a clear shot. Death looked back to motion at him to do it only to see Michael firing already.

"Go go go!" Zach yelled, and his body with a thin but incredibly dense aura of Death around him turned into a pillar of darkness. Gentle pressed multiple Gently Rebounds behind him, compressing the air more and more and then leaning far back into it, as far as he could which was farther than usual surrounded in a bright pink aura of Love. Exodus aimed his hands behind him, his whole body surrounding in a white aura, and he fired two white beams out behind him that blasted his body forward at the front gates of the castle. A grenade slammed into the castle's gate and exploded on contact, and Exodus ripped through the left side of the entrance, Gentle smashed through the right side, and Death busted in from the middle. Bullets fired from Darling's rifles between the three of them, the best shot in the entire Army of Death sniping straight past the others and into the villains who all turned and started running at the horrifying sight before them. The exploding door slammed into villains, and Death and his commanders started their rampage in the castle of the Immortals.

* * *

 **A/N Thanks for reading! Fwew, this one took a while to write, and just about 5 hours to go over completely editing and spellchecking and the works. Originally I just had 3 ideas for stuff the Army of Death could be doing as a couple of scenes, but by the time I was done with the casino part I realized I either split it up or make it into a bunch of smaller chapters. Went with going all at once so I hope you guys enjoyed this chapter that is over a third of 100,000 words. Gonna reach that 2 million mark in no time XD! Anyway, when I started up the Army of Death chapters I considered doing more time skips (like I did with the very beginning of it from when Zach left the Lifebringer Incident until Mongoloid). I kept having so many ideas though for Army of Death chapters to actually develop everybody more and have a lot of fun writing these, and they were all things that were going to happen anyway but that I had originally considered just making as mentions later on (and possibly flashbacks). I'll try not to let the story lag, and I think this chapter was fun as we see a lot of different aspects of the Army of Death, Zach, his relationships with his comrades... really, just a whole lot of stuff happened here as we get what probably amounted to a single day in total. Well, let me know in a review what you think of the chapter! Finals week next week so might be another slow one but you can bet I'll be procrastinating enough to get another chapter out soon! Been editing for 5 hours straight now so I'm holding off on review responses this week (chapter's long enough as is anyway). See you soon!**


	117. Chapter 117

**Disclaimer: I don't own Boku no Hero Academia**

 **Chapter 117:**

In an office in Endeavor's Kyoto agency, the top hero in all of Japan sat behind his desk while staring at the wall across from him. The wall was split into four different images that he was watching, a remote in his right hand and a keyboard in front of him for him to control the screens with. At the top of the screens were the letters ADTF written in thick green font, and the bottom of the wall were a few dozen tiny square boxes with pictures of heroes in them used as icons showing who the videos had been shared with.

Faint translucent letters covered the screens that were separated by a blue background. 'CONFIDENTIAL' was written across Endeavor's wall, and he watched the confidential clips that were kept from public release for several reasons. Some of them were too gruesome, some were considered too controversial and would cause too much public unrest, and Endeavor did not care one way or the other whether he was the only one viewing them or not. His flaming eyebrows narrowed, as he glared at the top right screen on his far wall where he saw an amateur video clip taken in a desert in North Africa. His eyes shifted from a vehicle rolling on its side that a dark figure just smashed down on top of, over to a clip on the left showing a dark security camera footage of a street in Sueguon where a couple of black SUVs crashed into an invisible wall. A figure in a purple visor with a cape of the same color dropped down and took a bunch of gunfire point blank like it was nothing, then the SUVs fell through the street before another man ran up and replaced the road in seconds. The man in purple grabbed the other one and bounced up into the sky out of the camera's view, and a few seconds later heroes and police started rushing into the location from different directions before all looking around confusedly for an answer explaining what had happened.

Endeavor looked down to a clip that just switched to a vertical video taken of Death in a city in Egypt. He frowned as he watched the dark figure covered in knives and swords walking through a group of people who were not doing anything to stop him, despite there clearly being heroes and police in the area. Endeavor looked down at a report on his desk to try and shift his attention for a moment, but even the new report was not helping him out at all. _Anonymous tips have become the main source of information gathering for heroes. Coming in more than ever. It's like all villain activity around the world is being reported by locals fed up with what's happening. Except…_

Endeavor flipped the page that had ADTF labeled at the top in all green letters, and he ground his teeth angrily at the phone logs he saw of conversations in different languages in different countries around the world. The format of certain conversations were similar, too similar, nearly identical. _They're so specific. Normal witnesses, anonymous callers wouldn't know so much without digging themselves. They try making it out like they just recognize villains they saw on tv, in the news, but it's oddly familiar. I've seen them talking about anonymous tips on the news as a huge things, but if this is true-_ Endeavor lifted his head and glared towards his door where one of his sidekicks just ran in. His eyes stopped looking so dark as the woman who ran in was one who he allowed into the loop on the Anti-Death Task Force's operations.

"Sir," Olympia began. The woman in a tight red costume with a red beanie on and a belt of weapons around her waist glanced at the wall covered in screens of Death for a moment. "He was spotted, last night in the Amazon," Olympia reported. Endeavor ground his teeth and slammed a fist down on his desk, a desk luckily made for when he got angry and could take the hit without completely breaking apart.

"Last night," Endeavor repeated in annoyance. "So whoever saw him waited this long to say anything. He's long gone…" Endeavor opened up his clenched fist and he stared down at the clip on the bottom left of the wall that illuminated as someone else in the ADTF who was also examining the clips highlighted it. Endeavor enlarged the clip himself and watched as Death climbed into a helicopter in a town full of people who were shouting something at the helicopter lifting out of the city.

The vertical video was shaking, and the people were all starting to chant the same thing as Death flew off into the sky in his helicopter. The helicopter rose higher and higher up towards a dark cloud, and Endeavor ground his teeth as he saw that cloud again which he had noticed in a couple of videos now. His bottom lip slowly lowered though at the sight of the new clip he had not watched all the way through yet. He stood up and stared forward while his sidekick dropped her jaw too, both of them just gawking at the shimmering air just below that dark cloud. The helicopter changed course a bit to go to the side of the massive black airship with huge propeller engines around the sides of the low curved hull. The sky darkened more around the ship, and the helicopter rose past its side and disappeared above it, dipping out of sight.

Then the ship vanished again as it rose into and above the dark clouds that had thickened out of nowhere. The people chanting around the town started shouting louder, and the shaky vertical camera pointed around at the others who were all yelling the same thing in their town that Death had just arrived in while its heroes were faring badly against a gang of villains. Endeavor finally closed his jaw and he darted his eyes around all the people in the streets whose words he did not understand. "What are they saying?" he questioned his sidekick.

Olympia studied several different languages which was one of the reasons he chose her to help him in the international Task Force. The woman watching the screen had her eyes narrowed at the Egyptians cheering, though she no longer blamed the heroes around them for not trying to stop Death. She turned her head to the side and responded in a low mutter, "'Praise Death.'"

* * *

"…Whatever your opinions on the matter, keep them to yourselves. The UNGA has labeled this group unanimously as terrorists. That means every one of our countries has given us the order to take them down. Prepare yourselves to do just that."

Endeavor glared ahead in an intense way at the room full of heroes he was in. There was a projector behind him and several webcams set up on tables in front of the rows of seats filled with dozens of heroes. The laptops pointed at the projector had the faces of some heroes on them, men and women in different planes like Endeavor's who were flying from different parts of the world where they had suddenly gathered with the ADTF of their continent. Five planes of heroes listened to the designated leader of the Anti-Death Task Force, Japan's Number 1 hero, Flame Hero: Endeavor. "This is the first time we've called everyone together, because we don't ever get opportunities like this. This is the first time we've known where the Army of Death will be and when they will be there. We all want to get back to our countries and make sure to stop any villains who emerge while we're gone, but if we can deal with this today then we do not have it hanging over our heads any longer."

Endeavor wanted to get back to Japan himself. He had called in all of the heroes on-call with the ADTF who he had been in contact with over the past few months. Only one in the whole world had not responded to his summons about taking on the Army of Death, and that was a Turkish hero who was currently in the hospital which Endeavor only heard about after calling for him and not getting a response. On the plane in front of Endeavor were the other Japanese heroes on the Task Force, the Chinese who had almost as many, a couple of Koreans, as well as heroes from southeast Asia, India, and all over Oceania. "We know very little about the actual members of the Army of Death, as we have yet to acquire any footage of them without their helmets on. However, there are members whose identities we have ascertained, be it through voice recognition, sources, or the reports from heroes who have worked with them so far."

Endeavor ground his teeth in frustration as he did not like giving a presentation like this. It was annoying, and he wanted to designate the task to someone else, but there was no one else who could hold the attention of all the big-shot heroes he had called in himself. He had to take the time out to brief each of them himself. The slideshow flipped behind him so the projector showed a picture of a man in a black suit, combed-over brown hair, a smile on his face with an I.D. badge on a lanyard around his neck. He was in his early twenties in the picture, and he looked like a normal man with a boring job as the badge he wore had 'Analyst' written on it and just a picture of his face looking just like it did in the picture they had of him. "Mark Smith," Endeavor started while everyone looked at the boring man with brown hair on the screen. "His real name is unknown. He went by this name as an operative for the Central Intelligence Agency. Then he went rogue. All records of him before he was an agent were wiped, and all the files that we have been granted by the U.S. government…"

On the screen the picture moved to only cover up one half of it, and a report popped up on the other half instead. Another report popped up over the first one, and then another, and everyone stared intensely at the reports that appeared one by one with very little uncovered by thick black lines. "His mission files are all redacted. Confidential even to us and I haven't been able to go through the hoops to get the UN to order them unblocked."

"Sorry about that," Star-Spangled Man chimed in. "I have tried pressuring my government as well, however there are many steps to even creating a hearing to consider an inquiry for-"

"I thank you for the attempt," Endeavor said, cutting off Star-Spangled Man not in a rude way, but sounding appreciative yet telling him they were short for time. Star-Spangled Man nodded on the other side of his laptop screen from the North American ship, and he stayed quiet to allow Endeavor to continue with the brief. "This mystery agent, Mark Smith, has a Quirk that allows him to control all liquids. Liquid Control is extremely powerful and dangerous, however thanks to the Army of Death's 'no fighting heroes' rule, I do not expect him to use it to kill us."

The gruff man surrounded in his flames grunted after saying it. He flipped to the next slide without another word on Mark Smith or on what he just mentioned about the Army of Death's rule against fighting heroes. He had already told them all to keep their mouths shut about personal opinions on it so no one had anything to say as much as they were all pondering their purposes on this mission. Endeavor turned to a slide that showed a man with short blond hair, who had a very muscular body that was revealed since in the picture of him he was not wearing a shirt.

The tall man with blue eyes was not flexing in the picture but his muscles were bulging. His expression was straight, his lips flat and his gaze serious, instead of having a smile like the CIA operative which now seemed so fake to the heroes who had seen it. This man did not look to be hiding anything though. His expression looked genuine, like he was showing them exactly who he was without hiding anything. In his eyes was a look that some considered crazy, while others could just see such a strong intensity that looked like it was always in those eyes. The serious man in the picture was not facing the camera directly, but was sitting on a chair with a needle sticking into his arm and an i.v. next to his chair that he was plugged into.

"Exodus," Endeavor said, looking back at the picture himself with a dark glare. "His Quirk, Light, is another with incredible power. We discerned his identity because his name was caught in several locations, and his Quirk is unique enough that it was clear the other Exodus with that Quirk was the same man. I repeat, he is incredibly dangerous. He was part of a program designed to create super soldiers who could use powerful Quirks for a country that has requested I keep them unnamed in exchange for this information. The program was shut down, when nearly everyone involved was judged 'Guilty' by Exodus. Those who weren't, survived to tell of how he executed dozens before leaving the program. Since that time, he had not been seen again for several years until the emergence of the Army of Death. We do believe he joined them only after their invasion of Saudi Arabia and deposal of Mongoloid, yet he is still believed to be one of their top members from what we have heard about his proximity to Death in most appearances."

Another slide appeared on the screen with a blue background and humanoid silhouette in it with a question mark in the middle. "Rebel," Endeavor said, and the picture moved to the side of the screen to show dozens of windows popping up on the slideshow. There were pop-up ads, and then reports with information mixed around and the letters rearranged next to the original copies. There were anonymous phone call records sent from different countries around the world with transcripts that had certain parts highlighted to show how similar they were to each other. Then a large number of reports of police stations' firewalls getting broken through appeared, followed by similar reports showing cameras had been hacked, or transportation had been delayed by some technical glitch in the system that was no glitch at all considering the same glitch happened all over the world whenever Death was in an area.

"Do we think they know we're coming for them?" Snowgun, a Finnish hero questioned as he went over all the information appearing on his screen below Rebel's name. "Is that why you have us moving so quickly so as not to even meet up beforehand?"

"He's good," Crack said. Another American hero, the short-blue-haired woman scratched her chin with an impressed yet uncertain look on her face as she looked at the work of another hacker. _Better than me,_ she thought. "If he has our phone lines tapped…"

"We doubt he does," Endeavor said. "All of the times he has entered the systems of police stations or hero agencies he has been very quick to leave those systems to avoid being back-traced. A man that careful would not risk staying tapped on any of our phones."

 _Let's hope so._

 _Even if he does, it doesn't mean we're heading into a trap._

 _The Army of Death isn't after us._

 _We have the drop on them._

 _Endeavor sounds confident about all of this,_ Gilgamesh thought. The Japanese hero felt a bit out of place among the other heroes from his country around him, as even the two youngest heroes in their group were much higher ranked than him on the country's most recent hero leaderboard. Gilgamesh focused on the Flame Hero ahead of him, _Never thought I'd ever be able to work with him a couple years ago. Now…_

Endeavor took a pause and then put the next figure up on the screen. In an all black costume, with hilts sticking out over his shoulders, with a katana behind his waist, and knives strapped all over his body. They were on his sides on straps over his shoulders and just stuck to the sides of his costume under his arms, around his waist all over the belt that also had a few hilts of sidearms on it. His costume was all black, his helmet's visor too, and the picture of the man they had was caught from the front in the middle of walking forward. His shoulders were fairly broad though not too wide, but despite him being more than a few inches under six feet tall, his appearance was menacing.

"Death," Endeavor started. The picture on the screen moved to the side but did not cover half of it this time, instead shrinking down a bit to only cover the bottom left corner so another picture could appear above it. A picture of a teenager with a scar under his right eye and a split on his left ear appeared above Death's picture. "We have not confirmed it, but there is a high possibility that Zach Sazaki, otherwise known as Lifebringer, is Death. Death has been witnessed in action on several occasions, and his Quirk is similar if not the same as the missing Sazaki's."

The eight other Japanese heroes in the airship with Endeavor all stared intensely towards the screen and the boy who had been missing for over half a year now. Lemillion's eyes narrowed and his usual smile was noticeably missing from his face. Kamui Woods' eyes got darker as he looked at the picture of Lifebringer which switched to a different picture showing him in a dark costume outside of the War Boys' base, a similarly dark costume on with knife sheaths around it. _To think that was not even a year ago,_ Kamui Woods thought, his lips in a deep frown behind his wooden mask.

"If this is Sazaki or not, is not important. What matters is avoiding all physical contact with Death. His Quirk, which we will call Death unless we can confirm that it is not Sazaki, can knock anyone out with the slightest touch. Not only of your body, but any Quirk you may be controlling with your mind. Any part of you can be affected by Death if the dark strands of his power touch you." Endeavor paused and then another image appeared on the side of the screen leaving Lifebringer and Death's pictures still up there. "These advanced stun guns and shock-net cannons will be available options any hero can use to capture Death safely. He is the one we need to capture more than anything, though we will not allow the rest of the Army of Death to escape…"

Endeavor cut off everything that was on the screen and covered it instead with the pictures of Kazania which were originally used to label the Army of Death as a terrorist organization. Then that picture moved to the side and got covered by another showing a flipped-over jeep in the sand with the cabin half-crushed and a man slumped into the steering column with blood all over him. Then a picture of an alley in Korea with a man in two halves slumped on opposite sides of the alley. Another picture of a young man dead in a warehouse in America with some caution tape around him, and then a picture of the burnt rubble of a building with an arm sticking out of it, and then another picture, and another, and another. "They think themselves heroes," Endeavor continued darkly. "They act without oversight, they kill, they flee from the scene of the crime. They invade nations and pressure heroes and authorities to work with them, the same as any villain group would. They have weapons…" Another picture appeared on the screen showing a distant but focused image of a massive ship with a helicopter flying towards it. "They have a large number of followers, upwards of eighty to even a hundred of them, though we have never had reports of more than sixty in any one location."

"The Army of Death is treating this world like it has no order. It acts as if there is no control over the villains, no other way to stop them. But there is a right way. A way that they ignore. And their way, is a way that we can _not_ ignore."

* * *

"I just want to repeat myself, again," Gentle said, sitting down on a log and leaning back as a fire burned on the ground in front of him. "That this is a very, very bad idea."

"Thank you for at least saying it in a private comms link this time," Zach replied from a different part of the campsite. He was near the east edge of it, staring up into the sky that had thick white clouds covering it that were a little grayer in some areas. There was some strong wind blowing around, and they were at a high elevation, though all of Panzerstan was pretty high in elevation even not up in the mountains. Zach stood near the edge of the camp where a dozen of their vehicles had been re-painted for winter camo, something they did not do often but did for this mission. The tents set up were all white too, though the majority of the actual soldiers were still wearing black armor with only a few wearing white coats over their already thick armor.

There were a couple dozen fires set up around the snowy campground they established. The Cloak was not in sight but hidden a few miles away by its cloaking system. The Army of Death was gathered out in the middle of the open, and all of them were sitting around on logs or rocks, or on metal crates they had taken out of their vehicles and set up near their campsite. There were two trucks in the mix of vehicles they had out there that they were able to bring a lot of supplies in, and they had this campsite set up for almost two hours now. Above some of the fires to keep warm, metal grates had been set up and some of the soldiers were grilling up some food, though they still had their helmets on for now and were only going to take them off if they started eating.

"High risk high reward, Gentle," Zach said after just taking a moment to breathe out a thick white breath of steam in front of his helmet. "Just keep calm, and stay ready." Zach lifted a hand and changed his helmet's communications line himself to a different private conversation. "Fillian. Hideaway. How are things going?"

"No change," Fillian replied. "I don't see any indication that they're worried about you. Thermal readings normal." Fillian lay flat in the snow, wearing heavy winter gear that kept him fully camouflaged just like the man at his side. Hideaway did them one better though on top of their camo-gear, as with his Quirk, Fillian would not even be able to know he was there, or anyone he might be hiding. They were invisible as long as Hideaway kept his hand on Fillian, as he had been doing so for the past three and a half hours before the Army of Death even started making their current campsite. "Even if they know, they're not leaving."

"Keep watching. Any change hail me."

"Understood, Commander."

Zach took in a deep breath and he switched his comms back to a line connected to everyone in his camp. "Everyone look more relaxed. As off-guard as you can be. They might already be around us. Just waiting for their moment."

"We haven't had any sign of them yet though, right?" Grabble asked.

"We won't until we're trapped," Michael replied, then he lifted his helmet off and reached forward to his campfire. He grabbed a stick with a rabbit he caught himself cooking on it, and though it was still a bit raw he brought it back to his sharp teeth and dug into it.

Access and Grabble both looked at him from around their fire and wondered how he looked so uncaring as he devoured that rabbit after what he just said.

"Don't be afraid," Darling said. "Death will protect us."

Zach was glad she said it. He did not want to be the one to have to reassure them all, again, and he was glad he had someone who believed in him so much telling the others that.

Zach pushed his right foot into the floor and twisted it through the snow and into the dirt. The ground was covered in a light coating of snow that was powdery and not melting since it was so cold in Panzerstan in late January. Zach rose up his hands and he rubbed his black gloves together, then he lifted his head and stared up towards the clouds where a dozen hover-jets started dropping out of the sky fast. They were high-tech vehicles that all looked crazy smooth with slick designs, powerful glowing blue lights sticking out of the backs and bottoms of them, and they were fast but could stop moving at any point and change direction while staying in place in the air.

The Army of Death shot up to their feet. Everyone jumped as the jets shot out of the sky, and they all resisted the urges to run or to even reach for their weapons. They were getting surrounded, and Death said quickly while everyone else stayed silent, "Rebel, get me in. Quickly. Right now!"

"It's- almost- Done!" Rebel finished typing so fast that his fingers had looked like blurs to the two men looking at him with dropped jaws. Then he leaned back and smirked, _Damn I'm good._

"Endeavor," Zach said, his voice modulated to a much deeper tone as he suddenly hailed the ships above him.

Death's voice was calm. He did not sound surprised even only five seconds after the heroes started descending on them. The soldiers down below were standing and looking up towards the ships, but they were not panicking or running away or even getting ready to fight either.

 _It's a trap!_

 _They knew we were coming!_

 _Someone snitched!_

 _Those fucking Brits-_

 _Damn Americans-_

 _I knew the Russians couldn't be trusted._

 _How did they know we were coming?_

 _What is wrong with all of them?!_

 _Did someone turn on us?_

Endeavor glared at the console in front of him while he yanked back on his sticks and stopped his rapid descent. "Hold," he commanded. As the entire Anti-Death Task Force thought rapidly about what was happening or even already blaming each other for handing off information to Death, Endeavor's eyes focused solely on his radio in front of him on his jet with twelve heroes on it. "What?" Endeavor asked, growling it in anger as he answered his own comms link that Death was suddenly speaking on. "Did you know we were coming?"

"I want to talk, Endeavor," Death replied. "Please, there's no need to fight. Let's just talk first."

Death stared straight up at the ships, stepping away from his campsite and out into the more open white tundra away from it.

"Endeavor. Even if this is a trap," the Number 2 hero in the UK, Governor Dengar, had stopped his ship too but kept glaring down with an intense expression. "They won't fight us. Let's move in."

"I agree," Fuzzman said. The Indian hero behind Endeavor on his own ship stepped ahead after looking over the side and down at the soldiers all waiting for them. "They still don't look ready for a fight. If we move now-"

"Everyone back up," Endeavor said. All the heroes around the sky shifted their attentions over towards Endeavor's hover-jet that he started pulling back in the direction that Death was walking from his campsite all alone. _This doesn't make any sense._ "Land behind me. Wait for my orders-"

"I don't take orders from-"

"On this Task Force you do," Endeavor declared it in a deep, even threatening voice as he turned his head. Endeavor glared over towards the Americans' hover-jet that had fourteen of them on it, the country with the most heroes on the force than any other.

Star-Spangled Man stepped to the front of his jet. The top American hero reached down and grabbed the shoulder of the pilot and third ranked hero in his country who glared back at the man who had only recently surpassed him on their nation's hero leaderboards. "Understood, Endeavor. We're following your lead."

"Alright Death, let's talk."

"Move behind him."

"Are we really landing?"

"Bring the capture cannons and stun guns with you as you get out."

"He said to land, not get out of our jets."

Rebel smirked while listening to the communications lines of the heroes. He said in a smug voice to the Army of Death, "These guys ain't a team. They've got no dynamic; sounds like they've never worked with each other before. Might not be great though, seems a few are looking to be the ones to get Death."

"That's what they get only meeting up once to-"

"Everyone stay off the line," Zach said in calmly, as much as he wanted to shout it. He had a bead of sweat on the side of his face and some more on his forehead, but he spoke calmly to his men who he needed to stop distracting him. "Rebel keep listening but only warn me if they're about to attack."

Death stopped thirty meters from the edge of his camp. He closed his eyes, his heart rate speeding up more and more, and then he opened them back up inside his helmet. His red eyes looked up through his dark visor to tint everything in his vision the same color. _Think faster. Don't mess up. Everything's on the line._

"Death, something's happening. People are heating up, looks like they're getting worried and moving around a lot."

"They know. Alright, I'll move fast," Zach replied to Fillian, his deep voice a bit scratchier as his red eyes flared more in his helmet.

"We're going to be pressed for time. Everyone prepare yourselves. Remember the plan."

"Death, we're coming up on your six."

Zach turned his helmet the slightest amount and darted his eyes back behind him. His red eyes narrowed and darkened at the sight of six people heading in his direction. Mark was the one who said it to him, but Gentle, La Brava, Exodus, Darling, and Jetflame were all walking with him towards their leader who had not ordered them to do so. He glared at his comrades yet kept his mouth shut, as he felt the six of them were about to ignore his orders and keep going until they were right behind him. "No one else move up. They may feel threatened and ruin everything," Zach said it directed at anyone _else_ considering moving forward, but at the same time he was throwing shade at his comrades who just kept walking towards him and ignoring the tone of his voice.

 _You've got too much faith in heroes,_ Jetflame thought. The former hero had been one for over fifteen years, and he did not trust leaving Death all alone with the entire Task Force of heroes from all around the world. _The Task Force is made up of heroes in places where heroes use as sneaky of tactics as we do. The majority are from the U.S., Japan, China, and home, but we don't know the exact numbers. They have a lot though. Way more than I was hoping for._

 _We just need them to stay calm for a minute,_ Mark thought as he walked forward on Jetflame's left. _There's very little holding off the heroes right now. Endeavor accepting Death's request to talk shows he understands better than most what we're doing. Even if he doesn't agree, he realizes there's a reason for this._

 _The Army of Death knew you were coming but stayed anyway,_ La Brava thought, trying to calm herself down even as she walked towards a dozen landing jets full of heroes. _Think about it you morons. We always get out fast. Ask why we're here. Just ask! That's what heroes are good at right? Asking first then shooting, not shooting first and asking questions later?! Right?!_

Gentle wanted to put a hand down on La Brava's shoulder for a moment as he could feel her hesitation and fear radiating off his side. He stayed calm himself though and just walked forward in a confident, steady way. _A stupid idea,_ he added to himself once more while keeping his lips flat. He had a white fur coat on over his purple cape, though his dark purple visor was still visible on his black helmet to distinguish him from the others around him. He was also the only one in the group of six dark figures who moved up to only eight meters behind Death who had on a white coat and gloves, very fashionable ones at that.

 _Vantage points to the east, west, though flanking positions look empty for now. Defensive powers are ready at those flanks for a full retreat. Support is keeping watch on the rear between the camp and The Cloak._ Exodus stared intensely towards Death's back. _I will not allow you to fall here. Under any circumstances._

 _Do it Zach! I believe in you!_ Darling pursed her lips with the corners pulled up so much as she watched a man stepping out of the hover-jet directly in front of Death. _You can do this! I know you can!_

Endeavor stomped out of his jet and started forward with flames surrounding him in his hero costume. The snow melted below his feet and made it so he was walking forward through puddles and wet dirt turning to mud. His feet heated up more as he moved forward, and his eyes surrounded in flames shifted behind Death to the visors of the figures who had come close to him but still left a gap.

Mark's visor had shifted a tiny bit down when he saw Endeavor melting the snow, then sweat dripped down his face as the hero glared straight through his visor and into his eyes. The wet ground below Endeavor's feet dried out on his next step, the melted snow heating up more and evaporating by the time Endeavor picked his foot back up again. The action mixed with that glare had Mark's heart pounding, but he stood still and calmed himself despite what he now believed the heroes knew.

Heroes got out of the landed hover-jets behind Endeavor and moved forward. Death's closest comrades stayed a certain distance behind their Commander, and the heroes who got out of Endeavor's hover-jet behind him stopped moving forward as Endeavor moved his right hand away from his side and opened his fist into an open hand. Instead Endeavor walked alone right up to Death before stopping with a few feet gap between them.

Popfire stared towards Death with her breathing calm and her fists steadily clenched at her sides. She stood next to Ryukyu as the pro hero's only sidekick there, and the only other Japanese sidekick other than Olympia who had come. Popfire stared at the leader of the enemy forces who had so calmly called up to Endeavor when they were in the middle of starting their operation. Death never looked towards her, and she focused harder on his figure and costume while thinking, _I can't tell if Endo's right or not. He thinks it's him for sure…_

 _I cannot tell,_ Suneater stood next to Lemillion close to Endeavor's back while other heroes moved up behind them. He did not like how big the crowd was getting around him and he had his shoulders slouched instead of broad and intimidating like Lemillion next to him. _Red Riot's positive though. I don't want to be here. I should've just told Mirio I didn't want to do this. He's not in any real danger if it's fighting Death, I think._

Best Jeanist had his arms down at his sides and was carefully watching his enemies behind Death. He saw them looking down the growing line of heroes too, but when he looked behind them back towards the Army of Death's campsite, the Army of Death were starting to do something else. _They're packing up. They have to know there is no way they would escape, and why wait for us to arrive before packing? No, they're unloading too. Guns. They keep looking this way but tearing their eyes away like they want to come over… What is happening right now? When faced with overwhelming numbers of some of the top heroes in the world, what could they be thinking?_ Best Jeanist darted his eyes around but was unable to figure out what those people were doing.

The third ranked hero in Japan's eyes refocused back on the group of six just behind Death. _Among them are the clothing sizes for Mark Smith and Exodus. Endeavor noticed the one who is likely Mark looking towards the water at his feet. His blood control is a frightening concept. More so than controlling fibers, he could move our bodies to his whims. Perhaps. Or, if he attempts to start controlling our blood, it may already be too late. Taking him down quickly…_

 _Dengar is here. Couple others,_ Jetflame examined the British heroes all moving forward at once. _A few higher up than Titan was, and Oars moved up to my old spot taking 6th with my "disappearance." Wonder if they'll realize it's me down there. Hopefully not, but I'm not holding back just so they won't. There is no holding back today._

Mark's eyes shifted around all the heroes fast. They did not know the exact make-up of Endeavor's ADTF though most of the heroes involved had publicly stated that they were involved in the Task Force. _A few French and Italians with the UK heroes. All the Americans we accounted for are here, two brought sidekicks. More than Japan has. US, Japan, then… China. Eight in total from China, nine form Japan including Endeavor. Only one from Australia, couple Indonesia, a few from the Central African Coalition, Egypt's got three? Endeavor had an excess of heroes to call on then, maybe he told a few to stay less vocal in the first place to surprise us. He picked not just offensive capable ones too. Big margin for error here._

 _Ivory shouldn't have backed out,_ Endeavor thought. _I need to know what they're thinking right now. The rest of the Brazilian team all came, but he was my first choice. If only we had gotten this information a week ago, before the Amazon incident. What did they do to make you pull out?_ Endeavor stared at Death after stepping straight up to him, and then he said in a deep voice, "Surrender."

"Endeavor," Death began. His voice was no longer scratchy though still in its modulated tone as he spoke to the hero in charge of the Anti-Death Task Force. _If I mess up here everything's over._ The thought did not help with Zach's nerves at all, and it actually made him hesitate for an extra second at the idea of his entire army getting thrown into prison. Then his eyes narrowed in his helmet, losing their red glow while he let out a long breath that hovered in front of his helmet as he let it out in the cold air. The thought of getting thrown into prison did not scare him very much, despite having thought that was why all that pressure was suddenly on him. Instead, Zach's eyes shifted down to the floor, and in his head he saw all the places he had been to in the past few months. He saw a thousand faces, and he saw the city of Paris, and he saw the bodies of those who had followed him until now. His eyes rose right back up to look in Endeavor's.

"I didn't come here to surrender to you," Death continued.

The recently-named fifth ranked hero in Japan, Lemillion, stood silently on the side of the hero he had bumped back to sixth place. He and Kamui Woods both got more ready looks on their faces to fight at the sound of Death's last statement and the tone in his voice. The terrorist speaking English spoke darkly and in a fake deep voice, yet his conviction came through the helmet and chilled some of even the strongest heroes in the world more than the cold air around them already was.

"Your intention, is of no importance to me," Endeavor replied. His tone was confrontational, and threatening, and it sounded to the heroes behind Endeavor like he was telling Death to get ready for a fight. "Your group, Death, is a terrorist organization. You are all under arrest."

"Listen to me," Death said. He glared straight up into Endeavor's eyes and took in a deep breath. "Will you just listen, for a second? You have more people than we do. Look around, we're not running."

"You wouldn't escape even if you did try to run," Endeavor replied. Then he hesitated, before growling in a lower voice, "Why did you come here? And if you knew we were coming, why didn't you leave?"

"Because there's a reason you knew we would be here," Death replied. Endeavor ground his teeth behind his lips as it was the response he did not want to hear the most that came out of Death's mouth. Some of the other heroes behind him were partially expecting to hear it, but the majority looked at Death confusedly and then with their eyes growing huge as he continued. "No credible information about us has gotten out to you for months, and suddenly you knew when and where we'd be? I did that on purpose, hoping you would come quickly with the strongest group of heroes in the world to take me on. No one else could ever gather a group like that on their own at such short notice, but the Army of Death moves quickly from one place to another, so you would have to gather everyone fast and come here quickly. So quickly, that there would be no time to inform all the governments and people you report to where you're going, so it would hopefully be only heroes to know the location. I hoped you wouldn't tell everyone before they left where exactly we were going too, so they couldn't report-"

"Why?" Endeavor asked. The single word was followed by a heavy silence as Endeavor's fists clenched at his sides. They shook, his flames grew around him, and all of the heroes behind Endeavor got more ready as they planned to either attack or defend from whatever trap they were in. They all realized with every word out of Death's mouth that they had been put in this situation by the plans of a terrorist who now had them all isolated in an open area with barely anyone who knew where they actually were.

"Because right over that ridge," Death started with a nod behind all the heroes and to an upward slant a couple miles away that they could not see over from there. He continued, "…and forty meters below the ground, is the headquarters of the League of Shadows."

 _League of Shadows?_ Kamui Woods looked straight towards Death in utter confusion before shifting his eyes back towards that ridge Death had nodded at which he never looked at closely the first time.

Endeavor's shaking fists froze at his sides. He did not know what he was expecting, but that was very far from it. _The League… of Shadows,_ Endeavor turned his head and looked to his right back behind his jets and fellow heroes and over towards a ledge.

"The League of Shadows is a myth," Blitz called out. The American hero who was ranked third in the country was over sixty years old, and he was once known as one of the strongest heroes in the entire world back when he had been in his prime as the top American hero. After his decades of hero work, he had never once confirmed the existence of the League of Shadows, and he had only heard the rumors from people he never trusted or believed. Just like he was hearing from another untrustworthy source now. _They're trying to get out of being captured. That's all this is!_

 _Our numbers surpass the Army of Death's,_ Endeavor looked back forward at Death who was looking straight at him through his visor. _Though there are more than the eighty I'd predicted. Closer to that hundred mark, maybe even more. Still I planned for an error, and we have a hundred and thirty eight of the best heroes the world has to offer here right now. Death, knew I would bring all those heroes here right now, to what? What does he think is going to happen here?_

"Your group is as strong, if not stronger than the Army of Death," Death said to the leader of the ADTF standing in front of him. "And we can take them down together."

 _Is Death serious?_ Tamaki Amajiki stared straight at Death with a nervous and disbelieving look covering his face. _I don't even know what he's talking about. League of Shadows? Are they like the League of Villains?_

"The League of Shadows isn't real," Endeavor said to the shorter figure before him. "And even if they were, do you really think we would-"

"They are real," Death countered to the man before him who looked annoyed by the interruption but started glaring at Death to continue. "They are the rulers of the criminal underworld. The very top of all villains in the world," Zach paused and then continued to Endeavor who kept glaring at him but who Zach could see was actually listening despite that angry look. "Khan's drug operation in Mongolia was connected to the League of Shadows. Digger is the one responsible for Khan's huge underground hideout, and he is the one who dug out all the long tunnels and the giant base below ground over that ridge. Their base spreads for miles, and one of my men is monitoring it right now and can verify that there are hundreds of villains just below his feet. Digger makes all the underground bases for villains around the world. He's loaned out to them to hollow out mountains, or make bases big enough to hold huge weapons caches like the ones SISIS used in Gorran. They were the ones who helped Mongoloid set up, and they paid the Syndicate to… We learned about the Shadow Bosses, the leaders of the League of Shadows who each control the biggest villain groups in the world, most of which _are_ ones you know of."

Death did not slow down and continued in an intense tone while shifting his gaze towards the Brazilian heroes, "Bolivar runs the Pueblos, who control all of the Cartels in the Americas. Even when they're warring with each other, the Pueblos operate above them all at the next level. Turbo runs the gun industry around the world, building all the illegal gun manufacturing plants that are making those old weapons so common again. Zolo controls black market trade across all continents of weapons, drugs, information, and he was the sworn brother of Kabo who had married his sister, and who we turned in to the Russian government after capturing him in Sueguon recently."

Zach knew mentioning Kabo was a double-sided sword. On one hand it made what he was saying sound a bit more substantiated, as Kabo's capture was a pretty big deal and he knew most people would have heard of it. The fact that no information ever came out about the League of Shadows though, and that this man had told them so much about it could mean two things though: either the man lied to Death to escape whatever was being done to him, or he told the truth to escape whatever was being done to him. Zach continued to the fiery man in front of him who had yet to move but was still glaring harshly at him, "King, the top mafia kingpin who all the mobs, and the largest gangs, they all know him and have to do what he says. And Eziano Mozcaccio," Death continued with this one last, his voice darker and his eyes narrowed in his helmet at Endeavor whose eyes did widen there too. "Those in the criminal world are afraid to even say his name. The leader of the assassins, the mercenaries, the hitmen, he runs them all as he has been for hundreds of years. He kills public figures and political leaders and has it look like accidents."

"You expect us to believe all of that?" Star-Spangled Man questioned, stepping forward and looking towards Death with a narrowed expression and discerning look.

"It sounds like a giant conspiracy theory," Jupiter said. The Italian hero lifted her head back and glared down her nose towards Death. "And even if there are villains underground over there, you are our target-"

Death turned his head a bit and glared with a furious look on his face towards the woman who started saying that. "Even if what I'm saying is true? I'm telling you that the most powerful villains in the world are right over there, and you'd rather fight me?" He asked it skeptically, and more noticeably in a really angry tone. "Zolo trades in secrets on government leaders, some that he creates himself if need be to get countries to do what he wants. And they have enough money that they don't need to blackmail most of the people that assist them. It's the reason I couldn't just give you information about these villains. It's why no one ever finds out anything about them, because the people you work for don't want the world knowing they exist. They've existed long before the rise of the villains, and even if the world went back to peaceful times they would still exist in the shadows doing whatever they want in ways too smart to be caught by conventional means."

"You're trying to justify all you've done," Lemillion began, and Death turned to look at the young blond hero behind Endeavor. "But whatever you've discovered does not justify the means you used to get there."

"They tried to nuke Paris," Zach said, looking straight at Lemillion as he did. He stared at the confused look on the older boy's face that matched the ones on most of the heroes around him. A few of Death's comrades behind him looked at their leader's back hesitantly. They knew Death did not want to say that, the way he had trailed off before when getting close. It made them feel like things were close to a breaking point, but at the same time him using it was a last resort that they all hoped would work too. Zach turned back to Endeavor who was looking at him in as much confusion as all the other heroes, and a small bit of disbelief though he was also feeling strangely believing of what he just heard used as a defense of the Army of Death's methods. "They hired the Syndicate, to use a kid with a Quirk similar to the power of a nuclear weapon, to blow up Paris on Christmas."

"You lie," Clueseaux called out from between the other three French heroes.

"Believe whatever you want, but it's the truth," Death replied darkly. "They wanted to restart an arms race between all the countries of the world afraid they needed powerful weapons as deterrents. They wanted to start wars indirectly, and profit off of them, and they killed that kid when they realized I wasn't going to let them do it." Zach ground his teeth angrily as he heard Fillian's voice in his ear again, "Now," he continued to the heroes who could hear the frustration in his voice, who were half frozen where they stood after hearing the pain in the deep modulated voice when talking about that kid. "Digger might be down there, and he might be making a tunnel to get the League of Shadows away, but if what we've heard is true then Digger does not move very fast. His Quirk works better for making long-term bases like theirs and not quick getaways underground. There should be some of the Shadow Bosses down there, and they likely have paper trails connecting their operations to all of the different cartels and gun manufacturers and Trigger labs. They probably have information on all the government leaders they're blackmailing, or paying, on all the corruption they control in the world that makes it so real heroes who _have_ to obey the government never know anything about them!"

Death looked from Endeavor to his right and then his left at all the heroes behind him in a pack who had gotten more and more confused and uneasy since they landed. "We're not your real enemy, the villains who've filled this world and do whatever they want are." The teen trying to convince the strongest heroes gathered from around the world was getting desperate. _The longer we're here, the more time they have to escape, or to set up defenses that we're going to die going up against._ "They didn't know you were coming, or they would have run. Instead they stayed there when it was just us, because they still think they're on the offensive. They still think they're in control, sending mercenaries and assassins after us up until just yesterday even, because they think they're the ones coming after me." Zach ground his teeth and darted his eyes around the heroes again, none of whom were arguing too strongly with him which was something he had been worried about. _None are shouting about ignoring everything I say. None are being paid by the League of Shadows, so even if Endeavor had told them- but they could have told their countries. This is the best situation I could have asked for. It's all I needed, but I just need to convince them! It's the last step!_

"But I'm the one hunting them," Zach stated firmly, his fists clenched at his sides in determination. They shook in anger and he continued, "They come after me because they know they're still stronger than I am, and maybe they're right. But they're not stronger than the Army of Death and all the strongest heroes in the world, together." Zach took a step closer to Endeavor in what was already a small gap.

"Help me, Endeavor," Death said, his head lifted up and his voice pleading despite his deep voice. "I know your job is technically to stop me, but does it have to be right now? Can you fight with us first?"

 _This could all be one big trap, to get us into a… to get us…_ Endeavor stared down into the dark visor and he could not believe what he was trying to tell himself to be cautious of. _The Army of Death doesn't fight heroes. They don't take credit for what they do; I didn't even know the Syndicate was them, but of course it was. And all that corruption in Arkistan, it was rooted out by the heroes who weren't guilty. I didn't call any of them to help us because a country so known for corruption not long ago couldn't be trusted for this. A nuclear weapon? War? Why keep these things… if they were made public, it would have been chaos. The things the villains wanted would have happened anyway on a smaller scale. They kept it secret. We don't even have any reason to believe them, so it's not like we would now go and tell everyone what he told us like it was fact. Is that why he's finally said it after so long as a secret? Are all those things he said, are they all true? The League of Shadows? It's a legend, yet if they were good enough, how hard would it be for them to make themselves out like they were nothing but shadows? Chasing after them would be like chasing your own shadow if the ones we report to are reporting to…_

"They're the most powerful villains in the world. All organized crime, the biggest organized villain groups at least, they're run by the men just over there." Death paused and he started panting quietly in his helmet. "If you want to come after us afterwards fine. Go for it. But don't just ignore me because I don't follow the same rules as you. Just because I don't have a government controlling what I do, or just because I go too far. It doesn't make what I say untrue. You know, all we want to do is stop villains. That's all."

 **"Villains around the world think they can keep getting away with what they're doing, but they're wrong… We're coming for them… The Army of Death's only mission, is stopping villains…"**

 _They've never hidden their true intentions._ Endeavor stared at the man in front of him with his fists still clenched at his sides. His angry, hesitant, confused, dark expression shifted though. He stared down at Death and then he turned his head and looked behind him at all the heroes behind him who did not know what to believe, what to think about their current scenario. _From that first day, they were clear about what they wanted to do._ Endeavor took his gaze off the thoughtful heroes behind him and he looked back towards the snowy ridge instead. _This world is still, across all of it, being overrun with villains. I convinced myself the Army of Death has been hurting more than anything, making people think ignoring the rules and laws was easy and could even be good… That's still true. It's true but, real villains are clearly the priority. It's why we never gathered before this, because we're all too busy dealing with_ _ **real**_ _crime and villains who are evil._

"I believe, that you knew we were coming. That you planned on making us come here," Endeavor began slowly. The fact that they had never once received a lead this good only to run into the entire Army of Death just waiting around was something that made it easy for him to believe that much at least. "And I also, do not think you are lying just to trick us. I think, that you think you are right." Endeavor lowered his head a bit more from Death and stared down at his feet, at the dried dirt and through it into the ground.

"Death, they're on the move down there," Fillian reported. "There must be deeper tunnels, because so many new signatures keep moving in and out of my range. The cave system could be even more massive than we know."

"Alpha Team is ready," Grabble said.

"Beta awaiting orders," Seraphim added.

"Delta Team on hold," Michael reported.

"Flight Squad ready to go," Iblis addd too.

"Epsilon is set. Team leaders, you finished over there?" Sagitus asked it hesitantly, looking over towards the huge area full of heroes who he was really hoping were not about to charge at them. As he looked towards the heroes again though, his eyes with perfect vision focused in on the men and women lined up in front of Death. _Oh hell yes._

"Sending out drones," Cherasaw said from the command post in the US. He typed on his keyboard and panels on the cloaked Cloak opened up to release the swarm of small black drones into the air.

"Starting watch on everywhere for miles, make sure no one is able to slip away aboveground," Rampart said.

Endeavor lifted his gaze from the floor and back into the dark visor in front of him. He glared at Death and his eyes scanned the darkness he was trying to see the face on the other side of. "Who are you?" Endeavor asked.

Zach frowned in his helmet and his eyes narrowed at the pro hero before him. "I am Death," he replied. He knew Endeavor wanted him to take his helmet off. It sounded like he was asking as a sign of good faith for Death to take his helmet off, so they would know who they were working with. Death's response made Endeavor frown deeper, but the boy inside the helmet did not budge. "That's all." Death said it and stood there without faltering while facing one of the most powerful men in the world.

Endeavor continued glaring at Death, and then he said after a few seconds, "We're still going to capture you."

The heroes behind the Flame Hero started looking around at each other. Some of them nodded towards Endeavor's back, having decided already without needing Endeavor to say anything. Others glared at the Japanese hero who just made that declaration. Death's comrades behind him stared towards Endeavor with wide eyes for a second and then smiles that crossed on all their faces except for Exodus's. He just nodded once at the outcome he already suspected was coming considering Death was attempting to get it. "That's fine," Death replied. "Try afterwards all you want, we won't fight you." _Though we will run away._

Death turned his back on Endeavor and started jogging the other way. "Mark," Zach said as he started jogging by. Mark nodded back and moved the other way towards Endeavor who was suddenly being shouted at by a dozen different people at once behind him. The others who were behind Zach turned and started jogging with him back the other direction.

Some of the heroes quieted down and Endeavor turned his head back to look at the man in the black helmet behind him. "Rupture and Drop-Mujer. We're planning on using your Quirks, Fissure and Sinkhole to get into the caves instantly. Their headquarters is set up as an underground base with solid walls of stone and steel in some areas, long dirt tunnels in others, though we have no idea for sure what the interior looks like at the moment or its defenses. Our information could be wrong entirely, but we know that each member of the League of Shadows is not your average villain. Even to know about their existence is uncommon for most villains, to actually become a member or to work for them as security as mercenaries means an above-average skill set and usually a powerful Quirk. All of the best assassins work directly for Eziano Mozcaccio…"

Mark started announcing to the heroes who first wanted him to shut up, then got really quiet as they realized this was information they needed _right now._ They could see behind him, the entire Army of Death running to meet their leaders who had been jogging back their way. Over that army's heads flew five black drones that split off in different directions, and some of the soldiers started grabbing weapons or transforming, some spreading wings out behind them and all of them looking ominous as hell with their black armor. One of the men who had jogged away from them tossed his white coat to the side, and others did the same though more heroes stared straight at him as they confirmed what they already thought at the revealing of his long purple cloak, with the Kanji symbol 死 for Death in the middle of it.

"They know we're up here!" Death called out as his army ran up to him. Beta Squad ran behind Seraphim up to Gentle and La Brava, Michael led Delta towards Exodus, and Iblis brought some of the others who spread wings towards Jetflame before she ignited her own flaming wings and spread them behind her back. Grabble moved up in front of Death with his Pincers sticking out the top of his helmet, and a dozen soldiers behind him all ready for action. Xia and Shang stood side by side with their hands between them holding, and their muscles bulging. Flare curled her fingers in and opened them again then made fists again, and bright red lights glowed through the cracks of her fingers. All of the Army of Death looked towards their leader as he shouted at them, and they all stopped moving while keeping their intense looks and tensing up even more. "This feels like the final battle, yet we've just started! That's because we're not going to wait. We aren't going to sit around and let them keep doing whatever they want, while we try to get stronger and give them time to build up more defenses to match our strength."

Michael nodded towards Death, his teeth sharpened in his mouth and his fists clenching harder than ever at his sides. Access stood behind him with his fists clenched too, only his had steel knuckles on his black gloves that he just put on while putting the tablet he was using away on the pouch on the back of his belt. Miraculu gulped behind him but kept staring towards Death and trying to quell her own anxiety at the confidence in his voice, and it was working. She had a med-kit on either side of her belt, just like Hank who stood over with Charlie Team near Darling, though Hank had a full pack on his back full of medical supplies he was heading in with. Darling had her head turned to the left instead of facing her team, watching Zach with her eyes sparkling as he shouted at their comrades. "Assist the heroes, and even if they betray us later, don't fight any of them. I'll save any of you the heroes try arresting, but right now it's time to face the League of Shadows. The ones who created Mongoloid and his Demons…"

Yusef nodded his head and ground his teeth as he thought about his home country and what those villains did to it. The day he rose up and fought with his countrymen, and his journey chasing after the people who helped them until he finally caught up and joined them himself came to his mind, as it felt like it was all leading up to this day. Skater grabbed the sidearms at his sides tightly, his eyes narrowing darkly as he thought about that day in Jabba. He looked past Sagitus at the front of Epsilon Team and towards the heroes and their team leader Mark who had saved him and Blackstar that day. He thought for a second about his best friend who had lost his lower leg in Frunoco and who was not with them anymore. _It's payback time,_ Skater thought with his hands clenching harder on his pistols' hilts.

"The ones who hired the Syndicate to nuke Paris, who made us go in without enough time to plan!" Zach ground his teeth as he riled himself up more than anyone else shouting that. It was stuck on his mind though after bringing it up to the heroes, and he yelled, "Georgia, and Juno, Akhmed, and Cee! Muhammed, Le-Q, Hummingbird! Tina, Rumble, Aces, Farid, Uni…" Every name out of Zach's mouth had the people in front of him and to his sides getting more riled up. Their teeth ground and their fingers dug into the palms of their gloves.

"Yeah!"

"For the others!"

"For Cee," Michael growled, nodding his head and then shouting out 'Yeah' when Zach called out another name.

"…For all our comrades before us who helped us reach this point!" Death yelled after listing everyone he could think of.

Dead Silence and Replay were more recent additions to the Army of Death but their fists clenched just as hard and they started yelling out with the others. "Yaaa!"

"We've fought villains before, but never on this scale. The fate of entire cities or countries rested on different fights, but the League of Shadows' influence spans the entire world! Spreading hate and chaos and _evil_ around it!" Zach rose his right fist up in front of his chest clenched so hard it was shaking, then he slammed it out to the right and a huge black wing ripped off of his back in that direction with the swing of his arm. "Today we end that terror!"

"RAAA!"

"YEAH!"

"Are you with me?!"

"RAAAAAA!" The yells did not just come from in front of Zach and on his sides. Rampart and Cherasaw yelled at the computers in front of them while their headsets were on, and Rebel was smirking wide as he leaned in towards his computer with just as intense a look even if he did not shout it out. Raylei roared at the computer console in front of her while inside The Cloak with two others in the command room who also yelled. Maelstrom leaned in as she yelled at the windshields where drone footage was showing. She was stuck at The Cloak to create a blizzard if the need arose, but she heard every word Death said and screamed in agreement with her leader. Even Fillian and Hideaway could not help but yell while they were getting up from their prone positions in the snow on the other side of the ridge.

Death turned his head and glared towards the direction of the League of Shadows' base. He glared that way while the heroes back with Mark were staring his direction with huge eyes. Then all those heroes looked back at the man with them who yelled that it was time to move before the villains made their escape. Mark turned and he started running towards the ridge-line himself, because Death started running that way and he was not going to be left behind after hearing all that. The heroes looked at Mark who had just told them how very little information they actually had on what they were running into. Then Mammoth started to transform while he ran forward, the rest of the Brazilian heroes behind him. "I get why Ivory pulled out now!" Mammoth yelled, as he stormed across the tundra and in the direction of their real enemies.

"Everyone," Endeavor began, and he started walking after Death, then broke into a jog. "This is the Anti-Death Task Force, so I can't order any of you to fight villains who aren't Death." Endeavor started sprinting, the flames around his body flaring out.

Drop-Mujer charged forward, and other Mexican and Central American heroes sprinted after her. Rupture tssked and then threw aside his reservations. He ran forward away from the other German hero with him, and she watched him go for a moment before nodding her head and sprinting after him.

Star-Spangled Man took a few steps forward and then turned around fully to face the entire force of heroes who all started arguing amongst themselves or discussing this with their comrades from their own countries. He looked around them and then yelled out, "What are you waiting for?!" All the heroes looked towards the top American hero who rose up his right fist and lifted off the ground and into the air. "Are you heroes or cowards? The League of Shadows is real! If you ever wanted to make a difference, now is the time! Are you going to let the Army of Death be the ones to save us? Let us take back our world! If we allow them to fight alone here, then we have no right to call ourselves the heroes, and them the villains." Star-Spangled Man turned and he shot off leaving a shockwave in the air behind him, flying into the mix of the Army of Death's Flight Team and stopping up near the leader of it who had his hands pointed down at his sides to blast himself forward with flames coming out of his hands.

Governor Dengar looked towards the man who Star-Spangled Man just flew up to, who was flying in a way so familiar to him. In his head appeared the picture of a man he had heard on the news a while back had disappeared, who he had been unable to get in contact with himself. _Jetflame, so this is where you were._ Dengar started running forward, the same time all of the Americans, and Canadians, and the rest of the Japanese heroes all started running forward. Outback Man started running forward as the only Australian, and the Chinese heroes nodded at each other and turned to sprint after their comrades. A hundred and thirty eight heroes sprinted or flew or moved in various ways after a hundred and four soldiers of the Army of Death who were doing the same.

Lemillion took in a deep breath and his best friend glanced at him nervously from his side, and then Suneater warned him not to rush on ahead by sinking all the way through the floor before the rest of them could get down into the caves to help. Kamui Woods looked all the way ahead straight at Death whose speech he had listened to a bit of over what Mark had been telling them. He realized in that moment something that the Army of Death had already discovered about them. _They're a real army._ The way they had all shouted together, united in a single purpose, in the comrades they had lost, it showed Kamui Woods the difference between their groups. _Even with our numbers, we could never get that way for Endeavor. Not even the Japanese heroes alone would be able to, even if it were against villains not the Army of Death. Yet Death has gotten every one of his men, and, many of us ready to fight an intense battle in… Is that really Zach Sazaki up there?_

Zach reached the top of the ridge and looked down a steeper slope before a huge flat tundra much wider than the one they had just been on where the heroes landed all their hover-jets. He looked down and saw Fillian and Hideaway standing there ready for him. His black aura surrounded his body and dark flames danced over his armor, along his arms and legs, over the top of his helmet. He let out a heavy dark breath while his heart pounded like crazy, his body full of adrenaline and his red eyes glaring at the hollow ground in front of him. _League of Shadows. Death has come for you._

* * *

 **UN Headquarters, New York**

"How can we focus on the economic crisis at a time like this?!"

"Before we can consider fixing this deficit, we need people to feel safe when they trade internationally, and Germany does not feel safe keeping up trade agreements with nations whose villains _constantly_ take shipments from us. Pirates, gangs, whatever it is, we lose the goods and no amount of insurance can make up for the-"

"Crime is going down! Villain rates are on the decline, and now we need to focus on other things like climate change and trade! The issues that we can actually do something about! Leave the villains to the heroes-"

"Your country may be safe enough that you can say such a thing, Mr. Ambassador. But you do not speak for the world, and in Indonesia we still need the support of more heroes. Stop wasting time on the floor about petty issues when we need to get to what really matters here!"

 **SLAM**

The UN General Assembly members spun and looked up the semicircular room towards the door in the middle of the top row at the far edge of the room. The center of the room down at the lowest point had a desk there with a couple of men behind it and a woman sitting in the center. They stood up with the woman standing over eleven feet tall, and she called up to the central doors of the Assembly, "Excuse me. What is the meaning of this? We are in the middle of-"

Endeavor stomped down from the doorway onto the steps leading down the round room full of ambassadors looking his way. He was in his hero costume, flames surrounding him, and ambassadors leaned away at the sight of the man. Behind him, another six heroes entered the room: Best Jeanist, Star-Spangled Man, Blitz, Outback Man, Heiping and The Wall who were the seventh and ninth ranked Chinese heroes. Endeavor stopped after stepping a few feet into the room, and his eyes shifted over the General Assembly of UN ambassadors with a dark expression covering his face. "Mikhail Krushkachev, N'dumo M'bakko, Analisé Gomez, and Xander Carmen."

The American ambassador stood from his seat with sweat covering his face. He pulled his head back with a look of panic that had his fellow ambassadors looking his way getting even wider eyes at the way he was reacting to getting called out. "You are under arrest, for the crime of collusion with the villain group- the League of Shadows. Do not-"

Xander Carmen turned to his left and reached out, grabbing the Canadian ambassador by her long brown hair and yanking her towards him as she let out a screeching scream. He spun her body in front of his and brought his right hand up to her throat as he poked his head over her right shoulder, glaring towards Endeavor with a crazed look in his eyes. His right hand's fingers connected and sharpened at the tips, and he snarled in a voice none of the other ambassadors had ever heard him use before, "I want a helicopter, and fifty million cash to-"

A blur raced by Endeavor while he was thinking of a way to end this right then and there. The woman Xander was grabbing felt his grip leave her hair, and a wind slammed into her as the blur passed by her right side. Every ambassador in the room staring towards Xander Carmen opened their eyes huge at the sight of Blitz standing where the ambassador just was, Carmen's head grabbed around the face by Blitz's right hand and pushed up in the air. Blitz slammed the ambassador down onto the table that cracked in front of him, a pissed-off look covering the sixty-two year old hero's face. "Maybe Death has the right idea," Blitz growled in fury, and the other three ambassadors who Endeavor called out rose their hands up in terror of the American hero who just ended that hostage situation in an instant.

Best Jeanist lifted his right hand, and he bound the other three ambassadors who he got a good look at their positions in the room when they lifted their hands. The hero's right sleeve of his costume and his usually popped collar were shredded, his missing collar revealing that his deep frown matched the dark look in his eyes. "The Assembly is cancelled for today," Best Jeanist announced. Police ran into the General Assembly chambers behind the heroes and started rushing to the four captured ambassadors.

Endeavor glared around the room and then called out loudly as all the ambassadors started moving. "Before you leave, I have one thing to tell all of you…"

* * *

"Endeavor! Endeavor!"

Outside of the UN headquarters in New York City, a press conference had been called by the man currently standing in front of the reporters. There were huge crowds gathered behind police lines back past the press, and a large number of American heroes stood in between those civilians and the press whose questions they were waiting to hear the answers to as well.

Endeavor stood behind a podium with his lips flat. He was never good at smiling for everyone when he felt they needed it, though this was one time he did not think it would have been a good thing to know how to do anyway. His hands gripped the podium and he looked around the press who continued shouting at the man in both Japanese and English.

"What happened today at the UNGA?"

"Are you alright? You look injured Endeavor!"

"What happened?!"

"We have just heard unconfirmed reports that the Secretary of Defense has just been arrested? Do you know anything about that?"

"What did Ambassador Carmen do?!"

Endeavor rose up a hand to get all of the press to calm down for a moment. As Endeavor prepared to give his statement, the students of U.A.'s Class 2-A were sitting in their classroom watching the screen that All Might had put up on their board. Other heroes around the world were watching the press conference on tv in confusion, though many more were already moving. In cars, in planes, jets, trucks, boats, heroes were moving fast, but even most of the heroes on the move had tablets or phones out that they turned this press conference on to watch.

"Earlier today, the Anti-Death Task Force that I am in charge of tracked down the Army of Death," Endeavor began. "When we located them however, we also came upon a larger organization of villains. A much larger group, who the Army of Death had been fighting. The villains we fought were a part of an organization known as the League of Shadows." In Class A, many of the confused students glanced towards All Might only to see their teacher staring with huge disbelieving eyes at the screen which all the students quickly spun back to.

"The Army of Death had located the League of Shadows, and we joined in to fight alongside them against a common enemy. And we won." Endeavor paused for a second and then stated firmly, "The League of Shadows consisted of the most dangerous villains in the entire world." All of the press in front of him stared at the hero in shock at his declaration. His tight costume on his left arm was ripped up though, with bandages visible covering wounds with dried blood around them. His eyes were serious and his voice intense as he continued, "They managed to be kept a secret by dozens of corrupt world leaders, including four UN ambassadors arrested here today. All over the world as we speak, men and women in high places in almost every government in the world are being arrested by heroes who have been called and relayed the proof we uncovered in the League of Shadows' headquarters. Among those who were corrupted and colluding with the League of Shadows powerful villains, were five heads of state, hundreds of senators and representatives at different levels of government, corporate leaders who allowed their businesses to be used as fronts, and many others."

"Make no mistake," Endeavor continued to the shocked crowds in front of him. "All of those who were discovered to be in league with these villains, are to be arrested and tried for their crimes."

As Endeavor was speaking, across the world in a government building in Beijing, Li Ping had thrown a painting from his wall to the floor. His steel safe behind it was open and he was pulling out all the cash he could, when the door busted open behind him and he spun with his arms full of money he had been paid for under-the-table acts over his years of service. The money slipped through his fingers as his world crumbled around him, as the police stormed into his office and the heroes marched in between them. "Representative Ping! You are under arrest!"

"The information we received from our raid on the League of Shadows base was not limited to corruption," Endeavor continued. He looked straight into a camera in front of him and declared, "Major villains all around the world were connected in one way or another to the League of Shadows. Be it the weapons they purchase illegally from manufacturers run by the League…"

In southern Egypt, a line of villains chained together at the ankles and wrists were being led out of what had looked like an abandoned factory from outside. Huge shipping containers of guns intended for different continents were being pried open and the police were confiscating all of the contraband. On the east coast of the country in the Red Sea, a ship the weapons that had almost shipped out were meant for was driving away with a huge wake breaking off of it as it tried to escape the police boats chasing behind with sirens and flashing lights going off into the night.

"Or the drugs they peddle to create junkies and give other villains unstable power-ups for their Quirks…"

In a Colombian shoe factory, three heroes slammed down the back doors of the factory floor and busted into a wide secret room in the back where villains spun towards the doors and started shouting in panic as what they were afraid of had arrived. Tables flipped over covered in packages of white powder, and piles that were in the middle of being packaged flew up into the air in puffs that the villains ran through in their panic. Many turned and started running for back door, only for smoke to pour in through that door and the huge face of the country's top hero to appear in the thick cloud of it. "Surrender!" Smokeout roared in Spanish at the villains, many of whom turned and started attacking his smoky body only for him to sweep in and blind and suffocate them all.

Endeavor called out loudly at the press in front of him while looking into the camera, "Today, marks a great victory for heroes. Hundreds, possibly thousands of villains will be caught using the information we obtained over the next few days alone. The supply of weapons and Trigger, and drugs of the kind, will be cut off to villains around the world. All who were able to act with impunity before will find themselves trapped and being cornered by the heroes of the world." Endeavor lifted a fist instead of gripping the podium so hard with it. It was his left fist too, showing the damage done to that arm and making it even more powerful as he added, "In our fight against the League of Shadows, not one hero in the ADTF lost their life. We defeated villains who had been a huge part of the problems our world faces, and in my opinion, I truly believe what we have done here is a step towards a more peaceful world."

The crowds gathered in New York City started cheering before Endeavor had even finished that speech. He was speaking in English, though subtitles appeared for him all around the world. Families smiled at their televisions, and students at the screens in their classrooms, and heroes smiled before putting away their phones and tablets as they headed off to the places Endeavor just mentioned, to capture the villains all over the world who knew now that they were the ones being hunted. Everyone knew it at once, and fear switched hands from the innocent to the guilty. As people in their homes felt safer, villains acting in ways that they thought were safe lost their confidence and got ready to run and hide.

Other villains in the underworld grinned at what they were reading on or hearing from their screens though, as the idea of a world without the League of Shadows intrigued the most ambitious among them. Black market dealers gathered up their wares and packed suitcases full of cash and fake documents. The smartest villains did not panic but were quick to react. Whether or not they were being hunted, they did not know, and yet they left anyway. Though still, for some of them it was too late.

A hundred miles from a shoe factory in Colombia that doubled as a cocaine packaging plant, a sicario for the Valozo Cartel sprinted around a huge swimming pool towards a bar area of a giant mansion overlooking a beautiful valley. He ran towards the drug lords and other sicarios and the beautiful women gathered around drinking and laughing and enjoying their evenings, and he started shouting about their drug plants getting shut down and their comrades getting caught. They had started to pack up, and the armed guards all got ready, but the raid came before they could escape to their safe-houses. A gunfight started there and heroes started what would become a long siege against the group they surrounded in the mansion. It was not the only place where the fighting thickened quickly, and heroes and villains started battling it out around the world.

Endeavor spoke to the world while the heroes he and his ADTF had already alerted were making the first moves against the villains. After his uplifting speech about how the villains of the world were taking a huge hit, the reporters started calling out questions to him. One of them called out louder than all the others though, "What about the Army of Death?! Did you capture them along with the League of Shadows?!"

All the reporters around the man agreed with his question and they looked to Endeavor for his answer. The Flame Hero looked down at the man and then replied in just as intense and serious a tone as before, "Once I learned of the collusion between the League of Shadows and the four ambassadors arrested here at the UN today, I made the decision to ignore the UN resolution labeling the Army of Death as terrorists." Everyone looking at Endeavor opened their eyes wide again at that statement. The pro hero continued, "My own opinion on the Army of Death was of no consequence to my decision. However, I just demanded that the General Assembly of the UN have a new vote on the matter of the Army of Death when they reconvene tomorrow. A new vote is necessary, as Xander Carmen, the American ambassador who was one of those implicated in the collusion, was one of the most vocal opponents of the Army of Death when they were designated as terrorists."

Endeavor leaned his head back and then continued in a low voice while defending himself, "Whether I wanted to arrest them or not, I no longer could with that information, and I had to let them go. As I will not follow the orders of villains," Endeavor declared, his voice ominous yet at the same time sounding so reassuring to everyone watching him. "If that designation was influenced by villains, then I must make sure that an Assembly not influenced by them will come up with the same conclusion. Whatever the new vote comes to show, I will respect the outcome."

"Do you still think of the Army of Death as villains after this? You say you fought alongside each other?!"

"They have broken the law," Endeavor replied. It was a short response, and not a very full answer, however Endeavor stepped back from the podium after it. "I must now return to Japan. Excuse me."

"Endeavor! Endeavor wait! Star-Spangled Man! Can you-"

The man who walked up to the podium after Endeavor walked away started speaking without waiting to hear any questions. "I want to make one correction to what Endeavor said," Star-Spangled Man began. Everyone quieted down and Endeavor just kept walking instead of looking over his shoulder at the top American hero. Star-Spangled Man paused for a moment and then said in a lower voice than the loud one he just called out in, "Endeavor stated that no hero in the Anti-Death Task Force was killed in the raid against the League of Shadows, but that is not entirely true. Yes, every member of our team is still alive, but…"

At U.A., every student leaned forward in their seats in Class 2-A. Eyes widened around the world, though certain students found themselves hard for breath as Star-Spangled Man continued, "I was killed during the raid. As were several of our comrades, both in the ADTF and in the Army of Death. And although the Army of Death's leader brought all of us back to life, there were members of his own forces who lost their lives for good in the fight against the League of Shadows. They may once again be designated as terrorists tomorrow, so before that happens, I am going to thank them for what they did. For saving my life, and helping us stop the League of Shadows. Death, thank you."

* * *

 **A/N Army of Death and ADTF team-up against the League of Shadows! Zach's making moves fast and taking big risks, and Death comes for the League of Shadows with over two hundred allies to tear them down! Threw the proper order of doing things right out the window. XD Thanks for reading, hope you enjoyed the chapter! Leave a review below telling me what you think!**

Yes chapter 116 . Dec 2

I love how zach just kinda opens the hangar and tosses the dude out.

 **Haha glad you liked that! As I was writing it I imagined the faces of the others near him just dropping their jaws a bit at the sight of Zach throwing him out of the ship, felt pretty f-ing epic XD Thanks for the review!**

Gamma-X chapter 116 . Dec 3

Amazingly long and absolutely FANTASTIC chapter! Few questions:  
1\. Did the girl in the submarine die or did they manage to find her and bring her back?  
2\. Frickin' LOVED the interaction between Seraphim and Death at that club! Woulda wished he grabbed the bountiful booty, though. And the interaction between Maelstrom, Darling and Seraphim at the club were amazing! I hope you make them the Love Trio who's into Zach because of his kindness and thoughtfulness, and his skills. Will you be making them the Love Trio? Or at least the Love Duo? Thinking of this scene keeps making me so frickin' excited! xD  
3\. Is Seraphim a better actor than Death? BECAUSE SHE IS SEDUCTIVE AS FUUUUCK~ She tricked everyone and even impressed Death of all people! xD  
Please gimme more scenes like dis! Dis too gud! Mesa want more Maelstrom and Seraphim action. xP  
Wopping 20/10 for this chapter!  
\- G.X

 **Thanks a ton! Actually added in a sentence here to mention Replay since I didn't show her in the end of the last one, so yup they managed to get her out of that wrecked sub. I love that you loved the casino scene! I didn't originally have that scene in the chapter at all (I have most chapter summaries going ahead planned out with at least the most important details), but I had the idea for that scene and worked it in, changed things around. I'm really glad I added it too since it did give more of a feel as to different kinds of Army of Death missions, they're not all just rush the castle like that last one, or Dragons' Den/ Mongoloid. No comment on any kind of romance (as always) but I always like hearing the predictions and ships you guys make! XD Gotta love that bountiful booty on Seraphim! Haha thanks again for the great review!**

diddles321 chapter 116 . Dec 3

I kinda feel like all these AoD missions are like Naruto fillers. I know that plot is progressing but it feels like fillers to me. Im just waiting for more progression between Zach and Darling.

 **Sorry diddles. I get the feeling, even feels like that a bit to me at some times, but I decided not to just go straight to the most important plot things at all times. It's such a big story at this point that I like having some world-building once in a while, and as much as those missions last chapter did not on their own hold much importance to the story on their own, they show more of what Zach's life is right now and what he's doing. Even though they might feel like fillers, hope you can still enjoy them as I'll try keeping them fun, and there will be things in every chapter that do matter in later chapters so it's not like I'm ever writing scenes for no reason at all. Anyway, hope you enjoyed this chapter!**


	118. Chapter 118

**A/N Somehow this turned into my second longest chapter. Wasn't expecting it but I just kept writing out more and more... anyway enjoy another 30k+ chapter (we're at like 80k in 3 chapters XD ).**

 **Disclaimer: I don't own Boku no Hero Academia**

* * *

 **Chapter 118:**

In the common room of U.A.'s Class 2-A dorm at Heights Alliance, Toru Hagakure was watching tv on the middle couch with Yuga Aoyama sitting to her left on the one closer to the door. They were watching the news and both of them were smiling as the co-hosts went back and forth in their banter on current events. Indo Suzuha and Kuzano Rehi had their Evening News Show on HTV at prime time and was one of the most watched news programs in the country. Hagakure used to not like watching the show, because the program did not pander to their audience at all and instead had been reporting the real news for the past two years which she did not often like to see. Tonight though, the news hosts had similar looks that she and Aoyama had as they watched the station even if the anchors were a little more reserved with their smiles and happy looks.

The man with the yellow horn sticking out of his forehead held up his right hand and said in a teasing tone to the woman across the table from him, "But didn't you say yourself that 'it's not all countries.'"

"Hey, I stand by that," Kuzano countered her fellow anchor. "We were not sure, early last month, that the trend was real. What continued through the rest of January was nothing short of amazing though, Indo."

"The way January ended was a perfect start to the year," Indo agreed with the woman across the table from him. "And the way February is starting, is looking to continue that trend. _Thousands_ of arrests have been made across the globe in the past week. It's too much in fact that villain processing is being backed up, trials are booked almost constantly in criminal courts, but let's not look at those numbers right now. When we could instead be looking at these," Indo made an animated graphic pop up on the screen. The cartoon pulled to the corner of the screen with some wooden crates busted open and a crowbar leaning on them, one box turned to the side with guns falling out of it, and a big red word going diagonally over the graphic that just said 'CONTRABAND.'

"Let's look at the drug bust we heard about earlier today in Singapore," Kuzano said after the graphic appeared. The screen changed to show a recording from one of their reporters in the field who had taken this clip earlier outside of a warehouse surrounded by police and heroes with a lot of villains getting led away to big black vans. The camera zoomed in on the police chief and the two heroes who had been in charge of the bust, and behind them were stacks upon stacks of wooden and steel crates. Some of those crates were in front of the three men, the tops of them popped open and on the floor and on long tables in front of them was a display of all the various contraband the police had confiscated. "Assault rifles, Trigger, Riot, cocaine, V, K-lax, fake passports and shipping licenses. It is crazy to imagine just how much this gang alone would have been able to do with all this, yet what's crazier to me is that this is not even close to one of the largest raids this past week."

"Villains had a system in place that we didn't know about, Kuzano," Indo said with a shake of his head, the camera angle going back to the news hosts. "And with that system broken, heroes have nothing stopping them from taking down the villains scattered around the world. Seeing this much come out of it though…"

"I know what you mean," Kuzano said with a nod of her head. "It just goes to show how much power and information those villains were really in control of. To me, the thought that there was an even stronger League out there than the League of Villains is…" Kuzano saw Indo's eyebrows lift up and his eyes widen a bit, and she trailed off with a nervous look coming to her face for a moment. Hagakure and Aoyama lost their smiles, and then Kuzano started speaking again quickly, "However we must be cautious still to make any overarching declarations about the state of crime around the world, even if we can say with assurance this time that the decline is real…"

Hagakure kept frowning even as Kuzano tried to continue like she had not just paused there. _She's afraid,_ the invisible girl slouching back in the couch thought. _Saying that the other League was stronger than Shigaraki's, she's afraid he might just attack her to prove a point. And the worst thing is, I could see him doing it._ Hagakure pursed her lips and tried to get back into the mood she had been, and that most of U.A. had been in over the last week as more and more news of arrested villains came in from around the world and even in their own country. _As good a thing as taking down the League of Shadows was, it's not the end of anything. The League of Shadows only controlled the very top, and removing them won't just end crime, it just creates new tops of the villain world._

Aoyama had a bead of sweat on his face as he thought similar things to the invisible girl to his right. Behind him, Sero stopped walking behind the couch from the kitchen to look over towards the tv himself that he had been listening to. He frowned too before turning and heading over towards the stairs. _It's a great start, but it's going to cause a lot of problems people don't realize. Vrishnuku sensei was right to get annoyed at us for acting so carefree about the League of Shadows' destruction._ Sero slid his hands down into his sweatpants' pockets and lifted his head to look up as he started heading up the long flight of stairs to his room on the fifth floor.

 _They controlled the top, which means there's a power gap now. Some less experienced villains will come in sure, but maybe just the ambitious and powerful experienced ones who did not have the ability to move up any higher before because of the League of Shadows._ Sero sighed and then he cracked a smile as he kept heading up the steps. _Power gaps breed more villains, but with all the new elections, new leaders quickly filling into old spots on platforms of anti-corruption and rooting out any corrupt ones who might be left… maybe that'll stop villains from getting as much power as they had again. Or maybe the villains will just figure out new ways to get around it,_ Sero's smile of optimism lowered down, and his expression got darker this time with his eyes looking sad too as he shifted them to his feet.

 _And if villains come up with new ways to stay that strong, if more villains will always rise after old ones fall, then that means the Army of Death will never be able to stop fighting._ Sero shook his head around and he moved up the rest of the steps trying to distract himself from what he just thought. As he headed for his room though on the fifth floor, he narrowed his gaze down the hallway towards an empty room at the end. _They're still designated as terrorists. UN couldn't change the verdict or it would make all those other ambassadors look like they were just influenced by villains the first time._ Sero turned into his room and he walked over to his bed he fell right onto on his back. He stared up at the ceiling and furrowed his brow, _Even if it wasn't unanimous this time, the other countries, like ours, demanded the ones who didn't want to vote 'terrorist' to abide by the same rules and let the ADTF know of any Death sightings. Endeavor's back on it, sounding as dedicated as ever, even if he had to recruit a whole bunch of new heroes when a third of the others backed out. And of course they would! Just like those countries that don't want to call them terrorists after all they've done now, with the League of Shadows especially…_

 **"…there were members of his own forces who lost their lives for good in the fight against the League of Shadows…"** Sero thought about what he heard Star-Spangled Man said and he closed his eyes for a second, his eyelids scrunched up in worry. _They died for real? Does that mean, the one who was bringing them back had gone down? Or is it just that he already, brought them back once before so he couldn't… Damn it. If villains never stop, they'll never stop either and…_ The worried look on Sero's face faltered and he opened back up his eyes. He thought about a video he watched of a convenience store in Mississippi and he frowned again. _I hope you're alright Zach, if you're really with them. Or even if you're not…_

Sero reached his right hand over towards his pillows and slid it underneath. A smile covered his face as his fingers touched the piece of paper beneath it. _Stay safe, buddy._

* * *

In a vehicle flying over forty thousand miles above the Atlantic Ocean, Zach Sazaki sat at a station in the command room of The Cloak with his head bowed towards the keyboard his hands were resting over. He had headphones in and plugged into the computer before him, and he rose his eyes up slowly from his hands and to that screen again. The screen had a map on it that Zach tried to focus on, but his mind was swirling way too much and he just bit down hard as his eyes lowered once again.

 _It's getting harder every time we lose someone,_ he thought, while staring at his right hand and clenching his teeth. _Our numbers are still rising faster than we lose people, but still… It should be easier. We get more motivated every time we lose someone. Every time there's another person who we need to keep fighting for. Their memory, pushing us forward into… into… But as much as I want to keep fighting for what they died for, I can't imagine losing anyone else. Yet I know it's going to happen. I know, I can't keep winning forever. And even if we do, I'll lose people. My friends. My comrades. These people who, who have become my new family. I care about all of them so much, and I can't imagine losing them all, but I also can't do this on my own. And they're all here because they choose to be. All I can do is keep them alive, as best as I can while still sending them into battles with murderers and rapists and monsters. So many have already fallen. Too many, yet we're not even close to the end. The League of Shadows felt like a final battle, but it was just another fight. Just another step on the road to our goal. My unobtainable goal, that so many died for because they believed me when I said we could do it._

 _It's not unobtainable! I believe in it. I have to. I have to be the one holding that ideal stronger than anyone else. If I don't believe it then there's no point in sending anyone else to die for it. We can stop all villains. The Army of Death can stop more from rising. In the shadows, ignored by heroes but known as monsters to villains. A force that normal people barely hear about, yet villains know can be anywhere at anytime. A deterrent for any new villains. A Symbol of Fear… terrorizing…_ Zach rose a hand and he pressed it into his forehead, closing his eyes and letting out a long, gasping breath. _If Mom could see me now. Dad, the Akers, Jenny, Aizawa sensei… Webb… Cee._ Zach lowered his hand from his head and he let out another breath though much calmer and under control this time. _Don't waste time with unimportant thoughts. Reflection is for after. There is no room to doubt now. I can only move forward. On the path I have chosen and led so many others down._

Zach's fingers started moving on the keyboard, his lips flat and his eyes scanning the screen as he zoomed in on southern Asia. He kept listening to a song softly in the background, and then it faded off and a bar appeared at the top left of his screen showing the new song on his mix that autoplay had just switched to. Zach smiled so softly at the sight of a song he used to listen to often, before he was Death. Zach switched the political map he was looking at with just borders and dots or stars for cities into a satellite one, and he scanned the geography around the area the red dot they had marked on the map was. He turned the map 3D and checked the topography, different elevation levels, and then he checked temperatures in the area over the past few weeks, and he clicked the red dot on the map to make a more specific information set on that area to appear in front of him. The local heroes, pictures of villains they were able to get from information or names they were given from others, rumored Quirks of the villains in that town in India, there was a lot for him to look into as he considered heading that way soon.

He zoomed out of the map and then saw a notification appear on the top right corner of his screen. He sighed while looking at it, unable to even smile at this point as it was so often that he was not getting excited each time it happened anymore. Zach clicked the notification and then scanned his mouse across the computer screen over towards Germany. There were too many red dots clustered in the same area there, so he had to zoom in a bit and then once he was just on Europe, North Africa, and West Asia, he managed to differentiate which of their future ventures was just taken care of by heroes. _Didn't even send in any tips about that one. They've got their own ways to get information too, though I wish they hadn't gone in there. There's a reason I didn't help out, I wanted to get more information from them… Hopefully no heroes got hurt._ Zach dimmed the red dot on his screen and then zoomed out a bit, but he pulled the map aside anyway and started checking the internet for more news on that notification.

 _Good, they're fine. Even against strong villains like Nitrous, pro heroes are too much. They're stronger than the Army of Death most of the time. We wouldn't have stood a chance against the ADTF. That was so risky, and it had the best results… almost the best results I could have asked for. I knew a high risk would result in high rewards, but too many Shadow Bosses escaped their destruction at the LoS base. King slipped away, Bolivar wasn't even there at the time, and Eziano… I got his message from that assassin who killed Yusef. I wish I could've taken him with us after beating him, but there was no way we could take prisoners when Endeavor was barely letting us go in the first place. All For One, King, Raijin, Bolivar, Shigaraki, Fergus, Eziano Mozcaccio. So many villains capable of so much are still out there, and who knows what others-_

Zach had his music on at a low volume in his ears, and he heard the sliding door hiss open in the back of the command center of The Cloak. He glanced over his shoulder and past Access who was leaning back at his station behind Death's with a headset of his own on. Access' was a big headset over his head though with padding around his ears to drown out other sound, whereas Zach just had small earbuds in with a wire connecting them to his station. Zach turned his head a bit to the side and looked past the soft captain's chair in the middle of the command center, a chair he had still yet to once sit on. He looked back at his computer after seeing the man walk in, but the man walked right up behind him and then stepped onto Zach's right side.

Gentle looked through the front windshields of The Cloak and out into the pitch black night sky ahead of them. They never kept lights on around the exterior of The Cloak which would give away the invisible ship's location, but they were above the elevation that most planes flew, and their radar kept them from crashing too. It was so dark outside and the command room was only dimly lit too, lights from the consoles and screens lighting up the room while the lights on the ceiling were off. Gentle glanced over to his right and let out a sigh as he saw La Brava with her head down on her hands in front of her chair as the third person in the cockpit at the moment. "You should get some rest as well," Gentle suggested, glancing down to his left at the boy who he knew could hear him despite those headphones he had in.

"I'm not tired," Zach replied.

Gentle sighed again and then he walked behind Zach and over to an empty seat. Zach thought he had just come for La Brava, and he glanced out the corners of his eyes towards the man who sat near him and just slid his chair closer to the screen directly on Zach's left. Gentle flipped on the monitor and started clicking away as he got on similar tasks as what Zach was doing. Zach faced his own screen and tried focusing despite the man just sitting right next to him. _There's so much I can do,_ Zach thought, pulling back up a complete map and then watching their ship's trajectory over the ocean and on top of a black line that marked their route that the ship's auto-pilot was taking them on.

 _Villains don't tell heroes, but they tell me,_ Zach thought while looking from red dot to red dot around the entire continent of Africa. _When I ask about all their contacts, all their businesses and operations and labs, etcetera. They don't know what the Army of Death will do to them and that unknown scares them. Villains are all cowards when it comes down to it. Heroes think there are so many villains who really do believe in codes, who are hard-asses and strong-willed, but so few really are. It's just when faced with heroes, many of them are able to keep up their masks through arrests and proceedings and even into jail. They stay strong because they know there isn't much the heroes can do to them. But they know no one's stopping me from doing the worst things they imagine. And so there's so much info I have. Too much. I wish I could give more to heroes, but then the line of information gathering ends there, most of the time. If it seems like there's more I can get, I need to go myself to get that, to stop the rest of them._

 _There's too much though. I have to speed up the rate of fighting them, or more will just fill into gaps that the rest of the structure still exists around. I need to destroy entire structures of drug trade and production and distribution. Eliminate the corruption that allows drugs to cross borders and get into ports, and take down the ones making the bribes, stop the blackmailers from making new corrupt leaders. Destroy facilities where false documents are made for villains and turn over the men who make them. Break the supply lines of weapons' manufacturers, and shut down their factories, take out the villains whose Quirks make it so easy to mass produce firearms, and drugs, and counterfeit money. Why are there so many different kinds of crime? So many different kinds of villains. Ones who are just ideological, and ones who are just insane, and ones whose crimes are on the borderline and I don't know what to do with them. Vigilantes who murder villains without looking too deeply into their crimes, the consumers of illicit drugs who don't sell or just sell to their friends, blackmailed government leaders who really had no choice. People who own illegal firearms but maybe just because they're Quirkless, or have never been allowed to use their Quirks, so they need them for self-defense. Who am I to say those crimes are bad, when I kill villains? When I inject with Trigger? When I've threatened cops and heroes and leaders with turning over dirty secrets about them if they didn't shape up? When I have tons of illegal weapons on this ship including The Cloak itself?_

Zach shook his head and refocused on the screen in front of him and all those red dots, none of which indicated crimes like the ones he was just arguing about with himself. _Those crimes will decline as the larger ones do. Junkies can't stay hooked when their drug prices go through the roof because I shut down all the production plants. Good people won't need to buy guns if I can make them believe that the world is peaceful again. Vigilantes… I can give warnings, or just tell them why it is I do things this way and hope they listen. Lavamander won't change, and he's angry now… I hope he'll help though. With this. All of this._ Zach took in a deep breath and then scooted his chair forward and focused intensely on the screen before him. _I have to speed up the rate of our villain fights, but I won't let the Army of Death fight without me. So I have to split it up, but make sure that I'm in the loop about everything. To stop any groups from taking the holes left by League of Shadows we need to keep moving and fast. Divert tasks around my trusted friends and comrades, but stay involved with everything. Be everywhere. It'll be hard, but it'll keep everyone alive._

Zach zoomed in on the area of land the black line marking their trajectory was going to pass over first. He pulled open another tab at the same time, and he paused his music as he opened up an Arabic Level 2 audiobook, while zooming in on the map of North Africa and the Mediterranean. Zach sat there preparing for the next missions, and Gentle looked over to see what he was doing before leaning back in his chair and opening up an audiobook of his own, only in lessons on Intermediate Spanish.

Flying to the east meant that the sun was rising faster than usual, a short night for the Army of Death. The UTC time the Army of Death tried to use as their standard was the time zone they were only two hours from flying into now, which meant morning for them was going to be the actual morning outside too. Zach tried to plan out their flight path with rest times in mind, which was why long flights over the ocean usually coincided with night for the Army of Death. Zach worked on his Arabic for over an hour, and he noticed in the corners of his eyes as he was studying, a few others had come into the command and were using the computers set up around the room. It was not the only room on the ship with computers in it and Zach wondered for a bit each time he saw another person if they all really needed to crowd into the cockpit like this.

Down the hall from the sliding doors into the cockpit, a woman who had just checked inside that room was heading back to her room in the barracks' hallway. She walked past two guys who were heading the other direction, and she went back to her room and over to her bed that her comrade was sleeping on the bottom bunk of. "Hey, Maelstrom," Replay shook her friend by the shoulder for a second and then lifted a finger fast to her lips when Maelstrom sat up fast, ready to fight since someone was waking her up from her sleep. "Let's get the morning started," Replay said, and she motioned with her head to the door of their room.

Maelstrom glanced around the room in confusion for a moment. Half of the other bunks were still occupied, but she nodded at Replay while grabbing a tablet off the table next to her. "It's early," Maelstrom whispered, as she got up and started getting dressed into her black costume next to her bed. She clipped her helmet onto her belt and then walked with Replay back out of their room before asking, "What's up? We getting close or something?"

"You got enough sleep, didn't you?" Replay asked like she did not need a reason for waking her friend up.

Maelstrom looked at the girl next to her in some more confusion, lifting one of her orange eyebrows at the response and oddly excited tone in her comrade's voice. Then she just sighed and let out a yawn while putting her hands up through her frizzy orange hair. "If I've got to get up this early, I'm taking a shower-"

"Later," Replay said, shaking her head and then continuing down the hall. Maelstrom looked at the girl who was the same age as her at twenty-five. Replay turned back to her with a small smile and said in a softer voice, "Let's just, start the day first."

 _What is she talking…_ Maelstrom looked towards the command center they could see when they turned down the end of the hall. She saw the doors open up and two of the guys who had been there longer than her, Sagitus and Grabble, both heading into the command before them. The short women moved quickly down the hallway and then turned and entered into the command room. Replay smiled as she stepped back in, and then she grabbed Maelstrom by a hand while the orange haired girl was looking around in surprise. Replay brought Maelstrom over to the side of the room where there were a couple of chairs open, and they sat down just like twenty others already in the room.

Grabble sat down next to Michael, and Sagitus walked up behind them on his hooves. He scooted a chair to the side so he could get right up to the console, and he checked on what Michael was doing before looking at Grabble and going, "Let's check out the hits we've got in Sudan." Grabble nodded in agreement without saying anything in response, and the room stayed mostly quiet as people spoke in whispers or did not speak at all.

Darling walked into the command quarters and she shook her tired expression out a bit as she saw how many others were already in there. She jogged up through the room and then right behind Death's seat, the far right seat on the left front row of consoles just off of the center aisle and close to the windshields. She stopped though when she saw him looking at his screen so intensely, half of it covered in a map and the other half with a language program up covered in squiggly lines she did not understand yet. Her eyes opened wide as she heard Zach reciting Arabic words she could not comprehend, then she spun her head to the left as a man sitting there rolled his chair to the side. He grabbed a chair on his other side and pulled it around his own, looking to Darling and lifting a white eyebrow at her as he offered the spot up.

Darling smiled wide at Gentle and then sat on the chair and pulled up next to Zach who glanced at her and nodded once with a small 'good morning' smile. She still looked tired and a bit out of it, but she smiled back at him and then checked on what he was doing so she could get caught up on it. _Even if you've got to be everywhere, then I'll learn everything and be ready to go anywhere too! That way I can come everywhere with you!_ Darling shook her head around to get rid of her tiredness, and she scooted her chair right up to the console so she could get only her screen in her vision and fully focus on it (even if she made sure to keep Zach in the corner of her eyes).

La Brava heard whispering and her eyelids scrunched before cracking open. She looked at her arms and realized her strange sleeping position, and she lifted her head a bit and looked to her right where two others looked back at her with apologetic looks as they shut up their whispering conversation. The two just put back in their headphones and got back to their screens in silence, and La Brava yawned before lowering her head back down to her arms. _It's still dark,_ she thought lazily, then she opened her eyes again in confusion as she realized where she was sleeping. _I should go back to…_ Manami Aiba glanced around the cockpit of The Cloak expecting to see a ghost crew since it was dark and pitch black out the windshield.

 _What are they doing?_ La Brava thought while looking over her shoulder and then to the sides of the room too. _There are other places to do stuff like…_ her eyes shifted over to her left across the center aisle of the command room. She looked to the seat across from hers as she was on the far left of the front right row of equipment. _He's still here? Doesn't he sleep?_ La Brava started pushing back from her station, but she looked past Death, and past Darling, and then her eyes locked on Gentle who she watched let out a long yawn that he covered up his mouth while doing. Then he lowered his hand back to his keyboard and got to typing into it quickly, working on something she didn't know what.

"Now what could cut this time down?" Gentle looked at the map of northern Africa and the western Middle East on his screen. He had a time constraint on the bottom of the screen, a black line cutting around all the different red dots on the map, and another time above the red time limit that was still over the time he had set himself. He muttered under his breath, "Perhaps…" he clicked on one of the red dots and took the black line off of it to make the line straighter from the last dot to the one after it, then Gentle clicked on a green line marker on the side of the screen and clicked the dot again, making a green line split off from the black one and then connect back to it past the next red dot the black line passed.

 _Do we need the full Army for Bakkat? If Delta takes on… Death will need to get down there and will stall the move into Bakkat, unless he goes to Bakkat first. Delta can do more recon on Varduck that way… a waste of time for such a low level gang. Varduck may have information, but if he does not then it was a waste of personnel for valuable time, and risks putting the Bakkat situation in jeopardy._ Gentle rearranged the path The Cloak was moving on some more, and he scratched his chin before lifting his lips up into a surprised smile as he saw a name pop up on the top of his screen. He turned his head to the right and looked over towards a short woman who had spotted what he was working on and jumped onto the shared map file.

A comment popped up on the side of the screen that Gentle read from his lover across the room, 'What's everyone doing in here? It's so late."

'I came to get you and bring you to your room…' Gentle replied it and left the '…' at the end while staring at the screen himself thoughtfully. He turned his head and glanced around the room a bit, then he looked to his right over at their leader. He started typing again with a small chuckle, 'Death has had a hard time as of late. We should all take our shares of the workload.' _Is that it?_ Gentle wondered after sending the message back to his partner. _Although everyone is quiet, we are keeping Death company. Sitting around him, working on our own things… Or perhaps, his work ethic spreads to those following him. They all look up to you, Sazaki, so if you are here this early working then they want to be here too. To mimic you. To do their parts. And because, they enjoy being around you. And I think they know, you enjoy their presence as well._

Others came into the central command room at the front of The Cloak gradually through the late night and into the early morning. Zach shifted from his Arabic lessons back to looking at the villain locations they knew about and were heading towards. He looked up the files where they had put the information they learned about each location from villains who were all now in jail, handed off to heroes or left unconscious in their hideouts as an anonymous tip was called in for them. Zach read off the information that he had put in the system himself back when they first heard about each place, each warehouse, each hideout, each group of villains he was after and would have to fight that day. He studied his enemies and thought about each of their Quirks that he knew about, figuring out ways to fight them and counter their abilities. He thought about these things until the crack of dawn when his eyes shifted over his computer as he realized there was light outside.

 _Man I'm hungry,_ Zach rubbed his stomach with his left hand, then he put it on the console in front of him and pushed back with his seat. He unplugged his headphones and stood up, and he turned around only to lower his bottom lip a little as everyone in the room was looking towards him. Most of them looked back at their screens, but he saw each of them had looked his way when he got up and he felt a little weird getting all those looks. _What time is it?_ Zach had noticed many people coming in, though he had no idea it had risen to this many from the last time he had looked back. He turned and looked out through the front of the ship, into the illuminated sky far ahead of them that was getting brighter and making everything around them brighter each minute.

"Use some breakfast, Death?" Sagitus asked, looking back over at the leader who was standing and looking through the glass towards a sun that had not yet risen over the horizon. Death looked the other way, and Sagitus said, "I'll start up on it early today, my shift after all."

"Oh!" Replay hopped out of her seat as she thought about the chore "duty" list and remembered she was on cooking detail with Sagitus that morning. It was before they usually started on breakfast, but seeing so many others around them awake she decided to get to it as well. "Me too," she said as she jogged up to the four-legged centaur man.

Seraphim stood up from her seat and let out a long breath after just saving her work when Death stood in her peripheral vision. "I could go for some coffee," she said, and she walked out into the center of the room and started for the door. Zach could see her hair was down instead of tied into a ponytail like usual, and the slender woman in her black costume stretched an arm up over her head that she grabbed by the elbow with her other hand, and she leaned back too accentuating the curve in her back.

"Hey Death," Michael started, as he got out of his seat and looked towards the younger man. "I've been thinkin' about the remnants of the Immortals. I don't think we need to hit those guys ourselves. We could just let Dreamscape and Pointer go after them-"

"That would actually work rather well," Zach turned to his right and saw Gentle standing next to him. He looked at the taller man who continued while starting towards the center of the room himself to go around the equipment, "If we can leave that to an anonymous tip, you can save a few hours to head south instead, as we do plan to move through North Africa and straight into the Arabian Peninsula…" Gentle paused and looked over his shoulder, and Zach started walking forward as Gentle seemed to be waiting for him to start walking alongside him.

La Brava and Darling came up behind the two of them, and Grabble got up finally after closing off a few windows and flipping off the screen he was working on. Grabble stood as the group started past him, mentioning how he was hungry and then looking over towards Access, "You coming?"

"Go ahead," Raylei said over towards the man who was currently in command of the cockpit. Access looked across the room in some surprise, as he had not noticed with so many people coming in over the past couple of hours that Raylei was even in there. She was not sitting in her usual seat, though she started over as Mark got up from it. "Me and Whiz have the next shift anyway. You and La Brava go eat, just be sure to bring us some in a bit."

"You got it," Access replied back over to her. He let out a long yawn and walked out of the command room with a dozen others who followed after Death as he started down the halls of The Cloak.

"Hey Seraphim," Michael called up to a woman just a bit ahead of the front of the group where he had started walking with Death and Gentle. "Mind making me a cup too?" He asked it in his most sincere voice with a big smile on his face, which from him that just made it sound more sarcastic.

Seraphim looked back and narrowed her eyebrows in at him for a moment. "I'll make a pot," she replied. Then she turned to Death and lifted her lips into more of a smile, "Would you like a cup, Death?"

Michael's jaw dropped in mock shock, and Zach smiled and let out a small chuckle before nodding his head at the older woman. "Yeah, that'd be great." _I didn't sleep last night, but everyone else is getting up now so it's time to start the day. I'll get some rest between missions, I'm already set up for most of the next ones._

"Milk and sugar?" Seraphim asked while walking backwards up ahead of Death.

"That's fine," Zach said, lifting his left hand and giving a small wave of it like he did not want to bother her making him a complicated drink.

"I'll put one of each in there," Seraphim replied which had Zach's eyebrows lift up and then him to let out another small laugh while shrugging his shoulders as that sounded fine to him.

"If you wouldn't mind pouring me a cup as well," Gentle requested, in his most chivalrous voice which did not sound much different from usual.

Seraphim nodded at him and then turned back forward and continued quickly off for the cafeteria. Michael started jogging forward, "Hey! Are you really not going to make me one…"

Zach turned to Gentle as they kept walking after the other two. "Thought you were more of a tea drinker?" Zach mentioned, lifting his tone at the end to show he was asking Gentle about him getting coffee.

"I am," Gentle replied, lifting his chin up to look down his nose like to not drink tea was beneath him. "But it was a long night, and I could use the caffeine."

"Did you get any sleep, Gentle?" La Brava asked, running up to Gentle's side and looking up at him in a questioning way.

"Ah yes, before I came to the cockpit I did get some rest…"

"Hey Death," Darling walked up on Zach's other side as Gentle when Gentle turned the other way to speak with La Brava. Zach turned to the girl at his side, pretending not to notice that fifteen people were behind him heading for the cafeteria at the same time. "We have a long day today, don't we?"

"Seems like it," Zach replied. "I'll let everyone know what I'm thinking after the normal breakfast time, once everyone's up."

"That gives us time to discuss the flight path," Gentle remarked, turning back to Zach who nodded in agreement. He had seen Gentle working on that and received some messages sent over from a few computers down while they had been working.

The Army of Death went to the cafeteria and the group who were already up all went to the same two tables. They sat around them and started talking about what they had been working on after going to the command room, and then Sagitus and Replay called out from a window at the side of the room connecting to the kitchen that they were ready with some breakfast. The soldiers in black uniforms got up and walked over to the window, grabbing trays and piling on fruits from metal tubs where cans of them had been poured into, they grabbed some bacon or sausages, and there were stacks upon stacks of pancakes ready too. Michael walked around the side of the door and called in to Sagitus for some bull meat, and Sagitus went to a freezer and pulled out a package labeled 'Michael- Bull.'

"Hold on, Michael," Zach said over while he was about to head back to his table. Michael looked over and listened as Death said, "You should go with eagle today. I could use you doing recon in Bakkat later-"

"You got it," Michael didn't need to hear Death's reasons, he just agreed and turned back to Sagitus. "Hold on that order." Michael turned with the tray he already had stacked with food, which was mainly bacon and sausages though he had some canned peaches in the corner of the tray too. He had the feather of an eagle back in his room that he would go touch in order to gain the attributes of one in a bit, but for now he was still on cougar and was nearly drooling at the smell of the meat on his tray. His Quirk, Animal Life, let him change up his body into the last animal he touched. He _was_ able to choose which animal counted as the one he was touching so the bacon and sausage on his plate were not making him part pig, though there was a long cooldown before he could shift up his DNA again once he did it.

Seraphim came over to Death as he was sitting back down, and she placed his piping cup of coffee down in front of him. Then she put Gentle's down, before walking over next to La Brava on her other side as Gentle to sit with her own cup. Replay walked over across the table from Seraphim and placed a cup of coffee down for Michael who thanked her in a very grateful way, before immediately looking across the table with a smirk at Seraphim who frowned that he was still able to get out of making his own cup. "You didn't have to get him that," Seraphim informed the younger woman who she wanted to know that for the future.

"Oh, but," Replay glanced back at Michael and then the older woman who she also did not want to say 'no' to. "He is my senior. It's nothing really," she said it with a smile like it was no problem and then headed back for the kitchen as she saw a couple others heading into the room who had not been in the command earlier but had woken up at the break of dawn.

"Hear that?" Michael asked, leaning over the table and grinning even more at Seraphim. "I'm her senior. Hey, aren't I your senior too, Seraphim?" He cocked his head to the side and lifted an eyebrow while smirking at her about it.

"No, you joined two days after I did," Seraphim replied very calmly while lifting her fork and taking a bite of a pancake.

Michael lowered his smile a little and leaned back, then he shook his head and said, "Wait. No I definitely-"

"Actually dude," Grabble cut in from his right side.

"She's right," Access finished on Michael's other side. He spun his head and looked back and forth at the other two who had both been there for even longer than him and Seraphim.

Seraphim continued to eat but a smirk cracked on her face without looking at the man she knew just looked back at her. "Out of everyone here," Seraphim said, lifting her gaze up towards Michael whose bottom lip lowered at what she started with. "You're the new recruit-"

"Hey Shang come sit-" Michael started calling to one of the twins walking back from the food line, but he froze at the look on Grabble's face that he was looking past. Grabble tried to hold back the laughter, and Michael dropped his jaw for a second as he remembered something. "Wait- wait don't! Ugh," Michael rubbed his forehead as Shang came over to their table, now looking confused as to why Michael seemed so disappointed by his approach when he had called him over like he needed him a few seconds ago.

"Forgot he was here before you too, huh?" Seraphim asked, while calmly taking another bite of her pancakes so her mouth would be full and she would not start laughing in Michael's face like Access started doing.

Maelstrom came up behind Shang and sat down on Grabble's other side as Michael, and Michael finally let out a nice sigh of relief which got Maelstrom looking around in confusion at the people at the table. "Hey Death," Maelstrom started, as everyone got back to eating and she saw no one had Death for a moment. "We'll be hitting land soon. Would you like me to make it cloudy ahead of us?"

The question had Grabble sweatdropping, though he tried to just keep eating without showing how jealous he was of his junior's epic Quirk. His eyes did shift to the top of his vision for a second though to glance up at his Pincers, then he got back to eating quicker and angrier for some reason. _Don't talk about changing the weather like it's such a simple thing!_

"Yeah, please do," Death replied. "Keep them white though. We know some have started to notice that we bring the storm."

"'We bring the storm,'" Michael repeated, shaking his head with a huge smirk on his face at how cool that sounded.

Access was smirking huge too, but he shook his head more in disbelief as Death looked across the table at the two of them in confusion. _Doesn't even realize how badass he is. Damn, I wish I could say cool shit like that in random situations like eating breakfast. During missions is okay, but there's a limit to how awesome you can be dude._ Access had to start eating again to get that smirk off his face he knew Death was still confused over. He yawned again after taking his next bite though, and he lifted his eyes up to the ceiling as he wondered what he was going to do now.

 _I had the night shift, but I did last night too and slept a bunch yesterday. It might not be morning for me like it is for everyone else, but I should still just start going like it's the start of today. Go on missions with Delta. Could probably be the on-site tactical with whatever Death is going to get Michael doing in Bakkat. If I'm too tired at my next shift, well, I'm glad La Brava passed out last night. She'd be cool with it if I slept at my station, wake me up if anything happens. At least,_ Access glanced across the table at the short woman with pink pigtails who was talking to Gentle as they both drank some coffee. _I think she'd be. She's pretty strict with anyone who's not Gentle._

"After breakfast, everyone get ready for the day," Zach started loudly, looking around his table but also turning and calling out to the rest of the room too. "We're heading to Zuwaiya, Libya all together first. New gun factories popping up all over the place now that Turbo doesn't have a monopoly on them. No controls on them means we won't be able to find all the factories even if we find out who got the ones in Libya running and shipping across the Atlantic so fast." Zach paused then he called out, "But more on that in the meeting room, two hours from now. I'll make an announcement too after wake-up in a few." It was still earlier than the time Zach had set that everyone had to get up unless there were reasons for them not to. He glanced back down after finishing his announcement to the cafeteria and looked straight at Access. "If you want to get-"

"I'm feeling fresh," Access replied quickly. "Down to go on that Bakkat recon mission. If you need me to," he added, not wanting to sound too enthusiastic about it in case there was something else Death wanted from him.

Death nodded back at Access, then he glanced to his right over at La Brava who just lifted up her coffee mug and took a sip which was all the response his silent question needed. Zach nodded at her answer then he finished up his breakfast quick, and he got up to head back for his own room. Darling was up right after Death started leaving, and gradually the cafeteria started emptying out of the first group though more people were still coming in for breakfast from around the ship.

Off the barracks' hallway, the rooms were set up long-ways and not very wide from the hall to the edge of the ship. The wall opposite the hall in each of the barracks' rooms was the interior of the hull, and there were windows in the rooms that light started coming through, though there were also shutters that could be closed over those windows to block out the sun when it was night for the Army of Death in locations where it was broad daylight. The windows were mostly open that morning though as the inhabitants knew they were going to be hitting morning the same time the sun was actually rising. Alarms still went off through the different barracks, and dozens of Army of Death soldiers rolled out of their beds and started getting ready for the day.

Not everyone got right into their black uniforms, with the majority who woke up getting into more comfortable clothes first. They put on pajamas or sweats and then headed out of the room and down the corridor in different directions. Still on the same side of the hallway as their rooms were the bathrooms, on one end for the women and at the other end of the hall for the men. The barracks were made to be able to fit a lot more people than were enlisted in the Army of Death at the time of The Cloak's creation, but already there were talks about setting up more bunk beds in some of the rooms to prepare for the possibility of many more recruits joining them. Rebel had been telling them that he was sifting through a lot more applicants and vigilantes than usual, finding more people who wanted to be in the Army of Death than ever before. The press Endeavor got them was something most of them attributed to it, even if the UN had labeled them terrorists again a day later.

Some of the new recruits walked out of their barracks together, and they started down towards the bathroom with towels over their shoulders and their toiletries in hand. The mens' room was split in the bathroom area and the showers farther in; the room was bigger than any of the individual sleeping rooms. A couple of guys started brushing their teeth or taking pisses, others headed in and went straight into the showers, tossing their clothes onto wooden benches in the middle of the floor or using one of the shelves that lined the wall just before the shower half of the room started. There were more black uniforms in those boxes today, as many people had been up and about that morning before actually going to shower and get ready for the day.

"Scatter's cleaning the bathroom today boys," Michael called out as he was showering off with steam coming off his body at how hot the water he was pouring on himself was. He grinned and called out, "So don't worry 'bout leaving the place a mess!"

"Missappear and I agreed to clean the opposite sex's bathrooms," Scatterbox called back, glancing over his shoulder from the opposite side of the large shower area which was just a tile floor with shower heads sticking out of the walls in lines on either side of the room. There were drains on the floor out below each of the shower heads and also in the middle of the room that slanted down a bit before the long thin metal grate separating it down the middle. Scatterbox added while turning back to his shower head, calling it out while closing his eyes and letting the water run on his face, "So leave it a mess if you want, I'll tell the girls when Missappear starts spreading rumors about us that it was all you Mikey-"

"Nobody better leave toothpaste spit in the sinks," Michael snapped over towards the opening into the other half of the bathroom.

Scatterbox smirked and he raised his hands to run through his hair. On his right, Fillian glanced in for a moment and asked, "Did you really switch?" The man at his side with the Quirk, Scatter, just grinned back at him which could have been a 'yes' or a 'no.' Either he had been clever enough to get Michael to flip in an instant, or he was lucky enough to get to clean the girls' room instead of their own. The grin could have been for either and Fillian just laughed as he could not figure it out.

"You're the only one who leaves the place a mess," Grabble retorted over to Michael a few showers down. He was just on the other side of Access and had to look past him to talk to Michael who looked back at him with his eyebrows raised.

"Ehh?"

"We share a bunk, so don't pretend like I don't have to aim when I drop off the top bunk to make sure I don't land on any of your shit," Grabble continued when Michael tried playing innocent with that held out 'ehh.' "Don't know how many times I've landed on your uniform with my smelly feet-"

"You what?"

"And considering how often you do your laundry, or how rarely…"

"You're bullshitting me," Michael stated in a deadpan voice.

"You know the rest of us actually put away our uniforms, right?" Grabble asked, lifting an eyebrow at him and then smirking as Michael was frowning deeply at him, as if he was wondering if Grabble really was just messing with him or if his bunkmate had been using his costume as a mat.

"You guys always flirt like this in the showers?" Access asked from between the two who stopped looking across him and at him instead. That made Access lower the small grin he had at his joke, and he continued, "Pretty weird looking at each other in the shower while we're all naked-"

"Ohhh?" Grabble held it out as he and Michael both smirked at the same time and shared a look.

"Got something to hide, huh? I thought you were the 'slayer of whores,' Whoreslayer," Michael's smirk rose up even more as Access spun his head back and forth at him and Grabble, then spun back forward straight at the wall as the guys on his sides had turned inwards. The two of them just got emboldened by his self-consciousness though and started making fun of him more.

Prado Marsinnian looked to his left over at the three who were messing around and being way too boisterous right after he woke up. The young man with wet brown hair pushed down over his head so that his bangs were just down over his eyebrows focused on the man in the middle of the three who seemed to be getting picked on by the other two, though Prado figured he had brought it on himself. Prado, who went by the name Dead Silence as a vigilante and still with the Army of Death, looked closer to him at the man on his side who was also looking that way and let out a laugh at the others. "Hey Sagitus," Dead Silence started. The man next to him with four legs who had finished up cooking for the morning and just started his shower turned back to his comrade on his right.

"What's up?" Sagitus asked.

"Those three," Dead Silence started, nodding past him at Michael, Access, and Grabble. "Those tattoos they have," he continued, looking at the left side of their chests where there were black skulls tattooed into their bodies. "What's up with-"

Michael spun around and looked past the man next to him on his other side as Access, and Sagitus, all the way to Dead Silence who stopped with his mouth open as somehow Michael heard him over their own loud conversation. "So you want to know about these huh?" Michael pointed at his chest and grinned proudly.

The man between Michael and Sagitus turned left too, a young man at only nineteen years old with spiky black hair that somehow stayed in its five unique spikes even under the running water. Spiral was one of the newer members and though he had headed into the bathroom with a couple of other newbies, the showers were pretty full so he had just walked to the first empty spot, not that he thought it mattered before. All this conversation in the shower was a little different from usual, though most of them seemed more awake than usual for some reason anyway.

Dead Silence nodded after a second of Michael looking over expectantly at him. Sagitus started shaking his head, but Michael grinned more and continued, "It's something only those who've died for this can have." Dead Silence looked past him and to Access who nodded stoically and in cool agreement.

"That's right," Access said, his voice low and his face intense. "It's only the cool-"

Sagitus had to step in. "They had me give them the tat's thinking it'd catch on, but it's only the three of them." Everyone else in the showers started laughing, then most of them shut up quickly as Michael darted his eyes around and smirked his sharp teeth.

Grabble sighed at the truth in what Sagitus said, but he smiled and shook his head anyway. "It's still a cool tat," Grabble said.

"I think I'll-" one of the new guys on the other side of the shower started.

"Don't even think about it," Michael called back. He turned and his eyebrows lifted for a second as the reason he was going to give would not work even with this recruit who had been there for just two weeks, because he had joined in time for the League of Shadows. Michael remembered watching a bullet tear through the front of his helmet and right out the back of it. He shook his head and just said the actual reason instead, "Death cut it off at us, doesn't want something that can give us all away as Army of Death…" Michael frowned and his eyes shifted back next to him at the man with spiky black hair who had kept chuckling even when most others stopped at his dangerous smile around the room a minute ago.

Michael had thought it was pretty ballsy of him to keep laughing even though the guy at his side was closest to him and others much farther off shut up at the sight of his look. Seeing him start smirking a lot more though made him narrow his eyes and lose his impressed feeling, getting annoyed instead at the nineteen year old who had the look on his face of the others who had been in the room when Death first told them that reason and started laughing. Since then, no one had really made fun of it like that after they all started laughing about it together so Death wouldn't feel so bad about saying that to them, but Michael didn't know this new guy very well. He looked down at the top of Spiral's head and asked, "Real funny huh?"

Spiral turned and his smile dropped instantly as Michael was not smiling in a dangerous way anymore, but was actually glaring at him with his lips shut so his sharp teeth were not even showing. "Uh, a little bit," Spiral replied, cracking his smile again at the older man who kept frowning at him and made sweat form on the younger man's face so that he wanted to turn his water onto cold.

Michael smirked again after giving the newer member a hard time for a few seconds. He just laughed and continued washing off in the shower, looking away as it did not really bother him much at all now that he thought about it. "You're a crazy bastard, Spiral," Michael said. It sounded like a compliment to the guy next to him who grinned himself and let out a laugh that immediately cut off as Michael continued with, "I think you're definitely dying next."

Access spit some water out that he had just opened his mouth and started drinking from the shower as he realized he was thirsty. He spat it and nearly choked as he was not expecting to hear that on his right side there. "Huh?" he said, glancing right at Michael which reassured Spiral that that really was a confusing thing Michael just said.

"The way you were out there in Argentina dodging bullets like they were damn water balloons," Michael said with a laugh, and he reached up and started washing his hair while the man to his right started smirking again at what Michael was saying. "Swear I saw them miss him by this much, like ten times in a row," Michael held up two fingers close together as he said it, shaking his head in disbelief.

Spiral kept smirking and leaned his head back as he boasted, "I'm just too fast to get hit." Scatterbox rolled his eyes behind Spiral on the other side of the room and he refaced his shower that he turned off, feeling like he was done already and only staying for the conversation. "Besides, I'm still on life number one, unlike some people."

"Don't talk like that," Michael said. He kept washing his hair and did not look at the man next to him who turned with his smile lowering back down again. Michael was really frowning this time though, and he just said in a serious way while facing the wall in front of him. "It's not a joke dying. You need to take it seriously."

Spiral waved a hand off to his side and started, "I'm just messing. I know it's gonna hurt when it-"

"Let me stop you there," Michael cut him off again, and Spiral started frowning though he tried not to get an angry look on his face as Michael got a darker one on his own at that moment. Michael glared out the corners of his eyes at Spiral and said in a low voice, "Really, don't die." The way the younger man was saying it made it sound like he expected to die sooner or later, and Michael's glare was cold which had the whole shower silent. Scatterbox stopped over at the divide between the halves of the room, and Vince stopped brushing his teeth for a second as he heard that low order that almost sounded like a growl coming from Michael.

Spiral lowered his lips into a frown though, as he was tired of having to try and appease the man at his side. "You're being overdramatic," Spiral said, surprising most people in there who did not think the younger man would keep pushing Michael's buttons when he looked this genuinely mad. "I'm ready to die for this-" Spiral started, his tone intense and serious to match Michael's and show him that he meant it, try and gain the older man's respect.

"I don't care if you're fine with dying," Michael snapped though, cutting in on the spiky-haired man and glaring in a pissed way at him for not listening. "You'll learn after how hard it really is, but fuck it. If you want to try dying just to see how it is then I'd be fine with letting you, but it's not that simple." Michael glared harder at him, then he grit his teeth and said in a lower tone, "I just don't want Death to have to bring you back for being an idiot, like he had to for me."

Grabble and Access both looked to their rights in surprise at their friend who rarely talked about that day on the mountain in Switzerland at all. There were some things the three of them didn't mess with each other about very much, very few things that were off limits, like the Saudi invasion for Grabble, or Scotland for Access. Michael glared into Spiral's eyes and the younger man opened them wider as did a bunch of the others in the shower as Michael growled, "Death has to feel it each time we die, go through all our pain, and pretty much die to bring us back. And when I opened my eyes, and Death said to me, 'I told you not to get cocky.'" Michael grit his teeth and his lips parted to show how hard they were bared after he recited that line that was etched into his mind.

"I knew I had fucked up," Michael continued in a dark tone, glaring harder at Spiral and making the younger man gulp at that look. "I had made Death feel that pain, but worse than the pain, was the regret I heard in Death's voice right there. Like he thought he had brought me into all this just to get killed, because I was too stupid to take it seriously." Michael leaned back and stopped glaring at Spiral as hard at the wide-eyed look on the shorter man's face in front of him. He turned forward and leaned his head back to let the water fall over his face, then he lowered his head a bit and continued without speaking to anyone in particular, "So I decided right then that I wasn't going to die again, that I was going to stop treating it like a game and get serious."

"Oh yeah, 'cause you're always Mr. Serious," Grabble laughed, and Michael's lips curled back up into a grin as he turned towards his friend to chide back at. The mood in the showers lifted in an instant, and half of the showers turned off in that next second as a bunch of guys realized they were already done. Scatterbox saw others turning off their showers and he turned to get out of the way, while wondering how he had never heard that before since he was there that day in Switzerland.

Michael turned off his shower too and he kept smirking towards Grabble as he did. "Must be tough, huh bud?" Grabble was reaching up over the top of his head and he ground his teeth at the taunt coming from Michael that he had heard far too many times before. Access started snickering and turned off his shower too, while Michael continued, "What with those stubby arms and all-"

"My arms are longer than yours," Grabble retorted fast.

"If only they were just a bit longer though," Access said, shaking his head and shrugging his shoulders like there was nothing to do.

Grabble had his arms lifted straight over his head, reaching to his pincers and scrubbing more than halfway up them, though he was having difficulty washing the tips. He had to bend over to get them wet too since they stuck up too high that they did not get hit by the water coming out of the shower-head unless he hunched himself. _We need taller people in the AoD. Get a reason for a higher up shower-head._

Michael turned and he called over to a large man still in the showers who had stayed quiet the entire time the others were talking. "Hey Exodus," Exodus turned towards Michael, fully turning his body and standing there letting everything hang out with a questioning look on his face. "You should help Grabble out. He's having a hard time."

Grabble ground his teeth in more frustration as he was trying to get that last part to wash off quick so he could get out of there already, then he spun with his jaw dropping and his eyes wide as he saw a man walking towards him. Michael started laughing so hard his voice traveled down the hall outside the bathroom, and he turned and started heading off as Grabble quickly started telling Exodus that it was fine and he could wash his own pincers.

Down the hallway past all the rooms with soldiers getting dressed and ready for the day, the women of the Army of Death were taking showers too. Some of the girls just walking in asked where their comrades had been when they were getting up, and Flare leaned in towards Tama with an upset look on her face. "Why didn't you wake me up? Death probably thinks I'm lazy-"

"It wasn't everyone," Tama said quickly, waving her hands around in a way to try and reassure her red-haired friend. "Not everyone would have fit in the command center anyway-"

"You still could have told me something was happening."

"Nothing was _'happening.'_ We all just decided to start working early," Tama looked away like it was no big deal. "You know, it's some intense stuff we're doing. I just wanted to be more prepared for the day instead of just getting my briefings and going out. You could've-"

"We're always pressed for time," Flare countered defensively, now really feeling like she had to defend herself over this which made Tama sweatdrop more. "I'd do stuff like that too if, I mean… You should've woken me up. What if I die now and-" Flare stopped herself, then she lowered her gaze for a second and muttered, "That was uncool. My b," Tama had looked at her with her bottom lip dropped that Flare was going that far about this, but she decided not to stay upset over it as Flare looked upset enough already that she had started letting that slip when they both knew how serious it was.

"Next time something like that happens, I'll come get you right away," Tama assured. Flare lifted her head and met her friend's gaze, then she matched her smile too and nodded in agreement.

"Grabble?" Replay lifted her eyebrows up incredulously at the girl on her right in the showers. They were on the opposite corner of the shower area as Flare and Tama, and they were talking about stuff a bit less serious.

"What?" Maelstrom asked defensively. She pulled back a bit as if embarrassed, then she leaned back forward and said, "He's handsome-"

"Ehh," Replay lifted her right hand and turned it back and forth in an iffy motion.

"Don't like his pincers?" Maelstrom asked.

"More like I'm not into bald guys," Replay countered. She ran her hands up through her short black hair while saying it and then smiled while letting out a sigh of euphoria like the feeling of hair was the best thing ever.

Maelstrom rolled her eyes and then bent down and grabbed a bottle of shampoo off the tile floor in front of her. She lifted it and squirted some in her hand, then she looked to the right while putting the shampoo into her long orange hair that she needed to wash well to keep it from getting all frizzy. Replay started while her friend began shampooing, "I'd say something about Death," she got quieter and cupped a hand to her mouth, "but you never know when Darling might be listening."

Maelstrom's eyes were darting around already before Replay even finished that sentence. _Don't joke around like that,_ Maelstrom thought, a bead of sweat rolling down her face. Past Replay's other side, Seraphim glanced over at the younger girls whose conversation she had been staying out of as it was a little immature for her. She did lift a corner of her lip up though at the nervous looks on the girls' faces though as Replay started looking around too after mentioning that as if checking to make sure Darling did not hear. Then Replay finished, "Because he's hot."

"Hmm," Maelstrom hummed, not as much as if she was pondering whether Replay was right but just trying not to keep it from sounding too affirmative just in case Darling chose that minute to jump in the showers with them. Seraphim had to crack her smile more at that unenthusiastic response from the orange haired girl who was clearly picturing something even as she hid it. _The newcomers are always put off by Darling, though Maelstrom's been around for a while._ Seraphim chuckled once and started washing her own long purple hair. _It's only once she calls you out on being into Death and you deny it that she'll ever really relax on you. She didn't even give me much of a stink eye when I offered him coffee earlier._

"What about Michael?" Replay asked, trying to find some common ground and bouncing her eyebrows at her friend. Michael and Grabble had similar body types before their heads started, and Replay grinned as she added, "Now that's a hunk, maybe the hottest-"

"Do not go for Michael," Seraphim said, and she continued to shower like she had not just spoken out about it.

The other two girls looked over in surprise as she cut in. Then Replay's eyes lit up brightly. _Oh no,_ Seraphim thought, trying to stifle a groan. La Brava let out a snort behind her across the room as she heard what was coming already without turning around. "He has a thing for you anyway," Replay started, sighing as she did as if it were such a shame. Maelstrom nodded in stoic agreement and let out a sigh as well. Faye looked in from Seraphim's other side and smirked, and she glanced to her other side at Slipspace who grinned too at what Replay was attempting.

"Ha. You're wrong," Seraphim scoffed and shut it down immediately.

"We see him flirting with you," Maelstrom started, leaning in towards the older woman on her right and bouncing her orange eyebrows in a playful way. "Teasing you and everything-"

Seraphim looked to her side and Maelstrom pulled back, since as much as she was trying, she was a bit shy and that look almost seemed confrontational. Her eyes also glanced down from Seraphim's for a second before snapping back up, trying to avoid looking at her extremely sexy body that the girls on Seraphim's right now had a free chance to look at with jealous expressions. "He acts that way with everyone," Seraphim said as Maelstrom cut off. "You'll see the more you get to know him."

"I don't know, I feel like I know him pretty well," Maelstrom started, raising her tone at the end, implying something there.

Replay grinned too and she shook her head at Seraphim, "Uh uh. You get it way more than the rest of us."

"Trust me, he's not that subtle," Seraphim countered, looking back forward and speaking without giving the younger girls anymore chance to keep this going. "I've known him for months, and I know how he acts when he's into someone. With me, it's just Michael being Michael."

The mention of Michael being into someone made Maelstrom lower her eyes down and then turn back to the wall herself to get the shampoo out of her hair quietly. Replay saw that change in Maelstrom's expression, and she looked back and forth between the two on her right a couple times before asking softly, "Was it Cee?" They looked back at the girl who pulled away a bit at their looks, though hers was already apologetic despite never having met the woman they were thinking about. "I heard Michael yelling her name before we rushed the League of Shadows' base," Replay explained softly.

On the other side of the shower, Flare and Tama glanced over to their side in a bit of confusion, wondering why La Brava had suddenly looked down at the floor with such an upset look on her face. The younger and shorter woman rose her head back up though and turned off her shower, and the other two looked away quickly so she would not see they had been staring.

Seraphim nodded at Replay's question after a few moments of silence. She looked a bit sadder herself, as a blonde teen's face appeared in her mind. Then next to that face appeared Juno's, who had asked her for a 'kiss for good luck' before that mission in the Dragon's Den, which she had told him sounded so corny, right before giving him that kiss. "So the first missions are all in Africa today," Replay started up, washing her hair and changing the subject completely as the mood had dipped too far too fast. "Did you girls see anywhere that might be a tough one?"

"Treat them all like tough ones," Seraphim started.

"I know I know," Replay said, waving her hands so as not to be misconstrued. "But still, you know what I mean. I've been checking out our next stops all morning, and to me it seems like we can handle most of what's coming pretty easily as long as we stick to Death's-"

"I don't know what you mean," Seraphim cut back. "Any of those places that might seem easy, the villains could see us coming. Expect Eziano Mozcaccio knows our exact location, and could be sending assassins to assist any of our enemies. Any villain group no matter how small could get bolstered, which is why we do so much recon. Make sure you're ready to let us know if an ambush is coming," Seraphim said, giving the younger girl a harsh look as she reminded Replay of her responsibility.

"Yeah, I'll be ready," Replay said, making sure she sounded very serious too so she could reassure Seraphim. The older woman nodded back at the sight of that serious look, then she turned off her shower and headed over to the lockers to grab her towel.

Flare watched as Seraphim started heading out, then she turned off her own shower quick. _Everyone else got so much in before I even woke up. I've gotta go get some breakfast quick then study up on my Arabic. Have to at least know the imperative commands: Run, come, get away, retreat, fall back, with me, Death, Army of Death… Gun, pistol, rifle, knife, shoot… help, heroes, civilians, thank you…_

Zach stood alone in his own individual shower inside of his private quarters. He locked his bathroom door even though he always kept his actual room's door unlocked, and he sighed while looking out the corners of his eyes towards the knob that wiggled around and then stopped. He could imagine Darling tssking on the other side of the door with a disappointed look on her face, likely no clothes on as she tried to sneak in on him in the shower again. _I don't have time for this this morning,_ Zach thought, and he just turned straight forward and pretended not to notice the doorknob had wiggled. _Don't turn a finger into a lockpick, you know why I locked it._ Zach lowered his head and the hot water of his shower fell onto the back of his head and ran over the sides.

He rose his right hand and pressed it into the wall in front of him. His head stayed bowed and he took in some deep breaths. He rose his head a bit so the water was hitting the top of his head, and he closed his eyes while it ran over his face. _Rules for today. Don't break them no matter what. Number one, don't let anyone die. Two, figuring out who managed to not only set up new gun manufacturing factories, but who connected them to the Gang of Banditos. The Hombres Malvados were getting guns from the Banditos too, so these factories were already supplying major ideological villains, the guns they used to kill Green Gal._ Zach ground his teeth at the thought of the Argentinian hero who had died a day before they reached that country to fight the very same villains she fell against.

 _How?_ He asked himself. _We didn't just take down Zolo. The heroes found most of his contractors and assets, that they knew of at least. I wish I had kept more of the information we found down there instead of letting Endeavor take it all. He treated it like he deserved it more than us even though… No, just be happy he didn't make me fight all of them just to get the Army out of there. And the heroes are doing work. They're doing so much all over the world every day. Dying just like we are for these fights. So I need to find out how this is possible to stop any more of them, or us, from getting killed by guns somehow being shipped around the world with no one running this shit anymore!_

 _Kabo was a big thing too. With him, Zolo, the other top trade runners in all the different… But there were people below them. People the top guys wouldn't have ratted out to the heroes when they were caught, people who knew the ropes and could take over quickly. And without the ability to interrogate those guys the heroes already caught, we don't know who those guys that used to be below them are. We don't know who took over, but we know they must have been related to have been able to take over so quickly and smoothly._ Zach curled his lip as he thought about it, putting pieces together and racking his mind over the villain situations of the world. _I was more worried about the ambitious small timers from before moving into the spotlight, taking over after the power gap, but there hasn't been that power gap yet. Villains can't act as freely, or as widespread, but they have trade lines established and know how to do things. They were ready to take over. The ambitious weren't just limited to small timers who were at odds with League of Shadows, but the guys just below the Shadow Bosses who've probably been waiting for this for so long._

 _There's still so much interconnection between villains. Deals going on faster than I can stop them._ Zach clenched his right hand into the wall in front of him and then curled it into a fist so his fingers would not dent into it as he felt them about to. Pressing his fist into the wall was not much better, but his eyes opened up and glared darker through streams of water falling from his bangs. _I need to stop them at the sources. Fix situations in countries that are prone to breed villains. Make better, the world. Just stopping villains isn't enough to stop all villains. Preventing them from meeting up with each other which makes both sides stronger, keeping them weak with no weapons or Trigger that we'll still have, taking the advantage back from them. Doing whatever it takes, everywhere, every day moving forward… Everything…_

* * *

Zach stood behind a few of his comrades who were watching the two lined up side by side at the shooting range. Most of the back half of the ship was made up of the hangar, though the brig extended below it too. The front half of the ship was split up into a lot more rooms though. There were all the dorms of the barracks and the bathrooms at their sides, and across the starboard-side hall farther back near the center of the ship was a cafeteria and the kitchen. In the middle of the front-center region of the ship though, just past the kitchen, was the meeting/war room, and there were a couple of small interrogation rooms after that before the hallway around the front of the ship but before the cockpit.

On the other side of the center region of the ship's front half though, were all the training rooms for the Army of Death. There was a wide gym, weight systems set up along the walls and in the middle of the floor. There were heavy weights all over the place, the most high-tech machines, and there was a counter covered in supplements and blenders near the wall too so the soldiers could have their pre-workout or post-workout shakes right there in the gym. The weight machines were all far towards the bow of The Cloak, then there was a much larger and more open space behind it between there and the shooting range back near the wall to the hangar. There were two doors on the wall connecting to the hangar, one that actually went into the hangar and the other closer to the hull wall since there were rooms on the exteriors of the hangar where the ship extended out a bit on the stern too, since it did narrow in towards the front from a more aerodynamic flying experience.

The group in front of Zach between him and the two lined up shooting at the targets started clapping, and a few of the guys smirked and started saying stuff to Mark who turned to his side with wide eyes at the younger girl laying prone there. Darling turned her head and had a smirk on her face after outshooting the man at her side, and she turned her arms back into real arms before pushing them down to get up. Mark muttered as she started getting up next to him, "Well of course, I mean. The revived have better eyesight, no shakiness in their hands-"

"You don't have bad eyes or shaky hands," Darling countered the man giving reasons for why he lost the shootout, with her getting more points on the targets they shot at. She smirked at the man who others started laughing at as she finished, "I'm just better." Darling turned and looked between the people behind her after saying it, and she smiled wide as she saw Zach watching her. He nodded at her, giving her a small smile as she managed to beat Mark which he was actually surprised by considering how accurate Mark always was.

Zach turned away as some of the others in front of him started challenging Mark to shootouts too, going to try and see if they could beat the man who really wasn't the best in the AoD. Mark felt relieved as they started asking him, and he grinned and accepted readily all their challenges. Darling lowered her smile a bit but she turned back to the targets ahead of her and narrowed her eyes at them again with her smile reappearing on her face. _He was happy I got so good! Now I can help Him more! I need to get even better!_

Zach walked into the big sparring area in the middle of their training grounds. He looked over towards a pair holding training swords in hand and setting up for another spar. The one farther from him looked his way for a moment at the sight of Death watching, and his hands tightened on his blade. The one with his back to Zach turned his head a bit to the side and then gripped his sword tighter too. Zach watched as the one farther from him mentioned starting, and the two of them ran at each other and started slashing their swords, blocking each others' blows and parrying before slashing again.

 _Switch is getting better with weapons. He, really has no idea how strong he could be,_ Zach started at the man who originally had his back to him, who moved to the right in a circle, switching which hand was his dominant one on the top of his hilt and turning the blade a different way for a moment to disrupt his opponent's thoughts. Shang turned his blade to the side too though, and the Chinese man slid his right foot back behind him in a circular movement on the floor that distracted Switch for a second as he wondered what Shang was doing with his fancy footwork.

Shang pushed down on the foot he slid behind him, he crouched, brought his sword down to stick out the side near his leg and it dragged on the floor as he ran forward. Shang made a huge movement slashing his sword up, a lot of power behind it that Switch jumped back to avoid instead of trying to block. Shang stomped his back foot forward after Switch jumped back though, he grabbed the sword hard with both hands on the hilt and brought back down with even more force after slashing up diagonally like that. Switch moved back again, and Shang had him on the defensive with these powerful blows that Switch was hoping would start to tire him out.

Switch's teeth ground in frustration though, as he spotted Xia walking into the room with Grabble over at a wide gap in the wall that went right into the hallway. _You need to change it up, Switch,_ Zach thought as he saw the European man realizing he was not going to tire Shang out before he tired out himself. Switch decided that meant he had to attack now, and after dodging back again, he sprinted forward right as Shang missed the slash. Shang saw Switch look away when his sister entered though, and he saw it coming. Shang did not make the last slash as hard, and he pulled to the side to dodge Switch while yanking up his hilt with both hands. Shang let go with his left so there would not be as much force in it, as he smashed the hilt into his comrade's face.

"Ooof," Switch fell backwards and slammed down on his back, making a grunt of pain mixed with a gasp as he lost all his breath. _I picked the wrong Quirk. I really, shouldn't have…_ Switch regretted so many decisions leading up to that moment while he reached up his hands that had let go of his sword and grabbed his nose with them.

Zach turned away as Shang bent down to help Switch back to his feet. _Switch can take other people's Quirks, permanently, but it's different from All For One's. The Quirk he takes switches with the one he current has, and he always has one Quirk so unless he gives his to a Quirkless person, then switches again with a really bad villain, there's no real way to just take a villain's power away, though leaving one with a bad Quirk isn't beyond his ability. He's not too powerful though. Taking a Quirk from a villain whose power he doesn't understand much, and he gives them the one that he may have just started to learn how to use anyway._ Zach looked back out the corner of his eyes towards that man. _But, he says he's had a lot of Quirks before. So he knows how to use a lot that he takes for the first time just from instinct, and he takes them at the power they're at. His current one he got from the Banditos powerhouse is a really powerful one he can't train easily, especially on a ship like this. I get why he's already regretting it._

Switch got back to his feet with that look of regret still on his face. _Death says I can't even use it. We're precise, we don't want mass damage… though, it is good I got it away from that villain._ Switch sighed and put himself into a stance with his training sword readied again. _I can't just give another villain this power though. I've got to find some weak-Quirked civilian with a good heart to trade this with, then trade up after on the next villains we face…_

Zach walked over to a different group sparring in the open area. The most soldiers out of anywhere were in this part of the training ground, as they had six hours until they were reaching their next big mission. Zach had decided to stay on the ship for it, deciding to finally get some rest, and to oversee The Cloak and plan the next mission which was one he was worried was going to be a really intense one. He was glad everyone was practicing their skills and training up for the next fight, and he stood to the side and watched as four guys faced off against each other in teams of two.

Barboon and Jackhammer were facing off on Zach's left side, but they stopped for a second to look over as the group of four started a more intense spar with Death watching. Barboon walked up to Death's left side, his big hairy arms down in front of him with his wrists curled in so he pressed the back of his hands into the floor with each step. Barboon's Quirk, Gorilla, made him the biggest soldier training in the room and the largest member of the Army of Death in total. He walked up to Death's side still taller than the teen despite his body being hunched forward so he could walk using his fists too like a real gorilla would.

Jackhammer rubbed his right arm while stepping up on Zach's other side. He was a big man himself, and his Quirk, Break-Up, was fairly powerful. The last spar was one he was glad to get a break from though, and he grinned and called out, "Whoop 'em Jughead!"

Jughead and Cluster were facing off against Sagitus and Flare. The four of them were using their Quirks too, though they were treating the fight like one they would need to be really careful about collateral damage. They did not want to interrupt other training sessions where many of the others were not using their Quirks to avoid the same thing, but Flare and Jughead were both working on getting more precise with their Quirks too and this was their only place to really train on the ship.

Zach watched for thirty seconds before his eyes narrowed in at Cluster who just got a good hit on Flare's back with the wooden stick he was using. The stick was in the shape of a katana, and after hitting Flare in the back with it, Cluster dragged the fake weapon across her back like cutting through. Zach's eyes shifted over to Jughead who he saw Sagitus scramble back away from as the large man slammed his big fists down at Sagitus's head. Sagitus had wide eyes as Jughead's hits were known to be really strong, and the way he slammed them down together like that was dangerous.

Sagitus did not want to say anything about it though, and the man with the lower body of a horse charged forward fast after stopping his movements backwards. He charged ahead at Jughead right as the more muscular man had started running his way himself. Jughead started bringing back his right arm for a punch, but Sagitus picked up his speed that was not yet at its fastest. Sagitus charged straight into Jughead who rose his other hand and pressed his palm up into Sagitus' chest, up into his specialized black armor to fit his half-man half-horse body. Jughead pushed back against Sagitus' momentum while he skid backwards, then Sagitus tripped as Cluster took out his front right foot with the wooden blade. Sagitus tried to balance on his other feet, but without that leg that Cluster lifted high up into his body, Jughead's force back against him was too much and reversed their momentums. Jughead reached forward with his other hand and grabbed around the sides of Sagitus' chest, and he tossed backwards flipping Sagitus right back over his hind legs that reared up to try and stop a full flip over.

Cluster stood back up from the slide he went into to take out Sagitus' leg, and he lifted his wooden sword and rested it up over his right shoulder to point behind his head in the other direction. Jughead crossed his arms and flexed with a grin on his face, while Flare and Sagitus got back up in front of the winners of the spar. "Cluster, Jughead," the two of them turned to the right and watched as the man who they had gotten so intense for stepped in front of them. "Few things," Zach continued, and the two opened their eyes wider at what he said.

"We just won though," Jughead said, sounding confused as it felt like Death was saying they messed up.

"Kicked their butts-"

"When you stabbed at Flare," Zach started, interrupting Cluster. He looked at the older man who frowned for a second but then nodded at the boy who he could see really was trying to help him. "You made too much of a jabbing stroke with your blade. If it was real, you never would have been able to slide it across her back in an actual slashing motion. It would have gotten stuck in her back, and even if you had managed to yank it through, it would've wasted a lot of your energy and only resulted in an injury for your opponent beyond anything we're going for, especially when you have the drop on them."

Cluster opened his mouth to say he wouldn't have gone for the stab in a regular fight but since it was a wooden sword… but he closed his mouth and just nodded at Death instead. He figured he should be training as he would actually fight, and that of course Death would say that to him assuming he was training that way already. "And Jughead," Zach started. "You give away your attacks too early. Sagitus saw how you were going to punch before he even started running at you, and you advertised that punch the whole charge so even if you had managed to swing it in time, he probably would have been able to dodge with his mobility."

"What about us?" Flare asked. Zach turned his head, and he saw the short red-head behind him looking at him with her lip furled. She did not like that Death was saying so much to the ones who had just beaten them, as it made her feel like they had done so much worse if the winners had made so many mistakes.

"You should have switched who you two were going against at the start," Zach replied, looking from Flare to Sagitus next. "Cluster realized it early that Jughead was the slowest of the four of you, and he knew that's why you would be fine with Sagitus going against him despite the strength difference. But even though Sagitus is faster than you, Flare, your smaller body would have been better for dodging around Jughead. It also would have given Sagitus a chance to take on Cluster who is stronger than you, and if Jughead had turned from you when you were only dodging so that he could go help Cluster face Sagitus, that's when you use your speed and take Jughead from behind. You could catch him off guard when he's looking away by firing a flare to one side, then when he turns that way thinking you're attacking from that direction, that's the moment you come in from the other side and get him off his feet."

Flare started nodding along halfway through what Death was telling her, and she nodded again at the end of it as that sounded like a perfect way to use her flare in the next fight. She grimaced though with a glance back towards Jughead as she knew he would be expecting it now, but that just made her start thinking of running in behind her flare that he would never turn to fully if he thought she was going to come from the other side. Sagitus nodded in agreement too after the end, and he looked back towards his opponents and said, "Let's go another round."

Cluster nodded as it sounded good to him, and he figured it would be a better fight this time with Death giving their opponents some help. With him and Jughead it was more things they needed to work on for the long term, Jughead getting quicker and him making sure he kept his sword-fighting style non-lethal. Cluster took his wooden sword off his shoulder and grabbed the hilt with both hands as he put it in front of him. Flare lifted up the two thin black sticks that looked a lot like her usual steel weapons that were thin and worked like extendable police batons. Sagitus lifted his hands with his fingers curled forward in a fighting stance, then he stepped to the left while Flare moved to the right. As they did that, Jughead moved to the side and Cluster to the other, and they both grinned at the two who frowned more at them. It was clear Cluster and Jughead were not just going to go along with letting their opponents switch who they were going after after hearing Death explain how that would give the other team the advantage, but there was no more time to think about that as Cluster and Jughead ran forward to keep the other two from figuring out their way of separating them.

Another sparring session went down, this time lasting longer than the first one as Flare and Sagitus first sprinted to different sides as each other. They ran around and even darted over past other groups fighting giving them just a wide enough berth that they were not technically interrupting their training. Jughead and Cluster both went after Flare though, and Sagitus curved around the other side of two sparring partners to run back, right at Jughead's back since he was the farthest back of the three going the other way. Cluster called for Jughead to stop and turn and get Sagitus, while he kept going for Flare, thus keeping them after the same partners they were against the first time. This time though, as Sagitus ran at Jughead, the muscular soldier with a cylinder shaped head advertised which arm he was going to punch with again far too early again. Sagitus ran towards that side just long enough that Jughead could not go back, before darting the other way and sprinting right past Jughead's other side. Jughead tried lifting his left arm to stop Sagitus, then he realized what was happening and called out, "Cluster!"

Cluster turned and saw Sagitus running at him, Jughead getting farther behind him every second. He darted his eyes back as he saw Flare stopped running away from him, instead curving to the side of the room to run around and go for Jughead's back. Others near the side of the room who had started watching pulled back to the wall to get out of her way, and Cluster's eyes darted quickly from her to Sagitus and back again. On one hand, if he ran after her then it was going to be a two-on-one as Jughead was still running after Sagitus. He could tell Jughead to turn and go after Flare instead, but that was what their opponents wanted. If he said it himself though, at least Flare would not have the drop on Jughead as he went for Sagitus himself. Cluster knew already without needing to think about it though, that he was not going to last long against Sagitus on his own. Death had not even needed to say anything about the two of them fighting really when he suggested the switch, and he had not argued that point at all since he knew it too. Sagitus knew it as well, and Cluster knew that even if Jughead did manage to catch Flare by turning to face off directly against her, it would take him longer than it would take Sagitus to get him. He also doubted Jughead was going to catch Flare when she was not going to be fighting very hard against him, instead going to stall for time so Sagitus could come help her make it a two-on-one.

Cluster started running for Flare after his hesitation as he almost turned to face Sagitus. "Get him off me! Take the shot on the run!"

Jughead opened his mouth wide. He aimed at Sagitus' back and tried not to slow down even though it was hard to aim with his tall and jug-shaped head bouncing around with each step. Flare lifted her hands that glowed red, and she threw both red flares she created towards Jughead who ignored them knowing she was too far and they were just a distraction. He got ready to fire the water from his mouth, then his head turned to the side right as he fired, because one of the red flares hit him in the right arm and actually started burning him. "Oh shit- those hurt?!" Jughead blasted his water down at the flare on his arm, then he snapped his head up and aimed at the woman who tried running at him after throwing the flares. She cut in from one side of the room, Cluster tried sprinting faster to intercept her, but he had to turn and throw his sword as Sagitus was faster and going to intercept him first.

Jughead rose his head and fired the last of the shot at Flare who was not expecting so much force still after seeing him put out her flare and splash the floor beneath him. She crossed her arms and got pushed back, the red light going away between her fingers after she created two new flares. Cluster hit Sagitus in the face with his sword, doing nothing to slow Sagitus and not even getting the man to flinch and close his eyes for a second as Cluster was at least hoping for. Cluster rose his arms to block the fist he saw Sagitus clenching with his right hand, then Sagitus' front right hoof lifted up and slammed up into Cluster's chest. It was not the bottom of the hoof which Sagitus could have kicked with a lot more force, but still the front of his lower leg had enough in it to knock Cluster off his feet and backwards at a loss of breath.

Flare got pushed back far by the water, but she uncrossed her arms and steadied on her feet as the water stopped slamming into her. She lifted her wet head up with some red hair falling down in front of her face and to the sides of it in a messy way. Her eyes were intense as she snapped her head up, only for those eyes to open wide as Jughead was already charging at her, his head thinner than a few seconds ago only wider at the top of his skull and around his chin. He ran at her with his right fist still normal sized though, but he opened that big fist into a hand at least as he wound up to the side. Then Sagitus slammed into Jughead's left side and took the big man off his feet, knocking him backwards as he was trampled by the half-horse man who toppled over Jughead's body too at the speed he was running at.

"Ooooo," a bunch of people who had started watching pulled back and made the 'ooo' noise, wincing as their comrades rolling across the floor over each other looked painful.

Flare was still up though, and her wide eyes from when she saw Jughead running at her, that had widened when Sagitus crashed into him, widened even more as she realized they just won that spar. She had thought it was unfair when Death was scolding them before that he did not mention how maybe their teams of two were just mismatched as she had thought after the way the other two had beaten them last time so easily. Flare turned a bit and looked towards Death, and she saw him looking over with some worry in his eyes towards Sagitus and Jughead, only to nod in a glad way as the two strong men were quick to start getting up. Then he looked her way, and he nodded at her with a small smile formed on his face as if telling her it was 'great job.' At least, that's what she interpreted the smile as, and she smiled back wide at the sight of it.

"You guys need we should bring Curalia here?" Clash asked. The dark-skinned African man in his late fifties did not know great English, but the two who got up in front of him understood what he was trying to say and both glanced in at each other.

"Took a big roll there," Jughead started while lifting his eyebrows at the man who had toppled over him.

"Couldn't avoid it, felt like I was running into a damn wall," Sagitus remarked back, and he laughed instead of saying something back like Jughead should be the one who needs it. He actually felt a lingering, bad pain in his hind right leg, and he grimaced as he tried putting weight down on it. There were a lot of people looking over though, and Sagitus put that leg down before just grinning at Clash. "Before we head out for sure, but I'm still good to-"

"Don't wait," Zach said, taking a step towards Sagitus who turned his way at the sound of that. "If we head out there and get a lot of injuries, bad ones, we'll need Curalia fresh. Piling on injuries for her to fix up right before we head out won't give her time to recharge before we're back."

Sagitus frowned as he was trying not to make a big deal of it, but he nodded at Death in agreement, putting the next mission first and pushing back the bit of hurt pride that he had just done this to himself with a bunch of others watching. "Nice job taking down Jughead," Zach added to the man who finally started showing the limp on his back right leg with his next step towards the gap in the wall. "You were pretty sneaky for running so fast on hooves. I don't know how you kept him from hearing you coming."

"I can be light on my feet, when I need to be," Sagitus replied, grinning again as that was not something any of the others were even thinking about after seeing him tackle Jughead. They were thinking about it now though, and some of them looked down at his hooves wondering how he managed that on the hard floor of the training room.

"I think it was more- Jughead got too focused on the girl who burned him," the group who just sparred, and Death, and a bunch of others around all looked over towards the gap in the wall where Gentle was standing having come in during the end of that spar. He glanced to the side at Flare who looked at him with lifted eyebrows, and Gentle said to the girl who was soaking wet, "It did seem she was caught very off guard. There was no sign she was even going to try dodging Jughead despite how slow he was coming at her."

Flare's cheeks reddened as that was true, she had been flustered by Jughead's approach right behind his water and thought she was going to be hit for sure. Jughead also frowned over at the white-haired man who was a lot more slender, and a few inches shorter than him. Cluster got back to his feet, rubbing at his chest and wondering if he should check at the infirmary for bruising, maybe ask their new healer for help too or just get some help from Hank if it was not too bad. He looked over with a bit of a frown towards Gentle too, wondering if he was going to come up with a way to insult him too after hearing all of that.

"Any, constructive criticism?" Zach asked, lifting an eyebrow at Gentle to see if he was going to add anything there. Gentle frowned back towards him though, as that was him trying to be constructive even if it did just sound like he was straight-up criticizing them.

"And what would you have done?" Jughead asked, crossing his arms and looking at Gentle expectantly. "If you had seen Sagitus running at you while in my position. Even if I had started to turn, even if I fully turned, he was going so fast he would've taken us both down anyway-"

"I would have put up a Gently Rebound, and he would have bounced away," Gentle remarked calmly back, looking like he was almost letting out a scoff at the amusing concept of Sagitus' charge being a difficult thing for him to stop.

"Well what about without your Quirk?" Flare asked, making Gentle turn back to his left at the shorter girl who crossed her arms now after tucking the hair from in front of her face back behind her ears. "Jughead used his up on me, so if you have to go from Jughead's position, then you have to think of it like you couldn't use your Quirk anymore either. Or is there no limit to your Elasticity?"

"There are limits to all Quirks, Flare," Gentle said, assuring her there was no question there. She felt a bit satisfied at the response for a moment, as he used her name this time at least instead of just calling her the 'girl.' She frowned again though as he continued, "Though mine would not have run out nearly as quickly- But! I will, for this hypothetical, imagine that I could not use it. In which case, I would have jumped." Gentle said it like it was simple, and he looked behind him back towards the gap in the room where Sagitus had walked out instead of listening to him. "It was only the mass of the horse half that took down a man of Jughead's size. Jumping and pulling away, only being hit by a part of Sagitus' upper body, it would have done more damage to the man whose lower half was still moving so fast when his top half was snapped back."

"Sagitus had his arms ready though," Zach started over towards Gentle. Gentle looked the younger boy's way, and he frowned at him but Zach continued anyway, "Even if you could jump, without using your Quirk, high enough to avoid being hit by Sagitus' lower body, he had his arms up so he would have used those to push forward and not get snapped back. His momentum was so fast too, the push still would have taken you down."

Gentle did not reply for a moment. And Zach noticed in that moment that every person around the training room was looking over at them. There was a path between them with no one standing there, and then the inevitable happened after Gentle frowned at Death like that. "I think he thinks he'd beat you, Death," Cluster called over, with a smirk over his face like he thought it was unbelievable that Gentle was even considering it. His tone too, and calling it out with so many people around to hear it, immediately the entire room knew what was up.

"If in a hypothetical fight," Gentle began without waiting for anyone else to speak up. "There were no Quirk uses allowed, then without our Commander's hack-level ability, it would not be much of a match."

"You gonna take that Death?!" Jackhammer called over, his eyes wide and a huge smile crossing his face. _It's happening!_

"He thinks he could beat you!"

"No way!"

Zach looked around the room, wondering why everyone really thought this was happening. _All of them have to realize what they're doing. Like, they're all smirking like all of them are being the ones instigating it. Like they're riling everyone else up, but everyone is instantly riled. They all want to see me fight Gentle? Just because he thinks he could… I mean, he can't. Does he really think he could?_ Zach looked towards Gentle with a scrunched up face for a second like all of this was a bit over the top, then he shrugged and stepped backwards to make the gap look more inviting for Gentle. He nodded in front of him, and the room went absolutely nuts in that instant.

Gentle's eyes opened wide too. He looked in front of Zach where the teen just motioned with his head, and now the gauntlet was down. He frowned for a moment but lifted his lips back into a smile as he was not going to go out there looking like he regretted starting this. He did look at Death hesitantly for a moment though, still with his smile on his face but with an eyebrow lifted. Zach saw that look and his own eyebrows lifted right back, and a few of the more perceptive others around them noticed the looks and got confused at the conversation that seemed to be going on while everyone else was just getting loud in anticipation.

 _He really thinks he'd beat me,_ Zach thought. _That look, he's worried he'll beat me and make the others think less of me. I'm their leader. I need to always win. And he's showing me he's not going to hold back unless I give him a look to. He actually wants me to tell him to hold back so he won't beat me. That's crazy. I, I should use this though._ Zach's expression got straighter. His lips flattened and his face looked more intense. The others around them quieted down, and Gentle's smile lowered a bit but then he shrugged as it was clear to him that the boy wanted him to fight for real despite him offering to go down for the sake of the army.

Gentle lifted the left corner of his lips up a bit and opened his mouth, but Zach started first, "Exodus." Zach said it, and the others on Zach's left side turned as a set of weights made a loud clanking sound. They turned and watched as a large man over six feet tall and covered in big muscles started walking their way. They moved out of the way of him and Death, and Exodus walked straight over before stopping in the gap between the others as Death continued, "Help Gentle. The two of you fight me, no Quirks."

There was complete silence around Death for a few seconds, and then Cluster pulled back and lifted his right hand over his mouth. "OH SHIT!" He yelled into his hand, turning towards Gentle after he yelled it and leaning his head back even farther at how huge a burn that just sounded to him.

 _Sazaki,_ Gentle's eyes had narrowed far down and his smile was gone. Most of the others around the room were all watching quietly, though the excitement filling the room was thicker than the tension they could feel around Gentle now.

After Cluster's shout, a few others were ready to go nuts like that, but Exodus said, "Understood, Commander." Exodus walked over towards Gentle who watched him approach and just stared at him as the taller man stood at his side and rose up his fists into a fighting stance.

"What's going on?" Michael and Access walked into the room, and Michael asked Grabble who was near the entrance and had a flat expression. Michael could not tell the mood in the room, since some people were smiling wide like Cluster who he had heard from down the hall, and others looked really serious, while some looked nervous too.

"Death's taking on Gentle and Exodus at the same time," Grabble replied, keeping his voice steady though the two who just walked in heard the excitement in his voice. Grabble looked more serious than most of the others, as he thought something along the lines that Gentle did and was a bit worried now about how it would look if Death was beaten here. He shook his head around though, trying not to be intimidated by the size of the man who had just walked right in front of him, the man who he considered to be the strongest in the Army of Death and he knew many of the others felt the same.

Access dropped his jaw at the sound of it, but Michael grinned huge and he started pushing around to the side and kept in front of all the others watching, making a few move to the sides where he stopped to be able to keep looking to the middle of the room. Across from Michael, Darling pushed in front of some others too, and Mark stepped up behind those people with some of the others he had been embarrassing over at the shooting range. The entire training area across the port side of the ship had stopped all activities, and everyone there, over forty people, were watching the three in the middle of the open space who looked the most calm out of anyone in the room.

"Sure you want to do this?" Gentle asked, aloud this time instead of just giving Death a look. This time it was not much of a sly warning though, but something obvious to the people watching that it was for them as much as for Death.

"If you go down, that's the end," Zach replied. "Once both of you are down, it's over."

"Or once you are down?" Exodus questioned. Zach tried not to sweatdrop, and he just nodded at Exodus instead of explaining that he was subtly trash talking back to Gentle with the confidence in his previous statement.

"I'll call it!" Darling called out. "Three-"

"Good luck Death!"

"You've got this Gentle!" A high-pitched cheer called out behind the white-haired man who grinned as he was glad La Brava was going to be there for this, as it was a conversation they had had on occasion a while back.

"Two!"

Zach took in a deep breath. His feet slid apart from each other, and everyone around the open space they were giving the three backed up farther. They backed up to give the three more space, as just Death spreading his legs like that made it seem like he might go in any direction so everyone felt the need to back off in case he was about to dart at them. His eyes narrowed straight on Gentle, though they made a quick dart to the side and into Exodus' eyes. Then they snapped back to Gentle right as Darling called out the final number, "One! Fight!"

Gentle ran forward. Exodus had seen that look in Death's eyes darted straight at him like he was only pretending to be focused on Gentle, and it was really him that their leader was focused on. Death's eyes were locked on Gentle though as he was the only one to reach him, moving fast across the gap straight to him while his partner was still far behind as Exodus did not charge at Death recklessly at the start while wondering what he had planned. Death did not dart any direction though, only came out of that position that made it look like he was getting ready to dart around away from his two opponents that his first look at two seconds left made it seem he was going to. His look had showed him cautious, ready to dart around and look for an opening on two of the other leaders in his Army of Death, men who were known to everyone around them as some of the strongest in the Army. The looks of the others who had backed up, and the fact that they had all backed up, added that feeling for Gentle who saw all those movements and looks right before he started sprinting forward. Death getting out of that somewhat crouched position, his right leg sliding back and his left pushing harder down on the ground, it made Gentle's eyes grow wide and him to doubt everything that he was doing.

Only a few feet in front of Death, Gentle realized how far back Exodus still was behind him. Death's left foot pressed down so hard and his right started lifting, and Gentle was in full run towards the boy who waited before darting a direction: straight at him. Zach stomped his right foot forward, but Gentle still had the speed advantage as Death was only just starting to move. Gentle opened his right hand at his side, swinging it in front of him while just a bit farther than reaching range. His left fist clenched as he was stepping his left foot forward again too, and his right toes curled as that left foot stepped down hard to be his planting foot for the kick of his right foot when he lifted it. When he swung his right hand, he made sure to try and block Death's vision of his left hand that curled into a fist at that moment. When his right hand finished swiping, Death could already see his left fist punching forward.

Zach jumped up in the air. _If there's a kick,_ Zach thought, seeing the punch Gentle formed but being careful and not dodging in a way that would put him in too good a spot to be hit by a follow-up kick if the punch was a feint. He jumped, his eyes locked straight on Gentle's, and he pushed his left hand across the front of his body while rising, slamming his palm into the side of Gentle's fist and knocking it completely to the side in mid-punch. Zach slammed his right knee forward while raising his right arm to pass in front of Gentle's face and block his vision. His knee slammed into the top of Gentle's chest right below his chin, and as it started knocking the man back, Zach snapped his right leg fully out from that kick and slammed his boot into Gentle's chest too, speeding up how fast the man was hit back from him and throwing Gentle onto his back.

Zach landed and crouched down, spinning and slamming his right leg out for Exodus' right foot. The larger man started coming at him when he was slamming his knee into Gentle, a moment where Exodus thought he would get Death off-guard. Exodus jumped back fast as his punch missed the teen who ducked immediately upon landing after hitting Gentle. Exodus was fast, and strong, and his leap backwards put some distance between him and Death. The distance was made in midair though, and Death was already sprinting forward when his kick missed, not that it was ever supposed to hit the man with such muscular legs that the kick would not have taken him off his feet. Zach sprinted to where Exodus was landing, and when the blond man landed down he ran forward right away to try and get Death while he was sprinting. Zach did not slow though and just cracked a smirk, making Exodus freeze. Zach made like he was going to jump, then he dropped into a slide and ducked Exodus' blocking arms, going to the right of Exodus' left leg and sweeping it up with both arms. Zach was crouched there as he picked up Exodus' leg, so he uncrouched in a swift motion to jolt the man who would be reaching down at him, then as soon as he popped Exodus' leg high up, he slammed a kick into Exodus' other leg and pushed all of the man's body weight to that side.

Exodus hit the ground hard with a loud thud. It took under ten seconds. Zach let out a single panting breath as lifting Exodus' weight like that was not such an easy task, especially while exerting himself to the fullest physically and mentally already for every moment of that fight. It did not last long though, and his panting did not last either. He just let out that breath and took in a deeper one, before standing up straight and lowering his arms down to his sides.

"Holy…" Jughead lifted a hand to his head and scratched it a couple of times.

Grabble ran a hand over his bald head to the right of his Pincers. He shook his head, a smirk spreading over his face. _What was I even worried about? That's Death. Death!_ "Haha," Grabble chuckled under his breath and lowered his hand from his head. _It's because I knew him from before he was even Death, but Exodus has always been that powerful guy who joined us already a monster. Gentle's always been the same too… well, I mean, he has changed. All of us have. He's stronger too now, Exodus too… Has Death really gotten that far ahead? Or was Zach, always just…_

Darling's face was bright red and she quivered where she stood which got a couple strange looks from the two on her sides. Her lips pursed, and then she just said in a soft voice, "Of course that's how it went."

Mark rubbed his nose back behind Darling, and he shook his head while looking towards Death in an impressed way. _Always taking the biggest risks. Such a ballsy kid I'm following. He's not even smirking or acting all smug about that win. As much as he could be after the way Gentle-_

"Exodus," Zach started. The man who he dropped second stood up quickly in front of him, and Zach smiled at the big man who he continued to, "You're stronger than you know, and you think too much of me, thinking I'm a hundred steps ahead of everything you're thinking of." Exodus nodded at Death in gratitude for the advice, and Zach turned towards Gentle who had started looking at him in surprise at what the kid just said to his partner. Everything Zach did though from even before the start of the fight, it was all planned out. The confidence he had shown without hesitation from the moment he called out Exodus' name, to when he shifted him a single look that he knew would get Exodus holding back, to the smile he made like Exodus had fallen into a trap that did not exist.

"And Gentle," Zach started, lowering his smile down and just looking at Gentle seriously. "You should know my strength better than anyone yet you went in far too cocky against me," Zach said. "You should've worked with Exodus when I made it clear you needed his help."

Gentle frowned deeply. He glared at Death and opened his mouth to say something witty back to him. "If you would not mind," Exodus began, and Zach turned back towards him. "I would like to take your advice, and go another round. I believe we will do better this time around."

Gentle slowly closed his mouth. He kept frowning, though he realized that saying anything witty or clever in response to what Death said to him, would only make him look like a sore loser after that pitiful display he just showed. So instead of using words, he just agreed with Exodus to Zach's surprise. And Zach also got a lot more serious right away after seeing Gentle's agreement, because he just gave the two of them advice on how to beat him. This time though, he cracked a small grin as he thought, _Now it's training for me too. Two of the best fighters in the Army. Maybe the second and third, with their Quirks, though Mark and Seraphim probably have them beat Quirkless. Alright. Time to show off some moves. Give all the new recruits a lesson while beating them, show the others moves that they should learn, and win. Win so that afterwards when I explain to them how I beat them, how I beat two tall, strong fighters who looked like they should beat me easily, they'll all listen. They'll take it to heart. And it'll keep them alive._

 _I've been doing basic training with all who want to learn for a while. And I told them I'm fine teaching all of them my techniques too. I want them to ask me, but no one wants to bother me for the time when they all know how busy I keep myself. So I'll teach them all like this. Lead by example. In fighting techniques, weapons' training, martial arts, and in battle tactics, operations, interrogations, they all need to know everything. To be the best, not only in their wills, but in their actions._

* * *

In southern Kazakhstan, five miles outside of a small town there was a bar right on the side of the only paved road across a huge section of rural and uninhabited countryside. There were mountains to the north covering the entire horizon line that was clearly visible due to the bright full moon and stars filling the sky in a region with few towns and no cities to make light pollution. Outside of the bar, there were motorcycles lined up all along the sides of the building and out in front. Some were even left partially in the road, almost daring anyone who might drive by that night to try and hit one, see what would happen.

More motorcycles pulled up to the ones out front, and seeing the ones already left on the road, the new arrivals smirked and left their bikes there too. Two black cars rolled up behind some of the motorcycles, and one of the guys on a bike called back at it, "Everyone in! Tab's on Dastan tonight! Hahaha!" The bar had a red sign on the front of its second floor that said 'Dastan' and the others all laughed as they knew their night was about to be all-inclusive.

Already inside the bar, there were twenty plus members of the gang sitting around tables mainly on one half of the room. Another man at the bar stood up and headed for the back door, grabbing his leather jacket and getting out of there as he saw more lights pulling up outside and the shouts of the people who the boisterous half of the room started cheering about their arrivals. The bartender moved to the side of his bar, and he grabbed his daughter by the arm and pulled her back behind the bar from the two men talking to her just at the edge of it. "I'm assuming all those new arrivals are going on _your_ tab, Karl?"

"Oh yeah, don't worry about them," Karl replied, smirking back at the bartender whose eyes widened as the man he was talking to was not even pretending anymore. Karl's voice had no intention in it to pay the final tab, and the door of the bar opened up that next second with a horde of bikers and gang members moving in and straight to tables that had emptied out around their comrades when they started getting too noisy.

"Get up to your room," Dastan whispered, looking back at his daughter who was an adult herself, but who nodded at her father fast as he said it and headed for the back and some stairs to their actual house above the bar. Dastan looked back forward after saying it, checking to see if anyone was watching her go. Most of the others were busy getting up and yelling greetings at their friends, clapping each other on the back and calling out their names. Many of their names did not sound like real names at all, and Dastan gulped before turning back to his bar and going over to wash some glasses. _Keep them happy. That's the best way to minimize losses tonight. Damn that Karl, if he ever comes in here alone again I'm putting a bullet between his…_

Dastan gulped at the sound of someone shouting Karl's name behind him in a happy way, glad to see his comrade who called back 'isn't this place great?' Dastan's thoughts of revenge were squashed at the idea of angering that entire gang, and he could only grind his teeth in frustration before looking up and nodding at a customer in a white cloak who had not gotten up to leave when the rest of the gang came in. "Coming right up," he said, and he gave the woman in front of him a smile with some big gaps between his teeth and a gold filling replacing his front right tooth. The smile was friendly despite his teeth though, and he reached forward and grabbed the cash she put on the counter in the most grateful way.

Before he made her the drink she asked for, he bent down like he was putting the glass he had been scrubbing away under the counter. Dastan reached below the "safe" he had below his actual register, and he grabbed a floorboard after darting his eyes around to check that no one was watching. No one was, but Dastan still winced as he heard the sound of a breaking glass come from his left on the side of the bar the group were most condensed. He looked down and slipped the cash into the secret place on his floor where there was a lot more stored in secret. _I'll need this to replace those glasses tomorrow._ Dastan stood up fast and glared towards the gang. "Hey!" He called out, keeping a strong look on his face so the menacing men over there would not think him a pushover. "Which one of you broke that?"

"This idiot right here!"

"So sorry 'bout that."

"Just put it on my tab," Karl called over, a smirk on his face and a tone in his voice that made the others around him start laughing.

Dastan grumbled but then shook his head in annoyance and just turned to start making the woman at the bar a drink.

On the opposite side of the bar as the actual bar counter itself, along the front wall in one of the booths, a group of five were sitting around a table. There was a man well over six feet tall who looked even bigger because of his muscular body. He was wearing a dark blue tank-top, his jacket resting on the back of the booth behind him. His arms were crossed and he had been silent for most of the time since entering the bar, which Dastan noticed from the bar every time he looked over to see what their group was doing.

The bartender with messed-up teeth had black hair on only half of his head, the other half shaved and revealing a nasty scar over the top of his skull that made it difficult for hair to grow in evenly on that side anyway. As he handed a drink off to the woman in the white cloak, he looked towards that group again who were the only ones still sitting in a booth that far to the left side of the bar. There were only a couple of others still left in there, regulars who usually sat at the bar in front of him or at the tables spread through the bar, but who were all gathered on the right side now around pool tables and a tv, using small tables and stools over there and giving nervous looks to the other side of the bar every few seconds. Dastan was hoping his regulars would stay there, help him keep the peace if the gang started getting too rowdy, help him protect his daughter if things got too far. They were men from the nearby town who came out to his bar despite it being known to occasionally get rowdy like this, being out in the middle of nowhere like it was. Those regulars were fighters too, and they had not moved too far when the first part of the gang alone was in there, but the numbers just got seriously mismatched and the looks of the men on the other side of the room when they looked back towards them were of men ready to fight and kill if they were challenged.

Dastan wondered about the group of five straight ahead of him though. Like the woman still at his bar, and who was not sitting all the way at the end on his right like one of his regulars was, they did not look perturbed in the least by the villain gang. Dastan got interesting customers all the time, and behind the bar there were some framed pictures above the top shelf of drinks that showed him in pictures with some of his "best" customers, which were really just pictures of him with as many of the most powerful men he had ever had in his bar as possible. Some of the people at the table he kept glancing to had given those pictures careful looks after entering his bar, something he thought meant it was a good move he had put them up. After looking at them though, that group had given him dark looks, and since then they had just been absorbed in their own conversation and were not bothering to care about the gang that was getting more rowdy every minute.

The gang spread more into the middle of the room. Some of them went along the side of the bar, a couple of brave souls went over to try and hit on the woman who shut them down immediately to the amusement of others who started laughing along. Then those laughing others tried mentioning how their comrades were not so smooth, making moves on the woman themselves which had her standing up, taking one step to the left, and sitting on the next stool down without responding to them. The ones who were laughed at in the first place smirked back at their comrades who got shut down too, then they started calling the woman a 'dyke' behind her back in voices that were just loud enough for her to hear. Yet she still ignored them.

At the table behind the woman in the white cloak, a muscular figure in a hoodie turned his head and looked over towards the bar. He wore a black hoodie that partially shadowed over his face just as the black bangs over his eyes did. He was not nearly as big as the man on his right side farther into the booth, but he was still a large figure himself. He was sitting at the edge of the booth with his elbow sticking off the table and over the main floor area to show he was not pulling back into the seat at all. Across from him, a girl with brown hair tied back into a ponytail behind her head turned a bit to the side and glared towards the bar too at the look she saw on her leader's face on the other side of the table. "Want to see if she wants to sit with us?" Darling asked, glancing back towards Zach who turned her way and shook his head once in response.

"More than likely she's a mercenary. Or a villain who's just not afraid. Wouldn't see a normal civilian antagonizing men like that," Zach said it, but he still looked over towards the woman in the white cloak again with a frown on his face. The men around her were not acting too villainous, but he still glared at them for the way they kept trying on the woman who was clearly not interested in the least. He heard some loud slamming and turned his head more forward, looking past Darling and to the other end of the room where some men were slamming their hands down on the table calling for rounds to be brought to them. One shouted asking about the bar-girl who was missing and not bringing them drinks anymore, and one of the men who just entered the room called out to Dastan that 'their girls' would help him out.

On Zach's right, past Exodus and at the curve in the booth so technically the head of the table, Danjuro Tobira lowered the cigarette he was smoking and pressed the smoldering butt into an ash tray in front of him. He let out a long breath of smoke and then continued the conversation they had been having, ignoring the situation in the bar that he assumed got rowdy like this on occasion considering its location and reputation, and those pictures of villains above the bar. "If we just use tips in southern India, Sri Lanka, etcetera, we can avoid a six hour long detour by crossing the north. Then we reach Vietnam before the shipments are sent out and there is no problem."

"There are big hauls we're going for in those ports on the Indian Ocean," Darling countered back. "Leaving them up to the angels to take isn't safe. Don't want any more fallen angels after what happened in Italy. Now they're at a shortage of angels and the people are worried-"

"We'll head back to Italy every time we're passing now. Until they've got things back under control," La Brava said on Darling's left. She wore a pink jacket and had a hot pink sun-hat on with a big rim all around her head. Her jacket was as fancy as Gentle's purple coat that was still buttoned with the six fuzzy buttons down the middle of it but a bit to the right side. She darted her eyes to Darling, "And even though we could rush around that peninsula, even if we made it in time, we remove any chance of error. If they decide to push up the shipment time in fear that we're coming, we could lose it and that shipment could fuck us later on."

Gentle had a short brown cap over his head with a front rim not as long as a baseball cap's. It was a soft cap that looked like one an old-timey detective would wear, and he had a sword strapped to his back when he entered the room that was now resting against the back of the booth at his side. His hands were in white gloves over the table, though there was an ashy spot on his right glove where some of his cigarette ash had fallen. He lit up another cigarette as they sat there, and he turned his head as the others did as their group leader and the youngest person at the table started speaking. He and the girl across from him were close to the same age but he was a bit younger than her, yet her and all the older people at the table listened closely as he spoke.

La Brava nodded her head in agreement with something Death said, even if it did make her eyebrows furrow and a frustrated look to cover her face. She reached for the glass in front of her, but it was all out and the twenty-two year old tssked before raising her right hand and making a motion at the bar. Dastan caught her look but the man was busy pouring drinks constantly for the group who were downing them in drinking games that were making him increasingly worried. He turned with two more full mugs, and he handed them to one of the beautiful girls the group had brought in with them after the second half arrived. The girls looked pretty young to Dastan, but they took the drinks with cold glares at him and then turned with big smiles on their faces as they headed to the gang.

"…I'm flying to Kosovo then I'll make the arc through Russia and cut back down to eastern Kazakhstan before The Cloak arrives in Mongolia. La Brava head to the border post first where we're flipping the blackmail on that checkpoint the Vacationers have been using to cross party favors. Darling head north and go to the big Russian dot on the map, do some recon on the area with Charlie, take Fillian along-"

"I want to come with you. You shouldn't be doing so many missions on your own."

"I need someone I trust running the recon there. We know it's something big and you're the only one I can put in charge of this."

"Okay!"

La Brava rolled her eyes but still grinned at how easy that was for Death. "Am I with La Brava?" Gentle asked, suggesting it in his question that Death say 'yes' to him.

"Actually, I'm hoping you can run The Cloak's main path before reaching her. I want Exodus going with Mark south to recon India with Delta before we do the straight cut through the middle. If we can't do all the ports and can't cross over the top, this is the best option, but we're still not going to rush as much as we're trying to get through India quickly. Exodus," Death turned a bit to his right. "You won't have Fillian but take whoever else you need for the recon."

Exodus nodded in understanding once, and he refrained from replying 'Understood, Commander' as he always did. "Sure thing," he said, in a totally static and unnatural way but one that Zach nodded at as he was glad the man was attempting to stay somewhat undercover. They were not being too incognito with what they were talking about, but there were certain codes they were using and words they were avoiding. Talking about Death, the Army of Death, and helping heroes were things they tried to avoid in situations like these where that talk would draw a lot more attention than just shady conversations about anything else.

Death continued talking to his fellow leaders in the Army of Death, but his eyes narrowed and shifted past Darling as he was talking. His face was mostly shadowed so the others could not really see where he was looking, plus they were not looking directly at him either like they were receiving orders. Exodus ordered a drink too, making a larger motion of his arm that got Dastan looking over more seriously towards them. Exodus put two fingers up after he met his gaze with Dastan's, and his cold blue eyes glared into the bartender's until he nodded back and started making them those drinks.

"Hey," one of the top honchos in the Rogue Road Ragers, Triple R, was glaring over at the man who just made that motion at the bar from not nearly far enough from his gang. He had come in late, and he turned towards Karl and Erkin. "Who're they?" He asked, motioning with a nod behind him over towards the booth not too far from them. It was on the front wall and none of those other booths were occupied, as none of the gang members were really sitting far away from the main group. Most were standing around the same tables or sitting at those tables like Karl and Erkin were.

Erkin had a hand on the ass of the woman on his right who kept jolting and giggling when he would squeeze. He lowered his mug with his other hand and cocked his head to the side, looking over like he had not even noticed them until now despite being part of the first half who had been in the bar for a while now. "Oh them?" He said, looking back up at his buddy, "Some fuckin' nobodies Torque. Won't even look our way."

Torque looked back that way though, and he narrowed his eyes as the guy in the aisle seat of the booth on the far side seemed to be looking towards him there for a second. That hooded figure turned back to his right and continued speaking in a conversation that looked casual, calm, like there was not a huge gang in the room who could attack them at any time. They annoyed him even more than the woman in the white cloak did, because his guys were at least messing around with her and had gotten her to get up and move away in annoyance to show they succeeded. She was getting more annoyed too as some of his men were standing on either side of her and leaning on the stools around her now, trying to see which of them could actually get her to start talking to them.

"Before I go up to Kosovo, I'll head to Turkey to make sure we get the there deal done right. Alpha should be there soon, and Mark will pass over with The Cloak in a couple of hours to pick up Grabble and the others once I'm gone. G, keep a mean face on but try and keep the rim down. Darling, don't look too upset. La Brava and Exodus just drink like it's normal. I'll do the talking." Zach switched up what he was talking about without changing his tone at all, without turning first to show why he was talking like that. The others did not react by turning or looking to see what he meant either, they just did what he said. Gentle lowered his head a bit and rose his lit cigarette to his mouth, putting a flame tint on his face as he took a long drag through frowning lips, his eyes masked below the rim of his hat.

Exodus rose up the glass that Dastan had just brought over for him, and he pounded it back before lowering it with a satisfied look on his face. Then he glanced to his side and frowned a bit, before just looking forward and taking another sip with the woman across from him who taunted him for drinking slower than her despite his huge body and her tiny one.

"Hey there," Torque stepped right to the side of the table. He grinned at the group, on a face that would be unsettling for normal people. His grin was creepy, with scars on his gums and a bad burn scar on his right cheek that looked like it never healed right so it had scarred as a mushy mess. He had long black hair slicked back over the top of his head, and a black and red leather jacket on with 'RRR' over the front right side of his chest. He had some necklaces on around his neck with teeth on the bottom of them, some animal, some oddly human-looking. He had earrings in both ears, several in each, and a nose ring looping through the middle of his nostrils. "What're a couple of ladies like yourselves doing sitting over here? Oh, and you've got some cute girls with you too!" Torque turned to the side of the table with Darling and La Brava and started laughing.

Exodus clenched his left hand into a fist over the table and he rose up his drink, taking a long sip while glaring at Torque. Zach glanced to his right at Exodus once, and the larger man turned away from Torque's ominous smirk. Zach turned back to the man, and he cracked a smile himself at him before lifting the drink of cola that he had barely sipped so as to keep it full and looking like a cocktail of some kind. He just lifted it and said in a calm, friendly, but dismissive tone, "Just came for some drinks and a place to sit. We'll be leaving soon."

Zach turned away from the man on his left, looking back at Darling who cracked a sly smile at him before losing it and darting a glare to her side again. "Don't look away from me," Torque said, and Zach lowered his frown deeper while turning his head back to look at the man next to him. "You know who we are? We're Triple R, baby," he held his arms out, then he lowered his left down to the girl's shoulder sitting across from the young man who had the gall to turn away from him like that.

Darling shrugged her shoulder to get the man's hand off, and everyone at the table glared towards him when he kept his hand there instead of letting go. He let go when all four of the others turned towards him at once and started glaring, and then he frowned deeply at those looks. His smirk came right back though, and he looked closely at the man at the head of the table who lowered his head a bit at that look. "Hold on, don't I know you?"

Gentle rose his head back up, and he lifted his chin more so his whole face was revealed. He was showing that he was not hiding at all with that look, but Torque got a full look at him and nodded, a bigger grin spreading across his face at the sight of him. "Oh yeaahh, you're that Gentle Criminal. I've heard about you."

Torque smirked and looked around the table at everyone there. Some of them started to look nervous, hesitant like the two women on his left. The man he said that to smiled though and said, "I am pleased my name is so well known throughout the world."

La Brava smiled at the sound of that too, but Torque turned away and looked down to his right. "That would mean, this right here," Zach started lifting his head, and he rose it higher this time so more light was on it and the scar below his right eye was visible. "Lifebringer," Torque said, a huge grin covering his face at the sight of the boy. "That's wild. Just, wild!" Torque shook his head in amazement. "What're you doing all the way out here, Japan boy?"

Zach stared at Torque silently, a cold glare into the man's eyes that had Torque's smile twitching and then looking angrier as he stopped leaning in towards him. He frowned some more and looked around the table, at the same time that Zach was looking past him again and over to the side of the room where he saw some others looking Torque's way with smirks on their faces. Some of them looked ready to come over and mess around too, but Zach's eyes focused on a girl who looked younger than the other three he saw over there. She looked the most nervous of the four from the start, though she had been acting like one of their groupies too, following different guys around and laughing at what they said, bringing them drinks and smiling when they groped at her. The men around her all looked Zach's direction though, and in a single instant Zach saw a flash of fear cover her face that was quickly replaced with a smile and a happy look.

"You know, Lifebringer," Torque started. "We're villains ourselves. Yeah," he said, nodding at the boy who turned to face him. "Not just bikers, but we've got some guns on us. And we sell some guns too. Weapons' dealers the whole lot of us." Torque examined the teenager's dark face, and a smirk crossed over his own at that expression. "Haven't heard that much about you for a few months," Torque said, "but you-"

Zach started lifting a hand. Torque pulled back and his hand shot to his waist. Zach's left hand lifted and he turned his head to look past Torque and towards the bar. "Dastan," he said, calling over to the man past the woman in the white cloak and the guys around her who Dastan was currently serving. Dastan looked past them as they all turned, even the woman in the cloak who turned her head a bit to the side and looked out the corners of her eyes in that darkness over towards that table. Dastan was surprised to hear the hooded figure, as the brown-haired girl sitting across from him had ordered his drink earlier. "Bring us a bottle of whiskey," Zach said.

"Oh man, I'm sorry," Torque started, holding up his right hand in a stop motion for Dastan. He relaxed but had a deeper anger inside him now that he had flinched so hard and reached for his weapon when the teen was just making a motion for a drink. He could not tell if that was what the boy was going for either, and he ground his teeth but kept smiling in an apologetic way as he said, "We've actually bought out the whole bar for tonight. Those drinks, technically mine," he said, tilting his head to the side as he said 'technically' like he was apologetic, but also hinting something to the boy in front of him.

The men at the bar started laughing, and they turned to Dastan and called out that all the drinks were theirs. "Didn't you hear?"

"Bring out the bottle service old man!"

"Guys guys, come on, I'm trying to run a-"

"Now, I'm gonna need two bottles of whiskey."

The men at the bar froze with their mouths open still in smiles. Torque's eyes widened, and then they darted from the boy who just said that to the other four at his table who were all staring straight at him with eyes so intense he forgot where he was for a second. He turned back to Lifebringer, and he narrowed his eyes at the boy who just said that directly in contrast to what he had said about the bar's drinks all being his. Dastan was staring towards that hooded figure with his jaw dropped at that statement, and the woman in the white cloak in front of him got out of her seat. She got out of her seat and turned the other way as the group of gang members, moving towards the side of the room with very few people still in it.

A few of the men at the bar watched her go, nervous looks covering their faces at how calmly she just got up to go at the sound of that, like there was obviously something coming. Torque turned his head to the left, and he made a small hand motion at some of the guys who were looking his way but had been talking so loud amongst themselves that they did not realize what was going on. Some smirks covered the faces of those men, and a few of them started nudging each other and motioning at the booth which had the rest of them start smirking and getting up from seats. All of those men getting up got the guys at the bar smirking more as they remembered just how many of them were in there, and it had Torque grinning too though he could not hide the sweat bead on the side of his face.

"I don't think you understand, friend," Torque said, smiling again as if saying he would understand if this was all just a misunderstanding. "Those drinks are mine. If you want a couple bottles, you'll have to ask me. Unfortunately, I'm not really in the mood to sell. Though, I guess if what you were offering was right," his eyes shifted back to his left at the women, and neither of those girls changed their expressions at all at his threatening look. He turned his gaze back to the boy on his right without faltering, and he finished, "Then I might consider it. So what's it going to be? Want to give me a turn with those fine bitches you've-"

" _You_ don't seem to understand," Zach countered, like he was ignoring everything after the first part of what Torque just said. "That if there aren't two bottles of whiskey on this table in ten seconds, I'm going to have to buy every single bottle in this bar." He said it in a calm tone, and he even smiled as he looked up into Torque's eyes, "Including the ones on your tables."

Torque's lips curled down far. The bar had become quieter, really quiet as everyone heard the last thing that figure said directly to one of the gang's leaders. Torque glared in a pissed-off way into Zach's eyes, and then he said with the right corner of his lip curling back up, "You know, I heard a rumor, Lifebringer…"

A woman on the other side of the room as the gang who was getting close to the back door froze. She stopped where she was, her eyes opening huge under her white hood just as everyone else's in the room did. _Lifebringer?_ She turned and stared towards the table and the hooded figure Torque was staring at. Sweat covered her face, though not nearly as much as covered Dastan's. That man behind the bar took a step back, and then he reached behind him to hold onto the shelf to steady himself.

"You shouldn't believe everything you hear," Gentle stated. He lowered his cigarette and pressed it into the ash tray in front of him, a trail of smoke coming up from it and in front of his face. He let go of the cigarette and then brought his hands back over the top of the table, his eyes dark and glaring straight at the man who had said some very un-chivalrous things in the past minute.

Zach did not respond to Torque. Torque glanced back towards his left and the rest of his guys, making some of them start reaching for weapons, preparing themselves for this. Torque glared back at Zach and then said with a smirk on his face, "You know, there're bounties out for your head. A lot of people are looking for you, _Lifebringer._ I wonder if I'm only getting Zach Sazaki's bounty though, or if that reward is going to be something so much more."

"If you aren't sure, and you really don't know the answer to that question," Zach started, and the entire room was silent as he glared into Torque's eyes. "Then maybe, your best course of action is to turn around, and get me those drinks I asked for." Zach's hazel eyes were cold, dark, and Torque felt a chill down his spine at the look of them. There was no fear at all in his voice. It was just about the most ominous thing he could have said. None of the others at his table looked afraid either, and a cold chill crossed the entire room.

Torque's eyes shook and his lips twisted in rage as he stood there glaring at the boy who just scared him with a single sentence. Torque balled his fists, and he saw the large man next to Lifebringer balling his own over the table, moving his right from the glass he slid towards the center of the table. All of them were just glaring at him, though none in a way that unnerved him more than Lifebringer. Yet he glared right back at that boy, and he snarled, "Your army isn't here to defend you." Zach did not flinch. There was no denial on his face to what Torque just said, yet still no fear either which had the man in front of him shaking even more, his fingers twitching and his eyes narrowing more at the boy. His lips twisted up, his fingers twitching faster, and yet when he saw the boy's fists clench he growled, "You've got a whole army following you now. Are you really going to die over a couple drinks?"

Zach stared straight into Torque's eyes, and then after three seconds he replied, "Someone is."

Torque's twitching right hand opened and moved for his waist. Zach's left hand snapped out first and grabbed it before it could grab the gun there. Zach slammed the man's hand to the table and then smashed the knife he rose in his right hand down through the back of Torque's hand, into the table, and so deep in it that when he jumped up and slammed his fist into Torque's face, it did not even knock the man backwards. It just snapped Torque's head back and then jolted it forward when he could not fall, the knife just tearing through some of his flesh in his hand as his body was almost pulled back. Zach slammed two more brutal punches into Torque's face and then got behind him on the opposite side as where a bunch of others pulled their guns and aimed his way.

Zach yanked Torque and ripped him from the blade, tearing it through his hand and out between his index and middle fingers. Then he ran forward while pushing on Torque's back to keep him in between him and the others who could not shoot his way. Two long tentacles whipped around the sides of Torque and curved behind him for Death, only for bright white lights to shoot up at those tentacles like beams and sear them off in the middles, causing the man who had extended what were always his arms to scream in agony. The men who were near the bar fired at the group at the table, and all the bullets slammed into an invisible wall and bounced back their ways, slamming into them and into the bottles behind the counter, making a rain of glass and liquor down into the bar.

Darling's right arm pointed to the side, and the cannon it turned into fired small round gray spheres in different directions. Smoke came out of the balls as they hit the ground, and La Brava reached to her side and pressed her hands into Gentle who got up from his seat and surrounded in a flare of pink energy.

"Everyone out of the bar!" The woman in the white cloak shouted at the others around her when the bullets started flying. She ran towards the bar herself and she swung her right hand for the bartender who had hit the floor and started yelling out for everyone to stop shooting. All five of her fingers on her right hand shot out like thin white threads that wrapped around the man and then yanked him back towards her as those threads retracted fast to her hand. As the threads came back, they curled around and recreated her fingers in tight little loops that pressed into each other all the way to the reformed tips of her fingers. "Go upstairs, get your daughter," she snapped, then she pushed the man to send him to go do the job she had been about to do when she first got up from her seat at the bar.

"Stop shooting! We're just going to hit each other!"

"Where are they?!"

"AHH!"

Gentle rushed through the smoke at fifty miles per hour, blasting through a side where it was not too thick and making a human-shaped hole in the cloud. He had leapt forward with his elbows pulled down at his sides, his fists clenched hard and his muscles bulging while the pink flame surrounded him. One men quicker than the others snapped his hair forward and pulled triggers on his fingers that shot pieces of his hair forward like bullets. Those bullets went through the pink flare of Lover Mode energy around him, then they hit his Elasta-Armor and bounced away harmlessly from the man who punched his right fist forward and into the shooter with a huge amount of force behind it. The speed at which he was coming, the force of the punch in Lover Mode, and the fact that his hand was surrounded in Elasticity, send the villain flying back between three others. The man with projectile hair knocked over a table and slammed into a wall so hard that all the wood around his collision broke outwards, and half the man's body smashed through the wall before he finally stopped moving.

Gentle landed and he opened his hands into palms while pointing to his sides. A green liquid bounced off one Gently Rebound, and a long black spike pressed farther into the other wall only to bounce back too. The man with the black spike pulled it back into the heel of his right foot though as he rose up, above the invisible wall that he knew there was a height limit of. Earlier when bullets first flew at the group, not all had bounced back. Some inaccurate shots had hit the wall of the front of the bar high enough that it was no danger to the people sitting there. He kicked his right foot down again, this time his left swinging down too to extend another black spike at the Gentle Criminal.

Gentle reached his right hand up and caught the black spike that came down at him around the tip, then he slammed down in front of him into a man running at him from the front. He turned his body sideways and dodged the second spike that had enough strength and sharpness that he had seen it push into the Elastic wall on his left before. Then Gentle swung the man he was holding to the left, making him bounce off the inside of the Gently Rebound and into the other one on its other side. "Infinite Rebound," Gentle said, and then he backflipped into the smoke with a smirk on his face, as the villain in front of him screamed in terror at his bouncing that was only speeding up.

"He~ll~lll~lllp M~ee~eee!" His voice was vibrating as he slammed back and forth on nothingness in midair, and then he puked up all his drinks and the food he had eaten for dinner. His body started spinning as he bounced more and more, then a blue aura surrounded him and slammed him down into the floor.

The villain was dizzy, had no idea where he was, and he was laying in his own puke, but the man who slammed him into the ground walked forward on his side and snarled, "Get up. If we kill Death we get-"

A black wind flew into the two men, and they both collapsed down to the ground before even seeing what had sent that wind through the smoke.

"Keep my position in mind, would you?" Gentle requested from a solitary place in the smoke.

Gentle had seen some darkness whip by on his right side, and he heard a voice behind him not where he expected the boy to be, "I am." That assurance was all Gentle needed to continue rampaging without worry that he would be getting knocked out accidentally.

Torque had been pushed forward by Death when he reached again during the push. It was before Zach had covered himself in his Nightmare form, and despite the blood all over his damaged right hand, Torque grabbed at the ground with both hands and a look of pure rage over his face. He reached to his waist and lifted up a device next to his gun that he was not going to use in all this smoke. He brought the device to his face and turned it on, and then he twisted it up to its brightest setting. A bright white light filled the bar, shooting through all the smoke and flashing inside the madness of Dastan's bar. Torque's eyes glowed white, and they were what started flashing as all the light from the device he was holding filled his eyes more and more.

"Let's see how you like-" Torque started lowering the device and raising his head with a glowing smirk on his face.

Death popped up directly behind Torque when he faced more towards the middle of the room. Zach put his hands on the sides of Torque's head after moving there silently, and the man's glow went away as he fell forward and collapsed to the floor. Then Zach pointed his right hand to the side and snapped it back with his fingers extended like a gun, and a thin black line shot out of his hand before breaking off from his finger. That line kept moving though as it was thick enough to cross the bar before fading, and it slammed into the chest of a man who was running his way, taking him off his feet so he wound up skidding to a stop on his face.

Darling pressed her left hand into the side of a villain's neck. Karl started turning his head with his eyes huge at the sight of the girl who had appeared behind him silently, moving without ever crossing in his vision despite him being almost with his back to the wall. He started falling as the syringe that was two of Darling's fingers combined injected the paralyzing sedative into him. Then Darling pointed her other hand to the side and fired the cannon arm, slamming a smoke grenade into the face of Erkin who was facing her with his mouth open and fire coming from inside his throat. The smoke grenade flew straight into his open jaw, right as Erkin tried firing the fireball out of his mouth. An explosion of fire blew Erkin's head apart, and shards of metal from the smoke grenade blew around making Darling cross her arms with a panicked look on her face. "Oops," she muttered.

The young girl then lowered her arms that were covered in blood but luckily did not get slashed by that shrapnel. "Hey, it's alright," she said, bending down and putting a hand on the shoulder of a girl pressing her back into the wall in front of her. The girl who looked just as young as Darling, maybe younger, lifted her head and saw the girl in front of her smiling with blood all over her face, her head cocked to the side in what was supposed to be a comforting way. The look just made sheer terror cover the younger girl's face though, and Darling pulled back with a somewhat hurt look, before reaching an arm up to wipe her face of the blood she thought might be the problem. Smearing the blood around with an arm just as bloody, while the man she had just killed lay without a head a few feet to her right side, did not help one bit.

"Ahhh-"

"Wait! WAI-"

"Let's get out of-"

"None of you will escape."

Darling did not fire any more smoke grenades after the one that accidentally blew Erkin's head apart. That one released some of its smoke upon that explosion, but that smoke faded with most of the rest. A lot of windows had shattered, and there were holes in the walls too that smoke poured out of and left the room looking just hazy after a couple of minutes.

The room became clear enough that Zach could see his other four comrades all at the same time again. There was a faint white gas covering through the air of the bar, thicker on the side of the room most destroyed than the other end that was almost completely empty. Dastan and his daughter had not left their bar though. When they finally gathered the courage to try and run from the safety of their home out of the bar altogether, they stopped on the first floor because of the noises they heard from the other side of the bar. Between them and the five crazy people in his bar, the woman in the white cloak was standing and watching ahead in silence and with her eyes closely examining what was happening.

Exodus marched forward and reached down to a man who was pushing back on his butt to get away from the big man. Exodus grabbed him by the throat and lifted him from the floor up into the air by one hand like he was picking up a ten pound weight. He lifted the gang member and then waved his left arm up and deflected a punch of spiky knuckles, hitting the side of the man's arm instead of the front of his fist so he would not get cut. He pushed the man's arm aside, then he slammed his left fist up into the man's face and tossed him backwards as he was unconscious from the single blow. Exodus threw him straight into a wall that he hit and then bounced off right on top of five other bodies.

La Brava had gone over to help Darling out, giving the four girls who had not been harmed during all of that a better smile and more reassuring look than Darling could covered in blood. La Brava still had her own Elasta-Armor on that Gentle had covered her with before even putting his own on, and her feet bounced up a bit with every step, a kink of the armor that she had not managed to get used to yet like Gentle had. She looked to one of the girls who had been close to Darling when Erkin's head exploded, and she saw the girl grabbing her right arm but doing so in a way so no one would notice. "Here, let me help," La Brava offered, and Darling looked over only to open her eyes wide as she saw the girl let go of her arm to reveal a piece of shrapnel still stuck in it.

"I'm," Darling started, but the girl who looked up at her just got a hesitant look on her face as she pulled back. "Sorry," Darling whispered quieter, turning away as she did and then heading off to help Death.

La Brava glanced over her shoulder for a second, then she shook her head and got back to getting the shrapnel out of the girl. "So," La Brava said, looking at the woman who looked around her age, probably the oldest of the four girls there. "How do you feel about what we just did?"

"Thank you," the woman La Brava questioned replied. She smiled at the shorter woman and then let out the longest breath of relief La Brava had ever heard. "That was, all of them. The whole Rogue Road Ragers. You killed them all-"

"They're not all dead," La Brava said, and she kept wrapping the woman's arm with bandages she pulled out of a pouch on her side. "But they can't hurt you anymore," La Brava assured.

"You're not going to kill them?" Dastan asked, stopping where he was after walking towards the group who were finished fighting. He stared towards the short woman who said that in his bar that was barely cloudy at all anymore. "They'll come back here! For revenge, or just-"

Death turned his head and looked at Dastan darkly. "Shut up." Dastan's mouth slammed shut and he stared at the boy he heard was Lifebringer, and he also heard the implications of who he really was. "If villains didn't know from a single glance above your bar that you serve their kind, you wouldn't have these problems on your hands. Stop serving villains, or let heroes know when they show up." Death reached down, speaking in his dark raspy voice and surrounded in an aura of darkness.

"No! No, get away!" A man who was pretending to be unconscious on the floor snapped his eyes open and tried reaching for the blade at his side. He was out cold before his fingers even touched the hilt.

"And let people know what happened here," Death finished, while standing up and glaring at the man in front of him. "Not who we are. Not who I am. If I hear rumors coming from around here, Dastan…" saying the man's name in that dark scratchy voice was the most terrifying thing Dastan could have imagined, and he started nodding fast at the man in front of him.

Zach nodded at that quick response, then he continued, "Villains will steer clear of here knowing that I am around. Knowing that I might show up…" _And if they don't, they'll come after you and your daughter just for being in this place where Death showed up. How do I counter that? If I try telling him to say he's under my protection, I'll just fail them. I can't be everywhere. I can't protect everyone… I'll go talk to the heroes in Ingresh. Make sure they keep an eye on this place for retaliation from other villains. If the villains torture Dastan, he'd talk. Then again, villains already think it's me. If he says my name, they might not even believe him and think he's just going with the most obvious option, it won't really matter. Fuck. The heroes better step it up around here. I'll threaten them that if they don't protect these people- Dastan's daughter just looks scared. And who is that? She's just watching. This whole time she's just been watching, though she helped a bit getting everyone to leave... Don't let down my guard yet._

Zach turned and he walked over towards the girls who were all up now and sitting on chairs that Gentle had picked up for them to sit on. The girls looked towards the figure who walked towards them with the black wisps fading off of his body. He rose his hands and took his hood off, and he shook his black hair out though it stayed pretty messy after being in his hood for a while. "How'd you come to be traveling with this gang?" Zach asked the girls, keeping his expression soft but his lips flat as he had not made any decisions yet.

The youngest of the group, who had some blood splashed on her that La Brava was trying to clean off since the girl seemed to be too scared to move herself, looked towards the scar-faced boy with a scared look in her eyes. His lips lifted a smaller amount more into a little smile. "You're okay now," he said, and the girl stared at him with her eyes wide at how genuine that expression looked compared to the scary ones he had shown Torque before or the most terrifying skull face with red eyes she had seen a few moments ago.

"We were their slaves," the older woman who La Brava had started speaking to before started. She itched around the wound that the short woman had wrapped up, then she lifted her head and gave a dark look to the boy she knew was questioning them to see if they were just part of the gang. "They bought us from sex traffickers. I'm the oldest here, but they bought all four of us at the same time-"

"You didn't look like slaves," the daughter of the barkeep called over from across the room. She glared at the girls who had treated her so poorly before, who had called her names and laughed when the men had grabbed at her like they had been doing to them. "When you were laughing and drinking with-"

"If we didn't act like that-" one of the others started shouting. She froze though, and she bit down on her bottom lip and then turned away without finishing her sentence. "We, we had to. They like it more when we're smiling and laughing. The others who…"

The oldest in the group reached out and put a hand on the quiet girl's shoulder. "We weren't the only four bought together. There were six of us in total a few weeks ago."

"We learned, to be compliant. They're our, they wer- they're our lovers. We love-" the woman who looked second youngest lifted her hands in front of her face. She stared at them, confused at what she was saying and why she could not just feel like she had been freed. She looked over at one of the men who had scared her so much that she had changed her entire personality. She had even started thinking like a different person to please them more, to stop getting hurt as much.

Dastan looked back towards his daughter and gave her a stern look. The looks he was seeing on those women's faces, was the exact thing he was so afraid of happening to his own daughter.

"Hey, Death."

Zach turned his head and looked back at the woman in a white cloak. She reached up and took her hood off, letting a long blonde braid fall over her right shoulder and down over her small chest nearly to her waist. She waved her head and flicked the braid back behind her with the motion. Then she smiled at the teenager who figured she was probably ten years older than him by the looks of it. She had lighter skin than most people in Kazakhstan too, and she had a vertical scar on her right cheek from about the height of the bottom of her nose to down under her chin and onto her neck before it thinned and faded. The other four with Zach all looked at her too, as did the other six still conscious in the bar who wondered what her deal was.

"Who are you?" Zach asked.

"Eloper," she replied. Darling's green eyes narrowed towards the blonde. "Nothing to do with marriage, just the disappear and never come back part," she continued while smiling at the boy in front of her. "My Quirk is Threads," she rose up her arms and they started unraveling. Each millimeter of her arms separated from each other, turning into very thin white loops that curled around extending longer from her body. Her fingers split off in different directions, and thicker strands in her arms broke apart with new strands moving aside and making waving motions to show her control over them. Her hair started to unravel too from her braid, turning white and waving behind her back in a huge mane that spread two feet in every direction behind her skull so there was a big white circle behind her of vibrating Threads.

"Cool, what about it?" Darling asked, frowning and looking down her nose at the woman. Eloper glanced towards the shorter girl who was not nearly as short as La Brava but still shorter than Eloper. That girl had blood all over her face, smeared around yet not looking that threatening as Eloper had seen her trying to get it off only to fail which made it look like that. "You need something?"

"Well, that's what I'm asking," Eloper replied. Darling frowned more but turned away in annoyance. Eloper looked back towards Death and she asked, "If you want my help, I'd love to give it. I was here looking for information on the Wild-Ones. My current target."

"You're a vigilante?" Zach asked.

Eloper hummed and her hair reformed into a braid that fell over the front of her right shoulder again. She looked to the side and at a man whose body was stuck upside-down through a table, then past Death to a man Gentle had slammed through the wall early on in the albeit short fight. "Usually I wouldn't go, _this_ far," she said. "So if that's your definition of a vigilante, I guess I'm not as hardcore as you." She leaned back, and her smile was so unthreatening along with her expression as a whole that Zach wondered if that was why she kept her face shadowed for so long. She was really beautiful too, and her Quirk looked pretty strong to him. Neither of those things really mattered much to him though. "But I could see you guys were holding back pretty hard there so-"

"Do you want to join the Army of Death?" Zach asked.

"Yes," Eloper replied.

"Alright," Zach replied just as fast as she did.

"Whoa, really?" She asked, surprised despite having responded so fast since she was hoping he would ask.

"Yeah," Zach replied. "Could you call up some heroes here, Eloper? And Dastan, you're a witness. A witness to how they tried to rape your daughter like they did these girls. Mention the slaves they had, I'm going to get them somewhere safe. I'll leave their weapons around here for some more evidence, and remember that we never fired a single shot while we were here. That means the men who got hit by bullets and are laying around dying, or already dead-"

"They killed themselves," Dastan finished, understanding where Death was going with this. "Murder, slavery, possession of illegal firearms, rape… They really will, not be coming back here."

"That's right," Zach said. Then he turned and he walked back towards the oldest woman out of the four girls he was about to get out of there. "So, you mentioned they bought you from sex traffickers?" Zach asked, and the woman he questioned looked at him oddly and then with big eyes as she started nodding. Zach glanced to his right over at Gentle and Exodus, then to his left at Darling and La Brava who nodded at him too. Eloper smiled wide behind him, her fists clenching determinedly as the boy turned back to the former slave and finished, "Where?"

* * *

 **A/N Thanks for reading! Another long chapter down. The Army of Death continues their crusade around the world. The League of Shadows' fall turns out not to be the complete collapse of villains as the world knows them. Still a lot of work to be done, but the Army of Death is getting more powerful and more determined all the time. I hope you guys enjoyed the long chapter of development for the Army of Death, as well as that fight there at the end. Anyway, review responses:**

Naruffoku chapter 117 . Dec 5

Oh my... Oh my GOODNESS! This chapter is sick! It feels so good to see everything like this. Army of death are gonna be like avengers ffs. This got me so hype, thank you for writing.  
One thing though. If AoD are not labelled as terrorists anymore, will Zach be able to come back to Japan? I'm pretty sure he's still a criminal for killing Kurogiri, but won't the Japanese people forgive him for that after everything he's done? I'm just asking because Yaomomo is waiting for him.

 **Oh my Goodness is right! Haha, I'm glad you're so hyped over this. AoD do get re-labeled as terrorists so there goes that plan, as we also see Sero thinking there in the beginning about how as long as there are still villains all over then the AoD is going to be stuck fighting them forever... No spoilers for anything else! XD Thanks for the review!**

diddles321 chapter 10 . Dec 5

My second review. I didn't read the chapter before positing my first one. WOW. Im kind of surprised the league of shadows was taken down so easily. I better not get punked and this is some illusion caused by a quirk tampering with a captured heroes mind or something... All I can say is great chapter. Which japanese heroes were present? I read something about Red Riot? Were 1-A members there? Keep up the good work!

 **Endeavor claimed they were defeated, though that was their main headquarters, a couple of their leaders, their structures... the whole League of Shadows is not completely destroyed, and the villains still have a lot of power, but definitely really happened so no illusions at play here! As for the Japanese heroes present, no one from Class 2-A were there (they're already late in their second year, not 1-A anymore). Suneater just thought about Kirishima for a minute there as he was trying to figure out if it was Lifebringer like he knows Red Riot thinks Death is. The Japanese heroes were: Suneater, Lemillion, Kamui Woods, Ryukyu, Popfire, Endeavor, Olympia, Best Jeanist, Gilgamesh, and that's it I think. Popfire and Olympia are both OCs I made btw. Thanks for the review, and hope you enjoyed the new chapter!**

Lief 17 chapter 117 . Dec 5

Well that escalated very quickly. I thought the confrontation with the League of Shadows would be the ultimate showdown/epilogue of this story but BAM! It's done! You created a very big skip which I hope we can get more chapters about to help supplement the plot. Also, I HATE that there are AOD members who died again. Hopefully none of the main members coz it would really, really, reaallllyyyy suck. You're making me feel like I'm playing a RTS game and I just lost a high level platoon I worked hard on in just 1 chapter. I'm very excited with what's in store next. Maybe more about U.A? Raijin? The LOV since I doubt they were in that base. Also the prominent shadow bosses' revenge. Keep up the good work and I hope you have a wonderful December!

 **BAM! Outta nowhere! Subverting those expectations hard. I didn't actually skip very far at all, as I tried to show that it was not too long after the Kabo thing that happened in the chapter before it. Zach even thought about how he could have waited longer until he had more strength, but instead he went in right after getting the information and just used the villains coming after him to make it a feasible option going after them so early on. He shouted to his people too that it felt like the final battle even though they were just starting. Anyway, Zach thinks about Yusef biting it to one of Eziano's assassins, though we don't really hear about anyone else who I'd named before kicking it during that battle (for good), though Zach's thoughts make it seem like there were a few right at the start... Hope you have a good December too, and thanks for reviewing!**

Yes chapter 117 . Dec 5

"Some lost their lives for good"  
This means either zach didn't reach them in time, or they had already been killed once. I don't remember who every person who died one time are but if Darling is Dead I'll chuck a peanut at you.  
Or I'm misinterpreting that sentence.  
I'm also surprised that the entire LoS "arc" was skipped, I had thought such a thing would be a long one, spanning multiple chapters and even being a "end of story" kind of arc.  
About zach being a terrorist, I believe that zach will remain a terrorist along with his organisation. It would be quite hard to register them as a Hero society(?), vigilante group or something other than villains, especially since multiple members are already actual villains. And even if he were labelled a vigilante group, certain members probably have high bounties in their home towns, as well as the fact that vigilantes are universally frowned upon. They would be listed as lower priority but still of importance and hunted down anyways.  
This also brings us to what will happen to momosaki, Yaomomo would have to join AoD to make this a thing, assuming he isn't somehow labeled a Hero and returned to japan (something he would not willingly do). Pretty much never happening, it's not like they're gonna dump zach back into UA, he's practically a pro at this point.  
Also I love darling clearly and want more of her thaannnkkkkssss. (Dont pull a jenny)

 **Alright, didn't put everything here since it was a huge review. I'll try to respond to a lot though since this is one of the five I'm responding to today! We see Sero at the start there worried about what that "lost their lives for good" thing meant too, and the Army of Death is taking their losses seriously though some new members (Spiral) need a reminder once in a while, from Michael no less. Don't worry, Darling's alive and still trying to sneak in on Zach in the shower ;). The League of Shadows were introduced as the new top of the world, worst villains who wanted the most evil stuff, and that's why Zach went for them as early as possible. He hasn't been holding back against anyone, taking on any groups even if he thinks a research lab might be run by a nation's government, or going after guys like Kabo who claimed to be associated with Shadow Bosses, he's been going hard this whole time. Not all of the LoS are destroyed, and we hear in this one that there are still a few out there, including Eziano. Who knows what will happen in the future? Will Zach ever get back to Japan? What about Darling? Will she be a new Jenny?! XD Thanks for the huge reviews, hope I got most of it in here (what I didn't is probs because I don't want to spoil anything).**

Guest chapter 117 . Dec 7

Did you see Kuroi's quirk?! He can merge with black colored things apparently... has that been reflected at any point now that we are starting to know more class 1-b quirks?

 **Yeah I saw. It looks pretty awesome. I wished I knew what Class B's Quirks were a while back, especially for the Sports Festival Arc which they would have been really good for. I kind of guessed Kuroiro's Quirk a bit a long time back, original training camp and Camino Ward arc. I didn't show it in action much though since I knew there would be a time when the Quirk's true power would be shown and I'd have to either backtrack or just accept it as part of this AU. Anyway, the current arc looks fun, can't wait to see Monoma and Shinso vs Midoriya and Mineta next chapter... (those others too). Thanks for the review!**


	119. Chapter 119

**Disclaimer: I don't own Boku no Hero Academia**

 **Chapter 119:**

"Joining us today are Dr. Kimiko Honda, an attending physician at Musutafu General Hospital, and Keizo Horachi, the investigative journalist whose piece about Lifebringer being Death made the front page of the Japan Daily last week." A pitch black host whose hair just looked like an extension of his head because of how it was just as dark as his body held his hands out to either side to introduce his guests on his afternoon talk show. "Mr. Horachi, Dr. Honda, thank you for joining me today."

"It's good to see you, Saiko," Keizo replied back to a man whose show he had been a guest on before.

"Thanks for having me," Kimiko added with a nod at the tv host.

"Horachi, in your article you make it very clear your opinion, but I want to know just how confident you are that Zach Sazaki is Death? If you had to give a percentage to-"

"One hundred percent, Taiga," Horachi replied, using the host's last name this time as they got into a more professional mood. He looked serious as he said it, and he continued, "It is not my opinion, but an observable fact that Death _is_ Lifebringer."

"We've never seen Death without his helmet on," Saiko Taigo started arguing back.

"The costumes alone," Horachi countered right away. "He's not even trying to hide it. I wrote it in my piece, but I'll repeat it here. The helmet isn't to hide his identity. He wouldn't be bringing people back to life, using his Nightmare mode, or wearing a costume so similar to his old one if he really cared about hiding who he was."

"The costumes are not the same," Dr. Honda cut in, speaking up for the first time as this "conversation" was going on without her taking part.

The news host looked glad she jumped in, and he turned to her before the journalist could counter her, "Dr. Honda. You claim to be a knowledgable source on the character of Lifebringer. You knew him personally, that's correct?"

"That's right," Kimiko Honda replied, nodding at the host while the other reporter gave her a curious look. He already knew whoever else was being brought on would likely counter what he had to say, but her introduction had not made him think she would be someone who knew Lifebringer directly. "And in my opinion, the odds that that boy has turned into a terrorist are slim to none."

"What do you have to back that opinion up?" Horachi countered right away. He had given a lot of his own reasons, and he faced the doctor who was not as used to this as he was but still frowned his way after a second of looking surprised that he was the one who questioned her this time.

"First of all, your ' _evidence_ ' is circumstantial, at _best_ ," Honda started. She lifted her head back and said, "I read your article, Mr. Horachi. It was well written, and it had some good points, but do not pretend like it is a certainty or that you are truly a hundred percent certain. Even in your article you admitted your doubt-"

"I put in the possibility of being wrong because it is not yet been proven-"

"Then don't change it up here just for the cameras," Dr. Honda said, and her quip was so sharp that Horachi froze with his mouth open.

He and Taiga were both surprised, but the news program's actual host managed to compose himself fast and he smiled at the change in pace he was not entirely expecting. "A lack of evidence really isn't a great support for why you don't think they're one and the same though, Dr. Honda."

"I met Lifebringer," Kimiko Honda started. She put her hands down on the table in front of her and took in a deep breath, reminding herself why it was she had agreed to come on this program in the first place. "At Musutafu General right after the Sports Festival Invasion. I was there working nonstop throughout the attack and over the following days."

"Thank you, for that service," Taiga started.

Horachi agreed quickly, "I'm sure you saved many lives, Dr. Honda. Lifebringer too, I imagine. However-"

"Let me finish," Honda cut him off, and she glared at the other guest who paused then nodded respectfully and in apologies at the doctor. She took in a deep breath and then started again, "From a couple of hours after the attack, until a few days later, Lifebringer was at the hospital constantly to bring back the people who were killed and had died of their injuries in the hospital. He was able to bring them back if they died within his time limit, so he stayed close in order to save them, and he saved _dozens_ in those days following the attack."

"Shouldn't he have been there?" Horachi questioned, lifting his eyebrows at the other guest. "It was in part Lifebringer's fault-"

"Don't you dare," Honda said, glaring harshly and angrily at Horachi for the first time since they started. She glared at the man who pulled his head back at her look, and she continued, "The whole thing they did with him, the Sports Festival, Musutafu- as, a, whole. It was all a distraction for freeing the Tartaros prisoners which anyone with a brain understands." Honda kept glaring at the man whose intelligence she just insulted harshly, and she continued on without giving him a chance to defend himself. "He was exhausted, injured, and yet he was there constantly to save people he did not know despite having to take in all of their pain. I watched him, on the verge of death himself!" She called it at the man across from her and kept glaring in an intense way as she continued, "Yet he didn't slow down. He just dragged himself to the next person to save even if it could kill him…"

Kimiko Honda faded off at the end there, her voice getting quieter and her intense look softening a bit. She looked a tad apologetic for getting so worked up there, then she just shook her head once while looking back and forth at the two men at the table. "He's a kind boy," she said. In her head she saw the boy crying as he tried to bring someone back who had already died before, who he had dragged himself on top of despite looking like he was about to die. She remembered watching him pass out there after getting wrapped up by the man's wife who he had been sobbing his apologies to over not being able to save him again. Her expression steadied and she said in a strong voice, "There is no way, Zach Sazaki is Death."

* * *

"Villains," Exodus growled in Dormanian. He stood with over thirty other dark figures around him, facing a man who had seventeen other villains near him trapped with a cliff at their backs and enemies on all other sides. Two helicopters with their rotors ripped off and the tails snapped too were flaming to the sides and illuminating the base of the cliff where the fifty or so people were gathered. Exodus stepped forward and glared at the man straight ahead of him who was the farthest out from the cliff's base out of his group of villains. "Get down on your knees and surrender. There is nowhere left to run."

The boss of the group facing Exodus turned his head and he smirked big for the men behind him to see. He rose up his right arm, and his hand slid out of the extra long sleeve he was wearing. His hands had been hidden inside the sleeves, and when he slid that right hand out he showed that he was holding an empty syringe in it with the needle sliding out of his wrist. The dark figures ahead of the villain tensed and readied themselves, though they held their positions despite the other villains behind the boss shooting up as well. Their bodies morphed, bulging out with muscles or spiking new appendages to the sides, and reality started to bend around the area with the air tinting a dark green and then a blackish purple. The air swirled, bent, refracted, and the ground started shaking before small holes broke apart all over it with bamboo shoots spiking out that looked to wave around in the bendy air.

All the villains used Trigger at once, and the boss in front of Exodus stomped forward with one of the two legs that just ripped out of the front of his body in what looked like a really painful transformation. The man was smirking huge though, making it seem like their Trigger was laced with something else as he started laughing despite the blood coming out of the spots where his extra limbs just emerged from. "With our powers stronger like this!" The man yelled, and he stomped all four feet forward. His stomps made cracks on the ground, and a villain back behind him slammed a massive fist into the cliff behind and made that crack too. Other villains started moving, getting encouraged by their drugs and the boss's shouts as he continued, "Then there's no way we lose even to twice as many-"

Exodus lifted his right hand, and he injected Trigger into his neck. Thirty others around him did the same, with only a couple holding off on it. "Shoot up," Exodus said, though the soldiers behind him were already on it. Exodus' body erupted in a bright white glow that destroyed the darkened tint of the air and instead made everything so bright it no longer seemed like night at all. His eyes glowed pure white through his eye sockets, there were glows coming from his nostrils too and his mouth was pure white when he opened it next, though the glow was still getting brighter for the villains in front of him who were being blinded by it. "And take them down," Exodus ordered, and then he shot forward leaving a blur of his body behind as he moved inside the light, appearing behind the villain's boss and then grabbing him by one arm that he swung him around by.

Exodus swung him around so fast that he had to loosen his grip or risk ripping the man's arm out of his socket. He released the man towards the strongest-looking of the eighteen Triggered-up villains, then he shot a different direction where he saw one of the strong ones bearing down on two of his comrades who were preoccupied with two villains who were no pushovers either with all the Trigger injected. Exodus shot at the large and powerful villain's back, then the villain's body broke apart into a mass of crows that flew up in the air and reformed into a man above where Exodus's Light Punch just flew through where he had been running. Exodus's punch kept going when it did not hit anything, and it separated his own forces from the villains with the fast attack.

"Get away from the cliff!" Flare called out, and she fired five huge red flares at the cliff face as a warning for the others near it. Exodus's glow had moved a different direction when he chased other villains, so she had to illuminate what she just saw happen in the corner of her eyes. During one of the fights that had just broken out, a punch that missed carried so much force that the swing still widened the cracks made all over the wall when a villain smashed his enlarged fist into it. The cracks branched out higher up, and huge slates of rock started falling down illuminated in red flaring lights.

When Flare fired her flares towards the wall though, she made herself a target for other villains, one of whom pointed his hands over towards one of the helicopters where flames were still flickering about. Those existing flames ignited so much brighter, melting the steel around them as they got white on the bottoms and then a bright bright blue. Then all the flames pulled off of the helicopter's carcass at once and shot towards Flare in a fireball that everyone else pulled away from only to still scream in pain as it was too hot to avoid being burned. One of the Army of Death dropped flat to his stomach to dodge below it, and he screamed out in agony as the back of his uniform burnt through as did a ton of skin on his back.

"Gregor!"

"Shield!" Flare shouted, pulling back and crossing her arms in panic as she saw the bright flame about to reach her and already searing into her.

A blur raced by Flare's side, his hand swinging in front of him already and a blue translucent shield emerging that spread and curved backwards at their sides. The flames slammed into the front of the shield, exploded out around its sides, but the two inside the barrier were protected from it. The flames that blew around the sides started dancing there in the air though, and Flare called out as she saw it, "Guardian!" Guardian spun around, and his eyes bulged as he saw the flames already re-amassing and forming a new fireball behind him. He started lifting his other hand that way, and Flare pulled back towards him as her body started searing even inside her dark armor.

Then the flames dropped to the floor, and they went out fast as there was nothing to burn on the rocky ground and no one keeping them burning anymore. Flare and Guardian spun back around, and they looked towards the villain who had been attacking them, and their eyes widened while smiles covered their faces. "He's here," Flare whispered in relief.

"You should have surrendered when you had the chance," Exodus said, his voice ominous and dark as he turned from the villain he had been facing whose power was intense with the mind games he was playing. The villain whose body had turned to crows turned his head and stared over towards one of his downed comrades who was not moving anymore, just like the other four around him who had all fallen despite being powered-up by Trigger. The villain stepped back, as did all the others who were still conscious in the area.

"It's Death!" A woman screamed back near the cliff wall. She pressed her back up into it, and then a black hand shot out of the dark mass straight towards her. The hand slammed into her side while her jaw was still dropping as he decided to go for her first. The hand smacked her away, knocking her out, while also pushing her out of the way of a giant falling rock that broke off of the cliff.

Death let out a long dark breath of black steam in front of his helmet. He glared over towards Exodus for a second, then he said in a low voice, "All of you villains, surrender or die. Your choice."

Half of them dropped to their knees. Even on Trigger, they had no ideas of grandeur. Most of them already thought they were fighting a losing battle when the Army of Death soldiers all shot up with Trigger too. The sight of the actual Death landing in front of them and taking out a third of their guys in seconds was too much for another six of them. The villain Exodus had been facing turned to crows, but a huge beam of white light shot up above him and then to either side, forcing him back down and in the direction of Death who attacked and grazed some of the villain's strange body with his dark aura.

A couple of others tried to run, but Exodus spotted one going for a different strategy. Flare was still looking through Guardian's forcefield from the other side, forgetting that the forcefield was not closed and there was an open gap behind her. A villain whose body was almost invisible but had a shimmering silhouette in the bright air rose up a blade that glinted its sharp steel as he reached for Flare's neck. "Excalibur," the villain started turning his head left, as did Flare and Guardian whose eyes bulged at the sight of the man who was appearing at the end of the trail of white light still brightening in behind them. The villain reached faster for Flare's neck to try and get a hostage to bargain his escape with, and he lost a little extra arm with the bit of extra reach he put in.

The villain reached up to his mid-bicep and started screaming, his body becoming visible again as he stumbled backwards with blood spraying from his right arm. The blood got all over Flare whose eyes had just widened huge in her helmet as she did not even know why Exodus was slashing, and now she saw a hand falling in front of her visor only inches away with a long serrated blade in it. She opened her mouth to thank Exodus when the blood sprayed all over her visor, but the screaming man ahead of her made it difficult to say anything. That man's screams cut off though, as a thin black line slammed into his chest and dropped him to the floor.

Zach knocked out another villain who was about to escape, then he looked around and checked on the Army of Death around him. "Miraculu, help Gregor," he called out, knowing the woman was there somewhere in one of the black uniforms. The woman he shouted at sprinted towards a man who two others were already trying to help, and Miraculu pressed her palms together in front of her chest while lifting her head to the sky. She whispered under her breath and her hands started to glow white, and then she reached down and touched her hands onto Gregor's back.

A white light pulsed around Gregor's body, and Miraculu smiled wide in her visor as did the other two at her sides. "Worked this time," Vince said in relief, and he patted a hand down on Gregor's back after saying it. Gregor let out a shout of pain, and Vince continued with a smirk, "Don't be such a baby. The wound's gone."

"Huh?" Gregor was just expecting the pain so much that he screamed on instinct, but now that he thought about it he did not feel any pain at all. "How?" he lifted his head and rolled over, wincing as he did but shaking his head as there was no reason to do so.

"It is a Miracle," Miracule responded.

"I told you not to go in without me," Zach said, speaking quietly in a whisper while standing right in front of Exodus. He leaned up towards the bigger man's head, "I told you, _never_ to go in without me. What made you think you could attack like this?"

"Hold on, Commander," Exodus said while turning his head to the right. "Fizz! Put him down!" Exodus roared it angrily, and the soldier in black armor let go of the villain he was grabbing by the head with both hands. Fizz turned and ground his teeth in anger towards Exodus, but he froze as he saw Death glaring his way through his visor too.

"S-Sorry," Fizz said, seething it through his teeth and then rubbing the side of his helmet with one hand. "Must be, the Trigger," he said. "A bad vial maybe," he offered, though he was already glaring back through his visor down at the unconscious villain Death dispatched quickly, but not before the man had beaten him up in a humiliating way.

"They were about yo flee, and I had to move in," Exodus said as he turned back to Death. "No one died, and I knew you would be here in time even if anyone had."

"But I want to be here to _stop_ anyone from dying too, not just to bring them back," Zach countered at the big man who did not seem to understand that from the way he was defending himself.

Exodus was silent for a few seconds, then he bowed his head. "My apologies. I will accept any punishment, Commander."

Zach shook his head and he calmed himself down behind his visor. "Lift your head, I'm not really… mad," Zach turned away and he grimaced as he looked around the battlefield that was a complete mess. "If you had let them go and we had to follow them to a new location, it would have wasted more time we could spend getting to the next location. Let's get these guys processed and-"

"Actually, Commander," Exodus began. "I believe this is not as simple as we first thought." Zach turned back to him and then walked with Exodus as the large man started walking over towards a villain moaning on the ground but not yet unconscious. There were some AoD already around him, and one of them turned the man over and then got him up on his knees in front of Death and Exodus. "HighPoint here, was no more than a middle man. He was discussing his orders, and he had said some unsettling things about experimentation-"

" _Fuck_ you," HighPoint looked up with bloodshot eyes, a dark look, and he said it in an exhausted way at the two men in front of him. "If you think, I'm going to say-"

"Excalibur," Exodus rose up his right hand, and he created a long blade of light again in the shape of a longsword sticking out to his side. "Death, if I may take the lead?"

 _He's been doing well so far. I wish he would've waited a few more minutes; I had to use a lot of Death to get here so fast when I heard them fighting over the radio. Still, I trust Exodus's judgement. His mercy on the other hand could use some work… but, experimentation?_ Zach looked at the blond man who had been with him in Scotland, and he nodded at Exodus to let him do whatever he thought necessary.

Exodus turned forward after nodding back at Death. "Jackhammer. Lift his left arm."

Jackhammer hesitated for a moment, then he walked over to the villain his comrade was still holding down on his four knees, stomping on the backs of his legs as he tried moving. Jackhammer grabbed the man's arm and then yanked it to the side hard, the muscular AoD soldier only struggling for a second when he realized how hard HighPoint was holding it down. "Just talk," Jackhammer said, holding high up on the man's arm with one hand for a second instead of grabbing him by the wrist with both to hold it to the side. HighPoint turned his head with his eyes huge in terror at the tone of Jackhammer's voice, like the man already felt bad for him for what he knew was coming.

"You fucking wouldn't!"

"I would, and I will," Exodus said. He rose up his Excalibur in his right hand, and he pointed it high above his head as Death stood next to him without saying a word. A few of the Army of Death looked from Exodus to their leader to see if he would stop this, but Death just glared at HighPoint in silence as Exodus rose his blade. "Unless you tell me where your main lair is, villain. Who your real boss is. Where you acquired the Trigger you and your men had so much of. And what you meant, when you were laughing with your comrade about the 'human experiments,' not ten minutes ago." Exodus' blade extended more, and his eyes flared with a brighter white glow as his sword got larger like that.

HighPoint darted his eyes from the blade to the man holding it to the leader of the Army of Death and then back again. His eyes did loops around them, then to everyone watching him and waiting for an answer. He gulped, then his lips curled up and the corners of them pulled far to the sides in a smirk. "How about you shove those questions up-" Jackhammer yanked his arm harder to the side, sliding his hands far away from the man's shoulder, and Exodus slammed his blade down and through the man's arm and into the floor at his side.

Jackhammer stumbled away as he had had to pull with a lot of force considering HighPoint was tugging hard in the other direction. Jackhammer fell to the ground, then he tossed the arm he was holding with both hands off to the side, shivering at the feeling of it still tensed up but without any pressure going away from him anymore. "Fuck man," he muttered, pushing himself up and frowning deeply as he looked at the villain who started screaming in agony.

"Ooh, brutal," Spiral said, leaning forward and staring over with wide eyes at what he just saw. He turned to the right and asked in a confused way after seeing that, "I thought we were anti-torture. I'd say that's-"

"Human experimentation," Access started in a low voice to the younger man in front of him. The nineteen year old glanced back, and he grinned in his helmet for a second as it sounded like Access was trying to sound cool again which he noticed happened often. His smile lowered down though as Access' tone was different from usual despite it being serious which was already unusual for him. Access' fists clenched hard at his sides and he growled, "Is a different story."

Spiral lifted his eyebrows and then glanced the other way as he heard HighPoint start shouting all sorts of things as he begged the two in front of him to save his life. Exodus grabbed him by his bloody shoulder and started searing the wound shut, making the villain scream out in even more agony than last time. Spiral turned back to Access with a frown, "We fight murderers, sex traffickers, druglords, mafioso, and all sorts of fucked-up villains. I saw Death threaten a man with torture the other day and then just knock the guy out when he refused to say shit, and that guy was a lady-killing bastard-"

"There are much worse things people can do to each other, than just killing," Access muttered. He started walking, going to get closer to the man who started shouting all about the 'Mad Doctor' who caught Access' interest and his hatred. _Be connected to Fergus,_ Access thought, his fists tightening even harder. _I don't know what they saw down there. They never talk about it. What I heard that day though… And the way they looked when they got out… if the things Sandlot tried telling people, if they were true, if all of that madness was- they killed me to keep that place a secret. How many more places like that nightmare exist in this world? That's what Death and Exodus must be thinking right now._

 _How many more places like that lab exist in this world?_ Zach thought, his fists balled so tightly at his sides that he was shaking in anger as the woozy man in front of him rambled about all his secrets in hopes that he would get painkillers when his enemies were satisfied. _If this is connected to Fergus then… but, if it's not- It has to be! No one else… no one else… The Chemist did human trials too. There are just, people in this world who would. How many? I'm not ready to see another place like Scotland… but I will go. Because someone has to, and it should be us._

* * *

"Mr. Keisei! Mr. Keisei! How do you feel about the outcome of the trial?"

On the steps outside of a courthouse in Feruchia, a lawyer in a black suit turned his head to the reporter who had come up and started questioning him with a camera in his face. He pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose and then the man with blue and red striped skin responded, "Disappointed."

"What were you hoping to get? What more do you want-"

"Justice," Keisei responded, his eyes cold as he glared back at the reporter. "There is nothing in this for myself, but I will get justice for my client."

"Your client is already out of prison, where he should be," the reporter argued back. "And he is receiving top medical treatment at the behest of the Japanese government. What else do you really think Psycho deserves?"

"My client, Yusuke Tachikawa. Otherwise known as the villain: Styles, was not a great man. He was a villain, but he does not deserve the punishment he faces as a result of the damage Lifebringer did to him." Keisei paused and he faced the reporter fully as he continued, "In the raid on Breakneck's Trigger lab, Zach Sazaki with a provisional hero license bestowed to him by the government _despite_ his past actions sent my client into a coma. When Styles finally awoke from it, he has had a long recovery from the extensive brain damage that has made him slow, perhaps permanently."

" _Psycho,_ " the reporter started again. "Styles' villain name when he used his Rage Quirk, was responsible for killing police officers that night. He had murdered others too-"

"And he should have been put on trial for these things," Keisei said without hesitation, cutting the reporter back off. "That is what we do in a civilized society. We put men like my client on trial, and allow them to defend their actions in a court of law. I do not know if I would have defended my client in a regular case, however I cannot allow this injustice to go overlooked. And the government's response to simply keep looking after my client until they believe he is fit for trial so they can throw him in prison, ignoring the huge punishment he has already faced with the damage to his mind, is unacceptable. They claim there is no one to hold responsible, so there is nothing to be done. However they gave Sazaki that license to fight villains. They made that mistake, and it came back to bite them."

"Your client, faced off against a young hero in a fight of life or death," the reporter started, sounding defensive and not backing down from the lawyer one bit. "Videos show Lifebringer came in and stopped Psycho from killing others, and you stand there chastising his actions which saved innocent lives and the lives of his fellow defenders of the law." The reporter continued fast as Keisei opened his mouth, "Whatever your opinion on Lifebringer, you can't say that everything he did was wrong just because of the Lifebringer Incident. You just can't. Heroes have killed villains before out in raids just like the one your client was arrested in, yet Lifebringer did not do that. How can you defend this murderer's actions so far?"

"I am not defending his actions," Keisei stated bluntly and not in a defensive tone, as if the man saying it had no idea what he was talking about so there was no point in getting defensive. "And I do accept, that in fights between heroes and villains, sometimes villains have to be hurt excessively. However Lifebrin- Zach Sazaki's Quirk does not do this to everyone, and he was able to knock out several villains that night without sending them into comas. Does that not mean he went too far? Again. He went, too, far." He said it and then frowned deeper as she glared at the reporter he was about to turn away from, "Sazaki goes too far. He had done it before, attempting to infiltrate the League of Villains on his own which I do believe was his initial goal back then. But also the Lifebringer Incident, and the War Boys kidnapping which no one talks about but we all know there was something strange about how Sazaki somehow managed to locate those villains on his own. And we know, people are being brought back in places the Army of Death goes to," Keisei shook his head and then turned away with a deep frown and angry look. "So if he is with that terrorist group he needs to come back. To answer to his crimes at the Lifebringer Incident, to answer to my client who he made brain damaged… to answer to all of us."

* * *

"Heehehehehe! HEEHEHEHHEEEEE _EEE!_ How did you like my Avon Gas?! I think it was particularly effective on that young man…"

Zach stepped out of a room that green gas started pouring out of around him. He walked into the wider laboratory basement, and he ignored the voice coming out of the speakers on the walls so it was all around him. His helmet was locked on tightly, as were the helmets of the three who walked out of the room behind him. A soldier in black armor whose cracked helmet was discarded to the side lay in that small room back there, a room made of such thick steel on all sides including the only doorway that there had been no way to get out. Even the hole on the ceiling that had opened wide to make them all drop through had closed back up too tightly before the gas poured in.

Exodus stepped out behind Zach and onto his right side. Spiral and Access came up behind them, their helmets on too and both of them completely silent inside of them. Rebel was quiet on the other side of their headsets, the only one currently awake in his command room and the only one connected to those four on their mission. They were after Ubiquitous and the Nowhere, as well as their crazy scientist: The Mad Doctor. They knew the madman was somewhere in the building, and they heard him laughing from wherever that location was though his voice did trail off over the speakers.

Zach lifted up his left hand, and he motioned it forward to the left over at a hallway. Spiral's lower half spun around and turned into a blur, using his Quirk, Top, and racing over to the hallway fast while Exodus ran that way too and lifted his shield in one hand that he took off of his back. Zach rose up his right hand slowly with a blade on it, and he gripped the hilt so hard it hurt. His teeth were bared furiously in his helmet, and his eyes had tears streaming out of them and down the sides of his face to his chin. He turned his head sideways to make a motion at Access. He hesitated as his eyes looked back towards the room of thick green gas where the gas had seeped out of a bit, making it not as thick inside, and making the silhouette back in that puddle on the floor visible.

The Army of Death's leader shifted his attention fully to Access and he made a nod in the direction of the other side of the deep dark basement they had finally busted into. The basement was dark, but their helmets had night vision to keep everything green around them, a color that was making each of them grind their teeth as they seethed in rage. Access lifted up his assault rifle, and he ground his teeth in anger to keep them from chattering, though sweat continued to pour down his face. The Mad Doctor's tone shifted as he had kept speaking to his intruders, "…I'd like to introduce you fellows to some friends of mine." **Clank… Clank… Clank…**

 _ **Brrmmm Ch-Ch-Ch-Ch… Clunnnk**_

Steel clanks followed by whirring noises in the walls. Locking mechanisms switching, and huge steel panels in the wall raising up. Down the hallways on either side of the room where the four Army of Death soldiers just separated over to, cell doors opened. Wide doors rose up into the ceiling, and the jangling of chains as well as more clanks of those chains falling to the floor filled the air. "Army of Death, meet- The Army of the Damned."

Access backed away from the hallway he had stacked up on the edge of. Spiral lowered his rifle on the opposite side of the room, and he took a step back. Then the nineteen year old with a horrified look on his face spun to the right as even in the larger room and not down the halls to the sides there were even more cell doors that had been disguised right into the walls. Wide steel panels rose up, revealing small boxes on the other sides with grates on the floor, no furniture inside, yet people in them. Chains dropped off of the collars around the necks of those in the cells. The steel chains clanked on the ground or on feces and blood stains, and the prisoners started stepping out of their cages all with those collars still on their necks with small glowing red lights on them.

"Access, use that panel in the wall," Death said in a low and quick voice. "Find controls for their collars. Now."

Access slung his rifle over his back and sprinted to the wall. Spiral kept backing up towards the middle of the room, though he gulped and snapped his rifle up as he saw down the hallway one of the men turn his way with glowing green eyes and look straight at him even in that darkness. Lights turned on a second later though, and the disorienting sight of so much brightness in their night vision made Spiral clench his eyes shut and grip the trigger of his gun. The barrel of his rifle pointed up, **Bang bang bang-** "Stop firing," Exodus ordered, while holding the barrel up so Spiral would not shoot which he had seen coming through the light that did not bother his eyes one bit.

Exodus turned off his night vision, and Spiral took in a deep breath while bringing a hand up to do the same to his helmet. Zach felt relieved as he darted his eyes over and saw Exodus stopping Spiral there. Then he turned his head and looked down a hall at a group of ten figures stepping out from either side of the hallway. He looked around and his heart fell even more at the sight of all those people either in rags or naked, looking like they had been abused in the worst ways he could think of. Most of them looked scared as they glanced around, wondering what was happening. Some just had dead eyes though as they stepped out, their motions robotic and their gazes dark or aimed down at the floor in subservient ways.

"You lot," the Mad Doctor's voice called out, and the majority of the people in the basement cowered and pulled away, some moving back into their cells in fear. "Kill those four in black. Each of you who manages to kill one will be allowed to leave here. If you refuse, then say goodbye to your heads-"

 **Ding.** The scared prisoners all started looking around in fear at each other, mainly at their necks and the collars the mad scientist was referring to. On all those collars though, the red lights glowing on them turned green and then the collars unlocked. **Clank. Clank dink clunk…** Collars fell to the floor all around the basement, and the Mad Doctor's voice that had cut off came back furious, "Fine! Take all the fun out of it! I thought we could play a game, but I guess you just wanted to see all these people die! Enjoy the Avon Gas!"

"You don't have control over the gas-release valves in here anymore, or the air vents," Access said in a low voice. On the wall next to a metal keypad on a secret doorway that had yet to be opened, Access had attached one of his Access Panels. The steel black sheet on the wall overlapping with the actual wall panel was now the new control point for most faculties inside the building, and Access continued tapping into the panel as he stole control over the lights, and the water, and the locking systems on all the doors too. "Let's lock the exits," Access continued, typing away and letting a smirk spread over his face. "And is that your control room? Oh, let's take the power from there."

The Mad Doctor's voice that was in the middle of shouting in anger at Access to stop cut off. All the speakers on the ceiling shut off, and the prisoners around the room started looking around in confusion as to what was going on. Some of them started running at the dark figures, and they all stopped as the dark man ahead of them surrounded in so much more darkness. It surrounded his body and flared around him in a menacing way that none of them wanted to get close to. "You're on, Death," Access said, taking the speakers he just gained control over and attaching them into their headsets.

"Stop," Zach ordered, glaring towards two men who had been running towards him. They were covered in bumps, disfigured and looking like monsters with half of their bodies morphed and spliced with what looked like animals or maybe other people. Zach tried not to get disgusted as he looked at them, he tried not to stare, and he cursed in his head at how gross most of them looked in the light. He cursed himself for it because of the looks he saw on most of their faces, looks of people who were just as scared as any others he had saved before. "We have come to free you. We're going after the Mad Doctor and the ones who financed this place. The ones who protect him and pay him for his research."

Death's voice echoed over the basement, and over the entire building as Access spread it around. His deep modulated voice was even scratchier as he was surrounded in Nightmare, and he snarled in a lower, furious tone, "We are going to take him down. Right now. And we're going to get all of you out of here. You don't have to do what that villain said anymore. I know you think he still has control over you," Zach stepped forward towards the two men who had been running at him but stopped short. He glared at them but spoke in a softer voice despite how scary it still sounded, "But he can't hurt you anymore. So stand down." He turned from those monstrous figures and glared away, finishing strongly, "We're here to help you."

"I have the Mad Doc's location," Access said. He looked to Death and said in an angry voice of his own, "Let's go get-"

"The collars are off!"

"We're free!"

"Get the doctor!"

Access spun to his right as he heard that roar, an emotion in that voice of rage unlike any he had ever heard before. He saw a woman who had looked so shocked while staring down at her collar on the floor lift her head with a massive smile spread over it and a dozen snake tongues pushing out between her lips. She smiled like crazy and yelled, "KILL HIM!"

"RAAAAA!"

Zach spoke lower in his headset, "We need- Access, cut the speakers." Access did what Death said, then only Death's comrades could hear as he said, "I have to get to him first. I know they're right to be angry, but don't let them start a rampage. They might look like monsters, but these people still have a sense of themselves. They're just angry. Don't let them convince themselves otherwise." Zach sped off, leaving dark footprints on the floor where he was just standing as he zipped away too fast. His aura faded behind him, a trail of it pulling after him in the direction of the location that just appeared on the inside of his visor.

 _He's worse than the Chemist,_ Zach thought, as he raced off alone in a laboratory basement that made him sick to the stomach. _He's been rearranging people's bodies for over a year. Doing tests on them to make their physiologies different, sometimes through changing anatomy and biological structure on molecular levels. So that they can permanently withstand Trigger… is that really worth- if he had perfected it, making villains' bodies different. Making villains able to inject with Trigger, and stay that strong forever. That bastard. That fucking… Just for that he- just for the money he could get- and it's not just that! I heard his voice. He enjoyed it while Zeke was…_ Zach shook his head and ran faster. _Move past it. Don't get caught up in the moment._ _ **"Death! Help me! Agh-ack- AHH- PLEASE!"**_

"Mad Doctor!" Zach yelled, as he sprinted down a hall for a doorway in the middle of being pried open. The scientist on the other side lifted his head, and he pulled back with a look of terror spreading across his face as Death found him. "THERE YOU ARE!"

The former prisoners locked up in the basement were going wild. They looked unhinged, and they kept letting out animalistic roars, and some dragged chains with them as they charged for a staircase up that Exodus, Spiral, and Access all ran towards with them. Spiral glanced to his right at a man whose normal body was surrounded in red muscly enhancements that were morphed into him, extra legs sticking out of his stomach so that his normal body had to be hunched forward and those four legs could run in a mismatched way like someone had just slapped them on his body. Out of another woman's back there were six long thin black legs that she tried running on because they were longer than her regular ones and yet she still kept falling and having to stumble on her old legs, or at least on one of them and the other's knee since that leg was more of a stump.

"Look there!"

"The prisoners are out of their cells?!"

"Use the collars to- what?!"

"KILL THEM!"

"We don't have your collars for you to control us!"

The fastest of the prisoners ran forward, his body slumping forward to his right with each huge step of his muscular legs. He looked like he was staggering, but he was staggering at forty miles per hour across the huge lab's first floor so the villains looking his way all started backing up. Some of them aimed guns at him, the test subject was too fast and sprinted in and out of shots coming at him though. He reached his arms back and they started bubbling and melting skin off of them, though that skin swirled around hanging off his arms and turning into sharp objects that dangled off ready to be swung forward and thrown like projectiles. A bullet slammed into his right shoulder, and the bullet dug an inch into his skin before getting stuck in the thick exoskeleton that covered his upper torso. "DIE!" He roared, biting through the pain and then starting to bring his arms forward.

The two men directly in front of the prisoner got lifted up by their faces and then slammed into the floor. They were smashed down hard, while the white blur behind the muscular man who slammed them into the ground was fading at his back. The attacking prisoner froze with his arms not yet fully swung forward, and the sharp bits of skin that had melted off of him just swung back instead of releasing forwards. The other prisoners running forward all slowed down, and they looked around with wide eyes as the doors on either side of the room busted down and flew inwards. The doors slammed into villains trying to run to them, and then windows up higher in the lab shattered and people in dark uniforms swung through on ropes or flew inside using wings.

Jetflame slammed down from the window he flew in from, directly on top of a villain who was fading away in the corner of the room. His collision on top of the man who did not think anyone had seen him made the man fully visible again, and Jetflame lowered a flame down to the side of the man's face while slamming a knee hard into his spine. "Don't move, Ubiquitous," he growled, and the villain's head turned to the side with blood coming out of his nose and his eyes wide at that scary deep voice just growled at him in a modulated voice. The flames on Jetflame's fist flared around the front of his pitch black visor, and the villain below him did not dare to move at the sight of that dark figure in the backdrop of the fire.

The Nowhere were taken down quickly. Other researchers, just a few scientists in white coats that they were pinned to the ground in, were shouting in terror as the prisoners nearby started moving towards them. "Stay back! Monsters!"

"Get us away from them!"

"YOU DID THIS TO US!"

"Hand them over, or I'll kill you too." A woman growled, her voice cracking and slime dribbling out the corners of her lips and off her bumpy deformed chin. She glared at two men in black uniforms holding down researchers who she had seen with the Mad Doctor, who had injected her and operated on her with that mad scientist.

Vince and Missappear looked at each other. They glanced back down at the men they were holding, then at the people who looked so disfigured and full of rage. Neither of them wanted to die to protect the villains, and they both moved away from the men since the former prisoner kept moving towards them without hesitating to wait for a response. The fact that those two backed off, made all the other experiments and test subjects start moving forward more confidently. They moved up snarling and growling at the dark soldiers to get away from their revenge.

"Just hold on-"

"Back up, this is our fight."

"I'm gonna wip hif ongue ow, jut ike he iid, oo me," a man covered in green scales, with two horns sticking out of his blond hair, dried blood covering that hair, loudly muttered that at the man who was still standing in between him and his revenge. He rose up the chains he had ripped out of the wall of his cell once his collar had fallen, and he had that collar lifted in his other hand as he glared sadistically at the villain on the floor in front of him.

The Nowhere villain stared at the prisoner with huge eyes, as he remembered ripping out a defiant prisoner's tongue before, but the prisoner had looked nothing like the monster in front of him did now. "You," the villain whispered in shock, a whisper that made the former prisoner lean his face back with so much more anger in it that he was not even recognizable anymore. "What, did they-"

 _ **"Grrrr…"**_ Another experiment stepped forward on all fours next to the man without a tongue, snarling at the villain who said 'they' like he was not a part of this. _**"You. Die."**_

"Death, these people are about to rip apart the-"

"All of you!" Everyone in the room snapped their heads up and to the east side of the building. They looked up towards a second floor area that there were stairs on the sides of the room up to, and they watched a dark figure step up to the railing there dragging a man with him that he tugged hard to toss the man's legs right over the railing. Zach held the man there by the back of his head, and everyone in the room stared up at the Mad Doctor whose face was bloodied and fingers were broken on both of his dangling arms at his sides. "Stop what you're doing, and back away from the villains we have captured."

"DOCTOR!"

"If you toss him to us," a woman shouted up in rage. Blood seeped between her fingers as her extended nails dug into her palms. "I'll settle with just him."

"NO! We're killing all of them. They made us into these _things!_ "

"What did they turn you into?" Zach shouted down. He continued holding the Mad Doctor by the back of the head, and he ground his teeth at the looks of pain and anger spread all out before him. _They're on the verge._

"Look at us!" a man shouted, stepping forward and glaring up with trembling eyes and shaking hands. He still could not comprehend well that he was out of his cell, but the sight of the Mad Doctor looking like that just made him angrier that the doctor was not being tortured worse. "LOOK AT ME!" He screamed up, reaching his hands to his face and grabbing at bumps of flesh he could see sticking out of him. He moved his hands from his face and turned them over to look at the horrific protrusions from failed experiments, and he pulled his head back and glared up towards the doctor again before yelling. "He deserves it! Let me rip him apart!"

"They _need_ to die!"

"I just want to get out of here," a woman with spider legs whispered, stepping backwards in fear of all the black soldiers whose powers were too strong now that she thought about it. Her eyes darted around in fear, seeing those men at all the exits too keeping her from getting away. "I just want to go-"

"They're ours to kill!" A man yelled, stomping forward on six legs, four of which had no skin and were just masses of muscle. He snarled up towards the dark figure and shook in rage as he locked eyes onto the squirming Mad Doctor who pulled his head back into the hand holding him so much harder at that look on his test subject's face. "Toss him down here, and let us rip him apart."

"If I do that," Zach began, his voice modulated and deep. "Then you'll lose your humanity. If I let you kill any of those men, then they'd be succeeding in taking that away from you-"

"They already turned us into monsters!" A woman screamed up, tears splashing from her eyes. She stepped forward and yelled out in anger at the figure who could not understand them. "Look at-"

"I don't see monsters," Zach said. The people down in front of him froze and just stared up into that dark visor behind the source of their rage. "You are not monsters. Only your actions can make you monsters." Zach slid his fingers out of his glove, and the Mad Doctor opened his mouth to scream but froze like that. His eyes rolled back into his head, and his heart stopped beating, and all signals stopped shooting through his brain. Then Zach tossed forward, and the doctor fell limply from the balcony down to the ground that he hit with a single thud. The thud filled the room and sent chills down the spines of most of the test subjects who slowly rose their heads back up at the figure who killed the Mad Doctor instantly. "And now he's dead," Zach said, looking down at the scared people with his teeth grinding behind his visor.

He took away the strongest foundation of their rage. In an instant, the man who had had control over them for so long was gone. They stared in shock towards the Mad Doctor's body, and many of them clenched their fists at their sides in so much more anger. "You took, our revenge," a man started seething through his teeth, raising his head in fury towards the dark figure above.

"Is that who you want to be?" Zach asked. He stared down at that man who kept glaring so furiously at him, and he asked, "A killer? I don't know who you all were before they got their hands on you. But, people will accept you as victims of villains if you return. And maybe doctors can help get your bodies back to normal, if you feel you really can't live without that." The scared and tortured souls down below stared up at the dark figure and then around at the others all over the first floor who moved back forward and got between the prisoners and the villains they had captured. The Army of Death's soldiers had intense looks on their faces again, and they stood more firm this time to stop the victims in front of them.

Some of the prisoners fell down to their butts. Other started crying. A few of the angriest ones still stepped forward, they balled their fists or flexed their extra extremities harder. Muscles bulged and flames ignited down someone's back, white wings ripped out of another's with blood all over them as his skin reformed over them each time they pulled back to him. "We're monsters," the man with bloody wings snarled. "Transformed into-"

"Who told you that?" Zach asked. He dropped down from the second floor and landed next to the unmoving body of a man whose life he had just taken. "Him?" Zach asked, nudging the man's leg with a foot and then kicking it aside in disgust. The man he asked that to froze and trembled, as he imagined the Mad Doctor calling him a monster and laughing as he held up a mirror, showing him the disfigured mess that had become his face and torso. He was one of the naked ones in the room, and his bloody wings were not what most people saw first when they looked his way. "I know you're angry. You want to get the people who did this to you. But, I can't let you kill them."

"Who are you?" A woman asked, calling it out through a raspy voice at the dark figure whose face was blocked by his helmet.

"How long have you been in here?" the man next to her muttered. She glanced at him, and the angry man standing there started in a lower voice, "That's Death…"

"I want to help you," Zach said. He stepped closer to the people on the other side of the room. "I'll get you back to your homes. To wherever you belong, before they took you. And if you really can't accept this. If you still feel the need to fight. If you can't go back… then come with me." The most angry and vengeful at the front of the group of tortured subjects stared towards Death with their eyes opening up huge. Death stopped where he was and extended a hand out in front of him. "Not to kill the men who did this to you, but to stop other men like them. To stop places like this from existing anywhere else in the world. If you still feel the need to fight, then don't do it for revenge. Fight with those stronger bodies these villains gave you, to prevent others from becoming victims like you."

The people in front of Death only a few meters away looked past him and to those villains who were all staring at Death's back in as much shock as the former experiments were. Those few men and women who wanted so badly to kill those villains shifted their gazes back to the man in front of them. They looked at the man who clenched his outstretched hand into a fist. "Killing them won't do anything. It won't make you feel better. It won't change what they've already done. Come with me. I'll never treat you like monsters."

"I- I just want- I just want to go home."

"That's fine too," Zach said, lowering his fist and looking back at the woman who said that while down on her butt, her legs pointing to her sides and a terrified look on her face. He stared towards her and said in a softer voice, reaching up and tapping the button on the side of his helmet so it returned to normal-pitched as well, "We'll get you home. And we'll make sure the heroes who come for these men, know exactly what they've done. You will all receive the help you need-"

"I didn't escape one master just to join another," a man directly in front of Zach a few meters away started. He stepped forward, his skin still partially melted off of his arms though he had never gotten the opportunity to throw those skin spikes at the villains he wanted dead so badly. He had been the fastest of the prisoners, and he stayed up in front of them even taking another step closer to Death as he continued, "But do you really, think they have a way to turn us back?" He asked, glancing down towards his thick muscular legs, his right bulked up more than his left with more muscles protruding out of it. He lifted his eyes darkly towards Death's visor, his eyes pitch black instead of having whites and irises in them. Yet in those black eyes Zach saw sadness and fear, and Zach hesitated at the question of the man who sounded doubtful about it.

"They might, be able to," Zach began slowly. "I don't know," he admitted right after, as his hesitant response just made those behind the man he was speaking to look even more depressed and horrified as they looked at themselves and each other. "But stop being so shallow. No one's going to care about what you look like." Those people turned back towards him, and Zach snapped in a pissed-off voice, "You have people who care about you right? People who probably think you're dead? Would those people turn their backs on you because of how you look? I know it sounds hard going back to them like this, but they will greet you with open arms, not in fear."

"How do you know?"

"Because," Zach replied. "You haven't become monsters," he answered it simply, and the people in front of him who were so bloodthirsty a minute ago, so hungry for revenge, stopped looking at their deformed bodies like it was the worst they could have turned into. Death hesitated before adding something else in a lower voice, "You were victims of villains. They'll understand that. And maybe they'll be able to turn you back to normal, and if not! People will get used to the new you's. They'll have to." Zach paused and then looked at the man right in front of him again, "You all fought hard to survive this. You're all strong, to be making it out of this place I'm sure many didn't. You can do this too. You can take this next step, whichever way it takes you."

The man in front of Zach looked down at his legs again. _Robbie, Eden, wait just a little longer for me._ The man with skin melted off of his arms in little spikes rose his arms and pressed his skin back down with his palms, flattening his arms out flatter though not smooth as he did have a lot of black hair on those arms. He stepped forward on his muscular legs, looking to limp when he took a step with his right that was bigger than his left, and then he nodded at Death.

A tongueless man stepped forward covered in green scales, blood all over his blond hair that two horns were sticking out of, and he dropped the chains and collar he was holding while staring towards Death with his eyes huge. And a man more deformed than the other two with the mounds of flesh bumping out of his chest, neck, and face, stepped forward with his bloody white wings flapping behind him and then pulling back in towards his back. His skin repaired over those wings as he pressed them into his skin, and the man rolled his neck looking to be in a ton of pain as his body fixed up like that. "I'll come with you," the man said once his back finished repairing, saying it and looking towards Death with an intense look on his face.

"Me," the green-scaled man said, pointing a thumb at himself. He wanted to say 'too' but the 't' sound was too hard to make without his tongue.

"And the rest of us, can just go?" A woman behind the man with bulky legs who stood right in front of Death asked. "Leave, this place? Just like that?"

"Exodus, Jetflame," Zach started. "Access, Rebel, figure out who all these people are. Find out where each of them came from. And we'll help them get wherever they're going." Everyone else in the room who had not stepped forward like three of them had, started crying or falling down as they heard that. Dark soldiers came towards them, and some of those figures started taking off helmets after getting nods from Death when they looked his way. After knocking out the Nowhere leader, Jetflame walked towards the group of victims whose cries were making his heart ache. Jetflame took his helmet off and he reached out to grab the shoulder of a woman sobbing with her face in her hands, whispering 'It's over' over and over again to herself.

"What about your next mission?" Rebel asked, questioning the leader of the AoD who had gone off schedule for his expected track for the day. Zach was looking around at everyone as Rebel spoke into his head, "Should I send Gentle in without you?"

"No," Zach replied, speaking softer and only in his helmet. "Have everyone hold off. This is important, but I'm not going to risk anyone just to keep up the schedule. I'll leave here as soon as I can. Once the new recruits understand, once I know everyone here is going to be saved, not just freed… I'll head to Gentle once I'm sure I'm not needed here."

"My name is… your name's not actually Death, is it?" The man closest in front of Zach asked. He shook his head after asking as it was a stupid question anyway. "Well then, my name is… Rapid."

"Angel Phoenix- wait. Angelix. Yeah, call me Angelix."

"Bu- Buw-" the man with green scales lowered his gaze to the floor in frustration.

"Bull?" The deformed man whose white wings were back in his back asked. The other man nodded at Angelix and then pointed at the scales on his torso and arms, and he put his hands together in front of his both and swerved them back and forth in a slithering motion. "Snake? Bullsnake?" Angelix asked, and Bullsnake nodded his head fast in agreement at the name he wanted but could not say.

"Rapid, Angelix, Bullsnake, welcome to the Army of Death. I want you to help the others here get home," Zach continued without pausing after his greeting. _Maybe they'll see the people welcoming their family members back, and think twice about joining me. It's not the smartest, but I need help getting these people back, and I don't want them regretting not going back to the people I'm sure they have too._ "Then I'll give you orientation and figure out what you can do to help us."

Zach nodded at the men and then looked away towards the others behind them. The three were surprised, but they nodded back and then turned and looked around all the others who the dark soldiers were trying to help. Zach looked past them as they started over to join with the aid, and Zach's eyes scanned over the room of test subjects who were deformed and crying and looked like they had been through hell. _What if they can't get back to normal? What if their lives that have already been so hard, just get harder- well maybe not harder, but not as easy as they should be? Facing a government that's not going to want to admit that something like this was allowed to exist for as long as it did in its own borders. Mean people who won't understand what they've been through, people who call them monsters. Discrimination. I need a better solution than just letting the rest of the world handle them. I know by now it's foolish to have that much faith in the ones in charge. What I really need, is somewhere I can be sure they're alright. I need a place where all these people could go…_

* * *

On the street behind U.A. between the main school building and the dorms, Momo Yaoyorozu and Mina Ashido were walking back from classes in the early afternoon together. The two of them were talking about their classes earlier that day, but Momo looked forward as she saw someone in a hero costume walking towards them. The older boy looked to be heading to the main school building or one of the training grounds past it, but he slowed down while looking straight at the two girls in the year below him.

Ashido turned forward too and her eyes widened a bit at the sight of the boy walking towards them. The black haired, muscular teen stopped in front of the girls and nodded at them in greeting before starting to Ashido, "Good to see you're alright, Pinky."

Ashido lifted her eyebrows more at the sound of that, and she smiled with a humph at the older boy. "I'm fine," she said. "Barely even got a scratch-"

"Nagiso-senpai," Yaoyorozu cut off her classmate. She bowed her head a bit to the older boy, and then she lifted it and said, "I never did get a chance to thank you for that day."

"It's fine-" Nagiso started.

"What do you mean?" Ashido asked, glancing to her side at Yaoyorozu in confusion.

"Do you not remember?" Yaoyorozu asked, looking surprised for a moment and then continuing fast when Ashido just looked confused. "When I was helping you to the ambulance during the fight against the Stain Cult, Nagiso-senpai saved our lives."

"It's really-"

"He did- you did?!" Ashido spun back to the boy who she could not remember doing that at all. After getting in that ambulance she had been shot up with a lot of drugs and most of what happened after her injury had become hazy in her mind.

Nagiso stopped trying to just stop them early since he kept getting cut off, and he just nodded once at the pink girl instead. "I'm impressed though. Your injury looked really bad, so I didn't think you would be back so soon. I heard from a classmate though that you were back right after, Pinky."

Ashido smiled wide at the praise, and she said, "You can call me Ashido on campus." She did not know if he just didn't know her name and was only calling her by her hero one because of that, but she smiled at the older boy and then said, "And thanks for helping me out. I don't really remember it too well," she scratched the side of her head with a sheepish laugh as that was another person she had to thank for that day.

"It's just part of the job," Nagiso replied with a wave of his hand like it was nothing. "I'm glad you were both fine, you did great out there."

Yaoyorozu saw him look to her as he said that, and she shook her head with an apologetic look. "I'm sorry. The news only focuses on Class A's actions against the Stain Cult. It is unfair to you and to Indago-senpai who did so much-"

Nagiso shook his head and laughed while saying, "We've had a fair amount of publicity too." He hesitated and then added with a shrug, "Alright, maybe not 'fair,' but you know what I mean." Ashido laughed at the joke, and Yaoyorozu smiled a bit too as she saw he was not caught up on what she was apologizing over. Nagiso smiled too that the girls were, then he looked behind them and said, "Well I've got to get to training with a couple of my classmates. See you around?" He asked, while already starting to jog to the side to go around them. He looked in while asking, and the girls nodded at him and said their goodbyes too.

Ashido and Yaoyorozu turned their heads and watched as the older boy started running off in his hero costume. Ashido's smile lowered down a bit as she watched him go, and her eyes darted to the floor for a second. "Weird," she mumbled. "I just kind of thought…" Ashido turned back forwards and continued walking to their dorm, but she glanced in at Yaoyorozu whose smile she was a bit put off by. "Didn't Zach say, that-"

"Zach knew that Nagiso was a good person," Yaoyorozu said, as it was something she had already thought about though did not know that Ashido had known. She looked down and left at the shorter girl, and she added, "Zach believed that since he had lied about his Quirk through middle school though, that Nagiso would not like him even more."

"'More?'" Ashido asked, wondering what that meant. She did not really remember what Zach had said about him much at all, but she remembered the sheepish look he had when talking about the older boy like he thought Nagiso disliked him.

"Zach was the captain of their middle school cross country team from back when he was a second year…" Momo started to her friend whose eyes widened more next to her.

Ashido listened as Momo continued for a few seconds, and then she let out a low sigh and looked away with a sad look. _Momo knows so much about Zach. More than I ever did. I really was, close… If the wound had been a little deeper they said,_ her hand moved down to her right side and rubbed at the scars she felt on the other side of her shirt. _Would Zach not have come back? He's just a vigilante over in America, with that girl… While Momo and I-_ Ashido looked back at her taller friend who was looking at her in a concerned way. Yaoyorozu had seen that look on Ashido's face the same time she was rubbing at her side, and it worried the taller girl who Ashido smiled back at to relieve that worried expression.

She turned her head more to get the attention off of the way she knew she had just looked. "That Nagiso-senpai though," Ashido started, and she cracked a bigger grin. "Now that I know he's a good guy… he's pretty hot huh?"

Yaoyorozu sighed at her friend who smiled wider at the shake of Yaoyorozu's head. "What?" Ashido asked and then started laughing as she had to move forward again to keep up with Yaoyorozu who just started walking away. "He is…"

* * *

"Death, what he says checks out," Whiz said over the comms connecting The Cloak to the Army down on the ground. "The code was hidden in the initial message we intercepted. He wanted us to get it."

 _Maybe,_ Zach thought, narrowing his dark eyes at the figure in the middle of the room sitting on a chair surrounded by other dark soldiers. _Maybe it was just a precaution in case we ever did catch one of his messages. But, I thought something seemed too convenient about us catching it right before a deal. A deal with a bigger villain gang than his own, so he was turning over bigger fish that I'd be more interested in and would definitely come myself. Could be a trap. Could be something else._

"Gentle, take point," Zach said.

"Alright," Gentle called out loudly, stepping forward and towards the man on the chair who he looked down his nose at inside his visor. "What you say checks out. You really did turn your comrades over, and those weapons' dealers we were looking for too. Great job," Gentle's voice was sarcastic and he leaned in to see how the man would react. The twenty-six year old on the chair leaned back as the man with the dark purple visor leaned towards him. "Did you really think that was all it took to join us? You're a villain."

"I know," the man started. He had short blond hair in a crew cut on his head, he had a tattoo of a black snake on his upper right arm that was revealed by the torn off sleeve taken from his arm. He took in a deep breath and then continued, "But, I want to make amends. And I can be of a lot of help to the Army of Death. I want to be, someone who stops villains instead of-"

"Your gang, were known as murderers," Gentle countered. He glared at the man he had leaned down towards, then he stood up straight and said in a flat voice, "Your boss, murdered two heroes in cold blood. All of you are accomplice to that crime and to all others-"

"Pike was cornered-" the blond man started, then he held his tongue and pulled his head back at the dark feeling he felt radiate from the man in front of him. "But I know," he continued, his voice strained as he said it. "I get, that it was wrong. I knew it right away and… And even before that I knew, but we'd become too big. I was just in it for the money at first, but Pike and the others wanted to keep getting bigger. Larger villain groups kept coming in and trying to make deals, trying to get our assistance or get us to join their organizations that were gaining power so fast with bigger ones getting taken out of the way." The man started breathing heavier, as the people around him were not reacting much to what he was saying. _Of course they already know this!_ _They're the Army of Death. I need, I need to go all out._

"I saw them going farther and farther, to become bigger or to impress the bigger gangs. I just, I couldn't do it anymore. I saw people looking so afraid of us-"

"Of course they were," Gentle said in a low voice. "You were a villain, Blackjack. And your gang were murderers. Why wouldn't they be afraid of you?"

"I never… but you're right," Blackjack whispered. He stayed silent for a few seconds, then he rose his head and looked through that purple visor. "My Quirk is called Bluff," the man continued. "It doesn't just let me know when people are lying though, it tells me the best way to convince people what I'm saying is true."

Behind Gentle, Zach lifted up his head a bit and his eyes were wide behind his visor. _That's…_

"So then what you're telling me," Gentle started. "Is that this story of a man who just wants to help us, is a facade?"

"No!"

"You have seen so much bad and feel so much regret that you need to reform," Gentle started, shaking his head in disbelief at the far-fetched story from a villain begging for forgiveness.

On the side of the room, Access leaned in towards Michael's side and whispered, "You know, telling us that was pretty stupid on his part." Michael grunted and nodded, then he grumbled to himself as Access continued, "He wouldn't have told us that unless he really was trying to reform, 'cause no way his Quirk told him that was the right thing to go with."

"Or maybe," Michael muttered right back. "His Quirk knew exactly how _you'd_ react to hearing it. Some reverse psychology bullshit, or something." Access started frowning back towards Blackjack too, realizing what Michael said made sense as he had almost started trusting the man there.

"It's difficult to trust you," a low, modulated voice spoke behind Gentle. Gentle turned and then stepped to the side a bit while watching Death move forward towards a very nervous Blackjack. "So we'll trust your actions then."

Gentle rose up his white eyebrows high. _Seriously?_ He thought, though keeping it to himself.

Blackjack's eyes opened huge too, as many others in the room had inside their helmets. "Death," Seraphim started towards her leader.

Zach kept looking at Blackjack, then he reached up his hands and grabbed his helmet. He lifted it off and lowered it down to his waist while looking into Blackjack's shocked eyes. "People must have never trusted him once his entire life because of that Quirk," Zach started. He stared at the man and tried to keep his expression serious and angry, but as soon as he heard the specifics of the Quirk something else stirred within him. _A cursed Quirk,_ he thought, as he saw Blackjack's eyes open so huge and start trembling as he heard Death say that to him. "Everyone always assumed he was lying or tricking them. Not once did anyone give them their trust, so I'm going to trust him."

"How?" Blackjack whispered in shock.

Zach ground his teeth and then looked harder at the man in front of him who he believed did send them that information. _Leap of faith. It's risky. And stupid. And-_ "Because you deserve to once in your life have someone who does." Zach ground his teeth harder while glaring at the man who could see how hard it was to do this for the teen in front of him, a teen he recognized the moment the kid pulled his helmet off. "Never betray me," Zach said while staring into Blackjack's hazel eyes the same shade as his own. "You, always tell me the truth, or no one will ever be able to trust you again."

"I will," Blackjack whispered, while he stared at the figure in front of him in disbelief. He stared at him and his heart pounded harder than it had when he considered betraying his comrades, or when the Army of Death swept in during the deal and captured them all. "I promise, Death. I'll help you, and I'll earn that trust you're giving me…" _Trust? Even my gang, even my family… There's no way he actually-_ Death nodded back at Blackjack, then he turned to Gentle and gave him a nod too which made the man in a purple cloak let out a long sigh and then start rubbing his forehead over his helmet. Death turned to Blackjack and pulled out a knife, and he sliced the ropes holding Blackjack to the chair, while Gentle took off his helmet and started an orientation for the man who could not believe what he was hearing.

Death turned and started away from Blackjack after cutting his binds. _You deserve a second chance. To make up for those crimes not just by rotting away in some prison, but by using that Quirk of yours for me. I'll be watching you closely, Blackjack. And I'll slice your fucking neck open if you betray me._

* * *

Midoriya looked back at the hospital room door behind him, then he turned and walked away with his lips curled far down at the corners. He could hear All Might's voice back in that room after he started away, and he clenched his fists at his sides in frustration at the thought of the woman he and All Might were just talking to. The wrinkles all over her body, the pale skin, yet her defiant and angry face that looked as strong as it always did just did not match that body. _Her lifespan, is about to run out,_ Midoriya shook his head to try and stop looking so frustrated. He glanced back over his shoulder towards Wonderlass's room though, and then he turned back forward and kept going to head out of the hospital.

 _She's dying,_ Midoriya thought. _And there's nothing we can…_ He closed his eyes and then opened them with another shake of his head to push away a thought that tried slipping into his mind. Instead he focused on something else, _Gran Torino still doesn't have his Quirk back, as Eri cannot control hers yet. If she could… but, that could be too far away._ He grit his teeth and shook his head once more, trying to push all those thoughts out of his head. He had to shift what he was thinking on from a bad situation he couldn't do anything about.

The seventeen year old with curly green hair walked out of the hospital. He looked around and then started down a sidewalk back towards the train station. His hands slid down into his pockets and he did not walk very fast. Izuku Midoriya was in no rush to go anywhere, and he grimaced as he thought about going back to the dorm right now. His eyes shifted down to the floor and he thought about the looks of some of his classmates, the ways some had looked at him for a while now. _Maybe, I really should…_ He frowned deeper at a thought he had had for months but never acted on. This time though, he countered his own quick dismissal of the thought. _Telling all of Class A. It's a solution, not a problem. I heard a rumor from Class B that, that they could only know if my classmates told them what Raijin said the day of his betrayal._

 _I trust all of them! But, because they don't know how big of a secret it is they aren't keeping it like they should. Because instead of asking them to keep it a secret, I just pretend like Raijin never said anything._ Midoriya balled his fists in his pockets and he grit his teeth harder, thinking about the day before the Lifebringer Incident. _**"You know, I didn't say shit to him."**_ He saw that look on Zach's face after he had glanced towards him, after Kirishima had made a joke about All Might to him hinting at something, and how Zach had seen in his eyes that Midoriya thought he was the one who told Kaminari. _Why did I do that? It was, it was because of that night after Kaminari… When Zach was shouting about telling the secrets that weren't his to tell, I thought he meant…_ Midoriya ground his teeth and shook his head again, trying to get those thoughts out of his mind.

 _If I tell the rest of the class, they'll keep it a secret. Right? If they understand how serious it is? But, telling so many people is bound to… Not everyone, could hold out like Zach did. If they were ever tortured… and if villains ever targeted them just because they knew I told them something…_ Midoriya frowned so much deeper at these thoughts. _Most of them don't understand and I shouldn't include so many people in the secret, but there are those who won't just forget about it. Todoroki, Uraraka- I have to lie. To protect them! And, to shut down those rumors without telling anyone the truth. I'm just going to keep telling them that Kaminari said it because my power is similar to All Might's with my huge strength._ A determined look formed on his face and he nodded to himself as he stuck with that story he had dedicated himself to sticking with for a long time now. It hurt him getting that determined over it though, and his hardened look faded with his lips curling down sadder.

 _I'll have to lie to the people closest to me to make it believable. Not just not telling them the truth, but actively lying._ Midoriya felt his heart clenching up and he bit down hard while glancing up at the sky, _How was Zach able to do it? Just imagining lying like that, hurts so much. How could he do it so easily?_

Midoriya got to the train station and went up to get his tickets back to Musutafu. He waited for the train with his phone out, reading the news and frowning at the stories he saw on it. He scrolled quickly past an article about the Army of Death, and he focused on the Japanese section instead. _Never any Death sightings in Japan… More people getting in trouble for using their Quirks. It's been happening more and more often lately._ Midoriya got on the train and lowered his phone for a second. He was going to stand the whole time to let others sit, but the train was pretty empty so he took a spot on a soft chair instead and just kept reading the article he glimpsed at on the platform.

Midoriya rose his head and let out a small sigh. _Quirk-training sessions in neighborhoods being called "neighborhood watch" meetings. Families taking classes from tutors who aren't licensed, and all parties getting in trouble for it… Just like Kota._ Midoriya lowered his gaze back to his phone to think about something else, but his fingers curled over the screen and his eyes focused on scars on his right hand as he turned it over. _Of course he's going to ignore it. The moment he gave me against Muscular, even though he should have just been running like the law says… it saved our lives. Ragdoll thought I could help him out, since he's struggling with it. With Mandalay and Pixie Bob, Tora, his parents… it's too much. I don't know if what I told him will be able to help him recover after so much loss. I, I have to do more this time though. Actively go work things out with him, and push him on a path that's not destructive like I let-_

The green-haired boy on the train leaned back in his seat. He was so frustrated from seeing Wonderlass like that. He had a better understanding of her Super Quirk now, and he knew the reason she was in that hospital bed was because of how far she had gone at Breakneck's lab. _Because I wasn't strong enough to…_ He shook his head not wanting to think about that, but everything else he was thinking of made him so frustrated too. _I couldn't stop her from going too far. I couldn't stop Zach, and I couldn't protect Skylord. Or the others that day. Now, I need a new internship. I can't just spend my weekends regretting these losses. I have to push forward. Smiling._ Midoriya lifted his lips and he tried to keep a forced smile, shaking away thoughts of all the bad things going on in his life and the world around him.

Midoriya hummed and thought about the problems he was just thinking on, though he tried to smile as he thought about them this time. He noticed two of the other people who were on the train with him had looked over and recognized him when he got on, and he wanted to keep a heroic expression on his face for them. _The punishments haven't been very bad for the people who have been caught so far. It's different for the ones who get caught training them compared to people who have just been using them normally. Some heroes are trying to crack down on it because a lot of other countries are starting to get more lenient, to remind everyone here that we're not doing that too. Once people find out how much easier life is using their super powers though, they start to use them casually. Moving objects in their office to their hands if they can instead of getting up to grab them… like mom sometimes did in the kitchen. It's not a big issue… but if they don't treat those occasions like it it, then other people get encouraged to use theirs too. Rolling down a sidewalk instead of walking, or hovering over the floor but keeping feet close to the ground so they can drop down if they see cops or heroes around. I don't want to say anything to them when I see it, but seeing them drop when they see heroes makes it seem like they're afraid of getting caught, afraid of heroes… and heroes shouldn't be that separated from the people they're protecting._

 _The line between heroes and civilians, shouldn't be bigger than the line between civilians and villains. I've seen people talking about that on the news. And the people who do get caught by heroes for illegally using their Quirks, they get mad at heroes for upholding that law._ Midoriya frowned thinking about some patrols he had gone on with Skylord before their fight against the Stain Cult. _**"I do this every day…" "No other hero stops me from doing this…" "Why do you care? I'm not hurting anyone…"**_ _Why is this only becoming a problem now? I never used to hear things about that,_ Midoriya frowned a bit and hummed to himself, before smiling again just for the others who he saw looking towards him on the train. _It's because those same people are probably using their Quirks in secret to train, to practice in case of villains, and they realize how useful their Quirks are for every day activities while they train. People aren't going to stop training their Quirks though, because they don't trust heroes can protect them anymore. As much as the crime rate has started to drop, it's still so high, and some people point at other countries where crime is dropping faster and accredit it to their different laws surrounding Quirks…_

Midoriya rose his head and looked towards the doors of the train on the side opposite him. Some others on the seats started looking that way and at a television screen on the wall above the closed doors. Midoriya's eyes opened wide at the title of the story he saw above the screen. There was a camera at a suburban neighborhood, and there were a few cop cars around as well as a hero who was walking with the two cops bringing a woman in handcuffs out of her house.

"Let her go!"

"You can't do this!"

Midoriya's eyes opened wide as he stared behind the police lines at the cars where the neighbors started shouting at the cops and the hero who looked around at them all. More people were gathering, and someone yelled towards the hero, "Fuck you Zebraman! Get out of here!"

"Sharon!"

"You're arresting her?! For what?!" A man yelled, pushing forward between two cops who grabbed him and shoved him back, which made everyone else around him start getting more riled up and angry at those cops who leaned back at the normal civilians' expressions. "We all asked her to help us! You gonna arrest all of us?!"

A lot of the people around the man leaned back at his shout, but there were others around there who started getting angrier yet more determined looks on their faces too. "Were you training your Quirk without a hero license?" Zebraman asked, walking away from the woman he had come out of the house with and stepping towards the man who leaned away from the hero in a black-and-white-striped costume. He questioned the man calmly yet his eyes were narrowed and he awaited an answer from the man whose neighbors all looked towards him.

"Yeah I did," he replied after that hesitation. He glared at the hero whose eyes widened as he expected the civilian to back down. "Because this neighborhood has been plagued by villains for months, and you didn't do shit about it!" The man's dirty mouth got bleeped out by the cameras, but again Midoriya could make out what he was really saying. "Now villains think twice about coming here- hey! Hey!"

"Let go of him!"

"Everyone disperse. This is-"

"Lifebringer was right!" The woman behind Zebraman shouted at the hero's back. Zebraman turned his head while the camera pointed back at the woman in handcuffs being led to a police car. She turned her body more and struggled against the cops who wanted to get her into a car faster. "Arrest me and slap a hefty fine on me for training innocent people to defend themselves. I don't care. When the villains attack again and the people who I helped survive because of that training, my conscience will be clear."

Midoriya's dropped bottom lip pulled back up and his teeth clenched hard. _Zach, what you said… People are going to get hurt fighting villains and… and… And I need to stop the villains so they don't have to. It's not your fault. People would have gotten fed up anyway. And they feel they need to train because of the lack of a Symbol. I'll become that Symbol soon. I need to. So that I can protect this world, and so they don't have to._

* * *

Zach and Gentle sat together on branches of a Baobob tree on the island of Madagascar. The trunk was long and stuck high into the sky, and the two of them sat on high branches obscured by other ones all around them that they intentionally kept in their ways. They were in the middle of a prairie, fields of brownish orange grass spread out below them and across the flat landscape. There was a waterbed a few hundred meters to their east, some animals grazing over near it or sleeping for the night. There were a few other tall trees like theirs in the vicinity, but none too close to where the convoy of vehicles just rolled to a stop at a campsite in the middle of nowhere.

There were tents set up around the camp, fire-pits between them, and there were some large animal carcasses laid out around the campground. There were strings held up between wooden poles that had lemur skins and corpses hanging from them, and then there were the spikes that had human skulls on them too. The wooden spikes crossed on either side of the entrance into the camp, just a dirt path that went between some tents and towards the much larger hut near the center. A man who looked like a witch doctor stepped out of the main hut, and Zach zoomed in more with his helmet that he used with the night vision off since the camp was illuminated by the fires in it and the headlights of the cars.

Most of the vehicles were the same brownish color as the grasslands around them, though there were a couple of black ones between the safari jeeps. There was also a long black hummer that stayed behind some other vehicles after rolling almost all the way to the hut. Zach glared at the witch doctor in front of his hut, standing there with very little clothes on, the top half of a human skull over his own hair, a bone stuck through his nose, and a long bone staff in his right hand that he was using as a walking stick too. The men around him looked like normal villains, some of them more savage and insane-looking than the usual villains he came in contact with. _I didn't think a man like Takiti would be in contact with other villains, but this group we were waiting for is larger than I expected. I should have brought more people._ "Rebel, anything yet?" Zach asked.

"Get a clearer look on that guy," Rebel said, as he had just gotten a picture sent to him from Gentle's helmet that did not have a video recorder in it but did have a camera if Gentle wanted to take a shot of what he was seeing in his visor. Gentle refocused and shifted over to another branch, swinging over Zach's prone body and sliding up before leaning off and peering more towards the sides of the villains' faces. Takiti turned his head to the side, and the villain he was talking to who had gotten out of the front jeep looked that way for a second too. Gentle took a picture in that second and it popped up on Rebel's screen, before a facial recognition software searched through all the databases in the world for a match.

"Got it," Rebel said after a few more seconds. "Uvuvuvwe Ukuku. Sound familiar?"

"Kabo's right hand man in Africa," Zach said softly. _He slipped away after the League of Shadows. I knew going for anyone else first based on Kabo's information was too risky, it could tip off the League, but going after the League definitely tipped him off. He packed everything up and disappeared before anyone could get to him._ "No doubt he's a big shot right now in the underworld. So what's he doing here?"

"Takiti is too small time for him," Gentle agreed, glancing back towards Death with a deep frown on his face. "Unless we are missing something."

 _What could we be missing? Takiti is a crazy bastard. He's a villain, a monster to certain people, but a lot of people in the villages around here treat him like some sort of god. They think he's all-powerful, and he killed the vigilantes protecting those villages._ Zach's eyes turned red and he darted them around all the tents, around the prairie, at all the vehicles that Ukuku brought with him. _Where's the meaning in this? Takiti has power, but nothing like the kind of power Ukuku has. And the people Takiti has power over are poor; there's nothing for him here. Why do they… No._ "No. Fucking. Way."

Gentle turned his head and looked back at the hummer that Zach was staring at. He looked at the back doors where a man in a dark suit had just gotten out and held the door open. Out from that door stepped a woman who had a red mask covering the right half of her face, and that mask curved down below her chin and around part of her neck. The left side of her face had burn scars on it too though, though they got thicker and more disgusting towards the half that the red mask covered. The mask looked horrifying, the design of a demon on it that only made the burns on the left side of her face look more menacing. She had a tight red costume on, and a black cloak, and at the top of that black cloak was a hood, and a thin veil that hung off the front of the hood and covered part of her face. "Impossible," Gentle whispered at the sight of the woman walking forward into more light. "That's, not…"

"What are y'all seein' out there?" Rebel asked, leaning in towards his computer at the sounds of their disbelieving voices.

Zach turned to Gentle, "You said you killed her."

"I never said that," Gentle countered. "I said that she killed herself… But clearly, I was mistaken." Gentle could not tear his eyes off of the woman who walked right up to Ukuku and brushed a hand up his back and over his shoulder before stepping in front of him to face Takiti. Her smirk lifted behind her mask and on the burnt side of her face, and she started talking to the man whose eyes widened at the proposition she was offering him. Gentle continued while he stared at this woman, "I thought the reason we never found her body was, that it incinerated in the blast that blew up Mongoloid's kitchen… She had one arm, and was surrounded in flames when I left her," Gentle's eyes narrowed and he finally turned away from the woman who he never once considered might still be alive. He turned and said in a lower voice, "I have no idea how Arma survived, or how she got out of there on her own without anyone knowing in the condition she was in."

"Did you say Arma?!" Rebel shouted, pushing back from his computer and shaking his head around. He had been talking to Gentle right after his fight with that woman, and he could not believe what he was hearing though it made sense from the context. "That crazy bitch is alive?!"

 _What is she doing here? She shouldn't be my priority target but… The way she touched Ukuku,_ Zach felt unnerved as he saw that woman's unhinged smirk twist in rage at something she just said to the witch doctor. _What if I had it wrong? Was Mongoloid really the one, who ran Saudi Arabia? They never would have accepted a Queen there… Holy shit. What is she doing in this country? How did she survive?!_ "She has both arms," Zach said softly, glancing back at Gentle as he had just said something contrary to that.

Gentle stared at Arma's left arm and watched as she lifted it and clenched a fist in front of her. She turned her arm over while Zach and Gentle were both watching closely, and then her wrist opened up and a thin steel cannon popped up out of it and aimed straight at Takiti's head. The witch doctor didn't have a second to drop his jaw, before his brains were splattered behind him and he was falling backwards. Arma started shouting at everyone around her at once, while Ukuku and his men aimed guns or Quirks around at the forces who looked like they were either about to run away or fight to the death. All of them started calming down though as the woman shouted at them, and she reached down and picked a bloody half-skull off the ground that she rose in front of her demonic-looking face and smirked at evilly. She took that skull and put it over her own head, and then she turned with blood running out of the skull Takiti had worn and shouted at his men who all backed away from her. And then they knelt.

"Well that didn't take fucking long at all," Gentle muttered. _She's a formidable foe. Much more than I gave her credit for-_

"Neither will this," Zach said. Gentle glanced at the boy whose body was already erupting in his black aura.

The tree around them started to darken, and Gentle reached his hands to his chest as he nodded at the boy. The branch creaked below Gentle as the tree started to lose its life, but Gentle jumped off anyway while saying in a graceful tone, "Elasta-Armor." He dropped to the floor and bounced right back up as he focused some Elasticity below the soles of his feet. He bounced himself up into the air, while the tree behind him cracked louder and started falling as it broke apart from how hard the second figure just leapt off of it.

Arma, Ukuku, all their soldiers, and Takiti's who were about to join them all turned the same direction. They turned, and then all of them dropped their jaws as a dark monster with huge wings behind it slammed down on the ground just outside of their campsite. Then a man in black armor with a purple cape, gloves, and dark purple visor slammed down next to that dark figure. The one with some purple highlights also had a thin translucent glow around him, and a woman in a red mask with a skull over her head started shaking in absolute rage after she looked that way in shock. _**"YOU!"**_ She roared, and the two figures she yelled at scattered in opposite directions. The ground below where they had been standing ripped apart as it did in a huge trench backwards from that position. Arma snapped her left cannon arm up the direction Gentle dodged, while raising her right arm and injecting a needle straight into her chest.

"Everyone! Attack them!" Ukuku shouted at the soldiers around him who all started running at one dark figure or the other.

"That means you too, you monkeys!" one of Ukuku's men yelled at some savage-looking men and women who shifted their gazes to Arma and then nodded and started running out to hunt their new Goddess's enemies.

"I've been waiting for my revenge on you," Arma snarled, her head turning left and right as explosions started going off around her. She turned when she saw a man flying back, and she ran towards the dark figure she saw in a purple cape who turned his head to her when she let out a scream in his direction. "I WILL HAVE MY _VENGEANCEEEE!"_ Her voice this time started a trench just past the front of her body, a trench that expanded with her shout away from her and through a few men who let out screams as they were being torn apart by her voice. Gentle bent his legs far and then shot up in the air, and Arma rose her head fast carving a path through the air after him.

"I was a _**QUEEN!**_ And you took away my _KINGGGDOMMMM!"_ Tents blew apart on one side of her, and flames blew into the air from destroyed fires.

A truck exploded, and a jeep lifted up into the air and crumbled into a ball before getting thrown at a dark form that swerved around it in midair before flapping wings down and dive-bombing the African man with metal-controlling powers. At least Zach thought it was metal-control at first, until the ground in front of that man rose up and into a wall that he smashed straight through anyway. He flew into the other side, then he darted his red eyes back and forth behind his visor as the man he was after and the three others around him were all gone. Huge holes opened up in the ground and long brown snakes with five glowing red eyes each started reaching up at him, and Zach brought his arms from his sides to in front of him with his fingers outstretched. "DEATH CLAWS!"

Zach slashed his claws through the illusion in front of him. The men he knew to still be there tried backing up or screaming, but they all collapsed, including the illusionist whose snakes disappeared as he and the others became visible to Zach again. He landed and let out a deep breath of black steam as his instincts were right, then his head snapped to the left and he darted towards two vehicles that's engines just turned on.

"Is there truly a need to get revenge on me, my _Queen?_ " Gentle asked sarcastically while landing behind the woman who was looking around for him in the flames of an explosion she just created attacking her own hummer. Gentle had bounced away at the right time so that she would destroy it on her own, and her anger at what she had just done gave him the time to get right up behind her. He continued while she started turning her head, her mouth open behind her mask and showing she was panting from all the shouting and the Trigger. "I assume the blast must have altered your memory, if you really think it was I who did such a horrible thing to your face. If you do recall, it was your own attack- well, that was anti-climactic," Gentle cut himself off in mid-taunt, frowning and looking at the boy who had a clear shot on Arma's back and was able to take her down instantly while she was fully facing Gentle.

Gentle started looking around, but Zach said, "Don't bother. I took everyone else out already." Gentle looked back in surprise, then he started forward in a campsite full of fire and unconscious and dead bodies towards a woman laying flat on her face. Zach stepped around her side too so that he was on Gentle's right when the man reached the woman they were looking at. "I wonder what her plans were," Zach said in a low voice, glaring at the unconscious woman through his helmet and then shifting his gaze around everything around him. "Look at all she managed since that day in Hatto. She was-"

"All ' _she_ ' managed?" Gentle questioned. "You do remember what we had as resources at the time of the invasion of Saudi Arabia?"

Zach nodded and tilted his head to the right once in agreement with that. He curled his lip and kept frowning down at Arma. "Still," he muttered. "I almost wish I didn't knock her out right away. I kind of, want to know what her big plans were."

"We could ask her when she wakes up," Gentle suggested, but Zach shook his head back at him.

"I want to hand her in to the Saudi's as soon as possible," Zach said. Gentle nodded in agreement but hummed as he thought about it. Zach continued, "It will definitely help the new president who's facing some push back from his people. The new democratic government needs this for legitimacy."

"We told those people that Arma was dead," Gentle began, reminding Zach in case he forgot.

"I know," Zach said. "And I know, it will make our reputation a bit worse there. The people accepted the transitionary government though because of the war trials they were able to put on for Mongoloid and his Demons. The new democratic one never had a chance for something legitimate like that, and they've been pretty divided ever since they came in. They even lost some support right at the start because of us, because they had to agree with the international community that we were terrorists, even though most of the people there wanted us as their new leaders-"

"Not us," Gentle said. Zach frowned, but the man at his side countered, "They wanted you to be their new king. If we had Saudi Arabia too, we would not be dealing with those issues of finding places for the people who have nowhere to-"

"Not there," Zach said, shaking his head no in disagreement with the man at his side. He looked at Gentle and continued in a lower voice, "I'll figure out something else for that. But for this, I know that giving the president Arma will make him more popular. If we hand over Arma to some Saudi heroes and work with them and the president on how to handle this, so that everyone knows it was his leadership that got her and that he is the one putting her on trial, it will make the people of the country give him a chance at least. It will make us look worse in their eyes, but that's a good thing. The president capturing Arma, Mongoloid's wife and the leader of the 7 Demons who they thought was already dead, who the Army of Death claimed to have killed only for this discovery to be made. It will make people stop treating us like as much of heroes in that country, and the ones who want us instead of their elected leader might be convinced to change those opinions."

"You really want all those people who think so highly of us to stop?" Gentle asked, frowning in his helmet at the question. "I'd prefer it if people looked upon us more as saviors than villains. It would make everything easier."

"I don't, want it," Zach agreed with Gentle, his tone soft as he responded to the first part of what Gentle asked. "But, I do think, that letting them take the credit for capturing Arma will do the most good." Gentle nodded at him, and Zach finished, "And that's all that matters."

* * *

"Uravity!"

"Um, yes?" Ochaco Uraraka responded while standing with two other heroes in front of a crowd of reporters. There were cops behind her, as well as a black van with a few strong villains being taken away in on the north side of Tokyo. The girl had a scratch on her right arm through her upper pink sleeve of her costume, but that was wrapped with a white bandage and other than it she looked fine. Ryukyu and Popfire were both there with her, and yet she was the one having questions called at her which made the shortest and youngest girl there feel a bit nervous.

"I heard that you were integral in defeating those villains! How did you do it?"

"Oh! I, um, using my Zero Gravity I was able to take away all of the villains' gravity during the fight while Popfire had them off guard. And while they were spinning around in midair Ryukyu was able to defeat them without them hitting her with their Quirks-" Uraraka tried to mention how much the others had done too as she did not want anyone thinking it was only her, though the other two at her sides were looking in proudly at the younger intern who had really helped a lot in the fight.

"That's amazing!"

"Great job Uravity!"

Uraraka rose her left hand behind her head and rubbed it with a small sheepish smile on her face. "Ah, it was just, thank you." She smiled cutely at the male reporter whose cheeks turned red and who had to turn away for a second and clear his throat. The cute seventeen year old girl who had not grown much since her first year at U.A. smiled and felt more confident after that praise, even if she did not know if she deserved it all. She turned to the next reporter who called out her name and nodded, replying, "Yes?"

"Uravity! This is less a question about the villain attack, but we would like to hear your opinion on it at KZ-TV. Could you describe your relationship with Lifebringer, the villain from your class who some claim you were in a relationship with."

Uraraka's facial expression shifted. Her eyes looked down for a second and she frowned at the way that question was worded. She was hesitant, but she responded softly, "We weren't in a relationship, other than he was my classmate, and my friend…" _Do I still have to be here? Is this what press conferences- I guess they won't always just ask things I want to be asked about. But, I don't want to-_

"Did you see signs that Lifebringer was going to turn?" The same reporter questioned.

Ryukyu and Popfire both glanced in at Uraraka and then they looked behind her and at each other. The two of them stared into each other's eyes for a second thinking about the same thing. **"We've fought villains before, but never on this scale. The fate of entire cities or countries rested on different fights, but the League of Shadows' influence spans the entire world! Spreading hate and chaos and** _ **evil**_ **around it! Today we end that terror!"** The two older women then looked back at the younger girl between them whose expression looked frustrated at the questions the reporters were asking her overlapping with each other.

 **"Are you with me?!"** Popfire heard the shout at the end of that, before their charge through that snowy landscape. She remembered seeing that army of scary soldiers in black armor who she thought she had come to fight, charge into a base of villains ahead of her. She thought about the man who he pushed her out of the way, when a turret popped out of the wall and started firing at her. The man had taken a few shots before firing at the turret himself and taking it down, and she remembered trying to help him. **"Go on ahead… I'll be alright. It's my first, so- ack- go stop the League. Keep, pushing, forward…"** _Uravity, your classmate is, if he really is Death, he's… amazing._

Uraraka's eyes lowered to the floor in front of her. In her head she thought about how she, Tsuyu, Kirishima, and Midoriya had gone to Zach's room one day to try and talk to him about Eri. **"The Quirk-Destroying drug, they were making that out of Eri…** **Using her blood, and when she couldn't make any more, he'd- he'd disassemble her, and put her back together."** She remembered what Kirishima said, and she remembered right after he said it how tears had pushed out of Zach's eyes. _Just hearing such a thing, about a person he had never met before, he couldn't…_ In her mind appeared Zach's face as he rolled over her, putting his back to K-Blaster instead of her own, putting himself in the way of a shot which she still believed saved her life.

"…Why did he do it? Why did he suddenly turn into a villain? Was it because of Raijin, or was he always a killer from the very start since USJ-"

"He's not like that," Uraraka started, lifting her eyes and staring painfully at the man who just called Zach a 'killer.' Again that relieved look on his face as he saved her life appeared, a look he had shown her in the same moment she heard those gunshots go off, when they both thought he had been shot instead of her.

"Sazaki is on the run," another reporter called up to the girl who seemed like she would be answering questions like these instead of saying 'no comment' which the woman suspected the girl would at first. "And some suspect that he is actually Death, the terrorist. Even if he is not, he killed six people during the Lifebringer Incident. How do you defend-"

"I don't know why Zach did the things he did," Uraraka started, and she frowned at the woman who asked before glancing towards a camera with her in a hesitant way. She looked back towards that woman thought and her face got more frustrated at that look on the woman's. "Or why he ran," she whispered softer. Her face steadied and she continued, "But Zach… Zach is, the kindest person I know." Everyone in front of her stared at the girl in surprise, as did some of her friends watching a live stream on their phones. Midoriya stared at the phone with his eyes wide in his dorm room, and then he felt his heart hurting at the look on Uraraka's face. He thought about an argument they had had about _him_ just the other day, and he lowered his eyes for a second though looked up again when she continued talking.

"As much as it hurt him, he kept bringing people back. And when I asked him once why he goes so far, he told me it's because of that pain he felt when he brought them back. He said he knows they had to go through that. He knows that's the last thing they remembered, terrible pain, and they have families who go through even more…" Uraraka bit down hard as she said it, but she would rather go through the looks the people were looking at her with right now than to have just stood there and let those reporters keep calling Zach a 'killer' to her face without her standing up for him. Her heart ached though and her eyes lowered down after the last part she mentioned and faded off with. "Zach isn't a bad person," she started, and her eyes lifted back up with her face looking strong again, stronger than it had since the start of the interviews. "And no one, can ever convince me otherwise."

* * *

 **A/N Thanks for reading! Hope you guys enjoyed this chapter. Alternating scenes from around Japan to scenes of Zach going around being Death all over the world. Arma! The Mad Doctor! Nagiso getting friendly with the girls... New recruits, Blackjack, Wonderlass is dying, and Uraraka defending the Zach she remembers. Lots of jumping around this chapter, and we see the Army of Death growing even larger than ever... The world is changing, and what will come next? I'm already started up on the next chapter, try to get it up in the next couple days! Leave a review telling me what you thought of the chapter or the developments you see coming that I tried leaving lots of clues towards...**

Gamma-X chapter 118 . Dec 11

Great chapter! I'm surprised at how easily he handled both Mister G (Gentle) and Exodus. Quite inspiring for his men. I think I'm gonna like Eloper. Also, will those 4 girls also be joining the AoD after Zach gets rid of the traffickers? Assuming they have quirks, I mean... 'Cause, y'know... "Want to stop such things from happening to others like it happened to them," kind of motivation? And quick rundown of AoD members, please. Are the majority females or males? I feel like there are more chicks with the recent chapters, but not entirely sure... It's probably balanced right now, but want to be sure. Men are most likely the majority, but currently doubt it.

 **Thanks! Zach's always been martial arts based on his fighting, and with the LoV he learned even more with unique moves specific to the villains too. I felt like it was good to show since his Quirk is becoming so strong and OP that it might be easy to forget how good he really is at combat in general. We didn't see Zach invite those other four girls to join him, though this time we see a very similar concept as Zach frees those research subjects and offers them a way to stop things... wow, yeah pretty much exactly what you've got there^ XD so nice call on that. Seriously don't know with the majority being girls or guys. Each time I make a character it's pretty much a coin flip in my head. I'll be like "I need a Slipspace... Slipspace sounds like a girl," and then I write her in. It seems to me it's stayed pretty balanced that way, but anyone's free to count _all_ the named characters in the Army of Death if they want to check for sure. Lol might take a while though... Thanks for the review!**

Super Power Sensei chapter 118 . Dec 11

What I liked:  
Zach's inner monologues always satisfy me. Most, if not all, of the time his thoughts are what my thoughts would be if I was in his position.  
Getting some insight into what the AoD does on the Cloak was FANTASTIC! The dynamics between the soldiers(Veterans and Recruits) was solid and this chapter shows more differences between heroes and these soldiers. Heros talk about sidekicks and public morale while soldiers talk about staying alive and improving for the next mission.  
Also love how just as Zach feels it's getting harder to lead his army, they "comfort him" in a way to show they still believe in him.  
Zach is a true leader and badass(as you can tell with the training room scene)yet people keep doubting him. THEY KEEP DOUBTING HIM!  
What I didn't like:  
The chapter ended.  
Other thoughts...  
Zach says he wants to get rid of all villains but he must know that's not possible right? It's like feeding a dog and telling it not to ever poop. Violence, major or minor, is a byproduct of our existence. I expect Zach, considering his knowledge, perspective, and perception of reality, to know this already and if not to soon realize it. It would be great for him to broaden his horizons. Attack the cause for villians. For example, financially help the children of parents who become villians and are imprisoned. This would prevent those kids from turning to villiany in pursuit of money for basic needs. Or, since Mandalay is dead, have adopt Kota so he doesn't grow up strong but hateful and end up killing people.  
Small note. Can you make it so the Cloak has windows and glass that can tint themselves. See through one moment, blocking all light the next.

 **Love that you're liking Zach's monologues, and the way you described it too is exactly what I feel too. I get really into the mindset of Zach while I'm writing, and his thoughts just kind of flow out as I type imagining I'm Zach thinking those things. I've gotten _way_ too attached to him doing this though... to the point that sometimes writing out the really sad chapters just fucks me up. Always fun when the tears start rolling though, lol I'm glad you really liked the Cloak's daily routine. Zach's interactions with his army and the same with veterans and the rookies shows in this chapter too with those scenes closer to the start with Access and Spiral interactions, Zach trying to scold Exodus but agreeing over the methods since he does trust Exodus who's been there awhile, as well as when his soldiers started backing away from the experiments but moved back to block them from the villains after Death showed back up and told them why he was doing it. Anyway! I'm glad you like that kind of stuff because it's fun writing in the dynamic between them all. Zach does sound pretty naive with his goals to stop all the villains, and he knows it himself too as we've seen him doubting his ability to do it... I wrote out a bit more here but just backtracked and deleted it, 'cause who knows maybe it's coming up in the story and I don't wanna spoil anything here. Lol great review though! The Cloak's already got windows that can turn invisible and have shutters automatically cover them for nighttime in the day... I don't know how much more detail on The Cloak's windows I want to get into (Death's already 1.4 million words...) but maybe that's in the next upgrade! XD Thanks for reviewing!**

Yes chapter 118 . Dec 9

Did those gang dudes actually think they could beat someone who can cause instant death...

 **Welp, they had the egos, the superior numbers, and most importantly the copious amounts of alcohol they consumed to convince themselves that they were a match for our... heroes? Vigilantes? Umm, for the Army of Death. Not the best move on their part though... thanks for the review!**


	120. Chapter 120

**Disclaimer: I don't own Boku no Hero Academia**

 **Chapter 120:**

 **Austria**

 **Rmmmmm** "Ma'am," La Brava looked up towards the driver of the long truck she was sitting near the front of. "You said to let you know when we were an hour out." La Brava put her laptop down on the seat next to her and nodded a thanks at the driver who let her know that. The low rumbling of the engine was quiet, the man who spoke to her kept his voice soft too, and La Brava glanced behind her towards the back of the truck after nodding at the man driving their vehicle.

La Brava got off her seat and started back through the truck. She stared towards the figure in an all black costume who lay on his back with his hands behind his head. He was on the left side of the vehicle laying back on the row of seats there, and La Brava stared at his face for a few seconds before lifting her lips into a small smile. His face was steady, his lips flat, and his eyes weren't shaking at all. His hands were flat at his sides, and he looked relaxed to her. _An hour? That's still a lot, and he was up for a long time before it._ "Death," she whispered, keeping her voice soft so that she could turn and walk back to her seat. _Well, I tried-_ the boy she whispered at opened his eyes and sat up. La Brava sweatdropped as the boy turned towards her as if responding to her whispering his name. "We're, getting close," La Brava continued. "An hour away."

Zach nodded in response and he put his feet down on the floor next to his seat. He closed his eyes and took in a deep breath, then he reached down and grabbed his tablet off his waist that he opened up and started looking at carefully for the news over the past four hours or so. "You can sleep for a little longer," La Brava started, and Zach glanced next to him at the short woman who had yet to go back to her seat at the front of the truck where the other two soldiers with them were.

"I'm awake now," Zach replied. He lowered his tablet though and gave La Brava a questioning look at the expression he saw on her face.

La Brava sighed at that look he gave her. Then she lifted her head at him, and she said, "You used to always have nightmares." Zach stared at the woman who frowned at his lack of reaction, then she added, "You don't seem to have them anymore." La Brava thought about the months she had traveled with Zach back when there were not so many of them, and even after they had gained a lot of comrades she still remembered how he stirred in his sleep every night. The way she just saw him sleeping had made her smile, but she felt weird about it too. Mentioning it sounded a bit like a question to Zach, and La Brava looked at him as if waiting for a response too.

"I, don't dream anymore," Zach admitted to the short woman in front of him. He looked down at his hands he had put on his knees. "I looked into it, usually you have to be sleeping deeply to dream, and I've become a light sleeper knowing we could be attacked at any time." La Brava's eyes widened a bit, then she stepped forward and sat on his right side while looking next to her at the boy whose eyes widened too at how close she sat to him. Zach stared into her pink eyes, then he added quieter, "At first I was glad the nightmares were over, but not dreaming at all is straining my mind." He turned straight forward and his eyes were dark as he stared across the back of the truck. "I go to bed," he muttered. "And then I open my eyes and start the next day. Without dreams, it's just constant Army of Death…"

La Brava looked straight ahead too as she listened to him speak quietly to her. She stared at the opposite wall, and then the woman five years older than the boy at her side let out a long, deep breath. "I dream sometimes," she told the boy next to her.

Zach nodded and showed he was listening while leaning back in his seat. "What about?" He asked. _There's stuff to do right now. I should study up on French, and on the villains' Quirks-_

La Brava turned and looked him in the eyes, and she asked, "You want to know?" Zach hesitated, then the boy nodded at the short woman instead of continuing his thoughts on serious things. He nodded at her, and he just listened as she nodded back and then looked back forward to tell him. "It's a recurring dream," she began. As she looked across the truck, she smiled. The smile formed on her face as in her head appeared what she remembered from that dream she had so very often. "In it, Gentle and I are in a house together, looking out over a nice view of a forest from our porch."

The picture she was painting made a smile form over Zach's face too. He tried to imagine it, and then his eyes widened and he looked to the right again as the girl there said, "Sometimes you're there too." His surprised eyes stared at the side of La Brava's face, looking closely at it as he wondered why she was saying that. He could see her mouth though, and her lips were still in a smile. She lowered the corner of that lip a bit and rolled her eyes, but she continued while glancing out the left corners of her eyes at Zach, "Darling shows up too." She let out a sigh while saying it, then her smile steadied and she continued, "And Mark sometimes… and Cee," she whispered that quieter. Then she kept whispering names, and Zach pulled his head back and pursed his lips as he listened to all of them, dead or alive.

"Flare, Kyto, Raylei… everyone," La Brava finally whispered after a pause. Zach heard in that last word more emotion than he could remember ever hearing La Brava speak with, and he thought, _Why is she telling me this now? Well, when was the last time we talked like this? It's so busy… every day. And we could die at any time. And… and I wish we had more time to talk._

Zach stared into La Brava's eyes as the girl turned back to face him from his side in that truck. She looked him in the eyes softly, and her lips pursed before she managed to say to him, "I- never had people like this." She pursed her lips again, and she lowered her gaze for a second before lifting it back into Zach's eyes. "I never had a family like… and no goal, except helping Gentle. But the more I get all those things," she paused, referring to all those names she mentioned being in that dream with her and Gentle, a dream that used to only have her and Gentle in it. "The harder it becomes, since I have so much more to lose."

Zach grit his teeth behind his lips. He related to what she was saying so much, as he could not count the number of times he had had those thoughts himself too. La Brava saw that pained look on his face, but after a few seconds she saw it steady and harden once again. _You gave me my goal. My purpose, other than helping Gentle._ La Brava stared at the boy at her side and she ground her own teeth before finishing a bit louder, "Just, don't forget to live." Zach looked back at her and into the woman's eyes, and La Brava reached out a hand and put it on the boy's shoulder for a second. "Really live, not just survive." With that, La Brava pushed off the seat and started back towards the front of the truck.

He watched her go for a few seconds, then he lowered his head and took in another long, deep breath as he stared at his lap. _Live. That's what Ms. Calico shouted at Cee too. That's what I'm sure, all my friends back home would want me to do. That's what the others in the Army of Death, are all striving towards. Lives to live. What I want everyone in this world to have. What I want all the innocent people who deserve it to be able to… It's too early for this. Focus on the first mission for now, and then the next one, and the one after that. I can live, once I know everyone else can too. There's no time for it now. But thanks… La Brava._

* * *

 **Nepal**

"Push up to the mountains! Assist your Commander!" Exodus yelled back at the five men behind him trudging through the snow as fast as they could. There were a couple of crashed helicopters up ahead of them on the slope, and their snowmobiles were left behind without power in the snow. All the turrets sticking out of the mountain around them were cut off though, and Exodus had a woman on his back who he kept carrying up the mountain after calling that down to the others. "Stay awake Whiteout. This is no time to fall."

The woman with short white hair on Exodus's back nodded once into the side of his head where her head was resting on his right shoulder. "Just give me, a few seconds, more…"

"Mark!" Gentle shouted from near the summit of a mountain to the north of the one Exodus and his squad were climbing. Mark looked to Gentle and then over the ledge and towards the mountain they saw that bright white flash on a minute ago. "Clear them a path up the mountain! Exodus needs to reinforce Death!" _Because that kid won't stop rushing ahead._ Gentle spun and he sprinted forward at a man who bounced away from him on a wall the villain had not seen. The man was still stumbling back when Gentle's leg that he rose high above his head slammed down and smashed the man into the mountaintop. The villain who hit the ground just grinned sharp teeth up at the dark man in a helmet though, and his chest opened up where Gentle's leg had slammed down. His chest opened with rows of teeth on either side and Gentle's foot with a lot of pressure still down on it pushed into the man's body.

"I need someone to-" Mark's eyes opened huge and he waved a hand up. Gentle was trying to yank his leg back, but the teeth cutting in at his leg never had the chance to cut through. The villain's head popped and Gentle stumbled back after yanking his leg out of there. Gentle turned to Mark who was still staring at the headless corpse that he just created in the panic of what he thought was coming. He gulped though and shook his head of the sight of that blood spurting out, and he spun back to Gentle. "I'm taking Iblis." Mark rose a hand to his helmet and started ordering one of the others on the mountains to him. He needed Iblis to go melt the path ahead of their comrades lower down the slopes, so that he could control all the water as he couldn't the snow.

Iblis started flying across the mountains from one she had dropped down over with Angelix, La Brava, and Darling a few minutes ago. She curved her body and swung around an overhang sticking out of one mountain with a cave above it, a cave similar to many they had seen all over these mountains. Several of the caves were traps, though many had villains in them waiting and ready for the army that had arrived in full force in their territory. Iblis flew down towards the slope just above Exodus, and she made her wings larger before slamming them down into the snow and rising up a path right in front of Exodus. The snow that melted fast below her looked like it was about to rush down and flood the soldiers below, but it all just stopped lowering and instead washed about to the sides. Mark waved the water around and made the wave larger, and larger, and he rushed that wave up the mountain in front of the group who picked up their paces as they were able to run unabated.

Then Iblis stopped flying up the mountain and pulled back hard. She pulled away from it and crossed her flaming wings in front of her, though the flames still got pulled off of her body by the force of the wind that just shot above her. A plane had flown out from a hole that just opened up in one of the mountains, and it moved fast away from it before turning to its side and curving away from the mountain ahead of the opening in the one it came out of. Blue lights flared under the plane as it turned, speeding it up and making the jet dodge masterfully around the mountain at its side. Another plane flew out of the hole, and then two more, and they all shot straight out more before curving to dodge the mountain that Gentle and Mark were on with their heads lifted up in shock at how fast those planes were moving right after lifting off.

"Super TK-812's," Mark said as he caught a glimpse of the design of one turning to the side above to dodge the very top of their summit's peak. Mark continued while speaking into his helmet as well to let everyone else know, "Better than even those ADTF jets Endeavor had on him. If we could get our hands on those-"

It had been a few seconds, but another jet shot out of the other mountain and flew out towards the one Gentle and Mark were on. "I'm going after them!" A voice yelled in their helmets. "Cyclone is escaping-"

Gentle was staring towards the incoming jet, and he pulled his body down at how close the jet shooting out of the other mountain was coming to theirs. The jet pulled up at the last second though and started doing three-sixties up in the air straight up vertically. Then the jet leveled out and shot huge jets out behind it, flying after the others farther into the mountain range. Gentle shot back up and he shouted while spinning after them, "Death! Tell me you're not-"

"WHOA!" The jet flying off did a barrel-roll in the air to the right to dodge something, even though the path in front of him was clear. Zach looked over his shoulder and then yelled towards his comrades back on the mountain behind him, "Look out for that dragon!"

"There is no- Did you fight Sunshine?!"

"… I did, but his Trip wore off-"

"No it didn't!" Gentle yelled after the boy whose jet he watched get close to a mountain and then yank away at the last second to keep chasing after those other ones. "Stop following them and just land! We'll go after with-"

"They're too fast! I have to get them NOW!" Zach pulled his sticks to the right, then left, then his targeting system locked on inside his jet's glass cockpit. He grinned and pulled the red triggers on the sticks he was holding, and he fired beams bursts out of the cannons under the wings of his jet. "Haha! Got 'em!" Zach sped by a jet that was smoking and spiraling out of the air, then he pushed the sticks forward harder as another jet up ahead of him stopped and turned itself around. The jet's engines reversed and it hovered backwards with its cannons aimed straight at the boy flying towards it. "Whoa- whoa whoa WHOA!" Zach yanked the sticks to the side at the last second as he saw the cannons glowing while aimed at him.

The jet he was flying spun to the side so the wings were perpendicular to the ground. One blast flew so close above Zach's cockpit that the glass cracked over his head, while the other shot went just behind the bottom of it. The pilot of the jet in front of Zach's opened his eyes huge, and then he tried pulling back as the other jet was moving way faster than his. "How about I clip your wings?!" Zach yelled, and he turned his sticks more to pull his jet just a bit from the center of the other one, and his wings cut straight through the right side of the enemy jet. Zach ripped one of the wings off the jet, and the flaming vehicle started dropping out of the sky fast, though the cockpit opened up and a chair shot out with a parachute launching from the top of it.

Zach grinned while leveling out his ship, because he glanced over his shoulder and saw that soldier falling from the orange sky. His eyes narrowed a bit at the sky, then he remembered what Gentle just told him as he swore he saw a dragon peeking its head out behind a summit back there. "Hey Gentle, is the sky orange-"

"No! It's blue you fucking-"

"What?! It could be sunset-"

"It's not- LOOK OUT!" The jet spun away from the mountain it had been dipping down towards, but Zach grinned anyway as the other two jets had lowered down into the mountain range so that they could escape in a more cramped setting that it would be harder to chase them through.

More turrets started popping out of mountains in the path they were flying too, and Zach's smirk rose up high in his helmet as he yelled, "Bring it on!"

"Flight Squad!" Gentle yelled. "Go get Death out of that ship!"

Almost a dozen flying figures shot off of the mountains and started chasing the green dot in their visors that had a bright green light coming down from the sky over it so they could see where it was over the mountains. Gentle started bouncing himself off that way too, but Death yelled, "I can do this! Stay back!" Gentle wanted to shout back at him, then the man in a purple cloak dropped his jaw as the jet he was chasing started to surround in darkness. The entire ship became coated in black, a dark aura making the jet look menacing with the dark flames pulling off its wings as it shot away.

"I'll get him!" Valkyrie shouted, and the woman in thicker black armor around her than most dropped her sword to swing both arms in front of her instead. She punched her fists forward and a shockwave exploded around her before she exponentially increased her speed. "I won't let him die!" _Like he wouldn't let me!_

Zach was gaining on the two jets, but he was flying recklessly and the edge of his right wing scraped against the mountain he had flown close to in order to take the inside path and get closer to his enemies. His eyes darted to his smoking wing but he did not slow down so he just refaced out the front of his jet. He had almost a lock on another one, and he grinned as he saw the mountain behind that jet where the front one was about to go past too. He fired, and the target was not locked fully which was necessary in such a precise battle, so the shots flew past his enemy's ship. The blasts missed the front one too, but they exploded onto the side of a mountain covered in snow and ice that blasted upwards from the collision. All that snow flew into the air with the explosion right in front of the first jet, and that jet tried to just fly straight through it only for a chunk of ice to smash the cockpit it slammed into too fast. Glass came down everywhere and the pilot had to let go of the sticks for a second which at that speed meant he was spinning out by the time he grabbed back on. Cyclone grabbed onto the sticks, but he was upside-down when he started to steady, and he had been in such a rush to get out of his mountain lair that he never put his seatbelt on.

Cyclone fell out of his ship and his fingers slipped off of the sticks when he realized what was happening and thought about grabbing his chair instead. The ship behind him pulled up instead of flying through the explosion of debris even if it was thinner now than when his leader went through. Sunshine rose up high and he was sweating buckets in his ship as he glanced behind him to see that scary dark ship chasing right on his tail. _How?! I know he was Tripping! It shouldn't have worn off that fast!_

"Oh my God," Zach whispered while chasing the ship flying straight up above him. Looking up like that made him focus more on the orange sky above for the first time. "It's not sunset at all," he gasped out, as he saw that orange sky move a bit. In the very corners of his vision he could see golden light coming down from around the sides of the orange sky. _It's not that the sky is orange… it's that whatever's blocking the sky is-_ A huge eyelid opened up and the eyeball behind it focused straight on him. The head of the beast above started to turn, and Zach could see the lips curling back to reveal all the bloody sharp teeth with a glowing red light coming from behind them. "It's huge-"

"Death!" Valkyrie ripped the cockpit off of the jet that started spinning out and getting close to a mountain that her leader was not even paying attention to. The ship he had been chasing had changed its direction and started flying off but he did not seem to care. He just started flailing as Valkyrie grabbed him by the armpits and yanked him out of the ship, a second before it crashed and exploded in a fireball that slammed the two of them backwards.

Zach hit down on a snowy slope and started rolling through it. He bounced as he hit a harder lump in the mountain, and the dark form rolling down the mountain rose up going too fast to land back down before the steep cliff he had been rolling towards. Zach flew off the ledge in mid-spin, and he tried to focus on where he was despite not knowing what the hell was going on anymore. _I'm falling!_ His red eyes focused down on the ground at the base of the ice wall behind him, and he tried forming wings to flap above him and slow himself down. _Too fast!_ Zach swung his arms back behind him instead of trying to make wings with them, and he dug black Death Claws into the wall and dragged them down through it.

He was still falling fast when he hit the base of the slope, but he bent his knees on landing and slammed a fist down below him to make the ground break apart and not be as hard. The snow was thick, and the ground below it broke when his punch smashed through. Zach took in a deep breath as he started rising up, then he rose his head and leaned back in shock at the sight of the swirling white funnels flying towards him. A third tunnel rose up between the two large ones, and a man at the top of the cyclone yelled down, "DEATH! You ruined everything! NOW, DIE!"

"YOU CAN'T KILL DEATH!" Zach roared up, tilting his head back and grinning madly as the corners of his vision became flooded by darkness. At his shout, the entire landscape around him looked darker and black instead of covered in white snow. He stomped his right foot forward, and he rose his hands at his sides with huge flaming bonfires of darkness rising on them. Dark flames shot out of his back and pushed out all around him as Zach pushed his Quirk to the limit. "HAHAHA! Cyclone! I-" Zach ducked, then he spun his head to the right and Cyclone stopped backing away from him at the top of his swirling mass of snow.

Zach turned back forward. He opened his mouth to continue what he was saying, but he glanced to the right again and then back at Cyclone. "So, did you see that? Or am I really-"

"You're going to die now," Cyclone's two snow funnels on either side of him curved at the tops. The wind started spinning in circles faster as they arced down towards the boy looking up at them. Snow picked up from all over around them, and the ice wall at Zach's back started breaking apart after already being cracked when his claws dragged down it. The ice cracked and broke into the funnel, making sharp shards fly around with the snow and two hundred mile per hour winds.

 _Controlling them with his Quirk. He has full control, which means._ Zach tossed his right hand up towards one of the cyclones, throwing Death into it and watching as the darkness started swirling around in the funnel and getting ripped apart by the fast winds.

"NO CHance…" Cyclone started falling off of his center funnel, his eyes rolling back into his head. "Wha-"

 _I feel like the villains should know by now what my Quirk does. Stupid fucks. I guess I don't let many escape when I fight them-_ "Sunshine!" Zach snapped his head up and looked around, but that last jet he was chasing was nowhere in sight. "Did anyone see where that last jet went?"

"I've got a drone tracking it from above, but it's too fast," Rebel replied. "Death, you've gotta chill dude." Rebel separated the comms link so it was a private one between him and the leader of the AoD. "You're tripping balls man."

"No, I actually came down this time," Zach replied. He looked up and stared at the blue sky above, and he started taking deep breaths to try and calm himself down. _That lasted longer than I thought it would… or maybe, I was just too high to think straight. I'm thinking straight though now, right? I don't feel all that different._ "Ugh," Zach grabbed at his stomach, and he turned off Nightmare form while stumbling back in the snow. He fell onto his butt and felt himself feeling pretty drained. _I used a lot of Death flying around, and right there just showing off for no reason…_

"Death! Spiral's down!"

"Damn it! I told that bastard he was- get his body out of there!"

"Death!"

"Death come back, where are you?"

Zach rose a hand to his helmet while using the other to push off the floor next to him. "I'm on my way…" _No time to be tired._ "Valkyrie," Zach called out. _I can't waste Death on flying back if I need to revive, or if the fights are still going on-_ "Valkyrie!" Zach exclaimed in surprise, and he ran up to the woman who dropped down to the ground in front of him in her ripped black costume. He grabbed her, and he looked over her wound for a second before putting his arms more around her. The woman about to respond to him froze with her mouth open to tell him she was alright, and her eyes opened wide in her helmet as he whispered only for her to hear, "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have…" Zach could partially recall her yanking him out of his plane a second before it exploded, and he pulled back from that hug before spreading his dark wings out behind him. "Grab on," he told the woman with blood all over her right arm, burn marks on her body and on her neck below her helmet.

"I can fly-"

"That's an order," Zach said. "Please, let me help you."

"Death! We have Spiral's body at the top of J-3!"

"Yeah," Zach said, crouching a bit and hunching over as Valkyrie grabbed onto his back. He leaned back up and his black wings flapped down at his sides, and he said in a low scratchy voice, "I'm heading there now."

* * *

 **Siberia**

In a snowy forest in the middle of a frozen expanse of wilderness, two figures in heavy white costumes crawled through the snow in far below freezing temperatures. They had black masks on their faces under their thick white hoods that had fur linings on the outsides. They had goggles over the masks with anti-freeze glass that melted the snow and ice that tried sticking to them. Over their mouths were protruding cylinders with holes at the ends of them, and out of those holes of the mask came thick breaths of steam each time one of the seventeen year olds breathed out.

Zach and Darling crawled together towards a tree at the edge of a small cliff. If they had gone to either side a bit back, they could have crawled around the cliff that just lifted up a few meters higher than the regular ground on the other side of it. Most of the landscape was flat, but that little slope gave them a high ground to be able to look around in every direction while also blocking them from sight in the direction they were trying to do reconnaissance in.

Zach crawled a bit faster than Darling was moving. His eyes turned red as he poked his head up and looked towards the round white dome sticking out of a clearing in the forest ahead. He brought his head back down fast and thought about everything he examined in that moment. He lay flat for a moment but his face scrunched up at what he thought he just saw out there. "What'd you see?" Darling asked, crawling right up next to him on his right side.

He turned his right to look at her and she looked left, and they both stared at each other in these heavy outfits with scary masks over their faces for a second. Their steam hovered in front of their faces, and Zach could not help but smile for a moment at the girl who was next to him after so much. "Looks like two guards, bear Quirks." He scooted forward a bit more to the edge of the small snowy cliff they were on, and he looked past the tree near the top of it while Darling did the same.

"Bears, huh?" Darling asked softly. The forest was nearly silent around them. There was the sound of some snow falling off tree branches where it had packed on too thick, and the wind blowing around that made it colder also made some noise too. They looked closer at the domed building, and then Zach reached back and pulled a white sniper rifle off of his back that he rested on the ground in front of him. He looked through the scope on top, and Darling did the same with the one she pulled out at him doing it.

Outside of the white dome they were looking towards, there were two men standing there covered in white fur. They were heavyset, and they had thick arms that ended in claws too. They stood on their thick hind legs though and they were wearing body armor, and Zach and Darling both had strange feelings swirling in their guts as they looked at those creatures. "They really do, look like bears, don't they?" Darling asked. Zach nodded with her, and he frowned deeper while staring at the door of the dome behind the guards.

The door opened up and another bear-man stepped out of the research facility they had heard about. They looked towards this larger bear, covered in thick black body armor over its torso but leaving its arms and legs exposed just like the others so that their joints would have free range of movements. This one's fur looked brownish too, though it was still very white around it. It was bigger by over a head from the other men standing on both hind legs, and its face also looked just like a bear's. Instead of a polar bear kind of face though, this one's face was a big thicker and had a rounded jawline. "Kodiak, polar, grizzly? Polar kodiak hybrid?" Darling wondered, zooming in more towards those bear-men and especially the big one that turned to the others and started talking.

 _Something's weird here,_ Zach thought. _So many with bear Quirks, could they have figured out a way to designate what kind of Quirks people get here… or, could those actually be? Like, Principal Nezu…_ Zach's eyes started to grow wide, his heart rate speeding up as he stared at the large creatures standing on two legs and speaking to each other. Then he heard Darling start in a slow voice on his side, "Hey Zach, what was it Michael said, about how far bears can smell? Because, I'm pretty sure they're distracting us."

Zach's eyes opened huge, his heart rate sped up, and all three of the bears snapped their heads towards him and Darling. _Oh shit!_

* * *

 **Endargo**

In a small city in the South American country of Endargo, a senator sitting at his desk had sweat covering his face while faced with the dark figure before him. The figure was known throughout the world. The hilts sticking out over his shoulders, the katana across his back, his whole appearance was one that Senator Jiminez found himself cowering at the sight of. In a deep Spanish voice, Death continued to the old man at his desk, "I have the proof. I want to know why, Senator. Explain it to me."

"I, cannot say a thing-"

"You _will_ tell me _all_ of your contacts," Zach growled at the corrupt politician. "The businesses who paid you for preferential treatment. The corporations who paid you off, to move funds from the budget meant for managing waste treatment. Funds that would have paid the inspectors who without getting their paychecks from the government, were easy for those factories to bribe." Zach stepped closer to the desk and dragged a knife along the edge of the front of it, glaring through his dark visor at the terrified man sitting there with his hands down on his lap shaking in fear.

"The villains," Death continued. "Who paid you to look the other way. Who paid you, to get the zoning commission to hand out those licenses without doing proper checks. Who you have been helping for years-"

Zach reached his arm over the table and grabbed the barrel of the shotgun the senator just snapped up from where it was taped under his desk. **BANG** "Mother fucker," Zach ripped the gun that he had pointed towards the ceiling out of the man's hands and then smashed the butt of it into the guy's face. He tossed it to the side and then marched back towards the man's double doors of his office, picking up a chair as he walked and then shoving it under the handles and barring the door. Zach grabbed a cabinet on the side of the doors, and he flicked a knife behind him at the same time, making it whiz past the shocked senator's face as the man was about to get up and try to run for his discarded shotgun. "Stay in that fucking chair," Zach grumbled, and he smashed the cabinet down behind the chair to further bar the doors before turning and marching back towards the desk.

He heard slamming on the doors behind him, and Zach reached back behind him and pulled out a folder from a black pouch on his waist. He tossed the file onto the desk, "I have copies. This is very simple," Zach said, he walked around the desk and he grabbed the senator around the throat as the man pulled back farther into his chair. His desk chair fell backwards behind him, and Zach lifted the man by the neck and held him up in front of him. Zach clenched his hand so the older and feeble man started choking, and Zach growled, "It all stops right now. You no longer take any money-"

"I had no choice," the man started gasping through his clenched teeth.

"That's what I thought, but you still accepted their money," Zach loosened his grip a bit, thinking about the information he knew about this blackmail before he had shown up. _Stupid politicians don't hear enough about me. They're not really in the underworld, so this guy actually thought that might work-_

"Mr. Senator! What was that gunshot?!"

"Senator Jiminez!"

"Who's in there?!"

Zach pulled the man's face close to his own helmet. "I won't out you," Zach began in a low voice. "Faith in democracy is too low with all the corruption I've been revealing lately. People are losing faith that any politicians can be trusted. So what you'll do, is report to the number in that file any information you have. You won't do anything illegal again, or I will release all the copies of that information that I have." The senator's eyes shifted to the file on his desk that he stared at in a lot of fear, especially as he heard another slam into his doors and the crack between them get a bit wider. "And in the upcoming elections, you're going to pull out of the race. You won't run again for reelection, ever. You'll step down and allow new candidates who are clean and have yet to make your mistakes, to make this country better than you."

"I- I don't think I can-"

"We'll protect your family, and I've destroyed all the villains who I know you've worked with already. Anything-"

 **Smash!** "Freeze!"

Zach tossed the senator towards the men who just ran into the room. He turned the other way and jumped at the window behind the senator's desk, crossing his arms in front of him as he smashed straight through it. He dropped from the third story of the building and he flipped on his way down before landing hard with his legs bent. Zach snapped out of that crouched position and he started sprinting down the sidewalk right away. He threw back on his black jacket, covering up his weapons with it, then he rounded a corner and ran right up to a dark motorcycle waiting there. Some people looked over at the dark figure in a helmet for a moment, but seeing a motorcyclist in a helmet was not the strangest thing in the world.

 _ **VrrroooOOMM**_ Zach sped off the curb and shot down the street fast. He sped around cars and turned onto another road, and he started racing away with his face straight and his expression dark. _I wanted more time to talk to him. I should have guessed a man with that many dark secrets might have a gun hidden under his desk. I should have told him to keep his hands where I could see them, but I didn't want him thinking I was afraid of anything he could do. Stupid. Well, Jiminez will do what I said when he sees what's in those files. If he tries running for reelection, I'll hand those files over to the news around here. Not handing him over feels weird, after how dirty he was for all this time. The villains he was working with were monsters though. They would have killed him if he didn't agree, but he was still a coward. Work with the heroes. And if you're that afraid, don't get into a job where you control so many people's lives in the first place…_

Zach pulled his motorcycle onto another road, and he slowed down a bit as he heard sirens behind him. _Hopefully none of his security detail open that folder. If they do, maybe they'll have known about it anyway. He'll probably hide it quickly though… Amaterasu. I wanted to ask him about that name, but I doubt he would have known a thing._ Zach let out a long low breath and he stifled a yawn as he stared towards the darkening sky in the opposite direction as the current sunset. _The corrupters we've been finding recently have only mentioned him on occasion, but it's always the higher-ups who know the name. The ones getting Jiminez to help them only knew the names of the crew above them who mentioned Amaterasu. Higher up in the line… yet those top crews seem just as unknowledgeable. The fact that the Grinders thought Amaterasu was a rival of the League of Shadows, there's no way._

Zach lifted a hand to the side of his helmet and tapped a button on it, changing the display on his helmet visor. He started setting up a call as he was on his own right now, and he needed to get in contact with Alpha Squad who were not too far so he would be able to regroup with them on his motorcycle. _I doubt he was ever a rival. Probably just rose fast once LoS was gone, and he told lower groups who never knew about either that he was the top. I never heard of the League having rivals. Unless he is just that much of a shadow force, even more than the Shadow Bosses? How deep do villain organizations get? No, no he's probably just using misinformation to convince the lower groups that he's the baddest bad there is. But that is another name I have to cross off now… Soon. The information we've got on his methods will work with an operation- but think about that later! Bolivar's in Brazil. We're getting close. The Pueblo jefes were looser lipped than anyone guessed._ Zach sped down an opening route in front of him as some cars pulled away off the highway he was getting on, right as his helmet connected him to Alpha Squad. "Alpha meet me on E-45 East. It's time to take down Bolivar once and for all."

"Tracking your position," Grabble responded.

"Calling in The Cloak on our intended location," Fillian added.

A robotic voice spoke up, "How many men do you think a Shadow Boss will have with him?" Bullsnake's voice-box made his voice sound clear, if robotic, despite his lack of a tongue.

"Enough that we need everyone here for this," Grabble replied back to his comrade in the backseat of the truck they were driving onto the highway.

"Want to try using Blackjack? See if he can get us an in?" Tama asked from the passenger seat next to Grabble.

Zach hummed but shook his head on the motorcycle he was riding. He saw a flash of green in his visor and glanced towards an exit where a truck was rolling down slowly and then started speeding up as Grabble saw him approaching. Zach pulled his motorcycle right up next to his comrades who had been just outside of the city waiting for him, and he responded to the woman in the passenger seat who looked out past Grabble towards him. "It could become too hectic in there to reveal that hand. If anyone escapes Bolivar's jungle mansion, I don't want Blackjack's reputation getting ruined just to possibly give us more of an idea on their defenses. And if he's already been compromised, it could fuck us."

The rest of Alpha nodded in agreement in the truck next to him. Then Fillian spoke up, "Death, I'm patching us in to a line with command and The Cloak."

"Alright," Zach replied. He heard a click in his ear and then started right away, "Listen up everyone…"

* * *

 **Kazakhstan**

 **"Stay frosty."** Zach warned his comrades while sitting on his seat in The Cloak's cockpit. He was on the front row of seats just off of the aisle on the left side of the ship, the seat he used most often and that his deck crew always kept open for him. He had a headset over the top of his head with soft ear cushions over his ears blocking out the other sounds around him. La Brava had a similar headset on across the aisle from him, and a few others in the cockpit were listening in as well to their squad of three out in the field.

Mark suppressed a grin at the sound of that phrase. _Much better use of it here. Still feel bad about telling him it was okay ever since Hatto. He's made it work though. We've played the media well around that single phrase, makes him seem more American. Like the English 'Death' on his back. Still, no way he could have come here. Too high a bounty on Zach Sazaki's head._ Mark had his face exposed, his brown hair wavy over his head, and his lips were curled down in a deep frown as he walked down a dirt street.

On Mark's side a few feet to his right, Seraphim walked with her hair straight down her back instead of in a ponytail. The slender woman wore a tight blue costume and had a dark red cape down her back, while Mark was wearing mostly black but with thick protrusions around his neck, wrists, and shoulders. He had some guns down on his waistband, while Seraphim had a saber strapped on her back. The man in front and in between them had short blond hair, he was wearing a long sleeve on his left arm but had no sleeve over his right. On his upper right arm, there was a black snake coiling around his bicep and tricep all the way up to his shoulder where the snake's tongue was sticking out.

Blackjack did not respond to Death. None of the three did, even though they heard him in the micro-earpieces they had in as they walked down the road without any armor on. Mark and Seraphim followed their "boss" down a dirt path between wooden buildings in a wide city around them. They were in a deep valley, mountains to their sides and in the distance around them. Each of the buildings on their sides were only two stories tall, a bar on the left with push-in doors that swung open as two men came out, and a weapons' shop on the right that a woman called out to them from behind the counter of. Blackjack just kept walking forward without looking around, so the two behind him did their parts by acting well and just following him looking ready to fight at any moment.

"This is what Wampajawa is like," Blackjack said, looking over his shoulder partially at his subordinates behind him. "Now when we get to the black market, just let me do all the talking. I'll haggle our way to whatever we're looking for." He smirked and then turned back forward, and he kept going with a confident and proud look on his face. Blackjack had a single pistol down on his waistband, and he had a cigarette in his mouth he was smoking casually as he headed down the street.

 _ **Crash!**_ "Hey! Get out-" **Bang!**

Seraphim and Mark looked to the right, feeling like it was okay to do so as Blackjack looked over with a grin and in interest at what was going on. The second floor window of a different bar smashed open, and a man came flying out with a bullet hole in his head. He slammed down into the road outside, and a couple of men on the first floor opened the door and looked out to see who it was. Their eyes opened huge, and they dropped their bottles, and the two of them roared before spinning back into the bar yelling about their comrade who had been upstairs in the "whore house."

 _ **Smash!**_ **Doof! CRASH!** A man came flying through the wall, and then more gunshots went off inside at the same time as laughter rang out. Some people rushed out of the building, others came to the windows or doors and tossed out different characters making a ruckus inside. A few men came running into the bar from buildings around it, and Blackjack said while glancing back at Mark and Seraphim, "Some of the business owners around here make pacts with each other. Some disgruntled customers show up, or people get too rowdy, they stick together and…" The three men who had gone outside to see their dead comrade got dragged out of the bar and were getting beaten senseless by others around them.

Blackjack smirked and motioned his head down the road. "Let's go," he said, losing interest while those men in the same gang were still getting beaten to death out there in the street.

"Is this whole City of Villains like this?" Seraphim asked, glancing back over her shoulder for a second as she heard a loud pleading for mercy followed by a deafening _crack_. "I thought this place was more organized."

"This entire section, which is the majority of the city by the way, is pretty much lawless. Act out too much and you might wind up like those guys back there though. The rules are unspoken, but they're enforced harshly. Only a few rules people've got to follow are set by the Capos." Blackjack pointed to an intersection up ahead, "We'll go right up there. The black market's down that road. Try to keep yourselves from looking too sickened by it. Might tip the sellers off, though there are some villains who I'm sure they see who give them dark looks too. I used to… Anyway, we're looking for something specific. Don't get distracted."

"We won't be," Seraphim replied.

"I can handle anything I see over there," Mark added. He glared around as he said it, wondering if anyone was watching who he would have to keep being careful about what he said around. _I've been undercover for enough times to handle myself here. And Seraphim has proven herself great at tasks like these._ The twenty-five year old man cracked a grin while looking to his right and over the tops of the buildings on his side. "This city though," he started, and he let out a whistle of amazement while looking towards the dark towers in the north. "I never thought I'd see something like it. It's, something else."

Zach glared at the computer screen in front of him. He stared through Seraphim's contact lenses, and he clenched his fists hard at his sides at what he was seeing her look around at. _We finally find the City of Villains. The exact location, and we've got a way in. The city has been getting bigger. They want to protect from us, or from heroes maybe… but probably us. A place like that. It's huge. All the villains meeting there. All the plans and deals that go down in that place. It's the best source of information gathering we could get… for now._

"…Bars and taverns are set up all around this main section," Blackjack continued to the two behind him whose prepared story had it that this was their first time in the city. "The city's technically called Killmanjaro, but Wampajawa's the more popular name. No one knows who coined that shit, but it sounds pretty good to me." Blackjack glanced to his right at a four-story tall bar bigger than most other buildings around this side of the city. "The bars set up all over the place are more just places for deals to take place. Each bar is usually run by different gangs that set them up. Those black towers on the north side are run by the big shots, not as big as League of Shadows big. Didn't even know about those guys myself, but they're probably direct subordinates of them who reestablished quickly when the League of Shadows got crushed."

Blackjack looked towards those dark towers in the distance again. "Don't know much about most of them. Most are private kinds of people. There are weapons' systems on those towers, and high-tech turret systems on the roofs of all the buildings around the city even over here." Mark and Seraphim glanced at the buildings on their sides, and Blackjack continued, "One of the few things that is regulated around here. All the buildings brought up in this section are established and run executively by Wampajawa's Capos, and not by the individual businesses that set up inside them. It's like, any of those gangs could get wiped out some day by… Death, but even if a different gang comes in and takes up shop there, they still need to keep those turrets ready on the roofs."

"Why?" Seraphim asked.

"Death's got his own private army," Blackjack replied with a shrug. "The Capos are careful people. They don't want nothing happening in their city."

Blackjack turned onto a road and stopped as he looked down it over all the shops and windows lined up. Seraphim and Mark stepped out behind him, and the two of them struggled to keep those villainous expressions on their faces.

 _I can't-_

 _FUCK!_

 _Keep it cool you two._ Blackjack glanced back at them, then he looked forward down the black market. "We're not here for any labor resources. We're looking for a specific weapon. Try to keep your eyes on the prize, you guys." _And I'm sorry, but please do not start something right here. As much as this has to hurt._

Zach balled his fists so much harder at his sides in The Cloak. _We need this. We need this._ He stared at the images being shown to him through Seraphim's contacts, and he felt his heart pounding so hard it was starting to hurt. _We can overhear deals through the city. We can, find out more about all these villains through surveillance and undercover work. I can, I_ _ **need**_ _to take this slowly and use everything. Think constantly! THINK CONSTANTLY!_ Seraphim looked to her right at a shop that had some of its _wares_ out on display in front of the building. Zach saw what she looked at and his eyes trembled in rage, _I AM GOING TO DESTROY THIS CITY!_

* * *

 **USA**

"Death, sir," Zach looked over his shoulder and to Raylei who had a hand over her right ear and one of the headphones there. She made a big hand motion at him before pointing at the screen in front of him, and Zach turned back to see the notification she sent him across The Cloak's cockpit.

Zach looked at the message from Rebel and he nodded his head once. He picked up a headset in front of him with a mic sticking off the bottom of it and got that in front of his mouth. Then he took in a deep breath and started sending Rebel back a message. A minute later Zach heard a ringing in his ear and saw the Unknown Number indicator on his screen. He answered it, "How'd it go?"

"You won't be hearing from them again," Lavamander replied. The gruff voice on the other side of the line sounded annoyed but Zach was glad to hear it.

"What did it turn out to be?"

"I took down the Neo Syndicate's operation in the Florida Keys. Got some information I gave Rebel. He's sending it to you in an encrypted message."

"Thanks. By the way, I heard something interesting yesterday." Zach paused for a second but did not hear Lavamander hanging up the line yet. "There's an oil-drilling spot in Texas a villain mentioned to us. Since you're already closeby… well, the land bought for the drilling is much larger than it should be, considering satellite images only show a single drill that's not actually pumping. There's been a lot of strange activity there too, and villain activity in the southwest U.S. has gone up a lot since the land was bought a couple months back. As well as in northern Mexico."

"Sounds like it's worth looking into," Lavamander responded. There was a brief hesitation and then he finished, "Have Rebel send me the location. I'll report in what I find." The line cut off, and Zach let out a deep breath before taking off the headset.

 _Why won't he just join us?_ Zach thought, leaning back in his seat and frowning at the question. _I want to make sure he's acting like, well, I guess I want to have oversight over him. That's not how he ever did things though. Cee said he would come around… but I doubt it. Once he's been getting our information for a while though, I think I could make him not be as brutal, by threatening to take away the information network he's back into. Then again, I think he already knows I might be thinking that, since his recent fights haven't been anywhere near as deadly as that Kazania one._

"Commander, the last of them has arrived." Zach stood up from his seat and he turned to the doors of the cockpit. He lifted up his helmet as he headed out into the hall, and he put it on his head just like Mark had his on next to him. Mark continued once Zach was walking at his side, "You get in touch with Lavamander yet?"

"Just did," Zach replied. "He's going to the southwest for us. Now we can head straight to Cuba without distraction."

"Soon as we get this done," Mark agreed, and Zach nodded as there was just one thing left for them until they could lift off again.

They walked down the port side of the ship. A couple of new soldiers walking around looked at them and then started reaching for their helmets, but Zach lifted a hand for them and shook it signaling it was fine for them not to have them on. Mark and Zach walked down towards the hangar, and Mark glanced in at the boy who was getting closer to his height so they were only an inch or so away. Mark imagined the face of the sixteen year old who recruited him what felt so long ago now. _**"Do you, want to come with me?"**_ Mark pushed that thought from his head and focused on the task at hand. "These are the narrowed-down applicants already. Rebel got in touch with them anonymously and tested the waters, figured out if they were serious about what they discussed together… I'm just saying, there's no need to vet them too hard here. We could use the extra forces."

"Yeah, I know," Zach said, nodding in agreement with Mark as he said it. "I'm still going to check every member though. No one joins-"

"Unless you give the 'okay,' yeah," Mark repeated, something that usually made him sigh as it took away from Death's other activities which were already spread-out enough as it was. "Could always just leave it to me or Gentle you know?" Zach turned in at the older man who continued, "We're pretty good judges of character too. In case you didn't know."

"That's not… that's only part of it," Zach said. He did not want Mark thinking that he didn't think that was true, and so he added, "But, I want to know everyone too. Give myself that extra motivation from the start, to never let any of them die." Zach looked straight back forward as they walked into the hangar together, and he continued softer, "I don't want the people following me to just be names in my mind. Names and Quirks. I want to know them, and I want them to know who they're following too."

Mark kept looking ahead as Zach was talking, then he nodded in understanding a few seconds after the boy stopped. "Yeah," Mark admitted after that moment. "You know, that makes sense. And that's… well that's why we follow you." Zach turned back to his side and his eyes widened a bit, but Mark just kept walking forward and Zach turned straight ahead to do the same.

Zach kept walking forward through his hangar bay, but in his head he heard the voice of the man next to him back around eight months ago. _**"…but, if I do… I won't kill anyone. And, if I ever feel like you're turning into a villain, I will try and stop you."**_ _Mark, I do trust your judgement. And I'm glad you trust mine… and that you're following me now. Not just coming with me, like I thought, like I asked for. You follow my orders and, and you believe in me. When did that dynamic change? At what point, did I start changing the way everyone here sees me? Well, there's no point in thinking about such a thing, is there?_ Zach's eyes focused ahead of him through his dark visor, towards the large metal doors of the hangar that started opening up for them.

The long steel ramp started lowering down, and Zach stared out through the opening and into the world outside with a narrowed gaze that flashed red as he shot his heart-rate up. _Can't make the inside of the ship invisible, so once that thing opens we've got thirty seconds of visibility just floating here. And we're way too close to the ground._ All the lights in the hangar cut off before the ramp started lowering, and others in the ship's main hangar headed off to other rooms on the sides or for the front of the ship. There were some gathered near the back ready for action, though they stayed still and did not move to follow the two who stepped down the ramp to the edge of The Cloak.

"Bring us down," Zach said to his comrade on his right side.

A dark tub on Mark's back opened up. The muscular man whose back was wide after he had trained it stronger to be able to carry more of his ammo had a four-gallon tank on his back that popped open and poured water up into the air above them. The water split off into four rectangular boxes, while a small split-off squirt grabbed the cap of the tub and pulled it back closed over the rest of his ammo. "Liquid Condense: Elevator." Mark used his Liquid Control to push the liquid he controlled so close together that it nearly solidified. The molecules in the liquid that popped out of his tub, not solely water as those bonds were hard to compress, crushed into small steps that did not look to contain the same amount of liquid as what had just come out of his storage tank.

Zach and Mark both stepped off the back of the ramp, and two of the water boxes went down and below their right feet. Then they stepped off with their lefts, and those feet got water prisms below them too. Mark held those prisms up for a moment as they held their balance, and then he dropped them and themselves down through the air. The two looked up as they fell, and they were unable to see their ship very well in the air above them. They did not have night vision on which would have given them a clearer look, though they were able to tell when the ramp started going back up as it was accompanied with a bit of a mechanical noise too. As Zach looked back down at the warehouse they were lowering towards, he reminded himself of why he was falling like this as he made sure to keep his balance on the liquid prisms his feet felt like they were about to slip right through. _No Death. Not for simple tasks. I've been going too much- no, I've been going out so much, that Death doesn't have time to recharge. And the amount of time I give myself for rest isn't enough to bring it back up to full either. Using Trigger makes the recharge time much slower too, so I really can't use that anymore. Or at least, not as quickly as I had been. No more days of everyone sitting around because I won't let anyone fight unless I'm there. As productive as I make those days too, we need to fight every day. There are too many villains to take a day off. Even tonight is going too slowly. Get through this fast and then bring the new crop to Cuba and see what they can really do._

Zach and Mark landed down on the roof of the warehouse below the hovering Cloak. Mark's water pulled back up into the tub that another water-hand just popped open, and then it all pulled inside before closing back up the cork of the black tank. Zach started over to a ladder on the side of the roof, and he grabbed the sides of it before putting his feet on those sides too and just sliding down the ladder like that. He slid down fast, as he did not want to just drop off nor did he want to waste time climbing.

Zach walked around the back of the building and he said in a low voice while reaching up to modulate it with his helmet, "Coming in." He grabbed a doorknob and opened the door, and he stepped into the abandoned building with Mark at his back. Jughead looked in at the two of them as they headed in, then he closed the door behind Mark and followed after them into the more illuminated part of the room. Above them on catwalks that covered the building since there was no solid second floor and only those walkways up there were a squad of Army of Death soldiers sitting on railings or looking out windows. There were twelve of them in total in the room, along with seven others who were not in the black costumes of the Army of Death.

Several of the group of seven had brought their own black uniforms with them. They were trying to join the Army of Death after all, so they dressed the part. A couple had dark helmets too that they had had to take off though. One woman just had a white apron on over baggy clothes, another man had on black but also had a red cape on over his back with a collar popped up around his neck. Zach's eyes focused on one of the figures ahead of him who looked even younger than him, and he frowned deeper at the sight of that boy in his mid-teens who kept a serious look on his face and a look in his eyes that made Zach hesitate from dismissing him right away.

"Death," a woman in a tight black costume began. She had long black hair tied in over a dozen braids, and she started to kneel in front of the dark figure who stayed quiet as she did. The fact that Death was not saying anything about it made a couple of the guys to the left of that woman feel like maybe it was the right thing to do, and they started to bent their legs.

"It's fine," Zach said, telling them they did not have to with that. "And stand," he added for the woman already bent to a knee. _If Exodus was here… Focus, Death._ Zach looked at the woman who stood back up, on the far end of the line to his left. "Tell me your names," he started, and he nodded at the woman to motion for her to go first.

"Arachna," he said.

A bead of sweat formed on the right side of Zach's face and started rolling down it. He turned to the next in line though, ignoring that unnerving feeling that just formed in his gut. He nodded at the man in the popped red collar, and the guy with pale skin but a dark look on his face replied slowly, "Dracard, The Deadly."

"What kind of names are those?" The man on Dracard's other side as Arachna asked, his voice fast and a big smirk crossing over his face as he heard that second name. Dracard turned his head and looked down at the shorter man, but his dark look did nothing to sway the short guy who just pulled back with a laugh and went, "Ooh spooky! I'm Tress Wexler. You can call me Hyper. My Quirk is Adrenaline and-"

"Did Death ask for your Quirk's name?" Mark asked, and Hyper froze with his mouth wide open. He closed it and then opened again to respond to Mark, but Death turned from him to the next man down which did make Hyper lose his smile this time.

 _I don't want to dismiss him as just being immature. It sounds like that might be a side-effect of his Quirk. I don't know if I can deal with someone like that right now though._ Zach wanted to rub his forehead as he could see Hyper trying to hold back from calling out what he wanted to say at that moment. "Heavy," the largest guy in the line ahead of Zach responded. He was bulky, muscular, his body even looked round though Zach attributed that in part due to the heavy gear he was carrying all over his body. He had big guns on his back, ammo strapped all over his dark costume, boxes and supplies on his waist and lower back and strapped to his thighs. He had thick steel boots on, big metal gloves with spikes on the knuckles, and at the top of his chest there was a pouch with the top opened up showing a line of cigars with two half-smoked ones on the end closest to his neck. Zach figured the man had put them out when he heard that Death was coming, as he could smell a faint waft of cigar smoke in the warehouse despite the cracks in the windows that made it chilly in there.

"My real name's Jorge Michaels though," Heavy added. He wondered if he needed to add it since the first two didn't, but the man after him had not spoken yet so he added that extra piece of info that Hyper had too.

"Zombieman," the man next to Heavy said. His voice sounded young, like the teenager he appeared to be. He had messy black hair, and fair skin that was blemish free. He had on a tight black costume, though he also had a jacket on over his tight shirt. There were a pair of goggles resting around his neck since the tight part had been pulled down from his head, and he stood five and a half feet tall which made him just a little taller than the woman on his left side who continued right after him.

"Wicked," she said. She had messy green hair that she reached a hand up to again and tried to straighten behind her while staring at Death.

"Barkeep," the next woman down said, and Zach stared at the tallest and burliest of the three women on the line. She had on a white apron over her baggy work clothes, and in the pouch on the front of her apron she had some bottles of booze sticking out. She had a faint red shade to her cheeks too, and Zach glanced to his side at Mark who looked right back at him in that skeptical way that only they could tell they were giving each other behind their visors.

In a low voice that only went through their earpieces, Mark asked, "Is that woman drunk?"

"She was drinking right before you two landed on the roof, then she fumbled to put away a flask under her shirt."

"Maybe it has to do with her Quirk?"

Zach decided to find out. "What's your Quirk?" Zach asked, while still facing the woman who said her name last.

Barkeep turned her head and looked down the line, expecting the shorter woman at the other end to answer. Then she turned back forward in confusion and then opened her eyes wide as she was the one being asked. "Oh! Sorry, my Quirk's called Alcohol Converter," she stood up straighter while responding with that, though she regained her gruff expression and slouched a bit as standing like that was bothersome. "I change booze into strength!" She rose up her right arm and flexed, pushing her bicep into the baggy clothes and making it appear there for a second before she loosened up and dropped her arm back to her side.

"When you do that," Mark began. "Do you still get drunk?" He asked, though he expected he already knew the answer.

"Well, yeah," Barkeep replied. She cracked a grin after looking hesitant there for a moment. "Drunker equals stronger," she explained in layman's terms.

"Yeah, I'm not sure about this."

"Don't really want a drunkard watching my back."

"Death, I do not think, that this is a good idea." All the voices in Zach's helmet seemed to be in agreement over that.

"How can we trust you in a fight if you're drunk through it?" Zach asked, frowning at the woman ahead of him and then glancing hesitantly down the line hoping they were not all like that.

Barkeep's eyes narrowed at the dark figure in front of her though. "You telling me after all this you're going to make me leave? That's bull-"

"This isn't orientation," Mark said in a low voice, his modulated just like Death's. "Not yet. It's the final screening." _Though I don't know how you even got this far._

"You're careful about who you let in. Good," Dracard (The Deadly) said in a low, somehow ominous voice despite him just saying something not very ominous at all. He smiled like he was glad to hear that, but that showed off his fangs and made a few of the soldiers looking down at him closely from up on the catwalk turn to each other and start whispering.

"Pay up."

"I told you he was gonna have fangs."

"I don't know why I didn't think so…"

"Can you fight?" Zach repeated. "Can you hold your own, and watch others' backs even while you're drunk?" _I've glanced at all the recruits' files Rebel sent me a while back. I should have looked closer, but I remember her. I was hoping she wouldn't be drunk with that Alcohol Converter Quirk, but…_ Zach thought about the other information Rebel had given him on this woman. Her family background, the reasons she wanted to join that she had told Rebel over their chats.

"I can hold my own. I've never fought in a team before," she continued, still frowning but losing her attitude a bit as she replied to the man who sounded willing to hear her out. "But I'm a urp- quick…" she froze and grimaced. "I'm a quick study," she said rapidly, making sure not to let out a burp this time in the middle of her statement.

"Death, we're not that desperate for-" Mark started.

"Then you'll learn fast," Zach replied. Mark frowned more in his helmet, but he decided to save his qualms about this to discuss with Death later and not over the comms with all the others in the building with them. A few others around the room wondered what Death was thinking too, including some of the people on the line with Barkeep who looked down it at the woman with surprised looks that matched hers.

"You're serious?" She asked, as she had been convinced from his first question about trusting her that they were going to make her leave.

"I know why you're fighting," Zach replied. At the same time as he answered her question, he was defending it to the others who did not know what he was talking about that there was more he was basing this off of.

"What about you, Wicked?" Zach asked, shifting his gaze to the next woman down the line.

The five foot five woman with bright green hair nodded at him and then started, "My Quirk's Hallucinogen. I can secrete an invisible gas that makes people hallucinate… though, I can't dictate or even see what they're seeing or how effective it is." She decided to come straight out with her weaknesses too instead of trying to hide them, as she suspected there might be a way they already knew everything about her anyway and this was just to see if she was trustworthy. "It's all in their heads."

"Sounds great," Death replied, and Wicked's eyes widened a bit at how casual that was. Death turned right to the next guy down the line though, wanting to get through this faster. He paused though and reminded himself to take it slow as he focused on the young man standing there who he did not know much about other than his name and how serious he was about joining. "And you, Zombieman?"

"My Quirk is Zombie," Zombieman replied.

"And that means…" Zach started.

Zombieman frowned and he looked back and forth at the others on the line with him. They had been looking at him with a bit of skepticism, and he could see the people in black uniforms and even Death were doing the same. "It means, I'm immortal. Probably," he hesitated and looked closer at Death, "though maybe you could."

"You can't die?" Mark asked in surprise. "What kind of injuries have you sustained?" He questioned. _If I ripped him apart with blood-bending, and he doesn't die from it… then I'll have the person I need to practice on to make it more precise. If I can blood-bend without killing, I could stop every fight… he's wearing a jacket. Indicating he still feels cold, and likely pain. Shit. Even if it's true-_

"Pretty much everything. I had a point in my sixties when I just wanted to die, so I tried a lot," Zombieman replied. Everyone staring at the teen with a adolescent voice found themselves sweating as he just mentioned trying to kill himself in a lot of different ways back in his " _sixties._ " Zombieman continued as he could feel all those looks aimed at him, "I've looked the same age since I turned fifteen, eighty years ago."

 _I swear to God, Rebel,_ Zach thought while trying hard not to let himself get too surprised. _If you knew about this and just wanted to mess with me… he's eighty- no! Ninety-five? He's so old!_ "Well, um," Death started, and he frowned as he started that way in front of new recruits. "Alright then, I'm glad you're here, honorable elder." Zach cracked a smile in his helmet while Zombieman dropped his jaw, and then laughter broke out on the catwalks above and behind Zach from Jughead.

Hyper spun his head around looking at all the dark figures around him with his eyes huge, and then he smiled wide too and started laughing. Everyone stopped laughing at the same time, and Hyper kept going for a second before freezing with his mouth open as he realized he was the only one laughing in the room. Zach grimaced and tried to avoid making that any more awkward as he just turned from Zombieman to the huge man next to him. "Heavy?"

"I don't have a Quirk," Heavy replied. Everyone on the line and around the room looked down at the huge man covered in supplies and weapons and ammo. "But I'm strong. And faster than I look. A good shot too."

"Great," Zach said. He turned to Hyper who was still looking at Heavy with bug eyes at the big man's response. "What about you? What is Adrenaline?"

"Adrenaline is, well it's complicated but the main point of it is that there's adrenaline running through my bloodstream. _Constantly_. Like, it pumps through my heart all day every day. I actually only sleep one hour a night but my body can handle that kind of thing because it works well with Adrenaline. Plus! My blood can work as like, an adrenaline shot for someone else. I gave blood once in tenth grade and I remember they wanted to see if it would happen before using it in hospitals or anything and they told me they couldn't use it so I'm pretty sure it must've-"

Zach wanted to rub his temples hard but his helmet was blocking them. "And can you fight?' Zach asked. "Does that Quirk help you fight at all?"

"I fought the bastards who came for my blood. Beat the shit out of all of them and then I found out who was coming for it too. And I'm good at asking people questions and making them answer. The guys I was asking were freaking out when I was shouting at them like OOGABOOGABOOGA! Hahaha and I'm really fast, definitely faster than fatty- I mean Heavy right here, whoop! See," he said, while jumping backwards and dodging Heavy's arm that reached out fast to try and shut him up while also proving he was faster.

Heavy grit his teeth and started turning his head, but he heard in front of him, "Enough. Both of you," Zach added, as he looked past Heavy and saw Hyper had reached down for the back of his waist while still smirking in a crazy way. _Is he insane? That Quirk, seems like one that has been messing with him his whole life. I'm sure a lot of people have started hating him, and he probably doesn't have a lot of friends. They went after his blood though? I'd expect that from Zombieman… I'll have to ask him if he's ever been captured and researched. There might be other research labs to hunt down. And what about the ones who went after Hyper? He said he found them. Guess he was a vigilante. Rebel said most of them were already doing shit outside of the law on their own. Damn, he's really annoying though. But, I should give him a chance. Try to help him. There's no way he could be a hero. I doubt he can even sit still in a classroom. It'll be dangerous giving a guy like this responsibility though… won't it? I haven't seen him in action. I wish there were better ways to vet them, but there's no time. I want more soldiers. This is how we do it while on the go. I don't have time to set up practice missions and have the new recruits go on them to make sure they're ready. They'll learn in the field. They'll train with the others on The Cloak. And if they die… that's on me for bringing them in unprepared. But they're all here ready for this! They want to join, and I want more help so we can take on more and more. King isn't going down without a fight. He's got Eziano and even Fergus helping… Move on._

"I'll be watching you closely, Hyper," Zach warned. "You've got to calm down a bit. I'm sure you've heard that a lot, but, seriously," Zach said it in a darker voice and he glared through his visor at the man who was about to enthusiastically respond to him. "I won't have you put the others' lives in danger. If I feel like you're not taking it seriously, I'm going to drop you like that."

 _"Drop me?" What does that even mean? I always take everything seriously!_ "I- I al- Yes." Hyper pursed his lips after getting out that response, trying as hard as he could to limit it to a short answer and not act like his usual self which had apparently started to get on Death's nerves already. _He says I can come though! I'm on a team! No one ever lets me on their team!_

"Dracard The Deadly?" Zach asked, looking to the next guy down and saying his full name as the man had given it to him.

"Drac, is fine," the man started to the dark figure who asked.

A bead of sweat rolled down Zach's face. _I really don't want to call him that._ "Okay, Drac," Zach continued. "What's your Quirk?"

"Imagine, Dracula," Drac answered. Hyper glanced back at the man on his right and felt a lot more off about how he had treated that guy a minute ago.

Zombieman looked down the line too towards Dracard and said, "How long's it been, Drac?"

"You two know each other?" Heavy asked the shorter guy on his left.

Drac frowned as Zombieman asked him, and Zach frowned more as he saw that look. _Was he trying to hide it?_ "How old are you?" Zach asked the spooky man in a red cape.

"It is impolite to ask one's age, is it not?" Dracard questioned back.

"Is there a reason you didn't give me the name of your Quirk?" Zach asked.

Dracard The Deadly frowned more at Death, while everyone else in the room except for Zombieman got a strange feeling at the revelations they were having. Zach immediately followed that question with a new one, "What do you know about Eziano Mozcaccio?"

Dracard's frown lost some of the annoyance in it, raising up a bit until his lips were flat. He leaned his head back and hummed, then he replied, "More than most, though it seems likely you know what I do as well. So in that case, less than you hope." Zach frowned at the response, holding back a tsk as he _was_ hoping for more there. _How old is this guy then? I should have realized it sooner. How long ago did he meet Zombieman? It's so weird to think he's even older. Though, Eziano claimed to be alive for at least three hundred years. I kind of knew it was something like that long before too, when Midoriya said that All Might's teacher and her teacher all knew about him. I wonder though, if people could live that long… what if those aren't even the oldest? I want to ask Drac how old he really is. I don't want to force it though. Would probably separate him more from everyone else if they knew he was like a thousand or some ridiculous age like that. It's definitely long though, if they weren't even naming Quirks back when he got his. Back in times when having powers would have made people freak out, think you were some sort of monster, make up stories about you… oh shit. Fuck fuck fuck. Don't think about that._

Zach turned from Dracard and to the final person in the line of seven recruits in front of him. He tried distracting himself from Dracard by looking to her, and it worked way too well as he remembered the name she gave him. He nodded at the woman with long black braids and said, "And, your Quirk?"

"Giant Huntswoman Spider," Arachna said.

 _Nope nope nope nope nope nope nope nope nope nope nope nope nope._ "So, what can it do?" _Why? You stupid fucking- AH!_ Zach asked her and immediately regretted it. He watched as fuzzy fangs stuck out below her chin while her jaw started transforming. More eyes appeared on her face, and six legs pulled out of her back through pre-made holes in her black costume. The legs pulled to the sides and extended longer and longer, and Hyper let out a shout of panic a second before he slammed his back into the wall on the opposite side of the room as Arachna.

"Alright, that's good," Zach said, speaking a bit too quickly though he wanted her to go back to normal as quick as possible. "That will be good, for intimidation and getting villains to talk without having to actually hurt them. It'll be really good for that," he added.

"What's that? You afraid of spiders, Death?" Spiral called down from up on one of the catwalks.

Arachna turned her head and looked up at the man who called that out, while she still had eight glowing red eyes on a furry face that made Spiral pull back fast at the look. Arachna turned back forward and grinned at Death after doing that, and Zach's nerves washed away at the friendly look even as her face was still half-spider. _That was pretty funny,_ Zach thought, and he heard some of the others laughing at Spiral up above too.

"Alright everyone," Zach called out. He reached up and grabbed his helmet, and he popped it off before smiling at the group of seven in front of him again. Everyone else in the building had started moving when Zach called to them, and they rushed down to the floor and then to the doors to get out of there. "Let's get up to The Cloak and head out. It's five hours to Cuba, so get some rest if you've been up since yesterday."

"We're going to Cuba?" Hyper asked, jumping back off the wall and getting over that scary transformation quickly, though he did stay on the other end of the line as Arachna closer to Barkeep now.

"That's all?" Dracard questioned the boy whose identity he had already guessed and was not very surprised by when the teenager revealed his true face.

"You're, a kid," Heavy said though, his eyes wide in surprise at the teen standing in front of him.

"I'm your Commander," Zach said, and Heavy's head pulled back at that sharp correction. Zach turned left next and at Mark, "Get everyone onboard."

"Understood, Commander," Mark replied. "You seven, with me-"

"Not Drac," Zach said. "Or Zombieman actually," he added, looking over at the youngest-looking of the group. "I need to talk to you some more."

Zombieman nodded his head and started over to Dracard who he would have stood next to in the first place, if Dracard had arrived before him. Dracard had not walked up to him when he came in though so Zombieman had not scooted closer to him, though he was kind of glad there was someone else there who he recognized.

"You five then!" Mark called out at the group who were all looking at Death to see what he was going to talk to those old men about. The five spun to Mark as he called that at them loudly, then he turned and motioned towards the back door the others were all heading out already. "Let's get you fitted for some AoD costumes, you can make your own upgrades as you like."

"AoD?" Barkeep muttered under her breath, feeling like she was missing something since no one else was questioning about it.

"Army of Death," Hyper replied quickly to her. He smiled wide at the woman who glanced at him, then reached into her shirt and pulled out a flask again.

"Drac," Zach started in a low voice, though he had his helmet off now and his inner earpiece turned off as well. "Do you need to drink blood?"

"No," Dracard replied. "And I can go in the sun too."

 _That's great._ "Alright. Could you tell me what you meant by, Dracula's powers though? Which powers, exactly?"

"Um, do I really need to be here for this?" Zombieman asked.

"That's not my only question," Zach replied, making Zombieman close his mouth and nod at the actual teen.

"There are various powers under my control," Dracard The Deadly began to the boy who nodded at him to continue. "Strength, speed, flight, the ability to transform into a tiny vampire bat," his English started to gain an Eastern European accent as he spoke, showing that despite him sounding very American he was just hiding this accent well. "I will be invaluable to your cause. A cause I believe is just, as I have observed from afar." The light-skinned man spoke in such a way that Zach felt like he was facing someone way more impressive than just another recruit to meet in a random warehouse.

"What is it you want?" Zach asked.

Dracard hummed again and then he lifted the right corner of his lips into a small smile. "I like you. And I respect you," he added. Drac kept that smile on his face that decreased the ominous nature of his tone and stature while he continued, "Few men have ever tried to do what you are doing. None have ever succeeded to such a great degree. And I believe that with help, the degree at which you are already succeeding will rise higher. Despite how high your numbers have already grown you are not against accepting those who are below your standards. A willingness to try, and to transform those who were lacking into proper soldiers."

 _"None have ever succeeded…" How old is he?! I really don't want to ask-_ "And how old are you, really?" Zach asked. He was too curious to let it go.

Drac did not frown this time. Zombieman looked at him with his eyebrows raised though, and Zach could tell he did not know the answer to this either. "I believe, somewhere around five hundred years. Give or take… a few decades." Drac smiled wider as he glanced next to him at the shocked Zombieman at his side who had more of a reaction than Death did. "Trust me, it will not seem like such a long time in a few hundred years-"

Zombieman grimaced so hard that his face looked like it hurt. Zach looked back at him and got uneasy by the ridiculously dark look that flashed over Zombieman's face. _It's only been ninety-five years for him, and he's already tried killing himself several times by the sound of it. He was casual about it too._ "You both, take life seriously though, right?" Zach asked. It was the most important reason he pulled the two of them aside. Drac got an interested look on his face at the question, while Zombieman just stared at him for a few seconds with that dark look. "Other people's lives. You care about them? Each person?"

"Other than myself," Zombieman began. "Yes. I want to help them. Or else I'd just ask you to try using Death on me. I kind of suspected it was you, Zach Sazaki. I-"

"I'm not Zach Sazaki," Zach cut him off. "I'm Death," he said.

Zombieman froze and stared at him in confusion for a few seconds wondering if there was some important reason Death had to correct him there. He just nodded though to show he understood before saying, "I care though. Always, have."

"I spent a few hundred years apathetic towards humanity," Drac began himself. "However, a certain man you know changed my opinion not too long ago. Well, not long ago for me, but a few decades back All Might helped me to find my humanity again." Drac smiled nostalgically thinking back on it, and looking at the boy in front of him who he knew All Might had had a great impact on as well made that smile grow some more. _All Might. You led me on the path to Alice. I never would have met her, or the people of the village… Alice. How I miss you._ "Anyhow," Drac started, shaking his head of thoughts of long ago and then nodding at the teenager in front of him. "Despite my age, I will follow your orders, Death. I myself do have weaknesses, which I would like to keep to myself. However I am not immortal. If I die, would you be so kind as to revive me?"

"Of course," Zach said, shaking his head as it was a question Drac did not need to ask him.

"Could you, let me stay dead?" Zombieman requested. "If I do wind up dying," he added, since he doubted it was going to happen in the first place.

"…Yes," Zach replied. _Though, I'll try to make you change your mind about that. You may have lost everyone close to you, but you can always make a new family. Zombieman. Drac._ "One more thing before we head up," Zach said, which intrigued the two in front of him as to what he meant by that, especially after they had heard the excited shouts from Hyper outside and the fact that Death and Mark had dropped down on the roof with loud thuds before coming down in through the back door. "I want to know everything you've ever heard," Zach started, looking back and forth at both of the old men before him. "About Eziano Mozcaccio."

* * *

 **Norway**

"Ah! Yes De- sir!" A man in a white lab coat ran around Zach's side and over towards a motorcycle-looking vehicle that had some attachments on it that made it look different from regular motorcycles. "This is our newest model. We just perfected the design-"

"What're its capabilities, Dr. Olsen?" Death asked the engineer who was taking too long to get to the point.

"Be nice," Zach heard Rebel's voice in his ear. He was wearing full armor in the secret testing facility, as it was his first time actually visiting the place. Zach did not recognize any of the people around him. He didn't know the ones watching from the sides of the room as Dr. Olsen led him around, nor the one he saw watching from up in a window on the second floor of the huge white room full of different vehicles. There was a target station on one side of the room and turrets lined up before it that he had already checked on earlier.

Zach tried to lift his frown a bit and took in a deep breath after cutting off the doctor there. _These people don't know me at all. They're probably- definitely nervous. Don't treat them like soldiers when they're not._ "Doctor?" Zach repeated, using a nicer voice this time though it was still modulated out of his helmet.

"Oh, yes," Olsen turned to the bike he was showing off. "This is in the new class of personal ground assault vehicles. Meant for a single rider, it has great maneuverability with the wheels able to turn outside of the normal rotations to allow for immediate changes in directions. Also," Olsen pressed a button on the test bike they had out there, and he continued, "the Ecliptor has hover-capabilities." The wheels flipped horizontally and Zach nodded as he saw the wheels stay off the ground with very little bounce as it switched from ground to hover settings. "With the Ecliptor though, its hover-capabilities have reached a point where driving right over the water is possible. Propulsion will automatically increase when there is a lack of solid ground below in order to keep the same elevation and-"

"Mind if I take it for a test drive?" Zach asked.

"Oh! Um, of course. Be my guest. Please uh, do be careful of the equipment around the room," Olsen glanced around hesitantly as he made his warning. He did not want to deny Death, but he looked around cautiously at all the vehicles he had been working on with the rest of the R&D department at Sci-Psi Tech Industries.

Zach nodded in response to the request. _Might be difficult to control, or maybe he just doesn't realize I'm good on a motorcycle. This thing is cool. I really want to drive it around._ Zach kept his expression steady in his helmet even as he climbed onto the _Ecliptor._ He could not help but grin as he got on and leaned forward. _It even has a cool name,_ Zach thought. He revved the engines and nodded in satisfaction even though the motor did not make a very loud noise at all. It stayed almost at the same low whirring noise as he sped it up from when it was back in neutral, and Zach appreciated the silence of the bike as he whipped around the side of the room making a gradual turn the first time. _It seems like the handling works like he says. Let's test it._ Zach drove faster and straight at a wall, then he pulled to the left and back at the same time. The wheels spun sideways below him and yanked him backwards with a strong jolt, then it shot to the left. _Didn't hit the wall. Not as smooth as I was hoping, but inertia and physics make certain restraints on machines. Can't just change my momentum entirely without any jolt._

He pressed a button on the side of the handlebars he was grabbing. A pair of cannons stuck out of the front of the bike in between the handlebars and on the curved part in front of Zach's arms. He leaned farther forward on his motorcycle, pressing a different button the next time and popping the tires off the ground into their hover-mode. _Smooth,_ he thought, as he kept going the same speed but could no longer feel the ground below him. "Dr. Olsen," Zach called over to the engineer watching in amazement at the dark figure speeding around his lab. "The cannons…"

"Pulse. They fire charges for disabling other vehicles, non-lethally."

 _Great. Big problem with using Whiteout all the time. Can't use our own equipment either when she sets off her Quirk. This way we'll keep the strength advantage and the technological advantage._ Zach slowed down the motorcycle over near an all-terrain jeep-looking vehicle that had a different kind of unique design he had never seen before. _So much cool stuff down here. Really, not enough time to test it all out for long drives. I should have brought a couple others with me, but I didn't expect this to take so long in the first place…_

Zach finished up checking out the different vehicles, weapons, and equipment that Dr. Olsen and some of the other researchers at the tech lab showed him. He let them know with his tone as they got farther into it that he was in a rush to get out of there, and then he finished up testing one last weapon before getting up and walking to the side of the room where all the scientists had moved over to while he tested it. Zach held out his right hand and shook the hands of the men and women who shook his gloved hand back. "Great work on everything, really." Zach shook the next person's hand and continued, "And thank you for those costumes we just received for the new recruits. You fit even the hardest body types perfectly."

"Thank you, sir," the man who Zach just shook his hand got a proud smile on his face as that was said to him.

Zach went to one more person to shake their hand, but his eyes shifted inside his helmet behind those scientists to a man in a black suit who he frowned at the sight of. The bald man had a transparent earpiece in his ear and a straight expression with a veteran look in his eyes of a soldier. He was bald and had a lean body type, and Zach's eyes did a once-over on him while he was still talking in a more friendly, though deep and modulated voice, to the engineer at the end of the line. "Well then," Zach lowered his hand and nodded at the men and women in front of him. "I have to head off now. Thank you again, and let your benefactor know-"

"Death," the bald man behind the engineers began. He stepped forward and the people Zach was talking to moved to the sides for him. "Mr. Andersson would like to meet with you."

Zach stared at the man who just said that. He stared at him in silence and watched as a bead of sweat formed on the side of the man's face. _He just fucking interrupted me. I get that I was saying I was leaving and it's got to be his job to get me to wait, but still. Ballsy move on that guy's part._ "I really do need to be going," Zach said. The others on Zach's side looked in at Death with their eyes wide as he responded like that, and the man in the suit in front of Death looked at him in surprise too before looking confused as he did not know how to respond to that.

"Um, please- wait a moment," he requested this time, speaking less confidently to Death than he did the first time. He put a hand up over his ear and spoke softly while Death stayed standing where he was, and Zach let out a long tired breath behind his visor.

"You could humor them, you know?" Rebel mentioned as Zach sighed and stood there waiting.

"There's a reason, for this," Zach replied in a tired, and semi-annoyed voice though it was not with Rebel that tone was directed at. _I just wanted to get some rest, but ohh they really want to meet with the guy they've been helping for so long. I did what you said Rebel. I finally came out here, but I'm not going up for some private meeting with corporation heads or… or whatever. It's just not- It's sketchy. You say you've done good checks on all our donors and supports, but I've never met them. I don't know, if I trust them. Not as much as the Army. Not even close._

A door opened at the bottom of a staircase behind the suited man. Zach turned his head a bit and stared at the bald figure who he had seen watching from through the window on the second floor earlier. He remembered the way the man was looking down at him while he was testing their equipment, and he glared at the man who walked forward with a straight expression yet the corners of his lips shaking the smallest bits like he was trying hard not to let them drop into a frown. "Death, we finally meet," Erik Andersson said, nodding at the dark figure while coming to a stop in front of him.

"Be nice. Please, be nice. These guys are our best benefactors. I wouldn't have told you to go if I knew you'd be-" Rebel cut off as Zach started speaking.

"President Andersson," Zach said, nodding once at the bald man who was a bit older than the security guard who stepped to the side of him. He wore a more expensive-looking suit and had some wrinkles on his face. Zach continued to the company head, "I didn't know if you'd be joining us. But I was just about to tell your impressive scientists here how the vehicles and equipment you've made for the Army of Death are amazing. I wanted them to tell you, but I'm glad I can tell you myself."

Rebel leaned back from his computer and cracked a surprised grin over his face. _Nice._

"I am, glad you are pleased with them," Andersson started. "There are certain things I would like to discuss with you, if you have the time-"

"Actually," Zach started, and the company president's eyes opened wide. "I don't. This was a short detour for me, though a valuable one. However I must be going now."

Zach started to turn right after finishing that, and Andersson stepped forward with his wide eyes narrowing down. "Death!" Zach paused. He stopped where he was and turned back to face the man in front of him. Erik Andersson stared at that dark helmet and he ground his teeth for a moment, then he said in a lower voice, "Everyone out. Now."

"Let's go," the guard behind him motioned back with his head. All the researchers and scientists around the room headed back into the main stairwell and the guard stepped back there and closed the doors, though he stayed on the inside of them so he was still there with Death and his boss. Zach could see that man's expression staying mostly steady, but the guy was starting to look a bit jumpy and darting looks at his boss showing he wanted the older man to stop already.

"Do you think this such a waste of your time?" Andersson snapped once the doors had shut. He stomped towards Death and then froze at the look of the figure who had tried walking away from him, then he leaned forward and said, "We have been funding this whole thing from the start. For months we have supported Death, you should be-"

"What?" Zach asked. Andersson froze with his mouth open and he got a nervous look on his face at the tone of that deep 'what.' He glared at Andersson and then started after a second, after hearing Rebel start yelling at him in his helmet, "I am grateful, for everything you have done. That is all." Zach glared at the man before him while Rebel quieted down back at his command post. Zach looked into the president's eyes and said, "If you want to give us these things, I appreciate it, but that is as far as our relationship goes."

"Wh-What do you-" Andersson started.

"Using your technology and equipment, the Army of Death saves lives and stops villains all over the world. The money you donated too, Erik Andersson, has helped us greatly in other aspects." _I'm not going to suck up to you. I'm not going to offer you anything in exchange. If doing the right thing isn't good enough for you… That's why I'm doing this. I don't want him to say something stupid, which will make me want to pull out of this altogether. I don't want him asking the stupid fucking question of investigating his competitors who he thinks are bad guys. Rrrggh! Damn it! I knew this was going to happen if I came here today._ Zach frowned at the man and he continued in a lower voice, "Your assistance is saving innocent lives. Thank you."

Zach turned away from the man again. _It's not the meeting you wanted. I don't know what that meeting is. I'll have Rebel watching you closer now to make sure you don't suddenly betray us for me not acting as respectful as you were hoping for. You want me to tell you how great-_

"No. Thank you," Andersson said after Death had started walking away from him. Zach froze where he was, and the older man back behind him added, "Knowing that, is all I wish for. I do hope though, that I can gain your trust in the days to come." Zach glanced over his shoulder towards the old man who even his security guard was staring at in surprise now.

"I told you," Rebel started in Zach's ear. "He's a chill guy. Cut him some slack and show him something cool, kid."

Zach frowned so much deeper as he heard Rebel talking to him in a I-told-you-so tone, but he grimaced as he was judging the man behind him so harshly without giving him as much of a chance. _Because I already expected certain things. Shit. I should have expected, someone doing this with no profit to themselves other than having a more free world to trade around in… of course, he's a good guy. A solid guy. Ughhh! I'm so fucking tired. Screw it. I'll get it back when I sleep._ Zach nodded once more at Andersson, then he looked back forward and started walking away from the man.

Erik Andersson watched as that figure started leaving. Then his eyes opened up wide, and much wider still as one huge black wing turned into two breaking off of Death's back. "Wow," Andersson whispered, right before Death flew off to the back exit of the secret lab that he had come in from. The old man shook his head in awe, then he looked around the room before spinning and calling out, "Everyone back in here! Get this equipment packed and start on making more! We've got work to do people!"

* * *

 **A/N Thanks for reading! Recruitments, R &D, the City of Villains, smart bears in Siberia, Zach Tripping, dreams, corruption, Lavamander, Amaterasu, the Shadow Bosses... Zach's got a lot going on. Originally this chapter was going to contain like 5 more scenes too, but as I just hit around 20,000 words I think this was a great place to end it instead. I hope y'all enjoyed the chapter! Finally got 2 chapters out in 2 days again! Working on the next one as soon as I upload this so maybe another tomorrow... maybe! XD Leave a review telling me what you think of the chapter below, comments, questions, predictions... or if you think I should switch this story to an M rating. (I think I'm about to do that). I dislike how when you click on fanfic categories though it leaves out all the rated M ones, and I never added any explicit sex scenes in this either which were the two main reasons I kept it on T. Anyway, I do get that it can get pretty brutal though and with all the torture, gore, and MC deaths... probably should have done this a while ago. ;P **

Minipa chapter 119 . 21h ago

This story was like 600k words a couple months ago O_o  
Jesus Christ dude, you are an absolute beast.

 **Haha thanks! This winter break is going to be the last time I'm able to keep up my speedy update schedule for a while though as I finish up my last year of college. Going to try and keep pounding these out as fast as I can though! Hope you've enjoyed Death so far!**

Gamma-X chapter 119 . 19h ago

I need mah daily dose of Death! But chapters like these are great. Blackjack could be very helpful. Just don't turn him crazy for Zach like how Darling (almost forgot her name) did, just because he would care for them and give them a chance when no one ever would. We don't need a... Square? I mean, we already have a triangle with Momo, Zach and Darling.  
Also, really Keisei!? If he came back and was captured as Death, I doubt they would just put him in jail. They'd probably execute him. But if it was jail, he'd most likely be imprisoned for life despite what he's been doing was for the good of the world because no one else would do it. But then, we'd get to see heroes, civilians and maybe countries to crazy about his execution or imprisonment and then riot to have them let him go, which would definitely be great. And who tf spread the rumor that Infinity girl (Uraraka) was in a relationship with Zach!? EVERYONE KNOWS IT WAS MOMO DAMN IT!  
Will Bullsnake get a tongue replacement? Also, Bullsnake doesn't like a great name... Needs work. Maybe, Bulligator? (Sounds both hilarious and amazing! xD) Maybe even Dragonbull (sounds like Dragonball).  
I like this chapter a lot because we get to see the students of U.A. multiple times. So, when will Jirou FINALLY give Momo her damned FLL (Farewell Love Letter)? We need our fluffy porcupine damn it! ;-;  
Also, quite a few spelling mistakes in this chapter. Last questions; what argument did Midoriya and Uraraka have over Zach? A lover's quarrel? Did we see this happen? If not, WILL we see this happen?  
Overall, this chapter was AMAAAAZIIIINNNNNG~! Hope the next chapter comes out sooner.  
\- G.X

 **Glad you enjoyed! Blackjack comes back this chapter leading Seraphim and Mark through Wampajawa, the City of Villains. Surprised you got mad at that lawyer, though lawyers are often hated for these kind of things lol. The reporter was with you there. No comment on the next part though... I think the reporter knew what he was doing there as he called her out on having a relationship with Zach, great way to get her not to just say 'no comment' if he gives her something to deny first. Or maybe people just remember seeing a clip of Zach rolling Uraraka out of the way at the Sports Festival, if that was one of the recorded clips people saw. Bullsnake does get some cool voice box this chapter which we see when Alpha squad was down in South America heading after Bolivar. No more U.A. this chapter. Maybe we'll see about Midoriya and Uraraka again (we didn't see it already, just the thought about it but not an actual scene). If you see a bunch of spelling mistakes then put them in your review if you want, don't just say they're there or I can't go fix them. Next chapter did come out sooner, no break this time! Thanks for the review, and hope you enjoyed the new chapter!**

chadcalebt chapter 8 . 16h ago

Finally, a good book, with relatable, and realistic characters. Good job!

 **Thanks a ton! Glad you're enjoying it, and hope you catch up soon!**

lolmyster42 chapter 119 . 15h ago

Who ever said you can't fight the war on drugs with even more drugs?  
(Hey, on a serious note, you ever think of changing your story's rating to M? I'm not really a stickler for the rules, I break 'em all the time, but you literally had a man's head be blown away this chapter alone and a couple months ago you had a underground gorefest so bloody it'd make Toga blush. I'm not saying your story will be suddenly deleted one day because of a rating issue- let's face it, the mods here never enforce the rules to the point I'm not even sure they exist- but it's better to be safe than sorry. Just a concerned reader lookin' out for ya)

 **XD lol-ed at that first part. And I really hadn't thought about it for a while, but you're totally right. That Scotland chapter I thought for a moment, "maybe I should change this to M" then I countered with "I'll just keep it at a PG-13 level" and then I immediately forgot that second part and just wrote it without restraints XD. So yeah, I'm gonna change that to M now actually. Thanks for the review (and advice)!**


	121. Chapter 121

**A/N Notice: I changed the rating to M. Just a reminder, no particular reason I'm putting it here before this chapter...**

 **Disclaimer: I don't own Boku no Hero Academia**

* * *

 **Chapter 121:**

"Stop!" Zach yelled. He ran forward and slammed down on the top of Jughead's rifle that the man snapped up and aimed at the boy in front of him who was holding a smoking gun of his own.

Zach looked down in front of him, and he pulled his head back with his face scrunching up in pain at the sight of the muscular man's body on the sand at his feet. Then he looked up at the kid holding a smoking pistol that shook as he turned his gaze from the man on the floor to the dark figure with swords sticking over his shoulders behind his back. The kid got a terrified look on his face as he stared at that figure, and Zach figured the boy recognized him.

"He just killed Jackhammer!" Jughead yelled, screaming it at the side of Death's helmet. "For his second-

"We didn't come here to hurt the kids!" Zach yelled right back, and he ripped the gun out of Jughead's hands that the big man had kept holding when Death just pushed it down at first. He turned his head as he shouted it, and he glared around at the other dark figures nearby who all started aiming at the other army they were mixed in with in the desert of central Africa. "We came to stop people from recruiting them, and to free the ones already taken, and indoctrinated…" Zach turned back to the kid who looked no older than twelve and kept that pistol raised in his hand pointed at him.

Mark started yelling loudly everything Zach was saying, only in the native language of the children and fallen soldiers all around them. Most of the adults in the area were taken down, unconscious on the sand or even with bullet holes riddling them. Zach continued while his face scrunched up more in his helmet, "…forced to kill their own families, so that they'd think they could never go back." _Fuck this place. All the soldiers, everyone's just doing… they're doing such horrible things. How do they justify this? Just for, loyal soldiers?_ Zach stepped forward towards the young boy holding a shaking pistol, "It's not their faults. It's not your fault," he said it softer, and the boy in front of him pulled his own face back, before darting his eyes down to the dead man at Death's side again.

The kid started looking back and forth between Death and the dark soldier he had just shot in the face. Blood came out of the cracks in the dark visor and poured all over the sand, and the boy looking at that turned back to the other dark figure whose voice was so dark and ominous, yet sounded soft. He turned his head more to the dark figure who called out what he had just heard, only he could understand it this time. The boy's pistol shook more, and he started shaking his head at the taller figure in front of him who just stepped closer and held his left hand out more.

Zach extended his arm farther. _Please,_ he thought. "Please," he said aloud, and then he stepped closer and he wrapped his hand slowly around the top of the pistol he pushed down. Zach pulled the gun out of the boy's hands, and the kid dropped his arms down to his sides. Then Zach checked the safety and tossed the gun into the sand. He looked around at the rest of the African children and teens gathered around, and he nodded at them. Guns started dropping, each of the child soldiers tossing them down and then backing away from the scary dark army that was stopping them without them even fighting back anymore.

 _They lost their leaders. The ones who abducted them all. It couldn't have been too long ago for most of them. Stuff like this couldn't have happened for long. And it can't happen any longer. I won't- I won't let it. I have to solve these problems though. Where can they go? The villages they were abducted from wouldn't let them back, their families are… but I can't recruit them. Not a group like this. I won't just take their child soldiers and make them mine. Fuck! The complexity of… he killed Jackhammer. That little… victim. That's what he is. He's fucking crying. Right after killing- Damn it! DAMN IT!_

* * *

"Ahh haa ahh haa… Aahhhh," Zach sucked in as sharp a breath as he could. He leaned his body back and then lowered the sword he held in his right hand, dripping blood while dark wisps pulled off the back of it. He glared forward through his cracked black visor down the pier, and he stopped his panting while clenching his fists so much harder in front of him. His fingers dug into the hilt of his katana, and his left hand snapped down and whipped up his grappling gun he aimed and fired down the pier while starting his run down it.

Zach ran past the bodies laying to his sides without slowing. He even stepped right on one of the bodies in front of him, and he felt his heart lurch as it was a soldier in dark armor who he stepped on there. There was no time to focus on anything though. His mind was nearly blank, and he swerved in and out of the hail of gunfire that rained towards him. All the gunshots stopped at once, Zach's grappling gun was yanked out of his hand and the Death blown the other way off the weapon pulling away from him. He leapt up in the air and let the pull trying to yank his sword away tug him forward faster, pulling him with an extra burst of speed away from the spot a huge fourteen foot tall woman was dropping down from the sky on.

She smashed into the dock behind him, blowing apart the wood and splintering it in all directions. The water was already murky and full of trash off the pier, but more driftwood flew into the mix as the hulking pirate woman smashed apart the dock she landed on. She started running after where Death was getting pulled towards, and Zach started panting again though he released his sword and twisted his body in midair. _Not enough to hold on without a solid source,_ Zach reached under his armpits and grabbed a pair of knives, one with either hand. He surrounded the blades with stronger Death and then spun his body in a barrel-roll in midair, flicking the blades off while he was in a blur and not showing where he was aiming.

Dark trails shot away from Death's body. One of the men he fired at dove away, and then all the Death leapt off of that knife and attacked him in the shape of a hand that pushed into and through his back. The knife slammed into the charging woman behind him, but she just stumbled while reaching down and yanking the blade out. She tossed it to the side and let out a roar, and Zach hit down on the ground into a forward roll, then had to dive to the side to dodge a huge wooden post the woman behind him tried slamming down. **Bang bang bang** Zach sprung off the spot he landed and tried to dodge the gunfire he spotted the instant it was coming as his red eyes darted up inside his cracked visor.

The dark being leaping away from all the attacks was pushed onto the defensive. The red glow that had started coming out of his head after a hit earlier had made the Somalian pirates hesitate, but the large crew who ran the port city Death had arrived in were not running anywhere with all their ships already sabotaged by the attacking army. The crew was larger than Zach thought it had been though, with the pirates recruiting a lot of people in the town between when he learned about the place and when he finally attacked with one of his squads. He heard a shout in his helmet of pain, then it was cut off with a bloody slashing noise that had Zach biting down hard in his helmet.

 _Barely any Death remaining. I used Trigger ten hours ago. There's no way. I couldn't right now, and I've been getting so banged up I'm sure the vials are already smashed in my pouches._ Zach leapt up in the air and he threw his right hand forward, launching the Death Grenade at his enemies who he maneuvered in a way so that they were all to one side of him. He clenched his hand into a fist and started running forward at the same time. The darkness pulsed out and he saw it hit one of the pirates who had been in the middle of running the other direction and could not change his momentum that fast. He saw the big woman turn towards him after dodging, and she grinned big despite already being hit by some Death. _Where the hell is that backup?_ "How far out are-"

 _ **"EEEEEIIIII-"**_ Interference blasted in Zach's helmet so loud it felt like his eardrums just exploded. He grabbed his helmet and yanked it off while stumbling to the side, then he reached up and grabbed for his earpiece too. As he was reaching for it though, a bullet slammed into his right forearm through an already thin black veil. The bullet did not go straight through his arm thanks to the veil and his black body armor, but Zach realized that was probably even worse as he got a bullet lodged into his skin.

"Death!" Zach heard a scream right as he got shot, coming in over the interference on his earpiece. The skull-faced dark figure that stumbled backwards with blood splashing out of his right arm glared towards his enemies, and then past them towards the large dock-houses lining the pier. "They got me cornered! I'm hurt and I need-"

 _ **CHHH**_ Zach shook his head around in a fury and he knocked his own earpiece out. He glared back towards the boat-house he knew that voice had been coming from though. His eyes shifted down from that building and to the pirates in front of him. His black aura was thin around his armor making it start to look visible through the veil. That also meant there was very little shielding what his face really looked like right now, so there was just a skeletal skull with darkness seeping out around it and between the teeth, while red glows flared out the eye sockets. Death's true face had many of the villains looking his way pulling back in initial fright, and Zach used that as he started running forward without delay. _I'm coming!_

Inside one of the buildings that the pirates had been in control of, the pirates were taking back over and Darling was the only one of the three AoD who were in there that was still alive. Her black sleeves were ripped up from above her elbows and down, but her arms turned back to normal and she reached down for a discarded sword to pick up with them. She was feeling out of energy and starving, having shot too much ammo and nets from her arms that she was having trouble even forming weapons anymore with the amount of material she had available for use. _Any more and I'll start breaking apart my insides-_ Darling was about to grab the sword, when a tongue shot out and grabbed the blade out from in front of her.

She jumped backwards to dodge as the tongue tried slashing at her legs with the cutlass, but then Darling started turning her head as she heard the thud behind her. She tried bringing up her arms to cross, but the man saw her trying and lowered his punch down a bit, hitting below her arms on her left side and crushing into her ribs with the blow. "AHhh-" Darling hit the floor and started rolling, then she put her hands down and tried pushing herself up only to scream out again and drop to her elbows. When she was rolling, her helmet cracked more and her voice that had been coming out deep and modulated came out in a much higher-pitched voice.

The eight foot tall brute who just hit her and was running across the floor slowed down. An aardvark-looking pirate curled his thin tongue back in and reached a hand out to grab the cutlass by the hilt, then he licked his tongue along the blade while walking towards the dark figure down on her knees and elbows. Darling coughed and through squinted vision she could see her blood hitting the cracking visor of her helmet. "Death," she said through a raspy voice. "Death? De-" Darling's eyes opened wide as she got slammed in the side by a kick that took all the breath out of her lungs again.

The kick flipped Darling over and onto her back. Darling hit the back of her head and clenched her eyes shut in pain for a second, then she slowly started opening them back up. Her eyes opened and everything seemed to slow down for her. The world slowed and Darling's eyes darted around through her cracked, bloody, dark visor. _What am I doing here? Oh my God. Zach! Why isn't he responding? Is he okay? Am I okay? I can't move. Oh my God. They're looking at me like that! I can't get up!_ Darling started panting, and her hands opened up on the floor at her sides and started pushing her backwards, and she saw the smirks on those men's faces rise up all the more. "Dea-ath!" she called out, her voice rasping and blood trickling out the left corner of her lip as she tried yelling louder. _Why am I in Africa? I'm fighting pirates! This is insane!_ Darling started rolling herself over, and she dragged herself back up to her elbows only for a hand to grab her by an ankle and yank her backwards, dragging her across the floor.

"Where do you think you're going?"

"That was a nice voice I just heard. I've always wondered what's under those Death costumes. Let's rip that word off her back, and see how scary she is then."

"ZACH!"

Zach had just hit the ground out on the pier, feeling a bullet digging into the back of his right leg, just behind his knee. He hit the ground hard and rolled upon his heavy landing. Then he snapped his head up and his red eyes flared brightly with dark black swirls in the middles of them, even though the rest of his body barely had any Death surrounding it. His Nightmare form was drained, and Zach was panting out heavy breaths of black steam that hung around his skull of a face. All sound around him drowned out, and his blurry red vision focused on the building ahead of him.

"We're gonna do it!"

"We've got Death to his knees!"

"Kakakaka! There he goes boys!" A pirate captain with dark brown skin and an eyepatch over his right eye stomped forward between two of his buildings. He was fifty feet tall and looked like a monstrous man with his hairy chest, huge sword that grew with his body, and the scars covering his arms and legs. The hardened pirate leader roared, "Let's cash in that bounty! Alive is more, but don't take any chances. Take him down!"

 _Zach!_ Darling heard that shout outside, and she turned her head towards a wall near her with a panicked look in her eyes. _They're killing him!_ "Get off me!" Darling leaned back and started transforming her arms into rifles. A foot slammed down on her right arm while it was vibrating, and Darling opened her mouth to shriek in pain, "EEAAHH!" Her other arm stopped transforming too even though it was not broken like her right, but the girl could not focus as she needed to with Toolbody in order to transform.

After breaking her arm, the man who stomped on it reached down and his hands grabbed the top of Darling's body. She was on her back again, and she swung her left arm in to try and bat his arm away, at the same time she started kicking her legs to get the two men away from her lower half. "GET off- Get away! Death-" The big man grabbing at her breasts reached a hand up as she smacked it, and he grabbed her helmet that he ripped right off before grinning twice as wide.

The other two opened their eyes wide then smirked at the sight of that young pretty face too. Darling glared at them and then snapped her mouth open to show her tongue sticking out with a hole in the middle of it. A spike shot out of her tongue and at the anteater-Quirk man on her right leg, and he pulled his head away but still got slashed across his right cheek from the spike. The big man who ripped off Darling's helmet swung the helmet around and nailed the girl in the side of the head with it. Blood splashed out of a gash that tore in Darling's left cheek from the broken glass on her visor, and her head slammed into the ground hard disorienting everything for her.

"Flip her over!"

"I'll take her from behind first!"

Darling's blurry vision focused a bit as she heard that, her face once again covering in terror. She opened her mouth to scream, but she was flipped over and then smashed in the back so hard by something that she felt her lungs contracting. Her uniform was getting ripped through on her back, and her pants were quick to go too. "Ahhhmmmm-" Darling started yelling and then it turned muffled as the big man pressing down on her moved a foot to the back of her head and pressed harder down there.

One of the two men yanking down Darling's pants snapped his head up and then jumped backwards fast. Two small cannons appeared in the middle of each of the girl's butt-cheeks, but the other man back there did not jump back like his comrade. Instead he grabbed her by her ass and pushed each cheek in opposite directions, pointing the barrels away right as they fired. Then he slammed an elbow down on her lower back and Darling let out another muffled scream, and then the man took his other arm that he was not using for his elbow into her back and he reached it forward between her legs.

"Crazy bitch!" The other who jumped back shouted, and he started forward while reaching for his own belt. "But that's just my type."

"They kill Death out there yet?! Fucker thought he could come to our base?!"

"He's already long dead! Let's fuck the bitch and send her to him!"

Darling heard belt buckles clinking behind her and she struggled as hard as she could down on her stomach. _AHHHHH!_ "MMMMNNNN-" Darling bit down hard and pushed her head up even harder to gasp out a breath as she was being slammed too hard into the floor that she could not breath. "Aaaahhh," she sucked in the biggest breath of her life as the man standing on her head pulled his foot away for a second to let her breath. Then Darling opened her mouth even wider with blood trickling out the corners and tears streaming down her face. "HELP ME-"

"AHHH!" the man standing on Darling let out a scream and stumbled away from the girl he had been standing on. Two other men's screams rang out at the same time, and Darling gasped out as she felt the hands pull away from between her legs. She panted there and started turning her head, and she rolled over onto her back while her eyes bulged wider and wider. She stared above her and at the dark figure on all fours right over her, a black sword in his right hand covered in blood. The sword's point was resting down on the ground like that figure could not hold the sword up any longer, yet it had been slashed up so hard that an arm was still rising up into the air above them and only started its arc back down when Darling flipped over.

"That fucking-" the anteater man who stumbled back started shouting. He lifted up his right arm that was gone below the elbow which he was grabbing with his other hand, and he bit down to stop screaming before glaring towards the dark, bloody, nearly dead monster with a look of sheer rage in his eyes. "HE TOOK MY ARM!"

"Kill him!"

"Death went in here!"

Zach was down on his hands and feet, each appendage spread out to his sides so he made a tent over Darling's body below him. His red eyes darted to the right, left, up in the air, and down at the girl below him. Darkness swirled around different parts of his body, mainly his feet, his hands, and around his skull-face. There was none on his back covering the dark uniform that had several gashes in it, nor on the backs of his legs where there was a second bullet hole on his right leg now. Zach could barely hold his right arm up while pressing his left fist so hard into the ground on his side that it was trembling, as was his entire arm and the rest of his body. Darkness swirled onto the blade in his right though, abandoning his fingertips and covering the blade in much more darkness.

Zach whipped his right arm straight up, towards a window that just broke and where a hand started reaching in. A sword covered in Death stuck into the palm that opened up to block it, then Zach snapped forward and up onto both feet while reaching his right hand up. He grabbed the arm that was coming down out of the air and swung it to his side, smacking the big man two arm-lengths away on his right under his jaw with his comrade's fist. Zach flicked a knife in his left hand while spinning to his right, hitting the other man who had leapt away with the anteater guy whose Quirk Zach understood a second later. The one-armed man's tongue shot out towards him, and Zach rose his left arm in the way of the tongue. He did not just block with his left though, but he curled his fingers around that tongue and then yanked towards him before the villain with blood spurting out of his arm even realized what was happening.

Darkness on both of Zach's arms and his face moved to his left shoulder, elbow, and wrist. Zach yanked backwards with such a powerful force he tugged the villain all the way across the room and over the top of Zach's head. He slammed that man into a villain who came in behind Death through a hole in the wall Zach had smashed on his way to Darling. Zach tossed the arm he was still holding into the big villain who was ready for it this time and caught it expecting to be catching Death's weapon. Zach released the arm though when he swung it, and all the villain had was an arm in his hands that majorly blocked his vision so that by the time he lowered it, Death had vanished from in front of him. Zach rose up behind that confused big villain and he jammed a knife down into the left side of the man's throat, and then he drop-kicked the man in the back as the pirate reached up for the knife lodged in his neck.

Zach hit his back and then kicked his legs up, and he let out a low grunt as kicking his right like that made him feel excruciating pain. He was used to pain though. Zach flipped up in the air and spun, landing down on his left leg while his right buckled below him. He dropped to the floor, while a giant outside slammed into the ground and slumped into the building he had been reaching in, smashing through the wall on Zach's right and breaking apart the entire building on that side. Zach had faced the two villains behind him getting up from when he threw one over his head, but he darted to his right and grabbed Darling who he picked up with his left arm while pulling another knife off his costume with his bloody right hand. Zach started running while tossing Darling up over one shoulder, and debris fell around him, bullets flew his direction, and then a huge crash hit behind him that sent rubble smashing into his back.

Zach tried pulling Darling in front of him to grab, but he did not have a great grip with only one arm, and his right lost its grip on the new knife he had drawn just a few seconds ago. Zach hit the ground and rolled, and then he scrambled up onto painful arms and legs and bear-crawled over towards the body of the girl he saw sliding away from him. Darling turned her head and watched as he barreled towards her on all fours, his eyes flashing red and then getting dimmer for a second before pulsing with that color again. Zach saw someone else realizing that the building's collapse was not complete or going to finish, and the woman in the middle of running on the other side of Darling turned in and ran the other way towards a Death who she saw looked on the verge of death himself. "You're mine!"

 **"RRAAAA!"** Zach roared, his eyes flaring red, his speed picking up, his voice getting scratchier and more ominous than ever. Darkness flared out around his red eyes, and out his skull jaw that opened wide and stayed open to let that dark steam come out. Zach jumped up over Darling, and he reached to his side and grabbed a wooden plank that had stuck in the ground near him during the wall collapse. He ripped it out and swung it around at the woman who hesitated for too long after hearing that menacing roar. Zach slammed the wooden plank into the side of her head so hard that her neck spun around, wood splintering apart around her as he snapped her neck. He hit down on his feet and tried to land it but his legs collapsed under him and Zach dropped into a sloppy roll instead.

He came out of his roll with his right hand reaching forward and catching the sword that the woman just dropped by its blade. He turned and threw the blade back behind him, and his aim was so accurate that the tongue shooting out at him got split down the middle all the way back to the face of the man slapping it out at him. The man next to that pirate turned inwards with his eyes bulging and his jaw dropped as the sword split his comrade's face in half. As he looked that way in shock though, he saw five other pirates running into the room and he turned back towards Death looking enraged. All the others ran in towards Death too, and more came in on Death's other side near the woman whose neck he just snapped.

Zach moved back over towards Darling who was trying hard to push herself up to help him. A shadow fell over her and she opened her eyes huge again, and she snapped her head up to see the bottom of Zach's chin right above her as he covered her with his entire body. His teeth bared and his eyes glowed a dim red towards the enemies on one side, and then he turned his head sideways a bit and looked behind him to see the others he heard shouting behind him. The pirates attacked-

"Gentle Dome."

"Excalibur!"

"You mother fuckers!"

"Get away from Death!"

"Death!"

"Darling! What did they-"

"KILL THEM!"

"Someone get me Curalia-"

"Heal, me, quickly… I need to, revive the…"

* * *

Zach's eyes opened up. He snapped them open and darted them already red to his right and left. The boy in all black armor reached for his helmet while getting off of the seat he had fallen asleep in sitting up. "Everyone-" _**CRANK-**_ **BOOOM!**

The wall of the truck on Zach's right ripped apart inwards. All the steel shredded, a few other soldiers in the back dove to the sides as they had just gotten in full panic mode already at Death's shout. The driver spun the wheel to try and steady but the force of getting slammed that hard made it impossible to control the vehicle, especially traveling over sand as they were. The truck started to flip as an explosion went off on the opposite wall as the projectile smashed through. The hook that made an explosion on contact with the second wall opened up with three sharp prongs that slammed into the base of the vehicle and yanked backwards right as it started flipping the other way.

Zach was thrown out of the vehicle with his face scrunching up in pain and his helmet flying from his grasp. _Shit!_ He had no communications to call in to anyone else to come help him. He did not know who in that truck he was flying out of was still alive, but he tried to get a grip as he shot through the air after getting launched from the truck. _Wait,_ he realized, as he noticed he was flying way too fast from the vehicle he did not even know how he got smashed out of in the first place. Zach swung his right arm around him, and he stopped moving so fast as he felt something let go of his back that was pushing him through the air.

As he swung his arm, Zach winced and felt a wrapped wound under his bandage scream out in pain. He was coming down for the ground, and despite it being soft sand in the empty desert that was around him, Zach favored his left leg for the hard landing he saw coming. As he was about to land down though, the spot he was being dropped in started to change color. The ground turned green and slimy-looking, and Zach's eyes opened wide as he saw a dozen figures popping out of the sand around him. Half of them were carrying strange weapons with hooks on the ends of them, but one in particular had Zach's attention as his red eyes darted towards that woman in a sand-colored robe.

Zach started moving his right hand towards his chest despite the pain his arm was in. He lowered his legs to try and land even on that slimy green surface, but two green arms reached up from the ground before he hit down and caught him off guard. They smashed him down into the green surface that stuck him to the floor, and stuck his right arm away from his body as it had tugged away during that yank. Zach strained his body hard to pull to the right while yanking his right arm in the other direction, and he was stretching the green substance below him sticking him down to the point that he had almost touched his hand to his body. Then three people dove on top of him, and the woman in the sand-colored robe grabbed him by the right arm and slammed down a black steel box that she started attaching to him.

"Hey! HEY!" Zach yelled.

"Scizor, cut the slime," one of the men who had dove on Zach started, as he did not have a great hold being stuck himself to parts of the desert.

The green surface below Zach faded and returned the ground to being sand. Zach reached down for a knife with his left arm, but another figure grabbed him by that arm, and then two men fired hooks over his legs that slammed down into the sand and tightened ropes against the his calves and hamstrings. A heavier man pressed down on Zach's lower back while someone yanked up on his head, and Zach was panting as the man in front of him held him by the chin and looked him in the eyes. "Hello there, Zach Sazaki." The light-skinned man was alone in that appearance surrounded by the black and Arabian men and women around him. He had a Russian accent, and a diagonal scar over his face that Zach tilted his head at the sight of before lifting his eyebrows.

"Did I do that?" Zach asked the man whose smirk twitched and his teeth snarled behind it. "How long ago was that now? When we passed through Russia right after Mongoloid? Damn, do you hold a grudge."

The man he was talking to slammed a fist forward and socked Zach in the face. Zach's head snapped to the right, then he slowly pulled it back to look at the man who eased back at that look in Sazaki's eyes. He darted his eyes around behind the boy and to his sides at the five people he had holding him down, but he still shot his eyes to the side and nodded at someone with an annoyed look. That guy he nodded at started running off to get their transport, then the Russian turned back to the boy in front of him and snarled, "I figured out who you were, Death. And I know everything about-"

Black spikes shot out of Zach's back in three different locations. A spike pulsed out of his right elbow and his left, piercing the two pulling his arms away too. Black flames shot down the ropes over his legs and made the men holding the grappling guns tight to hold him down throw them aside in panic. "You really think, I haven't figured out a way to activate it without my right hand?" Zach stood up in front of the man frozen still before him with his eyes shaking and huge. Those trembling eyes stared into the flaring red ones of the boy whose face slowly turned to bone and covered in a black flaring aura that burst out around his body. Five villains fell unconscious around him and Zach never looked at any of them as he did it. He just glared into the Russian's eyes and growled, "You really think I haven't mastered this power in the nonstop fighting I've been in?" Zach slammed his right fist forward and ignored the pain in his forearm. He smashed his black fist into the villain's face and crunched his nose, broke his teeth, and sent the man flying backwards unconscious over the sand.

 _He was reaching for his right as a-_

 _He knew we-_

 _Oh fuck!_

Zach shot towards the man who tried running first. He did not need that guy getting farther away from this area. Half of the others who were still trying to fight him froze as they knew why it was Death would go for that man first, and they all felt their own urges to run skyrocket. Death turned his head though and reached down, pulling out a couple of blades that he flicked around in his dark hands. He faced the eight figures ahead of him scattered around the sand who were using their Quirks and trying to hide the fear on their expressions. He thought back on who was in the truck with him, taking him to his next location while he rested because he had been so exhausted. "Death has come for you. RAAAA!" Zach shot forward after roaring that in a deep, scratchy, overlapping voice.

 _Using Nightmare to a point where I couldn't have anymore wrapped around my body. Using it until I thought I had drained myself, to where there was only enough to cover individual parts of my body… and with Nightmare_ _ **only**_ _on some parts and not all, I remembered the tingling sensation different from the normal one. Feeling it only around my feet, or my hands… my eyes. And that feeling I get while killing inside Nightmare, or just killing at all, I can focus on that feeling outside of Nightmare, and I can enter this form through willpower alone._ "You think, I'm so weak?! That it would only take _this_ many to stop ME?!" Zach swung his right arm and a Death Wind that flew off it expanded twice its size and then four times that size to expand and catch the villains who had thought they'd dodged it. Zach's head had already spun to the next enemies though, because he knew he had taken those two down without even watching them fall.

"Death!" Zach heard a shout behind him, and he grinned behind his dark veil at the sound of the voice of one of the people from his truck. At the next thing they shouted his teeth bared in fury though, his eyes narrowing in rage at the three villains who still thought they could run after all of that. _I have to save some Death now, but I still have more than enough for you!_ Zach sped after the villain on the left of the three running off, and he slammed his foot into the man's back and then curved his leg to smash him hard into the sand. A crater blew apart under the man's body and blew sand away in all directions in a wave. The villain on Zach's right looked in at that wave in terror, then he started spinning off-balance and falling with a scream as a dark form flew out of that wall with hands reaching out for him.

The screaming man tried fighting back, using his Quirk at the last second to protrude a long sharp horn from the center of his head out at Death. Death just spun around in the air though, his body twisting and dodging the horn with a bit more Death pushed out on the side he was moving away from. That horn stuck through the Death Zach forced there, and it was already enough to make the man's eyes start closing that Zach knew he did not need to hit him with more Death to knock him out. So Zach pulled the Nightmare aura down and up his right leg starting at his knee, removing all the darkness from that knee. Zach still smashed his knee into the man's dazed face and finished the job of knocking him out before Death had the chance to.

Zach hit the ground and rolled forward with his teeth clenched in pain. _Why the right knee? That was stupid. Fuck._ Zach slowly staggered back up to his feet, though he felt a huge amount of pain in his right leg where a couple of injuries just opened up. _I need to meet up with Curalia again when I get to Sudan. Try Miraculu again too if she's ready. I can't have injuries slowing me down. I need to move faster._ Zach started running after the last member of the group who just tried capturing him. _Bounty's higher if they take me alive, and that overconfident fucker really thought he could get it. If it was the old me, he might've. Even the me from back when we fought in Russia. I remember cutting his face in the fight, and not finding that face after the battle when we rounded up all the villains. Another loose end finally, tied up._ Zach aimed his left hand in front of him, pointing his index and middle fingers out at the guy he was not going to chase any farther.

His eyes focused on his right hand for a second. Zach thought about how he had just pulled Nightmare away from his knee to attack with, but he frowned a bit while looking at that right hand. _Why is it only insta-kill in my right hand? I lied. I still don't understand it completely. I can't attack with that hand without Death on it, or it kills… but I may be able to change that one day too. Spread insta-Death out over my whole body if I need to, or focus it so intensely into a single other spot that no one can touch it the same as my right hand… or maybe even focus that power into my own body so that I could use my right hand outside of a glove._ Zach flicked his left hand back and fired a thick ball of darkness that thinned out the farther it got from his fingers. Zach tilted his head left, right, and then pushed it forward and made the blast thin out into a sharp line that shot away and pierced into the retreating villain's back.

"Death! Are you alright? The others, they're all-"

"I'll go revive them now," Zach started, turning his head and facing the driver of the vehicle who had survived the rough crash like him. Death faded off of his body without him touching his chest or head, leaving him only in his armor again and without a helmet. He continued to the woman in front of him who he started jogging towards, "Call in a new transport, and let Raylei know we need some cooperative heroes to get here and arrest this gang of villains…"

* * *

In a large town in Rakat, a southern African country close to the east coast but without any ocean borders, Zach Sazaki darted through an alleyway between two adobe buildings. He was panting and had his left arm pulled back inside the sleeve of the robe he had thrown on. He had that arm held close to his chest inside his robe, hiding the bloody wound on it as he sprinted around a town full of smoke. The town was too big that the other forces around it couldn't close everywhere off and watch over the entire town, but it was not large enough that the _entire_ town could not be in complete panic over the battle going on.

Zach had a dirty robe he had pulled off a laundry rack outside of someone's window while he ran through the town. His helmet was gone, discarded somewhere with his uniform that he believed only he would be able to find at a later date. He was panting hard and he had to lean against the side of one of the building's walls as he rested for a moment. _This is fucking out of control,_ Zach thought, shaking his head and opening back up his eyes. He looked out of the alley and into a sand road through a marketplace, and he stepped out and started running with a group of people he saw escaping in one direction down the road.

 _ **KA-**_ **BOOOOM!** Zach skid to a stop and stared ahead of him with his jaw dropped just like the other people around him. He crossed his arms and pushed forward, his eyes huge but glaring forward towards the explosion he saw deeper into the town. Some of the men around him tried crossing their arms too but they stumbled back and fell, while most people just turned and scattered off to the sides of the road. Zach lowered his right arm from in front of his body and dropped his left under his robe. His right hand still had a black glove on it, which was the only part of his costume that he still had as he even took off his black combat boots to trade for a pair of inconspicuous sandals.

Zach started running when the hot wind stopped pushing into him. He cut right at the next road though instead of running farther towards that blast, but then he had to cut right again fast back the direction he had come from to avoid the black cloud of ash and smoke he saw billowing out of another street. As he ran through a narrow path between some houses, he saw a door opening out towards him. A man pushed the door open and Zach saw a woman holding two kids back farther in the building. He reached out and grabbed the opening door, and he shouted, "Stay inside!" Zach slammed the door shut and then kept running, and he started coughing as the black smoke engulfed him a second later.

He got low and kept running through the path, then he darted around behind the side of a building that smoke was rushing past but not really wrapping around yet. Zach took in a deep breath and then lifted up the collar of his robe and held it just over his nose as he booked it back into the smoke. "Over there!" Zach heard a voice yell above his head, and he ducked down and crawled under a cart pressed up against the wall in the passageway he had just ran into. He looked up and watched as all the smoke in the path got sucked high into the air and dispersed into the sky above, allowing him to see a group of five heroes flying around up there and moving together in the same direction as the explosion.

The heroes did not look to be from Rakat, which did not surprise Zach in the least. He rolled out from under the cart as he saw people running in the road at the end of this alley again. "Everyone this way! We're evacuating the town!"

"Full evacuation is in effect!"

 _ **BWwwwooOOOOOPP**_ Zach ran out onto the street right as a red flash of light covered the sky to go with that siren. Doors opened on the sides of the road where people were hiding in buildings, and the streets became flooded in citizens trying to escape the town.

Zach wanted to help the people around him. He looked to his right and saw a little girl fall, but as he stopped he saw a man reach down and pick the girl up before running with her. He spun his head around and looked at all the panicking people running the same way, then he looked back over his shoulder and glared towards the other side of town. He glared in the direction of the rising flames and black smoke lifting above all the buildings, and he tried to get a serious look on his face despite how hard he was panting. His chest heaved and his legs felt heavy, reminding the young man on the verge of running back that he had to go.

Zach turned back forward and kept running again. _That's why I took off my uniform. I have no power. Trigger wiped me, and I went even farther after it wore off. Remember that! I just have to slip away,_ Zach kept running with the crowd, but he darted over into an alley where people were running the other way. He saw some cops up ahead along with heroes making a perimeter, and he ran to the side before freezing and spinning back out as he heard a scream of panic. The people rushing one way on the street stopped if they saw it, while others kept running that way. The groups sprinted into each other as they ran from different things, and Zach heard an explosion back over near that perimeter line he had just seen. _Damn it!_ He shouted at himself while taking a step back towards the street, and he had to turn and run to avoid the horde of people who turned his way and started sprinting to get off the street altogether.

The Japanese teenager booked his way down alleys and around buildings through the town of Kwunkai. He reached down to his waist and pulled a grappling gun out from his waistband that was hidden by the robe he had stolen. He aimed up when he was getting too crowded by people, and he rose himself over their heads and up onto a roof of a building. _Too exposed!_ He thought in panic, looking around and seeing too many flying people in the area to stay up there. _I told the others to scatter and meet back at the rendezvous when things got too hectic. Too many heroes and villains here, this place is going to turn into an international incident soon that the whole world's focus is going to be on. Shit. I didn't think so many heroes would come. That's a good thing though._

Zach dropped into a yard more secluded than others that was hard to reach from normal roads and not on a clear path out of there. He dropped to the ground and then fell to his elbows and knees as even a landing from a second floor roof was too much at the moment. He started coughing and he had to spit on the floor as he wheezed out again and again. _Africa… is in a hell of a state, ever since the Combined Hero Assault Force got fucked._ Zach ground his teeth and started pushing himself back up to his feet. _In a single week since most of the continent's best heroes got wiped out in that trap, the villains are already running rampant. Fighting organized villain gangs, drug lords, it was all so much easier than this chaos. Pirates and slavers and… and so many fucking bombs. I have to find who's making these things. Before they get any larger. Before, more heroes get wiped in another huge explosion. Before, towns like this aren't already in mid-evacuation when…_ _ **Boooom**_

The boy turned his head to the right at the sound of a blast sounding smaller than the previous one and from farther away. He grimaced though and then shook his head while spinning back forward. _I have to get out of here. The heroes have this. Heroes from other continents and up from North Africa came to assist. In countries where crime has gone down. Places where heroes have the ability to leave their countries again, because the rest of the world is doing better than Africa right now! It wasn't all for nothing! This isn't the state of the whole world! The fact that other heroes are here means they have relative peace- I need to run!_

Zach stumbled forward and he reached his left hand out to grab a wall for balance. He pulled himself closer to the wall and looked down it as he saw a man running out of a different path and start spinning his head around like he was looking for something. Zach took in a few deep breaths, then he looked over his shoulder and back towards a rising cloud of black smoke where he saw a couple of foreign heroes flying over again. _Rakat didn't have the power to defend from this attack. Too many of their heroes were in the CHAF, but they don't need us anymore. Not right now._

Zach turned back forward and started moving again. He moved for an open space where he could find another way through, and he saw the man who had started jogging one way turn back and look towards that robed figure who was facing the other way when he had looked over before. The man stopped and stared back at him, his eyes opening wide at the sight of the teenager's face. Zach pretended not to see that look and he kept moving for the end of the alley, avoiding the man's gaze and then turning left to head down a different path.

"Hey! Not that way!" The man called out, and Zach turned towards the guy who motioned with his head in a different direction.

Zach frowned but then looked back the way he was going to see a horde of people running around through that alley, including heroes who were yelling at them all to give them a safe direction to run. He turned towards the man and nodded before running after him as the guy had not waited to see if he would follow and just started heading away himself. Zach jogged after him slowly, wanting to let the man get away from him. _Does he recognize me? Fuck. Hiding my face will make me look too suspicious in a city full of so many villains, make heroes come check me, and they'll recognize me for sure. I need to just keep my head down-_

The man ahead of Zach turned his head for a second and looked back towards him. Zach's heart fell as he saw the man's face. The recognition he thought he saw before was what he was expecting to still see when the man turned his head, but instead Zach saw a smirk that made his entire body tense. _Was I what he was look-_ **Ka-Dunk** Zach felt a sting in the back of his head, but he never felt the ground he slammed into a second later.

* * *

Zach lay on his back with his hands up over his body, pressing them into the face of the three hundred pound man lying on top of him. Zach pushed the man's face away, finding it hard to breathe but pushing all his strength up into his arms. He had his black glove over his right hand, but the shirtless boy covered in scars had no weapons on him to attack the man with. The bloodthirsty brute pushing down on him had a rabid look in his eyes, and the man pressed his body weight down while reaching around for Zach's face that the boy kept protecting with smacks of his arms.

Zach pushed the man's left arm away, then he shot his left hand up through the gap and shoved two fingers into the fat man's right eye. The man screamed and pulled his body back to get those fingers out of his eyes, but Zach leaned up as he leaned back to just shove them farther. He slid his body out from beneath the man as the guy reared up enough that Zach could get out, then Zach heard a shout of panic behind him. "Wait! Wait WAIT-" He heard the sound of a sword cutting through flesh and darted a glance behind him to see a man falling to the floor with a sword half-lodged in his neck. The man who had tried cutting his head off all the way started tugging back the other direction, while darting his eyes over to the teenager who glared towards him.

"Kill him!"

"Finish him off!"

Zach slammed his right fist into the fat man's face as the guy started raising his arms to attack him with. Zach knocked the man backwards onto his back, then he started running forward only for the big man to reach out a hand and catch him by the ankle. "Ahk kana un un YA!" The man dragged Zach backwards as he tried scrambling away fast to pull his feet away, but the larger man was stronger and yanked back with one hard jolt to flip the younger man over and above him.

The big man reached up and grabbed around Zach's neck, sliding his hands up so they were just under his chin and squeezing tightly. When Zach's leg came free from the man's grip though, he slammed it down once hard into the man's gut, then he brought it back and slammed down again. Then he reached his right hand up and slammed a fist into the side of his temple, before doing it again and again with powerful blows that made the heavyset man's arms start losing force into his strangling. Zach stomped down again into the man's gut, then he scrambled forward right over the man's dizzy face and he fell to his hands and knees in the sandy arena. Where he fell there was a knife on the floor, and his right hand slid over on top of it and wrapped around the hilt right as his head snapped up. Zach pushed himself up harder, getting to one leg and then the other slowly while glaring ahead of him at a man holding a sword in his hand yet hesitating back near the circular wall enclosing them.

Zach was panting, wheezing from that choke that started making the corners of his vision blurry. He took a step forward, then he felt the blade hitting his back. He started pulling his body to the side, but the blade pierced into his back on the lower right side and ripped straight through his front with a sickening sklurch. "Gah!" Zach leaned his head back, gasping out in pain as blood splashed out the front of his body. His vision started shaking and he gasped again, unable to breathe in but only out as the sword through his back dug even farther. He could feel the cold steel of the top of the hilt pressing into his back on the sides of the horizontal wound cutting through him. His vision started shaking more, getting even blurrier as everything around him felt like it was in an earthquake.

Then his left hand snapped in front of his body and he grabbed the blade by it. His teeth ground in fury and he started roaring as the steel cut through his palm and fingers. His eyes darted to the side, and he snapped his head sideways while bringing his right hand around in a wide motion around his body. The man at his back was too close to him to pull away, pressing the hilt directly into Zach's skin so the blade was all the way through him. Zach could feel it digging into him more as he spun his body like that, dragging the man's hands with his body for a second before the guy let go to try and pull back. Zach was faster than his retreat though, and he slammed his knife into the man's throat just above the steel collar around his neck. Zach's knife was eight inches long, and he dug it into the shirtless man behind him's neck all the way to the hilt in his hand. Blood poured out of that hole and all over Zach's right hand as he started pulling the blade out, and he had to stop as the blood spurted out and onto his arm below his glove and dripped off him.

 _ **Sllasshh**_ Zach stumbled into the man he had spun towards and had just reached out to hold with his left hand. He knocked the man back a bit and reached his left hand out to catch him, while stopping his blade from sliding fully out of the terrified man's neck too. Blood still splashed out so much faster from that wound and Zach saw the man's eyes going dim as he held him there, the fear fading from his face. Zach focused on that look instead of the pain he felt from his right shoulder all the way to the left side of his waist down across his back. He felt warm liquid pouring down his back from that diagonal gash that just ripped through him, and his vision started to fade once more. It was already so red and shaky, but his teeth bared in fury once more as he stared through that haze and above the circular walls around him. Zach's right foot was tripping forward after the man who just fell backwards in front of him, then he slammed that foot down hard on the sand.

Zach stomped down and spun his body around with his right hand ripping the knife out of the falling man's neck with everything he had. The man behind him he slashed at pulled back far, a panicked and terrified look in his eyes. He had not cut any deeper into Zach's back because he was afraid of getting any closer in the first place, even having run in from directly behind the black haired boy. That teen had scars all over his body though, a sword through him, and he had just killed the only other person left in there other than him. Zach slashed his knife far though, extending his arm to its full reach, and the cautious man behind him with a terrified look on his face dropped the bloody blade he had started raising again. Zach saw more than his own blood on there, and he saw the big man who he had left laying on the ground not far away had a huge vertical gash through his chest. Zach's eyes barely focused on that big man for a moment though, as he had to squint those eyes an instant later from the blood shower that came out of the slit in the other man's throat just above his collar.

The guy reached both his hands up to try and hold his neck shut, but blood spurted between his fingers and still all over Zach who the guy started stumbling towards without any balance. The man fell forward and then down to the floor at Zach's feet where he was twitching while a blood puddle spread around him. Zach started slouching, and he collapsed to his knees with that sword still stuck through his back but sliding out as he leaned backwards upon hitting the floor. The shirtless teen was covered in blood both his own and of his opponents. He knelt there panting and slow for breath, his vision hazy as he turned his head and looked around the arena's stands where dozens of people just stood up and started cheering.

Then Zach's eyes focused on a seat up near the top of the stands around the arena. His vision got darker in the corners of his vision but his eyes narrowed and actually made the man he looked towards come into focus. Zach glared at the Nigerian man in a golden cloak, covered in fine jewelry and laughing loudly with the others around him. He swung an arm out to the side and called out louder than all the people cheering in the bleachers, "Hand over your bets, if you were foolish enough to bet against him! And let's hear it for the winner of the match, and still reigning champion of The Pit: LIFEBRINGER!"

Zach's head started to bow and everything was going dark around him. _Darling, Gentle, La Brava, Mark… everyone. Please. Find me._

* * *

 _Owww…_ Zach stirred. His eyes scrunched up for a moment, then he started opening them. He squinted and white light pushed through his eyelids that was much too bright. He was laying on his back and his body was flat on the bed with his arms and legs not moving an inch. Zach opened his eyes more as they adjusted to the light, then he started breathing to keep himself calm. He recognized the ceiling above him. His eyes scanned down his body that was wrapped up with white bandages covering countless injuries until the blanket started down near his waist. He turned his head and he recognized the girl sitting on the side of his bed. He felt the weight of her head down on the mattress just to his side, and on that side he could feel the bed was wet from tears. Zach's eyes widened at the sight of the brown hair there, then he said in a soft voice, "Darling."

Darling lifted her head up and her eyes grew huge immediately after waking. She pursed her lips with tears in the corners of her eyes that Zach did not know if they just formed or if they had been there while she was sleeping which was why the bed was wet under her face. Her lips trembled as she got up, and she leaned forward like she wanted to hug him but she darted her eyes around his body and held herself back as hard as she could. "I was so scared," she began, her voice cracking. "It looked so bad, during the operation for a minute. Your heart-" she bit down on her shaking bottom lip and then leaned her face down in front of his. "Stop being so reckless, please-"

"How long has it been?" Zach asked. _I can't just be laying here. I wasted too much time already. I'm giving them too much time to prepare, to recover from their losses, to recruit…_ "Darling, get Curalia," Zach said, using a stronger voice this time with the girl who had just pursed her lips at the first question. "I need to get back out there so no one else dies while I'm just-"

The door of the infirmary opened up and a group of people rushed into the room. Zach turned his head a bit from Darling and he opened his mouth to say something to them, but he froze as he looked at the ones who ran right up to his bed. "You're awake!" Mark called out in relief, running right up to Zach's bed on the other side of Darling. He was smiling huge and his hands shook but he rose them up to the sides of his head and just repeated while shaking his head, "You're awake."

Zach was busy looking past the foot of his bed as Mark said that again. He froze staring at Gentle and La Brava who had run in and stopped together straight ahead of him. His eyes were wide with shock at how relieved those looks on their faces were. Gentle reached up a hand to an earpiece on his head, and Zach swore he heard him say, "Rebel, he woke up." Zach could hardly believe that Gentle just spoke to Rebel in that way as much as he was stunned seeing La Brava actually have to look away before reaching up and rubbing at her eyes that he had seen tears in.

"Everyone was, so worried about you," Darling whispered, opening her mouth again and saying it in a cracking voice at the boy who turned back towards her. She looked so relieved again to match everyone else's expressions, and Zach felt his heart aching more than it already was while he just lay there. Darling continued in a soft tone as Zach glanced down at his chest where there were heavy bandages covering him, "The operation took hours, and Curalia, Hank, Miraculu, they couldn't… I tried to help, but then Mark-" Darling looked up at the brown haired man on the other side of the bed who shook his head at her saying she did not need to continue. Darling sniffled though and continued anyway, "When your heart stopped, he kept pumping your blood while they… and you were… I thought I'd lost you." Darling had tears pouring down her face as she tried to get all that out, and she buried her head back into the side of Zach's bed to stop herself from sobbing.

Zach pulled his right hand up at his side. He did not have a glove on it which he just realized and froze at the sight of, but then he kept bringing it back and he put it down on the top of Darling's head. He brushed her hair with it for a second and then rested it down on the back of her head softly, and he clenched his own eyes shut at the pain he heard in her voice as she sobbed there. He lifted his head a bit and opened back up his eyes. He looked past Exodus who had walked up just to Darling's side, and over towards the door of the room where he saw Grabble standing with his back against the wall and a relieved look on his face. Hank had come in and was standing with Curalia looking like they were ready to come over and help him, and Zach saw that the hall outside the infirmary was so packed but no one else was being let through by Seraphim who stood right in the entryway.

 _This is why, I couldn't die. It's why I had to fight. There was a reason for it. I… Don't think about it now. Don't let it get to you._ Zach tried to harden his expression to stop thinking about The Pit, and then he tried leaning up to sit on his bed instead of lay there in front of everyone. He scooted back a little bit to be in less of that position, but Exodus reached out a hand and put it down on Zach's right leg to stop him. Zach looked at Exodus in surprise, but the muscular man there had a look on his face that made Zach's eyes open even wider. He stared at the serious man who always did whatever he asked, who followed him anywhere and was the most dedicated soldier in the Army of Death, as well as the strongest man Zach knew. Exodus had a pained look on his face as he looked into Zach's eyes, and he said, "Death. I am glad you are alright." He hesitated and then said in a lower and sadder voice while shaking his head, "Without you, we'd all be lost."

Zach looked around at the others surrounding his bed. He ground his teeth behind his lips and held back all the emotions tugging at him at their looks. Seeing them all around him, all the other commanders of the Army of Death. All the leaders of squads and undefined officers of his army, all standing around him at once made Zach have to frown more than anything. _I wish they had kept going even without me. I don't want, everything to be over if I'm gone. But, but I'm glad they aren't out there. So I can keep protecting them as we fight together._ "I'm sorry," Zach started. He lowered his gaze for a second and then looked around into as many eyes as he could, making eye contact with everyone in there for a second. "For getting so close."

He looked at Darling as he finished, telling the girl who sniffled in again hard on his side before leaning back with her eyes wide at what he continued with. "Now, there's work to do," he said. Zach pushed himself farther up his bed without Exodus stopping him this time, and he winced which made him turn straight to Curalia and not the others who all leaned in worried he had hurt himself. "Curalia," he started, his voice commanding like he was giving orders. "Get me up and able to move as fast as possible."

Curalia started forward while shaking her head in disbelief. "You just went through open-heart surgery, and you had a kidney transplant! You-"

Zach started looking around, but no one around the bed changed their expressions at what Curalia just said. They all looked at him with too straight of expressions, confusing the boy who asked after those looks, "Who gave me their kidney?"

Curalia continued walking up to the bed and she stopped at the foot of it to frown at her stubborn patient she was not finished talking to. The woman with short brown hair only an inch long over her head began again, "It was an anonymous donation, intentionally. They asked that you not-"

Zach turned his head from the doctor and looked at Gentle with his eyes wide. Everyone else around the bed opened their eyes wider too and then grins cracked on faces all around except for Gentle who rolled his eyes and looked away in annoyance. Mark and Grabble started laughing as it took Death 0 seconds to figure it out, but it quieted down quickly as this was still a serious mood they were in. Gentle looked back after turning away for a second, annoyed at the sentimental moment. "You still haven't fulfilled your side of our deal," Gentle said, looking Zach in the eyes.

Zach made his face more serious too. He nodded back at Gentle, while everyone else in the room except for La Brava and Darling stared at the two of them in confusion and surprise at the conversation. "I haven't forgotten," Zach said. "And thank you, Gentle."

Darling leaned in towards Zach right after he said that, and she said to him while he turned to face her from only a few inches away, "I would have given you both of my kidneys-"

"She was not compatible," Curalia cut in, an annoyed look on her face that Zach sweatdropped at. He could imagine Darling yelling at the doctors to take her kidneys out and give them to him, and he cracked a small smile on his face at the thought.

"Thank you," Zach started to the girl.

"I'll try to still love all of you, even if a piece of you is Gentle," Darling added.

Gentle's bottom lip lowered, and La Brava got an annoyed look on her face pointed over at Darling who just smiled wider as she saw Zach lift his lips into more of a grin at that joke. The others were less restrained and laughed a lot harder, but everyone in the room shut up as Exodus chimed in, "I also would have given you my kidneys."

Zach kept smiling and looked past a frowning Darling so he could face Exodus. The large man was an awkward guy who did not seem to get the mood as he said that in a completely serious tone, but Zach knew that and did not need to hide a sweatdrop or anything as he expected to hear something like that from him. Zach nodded at the muscular man and responded, "Thank you, Exodus." Zach took in a deep breath after saying that in a serious and grateful tone. He looked around at everyone and then started in that serious voice, his lips flattening out, "I was serious though. We have to keep up our work. Everyone head out of here except for the doctors. I want attacks planned for as soon as Curalia gets me up on my feet. Understood?"

Gentle frowned at Zach as he was treating all of this like it was no big deal. Darling got hesitant like she wanted to stay in there with him, and La Brava looked up at Gentle who she wondered if he had something to say about how Zach should stay there longer. Mark looked nervous too as he thought about how worried he was Death was going to die back during the surgery, but Exodus responded in a strong reply, "Understood, Commander."

"I said 'Understood?'" Zach repeated immediately as Exodus was the only one to reply.

This time everyone in the hall who heard him and everyone else in the room called out too. In unison, in a loud voice that echoed around The Cloak, the Army of Death shouted, "Understood! Commander!"

* * *

 **A/N Thanks for reading. Hope you enjoyed the chapter. Leave a review below telling me what you think, questions, or predictions for the upcoming chapters.**

born75th chapter 120 . Dec 14

I LITERALLY JUST FINISHED THE LAST SENTENCE OF chapter 119 when i saw the notification for 120. THANK YOU SO MUCH

 **Bam! 3 chapters in 3 days. Getting back to the grind! You're welcome! And thanks for reviewing!**

Yes chapter 120 . 8h ago

The one time I do not check for updates, you upload. It's usually a 3-4 day schedule :p  
This chapter focuses on developments between zach and others, reminding us that they are all humans too. I liked it, a sort-of-filler-not-really chapter that taught us more about the working of each character.

 **Haha! Not anymore. A chapter a day keeps the doc away... or in this case, I mean, lots of doctors needed in this chapter. Trying not to make these chapters seem like fillers while also not expanding every scene into full chapter-length scenes. Reason I bounced around so much last chapter (this one and a few of the recent ones too), is to show how fast Zach's moving around everywhere, and there's so much going on in just a couple of days for Zach that expanding every one of those scenes would get us moving at a snail's pace through this. Like a few of those scenes last chapter probs happened the same day as each other, and we were still skipping stuff in between each one so... Anyway, I'm glad you liked the last chapter and hope it didn't get boring. Thanks for the review!**


	122. Chapter 122

**Disclaimer: I don't own Boku no Hero Academia**

 **Chapter 122:**

Zach leaned his back into the cold steel behind him and let out a long breath of warm air. In the cold air around him, his breath hung in front of his helmet that did have small holes below the visor for air circulation. He watched his white breath hang in the air and took in another deep breath, then he looked to his left and watched snow fall in front of his face in small flakes. The snowfall was not too heavy, and though Zach could see it sticking on some of the roofs down below, it melted as soon as it touched the wet streets. There was no snow covering the sidewalks of the city, and he saw a couple trucks on different streets down below dropping salt on the roads to keep snow from sticking.

"Still winter," he whispered under his breath, and he watched his breath hang in front of his face again. His eyes were dark as he looked through the visor and into his cold hanging breath, watching snowflakes fall through it. Some flakes melted while dropping down into his warmer breath, and Zach stared at a flake that looked so pristine melt on its way down past his face until he could no longer make out what it once looked like at all. A small smile cracked on his face as he held out a hand and tried to catch it, "Am I a snowflake?"

Zach lost his smile and he lowered his hand. He leaned back on the metal bars behind him again, though he let his left leg hang off the horizontal one he was sitting on. _I thought snowflakes were so beautiful. One of the most beautiful things in this world. Unique, special, each and every one. That's what I told… Momo,_ Zach closed his eyes and he let out another long, heavy breath. _But snowflakes have to melt sooner or later. Winter will end soon around the whole world, not that everywhere felt its effects anyway. Some snowflakes melt before they ever touch the ground. Some gather together and last longer. Others, create ice and cause crashes on the road,_ Zach looked back down into the city and his mouth lowered into a deeper frown. He looked onto the roof of a building down below though, a building next to an apartment complex that was so close that they were touching.

A window on the floor just above the roof of the smaller building next to the apartments opened up. A couple of children just inside the window glanced back in worry that someone was watching, then they climbed out in warm winter clothes and onto the roof. They ran around in the snow that had started collecting there, and Zach thought as he watched them, _And some bring happiness. Some put smiles on others' faces. What am I doing here?_ Zach let his right leg drop over the steel bar he was sitting on too. His body hunched forward and he pressed his hands down on top of his knees with a hardened look on his face. _I've been resting for too long. Long enough at least. Using wings without letting any Death pull off of them, means I'll still be recovering while using them to get back. I'm almost back at full already. But, I want to look at this place for just a little longer._

Zach sighed out another heavy breath. Then he clapped his hands down on his knees and started standing up on the steel bar, pushing down at his sides to get to his feet. He had to step to the right as the bar he had been leaning on before did curve in above where his head had been, meaning when he stood he needed to move farther into the gap. Zach stood up a few hundred meters above the ground, and then he looked off from the edge of the Eiffel Tower into the city of Paris. He stared out into a city of millions, tens of millions even, and his eyes shifted around the different sections of it that he had been observing as he just rested up there in the snow. _The lives going on down there,_ Zach thought, watching a car for a second and then pulling his eyes away to a couple walking into a restaurant, then to a man and two kids walking out the same building. His eyes passed on to a car going past that family, to another vehicle coming towards him instead so he could even see through the front windshield for a split second and thought he saw a woman in the driver's seat with a teenage girl next to her. _Or was it the other way around? Are cars flipped here in France? Which means, she's probably teaching her daughter to drive… All these people are living out normal lives. Happy, fulfilling lives._

Despite what he was thinking, Zach's expression got so much darker in his helmet and his eyes lowered down with that dark look in them. He frowned, then his lips flattened and he let out a breath without focusing on it. He leaned forward on the steel bar and got ready to jump off, but he glanced up at the metropolis one more time. _Remember this place. A happy city, peaceful, that wouldn't exist without me. I need to remember this, for what is coming. The fights about to start. The things I'm going to do…_ Zach's fists clenched and he dove off of the Eiffel Tower.

* * *

"Hey! Give me the remote!" Mina Ashido ran around the couch of Class A's common room and dove towards Mineta whose jaw dropped.

 _This is exactly like my dream last night,_ Mineta thought with bulging eyes, only for Ashido to land next to him and grab the remote from the seat before getting up and turning to the tv. Mineta's raising arms dropped in disappointment. "What's up?" Jirou asked the pink girl who was excitedly changing the channel from the trivia game show she, Mineta, Sero, and Sato were watching.

"We were watching that you know," Sero pointed out, leaning to his side and looking around Ashido's front. The girl turned back to him and stuck out her tongue for a second which made Sero roll his eyes but then shift them back to the screen as she finally flipped to the channel she was looking for. "Entertainment News?" Sero asked her skeptically.

"You're kidding," Jirou began to her friend who shook her head and then jumped back on the center couch between Sero and Mineta. Sero scooted a bit to the outside of the couch as she landed back on it, but he focused on the screen and ignored how close Ashido just landed to him, whereas Mineta's eyes were big again and his mouth smiling at her landing.

"Pony texted me to turn this on. She said… well, just look," Ashido looked closer at the screen, leaning in even after just jumping back onto the couch.

The unorthodox news program was set up in a room with a live audience on one side, some B-level comedian hosts on another, and the main hostess in the middle of the room calling out into her microphone sounding excited with everything she shouted. Ashido hummed and frowned at what they were talking about, then she lifted the remote again and started rewinding the television while humming to herself. Jirou rolled her eyes on the couch to Ashido's right, and Ashido saw it and started, "Hold on hold on. It's gonna be good… Ooh!"

Sero's eyes widened and Sato leaned in off his couch. Jirou was not paying attention, and Mineta's eyes were more focused on Ashido than the screen so they only focused once Ashido said that in excitement. The pink girl rewound a bit more and then pressed play, and the five of them looked closely at the scene as the hostess was already speaking, "…next video we had to pay the photographer for to get the exclusive. Our authenticators authenticated this amateur video, so this isn't photoshopped or nothing!"

There was a big screen in the middle of the program that the camera zoomed in towards to make it cover the whole tv. The screen covered in static and then the video appeared clearly but only in the center of it with big black bars on the sides. They could hear people speaking English right away like they started in the middle of the video clip themselves. The camera was shaking and being held vertically which immediately made Sero start shaking his head at the sight of, though he looked closer as he had seen something strange when Ashido had rewound it.

"Everyone get in the picture!"

"Haha look! It's sticking-"

"Can you even see the Eiffel Tower in this?" A man turned back and looked through the snowy city he and his family were visiting. The tourists were clearly so as they spoke English to each other in a picture with the famous French landmark int he background, all of them with heavy American accents.

"Get close!" The woman holding the camera called out. She stepped forward and waved a hand in front of her for the kids looking around to move in closer to the older teens and their father. She flipped the screen to a front-facing camera for a second and smiled at the screen with a sly look as the mother was tricking her family by taking a candid video as she pretended to set up for the picture. She flipped it back on them though and said, "The camera's focused dear, don't worry. It can see it as well as I can almost…" she trailed off, and the camera lowered a little bit right as the family had gotten into a good position for getting their pictures taken with the tower in the background.

"What's wrong Mom?"

"Honey?"

"It's nothing… I think," she hesitated. Her camera lifted back up, and she pointed it at the Eiffel Tower in the distance. "It just, looks to me like something's on the… Eiffel Tower."

"Something's on it? What do you mean?"

"Why don't you use your Quirk, Mom?" One of the younger kids asked.

"Just take the picture already. There's nothing up there-"

"Whoa!" The mom exclaimed, and she stepped forward before raising her camera up higher.

"Did you use it?"

"What's wrong? What do you see?"

"I don't see anything!"

Jirou felt the same way as that teenage girl as she leaned off her couch more trying to see whatever it was that made the mother recoding exclaim in surprise like that. The fact that it had Ashido down there changing the channel and rewinding just to see it made her thing it was probably something big. She looked closer, as the camera zoomed in more and then focused more before zooming again on the front side of the Eiffel Tower from their perspective. First they caught the movement, then the image zoomed as far as it could get focused again and made the blurry movement clearer.

"Whoa," Sero breathed out.

Mineta's eyes bulged and he leaned forward in his seat. "Is that-" he started.

"Looks like Army of Death to me," Sato said, seeing a familiar dark costume on the Eiffel Tower. _Haven't heard much about them for a few weeks now. What's that one doing up there?_

Jirou frowned as she stared at that dark figure standing on a bar of the Eiffel Tower. "What're they doing up there?" Jirou muttered. "Always going where they're not supposed to…"

The dark figure standing up on the metal bar jumped off and the woman recording stepped back in surprise. Everything got blurry as she let out that yelp, and then she froze and she rose her camera up slowly with her jaw dropped. The five students in Class A's common room lowered their bottom lips too as they saw those dark wings spread out to the sides and then flap down again. The camera followed up the dark figure as it flew towards the clouds, then the recording lost sight as the figure disappeared into the gray sky above.

The video ended and zoomed back out into the program studio. They flipped back to a freeze-frame of a blurry image the woman caught while lifting her phone back up. As the hosts talked about digitally enhancing the picture, Sato leaned back in his chair and lifted his head to look at the ceiling. _Black wings? That night in the forest, he made some crazy stuff with his Nightmare form. It, could totally be…_

"So, can you switch it back to our show?" Jirou asked, lifting an eyebrow at Ashido with her lip furled and looking annoyed at the interruption.

"Huhh?" Ashido spun and rose her voice like she was just asked to do something crazy. "Didn't you see that?" She pointed at the screen and then looked closer as they just enhanced the image to get it as un-blurry as they could. The figure in the dark costume was going straight up while facing towards the camera, and though he was still blurry the hosts started talking about how it was not Death because of the lack of swords sticking out from behind his back. He did not have the hilts over his shoulder or the thin sword behind his waist, but the image was too blurry to make any closer examination of his costume too. Ashido looked closer at the black wings that were spread from that dark figure and she got a hesitant look on her face at the sight of them. There were no dark wisps pulling off in that frozen image, the wings looked steady and solid in her eyes.

Ashido looked back at Jirou, but she was getting nothing there and just turned around instead. "Do you guys think that could be Zach?"

"I mean… maybe," Mineta said, hesitating and then offering it when Ashido looked at him hopefully. "But, you know I still think he's probably, in America. Maybe the guy in the Army of Death who can bring people back has the _same_ Quirk though, including stuff with his dark form."

"That might not actually be either of them though," Sato began, shaking his head after thinking about it a little harder himself. Ashido turned to him with a frown but Sato continued, "Star-Spangled Man said that it was the Army of Death's _leader_ that brought them back to life when they fought the League of Shadows. Even if Zach was there, or Death is just a guy who can bring people back, that guy doesn't have the same look as Death. And those wings are, they look pretty solid to me."

"Maybe Zach joined after then," Ashido said, her eyes lighting up. "After that video we saw in the convenience store. That would make sense! Then, he could be that guy _in_ the Army of Death, and he wouldn't actually be Death himself."

"That's definitely possible," Sero started to agree. "I could see Zach joining them for what they're doing, or maybe he just wanted to meet someone else who could bring people back?" He offered it up and then leaned back and frowned, _Though, I don't really think Zach could just fly around like that. And what would he be doing just chilling on the Eiffel Tower for no reason? Doesn't add up._

Jirou got off her couch with a loud sigh. The hosts on the tv just started talking about Lifebringer themselves, and she had an annoyed expression on her face as she walked past it without looking at the screen. "Fine, guess we're not playing anymore," she muttered, and she just kept walking away while a couple of the others turned their attentions from the tv to her for a second. They looked back at the screen though as the hosts were discussing what they just were, asking why 'Death' or 'Lifebringer' or 'that Army of Death member' was in France's capital.

 _Who cares if it's him or not? What's it have to do with us? Nothing._ Jirou bit down harder as she neared the stairs and heard the others behind her start arguing about something Zach-related again. _I swear, I hear his name more often on the news now than I ever did when he was still here. No one knows where he is and they just love making stuff up about him. They barely ever get it right. I know though, that he's Death. I don't know if that was him or not, or what he was doing in France, but it doesn't matter! He's a terrorist and a vigilante and, and he's a liar. Lied to us the entire time he was back. You all heard him. The person we knew was a lie. Just like Raijin. He was a villain, a drug dealer, a murderer, an anti-hero, a liar. Why do you all care so much about someone you never even knew?_

Jirou clenched her fists in the stairwell up to her room, and she snapped her head to the side, "Ch." She glared down and started heading up the steps. _I wish I never had to hear his name again._

* * *

In Musutafu, Japan, the second ranked hero in the whole country was meeting with the former Number 1 hero. Hawks stood a few feet away from All Might on the roof of U.A.'s main school building. He had a pass with him to allow him on school premises, so the alarm systems did not go off when he flew overhead to meet with All Might. Hawks was leaning forward with his forearms down on the edge of the roof that stuck up from the roof's floor to his stomach level, while All Might just stood on his left side facing him instead of looking off the building. Hawks turned his head a bit in and replied to the scrawnier man, "I don't think it's going to be too rough. We'll be working with Pasta Donna and Michelangelo."

"Ah, that's good," All Might said, nodding his head with a smile at the sound of those names. "I am surprised those two would call in for support though," All Might continued, lowering his smile a bit as he thought about it. _Unless it was something serious._

"It's not like that," Hawks began, assuming what All Might was thinking right there with a glance at his sunken face. "They want me specifically for something. They don't want me because it's too hard or anything," Hawks waved off All Might's worries, and the older man nodded but wondered to himself if Hawks was just telling him that to soothe his nerves. Hawks hummed to himself and turned around so he was leaning back on the ledge instead of forward on it. He looked at All Might skeptically and then started, "You should really work on your poker face, All Might."

"Huh?"

"Well I'm not surprised your students know the connection between you two when you've got such a worried, parental-worry kind-of look on your face just talking about that kid," Hawks almost laughed but he shook his head instead.

"They did not find out that way," All Might began softly. "And they still, do not know-"

"I know, I know," Hawks said, holding up a hand halfway in a semi-defensive way though he did not look to care enough to make that look complete. "If you want it to be a secret though, work on that would you?"

All Might frowned a bit but he sighed as he looked at the Number 2 hero. _Young Tokoyami mentioned something to him, and he figured the rest out on his own. Everyone knows how perceptive and quick you are, Hawks, but I did not think you would come let me know once you had figured it out. Nor, that you would ask to get in touch through me. At least this way, I was able to tell Young Midoriya that you know as well._ All Might hummed to himself and looked off the building out over the city of Musutafu where Hawks had been looking towards a minute ago. _Young Midoriya… you say that you wish to handle your classmates discovering the secret by yourself, but you must do more to keep them from speaking carelessly._

"Anyhow," Hawks started again, scratching the back of his head with his left hand and then cracking his neck to either side. "It's going to be an interesting weekend. Seen him in action a couple times back at Breakneck's lab, and the Cult fight too. I'm looking forward to it."

"Young Midoriya is as well," All Might replied to the hero who he smiled at again. It sounded like their meeting was at an end, and yet All Might's smile lowered down and he found himself hesitating as he watched the man before him start to turn. "About, the other thing," All Might started.

Hawks frowned as he was half-turned. His frown was low and All Might got confused for a second, wondering if Hawks was annoyed at him for bringing it up. "Oh, that," Hawks said. He did not sound annoyed, more like he was dodging the subject which had All Might getting a bead of sweat on the side of his face. Hawks looked out into Musutafu and then up at the sky above. His expression was tired and a bit dark, and he kept a low frown on his face as he glanced back out the corners of his eyes. "That thing you asked me to do, a long time back," Hawks said, and All Might nodded at him.

"Have you, heard anything about his whereabouts?" All Might asked the man who was known by everyone at the top of their hero society to always be sharp and open-eared. All Might had asked Hawks a long time ago for his help, before Hawks had come to tell him the truth he discovered through something Tokoyami mentioned during one of their patrols. All Might frowned deeper as he saw Hawks' expression that looked different from any of the other times he had brought this up since when Hawks usually responded with 'nothing.' "You have heard about Young Sazaki since-"

"I'm sorry, All Might," Hawks began. All Might thought for a second that Hawks meant that he had once again not heard anything, but he realized quickly from Hawks' expression that it was only his wishful thinking that made him consider that. All Might's sunken face sank deeper, his eyes wide and with grief in them. Hawks kept frowning but could not stop without explaining farther, "I did, hear about something. A guy I know with contacts in the underworld, heard some guys talking about cashing in the bounty on Zach Sazaki. I checked it out, it was legit." All Might's bottom lip lowered and he let out a soft gasp while lowering his eyes to the floor. Then All Might sucked in another breath as Hawks added, "I heard, they handed in the bounty for turning him over alive…"

The last part Hawks added was not a consolation. Hawks did not say it as a silver-lining, but in an apologetic tone to the former hero who just bit down harder at the sound of that. _If he's not dead already, then he's… He's in an even worse situation._ "Can you find him?" All Might asked, lifting his eyes back up to Hawks.

"Maybe," Hawks started. "I've got a hook or two out right now. I'll get back to you if I hear anything… but, I wouldn't hold my breath." Hawks paused for a second and then added in a softer voice, "I'm sorry, All Might. I think Lifebringer was a great kid." All Might looked into Hawks' eyes and saw the younger man meant that as he said it. Hawks added with a dark laugh, "Would have wanted him for a sidekick too." Hawks turned away and he looked up at the sky. His red-feathered wings spread out behind him in a huge wingspan that passed All Might's back on one side. "I'll get your successor back in one piece," Hawks assured with a wave of his hand, right before he flapped his wings and shot up into the sky. _After all,_ he thought to himself while rising up and away, _once the Symbol of Peace is back, heroes can get back to boring days. Where I could just relax and fly around for fun on the weekends._

* * *

A pair of seventeen year old boys in Class A walked across a black runway with their eyes wide as they stared at what was waiting for them up ahead. Midoriya Izuku and Tokoyami Fumikage held their luggage in one hand and their hero-costume boxes in the other. They walked forward in their school uniforms, and they stared up ahead past the blond man waiting for them and to the jet behind him. The smooth, white jet looked like a very expensive private plane, more luxurious than any the two of them had ever flown on before.

"You didn't think we were going to fly ourselves all the way to Europe, did you?" Hawks called to the boys whose looks he saw. "And if we have to fly, we may as well go in style." Hawks did not have his hero costume on yet either, but he was wearing some cool-looking clothes that the two boys ahead of him focused on next. He had a red jacket on, open down the middle showing off the tight black shirt he was wearing with a low v-neck collar. He had on jeans with the fabric over his knees faded, his blond hair was slicked back a bit, he had an earring in his left ear, and even his stubble beard did not look as scruffy as usual.

Midoriya's big eyes went back to the jet and looked it over with an amazed expression on his face. "That's the H6 fuel-compact super-jet which is only sold for private…"

"Deku!" Hawks called out, shutting up the curly-haired boy whose eyes also widened at that exclamation of his hero name. "Good to have you with us. Now get on," he motioned behind him with his head, and then he looked towards the front of the plane and some crew who were gathered about talking but also looking at the approaching interns. "We're heading off. Let's get this show on the road."

"Hawks, is it just us three?" Tokoyami asked the pro hero as he walked closer. Behind Hawks was the staircase lowered from the side door that Hawks just turned back to.

Hawks looked over his shoulder as he started up the stairs, "Yeah. Don't want everyone at the agency heading off or people might know I'm out of town. You keep this quiet too, Tsukuyomi?"

"Yes," Tokoyami replied seriously.

"I, did too," Midoriya began as he followed behind Tokoyami up the steps of the jet. He had hesitated at the bottom of them, but his classmate started right up so he followed behind after a second. He leaned up towards Tokoyami as he followed, and he asked, "Do you guys do this often?"

"I have never left the country with Hawks before," Tokoyami assured his classmate who nodded as he was glad he was not alone here on this new experience.

"Now do you two have anything fashionable in those suitcases you're lugging about?" Hawks asked. He got into the plane and walked over to a seat he sat in and leaned back on right away. There were only a couple of spots in the luxury jet's interior where there were seats next to each other, most of them just individual seats near the sides. There was a couch towards the back with some tvs around it, some recliner chairs closer to the front, a bar area just outside of the cockpit, and after Midoriya got on he glanced behind him and opened his eyes wider in surprise as a few of the crew were following him up those steps.

 _We still have a flight crew? Just for the three of us?_ Midoriya smiled back at the crew of three attendants who followed him on board, then he quickly went over to one of the individual seats. He started putting his luggage above the seat in the upper compartment a seat in front of Tokoyami and across from Hawks. _This is exciting. But, I need to focus._ Behind Midoriya, Tokoyami questioned his pro hero, "Fashionable?"

"We're going to Milan," Hawks told the boys. They both turned more to face him fully, as their pro had told them that they were going to Italy but not where exactly inside the country they were heading. "You two won't stick out that much there. We might wind up doing some looking around in brought daylight, shouldn't be too many who recognize us right off the bat. Neither of you have very fashionable costumes either, so it's not like the people of Milan will recognize you based off those either."

"And you? Will they recognize you?" Tokoyami questioned, glancing again at his pro's strange appearance to see if he was trying to mask it or something.

"I doubt it," Hawks said, scratching the back of his head with his left head and letting out a carefree chuckle. "But it's better to fit in. Anyway, if people do recognize you be sure to keep a close eye on them."

Midoriya's eyes widened at that advice, and he sat down on the seat below where he had stored his luggage. He kept his body turned towards Hawks but rose a hand up to his chin and started thinking about what he just said. _If people in other countries won't recognize us as easily, then the ones who do might be villains looking out for foreign heroes coming to stop them. If this group is important enough that Hawks had to be called in all the way from Japan, they're probably strong enough to be worried about something like that. Is that why it's only me and Tokoyami being brought, as younger heroes who might not be ones they'd look into? We're pretty famous here in Japan, but if the Italian villains just looked up hero registries we wouldn't be listed as official heroes yet. Not even sidekicks, the two of us are just interns. Still, with the amount of press the Sports Festival and Class A gets, I do expect more than just villains to recognize us there._

 _An internship abroad. I have heard that they are very different from fighting villains in Japan,_ Tokoyami hummed to himself and then asked Hawks what kind of outfits they should buy once they arrived at Milan. The pro hero replied that he had a card from the government they could use for buying outfits so not to worry, he'd pick them both out something good, which made Tokoyami grimace as he glanced at Hawks' outfit again. Tokoyami hummed again to himself though and thought back on something Shoji had told him a month ago. _Russia's laws are different regarding how to handle villains. The killing of villains in hero fights is not as frowned upon, though as heroes they still refrain, most of the time. He said that Mother Russia claimed there was a taboo against murdering villains, and heroes that were known to have done it when they could have refrained, even if the law accepted it, are shunned by the hero community. That's something I've never seen before here in Japan, yet I also heard from Kirishima, that Tetsutetsu and Honenuki worked side-by-side with vigilantes in America. I have done my research into Italy, but I expect something will be culturally different here as well._

Tokoyami and Midoriya were both focused on their trip and the villains they would be fighting in Italy. They got into the mood as the crew closed up the side door and the plane started moving below them. Midoriya looked out his window as the plane started rolling though, and he narrowed his eyes and curled his lip. He tried to stay concentrated, but his focus was split and he could not deny it. _Finally leaving Japan. Just like Zach did, so long ago now. I'll be looking for you too. The Army of Death never comes to Japan, and I know you're there. I know… that you're Death. I don't know where you've been, or what you're doing now… but I want to catch you. I have to bring you back._

* * *

 **A/N Thanks for reading! Shorter chapter this time as more of a set-up for the next arc. Midoriya, Tokoyami, and Hawks head off for Italy! What kind of things await them there? Hope you enjoyed! Leave a review below telling me predictions, comments, questions, and more!**

diddles321 chapter 121 . 19h ago

Zach is rushing wayyyy too much... His work ethic is like a bodybuilder overworking himself. Too much gymming gonna make you lose gainz instead. Need some rest as well. Thanks for the grind btw :D. Hope to see more grinding for Christmas.

 **Workaholic all the way. At least he was taking a bit of a break at the start of this chapter, just hanging around on the Eiffel Tower... XD Another day another chapter! Thanks for the review!**

Naruffoku chapter 122 . 18h ago

Zach needs to take a break. Like a week long break of non activity otherwise he's going to fall apart. I'm really feeling sad right now.

 **Shifting gears a bit here, but Zach doesn't seem to be doing the same. Preparing himself for the fights to come... Well, we'll see what he's up to soon... Thanks for reviewing!**

diddles321 chapter 120 . 18h ago

Also Darling should take a page out of Emiya Shirou's book and lace her skin with razors/knives instead of ass cannons...

 **I don't really remember Emiya doing that, I remember him pulling swords outta nowhere but yeah, I guess that means he could just poke them outta his booty hole XD "ass cannons" lol thanks for the review!**

Super Power Sensei chapter 121 . 16h ago

So Zach FINALLY realizes he can activate Nightmare without his hand. It has been A WHILE since you foreshadowed that progression of power. But if I remember correctly this "power-up" was implied to be related to Death changing for Zach since he was revived. So is Zach going Super Saiyan Black(since he doesn't need his hand it's what I imagine when he goes Nightmare) a progression of his quirk, or his quirk having changed?  
In some way death shouldn't work on him so...  
The ending of this chapter has been building up for a while. I noticed ever since Scotland and the basements, Zach has been pushing himself nonstop. (In this chapter you didn't put in the locations for where the AoD were. As if the locations didn't really matter to Zach who's strained mind, exhausted body, and drained quirk is making every mission escalate in difficulty. It was a nice detail.) While that in of itself has made his strength increase exponentially, no one can keep up that pace for THAT LONG and not crash. I hope he learns to pace himself better. And heal fully BEFORE going into the field again.  
Since Gentle only has one kidney now does that mean he'll be less powerful?  
Also is Sagitus dead?  
Also Butt Canons...nice.  
Also where are the new recruits?  
Also did I mention how much of a SAVAGE Zach is?

 **Oh yeah. Nightmare whenever, wherever. Showed some hints a long time back, and I showed Zach getting used to the red eyes and figuring out how to enable them for a while. In the last several chapters before the previous one though, I made sure not to explicitly state how Zach was getting into Nightmare form. I kept mentioning that he was going into it, trying to be all vague about it and just say it like it happened so often there was no need to describe how he went into it, but now I've left it a bit ambiguous as to how long back it was when Zach really figured this out, since he had it pretty mastered by last chapter. As for Zach learning about this after he died and that having to do with it... well, who knows? He has been getting a lot stronger since he died and maybe some of these powers are only powers he is obtaining because he died, or maybe they were ones he just never trained enough in the first place. Zach's definitely been moving fast for a long time. Since Scotland... one of those places where slowing down, just like with The Pit, and he'd have to think too much about what it was he just saw/did... Anyway! Thanks for the long review- I'll answer a couple of those last things... Losing a kidney I don't think takes away your power. Don't remember writing in Sagitus was dead anywhere. He and the new recruits just didn't show up last chapter (there are a lot of AoD characters to write to have everyone in every chapter). Glad you liked the ass blasters! And yeah, Zach's gone full savage. Thanks again for reviewing! Hope you enjoyed the chapter!**

Mark chapter 121 . 12h ago

went through an open-heart surgery and a kidney transplant. NO FUCKS GIVEN...

 **Haha XD Beast mode has been activated. "My heart stopped? Meh."**

xilios2000 chapter 121 . 5h ago

Im calling it now the final arc is going to be a alien invasion that want to enslave humanity causing zack to lead the résistance made from both hero's like midoriya and villains like All for One simply because they have no choice and them getting help from another alien species to fight the initial invaders in the form of some kind of space CIA with in the final epilogue zack becoming the leader of the surviving humans that still remain on earth. Well either that or All for One gets his Health back and some shit goes down and zack revives all might returning him to full strenght ending the series with epic fight scene or something

 **Great predictions! Loved all of them, and I will never say whether or not you're right or not. This all sounds super cool and who knows, maybe it's soon to come... Thanks for reviewing!**


	123. Chapter 123

**Disclaimer: I don't own Boku no Hero Academia**

 **Chapter 123:**

"Benvenuto! Welcome, to Italy!"

Midoriya Izuku walked away from the private jet he just disembarked from. Behind him, the plane started rolling away towards a hangar on the tarmac of the airport they landed at just outside of Milan, Italy. He looked ahead at the woman who just greeted them and was smiling wide for the group to see. She had on a blue costume that was tight to her body, though there were small circular holes dotting her costume all around and most condensed on her arms. Pasta Donna stepped forward and held her arms out to the side, and Hawks moved forward too with an awkward look on his face, but he accepted the hug of the woman who kissed him on either cheek before pulling back. "It is great to see you again, mi amico."

 _Help you once out of a sticky situation and suddenly we're friends,_ Hawks scratched his left cheek for a second and then nodded at the older woman with wrinkles on her face but a youthful smile. She had graying black hair that was short and frizzy over her head, wrinkles on her forehead and cheeks, and crow's feet at the sides of her eyes. "Pasta Donna, Michelangelo," Hawks nodded behind the woman at the man with grainy white skin who stepped forward with a stoney expression on his face. His lips were flat on his chiseled face, and he walked to the side of Pasta Donna to Hawk's right where he stood in front of the two younger men who came off the plane with Hawks.

"I'm Deku-" Midoriya realized he should introduce himself with that large man staring at him like that, but Michelangelo cut him off before he could continue or Tokoyami could speak up himself.

"I know who you are," Michelangelo said. He frowned at the boy with curly green hair and his classmate who were both in casual clothes Hawks had them change into because he said it was better than them wearing their school uniforms at least. Pasta Donna lowered her smile a bit too which Hawks noticed out the corners of his eyes though he kept looking at the male hero the whole time. "We requested Hawks," Michelangelo started. "When we heard you two were coming with him, we did background checks on you. And we found a large amount of collateral damage regarding the two of you."

Michelangelo's eyes shifted towards Tokoyami and he continued without pause, "Under the order of the Prime Minister, Tsukuyomi is not to use his Quirk, Dark Shadow, inside of Italy's borders." Tokoyami's eyes opened wide and they darted to Hawks but Hawks did not look back at him and just kept staring at Michelangelo with his lips curled down a bit in annoyance but also acceptance. Michelangelo continued right away while looking back to Deku as well, "Your provisional licenses are not recognized by Italy's laws, which accept hero licenses from other countries but not Japanese provisional ones." The man turned to Hawks and continued, "We will allow those interns of yours to assist, but if Deku, whose Quirk we are not restricting, does cause extreme harm to a villain or collateral damage to the city, there will be complications."

"Yeah, got it," Hawks said, lifting his left hand and making a small flick of his wrist towards the boys. "You don't have to worry about these two. I'll keep a close eye on them. Anything happens and I'll take the fall."

Midoriya and Tokoyami were both starting to frown at the man in front of them who had not waited to introduce himself or anything before saying all that to them very rudely. They spun towards Hawks though in surprise as his nonchalant attitude, and what he just said which put more pressure on Midoriya than his darker friend who did not need to worry about getting Hawks in trouble if he was not going to be allowed to fight anyway. Michelangelo frowned at how calmly Hawks took that without looking like he was taking seriously, but the stoney man with a chiseled jaw and hard expression just turned away. He wore a white costume that looked a bit like a toga only tighter at the shoulders and waist and with sleeves down the arms all the way to his fists that had thick white gloves on them just a little more white than his actual skin which was almost as close to white as it could get.

"Come on," Pasta Donna said, motioning at Hawks with a nod of her head after her fellow hero. "We've got a car waiting to bring you to your hotel. The Italian government has paid for you three to have all-inclusive gold passes for the Feloccio Hotel during your stay. Meals, room service, and spa access are all complementary." She sighed and brought her hands up to her face, rubbing her wrinkly cheeks and then saying in a tired voice, "I could use a good facial. I hear the Feloccio's spa can take years off of you."

"Don't know why you'd need it," Hawks said, and Pasta Donna turned with a sly smile on her face at the younger man behind her.

"Haha, you are a charmer. Well Hawks, we'll be in contact soon with the station to come to when it's time to work. Get yourselves situated, and go over the files you'll be getting in your rooms."

"Rooms?" Hawks asked, lifting his tone in a bit of surprise. He glanced back at the teens behind him and then said, "I'm surprised you're not just making us share."

"You have been given two rooms," Pasta Donna said. "So the boys need to share, but of course we would not make you all cramp into one after you came all the way out here. We are glad you came," she assured, saying it a bit more seriously to ensure her guests who Michelangelo was rude to right when they got off the plane. She said it and looked towards the other two behind Hawks too, and they nodded back at her with understanding looks.

"Thank you," Tokoyami told the woman after she let them know just how much the country was giving them. All the talk about spa access and fancy hotels made him feel a bit awkward, especially since they already told him that they were not letting him use his Quirk. He was starting to feel like his purpose on the trip was very diminished, and he wondered what he was doing there at all.

Hawks hung back a bit and then cupped a hand to the side of his mouth. He did not speak much quieter as they went, so it was clear that Pasta Donna could still hear him in front of their group of three. She did not look back though as Hawks spoke in that lower voice to his interns. "Don't worry about any of that stuff. We won't have the time to enjoy the nice hotel, nor will those rules Michelangelo mentioned matter much." The two younger men behind Hawks looked at him confusedly, and he turned his head more to face the confused-looking boys. "There're always a lot of loops to jump through when it comes to having heroes go to other countries to help. A lot of the time that paperwork gets filled out afterwards and a lot of stuff is overlooked when it's an emergency situation."

Hawks paused and then added in a more exhausted voice like this was all a tiring process, "Collaborations like this are always an issue though. Bureaucrats trying to show how much power they've got by being sticklers for the rules. Other heroes whose ideologies you can't account for. Italy's a pretty cool place, similar to Japan in a lot of ways when it comes to hero work, so don't worry too much. Tsukuyomi I might still send you in for backup, just make sure those calming flares and pulse lights on your costume are set for use. I doubt we'll be fighting in the daylight."

Pasta Donna kept walking without turning her head like she heard what Hawks said. The boys behind Hawks had darted their eyes to her wondering if she was going to counter him there, but she just pretended like she did not hear a thing. Hawks had already claimed that he would take responsibility after all, and she trusted him so she trusted his judgement here too. Midoriya felt himself relax a bit just as Tokoyami did at his side. The green-haired boy looked past Pasta Donna and towards the man ahead who called something up ahead of him and made a group of cops near a gate start rushing about to open it up and let the long black limo on the other side pull into the tarmac.

Midoriya focused on that man who was giving out orders to the cops, the gate guards, the regular airport workers around who he called at to go back to work, and to the driver of the car who he rose a hand at to motion the man inside. He spoke clearly (even though Midoriya could not understand the Italian the man was calling out to the others in), and yet despite his stern expression Midoriya also saw him nodding at people in appreciative ways when they did what he asked. _He's assertive, and not afraid to speak his mind to anyone. I don't know what he considers collateral that I did… unless he means the Stain Cult fight, and that building I blew apart with Todoroki. Or, maybe the Inhuman fight and breaking the arena? Maybe it's not about past damage, and he was just warning me not to go any farther this time since he knows how much power I have._

"I'm looking forward to working with Michelangelo," Tokoyami started, and Midoriya looked to his side at the dark boy in surprise at him saying that. Midoriya lifted his eyebrows as if asking 'really' and Tokoyami nodded his head while looking ahead to the man who had scolded him immediately upon their arrival. _To prove I am not what people think of me. Dark Shadow's Rampage will never fade from people's minds, but only I can make them see me for more than it._ "The top hero in Italy. There will be a lot we can learn from him."

Midoriya nodded in agreement, steadying his own expression and pushing aside that judgement he made when the man was so rude to them a few minutes ago. Pasta Donna looked back after Tokoyami said that though, and she had a somewhat nervous look on her face. "I'd suggest not mentioning anything about rankings near him," she said softly. They were nearing the limo waiting for them, and Pasta Donna spoke quieter at the group, "The new rankings aren't available to the public yet but we already know ours. He got bumped down one by the Super Rookie."

Midoriya's eyes widened and he shifted them towards Michelangelo for a moment before bringing them back to normal-sized quickly to try and not seem suspicious. _Metallore moved up?! That's amazing! He was a rookie just last year and is now already ranked 1 in his country. I thought Lemillion might be able to do that but he's still stuck at Number 5. Japan has more heroes, sure, but he must still be a very impressive hero. The Steel Hero: Metal King. That's what they called him when he came to Japan to help fight the Foresters in December. I want to take notes… Though, Michelangelo was Number 1 for years. I should appreciate that I have an amazing foreign hero to learn from anyway, as well as Hawks, and Pasta Donna is the most popular female hero in the country too only below Metallore in the total rankings._

"Get in," Michelangelo said to the group in front of him. His eyes narrowed at the green-haired boy who stopped thinking about Metallore fast. "We'll see you tonight. Make sure you're familiar with Operation Falco before you arrive."

"The files will be delivered directly to your rooms by a government rep once you've checked in," Pasta Donna added as she stepped aside, showing she was not getting in the car with the Japanese heroes. "Do keep a low profile while you are here. We do not want to tip off the, villains we are going after, that you have arrived for them."

The hesitation in that final sentence was noted by the Japanese men in front of her. Hawks did not react to it, but the younger boys shifted their eyes around towards the other people around them at the airport. Everyone was looking towards them. There was no way to tell who might have been looking at them with some ulterior motive and not just watching the foreigners who arrived by private jet a few minutes ago. Deku's expression hardened and he turned back to the limo that Hawks motioned for his interns to get inside. _The operation's already started,_ Midoriya thought to himself. _I need to be aware of my surroundings. This is not a leisure trip._

* * *

"No you were right," Hawks said to the woman at his side as they stood together in a the biggest police station in Milan. "That spa was great. Really relaxing." They were on the fourth floor of the building, a rising skyscraper that the Japanese boys with Hawks were surprised to see was all meant for law enforcement. Some hero agencies were posted inside the police headquarters for Milan, and the department doubled as a center for combatting villains across a lot of northern Italy.

Midoriya tried to keep a hardened look on his face, but he glanced to his side at Tokoyami only to see his darker classmate with a frown and a bead of sweat on his face at Hawks' attitude. _I thought the note on his door was a joke, and he was out looking for leads, or something._ Midoriya kept a straight expression and just focused ahead into the group of heroes in front of them who were speaking Italian to each other which was leaving them out of the conversation. He did not want to look as upset as he was by the fact that they were treating them as an aside, but he also figured he should not complain about them speaking their own language in their home country. _Team Canada spoke Japanese with us, in Japan. I should study up on foreign languages. I never thought about any besides English, which I wish more of them would use. We can all at least use that I think…_

The leader of the team, Michelangelo, turned from the others he was speaking to and nodded towards Hawks. Hawks stepped forward and so did his interns who had spent the entire afternoon going over all the documents given to them by a suited man in a pair of designer sunglasses. The government agent had handed it off to them in the most super secret way, pretending to drop something as he was passing the group on their floor almost at their room, then standing with two folders suddenly in his hands that he handed off without stopping. The information in the files had Tokoyami and Midoriya busy the whole day. They spent the time since they arrived at their room quizzing each other and memorizing everything that might be important enough that the Italians saw fit to give it to them in documents translated into Japanese.

"We've got a new tip," Michelangelo began. He spoke in English and the other Italian heroes turned too to face the group of three standing with Pasta Donna. The fourth floor of the building was emptied out except for the heroes around the room, and the lights were off so the projector would work better aimed at a flat white wall they were using for their planning. "We had an operation set up for tomorrow night, which we planned on running everyone through more tomorrow. There's an opening tonight however that we cannot give up."

"You just got this new information?" Hawks asked, frowning at the number 2 hero in Italy. _There goes the plan for tomorrow. What the hell am I even doing here if they're not going to wait for more information gathering…_

"We heard from an anonymous tip that we'll not only have the opening we want on the majority of the Gazpaccio Gang, but a high-profile client of theirs will also be there. Ever heard of, Espuci Vermon?" Michelangelo asked it and frowned deeply as the rest of the Italian heroes around him were.

"The fashion mogul?" Tokoyami asked. Midoriya glanced in for a moment at him in surprise but Tokoyami did not have a reaction to that look questioning how he knew that.

Midoriya had not heard the name before, but it sounded familiar to him. "Vermon?" Hawks asked, cracking a smile and letting out a dark laugh. He looked in at Midoriya who he saw had not recognized it, and he said, "That jacket I wore on my way in, was a Vermon."

 _Vermon!_ Deku pieced together that the last name was the same as the brand, and then he lost that surprised look for a grimace as he wondered why that mattered here. "Apparently Vermon's sudden rise in the fashion world isn't entirely legitimate," another hero behind Michelangelo began. The short man at just over three feet tall tipped his black top up with a nod of his head and showed that he was frowning as much as the others around him. "Which is especially disheartening, because Espuci got into the hero fashion business as well as of late."

"With the materials to make hero costumes legally at his disposal," Pasta Donna started in a darker voice than the interns to her left had heard her use thus far. "I'm sure he's been making trades for the Gaz to sabotage competitors."

"Probably hiding some under-the-table profits too," the short man added. "Get some tax evasion in there."

"We'll be able to investigate him fully, if we can catch him tonight with the Gazpaccio Gang in the middle of a transaction," Michelangelo announced again, getting everyone to settle down.

Midoriya got a confused look on his face after listening to all this for a few seconds. _Wait a second,_ he thought. He looked around at the heroes and then wondered if his English was off or something, but it felt right by the way they had been acting. "An anonymous tip," Midoriya began, and the others all looked towards the teen in a green costume with his mask pulled back behind his neck. He continued, "Told us who was going to be making a deal with the Gazpaccio Gang, and when?"

Tokoyami hummed as that sounded suspicious to him too. "With that much information how do we know it's not a trap? Or just false info?"

"The tip sounded legit," a female hero with long blonde hair who looked in her mid-twenties began. She had a thicker Italian accent in her English than the others, which made it a bit more difficult for the Japanese boys who still tried to listen closely to her. "I heard it myself. They gave us information they couldn't have known that we knew already, information that would have gotten men currently without rap sheets into a lot of trouble. The Gazpaccio Gang are also very under the radar, setting traps is unlike them."

"Le Tenebre is right. There would be no point in them setting traps," Pasta Donna agreed. "They do not like to get caught with anything. Once they are, the rest of the gang usually pushes them out or the person we're looking for goes 'missing.' Either cut-off, _permanently_ by the gang," she hinted there at the gang murdering each other then continued, "Or the gang keeps their wanted comrades in hiding and brings them out for times like these. Hopefully it is the second case, so that we will have probable cause to rush in at any time."

"But, how would the tip have known so much?" Midoriya asked again, still feeling like things were just moving past this tip too quickly. He saw some of the Italian heroes frown over towards him at the question but that only confused him more.

The short man in the top hat grinned though despite the others around him frowning. "Well my theory," he started. "Is that a neighbor saw something suspicious. Maybe they saw one of the wanted gangsters that the 'tip' _did_ claim was going to be at the deal tonight, going into a building near them." Midoriya stared at the hero in confusion, then the short man continued, "And after seeing such a thing, this civilian decided to use their Quirk which was a long-distance hearing, or X-ray vision Quirk, and they did their best to assist us heroes in this endeavor."

"Nice theory, Marco," Pasta Donna began, but her tone was scoffing at him. "But a much more romantic setting is that one of these villains finally saw the wrong in what they were doing. The harm they do to our society," she shook her head and then added with a small grin, "and they decided to turn on their comrades. The reason there are so many details is because this informant is a member of the gang himself, and he wants us to shut everything down that he helped create."

Midoriya glanced next to him at Tokoyami, and the darker boy with a beak also felt himself getting a bit confused over the attitudes of the others in the room. The frowns and dark looks on the faces of some of the heroes, and the theories two of them made in joking tones like the tip's origin mattered very little, it made them both have a similar thought after their glances at each other. _Must be an Italian thing._

* * *

"There he is, Espuci Vermon."

"Tip paid off after all."

"Just waiting to hear something incriminating. On top of them just being together with Micky Kappa and ReRaxer… Haha, and jackpot. Alright, we've got them."

"Let's move in."

"Keep the perimeter strong. Don't want anyone getting away," Michelangelo ordered, while he dropped down from a window and slammed into a dark floor that a bunch of lights pointed over towards. Michelangelo stood up and glared through the lights at the villains on the other side who started screaming and yelling at each other in panic at the hero's appearance. "Villains! Surrender now or prepare to fight!"

Deku stood on the edge of a nearby building that was low to the ground. There was an alleyway on one side of them, but on the other side the building cornered off with others wrapping around the meeting place of the villains gathered on the outskirts of Milan. The buildings around there were not as fancy and looked more like common apartments than the fashionable main side of the city where their Feloccio Hotel was. Deku leaned forward with one hand down on the ledge between his crouched legs. _I want to be down there._

Tokoyami stood on Midoriya's left with white lights on at the sides of his waist. The small devices that were a part of his hero costume let off enough light around him that even if he released Dark Shadow his Quirk's power would be greatly weakened. He turned them on though, in case he did need to use Dark Shadow that night which Hawks told him not to be surprised if he would. Neither of the teens would be surprised either, after what they had read about this gang's deeds over the past year. The two of them looked closer with amazed looks though at the Italian heroes who rushed in from all sides, taking out the perimeter guards and sentries of the Gazpaccio Gang before rushing towards the middle of the area to take on the big shots of the gang as well as Vermon.

"Ah! Villains! Please help me!"

"Nice try, Espuci!" Marco Polo called out. The short hero tossed his top hat off his head and then leapt up in the air towards it. His body narrowed and slipped into the bottom of his hat, and then a thin line shot out of a pistol of a gang member raising it towards Pasta Donna. Marco's body slid out of the gun with his body expanding out of it, and he slammed a growing fist forward into the panicking mobster's face. As he punched the man only a few feet from Espuci Vermon, he called at the fashion mogul, "We've got everything on tape. You're going down for a long time."

"Burgandy!" Vermon shouted it in panic, and then he spun her head around in confusion as nothing was happening.

"Oh, your bodyguard?" Pasta Donna asked, while tying together a knot in some very al-dente spaghetti that the wrapped villains could not break out of. She pulled her arms away and the ends of the pasta strands broke off from the holes in her costume, then she started marching towards the man in a designer sparkly green suit with a fedora over his head. Pasta Donna smiled at the rich fashion star who she said to with a nod back at the building behind her, "I wrapped him up a few minutes ago. You have no help here, Vermon."

A couple of villains started running for a building's back door they were going to slip away into. A wall of darkness rose up in front of them and Midoriya and Tokoyami's heads spun that way with their eyes opening huge. Le Tenebre stepped forward though, the woman in a light red costume with long blonde hair using a Quirk that her costume did not give away in the least. Her Quirk, Darkness, wrapped up the villains and started dragging them into the wall of darkness that they tried scrambling away from. The dark wall collapsed down on them, and then it sucked them up through the top and the darkness condensed around them to show it was squeezing them tightly. Le Tenebre held her hands up and curled them into fists, making the darkness shift into fist-shapes too that were wrapped around the villains who begged her to stop already.

Another villain saw his comrades getting squeezed like that, and he lifted up his right hand that glowed bright red, then his wrist did too, and his forearm, elbow, and upper arm after that. His body parts fired out in rapid succession with smoke coming off of them, and then each part of him got knocked to the sides. The villain himself got lifted up into the air with a yelp of panic, and then another five around him who were still fighting the Italians got lifted up too. Red feathers flew in like a wave and swept away a group of the gang members, stopping their attacks and pulling their weapons out of their hands.

"Well," Hawks said, leaning back while on a building across the area from the one his interns were on. "That was fun," he said, and he let out a relaxed yawn as the villains held up by his feathers kept yelling in panic. _Glad we came when we did. Great tip._

Midoriya stared around down below as the heroes started rounding up and arresting all the villains. Michelangelo was still fighting one of the gang bosses on his own, then a sidekick of his slid in from behind and took out the villain's legs. Michelangelo had seemed to be fighting him in an honorable way, and the villains started yelling something about it at him. Though Midoriya and Tokoyami could catch the gist of what the man was arguing about, and what Michelangelo started saying in his powerful speech as he walked up towards the man he had down like all the others, they didn't really get the same feel as all the Italian heroes who they saw were getting excited and smiling about the end of the fight.

Midoriya turned away as Michelangelo shouted at the villains something much louder, and his eyes darted around to check out the area around them. _The operation was a success. The information we had all worked out, and the tip was real. The villains didn't seem to know we were coming…_ Midoriya darted his eyes around all the nearby buildings, then past just the surrounding perimeter. He looked farther out, and he stared at some taller buildings near them that were too far to station someone on for this mission. "What are you looking for, Deku?" Tokoyami asked his classmate.

The two of them had been using each other's hero names since they left for the police station earlier. Midoriya replied in a low voice, "Tsukuyomi, Hawks, I see…" Midoriya looked closer and he stepped away on the roof looking towards the roof of a tall building not too far from them but almost out of his range. As he was looking that way, he saw something move on that roof. Tsukuyomi had just looked over too and he stepped up to Midoriya's side as he noticed it. Midoriya's eyes widened though, as what he had seen before just sticking up over the ledge did not duck away, but the figure stood up fully and revealed themselves while looking their direction.

Hawks looked towards the boys and then turned his head and faced a tall building over in the distance. He lost his relaxed look and started frowning, and then his eyes darted around and he said in a lower voice, "It looks like our tip stayed to watch the fight."

"We have to catch them!" Midoriya called out, right as he saw the figure up on that building turn their head a bit. The figure turned and the angle of their body shifted a bit which better revealed themself as they looked towards Midoriya and not down into the middle area where the fight had been going on, and ending. The figure looked Deku's way, then took a step back. Midoriya was staring with his eyes wide though, at the appearance of the dark figure up on that roof who wore a tight all-black costume including a helmet over their head. The figure also had two sword hilts sticking out over their shoulders, and a katana behind their waist that had Midoriya's heart racing as fast as possible.

"What's going on up there?"

"Looks like the tip came by anyway."

"Deku-" Hawks started, but he grit his teeth and then just watched as the boy in a green uniform shot off the roof he was on. Hawks flew up into the air while glancing back down to his right, and he saw some of the Italian heroes who they were working with look up at him with frowns on their faces. Hawks sweatdropped and then shifted his gaze forward over another building with a perimeter hero on it who just turned their head and watched as Deku raced by them.

Deku turned his head a bit and watched as the Italian whose roof he was jumping on looked at him. He saw the look of disdain on the man's face above his costume's spiky orange collar, and Midoriya scrunched his face up before spinning back forward and springing right off that roof. _Is this what they all meant by a "tip?" They're working with the Army of Death? Or, or was it really just a tip? They weren't lying about that. But, but most of them expected it was probably- and they just pretended like they didn't know. That's why they were joking about the theories like it didn't matter!_ Midoriya ground his teeth more and then leapt up high above the tallest building near the raid area. He reached up over it and his eyes opened even wider as he saw that dark figure had ran across the roof and then fired a grappling gun off the other side of it.

"Zach!" Midoriya shouted.

The dark figure turned their helmet a bit, then spun back forward and leapt off the roof. Midoriya shot down to the roof's edge and looked off, and his eyes bulged as he saw the man falling had missed his target with the grappling hook and started to flail as they fell off the roof. "Hold on!" Deku shouted, and he bent down off the ledge of the building, pressed his feet into the wall at the roof's edge until his body started aiming diagonally with gravity, then he sprang off at the perfect angle to intercept the man falling to his death.

Deku flipped himself around after catching the villain, and he kicked behind him with enough force to propel them towards the roof of a building across the road right as they were about to reach its roof. The force of his kicks cracked a line of windows behind him, and then Deku slammed down into the roof on the other side of the road as the taller building. He rolled over and over with the dark figure he had tackled, and he heard a modulated voice 'oof' a few times as they bounced on the hard building. As they finished rolling, the two of them ended up a few feet away from each other as Midoriya had had to let go on that roll.

Deku lifted his head up a bit, and the dark figure laying on his back letting out panting breaths lifted his head too. The man scrambled up to his feet fast, and Deku jumped up too. "Stop!" Deku shouted at him. The man froze, then he spun around and started sprinting away, fast. He raced over the roof going easily thirty miles per hour, and he serpentined as he ran to make himself a harder target. Midoriya watched for a second as the guy started running away like that, and he ground his teeth before sprinting forward in Full Cowling. His opponent darted to the left just as Midoriya came up behind him, but Deku could change his direction even faster and shot right after the guy to tackle him back to the floor.

The young hero in a green costume tackled the dark figure to the ground and they skid across the roof a few feet. Then Midoriya flipped the man from his stomach onto his back, while keeping him down with one leg and using the other to sturdy them by pressing it down hard on their side. "Zach?" Midoriya asked, feeling less confident of it than before.

The swords on the man's back, the grappling gun, the 'DEATH' written in English down his back, the fact that the guy had a similar body type as him but was a little shorter… they made him hopeful. As he started reaching down for the guy's helmet though, the man below him started going, "No no no no no…" he trailed off as Midoriya pulled his hands back from the man's mask. _What the?_ Deku reached down again and the man started back up in his deep voice, "No no no no-" Midoriya grabbed the sides of the man's helmet and he started lifting it off. A look of disappointment spread over Midoriya's face, though it had already been growing to that over the past twenty seconds.

"Oh man," the man below Midoriya started. He shook his head back and forth and had a worried look on his face. He pursed his lips hard as he kept shaking, and he started squirming under Deku but the boy over him was not letting him go. Deku opened his mouth, but the guy leaned his head up and started in English, "Please let me go. I just want to go."

"What?" Deku asked. The guy was speaking fast, and he looked excitable and hopeful as he started smiling wide at him like he thought what he just asked would work. "No," Deku said, shaking his head once at the white man who pulled his face back with a crushed look on it. _Is he insane?!_ "Are you in the Army of… of course you are. Well, who are you?"

The man slammed his lips shut again and he lay back flat on the roof. He squirmed a bit under his capturer, but he was not getting any looser at all. _Oh shit. This is so bad. This was my first solo recon mission and I fucked it up! I said I could do it then I fucked it! There's only one thing I'm not supposed to do and that's get caught!_ "I- please let me go," Hyper started again, smiling hopefully up at the young hero who just frowned more at the man's repeated attempt. "Death's going to be so mad," Hyper gasped while pulling his head back again, shaking it with a scared look on his face. _I messed up! I wasn't supposed to-_

"Do you mean, Zach?" Midoriya asked. The man below him lifted his head a bit with his face scrunched up and looking confused. That look made Midoriya pull his head back with just as much a look of confusion at that reaction from the man he had pinned.

Hyper opened his mouth, then he slammed it shut again. _I have to shut up!_ He lay flat on his back. _Nice job though Hyper! Confusing Deku right there was great. Maybe that'll make up for it. I hope he's not too mad._ Hyper tried to start saying something again, but he paused while looking up into the eyeholes of the hero's mask. Then he shook his head and started taking longer, calming breaths. _I messed up. It's time to accept that. I got caught. I really, got caught. There's nothing to do._

Midoriya glanced at the man's sides at his arms. The guy stopped struggling, but Midoriya had not pinned his arms down or anything. He was just tackled to his back and had a lot of pressure on him, but the man was not using his hands or the knives on his waistband to try and get him away. "What is your name? Where is the rest of the Army of Death?" Deku asked him questions but the man just shook his head around with hislips pursed shut hard like he had to force himself not to speak.

"Deku," Hawks called down. Midoriya turned his head and looked up, and then he stood and yanked the villain up to his feet too. "So you caught him," Hawks said, looking at the dark figure not wearing a helmet who was standing there not fighting back. Midoriya grabbed his hands anyway and pulled them behind his back, using special zip-ties to bind him. Hawks frowned as he watched this, then he turned his head and looked back the other way in the direction of the operation's location.

"He's an Army of Death member," Midoriya called out.

"I can see that," Hawks replied with a nod. He let out a sigh and then continued, "Alright. Bring him over to the rest of the captured villains. We'll process him as another villain caught during the raid. You're not allowed to catch villains just anywhere…" Hawks turned and glanced at a tall building to his side. "You broke some windows."

Midoriya turned and looked towards the building Hawks was referring to. He grimaced at the sight of the apartment complex with cracked windows, and he looked through a couple of them to see civilians on the other side had come over to check on what was going on. He felt semi-relieved that he did not completely shatter them, then he looked back at the dark-costumed man he had in front of him. _It was worth it._

Midoriya picked up the surprisingly docile Army of Death member and then leapt up in the air back above the tall building with windows cracked on it. "Sorry about that," Midoriya said to the pro hero who flew over close to him. Hawks shook his head at the teen who frowned more at Hawks' look right there. "I caught this terrorist without anyone getting-"

"Come on," Hawk said, turning and nodding back farther the other direction. There were police lights flashing back over at the area the other heroes were in now, and Midoriya leapt up to bring the villain he caught to one of those cop cars. He followed behind the flying Hawks, and he looked at his pro hero's back with his eyes narrowing down more as he tried to understand that look Hawks just gave him. _Was he calling out for me to stop before? I had to go, I couldn't let him stop me. It could have been Zach behind that helmet. And even just this guy, he's a villain. The Army of Death are murderers and…_

Midoriya landed down in the clearing the fight had occurred in. "So you caught him, huh?" Pasta Donna asked, looking towards the boy who landed with a dark figure with him. "Good job."

Michelangelo nodded over at the teen who he saw drop down with that dark villain. "Bring him over here." Michelangelo started walking forward as Deku brought him over, and Deku felt relieved as one of the heroes around him was not looking his way the same way as the others- with frowns on their faces despite the victory they just had over the villains. Deku's eyes shifted towards a few villains tied up together and waiting with some heroes for another transport to come get them. At first he saw some of those villains lean away and look afraid towards the dark figure, then they stared at the soldier's face and eyes became dark. The villains' looks turned more into glares, and some of them started yelling in Italian over at the soldier who darted his eyes their direction while trying to hide the fear rising on his face.

"Who are you?" Michelangelo asked the figure who spun back with his eyes wide to face the intimidating hero.

"I'm-" he froze and shook his head around, holding back and biting his tongue. "Just, you know," he started again, then he scrunched his face and shook his head. _Is anything alright to say? What can I say? Can I talk my way out of this without giving anything away about the Army? What am I supposed to do here? All I know is I'm not supposed to fight heroes._

Michelangelo looked up at the boy in a green costume behind the man in black. "Did he put up a fight?"

Midoriya hesitated, then he shook his head once. "He tried to run," he started back.

"Hm," Michelangelo humphed and then glared back at the figure in black. "Nothing to say for yourself? Army of Death?" He turned his head a bit and looked closer at the villain's face, and then he asked in a lower voice, "New recruit, huh?"

"How'd you-" Hyper started, but he cut himself off again and then cracked a big smirk at the hero in front of him. "Damn, you're good- I mean," he ground his teeth again and pulled his head back, looking frustrated as the aspect of not talking was a difficult one. When he started with 'how'd you-' he had needed to grin as he knew the hero had caught him off guard with the question and made him talk, but not being able to give the man proper credit for it because he did not want to say anything else was too rough for him. He bowed his head and said quickly in a lower voice, "Please arrest me."

"Quite a lot of energy, that one," Le Tenebre said with a snort, then she laughed as the man lifted his head and looked towards her with a big smile. She shook her head at him and Hyper froze with his mouth open before quickly lowering his head to look back at the ground, cursing under his breath for failing to keep his conviction not to talk stronger.

"We'll get a different transport for this one," Michelangelo started as another black van was pulling up with blinking blue lights on top of it. Hyper let out a long sigh of relief while still facing the ground, but he lifted his head a bit and gave the hero a grateful look. Michelangelo did not return any friendly look which had Hyper looking down fast again. "We'll need an empty cell too," he said in a lower voice, glancing over towards the villains who the other heroes started bringing towards the arriving transport.

Tokoyami was looking in from the edge of the area with Hawks who just landed back down next to him. From farther away, Tokoyami was more able to observe everyone at the same time. "Watch carefully, Tsukuyomi," Hawks started to his intern of over a year now. "You'll definitely pick up on something here. This just got, a lot more complicated." Tsukuyomi turned his head a bit and his eyes widened at the grimace he saw over Hawks' face that matched similar ones on several of the heroes around the area.

"What happens," Tokoyami began with a bead of sweat forming on the side of his face. He turned his head and looked towards Midoriya, Michelangelo, and the figure in a black costume. "When an Army of Death member is captured?" Tokoyami asked.

Hawks nodded at his intern's question, and Tokoyami knew it was the right thing to be asking at that nod he saw in his peripheral. Hawks then shook his head though, a deep frown on his face and a bead of sweat forming on it too. His eyes focused in on Deku and he rose his left hand up to his forehead that he started rubbing around tiredly. _I made a bad decision bringing him here._

* * *

Midoriya sat on a comfortable seat but he looked as uncomfortable as could be while sitting there. His hands were curled onto his knees and his face was covered in frustration. He turned his head to the side and looked out the round window on the wall into the sky outside the private jet. _Just for breaking a couple windows, we all had to leave immediately. I don't… I wanted to stay. I want to know what happens with, whoever that man was._

The curly-haired boy leaned back on his seat and glared at the ceiling, but he tried pushing some of that frustration from his face. _It's because, I broke the windows outside of the raid area. They said that if it had been broken as collateral in the mission location it would have been a problem but not one that wasn't understandable. But, it wasn't **that** far. And I was just chasing down a villain who- why did they all look at me like that? The Army of Death are terrorists. Italy is in agreement. The whole world has agreed to hunt them down, so why wouldn't…_

"Yeah, yeah I hear you," Hawks was on the phone across the aisle from his two interns on the private jet with him. "Unfortunately it's not that simple for me," Hawks continued speaking into the phone. Tokoyami had been looking over out the corners of his eyes the whole time, but Midoriya turned a bit back now this time and listened as Hawks talked without caring if his interns were paying attention. "I already called in my report though, so there's nothing I can do about that. I'm sure Endeavor already heard about it. Yeah, I know, sorry. I am. You've got to send me that surveillance footage though. Don't delete it. It'll be a much bigger thing if you try hiding it… Yeah I know. Send it over. Don't worry. I'm sure we'll probably want to keep it under wraps too having been involved."

"Hawks," Tokoyami started, unable to help himself any longer. _What is going on?_

Deku glanced back at Tokoyami and then to the pro across the aisle who nodded a couple of times and then said farewell to whoever he was speaking to over the phone. Hawks lowered his cellphone and let out a long sigh before turning and getting up from his seat. He stood and then sat on the armrest of his chair while looking at the two boys on the other side of the plane as him. He hesitated and then looked farther towards the front in the fuselage. "Hey, mind heading up to the front for a bit?"

The two crew members back there with them not too far away looked surprised by Hawks' request but then turned and headed for the cockpit. Hawks turned back once the crew were out of range of a normal conversation's volume. "What is it, Hawks?" Midoriya asked. _Why did he mention Endeavor? Does it have to do with the Army of Death-_

"I just got off the phone with Pasta Donna. She told me that, a little after we left…" Hawks began. "A large force arrived at the jail our raid villains were all brought to for processing. And well, they took the Army of Death soldier away with them."

The teenagers facing Hawks opened their eyes huge as he told them that while scratching the back of his head. "They, wait- was there a fight?" Midoriya asked. Hawks frowned and he did not answer for a few seconds, and then Midoriya ground his teeth in way more frustration than ever as he thought about the way everyone had been acting since he caught that man. "Why didn't anyone stop them?" Midoriya shouted, standing out of his seat.

"Apparently no one saw the force arrive or take him away," Hawks said, shrugging his left shoulder and holding up his hand in a way like there was nothing to be done about it.

 _No one, saw anything?_ Tokoyami frowned more and he looked down for a moment at the aisle between him and his pro hero. _Or no one wanted to see anything? Or is this all just a ruse and… Hawks mentioned that it was a large force that arrived, so how could no one see them?_

Midoriya's fists clenched at his sides and he darted a look up towards the cockpit, then back to Hawks who looked relaxed albeit with a frown on his face at what he was saying. Midoriya glared down at the ground for a second too and then back at the tail of the plane, in the direction of Italy. _It sounds like they decided it wasn't worth it to fight them… though, if it was Zach, could anyone have stopped him? I saw Michelangelo fight and I'm sure that wasn't all his strength, but, how many people in all of Italy could actually defeat Zach and his army?_

"Was Death there?" Tokoyami asked his mentor who shrugged again at the question.

"I asked for the surveillance from the station. Pasta Donna sounded like she didn't want to give it up, but she's sending it over. Don't know how we'll be able to tell if it's Death or not though," Hawks added. "Considering that guy Deku captured looked just like him with his costume on."

Hawks felt a buzz in his pocket and he pulled back out his smartphone. He opened it up and then pulled open a video file that Pasta Donna sent him. There was a password that she had given him at the end of the call that he had to type in to be able to watch the video, and then Hawks held the phone out in front of him and diagonally to the left so all three of them could watch the same time. "Let's see how this played out. She was pretty vague with me," he said it in a reluctant tone, sounding like he did not want to know why that was.

The surveillance feed had several different angles on it, and Hawks reached forward and tapped a main one pointed outside of the front of the station. The camera pointed out of the police station was stationary and caught everything in a wide angle around the front of the building. It was late, so late that it was almost morning technically. Their plane was flying east so it was already long past sunrise outside of the jet, but this video from only a little white back still had it as dark outside. Yet even in the dark, the soldiers in black costumes were all too easy to spot as they came out from the edge of the camera walking at a slow pace into view.

The three watching the clip were silent as they stared at the three. The shortest of the group was in the middle, and even though he was shorter than the figures on his sides he was still average height for a normal male. He had on a tight black costume that was thick around him with padding on the chest and stomach, and around the parts of the arms where there were no joints. The costume was skin-tight up his neck and under his chin before the black helmet started. On his right side was a man a few inches taller than him, whose black helmet had a dark purple visor in the middle of it. The man had on a purple cape attached to his shoulders, and his gloves were dark purple too instead of black like the other two.

The third man walking into the frame walked on the left of the center figure, and his body was hulking. He was well over six feet tall, broad at the shoulders and with muscles that bulged so much they pushed his tight costume out to look like it could barely contain him. He had a large black shield on his back that covered up almost his whole body before thinning out near the point behind his waist. They did not have a great angle on their backs so they could not see the words going down them, but they knew without needing to see them. The three on the jet focused on the figure in the center of the group of dark figures who seemed familiar but did not have two sword hilts behind his back, nor a katana behind his waist. He did have a single katana on his back though with the hilt sticking up higher over his left shoulder, and he had another one on the right side of his waist pointing backwards in a sheath instead of horizontally across his back. He had two long straps of knives going over his shoulders and down his sides, as well as lots of knives around his waist with a couple of gun handles too.

The group of three walked towards the police station and right up to the front doors. Midoriya stared at the screen with his eyes opening wider and wider, and Hawks pulled back to switch to a different angle without saying anything. The bottom of Tokoyami's beak opened up a bit with his eyes bulging as he stared at the front doors of the police station from the inside. The doors opened up and the center figure in the dark costume stepped inside first. He walked in, and a cop leaning on the desk at the front of the building turned his head a bit. The woman behind the desk looked behind him and towards those front doors, and the two cops dropped their jaws as that dark figure stepped inside.

Then the two other dark figures walked in behind the first one. The main camera angle recording the whole first floor of the precinct that had its own city jail in it caught every cop in the building looking over towards the front doors. There were men sitting at their desks and women walking around, and a police captain leaned out of an office with bugging eyes as he stared towards the front of his building. An officer sitting at a desk near the middle of the room had stood up when he saw everyone staring nervously towards the front of the building, then he sat back down and started reaching to his right subtly. At a desk one away from him, his sergeant glared at him with a dark look and the man froze at her gaze. She had the face of a seal, but she looked serious and not cute at all as she shook her head at him before turning back to her own computer.

The three dark figures walked forward through the front of the precinct, then the front one turned his head and looked around the building. He looked to the right side of the floor where there was a set of steel bars blocking off the jail section of the police department. Before all the villains were sent to courts or larger prisons they all had to be processed, and the dark figure with a pair of katanas and a lot of knives on him just turned and started walking towards those steel bars. The taller men behind him shifted their gazes around the office while following behind the other, though neither of them looked ready to fight either. They just walked behind their leader who the cameras now showed had 'DEATH' written down his back when his back had turned so he could walk to the side of the building.

The man in the purple cape had 死 written on it right in the center, while the largest man with a shield on his back had a white skull covering a much larger area of the center of that black shield. The skull was dark and menacing, scary eyes and grinding teeth in its jaw. There were no crossbones behind it, just the skull. The officer at the desk when the group walked in had stayed where he was, completely still as the figures had gotten closer and then moved around his right side. He turned with them, then he looked back at the woman behind the desk who turned to her desk phone. He looked at it too, then up at her and shook his head with a look telling her not to do anything.

"What are they all doing?" Midoriya asked, though his attention focused back solely on the one he was convinced was Death. He watched as that dark figure stepped up to the steel bars and looked through them. There was no sound in the video, but Hawks zoomed back and then checked on another recording that got the middle of the cells on the cell block through that gateway. The camera could not look into the cells where the prisoners slept and used the bathroom, but right at the edges of the cells there were a lot of prisoners grabbing the bars and pulling their faces close. They were all looking towards one cell in particular as they yelled, and Midoriya figured out who was in that cell that the villains looked to hate so much.

The screen was split between the angles, but as Death reached the gate at the end of the cell block, other villains stopped yelling as much. Hands pulled away from bars. Villains backed away and disappeared into their cells. Death reached for a handle on the cell block's gate, twisted it, and nothing happened. He did not turn and look to the cops in the room. The two men at his back stayed there and facing the opposite direction as him, into the police station to watch what the officers were doing. Death pressed his hand next to the handle on a keyhole, and he flattened his palm out over it for a few seconds. Then he reached back to the handle and grabbed it before twisting and sliding the gateway to the side.

Death walked into the cell block and turned his head left and right. He looked into each cell individually, and then he walked all the way to the end and turned to look into the one at the end of the block. He stepped forward and put his hand down on the keyhole for those steel bars too, and then he opened up a door and let out a white man who ran out without any of his weapons on him but still his black costume on. The guy started talking rapidly, his mouth moving so fast it was like a blur, and Death reached up a hand and just patted it down on his shoulder. They could not hear if Death said anything, but the man he was facing stopped talking and smiled wide before lowering his smile and nodding with his gaze lowered to the floor. Death then lowered his hand and turned away from Hyper, and he walked back out of the cell area with Hyper following close behind him.

They walked out of the cell block, and the two ahead of them started heading back towards the doors of the building as well. Death turned his head to the right as he walked, and again they could not hear if he said anything but the entire station of police officers flinched at once. Then some of them started typing away at their computers, or walking around like they had things to do. Some of them turned to each other and started having conversations. It almost looked like they had been put under some big spell or something, except upon closer look those people kept darting looks to the front of the station. Some of them were grinning and had to hide small smirks, and one who had started up a conversation let out a laugh unintentionally before saying something else and continuing what had been intended to look like a serious conversation.

The four Army of Death members walked out of the police department, and then Hawks switched back to the front angle of the station again. They all immediately started running as soon as they were out, booking it away as fast as they could across the street and between two buildings that were close to each other but had a thin crack between them wide enough that that largest man could still squeeze through. Hawks lowered his phone after watching all of that and he let out a long sigh. He rubbed his left hand on his forehead and then rose his eyes up to the ceiling. "Well, that went about as expected," Hawks muttered.

"They just, let them walk right out of there with him," Midoriya said softly. Then his teeth ground and he got an angrier look on his face. "Are they even chasing-"

"Deku," Hawks started. He looked at the kid who lifted his gaze back up into his own still with that angry look on it. "You're fired."

Tokoyami's eyes grew wide and he spun his head to his classmate who froze with his mouth open and a shocked look on his face. "Wh-What-"

Hawks shook his head at the boy with green hair who looked stunned by what he just told him. _I saw potential in this kid with the whole Cult thing. He really helped me out with the bomb there. Gave him an offer after the Sports Festival too, but, I think Tsukuyomi had me thinking I might like having these kid interns more than I used to believe. Tsukuyomi's different though._ Hawks let out a sigh and then said while looking into Deku's eyes, "You made the wrong move chasing the guy who gave us our tip. That video's going to get a lot of people in trouble now. Including myself, since I bet Endeavor's going to have to get mad at me for not doing more to extradite him. Bet some of those cops will be losing their jobs too… maybe just suspensions-"

"They should have tried to stop them!" Midoriya argued, his expression getting defensive. His heart was racing and he was upset and confused at the man in front of him who he kept frowning at even as Hawks started frowning at him too in a more serious way. Midoriya's eyes narrowed a bit and he continued stronger, "Or, if we knew the Army of Death would come for their other member then we should've-"

"We didn't know," Hawks countered. Midoriya felt like the man was lying because of the relaxed way in which Hawks was acting or how he seemed to have expected this would happen. Hawks continued though, "Because no one usually catches AoD guys. In fact, I don't think anyone's _ever_ caught one of their members before. No one really knew what to do when you went off and grabbed him-"

"He's a villain who was at the crime scene and we have a duty to-"

"That guy only stayed in the vicinity which got himslef caught, because he was watching to make sure the heroes could take care of it and didn't need his help," Hawks continued in a normal tone not defensive at all like Midoriya was being. Tokoyami stared at Hawks with his eyes wider again just as Midoriya's got. Hawks continued towards them, "He would've called in for some help if we needed it, or maybe for the one who brings heroes back to life if it had become necessary. And when you chased him, he didn't fight you because they don't fight heroes. That's one of the Army of Death's rules I heard from Endeavor: 'We don't fight heroes.'"

Midoriya started shaking his head and he argued, "That doesn't make them good guys. It doesn't make it alright not to capture them, when there are warrants out against them!"

Hawks looked back at the boy who exclaimed that and he just sighed again after a few seconds. "If that's what you think, that's fine," he conceded. Hawks scratched his stubbly chin and added, "Some pro heroes are hard-liners like that too. Stopping all villains, without really looking into the big picture or anything. Just stopping all of them right away because they're villains." Hawks lowered his left hand and then glanced to his right side. He paused, then he continued while looking from that side back to the boys, "But, let me tell you about how I lost my right arm." Tokoyami's eyes opened wide and he started leaning out of his seat, and Midoriya felt like this was a big secret as his friend who had been working with Hawks for so long looked like he had never heard it before.

Hawks' left hand rubbed up his right side and towards his shoulder where there was no arm sticking out of. His eyes got a bit darker but he just said in a relaxed voice while shifting his gaze back and forth between the interns, "I had infiltrated the League of Villains, just like Sazaki did." The seventeen year olds in front of Hawks stared at him with bulging eyes and their jaws dropped. Hawks continued without waiting for their shock to subside, "Not as good as the kid though, since I got found out by Dabi before I was even able to meet the boss…" Hawks trailed off a bit and he rubbed his side right over where he could feel phantom burning pains. "So it was all for nothing," he said, his voice darker as he mentioned it.

Midoriya felt his heart pound extra hard as he saw that look on Hawks' face. It was a look he recognized. He had seen it before, and he remembered back on the day Toga had infiltrated their school, before Kaminari had betrayed them. He remembered as they were isolated in that room and Zach told him what he had really been doing with the villains. **" I did all of that, and it didn't even matter. I failed at escaping at VTS anyway. I, I did all of it. I gained their trust, and-"** Midoriya started panting as he saw Hawks grind his teeth in frustration in front of him at what he just brought up.

The man in front of them rose his head a bit and continued in a darker voice, "I did some bad stuff, because I was asked to by the government, and because I was willing to in order to stop the League and get things back to the way they were before. Going undercover was tough though," Hawks said, and he shook his head to try and shake back into his usual mood as he knew he was getting too dark there.

Midoriya understood why he had that dark look on his face though. Hearing how Hawks had never succeeded at his goal, despite the things he was saying he had done to get close. He remembered telling Zach that he was trying to do what was right too, that those bad things he did weren't his fault. **"But, that doesn't matter… everything I did, to get their trust… It just made me, it made me… It made me, a villain."** _That wasn't true though! I didn't agree with everything you said you did, but I knew you were just doing it to escape! And to stop the League of Villains, and, and…_ Midoriya clenched his teeth hard as he tried to separate what he was thinking of and what was happening now. _It's different!_

"Anyway," Hawks began again, looking towards Tokoyami as he did. "Sometimes, you have to make decisions based on the big picture, the greater good." He frowned as he said it, because the example he was trying to use he could not help but feel was a bad one when it did not succeed in getting him anything except a missing arm. That missing arm was enough of a punishment for him though and he rose his tone back into a relaxed one again. His gaze shifted to Midoriya and he continued, "And not to just arrest every villain you see right away without giving it some deeper thought. If your response is just that they were a villain so you had to, then you're not the one controlling your own actions as a hero. At least, that's my opinion on it. If you really wanted to do something about that villain, about the Army of Death as a whole, then you should have chased after and then pretended to lose him. Then we could have followed him back to those same guys who just went and saved him," Hawks offered it and nodded to himself while saying it as it seemed like it might have worked to him.

Deku's face scrunched up again in confusion. He thought Hawks was defending the Army of Death the whole time, but he just started frowning and feeling like he could have done that too. _I thought it was Zach though-_ "What were those guys at the station going to do?" Hawks added. "Cops who can't use their Quirks, up against _the_ Death? Most heroes would turn the other way at the sight of those three. Those officers were afraid, and yet it wasn't just that."

Hawks continued to the boy who turned back and faced him as he spoke, "The Army of Death's been doing their jobs for them. Stopping villains, handing them over to heroes who arrest them and bring them in. Or just sending in tips. Those officers don't have to go into as many live-threatening fights anymore. Last year was crazy for them, for law enforcement all over the world, and the Army of Death's been making their jobs easier and safer. You think those people were itching to pull weapons on the guys who let them go home safe to their families every night? You think they weren't all secretly glad Death showed up to get his soldier back before the guy was sent to an actual prison where he would have been killed on the first day, without question?"

Tokoyami was still staring at Hawks in some shock at what he talked about with infiltrating the League himself. Hearing that last part made him start thinking though, and he frowned deeply while lowering his gaze down. _If everyone thinks like that, no one will ever stop the Army of Death. But, I'd rather they not be thrown in prison with the villains they put there themselves. I don't think they all deserve those kinds of death sentences. And designated as international terrorists, they wouldn't be getting sent to minimum security prisons. They'd be sent in with the worst._

"It's not always about right versus wrong, kid," Hawks said, looking at Midoriya specifically as he said it. "Think about that no matter you go to intern with next."

Deku's eyes shifted back down and he sat on the armrest of his seat just like Hawks was doing across the aisle and back a row from him. He wanted to argue with Hawks more, but in his mind appeared All Might telling him something that had confused him so much at the time because it seemed against all of his mentor's previous teachings. _Why, did All Might let Eziano Mozcaccio go? I've never stopped thinking about that. A villain like Eziano… I was so determined to get him. I asked Zach what he thought, to see if he knew anything about him. Zach found out, and, and how could All Might let him go? I didn't think any reason was a good reason. Yet all those cops just let a villain walk right out. Even though that man could have been a killer, one of the Army of Death who murders the villains they go after. And, that's why they're going to get in trouble from that video. And they deserve to! If the Army of Death don't fight heroes, they wouldn't have fought those cops, so the cops could have caught them right there!_

"I understand what you're telling me," Midoriya started. He balled his fists at his sides after thinking about it for a few seconds, then he rose his head and continued, "But I can't do that. I won't let any villains go, no matter what." Hawks started to frown at him but his eyes widened as the teen said, "Because if I made that decision here, then when I see Zach again… I'll never be able to arrest him."

Midoriya clenched his teeth so tightly as he hesitated at the end of that statement, but he knew it was why he was so stuck on this feeling. Tokoyami stared at his classmate and his face got a slightly hurt but also understanding look on it. Midoriya continued, "Zach, can't just do whatever he wants. Even if some people accept it, as heroes we can't. As heroes we need to stop people from breaking the law, no matter how much good others might think they're doing. No matter how much even I, might accept they do to help."

"I agree," Tokoyami said. He nodded at Midoriya and then turned to Hawks and said to his pro hero, "Zach leads a group of vigilantes designated as terrorists by the UN. I don't want to arrest my… friend, but there is no choice in the matter. It is not up to us to decide what justice is."

Hawks looked back and forth between the two teens in front of him. He did not have anything to say about their justice. The way they saw it was different than the way he did, but he was not going to argue about it any more. Instead he cracked a grin which confused the two in front of him, and then he said, "You two are talking a lot about Death like he is your classmate, Zach Sazaki." The boys nodded at him, and Hawks asked, "Are you sure about that?"

Midoriya nodded without hesitation. Tokoyami looked to him to see if they were going to talk about it, but seeing Midoriya's quick nod it seemed there was no need for discussion. Tokoyami looked back forward and nodded his head in agreement. Hawks smirked more which made the boys get even more confused and somewhat upset looks at him.

When Hawks started looking relieved, Midoriya asked in an angry tone, "Why are you smiling like that?" Tokoyami kept frowning at Hawks in an upset way too, and Hawks lowered his smirk a little bit.

"It's nothing, I just," Hawks paused for a second. "I, had contradicting information that made me think Sazaki was dead already." The two in front of them gawked at the pro hero who just smiled a bit more and then said while looking pleased, "So I'm glad to hear that he's Death. Makes me feel a bit better about Death too knowing he's for sure-"

"Why did you think Zach was dead?" Tokoyami asked fast, right before Midoriya was about to close his mouth and do the same.

Hawks shook his head and said, "It doesn't matter. Since the two of you are so positive about Death being Lifebringer, right?" He asked, and Midoriya nodded again though he was still frowning confusedly at the pro for what he just said there. Midoriya thought about the way that soldier had reacted to him asking about Zach too, but he shook his head denying that either of those things mattered to him. Hawks shook his head again and then sat back in his seat, "My information must have been faulty or something." _You two knew that kid far better than me. If you think he's Death, I'll believe you. And I'm not just accepting that because I want to either. I think…_

"You heard Zach was dead and didn't tell me?" Tokoyami questioned after Hawks had just leaned back in his seat.

Hawks frowned and glanced out the corners of his eyes at his upset intern. "Hey, what would have been the good in that? It wasn't confirmed, and apparently the information was wrong anyway. All it would've done is upset you for no reason." _Besides, I didn't hear he was dead. I heard he was, captured alive. Could it be possible the information wasn't wrong? I thought I had confirmed it. Yet, Death is still out there. Did he escape? Again? Damn, I'd hate to see what the kid's body looks like now._

* * *

 **A/N Thanks for reading! Hope you enjoyed the chapter. Hyper gets snagged by Deku. Hyper gets released from jail by Death. The Japanese heroes are sent home early and the Army of Death shows what will happen if one of theirs gets taken. A very calm, nonchalant, prison break. XD**

diddles321 chapter 122 . 18h ago

YEEEESSS! Real story progression. Also, am I the only one thinking Death needs more buffs? Midoriya is at 50% OFA. Death needs new super moves like Ichigo's Mugetsu. Black death sword kinda thing like Exodus' excalibur. Or he can make a death scythe! Thanks for the chapter and keep up the grind!

 **The story's progressing! Just, a bit slowly. I had a much faster route planned out for let's say the last 30 chapters, but every idea I had for Army of Death kept sounding too much fun to me and I kept adding more in there. Writing them is too much fun, though things are about to speed up... a bit. XD Death does have a new move though: Unlocking doors! Lol maybe that's not enough to beat 50%, maybe that's why we didn't have Midoriya, Tokoyami, and Hawks fight Gentle, Exodus, and Death this chapter... or maybe I didn't realize how much the hype would rise from the last chapter suggesting something coming that I should've realized much earlier... Whoops.**

papaprep chapter 122 . 13h ago

I think that midoriya and zach's reunion is nearing.. Right?

 **Yeaaahhhh... nearing! Nearing, definitely nearing. Just not yet. Lol thanks for the reviews guys, and thanks to everyone who just read too, and those of you who faved and followed too!** **Thanks everyone!**


	124. Chapter 124

**Disclaimer: I don't own Boku no Hero Academia**

 **Chapter 124:**

In Qingxiao, China, a city of fourteen million people was starting off another busy morning. The sun was still rising but the day started early for a lot of commuters already in their cars on the way to work. A woman off for the weekend since she was a school teacher was out on her terrace watering her flowers. Her kids were inside watching Sunday morning cartoons, and she leaned down and took in a deep breath of the flowers she was watering before letting out an exhale with a smile on her face.

Across from her apartment complex, there was an office building where a worker in a suit arrived earlier than most of his colleagues. He had turned on the lights, and he was already on his computer and going strong for the day while his co-workers were still arriving. He had paused for a moment though to look outside and across the street at a woman watering her flowers a few floors below, and he watched her for a few moments before turning back to the door of the office and welcoming the boss who nodded towards him in greeting. The worker grinned to himself before getting back to work, satisfied he had shown the boss his work ethic once again and hoping for the raise and promotion he had learned was being handed out at the end of the month.

A siren rang out over the city, and the office worker glanced back out his window. It was a faint siren, but he knew he had definitely heard it as he spotted the woman across the street on her balcony looking away the same direction he had turned at first. An older woman a few stories above the gardening one was taking her laundry off a drying line, and she turned with a glance too before getting back to her laundry. It sounded like a police siren, and it had nothing to do with them so they all got back to their own morning routines.

A few blocks away, a police car pulled to a stop and then turned sideways on a street to block off the way ahead from pedestrians. A group of kids running down the sidewalk were stopped by a cop with bright yellow skin that glowed as he held his hands out and called out that no one could go any farther. The kids frowned and complained, and the whole group of them tried to find a good spot to look over the police perimeter at what was going on. "Look! It's Yue Fei!" The only girl in the group who wore a t-shirt and shorts just like the boys around her pointed up at the sky and a horse flying out of the air with a man on its back dressed in ornate metal armor with a red cape flapping off of him and a sword in his right hand.

The horse coming out of the air dazzled and then faded apart as Yue Fei jumped off of it. The hero swung his sword around and slammed the broad side of it down into an eight foot tall villain who was stepping back from another hero in the middle of fighting two of his comrades. The female villains ahead of him spun around in surprise as they had just started winning against their opponents, only to hear the grunt of their cowardly younger brother behind them.

"Shouldn't turn your back on a her-"

The ground started rumbling and Sheshou stopped talking. The female hero with an arrow in either hand whose bow was broken and laying to her side darted her eyes over towards her bow as it bounced around on the street. "Stop it!" She called out at the villains in front of her who she spun back towards.

One of the women she had just been fighting turned her head with big eyes and started shaking her head. "This isn't us- Whoa!"

"Sister!"

"Get away from there!" Yue Fei grabbed the big man with a bloody nose and busted up face (which he had caused himself), and he jumped the two of them to the side of the road. Yue Fei turned his head towards the perimeter on his left and yelled towards the cops who all started backing up. "Get everyone off the street!" A fissure had just opened up in the middle of the road, but Yue Fei snapped his head up in panic as he heard cracking and shattering sounds above him too.

"Look out for falling glass!"

"Cover your heads!"

"Permission to use Quirks is granted! Use forcefields and hardening! Make some cover!"

"Earthquake!"

A little boy wearing a yellow safety helmet was walking his dog two blocks away from the heroes and villains when the earthquake hit. He started running with his dog towards an open intersection ahead, staying near the middle of the road to dodge the falling glass from buildings on his sides. He slowed down to a stop and dropped his jaw though, letting go of his dog's leash while his dog just barked over and over at the tall building straight ahead of them. The building's front had cracked when they were running towards it, but suddenly that crack had turned into a hundred cracks, and then the building made one of the loudest noises the boy and his dog had ever heard. His dog started running forward towards the building, and the kid ran after it yelling, "Xifo! Xifo! Xi-"

The building that was falling ahead of them was falling the opposite direction, away from the kid and his dog. It fell backwards, and it slammed into the ground mainly intact though it did break up a bunch. There were other breaking buildings around, and cracks forming in the streets and sidewalks. One section of the city rose up a few inches, and cars that were stopped on the road tiled diagonally and fell off of risen sections of street. A lifted highway out of the city broke apart and started collapsing on different sections, cars sliding off and falling hundreds of feet. Some tried reversing to not fall off the highway as it collapsed, but other vehicles behind them rolled forward into them and pushed them off while the drivers who had gotten out of those cars tried running for safety instead.

A bridge over a river on the east side of town cracked, broke, and it fell down into the river below while boats that had been in the river drove away from that bridge. Fishermen and merchants started yelling off the sides and back towards the bridge, and an old man on a fishing boat with four others yelled at the crew around him to stop running and turn back. They all looked back towards the bridge and saw someone had dove to safety and just missed, hanging onto the ledge and then falling down into the river full of hard stone and people screaming and cars half-crushed and filling with water. "Get back there! We need…" His eyes shifted past the bridge and way up the river they were on where people started screaming at the tops of their lungs.

"Oh my-"

"Holy-"

"We're so screwed."

The little boy in a yellow helmet stopped chasing his dog through the street, and the dog ahead of him turned around and started running the opposite direction. Xifo ran past his owner's side and sprinted as fast as his little four legs could take him in the opposite direction of what they saw past the building that just fell in front of them. Far in the distance, the dam that supplied water for irrigation to all the farms around there and for the city itself had cracked during the earthquake that was just starting to settle. The kid looking that way felt a tad bit of relief as he saw huge cracks but not a lot of water breaking through.

And then the aftershock hit.

And the dam broke.

Workers at the dam shouting at each other and screaming about the cracks started running away. The foreman of a worksite up there had gone to the ledge to look down at the damage caused by the earthquake, and the aftershock knocked him off the ledge of the dam so he fell in front of it. As he was falling and screaming though, his breath caught in his throat at the sight of water pushing through all the widening cracks. Chunks of the dam pushed out towards him, and then all the pressure pushed out at once and sent a million tons of stone and water smashing into the man falling to his death.

The river below was flooded instantly, as was all the land around it. The wave picked up dirt, and debris, and it moved so fast and with so much force that there was nothing that could stop it. A couple of heroes rushing that way after the initial quake tried using their Quirks against it. Farmers ran the other way around them, boats slammed into each other in the river as they sped full-speed the opposite direction. A dirt wall rose up out of the ground and higher than the wave, and another hero ran up towards that wave and leapt up towards it before slamming her arms forward to fire the huge air cannons out of them. The water she slammed her wind into did not slow, and the wave slammed into the wall she stood on so hard that the water exploded up into the air a few hundred feet, before the rest of the wave behind the initial collision came in and smashed that wall down.

Qingxiao had fourteen million people in it, and the entire city was in chaos after the initial earthquake that was bad enough as is. Fires had broken out in different parts of the city where cars crashed into buildings and people's stoves and ovens broke apart in mid-use. Sirens were going off as the police and fire departments were all mobilized, but then the flood sirens went on louder than everything else. Panic and chaos was added to the fires and aftershocks, buildings that were unstable from the quakes were on the verge of collapse and since there was no power the elevators weren't working.

Despite the villains attacking that morning, Qingxiao had been a relatively safe place to live over recent months. Crime had actually declined in that city over the past two months now, and very recently a large villain group in the city was busted by heroes who were more popular than ever. But an accident can always happen. As much as the situation of the world became better, there was no stopping nature. So there was nothing anyone could do to prevent the worst earthquake they had seen in that part of China for over the past hundred years. It was just bad luck for the people of Qingxiao that the earthquake hit them. And yet, with their bad luck there was some good too. Because out of anywhere in the entire world that The Cloak of the Army of Death could have been that day, it was that morning that The Cloak was passing over Qingxiao on its way to its next destination.

* * *

"I'm not so sure about this," Excelsior began, walking up the middle of the high-speed jet and saying it towards the driver who turned his head a bit to face his fellow hero. The fourth ranked Korean hero stopped walking any closer to Endeavor and just continued from a few feet behind the man with flames coming out of his head, "I know it's all we could get on short notice, but I'd really feel more confident if we had the whole Task Force with us."

Four jets shot over eastern China together, though the heroes filling those jets spotted another coming down from the north as some Americans and Canadians flew in at their top speed. The other four jets were not flying as fast as they could, staying a steady pace to wait for that jet to come in from Alaska. It was the last one they were going to wait for, and Endeavor almost had not waited for them. He was not going to wait any longer though, and he said, "Sit back down, Excelsior. This is all we can gather at this time. Fortunately, the Chinese heroes in the ADTF will be there already." _That's why they ignored the calls._

Flying a jet on the left of Endeavor's frontmost one, Queensguard looked to his right and frowned with some sweat sliding down the left side of his face as he watched Endeavor start speeding up again. He pushed the throttle forward for his jet too, but he was reluctant to do so. _I just had to pick today to bring my findings before Endeavor. Death hasn't even come to Britain in weeks, months maybe… I mean, as far as I know._

"Hold on, look at their jet," Popfire leaned past Ryukyu and pointed towards the jet flying up towards them on their starboard side. "I thought we were getting a whole other team but there's only five of them?"

"It's all they could gather on short notice," Ryukyu said back to her sidekick who just started shaking her head in frustration at the sound of that. Ryukyu wanted to say something about how tightly-strung Popfire was being, but she grimaced herself while looking back forward with a dark look in her eyes. _We've seen them in action. And we know that their numbers have only increased more since the League of Shadows._ "Aahh," Ryukyu let out a sigh and then steadied her expression. She hardened her look and balled her fists in a readied way. Popfire saw her look and leaned back into her own seat, calming herself down and preparing as well. The Dragoon Hero looked down the middle of the jet and past Endeavor, past the front of it and into the distance.

Ryukyu's eyes focused on some dark clouds she saw in the far distance. _We can't let them escape after the Italian fiasco. How that video got leaked is beyond me, but now we have to show everyone that that's not our stance. We have to prove that we're actually trying here. They'll run for sure, but some of them will be too slow. If they try coming back to get them though, like they went to free the one in Italy…_ Ryukyu's teeth bared behind her lips and her eyes got darker. _What's more important to them? Their rule against fighting heroes, or saving their comrades? We're going to force their hand here. Endeavor's hoping it's their comrades, because of what Death said last time about saving them if we tried to arrest them. If he turns back to save his comrades we catch, then that's it. It's us versus Death then and, and I have to be ready to fight those people._

There were a number of heroes in the group flying over China who were new to the ADTF. They were replacements who needed to come in when a third of the Task Force pulled out of it after the League of Shadows. The majority of them were there though for the last time they met the Army of Death. Outback Man stood at the front of his jet just behind Endeavor's, and he thought about some of the soldiers in black uniforms he had fought with that day. _Looking forward to fighting with that Sagitus fellow. We said we'd have at it next time if it came to fighting each other._ The Australian man in a gray hat grinned and started scratching his blond beard. _It's the main reason I stuck with this thing after all. Time to wrangle up these vigilantes once and for all. Wonder if I could take Death?_ "Heh," Outback Man chuckled under his breath once and lowered his head so the rim covered his eyes. _As if. Way he took Zolo down, never seen something that cool in my life. Can't wait to see Endeavor take 'im on._

Five jets flying over a Chinese countryside moved at their top speeds and were rapidly approaching their destination. As they got closer though, they started to notice the ground below looking disturbed from the earthquake they had heard about just a little while ago. There were cracks going through some dirt roads below, some fallen trees that had lifted up the ground below them, and up ahead of them the ground only looked more disturbed. There were some cracks in hills, small fissures in the ground with other sections lifted up higher than the ones next to them. Then they got closer to the dark sky that had been in the distance earlier, and they could see the dark clouds as well as the black smoke below them that made the heroes wonder for a moment if the clouds were just a by-product of that smoke.

The jets started slowing down on Endeavor's orders. They could see Qingxiao where they had heard the Army of Death was currently out in full force. There were different parts of the city with black smoke rising from them, yet those sections of the city were not on fire. There was still black smoke billowing out of a few buildings, though many were just smoking a bit and had more steam coming out of them. The dark clouds above those areas with the thickest black smoke were pouring heavy rain down on the fires, and winds were picking up below that pushed the falling downpour into some of the windows on different stories of those buildings.

The hover-jets of the ADTF slowed down more and they started to see individual figures out there flying around in the sky of Qingxiao. In one building that had the thickest black smoke of anywhere billowing out, a figure flying on the back of a green serpent shot towards the building and right into a window that a lot of rain was pushing towards. The hero was wearing a costume of traditional armor, yet they had a black helmet with a gas mask on the front of it on as they shot into the building. Another two figures rose up behind Yue Fei and flew into the building, one of them without wings and just flying normally, the other with four wings that looked like those of a dragonfly. And both of those figures were in all black armor.

Yue Fei flew out of the other side of the skyscraper and he had a dozen people on the back of the green serpent he rode out of the building. The other figures had gone into different stories of the building, but they both flew out without anyone in their arms. The civilians who had called from up in the building had been told to go to a single floor where the rain focused until they were able to get help up, and the wind had been blowing through that floor too to keep the smoke away. The dark-clothed figures that flew out of the floors above and below the one Yue Fei went in then went another floor up and down, into stories of the building with a lot more black smoke.

The one without wings came out of the floor two up quickly again, but it took a few seconds more for the dragonfly-like one to emerged from the building. They had a person in their arms whose body looked badly damaged and burnt, with one leg dangling off and looking crushed up at thigh-level. That Army of Death soldier turned to start flying down into the city, but they froze while looking to the east and at five jets flying towards them that they recognized well.

"This city's in a hell of a state," Excelsior started, stepping forward more on the jet and looking around at the city below. He looked back at Endeavor who had stood up and was looking around out there with a similar look on his face.

Endeavor glared down at a dark soldier he saw flying out of the air. He glared harder because the figure did not have 'Death' written on their back in any language. Their costume was black and they were wearing a dark helmet, but the person who flew out of the sky did not have the marking of the Army of Death on the back of their costume. "Bring the jets down," Endeavor started. "We have two missions here. Capture the Army of Death, and give support to this city. We must…" Endeavor slowed down and he shifted his gaze over towards a hero in a black helmet who took it off while his green serpent lifted back off the ground. Yue Fei put his helmet down behind him on the ride he created with his Quirk, Imagination. He left the people he just saved from the crispy building down on the street level with some volunteers, police, and a few soldiers in all-black costumes.

Yue Fei flew up through some rain and then the serpent he was on curled around a plume of black smoke coming out of the building the rain still had not put out on its own. The black clouds above them were thicker in some areas than others, and there were also firetrucks in different parts of the city doing their part as well. While Yue Fei flew up into the sky towards the descending jets, two other Chinese heroes in the city started flying that direction too.

Lemillion looked to his right and over at a hero he recognized from their own Anti-Death Task Force. _Why is Crane coming this way? I don't like the look on his face._ Lemillion shifted his eyes past their fellow hero and to the edge of the city where he saw a line of vehicles heading out at a steady but quick pace. There were some heroes and figures in dark costumes out that way too, working to direct traffic flows and clear up any accidents that could happen on the widened road they opened up to get everyone to a safe place outside the city. There was an evacuation order out in the city for non-essential personnel, and the flood sirens were still going off.

As the three Chinese heroes were about to reach the jets that stopped descending at the hand that Yue Fei raised towards them, loud cracking sounds filled the city. The Chinese heroes spun, and the heroes on the jets all looked far past them and to the other side of the city. They were still high enough up that they could see the other side of the metropolis, and the flooded countryside beyond it. When they had arrived, one of the first things many of them looked towards was the huge dam constructed just outside of the city. It was only a couple hundred meters from the start of where buildings got crowded together and the city's limits could be considered, and it looked hastily-built. On the top of the dam there had been a number of people, and on the other side of it in the flooded area there were more dark figures moving about amongst the rubble.

Faye popped up above the surface of the flooded water, and she yelled out around her. "Everyone get up on some debris! Fast!"

Others who Faye had given gills were swimming up, and they climbed out of the water while other Army of Death members with wings started flying their ways. A few of the dark soldiers had dragged bodies floating in the water or between rubble lower down up to the surface, and their flying comrades grabbed them and the bodies they brought up, or sometimes just the bodies. The flying figures who could not carry both just grabbed the dead, and their own comrades used the rubble as stepping stones to try and get back towards the dam. More cracks sounded from the dam, and the figures along the top of it started running towards ladders on the sides. Some tried jumping, and Gentle shouted up at them all to leap off.

Men and women rushed to the dam from the other side where the water had been slower moving but still pressing against the huge wall they made with more force than they knew it could handle. Others stacking up steel bars and debris up against their side of the wall started backing up, and more jumped off from up top onto the ground below that they bounced off upon hitting. The dam cracked more, and huge sharp pieces of rubble, heavy chunks of houses and debris being washed hard to a lower elevation and pushed from water higher up that would not be blocked up any longer, all smashed through.

"Here we go!" Mark yelled, and he rose his hands and leaned forward with all his might. "HAAAA!" He pushed his palms out at the wall of water behind the dam as the whole thing started collapsing. The wall was collapsing, but nothing was rushing out towards them immediately as he pushed back against it all.

"Jetflame!"

"Fire Squad, do it!" Jetflame yelled.

All the debris falling with the front of the wall, everything sticking out of the water and falling forward as Mark pushed the flood back, got surrounded in a fiery inferno. Bright white light shot out of Exodus' fingers, and flames blasted out of Jetflame's hands. Iblis swung her wings in and made them grow as big as they could.

"Hold on Mark!"

"He hasn't recovered!"

"I CAN DO THIS!"

Blood poured out of Mark's nostrils and his head pounded like there were drums in his brain. Water started slipping out through cracks all over the section of dam that had broken apart, and more pressure was put on other sections at the same time.

"Destroy everything heavy!"

"He can't hold it-"

"Guardian, on me!" Gentle called out, while rushing forward towards the Fire Squad who all started moving back at the same time. Mark was collapsing behind them, but a new team rushed forward and started putting up translucent walls to block the rush of water that flew in at them. Gentle and Guardian layered their walls, and they ran side to side and put up as many barriers as they could. Guardian reached down into a pouch at his side and he pulled out a vial of Trigger, and Gentle saw him and grimaced but did the same as he saw a huge wave splash over the top of his Rebound Wall that could not bounce it all back.

"Get to work Carpenter!"

"You six! On me!"

"Keep the wall as strong as possible until they can evacuate everyone!"

The ADTF had looked across the city expecting to see the flood gates breaking and a wall of water rushing into the city. Instead, a new flood gate was being built up just a few meters back from the old one.

Endeavor looked closer than the group of dark figures just outside of the other side of the city who he had just been watching for a few seconds. He looked at Yue Fei who had already turned back to him, and Endeavor could see the man expected those people to hold back the flood there. "Yue Fei," Endeavor began. "Fu. Crane," Endeavor turned to the man on the right of the three last, the man who was in his own Task Force but had not responded to his call.

"Why are you here, Endeavor?" Crane asked. His eyes were narrowed in and nearly closed, his eyebrows pushed down over them, and the round hat over his head was pushed down too to shadow over them. He glared at the man with flames coming off of his face around his eyes and as facial hair. He had flames coming off of his huge muscular arms, and they flared at that question as his eyes narrowed back at Crane's question. The man he glared back at got unnerved by Endeavor's hard look, but he kept flapping his wings and hovering firm in front of the jets.

"Under the orders of the United Nations General Assembly, I have been delegated the task of bringing in Death and those who follow him. We are here to stop the Army of Death."

"The Army of Death aren't here," Fu said. The woman frowned at Endeavor and she crossed her arms while glaring at the Flame Hero who glared right back. "Sorry Endeavor. We'd like to help you in your search, we would. But right now we're dealing with the aftermath of earlier's earthquake. We don't have time for your games."

"This is no game," Endeavor said. His voice was cold and his eyes shifted to Yue Fei next. "We must be allowed to capture them here. We will assist you in-"

"I'm sorry Endeavor," Yue Fei began. Endeavor ground his teeth more, but the man in front of him wearing the armor of a traditional Chinese general just shook his head with a confused expression on his face. "The Army of Death are not here. I am afraid you came all this way for nothing."

"They are right there," Endeavor said. He looked past Yue Fei who turned his head and looked back as if searching for them. Endeavor pointed down towards two who he saw on a street looking up towards him, then he pointed again towards the dam in the distance, then over at traffic on the north side of the city. "They're all over the place. Acting with impunity." Endeavor grit his teeth as he said it, but he stood firm on his jet and then took a step closer to the Chinese heroes who all turned to face him. Endeavor saw Gentle blocking up the water with huge invisible walls, and Carpenter building up new walls behind that one. He could see white lights blowing apart debris, and spouts of water putting out flames, and dark soldiers carrying around civilians down below. "Whatever they are doing right now, they are murderers who-"

The Chinese heroes kept glaring at Endeavor as he said this to them, but when he took another step forward during his speech Yue Fei cut in, "You mean them? Ohhh," he nodded his head in understanding, then he kept glaring at Endeavor and said calmly, "Those are just other Chinese heroes wearing black. You are mistaken, but there is no Army of Death here."

Endeavor's fists clenched at his sides. He opened his mouth to say something, and then his eyes darted behind Yue Fei and the other Chinese heroes. Those heroes looked behind themselves too and towards a figure in a black costume who had dragonfly wings sticking out of their back. The woman's black costume pushed out at her chest, and she had her four long wings flapping fast behind her outside of any armor as she flew up to the group.

"What's going on? What are they looking for?" Firefly questioned Fu as she flew up behind the other woman.

Fu turned and replied in Chinese back to the other woman. "They think you're in the Army of Death."

Firefly lifted her head fast and looked at Endeavor in surprise. "I'm what?"

There were those in the ADTF who understood that conversation, including Endeavor who just stared disbelievingly towards the woman speaking fluent Chinese in that helmet. Then the woman in all black facing him reached her hands up and grabbed the sides of her helmet, and she pulled it off before tucking it down under her right arm in her armpit. She started in English that sounded good but was a bit broken. "Um, hello Endeavor. Sorry if I confused you. I just like a dark costume design better. If it is no problem to you, I must be continuing my help." The woman looked Chinese, and she smiled at the group of heroes in front of her standing on their jet. She turned around and flew off, lifting her helmet back up and putting it on her head. The helmet that was sitting on Yue Fei's flying green serpent had its microphone on, and Firefly had heard what they were talking about up there.

"Great… work… Fire…fly…"

"Death, are you-"

"Leave him be. Everyone keep up what you're doing. Ignore the ADTF."

"Understood, La Brava."

"Roger that."

"You got it!"

 _Where's my 'Understood, Commander!'? I'm the one organizing all of this-_ La Brava flinched at the scream that cut off her thoughts.

" _RRAAA_ AAAHHHHHH…"

"Keep it up, Death!"

"We believe in you!"

Back on the hover-jets just outside of the city, Lemillion stepped forward behind Endeavor. "Well, at least let us help," he called over to the flying Chinese heroes in their way. "You look like you could use all the assistance you can-"

"Actually," Yue Fei started. "We have things under control." His eyes narrowed and he glared straight at Endeavor as he said it. His eyes bored into the leader of the ADTF's, and Yue Fei's green serpent below him bared its sharp teeth at the heroes gathered around. The heroes all stared towards Yue Fei in surprise and then in growing shock as light sparkled in front of his right hand and behind his curled grip too. A long greatsword formed in his grasp without him taking his eyes off of Endeavor, though the Flame Hero in front of him about to respond froze at the sight of that long steel sword appearing out of thin air. Endeavor's eyes darted to the sword and then back into Yue Fei's eyes in disbelief.

 _I will not allow you to start any conflict here. Many of them have gotten hurt in efforts to save our people,_ Yue Fei's dark gaze shifted from Endeavor over all the jets in front of him. "We don't need any more help," Yue Fei said to the heroes who were all staring back at him like he was crazy for drawing that weapon on them. "We are fine as we are now. Please, turn around and leave my country. I would not like to start an international incident here." His grip tightened on the sword in his right hand, and he did not budge an inch even as some of the heroes in front of him started glaring back in threatening ways.

Fu's fingernails extended out of her claws that she held down at her sides. She was sweating but she glared at a different jet as Yue Fei to show she was with him. Crane looked back and forth at the other Chinese heroes up there with him, then back at his comrades in the ADTF. And then his eyes narrowed at those comrades who had looked to him as if asking if his countrymen were serious. His look made them pull back as they could see he was just as serious as them about this. Crane bit down hard in his beak full of teeth, but he was not going to move from that spot. _The ones who arrived first. Long before I got here. I will not let you go after them after they have spent all this time helping my people._ Crane's head lowered a bit and his eyes were darker under the round rim around the top of his head. _I do not trust any of you to keep to relief efforts alone. You will use the excuse that they are terrorists and that China agrees with that to pull something. Or you might, and that possibility alone is enough to keep you out. We are not overburdened. They are the immediate relief that we need, and we will get more once they are gone. Other heroes can come in to rebuild, and other countries can send aid if they wish, but the ones who stopped the flood from killing millions will not be betrayed here._

"Go home, Endeavor," Crane said. Endeavor turned and Crane glared him in the eyes. The thinner Chinese man lifted his head and his eyes were so dark under the rim there was no doubt he would try and fight Endeavor himself if it came down to it. "The Army of Death isn't here."

 _Might be hypocritical, but he doesn't care,_ Ryukyu stared towards her Chinese comrade and then lowered her gaze with a frustrated look on her face. _We go to different countries to try and stop the Army of Death, to look for information on them, and yet no matter where it is no one ever wants to help us. Crane is now one of those people in the places we've gone to, someone who won't turn on the Army of Death after being helped by them._ She rose a hand up and rubbed the side of her head. _And in a situation like this…_

 _There's nothing I can do,_ Endeavor nodded once. He saw a brief look of relief flash on Crane's face, then the man got back to his serious demeanor as he continued to fly there waiting for them to leave. "Our information was wrong," Endeavor said, his voice low and his teeth gritting as he said it for the rest of the Task Force to hear. He looked into Yue Fei's eyes and saw the Chinese hero glaring at him still, his expression not changing one bit. Endeavor remembered when he received a response from Yue Fei during his initial attempts to create the ADTF. _There's no way I change his opinion now. He has only become more against what we are doing, and…_ _and_ _I messed up, letting them go last time,_ Endeavor realized while he turned and sat back in his seat behind the controls of the hover-jet.

He could hear some of his comrades start arguing, but they were few and they quieted down at the looks from the Chinese heroes. When those heroes looked around and saw they were alone too, looks of frustration spread but they knew there was nothing they could do against domestic heroes in the middle of relief efforts. There was nothing for them to do except leave, and for heroes faced with a disaster zone it was one of the hardest things for many of them to do.

Endeavor turned his hover-jet around and he started flying away, his teeth grinding and his face covered in anger. _I should have arrested them back then. Now, even my own Task Force is turning to join with them._ Endeavor thought of the men and women working to hold up a dam on the other side of the city, to give the rescue crews inside enough time to get everyone out. _The Italy incident wasn't a fluke, I see that now,_ Endeavor thought with his teeth clenching even harder. _Public opinion of the Army of Death changed. It's not just about them not being villains, which no one really thought from the start. This is dangerous. The worst case scenario… Not the worst, but, but it could be. There's no one who can stop them except for me. I know that. I know that! And yet I didn't even think I needed to stop them… I still don't know if it's the right thing to do, but I understand how big of a problem that is._

 _Because they're not a collection of vigilantes. They're not just an organization of villains or terrorists either. I can see now that the name Death labeled them as on the walls of Hatto's palace was intentional. They're a powerful, well-maintained, Army. More organized than I can get the ADTF with heroes from different countries with different views and different methods of fighting villains. It's impossible. Only meeting with them once in a blue moon, whereas they're in constant connection. The speed at which they were alternating who did what to build that dam in seconds. The faith in each other's abilities. None of them even looked back to check on the one who came to act like a regular hero._ Endeavor's hands tightened on the controls of his jet, ignoring the conversations of the heroes around him wondering what they should do, or talking about how after they went home they would be returning without the ADTF to act as heroes in the relief efforts.

Endeavor glared off the front of his ship and he stopped grounding his teeth as hard. He thought back on their fight together, against the League of Shadows in their underground headquarters that stretched miles around and deep. _Their attack on the League of Shadows was pretty organized, but Death's shouts of vengeance and justice made it seem more like an ideological group… I underestimated them. He was rallying his troops. He had given them different squad names but their organizational tactics broke down in that base, and it became more of a free-for-all. But, I should have taken them down back then. With more time they've only become stronger, more influential. The tips, their high-tech vehicles, their powers being utilized so perfectly and efficiently so everyone back there is doing something. It's a well-oiled machine that I've been trying to throw a wrench into, and each time I try I miss farther and farther. The huge problem with this though, is that they are the most powerful force in the world. That's a problem. It's a problem because… because, I need to stop them. Because those are my orders._

Endeavor's flaming eyebrows lifted up and his eyes grew bigger at the realization swirling in his head. _I'm never going to be able to stop the Army of Death. Not with, conviction like that. My orders? I've heard their conviction up close. And I've seen their power… Who wants to stop them among the heroes? We are the only ones who really know how much they do. I told everyone that the tips were likely the Army of Death and to try and track them if possible, but barely anyone ever got back to me on that. They still pretend. Everyone pretends. And because we didn't stop them they now have more power than we do. I can't stop them. Yet I'll have to keep trying, or at least act as if I'm trying. We can't accept the Army of Death as legitimate, nor can we accept that they are too strong to be defeated in front of the world… nor do I want to look for a way to make the ADTF more powerful so that we can beat the Army of Death. I'm… I'm fine with the AoD being stronger than any government._

An annoyed look flashed over Endeavor's face and his bit down in frustration at that thought he just had. _That's not the way for the_ _ **Anti-Death**_ _Task Force's leader to think. Yet- that's right. If the time comes that I ever do want to stop them, I can get the power to do so. Because if they do something that loses my trust, they'll lose the trust of other heroes too who will want to fight them, and they'll lose the support of people around the world who do not call us when they see the AoD, and they will lose the vigilantes and new recruits around the world looking to join them. That's… That's impossible! They, they could turn into something else… Except, they really have a self-destruct switch built in. Villains despise them. Heroes tolerate them. The world accepts them. They couldn't survive if they turned..._

 _If everyone in the world wanted them caught. I could, I could make that happen easily too. The way the world saw the AoD before and after Kazania was incredibly different. Yet, a closer inspection of Kazania showed it was the work of a single person. No other AoD incidents looked like that. I've come to doubt that Kazania ever was their doing. And most people have forgotten about that. Most people have forgotten about them. They appear once in a while. The media doesn't get any clear shots on them. No interviews. And most of what they do is accredited to the heroes._ Endeavor stared out past his jet with his look straightening out and his heart steadying. _Their goal is supposed to be to stop villains. So what are they doing back there saving so many? There goes the narrative as them being a bunch of murderous vigilantes. This will only make them more popular. It will only make more heroes quit the Task Force, as they will lose popularity by being on a force fighting them. Damn. Well, I'll keep a close eye on them. I'll continue to follow their actions, their every movements, the ones I can track at least. Even if the rest of the world stops caring I'll keep watching to make sure they stay on the path they've been on. And if they stray from it I will hunt them again. But for now… there's nothing I can do._

* * *

"…despite it being the worst earthquake seen in that region of China in over a century, casualties were remarkably low in the city of Qingxiao. Here are some pictures taken of the city and as you can see there are collapsed highways and fallen buildings. The Xifuei Dam to the east of the city burst as well and here you can see a view from the sky looking down over the flood plains between the dam and the city were completely destroyed."

"Evacuation efforts in the city have been completed, however there are still many people reported missing in the area. This story is not all bad though. Reports from evacuated citizens have been mainly optimistic about the future and grateful just to have their lives. We interviewed Sheshou earlier, a Chinese hero who was in the middle of a fight with a trio of villains in Qingxiao right before the earthquake. In what could only be described as a moment showing the most amazing side of humanity, the heroes and the villains stopped fighting each other and worked together in the ensuing chaos. Instead of fleeing the scene, the three thieves were reported to be helping protect people from falling glass and then assisting the heroes in rescue efforts. What is most amazing though, is that the Army of Death appeared in the city only minutes after the first earthquake."

"Pictures we have received from inside the city are just, amazing. Look at this. That right there is one of the villains, right next to Yue Fei, and around them are at least… I count eight! Eight Army of Death members all working together to put out a fire and evacuate people from that burning store. And look at this. This is a picture taken of one of the temporary dams the Army of Death were responsible for building to stop the oncoming flood from reaching the city."

"You know what else? We have already received reports of the deceased being brought back to life in Qingxiao since the quake. I heard initial reports of around seventy, but new ones coming in claim that over one _hundred_ people are believed to have been revived _during_ the immediate aftermath of the earthquake. Here's a picture we have of what most believe is Death, leaning over a child in the streets of Qingxiao."

"Now, I don't see a 'Death' written on the back of that man's costume. What do you think the reason for that is?"

"Maybe they took them off? Having that on each of their costumes is a fear tactic for the villains they fight, but they didn't need them here as they came to save this city from complete destruction. And experts have been saying that the heroes who were in Qingxiao alone at the time would _not_ have been able to stop the flood. Based on their Quirks and the amount of chaos and destruction in the city at the time… well, let's just say it was a good thing the Army of Death arrived when they did."

"This is not to say that there are no casualties, and all of our thoughts are with the people of Qingxiao and the surrounding region who have been affected by this disaster."

"We'll have more on this story later. Anyway Raiyu, where do you think the Army of Death has been all this time? We haven't heard much about them since the League of Shadows. Just the occasional here and there."

"I was thinking the same thing when I heard about this story. Because from the images we've received from in the city during the earthquake's immediate aftermath, (as they're long gone by now), there were a whole lot more Army of Death members than I had thought. Definitely a lot more than back during the time of Mongoloid and SISIS when we had some pictures depicting them as more of a small group with thirty or so members in it."

"Maybe the reason we haven't seen them as of late, is that they're too busy fighting villains where we can't see them? Maybe, the declining crime rate around the world has a little something to do with that."

"We haven't heard of them doing nearly enough to give them credit for that. I will say I do always enjoy a nice Army of Death story, but let's not forget that these are terrorists on the run from the Anti-Death Task Force. I'm not afraid to give them credit where it's due, but you start to give them credit for more than that and you diminish how big a part the heroes have been playing. As well, as just the everyday people in many countries that have seen the biggest drops in villain activity ever since heroes were allowed to start training people to use their Quirks."

"Or even the places where training isn't required, and it's just permitted for citizens to use their Quirks to help out if there's a villain attack."

"Now I'm not sure I agree with you there. I think there do need to be some stricter regulations than that, but I will agree that what we have seen so far is that change, is, good. Took everyone a little while to realize it, but if you look at the world today compared to last year, there is a bright light ahead. The sheer number of villains being turned in lately is beyond anything I imagined possible. Worries me sometimes hearing just how many villains there were, but the idea that all those villains are being thrown in prison washes away my worry like that."

"In countries where vigilante justice is accepted, heroes are rounding up villains at record numbers. But in other countries too, heroes have been catching villains by the _hundreds._ And even in places where regular citizens like you and I can't technically fight against the villains, we're doing our parts. Anonymous tips are at a _new_ all-time high after already being one of the biggest sources of information-gathering to help heroes catch villains."

"People heard how big of a deal it was. They were seeing how much anonymous tips were helping and they started being on the lookout more for villains. Neighborhoods are cleaning up as people who heard what happened to villains in bad ones where anonymous tips were called in start following those examples. No one's telling them to put themselves in danger, and we certainly aren't suggesting that either. But if you do see something, call the police. You have no idea just how much it might help the heroes in catching villains red-handed."

"I think we should stick to these anonymous tips. That alone is already having a great effect on our situation here in Japan-"

"Maybe, maybe. But I don't know. 'That alone,' might be something to help us out. I don't think people are satisfied with just that much though. Africa was one of the earliest places where several countries allowed vigilantes to act freely, heroes to train younger people to use Quirks, and after the chaos there last month the continent has calmed down a lot. More countries adopted the policies of the ones that had the least amount of chaos, and the vigilantes who kept the peace are being recruited as legitimate heroes. Militias are being set up as every adult in some towns are learning to use their Quirks, heroes training them so that they don't need guns which they're trying to help rid the world of. Every country in the world is in agreement to shut down any weapons' factories they find, and we're seeing the number of firearms in the hands of villains decreasing as well."

"It _is_ getting harder for villains to get their hands on weapons like those. I don't know if we can attribute that to different policies regarding training up Quirks among the general populace, but there is something to be said about it. However, we've seen that change can come with a lot of resistance."

"But Yemen is calming down! Have you been following that lately?"

"Oh yes. I was quite relieved to hear about the unrest there settling down after a few of the recent skirmishes seemed like they might turn into something more. The two sides sat down and came to a compromise over Quirk usage laws just the other day I believe. The government's opposition that had support of some heroes did not get _everything_ they asked for, as there will be regulations and not everyone can use their Quirks. However with hero training beforehand, and an easy-to-acquire certification after just a few weeks of practice supervised by heroes, anyone over 18 can get a Quirk license."

"Only a few weeks… That is one of the most free examples of Quirk-use in the world, put up against the more popular regulations in most places around that have already started allowing for Quirk training for specific jobs. And this is a 180 for a country that had been so against change and sticking with conservative values for over a year of debates now."

"Already thousands have signed up for those practice sessions in Yemen. The government has maintained power, and I'm hoping that this settlement will stop the violent protests and even deaths that had happened as a result of the clashing parties in the country. If so, then I can only see this compromise as doing good for a country that has had a big problem with villains taking advantage of their instability as of late. Villains will think twice before trying anything in a country where the entire population is trained to combat them…"

 _ **Click**_ The tv's volume cut off and Raijin lowered his hand that he just flicked some electricity out of. He turned his head while getting out of his seat, "Welcome!"

Shooter and Diamondfist were still sitting on the couches on either side of Raijin's. They looked to him when he suddenly cut off the volume using his Quirk, but they spun the direction he was looking as did the two behind Raijin's couch to see who he was talking to. The former Tartaros prisoners turned League of Villains stepped away from the back of the couch towards the doorway into the dining room. That dining room had a beautiful chandelier on the ceiling, and the wood floor wrapped around towards the front door and grand entrance of the mansion. The sitting room they were in was huge, and there were windows covering the wall to the outer wooden patio that overlooked the forested valley of Japan the house was built on the edge of.

They were so out of the way, that someone arriving should not have been a surprise to four of the five men in the room. Raijin did not look surprised though nor was he upset when he called to the person supposedly in their house. A woman walked around the corner and into the dining room, sliding a hand over the curve of a wooden chair and dancing her fingers on it. She had long straight blonde hair that fell all the way down past her waist, and her eyes were a gorgeous blue. Her chest pushed up into the tight top she was wearing which pushed a lot of cleavage out, and she had on a pair of tight black pants pulled close to her sexy body. She was drop-dead gorgeous, and the four men other than Raijin all looked at her in less suspicion and more awe as the model walked towards them.

"Whoa," Meta said, moving his hand from the sidearm at his waist. "Hey boss, who's the babe?"

Sonic nodded in agreement but did not turn away like Meta did for a second to face Raijin. He just kept gawking at the woman who looked in her mid-twenties, with perfect lips, soft skin, and eyes that made him feel himself falling for her when she looked towards him and into his own. Sonic gulped as she blinked her eyes once at him, lowering them to the ground and then smiling a bit with a little cute laugh that made Sonic's heart skip a beat. _I think I'm in love._

"How'd it go?" Raijin asked as the woman walked into the sitting room. She stopped near the entry and reached down to her side, and she pulled out a phone that she tossed across the room to Raijin. The blond seventeen year old lifted a hand and snagged the phone out of the air. He opened it up and a smirk crossed over his face, while at the same time, the woman ahead of him who tossed the phone started melting. The other four gawked even more as they realized who they were staring at.

"I don't owe you anymore," Himiko Toga said, as the face of the woman she was wearing seeped off her skin. The teenage girl lost her smile too as she said it, and she looked grossed-out for a second before shaking her head around and grinning as she looked back towards Sonic who pulled away at her crazy eyes. "Haha," she turned and stretched her arms up over her head while standing naked in between the rooms.

Raijin lifted his head back up and pocketed the phone that his fingers had been sparking on for a few seconds there. "Thanks, Toga. What are you going to do now?" He asked, as she had turned and looked ready to head out already.

"None of your business," she said, looking over her shoulder and sticking her tongue out towards him. He narrowed his eyes and his smirk turned dangerous, some sparks coming out of his left hand. She just kept smirking while looking towards him though, and Raijin tsked after a moment before cracking his own grin bigger and stopping the sparking. "Don't get caught," Toga said with a wave while spinning forward and heading back towards the front door of the building this time instead of coming in however she did before.

"Back at you. I don't want to have to break you out again," Raijin watched her go and he frowned as she said nothing and just walked out of the mansion. _Doing whatever she wants. Annoying bitch._

Shooter was frowning the entire time he watched Toga go, and he grit his teeth after she was gone before shaking his head in annoyance. Meta frowned too, and when he saw Shooter's look, he turned towards Raijin with that frown on his face. "I'm tired of all this sitting around and waiting," he said. Raijin turned to him and saw the muscular bald man with a neck tattoo and scar over his left eye including on the eyeball itself was not looking happy. The former Tartaros prisoner who was supposed to be carrying out a life sentence ground his teeth as the teen looked at him in a threatening way as if daring him to keep going, but he went on anyway, "Other villain groups are going out and making names for themselves, getting everyone to forget about us."

"Even mentioning the 'League' nowadays," Shooter started, glancing back to his left himself from in front of the couch on Raijin's right. He dropped onto it to show he was not confronting but just speaking his mind, and he leaned back as he continued to the boy facing him now, "It just makes people think of the League of Shadows."

"Well, just the other day they were on the news again," Raijin started, shrugging his shoulders like there was nothing to be done about it. "Talking all about how the former Shadow Boss of the destroyed League of Shadows, King, was taken down and thrown in prison after a raid on a compound he was in with a few hundred villains under him." Raijin spoke mostly sarcastically there, and he smirked as he was going on about it. "That big of a villain got eliminated with all his powerful soldiers with him. A Shadow Boss, taken down like a bitch."

"We know it wasn't the heroes who took him down," Diamondfist growled. He had a bead of sweat on the side of his face as he said it though, and he sat down when Raijin looked towards him. "Those guys were handed to them on a silver platter. We know who did it."

"The fact remains," Raijin started again, speaking louder and in a bit of annoyance that had Diamondfist closing his mouth tightly. "That bigshot villain got taken down with hundreds of top-notch villains and mercs. The truth is, it's not the villains' time anymore." Raijin started smirking and he continued with a shake of his head, "But that doesn't mean anything is over."

The other four looked in at the blond boy who was smirking knowingly and without the fear that they each felt after what they were just speaking about. "Our plans don't need an entire world in chaos. In fact, the more peaceful things get, the less they'll see our move coming." _And the best way to kill Zach, is once the world's calmed down,_ Raijin's smirk stayed like it was for a few seconds but it was slowly starting to slide down at the corners. _I know I can't do it now. But I'm patient. I spent years in disguise, I can spend some in hiding too. If it means I can ensure that I never lose again, that I don't feel that humiliating, horrible…_ Sparks started flying from Raijin's hands and his face was twisted in rage at the thought of his loss, his only loss. "Our time will come," Raijin said to the crew around him who nodded at that confident declaration. Raijin's eyes narrowed and glared out the windows and into the distance over Japan. "And when it does, we will be the only winners in the world."

* * *

 **A/N Thanks for reading! Hope you enjoyed the chapter. The Army of Death pops in to save a city. The ADTF's not having much luck or motivation to keep after them. And Raijin's back... think it's the first time we've seen him since 93!** **Anyway, leave a review below telling me what you think and predictions for what's coming. Bunch of reviews today so I'll respond to 3.**

QuestingforBitches chapter 123 . Dec 17

Man some of the 1A crowd are still really naive about things huh? They complain that what Zach does is wrong but refuse to think that their outdated way might be wrong.  
My money's on Zach winning against Deku anyway. All he has to do is touch him and he's out. Sure Deku's fast but it's not like he has Spider sense

 **Well, he did kill a bunch of people in front of them, including some guys just trying to run away and one he had already caught... I think Midoriya's got good reason to want to go after him. We'll see about who would win in a fight b/w those two... I mean, maybe we'll see. Possibly? Well no spoilers, but we'll see... XD**

grimXblade chapter 123 . Dec 17

Casually break him out of prison XD I was laughing the whole time.  
Ps: I'm finally caught up to this masterpiece piece, THANK YOU FOR WRITING THIS! T-T

 **Haha glad you liked it! And thanks a bunch for this review, I'm really glad you've enjoyed Death so far!**

xilios2000 chapter 123 . 19h ago

I love this fic and its the best thing i have ever read but i have 1 complaint that being the rediculous amount of eye widening in pretty much every chapter someone gonna get their eyes GO WIDE!

 **Yeah you got me there. I started hesitating a bit at the end of the last chapter because I know I do it too much, but there are only so many degrees of shock people can go through. *sigh* This chapter I went hard on keeping it a minimum (none at all maybe?), but the end of the last one was just nonstop reactions to stuff so... couldn't help it there I guess! XD Glad you're loving Death though, and nice call-out that's def something I gotta work on.**

Yes chapter 123 . 11h ago

I'd say the story icon is a bit outdated, anyone wanna make a new art thing? Anyone? 1 out of the 780 people who've reviewed must be an artist right?  
Zach once again, zero fucks given. Jirou being a bit of a bitch (understandable). She'll probably go apeshit if she meets zach again, that will be fun.  
Hawks wonders what zach body looks like, no homo? :p  
I'd never thought about the police views on AoD, makes sense

"walked away from the private just he just disembarked" WHAT IS THIS. A MISTAKE PERHAPS!  
Private jet ma dud

Zach once again gives zero fucks.

 **Alright one more review (because you sent three after all ((as long as all the Yes's in the review section are the same person lol)) and because one of the things you mentioned I really wanna reply to). I totally agree with the art thing if anyone wants to draw up a new one. Not that I don't love this one I've been using for a while (thanks for that my artist friend who made me this!) but an older version of Zach could be cool. And that typo you caught, I went back and checked but I didn't see it there. (and when you go back to check, no I didn't just go and change it after seeing your review, of course I wouldn't do something like that and then write that there was never a typo in the first place... ;P ) Anyway, thanks for the review(s)!**


	125. Chapter 125

**Disclaimer: I don't own Boku no Hero Academia**

 **Chapter 125:**

"Hey, Uraraka," Midoriya stood just outside the room of one of his best friends in Class A. The door had opened and the shorter girl on the other side was looking out at him, and she moved to the side and motioned him in with a motion of her head though with her lips pursed and dipped down at the corners. "You, wanted to talk?"

"Mm-hm," Uraraka hummed with a nod of her head. She closed her door behind her and then walked over towards her desk chair and sat down. Midoriya was left standing awkwardly next to the small coffee table she had in the middle of her room, but Uraraka motioned towards her bed with her head in a hesitant way. "You can, sit," she said.

"Ah- oh, um, thank you," Midoriya started walking towards the bed. _"Thank you?!"_ He felt like smacking himself in the face, but the nervous boy just went to Uraraka's bed and sat down on the edge of it. "So um, what did you want to talk about?" Midoriya asked the brown-haired girl who pursed her lips again and looked away at the question.

"Well, I wanted to… how was your trip to Italy?!" She asked fast and loudly, and then she lowered her gaze down with a sad look in her eyes. _That's not what I want to say._

"It was…" Midoriya started. Uraraka turned back to her classmate who had not said much about the trip so far. He and Tokoyami had both been pretty quiet about it, and she only heard about it from Tokoyami which was one of the reasons she was upset right now. One of the _many_ reasons, the girl in front of Midoriya started frowning at him more at how long a pause he had after starting that sentence. "Hawks, fired me," Midoriya said after looking up and seeing Uraraka staring at him so expectantly at him like he was trying to hide something from her.

Uraraka pulled back on her desk chair in surprise. She had thought his hesitation was for a different reason, and now she felt a bit sorry for giving him that look. "Oh, why did he do that? Did something happen, Deku?"

"The… You heard about the, Army of Death member who got broken out of prison in Italy," Midoriya said it more as a start of a statement than a question since he knew she had heard about it. Everyone had heard about it already. She nodded at him slowly, and then her eyes opened wide as Midoriya continued in a lower voice, "I was the one who, arrested him."

"You did?" Uraraka whispered. Midoriya nodded his head. Uraraka paused and her softened eyes started to narrow, but she loosened up her expression again as she gave him the benefit of the doubt. After a few seconds though, Uraraka asked in a quiet voice, "Why?"

Midoriya stared back into her eyes and he curled his hands into his thighs that he had them resting on the sides of. "Because," Midoriya started, shaking his head at her because of the question she just asked. "Because, he was a…" He paused and his eyes got softer while looking into his friend's, and then he said while lowering his gaze down, "Because I thought he might be Zach. I, really wanted it to be Zach, when I saw them there. He looked like him too in that dark costume with the swords and-"

"You mean, Death?" Uraraka asked. "You still think they're the same person?"

Midoriya nodded and looked back up in her eyes. "I do," he replied. Uraraka frowned back at him and Midoriya could see on her face that she did not think the same. He continued while looking away again, "Hawks fired me for, arresting a villain. It doesn't make sense to me."

"It doesn't sound fair," Uraraka agreed softly. "What was the guy doing?"

"He was," Midoriya started off strongly. He hesitated and then ground his teeth before saying, "Does it matter?"

"I guess not," Uraraka whispered. Midoriya turned back to her in surprise as he was expecting her to push that issue. She just shook her head though and looked down at her floor herself. _He would have responded differently, if they were doing anything bad. He would have said they were fighting heroes or committing crimes or… but he just went after him because he thought it was, Zach._ Uraraka's eyes lifted up from the floor and she took in a deep breath as her eyes were locking onto her classmate's. "Deku, you really hate Zach, don't you?"

"Of course I don't hate him," Midoriya said, shaking his head fast back at the girl across a small gap from him. He leaned forward as he said it and pressed his hands down on top of his thighs, "Why would you say that-"

"Whenever you talk about him you're always, you always talk about him like he's a bad guy. A villain who needs to be caught."

"That's because, he is," Midoriya countered. He hesitated for a second but finished strongly which just made Uraraka frown more at him. Midoriya lifted his head back and he started frowning back at her after a few seconds, "Don't you remember what he did?"

"I do, and it was-"

"Then why are _you_ made at me for remembering that?" Midoriya asked defensively, and looking hurt as he did. "Zach killed those villains. And he lied to all of-"

"Lies?" Uraraka asked, and she clenched her fists hard at her sides. Midoriya froze as the girl in front of him was shaking in her seat and he could see why she really wanted to call him in here now. She stood up off her chair though as that was combined with this now, and she said louder and in an angrier voice, "You lie too! Deku, what about your lies about All Might?" Midoriya pulled back on the bed and he looked hurt but at the same time turned away as he could not say anything to her.

"I don't know what you're talking about. I told you it was just Raijin-"

"And I pretended I was fine with what you 'told me,' but I'm not!" Uraraka's fists shook at her sides and she stepped closer to the bed Midoriya pulled farther back on at how close she was getting. Then Uraraka stopped though. She stopped and her fists started to loosen, and she just frowned harder at him though as he sat there looking back defensively at her but keeping his mouth shut. "Because, because I liked you, Deku. I liked you a lot, because of how earnest you were. How trustworthy," she started shaking her head and her face got pained as she said the word while looking at the boy whose face was covered in shock as she said this to him. She pulled her head back after shaking it to the side again, and she snapped, "But you lie. You lie when you tell me that Kaminari was just, saying it because your Quirks were similar. I noticed how close you and All Might were a long time ago so you can't just pretend…"

"Uraraka, I-"

"No!" Uraraka called out, shutting him up and leaning back towards him with a frustrated look on her face. "You, you get mad at Zach for his lies despite being a total hypocrite! Despite the fact that you lie to all of us, to me, straight to my face."

Midoriya's hands curled into the blanket he was sitting on as she said that to him. He felt his heart tearing up and it was not a good feeling, and he leaned back forward himself and said in a defensive tone, "How can Zach do it and you not be mad, but you be so mad at me? You're defending him so-"

"I am mad at Zach too," Uraraka said, shaking her head at him for putting words in her mouth. "That he lied, as much as Kaminari." Her face covered in pain and she shook her head again with her eyes getting watery, "He lied to us the entire time, for months and semesters he lied, and I felt like I didn't even know him anymore after that night in the forest." Uraraka's eyes shifted to the floor, and she continued softer, "I got so scared of him with all those things he yelled, things that I realized then meant that he had lied about everything for so long… but Zach's gone." Her eyes lifted and looked into Midoriya's without anger in them, at least not directed at Zach. "And I'm not going to be mad at him when he did what he did for peace, for everyone else, and when telling people secrets before got everyone he ever loved killed."

Uraraka said it in frustration while looking straight into Deku's eyes. Then she pulled her head back. She pulled back and she looked at the curly-haired boy who was grinding his teeth in so much frustration himself, and pain too, and like he was holding so much back but could not say anything. And what she just said echoed in her own mind. "Deku though, you just, Deku… I know, you might think the same will happen," she tried to make her voice sound sympathetic, but she started shaking her head again with anger reappearing all over it. "But that still doesn't make me accept it!" He looked into her eyes looking desperate for her to have said something else there, but she shook her head at him. "Maybe that makes me a bad friend, but so does lying," she said in a cracked voice, tears in the corners of her eyes as she looked at the boy she had had a crush on for years.

"Uraraka… I don't," Midoriya paused and he could not think of what he was supposed to say there.

She continued fast when he could not though. "I always knew Zach was hiding things," Uraraka said. "Being secretive was who he was, and I accepted that and was friends with him anyway. We _all_ knew the whole time that Zach was hiding stuff but that was who he was from the _first_ day of class. When he wouldn't even tell us his Quirk, when he was the mystery kid with a glove hiding his hand…" Uraraka shook her head sounding pained as she brought up that time so long ago. Then she continued in a stronger, and angrier tone, "But Deku, I never thought you were like that. So even more than Zach, you've betrayed my entire idea of who you were." Uraraka shook her head at Midoriya's pained look that was hoping she would just change her mind and understand from his side.

Midoriya saw her shaking her head like that, and he couldn't hold himself back. "Uraraka, I- All Might-"

"I don't care about what the secret is!" Uraraka shouted. Midoriya froze with his mouth open and Uraraka just shook her head at him more with her eyes narrowed and her eyebrows cutting in towards her nose at how he tried to get out of this just by telling her there. "I, I just care that you kept it from me, and that you decided to lie about it instead of just keeping it." Uraraka sounded the most hurt out of either of them through the whole conversation as she said that. She stepped back and she looked to her left and down at the floor. "That you chose to do what Zach did, because that's not who you are." Midoriya stood up in front of her and reached a hand forward, but Uraraka pulled to the side and grabbed her left arm with her right across her body. She looked betrayed, and hurt, and Midoriya's hand shook but lowered down as his own eyes watered just watching her look this hurt by what he had done. "That's not the Deku I know. Who I knew- who, I thought I knew… Or who I was in…"

"Uraraka…" Midoriya lowered his head and he whispered softer, "I'm sorry. I'm so, sorry. I never meant to hurt you. And, I never should have lied just to-"

"No no no," Uraraka started shaking her head and rubbed her eyes fast with her hands. She lifted her head and had a half-smile on it as she looked back at him with less of a pained look as a moment ago. "I'm sorry," she shook her head still with tears in her eyes. "I said too much- I put you on too much of a- I shouldn't have called you in here just to get mad at you for, for nothing. I'm sorry."

"Uraraka it's alright I-"

"No, really. It's fine." Uraraka waved her hands in front of her and then lowered her sad gaze down for a second. Her smile dipped a bit but she said still with it partially on her face, "That's all I, wanted to talk about, Deku. I just wanted you to… know, I guess. It's fine though. I'm not really mad. Not, anymore." Midoriya looked away and he bit down hard behind his lips. Uraraka saw that look and she pulled her own head back with a similar scrunched up look on it. She turned away herself and just said softer, "Some people just have secrets. I think I need to learn to accept that. I'll try to, Deku. I really will."

Deku looked back towards Uraraka and he gulped but then nodded his head in a steady way at her. _I can't say. Don't, just put her in danger for no reason. That would have been stupid. Just, just go._ "Okay, and I'll, I'll stop lying… to you. I promise." Uraraka hesitated as he said it, and then she nodded at him. Deku then turned towards her door, and he headed out of Uraraka's room with his heart racing and his face full of pain. _This is what it takes. The sacrifices… All Might, how did you decide who to tell? In all the years as the Symbol, only a few people ever knew… I already have, so many. The villains Shigaraki told after All For One told him, Bakugo, and… Zach. Zach told his secrets to one person. And one person was too much in his case. This is too dangerous. Uraraka, I want to tell you. I've always, wanted to tell you._ The look on Uraraka's face when she started shaking her head and looking up with a fake smile reappeared in Midoriya's mind. It gripped his heart for a second but then loosened up, and Midoriya steadied his look too after scrunching it up again. _This is better. It will be better for both of us._

Midoriya's fists clenched as he walked into the stairwell to head back to his room. His eyes narrowed in determination, _If I truly want to become the Symbol of Peace, I can't have distractions. I don't have the luxury for, for… I have to give some things away. I have to make certain sacrifices. In order to become, the Number 1 hero._

* * *

"Sir, we've been cleared for a landing," Olympia called out. She stepped out of the cockpit and closed the door behind her, then she walked farther back in the private jet towards Endeavor, and his youngest son who sat across the aisle from him. "Shoto, how're you doing?"

"Fine," Shoto Todoroki replied to his father's sidekick. He kept looking out the window on his side of the jet while responding, looking down over the snowy landscape outside. _Switzerland. We're right in the middle of the Alps._

"Shoto," Endeavor stood up from his seat, and his son turned at the sound of his father's voice. "You are coming with me inside. Olympia, keep watch over the plane. Security is tight inside. Come get me if something happens, I will not have my phone."

"Understood," Olympia replied with a nod.

"They'll even make us turn over our phones?" Shoto asked the muscular man at his side who grunted in annoyance as he agreed that it was unnecessary.

"This bank is especially strict with its security, but after the robbery," Endeavor paused and he frowned deeper. "We can be sure of even more checks than usual, even on heroes." _Especially on heroes,_ Endeavor thought with his eyes narrowing more at the door on the side of the jet that had a wider window he could look through down at the bank below.

Todoroki saw his father's eyes narrow and he looked out too. The seventeen year old frowned at the bank they were flying down to the side of where there was a long runway built for clients coming from far away. The bank was in a secluded part of the country, and Todoroki had not seen many other buildings around the mountains the bank was situated on in a valley between two tall ones. There were some wooden shacks set up on the mountains at their sides, but to Todoroki they looked like guard posts with balconies on the outsides of them that there were people on. There were some houses farther down the mountain too, but so few that Todoroki wondered if they were just for the staff of the bank with maybe a town set up near them so they could get by.

 _Swiss banks are the most secure in the world,_ Todoroki thought, though he kept frowning and did not shake his uneasy feeling at the powerful presence he felt from his father stronger than usual. _Why call in Dad for a robbery and not Swiss heroes? The perpetrator might be an international criminal robbing one of the most secure banks, or maybe they already know it's a Japanese villain._ "Just watch and listen, Shoto. This will be a good experience for you… Keep your eyes peeled on everything around you."

 _Are we in danger here?_ Shoto darted a look up at Endeavor but the pro was not saying anything else as they landed. Endeavor reached forward and he grabbed the handle on the side of the private jet that slowed down quickly on the runway while pulling to the side where some people were waiting for them. Endeavor leapt out of the plane, and Todoroki stepped forward after him and then jumped out too. Endeavor made flames come out of his feet and he lowered to the ground fast but without hurting himself or stumbling on the landing. Shoto Todoroki swung his right hand and slid down an ice ramp, then he pointed his left hand behind him and fired flames at it to melt the ice instead of leaving it on the runway.

Todoroki jogged up to his father who was not waiting but walking right up to the five men awaiting them on the runway. None of those men had reacted strongly to the way the two of them just leapt out of a moving jet, though the man in the middle did look frustratedly down at his watch before lifting his gaze back to Endeavor who was walking his way instead of hurrying more. Shoto frowned at the man's impatient attitude considering they did just jump out of the plane instead of waiting for it to stop and them disembarking in a calmer fashion. The man ahead of them called out in Japanese towards them though, "Endeavor. You have arrived. Thank you for coming."

The man stepped forward quickly instead of waiting for Endeavor to reach him. He walked in front of the two burly men in black suits in front of him on his left and right corners of the square the four guards had made around him. They were wearing black suits just like the thinner employee who stepped between them, but those two men had on black sunglasses hiding their eyes and they had pistols down on their waists that Endeavor noticed already just like his son. The employee of the bank stepping towards Endeavor froze as the Flame Hero before him said in a deep tone, "Your men have firearms on them. What is the meaning of this?"

The guards behind the employee trying to reach up and shake Endeavor's hand all tensed up as Endeavor glared around at them. The man closest to Endeavor shook a hand around in front of him and said, "Those aren't- we had to buff up our security after this recent break-in! Those aren't guns though, not real ones at least-"

"Let me see it then," Endeavor said.

Todoroki's eyes darted up to the guard boxes on the sides of the two mountains closest to the bank. The valley they were in had been flattened out a lot, and it was a very wide area big enough for a bank, a road, a whole private airstrip. And on that wide area and on the mountains on the sides, Todoroki saw a lot of guards who he frowned at the sight of them all looking their direction or back towards their plane which had finally stopped on the runway.

" _We_ called you here so that-"

"Shall I take that, as you are denying my demand to see that firearm?" Endeavor questioned the thin employee whose eyes shot open wide at the threat Endeavor just made. The thin man had combed black hair parted mostly to the right, he was clean-shaven, he had brown eyes and an inconspicuous boring appearance of what a man might look like if one were to search a 'Caucasian male' on the internet.

"Of course not. Hand Endeavor your gun, hurry it up," the employee turned and motioned at the guard on his right up to Endeavor.

The guard stepped forward while pulling out his gun. He flipped it around and held the barrel out so Endeavor could grab the grip, and Endeavor pulled the gun back and then aimed at the floor. Endeavor fired without delay, and the gun did not make as loud of a noise as he expected. He reached down to the floor and picked up a round black ball, and he lifted up the shot that was hot but nothing he could not handle. "It's not rubber," Endeavor said.

"It's not a bullet either though. And it's non-lethal," the bank employee said, his voice speeding up with a sense of urgency in it. "Of course we would not violate international gun codes here at The Omnibank. Now please Endeavor, if we could get to what we called you for."

Endeavor frowned at the gun he was holding and the employee behind it. He turned and pushed the pistol back out for the guard awaiting his piece. The guard took it and then stepped back to the side, and Endeavor started forward and right past the employee who spun looking frustrated but trying not to let it show too much in front of the intimidating hero. Todoroki followed after his father, while the employee ran up on Endeavor's side and speed-walked to keep up with the muscular man's strides. "Endeavor. My name is Mr. Copper. Here at-"

"Explain what happened, Copper," Endeavor said, not going to wait for the man to make some sort of big introduction or anything.

 _Dad's treating them all with a lot of disdain right off the bat. I've seen him at work recently, though this is the first time I've interned with him for a while, but I know he's trying to be different than this. It feels like I'm seeing the old Endeavor right here. But, I don't believe he's reverted._ Shoto frowned more at his dad's back but shifted his gaze around for another reason to explain his attitude. _Is there no need to be respectful or friendly to these people then? Bankers and security guards? It's a private bank, and it looks sketchy I'll admit, but we are in a foreign country and should be-_

Copper composed himself after being cut off before he could start his planned speech to the hero they had called in. "Our safe was broken into. Every security measure we had was bypassed. And, several of our valued customers have been robbed of everything they had here at The Omnibank."

"Only several? Could they not take it all?" Endeavor asked.

"Only, specific accounts were taken from. However, those accounts made up a large portion of our clientele. The Army of Death has crippled The Omnibank with-"

"The Army of Death?" Shoto asked, looking to the banker and then back at his father who glanced sideways over his shoulder and nodded once. Todoroki frowned more as it seemed like Endeavor knew who the perpetrators were before already, but he quieted down again and remembered what his dad told him before they got off the jet. _That's why they called in Endeavor. It makes sense. But, the Army of Death stealing from a bank?_ Todoroki's eyes narrowed more and his fists clenched at his sides. _I shouldn't be that surprised. The member caught in Italy, Midoriya said he was crazy._

"They have taken the patronage of many of our valued clients. You must track down the one who did this."

"The 'one?'" Endeavor repeated. Copper frowned more at his side and the thin man's fists clenched hard at his sides with a furious look spread over his face. Shoto and Endeavor both darted their eyes to the enraged look covering that skinny banker's face for a second there. Copper re-composed himself a moment later but the Japanese with him were more cautious of him now.

"I will show you the surveillance footage once we are inside," Copper said, his voice calmer again but with that hidden anger laced in his voice.

Todoroki frowned more as he heard that, and he narrowed his gaze at Copper as they headed towards the huge, beautiful but fort-looking bank. "If you caught them on surveillance, how did they manage-"

Copper shook his head and his frown dipped deeper. "The security systems could not be damaged further than they were or our alarms would have went off. They could not be shut down completely, but what the guards on duty watching could see was only looped footage from earlier in the night. They could not even stop the cameras from recording as it would have set our fail-safe alarms, but during the transfer from the cameras to our security room they… they knew exactly how to get around our security. They finessed it," Copper's fists shook at his sides more. "You will see when we get inside. But first, I must ask that you go through our security check to ensure…"

The Todoroki's went through security faster than Endeavor expected they would. The guards rushed it though at Copper's orders, as the banker was intent on getting them to the security room as quickly as possible. He brought Endeavor and Shoto in, and he dismissed the guards around them before playing the recordings they had discovered only _after_ their thief had slipped away. Copper put the video up on a big screen covering the opposite wall as the security screens and the three of them started watching a recording from the night before. Todoroki saw the time-stamp on the bottom left corner of the video and he was surprised they had come in so fast for this. _The Army of Death moves around so fast though, that there would be no point in following up leads any later. So soon after, if we find out who they stole from, we could actually figure out what the Army of Death is currently up to._

Shoto's eyes focused more on the screen and he darted his gaze around the different camera angles set up for them to watch. "There!" Copper paused the video and pointed at a screen that he enlarged with the remote he was holding. The video showed outside of the bank, someone in midair dropping through the sky near the top of the recording. "We have radars that should be searching for vehicles above, but they did not catch anything there at the time and they weren't tampered with! How can the Army of Death have such-"

"Keep playing it," Endeavor said. _I don't feel like explaining how good their tech is. Not to you, Copper._ "Let me see the rest."

Copper frowned but nodded his head and then started playing the video again. The camera angle pointed out towards the runway they had just arrived on showed a dark figure in all black falling through the sky that was tinted green in the camera angle that had night vision. There were bright lights moving around coming from the mountain in the direction the camera was aimed, and one of those beams of light was dragging across the sky at the perfect angle that the falling person was going to fall right into it in a second. The light hit them and they lost sight because the night vision made that part of the sky far too bright to see anything, but the beam kept doing a scan around before aiming higher up into the sky again.

"Where'd he go?" Todoroki asked, looking closer at the screen around the spot where the person had been falling only to vanish.

"Not 'he,' she," Copper countered, and he pointed down at the bottom of the screen and in some snow on the ground at the edge of the runway where a silhouette was prone to the floor. That dark shadow rose up and started sprinting while staying low, sticking to the shadows and making their way up towards the bank that had even more security up on the walls and around it. Shoto frowned as he saw another angle showing him the top of the building looking down over its own walls and to the outer perimeter around the place where there were some guards moving about in patrols.

"Those are all the same kind of weapons as your guard's, I hope," Endeavor said, shifting his dark gaze back to Copper who just nodded while still glaring at the recordings. Endeavor frowned deeper but did not say anything else about the rifles the security forces around the bank were holding.

"Yes," Copper replied in a dark voice. He glared at the woman they saw on the screen who was darting around in the cold exterior of the bank, and disappearing to appear behind guards who were heading the other direction towards where she was coming from. She sprinted up to the wall, her helmet lifting up a bit and looking for something which they could tell by the way it scanned around. Then her head lowered back down and she changed course a bit, sprinting to the right and then moving faster as some flashlights were coming around a wall of the building. She kept low to the ground, ran towards a protruding corner of the building but five meters to the left of it. "Look at this," Copper said with an angry shake of his head.

He pressed something on his remote to pull the angle back from the zoomed in way it was watching the slender woman in thick black armor that still showed off her curves. She ran right up to the building as fast as she looked like she could because of that patrol coming around, and then as she was about to slam into the wall she vanished. Copper paused the video and switched to a different angle inside the building. "This angle," he started while looking at the paused clip of a woman coming out of mid-sprint in an empty hallway, "still looked like that when she came in here." He pointed behind him and the other two in the room looked back at one of the surveillance screens he was pointing towards that had an empty hallway in it.

Copper continued, "Already past the first security checkpoint, this is a long hall we would walk down before the second check where there are no guards. The inner safe is not protected by man, as there is the possibility for human error or an employee betraying us. We have top of the line technology to protect our-"

"Continue the video," Endeavor said to the man who was defending his bank's security tactics like he was pitching the safety of their bank to a new customer. Endeavor figured the man had been doing that a lot recently due to the loss in credibility they were sure to get after this robbery. Endeavor's eyes just narrowed on the woman he was looking at though in that hallway, _Slipspace. I recognize the Quirk from Ryukyu's description. A teleport ability, with the ability to move through walls. Maybe just to move through a certain amount of space at one time be it empty space or a thick wall._

Copper played the video again, and the woman in the hallway started running down it towards another large steel door like the one that had been behind her right when she slipped in from outside. She neared that door, then she froze while getting close and turned her head to the left. She walked up to the wall on the left and then slipped through it onto the other side. A new camera angle appeared on the screen as Copper switched with an annoyed look on his face. "A panel in that wall with a retina scanner that will open up after the handprint. Worth millions…" he was muttering under his breath and his fists were clenched furiously again as he watched the woman who kept close to that wall while turning her helmet and passing her gaze over everything in the next hallway that cut farther into the bank's middle.

She lifted up a canister from her belt where there were several tools. She had a black backpack on too that was pulled tight to her slender body, but the tool she needed now was one she had ready at her right side. Slipspace rose a canister and pressed down on a button on top that she sprayed something out of into the room in front of her. The camera picked up a glittering gray dust spreading out over the room so thin it was barely visible. All that dust started settling down to the floor, though some of it was getting stuck on the red lasers covering the room. The woman near those lasers turned her head and looked around the room some more, then she started shimmying to her right towards a spot with a hole in the lasers.

"This takes quite a bit of time," Copper started, and though his voice was not as angry as before he was still clenching his teeth after saying it. He started fast-forwarding the video, and Endeavor hummed to himself while watching the nimble woman in a tight costume start doing gymnastics through the red lasers. She slipped around them and dove through loops before sliding under other ones, and she navigated the maze masterfully. Todoroki was staring in silent shock as he had been for most of the time he had been watching this. The woman used her Quirk in a few places where there were no easy ways to navigate through the lasers, and Copper stopped fast-forwarding when she had reached the other end of the hall that she started in. "She makes it through though, and then…"

He switched to another camera angle. This time, it was inside of the safe. The room looked a lot different from the hallways, darker but with glowing lights coming from the walls and from strange pillars sticking out of the floor all the way up to the ceiling. "The ground in this room has weight sensors. And so she," the woman appeared through the huge round steel door that had been in the video of the laser hallway too. The dark figure appeared inside the safe, and she kept her feet pointed down with blue lights glowing out of her boots' soles. Out the bottom of the backpack she was wearing too, blue lights glowed and kept her up hovering in midair. She was a bit wobbly at first, but she held her arms out and steadied herself, then she started turning her head around and looking through her dark visor around the room.

"They did not turn off our sensors that would alert us if each vault was being opened," Copper started. "But they did set a delay on it. A delay of four hours and twenty minutes." Copper's fists shook violently at his sides, while Todoroki glanced in at the man wondering if he was serious about that.

"Did they steal from sixty-nine of your clients?" Endeavor asked.

Copper spun towards the hero and opened his mouth to shout 'Do you think this is a joke?!' Endeavor's face was completely serious though and made Copper pull his face back as he wondered himself if that was a serious question. "Ah- no, they stole from fifty-three." He brushed down his suit and turned back to the screen, feeling he needed to compose himself after almost snapping at one of the strongest men in the world right there.

Shoto looked up at his dad wondering if he was being serious about that too. Then he looked back at the screen though and he frowned deeply, _It sounds like, they're trolling this bank. Four-twenty? And we heard they only stole from a certain number so it isn't a far jump to guess sixty-nine… I suppose. Still Dad, that was…_ "What is that?" Shoto asked, looking at one of the glowing panels that the hovering woman just floated over towards while Copper was talking about the delay on their "vaults."

"That, is how money is stored here at The Omnibank," Copper said. There was a small amount of pride in his voice as he started that, but his voice got darker as he continued like he knew there was no reason to be proud of this system anymore. "Hard cash is not this bank's specialty. Currency can always diminish in value, as can the price of precious metals like gold and silver. Instead, our electric bonds and cryptocurrency store the amount of cash for its worth when put in, and that much is immediately converted to its same worth when it is taken out. There is not interest to gain here. This bank stores money, and nothing else. No loans, no checking accounts, only a _secure_ storage for…" Copper ground his teeth in frustration as he mentioned 'secure' again, because he was watching as the woman on the screen plugged a flash-drive into the special vault and drained it of everything inside.

"How much did she just steal?" Endeavor asked, as Slipspace pulled the drive back and then backed away from the wall she pulled the vault out of completely. She turned it over and found a small panel on the bottom, and she pried that open with a screwdriver she pulled off her waist too. "And what is she doing now?" Endeavor asked in more confusion.

"Destroying the record," Copper said in a low voice. The other two turned to the banker who continued with a big frown, "As for how much she took, I cannot tell you due to what she just did."

"You don't hold records?" Endeavor asked, his eyes narrowed at the banker next to him.

Copper shook his head once. "The Omnibank offers ultimate anonymity for its clients. There is no need to bring physical cash to the bank when setting up an account. They are to put their cash into cryptos before they arrive, and they can then transfer the amount those cryptos are worth directly onto our vault-drives. It costs a large fee to start an account here at The Omnibank, and our clients enjoy a high-degree of privacy."

"You have no idea how much they stole," Endeavor said. He said it in a dead-pan tone and glared down at Mr. Copper to see if that was what he was telling them.

"We know that it was at least fifty-three million dollars," Copper said, glaring back at Endeavor. "The _minimum_ amount that a client can hold in an account here is one million in U.S. dollars." Todoroki's bottom lip lowered and he stared at the banker in shock as the man continued, "They stole hundreds of millions. Maybe even billions."

"And there's no way for you to reimburse your clients," Endeavor began with a dark chuckle while watching the woman on the screen fly over to another _specific_ box and pull it out. "Because you can claim you have no idea how much was in there. Their money is wiped out…" Endeavor shook his head as he watched the woman carefully destroy part of the vault before shoving it back in its slot. She flew over to one of the pillars in the middle of the room and slid out a larger vault with different panels on top of it, all of which she popped up and started stealing from.

"After this, she slips away," Copper said, and he paused the video and turned to Endeavor. "It's just more of the same from there on."

Endeavor frowned at the employee and then shifted his gaze back to the paused video. _That's probably all there is. The way he's been speaking so far she did escape._ "I'd like to take a look inside the safe myself," Endeavor started.

"I'm afraid that is impossible," Mr. Copper said. "Only bank employees and clients are allowed inside the safe."

"You're giving me very little to go on," Endeavor started.

"Please, Endeavor," Copper began, shaking his head and looking desperate as he started off. "This is going to destroy The Omnibank's reputation. We are going to lose more clients for sure, and it is all because of the Army of Death who you have been ordered to stop for months now. If you had not let them go-" he froze and then composed himself again before starting in a more professional tone to the scary man glaring at him. "We demand that those responsible for this crime are caught. There is nothing the Swiss government can do for us. We need you to get justice."

Endeavor leaned back and he crossed his arms in front of his chest. He turned back to the recording that was frozen with Slipspace in the middle of stealing from one of the electric vaults. "I need a list," Endeavor started. "Of all the clients whose vaults were emptied out."

Mr. Copper started shaking his head. "It is bank policy to-"

"You won't have a bank soon with something like this hanging over your head," Endeavor said back without turning to the banker. Copper's eyes opened wide and then he ground his teeth and turned away as Endeavor continued, "Knowing who was stolen from will help me get Death, which will reassure your other clients who still do have money in your bank of its safety. Who matters more to you, those clients who were stolen from or the clients you still have?"

Copper turned his head back and looked into Endeavor's eyes. He hesitated, but he nodded his head after a few more seconds and then reached down and pulled a tablet off his side. "I will get you a list," Copper began. "Of course every person on this list is a law-abiding member of society. We do not serve villains here at The Omnibank."

"I'm sure," Endeavor said with a nod at the man. Copper pulled the list up on his tablet, then he took in a deep breath and send it. "I have emailed you the list-"

"Then I'll be off," Endeavor replied. He turned right away and started back for the door of the security room. "We will start looking for them at once. If I am able to locate that drive they transferred the money onto, I will return it to you promptly."

"You have our thanks, Endeavor. Please, find them as fast as possible. The future of The Omnibank is in your hands."

Endeavor and his son headed back through the bank and were led out through security with as tight a check if not a closer one than on their way in. They were brought out and Endeavor told the men who tried walking with him that they would be fine on their way to their jet without an escort. Then he continued walking without waiting for them to respond to him, and the men fell back to just report what Endeavor said which Todoroki looked back to see. Todoroki walked forward and up onto his dad's right side while Endeavor had his phone lifted with a list on it he had just received.

Endeavor scrolled through the list and he hummed at the names he was reading off. Shoto looked from the phone to his dad's face, then back to it again. He frowned and thought back on the videos he had just watched inside the bank, and he looked over towards the area of the runway where he remembered watching that woman dropping down on. _A single member of the Army of Death robbed millions. Hundreds of millions. There's no questioning where that technology she had came from, if they can get money like that._ Todoroki glared back towards the bank and thought about how she had slipped through walls and safe doors, and the way she had navigated that laser field. _She was like a ninja. An amazing bank-robbing ninja. How did she know the layout so well though? Exactly where in the bank to come in? And the one who messed with the cameras and delayed the sensors, who has the ability to do something like that?_

Todoroki frowned deeper at the thought of how precise and smooth that robbery had gone. _They're powerful._ "That list," Shoto began to his father. "How are we going to catch the Army of Death using it?"

Endeavor lowered his phone and glanced to his side at his son for a moment, then he handed the phone over to Shoto who grabbed it and looked down at the names himself. Endeavor began as Todoroki scrolled through it, "The ones on that list will come out now since their cash was stolen. Get aggressive, and sloppy, and the Army of Death will go for them." Todoroki slowed down and stopped scrolling the list, turning his head and looking back at Endeavor in confusion at what he was saying. "We should just go after a few of those names ourselves," Endeavor continued. "Maybe the Army of Death will show up on them while we're there."

"I, don't understand," Shoto began.

The two of them were heading back towards their plane and Endeavor made a motion at Olympia who was watching from the open doorway on the side of the jet. She headed off to go tell the pilot to get them moving, and Endeavor stopped with his son on the edge of the runway to wait for the plane to come to them instead. Endeavor began to his confused son once they were stopped and in the open without anyone around them, "That bank behind us is rumored to serve the underworld. There's never any proof, because there's no proof the bank ever knew the backgrounds of their clients. The really rich villains can send other people to open accounts for them too under their own names, clean names." Shoto stared at his dad in increasing surprise at what he was saying, suddenly realizing why Endeavor had been so apprehensive of everyone since they arrived.

"If they work with villains, and we know that-"

"We don't know that, for sure," Endeavor countered. "I don't _know_ , that illegal art dealers, mob bosses, dirty people who are not proven criminals but are under scrutiny for what people close to them do as they stay clean, hold accounts here." He looked at his son and he shared the skeptical look that Shoto just gave him. Shoto's eyes widened as he saw his dad was not saying this because he thought it, but because he was being constrained by something. Endeavor explained, "We can't do any investigation into this sort of thing because of Switzerland's lax laws against banks. Switzerland has not had to deal with big villain problems like the rest of the world. They have maintained a high degree of peace over the years so they have not changed laws or cracked down on anything, allowing private ownership of entire mountains and low regulations on banks that receive no scrutiny."

Shoto started looking around the mountains again in a different light. _The government oversight is practically nothing. A place like this has its own security force large enough to be considered more like a private army. And if all the people who were just stolen from are villains, they might need it. But, how can we just assume that everyone on this list is a villain? The Omnibank can't just have villains banking here or something would have come out and…_

"Working with suspected criminals," Endeavor continued with a low begrudging grunt. "Means that when those men and women get arrested for real, their assets could be _claimed_ by the private offshore bank if they discover that one of their clients used a different name, or they turned out to be a villain. If their villainous deeds are revealed, the bank could even freeze their account while the villain is on the run, taking their cash and pretending like it was never there in the first place. It's a sneaky business strategy, and dirty," Endeavor glanced back towards the bank himself. "But it means that they aren't technically serving villains. Their rules make it a place where villains are sure to see the opportunity and freedom of storing cash anonymously, but there are risks they take putting their cash in a place like this."

Endeavor looked back at his son, "The 'anonymity' the bankers use is their excuse not to reveal their business practices." He nodded down at the phone Shoto was still holding, and he added, "Most of the names on this list are fake, but some should still give us leads as to where to go based on known underworld names and aliases shared by heroes across the world. Some of those names are real too, but those ones will be less likely to give us anything. We'll look into them to see if any are aides or assistants to big names with a lot of money, or if they're rich guys themselves like Marconi down near the bottom there. Marconi will come up clean when we look into him, but he might get sloppy now that he's been stolen from. I'll put out notices for other heroes to watch these guys closely over the coming days. While we," Endeavor reached out his hand and Shoto slowly handed his phone up to his dad who scrolled back to the top of the list. "Are going to head to Chile. Vincente Morales. He's a big shot I could see Death going after, runs a lot of businesses down in South America. Not all of them are looking legitimate now."

The plane they had flown in on was rolling to a stop in front of the hero and his son. Shoto's fists were balled at his sides and he was still having trouble processing everything his dad was telling him. He thought back on that video they had just watched, of the woman breaking into the safe and stealing from a bunch of different people's accounts. _Millions! They stole so much and… and Dad's just- it doesn't even seem like… The Army of Death are the ones we're-_

Endeavor looked down into Shoto's eyes and could see the frustration in them. The disbelief and the look up at him like he was being foolish and making too many conclusions right away. Endeavor turned from his son though and stepped towards the jet that just stopped before them. "Shoto, did you really think the Army of Death was just robbing a bank?" He looked back at his son over his right shoulder, and Todoroki stared in shock at the man in front of him. Because Todoroki saw in Endeavor's eyes a bit of respect for the group he just mentioned, and he saw there that Endeavor had never thought for a second that that was all this was.

 _It's not about the money?_ Todoroki stared at his dad and his fists clenched even harder at his sides. _How? How can he respect- Death?!_ Todoroki's fists clenched harder as a face appeared in his mind. _Zach. I had no idea what the Army of Death had turned into. I still have no idea, but Dad knows. He knows and he… trusts you?_ Shoto got even angrier, his fists clenching so much harder at that thought. And then he froze and he stared at his dad's back with a strike of pain in his chest. "Dad," Shoto Todoroki started.

Endeavor stopped and he turned his head to his son. He looked back and he got a confused look on his face at the pained and held-back expression on Shoto's face. _I'm getting so mad at him trusting Zach, because Zach lied to us for so long. He lied straight to my face when I called him out on having that plan. I knew he did, but he convinced me again with his lie! And yet, I'm, being a hypocrite._ Shoto's eyes lifted and looked into Endeavor's in such a dark way. Then those dark eyes got sad for a second which confused Endeavor even more so that he turned all the way around and stepped back towards him. Shoto steadied his face and then began in a low voice, "Dad, there's something, I need to tell you…"

* * *

 **A/N Hey guys! Thanks for reading! Been a nice week of everyday posts, but probably not one coming tomorrow as I'm going to work on my thesis all day. Also, I'm going out rn so no time for review responses. Anyway, hope you enjoyed the chapter! Leave a review telling me what you think! See ya' soon!**


	126. Chapter 126

**Chapter 126:**

"Hey Creati!"

Momo Yaoyorozu turned her head to the side of the hall and looked in surprise at a couple of first years watching her go by with huge smiles on their faces. A couple of girls who saw Yaoyorozu turn towards them spun to each other and nodded with those smiles and then ran up to the taller girl. A short girl who had light pink skin and the snout of a pig ran up on Momo's right side, and her friend who had dark hair like Yaoyorozu came up on her senpai's left. "You were so amazing in that fight last week!" The darker haired girl on Yaoyorozu's left started, leaning up to the taller girl who smiled back nervously and started to thank her.

"And that press conference you were just so, and your costume is just so, wow," the pink girl pulled her face away when Yaoyorozu looked at her after she stammered like that. She spun and started walking backwards next to Yaoyorozu though, and she had a really nervous look on her face before saying, "I really look up to you." The girl spun back around and ran the other way as soon as the words left her lips.

"Mimi, aahh," the darker-haired first year spun around and then started jogging back the other way after Yaoyorozu had stopped in the hall and turned around with a look on her face like she had done something wrong. "Don't mind her. Anyway, you're awesome! I'm Azure!" The black-haired girl starting to run after her friend kept stopping and looking back over her shoulder to add more to her upperclassman who looked more confused but started raising a hand and waved back at the girl who waved a hand rapidly her way.

Yaoyorozu looked back forward, and everyone else in the hallway was looking towards her. _Oh my,_ she started walking forward again and stood up straight as she did. She lifted her head high and walked as if she did not notice everyone looking her way, but she could see them looking towards her and talking all around. They were not being mean as they did it, and a lot of them were smiling like those other girls had been at the tall girl with great curves even in her school uniform. Her hair was tied back in a spiky ponytail, as usual, and she did not think much was different about herself from a couple of weeks back. _This is… I want to blame the new commercial. I never should have agreed to that just for Uwabami-san's sake. I should have known she was pleading just to get me in there; she was not as desperate as she seemed over the phone._

"I can't believe she's just another student here at U.A. like us," a boy on Momo's right side said a bit too loudly to his classmate in the general course of the first years. "She's more like a Goddess."

A bead of sweat rolled down the side of Yaoyorozu's face and she picked up her pace towards the back door of the school. _Was it the press conference after the fight last week? Mina said that I had acted so, "pure" was it? I did not know the fight was being recorded though. Now they are calling me humble on the news and, and I must stay composed. In the eyes of the public and my peers I must always collect myself in a manner befitting that of a hero._

Yaoyorozu slowed down a bit as she reminded herself to relax. She was almost at the back door of the high school, when those doors opened up and a large group of people started inside. Yaoyorozu stopped and then she wished she had been just a little faster, as the six guys who just entered all looked at her with wide eyes while their conversations cut off. "Whoa- I mean, hey Creati." The guy who was in front of the group started. He had red skin and was taller than Momo by over a foot, and he had two horns sticking out of the back of his skull curving to either side.

They were all third years, and they were all in the hero course too which was clear as they all had their costumes on. And they all smiled at the younger girl by a year who greeted her upperclassmen politely.

 _So cute._

 _What a babe._

 _How have I never talked to her the past two years?_

"Saw you at that internship last week. You really kicked those villains' asses."

"It was some great hero work."

"Ah, thank you very much senpai."

"Hey you guys, mind clearing the doorway," a hand went onto the shoulder of the older boy on Yaoyorozu's right side. The third-year behind his classmate moved his friend to the side and then looked in a bit of surprise at the girl they were all facing just inside the hall. The black haired eighteen year old turned his gaze on the red-skinned guy on his right, "I'm not the only one you're holding up. Come on Rylo, let's get-"

"Oh it's fine, Nagiso-senpai," Yaoyorozu began to the boy who was trying to make room for her to get out. As much as she appreciated it, she also did not want to insult her other upperclassmen who she was talking to. She was too nice to mention that she was actually heading back to her dorm in a bit of a rush, so she just smiled and asked, "Where are you all heading off to?"

"Going on patrol with Cementoss," Nagiso replied. "Though we say that, it's more like we just head out on patrol on our own."

"How so?"

"We split up in groups of two," Rylo started to the girl he spun back to after frowning at Nagiso for a minute there.

Yaoyorozu looked at the red teen in some confusion, and Nagiso continued for his classmate who did not explain that well. "Cementoss lets us do our own patrols. He's probably watching us from somewhere, though I think he might just go off and take a break. He knows we can handle ourselves after all."

"Not that you can't-" one of Nagiso's classmates on his right started, holding up his hands in front of him and waving all five of them at the girl who looked his way in surprise as she was not expecting that sudden outburst.

"No one was saying she couldn't," another of them started, but Nagiso was already turning back with wider eyes like he thought he might've offended her there.

"No, it is true that our class is watched closer than that," Yaoyorozu said before Nagiso could say anything. "I hope we can prove ourselves to the faculty to be granted that freedom as well. I am sure it is a great experience for training for real patrols once we are heroes."

 _What an answer!_

 _Truly the Queen of Class A is before us._

"Heh, after that show you put on last week I don't see how else you could prove it to them," Nagiso started. Yaoyorozu got a sheepish and semi-embarrassed look on her face that he had seen it too, but Nagiso just grinned more and then shook his head before starting forward and to the side of the girl he had been speaking to. "Come on guys. Let's not keep the teach waiting any longer. See ya later, Yaoyorozu," he finished as he was walking past the girl.

Yaoyorozu turned with a smile again and she nodded her head at him. She had felt more relaxed talking to the upperclassmen after he stepped in, and she added to her third year friend, "Enjoy your patrol. Nagiso-senpai."

"Hey wait up!"

"See you, Creati."

"Have a, nice day?"

"Nice meeting… um, bye."

Yaoyorozu let out a long relieved sigh once the group had gone past farther down the hall. She stepped into the doorway and paused for a second though, looking over her shoulder and towards the upperclassmen behind her. She watched as one of them threw an arm around Nagiso's head and put him in a headlock, and they were all being loud and laughing with each other about something. As one of them started looking back her way, she spun her head forward and finished leaving the school building. _Nagiso-senpai was, rather nice. He didn't treat me different like the other students in other years, and even our own outside of Classes A and B. It is a good thing not everyone has started to treat me like a… celebrity. Ahh, I should not have done that commercial._

* * *

"Ah-ha! Haa," Zach stomped his right leg down and spun with his left and another grunt. He spun-kicked to his right where a man just appeared only to already be in mid-sprint around Zach to the right. Zach's kick missed behind him and he stomped that leg down hard while spinning his entire body with another grunt, and he brought his left leg up around into the path of the man running towards it now. The pale-skinned man in all black turned into a bat and rose over Zach's leg, moving away at the same time to increase the distance as he returned to his human form.

"You will never hit me like that-" Drac pulled back again and dodged another kick, then he started running to the right to circle the boy who watched his incredible speed with eyes that flashed red when Drac sped up like that. Death stomped forward and kicked a leg after Drac but the man sped up more and then turned into a bat and sped to Death's right side, only to run another way as Death spun a kick towards him while turning that way. Drag turned into a bat again and flew behind Death's back. His mouth was opened as he was transforming back into a human in a transformation that was almost instant.

Dracard the Deadly started opening his eyes a lot wider than his mouth though, as a leg flew out behind Death and planted a foot straight into Drac's chest when his feet had not even touched on the ground yet. Drac's chest was still broadening to its full size when the kick slammed into him, and that meant he did not have as much weight in his body yet. The kick sent Drac flying backwards ten feet flat onto his back, though he rolled backwards after hitting the ground and pressed his palms into the floor below his head as he was coming over it. He pushed himself up into a backflip from his roll and then slowly lowered down to his feet with his arms down at his sides and his fingers twitching.

"That kick was, different," Drac began. "How did you know I would appear exactly there? Can those eyes see out the back of your head?"

"I knew where you were going to appear the three times before it too," Zach started, while his red eyes turned back to hazel and he took some deep breaths to calm his breathing. Drac's eyebrows lifted up and he cracked a smirk with the right corner of his lip as the younger man continued, "I only kept following you with my eyes, turning each way after you were appearing each time, so you wouldn't notice I caught your pattern already."

"And then a very strong kick when I think I am in your blind spot," Drac said, shaking his head once and then smirking more. _All of the spin kicks following me around. I was going to say that he needed to lead me, aim where I was going, not where I am._ "It seems even a gap of a few hundred years has not kept me from learning from you. That was a marvelous kick, Death."

"I'm glad it connected," Zach said. "You're fast. I can barely keep up."

"Yet you do."

"Ready for another round? Go ahead and attack this time too, I want to focus more on defense out of Nightmare-"

"Actually Death, I think it is time I got some rest as well," Drac said, raising a hand and patting it over his mouth like he was yawning.

 _He doesn't sound too tired. Does he even sleep at night? He's a vamp…_ "Alright." Zach looked around the training area of The Cloak that was empty except for the two of them. "I think I'm going to stay and do some weight training on my own then."

"You should always use a spotter," Drac said, though the man was turning away at the same time and heading for the gap in the wall. He walked into the hall and said with a glance back Death's way. "Enjoy your night, Commander."

His English voice got thick with his accent that Zach had learned, and guessed beforehand, was Romanian. Zach watched him go and then he let out a deeper breath before shaking his head and turning to the weight area. _Why's he gotta say stuff in that voice? It's creepy as hell. And I can't tell what he's thinking half the time. Geez, at least he's a nice guy. Though if you're going to mention how I need a spotter, then you should offer to be one. Not that I wanted him to spot me… Drac. He's high up there. Myself, Exodus, then probably Jetflame. Mark could be, depending on the situation though. Then Gentle, maybe bump him higher in Lover Mode. Then Drac? He's definitely the most experienced. Though, Eloper's got that mastery over her Quirk I've never seen so perfected before…_

Zach went over to one of the weight machines and he sat back on it. He adjusted the weight, frowning as he had to go down from whoever the last person who used it had it set on. _I don't know about making Drac into a Squad Leader though. He disappears sometimes. He brings communications with him, and I get that he can fly and probably hasn't been reined in for a few centuries… How do I know I can trust him? The only other person I know close to being that old is Eziano Mozcaccio. That's probably why I'm apprehensive. Did Eziano lose his humanity because he's lived for so long? Do people lose the value of human life after reaching a certain age? Drac says he found meaning again, but he's lost it before. He could lose it again. The way he reacted to those test subjects thanking us yesterday was strange. He did not get emotional at all, but maybe he can't, or maybe he's used to seeing things like that?_

Zach did a few sets working on his chest, then he moved on to a machine for a shoulder workout. He put his hands up on the sides of his shoulders and grabbed the handles, and he strained himself on the first one before continuing with a dozen more reps in a tough first set. _I need a new squad for big fights. There's no need to have so many people on each squad. And I can manage more than eight squads at a time. If I split it up too, make different squads with different members in them I can fix some of the problems about not having certain Quirks matched with others when the time comes. Explaining all the switches one by one during battles is not efficient enough._ Zach started up on another set and he ground his teeth as he had just increased the weight, but he powered through while his mind continued to think about other things. _I want everything ready for Friday's attack. Perfecting the strategies so we don't lose anyone else. Having backup plans ready for when the first ones fall through, if they do. Always plan as if they will. Think constantly. Forge ahead._

He finished his sets for his shoulder workout, then he checked the tablet he pulled off his waist. _Two hours until I'm back at full. Hold off just a little longer. Don't get impatient again, it will just waste more time._ Zach lowered his tablet down but did not attach it to his waist. He put it on a black workout bench next to him, then he reached to the hem of his tight shirt and pulled that up and off his head. Zach glanced down at his own upper body for a few seconds. He was five foot ten, his pecs were defined as were his abs below, and there were scars all over them. Zach heard screams in his ears as he stared down at a scar on his lower right side splitting through his stomach, and then he looked near it at a diagonal one on the same side. Gentle's face appeared in his mind, and Zach shook his head of those thoughts before getting down on the floor and putting his hands behind his head.

Zach put his legs up on the bench next to him, but after a while of doing sit-ups he stopped and stood up. He looked around and then walked over to a large workout machine with different set-ups on all four sides. At the top of one side was a long pull-up bar attaching to another machine that looked the same as it a few meters away. Zach jumped up and he grabbed the bar, did a couple of pull-ups, then he hoisted himself up higher and climbed onto the bar. He sat down on it and tucked his legs around it after resting them off the bar, and then he leaned his body back and back until he was hanging upside-down. _Better,_ he thought, as he started doing sit-ups which strained his body more than the kind he was doing before.

Zach did a few sets and then sat back up fully and onto the bar. He dropped down from it and wiped some sweat from his forehead. The sweat had been dripping up his body, and the droplets turned and slid down the other way. One sliding down the middle of his chest between his pecs turned and traced a diagonal scar down towards his left side, only to cut back to the right on another scar crossing that one. Zach felt it and he just wiped a sweaty arm across the front of his body before turning towards the wall and some free weights he was going to go grab. As he looked that way though, he froze and stared towards the entrance to the training room where someone was standing.

Darling walked into the training room. "How did I know you were going to be here?" She asked with a bright smile at the boy whose shirtless body her eyes darted all around at. She was wearing a bathrobe and she sauntered into the room towards Death who wiped some more sweat from his face while looking towards her.

"Just getting some, training…" Zach trailed off at the look on Darling's face as she came closer to him. Her brown hair fell straight behind her down below her shoulder-blades, and her green eyes stared deep into his while she shrugged her shoulders. The bathrobe dropped from her body and left her naked in front of the boy who went red in the face and turned to the side. "If you're not here for training, go away, Darling."

"That was an accident," Darling said. "Besides, I did come to train. Can you help me, with some _aerobic activity?"_

"That was an accident huh? I'm sure it was," Zach said, trying hard to ignore the last thing she said. He turned more and started over towards the free weights, "You should get a tighter bathrobe, so it doesn't fall _again._ "

His suggestion fell on deaf ears, and Zach pulled his head back as Darling just bounced across the room with springs in her legs that turned back to normal after landing in front of him. She leaned forward towards him and rose her head with her eyes half-closed and full of lust. "I love you, Death. You know my body is yours. Only yours."

Zach held his hands out and pushed Darling back by her shoulders. "Your body is your own. I need to train." Zach let go and stepped to the side, and he walked past the girl whose face fell. "Go put your clothes on," Zach said under his breath, while grabbing a couple of 50 pound weights off the rack.

Darling turned the other way back to the exit. She had looked at Death's back wishing he would turn back around, but he stood facing the weight rack as he started doing curls with the free weights. Darling looked down at the floor and she sniffled in once, and she reached down and grabbed her bathrobe with a shaky hand.

 _Hold strong. Keep the cold shoulder. Don't, don't turn-_ Zach looked over his shoulder and he pursed his lips. "Darling, I'm sorry." The girl near the gap in the wall spun back around towards him with her eyes lighting up. "But we have to focus on the mission," Zach continued, saying it sternly and as serious as he could to show this was still over.

Darling nodded at him, "I understand. I'll um, let you, keep training," she put her bathrobe back on and then hurried out of the room.

Zach watched her go then he looked down at the floor again. "Ahhh," he let out a sigh and shook his head once. _At least she wasn't as upset. That was, creepy. So creepy. Just creepy._ Zach started doing another set of curls, and he ground his teeth as the weights were heavy and he was doing a lot of reps. "Ah, haa, ah, uh- ugh, ah," Zach grimaced and glanced down at his black pants as he continued to do his curls. _It's a good thing these pants are so tight._

* * *

"Gahhh I still don't get it!" Ashido ran her hands up through her wavy hair and shook her head around in frustration.

"Calm down," Jirou said, in a tone like Ashido was making a big deal out of nothing. "We still have over a week before finals."

"And I _still_ don't get calculus at all!" Ashido exclaimed back.

"Do not worry, Mina," Yaoyorozu began to the pink girl on her right. Ashido spun with a worried look on her face, but Yaoyorozu smiled reassuringly at her, "Let us keep studying hard over the next few days. I am sure you will get a hang of it."

"Sn, sn, Yao-momo!" Ashido exclaimed in relief and joy.

Jirou sweatdropped at Ashido's complete switch in attitude right there as she started smiling again and agreeing with Momo that they would definitely be ready in time. _If you paid more attention in class you'd understand it just fine… not that I'm doing any better in English,_ Jirou thought the second part with a grimace. She looked up though at the orange sky as it was getting late in the day. They just left the school's library and were heading back for their dorm, and the three girls were still wearing their school uniforms since they had never gone back yet after classes ended.

As the three girls were talking and walking back to their dorm, Ashido looked down the road and spotted someone running their way from farther past their own dorm even. As they got closer to Class 2-A's building, the tall boy running their way became clearer to Ashido who smiled as she recognized who it was. "Hey!" Ashido waved a hand towards the boy, and she jumped once and called to him, "Nagiso-senpai!"

The teen running their way was wearing a red hoodie, the hood bunched up behind his neck. He had in a pair of earphones, but he reached up and took them out as he slowed and started jogging towards the girls. "Hello Nagiso-senpai," Yaoyorozu greeted once he had stopped in front of them.

Nagiso looked at Yaoyorozu and then got a bit of a nervous look on his face for a second. He shoved his headphones down into his pockets and said, "Oh hey. How's it going? You girls just leaving class now?"

"Studying for finals," Jirou replied simply. _This is that Nagiso guy? Jelloman, huh?_

"Calculus is hard," Ashido moaned.

Nagiso laughed and he nodded in agreement. "Yeah, you'll get it though…" he started sounding reassuring there for a moment but his eyes shifted back to Yaoyorozu and he trailed off. "Hey um, Yaoyorozu. You got a minute actually?"

The three girls looked surprised by their upperclassman's question. Yaoyorozu smiled though after a second and she nodded her head, "Of course." She looked back and forth at Jirou and Ashido, "I'll be right behind you."

"Ah, alright," Ashido said. She turned back to Nagiso questioningly for a second but then shrugged and said in a mock-annoyed way, "Guess I can't hear this. Super secret stuff huh?" She smiled at the upperclassman while walking past him, showing she was not actually annoyed which Nagiso smiled back at her for.

Jirou headed forward too, and she said, "Nice to meet you, Nagiso-senpai."

"Likewise, Jirou," Nagiso replied.

Jirou was not surprised he knew her name. Very few people did not know her name or the names of any of the famous Class A students in all of Japan. It had gotten to the point that the last few times she had tried introducing herself to people they would always cut her off and talk all about how they'd heard of her before. Jirou looked back after walking past the third-year who walked closer to Yaoyorozu and then motioned forward while asking if she would walk with him for a moment. _What's he doing? Oh, ohhh,_ Jirou spotted a look on Ashido's face next to her and she realized what was going on with the two walking away from them.

Ashido had a sad look on her face. She watched Yaoyorozu start walking away with the third-year, and she pursed her lips more. _Momo doesn't know why… I wish it was me. Nagiso's, a great guy. He's our senpai, and he'll be a hero soon, and…_ Seeing Yaoyorozu walking away with a guy like that had Ashido looking down at the floor sadly though, and she turned to Jirou with that look still on her face. Jirou frowned and turned around, humphing like she did not know why they should be upset there.

"…so every year after finals, but before graduation, there's a dance for upperclassmen in their final term," Nagiso continued to the girl next to him who nodded as she listened to him. Momo started slowing down though and her eyes widened which Nagiso noticed and started smiling at the sight of her understanding. They stopped in the road with no one around them, and Nagiso turned fully to the girl a few inches shorter than him. "Yeah, and for our, U.A. prom, we're allowed to ask people from other years too. Not just our own. So, I wanted to ask…"

* * *

Zach stirred in his bed and his eyes parted open. His alarm was not going off, and the ship did not feel like it was under attack. Zach lifted his head a bit though and looked into Darling's eyes as she leaned over him. _I would have woken up if she tried kissing me. I did wake up though. She's just-_

Darling leaned forward more as Zach woke up and looked into her eyes. She was smiling brightly, and her eyes shook as she pursed her lips in that big smile. She put her hands down on Zach's sides and she said as she pried her pursed lips apart, "I'm so happy, you're alright." Zach looked at her in surprise and then as he sat up, Darling threw her arms around his sides and hugged him. Zach felt some lingering pain in his stomach, and in his right leg, and especially on his collarbone on his left side. He rose up his right arm and wrapped it around her back, then he slowly rose his left and rested a hand on the back of her head.

"I know you can't stop fighting, but after all those injuries I wish you would rest longer," Darling whispered, pulling her head back from his chest for a second and looking up into his eyes. Zach held his bare right hand on Darling's back and he rubbed it around to reassure the girl still holding him by his sides. He held her without being afraid of hurting her, and he smiled softly at the girl for a second before shaking his head at what she was saying to him.

Zach slid his legs off the side of the bed and had to push Darling away to start getting up. "Wait! Don't get up because I-"

"I need to get up anyway. Tell me what's happened while I slept," Zach said, continuing with an order before she could try and get him to lay down again.

Darling nodded and replied immediately after hearing that in Zach's commanding tone, "We got the information out of them. Then Gentle brought those villains to the authorities nearby before escaping fast since heroes actually tried laying a trap for him."

Zach nodded and felt satisfied by that answer. _That's what I was hoping would be done by the time I woke up. So it's better I got up now._ Zach turned to the girl after looking in the mirror across his room from his bed for a moment. He looked at Darling and saw she still looked worried, and Zach said while looking into her green eyes, "Thank you, for watching over me."

"I always will," Darling replied, stepping closer to Zach and twisting her right foot down on the floor with a shy look in her eyes. She lifted her gaze back up and whispered, "Because I love you with my whole heart." Zach looked back at her and his lips lifted into a smile of his own, and when Darling stepped closer he didn't turn away or step back...

* * *

"'No?'" Nagiso stared at the girl in front of him with his bottom lip lowered and his face shocked by the reply he just heard.

"I'm sorry, Nagiso-senpai. It's not that I don't- I'm flattered that you would ask me. But, I don't think, I can't…" Yaoyorozu's face looked genuinely apologetic, but she shook her head again at her upperclassman who started clenching his fists in anger.

"Why- I shouldn't have-" Nagiso ground his teeth and he shook his head once at the girl as she opened her mouth to try and explain. "Just don't. I don't care anymore. I shouldn't have asked you." Nagiso turned and he reached down to pull his headphones out of his pockets. "Sorry to waste your time," he spat out in frustration, "princess."

"Wh- Nagiso-sen-" Yaoyorozu stared in as much shock as Nagiso had looked at her in a few seconds ago when she declined his offer to come to prom with him. He was storming off and looked really upset, but Yaoyorozu started frowning and she shook her own head. _He acted like a jerk. Just because- it was an offer! He should have…_ Yaoyorozu turned and started heading back towards her dorm with an upset look on her face of her own. _There's no excuse for the, for the way he acted! It's not my fault. I just said "no" to a yes or no question. I just… why did I say "no?"_

Yaoyorozu slowed down in the road and her frown deepened more but did not look any angrier. Her eyes lifted up to the sky that was less orange now and more black. _I just thought of us as friends. That's all, and that's why…_ Yaoyorozu looked sadly up at the moon in the dimming sky.

* * *

"I love you too," Zach said. The brown haired girl stepping towards him froze in place and her eyes sparkled as she smiled so much at the boy smiling in front of her.

Darling dove forward and she threw her arms out to the sides as she leapt towards Zach with her eyes closed and her face looking euphoric. Zach held his arms out and caught her, but he lowered her down and held her back as she tried throwing herself on him. Darling looked up at his face and Zach shook his head at her which started to make her huge smile go down. "I care more about you than anyone, Darling," Zach said, and he brought the girl he held back at arm's length into an embrace again. He hugged her and listened as the girl who started hugging him back told him how much she cared about him too.

The beautiful girl hugging Zach wanted more, and he could hear it as she told him how much she cared what it was she really wanted in this embrace. Zach frowned though as he heard her talk about how she cared about him with her _whole_ body again. His eyes shifted towards the window of his private quarters, out into the dark sky that was starting to get lit up by the rising sun. He looked out into the distance though at a round full moon that was starting to fade. He stared at it with sad eyes and thought, _Momo._

* * *

 **A/N ;)**


	127. Chapter 127

**Chapter 127:**

"Hey Jirou, come over and watch for a bit," Sero called over his shoulder to the girl walking into the kitchen.

Kyoka Jirou looked towards the couch area and the boy who just called to her. There were a lot of other students in Class A gathered on the couches, and Jirou looked past them at the screen with a frown as she already knew what they were watching. "I'm busy studying for finals, like you all should be," Jirou said while washing off a plate she had just ate some snacks off of up in her room. It was the weekend before finals so she was using the whole day to prepare, and she started back for her room after her quick trip to the kitchen she was regretting already.

She started behind the couch closest to the stairs and she rolled her eyes at Mineta who looked back at her in a hesitant way. "I'm really just studying. If I get a lower score on the midterms than you again," Jirou shook her head in annoyance at the short boy who had scored higher than her in the last two terms now on the midterms. Mineta started smirking proudly and making a cocky remark, one that Jirou ignored while turning and heading towards the stairwell again. _I'll make some flashcards for now… and I'll just check the news later to see how it turned out._

"Speaking of midterm rankings," Mineta turned back from Jirou and looked next to him on the couch at a girl with green hair who was watching the tv closely. "I was only one spot behind you in the midterms Tsu, you better watch your back this time."

"It is a test, not a competition Mineta," Tsuyu replied without looking fully to her side at him. Her gaze stayed focused on the tv which got Mineta turning back to it too, then Tsuyu's lips dipped down a bit. _I do not want a lower score than Mineta though. But,_ Tsuyu's eyes shifted back to her right at the shorter boy who was looking closely at the screen and watching in a serious way like the others around the couch. _It would not be as bad, as losing to the Mineta of last year._

"Hey look," Sero leaned forward on the middle couch that he was sitting on with Sato and Todoroki. The fifth floor boys all looked close at the screen that a reporter was recording live images from in front of the Diet Building. The national assembly of Japan's legislature was deciding on a bill recently proposed, and the prime minister was there too in order to get it signed right away if it was passed. She claimed beforehand that she would sign it which left it up to the split legislature to decide how this was going to go. "It looks like something's happening," Sero said, and the camera zoomed in a second later as the reporter noticed the movement up near the top of the steps at the front of the building too.

There were huge crowds outside of the building, consisting not only of the press. Hundreds of people were gathered around in support of the bill, and when the camera had panned around them before there was no sign of any opposition protestors there. On the couch on the right side of the common area across from Mineta and Asui's, Ashido, Hagakure, and Ojiro looked closely at the screen too as they recognized the woman walking down the steps of the Diet along with a few others. "Prime Minister Ippo. She's so cool," Hagakure smiled and whispered the second part towards Ashido's left ear that had her pink friend smirking too.

 _The_ _ **woman**_ _in charge of the country,_ Ashido watched her walk down those steps with grace yet power in every step. Behind her were the majority leaders of different parties, as well as a few top hero officials, and Best Jeanist and Kamui Woods were there too. _The top three heroes might all be guys, but she's the one with the real power. And she's going to pass the bill! I hope…_

Tenya Iida rushed over to the couch area and quickly sat on Mineta's other side as Tsuyu on the outer couch farther into the middle of the building. "Did I miss it?" Iida asked worriedly. He looked at the screen and relaxed as he heard the reporter talking about how the prime minister was coming down now to discuss the result of the vote.

"You almost did," Sero remarked on Iida's right. "What? Too busy studying?"

"Of course. As we should all be," Iida reminded the large group sitting around watching tv on finals' weekend.

"After after," Ashido waved a hand at Iida without really looking his way. "Now shush, she's starting."

Iida looked to the screen himself and the students all quieted down as the prime minister walked up to a podium waiting for her. Cameras started flashing and people started calling out asking what the verdict was. Prime Minister Ippo lifted her right hand and settled the crowd around her. Behind her, Best Jeanist and Kamui Woods' eyes were peeled in the crowd and out of it around Tokyo's surrounding area for any possible attackers. The opposition party that was more conservative was frowning a bit deeper than the majority's, which Ashido pointed at excitedly and tried saying something about only for her classmates to shush her this time.

"Today, after a long debate in the Diet, a bill was passed that I signed into law," Ippo said it and then held up a hand again to quiet the crowds who started cheering as she had suspected they might. She continued which did a better job at quieting everyone as they needed to hear what she was saying, "The Quirk Self-Defense Training Law, is composed of two parts. The first states that licensed heroes will from this point on be allowed to give regulated self-defense courses to civilians, and only during those courses are those civilians allowed to use their Quirks even if they don't have licenses of their own. This does not change when civilians are allowed to fight villains. This does not give permission to take part in villain fights, nor does it change what all of you are instructed to do if a villain appears. However, if the time comes that a villain attacks and a hero is not yet on the scene, I believe that each citizen has a right to be able to protect themselves in those instances. If there is no other option but to fight for the purpose of self-defense, _alone,_ then our hope is that this law will assist in keeping civilian casualties minimized. If you feel the need to train your Quirk, do not attempt to do so on your own. Do not do so outside of these lawfully provided training sessions. Go to your local hero and sign up for a course in Quirk training so that you will have the means to protect yourself if the time comes that it becomes necessary."

Ippo paused for a moment and then she continued, "As for the second part of the law, I will be looking into cases of illegal Quirk training over the past two years. We believe it would be unfair to further punish those who did not have this method and felt the need to train to protect themselves before. However, illegal Quirk training from today onwards will be treated with harsher scrutiny than before as this legal method is now available to the public." Ippo's expression became more intense for a moment and she continued, "If you are currently training others in how to use their Quirks, stop. One reason we are enacting this law is because of the irresponsible uses of Quirks by people who believe themselves properly trained when they are not. Any damage or injuries they cause, will be considered your crimes as well."

After that very threatening warning to illegal Quirk-trainers out there, the prime minister's expression softened and a small smile actually lifted on the serious woman's face. "I do believe that the Quirk Self-Defense Training Law will be another step in pushing back the villains already starting to cower in our society. I hope there is never a cause for a Japanese person to need this law, but if it helps save the life of a single civilian I know it was the right thing to do." The crowds around the press started cheering for the prime minister. It was not everything all of them wanted or what they came out to support, but it was a step. It was the permission to use their Quirks again.

"Alright," Hagakure called out happily.

Ojiro smiled and he said to the invisible girl next to him, "That's great."

"You sure seem happy about this," Sato remarked over to the see-through girl on his right.

Hagakure made a blush noise and turned away. Ojiro put a hand on her shoulder though and then said to Sato with a smile on his face, "Toru's backup job was always being a teacher-"

"So now it's two in one!" Hagakure spun back and called out excitedly at the large boy with fat lips. Hagakure hummed while looking back at the tv, "I wonder… She didn't mention anything about age limits. I'd rather teach kids, than… ooh, that might be hard." She started thinking about a room full of adults looking towards her and asking how to use their Quirks. A bead of sweat rolled down the side of her invisible face, but Ojiro squeezed the hand on her shoulder and she turned to him.

"You'll do great either way," Ojiro assured her.

"I'm hyped too though," Sero said while leaning back and putting his hands behind his head. "It felt like we were falling behind the rest of the world. Still not much," he added, but he grinned and finished, "but hey, at least it's something."

"Were you looking for more?" Todoroki asked the boy to his left.

"Eh, yeah I guess," Sero said, shrugging at first but then nodding at Todoroki's question. "You see that ocean clean-up charity, um-"

"Save the Seas Charity," Ashido called over with a grin. "The S.S. Charity. And yeah I heard about that too!"

"What happened with that?" Sato asked, looking back and forth between the two and then sweatdropping as they were looking at each other waiting to see if the other would start something up about it.

"Uh yeah," Sero started again, turning to Sato and away from his ex. "Well they hired this guy who lives in Finland, where they've started letting everyone get licenses for using Quirks at work outside of just heroes. And as long as they're in international waters he can keep using it, so he's been using his Quirk to separate trash from ocean water. He can, uh, it has something… Ashido?"

"He's got a Quirk that isolates the trash from the water and pulls it all over the surface! The different materials or something all have different like, make-ups that his Quirk separates from each other. People are even saying if there's an oil spill he could go there and clean it up pretty quick!"

Sero nodded as Ashido said that in an optimistic and excited tone. He turned back to Todoroki and finished, "So yeah, if that guy can use a Quirk like that for good non-hero work, I'm thinking there are probably a bunch of people here in Japan with Quirks as useful. We've got a lot more people than Finland, you know?"

Todoroki hummed and then looked back at the screen without responding since the news was talking about something again that caught his interest. Everyone in the common area looked back at the screen, as the female news anchor continued, "There was some controversy over it, but many heroes already gave their support for the bill and claimed that they would be offering the proposed training courses for free. While others, have agreed with the bill but said that they would be charging for classes."

"Isn't that a bit…" the other host started, holding up a hand and looking at his co-host with a skeptical look.

"Hey, heroes do need to make money too," the female anchor started back. "And the crime rate is down for another month in a row. Who knows how much longer they'll be busy with villains?" Her tone was optimistic and she laughed about it with her fellow anchor who nodded with her instead of countering that hope. "Besides," she continued, and she lifted up a hand to offer something else. "Some heroes, like Grappler, have said they would come out of retirement for this. I know people would love to learn the Boxing Hero's techniques, and I'm sure he's happy that he can keep helping us even though he can't fight himself anymore…"

Mineta stared at the screen and his eyes were wide there for a moment as they brought up Grappler. He pursed his lips and then shook his head once with a small smile breaking out over it. "Zach's report is coming true," he muttered. It was still loud enough that the others around him all heard it, and they thought about the same thing that he did. Zach had mentioned Grappler in his report, the hero who he had gone to intern with his first year. He had talked about heroes training the public, and though what his report said went further than what was currently happening, many people considered this the first step to more actions regarding Quirks.

Sero cracked a bigger grin after looking at Mineta in surprise for a second. "It's not that it's 'coming true,'" Sero started. Mineta looked at him and Sero continued, "It's that Zach made it happen."

"Sero-kun," Iida started, and Sero turned towards Iida with his smile dropping. Iida shook his head with a frown on his own face and he said, "This was the result of the actions of our legislature and government and the support of many people. Zach had nothing to do with it. He is a villain on the run." His voice was scolding and he shook his head as he said it.

"Nothing to do with it, huh?" Sero muttered back at him.

Ashido looked across the gap between couches with a hurt look on her face after what Iida just said. She started frowning at him deeper and she muttered while turning away, "Zach brought you back to life. Even though he had to die to do it," she whispered it quieter, but Iida stared across at her with wide eyes. Usually his classmates would just accept it and quiet down about Zach when he scolded them, as they had from the day after on the bus when he removed Zach from their class's group chat. Iida opened his mouth to give an excuse to Ashido who turned back his way as she saw him looking at her. He froze though, her words echoing in his head as well as his own.

 _I must be strict. I, as the class rep I must make sure… Yet I am so vehemently deriding Zach while he is missing, maybe dead, even though he saved my life. I know, Ashido-_ Iida's teeth clenched and he looked away himself, because even staring at Ashido across that gap which should have been so blurry for him without any glasses on was too difficult a thing to do. _It is hard for me, to do this. But I must._

Ashido lowered her upset look and started to regret saying that to the class rep. She opened her mouth to say something to him, then she froze and turned to the screen as did everyone around the couch area. "The Law for, Quirk Defense and-"

"No, it's the Quirk Self-Defense Training Law."

"Well either way, it's too long to say each time and doesn't have a great acronym possibility."

"We could just call it what it's already being nicknamed. I'm sure you've heard it the last couple days."

"Hahaha, yeah, you're right. Well I for one, am going to sign up for one of those classes as soon as possible. Classes where heroes train citizens, haha. I'm looking forward to getting the most out of Lifebringer's Law."

* * *

In early April, U.A. ended its final term with a big graduation ceremony inside the old Sports Festival arena. The third years who were given the chance to speak all brought up the Sports Festival at the beginning of the year and the hardships that had faced their class, their school, and the country and world over the past year. The new heroes from the third year hero course had a representative speaker who was also their top hero recruit and the valedictorian of the entire class.

Fera Indago gave a speech on heroes, and villains, and about society as a whole changing around them. Then she brought up how only a few days after graduation, she would be going abroad to assist heroes in the parts of the world where crime levels are still at the rate that Japan was at months ago. She said that heroes had to work together to bring peace to the chaotic world, and that she was honored and grateful to U.A. for giving her the opportunity to do her part.

The principal of U.A., Principal Nezu had a long opening speech about the significance of them holding the graduation at the old Sports Festival arena. There were still sections of the bleachers that had never been repaired even for this ceremony, a chunk broken off of one upper wall, but away from those areas the entire stadium was as packed as it was on that day almost a year ago. After Nezu's long speech to start the ceremony, students had been given their diplomas and some other speeches were made. Indago's speech had been the one to end it, and the end of her uplifting speech had been a moment of applause and a standing ovation around the arena and down in the seats of her fellow students and the third years' families too.

After the ceremony was over, all the students got up from their seats and started mingling and talking to the students in other classes and years. They talked about finals and the graduation speeches, and about what their plans for over break were though the majority were just staying on campus. "It was fun?" Yaoyorozu asked the girl with wavy pink hair on her side who nodded back at her. Yaoyorozu glanced forward again and more towards the front of the field based on where the stage had been set up during the ceremony.

"Yeah, we had a great time. He told me he asked you first after I said yes, so don't think I didn't know that," Ashido added, leaning in towards her taller friend who smiled a bit as her friend said that. _Not that I already didn't know,_ Ashido added to herself. Her smile lowered down a bit and she added, "Also, he wanted to apologize to you. Or, he said near the end of the night that he wanted me to apologize to you for him. Did he do something?" Ashido asked it worriedly at her friend who shook her head fast and held up her hands in front of her.

"No, no he didn't," Yaoyorozu lowered her hands slowly and frowned a bit again, but then she shook her head. "He was a little unhappy that I said 'no' to him, but I understand and I'm glad to hear he feels he acted wrongly. I will go talk to him later before he leaves. I do hope we can all stay friends. It will be better when we are all heroes together if we are on good terms."

Ashido smiled and started laughing at Yaoyorozu who glanced back at her in confusion. "It's nothing," Ashido said at Momo's inquiring look. "But you really should have come! I know a bunch of Nagiso's friends would have asked you too." Ashido said it and just smiled more at Yaoyorozu's hesitant look, then she continued right away though, "I didn't know like anybody there. There were even some girls and guys from Shiketsu who showed up, and that class rep from Isamu we trained with, Sekigai!"

"Sekigai-san was there?" Yaoyorozu asked in surprise. "I am surprised that a second year from another school would-"

"Her boyfriend's one of Nagiso's best friends! I had no idea how- but they apparently interned together last year and stayed in touch…"

As Ashido gossiped the juicy details of the prom she had gone to the other night, Katsuki Bakugo walked right past her back and towards a gate on the outside of the arena. He had his hands down in his pockets and a deep frown on his face, but he stopped and looked forward in a bit of surprise as the girl he was thinking about was leaning up against the wall of the gate he was heading towards. He kept walking her way and up to her instead of into the hallway to get him out of the stadium. It was not the main one, but one where he could avoid the most people so he could get out of there the quickest with less of a crowd to push his way through.

Bakugo walked up to the right side of the opening and he looked at the girl leaning on the wall just outside of the hall. "You really heading abroad?" He asked.

Fera Indago smirked and turned her head towards the spiky-haired boy who stopped there. His hair was dirtier-blond than her own that fell just to her shoulders. The top hero prospect who just gave a great speech said to her junior, "Yeah." She leaned her head forward off the wall and smirked some more, "You gonna miss me?"

"Ch, as if," Bakugo looked away and said

"Don't worry," Indago said, leaning back on the wall and saying in a semi-confident tone, "I'm sure you'll make it without me, somehow." She grinned more and added, "Maybe when you graduate I'll come back and see if you can finally beat me."

"I'd crush you right now," Bakugo replied without hesitation, spinning back at her and giving her a competitive look. He wanted to go at it right then, go to a training ground or gym and fight it out, and Indago laughed as she could see it was the way he wanted to see her off.

She scoffed though and shook her head once at his serious challenge. "Head off in three days. Miruko and I are heading to Saudi Arabia for a couple weeks to start our trip." Indago looked back into Bakugo's eyes that had just widened there for a second. Annoyance covered his face and he tsked while turning away, as it was the first he was hearing about this. "Guess that means your internship's over, since you can't just skip out on a whole term and come with us."

"Whatever," Bakugo muttered, his frustration seeping into his generally angry tone.

"Hey, maybe you come abroad with us for a week or two during your third year when U.A. gives you the opportunity." Indago smirked again and pushed off the wall, "And if not, you can always come be my sidekick once you graduate."

Bakugo scoffed and he grinned back at the girl in front of him, "I'm no one's sidekick."

Indago sighed and shook her head. The girl Bakugo's height said while turning more towards him. "Get that explosive personality in check, Explosion King." She grinned more and Bakugo frowned for a second before opening his eyes wide as she continued and started walking towards him. "Don't know what the teachers had against it, I think it's a cool name." Indago was walking just to Bakugo's right side, and the surprised boy kept staring forward as she complimented a name everyone else had treated like a joke. And then his eyes darted to the right side of his face where Indago had just leaned in while walking past, and kissed him on the cheek.

Bakugo stumbled to the side and spun with his face covered in anger, "HEY! What are you doing?!"

"Haha, explosive as ever," Indago just kept walking past him after the peck. She walked into the tunnel and held up her right hand while Bakugo used his own to rub his cheek over and over again. Indago made a single waving motion which had Bakugo's annoyed look fading away. She never looked back, she just waved him goodbye as she headed off straight ahead. There was no hesitation in her steps, she walked confidently and Bakugo could feel while watching her how much confidence she had.

He lowered his lips down into a deeper frown for a second and then turned away too. He turned his back to her and walked the other way instead of heading down that same tunnel, deciding to go down the other one instead of following behind her. _No more following her orders. Hmph, that's fine. Good._ Bakugo grunted and he started turning his head back, but he stopped himself and then stared straight forward and continued to walk. His lips lifted up a bit at the corners after an initial look of annoyance as he realized what kept him going straight ahead. _Who cares what Midnight-sensei says! That's right. She can't tell me what to do. It's a name I chose._ Bakugo's rising smirk dropped down fast and he remembered the face of the girl behind him a minute ago. _Shit. If I do stick with it now, I'll never hear the end of… No, it's my choice. I won't hear the end of it from her when she gets back, but who cares? It's the name I choose. What anyone else thinks doesn't mean shit._

 _Explosion King… I guess I'll leave out Murder._

* * *

"It feels strange, being third-years all of a sudden," Itsuka Kendo told the taller boy she was walking with down a road on U.A.'s campus. They were wearing their hero costumes and Kendo could not see the face of the boy next to her who was wearing full steel armor.

"Well until the first term starts we are not technically-" Tenya Iida started.

"Well, we're the oldest students on campus," Kendo countered with a sigh before he could get technical with her. "And the new first-years are already moving in, so I think at this point we have to start calling ourselves third-years."

"Hmm," Iida nodded in agreement as that made sense to him too. The two had just come from Training Ground Delta behind them, and they were both feeling tired as they took a slow walk back towards the school's building and the locker rooms where they had gotten changed into hero costumes. Iida frowned inside his helmet as he looked ahead and towards some younger students who looked like first-years to him, fresh out of middle school.

"What is it?" Kendo asked him.

"The first-years I have met so far," Iida began. He shook his head and then said while looking towards Kendo, "Two of them came up to me asking about Ingenium, and I was happy to answer. But then they were very quick to change the subject and ask me all about Zach. They were very excited and treated him like a celebrity, and a hero who they look up to." Iida frowned some more and he lowered his gaze down to the road in front of him as he kept walking. He continued without noticing that the orange-haired girl next to him had started lowering her expression down into a conflicted one and her lips were pursing hesitantly. "I told them not to look up to Zach. I think it is a dangerous thing for them to do, but with the Lifebringer's Law being so popular, I feel like it is making Zach once again popular by association."

"You don't think, maybe he never was unpopular?" Kendo asked.

Iida started shaking his head, not catching the tone in his fellow class rep's voice. "I am sure many people are forgetting the severity of what he did. In the immediate aftermath of the Lifebringer Incident there was much more outrage directed at him than I can see now. People have decided to only idolize the certain things about him that they liked and not what else he did-"

"Iida," Kendo started. She stopped walking and turned to the taller boy who stopped to face her as well. Kendo looked through her small black domino mask that only covered her eyes, and Iida saw in her big teal eyes a lot of apprehension to what she was about to say. He started to feel like this was not going to be what he wanted to hear come from her when he was looking for someone to back him up on the way he was feeling about this topic. Yet Iida was not prepared in the least for what the girl in front of her was about to tell him. "You remember how I, I had an internship in America this past year? I went to the U.S. with Sliding Queen, Foundry, and Serpentir."

Kendo paused for a second and Iida pulled back his head more at the look on Kendo's face. Her hands balled into fists at her sides and her eyes shook for a second as she bit down so hard behind her lips. "And, and when I was there I-" Kendo bit down harder and she pursed her lips before looking up into Iida's eyes with so much pain in her own. Iida's heart started racing and his breath caught in his throat as Kendo whispered, "I died."

Iida stared at Kendo, frozen in shock. Her eyes bulged after she said it, and then she looked down and bit down so much harder again with a look of sheer frustration covering her face. She lifted her head up again and started to the boy in front of her, "I thought it was a simple drug bust, but there was a meet going on between gangs trying to work together. We went in and, and they didn't try running. Their first reaction wasn't to run but to fight us. There were a bunch of American heroes there too, but the villains had guns. They had strong Quirks, and they had Trigger." Kendo shook her head once and her eyes were distant as Iida stared into them frozen where he was.

"And we died," she whispered. "All of those heroes couldn't beat them. There were sixteen heroes in total, and the ones on the perimeter moved in when they heard what was happening, but they all too… We got wiped out. And I was one of the last…" Kendo shook her head again and Iida stared in shock at the girl who had been acting like her normal self throughout their training session without showing any sign of all this weighing down on her. Kendo lifted her eyes back into Iida's and continued, "I remember being on the ground, bleeding out, and the villains all around started cheering as they killed Sliding Queen to finish us off. Everything was fading, and then I heard those cheering villains scream."

Kendo paused for a second, and she closed her eyes tightly. _That was the last thing I heard._ Her eyes opened again and her expression steadied, as she remembered why she brought this up in the first place. Kendo rose her head and said in a soft but stern tone, "When I opened my eyes, he was there-"

"Zach?" Iida asked quickly, leaning forward.

"No," Kendo replied in a softer voice. Iida's heart started racing faster, and his eyes shook as Kendo whispered, "It was Death." She looked into Iida's eyes through his metal helmet's visor and she continued in a low voice, "He was shaking me and saying in a deep, modulated voice, 'Battle Fist. Battle Fist.' And then he asked me in Japanese when I opened my eyes, if I was alright. He had a helmet on, his dark costume splashed in blood that scared me at first as I opened my eyes only to see this. But I looked down and saw, I saw that I was covered in blood too, and some of the blood on him was my own…"

Kendo paused for a second and she started shaking her head. "I tried to get up, but I was so tired. Yet I was conscious for a few minutes there and, and as I sat up and leaned against the wall I watched as he, as Death, went to the other heroes one by one. There were over forty dark soldiers in that warehouse. And all the villains were down. None of them had been killed, but they were all on the floor and unconscious, some with some pretty bad wounds but nothing…" Kendo paused and she grit her teeth. _**"Do you want some water? Here,"**_ she thought about the girl's voice she heard despite the tone modulation, and she had grabbed that canteen and drank the best-tasting water she had ever had in her life.

"I passed out again soon after," Kendo whispered. "I was so tired and there was, no need to get up. I didn't want to fight them." She paused and she clenched her teeth hard again, before adding in a strained voice, "But I remember as I sat there, the screams. Out of his dark helmet, how loud he was yelling almost every time he brought another hero back to life. Putting his hands down on them and yelling out, in agony."

"Zach…" Iida whispered. "That's, then he is almost definitely," Iida clenched his hands into fists. He looked harder at Kendo though softened his look after a second, but he still had to ask, "Why did you never tell us this? Why keep this from-"

"When I woke up in that warehouse," Kendo started. "We had to take credit for the Army of Death's deeds." Iida closed his mouth and stared at Kendo in confusion. She ground her teeth and shook her head again, but she continued, "The way, the Americans dealt with it. It was like they were used to, stuff like that. Or, maybe not everyone dying since that was… But, there was a system in place. Hero officials showed up and told us how we had to report this to the media. They wanted us to leave out everything about the Army of Death. And the Army of Death wouldn't take credit, and the villains wouldn't say that it was the Army of Death who beat them because apparently that would be the same as telling other villains that they had snitched."

Kendo paused again and then she whispered in a lower voice, "I woke up in the warehouse and had to get to work helping arrest all those villains left behind for us. We went on a raid, and we captured all the villains we fought. That was the official story. Even in America where vigilante justice is allowed sometimes, it's different with the Army of Death and their terrorist status. They can't accept that they're getting help from terrorists, but it _is_ happening. And they all knew it. Everyone there, other than Sliding Queen and the others at her agency. It felt like they were used to taking their credit. And I, I had to sign a non-disclosure agreement when it was over to ensure that we kept what really happened under wraps."

"They made you sign an NDA? What would have happened if you declined?" Iida questioned.

"I don't know," Kendo whispered. "But, I didn't want to decline." Iida got confused again and Kendo said softer, "One, I didn't want- I didn't want everyone to know I had died. My parents… But also, those villains might have had to be set free if certain laws were mentioned, if it could be considered a miscarriage of justice. I, I didn't want them to go free. And, I had to ask what was more important. The truth? Or getting those murderers off the streets? So I agreed to not say anything."

Kendo paused again and then continued while looking into Iida's eyes with a desperate look, "But if heroes are willing to lie about that much, about the Army of Death coming in and helping stop villains we're already fighting, then it's not hard to imagine the next step isn't just as easy. That, the Army of Death captures villains and turns them over. If you think about it, and heroes are really willing to accept the villains they hand over, and those villains don't want anyone knowing that the Army of Death got them… And the Army of Death doesn't want the credit." She scrunched her face up after saying that part, because she was treating all this like a scary aspect up until then and now she just ground her teeth at the thought. The thought of the credit and praise she was given and had to accept for so long like she deserved it. "Iida, I told you all of this because, because I believe Death is Zach. And I also think, he's doing everything he can to help in an illegal, and secretive, and… and in the most heroic way."

Itsuka Kendo turned back forward and she started to walk slowly again. "That NDA doesn't count in Japan, or at least I don't think it matters. I won't say anything else about it but I know I'm not breaking our laws talking about this, because I don't think Japanese heroes let stuff like that slide. I don't know what's more common in the rest of the world though, the America way of thinking or Japan's. What I do know though, or what I believe at least, is that Zach is doing so much more good than bad. You say those people forgot about the bad things he did, but I think you're forgetting all the good, Iida." Kendo glanced over her shoulder sadly at her classmate, "We wouldn't even be here if it weren't for him."

Kendo turned away and kept walking, but Iida was stuck in place watching her go and unable to say anything to her. He was frozen where he stood and he balled his fists up so much harder at his sides before gasping and letting those fists unclench. _He just ignores all the rules. Zach thinks rules don't matter. They don't matter to him and, and he can't just try to do good without following… He can't make his own rules and- They didn't kill the villains. They let heroes bring them in, which, which would make everyone look at the good heroes are doing and-_ Iida looked down at his hands he brought in front of his chest. He stared down at them and he closed his eyes for a second. _That's not… What he's doing isn't… It isn't something, I understand._

Iida opened his eyes and stared at his hands that he had in black gloves sticking out from under his silver armor. _I don't understand. If Zach is Death, which I always knew… I knew he could be. I thought he probably was. The Army of Death, that's his creation? He said he couldn't make it as a hero, nor as a villain trying to do good, nor an anti-hero. He said he was done trying to fit into societies, but instead of going off on his own he went and created his own. One where, he wouldn't have to compromise. He could do what he thought was right no matter what. Save that city in China from the flood and earthquake, bringing back over a hundred people. Dying like that,_ Iida clenched his teeth and his face covered in pain thinking about the day he watched Zach bring back Tsuyu, the day he had died himself. _Fighting villains and bringing heroes back to life, and not taking the credit just like… like Stain thought made heroes fake. That's what you shouted in the training forest too. But, unlike Stain you didn't start a purge on heroes. You just, you stopped accepting recognition that you were being a hero by breaking the law? Or that was just a consequence of you doing whatever you please? I don't know. I don't, understand._

Iida lowered his hands down to his sides and he slowly started walking back to the U.A. main building. _But if you are Death, and you saved Kendo and all those heroes, and you saved a hundred- probably hundreds more, just the ones you brought back to life alone. Then, isn't that better than if you were just sitting in a jail cell here? I'm not supposed to believe that but I do. That night I stopped believing in you. I told myself that I had to. That you were being irresponsible, foolish, selfish, and villainous by leaving and trying to escape the authorities. I convinced myself that I truly believed you would be caught, because I stopped believing in you. Your letter though… The regret you felt over not helping us fight Stain, something none of us blamed you for, or, or that I even realized you were thinking so much about. You called me your friend at the end of it, and I couldn't hand that letter over but- but I ripped it up to show my conviction to myself. That you were no longer a hero. That I believed, you were a villain._

 _But I was wrong._ Iida's upset look started lifting, as much as he thought he should keep frowning at the thought of betraying his own conviction. He could not stop a small smile from lifting on his face, if only for a second. _I will still do my duty as a hero and catch you if the time comes… But I trust you Zach. I believe in you, and that you will always do what you believe is right._

* * *

All Might was panting as he ran into the huge hospital with a rushed and disbelieving look on his face. "A-All Might!" A nurse near the door exclaimed in surprise as the former top hero ran inside. He was panting and hunched over a bit with his sunken cheeks pulling in farther and then pushing out with his long breaths. "Are you alright?"

"Yes, ah ha, ah, I'm fine," All Might started towards a hallway ahead of him.

"Do you know where you are going?"

"Yes, I know the way," All Might assured, and he kept speed-walking down the hall. _I don't understand. Something must be…_ All Might stopped where he was as he heard a loud shout of annoyance far ahead of him. He started moving again, faster this time and he spun to corner and quickly moved for the room he had frequented many times in recent weeks and months. He was about to turn into it when he heard another annoyed bellow from farther down the hall, and he went past the hospital room he was heading towards to instead head to one for check-ups that he turned into and stared inside in shock.

"Ah, All Might," one of the two doctors in the room with the bald woman in a hospital gown turned to the wrinkled pro hero standing in the doorway. "I am glad you-"

"All Might," Wonderlass started, stepping aside and pushing the other doctor away from her with a light shove that was still too much that the man stumbled aside. "You look out of breath old man."

All Might kept panting while staring in at Wonderlass in shock. He looked her up and down, and when his eyes came back to her face she smirked at him, "Like what you see?"

The other two in the room were taken aback at the question. They spun to All Might who kept panting but stepped inside, an amazed look on his face as he looked into Wonderlass' red eyes with bright blue irises that had been so dim the last time he saw her only a couple of days ago. "I don't, believe it," All Might said.

"It is, unbelievable," the doctor who had turned to All Might near the doorway began. He had white hair and a pair of glasses on, and he reached to the side and grabbed a clipboard that he had been taking notes on for the past hour. "But we have been running tests and All Might, the results are remarkable."

"What was the treatment? Did you-" All Might looked back at Wonderlass who shrugged her shoulders at him. "You didn't do, anything?" All Might asked, getting more confused at that look on her face.

"Nope," Wonderlass replied. "But look," she lifted her right arm and flexed, and she shredded through the sleeve of her hospital gown with her bicep flexing like crazy. "Back to full strength."

"While she was sleeping," the younger doctor who had just frowned when Wonderlass ripped through her gown began. He looked towards All Might and continued with a look of awe on his face too, "She just, got better. And she looks younger too even."

"What was that?" Wonderlass asked, turning her dark eyes to her side and the younger doctor who dropped his jaw at how threatening she looked. She had been feeble and on her death-bed until the day before, but Wonderlass was feeling as strong as ever now and she gave the man a dark glare that had him gulping and stammering that it was a compliment. _I've got it back,_ Wonderlass thought, turning away with a self-satisfied look on her face. She looked to All Might and she grunted at that look on his face, "Don't be so upset. Maybe you'll get a taste of this magical healing sleep someday too. Get you back to your prime old-timer." She smirked at All Might, but the doctors in the room spun to All Might with a lot more amazement on their faces.

"It is possible-"

"We need to run more tests and see what exactly made Wonderlass-"

"I'm tired of tests!"

"Please, we need to make sure that these effects won't suddenly reverse, and if it could help All Might…"

All Might started shaking his head and he tried to push the look on his face away that Wonderlass just mentioned. He smiled at her despite his confusion, and he tried to hold that look to tell her how glad he was that she was alright. His eyebrows furrowed though, _I don't know what happened. I, just the other day I came in with Young Midoriya and we were told it would, it would be soon. A week to live and yet… suddenly, somehow,_ All Might pursed his lips and his expression covered in worry again. _What happened?_

* * *

Just off of U.A.'s campus, in an empty playground in the middle of Musutafu, Izuku Midoriya and Mirio Togata stood ten feet away from each other. They were wearing casual clothes with long sleeves as it was cold that night in early April. They faced each other and both had dark looks on their faces, their fists clenched at their sides as a gust of wind blew through the park and waved around their hair. Lemillion glared into Deku's eyes and took a step closer to him, "What did you do?"

* * *

 **A/N Thanks for reading! Lifebringer's Law, graduation and U.A.'s class A moving into their third and final years, Kendo reveals a secret, and Wonderlass is back to full health?! Hope you enjoyed the chapter! Leave a review below telling me what you think or predictions/comments/questions for the story!**

papaprep chapter 124 . Dec 19

Hey.. Never got to see anything about bakugou..  
What is he doing now? Im just curious..  
I wonder if u could make zach and bakugou fight each other..that'll be interesting

 **Bakugo gets a scene this chapter where we see him and Fera Indago parting. Bakugo decides on his hero name, and he learns Miruko's heading off on an abroad journey too with Indago leaving him internship-less. And we'll see about Zach v Bakugo... but no spoilers! Thanks for the reviews!**

Big Fan of Death chapter 124 . Dec 19

Raijin is finally back.  
Please let him and Zach fight it out, that would be so sick.  
And I hope Deku and Zach fight sometime too.  
or like all of class 2-AADTF VS AoD that would be so fk sick.  
I absolutely love this story and Im so stoked that your uploading daily again.  
Thank you for the great story 333

 **So much sickness! Haha thanks for the review and I'm really glad you're hyped on Death. Missed out on that daily post yesterday so I couldn't keep up the streak, but here's one early today since I already had it finished up and just needed to edit and write these responses (since I missed doing it on the last couple). Hope you enjoyed the newest chapter!**

QuestingforBitches chapter 126 . Dec 21

Jelloman is jelly, who knew?

 **XD Nagiso did not take the rejection well. At least he got to go with his backup choice though and Ashido seemed to enjoy it... Thanks for the review!**

Obakekarakasa chapter 126 . 23h ago

Hey it's the guy who used to be an anon who named himself 'yes'.And WOW this chapter is full of unexpected-yet-desired! Wasn't expecting this kind of chapter today. I wasn't even expecting a chapter today.. Darling still trying to seduce Zach (she went hard with the advances this chapter). Momo turns down Mr. Slick for reasons I think we all know. Zach and darling are a sort of thing, and I Fucking love the crazy bitch so yay. Then zach remembers momo (hasn't happened in a long while). The 'seeing the same moon/sun/sky' troupe has been used. This chapter was almost straight half-romance, and is therefore one of the shortest [insert ]  
And I'm now seeing fish swimming around in the air I should sleep gbye.

 **Nice to see you Yes, cool you finally made an account. I'm glad you liked the sudden romance chapter thrown in out of the blue. Yeah... I know the looking at the same sky thing had been done before but I tried to imagine the chapter almost like I was writing out a comic strip at the end there which is why the scenes were getting shorter and closer together. Tried to have both of the rejections near the end at the same time kind of difficult while writing two diff scenes... but I'm glad you enjoyed the chapter! Also for your review on the one before still as Yes, I imagined the 420 thing as Rebel or Access' doing as it was hacking the bank's sensors' settings. And yeah writing is pretty tough, I'm glad you're writing your own right now! I write so fast because I try not to overthink each of the chapters I've got small summaries planned out for, that way when I actually do get to writing it it's still fresh and exciting to me and makes writing the chapter out fun, whereas if I spend too long thinking about exactly what I'm doing then when it comes to actually putting it down I'm no longer living out that scene in the moment but rewatching something I've seen a hundred times and wondering if this is actually the way I imagined it. Most of the stuff I write is first draft what came off my mind as I was writing the chapter... Anyway! Getting kind of long, but just wanted to tell you how I do it. Thanks for all the reviews and I hope you liked the newest chapter!**

Guest chapter 126 . 17h ago

Fuck that ending

 **Well, can't please everyone.**

diddles321 chapter 126 . 3h ago

Ya know, I've noticed you've never made an omake/side story before. Can ya do one for fun? Keep up the grind! .

 **I feel like after bumping this up to M I've taken a bit more of a serious take on Death, and making a filler episode feels like I'll be taking away from the current suspense and questions of what's coming. Or at least, it would just seem strange to me to jump from brutal near rape, torture, human experiment scenes to jump back to a non-canon mindset... Really, these are just excuses, but mainly I'm trying to keep up update speeds on Death's canon while also working on my thesis and enjoying my winter break so not much time for side stories. Sorry ;(**


	128. Chapter 128

**Disclaimer: I don't own Boku no Hero Academia**

 **Chapter 128:**

"We hadn't tested it!" Lemillion shouted, his voice carrying over the gust of wind that just rushed through the park. He glared towards Deku and he balled his fists tighter before shaking his head and shouting at the younger teen who was looking angrily right back at him, "She wasn't ready!"

"Wonderlass would have died!" Midoriya yelled back. "And she did it!" Midoriya called that out and then loosened his fists. He looked into Togata's eyes and said in a lower voice, "Eri succeeded. She saved her life."

Mirio Togata's fists clenched harder though the anger left his face and frustration covered it instead for a moment. "What's next then?" He asked it and looked towards Midoriya with a strained look on his face that he brought back to being angry as he asked, "Now that Eri knows what she can do?" Midoriya froze and he stared back at Togata with his breath speeding up, and the older teen already a pro hero and the fifth ranked hero in the country at that called out louder, "Putting that kind of pressure on a little girl?"

Midoriya turned his head to the side and he ground his teeth in his own frustration. "Midoriya, did you ever see your old friend Sazaki struggling with that power?" Midoriya turned back and looked into Togata's eyes, as the taller blond boy looked back at him and said, "The ability to bring back anyone and everyone?" Midoriya froze. He thought back to a lot of conversations he used to have with Zach about the immense pressure of knowing he could save anyone. Midoriya's eyes shook as he thought about it, about how strained Zach had looked those days when he would talk about how he thought he should be doing more. "Now that you've shown her she can do it, that little girl is going to start feeling responsible every time someone is hurt and dying, because Eri's that good of a kid!"

Togata stopped himself for a second at the look of so much frustration on Midoriya's face. He shook his head again though and he said in a lower voice as the wind had died down and he knew he should not be shouting this outside too, "And she's proud of what she did. She didn't say anything about it, but I knew it was her when I just went to say hi. I could see she's proud of what she did helping Wonderlass. And now, she thinks she can do it again…"

 _I had to save her. I had the power- Eri did. Eri could, and I could get her to- I did get her to Wonderlass in time!_ Midoriya looked back at Togata and opened his mouth to say something like that, but he froze at Togata's harsh look and had to turn away again. _She was right in front of me, and I couldn't let it happen this time. I saved her life, but now it might hurt Eri. If she really does start to think like Zach did… Hawks said I need to think about what is right and not just make all decisions based on the rules. I saved Kacchan outside of the rules before, but I became so strict with following them after what Zach did in that forest. But there are levels to breaking the rules! It's not cut and dry… There were more downsides than I thought though. I just thought, about myself. About how if it worked I might start breaking more rules, that it might lead me to thinking I can break them whenever, lead me to thinking I could kill if I have to._

"Never, do this again behind my back," Togata started to warn in a threatening tone.

"In a time like we're living in right now," Midoriya rose his gaze strongly into the older hero's. "We need heroes like Wonderlass more than ever, and heroes like Gran Torino too." Midoriya said it and did not falter at the angrier look Lemillion gave him after what he was suggesting right there like it was unthinkable to him. It was not unthinkable to Midoriya though, and he stepped towards Togata this time just like the blond had stomped towards him at the start of his questioning. "You might be trying to protect her, but if you stop Eri from trying to bring back Gran Torino's Quirk, you're only going to be hurting her. She'll know you're doing it to protect her and that's the reason why Gran Torino can't have his Quirk back, even though he lost it saving her life. She already feels that pressure!"

"But before, no one ever told her that she should seriously consider using her Quirk to save him," Lemillion growled back. He balled his fists and said, "Because she knows the horrible things that could have come from using it!"

"But that's not what happened this time!" Midoriya retorted loudly. "And the more she practices with it the less likely an accident like that does happen again. We'll only be hurting her by telling her she can't as long as she knows she has the power but not the right to use it-"

Togata ground his teeth in frustration and then said back in a tone that matched that frustrated look, "She _doesn't_ have the right, because she doesn't have a hero license."

"I know that!" Midoriya yelled back, in just as much frustration. He started panting and he stared back into Togata's eyes from a few meters away with an angry and upset look. And then his fists loosened up.

Lemillion lowered his angry look and let out a sigh, his own fists unclenching like Midoriya's. Togata rose up a hand and rubbed it up his face and then through his hair a few times in an exasperated way. Midoriya looked back apologetically but also like he might do it again, and Togata sighed again before lowering his arm down and gaining a somewhat more serious look on his face. They were friends. The two of them were close, and as much as they were having problems the two of them calmed themselves down quickly. Togata still looked seriously at his younger friend though as he said to him, "I need to know that you're ready to follow my orders, in all other situations."

Midoriya nodded back at him. "We'll work this out together," Midoriya said, referring to the argument the two of them just paused as it was getting too heated and they both knew they needed to chill. "But not out there," Deku continued. "Out there we have to stay focused."

Lemillion nodded back at him. "In that case, welcome to my agency." Midoriya smiled at his old friend who had recently started up his own hero agency, and who had offered his old classmate an internship position after hearing about what happened with his last one. "By the way," Lemillion continued. "You're not the only new intern I'm getting for the coming months. I actually got a request just today from one of your other classmates about teaming up too. Though, I'm guessing he doesn't know that you're starting up with me."

A bead of sweat formed on the side of Midoriya's face as he realized who Togata had to be talking about. _Oh, this could be… fun?_

* * *

In U.A.'s Class 3-A dorm building, Momo Yaoyorozu and Kyoka Jirou were sitting together in Jirou's room. Jirou was laying back on her own bed with a magazine held up over her face, flipping the pages and sighing each time she went to another one. She flipped over onto her stomach and leaned off the side of her bed holding the magazine out in front of her, and she flipped it around to show her best friend sitting at her desk. "What about Yuki? Says she's looking for a sensory type," Jirou added, pointing down to the bottom of the page on the right when Yaoyorozu turned to it.

"I have heard great things about Yuki as a hero. I believe you would work well with her and-"

"Ugh," Jirou flipped the magazine back and rolled her eyes. "I want you to give criticism at least once you know? That way I've got something to base your good reviews against." Jirou sighed and Yaoyorozu apologized to her though smiling and with a bead of sweat on the side of her face as she did not know what Jirou asked her for if not for an honest answer.

With the bead of sweat on her face and her eyes almost closed, Momo mentioned, "Though, I believe she can feel movements in the snow she creates with her Quirk, Blizzard." Jirou looked back up in surprise that Yaoyorozu said that, though she smirked herself as Yaoyorozu managed to compliment the hero while at the same time suggesting Jirou may not be needed as much. "I am sure there are ways you could assist her if she is looking for a sensory-type Quirk for assistance, but perhaps, there is someone you could help more?"

"There we go," Jirou said, and she chuckled which made Yaoyorozu smile more that her advice was deemed helpful this time. Jirou sighed again though as she flipped to the next page in a magazine about female heroes in Japan who were up-and-comers in popularity and fashion, bit-time celebrities, top rookies (where Jirou had spotted Nejire Hado and considered for a second before remembering the older girl's quirky personality that put her off too much). There were many in there who Jirou considered contacting to offer her help, but none she was sold on yet as much as she was with her previous pro hero. _Maybe I should've just stuck with Top Notch. I wanted to go with a female hero this time though… though who am I kidding, I'm just doing this 'cause of Momo. "Ballerclava is an amazing hero, however I believe that while we are at school we should learn from as many pro heroes as we are able to in order to become the most rounded heroes ourselves." It makes too much sense to just hear that and go, "Nah, I'm good sticking with the same one through my third year too."_

Jirou looked up and she lowered her magazine a bit as she saw how focused her best friend was on the laptop she was scrolling through a hero registry on. "How about you?" Jirou asked, and Yaoyorozu turned her head back to the side to glance at her friend again. "Nothing yet?"

"I have highlighted a few numbers that I plan on calling," Yaoyorozu countered, and Jirou sweatdropped more at how much farther ahead her classmate already was. "I wish to search thoroughly though, and then make my decision based on the times that I am offered for interning from each. I hope to make my schedule not stretched too thin, as I am sure this will be the hardest year yet that U.A. has in store for us."

"You got that right," Jirou replied in a mutter. "Already those first few days are wiping me out. Guess they want us knowing what we're in for. Or maybe they're trying to spook us too…"

"Hmm," Yaoyorozu hummed, and she nodded her head while turning back to her laptop. _It is a possibility. I do hope the teachers do not think that the fame of Class A has gone to our heads. I have heard Bakugo got into a "disagreement" with a first year who called our class out. Hopefully most people know that we are not slacking in our efforts, at all…_ Yaoyorozu stared at a name on the registry she was scrolling down, glancing at pictures of heroes next to each name and the Quirks listed next to them. She stared at a man who was muscular and wore a hero costume, a costume with no sleeves, but also no arms so the costume was just closed up his sides. _Grappler. He is back on the registry. So he did come out of retirement after all, for teaching purposes alone though,_ that extra piece of information was written next to Grappler's name too without Yaoyorozu needing to click on it to be sent to a different page with more information.

 _ **"…I was so close, but I didn't kill that Nomu and it- it crippled Grappler. He's been my hero since I was little kid, and I could have saved him…"**_ Yaoyorozu kept scrolling down the list. Her smile was lowered down though and her eyes softer, and she could not get her mind off of the voice in her head that easily. _Zach. Your report's been coming true lately._ Momo's eyes stayed locked on her screen but she pursed her lips and her mind wandered farther as she stopped scrolling too. _People call it Lifebringer's Law after you. You… you posted your own report online didn't you? It's something you would do, leak it yourself and then not deny it was yours that day… You were- are so smart like that. Others call it manipulative, but it's just the way you know how to do things. You see a way to do something good and you try your hardest to make it happen…_

 _One more year and I, can finally come after you. Bring you home. As soon as I'm a hero, it's the first thing I need to do. I don't know if I'll be able to do it. I don't know if you'll even listen to me. You pushed me so hard away and I believe- no, I know you did it so it wouldn't hurt as much when you left. And to keep me out of danger. You don't need to protect me though. You should have known that- and yet, it was easier. I would have been so angry, so much more betrayed had we kept dating and you, did what you did. But you knew that. You couldn't betray me like that…_ Yaoyorozu lowered her eyes from the laptop screen to her hands hesitating on the keyboard. _I know I told myself to push you from my mind until I could do something about it. I told myself to leave this alone for now, but, what if I'm too late?_

 **Last Month…**

Yaoyorozu sat in the common room at Class A's dorm in Heights Alliance with only one of her classmates. The two of them were not often alone together, but they had been studying with a few others who had all left already leaving them studying diligently by themselves. Midoriya sat on the couch closest to the front doors and Yaoyorozu was on the far left of the center couch so she was still close to him. They were using a low table brought over just in front of their couches, and they had books in the same subject opened up as they were studying for the same final.

Midoriya felt a buzz in his pocket and he reached down and pulled his phone out. There was a notification on the screen and he looked to the tv, but he was hesitant and glanced back at Yaoyorozu wondering if he should turn it on. As he wondered that though, Yaoyorozu pulled out her phone and Midoriya's eyes widened a bit as he realized she got the same notification as he did. It was not a text message or call, but a buzz that went off when only certain news stories occurred. She looked at the screen and then Midoriya and his phone, and she asked, "Do you mind-"

"Go right ahead," Midoriya said quickly, as he was glad she asked instead of hesitating like he was.

Yaoyorozu reached over and grabbed the remote from the table, and she turned on the tv and switched to a major news station. She hummed as nothing about the breaking story she and Midoriya just saw a notification for was on the screen. She pressed the channel-up button to another news station, and this time the Breaking News graphic was already up and spiraling to the corner of the screen right as they got on it. Yaoyorozu lowered the remote and then turned up the volume a little. Midoriya glanced around after the news was put on, checking if anyone else was on the floor going to come over and watch with them. It was pretty late though and the two of them were still the only ones on the first floor of their dorm building.

"…A picture of the rumored flying headquarters of the Army of Death. Sent from northern India, this picture from the town of Delhanai is remarkably close to Huangset where just this morning Indian heroes Tiger Mama and Equinox arrested a group of villains operating a drug trade across India's borders."

"Too close to be a coincidence, Jamie? You think the Army of Death may have assisted those heroes in capturing the villains?"

"Maybe… all I'm saying is that Endeavor should maybe look into it. Maybe he calls those heroes up and asks if maybe there's something they maybe left out… maybe."

"What're all the maybe's for? Wondering if it's really worth his time on this lead, wondering if Endeavor really should go after them, or wondering if it's worth it for him to leave the country and risk villains-"

"I'm thinking there are a lot of reasons he stays, though if he lets up leads like this one I don't think we're going to be getting anywhere with the Death hunt anytime soon-"

Yaoyorozu turned off the tv and she sighed. _I was hoping for more._ Her brow furrowed and she lowered her gaze down to the floor. She turned back to Midoriya who nodded once in agreement that they did not need to keep watching anymore. The two of them looked back to their books, but they had lost focus on their subject and even where they were in their own textbooks.

The two of them looked back up and shared a look. Their looks were similar, but neither had said anything about Death or the Army of Death to each other before. They had never had a conversation about them, just the two of them, but at their looks they knew the other was thinking the same thing that they were. "The Army of Death suffered heavy casualties the other day," Midoriya began softly, and Yaoyorozu nodded in a way that told him she was in fact willing to talk about this right now. It was all that was on their minds now, and the reason they had been so quick to check the news about them.

 _A recent fight in Indonesia,_ Yaoyorozu thought, her eyes lowering from Midoriya's for a second. She lifted them quickly instead of keeping thoughts to herself as she did want to talk about this with him, as it had been eating her up inside for a few days now. "Reports from the heroes who wound up fighting alongside them, against the biggest villain group in Indonesia," Yaoyorozu paused after adding that part, feeling weird as there was no reason to mention that extra information. She continued instead of over-analyzing why she would say it like that any longer, "Claim that eight, Army of Death members died during the fight along with their own Island-Girl."

"She was memorialized across the country yesterday," Midoriya added, his voice lower and his expression looking conflicted as he mentioned it. "Alone," he added in a softer voice. The two of them fell silent for a few seconds. They knew about the Army of Death's involvement because of the other heroes who had fought with them and Island-Girl, who had not downplayed the importance of that group's help in their interviews and press conference right after. The two teenagers trying to study for finals looked back into each other's eyes. They were thinking about the same thing but neither knew if they should mention it to the other. "Yaoyorozu, do you… you think he's Death, right?"

Yaoyorozu opened her mouth to reply with 'I know he is.' She stopped though and slowly closed it, and she just nodded at Midoriya in a more solemn and hesitant way. "He's alive though," Yaoyorozu added in a soft voice of her own. Midoriya nodded fast in agreement. They were both hoping to see a sign of Death when they turned on the news. The thought of so many of the AoD dying along with a hero who they doubted had been brought back to life before, it made them worried that Zach was not able to bring them back for some reason. "He probably, just wasn't there," Yaoyorozu whispered.

"Probably," Midoriya agreed with a slow nod. Midoriya had been mad at Zach for a long time, and he had long accepted that they were enemies now. And yet he could not help but feel sad, a pain in his heart as he thought about the times he heard Zach crying for the ones he cared about. _I know you're hurting. I know, losing those comrades had to hurt you,_ Midoriya sympathized with him and then his face scrunched up. _If you're not dead already,_ he thought, and he hated the thought that he had countered aloud a moment ago.

"He's still trying to change the answer," Midoriya whispered. Yaoyorozu lifted her eyes up in surprise and stared at her classmate whose hands just clenched into fists over his legs as he stared down at the table between them intensely. _You wouldn't die. I won't believe that so easily. You still have things you feel you need to do. Plans you need to finish, I'm sure._ "He always has been," Midoriya said quieter, shaking his head at the thought. _At the courthouse that day, I never fully understood what it meant to you. How much all-_

Yaoyorozu started shaking her head. "Zach, got over that," she began. Midoriya looked up and into her eyes in confusion, and Yaoyorozu just nodded her head at him once as she knew it was so.

Midoriya shook his head back at her though. "Zach said he'd never get past it," Midoriya started. A confused look covered Yaoyorozu's face and Midoriya lowered his gaze back down. He thought about a conversation he once had alone with Zach, and he wondered for a second if he should talk about it before deciding there was no point in hiding it at all. _**"Goodbye."**_ "He told me after he came back from the League, that he had already passed a threshold. He, he said that he had reached a point where the question if it was a good thing that he was born, he could never change it. Because of all the bad he had done…"

Yaoyorozu started shaking her head. She thought Midoriya was talking about the things Zach had done with the villains, but her eyes widened and filled with more pain as he continued, "It was mainly because of Jenny." Midoriya shook his head and he continued in a whisper, "He only referred to Jenny as 'Her' at the time, saying he could never make up for it no matter how many people he saved, because 'She' died because of him. And he said that because of that he could no longer quantify all the wrong, and he was going to have to spend his whole life making up for it as much as he could." Midoriya finished in a sad tone, remembering that day and then what he had told Zach after hearing all that from him. _Do I regret telling him everything about One For All? I believe him, that he wasn't the one who told Raijin-_

Yaoyorozu shook her head more after hearing what Midoriya said, and the boy in front of her looked at her sadly that she could not accept what he said. He started to regret telling her it, when Yaoyorozu said, "That's not true. He told you that, before the Sports Festival right?" Midoriya hesitated and then started nodding his head. Yaoyorozu lifted her lips into a small smile then and shook her head again at him, "I believe he thought that then, but for a while it wasn't true."

Midoriya shook his head and had a sad look on his face that he tried to make look accepting after that initial expression. He wanted to let her believe that it was true, but he was also looking a bit confused himself just as she was at that pitying head shake he gave her. Yaoyorozu looked down and she pursed her lips, but she shook her head fast again when she tried considering that maybe he was right. "That doesn't make sense though," she said, lifting her gaze back to Midoriya's. "Because at the Sports Festival, when he was dying… He was saying that he changed the answer. After you had run off," Midoriya started opening his eyes wider and Yaoyorozu continued to her surprised classmate, "He said it a few times. I thought maybe it was just because, he didn't want Monoma bringing him back afterwards, but that wasn't it. Even after he believed he had convinced him, I think, he still believed it. That he had changed the answer. I could see it in his eyes as he looked at me that it was the truth."

Midoriya realized it and pulled his head back with a look of pain flashing over his face. _Oh geez,_ Midoriya felt his heart ache and he looked closer at the girl in front of him who started giving him a confused look at why he was looking at her like that. Midoriya wanted to change his expression, because Yaoyorozu was sharp. He turned his gaze away because he could not keep it locked on hers without feeling like he was giving it away.

Yaoyorozu watched as Midoriya forced his eyes away from her. It took her a few seconds but she put together what Midoriya was thinking based off what he had said to her only a minute ago. Yaoyorozu's heart started racing and she leaned back herself with her eyes huge and then lowering down to her hands that she held at her sides starting to shake. She remembered holding his hand as it lost its tension, as he died in her and Kirishima's arms with a smile on his face. _**"Momo…"**_ she heard him say her name and remembered the smile that had covered his face only seconds before. It was one of the last things he said, before whispering again, _**"I changed the answer."**_

 _It's because he saved me._

Yaoyorozu pursed her lips and kept her eyes down while telling herself desperately to stay strong and keep it together in front of her classmate. _Jenny, mattered more to him than anyone. He told me he only realized it as she died in front of him. He believed he could never make up for getting her killed… but he- because he saved me?!_ Yaoyorozu gripped her hands into her pants on the sides of her legs. _Dying to save me, made him believe it was a good thing that he was born. I changed that answer for him. No, he changed it himself. But he- he cared enough about me that… Oh Zach._

 **Present**

Momo rose her eyes back up from her hands on the laptop's keyboard. _I told myself I'd change it again. Or I'd help him change it, again. Either way. I know you think it reversed. You blamed yourself for all the people your parents couldn't save, so thinking about all the anti-heroes Raijin talked about killing… the weight that you feel, the amount you feel like you need to do, it's too much. But, saving me made up for failing to save Jenny. Destroying a society of people who work outside of the law to stop heroes, and replacing it with a new one? Is that your goal? It's different from the old one, not_ _ **as**_ _secretive though we all still don't know anything about them._

 _I wish we knew. I wish we knew, anything about you right now. Or just your health. Just your health would be fine…_

Behind Yaoyorozu, Jirou had been staring at the side of her friend's face for thirty seconds now. Jirou had lowered her magazine to the bed at her side and she slid her legs up it and rested her feet off the edge. The look on Yaoyorozu's face was unmistakable. Jirou had seen it a thousand times. _She's thinking about him again. Why is it that I'm unfocused on this but the one thing that can distract you, I don't even want to think-_ Jirou noticed that her eyes had shifted off of Momo's back. Jirou pursed her lips and she leaned her body back with an afraid look in her eyes. She shifted her gaze from her desk drawer back to Yaoyorozu, _Please don't open it- she wouldn't. Of course she doesn't even know it's in there. Because I hid it from her. I stole it. She'd never forgive me. I'd lose her, and… no I wouldn't. She wouldn't leave me. Maybe for a while though she'd be… or maybe she would leave. How much more does she care about him than me?_

 _When I was hurting after the fall finals she just got mad I was blaming Zach. And maybe I was shifting some of my anger for messing up, but- But I took that letter to help you forget about him! I didn't want… I don't know what I didn't want! I just thought it would do you good, and now I'll lose you just like I lost them and- and I'm too scared to show you it now. And I can never open mine, read it while denying you the chance to read yours. I'm so selfish. I want you to move on though, and I'm scared of what will happen if you haven't and I show you now._ Jirou got up from her bed, and she stepped towards Yaoyorozu's back. _Maybe it would be something that you could look at and feel better at a time like this. Maybe taking that letter and never showing you it, was the worst thing I could have done. I don't know. But if it was something that could have made you feel better, then that's on me, and I need to make up for it._

Jirou took in a deep breath, then she leaned down behind her desk chair and put her arms around her best friend's sides. Yaoyorozu's eyes shot open and she spun her head in surprise, "Kyoka-"

"I just thought," Jirou began before Yaoyorozu could ask what she was doing. "You could use a hug, Momo." Jirou had her eyes closed and her head rested down on Momo's left shoulder. She had to keep her face pointed away from Yaoyorozu's a little in case her friend could somehow figure out everything just from a glance at her face she hoped hid well the shame she was feeling. Kyoka's face was a tad red as she hugged Yaoyorozu, but she stopped thinking about the letters and how nervous and scared she was. She just hugged Yaoyorozu thinking about that look she had seen on half of her friend's face, and she gave her a tighter squeeze after a second when Yaoyorozu stopped tensing so much at the surprise she felt from that hug.

Yaoyorozu's smile appeared wide but soft over her face, and she rose up her hands and rested them over Jirou's around her. "Thank you," Yaoyorozu said in a quiet voice. "What's the hug for?" She added, though she kept smiling as it was a rare occurrence from Jirou and she felt happy about it for a lot of reasons.

"No reason," Jirou said back, a smile on her face too at the happier tone in Yaoyorozu's voice. She finally loosened her hug after a few more seconds and then said while standing back up straight, feeling awkward about that as Yaoyorozu turned back and kept smiling at her. Jirou turned with red cheeks and said, "Let's uh, keep picking internships. I'm still nowhere if you've got any suggestions?"

"Hmm, well I did see a hero on the list who I think you would like," Yaoyorozu began, turning to the computer and getting back into it in a brighter mood again. Jirou walked up to her side and leaned in, and Yaoyorozu continued, "Though I know you said you wanted to go with a heroine this time, I really think you should consider…"

* * *

Class 3-A had twenty people in it on a brisk morning in mid April. The nineteen students who had just started up their final year at high school faced their homeroom teacher, their fourth one in not as many years. Vrishnuku who had been their homeroom teacher for the previous two terms had returned home to India creating a need for another replacement to watch over Class 3-A for this their final year. The students expected another foreign teacher after Mother Russia and Vrishnuku, but none were disappointed when one of their other teachers took the place as their homeroom teacher.

All Might stood in front of the nineteen teenagers he had gotten to know well over the past two years. Without his Quirk, being the Foundational Hero Studies teacher had become a lot more difficult for him as well as something that he needed assistance from other teachers too often to do. Principal Nezu had suggested the shift, and All Might gratefully accepted. He had the chance to watch over his successor much closer for the final year of his teaching. All Might smiled at the children in front of him, and it was the last time he believed he would be able to see them all like this. All nineteen of the students in front of him were seventeen years old for a few more days before the oldest, Bakugo, would be turning eighteen.

"As many of you may already be aware," All Might began. He saw some grins around the classroom and knew the rumors had spread like wildfire. "The decision that had been left undecided for several months now was finally decided on. The Sports Festival will be going on this year." All Might smiled as he said it and he looked around the students in front of him who had serious and excited looks on their faces. Determined expressions and balled fists, but All Might saw not one of them pull back nervously at his statement. _This is why._ "You are the beacon of hope for the world," All Might continued, his smile lowering down almost flat but staying lifted a bit at the corners. His voice had just become so serious yet it was still soft and teacherly. The students looked closer at their homeroom teacher though, looks of surprise covering their faces at what he just said.

"This is the most important Sports Festival. Far more important than the last one, even though we had told you back then that it was important too. This time, we need to stand before the world more than ever." All Might paused and his smile lowered fully as he continued, "The Sports Festival last year started off one of the most chaotic years I can remember, and I wasn't able to do a thing about it this time. I couldn't help-"

"That's not true All Might!" Ashido called out, interrupting her teacher who was the least strict of any homeroom teacher they had ever had, a dynamic they were all still getting used to.

"Even without your Quirk, you have still been doing very much," Tsuyu Asui started.

"Because you taught all of us how to be better heroes," Kirishima said, grinning big at the teacher who turned to him with his eyes huge.

"And if you consider us to be signs of hope for this world," Yaoyorozu started from farther back behind Kirishima. "Then you are still shaping the world."

"We're all grateful to you for staying," Uraraka said over to her teacher, and hero, who she had seen looking upset there for a moment as he talked about not being able to do a thing. She leaned forward and called to him, "For teaching us what we need to know, to protect the world like you did!"

"Yeah!" Mineta called out, though he sweatdropped as he wished he had something more to add on top of that.

Midoriya looked around the room as his classmates were so quick to jump at the chance to help All Might there. He had wanted to say every one of those things, though he had immediately thought about going to talk to All Might later about it. _Everyone else, is close to All Might too though. There's no point in keeping quiet to hide a relationship. Everyone knows, we are all All Might's students._

All Might smiled at the sound of his students' encouragements. He could not feel warmer at the sound of them, and he told them with a small smile back on his face, "And this is why we need to hold the Sports Festival. You. Each one of you." All Might looked into individual students' eyes and looked proudly at the young heroes they had turned into already by the start of their third years. There was room for improvement, and he believed he could help them all reach the top level through the next year, but they were already all great heroes in his mind. "The year of heroes who have already been out there fighting in internships for three years, at home and abroad even, showing everyone what you're capable of. The attacks and ordeals you have made it through that have become synonymous with your names. The world-famous Class A."

All Might shook his head once at his students still with that smile on his face. "The villains thought this world was unprotected without a Symbol, but each of you are doing your part. And holding the Sports Festival despite what happened last year is a sign that our society has held strong. That we have not faltered in the face of villains. That we are still here, and that we have risen above."

Mezo Shoji took in a deep breath behind his mask. He lowered his gaze to his desk that he had two large fists clenched over. _Back out on that stage. The last time I walked out there, onto an arena like that, I died. I can do it though. It's not a question of can I. I have to. I'll walk back on that stage at the Sports Festival and, even though I know it's a new stadium we'll be using to leave the old one as a memorial site… It is going to be hard to get back on stage after what happened last time. I knew it from our final exams against the ANTs, in that arena that looked so much like a Sports Festival stage. I've prepared though. I am ready. I have to get back out there and show the world, show myself, that I have what it takes to be a hero… Zach, losing to you last time without you using your Quirk was hard for me. Watching you die after you had brought me back to life was harder. I really thought they would have caught you by now. I thought I would beat you that day too though… This time, I won't lose. I've trained a long time for this._

 _Never did get to finish that bet,_ Kirishima lost his smile for a second. His eyes stared farther away right through All Might, _A fight we never had even though we should have been against each other in the semi's. They interrupted the Sports Festival last time. The League of Villains, using Kurogiri. They could do something similar this time without him. Except, the League is smaller. Villains are scattered among different villain groups, the Radians, Jazz, the Subspace Devils, there're so many who've become the villains to focus on while the League's been quiet. Any of them could try something. This year we'll be prepared though. We won't let anyone die._

 _This year,_ Bakugo smirked and he curled his fingers into fists again and again. _An indisputable first place. I will get it._ Bakugo turned his head to the right and looked across a few seats to Deku who turned back his way at the same time. Midoriya's face did not look nervous as he stared back at his classmate, and instead he started grinning himself back in a competitive way accepting the challenging look Bakugo was giving him. The two of them thought it at each other and could have jinxed each other's thoughts as it came at the same time. _Don't lose._

 _Until I beat you,_ Bakugo kept thinking, his thoughts diverging from Midoriya's.

 _Until our rematch,_ Midoriya went on while looking at his rival and childhood friend. _Kacchan, I won't lose this time. I know you won't either, and that means we're going to face each other. In front of the world. And I will tell them I'm here… No. This time, it's just about you and me. I want to beat you for me._ Midoriya's fists clenched tighter than they ever had in anticipation for the Sports Festival. More than they had for all the reasons in the past, and for all the other reasons they had going into it this time. Looking into his rival's eyes he saw Bakugo standing over him and holding a hand over his bruised and bloody face the last time they fought each other seriously. _This time,_ Midoriya thought, and he turned back forward to All Might while clenching his hands even tighter than before. _With the power I was given, and the strength I've built up since then with the help of so many…_ _ **I'm**_ _going to show you what I've got. Kacchan, I'm going to win!_

* * *

 **A/N Thanks for reading! Hope you enjoyed the chapter. It was Eri who Midoriya got to help Wonderlass, which I tried to imply with the last paragraph in the last chapter with him facing off against Togata. Anyway, Midoriya starts off an internship with Lemillion along with another student... (no spoilers but pretty obvious it was KB). An occasional spotting of the Army of Death and rumors about some of them dying, has Yaoyorozu and Midoriya worried about the fate of their friend. And the Sports Festival! A lot's happening in Japan where I've been focusing for a lot of chapters now... Leave a review below telling me what you think! Comments, predictions, questions for what's ahead! Also, Merry Christmas everyone! I got my gifts today since I'm spending tomorrow on a plane and traveling to Flordia to meet with family, probably not going to update this next week on my vacation. I hope you all enjoyed the Christmas update though! And if I don't post again this next week, then Happy New Year's everyone!**

Naruffoku chapter 128 . Dec 22

Amazing! How long did you have the name Lifebringer's law in your head? Was this always in the greater scheme of your plans? Also what are your thoughts on Midoriya in the latest bnha chapter?

NO WAY! MIDORIYA ASKED ZACH FOR HELP!? WHAT IS GOING ON! Seriously, I'm shaking right now as I'm writing this, so little action, but yet so much! I'm literally having an overload

 **Don't know how you reviewed on chapter 128 as it says next to your name... you must be from the future XD Anyway I really made up the Lifebringer's Law maybe the chapter before the one it appeared in, I liked the alliteration so... haha I'm glad you're getting hyped, but nah Midoriya went to the next best thing. Sorry to get you hyped on that when he really had Eri come, I swear I wasn't trying to make it too much of a cliffhanger. Thanks for the reviews! Merry Christmas!**

radoddish chapter 127 . Dec 22

O boi, what did Midoriya do?

 **Nothin' good. Or, well, it worked out but he's got some stuff to work out with Lemillion now as they work together this next year.**

papaprep chapter 127 . Dec 23

What happened to wonderlass?  
Why is she alive? Explanation plzz

 **Explanation granted. Wonderlass is back! Togata's worried about what that means for Eri, but Midoriya's trying to defend his actions here. We'll see how it goes... Thanks for the review!**

xilios2000 chapter 127 . Dec 23

Right now there are 3 possibilities nummer 1 izuku got zach to heal wonderlass. Number 2 izuku got eri to heal wonderlass and seeing as she "looks younger" this is fairly likely. Or number 3 izuku gave wonderlass one for all i dont know if that would even work but it would be retarded either way

 **Number 2 is a winner! Nice call, only one who guessed Eri in the reviews so good job and Merry Christmas!**

Obakekarakasa chapter 127 . Dec 22

Wasn't bakugou's hero name Ground Zero? Or is that non Canon. The ending makes me think she got revived by zach, but I have zero basis for that. And now we have whatever deku did, Great Chappie. Thanks for the tips about writing, I always find it hard to write entire paragraphs of thoughts or speech without it feeling like I'm making a mistake :/

 **I don't think it's canon. Def not right now, could be a spoiler someone leaked or something from what I saw when I just looked it up. Either way, this story's diverged enough that lots of things that would be canon have changed/are changing constantly through it. Wonderlass saved by Eri not Zach. You're welcome for the tips! :) I'd say even if you feel like you're making an error while writing, just keep going and then you can always fix and reword it when you edit. I look over my chapters at least once after writing them to make the words sound better in my head or aloud. Anyway, thanks for the review, and Merry Christmas!**

Readingdan chapter 127 . Dec 23

So I stumbled onto this story bout a week and a half ago. I saw how long it was and was curious about it. And throughout my time reading it, You. Kept. Updating. I can't tell whether I'm happy or stressed cause I've been trying catch up for days, and I just finally caught up. Overall I think it's an awesome story and I can't wait to read more. You have an amazing talent. Keep up the great work.

 **Wow, I'm glad you've caught up so quickly, and really happy to hear you've liked the story and my writing! Enjoy the new chapter! Merry Christmas to you, and to everyone who reviewed, faved, followed, or just reads this story. Can't wait for another million words, and another fun year of writing Death! Thank you all, and Happy Holidays!**


	129. Chapter 129

**Disclaimer: I don't own Boku no Hero Academia**

 **Chapter 129:**

In a corridor of The Cloak, a soldier in an all-black costume walked alone up from the hangar towards the front of the ship. The invisible flying headquarters of the Army of Death was moving fast up into the sky, though staying below its top speed that it could not maintain while still cloaked. The soldier walking through the hall barely felt the ship around him moving nor could he hear the hum of the engines and propellers pushing them forward. He wore his black helmet and walked through the ship towards an open set of doors into the middle of the front half, where a few dozen people were gathered and having lunch at different tables around the room.

The lone soldier who walked in was the only one in the room wearing a helmet. He looked around and then turned to his right and walked up to the counter to get a tray of food. The soldier piled up his tray and then headed back across the room. He walked past a few tables and then over to a long one that a group of men were sitting at, lined up on either side of the table making it packed but with some space. The soldier walked up to the table and a couple on the side closer to him turned their heads back. Fillian looked back on the man's right and Spiral to his left, while across the table from them Michael just rose his eyes up a bit while continuing to shovel food into his mouth.

"What's up, Rookie? Need something?" Spiral asked, raising his tone and his eyebrows at the soldier who walked up still with a helmet on. It was a sign of a rookie soldier who was not comfortable walking around the ship without their helmet on in case of a sudden attack.

The soldier in the black helmet replied while reaching up, "Who're you calling a rookie?" He grabbed his helmet and took it off, and he lowered the helmet down to his right side with a small grin on his face as he looked around at the guys at the table. He had messy black hair and tan skin, and a few of the guys at the table recognized him.

Michael lifted an eyebrow for a second and then looked back at his food and took another bite. "Oh hey," Dead Silence nodded as he recognized the guy who came to their table. The Sardonistani man next to Michael looked back at his food again, "Good to see you're back, Rookie."

The soldier who just took his helmet off lowered his smile down at the lack of reaction from his comrades around the table. "You gonna stand there all day Rookie?" Spiral asked, turning back to his food and cracking a smirk as he said it.

"What's with the welcome? And who are you?" The soldier snapped at the guy who just called him a rookie despite him not even knowing him, which even with Dead Silence he was not that okay with having barely knew him for a few days before he left. Spiral narrowed his eyes and lost his smirk, turning his head with a glare at the guy behind him who was older and glaring right back at the twenty year old. The guy who just walked up continued while glaring down into the younger soldier's eyes, "I've been here since the beginning, sweeping through Saudi Arabia and taking Mongoloid's guys down. I don't even know you-"

"Lay off," Michael started, right as Spiral's hands started pushing down on the table across from him. The guy he spoke to looked over the table in surprise to Michael who looked up at him more this time and then added in a low voice, "Spiral's a good guy. And chill, Rookie's good too," Michael added with a glance at Spiral who loosened his fists but cracked a smirk at what Michael just said.

Rookie frowned more as Michael said that, though this time he cracked a smile and moved up more to the bench of the table. "What's up Mikey, haven't-"

"Michael," Michael corrected, his lips dipping down into a deeper frown. Rookie's eyes shifted around the table and he stared at the others in confusion and surprise at the looks on their faces. He looked back at Michael who was just frowning down at his food, _Pastor._ Michael reached down and took another bite of his food, while thinking about the comrade who had suggested he switch to that name a while back. "You know that," Michael muttered lower.

"What's with this welcome? You guys are bein' dicks after I just got back. I'm not a rookie-"

"It's 'cause you missed Wampajawa," Scatterbox said. He looked to his left past an actual rookie between him and Fillian, and he said lower when Rookie looked his way, "So it's like you're just another rookie."

Rookie looked around at everyone and even the others he recognized were not backing him up there. Spiral was frowning more up at him again for being so defensive over this, and Rookie snapped in a pissed-off voice, "I lost my right foot in Frunoco." He glared at Scatterbox who was looking at him darkly after what he just mentioned. The guy on Scatterbox's left though turned his body sideways, and he motioned with his head at his right side a bunch of times fast with his head.

Hyper smirked as he saw Spiral crack a grin on Fillian's other side at his head nods. Hyper pulled back though as Rookie snapped at him, "You can still fight with one arm, I couldn't even stand with the replacement. Soon as I could run though I got out against doc's orders-"

Fillian scooted to his right and pushed Hyper over a bit. "Sit down Blackstar," Fillian said. Spiral frowned but just grunted in acceptance and got back to eating, while Blackstar kept frowning as he felt like Fillian just moved over to get him to stop arguing about this.

Blackstar still sat down though. He took his seat and he put his tray down, and he looked around at the guys near him who were still looking his way with frowns as most of them did not know who he was. Fillian let him sit there but it was still a bit weird, and Blackstar lowered his gaze down to his tray in frustration. It was not the welcome he was expecting in the least. It wasn't that he was hoping for a big thing, but just some happier faces to see him. He already regretted walking over in the helmet and taking it off for a reveal, and he started while taking a bite out of his food, "I heard about Wampajawa, and I had to get back. Once I could run-"

"So then, Rookie," Spiral started, his voice sounding like a sneer as he turned his eyes to his right. "You came back _after_ hearing about Wampajawa instead of joining the assault?" Blackstar glared back to his left and Spiral bit down at that look the older man gave him like he should be talking respectfully to his senior. Spiral growled at him though, "We lost half our army-"

"I know," Blackstar growled back. The two of them kept glaring at each other, and the rest of the table stayed silent. Then Michael picked up a chicken leg and took a huge loud bite into it and started chewing with his mouth open and sharp teeth visible inside his jaw. The two of them glaring at each other looked back at their own food, losing those angry looks and just getting darker ones like the looks on everyone's faces there. _Skater,_ Blackstar thought, his fists clenching over the table on either side of his tray. _I should've come back sooner. The prosthetic is hard to run on but I have to make do._

"So how'd you get back to the ship?" Fillian asked, glancing back to his left at his returned comrade. Fillian was one of the first to shake off his dark look. They all knew they could die at any time, and he decided to bring the mood back up because why live darkly? "You just got here, right?"

"Actually got on at the last stop," Blackstar began. He grimaced and caught a roll of the man on his left's eyes as it became clear he had tried to make a grand entrance there. "I was busy getting reacquainted with all the current situations around the world. Focused more on my PT while I was gone, and the docs didn't know jack about what was going on."

"Yeah yeah," Dead Silence said, cracking a smirk and nodding in agreement with Blackstar like he accepted what he was saying. He said it sarcastically too though and a few others grinned that Blackstar's story was being doubted as he tried to make it look like he had not gone for as much of an entrance as he had.

Blackstar opened his mouth to say something about it but he just got to eating again with a grumble of annoyance at the treatment. _None of you were there in Saudi Arabia. You didn't fight the Demons. Treat me like a new member…_ He wanted to mutter that stuff under his own breath, but he just stuffed his mouth instead. _Got the shit kicked out of me back there. If it weren't for Mark, me an' Skater would've been fucked. Wish you were still here man. And, I wish you had said something about Wampajawa in your last message…_

Blackstar turned his head and his eyes opened huge as he saw a huge muscular Chinese man walking into the cafeteria. The nine foot tall figure was bulging at the seems, his costume pressed tightly to his skin. It was a hulking figure that Blackstar had never seen before, and yet he recognized the face of the man walking towards the counter covered in food. "Is that, Shang?" Blackstar asked in shock at the sight of the beast who should have been a small Chinese man.

Fillian nodded his head on his side. "It's Twin Power," Fillian began in a low voice. "The rage thing when one of them would die, always ended when Death brought the other back," Fillian continued and Blackstar nodded his head as he knew that already. He turned back the other way though as Fillian continued, "But he couldn't bring back Xia again in Wampajawa, and Shang lost his shit a lot worse than he did back in Korea."

"And I heard that was worse than Xia's in the Dragon Den," Blackstar muttered in a low voice. A few of the others at the table like Spiral who had thought Blackstar was making a big deal about being there back a while ago looked at him in surprise and some more respect too as he mentioned that. They did not know how long ago he had been injured before they joined, but for those of them who had not seen him before it had felt like he was trying to come in and take seniority over them without doing a thing. Blackstar continued in a lower voice to Fillian, "What happened when he went off? Death couldn't have knocked him out."

"If anything, we needed him to go off like that," Dead Silence started over from Michael's right side. Blackstar looked left across the table diagonally, and Dead Silence added after grinding his teeth for a second, "Right after I got brought back, a ton of villains pushed back and nearly swarmed us. Shang's rampage kept the pressure off enough to keep on the offensive."

"Xia was dragging Seraphim back to try and get her to Death to revive," Fillian added. He looked down at his food as he thought about the two women he had known and been friends with for a long time.

Blackstar grit his teeth at the thought of them too and he muttered, "But Seraphim never got to Death-"

"She did," Michael said. He cut in after being silent through most of his meal. He lifted his gaze as Blackstar looked at him with wide eyes. The soldier who had just returned spun his head to look around, but Michael continued, "She got brought back, she just died again in the final charge against the Capos."

Blackstar ground his teeth and turned back frustratedly as Michael had brought his hopes up there for a second. _I saw the list. I know she died. Why did I even- fuck._

"Shang's in constant rage mode now," Michael added, looking back over towards the hulking man covering his tray in more and more food until it was a towering mass. "Haven't been able to cool him off at all, though we can't tell if that's part of his Quirk or if he's just that furious about Xia." Blackstar felt for Shang as Michael said that, yet he was also looking at the man across the table. Blackstar's expression darkened at the way Michael looked to him, so dark but speaking in a monotone voice like what he was saying was just one more thing.

Blackstar shook his head and he looked back at his food when Michael turned back forward because Shang was turning. "So," Spiral began, looking up and around at the others at the table. "Anyone heard anything juicy about Death recently?"

Blackstar lowered his fork and he got a confused look on his face as he turned more to his new comrade. "You know where he's been? I haven't seen him since I got back."

"He's everywhere," Dead Silence said with a shake of his head.

Scatterbox nodded his head, "Doesn't take a break that guy. The Commander's constantly fighting, been to every mission the Army's carried out in any part of the world the past few months."

"He's always there," Michael said, nodding his head and not paying much mind to what Blackstar and Spiral said. "He'll be there the next stop too. I guarantee that."

Hyper leaned in more and whispered to the left across the table, "You guys hear about the Tusukan Desert?"

"Stop," Fillian said. His voice was low and trying to end the conversation there, and he shoveled some food into his mouth with a dark look on his face.

Across from Hyper and two guys down from Michael on his left though, another actual rookie leaned forward and nodded at Hyper. "I heard," he started, a nervous look on his face and a hesitant smile too. A couple of the others at the table looked over his way including Blackstar and Spiral, while Michael and Fillian kept dark looks on their faces at the conversation starting. The man who just spoke up was young, a vigilante who had joined recently just after Wampajawa as a lot of others had been doing, which was why many of them assumed Rookie was a rookie right away. "I knew one of the two new guys who quit after it."

"He quit?" Blackstar muttered.

The rookie nodded his head fast. "What'd you hear, Darkcry?" Hyper asked, leaning in more and grinning at the man across the table from him. "That guy tell you about it?"

"Yeah. He was on the helicopter that was sent to pick up Death after a recent recon mission on this arms' deal," Darkcry leaned forward and spoke in a low whisper like this was confidential information even though it was just a rumor. "He told me, that when the chopper got there, the two who went with Death were gone, all the villains too." Darkcry got a more nervous look on his face and then added while still looking hesitant about saying anything, " Over fifty people, and he was the only one left."

"Tama and Grabble were killed," Fillian said in a dark tone, turning his eyes over towards the rookie and glaring at him which had the man pulling back fast over the table.

Blackstar had been looking at Darkcry with a shocked expression, but at what Fillian just said he froze and his heart clenched up. "Wh-What?" He turned to Fillian and he started shaking his head as the man next to him turned his way and nodded. "No, no that's not right," he said. "I know, Tama was still alive after Wampajawa, I asked the nurses…" Fillian's expression just got darker but pitying too.

Blackstar pulled back and he rose his left hand up and pushed it through his hair. "No way," he whispered. Michael looked across the table and his eyes got even darker. A few of the others at the table knew before the way Blackstar was even reacting, that he had been into Tama before he left. "I planned on, confessing to…" Blackstar ground his teeth and shook his head. _And Grabble too?_ He rose his eyes across the table to Michael whose dark look he was starting to understand more even as the man gave him a nod and half-pitying expression. _Fuck, everyone's dropping like flies. Access and Grabble both, and Seraphim twice, have any of the guys at this table not died before? Am I the only one still with my first life intact? I can't ask. I feel like, I've come back to an entirely different place…_

Hyper looked around and saw the mood looked way too down from what it had just been at. He spun back to Darkcry and began in his own low voice, "It wasn't fifty though. I don't know what your friend told you, but _I_ heard it was more like a hundred guys. And the desert was dyed in blood with arms and legs sticking out of the sand," Hyper cracked a taunting smirk at the man across from him who leaned back more at Hyper's look. "Those two new guys couldn't handle it, didn't realize what they were getting themselves into."

"Scotty quit again too," Fillian mentioned, bringing it up instead of getting annoyed at Hyper as he was tired of this dark mood too.

"'Again?'" Spiral asked past Blackstar who was still just darkly looking down at his tray.

"Scotty was here before just like Rookie there," Scatterbox started. "But he quit after Death killed Stain."

Darkcry's jaw dropped across the table from Scatterbox. "Death killed Stain?"

Over sitting near Dead Silence and Michael, one of the other rookies who joined a day before Darkcry only a few days back leaned forward too. The guy wore a pair of thick rectangular glasses, and though his muscular body countered his facial appearance, his attitude matched it as he had been holding back there a lot as much as he wanted to jump into this conversation. He started where he thought he found a gap, which was still at the wrong point in the conversation as he began, "Well I heard." A.J. had not actually heard anything about the Tusukan Desert, but he wanted to be a part of it and it seemed like no one knew enough to counter him on it anyway. "It was more like 500 guys in the Tusukan Desert, and they were all…"

The guys on the opposite side of the table as A.J. lifted their gazes up and stared at a couple men in black costumes walking past A.J.'s back. They were not directly behind the table and A.J. had not seen them, but one heard what he was saying and stopped where he was. The seventeen year old turned towards them and stared at the rookie's back while that man kept talking about the Tusukan Desert for a few more seconds, until A.J. noticed where everyone else was looking and cut himself off before turning his head around. A.J.'s jaw dropped, everyone at the table looked over towards the teen who had not kept walking with Mark over towards the door of the cafeteria yet. His eyes looked dark, but he spoke in a low voice that was not angry, just tired and without any emotion, "It wasn't five hundred."

The guy telling the story in a ridiculous way felt his heart skip a beat. His mouth was still open but he could not even make out words to try and take back what he was saying. _Death's here?!_

 _Had no idea he was even on The Cloak._

 _He and Mark might've just gotten back,_ Fillian looked over towards the door out into the hall where Mark was standing, and he nodded at the brown-haired man who gave him a half-nod back. Then Fillian looked towards Death and gave him a nod too. Death's eyes were not too focused on any of them, but he did glance towards Blackstar for a moment before turning towards Mark and starting for the exit himself.

Blackstar's hands shook at his sides, and then he stood out of his seat. "Death," he began. Death stopped walking away from him, and Blackstar grit his teeth for a second before asking in a pained voice, "What about Tama? What, happened to them?"

"They died," Zach said. He lowered his gaze to the floor and he bit down himself after managing to say that in a steady voice.

Blackstar's chest pounded as Death told him it. He hesitated for a second and then just asked across the table towards their leader, who everyone in the cafeteria was looking towards now, "Was it quick?"

Zach closed his eyes and his shaky expression settled. He turned his head to the side and nodded. Blackstar just got a more upset and frustrated look on his face though at that nod, "But, why didn't you bring her back? It was her first time right-"

"I couldn't-" Zach started and cut himself off as it came out right away without him waiting for Blackstar to close his mouth or finish. He grit his teeth and everyone in the room looking towards him saw their leader's face lose its steady look for a moment. "There were too many," he started again. He looked into Blackstar's eyes and bit his bottom lip, then said, "She was- her body was, and Grabble…" He kept trailing off, unable to finish the sentences he was trying to say. "They knew we were there," Zach whispered in a low voice. He turned his head and then said in a lower voice, "I'm sorry, Blackstar… I'm glad you're back."

Blackstar opened his mouth again as Death started walking towards Mark, but he saw the man past Death glare his way for a second. Blackstar's teeth ground in so much pain, and he saw Mark lose that glare too and then give him a nod too, welcoming him back before he turned to leave with Death towards the bridge. "Come on, sit down Rookie," Spiral said, getting back to his food himself. "He doesn't want to talk about it, so leave it alone."

Blackstar looked down at the younger man on his left and his fists balled so tightly at his sides. And then he unclenched them and sat back down. _We all know, we can die at any time. I just, I cared about her. Death would have brought her back if he could… damn it. If I had come back sooner… Would it have made a difference?_

After Michael heard Zach mutter Grabble's name behind him, his fists had clenched over the table so he slid them down onto his legs. Michael glared down at his tray that was almost empty, and his eyes were dark as he started ignoring the conversations starting back up around him. _Grabble, Access,_ Michael felt the tattoo on his chest stinging and he stared closer at his food with darkness covering up any pain that could have appeared on his face. _**"I am not 'in love with you.' Now shut up, and chew with your mouth closed…" "Because you're an idiot, that's why you get your heart ripped out on an easy mission…" "Oh yeah, I def just got a kiss from Seraphim. After we stop this nuke I'm sealing the deal for sure…"**_ _Cee, Seraphim, Juno…_

Michael looked over towards where Shang sat at a table by himself before. The man had just stood up and started for the exit, and he turned for the bridge after leaving to follow after Death. _The only one he'll still listen to after Xia died. That whole group we went to the mountain in Switzerland that day. Everyone who remembers when I died. Fuck, why can't we… Damn it Grabble, you made it through Wampajawa, why'd you have to- fuck!_ Michael gripped his knees and then he grunted and loosened his fingers before his sharp claws could dig through the material of his dark costume. He rose a hand and grabbed a drumstick still with some meat on it, and he tore into it with a furious look on his face as he stopped thinking about the ones who had died, and instead shifted his attention back to others they had been talking about. _Fucking deserters. Theo- God damn it Stain needed to die! The other three all realized it and came back- even if Scotty did bail again. And Hybrid kicked it in Wampajawa, but Icefall,_ Michael's eyes rose up and he stared across the cafeteria to a table with some of the girls sitting at it.

He looked past Maelstrom's easy-to-recognize orange spiky pigtails, to Icefall who was talking with one of the rookies on her right side. The woman with long light blue hair and icy blue eyes had a horizontal scar over the bridge of her nose stopping just on the inside corners of either eye. _Not everyone's dead, but they will be soon-_ **Clap** Michael turned his head and looked up in surprise before darting his eyes back across the table. He would have been less surprised if it was Scatterbox who just appeared next to him and did that, but Fillian was the one standing there. His comrade just clapped his shoulder and shook him out of what had apparently been a really focused stare to have not noticed the man across from him getting up and bringing his tray to the counter already.

"We should go train," Fillian suggested. "Death might be heading that way around the front. We could learn something."

Michael nodded his head and he stood up from his seat. His tray was empty except for scraps, but Michael frowned at it and then looked to his right and glared at a man with square glasses. "Hey dumbass," A.J turned to him and leaned back at Michael's glare. "Take my tray up when you're finished. And don't speak so carelessly," Michael stepped out from the inside of the bench and turned towards the exit of the room.

"Ooh, you just got shredded," Hyper whisper-taunted across the table with a huge grin spread over his face. A.J. buried his head down farther as he already felt stupid enough, but he got up to grab his and Michael's trays and go bring them up.

"Hey Blackstar." Blackstar rose his head up from the table in front of him that he was still staring at. He looked to the exit and saw Fillian looking back at him with Michael waiting just ahead. "Come on, we've got a few hours. Come see how far behind you've fallen."

Spiral grumbled and he pushed some food around with his fork. "Call him Rookie," he muttered under his breath, though loud enough that he was still trying to fuck with the guy on his right side.

Blackstar looked at him, then back over at Fillian. He sniffed in once and rubbed an arm across his eyes, then he pushed it down on the table in front of him. "Yeah," Blackstar said, stepping out from the table and taking his tray with him. "I'll be right behind you," he said towards his comrade who nodded and then really headed out with Michael. Blackstar walked up towards the counter himself, and he tried to force a smile but couldn't as easily as he hoped. _I wasn't lying. While I was waiting to make my stupid fucking entrance, I was checking on what we're up against now. And these next weeks, just these next few days alone, I could die. Any of us can die. And if I die tomorrow I'll do it knowing I died saving this world. The world Tama, Skater, Grabble, all of you died for. I'd rather live for that world though, and keep fighting for it. So training sounds good._

* * *

Mark flicked a switch on the ceiling above his head and then brought that hand back to the sticks to continue lowering the vehicle he was flying down to the ground. The cloaking mechanism on the large transport hover-jet turned off, and the thrusters on the sides of the thick ship pointed down and blasted harder to slow the descent. The hover-jet had a rectangular cabin shape and looked more like a bus, which was why the Army of Death nicknamed this class of vehicles as Airbuses. Mark was flying solo at the front of the Airbus with the co-pilot seat on his side empty.

He reached up and tapped a button on the side of his headset, then he cleared his throat and started in a clear voice, "If you look out your windows, you will see us making our final descent into Life City. We just dropped inside of the city's cloaking system, and we will be arriving shortly. Please stay seated until we are on the ground." Mark paused, and then he repeated the message in Spanish, and again in Portuguese before stopping as he had checked beforehand and knew everyone on board knew what he had said now.

By the time Mark was finished with his three messages, he was almost at the ground already. He glanced down at his side and rubbed a hand over his hip while gently placing the Airbus down in an open square near the center of the city. _Damn. Need this to heal already._ Mark stood up from his seat upon a successful landing. He stepped back through a narrow passage at the front of the Airbus before putting his hands on the walls at his sides at the front of the thirty-six people gathered in the back of the vehicle. "Alright, everyone follow me," the man in black armor had his helmet off, clipped down at the right side of his belt. He motioned with his hand to the door on his side, and he walked over to it while the passengers started getting up through the transport to follow him.

A couple of them grabbed bags from below their seats, but even those few who had things with them did not have much. A group of kids stood up as a teenager who was still only fourteen himself told them to follow close behind him. A family of three got up near the back, and an elderly couple across the aisle from them stood up too. A few young women got up behind the group of orphan children, and they hesitantly made their ways over towards the door of the vehicle with nothing but the clothes on their backs. They all walked to the wide opening of the Airbus that had a ramp sticking down gradually off the side of it to the flat ground of the square.

Some of the passengers had gotten a good look during the descent, but the city around them only uncloaked after they had gotten close to the ground anyway. The floor had just looked like a snowy valley with some trees in it from higher up, but after entering the cloaked dome surrounding the place, they were able to see how much worse it actually looked. In the area surrounding the square, there was one line of buildings that were set up looking complete. They had windows that were not cracked or broken like most others in the city, they were several stories high unlike all the one or two story buildings around covered in holes, half-collapsed (or fully collapsed), and they looked like actually stable structures. In the distance to the north, the people getting off the Airbus could see two black towers sticking up on the other side of the city. There was a third one that was a lot shorter, with the top of it cut in a slant revealing multiple floors by the way the building was broken. Even the taller ones that looked complete were covered in holes and only had shattered or cracked windows.

Mark stood to the side of the ramp after getting off the Airbus. He leaned his back on the wall and let out a long, deep breath. There was nothing more that he needed to do. He stood there and watched as the doctors, child-care specialists, and psychologists who had been brought in on other trips moved towards the Airbus at his side and started talking to the people he had brought to the city. The group of them were in dark cloaks, all wearing black clothes and yet smiling in warm ways at the people who just landed in the city. Mark watched as some people started going down the ramps towards those people greeting them and telling them about the city. _Those shrinks said it was a dumb solution, but Zach knew what he was doing. Too many of the people we bring here are used to seeing white lab coats. But black, black is the color of the Army of Death. The ones who saved them._

Mark rose his right hand towards his side but he brought it higher instead of rubbing his wound again. He scratched his cheek and muttered under his breath, "He just had to convince me otherwise." Mark wanted to smoke a cigarette right there, but he had actually listened unlike Gentle when Zach told them a while back that they shouldn't be smoking them. _Imagining living long enough that cigarette smoke is actually going to hurt me, is a nice concept. I doubt it's true. Haven't kicked it yet, not even once. Still, only really refraining so he thinks I'm planning for a long life._ Mark looked to his left at an elderly couple who had pained and tired looks on their faces. They were hesitating on the ramp, looking around carefully and with nervous gazes at the destroyed city around them.

"Is, is this place safe?" The old woman asked the man on her right side.

Mark nodded and replied back in Spanish, "Yes. You'll be safe here. I promise."

 _Really hope I didn't lie right there,_ Mark watched as the oldest people who had been on his Airbus started down towards a caretaker who was waiting for them specifically. Mark watched as the different people with different specializations spoke to the groups they had been waiting for the arrivals of. _We got a lot of good people here. The ones who will help them readjust. Give them a safe place…_ Mark smiled as he looked over and saw three people heading towards the group of children who were led away by some specialists who spoke to them first. Mark looked at the school teacher, and the middle-aged husband and wife who ran a foster home around there built a block down away from the square.

Mark looked at those parents who were welcoming the children with such happy and welcoming looks on their faces. The displaced orphans, kids who had lost everything, some of whom had had horrible things done to them, looked at the couple in front of them hopefully. The teenager leading them looked back and told the kids to trust him, and that they should follow those parents to the house they mentioned. Mark smiled over at that teen who he had pulled aside before the flight and gave some responsibilities both to help him and the other kids who he needed the assistance with.

As Mark stared over at those kids though, his eyes shifted past them to a road that broke off of the square. He looked down a road that had more buildings under construction, being rebuilt or completely built from scratch far down that block so there was actually looking to be an organized structure to the town. His eyes shifted down that road not because of the buildings he saw though, but because he saw a flash down that street. A bright white flash filled his mind and then that street was covered in soldiers in black, as well as dozens and hundreds of villains. Jetflame flew by over the tops of the buildings on one side of the road, his hands pointed down and firing flames out on an entire line of the wooden bars and taverns for the villains. Five villains with white wings on their backs dove down towards the street level and Mark flinched as he actually started ducking while leaning off of the Airbus.

Mark froze with his body hunched, and he clenched his eyes shut. His body straightened back out and he took in some deep breaths and let them out slowly. Sounds of gunfire and screams faded from his mind with his slow breathing tactics, and then he opened his eyes and flashed a smile at a psychiatrist looking towards him past some of the people Mark had brought for them to help. _Focus on the ones who need it more,_ Mark thought towards that woman, turning away himself and looking back in the direction of the kids heading down the road. _The people here all need help more than I do. Not that I need it at all. This place just, gets to me. But these kids. And the parents who lost their kids and blame their governments, or it really was their government's fault. People who can't believe in the places they were from because of the corruption that directly destroyed their lives. Test subjects and former experiments, walking around with war-torn orphans who Death stopped from becoming young vigilantes. Kids whose parents we couldn't save, kids who might be targets of villains, kids who need something better than the orphanages that already exist in their countries._

The dark soldier pushed off the Airbus and turned to get back on the ramp next to him. A couple of people started over to him and he said to them before they could begin, "Call Rebel, have him relay whatever you need. I'm just a bus driver."

"I know you're more than that, Mark," a doctor in front of him began. She narrowed her eyes at him and said, "The medical supplies you have gotten for me are great, but I still need somewhere to work. Somewhere sanitary and, and sterile! I need an actual hospital to work if I'm ever going to be able to-"

"Listen, doc," Mark held up a hand in front of him and winced which he immediately regretted as the doctor darted her eyes around his body looking for his hidden wound. "We don't have the manpower to stay here and build this city for you. We'll do what we can, but we brought in all of you volunteers because tearing this place down took everything we had. We're destroyers, not builders." Mark cracked a smile while saying it, and it was clear he was joking in his tone as much as he was also telling the truth. "We'll keep looking for some good people with Quirks that can help expedite the building process though, get this place looking less like a bomb just hit the city."

"We've been exploring the outer parts of the city near the cloaking dome's exterior," the man next to the physician began without waiting a second after Mark finished. "We've completed structural integrity tests on many buildings that looked stable, but there are still too many precarious structures through this city. Bringing in so many children in a place like this is a risky move as long as this place is still so dangerous-"

"Then make rules and keep the kids from going to certain parts of the city," Mark said, his voice serious and his eyes narrowed at the older man in front of him who froze at that look. "I told them they'd be safe here. I think some of them believe it, which means they might start acting like kids and exploring. That means you've got to act strictly, and make rules and punishments." The man in front of Mark looked increasingly nervous as Mark put the establishment of parts of society on his shoulders just like that. "Listen," Mark said, softening his voice. "We all want this place to work. We all want the people we're bringing here to have better lives. It's up to you guys though to make sure that happens."

"We could use more help," the woman on Mark's left said.

 _We all could,_ Mark thought. "You'll have to make do for now. The fact that we're even attempting this right now… The Army of Death's stretched thin and moving faster than ever. You _can't_ rely on us to do anything more than we already are. Now, I have to go," Mark said that firmly and then nodded at the doctors in front of him who turned to head back over to some of the others who had arrived with the soldier. As Mark was going to finally turn back and get into his Airbus though, he stopped and turned to look at a man running his way down the road with the most completed buildings on it.

 _Now what?_ Mark sighed but he waited on the ramp for the man to run up to him. "Dr. Olsen, how are the defenses? Keeping everything ready-"

"Take me with you," Olsen said. The Norwegian man who was helping build defenses for the city looked determined and his voice was intense as he stated his request to the soldier before him.

"What?" Mark asked. "You mean, to the Army of Death? You want to join us?" _This guy,_ Mark looked the man up and down and he started frowning deeper. "You'll do more here. Besides, you've got a wife don't-"

"I can't just, sit here," Olsen said. He started getting frustrated but he regained his composed and determined look fast. "Everyone, I knew. My whole life uprooted and- and that's the sort of thing that happens everywhere because of villains. I-"

"Nice rehearsed statement," Mark began. "But I feel like it might sound more convincing if you just tell me the truth, Doc Olsen."

"It is the-" Olsen started. Mark looked him in the eyes with no belief in his eyes. The former torturer for the CIA just stared into the scientist's eyes silently for a few more seconds, before Olsen hissed, "Everyone at the Sci-Psi lab, they were my closest friends. My colleagues. President Andersson was a great man. All of them were, and they were all killed for the Army of Death. You have to let me join. Please."

"Doc," Mark started. He hesitated and looked the man over again. _I- I shouldn't. Fuck, this one's on me. We have so few people right now we're supposed to accept anyone. But this guy,_ "You are helping us already. If you keep up your work here we don't have to divert as many resources. I'm sorry, about your comrades. They didn't die for the Army of Death though, but for what we do. For helping people and this world and, and for you that means staying here. With your family." _That we had to move here because all their families were being targeted too. Anyone known to help the Army of Death…_

"That isn't enough," Olsen whispered. He shook his head and said strongly, "I want to do more. I want to fight!"

 _This guy,_ Mark thought, and he ground his teeth as he had to consider it more at the look in the researcher's eyes. "What's your Quirk?"

Olsen immediately hesitated and Mark knew that was not a good sign on his part. "Night Sight. I can, change my vision to a night shift and see clearly in the dark-"

"Well as you already know, our helmets-"

"I know that I already know! I make those helmets myself!" Olsen snapped it in frustration and anger at the younger man in front of him. "But I can still fight. Give me a weapon and I'll-"

"Have you ever shot a gun before?" Mark asked.

Olsen hesitated again and Mark sighed and just started shaking his head. "You can teach me. I'm smart, and I'm a fast learner, and right now you could use all the help you can get."

Mark rose his eyes up into the doctor's with a glare at the tactic the man just used there. _He's right. We're so low, not just from losing half but everyone still out of commission from injuries. It's why I can't say anything to Blackstar even though I checked and he still can't run right. He'll fall behind and get killed in an instant in certain situations, it's not just about holding a gun! I can't say anything though, because we need him. He's experienced soldier though. Even unprepared recruits though we can usually mold fast, but these next days, every day is so much fighting and so much death. A man like Olsen will die in a minute. We don't have the manpower to focus training on someone completely useless in a fight like him. Not now. They're coming for us. We're coming for them. The world loop is nearing its end…_

"Olsen," Mark began in a low voice. "Ask me again in a month." Mark looked into the scientist's eyes and said in a dark tone, "But right now I need you here. We need you to stay here and build weapons to defend this city from villains who might try coming back to take it. This city's built in an easy-to-defend position, there are defenses already existing here that I need you to make sure are under the control of the ones inside the city to protect it from any invasion, because villains know this place's location. Your job is important. And I don't need you to fight, as much as you might think you want to. Doc, you're a smart guy. You know you can do much more here for us than you can out there. All that anger you've got welling up that you feel like you need to go hurt people over," Mark looked at him harshly and Olsen leaned back. Then Mark softened his look and nodded behind him towards some young women being talked to by a psychologist who was working her magic already.

Olsen looked behind him and his eyes opened wide, and Mark said at the back of the scientist's head, "We've got the best help in the world here. We asked the best in those fields to come here, and I know one of them can help you deal with this anger. Calm yourself down. Take some time to mourn those you lost." Mark turned and he stepped back higher up the ramp. "And don't worry, if you are, that Fergus is still gunning for all of you." Olsen turned back and stared at Mark in shock as the man stepped back into his Airbus. Mark turned from inside the doorway and looked down at the doctor who he spoke in a low voice to, "We got him. Found all his associates in the secret society he ran too. Weeded out all of the darkness in the companies he ran." Olsen's eyes were shaking as Mark said all this to him, things he had not heard about as they had not been reported on at all. Mark finished in a lower voice, "So your family's safe. You're safe now."

Mark turned away from Olsen and grabbed the door, and he shut his transport with a thud. Then he froze there with a hand on the handle and just grit his teeth in pain before resting his head on the inside of the door before him. _Fergus' composite Quirk was too much though. Possession and Beams, it was a fucking mess. If we never found his real body he would have wiped us all out._ Mark leaned back from the door and he turned to the cockpit of the Airbus.

 _The R &D department destroyed, City of Villains cleared, half of my closest friends killed, Fergus' inner circle wiped… _Mark took a seat on the driver's side of the Airbus which was on the left. He started the ship back up and rose off the ground, cloaking himself again and speeding off faster and faster the higher he rose up in the sky, leaving Life City far behind him. _With every victory we take heavy losses. And not all of them are complete victories too. Mysti escaped. That cat mask bitch killed Steamer and made it out while we were separated to keep Fergus from making us kill each other. She looked straight into the cameras like she wanted us to know it was her. Fucking whore. How'd she disappear without a trace?_

Mark pushed the sticks he was holding forward more to speed up. _I need to get to the meet point,_ he reminded himself. _Vietnam in under two hours in a hunk of junk like this. Shouldn't be too hard, but I need to get to Curalia before we go in. My side's fucking killing me. She's more reliable than Miraculu ever was, but damn did her Miracles patch you up in an instant! When they worked…_

 _Any faster and the cloaking won't stop me from being spotted on radars, even by people just looking up at the right time… Can I make it in time? I need to keep Death up to date on how the city's turning out too. We need to make it self-sustaining soon. Faster. I was worried about establishing it so soon after we took the city, but I know. It's the endgame now._

* * *

Three jets flew across a night sky in southeast Asia. They were black on bottom and blended into the darkness high above the ground, and even inside the jets there were barely any lights on. In the jet farthest south, on the right of the center one as they were flying to the east, Blackstar stood near the middle of a plane that had the quietest rumbling noise inside it as they shot through the night. It was so quiet that they were actually staying quiet themselves, as they felt their voices would be more likely to be detected by their enemies. They also all had their helmets on, with comms links connected so they knew to stay silent and keep the lines cleared from chatter.

Blackstar tightened his grip on the handle hanging from the ceiling that he was holding onto. _Is jumping out of planes common now? Damn it. Don't say a thing about it. I can jump out of a plane. I can do it. It's no worse than that ferris wheel in seventh grade, that I never went on again. Everyone is doing it! And I need to master the controls on this suit, and I'm going to do that while in freefall?!_

Fillian lifted up a hand and tapped a button on his helmet to switch comms to just their own plane's link. He leaned forward towards the back of Blackstar's head, "The display will do most of the calculating work for you. Just read it out and follow the directions. The suit will do the rest."

Blackstar glanced over his shoulder, and as he looked back at Fillian he noticed a few of the others in the plane with them looking tense and even shaking as they held the handles hanging from the ceiling. Seeing that he was not the only one relaxed him more than Fillian's reassurance even. He looked back forward towards the cockpit of the jet where the pilot called back that they were nearing the drop zone.

Ahead of Blackstar, a twenty two year old holding a shaky katana in hand leaned next to him to his comrade lined up in the jet on his right. "Places like this that are still so big, it feels like the villains are just as strong as ever sometimes."

"Ey don't say that," his comrade said with a glance to his left out his visor. His voice was more optimistic and he nudged his friend with an elbow, "We've got 'em on the ropes. We keep up the grind and we'll finish off the last of them."

Blackstar grunted behind the man who just said that. The guy turned his head more to the side to look back at the soldier he heard behind him, and Blackstar said with a smirk on his face, "That's how I know you've got to be a rookie."

"Hey, I'm not-"

"You still think we can stop all the villains?" Blackstar said again, lifting his tone at the end like it was a joke to him. "There will always be more-"

"Not so sure about that," Fillian cut in behind him. Blackstar froze and turned his head to the side, looking back in shock at his comrade who countered him.

Blackstar hesitated for a second and then asked while turning more as Fillian did not sound like he was joking, "You serious?"

"You didn't see Wampajawa," Fillian said, shaking his head at Blackstar and lifting the corners of his lips. "The City of Villains falling like that; thousands of them hiding in fear of the Army of Death, and still unable to survive." Fillian's voice got louder as he was saying it, and others in the jet around them found themselves steadying and gripping the handles harder. "They have nowhere left to hide."

"Drop zone in thirty seconds," the pilot called back to the group of dark soldiers behind him. The red light in the hold of the plane stayed that color and would only turn green once it was time to jump.

Michael walked to the door though and opened it up, sliding it away to make a big opening for them to jump out of. Behind him, Blackstar looked forward and away from Fillian whose words were still echoing in his head. _That's crazy! I wish I had seen it. Though, it sounded horrible. They won though. We- no, it was them. I can't say "we" did it when I wasn't even there._ Blackstar's hands tightened harder and then he let go of the handle off the ceiling of the jet. He lowered his arms to his sides and his skin turned silvery and between a solid and liquid form. The swirling mass of silver sharpened into two spikes out of his wrists while still leaving him hands too below those protruding blades. Blackstar rose his blade arms and slashed them over each other, and he listened to a countdown in his ear that just reached ten. _But I'm here now. I'm going to finish what they started-_

Michael leapt out of the jet. They were still several seconds until the drop time, but he dove out of the door and pointed his body down to speed up fast. "Michael! What are-" Blackstar stopped calling it out and just rushed forward as Icefall leapt out behind him followed by all the others near them. The light in the jet was still red and the countdown was still going but had not gotten to zero yet. Blackstar dove out of the plane, unable to even think about the fear of what he was doing while there were people right behind him trying to rush out too.

Blackstar flipped over and over, then he straightened out his body and swung his arms and legs out to slow his fall. He pulled his head back and stared down in fear for a moment, before spinning his head to the side and looking around at the other cloaked planes up near them. He could see them or at least where they were thanks to all the dark soldiers falling out of the sky in different directions. Blackstar looked back down and past Michael who he recognized as the person farthest down of everyone falling from the sky. _There it is,_ Blackstar grit his teeth at the sight of the target location he had studied up on just like all the others on the mission had before they even left The Cloak.

They were dropping just over a channel between the mainland and an island off the coast of Vietnam. They were meant to drop right over the island, but everyone who jumped early was falling while angling themselves to fly down over the island anyway. The mainland had a large forest on it not too far from the start of the bridge cutting to the island. The forest of tall green trees had rain pouring down into it farther to the west than where they dropped. There were some roads in the forest, and the biggest one that cut out to the start of the bridge was easily spottable from the sky because of the gap in the trees. There was a car driving down that path from the jungle towards the island, though it was slowing for the guard post on the mainland side of the bridge.

Blackstar looked carefully towards that car they all spotted due to its headlights shining in an area that should not have been very lit up from what they had heard about it. _The forest team has to hold. Stay in position and only show themselves once the villains try escaping one of their only two exits. It's why we don't come in through the front, to give them such an easy escape route they'll just be cornering themselves in._ Blackstar dragged his eyes across the bridge to the other side where there was no guard post but just a continuation of a road onto an island that did not look suspicious in the least.

The island had eight buildings on it in total. There were a few greenhouses, a couple of storage buildings on the east side of the island close to the docks, a main factory, a processing plant, and the island itself just looked to be for some legal and boring agriculture business. _The guard house down there and the building behind meant for the laborers in the greenhouses. The largest number of combatants will be concentrated there. Based on what their captured comrades in Wampajawa claimed, we should be up against up to three hundred villains. Their entire distribution line is reliant on this place though. The production, packaging, transport, it all goes out through here. And they keep up the front of a fertilizer, manure business well, the plants they actually make and can show off when inspections come. We have to destroy the Vine at its source. Stop the meth and opioids too. And the bastards who turned this place into their own private island, probably convinced people nearby the business was legitimate and recruited the villains we're about to fight from poor towns and villages around the forest. We're dropping so fast! I swear if I can't work this thing…_

Blackstar curved his body more and he spread his arms out at the sides. He curled in his toes and tried pushing his legs down, and he shot himself across the air more horizontally but dropping lower to get closer to Michael's level. "What happened to the countdown?" Blackstar asked, flying closer towards Michael as they flew over the water between the mainland and island so they were now over the enemy base.

Michael pointed himself downwards more, and Icefall said over from Blackstar's left, "If we waited any longer we wouldn't be able to help Death." Blackstar's face covered in confusion, then he snapped his head down the same time the lights were turning green in the nearly empty jets above. An explosion of darkness shattered the windows in the main production building on the island. The largest building close to the middle trembled and lights turned on all over the place as the secret villain base realized it was under attack. _He's already in there?!_

"Attack the guard houses!"

"Don't give them time to react!"

"On your Commander!"

"UP ABOVE!"

"RRAAAAAAA!" Michael roared down at the villain who shouted while pointing something up towards him. His shout was like a massive roar of a lion, and lights shone up to show that roaring man dropping below a horde of dark soldiers all about to crash down into the long guard building where the majority of their enemies were gathered. Stabilizers turned on below many of the dark soldiers' legs and arms, and others slowed themselves using their Quirks, while some just smashed straight down through the ceiling of the biggest building full of villains they were attacking.

Shang smashed through the roof and dropped down into the middle of the floor between a bunch of bunk beds that were empty. The villains who had just gotten off of them and were reaching for weapons or putting uniforms on spun in shock and then horror at the huge monster of a man who just dropped there. Shang was facing a man in front of him who stared through falling debris in absolute terror at the sight of him, and Shang snapped his helmeted head forward and let out a roar much more monstrous than Michael's lion-like one outside. As Shang let out his horrifying roar, more dark soldiers flew down through the hole in the ceiling, smashed through windows on the sides of it or just made new holes in those walls themselves.

"No hogging the fun!" A doorway smashed inwards and two men who just ran out it came flying back with it.

One of those men flipped around in midair and flapped black feathery wings behind himself, but his body was bruised and covered in blood already. The Vietnamese man with blood all over him was gasping for breath, and he pulled back in the air as the man who just shouted stomped into the building. _From one hit?!_ The beast of a man who just slammed him and his comrade back inside, and had knocked his comrade unconscious in that single blow, smirked behind his mask at the fear on the villain's face.

"You going to be a good fight?" Rappa asked, then he snapped his head to the right and yelled. "Hey! He's mine!" Rappa started running forward while Shang barreled down the middle of the room towards the winged man who started turning his way now.

A white beam crashed down on the villain between the two beastly Army of Death soldiers. Rappa skid to a stop, then another burly man dropped in front of him who was not as big as him or Rappa but was just as intimidating to the villains around them who watched as one of their powerful comrades was dropping covered in black burns with smoke coming off his body. Exodus looked to his right at the villain who never got up after Rappa's hit, then he turned his head and said, "If you continue to hit too hard, you will be left behind for the authorities. Watch your power."

Rappa snapped his left arm out to the side and wrapped a hand around the face of a speedster who just rushed at him with his sword up in the air. Exodus had a hand raised his way and glowing white at the same time, but Rappa smashed his other hand up into the swinging blade and broke it, then he threw the villain who tried charging him while he was distracted. He tossed the villain right past Exodus and into the wall behind him, then Rappa turned and said, "I know. I ain't giving this gig up for anything." His voice sounded annoyed, and he glared over at the burnt figure to his right who he would have rather fought to the death right there.

Exodus watched as Rappa started off down the barracks, then he turned his head and called to a group of other soldiers behind him, "Overwhelm them." His voice was dark and menacing, and he turned his helmet a bit to look at a villain on the floor pushing himself back away. "And destroy everything."

In a different building, Fillian lifted his palm off the floor and then rose that hand into a fist. He swung the arm to the right and extended four fingers, then he lifted two more and pointed straight ahead at a wall. He motioned at the wall and clenched his fist again before opening it up in an exploding symbol. Two dark figures ran up at his sides and to the wall, while Michael yelled out at others to follow him and sprinted off to the right where there were four villains in the next room down that way.

Blackstar watched Michael head off but he stayed behind Fillian with his arms raised and transformed into silver scythes. He bent his legs and grit his teeth at the strange feeling of the prosthetic foot that he never really got used to fighting on before heading back to the AoD. On Blackstar's left and right were two more soldiers who he was just acquainted with earlier that day, all of them following Fillian as Charlie's Squad Leader for the mission. Upload and Incite both held their weapons steady, and Blackstar narrowed his eyes forward while letting out a long exhale to ready himself.

"On my signal," Fillian said to the two men who just stacked up on the wall and set charges. They moved to the sides and put their backs up against it, and Fillian lifted his rifle that he aimed towards the middle of the wall before saying in a steady voice, "Breach."

The charges exploded and the wall blew inwards. The debris was still in the middle of flying back, not even a second after the breach, when bullets flew through their side of the wall. The two men who had stacked up against the wall dove opposite directions as the side they were about to pop out in front of. Blackstar dove to his right while turning his arms back into arms, and he tackled Upload out of the way as he saw the man there had fully panicked in that second as the shots started from the other side. _X-ray Quirk? Did they know we were busting in here-_

"Fillian!" Incite shouted, and Blackstar spun as he hit the ground towards the middle of the breach area where he had not heard any shots of their own going off. Instead he just heard a thud louder than the rocks falling around them, and he stared at the dropped body of his Squad Leader with his jaw dropped inside his helmet. A group of six started rushing through that hole in the wall, but Incite's voice suddenly got a lot darker and made the air around them all vibrate as he snarled, " _Fight._ " The first two men rushing through stopped where they were immediately, while the others farther back started shaking their heads around and trying to ignore that feeling brewing in their minds.

Incite's power did not work fast, but it did not need to as the two men who had dove to the sides of that exploding wall dove back at the group who were distracted by Incite's mind-altering voice. "Fillian!" Blackstar scrambled over to his comrade, then he picked up the rifle laying next to him and lifted it to aim at the villains ahead. As he picked it up, Blackstar felt dread at how wet the weapon was. He looked down at his hands and the blood on them, as he did not have black gloves on which made creating his Quirk weapons easier. Blackstar looked down at the unmoving body below him and the growing puddle around him. "Damn it!" Blackstar brought the rifle up and fired towards the legs of a man ahead of him turning to Incite and opening his mouth with a bright light blue glow coming from his throat. The man screamed out as he fell backwards, and ice breath shot up at the ceiling and froze a big patch of it.

"We need support back here!" Upload called out.

"And Death!" Incite added in a shout.

Blackstar kept firing towards the men but his breath hitched at the sound of that. He darted a glance over towards Incite, then back forward at the group of villains who had more than Fillian had indicated were on the other side of the wall. _Was his Quirk wrong? Did more rush into the range after he had checked? So one of these guys knew we were on the other side and called for help, or did one of them just know how to mask their positions and led us into a trap by leaving two of them out of their cloaking?!_ Blackstar tossed the rifle to the side as one of the villains ahead of him had a hardening Quirk that turned his skin red and spiky, and bullet-proof. Blackstar rushed in and he slashed a growing silver scythe instead of his left arm down at the red-skinned villain.

He slashed his other scythe the other way and blocked a sword coming down from a figure who just appeared on that side of him. The man disappeared an instant later, but Blackstar still slashed back as he felt the force there on his scythe leave only after the man disappeared. Blood splashed out of thin air, and the villain fell backwards turning back visible again. Blackstar's distraction there gave the hard villain a chance to punch around the point their weapons were clashing, and a red fist smashed into the side of Blackstar's helmet. His visor view shook and got scratchy for a second, but the glass did not crack as much as the punch did rattle the man inside it.

Blackstar hit the floor but fell straight into a barrel-roll he came out of with both arms swinging up at the man trying to chase after him. He slashed into the man's torso, but it was still too hard for his weapons to break through. He pushed harder as the shocked villain who was not expecting to get hit so suddenly smirked again at the weak attack that could not break his guard. He put his fists together over his head, and then a thin line of darkness slammed into his right temple. The villain's eyes rolled back and he started falling to the side like he just got shot in the head.

Blackstar spun and he called out, "Death! Can you- How was he still on his first life?!"

Death dropped down to his knees and pressed his hands onto Fillian's body. _Fuck. After everything. Damn it._ "Get up," Zach whispered, and then he started grinding his teeth as he felt bullets riddling through his body in eight different places. "Ugh- AGH! AHHH!" Zach clenched his teeth again, and he pulsed out a wave of darkness from his arms into the man below him. Then he felt himself die. Zach dropped his arms to his sides and he stood back up. "Fillian! Take control of your squad and-"

 _ **BOOOM!**_

"Death!"

"They've got Trigger!"

Zach shot away leaving behind a trail of darkness in the direction he just flew so fast he was invisible to his comrades around him. All the villains nearby were unconscious on the floor, including the ones who had been hit in the legs who were no longer screaming. Blackstar watched as their leader left them and his eyes were huge at the thought of what he had just seen. _He's so fucking- I mean, he was always strong but that-_

"You guys good over here?" Michael called out, and Blackstar turned to see Michael rushing back their way with four others behind him. "Fillian!" Michael shouted, and he ran up to Blackstar just next to another Squad Leader like him who was slowly sitting up. "You alright?" Michael asked.

Blackstar shook his head in amazement again and he looked down with a grin on his face as Fillian sat up. "I can't believe after all this time you still never-"

"That's, what dying is like?" Fillian whispered. Blackstar froze and the others around them all looked at the man who turned his head and looked around at them. His hands were trembling at his sides, and inside the broken visor of his helmet they could all see the face of a man teetering on the edge. Fillian's lips were shaking and his eyes were huge, and he looked to Michael whose body visibly pulled back at the sound of Fillian's cracked voice right there. "That's, what all of- everyone felt that and they're still here?" Fillian's eyes shook more and he started pulling his head back as he looked straight at Michael while saying it.

Shame and guilt and horror covered Fillian's face, and then he thought about that fading into darkness and his shaking hands started raising up. "I- I can't…" He put his hands on the sides of his head and his face spread with so much more horror. _I can't leave! The way I felt about the deserters- I can't- So many have died and stayed and I- AHHHH! I can't! I can't leave, I have to- I don't want to be a coward! I don't want to die again! I DON'T WANT TO DIE! AHHHHH!_

Icefall stood on Michael's right side and she was staring down at what part of Fillian's face she could see through his broken visor. She ground her teeth at the sight of him, but she glanced to the right and saw Michael's head pulling even farther back and starting to shake back and forth at what he was seeing. Michael had a stunned expression on his face and his eyes shook as he stared at his comrade, who he could see like this was completely falling apart. _**"You sure you're doing alright? 'Dying isn't so bad?' You're full of shit. Glad you're good though. Come on, let's get off this fucking mountain…"**_ Michael started lifting a hand, opening his mouth to say something to him too, but his hand clenched into a fist as Fillian lowered his from the sides of his head and looked unhinged at how conflicted his thoughts were at the moment.

Michael stepped towards Fillian and he put his hand down on his comrade's shoulder. Fillian looked up into Michael's dark visor, and his face fell with his jaw dropping and tears filling his eyes as Michael said, "We'll get you out of here." Fillian gasped at the sound of that, and he opened his mouth to shout that he didn't need that. Instead more air just wheezed out. "Icefall, take point," Michael said, turning his head and nodding at the woman behind him who nodded back intensely. She had never expected to hear such a tone come from Michael with what he just said to Fillian, but the fact that it was Michael saying it made everything so much more depressing and serious.

"Blackstar, Incite, up with me," Icefall called out. She started rushing through the hole in the wall ahead of them this team had never gone through themselves.

Fillian looked to his side and watched as Incite ran off, and then he looked into Blackstar's eyes and just looked down as he saw the man looking back at him with his helmet turned slightly. Fillian stared at the floor with shaking huge eyes, and he gasped out again, "I hate this." _I hate myself. I hate feeling like this, for being unable to handle this, and I can't handle that I can't handle it!_ _My Quirk's important! I've saved millions! I need- I'm letting everyone down! I can't do this! I need to get it together, but I don't want to die!_ Tears fell from Fillian's eyes and he just ground his teeth harder at the feeling of those tears sliding down his face, more hatred crossing it and a desperate look spreading over. _I stay. I leave. I live. I die. I'm losing it. I can't break down! No one- barely anyone breaks down from this! Some people quit when they died but I- I hated them for it! They were COWARDS! Get up! I CAN'T!_

"Come on," Michael started lifting his friend who spun back to him as he had forgotten anyone was still there holding his arm.

"I can- I can- fight?" Fillian's voice cracked at the end and his word just came out as a question instead of a declaration that he could keep going. He tried pulling away from Michael but he tried so weakly that it was like he was not trying at all, and Michael stared at his comrade feeling glad that Fillian could not see his face at the moment. The sight of his comrade who had been in hundreds of fights with him breaking down like this was too much for Michael to take with a straight face. Fillian rose up a shaking hand and he grabbed the front of Michael's costume. His mouth opened as he tried to say it again but stronger, as he tried to make a declaration that he was alright, but instead all that came out was a gasped, "I'm sorry."

Out in one of the greenhouses around the island compound, all of the plants in the room were getting brown and dying. Leaves blackened and drooped, then dropped down into the dirt as they were not strong enough to stay on their plants. Thick vegetation that some villains were hiding behind dried out, and those men lifted their heads and stared up at the water rising into the air and swirling around in a cyclone of water above them. That tornado broke apart and a bunch of water people were created from the swirls, and those people started dancing together while more water rose up to join them.

"Whoops! Ope- over here!" Hyper sped around three men, making laughing noises that he tried to cut off each time he shot one of them in the neck with darts that had them dropping to the floor in a second flat. His noises got the attention of some others who spun and saw a speeding blur taking out their comrades one by one, and when they started turning to Hyper though, all those dancing water figures turned into spheres instead that shot down and slammed into the sides of their heads.

Mark slammed a couple of men off their feet, while flooding his attacks straight into the throats and noses of others. He started talking while still drowning unconscious the villains, "Hyper, you've got to stop with those noises buddy. I know it's hard for you but- stand still for a second!" Mark snapped it at the man who was still running around back and forth in front of him so fast it was starting to make his head hurt. _Fucking Adrenaline. He's full of it constantly, so when it's actually time when adrenaline would normally spike, he's like a coke addict on speed._ "Alright. _Follow_ me," Mark said, specifying who was leading so that Hyper would not rush far ahead of him.

Hyper started nodding, then he spun to the right super fast and jumped in surprise. Hyper calmed down though as the dark figure that just flew down through a glass wall of the greenhouse landed in front of them. "Mark. The back room in this building is what we're looking for," Death said, having gotten that information from one of the important targets he had just located and terrified into telling him. "On me, you two. Rebel, full comms. Delta team move in the back."

"Heading around, Death. Lots of fighting outside though-"

"Get there."

"Understood Commander."

Hyper ran up to Death and opened his mouth, but he slammed it shut and just rose back up his pistol with tranq-darts in his left hand. The one-armed man who had lost his other just a week ago stacked up close behind Death even with the black wisps of Nightmare coming off of him. Hyper ignored the dark tendrils of darkness as they would not affect him anyway, while Mark stayed a bit farther away on Death's right side as they moved through the dead greenhouse.

Mark trained a pistol into the darkness on his right where some lights had broken in the gunfire after he first entered the greenhouse. He aimed over at a pile of manure or dirt, though it did smell bad enough it could be manure. He aimed around the dirt looking for a sign that someone was hiding beneath it, but it looked clear and he swept his pistol around more while he continued forward. _The most sensitive information is definitely being guarded. We need to rush, but we have to be careful here._ Mark's eyes narrowed on some heavy-duty bags his gun swept over for a second, and he turned on the flashlight on his pistol before shifting his eyes away from the fertilizer.

"For a front," Hyper started whispering quickly as they moved towards the back of the greenhouse. The back wall looked normal enough, but they suspected there was a secret room back there now and were ready for whatever might be behind it. Hyper was looking around like Mark was though as they pushed through, and he continued, "They sure had a lot of business. I mean, did you really need to destroy all the legitimate stuff here Mark? Lots of food and plants and even the dirt you took the water out of could have been-"

"Hyper," Death said while continuing for the door ahead. "Shut up." Zach rushed at the door before the men behind him could say anything.

 _Stop doing that!_ Mark thought, and he sprinted after his Commander rushing in on his own first again.

 _Fillian's losing it. Fillian! Damn it. I need him- and, and God damn it, Fillian?!_ Zach slammed the normal door in front of him down, then he pulled back his right fist and his entire arm surrounded in a thick flame of black aura that bulked up huge. He stomped his right leg forward at the thick steel door and black flames shot out the back of his right shoulder, and he slammed that arm forward so hard that the steel dented out and the hinges blasted off.

Zach slammed the secret door through the entry into a wide room behind that had a lot of men training weapons on the door ready to hear enemies on the other side. The door suddenly blasting forward like that caught them off guard though, especially the two men straight out from it who were slammed into and knocked back. One of those two was the strongest warrior in the room too, ready to fight head-on against the attackers in the next room down. His fall made the rest of the others watching from more strategic positions start firing on the entry, and Zach rushed through fast before all their attacks started hitting.

 _Keep the aim away from the computers._ Zach saw not all the men in the room were trying to fight him. Some looked back from computers they were typing away fast at, only for them to be the first ones in the entire room to collapse as precise dark lines slammed into them from the tips of Death's index fingers. _Can't have you deleting anything else. What the-_ Zach's head had to snap to the right fast, but his heart rate started speeding up and he breathed out a heavier breath of black steam on the next breath.

Zach flew up in the air and rushed at one of the walkways on the side of the room but on the second floor. He flapped his wings behind him and made a wall of darkness that he broke off of his own back to block what he was about to do from the sight of everyone else in the room. He darted to the right after making that wall, and most of the shots coming at him blasted through the middle of it as the men thought he had kept going straight. Zach watched as bullets and attacks slammed into the two men he had been charging at, but he had already spun and was going for another man. That burly bald man opened his mouth though and fired a rocket out of his tongue as his jaw unhinged.

Zach backflipped in midair and fired Death out of his feet in the other direction to dodge the rocket. _Heat seeking?_ Zach saw out the corner of his eyes the rocket turning and following right after him. _No, he controls it._ Zach swept a hand behind him while targeting someone else. He was already flying towards the next villain when the one who fired the rocket at him pushed his rocket through the black wind, which caused him to collapse and his rocket to start falling out of the air. Death dropped back to the floor and swung his right arm to the side, "Death Claw." His arm extended out and sharp nails formed at the end of the large arm of darkness, then he started sweeping that Death Claw across the floor.

The rocket hit the ground behind Death. He had been aware of its fall, but he did not expect the payload that just blew a crater in the floor and a mass of flames into his back that took him off his feet. Zach clenched his jaw tightly and then spun around in the explosion, dodging two sharp spikes that just pierced out of a villain's eyes. Zach started taking a deep breath as the back door of the room opened up before a running villain could reach it, but Zach grit his teeth in frustration as it was just more villains coming in the back who restored confidence in the ones trying to run too. "Delta where is that support?"

"We're coming!"

"Three trucks escaping on the bridge. Forest team get ready to launch the trap."

"On standby."

"We see them."

"Keep those flames down. We don't want to draw any more attention than we need to."

Zach sprinted into a cloud of smoke behind him as a dozen villains targeted attacks on him. He disappeared from sight and swept around the first floor of the room until he was running around the outer walls. He saw the cloud thinning out and he brought his right foot up onto the wall while running over forty miles per hour. He brought his left up, then he started sprinting faster and his acceleration sped him running up the wall. He had both hands lifted as he ran out of the smoke, and the villains who spun their aims towards him saw two black spheres of darkness on the palms of that dark figure. Zach spotted Hyper sprinting into the ranks of those villains as they were all aimed up on him, and he still shouted, "Twin Death Grenades!"

A sphere of darkness slammed into a villain right next to where Hyper was elbowing one in the face, and Death swept around them taking out the other four around him but not Hyper himself. A whip of water flew around and grabbed a man escaping from the spreading Death by his ankle. Mark yanked the guy up, and while he was being flipped, Hyper jumped and slammed a leg down into his gut to smash him into the floor. Taking him out meant that Death's second Death Grenade that he threw a moment later was able to be targeted on villains farther from the first attack.

Mark had swung an arm out to make his attack, but he was running across the floor without really focusing on the villains too much. He sprinted up to the computers and pulled a slouched villain off his chair and tossed him to the side. Mark leaned forward over the console and started typing fast into it, hacking into the system and searching for very specific files. He brought his head up to the computer screen in front of him and cursed, then he looked back down and started typing away again to try and crack a strong firewall. _If only Access was here. I never said it because I didn't want to think he'd die again, but we should have had him make dozens of those panels as spares just in case… Damn it. Focus!_

"Mark!" Hyper yelled, and Mark spun his head to see Hyper sprinting towards him. Between the two of them though, there was a man half-sticking out of the ground that looked like liquid around where his torso was sticking out of. Death started turning his head from where he had one of the targets he actually knew about gripped by the throat, and he lifted up his other hand to aim an attack over at the man sticking out of the floor. Mark pulled his head back fast, but the first shot hit him in the helmet and made him spin out with glass shattering out of his mask.

"HAA!" Hyper slammed a knee out at the back of the villain's head, but his knee pushed straight through the man and out his other side. Hyper's eyes bulged as he was falling through the man instead of hitting him, as Hyper assumed that the man had been merged with the floor or sticking out of it. _Permea-_ The second shot fired, as Hyper was just finishing coming out of the man's other side, as the wave of Death was about to crash into the two of them that the villain still had yet to see.

Darkness covered the two of them, and then the Death faded. Zach stared across the room while a man with a red neck tried crawling away behind his legs. He stared at the villain who collapsed out of the ground, and Hyper who stumbled forward and kept trying to stand, before falling down to his knees. Hyper tried turning to stand, but his legs were wobbly and he just fell onto his back instead. "Oh man- oh gee, oh fuck fuck-" Hyper put his hand down at his sides while Death started running towards him.

Zach glanced to his side and he saw Mark grabbing a chair and pulling himself up. "I'm fine," Mark said, reaching up and pulling off his broken helmet, then brushing some glass out of his messy brown hair that fell below his shoulders once he took it out. "Hey Hyper are-"

"Behind you!" Zach yelled at Mark, as the older man was too focused on their comrade and not the computers. Mark spun, and he swung an arm out and made a fist of water that slammed into the face of a villain who had crawled over and leaned up over the computer systems. Mark's water fist knocked the man flying away from the computers, but the screen directly in front of where he had been flashed red. '60' appeared on the screen, and then that number started counting down.

"Oh fuck me," Mark ran back and started typing into the computer he had just smashed that man away from.

"Self-Destruct Sequence initiated."

Delta Squad was rushing through the back doors of the building as that voice called out from the computers. Mark spun and shouted at the team who were too late to help fight anyway, "Get out of here and away from the building!"

"You heard him!"

Delta Squad started rushing back out, and Hyper looked over and tried to push down harder himself. "Let me- I'll go too-" his hand slipped on the floor and he fell flat back down to his back.

Zach walked up to Hyper and he leaned down, holding a hand out for Hyper to take. Hyper looked up towards Death and he started reaching his left hand up, but his hand was shaky and Hyper pulled it back towards his helmet and right in front of his face. Then he lifted his head and looked down at the front of his armor, where he saw a hole on his chest despite having been shot in the back. "Wh-" Hyper's head snapped back up to look at Death, and Zach stared through his visor with his expression shaken at the look he knew Hyper just gave him. "I'm- no no no- No no no no no!"

"Get up Hyper, I'll get you to-"

"I felt this last time," Hyper whispered, his voice cracking and tears forming in his eyes. They spilled down his face and he brought his hand to his visor and grabbed it tightly as he gasped out again in pain and sheer terror. "No! I don't- I don't want to die. I don't- Ack!" He coughed and blood splashed out of his mouth it was already filling and onto the inside of his visor.

"Hyper!" Zach dropped down next to the man who reached his left hand to his helmet and started ripping it off to try and breathe easier.

"I can't! I don't want-" the frantic, panic-ridden voice echoed over the headsets of the Army of Death listening in to him. Fillian brought his head down and his hands to the sides of his head, his eyes clenching shut and a gasp of agony escaping his lips. Rebel cut off Hyper's comms, but it did not matter for him or for Death who had to keep listening as Hyper pulled his helmet off and started leaning up towards him. "I- I don't want to die- Death! Death!" Zach reached forward and his hands shook over Hyper's body as the man begged him for something, anything. Hyper's eyes opened huge and he reached a hand up and grabbed Death by the front of his costume, "Kill me! Kill me kill me kill me kill me!"

"I-"

"I want it to mean something!" Hyper shouted. Tears spilled out of his eyes and he gasped out more blood, and his face was paling as he felt his life fading from him just as it had last time. He thought of that last time and gasped in horror again, "I don't want- I don't want it not to mean anything again. I died for nothing last time. Why did I- I was stupid- that was on me. I made a stupid mistake and I'm gonna- just kill me! Kill me and it will make you stronger by killing me! Please!"

"I- can't," Zach whispered. He clenched his teeth and then said, "If I've already brought the person back, Hyper I can't-"

"Rebel! Can you help me out here?!" Mark shouted, spinning back from looking at Hyper to the computer in front of him that kept counting down.

"You'd have to get me in the system and that'd take too long for you. And there's no internet connection for Cody. Just get out of-"

"Not until we get the data!"

"Then do it fast! Use this code to…"

"Death," Hyper whispered up to the figure kneeling at his side. "Why? Why can't you, why can't I- it doesn't mean anything."

"Where's Curalia!?" Mark shouted as he continued to type.

"I'm sending her over!"

Hyper was wheezing, and Zach grabbed him tightly by his left hand. "It will mean something. I promise-"

"It won't," Hyper sobbed. Tears fell from his eyes and he tried saying more but he was losing breath. He looked absolutely terrified, and he whispered, "Why didn't I leave? Why did I have to- I hate this. I wish- Adrenaline- ack, life- please! You have to- but it won't make a-"

"Life City. All those villains you stopped. We stopped," Zach leaned his head down more towards Hyper's head. Hyper pulled his left hand out of Zach's grip though. His hand continued to shake and he lowered it down to his side, and his eyes lowered down and Zach's did too to a pistol that was _not_ filled with tranquilizers.

"…that'll only give you a little more time. You need to get out of there!"

"Not yet!" Mark shouted back, then he smirked as the timer doubled. He slid the chair he had sat down on over and started typing at the computer he had gone to originally again. "Come on," he whispered, then his hands froze and his eyes darted to the corner of his visor with his eyes opening huge.

"I just want it to be faster," Hyper whispered. His face was apologetic, and he gasped it at Death who started shaking his head while looking down at Hyper's face, the blood trails going down from the corners of his mouth to his chin. Zach's teeth started grinding but he slowly nodded at Hyper whose hand tightened around the grip of his pistol. "I'm sorry. I wanted to do more. I wanted, I wanted to help you. I just wanted- I wanted-" his hand shook on the pistol that he started pulling from his side. "I wanted to make a difference. I just wanted-"

"You did. Hyper, everything you've done-" **Clank.** The pistol Hyper had pulled from his waist hit the floor. Zach's eyes shifted over to see the pistol Hyper wanted to put to his head was no longer in his hand. His fingers were uncurled and his arm flat on the ground at his side. Zach looked at that left hand for five seconds before his own right moved up and rested on Hyper's chest. His fingers came out of his glove and he pressed them hard into his comrade's body.

 _Please..._ Zach bowed his head and his unclothed fingers curled into Hyper's costume. _Of course not,_ he thought, as he did not feel anything as he tried reviving a comrade for the second time. _**"I don't want to die…"**_ _Fuck._ Zach curled his right hand into a fist and he started shaking his head. "Death! I got it," Mark spun from the computers and he ran over towards his comrade down on his knees. "Come on," Mark said, putting a hand down on Death's shoulder. "We've got to go."

"Hold on," Zach said. He stood up and turned from Hyper. He looked at the computers and around at the big screens around them.

"We don't have time!" Mark called at him. "Rebel could I-"

"A one time thing! Get out of there!"

"You heard him!"

Zach walked towards the screens and he looked around at numbers and pictures he saw up on them. His eyes were big and they darted around while glowing blood red. He stepped another foot up and ignored the countdown increasingly close to zero on his side. He ignored Mark and Rebel, and he started typing and then brought his head back up to look at a map and text that appeared above him. "Death! We need to… oh shit- fuck. Death! NOW!" Mark shouted.

"Are you seeing this-"

"That's why we need to go!" Mark grabbed Death by his left shoulder and spun him. Mark brought his face close and shouted, "WE NEED TO MOVE!"

Zach's eyes darted to the corner of his vision at the number in the low single digits. His head nodded and his eyes only shifted back to the corner of his visor for a second. _Hyper._

"Where are they?!" Icefall shouted, marching towards Exodus who stood outside of a building that she just heard was about to self-destruct.

"Pull back!"

"Stay away from the building," Exodus moved in front of Icefall, no fear in his voice for those still inside.

In the next second, two figures came flying out of the building. A red and blue wave pushed behind Mark, while a black wave pushed Death out even faster. And a second after they came flying out of the building, a massive explosion blew apart the room behind them. Computers exploded and the room filled with flames that shot a fireball out at the two escaping it. They were too fast though, and the two of them landed down in front of the majority of the Army who were waiting outside for them. Zach dropped two unconscious figures on the floor in front of him unceremoniously. They were close to the door and he picked them up on arms he had to pull his darkness away from, and he clenched his teeth in frustration while glaring down at the men who he almost wanted to just leave in that exploding room with the others. Their own comrade had turned on the self-destruct, and Zach's obligation to save them had not been very high. Mark did not bring anyone out with him, and neither of them knew how many of those unconscious men back in that building were just engulfed in the explosion.

Mark turned his head back and he swung his arms towards the building, flooding the mixed liquids behind him back towards the greenhouse and secret room to put out the flames. He cursed under his breath as he did it and he started glaring through furious eyes at the building they just escaped from. His focus had been on the computers and not what was happening behind him, but with his helmet ripped off it did not matter that Rebel had cut Hyper's comms.

"Death," Heavy started, stepping forward from the rest of his squad and looking past the two who had landed before them. The Quirkless man covered in weapons and ammo looked back towards his Commander and then just asked in a deep, confused but pained voice, "Hyper?"

Death shook his head back at his comrade and a man who had been recruited the same day as Hyper. Heavy's fists balled at his sides tighter and he ground his teeth in fury as his eyes clenched shut. _You always said I'd die way before you, idiot. Why'd you always have to be wrong?_

"Heroes are coming," Rebel warned.

Zach shook his head and he looked around him. _This is bad. The timeline is set._ Zach's eyes focused on the broken and smoking buildings around him, then on villains who had fallen outside and were tied-up and unconscious around the compound. "Bringing in an Escape Storm," Maelstrom announced.

"Choppers are heading down. Keep the winds off them."

"Death, is something wrong?"

Mark turned away from the building he was finishing putting the flames out on. He turned at Exodus' question and stepped over towards Death who had seen the same things he did on those computer screens before the building exploded. "Death," Mark started, his voice low and in such a serious tone that Zach turned straight towards him instead of speaking as he was about to for all the others in front of him. "I know what you're thinking, but we can't."

"We have to," Zach replied just as low to Mark so it was just the two of them talking. Exodus saw this and turned, calling out to the others to finish clean-up and get ready for extraction.

Mark shook his head though at his leader's response. "We _can't,_ " Mark said, emphasizing the second word hard and in a hiss. "This is _your_ plan. We don't slow down for anything, that's what you said."

"Things change," Zach whispered. "But we're still going to keep moving at-"

"'A single day,'" Mark whisper-hissed back at Zach again. "That's what you said. If we wanted to stop it for real this time." Zach grit his teeth in his helmet and he shook his head, which just made Mark grind his teeth more and then snap in a pissed-off voice, "We are on a tight schedule. There is _no_ time to break from the current path. We need to keep moving faster, or the structures will reform and the organization will not be broken. Again. Beating the League of Shadows-"

"Every day is planned strictly. There is no time to break from it," Zach agreed. "But we can't ignore this." Mark opened his mouth to counter again, and Zach whispered back at him sternly, " _Every_ thing. It all means nothing if an attack goes off there." Mark closed his mouth and stared into the dark visor of his comrade, both of them thinking about the map they had seen inside with the red arrows moving from their area in southeast Asia towards Japan. The things they had been able to look at before the room exploded behind them, it had gotten the two of them panicked but they had calmed down now. Zach took in a deep breath and he said in a low voice, "I read it. My eyes, moved fast enough. To see it all."

"Can we stop it without breaking off the world loop?" Mark asked. Zach hesitated, and Mark started shaking his head again with his teeth clenched once more. "You _know_ we can't slow down. A constant speed increase was your strategy, and it's working! They can't keep up, can't recover or make new trades and new-"

"I know but-"

"It's why we're out here right after losing half the fucking army, with another thirty still out of commission. We're risking it all for speed. It means nothing that- Hyper-" Mark's teeth ground even more and Zach clenched his too inside his helmet at the sound of what Mark was saying.

"I'll go alone," Zach said. "And no," he continued instantly while Mark's eyes widened while staring into his dark visor. "The attacks don't continue while I'm not there. But the ones we set up with more recon we won't need as many people at. I'll move faster too. To every fight after the gap in the schedule. Readjust it for my absence but try not to lose over four hours-"

"If you go alone," Mark started, cutting off the younger man in front of him who was trying to plan this out in the moment. "Right now. In this, the time that's most important… If you don't come back it was all for nothing. You know that right?"

"I can't let it happen," Zach whispered. He shook his head at the look in Mark's eyes, one that the older man was trying to hide but Zach could see in them. "Yeah, I want to save them. But that's not why. We don't let the villains win anymore." Zach's eyes narrowed and his voice got darker, "So we can't let them do this. The symbol they tried to destroy, but failed. This is a backlash at everything we've done to villains over this year. Multiple villain groups teaming up to make sure they can carry it out successfully and with a powerful message. It's their attempt at saying that nothing has happened. To get all the villains riled up again, to galvanize them, to make them believe that they're still the ones in control. And it will be a catalyst. And it will start another surge of villain activity with a force we won't be able to stop. And it…"

Zach's head filled with dozens of faces. His fists clenched at his sides as he trailed off from what he was telling Mark, though he could see the other man more than accepted what he was telling him now. "Then you have to stop it," Mark said. Zach nodded back at him. His fists clenched harder, and he looked out to the east. _I won't let it happen. Fertilizer wouldn't be stopped at the border. The materials for the bomb are already there. The attack is planned with more organization than I hoped they would be able to get this soon after Wampajawa. I have to stop it though. Myself. The Japanese heroes aren't ones we have contacts with or any friendly connection. I've stayed away for so long… They did enough on their own though. They didn't need me. But, but if the Sports Festival turns into a disaster, the fear is gone. That I couldn't stop it? That heroes couldn't? Even though everyone should predict one is coming. If it comes, I won't be able to keep up. The current pace is faster than anything I've ever thought possible but, but it will work. As long as I can do this. As long as I can go back there and stop this. The Sports Festival needs to go on. I won't let them break this world…_

 _Not again._

* * *

 **A/N Thanks for reading! Hope you enjoyed the newest chapter of Death! Been a long time since the last update, which I apologize for. Traveled to Florida then the day I came back I left for a 4 day ski trip. Probably going to wind up driving back to college in a couple days too... but until then maybe I'll be able to get back to a chapter a day? Hopefully. Anyway, a lot happens this chapter in one I've been looking forward to for a while. Bit of a time skip for the Army of Death, or at least we've missed a lot in the time since we last saw Zach. He's kept up that seemingly unsustainable speed we saw him at back 10 chapters, but at the peak of Army of Death action Zach has to leave, for Japan. Sports Festival comes for the third time in this story... and the last. XD Leave a review telling me what you think, comments, predictions, or questions about Death!**

Naruffoku chapter 129 . Dec 24, 2018

I'm just amazed right now, well done for the consistent updates, you've kept to your absolutely insane schedule of a chapter a day without sacrificing quality and I'm grateful for that. Every time I get a notification for this story, no matter what I'm doing, I go straight to this sight. Not joking, I told my interviewer tooff while I read your chapter, then I introduced her to your story and I'm pretty sure she liked it.  
All jokes aside, merry Christmas and thank you for this Christmas gift (even if you posted this chapter on the 24th)

 **Merry Christmas, Happy New Year's, and thanks a lot! I'm really glad you've enjoyed Death so far, and hope I can keep you excited about it for the coming year!**

DarkJokes chapter 1 . Dec 24, 2018

While the idea seems nice wouldn't having death as a quirk fairly limit his future potential. Honestly having decay or Rot would be more appealing since you could do much with it. Good fanfic tho

Holy crap! Seriously, like how tf are you so good at writing so emotional and action packed scenes. The kiminari betrayal arc got me to tears and then when Zach goes off to kill the villains. Fucking EPIC!  
As if that was not enough you spoiled us with some Resident evil type arc where they go underground. You're just too good at this.  
P.S My fav anime fanfic so far epically the OCs they are awesome

So like I finally finished catching up and boi is it awesome. Sad how Zach accepted Darlings love and momos still out there and loves him. Worse part is Jirou is hiding The letter Zach wrote for Momo. And why do I get the feeling you'll kill off Darling soon lol. Love this fanfic

 **This is awesome. Looking at your first review from chapter one and then the more recent ones, I'm really happy to see how much you got into Death by the time you caught up! Thanks a lot for all the reviews and I hope you enjoyed the newest chapter!**

mybigbook chapter 128 . Dec 26, 2018

whoo merry Christmas! Just binge reading this losing much sleep (worth it) and I love every badass Death's moment and how his comrades think about him.  
Still frustrated at Midoriya when he reasoned with Togata there... kinda makes him a hypocrite with him spouting all those things about AoD.  
I wonder why I hadn't found this work earlier since your writing is so detailed and fits my taste, especially with Sazaki's elaborate thoughts and plannings... Anyways, Nice Work! Got me pumped up all through the ride and lastly, Happy (upcoming) New Year!

 **XD Happy holidays! Thanks for reading and reviewing, I'm glad you've liked Death so far. Midoriya knew he was being a bit of a hypocrite there, but after the thing with Hawks he def started thinking more gray than just black and white. Tried to show he's getting a bit of that too with his talk with Uraraka, about how he admitted he was really just looking for Zach when he went and captured... Hyper ;( ... Anyway! Glad you're all caught up and hope you enjoyed the new chapter!**


	130. Chapter 130

**Disclaimer: I don't own Boku no Hero Academia**

 **Chapter 130:**

"Before the first event of the Festival," Principal Nezu continued to the crowd of tens of thousands surrounding the arena, and to the millions watching the broadcast in Japan and around the world. "I would like to take a moment of silence." The principal's words silenced the stadium in an instant and everyone stared down at the mouse figure whose tone had gotten serious all of a sudden. After all the introductions and the pledges, sounding very similar to any other Sports Festival's before it, the principal finally spoke on something everyone was thinking about. Nezu continued once everyone had quieted down, "Just next door to this stadium, is the former stadium for the Sports Festival which after this year's graduation ceremony, has been officially removed from being property of U.A. High School. The stadium has been transformed into a memorial, for all the people who died a year ago to this day in the horrible attacks on the Sports Festival and the city of Musutafu."

Nezu paused for a moment and now there was full silence around the stadium. "7,042 people died in the Sports Festival Invasion. For each of them, their families, and all those affected by those events, I would like to take this moment of silence." The silence extended with not a voice to be heard this time as Principal Nezu closed his eyes and lowered his head for the moment. His hands clenched at his sides while his eyes were closed. Members of his staff who had died in the attack, students enrolled in his school who had not made it, the people he felt he had failed by being unable to protect, they all rushed through his mind.

Out in a tunnel on the exterior of the stadium, the third-year students of U.A. High School kept silent too. They had been led away to await the first round of the festival, but they could hear their principal back behind them.

Mina Ashido felt her side ache with phantom pain. She had her eyes closed and could see a portal opening up near her as she tried to run to the arena of the previous Sports Festival. She saw the small spiky ball fall out of that portal, and the explosion that followed and ripped open her side while she tried yelling at the others around her to get away. Her eyes clenched harder as she saw who it was she was running down to the arena to help, because of the videos that had been playing showing his torture. _**"Oh! Mina Jirou. Quirk: Hardening…"**_ _Zach… I hope you're watching. Wherever you are._ Ashido's fists clenched and her eyes opened while her head rose from its bowed position.

A couple of students in the general studies course looked over at a former classmate whose eyes were dark and narrowed ahead at a closed steel door holding the students back. Just like all the other students in his new class, he was thinking of the student who he had replaced after the Sports Festival. _Nirengeki Shoda,_ Shinso thought. His eyes were open unlike most of Class B's as they all thought of their former classmate, who was a hero in each of their minds. Shinso thought of the same short boy though, _**"Twin Impact: FIRE!"**_ Shinso heard Shoda's voice echo in his mind when he was stuck while trying to evacuate other students. The villain who had kept his mouth shut and charged straight at him was slammed under a broken bench of the stadium, and Shoda had called out to him. _ **"Shinso, keep getting them out of here. I will take the rear and- Wai- AH-"**_

Shinso clenched his eyes shut even though he had just imagined what he saw that day with his eyes open. It was something only a couple of the others in Class B had witnessed, but something that mattered so much to the indigo-haired teen who had taken Shoda's place. And while he took Shoda's place in Class B's classroom, the white bandages he had made himself so he could use them during the Sports Festival reminded all of the Class A students around him of someone else lost during the Sports Festival the previous year. Kirishima stared ahead of him at the bandages draped around Shinso's neck that he had asked the other student about a while ago, which led him to hear about how Shinso had respected and even idolized their previous homeroom teacher. Kirishima's fists clenched harder at the sight of them this time though, a furious look spreading on his face instead of the smile he had last time when Shinso first told him.

 _ **"I'm gonna miss him…"**_ Kirishima bit down harder, his eyes clenching shut in the silence as he thought about the hospital room where he first really mourned his old homeroom teacher. He heard Zach next to him say that, and his teeth clenched so hard he started shaking at the voice he heard that followed. _**"Yeah… me too."**_ Kirishima saw Kaminari's sad face saying it and he felt his heart ripping up. _No one believes he was ever real. I can't- I still can't believe it was a lie though. Not all of it! He couldn't have made a face like that, after killing-_ Kirishima balled his fists even tighter and had to harden them so he would not cut through his palms. _Sensei,_ Kirishima's shaking eyes steadied and opened back up, his expression hardening just as his fists had. _Watch me. This time I'm-_ _ **"…Told you, not until we get our fight."**_ Kirishima's thoughts interrupted with his strongest motivation to keep moving forward through the previous year's Sports Festival, the promised fight that never came.

Sero rose his head with an intense expression on his face. Thoughts of fighting side-by-side with Kaminari at the previous festival faded, and though his gaze shifted to Shinso for a second it focused back ahead on the steel wall when the principal's voice started up again. "After the Sports Festival Invasion, we were seemingly thrown into chaos. A chaotic world where the worst villains of the previous decades were all released from Tartaros. Other nations faced their own problems regarding villains, and here in Japan criminal activity hit new highs. Villains were on the rise, and they rose higher and higher… but heroes stood strong." The principal's small, high-pitched voice sounded serious and uplifting at the end there as the tone shifted. Nezu looked around at the tens of thousands in the stands around him, and he continued to them and to everyone watching on tv, "They stood in the face of those villains, in Japan and around the world. And they have pushed, them, back."

The crowd cheered before Nezu could continue his speech. The small mouse-bear-dog man closed his mouth for a moment instead of speaking over the people. He decided to let them cheer, in their bellowing roars of approval for the heroes Nezu was talking about. The small white creature started before everyone had fully gotten quiet, "In March, this past month, we have seen the steepest decline in villain activity in decades of villainy across the world." Nezu paused again as the crowds cheered so much louder at the sound of that statistic. Nezu kept his serious look on his face but added to himself in an optimistic tone only in his head, _And current numbers for April are making out for another steep drop. Too steep a drop, some would say._

"The heroes you know have brought about this decline, including the third years with us at the festival today." The students in the tunnel waiting for the first round to start opened their eyes wide and lifted their heads. As some looked up at the speakers though, most others around just stared at them. The hero course students realized it too and started looking around at their classmates who were facing them and smiling. The crowd started cheering loudest too as Nezu continued, "…The young hero prospects of Class A and Class B of U.A. who were out there fighting with heroes as interns. Showing the villains that the new generation is up to the task of standing up to them-"

The stadium and the world already knew the young heroes of Class A, and Class B of U.A. Specifically Class A though, their fame had become widespread so their names were known world-wide, and names were being cheered out in the stadium so loudly that they reached the teenagers in the tunnels below.

"Ingenium!" Iida heard a yell through dozens of others that had him standing up straighter and then getting back into a ready stance to start sprinting.

"RED RIOT!" Kirishima's lips curled up at the corners into a huge toothy smirk.

"Pinky!"

"Froppy!"

"Battle Fist!" Kendo heard her hero name shouted among the others that had mostly sounded like Class A's. She took in a deep breath and then turned and flashed a smile at a boy already grinning at her, and Tetsutetsu's eyes widened as they heard a shout of 'Real Steel' too.

"DEKU!"

Midoriya Izuku rose his gaze to the steel doors in front of him as clanking noises started coming out of them. "So without further ado," Nezu continued, and the steel doors started to open outwards. "Let the first round of the Sports Festival commence."

Midnight stood outside of the doors as they spread apart. The teacher holding up her black whip cracked it down at her side while grinning big at all the intense-looking students on the other side of the gate. "The obstacle course has three paths!" Midnight called out. She swung an arm to the side and moved aside herself to reveal the ramps moving up around the outside of the stadium. There were tall walls a hundred meters out from the outer edge of the stadium, each one blocking in the obstacle course path that circled the entire stadium building. The ramps went up high though, and sections on the top of the stadium started extending inwards over the crowds already looking up in amazement at the screens that showed the outer obstacle course's creation.

There was a second path at the top of the building that went around the circumference of the stadium alone, and then the steepest ramp went straight up and cut even farther inwards so it was farther in to only have the circumference of the lower arena of the stadium below all the bleachers. "With each path up in elevation, the obstacles and faux villains you will be facing will get that much harder! The course also gets shorter the higher you go though, so keep that in mind as you make your choice!"

Iida's eyes darted up the ramps and then snapped back down to the course ahead of him that was supposed to be the easiest one. _Its length does not matter. I will be fastest down here._

Yaoyorozu shifted her gaze from the top path back to the second one. _Without knowing how powerful the top tier obstacles are, there is no point. I would also waste more energy on the steepest slope. I can handle whatever the middle tier is however._

 _Straight to the top._ Midoriya stared straight up the steepest ramp just as a classmate of his down the line was doing. Neither Bakugo nor Midoriya looked towards each other, but the two of them bent their legs while staying fully focused on the same point.

"On your marks!" Midnight shouted, and she rose up the black whip to point up above her.

Mineta pulled a couple of Pop Offs from his head and he bent his legs. _"Grape Juice!" Someone really shouted it!_

"Get set!"

Manga Fukidashi let out a long exhale, the letters 'ahhhhh' coming up faint on his white speech-bubble head. Toru Hagakure glanced to her right and Mashirao Ojiro somehow saw the movement and gave her a nod back with a corner of his lips lifted up. Hanta Sero lowered his arms after cracking them out in front of him, Jurota Shishida dug his feet into the floor below, and Pony Tsunatori rose her head and pointed her horns up above her with an intense look on her cute big-eyed face. Hatsume Mei lowered her goggles over her eyes and twisted the knobs on the sides of them with a huge grin spreading over her mug. Hitoshi Shinso bent his legs and leaned forward, just as Shihai Kuroiro did next to him on his right side.

Midoriya's legs started to glow and he pushed his feet down as he saw Midnight's mouth moving. Todoroki's right foot steamed and his left smoked. Bakugo's clenched fists opened up and sparks flew out of them. Iida's calves ignited, Tsuyu bent her knees to hop, Yaoyorozu's chest glowed, and Midnight shouted to the horde of students, "GO!"

* * *

"Get behind me!" Endeavor shouted, while jumping forward and swinging an arm out to the side to protect Shichi Koi. The hero official of over ninety years who looked like a very droopy Dalmatian stumbled back as the fiery arm swung in front of his body. Endeavor pushed flames out of his arm, but he still ground his teeth in pain as the heat was not enough to fully melt the bullet fired at Koi's head the instant Endeavor leapt to that spot.

 _The threat was credible!_ Hinata Juuzo thought in shock, on her butt on one side of the room with her back up against the wall. She had been the most skeptical of the four top hero officials in the room who the threat had been targeted against. _On the day of the Sports Festival, why come after us-_ Juuzo felt the wall behind her back vibrate, and then the powerful steel behind the ornate wood design was broken through before the wood was too, and then Juuzo's back and her front as well as a fist went through her chest. "Agh-" she opened her mouth to scream but a gasping grunt was all she made out.

"Juuzo-san!" Enshio Goro called to his side in panic. The thin man in a black suit took a step back in fear, then he rose up his hands and created small flames out of holes on his palms. The youngest of the four officials, now three, in the room with Endeavor narrowed his eyes at the wall where a man stepped through while raising his arm. Goro gulped and he pulled his head back some more at the sight of his colleague with a fist through her, and he took another step back as the large villain stomping through the wall swung his arm to the side and made the official's body fly right off of it.

"How did they find us?!" Hiroshi Koudo shouted, staying close behind Endeavor just as Shichi Koi was doing after Endeavor just saved him.

Endeavor's eyes darted back and forth behind the flames covering the top half of his face. The flames that made up his eyebrows narrowed down with his eyes filling with an intense hatred at the villains stepping closer to him. On his left a few feet away, the youngest hero official who was younger than him was trying to stand firm and keep holding up both arms with flames on them, even though Goro had blood on his right arm from a gash he had gotten right at the start of the ambush. Endeavor's eyes shifted fast over Juuzo, though his teeth ground harder at the sight of the woman's terrified but lifeless eyes.

 _The safe room has turned into a coffin. Which of their Quirks can track us? I need to find out before getting the other officials out of here._ "Villains," Endeavor started, and he brought his elbows down to his sides. His glare was intense and enraged, but Endeavor could see into each of the villains' eyes. He had thought about what he was going to say, but the looks in their eyes warned him of something. _Professionals. Every last one of them. Where did the shot come from? None of them look afraid. Like, the hero officials weren't their only target here._ "So you think you can kill me?" Endeavor questioned. Some of the approaching villains stopped where they were near the broken door of the safe room that was stuck open by a slimy orange substance.

"As expected of Japan's Number 1-" one of the villains speaking in front of Endeavor began. It was a man in between two much larger villains, in front of the one who had orange goop dripping from his fingers. They were out in a hallway in a building outside of Tokyo that looked inconspicuous on the exterior but was actually a secret bunker… or at least it was supposed to be a 'secret.' Endeavor was glaring into the villain's eyes as he started speaking back to him, formulating a plan of action while also sizing up his enemies. The man speaking started turning his head though while out in the corridor outside of the safe room. He turned his head and his eyes bulged at the sight outside the window.

"Fuck!"

 _ **Crash!**_ A window in the hall shattered and a black blur flew inside.

The villains were fast to react. The ones closer to the safe room charged straight at Endeavor. The one who had spotted what was coming first jumped backwards and slipped through the wall on the opposite side of the hall as the windows, and the one with orange slime coming off his fingers backpedaled while throwing his arms forward and tossing slime at the dark mass that just busted in. A shot flew down the hallway and the dark blur that missed its first target pulled its body to the side fast, and a shot flew just past its head into the wall next to it.

"He's already here?!" A burly villain with green skin yelled while running into the safe room right at Endeavor.

"Kill them first!" The one in front of him who was faster and bulkier roared. His body doubled in size as he entered through the front of the safe room, while the villain who had already busted in through the side wall reached down and grabbed the floor beneath him that his fingers dug straight through like it was putty. He ripped the floor up that was actually very strong to keep from underground attacks in the safe room, and the villain tossed the floor up at the officials behind Endeavor.

Endeavor turned to the man on the side of the room and jumped towards the sturdy floor flying at him. He pulled a fist back and slammed it into the ground, knocking it back much faster at the man who threw it. The silver-skinned figure's eyes bulged before he got slammed right back through the hole in the wall behind him that he dug through a minute ago.

The villain who had doubled in size while charging at Endeavor smirked wide as the top hero in the nation turned his back to him. _I'll kill him first then-_

Endeavor turned back around as the beast barreling towards him started tripping forward. The villain hit the ground and skid past him on his side, and Endeavor looked over towards the dark figure at the front of the safe room just past an unconscious green villain. Death had a hand pointed behind him and filling the entire doorway of the safe room with a wall of darkness blocking the hallway beyond and the villains who he ignored after splitting the enemy group in half.

"Death," Endeavor said, staring at the dark figure who he had seen turning his way which allowed him to focus on one side of the room. The three hero officials in the room with them were all gawking at the dark figure that had just flown in out of nowhere and was now before their eyes for the first time. Dark wisps stopped coming off of his body and left him there in a pitch black costume covered in knives and black hilts on his belt and the straps over his shoulders and crossing his chest. He had thigh straps too and there were more hidden blades on his sleeves and his boots. His armor was tight to his lean but muscular body, and yet that tight armor was also thick in places other than his joints that made him look bigger than the last time Endeavor had seen him. _He's taller,_ Endeavor thought as he faced the figure before him.

"Have you come to help us?" Koi asked.

"Some of you," Death replied, his voice modulated and low. His head turned away from Endeavor after the first thing he said, and he rose his right hand with his index and middle fingers sticking out in his glove like a gun. He aimed at Enshio Goro who had lowered his flaming hands but now had his right hand shifting slowly towards the back of his waist. Goro's eyes opened huge, and Endeavor started turning to the side himself to look back at the official behind him.

"W-Wait!"

"Stop," Endeavor demanded, and he started lifting an arm into the path of where Death was aiming. A thin black line fired over the top of Endeavor's arm when he had only half-raised it. Endeavor's eyes grew huge behind the flames in front of his face, and he turned his head and watched as the black line slammed into Goro's chest and knocked him backwards like a domino toppling over. "What are you doing?!" Endeavor shouted, spinning and raising arms that covered in flames right as villains smashed into the room from three sides.

"How'd they find the safe room?" Death replied darkly. Then he turned away from Endeavor and towards the villain who had just slipped into the safe room through the wall to the side of his dark flames blocking the doorway.

Endeavor glared at Death out the corner of his eyes for a second, but then his eyes shifted towards the man who smashed down the floorboards to come back in the hole he had initially created. Another villain had just appeared too, in between the two who they had already seen before. This one formed out of thin air, though his body faded in like the particles were coming together out of the atmosphere in the room until he turned whole. His hair was bright yellow and spiked up over his head, to the sides, and behind his skull.

"Looks like they're calling in more help for this," Death said, after seeing the blond villain whose face he recognized well.

"You came early, Death," Dyno said, and the blond smirked a smile of half gold teeth at the dark figure before him. "I was hoping you'd be here though." He darted his eyes to the side for a second and then narrowed them darkly at a form on the floor before shifting his attention back to Death. "What'd you do that poor Goro for?"

A blast of Death shot out of Zach's back and into the wall of the room on the opposite side of Goro. The explosion was so powerful that it flung him across the room while his right arm was lifting up in front of his body, and Zach slammed his hand into Dyno's throat as the villain had his mouth opening to say something else. Air gasped out of Dyno's mouth and Zach slammed an elbow into his chest to remove the rest of his breath while smashing the man up into the wall on the other side of the safe room to the side of another villain's hole. As the big man with silver skin on Zach's left was still turning in towards them, Death leaned his helmet forward and snarled into Dyno's face, "Where is the bomb?"

Endeavor's eyes snapped open huge and then his fists balled and he charged at the silver villain who was turning to Death and lifting his arms. As Endeavor charged at him, he yelled, "Get down!" It was directed behind him at the officials, and they ducked down and got out of sight. It was just in time too, as the darkness covering the doorway was fading and a few longshots flew inside and just over the heads of ducking hero officials. Koudo shouted in fear, and he pushed his hands down on the floor to get farther away from the room's entrance. His shout gave away his position though, and a bullet flew through the flaming darkness and right into the stomach of the sixty year old man whose hands slipped out from his sides. His whole body was pushed back across the room and into the wall on the other side of the entranceway.

Koi turned his head and looked over towards his younger colleague, then he started crawling over on all fours like the dog he looked like. His colleague coughed and wheezed in pain after that shot, and the older man crawling his way began, "Stay still. You weren't hit in-" **Thud** A body dropped in front of the crawling old man with the face of a Dalmatian, and he froze where he was at the look of the masked woman whose lips were uncovered showing they were sewn shut.

"Damn it! Get to cover!" Death shouted, then he swung the arm he just aimed behind him back in front of him and punched Dyno in the face with it as the villain struggled against the vice grip on his neck.

Endeavor blocked a punch from the man who had ripped a hole into the safe room, then he slammed his own fist under their parried arms and sent the guy flying through the room towards his buddy who turned his body translucent and let his comrade slip right through him. The Flame Hero was right next to Death, and though he turned to the translucent man who still posed a big threat to the other officials in the room, Endeavor spoke to the dark-costumed figure on his side, "Is there a bomb at the Sports Festival?"

"There's no way they would have been able to put it there beforehand," Death replied, and he tightened his grip on Dyno's neck as the man's face was turning purple. As Death choked the last of the life out of him though, Dyno's lips twisted up at the corners in a maddened smirk. Death loosened the grip and he swung hard in the same direction Endeavor punched his last villain, throwing him through the translucent one too and grimacing in his helmet as he was unable to discover anything about his permeation-type Quirk based on the second throw. "Some of them are fanatics, but one _will_ tell me how they're getting the bomb in there. They'll wait for a perfect moment though, and we're still in the first round. We have time."

"Not much," Endeavor said. He frowned more as when Death emphasized how one would definitely tell him the truth, the permeable villain they had not been able to hurt so far just smirked in an insane way back towards them. _Shoto._ "We need to evacuate the stadium-"

"Try it, and they'll send it in immediately before evacuations even start. We need to find the bomb carrier. The one who can apport the bomb directly into the stadium." Death said this while glaring straight at the translucent villain through his visor, and he saw the twitch on the villain's face at what he was saying. "We find him, or the bomb itself, and we can stop this."

"Koi," Endeavor called out. "Get Nezu notified-"

"No," Death countered. He said it darkly and in a low voice, and Endeavor's eyes darted back to his side again before shifting all around the room at the force arriving on their position. "Endeavor, trust me. We can handle this." Endeavor's eyes opened wide but his expression steadied, his fists clenching harder at his sides while his teeth ground in acceptance. _Trust you? You've said before that we don't have to trust each other to work together. You're my enemy… But right now, I have no choice._ Villains entered the room and they had the men inside cornered in a box room lined with strong steel on all sides. There were two entrances, both full of villains that were coming out of nowhere which both Endeavor and Death noted.

 _The one meant to apport the bomb is responsible for making all these villains appear in the building,_ Zach theorized at the sight of how many were moving in on them. _There's no way they could have all been hiding here and Endeavor not noticed before he came in. They would draw attention too. They don't want it to be obvious that they're being teleported in here though, hence why they're doing it out in the halls or farther in the building then coming here… or maybe it's just the range of the apporter? Damn it, but we're so far from the Sports Festival stadium that- or maybe they can only send living things a certain distance. It's possible there are two…_ Zach's red eyes darted back and forth over all the enemies he was looking at. His mind raced a hundred thoughts a second as he kept track of everything going on around him, _Several already on Trigger. I recognize most of the faces here. I have to be careful with Death in the confined a space, it's gotten too strong. One redirection of my aura condensed at an official and they're dead for good. Need to bring back Ms. Juuzo at one point, but I should wait until the end when it's safer. Though I need to get her body to a safer area. Mr. Koudo looks to be bleeding out too. Don't let Koi die. Don't let Endeavor die. He's the one they probably want to kill most of all. I need his help with this too though. The first round is taking place around the outside of the stadium, the dirty bomb with those specifications I saw wouldn't reach… I need a total victory here. I need them to try for perfection and not let them set it off early just because I showed up. They expected I would come though, which is good. It's a good thing, and a bad thing._

 _It's good because they aren't all panicking yet. But considering what I've been doing lately, the fact that they aren't panicking means…_ Death erupted around Death's black gloves into huge flaming balls of darkness. His knees bent and he had dark flames shooting out the backs of his legs and blowing to the sides below the soles of his feet. His red eyes flared brighter inside his visor though from the outside he still just looked completely black. His glowing eyes narrowed on one of the enemies and he snapped his head forward at that one man, "HOW MANY TIMES DO I HAVE TO TELL YOU?!" Death's voice came out deeply modulated, though its scratchy and menacing tone came through just fine. The sudden shout made the man who Death focused straight on take a full step back and lose his cocky, ready expression. The spheres of Death on the dark figure's hands doubled in size and he yelled, "Death comes, for ALL VILLAINS!" The floorboards below Zach's feet dented down and then broke at the speed at which he kicked off…

* * *

"Let the first match of the round of 32 STAAAARRT!" Present Mic shouted while leaning up over the counter in front of him in the commentator's booth.

The second round of the tournament had not been as eliminating as years past. The rules at the start of the second round detailed that the teams the competitors had gotten into had to reach a certain point in the competitive battleground/ race track on the second round's arena set-up. It had been a difficult race, with a short time limit, lots of obstacles, and some teams still going after others to try and get higher placings in the round, but as long as they reached the finish under the time limit then they were in to the next round.

The third round had 32 students in it, and every single one was in the hero course. Sato, Hagakure, and Ojiro had all missed out on the final round after teaming with a few general studies students they knew from the year before. Kazumi and Sahara, along with one of their classmates who had finished the first round in time too teamed up with the three Class A's, only to miss the finish line by a few seconds in the second round. Five of the Class B students missed out too, after an invention that Hatsume Mei created accidentally crashed into a few members of their team when her support class team was knocking themselves out last round. Despite a pretty even divide between the Class A and Class B members in the finals though, the first match was between two Class A students who had never fought before.

Sero was quick to snap his right arm forward and fire Tape out towards the frog girl ahead of him. Tsuyu hopped to the right and then started running forward, and Sero swung his tape from his right arm in the direction she dodged. The tall black-haired boy in Class A swung his left arm too and fired more Tape while cutting it off after short intervals. He started running away from Tsuyu while continuously firing at her, a big grin covering half of his face through the start of the fight.

Tsuyu Asui was agile, and she was dodging Sero's attacks with relative ease. Her big frog eyes darted around though as she noticed on her last hop that she came close to landing on some tape, with the sticky side pointed up on the ground. Her eyes darted back to Sero and she thought about how the closer she got to him, the harder it would be to dodge his Tape that was fastest immediately upon leaving his elbow dispensers. Sero fired more behind her and Tsuyu saw he was intending on her to go for a frontal attack right there as it looked like he had missed her because she was too fast. She did not fall for it and kept her distance which Present Mic shouted about in confusion since he had been talking about Sero trying to keep the fight long-ranged from the start.

Sero lowered his smile a bit, but he cracked a smirk as he made eye contact with Asui where she stopped. "Running out of room, Tsu!" He called across the arena at the frog girl who was standing in a five meter gap between some of his sticky tape.

 _Even though he's not connected to the tape anymore,_ Tsuyu thought as she kept those discarded lines of tape in her vision. _I know how sticky they are. If it gets stuck to my feet, he can attach more to the pieces dangling off. I'll become too big of a target. Sero-chan doesn't have unlimited Tape, but he does have enough to easily cover the entire arena. I cannot let this drag out much longer._

Sero ran forward and he swung his right elbow forward. "And a charge by Sero! He's keeping Asui on the defensive!" Tsuyu dodged to Sero's right, but the boy ducked down and pointed his left elbow under his extended right, straight towards the spot Tsuyu was dodging to in the air. Tsuyu's legs curled in towards her body, and she kicked them down as if springing like a frog again. Sero's tape was perfectly on-line to hit her, but Tsuyu kicked down on the air and flipped herself over letting the tape fly just below her. Sero's eyes widened at that midair jump, then he grit his teeth and tried swinging his arm after her.

Tsuyu was faster. She snapped her tongue out towards Sero who was not in a good position to dodge because of the way he crouched to fire after her. He had run forward too so that his Tape would have a better chance of catching the speedy girl, so he was too close to dodge Tsuyu's tongue easily. Sero cut off the tape coming out of his elbows, as his usually great mobility was reliant on the use of more tape there. Tsuyu's tongue did not warp around Sero, but instead the end of it slammed into his chest while moving at its full speed. Tsuyu had the height advantage where she fired from up in the air too, so Sero did not just get knocked backwards but knocked down too.

Sero hit the floor and rolled backwards, right over some of his tape that got stuck to his back and bunched up behind him. Sero was skidding backwards, but he pointed his elbows out to the side and stuck tape on the ground ten feet away on either side. He stopped extending it while still skidding, and Tsuyu stopped rushing towards him as she was about to try and get a big kick on him. Sero's extended tape slingshotted him forwards as he retracted back into his elbows along with the bounce back from reaching the end of the tape while still with a lot of momentum anyway. He extended a leg out at the girl who ducked below him, then jumped backwards and to the left as Sero tried firing a line of tape down at the girl ducking below him. He pulled that arm to the side and fired again, and again, and again, and Tsuyu hopped from each spot to another with incredible speed.

She dodged and dodged, then she sprang back towards him and right between two lines of tape he tried firing from near point blank. She had read his attack through his eyes though, and Tsuyu extended her legs and pressed her feet straight into Sero's chest. There was a moment when her feet pressed into his body that Sero only felt a light press of her feet into his torso. His eyes were growing wider though, the crowd was getting louder as Tsuyu crouched into his front. Then she extended her legs. Tsuyu flung herself back the way she had come from because of how much force she put into the double kick. Sero on the other hand, was thrown much faster across the arena and right off the side of it.

Sero winced as his chest pressed in, his eyes closing from the pain. Tsuyu was watching his face, then her already huge eyes grew wider too as she saw his right eye squint open and his twisted lips to curl up at the right side. Tsuyu's eyes darted right and left, but it was too late as Sero yanked his arms back and made the tape that had flown past Tsuyu's side and connected to pull back into the girl and wrap around her chest. Sero was still in midair, and he was over the side of the arena already, but he swung with as much force as he could muster to lift Tsuyu from already up in the air to rising much higher until she was up and over his body. He continued swinging his arms to try and fling the girl right up over him and down on the other side before he slammed down on the ground, but Tsuyu's tongue snapped out of her body and wrapped around Sero's upper body and head.

Sero's face turned beet red below Tsuyu's tongue as it wrapped around his chest, neck, chin, and his mouth. Then he gasped out, opening his mouth into Tsuyu's tongue which would have made his face even more red, if it was not covered in pain because of how fast Tsuyu just brought herself down into his stomach. She came flying out of the air like a missile with her legs extended that she smashed into Sero's lower body, (though still above the belt). The hit made his legs swing up on one side, and his upper body that Tsuyu pulled up with her tongue raise on the other, thus keeping her tongue from hitting the ground even wrapped around Sero's upper back. Tsuyu smashed Sero into the ground, and she unwrapped her tongue fast to release him and just finish standing on top of Sero's body.

Tsuyu was panting and she still had tape wrapped around her upper body, but she looked better off than Sero whose head turned to the side with his eyes closed. Even in his unconscious state though, there was a somewhat satisfied look on his face that the cameras caught while the crowds were cheering. Mineta was up in the stands leaning forward in his seat, shouting curses down at Sero in frustration. The rest of Class A was cheering for their classmate though, except for Bakugo and Todoroki, and Tokoyami who was in a waiting room already as his match against Setsuna Tokage was up next.

Midnight came over to where Tsuyu just stepped off of Sero's stomach, and she swung a red whip up in one hand over Tsuyu's shorter body. "As Sero Hanta hit out of bounds first, the winner is Asui Tsuyu!" The crowds cheered again at the official decision, and Tsuyu croaked before looking around at the cheering thousands around her. A cute smile came to her face and the crowds cheered even louder.

* * *

"Switch."

"Do it."

Endeavor and Death sprinted at each other. They charged straight at one another with a very small gap between their left sides as they pulled their right arms back. The villains right behind them swung at their opponents' backs, but the other two men were faster and punched their right arms forward.

"Flashfire Fist: Burn Out!"

"Death Dragon Fist!"

Endeavor fired a blast of flames down the hall so wide that within a second he was burning up all the oxygen inside it. The villain Death had been unable to hit slowed down as he began suffocating. He had moved to the outside of the hall to stay farthest away from the hottest part of Endeavor's attack, but the attack was purposely spread wide and burnt up all the breathable air, making the speedy villain unable to keep running. On the opposite end of the hallway, the dark punch that emerged out of Death's fist changed shape while plowing through the thick fist of green seawater coming at Endeavor's back. The fist changed shape into the head of a dragon that pushed forward and bared its sharp teeth at the villain who screamed softly before falling with their mouth still open.

 _ **BOOM!**_

 _ **Crash!**_

Zach spun around and waved a hand down at the floor and the arm reaching up towards him with a blade extending off of it. A wave of darkness flew at the arm and then condensed into a spear-shape and shot down into the hole the arm quickly pulled back into. Endeavor meanwhile spun his head to the left and aimed a hand at the wall, curling each finger out and growling, "Flashfire Fist: Hell Spider." Five thin red lines shot out of his fingers and carved through the wall like it was butter, and a scream rang out from the other side. Zach looked through falling chunks of wall and spotted an arm dropping in the mix, though the scream got more distant and quieted itself where the villain disappeared off to.

Zach stepped forward and put his right foot near the hole in the floor he had brought his Death Spear down into a moment ago. His leg surrounded in thicker darkness, then the rest of his body started surrounding in it too which allowed him to slip straight through the floor and drop as a mass of darkness into the floor below. His body reformed in the shape of a man, and he walked forward with a heavy black mist pulling off the sides and back of his body. He marched towards a figure trying to crawl away who turned and dropped the blades he was still holding when he saw that monster coming towards him.

"This, is impossible!" The man shouted, his voice cracking. The American villain was another Zach recognized, and he kept marching towards that figure without slowing down. "You _can't_ be here! I _know_ you were in Brazil just the other- And you were in Australia- How many of you are there?!" Zach stopped and the man pushed his head towards Death and yelled, "You can't be everywhere at once! So you're just one of-"

"I _am_ Death," Zach said. His voice scratched and deepened, and he stepped another foot closer to the man who pulled his head farther away with fear spread over it. "And you, Felix…" Zach's voice got lower and more menacing, bone-chilling to the villain whose face paled at the sound of his own name. "Are a villain. I've told your kind many times, that I will come for you. But you never seem to listen," Zach's right hand moved from his side, and a long black blade shot out of his grip and sliced into the floor at the tip where it was thickest. Felix's eyes snapped to the end of the blade and he started pushing himself farther back down the hall, but his head started spinning as black wisps that were just coming out of Death all stopped waving around and turned the same direction.

Dark trails shot out of Death's feet and snaked across the floor. A non-existent wind pushed the tendrils of Nightmare towards Felix, waving around in the air and cutting through it in the most horrifying display the villain had ever seen before. Death started walking forward over trails of darkness already covering the floor, and he dragged his Death Sword down the floor with him, making sure the carving noise was loud enough for the villain he was approaching to hear. "You have three seconds to tell me where the bomb carrier is," Death said. His voice was cold and almost without mercy, but it also sounded genuine. "Or I'll kill you and find someone else."

Felix's face covered in terror and his eyes snapped up to the hole in the ceiling where Death had come down for him from. Some of the darkness Death already attacked him with had touched his skin, and he could barely move as it was. "Don't look up there. None of them can help you now. The other villains won't, and there are no heroes here to save you." Felix's eyes dropped back and he saw the floor on either side of him getting darker as the snaking Death on the ground curved around his sides. Wisps of darkness came off of those black lines, trapping him inside a flaming Hell that Death walked forward in until he was just in front of the villain.

Death rose up his sword, and Felix realized his three seconds were up. "Wait!"

* * *

"The second match of the round of 16 is a DOOZY! Sure we aren't in the finals already?" Present Mic asked the teacher at his side.

All Might shook his head while still smiling himself and looking down towards the arena stage where two young men had just stepped forward. "They both showed tremendous improvement through the first events, and although their opponents in the first rounds did well to stand against-"

"They dominated in the quickest two matches of the round of 32!" Present Mic shouted to finish for All Might. "An epic rematch people have been looking for since their fight two years ago! A championship bout in the second round! On one side the explosive personality and Quirk, KATSUKI… BAKUGOOOO! And on the other, is he hot? Is he cold? He's both! It's…"

 _ **RrrrIIPP**_ A villain sitting in the back of a truck watching a tv on the wall started lifting her head while getting up out of her seat. She looked up while reaching forward. _I'll just send it-_ her hand twitched and her entire expression covered in sheer terror at the dark mass she saw through the hole on the roof of the truck. _**"RRAAAAAA!"**_ Death slammed his head down and roared at the woman who already flinched, but suddenly lost focus on anything else around her except the demonic force above her head. _I NEED TO-_ her eyes started darting back down, her hand moving forward again, but the dark wave that pulsed out of that screaming figure above her slammed into the front of her body and rushed straight through her into the wall at her back.

Zach kept forcing more Death out of his body down into the woman even after she fell to the ground. He dropped inside the truck, in between the large object in the middle of the vehicle and the woman collapsed on the side of it. He finally stopped pushing the Death out of his body, and instead all that darkness sucked back into him with even more than before as his power pulsed. Zach turned his head and looked at the screen on the opposite wall as he heard a familiar voice speaking. "…But after Young Tokoyami's dominant match in the previous round, I am expecting a closer fight between these two. Closer than their previous battle as well, as I believe Todoroki will surely use his flames…"

Zach lowered his gaze from the tv and to the bomb in front of him. _Sucks for Tokoyami. Stuck against his natural enemy again no matter who wins. Maybe he's got a way around it now._ Zach reached his arms out to the sides and grabbed around the dirty bomb in the back of the truck. Black wings shot out of his back and flapped down at his sides, and Zach shot out of the truck and into the sky again. _In case they have a secondary means of getting this into the stadium that Felix didn't know about. As long as they didn't prepare a backup bomb. I doubt they did, or she would have focused more on saving herself than attacking the stadium. Fucking fanatics._

Zach flew back towards a nearby building the truck had not been parked too far away from in a hidden but inconspicuous location. He flew in through a broken window and called over to a man all on his own in there but looking around like he expected someone else to be there. "Endeavor! Where should I put this?" Zach kept his right hand on it, but he let go with his left and pointed to his side at a wall where a person started slipping through. _Fucking idiot,_ Zach thought at the man who took the bait of him being 'distracted' way too easily. The unconscious man fell the rest of the way out of the wall, face-first into the floor and a few feet away from another unconscious villain.

 _Shouldn't be many of them left. I don't want to leave this bomb anywhere near the officials, or Endeavor, or anyone who might take it and try and finish the plan. How do I get rid of a bomb without it exploding? I've just got to deactivate it… Fuck, I did really well in this course too. It's always under pressure too, so if I just take a minute and try defusing it._ Zach put the bomb down and he ignored the grunts from Endeavor and the villain who had jumped out at him as soon as Endeavor turned his way to see what Death was talking about. _Just hold him off for a minute Endeavor,_ Zach thought, while going away on the bomb only twenty meters from the officials in another room that he could keep an eye on now that he was back inside the building. There were so many variables, so many things he needed to worry about at all times, that bringing the bomb back to the others was the concession he had to make with himself in order to ensure the others weren't all getting killed without him there.

"Perfect," Death said, while looking through an open panel on the bomb and grinning at what he saw inside. His grin only lasted for a second, but he was relieved by what he was seeing in there. _Because it wasn't on a timer, they were just going to send it in and blow it up without giving anyone time to defuse. There was no need to make the inside complicated. Still check for dummy wires… nope._ Zach ripped out the wire he needed to, froze, then let out a breath of black steam. _I knew it was right, but I guess it's impossible not to hold your breath there._ He relaxed and let go of the deactivated bomb. Then he lifted his head and looked down the hall to a panting Endeavor who had a villain grabbed by the throat, smoke coming out from between his fingers as he choked the man out with a fiery hand.

Endeavor smashed the villain down into the floor at his feet, then he stood back up fully and took in a deep breath himself. He turned towards Death who lost the dark aura around his body to leave him just in his black costume again. "Let's gather up all the villains back in the safe room. Look out for any more," Death suggested it and then reached down and grabbed the two men closest to him who lay unconscious next to each other. He lifted them up and started walking back towards the safe room, and his eyes started to darken inside his visor as he heard Endeavor speak in agreement behind him. Death's eyes closed inside his visor, then he clenched his hands tighter into the two men he was dragging. _They were going to kill everyone. Remember that._

* * *

"Are you ready for the semifinals, All Might? YOW! Because I'm super looking forward to them!"

"I do believe we are in for some interesting match-ups," All Might started, while smiling up towards a giant screen outside the commentators' booth where he could see the semifinalists' faces. Their faces were put in a corner of the screen each, with the first round's fighters on top and the ones in the second match next to each other below them. The face on the bottom left of the screen made All Might smile the most, and he continued, "All four of these students have shown remarkable improvement in the three years they have been at U.A…"

"And that's saying something, since they were all finalists their first years too!" Present Mic shouted, followed up by thousands of cheers in the stands from people who had been watching these students compete for three years now. "In match one we've got Bakugo Katsuki, otherwise known by his newly declared hero name: EXPLOSION KING!" Cheers rang out through the stands, but Bakugo's face stayed intense inside his waiting room as he curled his fingers in and made fists over and over again. "The champion of the first year, and a finalist last year, we've never seen him lose!" Present Mic shouted it and the cheers got even louder.

All Might looked in at Present Mic and he sweatdropped but smiled, deciding not to jump in as Yamada was much better at riling up the fans than he was. Mic continued yelling, "He's not going to have an easy fight though. Last year these two went up against each other at the start of the final tournament, and though Bakugo was the victor, it was a battle hard fought! Now Bakugo has already come up against people he's fought before all day, but we'll see what he can do against our own Iida Tenya, the next… INGENIUM!"

Iida heard that shout and he let out a long, deep breath. _Nii-san,_ his eyes rose up and his fists balled at his sides where he stopped pacing a room away from Bakugo. _Kendo was more difficult to defeat quickly than I predicted, but I knew it would be hard fought nonetheless. Bakugo has fought against a harder line-up than I have. This is Bakugo though. I will not make the same mistakes as last time…_

Principal Nezu had a small smile on his face as he listened to the roars of applause and the commentary from one of his faculty. His beady black eyes shifted around the stadium, then next to him at Power Loader who had his one arm lifted in front of him with a tablet showing a dozen different moving camera angles. Power Loader was keeping a close eye on them though he was smiling inside his helmet too at everything Present Mic was shouting. Nezu glanced at the tablet screen for a moment, and then he looked back forward with his smile but a completely serious look below it. _We're almost there. So far we have had no surprises. We are getting close to the end though, and the tension is rising. I have seen people leaving their seats. Not many, but enough that I can hear the difference in volume from earlier._

"…And in the second match, a rising star who shook off that blandness to him from his first year! He hasn't broken a bone yet this tournament for a change… we have Midoriya Izuku! A.K.A… DEKUUUU!"

Midoriya slid down into his chair a little as the cheers got much louder than they were for either of the two who were shouted out before him. Neither Iida nor Bakugo were up in the Class A section of the stands, though Midoriya could see his opponent out the corner of his eyes looking towards him out the corners of theirs. He took in a deep breath to stop looking so nervous, but a hand smacked onto his back and made him cough instead of letting out his exhale slowly. "Listen to them. They're going nuts over you!" Mineta exclaimed jealously at his classmate who had knocked him off the stage a few rounds back in the tournament.

"I'd say I'm rooting for you out there Midoriya," Ashido started, leaning over Midoriya's other shoulder as Mineta. "Buuuut…" Ashido smirked and pulled away from the boy who got a more nervous look at the calm, collected look he saw past Ashido when she moved her head away.

"For the final competitor," All Might began, speaking before Present Mic could go on his rant. "I want to say this. All the students in the festival today have improved in leaps and bounds from where they were to where they are now. No class in the history of U.A. has been through more than Class A has, and that experience shows with who we see once again filling all the spots of the semifinals. But even in that class of so much improvement, I believe that the person I have seen the most improvement from…" The girl up in the Class A bleachers section started lifting her head towards the commentators' booth with her eyes opening wider in shock. "Is Yaoyorozu Momo."

"THAT'S RIGHT!" Present Mic shouted in agreement, nearly jumping out of his seat like he wanted to yell that from the second All Might started about it. Present Mic thought back on another man who used to sit at the seat next to him, and he smiled more while yelling, "Eraser Head said it the first year too! Yaoyorozu had the skills and know-how, but not the confidence to make things happen in the spur of the moment! But you'd be hard-pressed to find any hesitation in her moves today! Crushing powerhouses left and right with plans _I_ never even saw coming! Sweeping her way through the tournament like a pro! She's the one I'm rooting for, YOW, (even though I probably shouldn't be biased), IT'S CREATI!"

Midoriya relaxed a tad as he saw a slightly red shade come to Yaoyorozu's face at all that was just shouted. The cheers were as loud as his just were too, _Maybe even louder._ Midoriya watched as Jirou leaned in from Yaoyorozu's other side to tell her something, and then Midoriya looked forward himself and he lowered the small smile he gained when he saw his opponent looking just as nervous as he felt. _I have to focus fully on our fight if I want to beat Yaoyorozu. I'm sure she's already made a great plan to beat me, so I can't be distracted. Except, I'm sure she will be too, just as I know I can't convince myself not to be at least a little preoccupied. We all are._

Todoroki took in a deep breath from the top of Class A's stands. He looked down at his phone again and an unanswered text that he had sent out a while ago. _Dad said it was an important mission. I don't know why he wouldn't say anything about it. It may be better that I am not in the semi's though… not that I'd use that as an excuse. Bakugo was just too… but it is good. Because I don't want to be thinking about fighting my classmates at a time like this. Not now. With this feeling in the air. The knowledge that we're nearing the end and still, nothing is happening. Dad hasn't texted me back. His mission probably has nothing to do with the Sports Festival though. I haven't seen him on security detail… why wouldn't he tell me what it was he was doing today?_

 _A short time until the Sports Festival ends. Perhaps they will not attack the third years, but one of the other stages where they would feel a higher chance of victory? Doubtful. It would make the biggest impact here._ Yaoyorozu drowned out Present Mic as he started shouting more about the first match that both she and Midoriya planned to watch fully before going down to wait for their fight. _How many are thinking about it in the backs of their minds? We are a target for villains. A target for any who want to send a message. Everyone is waiting to see it. Everyone knows it's coming, or at least they would not be surprised if it did come. Not surprised, but still crushed. We're on the right path now._ Yaoyorozu's gray eyes focused down on the arena. _The closer it gets to the final fight, the more nerve-wracking it gets. They waited until the semifinals last year. We are being brave, putting on this show in the face of crime that is still higher than it was during All Might's time. I must put on a brave face and act as if there is no danger. Smile so that everyone can see that we are not afraid of villains, even if we know that there is a high chance they could attack. That is our responsibility. Not as students of U.A. But as heroes._

Nezu looked around the stadium again as the competitors for the first match of the semi's started coming out to the stage. _All the precautions in place. All the new security measures. They must hold!_ Nezu balled his tiny white hands into fists and took a deep breath to calm his own thoughts. _ANTs patrolling everywhere. They are readied here and through the city, with self-destruct switches in them to activate failsafe bombs in their heads. Even with Hackerman out of the picture, if Raijin attempts anything I will be ready. The heroes visible in our security to dissuade villains are more than ever yes, but our true number is hidden as our heroes prepared at this very moment for imminent attack can not be seen by the public or it would be assumed that an attack is definitely coming. They will stay at the ready until the Sports Festival has ended and everyone is off the premises. I will take no chances._

Far from the Sports Festival stadium, in her apartment in Musutafu, Inko Midoriya held her hands together in front of her tv screen. She stared at the spiky-haired blond stepping up on the stage and got a nervous expression on her face. Her expression was already nervous though, so the chubby green-haired woman just pressed her hands together tighter and curled her fingers in, pushing her head down onto her hands with her lips pursed in a scared way. "Oh Izuku, this is getting so much harder to watch. Every second is… please, stay safe." She lifted her head and looked at the two boys on the screen, and she whispered in a softer voice, "And win."

Inko said it, waited a few seconds, then she called out louder, "But mainly stay safe!"

* * *

"Rrrg, ggrr," Zach ground his teeth and tried to hold in the painful noises he was making. Hinata Juuzo sat on the floor with her back up against a wall a few meters away from the dark man kneeling over her colleague. She had a hole in her shirt and was still holding a hand over it pressed into her chest in shock that her body was all healed up.

Endeavor came back into the safe room and he did not have any villains with him this time. He looked over towards Death and Koudo for a second, then his gaze shifted over to the unconscious Goro, then to the oldest man in the room who was watching Death in silence himself. "Is that all of them, Endeavor?" Shichi Koi questioned, still without looking over towards the Flame Hero.

"Unless some ran," Endeavor replied. He looked over towards the pile of villains stacked up on one side of the safe room, and he glared at the men and women who had come to kill them. He had a bloody gash on his right arm and one higher up on his right shoulder, but other than that he had taken little damage during the fighting. "What about the bomb carrier?" Endeavor asked, looking towards Death who removed a hand from the body of the official below him. Death shook Koudo for a second, but then he just let go and stood up as the official fell unconscious after being brought back to life. "You only brought the bomb back here."

Zach stood and looked towards Endeavor through his dark visor. His face was completely hidden behind it, and the other three in the room with him who were still conscious could not see the expression his face just made. Zach turned his head and nodded at the wall in the direction of the truck he had found. "There's a side road off the exit, Uno Street, a lot of trees on the sides of the road. In between two big ones, there's an alleyway with a truck parked inside. I left her inside it." Zach paused and looked over towards the pile of villains in the room, "She was the only one there. I'm guessing she sent all the others here to help, when they heard I arrived."

"Th-Thank you," Juuzo said. The other three looked over towards the woman, and she kept a hand over her chest to keep herself covered but used the other to push herself up the wall she leant on. "For coming," the woman in her fifties whispered softer.

"Don't thank me," Death replied. His voice was still deep and modulated. His tone sounded cold too, and Juuzo pursed her lips at what should have sounded menacing but did not to her anymore.

Koi frowned deeper at Death's back, and he glanced over towards Endeavor only to see the Flame Hero still standing where he was after Death had just brought back his other colleague. The older man hummed to himself and then began in a low, stern voice, "Death. How did you know that Mr. Goro was working with the villains? You took him out before giving him a chance to explain-"

"I didn't know," Zach replied. "Not before I got here. But," he looked over towards the youngest of the four hero officials who was not laying with the rest of the villains but on the floor not far from his feet. "One of you had to be the traitor unless the villains had a Quirk allowing otherwise. It was likely one of you had told the location of the safe house though, and his reaction gave himself away when I arrived." Death paused and then he nodded at the unconscious man on the floor, "Also he has a gun he was reaching for, if you don't believe me. Check his waistband."

Endeavor did not need to check. He believed Death already, but he still glared at the figure in front of him as he heard the man speaking. _He's definitely taller. Still growing._ _"Dad, there's something, I need to tell you…"_ Endeavor clenched his fists hard at his sides with a closer look at the muscular man in a black costume standing before him. "Now that the attack has been stopped," Endeavor started, shaking off strange thoughts for now and focusing on the moment. "We must notify-"

"Don't," Zach said. He looked at Endeavor and frowned more at the look on the Flame Hero's face. Zach's frown twisted in frustration and hesitation too, his heart racing faster again while his eyes darted across the room. "Goro, Dyno, the villains from different groups, they had a plan here. You get what that plan was right?"

"To attack the Sports Festival, and to kill us," Koi began. "Correct?" He had a feeling from the way the dark figure said it that he was missing something there.

Juuzo pulled out a phone and she quickly went onto a live stream for the Sports Festival. "The final match is starting. It seems Bakugo Katsuki and Midoriya Izuku are the finalists. If we are going to cancel-"

"You can't cancel it," Death said, cutting her off and shaking his head as he looked to the woman near him. "What's the point? We already stopped the attack. Just, let them fight."

Endeavor frowned more and he glared over at the bodies of unconscious villains all stacked up and unmoving. _Their plan. The reason for the attack._ "Death's right…" Endeavor grit his teeth after saying it, while the other three looked over towards him. "The purpose of attacking the Sports Festival is clear. The Symbol it represents that, I cannot."

"They want to keep their age alive," Death said, nodding with Endeavor and speaking up himself about it. "The age of villains. They don't want it to end. So the Sports Festival going off without a single villain incident, after the chaos of last year, is unthinkable." Zach ground his teeth and he started walking over towards the villains they had gathered up, "These villains aren't all from the same group. They joined together for a single purpose though. Killing you four, killing everyone at the Sports Festival, none of that means anything to them. All they care about is the attack." Zach stared down at the villains and his breathing started picking up faster. His eyes darkened and his fingers curled, his expression turning cold and that quickened breathing pace slowing back down. "And if anyone knew that there was even an attack planned, the villains' plan succeeds. They'd have to cancel, they'd ruin this occasion, they'd keep the whole world feeling like villains are still powerful enough to try something against the Sports Festival, against U.A., against Class A, against heroes and their society."

Endeavor ground his teeth more and kept glaring at those villains harder with every word out of Death's mouth. _Everyone will still know. Even if the Festival finishes where it should, they'll still find out that there was an attack planned. Villains will still-_ Endeavor's bottom lip started dropping, and his right arm started to raise only to flinch as his eyes bulged and his face covered in complete shock. Koi and Juuzo pulled back, both of them gawking and staring in horror at the dark figure standing near the villains, who just opened up his clenched right fist and fired a black blast out of his palm and into the stack of villains.

Death opened his hand and fired a black trail of darkness over all of the villains piled in the room. Dark flames covered them all and flared huge all the way up to the ceiling, leaving the other three behind him staring at Death's back with a wide backdrop of flaming darkness. He just kept his hand lifted partially in front of him, aimed down at the ground and firing a stream of Death out of it and into the nearly two dozen villains laying there. "What are you doing?!" Endeavor shouted, taking a step at Death's back.

"I'm not a hero, so I don't have to let that happen," Death replied. He turned his head sideways and glared out the visor back at Endeavor who froze with shaking eyes at what Death just said. Endeavor wondered if his mind had been read for a second before realizing that they had both just been thinking of the same thing, and Death knew it. Endeavor's fists clenched harder, but the dark flames were dropping down behind Death and darkness pulled back into his body like a strong wind sucking into his body. "No one can know what happened here," Death said, glaring into Endeavor's eyes and saying it in his coldest, deepest voice.

"Did you just," Juuzo started in a whisper. She stared towards the bodies when the darkness fully left them, showing pale men and women with lifeless expressions and a different kind of no movement than before. Not even twitches or the slightest up and downs of their chests.

"You killed them," Koi said, the old man's shaking eyes returning to normal and then glaring at Death furiously. The dog man stepped forward and looked to Endeavor, "Endeavor. Take Death into-"

"Shhhh," Death's voice gave Koi chills and made him freeze with his mouth open. "Don't think that you can-" he froze mid-sentence. The smirk that just crossed over Zach's face faltered, and he reached a hand up slowly and gripped the side of his head for a second. Then he lowered that arm and dropped his smile into a deep frown. "You didn't have a choice in what happened here," Zach turned towards Endeavor alone and stared at the taller and more muscular hero covered in his orange flames. "I made the decision to kill him, and you couldn't stop me."

 _Stop you? We were thinking of the same thing. "I'm not a hero…" How much- how much thought went into- that wasn't just random murder. But…_ "Death, this isn't, the way things are going to go."

"They have to," Death replied.

"Even if we wait," Endeavor cut right back in, his face darkening as he took a step towards the dark figure before him. "This will come to light. We will make it known what happened here. And Goro must pay for-"

"Send him in for something else. Make it bad, but not enough to get him sent in with the worst villains. That'll keep him quiet." The others stared towards Death confused and angry, and nervous at the dark voice that spoke calmly and with a plan already. "He's not a fanatic like the others. He wouldn't want it known he was trying to get thousands killed."

"How could you know-"

"I tortured one of the villains while we were fighting, and I filled in the rest of the gaps myself," Death said it coldly and made Juuzo pull back at that voice that she was once again afraid of. "He helps the villains here and they help him. By taking out the other top hero officials and Endeavor in an attack that would become synonymous with the attack on the Sports Festival. And yet, he would have been the _heroic_ survivor of the attack, even sustaining a wound himself. But even with a wound like that, he would have been the first one on the scene at the Sports Festival. He wouldn't have faltered, acting quickly to reroute heroes and ensure the population that things were under control. In a time of so much chaos, he would have been the one who brought this country back into the light. His reaction would have been so fast after all, because he knew the attack was coming in the first place and had plans to gain power when it was finished."

The others darted their eyes over to the young man unconscious on the ground whose plans were being revealed even though Zach was speculating on nearly every word out of his mouth. "And all he would have had to do during all this, is make sure that some of the heroes he's calling to help reconstruction and rescue efforts would be coming from specific ports. He would make some openings, for all the villain groups out there who are terrified and on the run, looking for a safe haven from _me._ " The way Death said that sent chills down Koi and Juuzo's spines, while Endeavor just turned back to the dark figure and stared at him with wider eyes as he continued. "Goro's a fool though, to think that it would really work out for him. Hawks and Best Jeanist would have figured it out in no time, that an attack organized so perfectly and carried out without flaw couldn't have failed to kill one of the officials. And the fact that he was so quick to respond, only received a minor injury, they'd realize it and arrest him. But it would be too late."

Zach ground his teeth inside his helmet and his eyes darkened so much more while he glared over at Enshio Goro. "Because by the time they realized it, the villains would have already set up inside Japan. And, and the people will have already started trusting Goro." Koi's glaring gaze started to shift, his eyebrows lifting and his face pulling back. Endeavor stared down at Death's helmet with his breath hitching, at the sound of the pain in Death's voice. "In that time of complete panic, Goro would have come to the forefront and told everyone that things were going to be alright. He'd do it for popularity, to make everyone believe in him and to get behind any policy changes that he tried to put in place. They'd believe in him so strongly as he's out there in the thick of it despite his own wounds, yelling at those despairing people that they could rise again! And after everyone believed so strongly in him, after they _trusted_ him! If they had to learn that _he_ was the cause of their despair the entire time… If families who had lost loved ones started believing in this man and following him and caring so much about him, only to learn that he was a monster, betraying them from the start."

Death's voice was deeply modulated, but it was full of passion and anger, and despair. And the other three in the room felt like they were hearing someone speaking through experience. All three of them thought of the same thing. Death continued in a lower voice, his fists uncurling at his sides, "It would crush them. They'd never recover from it. Goro would be sent to prison, the people would be disillusioned, and the villains infesting Japan would get even stronger."

Juuzo leaned on the wall behind her and she rose her eyes to the ceiling. _I can see it. Everything he just said, could have happened easily. I always thought Goro was too ambitious, but this is… And Death, he went through this himself. He trusted, Raijin. This is really Zach Sazaki._

"Goro has been captured though," Koi said. Zach turned and looked at the old man who appeared to be a Dalmatian, and that man continued, "And so were the other villains, who you so brutally killed."

"They would have talked," Zach replied. "The minute they woke up, they would have talked about their plan. Everyone would have known that the villains were still trying."

"That doesn't matter," Endeavor said. He glared at the man before him and growled in a deeper voice, "You cannot come here and decide for yourself what laws to follow. You cannot come here and kill twenty unarmed, unconscious men, and think that we will just keep it a secret for you."

"The whole world is watching the Sports Festival," Death said. "It doesn't matter if it's here or anywhere else. _Everyone_ , is watching. Everyone is afraid there will be an attack. The villains are waiting to see one too. If there is even mention that an attack was planned, foiled, it will still make everyone know that nothing has changed. Even though they'd be wrong, but that wrong knowledge would turn into something. It would undo everything. Villains will be emboldened once more, so the whole point of the Sports Festival to show that heroes are in control of society again will be seen as a joke, a lie! Even if it's stopped, it will show that villains are not cowering so far below heroes like is being advertised. The Sports Festival _has_ to go on without a problem. It _needs_ perfection to really mean anything! So… no one can know what happened here." Death turned and he started for the door, creating flames of darkness on his back that Endeavor glared at so harshly like the man was daring him to try attacking him as he left.

"Endeavor, arrest him," Koi ordered.

Death froze, before Endeavor could step after him. Zach ground his teeth and bared them in fury. He heard the old man's voice continue behind him, "You do not make decisions for this country. You are a murderer and a terrorist. The people will know the truth. We do not act in conspiracies-"

"Don't you get it?" Zach snarled. He turned his head and glared past a hesitant Endeavor towards Shichi Koi. The old man did not flinch though at that look, and that made Death pull his head back with his eyes going wide and his face covering in panic. "You _can't!_ You can't tell anyone I was here."

"I must," Koi replied.

"Death, this was too far," Endeavor said. Death snapped his head to Endeavor now still with a panicked look on his hidden face, and Endeavor continued to that dark visor, "I've seen you fight before. I never thought you would go so far though. You let men live who killed your comrades in the League of Shadows' base. From then to now, something has changed. You have changed. And I cannot-"

"I let them live, because there was no reason to kill them!" Death shouted, his voice hitching which the others heard through the helmet's modulator and made them the most unnerved since Death killed the villains. "Wh-What do you- You can't tell any…" Death reached up and he held a button on the side of his helmet, then he let go and started shaking his head before speaking in his own voice, "You can't do this. What's the point of telling people?"

"They deserve to know the truth," Juuzo started.

"'Deserve?' They _deserve_ to believe that they live in a peaceful world again! They don't _deserve_ the fear that will come if you tell them this. Sometimes, keeping secrets is a good thing!" Death shouted it in a higher-pitched voice, full of desperation. He looked back to Endeavor who started shaking his head, and Death stomped back towards the top hero whose eyes opened wide at that step that brought them so close together. "Do you think-" Death started shouting it then he pulled his head back. Zach bit down and he tried to stop himself, but he snapped his head forward and he yelled, "Do you think that was easy?!" Endeavor froze and his eyes slowly grew to the size of saucers as he heard the agony in the voice that just screamed at him. "You really think I'm just a fucking mask?! There's a person inside here, you know?" Tears filled Zach's eyes and he shouted at the fiery man before him, while the three in the room stared in shock at Death.

"If you tell everyone what they tried to do, then... then what did I kill them for?!" Death shouted. He spun towards a stunned Koi and yelled, "So you can't- you can't- please!" _Kill them too! No! The world needs Endeavor, and they're innocent, and, AND- AAAAGHHH!_ "You think I want to kill people?!" Death yelled, spinning back at Endeavor and roaring it right into his face. "You think, it was easy to do that? To kill them when they couldn't even fight back? Of course it wasn't. I'm, I'm not a monster. But! I did it, a monstrous thing, so that no one will have to know what they attempted here today. So that anyone around the world thinking about becoming a villain only sees the power of heroes today, their strength and resolve and the fact that no villains were brave enough to try ANYTHING! But if you tell them, then regular people watching the finals right now with a pit in their chest, who are going to be so relieved and laugh at their own anxiety, they're going to think that it was right to be afraid! They're going to be TERRIFIED! And, and villain activity around the world is going to surge again and Endeavor, I- I can't deal with it this time. I can't be everywhere at once. I can't- I have to get out of here right now because there are too many, they're everywhere, and if you make another surge- IF YOU! Create a surge in villains just because you can't deal with breaking a couple of rules, you're going to destroy the world! I CAN'T DO THIS, if you create thousands more villains. And that's what you're going to do if you tell people what happened here."

Juuzo stared towards the panicking, screaming man in a black costume whose voice cracked multiple times in what he just shouted. Her heart was pounding and her eyes darted side to side at Koi and Endeavor. _Is that really what will happen if we tell people about this? Isn't that, part of why we tried to keep the threats against us a secret in the first place?!_

 _I'm moving faster and faster. As fast as I fucking can, and taking a day off here is messing with a schedule so packed of villain fights that there's no time to stay here arguing any longer! But I'd have to move even faster if villains surged, risk so much more, go into attacks with less recon and lose so many more of my comrades by not planning long enough. I'd be sending them all to their deaths, and the villains will just keep rising. Please._ "Please," Death said again, steadying his voice and looking desperately through his mask at Endeavor who had stared at him in shock there for a few seconds before regaining an intense and stern expression. "Stopping the attack is only a part of this. Making sure, that it's actually a victory. Not like Stain… Endeavor, you were there. You saw what happened just from him saying a few words. And the Sports Festival last year, led to so many more than the seven thousand deaths of people here, but to tens, hundreds of thousands of deaths from villains encouraged by the attack across the world. Millions even… Crime is down. Villains are afraid. Most of them really are, but they'll be convinced it's still their time if you can't keep quiet about this." _And the coming counterattack from what I did at Wampajawa, it will be so much stronger. The surge will fill the villains' forces when they come. The world loop will never finish, they'll kill us all. I can't. I'll lose. It will have all been for nothing._ "I have to leave," Death whispered.

Zach took a step back away from Endeavor. He kept shaking his head, _I have to get out of here. If they tell me they'll talk again, I might start considering, making them all just disappear. SHIT! It's just Death. It's making you emotional. Killing so many, feeling so good but so angry and scared, the euphoria won't wear off. Why do I feel so fucking confused?!_ Zach stepped back again, "It's up to you. I, I can't force you to do anything just like you can't make me stop. But I have to keep moving. I have places to be. Villains to fight. Please just don't tell." Zach reached back up and he held the button on the side of his helmet again, having turned off the modulator so they could hear the real emotion in his voice that he thought he needed to convince them. His voice became deeper once more and he said, "It would be your fault. You'd, destroy this world so close to peace."

"But a peace gained through these methods," Koi started, his voice depressed but low and reluctantly accepting as well. He rose his eyes and said in a sad voice, "What would it mean? What would a peace built on top of so many bodies bring?"

"That's why it can't be," Death whispered back. "That's why, it has to be a secret." Koi's sad eyes grew wide as he stared back at that boy in the doorway of the safe room.

Zach saw that look on Koi's face and decided it was the perfect place to leave them. He started turning, then he heard the burly growl of the muscular man closest to him. "Sazaki." Zach froze and he started turning his helmet back towards that hero. Endeavor glared at the dark visor in front of him, his fists clenched tightly at his sides, but nothing they were talking about could push farther to the front of his mind that something Shoto had told him not long ago. "What do you know about Touya?"

 _ **"I know, I should have told you earlier. Zach, told me when he was about to leave, the last words he said to me were that he thought he could stop Dabi on his own, because they were like brothers and, 'we're our own brothers' keepers.' But he said that he couldn't do it now, so I had to stop him. I had to, 'Stop Touya.' …He did tell me why. I didn't understand him. He said that it was because of you that he kept it a secret. That, 'Endeavor's such a great hero, I couldn't stain his name by revealing the secret I knew.'"**_ Endeavor's eyes narrowed at the dark figure before him who stayed silent after his question. "Is my son really…"

"Endeavor," Death started. He looked at the hero and questioned in a frustrated, confused voice, "What the hell are you talking about?"

"I know it's you, Zach Sazaki. Lifebringer-"

"I'm not Lifebringer," Death retorted, shaking his head once and saying it in an annoyed voice at the accusation. The other three stared at him with in confusion at how annoyed this man really sounded by that. "I'm not Zach Sazaki. I just, have a similar Quirk."

"Then take off that mask," Koi said. "And show us who-"

"No." Death turned and walked out the door. Black wings shot out of his back and spread across the hallway he stepped into. There was no goodbye. No final words or warning. He flapped his wings and flew out the window, and he shot away into the sky like a missile to avoid anyone from catching a glimpse at him too close to the ground. _Make the right decision. Burn those bodies Endeavor. Or bury them somewhere. Whatever. Just let it be, a conspiracy. Conspiracies don't need to be bad things. No one needs to know what I do. No one needs to know I was ever here. It's better for everyone if heroes take all the credit, all the time. Villains will still spread the rumors to each other. Fear of me will last. Don't say anything though. Please._ Zach flapped his huge black wings and shot even higher in the air while also flying off to the west. _With the boost I have right now, this strength so much stronger than, than I've ever been…_

Zach rose a hand to his helmet and tapped the button on the side of his head twice, holding it longer on the second time when his display changed what he was doing on his helmet. He rang The Cloak, and Raylei picked up, "Death? I'm watching the Sports Festival right now. Have you-"

"It's handled," Zach replied. "I'm on my way back. Let everyone know that we're moving in on all positions in the next few hours. Have all teams on standby to await my arrivals."

"Understood, Commander."

Zach flapped his wings of Death again and he created a dark shockwave in the air that pushed white clouds away from him with the force at which he swung them. His eyes were straight ahead and his mind shifted to thoughts of the next fights he was already on his way to. His mind shifted focus though for a brief moment, his eyes glancing to the corners and back behind him in the direction of his hometown. _Midoriya and Bakugo, huh? One final rematch, in front of the world this time. Good luck, Midoriya._

Back in the safe house Death just flew away from, Endeavor stared towards broken windows and then turned his head and looked back towards Hinata Juuzo. She was kneeling at the side of Hiroshi Koudo, checking his pulse for the first time and then relaxing again as despite not seeing the man's body moving, he was in fact breathing. She dropped down onto her butt and looked back across the room though with a grim expression on her face. "So," she said, her voice low, and dark. She turned to Endeavor who was staring at her, then she motioned at the bodies with her head. "Are you going to do it?"

There was no command. She did not order Endeavor to do a thing. The question told him that she was not going to stop him though. Shichi Koi looked over at his colleague, then to the bodies, then over to Endeavor who had just faced the bodies himself. "I do not condone this," Koi began. Endeavor shifted his eyes to the corners and looked over at the older man, but Koi's face looked twice as wrinkled after he said that, and he turned away from the Flame Hero while letting out a long, exhausted sigh. "But, I will- I will go along with… I wish to leave this world, in better shape than I came into it…" the old man lowered his gaze to the floor and curled up his paws before letting go as just that much effort felt exhausting to him. "Endeavor, do you think," Koi turned his head back and looked Endeavor in his turquoise eyes. "That boy knows what he is talking about?"

 _"That boy." You still believe it,_ Endeavor hesitated before responding only to think that. He grunted though and turned back to the bodies himself, his expression dark yet accepting as he nodded his head once. _I had only just started to think about it. I knew, that turning in these men would cause, something. I began to realize it, and Death knew that I was thinking that way… Yet he, was so far ahead of me. He talked while moving closer to them, close enough that I would not be able to stop him once he began. He did it without making it out like he was about to kill them. Without giving time for argument, without, letting me have a choice in the matter. In the moment he killed them, how many different things were on his mind. Keeping any responsibility for killing those men off of me. Making sure that heroes and himself were far separated. Stopping them from talking about what they did which even if we had just captured them and tried them for something else, because they were "fanatics" they would have told anyway. He was right. On every aspect… He was there that night. With Stain. I remember him with Shoto, does he know that I remember that? Was he trying to let me know? Except, he said he wasn't Sazaki, in such a convincing voice. I read the reports of that incident, that Sazaki claimed to be throwing everything away. His own name even. Does he truly not consider himself as Zach Sazaki anymore, or is he just lying to hide his identity? Or, is it even Sazaki at all? Is Sazaki the only one who could have gone through betrayal, to make me think that he was talking about Raijin, or did I just jump to that because of my own preconceptions?_

 _One thing is certain,_ Endeavor narrowed his eyes at the dead bodies in front of him, then his teeth ground in frustration at the thought in his head. _Death has surpassed me._ Endeavor's fists balled and his expression maddened, but only for a moment before loosening up and getting just darker. _While my ADTF has gotten weaker and less motivated, his forces grew stronger, larger, more organized. As our funding was cut because they fell from the limelight, they appear in secret with more powerful tech than ever. As I try to keep the peace, be a symbol for the people… he facilitates it. He fucking murdered those men. And women. He did it because I couldn't. Because he couldn't let it be me, but someone needed to. I could have done it easier than him. I could have killed them, and barely lost any sleep but he-_ Endeavor thought back on those yells from the boy whose voice had cracked, who sounded like he had been on the verge of tears when Endeavor made it out that he would tell everyone about the attackers anyway.

 _And he was able to come up with all of that faster than I could follow. As much as it hurt him to do, and I do believe him when he said that. I was wrong to think he had changed. Damn it. This time was different. That was foolish of me to say. Leaving in such a hurry too, he's returning to another fight._ Endeavor turned his head and looked back out into the hall, to the windows and through them where Death had flown out a minute before. _I cannot compete. He stopped what he believes would have been a new surge in villain activity across the globe, and a thousand more anonymous tips last month than ever before, who knows how many villains… And he wants no credit._ Endeavor thought on what Death said last to Koi, and he turned back to the bodies in front of him which he was dreading what he had to do them now. _**"That's why, it has to be kept a secret."**_ _He doesn't want anyone to know what he does, not because he doesn't want the glory, or doesn't want them to criticize him, but because he wants people to think that this world is recovering due solely to our efforts. To the methods of heroes. The_ _ **right**_ _methods… I'll know though. I will live with this knowledge. I will… keep this Number 1 rank, and do what I can from here._

 _Death. Sazaki. Whoever you are…_ Endeavor rose a hand up and the hero officials looked away as it covered in flames. _No, that's not right. I know who you are. You're, a terrorist. You're a murderer. A thief. You're forcing me to burn these bodies to get rid of the evidence of your crimes. And you… are saving this world._

* * *

 **A/N Thanks for reading! Death sweeps in and takes care of everything without letting nearly anyone know he was ever in the country. Sorry to all of you who thought this was the big moment XD. The Sports Festival flies by this time, with most people blissfully unaware that they were supposed to be bombed to hell. We'll see if that stays a secret like Death wants, how the Sports Festival impacts the state of the world, and what comes next for the Army of Death... I'd like to say I'll get another chapter out tomorrow, but I tried that last time and wound up taking a _while_ for this one. Wasn't too motivated for writing this chapter though, and I'm looking forward to the next a lot. Also, had to spend 2 days driving to college and then getting some work done right after I got here, whereas tomorrow I've got a full day of writing, and football (leggo Saints). But mainly writing! Hope you enjoyed the chapter, the interactions with Endeavor and Death as they fight together against a swarm of big-time international villains. Zach straight up murders all his enemies here, and though it makes him a bit off near the end, he really does believe that he needed to kill them this time... Anyway! Leave a review telling me what you think of the chapter, predictions for what is coming, or questions for the story!**

Naruffoku chapter 129 . Jan 5

Did you miss a chapter? When did they establish the city, what happened at Wampajama? And did you say that the UA sports festival was going to be bombed?

 **Nope. No miss. Lots of stuff happens with the Army of Death, so many possible arcs I could go into since Zach is just fighting one battle after the next. They established the city recently though. Wampajawa it's been mentioned that half the AoD was killed in taking down that City of Villains. And yes, it was going to be... but not anymore! Sorry if it sounded confusing last chapter, but we had seen mostly just U.A. for like 8 chapters straight so I showed just as the semester went by for them a lot had happened for Zach and crew too.**

lolmyster42 chapter 129 . Jan 5

Man, the Not-Olympics just can't catch a break. And man if the Cloak didn't give an X-com feel the named soldiers dying left and right with the other surviving half developing negative mental status ailments mission after mission sure does. All it's missing is somebody mocking Zach for all his failures in a little screen on the upper-right side of his helmet's HUD.  
-shrugs- That's what Zach gets for choosing Ironman difficulty.

 **Well Sports Festival finally does catch a break this time! When half the crew dies, there were for sure going to be a lot who we knew who dropped in that group. And at the speed at which Zach's bringing everyone to battles, the amount of shit they've seen with the research facilities and sex slaves and... well, and villains in general, and the fact that they _die_ , I think a few of them losing their minds is to be expected. Some of them are just changing a lot though without fully breaking down, though XD that Ironman difficulty is too tough for some. Thanks for the review!**

Obakekarakasa chapter 129 . Jan 6

I was a bit confused at the start before I rerealised there was a timeskip, though I think I understand now.  
And the awaited 'japan arc' is seemingly arriving, that could be fun.  
Wish I could have a vacation, not that I deserve one but I want to leave this city for the first time in my life :/.

 **Yeah again, sorry for the confusion y'all. Leaving out Wampajawa was intentional and I knew I would be for a while, and I thought the Blackstar return scene would be a good place to discuss some of it for the first time but I didn't really make a big enough mention of it considering how big the fight really was. The 'arc' winds up going, pretty quickly as Zach heads out immediately after finishing his mission. And I hope you get yourself a vacation one day! Lol thanks for the review, hope you enjoyed!**

diddles321 chapter 129 . Jan 6

Jumping left and right. Very confused on what the hells happening. I don't remember any of the OC's and the ones I do are dead outta nowhere. Some keywords like timeline and world loop have got me expecting some steins gate shit. Welcome back :)

 **There're always a bunch of scenes in most chapters. Last time we had three, and each was a little time delayed from the one before it since we did see Mark in all three of them. Sorry to suddenly name-drop all those deaths on ya', but I'm sure there're more OCs in there you guys care about still, I hope... Glad to be back, sorry for another long update though.**

Super Power Sensei chapter 129 . Jan 6

Review of 129 from 01/05/19  
Written 01/06/19  
First of all, welcome back. Seems like you enjoyed the holidays.  
Just came back from watching "Into The Spider-Verse" and man was this chapter a total 180 from the fun, upbeat tone of the movie.  
How did Rappa come to join the AoD?  
Hyper didn't deserve that kind of death!  
And why IS SERAPHIM GONE?!...[breaths in and out]  
...Life City huh? It may look like nothing much now but neither did Zach, Gentle, La Brava, and Darling last July. l'd like to imagine in 2-3 years the city would be the My Hero version of Wakanda(but less African). All futuristic and colorful(like the city from "Meet The Robinsons"), TOWERING skyscrapers(like from Spiderman 2099), and a new booming culture due to all the different kinds of inhabitants. They would all have one thing in common though, their love, admiration, respect and/or gratitude for the AoD; and more specifically my man (King)Death. Three things pertaining what's already there though. One, where is it located? I know it's been taken over by the AoD but was this place previously known as Villian City? Two, I understand the purpose of having the volunteers wear black(which I agree with), but having them wear ALL black can be intimidating if you haven't been saved by them before. Humans have primal instincts and biases towards colors and black isn't a color that says welcome. A happy medium would be nice. Keep the cloaks but maybe neon green pants and shirts for the nurses and doctors and yellow pants and shirts for teachers and caregivers.  
Three,(this kind of involves the first one)persisly when is this taking place? You mentioned the barrier cloaking the city and how from the outside it looks like a snowy valley. What season is it at that location for the surrounding area to look that way? This is relevant because the weather will affect the culture of this new city. Will it be cold all the time, or will they have summer days where people can dive in pools and barbeque outside with shirts off and sunscreen on. Not to mention the environmental hazards for when the first native children are born.  
I'd write more but I have to work. See ya!

 **Spiderverse was lit, just want to say. Also, yeah def a turnaround from that one. Hyper goes out in a rough way, we lose Seraphim too, and Whoresla- I mean, Access. Grabble... It's a rough day in the AoD, though we do have Rappa now! Maybe we'll see how he came to be here soon... The AoD has grown huge from those 4 back in July, so maybe Life City can match their growth with Zach and his Army trying to help them out. As to where it's located... ehhh, no spoilers? I know, but I haven't mentioned it yet so I'm just gonna keep it quiet for now. 2, while black could be intimidating, at least for the group Mark brought in on the ship they were all helped by the AoD, considering he was bringing them in there. Maybe there are some others in the town not wearing black, and the wearing black thing could just be to welcome the new people too and show them that they're the same as the AoD's who helped them. 3, when? Well, I guess early April was the start of last chapter. Wonder if that helps you figure out where they are, (probably won't lol). I'd like to say we'll find out more about the weather in Life City next time we get there... but no spoilers! Thanks for the long review, and hope you enjoyed the chapter!**

xilios2000 chapter 129 . Jan 6

Man if life city gets discovered by the world at large it would realisticly cause a international shitstorm of cosmic proportions man the meme's that would come of it would be glorious with the country life city is in likely to something monumentually cuntish with endless flame wars and discussion on the internet with it all coming to a head when /pol/ kekistani operatives doping some crazy shit like somehow steal death's helmut without him noticing or something

 **The memes! THE MEMES! The world would def be blown away by the existence of this strange little city popping up out of nowhere, but at least it's cloaked for now... Thanks for the review, got a kick out of it XD**

00 chapter 1 . Jan 7

Random and unrelated, but what's the deal with your username?

(Its the model number of a blood pressure machine)

 **Cool! You might be the first person who's ever asked me that on here. My name is Matt, so that's where the M comes from. Then my brother and best friend's names start with B and T respectively. The two of them were in the room with me when I created my first ever username, and then I think I typed in a bunch of ones but finished on a 2 'cause I mean, why not? XD The blood pressure machine thing I've seen before too when I google my username, though I'm glad now that this account pops up before it! Thanks for the review!**


	131. Chapter 131

**Disclaimer: I don't own Boku no Hero Academia**

 **Chapter 131:**

 _Sleep._

Zach had his eyes closed, laying on his side facing the wall in the small room his bed was in. He rolled over again to the other side so he was facing more of the room when his eyes opened back up. He turned back so he was flat on his back, staring at his ceiling, then he closed his eyes tightly after staring at the ceiling for a few seconds without feeling tired at all. _I need to sleep. Recharge… Death… Not that it's out. I'm not at full anymore, but… Don't think. Just sleep. Sleep!_

Zach clenched his eyes tighter, his eyelids scrunching over his face though his breathing stayed completely calm. His breaths slowed down too, by force, as he repeated to himself over and over that he needed to sleep. _Maybe I'm used to movement while I sleep. Resting on solid ground feels weird. When was… when was the last time I slept not on a vehicle? Since, before The Cloak- no, even earlier than that. I can't sleep like this. But I need to. Please, just clear your mind and sleep. Clear it of everything. Push those faces away. Don't think too much, just sleep._ Faces pushed into his mind anyway, as thinking about not thinking about them had the opposite effect.

 **Some time ago…**

 **Clunk Clunk**

Jameis Jones turned to the steel door behind him in a dim basement hallway off of a room full of loud shouting and yelling. The man wore a tight black tank top that showed off his big black muscles. His skin was so dark brown it was almost black, only noticeably brown because of his pitch black tank. Jameis reached up to the sliding slot at his head level and said in a gruff voice while opening it, "Password…" He looked through the slot and his heart fell. A look of pure despair covered his face and filled his eyes looking through the slot at the four figures standing outside the basement.

"How about you just let us in?" The man standing directly on the other side of the door stated. It was less of a question and more a suggestion, yet Jameis felt he had little option as he stared out at the four soldiers in black uniforms and helmets. The bouncer gulped, then he reached over to a latch and opened it up while screaming in his head.

Outside the door, one of the four figures looked over at Death and smirked inside his helmet. Spiral whispered so his voice would only be heard by the four of them and Rebel who was on the same comms link, "I can't believe that worked."

"Shut up," La Brava hissed, silencing the younger man in front of her who regained an intense expression as the door started opening for them.

"Thanks," Death said, walking forward through the door while Jameis Jones stood to the side. The bouncer pulled farther back as Death stepped in, and he jumped at the feeling of his back touching the wall. Death ignored him and just kept moving forward, and two others followed behind him. One was around the same height as Death, and the other behind him was a couple of feet shorter.

Jones started turning his head to follow them walking away, when the fourth stopped in front of him and stepped his way, making Jones pull even harder back into the wall. Gentle leaned his purple visor close and questioned the man inches in front of his face, "Would you like to run away?" Jameis froze where he stood, his eyes darting to the open door and then back at the man in front of him. He nodded quickly, and Gentle made a motion of his head towards the door.

The bouncer started running, and Gentle turned to the other three and walked down the hall after them. "Our exit is cleared," he said, letting out a soft chuckle as he did since the move was not all that necessary.

"Stay on me. Keep your eyes peeled for targets we're after." Death walked down to the end of the hall and paused for a second at the corner. Around the bend was the opening into a much wider room that dropped farther down too from what they knew about the place. There were a lot of people shouting, sounds of violence and banging noises of steel too. The yells of those in the basement all sounded like those of villains, cursing and roaring at each other in anger and raucous laughter. "Remember, we're not here for this place. We'll shut it down only if necessary."

Death stepped around the corner and started forward farther into the basement. Behind him walked his three fellow soldiers in black, and a squad of four Army of Death members walked out into a huge basement full of villains. The section they stepped into stretched around four walls in a perfect square, with bars on two of them, a booth on the opposite side as the entrance with papers covering the counter and pinned to the wall behind it and around the box, and a lot of men standing around drinking together and looking towards the middle of the room. Very few people were looking around at the outsides of the room, though there were a couple of more alert people in there who immediately turned their attentions to the entrance, as well as some just on the opposite side of the room as that entry hallway.

There were also a couple of men just on the right side of the entrance looking towards the middle of the room when Death arrived. The room dipped down in the middle with more people on the lower elevated levels shouting at the cage in the center of the room too, but most of those people were too focused on the match to realize anything as the dark figures entered. They just shouted at the two men inside the cage who kept fighting each other while covered in blood. The two were both big men, and each hit was slamming the other into the sides of the cage that must have been built with some powerful steel to be surviving those blows. The two men on the right side of the entry were still yelling down themselves, when a drink fell out of one man's hand and they both just dropped their jaws at who walked in next to them. Beer poured out the corners of one man's mouth, and then one of them started reaching down for his waistband.

The man reached down for his waist, and the dark figure in front of him turned his head the smallest amount so the villain was looking into that visor. The villain froze, and then Death looked back straight forward and started walking right past the sweaty men unable to say a word. The guy next to the one who had started reaching nudged his buddy and turned to the door, only to freeze as just one of the four figures kept walking after Death. Spiral stayed close behind Death, leaving Gentle and La Brava in the entryway that was already filled with an invisible barricade which just cut off the entire room. La Brava's voice filled their headsets, "Facial recognition isn't picking up on anyone big in here. Looks like it really is mainly a local thing like Williams claimed. I see a few illegal firearms though, and actually, I see some kids in here. Drinking and yelling about the fight, but they're definitely teenagers. The fight itself too, looks like it's as brutal as we were…"

La Brava's voice trailed off. Death was walking around the outside of the room, and nearly everyone on the top level was gawking over at him now as he headed around the room. Whispers started and more people started noticing what was going on, and with that meant a decrease in the volume of the room that had been full of shouting. One of the two men down in the arena did not care about that, but the other who looked to be winning the fight lifted his head and looked around in frustration at the lack of cheers. He froze and stared up to the outside of the room too at the top level near the betting booth where he had almost reached. "Is that…" the man with bloodied fists and bruises on his face and chest began softly.

His opponent was not going to let him get away with looking away during their fight. He slammed a fist into the other man's gut so hard his fist was visible on the unprepared fighter's back, before he was released into the other side of the cage with his barbed tongue sticking out and his legs coming out from below him. He slumped into the side of the cage, his eyes rolling back from a punch more powerful than anything he had ever felt before. "Look away from me will you," the other big fighter growled, feeling pissed by the way the other fighter let that end. He stepped towards him too, but his eyes lifted and he saw the people around the cage all backing away nervously and looking to one side of the room in fear just as his opponent had. "What?" he muttered, turning and glaring back through eyes that were filling with blood from the gash on his forehead.

Death stepped up to the booth where a terrified man stood wishing he had run the second he saw Death. The guy had thought Death had maybe come for one of the people in there though, and the fact that this dark figure was standing before him now had the front of his pants getting soaked. He would have been glad that the counter was high enough to hide that fact, if he was focused on anything else other than the dark visor of the man before him. "Do you run this place?" Death questioned, his voice deep and making the entire room fall silent instantly.

"I- I- I- I- I-" the teller tried several times to start making out his sentence but could not stop sputtering 'I' out instead.

"Calm down," Death said, his arms still down unthreateningly at his sides. Spiral on the other hand had walked in with an assault rifle lifted and held across his chest by both hands, but his helmet was also focused straight ahead on the teller and not anyone else in the room. The lack of interest Death and his subordinate seemed to have in all of them was a relief. No one in there was angry that Death was ignoring them. Teenagers pulled back far and cursed themselves for ever thinking this was a good idea. The bartenders working there felt their bowel pressure increase but were holding it in unlike the teller, who was also their boss. There were a couple of angry people in there though, men who had bet on the fight and were going to lose their money now. Even they were not too worried about their cash though, as a look towards the exit showed them two more Army of Death members waiting for any of them to try running away.

"I'm not here to fight. Just answer the question." Death stayed still despite feeling fifty sets of eyes on him. He looked at the man behind the counter who he already heard was in charge of this place. "Mr. Brick. You run this establishment, correct? An illegal fight club where gambling on Quirk cage-matches is alright." Death finished his statement and then added, lifting his tone a little even with it modulated, "It doesn't sound all that bad. So calm down. I have not come for you."

Brick felt the invisible hand clenching around his heart and lungs loosen up. "O-Oh. Al-Alright. I- Yes. Yes this is, I run this…" Brick reminded himself of how many people were watching him right now. He always gave off an intimidating presence and felt he needed to in order to keep an establishment like this running without his patrons causing too much damage, especially since he did not have many people on his payroll to help him out with that. He yelled at himself internally to calm down, then he nodded at Death and asked in an _almost_ steady voice, "What can I do you for?"

"Your cage-matches," Death started. "Do your fighters kill each other?" Just like that, Brick felt his entire body covering in a new layer of sweat. Death's tone scared the living shit out of him, and anyone else in the room thinking about trying something felt themselves get dry mouth at the voice that just spoke.

"W-Well there's no, there's no rule ag- but I can change that!" Brick yelled it and leaned forward over the counter with a pleading look at the figure before him. "For now on, all fights will just go until a knock-out, or someone taps. I'll hire a ref to make sure too!"

"There are underage patrons in here," Death added. He turned his head and looked across the room towards someone he had noticed when La Brava mentioned it before. He looked back to Brick fast, since he felt bad as the kid he looked towards who, despite being older than him, looked like he had a heart attack at the look from _the_ Death. "What's your excuse?"

"I had no idea!"

"Bullshit," Spiral replied, and he lifted his chin and looked down through his visor in a pissed-off way at the owner. In his head though he mentioned to himself, _Not that those kids would be drinking illegally in like, half the world. This is America though._

"I promise. I'll have my, bouncer, he'll-" Brick paused when he was about to mention his bouncer, because he started a cursing rant at Jones for running away on him and not warning him that these men had arrived.

 _I have bigger things to worry about,_ Zach thought, not really focused on Brick anymore. _This lead led nowhere. Most of the people here don't look like hardened villains. The few with guns might just be so afraid they're not giving away how bad they really are. They're all just here to enjoy a fight though. Fuck it. I'll check on this place again, or send someone to go undercover and re-check it out in a few weeks. If it's worse than it looks, or if nothing changes to at least be better than before, I'll call in a tip._ "Hey Death," La Brava started. She wanted to mention something for a while now, but Zach had gotten into his zone and she did not want to distract him. "Look over at the cage."

Brick gulped and he started speaking fast again. "I'll get an I.D. scanner! And, I'll definitely hire that ref so no one gets killed in-"

"That's BULL!" A voice roared down from the middle of the room. Zach looked down and he stared at the figure on the fighting stage who reached out at the steel bars closest to him and started yanking to the sides, ripping the cage open with his bare hands and then dropping off the stage. The man had not been fully focused on what everyone was saying for a minute there, but he heard that last part of what Brick was saying. "If it's not to the death, then it's not a real fight!"

"Rappa!" Brick yelled down at the man who just broke apart his very expensive cage. "You can't-"

"Rappa?" Death muttered.

"He's a Tartaros escapee, Death," La Brava started. "He was with the-"

"I know who he is," Death said, not keeping his voice quiet like the woman across the room from him. His other three soldiers looked his way in some surprise, Brick gawked at Death and felt a new sense of terror that his fighter was someone Death was actually after, while Rappa stopped glaring so furiously up and started smirking instead.

"Death! You here to fight me?!" The excitement was impossible to hide on Rappa's face. "Let's fight, and kill each other!"

"This is about to get out of control," Gentle mentioned, right as everyone between Death and Rappa started running to the sides of the room. They were too afraid to go to the opposite side as Death where the exit was because of the soldiers waiting for them there, so everyone started running at the bars instead and diving over the counters to crouch down with the bartenders.

"Sure," Death replied. "But not here," he added.

"What are you doing?" La Brava asked. "We taking him back to Tartaros?"

"I was not expecting to find a high profile guy in a place like this," Spiral admitted, looking over at what must have been a powerful villain to have escaped in the world famous Tartaros breakout. "Why not just knock him out here? We can drag him with us-"

"You mean it?!" Rappa yelled up, an even more excited tone in his voice this time.

"Yeah. Not to the death though," Zach replied.

Rappa's eyes narrowed, and Zach looked at the face of a man who he was definitely not expecting to find here. _Kirishima never saw what he looked like under the mask. I didn't recognize him at all._ "When I win I'm going to kill you," Rappa retorted, while marching up the steps towards the higher point in the room where Death was still standing. "The only fights that really matter are ones where your life's on the line. Stake your life on it, Death!"

"Didn't you enjoy your fight with Red Riot?" Zach asked.

Spiral looked in at Zach in more confusion again. Then he spun back to Rappa who had frozen on the spot with his smile lowering down and his eyes opening wide. "What did you, just say?" Rappa asked.

"Red Riot, and Fat Gum, you had fun with that fight didn't you? And none of you died."

"How do you…"

 _Death knows everything!_

 _What is going on?!_

 _I want to go home._

 _10 dollars an hour isn't worth this shit!_ A bartender behind his counter getting squished by the men ducking down on his sides curled down even farther as he heard Death speaking so calmly about things he didn't understand. And then he really didn't understand them, as Death started speaking Japanese.

"I'll fight you Rappa, but if I win," Death continued, stepping towards the man who had stopped instead of reaching all the way up to him. Zach stepped to the start of the decline and looked down into Rappa's eyes. "Then you come with me. You can fight to your heart's desire, every day in life or death battles. You'll have to do as I say, or I'll send you straight back to Tartaros." Zach paused and then he continued in a lower voice, "But why not do some good for a change? You don't really care who you fight for, do you? As long as it means you get to fight."

The majority of the people in the room did not understand a word of that, including Spiral who wished he had practiced more Japanese despite never being to Japan himself. One of the patrons hiding behind a bar understood it all though, and he started breathing heavier and in a more nervous way while his friends who knew that he spoke a language sounding like this tried getting what was happening out of him. Gentle and La Brava glanced at each other, then they looked back forward and accepted what Zach was doing without any argument. Rappa stared up at Death and his huge fists clenched at his sides, "You think you can beat me? In a regular fight, no weapons or-"

"I know the fight you're looking for," Zach said. He was strapped all over in knives right then, so he understood why Rappa would ask him. He nodded once at Rappa and replied, "And yeah, I can beat you. When I do, will you follow me? It's your choice. I can either send your unconscious body to Japan to be put back into your cage, or you can come with me and fight every day until the day someone too strong puts you down." Rappa's lips started curling up and the ugly man whose face was covered in scars and blood smirked huge at the dark figure. Death turned and he motioned towards the opposite side of the room. "Then let's go. We can't go all out in here."

"So how'd you know about all that stuff?" Rappa ran up and right up next to Death who did not react like they were currently fighting.

Spiral lifted his rifle and aimed it at Rappa's head but held his finger off the trigger as neither of the two tried beating each other up. He grunted, wishing to himself that Zach had just stayed in English so he would have understood the current situation. His eyes darted around though as he took up the rear. "Hey! If you've got a gun, toss it over the bar! I'm collecting all of them now, and we already checked when we came in who here had one on them! Try anything funny and I'll fill you with holes! And put on the fucking safety! I don't want you tossing a gun over the counter and a bullet flying at me when it hits the floor, you fucking idiots!"

"You heard him," Zach repeated after a few seconds. His modulated voice sounded different from Spiral's, and the armed people there who knew who just spoke decided not to try anything and just tossed their guns. A handful of clanks filled the room as they threw their guns over the counters that every single one of them had gone and hid behind except for the owner and the defeated fighter on stage who Rappa had not bothered finishing off thanks to his distraction. Zach turned to Rappa while the big man was still just smirking down at the top of his head, "Rappa. I'll let you come and fight with us if I beat you, but if you go too far while under my command, then I'm sending you back to Tartaros."

"As long as I get to fight you," Rappa started, his smirk rising more as Death was making it out like he had already won again, bringing his anticipation for this fight up so much more. It felt like the fight was going to be the one he was always looking for, and Zach could see that nearly childlike excitement on the villain's face as he held himself back to wait until they were somewhere else for their fight. _Good, he can hold himself back,_ one of the requirements Zach had made in his head about allowing Rappa in was being fulfilled just by the impatient man agreeing to follow him at that moment. _Rappa. This trip wasn't for nothing after all. His strength to break through even Kirishima's Unbreakable. I'll put it to good use._

 **Present**

Zach opened his eyes up at his ceiling. Even with them open, he still saw Rappa's face hovering above him and it made his flat lips curl down. _The fight was fun. I told myself, to get in his mindset for it. So that he would not just be following me like he followed Overhaul, but so we would have something in common. Only thinking like someone like him, can I help him. With the League I tried to understand them, and I was able to change them at times. I failed back then, but I've done it better here. Gentle and La Brava for one. Blackjack, trusting him. Rappa, fighting with him. Understanding people even when they might seem crazy. Not just throwing them into jail. Rappa helped. He really, helped…_

 **"Death, Charlie Squad is returning. Turning off cloaking and opening landing pad 3."**

 **"That was too easy! Send me to a harder one next time Death!"**

 **"Rappa, sit down until I've landed!"**

 **"It's fine Vince. If he falls out, he falls out."**

 **"You three doing alright? Slipspace, how's the leg?"**

 **"Fine. I told you before you flew off. I'll get Curalia to-"**

 _ **BOOOOM!**_

Zach flinched and he turned onto his side again to face the wall, but he could not close his eyes this time. The voices he heard in his head were accompanied by his imagination of the events of that day. His side hurt and his left shoulder ached, so he brought his right hand up to it and squeezed while feeling a cold sharp sensation shredding through it. _I should have been better prepared. I, wasn't ready._

 **"Slipspace! Can you hear me?!"**

 **"They're dead! The chopper's going down!"**

 **"HOLY SHIT!"**

 **"Look around us!"**

 **"What's going on?!"** Zach had his eyes open, but he saw himself in the bridge of The Cloak. Other soldiers in black were running in behind him, while the rest of them stared out the curved windshields of the ship's cockpit. Screens popped up on top of the windows showing a full three-sixty angle of what was around them, including a zoomed-in look down on the surrounding landscape far below too, and Zach could see through the glass and in every single screen the forces that appeared before them.

 **"How?!"**

 **"They had a cloaking system too."**

 **"They're all around us."**

 **"We're fucking surrounded?! What do we do-"**

 **"DEATH!"**

 **"You guys are fucked! They're all targeting The Cloak! They have RK-12's, SG-16's, Super-Jets and… their tech matches-"**

 **"Rebel, calm down. Send in the drones as soon as you lose contact with us."**

 **"Wh-What?"**

 **"Death! There are too many of them! We have to run!"**

 **"WE'RE SCREWED!"**

 **"I don't usually say this, but we** _ **need**_ **to get out of-"**

 **"Gentle, believe in me."**

 **"…"**

 **"Death! What are we-"**

 **"Cody get out of here. Now. Rebel I need full comms. Raylei send my voice across The Cloak. Everyone listen. Calm down. We knew the counterattack was coming. Whiteout's about to Emp. Get ready for a crash landing and meet up a whole on our way to the hangar. They may have hacked our comms too. Don't panic-"**

 **"Their targeting systems are locked on!"**

 **"They have more air support coming!"**

 **"Whiteout do it!"**

 **"Are you crazy?! She can't! We're twenty thousand-"**

 **"EMP!"**

 **"AHHHH!"**

A white flash filled Zach's mind and he clenched his eyes shut as if it were blinding him. _What am I doing? Don't think about, it. I need to sleep. That's what I'm supposed to be… If I don't learn though, how do I stop, more of them from dying? I need to think about it and, and I need to accept what I did wrong._ Zach rolled back onto his back and stared at his ceiling through the darkness his eyes had adjusted to. He took in a deep breath and then lifted his right hand and stared at it. He curled his fingers in and then opened back into a palm, before slowly resting that palm down on his chest. _I knew the plan was risky. There was no time to second guess myself though. Not then. Not while they needed me to be completely sure of myself, even when I wasn't._

 **"Are you crazy!?"**

 **"We're going down!"**

 **"So are they. We're even with our technology. Just listen to Death and shut up! All of you!"**

 _ **Thank you Darling.**_ **"Maelstrom! Whiteout! Raylei! Stay on the bridge and shoot out the windows when we get close to the ground! Fire around at all sides and keep them thinking we're on the ship and that there aren't a lot of us left. Everyone else on me to the hangar!"**

 **"Death! Let me stay too. I can guard-"**

 **"I need you for something else Michael. Shang! Stay with the girls and protect them from behind! They're going to try and board the ship…"**

Zach closed his eyes again and his heart pounded harder while he held his right hand over it. He heard Michael's voice again, much later that day, **"Death. I need to know…"**

 **"What?"**

 **"You left those three inside, because it was their first time dying right?"**

 **"That wasn't-"**

 **"You knew they were going to break through from the start. I need to hear you say it."**

 **"I didn't. I knew, it was high risk though. And I picked Shang instead of you, because Shang couldn't have done what you all needed to out there. He couldn't have convinced anyone, couldn't have held a conversation or held back his rage or, and his body size would have been too much of a- Michael I mean it, I wasn't sacrificing anyone. Everyone could have died. Shang just, was a better choice to leave behind with them…"**

Zach opened his eyes again and saw Shang's face in the darkness over his bed. That angry face shifted a bit to return to the face Shang had when he first met him, without any scars, and smiling as another face that looked similar but more feminine appeared at its side. Zach curled his right hand's fingers into his chest and then took in another deep breath at the feeling of his heart racing fast, which caused pain inside his chest. _Curalia keeps telling me I need less stress. That's not going to happen. This job is stressful. Fucking idiot. Why even tell me that? Why even try?_ Zach flattened his palm against his chest and took another deep breath. _Chill. She's just, being a doctor. Being kind. And worried about me…_

 **"What about the infirmary?! Some of us need to go there and protect-"**

 **"We have a failsafe lockdown set up for the infirmary. In case of an EMP, the whole system locks down immediately. It should be strong enough to hold off any attackers, and Curalia and the injured in there will just have to hold out if they do break in."**

 **"Death! We're getting closer to the ground! Their ships are falling too but the ground is covered-"**

 **"There are so many of them! What are we going to do against forces like those?!"**

 **"Did you see the faces that appeared on the screen? The facial recognition caught all the top cartel heads, the Triakuza bosses, the mob and the Carollo pirates…"**

 **"Ape Lord, Yusugoro, The Retainer! Death, everyone we've missed on the world loop, they all teamed up!"**

 **"It's beyond our expectations!"**

 **"There are armies out there! Full fucking armies! We've never dealt with-"**

 **"Foundation! Scatterbox! Slip- When we hit the ground we are going to carve through the bottom of The Cloak and dig into the ground!"**

 **"We're running away?"**

 **"That's perfect-"**

 **"We are** _ **not**_ **running!"**

 **"You can't seriously think we can fight that many-"**

 **"I didn't sign up just to die-"**

 **"Don't argue with the Commander."**

 **"I don't want to die!"**

 **"Listen to me! I have a plan. We have all the villains we've missed. The ones we've been looking for who could have just gone deeper into hiding, but who all joined up for the** _ **first**_ **time to come get us. And with only a few people firing from in here at them, and our headquarters crashed, it's going to look like they succeeded. Fabrica! Will put everyone into disguises matching the outfits of those on the ground above you, and Scatterbox will send you up into their ranks based on what languages you speak! Dead Silence, keep Foundation silent as he digs the tunnels beneath."**

 **"Death!"**

 **"Slipspace?!"**

 **"You were on the helicopter-"**

 **"I left as it was exploding. Managed to make it into the hangar and heard what's going on-"**

 **"Hey, your leg- and your-"**

 **"I'm fine. Death, where do you need me?"**

 **"In the tunnels with Scatterbox. You'll send everyone up into the enemy ranks while they focus fire on our crashed ship. Can you do that in your condit-"**

 **"I said I'm fine! Now let's move!"**

 **"Can we really do this?"**

 **"Death isn't panicking, so we shouldn't either."**

 **"Get your helmets on. Guardian, Gentle, A.J., get ready to soften our crash landing. We're falling right into heavy fire and there's no time for mistakes. Exodus! Trigger on impact and break through straight at the North American villains we saw in the east. La Brava! Put Gentle into Lover Mode at the last possible moment so it lasts longest, then Gentle go for the South Americans! They had the most, but we'll also have the most forces in there! Anyone who knows even a bit of Spanish go there. They must have used some of Bolivar's hidden stashes to get all that tech after we bankrupted them all in Wampajawa. I'll take Asia on my own. Everyone else, when you're teleported up onto the surface act like one of them! Their forces have never fought with each other before, but it's not just the different armies from different continents! Even in their own groups, different ideological villain groups have teamed up with drug lords with pirates with sex traffickers. They've never worked with each other before, they don't trust each other, and they definitely don't trust the other armies! They all came together for** _ **one**_ **purpose! To beat us!"**

Zach started breathing faster on his bed, thinking about the faces of the comrades around him that he saw for the last time during his speech on the run into the hangar. He saw their faces getting more confident looks, the fear dying down at his plan he was making on the fly, and then he saw helmets dropping down over their faces that he would never see again. _I failed so many of them. The plan wasn't great. It wasn't even much of a plan. Us four heading out there to make a big scene, some small fire from The Cloak, of course they were going to realize that there were more of us hiding in their ranks. Not all villains are idiots…_

 **"Death! It's Sagitus! They shot him in the head!"**

 _I should have singled him out for a different plan. A centaur running through their ranks, of course they were going to notice that he hadn't been there the whole time. It's even more noticeable than Shang. I just got so used to him being around all the time that I forgot… it just slipped my mind. Slipped-_

 **"They're flooding the tunnels! Mark!"**

 **"Where's Mark?!"**

 **"We need comms back on!"**

 **"Ahh, gah, ack ack, I barely got out, but the wall of water hit Slipspace before… she's down there. Drowning. Where's Faye-"**

 **"She's been dead! Get up Scatterbox we need y-"**

 **"SPIRAL!"**

Zach gripped his chest and felt his heart pounding so much harder than a minute ago. He started panting at the faster breaths, but his mind was stuck on the battle a few days back with no chance of him sleeping anymore. _Don't just think of them. The plan! What went wrong?! What didn't I think about?!_ He yelled at himself mentally and managed to calm down a bit as he backtracked from the horrible thoughts going through his mind.

 **"Darling wait. Go get Snow. Bring her with you into the tunnels."**

 **"Understood!"**

 **"Death, you can't be serious-"**

 **"All fire is going to be focused on the ship. It's safer down there than up here… And without Fillian, we need someone who can tell us the exact locations above of the enemies for our teleporters."**

 **"She's just a-"**

 **"This is why I said we shouldn't have brought her-"**

 **"ENOUGH! We're about to crash! Fabrica start changing everyone's clothes. You don't want to be caught out there in an AoD uniform. If you think they might know your faces from underworld bounties and such, then have Fabrica give you a mask too! Enough of them are wearing one!"**

 **"Death wait!"**

 **"Jetflame, Trigger up and go after the Europeans. Too many will know you immediately anyway! Arko! You lead the African team-"**

 **"We're crashing!"**

 **"Death I am coming too."**

 **"Gentle!"**

 **"Right after we crash my dear."**

 **"Let's do it Exodus! Together!"**

 **"Full power. Today Death, we will make the future-"**

 **"LATER! JUST GO!"**

Zach slid his hand off of his chest while his heartbeat returned back to its normal speed. He stared down at his chest and watched as dark wisps slipped out of his chest right through his dark costume he was wearing to bed. _Maybe I could sleep if I actually got out of it. I'll just have to put it back on though. In not too long probably. How long since I tried to start resting? I gave myself four hours, but if I actually get to sleep now it wouldn't be much. Would still be rest though. Everyone needs rest. I do too. I think, I still need rest. When was the last time I slept though, that it wasn't because I forced myself to? I've been tired, but mentally just exhausted. Do I need sleep? Am I still human? After what I did that day?_

 **"Fire at him!"**

 **"Death came here?!"**

 **"OH SHIT!"**

 **"This is where you die, Death!"**

 **"DEATH WAVE!"**

 **"AHHHH!"**

 **"Take him down!"**

 **"DEATH! I'm coming!"**

 **"Rappa?!"**

 _He was one, strong bastard. Helicopter explodes and he falls a few miles, still just walks it off._ Zach's small smile that formed for a second dropped back down though. _We only fought that one time. I beat him, but Curalia scolded us and said we couldn't do it again. I thought he'd be pissed and demand more fights, I heard he tried fighting Overhaul a bunch of times… But he was satisfied with just the one. He accepted that I only did it because he wanted to, and that I didn't want to fight him since it would weaken me for the other battles we were constantly going to._

Zach thought about the talk he had with Rappa when he wondered why Rappa never asked a second time. _He just, was fine staying and having fun with our fights against villains. His fights were fun to watch even if we could have left those locations sooner if I could have just stepped in or attacked from behind. Rappa could usually do it on his own though, and out of all of us that man probably had the strongest honor. And yet even if his honor told him to kill his opponents, he restrained himself on my orders. And then the Asians killed him twice. You idiot. After the first time couldn't you have just backed off? I wish, you had…_

 **"No. That can't…"**

 **"Death! Let me introduce you, to our Champion! Hahahaha!"**

 **"What's wrong? You know that guy Death?!"**

 **"It can't be. What did you- WHAT DID YOU DO TO HIM-"**

 _ **"RRAAAAAAGHHH!"**_

 **"ZOMBIEMAN!"**

 _Those fucking animals,_ Zach thought, while raising his right arm to his face and leaving it resting over his eyes. He pressed his skin-tight black sleeve into his eyes that he closed but still could not help from watering up. _The Champion of the Asian army, the monster the Triakuza brought with them as a trump card against us, Zombieman… Without Rappa's help, I never could have beat him. That immortal who Death couldn't even kill. Or maybe, it could have. If I hadn't- Damn it. DAMN IT!_ More tears slipped through the cracks of Zach's eyelids.

 _He got to the point. I got him there! To the point that he asked me to bring him back while he was dying!_ Zach ground his teeth at the thought of Zombieman asking him that while dying in his arms of the poison from an enemy's Quirk just a month ago. _It was the exact opposite as Pastor! And I, was so fucking happy. Damn it. Why'd he have to go missing? Right before Wampajawa, I wished he had just taken out his comms and decided to walk away from all this… Why? Why couldn't we find him? He was probably just nearby, getting dragged away and I- I didn't find him! And they turned him into… They tortured! AND I DIDN'T DO- I HAD TO KILL HIM!_ "Fuuuccck," Zach whispered it through clenched teeth, grinding them more in anger and shifting his emotions away from how depressed he was feeling there for a minute.

 **"What did you do to him?!"**

 **"We made him into your worst enemy, Zach Sazaki! An immortal who you** _ **can't**_ **kill! And only we can control him! CHAMPION, kill Death."**

 _ **"RAAAAAAAA!"**_

 _He was too strong. Much too strong. The things they must have done to make him that powerful. The things they did to destroy his mind, I can only imagine… And it wasn't his fault what he did. The damage…_

 **"SHENME?!"**

 **"AHHH!"**

 **"Damn it! Zombieman stop this!"**

 _ **CRASH! Ka-BOOOM!**_

 _ **"AAYYIEEEE-"**_

 **"Zombieman please! Stop! Bring it out of the city!"**

 _I thought we were far enough away, but I'd never fought a fight like that before._ Zach could still feel some of his bones creaking as he imagined the blows he traded with his former comrade. _Tearing up the landscape. I never even knew how strong I was, but he kept matching me step for step, blow for blow. And even when their guy with the Obey Quirk went down, it just set him off on a rampage. Damn you. Zombieman I, I'm sorry. I should have just let you die. You had a full life and ended it on a great note, smiling and happy to be being brought back. I should have just… let it end there._

Zach pursed his lips again, then he shook his head fast on his pillow. He pushed his mind away from the man who he could not prevent himself from getting sad just by thinking about. His mind shifted backwards, and he saw the faces of those comrades around him again. _So many of them… They listened to every word I said. They followed my orders to a t. They believed, that my plan would work._

 **"Get in there and convince them that everyone around them is an enemy! Convince them that the villains around them are already thinking about what's next! Or convince them that now with Death gone, they could be the big shots of the world! The new League of Shadows if they just kill their competitors right there, while they're not paying attention! They'll never have a better shot at this, and they're all suspicious of those around them already! Fire pot shots and when shots come near you then blame it on the enemies you know have had bad blood with the ones around you! We all know the relationships between those villain groups down there! We all know who will turn on who without barely a push, so MAKE IT HAPPEN!"**

 **"There are thousands of them, Death. I, I want to believe-"**

 **Clank dink dink dink-** _ **RIIPPP Ka-**_ **DNK**

 **"They're starting to fire at the ship!"**

 **"We're falling faster!"**

 **"Death! There aren't even a hundred of us and-"**

 **"How many of them are one of us worth? Spiral?!"**

 **"A hundred!"**

 **"Michael?!"**

 **"A THOUSAND!"**

 **"Don't give up on me. We don't give up. We don't run away. We don't** _ **lose.**_ **The Army of Death has** _ **never**_ **lost a single battle! If thousands of villains defeat us here, then they know that what we say means nothing! Then Death, didn't come for them like we said it would! Some of you weren't expecting this so soon after joining, but suck it up! We are DEATH! They can't escape us! They think because they caught us off guard and with overwhelming numbers they've beaten us?! All they did, was make it easier for us. Now we don't have to track them all down! Now, they came to us so we don't have to go to them! They're saving us a lot of time with this, and** _ **WHEN**_ **we win today, we will have destroyed the last semblance of an organized villain world! SO FOLLOW ME!"**

 **"YAAAA!"**

 **"Each one of you has the power of an entire army! Start in-fighting between all the villain groups, and let them** _ **massacre**_ **each other! Turn their 'organized' forces into a chaotic mess of men firing at each other both in and out of their own armies! Have the cartels fighting the mobs by telling them that the mobs want to expand and take their territory! Let the Rippermen know that the truce they seem to have called with the Gravitous is a** _ **lie**_ **like I'm sure most of them already think! And let the Gravitous know that all is** _ **NOT**_ **forgiven! Take a shot into a crowd, and if you're in that crowd then roar the name of a rival villain group and yell that they're trying to take advantage now that the Army of Death's been finished off! They don't know each other, so they don't know if you're one of us or just another villain they don't know around them!"**

 **"We can do this!"**

 **"I believe!"**

 **"This is their retaliation for Wampajawa! We bankrupted them, so they rallied up all their forces and spent the last of what they had on hand, for one final push! Because they know they can't survive in this world if we're still here! Are we going to let them wipe us out? Or are WE, going to be the ones to take the day, and end this time of villains for good?!"**

 **"It's not my time!"**

 **"I'm with you!"**

 **"WE'RE THE ARMY OF DEATH!"**

 **"NO ONE CAN STOP US!"**

 **"HHAAAAAAAAAAAA!"**

The roars Zach heard of the comrades screaming along with his shouts started to devolve in his head. The tone of those yells started to shift, _**"AAAAAAHhhhh… AAAHHH! RRAAA! IT HURTS!"**_

 **"FUCK! Man down! DEATH!"**

 **"Death we need you over- gah-"**

 **"I've got the comms back up. Drones are doing what they can but-"**

 **"MY LEG!"**

 **"Ah AH! Wait- wait please don't- NO! NO!"**

 **"You're one of them! I recognize you!"**

 **"I'm not! Wait wait wait- ugh AHHH ahh please sto- oh aaaGGhh agh- ack ack- AAHHH!"**

 **"Death, please… I don't want to die like this."**

 **"AHHHH!"**

 **"Wait don't! I'm not one of them I swear!"**

 **"FOR DEATH! YOU MOTHER FU-" _Ziiip_**

 **BOOOM! CRASH**

 **"The Cloak! It's on fire!"**

 **"MARK!"**

 **"Death! They're outside the bridge! A large force are in the ship."**

 **"Just hold out Maelstrom!"**

 **"Whiteout's down! I'm hit, Death where are you?!"**

 **"I'm in a city. I can't get back to-"**

 **"AHHH!"**

 **"Zombieman stop it! Get away from them!"**

 **"What is happening?! My satellites are showing… holy fuck. What the hell is going-"**

 **"REBEL! Just call Chinese heroes and get them here now! I need to get to the battle and the casualties are piling up in this city!"**

 **"They're piling up back here!"**

 **"THE TUNNELS ARE FLOODING! Everyone out! Move move move!"**

 **"AGH!"**

 **"They're breaking into the bridge! SHANG! Nooo- Get away!"**

 **"I'm coming back-"**

 **"Just hold them off a little longer! Fire on them and out the windows, I'll, I'll save you! I will definitely, bring you back!"**

 **"I don't want to die!"**

 **"UNDERSTOOD, COMMANDER!"**

 **"Raylei… RAAA, I'M BRINGING THE STORM!"**

 **"Whoa! Maelstrom watch what you're- HOLY SHIT!"**

 **"USING TRIGGER! GET READY FOR A DOOZ-" Bang**

 **"The winds are stop-"**

 **"Maelstrom! You bastards! FUCK YOU! I might be the last one in the whole Army of Death, but** _ **YOU FUCKERS ARE THE LAST ONES THE ARMY OF DEATH WILL KILL!"**_

 **"RAYLEI!"**

 **"AHHH!"**

 **"Sagitus?! Fuck they found him out!"**

 **"Someone get to-"**

 **"I'm on him- oh shit!"**

 **"Dodge!"**

 **"Valkyrie!"**

 **"Death, where are you? It's horrible, I, I can't-"**

 **"There you are."**

 **"Please, don't-"** _ **VrrroooOOOOMMM VRM VRM VRM**_ **"Oh God, stay back! AHHH!"**

 **"AHHHHH!"**

 **"Death! They need you back there… Zach! What are you doing?!"**

 _ **WwooooOOOOP WwooooOOOOP WwooooOOOOP WwooooOOOOP ERR ERRR ERRR ERRR**_

 **"TAKE COVER!"**

 **"Get down, get down I said- FUCK! We lost another-"**

 **"AHHH! Death!"**

 **"DEATH!"**

 _ **"AAAHHhh!"**_

 _ **"AAAAAAHHHHHHH!"**_

 **Brrring. Brrring. Brrring.** Zach lifted his head and looked to his side at a bedside table where a small black tablet was sitting. He reached over and grabbed it, lifted it up and saw that the four hour timer just reached an end. His eyes that were unfocused and cloudy started to focus in on his screen, and as his mind cleared and he realized what he was looking at, he started to raise his upper body. Zach sat up and he shook his head around, swinging his legs to the side and dropping them off the bed he had just used for the first, and last time.

 _How long? How long was it just screams? I didn't sleep at all. No rest. I don't need it after all. I'm awake now. It's time to be awake._ Zach stood up and he grabbed a belt off the counter just across the small gap on the floor between his bed and the opposite wall. He clipped the tablet to his belt while putting it on, then he grabbed the shoulder straps and the ones that crossed his chest too. He grabbed some knives all alone and strapped them into hidden pouches on what looked like skin-tight parts of his costume. Then he reached down and he started sliding his feet into his boots, before sliding in some more knives into his boots too.

Zach stood back up straight and he checked to make sure he had everything he needed with him. He grabbed his helmet and clipped it down to his waist, then he turned to his door and took in another deep breath. _I don't need to recharge Death anymore. As much of it as I use. Fuck. Focus on what's next. Thinking about that fight was just to know what I could do better, but I still don't see what a better option would have been. Sagitus staying on the ship still would have died, leaving him in the tunnels he would have had to get up to the surface or drown too, like Slipspace did. Sooner or later he would have had to fight. And like most of the others, he still probably would have died. Chinese heroes turned the tide a bit, and when Fabrica got us back in our costumes and they saw how much damage had been done while we were still strong and alive, it demoralized those villains who could not regroup and fight together after so many had already killed each other. It had truly become, chaos. All of them against each other, against me, against the heroes. Nothing could have been different. We survived. We survived an unwinnable situation. And now, I have to push forward. Like always._

The leader of the Army of Death walked towards the door of his room. He reached out and grabbed the doorknob, opened the door, and he stepped out into a hall that was dark but had some dim lights coming from the end of it where there was a room with no door blocking off the hall. That room had no lights on, but the computers and the big screen on a wall gave off enough light for Death to see everything around him as he headed down the hall towards it.

Zach stepped into the room and he walked right over towards a light switch that he flipped on. The lights on the ceiling illuminated and a few people at computers looked back to see their leader had arrived. There was a door on the side of the room leading into another, and that door opened up right after the lights turned on in the main one. Curalia stepped into the room, and a few others who were leaning against walls or sitting down with their heads bowed started rising up. Zach looked towards the big screen covering one wall and his eyes focused on the different windows up, the maps, the names and locations that were highlighted, secret reports they had copies of, and live news reports from around the world. _Look like you're checking on everything. Fuck. What can I tell them? They're all looking to me for motivation. Our morale is low. Lower, than it's ever been. Just pushing forward isn't enough. This isn't a place to have fun though. They're awaiting orders, not a friend to talk to. They're soldiers. They're still here because they know they're needed._

"Darling," Zach said. He looked to the girl who had stood up from her seat at a computer unlike the other two women at her sides. "Go wake everyone else up and tell them to get ready. We're moving out."

"Sir?" Raylei asked, turning her chair and looking over to the teenager with long, messy black hair. She lifted her blocky fingers from her keyboard and she rubbed her left knee with one hand while looking into her leader's eyes. "Where are we heading?"

"Northeast. We'll check out the fort for the Ungy in southern Siberia, then head for Moscow."

"The Ungy were all taken in after the battle," Raylei started.

"Maybe, or maybe they left a few behind. Maybe some other villains took up in the abandoned fort after they left. And maybe, we'll just have a new spot for a temporary headquarters. But we can't stay here. Raylei, Justice, start packing up the equipment." Zach made his voice out as more of an order near the end, and Raylei got up out of her seat with a nod. Justice pushed off the wall she had already slid up after waking up, and she started forward to one of the computer stations that did not have anyone on it at the moment. Darling headed off too in a quick jog the direction Zach had come from for other rooms that their comrades were resting in.

"Do we have our transports?" Zach asked, looking around for an answer.

A black window appeared on the screen with a white line through it that squiggled with Rebel's voice. "Morning Death. Your first vehicles are arriving shortly, there are two more bigger convoys about an hour behind it. Couldn't help with that."

"It's fine," Zach said, while already changing up the plan he was making in his head. "Mark. You have the teams set-"

"We're going on the first transport. Squad Alpha," Mark replied quickly and without waiting for Death to finish. He was sitting at a computer up just behind the big screen on the wall, and he typed fast on his keyboard to make some windows appear for Zach to scan as he continued speaking. "It's going to be you and I, Darling, Raylei, Maelstrom, Dagon, Incite, and Blackstar. If we're heading up to the Ungy's fort in Rehrmun, we should check out the tip we had in Kabbas. Then after the other transports are filled and heading north, we meet up with them and hit the fort as a whole. Sound good?"

"Yeah. Let's do it." Zach turned to Curalia after agreeing and immediately continued to the doctor who he could see had things she wanted to tell him, "How is everyone?"

"No one's died since you went to rest," the tired-looking doctor began. The woman had short brown hair only an inch long that stuck up over her forehead instead of falling down as bangs, though it looked unkempt as she had been up for two days straight now. Curalia continued to her younger leader, "Atlas is still in critical condition though, and Raptor's condition is deteriorating as much as I try curing him. Elsa's tail doesn't look like it can be saved, and I had to cut off her right leg. The infection was spreading too far, and the poison that she was hit with was messing with the antibiotics meant to fight it. There was no other way."

Zach nodded at the woman, feeling bad she had to do that as he could see the anger and regret on her face as she talked about amputating a limb. _Elsa can't fight anymore. That's why Curalia looks like that. Elsa, cares a lot. She wants to keep helping, she begged to stay even after that wound. Now though…_ "Alright. Write down everything all your patients need. A very detailed list," Curalia was nodding along with Death, but she froze cold when he finished, "And give that list to Arko. Arko," Zach turned to a dark-skinned man who just came out of the hall after quickly getting ready from Darling's wake-up. The man had a bull horn sticking oddly out of the right side of his head that looked so weird because the one on the opposite side was gone, just as his left arm was too. "You'll be taking the injured in the infirmary to the doctors we've-"

"Wait a second," Curalia tried cutting in.

"Rebel got in contact with them. They should be en-route to a location Rebel will send you on the way in order to keep it as secure as possible." Zach was ignoring Curalia and speaking louder in a tone saying he did not want to be interrupted. "Arko, I'll have your new arm sent there too. The doctors we've called in have healing Quirks, and one of them I'm sure will be able to attach the prosthetic so you can get back to us as quick as possible." Arko had started frowning there for a minute, but he nodded at Death towards the end and glanced down at his left side himself where he could still feel his arm moving if he tried to move what wasn't there.

"I need to watch after them," Curalia began as Death turned back her way. "I'm the only-"

"You're the only doctor we have," Zach said. "And we're going out into the field. We're going out to fight more, and we're going to need you out there with us. You're a soldier. You're combat ready unlike the other doctors willing to help us out. So just, don't argue, okay?" Zach said it and asked a question at the end before regretting it instantly at how he left it up for her to give a response. _Don't lose your grip. They need you to give stern, decisive commands right now._

Curalia nodded and replied, "Understood… Commander." _You're all my patients. Death, I need someone else. I need someone to replace Hank. And Miraculu. I can't be the only one…_

"Death. Did you sleep well?" A voice asked behind Zach. He turned his head and looked at a man stepping towards him who smiled in a way that showed nothing that had happened recently was getting to him at all. He was the only one though.

Zach nodded once, a lie that he hoped no one would see through. "Drac. I need you to go on some more scouting missions. Northeast. I'll speak with you and Rebel about your specific targets as we move."

"Very well. I suppose my first stop shall be, Kabbas?" Zach nodded again at him, and Drac smiled before giving his leader a small nod in reply. "Then I shall see you soon, Commander." Dracard turned and he headed towards the door Curalia had just gone back through to start checking on her patients and making a note of everything she thought was important about their conditions. As Dracard was almost out of the room though, a fast tornado of black seemed to spin around him while at the same time shrinking his body inside. He turned into a bat, but he flew like a falcon as he shot out of the room and out of sight a second later to head into the darkness of the night outside.

 _Dracard the Deadly._ Mark had his eyes shifted to the side from his computer, an uneasy look on his face as he looked out the door Drac just flew through. _Only a few of us left who haven't died once. Exodus, me, Gentle, a couple of the rookies who somehow survived that fucking battle, and you. Only you give me the creeps though. No, not the creeps. The chills? I don't know how Zach does it. Trusting you when we know just how old you are, just how crazy that is._ Mark shook his head and refocused on his computer that he only had a short time left with as he could see on his screen the location of the truck and jeep that were coming for Alpha Squad to take. _Then again,_ Mark added to himself while typing away and checking out all the locations they had for northern Asia and Europe. _You trusted Blackjack too, and that worked out well. I kept saying it was a bad play, but fuck it we never would have taken Wampajawa without him._

"Maelstrom," Raylei started as she came back in the room after bringing some equipment back out to the garage. Maelstrom looked over from a computer she had been sitting at for a while, and Raylei nodded at the station she was at, "Pack that up and bring it out. Once the truck comes I want to set up inside fast so I can work on the road."

"You got it," the girl with short orange hair replied. Maelstrom had it recently cut in a crew-cut over her head, much different from the big spiky pigtails she had had since most of them met her.

Zach looked over towards the open infirmary door as he heard an argument start on the other side between Curalia and one of her patients he knew she probably just told the plan to. _Curalia needs a break. The first few we're heading to shouldn't be bad, and Alpha Squad is stacked. I should be able to protect anyone who needs it, and I'm not moving to the fort really planning on a big fight. We can't stay in one place for too long though._

"Hey Rebel," Zach started, looking at the screen where the black box had stayed quiet for a little. "How did things go with Cherasaw?"

"He called me up while you were out," Rebel replied. "Got real pissed at me 'n Rampart for ditching him like that. Told me he'd leave his girl and come after us. I told him they were your orders though, let him know what you said."

Zach let out a light exhale and he closed his eyes for a second. "Alright. Thanks."

"You know I met his girl? She was actually pretty cool-"

"Rebel, it's done," Zach said. _Cherasaw asking to tell his girlfriend about all of this. It's too much._ "If his girlfriend had freaked out, you would have all been screwed. Besides, with our current numbers we don't need three of you in that command center."

"Hell, you could do it with just me."

"Oh so you don't need me here?"

"I'm not saying that, of course I appreciate you… I'm just saying that I'm the best."

"Like you do at least three times a day."

"You let Cherasaw know though, right?" Zach asked. He cut in on Rampart and Rebel's petty quarrel that a lot of the others were getting annoyed at just listening to. This was bugging him through it though and he had to ask. "Everything I wanted him to hear?" _Rebel. I know you're not the kind of guy who gets emotional so I didn't know if I should leave it up to you to pass on._

"Yeah, I told him. You appreciated everything. You didn't ditch him 'cause we don't trust him, trying to bring his girl in. We ditched him because he found a girl he loved, because you wanted him to be happy and all that jazz… Don't worry, I worded it a bit nicer when I-"

"Thank you," Zach said, more assured this time and his tone showing he meant it.

 _Cherasaw's out, huh?_ Maelstrom thought while packing up her computer. _Only met him in person the one time. Was surprised he came out though when we needed the extra hands. When I asked who he was, no way was I expecting one of Rebel's boys… since I kind of expected all of them to be really fat for some reason._ Maelstrom started off for the garage with her computer, keyboard, and some wires dangling at her sides. A small smile came to her face for the first time in a while. _Someone had a happy ending. That's, awesome. I hope he holds onto it, that love he found._

"Are we moving?" Exodus questioned, stepping out of the hall with a few others and wondering what the current situation was.

"Five minutes for the first vehicles," Mark announced. "Exodus, you're-"

"You'll take the next transports that arrive, all except one special truck that Arko will be taking to a new infirmary," Zach continued for Mark, as he felt all caught up from the time he had rested after his quick briefing. "Bring your teams up to the Ungy fort in Rehrmun, southern Russia. Navigation will get you there."

Exodus nodded along and then replied in his usual short but respectful, "Understood, Commander."

 _We need to get an infirmary that can move with us again._ "Rebel, how is construction on the new Cloak?"

"Oh, Cloak 2.0?" Rebel asked. "Well, there are plans. There are definitely plans… We're not very far in."

"I need you to get it to speed up," Zach replied harshly at the way Rebel said that there.

"Hey I'm tryin' here. It's difficult with a whole lot less donors now, after that mess in China. Everyone pulling out 'cause of the way we look right now… We still have a few though, and some stored up on top of that. You should get the new HQ up and running soon. Paid a lot of smart people and some guys with pretty useful Quirks to get this thing expedited. I'll be able to give you a more accurate timeframe by, let's say later today."

"Stop dicking around," Darling snapped towards the screen on the wall. "And just answer with that next time."

"Hey, I like to build up suspense," Rebel countered back. "Besides, it didn't sound as hopeful at the start right, but the way I ended it-"

"Oh my God, Mark," Darling said, looking down from the screen to the man closest to it who nodded his head and tapped a button on his keyboard. Rebel's window closed and a collective exhale released from the exhausted people filling the room.

"Thank you," Jetflame muttered, lowering the hand he was rubbing the side of his head with. "If I'm not on the first team, I'm going to get a little more rest."

"That is fine," Exodus said, before Zach could speak up though Exodus did not notice he accidentally pre-cut-off his leader. "I will awaken all of you when we are ten minutes from leaving. If you are on my teams and wish to rest longer, go ahead, but make sure you are prepared for a ten minute departure."

"Dagon, Incite, Blackstar, you're on Alpha Squad," Mark called back since those guys had just come into the room and didn't hear it the first time he said it. "We're Oscar Mike in three minutes. Get out in the garage and open the doors when I tell you. Keep guns up and stay frosty."

"Hey Death," Darling whispered, stepping up to Zach's side and beginning softly to him. "They aren't back yet."

"I can see that," Zach replied. "They will come back though. Sometimes, people need breaks." Darling looked more hesitant, and Zach turned to her with a reassuring glance. "They said they'd be back. Trust them." Darling hesitated for another second, then she nodded quickly at the taller boy at her side. Then she looked past Zach, and he saw where she was looking and turned himself. Zach nodded at the man who walked up to him and stopped with just two feet apart between them. "Michael," Zach greeted, nodding at his comrade who nodded once slowly back at him. "What is it?" Zach asked, feeling strange at the way Michael was looking at him.

Michael's expression was dark. He stared at the boy in front of him and glanced at Darling too, before looking back straight into Zach's hazel eyes and saying, "I, have been thinking. And I think I'm, done." Zach's expression stayed straight as he faced the more muscular man before him, though Darling's eyes grew wide at what she just heard out of the blue. Michael continued to the stone-faced younger man, "After that battle, after this world loop, I think we've done what I set out to do."

"We aren't finished," Zach replied, and he frowned while gritting his teeth behind his lips in a frustrated way. He did not want to show it too much, and he opened his mouth to say something else but froze with it open. _If I suggest he take a break like Gentle and La Brava are doing, he's not going to, will he come back?_ "I," Zach continued, and Michael's eyes widened at the look that flashed over his leader's face right there. "I need you, Michael. The amount of people here with your experience…"

Michael grit his teeth right back at the boy before him who looked half desperate and half frustrated which Michael understood. He could see on Death's face how much he wanted to tell Michael to stay, and yet they all knew that in the Army of Death they were allowed to leave whenever they wanted. "I'm sorry," Michael whispered, then he tried to steady his gaze with the conviction he had gathered to say this in the first place. He rose his eyes back into Death's, "But, at this rate I'm going to die again. You won't be able to save me."

"I haven't been able to for months, and you've stayed alive," Zach countered back softly. Then his own expression started to harden and he stared deep into Michael's eyes in a serious way. "That battle, you're right. We did what we set out to do. The endgame I was talking about though, it was the end of our world loop, the end of the peak. Not the end of everything." Michael ground his teeth back as he already knew this, but Death continued to him, "They fled during our purge following Wampjawa. Knowing they were being hunted they fled, joined up together, and decided to put an end to our weakened Army of Death. And they almost succeeded. Michael, we're too weak right now."

"I know that. But, we'll never reach the strength we were again. We don't need to any-"

"You're right," Zach replied. His voice was strong and steady, and he looked sternly into his comrade's eyes while continued, "After that battle, I do believe we've really wiped out crime in a huge way. Wiped out crime organizations that thought they could stand against the Army of Death. Maybe even, ended the age of villains." Others around them who were trying not to stare during the conversation started looking over at what Death was saying not in a low whisper. "We've shown the Army of Death's superiority in tactics, fighting style, Quirk strength, in every field. Now, we have truly succeeded in establishing that for ourselves. We can't stand to lose it right after."

Zach saw Mark looking back over at him, making a motion that the transport was arriving. He continued though now that more people were looking towards him, and he glanced around too so everyone knew he was speaking to all of them for this. Some who had thought about going to get more rest stopped when they heard what Michael had told Death, and they stared at their leader's back while he spoke. Maelstrom, Raylei, and Justice had come back in, and Mark got up from his seat as it was time for him to go too. The Army of Death that was smaller than it had been for months looked to their leader as he spoke in a powerful and confident tone, "We made it through the world loop. And now the game has changed. But it's no less important now that we stay, vigilant."

He turned to the infirmary and a tired Curalia and continued, "We can slow down just a bit, but we need to stay around the entire world. Our presence has to be felt by villains alone now. The fear we have instilled." Zach paused and he took in a deep breath before steadying his gaze and shifting it back to Michael. "We can do more now too. Since we're running out of locations to go to and don't have an infinite list like at the start of the world loop. We'll circle around again and take down what's left on our list, and this time we _need_ to go slower actually. So that we can try to find out locations that we may have missed, or even new ones that have sprouted up since we removed the old. We'll continue to recruit. Continue to fight," Zach said it sternly, in a motivating tone though not too optimistic as times were still dark. There was no hesitation in his voice though. There was no sign of weakness or doubt. Zach clenched his fists at his sides and then continued, "And we can focus on other things without so much on our plate. We can properly hunt down Eziano Mozcaccio and the assassins. We can go after Amaterasu and the chain of corruption that he has a hold of choking this world."

"The endgame I mentioned before was for the age of villains, but just ending that age doesn't mean anything if what comes out of it isn't better! Isn't something that can prevent a new rise. On top of fighting villains, we _will_ make things better. Because we need a better world, a peaceful world that won't fall as easily as the last one." Zach looked around while saying this, and he got nods from the soldiers around him. Some of them had been disillusioned, some were depressed and did not know what they were still there for except to die. Their expressions steadied back at their leader's words though, their fists clenching and heads nodding at the teenager who sounded so motivated to keep going that each of them felt that motivation rising in themselves.

Michael grit his teeth and lowered his eyes to the floor. _What are you, doing?_ "Michael," Zach said, and the man started raising his eyes while his head was still partially bowed. "Cee believed, even as she was dying, that we had the power to stop _all_ villains." Michael's eyes opened wide and Zach narrowed his gaze at him before continuing, "Grabble was there with me the day we declared war on Eziano Mozcaccio, and he believed that we could crush those assassins as nervous as Mark, Gentle, and I were. Access came to join us after just being support in Saudi Arabia, and he -"

"Those ones who were here before me," Michael started, stopping Zach while his mouth was still open. "The ones after too," he added. "Everyone dies... I'll stay though, because you asked me to." Michael looked into Death's eyes and then asked with his eyes looking confused and uncertain, "But, is there actually a way we'll ever be finished?" He looked into the younger man's eyes and said, "What they all died for is why I still fight, because they believed it, but I don't-"

"Of course there is," Zach replied. He smiled back at Michael, still the same confidence on his face that made Michael's eyes open wide again and stay that way as Death nodded at him. "We haven't seen it yet, but what we have already done is about to start something. We've laid the foundation, for the better world we all want. And now is the time to build on that." Zach turned his head to Mark as soon as he finished talking and nodded at him.

"Alright Alpha Squad!" Mark called out, reaching down and picking up an assault rifle leaning against the wall. "Let's get moving! No time to waste, we aren't building that world tomorrow!"

Michael spun to look at Mark when he started shouting, then he turned back to Death and his expression returned to normal. A corner of his lips actually lifted a small amount as he nodded back at Death, and Zach felt relieved to see that look on his comrade's face. Michael oofed and leaned forward as a hand smacked onto his back, and he turned while Alpha started heading for the garage. "Don't give up hope," Icefall said to the man who looked back at her. "And don't worry, you're not going to be the last one alive if that's what you're scared of." She cracked a smirk back at Michael and started walking past him, "I'm not going to die before you at least."

The blunette walked by him and stretched an arm up over her head while heading the opposite direction as the guys on Alpha. "Might as well take a bed, now that there are some free rooms." Icefall had been sitting on the floor in the main room with her head down when Death came in, as there had not been enough beds or rooms in the building for all of them. Many had acted like they were not tired and were going to work through the night, while really just saying that so that Death would take a room with a bed before finding a place to sleep themselves. The woman with light blue hair glanced back over her shoulder while heading back into the hall, she looked straight at Michael who had watched her walking away, and then she flashed a smirk at the man who froze at that look on her face.

Michael smirked right back towards his comrade, losing the momentarily stunned expression at the 'care to join me' look in her eyes. Blackstar was walking by Michael when he saw that smirk on his comrade's face, and he glanced at him and then back towards the woman who was already turned away and heading farther down the hallway. Blackstar lifted his own dark expression and let out a long exhale before punching his fists out in front of him to do a quick stretch. _Still not as low numbers as when we started, or after that big team got practically wiped with Gentle. How many from back then are still here? Fuck it, who cares? There's been a lot. I've missed a lot too._ Blackstar looked ahead at Death who led them into the garage and straight towards the trucks without looking back to make sure they were following him. _All the new guys I started to make friends with since coming back got fucking merc'ed. I was feeling pretty down myself. But we can die any day. I'm at least going to live as I wait for that._

"Hey Incite," Blackstar looked at the man on his left who glanced back at him semi-darkly. "What's that piece you got on you? You bling that shit out?"

Incite looked down and he drew the pistol from his waist. He turned it over and then held it out, and Blackstar grabbed it, "Damn. It's heavy," Blackstar moved it back and forth on his palm, then he twisted it and slammed the bottom down on his other hand while holding his arms out in front of him. "You order this thing custom?"

Incite was slow to pull out and hand off the gun the first time, but he took it back and slid it into his holster without as much hesitation. He shook his head at Blackstar while they were climbing into the back of the truck. "Got it off this Recyclo bastard in that battle. Saw him pop Upload with it, so I Incited him and all the others around him to light each other up." Incite kept his hand down on the hilt sticking out of his holster, and he added while looking next to him into Blackstar's eyes, "Guess it's a memento, or something. Packs a serious punch, can blow a guy's leg straight off. I've seen it," he added, with a dark chuckle that Blackstar wondered if he should laugh along with back.

Backstar had been on a team with Upload and Incite together before, though he did not remember the two of them being particularly closer than with anyone else. He nodded at Incite though at what he said and then pulled out his own piece to show off to his comrade. Raylei and Maelstrom were finishing setting up a couple of computers and bolting them to the floor, and Dagon called back from the front that he had the ship's mobile Wifi working. Zach looked around and took in a deep breath, then he called out, "Mark, Darling, take the jeep ahead of us. Dagon, you're driving the truck. Everyone put earpieces in, we're moving out."

"Understood, Commander!"

* * *

"Hey Pinky!"

Mina Ashido turned her head and looked across the street, and she rose a hand and waved with a big smile at a couple of college students who had called her way. "Hey!"

"Whoa! And that's Midnight too!"

"What a pair."

Midnight chuckled at the enthusiasm from the pink-skinned girl walking with her, but she mentioned as she continued walking, "Keep walking. Don't give them too much attention, or they'll fall for you."

Ashido spun back to the teacher she was patrolling the streets with, and she nodded at the sexy woman whose advice she took to heart there. "Does that happen to you a lot, Midnight sensei?"

"Hmp," Midnight smirked while making that noise in her throat, as if the question was silly and the answer obvious.

Ashido laughed to herself at the response and could imagine some of the fans Midnight might have had to deal with. _I've had a lot of people coming up to me for years, but I really like that! A couple are kind of weird but not usually. Midnight sensei's been doing this for years though… decades? She's really beautiful for a… thirty-five? Forty? Thirty? I want to ask… probably not a good idea._ Midnight glanced at the younger girl next to her who quickly looked ahead in fear that Midnight would somehow discover what she was thinking about.

"Things are pretty calm today," Ashido mentioned, as the two of them continued closer towards the busiest part of Musutafu. "Again," Ashido added with a half sigh, though it was not an actual disappointed one.

"That's always a good thing," Midnight countered anyway, even though she could tell Ashido was not really upset about the lack of action. "Boring it better."

"Yeah, who needs excitement?" Ashido said, putting her hands behind her head and laughing at the idea of wanting there to be something to do. "Things are really down though," Ashido added, still with her hands behind her head but turning a bit to her teacher again as they continued down a busy sidewalk. Pedestrians moved to the sides for the beauties in skin-tight costumes passing them. A lot of them stared, a couple of men got annoyed smacks from the women with them, sometimes even when they were not staring but the women just assumed they were because of the gorgeous heroes walking by full of confidence.

Ashido and Midnight walked onto one of the most main streets in Musutafu and started down a busy sidewalk together. There were tall skyscrapers on their sides, cars whirring by down the road on either side of the street, and people rushing on the sidewalks to work or to places to get some lunch in the busiest part of Musutafu. Most of the people rushing around were too busy to bother with the heroines, though most still did glance their way at least for a second just to see what was drawing the attention of so many others. The women were walking towards a bustling intersection that was so big that it had a middle section not part of any of the roads but as more of an area to walk around and even to visit for tourists since it was a picturesque location. On the tall buildings around Main Square, there were huge screens and flashing electric signs that made the place look amazing at night, though it was still a trendy place to be during the day too.

Ashido spotted a lot of the people on the Main Square they were heading towards were looking up towards one of the screens in particular. She and Midnight slowed down and brought their attentions up to the screen too, and they could hear the anchors on the news show even over the loud sounds of the city around them and the other screens. There were subtitles too to help when the city became too loud, and there were labels on the screen too which the heroes stared at before shifting their attentions to the pictures being shown by the program.

"…the courts are still backed up, and even after so many sentencings, now there's the new problem that, there just isn't enough space in the prisons. They're full and convicted villains are needing to be sent to other holding locations, county jails, to prisons in states or countries where they were not originally wanted or tried in. It's a whole mess."

"As much as there's some trouble with getting everyone processed, you're not saying this is a bad thing though?"

"Of course not. No no, don't misunderstand me. This is, amazing. I thought for sure that last month would be an even sharper drop in villain activity than in March, but somehow it wasn't. With the arrests of so many in that huge fight in China a couple of weeks ago, that we were just showing pictures of the devastating aftermath of, there _is_ a new statistic we can say for the month of April though. And that stat, is that in the month of April more villains were arrested than in any other month, in _history._ "

"I don't really understand that Keito. How is it that more were captured than ever and yet the drop wasn't as much as in March?"

"That's simple. They were caught without actual villain incidents occurring. Villains tried to go into hiding. After seeing what happened in March, they realized that the way they were doing things was getting them all caught. It was too late though. So many had been captured in March, and plea deals some of those villains took led to more and more being discovered by heroes. Anonymous tips hit an all time high too, as civilians did their part stopping those villains trying to hide. The drop might not have been as high as in March, but it was still a massive drop this last month too, dropping us back down to levels no one imagined at the start of this year that we would be down to only a third of the way in. Across the world, villain incidents are at an all time low for the past few years. Which is great! Especially when we're having trouble getting villains from jails to court to prison. I know their lawyers are just doing their jobs when they make the cases that the trial periods are taking too long, pushing for mistrial cases against their clients, but this is an epidemic we're having right now that I never thought I'd have to say: Heroes are doing too well."

"Hahaha-"

"I mean it Inda! Any villains captured right now would just be thrown into overcrowded cells, stuffed in cramped confines to await a trial that could be weeks away if they don't find a way to expedite it. So I'd definitely not suggest getting tossed in the drunk tank for the next couple of weeks," Keito added, glancing at the camera with a suggestive glance as he warned his viewers.

"Admittedly," Inda began, holding up a hand. "Japan is not facing this problem as much as let's say, China is right now."

"But because of the joint hero action deal our governments made last year, we have been taking in some of that overflow while those villains await trial." Keito shook his head and he continued in a different tone, slightly lower and darker, "Not all of the villains part of this overflow are from that battle in China, but because of how capacity was already almost reached and the system was at its most strained levels, an extra _eight thousand_ villains suddenly thrown in was way too much and brought us to the highest arrest numbers ever. There's no way the Chinese government could have handled all of them on their own, but the stunning thing was the diversity of the villains in that fight. It's not even that China's struggling with their own villains who they captured at it, but that the countries they wanted to extradite most of their prisoners to couldn't accept all of them! Now China's stuck with criminals from around the world who all showed up on their soil, breaking their laws too which is what the countries they came from have used as excuses to just leave them in China. Like they're handing them off to the Chinese government to figure out a way to deal with them."

"Well would you take them back? If you were Argentina? Mexico? Egypt? I don't think they necessarily care if _they're_ the ones who try their villains who got captured, they're just happy those villains are gone! It costs a lot to process and hold all those villains, and at some point it's too much. People are saying 'build more prisons' and then those same people yell and protest when their governments raise taxes to pay for new prisons. It's a tough position we're in… though, it's definitely preferable to the alternative. Imagine if all of those villains had decided to join up instead of falling apart like they did. It's chilling to consider."

"I agree. But, I don't think there was ever a chance of them really working together. Some people are calling the location the fight occurred at as the Villains' Summit. So many gathering at once, they must have thought they could help each other. Villains are naturally violent and uncooperative though. Without the League of Shadows, which may have been a powerful enough organization to have united groups from different continents before, these villains were never going to be able to work together."

"And throw the Army of Death in there," Inda added with a tilt of her head to the side and a pull of breath in through her teeth. She shook her head and just said, "Chaos. All those egos in one place. The biggest international villain groups, drug cartels, mobs and mafias, wanted men from every corner of the globe! I still can't believe the pictures we saw, most of which we can't even show on tv. What we showed were mainly pictures of the crashed planes, destroyed trucks and tanks and other huge vehicle carcasses. It's like all those big groups brought everything they had and then just, wiped themselves out."

Keito nodded his head in stoic, somewhat grim agreement. "Eight thousand captured, a few thousand more on the run, and hundreds killed. I have to believe these really were the majority of organized villains across the whole world, for there to have been so many. All of those international villains, the Army of Death, and Chinese heroes who moved in as the fight in an uninhabited area of Tibet got so big that it dragged into the nearby city of Huangdoo. Those heroes and the allies they called in from neighboring countries, including our own, have been capturing the escaped villains by the hundreds every day since that fight. The airfields that private jets arrived in from different continents, or commercial airliners that villains used fake passports to try and escape home in, trucks and boats and tunnels..."

"Adding more and more villains on top of an already saturated justice system," Inda said in an exhausted, exasperated tone. She was smiling as she said that though, as those problems sounded so trivial as they discussed taking down so many villains. "You know though, not one of the thousands who have been captured already, are from the Army of Death." Keito frowned at her as she said it, and Inda added, "Really doesn't seem like the heroes are doing _'too well'_ when it comes to them."

"No," Keito said, nodding his head with his colleague. The man on the news bulletin shook his head after and continued in a lower tone, "The Chinese government went so far as to declare no blame for the Army of Death. I don't know if they're still stuck on how they helped out during the flood a couple of months ago, but reports claimed that the fighting that dragged in Huangdoo and caused civilian casualties involved the Army of Death. Dragging civilians into their violent crusade against villains, that's a new low for them."

"Come now. The way the Chinese are reporting it, it's only because the Army of Death was there that civilian casualties were as low as they were."

"They shouldn't have been there at all. If the fighting was on a smaller scale, maybe it wouldn't have been dragged away from the empty area at all… But we're getting off topic a bit. They did help the Chinese heroes when they arrived on the scene, which was why I think those heroes allowed them to leave afterwards. Whether you think it was good they were there or not though, one thing's for certain from the reports we've heard. The casualties for the AoD were staggering. How few of them were reported to be leaving that battle, some are saying the reason is because the one who usually brought them back is gone."

Inda nodded her head slowly. Her expression got a little sadder herself, and she added on, "If Death died, and no one could get revived anymore, maybe that's why we haven't heard from them since. Maybe they just, dissolve the AoD."

Keito nodded at her. "Fighting while knowing that they could be brought back is one thing. But I'd be surprised if they made the news again for anything big. Maybe some copycats will pop up around the world, but at this point it doesn't feel like they'd be needed, not that they ever were. Just accept those losses and end it here is what I say."

"Speaking of bringing back the dead though," Inda said, changing the topic and getting more into it again as she started a new conversation with that half sentence alone. Ashido's eyes that had been pointed down at the ground rose back up and she stared at the screen and the woman on it who had a small smile herself while a graphic spun around and appeared on a green screen behind her. "Let's talk about Lifebringer. The mystery of Lifebringer, the plot which has thickened just recently has it not?"

"Heh, I wouldn't say so. Though the new rumors would make the mystery surrounding him more interesting."

"You don't believe them?" Inda asked. "Eyewitness reports from multiple people in different locations in Germany claiming that they saw Lifebringer. They saw Zach Sazaki, and one man went as far as to say that he asked and Sazaki did not deny who he was."

"That's where I find this so hard to believe," Keito replied. "It just gets more ridiculous depending on who you ask. Lifebringer's been in hiding for over ten months now, and he suddenly pops up in Germany telling people who he is?" Keito shook his head, and then he continued while holding up a hand, "I still believe the only credible piece of information we have about Lifebringer since he slipped away in the Philippines, is the security footage of the gas station in America that was leaked a few months back. There he was actually trying to hide his face at least with that hoodie, and the scar? Lifebringer's in the U.S., at least, that's my theory." He smiled at the end as he was saying that, as it really was just a theory without much to base it on.

"Well, I'm just hoping that the theory that he was Death, really is wrong," Inda said. Keito's smile lowered down and he nodded more solemnly with his co-host. "I'm sure we'll be hearing more rumors about him, the longer he's gone."

"I hope to hear some really crazy ones next time…"

"Come on, Pinky," Midnight said, speaking to the girl next to her who turned and saw the teacher motioning down the sidewalk. "Let's continue the patrol. No time to dawdle."

Midnight started ahead again, but she could see the girl next to her out the corners of her eyes looking sadly forward despite trying to keep a smile on her face. _I don't think he's Death. Not anymore. He could be though, and if he is…_ Ashido's eyes lowered back to the sidewalk in front of her, her head bowing a bit again as she thought of what had just filled her mind a minute. _Then he just lost a lot of friends. People close to him, again. And maybe even him too- but it's not him! He's in Germany now! Maybe…_ Ashido smiled and rose her head up, shaking away the strange thoughts and changing the tone in her own head.

"I'm sure he's alright," Midnight said suddenly, and Ashido spun her head in surprise to her teacher.

The younger of the women stared at her teacher with wide eyes and then smiled brightly at her. "Yeah me too." Ashido looked back forward with more confidence in the optimistic thoughts she was just having. "You know," Ashido began again. "Zach was actually the first new friend I made at U.A.?" She looked at Midnight and who turned back, and Ashido added, "Since he saved me during the entrance exams."

"I remember that," Midnight said with a smile back at the girl patrolling with her.

Ashido's eyes opened huge. "Really?" She asked in shock.

Midnight nodded back again. She opened her mouth, then she froze and hesitated for a moment with her lips lowering at the corners, but Midnight shook her head and continued instead of stopping herself. "I was part of the group judging the entrance exams, and I was really impressed with him. He didn't have enough points-"

"I remember that!" Ashido called out in amazement as Midnight really was talking about the same thing she was. "He was muttering something to himself about how he only had two points and I felt really bad for him, and I was surprised he got in, but it was because of the rescue points that he did. It was because he came and helped me out," Ashido lowered her excited smile and finished off slower, more nostalgically and almost sad, though she tried to keep a good feeling around the memory. She lowered her smile though and got a more confused look on her face instead as Midnight started shaking her head.

Midnight smiled softly as she shook her head a couple of times in a way like she was saying Ashido did not understand. "It wasn't just because he ran in and saved you," Midnight said, and she glanced next to her at the girl to see a confused and very interested look on her partner's face. Midnight stopped where she was and fully faced the girl who spun her body to face her teacher. "What he did really stuck out to me. Just saving you like that, really wouldn't have given him enough points to make it, tied for last place as he was. What got him such a high score on the rescue section was that he was in the middle of chasing after a 3-point robot going in a different direction, when he saw you with the 1-point robots going for you."

Ashido's huge eyes grew even wider and she stared at her teacher in that stunned way for a few seconds with her eyes shaking. Midnight shook her head and chuckled once softly, then added, "He didn't have a lot of points, and it could have cost him his entry into U.A. based on what he knew. All to just possibly help out a stranger… He gave up on those extra points just in case she needed the help, and it paid off double for him." Midnight got quieter at the end, and her own eyes shifted down from Ashido's face. She kept a smile on her face as was needed of a hero out in public, but Midnight thought sadly after finishing, _Because of that decision. That single split-second decision, he got into U.A, and his life was…_

Ashido's thoughts did not go the same direction as Midnight. She smiled and interrupted her teacher's thoughts with a laugh that got Midnight looking back into her eyes. There were tears in the corners of Ashido's eyes as she laughed, but she stopped and just smiled brightly at the older woman and said, "That sounds just like him."

Midnight's eyes widened for a second and then her smile rose back up again in a more genuine way. "Yeah," she agreed, thinking of the boy she had not been able to discuss with her colleagues or with anyone, as everyone had different opinions on how to view him. Not talking about him for so long made it difficult for her to know how she felt herself, but she knew when she just agreed with the younger girl that she meant it. _He was a good kid. A great kid actually,_ Midnight thought. _A natural hero, before he could use his Quirk. Death- We were all cautious when we saw that name on his application sheet. Getting into U.A. without using his Quirk in the entrance exam. He showed some guts that day. The news was right, after the Lifebringer Incident though. Shigaraki and Raijin broke him. The rise of villains took some of the greats from us. Snipe, Aizawa, and you too kid. I really do, think you were great._

* * *

 **A/N Thanks for reading... Also sorry, busy, no time for responses. Thanks for reviewing though guys who did!**


	132. Chapter 132

**Disclaimer: I don't own Boku no Hero Academia**

 **Chapter 132:**

"So this is what you meant by, 'study session?'" Hagakure asked, bumping her eyebrows up a few times not that anyone noticed. Her tone gave away her expression though, and Ashido stuck her tongue out playfully at her friend who ran over and pulled a pillow out from behind her back which showed the others gathered there that she knew what was happening from before she got there.

Sero laughed as the invisible girl pulled the pillow out from behind her pajamas. Most of them had at least dressed looking like they were going to study, and there were some backpacks off to the side of the room and books out and opened on the table in a common room of Class B's dorm. Sero leaned back into the bean bag chair he was sitting on again, and he put his arm back around the girl next to him who had leaned forward with him to grab a book when the door opened up. Pony Tsunotori leaned back into Sero who she had been going out with ever since his offer to tutor her in Japanese turned into something, more.

Ashido sat on the side of the couch closest to the bean bag chair, right next to the horned blonde who was her closest friend in Class B. She leaned forward closer to the invisible girl who ran over to the circle and popped a squat on the floor across from Ashido since the other seats on the couch were already taken. "Aw, you didn't bring Ojiro along?"

"Well, he said he'd come… but that we actually had to be studying," Hagakure said with a sigh.

"Oh come on! Tell him we are, because we really are! Right?" Ashido spun to the boys on her right side who both nodded in agreement, and Kosei Tsuburaba lifted up a pencil as if to show that it was true.

"Yes. This is totally not just, a 'hang-out sesh'," Tsunotori said.

Ashido spun to the girl next to her, "Nice one!" She had been working on teaching Pony how to translate sarcasm better into Japanese, and Pony smiled and laughed at Ashido's enthusiastic response to her attempt.

Sero glanced to his side at the two girls who laughed together, and he shook his head with a chuckle of his own. He had been nervous at first when Pony learned that he and Ashido had dated once, especially since he and the pink girl were still close friends and hung out a lot. Instead of getting jealous or upset about it though, he was much more startled as she went straight up to Ashido and started whispering to her to which Ashido had started whispering back while looking his way. Sero was grateful though at whatever Ashido had said that day though, as he had gotten closer to his girlfriend after that as if she liked him even more after what she had heard. He was glad the two had become friends too, though at this point it felt more like she was his girlfriend's friend more than she was his that Tsunotori was also friends with.

"Alright! I'll text him that!" Hagakure called out with a laugh herself. "He's been too stressed about midterms lately anyway. I keep telling him he'll do fine."

Sen Kaibara leaned back on the soft recliner chair in the common room, nodding along with the invisible girl though a bead of sweat was rolling down his face. _I kind of thought we were actually going to study tonight though. I don't want to say anything about it, but maybe if Ojiro shows up looking to study we might actually get some in. Have to start off the third year better than last one. Grades really slipped after the Sports Festival last year, not that I didn't have a lot on my plate with Grandma, Shoda, my house, mom's injury… Hey, don't think about that stuff. That's what caused your grades to drop. Focus… that's kind of difficult, when cute girls in pajamas won't let me study._ Kaibara felt like sighing yet at the same time a small grin cracked on his face at the thought.

"So Ashido," Kinoko Komori started from another couch she was sitting on the armrest of because of the three others already sitting on it when she came down. "Are you gonna stick with Midnight sensei this time, or what?"

Ashido let out a long, exasperated sigh and dropped her chin in her hands. That alone gave it away, and Komori grinned at the girl who started reluctantly, "No. I really liked interning with sensei, we're like totally friends now!" Ashido lifted her head up with a bigger smile while the Class B girl who asked her opened her eyes wide in surprise. "Buuut," Ashido continued and sighed again. "Sensei wants me to 'find someone more suitable to work with' or something," Ashido paraphrased and shook her head in exhausted frustration.

"How many heroes is that now?" Tsuburaba asked. He did not mean it in a mean way, he was just grinning because of the amazement at how many heroes they all had heard Ashido had interned with at this point. Ashido lifted both hands and started putting fingers down, then she just threw her arms up in the air as a few people started laughing at the need to count on her hands it was so many.

"Well you know, Sero's decided-" Tsunotori turned to Sero as she was saying it, and she saw the boy next to her with a sweat bead on the side of her face that made her big soft eyes grow wider in surprise and then guilt.

Sero squeezed the hand on Pony's other shoulder to show it didn't matter to him and he kept smiling, though everyone else in the circle was looking over at him in confusion and then surprise at the look on his face. Ashido, Hagakure, Sato, and Aoyama all looked at him in more surprise as they did not know what the blonde foreign exchange student was talking about. "Decided what?" Sato asked his floormate.

"Ahh, well," Sero scratched the back of his head hesitantly as he started. "It's not like it's official or anything, right now." Everyone was looking over at him now, and Sero shrugged before continuing, "After I graduate, I'm thinking of working at Swinging Hero: Ape Man's agency. During my internship, we did a joint operation with his agency and we really synched up well. He offered me a sidekick position as soon as I graduate, and I told him… well, I said hell yeah."

"Whoa," Sato's eyes widened and he pulled his head back. "So, you really are decided then?" Sero hesitated at the question and then nodded, figuring there was no point in being indecisive about telling people it any longer. "Are, we supposed to be getting offered jobs still in-"

"You know, I'm not too sure," Sero cut him off, as he had already been thinking about what Sato was about to ask him. "But it's not like it was an official offer or anything, and I can't even do it if I don't pass our classes this year."

"But that's awesome!" Hagakure exclaimed over at him. "That's the same kind of offer I-" Hagakure froze while leaning forward with her mouth open. Everyone in the circle turned to look over at the invisible girl in a pair of pajamas, and Hagakure pulled back and then grabbed her pillow and hugged it into her face feeling like an idiot. "AHhh!" She yelled into the pillow.

"Wait… really?" Ashido spun to her friend with huge eyes as she had not heard this from Hagakure either. She spun to Sero and then back again, and she leaned back on the couch with a flustered look. _And I still can't hold down a single internship for longer than a month!_

"You got an offer for being a sidekick?" Tsuburaba asked the invisible girl who he had gotten farther than in the last Sports Festival. He had not received any such offers like Sero or Hagakure's, and he frowned a little after asking the girl who just pulled the pillow into her face harder. _Perks of being Class A._ He sighed and leaned back in his seat between Ashido and Hiryu Rin, and he asked the girl who finally lowered the pillow from her face, "Was it from Incognito?"

Hagakure put her pillow back on the floor and put her knees on top of it. She looked down at the floor and thought to herself, _Way to get caught up in it. Incognito asked you not to say anything, baka._ "Umm," Hagakure started, trying to come up with a good lie on the spot. _How did Zach do it?_ She thought in frustration as a few seconds in and she still didn't have anything.

The door of Class B's building opened and Hagakure was glad attention was brought off of her. She turned her head and she started to smile as Ojiro walked in, saving her from the questions. Tsuburaba smirked as he saw Ojiro walking in, and he called over, "Hey Ojiro, so Hagakure's going to sidekick for Incognito huh? Are you going to as well?"

Ojiro looked to his girlfriend whose head spun back to the Class B boy on the couch across from her. Tsuburaba was already smirking back her way, while Ashido and Rin looked in at him in confusion as to why he would say that. Then Ashido spun back with a huge smirk popping up on her face as Ojiro asked, "You told them? I thought you said it was a secret?"

Hagakure face-palmed. "Ojiroooo," she started, and Ojiro glanced around in confusion at the looks on the faces of those around his girlfriend. Then his eyes opened wide and he spun back to Tsuburaba with an angrier look at what he realized just happened. "Hahh, it's fine," Hagakure fell onto her butt on the pillow, as she saw Ojiro actually looking mad there and Tsuburaba holding up his hands defensively though still holding back his laughter. "She did ask me not to go around telling people though, so if you guys could just like… I don't know. Anything that we do the press jumps all over so if they hear I made a choice like that-"

"That's what I was, thinking," Sero leaned his head to the side and looked behind Ojiro at the door to the building that the thick-tailed boy did not close. Sero's eyes widened and his heart fell, "Oh man."

"Ah! Midoriya!" Ashido called out at the boy who walked in behind Ojiro finally, holding some books in hand with his backpack over just his right shoulder.

Midoriya stepped in and immediately felt ten people staring at him with different levels of apprehension.

 _Oh man. It's Midoriya._

 _Ojiro you sly bastard._

 _Bring Midoriya and you make sure we're actually going to wind up studying, huh?_

 _Nice play Ojiro,_ Kaibara thought, though he kept his expression similar to Sero's for a moment as he did not want it known how he actually wanted to study.

Ojiro looked to Hagakure wondering if she really was okay with what just happened, but she got bubbly again and scooted to the side to make room for him around a coffee table in the middle of the circle. "So what are we working on?" Ojiro asked while sitting down, taking his books out and looking over at Rin who had a book still on his lap from the last time someone walked in and he got it ready to make it look like he was studying.

Rin lifted his book and looked down at it. "English," he replied, in English.

"Yay!" Tsunotori called out, as if there was one subject they had to actually start studying she was glad it was her best. "Let's do it!"

Sero grinned too after a second, and he said in a confident way, "My English has been getting a whole lot better this past term. If there's one section I'm going to ace for sure," he said, and then he pulled Tsunotori into his side more with the arm he had around her, and the girl next to him smiled more as he was giving her the credit for that improvement. The first time Sero had offered to tutor her in Japanese, halfway through she offered right back to help him with his English too, and even though they were not tutoring anymore, Sero tried to speak her first language with her as often as he could.

Midoriya came over quicker after attention left him, though he still felt confused as to what most of those looks had been for. He looked around too after getting there though and his eyes widened at the comfortable clothes and even pajamas a few of them were wearing, the backpacks laying out on the sides of the room like they would be there for a while and out of the way of the sitting area, and the way they were all lounged out. "Wow, were you guys planning on an all-night study session?" Midoriya asked, feeling he was the least diligent for just coming to study because Ojiro texted him.

The others who had all felt they needed to study now because Midoriya got there started grinning at the question though. "Oh yeah," Ashido started, adapting quickly and leaning forward off the couch. "In fact, we've been going for a while straight now," Ashido started pushing her arms out in front of her like she needed to stretch.

Hagakure held a hand over her mouth to hold back laughter. Kaibara grimaced as he could see what was coming, while Tsuburaba caught on to what Ashido was doing and leaned back on their couch himself. "Yeah," Tsuburaba agreed. "I think it might be time for a break. You hear Sero's big plans for working at Ape Man's agency?" Tsuburaba asked, and he cracked a grin in Sero's direction while at the same time saying something interesting to keep them from studying.

Sero darted a look back at Tsuburaba at the same time, wishing the Class B boy had come up with something else though not necessarily upset since he was glad to just keep hanging for a bit when it looked like they really were about to start a long study session. "Wouldn't say big plans, but how about you Midoriya? You thinking of staying with Lemillion after you graduate?" Sero changed the topic quick and smirked himself after mentioning one of the most popular heroes in the country who he had fought against himself once back in his freshman year. "Saw you guys on the news the other day. You and Bakugo were, umm," Sero grinned more to cover half his face with his smile, and a bunch of the others around started grinning too at the press conference they had seen.

Midoriya got red cheeks though and looked away sheepishly feeling like he had just walked into a trap. _The press was egging him on. Asking those kind of questions so soon after I beat-_ Midoriya grimaced as he thought about the big scene they wound up making, which Lemillion had scolded _both_ of them for and threatened to fire them from their internships next time it happened. "Umm, I haven't, really decided yet," Midoriya began. He was responding to the first thing Sero said and trying to get his mind off of the news Sero added at the end, "But I think I may try starting my own agency instead, just like Togata senpai did. One of the reasons I wanted to go to his agency was to see how he did it."

"Gah, does everyone have plans for after graduation already except for me?" Ashido asked, throwing her head back in exasperation at all these big plans everyone was throwing out there not even one term into the third year.

"Don't worry, I'm in the same boat," Sato mentioned over.

"Same here," Kaibara muttered.

"I will make my own agency too. The most dazzling one!" Aoyama called out, posing with two fingers in front of his eyes in a peace sign while Ashido gawked at him for having a plan.

"I am returning to my home country," Tsunotori said, as it seemed like everyone was chiming in. Sero was looking around at the others, but he froze after hearing that and turned his head slowly back to the girl next to him on the bean bag chair. Everyone looked over at her interestedly, though Ojiro and Ashido both noticed the way Sero suddenly looked at his girlfriend too. Tsunotori continued without noticing his expression shift though, "I do not have any offers, however I would like to live closer to my parents. I have not visited often enough and am feeling a little, homesick."

"Huh, and how do you say that in English?" Ashido asked her friend, cracking a smile at the expense of the others around her who saw what she was doing. Midoriya pulled out his English book as it seemed they were getting back to studying, and Ojiro lifted his lips into a smile too as he saw what Ashido just did.

Ojiro's smile was soft and he put a hand on Hagakure's back while he got out his English book to put on the coffee table in front of them. _Good move, Ashido. No need to have that conversation here._ Ojiro glanced back at Sero for a second and saw his friend and classmate had lowered his gaze down to the floor thoughtfully, and with some frustration too though he shook it from his face for now and just started getting into the English studying they were about to do. Ojiro looked next to him at the invisible girl who he saw was looking back at him by the angle of her body and clothes, and he wondered if she was thinking the same thing he was after hearing what Tsunotori said.

Hagakure pushed her back into Ojiro's hand a little and he knew she was thinking the same thing he was. He curled his hand into her back more though and the touch said all he needed to as he decided not to lean over and whisper what he wanted to add. He did not need to though, as she understood what he just thought as he was thinking it. _I'm not going to any agency, where I have to be away from you. Don't hold back from going to Incognito's agency. I know it's what you want to do. I'll work my plans around that._

Hagakure looked back up at Ojiro after feeling what he was thinking at her. _I love you, Mashirao._

* * *

Momo Yaoyorozu woke up early and could not get back to sleep. She knew she was going to have trouble doing so today, as she did the day before too though at a smaller scale. This whole time of year was rough, but this day was one where upon getting up she struggled to look at her wall calendar. Yaoyorozu did walk over to it and put a red X over the day's box though, right over June 3rd.

Yaoyorozu got ready and had the bathroom to herself as it was still early. She realized quickly that she was not going to be able to fall back asleep so she might as well just get up for real. Her shower lasted twice as long as usual though, and she only turned off the water because she heard a classmate come in. Yaoyorozu walked out with a towel and passed Uraraka who greeted her in some surprise, as the brown-haired girl had thought she woke up early herself that day but Yaoyorozu was already finished in the bathroom when she arrived. Uraraka watched her class vice-president walk off with a confused look at the short greeting Yaoyorozu gave her much less bubbly than usual.

Yaoyorozu went to class. She paid attention as best she could and took detailed notes as she did every day. She ate lunch quietly, and Ashido and Hagakure tried getting her into the conversation more only for Yaoyorozu to always zone out if it went on for more than a minute. Hagakure looked to Jirou at lunch to see if she knew what Yaoyorozu was doing, but the shorter dark-haired girl was pushing around her food with her fork and looking unfocused as she thought about the previous June. The invisible girl almost thought something had just happened, but she held back from asking which was a good move since there was nothing new that the two of them were feeling down about.

Jirou lifted her gaze to Yaoyorozu near the end of the lunch period. She opened her eyes wide, as she realized for the first time all day the way her best friend was looking. The reason she looked at Yaoyorozu was because she wondered why Momo had not asked her anything about her feelings today, as her closest friend was usually able to tell when she was being this down on herself. _How could I be so selfish?_ Jirou felt like rubbing her forehead, but she just focused more on Momo now and started thinking quicker about how to fix the morning she had already wasted thinking about an idiot she had long since shoved from her mind.

Still, Jirou could not come up with anything by the time they had to go back to their classroom. She sat down and kept trying to think of ways to go talk to Yaoyorozu though, as it was a great method of keeping her mind off the blond villain in her memory who a year ago to that day, she had been going out with. _Were they dating this early in June? I felt like they had just started, and it was only like a week in or so when Zach ended it. I should have noticed yesterday too, she was definitely off._ Jirou scolded herself again but shifted her attention back to Ectoplasm as their lecture was on a subject she was not great in and could not lose focus completely on.

Yaoyorozu was doing great in this subject already though, and she had ample time to just stare over at an empty desk on the side of the room. Yaoyorozu looked at a seat that had remained empty for almost an entire year now. _If Mother Russia had not gone back to Russia right after the Incident, would she have thrown your desk out the window like she did Kaminari's? Vrishnuku sensei never said anything about it and neither has All Might. I thought maybe, the desk was staying in here because we would have a new classmate like Shinso was in Class B… but instead it has just been an empty seat. As if you are missing, and that you would just come back to take that seat one day._

The end of the school day seemed to come much faster than usual. The entire day was rushing by Yaoyorozu instead of going slowly as she thought it would. The day that was supposed to be so important to her was in mid afternoon before she knew it. Yaoyorozu walked out of the back of the U.A. school building to head back to her dorm shortly after school ended. She had her eyes pointed forward and her head lifted high, but anyone who knew her could tell from a quick look that she was not her usual self.

Ahead of Yaoyorozu, Asui and Iida were walking both faced to the right and their tallest classmate with a mask covering the bottom half of his face. "I think it would have been better if it was more like the two of yours, not that I'm suggesting it was easier-"

"Was it really that bad?" Iida questioned in surprise. "At the Sports Festival, the standing ovation you were given when you were called up in the round of 32 by Present Mic was an amazing moment."

Shoji nodded his head slowly. "I agree. But the looks I receive just patrolling the streets normally, now that everyone knows. It's like, out of everyone who Zach brought back, I'm the only one who they made really famous over it happening. Maybe because we are all already famous, and since it happened at the Sports Festival too since I think everyone should know that Kirishima too… But I would have preferred it if it was never recorded."

"I _am_ glad no one knows still," Tsuyu started. She looked at the boy next to her appreciatively and added, "I know Iida, somehow it was released that you were, and I'm sorry about that-"

"I told my family, and I was not very specific to the others that they do not tell," Iida started. "Do not worry," he added to the shorter girl at his left side. "It is still just rumors. And," he turned back to Shoji, "I do not have to deal with those kind of looks, which I am sorry you do have to see." _Every time people see Shoji, or Tentacole, they will be thinking of Zach. That is unfair to him, yet it **is** thanks to Zach that Shoji is still here with us. _Iida stared ahead and he lowered his gaze to the street for a second, his eyes unblocked as he no longer had a need to wear glasses which he thought about every day.

 _I,_ Iida started thinking to himself, as the two he was walking with quieted down there as well. _I believe, we will not see you again. I used to think that it would not be long before you were found, but it, it just doesn't seem likely anymore. We all still feel your absence, Zach, but it feels permanent now. More so even than Kaminari's, because each of us believes that he may show his face to us again. I believe I will face my killer. But you… You're gone for good._

Yaoyorozu had looked forward at her classmates who were not too quiet in their conversation. She looked back though as she heard someone call up to her, and she gave her friend behind her a small smile as Jirou jogged up to her side. The two of them walked back to the dorms together, and though Yaoyorozu said that she was feeling tired when Jirou asked, Jirou pushed to come hang out and Yaoyorozu relented and allowed her friend to come to her room.

Jirou felt relieved that Yaoyorozu said yes, then she grimaced as soon as her taller friend was not looking. She realized that Momo only agreed because her friend must have thought that she was having problems of her own and wanted to help her. _I want to help you, Momo. Come on. Don't look at me like that, so sadly yet still trying to help._ Jirou went into Yaoyorozu's room and dropped right onto her huge comfy bed. She stared up at the ceiling, and then she lifted her head up and smiled at her friend who was looking her way confusedly and even more so at that look. "Rough day, huh?" Jirou said, and then she fell back onto the bed and let out a long sigh while staring up at the ceiling. "Want to talk about it?"

Yaoyorozu stared at her friend with wide eyes for a few seconds, then she sat down at her desk chair and lowered her eyes to the floor. _Did I misread the atmosphere? Am I- is she here to help…_ Yaoyorozu lifted her eyes with a sadder look than the strong one she just put on to start helping her friend. "Yeah," she whispered, then she froze as she said it before even thinking about what she was saying.

Jirou nodded her head without lifting up, as laying there like that without making eye contact she thought would make it easier for her friend to talk without feeling she was being watched. _Should I try looking her in the eyes? I feel like Softy always does, and she knows what she's doing. She helped me a lot. Maybe… but I'm not a therapist. I'm her friend. I don't want to therap-ize her or nothing. I just, I just want her to talk to me-_

"Today, June third," Yaoyorozu whispered. "It's the day we…" She trailed off and had trouble saying it. She wanted to stop but Jirou was still laying there on her bed. She had started a sentence, and now she knew she had to end it, and she wanted to end it too. Yaoyorozu took in a breath and then said just as softly, "A year ago today, Zach he-" she paused and she pursed her lips, wondering if she could continue to her friend who had been for so long against anything related to Zach. Jirou just kept laying there though, and she nodded her head again for Momo to continue. "We kissed," Yaoyorozu whispered.

Jirou stared up at the ceiling and her eyes opened wide. _Today? You know, the date? I don't know the date that- but I don't care about him. I don't care about it. It doesn't matter to me. Pushing him out of my mind is part of what I needed… You remember the exact day?_ "Your first kiss?" Jirou questioned softly.

Yaoyorozu nodded, and Jirou lifted her head and upper body because she did not hear a response and had to look for that head nod. Yaoyorozu continued once her friend had lifted her upper body and they made eye contact, "It was, amazing. He poured his heart out to me and I- the things he said, the beauty he said he saw in this world even after so much had…" Yaoyorozu thought about that kiss and all the feelings she had felt that night a year ago to that day. She clenched her eyes shut though after a few seconds of imagining it, as other thoughts of that month pushed into her head. "Last June was the worst month of my life, yet it started as the best."

Jirou lowered her eyes down to the floor. Her legs dangled off of Momo's big bed, and she said while looking down at the floor below her feet, "So you still-"

"I'll always care about him, Kyoka," Yaoyorozu started, but she was shaking her head when her shorter friend lifted her gaze up to her. "But I _have_ moved on. It's just, days like this. A time like this when, when memories of him are so strong in my head. It just makes me sad."

"Yeah," Jirou whispered. _Me too? I don't know. It makes me angry more than anything. Angry that you're making Momo sad right now… If, if you're even- but even if you're not! Even if you already, died… That doesn't excuse it at all. I'm still mad at you. Idiot. Bastard._ "Me too," Jirou whispered, her voice sounding like she meant it against her thoughts at that moment. _Liar. You were a liar. The entire time-_

"How much I wish at a time like today, that it was a year ago," Yaoyorozu started. Jirou looked back at her and they made eye contact. Yaoyorozu lifted her gaze to the ceiling, and the beautiful girl with long black hair said in a quiet voice, "The four of us together were always so, happy. So much changed. I really think though, that those were the best times. The greatest times of our childhoods."

"You really consider us kids back then? After USJ alone, I kind of felt like we were adults already," Jirou countered, trying to just gloss over the 'four of us' comment. Bringing up USJ just made her think of the four of them even more though, their group who had become so close that day in their first years and had stayed like that until not even a year ago. "But definitely after the Sports Festival," Jirou added, as going back that far may have been a stretch to call herself an adult for that long.

"I think so," Yaoyorozu replied, sticking with what she said. "I don't think it was until last June that we really, lost the last piece of… Even after his betrayal, it wasn't until the forest where we still had…" Yaoyorozu sighed as she kept having to trail off, unable to make full thoughts while thinking about these emotional things. "That night in the forest, really was nice. The games, the fire," Yaoyorozu got softer and she lowered her gaze to the floor. "I don't plan on getting like this again on the anniversary of that day, so I want to just get it out of the way now. So I don't have to waste June all, all jumbled up inside."

Jirou nodded her head back when Yaoyorozu lifted her head. "Yeah," she agreed, an understanding look on her face at her friend's look. "That was, a nice night, while it lasted." Jirou paused after opening her mouth to continue with something that made her smile for a moment, frowning instead and cursing in her head for what she had almost said. Then her eyes bulged and she stared into Momo's eyes with them as her friend said exactly what she was just about to.

"Remember right before he walked off? Separating himself from us, so that Raijin could do the same?" Jirou nodded back at her after her initial stunned reaction. Yaoyorozu smiled as Jirou remembered that and seemed to be thinking about it already. "That moment when he joked about, how he was going to use the bathroom. I think about it a lot, you know? How he knew that was the last time he would see us like that, and us see him in that way. Maybe he thought that he wouldn't have any time for a goodbye later too, and that was how he wanted us to remember him, since he didn't know Backfire would be there." Jirou started pulling her head back and her eyes shook more as she stared at her friend who was speaking faster each second. "Why was that his goodbye? Joking about peeing on a tree? But then, he went on and shouted all those things for us to hear. And maybe it was because he couldn't care less if we all heard it, but what if there was another reason? Did he want to tell us something? He said goodbye to me, told me that he was leaving this time because, because he made that promise after he went and saved Kaminari!" Yaoyorozu was panting but she stopped and opened her eyes wide at Jirou's look back at her.

The taller girl pulled back in her desk chair, then she opened her mouth to continue fast but froze again. She froze, and she bowed her head a bit and started shaking it. "He just-" she said it quietly and then trailed off again. Yaoyorozu closed her eyes and she took in a deep breath. "I never said it before, but, I just wish… I just wish that I had," she bit down on her bottom lip and stopped herself. "I wish, I had told him goodbye. When he said it to me, and to us… no one said it back." Yaoyorozu lifted her eyes back up to Jirou's shocked ones. "Because none of us saw it coming or were prepared to say it like he was. If I had another chance though, I would have told him."

The room was quiet for a few moments, and then Yaoyorozu whispered, "That's what he would have wanted." Jirou got a confused look on her face, and then her heart started pounding faster as Yaoyorozu looked in her eyes and said, "When he was dying, he told Midoriya to say goodbye. That, friends should be able to say goodbye to each other. That we wouldn't want to regret it." Yaoyorozu thought back on the boy dying in front of her, how he had begged Midoriya to say it. _He was afraid Midoriya would regret not saying it, and they would never see each other again. I wish you had said that this time. Maybe I would have realized it then. Maybe, I would have said goodbye._

* * *

"They're starting up a new class for it next term?" Sero asked, looking over at the taller teen sitting across the room from him on another couch of their common room. "Who's teaching it? You know?"

Shoji shook his head in response as he had only heard so much about it. Uraraka was sitting on Sero's side, Shoji had the opposite couch to himself, and the middle couch had Todoroki and Midoriya sitting on it focused on the conversation but also glancing at the screen and the news story that led to this conversation. Uraraka leaned back on her couch and said with a relieved look, "I'm glad. Teaching people is really hard."

"You had to-" Midoriya began, and Uraraka turned her head and looked over his way. Midoriya paused, then he leaned forward on his couch and asked interestedly, "At your internship? Do you have to teach people?"

Uraraka smiled after a second of looking back into Deku's eyes, and she nodded her head a couple times. "There've been two classes scheduled during the times I've been there. Flailsafe wanted me to help out, but it's harder than you'd think. Since each person has different unique Quirks, and some are just way out there! Some are really difficult to even think of how you could train them, but Flailsafe's always really good at coming up with methods."

"Haha, I felt like they were pretty quick at our training camp too, our first years," Sero mentioned. "Though I guess they probably had some time to prepare too."

"Well, Flailsafe also had a list of the people who applied for his classes, and they put their Quirks down on the sheet too. That way we were able to get some equipment ready beforehand for people who needed it." Uraraka scratched the back of her head and added sheepishly, "But he sent a small group to me, bigger the second time, and told me just 'train them' without any other directives. I really wasn't expecting that," A bead of sweat rolled down Uraraka's face as she imagined eight adults staring her down waiting for instruction as she stood there nervously before them.

"Teaching's becoming part of the job," Midoriya said, humming to himself and scratching his chin as he thought about it. "So it makes sense that U.A. would add in classes to teach us to better teach the public how to safely use their Quirks for self-defense. I thought maybe only a few people would start training after Lifebringer's Law passed, but those initial numbers just grew so much more."

"Luckily, the first news stories surrounding civilians using their Quirks after the law was passed were all good ones," Shoji said, adding onto what Midoriya was saying as he had thought about it himself before too. "Defending themselves from villains, and not using trained Quirks for selfish actions. Not that there haven't been stories of those kinds of people too."

"I don't know how I'd feel if someone I helped train wound up doing something really bad," Uraraka started in a hesitant way. "I don't want it to make me regret helping these people, but can you imagine…"

Sero's eyes had lowered down to the floor for the last few seconds as the others continued talking. He turned to the tv when he brought them back up, not wanting anyone to see that look he knew just covered his face. _Man, what's up with me lately? It's gotta be this June fever going around. But, these guys don't even seem to notice. Midoriya just mentioned 'Lifebringer's Law' and no one even reacted._ Sero's eyes darkened while he kept staring at the tv, but to Uraraka it just looked like he had focused in on something and she turned to the screen herself.

Midoriya turned up the volume with the remote between him and Todoroki. They stared at the reporter and the person she was interviewing, and when the volume came up they heard the interviewee continue, "…all the way from Hokkaido. Huge Hands has always been a hero I've looked up to since I was a kid though, so it was worth the flight down to Kyushu for some lessons from him specifically. Look, or wait," the man who lifted his hands hesitated and brought them back down, and he just said with a small grin, "Well I can't show you here, but our Quirks really are similar! It was great meeting him and being able to learn how to use my own huge hands straight from Huge Hands!"

Uraraka glanced back to her side when she saw the dark look on Sero's face that did not seem to match the tone of the news' piece. The look on his face made her start to frown sadly too. _I thought he was acting too, okay. After just breaking up with Pony._ Uraraka looked back at the screen as she thought Sero was about to see her. _I mean, Pony is 18 and he's still 17, Jirou could be right about older women and… but it was still just a couple of months' difference. I thought they were really good together. I wonder what happened?_

 _I've seen the way Yaoyorozu's been looking lately, so at least it's not just me,_ Sero tried to get into the story on the news, but there were too many mentions of the name of the law the story was based around. _And others too, or maybe I'm just imagining other people are too. Everyone's forgetting about him though. It feels like, at least. But a year ago, right around now, was that day._

"Would you guys have done that for anyone?" Uraraka asked, looking around at her friends and making Sero lift his head to see what she was talking about. He glanced back at the screen and saw the same two still doing an interview, and he realized what she was asking. Uraraka replied to her own question first, "I would definitely have traveled just to go to Ryukyu's agency. If I didn't have a provisional license or anything, and I still hadn't interned with her before… Though I guess it took interning with her before I really, thought of her as the coolest hero."

Sero leaned back on the couch and rose his eyes to the ceiling. _A hero I'd specifically go to?_

"Well I'd pick-"

"All Might?" Shoji, Todoroki, Sero, and Uraraka all finished at the same time.

Midoriya froze with his mouth open, and he closed it with a bead of sweat rolling down his face at how predictable he was. "Haha, yeah," he admitted with a scratch of the back of his head. "How about you Todoroki?" Midoriya asked, looking at his friend on his side who had been pretty quiet for a while but just spoke up there to call him out on picking All Might.

Todoroki glanced at Midoriya and then back at the tv. He hesitated while silent for a few seconds, and then he shook his head without saying anything. Midoriya turned back towards Sero to ask him, while still wondering himself who Todoroki might have just thought about picking there. The green-haired boy stopped though at Sero's expression, and he asked, "Hey, Sero. Are you, feeling alright?"

Sero looked back over at Midoriya, and he cracked a small smile at his classmate. He let out an exhale as it was clear from their looks they had caught him making a weird face. "Yeah, I'm fine. Just been a little down in the dumps lately."

"I heard about you and Pony," Uraraka began quietly. "Sorry about that."

"Yeah, me too," Sero said, leaning back on his couch again and sighing disappointedly. "It's just, she wants to go home and I want to stay in Japan, and we talked, and why drag things out if you know there's got to be an expiration date to it? You know?" He said, while shrugging his shoulders and just keeping a small smile that made it look like he could get over this himself without help. Uraraka nodded in agreement with the way he saw things, not wanting to pry much more into it though getting confused as him not seeming that sad over it made her wonder what he was really looking like that for.

"If I had to pick though," Sero continued. "A hero I look up to more than any other, well," Sero lifted the right corner of his lips. He rose his left hand and held it out to the right side of his body, then he dragged it across his front while opening his hand up like he was spreading out a name. "Then, Lifebringer." He smiled more as he said it, but the entire room was silent afterwards and Sero lowered his gaze down feeling like an idiot for saying that.

Uraraka stared at the boy on her side with her eyes huge. Her question as to why he was actually looking down was answered and she felt like an idiot herself for not realizing it sooner considering the conversation they were having about Lifebringer's Law. Shoji's eyes got darker across the couches but they just shifted down to the floor, while Todoroki's dark eyes did focus on Sero in an annoyed way at what he just said. Midoriya pulled back a little at what Sero said, then his eyes just got softer with some pity but still the determination he had when he usually thought of Zach.

"He's not a hero, Sero," Midoriya said. His voice was firm and Sero flinched while staring down at the floor, his smile dropping.

Sero's smile dropped first sadly and in surprise at what Midoriya just said. Then his teeth clenched and his fists balled at his sides for a moment too. He rose his gaze, then he froze at Midoriya's strong look back at him. That look made Sero's fists unclench, but it made him get back to the look he had a minute ago just thinking about him. "You remember a year ago, right?" Sero asked. Midoriya frowned more and he did not want to answer; he did not want to talk about this at all.

"Move on," Todoroki said. It was curt, and short, and he just looked back to the tv himself like that was the end of it.

"Hey, I've moved on," Sero held up his hands defensively and his tone shifted back to its regular one. It felt like the mood was shifting back, but Sero continued, "It just, makes me sad thinking about it. And how can I not at a time like this?" He asked it, wondering how the others were not thinking about it, how they were not feeling the same things he was right now. His eyes focused specifically on the middle couch and on Midoriya and Todoroki who were the least upset out of all of them, which made him even more frustrated and his eyes to lower down again. "I've- I had never been more sad in my entire life, than a year ago."

Uraraka nodded her head, and Shoji lowered his gaze down less darkly but just in agreement with what Sero was saying. No one had talked about it yet since June started, but Shoji had felt a difference in the atmosphere around them too. Neither Todoroki nor Midoriya wanted to admit it, but the two of them had felt it too and Midoriya even nodded along with what Sero said, agreeing with what he said there. He froze his nods though as Sero continued, "Not when Kaminari betrayed us, or the times after when I thought about how we had been together during the Sports Festival and he slipped away for a few minutes…" Sero grit his teeth, and Todoroki looked to him again, no upset look in his eyes this time as he remembered that night when Sero told him that with so much regret and anger mixed with the grief in his eyes.

"Or all the other times he and I were together as friends. And not when Zach left either, that night in the forest wasn't… it was sad but…" Sero grit his teeth and then he released and let out a breath while shaking his head. He glanced around again, and then his eyes shifted back to the middle couch and stopped on the two boys there. "There were a lot of things that made me sad, but the night of when Kaminari betrayed us, when I heard Zach breaking down in his room to Yaoyorozu after he had torn it apart, after he had barred the door to keep me from going in and trying to help him." Sero paused and he grit his teeth again. He started grinding them, while Uraraka and Shoji stared over at him with big eyes, while the other two stared at Sero thinking about the same night and what they had heard together. Sato had been there too, but he had not been able to listen to all of it and had to storm away before it was over. The three of them had been there the whole time though, yet the other two staring at Sero watched as his face twisted in so much more emotion than they were feeling at the memory of it.

Sero shook his head, his teeth grinding harder at the thought of that night and the things he heard. "'I don't have a family,'" Sero started. _I've never forgotten a word. How could I? I've never heard despair like that. I've never heard, anything so horrible…_ Sero's face covered in darkness, while the others stared at him in shock as he sounded like he was speaking direct quotes. Uraraka felt her heart break in two just from that line alone, not realizing that Sero was about to continue and he was not just saying the saddest thing he had heard from the start. Sero did continue though, "'He was the family I chose, when I had nothing. I trusted him. And he _used_ me. _Lied_ to me. _Betrayed_ me. All for what? To win?'" Sero had to take in a breath, gasping it in as he had almost not been able to make all that out.

He just started saying it to the others without warning, and none of them could tell him to stop it. Midoriya had pushed it from his mind, but hearing it again he felt his chest pounding. He heard Sero's voice overlapping with another, and that other voice had a tone in it that Sero could not imitate no matter how sad Sero was just repeating it. The first time they had heard it was still a hundred times worse.

Todoroki had not forgotten, but he turned the other way as Sero and just ground his own teeth at what he was hearing. _It doesn't excuse it. He 'lied' to you? You, you were lying to me the entire time-_

Sero's fists clenched as he continued in a shaking voice, "'I loved him.'" Todoroki's thoughts cut off and his eyes closed. Sero whispered, "'He was, my best friend. And-'" Sero's clenched teeth opened up to gasp a breath, but he clenched them hard again before he could. "'And he killed my family,'" he finally gasped out, so much pain in his voice. Uraraka lifted an arm to her eyes and rubbed it over them. Sero saw that and he shook his own head, trying to stop, but he heard that sentence echo in his head again and again. He said after a few seconds, "At that moment, I had never been more sad. It crushed me. And that was really Zach," he added, lifting his voice and raising his head to look at the center couch. "I know it was actually him, he wasn't lying. You guys know that right?"

Midoriya and Todoroki looked back at Sero, and the other two glanced their ways realizing that they had already heard what Sero had just recited. Uraraka stared at Deku with her eyes big, and his gaze shifted to her for a second before dropping down with a pained look at the way she looked at him. Midoriya rose his eyes back to Sero to say something, but Sero continued too fast, "Zach said it to Raijin that night in the forest, that for one night he really did break down. So everything we heard that night was really from Zach's heart." Sero pursed his lips, and then in a sudden shift of mood his lips curled up at the corners and he started smiling despite his wet eyes that he rubbed once in a quick way.

"That's why I smiled after the Lifebringer Incident," he told the others who were so surprised by his sudden mood switch. "When we got back on the bus." The others remembered hearing Sero and Kirishima arguing near the back, and most of them had agreed with Kirishima and had felt Sero was not taking what just happened seriously at the time. Sero continued to smile now though, and he continued, "Because I thought Zach was so cool, and I was so glad that Zach was able to get past all that, that he pushed on. After what I heard that night, everything he was going through and all the other things we didn't even know about, he kept going. I know I never would have been able to do it." Sero said that in a self-degrading way yet he kept smiling, accepting easily that he was not strong enough to handle something like that.

"So yeah, Lifebringer's still a hero," Sero said, countering what Midoriya said to him and staring the green-haired boy straight in the eyes as he said it. "At least to me. I think Zach's one of the coolest heroes out there, and I continue to believe that whatever Zach's doing right now, that he's helping just as much as the heroes are in making this world a…" Sero paused and he smiled in a soft way. He got up out of his seat, and his voice was softer as he finished, "A 'beautiful' place." He was softer as he said that, as he did not know if anyone else would even understand he was still referencing Zach there. He got even quieter while finishing, turning away since he had made it weird and did not want to sit around there any longer. Sero walked out of the common room, whispering, "Say whatever you want, I look up to Zach more than anyone."

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 **A/N Awww. Lol thanks for reading! Hope you guys enjoyed the chapter full of U.A. and some feels for Zach. Time rushes on and we've just about hit a year since Zach left U.A. for his new life. Really looking forward to the next few chapters and I'm already into the next one rn, going to keep writing and hopefully get it out by tomorrow. I'm supposed to be doing a bunch of thesis work this next week... but for the next few days I want to get this next arc out! 4 Leave a review below telling me what you think, comments, questions, predictions for what's coming! Since no reviews last time, I'll do double this time and include some older ones:**

Todorokiii chapter 130 . Jan 13

I really thought that Zach would make a scene at the Sports Festival, making his presence known to everyone that Death is in Japan. Everyone would be so shook especially his former classmates watching him fight with Endeavor and other heroes. Then Momo and Zach would have a small reunion, but no there is none. I'm not complaining, (that's stupid especially you put so much effort to reach this far) what you've done with chapter was great and very realistic but I really thought there would be something epic to happen. Oh well, a fan could always dream.  
Anyway, looking forward for the next update, I mean I've waited for days and kept checking if there are anyway updates, wondering if you're dead since I was used to the everyday update or every other day update or the update thrice in a day, something like that. Just wanted to say that I'm happy that you updated, I quickly ditched studying for my exams tomorrow. Thank you for your motivation.

 **Hope you weren't too distracted that you bombed the test! Haha thanks for the review and I'm really glad you're loving the story. I kind of realized that I made it out like there was going to be an epic scene like that the way the chapter before it was finished, almost changed some things up to make one of those but it would've messed with the big plans for Death going ahead so I kept with what I've got going here. Glad you liked the chapter anyway though, and hope you enjoyed the new one!**

Alpha Eclipse chapter 130 . Jan 13

This is good and loooooong. I feel like this can go far.

 **Oh yeah, there's still a _lot_ left in this story. Thanks for reviewing!**

Big Fan of Death chapter 130 . Jan 13

Are class 3-A and "Zach" ever gonna meet up, like ever.  
Is Death even Zach btw, im getting a lil confused lol

 **Possibly... no spoilers! And yeah he is, though seems like he's pretty good at confusing everybody and making them think he's not, considering he made Endeavor question it... (and you). XD**

Super Power Sensei chapter 130 . Jan 14

Not how I expected to chapter to go. I wanted to at least read the final fight of the festival.  
7,042 people died last year(70 chapters ago)? That's more than 9/11. You'd think with so many deaths, some family members of our class A would have also bit the bullet.  
The fact Zach was even thinking about killing those officials and Endeavor was understandable yet off putting. Even he realized he shouldn't do something like that so he decided to leave even quicker which is good. This shows he's ALWAYS careful with his power.  
Shichi Koi asks what would peace built on so many bodies bring? My initial response was to ask him(if he existed) if he knew HOW ANY of the countries and societies today were created...ALL OF THEM were built on bodies.  
Continue on with your life and writing quality content for hardcore fans like us to enjoy!  
Not even 200 AoD members vs. OVER 9000 VILLIANS with technology that matches theirs(I know it was "over 8000" but DBZ references lol)...AND...THE AoD...STILL CAME OUT ON TOP! Zach is fucking legendary yet so few know of his greatness. How long will that last I wonder?  
Morale is clearly at an all time low for the AoD. Members may still be irritated by Rebel's antics but I can see he's actually trying to stay positive and boost morale. Apparently La Brava needed to be revived and you can bet Gentle was NOT HAPPY about that.  
I also have to wonder though...how will they bounce back when their support is low and public image scared? Or maybe they won't bounce back but evolve into something greater. This line from Zach really hits it home..."We haven't seen it yet, but what we have already done is about to start something. We've laid the foundation, for the better world we all want. And now is the time to build on that." Another iconic quote from a great person.  
Finally, a U.A. faculty perspective on Zach though I always knew Midnight thought highly of him. Don't forget who Zach was and where he came from U.A.

 **First off, just want to say I love how long your reviews are. It really seems like you're into the world that I've built in this story, which is awesome because there's a reason I spend so much time on world building. In the attack on the Sports Festival we saw buildings coming down left and right, the crowded stadium getting bombed like crazy, there was definitely more damage than 9/11. Only reason it's actually that _low_ is because of people having super powers and the presence of heroes all over the place minimizing what could have been a whole lot worse (and let's not forget Zach bringing a couple dozen people back to life too). All the stuff you brought up is awesome too. So many ideas for how the AoD could build a better world, technology, bases, etc. Anyone can suggest stuff to me in the reviews, a lot of the time if I do see something I think is super awesome I throw it into my stories, though sometimes when I've already established my end point and set up the plot to reach that point it's tough to add in more cool ideas I think of afterwards. As much world building as I do, there are always going to be more questions I didn't touch on specifically, such as food for Life City and where they're getting their satellite footage from, so I'd say use your imagination on some of those logistical things that I skimmed over, and that they will possibly get explanations later on the more we see that stuff. There were not even _100_ AoD members, Rebel's got those positive antics and you're free to interpret however y'all want but there's also the fact that he and Rampart weren't at those battles to be able to still be acting like that, then again knowing that he's the most positive there now he could def be trying to raise spirits. Nice picking up on La Brava not being thought about by Mark... Anyway, cut out some of those 2 reviews just to keep word count more genuine, though I tried touching on most of it. Thanks for the reviews, and I hope you enjoyed the new chapter!**

Naruffoku chapter 132 . Jan 15

Eraser and Midnight are the same age and they started teaching the kids in their late 20s, so Midnight should be around 30 years old.  
Apart from that, wow, so AoD got ambushed by these guys at China and then they turned it around?  
I feel bad for Zach, but now I kind of get the kind of guy he is. It's not just that he doesn't want to sleep or relax, his past does haunt him... but just not his dad and his mom as much, when he's comparing it to AoD

 **Yeah I knew her age from just her wiki page when you Google her, but it was Ashido's thoughts which was why she was confused over it and didn't want to ask. Zach's had a rough time of it all around, it just kind of depends on what the terrible thing of the day is for him to focus on ;( But the AoD does flip things on those villains, and he manages to keep some of his Army alive. Thanks for the reviews!**

Lief 17 chapter 131 . Jan 16

Reading this chapter was crushing!I feel like I was playing a survival rpg and had my save data corrupted. Things just went 180 with the AOD and I'm looking forward to how they can bounce back from this. Btw I thought zombieman was immortal, how did he almost die from poison the 1st time?

 **After so many chapters of building up the party and leveling all the characters, bam! Yeah I can see how it feels like that, and it's rough on all of us (Zach mostly). We'll see if/how they can bounce back. Zombieman said he couldn't die, but clearly he never tried whatever method managed to kill him. Maybe the poison also had a Quirk dampener aspect inside it which is what killed him the first time so that Zach could bring him back, which is what made him impossible for Death to kill the second time. We still don't know how they did it the second time either, but I left most of that battle ambiguous with it only seen through dialogue and occasional thoughts to describe what Zach had seen that day. Anyway, thanks for reviewing!**

lolmyster42 chapter 131 . 12h ago

*Sees Cloak destroyed*  
Mark: "The weakening of villains following our world loop was nothing but a smokescreen... I heard explosions, then... gah! They played us like a damn fiddle!" -reaches over and shakes Zach's shoulders- "Give it back! This isn't right! That was ours! We built it, damn it...!"  
No joke I've had this one very specific Metal Gear reference on the back burner ever since the Cloak was introduced in the event it got destroyed. But hey, plans for a new Cloak. Because money donated from what backers are left for giant bleeding-edge flying mobile bases gets dolled out like lollipops apparently.

 **Awesome reference! XD Feel you on that money thing, and though Zach's trying to rush it out of Rebel, his support guy's gotta remind him that things might not go so fast with a lack of funding. Time's flying by story-wise now though, so we'll see what's up with that... soon! Thanks everyone for the reviews, I'm really glad you're so into this story, and I'll try to get out some more chapters this weekend before my semester starts back up again!**


	133. Chapter 133

**A/N Hey guys, just want to say this before the chapter started. Metallore might sound strange when you sound it out in your head, but the way I imagine it is in an Italian accent hear 'Meh-ttalore' there's a short pause after the 'meh' and it rises in pitch at the second syllable. Anyway it bugged me through writing imagining how people would probably hear it in their heads if they didn't see this. But let's begin.**

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 **Disclaimer: I don't own Boku no Hero Academia**

 **Chapter 133:**

On the largest island in the Mediterranean Sea, the top hero in all of Italy walked down a gravel road wearing a disguise over his hero costume. Metallore was a nineteen year old still new to pro hero work, however he had shot to the top of Italy's leaderboard soon after graduation because of his rapid and flawless arrest record. He was known as the 'Super Rookie' of Italy, in other countries by Metal King even though that did not translate directly back into his own language. Federico Jackson was half American though, as his mother had come from the United States to marry his father in Rome where he was born. Metal King in Italian would have been the Re di Metallo, yet translated into English would have turned into the King of Metal. He compromised when creating his hero name to make it Italian yet in a direct translation to English would turn it into Metal King.

The Italian people were fine with the way Metallore chose his name by accepting his American and Italian heritage, as there was no way they could complain when both his Italian and American parents were killed in a villain attack while he was in his final year of high school two years before. Metallore made it his mission to capture the villain gang responsible for his parents' deaths, yet the group was captured weeks after the incident and right before he graduated. After already making that declaration that he would bring them to justice, many had believed that the top hero recruit of the Rome Hero Institute might lose his drive. Instead, despite the frustration of not being able to take them down himself, Metallore had been given a chance for a clean slate going into his pro career. His focus spread across all of Italy, he worked with Italian heroes across the country and did not establish his own hero agency as he did not need a building or sidekicks or support to help him with his hero work.

Metallore had his costume on under the gray cloak he wore, and that was all he needed. The muscular young man was just under six feet tall, he had short spiky blond hair hidden under the cloak's gray hood, and he wore a silver costume that would shine in the sunlight. Even if he took his cloak off that day though there would be no glimmering. The sky was overcast and the clouds were so dark it looked like a downpour could start at any time. _Supposedly because of the weather report, their "picnic" was relocated to a more private location. Most in the town know it is going on, but not all were invited._ Metallore glanced to his right over at a butcher's shop, and though he saw the butcher inside behind his counter talking to someone else, the shop looked almost completely cleared out. _Must be a barbecue there too. Hopefully that keeps things civil, but who knows if the party atmosphere will hold. The Arsassi, Cambri, Picciano, and Garbaldi gangs feel too confident about moving around freely. They hide their illegal enterprises well, and their guys don't snitch when caught, so they wind up having nice and easy times in prison with their connections on the outside. The only time to catch the dons then, is at times when they think they can be out in public because they're untouchable. Just need to see something. One crime, and I can appear. And once their guys attack a pro hero, I'll be able to cripple all the remaining mafias in one move._

Metallore turned down another street and looked to the end of it where there was a large building. It was not a mansion, nor a luxurious estate that some of the smaller mafias owned, but an inconspicuous government building that did not look to be hosting a "picnic." _It's stuff like this that bugs me the most._ Metallore glared at the town hall up ahead, and he started towards it while staying close to the side of the street so he could slip away into an alley if anyone near that building saw him coming. _The gangs think they have immunity because they can blackmail or bribe mayors and city officials. They think that because most people in a small town like this without any heroes stationed in it would be scared, that all the people will just be too afraid to reach out to a hero like me and offer their help. But not all anonymous tips are…_

The young hero glanced around for a second then shook his head at the paranoid thought he just had. _I've always been against them. After China, it's clear to a lot more people now that we shouldn't be accepting their help. I'm embarrassed that it was here in Italy that the only captured AoD member escaped. I, was willing to listen to Michelangelo's advice though, when it came to accepting those tips. Even though they seemed shady as to how much information they had, I listened to the tips. I should have known from the start that it was always Death. Yet, even if I had known, and maybe I did but just didn't want to admit it to myself… because even if I had accepted it was the truth, I still would have pretended otherwise to be able to use those tips and take down the villains I have defeated thus far._ Metallore frowned deeply and then he stopped and stared closely at the town hall up ahead where he could start smelling some very good scents originating from. He stopped and he ducked behind the wall of a building, peeking out just his head to look towards a connecting road that intersected with the town hall right in the center of the town.

A group of eight men were walking down the road. The Italian guys were talking loudly and yelling at each other, but they were mostly smiling and just throwing their hands around as they talked boisterously and without looking around them. Metallore could see none of them were worried in the least that there was a hero watching, but his eyes darted around their waistbands and he frowned as he did not see any firearms on them he could use as an excuse to follow and arrest them. He did not need to follow them though, as the men turned to the same location he was heading for anyway. They walked to the town hall building, but not to the front steps leading up to the main floor of the building. Instead they walked around the side of the steps and to the side of the building where there was a small grassy lawn that only stretched out a few meters from the building to a black fence about waist-high.

One of the guys opened up the gate that was not locked, and the other seven walked in behind him and then down a staircase just outside the building to a basement door they opened up and walked right into. Metallore had started forward while they were doing this, slipping straight into the building he had hidden behind and moving through the pipes across it to the wall on the other side where half his body emerged from a gutter and his silver eyes narrowed on the back of the last man about to head in. The last guy never looked behind him even to close the door, and Metallore got a confused look on his face while popping the rest of the way out of the building. _No security? It would look suspicious if gang members were outside guarding the door of the town hall, but they didn't knock or have a problem getting in. It's very loud in there._

The closer Metallore had gotten, the easier it was to smell the building but also to hear it. The smells of smoked meat filled the air, and there was smoke coming out of a chimney and pipes on the ceiling of the town hall building. Metallore looked around the streets of the small town in northern Sicily, wondering if anyone was watching the door from a different angle and warning of the cloaked figure's approach. As he already thought though, he was all alone out there. He turned back to the building where the shouts of Italian men bellowing through the walls and pipes was often louder than the music coming from the hall. Metallore frowned more at the sound of those shouts, as they cast doubt on his suspicion that the loud music was to drown out anyone trying to listen in to the secret meetings really going on down there.

Metallore walked towards the black gate and he pushed it open. He walked forward still in his gray cloak, and he prepared himself as he did not know how people would react upon seeing him once he entered the building. He walked down the cement steps underground to the town hall's basement, and he grabbed the door handle and pushed in. Federico acted as if it was natural for him to be walking in, and to his mild surprise it worked as he was able to just close the door and then head into the huge basement wider than the first floor of the town hall above. The basement looked to spread the entire size of the property the town hall was on, maybe even under the roads surrounding it for a little too. The basement was one huge open area, so there was no kitchen for the cooking to go on. There was one side with better ventilation though so that was where all the smokers and grills had been set up so the heat and smoke would filter out.

When the top hero in the country walked into the basement, his eyes darted around from the shadow of his gray hood. He wondered if there were other people hiding their faces which was why he did not stick out, but he was once again confused as no one in there was wearing masks or a hood like he was. He saw hefty men and muscular brutes sitting around with lanky guys covered in tattoos and wearing necklaces and rings. Some of the guys had gold teeth, others just gaps between their teeth that Metallore could see easily as many of them were shouting still and waving hands out in front of them with money in their grasps. _Gambling. Illegal use of government property. And…_ Metallore's eyes shifted to the stage on one side of the room but off of the wall a bit so that the spectators could gather all around it.

There was a metal cage around the stage keeping the two fighters on it inside the arena. Both men were shirtless and wearing shorts, both of them with boxing gloves on and in the middle of circling each other in the ring while everyone around them roared at the two. Metallore started across the room as he saw what was going on. _A cage match. And those wounds, they look like-_ Metallore's eyes darted across the room as he spotted a couple of men sitting while most in the room were standing. The majority of people in there were men, though there were a fair number of women in there who were mostly just there with their husbands. The majority of people were standing though, holding paper plates with their food on it and red cups with the drinks they got from either the makeshift bar near the food stations or from the kegs lining the opposite wall as the fighting stage. The men who were sitting though were ones who Metallore recognized well. _The dons. Of each of the families. Gianni and Milo Arsassi, and between the Arsassi brothers is Ramosi Picciano? They're looking, friendly. Too friendly, all of them._ Metallore's eyes shifted around at other big shots around the table, and he saw some large bodyguards around the table too, though even those other guys at the tops of the families were eating and drinking like the bosses they were standing near, even talking to the other families' members.

 _That's not good. It looks like they've already formed an alliance. In times like these, it's the only way for those men to stay strong. Hold onto their power. And with the mayor sitting right over there with them too,_ Metallore's eyes darkened more but he shifted them from that table back over to the cage where he heard a chorus of roars ring out as one of the men on the stage just got hit hard. Metallore started over that way, and he saw a couple of guys over on his left give him some strange looks when he walked in front of them. _Here we go. There's a lot of metal in this room, and not a lot of exits. I can stop all of…_ Metallore started looking up at the stage and the two men fighting on it while everyone yelled at them to win.

Metallore had thought both of them looked rough from a distance, but he was closer now and had a better look at the fighters. He saw the tan-skinned man's back had an x-shaped scar up near his right shoulder, and another smaller one that looked like a bullet hole in his lower back near the center but a bit to the left. The six foot six tall man had a scar on his right arm too, and a tattoo sleeve that covered his left from his elbow up onto his shoulder but stopping before his neck so that a t-shirt would cover most of it. The tan man looked Italian, and Metallore recognized him when the guy circled around the outside after the last big hit that landed on his face. The bruise on his right cheek that was swelling and forcing that eye half shut made it difficult, as did the cut on his chin, but Metallore's eyes opened wide as he recognized the young man. _Bobo Cambri? The Don's famous son?_ Metallore's eyes darted back across the room to the long table where the dons were talking and being friendly, but also most of them were looking over and watching the fight too that was on an elevated platform and thus they could watch even while seated with a bunch of standing people between them.

"Win Bobo! I bet a lot of money on you!" Don Cambri shouted towards his son.

Metallore's ears were peeled now as he was much more confused as to what was going on. _The don doesn't look worried enough that this fight is a death match. Unless he really doesn't care about his son, which isn't what I've heard. It's uncommon too, and- but the other fighter looks-_

"I told you, I'm not betting on him even if he is the dons' champion," one of the men close to Metallore on his right said to his comrade next to him.

"Fuck! I thought the dons would've picked the best fighter, not just one of their sons-"

"Nah man, Bobo's a pro boxer! You really think you could kick his ass?"

"I could do better than this! He's getting his ass whooped…"

Metallore lost focus on the men on his right. He lost focus and everything around him turned into a quiet buzzing sound as he stared at the other fighter who finally moved into a good angle that he was given a full unobstructed view of him. Not just his back that was covered in scars below the long black ponytail that fell below his shoulder-blades while he fought, or a partial glimpse of his front that was covered in so many horrible scars that Metallore had believed he was being forced into this fight and lived as a slave fighter or something. Metallore stared up on the stage and saw a man smiling as he held up his black gloves that had some red on them, unlike Bobo's red ones that were still clean despite his undefeated public boxing career. The man facing Bobo was an Asian guy standing almost a head shorter than his opponent, yet his muscles were as big as his opponent's, and covered in way, way more scars.

On his legs below where his black shorts ended, his knees and shins had long scars going over them splitting the sections of his skin that were undamaged, as few as there were. Above the waistline his stomach had lines cutting through it and overlapping with each other, burn marks over the skin on his sides and discoloration of his whiter skin than Bobo's in some areas so that it was even darker. He had small dot scars looking like bullet wounds, thin line scars that Metallore remembered seeing matching ones on the back of his body so it seemed as if he was impaled, his right forearm was covered in dark scar tissue and both his right and left were covered in sealed gashes. His chest had very long scars on it over the left side, straight down the middle all the way down to his bellybutton, three on his right pec, around the sides cutting under his armpits, and one that went from the upper left side of his chest up right onto his neck and almost all the way across it. It was hard to see where that scar ended though, as there were scars around his neck too so that the skin was dark and reddened in different areas. It looked like someone had dragged a rope across the front of his neck, and slit a blade through it, and there was another scar on the left side of the neck that wrapped more around him while the right side was clearer but still bad. Up higher on his neck there was a small clean gap, on most of it at least. On the left side of his neck though, above the scar that curved around it, there was scar tissue under his chin. The scar tissue continued up his chin and onto his left cheek. The scar cut in towards the middle of his face from just below his left ear to the center point of his cheek then carved back down just to the left side of his chin. His left ear was split in the middle and there looked to be a piece out of it between the top half and the bottom half, though it was a thin piece and the ear was still holding together. And on the right side of his face, below his right eye, a scar carved from his nose directly under his eye where it thickened the most and then thinned out again over by the time it disappeared under his sideburns.

 _Oddio mio._ Metallore stared at that face for three seconds of sheer shock before flinching as the man it belong to stopped circling and rushed forward at his opponent. As he rushed in, his head bobbed to either side, his body crouching fast and coming out of it as he held his arms up in front of his body, his gloved fists blocking his face. Bobo stepped forward and thrust a jab, then he hooked a punch to get around the guard only to be blocked again. A jab flew back at Bobo that he managed to partially block with one arm, though he winced again while his arm pushed back a bit, then he ducked the next punch instead of trying to block it as even the blocks were getting painful as they were piling up.

The Japanese man younger than Bobo by a couple years pushed forward, swinging his left arm up in an uppercut when Bobo started ducking, and slamming that fist between Bobo's guard and into his chin. He slammed Bobo's head up, then he punched a hook around with his left and then one with his right just as hard with a slap as the glove connected with Bobo's unguarded face.

"Get your guard up!"

"Come on Bobo!"

Bobo swung back, but his opponent leaned his body backwards and then jumped back as Bobo rushed ahead ignoring the blood in his right eye. He swung wildly yet still with a huge amount of power in it, but the man he swung the fist at saw it coming and leaned his body to the side, letting Bobo's arm pass in front of him making it seem like his opponent saw it coming a mile away. Bobo's eyes opened wide, or as wide as his right eye could open swollen as it was. Bobo tried pulling his arm back, but Zach Sazaki stomped forward so his foot was between the other man's, then he thrust a strong jab into the right side of Bobo's unguarded chest and threw the man pulling away from him off his feet and back onto the floor. Bobo gasped out and his arms slammed down at his sides as he bounced and then came to a stop after the yells of 'OOOOH' had just filled the basement.

Don Cambri jumped out of his seat, and a couple of others nearby started looking over worriedly at the stage. Another of the dons near Cambri held up a hand though and said something to him that had his peer calming down a bit, and Cambri relaxed more as he saw his son moving on the ground trying to push his gloves down. The worried look vanished and Cambri yelled out, "Get up and kick his ass, Bobo!"

"Ugh, uh," Bobo pushed his left hand down on the ground, and Zach watched as his opponent pushed his right at his side only for that arm to start shaking in pain.

"I'm calling it," Zach said. Shouts and moans of disapproval echoed around the ring, while Metallore's eyes just opened huge and he gawked at the teenager on the stage who started walking forward and lowering his arms to his sides.

"I can, still fight," Bobo said, taking a second to get it out as that last hit really shrank the size of his lungs.

"We've got no ref so I guess we could go until knock-out," Zach replied, speaking Italian to the man he was walking towards. He cocked his head to the right, then the left with a crack of his neck, and then he smirked down at Bobo who froze while looking up at that face. "But I don't think you want the brain damage I'm about to dish out." Zach's left fist rose in the glove and everyone around the stage started getting quieter at the look of it. Then Zach grinned down at Bobo and he started leaning forward.

"Lifebringer!" A voice shouted from out of the cage. Zach's hand was opening up as he was reaching it down for the man on the ground to take, but he stopped and looked away from Bobo and through the metal cage to a man in a gray cloak who just made everyone in the room spin to him with his furious yell. The man grabbed the front of his gray cloak and tore to the side, ripping the fabric off of him and revealing the shiny silver costume he had beneath that showed off his muscles and had 'MK' written across the front in white letters.

"WHOA!" A Sicilian man who lived in Arluce, the town they were in, shouted. He pulled back with his eyes huge and a look of sheer shock on his face. _First all the mafia dons, then Lifebringer, now Metallore?!_

"Metallore?!"

"Mamma mia!"

"Catso!"

"Nobody move!" Metallore called out as everyone around him tensed up and the dons all shot out of their seats at the table. The mayor jumped up too and he had sweat dripping down his face while staring towards Metallore in shock, then he spun towards the cage and the man standing inside it who looked out at Metallore not looking all that surprised at all.

 _What an entrance. Everyone was so relaxed too, barely any of them even noticed him come in._ Zach looked at the hero who was glaring straight at him, and then he turned back to Bobo and he continued holding his arm out. "Come on big guy," Zach said, and Bobo turned his head back after staring towards Metallore in shock. This time he did not hesitate to lift his left hand and grab onto Lifebringer's. Zach picked up his opponent in the fight while a lot of the people in the basement who had spun to Metallore looked back at them as they moved even after Metallore shouted at everyone not to. "Fight's over," Zach called out, "I won." He rose his right fist and waved it around, and a dozen guys outside of the ring decided 'screw it' and they cheered out again before demanding money from the others around them if they had bet on him.

 _What the-_ "Hey!" Metallore shouted at the stage. "Lifebringer," his silver eyes narrowed and he glared towards the teenager a few years younger than him who just started walking his way. Metallore realized as he was about to continue that the boy was actually heading to the door of the cage as he noticed some slits in the steel around the ring that showed where it could open up. His eyes stayed dark though and he kept everyone around him in his peripherals as he had made his entrance and was waiting now for something to happen. "What are you doing here? Why are you in Italy?"

"'Why?'" Zach wondered, while walking towards the outside of the stage holding an arm around Bobo Cambri's back. He had to help him walk after that last hit that was meant to take him out for good and that he knew still hurt the big man a lot as much as Bobo was being strong and holding it back. "Well that's, a long story. Let's talk, Metallore," Zach said. He opened up the cage and they stepped out onto the edge of the arena, then Bobo shrugged his arm and Zach checked to make sure before letting go and letting Bobo drop down on his own.

"Nice fight, you two!"

"Why'd you gotta go and ruin the match, hero?"

Metallore turned and glared towards the guy who just shouted that out, and the others around him all quieted too as that man pulled far back. Lifebringer had done a good job at keeping the mood in the basement from getting completely aggressive and confrontational, but Metallore was doing his best to stop that. _What is going on here? Damn it, they know not to try anything. How much do I have them for if the match was voluntary? Voluntary? Look at him, he's been through a fucking meat grinder._

"Metallore, how nice of you to _crash_ the party," Don Garbaldi called over. Metallore turned and he glared back towards the dons' table, seeing Garbaldi sitting down again even though the others at the table were all still up. _Garbaldi. The way he looks right now, so smug like he thinks I can't do anything to him. I'll wipe that look right off his face._ "I don't remember your name on the guest list though," the Don called out, and he gave a questioning look around as if wondering if someone else had invited him.

"We knew he was Lifebringer, by the way," Milo Arsassi added at the look on Metallore's face. He frowned right back at the hero who glared his way next, and he said, "So that was a nice entry you made with that shout. I'm sure you thought you were being-"

"Ey ey, guys," Zach started over to the table and he held his hands up to the sides after taking his gloves off. "It's a party right? No need to get all upset," he glanced to his side at Metallore as he was walking past, and he made a motion with his head towards the dons' table. _Alright. Here we go. Final stage._ Zach shrugged his shoulders out like he was tired after that fight, and he rolled around his left arm before holding his hands down and out to the sides with a smile on his face as he approached Don Picciano.

"I knew you could do it," Picciano said, grinning and giving the young man a hug, kissing both of his cheeks while doing so.

"Don't worry, my son," Don Cambri began as Bobo walked up towards the table with them. "I didn't actually bet money on you." Bobo's eyes rose up and opened wide, again his right only as much as it could. "Come now, what kind of fool would I be to bet against Lifebringer?" He held out his arms in a defensive way to his offended son, "Besides, you did lose. Hey, at least papa didn't bet against you, eh?"

"It was a good fight, Bobo," Zach said, stepping to the taller man after Bobo had come over straight to his father after the match. Bobo turned and he lost the frown he had at what his dad said, sighing and then smacking his left hand out into Zach's that they clasped together and then pulled into a hug with just their shoulders though they held it there for a second. "Gotta look out for those low shots. I'm shorter than most of the guys in your weight class, you weren't thinking about that, big guy." Zach patted Bobo on the back a couple times with his right hand, in a sealed black glove that did not have ways for his fingers to slide out, so he was not worried about hurting him at all.

"Zach Sazaki," Metallore started, and Zach sighed and lowered his head before turning back around to the hero at his back. "You are-" Metallore froze at the look Lifebringer gave him. The look in Lifebringer's eyes made him freeze completely still and the two just kept eye contact in silence for a second before Zach spoke again.

"Listen, Metallore," Zach stepped forward and he motioned away from the dons' table now that everyone there was staring intensely at them again. Metallore could see that it was looking like he was about to get the fight he wanted with the way his last sentence started, and that unsettled him a lot more as he was just about to arrest Sazaki. Zach lifted a hand to put on Metallore's back to walk with him, but the hero glared when Zach's arm started lifting so he pulled it back instead and held up a palm like he understood that Metallore did not want him to touch. So Zach just walked a few more steps to the hero's side and kept his back to the table of dons behind him, "Listen," Zach started, his voice low and his head moving in towards the side of Metallore's while they faced away from the family heads into most of the rest of the room. Facing this way they had to see all the other members of the gangs, some regular citizens thrown into the mix, some women looking over nervously and in nervous ways at Metallore which made him frown more even as Sazaki was just starting.

"This isn't what you think it is. The Padres, they're not making an alliance or anything. This is just a big picnic, a get together for all the mobs still in Italy." Zach looked in at Metallore to see if he was following, but the hero next to him was just glaring in at him out the corners of his eyes in a harsh way. "I mean it. It's true. There's nothing illegal going on here. Just a bunch of guys out enjoying some food and drinks, getting together to talk and work some things over. Work out, some kinks that needed to be worked out."

Metallore's face scrunched up in confusion. He glared harder at Sazaki and said in a low voice, "What are you talking about? This whole thing smells rotten to me. Try to convince me that I'm not seeing what I'm seeing as much as you want, but what I just stumbled into-"

"I wanted you to come here," Zach started, his voice getting softer like that was an actual secret that he interrupted Metallore with.

The hero's eyes widened for a second and then narrowed harsher at the shorter boy next to him. "I came here because of my own hunches."

Zach opened his mouth but then nodded and held up a hand, "Alright. Okay but just listen. I'm glad you're here then, I want you to see that things have changed…" Metallore really did not like the feeling in his gut all of a sudden. The way that Lifebringer did not argue with him but was still talking as if he was glad he had arrived, it made him uncertain about even his own reasons for coming there. _It was my own intuition. He's just adapting quickly, much too quickly though!_

"Hey! What's with all the secrecy?" Don Arsassi (Gianni Arsassi) called out at the two with their backs to the table. "If you're going to have a conversation, have it with us too."

"We all would like to hear why you're here, Metallore," Don Garbaldi added. "You invite him, Mr. Mayor?"

Garbaldi looked to the seat next to him, and Metallore turned back and glared straight at the mayor who hesitated upon both of their looks. Then the mayor started frowning and he replied, "No. I did not. I am surprised to see you here, Metallore. I wish you would have called ahead."

"So that you could hide all of this?" Metallore asked.

Mayor Fabrizzio opened his mouth, but Zach held up his hands and started, "Hey hey. Metallore, just listen okay? Things have changed, yeah?" Zach said it and glanced to his left for support, and Don Picciano nodded along with him, and the other dons agreed with a round of nods that Metallore was just staring at in so much confusion. "You're not dealing with criminals here. Everybody at the table's just a regular guy, running protection for businesses, insurance things, some loan shit, but it's all legit." Metallore frowned deeper at what Lifebringer just said, but his frown started lifting and his eyes growing wide at what continued, "I worked with the Padres here to weed out bad apples in their ranks, the kind of guys who would kidnap and bribe officials. Same with the other mobs, and the ones who couldn't fall in line we took out. We got rid of them and the parts of the families that weren't with the new changes."

"When you say 'god rid of them-'"

"Turned them over," Zach replied, shaking his head at the hero twisting his words. "Like Don Picciano. Come on tell him," Zach said to the man who was the don he was closest with out of the group.

"My dad, the old Don Picciano as I'm sure you know," Ramosi began. Metallore stared at the young man only ten years older than him who was the youngest of the dons at the table, a few years younger than the younger Arsassi brother. "He was too stuck with the old ways. I kept telling him we needed to change with the world changing around, but he didn't and once Lifebringer caught him I had two choices. Change the family for the better, or we could all go join him. Think I picked the right option," Ramosi said, motioning down at his plate and the steak on it next to a a glass of wine that he picked up and swirled the red liquid inside of.

"I'm not admitting that there was anything illegitimate about my operations before," Don Garbaldi started, keeping a somewhat smug look on his face as he looked at Metallore. He glanced at Lifebringer who rose his eyebrows at him expectantly, and Garbaldi tssked before looking back at Metallore and saying, "But if there was, there ain't anymore. So once again I ask you, Italia's Number 1 hero, why are you at our picnic?"

 _The mob, changed? What kind of nonsense- What the hell does Lifebringer have to do with any of this? Why is his body covered in scars? This can't all be from Shigaraki Tomura's torture._ Metallore darted his eyes back to Lifebringer and then around at the table of men who had all sat back down, and Bobo had taken a seat next to his biological father while one of their "family" members ran over with some ice for his face and chest. "I'm glad you finally accepted to fight our champion, Zach," Cambri began to the young man standing next to the table. "But even without that nasty power of yours, you're one grande powerhouse."

 _I don't know, what to do here. He isn't Death? It seems like he's been here for a while. Then again, I haven't heard about the Army of Death in anything but rumors for two months. Did he make the mob go legit? Why? If there were illegal activities going on… And there still are._ Metallore's eyes darkened and Zach turned back to him while in the middle of responding to Don Cambri. "This party is still illegal," Metallore stated. Everyone around the table stared at the hero and a couple looked nervous, but the majority just looked annoyed more than anything. "Illegal cage match fighting, gambling on it," Metallore shook his head and glared towards the mayor who looked to be the easiest to intimidate at the table.

"Alright yeah, it wasn't an official fight," Zach started, holding his hands up defensively and then waving one to the side in a skeptical way and like a native Italian as he continued. "But the gambling was all just in good fun. We're all friends here, just having a good time. And no one was really getting hurt, right?" Zach asked over to Bobo, grinning at the man which had Bobo lowering the ice he was holding on his face and smirking to show there was nothing wrong at all. Smirking made his face shift around too much that it actually did hurt the swollen part, but Bobo held back the pain well which his dad was impressed with at his side and patted his son on the back for the effort.

"It's not like you've got an illegal gambling ring or anything on your hands. It was a single fight and just some bets-"

"Besides," Mayor Fabrizzio started, and Metallore turned back to see the mayor had lost his nervous look. Fabrizzio took in a deep breath and then kept an upset look while continuing straight to the hero, "I'm overseeing it, so technically it _is_ an official fight, government sanctioned." The Dons started grinning around him, and Fabrizzio then continued while on his newfound confidence high, "Not that I'm going to waste time writing up the paperwork, so long as no one makes a petty complaint about it."

Metallore couldn't believe what he just heard. _Am I even here? All the mob in one place and I can't do a thing. What could I bring them in on? None of it would stick, and it would just upset all these guys who'd be out on the streets again in a day. But Fabrizzio,_ Metallore narrowed his eyes again and then called back at the man, "This is government property that you held this _event_ on. As if the mobs have a grip over your town, or the town is doing favors-"

"I reject you insulting theories," Fabrizzio snapped back at the hero. Then he declared firmly, "The Dons paid a high amount to be allowed to use this public space. And that was not a bribe, it was an opportunity that I decided was necessary for the town and which I do not deny publicly." Fabrizzio glared at Metallore and said while looking straight into the clearly flustered young hero's eyes, "The roads in Arluce are all unpaved. We're using gravel in a time where most remaining third world countries have paved streets. The town needs help, and this was a public venture to raise money for public projects that I saw as a better alternative than raising taxes which would make even more of my citizens emigrate, which is half of the problem we're facing in this town! The weather was bad so I decided to allow the event to be moved into this large basement space that we don't even use, instead of the outdoors public space in town that we were going to use anyway which the town still would have been paid for."

Metallore stared in shock at the mayor in front of him who glared harsher back and questioned, "Metallore, what do you have against my town that you have to come here and try to break up what is meant to be a step forward for all of us? The mobs' legitimacy, our town's revival, do you not have better things to do than-"

"Hey hey," Zach stepped back in as this was starting to get too close to just bashing on the pro hero. "Let's not go too far, Mayor Fabrizzio. It's all just a misunderstanding," he looked back and forth between the mayor who had gotten out of his seat in the heat of the moment and actually looked really upset there. Fabrizzio kept glaring at Metallore, but Zach continued to him, "We can understand why a hero would think something suspicious was going on here, yeah? It's not a huge jump for him." Zach tilted his head to the side as if saying 'come on' to the mayor, and after a few seconds Fabrizzio leaned back and he started nodding in acceptance, losing his angry look even while still looking at Metallore.

Fabrizzio sighed and Zach lowered down his hands that he had held up to stop the confrontation. The mayor lifted his head back up though and he shook it while looking at the young pro, "I understand, but I hope you would come to me first next time instead of accusing me of corruption right off the bat." The remark sounded like a slight towards Metallore, and the hero actually felt bad as he received it only to curl his hands into fists in more confusion though he was starting to accept what was going on around him.

 _How do I play this? In one case, the old mob bosses should still be in trouble for their old crimes, not that I have the proof I need to arrest them on those crimes right now. On the other hand though, is this really just to rejuvenate the town? The mayor could have the paperwork set to allow this function on town-owned property, and it would be better using the mobs' money than the people's to repair roads and… This is too, too what? It's too good. That's what makes it so suspicious. Why doesn't anyone know about this?_ Metallore shifted his gaze back to Lifebringer on his side. _Is it because of him? Because, Lifebringer couldn't be here if it became too public? If heroes got involved or they mentioned it to the media the rebirth they're trying… Lifebringer killed a bunch of people. Fuck. If there's one thing I need to do for sure-_

"Come on, Metallore. Let's grab some food and talk for a bit," Zach said, looking at the hero who seemed frustrated and conflicted as there was a lot on his mind. "Hey Gino," Zach called over to his side, and Metallore turned his head before he was able to respond to the teen as he called to someone else. Metallore watched as a very dark-tan-skinned man came jogging over. The guy looked in his early thirties, and he watched Metallore closely while jogging towards Zach.

"Here," Gino said in Italian, tossing a black shirt and hoodie to the younger man. Zach slid into the shirt that was short-sleeved and tight to his body, then he tied the sleeves of his sweatshirt around his waist as it was pretty hot in the basement and he did not need it on yet. "You good?" Gino asked. "Took some big hits."

"Yeah, all good," Zach replied, nodding back at his friend and then looking back to Metallore. "Let's go. I've got some things to talk to you about. I know you'll want to hear them."

Metallore hesitated but he followed after Sazaki, wondering what it was the boy wanted and only hesitating because he thought of how the teen had mentioned wanting him to show up from the beginning. "How'd you do this?" Metallore asked, finally deciding not to hold back and just get out with it as he walked towards the food station at Zach Sazaki's side. "No one's even looking at me too… I don't know."

"Afraid?" Zach asked and Metallore's eyes widened as that was what he was expecting to see. Zach continued with a laugh, "I'm telling you, they're not afraid of getting caught because the guys here really aren't breaking the law," Zach said it without looking to his side at Metallore, just walking up towards the food station himself and picking up a couple paper plates. He had to use his fingernails to pry the plates apart, then he handed one to Metallore before walking up to some tables in front of the smokers and greeting the men behind the table in friendly ways while stacking up hot dogs and assorted fried meats on his plate. "We gathered up all illegal weapons and drugs and destroyed those. Not even the dons were allowed to keep illegal firearms, not that I'm saying they had any in the first place." Metallore's face scrunched up more at that statement which sounded so strange to him and once again unsettling by the way the teen was talking just like Garbaldi had spoken to him before, in hypotheticals.

"Why are you here, Lifebringer?" Metallore asked, his voice low and dark. It made the man across the table about to say something to the hero freeze and pull back.

"I'm not Lifebringer," Zach said, looking next to him with a small frown and just shaking his head at the look of the other man. "Lifebringer was a hero-"

"Then why are you here, Zach Sazaki?" Metallore corrected himself, darker this time and sounding like he wasn't in the mood for these games.

Zach shrugged and looked around the room. He turned back to Metallore with an eyebrow raised like the answer was obvious. "This," he replied, and then he turned back and continued down the food line to keep filling up his plate. "I wanted to make the Italian mobs legit. So, that's what I did." He smiled as he said it, a proud look on his face while he reached out and grabbed a piece of bread to put on his plate and dip in the pasta sauce that smelled really good at the next tinfoil tin down. Metallore was stopped a few feet behind him now though, just staring at the kid while frozen in place and wondering if he heard that right. "Eat. Enjoy this," Zach said, glancing back at Metallore whose plate was still empty. "It's awesome, isn't it?"

 _"Awesome?"_ Federico looked around the room at men who he had come in here to fight and arrest. They were talking and eating and laughing, sitting with their wives or in groups maybe with people from opposing gangs who they were not at odds with anymore. _Arsassi, Picciano, Garbaldi, these are names that struck fear in people. Not as much as some like the Gazpaccio, or the Arvanetti, but the worst mob families were all taken down already along with the rest of the big villain groups in Italy. That's why I'm able to focus my time on smaller villain groups, the mobs that there was never as much suspicion or information about their illegal activities… There are regular people in here too. No one looks afraid. Everyone's just, having a good time? This is… this is…_ "Yeah," Metallore finally responded, his voice sounding confused but his head nodding as he agreed with what he just heard.

Metallore shook his head around and started after the younger man, but as he was passing a tray that smelled especially good he froze and turned to it. He glanced back at the burly woman behind it wearing an apron splashed with red and grease, and she grinned back at the hero who she knew her food's scent just pulled in. "Come now sweetie, try some," she reached out for his plate before he could respond, and she lifted her tongs with her other hand and put some sausages onto his plate. "Eat up, Number 1 hero Metallore. Need some protein if you're to protect us, young man."

 _Could it be, poisoned… No. This isn't, this isn't some huge conspiracy plot._ "You think so too, huh?" Zach asked, looking back with a grin at the hero who started walking towards him again. "It wasn't easy. But I promise, these guys have changed everything. You won't even have to worry about them strong-arming people into the insurance or protection businesses, because I made it clear that even just that much is a big no-no. Fucking Orzoni couldn't get in line, and you know what happened-"

"That was you-" Metallore froze and his eyes were huge at the small grin the teen gave back to him. The tip he had received a few days ago and gone in with a few different heroes to catch some villains busting up a shop that had refused to pay them for 'protection' had now clearly come from the black-haired vigilante in front of him. _He's doing whatever he wants. Being a vigilante in Italy, is illegal. It's illegal most places. He just does it though. Without caring about the rules… and he made the mob legit. And he killed 6 people back in Japan! 8, or 9 by some counts, but 6 that night… That night that his high school class was attacked, by the people who had tortured him. Those scars, aren't all from the League of Villains, but I'm sure many of them are. The ones on his neck and the left side of his face at least, have to be new._ "Life-" Metallore froze and he corrected himself which the kid in front of him smiled at, "Zach Sazaki."

"Zach's fine," Zach replied, and Metallore grimaced as he did not want to be getting familiar here. "And Metallore, you don't have a hard choice to make right now." The hero he was talking to lost the scrunched up look he just got, and instead became confused once more. "Now that you know I'm here, I'm going to disappear. Things are better already now though, and I'm making sure that when I leave, things stay good. Hence you being here," Zach added quieter, whispering it to the hero and then smirking at the look on Metallore's face. The hero with spiky blond hair short over his head, and bright silver eyes that matched his costume, looked from Zach back over to the table of mafia dons.

"How did you do this?" Metallore whispered, before clenching his teeth as that was not what he needed to say right there.

"Easy. When you have a Quirk like mine," Zach continued. He looked around at the other trays to see if there was anything else he wanted, but his plate was pretty full already and he just started moving to the end of the table. He continued to the man next to him in a softer voice, "These guys, they care a lot about family. It's really important to them. So Don Cambri's mom's been bedridden for nearly two decades. Senile and dying, and he loves her so much he does whatever he can to keep her alive all that time. I get here, and we poison her in her sleep, let her die quickly and painlessly." Metallore stared at Zach's head with growing eyes and his bottom lip lowered at the admission to murder the boy just made. "Then I brought her back to life, and she's healthier than she's been in thirty years. You can imagine how upset she was with her son for the rumors about what he'd been doing for a couple decades while she wasn't able to watch him. Can you imagine Cambri getting scolded by a very fit ninety year old woman, apologizing profusely to her and agreeing that he'd help me out as I pitched my plan and the reason I'd come here? The other bosses fell in line afterwards, I just needed my in first- a platform to speak to all of them and a Don they respected to get them to hear me out."

Zach looked back at the hero who was staring at him in disbelief, still appearing unable to imagine Cambri's mother scolding him. He also still looked really upset, and getting angrier. Zach repeated with an annoyed look, "Her life was pain. Her son wouldn't let her die, which was all she wanted to do living like that. Don't be such a dick that you'll hold that against me." Zach frowned and he looked away while continuing to the end of the table. _This is bad._

Metallore's eyes started narrowing more as he steadied his look. _She's not the only one though._ "I, can't let-" Metallore began.

"What you can't do, is arrest me," Zach interrupted. "Trust me, if you try you'll wind up making a huge mess of everything here. I'm about to disappear and leave things better than I found them. You try and arrest me and we're going to have problems. The mafia may have gone straight, but I'm still a dangerous fucking criminal wanted around the world." Zach said all this while smiling and grabbing some plastic silverware to eat his food with at the end of the cooking stations. His irises shifted to the corners of his eyes and he said while giving Metallore a dangerous look that sent chills down his spine, "You can be part of the solution, or you can get knocked out by me in a few seconds for no reason."

"You think you would-"

"A few seconds," Zach repeated. He repeated it and then grinned at Metallore without a dangerous look in his eyes anymore. "But listen, I don't want that. I'm just letting you know that if you are about to decide to attack me then you don't want to tell me you're going to do it. Because I'm not going to just stand there and let you. I've got shit to do."

"You've already succeeded," Metallore started, then he cursed himself internally for saying that at all.

The hero's internal cursing cut off though as the younger man he spoke to countered with, "Sure, in Italy." Italy's top hero looked back into the kid's eyes and watched as his face got serious and full of conviction. "But this isn't the only place where there are problems I can fix. Fighting you wouldn't be the best for Italy, so I don't want to do it. But there are other places I can go help out in and I won't let you stop me from doing that." _Just listen and back off, Metallore. I should have worded that better before. Kept talk away from arrests and fighting. Just push on before he can think about it. I'm leaving anyway._ "Here, let's go talk to the dons. I can't stay and keep watching them, but they trust me and really don't trust you. They think the only reason you're here is to arrest them, not to help them go straight and stay that way."

Zach started leading Metallore back towards the dons' table, eating the food he had piled up on his plate and letting out a loud hum of deliciousness as he approached. A few of the dons had gotten up, and more family members had gathered around and were talking loudly and enjoying the party that had started back up in full even if some people were keeping a close eye on Metallore. "Don Garbaldi, Ramosi," Zach added, using Don Picciano's first name as he was the don who Zach was most familiar with. The two dons in front of him talking to each other and a couple of other guys looked over, and Garbaldi motioned for the guys around them to back off and give them some space.

"Zach," Garbaldi said, lifting a hand and smiling at the boy approaching him. "The hero's still here too, huh?"

"Listen listen, he's not a bad guy," Zach said, putting a hand up in front of Metallore and speaking on his behalf. "I mean it," Zach added, nodding at Garbaldi in a serious way. "He's not just after you guys. This whole thing looks good to him too, but just as you don't trust him you can't expect him to just put his trust in all of us out of the blue."

"I get it, I get it," Picciano started. "But Zach, I'm not too sure about this." Zach looked at his favorite mob boss who he felt closest with, and Ramosi lifted a hand hesitantly and twisted it back and forth in an unsure way. "The guys aren't gonna be able to trust a hero. There's too much bad blood. Too many family members thrown into prisons. And the guys aren't used to close examination."

"Hey hey, he's not going to be looking over your shoulder all the time," Zach started. "But trust me, trust me. What's even the problem with working with him if things are legit now? You guys work with a hero like Metallore, and any gangs try sprouting up without your permission, going back to the old ways and breaking the new rules we've made together, bam! You've already got a connection-"

"You want us to snitch to a hero?" Garbaldi pulled his head back and said it in a tone suggesting Zach was saying something too far here.

"You aren't villains," Zach replied, raising his eyebrows back at Garbaldi. "And if it's between snitching and retaliating on your own, then I'd definitely suggest calling a hero."

Zach's voice never switched tones, but the final part of that last sentence made Garbaldi hold up his hands defensively and start chuckling. "Fine fine, I get it. We'll work with the good guys, not against them," Garbaldi looked at Metallore while saying it and he frowned but nodded his head at the hero. Picciano nodded as that made sense to him too, looking at Metallore and telling him that he was not going to make the same mistakes as his father.

"The world's changing, and we're ready to change with it. Can't let the families go extinct," Ramosi Picciano said. "And if we do things like we always did, we'd lose all our traditions, not just a couple that we never should've had anyway."

 _These guys,_ Metallore looked back and forth between the mob bosses. The one that Zach was clearly closest with, and the most powerful mob boss still in Italy who was promising to go straight and work with heroes not that Metallore could believe him very easily. What he did believe though, was the look Garbaldi got on his face as soon as Zach "suggested" that they not retaliate against other gangs that appear and try going back to doing things in illegal ways. _I can't tell if they love Zach Sazaki, or if they're fucking terrified of him. Oh man, he's been smiling this whole time and acting like everything's fine, but are all the mob bosses just here being friendly to each other because… they think he's Death? Is that it? Holy shit, they all think he's Death. They think he's Death and he came here with two options, going straight or facing his wrath. What the fuck? This is seriously, seriously messed up. Whether he is or isn't, he's using this._

 _Michelangelo never said with certainty that it was Zach Sazaki. I wish I had been there to fight the League of Shadows. I would be able to make that declaration with certainty after seeing this._ Metallore noticed all three of them were looking at him awaiting him to say something. _Things shouldn't be built like this. People might think badly if I were to start working with mob bosses. I don't want to work with a man like Garbaldi, after all he's done, probably. Throwing all these guys in prison though, our full prisons, when they're willing to change their ways and even help dilapidated towns like Arluce doesn't make sense._ "I'm willing," Metallore said, not going to be the one to decline when the supposed 'bad guys' were quick to accept the need to change things. "Why should we stay enemies, if you're willing to make a truce?"

"Exactly," Zach said, then he rose his right hand and looked over his shoulder. "Hey Gino," he called back. Metallore glanced behind him too, and the dons looked past Zach over to a dark tan Italian man who they were glad to see Zach calling to again. Garbaldi smirked when Metallore and Zach were both looking away, but though Gino saw it he stayed focused on Zach who he walked up to asking what was up. "Listen," Zach patted his right hand down on his friend's shoulder and then motioned his head to the side at the hero next to him. "I'm leaving Metallore here to be the new, I don't know, mediator? Well he's going to help the mob keep up with the good changes they've been doing, but I want you to watch him okay? Make sure he doesn't harass the families too much, and go to the cops if it seems like he's illegally spying on them or overstepping his bounds past what the families accept. Sound good to everyone?" Zach looked around at the four around him, then he clapped his hands together before letting anyone say anything in only a moment after asking. "Great. Then I got nothing left to do here."

"You're leaving?" Ramosi asked, a disappointed look on his face.

Garbaldi frowned too while looking back to Metallore, but he smirked thinking about the look the hero had on his face when Zach suggested to Gino to go turn the hero in for harassing them. _Now we get to use the law against you for a change. Go ahead and spy on us, hero boy._

"Yeah, hey Vinny!" Zach called out, looking over towards a heavyset man over five hundred pounds who had a plate of food stacked up in one hand while talking loudly and swinging around his other hand. "Where's my money?!"

"Oh!"

Metallore looked to his side at Zach Sazaki with a harsh look wondering if maybe he should just arrest him right there. Zach turned back to him though and said with a grin, "I bet a thousand euros on myself. Knew I wouldn't lose."

"Should have bet more then," Garbaldi said with a laugh.

"Hey, you guys are already doing me a big favor here in Arluce. Don't want to rob you blind while I'm at it," Zach taunted the mob boss who just remarked back that he wasn't one of the ones foolish enough to bet against him.

Zach rose up a hand and caught a wad of bills Vinny wrapped in a rubber band. He did not count them, he just untied his sweatshirt from around his waist and slid it on, then pocketed the bills into the sweatshirt's big front pocket once his arms slid out the sleeves. Zach turned to Metallore when he got the sweatshirt on and before the hero could say anything, as Zach kept doing because he was trying hard not to let Metallore try telling him he was under arrest here. "Listen, there aren't an excess of pro heroes in Italy. You know this. And you _need_ families like these to keep control and to keep the actual villains down. It's always hard for new businesses to rise in a market where pre-existing ones are already established. That's simple economics. And I think it's better these guys who really aren't that bad- they're actually all great people," Zach grinned and the men he was talking about grinned too at what he was saying. "Than the unknown that could come in their place if you, let's say, removed them all and just made a gap in power." Zach's voice got lower there and the grinning men lowered those smiles with sweat forming on their faces. They gained nervous looks as they stared at the teen who never fully explained to them why he had done all of this.

 _He could have destroyed us all from the start. He didn't, because it wasn't the best way to do things. Not because he couldn't. I'm glad he did it this way though,_ Ramosi Picciano thought

 _Is he Death? This whole time, I've never known. Every word out of his mouth… He scares the living shit out of me._ Garbaldi brought back up a grin as there was no way he was going to let anyone see him afraid.

 _Goodbye, Death. I'll do my duty and make sure what you've done sticks._ Gino watched as Death turned, then he glanced out the corners of his eyes towards Garbaldi who made eye contact back with a small grin that Gino could see the anxiety hidden in.

Metallore opened his mouth as Zach Sazaki started walking away. He froze though and his tongue hesitated inside his mouth. _What's the job of a hero? Just arresting villains, or making this world a better place? That's the decision before me right now. I should, take the head start Lifebring- that Zach Sazaki just gave me. Build on it and make sure that the mafias really are legitimate._ Metallore looked back to the men around him. _We can make a safer Italy like this._

Zach walked through the basement party and he smiled around and said hey to a few of the guys he knew as he made his way towards the exit. He finished up some food and then tossed the plate in a garbage can near the door, and then he walked out without looking back once despite nearly everyone in the room looking his way by then. Zach just stepped out and he closed the door behind him, and then his smile vanished and he reached up and lifted the black hood bunched up behind his neck.

Death rose his black hood and positioned it right while climbing up the steps outside the town hall. He held a button on the side of his hood inside the fabric between the inside and outside layers of the hood. While he was doing that, dark wisps came out of his body from his arms, his legs, his face and his torso. A shroud of darkness surrounded him, and he bent his knees at the top of the steps before leaping up in the air fifty feet high. He spread a pair of long black wings out of his back and flapped them down hard, rising himself up into the dark clouds above just as it was actually starting to rain. The button Zach pressed on his hood was working even while he did these things, and the inside soft lining of the sweatshirt started to harden and extend as the costume he was already wearing was activated.

Thin lines in his sweatshirt's fabric started pulling apart and a tighter material spread out over his body while also pushing down him in waves. He curled his fingers in over and over as the material opened up over his arms and then stretched over his hands to give him his gloves. Zach took in a deep breath to expand his lung capacity while the costume started to tighten around his chest, and he gulped to force his Adam's apple up and down his neck and keep that from being too constricting too. Two dark transparent sections popped out from opposite sides of his hood just off of his ears, and they moved in front of his face and connected in the center. As soon as the black visor connected, a display appeared up on it with red writing in the bottom right corner showing his elevation as well as coordinates. He rose a hand and tapped a button on his helmet again as he was reaching the top of his arc. After holding the button on his helmet he brought his hands out in front of him in the specially designed gloves that had covered them, then he curled his fingers in a certain way and heard a click. While his helmet started ringing from the button he pressed on his helmet, he pulled his elbows down to his side and the clicking noise from before repeated louder followed by a whir in the back of his costume.

Zach aimed his body down as his arc brought him to start diving through the air. He snapped his arms out after the whirring started and pointed them behind him, his wings flapping again though just sending him flying horizontally instead of higher up out of the cloud layer. His mask's visor was waterproof so none of the vapor in the dark cloud he was flying through was getting stuck on it, giving him a clear shot through the storm. His costume finished wrapping around his entire body, and metal parts on it that had been stuffed into his costume and softened started activating with the command he made with them using the new tech in his costume. Holes popped open on his palms, on the backs of his shoulder-blades, and out the back of his heels and soles of his feet. As blue light pulsed out of the holes and shot Zach across the sky, his wings got thinner and closer to his back with him not using them to fly anymore but just to make himself more aerodynamic.

He flew off to the west and spoke as soon as the ringing line in his helmet picked up, "I'm out."

"Took you long enough," La Brava replied over the line. She paused and then added, "Exodus called in with a success in the Amazon. Asked me to ask you what's next for him."

"Just tell him to come back to The Cloak. I'm returning too."

"Aw, and I was just getting used to things around here with Gentle in charge. He's a natural-born leader you know." La Brava bragged to the boy though she did not sound too serious to him, which Zach appreciated and smiled a little at the sound of.

He did not linger on what she said though, instead replying with, "Let him know I'm on my way back, and send my helmet The Cloak's coordinates."

"You got it," La Brava responded. She started typing away on the computer in front of her in the brand new Cloak's bridge. It was smaller than the last one- the roof not as high above her head, though the interior looked sleeker than before. The bridge was also above the ship as a round section sticking out of the wider main part, and around the entire bridge room were glass windows which they had decided was a design flaw of the previous one even with the cameras they had around that ship to give them every angle.

"So, how was Italy?" La Brava asked as she was typing away to send Zach what he asked for. _You've been gone in Italy, almost completely dark over the past couple of days to solidify our influence there. And to make sure our alliances and security of peace in Italy actually sticks. If you've been gone for that long to nothing-_

"Things are looking good," Zach replied. "Typhoon is set up securely in their ranks. They think he's just the one guy who managed to get most friendly with me, keeping me from taking them all down or something. His name's 'Gino' for now on, he'll keep in contact every once in a while and let us know if they try anything stupid. The information the Italian mobs get on other villains too and international ones around them might come straight to us. I tried something risky to make it so they go to heroes first, but though Gino will work on it, I doubt snitching is going to catch on very fast."

"You're so amazing!" Darling cut in over the line.

La Brava pushed the brown-haired girl's head away as she was blocking her computer to get her face close to the microphone La Brava was speaking into. "Move," La Brava snapped. "And call him yourself if you're going to get in my way-"

"I will!" Darling shouted back, letting Zach know to expect a call as soon as he hung up with La Brava.

La Brava sighed and she kept typing, and Zach saw some information pop up in a translucent scrolling window on the left side of his visor. His eyes turned red and snapped back and forth to read quickly as the page was scrolling, and they darted over to the right side for a second as a second set of coordinates appeared above his own. The new ones let him know where he had to go with even a small arrow over it that moved with the shifts in his flight pattern to show him when he was on a perfectly straight line with The Cloak's position. After La Brava got everything through that she needed to, her eyes darkened and she asked in a low voice, "So, did you find out anything about Eziano while in Italy?"

Zach frowned deeper inside his helmet. His silence for a second alone was enough for La Brava. Zach replied after his silent response, "The mob bosses wouldn't talk about it as much as I got close to them. No one talks about Eziano." He glared through his visor in an angry way as he said it. The clouds were whitening around him and thinning out, and he was no longer even above Sicily as he shot off through the sky fast like a missile. He continued after another pause, "I don't know whether they didn't know anything, or if they actually had info and are just scared of the notion of speaking about him."

Zach shook his head and then brought his mood back to a serious but less grim one at the thought of the failure of his secondary objective. "Any change in the situation in New York?"

"It's complicated," La Brava replied. She typed away into her computer again and sent some more files to the headset of the boy who she knew would want to see them. "The situation is difficult to handle, with some remaining Fergus loyalists trying to rebuild inside the companies we managed to keep from dismantling. I say we just go all out this time and tear them down to restart from scratch. We clearly missed a couple inside the inner circles. I knew that Mysti deleted some files-"

"Have you seen any sign of her there?" Zach asked. "If she's involved-"

"No sign of her or her stupid cat mask. I was hoping for her first re-emergence since Fergus' death, but we shouldn't wait for her to show her face. They're making too many moves," La Brava warned.

"We'll head after them soon. The Cloak's current position is in Alaska heading southeast, that right?" Zach asked based on the coordinates he was receiving. La Brava made an affirmative noise over the line and Zach nodded his head. "Alright, send me some tip locations across Canada too. I'll stop at some on my way to meeting up, you all start heading farther straight east and then we'll cut more straight south for hitting New York. Send out some recon teams to the Canada locations to get ready for when I arrive."

"We only have three good leads across the country," La Brava began.

"Then you and Gentle split everyone up. A third for each one, unless you see fit for more at one than the others."

"Alright alright, I'll see what we can do. See you soon, Death." La Brava said farewell, and Zach repeated a short goodbye to her before the call cut off.

 _Exodus said he wouldn't get into fights down in South America, but I'm wondering if he managed to stick with that. He wouldn't lie to me so I can just ask him later, though I hope his answer is… maybe I shouldn't ask. He said the result was a success. The news report La Brava sent had no mention of Army of Death so that's one plus at least, I just wonder if it really was just the heroes' work that arrested them. Exodus knows how we make that show up in the news even with fighting. I don't want him taking so many unnecessary risks, but he's a really active and eager guy. Having him sit around while I do work on my own is a waste of resources too. Just recon while I worked on Italy wasn't great though. I need to feel confident enough to send more people on missions like the one I just did. They aren't the most dangerous, but infiltration have long term dangers. Letting our guards down to really get in, to become one of them while we're there, I still feel like an Italian mobster right now. A bit… Still, bringing peace to Italy was worth having everyone get a few days without combat. I need to focus more than ever though with our fights later today. A couple days' break might not seem like much to them, but if they've lost some of their combat senses I don't want anyone dying in avoidable ways. Too many, are already on their second lives. I need to-_

 _ **Brrriing!**_ Zach's thoughts got interrupted and he chuckled at the name he saw appear on his visor calling him. _Oh yeah, almost forgot._

* * *

 **A/N Thanks for reading! Hope you enjoyed the chapter! Get our first look at Zach for a while as I describe his appearance outside of his armor during his boxing match with Bobo. Had some fun writing this chapter so I hope y'all liked Zach the Italian mobster, as long as it lasted. He's got a new costume too, and there's a lot to dissect in here that I hope you guys can figure out or will just look at and enjoy as you wait to see what it leads to. 3 Anyway definitely down to hear predictions for what's coming, comments, questions, etc. So leave a review below telling me what you think!**

Naruffoku chapter 133 . Jan 17

How is this story not at the top? Viridescent hasn't updated in 10 years! This story is so beautifully crafted, how can this injustice continue!

 **Don't know what you mean... top of what? Maybe whatever list you're looking at it's not at the top because the filter you have it set as doesn't include rated 'M' stories? This is definitely the longest BNHA story... anyway glad you think the story's been "crafted" so beautifully! XD Thanks for the review!**

DarkJokes chapter 132 . 12h ago

Awww it's so cute hearing Sero talking about how he looks up to Zach. I kinda agree with him. He's much stronger than All-might or Midoriya could ever be at least in terms of mental strength. The dudes been through hell yet tries to make the world a better place.  
All hail Zach the god of Death!  
Thanks for the awesome chapter and boy the amount of content you post in a short time is always good. Godspeed mate

 **Glad you liked the Sero scene! Sero def believes in that mental strength of Zach, and he's still out there after everything... trying to pacify the mob! XD If you've thought I've posted quickly before, well here's another chapter in another day, and there's another coming at you tomorrow! (For sure, I just finished it ;) ). Thanks for the review!**

Rex559 chapter 132 . Jan 17

Que paso con rappa? Esta muerto

 **Si. Lo siento. Gracias... for reviewing (ran out of my Spanish vocab).**

Guest chapter 132 . 21h ago

Man, why have I been getting a Devilman Crybaby 'last stand' vibe from the AoD recently? You're not scheming are you?

 **... No spoilers! Lol make your predictions if you like, I'm betting the coming chapters are going to surprise you guys!**


	134. Chapter 134

**Disclaimer: I don't own Boku no Hero Academia**

 **Chapter 134:**

"Deku, hold on," Lemillion spun to the green-haired teen behind him on his left who was walking up to the big computer screen on the wall. Bakugo's eyes opened huge as he was already staring at the screen before Midoriya who was walking forward last as he had been guarding the door of the room they just busted into, looking out for other League of Villains' members who might be coming after them. There were a couple unconscious on the floor already, and the three heroes recognized one of them as a Tartaros escapee when they had arrived.

The computer that Lemillion had turned back on, since a villain cut the monitor when they busted in, had a long list on it with a name highlighted in red at the top with a blinking light over it and the words 'IN PROGRESS' glowing to the side. On all the other names there were labels of either, 'EXECUTED' or 'PENDING' to the right of the names. Midoriya stared to the top of the screen at what Lemillion was trying to hide from him after starting his last sentence with mentioning how it looked like a hit-list, then continuing with worry in his voice as he mentioned that there was a hit in progress… Lemillion had trailed off while looking at the name, and Midoriya had looked to him to see Lemillion staring back his way with a panicked look.

Deku's eyes were stuck up on the screen now though. The door behind him was the farthest thing from his mind. "Bastard," Bakugo snarled, and he turned and reached down to a villain who was still twitching on the floor despite being covered in burns from his explosions. Bakugo yanked him up by the shirt and shoved his other hand right in front of the villain's face. "WHAT'S THAT MEAN?!" Bakugo roared, his hand glowing and scaring the villain whose eyes were only partially squinted open while his face was burnt black. His vision was blurry though and the guy was barely conscious, so Bakugo clenched that open hand into a fist and socked the man in the face to jog him a little.

"Explosion K-" Lemillion started.

"Mom?" Midoriya whispered, at the sight of the blinking name 'INKO MIDORIYA.' His eyes shifted over to 'IN PROGESS' then back to his mom's name, then the status, and his entire world was shaking around him with his heartbeat pounding in his head.

"Deku. Hey DEKU!" Bakugo started shouting, letting go of the villain and stepping forward. "Wai-" He had seen the look on his classmate's and childhood friend's face changing before Lemillion did, as Lemillion was still partially distracted by both of his interns. Shouting came from the hallway and it sounded like it was getting closer to this room, and Lemillion darted his eyes that way. He started reaching a hand out towards Deku at the same time, but he was too late as the boy who started glowing with sparks bursting out of his body at the amount of energy pulsing through him, shot straight up into the ceiling and smashed a huge hole in it that sent cracks branching out across the ceiling all the way to the walls.

"What the hell was that?!" A villain out in the hall not far from the door shouted as the whole building shook.

"We can't let them get Shigaraki's kill list! Destroy the computers at all costs!"

 _"Kill list,"_ Bakugo's fists balled in fury and his vision started turning red as he lowered his gaze from the ceiling. The urge to chase after Deku was trumped for the moment by the rage he felt towards those coming closer, but he still had his rational thought processes too. _One of them will tell me exactly what 'in progress' means. Deku, get to your mom._ Bakugo pointed his hands behind him, and he blasted forward with a roar of rage.

Lemillion started sprinting forward too as he had a similar thought to the one his intern just had. He was also pulling his phone out though as he ran after Bakugo, sending out a message as fast as he could. _There's no time! Deku, don't lose your composure. You make mistakes when you get angry. You're not like Bakugo, you get rash when you get mad! Damn it! This is bad!_

* * *

In the city of Musutafu, at an apartment complex in a residential neighborhood, Inko Midoriya sat at her kitchen table with a cup of tea in her hand. She smiled and let out a laugh, lifting up a hand to her mouth and chuckling into it at something the man sitting across from her just said. "Ahh," Inko let out an exhale while lowering her cup after taking a sip. "It is sad to see you go. I really enjoy our talks, I don't think many people realize how much of a down to Earth person you really are, All Might."

The older man across from her with sunken cheeks and pushed back blond hair smiled back at the kind chubby woman who had offered him tea. His cup was empty, and he had just mentioned having to go but he smiled back at the woman who had become a friend a while ago after she had started calling him more regularly to check in on how Izuku was doing. Her son did not often bring up his goals as a hero to her nor talk about the day that All Might had told her how he wanted him to take his place in the world, but All Might was always happy to discuss 'Young Midoriya's' improvements with her. They had actually not talked much about Izuku that day though, other than the start when they talked about how he was out at his internship with Lemillion and Bakugo. Bakugo had been a topic of their conversation for a little, with Inko accrediting All Might to what she saw as a great improvement in his behavior recently.

All Might had tried to deny it and gave all the credit to Bakugo himself, but though Inko said she accepted it she really believed All Might to be too modest. She stood up to grab his empty cup to bring over to the sink when he offered to do it himself. "What kind of host would I be to make you clean up yourself?" Inko said as if it were common sense, though All Might wanted to counter about how being a good guest meant he should do it too. All Might did not mention that though. All Might looked to Inko as she was walking to the sink, as he had gotten up from his seat, and he saw a glare from out the window. It was a short flash of one that he barely noticed, and yet his decades of hero work suddenly flashed through his mind and to a moment twenty-three years ago when he caught a glimpse of a similar glare for just a brief moment, right before a hole broke through the window he saw it out of and only barely managed to dodge even in the muscular form of his prime.

He was moving before he even processed all of it and put the dots together. All Might ran at Inko who started turning to him in confusion, then the tea cups came out of her hands as All Might dove at her and tackled her. "Ah! All Might-" All Might held one arm behind the back of her head and the other behind her body as they hit the floor, trying to make it less painful as he dove on top of her. He stayed over her though as the glass showered down on their bodies, and Inko saw it in her peripheral vision falling to the sides of All Might's head. The tea cups shattered on the floor next to her, and All Might reached to the side and grabbed a chair that he knocked back in the right way to knock the table over near his feet. It took some strength that he did not know he had in this weak form, but he pulled the table back with his foot and then reached out and swung it around them so there was a wide surface between their heads and the window that they were below the line of fire of currently.

"What's happening?" Inko asked in fear, sitting up a little as All Might moved off of her body with an intense look in his dark eyes.

"I am so sorry," All Might began. _I always knew there was the possibility. I believed though, because Eziano Mozcaccio allowed me to live that no assassins would be so daring. Unless he has changed his mind. I need power right now. Young Midoriya, I never should have come to your mother's home. I put her in danger. I must let you know._ All Might reached down and grabbed his phone out of his pocket, and Inko realized she should be doing the same and shoved her hand down to grab her own.

She pulled it out and turned her phone on, only to stare at the device in confusion as there was no signal. "I always have signal here," Inko whispered.

 _Could it be?_ All Might's heart started racing, then he yanked his head backwards but still a splash of blood cut out of his right cheek as a brown spike cut through the table and right past his face into the floor behind them. "Move!" All Might shouted at the woman who started reaching a hand out to him but yanked it back at that yell straight at her from the bloodied man.

Inko pulled back, then she darted her eyes to the table next to them that the spike had torn through but not hit either of them on target. It had broken straight through her table with little effort though, and the brown spike bored deep into the floor of her kitchen tiles too. _I need to move!_ She shot her eyes over to the side where there was a gap between the kitchen and the hallway, and she dove for it and rolled into the divider not in any room but out of sights of the windows.

 _I need to get out a message somehow. Is it Raijin? Could he be here?_ All Might crawled backwards on the floor, and then he rolled across the floor and into the hallway through a different gap on the opposite side of the kitchen. He peeked around the hallway and looked down to the other opening where Inko had her back against the wall and was panting just as loudly as he was. "Do you have a landline?" All Might questioned. _We need to exhaust all options. If the phone does work though, calling the police would take too long. Young Midoriya, may be the only one fast enough, but he is so far away for his operation today based on what he told me… But there is one person who I could call if I just-_

Outside of the Midoriya apartment, a man standing on the roof of a slightly taller building frowned deeply while staring through the broken window of what was a motionless kitchen. He could see through the hole in the table that there was no body where he shot his attack, and he had caught the roll All Might made to get out of that room and into a spot that they could not see from the windows. "You just had to miss your shot," Phinx said, shaking his head in annoyance at the man prone on his side and still looking into the sniper scope.

"I don't know how All Might saw it coming! He's supposed to be retired and-"

"Lee," Phinx said, tapping a white earpiece in his right ear and saying it while ignoring the man at his feet. Vonugard started rising up to his feet at Phinx's side, slinging his rifle up onto his back as the operation was changing and he could adapt fast to it just as the team leader could. "Plan B."

 _But there is someone who I could call if I just-_ _**CRASH**_ All Might spun his head and stumbled out into the hall, backing up towards Inko Midoriya with his dark eyes huge and trembling at _what_ just smashed down her apartment's door. A ten foot tall orange monster pushed through the entranceway it made bigger while pushing through, and Inko screamed at the sight of what looked like a demon coming towards them. "Oh All Might," a voice came from the doorway, sounding excited and smug at the same time. A man walked into the door with a scar going down vertically over the right side of his face, and he wore dark blue sweats that looked so inconspicuous like he was not a trained killer on a mission but just a passerby jogger.

Lee cracked his neck to either side and smirked past his demon that he called there with his Quirk, Demon-Cast. "I always wanted to be the one to kill you. I never thought I'd get the chance, and I definitely wasn't expecting to get one today! Here we are though. The world does have, a strange way of giving us what we want." Lee smirked at the man and then ordered in a low voice, "Kill them."

All Might snapped back into the moment and he spun around, sprinting at Inko and reaching out to grab her arm and pull her away into another room. _He didn't think he'd be able to kill me today? He's not saying that because he expected the snipers to make their attacks. They weren't aiming at me either! They, they're here for Inko!_ All Might could not say that out loud, though he was hoping the usually quick woman was slower at the moment because of the intensity and fear of the situation. "Quickly! We need to-" **CRASH!** Another opening into the living room they were running through broke apart behind them, and a chunk of debris slammed into the back of All Might's left leg which caused him to trip.

"Ah!" All Might dropped down and he skid across the carpet.

"All Might!"

"Go!" All Might yelled up at the woman trying to stop for him.

Inko spun and she stared at the demonic creature marching towards her and lifting up huge orange claws covered in bumps and scabs. There were sharp nails coming off each finger on the claw, and All Might held out an arm to the side in front of Inko while pushing himself back up onto shaky legs. Lee smirked past his beast, "Now that's what I call, the number 1 hero-" his orange monster started swiping its claw in at the two of them, when the entire side wall of the living room broke apart in the shape of a young man whose fist was pulled back but already swinging forward as he came through the debris. Lee's eyes were bulging huge, and he started backpedaling backwards fast at the scream that echoed through the building and outside of it for another dozen mercenaries to hear.

 _"SSMMAASSSSHHHH!"_

* * *

Deku stood on the street outside his apartment. He had his home to his back, keeping the hole in his front wall in his peripheral vision. The boy had brought the fight outside to get it farther away from his mother and mentor back in the apartment, not that it was completely his choice to do so. The man he had attacked inside his home after smashing the orange monster going after his loved ones had fled back out the way he came, and when Midoriya chased after him, he was ambushed by two others. One of those two used an attack with a lot of splash damage, and there were still purple flames simmering on the walkway outside his destroyed front entrance.

The right sleeve of Deku's costume was torn off and still smoldering over where he threw it before, the flames not going out even after running out of material to burn. Deku's eyes darted back and forth around the neighborhood he grew up in. He saw blinds parting on different apartment windows, scared people cowering inside who he had to stay aware of while dodging attacks or deciding to take them head-on. The area was cramped, and his enemies had not all gathered directly in front of him. The two who had ambushed him had leapt away, and the one who he had chased after first had slammed his hands into the ground and created a huge white circle with strange patterns surrounding it in the middle of the road. Midoriya spotted a man leaping across rooftops to his right side, a sniper rifle on his back and an urban camo outfit on to try and blend in with the buildings better. He caught a glimpse of a man whose Quirk must have had something to do with camouflage too as the guy disappeared a second after Deku caught a glimpse of him.

 _Ten. Eleven, Twelve? A dozen of them, from what I see so far._ Deku glared at the man closest to him while keeping everything else under close watch. He kept his apartment in view, as well as all the other villains who he knew would either try ambushing him or getting around to the building they were attacking. _All Might got hurt protecting Mom. She'll wrap his wounds, but they can't get out of there. How long until the police arrive with other heroes? How long do I have to hold out on my own? They, were going to kill Mom! I can take them all myself- but I just need to stall. I_ _ **need**_ _to protect them more than anything. Even if I have All Might's power, and should be able to take all of them on my own…_ "League of Villains," Deku started, his eyes narrowing and an intense look spreading over his face. His eyes were dark and he glared straight into the enemy in front of him's, but Lee glared right back darkly and did not flinch at the intensity in the hero's eyes.

"Rise," Lee said, and then he brought his hands up from the floor waving his palms to the sky. Midoriya suddenly realized where that orange demon had come from, as the green head of a giant serpent shot out of the ground with the rest of its body slithering out and shooting into the air. It thinned out after fifty feet and then the tail shot out of the summoning circle on the floor, but the serpent just kept rising before curving its head down and glaring with glowing white eyes down at the teenage hero below. "By the way, we aren't League of Villains," Lee said, and then he hissed through his teeth.

The hiss made the snake shoot forward, right as Deku spotted the sniper jumping across buildings pulling off his rifle and aiming again. The man did not aim towards him, but towards the hole in the front of his apartment. "Get away from the hole!" Deku shouted, afraid his mom or All Might had come to see how he was doing. Then he jumped in the direction of the sniper in that same moment, moving so fast that the man holding the rifle only had a moment to react.

Vonugard was a professional assassin and experienced fighter though, and he already knew about the boy rising in front of him. He fired early, and Midoriya yanked his body to the side before realizing that the man could not have aimed that fast. The yank away was reactionary at the sight of the sniper jolting like that, though there was a suppressor on the end of the barrel so Midoriya almost had a hard time noticing what had happened. Because there was not as much of a blast on the shot though, Midoriya had gotten more cautious about it and dodged in case he was wrong. As he twisted his body away though, he swung around his right leg, yelling out in his head, _Smash!_

The wind from his kick slammed into the sniper who was still not expecting so much force from a kick a distance away. It took him off his feet and threw him back across the roof into an air-conditioning system that he dented halfway into with his head snapping back as he jolted to that sudden stop. Midoriya was thrown backwards by the force of his own kick, but he swung his other leg up to spin himself in midair to face towards the ground. He pointed his right hand down and flicked his index finger at 50%, then he spun to the side while rising up higher and punched his left fist out at the green serpent flying towards him.

The villain who had tried sprinting at the building while Deku was up in the air dodging serpents and fighting snipers never saw the attack coming. The flick of Midoriya's finger alone slammed into his back while he was in mid-sprint and smashed his face down into the pavement. The six armed brute grunted and got dazed for a second, but he brought all his muscular arms up at his sides and started pushing back down into the cracked pavement below him. _Don't know how the kid knew, but I'm getting that fucking bonus._ Escarlin yanked himself up to his feet and then clapped his six hands together in front of him. He pulled his arms back to the sides, leaving three sticking trails of gray goop dropping from between them that he swung up towards the apartment entrance again. _The thing about heroes, is they care too-_

Midoriya saw his opponent get back up, and as he had dodged around and kept attacking his other opponents, he angled himself in the perfect way to be behind the eight foot tall woman in a red track suit holding a pair of automatic pistols. His punch in her side while she was still spinning towards him and sent her airborne with spit and blood flying out of her mouth. She smashed into the thick gooey ropes coming out of Escarlin's hands, and she changed his trajectory so instead of rising up onto the walkway on the Midoriya apartment's floor, he slammed into the wall a floor down and bounced off with a look of frustration covering his face. He removed the goop from four arms and twisted his body around as he still dangled from the top two.

Deku decided he needed to get a direct hit to take this muscular villain out this time, but as he slammed his fist forward, Escarlin rose three up and blocked the boy he had just spun around to face. Midoriya tried to hold back some power even while pushing for a direct hit, but he pushed more into it and the wind exploded out around them. Escarlin was punching his fourth free arm around the other three to try and nail the boy on the side of his face, but the force was too much and stretched the goop holding him enough that he slammed into the wall behind him and cracked the entire thing. Deku yelled out in anger, "SMASH!" He broke through Escarlin's guard, and a needle slammed into the back of his right calf at that same moment that he was finishing his attack.

The young hero grit his teeth in pain but he followed through anyway. His head was already turning, and the boy in the green costume kicked his left leg in front of him to flip himself backwards in midair instead of dropping to the ground. Escarlin never dropped to the ground either though, as he was jammed too far into the wall with his eyes rolled back in his head so there was no effort to even drop down this time. Windows had cracked all over the floor below the Midoriya's apartment, and the entire building shook as the villain was lodged into the wall. All Might looked over at a piece of glass he positioned to give a view of the front of the building and the hole at the end of the hall, allowing him to look out for any villains who might get past his successor. He caught a glimpse of a green costume rising past that hole for a second, then saw Deku shooting off in a blur towards another villain assaulting his childhood home.

 _Midoriya Shonen. I do not know how you-_ "Ah-" All Might winced in pain as Inko poured some anti-infection on the back of his left leg where he was bleeding more than the cut across his face. Blood dripped down All Might's right cheek from a shallow gash that sliced right over his blond sideburns and had cut some hair off.

"Are you alright, All Might?" Inko asked worriedly, bringing her head to the side of All Might's and looking carefully at the man who had gotten injured to help her. All Might felt the situation was the opposite though, and he nodded with a look of regret on his face for dragging Inko into all of this. "Do not be concerned about me right now," Inko whispered softer, while turning her head and looking back towards the hallway of her apartment. A more worried look spread over her face and All Might turned back that direction too. "Please, is there nothing we can do to help Izuku?"

"At a time like this," All Might began. "The most we can do for him, is making this place as safe as possible so he does not need to worry about us. If we can give him a few more seconds that he does not need to rush to our aid in a worst case scenario that they get back in here." All Might started pushing himself up, against Inko's wishes though she did not pull back against him very hard. "Let us move some furniture around, and block off this room. Trust," All Might continued, turning to the woman behind him and giving her a smile. Her eyes opened huge and All Might finished, "In your son. He is very strong."

"He might be strong," a voice said behind All Might. Inko's huge eyes at the encouraging thing All Might just told her started trembling and growing even wider. All Might started turning his head back, and they looked towards the kitchen where a man was standing just inside of a broken window without any sign of how he had gotten there. He was wearing a black costume with red highlights on the neck, shoulders, and waist. The black hoodie he had worn over it was discarded, as stealth was out the window so there was no need to try staying under the radar anymore. "But in an escort mission, you should never leave the sight of those you're protecting." The man's hands flicked at his sides, curling his palms open and pointed at the ground. Brown spikes slid slowly out the center of his palms while he locked eyes on the two before him.

All Might opened his mouth to yell, but he froze at the look on the face of the man in front of him. _No hesitation. Assassins like this._ "What about Eziano?" All Might questioned, confusing the woman behind him who he held up an arm in front of at the same time. All Might moved more in front of Inko while the villain before him glared into his eyes. "You cannot harm those who are not your targets-"

"Unfortunately, both you and her are fair game," Phinx replied. All Might grit his teeth at the sound of the one thing he was most worried the man before him was about to say. Phinx stepped quickly into the living room across the hall, using the piece of glass All Might had put on the floor to check when a good time to move forward was. He left the view of the outside, and he made sure to kick that glass down from its position so that if the boy were to look in from outside there would be no chance of Deku even getting a reflecting glimpse of him in. "In fact, All Might, you are not my target. I'd prefer not to kill you if at all possible." He said it, and All Might's eyes did not flinch but stayed narrowed and furious. The thin eyes glaring back at him were dark and menacing, eyes that had terrified countless villains in the past but Phinx stared straight into without hesitation.

"I-I'm your," Inko began, her voice afraid at the sound of that. She was scared enough as it was, but she did not blame All Might for getting her dragged into this. This discovery was scaring her a lot more though. "Why?" She whispered. "Why would you-"

"Because All Might gave his power to your son," Phinx replied. He rose up his right hand and the brown spike that slid halfway out of it aimed straight at Inko's head, only for All Might to yank his own head in front of hers. "I feel you should at least know why you're about to die," he finished. _Shigaraki. A target is a target, but I'm surprised you haven't learned not to drag in families. If Deku's as strong as I've heard, he can't know it was me unless we kill him too. A perfect three for three._ Phinx fired the brown spike straight at All Might's head.

 _ **Squelch-crnch**_ "Gah- ack… shit." The woman a few feet in front of Phinx with her right fist up and shaking dropped down to her right knee. She had tried pushing it forward, even after the brown spike had pierced through her chest that she did not expect it to break so far into. Phinx had meant to piece through All Might's head and the woman's behind his in one shot though, and he wanted it as painlessly and most efficiently as possible so he put in his maximum force. So the woman who had rushed directly into the path of the attack to block it got a hole in her left hand she held in front of her chest, her chest too, and the bloody tip of the spike was sticking out of the back of her baggy costume that All Might stared at in shock and then horror when the woman dropped down to a knee.

"Wonder-lass?" All Might whispered. Inko pulled her head to the side again to look past the man who she thought was about to die, and she stared at the woman her son had talked about many times who fell to a knee but was still trying to keep her right fist up while glaring into Phinx's eyes.

 _Fuck._ Phinx pulled back and he got an anxious and furious expression on his face as he stared at the heroine who had come out of nowhere. _Now she, wasn't a target. A hero getting in the way, collateral damage, it ruins a reputation. Fuck. This isn't good-_ Phinx rose his other hand and aimed towards All Might, but Wonderlass swung her right fist forward. She was not able to get closer to Phinx as her body was not obeying her correctly, but she focused all her mental strength on keeping Super used through that arm, and she swung it at full force at the assassin whose shot went off target while his arm was thrown to the side, his body blasted back across the hall and into the kitchen sink that started spraying water everywhere at the collision.

Midoriya had his fist lodged into the glowing eye of a huge serpent in midair, when he caught a glimpse out the corner of his eye through the opening of his apartment of something flying through his hallway. _NO!_ He had made sure, or at least he thought he had made sure that only one person had been able to enter since he left the apartment. He had even made sure to take out the guy who he saw camouflage himself with his Quirk early on, so that the guy would not be able to slip into his apartment when he was unawares. He bounced on the air with small flicks of his feet, and he rocketed himself back towards his apartment while screaming, "MOM! ALL MIGHT!" Midoriya cracked the wall at the other end of his hallway by how forcefully he stopped himself to be able to turn after what he just saw fly across it.

Midoriya looked towards his kitchen sink and saw a villain looking dazed with his head slumped back on the wall, his arms sprawled out to his sides looking like he was trying to find something to hold onto. He turned the other way towards his living room, and he saw the person who he had spotted rushing into his apartment and did not panic over when it happened a few seconds ago. He had thought she was just going to make sure that All Might was alright though, or to protect the civilians or even just check if they were alright. He had no idea that when Wonderlass arrived on the scene first, having come as fast as she could when she heard the call over the police scanners, that she had heard with her Super hearing the man inside the apartment about to kill his targets. Midoriya had no idea what she was rushing in on, as she had not even had time to shout towards her old intern to warn him what she was doing. Midoriya had just been able to fully focus on the monster that had broken an entire corner off the last building he was standing on before breathing fire at him out of its unhinged jaw.

Lee stepped out of his hiding place outside the apartment complex and looked over towards his serpent that was the second of his demons to go down in the fight. He ground his teeth and his nose started bleeding. His heart pounded, but the mercenary dropped down to the ground and placed his shaking palms flat on the floor. _More heroes are going to arrive soon. Deku's more powerful than I imagined, he's really the next All Might in the making. Only Kargonn can stop him. I hate summoning him. I can just imagine Demon-Cast is a nickname, for bringing monsters I imagine… except no one knows. I didn't imagine these things up. And I never called for Kargonn that first time. He just, came. Fuck. FUCK!_ Lee could see unconscious comrades to his sides, on the roofs of buildings and smashed into walls, and he heard sirens approaching not far in the distance.

A red circle formed on the ground under Lee's palms, wider than the white ones and making a huge circle five meters wide. Patterns stretched in from the outsides of the circle, carving into the ground in what looked like liquid that seeped away as if in blood trails to make symbols and more circles and then a different layer of symbols. The patterns carved straight under Lee's legs, and then up onto his legs which made him tremble more while forcing his arms harder into the floor so he would not pull away at the dark, cold feeling inside him. _I am the master. The Demon King. Kargonn will obey me. Just, the fact that he talks scares me as to what he really is. Why he's inside me._ Lee curled his fingers into the ground and grit his teeth, then tore the corners of his lips up even while red lines cut in up his neck and over his face in creepy patterns. The circle finished and then the center of it turned pure red, spreading out from the smaller circle in the middle and seeping over the patterns until it reached the outside circle.

The entire circle glowed blood red and a red head emerged from the middle of it. There were five horns sticking out of the red skull, curved up and covered in sharp barbs. People standing near their windows and looking out pulled away in terror, and others started running for back doors to just start evacuating now. A mercenary hired in the team who was working with Lee for the first time backed up from the window he was watching the fight from inside. _Things have broken down. If they kill them they kill them, but I'm leaving now. I'll head to the rendezvous and wait for whoever's left. The cops are already on their way, it doesn't matter if signals are blocked anymore._

Back inside the Midoriya's apartment, Deku knelt a knee at Wonderlass's side and helped her get back on her own. When she used all her power to swing the punch at Phinx she had lost her balance on one knee and fallen to the floor. The force of her punch had blown wind backwards too pushing away the other two weaker people behind her who finally rushed forward again and tried to help the muscular woman wheezing down on her knees with blood spilling out of her mouth. Wonderlass reached a hand up and grabbed at the brown spike piercing through her body. She gripped it and tried putting her Super strength to work crushing it, just to see if she could. "It's strong," she muttered, blood splashing out of her mouth as she spoke about the thing impaling her through front and back.

"Deku," All Might grabbed Wonderlass and held her there on her knees, and the boy who was staring at her with a trembling expression brought his gaze up to his mentor's. All Might's look was not one of despair. There was no panic on his face. All Might just said while looking straight into the younger man's eyes, "I have her. Keep your heart under control, and stop them." All Might looked behind Izuku and towards the kitchen where they heard a loud noise, and Deku turned too to see the man slumped into the wall had gotten off it.

All Might looked back himself at the woman he knelt next to and was holding up as best he could. _How did you know, that I needed you?_ "Shimo," All Might whispered, as he saw Wonderlass's half-closed eyes having trouble focusing up on what was in front of her. "Hang on."

Wonderlass turned her head slowly to the side and then the bloody right corner of her lip closer to All Might lifted up. "Hey there, stud…"

 _Wonderlass!_ Deku turned to face his enemy but he could not get the sight of that woman with a spike through her body out of his mind. He heard her weak voice behind him, and his fists clenched harder still as he glared towards the murderer in front of him. A black flame flared out of Deku's body, his head pulling back and look of rage spreading over it that made Phinx pull back at the sudden sight that gave him flashbacks and terrors that shook him to his core. Deku was not expecting such a strong reaction, but he saw the darkness swirling in his vision too and he heard All Might's voice echo in his head. _I need to stay in control. I am in control of my emotions. The past holders have left these for me. They're mine to control! CONTROL! Mom's right behind me, All Might and an injured Wonderlass too._ Deku took in a deep breath, and then the floor cracked beneath his feet and he shot forward at the man who still had not recovered from the sight of that dark aura flaring around Deku.

Phinx was not ready. He rose his arms fast still, but nowhere near as fast as Deku. Phinx stopped raising his arms though as he was faced with a red mass of back muscle in front of him. Wind blew around the sides of the figure in front of him, and the being's feet skid back a couple of inches while the force of the punch smashed into the table and windows and sent kitchenware flying. "Kargonn," Phinx said, recognizing the figure who he had only seen once before, and getting a bead of sweat on the side of his face as he said that name.

 _He got there in time._ Lee stood in the hall of the Midoriya apartment. _He obeyed me and protected Phinx. Kargonn is under my control. I can't forget that! I can't get scared of my own-_

"Phinx," Kargonn said, while Midoriya stared at the being with his determined and steady look breaking. Midoriya rose his gaze from the hand that had stopped his punch with little effort. He stared at the face of the creature in front of him that was one of the most terrifying things he had ever seen in his life, despite being much smaller than either of the creatures he had seen before. Midoriya caught a glimpse of Lee in the hallway along with the flash of red, and he knew this was similar to that serpent he had seen before. He at least thought he knew that though, when he looked at the demonic being's face. Hearing it talk made Midoriya's heart clench up though as much as it did when the demon stopped his punch mid-flight. _Is it like Dark Shadow?!_

"And who are you?" Kargonn questioned, pushing back on the fist against his palm and grinning a mouth full of sharp yellow teeth at the boy stumbling away from him.

"What are you doing?!" Lee called out, looking at Kargonn like he was an idiot for not curling his hand around the boy's while the kid was clearly not yet focused.

"You commanded that I protect Phinx, not that I fight this child," Kargonn said. The monster had a humanoid body, other than the spikes on top of his skull and sticking out the back of his arms and legs. He was nude. The man did not wear clothing on any part of his body, and he was clearly a man with the long appendage dangling between his muscular legs. Kargonn's face was demonic and yet at the same time, handsome. His smile was threatening yet it did not look sadistic, but intrigued and with a whole lot of excitement hidden behind those pitch black eyes. "I am glad you summoned me though, Master. It has been too long." _He is too afraid of me. I must show him that I am one to be called on most frequently. I believed he would understand that from my power alone. Perhaps, this is my opportunity._ "What is it you wish of me?"

Sirens came closer so they were just outside the building, and a voice yelled towards the hole in the wall, "Phinx! Lee! Some heroes are showing up!"

Phinx stepped out to the left side of Kargonn. Lee was on the right of the three and still partially in the hallway. "How many men do we still have?" Phinx asked.

"Eight are down," Lee replied.

The response did not give away to Midoriya what the exact number of enemies he still had to face was. Lee lifted an arm and rubbed under his nose as more blood dripped out from his nostrils. Phinx saw that and he glared harder at the boy before him. He glared even harder still as he saw Deku's eyes darted over to Lee when that happened as well. _Lee's weak. Vorcovo is up, and Deny should still be in hiding nearby. One other still remaining nearby._ Phinx rose a hand to his ear and tapped on the small earpiece in it, "Two minutes. Keep the heroes out of here for that long and then scatter. We have this."

"Mom! All Might! Get back," Midoriya lifted up his fists and he bent his legs, spreading his feet apart into a fighting stance and glaring furiously at the men in front of him. _The summoner's weak. His name's Lee. Phinx is the leader. Kargonn, will he disappear if Lee goes down? Can I take Lee down? Why does he look so, ambitious? Like he has plans that have nothing to do with these two's?! Focus on stopping them! Kargonn is powerful. I have to go a hundred percent. I need to try Doubling, even at fifty? Or drop down to 40 and go for it. Do it!_ He made his decision fast, _There are too many left. I can't injure myself with three people I need to protect behind me. Three- three people who I love! Mom, All Might, Wonderlass…_ Midoriya's body started glowing and energy pulsed through him so much brighter as his muscles tensed and bulged, and he yelled out at the villains in front of him, "I WON'T LET YOU KILL THEM!"

* * *

"Hey, what's going on?" Kirishima asked, jogging towards the couches of the common room where he saw a group of his classmates gathered. He had seen a horrified look flash across Jirou's face at what she was watching, and he ran up and around the couch to get closer to the screen blocked off by his standing classmates. "That's right nearby-"

"We have unconfirmed reports that this is an attack by the League of Villains. Their target from what we have gathered is one Inko Midoriya, the mother of-"

"You have to get back! It isn't safe to be this close!"

"And now Kamui Woods has arrived on the- whoa!"

 _ **BOOOM!**_

"They're after Midoriya's mom?!" Kirishima exclaimed. He spun towards the door and his fists balled in fury. _His place isn't too far from here. If we rush. Maybe we could still-_

"What was that explosion?" Sato asked, his voice nervous as he looked at the screen and the panicked reporters rushing down the street farther from the initial police perimeter. "And, what is the League of Villains doing? We haven't heard from them in-"

"Does it matter?" Jirou snapped. "Whatever it is, we need to…"

"…Unfortunately we haven't received any word from inside the neighborhood since the attack started! The only information we have heard from our police source that came in about this was from Lemillion who discovered the attack in progress while on a different mission. We know Deku himself is on the scene now, as well as several pro heroes who responded to the threat…"

Mineta pulled back on the couch he was standing on. _Why isn't anyone calling the police from inside? Unless, they can't?_

Kirishima was done waiting. He ran at the front door and he nearly slammed it down in his hurry. The reporters continued shouting as they ran, "…our news helicopter is on the way to the scene right now, but we still don't know much about the assailants or the situation inside the neighborhood right now! We can only hope that Deku has…"

"Kirishima wait! I'm coming too!" Jirou yelled, and she ran towards the front door and her classmate who just glanced back at her once and nodded his head. They rushed out of the dorm ignoring shouts from their other classmates behind them, leaving a half dozen others wondering what they should do now.

"We, should go," Ashido began, and she turned to the door again herself after staring at the screen for a few more seconds in hesitation. "If it were one of our parents, Midoriya would come help us."

None of the others could argue with her there. The entire feeling of this situation had them all unnerved though, and Sato's mind was not on Midoriya's mom but on his own. _Going after our families? Or is it just Midoriya's? Why now? Is Raijin there? If he is, can Midoriya beat him? Mom…_ Her face appeared in Rikido's mind and his teeth bared in anger. _What the hell is this, feeling?_

Todoroki Shoto opened up his fifth story window as running down the stairs would take too long after he made his decision. His mother's face and long white hair faded from his mind, and he glared into the distance where he saw a trail of black smoke far, far away. _I can reach in time._ Ice shot out of Todoroki's window and he leapt out onto it while pointing his left hand behind him. His hand glowed and his eyes darkened, _I won't let them do this to you, Midoriya. I've seen what losing family can do, even to a great hero._

Dozens of people started for the location of the attack at the same time. Heroes Midoriya had fought alongside and classmates who wanted to help him. He had touched the hearts of a lot of people over the years, and yet the assassins facing him knew how little time they had. The explosions that went off were a failsafe Phinx had prepared in case the need arose for a smokescreen, for a way to slow down the heroes and cause more damage that they would have to focus on instead of all convening on a single location. Two comrades of his outside of the apartment had guns they removed the silencers from, and one of them had a flashy Quirk too that managed to keep the attention of the three heroes who arrived first after Wonderlass. Those heroes were able to call in for support while they were fighting though, letting the merc with the flashy Quirk know that their comrade who was blocking the cell lines had either been taken down or had run away. That thought made him think about ditching and hitting the rendezvous too already, as things were getting too dodgy and chances of getting arrested were rising every second he was there.

Phinx knew the way the others were thinking. He did not tell them to stay for too long because he knew if he had shouted to just hold off the heroes, they would know that he did not have a control on the situation. He gave himself a time limit so that they would think he could control it up until then, because the heroes would not gain control in just that amount of time, and so that he himself would know when was the time to just abandon the job and run. His reputation mattered a lot to him though, and he felt it was because of his reputation that even in these tough times he still had job offers coming to him frequently. So Phinx focused on the woman who was his main target, the one he had been specifically hired to kill.

Phinx sprinted forward and dove, his body rising just over the chair tumbling across the floor towards him. He hit on the other side and rolled forward over his head, coming out of it with his right hand jabbing forward and firing a brown spike at the woman pulled back far in the room. The spike was in mid-flight, when a fist slammed into the side of it and redirected it across the room and through the wall. Phinx was shocked that the boy moved fast enough to knock away his shot in mid-flight, but he did not get flustered and just jammed his other hand forward while the divider wall behind him blew to pieces. Instead of two gaps in the living room connecting to the hall and kitchen, the entire wall blew apart with Kargonn diving through at his opponent who had rushed away to stop Phinx.

Deku spun around while planting his hands down on the ground, and he kicked both legs at Kargonn at 80% power while doubling all his strength. He felt his bones creaking and he clenched his teeth hard only to still yell out in pain as he felt a fracture in his right leg where the needle had hit him in the calf a while back, making that leg feel so much weaker the longer he had fought for. Midoriya had pulled the needle out of his leg, but the strange sensation he initially only felt in his calf had risen up to his thigh and hamstring, not that the pain of that feeling was noticeable now that he had fractured that leg. The double kick had so much power that all the debris flying forward around Phinx smashed back into Kargonn who was still in midair falling out of the wall. Without anything to plant himself on, Kargonn was thrown back through the divider, while the ceiling cracked above them and the walls dented outwards with paint chipping off of them at the powerful kicks made indoors.

"Izuku!" Inko shouted towards her son who screamed in pain after that kick.

"Stay back!"

All Might grabbed Inko by the arm and pulled her behind him, as the man in charge of the operation was not down for the count even after being slammed into a side wall by the force of those kicks. Phinx grabbed the wall behind him and pushed brown spikes out his palms to ease his back off of it. He glared towards the two adults on his right more than the boy who was dropped down on his left foot and right knee. _I just need one shot to-_

"NOOO!" Kargon roared. Phinx spun and his eyes grew the size of saucers. The force of the kick that just hit him did not feel like it had hit him with its full force. He thought that was because the kick was aimed more at Kargonn, but when he turned he could see back into the hall and where Lee had been standing with a bloody nose. The blow had smashed through the wall's rubble and slammed into him too, in fact the blow was meant mostly for him even though he was the farthest one from Deku's mom at the time. "Stop it! You can't- NO!" Kargonn's eyes snapped down as the floor below him turned red, a circle spreading out from his feet and expanding. "I don't want to go! Raa! RAAA! _**RAAAAA!"**_ His face started twitching, snapping back and forth with his smooth skin scrunching up and his chiseled jaw line distorting. He reared his neck back and let out a horrifying roar that echoed outside the building and around the neighborhood, terrifying the evacuating civilians so much that the evacuation turned into a panic of people sprinting away from the area.

"I can't," Lee muttered, slouched down on his butt with his lower back against the wall but the rest of his body hunched forward. He tried to lift his head, but he felt out of energy completely and he could not hold onto his Quirk any longer. He did raise his eyes a bit and stare in an uneasy way at the red circle that spread on the floor ahead of him. Lee rose his eyes more and he saw Kargonn turned to him, his black eyes full of livid fury, and Kargonn snapped his head towards him and let out a bloodcurdling roar. Kargonn's horns and hands seared as he slammed them out towards Lee, an invisible barrier appearing up from the edge of the circle below him that kept him from getting out of it.

"You can't make me! I won't go back! THIS WORLD IS-" Kargon's legs dropped down into the floor, and he roared and slammed his arms out again, clawing his sharp nails through the invisible barrier that was unable to hold him. He slammed his smoking arms outside of the barrier and dug his claws into the ground outside of it, but his body continued sinking down more and more into the red circle each second. "I won't! YOU HEAR ME?! Master! RUN! RUN NOW!"

 _He knows…_ Lee thought, his heart racing even as he felt barely conscious. His vision was blurry as he saw the demon sinking back to where it came from, wherever that was. _He loves coming out. He knows, if I'm caught again, he won't be coming back…_

"I don't think so!" Deku slammed Phinx's left arm into the wall behind the man, when Phinx started raising it with everyone still staring towards a sinking Kargonn. Midoriya brought his right fist back after smashing Phinx's arm into the wall with his left, and he pulled Phinx's left arm farther to the side to make him off target when the man started moving his right too. The yank caused Phinx to fire one of his Spikes into the floor between Deku's feet instead of through the top of his right foot, and then Deku slammed his right fist forward while biting down and tensing his entire body. "CHICAGOOOO-" Deku's fist slammed into the side of Phinx's head while his left hand kept pulling the man to the side, and then Deku twisted his body and came off his own feet while swinging his right arm down at the floor. "SMMAASSHHH!"

Wind blew away from Deku in all directions, shattering the last of the windows and blowing all the glass in them outwards. All Might held his arms out in front of Inko to protect her from the force, but he stumbled back into her and she had to hold her arms up to stop him from falling. Inko had to close her eyes for a second but she squinted them open and stared towards her son, his body horizontal with one arm pulling Phinx's to the side and the other fist slamming the villain's face into the floor. The collision with the floor was a whole extra hit on Phinx who was already done from the hit in the face, ribs breaking and his arm dislocating as Deku pulled it too hard while smashing his body down. It was a good thing alone that Deku did not rip the man's arm off completely.

Behind Inko and All Might, a woman with a shaved head and wearing a dark blue costume was leaning against the cracked wall. Wonderlass had her eyes squinted open too, and she lifted her lips at the corners despite the blood trails going down them to her chin and dripping off. "Nice work, kid," Wonderlass said.

Deku was panting in the middle of the room, staring down at Phinx and grinding his teeth in pain as he stood on his agonizing right leg and his left that felt creaky too. He heard that voice though and his entire body froze, Phinx's left arm dropping from his grasp and his head turning to the side. He looked past his shocked mother and proud mentor, while All Might started turning with his look turning to shock too at the compliment Wonderlass just said.

 _She never,_ Deku started thinking, his face twisting in an ugly way. His eyes darted back towards Lee, and they only briefly stopped on a part of the floor that was empty and had no sign that something very spooky just happened there over it. Lee's head was bowed again and he had some blood dripping from his face into his lap, his legs sprawled out in front of him to the sides and the man not budging an inch. Phinx was laying flat on the ground too, his head snapped to one side and him barely looking able to move, though he was twitching a bit. Deku ran towards Wonderlass after checking and making sure that they both were unable to keep fighting.

All Might ran over to Wonderlass's side too, and he fell down next to her as he tried ignoring the pain in his left leg only to fail as his legs were not muscular and could not hold him with that injury. All Might did not even call out in pain though as he fell, he just rose his head back up and looked worriedly at Wonderlass who gave him a small smile. "You look like such a weakling right now," Wonderlass said, her voice quiet and her face pale and weak. Her breathing was soft, and Midoriya's eyes grew huge as he got down on her other side as All Might.

"Wonderlass," Inko Midoriya started, stepping towards the woman slouched against a cracked wall of her destroyed apartment. Inko's eyes had water in them, and she said to the woman who lifted her head to look back at her. "It is great to finally meet you. I see, Izuku was right. You are an amazing hero." Inko thought about the scary man who her son had just defeated, who had fired that brown spike trying to kill her and All Might. "Thank you, for saving my life," Inko whispered in a pained tone.

"I, we have to save-" Deku started.

"Not, this time," Wonderlass said, then she coughed and blood splashed out of her mouth in front of her. "Help me with this, Deku." She said it in a stronger tone, while raising up shaky arms. She struggled to bring them up, and her face got more and more frustrated the longer it was taking her to just do this alone. Deku's eyes shook but he reached forward and grabbed her hands, and he brought her hands to her chest where the back of a brown spike was sticking out of. His eyes darted behind him again to check on the villains when he heard a crash outside. Deku also heard the shouts of other heroes though, and his legs were hurt making it so he could not help without seriously injuring himself even more. He did not know if those were just excuses or not, but he looked back forward and fully focused on Wonderlass who his hands moved up to the chest of, grabbing the brown spike just as he had helped her do.

"Are you sure?" All Might questioned softly.

"I want this thing, out of me," Wonderlass replied. She cracked a bloody grin, "Haven't been impaled, by something this big, since you still had that muscle form of- AHH!" Wonderlass started yanking the spike from her chest, but she was moving slow and could barely find the power to do it. The spike kept sliding out even when she stopped putting in as much pressure though, and her eyes squinted open again after clenching them in pain. All Might looked at Deku appearing like he wanted to tell him to stop, but Wonderlass said to the boy locking eyes with her, "Thanks, for this. And…"

 _If she can just hold on for a little. If we can stop the bleeding once this is out, then I could get Eri to reverse the wound-_

"And thanks, for these past few months." The other two there glanced at Deku confusedly, while Izuku's eyes started shaking and rising from the spike he was pulling out to Wonderlass's face again. "I know you did something, last time," Wonderlass said. "To save me…" The pressure Wonderlass was putting on the spike returned, twice as hard as before and moving it faster which let the blood pour out the hole in her back and then out her front too as she yanked it all the way in one last burst. She gasped out as she finally removed the painful object that had been lodged through her. The spike dropped from her hand and hit the ground next to her, and a satisfied look spread over Wonderlass's face as she leaned her head back on the wall behind her. "Thanks… goodbye."

Wonderlass's head tilted a bit to the side, her neck muscles loosening though her smile stayed plastered like that on her face even as she let out her last breath.

Izuku opened his mouth to respond but it froze that way at the sight of the slight movement of Wonderlass's head. _Eri! Eri could- Eri… Eri can't, I can't-_ Midoriya's hands were shaking at his sides. His eyes watered up and his head bowed, his breathing speeding up faster as his eyes bulged huge. _She died, saving my mom. They targeted my mom because of me. Because I'm trying to be the new All Might. I'm putting her in danger, and I- I got Wonderlass!_ "Ahh, haa, ahhh," Izuku started breathing in and out heavily, his breath staggered and his heart aching in pain as he rose his eyes back to the woman before him. _I, I can't. Eri can't, turn this back- and I can't make her, not after… but, there is…_

 _Zach._ Midoriya's heavy staggered breathing cut short. All Might had just lowered his head and closed his eyes, reaching down and holding one of Wonderlass's hands with both of his. Inko shifted an unsettled look at the side of All Might's head, thinking on something she had heard earlier that she needed to talk to both of the boys in front of her about soon. She stepped forward between the two though and she put a hand down on All Might's left shoulder, and the man rose his head a little and turned in. As Inko reached out for her own son though, she heard his voice. "Zach," he whispered it and his heart raced faster, while the other two stared at the seventeen year old with their eyes wide.

 _Zach! Why aren't you here?!_ Midoriya clenched his teeth and he looked up, pulling away from Wonderlass and calling out at the ceiling, "Zach!"

"Izuku," Inko whispered, her face pulling back with pain as her son couldn't accept what had just happened.

"Young Midoriya," All Might began.

"ZACH!" Deku shouted at the ceiling. He roared it like he was really calling his old friend. He yelled it and he started panting, getting up to his feet and clenching his fists so hard at his sides in mental and physical pain. _Come back! If you're watching. I know some of the others still think that you would come to save them if they died, so come back now!_ "ZACH! I need you-" Midoriya froze and his voice cut off. He froze and he started lowering his head, and Inko and All Might stopped looking at him in as much pain at the voice they heard that shook all three of them.

"Don't," the voice whispered, scratchy and barely audible. Izuku lowered his eyes and he glared in fury at the man whose attacks were those brown spikes, the same kind as the one he just pulled of Wonderlass's chest. He stomped towards the man whose head was face was down, but his body was moving as he twisted around and tried to pull himself up weakly. Izuku spotted through the hallway the man slouched against the wall just twitched too, and Lee's head started to lift up. Midoriya's head turned back solely to Phinx though, his breathing speeding up more and more, as the man there lifted his face covered in blood, "Don't bring, Sazaki here…"

The blood all over his face did not make it difficult to see at all. Inko, Izuku, and All Might could all see Phinx's face clearly. They looked towards the man who rose his head with fear filling his eyes. He stared at Izuku in a terrified way at how the boy was just shouting sounding like he was actually calling the one he was shouting for to them. When Phinx saw his face though, he hesitated and he realized maybe his mind was still just too boggled from what had just felt like a train slamming into his face.

Lee rose his head up with sheer terror covering his own bloodied mug though, and he started in a hoarse but panicked tone, "Please. Please you, you already caught us."

"What are you-" Deku started.

"Send us to prison," Lee begged, his eyes shaking and the boy in front of him looking less blurry as his panic made him stay conscious. "Please," he said, his voice raspy and gargled by the blood in his mouth that spilled out as he spoke. Deku stared over towards the man and he pulled his head back at the look on Lee's face. The two men who had faced him down with a demon among them, who had just fought him tooth and nail while trying to kill his mother and mentor, they were scared.

All Might looked at the men too with his jaw dropped. The way he had looked at them, the looks he had given and seen Deku give only for those men to stay composed and keep fighting calmly. _Just at the sound of his name,_ All Might thought, his heart pounding in his chest with an expression of fear crossing over his face. Inko Midoriya pulled back too, looking back to her son and then All Might, and then to those two near-unconscious villains who were still apparently awake enough to plead for their lives.

"What do you know?" Midoriya asked, looking back to Phinx and bending down in front of him. Phinx's eyes grew wider, and Deku snapped at him, "What do you know about Zach?"

Phinx's mouth closed, and his head bowed back down to the floor. "Hey! HEY!" Midoriya shouted at the man who fell silent. He spun to Lee who was the more afraid of the men, and who was still looking at him with a trembling look though he shifted that gaze to Phinx for a moment. "What are you talking about? Do you know about- Tell me!" Midoriya shouted it when the man he was speaking to just dropped his head again, his strength to argue and struggle leaving him as he realized that the shouts of the teenager in front of him were really just in vain. "I'll, if you don't tell me I'll…"

Lee and Phinx did not care about what his threats would be though. They weren't afraid of heroes. The two were only afraid of the one they were not going to talk about there, and risk inciting his wrath. They were only afraid, of Death.

* * *

 **A/N Hope you enjoyed! 2 If you guys don't remember Lee and Phinx, they were the guys from the Syndicate chapter in the mercenary team hired by Fergus... Phinx was the one who shot his Spike into the kid nuke, though that was a long time ago now (back before Christmas of the previous year). Anyway, thanks for reading! Midoriya's mom gets targeted, Wonderlass gets killed ;(, but Deku stops the hit on his loved ones. Leave a review telling me what you think! I've been liking the latest chapters of the manga and added in a part about it (in case you were confused by Deku's new power and haven't read it yet, sorry for spoilers). Also any predictions or questions for what's coming... and boy is stuff coming...** **XD**


	135. Chapter 135

**Disclaimer: I don't own Boku no Hero Academia**

 **Chapter 135:**

 **Tap tap tap tap tap tap tap tap tap tap**

 _At some point I will get out of here. Elephants, fairies, forty-four, leprechauns,_ **tap** _Arcasia, doorways and pathways!_ **Tap tap tap**

 _How far?_ Zach stared straight ahead through the white Void around him. _If I ran forever would there be an exit?_ **Tap tap** _I've tried before, sixty, twelve, eighty-three._

Zach's right hand was down at his side, his index and middle fingers tapping on his thigh every second. His right foot tapped too when he wasn't walking, and when he sat down and crossed his legs with his eyes closed, his fingers kept tapping on his leg. **Tap tap tap tap** _Three hundred. Venezuela. Italy. Posso parlare?_ **Tap** _Where am I?_ _ **Tap**_ _How far,_ **tap** _how long,_ **tap** _Darling. Master of the doors,_ **tap** _Even with my eyes red,_ **tap** _eighteen, time still moves,_ **tap** _nineteen, same speed since it's my mind-_ **tap**

 _…Ancient texts and rituals._ **tap tap tap…**

 _Eziano, the pathway._ **tap** _Queen, Death, How long? Drac, Zombieman, witches_ **tap** _sixty, sixty, twenty-four,_ **tap** _Quirks were there from the-_

A hole ripped open in the empty white in front of Zach's face. He was staring straight ahead while sitting on his butt, and his fingers stopped tapping on his thigh. His eyes were huge and he scrambled out of that sitting position and forward like a beast. _Wait! NO RUN! Eyes! Ready to fight!_ "RAAA!" Zach dove through the rip in the Void with black flames flaring around his entire body and his eyes glowing dark red. He came out of the Void rolling and snapped up with a pair of black blades in his hands and his head snapping back and forth.

"Hey, hey," Gentle held up a hand towards the dark figure crouched and sounding ready to kill with that roar. Zach snapped his head towards the man whose face was covered by a dark purple visor, and he kept panting out heavy black breaths while staring at his comrade a few meters away from him. Gentle stood next to that hole in the air leading into a white nothingness, and his hand that he did not raise towards Death in a calming open-palmed way gripped tighter on the shoulder of the young girl next to him. "You're alright," Gentle said, staying cautious as he watched that dark figure who was baring his teeth through the translucent black veil that kept his skull face showing.

The flaring black flames flickered, flared, and then settled down in a weird way with certain body parts losing the darkness quicker than others. As this happened, Gentle looked at the girl next to him and then at the hole she had left open. "Where did you send him?" Gentle questioned, his voice dark and menacing as he stared into the white abyss on the other side with nothing in it. After asking the teenage girl with the Quirk- Void though, he turned his attention back as he felt the girl in his grip trying to pull away from the dark figure facing her and losing his Nightmare aura. Gentle looked back to Death when the aura had fully vanished, revealing the seventeen year old's face with no helmet over it.

The girl in Gentle's right hand pulled back but his grip stayed tight on her shoulder. She stared in fear at that boy though, whose face had been covered when she sent him in but no longer had the helmet that he removed while inside the Void. He was still wearing his black costume, but now his long black hair fell behind the neck portion of it and over his back. Death stared with his scar-covered face at the younger girl who was a foot and a half shorter than him, and who barely looked out of her preteens. "Gentle, stop," Zach started. He looked at the older man and added, "She's just a kid."

The young girl kept staring in fear at the boy speaking English, which she did not speak very well at all. "Mark, translate for her," Zach said. When he had come out of the portal his eyes darted around and he saw another two dozen dark soldiers around him in the room he had emerged inside of. It was not the same place he went in on, though many of the people who he remembered being there were unconscious or pinned to the floor by Zach's other soldiers. "Amaterasu took her when she was just a child, she's tricked most of her people into believing she was something more because of her mental powers. This girl isn't at fault, and we're not here to hurt a child." Zach stared towards her while saying it, but he glanced up at Gentle too and nodded at the man who frowned at the look he saw in the boy's eyes. He did not nod right away, instead looking back at the girl who turned her head slowly and glanced up at him next.

Mark translated what Zach had said, and Zach picked out which of the soldiers in black was Mark where he heard the voice coming from. _So Mark's still alive. That's good. Mark and Gentle, Exodus is over there. That looks like La Brava, and Wraith. Octo-Rock, did anyone die since… How long?_

The girl who Gentle loosened his grip on a little turned her head and looked back in shock at the figure in front of her. The teenage girl stared nervously at him, and she questioned something that Zach did not understand. He turned back towards where Mark was standing, and his soldier shifted his helmet from the short dark girl who asked back to his leader. "What'd she say?" Zach asked.

Mark hesitated, then he replied slowly, "She said, 'How are you sane?'"

"Death," Gentle began. Zach turned back to him and had that look in his eyes still that Gentle noticed from the second the boy's aura vanished. "Are you alright?"

"Well it took you long enough!" Zach yelled back at the man giving him a look he did not appreciate, especially after hearing that question which made it seem like Gentle did not think it was so.

Gentle frowned more inside his helmet though. He glanced behind Death and across the room at some of the others who were looking at each other with hesitant looks. Gentle's eyes lowered back to the boy in front of him, "We came as quickly as we could. Amaterasu fled the location you were at and there was no way to track you… but, it's only been two days since we lost-" Gentle stopped speaking at the twitch of Death's face in front of him. The glint in his eyes and the way he darted his glare to the teenage girl next to Gentle unnerved the older man.

Zach snapped his right arm up and fired a thin black line at the girl. Gentle pulled away, then he spun more and looked down at the girl who dropped a small blade while falling forward. _How'd she get that?_ Gentle thought, while at the same time trying to relax himself as he had almost panicked at Death's movement. "She might be indoctrinated, might just be afraid," Zach started while watching the girl he just dropped to the floor. "We'll figure that out-"

"I got her!" A voice shouted behind Zach that made his face scrunch up and his eyes flash with guilt. He turned around with his expression going back to normal though, right before the person who just shouted yelled, "Death!" Darling started running across the room and she exclaimed, "I knew you were okay!"

"Yeah, I'm fine," Zach replied. He started walking forward while finding it hard to make eye contact even with the visor of the girl who stopped in front of him. "Where is she?" Zach asked, his voice getting darker and his eyes glaring forward in fury.

"Death, do you need a helmet?" Blackstar started on Zach's left as he was walking.

Zach stayed silent and just marched forward with a menacing look over his face. His eyes were ominous and his soldiers watched as their young leader stepped to the edge of the room and then walked out into the next one with Darling going with him. "…She was trying to escape again, but I made sure Raylei locked everything to keep her from getting out. I cornered her and took her down at the back, and I tied her up and gagged her too! Definitely needed the gag, she thinks she can just say whatever-"

"Darling," Zach whispered. He glanced to his right at her and opened his mouth, then he froze, turned back forward and just said under his breath, "Good work." His eyes narrowed even more and his fists clenched at his sides. _Fuck! Two days? It's been two days? I knew, time was likely fucked. I believed they were coming and would win for sure, though there were doubts, times I doubted for a long time that maybe they had all been killed and I was all alone. I knew though! I always knew, so when it took too long I knew the time in there was going faster, even though it wasn't moving at all. It was all just in my mind. I thought it would be longer, I thought it would be farther in at least and give more time for everyone to forget. I'm back, I'm really back. I'm out. I'm here. I'm present._

Zach stepped into another room after walking across nearly half the building with Darling. Gentle had watched him go and then shouted at the others around him to keep tying up the others. He got on comms with Rebel to get him to prepare a tip with the information they had, but he told La Brava to keep everyone going while heading off after Death and Darling. Gentle stared at Zach's back and still felt unsettled. His mind was stuck on the look he saw when he told the kid how long it had been. _That girl's question too… Was this why she was so afraid of bringing him back? She was afraid of what we'd see, afraid of how we'd react to finding him a mess… but he's not. Is he? She thinks he should be mad. The others she's sent in there before must have- even if she's a kid, fucking with people's minds is Amaterasu's game and she was playing it. Death, it was only two days. Not even._

The leader of the Army of Death stepped inside a room with a woman tied to a chair in the middle of it. There were some soldiers in black around the chair, most of them with weapons raised and aimed at the woman with long black hair that fell messily around her body. Her eyes were bright yellow and bored straight into Zach's as he entered the room. Her mouth was gagged, but she stopped muffling into it and her yellow eyes grew wide as she locked them with the boy. _Murder. Rage. Death. I'll slaughter you. DIE! DIE DIE DIE!_ Zach glared into Amaterasu's eyes while she used her Quirk- Mind Reader. _You were my strongest opponent yet, Amaterasu._

As soon as Zach came in, the others around the room noticed the way their prisoner and their leader were looking at each other. "Hey! Stay out of his head!" Florian shouted, pulling his rifle up higher and aiming the barrel straight at the side of Amaterasu's head. "AND MINE!" He yelled in rage at the villain.

"Death, can we kill her?" Envoy questioned. Zach turned from Florian over to another man whose voice he had not heard in what felt like so long now. "With her powers, and her power, there's no way-"

"No," Zach said. He started forward across the room, and he spoke aloud in a dark voice, "Amaterasu's been abducting children with strong Quirks. Using them as her own private army in these Amazon bases she created for her headquarters. She protected herself with people who were loyal not just because she read their minds, but her real power is the leeway she has with dozens of governments." Zach stepped right up in front of her chair and he lowered his head down in front of her face with his eyes boring straight into her yellow ones. _What else? Why did I come after you? Do you remember? I'm remembering. It's all coming back to me. The first few hours I was still ready for the portal to open back up at any second, and then I slowly shifted off of thinking about you. About what I was going to do when I came out of there. Do you remember what I had thought at that last base about killing you? I can't remember if I was for it or against it. You almost beat me. You, more than anyone else actually- you really might have. You did it._

Zach's lips curled down at the corners and his face covered in frustration. _She beat me. She beat Death. Fuck._ Zach pulled his head back and he glared in so much anger down at the woman's confused and worried face. "It was obvious why heroes didn't try hard to stop you, despite how powerful you are and how bad the things you do are. The fact that you can read minds, means that any hero with a dark past, or hero officials who have affairs or anything they don't want released can be used because of that. Even non-corrupt officials can be _made_ corrupt because of it, as they could feel forced to do smaller things for the pasts they do have, and then have that corruption held over their heads and forced to do so much worse. In this world where I've pushed out corruption everywhere I turn, I couldn't stop you from making more and more. Amaterasu, there's no way to stop you… but I was stupid and didn't take you seriously. Because I was on a winning streak, so I let you catch me off guard with my own secrets, let your child soldier trap me in that… Void."

Darling looked in at Zach as he said that, and her eyes started shaking inside her helmet at the look that just flashed over his face. "So long," Zach whispered. "No urge to eat or sleep… but I've had solitude before that was worse," he said that darker, his eyes narrowing and glaring deep into Amaterasu's eyes. She started muffle-yelling into the cloth tied tightly around her face to gag her mouth. "Torturous solitude thinking only about Jenny and not killing anyone, while getting tortured, doing everything I could to keep myself sane. I was prepared for it. It was, relaxing." Zach cracked a smirk for a second before wiping it from his face and grinding his teeth at the way he was acting. He pulled back again as he had started leaning forward to taunt this. "We'll reveal some of those she corrupted, the worst ones. Get the others all to know that their secrets are safe and they don't have to listen anymore, tell them to resign or just not run for re-election. We'll send her in with some cooperative heroes at the same time-"

"Death," Envoy started. Zach turned his way, and his soldier hesitated and glanced at the woman whose expression looked so smug. He turned back to Death and shook his head before continuing, "It's your decision, I know. But how do we know… we can't be sure that the police, the judges, jury, the officials dealing with her case won't get blackmailed by her in whatever country we send her to."

Zach nodded in agreement. "We just have to make it impossible for her to speak anymore then." He started turning his head, and the villain who was feeling cocky about her chances of getting out of jail was staring at him shocked. "I'll cut out her tongue," Death said. "Then shred her vocal cords, and then I'll cut her fingers off too for good measure, don't want her writing out any threats after all." Zach leaned towards her after saying all that, and his voice got even darker than it just was as he said, "And if she does still somehow make it out, then, she'll have her punishment."

"MMMmmm! Mmm! MMmmnn!" Amaterasu screamed into her gag with her eyes starting to water up, sheer panic covering her face.

"This is my mercy," Zach growled, lifting a knife and leaning towards the woman who screamed even more…

A couple of minutes later, Zach leaned back and slid the red knife he was holding down into a sheath at his side. The woman who Zach had knocked unconscious with his Quirk a couple minutes back had her head bowed with blood dripping off her face out from her open mouth. Her neck was red and the inside of her mouth and throat were bloody. Her hands were bloodied fingerless messes limp on the sides of the chair she was tied to. _All the major corruption we've found in the past two months has been with Amaterasu behind it. We tracked her down, and took her down, and I'm sure there's more stuff to do with this. She probably has files, or some hard evidence somewhere around here. The others are probably already looking for it, because they'd expect me to order them to. Or maybe they already have orders to. I don't know. The plan. I, I made a plan in there. Can I really go through with this?_

"Death," Darling whispered, her voice quiet as she came right up next to Zach's side. "What's going on?" She asked. Darling looked at his face that appeared so strange to her. His expressions, his mannerisms, it was all so _off._ "What happened?" She asked, her tone pained and full of worry.

Zach's teeth clenched behind his lips and his eyes shifted to the side at the shorter girl next to him. He stared into her visor and his expression covered in guilt for a moment before he turned away and shook his head. "It's nothing," he responded. Zach looked towards Gentle and he froze. He stared at the man who wore a purple visor and was staring back at him through it. "Hey Gentle, I need an earpiece."

"What happened to yours?" Gentle asked.

"I lost it," Zach whispered. _Long ago._

Gentle stared at the teen for a few seconds and then he let out a sigh and nodded. "Alright, give me a minute." Gentle put a hand up to the side of his helmet and turned, calling in for an extra earpiece for their commander.

Zach watched as Gentle turned to get that for him. He glanced over his shoulder and back at Darling who he could tell even through her helmet that she still had a questioning and worried look on her face. Zach watched as a couple of soldiers who had stood by and not said a word as he worked over Amaterasu were untying her and then picked her up to bring her to the others in her organization who they had captured. He looked the other way and saw a group of his soldiers jogging around, one of them calling back that he found a control room of some kind full of computers.

 _The Empire's ace is down. Amater- Shogun Raxlaski and his forces have been swept up. The galactic senate shouldn't fall prey to their-_ Zach brought a hand up to his forehead and curled his fingers into his skin. _Fuck. The day is early. The exhaustion hasn't set in, because it's exactly how I felt when I entered the void. No exhaustion, no hunger, no thirst. Things I've missed but still can't feel! Will I ever be able- I can! I know I will. They got me out of there. I knew they would save me. They came so fast too. They won where I had failed on my own. I, didn't do this. I didn't beat her. She beat me. Destroyed, what I was. There was too much time. Too big a break. Too much, thinking… no, no in all that time, I only got stronger. Weaker? Scared-er? My priorities changed. My plan! THE PLAN! Why can't I just, get to it already? I- I know I have to. I knew I needed to while I was…_ Zach's eyes shifted to the side again and he thought about the girl just behind him who he could not look back at now. _I'm sorry. I knew this would be hard, but I have to do it._

 _I need to go._

* * *

"You really think that will work?" Gentle questioned. Danjuro Tobita stood in front of Zach Sazaki with a skeptical look on his face. "It's ludicrous. Do you really expect people to believe-"

"It doesn't matter if they do or not, and I don't have to tell _anyone._ " Zach replied in a confident tone. He frowned at the look still on Gentle's face, and he asked, "What?"

"Don't treat me like the rest of them," Gentle started. He stepped closer to the boy who glared back into his eyes at that look his older comrade was giving him. "I can see you've changed, and I know you realize it." Zach tssked and clenched his teeth at the man who continued in a lower voice at the flash of pain that covered Zach's face in that moment. "I didn't say anything in front of the troops, but I could tell the Void girl was not wrong."

"I didn't lose my mind," Zach said, glaring at the man harder at that accusation. "But, I admit, it was difficult to stay sane in there."

"And you're sure you have?" Gentle questioned. "Perhaps you should-"

"I've settled down," Zach said, shaking his head at the man who frowned more at the interruption. "Right after coming out my thoughts were still, jumbled. I wasn't ready to come back. But, I've gathered my head together." Zach looked into Gentle's eyes and said in a serious but also sad tone, "I know what I'm doing." The sad tone of Zach's voice came through to Gentle more, making him grit his teeth this time and look away at the sound of it. "I mean this, Gentle. I really am in my right mind with this decision. I know you want to stop me and blame the Void, hold me down for a little until I change my mind."

Gentle humphed and lifted a corner of his lips while glancing back at Zach. The look on his face said that he did not think that was so bad of an idea, but Zach just cracked a small grin back at him at the sight of it which made Gentle's eyes darken again. "But I won't be changing it," Zach said, shaking his head at his comrade who lowered his gaze down to the floor.

 _If only we had done more recon. We couldn't let her slip away again though, and you were the fastest… I never thought though, that we were going into our final mission together._ An accepting look finally covered Gentle's face, though it saddened for a moment before steadying with his eyes rising back up. "How long were you in there?"

Zach stared into Gentle's serious gaze and he opened his mouth to change the subject. Then he turned his head and just said in a lower voice, "It doesn't matter-"

"But I want to know. I need to, in order to accept-"

"Two months," Zach said. He turned his gaze back to Gentle and grimaced, then he muttered lower, "Maybe three."

"How long?" Gentle repeated, and Zach grit his teeth harder at that intense gaze calling him out on his intentionally vague answer.

The younger man looked into Gentle's eyes and replied, "Two months, twenty nine days, sixteen hours… give or take a couple." Gentle's eyes widened at the answer much more specific than he thought he was about to get. Zach kept staring into Gentle's eyes to convince him for a few seconds, then he looked away at that look on his comrade's face. He looked away and muttered, "After a couple of hours, I started tapping the seconds. That way, I'd know exactly how long it had been once I got out. I could… base our next attacks around… how long I had been…" Zach trailed off more every time, starting up quieter like what he was saying did not matter. "There was no hunger, or thirst, and I never felt tired. I tried running at one point, leaving my helmet behind since it didn't matter anymore. I ran, and I kept running until I decided that the place was endless and stopped myself. But, as for tapping, there was nothing telling me to stop. Once I had started, I never got tired of tapping. I just kept counting the seconds, and keeping the time in the background of my mind allowed me to focus on something other than just thoughts, constantly thinking about multiple…" Zach trailed off after ranting again, as he stared into Gentle's eyes and saw his comrade gritting his teeth in so much anger. "It's not your fault. Even if you had found me faster, it was a while ago that I started making these plans. I didn't decide it just before getting out. I've known, for a long time."

Gentle grimaced and he dropped his gaze from Zach's again. He released his fists and let out a long sigh, and Zach's expression saddened at the sound of that accepting sigh coming from the man in front of him. "Then this is it," Gentle said. He rose his head and stared into Zach's hazel eyes. "I wish you luck."

"Thanks," Zach replied. He shifted his gaze to the side for a second, then he looked back regretfully at the man before him, "Look after her, will you?"

"Have you told her yet?" Gentle asked.

"I tried," Zach began. "We wound up having a big argument… but just, don't let her do anything crazy, okay?"

Gentle saw the worried look on the boy's face and he nodded his head. His expression was serious and Zach was grateful to see it. Then the teenage boy let out a long sigh of his own and turned his head. The two of them stood alone in the bridge of The Cloak, and Zach stared out the tinted glass windows at the bright blue sky around them. _This is it. After everything…_ Zach's expression darkened and he took in a deep breath. _It's time for the next stage._ "Gentle," Zach said, standing up straight and stepping forward so he was right in front of the man the same height as him. He looked into Gentle's eyes and the white haired man in front of him stared back with just as serious a look. "I hand the Army over to you. You, are now Death."

Gentle nodded his head once back at the teen before him. "Understood, Commander." Gentle grinned after saying it, as it was something he rarely ever said and would never have to say again after that moment. He almost just said 'Understood, Zach' but he changed his mind at the last moment. Gentle let out a sigh and he reached up to his shoulders, and he released clasps there which Zach stared at in surprise. Gentle pulled the purple cape off his back and he stared at the material for a few seconds, before tossing it to the side with a shrug. "Leave your costume and equipment behind," Gentle said with a nod down at Zach's black armor.

"Understood, Death," Zach replied back to the man who tilted his head back and grinned at the sound of that.

Gentle started chuckling after lifting his head back like that though. Zach had started to turn to walk out of the room, but Gentle shook his head and questioned, "Zach, do you remember our promise?" Zach froze and he lowered his gaze down to the floor. He shifted it towards the purple cape on the floor, then around the bridge, then he slowly turned his look back to Gentle. He nodded his head slowly and in a serious way. Gentle grinned at that reaction and then asked, "Really?"

Zach hesitated. He paused and he lowered his eyes down. Then he shook his head side to side. Gentle chuckled at the admittance, and then he put a hand up to the back of his head and scratched it while looking away. "Well," he chuckled. "I forgot too," he admitted, and Zach turned back to him with his eyes wider upon hearing that. Gentle lowered his hand from his head and he stared out the windows to the sky around them, "It doesn't really matter now, does it? Everything's changed."

Zach stared at Gentle in surprise for a few more seconds. Then, he bit down behind his lips hard and sniffled in once. "You know," Zach started. The corners of his lips pulled up and Zach said while staring gratefully into Gentle's eyes, "I'm really glad I chased you and La Brava that day."

The chance encounter they had filled both of their minds. A day that had forever changed both of their lives. And Gentle replied to the boy before him, "I'm really glad you did too."


	136. Chapter 136

**Disclaimer: I don't own Boku no Hero Academia**

 **Chapter 136:**

"Excuse me, what do you think you're doing here-" The security guards at the front door of a skyscraper in central Tokyo were not moving aside, and the floor manager and their boss marched towards the entrance trying to block the heroes and police outside.

"We have a search warrant for this entire building," Lemillion stated, marching forward and ignoring the manager's denouncement of their entry. He waved a piece of paper that told him he could do this at the man in a suit who was trying to stop him. "Now stay out of our way or be detained. Your choice." Lemillion looked the man in the eyes and the man pulled his face back far as the hero looked prepared to fight him. Lemillion did not know who on the floor might be a villain in disguise though, and he treated everyone he saw as a potential enemy.

"Move upstairs," Lemillion called out after the man he just spoke to backed away. "She-Wolf, Gargantuan, on me. He should be up on the top floor."

Outside of the building, on the roof of a neighboring skyscraper ten stories taller than the one Lemillion's team just entered, Explosion King and Deku were looking down side by side though with a wide gap between them. There were tall skyscrapers all over the place in the area, and the one they had a warrant to search was not one of the tallest around. Most of the buildings around it were taller actually, and the one to Deku's right across the most main street in Tokyo was taller than even the one they were standing on. This building was just high enough over the other though that they still had a decent angle into the top floor of the other skyscraper, and the two boys were preparing as they awaited orders from the pro hero they were interning with over the summer.

 _The money trail got us the proof we needed for a warrant, but I should have realized why Lemillion was waiting to ask for one. Now we can go in the same time the meetings supposedly happen. If all goes well, we get even more proof and can lock up everyone involved._ Midoriya stared at the building and he focused more on the top floor, trying to see through to something incriminating. _If we were just a little lower, we could see straight inside. Using the roof of this building is one thing though, but forcing one of the offices below to clear out so we can use it for a raid on an entirely different building is too far. Even just getting a warrant for that whole building instead of just the top floor was difficult enough, but luckily all their computers are on the same server so every device in the building is suspect to search…_

"Stay on your floor. There is an active investigation going on in the building," She-Wolf scolded some businessmen who faced the heroes in surprise when the elevator doors on their floor opened to show the lift was occupied.

Bakugo grunted in annoyance at the sound of the argument that commenced inside, and he glared harder at the skyscraper that they were not a part of sweeping. This investigation was not all that was bothering him, though he did curl his fists in frustration as all they were doing was sitting there and waiting for something. _With Lemillion over there too, chances they need to call us in are slim. Damn it. If we had the League's list we could at least go after them right now instead of shady businesses…_ Bakugo's eyes started shifting towards Midoriya but he stopped himself and just ground his teeth while keeping focus on the neighboring building. _It's not Deku's fault. We left the computer unguarded. We fucked up. Damn it,_ _ **I**_ _fucked up._

Midoriya tried to stay more focused on the building than Bakugo, but his mind strayed to the same topic that had his eyes dropping down with guilt for a moment. He shook that guilt from his expression and glared down towards the streets below angrily. _I don't regret it. I should, and I have no one to blame for not being able to go after Shigaraki right now except myself. I didn't ask Lemillion, I didn't do… but I don't regret it. Leaving that fight to save my mom, because I did save her. Wonderlass wouldn't have… not the first time at least, she wouldn't have been there on time. But I let them destroy the evidence. I didn't even see anything else on that screen once I saw Mom's name. And I let Wonderlass die!_

Deku ground his teeth but then snapped his head up in the green mask of his costume. The muscular seventeen year old at five foot eleven glared at the penthouse office with an intense look returning to his face. _She died a hero's death. Saving innocent people. It's been a few weeks already, it's time to get past it! All Might has, and he was closer to her. The way she talked at the end, they were definitely together… at some point. There are more pressing matters now though. I need to strengthen One For All. I need to control all my powers and get up to using all of All Might's strength, adding on more and becoming even stronger than he was! The League of Villains have returned, though they're still in the shadows and only sent foreign mercenaries after Mom. One of the guys they caught had a signal blocking Quirk too, so Raijin was never there. The Radians are still the most dangerous right now, but I know the League must be focusing on something big to have gone into hiding for so long. Shigaraki Tomura, Raijin, Himiko Toga, Dabi, All For One…_

"We're reaching the top floor. Stand by." Lemillion lowered his hand from his earpiece and then prepared himself as the elevator reached the top floor and dinged to signal the doors opening.

The doors started sliding out from the middle, and a glowing blue light shone through the crack that got much brighter as the doors pushed apart. "MOVE!" Gargantuan yelled, while diving forward and making his body grow rapidly in size. Lemillion ran forward while also using his Permeation Quirk to avoid the blast being fired into a small space. She-Wolf stayed behind Gargantuan, jumping back into the back of the elevator as the larger man tried to use his body to protect her. Light glowed around the outside of Gargantuan though and the woman behind him yelled out in pain as the explosion blasted around his sides while he was still growing.

Lemillion dropped down to the floor below when he used his Permeation, but he dropped down in mid-sprint and then bent his knees and leapt back up without delay. He shot back up at the ceiling and phased his body through it again. Mirio Togata appeared on the floor above right behind the man with his arms lifted up with bright blue glowing cannons inside of them. Lemillion slammed his right fist up into the man's kidney while the villain was turning his head with huge eyes as the sight he glimpsed out the corner of his vision. Lemillion's punch crumpled the man to the floor in an instant, and the bland-faced hero darted his gaze around the area outside the elevator while his opponent was still falling. After making that scan of the room, and seeing just a couple of office workers cowered behind the reception desk of the top floor's office, Lemillion focused on the heroes before him. "Gargantuan! She-Wolf! Are you alright?"

"What's going on in there?!" Bakugo shouted from outside, putting his hand over his earpiece and yelling it as all they heard was static there for a few seconds before Lemillion's shout. The earpiece in Lemillion's ear was specially made just like the rest of his costume to prevent from slipping off of him when her Permeated as easily as normal clothing, but he still was not able to make noise while in that state and had not informed his confused interns as to the situation yet.

"I'm, fine," She-Wolf started out of the elevator that she was quick to exit when she felt it shake upon her first steps. The woman covered in a light coating of white fur under her red costume stepped to the side of Gargantuan and then reached down and flipped him over onto his back instead of his front that he had fallen down on. "Crap. We need a medical team to the top floor. Lemillion, go! I'll do emergency treatment," the wolf-looking woman glared over at the villain Lemillion had knocked out, and she ran to him and then shredded his shirt and jacket off with her claws. The man had been dressed in a business suit and did not look like a villain, at least until his suit was torn off and the tattoos covering most of his torso and upper arms were revealed. He had an ink dragon looking to be flying around his entire muscular upper body, with demonic faces making up its body instead of scales.

She-Wolf ran back towards Gargantuan whose body was shrinking down while he lay on his back with his eyes closed and his mouth parting open and closed as he gasped for breath. He had been burnt badly, though his arms had partially protected his chest and neck while getting the worst of the blast on them. She-Wolf did not know what to try wrapping up first, but she called out the extent of the injuries over their communications to inform the others downstairs how urgent the need for the medical support was.

Lemillion turned from the older woman as he saw she had this handled, and he glared towards a set of wooden doors leading into the main office of the top floor. "What's awaiting me in there?" Lemillion asked as he neared the door, turning his head to the reception desk where the scared workers were gathered.

A couple of them shook their heads, but the boss's private secretary opened her eyes wide at Lemillion's question and got back up on shaky legs as quickly as she could. She turned and looked at the door in front of Lemillion, gulped, then she replied to the hero, "Mr. Hirogani's business associate, Takahashi Haruto. He is, a very large man."

 _Takahashi's here as we thought._ "Just the two of them?" Lemillion asked. He shifted his gaze from the doors to the wall on the left of them, and he stepped a bit to his own left before bending his legs in a running stance. The woman he questioned nodded her head while staring at the hero in a red cape with her eyes widening. "Thank you," Lemillion said, and then he sprinted at the wall and leapt at it. "Get over here!" Lemillion called out after hearing two more shouts in his ear, and then he slipped through the wall into the main office on the other side of the top floor lobby's wall.

The two on the other side of the street did not need any more convincing. They leapt at the building lower down and descended towards the roof while Lemillion landed in the office and skid forward as his body became solid again. Out the corner of his eyes he could see the doors he avoided entering through, and though there was no one waiting there to fire at him he still felt he had made the right choice being cautious. The fact that they did not try to get him with such an obvious trap though made him wary of the men he saw up ahead near the wide desk in the office. Lemillion's eyes started growing though as he looked closer at the man still in his chair at that desk, as Lemillion could see the CEO, Saito Hirogani was not moving despite his sitting-up position. His neck had a strange bump on the side of it, and Lemillion could see that it had been snapped and just propped up to make him look like he was still alive and staring towards him with a blank expression.

The second man in the room who stood over near that desk facing Lemillion when he appeared just smirked at the hero who came for him though. "Lemillion! Number 4, huh? Not bad," the villain smirked and showed off his mouth was full of sharp teeth. His lips curled farther back revealing how far up his gums those sharp teeth came up, and Togata could see stitching on the inside of his mouth on both his top and bottom gums. The villain wore a suit but had the jacket laid out on the desk behind him, leaving him in a white-and-yellow-striped button-down that his large body was pushing the buttons out on. His broad shoulders barely looked held within his clothes, his shirt appearing to be on the verge of tearing while tucked into his tight khaki-colored pants. His hands down at his sides were inside of gloves, but holes ripped on the ends of his fingers as claws extended out from his nails, and the entire gloves fell to shreds as his hands grew in size too.

"Takahashi Haruto," Lemillion began. "You are under arrest for the crimes of embezzlement, tax evasion, corporate espionage… and now murder." Lemillion glared at the villain and he started racing forward at the man who was preparing for a fight, not handing himself in.

"Ohh? Am I now?" The villain's smirk spread wider as the corners of his lips pulled farther into his cheeks. He opened his mouth and Lemillion saw light glowing in the back of his throat that confused him when he could see Takahashi's body bulking more and his already tight shirt starting to rip. The villain's blue eyes turned red and started glowing brighter at the same time as the light in his throat turned red too, but Lemillion kept sprinting forward despite it and charged straight through the three red beams that fired out at him from the villain's eyes and mouth.

Lemillion charged through the blasts, then he ducked under the swipe of Takahashi's right arm and came out on the villain's right side while the big man's momentum was leaving himself completely unguarded. Lemillion twisted his whole body and threw his full strength into his right arm as he swung it forward. His eyes were narrowed up at the head of the big man with short black hair who from this close Lemillion could see stitches around the hair line on his forehead too. Lemillion's fist slammed into Takahashi's body and he put his full power into the blow.

"Ugh-" Takahashi started leaning forward, a breath gasping out of his mouth with that loud grunt. He hunched, but Lemillion's eyes were growing wide as it happened. His eyes darted up towards the face of the man who looked out the corners of his back at him. Takahashi Haruto curled the right corner of his lip back up, "Just kidding." His hand started swinging around and Lemillion punched his own up towards Takahashi's throat a second behind the larger man's attack. His upper body was turning permeable for the start of his swing, then when the man's arm swung through him, he was going to return his mass for his next hit. _He's strong-_ Lemillion's fist stopped rising as Takahashi grabbed him by that arm that Togata tried to make impossible to touch.

Lemillion's eyes that had just steadied bulged again. Takahashi yanked him up by the one arm so Lemillion's feet were hanging off the ground, and he brought his face up close to the hero's. "Did you think my Quirk was just the Energy Blasts, or the Shock Nullification?" Takahashi clenched down on Lemillion's arm and a crack echoed through the room as the young hero yelled out in pain.

 _ **Crash!**_ "Lemillion!"

"DIE!"

Takahashi started turning his head, and a snarl spread across it with a look of fury covering his entire expression. " _You,_ " he growled, hatred clear in his tone. He tossed Lemillion to the side and he glared at the boy with curly green hair who shot forward faster than his comrade behind him.

"Get away from-" Midoriya had started yelling, before the villain in front of him tossed Lemillion to the side while turning fully to face him. _Fast._ Midoriya started swinging his right fist forward, then he flicked his right foot down right as the man brought his hand up fast to block him. He flipped up over the top of the man's arm, and he swung his left leg down on top of the villain's head. "Smash!" Takahashi's knees bent and the floor below him cracked, cracks shooting out in different directions all the way to the walls in two directions.

The wind from the kick cracked some of the windows, it blew the desk backwards and toppled the dead man sitting on the other side to the floor where he rolled away, and Bakugo had to blast a harder explosion behind him to get closer for his own attack. Bakugo redirected himself backwards though, kicking his legs forward and flipping himself with a pair of explosions out the green devices on his knees. He pointed his right hand out to the side and flung himself over at a chandelier swinging from the ceiling of the boss's office, and he held on with his left hand while glaring down at the villain in a furious way but with a bead of sweat dripping down his smirking face. "Oi oi…"

Takahashi Haruto rose his head up and he glared from either side of the steel boot slammed in his forehead into Deku's eyes. Midoriya Izuku stared into those eyes from up close, and then he pulled his head back with his entire body filling with chills. It was not the look on the man's face of hatred yet also smug satisfaction at the lack of pain he was feeling. It was not that fact that the villain did not fall to the floor even after he just used half of his full strength in a direct hit on the man's head. It was the fact that Midoriya had seen those eyes below his leg before. The man smirked with teeth not his own as they had not been that sharp or big before, and his face looked different but from this closer inspection Midoriya could see the changes that had occurred with the stitches on his hairline and gums and neck. "You're-" Midoriya started.

Takahashi snapped his right arm up, but Midoriya pulled his leg off faster. He flipped himself backwards, and Bakugo pointed his right hand up at the ceiling when the villain leapt after Deku. An explosion blasted out of Bakugo's right gauntlet and broke apart the support holding the chandelier up, and the blast also propelled him and the light fixture out of the air. Bakugo swung his left arm down and threw the chandelier at the charging villain, and Takahashi swung an arm and smashed the thing apart as it came near him. As the fixture was ripping apart though, Bakugo came in between breaking rubble so he was already right in front of the villain when his hand was glowing and swinging towards the man's face. Then the glow on Bakugo's hand vanished and his eyes bulged right as Lemillion rose up to a knee on the floor not too far from them. "He can erase your-"

Bakugo tried swinging his other hand forward to push away the hand reaching for his left arm, but the villain's arm was too big and did not get pushed away by Bakugo's attempt. Midoriya was bouncing back already though, and as the villain grabbed on he could not waste time, immediately swinging the blond boy towards his classmate who spun his body in midair and rose right above Bakugo. Midoriya swung his right leg around his body towards Takahashi's face, his body glowing and tensing up at 50% of his power as he was staying at in Full Cowling. Bakugo tried forcing explosions out of his hands as Midoriya's leg was swinging above him, and he found his Quirk working in a moment he was trying to force out a huge blast at the arm gripping him and swinging him around. The blasts shot out of Bakugo's hands, Midoriya's kick slammed into the side of Takahashi's face, and the two of them were thrown backwards by their own attacks away from the villain covered in smoke.

Bakugo and Midoriya landed near each other both skidding back and stopping with a few panting breaths as they stared at the smoke. There was a silhouette in the smoke still standing that made the two of them grit their teeth and glare harder in anger. Neither of them felt panicked though. "He didn't erase your Quirk," Bakugo said.

"And he stopped erasing yours," Deku replied.

A glow came from inside the smoke, and the two boys leapt in different directions right before a trio of red beams shot out towards them. _Time to test it,_ Bakugo thought, while moving slower than Midoriya away from the beams coming at him. He moved slower but still dodged them, just barely though. The head of the man in the smoke started turning after him, and Midoriya stopped dodging to the side to instead shoot forward into the smoke so fast that the smoke completely blew away around him as he struck forward. The beams stopped, and Midoriya's fist slammed into the man's side only to stop completely on his body that did not flinch at the blow.

"It's Shock Nullification," Lemillion called out. "Energy Blasts, an Erasure power…"

"He can only use one at a time," Midoriya said too, while jumping backwards and dodging a swing of the man's right claw. The villain glared out towards him with his smile lowering down, and Midoriya added, "The shock nullification isn't passive, or he would keep erasing powers or using energy blasts while he gets hit. He can either be defensive or offensive."

"Looks like he's still just a small fry," Bakugo taunted, and he smirked more while crouching into more of a ready-to-pounce stance at the enraged look that flashed over the villain's face.

Lemillion darted a look towards Explosion King as he heard that, then he glanced Deku's way too as he saw the other boy knew what Bakugo was talking about. "You know who this is?" Lemillion questioned.

Takahashi started snarling as he saw Bakugo's lips curling up more. The villain opened his mouth to yell when he saw Bakugo getting ready to speak, but Deku's voice cut through the silence first, "He's the April Fool's Day Villain. I don't remember his actual name."

The man with his head half-turned to glare at Bakugo froze completely. He froze and his head slowly turned back to Deku with a look in his eyes that made the boy trying to get the villain to sloppily charge at him, regret just making that taunt. The April Fool's Day Villain's eyes looked deranged for a brief moment, and then his lips curled up and he let out a laugh that he looked to try and hold back afterwards. He let more out though, tilting his head back and laughing so much harder. "I hated that name," he called out, yet in a laughing voice like he was an idiot for hating it. "But I have to thank you kids. Sending me to Tartaros, on the day of my big entrance… It was the best thing that could have happened to me."

He lowered his head a little and he kept that smirk on his face. He was no longer laughing, yet his expression appeared so much more dangerous and not like a joke at all. The fun they were trying to poke at him fell flat, the mood of the room became much more serious and dark at the smile on the villain's face. "They weren't looking hard for me either, because you children allowed them to label me as a joke. Even though I know you remember how strong I was. Yet, I was defeated by children, and despite everyone knowing your strength, they mocked me for it."

"Blah blah blah-"

"And yet only I," Takahashi continued without losing his smirk at Bakugo's taunts behind him. His voice rose and he curled his left hand into a fist, that hand glowing bright red so much that it tinted the entire room in its glow. Bakugo's own smirk dropped and he glared at that hand hesitantly for a moment, before darting his eyes back at the villain with them growing huge just like Lemillion and Midoriya's. "Had the potential to accept all the Quirks All For One gave me and keep my mind STRONG! Only I," his right hand started glowing too, and his eyes began glowing a dark red as his sharp smile spread to cover more of his face. "Have the strength to withstand all this POWER!"

"She-Wolf get everyone off the floor!" Lemillion called out while reaching up and grabbing at his earpiece. "Deku!" He shouted towards the green-haired boy near him. "Evacuate! Explosion King-"

"I got it!" Bakugo roared, flying himself towards the villain with blasts coming out of his feet and his right hand reaching up to grab the pin of his gauntlet. Deku was already racing towards the side wall to get into the lobby and help get everyone else out as fast as he could, even dropping down some power and Doubling to move at his max power allowed. His right leg ached from the start as he did the one thing Recovery Girl warned him not to do for a few months at least.

Lemillion dropped through the floor, not fast enough to help but able to at least get out of Bakugo's way. The pro hero with a broken arm lost sight of Bakugo for a second before opening his eyes falling through the floor below, but then he turned himself Permeable again and slipped through one more floor for good measure.

"Hold on!" Deku shouted at everyone he had just rushed into the elevator. They were mostly yelling in panic as they did not understand what was happening Deku had moved so fast. Midoriya had ripped through the top of the elevator and a bunch of the people looked up at the sound of his shout. Midoriya felt the entire building shake at once, and he broke the wires holding up the elevator, used one hand to grab the parts still connected as the entire thing started to drop, and he dug his other hand into the wall. His head snapped up while the people below him shouted in panic, and Midoriya had to let go of the wall for a second to swing a fist up in the elevator shaft, pushing a counter-force into the explosion about to rush down at him. His punch upwards was so strong that it not only blasted the explosion the other way, but tore through the roof of the building over the elevator shaft and blasted debris into the air above.

As Deku grabbed back onto the wall to slow the rapid descent towards the surface without causing a painful jolt for those inside the plummeting lift, the debris he just blasted up through the top of the building all burned up in the explosion that tore out of the roof from a dozen different points. Bakugo tried forcing the explosions up as much as he could while attacking the April Fool's Day Villain. He had attacked when the man was attacking because the man would not be able to aim at anyone else, as he would not be able to use another Quirk to protect himself from what they understood about his powers so far. Bakugo flew out the side of the building though as even with his gauntlet, the attack he tried to power through was too much for him and overpowered his explosion.

Bakugo slammed into a building across the street that was much higher than the skyscraper he had just flown out of. It was higher than the one they had been watching from too, and there was a giant television screen on the side wall that he slammed into, though luckily he hit right below that screen between it and another one and did not smash through either. He did crack the two windows on either side of the steel support that his back wound up colliding into though. Bakugo winced and he seethed out some pained breath through his teeth, but his eyes opened up and he glared back towards the massive explosion on the building in front of him that his own blast had partially shot him back from though the enemy's really sent him flying with. He started to slide down the building he had slammed into, but his feet touched down on the top of the lower huge screen attached to the wall and he stopped himself there without dropping any farther. _This guy, he's strong. He's right, he was strong that last time too. Him popping up made that trip to the mall not a total waste of time, actually made my day. He was an idiot though for jumping out while I was there, while everyone was right in front of him. He was, an April Fool's joke. What the fuck was he talking about?_

Bakugo glared at the explosion and then up into the smoke where he just saw something rise up high before arcing back down. The villain slammed down onto a roof covered in cracks and holes with a lot of smoke pouring out where the flames had escaped from. _All For One gave him powers? Is it like the Nomus? I thought they fucked up the Nomus' productions, made it so no more could… Is this different? Nomus are all brain-dead, but they were people once. They_ _ **had**_ _minds. Is this what he is? A failed Nomu? Or the only successful one? He broke out of prison, he played it smarter this time after what happened last time… though he still left a money trail. He still made stupid mistakes that let us get a warrant to come after him and the ones he had working for him. Does he have a plan? Does he think, he doesn't need one? He wants revenge on us, so he's not running. He's just standing there. Because… because the name-calling does get to him. As much as he's smirking and laughing about it, he's not going to run away. Not while his name is still the April Fool's Day villain. He'll stay over there until he kills someone, be it Deku, Lemillion, or me. That would immediately surpass what anyone remembers about him the first time. So he's going to stay. How many Quirks does he have? Is it only the ones we've seen so far? Lemillion's arm broke, so we can add super strength as one too. Does he need to halt the others for that? I did pull my arm from his grasp when he turned on Shock Nullification. His body has been messed with though, and he's big. There's a chance he's that strong normally._ Bakugo's lips curled up at the corners and he leapt forward off of the top of the big billboard screen below him.

Far down below, dozens of people were gathering out on the streets and sidewalks after hearing that explosion. Everyone was staring up towards the top of the skyscraper billowing smoke, and heroes were gathering near the civilians to protect from any falling glass or debris. Cars had stopped on the streets, and then the giant tv screen above the one that Bakugo had just been standing on changed the news it had been showing to a breaking news report. A camera angle shot at the top of the Tokyo skyline appeared on that screen, and even the people closest to the attack looked towards that screen as it did give them a better view of the top of the building than the bad angle they were at down on the street below. All they could see were the explosions of someone high above who many of them recognized flying back towards that previous huge blast, something that actually calmed a lot of them down and annoyed many as they wondered if Explosion King had just gone too far or something. The camera angle from the approaching news helicopter showed it was not just Bakugo up there though, as even after that massive explosion, there was someone up on the roof of the skyscraper whose body was half-shrouded in smoke.

"She-Wolf, evacuate the building," the boy who finally stopped the elevator leaned his head down towards the hole and called that for the conscious hero inside. He had brought them all the way back down to the first floor as there were no longer any wires holding up the lift if he were to try and stop higher up.

"You got it, Deku," the older hero with white fur called up. Then she looked around and yelled at the group in the elevator with her to get off, while she reached down and started hoisting Gargantuan back up to carry him with her. She-Wolf carried her comrade's body with his head leaning over her right shoulder, and she called ahead, "Hey medics! Take him!" She bent down and lowered the larger hero to the floor before turning and racing towards the stairs down on all fours. "Evacuate in a calm, orderly…"

Deku shot up the elevator shaft so fast that everyone in the lobby spun back towards the empty elevator where a huge gust of wind just slammed into them from. The boy shot up the shaft and he reached a hand out to the wall, grabbed a pipe and swung his body up faster, then he crossed his arms up above his head. "Carolina, SMASH!" Deku closed his eyes and then uncrossed his arms out in front of him, blowing away debris and smoke and some flames to give himself a hole to the sky above. He spun his body as he reached near the top of his arc, and Deku stared down into the light covering of smoke on the roof not far from the hole he had blasted earlier. On that cracked roof was a man who turned his head partially towards him before looking back the other way towards the approaching Explosion King.

A few floors below the top, Lemillion glared up towards the ceiling and his eyes narrowed before darting back to his broken right arm. _I'm at a natural disadvantage so high up. The majority of my combos rely on popping back out of the ground like teleportation. With his only being able to activate one Quirk at a time, I could find a gap to attack him in. With my arm like this though,_ Lemillion heard a shout of fear and he turned his head, looking over towards some desks that he had not seen anyone at when he dropped onto the floor. The building just shook again though, and he called out, "This is the hero, Lemillion! We are evacuating the building…"

"Deku. Explosion King. Can you handle this?"

The two boys standing on opposite sides of the roof stared straight towards each other. Straight in between them was a man who turned himself sideways to keep his eyes darting back and forth to the teenagers facing him. Takahashi was wrong to assume they really were staring at him though. The smoke was fading around them as the explosions fired at each other before did not really set the building ablaze. Bakugo stared across the roof for a moment and his eyes locked with Midoriya's. The two of them then shifted their gazes right back at the April Fool's Day Villain. "Yes," Deku replied.

"No problem," Bakugo responded at the same time. Sparks came out of Bakugo's green boots specifically out of the sweat collectors on the backs of his heels. Despite it being towards the end of July, Bakugo had on long tight sleeves down his legs and arms that kept him even sweatier than he already was from all this physical activity. The sun was beating down hot on him, and sweat slid under his tight fabric that did not absorb any of it on its way to the many sweat collection points over his body. He curled his fingers forward at the end of his green gauntlets and leaned his head forward with a smirk crossing over his entire face. "You ready for this?"

"I watched your fight," Takahashi replied, his own smirk lowering down a bit but looking more dangerous the less deranged it appeared. "I saw the two of you so recently give everything you have. Show all of your moves. I thought, the fight was slow," his eyes started to glow red, and he crouched down harder on the roof of the building as he saw the boys moving.

 _He wasn't talking to you,_ Deku's body started covering in a faint glow. Energy rippled off of him and he clenched his fists in actions that made miniature shockwaves ripple out from the air around them. _Any large attacks here will cause damage to the other buildings around us. And to the building that we're on right now that hasn't been fully evacuated. It's like our first combat training. We can't let there be a lot of damage. Neither of us can make huge attacks, and yet both of our finishing moves are big flashy attacks like that. You've seen them and think that we must be feeling constrained right now. You think you're at the advantage because you can go all out and we can't, but there's something else different about that day and right now._

Deku and Bakugo shot towards the villain at the same time. Bakugo pointed his hands forward and they started to glow bright white, but only for an instant before he blasted regular explosions out of them and bounced himself backwards and straight to the floor. Takahashi expected a Stun Grenade, and he was already reaching one arm to that side while squinting his eyes to grab at the boys' arms anyway despite it. His head was turning the other way too, seeing Deku flying fast at him from the other side. His squinted eyes that he was pulling away continued to glow red, but when the explosion went off on his other side instead of a flash attack, the villain returned his eyes to normal the moment he understood he misread the attacks.

Deku slammed his right fist forward, and he nailed Takahashi over his right arm that the villain was reaching up towards him. Takahashi was slower than before, but Deku saw that was because his focus was split everywhere and not that he was actually getting tired. The villain kept grinning as that first pushed into his chest, and he pulled his arm up faster and grabbed Deku by that fist. He started leaning his head forward with his mouth opening to say something to that boy, but another explosion at his back made him spin his head to the side and look behind him for the other fighter. Bakugo had aimed his explosion down while leaping at the villain though, and he was in the middle of flipping over Takahashi's head which had the villain turning back when he saw the teen's descent out the corner of his eyes. Bakugo was falling right in front of where Deku was pulling his arm back to little effect, but Deku was only struggling partially as his eyes were already closed.

As Takahashi's eyes shifted back, Bakugo fired from his hands that he snapped together in front of him again. "Zero Distance Stun Grenade!" The flash was bright and aimed straight into Takahashi's eyes. He reached both hands up and grabbed at his eyes while stumbling backwards at that flash, then he fell back to the floor as his left leg was slammed into his right by a spinning kick from a kid who opened his eyes after hearing Bakugo's shout. Deku took the villain off his feet, though from the vibrations he felt in Takahashi's legs he could tell the man had kept his Shock Nullification up even when disoriented.

Bakugo shot over Deku's head while his classmate was still crouched from that spinning kick. He raced at Takahashi and swung his right arm forward for an explosion straight into the man's face. _His body's hard even without the shock stopping, the way they modified it to let him have these Quirks at the same time! But the backs of his hands were burned!_ Bakugo's right hand ignited and the explosion looked about to come off of it, when Takahashi's eyes snapped open and the explosion stopped completely. Bakugo saw it happen and his entire body filled with the most rage since they had gotten there, as it had taken looking at him to erase his Quirk right there. His rage was trumped by pain a second later as Takahashi swung a longer arm than his up and right under his own punching fist, straight into Bakugo's chest. Spit flew out of Bakugo's mouth, but his teeth clenched in anger as he felt the hand gripping into his back before he could get thrown off of the punch by the villain's own momentum.

Takahashi was leaning forward and trying to get to a knee, pushing forward on the boy he just slammed a fist into. Bakugo did not fly straight off the punch though, but was swung around the side of Deku's body behind him as his classmate was still rushing forward. Bakugo's right leg that swung out to the side while he was being flung around covered in an explosion again as Deku swung his fist forward. There was a chance, Bakugo understood, that the villain had gone back to Shock Nullification. Bakugo smirked though as he did not feel the wind coming off of Deku's punch when it was slamming into the villain, and he finished his kick that exploded on the side of the man trying to stop the punch he had just focused on. The last attack from Deku even while using Shock Nullification had still taken Takahashi off his feet, which he had not seen coming or even knew could happen. He wanted to blame the floor being too broken up below him, but he actually felt a lingering pain in his left leg where he was just hit which was why he went for erasure first and got hit by the exploding leg.

As claws dug into Deku's muscular right arm, the explosion slammed into the side of Takahashi's head and took him off his one knee to send him rolling across the roof instead. He brought his head up while in mid-roll, facing the teens who charged after him only to stop short at the sight of his mouth and eyes all glowing red. Deku leapt up high in the air, and Bakugo pointed his hands forward and fired explosions as the Energy Blasts shot at him. He had already proven he could counter with his own attacks, and he could not let them fly past him and into the taller building at his back. Midoriya flipped himself around up in the air above the flying red beams, and he kicked off the air and shot back down so much faster to the start of them before flipping around again and nailing his kick down onto the top of the villain's head.

This time, Takahashi's jaw slammed shut and an explosion went off inside his mouth as the red beam had not finished flying. His head smashed into the ground and his whole body left a crater blowing apart in the roof. Broken teeth cut through his lips when his jaw slammed shut so hard like that, and blood started pooling out around the bottom of his face slammed into the roof so hard. Deku dropped off of the villain's body and he stared down with his eyes wide at the blood puddling there. _Did I hit too-_

Takahashi's left hand snapped out and grabbed Deku by his right leg. His head snapped up, and he whipped his left hand around the front of his body, slamming Deku straight into Bakugo as the blond teen charged him which threw them across the building. Takahashi's right hand was gripping into the floor while he swung with his left, and he yanked his entire body forward like a missile shooting after the two he had just slammed away. Both boys after hitting each other were disoriented for a moment but had started righting themselves in the air. Before they could fully prepare though, their heads lifted first and their eyes opened huge as the villain snapped both arms out and grabbed the teens by their faces. His feet hit down on the ground and he skid forward while slamming the kids' heads into the floor and dragging them across the roof.

Deku's teeth bared into the palm gripping his head, while Bakugo opened his mouth and let out a roar into it. Deku slammed his legs down on his sides and brought his arms in fast towards the hand gripping his face. He stopped his momentum short and yanked the hand holding his face up over his head, taking Takahashi's feet off the ground and starting to flip him over himself. As the man was starting to rise though, the two hands that had lifted right past his other arm and pointed up fired huge explosions up into the front of his body. He used his Shock Nullification but still let out a roar as the front of his body was burned, his bulking muscles turning red and blackening in the flames. His eyes glowed red in the smoke, then they turned to normal fast while he slashed both claws down instead into the smoke and at Deku. Deku flipped up though and kicked Takahashi's arms aside, opening the front of his body again for his comrade flying up right behind him with a bruised face and a huge smirk covering it.

Bakugo's explosions cut off before firing, but the teenager had more momentum than Takahashi was expecting. With his arms pushed to the sides by Deku, it did not matter that Explosion King could not make his explosions. Bakugo brought his right and left hands together and he swung his body ninety degrees to put as much force into it as he could when he smashed his green gauntlets up into the side of Takahashi's already bloodied face. He knocked the villain's head to the side, then as Bakugo started to fall backwards he extended his left hand and grit his teeth as Deku's right hand gripped into it during an upwards leap in midair. Midoriya threw Bakugo back up high into the air, right past Takahashi who snapped his eyes up right after clenching them from the pain. As he brought his eyes up like that though, he saw in the bottoms of his vision that Deku was still rising even after making that throw. "DETROITTTT-" Midoriya had his elbow pulled back far at his side as he rose towards the villain.

Takahashi's eyes shook as he saw the hero's costume ripping apart from his right shoulder all the way down to his fist. _100%_ Deku thought, and his body showed it as his arm filled with all the power possible. The thought to use Shock Nullification sped into Takahashi's mind and right back out without stopping, as this punch looked even harder than the others he had already been feeling. He erased the Quirk, and then as he started to smirk while slashing a muscular clawed arm down at the defenseless boy below, he saw the flash and heard the explosion above him. His eyes were still fully focused on Deku, but they just started pulling to the side the smallest amount- when he was hit in the back by a massive explosion from the boy flying out of the sky like a missile. At the moment that Bakugo's explosion went off, Deku felt his Quirk return and he finished swinging his arm while flooding One For All into it. He felt the heat from the explosion, but Takahashi's body missed his by inches, and he escaped the flames of the blast by even less space still.

The villain flew out of the air flipping and spinning, and he smashed into the roof so hard it looked like he must have been done. He was still conscious as he shot out of the air though, and he returned to Shock Nullification knowing that the ground must have been approaching. The explosion tore through part of his back, but when he hit the ground he started climbing up to his feet and he glared into the sky at the two teens who were panting while glaring back at him and falling from the air. Midoriya had blown himself away from the blast so fast that he had almost reached another building nearby, and Bakugo had slowed his own descent with his blast that started pushing himself back up in the air. The two of them grit their teeth at the sight of Takahashi getting back up again. Their eyes darted towards each other, and when they made that look they both saw two things. The first they saw was the big screen on one of the buildings that was projecting the top of the one they were fighting on, as well as the sky above it and the two of them. They also saw the helicopter curving around above that must have been aiming a camera at them.

The teens curled the corners of their lips up revealing their gritting teeth. There were glints in their eyes, and Takahashi pulled the bloody corners of his own up so much more as he saw that on the screen in his peripheral vision along with the shout of the reporter yelling about it from up on the helicopter. Yelling about the two who had fought each other with such passion and ferocity in the Sports Festival, how they were fighting together, how they were winning… Takahashi's eyes darted up towards the helicopter as he heard that last part, but he could not focus on the reporter for any more than that mere instant as there were two things flying back towards him out of the air all of a sudden. He started running forward and brought up his arms with bright red balls of light glowing in his palms, and he swung them forward only for the two coming at him to double in speed with explosions blasting out of Bakugo's feet and Midoriya kicking his legs behind him so hard that he accidentally kicked his right boot off.

Takahashi's arms were only half-swung forward, when the two boys reached him at the same time and slammed their fists forward on opposite sides of the villain's face. Bakugo from the top right side of it and Midoriya from the mid-left. The follow-through had an explosion added to it that sent the villain bouncing across the roof and dragging up debris in a trench as he went. The roof started breaking down below him into the already weakened top floor below, making mini-collapses down a couple of floors though luckily Lemillion had already made it down past all of those with anyone who had still been above.

The villain who skid back across the roof neared the edge of it, only for Deku to drop down on that edge and stop him with a foot. Bakugo dropped down at Takahashi's feet after blasting himself up in the air after him like Deku had done, and Bakugo's hands were curled down at his sides with bright glows coming out of them. He was panting just as Deku was with his right fist lifted up above the villain's head, glaring down at the man on the floor whose mouth was wide open and wheezed breaths in and out in pain. His right eye squinted open, and he stared above him only for it to shoot wider in fear of the two teenage heroes glaring into his eye. "Grrr, grr," he started growling from his throat, but his voice was weak and his vision was blurry and getting hazier.

Deku looked to the man's arms and saw his whole body twitching as he struggled to try and move them. All the fighting had completely burned off most of Takahashi's clothes, and they could see now just how many stitchings he had around his body. There were marks on his lower neck and around his shoulders, down the center of his chest and curving around his waist. Near his elbows and wrists there were marks too, and out from some of those stitching marks some blood was seeping out where neither hero had attacked him particularly hard. Deku was panting hard but he tried taking in some deep breaths to calm himself down and focus on the strange aspects of the villain's body. _All For One…_ _ **"I said that All For One could give Quirks to others, right? He made others trust him or surrender to him by giving them Quirks. But apparently, there were many given Quirks who could not bear the burden and became like living dolls who couldn't speak. Just like the Nomus…"**_ _He took these Quirks. He took them and it didn't turn him into one of those things, but, to have been given multiple Quirks and to just use them as he pleased? Why would All For One do that for him? What was he doing here? Was there something bigger?_

"Takahashi, Haruto," Deku started, not calling him the April Fool's Day Villain this time or even considering it. He did not know if this was the villain's real name, but it was the one he was going by now. The villain lifted his one open eye up to Deku's face. The young hero looking down at him stopped panting and he said with a serious look covering his face, "Where is All For One?"

Bakugo rose his eyes up from the villain for a second to his classmate who he had just fought intensely with for the first time. _Not Shigaraki?_ Bakugo thought, before grinding his teeth and glaring back at the villain below. _I would have…_ Bakugo got a more annoyed look on his face as he thought that, as he realized what he would have done if his mom had been targeted on Shigaraki's hit list instead of Deku's. He tried to shift his focus from it, back to what he had just thought about with him and Deku fighting together like that in a way that pissed him off so much but worked out well. He got confused though. Something was bothering him and his face scrunched up confusedly as he kept glaring down at Takahashi. _Where, are the…_ His head lifted up and he stared towards a helicopter up above.

"You think," Takahashi started, and more blood that had pooled in his scratched-up mouth spilled out from the corners down to his chin. "I'd tell you?" He said it smugly even without being able to move his body. "I'm not…"

 _No one's cheering. What's…_ Deku realized it when he saw what Bakugo just looked up at. He had heard the cheers before from higher up in the air above the building, when the reporter on the tv who had been shouting really loud had gotten everyone riled up about them fighting together. Deku started turning his head while he saw Bakugo looking down at him and past at the screen on the building across the street right behind Deku. As his head was turning, he saw Bakugo's bottom lip dropping and his eyes growing the size of saucers. The villain at Deku's feet had just lifted his eye past Deku too, and though the screen was upside-down for him, he read what it said on the bottom and his bloody jaw dropped.

Bakugo's expression shook as he stared at the big screen, "What the…"

"…Fuck?" Midoriya finished for him. Bakugo's eyes darted to his right for a brief second as he did not think he had ever heard Deku say that word before. He looked back though at the screen where there was a stage set up outside of a government building with a woman walking down the steps of the building towards it.

Prime Minister Ippo walked towards the stage with Endeavor not far from her, some other government officials coming down too, and all of them looking serious. There was silence on the tv as no reporters were speaking while the camera recorded Live which they could tell from the 'LIVE' in red on the top right corner of the screen. And at the bottom of the screen was the title that the channel had put up when they heard about the press conference and switched to it immediately from the end of the fight they had been showing. Everyone down on the street of Tokyo below the huge screen, and the three on top of a skyscraper across from it, stared straight at the label on the screen that had every one of them gawking. 'Lifebringer…'

* * *

"Are you sure about this?"

Zach nodded at the woman standing across from him in the small windowless room. They were on opposite sides of a wooden table that Zach had his hands together over while sitting much more calmly on his seat than the woman who was standing out of hers. She had purple skin covered in white dots, and her orange hair was tied back in a long ponytail behind her. She stared at the boy who nodded in that calm way with a resigned smile on his face, and she slowly took her seat again while trying to calm herself back down. "Why? I could get you- do you not think I could do it?"

"Maybe you could," Zach admitted. He smiled, "But Ms. Hanuri, I don't want you to try. It's better this way."

Rivera Hanuri shook her head at the teenage boy sitting across from her. The seventeen year old had a small smile on his face, and he appreciated the way his lawyer was looking at him appearing like she wanted him to change his mind. She opened her mouth to argue again, but that look on his face had her confused and she shook her head around at the sight of it. "Why?" She whispered. She looked into Zach's hazel eyes and questioned the boy, "If I try, I have a dozen different defenses that I could… Why plead guilty?"

"Because I am," Zach replied without hesitating.

She shook her head at him though. "We could argue an innocent verdict and you could be out today! Because of the circumstances, and Kurogiri's power, your age-"

Zach started shaking his head at his lawyer who bit down in more frustration at that resigned look like he thought there was no hope. She could see he did not believe her, and she balled her fists at her sides as this seventeen year old was resigning himself to a fate she did not want him to meet. And then she pulled back in her chair and stared at him with her fists unclenching, her frustrated expression disappearing and replacing with shock. "If I'm declared innocent for what I did, then other heroes may think it's alright to go around killing villains. People might think that what I did was okay… and I don't want that."

Rivera was stunned that the boy she was looking at was the same one she had met two years earlier who had been terrified at his court hearing. She remembered the short five foot tall child who needed her to do everything for him, who did not understand anything and just wanted to go home. Rivera gulped while looking into his eyes that she just noticed were not resigned, but determined. He wasn't just accepting his fate, he was actively pushing himself towards it. She leaned back forward after a few seconds and she took in a deep breath, before looking into his eyes and nodding her head once at what he just said to her. "I'll still fight to get whatever you're given reduced. You can't stop me from that."

Zach nodded back at her in an accepting way himself. Then he watched as the woman across from him glanced over her shoulder towards the door of the room, before shifting her gaze back to him and speaking in a quieter voice. "So, since we have attorney-client privilege," Zach leaned back in towards the table himself as Rivera started to whisper. "Are you Death?" She asked him in a quiet voice.

Zach smiled more and pulled his head back, and he shook his head at the woman across from him. "I'm not, sorry," he added at the disappointed and also hesitant look she gave him.

Rivera did not know if she believed him. After a few seconds she smiled at the boy though, _I'm glad. Zach, you became a good man. When you disappeared from the courtroom that day I felt I had failed you. I'm, really happy you're still alive._

* * *

'Lifebringer Arrested? Prime Minister Ippo Calls Press Conference.'

The sudden announcement that all the major news media stations had received had everyone in Japan rushing to find their closest tv. Midoriya and Bakugo stared at the screen from the top of a damaged building that fire-fighting heroes were rushing up the stairs of at that moment to try and put out the smaller fires that the explosions had caused without yet getting out of control. Everyone looking at the label on the bottom of the screen rose their eyes to the prime minister as she headed straight up to the podium. "Greetings, citizens." Ippo wasted no time in starting once she was up there, speaking loudly and concisely to the crowd of reporters still gathering in front of her in a larger group every minute. "I have called this press conference to announce the conclusion to a case of great public interest that has been open for more than a year now. Zach Sazaki, the perpetrator of the 'Lifebringer Incident,' has been apprehended and is in the custody of the Japanese government."

"Ms. Prime Minister!"

"Prime Minister Ippo!"

"What's going on?!"

"When did this happen?"

"Prime Minister!"

Ippo was barraged by the reporters who could usually keep calm and wait until the time for questions before yelling them at her. Endeavor glared into the crowd and some police nearby looked like they were going to try and get things under control as the crowd seemed to fall into chaos. The announcement was unexpected, and the reporters needed more than what they were just given. Ippo took in a deep breath and then continued which was a better way at calming the reporters than anything else. "Two nights ago, Sazaki turned himself over to the authorities here in Japan without a struggle."

Endeavor stood to the side of the prime minister and back a few feet. His eyes were focused on the reporters and around at buildings near them in the case of an attack on the country's leader, but he could not stay too focused on security at the moment after what she just mentioned. _Two nights ago,_ Endeavor thought, his eyes dark behind the flames covering the top half of his face. In his head he saw the empty lot that he was standing in with only some police there with him as backup along with a couple of his sidekicks. He thought about the other side of the lot, where a figure in a hoodie with the hood down walked cautiously towards him before going down on his knees and putting his hands up as was ordered of him. _He acted like we had never met before. Maybe we hadn't. Not like, I played it as we had._

"He turned himself over?!"

"Why didn't we know about this then?!"

Ippo held up a hand to quiet down the reporters who started shouting again after just a single sentence. "Sazaki made contact before turning himself over, to inform us that he was going to come in. He made one request in exchange for turning himself over, and that was that we keep quiet about it until after his trial. As there exists precedent to do so, such as when he returned from the League of Villains, I saw no reason to deny him this request. The fact that his public trial was targeted by villains once before was reason enough to keep it a secret-"

"So he's already been sentenced?!"

"There will be time for questions at the end, so please hold all your questions until then," Ippo glared at the reporter while saying it, and the man pulled back before nodding at the prime minister. Other reporters who wanted to shout similar things there tried to settle themselves to stay respectful for a bit too, as many questions as they all had. Ippo took a deep breath and then started again, "Yes, Zach Sazaki has already faced trial as of last night. Now, there were many factors involved regarding how to treat him when it came to this trial. The fact that he was a minor at the time of the Lifebringer Incident, and still is a minor came into play during his sentencing…"

 _"Sentencing?"_ Midoriya's breathing sped up as he faced the giant screen in front of him.

Ippo continued, "…he also pled guilty with no contest, and he turned himself over without a fight. _And_ , it could not be ignored that Sazaki had a provisional hero license at the time of the incident. He was given a license by the government that made him believe that his judgement as a hero was worth something, that he was someone who should seek out justice, and as such we must accept our part of the blame in giving him this power. However," her eyes darkened and she continued, "he still killed six people that night."

Bakugo's eyes started widening more as Ippo's expression hardened. The prime minister continued, "He admitted to it, to planning out the attack to kill Kurogiri and then continuing to fight and kill five more villains that night in the Enudora Forest. Because of his history as a flight risk, there is only one place to send him, and the nature of his crimes demands a sentence that I agree with the judge fits his crime." The reporters in front of Ippo realized that the sentencing had already taken place too and their eyes started to widen at the way their elected official just worded that last statement. Ippo's voice got lower and she went on, "Due to his record of saving lives and helping the innocent, and that the people in question were villains who he killed while in possession of a hero license, the punishment is one year, per villain who Sazaki killed in the Lifebringer Incident."

The breath that Midoriya just sucked in sucked so much harder and he froze with his eyes bulging at the screen. "…He will serve these six years with no chance of parole. And Sazaki will carry out this sentence in the maximum security prison, Tartaros."

Another breath sucked in hard on the roof of the building Midoriya and Bakugo were on. This time though, it was not from either of the boys. "No," a voice gasp-whispered between them. The two shocked teens still staring at the screen turned and looked down at the man between them who started struggling to move again. "Why? Why right now?" Takahashi Haruto glared down at his body and at his hands that he was telling to move but were only twitching at his sides. More blood spilled out of the stitchings around his body as he pushed his body farther past its limits. "I- I-" he rose his head and his good eye looked back and forth between the two boys. Then it shifted back to Deku and he said, "I'll tell you whatever you want to know about All For One, but then you have to let me go. Let me go free!"

Midoriya stared at the villain's face and he started shaking his head, his heart pounding even harder with a pit of dread forming in his chest. Bakugo stared down at the villain in confusion and then up at Deku's face in more surprise at the look on his classmate's. "We're not letting you-"

"You can't send me there!" Takahashi yelled. Blood splashed out of his mouth and he exclaimed in panic at a boy who recognized this look way too well, "Please, don't- he'll kill me!" Bakugo's eyes widened and shifted back to Deku again from the prisoner, and he lowered his bottom lip at the look on Deku's face that was regretful and pulling back from the villain's. Takahashi saw that look on Deku's face that made his own shake even more, as he could see the teen even believed what he was afraid of himself. Takahashi did not see them budging though, and he yelled, "You can't send me to Tartaros!"

* * *

On an island connected to the mainland by a long bridge, deep inside the most secure prison in Japan, Juno Kawasagi stared across the cell block with his eyes trembling at something he just heard a man over there shout. The prisoners were not all kept in small cells to stay locked up for life sentences, and the majority of the villains in the prison lived in cell blocks like these with several floors of cells and walkways outside of them. The walkways led to stairs going down to the floor of the cell block where there was a gym area, doors leading to the cafeteria and shower areas, as well as to the "yard" which was still not on the exterior of the building as much as it was made to look like it so as not to break international codes on cruel punishments for criminals.

The cell block was getting louder and rowdier as the rumors spread. Some of the prison guards who stood around the cell block to keep order maintained started getting nervous at the way the prisoners were acting. Tachibana Miyuki leaned to her side and muttered at the man on her right, "Let's cut free time short and have them go back to their cells. What idiot let it slip who's coming?"

Edo Ebboro nodded his head and he spoke in a low voice behind his helmet's dark blue visor, "Prisoners are getting riled up in here. Send some support to Block D, we might need to-"

"Block A is having, some problems."

"Come on," Tachibana grabbed Edo by an arm and tugged back towards a door of the cell block. She turned and started that way to get out of there, and she yelled to the sides, "Get back in your cells! We're doing a drill-"

A skinny man stumble-ran into the guards' paths. The two of them were quick to snap the black batons they had out in front of them with the weapons zapping the floor at their sides. The guards' gazes were dark and intense even towards what looked like an unthreatening villain. Other much larger villains around the area looked towards Kawasagi in surprise at his bold action, but the former scientist for the League of Villains did not look very bold right now. Instead, the Chemist looked terrified as he shouted at the guards in front of him, "Tell me it's not true! You're not bringing _him_ here!"

"Out of the way, prisoner," Edo declared, stomping forward and moving his zap-stick to the side to show he was not afraid to use it.

A few other guards in the room started moving closer, but then a voice shouted through the entire block that had just quieted down to watch the confrontation. Others around this voice turned and looked towards a man who had a collar on and a thick steel blindfold around his face to cover up his eyes which allowed him to be in Gen-Pop with the others. Breakneck cupped a hand to his mouth and called out from up high on a third floor walkway to the middle of the floor down below, "Are the rumors true? You're really sending Lifebringer in here with us?!"

A large man sitting on the edge of his bed even though his cell door was open rose his head at the sound of that shout. Hydro got up and he marched out of his cell, a furious look spreading to cover his face as everyone else started murmuring or yelling too. "SEND HIM TO THIS BLOCK!" Hydro roared.

"Are you crazy?!" Damian yelled to his left on the second floor towards Hydro's cell. The bigger man turned to glare at him, but the red-skinned former member of the War Boys already had a terrified look on his face that only became furious at the one Hydro gave him. "You _want_ him to come here?! Do you even know, what he's done?! What he does to villains now?"

"Hydro," Fez started, glaring a few feet away at the big man in the same white jumpsuit the rest of them were wearing. "You fucking idiot. Don't you get it? The reason he's coming down here!"

"Did they capture him?!"

"How'd they get him?!"

 _No one captured him,_ Tachibana thought hesitantly while looking around at the yelling prisoners all around her. _He, turned himself over._

"He's coming for us, isn't he?!"

"You can't be serious! You can't let him down here!"

Over in Cell Block A, the guards all made it out of the cell block and locked the doors inside. Oda Bunogawa pulled the microphone up to his mouth and shouted into the cell block that they just locked up. "Get into your cells in ten seconds! After that we are going to close the doors and you won't be _allowed_ back in there until we've gassed-"

"You don't understand!" A man inside the cell block yelled, running towards the door that the guards just left out of. He slammed his fists into them and then ran to the long bulletproof glass window next to the door that he banged his fists on again. Lee banged on the window and pleaded, "You can't let him down here! We aren't safe! None of us are-"

"Oi gaijin! Shut your fucking mouth already," Killmore snarled over at the chubby non-Japanese man. "You don't even know that he's really-"

"I do!" Lee shouted, spinning towards the blue-skinned man and yelling it with a look of fear covering his face.

"Lee," Phinx started, moving towards the man and his old partner who was starting to say too much.

"No!" Lee yelled, spinning to Phinx with a horrified expression. " _You've_ seen him! You know he's Death! And, and you said he wouldn't come for us in Japan! You said we'd be safe from him here!" Lee's face trembled in terror which had the other villains around the prison block who had started to get to know the two mercenaries over the past few weeks and thought they were pretty hardcore getting very nervous. Some of them wanted to just believe that they had the wrong idea about Lee, but Phinx had sweat on his face too and looked towards the glass as if looking to see if he could try breaking out from there.

"If, Death's after them," Needler lifted his head from the floor and glared towards the mercenaries.

Gahandi darted his eyes over to Fudgepack and he nodded his head. The two of them started forward, and they looked across the cell block at Killmore who frowned back at them before shifting his gaze to the mercs as well and balling his fists.

Phinx saw movement all around him. He heard the guards start yelling at everyone to get back in their cells again, but Phinx turned and looked around at the men coming towards him. "Death's not coming for _us,_ " Phinx snarled, though there was still sweat on his face and his nervous look showed beneath it. The others all stopped coming towards him though as the hitman shook his head. Their eyes started to widen and they pulled back in fear just as the guards on the other side of the glass did, as Phinx called out at the top of his lungs, "Death comes, for _ALL_ villains!"

* * *

"Tsukuyomi," Hawks said, dropping down on a rooftop next to his intern for the past two years. Fumikage Tokoyami glanced to the side at Hawks before looking back out from the roof into the darkness ahead of him. "You're going to want to see this," Hawks added, as Tsukuyomi refocused on the task at hand quickly without seeing the look Hawks was giving him.

Tokoyami took his eyes off of the big beach house they were staring towards on the coast of California. His summer internship with Hawks had started off intensely, and none of his classmates knew where in the world he was currently. He looked to Hawks and got out of the zone he was in though, noticing Hawks' look and stepping closer to look at the phone Hawks pulled out and then turned sideways so they could both look at it. Tokoyami stared at the screen and his beak parted with his eyes bulging in shock at the sight on the screen.

In Musutafu, in Class B's dorm building, Komori turned her head and called out, "Hey Kuroiro! Come down here and look at this!"

"Oh man," Kosei Tsuburaba ran a hand up through his spiky brown hair in shock at what he was seeing on their common room's tv screen. "He just, turned himself in? That's-" Tsuburaba stopped himself as he caught something out the corners of his eyes. He turned his head, and he stared where Komori and Kodai were already looking with wide eyes (not that anyone could see Komori's under her long bangs). "H-Hey Kendo," Tsuburaba started hesitantly.

Kendo snapped her head back and she spun to her classmates, then she reached an arm up and rubbed over her eyes quickly with it. "Oh, I'm sorry. I- don't know what came over me," she said, laughing about it before lowering her arm and staring at the screen in amazement again. _He's, really back. He's alive._ Kendo smiled and felt her heart racing with relief.

Just next door to Class B's building, a group of Class A students could barely close their mouths while staring at their television. "…the prime minister's sudden announcement came as a shock, to I think everyone? Am I right? I mean, Lifebringer getting caught, or something, I could understand. I never imagined he'd be back of his own accord though."

"Clearly he understands now, that what he did was wrong. He- pled guilty to the charges."

"Now, this also comes as a surprise especially, because of Prime Minister Ippo's mention that he turned himself over _two_ days ago. Yet the report yesterday of the Army of Death sighting in China-"

"I told you he wasn't Death. This whole time I kept saying it…"

"Well maybe he was-"

"No! How can you still be saying that? In the report yesterday even, we just overlooked it because it had become so common at this point, but there were accounts of people being brought back to life by someone in the Army of Death who showed up to fight those villains. _Confirmed_ reports, which isn't any different from all the other times except that now we know that it wasn't Lifebringer who was doing it at all."

"You're right, it does seem there is someone else out there with the power to bring back the dead."

"Get back to talking about Zach already," Ashido snapped at the tv screen in front of her. "We- I already knew, I didn't think he was Death already. What's going to- how's this…" The pink girl shaking in her common room with dried tear streaks on her face spun to look at the others around her but they were all still glued to the tv screen themselves. She looked back and she said in a low voice, "What's going to happen to Zach? Why- I don't want him to go to… he doesn't deserve to…"

Mineta glanced to his left towards Ashido and then back at the screen himself. _Straight to Tartaros? That's, where the worst of the worst go. Zach doesn't belong there!_

"Ito! Where have you been? We started the discussion-"

"I just received a report, about a riot at Tartaros earlier today," Ito started to his fellow hosts in the news room already discussing the press conference that happened not long before. They all stared at him in shock just as the students watching the screen did only with a lot more fear on their faces. "I went to look for a story there as we heard that, Zach Sazaki had been brought in before the announcement was made-"

"What happened?!"

"Is Sazaki alright?"

"How did they let this happen-"

Sero started shaking his head, a worried look spreading over his face as he stood up from the couch he had been sitting in with a shocked expression for the past twenty minutes straight. "No way," he whispered. A panicked look covered Ashido's face and she shouted at the screen in worry, and Sato leaned forward towards the screen himself only to be yelled at by Uraraka to move out of the way. The brown haired girl ran forward too to look around Sato, and they all stared closely as the hosts barraged Ito with questions.

"They didn't get to him, did they?"

"You don't understand," the reporter who just came back began. He cracked a small, nervous smile after he said it which quieted down his colleagues and the worried students yelling at him. "The riot wasn't because the villains were going after Lifebringer, to kill him. It was, the exact opposite."

Sato leaned back and he stared at the screen with his eyes shaking. Sero leaned forward on the center couch and a look of confusion crossed over his face. "What does, that mean?" He muttered to himself.

"Shhh!" Ashido yelled around even though her own breathing was what was so loud that she thought she needed more silence.

Ito Uniro lowered his small grin and he explained to his colleagues and the cameras pointed at him, "When they heard that Lifebringer was being sent to Tartaros, the prisoners started a riot to keep him _away_ from them." Class A's students gawked at the screen, and they all watched with their jaws dropped as the reporter continued, "They think that he's turned himself in so that he can get revenge on all of them. They think, that he got himself sent to Tartaros so that he can get to them."

One of the women in the news room leaned back in her chair and her eyes grew huge. "Oh my God," she whispered. "What if, that is-"

"You can't really think-"

"Apparently Keishi's not the only one to think so," Ito cut in on one of the other hosts before that man could scold the woman next to him. The other hosts looked back at the man who just came in with that announcement, and he continued, "Because the Warden accepted the prisoners' concerns as valid and agreed that Lifebringer should be put in a different holding area than in Gen-Pop with the rest. I didn't get more information than that, but I can only assume that means he'll be kept in private confines."

"Hmm, I hope that does not mean he's going to be kept in solitary," one of the older men at the table began, collecting himself as they were on tv after all. "Though, I suppose I am glad that Lifebringer's not being thrown in with all those other criminals. He _is_ a different case, after all."

"I wish they didn't send him to jail in the first place! It scares me that this kid is now trapped with all those villains who want, to kill…" the woman speaking trailed off and got a more hesitant and confused look on her face thinking about what Ito said. "Though, it seems the villains haven't gotten the message about him not being Death, if they're all so afraid that he's coming for them. Haha, ha…"

"Well, we do know that he is already there," Ito began. "So, at least he hasn't done it yet," he said, shrugging his shoulders. He had a joking look on his face that for some reason did not appear 100% genuine, almost like he was trying to make a joke even though a part of him believed it was really coming.

Inside Lemillion's agency building in Tokyo, Midoriya and Bakugo were standing in a room with the pro hero they were interning with. The three of them were watching this so soon after their recent fight, because the press conference they had after it was cut so short with only a couple of reporters even bothering to show up. After hearing that the main perpetrator of the incident was none other than the April Fool's Day Villain too, even less people cared about it with full focus of even that press conference becoming about Lifebringer which was why Lemillion cut it short. After all, his interns did not know how to respond to the questions the reporters were asking while still overwhelmed by what was happening themselves.

"You two can head home for today," Lemillion finally told the two as all they were doing was watching the news together. "Work starts, same time tomorrow," he added when they looked to him. He had an arm in a sling but it sounded like it would be work as usual moving forward. Lemillion stared at the screen after saying so, and as his interns started away his eyes narrowed down at the news he was watching. _Not that, there will likely be anything tomorrow. Is that him? I've seen Death from up close on multiple occasions. I saw his Army fight in the League of Shadows' base, and I saw his Army save Qingxiao. I've seen the clips of him in Frunoco, and Guatemala, Gorran and India. His body type, could match Sazaki's. If someone's still out there bringing back the dead though, then was Sazaki's disappearance really just a… coincidence?_

Midoriya looked at the screen one more time as he was heading out of the office. He looked back while Lemillion kept sitting, watching it with an intense and focused glare. Midoriya looked at the woman on screen who he remembered from Zach's first trial. Rivera Hanuri was back up in a video call with the hosts of the news show, and Midoriya lowered his gaze at what he heard her saying before turning to follow Bakugo out.

"…I attempted to defend my client, however Mr. Sazaki was very accepting of his crimes and told the court that he believed he deserved to go to prison for the crimes he pled guilty to. I have also heard about the riot in Tartaros earlier today, and I am going to make sure that my client receives fair treatment while incarcerated. I will ensure that the demands of those villains do not come above the needs, of Lifebringer."

Midoriya walked out and over to Bakugo who grunted as Deku stepped to his side but did not say anything about it. Bakugo waited a few seconds, then he shifted his gaze to the side at his childhood friend whose face was so conflicted and lost in thought. He thought about the way Deku looked when the April Fool's Day Villain was begging not to be sent to Tartaros, and it made him grind his teeth in annoyance combined with the look Deku had now. "You don't really think he came back to kill the Tartaros-"

"No," Deku began quietly, shaking his head and cutting off Bakugo who continued to frown. Even though Deku was denying it, he did not know if he believed that denial with the look still on his green-haired classmate's face. Midoriya glanced at Bakugo and then back down, and his hand rubbed over his phone in his pocket that had buzzed before with a worried text from his mom. "But," he continued slowly as they walked for the elevator to head down to the ground level of the skyscraper Lemillion's agency was in. "That wasn't, the first time I… Those men who came after my mom," Midoriya said softly, and Bakugo lost his annoyed look a bit.

Deku looked back up and into Bakugo's eyes, stopping where he was before they reached the elevators. "When Wonderlass died, I shouted for Zach. I, I yelled for him to come and help… and those men," Bakugo had started grinding his teeth more at what his classmate was bringing up there, but he froze at what Deku was continuing with. "They looked terrified," Midoriya whispered. "They were, so scared that Zach would actually come for them. They begged me to send them to prison instead… the looks on their faces, were worse than what I saw on Takahashi's but, but even he was still willing to do anything to stay away-"

"He's Death, what do you expect?" Bakugo said in a low voice, and he turned from Deku as his classmate stared at him in surprise. They had never talked about Zach together before, and Deku ran after Bakugo while asking him how he knew. "How do I know?" Bakugo grunted back in annoyance after pressing the down button for the elevator. He stared at the closed elevator doors and replied, "What? You really don't think he is anymore, just because some new people claimed they got brought back? He told whoever he left to be the new Death while he's gone to tell the people they save to go around saying that they were revived. Most people will buy it, but it's something he would think of and is pretty fucking obvious."

Midoriya stared at the side of Bakugo's head with his eyes shaking for a few seconds, then he lowered them down to the ground and clenched his fists at his sides. _Kacchan's right. I always knew it was you. It's just, for a while I really thought you were… dead. Then a report comes in about the Army of Death, and you just happen to already be in custody about to reappear? It's not a coincidence. And even if more reports come in… I, I'll ignore them. Ignore reports of the dead coming back, just because I think it's probably lies? What if they're not though, and there's someone else you left behind who can revive people? That still, doesn't change that you were Death. I know you were._

"Oi Kirishima, Tetsutetsu," Togaru Kamakiri began to a pair who just walked into Class B's dorm. The two were coming from training together somewhere on campus, and they were still wearing their hero uniforms while sweating badly as they had raced back in the sweltering July heat. The two boys who were arguing loudly about who got there first looked over towards the boy who looked a bit like a praying mantis with his two sharp pincers sticking out his mouth and the green on his mohawk. Kamakiri mentioned his own classmate second, and he looked back specifically at Kirishima after when he saw them look at him confusedly. "You two haven't seen the news yet?"

Others in Class B looked over at the muscular pair who started towards the common area. "Why? What's going…" Tetsutetsu's voice trailed off as he stared towards the screen.

Kirishima stopped in place and his heart rate skyrocketed at the label on the bottom of the screen. 'Zach Sazaki sentenced to 6 years in Tartaros.' "What?" he whispered in shock.

A few hundred miles away, Raijin rose a hand to his chin and started scratching his stubbly blond beard. He leaned back on his couch while other villains talked loudly at each other around the room. His eyes were narrowed at the screen but his lips curled up at the corners at the televised conversations about the one person who had ever beaten him. _What are you planning? I don't know yet. You surprised me again. Zach! I'm going to beat you this time._

"Those guys in Tartaros are fucked," Shooter muttered, lifting a hand and rubbing the side of his head with it as he leaned on a back wall.

"Glad I'm still out," Meta agreed on Shooter's right side.

Diamondfist stopped arguing with the men in front of him for a second, turning and glaring back at the screen himself as he heard laughter from the news hosts about the possibility that Lifebringer was on a revenge quest. "Those idiots don't know what they're laughing about. Fucking-"

"Zach's not there to kill them," Raijin started, speaking to the man behind his couch without turning his head. Ten League of Villains' members in the room looked towards the leader of their team who chuckled at the fears they had been voicing. "He's not that, petty," Raijin said in a lower voice. _**"Something so petty… It's not about you, Kaminari, but, but it's also not about me."**_ "Whatever he's planning," Raijin continued after recalling something Zach had said to him in the Enudora Forest. "It's going to be big."

"Whew!" Mt. Lady leaned back on her bed with a look of relief splayed out on her face. She put her back up against the headboard behind her with pillows piled up on her sides, and she turned her head to look out the open doors of the balcony to her hotel room. The pro hero in a white bathrobe stared out over the ocean that her balcony had a view of back in the direction of Japan, and she smiled while thinking, _I'm glad he's still alive. I was getting tired of all the mysteries and stuff._

"You're happy?" Kamui Woods asked, looking at the woman sitting up next to him on the bed in their honeymoon suite. "He is going to prison-"

"Well I'm not happy about that," Mt. Lady said with a sigh, looking next to her at her new husband with her smile dropping down. "But it's still a relief, that he came back. Don't you think?"

"Mmm," Kamui Woods nodded his head and he refaced the television in their hotel room. "I, hope so," he replied.

"…This just in: after much argument, the demands from the media are being met. The government declared on their own that they were going to keep the trial a secret, but we demanded to see it and there were in fact cameras at the trial location to keep a record. We will show any clips that we receive as soon as they arrive…"

Jirou lay flat on her back with her phone on at her side. The sound was on but she was not watching, just listening as she stared up at the ceiling with her face conflicted and covered in frustration. _Why'd he come back? Damn it. Momo's, going to go see him. I know she will, and… and what if he mentions the letter he left her? She'll know it was me. I grabbed some things for her from her room, to give her when I went to visit the days after… She'll know I took it._

She turned her head to the side as the hosts kept talking about the boy filling her with frustrating thoughts. Then she sat up and looked over towards her desk. _Maybe I should destroy them now. I still, haven't read my own… but I didn't need to. You idiot, why even leave those if you were going to come back?!_

In another room on Jirou's floor, Iida was having the same thoughts while staring over towards a single pair of glasses he had remaining in his room. They were a reminder, and he drowned out the sound from the video and thought about the letter he had long since thrown out. _'Goodbye.' He, was leaving for real. I never expected to see him again, unless he was captured by the authorities or killed… but to turn himself in, after leaving like that? I don't understand. Zach, what possessed you to return? Have you really, accepted that you did wrong and chose to come back solely to face the music for your crimes?_

 _What's he doing here?_ Todoroki glared out his window with narrowed eyes and a suspicious gaze. _He's using this. The way he returned is important. What could he gain from doing it like this? Handing himself over, taking the blame for his crimes, it has to be pushing towards something. The way the media is talking about it is the way he expected them to. So what does that mean? I have to figure it out,_ Todoroki lifted back up his phone and he watched carefully as the people on it were talking about getting a clip of Sazaki's sentencing soon.

"The look in his eyes when it started raining, right before he left," Sato started while sitting on a couch in the common room, eight others in Class A around him. Others looked over at him and they all thought back on what he was talking about. They could see the conviction in Zach's eyes as he said "Goodbye" and Sato clenched his teeth in more frustration as he heard it ring in his head again. "What does he think he's doing, coming back after…"

"This is a good thing!" Ashido called over at the larger boy. "He's, he turned himself in. Isn't that what everyone wanted?" She asked it like no one should say anything against it, and no one did.

Tsuyu looked over at her pink friend though and then lowered her big eyes down to her feet. _I didn't, Mina. I never wanted him to come back. The Zach we knew, wouldn't have come back after saying that. He really believed, he was never going to see us again. So then why is he here? For him to have come back…_

"Do you guys think, he's got something planned?" Mineta asked, glancing around at the others and then turning right next to him as he saw Tsuyu look at him in surprise. He looked in her eyes and he saw that she was not surprised by his question, but that he was thinking it too. "You do?"

"Hmm…" Tsuyu hummed, hesitant to answer.

"Well of course he does," Sato muttered. Shoji looked over at his spiky-haired classmate who curled his hands down into his knees in anger. "He wouldn't have come back on some half-assed whim. If he's here, it's because he's got some crazy plan. Not that, I'd know what it would be. I don't even know who-"

"It's Zach," Sero said, cutting Sato off and then staring him down when Sato turned towards him with a dark look. Sato's eyebrows lifted up and he pulled back after a few seconds, his fingers loosening off of his legs. Sero smiled softly and looked back at the screen with a more relaxed look than all of the others around him. "Even if he's got a plan, even if he's here to do something crazy… it's still Zach. I'm not worried. I'm just," Sero's lips started curling down and he stared at the screen in a sadder way. "It sucks, he's going to jail. I'm glad he's back, but I guess we all knew that even if he came back, he wouldn't really… be back."

"Only six years though, for what he-" Mineta began.

" _'Only'_ six?!" Ashido shouted at the short boy who pulled his head back at that exclamation. "That's still crazy! He- he shouldn't be… and in Tartaros too?! Where we send the League of Villains and the worst of the worst?!"

"That certainly, isn't Zach," Shoji agreed, though his voice was softer than the pink girl's. _But he_ _ **is**_ _a flight risk, as they said. They only charged him for his murders, but putting him in Tartaros is like sentencing him for running away. If he had just turned himself in that night, would things have been different? Perhaps, they would have given him a different sentence. Then again, Zach's popularity rose back up the longer he was gone. The longer the League of Villains were in hiding after losing Kurogiri, the more people believed that what he did put a stop to their plans. The more, people started to accept that Kurogiri's death was an acceptable loss… not that too many people were necessarily angry over it in the first place…_

"Alright! Our producers have just let us know that we are the first to receive the actual footage from the end of Lifebringer's trial. We won't delay it any longer, so let's watch…"

The screen switched from the room the hosts were in to a courtroom that looked pretty much empty. There was a judge in the middle of the room up behind the bench, there was a panel of hero officials who had been asking questions who were on one side of the room, and Endeavor and Mr. Principal were on the other side. Rivera Hanuri was standing at a table next to the podium that a figure was facing the bench from behind. And for the first time in over a year, everyone was given a glimpse of Zach Sazaki as he stood with his back to the camera, in a white jumpsuit with his hands handcuffed behind him and a black glove over his right hand. There was no box on his hand, but apparently it was deemed unnecessary since Sazaki had turned himself in and was not resisting.

The judge began reading off the sentencing, first quoting the same things that the prime minister had mentioned earlier before handing down his verdict. Prime Minister Ippo was amongst the hero officials watching from the side, but no one was focused on her or even listening too closely to the dark-skinned judge reading off his damning sentence. "…and despite the heinous crimes of the villains, the justice dealt out by you, Sazaki, was no justice at all. Your actions are indefensible, and for that you must face punishment. There is little precedent for how to judge a crime like this, but I am fair and I am understanding. When all factors are taken into account, I believe, that a sentence of six years: one year for each life you took that night, is a punishment that fits this crime. Due to your past record, the only location fit to hold you is the maximum security prison: Tartaros. In addition, there will be no possibility of parole. This is my decision, and I believe I have carried out my duties to the fullest extent of the law. If you have any complaint or wish to say anything now, please do."

Hanuri looked towards her client and the video showed that she was looking like she did want to say something. She frowned though and then looked back at the judge and shook her head. "No. My client does not contest…"

"In that case," the judge slammed his gavel down. "This trial is adjourned. Zach Sazaki, you will be immediately taken to Tartaros. There are guards and police here ready to transport you." The judge turned his head and nodded towards something off the camera, and some men in police uniforms came forward towards the podium and Zach Sazaki who turned away from the bench.

All anyone had been able to see so far was his back, along with his long black hair that fell down below his shoulder-blades and around the sides of his head to drape over his shoulders on his sides in a messy way both in front and behind them. The length of his hair surprised his classmates who guessed he must not have cut it once since he left them thirteen months earlier. His height was some surprise too as he had grown another half foot in the past year since he had left. When he turned though, he turned left so the left side of his face was the first thing visible. His hair was dropping around his head in such a way that it blocked the left side of his neck, and his bangs covered up most of his forehead and even the tops of his eyes partially. What people could see though from just the start of his head turn, was the scar that cut from the middle of his cheek to just below his ear, as well as in the other direction from his cheek down to the left side of his chin. Everywhere in between those two lines was a darker shade than the rest of his light skin.

The more Zach turned, the more of his face became visible as did the front of his neck that had red marks on it and a scar that looked like something had cut through. His former classmates staring at the screen held their breaths at the sight of these marks, and of the line that cut under his right eye and confirmed to them that the person they were looking at really was their old friend. The guards started leading Zach Sazaki forward towards the door behind the cameraman, and the camera began to pan slowly to follow after Lifebringer as he walked back through the courtroom. As he was walking back through the room though, his eyes shifted towards the camera that was aimed at him and pulling after him.

His steps slowed down and the guards at his sides looked in at him. They looked like they wanted to tell him to keep moving, but Zach only slowed his steps, he didn't stop completely. Zach just slowed down and looked straight into the camera, which meant that he was staring through every television screen and into the eyes of a few million people staring back at him. This had happened much earlier for him, but it still felt to everyone watching that he was looking straight at them. His eyes that had looked so dark as he was walking back through the room suddenly looked softer and just, sad. And he said in a soft yet strong voice, steady and loud enough to be heard on the camera but yet quiet and reserved as he looked like he wanted to turn away in regret, "I'm sorry."

His head turned back forward as if being pulled to look that way, and he quickened his pace again to make up for slowing down there. "Stay with us," one of the guards ordered in a firm voice, making Zach slow back down and stay right between them as the camera panned to follow. It pointed at their backs and then cut off before they reached the doors. The screen went black and then returned to the news room where all the hosts were sitting, frozen after watching that for the first time themselves.

 _He's, sorry?_ Mineta thought. _Was he…_

 _He's always using it,_ Todoroki lowered his phone and he ground his teeth quickly to shake off the thought that almost pulled into his head. _He's not apologizing to me. That's not- it's an all-encompassing apology. Say it like that and…_

"Lifebringer, apologized," one of the hosts began. "To all of us."

"You think that's what he was doing too? I mean, he must have known we'd all wind up seeing that even if he had asked them not to make the trial live."

"He let down everyone. People, really looked to him. He was a symbol, he stood for something and he betrayed the trust people put in him… He understands that, and I think that's why he turned himself in…"

"Even though he killed Kurogiri, for us? Maybe he accepts that he did it in part for revenge too, do you think?"

"I don't know. But, he sounded sincere. I know when villains go up and apologize you never really think much of it, but I mean, I wouldn't really consider Lifebringer a villain in the first place…"

 _You think he was talking to all of you. But, that apology has more meaning than you get. The way he left us like that, he knows how much it had to hurt._ Sero shook his head while listening to the hosts bicker and banter back and forth about Lifebringer. _That was for us. It felt like, he was looking straight at me. You don't need to apologize, man. I know, you did what you thought was right._

 _Who is he apologizing to?_ Shoji wondered, imagining that it could be for someone in particular and not for him like he initially thought while looking straight into Zach's eyes and hearing that. _It, could be…_ He lifted his gaze up and stared at the ceiling above him.

In her room on the fifth floor, Momo Yaoyorozu stared at her computer screen where the news was being live-streamed. She wanted to rewind and watch it again, but her hand shook on her mouse as she kept listening to the reporters instead. "…I think, he was apologizing to all of us. Not for letting us down, but for the incident itself. He's apologizing for killing the villains, as he's matured and clearly understands what he did was wrong now to have come back and turned himself in."

"He's still a kid for God's sake! Not even eighteen yet, and he was only sixteen at the time! And he was doing a public service. He helped bring about this new peace we're living in now, and he's still apologetic over how he did it. I can't believe that judge thinks his judgement was 'fair' when he just sent a child to the strongest prison…"

Momo's eyes had water in them again, just as they did when she first heard the news. She couldn't rewind back to what she just watched, but she only needed to see it the one time. _He was talking straight to me… That apology, was directed straight at me…_ Yaoyorozu slid her chair out from her desk, pushing back with her hands and looking down between them. "No," she whispered. She started shaking her head, a small frown on her face. "That's not true." _He, has a lot of people he's apologizing to… He does, and every one of them are going to think it's towards them, in some way… but, but that doesn't mean, it's not true._

She lifted her gaze back to the screen and she did not have to rewind it anymore as they replayed the clip anyway. Her hands slid off the desk and she watched as he turned around and then looked back into the camera again with a face so different yet one she would never forget or fail to recognize. _That may have been meant for everyone, for all our friends too… but I know it was to me as well. Zach, I just-_ Her thoughts cut off as the boy in the replaying recording said it again, "I'm sorry."

* * *

 **A/N ...and he's back. Kind of... April Fool's Day Villain fights a teamed-up Bakugo and Midoriya, then the world is shooketh by Zach suddenly turning himself in. The villains in Tartaros lose their fucking minds at the idea that Death's coming for them, some people are suspecting some plans coming from Lifebringer, Death's still out there and bringing people back to life, or so the reports say. Zach gets 6 years in Tartaros... Thanks for reading! Leave a review below telling me what you think, questions, predictions for what's ahead.**

Lief 17 chapter 135 . Jan 20

Wait... wtf... okay... This is a plot twist I didn't expect! Now you need to provide another chapter coz this cliff is too steep for me... I was about to sleep when I got a notif so I checked it out. Hopefully we still see the AOD in this next arc and hoping for the long-awaited return of Zach to Japan.

 **Plot TWIST! I'm getting really busy as it's my last semester at school and I've got a whole ton of stuff I gotta do with my thesis and job applications and stuff, so chapters gonna be slower down to probs 1 or 2 a week for now on but I'll try to keep up the intensity! Thanks for the review and I hope you enjoyed the start of the return arc!**

Anime Profile Picture chapter 135 . Jan 20

I think that is the most brutal Zach has ever been. Cutting off somebody's tongue, fucking up their V. cords, and mincing their fingers, effectively removing most forms of communication. God, I'd rather be dead than live in that form. Next time however, I'd like to know what goes through his mind while he performs acts like these. How he copes. To determine where this man falls on the spectrum of sanity.  
Anyway, it seems like Zach took this 'defeat' pretty hard and now whats to leave. Where to? Probably nowhere near U.A. (RIP Wonderlass ;). DEAD BY BROWN SPEAR THINGIES BIGGER THAN ALL MIGHT'S MEAT SCEPTER). He is leaving Darling behind too, which actually surprised me since those two were like fucking Batman and Dick Grayson Robin levels of close.  
Overall, good chapter.

 **Zach's brutality put on full display there, though it was up against one of his worst enemies through his time as Death who he still held back from killing. Zach leaves Amaterasu unable to blackmail anyone ever again, hopefully, and as for where Zach falls on the sanity scale... well I direct back to his thoughts at the start of last chapter for a good measure of where he was at lol. Also, glad you appreciated the Wonderlass/All Might interaction there at the end, hope I got some laughs even in that dark moment. from you guys. We'll see how Zach moves forward from here, and thanks for the review!**

Shinn of Destiny chapter 135 . Jan 20

...what  
...just  
...happened

 **Zach's on his own now. New plan. Secret plan. ;)**

Todorokiii chapter 135 . Jan 21

No. No. No. He's insane! How could he just leave his army after everything!? My mind can't process and absorb the whole Zach giving the title Death to Gentle. I'm crying (not really). I mean, what would happen next? Will he go back to Japan after leaving? Why? Isn't it happening to soon? (If he is going back to soon then Momo and Zach interaction) Quick quick! Also, what would he do? Hide in the freaking shadows or be stuck in jail or something? (I don't think it would happen, if it happens, I call for a time skip or he will be saved or escape) Btw, please don't tell me he's going back as hero shit (I don't think it would happen, but Im freaking out) I just want him to be Death and Death alone, and if he has another identity, well shit! Urgh! Author-san, why are you making cliffhangers? do you that could also make people insane. Shoutout to Amaterasu by the way! Anyway, I was shook why it was short (not complaining), Im just surprised that's all.

 **Yes yes yes. Zach _has_ returned, and nice call with one of those with getting stuck in jail (even if you didn't think it was really coming). Def a short chapter last time, but a short and important one. This one near 20k to make up for it lol. Thanks for the review and hope you enjoyed the chapter.**

Big Fan of Death chapter 135 . Jan 22

What  
What  
Why is Zach stepping down?  
Wtf is going on?  
You will explain yourself in the next chapter hopefully?!

 **Explain myself? Haha, never!**


	137. Chapter 137

**Chapter 137:**

"I am the Warden here at Tartaros. You will call me Warden, understood, prisoner?"

"Understood, Warden," Zach replied.

Adam Ryusuke kept frowning at the young man even after he replied affirmatively and without hesitation. "Out there you might be a celebrity, you might think that people want you to get special treatment while you're here, but that's not how this is going to go. You are from today until the day you are released, designated as Inmate 1667. Am I understood?"

"Yes, Warden."

"Now, I don't know why you turned yourself in," Ryusuke started, stepping forward and looking into the hazel eyes of the teenager. He continued while searching his dark orbs for a sign that would give away his intentions, "But the prisoners here believe you have turned yourself in and got yourself sent here specifically, so that you could kill them. Can you assure me right now that this is not your intention?"

"It isn't, Warden," Zach replied. He looked around at the other prison guards all around him, and then up at the turrets on the ceiling, and then over at a one-way mirror that he suspected there were more people behind watching him from. He looked back at Warden Ryusuke and continued, "I'm just here to serve my sentence. That's all."

"Hmph, I wish I could believe you on your word alone. The truth is though, I don't," Ryusuke said it and stepped another foot closer to the boy who was a couple of inches taller than him. "The way you manipulated the media back last June has become public knowledge. You lied about your time with the League of Villains, and who knows how much else." Ryusuke paused and gave the boy in front of him a moment to say something in his own defense. _Say something. The prisoners are all afraid of you. I'm trying to show my people that I am not. Give me something to work with. Don't be so, easy. It's just making me look mean._

"Well I'm not lying this time," Zach said. "You fat fuck," he smirked at the Warden who pulled his head back while all the guards around them gawked. _I don't think that's what he was looking for. Well, it's my first day in prison. Time to learn the rules. What happens when I curse out the Warden?_ His lips flattened back out and he stood still awaiting whatever punishment was about to come.

 _Did he, know what I was thinking?_ Ryusuke narrowed his eyes at the teenager but he hesitated a long time before replying with anything. "Obviously, you haven't matured as much as the news has been saying. You may still be seventeen, but in this prison you will be treated as an adult as you have been tried. Am I making myself understood? Comments like those, will result in punishments. This is not going to be a pleasant experience for you…"

 _The prisoners here are scared of me. The news has apparently been saying that I've matured. That's good. I think I have too._ Zach's focus had completely left the Warden while the man in front of him kept talking. They were still making eye contact, but Zach's mind was on the building around him. _I wonder how quickly I could escape from here? I've made it very clear that I don't plan on resisting, so no one's even tried to lock me up in a Maiden or even make sure that I'm being watched closely by a strong hero… though maybe Endeavor is behind the glass over there. I would have had him watch me up until the moment I'm in a cell. I think I convinced him that I'm really not who he thought I was though. The prisoners here are scared. I'm sure some knew for sure what I was doing. Others who hear the rumors will just be more afraid, as the rumors will get worse and worse, more exaggerated which is rough considering how bad the truth already is._

"Understood, Warden," Zach replied when the man in front of him finished his speech. "Sorry, Warden," he added as the man had mentioned his insubordination at the end.

"Hmm," Ryusuke glared at the teen for a few more seconds, then he turned and nodded at a couple of the guards. "Take him to his cell."

In the explanation Ryusuke was just giving, Zach had only very barely been paying attention but he did retain what the man told him. He turned when the guards walked towards him to take him to his cell, ordering him to follow them. Two walked ahead and two stayed behind him, wearing heavy uniforms with helmets on that still showed their faces behind them but also looked strong too. "Move Inmate!"

"Follow us."

"Don't dawdle."

"This way."

Zach looked around at the two men and two women walking with him. _Kind of thought they'd cut my hair. Maybe that's only in other countries' prisons. I guess Stain's hair was still so long, that he couldn't have grown it out that long since he escaped._ "How am I going to get food?" Zach questioned the man in front of him on his right.

Edo Ebboro tried to keep a straight face though he was feeling unnerved by the boy behind him. _The prisoners don't know what they're talking about. The news is right, he's just here to atone for his crimes. Wait…_ "Uh, what?" He questioned, turning his head to the side as he had forgotten the question.

"I'm being kept away from the others, so does that mean I'll be going to the cafeteria at a different time or-"

"Your meals will be brought to your cell, and slid through a slot in the glass," Tachibana Miyuki stated firmly, no hesitation in her voice as there was in Edo's on her right. She did not turn back to face the boy behind her, and her expression was dark after her response. "Now keep moving and stay quiet. No more questions."

"Alright-"

"What did I just say?" Tachibana snapped, turning her head a few inches and glaring back at the boy behind her.

Zach opened his mouth to apologize, then he just closed it into a frown and nodded instead in an apologetic way.

Oda Bunogawa looked straight ahead at Tachibana with an amazed look on his face, and he glanced to the right at the other guard to see if he was impressed too only for the man on his right to be glaring hard at Lifebringer's back. _Kaitou doesn't like him. Tachibana's just being serious. I thought Edo was more like Kaitou here, but he got way too flustered from just a single question. We need to be prepared for Sazaki to try something, so don't get freaked out by a single question._

"We're about to walk through a cell block to get to the hall your private cell is in. In that hall are a couple of other prisoners with special circumstances that requires they be kept separated from the general population of villains in here. This usually includes the worst of the villains in here, as well as ones who are at high risk or whose Quirks require special treatment." Tachibana was speaking as they approached a set of steel doors, and she glared over her shoulder again at the teenage boy behind her. "You're being kept with some of the lowest level villains in here. Ones who are in danger from the other villains if kept caged with them. As you would be."

The left corner of Zach's lip curled up, but he dropped it back down as Tachibana was still looking back at him. She turned forward as they were nearing the door, but her hardened look shook as she thought about that expression she just saw. _He thinks that's a joke. I was trying to spook him or something, but even a straight look would have been better. The way he reacted, he knows- wait. The Warden! The Warden told him already that the prisoners think he's there to kill them. That's it. He's not, smiling because he knows they'd be in danger from him. He's not… going to freak out in a second and attack all the prisoners here._

"Open Cell Block D," Edo called out.

"Don't make any funny moves. Our zap-sticks carry enough charge to take down an elephant if we needed to. And each of us has permission to use our Quirks to _calm_ any prisoners who get too out of control…"

 _An elephant? I almost forgot, but I guess Ganeshi should be in here somewhere. Even if his brain is still fried, though that should have worn off after a while. That's why that case for Psycho never gained steam. He's here too somewhere, Twice too, and the Chemist. Probably a good thing they're not leaving me in here…_

The cell block opened up and the guards started walking forward. Each of the cells around the room did not have metal bars on them, but they were heavy doors that had closed over every single cell made completely of transparent but powerful material none of the criminals could break through. Yet they could all see out just as any guards could see inside in case they were planning or trying to hide anything. All the villains were currently in their cells when the doors opened up. They looked out of their cells and many moved towards the edges to get closer and a better look at who was coming in. It had been a while since the rumors had first spread, and the doors had opened many times since then so some did not even get up right away.

One by one though, the villains froze while staring down to Block D's floor and the young man who just stepped inside. He was close to six feet tall, with long black hair that fell behind his head and some over his shoulders in a messy way. His head was bowed only a bit, but enough that his bangs cast shadows over his eyes when he walked forward into the cell block.

Kawasagi backed up in his cell. The Chemist grabbed his blanket and he put it up in front of him to block off the inside of his cell, then he pressed his back up against it like even facing that way with a blanket in front of him was not enough to stop Sazaki from seeing his face. _Please no._

Damian cowered in his cell with a terrified look on his face, and he glanced back towards his toilet but yelled at his body to wait until Lifebringer was gone. _If the rumors are true, I don't want to die taking a shit!_

Hydro opened his mouth to yell out from his cell, but he hesitated and then kept hesitating while looking down towards the boy walking through the room. He was taller, more muscular, and he had a bad scar on the left side of his face closer to Hydro. His neck was all messed up, his hands were cuffed behind his back, and yet Hydro felt his feet sliding back from the heavy translucent cell door.

"That you, Lifebringer?!" A voice called up from the third floor of the cell block, screaming it out the thin holes in his cell door. Breakneck's eyes were covered, but he smirked because of the silence in the room that told him who had just entered. "I escaped once! I'll get out of here again! If you want, I'll help you get out of here!"

 _He thinks I'm planning an escape already. And that I might be able to use his help teleporting a safe distance away. Maybe he doesn't believe rumors that I'm Death. Maybe, Breakneck's just that ballsy. He could have been a big shot if we didn't stop him early on. If he had fled Japan, he could have been huge. His Quirk, is one that even I would still have difficulty with. Then again, he's predictable. I doubt he'd try to fight me now though. Taking him down would take a few minutes for sure, depending on the location. The time limit between jumps is short enough though that a quick attack on any location I see him appear…_

Zach did not call anything back to Breakneck. He waited until they were through the rest of the block that had started getting louder the closer he got to other doors, showing he wasn't going to attack any of them. Hydro started yelling at some point, followed not long after by Fez. Villains shouted at him and taunted him, and then he got into the next hall down that cut to the right at a nearby intersection. He spoke once they were heading towards the bend, "I didn't want to say anything, since you said not to." Tachibana glared back at the boy who was speaking straight to her. "But I'm not going to break out or anything, definitely not with Breakneck."

"We're almost at your cell," Tachibana said, looking back forward and ignoring his comment even if it did settle her thoughts down.

They turned into a long hall with white walls and long glass panels stretching along one side, and they started down it right past a cell with a man inside who was sitting on a bed near the back with his legs dangling off the side and a book in his hands. He lowered the book for a second and looked over it towards the boy walking by. The man looked like he was nearing ninety years old, and he had several books in the room on the bedside table and the counter near his toilet that extended away from his sink. There was a shower in one corner with a curtain, though the curtain was pulled to the side as it had to be when there was no one using it.

"You're allowed five minutes when you take showers," Oda began behind the boy who he saw stare towards the corner for a second.

"They just get younger and younger," the old man began while staring towards the boy walking past. Zach turned back to the old man who smiled out at him and nodded his head. Zach nodded once back before walking past the second wall of the cell and losing sight of the old-timer.

"You'll be given three meals a day," Edo began, and Zach looked back forward at the man who was slowing down and then turning to the left. Zach looked left himself and he realized that the second cell did not have anyone inside it. The bed was made with a white blanket on it, his shower curtain was opened, there was a toothbrush and some toothpaste on the sink counter near his toilet. Besides those things, most of the wide cell was just open space. The floor was hard and white just as his walls and ceiling were, no carpeting down or any decorations about. Edo continued as the boy looked into his cell that was much more empty than the man's next to his. "You are allowed to make requests to have things brought in here as long as they pass a certain safety code. Books, posters if you need something to look at, weights if you'd like to work out. You'll be accommodated for to a certain extent, but do not expect things quickly or in any short amount of time."

 _Three meals a day? Books and posters? It's still confinement, and I guess I'm being restricted a lot too so it is prison… It's definitely not the worst place I've been caged._ "Thank you," Zach said, nodding at Edo in gratitude for explaining those things. "Am I going to be in here for all six years? No, walking around or-"

"You can pace back and forth in your cell, thinking about what you've done," Kaitou said behind him.

 _Did enough of that in the Void. The time for thinking is over. It's time for action! …Except, I guess there're only a few things I can start from in here._ Zach nodded back at the man behind him on his right, then he started towards the door of the translucent wall that he did not even notice until Tachibana walked up to it and pressed her hand on a scanner to the side of it.

The door opened inwards, and the guards motioned for him to enter. "Once you're inside," Tachibana started to the boy walking past her. "Put your back to the door and stick your hands through the slot I will open up and where you will be receiving your food. I will take your cuffs off now."

"Cool," Zach said, and he moved to the side so the door could be shut and locked on him. He looked around his big empty cell and then stepped back and kept checking it out while sliding his hands through the slot. _I always wondered what would happen to me if I got caught. So this is it, huh? A nice box with some semi-hostile guards. Freedom to use my hands, walk around, work out. I could even read, I have a bed, a shower! I haven't showered for a few days now._ "Ahh," Zach let out a breath of relief as the cuffs came off. He brought his hands up in front of him and rubbed his wrists for a few seconds, then he took off his black glove and tossed it over towards his bed.

 _A bit smaller than my bed on The Cloak, at least on the first one. I said they didn't need to make my room as big on the second one, but I really didn't need one at all. I probably slept in that bed what, five times? Not even…_ "So," Zach turned back to the big glass wall that the guards were still standing on the other side of. "I guess, I'll see you around. Thanks for bringing me to-"

"We aren't leaving," Tachibana started.

Edo nodded his head in agreement, though the other two did turn and start heading off. "We're on first shift."

"'Shift?'" Zach wondered. _The Warden's really taking their concerns seriously. I guess he thinks they're right, or at least he's taking the possibility that they're right as seriously as he should with a fear like that._ "So I'm going to have twenty-four seven surveillance on me?"

"That's what it means to be imprisoned," Tachibana said harshly to the boy who seemed to be questioning their orders.

"Just wondering," Zach said. "So, I guess I'll be seeing a lot of you two. Are all the guards here going to have shifts watching me?"

 _He's, a talker?_ Edo Ebboro wondered. He started over to the right side of Lifebringer's cell, and he turned his back to it instead of looking in at the boy. There was already a camera in the top corner of Zach's room just inside the translucent wall on the side closer to his bed than the shower. The two guards did not need to be looking in at him at all times, and instead they each moved to one side of the exterior and faced out into the hallway while standing guard.

"Are you guys, instructed to ignore me?" Zach asked, his voice sounding confused.

He glanced over at the woman first. He stared at the back of her head and her short brown hair that he caught a glimpse of some sticking out the bottom of her helmet. His eyes shifted around her uniform much darker than his white prison jumpsuit. "What about laundry?" Zach asked after a few seconds of hearing no response to his last question. "You guys never mentioned what I'm doing for that, and there's no washing machine in here. Plus, this is the only change of clothes I have, so when I wash them am I going to get a second pair or-"

"You will get a second set, and your laundry will be taken on a regular basis," Edo explained.

"So you _can_ talk to me," Zach said, and he hummed and scratched his chin with his left hand. The guard who just spoke turned his head to the left and looked back into the cell in surprise, and he caught the kid inside smirk when they locked eyes through his visor. It felt like the laundry thing was just Sazaki's excuse to trick him into seeing if they could converse or not, and Edo started frowning after a few seconds. "Don't be upset," Zach started, and he crouched down before falling to his butt. Zach crossed his legs and sat up close to the glass, "I'm not in solitary confinement, right? If this is how my days are going to be from now on, I'm not going to just be sitting in here by myself. Solitary confinement sucks, a lot. I'm really sick of it."

The two guards both had their heads turned inwards now and looking partially back at the teen sitting inside the cell. Tachibana's lips were curled down far at the sides though in her head did flash for a second the sight of the scarred kid behind her strapped to a chair in a small room with screams echoing around him. He did not look much like that young boy anymore, and the way he was speaking sounded too carefree too. In the cell to his right, an old man stepped up close to the glass and looked to his left as he heard this voice coming clearly out through the walls of their cells. Edo looked back at the teen in surprise for a few more seconds too, then he turned back forward and said in a calm voice, "You may not be in solitary confinement, but that doesn't mean we have to talk to you."

"Hmm," Zach hummed and he scratched his chin again. He smirked though and lifted his head up, a dangerous look in his eyes that had Tachibana pulling her head away at the sight of. "You still don't seem to understand." Edo got chills through his body and he turned to the side again with wide eyes. "You've been ordered to stay here and stand watch over me, and you don't want to. Whereas I turned myself in and came here by choice." Edo stared into the teen's eyes while Zach smirked more and called out, "So I'm not locked in here with you! You're locked in here with me!"

"Yeah, but we get to go home when our shifts are over," Tachibana Miyuki started snidely back at the boy. His shout annoyed her as he was smiling about it and even looked to be having a fun time at their behalf. "And we…" she trailed off and she dropped her bottom lip as the boy behind her was facing her with interest and nodding along at what she was saying. _Damn it,_ she stopped and turned away quickly as she realized she had been baited into talking to him again. _No more. My directive is to stand here and keep watch. He doesn't sound like he's going to try and escape, but he could just be lulling us into a false sense of security so he can get back into D Block and kill those villains we just saw. He has a past with a lot of them. They killed people close to him, tortured him, so this facade he's putting on for us has to be faked._

Zach looked left at the female guard and then right to the male. He shifted his attention back and forth between them and he leaned back while still sitting just behind the glass. _I'm not tired. I rarely ever am. I could go to sleep right now. It's the first day though. The best day to start making progress on them._ "So," Zach started, after a minute of silence between the three of them. "You guys want to hear a story?"

Edo sweatdropped and glanced down the hall to his right. _I don't think the Warden realized what kind of job he was creating when he made this one of the new official duties. I don't want to complain about it to him after one shift, but-_

"I never went up on the stand during my trial. I had the right not to do so," Zach said. "So that means, the only things they could talk about were Lifebringer Incident things." The two just outside of Zach's cell found themselves getting more nervous, but they were resisting the urge to look back at the teen who they could tell was trying to make them look again. Sazaki continued to them though, "I didn't have to answer any of their questions, but I did answer a couple if I wanted. I told them that I wasn't Death. It was something they asked me a bunch of times, since as often as I told them no, they just wouldn't believe me. I couldn't have been Death though. I never explained to them why I couldn't, because, well… what I was really doing, they never would have believed."

 _What was he doing?_

 _I really want to ask. Why's he hesitating so long?_ Edo took in a deep breath. _He's baiting me. That's all it is. He just wants…_

"So do you want to hear what I was really doing all that time? Where I really was the past year?" Zach eased his head forward while dangling that out in front of his jailers.

Edo started turning his head to the left. Tachibana caught the movement out the corner of her eyes and she shifted her head just enough to give him a look. _Don't you do it!_ "Don't," she started towards her comrade as he was turning more. _I, kind of want him to though,_ Tachibana thought, unable to cut off the subconscious thought halfway as much as she willed it. She grit her teeth, then she let out an annoyed and disappointed sigh as Edo turned fully to Sazaki and opened his mouth.

"Where were you?"

Zach smiled and a look of relief covered his face at the question. Edo's eyes opened wide at that relieved look, and he felt strange about how hard he was trying to isolate this kid after seeing how he felt just by being talked to. Tachibana turned back away in annoyance as she was unable to stop it, and she pretended to stop paying attention while facing the opposite wall. _This is going to be a long shift. Still, Lifebringer might wind up confessing more of his crimes right here. He's not under oath or anything, so he could just make stuff up though. He probably will…_

 _Alright. First try. Let's do this._ Zach took in a deep breath and he let it out slowly. "The truth is," he started. "When I left Japan, I went straight towards America. The U.S. is really lenient towards vigilantes, with this unspoken rule about what they can and cannot do. Everyone knows it because the vigilantes arrested are thrown in jail for more than just vigilantism… Now I can see you don't look like you believe me already, so I'm guessing that's because of the report that I was in the Philippines heading west?"

Edo frowned at the teen as he was just thinking about that. He nodded his head instead of responding, showing he did not think he would believe him even if the kid tried changing up his story here. "Well with so many heroes after me, I had to make some sort of redirection," Zach explained with a shrug. "So I sent everyone west then headed east myself. It worked, didn't it? No one saw me again…" Zach trailed off and he rose his head to stare up at the ceiling of his cell. "I went to America and became a vigilante. I had to stay in the shadows even more than the other ones, since if people knew I was there, heroes would have come after me, and at that point I still believed I was in the right for running away even after what I did."

The guard looking back at Zach lost his frown. He curled the right corner of his lip flat and his eyebrows furled at what the teen just said to him. _I'm not supposed to consider him as different from the other prisoners. He's Inmate 1667. Not some kid, with regrets. But a murderer. Who abused the hero system. Who's probably here for some ulterior reason and needs to be kept under constant surveillance… Who might even be an international terrorist known across the world for murdering villains._ Edo reminded himself not to let his guard down in a pretty effective way, but he did keep looking back at the boy who had taken a long pause there after what he said last. "So, you were a vigilante the whole time?" Edo asked, his voice curt and suggesting that he just heard the end of the story.

Zach shook his head and he let out a low chuckle. "No," he said. His voice got darker, but only for a second before he rose back up his lips that were curling down to get a carefree look back on his face. "Some time passed, and I was going after this thief." Tachibana curled her lips down while glaring at the opposite wall, but she got a confused look on her face at the tone of the boy behind her like he was just starting this long, long story. Edo looked at him in confusion as well as to why he would start off a story about a specific villain. "She had this power to move through walls, solid objects, anything she wanted as long as she made a Doorway on them. That's what I think her Quirk was called, or at least what I called it for the next year…" Tachibana turned her head and looked back at the teen who paused for a second when she joined in at looking at him in confusion and interest. She cursed that she turned, but she kept staring at him waiting for a further explanation as there were thoughts racing through her mind.

"You see," Zach continued, smiling at the interested looks of the guards just outside his cell. "I thought her Quirk could just open Doorways in the safes of banks she robbed, or into locked rooms of convenience stores, into any place she decided to steal from. I chased her and it was a difficult chase that night, because she was fast and she could slip through any wall and hide in that building or pop out any of the other sides. If I went inside the building to chase her, she could have popped outside and ran off before I ever caught her, so the chase wound up taking a long time too. She'd try and pretend like I had lost her only to come out hours later and the chase would continue as I'd come out of my own hiding place. I chased her all the way to this abandoned building outside the town we were in, and this time when she went inside I knew there was nowhere left for her to run. The building was big but open, and I knew I could get her if I went inside and searched the place fast."

Zach hesitated and he looked straight into Edo's eyes. "So I went in, but I didn't see her. There were a couple of side rooms, so I needed to check them fast before popping back out to see if she was trying to run from the building. You see, her Quirk let her come in and out of solid objects but it wasn't like teleportation. She couldn't just run through a Doorway and disappear, or so I thought." Zach's voice got lower and at the same time he started speeding up. "In that decrepit building though, I found a basement. I went down expecting a trap waiting for me, because she clearly knew the place well to have gotten down there so soon after we arrived. I went down and the basement was wide and open, and across the room from the narrow stairs, through the musty, dark basement, there was a Door."

He gulped and he glanced from Edo to Tachibana and back again. Then he lowered his head and he said with a small smile on his face, "The main reason, I didn't say anything at my trial is because… It would have sounded too crazy. Too, absurd. But when I went through that Door, I didn't find some abandoned subway or a sewer as I expected was on the other side." The two he was talking to started breathing faster at the look on the kid's face. His eyes that filled with wonder and amazement as he rose his head up and stared right between them at the white wall across the hall like he was imagining something very different. "I was right, in thinking that I was walking into a trap. But, you can't- on the other side of that Doorway wasn't the other side of the wall, even if the Door was in the same spot in, _that place._ "

"What are you talking about?" Edo asked, turning his body fully to face the see-through wall and staring down at the teen's face.

"The Door, was a pathway to another world," Zach whispered like he was telling the man a secret. "A different universe, or realm, maybe in the same exact _location_ as ours but on a different plane of existence. There are, amazing Quirks in this world… but then again, I don't know if she really was from this world. I never knew what her original world was," Zach whispered that last part with a faraway look in his eyes.

"Are you-" Tachibana started. She glanced at Edo whose eyes were huge, then she glared back and continued darkly, "You seriously think we're going to believe-"

"Whether you believe it or not is up to you," Zach said, shaking his head and shrugging. "But it is what happened. I, went through that Doorway. And on the other side, waiting for me with their Quirks and weapons ready were the Queen's forces that she gathered in a few minutes' notice to attack me when I came through. It's why she didn't just, close off the portal after going through herself. She wanted me dead so that she could continue what she was doing on our world-"

"The Queen?" Edo asked, which received an eye-roll from Tachibana though her gaze did snap quickly back to the teen when he continued without pausing.

"The Queen of Arcasia," Zach replied. "The Doorway woman," he explained. "In that world, she was so powerful. She was the most powerful person in that world. Her people revered her as a Goddess, I figure because of the technology that she was able to bring from other worlds that they didn't understand, which would have just seemed like magic to them. After all, magic is just science we don't understand yet." His eyes darkened and he continued in a lower voice, "That world didn't understand any technology though, as it was trapped in the dark ages. If I compare it to our world, it was like medieval times… except with Quirks. You know how they say that we would have been in the time of space exploration already if it weren't for the dawn of Quirks? Well in that world, Quirks had existed for tens of thousands of years already. Advancement stalled, though I found ruins of an old civilization that I swear discovered ways to use electricity… the ruins suggested something more civilized and advanced than anything I had seen in the rest of that world, yet it was still just ruins. Another civilization torn down, by the _wars_ that had covered that world for millennia."

The two guards stared in at this teen who they could not decide if he was crazy or if he was telling them a lie. The idea that it was the third option, that he was telling them a true story was getting harder and harder to believe even as they focused more and more on him. Zach stared out towards the white wall and he could hear screams in his head, and his eyes darkened more as he spoke in a lower tone, "And the Queen of Arcasia was spreading her empire that already stretched such a huge area of Terra. She oppressed the people in her lands, and she did nothing to stop the violence or the crime, the bandits and the pirates, the rogue trolls and ravagers and… entire villages, and towns, slaughtered. Massacres so horrible in just the first few weeks I was there, looking for her after beating her ambush instead of searching out the Doorway I had entered from. She couldn't close them as long as someone from the world a Door was open to was not where they were supposed to be. I learned that through our months of fighting each other…"

"Sazaki," Tachibana started. "You can't- this couldn't have really happened. If what you're saying is, if it's what you really remember then you must know that it was an illusion-"

"I thought that for a while too," Zach said, but he shook his head at the female jailer with a smile coming to his face again. "But the people in that world, they're what convinced me otherwise. I thought there was a chance I had entered into her mind, or that we had gone into my own or something. The people there though, were as real as you or me. They all had feelings and stories, and each one of them was a real person which I couldn't deny even when some of them were dwarves and elves. The ones who ambushed me at the start were orcs and since I still didn't get what was happening, I just assumed they were humans with Quirks that made them green and bumpy-"

"Elves? Dwarves? Orcs?" Edo muttered. "You said 'trolls' before too. What are- those things aren't real."

"Not here," Zach agreed. "But, the resemblance was uncanny to the ones that I'd already heard of. The creatures that we don't think exist at all, but were real in that world. But in their world, Quirks had existed for over 30,000 years at least. So who's to say that someone else with a Doorway Quirk hadn't existed in that time, or even multiple beings? Everyone had Quirks, all the intelligent races living on Terra. And I think that in the last few millennia here, people in our world have been given the occasional glimpse into theirs. Someone in that world came here, and the stories were made about the creatures we call myths and legends. Isn't it strange how our different ancient cultures somehow came up with many creatures that looked similar, without ever coming in contact with each other? And I think even some novelists who made stories about these creatures may have been having dreams that those people from that world had jumped into, or maybe they put thoughts in their heads across the worlds without ever coming here, or maybe even people in our world with early indicators of Quirks that they didn't understand caught a glimpse in _their_ world. Once I accepted where I was, I thought about this a lot and realized that with Quirks… there are endless possibilities as to how those creatures could really exist in the cosmos."

"So you," Tachibana rubbed the side of her helmet for a moment and then had to speak up to get things straight. "After killing Kurogiri and five others, fled to America… and then vanished into a fantasy world-"

"Exactly," Zach replied with a nod and a laugh at how crazy it sounded. "I don't expect you guys to believe me right off the bat-"

"I don't," Tachibana agreed. "That's a ridiculous story."

"Don't worry," Zach said, and he smirked at the woman who got a bead of sweat on the side of her face at that look on his. "It gets way, way more ridiculous."

Edo cracked a smile and half-snorted before turning fast to avoid the teen's gaze as he was looked at. _Is he just having a go at us? He seems totally serious about this story, yet it's SO stupid. It's not like we can leave though, in case he's just telling us all this to try and get us to go away and give him some privacy… So as long as we're stuck here, I guess it's better than four hours of nothing._ "Did you ever catch her? That, Queen of Arcasia?" He asked.

Tachibana frowned and looked over at her fellow guard who just kept grinning while facing away from Lifebringer. She rolled her eyes at him and turned her back to the boy as well, but then both of the guards felt chills at the cold voice behind them. "I did," his voice was dark and his eyes distant as he glared at the white wall across the hall from his cell. The guards did not turn back but they felt the hair on the back of their necks stand on end as the boy's cold voice continued, "After months of fighting with the Allied forces... The wars, I mentioned, were not just in the past. I wasn't going to leave that world the same way I found it, so I, went to war. In a world like that where everyone has Quirks, where most warriors were bred and trained from childhood to fight and kill using their Quirks and the natural abilities of their races, I fought. In battles where tens of thousands would face off against each other and scorch the land, with Quirks that were beyond my imagination, devastation on a scale I couldn't dream of…"

 _Holy shit! What the hell is he talking about?! Is he for real? He really believes this happened! He's insane! There's no way that could be real!_ Edo was panting and trying hard not to turn back around.

Tachibana did look back though. She turned her head to the side and looked back through the glass at the teen down on his butt staring through the clear wall looking so dark. When he saw her look back at him like that though, his dark look faded away and he shook his head around. "But," Zach continued, while looking into her eyes through her dark visor and lifting the corners of his lips back up. "It wasn't all bad. That world, was an amazing place too. The people who I became comrades with, my closest friends in that world who would all go to war with me, but who also came on other adventures too. My mentor who had the same Quirk as me. Death was a rare Quirk there too, but there had been others with it before. He didn't want to teach me at first, but after helping to save my Master's village during a raid from Arcasian soldiers who were free to do as they pleased while taking taxes from the people- the Queen's men who were as bad as any bandits, he agreed to teach me just so I wouldn't embarrass myself any further. Though he said it was so I wouldn't embarrass all users of our Quirk, that I'd make them look bad. Haha," Zach chuckled nostalgically, then his expression turned sad for a moment before he rose it back into a nostalgic one and continued, "But I think I'm getting way ahead of myself. I jumped too much around and it's gotta be confusing right now, right?"

Edo nodded once without turning back around, as he was very lost. Tachibana kept staring into the teen's eyes and she hesitated before just looking away from him with a dark look on her face. Unlike Edo, she was not having a hard time questioning all she was hearing. _It's all fake. I won't believe anything he tells us. But, the way he looks, what if that's real? Even if it's all lies, I don't know if he could fake that… Does he believe it's real? I don't know what happened to him, but Lifebringer's mind is… He's a seventeen year old, whose body is completely covered in scars. I should have realized it's not just his body._ Her eyes darkened more while facing away from the kid behind her. _We watched his mind break once before. Then Raijin betrayed him and we all saw him breaking again, until the Incident happened. Is this, what Raijin did to him? Is this what he became after that? But… why turn himself in? Where did this story come from? What's he trying to do here, or is he really just here to live out his sentence? I don't understand as much as I think I do. I don't, know how I feel about this. His mind is broken again if he really thinks this is real. People who are crazy, never think they are._

 _I'm not doing a great job so far. Well, it's a first attempt for a reason. I had no one to bounce these stories off of in the Void. Gentle thought it was stupid to try and convince people it was actually real, but I can do this. Because it was real. Today's the first day. They wouldn't have believed anything I said, so this isn't a good indicator of whether or not it's believable. Even better, if I can convince these skeptical guards, then people who are actually willing to believe me right off the bat will be no problem._ Zach took in a deep breath and then restarted, "So I went through the Doorway and entered into the world I would come to learn was called Terra. I was surrounded by orcs, and it was the first fight there and one where I realized a few things. The fighters in that world were much stronger than any villains I had been facing in America, but from the ways they were reacting to how I fought, I was very strong for that world too. I don't think the Queen expected I'd beat her warriors, or she would have brought the stronger ones who I would come to face later and who would have destroyed me had we fought that day before I trained Death more. As I chased her though, leaving her unconscious soldiers behind, her Royal Grand Wizard appeared and hit me with his staff, sending me flying a hundred miles in seconds. One of the many unbelievable powers I saw in that world, not the most unbelievable, but definitely one of the strongest. I landed in the Borderlands of Arcasia, where I would spend the next few weeks in the village getting acquainted with this world…"

* * *

"…we had to cross the Shungzhi, but the river's current was strong and there were beasts that lurked within. I could have made it fine, but General Vucre had to make sure the entire forces could make it across in one go so we wouldn't get caught with our pants down. If the counter-strike came while we were split in half, it would have been a disaster. And it was a smart move to wait, since it turned out they were watching us. I don't know if-" Zach slowed down and he started grinning more as he got out of the serious mood. "The way we managed to get everyone across in one go though, involves taming one of those 'beasts' that came up to fight us… and riding it like a horse with our whole army on its back… but that's a story for later."

Tachibana and Edo were looking through the thick cell wall made of Cyn Glass, which was not glass at all yet called that because of its translucent nature. They opened their eyes wide in surprise and then spun to their left, and they saw two other guards walking towards them. The looks of disappointment on their faces made the other two heading over smirk, and Neo and Doruno motioned with their heads back the other way with Doruno lifting his right arm and turning his wrist like he was showing off his imaginary watch.

"Damn," Edo muttered under his breath. "It's been four hours already?" He said, still half-disappointed but also half-impressed and chuckling after he said it. "Never see the end of the shift coming," he said, looking back through the Cyn and shaking his head at the teen on the other side.

"Well you two can get on out of here. We'll relieve you of this duty," Neo said, nodding her green-skinned head and then smirking a sly grin at Tachibana who just sighed at that look.

"Yeah yeah, let's go," Tachibana motioned away with Edo. "See ya' later, Sazaki."

"Yeah," Edo muttered. He turned, then he looked back and asked with a hand cupped to his mouth just below his visor, "What kind of beast?"

"Well, it had eight legs," Zach hinted, then he just grinned while getting up and stretching his arms over his head. Edo smiled back at the response then he turned and headed after Tachibana who was looking back waiting for him.

"You in the middle of one right now?" Doruno asked while heading to one side of the wall, leaving Neo on the side they came in on.

 _This is the best part of my day,_ Neo thought, putting her back up against the wall behind her and letting out a long breath. _B Block was rowdy, the cafeteria had to be shut down during E's lunch time, the fucking maximum security ward went in full lockdown mode 'cause 0154 scratched his nose. I needed a Lifebringer shift today._

"Actually, need a bit of a break. Not sleep or nothing," Zach assured as he saw Neo's relaxed look start to shift. _Damn, she's been looking forward to this all day. Guess that means I'm doing good._ Zach had his arms stretched up over his head, and he turned his head to his right armpit and sniffed in an exaggerated way. "I'm going to take a quick shower, then once my dinner gets here I'll tell you guys where I went with the Army after crossing into Arcasia's central region for the first time. The original Arcasia before they started expanding, it was like a whole different world… well, not really, but the change was almost that drastic compared to the rest of Terra."

The two guards grinned, and Neo let out a laugh as he went back on the 'different world' simile. "How'd you get to the border? The last time we had a shift you were still camped in Yuselburg," Doruno mentioned as Zach headed towards his bed and was starting to strip. The two guards lowered their smiles as they stared in at the young man sliding his shirt up his body. Doruno continued and tried to ignore what he was seeing which always disturbed him, "I know you've gotten farther in, but you said you couldn't just go at any time. I know we missed some big operation-"

"You missed a lot," Zach said with a laugh. He had his back turned to the guards and he looked down while getting out of his shoes. _Don't know why I even wear them in here. Seems like I could just go with socks forever. No one's coming for me. Two months of this and not a single attempt._ "I'll catch you up on the important parts you need to know, but you gotta ask the others if you want the details. It's a long story, won't finish it in time if I backtrack for every new crew." _Plus, there's a higher chance of me repeating details wrong the second time through. The main points will be the same because they're what really happened; the converted, the parallel._

Zach slid his pants down his legs and then stood back up straight. He had a pair of boxers on but was going to walk into the shower and pull the curtain before taking those off. The guards wanted to look away, but instead Doruno said in a low voice, "Five minutes."

Zach nodded with a look over at them. He did not need to give them a look of understanding anymore or them one of apology for having to keep doing this, as they had shared those looks enough and by now it was just routine. None of the guards wanted the Lifebringer shifts to end, though at the same time none really felt they needed to keep these up with the teen whose stories had become a part of their daily lives. At first not all of them were interested or enjoying them, but Lifebringer wouldn't stop telling them even when a few told him to stop, and sooner or later those guards all got too intrigued too. The fact that when he took his clothes off to head into the shower, and the scars he had on his body matched ones exactly from the fantastical story he was telling with so much detail, amazed the guards who were shocked that the teen was still alive at this point.

Every inch of his body had something. His back that he turned to the guards on his way into the shower was all cut up and burned on the sides, there were claw marks cutting down the center and dug up into his right shoulder looking like they did not drag down as far there. There were wounds that matched ones on the other side such as bullet holes and stab wounds, and he had some surgical scars on his lower right and left sides. There were scars that dipped right down under his waistband too showing even his ass did not escape the markings covering his body. His right arm that he reached back to close the shower curtain had a long scar going down the inside of it from his tricep almost to his wrist, yet that scar got hard to see from his elbow to his wrist where his skin was darker than anywhere else on his body. Zach closed the curtain and he got out of his underwear with his eyes going dark and his expression grim.

 _I messed up there. Making a joke about a 'different world' like it's ridiculous or a really huge change, when I have to treat that like it's normal. At least to me!_ Zach shook his head and turned on hot water to fall over his head. He let out a breath while reaching his hands up to wash his long hair. _At some point I wish they'd look at me less like, there's something wrong with me. Every time I undress I'm hoping they're normalized to it already but they never are. There are too many scars I haven't given origins for. Too much I haven't explained. The majority of them already believe every word out of my mouth as long as I take a certain tone, it took a while though for the skeptical ones. I still need to try out the rest but it's like, how do I know it's believable at this point or if I just already have them believing anything?_

Zach grabbed the shampoo and he let out a sigh while continuing his shower. _I can't let up. I need to have my story straightened out for when I actually have to start telling people. Just avoiding the questions and refusing to answer- I mean it annoyed them at the trial but I had the right not to self-incriminate. I had the right to only be charged for what they had evidence that I did. They couldn't even ask me where my accomplices were, especially considering it's not like they would have given me as the mastermind a better deal just to turn in the people I got to help me. That's their reasoning I think, though-_

"Hey, Sazaki," Doruno started, making Zach turn his head from the other side of the curtain.

"What?" Zach asked. _Something happen? His voice is uncertain. He doesn't know if he should tell me it. Did someone die? Is it too late already? Fuck. Please no._

"You, had a visitor again," Doruno began. Zach looked back forward and his expression calmed down a bit. His eyes stayed dark though and he just kept showering off while the man outside his cell spoke. "They were really hoping you would come see them this time-"

The water cut off. Zach grabbed a towel by reaching around the curtain to where he left his underwear. He pulled the towel inside, dried off his whole body, and then tied the towel around his waist to step out. He looked towards the guard facing in at him, and Zach shook his head at the man before grabbing his clothes and walking over to his bed to sit and put them back on. _Why'd you say 'this time?' I told you no visitors, and I don't want to know who it is._ "Unless it's my lawyer," Zach started, not looking back towards the guards and just sliding his clothes on without paying attention to them. "Then send them away."

Neo lowered her eyes to the floor. She cursed in her head at the feeling she just had for the prisoner in front of her. She saw his eyes drop down to the floor though while he was holding his clothes in his hands. His eyes were dark for a moment, and Neo looked away with a grimace as she thought about how appreciative she was that he was stuck in this prison to give her some free time during her stressful days. _It's his choice to tell us those stories, but I shouldn't enjoy them so much. His body's destroyed, he's in jail, and he's still just a kid but-_ "Why, won't you see your visitors?" She asked, and Zach turned his head towards the green woman who wanted an answer from him.

The look in her eyes made Zach start shaking his head. He leaned back on his bed as he had told them he was going to hold off for a little before telling a story. Zach stared at the ceiling and said, "Don't worry about me. I'm not too lonely in here, since I've got such great company already." He cracked a grin and lifted his head, looking towards the guards and bouncing his eyebrows at them. Zach's look made Doruno laugh and Neo to smile too before trying to get serious only to chuckle as it was too difficult with him giving her that look. _It's going to be a long time. I'm glad you guys really are good company,_ Zach leaned his head back and stared up at the ceiling again. _Should work-out a bit during this shift, maybe after I eat when I'm telling the story. Train for a little, make sure I don't lose combat sense. And I'll put a request in for some more language books. Shouldn't slack on anything just because it'll be a while._ Zach shifted his gaze to the bedside table where there were already several thick textbooks piled up.

 _I'm in prison but it's not over. Nothing's over. I have resources at my disposal. I have time, and my mouth, and people to listen and spread rumors. Use everything. Think, constantly. And prepare…_

* * *

 **A/N Thanks for reading! Zach's got quite a story for how he spent his year outside of Japan. Zach's new life begins in maximum security prison, and time passes fast as 2 months jump by in that scene change. Lot of great predictions you guys and I'm hoping you're excited for what's coming in Death. I need to write 3 chapters of my Thesis by Friday, so probs going to be a slow week 'til maybe next weekend. Zach doesn't want to see any visitors as we see here close to the end, he's gotten on good terms with the guards, and a new routine has started for him... No responses this time, sorry but gotta run. Leave a review below telling me what you think of the chapter or predictions for what's coming!**


	138. Chapter 138

**Disclaimer: I don't own Boku no Hero Academia**

 **Chapter 138:**

 _Just one camera. That's all they need. Covers everything in here._ Zach Sazaki lay back on his bed deep within Tartaros. _Wonder what it would have been like to be out with the other villains?_ He turned his head from the camera in the corner he was staring at to just the ceiling right above him. His eyes closed again but he was not tired so he just stayed still and thought some more. _They'd probably try to kill me. People who are scared are always the first to lash out. It's happened a thousand times, that to stop fights from happening that one party sees as inevitable, they'll start a fight on their own. Why not strike me first, when they know that I_ _ **must**_ _be planning to kill them sooner or later?_

Zach breathed calmly while opening his eyes again. _Not that it matters, since I have my own cell and no complaints about the arrangements._ He lifted his head up a bit and looked down to his feet. He stared past them and to the Cyn wall that a pair of guards were standing on the other side of. _Oda and Neo this morning. Wonder how long until breakfast? Wonder what story I should tell today, once I get up._ He focused on their backs which were to his clear wall, then he lay his head back again and stared at the ceiling thoughtfully. _Let's see…_

* * *

 **12 Months Ago**

"That was Lavamander? How'd he get in contact?" Cee asked.

Zach leaned back on the wall of the small room he and his blonde comrade were standing in. "I told him back in Kazania to stay in contact with Rebel at least even if he wasn't going to stay with us. I wanted him to be able to get some stuff done, like the old way." Cee hummed and shifted her gaze away with a dark look on her face. "You don't like it?"

"If he's not going to come with us," Cee started, then she grimaced more but let out a low sigh. "No it's fine. I'm just pissed at him. Getting labeled as terrorists 'cause he can't hold back. If we're going to let Rebel help him out, then won't he still be killing-"

"I think he'll settle down a bit," Zach countered. "He knows how we do things, and once he's become accustomed to getting Rebel's help he'll know that I could stop it at any time if it comes out he's straight up murdering all the villains. I wouldn't normally allow this, but Lavamander's- well, he's really strong."

Cee nodded after a few seconds. She glanced at her leader and then questioned at the thoughtful look on his face, "You think you could beat him?"

"I don't know," Zach replied. _Could I have beaten Hawks without the others' help? Gentle, La Brava, and Darling all helped beat him. I couldn't take Mongoloid and Arma on my own too, I needed Gentle to come in and split them apart. There are still, people I can't beat on my own. As strong as I got in the forest… even on Trigger, Mongoloid was countering me and fighting back. And he was just strength based._

"No need to think so hard about it. If he was ever going to fight you seriously, it would have been that night," Cee said. Zach looked back up at her and he nodded his head in agreement. She continued while turning and looking over towards a window of the small cabin they were in, "How're things with that base coming along? Rebel's been awfully vague about it. Intentionally so," she added, glancing back at him out the corners of her eyes and demanding an answer though saying it in a questioning tone.

Zach scratched the back of his head with his left hand and he stared darkly out the one window of their room too. They were in a campsite that was usually empty for the winter, and they had appropriated all the cabins for the night. It was snowing outside but Zach stared out through the flakes and could see into the window of the neighboring cabin that there was some light illuminating the place more than theirs. _Brightside's in that one. The new recruit Flare too, which is what those red lights mixed in are. They shouldn't draw attention like that… not that there's anyone around for kilometers._ "It's, going well," Zach started to reply in a hesitant way. "And yeah, I've got him being pretty vague about it. It's just, if anyone's captured," Zach looked back towards Cee who he doubted he could lie to about this. He also did not want to after she had just forgiven him recently about what had happened to all the anti-heroes.

Cee stared at the younger boy by a year and she hummed before shifting her eyes back out the window herself. "I get it," she replied. "You trust us though, right?" Cee asked. "Trusting Raijin is what got all the anti-heroes killed. We aren't him though."

"I know," Zach replied. "It's not about trust. I know, no one can hold out during torture forever. I just want to keep everyone safe."

"By keeping us all in the dark?" Cee asked with an eyebrow raising. "Seems like a shit idea if you ask me. If someone's captured, just change things up after that. If something happened to you and Rebel," Cee continued, and Zach's eyes widened for a second before his teeth clenched and he turned back to Cee at what made sense as much as it was going to frustrate him. "I'd keep going. Some people here are just following you, but I'd push forward even if everyone else fell. So let me in on whatever's going on." Zach stared into Cee's light blue eyes with tiny red pupils, and he nodded his head at the intense look in her gaze telling him she really wanted to know it all.

Zach started telling her about things he had been keeping secret from the majority of the Army of Death. He kept his voice low as there were other people in their own building in other rooms of the cabin. Most of them were sleeping but that was not the reason Zach was staying quiet as he explained what he and Rebel were really planning. "…L isn't our only donor anymore though, and we've gotten a lot of money. I thought the flow would slow after what Lavamander did, but instead we got more donors. Rebel's keeping things anonymous, and we want to protect the people funding us. They're willing to let us do things our way to stop villains without restraints. I won't change up how we do things based on what they want, but we will take their money and move forward more efficiently. The headquarters is going to be mobile…"

"How would it even work? Radars would be able to pick up on something moving even if it's invisible…"

"Scientific advances especially in military have been kept mostly a secret for decades, centuries even. There hasn't been a big war using technology in hundreds of years, and no one wants to fight wars when the existence of Quirks would mean Quirk warfare. The things that Quirk war would bring, the intensity of those battles-"

"Is what we're heading towards," Cee cut in. Zach hesitated while looking at her, but he nodded his head after a few seconds. "We're an Army for a reason. I know why you picked the name, and it's more than just to spread fear to the villains. Everyone around here still considers us just vigilantes though. You've got to change the way our own forces think about us before we can actually become an Army. As much as Saudi Arabia was a success, it took too long for La Brava to gather everyone from around Gorran to get them to group back up. You need to be commanding."

"Sheesh, I get it," Zach rose a hand at the girl who was starting to scold him. "But everyone not be so keen on switching things up. I don't want them leaving because the Army of Death becomes so different from what they originally signed up for. It has to be gradual-" Zach's eyes darted to the side of the room and a dresser that Cee also spun to at the same moment. The tablet laying on the counter next to Zach's helmet and his belt of knives, a couple of swords, and two grappling guns, just illuminated. The glow did not look like he just got a message from Rebel, but instead was a blue glow that partially illuminated the room in blue for a second before disappearing and leaving the device turned on with the normal open screen facing up.

Cee stepped closer to the tablet and gave it a suspicious look. "What was that?" She asked, looking back to Zach to see if it was something else he had not told her about. The look on his face told her that it was not a secret message or code though, and she turned back to the device with a darker look on her own.

Zach stepped over to the dresser and he picked up the tablet. He shook it around and looked around it for a second before raising it and grabbing either side with a hand. He brought it down and slammed the screen into his knee, only surprising Cee a bit at his lack of hesitation there. "Better to be safe than sorry," he said in a dark, low voice. _We were just talking about real secret stuff there. Is there a correlation between Cee asking me about it and what just happened? Don't get suspicious of her over this. If there was a spy, they wouldn't do something so stupid as getting caught like this. And I just told Cee I trusted her too, and I do! I do trust her. I know I can. I think I can-_ "We don't need any information about the headquarter's construction getting leaked," Zach muttered.

"I'll get everyone ready to move," Cee said. "Tell them we just decided to head out earlier than expected."

Zach turned to her and he paused for a moment before nodding in agreement with that decision. _If something just pinged the tablet, trying to track us or… shit maybe I shouldn't have broken it. I'll get in touch with Rebel and figure out what that was. Have him on the lookout for it happening again… That blue glow, was weird. What the hell was that?_

* * *

 **9 Months Ago**

In the middle of a field in northern Canada, a small girl trudged through over a foot of snow at a snail's pace. She had on boots but her socks were soaked, and her toes were freezing. She only had a pair of pajama pants on, a coat that was several sizes too big and that her arms did not go all the way through, and her long black hair was disheveled and flaked with ice. The child had dirt on her face and her coat had a burn mark on the back of it where it had caught fire some time earlier.

The young girl walked in the cold air with her breath hanging in front of her face, her face that was getting gray the longer she was out there. Her breaths were getting ragged and slow, but her breath caught completely when she heard a noise behind her. The child turned her head and some black strands waved around her face dangling over and getting loose snow stuck to her skin. She stared between black hair strands into the distance on the field, the direction she had come from. Her eyes darted down to the ground behind her and the line in the snow she had made trudging through it, and she spun back forward and started running, trying to take her feet up out of the snow with each step to make less of a trail.

She was panicking, and despite trying to speed up she could not raise her small legs that high each time. She tried anyway though, and it caused her to trip forward and face-plant into the snow. Her arms flailed out to her sides as she was falling, but they became still after she hit down. The thought crossed her mind that they would not be able to see her if she did not move. Then the thought hit that maybe she should just close her eyes and they would never find her. And then her fading thoughts of just laying there forever were snapped back to reality by a very real crunching noise of snow behind her. The girl's arms struggled to move in the thick snow, and she dragged her knees up and pushed down to try and lift her head.

Zach looked down at the figure pushing up to crawl in the snow. The trail he had followed ended here, and he ran forward as he realized who he had followed. "Hey," Zach started, getting behind the girl and reaching down for her burned coat to grab it. He grabbed her and pulled back, to hear no noise come from her which confused him. When he turned her around, he loosened his grip into her coat and pulled back at the sight of her disheveled face and the terrified look on it. Before she even got a look him she already looked as scared as anyone Zach had ever seen before. "Hey, hey," Zach's hand shook on her coat as both of her hands, gloveless and red, pushed at his to try and get him off of her. He reached up his free hand and she pulled away in even more fear, but Zach grabbed his helmet and he dropped it to his side. "You're alright," Zach said, smiling at the girl from the second his helmet started coming off.

The girl stopped pulling away from him as hard at that look on his face. Despite the scar under his right eye and his split left ear partially showing under his wavy black hair, she felt herself calming down and Zach felt that too which relieved him. He lowered the hand he had taken his helmet off with to the girl's other side, and he pulled her in towards him before rubbing his hands up and down her back quickly. "Bring a truck to my position. There's a little girl out here." His earpiece was still in his right ear, and he heard some affirmative voices in his ear though the girl he was trying to warm up tried pulling away from him again. "Listen," Zach pulled back from her and looked down at the girl who he was speaking to in English. "You're going to be, alright," Zach had to purse his lips but only for a second before smiling at her again. The girl was dirty, scared, and cold. She looked up at him with shaking eyes and then past him and in the direction they had come from.

Zach looked over his shoulder in that direction too. _Did she come from that town? Villains, destroyed the place. We should bring her back there… but even with Canadian heroes there, if she really did live in that place,_ Zach's eyes lowered while he brought his hands down and grabbed the girl's with them. "Here," Zach said, as the outsides of his gloves had snow on them and he knew he wasn't doing much for her like this. _Why doesn't she have gloves on? Did she run when the villains showed up? She didn't get too far, but for a girl her size this is, she's been out here for so long. She might have frostbite._ Zach started sliding his gloves onto the girl's tiny, cold hands, and then he grabbed around the outsides of them and stared down while squeezing and trying to force her blood to move around. "Bring the Cloak here. I need Hank right now, I- I don't know how…"

The girl looking at Zach was staring at him with shaky eyes, watching his expression of worry as he tried to warm up her hands that she had not been able to feel for a while. She could start to feel them though, and her fingers moved inside his gloves responding to his touch. His eyes came back up to hers, and Zach tried to keep the smile he needed her to see even as horrible thoughts flew through his mind. _Everyone in that town. She was from there, wasn't she? Those villains were horrible. We got information out of them, but the majority of them hit the town and left. We have to go after them before they get away, before they can do this to anyone else._ "What's your name?" Zach asked, continuing to keep the girl warm as best as he could despite them still being surrounded by snow. He glanced over his shoulder when he heard a truck on its way, but he spun back as the girl he had not let go of tried pulling away again with fear covering her expression again. "It's okay. It's my friends. No one can hurt you anymore."

Zach bit down behind his lips as the look of fear would not leave this girl's face. "Do you understand me?" Zach asked, his voice soft and trying for her to understand even if she did not understand the language. _Is my English off? Does she only speak French or something? Or is- is she even… what else could she…_ "Are you alright? Where are you from?" Zach looked at the girl carefully, and he rubbed his hands up and down her arms a few more times before standing and scooping her up in his arms. He had a thin black glove on his right hand but nothing on his left anymore, and he was feeling the cold after taking his helmet and gloves off only for a couple of minutes. _She's so cold. Please be alright._ "You're going to be okay," Zach assured the girl who struggled weakly in his arms but not very much. He looked down at the top of her head wondering if she was not pushing back too hard because she couldn't or if she might have been starting to trust him.

"Oh my God, is she alright?" The back of the truck opened and Icefall leaned out to help Zach inside. Zach started handing the girl up to Icefall, but the girl who was not pushing away from him opened her hands and curled her fingers into Zach's heavy black uniform. She grabbed him and her hands shook so much that Zach stopped trying to hand her off. Instead he looked up at Icefall who was frozen staring at that girl through her dark helmet, then she lifted her gaze to Zach and said, "I'll get your helmet." Icefall jumped out of the truck and she ran over to Death's helmet, while at the same time taking her own helmet off.

"Theo," Zach said, and one of the other four soldiers in the back of the truck came over towards him. Zach held one hand up while keeping the other wrapped around the girl he held close to his chest. Theo helped him up onto the back of the vehicle, and then the man lifted his right hand and snapped his fingers creating sparks over them. He snapped over and over, and Zach sat down on a bench in the back of the truck on the right side. "Hey, look. You've got to warm up." Zach turned the girl and made her face away from his chest, and then he looked up and said, "Helmets off, guys."

"But Death-"

"Understood, Commander," Mark replied. He took his helmet off and headed back in the truck from the front. "Icefall, take the wheel," Mark said to the woman getting back into the vehicle. He motioned behind him after taking his helmet off and releasing his brown hair. Mark walked past the woman with long light blue hair jogging the other way, and Mark sat down on the small girl's other side as Zach though leaving a space between them. "Can you understand me?" Mark asked the girl in French, and she turned to him with a scared look on her face at his. Mark winced internally at that look, but he gave her a small understanding smile and eased away at her afraid expression.

"Keep asking," Zach whispered. "Use other languages. She, isn't talking."

"It might not be about the language," Mark said softly, so quietly it was only meant for their earpieces and not for the girl to hear. "Certain things, seeing some things, she could be in shock. Let's get her to Hank. See if we can't help her out."

"Alright, but keep trying anyway," Zach said, nodding that what Mark said was possible but still hoping it was just a language gap. The truck started driving across the snowy landscape again, the back of the truck closed leaving the small team of Army of Death soldiers with one extra passenger. The girl looked around at the group, and even though they had all taken their helmets off, she ducked her head back down and pulled her legs up under her long coat up onto the seat. Zach stared down at the girl on his right side and he turned the other way to look at the back of the truck, which finally allowed his expression to darken and get sad. Mark kept whispering to the girl between them but was getting no response, and Zach thought about the town they had gone to not too long ago. _There shouldn't be enough Canadian heroes there already that it would be a big problem for us to bring her back, but they have seen us already. They could call in the Task Force meant to deal with us, and there are members of it in Canada and the U.S. who wouldn't let us escape like regular heroes. I can't just leave this girl with someone without making sure she's alright though._

Zach felt a small touch on his right arm. He turned back and looked down to his forearm, where the girl next to him's left hand had moved over and grabbed tightly onto his sleeve. His expression was so close to turning grim but instead he kept it strong and just let the girl hold him in that scared way without him moving. He did not know if holding her hand would help her or if she just needed to gradually get to a point of trusting him on her own. He did not know what he was supposed to do like this. "Let's get on the Cloak, get away from here. Then we'll figure out what to do about her." Zach felt the hand on his arm squeeze a little tighter and his eyes lowered back down to the top of the girl's head that was bowed and facing the floor. _Did she-_

* * *

"Physically, she's alright," Hank started while in The Cloak's infirmary with just Zach and the child they were talking about. "If she had been out there for any longer, the frostbite would have been too bad. She would have lost her fingers and toes."

Zach stood in front of a medical exam bed that the small black-haired girl was sitting on. As soon as he had come back in there after leaving her with Hank for a while, she had grabbed him by his arm and was holding it with one hand while staring nervously at Hank. Zach had intentionally moved to her right side so this time she would grab his left arm if she needed it. He was not in as heavy a costume anymore as he was back in his usual tight one he wore around The Cloak with is helmet pinned down to his belt. He felt her hand tighten into his tight left sleeve and he darted a look to the side at her head again before refacing Hank. "Do you think she'll be alright?"

Hank hummed and he nodded his head while looking into the girl's eyes. "She's strong," Hank said. He tilted his head to the side while saying it, and he continued, "I think with time she'll be able to heal. Not talking, might have been something she has had to deal with since she was young. I checked her vocal cords which are fine, though sometimes there are cases of mutes who seem able to make noise but just cannot." Hank was looking for a look of recognition on the girl's face as to what he was saying to confirm it to him, but he started shaking his head and turned back to Zach when she was not reacting to it. "What are we going to do?"

"We don't know her name so we can't bring her back anywhere," Zach started. "She might have relatives somewhere, and maybe if her picture went on the news someone would recognize her and come. And if that doesn't work, I guess bringing her to an orphanage-"

Hank's eyes widened and Zach darted his eyes to his left when he felt the girl's other hand grab his arm at the same time that her first was already tightening. He stared at the girl whose face got really scared and who lowered her head with tears in her eyes while grabbing him as hard as she could. _Why? What's wrong with what we said?_ "Listen," Zach started. He turned himself and crouched down so his face was right in front of the girl's. She lifted her head and stared into his eyes, and Zach took a deep breath while looking back into her coal black irises that someone glimmered despite being dark. _I can't bring a kid with us. Where do I send her? That village was, if it was her home then she doesn't have a home anymore. I can't bring her along, but I can't just leave her without knowing she's alright. The way she's holding my arm, the way she looks at everyone but at me just a little less, I have to help her. I might be the only one who can. Maybe not- but just a chance that she needs me is… I need to…_

"I know you understand me," Zach whispered in English while looking into the girl's soft eyes. "And you haven't told me your name yet, but that's okay." He nodded at her, and he smiled more and continued, "So I'm going to call you Snow." The girl's eyes started growing wider and her hands loosened up on Zach's left arm at the look on his face. "'Cause that's where I found you." He brought up his left hand and he rubbed it on top of her head, tousling her hair for a second in a way he remembered his dad used to tussle his own a long time ago. "This place we're in is called The Cloak. It's sort of like a plane, maybe a spaceship? A boat that flies," Zach glanced back at Hank and shrugged while smiling like he was asking if that was the best way to describe it.

Zach turned away from the older man watching him with a surprised look that made him feel a little weird. He refaced the girl and said, "You'll be safe on The Cloak for now. At least, until we find out where you belong. Okay?" Zach asked, and he started nodding at the girl. It took a few seconds, and then the girl in front of Zach nodded her head up and down once. _She does understand. She's still so scared. I have so much to do. Saving her should be a priority though, and yet everything's a priority. We have a lot of leads, and we have to cross back to the Eastern Hemisphere tomorrow. There has to be someone else who knows how to do this more than I do. Someone like Softy would be better for… better…_

"Come on, Snow," Zach reached down and took Snow's right hand with his left. He smiled while saying her name, though he lifted his eyebrows as if offering her a chance to tell him that was not her name. She did not say anything to counter him though, so he just shrugged and then motioned for the door with his head. "Let's go get you settled. You must be tired, and hungry. I'll show you to your room." Her hand tightened into his, and Zach continued, "Don't worry, you won't be alone. The rooms here are all shared with a bunch of people. They'll all be like your sisters. Do you have any sisters?" Zach asked and searched the girl's expression as he headed out of the infirmary and down the hall with the girl. He glanced back one more time towards Hank who watched him go with a hesitant look like he was unsure about this whole thing.

 _I know, Hank. It's not ideal. But I can't do it. Maybe I'm getting too attached already, but I'd care even if she was still just a stranger. She is! This is just a little girl I'm trying to help, and what if… what if I leave her somewhere and she isn't really saved yet? Stopping someone from dying doesn't mean saving them. Shit, she's looking at me._ Zach smiled and he held her hand a little tighter before turning down a hall and raising his right hand to wave at a couple guys down it.

Zach brought up his smile extra far when Snow looked down to see who he waved to. Grabble and Michael looked back towards him, then the two started smiling themselves and glanced down at the girl who gazed hesitantly towards the two muscular men in black body armor. Grabble's tall pincers with bumpy spikes on them and his bald head, and Michael's sharp teeth that were all too clear in his wide smile, made Snow pull to the side closer to Zach in an afraid way that had the two men trying to smile for her get unsure looks on their faces while feeling pained themselves at that look. "It's alright," Zach assured the girl, continuing to walk forward without slowing down to show he was not afraid. She continued walking his speed to stay close to him, and she rose her head as he looked down and said, "You can trust everyone here. No one's going to hurt you on this ship. We'll all protect you."

The door up ahead of Zach was open into one of the girls' barracks, and Darling leaned her head out when she heard his voice just out in the hallway. She stared at Zach's smiling face in shock for a moment before he lifted it to look at her, and Darling's face lit up with her cheeks getting red before seeing him give her a flash of a serious gaze. "Snow," Zach started while heading right into the doorway Darling pulled back inside of. "This is going to be your new room. Girls, this is Snow. She's going to be staying here for, for at least tonight and," Zach looked back down at the girl who grabbed his arm tighter but allowed herself to be led into the room. "Well, can I just leave her to you? I'll let you know how long later, but let's get her settled in here first."

Seraphim looked over towards Death and she nodded her head at her commander. A smile crossed over the purple-haired woman's face and she looked around the room as if searching for something. "Oh! There's an empty bed. We can get you set up there." A couple of the others looked over at the bed that had belonged to a young blonde woman from the day they had first obtained The Cloak. No one had taken it since Cee had passed, but no one disagreed about letting Snow take it.

Flare started smiling too and she ran up towards the girl with an excited look on her face. "Wow, you're actually really pretty now that I get a good look at you. I saw you earlier when we were getting back on The Cloak… oh, sorry," Flare pulled back a little and glanced up at Death, but Zach gave her a nod and motioned back at the girl showing he wanted her to continue even if the girl did look hesitant.

"I'll take care of her, Death," Darling said, using her softest tone while walking right up and getting on a knee in front of the two. "She could use another shower, this time no need to start off cold and work your way warm. This time just a nice hot one. Then we'll go get some food, okay?"

"I'm leaving it to you, Darling," Zach said. "Now I need to go take care of some things," Zach started while looking down at a hesitant Snow. "But I'm only going to be a few rooms away. If you need me, I'll still be here." He moved his left hand forward and he handed the girl's hand off to Darling who Snow looked back at nervously and with scared eyes.

Darling did not get dismayed by that look as many of the others had been though. She was very sweet and nice from the start, and she thought even while talking to Snow about what kind of food they had, _Zach wants the girl to get better, so I want that too! That way you'll be happy!_ "Here, you want to see your bed area?" Darling stood up fully and tried to lead the girl over to her bed as Zach was leading her before, but Snow pulled her hand out of Darling's grip as soon as she felt it loosen. Snow ran across the room towards the bed Seraphim already motioned at, and she got onto it and pulled a blanket up fast to her face.

"Oh," Darling whispered, her heart panging a bit and her eyes lowering to the floor. She started over to the bed to keep trying, while the other girls in the room looked over in sad ways too.

Iblis and Indra walked over with Darling and sat on different sides of the girl's bed. Snow occasionally lowered her blanket down below her chin, darting a glance towards the door as if looking for Zach to return, or to look around the room at the women around her who were all trying their best to help out with this new situation. The two dark-skinned women who sat down on the bed tried talking to the young black girl poking her head out to look at them, wondering if maybe she would be more comfortable with people who looked more like her. Snow's reactions did not change much, though she stopped hiding under the blanket and kept watching as the different women started talking to her.

 _Don't know what he's thinking,_ La Brava thought while sitting on the edge of her bottom bunk and looking towards the one across the middle of the room from hers. La Brava thought about the best friend she had made since Gentle, who she did not really consider a friend at all. She stared at Cee's bed and then lowered her eyes down at the sight of the scared girl using it now. _Cee wouldn't mind. Cee wouldn't have let him bring her… no, she would have. She and Zach were always, on the same page. This girl though. She-_ La Brava watched as the girl pulled back towards her pillows with a scared look as Flare showed off her Quirk to try and impress and make the young girl smile.

Darling stood right in front of the foot of La Brava's bed, and she turned her head to the side as the shorter woman behind her said softly, "Something horrible must have happened to her." Darling lowered her lips into a deeper frown and shifted her gaze back with more pity for the child. La Brava turned her gaze to Darling for a second at the sight of that sad expression she only caught a glimpse of. _Thought she's just doing this for Sazaki's-_

Darling smiled again and headed away from La Brava back towards the small girl. She began right past everyone else in a cheerful way, "Come on. You'll have time to sleep later, but you don't want to go to bed on an empty stomach. Let's show Snow around The Cloak, right girls?"

"Sounds like a great idea to me," Seraphim agreed, nodding with Darling and looking back to the girl who hesitantly started lowering the blanket from her neck. "I'm Seraphim. I heard you don't talk, but that's alright." Seraphim turned from the younger girl who the others stopped crowding too while Darling got close to take her hand and bring her around. The older woman with a long purple ponytail glanced sideways back towards her and smiled softly, "You don't need to say a thing. We'll look after you."

* * *

 **Present**

 _Alright, I know who I'll talk about. I made this story a while ago, I didn't know exactly where to put it in the grand scheme of things. I guess I could just shove it in here though._ Zach lifted up from his prison bed and he let out a loud yawn. _I could make it like a flashback story, bring Docy up and then ask 'I never told you about Docy?' Then the story._

Zach got up and he walked over to his sink _,_ noticing in the mirror that the guards both looked into the cell to see that he had woken up. Neo and Oda both gained excited looks on their faces that they could not hide as much as they tried just turning back forward and pretending not to notice yet that he was up and about, or just pretending they did not care and were not hoping he would come over and talk. The two guards would not usually get excited just to hear a story told by some teenager, but tales so fantastical that were apparently true were just too interesting that they had become hooked on them. Zach splashed some water up on his face from the sink, and then as he was putting toothpaste on his toothbrush he asked, "Time?"

"7:15," Oda replied behind him. "Sleep well?"

"Yuh," Zach responded, mumbling it through the toothbrush he just started using. _No one attacked me at least, so I only woke up a couple times from the guard shift and Jenkins moving around too much while he reads. What's he doing reading so late anyway?_ Zach gargled some spit and darted a glance to the side wall connected to the cell he had walked past on his way in a few months back. _I should get some studying done today. Maybe find out what kind of books high schoolers have to read and get those in here too. Foreign languages aren't all that matters._ Zach washed off his toothbrush and left it next to his faucet, then he started stretching and jumping around a bit to warm himself up.

"Ha!" Zach kicked his right leg out, then he slammed it down and spun his body sideways kicking his left behind him. His eyes narrowed and he jumped off the right foot he had planted while his left leg was still up. His left looked like it was coming down, but then he kicked it up instead and spun his right that he just jumped off of to do a roundhouse while his body did a three-sixty spin in midair. He came down and landed with his legs spread apart, his right straight and pushed to the side and his left bent with his toes pushing against the floor ready to spring off already. He shot forward and punched his left with the first stomp from his left foot, then he hooked with his right before ducking and weaving the invisible man he just imagined swing back at him. Zach flipped backwards and landed on his hands then flipped again and he landed on his bed that he dropped to his back on facing straight up at the ceiling. "Ahh ha, ah, so you know," Zach started, and the two guards who had been watching him opened their eyes wide as he was apparently finished already and starting up a conversation with them.

"The Queen had these 18 Generals, the tops of her Armies which were mostly made up of different races though each of the Elf clans had a General too."

"Yeah, you've mentioned a few of them already," Neo started back to the boy, glad he woke up before her shift had ended and was wasting no time at all.

Zach flipped over on his bed and he started doing push-ups. He kept his head lifted for better form and to look at the guards as he continued, "Well most of those Generals, no matter where in the kingdom they were initially from, they lived in the central region. The original Arcasia. I think the Queen wanted to keep them close, so that they wouldn't gain too much power in the outer regions that they had command over. She had to keep a close eye on a lot of them, as they were plenty powerful and could have started revolutions with the amount of men just loyal to them."

"So when you moved into the central region," Oda started. "Fighting these guys got more frequent?"

"Yeah, sometimes I'd fight a few of them at a time," Zach replied. The two who had heard him talk about the Generals at different points remembered how strong those people had been, and they looked at their prisoner in surprise hearing him say that so casually like it was no big deal. Zach's mouth was open like he was going to keep going, but he closed it and responded to their looks, "The first time, I had to face three of them at once. That had never happened before, we hadn't even faced two yet, and I didn't have my forces with me. My comrades were scattered so it was just me and Fraisha, and there was no escape, but Docy appeared while we were being cornered. He teleported into the-"

"Docy?" Neo asked, shaking her head as she did not recognize the name.

Oda had darted her a look first to see if his fellow guard knew who that character was, but then he looked back towards 1667 himself and added, "Who is that? You've never mentioned him."

"I haven't?" Zach asked, sounding surprised and stopping his push-ups for a second. He pushed down hard with his hands and spun around to lay on his back for some sit-ups now. "Well that's a fun one actually. See Docy, was a leprechaun."

"A leprechaun?" Neo asked, a huge smile spreading over her face partially in disbelief and yet mostly just in an excited way. Oda's bottom lip lowered and he stared at the prisoner for a few more seconds to see if he was serious before dropping his jaw father. Neo questioned though, "What'd he look like?"

"Exactly what you'd think," Zach replied. "I mean, down to the ginger beard and green top hat. I did a double-take the first time I saw him, but so did the others with me. Apparently, leprechauns are as rare there as they are… okay, not _as_ rare, but no one I was with had ever seen one before. Docy was… unique…"

* * *

 **9 Months Ago**

Death sat on his chair at the front of the bridge of The Cloak. He was on the right side of the station that spread across the front left of the room, putting him just on the aisle in front of a comfortable captain's chair that remained unused since The Cloak's first liftoff. "I'm tired of this," Zach growled in a low voice.

On his left just a seat away, Darling turned towards him in confusion at the tone in his voice after they had been having a normal conversation for a while there. She did not think it was directed at her, and she looked at the black haired boy next to her oddly at his dark look straight at his computer screen. Darling glanced back and saw La Brava still resting with her head bowed at the station behind them as the only other person on the bridge. "Death?" Darling whispered, glancing back at the boy angrily glaring at his computer.

"Show yourself," Zach snapped, turning his head to the right and glaring over at the station on the right side of the room. Darling pushed her chair back and her right hand started turning into a gun as she glared that way just as harshly as Zach was. "I've seen you before. A hundred times it feels like."

Darling glanced at Zach's head and then back over at that station, and she snapped, "Come out!"

"What are you two doing?" La Brava muttered, glaring forward at the two who were staring at the wall and waking her up with whatever this was. She shook her head and sat up at her seat anyway as she figured she should either keep working or go to bed. "There's no one there," La Brava said.

"There is," Zach said, and his voice was so assured that La Brava actually sat up and got alert at the serious tone of his voice.

"An enemy?" Manami asked. The short, pink-haired woman started reaching for a button on her console that would turn on an alarm for the whole ship. Zach held up a hand for her to wait though, and she hesitated confusedly while Darling gave Zach a confused look too.

"I've seen these blue lights," Zach started. He glared at the screen where he saw the flash out the corner of his eyes just a few moments ago. "And I know I'm not just being paranoid. I know someone's listening in," Zach glared at the screen and thought back on the first night he had seen it, the only other time someone else with him had caught sight of it. _Cee saw it too. I know this thing is real._ Zach ground his teeth and he said in a low voice, "Following us, I've known it for a while. Didn't want whoever it was realizing I was onto them, so I pretended not to notice and leaked fake information in front of them only for those traps to never pan out with anything."

The two girls in the room with Zach stared at him in shock that he had been making traps without any of them realizing. La Brava started glaring his way as he had left out that someone was listening, but she got more surprised as he continued, "Which means, that whoever's listening isn't trying to get us. Or maybe they're just too smart and could tell what I was doing." Zach stood from his chair and stomped towards the computer he had seen that blue glow from. "I will find who this is though, and I will-"

The screen turned blue. Zach froze, his voice cutting off as a different voice spoke over him, "Sorry-" Darling and La Brava snapped their heads over to the screen from the boy they were watching with wide eyes at his intense speech. They gawked at the computer that was glowing blue and where that scratchy male voice just came out of sounding robotic but also too smooth so it was like a human's.

 _"Sorry." So they're playing it this way. Don't trust. Give it easily though._ "Who are you?" Zach asked, holding up a hand towards La Brava again to keep her from doing anything rash. "What are you doing here?"

The blue screen started to get brighter, and then the front of the computer started to bulge outwards. "Hey hey-" La Brava started in an angry tone towards the device.

"Sorry!" The bulge pulled back into the computer, its voice going from more human-like to a more robotic one when it flattened back out.

 _Alright, was not expecting that._ Zach had to calm his breathing after seeing that bulge on the computer screen. _He's actually here?_ "Explain yourself," Zach demanded.

"I'm sorry-"

"Stop saying that and speak," Zach ordered, his voice stern and his eyes narrowed at the computer man speaking in English back to him.

"Uh- I-" the hesitant voice took in a deep breath which sounded very weird coming from a computer. The blue light on the screen bounced to the next screen down, then to the station in front of Zach where it stayed illuminated as the boy who did not back off just stared at it. "I heard about, the Army of Death and I wanted to see it for myself and… and I kept coming back because, you were helping," the voice was low-pitched but sounded very hesitant and Zach narrowed his eyes at the screen which made the voice speak faster. "I was hoping you'd help me but you were always so busy and other people needed…"

 _Doesn't sound very old. I can't tell through the screen either,_ Zach examined the screen in front of him closer, then he stepped back away from it which had the voice stopping. "Come on out of there," Zach said, motioning at the floor in front of him. "Let's talk face to face. You've been watching us all this time? Until I see you, this is too one-sided to continue the-"

"I can't," the voice started, then it cut off fast at the glare Zach gave the screen. "Here," it said, getting lower and sounding darker to the three looking at it. "Watch," his body started to bulge out of the screen and at first he slid out with each. His blue face covered in thin white lines that seemed to move around, his shoulders and upper body sliding out slower and then his hands reaching out and grabbing the sides of the screen. Darling and La Brava both backed up as he did this, but they were both staring towards the figure with awed looks too. Then as his waist stuck out, he looked to get jammed. He struggled to pull a leg up, and the three in the room in black uniforms could see the pained look flash over his data-like face.

"I get it," Zach said, after watching him struggle and fail for a few seconds. _Could be a trick. Kaminari showed us a very weakened form of his powers. The speed at which he jumped between screens. The fact that he can't get out of the screen which gives him a quick escape route at any time. It's too convenient-_

The man in the screen slid back down to halfway out, keeping his hands on the sides of the screen as he slid back and then letting out a breath as he stopped. He panted a couple of times and then rose his head with his blue eyes only distinguishable because of the contour of his face looking straight back into Death's hazel ones. "Death," the man began, his voice strained and hesitant, but his expression mustering up the courage he had been lacking for a long time now. "You can call me Virus, it's my Quirk's name. Or what I renamed it, after I got… Death, I can't get out of here."

Zach stared into Virus' eyes with his face slowly shifting and looking back at the screen behind him that was merged with his body. La Brava started walking forward, and Darling saw this and moved back closer to Zach herself. Virus glanced back and forth at the two of them, then to the pink-haired girl who was giving him a harsh glare and spoke up, "What do you mean by that? I just saw you moving back and forth between the systems. You can leave any time."

"I can leave here," Virus said, shaking his head at the short woman. "But I can't get out of the computer," he ground his blue teeth behind his metaphysical lips. A frustrated and sad look covered his blue face, a bland face with short hair on his head also made of blue light particles.

"Are you, human?" Zach asked.

The girls glanced at him oddly, feeling like that was a strange question. _God. An existence like that was… Created. It's not impossible…_ Zach felt like the look the strange computer man was giving him looked similar to Darling and La Brava's, but also more pained as the man's humanity was just questioned.

"I, don't know anymore," Virus whispered. His head bowed then his eyes rose up and he said in a more robotic, disconnected voice, "I'm more like a computer program at this point. Just, a program-"

"But you were human?" Darling asked.

Zach darted her a look and then back at Virus. "You are human," Zach corrected Darling's question, and trying to get the clearly depressed computer person to stop having this crisis in the middle of their introduction. "But how did you get stuck in there?"

"Are we seriously buying that?" La Brava asked, giving Zach a dark look at why he would be so trusting so quickly.

"Maybe," Zach replied. He looked into the blue man's eyes that shook for a second while staring back into his. "If I believe what he has to tell me. Virus, what happened to you? And why are you here?"

Virus nodded his head and pulled himself out of the computer some more before leaning his back on the top of the screen and speaking softly. "My Quirk let me jump into electronic devices. I could control them but only if I went inside." He shifted his eyes over to La Brava for a moment and then down to the floor, "I realized if the devices were on a system, I could move between different devices on that system. That meant shared I.P.'s, a WiFi zone, and even the internet I found out. Once I figured that out, I- I didn't make very good, decisions. I messed around."

Zach grit his teeth behind his lips while listening to the person in front of him talk. _No one taught him. He just, did it on his own. And now…_

"The longer I was in there, the harder it was for me to get out. I started, losing more and more the ability to get out after I had gone in. But it wasn't a big problem for me yet, because I figured since I was getting stronger using it that I'd be able to pull myself out even if I were… but it didn't work like that. I was in for too long, and it hurt too much trying to get myself completely out, so I didn't. I got my whole body out except for my left hand, which I kept inside a tablet and, and for a while that worked out. My body still looked normal, and I could use my Quirk while still being _me._ I couldn't use it perfectly though, and I stupidly kept- even if I didn't though, it was sucking me back in. The screen, tugs at me." As he was speaking, his hands had gripped back on the outsides of the computer like he was holding himself out of it.

"What are your abilities?" Darling asked, thinking farther ahead than either of the others just staring at this man.

Zach glanced at her again knowing what she was already thinking about. Virus started before he could say anything himself, "I used to just be able to target places where I knew the I.P. addresses, but then if computers were connected over just messages, different apps or…"

"And people knew you could use this Quirk?" Zach asked.

Virus turned back to him and his blue eyes started opening wide at the look he was getting. He turned away for a second, reaching over to his right arm with his left hand and grabbing at it. "They came after me," he whispered, admitting what he saw that questioning look was for. "When I was still normal, when I could still walk around as a person. I knew going deeper would make me into more of a computer, that it would suck away my life force and transfer my mind into data. My body is programming, code, but I had to run from them. I- was scared. They chased me and when I went to a hero, she- she said that if we worked with them I could hack into big banks and companies and steal millions without leaving a trace. They tried kidnapping me, but I could escape at any time I just- I was just scared to go back in. And now, this is as far as I can get out. And even this is, straining my processing system." He said the last part with a small nervous grin, wanting to laugh about the way he said it yet looking afraid of how serious that actually was.

"Well," La Brava started. The man sticking out of his computer looked at her, and La Brava shrugged her shoulders before saying with a small amount of pity in her voice, "That sucks."

"You ever find out who came after you?" Zach asked.

"And what are your powers now?" Darling questioned.

"I tried avoiding looking for them. If they were still coming after me, I figured they might have a way to lock me in, stop me from escaping their systems if I got into them. As for what I can do, a lot. I mean, I can scan the internet really fast. Jump around to a lot of different places across the world, look through webcams and phone cameras, street cameras, and my consciousness when I'm in the web is scattered." The others stared at this strange being in some more confusion at that sentence which Virus already knew he had to explain further. "Since the web isn't a physical location, I think that's what kept me from ever pulling back together completely. I scattered too far across a space that doesn't even exist, the internet's just floating all over the place and I- I'm between places too often. It's, not real. It's not a _place_ that I spend most of my time."

 _Holy shit, that really, really sucks._

 _Cameras. And he mentioned their desire to use him to steal. Rebel never mentioned anything about this. He's good. Probably just paranoid about the people chasing him if Rebel couldn't find him out, we should use this, Death._

Zach was thinking more along the lines of what La Brava was, though he could not help thoughts of Virus' uses in the Army of Death from crossing his mind. _He came here though. He came to help us. That's what he said, he didn't want to bother us because we were too busy and now he's mentioning how he can help-_ "I just," Virus began. "Need help. Please Death, help me get disconnected." _I never expected this. I thought maybe someone wanted to help us. I did consider that. I didn't think the one watching me wanted my help. Why wait so long? Was it really because he was nervous, or did he want me to be the one calling him out so he'd think it was more of my idea?_

"I'll help you," Zach started. "If I can. I promise, I'll help you get back to normal. If it's possible," Zach added that at the end with a darker look on his face, not wanting to make the person in front of him too optimistic. "Virus, how old are you?" Zach asked while the girls on his sides looked in at him wondering why he wasn't mentioning anything about his powers yet or asking for stuff in return. The two of them looked back at the blue figure sticking out of his screen who started slinking back in.

Virus' body pulled slowly back into the computer, until the screen was flat once more. Then a picture appeared on it as his voice spoke from the speakers, "This is what I last looked like. Here's a picture I can generate of what I would probably have looked like, aging a few years…" His voice got softer at the end as he mentioned how long he was in the computer for, and the three in front of him watched his preteen photo turn into a boy looking around 15 or 16 years old.

 _He's been on the run for years, stuck in the internet. He can look through webcams? He's a teenage boy,_ Darling's eyes started narrowing after her initial pitying thoughts. That look softened though as she thought about the regretful way in which he mentioned the bad things he had done on the internet back then, and the picture on the screen that showed how he was just a kid when he did those things he was talking about. "If we're going to help you though," Darling started. "Can you help us too?"

Zach started frowning at what the brown-haired girl was starting with, but he nodded when she finished it as more of a question and didn't demand anything from him. Virus quickly started agreeing, talking about how he had wanted to help for a long time, but Zach cut in, "We'll have you work with our support team, and I'll work with you too. We'll try to get you disconnected from there. I know, it must be hard. But Virus, I need to know that I can trust you. You were spying on us for a while, and this is a dangerous thing we're doing. You're still a kid-"

"You're only a year-"

"Quiet," Zach said, his voice low and commanding. Virus froze with his mouth open on the computer screen his head poked back out of, his eyes opening wide as he stared at the older man in front of him. "If you stay though. If you accept our help and really want to help us out too, as I think you do. Then you will be a part of the Army of Death. Virus, you don't need to help us for us to help you. I'll do what I can to save you, to find a way-"

"I want to-"

"Don't interrupt your Commander," La Brava snapped at the teenager whose head spun her way and then back to Death who was glaring at him as that was the second time he got interrupted in a minute.

"You've seen how we operate. You won't be coming in there to fight with us, but if I need your help I will ask. Virus, listen to me. You're still a kid, but this isn't a game. There are people's lives on the line here and if I give you responsibility, any responsibility at all, even the smallest things we do, people could die. I need to know that you understand what you're offering when you say you want to help me. I want you to say it. Tell me that you understand, and I will trust you."

An anxious look spread over Virus' face but at the same time it started nodding up and down. His expression got more understanding, his lips flattening and his look hardening to that of someone he thought would look like someone they could trust. "I understand."

* * *

Snow walked around the halls of The Cloak in a set of black clothing not as tight as the uniforms of the other people on the ship with her. There were less people than usual around the ship, which Snow had noticed since she woke up but only saw the number get smaller as a couple of teams of people headed to the hangar earlier to leave. She was starting to get scared as the ship emptied out of people, including most of the girls in her new room who had shown her around and been acting really nice to her.

The small girl with long black hair moved for the front of The Cloak. She walked past empty rooms in the barracks and glanced into the cafeteria where she saw a group of three sitting at a table with tablets lifted in front of them and headphones in. Snow continued towards the bow, and she slowed down in the hallway with a nervous look covering her face as she stared ahead towards the corner wrapping around to the bridge's doors.

"We need Miraculu back at the entry point. We're setting up an infirmary there."

"There are more villains than we expected inside. So far Access is the only one who's taken a hit, but any bad injuries send back here."

"I'm on my way," Miraculu's voice came over the speakers inside The Cloak's cockpit. Raylei and Maelstrom typed away quickly into their computers to keep up with the teams out in the field all at the same location. Other reinforcing teams had been sent out earlier when the decision to attack had been made, and seventy of the Army of Death were out there attacking a huge villain base together.

Snow took a step closer to the bridge, her eyes growing wide at a voice she heard shout in that direction. "Villains!" Death's voice came through his helmet in a modulated tone, but loud and commanding as he roared through the base he was attacking. "Death has come for you! You thought you could destroy so many lives, kill so many people, and nothing would come of it?!"

"Kill him!"

"Get Death and the rest will run!"

Zach's eyes narrowed at the men deciding to charge at him and fight. He glared at them through his dark visor that his eyes glowed red behind. They darted around and kept track of who was activating their Quirks fastest, who was running quickest towards him, which Quirks were the most dangerous, and who he was going after first. He kicked off the ground with his right leg covering in darkness before the rest of his body followed suit in the eruption of Nightmare. He sped at the man not expecting that sudden burst of speed or the palm that slammed up under his chin and knocked him into the air while also knocking him out.

As his right hand was coming down after that pop, his left rose with a grappling gun held in it that he fired at a man trying to change directions to keep distance and fire off his mid-range Quirk. The hook of that grappling gun wrapped around his left leg while Zach's right hand that was coming down pulled a knife off a cross-strap on his chest and flicked it to the side into the stomach of a man who collapsed instantly from the black knife. Zach whipped the gun he had taken a man down with to the side, and he used enough force that he rose up the man he had caught and slammed him into a comrade trying to run at Death while both of his hands were being used to attack the villain's comrades.

Zach pulled his head to the side while slamming one villain into another with his grappling gun, and he dodged a bullet aimed for the middle of his head that slammed into the wall behind him instead. Then two black wings ripped out of his back while his arms were still moving back into a fighting position, and they flapped behind him while he jumped off the floor. Zach shot across the room and down the next hallway to the man with the rifle who was leaning backwards and dropping his rifle, his mouth still opening in shock when the black elbow caught him in the jaw. Zach continued down that hallway, hearing shouts behind him of his comrades chasing him after the rest of the villains.

"You will not have your way with this country any longer!" Zach burst into a wide open room and his body covered in a thicker Death, allowing attacks to pass right through him. He knew they were coming and took the traps straight on, then he continued straight through to a man who he recognized as one of the ones in charge and who was smirking and opening his mouth to call something back at Death. The villain let out a scream instead as Death's foot slammed into his face and sent him flying. "All of you will pay for your crimes!" Death's head turned to the right and then around to the left at all the villains who just watched their leader taken down in an instant. The Army of Death came charging into the room after a panting Death who had to focus a lot of his power to let attacks pass through him like that. Zach stopped his panting though and yelled out at the men trying to either run, fight, or escape, "There will be no escape! If you choose to act villainously. If you knowingly bring pain to those who have done nothing to you, intentionally causing harm to this world for your own gain, we will stop you. Death comes, for all villains!"

Snow took a step forward with her eyes huge back in the hall outside of The Cloak's cockpit. Her heart was racing, and the small girl started panting while her hands trembled at her sides. The voice was dark, scratchy, and deep, but she recognized it nonetheless. The motivational speech that had his comrades yelling out in agreement and the villains running in fear echoed in her mind. Snow's eyes shifted around the halls of this strange place again. She looked at it in a different way than any of the other times before. The fear was gone from her eyes.

 _This place…_

* * *

 **8 Months Ago**

"I know," Zach said, nodding at the taller man in front of him. Gentle looked back into his eyes, and Zach sighed before looking back forward in The Cloak's cockpit out the glass windows covering the front of the ship. "You're right. We're moving faster now, and if I don't take the time out for it… I was never planning on keeping her here."

"We are lucky The Cloak's defensive capabilities are as strong as they are," Gentle brought up. The two of them were on the bridge with Access, Raylei, La Brava, and a couple others just sitting at computer stations as they flew across the dark night sky over Europe. "However, it is far too dangerous a place for a child."

A screen turned blue to Gentle's right, and the man with white hair glanced at it with a lifted eyebrow wondering if Virus was going to make a remark there. Virus seemed to think better of it though and popped over to another screen in the room which Gentle rolled his eyes at as the computer boy decided not to loop himself in to defend children being on the ship. Zach grimaced at the moment but he shook his head and looked seriously back at Gentle anyway. "The last run over Canada I tried to convince her, but she wouldn't say a thing and just got so, scared. She's definitely doing better now though."

"It'll only be worse the longer she stays at this point," Raylei began, glancing back to add in her opinion. "The more Snow gets connected to everyone, the more it's going to feel like she's lost us."

"I'll find an orphanage that will take her. A good one," Zach said. He assured the others with him, and then he sighed and looked back towards the windshields again. "A place where the people will be as good to her as we've been, better even. A place where they can actually spend a lot of time with her. A safe place…" he said that and then fell quiet, a darker look covering his face at the look that always appeared on Snow's face when he would try talking about this with her. _I can't leave it up to her. She's just a child. She doesn't know what's right for her, and I can't keep letting her stay because she-_

"Hey Death," a voice came on over the speakers to the bridge. Zach looked back at the intercom at the sound of Darling's voice and he started over there as she sounded a bit frantic or worried. Before he reached the intercom to speak back though, Darling continued, "Can you come to our room? Snow suddenly just burst out crying. It's bad, I think you need to-"

"I'm on my way," Zach replied with a press of the intercom button. He rose his left hand to his head and started rubbing it while jogging out into the hall and around to the barracks' rooms.

 _How didn't I notice already? I'm an idiot._ Zach ran over to the door to Darling's room and he went right in and looked towards Snow's bed. The girl was sitting on the floor next to it with her back against it and her left hand holding the bed tightly while the other was just hugged across her own chest. "Snow," Zach started, as he jogged across the room towards the kid who glanced at him and then turned away fast to look at the wall through teary eyes. Zach walked up to her right side, then he sat down next to her. She pulled away a little but did not let go of the bed with her left hand so she wound up just squirming where she sat in a fearful and angry way. "I'm sorry. I didn't know you could hear me."

The girls who had watched Zach walk over and sit down looked at their leader in confusion and then surprise as the girl turned back to him with wide eyes too. _I don't believe in coincidences. Not like that._ "But I mean what I said in the bridge, Snow." The girl's surprised look started to scrunch up again and tears formed in her scared eyes. She let go of her chest and reached over to his sleeve with her right hand, but Zach's expression did not change at the soft touch. He only steadied it more and said in a more stern voice, "I can't put you in danger by having you here. We're at war, and it's no place for a kid."

Snow's hand curled into his sleeve tighter. She grabbed at her arm but Zach gave her a harsher look at the one she was giving him that he had folded under too many times already, "We're going to bring you back to Canada, to your home. To a place where you'll be safe-"

"This is my home!"

Everyone in the room shot their eyes open wide and stared towards the small girl whose voice was higher-pitched than they imagined. Zach's bottom lip lowered and he was staring in shock at the girl next to him whose voice was strong and loud despite her not having spoken in so long. He had always expected to hear a quiet whisper the first time she ever spoke if he managed to get her to, but she started off yelling from the start. Tears spilled from her eyes and down her face, and her lips twisted down as she started panting through hard-taken breaths. "Please," she whispered, her voice scratchier after that shout though she coughed a couple of times and then said again, "Please. Please!"

A few others made their ways over to the doorway of the girls' room and looked in. Seraphim gazed down at the girl and she had to look away as she found herself wanting to tell Death that maybe they should consider it. Darling kept a steady look on her own face, and she stayed closest to Death and Snow out of the others in the room. Out in the door, Grabble looked past Jughead in surprise and then to the right at Mark as he was approaching asking what was going on. "Snow just talked," Grabble mentioned. "Pretty loud-"

"Please!" Snow cried, letting go of the bed with her other hand and grabbing Zach's same arm with it. He glanced down at those small hands holding his arm then started shaking his head and looking back at the girl to tell her why she couldn't. "I'll- I'll clean The Cloak!" She exclaimed, turning onto her knees and looking at him in a desperate way as she said it.

After not speaking for so long, hearing the girl say all this had Zach's heart hurting that it was what she felt she needed. "You can't," Zach began.

"And the dishes!" Snow exclaimed. "Everyone hates them. They always, they always complain about it. Everyone hates doing them but I'll never complain! And I'll- I'll fight villains too! Like you!" She stared into Death's eyes and the teenage boy sitting next to her pulled his head back and started shaking his head at that optimistic and serious look on her face. _What did I do? I should have, the very first day, found a better place for her…_

"I can hear really well so I can help you! Right?! Right?" She looked past Death and around at her roommates who all looked hesitantly and sadly down at the girl begging on her knees to be allowed to stay with them.

"No," Zach whispered. "You can't," he shook his head even as the girl looking at him so hopefully started to lose that look to one of despair instead. _Why not? Cee, Cee started when she was Snow's age. She started as an anti-hero as a kid, going under Ms. Calico's wing. That's not okay- but Cee loved Ms. Calico so much! And I- I don't know if it was wrong of that woman to raise Cee as an anti-hero. Cee helped save millions. If not for her, Paris would have been destroyed. And if all Dorgon said came to be, billions even. Snow's not Cee! And I'm not Ms. Calico, I can't- I don't want to put Snow in danger… and I can't raise a child._

"I don't want to go someplace else," Snow said, her chest hurting and her hands curling tighter into Zach's arm. Her frown trembled and she leaned closer, looking into Zach's eyes with shaking eyes, "I want to follow you, stay with you. I'm afraid," she whispered softer, her eyes shaking even more and Zach's expression flinching at that look.

"Of what?" Zach asked quietly back to her.

Snow's lips pursed and she shook more where she was kneeling. She looked away and Zach asked her again, lifting a hand and putting it on her shoulder to get her to look back at him. Snow's eyes closed and she started shaking her head, her whole body trembling that Zach felt below the hand on her shoulder. Her voice was quieter than it had been since she first spoke up, and she whispered, "The bad men."

Zach's heart stabbed and he held his hand on her shoulder stronger so she'd stop shaking. _Bad men?_ "Who? What do you mean?"

Snow just shook her head more, but her body wasn't shaking as much after Zach tightened his grip on her shoulder. Her head turned back and she stared into his eyes with a look of desperation that had Zach's resolve breaking, and then shattering as she whispered, "Please don't leave me."

 _What am I supposed to do?_ Zach turned his head sideways and looked back at the group who had gathered behind him. He looked back down at Snow's head that bowed in front of him, and he brought his other arm around and placed it on her back. _How- How could I leave her, if there are people after her? It's what I thought the other times, but I was convinced it was for nothing. Her Quirk could be useful though; a Quirk that others might want to abuse. If people go after her, if she gets hurt after I leave her with other people who can't protect her like we could, it would be like I handed her right over to them. Especially when she's begging me not to do it. I don't know- I don't… except, I do._ "Alright," Zach said. He held his hands strongly around the girl and he smiled when she rose her head and looked back up at him.

Snow's expression shook and her eyes widened in shock at the look he was giving her. "You can stay, for now," Zach said, adding in the last part while looking her in the eyes so she knew this was not going to last forever. "Just until I find somewhere I know for sure is safe-"

Snow's hands reached under Zach's armpits and to his back. She buried her face into his chest and Zach cut himself off as the girl whispered 'thank you's over and over into him. He glanced back in a hesitant way again as he suspected the others behind him would be looking at him in disappointed or disapproving ways at how he folded. Instead though, all Zach saw were people nodding back at him or smiling as the person they followed comforted that sad little girl. Zach nodded once back at them in a grateful way for those looks, then he looked back down at the top of Snow's head and he let out a long exhale. _Thought the plan was not to get too attached._

* * *

 **7 Months Ago**

 **"Delta Squad report to the war room for immediate briefing. Beta and Epsilon are returning to the hangar shortly, medical team prepare for their arrival."**

The Cloak sped across the sky at its top speed that it could keep while cloaked from radars. The invisible ship raced through dark clouds and the ship shook a bit as the storm outside rocked them around. Maelstrom was not on the ship, but out with Alpha a few hundred miles away, and Access had flown The Cloak into the storm himself for some extra cover. He decided they should hide more from the advanced nation below whose technology could believably have gotten better since Endeavor had made reports on their headquarters' cloaking systems.

Snow hurried across the hall and pressed her back up against it as a group of four came running her direction. Three of them looked too intense to focus on her at all, but Fillian did glance to the side and give her a small greeting smirk before turning and continuing to run off. Announcements continued to be made over the ship's speakers, and Snow clenched her eyes shut before shaking her head around to drown out some of the excess noise in her head. She turned and jogged herself towards the cafeteria to quicker get out of people's ways.

Snow ran into the cafeteria just before another few people running down the hall were about to reach her. She let out a breath, then she quickly moved to the side in the doorway to let some people who had hurried through meals to get out of there. "Hurry it up Barboon!" One of them yelled back at a slower eater still shoving food in his mouth.

 **"Arrival of Beta. Clear the hallway from the hangar to the med bay. And stay out of the med bay for the next hour, or until I say something actually. We've got some surgeries coming in."**

"You guys hear who got hit in Beta?"

"Wasn't Replay, that's all I heard," Flare mentioned while moving up to get a tray and some food from the line. "Had to check since it'd be her second time."

"Fwew," Faye let out a relieved breath as she was the one who asked in the first place. "I know, I was there," she mentioned.

"In the submarine- oh yeah," Flare realized what she was asking and chuckled as it made sense the Amphibious-Quirk user would have been there.

"No one died though," Faye corrected, since they were just talking about someone getting injured. "Still don't know who-"

"It was Iblis," a voice spoke behind the two women who glanced back and then down at the short girl behind them at the new back of the line. Snow looked up and then glanced to her side at a man walking over to his table who turned in surprise as he had been wondering himself. "She's the most hurt, it sounds like," Snow continued. "But Switch got shot too, in the right leg."

"They going to be alright?" Flare asked.

Snow hesitated for a second, listening in across the ship as Hank started whispering to someone next to him about Iblis' condition. "I don't, know," Snow replied, as Hank sounded just as unsure as she did.

"Iblis is strong," Faye said, turning back forward and continuing to the food line as some others up there had finished serving themselves. "I'm sure she'll be alright."

"Hope so," Flare agreed.

Snow got her food and she walked with the older women over to a table with some others already sitting at it. "They just, walked right into the police station?" Seraphim asked the man on her right side, her eyebrow lifted at the story he was telling them of his squad's last mission.

Blackjack nodded his head and he smiled at the look of disbelief on Seraphim's face. "Once I convinced them all the cops wouldn't be there, _they_ came up with the idea of stealing all the weapons and police files. I tried to convince them that it wasn't the best idea," he started smirking and the others laughed as they could imagine a bunch of villains hilariously shouting about storming into the police station. "But they said I didn't have the guts to switch up the plan and go through with one so unheard of. They- haha, they called me an idiot, for not- ha- not seeing the opportunity."

Snow was smiling through Blackjack's story, but she turned her head and glanced towards the bow of The Cloak where she was listening as well. Her head hurt a bit as to listen that far when the ship was so crowded meant she was hearing through a lot of different conversations with her Quirk, All-Sound. She spun back around though as something else caught her attention and made everything between her and the bridge she was trying to focus on turn into a lower buzzing noise. "Can you even digest food?" Sagitus asked, stopping on one side of the table and looking at the blue figure half-sticking-out of a tablet down the bench who was looking at his neighbor's food and mentioning how good it looked.

Virus looked behind him then back around the table as others were all looking at him interestedly for an answer. "I could eat it," Virus said, turning back and looking at the food in front of Rippler's plate. "But I don't need to. I'm not hungry, but luckily with my body pulled out this far I still have tastebuds."

"You don't need to eat though?" Blackjack asked across the table.

Virus shook his head and his eyes stayed locked on the food next to him as he did not have a tray of his own. "Lost my stomach a few years ago. Same time, I lost my heart. I just eat data now to fuel my core processor. I am made up of code, not flesh. Beep, boop… beep boop," Virus rose his head with a crazy dark look covering his blue face, then a smirk crossed over it and he started laughing in a less robotic voice than his tone had just dropped into. The others who were looking at him in pity started laughing along, though a couple still had unsure and sad looks on their faces.

Seraphim was getting up from her seat, but she looked back and said, "You didn't lose your heart, Virus." The blue figure turned his upper half towards the woman with long purple hair who shook her head at him when they locked eyes. "It's still in there. Might not be made up of muscles and blood, but you've got a bigger heart than most people do. Don't forget that, kid." She turned and started away, motioning over at another table where some soldiers stood up from and headed their squad leader's direction.

Snow looked over towards Virus then around at the others as a couple started to laugh and tease Virus for what Seraphim just said there. Virus laughed back and played it off as nothing, but the small girl saw what her older comrade did that many of the others glossed over. She looked over towards Virus who she knew was the closest one to her age at the table, _He started to joke, but when he mentioned his heart he was not joking. That's sad. He looked happy when Seraphim said something. Before the others had to ruin it…_

 **"All squad leaders make sure your teams are prepared for today's missions. Start going over siege plans for the assault on Wampajawa with your squad members as well. That's right people,"** Access' voice on the speakers quieted down most of the cafeteria and The Cloak in general at what he just said there. **"We're done using the city to find more villains. That place is going down. Get yourselves briefed and prepped, it's going to be a tough one."**

While Access was speaking, one of the soldiers at the table Snow was sitting at lowered his head and gained a more intense look on it than the surprised others. Virus looked back down and across the table, and he questioned the man with short blond hair, "You already knew?"

"Didn't you?" Blackjack asked, looking back at the blue figure who he figured was always in The Cloak's computers so would know this already.

Virus shook his head. "Death didn't tell me I could," he said, explaining why not like it was that simple.

 _I knew,_ Snow thought, though she kept her mouth shut too as just like Virus she had not been told she could. _It's not my fault if I overhear though,_ she looked down as she felt from Virus' answer she should have been doing more to avoid learning about it beforehand.

"Why'd you know?" Flare asked over at a man who had joined after her, and who she remembered joined as a villain not too long ago.

Blackjack glanced around and then back at the short woman with a serious expression. After hearing Access just announce it like that, he knew there was no reason to hide the plans anymore as the time was coming soon. "I'll be going after the defenses before the attack," Blackjack explained. "I'm going to sabotage the city, make it easier for the Army to storm in."

"Nice," Rippler said, nodding his head as that sounded like a great idea to him. "The city's going to be swarming with villains. Hundreds of them-"

"Thousands," Blackjack corrected immediately. Rippler's smile lowered down a bit and the others all got more serious looks on their faces too. "The city's never that low on population anymore. They know they'd be a target for us, so the bigger we got, the exponentially bigger they had to make themselves."

"And it's obvious they know we know their location already," Faye mentioned in a low voice. "So those defenses are going to be strong."

"Which is why I have to take them down beforehand," Blackjack said. "And I will," he assured, in case anyone at the table doubted him. He looked into their eyes and repeated, "Whatever it takes, I'll shut the turrets down and get everyone into the city."

"When's this happening?" Virus asked.

"Don't know the exact date yet," Blackjack replied with a small shake of his head. "I don't know what Death's waiting for at this point, but we have been recruiting faster recently. And gathering up old allies- I think the fact that they're telling us now means it won't be long. This week most likely."

Snow nodded her head in an intense way, and Blackjack glanced to his side for a second as he caught that in his peripheral vision. A bead of sweat formed on his face but he avoided saying anything, since after all the small Canadian girl had been there longer than him.

At the front of The Cloak, Zach was speaking in a low voice to those around him. He did not know if someone was listening or not, but he was not speaking too quietly that she would not be able to hear him if she was. He just did not want to draw attention to him in case she was focused on something else, and this time luckily the girl was too focused on the conversation with the others at her cafeteria table. "She's been asking more often to help out. I think seeing us going so much harder lately is making her feel she should be doing more, but even if we have to call in every last bit of reinforcements Snow is not coming on the raid."

"Good," Jetflame said, nodding his head with Death's decision. He was getting worried there for a minute when Darling was talking over the radio, since she was not on The Cloak's bridge, about how Snow's All-Sound Quirk would work well for countering the plays that their enemies would make after the initial attack of Wampajawa. He had to admit that it did make sense to bring her along, but he was glad Death was as strongly against it as he was. _She shouldn't even be on this ship anymore._

"I know," Zach said, while looking at Jetflame's expression that gave away what he was thinking. "But I don't trust others to protect her. Not yet."

"Listen Death, I like the kid too," Michael began over comms where he was with Darling and another squad doing recon. "But we gotta be careful when it comes to her. She's not just getting more into this with you. Everyone can see she's trying to actually start being one of us. I'd be cool with it if she was just a few years older, but I'm betting we're done with this long before that."

"Always the optimist," Access scoffed over the line from the cockpit of The Cloak. He glanced to his side though at Death and then added, "I agree though. She's nine, can't we just leave her somewhere? Maybe just for a couple weeks even, until after Wampajawa and things blow over a bit?"

"Not a bad idea," Spiral agreed. "And if you tell her like that, she probably wouldn't freak out this time. As long as you say it's temporary-"

"I'll think about it, but we'll talk more about this later. I'm heading out. Which recon team feels the most confident they're ready to attack?"

"Alpha is finished-"

"Charlie awaiting your arrival." Darling spoke up over La Brava to be heard first.

"Omega could, wait until the others are finished. We could use Alpha and Charlie's help too, it seems. Don't think just you Death is going to be enough."

"I heard your primary report and have Delta prepping to meet you out there. By the time they arrive I'll be finished with the other two and on my way to meet you." Zach turned and he started for the doors of the cockpit to head back to the hangar. "Darling, I'm on my way to you first. Prep for immediate assault. I'll be there in ten." Zach reached down and he grabbed his helmet, lifted it up while jogging into the halls of The Cloak, and he put it down over his head. _152\. I hit the mark I decided on for Wampajawa, but their numbers have risen too… I'm not going back on it. If I keep pushing back they'll just make themselves stronger in preparation. It's time to tear down everything. The Shadow Bosses are all down except for one, but Eziano's just an assassin. Now the Capos of Wampajawa are the clear leaders of the Underworld. The final safe haven run by 5 men just as the League of Shadows was. I'm not the only one who makes that comparison._

Zach's fists clenched tightly and his feet covered in darkness as he sped up his sprint to the hangar. "Open the hangar bay door," he ordered before he arrived. _I'll destroy them and their city. And I'll, make a new place for all these people we've been saving who have nowhere to go. I'll have the time for it once- I won't though. After Wampajawa, if we win- when we win! All those villains, all the places they will give us, I'll find time for it anyway though. I'll create the place I imagined. A place for people who don't have anywhere to return to. A new home for victims. For all those test subjects. And somewhere, I can finally feel right about leaving her…_

* * *

Snow pushed a bucket full of water and soap with the map handle she was holding to roll it across the floor. She was in one of the boys' barracks rooms, and she leaned down and grabbed a black shirt off the floor and tossed it onto a bed next to her. The ship sounded pretty quiet, which made sense since every single team was off of it currently. There were some scattered members who had not been put on teams for the missions that day, whether because they had been overworked in recent days, they asked to take a break or were told to take one, or because they had sustained injuries. Some of the soldiers who were hurt were not necessarily in the med bay but moving around the ship with non-leg-wounds that Curalia had yet to heal for them or her healing had only done a certain amount that still did not have them combat ready.

There was also the support team up in the bridge, and Snow could hear someone in the mens' shower as she mopped up the floors in the barracks. She started speeding up after listening out for that when she picked that shirt up off of the ground. "You know, the floor's not going anywhere," Snow looked towards the door and she saw an older woman leaning inside it. Indra had her right side leaning on the doorway while her left arm was in a sling in front of her body. The older dark-skinned woman nodded at the mop and said, "Don't let me stop you from your chores. You offered to do them after all," she reminded in case the girl had forgotten.

Snow looked back down and she kept mopping around though a bit slower than before after the older woman's original comment. "Scotty's in the shower," Snow whispered softly. "I thought I should mop quickly, before he comes back in."

"Scotty huh?" Indra glanced over her shoulder and humphed. _Never thought I'd see him again. Hybrid and Icefall came back though, now I'm just waiting on Sparky to pull through-_ Indra's thoughts cut off as the girl in front of her dropped the mop handle she was holding.

Snow's face trembled with fear and she stared towards a wall with a terrified look in her eyes. "What is it?" Indra asked in panic.

"People are here," Snow whispered, her face graying and her foot stepping back from the one door in the room.

Indra stepped into the room and she pressed the intercom button next to the door. "Who's here?!" Indra shouted over at the girl who she was not doubting but needed to speak fast.

"A-Assassins. Assassins!" Snow's eyes were wide with shock but she managed to stutter and then shout at the intercom.

"What's happening?!"

"Put The Cloak on full alert!"

"Stay in here!" Indra yelled at the girl in front of her.

Snow shook her head around out of the shock, and she stumbled forward as Indra made to leave the room. "W-Wait!" Indra looked back in. Snow kept shaking, then the girl leaned forward desperately and called out, "I can help! I know where-"

"Use the intercom!" Indra shouted back, right before that room went into lockdown and the steel door slammed shut locking Snow into the room by herself.

Snow's bottom lip dropped as that happened and they shut her out, and she ran forward all the way up to the door that she banged on with her small fists. "Let me help! Let me-"

"How many of them are there?!"

"Call Death back to the ship!"

"They're in the middle of a fight-"

"Hideaway's down!"

"Just get him up here!"

"We're landing The Cloak!"

"How'd they get onboard-"

"Everyone listen. I'll take command. If you know where in The Cloak they are, tell us right now. Death's been informed and is heading back, but we need to hold them off."

Snow turned her head and looked to the intercom below the speakers she just heard Access' voice come out of. _Death's coming. He's coming back here. People are dying. Wh-What would he do? What would any of them do- they are doing! It's not about what they would do, they're doing it right now! I need- I need to-_

"There are three of them in the training rooms," Snow called out, pressing her hand hard on the button in front of her and yelling it out at the top of her lungs. "Another two in the hangar! Indra! Look out at the end of the hall just around the corner!"

"The flight squad is heading back to The Cloak at max speed!"

"It's Eziano! He's actually here!"

"Wait a minute, aren't you… I know you!"

Snow listened closely as she heard people shouting around The Cloak, and she repeated information that her comrades started saying aloud knowing that she could hear them. She repeated it over the ship's speakers, and every time she said something the others on board realized what was going on and started speaking aloud directly to her telling her what to relay to everyone else in case they did not have their earpieces on them or wanted the enemies to hear misinformation that they would then relay to each other what they were really saying. As she was relaying misinformation, Snow realized that this wrong information would affect the people who did not have their earpieces as well though, and the pressure hit her all at once causing her mouth to freeze open like it was.

"It's the guys from the Dragon's Den! Those guys Fergus hired!"

"A guy with a strength enhancing Quirk, a teleporter who can only move upwards it looks like-"

"Snow! We need you to keep relaying! Can you hear me?!"

"Someone check on her!"

 _Indra,_ Snow backed away from the intercom with sweat covering her body. She listened to the sounds of the woman she was just talking to, dying with a blade plunged into her chest. And she listened to the voice of the man whose blade was sticking through Indra's heart, "Bringing a child into this. Very irresponsible of you, Sazaki. And yet, I did not think you had it in you. Your Quirk is a nuisance, girl. Stay quiet and I will spare your life. Say another word and-"

"The assassin's leader is in the barracks' hall! He just killed Indra! He's coming for me!" Snow's voice cracked as she screamed all this into the intercom, tears spilling out of her eyes in sheer terror.

"GET HIM!"

"Everyone converge on his position!"

"We're coming Snow!"

 _ **"RRAAAAA!"**_ The entire Cloak shook and Snow stumbled backwards from the tremors.

"I got here as fast as I could," Zach's breath came out ragged and staggered. He had injected with Trigger, he came from the middle of a fight against strong people who he suddenly blew through without stopping and with such speed that he was bleeding badly on his right arm and the right side of his body below the ribs. The Cloak was not that far off from his location, but from what he heard over the comms thus far alone he was livid. He was fuming and his whole body shook in rage, but he said in as calm a voice as he could muster while his vision was dyed red and wind blew in behind him from the hole in The Cloak's wall, "I'm here now. It's going to be okay."

"Death!"

Zach kicked aside the assassin in front of him and the man came out from beneath the chunk of wall he had been pinned beneath, and he slid out of The Cloak to start plummeting with a faint gasp escaping his lips as the darkness on Zach's foot failed to put him to sleep.

"You came," Snow whispered, putting her hand back on the intercom button and saying it in her shaking and scared, but relieved voice.

"You're doing a great job, Snow," Zach said as he started jogging down the hall to his right. He spoke in a regular calm and scratchy voice, but he knew she heard every word he said. "Now tell me, exactly where they all are."

"Two just ahead of you! They're scared!"

"Just took down one near the bridge! We can do this!"

"They're falling back-"

"Don't let them off this ship!" Zach yelled.

Snow slammed her hand flat onto the button for her intercom and she repeated in a yell everyone knew just came from Death, "DON'T LET THEM OFF THIS SHIP!"

* * *

"There were complications with the surgery. They tried, Death."

Death's head was bowed and his eyes closed as he stood on the bridge of The Cloak. His hand gripped down hard on the left armrest of an unused chair in the middle of the room, then his eyes opened and he nodded towards Raylei who was reporting this information to him. "Have Hank and Curalia get back here. Tell them to bring any injured who may be combat capable within two weeks, they'll continue treatment on The Cloak. All others, tell them they'll need to inform that they're being left behind. We'll have them transferred to different hospitals we set up every couple of days, keep them moving but also keep them in the dark as to what we're doing. Just in case," Zach turned his head and he started back across the room.

"Leaving already?"

"You should get some rest," La Brava said, looking to her side at Zach as he was walking past her. He hesitated and glanced to the side at the short woman, and then his eyes shifted down from her face and to her stomach. La Brava's eyes widened at the way he looked at her, then she said in a softer voice, "Have you slept since the attack? It's been two days-"

"I'll sleep when I'm tired," Zach replied. "I'm not tired," he turned back forward and continued out of the room. His eyes clenched shut for a second as the door was closing behind him, as he saw La Brava's body flying backwards down a dirt road with a hole blown through her small body. He heard Gentle's screams and then felt the same hole ripping through him while the flames from the burning buildings on either side of him licked his body. His own wounds stung and he felt bullets slamming into him and explosions knocking him off his feet, and he could feel the current wet feeling of bandages damp from sweat and blood beneath his dark uniform.

Spiral jogged down the hall towards the bridge, but he slowed down when he saw Death come around the corner and start walking towards him. "Death. I heard you were back. Where should I-"

"The new Beta squad," Zach replied. "They're out there already. Take a helicopter to them."

"Got it," Spiral replied without questioning his leader. He reached down and put his helmet on, turning and running back to the hangar while asking the support where he had to go more specifically so as not to bother Death with it.

Zach walked down the hall and turned into the cafeteria. _Who's here? Who's still alive? Spiral's up and moving again, but half of the others are still…_ "Grabble, Tama," Zach motioned to the side with his head, and the two in the cafeteria talking to each other at a table jumped up and jogged his direction. "Got a mission. We're going to do some recon in the Tusukan Desert 160 miles east of here. There's a meeting scheduled for three hours from now. We'll take a Super-Jet."

"Understood, Commander," Tama said with a nod at the young man before her.

Grabble jogged out and into the hall behind Zach on his left side, allowing Tama to walk behind him on his right as they started down the hall towards the hangar. "Heard about that prison break in Kazakhstan?" Grabble asked in a dark tone, glancing to his side at Death who nodded his head just as darkly. "Those two guys, the ones who escaped the Dragon's Den. Killed Juno and Akhmed," Grabble grit his teeth and he said in a lower voice, "Not a great way to start the world loop."

"Phinx, and Lee escaped?" Tama asked, looking to Grabble in surprise as this was the first she heard about it.

"I told them what would happen next time if they escaped," Zach growled, his voice chilling to the other two who just got more dark and serious looks on their faces too. _Should have expected guys that Eziano would bring here were too dangerous to just send to prison. Everyone wanted them dead, but I made that call. That it was better to show people that even assassins could be thrown in prison like common street toughs. If only I had captured the boss. Eziano, Amaterasu, Fergus is still out there though we're closing in, so many are trying to rise with the ones in Wampajawa gone. I have to move faster! FASTER!_

Zach's fists clenched hard at his sides then they loosened completely and he stared forward at a girl standing at the railing inside the hangar closest to the front half of the ship. Through the opening Zach could see her standing there looking towards him, and he slowed down a bit before glancing to either side at the two walking with him. "Get a jet ready. Be right behind you," Zach turned and walked over towards Snow when they made it out into the hangar, and he stopped in front of the girl who he had not talked to one-on-one for a couple of days. "You doing alright?"

He did not bend down in front of her. He just stepped in front of her and asked while looking down into the girl's eyes. _We lost a lot of people,_ Zach thought, and he checked out the girl's expression to make sure she was fine even as she nodded back at him. "Good," Zach said. _I've started on Life City too. You saved this place though. Would Eziano attack it again? Don't see why not. He sent his men after us in Wampajawa, among all that chaos the assassins were there. Everyone was there. Every villain group, everyone I was hunting had a hand there._ "Keep an eye on things here."

"Are you alright?" Snow asked, seeing he was about to turn and go, and not wanting him to leave. She asked him because he had asked her the same thing but she could not tell if he was doing alright either. _He lost so many people. I can help him! He needs-_

Zach smiled, and he lowered his left hand down and placed it on top of Snow's head. He tousled her hair and pushed down on the front so she closed her eyes as some strands fell over her face. "Be good," Zach said. When Snow opened her eyes at the feeling of his hand off her head, his back was already to her as he walked away. She opened her mouth and took a step after him, raising a hand towards his back that got farther away but still looked so wide. Then her hand clenched into a fist and she lowered it back down. The idea that he needed her help faded from her mind, as the idea that he would ever need help from anyone seemed strange at how strong he always felt to her.

"Bye," she whispered.

* * *

 **6 Months Ago**

Snow sat at the foot of her bed with a sad look on her face and a mop inside a bucket to her left side. She stared forward at a couple of women new to the Army of Death who were getting situated on some beds that had been empty for over week now. Snow watched those recruits but she pictured a woman with long purple hair standing in front of her bed leaning down with a smile and talking to her. And even as she saw Seraphim there smiling at her, instead of hearing her voice she could only hear the one she was focused on across the ship.

 _He's back. He slept while he was gone at least. On helicopters between attacks. This "world loop" is too much. I need to talk to him before he leaves. I have to! What if next time- he left with Tama and Grabble, and the things people said… he says they're true?_ Snow lowered her head more and she clenched her eyes shut as she listened to the man who had not mentioned her name once since getting back on the ship. _He's busy. Too busy. Too much. When will he leave again? Will it be the last time he…_

Snow got herself off the bed and she grabbed the bucket and mop to push them across the ship. The women who had just come in for the first time stared her way hesitantly, looking unsure about what they were seeing like they disapproved of the girl being there. Snow ignored their looks though, not able to care less about them at the moment as she heard the tone in Death's voice. She sped up and she left her tools behind, losing interest in even pretending like she was going to just head somewhere to clean it so that she could talk to him.

Snow ran across the ship that was nearly empty compared to a few weeks ago but did have a good thirty or forty people on it at the moment. The Cloak flew across the sky in the wide loop it was doing, but in this section of the world they had called in tips for the majority of villain locations they had discovered, enabling some of the Army to get some rest. It was not going to last long, and Snow knew The Cloak would get back to being mostly empty once again the next day if not in a few hours. She ran past Michael whose face she glanced up at for a moment only to look back down fast and continue running at the expression she did not recognize him to ever have before.

The girl kept running and she scooted to the side when two other men were coming out of a room to turn and follow after Michael. "Out of the way Rookie," Snow said, glancing to the side and up at a man who dropped his jaw at what the girl just said to him.

Fillian chuckled darkly and behind Snow, Michael actually looked back and lifted his dark frown a small amount at what he heard her say. A second later his lips had dropped back down though, a conflicted and worried look flashing over his face for a moment which made him turn away before Fillian or Blackstar could see it.

Snow kept running, and then she slowed down as she was nearing the door she wanted to run straight through. She hesitated, then she could not hold herself back and she ran up to it with her hand pulled back to knock. "… I couldn't stop. It was like something had taken over. Grabble was down, and Tama… They ripped her apart so I couldn't… And I _slaughtered_ them."

"It's okay."

"It's not, Darling. I _massacred_ them. I keep pushing forward and I have to keep moving. There's so much, but- But I've never lost it like that before. Not like that. I turned into, in that desert I-"

"You did what you had to to survive. That's what we all believe-"

"Not everyone. People are leaving-"

"Scotty left before. He'll come back again when he cools down. And those recruits probably weren't anything much-"

"You didn't see their faces. When they landed there. When they saw… Darling, I did- I became a monster-"

 _ **Swoosh**_ Zach's door opened up to the side, and Snow ran inside while the boy on his bed jumped up ready to tell off whoever just barged in.

Zach's eyes opened wide though, and Darling's angry look for the person who just rushed in like that when she had just come to talk to Zach herself calmed down fast. Darling still had a bit of an annoyed look on her face, but she smiled too as the girl who ran in and hugged Zach called out, "You're not a bad person."

"Snow," Zach whispered, and he cursed himself internally at speaking so freely and forgetting she could hear every word of it.

Darling opened her mouth but hesitated, then she closed it slowly and she frowned but turned to the door of the room. "I'll let you two talk," she said softly. Snow turned in surprise and watched as Darling headed for the door, while Zach turned with an appreciative look as he watched her back. Darling neared the door and thought while glancing back, _Since you won't have many more opportunities to._

 _Thank you, Darling._ Zach thought at the girl he just made eye contact with. "I'm glad you're up on your feet," he told Darling before she could go. "If you can get Hank to tell me that you're combat ready I'll take you with me on the next missions-"

"I'm ready!" Darling exclaimed. Then she held her tongue and she backed out into the hallway. "Hank will tell you the same thing," she said in an assured tone, before the door closed and she lowered a hand down to her chest and started rubbing it, before raising that hand to her neck and then the other to her waist which made her wince extra hard. _Just turn those areas into fake skin and flesh for when he does his check-up. Not completely fake, but maybe half of each so I don't flinch while he checks. Call it an amazing recovery._ Darling smirked while turning to head towards the medical bay. _I'm not sitting out the whole loop. Not while you're taking on everything…_

Back in Zach's room, he sat down on the edge of his bed again and Snow climbed up to sit on his side but very close to him. "Are you okay?" Snow asked, her tone worried which had Zach smiling again just as he did the last time she asked him. "You're tired, aren't you? And hurt. And-"

"You've gotten strong, Snow," Zach said. He looked at the face of a girl who was trying to help him, and he saw over it the translucent face of the same girl so afraid with her lips pursed unable to say a single word. Snow's lip curled in frustration at his answer, as she had realized it from a few days before but he had not answered that question the last time she asked it either. He did not say if he was okay or not, but he was smiling softly at her which she could not tell if it was fake or not behind that exhausted expression.

Snow lowered her left hand down over Zach's right that flinched when her hand touched it. He pulled away, and Snow lifted her hand up to his sleeve instead and grabbed around his forearm. "Zach," Snow said quietly, and his eyes widened a bit while his head turned fully to face the small girl.

"It's Death," Zach told her. He shook his head when she stared up at him with wide eyes, as it was the first time she was calling him it. She felt like she sometimes heard people use it in really serious situations with him, when the people who had been there before her were dying and talking to him over comms, or sometimes someone would just scream it. Villains called him it, she knew it was his real name, but she looked away apologetically when he corrected her so quickly. "But what is it?" He asked the girl who just turned from him.

Snow turned back and the short, nine year old girl spoke in a strong high-pitched voice, "I want to stay." Zach's eyes widened for a second and he cursed internally, then he stopped doing that as the girl in front of him continued, "Not just as, what I have been. I want to help more. I want to stay _in_ the Army of Death, or I want to join since I haven't really been in it- except I have been! I've lived here just like everyone and eat with everyone and I wear black and, and I helped when Eziano attacked- I want to stay!"

 _She doesn't know. I've kept all mention of her in those plans private and off The Cloak. This isn't because she thinks I'm abandoning her. This is just, what she wants to do._ Zach leaned back a bit and he pressed his hands down hard on the bed at his sides. He looked up at the ceiling and then glanced back to his right side at the girl looking to his face in a hopeful but serious way like she did not want to be seen as too childish while asking, or while making this intense request. "So 'the bad men.' You aren't afraid of them anymore?" Zach asked.

Snow lowered her gaze from Zach's and she twisted her right foot off the edge of the bed. Her eyes shifted down and away, and her lips pursed while Zach watched her face from up close. He shook his head once while she was not looking, and his eyes darkened now that he did not have to keep a lighter expression for the girl to see. _If it's no, then I'd have my reason for sending you to an orphanage. If it's yes, then how could I let you help us fight if you're too scared? Quite a pickle you're-_

"That doesn't matter," Snow said, spinning back to Zach and leaning towards his face again. "I want to help you!" _Or she can just avoid it altogether._ Snow's lip furled and her eyebrows narrowed down, then she tightened her grip on Zach's sleeve. He had felt that small grip tighten before but in a scared way, not the strong grip she had now. "I'm staying with you," she told him, this time not a question at all. Zach's look darkened again, much more this time and he let Snow see it all. Everything weighing down on him all at once, and Snow's grasp on his arm only tightened more. "I'm staying with you no matter what."

* * *

 **Present**

"You can't be serious," Oda Bunogawa started. The man shook his head at the boy trying to continue his description, and he scoffed at the boy's look and said, "There's no way there were leprechauns."

"I know," Zach started nodding with the guard in agreement and a look of disbelief on his own face like he understood the guard's skepticism. "That's what I told the shaman who warned me what I kept seeing, but when I finally called out for it, there he was. He'd been watching me, ever since I traveled back from Rainland."

"Rainland?" Neo asked, shaking her head and getting a more confused look again as that was a place she had not heard of before.

Zach got a confused look on his face himself and glanced back and forth between the guards. "Ah, must have been a different shift. Well you can ask them about it, but all you need to know is that under the bridge to get back from Rainland, there were trolls, and those trolls would do anything to get their hands on a leprechaun's beard."

"Not their gold?" Neo asked, smiling and looking surprised by the turn the story was taking. Oda decided to just listen in and try and get over the leprechaun thing already, as insane as it sounded to him, to just focus on what the prisoner was continuing with.

Zach chuckled darkly at Neo's question though and it made the guards lean towards him at the way he looked there. The look that showed asking about their gold was ridiculous to him but he understood why she would ask, yet also that he did not want to laugh because of how dark it really was. They started thinking more about what it would mean to be after their beards too, and Neo gulped before the teen even continued just from his chuckling alone. "The leprechauns don't have gold, but their beards are softer than the softest lambs' wool. And in that world there were enough bad people that the black market was hungry for them."

"The leprechauns were small and quick though, so it was tough to catch them. Yet they weren't invincible. They could still be hurt, but this one wanted to help. After seeing what I did in the Rainland, this leprechaun followed me. Unfortunately, Arcasia's hunter-class trolls have great senses of smell. Soon after leaving the Rainland when I met the leprechaun, Docy, they were already hot on our trail…"

* * *

 **6 Months Ago**

Zach was panting with one arm bloody and down at his side barely holding onto a knife, his other completely limp and swinging back and forth as he ran up a flight of stairs. Darling lifted up Zach's limp left arm and she swung it over her shoulders, and she continued running up the stairs at Death's side as fast as they could after the long fight. "We can't lose, we don't lose," Zach muttered in a low voice as they continued up the flight. He shoved Darling away with a bump of his body, since that left arm really was not working at all.

Zach turned and his right arm covered in pitch blackness that flared and rose to the ceiling of the stairwell. "Rrraaa RRAAA- RAAAAAA!" Zach's arm bulked and the darkness spread to cover more and more of the stairwell around him. Then he punched his right fist down at the first sight of the forces charging up the stairs after him. "SINK INTO THE OCEAN OF DEATH!" Zach roared down in a horrifyingly scratchy and deep voice that echoed through the dark pulse he fired downstairs.

"Come on," Darling grabbed him by his right arm this time and started tugging farther up the stairwell. "That's not going to stop them," she turned Zach around and continued running, and she slowed down only for a second to swing his arm over her shoulders again to make sure he kept pace instead of lagging behind as he was doing even more after that last attack.

"Ack- gah," Zach lifted his right hand a bit to wipe his mouth but his helmet got in the way and he grimaced in frustration and exhaustion. _I've never run out. Not since- when? Wampajawa? After the Tusukan Desert, I didn't know if I could get this weak again._ Zach stumbled on the steps and he cursed as he took Darling down with him. They fell and started pushing back up with the strength they could muster. "Keep going," Zach started to the girl standing with him slower than he knew she could.

"Not without you," Darling replied, pulling him up with her and then continuing towards the top of the stairs of the massive building they were in. "Everyone else is out already. Their reinforcements came earlier than they should have, but this still isn't a loss. We didn't lose. We just need to go for now. They lost this base. They'll know they can't stay here, and we'll have drones follow wherever they head to next. They're through."

"Might not even come to that. Heroes are heading there right now you two," Rebel called out into their headsets. "Get to the roof and we can send an extraction-"

 _ **BOOOM!**_

The whole building shook, and Darling spun her head around to look down the steps as she heard more yelling coming from down them. "Police and heroes arriving, but the villains are flooding in there. Y'all have to get out of there!"

Zach and Darling stumbled onto the top floor of the building, and then they spun towards one of the walls where some windows broke and bullets flew through. The bullets slammed into other walls or into tables and computers, and there were still unconscious villains laying around from earlier before the massive force arrived made up of different groups of villains all there for the same reason. Zach lifted back up his right hand that he just pushed down on hard, allowing Darling's head to rise back up as he had forcefully ducked it when those bullets flew too close.

Even his red vision seemed dim though, and Zach was panting hard after that huge attack of Death he tried to flood the whole staircase with. _They know I'm not all powerful. They still aren't that afraid. Rumors haven't spread far enough yet, not of recent events. All they believe is that I'm going to destroy, this way of life. They believe that I'm coming for all of them, and they're not all getting ready for one big attack. That's good. They're not that organized… but this alone._

"They're setting fire to the building, and they have fuckers flying around the outside of it. Heroes don't know what's going on and they're setting a far perimeter for now to let the villains fighting it out inside deal with each other first. You're not getting any help there!"

 **Bangbangbang bang! Doof-dododododo-** _ **brrrrrRrRr**_ **Crash! CHH** _ **chh**_ The building filled with the sound of breaking glass and walls, bullets flying and explosions going off.

"We know he's inside!" The shout came through broken windows, and Zach ducked down while moving across the top floor with Darling.

He tried to keep them out of sight, but it did not seem like being seen was going to matter that much at all. "Burn it down!"

"Watch all the exits! Kill him the second he tries to escape!"

"We've got him now!"

"Death! Should we come back?!"

"No!" Zach shouted back.

"I'm going-"

"I will get us a way out. Just get farther away from here. Send them an evac support team. And where is mine?"

"It's not close enough," Rebel replied, calmly but in a low and intense tone. Zach's eyes widened at that serious voice coming from a man who rarely took one. "You're going to have to find a way to either protect that location until I can get it to you, or find a different way out. There's a sewer under the building-"

"There's no way we can get back downstairs," Darling snapped, her tone nervous despite the angry way she said it.

"Screw this. Death, I'm coming-"

"I order you to stay away from here. Do not think me so weak that I can't survive- ack ack, ack," Zach started a coughing fit and he cursed hard in his head that it had to happen while he was trying to calm his troops. He opened his mouth to continue that it was fine, but the building shook and really wobbled this time as it felt like an entire wall down below broke apart. More bullets flew through the walls, slamming into computers and splashing up blood from some unconscious villains laying nearby.

Zach and Darling got down low and crawled across the floor. Zach stayed close and he turned his head to look at the girl next to him as bullets whizzed by their heads and voices screamed around them about how much the villains wanted them dead. Darling kept crawling forward fast on her hands and knees, and Zach clenched his teeth hard as he ground them back and forth but pushed forward right after her. _I need to find us a way out. Something. Anything!_

"Death! Darling!" A voice the two of them recognized called out to their right, and they spun their heads and looked over at a computer laying on the floor. The screen turned blue, and the two of them stared at the face that appeared on the flat screen with a panicked look on it as he stared out at the two of them. The walls around them were getting hit by projectiles, carving off chunks and sending paint and wood and cement splintering out through the air. Flames caught the outer walls, and a fireball flew through an open window as someone shouted about burning them out of the top floor.

"Get out of here, Virus," Zach ordered the boy in the screen who was putting himself in as much danger as they were in by jumping in that computer. "Help the others get a-"

 _ **Ka-**_ **BOOM!** The whole building shook, and cracks spread across the ceiling while more of the walls covered in flames.

"There's no time!" Virus shouted. His face was reluctant but he leaned out of the computer and stretched his arms out to the two who fully turned to him now with their eyes opening huge. "Grab on!"

"What?!" Darling shouted at him, then she ducked down as she heard something fly by her head so close that strands of brown hair started falling to her left side. She rose her head up a bit and looked into Virus' blue eyes as he extended his hands closer to them. "What are you doing?"

"Will it work?" Zach asked, looking at Virus' hand and then at his face worriedly.

"It's not safe. It's not a good idea," Virus grit his blue teeth and shook his head, then he shouted, "But there's no other option!"

Zach could see how hesitant Virus was about this, and he could understand in that expression alone why his comrade had never mentioned this ability before. _There are risks. But, he's right. There's no time to come up with a better option. We'll be dead by the time I come up with anything._ "Do it Darling!" Zach yelled, and he reached his right hand out since his left was not working.

Darling reached her left out for Virus' left, and Zach clasped his gloved right hand into Virus' blue one. The floor below them started to crack, the walls creaked and more flames poured in around them. And the two soldiers in all black stared through their visors at their arms that were turning blue from where they were grabbing onto Virus' hand up to their elbows, then their shoulders… Their arms started getting pulled back into the screen, Virus tugging back fast as the ceiling right above the computer was breaking more and they had to go. He pulled back and the blue light surrounding Zach and Darling's bodies spread faster to engulf their entire beings at the same moment that they were being squeezed into the computer together.

 _This is… ABSOLUTELY FUCKING INSANE!_ Darling fell through blue nothingness with her body glowing a more solid blue, her form taking shape in a blocky, cube-y way. 1's and 0's passed by her in streams, pushing off of her body and bouncing away or just going straight through her. She lifted an arm and looked at it as she continued to fall with nothing holding her in place, and she saw in her blue arm there were small white lines that branched around and looked to constantly be moving so that her entire body did not seem constant.

"Are we code?!" Zach yelled towards Virus who he spotted falling near him. He yelled it so loud because he did not know if he would even be able to make sound as he was right now. He thought about using his Quirk, but he could see the way his body looked and had a horrible feeling in his gut about what would happen if he used it while being affected by Virus' Quirk. _If the power holding me inside this… place? Space? Stops working while I'm inside it, what would happen to me? To Darling?_ "What's going-"

"Shit! The computer broke!" Virus yelled, and he spun around before slamming his arms down at his sides and diving down like he was skydiving.

Both Zach and Darling had jumped out of planes before, and the two of them saw Virus do an action that needed to be done in order to go faster. The two of them followed suit, turning after him and pressing their arms into their sides to try and keep up. Zach's eyes darted to his left side for a moment as he felt all ability to move his left arm again, and he also realized he did not feel any of his injuries at all while inside the computer like this. He also realized when he looked to his left and down at his side behind him, how dark the space above them was. His glowing blue eyes started to widen in panic as he saw the darkness spreading down after them, and he snapped his head back forward and dove faster after Virus.

"Over here!" Virus called out, spinning his body and then shooting towards a glowing white square in the middle of open space that seemed to just be floating around. His body slammed into it and went straight through into a different space, as they could see below that white square to more of the blue void that was getting darker farther down as much as it was above them.

"Don't miss," Zach said seriously towards Darling. Even though he had no idea what would happen should she miss it, he did not think it would be good. He aimed for the white square himself and fell through just before Darling, and Zach's perception of reality shattered for a moment at the sight before him. He thought the space he was just falling through had been wide but empty, yet as he entered into the access point into the next space over, his understanding of what was happening to him was tossed on its head.

"Grab hold you two!" Virus yelled behind him, and he swung his arms back behind him that extended two long blue whips from his hands. Zach gladly grabbed onto one as fast as he could, not wanting to get lost or knocked away by the constant invisible wind he felt slamming into him.

"Where are we?" Darling whispered meekly behind a boy freaking out in a similar fashion.

"The longer you're in here, the harder it's going to be to get you out!" Virus shouted back at the two who were too busy staring around in shock at the place so vast yet so empty. Yet, every thing they did see was something their brain understood what they were looking at. The two of them looked back towards their younger comrade when he shouted that though, and Virus turned away with his teeth clenched and a hurried look on his face. "We have to find somewhere safe to emerge from!"

"Can't you get us to The Cloak?" Darling shouted his way, while Virus started flying them forward through the blue space. He had no means of propulsion and he was moving them horizontally, but there no longer felt to be any gravity inside the realm they had entered into. Darling felt disoriented and scared, and she ducked when she saw something flying her way almost too fast to notice. She spun her head with her bottom lip dropped, wondering if she really did just see a picture of a man's privates zipping past her. "What was-"

"Like ninety percent of the internet is just dick pics!" Virus shouted back. "Look out for them!"

"WHAT?!" Darling shouted in shocked frustration and anger at the boy who she was ninety percent sure was fucking with her.

"Just get us out at the first exit you can find," Zach called up to Virus a few meters… spaces… a length away from him that Zach's eyes were having trouble judging in a physical way. The disorienting nature of the space they were in was only matched by the way his body currently felt to him: neither hot nor cold, and yet he could use all his senses. He could feel the blue whip Virus had thrown back for him, and he could hear his own words that he was speaking with, and though he could not tell if he could smell or not as there was no scent where they were, he did have the shape of a nose protruding from his face. "It's dangerous for us to be in here for too long, because we might get stuck like you are, right?"

"I think so," Virus replied. That response only made Zach and Darling want to get out of there faster as it seemed he may have never done this before. Neither wanted to ask him though, and they just decided to believe that he knew it was possible because he had _some_ experience. "But we can't pop out just anywhere. It's not safe-"

"No safer than being stuck in here!" Darling yelled.

"What if we emerge inside a deep underground prison, and they cut off the systems so we can't go back in?! Or what if I pop you out of the American president's phone and all the hero secret service attack you while you're already weak and the Army's across the world-"

"Aren't we in the internet around where we just were?" Darling snapped in confusion. "Shouldn't openings around here just-"

"'Around here?' There is no 'around here.' Nothing in here matches up with locations outside! Space doesn't exist in here! Only time and fake matter. Waves and- alright there's a message board! Come on!"

Virus started pulling the two of them across the vast space, or non-space, and the two behind him held on much harder as they moved away from what felt like the wall as it was where they came in from. The farther they moved from it though, the more the space behind them just looked like anything else in this blue wasteland of code. Pictures flew by moving so fast they could barely catch glimpses of them, and Virus pulled back and cut around a couple of times so it looked like he was navigating a ship through an asteroid field.

"Almost there!" Virus called out, hope and relief in his voice that relieved the other two.

"AH!" Darling yelled out, and Zach spun his head with is eyes opening huge in shock at the sight of a dangling blue whip with no one on it. The girl holding onto that whip had just been slammed into by a giant square with a white 'U' in the middle of it over a bright red background.

"Shit!" Virus spun around and he shot after that square, and Zach let go of the line and started shooting after it too. Virus darted his eyes over for a second but Zach was flying just as fast as he was through the space towards the girl who kept screaming even as she finally got herself off of the app that hit her. "It just got released," Virus called out while Darling spun herself around in the space and turned while floating there in front of him. Darling looked in Virus' eyes then down at her hands while she stayed in one place, only she started to look around in more understanding as the wind pushed into her and the distant walls of the space slid by as well.

 _Everything seems like it's moving, but maybe there is no motion in here?_ Zach swung his right arm around and he looked at the blue that made it up. _I'm in flux. This is in itself an entirely different world from our own. I can't think of it the same way. But I, understand how it works. I can move around in here as long as I can think it. I have a certain amount of control… for some reason._

"Listen! If we can get over to that message thread over there," Virus pointed and the other two looked over to see green bubbles flying across the cyberspace. "We can check who's sending them and try and get out-"

"Sounds good," Zach called out, not needing him to explain it any further. He pointed his hands in front of him and urged his body forward, and he started flying through the strange blue space without much effort. _Faster?_ Zach pushed his arms harder in front of him and started shooting across the space much faster than before.

Darling sped up too while chasing after him, but Virus sped up faster and flew up to Zach's left side as they made their way towards the bubble thread moving the same direction as them. "We're catching on fast," Zach said, his voice low while he glanced to his left at the boy next to him whose full appearance he was seeing for the first time even if it was still in a bright blue glow inside the system. "Virus," Zach said, his voice more serious as the boy did not turn to him after what he just said. "What's-"

"AH!" the two spun around and stopped flying forward at Darling's shout behind them. "What is that thing?!" Darling yelled, curving away and flying up to dodge what came flying out from below in the blue space.

A giant yellow face came flying past Darling laughing so hard that it was crying, its laughs echoing around the void which had Virus backing up with a nervous expression on his face. "Things are about to get crowded," he warned, and he turned back forward the way he and Zach had been going. "We need to get out of here faster… Oh shit," Virus backed up and he spun around. "Other way!"

Zach looked back towards the message thread they had been chasing, but something had gotten in their way after the thread got too far. He saw it spinning over there and looked closer instead of turning at what Virus said even though he was feeling the urge to escape rising inside him. Zach stared closer and his eyes bulged while he started sliding back in mid-void too. There were pictures of dogs, and cats, celebrities, actors, and world leaders, and all of those pictures had text on them in big bubble letters. They were spinning around with more text bubbles flying around them, and hundreds of those same giant yellow faces that had flown past Darling a moment ago were mixed in and spinning around in a vortex. Zach and Darling spun and started flying after Virus with panicked looks on their faces, and Darling shouted at their blue comrade, "What is THAT?!"

"Meme Tornado!" Virus yelled over his shoulder, and his blue eyes opened wide as the tornado was racing across the space in their direction. "DIVE!" He ducked his head and shot down through the void deeper into the stream towards the walls that seemed to just get farther away the more they swam down towards them. 1's and 0's flew past them as a white wind moved around their bodies faster at the speed they were picking up to. The faster they picked up though, the more Zach and Darling realized that the place was full of stuff that they had not noticed as much while staying in one place or even just flying around slowly.

"Not there!" Virus called out as a link came near them. "Avoid it!"

"Is that tornado chasing us?!"

"We're on the same information pathway!" Virus yelled back, then he turned and shot towards where Darling was starting to fly over. "I told you not that way!" He grabbed her and pulled back as they were moving fast and they could not wait long enough for Darling to look closely at what she had just been drawn towards. Darling was stuck with her head snapped that direction though, her blue cheeks turning pinker as she looked through that dark red hole she had moved towards where groaning and moaning noises were coming from the other side of. A shriek of pleasure came out of the hole and Darling spun her head back forward with a huge grin on her face, only for her expression to get panicked again as she looked over towards the Meme Tornado that was bigger than ever and approaching them with thumbs ups spinning around the outside like electrons around a nucleus.

Barking and meowing came out of pictures flying too close, the gifs moving around and getting louder the closer they got with a tug like they were going to suck Darling right into the tornado which was a pathway of its own of messages and pictures flying back and forth across the internet. New images were appearing and flying in from other directions, and Virus had to duck down and pull Darling's head down to avoid a counter-meme to one of the ones they were running from.

"Zach!" Darling called to her right when she saw him fly across the front of her body towards what he thought was another message path that they could enter.

"NO!" Virus yelled, and Zach stopped short before pulling back and diving down. The messages he had seen in front of him started turning to the side showing they were 2D and on a bigger window with a red X at the top right corner but a smaller black x in the middle of that one. When the 2D image started to turn, Zach saw a horrifying sight of thousands more images right behind it all stacked up and covered in commercials and naughty images and so many warnings. And he also saw a red glow between two of the flat images far back in the stack, and a dark head poked out between them with glowing red eyes that looked towards him in a menacing way.

"Are we, alone in here?" Darling asked and came to a stop as she looked towards that creature.

"Hidden in ads are almost always a virus! I can fight them, but some are too strong. I can't-" Virus spun his head back and forth from a scared Darling to a panicked Zach at how what he thought was an exit turned out to be a trap in this completely unknown world to him. "I don't have the time, to explain to you all the pathways and intricacies of the internet! It's dangerous in here! I told you it's hard to infiltrate computer systems and jump around the world-"

"I'm sorry, but you never said it was…" Darling slowed down and then shook her head. "You didn't say anything about this!"

 _I wondered why he didn't do more though. Thought he should be so much more powerful with this Quirk,_ Zach looked away from Virus who had just turned to look him in the eyes as he was thinking that. "I get it. You have to get us out though. We'll trust you, and follow you to a safe pathway. Okay, Virus?"

Virus was nodding there, but he lowered his lips down into a frown at the end with a glance back at the ads floating by and the virus sliding back into its hiding space. "Yeah, let's go," he said, looking back at Zach and then flying forward and past him in the direction of a more open space in the void.

Darling glanced back once more at the Meme Tornado getting smaller in the distance, and she let out a sigh of relief that it was not coming after her. Then she looked back forward and her eyes shot open wide as another small cube with a picture on it like the one that had slammed into her before was coming straight at her. This time, she got her hands up in time to try and block it. Zach and Virus snapped their heads down as hundreds of white and black keys just shot out below them and extended into the void.

"Two seconds," Virus muttered. "I turned away for two seconds!"

"What's happening?!" Darling yelled, while her body was frozen and she was stuck at the start of the piano keys extending far into the space.

"You entered an app-"

"I know this game," Zach whispered. He looked around at the keys and then looked back to Darling and shouted right as a red 3 appeared in front of her face, "It's Phone Piano! Hit only the black keys and you'll be fine!"

The three turned into a two, and Darling shouted, "What happens if I hit a wrong one?!"

"I don't know!" Zach yelled back, as he had never played it in this way before.

"Get below," Virus told his commander, and the two of them flew to the sides and then down below the keyboard. Darling started running forward when the countdown ended, jumping from black key to black key across the keyboard. "We'll have to catch her when she messes up! It'll knock her off the-"

"I can do this!" Darling shouted down when she heard what Virus was saying.

"It just keeps getting faster," Virus snapped right back. "And it's a high-score based game, not something you can beat! Sooner or later you'll have to fall, and-"

"AHH!" Darling screamed in pain, jumping on a white note as what Virus was saying made sense. The white note flashed red and flashed her entire body red, and the piano vanished with Darling falling through out of empty space right into Zach's arms as he shot towards her and caught her. "Death," Darling whispered, opening her clenched blue eyes and smiling up at him.

"Pay attention, and follow closer behind Virus," Zach told the girl he let go of but stayed closer to afterwards as they flew towards Virus.

"Over there," Darling pointed down, and the two boys with her looked down after her point.

"An email," Virus said, with another voice overlapping on his. Zach stared at the white envelope and ignored the bad feeling in his gut at the fact he just spoke over Virus about something he had never seen before.

 _How did I know that was a good thing?_ Darling wondered. She was close to Zach and Virus, and the three of them started flying down through the empty space clustered up but keeping a small gap between each of them. _Virus, how did I know?_ Darling thought, and she grimaced as she saw Virus' head flinch in front of her on her left. She did not follow up with anything aloud after seeing that flinch, having a bad feeling in her gut and shifting her eyes around in a hesitant way at the space around them. _It's not really space. Which means, we're not really physically here. Even if there is this gap between us… Whose Quirk are we-_

"Everybody grab onto it fast!" Virus called out. "The pathway's opening up!"

A round hole ripped open out in front of the letter that was shooting across the space. Darling and Zach gulped together when they stared through that hole and saw more white letters shooting past, _fast._ They were racing the envelope to the hole, and the three of them reached right before it and extended their arms out to grab hold. It yanked them forward, but each of them held on as they were sucked inside. "Don't let go!" Virus yelled out as they flew in. "The internet is full of pathways, but the Email Stream is one of the most packed and dangerous-"

Virus was standing up as he said it, but another letter flew up over the one they were dragging themselves onto. The letter slammed into his midsection and knocked him right off of their letter. "Virus!" Zach and Darling shouted after him.

"It's okay!" Virus yelled back, and then a shredding sound came from in front of them and to their right where that other email curved. Virus tore the email in half with his bare hands and then folded up the halves quick in what looked like origami. He turned the email into a pair of wings that he slammed into his back and controlled with blue tendrils wrapping around them, making the other two gawk at him as he started using them to fly over just at the side of their letter.

"How do I do that?!" Darling asked.

"It's too hard! Just surf the email and I'll find us an exit port!" Virus yelled back, then he flew in front of them and held his right hand out in front of him. A blue glow extended from his hand and his arm was changing shape as he created a bladed weapon going half a body length in front of him. "I'll cut down anything in your path!"

"It's alright, Virus," Zach called in front of them. The internet wind was slamming into him faster than ever and it felt like they were soaring through the sky with no windshield in front of their faces, but a pair of blue goggles started to appear in front of Zach's face while Virus looked back at him and Darling looked to her left. Zach turned his head to Darling and then to the left himself as another envelope was flying towards them but just up a little bit. It felt like theirs was moving slower because of all the weight on it, and Zach ran to the edge of their letter and leapt up towards another one that he slammed his feet down onto and then swerved back and forth trying to get balance and not fall off.

Virus stared up at Death with his eyes full of shock, but Zach turned his way and looked into them with an intense look that made Virus lose his shocked one. _You know why it isn't taking me as long to learn,_ Zach thought right at his comrade who spun fully forward, the same moment that Darling gulped and started surfing her own email by herself. Zach started turning one of his arms into a long blue blade while thinking, _Get us out of here, Virus. Find us an exit now!_

 _Zach,_ Darling thought. A smile spread over her face and she swerved to the right on her own letter as Virus left her to fly ahead. She dodged other emails and then leaned forward and sped hers up, shooting past other ones that had flown by her and keeping up with Zach as they raced after Virus. _We're surfing the web!_

The right corner of Zach's lips curled up at the thought he just had. He looked ahead at Virus and watched as their comrade opened up letter after letter and slid a piece of it out only to read the top address bar. "Anything?!" Darling called up ahead. She had to struggle to pull her letter harder after Zach's, and she finally jumped off to a different one which was dangerous but could not be avoided as her email was trying to exit out a different port already.

"No, no, no!" Virus threw another failed envelope to the side and he cursed under his breath before spinning around and flying back towards his comrades. "We've been in here-"

"For too long, yeah," Zach said, finishing his sentence and gritting his teeth afterwards.

"What about the Information Highway?" Darling asked, pointing over towards one of the access ports on the side of the Email Stream that several new emails were flying in from.

"It might be the only way to get to The Cloak," Virus began in hesitant agreement with Darling. "At least, quickly. Too many of these will pop us up in dangerous places, and with you not at full strength-"

"I can get us-"

"No, he's right Death," Darling argued back when Zach tried to counter. "Even just popping out of someone's phone on the street right now, if heroes come after us and we don't have any support, and we go back to how hurt we were-"

"You'll never make it to safety before heroes-"

"Then the Information Highway it is." Zach decided, saying it firmly as the leader of the Army of Death and stopping them from saying anything else afterwards. "Virus, you get us out of here-"

"As fast as I can."

The three of them raced towards the access port that spam emails were flying in from all parts of the internet, and they shoved their ways through and into a void so much wider and more crowded than anything else they had seen before. It was not as dense as the Email Stream they exited from, but there was so much more of everything there, all over the place and in every direction so much of it. Virus said in a low voice as they flew up towards a series of bright lights, "The main space for all the search results to shoot through at lightning fast speeds, trillions of results shooting back and forth to different devices a million times a minute. It'll definitely give us a few good locations I'll try to narrow down. We're moving fast but a single search we get in the way of could dislodge us- I'll try to slow the internet speed, make everyone's devices buffer so I can try and pick out a good I.P. address…"

 _I understand everything he's saying,_ Darling thought. "Won't that be too much of a strain?" She asked, flying up more towards Virus' side. "To take on that much of the internet-"

"Your processing capacity is high," Zach agreed as he came up on Virus' other side. "But it'll be too much for you. You'll get stuck."

"I can handle it," Virus said, his voice steady and calm. And then a wall of search results fell from above them and came down on their heads. And right as it touched the space directly above them, the internet paused for a second so they could move out of the way. Then the results started lagging down slower, and screens around them turned white when they were in the middle of changing, and apology notices popped up only for those screens to start shaking as they were attempted to be refreshed while Virus continued holding them off. "I can handle this!" Virus shouted, even as his blue body started shaking in the space and making all the screens and results and images around them tremble.

Zach reached a hand out and he held Virus by his left shoulder. Darling grabbed him by his right, and Virus opened his mouth to yell at them to let go so he could flood them out of the system as soon as he found a space to send them. He did not need to shout though, and they did not listen but just squeezed their hands harder. "Alright," Virus whispered. "Here, we, go!" A bright blue beam slammed into them and shot them across the Information Highway like a missile. All the rest of the space around them started moving fast again in an instant, everything shooting by so fast that it was so blurry.

And then Zach and Darling shoved through a computer screen. Their bodes bulged out of it shifting from blue back to their normal colors, black returning to their costumes and light shades to their skin. Their bodies wretched and both of them felt sick, having to take off their helmets as their stomachs were just squeezed like the rest of their bodies when they were pushed from the screen. Zach hurled on the floor a couple times and then grabbed at a wound he got back at their last mission, and he lifted his head and looked at the computer screen in front of him that had a webcam on that had told Virus there was no one sitting in front of it when he pushed them out.

There was a window in the room showing it was dark outside, and Zach heard Rebel's voice shouting in his ear after he had thrown up violently right there. "Yeah," Zach muttered. "I'm alright. Track, our position. Send us an evac…" Zach lifted a hand and took his earpiece out, dropping it to the floor and gasping again.

Darling curled her hands into fists and then she turned her head to the right just as Zach was turning his head left to look at her. They looked into each other's eyes, and then the two of them started standing up and stepped towards the computer that had a blue screen with Virus' face on it. The face was trying to push out of the screen, but even just making his facial features appear out of it strained him too much and his face got pulled back inside leaving the screen flat. "Virus," Zach whispered.

"Cody," the boy stuck in the screen, holding his palms against it but unable to push them out at all, whispered in a hoarse voice. "My name's, Cody."

"We're going to find a way," Darling began.

"To get you out of there," Zach finished for her, and then he glanced back at the shorter girl next to him again who looked right back into his eyes. Darling's lips curled down, and Cody looked out and up at Zach's face with his own getting sadder too. "I promise," Zach said, turning back to Cody and assuring the boy in the screen who just told him his real name for the first time.

"Death," Cody whispered softly. "I don't mind, getting stuck in the computer. Not after that…" The other two looked at him and he smiled inside the glass. "I feel more human, having saved you two than, than I have for a long time." His voice was slow and filled with emotion as he got it out, sounding human even stuck completely inside the computer. "It's something Seraphim told me once," he said to the two who got more emotional and softer looks on their faces hearing her name. "I never lost my heart. Even trapped like this with no real physical body anymore. It may not be made up of muscles and blood, but my heart's still there. I'm not going to forget it."

"Good, because you're right," Darling said. "You do, have a heart."

Zach looked at Darling with surprised eyes for a second, then he looked away when she turned back to him, and Cody did the same with those same looks on their faces again that he saw a minute ago. _I get why we were all able to use Virus' power. Why we all knew how to use his Quirk and what we needed to do in there._

"We just," Darling began, but she frowned at the way Zach looked away at hearing her start that. She looked down as he did, and Cody frowned inside the screen before lowering his blue eyes down to the keyboard just outside it.

They were in an office in the dark, and the three of them stayed silent for a few moments before Cody started, "Pulling you in like that, we merged. Our minds were separated a bit, but…"

"Our bodies, and brains," Darling looked back up at Zach who turned to her as well. "Our hearts," she whispered, tears in her eyes while she looked at the boy who she just felt how he always felt for the first time. They had been in a hurry, but the longer they had been there the more of each other they had felt, and Cody and Darling both looked so sadly back at Death. Zach opened his mouth to respond to their looks, but Darling stepped towards him and wrapped him up in a hug before he could get out a word. "I'm sorry," she began, and she pushed her head into his chest with her eyes closed and her fingers curling into his back.

 _The last few weeks, months… It's been hard._ Zach put a hand on Darling's back and held it for a second before patting it down and stepping back from her. She lifted her gaze up into his and Zach stared seriously down at her that made her pull back and try to get a more intense look of her own. "The world loop has to go on as scheduled," Zach said, looking back and forth at his comrades who nodded at him albeit hesitantly. "We'll take a short break to recoup, but we have to move faster now than ever before. Don't give them any time…"

* * *

 **5 Months Ago**

"I know you're going to like it here," a small girl with long black hair falling in braids assured the other children in front of her. They were on the third floor of an orphanage in Life City, and after the tour that showed off how nice the building actually was and how few people were still there, the girl who had led them there and around the place stepped back from them to say goodbye. "Not that many of you will be staying here for long. Everyone who comes here usually gets a place of their own, with people to watch over you as new foster parents-"

"Are you not staying with us?" One of the older girls in front of Snow asked, looking down confusedly at the nine year old speaking to them.

Snow shook her head and gave the girl a soft but also proud smile, "I'm not. I have to get back to the Army."

The others gawked at the girl in all black who said that, and Snow smiled more internally at their looks. She opened her mouth to continue, but a younger boy asked her, "But, they're leaving?" He pointed behind Snow and she looked back and out the window, to see an Airbus lifting up into the sky.

 _What happened? Was Mark called back to The Cloak?_ "I have to go," Snow said, spinning around and running for the stairs. "I leave it to you," Snow told the older woman who had come with her for the tour but allowed Snow to do most of it. The woman in charge of the orphanage watched the girl run off with her bottom lip lowered for a second before smiling and even letting out a chuckle at how serious that sounded from a child.

Snow ran out of the building and down the busiest street in Life City. It was still early days, but only a month after they created this place and the most built-up streets were packed with people in the middle of the day. Snow ran past a man on a bicycle and then past a few kids walking with parents who had different shades of skin as them. There were some monstrous people standing on the side of the road and talking to a man in a black lab coat who pointed at some of their extraneous extremities while discussing how to reverse effects of the experiments done to them. Snow ran by and around a corner towards the Main Square that the Airbus had landed in before to let her off with the group of orphans she was tasked with bringing in for processing.

The small girl ran down into the square and she looked up for the Airbus but it had already disappeared. She closed her eyes and focused more in the direction it had vanished in, but she did not hear Mark talking despite hearing the low hum of the ship up there. Snow brought her head back down with a frustrated look on her face and gazed around the square for a sign of what had happened to make him leave so suddenly without her.

Snow saw a couple of people looking her way from across the plaza, and she started jogging towards them and then running when she was sure that they were looking at her. "Hey!" Snow called out at the elderly couple who looked in their seventies or eighties. They were fair-skinned and covered in wrinkles, and the old man had one chipped brown horn sticking out the right side of his head while only the stub of his left one on the other side. "Did someone leave a message for me with you?" Snow asked, as that seemed like it made the most sense the way they were looking towards her.

"Oh my," the old woman started at the girl's question. She turned away and got a nervous look on her face, and then she looked down while reaching for her pocket. "I thought we would have a little more time. I didn't expect you to be here so fast."

"It's alright, honey," the man began slowly. He put a hand on his shaking wife's shoulder which calmed her down so she could steady her hand and actually pull out the envelope in her pocket.

"Here you are, deary," the old woman held her hand out and Snow took the envelope from her feeling a much deeper pit in her chest now.

She took the envelope and felt a piece of paper inside it that made her gulp. She looked back into the sky, and then back at the old couple in front of her, "What's-" Snow froze at their looks and then looked back down at the white envelope. Snow gulped and turned away from the old pair, stepping away while ripping it open and sliding out the piece of paper from inside. Snow unfolded it and got an even deeper feeling of despair at how much was written and who it was clearly written by, showing her it had been written beforehand, before she had even come down to Life City. "No no no no…" she started whispering under her breath but faded off while reading the letter she had gotten.

'Hey kid,

You've really gotten strong…'

 _This isn't fair!_ Snow clenched her teeth and her fingers started curling into the sides of the letter but she stopped herself before risking damaging it. _How could he do this?!_ She had not even read more than a line of the letter but her heart was pounding so hard and her eyes were watering up so she had to clench them shut to stop herself. _After China! After, I risked my- I was a full member! The others… I- I helped out in the tunnels because Fillian… and then when Scatterbox brought me up, I helped! I helped the injured escape the burning Cloak and got them away with Curalia- I can still help! Why? Why would-_ Snow looked back down at the letter and lifted it in front of her face again.

'You've really gotten strong these past several months, and you can protect yourself now. I know you can. Life City is the safest place in the world. That's what we made it to be. What you helped to make it be, and you can keep helping, but not with me. You're a kid. You aren't in the Army of Death, and I don't allow kids to join me. I told you that from the start. I know you don't believe those bad men will be able to get you. The ones you were talking about were the ones I defeated the day I found you, but I always convinced myself there could be others just so I could have an excuse for bringing you along. That was irresponsible of me, but I'm fixing that mistake now. You could have died so many times, but you didn't. And that's not because I protected you, since I was the one putting you in that danger in the first place. You protected yourself. And I know, you'll not only be safe in Life City, but I know you'll protect that place and all the people there. The victims of the worst crimes, broken people who are just like you were when I first found you…'

Snow sniffled and she lifted a hand up to her nose and rubbed below it with teary eyes. She breathed in hard through her nose and then sniffled harder, panting for breath while telling herself to keep calm. She turned her head a little and looked back at the older couple behind her who were watching her with nervous looks, then she turned back and looked down at the letter. _I'm not strong. You're- you're wrong about me._

'…first found you. You didn't tell me your name that day, and you never did after, but you don't need to keep that name I gave you. That could just be a codename. A codename for when you were in the Army of Death.'

Snow's eyes opened wide as she read that line in her head, in Death's voice.

'I said you weren't one of us all that time, but that was another lie I was telling myself. Now though, you're not in the Army of Death anymore. Choose your own name, or go back to the one you had before. I'm sure you remember it. We will be back. Since we go to Life City often, but you won't be allowed to come with me again. When you're 18 if you decide you want to join the Army of Death then you can, but until then I want you to live a normal life. One that you never should have lost. The people I left you with lost their children, stolen from them by their government because of their special Quirks. The two of them were almost killed too after undergoing some testing themselves, and to silence them. They've lost hope on their kids, and they're too old to have more of their own, so I'm leaving you with them. Just as you lost your parents, they lost their kids, so could you help them?'

Snow lowered the paper and stared at the letter that ended there. She sniffled in again and rose a hand to rub her eyes, then she lowered that hand and carefully folded back up the letter before turning her head to the side and looking back at the elderly couple. _Maybe they're not as old, as I first thought._ Snow turned her body to face them. _He didn't even say goodbye. No!_ Snow could feel the tears coming back but she kept herself strong instead. _He, probably told them the same thing._ Snow looked at the couple who were looking at her like they wanted to help, but were also nervous about what they could say to her.

 _He told them to take care of me, and me to take care of them. We'll take care of each other, or at least he probably thinks that. But I'm… except, he believes in me too. So he knows I would be the one- He's treating me with that note like I'm responsible. Like I can make a difference! For the first time, not treating me like a kid or just… Those other times, I fought because of necessity not because he actually left anything up to me if it was up to him. This time though, he left this solely up to me…_

 _I wish I had more time with you. I wish you had said goodbye. You could have made me stay here, so even though I would have fought you on it you could have… But you're busy. You're always, so busy._ Snow's expression got more determined and she started forward to the older couple who got hesitant looks on their faces at her serious one. The girl softened up her look at theirs, and they seemed to relax a bit at the more child-like face she showed them. _I promise, I won't let you down._ "Hi," the child said, and she laughed nervously while putting the letter away down in her pocket. "So, um…" she got more nervous after starting in a confident way, but the older woman smiled down at her and started bending down which was easier for her than the young girl expected.

"It's very nice to meet you," the woman said to the girl before her. "Death told us, so much about you."

"He actually talked to you-" she cut herself off not wanting to sound too upset about that.

"Yes, he did," the older woman replied. "Though he was slow to hand off that letter. I think he really wanted to give it to you himself." The girl the woman was speaking to lowered her head at the sound of that, smiling down at the floor while a tear formed back in her right eye again. "Though, through our talk he would only give us a description of you. I asked him your name, but he wouldn't say…"

"Could you tell us, what we can call you?" The old man asked, sounding more nervous than his wife about this set-up.

The girl looking down at the ground rose her head up and smiled brightly at the pair who were so relieved by that look. They smiled back at their new daughter as she looked into their eyes and said, "Snow. My name is Snow."

* * *

 **Present**

"…See leprechauns are an endangered race in that world. Long ago they were hunted to near extinction by other races and horrible people who locked them up like cattle to get their hair that grew so fast that each day it could be sheared from their chins and… well let's just say not everyone knew where their leprechaun hair clothes were coming from," Zach smirked through the Cyn glass and cupped a hand to his mouth to whisper, "(pubes)."

Neo chuckled and Oda rolled his eyes, but Zach continued in a lower tone as this was serious and he figured he should not have his tone be too joking. "And that wasn't all, as leprechauns were also a delicacy to the orcs and trolls back a few thousand years when they were still considered monsters and not associated with the other sentient races. Some of those brutes still ignored the rules even after they were grouped together with the intelligent species of the world, with their own civilization and laws forbidding them from eating other intelligent creatures. So even the small leprechaun villages and towns that remained were gradually waned out of existence as their people were kidnapped or entire villages sacked and destroyed so larger more powerful creatures could sell them on black markets to wealthy buyers."

Zach leaned back while sitting down just inside the strong glass of his cell. He lifted his head and looked up, changing the subject a little, "The world was big, and there was no international group stopping these atrocities from going on across kingdom lines. Not like our UN, no heroes at all really. There had never been a force strong enough since the 8 Kings of the Silver Reign, seven thousand years back, that could unite the entire world of Terra. Even back then though, that golden age was only for specific groups as not all creatures were recognized as intelligent yet. Only one race of elves, human males, and giants were part of that kingdom's equal species while there was slavery and widespread subjugation of lower races to horrible work conditions, which ultimately caused the Cataclysm and the divide at the start of the Ancient War…" Zach looked for recognition on the jailers' faces but they were staring at him with big eyes locked in to everything he was saying yet confused at it all. "Which," Zach continued, speaking of the Ancient War, "is agreed on is not the first war, but because the current world of Terra that I lived in had risen out of the ashes of the Ancient War's result, they considered it like a restart of their history."

"But the 'Silver Reign' was before it?" Neo asked confusedly.

Zach nodded his head. "Yeah. There's a little known about them since there's knowledge _of_ the Ancient War and what happened around it and right before. Not much is known about the Silver Reign though or how long it lasted before the Cataclysm, or if the time before it was more or less chaotic. Most people I talked to thought things had been getting calmer and more civil leading to that age before the Cataclysm reset everything. All the revolutions and wars that merged into one giant war covering all of Terra, where the world population for every race was seriously ravaged." Zach got quieter and his eyes darkened while lowering down to the floor between him and the glass. "I caught a glimpse of that war in books, stories, in a time travel Quirk that only sent my mind back…" The two guards stared closely at the prisoner's face in amazement as he mentioned that without breaking stride like it was not a whole other story they needed to know now. "…And I discovered that the land had looked completely different than it did in the present. World landmarks, mountain ranges, entire oceans were created during that war. No war since had come close to that kind of devastation, and those signs I've told you about that made me think that technology really had gone backwards at some point, I think that it was the Silver Reign that the peak probably came. Before the Cataclysm."

Zach rose his head back up and spoke with a half-grin though it was not very real. He said though in a somewhat more upbeat tone, "It's like that old saying goes. 'I don't know with what weapons World War Three will be fought, but World War Four will be fought with sticks and stones.' That world, because Quirks had existed in it for so much longer than ours, I can see what Quirks had done to their history. The way, our history could very well turn out in a few hundred, thousand of years."

"You really think-" Oda began skeptically.

"Maybe even that world's races," Zach started, cutting him off and looking to the guard through his visor right into his eyes. "Maybe they were originally all just the same species, but you've seen people in our world who get married to people with similar Quirks. Two people with horns and red skin having a kid, will likely have more kids with red skin and horns. And in a world where history is wiped out, and technology reset to a point that traveling to different places and spreading information becomes harder, how many generations would it take before humans started believing we were all different races? If there was a technology reset and-"

"Whoa whoa whoa," Neo started waving her hands in front of her and shaking her head. "Our world's not going to 'reset' or whatever. So we don't need to worry about this, okay?"

Zach nodded back at her and let out a sigh himself. "Yeah, you're right." _What am I getting off track for? Why am I freaking myself out with hypotheticals that I made up?! It could happen though. That's the weirdest part._ "Anyway," Zach said, trying to get back on track. "There had been other huge world-encompassing wars since, some that wiped out entire races of creatures and others that created new sects, new divides inside the races that in some cases were stronger than divides between them and other races. Like the blood elves who had good relations with most races but were hated by all the other elf species…" _This isn't my original topic. What was I- Cody!_

"But anyway those were mainly just stories I heard while trying to understand the histories of the people I was helping, as understanding people was necessary to be able to convince them to make peace with old enemies. Understanding was necessary to bring peace to that world that had been so constantly at war with itself over issues that I could compare to things I had seen in this world. Things that I could relate to and try to push solutions that we found, ways that they could actually get past their bad histories. The leprechauns were a tragedy though, and considered it by many of the races who would not take the blame for what happened but said that it was a shame that they never recovered from the horrible atrocities committed to them in the past." Zach paused and he shook his head darkly, "Even while those same things were still going on in the present."

Zach stopped shaking his head and he smiled though in a more nostalgic way, "I only ever met the one, but Docy was no different from any of my other soldiers. No different from any other sentient creature with feelings and a will to do good despite all the horrible things he'd been through in his life due to purely bad luck of the way he was born. He didn't hate the world for what it had done to him, nor did he curse his fate. Instead he came to me and asked for my… we helped each other. He wanted me to help him, and he helped us with his great powers. On top of the powers he had as a leprechaun, there was a reason no one had ever been able to catch him for long."

"He could teleport, right?" Neo asked, having heard the prisoner mention something about it earlier.

"That's right. And one day, we got in a really bad situation. Fraisha and I were trapped. Enemies on all sides of us. Three of Arcasia's Generals at the same time. We had taken the enemy castle at Bordham, but they had more allies than I thought would come and we wound up trapped inside the castle we had just taken control of. Docy appeared there in that dark moment though, and he opened up a portal for us to go through. Until then we just assumed he could pop in and out through normal teleportation, but when we went in to the portal he opened, we did not just pop up at an intended location. The portal led into a completely parallel world to the one we were in-"

"Another world?!" Neo shouted in shock.

"And if you thought Terra was weird," Zach started while nodding at the woman outside his cell. "This world was like an entirely new dimension…"

* * *

 **A/N Thanks for reading! Sorry for such a long break, probably the longest one I've ever taken since I started this story. My senior thesis is due in two weeks though and I'm only 2/5 chapters through it, so that's going to be my focus for a while. Just had a job interview last week I had to fly into NYC for... anyway, def not done with Death yet just wanted to explain the reason for my absence. This chapter though... fwew, that took a while. It's easily one of the longest ones in Death, maybe 2nd or 3rd longest. As Zach thought at some point in the present times of the chapter, he had come up with Docy's story but just didn't know where to put it in the scheme of things... XD A while back I had the idea for these two characters and wanted to add them in during the Army of Death, but it kept feeling like a weird time and that I wouldn't be able to flesh out their full characters or arcs unless I just gave them their own chapter. Snow and Cody. I had some mentions of them in the AoD chapters, mainly the later ones once I figured out exactly what I was doing with them giving them this flashback chapter while Zach was in jail. In the chapter after the fight in China that Zach thinks about in bold dialogue, he starts off by telling Cody to get off the ship before telling Whiteout to use her EMP, and he has Darling get Snow to bring her into the tunnels to listen above for locations after Fillian had to leave after his breakdown. Anyway, hope y'all enjoyed those characters and the new chapter! Sorry after that wait that it didn't advance much, but it was a real fun one to write. Leave a review telling me what you think, predictions, comments, questions, etc!**

DarkJokes chapter 137 . Jan 27

Orc,Elves and Dwarves. Jesus Sazaki sure has a wild imagination but what is he trying to achieve with these rumours? Does he want to lure in someone or is it something big? Damn mate you really leave us at the edge of our seat.  
Awesome chapter

 **Let's not forget leprechauns! Zach's going all out with what happened to him while he was gone, denying everything and creating a whole new story for where he was and what he was doing. We'll see what he has in mind with all of this... Glad you liked it and hope you enjoyed the new chapter!**

Anime Profile Picture chapter 137 . Jan 27

Ah trying to win over the guards through bed time stories huh? Not something I would have thought of. I'm more surprised that the guards are breaking so easily. Then again, if I was stuck hearing this man talk for two months straight I might've given in a little too.

 **As we've seen, Zach can be a great actor when he wants to be. He had a whole lot of practice before AoD, and we saw him going undercover before too in Korea and Italy. Zach's got the guards twisted around his finger, eating up everything he tells them in amazement XD Thanks for reviewing!**

Todorokiii chapter 137 . Jan 28

Lol, thought at first he went crae crae but noticed he's totally sane, just planning something big that it would take 6 years of his life. I'm amazed that Zach Sazaki was able to tell a bullshit story so amazingly. And here I am laughing at every word that comes out from his mouth, mentioning a queen, some mystical creatures, a war, comrades, a master with a similar quirk like his. If I was a guard, it seems impossible not to believe on his bullshit (especially when quirks exist). I just love how Zach developed and became who he is. From a scared, loner, loud, and weak, emotional guy who seems to be heroic to a cunning, mischievous, wise, skilled and a great actor. He deserves an Oscar's. Hehe. Still hoping for Zach and his classmates to reunite.

 **Glad you're liking it! Zach's acting and story-telling skills are proving their use, though he's still training them with all this practice in the first place just for once he's out. Some more fantastical stories this time, though we see the counterpart to what it really was in his life that he's switching over. We'll see about the reunion... possibly, maybe soon?! Who knows? Thanks for the review!**

Guest chapter 137 . Jan 28

Read this thing in 2 days, no regrets except reading the horror arc at 3am, and isn't Wrath or that British guy from the horror arc dead? Thought I saw him alive again. Btw if you end up having Zach vs 3A or Midoriya or Raijin or Shigaraki Toumura or the AoD vs LoV, I expect Zach (and AoD if the latter) to win. He has experience being a strategist/commander for 1-2 years for the AoD, he has evolved his Death so now he has wings and can make blades and can move at the speed of a rocket (might be wrong, pretty sure I read it somewhere) and lots more, has way more battle experiences against villains around 10x stronger than the villains class 3A fight (including Cult of Stain) and for the AoD, they have state of the art tech and are trained professionals and have no qualms killing people except for some and quite frankly I'm getting sick of people getting nerfed so that they can lose giving way so that the power of friendship can have a key message. Can't wait for the guards' reaction when they find out that his stories are metaphors, replace the names with real places and real people and it's not a fantasy story, it's about a real story of a 16-18 year old kid who creates and becomes the commander of a group of people with members usually being older then him and goes around the world in an airship with state of the art cloaking devices and technology and fights villains and helps heroes and citizens despite their status as terrorists in dangerous situations like flooding and nukes and horrifying human experiments and freeing a country from a dictator with only 1 casualty and fighting alongside famous heroes like Endeavour. Did I get off track, probably...  
P.S: Please don't kill Gentle, La Brava, Darling, Exodus, Rebel, Mark, Michael or Maelstorm or anyone in the AoD at that, but mostly the first 8, the ambush in China was so sad. I will always remember Seraphim and Access and Grabbler and Cee and lots more. I figured that Zach and the 3A class (except for All Might and Raijin) would have plot armour... oh and ZachxDarling for the win, sorry Momo but Darling is more loyal and has been with him through situations that are more emotional than high school stuff (granted I know that Momizaki moments aren't filled with high school stuf, it was a joke but it's still true)

 **Awesome. Haha I'm happy to hear you binged this though I'm amazed you did so fast. I mentioned a character 'Wraith' in that final scene of Zach with the AoD, but Wreck'd was the Brit who got killed in the horror arc. We see Zach keeping in form this chapter while in prison, and I'm sure any fight that's coming is not going to be easy for whoever he's up against. Nice call on Zach's stories actually being 'metaphors,' as I showed with this chapter how Zach's completely transitioning what had happened into new stories. The ambush in China, and Wampajawa, the Dragon's Den, and that mission in the Tusukan desert... there are a lot of bad days for the Army of Death losing all those comrades and some characters I really liked too. We saw some Seraphim, Access, Grabble, and Cee in this chapter as they come back for flashback visits, along with a lot of the AoD who aren't around anymore. ;( And as for ZachxDarling or Momozaki... well you'll just have to wait and see. No spoilers!** **Again, really glad you got into this story, and I hope you enjoyed the new chapter!**

Polw3 chapter 137 . Jan 30

You madman, writing a story within a story.  
Not only that, but you keep up a blistering pace on updates. I really enjoy reading every new chapter, but don't be afraid to take a break if you need one. The last thing any of us want is for you to become burned out on this story after coming so far. Anyways, just like the guards I am eager for each new installment of Zach's Sweet Life in Wonderland.

 **A story inside a story, based on the original story with another world inside the world of the world... Kind of fried my mind with this chapter a bit I guess, getting too complex even for me to fully follow. Hope you enjoyed the new installment of Terra/Wonderland... and thanks for the review!**

Raidenff chapter 137 . Feb 7

I hope you get back soon, this fanfic is the best I've ever read and I'd hate to see it die.

 **Aaannnd I'm back! Sorry it took a while, and don't worry I'm not letting Death die that easily!**


	139. Chapter 139

**Disclaimer: I don't own Boku no Hero Academia**

 **Chapter 139:**

"So, nothing?" Zach asked, tilting his head to the side and looking through the clear Cyn material at the guards who were not reacting to the story he had started telling them. He just started speaking out of the blue, but they were not looking back or conversing with him which was odd since neither had managed once to last this long staying silent since he first got thrown inside. "You guys mad at me?" Zach asked the two who continued just facing away from the cell he was in. _Did some new evidence come out against me? Am I about to face another trial? They can't tell me, can they? Maybe it has nothing to do with that. Time to assume and guilt-trip._

Tachibana Miyuki and Edo Ebboro continued to stare forward in silence after Inmate 1667's question. They did not react, but slowly the two of them were getting more nervous as there was no noise from behind them despite the boy being just on the other side of the wall. _He's never this quiet,_ Edo thought, as the boy just stopped telling his story instead of continuing and ignoring when they ignored him. _What's he doing? We're supposed to be watching him._ Edo turned his head to the side and looked back into the cell which Tachibana saw in the corner of her vision and made her grumble while turning herself.

The guards looked in and then their whole bodies turned with their eyes opening wide behind their visors. The prisoner's head was bowed just inside the glass, and he was staring down at his hands that he curled his fingers in over and over again with a look of disbelief on his face. "Am I, going to be in here forever?" He whispered, and Zach looked up in fear at the guards who were shocked by the fear on his face.

"What?" Edo asked, and he started shaking his head at the teenager. "No- why would," he hesitated and glanced over at Tachibana, but she was also looking in at the prisoner with a pitying look and appeared like she wanted to give him relief as well. "It has nothing to do with you," Edo started, and he turned back forward when Zach looked into his eyes. He faced the opposite wall and spoke in a lower voice, "There's a new prisoner coming into this cell block. We have to-"

"A new prisoner?" Zach asked with interest, losing the fear on his face and making sure that relief came through in his tone too. The guards did not reply for a moment, and Zach rolled his eyes while saying, "They're going to walk right past us I assume, so why not just tell me beforehand? It's probably better this way than if I'm shocked by who it is. Is that why you're keeping it quiet?"

"We don't have to tell you anything," Tachibana responded. "That is the reason."

"Oh," Zach pulled back and nodded, hearing some annoyance in the female guard's voice. "But, does that mean, you're not allowed to tell me?" Zach asked. He leaned back forward and glanced back and forth at the guards who he saw look inwards at each other for a second and then gain more hesitant looks under their visors. _So it is someone I know._ "Wouldn't it be, I don't know, safer? If you guys just told me now instead of when we come face to face?"

 _That, makes a little sense,_ Edo thought to himself. _But it would also give you time to make a plan, if you want to- Would he really escape after all this time just to…_

"He should be here any minute now," Tachibana started. Her voice was low and she continued to look ahead, though she darted a glance to her side in a nervous way at what she just started with. _We're not supposed to give special treatment, but there has to be a better ward for… They're going to be in the same hall, which means he'll know soon anyway. No one said we couldn't say anything, kid. We're just trying to act more professional today- shit._ She sighed and continued to the boy behind her, "He spent, the last year and a half in the psychiatric ward. But the doctors finally discharged him, say he's rehabilitated, not that that's going to reduce his sentence any."

"They don't want him put back with the other prisoners in gen pop though. Think it might be too much for him or the others might do something that messes with all his progress," Edo said it and he turned his head to the side to glance back at his prisoner to give him a stern look. Edo's heart skipped a beat though and he turned back forward fast. He started panting which his co-guard saw out the corners of her eyes and made her turn back into the cell herself. Edo looked back again too, and they stared at the teen whose head was turned to Edo's right and farther down the cell block the direction he had first come in from. His eyes were dark and shadowed over by his bangs, his jaw clenched but his teeth hidden behind his pursed lips, and his fists were balled furiously at his sides.

The panic started to rise in the two guards who had never seen their prisoner look like this before even when talking about the most intense stories of his year away. And then right as they were starting to panic, a loud clank came from the end of the hall that made the two of them snap their heads that way and look over towards a thick opening white door.

 _Oh fuck,_ Edo gulped and he turned back forward. _Nothing's going to happen._ "Kid- Inmate, stay where you are," he ordered.

Tachibana glared back for a second into the cell, but the prisoner was staying where he was and glaring just as hard in the direction of that door clank. _Forget about the past few months. He's a dangerous criminal. Don't forget that._ Her right hand moved down to her waist and she was not hiding the fact that she grabbed her zap-stick from the boy behind her. _Watch yourself, Inmate._

A group of four guards led a man down a hallway who walked between them with his hands cuffed behind his back but no straightjacket on like he had to wear for almost a year after getting put in Tartaros. He had short blond hair and stubble around his cheek and chin that he had started shaving himself first under supervision and then on his own. He had a vertical scar in the center of his forehead with ridges on it looking like stitchings, and he had a bad burn scar on the right side of his face from when Endeavor caught him with a flaming right hook. The skin on his cheek and around his right eye was darkened and red around the outsides of the brownest area. He walked down the cell block with the guards staying quiet around him, and his head was bowed as he walked with a dark look on his face. His eyes were half-closed, his lips curled down into a frown, and he stared forward blankly as he was led to a new cell that he figured he was going to spend the rest of his life in.

There were two guards already in the hallway when he entered, and the man noticed that the two walking in the box around him who were at his front both glanced to their left sides though pretended not to behind their visors. The guards standing still on his left side looked tense too. They were nervous and he saw one grabbing at her weapon, though she was not looking at him through her visor but had her eyes pulled far to her side like she was trying to look behind her without actually turning around. So the man with his head partially bowed and his eyes half-closed rose his head up, and he looked through the Cyn glass of the cell, and he nearly had a heart attack as he stumbled to the right side and fell off his feet to the floor.

"Get up, Inmate!" the guard behind where he just fell shouted.

Jin Bubaigawara wanted to grab at his pounding chest but could not with his hands cuffed as they were behind his back. He could not even stand easily with his hands cuffed like that, so he was stuck squirming around on his butt and scooching away from the younger man on the other side of what was way too thin a wall. The other guard behind the prisoner snapped at his comrade to help him stand the prisoner up, and they warned the inmate not to do anything while they stepped towards him.

"R-R-R-" Jin stumbled over his words and choked on his tongue at the face of the boy staring at him through that cell wall. His eyes were dark with his head bowed and his hair shadowing over them, and his fists were balled at his sides in rage. His face had more scars on it than the las time Jin had seen, but the one on the right side of his face just below his eye confirmed who this was glaring murderously back at him. "Reaper," Twice whispered.

Zach lifted his head and his eyes unshadowed. He glared down at Twice and then rose his eyes as the guards pulled the man up to his feet and continued walking him down the hall. All six guards in the hallway felt their skin crawl though as Twice was being led away. _"Reaper?"_ The two who were helping Twice move felt him shaking, and one glanced at the other nervously at the way the man's head started twitching the way it was. The two in front of him walked the prisoner past the cell after Sazaki's that was occupied, then they stopped at the one after that and opened the cell door for the prisoner.

"The docs told us that if you ask to see them, you can at any time," Kaitou snapped at the prisoner after putting him in his cell. "Now put your hands through this slot so I can take off your cuffs…"

Edo looked behind him again once Twice was through the hallway. He looked at the boy at his back who was turned to the left and glaring down the hallway in the other prisoner's direction. "Hey, kid," Edo started in a soft voice. Zach turned back to him, and the guard started shaking his head before saying in a low voice, "Why'd you have to do that? I told you, he wasn't-"

"Edo," Tachibana said, her voice low and scolding. _There's no point in asking him. He's just another villain. They hate each other, and if Sazaki was out of this cell he would have murdered that man in an instant. You see that look in his eyes too. You know he wouldn't have hesitated right there. All he talks about- being a soldier, being at war. Even if he exaggerates some of it, which he might, I believe him when he says that's what he was doing. Fighting a war, and killing people. He doesn't explicitly say it, he just "defeated" or "took down" his enemies, but he mentions later on how they're dead without hesitating. Maybe they really were put to death at war tribunals, or maybe he cut them down himself. That's his reality. Twice is his enemy too. I won't let you do to him what you've done to so many others._

Zach looked back and forth at the two guards just outside his cell. He watched as the other four headed back down the hall and left, each of them giving him dark or nervous looks as they went. Zach waited until they were gone, and then he turned his head to the left and he walked over to the corner of his cell closest to the end where Twice was. There was one cell between them from what he heard with those footsteps and voices, and Zach called out loud enough for the man two cells down to hear him, "Twice!"

Edo and Tachibana spun and looked back at their prisoner who had his face close to the Cyn at the edge of his cell and shouted out through it. "I know you can hear me!"

"Inmate-" Edo started.

"What? Am I not allowed to talk?" Zach snapped back, turning and glaring at the guard who pulled back fast at that look. "I'm in my cell. I'm in my cage, and I'm not trying to escape. He's my new neighbor, and I can talk to him all I like unless that's against the rules!" Zach spun his head back and he yelled louder, "HEY TWICE!"

"Why did they put him in here?" Tachibana growled. She darted a look over towards the cell with the newest inmate in it. _We're not here to watch the other prisoners. That's what the cameras are for. But, if he's mentally unstable, there's stuff in that room that he could… to himself._ "Inmate 1667," Tachibana turned and glared through the Cyn at the prisoner she was watching. "Stop this. Why are you-" she cursed at herself for questioning him. She wouldn't for any other prisoner, and she hated that she felt she had to ask because she thought she knew the boy already. "Stop this at once-"

"What?" A deep voice called over. It was low, and hesitant, and the others in the cell block did not know if it was the first time he said it or just the first time he dared getting that loud. Jenkins in the cell on Zach's right was up close to the Cyn, while the prisoner between Zach and Twice's cells was staying as far back in his and close to the wall as he could. Twice had his head bowed though when he heard Sazaki shouting towards him, his teeth clenched and his heart racing so fast at the roars he heard in his direction. He had calmed down from that first look he had received from the boy though, and despite wishing he had a cigarette, he was doing better now that no one was watching him.

Zach panted a couple of times after hearing Twice's voice. His eyes stayed angry and his fists clenched harder though he kept from reaching out to the glass he had leaned up close to. He was in the corner of his cell, and bowing his head was difficult because of how close he was to the walls. "Have you really been rehabilitated?" Zach growled, his dark eyes shifted far to his side and glaring around the corner in an attempt to see into Twice's cell despite how impossible that was. "Or are you just tricking everyone to get a nice cell in this place? Huh?" Zach rose his voice at the end and called it down demanding an answer from the older man whose head just stayed bowed and his eyes dark and half-closed again.

"I don't know," Jin muttered. Then he rose his voice a bit and made sure the teen heard him as he repeated, "I don't know."

"You 'don't know?'" Zach repeated in an angry and annoyed voice. "You don't know if you're insane anymore or-"

"I'm sorry." Twice's voice was just dark, and sad, and Zach continued to glare down the hall with his teeth grinding behind his lips at what he just heard. "Reaper, I'm sorry for what we-" Twice flinched and he clenched his eyes shut, shaking his head and then saying in a lower more regretful tone, "For what _I_ did to you."

"Are you serious?" Zach snarled.

"Hey Inmate," Edo began. "What was that story you were telling us before? I was listening even though I pretended not to, but did you say that the Queen herself-"

"He did," Tachibana agreed, trying just as hard as Edo to get the kid to tell them a story and forget about Twice. "She was there at the battle. I felt like you added that just to get a reaction from us, but was she really-"

Zach was seething through his teeth and his fists clenched so hard at his sides that his arms and entire body were shaking. "Twice!" Zach yelled. His face twisted in rage like the guards had never seen before and made them lean away as Sazaki pushed his face towards the glass and yelled, "Do you remember holding me to that chair? Holding me still while Shigaraki forced me to watch them burn? You remember that?!" Zach's voice echoed down the hall and had every other person in the cell block feel their heart rate skyrocketing.

Tachibana stopped pulling her head back and she reached back down to grab her zap-stick again. The fear rose within her as she thought, _He's going to make his move!_ The revenge many of them were initially worried he had come to Tartaros for was within his reach. She had never seen this look on Sazaki's face before, and hearing what he just shouted confirmed to her that this was definitely someone who would be on the boy's list.

Twice rose his right hand to his face though, as he dropped down onto his butt on the edge of his new bed. He gripped his forehead with his fingers and clenched his eyes so tightly shut as he heard that voice roar down the hallway, "You held me still! As Dabi killed my family in front of me, as Shigaraki carved up my face you were RIGHT THERE! As he dug the knife under my eye and forced me to watch. YOU LAUGHED!"

Edo's jaw dropped as he stared at the boy with a scar curving under his right eye whose voice was so full of rage. A heat started rising in Edo's chest and his skin got hotter, his eyes shifting down to Sazaki's shaking fists that he was nervous he was about to see a dark power emerge from. He darted a look at Tachibana, then he started reaching for his helmet to call in for help here as she wrapped her hand around her zap-stick. Then Zach snapped his head forward and he yelled down the hall with his face twisting in so much anger, "And I forgive you for that!"

Edo and Tachibana froze. The two prisoners in the cells on Zach's sides stopped looking so nervous and afraid. And Twice opened his eyes behind the hand he was squeezing his head with. He stared at his palm and then down at his lap, wondering what he just heard. Jin's hand lowered from his head and he stood up on shaky legs. "Wh-What?" He whispered, in no way loud enough to be heard by the boy two cells away.

Zach was shouting again though as Twice mumbled that to himself. "I forgive you! You hear me?!" Zach's hands stopped shaking and he backed up from the corner of his cell. _Calm down. Think. Believe in the shrinks they have here. And calm, down._ The mantra repeated in Zach's head and he took in a deep breath through his nose before shouting in that calmer tone instead of sounding so angry when he yelled it, "I forgive you." The guards just outside Zach's cell were confused. They were about to call in for backup, but the teen in front of them who had looked so furious was not saying or doing what they expected him to.

Twice ran up to his cell and slammed his hands up against the glass. "What?" He called it out in a voice that was broken and cracked. "I don't understand!" The guards spun to their right while looking at Sazaki's cell and then back at the boy who ground his teeth in anger again just hearing Twice's voice yelling his way. The cracked voice made it high-pitched too instead of deep, making him sound even more like Twice which had Zach's toes even curling inside his socks.

Zach ground his teeth so hard that he was unable to respond for a moment. That silence made Twice slam his head on the clear wall in front of him though. "You're lying!" He called out, raising his right hand to the side of his head and gripping it hard with his voice coming out in pain, "You're a liar. I couldn't be forgiven-"

"It's not your fault," Zach growled, though he forced his voice to sound more flat as he finished getting it out. _You're crazy. You were, if you really…_ "It's not," Zach repeated in a lower voice, more serious and yet also in a soft tone showing he wanted Twice to believe him that made the man he was speaking to stare out of his cell with his eyes massive. "It's this stupid fucking world's," Zach continued. He leaned forward and pressed his forehead into the glass, and he let out a long breath before speaking in a lower voice, "That people like you could go insane because no one taught you the dangers of using your Quirk like that. That you would go and split yourself so many times, and turn yourself into that villain."

"I am that-"

"Shut up, Twice," Zach muttered, louder than the man was trying to counter him in the pained voice that Zach recognized too well from the first words the man spoke to him. Zach closed his eyes for a second and then opened them and looked sadly through the Cyn at the floor out in the hall. "I've seen so many cursed Quirks," Zach said. His voice was low so it was almost a growl, but it was not angry and more just sad and exhausted. "And yours made you lose your own damn mind. That's not your fault, even if you were stupid for not being careful in the first place, but it wasn't your fault that you went mad! And there is no support in our country for people like you, not until they've become mass murderers and are thrown in a psych ward of a horrible prison."

Twice was panting down two cells and he was finding it hard to breathe. He clenched at his chest with one hand and let out a noise that Zach heard a piece of through the glass, though the guards outside it heard it louder and felt their own hearts shaking at the sound he made. The cracked whimper of the man trying to make out a response to what he was hearing. "You were an idiot," Zach repeated darkly, "but, it's not your fault that my family was killed." Zach pulled his head off the glass and shook it while continuing, "You were just used by Shigaraki like the rest of his 'pieces.' Shigaraki abused the fact that society was cruel to you, to turn you into a terrorist who led the attack on Musutafu and killed _so_ _many_ innocents."

Zach growled out the last part of that sentence, and Twice grabbed his head harder with both hands as he heard it. The guards got even more confused again as they could not tell what the inmate was trying to do here with going back to that again after trying to make the other feel better. Zach gripped his hands into fists and he called out, "You aren't forgiven! Most people will never forgive you for the horrible fucked-up things you did! And you won't be able to forgive yourself either, I know that!" Zach clenched his fists so much harder, one last time, then he loosened them and called out, "But if you need it! I forgive you."

Twice had tears in his eyes that started spilling down his face. He could not hold in his voice, and a sob escaped his lips before he slammed them shut again as Zach continued, "You didn't kill my family, Twice. You didn't torture me. You were used by bad people, because you had the disturbed mind of a child." Zach shook his head and glared down, his fists clenching again but this time in anger directed at himself. "I watched as Shigaraki made you think that he cared about you, just like he did with Toga… He's sick, he's a monster, but you're just…" Zach rose his head and looked towards the wall closest to where he knew Twice was. "A victim of a broken system."

"Cursed Quirks like ours had no supports," Zach said. His voice calmed down back to normal and he walked over to his bed that he sat on and called out a bit louder from so his new cell-block-mate would be able to hear him. "No one helped us, no one taught us how to use our Quirks, it's just," Zach quieted down and he leaned back on the wall on the other side of his bed, sitting across it without laying back and just putting his hands behind his head as he sat there. "It's not your fault." _Because you were crazy. I won't say it's not our fault, because I never- my mind wasn't destroyed. Not while I did those things… Why did I just go off like that?_

Zach could see the guards still looking towards him in shock and some awe too. He could hear Twice crying down the cell block, and he did not want to hear that voice with the kinds of emotions he was hearing in it. He curled his arms in with his hands behind his head and covered his ears with his forearms, his elbows pointed out in front of him. _That wasn't in the plan at all,_ Zach thought once he gave himself some quiet. _I didn't know they'd be putting me with Twice, but even still… I don't know. Would Zach have forgiven him? He was- I was always, feeling bad for the two of them. I wonder if that will even help out Twice? Is that what I was trying to do? Help him?_

A thoughtful look covered Zach's face as he stared across his cell. _Maybe it wasn't for Twice then. I wasn't really thinking about- I mean I did want him to- but that was for me. Forgiving him. Twice was my old friend, my old comrade, and I needed that closure myself. And just maybe…_ Zach closed his eyes at a cluster of faces he saw looking at him in such betrayed and angry ways. A girl's face in particular emerged in his head, but he could imagine a similar look on Twice's face too what was probably under his mask that day. _That might also be my way of apologizing for VTS. The way I betrayed you. You had been my comrade, and just as Shigaraki had used you by accepting the crazy that came with you, I had accepted that crazy to try and get you to trust me… I was as bad as Shigaraki was, to Twice at least._

 _So I forgive you Twice. And in doing so, I can forgive myself for betraying you._

* * *

"Oof," Sato dropped onto the couch of Class A's common room and let out a grunt of exhaustion. He reached over for the remote while Sero and Tokoyami came over and sat on the couch to his right, "Training, rough, today," Sato said, still a bit dull from the sugar he ingested in their final hero training for the day.

"You got that right," Sero agreed with a sigh, leaning back on the couch and then stretching his arms out in front of him and wincing at the soreness in them. He locked his fingers together and pulled his arms back pushing his tape dispensing elbows out to the sides. "Thought those ANTs were going to kick the crap out of us there for a second. They would have too," Sero turned his head and looked towards the kitchen where Bakugo, Kirishima, and Uraraka were talking. "If Bakugo hadn't popped out of nowhere."

Tokoyami hummed in agreement as he and Sero had been together in the Training Ground when they were separated from a bigger group. They got cornered by intel-ANTs, a new design from Hatsume Mei and Power Loader sensei that gave Class 3-A a run for their money but wound up still being 'just prototypes' or so Mei said when Class A destroyed them. "Bakugo has taken another stride ahead," Tokoyami said, and then he turned towards the screen that Sato turned on before Bakugo could look over and see him staring his way.

"Guess those study abroad trips really do a lot, huh?" Sero asked the darker boy on his side who hesitated but then nodded in agreement. "Still can't tell me what you were doing?" Sero added, raising an eyebrow and smirking as he wanted to know. Sato looked over with interest too as Tokoyami gave a nod that he had gotten a lot from his own study abroad trips, but the boy with the bird face shook it at their follow-up looks making the other two sigh.

Over in the kitchen, Kirishima lifted his protein shake and shook it around a few times while still talking to the other two with him. He turned though after finishing his sentence and started away without waiting as he started drinking his smoothie. Bakugo watched him walk away but his eyes were not too focused, especially because he saw where Kirishima just looked which made him stare that way too without getting annoyed like he used to when he saw that face on the tv. The three in the couch area all started focusing on the screen and their old classmate's face up there on the news, again. Bakugo's eyes stayed unfocused though as he caught a glimpse of that scar-covered face. _**"Miruko's the only one who knows…"**_

Uraraka tilted her head to the side while staring at the blond in the kitchen with her. "Bakugo?" Uraraka asked, shaking Bakugo back to the present which made him frown as he looked out the corner of his eyes at her. She did not lean away at his angry frown though, and instead Uraraka asked, "What were you thinking about?" She looked over towards the screen herself where there was a crowd being shown with a camera holding up protest signs while a reporter walked around and tried getting individual interviews with some of them.

"Nothing," Bakugo grunted, and he turned to head out of the kitchen himself.

Uraraka was done in the kitchen too though, and she started heading up to her room which was on the same floor as Bakugo's. She looked to her side after walking up to Bakugo, and she asked when he turned away in annoyance, "Did something happen while you were in Germany?"

The spiky-haired blond had only come back earlier that week after spending the first half of their fall term abroad. It was the final term they were allowed to go on such long internships, as it was a rule that they needed to be at U.A.'s main campus for the final term of their high school lives. Bakugo had gone on his first abroad trip with Miruko who was already out of the country as she had been since the April before right after the previous class's graduation, taking Fantasma along with her as her one and only sidekick. "Yeah," Bakugo replied after Uraraka's question. "A lot _happened._ " He said it in annoyance like that was obvious, but Uraraka was used to him enough by now to not just get perturbed by his attitude, so she just kept walking with him towards the stairs and then up them together.

"You really kicked those robots' butts earlier," Uraraka said, and she swung a fist out in front of her as they continued up. "Is Germany, more dangerous than here? Were there harder villains to fight?"

"Hmp, not at all," Bakugo said. _A few fucked up ones, but nothing hard. The April Fool's fuck was the last good fight…_ _ **"Haven't had a good fight in months! Thought with you here maybe some villains'd try targeting us, but it's still boring. Nothing like those first couple months we were gone when-" "Miruko!" "Geez, I was going to say when the villains still had the balls to try big things. Wasn't going to tell little Explosion King here about you kicking it. Oops."**_ Bakugo could see Miruko smirking at Indago as she fumed at their pro. _They said those first few months after they left were hard. Fuck! I should have went that term- damn it!_

"You're thinking about a lot, huh?" Uraraka asked, and Bakugo ground his teeth while darting his eyes back at the girl next to him who actually did lean back this time as she saw that got to him more than usual. "Sorry, just saying. You've been looking really thoughtful since you got back. You're thinking about Zach, too," she added, as she saw where Bakugo had been looking back when they were in the kitchen and his expression got to that far-away look.

"I'm not…" Bakugo started, but he clenched his teeth and looked away in annoyance that the short round-faced girl was able to call him out on that. He knew she was not dumb and decided not to pretend, but that did not mean he was going to say shit about it either. He opened his mouth to make a remark as they were nearing the fourth floor, but he was shut up by the pink girl who just rushed onto the stairs and shouted at them.

"Ochaco!" Ashido called out, pointing a finger at her friend and then pursing her lips while the two in front of her had paused. "You're…" Ashido frowned and muttered, "seventeen still." She turned to Bakugo with a more excited look, "But you're eighteen…" she paused at that look on Bakugo's face, a bead of sweat forming on hers and making her turn away. "Actually, nevermind!" Ashido ran past and headed down the stairs quickly to the next floor that she turned onto. Uraraka and Bakugo both looked behind them, and though Uraraka had a confused look on her face Bakugo was glaring with his eyes getting a more distanced look to them again. Uraraka turned to her side to give Bakugo a look wondering what that was about, only to sigh at the expression he had on his face once again.

On the floor below, Ashido stepped out of the staircase feeling confident but quickly lost that sense as she looked down the doors on the boys' side. The first door outside of the staircase was Koda's, and she looked past it quickly since she did not think he would help her plus she had a feeling he was still seventeen years old. Her eyes then scanned past Kaminari's door without giving it a second glance, but she frowned on Iida's door too and hummed to herself before shaking her head and looking past with a sigh. _Ojiro and Toru already said they'd come with me, but what about,_ Ashido turned her head to the left and looked down the connecting hall between the boys and girls' sides.

She got a hesitant look on her face and started to shake her head, but then she shook away that feeling and got a more chipper expression as she ran down the hall to Jirou's door. "Hey Kyoka!" Ashido knocked on the door and got the girl inside to come over and open up. Jirou opened the door and looked out at Ashido who had a bag on her right arm full of stickers that Jirou glanced down at with disdain. "Come with me," Ashido said, smiling and leaning forward which just made Jirou roll her eyes at her friend's attempt.

"I have stuff to do," Jirou replied.

"Oh come on, it'll be a fun day out too," Ashido started. "And I need help recruiting people to support the prime minister Nikko!"

"He isn't prime minister yet," Jirou said. She got an annoyed look covering her face too, and Ashido leaned back as her classmate added, "And I don't care about the election. At all." Jirou stepped back into her room and closed the door in Ashido's face while the pink girl was in the middle of opening her mouth.

Ashido gawked more that the door was shut in her face, and then she got an annoyed look of her own that her friend would do that to her. "No need to be rude," Ashido muttered, saying it through the door but also keeping quiet as she could not decide whether or not she was actually trying to say it to Kyoka or just mutter under her breath.

"Mina! You ready?" Ashido turned and looked down the hall to see Hagakure out in the hall and Ojiro coming out behind her and closing her door. Hagakure was running forward and sliding her arms through the sleeves of her sweatshirt, and the invisible girl looked towards the door next to Ashido for a second before looking back at the pink girl in surprise at where she was standing. In a quieter whisper Hagakure called over, "Is Kyoka-"

"Not coming," Ashido replied, this time louder and meant for the girl on the other side of the door to hear. "But let's go," Ashido did not want to lower her own mood, and the eighteen year old girl spun with a smile on her face back towards the stairs. "Some people just aren't as politically active as we are," Ashido said, looking to her side at Hagakure with a smug and joking smile that her friend giggled at and agreed with a happy hum.

"Ah, are you all ready?" The two girls and Ojiro looked up the steps at another of their classmates who was walking down towards them. Ojiro only glanced at her for a second and nodded, before looking to Hagakure who he saw spun towards him. He held up a hand defensively and smiled at the girl who he knew why she would spin to him like that, while Ashido kept staring up jealously at the tallest girl in their class who was walking down in a white turtleneck sweater pulling close to her figure. Her curves pushed out and the hem of the sweater dropped just above the start of her black leggings. She had a _very_ expensive bag over her right shoulder that was bigger than Ashido's and had a designer logo on it showing how expensive it was, and her boots that came up to her mid-calves were as stylish as she was wearing her long black hair down behind her head in a braid instead of its usual spiky fashion she kept it tied up in for combat and during school hours.

"Wow Momo," Hagakure said while spinning back to her friend after checking on her boyfriend to make sure he was not as awed as she was by her friend's beauty. "That's a really pretty outfit!"

"Oh, you think so?" Yaoyorozu looked down in some surprise and hesitation as she did not know she had made herself look good.

That look alone made Ashido fume and then turn away in an even more jealous way, _Without even trying?!_

"Well," Yaoyorozu looked back at her friends and continued down the steps to their same platform. "We should get out as early as we can. I believe Sato and Sero should be-" Momo stopped and looked down the steps with the other three as Sero and Sato came running up.

"Sorry!" Sero said as he saw the four looking ready to go. "One minute!" He ran faster up the stairs, while Sato spun and stuck a thumbs up in agreement with what Sero just called out at them.

Ashido rolled her eyes at the boys who clearly waited until the last second even though they had talked about leaving at this time before. _I wonder if anyone else would come, if I just put it in the class group chat? It's probably not a good idea if Momo didn't do it though._

"Let's go," Hagakure suggested, and she started down the steps without waiting. She looked over her shoulder and said, "They'll come running after us." She laughed and Ojiro chuckled while following her down the steps. Yaoyorozu looked hesitant like she did not want to make them think it was a bother, but Ashido grabbed her by the hand and started down too.

"You ready for this?" Ashido asked in an excited voice.

Yaoyorozu was surprised as she was suddenly being pulled along, but then she smiled and nodded at her friend who smiled brightly back at that. Momo continued down the steps towards the first floor of their dorm building, but while her three friends were in front of her and no one could see her face her lips lowered down into a frown. _Zach. It's been over three months now. I wish, you would let someone see you. They denied me again, and this time I am sure they did not even go all the way to you to ask. I could have argued that they are doing something to you and that's why they keep you from seeing visitors, or maybe that you weren't even down there, but I believe you don't want to see me. But it's not just me, you deny everyone, and Zach you need to see someone. It's sad, that you had to spend your birthday alone again._

* * *

"Today's not one of Ms. Hanuri's," Zach responded to the guards just outside his clear wall. Kaitou frowned at his response, and a bead of sweat formed on the right side of his face while Neo just sighed as Sazaki did not flinch after they told him. "So no," Zach finished to the man just outside who frowned deeper at that answer.

"You have to this time," Kaitou started.

"No, I don't. I don't _have_ to see anyone." Zach gave the man outside his cell a confused look, "But for you to be trying so hard, who came to visit me this time?" Kaitou and Neo both looked in at the boy in some confusion as normally he told them he did not want to know. The boy got a thoughtful look on his face though and hummed while looking back and forth at their expressions. "It doesn't seem like I _actually_ have to go, but you're trying pretty hard. Now who would you care enough about to want to help, who I also know, and who would be coming to visit me today? I can think of only one person you'd feel like you owe enough to come down here trying to trick me over this. But you can tell All Might the same thing you tell everyone else."

Neo started shaking her head, and Zach turned to her as he did not think she would be the one to get mad at him for this. The green-skinned woman did not have an angry frown on her face though, but just one of pity and sadness as she looked through her visor into Zach's hazel eyes. "I feel bad," Neo started, while Kaitou just got a more frustrated look that he had been unable to convince or trick the inmate into taking his visitor call. Kaitou lifted a hand to his helmet to report back to the one who just called him what the prisoner's response was, while Neo continued to the eighteen year old boy in front of her, "You never see anyone. To have spent your birthday here alone, you know people came to see you-"

"I wasn't alone," Zach said. Neo got confused and then she cracked a smile as Zach added, "I had you guys. I'm fine just talking to you."

"Yeah well, you could do less of that," Kaitou said, turning his back to the boy and just glaring across the hallway with a darker look in his eyes.

 _He probably dislikes me the most of all the guards,_ Zach thought, looking to Kaitou's back for a moment and then turning himself and heading over to his bed. _It's strange,_ Zach dropped onto his bed and flat on his back as he was laying like before Kaitou called over to him. He did not reach back for the textbook on his bedside table that was still open to the page he had been reading, he just put his hands behind his head on the pillow and stared up at the ceiling. _On my 16th birthday I was Reaper, my 17th I was Death, and on my 18th I was Inmate 1667. Mom and Dad, and the Akers, would never have been able to see me in a place like this._ A smile tugged at Zach's face, _Aunt Maye probably could have seen it. Aizawa sensei too._

Zach sighed and he turned his head to look at the wall next to him. He shook faces from his mind, and he thought, _The last three birthdays I had different names, but the next few I'll probably still have the same one… Then again, when I was turning 16 I never could have guessed what I would become by my 17th. And I never thought a year ago that I would stop being Death so soon. A few months after that birthday, I didn't think I'd ever have another birthday at all… but if I did, I thought it would have been as Death. Amaterasu stopped me. That was a good thing though, right? I had more time to think about it, and I know this is the right move. It has to be. As long as I'm going to be stuck in here for, it was what was right. Leaving them…_

 _Wonder how the others are doing?_ Zach turned his head back and stared up at the ceiling again. He took his hands out from behind his head and lifted his left above him, staring at his hand with a distant gaze and curling his fingers slowly a few times. _Hope they're all fine, and that Gentle's slowed things a bit with the world more peaceful. Without me there to revive them if they make mistakes. La Brava's on her second life though,_ Zach curled his left hand into a fist and lowered it down to his chest where he felt his heart beating through his white prison jumpsuit. _He won't take them for granted._

 _ **"We need to keep pushing forward-"**_

 _ **"AHHH! No! NO!"**_

 _ **"SAZAKI! You bring her back! You save her RIGHT NOW-"**_

Zach had his eyes clenched, and his whole body felt hot from flames. He saw La Brava's small body getting sent flying with a hole ripping through her gut, and could hear Gentle's screams of desperation and grief piercing his skin. He felt sick, and that feeling mixed with the memory of feeling his whole stomach ripping apart along with most of his intestines and other internal organs that La Brava had lost and he had to rebuild. His body that felt hot started feeling wet from sweat, but with his eyes closed the sweat felt like the rain of blood that day that covered everything in red…

His eyes snapped open and he stared ahead with his teeth clenched but panting breaths coming in and out of his nose. "So," Zach called out, and he swung his legs off the side of his bed and started back to the Cyn wall. He did not know how long he was laying on his bed for, having day-nightmares, but it felt like too long already. He doubted his studies could get his mind off it, but a story could. Neo looked back when Zach got close and she frowned for a moment that he was not looking like he had changed his mind about his visitors, but she smiled when he continued, "You guys have heard me mention the Siege of Razmatan before, right?"

"You going to tell us about it this time?" Kaitou asked, glaring ahead still and frowning as he made his question. "Or just skim over again and get all vague-"

"I'll tell you about it," Zach replied before Kaitou could finish. The man frowned more at that response though he did look out the corners of his eyes wondering if the boy behind him was serious after all the vague stuff they had heard about this particular event. Neo was more visibly excited though she wished one of the other guards who was not Kaitou was there to share in her excitement over this. "It was right at the peak of the war. Both of our sides were completely into it at this point. We had our strongest forces and even though we had been whittling away at theirs, their remaining forces had become prepared for us and were stronger and more organized than-"

 **Clank.** Zach stopped his story and he spun his head to the right. Kaitou and Neo looked over too, and Tachibana came jogging down the hall in her dark guard uniform with a dark blue visor on her helmet she had lifted up to show her face. "What's going on?" Neo asked her comrade who jogged over and looked winded.

"Inmate 0865, just got shanked." Tachibana replied, pausing to pant again after running all the way here.

"Shanked?" Kaitou asked, sounding skeptical which made Zach glance at him in confusion.

"When does that happen?" Neo muttered herself, getting a confused look and then muttering quieter, "How'd we let that happen?"

"He didn't use anything they would have caught him with," Tachibana started. "Inmate 1021 in the cell next to his, pulled out his own teeth and used them." Neo pulled her head back and grimaced at the sound of that, while Kaitou hummed and understood how that kind of weapon could have been made even in their super-stringent security.

"So why'd you come here?" Zach asked, looking at the guard with an eyebrow raised.

Tachibana turned to him, and the other two guards did afterwards. The other prisoners in the cells on Zach's sides listened closely too as they had been hearing what Tachibana was saying without keeping her voice quiet. "The man who was stabbed, several times before we were able to intervene, was unable to be saved." She said it slowly but the boy in front of her was not reacting to what she was saying. She was not asking him anything, but it was very clear why she was there to everyone around.

"Sucks," Zach finally said after the guards just kept staring at him for a few seconds there. Neo got a slightly confused and then more hurt look as she saw the uncaring expression on the boy's face. Kaitou humphed but still felt surprised despite his outwards appearance, while Tachibana frowned more herself at the kid who she saw just the other day forgiving Twice in an act that had amazed her and still stuck with her more than anything he had told her in a story.

"That's all?" Tachibana asked. She did not have orders to do anything, but she was hoping he would make an offer to her right here after the prisoner she had brought to the infirmary had died while begging her not to let him. "He was-"

"I don't want to hear it," Zach said, shaking his head before she could continue. He glared out into her eyes and she glared right back into his with neither of them faltering. "If it were a guard," Zach started. "Then yeah, sure, I'd have brought him or her back," he admitted it with a shrug and just continued to glare out at the guard questioning his morals with her eyes. "But why'd he get shanked?"

"What?" Tachibana asked, shaking her head and giving him a harsh look that he would ask that.

"Why would a prisoner rip his own teeth out, in order to kill another inmate?" Tachibana's eyes softened and she pulled back at the pissed-off look in the inmate's eyes. "You think about that?" Zach asked. "And maybe it was a random act of passion or something, maybe the guy didn't do anything to ten twenty-one, but I don't want to hear about him. I don't want to know who it is or what they're here for." Zach turned his back and started back for his bed, deciding against telling a story anymore and just going for his textbook, "Death sucks. It hurts a lot for me to bring someone back from it. I'm not going through that for a villain I don't know or care about." Zach paused and then he said in a darker voice, "Sometimes, death is just death. For some people, there is no coming back from that."

While Tachibana eased off of the boy she had come for, Kaitou got a more annoyed look on his face at what he was hearing. He glared in at the teen and grumbled towards him, "And who decides-"

"I do." Zach turned his head and glared straight back into Kaitou's eyes through his visor. Kaitou froze with his mouth open and his eyes opening huge just as his fellow guards' were. They felt chills at that look, and more from the answer itself. "Only I get to choose. If you had this Quirk, you could make that decision, but you don't get to make it for me. No one, gets to decide how I use my Quirk for me." Zach grabbed his textbook full of squiggly Arabic and he fell onto his bed and lifted it over his face. _I "get" to choose? More like I have to choose. Fuck all of you. You could never know, how this feels. And I'm not dying for some fuck I don't even know who was sent to… don't think about him. Not at all. Forget what she said. Make the choice on your own._

 _You can't save everyone. It's impossible. It's impossible. It's impossible…_

* * *

"Well, I'd like to switch topic from the election now," Kasami started to the older man on the news program with him. The young man with slicked-back black hair and pointy ears grinned and continued, "Onto my favorite topic which we have some new developments with in recent days. Aside from the obvious, the legality of the Lifebringer movie has been decided in court earlier today."

"And as I thought," Bob began. The bald man with wrinkles on his face chuckled and finished, "The proposal was denied. Now we don't know if Sazaki himself denied it, but he _was_ the only one who legally could have shut down the filming. I wonder why he would do so?"

"Kid doesn't want a movie made about him, what's so strange about that?" Kasami asked with a shrug. "I'm sure a lot of people would prefer not to have their lives dramatized in a film. And he especially has already had so much of his life televised and put under scrutiny that I'm not surprised he's tired of it all already."

"Hm," Bob hummed and gave a single nod that it was possible that was the reason. "Well the film could have shown us some things that maybe we are all still hazy on the details of," Bob began again. He held up a hand and offered to the younger man who frowned back at him, "If they did go to Sazaki with the idea, while he was in prison which seems unlikely considering no one except his lawyer has been in contact-"

"Maybe they spoke to him through his lawyer," Kasami suggested with a shrug.

"Perhaps," Bob said and continued straight on without pausing, "But if they did go to him with this, then instead of shutting them down Sazaki should have given them his version of things if he felt they were skewing-"

"Bob, let's stop this," Kasami said. Bob frowned at the younger man who interrupted him, but Kasami frowned too and shook his head at the older man who was going too deep into this. "He doesn't want a movie made about him. Why's it have to be a big thing? Do we really need to scrutinize his decision here too?" Kasami sighed and he leaned back in his chair, and he held up his right palm while adding, "If he had done things like you just mentioned and they made a movie from the way he told things, then you would have just complained that they had too strong a bias towards his side. And sure, maybe that means we can assume that Lifebringer denied them the rights to make the movie because they were going to portray him negatively." Kasami said it sarcastically and rolled his eyes while mentioning what Bob had been suggesting at with the tone of what he was saying. "Or maybe he's tired of all this media attention as any of us would be if we were him. Three years now he's been a focus of our debates and a hot topic of interest, and now they want to make a feature length film about him? Yeah, how about no?"

"You're saying you wouldn't have seen it?" Bob asked, skeptically lifting his eyebrows at his co-host who chuckled at the question but kept an intense look on even his smiling face which had Bob frowning more again.

"I would have," Kasami said, not denying that. "But I'm glad he has the right to stop them from making it, if that really is what stopped the production. And all I'm saying, is that I would have done the same in his shoes. He's going to get out of prison sooner or later, and when he does I doubt he wants to be trapped in whatever perception of him the movie makes."

"He has to fight to change that perception-" Bob began.

"What perception?" Kasami asked, narrowing his eyes at the older man who continued to frown back at him. "The movie never came out, and now it never will."

"You know what perception I speak of," Bob said. "The one we both think it would have had to get Sazaki to shut it down as he has. That it would be a negative portrayal of all the damage he's-"

"I _really_ doubt that the movie was going to be as negative as you're thinking it was," Kasami said. He cut in firmly and shook his head at the man who had just said they were both assuming something else. Kasami shook his head slowly and he continued while Bob stared at him in surprise, "I have never kept it a secret, my support of Lifebringer. I agreed with you on occasion, but with the public movement in support of Lifebringer I'm not going to hide it here, Bob. Lifebringer's still a hero."

"Kasami, he's- well, he's not. They took his license-"

"Screw licenses," Kasami said, then he hesitated and leaned his head back with a regretful look. The right corner of his lips pulled away with a 'ch' sound, but then he shook his head and said, "I don't really mean that, but the idea of heroes has never been about hero licenses. What makes a hero has nothing to do with a little laminated, thing! Whether or not Lifebringer's a hero isn't up to the government to decide. Sure, whether he's ' _technically'_ a hero, that's up to them. But we all have our own heroes. I'm sure when you were a kid maybe one of your parents was your hero, right?"

"That's different," Bob began.

"It's not though," Kasami countered. "Zach Sazaki, is still Lifebringer to most people. You don't refer to him as such anymore, and I stopped for a while too but I regret that. He returned here to pay for crimes that not one person in this country really blames him over."

"I do," Bob said. Kasami frowned at him deeply, and Bob continued in a serious tone at the younger reporter, "I understand his reasons, but he was wrong. He deserves the punishment he received and more."

"And you're in the _vast_ minority," Kasami said. "Because I don't know anyone else who thinks that way about Lifebringer. The League of Villains has stayed virtually silent since that night. The worst villain group we've seen in this country in decades, and he stopped them. We didn't realize it at the time, and that was because of all of _us._ The establishment that we are a part of, Bob. We in the media treated what he did as this terrible thing that had no positives, and our government treated it that way too, and it took a while but the longer the League was silent after Kurogiri's death the more our people understood that we said what we _had_ to say. I never wanted to condemn him, and I apologize for cracking under the pressure of telling our people not to believe in him anymore. He was someone we all believed in and I took part in the effort to make people lose faith in him."

"We did that because of good reasons, and you're forgetting about all those reasons because it's been so long," Bob argued. "He wasn't the same person when he killed-"

"How do you know that?" Kasami asked. He leaned forward over the table, "Have you talked to Lifebringer since he came back? You got that exclusive interview with him that told you that he really had 'matured' since he left and that's why he came back? No?" Kasami paused and Bob just frowned at him as the questions were rhetorical and annoying. Kasami continued after a short pause there just to make his point, "Bob, whether he changed or not, that doesn't mean a thing to me anymore. I'm not going to just follow the 'accepted' story that we went with. You want the real news, Bob? What we don't hear because we all said the same story time and time again since that night? The news is that to regular, normal people, Lifebringer is still a hero. But more than that, Lifebringer is _their_ hero."

"What do you mean?" Bob asked, humoring his co-host who was getting very passionate about this.

"He's the Hero of the People," Kasami said. He said it seriously and did not falter at Bob's look, which turned Bob's eyes wide and his expression questioning as he wondered if Kasami really believed that. Kasami continued to the man giving him that questioning look, "Everyone considers heroes as far removed from the rest of us. Only certain kinds of people can be heroes, only the best of the best." Kasami paused and he lifted the corners of his lips as he continued, "Then there's Lifebringer, who makes mistakes and had killed people in situations where normal people expect their heroes would be able to settle it without killing anyone. Then he got tortured and his loved ones killed by villains, and he wasn't heroic enough not to be destroyed by that. His best friend betrayed him, and he lost his…" Kasami shook his head and then continued in an inspired voice, "His mind was broken by the torture, like any of us would have been. So we can see ourselves in Zach Sazaki. Can't you? If you think about what you would have done, do you really think you would have been able to stick to hero values?"

Bob opened his mouth to respond, but he hesitated. In that moment of hesitation Kasami cut back in, "The thing is, only a certain type of people are able to withstand those things without breaking like Sazaki did. And yet he still managed to do a lot of good where most people would have been done. You always put him on a pedestal. You said it yourself, that you expected Lifebringer to be better. You wanted him to be the best, even after all that had happened to him you _expected_ a kid to be able to handle all of that. We all wonder how we would have reacted to the things that had happened to him, we wonder what we would have done if it was our families that had been killed or if we were burdened with the Quirk of Death." Kasami shook his head and then continued strongly at his fellow reporter, "And when I do think of what I would have done in those situations, if all of that had happened to me, I can't see myself doing it better than he did. Despite all that he did wrong, not many of us can look down at Zach Sazaki's life and say that we would have done it better. The scars he has on both body and mind are intense. It's scary to think about all that happened to him before he even turned 18. He was a kid for it all! Yet despite all of this, all these horrible things, Lifebringer does what he thinks is right."

Kasami added after a second, "That's what we heard from All Might that next day after the Lifebringer Incident: that Sazaki killed Kurogiri because he thought it would help people and not for revenge. And though All Might warned us after that not to trust in or believe in Sazaki anymore, _I_ never gave up on him. I always wanted to believe that he would come back some day. I suspected it would be after being arrested or taken down, and instead he surpassed my expectations and returned on his own. At this point, Bob, I know so much about Zach Sazaki, we all do. I feel like I know him personally and wish I could help him. There are a whole lot of people who want to help Lifebringer get back out there, to keep doing what he does- helping people. Bringing back the dead and trying to be a hero and… stopping villains." Kasami smirked as he said the last part, his tone smug and suggesting of something that did not even make sense anymore but was still fun to poke at after a year of speculation.

Bob let out a long sigh after Kasami finished his tirade. The older man hummed and did not just dismiss what his younger colleague said, but he also felt like Kasami got a little _too_ passionate there more than he had hoped for. He figured if he tried to discuss it any longer or deny what Kasami had said was a widespread opinion of Lifebringer, he would get his co-host riled back up again. So instead he said, "Well, it doesn't really matter right now, does it?" Kasami looked back at Bob in surprise at the way he began that, and Bob continued, "We can spend years discussing Zach Sazaki, or Lifebringer's motivations and whether or not he's really deserving of the punishment he received. This will come back up anyway when Lifebringer gets out in 6 years-"

"If you really think," Kasami cut in strongly and with an intense look as he leaned back over the table. Bob's eyes widened and he froze as Kasami continued, "That people are going to settle down about this, you're dreaming." Bob's mouth that had frozen open parted more so he could try and speak, but the surprised man could not get a word in over the younger reporter who continued, "People aren't going to just accept what happened to Lifebringer. He was a kid who got kidnapped and tortured, betrayed and had his family killed… and _all_ he did was kill the ones who had done that to him. And not even for those reasons, but he stopped a man who was responsible for the worst terrorist attack of our lifetimes and who released the worst villains in Tartaros back into the world. He killed villains responsible for killing thousands of people in his home city of Musutafu, ones who tortured him and murdered his family in cold blood. People say that there's no excuse, that there are no special circumstances and no one gets to be treated differently… but that's wrong. There are special cases. And if anyone ever deserved a different set of rules, if anyone deserves to be let free, it's Lifebringer."

"The kid's a hero in my eyes," Kasami finished, looking at the camera as he said his opinion without holding it back at all this time. "Only eighteen and he's already one of the best heroes I've ever seen."

* * *

Zach had his right hand gripped around the metal shower bar that curved out from the back of his wall. The curtain was pulled all the way to one side so it was out of his way, allowing him to do pull ups on the bar with only one hand that he alternated with every six reps. He stared out through the glass while he was working out, watching the guards on duty who were quiet and staring across the hallway seriously. _They didn't seem in the mood to hear a story today. Edo and Neo are usually really into it. Even lately, though I feel like a few were put off by what I told Tachibana after she wanted me to revive that prisoner. So there are a few reasons they might be acting distant._

He switched up hands again and continued doing his pull ups while in his full white prison jumpsuit. _Last time they acted anything like this, they were bringing in Twice. Weird._ "Hey Jin!" Zach called out loudly, and he continued doing his reps, pulling up and then extending his arm fully with his legs tucked back so they would not touch the floor on his descent.

Jin Bubaigawara sat on the edge of his bed with a book in hand that he was reading slowly. There was no rush while stuck in there for life, so he took his time and just played out what he was reading out in his mind as if it were happening in front of him. He heard the voice he recognized and lowered his book, lifting his head and looking over to the wall between his cell and the cell between his and Sazaki's. "Yeah?" He called out back after a few seconds of wondering what this was going to be about.

"The cells on the other side of yours are all occupied, right?"

Neo and Edo both glanced back into the cell that they were guarding. Zach was staring out at them and just hanging from the bar by his left arm now, staring at them as he listened to Jin call back that he was pretty sure they were occupied. "We don't have any space on this cell block then," Zach said, looking at Edo in confusion which caused the man to shake his head and turn back forward with an exasperated look on his face.

"How'd you-" Neo began, but she cut herself off and humphed at the smirk the inmate gave her. "Well you're wrong anyway," she said, turning back forward like her guard-mate and standing at attention again. "No one's being moved to this cell block. As you said, it's all filled up now with our new addition."

"Then what's with the real formal attitude?" Zach asked. He dropped from the bar and started forward, grabbing his towel to wipe off some sweat as he moved closer to the guards he knew pretty well at this point. "They doing inspections or something through the cameras, gotta pretend we aren't friends?"

"We aren't," Edo said, glancing inwards and back at the prisoner who gave him a skeptical look in response that made him lower his bottom lip. Neo smirked and let out a snort at Edo's look, then she tried shutting her mouth fast as she continued to stand at attention. Edo continued after dropping his lip, "You're our prisoner, and we are tasked with watching you."

"Yeah yeah," Zach waved a hand at him and then tossed his towel back so it landed nicely on the metal bar and folded over it. He turned back with a grin that he made a nice throw, and he stepped up to the Cyn wall and questioned through it, "So if it's not that, then what?" The way they reacted told him that he did not get it right on that try, though he did not expect it was what he questioned with anyway when asking.

Neo looked to her right towards Edo, then she looked back at the boy behind her. "Well," she began. She stopped when Edo looked at her, then she rose her eyebrows at him from behind her visor and said, "Didn't last time he made a big deal out of it? Might want to say something in advance this time," she suggested, though Edo just grimaced more thinking about how intense and nervous he had gotten the last time a new prisoner had been brought in there while he was on guard duty.

"So it is a new prisoner," Zach said, though he sounded a bit confused hinting that he wanted to know why if all the cells on the block were filled up. "What's going on?" Zach asked. "Oh!" He looked to his right at the cell closest towards the side he initially came in on, "Did I miss it and Jenkins finally kicked the bucket? I didn't think the old man's cell would be filled so quick-"

"Oi!" Jenkins already had his book lowered and resting on his chest as he lay on his bed, but the old man who was smiling at Lifebringer's conversation with the guards as he usually did snapped that at the what the kid was saying. Amuno started laughing on Zach's cell's other side, and Twice sat back on his bed with a darker look though he did gain a small smile at the joking tone in that boy's voice he heard.

"Guess not then," Zach said, in a tone like he was mildly surprised that Jenkins responded since he could have been dead.

Edo was still thinking about what Neo said, and he hummed to himself while Sazaki was talking before deciding that she might have had a point. "I don't want you saying anything this time, Inmate," Edo began to the boy behind him without turning around. "This prisoner deserves to be in maximum security for the rest of his life, no parole, no chance of freedom, isolation, the works."

"But he's getting out?" Zach asked.

"No," Neo replied with a quick shake of her head.

"He suddenly gave up a bunch of valuable information," Edo began. "If the info paid off, he was promised certain things. We're keeping our side of the deal because he helped heroes catch some bad escapees. Some of the last few remaining out there, including the one who killed the previous warden."

"Why's he coming through here?" Zach asked, his smile gone and his expression starting to darken.

The guards did not notice the look of the boy behind him who started shifting his eyes back and forth at their backs. Edo continued explaining, "The maximum security level he's coming from is farther in than this one. They're moving him to a general population cell block as he requested. His sentence was not reduced at all, but it's a small improvement for him. Not that he deserves it," Edo added in an annoyed and darker voice.

"He got us the Warden's killer," Neo mentioned in a partially defensive tone.

"And he killed how many heroes in…"

 _Well, here he comes._ As Edo continued in a low voice countering what Neo just said, Zach's eyes shadowed over and his eyes shifted in a dark way at the guards' backs. _That confirms it there. Let me guess-_ "And to get to the gen pop block he's being transferred to, the path is through here," Zach said. His voice was low but not too off-setting, just a knowing voice that Neo nodded with and Edo gave an affirmative response on.

 _ **Clunk.**_ Down the cell block to Zach's left, he heard the noise of one of the thick doors unlocking and then the scraping as it opened up.

"How many guards are with him?" Zach asked.

Neo had turned her head to the left for a moment, but she turned back to the prisoner she was supposed to be watching and got a hesitant look on her face while Edo got sweat covering his. Neo did not think as much of it as he did, and she looked back down the hall to the prisoner in a white jumpsuit walking her way inside a box of four prison guards. He had his hands cuffed behind his back and his head pointed straight forward with a calm expression on his face looking like he just wanted to walk through and get to his new destination. "Why?" Neo asked, glancing back at the boy whose expression gave her a more nervous look on her face like Edo had on his.

"You're not thinking of," Edo began, but he frowned and cut himself off. The last time he thought something was up, with Twice, he had been very wrong and almost called in backup for no reason at all. "What's happening?" Edo asked. "What are you doing this time?"

"How many?" Zach repeated.

"Tell me first," Edo said, turning back more to the prisoner and guards heading their way.

Zach turned his head to the left and looked down the hall through the Cyn material to where he caught sight of the first two guards. _Two and two probably. It's regular security even on this kind of prisoner? Idiots. You idiots!_ Zach's expression flattened completely when the front of the white jumpsuit came into sight, and the two guards just outside the glass fully focused on him as they got ready for that prisoner to walk by them.

 **Click** A sound of something clicking filled the hallway and seemed to echo back and forth down it in slow motion. The two guards behind the prisoner lowered their eyes down from the back of his head to his hands, to the cuffs that were falling from his wrists and the cracks that were forming all over his black gloves. Those gloves shattered into pieces while the guards behind him were reaching, one of them for his waist and the other out for the back of the prisoner she was going to send into a deep sleep with her Quirk.

Blue lightning shot back at the two guards behind the prisoner. Turrets dropped out of the ceiling in three different parts along the hallway. The two guards in front were quick to spin around, and one of them had a speed Quirk which had him at the inmate's back before the villain could bring his hands up in front of his body. The zap-stick stabbed into the villain's body, zapped him full of electricity, and then the inmate's eyes glowed bright blue while more lightning shot out of his hands that he rose above him instead of out in front of his body.

"Get back!" Kaitou started shouting at his fellow guard who had been in the front two leading the inmate known as Faith to Cell Block D.

Faith's lightning was not aimed at his fellow guard, but up at the ceiling that the sparks shot into and across the entire block in an instant. The lightning danced around the ceiling and charged into the turrets and cameras all around. The lights turned off and plunged the hall into darkness for a second, before a green flash came out of Neo's skin and illuminated the woman who had a long green tail sticking out of her lower back and curving up with five sharp points breaking out of it.

Another flash of blue came with a spike of blue lightning through Neo's chest with her visor shattering and her helmet falling backwards behind her body. A scream ripped down the hallway as red emergency lights turned on, and emergency doors shut down through the hallway blocking off cell after cell from each other with walls of thick steel falling from the ceiling. The thick steel walls blocked off the hallway in equal gaps by extending from the sides of the cells, and the two walls that dropped down in the hallway in Zach's view slammed into the floor only a couple of seconds after the prisoner tried escaping. The prison's failsafes effectively shut Faith in and prevented him from escaping, while also leaving him stuck face to face with the boy on the other side of the Cyn wall.

Thick steel walls blocked Zach and Faith from the other prisoners whose shouts became quiet and muffled when the walls closed. All of the guards were inside of Zach's blocked-off area. He was glad Faith had waited until it was a sure thing that he would be kept in the same area, and even the two guards behind him had avoided being too far back that they were not squashed by the wall that had fallen from the ceiling. Zach lowered his eyes for a moment in the red-lit hallway, looking down at Edo and Neo's bodies that were unmoving like most of the other guards in there. Only one guard was still moving, and that was Kaitou who was sliding farther away from the villain who was not attacking him but just standing there and looking down at him.

Faith continued to look down into Kaitou's eyes, then he just turned his head without bothering to finish off the guard who froze but cursed himself in frustration that he could do nothing in his intense fear. All he could do was slide farther away and flinch when he touched the cold steel wall behind him. Kaitou looked forward and watched as the prisoner who just killed all his colleagues walked up to the Cyn wall and stopped a meter away from it to look in at the prisoner standing there. Kaitou felt terrified of the villain who had just done all this, and yet at the same time he had seen in his peripheral vision the inmate in that cell for the entire few seconds that all that happened.

Zach didn't flinch. Everything the other inmate just did, Zach stood there without moving a muscle and just stared out at the villain even as the man approached him. He did not look surprised, and Kaitou thought that maybe this was planned out between the two prisoners. He only thought that for a moment though before getting completely thrown off by the way the two were looking at each other. Zach stared at the villain before him in an uncaring way with dark eyes and a blank expression, while Faith hummed with a small knowing smile and a thoughtful look in his eyes. "Lifebringer," Faith began. Zach did not respond, and Faith glanced to his side and up at the corner of Zach's room, then back at the prisoner before him. "I believe I turned off your cell's defense systems as well. Your camera is off and the turrets won't work."

"They wouldn't anyway," Zach said. His voice was low and his eyes darker than the area around them itself even with everything covered in a dark red tint. "It's been a few months, but I guess this is about the time I figured you'd show up."

"You knew I was coming, did you?" Faith asked. He smirked at the teen on the other side of the glass. "And what am I here to do-"

"Of course I saw you coming," Zach said, scoffing and looking aside still with barely any care in his eyes or voice. "If anyone would come to me while I'm down here, it would be you." Faith started to lower his smile, and Zach stared back into his eyes while saying, "Coming up with a way to get yourself marched right past me, turning on the guards in a way that we could have this conversation, all very…" Zach hesitated like he was coming up with a word, maybe 'clever' from the way his tone was sounding. Then his lowered his lips into a deeper frown and just finished sounding like he would rather sigh, "Predictable."

The flinch on the other villain's face was so noticeable that Kaitou pulled back far at the movement. The action unnerved Kaitou, and Faith's eyes darkened with his entire body tensing up in a dark way. Then his lips curved back up at the corners, "I'm predictable, am I? After so long in-"

"You are," Zach responded, not letting the man continue with whatever he was about to rant about. "It's how Lavamander caught you, twenty odd years ago." Faith's eyes darkened again and his fingers twitched at his sides as he glared in at the teenager. "He told me you were predictable, and it's how he got you. As much as you thought you were doing all those _random_ things, he figured you out and caught you. It's the same way they caught you this time too. You're just, predictable."

"If I'm so predictable," Faith started, smirking but grinding his teeth which Zach could see past his parted lips. "Then why are so many of these innocent prison guards dead-"

"Because the cameras were still on," Zach replied. Then the skin under his eyes started to blacken with dark lines that spread out like branches across his face and around the sides of it. His black hair waved up behind his body and darkness wrapped over his white prison jumpsuit. It spread over his skin and his clothes, a black layer so thick that none of Zach's bones showed from inside it. His voice came out lower as he continued, "Because I couldn't just attack another prisoner out of the blue, or I'd get a longer prison sentence, and you'd still get a comfier one." Zach's eyes turned red and flared as his entire body covered in a thick black aura that got more violent around him each second.

Kaitou could not breathe as he looked in at that dark form making everything around them darker as he blocked off the emergency lights in his own cell. He turned half of what they could see into a darkness unlike anything Kaitou had seen before, but Faith was the one who was really losing it with his expressions turning furious then calm and then confused and full of rage at the teen in front of him. He opened his mouth but the deep scratchy voice came out first, "You're predictable, X. I knew you would come. And whatever you wanted to say doesn't matter," Zach's dark aura shot forward and straight at the slot that he had his food passed to him through. The darkness rushed at that slot so fast that it pushed through all the cracks and shot at the villain on the other side of the Cyn who darted his eyes down at the slot that he did not even realize he was standing in front of as it just blended in with the rest of the wall when not being used.

In the moment that Faith looked down at it, he could see that the position Lifebringer had been standing in from the moment they came in sight of each other was the perfect location for his darkness to rush through that into where he was now currently standing. Blue lightning sparked out at the darkness, but Death rushed around to the sides and curved in even as some electricity pushed against the parts that flooded straight at him. Tendrils of darkness slammed into Faith's sides and took him off his feet, collapsing him to the ground and then pulling away so he would not kill that villain. Zach stared through glowing red eyes at the villain laying unmoving on the floor, then he looked around at all the other bodies out there.

"Kaitou," Zach said, his voice still low and scratchy. "Check their pulses," Zach ordered the guard who out of the ones who had a shift watching him was always the most apprehensive towards him. Kaitou blinked a few times still in shock while staring in at that ominous dark figure, then he glanced at the others all laying around him. "Tell me if they're really dead, and I'll revive them from in here." Zach continued to push out more darkness through the slot in his cell, and all of it was collecting just on the other side of the Cyn in a huge black mass awaiting instructions. Zach's red eyes were cold and his skull expression started to show through the thinning dark veil in front of his face. Kaitou looked at that face that scared him more than anything he had seen in his entire life, and he listened as the boy finished, "I want to bring them back."

* * *

 **A/N Thanks for reading! Hope you enjoyed the chapter. Leave a review telling me what you think/ predictions or questions for the future!**

Cat not a person chapter 138 . Feb 9

This is my favorite story and this is my second favorite chapter in the story after the one where Zach leave class 2-A keep  
P.S first review on chapter 138 for the win

 **Awesome! Really glad this is your favorite story, and I'm happy you liked the last chapter (it was a ton of fun coming up with). And lol thanks for the _first_ review XD **

xilios2000 chapter 138 . Feb 10

If zach used his right hand on godzilla would it kill him or would godzilla resist it. What about cthulu or even better alucard from hellsing or thanos with the infinity gauntlet

 **I've seen no reason to believe that it wouldn't kill any of them. So... sure!**

WomanSlayer chapter 138 . Feb 10

Brilliant. This is so brilliant.

 **Thanks! Glad you're liking it!**

Mark chapter 138 . Feb 10

Well, that's enough internet for today...*BA DUM TSSS*

 **Hahaha nice**


	140. Chapter 140

**Disclaimer: I don't own Boku no Hero Academia**

 **Chapter 140:**

Zach sat on his side of the Cyn wall separating him from the two guards facing him and looking down at their prisoner. Their jobs were to "stand watch," but Zach just asked if the two wanted to sit down since nothing ever happened there anyway that they would need to keep watch for. Neo and Edo gawked at the kid after he said that to them, considering what had happened just earlier that week. The same guard shift that Zach had when Faith was led down his hall closed their jaws as they realized the boy was just messing with them despite having said it in a non-joking way.

After Neo closed her mouth, she frowned and curled her lip down more on her right side at the inmate's expression that did not look different from usual. _I don't, feel all that different though. Oda and Kaiyu had to take some time off, but the Warden says Sazaki told him it affects different people differently. Or is it just that different people take it, different ways? I don't know. I feel,_ Neo hummed and she opened her mouth to say something to the boy in front of her. "When you bring people back to life," she started, and Zach nodded to show he was listening and willing to answer her questions. "Do any of them ever, I don't know, break down?"

 _ **"That's what dying is like?" "I can't!" "I- I'm sorry!" "I offer you my life, my body… my soul."**_ Zach heard voices in his head and he grimaced at what Neo asked which was not reassuring for the woman. "Why? Did any of the others I brought back, start acting funny?"

"No," Edo said, shaking his head and answering for Neo. "A couple just needed some time off. I think it's reasonable, to need to think over your life. I did. Maybe they, don't want to be prison guards anymore." Neo looked to her side at her comrade who continued softer, "I know, I considered quitting. I think what I do here matters though. I want to stay, and I know that for sure now." He cracked a smile and a glance at Neo to see if she thought the same way, though she was just looking at him with wide eyes at his answer before getting slightly red cheeks and spinning to Zach before her guard-mate could see those cheeks under her visor.

"I didn't think too hard about it," Neo whispered. "I mean, some things sure I considered- but wait! You say some people do?"

"I didn't say that," Zach countered.

"Well you sure looked like it was what you were thinking," Neo said, and Zach frowned at that response as he realized he was not really trying to hide what he had been thinking a minute ago.

"Sometimes people do, but not- they break down as in death can give them a completely new perspective on life. It happens a lot, but for some people the change is very drastic. It changes a lot about them and how they perceive the world and their place in it," Zach said this seriously but he smiled again after finishing. "But I'm sure the others will be fine, even if they needed some time off. How are you doing?" Zach asked, as this was Neo and Edo's first shift with him since that day and despite coming to see him already to thank him they had not talked about much together.

Neo started to frown again though after Zach's question. "Good," she said. She looked hesitant even as she frowned, like she wanted to sound upset here but that it was also hard with the boy who had revived her just the other day. "Inmate-" Neo began, hesitated, then she continued in a quieter voice, "Sazaki." Zach lifted his eyebrows as she called him by his name there, but Edo looked in at him intensely and in a sad and unsure way too at what he knew Neo was about to bring up.

"Yeah?" Zach asked.

Neo looked into his eyes through her visor and said, "The man we brought through here. The inmate who went by the name, Faith. He's…"

Zach stayed silent and did not respond to what was not a question even though Neo had trailed off and was looking at him almost expectantly. She looked to be awaiting a response but Zach did not have one for her, despite having a strange expression on his face that made Neo think he knew what she was referring to. She took in a deep breath though and started over, "You knew he was going to kill us." Her expression got harder, but Zach started shaking his head.

"I didn't," Zach said. "I knew it was a possibility. I was trying to warn you," he stopped himself as he saw the guards looking frustrated on the other side of the Cyn as they knew it was true. They cursed themselves for trying to hide who was being brought down the cell block for no reason other than keeping up their professionalism by not discussing prison business with an inmate. Zach could see both of them had already thought about how he had been prepared for Faith and they might have survived had they just asked for his advice. Zach stopped speaking as those looks covered their faces, and he continued, "But I also didn't know if he was going to kill everyone or not, or if he would just turn and give me a certain look, like a-" Zach got up and he turned to his right. The guards looked in at him as he started slowly walking across the inside of the Cyn with his head partially bowed and his eyes shadowing over darkly. Then the corner of his lip closer to them rose a small amount and his head turned to the side as he was pacing, and it was a look that gave the guards chills even knowing what the prisoner was doing.

"That kind of look," Zach said while walking back and sitting down again. He crossed his legs and then continued, "He could have done a lot of things, but the fact that he was coming down this hallway told me that he meant to come down this hallway. That he waited this long to give up information and the way he did it to manage what he managed."

"How could he have known he'd come through here though?" Edo asked. "How could he know he would come past you?"

"I don't know," Zach replied. "But he could have faked an illness to be brought to the infirmary. He could have faked a psychotic break by bashing his head into the wall to get brought to the psych ward. There were different options for him to get moved around this prison in different pathways, but he picked the option that got him walked right past me. He planned that out, because he believed himself to be a _master_ manipulator." The two guards listening to Zach got more hesitant looks on their faces again. First at the mention of the 'psychotic break' and then the fact that Sazaki used the past tense for how the man 'believed' himself to be that good of a manipulator.

"So you know," Edo whispered. "Did you, do that to him?" He asked. Zach looked into Edo's eyes and the man said in a slightly more steady and stern voice, "Did you make him go crazy?"

"My Quirk can't do that," Zach replied. "That's what you're asking, but to say it was me wouldn't really be, wrong." Zach glanced to Neo and then back at Edo, and he finished, "But I didn't 'make' him crazy. He was already insane."

"But," Neo began. He turned back to her and she hesitated with her head pulling back for a second. She did not want to question him, as she cared more about him now than ever after he had brought her back to life. She was the first he had revived too, and she had seen how much it hurt him to bring back the others in that locked-down area with her after she had woken up from death. Neo stopped holding back though and said, "Why? You wanted this to happen to him? He's gone crazy. Not like before, now he's really… How did you do it?" She asked that 'how' question at the end instead of 'why' again because she thought the answer might not be as bad.

"I knew calling him 'predictable' would break him down," Zach replied. The guards who had been dead for that conversation had heard what Kaitou said about it, but their fellow guard had been shaken up and did not report very clearly what had happened and what was said. Zach could see the two guards were listening closely and believing him, and he took a deep breath and gathered his thoughts as he decided how he would move forward. _Was it a crime? Do I want to lie? I don't have a good lie, so maybe this would be a good time to practice coming up with one on the spot and improvising… Or I could just tell the truth. I don't want to lie right now. Do they like truthful me or just the me who's always lying?_

"As much as he thinks he was chaotic," Zach continued. "He was proud in his chaos and randomness, and that's what got him caught both times. I insulted him like he was nothing, not one of the most impressive villains I had faced; I made sure that man knew that he was barely anything to me." Zach paused and he kept his expression calm and steady, trying not to get disheartened by the way the guards started to look at him here. "I've seen worse than Faith," Zach kept going. "I wasn't lying the way I acted, I guess. He wasn't that impressive, though I did make it out like he was much less than I know he was. I didn't hear him out. I didn't let him speak about things I'm sure he planned out for a long time, nor did I give him a chance to fight back as I attacked him with a lot of Death from the start so he would know he was overwhelmed. I completely defeated him, and I did it after calling him predictable. That's what's most important. The fact that by the time we were in sight of each other, I was already exactly where I needed to be to attack him when the chance arose. I didn't flinch as he broke out of his cuffs while everyone else was so shocked it was happening, because I had accepted that it was one of the many possible outcomes. But to him, after telling him that I saw it coming, and then countering it like I had already planned that out too, I put the thought in his head that I _knew_ exactly what he was planning from the start."

"That's crazy," Neo said, shaking her head at the boy in front of her. "How did you come up with all of that in the time between when we told you he was coming and when you saw him?"

"I thought he might come for me in here," Zach replied, shaking his head back at her. The guards looked at him in surprise, as apparently it was not all a lie and Sazaki had predicted the other man from the start. "It was a possibility, so I planned for it. I was coming to a place where everyone was going to be terrified of me, and people want to destroy what they fear. Every villain here who's afraid of me would potentially try to kill me, in order to prevent me from killing them. And I know so many villains down here, powerful ones, ones I've put in here, League of Villains, assassins," Zach paused and took in a deep breath to calm himself after spitting that word out.

"Even if you saw him attacking you as a possibility though," Edo started. His voice was low, and though he accepted what Sazaki was saying he also had a pit in his gut at it all. "I get that you couldn't just tell us all your fears and your plans, since it sounds like you have a whole lot that probably won't ever be useful?" He brought his tone up there at the end and Zach nodded once to show Edo was right in thinking that. The older man continued though, "But, I still don't see why you did things this way? Kaitou says you waited to get him until the cameras were off, was that so there would be no footage of your power? I know you never used it during the Sports Festivals, but there has been recordings of you using it other times. I get that you had to wait too, until we had already been attacked, or we would have had to give you a longer sentence… I know that! If you had suddenly attacked him just because you thought he might be dangerous-"

"I'm still sorry, I didn't do that," Zach said in a low voice himself, as Edo was trying to not get mad at him and Zach felt the man should be. Edo and Neo both shook their heads at him though. He lowered his head at their looks which told him they wanted to believe in him. _The truth!_ "The reason I said the things I said to him though, in the way I said it that has made him break down, is different though. I could have stopped him any number of ways. Ways that wouldn't have done as much damage to him."

"Then why?" Neo asked.

"I'm glad that man will be stuck here forever knowing that he was no one," Zach said. His eyes were dark and he rose his head with an expression that _scared_ the two guards facing him. The prisoners on the sides of Zach's cell felt afraid just from that answer alone, and Twice stared up at the ceiling with fear covering his face as despite being muffled, he heard that clearly and echoing in his mind. He had never felt more thankful for the forgiveness Sazaki had given him than in that moment. Zach stared at the scared guards and continued without reacting to their expressions, "I cast that doubt in his mind, and he will always question whether or not I knew what I was doing. He'll always wonder if I did it just to mess with his head, or because I really did think that he was not random at all like he cared so much about. Yet even that will plague him, because even thinking about that question shows that I was right and it is messing with his head, which means he _is_ predictable." Zach's eyes shifted straight ahead, and he glared through the Cyn and across the hall with a thousand yard stare. "So is it both? Neither? One can't be without the other but neither had to be true in the first place as it could have all been fake."

The guards felt their heart rates racing so fast they could hear them pounding in their heads. They were shook by what the inmate just told them, and they were still struggling to wrap their minds around it which made their hearts race all the faster as Zach finished in his darkest voice. "It's a paradox that will trap him for the rest of his life. I heard that he gave Wrangler a heart attack, that he manipulated so many people and got them to kill each other, got heroes to quit and dozens of heroes murdered." Zach's eyes shadowed over as he thought about some of the things Lavamander had told him too, back when he needed to know more about the villain around the time the Stain Cult was destroyed. _I had Scotland. Lavamander had X. At the time, that was the comparison I made between his story of_ _ **that**_ _night he caught X. The night that caused Wrangler to retire the first time._ "He was, and still is," Zach continued, lifting his gaze back up to Edo and then shifting it over to Neo. "A villain who deserves much worse than a nice cell like this."

"Even a regular cell is not punishment for those crimes, no matter how much useful information he may have given up." Zach paused and he finished in a lower voice only his guards could hear as he had been getting quieter there for a minute now, "Now a straightjacket and tiny padded room will be his physical prison, and his mind will be another. A punishment more deserving a man like him."

Neo gulped and she nodded her head in understanding at all the teen had told them. _I, get what he's saying. I really, think I do. As terrifying as it is that he was able to-_

"You really are crazy," Edo whispered. He shut his mouth as Zach looked back to him, like he realized he said that out loud only after the kid looked at him. His tone had been one of shock and revelation like there was no doubt about it now, and he pulled back at the look the teen gave him after hearing it.

Zach glanced down at the floor in front of his crossed legs. He let out a heavy breath and then lifted his lips back up at the corners while pushing dark thoughts from his head. "I might be," Zach admitted. He rose his head up still with that small grin and added, "But I saved _your_ life." Edo's eyes opened wide, and Zach shrugged his left shoulder up like it was a silver lining that could make him accept the darkness of what he had just done. Zach kept looking at Edo too after that shrug, as if waiting for Edo to change his expression and accept it too. The guard did not know if he could that easily, and Zach added, "This guy killed five guards without batting an eye. He escaped from here once before, and started a hero-killing cult that became the strongest villain group in the country. If he got out of here again, not that I'm saying you guys aren't good at your jobs, but it is a possibility, he would have just kept killing more people. Putting him in prison wasn't a punishment." Zach shook his head and his smile lowered back down flat as he got more serious again, "He loves making plans and manipulating people with long strategies, and I'm sure he spent his first run in prison preparing for the day he'd finally get out and be able to use it all. What I did, was turn this place into an actual prison for him. His thoughts won't be as organized, he won't be able to enjoy just his own company as he's plagued by his mind that used to be his most precious feature."

The inmate leaned back where he was sitting and finished, "Prison isn't really prison for everyone. Not everyone hates it down here." He cracked a smile again without mentioning anyone in particular, but the guards in front of him did not need him to reference himself after they had spent the last several months with this boy who was always in an oddly good mood with his stories and conversations. Even now, as the things he talked about were one notch away from some of the darkest things the guards could think of, they felt like chuckling along with him as this was just his sense of humor. It was dark humor, but Sazaki had defended that humor of his to them before when they asked about him being insensitive about his dead comrades when talking about an old battle. He said that when death was a part of their everyday lives, they needed to not take things as seriously and to be able to joke about even the darkest subjects, because those were the only subjects they were dealing with. Neo and Edo had had a harder time just laughing along with Sazaki as they did not feel the same way, though they tried to understand how he could laugh at times like those. Once they accepted that he could too, and that it was his kind of humor, they started to get into it more and more.

Neo started to grin but she frowned quickly as she thought back just a minute to what he had admitted to them. _He made Faith go insane. That's horrible. It really… fuck that guy though. He killed me! Could I, have done something like that to him? I could kill him. I won't say it aloud, but I want to kill him. I know some of the others feel the same. Maybe that's actually why they had to leave work for a while, they were afraid they might kill our prisoner out of revenge. The Warden might have even feared it from them and sent them on leave himself. Is this, better than death though? The cameras were off. He had just killed five of us. If Sazaki had killed Faith, sure there would have been a trial down here to determine if he gets more years added to his sentence, but nothing should have happened to him. He could have killed Faith. But, instant death? Did he want Faith to suffer? Or did he just not want to kill him? He doesn't usually sound so against killing, but he also gets angry and righteous about fighting killers._ "I, don't understand you much, Zach Sazaki," Neo started. She shook her head and then looked down into Zach's eyes and cracked a dark smirk of her own. "But thanks for bringing me back to life. I can't say I agree with the new punishment for Faith, but then again," Neo shrugged and looked away, "what do I know? You're the one who makes the laws in this country."

Zach started laughing, and Edo cracked a grin too after staring at Neo in surprise for a few seconds there. "Lifebringer's Law," Edo said, looking down at the teen who only laughed a few times before gaining a semi-serious look despite the smile still there. "Must've been a surprise when you came back to see we named a law after you."

"That nickname was a surprise, I guess," Zach began immediately. "But not the law itself. I knew people wanted change." Zach smiled more and he whispered, "I hoped a law like that would have been passed already. I was disappointed they nicknamed it after me, considering all I had done. And also, because it's not everything I wanted. Not even close."

"It was your report though," Neo countered. "Read that whole thing online," she continued and Zach smirked after looking at her in smug surprise. She wanted to say something negative after that look, but she had to admit he had the right to look smug there. "I still can't believe you wrote that as a first year in high school."

 _If I report what he said to the Warden, will Sazaki be kept down here longer?_ Edo thought, his mind straying far from the current conversation. _Would it even matter if we tried? If people knew about it, then they would definitely feel differently about him. Maybe… Everyone hates Faith. They all hated Kurogiri too, but Faith is really one of the most hated in Japan. People wouldn't have minded if he had killed Faith, but if we spread rumors that Sazaki… what did Sazaki do? He knocked out a villain who killed several of the guards. Admittedly, that's all he_ _ **really**_ _did. He suspected how Faith might react to certain things, but there's no way he knew for sure what would happen. The idea that he had a hunch that by saying a few mean lines he could cause the villain a mental breakdown, is ludicrous. And even if he admits to it, what is the crime here? He did it while they were fighting, while we were being killed! For justice?! I don't know. I don't know what he was thinking- actually, I'm pretty sure he just told me. It's just hard to believe. But not as hard… to accept._

 _Lifebringer, you're insane,_ Edo thought, and then a smile broke out over his face. _But I love you for it._

* * *

"And we can now call the Kyoto prefecture going for Kaizo Nikko."

"Woohoo!" Ashido called out, then she lifted a party favor to her mouth and blew into it to make a loud buzzing noise. She was in the common room of Class 3-A's dorm, along with half of her classmates who were all watching the live results for the nation's elections. It was not something they had done in past years, but Ashido had made it out like they were having a party and even got snacks and drinks so others would be more inclined to hang out and watch it with her.

One of the others on the panel of news hosts discussing results of the ongoing election mentioned to his colleague, "Kyoto was a closer call, but with it Nikko has now swept the Kansai region completely."

"It's not over," a female host started arguing with her male counterpart next to her. She had been an avid supporter of the incumbent Prime Minister Ippo, and she continued, "All the votes for Tokyo haven't been counted yet, and polls showed that Prime Minister Ippo was ahead by three points-"

"That was before the election started. You can see the live results right here. Nikko is ahead even in the prefectures Ippo was most favored to win in. The way this election is turning out, is looking to be a landslide in Nikko's favor."

"I have been calling it for weeks now. His poll numbers skyrocketed with each promise he made, but there's only one that really matters and I think a large number of Nikko's voters are single-issue voters."

In the common room, Sero leaned back on the center couch and he put his hands behind his head with an amazed look on his face. "It's really happening then, huh?" He turned to Mineta on his right who nodded while still looking at the screen in some amazement himself at the way the numbers were coming in.

"I can't believe how much he's winning by," Mineta began. "You guys think you did that?"

"Well, I would not say that it was due solely to our efforts-" Yaoyorozu began on the couch to the right side of the tv.

Ashido called out louder than her taller friend though, "It was definitely us! Or- we helped at least!" She changed it up a bit considering how different the numbers were, as she did not know if she convinced 1.3 million more people in Nara to vote for Nikko than the current Prime Minister.

"It's a huge margin," Sato admitted, though his voice was low and he was not being very vocal tonight. A couple of the others looked towards the large boy who had actually helped with the campaigning too, but who did not look too enthusiastic despite their candidate winning.

Hagakure looked over towards Sato and she felt her own heart flutter. She glanced down for a second and then next to her at Ojiro who was standing at her side and watching the tv with a small smile, though cautious as well. Hagakure glanced back at the screen, _Is this really for the best?_ She hesitated for another second and then said, "I liked Prime Minister Ippo too…" The hosts on the screen were talking about the possibility that people were voting against the former Prime Minister, and Hagakure did not like that or think it was fair even if the woman's popularity and approval ratings had been down through most of the country over the past six months.

Others around the room looked back at Hagakure though at what she just said. She saw some of their looks and threw her hands up, her sleeves waving in front of her invisible body. "But I voted for Nikko! I did!" She assured them.

"There is no need to be defensive," Yaoyorozu began. "Even if it were not true, no one can tell you how you should vote."

Ashido opened her mouth to counter that with a joke about how they should vote though, but she closed her mouth while looking across the couch area towards Sato who looked down after hearing what Yaoyorozu said. Then he got up and turned to head over to the stairs, and Ashido got an even more confused look on her face as she could not tell what he was thinking. She looked to Koda who had been next to Sato and watched him go, and the boy with a head the shape of a rock looked back and shook his head showing he did not understand either before turning back to the screen in a hesitant way himself.

Yaoyorozu smiled as another prefecture of the country was called for the man who she had voted for in the first election she was legally allowed to vote. _We did it._

* * *

"Oof. Shifts over already?" Zach asked, looking down the hall to the right the same way the two guards outside his cell just spun. "And I was just about to tell you about our final attack on the Queen's forces. The day I left that world."

"Well, I'm glad the story's nearing its end," Kaitou said with a grunt.

"Oh it's not," Zach assured the man who looked back at him in some confusion. Zach grinned and he asked the men standing there, "Who said Terra was the only world I traveled to?"

"What?!" Oda asked, before shutting his mouth fast and darting his eyes over to the man walking towards the cell with two others. That man gave Oda a strange look which had the guard feeling like an idiot, even as Zach spoke up behind him to answer his surprised shout.

"In my fight against the Queen, she fled that world as I had destroyed her entire country and defeated all her Generals. She could not leave me behind though," As Zach continued, he saw Warden Ryusuke walk into view with Tachibana and Neo right behind him though looking towards his cell with wide eyes at what he was saying in a somewhat loud voice. "Her power wouldn't allow it. She couldn't leave a stranger in a strange world. I chased her through the portal, barely even thinking about what I was doing, and the Doorway closed behind us. I had left Terra, and I never saw anyone from there again. I believe that without her there though, and with the momentum I had gathered, that the world would be safe even after I had left it."

"And the new world?" Ryusuke asked. Adam Ryusuke stepped up in front of the Cyn to stare at the boy whose stories he had heard rumors of. He felt like he was hearing a big one by the shock and excitement on his guards' faces, and he was interested himself so he asked the teenager in front of him with an eyebrow raised.

Zach grinned at the Warden whose face he could see as the man was not wearing a helmet like the guards. He saw Kaitou and Oda look in at the Warden and caught a small grin on the other side of Oda's visor for a second too, but he did not turn to the guard and just looked the Warden in the eyes with an intense smirk. "Was nothing like Terra, or our world. I spent nine months there-"

"Wait," Neo started, stepping forward on the Warden's left side. "You said you were in Terra for seven, and that you were back here before June after leaving in November-"

"Time didn't run the same way in that second world," Zach continued without getting halted by her question. Neo's eyes started to widen that Zach did have an answer for her, and he continued in an intense voice, "The amount of time I spent in Terra was almost the same amount of time that had passed here while I was gone. All the time I had spent in, that other world, was not even a day here. And because that world aged so much faster, it was so far ahead."

"Of what?" Oda asked.

The Warden opened his mouth while glancing at Oda, but Zach spoke up and stopped him, "Our technology. Space exploration. Warp travel." Zach's eyes filled with amazement and wonder, and he looked ahead as if looking somewhere else completely. "Entire galaxies were explored and connected by interstellar highways. There were as many different kinds of ships as there are vehicles on Earth. And as many different planets, with so many different species much crazier than any gnome or vampire or giant. And across that universe, ruling with an iron fist across the stars…" the guards in front of Zach started opening their eyes wider and holding their breaths at the intense look matched with his lips curling back down. "I fought against her in the Rebellion, to free planets from her Empire's reign. Not many Quirks existed in that world, but when battles were fought in space and with technology that far surpassed most powers, I needed to fight a different way. Because as powerful as Doorway girl was as the Queen of Arcasia, she never controlled everything in that world. But as the Empress, she ruled her Empire for a thousand years as a God. Disappearing for centuries at a time, and coming back at planned times that her followers heard through the generations that she would return in and then were convinced that she truly was God when she would return, what might have only been weeks or months of absence for her. And she could spend an entire year ruling there without missing too much in any of the other worlds-"

"Oda, Kaitou," the Warden started, cutting the prisoner off. He remembered what he was about to say before when Sazaki started that amazing story that he could not tell if had any truth in it or not. He motioned to his side with his head after the guards looked at him, and a disappointed look flashed over Kaitou's face for a second while remaining there on Oda's. Kaitou turned and started heading off, as their shift was over and they should have gotten going already.

"Don't tell too much of it," Oda started to the kid while turning to head after Kaitou back down the hall.

"Oh he's going to," Neo assured the man about to walk by her, making him frown in frustrated disappointment.

The Warden glanced at Neo for a second which made the woman close her mouth and get an intense look on it again while re-facing the prisoner. Ryusuke sighed and he looked in at the teen who chuckled at what Neo said to his other employee. _I don't think he's secretly planning anything. This was a foolish guard posting for the last five months. No point in getting rid of it now though._

"Oh," Oda started, stopping where he was walking down the hall and looking back towards 1667's cell. "By the way, Merry Christmas, inmate."

Kaitou glanced back towards Oda who he saw turn forward again and then smile wide behind his visor. Zach looked down the hall in the direction of those two guards who he had felt were acting pretty strangely that morning. _Is it just because it's Christmas?_

Oda walked up to Kaitou and saw the uninterested look his colleague gave him at what Oda was smirking about. Oda elbowed Kaitou as he walked past and said with a chuckle, "Don't deny it. I know you voted for Nikko too." Kaitou rolled his eyes and just walked without humoring Oda with a reply, and without having to come up with a lie to tell about how he didn't.

"Mind if I come in?" The Warden asked the prisoner who rose an eyebrow at the question before nodding his head.

"You don't, have to ask," Zach replied slowly. He backed away from the Cyn since it did not seem like the three outside it wanted him to put his hands through the slot to be cuffed first. _What does he want? Does it have to do with the looks on the others' faces? Something happened, but they seem pleased by it and think that I would be pleased too. Unless they're all sadists and just smiling- I've got nine months worth of stories I can tell now. I feel like I should have gone with a shorter amount of time, since I already used so many for those seven months. Guess I can stretch out the rest with more awesome detail._

"Inmate 1667," Ryusuke began after stepping into the cell that he closed behind him. The two guards stood on the other side facing in at them, and Ryusuke watched as the prisoner re-focused on him as it seemed for a moment there the boy's eyes were looking into his but not really paying attention. He had seen the same look when he first introduced the boy to the prison almost half a year earlier, though he was not annoyed by it this time. "As you may already know, this year there was an election over Japan's next prime minister."

 _Did Ippo not win? She was very popular when I got in here. Hope it didn't have anything to do with me. She was changing things gradually too. Is that why she got ousted? He wouldn't come in here to tell me about someone staying in office. Did people in this country think too much was- no, the looks don't match. Someone more progressive then._

"Kaizo Nikko won in an apparent landslide victory, after being far down in the polls only a few weeks ago when he first announced his run for prime minister. A former representative from Osaka, Nikko is an outspoken progressive promoting change in Quirk laws and policies around our country." Zach lifted the corners of his lips up a little and nodded in understanding, as well as gratitude for the Warden to come tell him this himself. Ryusuke continued to the boy while shaking his head and confusing Zach, "Many believe his policies will get through our legislature and be supported by most hero officials, fairly quickly. Looking at the huge victory he won, it is clear to the media and government what the people of Japan want. However, there could be some pushback on his suggested policies, as the landslide could be all for one reason that the election really became about in the past weeks."

"Which is?" Zach asked.

Ryusuke took in a deep breath and then smiled at the scar-faced prisoner in front of him whose heart rate spiked at that look. His mind was racing but Ryusuke spoke faster than he could conclude on his own this time. "The new PM gets into office on January first. He will be inaugurated that morning. And immediately after that he has promised to sign an executive order, which will pardon you of your crimes." Zach stared into the Warden's eyes with his own hazel ones wide and his mind racing even faster. Ryusuke continued even though he was expecting a surprised shout or at least a smile from the boy who had lowered it a few seconds ago. "It was something Nikko said he would do often, and loudly, while campaigning. There were not many vocal opponents, though there were a few, but there were many more supporters who came out in large numbers when he made that promise. A change in policy alone wouldn't have gotten as many people out to vote for their first times. People who never usually vote, new voters, the old, women, minorities, the media has been giving many reasons for his win but most attribute it to Ippo not budging and saying that she believed the justice system played its part without her involvement to deal the justice it saw fit."

The Warden paused for a second and then said with a tilt of his head, "Most people didn't accept that."

 _Shit. Shit shit shit. It's Christmas so New Year's is only a week away. I'm not ready to get out of here! FUCK! How am I- How do I- I need to make a plan right now! This was always a possibility. The possibility that I wasn't going to be thrown in jail at all upon return- can I adapt that strategy now? Damn it, they've had more than five months to build me up as some wrongfully imprisoned- gah! It won't work at all. I need to figure out what's going on. The situation of the entire world and how Japan…_

"The paperwork has been filled out already," Warden Ryusuke continued. "On his first day in office, he will sign a signature that puts everything into motion. We'll be prepared already for him to sign, so that once he does you can walk right out the front doors." Zach stared into Ryusuke's eyes in more shock and the Warden finished, "You're already being processed. In a week's time, you'll be a free man."

 _Oh you idiots._ Zach saw Tachibana and Neo both smiling at him through the Cyn behind the Warden. _You stupid, stupid… they're all happy I'm getting out. They don't even look disappointed, they won't be able to hear my stories anymore._

 _There goes the best part of my day,_ Tachibana Miyuki thought, though she could not stop smiling towards that teenager who she was happy for.

 _I went out to that last rally for Nikko, Sazaki,_ Neo thought at the teen who she thought just glanced her way. _Took a day off work for you. You have no idea how many people want you out of here!_

"I hope not to see you in here again," the Warden finished to the teen who looked ahead and down a little into the shorter man's eyes.

Then the Warden held out his left hand, and Zach looked at it in more surprise before raising his gaze back to the older man's. Zach rose up his left hand and nodded at the man, shaking his hand and even lifting his lips up into a smile again. "Me too," Zach said.

"Like your Christmas gift?" Neo asked.

Zach glanced over towards Neo and replied with a happy expression, "I do. Thank you." Her eyes widened and then Zach looked to Tachibana too, and he added, "Tell the others too. Thank you." Zach looked back at the Warden right in front of him and rose an eyebrow while examining Ryusuke's face closely. He shifted his eyes around while the Warden kept his expression completely flat, or at least he tried to before grimacing at the smile that crossed over the prisoner's face again. "And thank you too," Zach said to the Warden whose look after he said it gave away who he had voted for since it did not before and Zach really was just guessing.

"Man, my last two Christmases stink compared to this one." Zach laughed and rose a hand up to his face, putting it over his eyes for a moment and bowing his head like he was getting broken up by all of this. As he bowed his head though, his eyes darkened more as he heard a man call at him, **"Haha nah, don't worry about it! It's Christmas!"** Zach thought about the man he robbed after fleeing from the League of Villains. _I never did give him that wallet back. I can't even remember what his name was now, but I dropped it in the snow so he could find it after Hunter killed me. And last year-_

 **"I'm so… frustrated."** Zach knew it was not Christmas itself, but it was all he could hear thinking of the Christmas before. **"I was, supposed to- to be a great… one who I could tell Ms. Calico- one… I'm so…"** _That was a good Christmas though. So was the one before it! I escaped. We saved Paris. And this time, I'm being told that I'm getting out of prison. Maybe, maybe Christmas really is good. I've been getting presents from something, somewhere… Cee dying, wasn't a present. That woman I left behind in Higucha. Not having a plan for what I'm doing. This news isn't the best, but it's not the worst. I can get out earlier. I have to get out earlier, but it's not like they're coming in here and telling me I leave today. I wish they had told me some stuff about this before, even if it might've "gotten my hopes up" with a challenger who hadn't been projected to win…_

 _I have a week though. Adapt the plans. Prepare… I'm getting out of here. I'm, going to see everyone again. Only a week. A week from now and I'll be- I'll have to be… Zach Sazaki._

* * *

"My grappling gun and knife?" Zach asked the guard who had handed him his clothes a minute ago. He finished getting dressed into them and looked at the man who shook his head at the question.

"You can't have those back," the guard replied. He was not one of the ones who ever had to watch Zach Sazaki, so Zach did not know his name. The eighteen year old nodded at the employee of the prison though and thanked him for keeping his clothes in good shape at least.

Then Zach turned and he walked towards the doors where a couple of guards and the Warden were waiting for him. He put his hands down into his sweatshirt pocket and pushed down, leaning his neck back to try and stretch it out a bit. His ankles were showing out the bottom of his pant legs, and he had to pull the hem of his sweatshirt down to go over his waistband. "Looks like you weren't finished growing when you got here," Tachibana mentioned as Zach walked up next to her near the exit.

"I was always a late bloomer," Zach said, his voice steady and his eyes focused straight ahead. _Probably done now though. I'm as tall as Dad ever was. Dad…_ Zach glanced to his right and at some long hair falling down the side of his head. He rose a hand up and pushed more of it back behind him, then he brought that hand to the top of his head and fixed up his hair a little more for a second. "Alright," Zach said, lowering his hand down and taking the other out of his pocket with a deep breath in. "Let's do this."

"Follow me," Warden Ryusuke said. He opened the door and Zach stepped outside the prison with the Warden and two guards coming with them. They walked up to a black van with 'TARTAROS' written in white letters on the side of it that Zach could see around the back. The driver's side door was opened up and he saw Neo sitting on the seat leaning halfway out with a lit cigarette in her mouth. Zach lifted his eyebrows in surprise as he did not expect the green-skinned woman to be a smoker. She spotted her passengers heading her way and turned to put the cigarette out in a spot on her dashboard. Then she looked back at the prisoner, or former prisoner, and she gave him maybe the most genuine smile Zach had seen on her face before.

"You ready, Sazaki?" Neo asked.

The Warden walked up to the back of the van and opened the doors. He stepped inside while Zach looked up towards Neo and gave her a soft smile only changing his straight-faced expression a little. "As I'll ever be," he replied. Then he climbed up into the van, and Tachibana stepped up after him while the other guard who Zach did not know well stayed back and then closed the doors behind them. He had seen that man a couple of times before when he filled a spot of a different guard who was not there and needed a substitute for their shift, and he knew the man's name was Ryumo but not much else. Zach thought Ryumo was staying behind, but the passenger side door in the front opened up after the back doors had been shut and the bulky guard just under seven feet tall got into the front next to Neo.

"Here we go," Neo called out, and she put the van into drive and started through the compound.

There were tinted windows on the back of the van, and Zach stared across the back over the Warden's head and through the windows on his side. The back of the van had benches attached to the walls with an empty gap between them. Zach looked out the window across the gap and watched the guard posts and buildings move by, though they did have to stop twice for other guards to check their vehicle and get security clearances from the Warden. It took ten minutes for them to get outside of the prison's walls, and then they started over the bridge that connected the Tartaros island to the mainland.

Zach leaned back once they were on the bridge and moving faster. He continued to stare outside, the others in the back with him and even the ones glancing into the rearview mirror staying silent when they saw his expression. _They elected a prime minister for me. I got a full pardon, because the people of Japan wanted me to get one. Not all of them. I'll be controversial now more than ever… Not all of my friends too, I'm sure. My old friends. The ones, I said "goodbye" to._ Zach's eyes darkened and he stared out the window with his gaze getting more hesitant for a moment. _It wasn't long enough. 6 more years would have been. But this, is such an awkward amount of time. And it's such an awkward age too. At the divide between adults and kids. School almost over, but still high schoolers, yet already considered heroes. And though some stopped coming to visit me, and the visits did decrease in number, people were still coming all the way to my last day. They didn't forget me. Not all of them, at least._

 _There'll be different levels. I ignored them for over five months. I didn't give them an explanation even as they came to hear one. Some I'm sure, maybe even some who were still for me when I returned, gave up on me in this time. They didn't expect I'd be out so soon. I didn't expect it either. Who cares? Who doesn't? Everyone does… at least a little. I'm sure. How do I-_

Zach looked out over the water past the bridge. The sky was bright blue, with a few white clouds in it but nothing much. He saw some trees on the edge of the land they were getting closer to, leaves blowing around in a wind that made Zach feel like it was windy out right now. He had not felt it within the high prison walls, though it had been cold inside them too. _This hoodie isn't very warm. Not that I can't handle the cold. Blizzards, and freezing water, high elevations and ice powers completely freezing me over…_ The van started to slow down before they had reached the mainland. _Right off the bridge then. This should be quite a spectacle. I'm a free man, but I'll never be_ _ **free.**_ _There are things I_ _ **need**_ _to do once I get out of this van. Things I'll be expected to do. I wish I could just, fly away. I'm free now… but I have to follow the rules. I will not give them reason to doubt me._

Neo whistled and shook her head as she stared through the windshield to the end of the bridge up ahead. Ryumo looked back and forth along the end of the bridge too, and he shifted his gaze to the back for a second with a look that showed he did not envy the boy behind him. Zach sighed at that look while leaning up a bit and staring through the windshield himself, and he sat back down with a half groan for just the other four in the van with him to hear. "Man, it's going to be tough being so famous," he said it like he was complaining yet was bragging at the same time. The bragging tone was sarcastic though and the Warden just sighed while Tachibana rolled her eyes at him. Ryumo let out a low chuckle and Neo snorted, smiling again and feeling more confident that the boy behind her was ready to handle what they were driving into.

The van drove close to the police barricade at the end of the bridge just outside of the guard post that the van was going to have to go through for one last check first. Considering there were cameras pointed at it too, the guards at that post had to go extra by-the-book to make sure that everything caught on camera was exactly how they were supposed to do things. They checked the van out, looked inside and talked to the Warden who asked them how things were looking out there.

"Literally, thousands of people are here," was one of the two responses the guards gave after the Warden asked.

"Some people flew in from around the world to see it. There were less people at the inauguration, though many who went this morning came straight here afterwards anyway just making the crowd bigger." The other guard looked to Zach who leaned his head back and took in a deep breath while telling him all this. "A lot of people came out to see you, Lifebringer."

"Yeah," Zach said and nodded. "I know."

"The new prime minister's here too," the first guard mentioned again. Loud yells and cheers were coming from around the front of the van and over near the crowd ahead of them, and Zach could hear people yelling at the guards to let him go already. The female guard who started speaking only to be cut off by an extra loud shout continued after it, "There's a stage they set up. I think Nikko- Prime Minister Nikko, is going to make a speech and then invite you to make one too. We're about to let you out, but there are heroes and cops all over the place out here to keep order among the crowds."

"We have to get going," the Warden cut in. He wished they had more time to prep Sazaki too, but the boy was no longer going to be his problem in a minute and he did not know much about what was happening after they released him. The two guards who were "checking" the interior of the van nodded at their boss and then got back out, shutting the door behind them and allowing Neo to drive through the final guard post and up to the police line. The Warden spoke to his released prisoner while they were slowly rolling forward to their final destination, "Sazaki, I was harsh with you when you were first thrown in here." Zach looked into the Warden's eyes and the man across from him had a serious look on his face that Zach matched. "You were a criminal in my mind, so I treated you just like I would any other inmate. Yet you saved my subordinates. You brought them back to life and stopped an insane villain from escaping."

 _I remember,_ Zach thought, though he refrained from saying the sarcastic response aloud he really only thought to ease his own nerves a bit. "It's alright. I'm sorry for calling you a fat fuck. I didn't really mean it," Zach admitted. The Warden sweatdropped as he was trying to be serious there.

Neo snorted and tried to keep her mouth shut and not start laughing at her boss's expense. Tachibana smiled and shook her head at the boy next to her who she was glad to see making jokes even at the very end of their time together. _He's an interesting guy,_ Tachibana thought. Her smile lowered a little thinking about how he declined bringing a killed prisoner back to life, but it stayed risen just a bit at what Kaitou had told her he did when Faith attacked. Neo also thought about that, and her own smile dipped a bit at the thought of what Sazaki told her he did to Faith and why he did it.

Neo thought about all those amazing stories she had heard over the last half a year. She thought about the scars she had seen on his body many times that matched scars from the fantastical tales. The things she had heard from him, the way he described the stories made it impossible to not believe him. _No one is going to believe him though. No one else. They don't have the time or patience to sit there and really understand… Maybe that's why he told us. Maybe he knew, no one else would ever believe it._ "Wish I could've heard the rest of that story," Neo said as she slowed the van down just behind the first cop cars. There were two lines of cop cars and police, making a gap that Zach would have to walk through after getting out of the van. He needed to cross a thirty meter gap in order to reach the crowd and the stage set up on the wide street closed-off for the day at the start of the Tartaros bridge.

"Nahh," Zach said, looking up towards the front and the woman who parked the van and looked back at him. He flashed her a smirk and said, "The rest was boring anyway."

"Oh I'm sure," Neo replied sarcastically, then she started laughing and Zach laughed along with her.

Zach laughed and he saw the Warden moving to open the back door for them to exit out of. Zach nodded back at Ryumo who looked at him and gave him a nod, then he glanced at Neo again who was still laughing though it sounded nostalgic now as she knew she would miss talking to the boy behind her. "Good luck," Zach started. The Warden opened the van's back doors while Neo looked into Zach's eyes in a somewhat confused way with her smile going down. "With Edo," Zach added, and he cracked a bigger smirk as Neo's eyes opened wide in the driver's seat. Zach then turned and he hopped out of the back of the van, landing next to the Warden and giving him a nod before stepping around the side of the vehicle.

Tachibana spun her head and looked up to the front with her eyebrows lifted high. Then her bottom lip lowered at Neo's dropped jaw and pink cheeks, the completely shocked look on her face at what Sazaki just said to her. Ryumo had turned to Neo in surprise too, and then he chuckled at the younger woman's expression showing she was totally caught, though she tried to hide it when Tachibana gawked at her. Neo spun and she rolled down her window as Zach started around her side of the van. Over all the cheers that just started getting so much louder, Neo hissed out at him, "I don't know what you're talking about."

Zach just grinned and kept walking, not even looking back to the right to give Neo an even more flustered look at how knowing his expression was. She just felt that look was knowing and smug though, while really Zach had to push Neo from his mind while walking past the van with a small smile and a confident expression. The Warden came up with him, then he stopped at around the first police line while the boy in a black hoodie and black sweatpants just kept walking. Zach walked forward in black shoes, and though he wanted to put his hands into his sweatshirt pocket because of the cold, he knew he had to keep them down at his sides for appearances' sake. His right hand was inside of a black glove on one side, his left opened and unthreatening on his left, fully in view for anyone to see that he was not armed and did not feel the need to hide anything.

Warden Ryusuke stopped behind Sazaki and watched as he walked between two cop cars and then between two lines of officers who all looked in towards him. Their faces were covered partially but by clear visors, and they were wearing dark blue mostly though many did have a lot of black on them in their body armor and vests. Zach looked up ahead and to his right where the stage stuck out a lot on the street. It was turned sideways on the road so that the huge crowd would be able to just turn and look towards it once he got up there. On top of the stage, Zach saw Endeavor and Best Jeanist, along with a police chief, and a man and woman dressed nicely who Zach suspected were the prime minister and his wife.

 _He's young,_ Zach thought at first glance of the man up there. He had short blond hair, wore a nice suit with a black tie on under the jacket, and his face was young and clear. He had fair skin and was clean shaven. Zach looked him over once and thought, _He might be younger than my parents would be even. Or maybe even younger than Dad was, when he died. I hope he's experienced. His strategy was smart, but I don't like this. I won't be used for your political gain, if that's the only reason you released me._

Zach's eyes shifted back across the crowd. From farther away past two police lines and thirty meters from the start of the crowd, Zach could not see much at all. There were some excessively large people whose faces he could see in the crowd on the wide street, as well as on the road straight ahead of him that connected to the wide one along the edge of the mainland. The road straight ahead off the bridge extended farther into the city, and though the crowd was already huge just on the perpendicular street he was about to step out to, the one that continued ahead of him was also packed with tons of people. Some of the taller ones were starting to shout around at the people with them, though they did not need to as there were big tv screens set up on the sides of buildings that showed what the cameras at the front of the crowd and sides of the bridge's start were picking up.

There were some camera crews just on the other side of the police line, though the very center was cleared of any media presence. There was not a gap for Zach to be able to get to the stage, and Zach was starting to wonder how they were going to get him over there. _They'll probably open up a line to get me over there. Most people are cheering. They're happy to see me._ Zach's eyes scanned back and forth alone the crowd, though his eyes were high and he looked at all the buildings on the other side of the wide road as well. He saw people in windows leaning out and watching him, and there were some posters and signs hanging out of those windows just as there were on the street. There was one hanging out of a window that was unlike the others, and it read: 'MURDERERS SHOULD BE IN JAIL' which Zach read and then looked right past without lingering on.

His eyes scanned down the long road ahead full of people deeper into the city next to Tartaros. The buildings on either side of that road got taller the farther from the coast they got, until the first skyscrapers started a few kilometers away. Rairosu City was very large, one of the ten biggest cities in Japan. Connected to it was the longest bridge in Japan, keeping Tartaros far from civilization and surrounded in more security checks than ever before after a beefing up of security a year and a half before. Zach's eyes scanned over the buildings of Rairosu. His gaze shifted to either side of the bridge, but the water was clear of boats which he figured was due to it being illegal to drive boats close to the Tartaros prison.

Zach stared ahead again and past the cops who were on both sides of the next line of police vehicles just off the bridge. The cops were facing him on his side of the vehicles, while the line of officers on the other side were keeping the crowd from rushing towards him. The crowd was not moving at this point though, with everyone having been in their spots for a while. Some people at the front did not have to arrive early to get their spots, (not that they did not come early), but they were allowed straight to the front to be at the edge of the bridge when he got there. And as Zach looked past the lines of cops to the area he would be walking through, his eyes focused on some of the individuals gathered there who were already looking to him or leaning around to try and see him past cop cars and the police.

The first person he saw was hard to see, but that's why she was so easy to pick out in the crowd. He looked towards the open space over a red jacket, something he almost missed but could not with the man behind her being so large that it was clear it was not his head sticking out of Hagakure's jacket. He looked towards that open space and saw a sleeve lift up and start waving at him, and he heard her voice call out his name loudly even over everyone else crowding around. Standing next to Hagakure was a blond boy who Zach was happy to see standing so close to her. _Things might not have changed that much,_ Zach thought, feeling relieved and keeping his steady smile on his face while making eye contact with Ojiro for a second.

 _He's really, tall,_ Ojiro thought. He looked at the teen who he knew was younger than him, but who had kept growing to be over four inches taller than him now. _And he still didn't get a haircut,_ Ojiro continued to himself, seeing Zach's long black hair falling behind him and some to the sides of his head. He had some long bangs but they were mostly pushed to one side or the other and there were only a few strand clusters crossing down over top bridge of his nose and dipping over his eyebrows. _He looks so, different,_ Ojiro thought. Not just Zach's height and his hair, but his body tone with his shoulders broader and his stature straight up and not slouched at all. His smile that was not too happy but showing a look that was putting people at ease, despite the scars on his neck and face and left hand.

Zach's eyes shifted past Ojiro and Hagakure to Ojiro's right side, more in front of him but not directly yet. Standing there was a tall boy around his height, with messy black hair and long arms with round elbows full of tape. Sero stood next to a boy with purple balls all over the top of his head who was jumping up and down for a minute but stopped when Zach got closer and could make eye contact with Mineta. Mineta's eyes opened wide when Zach looked into his eyes, then the smaller teen who looked at him like that smiled huge as he came face to face with Zach again.

In a different part of the country, in the Class A dorm building that was more than half full, Rikido Sato stood in the kitchen with his hands on the counter and his body leaning forward towards the common room. His eyes were narrowed, and the large spiky-haired boy frowned at the look on Zach's face he saw on the cameras. _Why didn't I go?_ Sato thought, and his fingers curled on the counter in a frustrated way. _I supported Nikko for just this reason! But, I don't think…_ _ **"Goodbye."**_ _You ended things. I'm not, going to go try and start things again._

Tokoyami sat on the couch in the common room that Sato could not calm himself down enough to go sit in. The dark boy sat next to the dazzling blond with a bellybutton laser, and Aoyama was leaning forward with his eyes big as he watched Zach walking forward. Tokoyami's expression was unreadable to the others around him, and his mind wandered far from what he was watching. _I just missed him in Italy. And in America, and Australia. Hawks admitted we were avoiding him after the last time. I knew it since Italy, that he did not want to take part in the fight against Death. If I was not certain that it was Zach, would I have felt the same?_

On the couch to Tokoyami and Aoyama's right sat Shoji with Kirishima next to him. Kirishima was frowning more than the others in the room, and he glared at his old friend walking forward with a smile like he was supposed to be there. Kirishima's hands curled in on his knees and his eyes narrowed more in anger as a camera panned to show some of the Class A students at the front of the crowd too. _This isn't right. You shouldn't have- I always wanted you to… but to be caught! Not on your own. Not like this, when it feels like…_

On the couch on Kirishima's right, Tsuyu Asui had a dark look on her face and kept frowning as she stared at Zach herself. _It feels like this is your plan. You look so, calm. Zach-chan._ Tsuyu hummed deep in her throat and she felt an uneasy sensation at his cool, collected expression. _Is he playing everyone right now? He wants us all to see that look. He's manipulating the media again, always, isn't he?_

Uraraka and Koda sat next to Tsuyu watching the live projection too. Uraraka felt hesitant as the camera showed the others in Class A, especially as the reporter just mentioned over the sound of the cheers about how few of Class A's students were there. _I should have gone. Deku went, and Mina…_

 _Ashido, and Midoriya,_ Zach stared at the two who were standing next to each other up ahead of him. He had spun to them because of how loudly Ashido just shouted his name, and she lowered her hands that she cupped to her mouth to stare at him with her mouth lifted into a giant smile. Zach looked into her happy, relieved, teary eyes and he tried to keep his expression the same even as he gave her a somewhat softer and happy look himself at her call to show he heard it. Then his head started shifting in more towards the middle, right over Midoriya who stared into his eyes more intensely than anyone else in the crowd had.

Midoriya stared at Zach who looked back into his eyes only twenty meters or so away. They looked in each other's eyes and Zach's smile looked less genuine for a moment, as he saw Deku frowning at him and his expression serious. Zach kept walking forward though, and he steadied his expression again despite how Midoriya was looking at him. _Is he planning something right now? Even now, he could be._ Midoriya Izuku was apprehensively watching Zach approach, but his frown started to lift as Zach looked into his eyes and continued to smile in a way that spoke so much to him. Midoriya stared in Zach's eyes that were soft, despite the marks on his face and neck that showed that a lot had happened since the last time they saw each other. Midoriya's expression was telling his old friend something, but Zach's told him something back about how he did not care about how Midoriya was looking at him suspiciously there, and Midoriya's eyes softened at that look for a moment and his lips curled up a tiny bit more as his heart started racing. _Zach._

Zach's eyes were already shifting off of Midoriya though. The cops directly in front of Zach moved to open a path between cop cars to the front of the crowd. The prime minister started calling out to 'Lifebringer' and making the crowds cheer louder. The heroes on the stage called out orders to the cops nearby as did the police chief, and other officers around the crowd started moving forward to get the civilians open a path up for Sazaki to move through. Zach did not hear the crowds get louder, nor did he hear anything the prime minister just shouted. The cops in front of him moved away and everything else faded away, as he could look straight ahead at the seventh and last of Class A who came to see him get out of prison.

Iida sat at his desk with his laptop open in front of him. His headphones were in and he was tapping his foot on the ground quickly as he examined each and every thing about Zach at the end of that bridge. His eyes unblocked by glasses scanned around and then shifted back up to Zach's expression for a moment as he saw his feet stop and his classmate stop walking for a second.

Upstairs one floor, Bakugo lay on his bed with his phone lifted up in one hand over his face. _What's he doing?_ Bakugo thought, his expression flat and his eyes narrowed darkly at the boy he was watching. _What's his plan here? He'll reveal it in this first moment. The way he talks. Figure out what he's pushing._

Todoroki Shoto sat on the edge of his bed with his head dipped down and his eyes dark and glaring through his bangs. _You're actually coming back? You think that's okay? After what you did…_ Todoroki glared harder at the teen smiling in a strong way, even if his face did look less genuine with it and his feet stopped moving for some reason. Todoroki followed Zach's eyes straight ahead, and his eyebrows rose up at what just made Zach come to a stop.

On the third floor two down from Todoroki, Jirou sat behind her drum set and kept banging away loud enough that Iida had to put headphones in across the floor. Jirou bashed away and continued reading the sheet music she had written herself, then she paused and stepped over to her keyboard and started playing a chord that she nodded along with and then turned to grab her sheet music and write another part to the song she was making. _I don't care. It doesn't matter. Doesn't bother me-_ Jirou's pencil tip broke on the sheet of paper she was drawing new lines in, and her teeth clenched hard as she could no longer even continue that line until she grabbed a new pencil.

Jirou threw the pencil to the side into a wall and marched towards her desk to grab another one. Her eyes shifted down to a drawer on her desk though, and her heart rate continued pounding as hard as it had been all day. _FUCK! Momo's gonna know! I lied- I should have known. It's his fucking fault for coming back! After saying goodbye like that- and why the fuck leave notes unless you were really leaving forever?! You fuck! You don't get to come back now!_ Jirou turned and marched back to her drums as her fists were clenching too hard, and she grabbed her drum sticks before wailing away on the set again.

On the edge of Rairosu, Zach's feet stopped. He finished a step so his feet were next to each other, and he looked forward which to most people looked like him waiting for the crowd to start parting as the prime minister was calling out about. His expression had not changed that much, to normal people who did not know him at least. But Zach froze where he was while looking past where the cops just moved out of the way to give him a clear view. He stared towards the girl in a white turtleneck sweater who had her black hair tied up in a spiky ponytail.

Zach's eyes locked with Yaoyorozu's. She stared back at him with a similar look that he had on his face. It was reserved, but there was a smile there on her face that had Zach's heart pounding faster and faster, and his mouth opened up to breathe in harder which he was not expecting. His thoughts had cut off too. What he was thinking about while scanning the crowds and then looking at his former classmates, it had all faded away with the noise around him too. He stared at the girl in front of him who rose her lips up more at the corners while looking into his eyes in a way that made Zach's heart slam into the front of his chest.

Zach's eyes started to lift off of Yaoyorozu. He rose them at the sight of something small in his view flying at him. Zach's eyes started to turn red, while Deku's eyes darted up with everything else moving in slow motion around him. Deku's eyes started pulling back down with his lips that had just started lifting a small amount dropping down in panic. Zach's eyes locked on the object he saw fly over the heads of all the civilians and cops. _Sni-_

There was no flash or gunshot, but Zach flew backwards with blood splashing out of his back and his body spinning out to the right. His feet lifted off the floor as millions of jaws started to drop. His teeth clenched and then his mouth opened up with spit flying from between his lips. The shot that flew out of Zach's back hit the ground at the start of the bridge, digging deep into the cement back around the cop cars behind him he had walked past thirty seconds ago. The shot hit the ground while Zach was lifting off of it. Blood splattered out of his back onto the floor while his body was falling backwards, his legs flinging up in front of his body as his right shoulder spun backwards and his left spun to the front. His body that lifted off the ground and was turning in midair started to drop, and Zach clenched his eyes shut while trying to lift his head a bit, but the collision with the floor still snapped his head back down and into the hard ground below him.

The shot was silent, but the cameras aimed at Zach were televising him all over the crowd and through this section of the city. The sight of him flying off his feet like that with a hole ripping in the front of his sweatshirt and blood splashing out of his back, caused hundreds of people to start screaming and just as many to turn and try running away. Panic started immediately, only for Endeavor and Best Jeanist to jump out into the middle of it all and start yelling at the cops and other heroes to calm everyone down immediately. Endeavor yelled while getting cameras to spin to him that they would protect everyone, and they had other heroes start yelling to people as well that they were getting this under control before a stampede could start and someone could get hurt.

As the heroes started an immediate reaction to what had happened, Momo Yaoyorozu sprinted straight ahead past the cops who had all looked back in shock at what just happened. One of the officers turned in and started, "You can't-"

"Call an ambulance!" Yaoyorozu shouted while spinning to the man for a moment. She spun back forward and continued running while yanking her white sweater up over her head, revealing her light purple long-sleeved shirt she had on under it. She ripped her sweater while sprinting towards Zach who lay on the ground with a puddle of red spreading quickly below where he lay on his back. "Stop moving!" Yaoyorozu shouted as she dropped down on Zach's right side. His hand that pressed down on the floor next to him shifted away the smallest amount as Yaoyorozu put her knees down there next to it, and Yaoyorozu's eyes widened at the movement before her heart that ripped at the sight of it raced twice as fast at a glance up at Zach's face.

"Zach! Stay with me! It's not that bad," Yaoyorozu lifted Zach up and she felt around his back while pushing another hand down with part of her sweatshirt over the entry wound.

Ashido and Sero started running forward, yelling at the cops that they had provisional licenses which those men did not need to be shown since they knew the famous teens and just moved aside for them. Mineta was still staring forward in shock, as was Ojiro though he put his arms around Hagakure and pulled her head towards his chest at the scream she finally let out after the immediate shock started wearing off. Midoriya took a step forward to get to Zach, but his head spun and he stopped thinking about going towards him when Yaoyorozu was already running there and ripping her sweater up. He knew that she could do more than he could, as Yaoyorozu could create bandages and other emergency medical supplies they needed right now. As she started doing that though, pulling her shirt down around the collar and popping out medical supplies from her chest that she yelled at Sero and Ashido to help her with, Deku's eyes shifted past them and towards the spot on the ground he saw a bullet slammed into that a few cops behind it were looking towards.

Midoriya looked back towards where Zach had been standing, not where he landed. He lifted his head to the level of Zach's shoulder that was about the same level as his own as they were of similar height. Then he thought about how high above his own head that shot looked to fly, and he turned his head the rest of the way around while moving farther from the front of the crowd to better look over everyone behind him's heads. Mineta looked to the side and up at Midoriya, then his eyes opened wide as he saw what his classmate was doing. Midoriya's legs bent down, and he leapt up very high into the air after judging the angle of the shot based on the three locations he had seen it.

 _The trajectory was almost straight, so it has to be the right side of the road straight ahead. How many buildings are feasible shot locations? They get taller farther out, but how far a shot is possible? How high up to have that angle? Not the first one, but…_ Midoriya kicked himself towards the top of the building closest to him on the other side of the road and the crowd that looked up as Deku went flying over them. Some people started yelling up at him to catch the shooter, and Deku landed down on the roof of the building with his eyes darting over every window on the buildings in front of him. _Someone shot Zach. So many windows are open, but so many people were watching with open windows! Is there smoke? None of the people in those windows are looking at other windows like they saw anything!_

"Zach!" Sero shouted as Zach's shaky eyes were shifting back and forth while he lay on his back. "Stay with me buddy! You're back! Right? You can't go-"

"Sero! Use the scissors and cut his sweatshirt and shirt off! Ashido, now." Yaoyorozu created another bandage and she rose it up below Zach's right shoulder on the upper part of his chest where lots of blood was getting all over her hands. Ashido stuck a needle down into Zach's chest when Yaoyorozu told her to, then Yaoyorozu tilted Zach onto his side, something which caused a lot of movement around the wound and which Yaoyorozu wanted him numb for. The needle Ashido stuck him with was around the hole, and Zach could not feel pain there anymore as he was tilted on his side and Yaoyorozu started pushing down bandages on his back and putting a lot of pressure on them.

Zach's vision was getting hazy, but he shook his head around and blinked a few times. _This doesn't hurt too much._ Zach's unfocused eyes looked from Sero over to Ashido who had a terrified look in her eyes while looking at him which made Zach's face scrunch up and his own eyes to get shakier. Ashido's eyes widened at that look, and she started yelling down at him that he was going to be alright, until her eyes shifted down from his face and she became instantly silent. Sero had cut Zach's clothes from around the wound around his sides, and he pulled off all of Zach's upper layers revealing his chest, stomach, and arms to the three bending over him and the cops who had gathered on their sides.

Yaoyorozu's eyes shifted for a second before she clenched her teeth harder and forced her attention back to Zach's _current_ wound. Sero dropped the scissors and his jaw dropped at the sight of Zach's body. The blood trailed over scars covering his chest and arms and neck. The blood better defined all those wounds, but there were so many that the blood spread and smeared over them and just left indents on his reddening body. Zach's head lifted up a little and he looked down towards his upper body that he felt getting really wet. "Hey- hey hey Zach! Stay with me!" Sero shouted in panic as his eyes finally rose back up too.

Zach's head dropped back down onto the pavement and his eyes felt so tired. Heroes were yelling with the police to get everyone else to calm down, and the crowds were calming more and getting worried about Lifebringer instead of about the sniper who did not seem to be going after anyone else. The new goal of the heroes and the civilians all over the street was to move to the sides enough to clear a path for an ambulance that had its sirens on and was blasting them as loud as possible to tell everyone in front of it to move aside.

Back at Class 3-A's dorm at U.A., Jirou walked out of her room and towards the stairs with a cup in hand. After smashing away at the drums so hard there for a few minutes, she had actually started to tire herself out and needed a glass of water. She heard a loud noise around the corner though and turned her head to see Iida sprinting down the hall towards the staircase. He had a panicked look on his face that got Jirou's mood switching fast and her panting breaths to suck in. "What happened?" Jirou snapped, anger covering her face as she imagined she knew what Iida had been watching. _What did he do-_

Iida stared at the girl with is eyes growing wide and his feet skidding to a stop. _She wasn't watching?!_ "Zach," Iida began, and he saw Jirou's face twist in anger that made his own heart turn over at what he could see she was expecting to hear. _Why am I still here?_ Iida thought in anger at himself for having felt the same way she looked to be, when now… "He was shot on his way out of prison." Iida kept running and he turned into the stairwell to get downstairs where they both heard Kirishima start yelling.

Jirou was frozen in place as she heard the yells coming from downstairs. Her heart pounded and she stared after Iida's back, then she took a step forward, and her foot froze on the ground with her whole body tensing up. She stopped herself cold. Her huge eyes narrowed down, and she just ground her teeth in annoyance before turning back around. _Always something new. He won't die. Not from this._ Jirou walked back towards her door, her hand tightening around her cup and a look of anger splayed over her face. _He probably planned it himself for the media. A plan in motion._

Jirou was not the only one thinking it. Kirishima had his fists balled in hatred though, all directed at himself, for the thoughts he was having after his initial shock and panic. _What is wrong with you?!_ Kirishima roared mentally at himself as his classmates were panicking and trying to figure out what was going on like the reporters on the tv. Uraraka started crying and Koda was trying to tell her that he would be alright, but Uraraka called out in despair that she didn't go to see him for stupid reasons, which had the majority of the people in the room getting guilty and regretful looks over their faces. _He did it to get sympathy- FUCK! NO, he didn't! He got shot!_ Kirishima lifted a hand to the side of his head and gripped through his red hair as he watched an ambulance driving through a path in the crowd on tv. _Zach! Damn it, damn it damn it ALL!_

 _I'm not there right now to help my friend who's dying. I never saw him again, and if I don't, it was because I was acting too stupid!_ Kirishima lowered his hands and he turned to the door of the dorm. "I'm going," he said, and without another word he ran for the building's exit right past Iida without giving the class rep a second glance. Kirishima rose an arm to his face and rubbed it hard across both eyes. _Zach. Don't you die!_

"Deku!" Midoriya turned his head and saw the Flame Hero rise up to the building he was standing on. Endeavor landed behind him and called out, "Any idea where the shooter is?"

Midoriya opened his mouth to reply, but the number of areas he was thinking were too dispersed. There were too many people around them, and it had been too long already with people who had been crowding around backing away from the windows or scattering off. The longer he had looked around for some sign of a location to check, the more hopeless the situation had gotten for him. Deku's mouth closed and with a frustrated expression he just turned back the direction the shot had come from and started shaking his head. Endeavor looked over the younger man's head and stared out at all the buildings a shot could have come from. Endeavor's eyes searched the area, _There are thousands of people who could have done it. If we can find the weapon, we could track the assassin. Was it Eziano? That kid's an idiot, if he really is Death. Death would have known that the assassins were coming for him. Maybe he really isn't Death. Or maybe he was hoping that walking out there without protection would convince Eziano of it, because there's no way Death would be so stupid! Shit! Where is the shooter?!_

"Keep a perimeter up around them until the ambulance arrives," Best Jeanist ordered through the high collar that blocked his mouth from the police chief he gave that order to. "Do not give an angle for the sniper to get a second shot on Sazaki while he's down."

"Best Jeanist!" The third-ranked hero in the country turned and looked towards the man who just called that over to him. A team of special secret service members were around the Prime Minister already, but Nikko held his wife close and called to the hero, "Get us out of here!"

 _They aren't after you. Not if this is what I think it is._ Best Jeanist nodded at the prime minister despite his assumptions, as there was a chance the PM was a target too. The man was also his boss technically, so Best Jeanist nodded and then spun and called out at some other cops to get a convoy together to protect the prime minister and get him and his wife out of there.

The ambulance driving through the crowd was able to speed up as more control was taken by law enforcement after the initial panic. The ambulance with loud sirens and flashing red and blue lights on top of it sped over to the edge of the bridge and then turned and went through the police line that the cops pulled their cars apart from already to make a larger gap. "Move back," Sero called at the cops around him who were crowding close as per other orders but who were also blocking the ambulance to be on the side of the potential shooter. Those nervous cops were happy to move aside, though they stayed close to the edges of the ambulance as it pulled back towards the boy in the puddle of blood on the ground.

Ashido stood up and she brought a hand up to her mouth to cover it, only to stop and have to move her sleeve over her mouth instead as she had too much blood on her hands. Her whole body was shaking, and Sero saw her trembling so much that he moved around and stood at her side. He put an arm around her and said, "He's going to be alright." Sero did not know if he believed it himself, but though Ashido was his ex-girlfriend, she was also one of his closest friends in the world and shaking worse than he had ever seen her before.

Behind them, the four Tartaros workers who had been watching Zach leave were stuck behind the first police line that did not let them rush at the injured former prisoner. Neo had her hands up over her mouth, and she dropped down to her knees which had Ryumo putting a hand down on her shoulder. The Warden was still staring shocked ahead towards the boy as he had been since the kid flew backwards with blood splattering out of him in their direction. Tachibana had a hand lifted up and pushed through her hair, her helmet in her other hand down at her side that just slipped through her fingers as the paramedics got Sazaki up on a stretcher, unmoving.

Zach was lifted on the stretcher and pulled to the back of the ambulance they climbed up into and pulled him inside on. Yaoyorozu was at his side and helping the EMTs get him inside, and she continued putting pressure on his wounds even as there was blood covering her upper body now too and even splashed on her face. One of the EMTs told her she could not come with them, but Yaoyorozu snapped at them, "Get us to the hospital now!" There was no time to argue about it, and the young famous hero was not getting out of the ambulance and did not look like she was going to listen even if they asked again. The man who had told her to get out in the first place just spun his head and shouted to the front to get them out of there.

Zach's vision was hazy and all sound was blurred for him, but he could hear that voice and see the face that his eyes were locked with on his right side. She moved around to let the actual paramedic check on her immediate work and apply more emergency treatment. Yaoyorozu went to Zach's other side as the back doors were slammed shut and the ambulance started driving. She was telling the EMT all she had done so far to try and help him, and the EMTs were basing their work on what she told them had been done so far. After Yaoyorozu finished shouting it, she looked down at his wound and then up at his face again that was tilted to the left now. His eyes were only open a crack but they parted a bit more as she looked towards his face. His vision cleared up, and despite the blood all over him and his wound that was still bleeding badly, he felt relieved at the sight of that face again so close to his. She was on his left side, and Zach's left hand twitched and moved towards her a little so she could take it.

Yaoyorozu looked down at that hand and her breath sucked in. Her own hands trembled as she thought about when she grabbed that hand the last time Zach was laying down all bloody like this, and the feeling she had when that hand lost its grip as he stopped breathing. Her hands only trembled in hesitation for a second though, before she reached forward and grabbed his hand with both of her own. "You're going to make it," Yaoyorozu said, leaning down a bit towards Zach's face. His eyes were closing already, just a small smile on his face even as his hand loosened its grip. "You hear me? Zach! You're going to make…" Zach's eyes closed and his hand slipped from Yaoyorozu's.

* * *

 **A/N ... Well, Zach's out of prison. Put a few hints about the new prime minister last chapter, but now he's been elected and has pardoned Zach Sazaki of his crimes. Wonder if anyone saw that coming, but within the same chapter Zach has now been shot! His big release from prison party has fallen into chaos and Zach's getting taken by ambulance away. Is he dead?! Again!? We'll see. Hope you enjoyed the chapter, tell me what you think in a review below or comments/predictions/questions for the story ahead!**


	141. Chapter 141

**Disclaimer: I don't own Boku no Hero Academia**

 **Chapter 141:**

 _Am I dead? No, I'm Death. Or I was. Well I wasn't, but I was. Zach wasn't. I'm Zach. So I wasn't. I'm not dead. I know what death is like. Way too much thinking happening here. Why is it so dark though?_

 _Oh, my eyes are closed,_ Zach's eyes parted open a crack. He realized they were closed because he started to hear things. They were around him and he knew he was awake; the darkness had just had him feeling very dead there for a minute. His thoughts had only just started so he figured he was waking up, though he also remembered not really going to sleep. In his head he recalled getting shot and then a lot of blurry stuff following that.

Zach slid up a bit and shimmied his back up the headboard of his hospital bed. His eyes opened more and he took in a deep breath, a sad look on his face as he thought about the expressions of Sero and Ashido as they panicked and tried stopping the bleeding of his wound. Then Zach turned his head to the left and looked at the seat next to his bed. He stared at the third person who he recalled in those blurry memories hovering over him. She was sitting on the left side of his hospital bed, her head bowed but her body not slouched much like she had just nodded off and never got comfortable.

It was light outside on Zach's right, and he turned back that way after looking at the girl on his left for a few seconds. _What's she- It's bright out. If she's asleep, it's probably not the same day. What if I've been in a coma for years? She's wearing something different, and she's not bloody… but she doesn't look more than a day older than yesterday. Was it yesterday? I'm going with yesterday. She's probably been up all night and- What hospital am I in? I assume they brought me to the closest one. There would be no point in bringing me anywhere else. Rairosu is no different from Musutafu. It's not like they'd be bringing me closer to home. I don't have a home. My clothes are gone now. They took the only weapons I brought back with me. I have no belongings._

Zach sighed and he lowered his head to look down at the white bed sheets over him. He shifted his gaze to his right shoulder that was wrapped in many white bandages that went down his right arm over his bicep as well as wrapped around his whole upper body and tight to his sides. The white bandages wrapped him vertically and horizontally, covering much of his torso and the wound that he suspected was somewhere beneath it all though he was feeling sore all over his upper right side. _Where is it?_ Zach focused in on the spot where he felt the sharpest pain when moving his right arm, which he knew he was not supposed to do considering that arm was in a sling over his chest.

"Zach?"

Momo Yaoyorozu stared at the boy in front of her who was partially turned the other way with his head bowed. Zach lifted his gaze from his arm and then turned his head the other direction. He looked at the young woman on a chair who had her head lifted and was staring back at him in shock that he was awake and sitting up. Yaoyorozu stared at him right in his hazel eyes and the two of them sat there in silence for several seconds. They just looked at each other.

Yaoyorozu examined the boy who was taller than her now, something she noticed as he had been walking towards her the day before but could see better with them sitting up close like this. Zach was six feet and one inch tall, his hair fell long around his body with some bangs over his forehead more messy than they were the day before as he had fixed it up a little before walking out in front of everyone. Yaoyorozu looked from his eyes down to his neck, to below the bandages and then to his left arm that her eyes softened more at while looking back into Zach's that got a slightly darker and also hesitant look to them at her glance down there.

 _What are you doing here?_ Zach thought, staring into Yaoyorozu's eyes from only a few feet away. The large scar covering the bottom left side of his face cutting down over his chin onto his neck, the deeper split on his left ear, and the marks on his neck were all new and clear for Yaoyorozu to look at. She had been thinking about them for months since the video she saw of Zach at his sentencing, but the look in his eyes did not give her any clarity as to what had happened to him. He stared at the girl who looked older than the last time he had seen her; more mature. She was a little taller herself, though her hair was up in the same style he recognized it the most in, and she was as beautiful as he remembered her. _I- can't. I didn't even- not once…_

"Zach," Yaoyorozu finally said, speaking his name and looking for the reaction in his eyes.

He nodded his head as if responding, though she had not asked him a question. His lips lifted up at the corners as he smiled at her. It was a warm, happy smile and Zach's eyes steadied as he looked into her gray ones, "Hey." _She came to see me, even though I didn't accept any visitors. Even though for months I've been, ignoring you. And I would have for years._ Zach turned his body a little more to Yaoyorozu but she held up a hand for him not to move.

Her eyes went to his right shoulder and the exact location of his wound on his upper chest. "Don't move around," she said, her voice quiet. Zach nodded in response and stayed still. Yaoyorozu looked back up into his eyes and then down to his left arm again. Zach grimaced as she looked to it again, and he lowered his eyes down as Yaoyorozu said softly, "The scars are in the same place." Her eyes rose up his arm to around his shoulder, to the thin line that wrapped around under his armpit and up over the top of his arm.

Zach looked down to his left and then lifted his head a bit and said, "I meant to keep it a secret."

Yaoyorozu lifted her eyes a little more and into Zach's. "I won't tell anyone," she whispered.

The two of them fell quiet again just sitting there looking at each other. Zach's face scrunched up and he could not hold his silence at her expression. She was not waiting for anything, nor was she saying anything to him, or _at_ him, and he could not hold his tongue. "I'm-" Zach started. He shook his head once and his forehead wrinkled while his eyes squinted and his breathing got harder. "Momo, I need to-" Zach stopped.

Yaoyorozu could see what he was doing when he started right there. She wanted to let him say it, the apology that it seemed like he was going to tell her. He froze though. He froze and gulped, and his lips lifted into a smile even as his eyes looked to be getting wet. "What?" Yaoyorozu asked, having no idea as to what this reaction was for.

Zach started to shake his head, but he stopped doing that too and closed his eyes fully to hold back those tears he felt without wanting them to form in the first place. He took in a deep breath, _As much as possible. As often as I can, I don't want to lie._ "I was really afraid," Zach began. He opened his eyes and looked into Momo's before continuing, "That if I said it, you would say 'call me Yaoyorozu.'" Zach said it and then pursed his lips as the girl before him shook her head with a look showing he did not need to be worried about that. He pursed his lips hard though and his eyes got frustrated, and confused, even though he wanted to just feel happy at what he was seeing. "How?" Zach whispered, his voice coming out hoarser than he thought it would.

Yaoyorozu stopped shaking her head and looked into Zach's eyes. She saw him stare at her in a desperate way, and though she was not shocked by his look she still opened her eyes wider as he started louder and faster at her, "How are you not- why are you not scolding me, or more mad? I killed people and- Why are you even here with me, after what I did to you?" Zach asked it all without thinking much, the words coming to mind just spilling out of his mouth with no restraint. _Why am I doing this?! She is here, why tell her to leave- but why is she- isn't she angry?! She's just, looking at me like-_

Yaoyorozu's expression stayed calm and her lips flat as she shook her head at Zach again. Then she stopped and stared him straight in the eyes while speaking firmly, "Did you think I cared about you so little, that what you did would really change that?"

Zach's bottom lip dropped and his breath got stuck in his throat for a second. "But- but I-"

"I am upset," Yaoyorozu continued before Zach could counter her. "About the things you did. You're right about those things you said, but you're back now and I'm here for you if you need me." Zach closed his eyes at her response and he bowed his head. She continued to the top of his dark hair, "I needed you to know that, and I'm sad that you wouldn't let me tell you while you were in jail, while you were so close but still out of reach." Yaoyorozu paused and then added in a lower voice, "Intentionally."

Zach rose his head back up and he pulled his head back a couple inches at the look she was giving him now. "I-" Zach began. He paused and thought about the reasons he had for not accepting any visitors while in Tartaros. "I just-"

Yaoyorozu pulled out her phone and Zach stopped trying so hard to force himself as she looked down at it and started typing. "We don't have to, right now," she started. Before he could argue, she continued quickly, "The others are all here and I've texted them that you woke up." Zach's eyes widened and Yaoyorozu stood up from her seat while putting her phone back in her pocket. She grabbed a hospital gown off the side table next to his bed and handed it to Zach who grabbed it with his left hand while she continued speaking to him. "They all needed to know that you were alright. I could not keep them in waiting any longer, but," Yaoyorozu paused and she looked into Zach's eyes hesitantly. He had been worried she was about to turn away and walk out after just coming to say what she needed to, like he had been so worried about for so long. Instead, she hesitated and then finished, "We'll talk again, soon, okay?"

Zach opened his mouth, then he just started to nod his head but the door to the room slid open too fast for him to get anything out. Yaoyorozu stepped to the side, giving Zach a clear view of the entrance and the group that just came rushing into his hospital room. He slid into his gown while they were rushing in, and when his head was back through it there were already eight others from Class A inside his room besides Yaoyorozu. Uraraka, Iida, Sero, Mineta, Ashido, Hagakure, Ojiro, and Sato were all inside already but they slowed down after entering and seeing Zach sitting up and slipping into something to cover himself up with. He looked towards them appearing to be fine, and he gave them a smile of reassurance at the worried looks that were already starting to fade from their faces.

Deku jogged into the room and he moved his way to the front to get a good look at Zach and make sure he was alright. As Koda, Tokoyami, Aoyama, and Shoji made their ways into the room, Deku stopped at the foot of Zach's bed and looked ahead into his old friend's eyes. He let out a breath of relief and Zach smiled as he saw Deku do so. Then Zach turned and watched as the other third years headed inside and all moved to spots where they could see him without being blocked by their classmates. _Did everyone come?_ Zach thought, in amazement and shock at just how many of them were coming in. _It's the break between terms I guess… One last term of high school._

Asui was slower to walk into the room than the others, but she still made her way up to the front as one of the shortest in the class. She stepped up to Mineta's right side, and Zach stared towards her with his eyes growing wide. Then he turned next to her at Mineta who was an inch taller than her. "Someone hit a growth spurt," Zach said. It was the first thing any of them had heard from him in a year and a half, other than the 'I'm sorry' he said when looking at the camera during his trial.

Mineta gawked at Zach too for a second just as many of the others around him did, but he was also one of the quickest to lose that gawking expression. "You're one to talk," he said, and Tsuyu looked to her left at the boy with purple balls on his head who had grown a lot in the last year. She looked back at Zach though and agreed with what Mineta said as she stared at the boy who was so different, more than just growing taller.

Iida calmed down after rushing into the room with the others. When he saw Zach actually sitting up and looking alright, the feelings he had had before started to well back up inside him. His face covered in frustration after the first thing Zach said, and Zach looked to one side of him where Iida was standing, and he lowered his lips down into more of a frown at his taller friend's look. Iida was now the tallest one in Class 3-A at six and a half feet tall, and Zach could not avoid seeing his face. Deku saw Zach looking back and he thought towards the scar-faced boy, _A lot of the people in this room have problems with what you did and didn't want to see you. Seeing you almost die while they all had so much they needed to say made them come to the hospital but, but the feelings that felt so petty just a few minutes ago are getting stronger again. They didn't want to let them get in the way, but seeing that you're going to be alright, there's no rush anymore._

One of the people whose thoughts matched what Deku was thinking about too well was still standing back in the doorway, looking between people and towards Zach in a frustrated and upset way. Kirishima started walking forward though, unlike Bakugo who just stood to the side though in a spot that was easy enough to see Zach from. Kirishima had frozen after looking at the text from Yaoyorozu, walked his way slowly behind everyone else and came behind even Tsuyu who had stopped herself outside the door for a few seconds after everyone else had run inside.

"Zach," Ashido started while Kirishima was walking up behind her. She stepped forward closer to Zach's bed, and she pursed her lips for a second before curving them up into a giant smile at his reassuring look and the nod he gave her. "I was, really…" Ashido shook her head fast to get the thought of Zach dying on the ground in a puddle of his blood out of her head. She smirked instead and leaned her head in, asking, "So, what were you doing while you were gone?"

"Are you Death?" Sero asked.

There were many in the room around Sero who wanted to ask that question in a much more serious tone or while cross-checking Zach on his story. So many of them being there at the same time with them thinking different things about him made that difficult though. Zach shook his head at Sero which had half a dozen of his former classmates frowning at him for lying before a word had come out of his mouth. Zach started without laughing or treating it as a joke, "No. I get why you'd think I was, since they asked me about it for a few hours at my trial and right after I came back. One of the only things I told them was just how I'm not Death, but hey, they didn't believe me either."

Zach shrugged as he finished, glancing over at Midoriya and then Iida. His eyes shifted over to Tokoyami and then to the back at Bakugo, before pulling back close and into Kirishima's eyes. Kirishima glared back into his and Zach felt a pain inside at that look he had yet to receive from his other old classmates. "You didn't tell them anything?" Kirishima asked, as Zach just made it sound like he had only told the judge a certain few things. "How'd you get away with that?"

Ashido turned to her side and back at Kirishima with a frown at his tone, but Kirishima just kept staring ahead and into Zach's eyes. Zach shrugged his left shoulder inside the blue sleeve of his hospital gown, and he responded, "I wasn't on trial for what I'd been doing, so I didn't tell them." He said it like it was simple but the answer boggled his friends who had thought for months that Zach must have tricked the judge and officials to only be charged with the Lifebringer Incident. Sero lowered his bottom lip and Tokoyami's beak parted a bit, and the others all stared at their classmate who took in a deep breath before looking around at them all. Zach continued, "I cooperated and pled guilty to everything I did in that forest. Because I was guilty," Zach paused and then said in a lower, regretful tone, "and I'm sorry. For everything." Zach looked back at Kirishima who balled his fists hard at his sides as Zach tried to apologize just like that.

Mineta's face started to get a little more serious but he just looked away himself as it was hard to stare at Zach in a way saying he did not forgive him after making eye contact with his old friend. Sero smiled too after hearing the apology, something he was waiting for and did not think he would feel satisfied unless it was one of the first things out of Zach's mouth. He had initially wanted Zach to say that first thing, but his own question slowed Zach from getting to it, as did Zach's surprise at seeing how tall Mineta had gotten.

 _Jirou and Todoroki didn't come,_ Zach thought while making eye contact with his friends one by one. "I shouldn't have done, what I did that night. It was wrong. Killing those people. Whatever my reasons, whatever state I was in, it wasn't right. I don't think it was." Zach's eyebrows dipped down near his nose and he scrunched his face up while continuing towards Deku, "And I'm sorry, for the other things I lied about. The anti-heroes and, what I was really doing with the villains other than being Lifebringer." Zach looked towards Shoji and he lowered the right corner of his lips with a tsk as he was hesitating and needed to keep this up. "I'm just, sorry. For all of it. I was wrong."

"Is that why you came back?" Hagakure asked. The invisible girl on the right side of the foot of Zach's bed stepped a little closer to it and asked when he looked towards her, "Why you turned yourself in?"

 _Why is he really here?_ Shoji thought.

 _Could that really be all it was?_ Uraraka wondered hopefully.

 _What's he really planning?_ Sato thought, a frustrated expression crossing his face at the doubt he already felt from what Zach was saying.

Zach looked ahead of him. He looked to the foot of his bed with a glance at Midoriya. In his head appeared news' stories he had seen before getting thrown into prison. _Other countries talked about you too. Deku, stopping villain incidents so fast just as an intern for Lemillion. Someone compared you to All Might, the speed and power you used in that battle they only caught glimpses of. All Might. Stopping every villain attack with ease, saving people everywhere, you could do that. Just a little longer…_

Zach rose his head up a bit and a serious expression covered his face. "I'm looking for All For One."

Everyone stared towards their classmate in different levels of surprise at his answer. He did not say whether or not he came back because he was sorry and that he thought he was wrong. The response showed that he had a different reason without denying what Hagakure said, though to some it sounded like he was saying that what she asked was not it. His actual reason still had them staring at him without getting too angry though that it was not the reason as most had hoped. Mineta was more focused on the response though, and he asked with a nervous look over his face, "What about what you said in the forest? About All For One being down for good, too messed up to fight?"

Zach took his eyes off of Midoriya and looked to Mineta with a dark look. "I heard rumors on my travels. Discovered things, secrets," a grin cracked on his face after Mineta's eyes opened huge there. The dark and mysterious look was gone and Zach said while leaning back, "But really, I just decided to come back and face up for my crimes." He leaned back on the headboard behind him and said in a steady but quieter voice, "I realized, I was just being a coward in the forest. I ran off so I wouldn't have to face the music for what I'd done, again. That was," he paused and looked back down and around at the people he had left in that forest. "Stupid."

"You really think so?" Ojiro asked.

Zach turned to his right and nodded at the blond. "I mean it. I'm sorry, for the stupid way I did that."

"'Stupid?'" Iida questioned his wording. Zach looked back at the tall boy who had calmed down and reverted to the feelings he had when he declined going to see Zach get out of prison with Midoriya. He glared at his former classmate and then said in an intense and mad voice, "What you did was… Reckless. You knew what- doing things like that-"

 _Because of Stain, you could never accept it. I know, Iida._ Zach stared Iida's way as he thought that, pushing his thoughts outwards with his expression that had Iida getting more frustrated at the understanding and knowing look in his eyes. "I didn't though," Zach said. He looked at Iida and shook his head, and he said lower, "Because I was playing at being an anti-hero the whole time. I played stupid games, and I won stupid prizes." Zach's eyes darkened but he kept it apologetic as he looked at his old classmate, "But Iida, I'm not breaking the rules anymore. I've decided, never to break them again." Zach's face started to light back up and he leaned his head back and said louder, "I'm all about the rules now. Mr. Rules, ready to…" Zach hesitated and then just finished there instead of continuing the sentence.

"What are you doing now?" Midoriya asked.

It was a question many of them wanted to ask, and the room looked closely at their old classmate to see how he responded. Bakugo glared his way and his eyes narrowed as he awaited the response. _Don't say it,_ Bakugo thought darkly.

"Are you," Ashido started, a look of hope in her eyes.

"I'm going to try and be a hero," Zach replied. He continued before anyone's faces could lift or get more upset, "I'll be attempting to get my provisional hero license again. It was revoked, but because it was a full pardon and not just a reduction of my sentence, I'm free to take a test to become a hero. Plus, I heard from my lawyer that the prime minister plans to hold a new licensing exam soon. I think he wants to give me a chance to get my license back, though anyone else who failed last year or wants to take it the first time will be able to take the test too. It's technically just another test, but it'll actually be my first time ever taking it." He added that part at the end since he was just granted his provisional license the last time without a test.

"You're really, going to try and be a hero?" Kirishima asked. Zach looked back to the redhead and nodded. He tried to give Kirishima a smile, but his old friend glared at him at that look and clenched his fists harder. "After everything you did, you're just going to come back and act like none of it happened?"

"That's not what I'm doing," Zach started.

"Yeah? And what about what you did that year you were gone?" Kirishima asked. His eyes narrowed and Zach paused at the dark look covering Kirishima's face. "You haven't said a word about it. You just going to act like it doesn't matter? All you did."

"If you want to ask me, then go ahead," Zach said, shaking his head and trying to stay neutral with his response. He saw some confused looks around the room including Kirishima's, though Kirishima's stayed very angry behind that confusion. Zach continued while glancing around at them, "I said I didn't tell them at my trial, because I didn't have to. I didn't take the stand and they didn't have proof of anything I did. And I didn't feel like trying to explain everything to a bunch of people I didn't care to-"

"Then what were you doing?" Sato asked. "If you weren't Death," he added, and he still gave Zach an unsure look after mentioning it. Sato's look was less skeptical than half the people in the room's though, which Zach noticed and kept his expression flat even at the sight of.

"I left the country, and I went to America."

"I knew it," Ashido cut in, before stopping herself as she wanted Zach to be able to continue.

"Uh, only because I told you," Sero began.

"Stop," Kirishima grumbled, darting a look over at the black-haired teen who lowered his smile and got an awkward look on his face instead. Zach could only see intense and examining expressions or awkward ones around the room from people trying to not cut into the mood as it was too low for any smiles to raise it. Kirishima glared into Zach's eyes with his red ones and awaited Zach to continue, as so far he did not think Zach was lying though he could not tell or call him out on it.

"I went to America. After we crossed the Pacific, I split up with Gentle and La Brava. Then I tried to, act as a vigilante," Zach paused and he shook his head with a low smile forming on it. Many of the others noticed something there but kept quiet about it for now as much as they got uneasy feelings, and Zach continued, "I did that for a few months, and I heard about Death. I thought about going to join them, but I never did," he rose his head and shook it as he said that. He focused specifically on some of the people who had unbelieving looks on their faces. Zach looked over towards Ojiro who looked willing to listen to him, and he continued, "After I came back I heard about a lot of the things they did though, and I was glad I didn't join them. They killed- I mean I did too, but I understand that what I did was wrong now. No matter what the outcomes people might consider what I did were, it was wrong of me to do-"

"Hold on," Kirishima muttered, and he had a hand lifted rubbing the side of his head through his spiky hair. "What are you-" he paused as asking what Zach was 'talking about' could have made him start talking about anything. Kirishima was too lost though, and he snapped, "What do you mean, after you came back? Where did you go?"

Zach grimaced and he hesitated again like he did after he said how he had never joined Death. He looked away towards the windows, and Ojiro asked the boy with long hair sitting in front of them. "What? Can't you tell us?"

"It's not that," Zach started. He looked back at Ojiro and then said, "It's just so unbelievable, and I've already lied to you guys a thousand times. There's no reason-"

"Where did you go?" Midoriya asked, shaking his head and looking closer at Zach who turned back and just grimaced harder at Midoriya's look.

 _He clearly isn't going to believe anything I tell him. Why does he care about the lie so much then? He just wants to hear the excuse I give, but I know he thinks I'm Death._ Zach sighed and he rose his left hand to his head, rubbing his forehead under his bangs for a second. "I, was chasing after this thief. She could create Doorways, opening holes in walls and slipping through to the other side. I chased her-"

"Was that girl with you?" Tsuyu asked.

Zach looked towards the girl with dark green hair who had not said anything to him yet. He paused and she stared into his eyes with her big frog-like ones. Tsuyu thought about when Zach had grabbed that girl while surrounded in his black aura, and how he was slow to let go of her only for her to be perfectly fine. Just like she was fine when she wrapped her tongue around his body to catch him from a falling office building. "Yeah," Kirishima started, and Zach looked back towards another classmate he had brought back to life before. Kirishima glared into his eyes and finished in a more snide voice with his eyes narrowed down, "What about your, 'darling?'"

"I won't say," Zach replied. He stared straight into Kirishima's eyes while saying it which made his fists clench harder just like his teeth as his eyes narrowed more at his old friend.

"'You won't say?'" Kirishima repeated.

"Zach, what did-" Uraraka started, feeling pained even though she wanted to give him the benefit of the doubt.

Iida's eyes were dark though and he began, "You got a girl who had brought you back to life-"

"She was crazy-" Midoriya started.

Zach's eyes coldly shifted over to Midoriya which cut him off as well as the others who started talking to him at the same time about this. "You don't know anything about her," Zach said. His voice was dark, and cold, and he took that tone for the first time since the others had seen him that had them shutting up and staring at their dark classmate covered in scars. "Don't talk about Darling, like you know her," Zach said. He referred to her by the word that Kirishima said so snidely, in a way that made it sound less like a term of endearment and more of an actual name.

Yaoyorozu stared towards Zach's bed with her eyes wide for a second, though she brought them back to normal size and repeated what he just said in her own head. _We don't know, anything._

"Then tell us," Hagakure started, feeling like the others around her were getting increasingly hostile from Zach's response.

He shook his head though. "I won't. I'll tell you guys anything you want, but I won't talk about her. I won't put her in danger."

Sero's eyes opened wide and he thought about those things they heard outside of Zach's room the night of Kaminari's betrayal. His eyes shifted down to the floor for a second, thinking about the look on that girl's face on top of the truck. He heard Zach telling her to shoot them, and he saw the creepy but cute girl smiling at his order. _I really, don't know anything though._ "You told her to shoot us," Sero began. He looked at Zach and his old friend looked at him while opening his mouth to defend himself, but Sero continued, "So that we wouldn't chase after you, right?"

Zach froze with his mouth open, and then he just nodded instead of defending himself as it was not needed. He took another second's pause and then added softer, "She wouldn't have shot. She knew, I didn't want that."

"You took her with-" Kirishima began. Zach started looking back up with his gaze darker again, but Kirishima's teeth were grinding and he glared furiously at his old friend. "You were telling a story, right? Telling us where you were all that time?"

Zach glared back into Kirishima's eyes for a second more before softening his look and nodding his head. "Yeah. I was chasing a thief. She was… She had a Quirk that could open Doorways. I followed her and chased her all night, and then I chased her to this final Doorway she made underground. I thought it would lead into a sewer or old subway system, but when we went through that door…" Zach paused and his eyes started to brighten even as he kept his expression steady. In his mind he saw bright green fields, and crazy creatures that had filled his imagination, an entire world appeared before him. "Quirks really are, amazing," Zach whispered quieter.

He rose his head up and looked away from any of his classmates while imagining Terra. "I went through that Doorway, and instead of popping me out on the other side of a wall, the door acted as a portal. To a whole new world."

Most of Zach's classmates stared at him in disbelief. A few who did not even believe Zach in the slightest just gained darker looks on their faces at the story even as it was just starting. Zach lowered his head and he continued, "I know it's hard to believe. I thought that maybe I had entered into my own mind or hers, but the people in that world were as real as you or me. There was no way I could ever hallucinate the things I saw there, in the world of Terra."

"Are you serious?" Mineta asked.

Zach nodded once at the short boy who continued to look at him in even more disbelief that Zach was sticking with it and not saying that he was joking. "I was brought into a parallel world by her Quirk. Into a place that was similar to our world but yet so different. Quirks had been around for tens of thousands of years. There were mythical creatures from this world there in that one just walking around and, massive empires and continents, oceans full of beasts and powers beyond belief. I thought for a while that maybe she had created that world. The woman with the Doorway Quirk, but I realized that she could create pathways to other worlds, or at least to the one I was in. At the time I thought it was only the two;" his friends started staring at him with their bottom lips lowering even more at how he was about to continue that they saw coming. "I only learned later on that she could create pathways to other realms besides the one I was trapped in for the first several months."

"You weren't even on Earth?" Ojiro asked. "Are you- are you serious?"

"Of course he's not," Kirishima muttered loudly, glaring at Zach who glanced his way before turning to Ojiro again and nodding, which made Kirishima bite down in more anger as his doubt was ignored.

"I came to understand the people of that world. I believed they were as real as anyone here, even if they looked more like magical beasts: centaurs, goat-men, goblins and orcs, dwarves and elves. I think that maybe the people who first came up with those creatures on this world may have come in contact with that alternate world at some point because the trolls there looked _exactly_ like trolls I had seen in movies." Zach paused for a second and then he shook his head and stopped talking in such a carefree tone with a smile on his face. He lowered his voice and spoke darker, "The Doorway Quirk user was the Queen of Arcasia, an evil kingdom spreading its borders and abusing its own people and the ones of different lands."

His friends who had been shocked by what he was saying just stared at him in even more stunned silence. Kirishima started to open his eyes bigger too, and the ones who were not believing anything Zach was saying rose their eyebrows up and stared closer at him in confusion at what he was doing. Midoriya and Iida got hesitant looks on their faces at the darker one forming on Zach's, and Bakugo's annoyed and skeptical look transformed a bit as he stared at the strange expression on Zach's face. Yaoyorozu was looking at him carefully, and her heart raced as Zach rose his head with a colder look in his eyes than she had ever seen before. There was something different about his look now, that even though he did not look as dark or sad or angry as some of the emotional times she had seen him before, this was different. _What, happened?_

"So I went to war," Zach said. He looked a couple of his classmates in the eyes. He turned to Tokoyami who had looked not to believe him at all before, and he looked darkly into the bird boy's eyes that grew larger at his cold gaze. "That world was always at war, and I became a- soldier. Quirk warfare, was," Zach paused and in his head flashed a hundred images all at once, and the figures in those images started getting pointier ears and holding swords instead of assault rifles. The Quirks being used were still being used though, and Zach continued in a low voice, "We would win the war. After seven months in that world, I would lead my forces on the Queen's capital. I came to lead the allied forces fighting against her. When I left here," Zach started again, his tone changing and his eyes rising back to look in his classmates' eyes in a slightly lighter way that the way he had just been looking. "This world was still chaotic and with crime rates higher than they had ever been. But when I came back, in late May, things had changed."

"And you think the Army of Death had something to do with that?" Midoriya asked.

Zach looked towards the muscular teen with curly green hair and a disapproving look on his face towards him. Zach scrunched his face up and he said, "There something you want to say, Midoriya?"

"What he's implying," Kirishima started, and Zach turned to the redhead who was glaring at him in such a pissed-off way with his fists curled angrily at his sides. "Is that you were one of those terrorists." Kirishima kept glaring at Zach even as Zach's eyes narrowed in a darker way back at him. _You think I'm buying any of that bullshit?!_ Kirishima did not fully believe Zach was in the Army of Death himself, but he believed it a lot more than he believed the story he just heard no matter how convincing Zach looked while saying it. He glared at Zach and then lifted one corner of his mouth at the way Zach was already reacting to the way he called them 'terrorists.' Kirishima continued while giving that sharp-toothed smirk at him, "One of the pathetic Army of Death members who are too cowardly to show their faces-"

"Hey Kirishima," Zach started. He leaned his head towards the redhead and then growled straight at his face, "Fuck you." Kirishima's eyes bulged and his smile dropped down before twisting in rage at that response. The others around the room gawked at Zach as he said that after apologizing so hard to them just a couple minute ago. "If you really think I'm one of those 'terrorists,' then fuck you."

"You're practically admitting it with-" Kirishima started.

"If you think I'm one of them, those people out there right now fighting villains and dying," Zach interrupted the muscular teen who stomped closer to his bed while countering him there. Kirishima froze and his eyes grew huge again, staying that way at the furious and also hurt look covering Zach's face at what he was saying. "And you're calling them pathetic, straight to my face. People who you think I fought side by side with as comrades, as brothers and sisters in arms. You might not agree with them but they're people who died and we all know they died, so if you really think I'm one of them, then yeah, fuck you. I thought you were more heroic than that, to say something like that to my face just to get a reaction out of me." Kirishima was frozen in place and then his fists started shaking so much angrier at what Zach was saying which made sense to him and was just hurting him more inside. Zach finished darkly to him, "I didn't think of you as a person who would insult the dead who fought villains without caring about recognition-"

"You don't know what kind of person I am," Kirishima snapped. Others were about to cut in for him, but Kirishima glared into Zach's eyes and then shook his head right as Zach's expression started to soften. "You have no idea, after being gone for a year and a half. You don't know me at all. Just like I didn't know you." Zach's look got guiltier while Kirishima just eased back and lost as furious a one that he had. He turned away and growled under his breath, "I didn't think of you as a person who would massacre six people, like it was nothing. But I guess we were both wrong." Kirishima's teeth clenched after he said it, glaring away and then just tssking and turning fully when Zach looked to be about to defend himself.

Zach stopped. He looked around at the others and saw most of them looking confused and conflicted. A lot who he felt had started listening to him about his story to traveling to another world were just frowning at him or had sadder looks on their faces now after what he just said. Zach shook his head at their looks though and said, "I know what it might look like, me defending them and all, but I wasn't one of them. I just- I don't think of them as villains." The others stared at Zach and looked into his eyes as he spoke strongly and without hiding what was not a popular viewpoint to have. "I know they do wrong. They kill people and they deserve to be in prison and stopped by heroes. But they're out there fighting villains, getting killed by villains, and I think they do it to try and make the world a safer place for everyone."

He looked around and then straight at Midoriya who looked back into his eyes. Midoriya was skeptical but also did not feel like Zach was lying about everything he was saying, though he could not tell if he should believe that or just accept that everything Zach said was a lie to get them thinking a certain way about him. Zach saw that but tried anyway, "As I said, I thought about joining them. But while I was gone, I realized I had to turn myself in. I figured out that I was lying even to myself, and that I wasn't coming back because I was too scared, to face you guys. I still was, even after I returned," Zach added in a lower voice, looking down while the people who had come to visit him in Tartaros stared wide-eyed at their classmate. "I'm sorry. Coming back like this, after everything I said, after those goodbyes that were meant to be for good."

"Yeah, they felt like it," Mineta said softly. "I didn't think you'd ever come back."

"Yeah!" Ashido exclaimed. She did not sound angry but mock upset as she leaned forward with her hands on her hips, which was an attempt to change the mood of the room in itself, "You totally sounded like you were gone forever in your letter-" Ashido froze and covered up her mouth fast.

Bakugo looked over towards the pink girl and his eyes narrowed down at what she just said. Then they rose back up and his eyes grew huge while shifting around at the others in the room.

"You got one-" Sato began, before cursing himself at the stupidity of what he was doing. He saw a lot of the others around him look to him in surprise too, but not _that_ much surprise that he started looking back at them in questioning gazes himself.

Midoriya looked around him and his bottom lip lowered as everyone in the room was glancing at each other with stunned questioning looks. Zach got a small smile on his face as he watched them, and he glanced to his left over to where Yaoyorozu was standing only to see a semi-confused look on her face that made him turn back forward before she could look his way. _Huh?_

"Wait, did-" Mineta began. He glanced at Zach in hesitation about saying it, but then he looked around and asked, "Did everyone get one?"

No one really responded against it, though Bakugo was glaring at them all from farther back in the room. Yaoyorozu looked towards Zach herself in a questioning way but he did not look to her while just cracking a small smile for the others all looking at him now. "Hey! You wrote that not everyone got one!" Hagakure said in frustration at the boy who chuckled at her fake upset complaint.

"Not everyone did," Zach said. He looked behind the others in front of him and said, "I figured Bakugo would just blow it up before reading it, so I didn't leave one behind for him."

Bakugo glared straight at Zach past everyone, but he had a strange feeling that what he just heard was not actually a lie. _I would have,_ Bakugo agreed in his head. That just made him more pissed off though, the fact that Zach thought he knew him well enough to make that prediction. Bakugo humphed and turned his head towards the door, and he took a step towards it tired of all this already. _Trying to be a hero. He didn't mention anything about coming back, and he cut off Ashido. He's bullshitting his way through it all-_

"Bakugo wait," Zach said, leaning up more on his bed.

Bakugo narrowed his eyes more that Zach was trying to stop him. He turned his head to the side and looked back across the room and all the others who were looking back and forth from him to Zach. "What? I just came to-"

Before Bakugo could give his reason, Zach continued, "I need to talk to you and Midoriya alone, after." Bakugo stopped talking and his mouth closed, his eyes getting more questioning and also darker at the teen with long black hair. Zach looked to Midoriya after saying it and then to Bakugo again, "Just for a second, I promise."

"Fine," Bakugo snapped, leaning against the inside of the door instead of walking out. _What does he have?_

"Telling secrets already?" Tokoyami said, and he shook his head when Zach looked to him.

"They aren't my secrets to tell," Zach responded without looking apologetic for what he was doing. Tokoyami leaned back in some surprise at the answer, but he thought about what had happened to the anti-heroes based on Zach giving away secrets before and nodded his head in understanding. _That Darling, and whatever this secret is, he does not keep them for his own protection. Though the others, the other lies he is telling which I am sure… He is Death, isn't he? I was certain, for so long…_

"Hey Zach," Uraraka started. She wanted to get off of such strange topics as every new conversation seemed to be getting confrontational. There were a lot of things she wanted to ask too, but the things she wanted to question him about with the strange world he had mentioned she also felt might start controversy from the others who did not believe it at all. She looked towards his neck though and to his left cheek and the big scar on it curving down under his chin. "You have a lot of new scars. Did, something happen?" Uraraka asked.

Zach hummed and he rose up his left hand and rubbed at his neck with it. There was a red mark around his entire neck, with thin scars on the front and left sides, as well as darker scar tissue higher up his neck on the left leading up to the one on his chin and cheek. He moved his hand from his neck and pointed at it on the right side more where it was just the red marks, and he started, "I had to wear a collar for a little, and I had my throat slit too." His hand shifted a little to the scar on the front of it. Zach ignored his classmates' shocked expressions and continued, "Luckily it was shallow and I was able to hold it closed until it got sealed, and a different time someone got me on the left side of my neck with this fast Quirk I could only pull just far enough away from." Zach moved his head to the right fast and cocked his neck to show the scar there too. _Back when fighting Arma was actually a challenge,_ he thought and lifted a small grin as he did.

 _He, had to wear a collar?_ Sato thought with his forehead wrinkled and his eyes confused.

 _How the hell is he smiling right now, saying his throat got slit?_ Ojiro felt unnerved by it. _Then again, would we all be feeling so dark and apologetic, if he treated it like horrible things? Then when we leave, some of us might have thought he said that stuff just to get us feeling bad… Does he not want us to? He wants us to think he's… or does he know some of us might think this?_ Ojiro looked down in a more sad way at the floor. _I don't trust him at all._

Zach rose his head back up and he motioned at the bottom left side of his face. He pointed at the most noticeable and biggest scar, and he said to the anxiously awaiting group, "Oh, and I cut myself shaving." He ended it on a lighthearted tone while looking back at Uraraka, but her eyes were just soft and sad as she was stuck on what he said about the collar too. The part he mentioned about cutting himself shaving was a joke too, but it was clear that it was not from shaving but something worse that had done that to him, yet Zach did not respond with an explanation for what had happened to him there.

"Hey Zach," Aoyama started. Zach looked over at the blond with shiny hair who he looked at in some surprise at the small voice he started off in. Aoyama sounded like he was holding himself back, and he looked at Zach hesitantly when the darker-haired boy turned his way. "Were you serious, about the place you went to? You're not lying?"

Zach shook his head but did not gain a hurt expression at the question. "No," Zach replied. "It really happened. I planned on doing more here, but-"

"Hold on," Ashido cut in and shook her head when Zach was about to give some more explanation. "Didn't you say you came back in May? But you didn't turn yourself in until July!"

"Yeah," Zach started. His voice got more restrained and he looked away when Ashido asked which made her accusing look lower down as she was accusing him of getting his story wrong right there. "I had planned, before returning, on turning myself in. But when I was in the final fight against her, and I was lunging at her with for a final attack, she opened up a Doorway and I fell through onto the top of a mountain." Zach paused and looked back at Ashido who he continued to in a hesitant tone, "I knew by then that when I went through her Doorways she couldn't shut me away from her because she couldn't leave me in a strange world. Her Quirk wouldn't allow it. But when I came out of that portal, I looked back and it closed behind me, and I knew that I was back here." Zach hesitated and he glanced around at his friends again who were listening to his explanation but still looked confused as to why he was saying it.

He paused and then finished in a lower voice, "But I wasn't ready. Even though I was determined to turn myself over if I ever returned, I wasn't… strong enough. I had said goodbye, and I couldn't- I was a coward." Zach rose his head with a stronger look and he continued to the others staring at him in surprise, "So I told myself that the world was still in a lot of chaos, and I figured out that I was in Europe and started fighting villains there. In June and July I traveled around Europe; those stories about me being there were real."

"I did hear you were there!" Ashido exclaimed. "But I didn't- no one thought they were any more reliable!"

"I was still hiding, mostly," Zach said, nodding at the girl as to why there was not much proof about where he had been even after he came back. "And I convinced myself I was doing a lot, because villains were always quick to surrender to me and stop fighting." Zach sweatdropped and some of the others lowered their bottom lips at his look. He lowered his gaze for a second and muttered, "Every villain was super convinced that I was Death, so they all freaked out whenever I showed up."

"Do you think that's why you got shot?" Hagakure asked.

Zach hummed and rose his gaze back to the empty spot where Hagakure's head should be. He nodded but slowly, and he responded, "It's a possibility, but…" Zach lifted his left hand and scratched his head with a small smile that many of the others thought was fake. He finished with that smile but in a voice that gave some of them chills, "I made a fair share of my own enemies too. In the time I was here, and even before I left Japan too it could have easily been the League, or assassins who they hired."

 _But it wasn't. It could have been anyone, but I know the truth. I have to be more careful._

"Oi," Bakugo snapped from the back of the room near the door. "I'm leaving. So if you've got something to say."

Asui looked back at Bakugo, then she turned to Zach and lowered her gaze down for a moment. She stepped backwards and said while lifting her eyes to Zach's again, "I'll leave. Zach-chan, it's- good to see you, doing alright."

Iida nodded his head once in solemn agreement. "Zach," he said it in an intense tone and Zach turned to look Iida in his eyes. "I will be keeping a close eye on you. I hope you mean what you said that you will be sticking to the rules. If I see that you are not, as a hero, I will stop you."

"Iida," Ashido started, looking back at the tall boy behind her.

Kirishima grunted and he turned his head, marching away back through the room without so much as a goodbye to Zach.

"I'm glad you guys came," Zach said before any of them could walk out. "I am sorry, about everything. And I'm not just back to find All For One, or to face up for my crimes." Asui stopped and looked back over her shoulder, and Iida's harsh expression softened a bit. Kirishima's eyes shadowed under his red bangs and he kept glaring forward with his teeth just clenching harder. "I came to make it up to all of you, as well. For everything I did. All the lies, and the pain I know, you must have felt when I left like that." Zach's eyes shifted around more as the rest of them were going to have to go out to give him his moment with Midoriya and Bakugo that he had asked for. He saw those hurt and betrayed looks coming back to his classmates' faces, the ones he imagined had covered them that night after he had left them behind and that he was reminding them all of right now. "I know it won't be easy for you to trust me again, or ever… but I'll do whatever I can and try."

Hagakure rose her head after bowing to look down at the floor. She stared at Zach's expression that looked like he genuinely did want to make things better. _**"You think the way we looked at you in that basement was fear? You've never seen fear, like the fear on a man's face when he thinks you're going to kill him and drag him down to Hell. When he thinks you're going to keep killing him over and over and over for eternity."**_ Hagakure clenched her eyes shut and turned away from the boy whose horrifying voice she could hear those words echoing from even now. _Even if you did that to save Kaminari, it's too- that's too…_ _ **"I crossed that line, for YOU! Because you mattered that much to me, that I wouldn't just take a bullet for you, I would have literally turned into a monster- the devil! Just to save you!"**_

"I'll, see you later Zach," Hagakure said, looking back towards the long-haired boy before leaving. "And we can talk, okay?"

"I want to hear more about that crazy world you went to," Sero said, and he flashed a grin when Zach looked his way that had Zach's heart pound. Sero's expression was forgiving and carefree, and he spoke in a voice so normal like it was not a year and a half since the last time they had seen each other. Zach's face flinched and then he forced his lips up into a smile despite the pained look he had just had that made Sero's eyes widen for a moment. Zach smiled at Sero and the other boy got a bigger one on his own face at the way Zach reacted like it actually meant a lot to him.

"I want to know the secret too," Ashido muttered. She only played at being upset though, and she flashed Midoriya the upset look as she said it which made the curly-haired boy lean back in surprise. Midoriya looked past Ashido too and he saw Uraraka glanced his way while turning around herself, her eyes half closed and lowered down, her mouth in a small frown. Midoriya's heart ached at the sight of that look, and he turned away as he saw too many of his classmates giving him similar looks that showed they still believed he was hiding something from them even if they had all stopped asking a long time ago.

Uraraka fully turned away from Deku and then kept going to the door. She walked past Bakugo who glanced out the corners of his eyes at her, before looking the other way with a click of his tongue when he saw her glancing at him too. Uraraka's head bowed more on her way out of the room as Bakugo did not meet her gaze showing he was hiding it just as much as the others.

A few of the others bid Zach farewell. Some mentioned how they were going to see him soon while others made mentions of how they felt before turning around. They all walked out of the room though, ultimately with Shoji walking out last and glancing in one more time at Zach who he had just spoken to when it was only the four of them left in the room. Bakugo and Midoriya both watched Shoji go still looking surprised after hearing what he had to say to Zach, and Zach's eyes were still lowered down to his bed sheets himself.

The door closed and Bakugo started towards the bed. He had an annoyed expression on his face and his arms crossed. He glared down at the boy on the bed who was dressed in a hospital gown with his right arm hidden under it as he could not get that arm in the sling through the blue sleeve. Midoriya stepped around to Zach's left side too before Bakugo reached it, and Midoriya came closer to the top of the bed so he was next to Zach now. His expression turned more serious than before, his fists clenching in determination that Bakugo saw with a glance down to Deku's sides. "Zach," Midoriya started now that it was just the three of them. "There's a lot, I need to tell you-"

Zach looked past Bakugo and over to the door, and he did not see any shadow through the glass on it of anyone standing there trying to listen in. He sat up with a deadly serious look covering the one that had emerged at what Shoji said to him. He sat up too fast and had to bring his left hand over to his right shoulder as he winced in pain, but his eyes kept a completely serious look in them as he stared at Midoriya and then Bakugo who lost his annoyed look to get serious himself. "We're in the end game now."

"The fuck does that mean?" Bakugo growled instead of pausing or getting shocked like the boy at his side.

"You have to stop him," Zach said. He looked at Midoriya and continued to his surprised classmate who returned to a serious look himself, frowning as he could not tell if Zach was being serious or if this was just a set-up for a lie. Midoriya started to feel it was serious though as Zach continued, "All For One."

The other two felt it might have something to do with AFO, but because Zach had mentioned him aloud in front of all the others they could not be sure. Bakugo started glaring at Zach, while Midoriya asked, "What do you mean?"

"You have to stop him, before it's too late-" Zach started to explain.

"Oi," Bakugo snapped. He glared into Zach's eyes when the darker-haired boy looked at him, and Bakugo growled, "If you're going to try and say some bullshit to make us think we're all on the same side or that you're being serious-"

"Bakugo," Zach interrupted. He made the blond boy get an even more pissed look on his face, but Zach hissed with a nervous look on his face at the other boy, "What I was afraid of is coming."

Bakugo gave Zach a look of confusion for a moment, then a look of recognition as to what he said covered that look up. Midoriya turned to Bakugo in even more confusion though as Bakugo seemed to understand what Zach just referenced. "What were you afraid of?" Midoriya asked, spinning back to Zach and then looking at Bakugo to see if one of them would explain it to him. There was a lot he felt he needed to talk about too, but the looks on their faces had him feeling very nervous all of a sudden.

"You can't-" Bakugo started, but Zach nodded his head as seriously as possible. _**"Wonder if he'll be there forever?"**_

"You told me All For One was in jail, so I didn't need to worry about it," Zach continued while looking into Bakugo's eyes. "But he got out, like I thought he might. And now-"

"What are you two talking about?" Midoriya asked, cutting in and getting upset at the conversation flowing too much without enough being said. "What's he planning?"

Bakugo's eyes darkened. _**"World-destroying Quirks. It didn't seem too far in the future when the principal asked me about it yesterday. But the chance of someone training that power is one in a million, and the chance of that person also being a villain, is also one in a million, so the chances of it ever happening like that are tiny."**_ Bakugo rose his head and stared into Zach's eyes intensely again, checking to make sure that what he was hearing was not just more lies from his former classmate. As much as he had told himself that Zach could lie about anything though, this was not something he was expecting nor something he believed Zach would lie to him about. Sweat formed on his face and he thought about the rest of what Zach told him that day of his fears, _**"Yet it doesn't seem that far in the future if All For One gets out. Because it isn't about them training it, or them turning out to be a villain, when All For One could just take that power. An evil mastermind with the ability to steal powers. As long as he's still alive, I seriously think there's a chance he can destroy the world."**_

"The day of the capture the flag game," Zach started, confirming what he could already see Bakugo was thinking about. He looked to Midoriya with his eyes shadowed and dark lines covering them showing the dread in his expression. "I told Bakugo what my worst fear was. That All For One would escape, and that he could take a world-destroying Quirk for his own. I didn't tell you that day Bakugo, but I thought he might seriously do it even when I acted convinced by what you said. Because I believed that he might just get tired of ruling the world from the shadows. After so long, priorities change. People change." Zach's eyes darkened more and he said in a softer, ominous voice, "He's doing it. Searching, for a world-destroyer."

Bakugo and Midoriya opened their eyes huge and stared at Zach in shock. Sweat covered both of their faces, and Midoriya gulped with his whole body tensing in fear. Zach turned and looked up at them with so much dread on his face that it was clear he believed what he was saying. "You have to stop him," Zach said while looking at Midoriya. Then he glanced at Bakugo and then down at his own left hand he lifted in front of him. "We all do. We have to-"

"Are you sure?" Midoriya asked, leaning forward and then biting down on his bottom lip as he did not mean to get so close or talk to Zach in such a way. He hesitated after asking like he would believe Zach, but he pulled back at the look Zach gave him after he asked.

Zach looked into Midoriya's eyes with a tired and dark expression. "I heard the rumors. I knew, that if I continued to fight the way I was, that I might get too tired in a fight and he might get me." The other two stared at him in more shock again at how he was continuing. "I was afraid, that he would set up villain attacks and get me in a trap. That he was going to make me use up too much of my power, and then he was going to attack me and steal my Quirk. Because if All For One's looking for a world-destroying Quirk, then there isn't anything better than Death." Black wisps swirled over Zach's left fist and he opened that hand while the black covered it in a thick veil that did not flare in the least but just turned him pitch black there.

Midoriya and Bakugo both stared at that darkness and then snapped their gazes to Zach's face that stayed the same and did not transform into Nightmare. The control he showed over his own Quirk did not make them feel any more confident or less unnerved, instead they both just noted the way he used his power right there as information for later. Zach looked up at them and the darkness faded away after he showed them the ease of its use. They looked back into his eyes and Zach continued with his lips twisted down, "I got myself sent to the most secure prison in the world, buffed up after the first break-out, to hide my own power from All For One."

"That's why you came back?" Midoriya asked, looking at Zach with his eyebrows raised that it was such a pragmatic reason and none of the others he had mentioned while the rest of their classmates were there. "To hide?"

"Yes," Zach replied. "One of the reasons, the most important," Zach continued. He lowered his gaze down from the others and hesitated for a second, "I had to get out of reach." Zach shook his head and then rose it again to continued to his old classmates, "I don't know who tried to kill me, but they weren't with All For One. I hope at least, that All For One isn't trying to take my Quirk. I thought he would come for me for sure, but someone almost killed me and he didn't do anything. He didn't even come when I was defenseless to take it, so maybe, even All For One doesn't want something as unnatural as Death." Zach's teeth bared for a moment and his eyes lowered in a dark way at the bed he was sitting on.

"Do you still think it's a curse?" Midoriya asked. Zach rose his head and he looked into his old friend's eyes. Midoriya stared around his chest where his hand was in the sling below his gown, and though Midoriya thought for a second that maybe Zach's right hand had touched his chest to allow his left hand to go dark like that, he tried to keep his thoughts focused on Zach's feelings and not the specifics of his powers.

Zach shook his head though at Midoriya's question. "No," Zach replied. Midoriya looked back into his eyes and Bakugo examined him closer to at the way Zach replied to that. Zach continued while glancing back Bakugo's way too, "It's just a new kind of Quirk, unlike all others." His voice was steady but the other two started to feel more uneasy at the way he was talking. Then Bakugo's eyelids pulled far apart and Midoriya's jaw lowered as their former classmate explained himself. "I didn't understand until an arms deal I was spying on in Arvat went wrong and I wound up being attacked on two sides at once without my army around me." Zach's eyes were dark and cold, and he said in a steady voice to the two young heroes, "And entire armies fell at my feet. I can turn into Nightmare now without touching my head or chest, and I can do things with it that no human should be able to do. It's a next level Quirk, and I don't know if it's because my parents' Quirks were just that compatible or something, but it never should have been trained this far."

He said the last part and was already shaking his head as he did. _All For One could have made it so much more powerful easily. He really could have taken it and turned it into a world-destroyer with ease._ "Even if All For One isn't coming for it though, he is searching for one."

"How do you know?" Bakugo growled. _Is he lying about the armies? Arms deals and world-destroying Quirks. He thinks his power's that strong? Fuck, what's he actually planning here?_

"He's decided," Zach replied, looking into Bakugo's eyes and shifting his former classmate's thoughts back onto AFO. "All For One has given up on this world. He's no longer with the League of Villains," Zach looked back at Midoriya and nodded his head seriously while the green-haired boy stared into his eyes. "He's going to destroy everything."

"Why didn't you tell us sooner?" Midoriya asked. After that final look before Zach finished, Midoriya believed him now but that just frustrated him more. His fists tightened and he asked, "Why did you not say something while you were in prison, when I came to visit you?!"

"Because I hoped my being there, would stop him from getting that power," Zach replied. "I hoped I would be there longer and stop All For One from ever getting my power, but I was almost killed stepping right out of prison, which means All For One didn't try stopping it. He just let it happen, which means I might not be a part of his final plan like I had assumed." Zach paused and then he continued in a softer voice though keeping eye contact with Midoriya, "I thought if I told people while in prison, they'd just kill me to make sure All For One didn't get his Quirk."

Midoriya's eyes bulged for a moment and then snapped back to normal. _This doesn't make sense! It doesn't all add up._

"Why just tell us?" Bakugo asked. He was thinking along the same lines as Midoriya, that there was something weird about all this and the main thing seemed to be the secrecy around this. Zach had not mentioned anything about One For All so far, the secret that the three of them were in on and the other two assumed would come up in the conversation to get Zach to clear the room out first.

"Why not tell everyone?" Midoriya questioned.

"You want to tell everyone that the world's going to end?" Zach asked, raising his eyebrows at Midoriya and shaking his head at the idea of it. "That'd start a panic, and people would get hurt. People would kill their neighbors with strong Quirks to make sure All For One doesn't get them. It'd be, too sad," Zach whispered the last part while shaking his head again and then looking down as he imagined the scenario he just mentioned.

While Zach's head was bowed, he did not catch the shocked looks on Bakugo and Midoriya's faces at his answer. Bakugo turned away with an annoyed "Ch." He glared across the room and his eyes narrowed in a really pissed way over at the windows. Staring through them the sky got darker and he saw that huge black form shouting something that had shocked him more than anything else that had happened the entire night of the Lifebringer Incident. _**"Whereas Kurogiri, you're, you're the biggest threat to peace in our world."**_ _I never thought that you were lying about that._ Bakugo's eyes shifted back to the boy sitting on the hospital bed next to him. _As much as you lied before that night, you put everything down on the table. You told us everything. That seems, to still be the way you feel._ Bakugo ground his teeth in an even more annoyed way, as for some reason he felt like confirming that had been the main reason he was in this hospital right now.

 _Too sad?_ Midoriya looked at Zach's bowed head and his heart raced in his chest. His shocked look faded though and he looked down himself, his clenched fists loosening up and the corners of his lips lifting the smallest amount. When he rose his head, Zach had lifted his too and was looking at them ready to continue this conversation. Midoriya looked into his eyes and nodded intensely, ready to accept what Zach was saying and to talk about this with him. In his head as he nodded though, Midoriya thought, _He's still… I'm glad, Zach. After all this time, you're still… the same person we became friends with._

* * *

 **A/N Thanks for reading. Zach reveals to his friends the reasons he's returned, though not all of them are being very friendly. And not all of his reasons are being told to everyone. Zach mentions some plans for what's coming ahead while leaving more in the dark too, and there are a lot of new developments coming soon... stay tuned!**

Naruffoku chapter 140 . Feb 19

Just restarted his GTA run after getting busted by the feds and as soon as he walks out the truck he gets wasted? Smh... shape up Zach I expected noob mistakes like this back in chapter 60

 **Lol great comparison. XD**

QuestingforBitches chapter 140 . Feb 19

Fucking hell man this fanfic.  
This fanfic.  
Been following it since chapter 8 and yet I'm still getting fucking surprised

 **Thanks! Glad to always keep you guys on your toes!**

Ace Amity chapter 140 . Feb 19

Wow wow wow. I've been telling myself i'd wait to review until i was all caught up and what a ride it's been. The world building and overall thought that goes into this story is incredible, and i'm so glad i started reading. This is actually probably the only story around this length that i haven't gotten bored of and quit. It got confusing at times with just how fast everything was moving and i felt like OC's were popping out of nowhere but the story is some genius nonetheless. But man! What a time to get caught up! I'm on the edge of my seat waiting for the next chapter. It's about damn time Zach reunited with class 3-A. Didn't think it was gonna be this way though. You e gotten me so attached to Zach at this point to where i'm literally getting mad at Midoriya whenever he tries to villanize him. Anyway, keep up the good work and expect another review next chapter!

 **Thanks for the awesome review! Really glad you've liked the story so much up til now. And I started speeding things up a lot in the later AoD chapters a lot in preparation for what's coming now which is Zach's here with most of his time a secret (even some of it from you guys, the readers). Definitely a great time to get caught up... even though the posts have been getting farther apart lately. Zach has his reunion with Class 3-A this chapter to many mixed reactions: hesitant, happy, angry, confused, etc. Midoriya goes easier on Zach than we've seen coming through the past few dozen chapters, though there's still a lot to say and work out between Zach and his old friends. Hope you enjoyed and again glad you've stuck with it this long without getting bored!**

Kerchanko chapter 140 . 13h ago

I'm throwing my guess in: Zach dies and the next 5 chapters are an epilogue about how he becomes a martyr and the world enters into it's longest peaceful period in human history.

 **Great prediction. So close. But nah we got another 40-50 chapters of this to go!** **XD Thanks for the review!**

Guest chapter 140 . Feb 19

This story has become a prime-time drama and I fucking live it.

 **Haha thanks for the comparison. Seems I got a lot of you guys excited and surprised in that last chapter which is always a great feeling. Thanks for reviewing and hope you liked the new one!**


	142. Chapter 142

**Disclaimer: I don't own Boku no Hero Academia**

 **Chapter 142:**

 _Well,_ Zach swung his legs off the side of his bed after the doctor had walked out. _Now that I have a few hours before they'll notice I'm gone._

He stood up and walked over to a chair in his room that a fresh set of clothes were on. They had been brought in for him with a note from the prison staff at Tartaros, telling him to get well soon. Zach smiled at the letter signed by the guards he knew best from the prison, though he rolled his eyes when he did not see Kaitou's name on the letter but a small mention of him being worried in parentheses under Oda's message. He pocketed the letter into the sweatshirt pocket and then slid his left arm into his jacket as well. He was slow to put his right arm through the sleeves of his layers, but he needed to do so and only hurt himself a little before getting his arm back into the sling over all his clothes.

 _Recovery Girl was here again, though I was awake this time,_ Zach walked around his bed and he glanced around to make sure he had all his things. He slid on his shoes that were in the room along with the pants he had been wearing two days before, though he left the pants behind as they were too small on him anyway and still coated with blood too. The new pants fit better and Zach smiled as the guards had taken into account that his ankles were showing when they led him out the other day.

His distraction over his clothes only lasted a few seconds though. Zach's eyes shifted to his left shoulder, and he thought about the way Yaoyorozu looked at it which had him lowering his gaze down to the floor again. **"Sazaki,"** he heard Recovery Girl's voice from when she visited with his doctor the night before, after the last of his old Class A classmates had left. **"They took X-rays of your body after the surgery to heal your wound. I saw… Your heart, was operated on. Your lungs as well, but the most shocking was your new kidney. Sazaki, I called the staff at Tartaros and they say that you have not been taking any immunosuppressants. It's as if your body is completely accepting the new organ, not as a foreign entity. This only happens with identical twins…"**

 _Guess Gentle's my identical twin,_ Zach thought, though he could not smile and his expression just stayed dark after the thought. **"It could be because of a change in your body after you were revived by Monoma. Every person you have revived thus far has been incredibly healthy after their revival, however I have discovered over the past two years that they are still susceptible to the same kinds of injuries and illnesses as the rest of us, even if your Quirk will no longer work on them…"** _I knew that too. There were others in the Army, who got transplants and needed to take those drugs. Hank was as confused as you were. Curalia said it wasn't her Quirk either. They had me on them for a few days, Recovery Girl. I missed my doses though on multiple occasions. I stopped taking them to test my theory, and I know why it adapted. I know why the cancer didn't stick. I couldn't just tell you how though. I couldn't explain to you, how killing people doesn't just increase my physical strength…_

Zach stepped to his window and shook his head around. _People are going to see me,_ he told himself, which forced his thoughts to something that would keep his expression different. _Remember to stay on guard. I was looking for assassins on my way off the bridge in the first place. Checking all the rooftops and the crowds, but I let it down. That was stupid. They are out here. I know they're coming for me. I can't let it down again. It's not just my life that's in danger if I do that._

Zach slid the window open in front of him and glanced back once more towards the door of his hospital room. Then he climbed up into the windowsill and darted his eyes around one more time at all the nearby buildings he had just been scanning as he thought about the assassins. His eyes dropped to the sidewalk below he had also been watching for a good moment, and all the people on the sidewalk were currently walking in different directions as him. He dropped out of the window with a leap to get him a good distance from the edge of the hospital. Zach landed down on the sidewalk and bent his knees on the landing, before turning to his right and just walking after a group of four people in suits heading down the sidewalk in the same direction as him.

One of those people started to turn, and Zach turned himself to look back towards the hospital and the open window of his hospital room. _It's not illegal to do that, I think. It wasn't a suicide attempt. I checked carefully to make sure it wasn't reckless endangerment. I didn't use my Quirk either._ In the corner of Zach's eyes he saw that the person who had turned to the side to talk to a friend had looked back forward, not noticing who it was following behind them.

 _Not as cold today as two days ago,_ Zach thought. He brought his left hand up and rubbed his upper right arm with it, though he grimaced at the cold feeling of his hand for a second. Rubbing it around did help though, and he blew air out of his mouth making a buzzing noise with his lips. Zach shook his head and then looked ahead and far down the street to an intersection of a more main road in Rairosu that he was going to have to turn one way on.

Zach had his long black hair tucked down into his jacket to avoid people recognizing his new look. He had his hoods down and bunched up around the back of his neck, both of his sweatshirt and the jacket he put on over it. As he walked down the road though, even covered in so many layers and with his hair partially hidden, he glanced to the left and across the street at a pair who just walked out of a building and gawked across the street at him. He took his left hand off his right arm and waved over at them, and they stared even more when he turned to do that since they could now see his right arm in a sling across his chest.

"Lifebringer?" One of them asked, looking at the guy next to him as if asking if he was seeing things. _They said he was alive on the news, but, I didn't think it was his arm that got shot!_ The guy looked back across the road, but Zach was already looking ahead again and continuing forward.

 _Doesn't take much for them to recognize me. The scars, the hair, the arm, they all give it away. Alright, time to go get cleaned up. My appearance matters, and a smile even looking like this doesn't do much for me._

Zach headed farther into the middle of the city. Various thoughts were on his mind, but he had to keep turning and smiling at people when they looked at him on the sidewalks and recognized who he was every time. _I forgot this feeling. All eyes on me at all times. I feel like it was never this bad before though… probably because it wasn't. Before, they all thought they knew everything about me. They'd seen my life out on display. Now I'm as much of an enigma as I always was, with a whole extra layer of mystery thrown in._ Zach lifted his smile up a little more at what he was thinking about as he saw some kids across the street wearing yellow helmets and walking with a schoolteacher point his way and call out about him with smiles on their own cute faces. _At least the media has been treating me better lately. Apparently, even kids think I'm a good person. I'm a murderer. Zach Sazaki killed people, in case you all forgot._

He looked forward since he felt he was about to lose the genuine expression he was giving these people. _This is exhausting. Maybe it was better staying in the hospital. I'm sure there's a plan being made about me. The government's plan moving forward. How they're going to deal with me, especially if I do get that license Nikko wants me getting so badly… What's his deal? I could see why he would want to have a press conference right after I get out. He wanted me to assure the populace that I'm not the person I was, that I'm ready to change, but he never talked to me beforehand about it. He released me based on, popular opinion? Or was it to give him popularity? The press conference could have just been a stunt for him to talk about himself, or maybe he wanted me to work with him about bringing about policy change in Japan. I can't do that. I doubt that was it, but I couldn't do that. And I can't get up there and support this guy either. He might support me without ever meeting me, but I won't be used like that._

 _I'll help him if he deserves it. But I'll figure that out for myself first._ Zach turned into a door and he walked inside a barber shop he had seen the sign for from two blocks away. He walked inside and the door made a dinging noise showing they had another customer. It was a weekday and in the middle of the day so most people had work, though there were two kids in there with their moms. Most students had off for the week, though some preschools were still going on as many adults had work, but the two kids in front of Zach looked to be middle schoolers.

The boys were sitting on seats getting their hair cut, and the barbers had scissors up near those boys' heads. Zach got a nervous look on his face as the barbers glanced his direction but kept cutting like whoever entered would not be much of a distraction. Luckily neither of them cut the boys' ears or anything, though they did freeze and drop their jaws at the sight of Lifebringer standing inside their store. Zach reached his left hand up and he put it behind his neck, pushing up and bringing all his hair out that he let drop around his jacket. He rose an eyebrow and cracked a smirk after doing it, and everyone in the barber shop heard him loud and clear without him saying a thing.

There was a small crowd gathered outside the barbershop looking in, though one man stepped away from the crowd and pulled out his cellphone quickly once he saw Sazaki looked to be staying inside.

"You want, a haircut?" The head barber asked, walking up towards Sazaki and then nodding at his staff to get back to cutting their other clients' hair. The other two boys in the store had to be told to keep their heads still now though, as they could not help themselves from looking over in awe at the famous person who just walked into the store like it was no big deal.

One of the moms was staring at Zach in amazement, while the other had a bit of apprehension on her face and kept darting worried glances back towards her son. "Yeah well," Zach began. "I feel like it might be a little too long. Don't you think?" Zach asked, and he shook his head in a way that made a lot of his hair fall down in front of his face and pretty much cover it all up. He shook his head again and then blew up towards his bangs to clear his eyes, then he grinned while looking over towards the boy of the worried mom who laughed at the way he looked there for a second with his face fully covered.

The apprehensive mom looked over towards her son and then back at the young man to her left. Her hands loosened on the armrests of the seat in the waiting area, and Zach gave her a small nod which she saw and went wide-eyed at the sight of. Zach looked back at the barber and said still smiling, "But really, could you cut this mess off? I think I'm going back to my roots."

"Short and spiky?" The barber asked. He smiled at the boy who looked surprised and then smiled in a soft way too at the barber's look. "Just like Titanium," he continued, and Zach nodded at the guy who knew him well apparently.

 _Which means he could be a potential assassin, trying to get me to lower my guard while holding a pair of scissors to my neck. I'll keep the inside Death the entire time just past the skin layer. Just as a precaution, even though I'm sure you're a great guy._ Zach's eyes did not turn red, but Death seeped out of his brain that was thinking several sentences in a single second when he had the suspicion that he was faced with a great killer. His thoughts simmered and started thinking at a normal speed again though, but inside of his neck his muscles and bones started to disappear. His skin covered it up, but Death swirled around inside him in preparation for anything that stabbed him to go right through.

The barber was no assassin though. The man made jokes about Lifebringer's hair being absurdly long and how it was dirty too. Zach joked back that he hadn't had the chance to shower since he got shot the other day, which he realized was too dark a joke with two children in the room who gawked over towards him. One of them even said 'cool' in a drawn out way at Lifebringer's smile and relaxed face even after mentioning how he had just been shot the other day. Zach caught the kid's gaze in the mirror and looked over to him with a grin as well after hearing that, though he looked back forward and into his own eyes in the mirror as his barber continued. _Don't look up to me as your role model, kid. At least not what I've done so far. If you start looking at the me from this point forward, that'd be okay. Because I'm going to be a hero who does things right now. So you all know. So there is no question about what is right and what is wrong._

 _Shigaraki wanted you to question the difference between heroes and villains. I thought what I did was alright because he got mad, because all of you didn't see me as a villain so his original plan didn't work. But it wasn't alright that you still supported me, even just me, as I acted as a villain. All it takes is supporting one non-hero, and you might be willing to accept anything. People used my name to defend their actions. I've only seen good people do it so far, but they defended themselves using their Quirks in situations they weren't supposed to be. To change laws, and not just in this country. People used the idea of me for change. As good as some of those changes might be, if they're saying that Lifebringer is responsible for making those changes then I need to show them who Lifebringer is. The people can never look up to someone like who I was. That's too dangerous. Sets precedents to break the rules. Death knew it, that I couldn't let people know all I was doing or they would look up to me and do things in similar ways. That's why everything was a secret. That's why no one knows. That's why this world was created by heroes and the ideals of heroes. But they still believe in Lifebringer. So Lifebringer needs to change._

 _My image first. Then to prove what they already think might be true from me just turning myself in. Be a hero they can look at. The symbol doesn't matter as much as my actions. That's what I thought when I was leaving, but then I continued to think it_ _ **all**_ _mattered. With crime as low as it is everywhere else though, and with me unable to do things as I was, then making the symbol is the best I can do right now. Until they show themselves. And they will before long._

 _I know they will._ Zach lifted his left hand and touched one of the spikes the barber had just finished making. He had thought about a lot through his haircut, to the point that he was barely focused on it at all anymore. His neck was already full of Death, but he reminded himself as he checked out the finished cut that he should have focused a little more just in case. His attention shifted around the room even as he focused his eyes on his new doo. _An assassin across the street, would have had to shoot through the crowd just outside that I was focused enough to notice someone in. And I would have reacted to the glass shattering first. One already in the room might've gotten the drop on me, but that's why I didn't plan out my route beforehand. There was no way they could have known where I was going. I even walked past the first barbershop I saw, just in case they predicted my moves._

"It looks great," Zach said, looking to the barber and giving him an affirmative nod. Then he froze and his bottom lip dropped before he turned back to the mirror and looked himself in the eyes. _Oh fuck. Six months straight, and so long in- even before that for another six months for at least most of the time, I just got all my stuff… I don't have any money! I already knew that and have been planning things about this, but I just walked in here like an idiot. Well, no point in panicking._ Zach stood up and he turned to the barber with an apologetic look on his face. "So, could I leave you with, an I.O.U?" Zach asked. "I actually don't own anything right now but I'll have some money soon, I totally forgot, but it's not like it'll be hard to find me. I'm guessing the news isn't going to leave me alone-"

"I'll pay-" one of the women in the waiting area started quickly, before the other next to her could speak up as the first was worried about.

The barber held up a hand towards her though, and then he shook his head at Lifebringer with a chuckle. "Your money's no good here anyway. The cut was on the house." Zach looked hesitant and opened his mouth to say that he would come with payment once he had it anyway. The barber cut him off though, "I'm sure just the free advertisement of being the shop that Lifebringer came to get his hair cut will give me way more than enough business to make up for it. So think of that as your payment," the barber gave the kid a wink as he finished.

Zach shrugged his left shoulder before laughing as it did make some sense what the man just said. _Apparently I am really popular, so it's probably true. I'm definitely more popular than when I got put in Tartaros. I don't know if it was because I turned myself over, or because of the election. The election definitely brought up a lot of the past so it's fresh in people's minds right now. Nikko, and Ashido apparently, were very vocal about all the good I did though. And the people voted for me to get out. Which also means that everyone seeing me walking around feels like they're the reason I got out, at least the ones who voted for Nikko. They feel good just seeing me walking around free and happy. So I need to show them that I appreciate everything they did for me, and I have to pay them back for it._

"I'm just wondering though, Lifebringer," the barber started before Zach could turn and leave his store. The man looked over at his scissors and then at Zach's arm, and he asked, "Were you sure about this right there? A stranger with scissors near your neck, so soon after you got shot at?"

"Don't worry, I've got a good eye for barbers," Zach said in a completely serious tone. The barber looked surprised and rose his eyebrows up high, and Zach continued with a nod at the man, "I could tell you were a professional, at cutting hair," Zach specified only after a brief pause that made another of the barbers in the room chuckle at his boss who started shaking his head with a grin of his own. "Really, I do appreciate this. Thank you," Zach finished, and the man he just joked with reminded him that it was no problem and that Zach was doing him a favor.

Then Zach turned and headed for the exit. _Good, so other people know that being close to me might be dangerous too. That's for the best. He didn't seem to want to stay away, but he was more just worried that I was going to get hurt not being too careful. What a nice guy. And a great barber._ Zach looked to his right once more as he was nearing the door. _I bet no one will even recognize me. I had a response ready that I had let my guard down in prison but wasn't going to let them get the drop on me again, but I like my improv better. I don't need to be serious all the time. Or at all. I spent the whole time I was in here joking about. A hero needs to stay positive though. Well, this haircut looks great. And now people definitely won't recognize me too much…_

Zach opened the door with a laugh as there was a media crew already waiting for him outside thanks to a source that told them where he was right after he had gone inside. There were some other people on the sidewalk around them, but it was just the one news crew so far that Zach could see. _I'm eighteen now, so there's not going to be much I can say in the way of getting out of these things. Harassing minors was always a great excuse to use to escape media attention. I think they just avoided walking up to me on the sidewalks very often because of that. It's going to be tough being famous. I really thought they might avoid me though, after getting shot just two days ago. I mean, do you all really feel safe or are you that gung-ho about your jobs and getting this story?_

He walked out of the shop and smiled at the camera pointed at him before turning his attention to the reporter who rushed towards him. His expression was friendly and disarming which let the reporter run up without hesitating at all, though internally Zach was checking everything around him and in the city anywhere close to him. "Lifebringer! Are you alright?"

"We're live," the cameraman said and motioned an arm down for his reporter who turned to the camera herself after hearing it. "This is Trisha Furaima coming to you live from Rairosu City with Zach Sazaki. Would you be willing to do an interview, Lifebringer?" Trisha asked as she saw the boy looking away to the right like he might start walking away.

Zach looked back towards her and he nodded his head. She came up right next to him to get in the camera shot with him, and she held her microphone up to her own mouth while standing next to a boy almost a foot taller than her. "Do you know who shot you? Hero officials have released that there are still no leads or suspects in the case."

"I don't know," Zach replied, an apologetic look on his face that made the reporter hesitate as she figured she must have asked that too strongly to make him have to feel defensive over getting shot. "I'm lucky though, the wound was not too bad. Plus the doctors did a great job at patching me up. I feel great already." Zach had a strong expression on his face again to show he meant it which had the reporter looking surprised at how lively he was. She had been one of the reporters out there two days ago and had seen from up close how much blood pooled around him after he had been taken down.

Trisha took a moment as she heard a voice talking into her ear from the studio, then she asked the young man, "Everyone wants to know, where were you for that whole year you went missing? Are any of the rumors true? Have you heard those rumors yourself?"

"Some are true," Zach admitted. "I saw some security footage of a convenience store from when I was in America. In it I didn't keep my head down well enough," he chuckled as he said it but then got a more serious look on his face before the reporter could ask another question. "Before we continue, I just want to mention how sorry I am. To everyone out there who I let down with what I did in the Enudora Forest."

"In the Lifebringer Incident," Trisha specified, and Zach nodded his head. "I was actually the first reporter on the scene that morning, and I remember clearly the devastation you caused in the forest." Zach noticed some of the other people in the crowd gathered around them but staying out of the frame started frowning over at Trisha for her line of questioning. He kept his expression steady though even as she continued, "Your classmates and teacher, All Might, have said that you used Trigger that night. Were you not worried that you could have lost control using such a dangerous drug and accidentally attacked your classmates?"

 _No one likes to watch the news unless it's controversial. There isn't a story if I tell them things that people already know or expect to hear. Sure, people might be willing to hear anything I have to say anyway, but she's the one who got the amazing scoop if I say something outlandish or am caught off guard. Even if that would make people lose faith in a hero many of them believe in. It's not her job to care about things like that. It's my job. So I need to respond correctly._ Zach replied without hesitation after her question, "I was not. I knew, from my time infiltrating the League of Villains that there are strains of Trigger that do not impair mental functions. Although they are still against the law to obtain, I knew it would be safe to use and that I would maintain control."

"How could you be sure though? It's an unstable drug-"

"Not always," Zach countered. He said it immediately and continued, "I am not just saying it because of rumors or some occasional times that I might have seen it work that way, but because of the science behind the drug itself. Juno Kawasagi, the villain known as 'The Chemist,' who we apprehended in Hokkaido the May of my second year at U.A., was the League's scientist who researched thoroughly the effects and strains of Trigger." Trisha was staring at Lifebringer with big eyes though she tried to get her expression back to neutral and just nodded at the boy who continued speaking to her in a calm voice. "While I was with them I tried to see as much as I could of their operations, and I looked at the Chemist's research myself which is why I was so sure that it would be safe. I knew it was still illegal to obtain and use, and I was wrong to do those things, but I was not putting my classmates or All Might in danger by using it. If there was the possibility of losing control, I wouldn't have taken the risk."

 _I had to specify there how I didn't put them in danger by using Trigger, but that opens up the fact of how I still did put them in danger by initiating the Lifebringer Incident itself._ "As for those rumors though," Zach continued after a second, while the reporter was hesitating as she came up with her follow-up question. Zach used her hesitation to continue along the lines of an earlier question he had not fully finished as if helping her continue with her questioning that she might have forgotten. He made the end of his previous statement sound like he was finished talking about it too, and this way it would seem like Trisha was getting too caught up on one question if she backtracked now. There was more she wanted to know too, especially about the rumors that the producer in her studio told her to listen to instead of asking more as he had started telling her to a few seconds ago.

"I'll answer the one that still seems to be on everyone's mind," Zach continued. He looked at the reporter and then at the camera with a somewhat skeptical look though also appearing not to treat it as a joke. "I'm not Death. I know there are a few people still saying I am, but I don't really get it. I understood that people might think so when I first came back. I was actually worried about that a little," he turned to the reported and rose an eyebrow at her while continuing, "But after I turned myself in, Death and the Army of Death kept doing their thing. I thought that would just be the end of it."

"The one known as Death is responsible for bringing back the dead," the reporter started to argue. "It's easy to see why some people might be suspicious that you are he."

"Yeah, I get that. But like," Zach paused and then regained a more serious look and steadied his voice in a more public-speaking tone. "I mean, some people have similar Quirks as each other. I always kind of thought that there were other people in the world who might have Death as a Quirk, but I also thought that they were probably keeping it a secret like I did for most of my life." Zach nodded at Trisha after the reporter stared at him in surprise at that response. "I thought there could have been someone else like me, but I doubted anyone else who had Death would have done anything to train it to be able to realize how powerful it really was and what it could do. My personal theory, is that whoever Death is may have seen me using my Quirk and realized they could use it in different ways too. I really don't know though," Zach added at the end, shrugging his left shoulder with a furl of his lips for a moment like he was saying 'who knows.'

"And what do you think about this Death?" Trisha asked.

 _She thinks she caught me talking about him not in too negative a tone. She wants me to say something suspicious which would be agreeing too strongly or disagreeing too strongly based on my past. Might've been a hard question to answer, if I hadn't planned out my answer for years and didn't just lead you into asking it._ Zach nodded at the woman and hummed like he was thinking about it for a moment. "Well, I think that their intentions might be good, but they're breaking the law."

"Just as you did-"

"Just as I did," Zach agreed before she could continue and start calling him a hypocrite. "And I was wrong, just as they are. What they are doing, and what they have done were acts of vigilantism, and if I ever come into contact with one of the Army of Death members I would be required to capture them. Should I acquire a hero license, that is," Zach finished.

"The new Prime Minister has set up an extra licensing exam just for you," the reporter started, building off what Sazaki just said without realizing that he had intended for it to happen. "This coming weekend-"

"It's not just for me," Zach countered with a shake of his head. "It's a make-up examination for others who have taken it before, as well as an opportunity for people who haven't taken it before at all. I fall right into the middle of that category, since I need to get my license back and yet I never took an exam like this the first time I was granted my license…"

"When you say that you 'need' to get your license, what is it you're planning to do…"

Across the country in Class 3-A's common room, Hagakure flipped the channel quickly when she got a text from Komori in Class B. "Hey-" Ashido started as they were in the middle of watching something. Her eyes lit up though as Hagakure switched to a news channel that had a boy on the screen with short and spiky black hair. The scar-faced boy's new haircut revealed a couple of scars that the girls had not seen when they saw him the day before.

Zach was talking about his plans for becoming a hero again that the two had already heard from him themselves in just as much detail when they went back into his room after his "secret" talk with Bakugo and Midoriya. So they focused more on the split in his left ear that was more defined than the last time he had been there, a wider gap splitting it with a larger chunk of ear missing though it still looked like he could hear out it. Aside from the middle of Zach's left ear being split wider, he also had a scar on the right side of his forehead that had been too covered by bangs for them to see the day before, though it was still partially covered by even his short hair that covered up that part of his scalp. It looked like no hair was growing out of that spot but whoever Zach got his haircut from planned for it and left the hair on the sides of the scar a little longer to partially cover it up.

"Do you think that you can come back after all that happened? Do you think that you can change your ways and really act as a hero this time around? Some people are afraid that you will revert to your old ways as soon as something happens."

"I think I can, and I know I'm going to try. I spent my time outside of Japan trying to do what was right in my own way. I acted as a vigilante in different countries, but around May and June of last year I started to realize that what I had done was wrong. It was a disrespect to my dad who lived his life as a hero, to my teachers at U.A. who had such a big impact in my life and fell as heroes, and to everyone I left behind too." Hagakure and Ashido stared at their old classmate's eyes with their own huge at what he was saying without hesitating or looking nervous. He stood there speaking about his own faults and yet looked strong while doing it. It sounded almost like a public apology but at the same time a promise to just do things better. "In those last few months when I accepted that I was doing things the wrong way, I stopped hiding as much as I had been and that's where the rumors of me being in Germany, and Italy, and Greece came from. I stopped hiding at first I think because I was hoping that I would get caught, but I realized that I hadn't turned myself in yet just because I was too afraid to do so. I was scared to face everyone here and apologize for what I did, and I'm sorry for that too and for not turning myself in sooner. I never should have ran in the first place. I know, I made a lot of mistakes. And I know it's going to be hard for anyone to believe it when I say I'm going to follow the rules this time, but I do mean it. I want to live up to everyone's expectations of me. This time, I want to be the hero that all of you believe I am."

The reporter nodded her head a few times. Trisha held back the deep breath in she wanted to take while a few people started cheering behind her just hearing all that. She instead cleared her throat and then began, "Along with taking the hero licensing exam, Prime Minister Nikko has also stated multiple times that you would be required to return to a hero high school. This is so that you can graduate and to ensure that you have the ideals of a hero before going out as a fully licensed one. So, will you be returning to U.A. for the next term?"

Zach turned away for a moment looking like he wanted to get going after what had sounded like a finishing statement, but he turned back at the question and lowered his smile down a little. Inside Class A's dorm, Bakugo glared across the first floor from the kitchen to the live interview a few more of his classmates were gathered watching now. _Not a chance,_ Bakugo thought with a dark glare, while most of the others just in front of the tv had sadder frowns on their faces at the look on Zach's.

 **"…I know. I lied to you, over and over I lied to your face. You warned me I would be expelled, so I didn't expect anything else. It wasn't your fault. Thank you for taking care of me as long as you did. I'm sorry that I let you down, Principal…"** Zach shook his head at the reporter in front of him who held up the microphone more for him to speak into even though he had been doing a good job as speaking loudly and clearly so far. He thought about the phone call he had his lawyer set up during the days leading up to his release, and he smiled softly before responding.

"I have spoken with Mr. Principal already, and I am not going to be returning to U.A. High School. I will be applying to hero schools around the nation however…"

All Might looked at his tv screen and then let out a sigh while lowering his gaze for a moment. He was sad, but he nodded his head and rose his eyes back up. _The Principal is right not to accept Sazaki back. We do not know if we can ever trust him again. I wanted to look in his eyes and ask him his true intentions, but he would not meet with me. Was it because he thought I might figure out what his plans are? Or was it the same reason he never met with Young Midoriya, or any of the others who visited him? I wanted to know before he put his plans into action, but it is too late now to stop whatever it is just by speaking with him. I do not know what a talk with him would accomplish. If what Young Midoriya told me is how he is acting… though, no matter how he was acting, we would all believe it was just that. "Acting."_

"…in order to get in to any of the schools I am applying for though, I will have to test in. So I have to go and get to studying for it," Zach was trying to get the sudden press conference over with as he was still just standing on the sidewalk and answering questions. The crowd was getting larger, and another two press vans had just rolled up. "Though I was keeping up with my studies while in Tartaros too, so I hope I'll get in," Zach added, and he flashed a smile at the end of that ridiculous remark. It sounded so crazy that a prisoner of the strongest prison in the country and perhaps the whole world had been studying for high school entrance exams while in there, but that was why Zach smiled as despite it being so ridiculous, it was actually true.

"Lifebringer! Wait-"

"One last question!"

"Have you killed anyone else while you were gone?"

"Where are you going to live now?!"

"Can we trust you?!"

Zach was turning away but he stopped and he turned his head at the sound of that. He hesitated and then looked towards the reporters and the cameras and the other people crowding him with an intense gaze. "I know it's the people of Japan who voted to get me out of prison early," Zach started. His lips lifted up into a smile, a grateful one that he held for a moment before continuing, "I'm going to show my appreciation for all they did, by sticking to the rules this time. I'll pay everyone back for my freedom, by being the best hero I can be. So I can prove to you and to the others who did not think I should have been released that it was the right decision, and to make Japan safer from villains."

With that, Zach turned and he tossed his jacket's hood up over his spiky hair. He started jogging down the sidewalk and picked up speed when the reporters who had frozen after his great response realized they were letting him get away. Zach was fast though, so the paparazzi-like crowd that started running after him could not keep up as he escaped through Rairosu. _I don't want to be this controversial issue. Getting everyone to think it's good that I'm out is the quickest way to get less media coverage. No one cares about something uncontroversial. Well they still will, but I won't get as hard of questions when the reporters just want to confirm positive statements and beliefs. I'm not just a positive force though, and pretending to be one would just get half- maybe a quarter of the country calling me a liar. They'd say I'm trying to make myself out as this perfect good guy, if I tried defending my actions._

 _Somehow my words might still be spun some bad way. I'll have to deal with it though. It doesn't seem that hard to me, doing stuff like this now. It's not easy to change perceptions and get everyone to see the new me, but it is easy to stand up there and talk even knowing everyone's watching me. Because they're watching Zach Sazaki… not me. I am Zach though. Remember that. You're Zach now…_

* * *

 _This is a really nice city,_ Zach kept up a steady pace on his run around Rairosu. He had crossed the city through two different districts, and now he was running in an area full of three and four story tall buildings. It was a residential area made up of mostly apartments though the main roads did have ramen shops and food chains next to clothing stores as well. Usually even those buildings would have apartments above them too though. As Zach was jogging, (with his hood up for some cover), he noticed more of the people in the residential area who were walking around were wearing kimonos and hakamas even for the guys.

 _Is there a festival today? Maybe it's a local one,_ Zach continued his run and he turned the direction of a local shrine that he could see over the tops of a few buildings. He smiled under his hood at the group of people walking through the middle of the street once he passed a barrier that blocked off the roads after for the small parade going on. He looked up the path towards the top of the shrine where there were tents set up and food stands for the festival going on. There was snow pushed off to the sides of the path and filling the dirt areas around the temple, and Zach realized it must have snowed there a little while back. The snow was cleared off the roads and sidewalks already, and he did not remember seeing any the day before while in the hospital, but it had been cold for long enough that even if it snowed a week back he could see there still being some on the ground.

Zach jogged past the shrine instead of going up towards it. The people in the area were happy and enjoying the festival, and he did not want to become the center of attention and draw away from what they were doing. He smiled though as he looked back towards them, _It's nice seeing the streets so crowded again. Two years ago, things were really bad. The Sports Festival made it so much worse too, twenty months ago when the streets were deserted. It wasn't just in the rebuilding Musutafu either. People were scared all over the place. City streets were empty…_ Zach moved to the side of the sidewalk and slowed down, allowing a group of kids to go running past him towards the more crowded festival area. There were some parents behind them talking and laughing, not paying much attention to their kids which made Zach smile even more.

 _I don't see that anymore. I don't see the constantly scared looks on people's faces like they could be attacked at any moment._ Zach continued on his way and he lowered his eyes down to the floor in a darker way. _How quickly people remember peace._ His smile lowered and he darted his eyes around, _I'm getting too much into the peaceful atmosphere myself._

His head dipped down some more with his hood shadowing more of his face. _What am I doing?_ Zach's lips rose back into a smile. _It's okay to be happy about this. All these people are able to live like this even if I have to stay serious. Even if I have to pretend, and live a…_

"Zach Sazaki!"

Zach stopped where he was on the sidewalk and lifted his head. There were some others ahead of him on the sidewalk who looked up too in surprise at the voice that came from above. _FlyGuy,_ Zach thought and watched as the hero dropped down in front of him between him and some other pedestrians. Those other people looked past the hero in more surprise as they thought about what he had called out when dropping, and they gawked at the teenager with his hood up standing on the hero's other side.

"What?" Zach asked, looking at the man in front of him who had a harsh expression on his face and a dark look in his eyes. _SkyLord and ReBird died capturing Faith and his cult. Easy to see the blame._ Zach's eyes stayed dark right back at the hero who gave him a dark look right off the bat while he was just out jogging.

FlyGuy hesitated at that dark look right back at him, then he continued glaring at the boy and said, "What are you doing out here? There are search teams out looking for you." Zach looked down the road past FlyGuy and he saw a cop car driving their way, he figured cops that FlyGuy had just called. Zach kept frowning at the man who continued harshly, "You left the hospital without telling-"

"I thought I was free," Zach said. He looked into the hero's dark blue eyes and continued in a calm voice that was not apologetic at all. Zach was not trying to make excuses like FlyGuy expected to hear, and Zach just frowned deeper at the hero who got an annoyed look covering his face. "And I'm an adult," Zach added, as he was eighteen years old.

"Well you, you were just shot and need to…" FlyGuy looked closer at the boy and then to his arm in a sling. _Was it not as bad as- we were told he got hit in the chest. That's what I saw!_ "You went missing without informing anyone."

"I didn't know I had to," Zach replied. The cop car was rolling to a stop on Zach's side, and Zach glanced at it before looking back to FlyGuy and right into his eyes. "Was it not a 'full pardon' like I was led to believe?"

"Lifebringer," an officer stepping out of the passenger seat of the car began after she heard what the teenage boy was saying. "You have to be officially discharged from the hospital." Zach turned from FlyGuy who did not seem to know anything or have responses for what he was saying, turning instead to the older female cop who at least had a good reason to give him and one that he had suspected was the likely reason anyway. "My name is Officer Riumi, please come with us." She stepped to the back and opened the door for Zach to get back into.

He nodded his head at her and stepped to the back of the car. He gave her a smile and then looked back at FlyGuy, "Sorry for inconveniencing you." Zach grabbed the door himself and nodded at the cop in front of him to show that he had it, and she turned to the passenger door herself to get back inside instead of closing the door on Lifebringer. Zach had to make sure that he closed the door himself, as he noticed a few people filming on their phones to his sides on the sidewalk. Without ever looking towards them he changed his expression to show that he was voluntarily going along with them, even closing his own door behind him instead of having the cop close it on him like he was being arrested.

 _I'm supposed to be using everything, but there's way too much. Every time I talk to a cop or a hero, they're going to tell other cops and other heroes what I say to them and how I act. People are going to get hundreds of videos of me out there just in everyday life, and with the way I've been acting I can't show them my bad side anymore. I can't look too dark like videos they got of me the last time I was Zach._ Zach leaned back inside of the police vehicle and he let out a long deep breath.

Officer Riumi got into the front seat while Zach was sighing, and she looked back behind her while the driver started off back for the hospital. "Did you really think we weren't going to go looking for you?"

"It wasn't like I was hiding," Zach said. "I was just on the news," he mentioned, in case the woman had not seen the sudden press conference he did outside the barber shop. "I needed a haircut, and I went for a run. I didn't see what the big deal was."

"But then why not tell someone you were leaving to do those things?" Riumi countered.

"I thought someone would try to stop me. Plus, the more people I tell where I'm going, the more chance the assassins after me could set up a trap." Zach offered the second bit because his main reason of not wanting to be stopped was flimsy. He said the second one as if it were the main one though that he was just keeping on the down low, and the officers' eyes opened wide up front as they glanced back at each other. "Doubt they've given up," Zach continued after the cops shared that look. "And I'm sure it won't be long before they figure out what hospital room I'm staying in."

"We'll post security," the driver began.

"It doesn't matter," Zach countered before the man could continue thinking up a plan. "I'm not going to be back at the hospital long anyway. I have a lot I need to do these next few days..."

Riumi hummed and she sat back in her chair in a less tense way. _He doesn't seem worried. Strange for someone talking about assassins coming after him. Maybe he's used to it though._ The woman with short gray hair under her blue police hat turned her head to the side and mentioned, "You're going to need some cash to get any of that done." Zach was just talking about getting a cell phone and working out a plan, getting new clothes, choosing a school, and preparing for his entrance exams and the licensing test. "And so I'm supposed to give you this," Riumi leaned back over the center console and extended a red card for Zach to take.

"What is this? A government credit card?" Zach asked, looking at the card with his eyebrows lifting as he examined it.

Riumi hesitated and she shook her head which made Zach look back into her dark blue eyes. "No, that card is attached to an account that you own." Zach got a confused look on his face that turned surprised and then sad as Riumi went on, "When your aunt, Maye Sazaki, was declared deceased, her will and testament released all of her assets. You did not receive much," Zach started to nod, but he stopped and closed his eyes as the officer continued softer, "But there was a separate account meant to be a college fund for you, I believe. In her will, she had it down that if anything were to happen to her that you would be the sole recipient of that money."

"He tortured her, you know," Zach's gaze was down at his lap in the backseat. His eyes opened and he stared at his thighs with a depressed look, the faces of both his aunt and his cousin appearing before him. "Raijin, he tortured her to death."

Riumi stayed quiet, as she did not know what she was supposed to say there. _They never found a body. I know, that's what the reports say though from the kids who heard Raijin that night-_

"Not for information on me or anything," Zach continued quieter. "He knew she didn't have that. Same with my cousin, Tsura. He just… wanted them to hate me before he killed them. So he tortured them until they did."

"I'm sure they just told him that to…" Riumi started, but Zach lifted his head and looked in her eyes with a dark expression. He shook his head, and Riumi paused as she did not know if she could finish that in a convincing tone. The look in his eyes told her that he knew better, and she imagined that the two who were being tortured likely did hate whoever was responsible by the end of it. "I'm sorry," the officer finished, instead of trying to convince him further.

Zach nodded at her condolences then pocketed his new bank card. _I'll check how much is in it later. I doubt it's a lot, but it's more than enough. Aunt Maye, Tsura, I love you. And I'm so sorry._

"Once I get back to the hospital, am I free to check out and leave?" Zach questioned the officers in the front of the vehicle.

The driver glanced to his side but refocused on the road as a light turned yellow up ahead. Riumi glanced back to the boy again after just turning away, and she began, "There's still the matter of the press conference. A real one," she added, as she had heard about the spontaneous one he did earlier. "The one you were meant to do with the prime minister as soon as you were released from prison…" Riumi hesitated at the boy's expression that looked unexcited and disdainful as to what she was saying. She continued after a second, "Prime Minister Nikko is scheduling a new one for once you are released from the hospital, so the fact that you were suddenly missing made him very concerned…"

 _I'll definitely have enough money to buy some new clothes. I'll need several sets. Normal clothes, winter wear- I'm sure there'll be some colder weather in the rest of January and February for me. Some shorts and a bathing suit, a lot of black, I'll need some different disguises for just walking around normally. A lot of makeup. A cellphone and a data plan, a motorcycle maybe? I should probably walk or fly places. It's too risky having a vehicle I'd have to check the inside of every time I let it out of my sight for a bomb planted in it. Then rent, for wherever it is I'm going to be staying. It's only four months for a final term of whatever hero school I go to. Four months of not working and not getting paid, but I'm sure if this really was a college fund then there'll be enough for four months of food and living expenses in the account, along with whatever other expenses I may need._

"It's not going to happen," Zach said, shaking his head when Riumi finished talking.

"Huh?" She questioned. It slipped out more than she actually considered what he just said, as he said it in a very flat-out voice like it was not up for debate even though she had not been giving him much of a choice at what she was just describing. "You, have to-"

"No I don't," Zach said. He looked past Riumi and out the windshield of the cop car, "I would have had to do it on my way out of Tartaros with the stage already set up and everyone waiting for me, but I don't want to now. And I don't have to," he added with a shrug of his left shoulder, looking back to Riumi to see if she was going to counter with a law or something. She just looked confused though and then started trying to think of how she could counter what he just said. "I don't know what he wants me to have a press conference with him for, but you can tell the prime minister this…"

* * *

"What do you mean he said no?!" Prime Minister Nikko exclaimed at the police captain reporting what he had been told by the officer who took Zach Sazaki back to his hospital in Rairosu earlier.

"Well, Zach Sazaki gave several reasons that he declined the request-"

"I wasn't making a request," the prime minister began, shaking his head at the police captain and getting a deep frown on his face. "What does Lifebringer think he's doing?!" Nikko snapped. The blond man's wife walked around the side of his new desk to her husband who was shaking angrily and in confusion at what he was hearing.

The older police captain cleared his throat as Mrs. Nikko brushed her husband's shoulder and tried to soothe him. "The thing is, Sazaki made some good points. As he is not technically yet a hero, he is not subject to a summons by you, the prime minister." Nikko stared at the captain with his angry look lifting up and getting replaced with solely confusion now. The captain continued, "He also added… that he doesn't 'suck up' to anyone."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Nikko snapped, though he was also hesitant while asking it.

"He said that he was grateful to be released, but that he 'hoped' there was nothing expected of him in return for his full pardon." The police captain hesitated more while both the prime minister and his wife started giving him more hesitant and even nervous looks. "Sazaki said that he hoped he was let out because it was the right thing to do, not so that he could give political favors-"

"That's not-"

"He didn't suggest it was," the captain continued quickly as Nikko got to abruptly defending himself. "He just said that, if he were to go to a press conference with you, then he would feel it was just a charade to show everyone that he was supporting the prime minister. Sazaki said that since he does not know you, nor your intentions for releasing him, that he would not agree to something like that… though he added that he believed you pardoned him because you thought he deserved to be out of prison."

"That is exactly it," Nikko stated firmly, nodding at the police captain though still with a frown on his face.

 _Riumi was shaken, and that's not easy to do._ Captain Usagi thought while nodding back at the prime minister. _I'm paraphrasing her report here. Lifebringer suggested without really claiming it was true, that the prime minister_ _ **could**_ _have been abusing his power by promising to release him just so that people would elect him. A lot of people in the country already consider that might be true and he used it as a political tool, but if he tried to keep using his support for Lifebringer to stay popular after being elected, Sazaki was not having any of that. "He told me, 'There should have been no ulterior motives for releasing me from prison.' He almost sounded upset that he was released early, though he said he accepted it because our justice system has a provision for pardons by the top executive…"_

"If I may, sir," Usagi mentioned again after pausing for a moment. The prime minister's response sounded sincere to him if still angry, and Nikko's expression showed he was pissed about this outcome that made Usagi feel the need to continue. "I do not suggest attempting to hold a press conference even after Sazaki receives a provisional license, if he does succeed in acquiring one. If you force him to be there, just for him to have that same attitude," the captain trailed off but was suggesting it might not be what Nikko was hoping for by trying so hard to get this joint press conference thing working out.

"Thank you for your advice, Captain Usagi. You may go now," Nikko nodded in a respectful way at the officer who was older than him, then he motioned back at the door to his office. The room was large and had bookshelves on the sides, windows behind the desk, and a large fancy carpet on the floor designed with a topographic map of Japan over the Japanese flag. Nikko waited for Usagi to walk out of the room, then his fists clenched and he turned, stepping to his desk and nearly slamming his right down on top of it. Right before his fist hit though, he stopped and opened it up, curling his fingers into the top of the desk instead with a frustrated look covering his face.

"Kaizo," Enri began. She stepped up to her husband's back and rested a hand on his mid-back that she rubbed up and down. The woman was shorter than her husband by a couple of inches, she had brick-red hair that fell just to the top of her shoulders, and a bland yet pretty face with a smile on it for when her husband looked to the side at her. "He's still a child, and it's clear why he might be paranoid."

"But _I_ released him," Kaizo Nikko retorted back at his wife. "If I was a villain, someone trying to abuse my power- why would I let Lifebringer out? If he just thinks about that for a second- rgg," Nikko growled and he curled his hand into a fist to press his knuckles on the wood of his desk. _I had a plan! This isn't how his release was supposed to go!_

"Lifebringer's just trying to make sure he's not being used as someone else's pawn," Enri contended. "He doesn't know you," she added, and she smiled more as her husband turned to face her with is hands loosening up. "Once he sees the kind of man you are for himself, and he has a hero license so he can't decline…" she lifted the left corner of her lips higher in a suggestive smirk, and Kaizo finally smiled too at what she was saying. "Then I'm sure things will go well. We had a great run with no hiccups," she added, and she brought her hand up from her husband's back to his shoulder. "But no one said this way going to be easy."

The prime minister let out a long breath and calmed himself down. "You're right," he said, and he brought his arms up and held his wife by the outsides of her upper arms. He squeezed in a gentle way and added while leaning forwards, "Like always." She laughed, then Kaizo pulled his wife into a brief kiss. He pulled back after and let go, turning back to his desk and steadying his expression while running a hand over the top of it. His small smile lowered back down into a frown as his gaze rose from his hand that stopped moving on his desk. His eyes rose to the windows behind his chair, and he glared through the glass and into the city of Tokyo. _Lifebringer…_

* * *

 **A/N Thanks for reading. Hope you enjoyed! Gonna be a short rant here in case you want to skip. Sorry it's been a couple of weeks. Still working on my thesis (way past due at this point), and I'm going to be working on later drafts and then my defense of it for the rest of the semester. I do have the next chapter finished up already though, so expect that one soon! Been procrastinating something fierce lately, and not just with Death, but I went to NOLA for Mardi Gras this weekend which was a lot of fun. Drunkenly catching beads and flashing my tits- I mean, having a wholesome cultural experience. ;) Anyway, I'll try getting the next chapter up sooner than this last one. I also have Japanese class starting in 12 minutes from now, so review responses probs going to have to be cut short below. Leave a review telling me what you think of this chapter though, and any questions (not that I'm going to answer) and predictions for what's coming!**

diddles321 chapter 141 . Feb 21

Thank the gods it finally feels like shits getting real Again. Will you go back to your crazy update speed of 1-2 a day? Thanks for the chapter!

 **Zach is back to the BNHA world, with lots more characters to interact with, again! As for that update speed... sorry 'bout that. Probably get another out tomorrow, but it's going to be sporadic from here forward for at least a while. Thanks for the review!**

lolmyster42 chapter 141 . Feb 22

The words "truth" and "lie" have all lost meaning to me thanks to Zach.

 **XD At this point, I've made it so you guys can't trust me nor can you trust Zach. Which I think is great (if evil), lol thanks for reviewing and hope you enjoyed the chapter!**

Todorokiii chapter 141 . Feb 22

They finally reunited. Our wish finally came true. I find it very cute that Zach can't pretend infront of Momo, the only part where I was able to figure that Zach showed his real self. To be honest, I was having a hard time lately trying to determine which is true or not since his classmates also thinks that Zach being shot was a part of his plan. I do wonder what will happen to Zach, I believe he will successfully be a hero like he wanted even though I dont want him to be a hero again, but hey it must be a part of his plan. And they will see his skills, y'all. Looking forward for that. But then again, Zach is better off to be Death. Do hope that Zach and Kaminari meets each other again, and boy it must be epic, and ofc AFO and other major villains. Looking forward for the next chapter. Hehe

 **I love how you guys are trying to figure out what Zach's up to and what he's really thinking beneath all the lies and deceit. It's awesome and I'm loving all the predictions! Won't say much about what's coming or about those interactions he's had, but I'm glad you're looking forward to what's coming, and thanks for the review!**


	143. Chapter 143

**Disclaimer: I don't own Boku no Hero Academia**

 **Chapter 143:**

Inside of an enclosed room in a special facility south of Kyoto, a little over 4,000 aspiring heroes gathered for their hero licensing exam. The majority of the participants were high school students, and the number of participants was so high because there was only one testing location being used for the "auxiliary test" as it was being dubbed by the media outlets that had taken a large interest in it, (all of them). Even though the numbers were much higher than usual, for only one testing site the amount of applicants was actually smaller than expected.

Some people considered that it was because an extra test was being added that the average would go down naturally. Others suggested that some students were likely afraid of competing against Lifebringer when he was a known murderer. His kill count was currently at eight, but the mystery surrounding his actions over the past years led many to believe that the number could have been much higher. So as Zach stood alone in the middle of a huge room full of thousands of people, he was not surprised by the gap around him or the amount of people staring at him with nervous or angry or unforgiving gazes.

 _That's Lifebringer._

 _He really showed up._

 _That murderer can't become a hero. I won't let him. Whether or not I get a license, I won't let him succeed._

 _I just need a second in front of him. A single second and it's over._

 _Just go over there! Tell him thanks for Mom, then let him know you're not going easy on him! Do it! GAH! How is he so hot even with those scars?! Or is it that the scars are what makes him so hot…_

 _Everyone knows what his Quirk is. Usually that would mean a disadvantage for him. Yet unlike usual U.A. students like some of the first years who came to try again, we don't know squat about his Quirk._

 _I saw some of it in the Sports Festival back when I was in middle school…_

 _When he was fighting in Hokkaido I saw some of his fights. That darkness he emits can knock anyone out, and it risks brain damage. Fuck going after him._

 _A guy like him can't be allowed to become a hero._

 _Steer clear of Lifebringer as long as possible._

 _I don't want to get killed._

 _I can't let him go out there and kill more people, even if they are villains._

 _It's time to stop him here._

Zach saw a lot of different kind of gazes aimed towards him, though he stayed focused straight forward towards the hero official standing in front of the 4,000+ applicants awaiting their instructions. All of them were in their hero uniforms, except for Zach who was just wearing a black hoodie and a pair of black sweatpants. He had his hands down in his pockets and though looked like he was paying attention, he also had a calm expression compared to the other students all concerned about him or about how they were going to get their provisional licenses.

A couple of hero officials gathered everyone's attentions up towards the front of the room. A man with curly dirty-blond hair started to explain in a tired voice about the rules of the exam. _So it's like that._ Zach stared ahead unfocused but with his mind racing faster than anyone around him, _No_ _second chances. Good policy, though it might just be for this make-up one. The rules sound similar to what the others said they had for their test. Still get 5 balls myself, but only one one target and you're out. Five? Man, they are not looking for a lot of applicants making it. Maybe they expect me to get in no matter what they do, but they had to let everyone apply to not look like it was favoritism that got this whole thing set up in the first place. I shouldn't feel bad about it. If anything, I'm giving them an opportunity then. But most of the people here messed up before. Let's see. 200 can make it. It's unlikely that max number they set will actually be reached. If anyone takes down more than the 5 they're supposed to, or if a lot of people take out 3 or 4 only to be taken out themselves, there's a good chance the field gets thinned out under 100 even. Best chance of that not happening is with the large groups all making it. They won't go for more than they need, and teaming up against solo applicants will help out…_

Zach reached out and grabbed a circular target that an employee was walking past him with. The woman was handing out the targets and balls for the applicants in the area, but though she hesitated and stared at Lifebringer for a few seconds after he grabbed it, he just put the target into the center of his chest over his sweatshirt and pocketed his ammo. Zach lifted the hem of his sweatshirt after pocketing his red balls, and he tucked the hem down into the stretchy waistband of his pants. When he did that, he revealed the four knives he had clipped to his waistband, two on either side. They were in black sheaths, and Zach caught a lot of people around him staring down at those weapons with nervous looks at how nonchalantly he revealed them without meeting any of their gazes.

Outside of the room Zach and the other contestants were in, there was a massive stadium that rose eight times higher than the roof of the small room in the center of the facility. The waiting room was in the middle of different kinds of areas such as an urban zone, a mountain one with a lot of rock surfaces and a few high elevated peaks and rock walls farther out from the center, a swampy area with a couple of rivers and streams and a big lake in the middle of it, even a zone where it was constantly raining over a grasslands. Outside of all those areas were the bleachers that wrapped around the huge facility, most of them empty not because there were not a lot of people gathered but just because the facility was so huge that there was no way the seats would be filled, especially when only those people with hero licenses were allowed in to watch the exam.

The press were being kept out along with just fans and other people who wanted to watch the exam. More heroes than usual did show up though, as did some Class 3-A students from U.A. who were sitting near each other in the stands. Not many had shown up, but Midoriya sat next to Uraraka halfway up the bleachers on one side of the facility with the two of them watching the small white room in the middle of the building carefully, each of them anxiously awaiting those walls to fall down just as they had for them over two years ago now. They could hear the directions being read from inside that room over the speakers throughout the facility.

Uraraka glanced over her shoulder and behind her a few rows to where the only other member of Class A who had shown up was sitting with his father. Todoroki and Endeavor were sitting next to each other (with a chair gap between them), and Uraraka got a bead of sweat on the side of her face as she thought, _The resemblance…_ She looked away, nervous Todoroki might have heard her thought which she suspected he would have gotten mad about. _I don't think Todoroki has even seen him yet. I don't like this,_ Uraraka got a sadder look on her face but tried steadying it again as she looked forward knowing the test was supposed to be starting soon. _But what Zach said to Todoroki that night was… I try not to think about it, because I don't want to pry but- Dabi is Todoroki's brother? That's so weird._

 _I'm surprised no one else came,_ Midoriya thought. He glanced to Uraraka again and then to his other side and a few seats away where All Might was sitting along with a couple of other U.A. teachers. Midnight, Cementoss, and Present Mic had all come to see Zach, though they had also been able to use the excuse of coming to watch the make-up exam for 8 first years in the hero course who did not pass like the majority of their classmates at the last exam. Midoriya saw a lot of empty seats around them though that he thought would have been filled up by his classmates. _I thought Sero and Ashido for sure would, but no one else really… Some of the others just went to see if he was alright, and the others who stayed and talked with him after Bakugo and I left the hospital, they sounded like they were going to stay close with Zach or at least try… but why isn't anyone here? Does no one else care, how he fights?_

 _I doubt he's going to show much of his power here,_ Todoroki's eyes were narrowed and glaring hard at the white walls enclosing the test's 4,000 applicants. _But I need to see how he fights now. Whatever he's planning, it will come down to a fight sooner or later. Dad warns me not to make too many assumptions, but I know. I knew it last time too, but I let you convince me otherwise. Not again. I'm not giving you a chance this time._ Todoroki curled his hands into fists at his sides, thinking about how he heard Sero and Sato talking the day before at lunch. He had gone back to the dorm early to avoid the conversation, but as it returned to his head he bit down at the kind of argument they were having. _It's not about whether he's lying about what he was doing. All of you should know it's a lie. What is he doing here? You doubted his story, but not his reasons. I won't be able to figure it out from up here, but I will get a feel of him. A first look at how he handles Death now, to start making my counters…_

Loud clanking filled the room. The walls shook around the room in the middle of the facility, and a few hundred young high school students looked around in surprise if it was their first time with this happening. Most others were more prepared for it, but no one was ready when the officials who just dropped the walls announced, "Fifteen seconds until the preliminary round starts. Fourteen…"

The majority of the group was packed together in a single area, and there was a panic as people looked around and had to decide in a split second which direction to run. They needed to pick the environment best suited for them, while figuring out where those areas were as the walls had just hit the ground. Groups shouted at each other to stay together and move fast, and the pack started to scatter instantly as the aspiring heroes tried not to let the surprise countdown ruin their chances of passing the exam. As all those young heroes started running and picking directions in the first few seconds though, there were a few dozen to over a hundred who looked to Lifebringer to see where he was going. And the ones who looked to him stared in panic at the empty spot they had been keeping a close eye on during the entire explanation of the rules.

 _Four people,_ Zach thought, while shooting across the rock surface of the mountain zone. _One really followed me,_ Zach thought, and he stopped for a second to glare back across the floor and straight into the eyes of a teen with a speed-type Quirk who pulled back and then turned and started running at Lifebringer's glare. Zach's feet flared black again and he shot away leaving a black circle on the floor spinning out from where he just was and then pulling away a second later at the wind that lagged after Zach.

 _The other three who saw which way I went were smart enough not to come after me. The really fast guy might even surpass my speed, but that one look and he knew to back off. Don't know if I'd give him a point for that for knowing he's out of his league or take one away for him being a coward._ Zach jumped up and rose thirty feet onto the top of a rock pillar deep in the mountain zone. He turned while landing and crouched his right leg while sticking his left out on the descent. Zach slowed himself down but plopped onto his butt and stared back towards the middle of the room from very far out after only half the countdown. _Not the best spot for a view of everything. I figure the urban zone will have the most people in it though. No need to get in everyone's way here. If it's not precise, I might make a mistake and take away someone's chance at being a hero who deserves it. Heroes are no longer in surplus. The country needs good ones entering the ranks…_

"What's he doing?" Uraraka asked, glancing to her side at Deku to see if he knew.

Midoriya hummed and then started while looking towards where their old classmate was sitting, "There is no rush. The rules said that it would end when 200 people have passed, but Zach probably knows that 200 people aren't even going to pass in the first place."

"You don't think so?" Uraraka said, whispering it and not really asking like she expected an answer. Midoriya glanced to his side at her and saw the girl with short brown hair falling just below her shoulders staring out with a curious but reserved look towards Zach. "Is he going to look for targets from up there then, and then go after them? I thought," Uraraka hesitated, then she continued truthfully, "I thought Zach could beat anyone there so, I didn't expect him to try a big plan or anything."

 _He doesn't want to use much of his power in front of all these heroes._ Todoroki's glare got colder as he stared out at Zach. _So he's looking for the weak links he could probably take down without…_ Todoroki's thoughts stopped and he continued staring out coldly but now straight into the eyes of the teen he was looking towards.

 _Todoroki,_ Zach stared at his classmate with red and white hair. He could see Endeavor next to him as well as Midoriya, Uraraka, and his old U.A. teachers too. _He's really suspicious of me. Too suspicious to even come talk to me. Does he think I might convince him of something? He's worried he won't be able to treat everything I say as a lie. He's so determined that it's all lies that he won't even come to me and ask about Dabi. Thought Endeavor would ask too. Well, I'll leave that for later. I have shit to do._ Zach turned back away from the stands and he stared out towards a group of six students who seemed to be from the same school running in his direction higher in elevation on the mountain zone.

"Why are we going so far out?" Mizahi called out at his other classmates, the bulky boy with spiky orange hair glancing back over his shoulder with an annoyed look spreading over his face. He spotted an explosion back in the direction of the urban area, and a bunch of windows of a skyscraper shattered with water spraying out of them from a fight going on over there. The central area around where the waiting room collapsed was in chaos too, as hundreds of the most confident contestants did not run very far before turning on others when the countdown neared an end. Mizahi glared back that way and saw people battling it out in groups and in huge fights with lots of different Quirks, and he snapped while spinning back to his comrades who failed the last test with him, "We have to get thirty people between the six of us! If we wait too long there won't be enough people-"

"It's a marathon, not a sprint," a shorter boy at the front of the group said. He was an inch under five foot, he had short black hair, glasses, and his hero costume was bright blue with handcuffs on his belt along with a black baton. Ivo continued while still running at the front of his friends, "There are more than enough applicants. Getting into a fight so soon will just get us taken out-"

"Ah!" Obara exclaimed and then rose up both hands and covered her mouth at the involuntary yelp.

Her classmates skid to a stop and looked ahead and up a rock pillar. They stared to the top and at the figure sitting up there in all black baggy clothes, his hood down and bunched up behind his neck, his hair short and spiky over the top of his head. _I'm an idiot,_ Ivo thought, cursing his stupidity of leading his classmates straight to the one person in the building he was trying to avoid more than anyone. What he first thought was bad luck started shifting in his mind though as he saw the look Lifebringer was giving him. _I was watching him! Did he see me, and he decided to come after the weakest? He knew I was weak and got ahead to just wait for me, and I brought 5 people straight to him! Oh my God I'm- I'm-_ Ivo's teeth grit behind his lips and he reached down for his black baton, _I'm not letting them lose because of me!_ "Run back a different direction!" Ivo shouted.

"We can't escape him!" Mizahi snapped, and he marched forward with his lips curling up again despite the sweat on his face. "I saw how quick- or well, I didn't see him, but he's too fast. We have to fight."

"Well this sucks," Gregory muttered, the British foreign exchange student stepping back with a look of dread and even acceptance on his face.

"D-Don't give up," Railie saw Ivo drawing a weapon, and Mizahi had a somewhat confident look on his face too. Railie turned back and forth to Gregory and Obara, then she looked back at Rucco who was still slowly backing away. "We can do this if we fight together!"

"Railie's right," Ivo said. _Mizahi is too. They can't run. I got them into this, but I can get us out!_ "He doesn't have a hero costume, after just being released from jail." Ivo's voice got sterner there and he continued while his comrades behind him glanced up towards his back, and Mizahi smirked more at what Ivo was doing even if he caught on. Ivo continued, "He's all alone. We have him surrounded, and he doesn't know our Quirks," the group did have Zach to a wall, and he glanced to his side and behind him where the edge of the battle area was not too far away. He turned his head more and saw he could easily move around the back to get to different areas, but Zach figured it was a fair point anyway.

 _Let's see if they can hold,_ Zach pushed his hands down on his sides without looking back at the group in front of him. He had turned away and looked like he was completely letting his guard down, but then he turned back towards them and the moment they had was gone. A few of them got more nervous looks and Mizahi started grinding his teeth right there at how he had frozen up to question if Lifebringer was really letting his guard down or just pretending not to take them seriously. The way he grinned down at them after standing made him feel like it was the former, and he started raising his fists that enlarged and hardened as he rose them.

"Obara, flank to the left and Railie-" Ivo stopped talking just as quickly as he started, and Mizahi's fists froze partially raised.

Zach's grin lowered so his lips were flat. He glared down at the six students who were all either sixteen or seventeen years old, and a moment of clarity filled their minds as they looked back at the insane-looking figure before them. His eyes were dark, cold, emitting an ominous feeling that sent chills down Ivo's spine along with another huge pulse of regret. _He's a murderer!_ Ivo had started saying something about the prison before to try and get his comrades riled up as well as attempting to make the opponent clumsy or something, but he had not really considered what he had said until now. Ivo actually had a big problem with Lifebringer in the first place, but for the others who mostly thought he deserved to be released or at least did not consider him as a villain, their worlds were flipped upside-down and everything suddenly became a lot more real to them.

 _We're about to fight, Lifebringer. He killed Kurogiri, he killed a bunch of League of Villains and…_

 _He was acting as a vigilante across the world for an entire year. Does anyone know if he killed any other villains while he was gone?! Why did they let him in here with the rest of us?!_

 _A murderer. He's killed people. Those are the eyes, of a person who has killed other people._

Zach stepped his right foot to the edge of the rock pillar, and he leaned his head forward with his fists curling at his sides. "I won't let you, become a hero," Ivo's voice started off soft, but he rose his head and glared in an intense way up at the older teen who glared straight back into his eyes with the same look he just had. Ivo's classmates who were all considering turning and running, repeated all the things they had just been telling themselves, and then they repeated what Ivo just said in their own heads. Seeing the dark, evil look of the boy up on that pillar in front of them unnerved each of them but also made them know for sure, that they did not want Lifebringer out there representing heroes.

 _Not even the guy in the back?_ Zach looked towards that guy and expected more than just the small stumble of his feet before steadying himself. Rucco's eyes glowed dark purple, and his skin started to change color. Obara opened her mouth and released a wispy pink mist from her lips. Ivo darted his eyes around and opened his mouth to restart giving out orders to the others about how to fight. Mizahi rose his hands in a fighting stance though he did not run forward, accepting how dangerous this was and choosing to follow Ivo's suggestions since Ivo did have the highest grades in their class. Railie and Gregory rose up their arms as well and prepared to fight, but Zach stepped back from the edge of the rock pillar and turned his body to the right instead.

 _That was pretty good,_ Zach jumped off the pillar and over to another rock cluster than he pressed one foot down on and surrounded in darkness before jumping off it too. He ignored the shouts behind him and just ran off with huge strides that he put some extra _mmf_ into each time. _Don't know if they're going to pass, but I think they could if they play it smart. I know the only reason they stayed at first was because they thought they wouldn't get away if they did run. Would I have chased them? That could have been interesting to see how they'd react. I can only accept the whole 'they knew they were out of their league' thing for so long. Once we've dropped below half the applicants, it'll-_

"We're now at 12 people. Those of you who have passed please move to the anteroom."

Zach rose his head when he heard the announcement. _Twelve people already, huh? Over 4,000 at the start, but I really wasn't expecting that many so soon. Figured a lot more in that huge mosh pit at the start would be taking someone else then getting tagged while distracted by someone else, then that person getting tagged too so no one would pass. Might not have even been many people in that area though._ Zach reached the outside of the mountain area and he had a steep drop to a industrial warehouse/scrapyard/factory kind-of area next. As he jumped up though while continuing his strides in that direction, he caught something flying towards him out the corner of his eyes and spun to the left.

Zach spun in midair to see a red ball flying across the room perfectly aligned with his chest once he turned that way. It had been leading him, but when Zach yanked his body to the side to avoid it, he saw the ball shift directions even at its fast speed in that final second. He started to dodge only in that last second, but when he saw the ball curving to follow him, his left hand snapped up in front of his chest and he caught the ball before it could hit him. _Wow, nice throw._ Zach looked across the room and he ignited his left hand in darkness that flared around the ball. He spotted the person in a different zone very far away jump up from a hiding spot and turn, jumping to a new location and then darting away once he was out of Zach's sight. _He must have stopped controlling the attack directly if that didn't knock him out. Or maybe curving it in the first place wasn't him controlling the ball but applying an external force. Either way, it was impressive to go after me like that. He'll probably hit some others from a distance with ease._

 _I should get started now,_ Zach thought after dropping into the factory area. He jogged behind a stack of round steel tubes and glanced around to see if anyone was in his vicinity. _There are going to be a lot of teams that get smaller as one or two of their members get taken down in each encounter. Some people might think it's unfair that one hit and they're out. Like they just got bad luck or were caught off guard, but I appreciate it being set up like this. One hit's all it takes most of the time._ Zach's lips were curled far down at the corners and his eyes darkened as he continued his run, which was unlucky for two people who came out from the other side of the factory area after losing most of their classmates they had entered the testing site with.

"You have to be kidding me!" One of them shouted while skidding to a stop, a pissed-off and exhausted look spread over his face.

The other who had a bruise on his face and some blood on his right sleeve stopped too with a panicked expression spreading fast. _This is so unfair!_ "W-Wait! Lifebringer, do you want to team-"

Zach pulled out a couple of balls and he kept sprinting at the two without slowing down. He was not winded, he was running without using his Quirk anymore and just moving at a very fast pace normally, and he rose his hands up with a ball in either one pointing them at the boys who panicked even more. "Screw it!" One of the two shouted, "I'm not going down that eas-" Zach flashed his eyes red for a brief moment, and all his skin on his face also flashed away so that in that brief moment it was just a skull with red eyes and some darkness around it. If they had blinked they would have missed it, and both wanted to believe it was a trick of the eyes, but both were too distracted by questioning it that they were not in the least prepared as Zach stepped on the gas and darted towards them even faster than before.

Zach leaned to his right at the guy who did not pull away as fast as his buddy. He slammed his left hand around and into the small circular target on the teen's side, then he stomped hard in the same motion and kicked himself after the guy reaching down to pull out a ball of his own to try and throw just to keep Lifebringer back. Zach did not slow and the second guy he tagged just bobbled his ball and dropped it while Lifebringer ran past leaving him with an illuminated target just like his friend.

 _That was a dick move,_ Zach thought while continuing to run without looking back. _Yeah neither of them looked ready, but showing them Nightmare face like that was just mean. These aren't villains. Everything is not fair game._ "Ahh," Zach sighed and shook his own head. _Have I lost my combat sense? It doesn't even feel like I'm fighting. I mean it's not like they're hardcore villains trying to kill me, nor are they even heroes, they're just- no, there are definitely some strong ones around who can challenge me. I haven't had a fight, a real fight, in so long. How long? Time…_

Back behind Zach, the two who just got knocked out of the exam dropped down to their butts next to each other. They were panting from running and also from what just happened, though they looked back at each other and had more disappointed looks than anything. One boy thought back on the face he had seen for a split second though and shivered, before gritting his teeth in frustration at the fear he felt which caused him to not even dodge despite how far Lifebringer had to run up on them.

"Hey!" The two boys turned and looked towards the trees where a group of eight students still in the competition came out looking for them. A couple had minor scrapes on them but they mostly looked alright even after a couple of squabbles with other groups and solo entrants.

"You got tagged?" A redhead asked, her eyebrows lifting up and then her red irises darting around searching for whoever did it. She knew they were not far behind these two, so she got a confused look on her face when she did not see anyone right around there. The two also looked like they had just been taken down by the way they were panting and sitting like that, and she looked down and said, "Tell us where the guys who got you went and we'll go avenge you. How about it?"

One of the two sitting down started shaking his head. "Even though you took out our classmates," he began, and he pushed his hands down on the ground at his sides to heave himself up. He looked at the girl and then around at her friends, before turning around and looking the direction Zach had run off to. "You should steer clear of him."

The other who just got tagged felt it was embarrassing, but the way his classmate just mentioned it reminded him who it was who just got him out and he nodded in agreement with his friend. "You just missed Lifebringer," he said, and he nodded the same way his classmate just looked which made the other eight contestants in front of them open their eyes wide and spin the same way. "He rushed us out of nowhere. I doubt even eight people could take him on."

"We could-"

"There's no point in trying," one of the others in the group started, interrupting the redhead. "He's here on his own, and we need to get enough targets for all of us to make it through. Going after someone who is probably about to pass anyway is a waste of time."

 _They seem to have good teamwork,_ Zach stood on a branch of a tree behind the group who had just come out of the wooded area. _They don't notice the group trailing them though, at least not yet they haven't. Still early in the game. I shouldn't get in the way of this other group._ Zach glanced back deeper into the forest and flashed a quick smirk before turning and leaping silently off through the trees, his feet light upon touching each of the branches he came down on.

"You're an idiot! Bringing me into a forest!" A huge red flame rose up through the woods, and Zach shifted his gaze away from it. _Using the environment to his advantage. Either the person he's up against has a plan, is good enough to handle him without one, needs the forest for their own Quirk, or maybe they just messed up. Might be a trap and he's got other classmates around to attack when his opponent gets overconfident._ Zach slowed and he turned, humming to himself and then leaping off across the branches back towards where that shouting was loudest. _And… so he had a plan involving a couple of classmates- or maybe just allies? Teaming up against the strong fire-type Quirk, and it still isn't working. You got too confident about his overconfidence, but guys like that are overconfident for a reason._ "Just two more!" That loud voice shouted, while Zach turned and started away again, _It's because they're strong._

Zach left the forested zone and he headed towards the urban area that a lot of smoke was rising from. _All the action over here likely made a lot of people leave and start avoiding it. There are going to be groups that control sections of the city, with sensory types picking out prey for them all to go after. They announced 35 just now, so more and more people are going to realize that this is a war and not a race. Not a war. But, a battle… no. A fight that will last a while. Some people who fought early on and got a lot of take-downs aren't going to find many people out in the open anymore. They've already tired themselves out, they might be injured or bleeding, and when they look for somewhere to rest that's when someone who scattered right at the start and avoided conflict so far is going to strike._

At the outskirts of the urban area, Zach watched from a hidden outcrop in the "slums" area set up next to it behind one of the small buildings that looked like it was made from steel shutters and tarps. _This isn't representative of anywhere in the world. Heroes don't let places like this exist. People built homes to replace structures like these in even the poorest countries… Damn, that was a good move._ Zach leaned his back against a thin steel wall and watched with his eyebrows risen and a grin on his face. He was looking towards the girl with the weakest Quirk of the combatants but who had just had one good move which gave her an opening to tag one of her opponents' target.

"That's bull! It was fucking luck!"

"Damn it! It's our third year, and we've been training so hard- we all were going to get our licenses together!"

"One target left. We all just needed one more, but that stupid move- these rules are stupid to only have one chance! You don't deserve this."

 _They got all her classmates and got sloppy, except,_ Zach shrugged and shook his head as he thought about it. _It wasn't actually all that sloppy. She's just really good. Her body contorted in a crazy way._ Zach's smile lowered down at a remark one of the angered classmates of the guy who the younger girl just took out said. He leaned off of the wall and walked around the corner. _Maybe I shouldn't. She's tired and in a pinch, but she's trying to be a hero like everyone else. With her team down though, this is a group just picking on her, and none of them deserve the extra point for getting her like this even if she is strong._ Zach looked straight down the road outside of the city area towards the group nearly encircling the girl who had escaped the urban area.

A few of the girl's classmates as well as the other guy who got out on the chasing team were all just off to the side as they stopped to see how this would turn out. They started getting called to leave by the judges watching, but they were even more frozen now as were the older group's members who were still in as they looked past the girl they were about to close in on. They all looked towards the muscular figure with broad shoulders barely hidden in his black hoodie. He walked towards them calmly and with his hands down at his sides, resting next to the sheaths in a non-threatening manner but so close that he could draw them at any moment. "How heroic this is," Zach started, and he cracked a grin when the girl in front of him darted a look back his way. "Five on one? Mind if I make it five on two?"

Zach hoped the younger girl in front of him who looked like a first year though maybe a second would not get annoyed by him stepping in. He was relieved as she smiled at the sight of him and what he said instead of looking upset over it. She turned back to the upperclassmen who eased back as Lifebringer started towards them.

"Finish her quick then-"

Zach started sprinting forward, not going to let the girl calling that out finish with her plan and take out his new ally before he even got to her. He sprinted up and clasped his hands on the hilts of his knives, only to let go and bring his hands up with his fingers curling out in front of him and his elbows bent close to his chest as he slowed in a fighting stance. "On your right," Zach warned, as there was a sixth member of the older group who appeared around his age who just climbed up on the roof of one of the little shacks on the outside of the urban area.

"All at once. Lifebringer's just a name," the guy who said it looked straight into Zach's eyes even as he did. "We can take him."

 _Famous last words,_ Zach thought. _How many times have people said that in front of me? And all those times they had much, much more than a four person advantage. They thought their lives were on the line, which occasionally they were- I should focus just in case._

"Maybe you could take me," Zach started. "But against the two of us," Zach smirked while the girl next to him opened her eyes wider only to keep smiling and grin at the opponents too.

Aiha did not know what she had done to get the famous Lifebringer suddenly backing her up in what had felt like a hopeless last stand for a second, but it spurred back the belief that she could win this and she balled her fists with her joints clicking throughout her body.

"Do it Aiha!"

"You can win this!"

"Guys, don't let them beat you," the guy who had just lost in the older group called at his classmates still standing. The judges called out in a more upset voice at the others who had gotten out already, and that group started backing away though they were backpedaling or looking over their shoulders the whole time. The guy who Aiha had beaten stumbled though while jogging backwards, and he dropped his jaw at the sight of Lifebringer speeding up between his classmates and causing two of them to fire too fast while spinning in at him, hitting each other with their Quirks instead as Lifebringer jumped up to dodge their attacks.

Zach drew everyone's attention with his sudden charge, and Aiha jumped up and slammed a knee into the side of an older girl who had started turning back while pointing her sharp paper hands up towards Lifebringer. The knee in her side made her spin out more than she was already turning back, and she gasped out spit but still managed to hold on enough that she was able to slash her arms inwards across her chest and protect from the ball coming towards her left boob where she had placed the target. Aiha yanked her right arm back, but she was too slow to change the momentum fully and part of her right hand got sliced open by what felt like a paper cut from her opponent's arm.

"I'll keep them off you, Aiha," Zach said while landing behind the girl (whose name he had heard called out by her friends). "If you can take her," Zach added.

"I can," Aiha replied with confidence in her tone, not taking her eyes off her opponent who stood back up straight and glared at the younger and shorter girl by over a head. The third-year from Isamu Academy rose her arms and they split apart into long thin white blades of paper that she spread out in front of her. Her younger opponent got a more hesitant look on her face for a second, only to hear the other older students who were friends with her opponent calling out in panic and pain behind her. _She's worried. Thinking about turning to run and try getting her last hit somewhere else!_ Aiha charged forward. Her opponent slashed her right arm down, and the five different splits of sharp paper all cut down while pushing to the sides too in order to widen the range of the attack. Aiha's body twisted sideways though and bent backwards at the same time, her Quirk: Contortion, twisting her into tight openings in her opponent's attacks that she trained assuming people could not dodge into.

The Isamu third-year swung across the front of her body with her other hand, going horizontally this time and spreading out the range of her separate paper-thin attacks too. Aiha jumped up while in between two of the splits that had come down at her, and she spun her body in midair to go right between two attacks while slamming her right fist forward. The older girl stared in shock at the short, black-haired girl who just leapt between her attacks, only for her shocked eyes to squeeze shut when the fist indented into her nose and smashed her backwards.

Aiha hit the ground and fell immediately into a roll. She wasted no time as her opponent hit the ground, diving forward on top of her while pulling out another attack ball as she had dropped the first when her right hand was cut open. With that same bloody hand, Aiha rose up a new ball and pressed it down into her opponent's chest just as she was opening her eyes. The short girl leaned up on top of her foe's body, panting but grinning after a moment as she saw what she had done. Aiha then spun with a serious look again as she got worried her new ally was still facing off against bad odds on his own.

Aiha's bottom lip lowered, and she stood up as did the frustrated older teen below her to look over at Lifebringer and the five moaning figures around him. Aiha realized why it might have been that her opponent got distracted for a second at the start there, but the feeling that she did not take her opponent down on her own went away as the older boy in front of her turned her way and smiled seeing the illuminated target on her opponent's chest. "Nice job," Zach said. "You still have some left?" He added, as the judges did not just call out that another person had passed.

The younger girl looked surprised for a moment and then glanced around the other teens who Lifebringer had just taken down. "Aren't you going to," she began.

Zach shook his head. "They're yours. It was your fight and I stepped in, wasn't planning on taking the points." Zach turned and started jogging away without saying anything else. Aiha watched him start going, then her head snapped down and she saw a couple of the moaning upperclassmen struggling to push themselves back up.

 _Now you've got a choice. We were a team, so the people we fought were people we both took down. Any and all of them you could tag. Some people don't like to accept help. They were going to take you down with a whole group though against one young girl. If you let them get up, they might come after you. It's not always about just being super honorable. Do you want to be a hero badly enough? Will you just accept that I don't want them and not be stubborn? Hope I see you next round, if I make it there,_ Zach added the last part to remind himself not to be overconfident, even though he had just given up on the chance to finish the round.

 _Still thousands of people around here I can fight. A group of five who were actually willing to fight at the same time against me could have been better. After hitting each other with that first attack, the rest got nervous and started overthinking every move. They didn't know if I wanted them to do something or not, and I wasn't going to slow down to let them figure it out. Well, there should be some good fights through the city. Maybe a couple others I feel deserve it more, people who would do a great job as heroes like Aiha. No need to second guess that. I'm a great judge of character. She's someone I could trust on the battlefield. Lives on the line with gunfire raging around us, flames everywhere and bodies dropping by the dozens… There are people up there, twenty-eighth story._ Zach leapt up and his feet that turned black before the jump got even thicker with it as he swung his legs up towards the wall of the skyscraper.

Zach picked up his feet even after slamming them hard into the wall in a solid enough spot that he did not break through but weak enough that he could dent it. He started running up the wall, windows cracking on his sides with every step up the vertical incline into the sky. Around the outside of the facility another region of it down, Endeavor finally spotted Lifebringer again after losing him for a while. There was only one reason he was there at the testing site, and it was to watch the teenager he had marked as the number one suspect for Death since he was put in charge of the Anti-Death Task Force. Endeavor stared out into the urban zone and Todoroki followed his father's eyes to catch where Zach was again too, and Todoroki's eyes widened a lot more than his dad's did at the sight of what Zach was doing.

 _That's,_ Todoroki thought, shifting his gaze to the side and the man sitting two seats away from him. He thought about old clips he had studied over the last year while attempting to mimic and adapt some of his father's strongest moves into his own. The way he saw Zach climbing the building was something he had seen before, and though Endeavor did it using different physics, both he and his father felt like the boy they were watching was imitating him. **"I'm sorry I didn't say anything, but Endeavor's such a great hero, I couldn't stain his name by revealing the secret I knew."**

Endeavor was thinking about the same thing. Todoroki had told him on a mission in Switzerland exactly what Zach had told him on the night of the Lifebringer Incident. The top hero lost sight of Lifebringer again as the teen moved into the building he had just been climbing up, and he lowered his gaze down to the grasslands getting rained on just ahead of their section of the bleachers. _What is he still doing in this round? His actions are unnecessary at this point. He could have moved on several times, yet instead he continues to move about the room taking as many risks as possible. Unless to him, they aren't risks. Not in the sense that he's used to. If he was Death, then something like this really is just a joke to him._

"Deku, I don't understand what Zach's doing," Uraraka whispered to her side. She hoped Midoriya knew, as she knew the two of them had been much closer than she ever was with Zach. Midoriya was looking out in the direction where they had last seen him, his expression thoughtful and intense as he thought over what he was watching.

 _The longer he waits, the more he risks showing off his powers. Unless he's not trying to hide them? I assumed he was going to from the start, and I thought I had confirmed that but then why keep going?_ Midoriya responded after a couple seconds, "Me neither."

Zach emerged from the urban zone and ran around the edge of the facility through another few zones until he sprinted into the rain. The room was darker in this area, and Zach could feel his clothes start getting wet in the rain that fell at the same volume all around the grassy field. The field was not completely flat, with hills rising around it that people could be hiding behind. He also saw a couple of craters and missing patches of grass, some skid marks and slashes across the floor, and a very sharp cross-section of a hill was visible as a chunk of it had been removed in a precise manner.

He thought about the early fights he saw over here from when he was sitting atop the rock pillar over in the mountain zone, and he pictured the large chunk of earth that had risen up with flat sides and sharp edges. _So that's where that came from,_ Zach thought as he ran past the missing part of floor. He saw some pieces of that chunk scattered about over the grass, though there was a lot of mud on the ground too as the rain had saturated that turned-over dirt. _Nice use of the environment, but what do you do when your trap fails?_

Zach jumped up, and the two muddy arms that reached up out of the ground missed him. He had been in mid-sprint and did not look prepared to dodge at all, so the girl who just leaned up out of the ground to grab him dropped her jaw at the look he snapped down at her. _Not a great reaction,_ Zach thought, while coming back down and slamming a foot towards her face. He kept the kick slow, and although she was slow at reacting at first, seeing him coming for that counter got her activating her Quirk again and sinking back into the mud. Zach's foot still slammed into where her head was sinking, though he kept the pressure low and then hummed when she was fully inside the ground and not coming back up.

 _She has a partner. Maybe she was supposed to just grab me then he or she'd jump out, but when she missed the other panicked. I should have grabbed her to see how the other would react. Well let's see how she does to this,_ Zach snapped his head over towards a chunk of upturned earth that he had seen someone poke their head out behind from thirty meters off. He darted towards it while pulling a knife out of the front sheath on his left side. Zach flicked the knife forward and right past the edge of the rubble, slamming it into the grass behind the sixteen year old boy who spun and stared down at it with eyes wide. His head started turning back, only for Zach to already be there reaching out for him.

Zach spun the guy around and put him in a headlock before the boy could even shout at him. He choked him with his right arm that he tucked under the boy's left armpit too, and he squeezed tightly while spinning back around and stomping out into the muddy area where the girl had dropped into the ground. "If you don't come out, I'm going to-"

"R-un," the boy in Zach's choke-hold gasped out for his hidden comrade.

 _ **"R-run…"**_ Zach could see his own left arm extended out in front of him and his hand curled around the throat of a man he was holding off the ground. He saw his legs dangling and swinging back and forth as he clawed at Death's wrist to try and be let free. The villain's eyes had shifted over to the right though at a woman in the room with him, the same woman from the photo in the cracked frame on the floor with the man he was choking in it. And there was a little girl standing in the photo in front of the man and his wife who had such terrified looks on their faces as Zach choked him-

Zach released his choke-hold as the girl emerged from the ground in front of him. He pushed his opponent forward before she could even make a word out at him, and the kid he was choking fell into his comrade and they both toppled into the mud. The boy rolled off his comrade quickly and spun just as she snapped up to prepare for Lifebringer, only for the two of those panting kids to stare in shock and fear as the foe they had been facing was not there. They spun their heads and looked around, rain pouring down on them and drenching the scared teens trying to catch their breath.

Their opponent was gone though. _He didn't want her getting up to protect her. She wasn't going to let me just keep hurting him. You two can keep trying. I'm sure that trap would have worked on a lot of other people, a lot of villains too. Maybe it already has and you only need a couple more. Hopefully you aren't too spooked from running into me that you botch your next attempt. Everyone keeps getting so scared. I didn't think people were that afraid of me in Japan. I've been trying hard to keep my appearance seeming friendly and- it's the way I fight. It's been years- months, months since I last fought. But all those fights of that year were so intense, and I didn't… Even when I held back, I was still being intimidating. People didn't know that I was holding back against them, because I was still being a monster to them. Every fight, I instilled terror. In order to become the Symbol of Fear._

 _I'm not going to be a symbol like that anymore though. I don't want to be. I can't be, not here. How do I fight against other heroes? Or actually, even if they were villains, how do I fight when people are watching Zach Sazaki? I need to be smiling. I need to be a role model when I'm Zach. Don't you remember that?! That was important! Just because the last time you were Zach, you stopped doing those things- that was just to lure the League into attacking! Those two weeks after Kaminari aren't a basis for how to act as a hero! I never should have done that. I never should have tricked everyone in this country, made them all think that I had been broken. I hurt a lot of them. I need to fight better. I need to fight, like a hero._

Zach slowed down his run and he looked ahead to a group he saw up ahead with six people in it. He recognized them, and his eyes shifted around a little, but the other two people in the area were not the other two who he remembered were in that group at the start. The team had initially had eight members in it, and Zach remembered looking towards them closely because a lot of the other contestants had been watching them closely just as he had been watched. _The U.A. team. They're down to six people, but they just took out two more. How many more do they need to get through? Looks like they've been in more than a couple fights already._

"Is everyone at least at three now?" Reimi asked her classmates. She also checked on the three from Class 1-B who were taking the make-up test with her and her friends from 1-A as well. There had been two more from 1-B there with them at the start, but they were keeping their spirits high and staying optimistic about finishing this even after losing some comrades.

"You're just first years," one of the two who was just taken down and tagged moaned. He lifted his gaze angrier and added, "This was our last chance-"

"You can try again," the boy who just tagged the upperclassman said. The older teen lifted his head to him and the short boy shook his head and added, "But we need to pass too." He turned away without waiting to hear what the other student might say to him next, and Hono stepped to Oribia who he reached a hand down to as she had dropped to a knee after that fight which she had taken a tank position in. "Just two more for us, and one more for the others. We need to take down eight more opponents."

The two who had been eliminated took off to get out of the rain. They were frustrated and injured, and they were being called to get out of the playing field as long as they could still move. Zeira Eleinie watched them heading away, then the dark-skinned girl with two stag-horns sticking out of her head turned back to her fellow U.A. students. She was slender and had accentuated curves in her tight black costume that also had some knives and a grappling hook attached to the side of it. Her skin was covered in a very light fur on her arms and legs, though her face was just brown and thick-skinned leading up to her darker brown hair that fell long behind her back. "Come on," the girl who just needed to take down one more opponent started. "Only sixty people might have passed so far, but that doesn't give us any idea on how many are still left out there. Let's head over towards the mountain zone."

"Why the mountains?" Oribia asked, stepping away from Hono after he had helped her up and looking over the same way as Zeira herself. Oribia was shorter than her classmate in 1-B, with shorter and lighter brown hair too, as well as shorter horns though hers were just little triangular silver ones. Her horns did come out of the same point back in her hair just behind her forehead as Zeira's though. The girls who had failed the test in the fall along with three of their other classmates were glad to have this new make-up exam so that they could get out of their supplemental lessons sooner, and also so they could get on the same level as the rest of their classmates and start on the patrol courses that U.A. taught which they had to sit out over the last few months.

"There's been some loud fighting over there. If there's a battle ending, we might come across people who have let their guards down like we are right now," Ubo muttered, though he brought his voice up at the end as he wanted his comrades who he felt were too relaxed to get back into more prepared mindsets. The ones who were catching their breath or slouching stood up straighter and looked around to see if anyone was trying to get the drop on them like Ubo was suggesting they go try to do on others.

Zeira nodded while a couple of the others looked around. "That's right. Let's do it." Ubo said what she was thinking about, and she said that in a hurry as the fighting did sound quieter now so if they wanted to get a shot on a group they knew had to be over there, they had to move now.

"W-Wait," Reimi said. Zeira looked back and then spun around fully as did the others to look through the rain over at a figure walking slowly towards them. Hono and Oribia spun the rest of their bodies with their eyes huge and then narrowing. Eko's jaw dropped, but he snapped it shut a second later and balled his pale hands into fists.

The largest of the group, Eko stomped forward towards the taller and broader-shouldered teen heading his way. Oribia moved forward too and stood at his right side. All the fingers on Hono's right hand stuck together and then the tips of all of them slid open together into one long black slit into his arm. Reimi took a deep breath to soothe her nerves after stuttering there at the first sight of him, and Ubo glanced to his side at Zeira who walked forward with her eyes still big but also intense as she stared towards the man walking their way.

 _Lifebringer,_ Zeira thought. She gulped, and her heart was racing in her chest.

Zach stopped walking and stared between the two at the front of the group of U.A. students straight at the tall girl with stag antlers looking back at him. _A black costume. Knives and a grappling gun?_ Zach cracked a smile and his eyes shifted around the other students he was facing.

"Hey Lifebringer," Oribia called out. "You don't want any of this." She flexed and her muscles bulged all over her body, but her legs got thinner after a moment as her arms and upper body bulked more. Her silver horns glinted and rain slid down them over her face and around her eyes. Her lips twisted up and her teeth were bared but in a grin at Lifebringer who she was not going to look afraid of if he was going to stand there and grin at them like he was the one in control of this situation.

In the bleachers not too far from what was going on, the U.A. crowd and Endeavor were all staring down at the fight clear ahead of them. All Might sweatdropped as he saw the team of six were facing off against Zach, and he said in a quiet voice, "I believe we are about to see someone pass." It was not like he was saying for sure that Zach was about to win, as they knew some of the other students in front of them only needed to take out one more person to be finished with the exam's first round.

As much as All Might worded it like he could be talking about any of them though, his somewhat regretful tone made it out like he thought Sazaki was about to end the chances of the U.A. students from passing. "This is crazy," Present Mic was leaning forward in his seat and his smile was huge even with beads of sweat rolling down both sides of his face.

All Might glanced over in a confused way at Present Mic, but then Midoriya and Uraraka, and Endeavor and Todoroki too all looked towards the only female teacher in the group. "Sazaki may be in some trouble," Midnight admitted. "He does not seem to be taking this seriously, or I am sure he would have already passed. Against that group though," Midnight started shaking her head and she looked over at some of her first-year students. Her eyes specifically focused on the girl in all black with weapons matching the ones Lifebringer used to use. _Zeira never hid how much she respects him. This has to be a life-changing moment for her. For their first meeting to be like this._

 _I have to fight him. I have to win!_ Zeira shouted it at herself and her entire tensed body relaxed. She let out a long breath, and her face covered in so much intensity. Her fingers twitched at her sides like she was going to grab a weapon at any second, and she watched as Zach Sazaki put his hands down at his sides and did the same thing while still looking her way and starting to grin at her.

"Do it," Ubo said, his head bowed so his mouth would not be seen by the opponent up ahead of them.

Zeira stared straight into Zach's eyes, and her eyes rolled back in her head. Zach's eyes rolled back too and he completely froze while standing there in front of six opponents who all looked ready to charge at him.

"She got him?" Reimi asked, her voice raising louder in amazement and excitement at the same time.

Oribia's body lost its huge muscle tone, and Eko's shoulders slumped with him letting out a huge breath of relief at the same time. "I can't believe it," Eko muttered in shock.

"What's going on?" Uraraka was leaning out of her seat far forward and her eyes were stunned at what she saw down on the wetlands.

Uraraka and Midoriya spun their heads to the left, and Endeavor and Todoroki looked to the left a little too while staring down the bleachers at Cementoss. "Zeira Eleinie is a remarkable student. You may understand her better, if I compare her to Shinso Hitoshi. Although compared to Shinso, Zeira was much more prepared to be a hero when she arrived at U.A. with a Quirk that did not help her in the entrance exams. In that regard, she is much more like Sazaki himself."

"What's her Quirk?" Midoriya asked, turning back in amazement towards the group down below.

"Mental Infiltration," Midnight replied. She shook her head while looking down towards Sazaki who had looked to prepare himself before going after the group of first-years from Class A. He had watched them and then walked out smiling and like he was challenging them to a fight, and Midnight rose a hand up and ran it back over the top of her head before shaking it again at how Sazaki had played himself there. "She cannot use it more than three times in a day, but it has a success rate of a hundred percent."

"It's not a Quirk that helps her out too much when it comes to big competitions, such as the first rounds of the Sports Festival, or the previous licensing exam where a bunch of U.A. hunters came at her at the same time and she was unable to use it and leave her body unprotected." Midnight paused for a moment and then added, "But even in that fight, she defeated two of her opponents while cornered and on her own and without the use of her Quirk."

 _That does, sound a lot like Zach,_ Uraraka stared down towards the girl who was standing still while her comrades moved around her. _She sounds, amazing._

 _He really messed this up,_ Todoroki thought in shock.

"It should be Hono or Oribia to hit his target," Ubo started to his comrades.

"I don't feel right about it," Hono said. He looked to Zeira who was in his class just like Oribia, and Oribia had a similar look to her face as he did. "Zeira should get to tag him."

"You two still only have three," Reimi argued, raising her eyebrows and saying it like it was obvious. "And then we'd lose a teammate as Zeira would have to go to the anteroom ahead of us. That doesn't make sense-"

"You guys don't understand," Hono started in a lower voice, and he glanced back towards where Lifebringer was standing. "How much this means to her. How much it would mean if she defeated Lifebringer."

"Well she did," Eko said. "But you think she'd want us to have less of a chance of moving on to the next round because of her? I think immobilizing him is enough." Hono and Oribia looked at each other, and they hummed and nodded as that did sound more like their classmate. "So one of you go and we-"

"AAAHHHHHHH!" A high-pitched scream cut through the area and the group spun as a whole back towards Zeira whose legs were coming out from below her. This was her second time using her Quirk today, and she had told the others who did not know as much about her Quirk the full usage of it before even showing it off the first time. So every one of them knew that this was unusual, though that pain-filled ear-piercing scream gave that away anyway.

Zach's eyes rolled back and his lips were twisted down deep at the corners.

 **12 Months Ago**

On an airship flying across the sky, Zach sat on the floor of The Cloak's training room in the open sparring section. His sat cross-legged in front of a beautiful woman also sitting there with her legs crossed, her purple eyes focused in on his hazel ones as they talked. Zach was sitting in his full tight black armor though with his weapons resting off to the side so he could at least sit in a more comfortable way, while Seraphim had on a black tank top that pulled close to her slender and sexy body. Her hair was not tied up in a ponytail as it usually was, instead falling straight back behind her hair and getting wavy near the bottom. There were a few strands falling over her shoulders and to the sides of her chest, and though she was not wearing make-up, she looked great for it being three in the morning.

Seraphim had just gotten out of bed, unable to sleep. She met someone else who was not sleeping well over the past couple of weeks, training on his own in the dead of night while she was going to try and get her mind off a few things herself. Their talk had distracted both of them from the friends they had lost in the Dragon's Den. Zach had spent the night thinking about Cee, and how she died, while Seraphim felt a phantom feeling on her lips that had kept her lying awake at night. The first and last kiss from Juno before that fight was haunting her, and she was stuck wondering why as they had only really known each other for a couple of months.

Neither of the two insomniacs had brought up what they were awake for to each other. Instead their conversations had been focused on the future, on upcoming fights or the ones even more recently than the Dragon's Den. Many of those locations they had been hitting with the information they got from the Syndicate had been fruitful in giving them clues on more of their large enemies such as the League of Shadows and the Fergus Conglomerate.

Seraphim was just mentioning information she got at the last base they had attacked only earlier that day, and Zach questioned the older woman sitting only a couple of feet in front of him, "You said that Rorquet pushed you out? What do you mean by that?"

The purple-haired woman nodded and replied to her commander, "Brain Trap is not a perfect Quirk. No Quirks are. Although we made Rorquet talk, I am sure he trained in combatting against Quirks like mine because these Quirks are how heroes get around not torturing villains and still obtaining information in some instances. Even though I failed, he thought I would do to him the things he knew heroes couldn't though, which I know because I told him I knew why he trained in countering my Quirk but that I was not afraid to go farther." Zach nodded back at her in a way telling her that was good work, as he had been training the others in the AoD recently about how they should coerce information out of villains without really torturing them.

"And how did he train to combat Quirks like yours?" Zach asked. "Not so that I could stop yours or anything-"

"I understand why you'd want to know," Seraphim said, shaking her head as there was no need for him to explain himself and she did not think he wanted to know just to counter her. "And I can teach you," she added which had Zach smiling in a glad way that she did know and was willing to. "Rorquet was not the first to counter Brain Trap. Years ago in my early days as a vigilante I met a villain who could force me out of his head. It was before Brain Trap immediately worked in knocking my opponents unconscious, when I still had to hold my hands to their heads for more than a moment. As I grabbed his head though, I was faced with a barrier in his mind that stopped me from using my Quirk effectively."

"And you've built up that barrier in your own head?" Zach asked.

"It's not a real, physical barrier," Seraphim started, shaking her head at the way Zach phrased that. "And you do not leave it in there. However it can be 'built' in an instant as long as you teach yourself how to feel when it is a mental attack is coming. I am sure there are certain mental abilities that it will not work against. However, most Quirks like mine do have a brief moment before your brain is affected by it where someone who is trained to notice can feel the foreign infiltration and stop it. It takes great mental control, to be able to block off certain points of one's own mind."

Zach nodded his head at her in understanding. His expression darkened a little and his eyes lowered off of Seraphim's. "What is it?" She asked him, wondering if she had said something.

"Nothing," Zach replied fast. He hesitated after looking back in her eyes though, then he said softly, "Kaminari. The villain going by Raijin, my old best friend." Seraphim nodded at him already in understanding, but Zach continued, "He was able to block off parts of his mind to be a better spy. Creating an entire personality to be a good person and my friend. But also, when he went after Cee," Seraphim's eyebrows lifted and she stared closer at Zach as she had not heard this story and also understood why he had gotten darker while speaking on it. "Cee once told me that she used her Quirk on Kaminari, but he had such mental control with his electricity that he rewired his brain as soon as she used it and managed not to get turned around."

"It's kind of like that," Seraphim said. "Though for people like us who can't rewire our own minds physically, it takes intense concentration." Zach nodded and refocused fully on practicing how to counter mental attacks, shifting away thoughts of Cee again. "To fend off a foreign invader using only your own mind, when they have the power of their Quirk helping them. We'll practice with mine, and the counter you build up should work even better against others who are not expecting you to fight back. Luckily, most of the time, someone with a mental ability like mine is very confident in their Quirk. People with mental Quirks often consider their powers as hack-abilities or trump cards, and not all of them fight often enough or against strong enough opponents that they knew that they do have weaknesses. The counter isn't a certainty to work, but no Quirk works every time either."

 _Wreck'd,_ Zach nodded at Seraphim and quickly pushed the thought of Wreck'd out of his mind. His comrade who pushed him out of the way so he would not get killed by the monster who had ran right through Death faded from his mind just as Cee had before him. Zach took in a deep breath and he said, "Then let's begin. The stronger my mind becomes, the less ability villains will have to use a 'hack' Quirk to get information out of me. In fights too, and just in general it would be good."

"Then I'll use Brain Trap on you. I will start off as weak as I can, and we will build up from there." Seraphim lifted her hands, but she stopped and glanced towards a door to the training room where a few people just walked up. Zach turned his head and looked over at a group of three who were also having trouble sleeping. "We're training counters for mental attacks," Seraphim explained, mainly looking towards Darling as she said it. She looked to La Brava and Michael too afterwards and then questioned, "Would you like to join?"

 _Anything to shift my focus,_ Michael thought, and he nodded towards Seraphim and started over. Darling ran over first so that she could sit right next to Zach, and she asked Seraphim what they needed to do.

La Brava hesitated longest, giving a glance behind her wondering if she should go try and get back to sleep. She also considered heading over to Gentle's room to see if he would talk to her about the blonde girl in her nightmare, but she turned back to the group ahead of her and finally started over to sit with them and train something that sounded to her like a good thing to know. "You'll need incredible focus," Seraphim started once the four were seated in front of her. "So first, clear your minds. Prepare to be attacked. You won't always be ready for a mental invasion, but for the first tries we'll get you as prepared as possible to just look out for the feeling right when I enter your heads. Once you know what that feeling is, it shouldn't matter whether you were ready for it or not. You'll be able to fight back. And people with Quirks like mine often let their guards down once the trap is sprung…"

 **Present**

Zeira's teachers at U.A. stared down in shock at the girl screaming after using her Quirk in a way they had never seen before. It had only been around fifteen seconds since she started using her Quirk, but they had never heard her talk about a time limit before. Nor had they ever heard of side effects that would make her reach up to the sides of her head like she had and start screaming. Zeira clenched her eyes shut harder while her head pounded in pain, feeling like it did when she would use her third Mental Infiltration for the day except much worse. It was the feeling she got if she went for a fourth try and kept pushing even after failing. She felt drained of Quirk power and her head had an agonizing migraine.

Midoriya leaned forward with his eyes growing huge again as Zach's head snapped up. His smile was gone. His lips were flat and his eyes cold. The others in front of him had all spun to Zeira as she let out her scream, and none of them saw that look that flashed over Zach's face in the same moment. Then Zach ran forward.

No one knew what had happened. They did not see Zeira's mental body inside of Zach's head, confused as it was stuck behind a large wall that she banged against and tried tearing through. They did not see Zach's own mental body that appeared in there, screaming in a way that made the entire mental world that had been created with her Quirk shake violently. Zach roared at her so that she would leave his mind on her own, as he did keep enough sense not to just use Death in his own mind to knock her out as he always did as a counter when he was attacked in his own mind. He had never been attacked in that way since learning how to tell it was happening and create counters, without reacting very strongly though. No one had infiltrated his mind in such a powerful way without him being in a situation that required immediate and harsh retribution.

 _STAY OUT OF MY HEAD!_ Zach sprinted forward with his eyes dark and his entire body pushed forward, his legs fully extending behind him with every step of a sprint that carried him across the gap in a second.

The group who had spun to their classmate started spinning back at the loud footsteps slamming on wet ground and charging them. The sight of their comrade collapsed to her knees told them what they needed to know and they all tried recuperating even though they were shocked that her attack failed. Oribia spun back quicker than Eko, but she still needed to re-bulk her body and she jumped backwards to gain distance with a panicked look covering her face at just how close Lifebringer already was. Zach did not run at Eko because he was not dodging yet though. Zach's eyes locked on Oribia's light brown ones and he turned a bit so he was sprinting straight at where she was coming down to land.

As Zach was running by Eko's side though, as he was finishing turning and realizing how close Lifebringer was, Zach's right arm shot out and he clotheslined the younger bulky teen. His forearm shook from the impact but did not slow down, with Zach's arm dragging Eko's face along with it so fast that his whole upper body followed and Eko's feet lifted off the ground. Eko's back slammed down into the floor as Zach started swinging that right arm around the front of his body for Oribia's left side as she was landing. Oribia's eyes darted to it and specifically his glove. Her upper left side bulked and prepared for the impact, but Zach's left hand swung into the unguarded right side of her head before she even saw his arm raising.

Zach's left hand curled into the right side of Oribia's head while it was still moving across the front of his body so fast that it pushed her to her left. Her legs came out from below her and swung up to her right side as her upper body was pushed to the left. Zach released her parallel to the ground straight at Ubo who was quickest of the others to react and start running at him, and who Zach saw approaching on Oribia's left side while he started his feint at it. He threw Oribia into him so hard that it stopped Ubo's momentum and made him stop using his Quirk at the same time to catch his comrade instead. This gave Zach only one opponent to target on as Reimi was still running at him even without Ubo to back her up on Zach's other side now.

Reimi was expecting to get the drop on Lifebringer because Ubo was faster and going to reach him first. Instead he was moving towards her halving the time that it would take for the two of them to reach when she already was not prepared to fight him head-on even if it had taken double that time. Zach slammed his left fist forward and lodged it in Reimi's gut before she could get a guard up. Then he opened his hand and curled fingers into her costume while reaching his right hand out and grabbing her by the collar as she hunched forward. He yanked up and flipped her over his head but did not slam down into the floor behind him, instead stopping and holding her in the way of Hono who had just fired long black tape from both of his arms aimed forward at Lifebringer's side. Zach finished spinning around fully himself while Hono snapped his arms to the side, barely getting them apart fast enough to prevent his thick black tape that was sticky on both sides from colliding with Reimi.

As Hono's tape was passing by on both sides of Zach, Zach lifted and let go of Reimi. He brought his arms up just a bit so that she would rise for a half second and then start an arc down. It was not much, but it kept the center of her body level with where Zach's foot extended into a second later as she started dropping. His left foot slammed down on the floor and his right kicked out into Reimi's back so hard that she flew between Hono's attacks and slammed into his front hard enough to knock him on his back and for both of them to roll over each other backwards ten feet. Then Zach turned and he ran towards Ubo who was helping Oribia up on shaky legs as she was still disoriented after the slam of that hand into the side of her head strong enough to throw her into Ubo.

Zach jumped up before reaching them and he slammed a foot down towards Ubo's right hand that he rose up. Zach flicked a knife down near Ubo's arm as Ubo rose it, making him pull away even though the knife had not been on target to hit him anyway. Ubo dodged though and missed blocking the foot that slammed a heel down into the top of his head and dropped him back into the ground. Zach stomped his other foot down on Ubo's back and he reached his left hand forward, grabbing Oribia by the front of her costume again.

"Not again!" She yelled at him in a defiant voice. Oribia clapped her hands inwards with her arms bulking up in strength to stop him this time, but Zach released the costume and swung that arm up in an uppercut under her chin. His punch collided the same time that her hands clapped together, knocking her backwards and off her feet so she fell to her back. She groaned after hitting her back and started leaning up, but Zach's eyes had darted over to Eko who had been dazed after that clothesline and subsequent meeting with the ground.

Eko was in the middle of getting back up, so Zach dipped his right foot under Oribia's side and yanked his leg up after getting enough of it under her. He tossed her body with one leg up in front of himself, then he did a roundhouse kick into her side while she tried to swing a punch at him with one arm that she bulked up to four times the size of normal. Zach felt a strong wind slam into him but nothing else, as Oribia was already flying over the ground and crashing into Eko who rose his arms to try and catch her. He was not in a good position to do so half-up on his knees, and she was too high that even though he rose his arms up, they got pushed back and she smashed straight into his face.

"Stop it," a low, raspy voice hissed. Zach turned his head towards the position he just heard a voice he recognized, because it was one he had heard in his head a few seconds ago before he started smashing on all her comrades. Zeira had her head lifting up, twitching and her lips trembling and flinching as she strained her whole body just to do this. She ignored the pounding in her head that was not as strong as when she was forced out but was still insanely painful. Zeira glared at Lifebringer and she slammed her right fist down into the floor in front of her. Her shaking left hand curled into a fist a couple of times itself before opening up and yanking a knife from a sheath that she slammed into the ground too and used to pull her body forward.

Zeira pushed down on the hilt of the blade, struggling up to one foot first and then the next with a furious look covering her face. "How?" She said, her voice still raspy but stronger as she got up to her other foot too.

 _The U.A. group,_ Zach thought, his breathing coming out heavy all of a sudden even though during all that combat he had not been panting. He calmed himself and thought in a dark way, _Are actually pretty good. Better than most of the others I've run into. What am I doing? I guess it was combat again, for a second. They were actually putting up good counters and defenses. This girl though,_ Zach thought, staring at the brown girl covered in fur and with long majestic antlers. He had not expected her Quirk to be what it was, but as soon as she started it he realized what was happening. The reason it took him too long to counter was only him trying to figure out how best to push her away, though he failed at coming up with one and just pushed her out without much grace. _I can't treat them all like there's nothing they can do to hurt me. They might not be heroes yet, but there are people here who will one day be the strongest heroes in their generation._

He looked straight into Zeira's eyes while thinking that, and he got his expression looking serious again with his breathing fully calmed down. _She looks up to me. I could tell. When she was looking at me before, she was determined to show me what she could do. She wanted to prove it to herself too. Even though I broke free from her hold, and her 'how' sounds like she didn't think that was possible, she's still standing up ready to fight me. Holding back against someone like this, holding back so much, it's disrespectful. And I do respect her. Enough, that I'll take her seriously._

"No Quirk is perfect," Zach replied to the girl before him who was the last standing of her friends now. The others were all moaning and groaning on the ground, struggling to hold themselves together and not yell out from the pain they were in. Zeira glared into Zach's eyes, hers bloodshot from the pain she was in and the headache that was pounding at her mind and making it difficult to think. She was able to listen though, and she stared at Lifebringer as he continued to her, "Many people consider mental Quirks as like trump cards. Unbeatable. You know that it's not that easy though. That no matter how powerful, it's not going to help you all the time. That's why you have those weapons, why I'm sure you've trained with them. Yet you're still overconfident in that Quirk. As much as you know it won't help with everything, did you think it would always work? Did you think no one in the world knew how to counter it?" Zach looked at her skeptically and frowned at the younger girl like she was not putting up much of a fight, like she was not prepared to be a hero, and like she was definitely not ready to fight against someone at his level.

Frustration spread across Zeira's face so much more, her teeth clenching down and her fists balling so hard around the hilts in her hands. She flicked around the knives and then rose her arms up and held one blade pointed out to one side and the other pointed the other way. "You're still going to fight me?" Zach asked, cracking a smirk at her for attempting it. "After your friends together, using their Quirks, couldn't do a thing? You know there's a difference between stubbornness and stupidity."

"I'm going to beat you," Zeira said. Her legs bent down and she looked ready to charge forward.

"In that case," Zach said. His tone had completely changed. He was no longer taunting her or talking down at the girl he wanted to see not back down even after he said all those things. He did not expect her to, but he wanted to check to make sure anyway that it would not be easy to break her down. "I'll fight you seriously," Zach said. "What's your name?" He rose his hands up with his arms extended straight out in front of his body.

"Zeira Eleinie," she said firmly, still frustrated over the way he had been talking but losing some of her anger at the way he just spoke to her that filled her body with a different emotion. The way Lifebringer was looking at her in a way she did not expect him to in their first meeting. The intense way he looked, ready to fight like she was someone he needed to look that way for, it felt so much more real than all he had just been saying to her. "Hero name: Lifesaver."

"Alright, Zeira," Zach said, calling her by her last name instead of her hero one. She felt like he said it on purpose like that. He said it in a tone that spoke full sentences at her, like she needed to prove to him right now that she deserved that hero name. Her hero name that sounded like his. Just speaking out her last name alone had her heart racing and her adrenaline pumping like crazy. The way he said it had her feeling like this was going to be an intense battle, and yet it was when the darkness appeared that she really understood what she had just gotten herself into.

Zach's fists were pressed together out in front of his body. His thumbs and index fingers started pulling apart from each other slowly, though instead of a gap between his hands, Zach was sliding his hands apart in either direction down a black staff that spread in the gap. The staff was not wisping with darkness, but it also did not look fully solid as smooth as it was. Zach slid his hands farther apart and made the pole of darkness longer too, until it was four feet long when his arms stopped spread far apart. Zach let go with his left hand and slid his right up to about midway up the pole, lowering the bottom down near the ground where it stopped a couple of inches off the floor, and yet the green grass around the bottom of that pole was still shriveling up and turning brown. The top of the pole extended up some more, though the darkness got more wavy above the pole once it rose over five and a half feet.

Most people in the bleachers near the area were all looking at the same spot now. A few of the U.A. students who had been taken down managed to lift their heads, only Oribia and Hono so far though and neither could stand up or thought they should considering the way Zeira was looking at Lifebringer and him at her. They also did not want to stand, because at the top of the six foot long staff Lifebringer had created, the darkness stopped raising up. It had flared at the top in less of a solid form, but that flaring black mass had pulled forward towards Zeira like it was trying to attack her. The darkness pulling her way started to settle into a shape too though. The darkness curved up and then down farther out from Zach, in the shape of a long curved blade with a sharp point at the end.

 **"What the fuck was she talking about,** _ **Reaper?"**_ Midoriya heard Bakugo growling that at Zach after his fight with Toga, after she had said something about the things Zach had been doing with the League of Villains. He stared down at that scythe that had caused him to take a sharp intake of breath. And then he watched with wide eyes along with the others around him as Zach started spinning his large dark weapon.

Zach spun the scythe around in a full spin with the blade coming down forward and then back up behind him into its original position. It kept spinning though, Zach opening up his hand and flicking inwards and to the side, his scythe moving like a blur and spinning around in circles on his right side and then in front of him and to his left. His left hand took the scythe that it never fully gripped around but the weapon started spinning around too. The long blade sliced at the ground below Zach's feet and carved through grass and dirt tearing some up with some fast slashes of that pure darkness. Zach spun the weapon over the top of his head and then around his back with it extended six feet out behind him and then in a full swing around the side of his body so anyone who had been in a six foot radius of him would have been slashed. He continued spinning it around his other side and then swung up and over his head down to in front of his body with the end of the scythe pointed straight at the front of Zeira's body.

There were slash marks all over the ground around him. He held his right arm out fully extended with his hand curled on the bottom of the scythe that looked to weigh nothing considering how it was not dipping down at all. He had eight feet of reach out in front of him extending his arm like that, two feet of arm and another six on top. Then the long hilt of the scythe for six feet out from his hand ignited in a roaring flame of darkness that ripped off the thin weapon a couple of feet up. Zach's arm was extended straight out in front of his chest, so the rising black flames cut up in front of his face and blurred it in darkness from Zeira who bit down hard and then snapped her right hand down and grabbed her grappling hook.

 _It's clear you won't be getting within striking range of me,_ Zach thought. _So that would be the right move,_ Zach swung his right arm up and let go of the scythe he had just shown off so many cool moves with. He tossed the weapon up high into the air, and Zeira's eyes darted up but darted back to him quickly in case it was just a misdirection. She kept him and the scythe in her vision though, and she jumped backwards to increase the distance between them as she did not know what his current plan was. Zeira felt like he wanted her to go back on the decision to grab for her gun though but she was not going to hesitate.

Zeira aimed her grappling gun forward and fired. Zach clenched his right hand into a fist and her eyes darted back up to the scythe that exploded above. Zach pulled his head away from the grappling hook, and he started running forward while reaching up his left hand now and grabbing the wire that missed him and did not redirect quickly enough. Zach's left hand curled on the wire, and without that hand even covering in darkness, a black flame started racing down the wire faster than Zach was running at her. Zeira stomped forward and threw the grappling hook, lifting her other hand with the knife in it and running at the older boy who no longer had that scythe in his hands. She threw her gun at him, another move Zach was very familiar with and did not falter at, just running through the weapon that hit into his body and bounced off.

 _There's nowhere else to go!_ Zeira saw the scythe explode in the air above her without fully taking her attention off of Lifebringer. The weapon had exploded and mixed in with the rain, and it was raining down with it behind her and on both her right and left sides. She pulled out a second knife again while running forward, in the only path she had which made it so obvious as a trap. Yet even though she knew it was a trap, there was no other direction she could go to. She charged through the path in the black rain, making it so there was less time before their collision than if she had stayed in place and waited for him to run all the way up to her.

Zeira brought both arms up for her initial slash, and Zach's hands snapped forward and grabbed her by the wrists faster than her arms were slashing or able to pull away. He yanked those wrists down and in front of her legs that she could have kicked up at him but now had no ability to. Then once he stopped her momentum, he tossed those wrists right back up again while she was opening her hands to try and flick the knives forward. Zeira hesitated as now that she had her hands back she did not know if she should let go of the knives, nor would the angle she had been preparing to throw at work anymore. As she had that moment of hesitation to think, Zach slammed his right foot into the ground just in front of her, and he twisted his body to the right in a spin kick that collided his left leg with the right side of Zeira's torso just below her ribs.

Zach saw Zeira's face flash with pain along with dread, frustration, and regret at the moves she had made to put herself in that position. The dread was because of the power that he hit her, showing over the pain of the actual hit itself because she knew that with that much force she was about to go flying into the dark rain falling on her left side. She was flung off of Zach's leg hard, slamming into the ground and bouncing away before sliding through mud to a stop twenty feet away from him. As she had flown away from him though, Zach focused on the Death he had dropping on his right side. All of that Death stopped falling with the rain and pulled to the sides of where she was kicked, and then the last of it hit down into the ground.

Not many people who were watching caught the rain getting less dark in the area Zeira flew through. She was just down in the mud and the last of the Death fell, leaving Zach standing alone with six injured opponents now. Midoriya stared straight towards Zach with his eyes full of confusion. He darted his gaze over to the girl who he knew did not get touched by any Death, and he watched as she moved, though just enough to turn her head to the side in the mud and take in a huge gasp of breath. Midoriya stared back at Zach and watched as he pulled a red ball out from his sweatshirt's front pocket. _Why leave her conscious just to take her out?_

Zach tossed the ball up in his right hand a couple times. He looked around and said while looking back towards where Eko and Oribia were laying near each other, "When you heard Zeira scream, why'd you turn away from me? You were the front line so you should have had your guard up better than everyone else. You _all_ let your guards down just because she got me too, and you waited too long to come after me when she made her move. You shouldn't have let your guard down until my target was tagged." Zach paused and he glanced over towards where Zeira was lying, her face still turned to the side though moving a bit to look more back towards him. Her hands were dragging up through the mud too, and Zach saw a couple of the others looking frustrated and motivated enough to try and get up if it was between that and getting tagged right now. "But that was a pretty good fight. Good luck making it to the next round with those injuries. Or just give up and stay down, doesn't make a difference to me."

Zach pocketed the ball again and started running off. He picked up speed fast to not have to answer any of the questions that just got shouted at him. _I'm not not finishing you off because I don't think you're worth it. It's the opposite, but that'd be weird to say. Plus I don't know if you are yet. Get up and go manage to take down eight more people while sore and aching all over. Then I'll feel like you all really deserve it. I'm just being overly cocky and risking failing this exam just to go get in more fights. Think of it like that… Because that's the truth? Is that the truth? Am I even thinking about what I'm doing? What is truth when it comes to stuff I'm doing? I guess it's really what I have been thinking about. What Zach's been thinking about? Fuck, I am Zach. I'm Zach Sazaki!_

Up in the bleachers, Present Mic had a hand running up through his blond hair over and over again. There was some sweat on his face, and he grimaced at that expression he knew he had. He tssked and turned away after watching Zach run off for a few seconds. _Kid just beat the crap out of them and left them there. It's like he's not finishing yet just so he can go beat up more applicants. What the hell is that?!_

Midnight closed her mouth and she shook her head in disbelief after just watching in shock for a minute there. _He broke out of Zeira's Quirk, and he beat the rest without even using his Quirk. That's remarkable._ Midnight looked out into the distance where she could still see Zach though he was heading into a different area with a lot more obstacles in it that would be harder for her to see into. _What was he telling them at the end? Was he giving them advice? Is he impressed with how they stood up to him so he's letting them go? If it was just him wanting to stay in the fight for longer, he would not have taken the effort to leave them all conscious._

All Might felt a strange feeling stir deep in his chest. He did not know how he felt about what he just saw. He thought he should feel relieved that his students were not knocked out of the exam, or feel happy for Sazaki for progressing so much which he could see in that fight he just witnessed. Instead he felt, uneasy. _Combat skill like that… it's not, not something one gathers through any amount of training. Only experience. Experience that told him how every person around him was going to act and react to each of his moves before he even made them. His speed and reaction time alone would make it difficult for anyone to counter him, but that experience is what sets him apart. And yet he's acquiring more experience even now. As he runs off because he is being given the opportunity to fight more people, to test out more Quirks, and to find someone who can challenge him and maybe even defeat him. He said it in that forest, that every defeat he has ever had has made him stronger. And he is so strong now…_

Midoriya's hands clenched over his knees. Uraraka had been staring in astonishment at the scene below, but she caught Midoriya's hands shaking on her side and turned to look at him. Her eyes widened more at the locked-in look on the curly-haired boy's face. _He's a fighter. He's always been, a fighter. When we sparred to prepare for that first Sports Festival, I saw how good of a martial artist he was. He needed to be that good because he didn't have a Quirk he could use though! And yet, even with Death being, so, so strong. He fights without using it. Except that's not true either. He did use it, just not offensively. Or is that just a fighting style he's using because this is just a test? Is he intentionally holding back a lot of power because of the kind of opponents he's up against, does he not want to knock out people and risk hurting them, does he not want us to see his Quirk in action, or is it something else? He's strong._

 _I've always known Zach was strong though,_ Midoriya grabbed his knees even harder at that conflicting thought he just had. _Then what is it? Power, without trust? But I decided that the Zach I talked to the other day is the one I know, the one who said it would be "too sad" if people hurt each other because of what All For One's after. Yet All Might said that what Zach said doesn't sound like All For One. Was he lying? Or does he think it's true but he was still just lying about that to make me believe him? I can't trust him. And because I can't trust him… if Zach becomes my enemy, like I accepted he was. I had accepted, that I was going to have to fight him. Is that why I'm hesitating? Because even after he turned himself in I didn't, take that back? I still feel like I'm going to have to fight him. Like he's a final boss, who has so much more influence and power, and I can't do anything about him until he does something even as he gathers up more power and position- NO! That's not Zach! Except, even if that's not what he's planning, it's what he's doing. He'll do it, and then what if he does become my enemy again? What if he does break a rule, and it becomes up to me to stop him?_

 _He's not just strong,_ Midoriya looked back out into the direction Zach disappeared in as there was too much in the way between them now. _He's, smart. He's tactical. He's confident in his decisions! That's what it is! There was no hesitation there. He changed up his plans from when he stepped out to when he actually started fighting, but everything he did, he did right. He told me that he thought I made better in-the-moment decisions than him. I thought he was right about that because of what he did in the training forest and at Camino Ward, and even now, does he know what he's doing? He could have lost and not gotten his hero license if he had messed up there. And, how did he break out of that Quirk?_

A couple of rows behind Midoriya, Endeavor got up from his seat. He turned away and his son looked up at his back. "Where are you going?" Todoroki asked as his dad looked to be leaving. After what he had just seen, Todoroki thought his father would have even more reason to stay now than before. "Did you recognize anything?" Todoroki asked.

The others in front of the two of them looked back too as they heard Todoroki's question. They looked at Endeavor who frowned while turning back to his son, then he glanced out into the middle of the facility testing grounds. "It won't matter even if Sazaki uses attacks I recognize," Endeavor replied. Uraraka looked up at Endeavor with her eyes big at what he was talking about, and she looked around quickly to see if everyone else already realized why Endeavor had come to this. She spun back as Endeavor continued though, "I came to check, but I can't tell. Yet it wouldn't even matter if I could. Because Sazaki got out in front of it and told everyone that he thinks Death has the same Quirk as him."

Shoto's eyes widened and he spun from his dad to look back farther into the facility. His eyes narrowed in a darker way that Uraraka gulped at the sight of, while Midoriya was still just staring up at Endeavor with big eyes at what he said. Endeavor continued as Midoriya's mind was racing, "Now, nothing I say about his Quirk being similar to Death's will be considered proof to anyone." Endeavor frowned and kept glaring out looking for the boy one more time. _Death could have planned something like that out, or it could just be Sazaki saying it. He has to address Death in some way because of all the rumors and similarities. It's impossible to tell whether or not he says things the way he does to stop people from thinking he's Death because he's really not or because he is and doesn't want anyone to know._

Endeavor turned around and started walking away. His eyes darkened as he thought about his last meeting with Death. After those villains had been killed- a day he had buried just as he had burned those bodies. And he thought about why it was that he caved and kept what happened a conspiracy. _**"You really think I'm just a fucking mask?! There's a person inside here, you know?"**_ The shaky voice he heard from behind that mask after the modulator had been turned off echoed in his mind. It had been so shaky, raspy, and desperate that he could not even match it up in his memories with the voice he heard from Sazaki when he apprehended the boy in late July. Yet when he took the first look at that boy's face when he arrested him, he had the same doubt about him being Death that he had had that day of the Sports Festival. _He was enjoying himself down there._

 _ **"If you tell everyone what they tried to do, then, then what did I kill them for?!"**_ _Death, wouldn't be able to just come here and fight a bunch of kids, would he? Not looking like that._ _**"You think I want to kill people?!"**_ _Then again, what if he finally decided he was done? He just stopped killing people, because he really couldn't handle it anymore. Except, Death was strong. If he ever reached the point that he couldn't take it anymore, then that would mean he had been completely destroyed. That didn't look like the face of someone broken._ Endeavor turned his head again even though he had already decided to leave. He looked out and he spotted Sazaki running across an area in the distance, this time with a red ball back in his hand as he chased after someone running away from him.

 _ **"You think, it was easy to do that? To kill them when they couldn't even fight back? Of course it wasn't. I'm, I'm not a monster. But! I did it, a monstrous thing, so that no one will have to know what they attempted here today. So that anyone around the world thinking about becoming a villain only sees the power of heroes today, their strength and resolve and the fact that no villains were brave enough to try ANYTHING! But if you tell them, then regular people watching the finals right now with a pit in their chest, who are going to be so relieved and laugh at their own anxiety, they're going to think that it was right for them to be afraid! They're going to be TERRIFIED! And, and villain activity around the world is going to surge again and Endeavor, I- I can't deal with it this time. I can't be everywhere at once. I can't- I have to get out of here right now because there are too many, they're everywhere, and if you make another surge- IF YOU! Create a surge in villains just because you can't deal with breaking a couple of rules, you're going to destroy the world! I CAN'T DO THIS, if you create thousands more villains. And that's what you're going to do if you tell people what happened here."**_

Endeavor turned and walked away for a door at the top of the bleachers he could go through to leave the facility. _It's not him. Death, hasn't finished yet. He's still out there and I'm wasting my time with Sazaki. Death told me himself that day._ _**"I'm not Lifebringer."**_ _He made it clear._ _**"I'm not Zach Sazaki. I just, have a similar Quirk."**_ _The kid back there hasn't done the things that Death has done. To not show any sign that he had done those things, isn't Death. He always tried to hold back but, that's part of the reason he has that mask I'm sure. In order to be a symbol for his own men and for villains. Death, I'm still coming after you. I don't know if I'll be able to defeat you when I find you, but we will meet again…_

 _You're wrong Dad,_ Todoroki looked out towards Zach who he saw tag another opponent which still somehow was not his fifth as he turned and went after someone else. _There's more than enough proof that he's Death. You might not think it's worth it to keep watching him, but I know he'll slip up. Zach gets emotional. Just before, you saw how he looked after he broke free from that girl's Quirk. He held back, but that rage on his face- is something that Zach could have had too… Except the one I'm thinking of who looked like that was the fake expression he showed everyone after Raijin, it was all fake! And now, him looking like it's not all weighing him down is also fake. Every second, every single thing he does is part of lulling us into a false sense of security. I won't let him do it this time. I won't be tricked again. Not by anything you say or do._

 _The field's really thinned out,_ Zach thought as he searched for a fifth person to eliminate. _Hope I didn't wait too long._ Zach slowed and he turned to his right where he saw someone peek their head out from behind a rocky outcrop at the edge of the mountain zone. Zach was near the middle of the room so there were a lot of sections that connected around him, and he half-expected a confident team to be laying in wait around there for people crossing into different sections. _That guy doesn't look very confident though to be over here. He looks worried actually. Looks pretty injured too. Probably has a few points himself. He's making eye contact with me and doesn't look all that afraid._

"Hey, Lifebringer." The boy walked out from behind the rocks and he darted his eyes around to check if anyone else was near him. He started forward slowly towards the only other person in the vicinity. "Do you want to team up? I'm sure there aren't too many people left, but there are probably some big teams that tried spreading out the points and are now trying to finish, so I was thinking if I had someone else to help me, but the rest of my classmates were eliminated already, or passed." He muttered the last part quieter, looking like he was thinking about a friend who had gone on ahead without him.

"How many points do you need?" Zach asked. The boy's eyes lit up at the question, as Lifebringer did not just shut him down on the prospect and actually sounded like he might consider it. Zach looked at him carefully though after that enthusiastic reaction. _Is he going to try and betray me? Try it and you'll be the final person I get out. This is a test to become heroes. It's not very heroic to come to me with a plan like that only to betray me. Especially if you do it badly. I'll kick the shit out of you before tagging you too. Show you what will happen if you half-ass an infiltration. Betray villains and they'll rip you to fucking pieces. So this better be a real team-up you're offering. Even if you do tag my target, I'll still beat the shit out of you._

"Only two more. I've only seen teams for the last couple of minutes though. Like all the solo entrants are out, or through already- but how many points do you-"

"Just one," Zach replied. The teen he said that to nodded with his eyebrows lifting up as if saying 'huh' with a very high-pitched voice. Yet he still stood there without backing off, and Zach shrugged after a couple seconds and then smiled. "Sure, let's team up."

"Wait- really?" The guy asked in surprise, sounding stunned that it worked out.

 _Is he that good at faking it? It's okay to trust people here. This is a place for future heroes. He's not going to trust me though, and people fear what they don't trust. They attack what they fear in order to protect themselves. If he thinks I might attack him, he might attack me first to prevent that from happening._ "Yeah, why not? Sucks about being left as the last one on your team. What's your name?"

"Oh, um, Amakuza Sirio. My friends call me Siri though," he added at the end, offering it up for Lifebringer to use.

"Alright, you can call me Zach then, Siri," Zach told his new ally. "I'm thinking there are definitely some groups stacked up back in the urban area. Hiding in some buildings waiting with traps set for applicants to come searching, desperate to find people. Let's go spring a trap on their trap."

"Will that work?" Amakuza asked, running up to Zach's side. He slowed when he was almost up at his new ally, but then he pushed down his feet and ran the rest of the way without getting afraid. _Screw it. If he gets me he gets me. There's no way I beat Lifebringer, and I doubt I'm taking down two more people on my own. I'm barely standing as it is!_ He exaggerated the last thought mainly to tell himself there was no option except doing this, but he was relieved when he got up to Lifebringer that the target on his left side was not being tagged.

 _Alright, he really seemed worried there for a second. Has the thought of turning on me even gone through his head? I didn't see a second hesitation like he was reconsidering changing his plan. Maybe he's too trusting. Sometimes heroes need to suspect other heroes in order to keep things secret… but that's not heroic. And corruption in heroes is rare. Rarer now I'm sure after people saw what countries did to corrupt heroes, and how they were treated by everyone else, and most heroes wouldn't get corrupted in the first place!_ Zach shook his head to stop thinking about so much after just being asked a question he had yet to really consider. "Yeah, it'll work," Zach replied after he remembered what was asked. _Anything I do will work. I have to make sure to get Siri through though. If I lose him, consider it like I let a comrade die. I won't let you lose._ Zach's face started to get way too serious, and he saw Siri looking at the side of his face with big eyes behind his square glasses.

"What's your Quirk? Let's come up with a plan," Zach suggested. He relaxed his expression a little but made sure it looked like he felt they needed to get things moving. Siri started explaining his Quirk and then they brainstormed some ideas off of each other. Zach had a couple well-thought-out plans himself, but he wanted to see what kind of plans Siri could think of too. Though he was disappointed he did not hear any good plan he had not already considered, some of the ones he had thought of were mentioned and he decided to go along with one that Siri said something along the lines of. He agreed that it sounded like a great plan, and the two of them headed off for the urban area together.

Only six minutes later, Zach and Siri stood together on the third-to-the-top floor of the fourth tallest building in the urban zone. There was a whole team eliminated on the floor around them, and Siri gave Zach a strange and hesitant look after what Zach just did. Siri had tagged his two people once they had launched their trap and taken down their opponents, but then Zach quickly tagged the other seven on the floor. The announcement called out that he had passed slower than he was able to take them all down, and the others' targets that he had tagged were all illuminated instead of just the first person's that would have been his fifth anyway.

"Why'd you tag them all?" Siri asked.

"It looked like they had this trap set up for a long time," Zach replied. "For it to fail this badly with so many of them here, none of them were going to make it to the next round." Siri looked at Zach in surprise at his quick response that sounded strange to him but not like Lifebringer was making it up. "Plus, I don't think anyone else should be moving on to the next round just by taking out one of them," Zach added with a nod at one of the injured and moaning opponents they had just taken down. A few of them looked towards Lifebringer in shock at the harsh insult directed at them, but Zach looked right at their faces and added, "To waste the entire exam up here planning a trap and for it to fail in seconds from a lack of communication, a couple disorienting moves on our part, and a fear of your opponents even though you had us seriously outnumbered? Rethink that strategy," Zach suggested with a scoff, turning away from the group and looking back at Siri. "Let's go, number 92."

Siri felt like Lifebringer might have gone too far there, but he grinned again hearing that number that the announcers had called out after he got his final tag. The two of them headed out, leaving a disappointed and frustrated team behind them. Zach glanced back once when he was almost out of the room, giving the ones glaring after him a frown that had them looking away. _Those are the ones who will probably come back and try again. A lot of them just look exhausted and tired of all this. Not everyone's cut out to be a hero. Some of them looked older than me. I don't want to cause people to give up on their dreams, but if what I just said was enough to make them quit then they shouldn't be trying to be heroes anyway. Sometimes someone just needs to tell you to quit, tell you that you're wasting your time. It could be a wake-up call. It could be, you find jobs you're actually good at and thank me for this. Or maybe you curse me over it for years, or blame your defeat this time only on the fact that you had to go up against_ _ **the**_ _Lifebringer._

"That plan really worked out," Siri said as the two of them were heading down a flight of stairs much slower than he had come up. Zach had come in from the outside of the floor they had attacked once they knew which one it was, so it was Zach's first time on the stairs instead of climbing straight up the side of the building. "Don't you think?"

"Yeah," Zach agreed with a nod and a shrug of his right shoulder. Shrugging just that shoulder closer to Siri made him wince, and Zach lifted his left hand and rubbed the right side of his chest up near his shoulder for a couple seconds as they continued down the stairs.

Sirio stared at Zach in confusion for a moment as he had not seen anyone hit him during that brief fight, then he wondered if maybe it was one of Lifebringer's fights earlier that round. Then it hit him like a ton of bricks, as he thought back to not even a full week ago and what he saw while watching live from his home. "Are you alright? You got shot and I- I didn't even ask-"

"I'm fine," Zach countered quickly before the younger boy could make a bigger deal of it. He lowered his hand and thought, _If I had stayed in the hospital for another day, Recovery Girl probably would have come back again to give me one last kiss. I'm glad she still likes me. Then again, it's because I stopped Toga and saved- no, she's just a nice woman, and a hero. And she cares. She looked so hurt when asking me about the wounds I kept lying about. My arm, my heart, my kidney, my lungs, my neck._ "It was just a flesh wound," Zach joked as he saw Siri still looking hesitant about it. "Looked worse on tv than it really was. The shooter was a bad shot," he finished, still in a joking tone though his smile did lower down a little.

"Well I'm glad you're alright," Siri said. Zach turned to his side at his new friend who added, "We were up- my family and I, all night until they made that press release that you were going to be alright."

Zach smiled in a softer way and he nodded at the sentiment. "Thanks," Zach said. He did not know after he said it what he just thanked Siri for. Yet he did feel grateful to hear that. _People were worried about me? They were stuck awake worried I wasn't alright? I don't even know them. They care that much about me?_ "Did I, bring back someone you know?" Zach asked, unable to keep himself from questioning about it.

"Huh? Oh, no," Siri replied with a shake of his head. He looked at Zach after with a questioning look at why he would ask something like that.

"Oh," Zach replied back. _What the hell am I doing here? I have no idea what I'm doing. If I hurt all these people again. The country cares about me. If I had just stayed missing forever, this wouldn't be a problem. Now though, I can't die. I really can't, do that to these people. I used to feel that way too. Back when Zach would think about how he couldn't kill himself or the people who cared about him would be hurt. But he- I never thought, so many people would… And it's not just here. People who believe I'm Death, exist all around the world. If I were to die then how many- How many people would I be hurting? Death could have died any day and nothing would change. A new Death would take over and things would keep moving but, but as Lifebringer I can die at any time and it would change things. I can't die. I can't let myself die. I have to protect myself better. I let my guard down. That was stupid, I understand that and I'm sorry. I won't let it down again. I won't die. I promise._

* * *

 **A/N Thanks for reading! Zach makes it through the first round of his hero licensing exam, which was not all that difficult for him to do. Hope you guys enjoyed the fight scenes and new characters I added in. I didn't really have anything prepared for this arc, just "hero license test" written in my long summary list of what's coming up in Death that usually gets a lot more specific as I plan things out pretty far back. Doesn't mean I haven't incorporated all new ideas and other ones into this chapter too though, but just saying it was more created on the spot than most chapters I've been writing. (Got this chapter out pretty quickly too don't you think?) Anyway, leave a review telling me what you think or predictions for the next chapter!**

DarkJokes chapter 142 . Mar 5

It's finally here yeah! Is it too much to ask my boi Death to be back. I love lifebringer but before he left to become death he was whiney and looked weak. Just hope this time when he becomes Lifebringer he's confident and skilful at fighting.  
Also I miss all the villains fearing him. It was so fun to watch the cower at his name. God I'm just waiting for the ship and the death crew to just drop done one day in Japan. And Sazaki walks out of the crowd wearing his death helmet.  
Would be the most epic scene ever. P.S would his quirk evolve. You know when you mentioned All for one looking to a world ending quirk. Like Sazaki has death which is linked to chaos as well. Death brings chaos so maybe his quirk could potentially evolve into another root of pure chaos.  
Thanks for another awesome chapter!

 **Lots of predictions, always fun to hear though won't say nothing about them. Zach's back and oh he's confident and going off in his fighting, kicking the shit out of people at only _% of his true power level! It's not even his Final Form! XD Thanks for the review and hope you enjoyed the chapter!**

Naruffoku chapter 142 . Mar 5

Finally... Zach is ready to whoop Jap ass

 **And now he has. Thanks for reviewing!**

Guessst chapter 142 . 7h ago

MOOOAAARRRR

 ***7 hours later... Here is moar for you. Hope you enjoyed!**


	144. Chapter 144

**Disclaimer: I don't own Boku no Hero Academia**

 **Chapter 144:**

"Only 106 people made it through?" an eighteen year old girl called out towards the officials speaking to the applicants who had made it through the first round of the licensing exam.

Zach looked ahead towards that third year girl who he recognized along with a couple of the others around her. She was a tall redhead girl with red eyes who he had taken his first two targets of that first round from. _That looks like, the uniform for Ashita no Hero Koukou._ He recognized it because it was one of the places he had considered applying to, and when he had checked it out he had seen a couple of pictures on their website with students wearing the same jackets that the five students he was looking towards had on over their costumes in between the rounds. _Is it cold in here? Now that I think about it, it's chilly. What's the next test going to be? Outside of these walls they're already setting up._

One of the officials was explaining how it made sense that less than the maximum number of applicants made it to the next round. A lot of the to-be-heroes had finished earlier so they did not see what had happened, but Zach was not yet in the anteroom when the first announcement about it had been made. _I wish I could have watched the end. It sounded interesting._ Zach glanced over at five people who had come in on their own at the end of the round with more injuries than the rest of them had and looking more exhausted than anyone. Zach thought about what he had heard when he was heading towards this room with Siri, about how half the sections in the room were becoming dead zones that the remaining contestants were not allowed to stay in. _The zones were probably chosen at random to make everyone move, push more interactions and quicken the end of the round._

Outside of the anteroom, many of the heroes in the bleachers were still talking about the final battle that had gone down in the wetlands. The grass plains and hills that were covered in a torrential downpour had been the final location that all the remaining applicants had been pushed to when the field continued being narrowed down. Then that zone had become a moshpit of over a hundred people still remaining who escaped other zones all at once and made it over. Many of the people who had waited that long had not gotten any take-downs yet as they had been hiding the whole time to be able to only focus on people who were more exhausted than they were. There were also some who just needed one or two more hits, but who were tired, and yet some of them were in more of a fighting mind-set already and better prepared for action when it came.

Uraraka was leaning back in her seat with a bead of sweat on the side of her face as she looked down at that zone directly in front of her which was unrecognizable compared to when the first round started. "That was, intense," Uraraka said, glancing to Midoriya and then back up to Todoroki. She was half-mentioning that it looked more difficult than their own exam had been, though she quickly looked back to Midoriya as facing Todoroki made her remember that he had failed their exam the first time when they took it together. _Oops._

"The difficulty at the end of the test was meant to teach a lesson to the ones who thought they were getting ahead by waiting longer, and the ones who weren't fast enough to defeat more enemies sooner or got too injured with their first ones and got slower…" Midoriya was nodding to himself while muttering that under his breath, yet his mutters were carrying around him for his two classmates and his teachers on his left to hear.

All Might glanced to his right and gained a small smile at the habit of his successor that Midoriya had never managed to quit. Then he looked back towards the waiting room across the facility from them just off the wall over near the opposite wall though also a bit to All Might's left. Opposite from that room and to All Might's right fifty meters or so, a large wall had risen up from the normal height of the outer wall that surrounded the testing site. He kept glancing towards that wall which had big walls on the sides of it too leading all the way back over the stands to the far-back outer walls of the facility building itself instead of just the testing grounds. _What is inside there, I wonder?_

 _Feels like they're going to drop the walls suddenly again. The explanation is going too slowly and they're not trying to make it feel like we're rushed,_ Zach looked ahead towards the officials then glanced around quicker at the applicants still around him. _They would make it a bit more of a rush if they weren't going to "surprise" us. Lots of the others are just getting relaxed as it feels like we're going to get another explanation this time. If it's similar to Class A's test, then this is a rescue portion. It has to be too; there's no way they would pass people without a rescue test. I'll probably lose points for even showing a scary face to the actors. They're going to be watching me most carefully too looking for any mistake. If they have the ability to take off points for mistakes, I can't just go off making a ton of mistakes to check on everyone else. I have to take this seriously or they'll fail me. I only saw about half of the people here in action though._

Zach's eyes shifted over to a couple of people who he had seen from a distance near the start of the first round. They looked younger than most of the other applicants, yet he remembered seeing them from the rock pillar using attacks that the others all crowded in the same area could not stand up against. _Each of them took out way more people than they needed to. There were probably some other hero hopefuls in that middle group, but even if they could have passed other ways, they were too confident. There's always someone stronger. Maybe those three could learn that here. Rescue training though, doesn't give me much of an opportunity to go kick the shit out of them. Hopefully they don't get killed 'cause I missed my chance._

His eyes then shifted over towards a girl who was younger than him and all on her own just like he was. _Aiha,_ he started over towards the girl whose classmates were all defeated before Zach had come to help her defend herself against a bigger group. As he was walking that way, he spotted out the corner of his eyes Siri standing with two of his classmates who he also remembered seeing earlier in the previous round. Then he spotted some young students from Shiketsu, though he only saw four of the group of six he had run into at the start of the first round. _They didn't all manage to make it after all. Those two did though, Ivo and Mizahi I think their names were. They're good. So were all the U.A.'s after all,_ Zach saw that unlike the Shiketsu team of six, all six of the U.A. first years were there in the waiting area. He did not actually turn that way fully to look at them, though he did see Zeira looking his way with some of her classmates who turned as he was walking across the area.

The ground started to shake and Zach froze a few meters from Aiha still. He looked around just like everyone else at the walls that were suddenly falling around them. _The whole building? The people in the bleachers are feeling it, so it's meant to signify something big- There!_ Zach's eyes shot over to the large wall that had risen on one side of the battleground and enclosed a section of the building behind it. The whole facility kept shaking, and instructions were still being called out and mostly being ignored by one of the applicants whose focus shot everywhere else but those officials over the next few seconds. _…Chances are it's just a coincidence. I was at everything, did everything, of course this is a possibility. Sure there were possibilities of ones I had nothing to do with, but they're not trying to catch me doing something weird here. Either way, change it all up. Don't pretend like you don't notice though._

The earthquake was violent, and in the urban area and the surrounding slums, the warehouse area with the industrial complex, and even the forest there was a lot of noise coming from collapsing buildings and falling trees. Rock slides started over at the mountain zone and cracks opened in parts of the ground all over the facility floor. There was another crack much louder than most of the others though, and everyone looked towards the wall that they stared at in surprise as it had appeared out of nowhere from the last time they were out there. It seemed like the crack had just appeared as a result of the tremors, but above it projected on that wall appeared a timer that had 5:00 indicating there was not much time at all, for whatever was happening.

"The dam is cracked! It's going to break soon, very soon!" The judge who had been calmly speaking to them until a few seconds ago shouted that, and when they added 'very soon' they clicked a button that had the timer on the wall start to go down.

"Help me!"

"AHHH!"

"Heroes!"

A lot was happening at once. Most everyone who had made it to the second round could figure it out quickly though. As one young first year girl called out in panic about there being civilians in the testing site caught up in the test, an older girl from a different school who had been to four of these tests before shouted, "They're Hucs! They work at the Help Us Company as actors who simulate victims of disaster scenarios. We have to treat them like we would actual citizens though, and the danger is real!"

"I know what this is!" Another girl called out. The red-eyed and red-haired third year from Ashita High shouted for the others to hear. She started running just as a couple who were quick to adapt did. Areana was cut off before she could shout more about it, as the head judge's voice came out of the speakers.

"The wall on the building's north side is acting as a dam that truly has a lot of water on the other side. This is more than a simulation, and in this test there is the possibility of you all failing if the time limit comes and the dam breaks, and the heroes on the sidelines have to step in."

Midoriya and Uraraka spun to the left as one of the teachers near them stood up. Cementoss had been notified earlier about his role, though he had been asked not to mention anything about it so that no leaks would come out to the students. So even Present Mic, All Might, and Midnight who had arrived with him all looked at Cementoss in surprise. He turned and gave them a small and apologetic smile for not saying anything, then he looked back forward and started walking down to the edge of the bleachers to get ready to help if the need arose for him to step in.

Areana just waited until the judge's voice finished, then she continued shouting at the others around her, "It's supposed to be Qingxiao! This flood scenario is just like it."

"We have to start building a barrier between the city and the dam…"

"Let's evacuate all the civilians in the urban area to higher levels in the buildings…"

"Only use the buildings that are still structurally sound…"

"Focus evacuation efforts on the people closest to the dam first and-"

Areana stopped when she was getting close to the first area where they had seen HUCs from farther away. She turned her head and looked back, and she called out to the large group of aspiring heroes who had followed her, "Anyone with a Quirk that can build needs to get to work on a barrier for after the dam breaks! Five minutes isn't enough time to evacuate everyone, so we need measures to slow-"

Zach kept running forward after staying just behind the red-haired girl for the first sprint there. "No, we need anyone who can build or create strong foundations to get over to that wall right now," Zach countered. He spun to the redhead who turned and stared at him in surprise for saying something against her plans, as they were short for time and to counter her plans would only cause disarray. There were dozens of other applicants right behind the two who now felt conflicted and did not know who they should listen to or even if they should listen to either of them at all since they seemed to be about to start arguing at a pivotal moment like this. The HUCs were still shouting around them, and only a few students and groups had broken off already from the group if they had specific Quirks they knew how to use in the best ways or without any help. Some more were thinking about going out on their own like that now or with some classmates too from what they were seeing.

"We need the people with the fastest Quirks and the ones who can build up foundations to get to the dam and try to prevent it from falling at all. If the ones who can build can't get there fast enough then the fast ones pick them up and carry them if you can. This should only be a few people though as we need everyone else to focus on evacuation completely out of the city right now. There's no telling if even the buildings we think are structurally sound can stay standing if the flood does come-"

"There's no way we can stop the actual flood," one of the younger students in front of Zach started. "The timer's there for a reason, because they're telling us that it's going to break in that time."

"Maybe they don't expect us to stop it that way," another started arguing back at the young boy who began with that. He looked to Zach Sazaki who he felt he should probably listen to, then looked past him and towards that cracking wall and the timer ticking down on it. He spoke faster at the sight of the timer again, "But just because they don't think that's how we are going to, we could prevent the second disaster from happening in the first place-"

"There doesn't need to be a second disaster in the first place," Areana snapped, speaking fast at Lifebringer and then pointing over at an empty area between the city and the wall. "If we build up barriers around the town then even if they're not strong enough in the time we make them, they will redirect the water flow for a little and at least give us more time to evacuate-"

"We have no idea how much water they put behind that dam," Zach started, looking into the girl's red eyes and speaking in a calm voice without a very rushed tone in it like all the others had. "As soon as that dam breaks, we have to be ready for nothing to be able to stop the water-"

"That's not how they did it in Qingxiao!" One of Areana's classmates called out.

Areana glared into Zach's eyes too and she said in a lower voice, "This is the way the Army of Death reacted to the flood. It worked for them-"

"A lot of people still died in Qingxiao," Zach countered. He said it and his eyes flashed a dark look that had Areana freezing with her mouth closed and her eyes locked deep into Zach's. "I'm not saying they did a bad job, but they were simply reacting to an emergency situation. We have hindsight. We can look back at what they did that day and say exactly what would have been the best decisions that they failed to make, and there are decisions that could have been made better that day." The way he said it made everyone in front of him believe that he had already thought about those better decisions that could have been made. Zach continued on though with his voice starting to speed up as they were nearing four minutes, the mark he had decided they needed to move by when he started trying to convince them. "Are we okay with just dodging a giant disaster like what happened in Qingxiao, or can we avoid there even being a secondary incident in the first place?"

"He's right!" Ivo shouted, the young Shiketsu freshman running forward as he wanted to stop anyone else from continuing an argument here.

"I can make a sticky substance that hardens after I fire it!"

"Come with me!" Another girl shouted at the first who she did not know. She flapped a pair of huge white feathery wings off of her back and flew towards her fellow applicant. The other girl reached her hands up and grabbed the flying one's hands to be lifted up and flown into the north of the facility.

A lot of people looked up as they started flying over their heads, but more started running forward as the timer on the dam they looked back towards had dropped below four minutes. "You go too!" Zach shouted, looking to his right and over at a guy whose eyes widened at Lifebringer's command. Zach did not explain why, nor did he need to for the young man who could create large steel protrusions out of his arms that he could then remove.

"My Quirk can hold the wall together! I can't get there in time to set-"

"I'll take you!"

"I'm coming too!"

"We need the majority of people to scatter on evacuations!"

"We need to establish an infirmary and safe zone for the people we rescue!" An eight foot tall boy called out, looking towards Zach as he announced it.

"Over in the swamp area," one of Areana's classmates ran up to her and started saying. "It's the farthest from the dam-"

"No," Zach disagreed, shaking his head with a turn of his head back to that student. The boy spun to him and rose his eyebrows high in confusion though only a bit of annoyance as he was waiting to hear why first. "If we can't stop the water it will keep going all the way over there since the swamp is low elevated. We need to bring everyone to the mountain zone. It's closer to the dam, but it looks the least affected by the earthquake, it's highest in elevation, and should the dam break the flood won't reach up there. Plus, the swamp area is where the fake villains are most likely going to appear."

"'Fake villains?!' But this is a rescue scenario-"

"If it's based on Qingxiao, maybe there won't be-"

"No he's right! There will be fake villains. They appear in these tests to make the situation into even more of a worst-case scenario!"

"And anyone notice that Endeavor's not up in the bleachers anymore?"

"Oh shit- you don't think-"

"You three," Zach snapped, spinning and looking at three people behind him on his right who were in the middle of talking about the faux villains. "That way," Zach pointed to a road towards one edge of the city. "There's an unstable building tilting towards one there are HUCs in, either stabilize it or destroy it and save those people."

"Why should-"

"You have a strengthening and hardening composite Quirk that can break away any of the loose debris falling out of the building while he Re-Positions it, and it's going to fall within thirty seconds, so go."

"Ivo," Railie was running just behind a freshman at Shiketsu even though she was a sophomore herself. She and the British exchange student Gregory from her own class were behind Ivo and Mizahi who were both freshmen at their school. The younger boy with glasses looked back at his senpai who was staring past him towards the spiky-haired teen in all black. "Should we really be following his suggestions? Lifebringer's a killer. When he faced us he looked at us like… and even though you say he did that to test our reactions, that means he was just messing around. He was doing his own thing for his own reasons."

"Maybe the first round," Ivo agreed quietly, though he turned forward himself and stared more intensely over at Lifebringer's back again. "But he watched us all prepare to fight him, and he probably saw us use our Quirks too. Then he ran off to do it some more probably." Railie's eyes started growing wider, and a couple others who were not even in their group but who had seen Lifebringer in the first round turned to look at the younger boy in realization as well. "If anything, we might have just thought that he wasn't taking it seriously, because he was already focused on this round. Maybe he wanted to know all the Quirks of the people who he thought were going to pass, so that in a rescue scenario where actual lives are on the line…"

Zeira was running forward in a group that was getting smaller every second. More people were breaking off to go save civilians they saw, or splitting off in smaller groups to go look for more in different directions. A lot of the HUCs were giving away their positions by yelling, and Zach had called at two people with sensory Quirks to stop for a second and give them exact locations of everyone in the general vicinity. When they had stopped for that brief moment before even more people split away, Zeira's classmates had grouped up and mostly ran off in one direction. She had stayed though with only Ubo, and while they were running forward her eyes shifting to her left and to the Shiketsu boy in the same year as her who she knew from a joint training session their classes had in their second terms back in the fall. Zeira's right side still hurt, a lot, and yet after what Ivo said her gaze locked onto Lifebringer's back again with all the frustration from before gone from her eyes.

 _He was planning ahead. Was that it? He thought we'd make it to the next round so he, he wanted to see what we could do and how he could use our Quirks in a- that's! He would have had to be sure that we would make it, that he would make it, and what the test would be, to even begin planning out a solution for what the… Unless he's just, coming up with it on the fly? But then why is everyone following- even when there was a different plan-_ Zeira shook her head and she spun to the right as she heard a shout in that direction. The girl with large stag horns slowed so that she could turn and run that way, but before she could she heard Lifebringer call out a specific name and hesitated. The person whose name was called out did not, listening to the older teen who sounded like he knew exactly what he was doing and who she knew had much more experience than her.

Zeira started running again as she was lagging behind Ubo and the other dozen people still running with Lifebringer through the urban area searching for "survivors" of the earthquake. Two more people on the left side part of the Shiketsu group split off to run down a road to the left where a sensory-type staying close to Lifebringer had said there was a injured HUC. The sensory-type had been asked to stay up close to Lifebringer, and though the younger boy was the one giving out the statuses and exact locations of the enemies, Lifebringer was telling specific people when to run off without hesitating like he knew they were the best person for saving that specific civilian.

 _Can't hesitate even once. The ones who saw me last round are mostly following what I say without argument. I tried to show them how I outmatched them._ Zach darted his eyes to the side for a second but snapped them back forward before the sensory-type Quirk guy, Jushi, could see him looking his way. _Enough of them trusted me already, and others like Siri and Aiha I got to trust me in the previous round. Others may have been slower to do anything I said, if there weren't so many others following me without looking like they doubt me at all. Probably couldn't have gotten any help if I didn't have those few who just agreed with me right away. I always needed people like that, like Darling and Exodus. The early times when I had to fight without them I noticed the difference in how much argument there was, how much unnecessary talk on the comms, even after establishing as a real army getting all my soldiers to do what I said was never easy. When people trust you though, things go smoother. Less convincing necessary. And with no time for argument, even the ones who want to say something or come up with other plans don't waste the time, because the fact that they made it to this second round alone means they know not to do that._

"I knew it!" one of the guys shouted who had made it to the dam quickly thanks to another applicant's Quirk. He stopped setting his long steel poles up against the dam, and the girl with the sticky Quirk that hardened after she placed it also jumped back and stepped away from the dam that just cracked in ten more places. The cracks came at the same time as the ground shook again. It was not a bad shake, but it signified an aftershock that made the dam crack more while also toppling a building back in the urban area that the other applicants had to scatter away from along with the HUCs they had with them.

"They're not going to let us prevent the dam from actually breaking," the girl with long white wings tucked onto her back started. "We should move back and at least make a barrier."

"It has to be far enough from the wall too, because anything too close will get destroyed by the water when it's rushing out at its fastest."

"No."

The group of seven who were gathered around the dam looked over towards a fifteen year old student in a brown and orange costume. He had an orange cape behind his back, and a pair of orange gloves on that he rose up and aimed to his side at a building in the industrial complex area. "It's empty, right?" He called out.

A boy ran out of the building and jumped up, then jumped up again on the platform that appeared below his right foot, and then on the one under his left. Sirio Amakuza jumped up to the rooftop that his classmate was standing on and nodded his head as talking would be hard considering how much he was panting. His classmate pointed his gloves at the other building that Siri had just searched to make sure it was empty of any fake civilians who might be pretending to be unconscious inside so as not to respond to his shouts from outside it. "Careful Anzari," Siri said softly. He panted again and then added, "Hit the wall, and they might break it just to keep, the original plan-"

"I'm being careful," Anzari replied, right before he slashed his hands up, and to the sides, then back inwards. "Sticky girl," Anzari called out, and his fellow applicant started raising her head just like the others around them to watch as a huge, cleanly cut, chunk of building started rising up in the air. Anzari pushed the building right up next to the dam wall, then he very slowly inched it to the dam while pulling the bottom farther out away from it so it was more like the building was leaning against it.

"What will sticking it do?" The 'sticky' girl called out at Anzari, hesitating instead of just letting the girl with white wings pick her up and fly her up the wall.

"If they make an aftershock to justify more cracks," Siri replied down, while continuously stepping up on clear platforms that appeared beneath his feet. He used his Quirk Air-Step to run around and get closer to the other kid he was replying to and finished, "Then we don't want it getting dislodged. With all the water pressure pushing outwards, if we can counter it with enough force on this side then even with more cracks the wall shouldn't just fall apart."

The other student nodded fast in understanding at the explanation then spun to the girl who wanted to fly her up faster now that they had hesitated for a few seconds. The timer was ticking down more than halfway done above their repairs, and the group was still not feeling too confident that their efforts were going to hold.

Over in the urban area, Aiha ran over towards a building that had fallen down in the initial earthquake and that a couple of other applicants were gathered at trying to stabilize. "There's someone in there," one of the older girls told Aiha as the first year ran over. "We have to widen the hole."

"Help me! AH!"

"We're coming!"

"Here," Aiha ran past the other two applicants and up to the small opening between a couple of steel bars in the rubble on the edge of the building's foundation. Aiha did not know how the HUC got in there to make for this difficult rescue, but she used her Quirk Contortion and slipped through the cracks in a few seconds before crouching right in front of an old woman down on the floor who looked up at her in a scared way. "It's gong to be alright," Aiha reached out a hand and smiled at the woman.

"NO! The dam is going to break and we're trapped! It's going to flood the city and we're all going to die!"

"You're going to be fine," Aiha assured, and she got down on one knee while louder creaking sounds came from her back. "A hero right behind me is going to get us out, then we're going to evacuate to higher ground. I promise," Aiha reached farther forward, and she held the older woman's hand still smiling at her. Then she motioned back when some light came through the widened hole into the area, and the older woman smiled and nodded at the girl and at the two behind her who called in for them to come out now as it was safe to do so.

Outside of the building and down a block, another small aftershock had shaken loose a building that was in the middle of being stabilized by some young to-be heroes. It was not a good time for it to happen either, as two students were leading some HUCs through that area in the direction of the mountain zone which put them right in the path of where that building was going to fall.

"Stay back!" Reimi yelled, running forward and getting between a couple of the fake victims and the falling building.

Hono ran in front of his fellow U.A. students who were with him, and he pointed his hands up with openings at the ends of his connected fingers on each hands. "Black Wall!" Hono called out, and he fired two lines of black tape from each arm that the ends of stuck into the side of the falling building. He brought his hands down to the ground after the end of his Hard-Stick Quirk connected, and when he broke off the tape from his hands it immediately hardened though staying sticky. It was not loose or moving anymore though, staying in the straight line, taut and strong and holding up part of the building. Hono rose his arms and fired again though, and again, and again, and he moved down the road firing black lines from his arms and stabilizing the building more and more so it would stop falling.

"Follow me!" Eko called out to the civilians behind him who had turned to look at the building and start shouting. The pale-faced but tall bulky teen smiled at the HUCs and waved his arm in front of him, "We have to get moving in case the dam breaks!"

"Above you!" Reimi called out, then she spun to the left and shouted, "Oribia!"

One of the HUCs who was shouted at looked up to see something falling out one of the windows that had already been cracked and lost all its glass. The cabinet looked to have slid down the slanted floor and came out the window, and it was falling towards the actor whose eyes actually widened nervously for a moment. He never had to dive out of the way though, as Oribia flew over his head with her right and left legs bulked up to three times their normal size. That muscular bulge started to decrease in her legs though, but she did not need to transport too much to her arms. Instead of smashing the cabinet to pieces that still would have rained down on the HUCs and her classmates, Oribia gripped the cabinet around the sides and dug her fingers of her more muscular arms into it to get a better grasp. Her legs never lost all of their muscle mass, and she came down from thirty feet up holding the cabinet above her so she would not hit anyone with it even as she skid to a stop on the road.

Oribia placed the cabinet down and then looked around at her classmates and the HUCs. Hono lowered his arms and let out a deep breath, then he turned and said that the building was stabilized in case others came through that area after they had gone. "Only two minutes left until the dam breaks! That's still plenty of time to get you all to safety! Follow us!"

Reimi took up the rear of the group as they started off towards the mountain zone again. As they ran out of the zone, her eyes shifted the other way back deeper into the city region of the testing facility. _I hope you guys are doing well too._

Ubo was sticking with a small group that still felt like it was the original one, or the main group that had just gotten smaller the more other people had split off. Even though there were other groups just as large or even larger at this point that had broken off at the same time, which Ubo realized, the fact that Lifebringer was there and still saying things just as assuredly as he did when there were fifty people around them made him feel like he was in that most important group. His eyes shifted over towards his only classmate still in that group with him though, as Zeira spun around and started across the road all of a sudden.

Zach and another five people with him were on the outskirts of the urban zone closest to the swamp area. He had gone to one side of the street with two others, and the two U.A. students and one other who had been the sensory-type who told them where the last of the HUCs were was also with them. As Zeira turned and started towards Zach, the older boy told Ubo that he was going to get the HUC they saved over to the mountain zone before the timer ran out. There was no time to argue as the time was running low, and Ubo just nodded at his fellow applicant.

Zach was looking towards the swamp area from one side of the group of three he had gone to this side of the road with. The other two were getting the injured civilian out of the rubble and precarious situation, but the man they started pulling out bat their hands away and yelled at them. "Abted! Musaeada!" Zach spun and looked back, and the man who was looking back and forth at the young heroes had a paranoid and terrified look on his face. He had fake blood on one arm so he was 'hurting' himself more with each swing of it, and the two boys speaking Japanese to him could not calm him down as much as they were smiling and trying to get him to relax so they could help.

 _What will you do in a situation like this?_ The man with dark tan skin and a long white furry tail sticking out the back of his clothes was thinking even as he continued to shout at the younger men in front of him. His eyes turned to Lifebringer who had turned to face him and was now walking over his way. _In a chaotic scenario like this you could come across an immigrant who doesn't know the language or what you're saying. Or you could have been called to a foreign country where you don't know how to speak to the people. What do you do then?_

 _I get around it by knowing enough of every language to be able to respond,_ Zach replied at what he assumed the man hiding his smug expression was thinking. "La bas," Zach lowered down to his left knee in front of the man whose eyes opened up wide at the Arabic spoken to him. The other two on Zach's left turned his way, and Zeira stopped behind him and stared down at the back of his head. "You're going to be alright," Zach said to the man in Arabic. "Don't move around that arm too much. We need to get you somewhere safe. It's alright." Zach held out his left hand, and he smiled at the man while doing a much better job at hiding his own smug expression so that to the guy who reached out and took it, it felt like Lifebringer was really just being the perfect hero.

"Get him to the mountain zone," Zach said to the boys on his left. "He should be the last one, but we'll look around here a little more," Zach added after standing up and motioning for the guy he had helped to go with them.

"You got it."

"Nice save," the other added, smiling at the older teen who had known the language which let them avoid coming up with a way to communicate their intentions quickly and non-verbally.

"Come on," Zach said, turning to Zeira and looking past at Ubo too. "Let's go towards the swamp area. Not many people went that direction before."

 _That's where he said the fake villains would be most likely to appear,_ Ubo thought. _Is that why we just hit this side of the city? Was he planning on ending the run around it over here from the start- of course he was, he was the one leading and he mentioned it!_ Ubo turned from Lifebringer to his classmate who ran ahead of him right up to Zach's side.

Zeira's voice was low and she spoke fast with a confused look covering her face, "Why are you doing this?" Zach kept jogging forward though he glanced to the left and across the facility to the timer about to reach a minute left. In only a few minutes they had run through the entire city and even saved a couple of HUCs of their own after he split everyone else off who had come with him. Zach's head turned the other way to the girl on his right with a light brown face and tall antlers who looked as frustrated as she was confused. Her question was not specific enough nor did she think he understood it by that way he just looked at her, but the shorter and younger girl looked at her hero in his eyes and mustered the courage to continue, "Why are you leading- it could give away that you were-"

"As easy as it is for everyone to fail this test," Zach started, cutting off Zeira before she could say something that he did not want to hear. He knew what she was asking too and was able to answer her without hearing her reasons for asking, so he continued, "It is just as easy we all pass it."

"Use the marked paths!" Areana called down to the HUCs and the other hero applicants who were bringing the injured to the infirmary they had established. "You guys! Help with that man with the leg," she pointed down the rocky slope towards a man who could not walk and was holding the shoulders of two teenagers who had their arms around his back. There was a steep section of the rock face on the side they were on though, and to go around it to get to a better area to climb would take too long when there were better and more efficient options to use.

"Still a lot of people haven't been evacuated here yet!"

"Make sure we have everyone's locations before the dam breaks!"

"We checked every zone. They're all accounted for."

"Here, let me wrap that wound for you…"

"Ivo! Move faster!"

"Let me help you out with that…"

"Short on time…"

"Do they have the dam blocked up or not?"

"Act as if it isn't, and keep getting everyone secured!"

Zach continued to run with Zeira towards the edge of the swamp zone as he mentioned how easy it would be for everyone to pass. He glanced towards the mountain zone after looking to the timer, when he was shifting his attention back to the girl on his right side. "No one is wasting time. There were people who really wanted to stop me from becoming a hero, it was their most important reason for coming, and yet those people aren't doing anything this round. And why? Because this isn't the first round where you can focus on other things if you're strong enough that you don't need to just care about the exam." Zach did not pause, but Zeira thought about the way he had fought her and her friends and figured that he had one of those ulterior reasons as well during the first round. That made what he was saying sound all the more honest and legitimate though considering she had seen what he was describing.

"If anyone had countered me just for the sake of going against me, they would have been putting the civilians at risk. I thought maybe a few people would go against the plan or get in the way, but right now the plan's working." Zach looked into Zeira's brown eyes and continued quickly as he knew something was coming, "I suggested rescue efforts in this way because I think they'll work out and I know that I have more experience than anyone else so I should be the one taking charge."

"The redhead's plan was good too though," Zeira argued quickly right back, as she could hear the rushing tone in his voice and did not know if she would ever get to have another conversation with Lifebringer if she did not speak her mind now. "And doing things this way will have people so close to the dam wall when the timer hits zero that it'll be more dangerous-"

"You're right," Zach said. He cut her off and continued while she looked at him with her eyebrows lifted wondering how if he already knew about that he was going to counter it. Zach did not counter it though, and Zeira's eyes grew wide as he continued, "It is more dangerous, and the heroes who would step in if we mess up probably won't even be able to help in time if one of the group at the dam does get hit by the flood." He said it in a calm voice, even though to Zeira it sounded like he just admitted that his plan could very well cause one of the other applicants to be killed in a minute. "I have to stick by my decision though, because if I doubt it, then people start doubting me and hesitating to make choices based on what I said. We'd move slower as a whole and risk messing up when we didn't need to, with people thinking about other plans instead of just working specific roles with the group."

Zach turned his head more and came to a stop. He looked into Zeira's eyes, though Ubo was behind them and staring at him with his eyes huge too as he could hear their conversation from how close behind them he was. Zach stared Zeira in the eyes and finished strongly, "If someone does get really hurt then that'd be on me, but I chose this way because I felt it was the safest and least likely for anyone to get hurt. If someone does it'll be my fault, but if I didn't say anything and a worse plan got other people hurt then it would have also been my fault as I had the experience to make better plans." _Leadership's not something you choose because you want it. It's an obligation at this point. No one would want to be a leader if they knew what it really is. Leadership's just a constant string of choices that you will always consider as bad ones afterwards because you never know how the other choice would have turned out badly. Yet you always know what wouldn't have happened wrong had you picked it, the things that did go wrong because of the choice you did make, and you'll always wonder if that other choice you didn't make would have had fewer bad consequences._

 _And the lives of the innocents,_ Zach's inner voice got even darker much farther back in his mind than the thoughts flying through it in a single second at the forefront. In the background of his own thoughts, he continued to himself, _Matter more than the lives of those fighting to protect the innocents. That's wrong in this situation, because they're heroes and not soldiers. But heroes put their lives on the line too and have to be willing to put themselves in dangerous situations too. They're just kids though. I can't accept that. What if I am wrong? What if I get those children killed with my choices that so many of them trusted in? Don't let that doubt show on your face. Radiate confidence and they will be confident in my plan. It's the only way once the decision's been made._ "Got it?" Zach asked, only a second after what he just finished to Zeira. It was only a brief hesitation before the question, but the question itself spoke leagues to the girl who had to wonder herself with a thousand thoughts why he was asking her that like it was something she needed to know.

 _I'm a U.A. student. The best of the best. I'll have more experience than other heroes one day! What he's saying, is something that I'll need to know- He's trying to teach me! That's why he actually said it instead of just focusing on the test?! But he said we couldn't focus on other things in this second exam! He said that people aren't going to focus on their own petty motives during this, while he's still trying to, to make better heroes? To help us?! What-_

 _ **BOOOOM!**_

 _Under a minute left. Get us in the moment when there should be the most chaos._ Zach's head was blurring to the side as he spun with the sound of the explosion before Ubo and Zeira had even started turning yet, only having flinched at the loud blast. _They'll probably have some hidden HUCs start shouting for heroes. Not hidden, but ones they add in now since hopefully every HUC has already been evacuated or is already over there. The dam is holding steady, but there's going to be an aftershock. Because of the efforts to jam the dam though, they're probably going to break it themselves if they can make their way across the facility._ Zach's entire body shrouded in darkness while the other two near him were turning, which made both start turning back to Lifebringer again with wider eyes at the sight of that black flare.

"Get to high ground just in case," Zach's deep voice lagged behind him, as the black blur shot across the floor towards the flying rubble coming down from the new hole in the wall surrounding the test area. The rubble dropped to the floor and silhouettes showed through the dust and smoke into the hole where over two dozen figures started running forward or marching in for the man in the middle of the group.

A couple of hero applicants on the edge of the swamp area closer to the mountain zone prepared themselves as they looked towards that hole in the wall. They had heard the rumor of where the faux villains would be appearing, and though they were staying in the highest elevated level of the zone they were staying in the swamp just in case those villains did appear before the flood. They had already been backing up actually before the hole broke, but now they were conflicted over whether or not to start running forward to fight or to go back to the group and plan a counterattack. They thought about going and getting some people to go protect the dam from the villains in case it did not break at all, or to split up the group protecting the infirmary/ evac point to come help them out. After two seconds though, they decided they definitely needed to back off first at the sight of the man walking forward among a group of his sidekicks.

The hero looked the same as he always did, wearing the same costume and everything. His large number of sidekicks were dressed in more villain-like attire than Best Jeanist was, but all of them still had nicely combed hair and looked like fashion models even in villainous clothing. The group who were about to back off to go get help though, suddenly found themselves running the opposite direction towards the villains at the sound of a shout from just outside of that group.

"H-Help me!" None of the five of them knew where the old man had come from, but he was on the floor at the edge of a river between two marshy banks. The ground was squishy and wet around most of the area, and there had not been many innocents caught up in the earthquake over here. Yet this was a scenario they might run into as well though, and one the hero licensing test prepared for them. Someone they needed to rescue, being somewhere unexpected, and being there at the worst possible time that meant they were going to get taken hostage by the villains or just attacked which meant the heroes who saw him had to rush in immediately.

"MWhahaha!" Best Jeanist's sidekick Flemming ran forward in a black costume with flaming red highlights on his arms and legs. The man with combed silver hair parted to the right with a flip out in front rose his arms up while laughing like a madman. He was one of the three farthest forward of Best Jeanist's sidekicks who had been employed to take part in this hero exam. His laughter cut off before he could start shouting the villainous things he had prepared though.

Flemming froze, just as the other two on his sides stopped, and the other young applicants running towards them all skid to stops to at the voice that yelled out from the darkness. "Keep evacuating!" Zach's eyes were red and stared straight forward past all the sidekicks and into Best Jeanist's eyes. His body shot over the swamp area with no part of him touching the floor, his whole mass appearing in a blur of blackness that pushed forward at his front where his face was still outlined even in the darkness. Behind him the darkness pulled off like flames with a wind flaring behind him propelling him forward faster. That black wind turned the green ground black below him, and a tree he got too close to while speeding across the zone turned brown and withered in an instant.

Zach intentionally got closer to the tree than he needed to, forced some extra Death out of his right side into it, and he saw a large portion of the enemies he was charging at look away for a moment back at that tree. He was already closer to them though, and when they looked, he sped up. The flare out of his back intensified and his red eyes flared while his face lost definition and just became a completely black mass. Black arms broke off of the dark mass with long sharp claws on them that he curved forward while also swinging those arms out to either side. He slammed black legs down on the ground and pushed his feet down, leaned his body forward, and then he swung his arms forward and down at his enemies. As he swung them down, his dark arms extended out and flared so much crazier.

"Get back!" Best Jeanist shouted, pulling his right hand in towards himself which yanked his three farthest-forward sidekicks backwards. The fibers of their clothes tugged back towards Best Jeanist and the darkness that slammed down in front of them did not hit anyone. Flemming stumbled backwards but stayed on his feet unlike one of his other two comrades, then he spun his head right and left just like the others as the black arms that hit the ground did not stop extending out at them. After the arms hit the ground, the darkness exploded outwards to either side of the group of villains that just busted into the area. Best Jeanist snapped his head to either side quicker than any of his sidekicks, then he snapped his head up too as he saw the tops of the black flames on his sides start curving inwards. "Highwind and Icarus, get-" Best Jeanist stopped giving the orders to his sidekicks who could fly, as the darkness on their sides extended thin black lines up above their heads like wires that connected with the opposite side only leaving holes between the wires too small for anyone to make it through.

In the matter of three seconds, Zach had black walls surrounding his enemies from the front of their group all the way back to the sides of the hole in the wall. There was a black roof over their heads that got thicker and closed up the holes that were not created to intentionally make a net. It was only created that way at first to have the quickest way of trapping them by the smallest amount of Death while also being enough to keep anyone from flying or jumping out. It closed in afterwards leaving a veil of darkness surrounding the fake villains that was not very thick and looked like something any of them could break through.

None of them tried busting out immediately though. They all thought about what Best Jeanist had told them before they started, when they were warned about the one applicant they all knew was there already. Best Jeanist himself darted his eyes around from just above his collar, a bead of sweat on the side of his face as he checked out the cage they were trapped in after only a moment of being villains. _The way he acted in the first round made me think he would not react so strongly. Stopping us from even starting the exam's villain portion, it was effective but…_

Zach continued to hold his arms out in front of him and to the right and left. He forced Death from his hands, and the veil around his actual body started to slide away. It slid to cover his arms and then down his arms to only surround his hands that the darkness continued to pour out of. Once it was off his face, Zach turned his head to the right and to the old man sitting on the ground not too far from him.

The HUC staring at Zach blinked a couple of times, then he spun back into the darkness in the direction of the villains he had just been facing towards. As he snapped back to what was going on, his lips curled down into a frown and the old actor looked through the thin darkness at the silhouettes on the other side of the flames who were still very visible despite the barrier. He had a minor burn (or the make-up to make it look like he had a burn) on his right arm, and he had not been moving away when Best Jeanist came in. _The applicants were doing too well,_ the man thought frustratedly, as he had planned on making this more interesting. The older man looked through the veil for Best Jeanist who he tried to meet the gaze of.

"It's going to be alright," Zach assured the man to his right. He looked at the guy, his face back to normal and with a smile on it to give the man some more assurance. His voice was not dark and scratchy like it was when he shouted at the other applicants to continue evacuation. Most of those applicants were still staring over at him, but one of them remembered what they were doing and shouted at the others so none of them would lose points. Most started running off for the mountain zone, just as Ubo shouted at Zeira that they should do from where they had been watching across the swamp zone with shocked expressions. A couple started running towards Lifebringer though, seeing that his arms were occupied with holding off those faux villains and that the man they had initially been running back for still needed an evacuation.

The older man did not look towards those other applicants coming towards him. He had over ten seconds until they would be there, and he kept his gaze looking through the darkness while sitting where he was with an uncertain look on his face that was also scared. "You're going to be fine," Zach added, looking at the old man closer and making the man turn to him so he could look into his eyes. "You need to get over to the other heroes who will evacuate you." The older man's eyes started to widen while Zach continued to just smile at him in the same friendly way, and say, "There should be no reason that you cannot get up and run on your own, as you do not look to be in shock and only have a minor wound on your arm."

 _Best Jeanist can't pull him back towards them with his fibers as long as Death is in the way. He knows he can't as much as he might want to, but the old man himself wants it to happen._ Zach's tone stayed almost exactly as it was, so much so that the old man could not tell if he should take off points because the shivers might be his own fault for his preconceptions, as Zach added, "There would be no reason for you to get any closer to the villains trying to attack you." _He's not a villain. He's just an actor. This is a test._ "The other heroes want to help you, so get up and evacuate with them over to higher ground. I can hold the villains back here while you get to safety. It's going to be okay. I can ask the other heroes to carry you away if you really can't stand," Zach added at the end, as the other two running up behind him were almost there and the old man was still sitting.

"We've come to rescue you!"

"Do you need help standing?!"

"It won't be necessary," the older man said, and he started up to his feet using both hands to push on the ground. Zach noticed and turned his head back to the darkness in front of him, pretending he did not notice that the actor forgot about his fake arm wound there for a moment. The old man stepped between the two other young hero applicants who were saying all the right things and telling him to follow them to higher ground in case of the impending flood.

The old HUC glanced back towards Lifebringer as he was being led away though. _Should I deduct points?_ He wondered. _I feel like the boy was being sarcastic with me, even though his tone was no sarcastic. Lifebringer, was calling me out. He knew what I had hoped would happen and that I was still thinking about doing, intentionally attempting to hinder his efforts… which could even have made me out to be a villain in that situation if there are lives on the line? Would Lifebringer have even attacked me should I have gotten in the way more- treated me like a villain?! Killed me?!_ The panting old man calmed himself and replied affirmatively to one of the boys who had just asked if he was alright. _No, no he was just doing what was right in the situation. It's just- I haven't, in all my years in this job, seen an applicant like Lifebringer before._ The old man lowered his gaze to the floor for a second and muttered under his breath, "He doesn't belong here, taking a test like this with his level of experience and power. It's, idiotic."

 _Are any of you going to try and break free? You're too afraid because you all know the specifics of my Quirk. That even just parts of your Quirks that touch this Death could be too dangerous to you. Some of you, I'm sure, want to test to see if I would drop it so as not to risk hurting villains too badly in case they don't know better, but none of you wants to take that risk. None of you wants to test what I would do there if it means you could get brain damage or be killed. Who would take the risk for a test like this? Which of you cares enough about it to try? Which of you really thinks that just by getting past that wall, you will have escaped me?_

 _Even if we do get through this…_

 _He's just standing there on the other side of the wall. Firing a constant flow of Death like it's not even bothering him…_

 _How much of that power does he have?_

 _Can he just keep using it forever? We watched their fights in the first round, and I thought he was conserving his strength by barely using his Quirk but…_

 _Even if he does run out of Death, I don't think I could beat him in regular combat. Even with me Quirk! Fighting him while he's using Death is…_

Best Jeanist looked over his shoulder back at the hole in the wall they had busted in through. _Going around to a different entry point would be cheating. It's necessary to test all the applicants, but this is a test in itself. There are some who are likely upset over the way we are being handled, stopping them from showing their stuff. Those show-offs are holding back though. None of them are interfering with Lifebringer… This cage, is not something I have ever seen Death use. Yet, the Quirk is very similar to Death's. I noticed the first time that Death's was very similar to Lifebringer's. Lifebringer himself says he thinks they are similar, but the actual level of power is so high for him too that I want to say they are the same. But maybe anyone who trains Death for a long time becomes able to control it in such a way._ Best Jeanist let out a sigh behind his blue collar and he hummed to himself which had his sidekicks looking in at him wondering what they were supposed to do.

 _Our main priority here was testing Lifebringer,_ Best Jeanist thought while looking through the darkness straight ahead of him. _I wanted to focus on all the applicants, but the reason I specifically was asked for the only test occurring today was to judge Lifebringer. The way he saved the injured civilian was perfect, taking off his darkness before speaking to him, smiling and speaking calmly and clearly. His entrance could be considered too harsh and that it could have scared the man, however the alternative to using his Quirk to arrive that fast was allowing the HUC to be taken hostage, or at least risking it. He arrived as fast as possible and prevented us from creating the terrible situation that would have then been needed to be fixed. He stopped us before we even started. Lifebringer did not return the darkness to his body either after the man was led off, and he is looking straight at me as if daring me to try attacking him through his Death. It would be most efficient to just knock us all unconscious right now, and I know that he could do so in a safe way but yet he doesn't. He is leaving it up to me whether or not to deny his, mercy? What is he doing? This is supposed to be an examination that you take seriously. Do not hold back against the third ranked hero and… Yet, even holding back he has held me back. Very, very impressive._

 _Best Jeanist might take points off. They might be supposed to try and make me fail. Considering how I denied Nikko's request for a press conference, I could see him trying to get them to stop me. Or maybe they just really want to stop me from being a hero. Maybe I just assume that's what they want. He looks like he might remove points though for not finishing up here. After all, if I knock them all out and capture them that way I could go back to helping everyone else._ Zach considered it for a moment, and then he turned and looked across the room as he heard a loud buzzer. He stared across the entire facility to the wall opposite him, and after a few seconds he smiled and turned back to the villains he caught and did not need to knock out.

Two sixteen year old boys stopped where they were farthest down on the mountain zone with the HUC they had evacuated. The other students around them and higher up in the area all looked towards the dam too. The HUCs all gathered around looked to the dam, the faux villains stared through the darkness across the room as best they could, and everyone in the stands watched it too. A group of twelve applicants now gathered at the dam all held themselves back with nervous looks as they stared at the dam, or at least at the mass of barricades put up and stuck together in front of the dam. An aftershock hit them and the facility shook, the group mostly stumbled around though a few were better off if they were up in the air.

Some new cracks branched off of the older ones on the dam wall. They spread across the dam, and water trickled through the cracks before coming out in larger streams in a few places.

"The pressure's weak!"

"Toss a board!" the girl with white wings shouted down, and the other girl with the sticky Quirk who she was holding up reached her hands down and caught the wooden board tossed up to her.

Siri dropped to the ground and picked up a piece of debris too, then he Air-Stepped up in the air. He maneuvered around some huge steel bars leaning diagonally up against the dam to points where they were firmly attached by a cement-like substance spread around the end of it. Then he turned left and called the other two over to him as he pressed his debris against another crack where the water was squeezing out faster. His classmate Anzari lifted up some debris he cut up with his hands too, and the extra cracks that were made were being covered up and sealed as quickly as they had just formed. The dam did not break in the immediate aftermath of the aftershock, because the group had put enough counter-pressure on their side of the wall that even with the dam being weakened the water on the other side could not just push the wall outwards.

Everyone let their breaths out at difference paces. Many of the students were still waiting twenty or thirty seconds later for it to break as they watched their comrades working hard to close up the new cracks. All of them let out relieved breaths though when the group backed away from the wall again, though those twelve students themselves stayed nervous longer as they stared hesitantly at the wall they fortified to see if it would hold.

Then there was an odd silence that filled the room. It had only been around six minutes since the start of this second part of the exam, and for some reason it felt like it should still be going on. The ones who set up the exam intended for it to last much longer too. Yet, in just that amount of time, all the HUCs had been evacuated. Not only were they evacuated, but now if the dam was still forced down the water would never reach the HUCs anyway and would just create more irreparable damage to the "city" instead. The villains had been stopped too, before anyone could see what they were going to do during the test or how they would make it more difficult for the applicants.

Zach started panting as he looked through the darkness and at Best Jeanist. He curled his fingers in a couple of times while the darkness spread down his hands to cover only his fingers. The darkness spread out in front of him stayed at its same level, but the black veil on his own body getting even thinner to only cover his palms made it look to the third ranked hero that Sazaki was running low. It did not matter though, as the judge for the exam got on the speakers to announce the apparent end to the test.

 _Yes Best Jeanist, I'm totally exhausted. I'm just hiding it well,_ Zach held his breath to stop himself from panting anymore, and he turned away while dropping the black barrier he had surrounded those villains in. _Like you had never seen me panting, like it was just a trick of the translucent wall you had to look through._

 _He doesn't want me to see that he's tired. He's acting like that took nothing out of him,_ Best Jeanist watched Lifebringer carefully, and when the boy looked back with a small grin and not panting anymore his suspicions were confirmed. He made no facial expression to show what he was thinking, but the way Zach saw Best Jeanist look at his mouth in the moments after he turned let him know that the attention had gone there which alone was enough for his own confirmation. _Why wouldn't he want me thinking he was tired though? Does he want me to think that he's so much stronger than he really is? Or does he just want to show confidence now? Always be confident and not show his weakness. The same way he acts on television, talking about his weakness in a past tense like he's stronger than ever and can take anything._

 _Analyze me all you want,_ Zach thought at Best Jeanist, while making a more smug look form on his face as he started mentioning how he stopped them. _But every action I make, every word out of my mouth, you shouldn't trust any of it. I don't know why I pretended to be tired there just to mess with you, to make you think I think in a certain way so far off from my actual thoughts maybe? But why? Who knows? I don't want you figuring any of it out, and one of the top heroes might be able to. So get befuddled. And convince yourself that you're right about me. And in the end, you'll be as lost as everyone else._

* * *

Zach held a small laminated piece of plastic in his right hand and flipped it over to check the back. He turned it back front-ways and looked at the picture of himself on it, smiling with spiky black hair and a much happier expression than had been on his old provisional hero license. "Try not to lose this one," the official who just handed it to Zach said. Zach looked up at the woman with short white hair who gave him a somewhat harsh look as a warning.

He smirked at her though and replied, "Oh I will." His voice was low so only she would hear it, his voice ominous and foreboding with the words he just said. Her eyes bulged and she stared at him in shock for a moment, then the right corner of Zach's lips curled up more and he added, "In a few months, when I get a real license." He laughed and turned from the woman who frowned more at him for the joke which actually sounded like one as much as she had completely believed something horrible only a few seconds before.

 _Smartass,_ the woman thought, before turning and heading off to one of the other applicants who had passed the exam.

Zach walked back across the facility floor that was covered in over a hundred applicants all of whom passed the exam if they had made it to the second round. There were also some applicants who failed the first one who were back to congratulate their classmates along with some teachers down there with their students too. As Zach walked through the area he spotted Aiha over on his left talking to her classmates who were all congratulating her and looking excited despite her being the only one to have a shiny new license. Aiha turned her head to the side and looked back as Zach was walking by ten meters off, and Zach gave her a nod which she replied with a brighter smile and a nod back at him.

As Zach looked back straight forward, he could see out the corner of his eyes Aiha's friends who had seen him help her start talking to her in even more excited ways about how Lifebringer nodded her way. Over to Zach's right he saw the Shiketsu group talking to two of their teachers who had come along to the exam. There were a few students there who Zach did not recognize who must have gotten out elsewhere during the first round, but he also saw Rucco and Obara who were part of the group of six he ran into at the start of the exam but did not pass like their classmates. His eyes shifted over the second years Gregory and Railie, and he looked closer at the two freshmen who passed, Ivo and Mizahi. The two looked proud of themselves and Zach kept a small smile on his face as he turned his gaze away from them, _It was early in the round, but they didn't let the anxiety of running into me first stop them from succeeding. Definitely the right move passing them up._

Zach slowed down and then stopped while facing the girl whose antlers were long enough that she was almost his height with them considered. Without the antlers she was over a head shorter than him, her tight black costume pressed close to her skin showed off some curves but also showed how small she was, yet the girl with light brown fur around her appendages and rough lighter brown skin around the rest of her was the person Zach felt most impressed by throughout the exam. He kept his expression serious as she came up towards him, and he nodded at the girl who stopped a few feet before him and looked up into his eyes. "Nice job," Zach said, referring to her license that she was holding down in her left fist.

"Yeah, thanks," she replied. She almost said 'you too' but it felt too strange, like it was obvious that he was going to get his anyway so there was no reason to even say it. Zeira Eleinie hesitated for a moment, then she lowered her brown eyes for a brief second before snapping them up to look into Lifebringer's. "Why didn't you finish us off? I don't, feel like I deserve this." She curled her left hand tighter around the license she was holding. All she could think about since she had seen that she had passed, was the sight of Lifebringer holding off Best Jeanist and all the fake villains they were supposed to be fighting to prove they deserved their hero licenses. She saw him standing there talking down to them after kicking their asses, and she could feel his leg digging under her ribs on her right side where there was already a huge bruise formed.

"Well I felt like you did," Zach replied, and Zeira's eyes widened as she continued to stare into his. "So that's why," he said simply. "And between me and the hero officials who passed you, I feel like you're the least qualified to say that you don't deserve this." He lifted a grin at the girl who stared at him in even more surprise hearing that, as it made a lot of sense to her that if they all thought she deserved it, if _Lifebringer_ thought that she deserved it, who was she to say that she didn't? "The license alone doesn't mean much though," Zach added to the girl who re-steadied her expression before him. "It's what you do with it. Go out there and be a hero. Show me what you've really got, Lifesaver." Zach looked past the girl as he was saying it, seeing some people he wanted to go talk to. He reached his right hand out though and patted it down on her right shoulder as he walked by that side, making the girl who was staring forward in shock flinch at the feeling.

Zach gave her shoulder an encouraging squeeze on his second pat as he walked by, then he lowered his arm down to his side and walked away without looking back at the girl who spun and stared at his back. Zeira watched him start away, then she turned herself the direction Zach just looked where her fellow classmates were all faced away from her. They were facing towards the people who Zach just looked towards, the three teachers talking to their students who looked Lifebringer's way and stared into their own former student's eyes.

It was the first time he had looked their way, the first time they had met each other's gazes at least. Zach looked at Cementoss and Present Mic, and he gave his old teachers a nod with a small smile on his face. His eyes shifted to Midnight who was staring at him in just as much surprise as the other two. Each of them wanted to say things to Sazaki, but he just nodded their direction and then kept walking away towards the people he was actually going to talk to before leaving.

 _Lifesaver,_ Zeira watched as her friends looked back towards who their teachers were staring at. Zach had already looked back forward though, and Zeira started over to her classmates while ripping her eyes off of Zach's back. She had to look back towards him again, her eyes darting over and her head turning a bit as it was too hard not to look his way. _Lifesaver. He called me- no one's ever called me it yet but he, the first person to…_ Zeira's light brown cheeks got red and her pursed lips curled up into a smile she tried to suppress so much but couldn't even when her classmates turned to her. Oribia mentioned the excited and happy smile tugging at Zeira's face and asked her what she was talking about with Lifebringer who she knew her friend had gone to talk to. Zeira wouldn't say, but her teachers also looked to her and saw how emphatic she was about whatever it was they were just discussing.

 _He beat the crap out of you,_ Present Mic thought with a bead of sweat rolling down the side of his face. _Thought maybe that'd make you less of a fan. Not the other way around._

 _None of them seem particularly upset over what Lifebringer did, as much as they are aching over it,_ Cementoss pondered while his eyes examined over the six students of the two first year classes who now joined the rest of their classmates in having hero licenses. _I may even need to have Recovery Girl see to them when we return to campus. His hits were brutal, and he looked so angry while he fought. Sazaki, looked so powerful and intimidating, and yet…_

 _I don't think I've seen Zeira look this elated before,_ Midnight smiled and she shifted her gaze back to Zach's back after watching her student for a couple seconds. Zeira had lifted her license up in front of her and was staring down at it in a completely different way than Midnight saw her looking at it when she first received it. The conflicted look and even disdainful expression was completely wiped away. Instead she just looked excited, happy, and especially proud of the piece of plastic she was holding. Midnight stared over at Zach after seeing that look on Zeira's face, and Midnight's cheeks turned redder than Zeira's did as she was heading over towards them. _Whatever your plans, whatever you've done, you're still a fantastic young hero. You inspired her! You make me- I love that!_

Zach stepped up in front of the three people he saw waiting for him. He smiled at Uraraka and Midoriya and then looked right to All Might who he nodded at once before glancing around them for someone else. He looked back to his two former classmates and asked, "Todoroki?"

Uraraka frowned and looked away for a moment. Midoriya's lips lowered into more of a frown too, the things he wanted to talk about getting pushed away at the disappointed look on Zach's face. "He already left," Midoriya replied. Zach thought about the look he saw in Todoroki's eyes even from across the room on the stone pillar when they had met each other's gaze.

"Give him time," Uraraka began quickly, and Zach looked at the girl who smiled hopefully up at him. "He'll come around. He's just, still really…"

"Yeah," Zach said, telling her she didn't need to finish that sentence with just one word. "I hope so."

"Sazaki," All Might began, and Zach looked to his old teacher again. All Might had sucked-in cheeks, he was scrawny, much scrawnier than either of the two taller teenage boys with him. Midoriya and Zach had very similar body sizes, which they could see for the first time as they stood right in front of each other with their shoulders equal length apart. Zach was an inch taller than his old friend which Midoriya just realized now, with his black spikes and Midoriya's curly green hair both rising about the same amount over their heads to still show off that difference. Midoriya was wearing a tighter green sweatshirt than Zach's baggy black one that did not show off his form as much, but no one there thought Zach had much fat beneath his clothes. All Might's clothes were even more loose-fitting though, like his body was too scrawny for normal men's clothing and so he did not fit into them well. He looked at his old student and after a second he lifted a small smile and said, "It is good to see you again."

"You too All Might," Zach replied. "I'm sorry for denying your visits back in prison," Zach continued, surprising the former top hero who was not expecting him to suddenly bring that up. "But I wasn't seeing anyone. I hope you understand."

"Y-Yes, I do," All Might responded, trying to assure the boy who apparently felt the need to apologize for that. The apology confused All Might though and made him wonder if the things he had determined because Sazaki would not see him should be reconsidered. He had wanted to talk to Zach before he got released so he could make sure of his plans, and since he had not been given that chance he had decided not to trust him. And yet when they came face to face he found it too hard to not smile at the boy who he really was happy to see again, especially looking so… well. "I just, wanted to know your plans for once you were released," All Might said, to see if Zach would tell him now so he could judge if he thought it was truth as he planned to do the day he had gone to visit.

"Well," Zach started, and he lifted up his new provisional hero license. "This was step one. Next is school, and then becoming a full-time hero. Then…" Zach hummed and he looked to the side for a second as if pondering what would come after. He shrugged though and just looked back at All Might with a small smile, "I'm sure I'll figure it out as I go."

 _That wasn't very convincing at all,_ Midoriya thought, and his face covered in confusion at the way Zach did it in almost a joking way. _Is he saying that he's hiding his plans? Or does he just not expect us to believe it anyway so he's not even trying?_

"Anyway, congrats," Uraraka said, seeing how the two on her left were reacting and trying to keep the mood right. Zach looked back at the short girl with brown hair who gave him an encouraging look even though she did not believe what he just said either. "You did really, really well out there."

"Haha, thanks," Zach scratched the back of his head with his left hand. "Wasn't all that hard."

"You took charge in that second round," Midoriya added. Zach looked his old friend back in his dark green eyes and nodded, and Midoriya continued, "You led everyone in a great plan." Zach smiled at the praise, but then Midoriya continued, "It wasn't like you to take charge like that. To take a leadership position."

"I told you I went to war," Zach started in response. All Might had heard about this from Midoriya already, but he stared at Zach with wider eyes as the black-haired boy continued, "I started off as just another soldier, but I had more experience than most and I got moved up to be an officer quickly. And then when my commanding officer was killed, I took command to keep us together." Zach paused for a moment and he shook his head to regain the smile on his face that had dipped down right there. "What I'm saying is, I have a lot more leadership experience now than I did back then. I thought I knew the best way that we could stop the flood and pass the test, so…" Zach looked around and then back at Midoriya with a look saying 'see how it worked out?'

 _Young Midoriya is very certain that he is Death. I also believe it to be true, and yet why would he talk about leading an army if he is really trying to convince that he isn't… Unless he wants us to think like- Ahhh,_ All Might had to sigh internally as no matter what he was thinking, it always came down to not being able to trust anything Sazaki was saying. It all just seemed like ploys to have them feel and think certain ways, as he could not forget the way the boy looked at him back during the two weeks after Kaminari had betrayed them. He couldn't forget what Zach had shouted about lying every moment to make everyone in the world think a certain way, and how he had been one of those people to be convinced of how broken he was.

Most people did not know about Zach lying about his actions and expressions for that whole time. The majority of people believed that he had actually been broken like they saw and that was what led him to do the Lifebringer Incident. It was too hard to explain, and All Might had not been able to say it at that press conference that Zach had been acting like he was broken only to then have to tell the same people that despite him acting, he had still done things that only someone who was broken would have. There were things about that night that All Might wanted to talk to Sazaki about, but not around other people and not in this place.

"Anyway," Zach started. "I've still got a lot I need to do today," he said. Zach pocketed his new hero license and then stretched an arm up over his head that he grabbed by the elbow and leaned back and forth while stretching. "I'm glad you guys came out to see me, though I wish Todoroki had stayed a little longer. I really need to talk to him. Jirou too," Zach added in a lower voice after while dropping his arms back to his sides. "But right now I've got a couple meetings I have to get to."

"'Meetings?'" Uraraka asked in surprise, and confusion with her eyebrows risen high up.

"With schools," Zach replied at her look. "Not much time until the term starts. I still have a lot of work I need to do, though I crushed those entrance exams I took the last two days."

"So you're really, going back to high school?" Midoriya asked, hesitating midway through the sentence as he did not know if he should finish it.

"It's what I said I'd do," Zach replied. He looked into Midoriya's eyes while saying it, and the hidden sentence below what he just said was 'The more truths I tell, the more I hope you can believe me.' Midoriya nodded back at Zach after it and he did not know if he was just nodding at what Zach said or what he assumed that look meant. "Anyway, I do have to go," Zach said. He looked back to All Might and gave him a small respectful smile just as he had given his other former teachers before. "It was good to see you again, All Might." His head turned back to the other two and his smile got less serious as he just started to turn, "See you guys later, yeah?"

"Yeah," Uraraka replied quickly, leaning forward as she said it but then pulling back as although there was more she wanted to talk about, the way they just said goodbye meant that she would have time to talk to him about those things at a later date.

Midoriya nodded at Zach too and his old friend finished turning away. Then Midoriya looked to his side at All Might who was staring at Zach walking away with much wider eyes at the difference in the ways he said farewell to them. The way he was spoken to made it seem like Zach was saying goodbye with no set date of a time the two of them might ever see each other and be able to speak again. Like their meeting was something that would not happen often, and it felt that way especially because of the different way in which he said 'see you later' to his friends.

 _I will not be his teacher anymore, and it is not like I am his friend who he will be seeing even as they all continue to go to U.A._ All Might watched Sazaki walk away towards an exit, on his way to go continue his plans, whatever they may be. _Does he not want to see me anymore, to prevent me from figuring out his plans? Except he is fine with Midoriya… I suppose, there is no reason that we would be seeing each other again after this._ _ **"I want to be a hero!"**_ All Might heard a child's voice yelling that in his head and it made his chest ache. _Is that really, still your goal? I do not think so. You have more in mind. You cannot help yourself. You never were able to, just let go…_

 _Titanium, I wish I could look after your son. I would find it hard to face Shigaraki Tomura again, knowing he's my master's relative. Yet it is even worse knowing that I actually had the chance to save Sazaki, only to have failed so many times. Now, I do not know if he is still within my reach. It may be up to my successor,_ All Might's eyes shifted back to Midoriya and he looked into his eyes since Midoriya was already looking at him. _Young Midoriya, this may be your most trying challenge yet. I wish I could help you, help him. I just don't know if I can anymore._

* * *

 **A/N Thanks for reading! Hope you enjoyed, and leave a review telling me what you think down below!**

WomanSlayer chapter 143 . Mar 8

I'd go gay for Zach. Just saying. I'm just a little sad this chapter didn't have Zach doing a lot of "boom bam swiggity swine, this house is mine" action.

 **Lolol XD Zach is so hot right now. If you mean by that other part there wasn't a lot of Zach just taking down every other participant, I can't lie, I considered having him take out all his opponents. It just didn't feel to me like how Zach would do it though so I didn't, (as much as it would've been epic). Thanks for the review!**

Todorokiii chapter 1 . Mar 9

I suffered everyday without your update. And I was so happy when you updated it. Now, let me tell you, Oh my freaking gosh! Love how Zach keeps forgetting that he is Zach Sazaki and his trust issues is worse than I thought. Like before he teamed up with Siri, Zach already planned that he would beat Siri up if he betrays him. I also love Zeira and Zach's battle, not suprised that he was able to break her quirk. I do hope they would have another encounter at some point. I love how Zach is chill like a boss in the exams even Midoriya thinks of him as a final boss and couldn't believe he is actually this smart, tactical, that he could make decisions without hesitation, predict his enemies movements also good at fighting without using his quirk. I just wanna tell him. "Boi, because he was a commander of an army." Lastly, Zach needs a break, he has several internal injuries for crying out loud, can the assassins time out? He needs to be protected, huhu. Now, all that needs to happen is Zach to pass his exam, find a school where he study, AFO happens, Kaminari showing up, some other villains to appear, ofc the AoT too. I miss them. A shocking revelation that Zach is Death and that he once again fooled the whole Japan. The contents of Momo's letter. Nikko's plans. All Might dying... Please dont. And wow, this review is so long. Now, goodluck with your thesis.

 **Thanks! Glad you enjoyed the chapter! Showed a lot of Zach's thoughts in these last couple chapters, though even in his thoughts you noticed he's still having some troubles with the "truth." Zach mentions his leadership here at the end to Midoriya... not that they ever believe him when he's talking. Zach's passed his exam, now it's time for the next step which you've got right: finding a school. Where's Zach going to go? Lots left to go over, and we'll see over the next chapters how it goes...**

Guesssst chapter 143 . Mar 8

I did enjoy this very much. I've binged the story in a week and I'm so glad you update at the pace you do, and I have a healthy respect towards you as an author that you do that. I like the Death Rain and I can't wait to see how Zach with all his combat experience meets his new obstacles. MOOOOAAARRR pls

 **Awesome that you've read it so fast. The pace is tough but I like getting them out as quick as I can, as long as I can keep the quality up too. Zach's got new moves he's showing off, couple new ones this chapter too. Here is some MOAR, and my spring break just started so I'll be getting a few moar of these chapters out soon as I can! Thanks for the review!**


	145. Chapter 145

**Disclaimer: I don't own Boku no Hero Academia**

 **Chapter 145:**

In an office in Shiketsu High School, Zach stood before a desk with his hands held together behind his back. His bag was on the floor over near the door with his other change of clothes in it: his black sweatpants, sweatshirt, and long-sleeved shirt. His jacket was on a hook back near the entrance of the building, and his sneakers were in the front pouch of his backpack that was larger than a usual school bag but that he had decided would be the one he used once he started up school somewhere. At the moment, he wore a long-sleeved white shirt with two buttons below the middle of his collar, a pair of khaki pants, and nice brown shoes that he had picked out that morning and paid for with his new debit card.

 _Bag's getting too full. I need to find an actual place to stay instead of another motel room. Once I've decided- well, I have decided already. But if I'm accepted here, then comes looking for a place to stay. Can I do it in the time I have left today? It's already been a long one, shopping this morning before the licensing exam and then a long trip to this._ "…and though you do have a provisional license, Sazaki, so do the rest of the third years here at Shiketsu High School. We are a very prestigious hero academy that takes our academics seriously."

"Was the entrance exam I took here a few days ago unsatisfactory?" Zach questioned. _I thought I did pretty well on that one. Well, all of them I thought I did decent enough to pass at least._

"No, your marks were passable," the principal of Shiketsu replied. She sat behind her desk, a woman who looked like a fossil but who spoke like a woman in her mid-thirties. Her skin was tightened and wrinkled, her eyes sucked-back in her head but opened wide, and her hair had receded far on he top of her head but was still light purple and thick on the sides of her scalp at least. Principal Memuria had her hands clenched into one fist in front of her chest on the desk, and her head was leaning forward as she continued to interview the potential student of her hero school. There was another teacher next to her on her right side behind the desk, as well as four other members of the staff in the room, two on each side of Zach near the walls.

The principal paused for a moment, waiting for Sazaki to ask 'then what?' She frowned at his failure to do so and just finished on her own, "The true reason I will not allow you into this high school so readily is the same reason I am sure Principal Nezu has barred you from U.A. Your past." Memuria looked Zach deep in his hazel eyes and the boy stayed steady while looking back at her, even nodding with an accepting look at what she was referring to. She started shaking her head though, and she continued, "I would be happy to accept a young man such as yourself into our school, because you have been pardoned of your former crimes and we are a school that values the rule of law. Your full pardon allowed by the law only applies to the crimes you were imprisoned for, however."

Zach nodded again at Principal Memuria. He ignored the looks from the teachers on his sides and of the bald man standing next to the principal's seat who was watching him closely with light pink eyes that had black irises in the shapes of crosshairs. "I must ask you only one question, before I permit you to enroll in this school," Memuria continued. Her eyes narrowed and her eyelids sunk in a bit so her eyes were half-closed and dark at the boy standing before her. "Mr. Norasaki will know for sure if you are lying," she held up a palm to her right where the bald man was standing and staring closely at Zach. Zach glanced at that man in his eyes and then back at the principal as she asked her question.

"Are you Death?" Principal Memuria questioned.

Zach looked into the eyes of the Lie-Detector man, and he said directly to Mr. Norasaki, "No."

The teachers around the room kept watching Lifebringer and the administrators in front of him. The four of them were preparing themselves already, the two on the right doing their best to hide the anxious feelings they were having knowing he might get caught lying here. Norasaki stared back at Lifebringer for a few seconds though, before leaning back and looking down at Memuria who he gave a single nod at.

The principal frowned deeply at that nod, and Zach got a confused look on his face as he spun back to the bald man who nodded at her. He looked to his left side though as he saw the teachers there looked to relax a little, contradicting the principal's frown and showing him that the nod meant Norasaki knew he was telling the truth. Memuria frowned at Sazaki's follow-up reaction, and she spoke in a low voice without yet easing her look at him, "Allow me to correct myself, in case you feel you got around it." Zach looked the older woman in the eyes and his expression steadied though his lips did curl farther down this time as she questioned, "Were you ever Death?"

Zach frowned at the old woman and said in a low voice of his own, "You said only one question, but the answer's the same." He lost his darker tone halfway through the response, before they could start to get suspicious over the way he was answering it. "No, I wasn't." He looked back to Norasaki after saying it and rose his eyebrows expectantly at the man to give his nod. _Can you imagine how annoying this is for me? The amount of people who keep asking me this question and then not being satisfied by my answers? Now that you've asked two and still not received the answer you want, I'm sure you have a thousand more too. Look at my face. I've heard them all. It's getting annoying._

Norasaki looked back at the principal after staring wide-eyed at the annoyed-looking boy for a few seconds, "He isn't lying."

On Zach's right side, one of the teachers, a blue woman with scales all over her body cracked a big grin at the sound of that. She looked at her fellow teacher on her right and rose her smirk more at the surprised and then frustrated expression when he saw her looking his way. The male teacher sweatdropped at her smirk, and he thought with regret, _Stupid ten thousand yen bet._

 _I really thought he was,_ Norasaki thought after telling the principal what his Quirk told him. He looked back to the boy afterwards who regained his composed and calm expression. _Then what was he doing all that time?_

"In that case," Principal Memuria slowly got up from her chair, pushing her palms down on her desk and rising to her full four feet behind it. "Mr. Sazaki," she began, and she gave the boy a stern look though her lips rose up the smallest amount too. "I accept your application to Shiketsu High School. You will be in Class-1 with Mr. Hazano." Memuria motioned to her left at the man currently regretting making a bet with the other third-year homeroom teacher standing next to him. "He will explain to you the strict rules of Shiketsu High, what will be expected of you over the coming term, and he will supply you with forms that you must fill out regarding various important things such as your sizes for your uniform and health information."

 _Health info's gonna suck. I shouldn't lie on the form, but I'm not a minor so I don't know if they can force my medical records out. Yet they could ask me to bring them in, attach them to the form I fill out to make sure it's all legit._ Zach nodded at the principal, then he turned to Hazano again. He looked at the man who was bald like Norasaki but looked younger and like his head might have been shaved instead of his hair all falling out like the Lie-Detector's appeared to have. "I'm in your care," Zach said, bowing to the teacher who now had to help him out with several things. _Few days left before the start of the term. Still a lot to get done._

Zach thanked the administrators then was led out of the room by Hazano who no longer felt nervous as he had when he was waiting to hear how Lifebringer responded. Whatever Lifebringer was really doing all that time, the anxiety he felt was only over whether or not the boy was actually the international terrorist Death. Zach was surprised at the casual way in which his new teacher started speaking to him, but he spoke back in a more respectful tone anyway that had Hazano raising his eyebrows while faced away from the boy following behind him. He shrugged to himself though at the idea of Lifebringer speaking to him he was talking to a teacher, even though they technically had not had class together yet. Hazano explained to Zach the rules of Shiketsu that Zach noted were much stricter than U.A.'s despite Shiketsu not even being a boarding school.

 _Uniform code is pretty strict. Guess the black hat would cover up my spiky hair, maybe make me stand out less. Except once it becomes known where I'm going, everyone's going to be looking out and the hat will actually make more people turn heads._ Zach accepted the forms from his homeroom teacher who handed them to him, and he filled out the ones that were needed earliest right then and there. There were other forms that were not necessary to fill out immediately, and Hazano told his new student that he could hand them in on the first day of class instead. He also told Zach that his uniform would be mailed to him so that he could come to school in it on the first day and not waste a single second of school time for getting changed.

Zach scratched the back of his head though when he was asked where the uniform could be sent to. "Do you not want people to know?" Hazano questioned his student.

"It's not that. I just, don't have a place yet. As I didn't know which school I would be attending," Zach explained and Hazano nodded as it made sense to him. "If you give me your number though, I could text you tonight once I've found an apartment."

"Think you can manage that by tonight?" Hazano asked in surprise. Worrod Hazano lived over thirty minutes from the school himself, still inside the limits of Yutapu City but closer to Osaka in the south than Kyoto in the north. Shiketsu was the most prestigious hero high school in the west of Japan, the U.A. of the West, and it was located in one of many large metropoles clustered in a close area to each other. There were millions of people living in the many cities gathered around there, but housing could also be very expensive especially near the famous high school in the best part of the city. "You might have to look around a wide area to find the closest place."

"I can do it," Zach assured him with a nod. _Besides, living too close doesn't matter. I should actually live father out intentionally. Not too far that it leaves too much time of me on the road on the way to school each day that people could determine which direction I'm coming from, but far enough that anyone just looking around near the school doesn't have a good look and I can slip people on my way back without being seen. Then again, this only really works for shit villains. Since I can't keep my location a secret, determined villains will discover where I am sooner or later. I have to be more convincing that I'm not Death while at the same time more discouraging for those who come after me…_

Zach thanked his teacher again as they were nearing the front of the school together. They had been walking to the exit since Zach finished up his forms and slid the other ones into his bag that was back on his back now. Hazano paused when Zach kept walking towards the exit, and he added before his new student could leave, "By the way, our class is scheduled for a joint training session with U.A. this term." Zach looked back over his shoulder in surprise, and Hazano nodded at him showing he was serious about it.

"Thank you, for telling me," Zach said. Then he left the school without changing his expression based on what he just heard. His thoughts had completely derailed though, as little of an outwards expression as he showed. _Now I'll be forced to meet with Todoroki and Jirou at least once, in case I don't get to see them anytime soon,_ Zach felt glad at the thought though also a stranger swirling feeling in his gut. _I don't know if I'll see anyone again soon. I assumed I wouldn't have reason to see All Might, but it's not like I have reason to see the others. Everyone's busy, even during this break. They're all talking to heroes they've worked with before about internships and plans for after graduation. They're working with heroes right now, and once school starts they'll be stuck on campus most of the-_

Zach felt a buzzing in his right pocket and he pulled out a smartphone that he tapped the screen of to answer the incoming call. The phone he had bought the other day right after getting his Aunt Maye's debit card attached to his college fund showed a name at the top who Zach was not expecting a call from. "Detective Haga," Zach greeted, as he continued to walk away from the school behind him and in no direction in particular. The officer he was speaking to was a cop Zach knew well who had made detective while Zach was away. The green-skinned man had been nice to him after the USJ incident, Zach had brought him back to life right as he started being Lifebringer with the League, and he had been one of the few people who was allowed to meet and protect Zach after he had escaped from the villains before returning to U.A.

The other day when he had been forced to return to the hospital, there were a few things he had been told by the police that he was not too happy about but did not argue too strongly. Zach decided against arguing about their rule that wherever he did decide to stay, he needed to inform the authorities of his new address. If he argued about it he knew it would just make him seem so much more suspicious, and he figured they would come looking for him and just observe him in "secret," which he knew he would still discover but would just annoy him more. When Detective Haga had shown up though to let him know that he would be the intermediary between Zach and the government, he actually felt better about the situation as it really felt like they were trying to accommodate him instead of put restrictions on him.

"How's the school search coming?"

"I'm going to Shiketsu," Zach replied.

"Oh," Haga said, sounding surprised that Zach had already decided but also a bit excited for some reason. "That's great. I know that was your top choice, and I just got word of something passed over to me."

"What's up?" Zach asked. He stopped where he was on the sidewalk and kept looking interested in the conversation, even as his eyes darted to scan the rooftops across the street from him. Zach continued nodding at what the officer on the phone was saying, and he made a few affirmative hums and noises too. "I'll look into it," Zach said. "Yeah, yeah it'll be fine on my own. I'll be careful. Yes. Yeah I know, I'll let you know if that's where I decide. It sounds pretty close to here. Thanks for this, Detective."

* * *

Riku Norita stuck the key into the doorknob of the apartment three to the end on the second floor of his complex. He twisted it around and jiggled the knob a couple times, looked back over his shoulder and mentioned, "It's been a while since anyone rented this room."

"Why not?" Zach asked the man. The guy in front of him was a foot shorter than the six foot one teenager. He was more than a little chubby, round-faced too with pink cheeks that seemed to stay that way despite his light skin tone. He had been smiling since he first saw Zach too, and Zach almost wished the man would stop since it seemed so genuine and yet he felt not many people were that happy all the time. Norita also had a brown mustache bushy over his top lip that looked similar to how bushy the hair over his head was.

The landlord of the two-story apartment complex looked back after finally getting the lock to click and he responded, "The old owner was killed in the SFI a couple years back. Even though he didn't die in the apartment, some people still feel weird about that sort of thing. His family removed all his belongings so the place is empty. Hope you don't mind though."

"I don't," Zach assured him. _This is almost the perfect distance away after all. A little closer than I was hoping, but that's not so bad. If everyone in the world denied places just because the former owners were killed during the Age of Villains, there'd be hundreds of thousands of empty houses out there. Not that there aren't, considering the amount of damage in Africa after the CHAF were wiped out. Whole towns and cities had to be evacuated in those few weeks of chaos-_ "Norita-san, the officer I spoke to didn't mention how much you're offering this place for," Zach began as he was being led into an apartment that looked much bigger than he had expected in a city of this size.

There was a wide walk-in and living room area just inside the doorway to Zach's left. On his right was a folding door with slits on it that was opened out right now to show a washing machine and dryer on the other side. On his left in the living room was actually some furniture below the light on the ceiling that Norita turned on. There was a couch that looked rough and had some of the inside soft parts sticking through the outer material, as there was no cover on it. The red recliner looked nicer, though there was a stain on the armrest, and there was a tv stand in front of those sitting pieces but without a tv on it. "The old tenant's family didn't want all the furniture," Norita explained as he saw Zach looking around the place after stepping in. "And I didn't bother throwing it away. I felt like I could sell the place furnished instead, but you can do what you want with this stuff."

Zach nodded his head, but then he looked back at the landlord who had yet to answer his question from when he walked in. "So do you like the place? Here, let me show you around the whole apartment. This way's the kitchen," Norita led Zach down the right side of the living room that could also kind of act like a hallway not that there was a wall on the left side. There was a hall at the end though where they could go right in a narrow pass to where there were two doorways, or they could go left and around the counter of the kitchen. The counter had open space above it but then a wall above that as there were cabinets above the gap over the counter. From the living room edge though they could see into the kitchen and around it, and Norita said as Zach stopped at the counter instead of walking around, "All the cabinets and everything are empty, I checked. Fridge too, and the freezer's got an ice tray in it but that's all."

"Bedroom and bathroom over there?" Zach asked, motioning with his head down the hall and using a tone that said he did not need to walk over.

"Yes! Shower's small, no bath- but the bed is a queen-size and…"

Zach toned out after hearing the size of his bed. _Whoa, that's new. Feels like that'll be too much space. I guess I'll test it out first before deciding that. I do roll around sometimes, and the edges of the bed always constrict me when I'm-_ "So the price," Zach brought up again, as he was already thinking ahead but needed to make sure of something first. _The college fund didn't have much. Guess I would've had three more years, and she probably would have stopped putting anything in when I got into U.A.'s hero course. Did she really think I'd be able to become a hero, so I didn't need the fund? Or did she stop caring enough, and I just want to remember her better because she's gone? Because I got her killed._

"Actually, there's a reason I called around the police and tried to make sure you heard about this place," Norita began, and Zach looked down into the fatter man's eyes to see a bigger smile spread over Norita's face again. "Once I saw your interview the other day after you got out of the hospital I thought to myself, 'If he's not going to U.A., where would the next best school be?' Since I figured you'd only pick the best of the best, so I finally got through and sure enough, you're deciding to go to Shiketsu! Well if that wasn't fate then I don't know what is."

 _Fate, huh?_ Zach yanked his mind off the thought almost distracting him from what he still needed to ask. "So what are you saying?"

"You brought me back to life," Norita replied to the boy who looked at him closer and ground his teeth behind his lips without the man noticing. _I can't remember…_ "I want to repay the favor by giving you a place to live close to your school for free."

"I couldn't possibly-" Zach began.

"And I don't expect to get anything for free either," Norita cut Zach off quickly. He shook his head and his smile lowered down a bit, "I need to give you something to make us even. When my tenants don't pay their rent and I've got to chase them down, I hate that sort of thing. Because I don't see how they can do it. I hate to be in debt, so I've got no debts left unpaid right now, 'cept for this one."

"Heroes don't expect anything in return," Zach argued. He shook his head but then lifted the small frown he had as Norita's lips were curling down more, "But if you need to give me a free room, then who am I to argue?" Zach shrugged his shoulders and the short landlord looked surprised for a moment before grinning big back at the young man. _It would just frustrate him more if he was never able to pay me back. Some people are just the prideful types. Even with heroes. Must be worse considering I was just a kid, at the time… whenever that time was. Did I really revive him? How long ago? Think back. Think! Was it Zach's first run as Lifebringer, or the second- Sports Festival time period maybe? He mentioned the previous tenant getting killed during the SFI though, and I feel like he would have brought it up if I had saved him then. Could it have been more recently? Was he traveling around the world or something?_

"Great! Then let me show you the rest of it!" Norita started over down the cramped hall and Zach sighed but followed the enthusiastic man to go see what else he wanted to show off.

 _I don't know how I'll feel about sleeping in a dead man's bed,_ Zach thought after looking into his bedroom. _At least they took all the covers and pillows away, though I guess I could use the couch pillows for tonight and some clothes as a blanket. The window's in a shit place, but I can slide the bed across the floor to keep out of view. Windows on that wall and the kitchen wall, and there are tenants in either room on my sides. Putting people in danger by living here. I'd put people in danger no matter where I live though. Becoming Zach Sazaki comes with that inherent risk. Going to school. Being a hero. Making amends with my friends. Everything I do as Zach Sazaki puts everyone around me in danger. My friends are heroes though, Shiketsu High is filled with heroes, people accept the risks that come with being a hero and whether or not those risks rise because I'm here they should still be ready to accept them. But these people, are just civilians. They've accepted nothing. I have to be ready to stop all attacks._

"Norita-san," Zach started once it felt like they did not have anything else to go over. They were back in his living room, and Norita had motioned at the table in Zach's kitchen with a couple chairs around it that they could sit at while Zach signed a few forms. Zach smiled at the man who looked really happy by his decision, and he said, "I'm very grateful for all this-"

"Nonsense. I've just begun to pay you back," Norita replied. Zach lowered his smile as he had hoped the man would consider this a good trade and that the debt was no longer owed. Norita clapped an arm on Zach's though as he walked past for the kitchen table. "Now let's get these filled out and I'll be on my way."

Zach turned with the man and he shook his head with a small chuckle though his eyes were darker than the noise he let the man hear. _It's a small, homey place, but to get it at no cost. That's more than just a haircut on the house. At this rate people are going to feel like I'm taking advantage of my name. Norita doesn't seem like the type to go around bragging about what he's doing for me though. I'll have to ask him to keep it secret here too, just as an aside while we go over the papers…_

* * *

Zach walked down a sidewalk of Yutapu with bags in either hand with some essentials he went out to buy after finishing up renting his new apartment. The sun was setting and the sky orange with its glow, and the sidewalks had less people on them than they did earlier in the day. Zach had bought a bed sheet and blanket that he had in the bag on his right arm, and there was some food in the bag on his left. He was walking down the road back in the direction of his apartment which despite being in the middle of a cluster of cities, was in an area of apartments and smaller shops without any skyscrapers near it.

 _The police, my U.A. friends, the school now that I've told Hazano where to send my uniform. Norita and anyone he tells, along with my neighbors though if I'm careful I can likely slip out and away from the apartment without anyone seeing me. There aren't likely any spies among the people close to where I'm living, but anyone who moves in after this moment is a potential spy. Someone to follow my schedule and look for a moment I'm at my least guarded. I'm sure not everyone in the police force knows where I live, but if a villain does want to find me easily they know the easiest place to check. I never dealt with Japanese corruption like with most other places. Well, Enshio Goro, and they dealt with him very firmly for the minor corruption charges they did get him with. No one knows what he really did- what he tried to do. Hopefully that was enough to fend off corruption here. The heroes here are stronger and there are more of them than in most places around the world. Watch the rooftops. Windows. There could be heroes following me, could be villains, but don't lead them to-_

Zach's thoughts jolted, but he stayed on guard this time even as he stared down the sidewalk at a figure who stepped around a corner. She turned to face him, and her eyes widened for a second before returning to normal just as his did. Zach had stopped on the sidewalk and he stood staring to the corner and the girl with dark purple hair falling straight around the sides of her head and back behind her head in a ponytail. She was a foot shorter than him and her earlobes drooped down below her ears as earphone jacks. Kyoka Jirou stayed where she was, and Zach started walking forward again towards the girl looking straight at him.

Jirou had not come to the hospital, so it was the first time Zach had seen her in years. She had seen enough of him on tv that she was not surprised by his appearance, but Zach was surprised by hers. Her body had filled out a bit even if she did not get much taller, and her hair and hair style were different too. Her bangs were cut up higher instead of dropping down to her eyebrows, her straight hair falling equal length around the sides of her head and behind it between her head and the ponytail of the hair she had pulled together and tied back. Her eyes were the same though, and they were flat at the top as they were half-closed with her expression looking dark the way she stared back at the taller boy walking towards her.

Jirou was by herself, as she had come to Yutapu by herself, and she had searched for Zach all on her own. Her hands balled into fists at her sides as he stepped up in front of her, stopping ten feet away when they were in range to have a normal conversation. Her clenched fists shook, and Jirou stared into Zach's eyes while hearing the voices of her classmates she had passed so frequently the past few days all talking about the same things. _No one's asking the important questions. No one, cares enough that he's lying, even if they think he is. They're just letting it slide. Like idiots!_

"Jirou," Zach started. "I'm sorry."

The girl shook her head at him and bit down hard behind her lips that she tried to keep flat and not let him see it. He opened his mouth to continue, but Jirou started first, "I know you're lying." Zach wanted to counter that he wasn't, but he could also tell that she was not talking about the apology he just gave her. Jirou's voice got lower and she added in a quieter voice, "Again."

Zach's eyelids closed in a little and his eyes darkened too. He started shaking his head at her, but Jirou snapped in a low voice, "I know you're Death, and I know you're lying just like you always were."

Jirou had to spit it out at him, and Zach saw her eyes shaking as she glared at him so furiously from only a few feet away. His chest pounded and he felt pain but showed no reaction of feeling it. _She's so,_ Zach ground his teeth and he saw Jirou clenching her shaking fists even harder. _I put her through so much, pain._ "Not everything was lies," Zach said. He looked into Jirou's eyes and continued, "Not the last thing I told you." Jirou bit down harder and her eyes that almost widened just stayed pissed and glaring even angrier at him. "Not what I told you that night-"

"Stop."

"No," Zach responded. He stared her in her eyes and added after she finally widened her eyes for a moment at his quick answer and denial to give up. "I did mean those things. I meant what I told you-"

"You can't," Jirou snapped, her voice getting louder. She panted a couple of times and then shook her head once and said in a lower growl, "You can't just decide what's a truth and what's a lie. If you're a liar. If you lie about _that_ much, then everything out of your mouth is a lie!"

"Not what I told you," Zach repeated and Jirou ground her teeth so much harder. "Because you really were the coolest girl I knew, beautiful, and strong too-"

"Well I take back what I said that night though," Jirou interrupted. She glared at Zach even after saying it, after he froze with his mouth open at what she said. They each thought back on the night they were referring to, and the girl who had not seen Zach in a year and a half curled her fingernails into her own palms at the memory of it. She glared into his hazel eyes and said, "When you told me not to let Kaminari take those things from me, I said not to let him take away what made you, you either."

Jirou panted a couple of times after spitting it out at him, and Zach stayed staring straight into Jirou's eyes with his own returning to normal and his heart beating faster now as he stared at her. _**"Being the kindest, best person I know."**_ _She doesn't-_

"I take that back," Jirou said as the words echoed in Zach's mind. "That's not what makes Zach, Zach."

Zach's eyes widened even more at the way she just worded that. He stared into her eyes with his bigger ones and she continued up at him, her own voice sounding more hurt now as she did, "Being a compulsive liar, lying straight to the faces of his friends, that's what makes you you." Jirou bit down again and she squinted her eyes while shaking her head back and forth. Even his pained look she just felt disgusted by, felt like she was being lied to by the reaction, and the thought that she could feel bad for that lie made her stomach churn. Her eyes rose back up and she glared furiously into Zach's, "And Raijin could never take that away from you. No one ever could." Jirou turned away.

She turned her back on Zach after saying what she needed to say. She said it and walked away from him, leaving Zach frozen in place on the sidewalk with his heart pounding and his head aching. His chest hurt too, the faster his heart was pumping, the more pain he felt. He waited until she was around the corner though before his left hand rose up and curled into his shirt right over his heart. _What the fuck?_

Zach lowered his head and glared down at the floor. His hands curled around the straps of the bags he was holding, then he snapped his head back up and started forward again, his attention straight in front of him but his focus everywhere. And yet even with his focus guarded and his senses concentrated on everything, his mind was a mess.

 _She doesn't even believe it. What was the point of even, remembering something like that? What's the point in any of it? What the fuck am I doing?! This life, of lies! I've been treating it all like a fucking joke!_ Zach's hands curled into tighter fists and he felt the need to slam a fist into something. _Keep smiling! You're outside! People will see you and anyone could be recording you can't… you can't just- FUCK! Ever since I came back I've been telling those crazy stories in such a serious way. Getting all emotional. And I used elements of real life so that I'd actually get emotional about them. That was the plan wasn't it?! That was why I fucking did this?! So that I would feel absorbed in the stories I was telling and make them sound truthful too._

 _Yet in the end they're just lies._

 _More lies._

 _Lies I tell straight to the faces of my friends._

 _What kind of person does that? What kind of person expects people to still be his friends, when that's all he can do?_ Zach smiled as he thought it, and he looked to the right and flashed what felt like the biggest lie of the day at a couple walking on the opposite side of the street who saw him and then pulled out their phones after he smiled their direction. _I can't tell the truth though. Not now. Not ever. The truth isn't, important. The world is built on lies but that's okay, because the ends justify the means as long as no one ever knows the means. As long as the means are believed to be something else. That's why! I'm a- I'm no hero. I'm not being a hero by lying to everyone. I did it to protect myself. That's why I'm lying. So I won't be sent to prison forever for being Death. I could even lie to a lie detector because, because I'm not… I'm not Death. I never was._

 _I went to Terra. I fought the Doorway girl, the Queen of Arcasia, the Empress. She had many names, and a lot of power, but I was there to face her._ Zach waited where he was and then posed for the picture with the people who came asking for a selfie with him. He smiled as he did so and laughed with the two before raising up his bags and explaining why he was holding those things. The couple were excited to hear he had moved to their city, and Zach said he had to get going but that it was nice to meet them, and the entire time his smile felt like a big lie he was shouting right in their faces. He walked away though and glanced back to see the couple smiling and talking to each other excitedly, neither having noticed a thing. _Lying is the same no matter what it's for. It's still, wrong._

Zach sighed and stopped where he was on a sidewalk in the dimming light of dusk. He brought his left hand up and pressed it into his forehead, his skin feeling cold against his head and his teeth grinding at that cold feeling. He shivered in his jacket as the night fell with a colder air than there was throughout the day. His head bowed with his grinding teeth holding off from chattering in the cold, and from something else that had him lowering his left hand from his forehead over to his right arm and gripping it hard. His fingers dug into his right arm and he clenched his teeth harder, and he groaned out through his teeth holding back a scream deep inside his throat so the noise came from inside him. He tightened his left hand more, and his expression finally started to steady, his breathing calmed down, and the dark wisps he was flattening out as hard as possible just outside of his right arm stopped trying to seep through his sleeve, instead sinking back into his body.

* * *

 **A/N ... Thanks for reading. Zach's heading to Shiketsu, he's got an apartment, and Jirou... well, things aren't all alright. Lots more coming at you soon! Hope you enjoyed the chapter, and leave a review below telling me what you think, comments, predictions, questions, etc!**

Naruffoku chapter 144 . Mar 11

I'm happy that Zach's going back to school, but wouldn't that put everyone in danger? He's a pretty targeted person you know?

 **Oh yeah. Zach knows it too that he's bringing danger where he goes, but at least with going to a hero school he feels they've accepted a certain amount of danger with the decision to be heroes. Same thing he was thinking back during the licensing exam when he knew he was putting some of the other students at more risk there, but out in the world he is facing a lot of paranoia and worry over the people coming for him. He's ready for them though... at least he hopes he is. Thanks for the review!**

Guesssst chapter 144 . Mar 11

Awesome Death Cage is awesome. I'm delighted to hear that you'll have more time for the story since you're on spring break. If I have to personally get this story past 1k reviews I am more than happy to do that. You've definitely raised the bar for fan fiction stories that I find enjoyable.

 **Second spring break chapter coming at you! I'm at the library trying to work on my thesis rn, but this edit/post was a nice procrastination to start it off. Almost at that 1k review mark I've never hit before. I'm looking forward to it and hope to get a lot more reviews from you guys liking the story to tell me what you think is coming next! Thanks for the high praise and I hope you like the new chapter, and thanks for reviewing!**


	146. Chapter 146

**Disclaimer: I don't own Boku no Hero Academia**

 **Chapter 146:**

"You guys sure this is a good idea?" Mineta asked, looking to his left and up at most of his friends. For Hagakure he did not have to look up, though then again he would not be able to look at her anyway so he was still looking up at Ojiro, Sero, and Koda who were walking with him down a sidewalk of a residential neighborhood of a large city. "It's only been a day since he moved in, maybe we shouldn't just pop by so suddenly-"

"It's _because_ it's only been a day!" Hagakure exclaimed back at the boy who was having second thoughts when they were so close already. "That's why it's called a 'housewarming' party. Even though this isn't a party, but still!"

 _What does 'house-warming' have to do with it being… I never really understood that phrase._ Sero leaned back as he walked, putting his hands up behind his head and pressing his head back into them with his round elbows out to the sides. "What was this, a three hour trip? That's not too bad." Sero glanced up at the sky where the sun was high up above them though partially hidden as it was partly cloudy today. They had left that morning from the dorm and it was not feeling as cold anymore, though it was still jacket weather early in January and they were all dressed warmly.

Below a floating light-blue wool beanie, Hagakure turned her head to the muscular boy on her right side whose left arm she had both of hers held in the crook of as she held herself close to him on the walk. "Imagine he's not even there after we came all this way?"

Ojiro chuckled with a nod, as that would be something. He had a bead of sweat rolling down his face though which got cold and made him wipe it away so it would not freeze in the below-freezing temperatures. _You're the one who insisted we keep it a surprise. I feel like that was a bad idea for a lot of reasons, but him not being there would definitely be bad._

"He said he was just hanging out the last time I texted him," Sero said, pulling his phone back out of his pocket in his black winter glove. He checked the message again but then pocketed his phone instead of sending a new one. "It's just up ahead," Sero said, waving a hand down the street and around a bend to where he was pretty sure the building would be after that last check.

"You guys think we're safe here?" Mineta asked. The others looked over to him, and they saw the short boy looking around up near the tops of the buildings around them. "Those guys who shot Zach could be around here, don't you think?"

"Well I do now!" Hagakure exclaimed back at the boy who just gave her chills at the idea.

"If they're going to do anything," Sero said, holding up a palm as he offered this up. "They wouldn't when there are another five heroes there to help Zach out. If anything, us being here makes it even safer. Okay?" Sero looked towards Mineta as he asked, and the shorter boy sighed and nodded, wiping his forehead of the sweat he had made form there with his own paranoid questions.

Koda watched Sero try and calm Mineta down there, but he did lag back a little and look up towards a black bird that flew down to him when he gave it a look. He rose a hand while his four classmates were still in front of him and walking down the sidewalk without noticing what their larger classmate was doing. Koda lifted his wrist where the bird landed up near his right ear and nodded his head a few times before whispering something back at the crow and releasing it into the air again.

Ojiro had his head turned partially to the side to talk to Hagakure, though his eyes did shift back at Koda when the larger boy was heading closer to them again. Koda met Ojiro's gaze for a moment and instead of getting flustered that he was noticed, Koda just shook his head in a way telling his classmate that there was nothing they needed to be worried about. Ojiro felt reassured that Koda thought so, and he agreed with Sero more confidently to his girlfriend as they continued down the road of Yutapu City towards their friend's new apartment.

The group of five U.A. third-years approached a building at the address Zach had given Sero the day before when they were texting about how far Zach's place was from the school he decided on. So much had happened in that single day that Sero had been texting Zach for over an hour and was still shocked by how much Zach said he had done with getting his license, getting accepted to Shiketsu, moving, etc. "Did he tell you what room number he got?" Mineta asked, figuring he probably should have asked it earlier after Sero told them he knew where Zach lived.

"Second floor," Sero started. "Room 13 I think. He said it was the same as his number in class."

"Let's go up then," Hagakure said, pushing forward to keep everyone moving along. It had been a long morning and despite sitting the whole train ride, she wanted to rest again and mainly just get out of the cold.

Zach sat in his bedroom on the edge of the queen mattress that still felt too comfortable under him even after sleeping on it the night before. He had his phone lifted up and held sideways in front of him, and he was on the device's settings looking at a list of the makeup and internal components the phone was built-in with. He scrolled down the settings to options he could pick for location trackers, and he checked to make sure they were all still off. _If someone turned it on, would they really not have a way to flip those settings off too? Why does it matter? Anyone who wants to find me can find me. This doesn't even matter._

He took in a deep breath and then spread his fingers out on the screen which showed him all the different apps he had open at the moment. He tapped on another one, skipping over his music that was playing with a pair of headphones in his ears at a low volume. Zach unlocked his bank app and he leaned back on his bed that had a new sheet and comforter over it that he put on after flipping the mattress over. As he looked through his bank account and the transaction history connected with it, he scooted back and forth on the bed looking for a better spot with more springs so he was not sinking as far down. There was a lump in his blanket where it rode up too much that he slid himself over, and he had to lift his butt for a second to flatten it back out and then drop down with a frown at how uncomfortable it was.

 _I need to go do something. What? Walking around right now will just mean I have to go smile and wave. Do I have anything to buy? It's not like I need much. I lived on a single pair of clothes for a year. The place is really nice too. I should save the money Aunt Maye left me for something important._ Zach frowned and looked closer at the exact amount his savings account had and then the checking account that he had opened up and split half of his money into. _I'll connect the savings account to Arkitock and-_ Zach's eyes narrowed and his head spun. He pocketed his phone while getting off his bed, and he darted out into his hallway that his bedroom door way open to.

Zach made it into his living room and facing his front door before anyone had knocked. He heard their voices on the other side though and his right fist lost its black color and unclenched from a fist. _Great. I was hoping they'd come. Sero tried making it seem like he was just curious, but I was hoping…_ **Knock Knock.** "Coming," Zach said. He leaned his head closer to his couch while calling it out, like he had been sitting on it which he figured they would guess once he had opened the door. Doing so made him grind his teeth for a second at something he remembered Jirou saying to him the day before, but he shook his head and returned to a calmer expression by the time he grabbed at his doorknob.

Zach opened the door and he smiled at the group just outside his door. "Happy housewarming!" Hagakure called out, jumping up and holding out a bag of drinks and snacks. There were sodas and chips in the bag, and a couple of the others had bags with them too that had sandwiches and finger food. Hagakure hummed to herself after jumping up at him, and she said to the taller boy on the other side of the door, "You don't look very surprised."

"I have a peephole," Zach said, nodding to his side at the door.

"Well you could at least act surprised," Sero said, while walking forward and making Zach move out of the way. Zach stepped to the side to open up his doorway without inviting the group in, though Sero thought nothing of it and was looking around the place as soon as he stepped inside. "You found something like this in a day? It's dope."

"You guys can come in," Zach mentioned, looking back out at the group who did not just all follow Sero right inside, though Mineta was already walking forward when Zach said it over his head.

"I can't believe you have your own place," Mineta said. Then he shivered and reached up a hand to rub his head nervously, "In only a few months we're all going to have to… brrr," Mineta rubbed his arms in apprehension of that day. Rubbing his arms like that though after stepping into a heated home made him sweat and he started unzipping his jacket. "Hey Zach, mind if I," Zach looked towards him, and Mineta already tossed his jacket onto the couch back, then pointed at it as if asking if that was a good place for it.

"This place really is, nice," Ojiro said after stepping in too. He looked around at the walls that were not chipping paint or anything, though the palish-yellow walls did look faded and old. The floor had carpeting over all of it, and though there were a couple of noticeable darker patches where there were stains, it looked pretty nice. Zach had his shoes laying near the door just at the edge of his open laundry closet that had a wood floor unlike the rest of the main room. "Put our shoes here?" Ojiro asked, motioning at the wood floor.

"Yeah, sure," Zach said. He looked around at the five and then back at Koda who was the last one to enter his apartment and stopped just inside.

Koda met Zach's gaze and the two locked eyes for a few seconds. Then Koda looked back behind him out the apartment again, and then back to Zach who he asked, "Want me to close the door?" Zach smiled more as he thought Koda was hesitating there for too long or thinking about something, and he just nodded at the taller boy with a bumpy rock-shaped head who turned back to close the door for the host who had moved a little away from it to make room for his guests.

"Hope you don't mind us dropping by all of a sudden," Hagakure started while standing in front of Zach, looking even shorter now after taking off her boots. She reached up and took her wool hat off too, as she continued, "But we wanted to see your new place!"

"And see how you're settling in," Sero added, looking back over from the edge of Zach's kitchen. He had walked around the counter to the tile floor in the small kitchen space over there, and he felt he had seen most of the apartment in only a few seconds after. "You like this place?" Sero asked. "Feels a little cramped if you ask me."

"It's bigger than your dorms," Zach countered, and Sero cracked a smirk for a moment before shrugging acceptingly as Zach did have a point there. Zach looked around at the other four who were more gathered around him and weren't just walking around his place freely like Sero was doing. "You guys want to sit?" Zach asked, motioning at his sitting area on the left of the entrance looking in. He moved around the couch so the others could come over and sit down, and Sero frowned as he got back over since the couch was taken up by Ojiro, Hagakure, and Koda, and Mineta sat on the recliner.

"Let's grab folding chairs," Zach said, motioning back at his kitchen table where there were only two more chairs for his whole apartment. He waved off Ojiro and Koda when they offered to let him sit on the couch, as they had sat expecting Zach to take the recliner only for Mineta to grab what looked like the nicest chair in there first. As Zach walked over towards his kitchen table with Sero, he thought, _Good thing it was only five people. I guess,_ Zach thought it but realized he did not mean it, and he thought about the others who did not come for a second. "Ashido didn't want to come?" Zach asked, looking next to him at the other tall black-haired boy who he figured would have invited her.

Mineta looked over his shoulder around the back of his recliner chair. Sero started to respond with how Ashido had to take make-up exams because of bad grades at the end of the last semester, but Mineta chided over, "Sero and Ashido had a thing and now it's weird."

"It's not weird," Sero retorted back at Mineta with an annoyed look.

Zach had his eyebrows risen though at Sero after hearing what Mineta said. _Didn't notice when they were at the hospital. It didn't seem weird to me._

"It's really not," Hagakure agreed with a roll of her eyes that no one could see but they all felt was implied. "Mina doesn't think it's weird either. They're friends again."

"'Again?'" Zach asked, glancing back next to him at Sero as he unfolded his chair out on his carpet to make a circle with his classmates. Sero sweatdropped as he put his chair down between Zach and Mineta, putting Zach between him and Koda at one end of the couch. "So it was for a little?"

"Yea-ah," Sero slowly dragged the word out, thinking of how he could describe it. "Things really _were_ awkward for a bit, I admit." The others besides Zach looked at Sero in some surprise that he was talking about it, but the confusion went away as he was looking at Zach as he talked. It was something the other four had noticed, but Sero wanted Zach to know about it to lessen the gap between the rest of them, to let Zach in on what their lives had been like while he was gone. The others had not heard him talk about it before, but it had also been a while and did not feel awkward to Sero anymore so he didn't care. He grinned and leaned back on his chair and added, "I think we were really only connecting 'cause the two of us were the only ones not totally upset when you left."

Zach rose his eyebrows up high, while the others looked at Sero in surprise too but also like they understood it since they did remember how those two reacted compared to the rest of them. Sero continued, "We connected over that I think, because we both would rather talk about what you were doing then instead of what you had already done. I think we should've just stayed friends though, and Ashido agrees." Sero hesitated for a moment and then mentioned, "We still spar now though. I think when we started up again that's what finally ended things being awkward." _We never got to finish that first time in the park. I'm glad we decided to have that spar, when things were still so weird. They'd been weird for too long, but we worked that shit out through the fight._

"I'm glad you did," Hagakure mentioned, breaking the short silence that she felt was getting awkward in itself. "You and Mina being weird with each other made everything feel so, blech," Hagakure stuck out her tongue just trying to describe that awkward feeling in class those days.

"Ashido's gonna be pretty disappointed," Mineta mentioned, grinning at the others who he figured she'd get madder at than him that they came here without her.

Koda got a nervous bead of sweat rolling down his face as he imagined Ashido yelling at him for this. "Well it's not my fault she bombed her classes last term," Hagakure said, crossing her arms defensively. She turned back to Zach and said, "It's yours."

"Mine-" Zach's eyes widened, and he grimaced while lowering his eyes back down. _Shit. Her grades dropped because of that?_

Sero saw Zach look down, but instead of backing off the subject he added on, "Spent too much of her free time distracted by stuff outside of school. Protests and rallies and such," Sero said, hinting it hard at Zach who nodded in understanding. "It's probably thanks to her you're out right now."

"Some of us helped too," Hagakure added. "But yeah, Mina went all out."

Mineta got a nervous look on his face and looked away feeling strange. _I didn't want my grades to slip…_

"You want to eat?" Ojiro asked, changing the subject while also lifting the bag and reminding his friends that they had been traveling all morning and had yet to eat their lunches.

"We made you a ham and cheese?" Hagakure said excitedly, though she ended with her tone raising up like she was asking if that was okay.

"Sounds great," Zach replied. _They probably haven't left the bag with sandwiches out of their sight since they made them. I should ask. Would they be offended? I can't ask one of them to take a bite of mine- what if all of them are poisoned though, because the person who poisoned them doesn't know which one would be mine? Did anyone even know they were coming? I didn't even know, for sure, so how would assassins have planned this?_ "You made the sandwiches yourselves?" Zach asked while reaching out and taking the baggie with his sandwich from the invisible girl reaching it out to him.

"Yup," Sero said while getting his own sandwich tossed to him by Ojiro. "Kept a close eye on them too. Don't need to worry about any assassins or anything."

Zach nodded at Sero in thanks for saying that, which made Mineta stare at the two of them with wider eyes as he thought Sero was being too over-the-top or even making a joke about that. He gulped as he had to remind himself again that there could be villains coming after Zach even now, but he curled his hands tighter into the sides of his sandwich. _I'm a hero! Get a grip. Zach deals with this every second of the day, I can deal with it for a couple hours!_

The group started eating and Zach asked them about their trip there. It was Sunday so the trains were not very crowded, but Zach kept a close track of their journey to set a base time for it in his mind, plus or minus ten minutes. As Mineta started talking about looking out for assassins on the roofs near Zach's place, there was a knock at the door that made everyone spin to it with wide eyes considering their line of conversation. They all relaxed after jumping, even Zach, as it felt weird that someone trying to kill Zach would come and knock on his door.

"Want me to-" Ojiro began, putting his hands down on his sides on the couch cushion. He pulled his right hand back up after getting pricked by a piece of the fabric that was rough and scratchy without a cover on it, and he put his hands back on his lap instead since Zach had already gotten up and waved him off.

Zach stepped up to his front door and he looked through the peephole this time. His friends were too loud to be able to hear who it was who approached, but when Zach looked out he did not see anyone there. His eyes shifted down, and his expression darkened which made the others looking over at him get nervous looks on their faces. "What is it?" Sero asked.

Zach lightened his look as he glanced back, then he turned to the door, then he hummed and opened the door up. "It's a package," Zach said. _Why did we have to be talking about that kind of stuff? I'd have to be careful of it anyway, but why when my friends are here? And could the villains really find me so quickly? Of course they could, if they're set up enough. Doesn't look like a bomb box though._ Zach lifted the box and he glanced back at his former classmates who were all still stuck on their previous conversation too.

"Want to open it?" Sero asked, a grin spread over his face as he leaned forward in his seat. He looked around at the others who all spun to him, and he said, "We all know how to defuse bombs, right? We'll be fine!"

"Y-Yeah," Mineta agreed, trying to stop look so nervous himself. "Plus, what are the odds it's even anything bad?" He said it jokingly, but there was the slightest amount of hesitation in his voice that made it sound like he actually wanted those odds.

Zach walked over with the box, _They're heroes. We're all heroes. We can take care of ourselves and each other. The odds are small, Mineta. Smaller than you._ Zach relaxed himself with the joke in his own head, though he then reminded himself of how Mineta had grown since the last time they saw each other, and the odds being smaller than him did not make them too improbable anymore. "Thought it might be from Shiketsu," Zach mentioned, as he placed the box down on the floor in front of his seat. _I haven't revived any of them before. I could probably block some of the blast too, if I hear something clicking in there. I have to be careful not to get blown into them though or I won't be able to revive- stop thinking so darkly! It's going to be fine. This is a good day. It's just a good package._

"What are they sending you?" Ojiro asked.

"Your uniform?" Hagakure replied to Ojiro while still asking as a question since she did not know.

Zach nodded at her question though, while still looking over the box that he turned on its side and then upside-down. _Oh. Ohhhh._ Zach lowered the box back down to the floor and he rose his left hand that he rubbed back through his messy black hair less spiky than it was when he went out. _Really wish this had come at some other time. Why does everyone feel the need to surprise me with stuff? If one of you could have told me- well even if they had told me when they were coming it wouldn't matter if the other was still coming by surprise. I didn't plan out leaving with anyone else though. Yet since it hasn't bee very long, I should have guessed._ Zach hummed, and he looked around at the others who gave him odd looks at his new expression.

"What is it?"

"Well," Zach hesitated, and his hesitation was making his classmates feel stranger about the box but also about Zach now as it seemed he knew what it was but did not want to open it in front of them. Although someone not wanting to open their mail in front of other people was not uncommon, it being Zach made them start to feel what was in the box might be something they were not supposed to see. "I don't think it's a bomb," Zach finished. "It's from a friend," Zach looked back at the box, and he reached his right hand down to the top of it. A knife slid out of Zach's sleeve and into his hand. He flipped the blade and stabbed it down through the tape, and he dragged the steel across the top of the box before flipping the knife again and sliding it back up into his sleeve in a single motion.

Zach reached both hands down and pulled the flaps of the cardboard box up. He was not hesitating to show them what was inside which made them feel somewhat relieved, though he was also showing them something a 'friend' had sent to him which made them nervous again. That, and the fact that he had a knife hidden up the sleeve of his black long-sleeved shirt that he was not going to refer to or anything. "Do you just carry around a knife, everywhere?" Mineta questioned.

"Around my own house at least," Zach replied with a grin. He opened the box and turned it to pull the other flaps open and press them down on the outsides too. In doing so he brought everyone's attention to the box, stopping any of them from noticing how he did not actually answer Mineta's question nor lie about it. "Now let's see what I've got. I really wasn't expecting a care package so soon after moving in," he mentioned so his friends would know he was seeing all this for the first time too.

"You didn't ask for them to send it to you once you got out of jail?" Sero asked, looking to Zach to see if that was what he was saying.

Zach shook his head back at the other boy and then they both looked down into the box together. Sero scooted his chair forward more, and Mineta sat on the edge of his recliner as the others sat near the edge of the couch. Koda stayed pulled back a bit, but he leaned forward a second later with wide eyes as Zach pulled something bright out of the box. He lifted up the bright blue costume, with green highlights on his shoulders, waist, and around the cool symbol in the middle of it. There was red on the back in lines that cut up and then down near his shoulder-blades around his front and up to the green shoulder-plates. _Bright colors, huh? It does go better with the image I'm trying to make. This is just for show, though I'm sure its got its own cool features-_

"Cool!" Hagakure exclaimed, jumping off the couch after staring in surprise at the costume for a few seconds. "You have a costume already?!"

"That thing looks," Mineta started hesitantly. "Bright," he finished, and he smirked towards Zach who he could not really see wearing something like it now. Zach was in all black as it was which fit him so much more that none of the others had even paid attention to it when they came in that he was all in black. "You should try it on!"

Zach looked towards Mineta, then back down into the box that he reached into and pulled the pants up out of too. He looked at the bottom part of the costume that was equally bright as the first part, then back down and at some other things inside the box he had to get to including the belt of the costume. He frowned and lowered the costume down to his lap, and he hummed with one corner of his lip farther down and a thoughtful look on his face. His eyes got a darker tint to them, his irises shifting somewhat red for a moment, a very brief moment in which Zach thought about full six sentences. "I can probably try it on now, but I can't go out in it. I'll have to get it registered first."

"Who made it for you?" Ojiro wondered, looking back up at Zach's face after staring at the costume and inside the box at everything that had been sent to him.

"I made friends while I was gone," Zach replied. "Some who feel like they might owe me, some who might have had their hero costumes stolen from them by villains."

Koda opened his mouth, but he froze which made Zach look to him and give him an easygoing look to make sure Koda thought he could speak up. "I thought," Koda began in his high-pitched voice. "You went to a different world, right?"

Zach nodded at the larger boy who was still bulkier than him but not by as much as a few years ago. "But I was here for a while too. I spent more than half of the actual time I was gone fighting the Doorway woman across realms. There were also several months I spent here though-"

"What do you mean by 'actual time?'" Hagakure asked.

"Yeah?" Mineta added, as he caught that but didn't want to interrupt Zach to ask about it until Hagakure did.

"Well," Zach hesitated for a moment. He looked like he was having trouble explaining it, and he started in a slow voice, "I spent about seven months in Terra after I went through that first doorway. But when I left Terra, and I went to the next world where I came out of a portal on board a spaceship, that world's time ran differently to the others. The Empress told me herself later on, and I figured out how in that universe she was known to have been the ruler for millennia, because each time she left that world and spent a day in another, a year would pass there. So even though I spent another nine months there," Zach paused while his friends stared at him with shocked looks. "When I got back here, it was still only the seven months I was in Terra for… along with maybe an extra day or so."

"So it wasn't, thirteen months for you?" Ojiro asked, trying to wrap his head around this. "But twenty-two?"

"Yeah," Zach replied, though his voice got softer there and his eyes unfocused. _Nine months? Time, didn't keep moving. Shattered. Three months? Two months twenty nine days, is what I told Gentle. That time now, just feels like a blur. Because it was nothing. Just thoughts. For…_ "That's why," Zach started, refocusing as he noticed a strange look and then where his own thoughts had wandered to. "To me it feels like I wasn't here for that long, even though it would be more like half the _actual_ time I was gone."

"And that other world had spaceships?" Mineta brought up, leaning so far in his recliner he was almost falling out of it.

Zach nodded towards the short boy, but his eyes shifted back into the box and he reached down and grabbed a golden belt from inside it. He lifted it up and turned the belt over while saying, "I learned how to pilot one. Quirks were more rare in that second world, but warfare was more focused around technology." Zach pressed a button on the side of his belt, which made a black material pop out of it and harden after flapping up above the belt. It hardened into the shape of a hilt, and Zach grabbed the weapon and pulled a blade with black steel below the hilt out from the belt. He brought the knife back in front of him, and he ran his left thumb over the end of the blade and to the tip that he pressed his finger into a little too hard.

"Hey!" Hagakure was worried he was going to cut himself doing that, but when Zach moved his left hand away there were no cuts in his skin. Some black wisp disappeared on the tip of his finger that had turned to darkness as he was dragging the knife just to be safe. "Oh, sorry," Hagakure realized she had no reason to shout right there and she leaned back into her seat.

"All that stuff looks, pretty expensive," Sero mentioned. "You have to pay for any of it?"

"I think it's a gift," Zach replied with a small smile.

"What else is in there?" Hagakure asked, leaning back forward and looking into the box along with the others. Zach piled up the parts of his costume on his side outside of the box, and he looked around the bottom of the box where there were a lot of other things laying and smaller boxes inside of the main one. There were some things wrapped in bubble wrap showing they were more fragile, and Zach opened up one of those above the box for everyone to see.

"A watch?" Mineta asked, staring at the black device in some confusion at why it was wrapped up so much.

Zach smirked and he tossed the bubble wrap to his side. He unclasped the watch and put his left hand through it, then he tightened it comfortably but tightly to his wrist. _Let's see,_ Zach turned his wrist over and he looked at the face of the watch too which had a digital reading of the time on it. He stood up from his chair and the others looked at him in more confusion at what he was doing, until he opened up his hand with all his fingers spread far apart, then clenched into a tight fist while pushing his hand out. The top of the watch opened up, as did the edges of it farthest forward on his wrist closer to his hand. Wires and steel supports unbent from inside the main part of the watch in the middle and stretched down over the top of his hand, as did black material from inside what had looked like a thick strap because of what was inside it.

"No way," Mineta's eyes were huge and he stared at Zach's hand as the material spread to cover all of it giving him a glove over his left. The glove hardened and the wires over the tops of his fingers glowed blue.

Zach curled his fingers in a couple of times and then turned his hand over and looked at a darker black circle on the center of his palm compared to the rest of the glove. He made that circle glow blue with a clench of a couple fingers, and he loosened them which got that light to go down. _It's got the same control specs as my old suit, but it does feel slicker on the inside, and curling my fingers is easier. The ease of the transition too between no cover and glove was smooth._

"How did you do that?" Hagakure asked in amazement. "What kind of, support gear is that?" She leaned even closer to look at the glove from close up in case she was missing something to explain what just happened.

"I'm sure Hatsume'd go nuts over it," Sero said, chuckling at the thought while still staring at Zach's glove in awe himself. _How did it do that? How did he- that looked like some science fiction right there._

"The material itself is Quirk-finished," Zach explained. "This glove, and probably parts of the costume too," he turned his glove over and then looked back to his side at the rest of his costume down on the floor. "It means that someone with a Quirk that can affect material such as fabric and make it harder used their Quirk on this stuff. It's someone with a Quirk that lasts in perpetuity too, in such a way that other people can decide how to control their own clothes-"

"That's too crazy!" Mineta exclaimed.

"Well I doubt they felt it was all that great a Quirk," Zach countered. "As it wouldn't have helped much with them fighting or saving people, but with a lot of places around the world allowing Quirks to be used for regular jobs now outside of hero work, technology like this shouldn't be too futuristic for long. There's also the possibility the fabric material itself was created with someone's Quirk already with those properties inherently designed into them, or maybe someone had a Quirk that allowed them to alter animals or plants where the fabrics came from to make sheep with special wool or cotton plants that can make hard-cotton cloths."

"Are all those actually options?" Ojiro asked. At first he felt like there was some sort of trick to it, but the more possibilities Zach listed the more shocked he was getting. "Could all those Quirks…" he stopped himself, and he thought about it for a second which stopped him from needing to finish anyway.

"I wish Japan would allow broader Quirk use," Mineta muttered. "I want one of those. You did get it mailed in from abroad, right?"

Zach nodded, "Yeah. I didn't really make a lot of friends in Japan that year I was away."

"Two years," Sero corrected, checking if Zach forgot what he told them before.

"For me maybe," Zach countered without pause. "But it was only a year that I was away from Japan, even if in my experience it was longer. Time is a man-made construct, so I don't get to decide how long I was away for-"

"That's hurting my head," Ojiro mentioned, wanting them to get back off the time subject that he had been happy to ignore before.

Zach laughed and he looked back into the box. He tapped a button on his wrist of his left hand that made his glove pull back inside the watch that regained its original appearance too, then he took the watch off and placed it down with the costume next to him. "I'll have to get that registered too," he explained. _Really, anything that could be considered a weapon I'll need to get registered. Including this,_ Zach unwrapped another thing of bubble wrap and he lifted up an arm that the others all gawked at. It was covered in skin and had scars on it that looked very familiar to his male classmates; a left arm from the shoulder all the way down to the hand. "And this," Zach said, nonchalantly placing it back on top of the pile on his right without making any bigger note of it.

"Umm, what?" Sero looked at Zach and awaited an explanation.

Zach glanced at Sero, then down at his own left arm, then back up and he rose his eyebrows at his classmate who opened his eyes huge at the silent message. Zach looked back into the box without talking about it, and the others who were all staring at him in shock felt so unsettled by how he just moved on because it felt like they weren't supposed to ask any questions about it now. As Zach reached in and took out a black grappling gun, he thought, _Couldn't bring that into prison with me. Had to get a nice, regular replacement. It would have been considered a weapon with the tech I've got in there._

"Wonder what's in here?" Zach mentioned, pulling out another box from inside the main box. He ripped the tape off this time without pulling out a knife first, as he wanted to get to the next thing quickly to get the others' minds off of what they just saw. When he opened up the smaller box though, Zach sweatdropped and grimaced which got everyone looking closer at it. They all saw what he was doing trying to get their minds off it, but the way he reacted made it seem like he would have rather they talk about the arm.

"What is it?" Mineta asked, wondering what could be crazier than what they had seen already.

Zach was hesitant to lower the box back in front of him, but he also did not think he could get away with just closing it up and sliding it away. The others were already starting to look at him suspiciously, though showing them what was inside only made that suspicion worse as the group gawked at the stacks of bills in that box. Zach reached inside and he pulled a wad of cash out held together by a rubberband. "Huh," he muttered, flipping through the bills while a bead of sweat slid down his face. _I didn't ask for this. I can deal with my own money problems. I have some cash and I would get more than enough in a few months- this is ridiculous. There's so much here. Do they want to put suspicion on me or something? Idiots. I'm fine. The costume's great. Thanks for sending me stuff. I love you guys. But come on,_ Zach rose his eyes and glanced around at his classmates who all looked back up at him from the money.

The stacks of ten thousand yen bills added up. The conversion of yen to US dollars which Zach had been using while abroad for most of the time was ten thousand yen for one hundred dollars. So having four full stacks of them was tens of thousands of dollars Zach just got in a box. "'Huh?'" Sero repeated, looking at Zach with his eyes still huge but his eyebrows rising even higher at the way Zach reacted to what he just received. "And we thought it was a bomb," Sero said, joking yet still with his eyes huge.

"Well, I did help some rich people," Zach explained slowly. He scratched his head uncertainly, and he lowered the box back down and into the bigger one. "I guess they wanted to help me get back on my feet?"

"You don't have another explanation?" Ojiro wondered. He asked it not as much like he thought Zach's reason was bad, but just that he thought Zach would have an excuse ready since he had been answering most things they had asked him so far right away. Zach shook his head though which made Ojiro frown more as he felt like the explanation made sense but was not very thought out. _People know Zach doesn't have a family, and now that he's out of jail he does need money, so if he helped someone and they wanted to pay him back… I get it. It makes sense. He doesn't seem that sold on it though. Maybe, he just doesn't feel like he should be getting paid for the things he was doing?_

 _He was a vigilante, not a hero,_ Hagakure thought. _So he can't really get paid for stuff like that, but if it's sent as a "gift" then there's no harm, right?_ The sight of so much hard cash made Hagakure feel uneasy. Her lips felt dry and she reached for a bag and a soda. Hagakure paused as she was grabbing one though, and she turned to Zach and asked, "You want a drink? We have sodas and juice."

The others all looked to Hagakure, and Zach stared at her in surprise for a few seconds before nodding and smiling. "I'll take a cola. Thanks."

Mineta relaxed and sat back in the recliner again. _What a package. It's like a starter kit for living alone as a hero. At least he keeps mentioning registering all his stuff. I wonder where it all came from though… but since he keeps saying 'friends' and not being specific about it, he doesn't want to tell us. Because he doesn't trust- no, it's because just talking about secrets when he doesn't need to is stupid. It got people he cared about killed. I get that. Zach's just, not going to tell us everything. That's fine. As long as, there isn't something_ _ **really**_ _crazy still in that box._ Mineta's eyes shifted back to the box and the bottom of it where there were a few more parcels yet to be unpacked.

 _Is the Army of Death trying to support him?_ Koda thought, giving Zach a hesitant look as Zach smiled again and took a soda from Hagakure. _Or did he set this up before he even came back? Did he ask them to send him his things, in six months, because he knew he would get out of prison? Or did he contact them after he got out? Is he still, one of them? He's one of them and he just came here to, what? Go undercover? That makes sense. What for though? Or what if he's really not, and he never was? And this really is just something some friend of his sent him?_

"Well let's finish looking through this thing," Sero suggested, as they had all gotten quiet there for a few seconds. "I want to see what those other cool tech things do." Sero leaned forward looking down into the box at other parts laying around. He glanced at Zach to see if it was alright and Zach gave him a nod, so Sero leaned down and grabbed a visor from next to the box that Zach put back inside with all the money in it. Sero lifted the visor and held it up in front of his face with a curious gaze, then he said as he felt a button under his right thumb, "What happens if I do this-" he pressed the button and the top of the visor opened to make a hard part shoot out and curve to make a round dome of a helmet.

"Couldn't just have a regular helmet?" Mineta remarked, a bead of sweat on the side of his face at how impressive all this tech was even when it seemed to be for no reason.

Zach held out a hand and Sero handed the helmet off to him before reaching down to grab something else out from the box. "Let's see," Zach put the helmet down over his head and he glanced around his old classmates. He reached up and tapped a button on the side of it, "Thermal, night vision," he tapped again, and again in a way that put a targeting system up marking the other five people in the room with him. He tapped a couple more times to get it back to normal, then he tapped a button on the other side and saw a syncing symbol searching for a device to pair to. "Oh," Zach reached down for his phone, but he hesitated and thought about something he had already seen in the box but was holding off on grabbing. _I should toss the phone. If someone's tracked it already then it's too late, but the untraceable one is better to sync to the helmet anyway as there's less a chance of it being hacked._

Zach reached out and pulled a bubble wrap out from the bottom of the box which revealed the cardboard beneath as there was nothing left under it. He could see the phone through it already, but he unwrapped the device and then lifted up the slick new phone that he pressed his thumb on the front of which opened it up. He tapped a few different buttons and then saw the green light on his visor showing it had connected. Then Zach retracted his helmet back into the visor that he removed from his face, and he put it on top of the pile of his costume things. Zach pocketed his phone though, and he mentioned casually as he did, "I'll text you guys with the new one in a little. You can change your contact info- or maybe just add it as a second phone, since I think I'll keep the first one."

"Keeping two phones again?" Mineta asked with a grin.

"Why not? No need to return the one I just bought," Zach replied. He motioned back at the box and smirked, "Considering how rich I am."

Mineta laughed, and Sero chuckled too. Ojiro did not feel like it was much of a joke though. He looked hesitantly at Zach for what he just said for several reasons. The source of that money, the real reason Zach wanted two phones, and the fact that the money they saw did not actually make Zach rich. _He can probably easily get more from whoever sent him this though. Yet, maybe he's saying he's rich just because of that money alone, because Zach was always poor and we never knew. That might be the most money he's seen in his life._

"Let's see what else I've got," Zach reached into the box and pulled out a box-shaped phone. It was black and had buttons on the front instead of a usual touch-pad, and there was an antennae at the top that Zach pulled up and looked at a screen above the buttons that illuminated and showed the satellite phone had full bars. "Cool," Zach reached down into the box and pulled out a black laptop afterwards and turned it over a couple of times while still holding the sat phone in the other hand.

"That's a thick computer," Sero mentioned.

"Really thick," Hagakure repeated, never having seen one like that before.

Zach nodded in agreement and he added, "It's heavy too. Probably some good anti-hacking equipment in there," he suggested as the reason, then he turned and put the two devices he just got out back on the tv stand behind him.

"Oh! I've wanted to know for a while now," Hagakure started. Zach looked back at her and Hagakure asked after hesitating for a second, "Those cuts you had on your arm before you left. Was the thing with Kaminari for real?"

Zach grimaced and looked away for a second. "I knew it," Mineta said, sounding annoyed though he threw up a hand to show it was in part mock annoyance.

"We all got new phones for nothing," Sero said, shaking his head in more mock annoyance though he worded it in a way showing there was no reason to be upset about it. Zach lifted his lips back up into a half-smile too when Sero said it, then when Zach looked back at his black-haired friend Sero asked, "So what were those marks from? You weren't really, cutting yourself, right?"

Zach shook his head which relieved the boy who asked him. "It was when I went to buy Trigger the first time," Zach explained. He turned back forward and leaned into the box, and he pulled out a bag of small black devices that he lifted in front of his face and looked through at them all closely. "Like I said in the forest, I knew which strains of Trigger were good and which weren't," Zach lowered the bag and then rose his eyebrows at Koda who he saw staring at them closely. Koda looked confused for a second, but then Zach leaned over and held out the bag for Koda to take which the boulder-faced teen did.

"So you had to go to multiple deals to find a good one?" Hagakure asked, then she nodded at Zach as he lifted up another clear bag with some cool electronics in it. He handed off the bag to her, and she asked, "But if they, tried to sell you bad stuff- wait, if there were multiple deals-"

"I didn't arrest the people at the first deal either," Zach admitted at what he thought Hagakure was trying to explain her question around. He looked regretfully around at the others for a second and explained, "I got pissed that they tried to sell me something bad that could have hurt me, as well as a lot of other people around me if I had lost it. I think I was angrier still knowing that I couldn't well arrest them for it, because it would give away what my plans were when people asked what I was doing in that alley with drug dealers. I wasn't expecting some low level dealers to actually have decent Quirks, which along with their own Trigger," Zach finished there, but the others understood what he was getting at.

"So…" Mineta wanted to say a lot, but he was having trouble wording it without sounding too accusatory as he did not want to. "How'd you even get them to meet with you in the first place? Wouldn't they have been suspicious of a hero, even just a hero student?"

Zach started to frown a little more and he shook his head after a couple of seconds. "No, they were just stupid."

 _He's lying. Why lie like that? So obviously,_ Ojiro stared at Zach's face and felt he should say something, but the fact that it was so obvious made him look deeper into it. _Is it supposed to be obvious? What then- is it… he said, he wouldn't talk about her. He wouldn't put her at risk. If she's the one who actually made the deal, then he wouldn't tell a group of heroes… even if we are his friends._ Ojiro glanced to his side at Hagakure who had the same realization while still staring at Zach with a more shocked expression that she wiped away so he would not notice.

No one noticed Hagakure's head looking back down except her boyfriend, but Hagakure leaned forward and looked into the box where there was not much left. The small bags that they had been looking at and passing around all looked like accessories for his costume. Many had labels on them in English which she found difficult to understand but could make out their general purposes easily enough. They were meant for surveillance and stealth, some working as phone jammers if they were placed within 3 km of a target location, others acting as hidden microphones and even pieces of tiny drones that could move around with those hidden mics and cameras in them.

Hagakure was looking for another cool device that she could ask about, but she tilted her head to the side when she looked at the bottom of the box and the cardboard flaps that were still sealed shut on that side. "Hey look," Hagakure said, while Zach was answering a question about one of the small surveillance devices Mineta mentioned to get the conversation feeling less awkward again. Everyone looked towards Hagakure though as she reached her sleeve down into the box and grabbed something at the bottom, "There's an envelope too. It was sticking out of the cardboard," she slid it out of the flap near the bottom of the box, and she lifted it up in front of her while sitting back to show she had gotten it.

The invisible girl lost her smile as she saw the looks on all five of the boys' faces.

 _Well shit,_ Zach thought. _Luckily I don't know many stupid people. It should be fine. It's definitely fine. I could always play it off as a prank… not after pretending like I knew who it was all from at first. Shit shit shit. Don't be idiots. I know you guys aren't, but if you did this stupidly to try and get me back I'm going to be pissed._ "You want to open it?" Zach asked.

Everyone spun back to Zach. Most of them were already looking at him out the corners of their eyes if they were not fully focused on the letter. It was addressed to 'Zach Sazaki' as they could all see from when Hagakure lifted it up and showed the front to them. They all felt like whatever was in the envelope, likely a letter, would explain what the box was for and who it was from. No one said anything after she lifted it up, but all their suspicions and questions built up to make them feel like the answer was right in front of them. They realized that apparently whatever Zach had been explaining barely stuck with them at all compared to what they were about to see.

His question got them all staring at him with wider eyes though. It was as if he was calling them all out on not trusting that the way he was explaining this was actually the truth. He did not look upset though, he just gave Hagakure a smile and a nod as a 'go ahead' for the envelope she was holding. _If I open it myself and tell them what's inside, they'll only distrust me more unless I then turn it to show what is says. Even doing that though would just be awkward for everyone. So treat it like anything else in the box._ "Whatever they sent isn't a secret. I'm sure they assumed that before the package would get to me that someone would have looked through it, read all my mail-"

"The seal is," Hagakure began, but she trailed off as Zach shrugged at her again. "Are you sure?" She asked him. "We don't need to, if you don't want us to."

"It's fine," Zach repeated. "I want to know what it says sooner rather than later, and if I read it alone I know you guys won't be able to sate that curiosity." _Suspicion. Curiosity. A single word can make the mood stay fun. Really hoping that's just an alibi letter. Maybe an explanation that works with what I've said so far. It's always better to stay vague at first. They'll assume my reason was to protect whoever sent it, but I really could have just gotten caught in a lie the second I got specific._

Hagakure started opening the envelope up, but she hesitated again while giving Zach a strange look. She wanted him to stop her, and she glanced around at the others to see if one of them would say that she did not need to do it or they should leave Zach alone. Her eyes lowered back to the envelope she was holding though, and her own curiosity got the better of her as she slid her finger underneath the lip and ripped the rest of it open. "There's a letter inside," Hagakure said, as she could already feel through the envelope but felt the need to fill everyone else in on. "Want to read it first, before-"

"Hagakure," Zach said, and he smiled bigger this time at the third hesitation. "You can read it aloud. It's not going to be a secret or something terrible. I promise." The way Zach said that so nonchalantly and even in a joking tone made a couple of the others disappointed, as it really felt like this letter was not going to have the answers they wanted in it. Hagakure Toru felt more relieved though and let out a sigh while pulling out the paper and unfolding it twice as it was folded into thirds.

"What's it say?" Mineta asked as Hagakure had looked down at the paper but did not start reading it yet.

"Read it aloud," Ojiro suggested to his girlfriend on his right side.

Hagakure glanced up at him, then back at the letter and she cleared her throat a couple of times before sitting up straighter where she was. "'Dear Zach,'" Hagakure began in a clear and loud tone as the writing looked formal yet she could not be sure with it all in English. She had been taking English for years though, and near the end of her third year she was expected to be great at it already. She continued after a pause as she thought about what she was going to say before speaking it aloud, "'I hope this package reaches you promptly…'"

"Could you tell me who it's from?" Zach asked.

Koda and Sero glanced back at Zach oddly, as they felt like he knew who it was based on the way he mentioned his 'friend' earlier. Hagakure looked down to the bottom of the letter she held over her lap, and she said, "It's only signed, 'L.'"

Zach nodded his head in understanding. _L wrote this? Weird. I feel like no one else would have written it and put L's name at the bottom though._ "Alright sorry, continue," Zach said, nodding at Hagakure that she could get back to what she was reading at first.

"Um, okay," Hagakure nodded back and then looked down at the letter again and back to where she was at.

 _L knows that she's sending it to_ _ **me**_ _and not Death. It should be fine. Actually, this will probably get the others to trust me more now that I'm letting them read it. Not hiding stuff is better, and it doesn't feel as shitty. I'm not lying. I'm not being a liar right now- not really._

"So it continues, '…reaches you promptly. I was happy to hear that you were released from prison early. I didn't feel like you should have been sent at all, and a lot of people feel the same way here in America.'" Hagakure paused for a second and she started to smile more at the tone of the letter she was reading. The others relaxed a bit too, as despite it not having the secrets they expected, it was still something they were interested in as much as it was seemingly just a letter from one friend to another. Hagakure continued more confidently now, "'We're all looking forward to seeing what you do next. The new suit design I've sent you had brighter colors than you're used to, but try it before you, knock it?'" Hagakure rose her tone up there at the end, getting confused at the wording and wondering if she had said something wrong.

"It's a colloquial phrase," Zach explained to the hesitating invisible girl. "You got it right."

Hagakure smiled and nodded back at Zach, "If you say so."

"Yeah, guess you'd know better," Sero admitted. "I think I heard Pony say something like that before-"

"Sero went out with Tsunotori too," Mineta cut in to Zach who looked surprised for a moment before grinning. Mineta looked jealous and he added with a point of his finger at the boy between them, "And now he's dating this second year girl Azure, total bombshell-"

Sero gave Mineta a slightly darker look that had the shorter boy shutting his mouth fast. Then Sero smirked though as the compliments to his girlfriend had not gone _too_ far like Mineta sometimes could go, instead just making him feel more self-satisfied by the knowledge of how hot his girlfriend was. "What? Can't hold onto a girlfriend there, Sero?" Zach asked. Mineta's lips widened in an 'o' and then lifted up into a much bigger smile as Sero's smug look wiped away.

"It's not like that," Sero argued back. Zach hummed and nodded at him, not looking to believe it. "I mean it. It's never my fault- it's rarely ever my fault that things don't go well." Sero changed his counter midway, and it made both Zach and Mineta laugh at the correction.

"Ummm," Hagakure rose her voice and got the attention of the boys not sitting on the couch. They looked over and stopped smiling as much as they realized the others had just been totally left out of the conversation, still totally focused on the letter. Hagakure had a bead of sweat dripping down her face noticeably, as she felt somewhat responsible for starting that little break-off from the conversation. The others nodded at her to keep going, and Hagakure looked back at the letter she had stopped awkwardly in the middle of. "Well, he goes on-"

"She," Zach corrected. "Sorry," he added, as he interrupted Hagakure again which she humphed at as she never even got back to the letter.

"Alright _she_ goes on, 'The suit's made with only top of the line tech. Quirk and science blends, all the new best stuff from Dr. O. I know you know how to use it all already, but there are a few new tools in there you should try out before using on villains.'" Zach nodded along with what Hagakure was saying, noting it in his head to test the pieces that he did not recognize in the box so far. Hagakure hesitated for a moment, then she smiled warmly and read the sentence she just thought of how to translate in her head, "'I gave you some money, and don't think about sending it back. You saved my life and I'll never be able to pay you back enough for that. Plus there's a difference between humility and arrogance. You're a homeless drifter ex-convict fresh out of prison-'" Hagakure pursed her lips but then had to blow through them as she laughed at what she had just read.

Zach sweatdropped at the laughter and how that last sentence was worded. Koda gawked at Hagakure for calling Zach that, even if she was just translating a letter. Ojiro smiled, but Mineta and Sero were laughing like Hagakure and both mentioned that they were going to use those names to refer to Zach now. "Please don't," Zach muttered, though not sounding very serious and his own lips were having trouble staying out of a smile at how light the mood just got there. _Thanks L-_

"'I look forward, to the return of Lifebringer,'" Hagakure continued, lifting the letter again and reading farther towards the bottom of it. As she rose it like that, the boys in front of her noticed some writing on the back near the bottom and upside-down but it got hidden again as Hagakure lowered the letter and lowered her own voice. "'And I hope you keep saving people, like you saved me.' Then just a gap and she put a dash and L next to it." Hagakure finished.

"Made some powerful friends, huh?" Ojiro asked, looking back at the costume on the floor that Zach was getting for free along with all that money.

"I might have saved a couple of, well-off, people during my travels," Zach admitted.

"There's something on the back," Sero mentioned, nodding at the letter and speaking to Hagakure who flipped it over in surprise as she had not noticed it when she first unfolded the paper.

"Oh yeah," Hagakure said. She rose the paper and said, "There's a smaller message right here. It says, 'Zach. Mark's dead.'" Hagakure froze and she lowered her bottom lip after saying that without thinking. She just assumed it would be along the same tone as what was written on the front, and she said it without thinking about the translation as she had gotten confident in how she had been translating so far. She lowered down the letter though after saying it, staring up from it and across the small gap between them to Zach who was staring at her with his eyes wide. Hagakure let go of the letter with one hand and she reached it up to cover her mouth.

Everyone looked over at Zach. He turned his head to the side and got up out of his chair, then he turned his head back towards Hagakure with a more serious look on his face. Behind that serious expression though there was hurt on it too, yet Zach asked, "Could you continue? Anything else?"

The others were all still frozen trying to decipher what Zach's expression meant or what was going through his head. Hagakure nodded at him though as he met her gaze even looking into nothingness. She lowered her eyes down to the letter she was holding and read it, then she spoke in a softer voice and a much slower one too. "'He tried, infiltrating EM, but EM killed him… He's, coming after you. Be careful.'" Hagakure hesitated and she lowered the letter down to her lap again. "Then it finishes like the front, with a hyphen, and then a D." Hagakure stared at Zach as she said it, and her eyes opened even wider as Zach's eyes were snapped to the back of his apartment and the windows on the other side of his kitchen. Then his head turned more the other way and his eyes darted over to the windows on the side of his door that all had the blinds closed, though his eyes focused on the cracks in the blinds and the light coming in from out there. "Zach…" Hagakure whispered after finishing.

 _D? A message ending with -D?_ Koda gulped and stared up at Zach's face with his own eyes shaking at the intense expression on his old classmate's.

Mineta leaned back into his recliner with his own eyes darting over to the blinds and then back to Zach's face over and over. _EM? EM?! Those initials,_ Mineta gulped himself, while Zach rose his right hand and started rubbing the side of his head with it, his expression getting real dark.

"Are you okay?" Sero got up behind Zach, making Zach turn his head back to the left to see his friend giving him a look only similar to the one Hagakure had but no one could see.

Zach nodded his head. "EM being after me, is something I should have expected. I did even-"

"Is EM," Mineta started. Zach turned to the shorter boy who leaned back forward on his recliner. "That name you said in the woods? 'Eziano Mozcaccio?'"

"You shouldn't say that name," Zach warned. His voice was low as he said it, and Mineta's eyes grew much wider as he gulped again. "Eziano doesn't like it." Zach said it, and then he glanced around and leaned back where he was standing. Zach sighed at the looks his friends were giving him, and he shook his head around and smiled at them to try and raise the mood. "Back when I was in America, I had made friends with a couple vigilantes: Mark and Danny. A couple others…"

 _'Danny?' Is that the D who sent the letter? Is that what he's telling us by mentioning his real name?_ Ojiro thought these things, but he did not feel much suspicion even as he did. His eyes just softened more and he bit down behind his lips as Zach sat back down and continued talking without stopping.

"…I told them what I knew about the assassins and hitmen organization that I knew a bit about after going after the Hunter-" Zach grit his teeth and his lips curled down. He looked around and then said in a frustrated and confused voice, "After… Why did you guys come here?" Zach asked it with his eyes soft and guilty, his hands curled onto his knees and his expression getting darker. "Even after hearing what I had done to that man?"

 _He's talking about the Hunter?_ Hagakure thought, her eyes huge as she thought about the part of the Lifebringer Incident that had haunted her for a long time.

None of the others really knew how to respond to the question Zach just asked, bringing up something so horrible that he did not need to repeat because none of them had forgotten about it. Mineta leaned forward far though and he started, "If that guy- you said that he was trying to bring you back to the League after you escaped." Zach stared towards Mineta with his eyes growing wider himself, and Mineta continued while shaking his head at the disbelieving look Zach was giving him. "And he would have brought you back to be tortured, and he was a hitman… and if making him believe, what you made him believe, is what saved those hostages from the War Boys…"

"Zach, who's Mark?" Ojiro asked.

Zach spun back to Ojiro. Mineta was trying to defend his actions around the Hunter, and he spun to Ojiro too with his eyes wider at what the blond just said. Sero was sitting on Zach's left with his own hands clenched and shaking on his sides, and he turned to Zach after seeing Zach spin to Ojiro with that look on his face again. Zach opened his mouth, but he hesitated for a moment and Ojiro said to his old classmate whose face he was staring straight at from only a few feet away, "You shouldn't try to just, pretend it's not getting to you right now."

Zach started shaking his head at what Ojiro was saying. But Koda spoke up on Ojiro's left, and Zach froze and ground his teeth hard as the softer-toned boy added, "You don't, need to pretend around us."

Zach saw Mineta out the corner of his eyes lower his gaze too. His own eyes widened more as Mineta did it, _He was just… Even talking to me about Hunter, he could tell what I was doing. Damn it-_

"Were you and Mark close?" Sero asked, leaning forward and looking around the front of Zach's face as he had not moved it in a few seconds and seemed to be stuck where he was.

"I'm sorry," Hagakure whispered too. Her voice cracked as she said it, and Zach rose his head at that pained tone, "The way I said that, just blurting it out without giving you time or-"

Zach shook his head at Hagakure again and said, "It wasn't your fault." He tried to give her a smile but failed, and he did not try again. He just continued while looking at her empty space of a head, "It shouldn't have been on a letter." Zach then turned to Sero and he replied to his question, "We weren't really." Sero frowned at Zach and Zach continued, "We fought together a couple of times, and yeah, I considered Mark my comrade. But he was just… He was just…" Zach trailed off a couple of times, still staring into Sero's eyes but his own looking less strong. His heart raced in his chest as he was unable to keep it as calmed as he had attempted at first when he shifted his thoughts far, far from what he had just heard. "He was…" Zach's lips twitched and Sero's eyes started to widen too, not that Zach saw them even facing Sero from only a couple feet away.

Water formed in Zach's eyes and his hands he had on his legs started digging their fingers down into his thighs. _Mark…_

* * *

 **18 Months Ago**

The island of Muvalo sat several hundred miles northeast of Kiribati and the atoll of Tarawa. On the island was nothing more than a sole village on one shore and a forest covering the majority of it. The island was small enough that when it came time for the island's size to be measured by an official of the Vantan Islands which was the nation they were a part of, Muvalo's residents made an effort for the official to come at low tide when the most land would be showing. Despite its small size though, the village was large enough that the five passengers of a small ship that had been having trouble crossing the Pacific Ocean knew there would be some gas there to fill their boat up with.

"Are you sure this place is going to have what we need?" La Brava grumbled, rubbing her stomach and sitting at the edge of the boat ready to lean off of it again if need be. After facing a storm the entire last two days, which caused rough seas that kept them from making as much progress as they had planned on, everyone was feeling cranky and at least a bit seasick.

"You don't know these islands at all, so why don't you just shut up about it?" Cee muttered over at the older woman who darted a glare back at their newest companion.

"Well if we don't get gas and wind up stranded, it'll be your fault _Cee._ What kind of name is that even?" La Brava chided over. "Couldn't think of something better to tell us than a letter of the Roman alphabet?"

"We'll know for sure in just a little," Zach interrupted before the older women behind him could start fighting each other. The island was just up ahead, and Zach turned the wheel a smidge to approach from as due east as possible. "Darling you go to the west side of the island and look around the village for some fuel, some food too if you can. We'll look through the forest too for food though, and catch some fish, but we need that gas."

"You can count on me," Darling assured, leaning up from where she was sitting back with her face scrunched up in some disgust at the rocking of the boat she really wanted to get off of.

"I'll go too," Cee said. Zach looked to the girl who gave him a dark glare, challenging him to counter her and try telling her what to do.

Zach's eyes lowered from her blue and pink ones down to her neck though. The red marks were mostly gone, but then Zach shifted his eyes to her left leg that was mostly uncovered considering the summer heat. Her short shorts showed off the white bandages wrapping over some of her skin though. "How's your leg?" He asked the girl they had saved not too long ago and who was pretty injured when she joined them.

Cee ground her teeth at his response that was not as she was planning to retort against. "It's fine."

"Then that's a good idea," Zach said, agreeing with Cee. "You said you speak the language here, so it'd be better if you go along. You could look for some medical supplies too, so I can change that bandage-"

"I can change my own damn bandage," Cee snapped, though it came out as more of a mutter at him near the end as she did not know why she was getting so mad at him for the offer. As she told herself there was no reason to be mad about that though, she just ground her teeth more thinking about why she was mad at the boy who told Raijin _everything._ "Just land the boat," Cee growled.

Gentle looked over his shoulder from closer to the bow where he was sitting in a relaxed way despite feeling a similar rumbling in his stomach as the others behind him. His eyes shifted over to Zach through the windshield behind the console where Zach was leaning forward turning the wheel. Zach lowered his gaze after meeting Gentle's, as he had told Gentle at their last stop about Cee's old master Calico whose death Cee hated him for. Instead of getting some encouragement like he had hoped for, or just a reassuring voice, Gentle told Zach that it would probably be better if they left her behind then if she might turn on them. _If she wants to leave, that's fine. But I won't leave her. I can't tell her not to hate me either. I deserve it for what I did to her. All I can do is try and help her, and hopefully she can help me too when we get to America._

"If we get enough extra tanks, we should be able to make it all the way to Hawaii on the next leg," Darling mentioned as they were approaching the shore and slowing down. "I'll try to get us as much as possible!"

"There's nowhere left for us to stop between here and there, so we'd have to do that anyway," Cee muttered, making Darling look back at her and glare at the girl older than her by a year who was not being very pleasant.

Darling held her tongue though, after Zach pulled her aside at the last island and told her not to when it came to Cee. It was not as hard to hold her tongue this time as it was when Cee was talking back at Zach in _that_ tone though, but she kept seeing Zach glance her way when Cee started talking and knew she had to keep it to herself. "Great deduction," Darling said. "I didn't even think of that," she smiled at the blonde girl who got an annoyed look as that smile and nice act sounded very sarcastic.

La Brava smirked over at the two younger girls though, and she glanced back at Zach, "We should keep the engine running, Sazaki. Those two might come running back here with a mob chasing them."

"I'm an anti-hero," Cee snapped over. "I know how to keep my head down. Unlike some people-"

"I followed Zach for months with no one ever seeing me!" Darling shouted right back at Cee.

Zach bowed his head and felt like face-palming, while the other three all stared at Darling with weirded-out looks at what she just admitted to. La Brava darted a look up at Gentle and gave him a questioning look as she wondered again what they were even doing there. Gentle shook his head back at her and glanced back at Zach who he said in a very calm voice to, "What a team you have gathered."

"We're landing. Everyone just, try and get along," Zach said, giving up on trying to be subtle and working out their differences in other ways like sending two who were at odds on a joint mission across the island together. He stepped out from behind the console as he cut the boat's engines, and he jogged to the front and jumped off into the shallow water in front of the boat. He grabbed around the front and slowed it down then pulled back after the hull hit the sand. Gentle dropped down next to him and sighed but grabbed around the bow too and helped him pull their boat onto the sand and up out of the shallow water a few feet so it would not just float back out.

Darling hopped off the front with the anchor she pulled out of a hatch at the bow in her hands. She ran up until the end of the steel-link chain and then slammed the anchor into the sand and buried it to make sure it was set, then she looked over her shoulder with an annoyed expression. "Sure about that leg? We're trying to do this fast," Darling smirked at the girl still up on the boat who had not jumped down yet. Cee glared her way, then she jumped off onto the sand and did not flinch even as she purposely landed on her left leg with most of her weight. Darling had seen the wound on Cee's leg a few days ago, so she lowered her smile at the calm way in which Cee did that without even reacting like it hurt at all, since Darling knew it did.

 _Why would you do something like that?_ Zach thought. He kept his mouth closed though, hoping Cee knew she could take it and did not just open up her wound under the bandages for a petty boast.

"Hey Gentle," La Brava started, her voice having a tone of hesitation and also urgency like she needed the others to listen to her. Cee stopped jogging up towards Darling to look back, but Darling stopped for a different reason and was looking over to the north side of the beach.

Zach and Gentle started walking up the shore from where they had anchored their boat. The shore was steeper in certain areas than others, mostly up near the edge of the forest there were a couple of three-four feet drops from the dirt and trees. Zach looked right towards the north side where both La Brava and Darling had been looking, and he, Gentle, and Cee all saw the man too now. Cee started walking up the beach again when Zach and Gentle had gotten to her level, and La Brava jumped off the boat and started running up behind them. "Who's this guy now?" Cee muttered under her breath.

"Oh, do the residents of this island not look like that?" Gentle remarked, sarcastically. The group was faced with a Caucasian man twenty-four years old who had messy brown hair and a light tan. He wore a Hawaiian shirt and a pair of cargo shorts, yet he also had a holster on his right side with a black pistol hilt sticking out of it.

Zach's eyes narrowed at the pistol but he tried to keep a calm expression as he refaced the man walking towards them. _What's that?_ Zach looked past the man and over through the tree-line at the edge of the forest. _It looks like, a hammock? Those leaves are all clustered together too- he built a little cabana. Is that a bar? There's a television. What else? I can't, see,_ Zach's vision started to get clearer, but his eyes darted back to the man and the red tint forming in his eyes went away. He noticed the corners of his vision re-blurring as he focused on the man, _Think about that later. Who is this guy?_ "Who are you?" Zach called out towards the man. _We weren't supposed to see anyone on this side of the island. It's supposed to be an empty beach._ "And why is it you have a firearm?"

Gentle shifted his eyes in towards the shorter boy on his left. "So, no small talk then?" Gentle asked, before turning back and giving a darker look towards the man whose expression did not change after what he was just asked.

"Why are you here?" Darling snapped towards the brown-haired man whose arms were down non-threateningly at his sides, yet who was setting off all her warning signals the same as he was everyone else's.

"I live here," the man replied in Japanese. "But why are you here, Zach Sazaki?" His question came with a drop in his tone from the casual way he spoke at first. The polite tense he used dropped too, his voice getting flat and combative. "How about you, Gentle Criminal?" He added, looking to the gray haired man next to Zach when he did not receive a response immediately.

 _He knows us. The news could easily be the reason why,_ La Brava thought. _But he's too calm. Is he hunting us? How did he know exactly where we were going? The five of us decided it during the trip- that bitch!_ "You told them we were coming?" La Brava asked, looking towards the blonde girl who spun her head back to the short woman with pink hair. "Did you?!" La Brava snapped after Cee's eyes widened and her look started to turn pissed.

"No!"

"This really is his place," Zach said, trying to calm La Brava as well as defuse the situation a little. "So I'm sorry we landed here," Zach added. _Something's up with him. He's not afraid at all. Not one bit. The media's been talking about me like a psychopathic murderer. Or at least that's being considered, so he should at least be somewhat hesitant!_ "We just need some gas and we'll be on our way."

"I don't think so," the twenty-four year old said. He narrowed his eyes at them and Zach spun his head to the right and down the shore towards the water.

No one saw Mark move. The man standing on the beach had his hands down at his sides in a non-threatening way, so no one was paying attention to them when it was his eyes that had drawn everyone's attention as he last spoke. Especially since his hands did not reach for the piece on his waist, no one noticed the slight movements of his hands that caused the ocean to recede away from the shore, beaching their boat completely out of the water and creating a huge wave that pulled in towards one spot behind their boat and rose up a hundred feet in the air in a matter of two seconds.

"Fuck! Up the beach!" Zach shouted, and he sprinted up the sand as fast as he could. "Gentle!"

"I don't need your assistance!" Gentle snapped, while reaching back and grabbing La Brava with one hand and creating a Gently Rebound with the other. The huge wave dropped down on the beach right in front of him and blew their ship to pieces, but Gentle jumped into his elastic barrier and bounced away before the huge rush of water could slam into him. The wave was going to slam into his elastic barrier instead, but after the edge of the water and some debris hit the wall and bounced back, all the rest of the water coming at it curved around the barrier and rushed up at Gentle twice as fast than it was just coming from rushing on shore.

Gentle and La Brava had started to smirk when they bounced away and the water got pushed back, but Gentle reacted fast despite the surprise when that water rushed at them in two big streams shooting through the air. He swung his free hand down below him and slammed both feet into it right before the waves would have hit him. The waves curved up as his feet were still coming down at the barrier, but he bounced fast enough that they only caught the bottom of his feet. Catching the bottoms of his feet for a second slowed Gentle down in his rise though, and the water he just escaped from merged into one big hand that reached up for him.

The hand of water swung the opposite direction that Gentle started dodging in his fall with La Brava pulled close to him. His head spun and he looked towards the man controlling the water, to see that man looking away from them with his arms raised up and one in the shape of a hand closing into a fist like the water hand was doing.

Zach rushed at the man on the shore, darting his gaze over to Darling for a second and calling out, "Don't hurt him." She was running with him just higher up the shore closer to the treeline, and Darling nodded back his way with her arms transforming into something other than guns. Zach was reaching for his own knives down at the back of his shorts' waistband under the hem of his white long-sleeved shirt. The others were all wearing short sleeves, but Zach's shirt was meant to give him at least a little cover to not draw attention to his scars. He gripped the knives on the back of his waist, but he skid to a stop with sand pushing out in front of the toes of his feet that he dug into the ground. "Wait!"

The man spun around hearing that shout, and Cee's eyes opened huge as the pink glow left them, because the man up ahead of her was no longer being affected by her Quirk. Ten jets of water rose up on that man's left side, huge cylinders of water that rose up as pillars and waved around in the air like snakes. They curved around over the ocean and then pulled up over the sand and waved around in crazy patterns behind the man's body and in the air above him. He held his hands up with his fingers twitching, and he curled his pink and ring finger on his right hand in, causing the water that had collapsed down near Gentle and La Brava to suddenly jolt their directions and slam into them.

Cee spun hearing the shout of La Brava, then she jumped backwards and crossed her arms for some protection not that it still did not hurt like hell when the pillar of water rushed over her. Gentle hit the ground outside of the wave, and he spun around after snapping his soaked head up looking for his partner. As he snapped his head up though, a shadow blotted out the sun above him and he flipped himself onto his back while waving a hand over the top of his body. The wall of elasticity he created blocked the pillar of water that came down to pummel him into the sand, but it did nothing to stop the second pillar which shot under the barrier on Gentle's left and washed him out from under his shield, so that another pillar could drop down like the first tried to do and shoved Gentle into a crater on the beach.

La Brava coughed up water and she shouted over towards the person she loved the most, "Gentle!"

Darling fired a smoke grenade towards Mark, while at the same time raising a club that she had turned her right arm into. She planned on rushing through the smoke to the right, as she had fired the smoke grenade a little to the man's right side so he would dodge to his left (her right). One of the pillars of water flying above the man shot down five times faster than it was previously moving, two of the other pillars losing all control and just falling down to the beach as he sped that single one up so much. Darling thought she had a good read on the speed of the pillars already, so she was too shocked to even try and dodge when her smoke grenade was engulfed at the end of the water pillar that kept shooting towards her with the front of it transforming into the shape of a snake opening its jaws.

A black blur swept in front of the snake's unhinged jaws and tackled Darling up the beach. Zach and Darling rolled over each other up the sand, then Zach jumped off her and started sprinting over the sand in the brown haired man's direction. _He has an unlimited ammo supply! The beach is where he's naturally strongest. Calm down. Dodge and get one hit. That's all you need. One good hit._ Zach dodged to his right and then the left, dodging huge pillars of water that were coming down from the sky above him diagonally and curving almost at the very end when he would start to dodge. He changed up his dodges though, making feints while staring straight into his opponent's eyes.

The man facing Zach jumped backwards, and a wave of water rose up from the soaked sand around him. Zach's eyes widened, then he dove forwards into a roll that he came out of on his hands and knees and had to leap to the left using all four appendages. His speed had risen with the darkness surrounding his body, but there were less pillars of water flying around too despite more water coming up and joining them from the ocean at all times. There were less things to control, so even with more liquid added into the mix it seemed the man they were fighting had even better control over the thousands of gallons he was swirling around them. Zach was closer to the treeline after his last dodge, and no attack came down at him right away after he landed on his feet. _He's good. Really, really good._

In the corner of Zach's gaze, he watched as two arms of water reached up from the sand and wrapped around Darling's feet. It tripped her up to the ground, and then a loop of water came out of the sand around the back of her neck and a few more wrapping around her body and pressing it to the floor. "Gah! Let go! Let me go!" Zach could see behind the girl who started yelling loudly about it with her head lifted up as far as she could get it. He saw Cee struggling to drag herself closer to the tree line, coughing up water and with her left leg getting red as the bandage soaked through and her wound had definitely opened up this time. Then he saw Gentle, and his eyes widened as the man covered in a bright pink aura that flared around him making his muscles bulge and his eyes look pure white through the veil.

La Brava dropped back to her butt behind Gentle, and she gasped out her panting breaths in exhaustion from the effort it took her to get to him. "Lover Mode," she whispered.

Gentle leapt up in the air high, and he came down hard on a dry patch of sand among so much wet sand. Zach was glad Gentle noticed, but he lowered his bottom lip as the entire wet beach around him shot up before Gentle's feet had even connected with the sand yet. Gentle's white eyes opened wider, as it became clear that the patch of dry sand had been a target that the other man was already focused around. Zach's head snapped fully back to his opponent, _Too good. What the hell?! He definitely lives here doesn't he? Who is this guy? That doesn't matter yet. We have to beat him first. He saw me dodging his attacks so well though, and he used his water to increase the distance between us. Even looking into his eyes and making different moves, moves that my eyes did not give away, it wasn't enough to break his concentration at all. I should have let one of those pillars hit me. I have to take the sacrifice. It will hurt, but one blast is all it takes to knock him out. Then we get the gas- we go find a boat, and we get out of here! Darling still has the money!_

Zach kicked off the sand and made it explode back behind him with darkness fading from sand particles it had seeped on in the kick. Zach darted across the sand faster than before, forcing some of the Death around his body down to his legs which made his bones show through more on his arms and his face. The thick black veil got lighter in different areas as Zach focused his Death elsewhere, but his red eyes narrowed towards the man up ahead of him whose eyes darted towards his arms and his skull like he had just examined Zach's Quirk and fully understood his weaknesses in a moment. _Did Eziano send someone after me? This guy feels like he must be an assassin. The set-up was just to make him look like he lived here, probably to lure us in, but he decided to screw stealth and just kill us right off the bat!_

A dome of water that had just surrounded the Gentle Criminal and closed him in exploded out in all directions as the soaked man in a pink aura flew out the north side of the dome. He bounced himself up into the air to dodge a water fist coming for the spot he broke through, but there was another smaller pillar of water that broke off of the first one going exactly where Gentle just dodged to. He smashed his fist through that arm and came down to the sand with a furious look spreading over his face as a dozen other fists of water flew out of the ground and at him from straight ahead of him, meaning he either had to dodge around and take a longer route around that would waste the time of his Lover Mode, or take the hits straight on and try to push through them all. He knew that he would be slowed down enough by those fists that he had already felt the power of though, that the man who had shown off his mobility would not be caught by that brute force advance.

Mark's eyes darted from person to person on the beach in front of him. The water wrapped around Darling dropped loosely around her body, losing its dense form and slipping into the sand as the punch of Death flew at her and surrounded her body. Darling got up inside that darkness and then ran out of it in Mark's direction, while the boy ahead of her who had punched that black hand backwards kept darting their enemy's way faster than he had been moving before. Mark cracked his neck to one side and then the other, then he stopped and his calm look turned into more of an upset one with his lips curling into a frown at what was just shouted at him.

"Why are you attacking us?!" It was a scratchy and deep voice that shouted it, but the frustration and confusion of a young boy. _If I have the chance I take him down. If his control over water extends to blood, we're fucked. Except if it does, and blood is mostly water so why not?! Then he's not killing us for a reason!_ The panicked thought that Zach had when he was running was making him too conflicted and confused that he had to shout at the man facing them. _Is it about honor or something? Maybe I'm wrong! I'm probably wrong! But if I'm not- then why is he-_ "Are you a villain?!" Zach yelled at the man.

The man's lips twitched and he narrowed his eyes more at the boy charging him. The fists blocking off Gentle that he went with trying to avoid all dropped down into the sand. Two of the pillars up in the air above Mark combined, and he glared towards Death who was too small for the wide pillar of water to miss even at his speed. The pillar's speed just increased too, and Mark said in a calm but dark voice at the boy whose red eyes were lifting up, "No. But you are."

 _Brace!_ Zach clenched his teeth hard, and he tried to cover some more of his face with darkness to hide that he was doing so. It would not have mattered. He was flattened into the floor by the pillar of water that continued crashing down on him for two seconds before finally letting up. Zach already had his mouth open as he could not keep it closed after that initial impact, but once the water was gone he was able to start coughing up all the sea water in his body. He curled his hands into the sand and dragged himself up in the crater to his elbows and knees. Then he started panting out dark breaths and spitting a few times onto the ground, before raising his head and freezing in utter shock at the sight of the man staring towards him with a dark look, not looking unsteady on his feet in the least.

"The news is very specific about your Quirk, as it continues to warn everyone not to get close to you," the man said to the wispy boy down on his hands and knees staring at him in shock that showed through even in that dark form. "Even without touching your body directly, just our Quirks touching you while under our control would be enough to knock us out or even kill us." The man used the Royal 'we' multiple times there, referring to himself as part of the group of normal citizens which it really did not feel like he was. He continued while narrowing his eyes darker at the boy starting to drag himself up to his feet, "But if I bring a giant pillar of water down at you and release it, does it just stop moving? It's a simple law of motion, not that a kid whose never taken a physics class in his life would understand."

 _He released the control a second early?! That's why the back of the pillar felt less powerful than the initial hit, because he wasn't controlling it anymore or keeping its speed up. It just dropped down to falling at gravity's level, and the water molecules probably pulled farther apart too to actually be more like liquid and less like I'm getting smashed by stone or something._ Zach's neck ached, as did his back, and his ribs, and his shoulders and knees. The blow took a lot out of him, but his Death was not something it affected. He flared it around himself and growled, trying to make himself look stronger than ever despite the pain he was in. _I should have brought more Trigger. I smashed too much. No! I decided not to use it again- but I could totally use it right now!_

Zach sprinted forward as a hot pink blur shot by his right side. Their enemy started turning around for no reason, but he brought up a much wider dome of water around his body than the one he used on Gentle before. Cee glared angrily across the beach with her glowing pink eyes, _How does he know?!_

Spikes of water shot out of the dome on all sides, but Gentle rushed straight forward at one of the spikes made not as an attack but as an equal defense as everywhere else because of Mark's disorientation. The spike was not strong enough to handle Gentle's punch straight into the point, so the entire thing blew apart. Gentle smashed through the outer wall and the water closed back in on his right leg as he was almost all the way through it. The outsides of the dome were not just off of their opponent's body, but enough of Gentle had gotten through before his ankle was grabbed that he was able to swing his right fist forward despite his momentum being gone. He smashed that fist into the side of Mark's face as the man was turning towards where he now knew was the right direction.

Gentle fell down to his stomach as the grip on his ankle released and his body twisted in a strange way from the off-balanced punch. The water walls collapsed down on top of him though, and Gentle rose out of the falling water with his pink flare flaming brightly around him. "That's a nice technique," Zach's deep voice growled as the dark blur went zipping past Gentle's left side.

Gentle was panting, but he grit his teeth and curled the left corner of his lips up as he sprinted forward too. "You didn't think I showed you all my tricks already, did you?"

Mark pushed his hands down on the ground and kicked his legs into the air. He did a flip and kicked a leg out towards the two coming at him, and water rose up from the wet ground in a slice that Zach pulled one way of and Gentle the other. Darling fired a cannon made of both her arms at the end of the attack, and the slice was stopped short by the blast, then two smoke grenades came flying out of the black smoke of her first explosion. When she fired them he was blocked off by the first attack, and now they were halfway across the beach from her before the man in the Hawaiian shirt even got a glimpse at them. He had bigger things to worry about though, as both Zach and Gentle were barely slowed by his kick and he was about to land in front of them.

"I'm not a villain!" Zach yelled, and he swung both of his arms in with the ends of his arms extending out and his fingers sharpening. "Death Claws!" Gentle leapt up as those claws were slashed in front of them, and he started raising his arms ready to redirect with a Gentle Rebound in whichever direction their enemy managed to dodge Zach's first attack.

"That's your own opinion," the man retorted, before leaping immediately upon touching the ground up ten feet in the air backwards, and then getting slammed into by his own pillar of water that flew up and that Gentle created a barrier to block. The pillar that was aimed at him at first changed direction and engulfed the man who had been fighting them, and it kept going to push him up into the trees and straight into a canopy that he disappeared into a moment later.

"After him!" Zach called out, and he sprinted towards the man while Gentle bounced himself that way up in the air. Whether he was just going to regroup and come back at them, or go inform the other people on the island of their arrival, they needed to defeat him now when he was away from the shore.

Gentle flew over Zach's head and into the trees after their enemy. He was faster with his pink aura than Zach was just with Death surrounding his legs, but Zach slowed down for another reason as he was nearing the tree line close to where he first noticed the man's cabana. There was a pile of leaves on the floor in between the beach and the forest, between two trees and piled up inconspicuously for most people but in a way that stuck out for the boy searching for clues. Zach darted over faster, the ground turning black beneath his feet as he stepped onto sand grass, and the trees dying on either side of him as did the leaves covering the canoe. _It's hidden. And the cabana is off the shore, through the trees so it would be difficult to see for passerbys on boats. He's got food behind that bar along with the drinks. What is it? Just hidden enough to be out of sight but close enough to see anyone approaching. Why?!_

The roof of the cabana blew apart into shards that Zach crossed his arms to protect himself from. Between his crossed arms he saw a dimming flame of pink slam into the sand at the edge of the forest and break apart the ledge down to the sand as there was a steep drop there. Gentle skid through the sand making a long trench down towards the water, and Darling spun her head with her eyes wide at the sight of their comrade face-first in the ground. "Zach!" Darling shouted as she spun around towards the dark figure in the woods.

Zach looked ahead of him towards the sound of rushing water that was shaking the trees through the forest. Stalks of bamboo and tropical plants were swinging around into each other, and Zach watched as water sucked out of some of those plants right before his eyes. Deeper in the woods more of the trees were being taken from than the ones on the edge where he was standing, and Zach's eyes narrowed again as he glared out towards his enemy. _I have to test it. Testing it is risky, but I'm almost sure of it now already. He's had the ability to kill us so many times, yet he's not trying to, and yet…_ "I think it's about time we end this!" Zach yelled towards the man he saw walking straight towards him out from the shadows of the forest.

Water started to rain down on Zach's dark form. He stood still and allowed it to fall on him from where it was breaking apart up in the trees where their opponent had water swirling around and blocking out the sun. "Zach! Let me shoot him!" Darling shouted over on Zach's right and back behind him. "He's definitely a villain! That's why he's-" Although the small drops of water falling towards Zach could not suddenly turn and attack him, they were able to fly at Darling all at once and surround her head in a bulb of water. It was not just a sphere of water that covered her head though, but a swirling sphere as their opponent whisked around the water and then pushed it into the girl's open mouth which made her stumble backwards and trip over a piece of the man's beachside hut.

"Let her go," Zach growled. He pointed his hands out to his sides, and he fired a constant stream of Death in both directions at full power. The darkness around his actual body got thin and his bones showed through, as Zach killed the trees around him all over the treeline near the man's place. "Oh what? This make you angry?" Zach asked at the sight of the man's expression shifting angrily. "But you were just taking the water out of those other trees, so shouldn't it be fine if I do this?" Zach smirked and the thin coating of black over his jaw rose up making the man ahead of him flinch.

The trees around Zach were dying, withering and turning black as the water jets up near the canopies pulled away farther into the forest just over that man's head. "You want to fight, I'll fight you!" Zach yelled, and he curled his fingers in sucking all that darkness he just forced out to come back to his hands. Cee had jogged her way down the beach once she finally steadied herself, and she was turning Gentle over in the sand to try and get him back fighting. Darling rose her head out of the bubble that popped around her and she had to cough up a bucket of water, and Cee turned Gentle's head around while her eyes were huge at what she was seeing. Cee was the only one not to have seen Zach in the Enudora Forest out of their group though, so the others were not as shocked though still were stunned at how big he was getting.

 _Without Trigger?_ Gentle thought, his half-opened eyes growing wider in confusion.

"Beat him!" Darling shouted.

 _Six more people,_ Zach thought, his red eyes flaring with a black swirl in the middle of them as he sucked all the dark power back into his body. He let out a long breath and that black hovered in the air in front of him, then he brought his hands down to his right side. "Reaping…" Zach started, his wrists pressed together and a huge black sphere of darkness erupting in front of his palms. The forest around him was black, all the insects on the ground and leaves on the trees withered and dead from his Quirk. "DEATH…" the huge sphere of darkness on Zach's hands condensed into a tighter ball that his huge flaring body shrank down and sucked more into in a single moment.

All the water swirling around and spinning stopped near the man farther in the forest, panting hard and keeping his distance in the trees because he did not think he could keep facing them out in the open. He had fled into the area that he knew every inch of and his opponents knew nothing about, but Zach Sazaki was not chasing him any farther nor could he just leave this spot either. Water pulled out of other trees he had not fully killed in the first place. The ground dried up and started to look more like sand all around him, as the water sucked out of the roots and the trunk and the stems and leaves alike. Everyone was looking the same way, but the man facing the other direction at all of them smirked as his left hand twitched some fingers and made the ocean swirl back behind all his opponents.

There was a lot of focus necessary for the huge jet of water that Mark just created. He swung both arms forward hard and sent the mass of water above his head all shooting out towards Sazaki at once. As his hands were pushing out though, two of his fingers curled in. A thinner stream of water shot out of the ocean and then condensed as it flew over the beach like a missile. It combined into a single sphere that got denser and denser still, but instead of hitting Zach, it just hit the other end of Mark's own attack. He did not know that it did not collide for a second, because he stopped controlling both attacks before they would collide with either Sazaki or his attack. Yet the 'Wave' shout that Zach's comrades from the Enudora Forest were waiting for did not come.

Zach pointed both hands to his right side while running forward towards the end of the thickest water jet so close but that he knew the enemy would stop controlling earlier than usual because he would be expecting something else flying at it. Because the man would have to release his jet and not be able to push it back into his though, Zach also figured the guy was going to be running right after he fired his attack, whether or not the one he was bringing in from behind him was going to hit. Zach pointed his hands to his right and down at the floor, and he fired out the Reaping Death Wave super-condensed and straight at the floor on his right side diagonally. Zach blasted himself up into the air with a beam of darkness that took the majority of the Death he had just accumulated or pulled up from deep inside him.

An explosion of water ripped apart the dead trees around where Zach had been standing. Trunks cracked and splintered from not even that much force, and a wave crashed down on the beach where Darling was getting up that knocked her back down and then swept over Cee and Gentle too, as hard as they tried to roll away from it. Darkness exploded out from the point the end of Zach's attack hit the floor, and it exploded farther than Zach's Death had reached before to go kill another few dozen trees and everything around them to the north. Zach meanwhile crashed up through two different trees with loud cracks that made the trees start collapsing behind him. Before any of those trees hit the ground though, Zach flipped himself over and planted his feet into the strong trunk of a thick tree Zach had seen did not get its water removed or get killed by his Death before. His feet started to kill the tree, but they did not finish the job as Zach barely touched the tree for half a second.

He bent his knees after hitting that tree, then he unbent and sent himself flying towards the opposite side of Mark's water jet where the man had dodged to seeing the direction Zach had flown up. Zach rocketed himself towards the man running off, darting around the trees with ease as he knew the area like the back of his hand. Zach hit the ground behind the man and he called out, "Stop!"

Mark stopped and he spun around, his hands raising back up but no water around them forming yet. Instead his hands rose into a fighting stance, though Zach did see a twitch of his right hand on its way up like he considered pulling the pistol from its sheath first. The man facing Zach was panting, but Zach was panting too and he brought his right hand back to his chest and pressed his palm into it. His glove was still ripped from the forest as he had not found anywhere to get a replacement for that specific material, so the palm of Zach's dark hand touched his chest and the darkness faded from his body. "You live here, don't you?" Zach asked, his voice returning to normal though he was still panting a little through that sentence.

"What's it to you?" The man responded, his eyes still narrowed at the boy before him though he stopped panting unlike the kid. Another tree over on Zach's right and Mark's left cracked and started to fall, slamming into the ground with a loud noise that shook the floor beneath their feet.

"Do you really want to destroy more of your place?" Zach asked. He panted a couple more times and then took in a deep breath and stopped himself with the release. "We've already made the area pretty noticeable. Sorry about that."

The man was not relaxing, and he just kept glaring at the boy in a ready stance for a few seconds before lowering his arms down to his sides too. He stood up straighter and glared at the kid who stared back at him in a way the older man was finding hard to read. "What do you want?" Zach asked. "Why did you attack us?"

"I know you're on the run," the man responded. As he was answering, a couple of exhausted others climbed up into the forest back to their east.

"It looks like you're on the run too," Zach countered the man who just darted a look back over at Sazaki's accomplices. The man slowly turned his gaze back to Sazaki with his eyes wide and then getting deathly serious, more-so than Zach had seen even while they were fighting. "You might have been speaking Japanese, but you're an American. What's an American doing on a tiny island in the middle of the Pacific?"

"It's a great place to live," the man commented, dryly. His voice was cold and his eyes discerning but Zach looked steadily back into them.

The others had gotten closer but they did not start attacking as it seemed like there was some sort of truce called for now. They stared over in confusion and surprise though, as Zach continued, "It's a great place to hide, you mean."

"I just like it here."

"Fine," Zach said, deciding against pressing that issue. "But I still don't see why you would attack us then."

"Because I know you're murderers," the man responded. He said it and glared straight into Zach's eyes, just as Cee started to glare towards Zach's back as well that she was being called one just by association. "Or at least you are," Mark corrected himself, and Cee's eyes widened and darted over to the man who she swore glanced her way out the corner of his eyes.

"You're right," Zach said. "I did it." He did not deny it but he did not look guilty after saying it either. "Kurogiri deserved it. Someone had to stop him, and I chose to do so."

 _Didn't mention anything about the others,_ Mark noted, though his expression did lose some of its dark, accusing feel. Him loosening up his expression that much though was followed by Zach slouching his shoulders and looking to far remove himself from the conflict they were just having, which made the brown-haired man start glaring at him again.

"You just, decided to kill people?" The man asked, and Zach frowned deeper and lowered his eyes to the floor for a moment.

"Let me ask you something," Zach said, and he rose his gaze up to meet the older man's again. "If you had beaten us, what were you going to do?" Zach tilted his head to the side and leaned the front right of it forward, raising a wet eyebrow at the man who frowned deeper at the question. "You weren't trying to kill us, that much was clear. But if you had captured me, you know they would have wanted to know who managed to defeat us. Even if you did disappear, the people after you would know where you were after we told them the Quirk of the man who beat us."

"You shouldn't try so hard to get yourself killed," the man warned, giving Zach a dark look like he was considering what the boy was telling him.

"No really, what was your plan?" Zach asked. He ignored what the man just said and continued to frown at him which got the guy losing that dark look which did not work on Zach at all, as much as it got the other three nearby all readying themselves for a fight again. "Or are you going to tell me you're really just out here living on this island in secret because it's what you decided to do? Someone as powerful as you, has a boat hidden under some leaves for a quick getaway that I'm sure with your Quirk would be easy as long as you're by water."

"I get it, you figured me out," the man said, even cracking a smile as he said it. But his smile flattened back out immediately and he said in a flat voice, "Now get out of here-"

"You broke our boat," Zach said, looking the man dead in the eyes and saying it to him in a condescending tone. "So now we're your problem." The guy staring at Zach opened his eyes wide and then darted them around at the other three who all stared at Zach and then back at the man looking their way who started to grimace very deeply at what was going on. Darling's expression became very smug in the next second, as she believed everything Zach had been saying and now believed this man had put himself in a very stupid situation. Gentle and Cee stayed more on guard, though Gentle did turn around and head back to the beach to get La Brava who he had left injured back when she applied Lover Mode on him.

"Well- you still can't stay here," Mark snapped after hesitating as he tried to come up with a way to start that sentence.

"Darling, go fix up some seats at that bar," Zach said without taking his eyes off the man he was pretty sure was about to attack him after that comment. The man did not attack though, and Zach nodded at him seriously and then motioned over with a nod of his head. "Let's talk."

"You…" Mark hesitated, then he ground his teeth and started over towards his own home that looked a mess from what he could see right now. "You people come here and bash up my place, then expect to sit down at my table-"

"You attacked us, smartass," Cee snapped over at the man. "Without even waiting to talk first. And I'm pretty sure you smashed Gentle through your own fucking house."

 _Which means Gentle must have had him desperate enough to do something like that. It was hard fought, yet I still feel like this guy was holding back the entire time. I don't want to ask him about blood though. What if he can't but starts trying- or he does but just doesn't want to yet or- it's risky turning off Death and talking with him but I feel like… I don't know._ Zach looked to his side over at the man who snapped his gaze back to him in just as suspicious a way and like he was thinking about a bunch of different things as well. They both just looked into each others eyes and kept thinking for a few seconds, and then Zach motioned again over for the bar that Darling was setting back up and even trying to make look nicer by pushing some loose debris away.

Once Gentle and La Brava had come back over to the same area, the five new arrivals all gathered on the same side of the bar as the man who went around it to an area that remained somewhat intact so not all his belongings were scattered. "It's M," the man said after being asked by the boy sitting at the far end of the bar to his right.

"Wow, real original choosing a letter for your name," La Brava growled, her animosity clear as she checked on Gentle's wounds. He had been doting on her since he went to get her, but she was more just tired than anything from that first heavy hit, whereas Gentle had gotten tossed around and battered badly for several minutes while barely managing to land a few good hits on their "host."

Cee glared next to her at La Brava when the older woman said that, then she looked back at the man across the bar from her. "I'm Cee. I'm an anti-hero, and I just joined them a couple of islands back." The man on the other side of the counter lowered the left corner of his lip down farther and she glared at him in less of an angry way and more a mock insulting one, "So thanks for the warm welcome, asshole."

"Travel with murderers, and you might get treated as one," the man replied with a shrug at the younger blonde girl.

"I'm the only one who killed anyone," Zach said, not going to let that comment slide and making M turn back to him. "But are you really so innocent of that yourself, M?" Zach's eyes were cold as he asked it, and the man he was facing opened his eyes wide for a second before cursing under his breath at that reaction that he knew the others saw since they were all watching his face.

In Mark's mind flashed a classmate of his, a friend from high school, facing off against him with cheering fans all around them. His eyes darkened and his brown bangs shadowed them over. "No," he said, and then he rose his head and looked darkly through those shadows at the boy in front of him. "So your assumption that I wouldn't just kill you, to prevent anyone from finding me here… you might want to rethink it."

The others on Zach's side of the bar tensed up at the serious tone in M's voice as he said that. Zach stared into his dark eyes though, and he started shaking his head back at the man who he felt he had figured out but still could not understand very well. "Who's chasing you?" Zach asked.

"My past is my own," M replied. "It's no business of yours."

Zach frowned deeper and he glanced down the line to his right again. _I don't know any of the others' names. Nothing really about them. What does that matter? I don't even care. That's not why, they're with me. We don't need to know each others' pasts to be comrades._ Zach's eyes focused on Cee who he had just invited to come along with him, but who was fighting alongside all of them back there. His eyes refocused on the man across the bar from him, "What are you doing on this island?"

"None of your-"

"I'll reword it then," Zach said, his voice angrier as he gave M a colder glare. "Why, with so much power, is it that all you do is relax on an island while the rest of the world is in chaos?" The others on Zach's side of the tropical bar looked over at the sixteen year old who sounded so frustrated as he said that. "There are villains everywhere."

"I'm protecting the island," M said.

"You don't need to," Zach retorted with a scoff. "A tiny island that's peaceful-"

"It's only peaceful because I'm here," M countered, though he was wondering how Sazaki knew it was a peaceful island.

Zach had just assumed it was so though, and he shook his head back at the man's response. "Then couldn't you make more places peaceful too? Couldn't you help stop the ones making the rest of the world dangerous, so that you don't need to worry about those people coming here?" M stared at Zach with his eyes going wide at what the boy was asking him, because the kid was making a feeling of shame well up in his chest that he was usually able to push down pretty easily. Hearing those words from a kid he had been calling a murderer straight to his face though, made it harder to push it down than he thought.

 _He's so strong. And I don't know what kind of experience he has, but he didn't kill us even though it could have really been detrimental to him. He's not a hero, but he's not evil or a bad guy either, and he seems really pissed at me for being a murderer yet would probably be a lot more pissed if they weren't villains that I killed._ Zach took in a deep breath, then he leaned over the bar and said, "Do you, want to come with me?"

"Hold on-" La Brava snapped her head back to the left so hard her neck hurt.

"What are you-" Gentle began.

Darling wanted to just agree with anything Zach said, but she had seen this man hurting Zach earlier and all she wanted to do was dive over the counter and start strangling him. So hearing that made her open her mouth to complain too, though she only made out a "Wha-" before she caught herself from disagreeing with him.

Cee looked over at Zach confusedly too but she did not have a sudden volatile reaction. Instead she stared at him oddly, thinking, _He invited me because there were people after me, who he felt he was responsible for- because he was responsible for it! The other three were already with him… but I guess I didn't see how he got them to join him. It's early. There are only four of us following him right now, and yet,_ Cee's eyes shifted back to the man on the other side of the counter whose face scrunched up at that offer as much as she was sure hers did when the boy she felt was responsible for Ms. Calico's murder told her to come with him.

"Are you serious?" M asked with his eyebrows raised and a skeptical look on his face. The way the others reacted made it feel like the kid could be, but he still felt baffled by the request that also sounded like he was giving the man a better option than his current one.

"This man attacks us, and you would have him come with us?" Gentle asked over to the darker-haired boy on his left. "We have enough people angry at you as is," he added, making Cee frown more, not that she did not agree with what he was saying. "You're going to get us caught acting so reckless."

"We could do with more people," Zach countered at the annoyed Gentle. It was the first time he was recruiting just for the sake of it instead of necessity like with Cee. He looked towards Gentle for a moment in a serious way and then back at M who he spoke to with a serious look over his face, "So come with me."

"We don't need anyone else with the amazing Gentle Criminal here!" La Brava snapped over at Zach, having been a bit distracted looking at one of Gentle's cuts but remembering that she had to call that out.

M looked over at that young woman and then around at the others who were, except for Gentle, all younger than him. "You want me to follow you?" M asked, looking back at Zach as he asked and his tone getting lower again as he said it. _What the hell is this kid thinking? Why would he-_

"There's no decision to make," Zach said. He looked sternly at the man in front of him and said, "If you really think yourself a good person, M, then prove it and stop villains with me." M leaned his head back and Zach leaned his own head forward to match the distance. "That's what I'm going to do. Stop villains. I'm starting in America where vigilantes aren't hunted, but I think gathering more people up will make it easier to move from the U.S. to other countries, in time."

Cee looked over at Zach with her eyes wide too at what he was saying. "Making new plans, are you?" Gentle asked, turning himself more on his bumpy seat at the bar. "Mind filling us in on them-"

"I'm thinking of them as we go," Zach said, glancing over at Gentle again who frowned but did not say anything else about it. He had to look past Cee when he did, and she spun to Gentle in surprise at the way the two just interacted. For the first time, it became very clear to her who was deciding their course. Gentle was always so composed and well-spoken, and prideful, that it was hard to tell.

"And if someone like you, M," Zach started again, looking back at the man behind the counter who he had turned away from without worrying for a moment about getting attacked. "If you come with me, we can stop more villains. The world's becoming a more dangerous place. The villains are rising from the shadows, and there aren't enough heroes left to stop them. We're at the edge," Zach put his hands on the bar between them and looked deeply into M's eyes. "And we're about to go over, and descend into a darkness like this world hasn't seen in generations. Since long before any of us were born. That's what I think, at least. And that's what I want to stop."

"Villain rates have been rising ever since the Sports Festival, all around the world," Darling added. She was staring at Zach in amazement at what he was saying, and she spun to the man that the boy she loved was trying to convince to join them. "You seemed pretty mad that we're murderers, didn't you? Yet you're too much of a coward to leave this island you're hiding on."

"If you knew who was after me," M started, then he cut himself off before giving any of that away. What he started to say alone got the other five in front of him hesitating. Even Zach felt an unnerved feeling by the strong way in which M started that, implying whoever was after him was even stronger than he was, and they could barely stand up to him with all five of them together. M ground his teeth after starting that though, not because he wanted to keep himself from giving it away like it seemed, but because he felt like a coward trying to defend himself after everything Zach Sazaki just told him. "I don't trust you, and none of you trust me," M said, looking back at Zach and then down the line while shaking his head.

"You think I trust anyone?" Zach asked. The others on his right looked over again, and Darling frowned with a hurt look on her face, though La Brava also got a big frown too that he would say that after what they'd been through together so far. She humphed and looked away, though Cee kept staring towards Zach with her eyes huge at what he just said. She did not get mad in the least at his lack of trust in her, because the thing she hated most about him was that he had trusted Raijin… Zach looked deeper into Mark's eyes and added, "I'll never fully trust anyone ever again, but does my own fear that my comrades will betray me stop me from going out to make the world a better place?"

"That's what you're trying to do? That's why you killed those men-"

"Yes," Zach replied without hesitation at M's harshly asked questions. "That's exactly why I killed Kurogiri. Not for glory, because no one will ever look at me the same way. Not for revenge, or I would've killed Raijin and Dabi that night instead of forcing them to call their Warp Gate." Zach ground his teeth harder as he said that, and he looked into M's eyes with an intense gaze as he stated firmly, "I did it to help people. I did it, because I wanted people to feel safer in their homes, safer on the streets, safer from the League of Villains who had terrorized Japan using Kurogiri's Quirk for over a year. Now I don't know what we're going to do from here. I really, don't know. But I have ideas for how we can help people. And I think you can help me come up with better ones, and help make sure that when we come up against villains, that we outmatch them and don't have to kill anyone. Someone on the run like you, from someone as powerful as you're making them out to be, has to know how to avoid the authorities and not draw attention to himself."

Gentle hummed and he looked back at the younger man who he stared closely at and examined up and down. La Brava glanced at Gentle and then frowned more, but she glanced back at M herself and looked at him in a more thoughtful way instead of just snapping at Zach this time. Cee and Darling looked at the man across the bar who noticed their awaiting looks and opened his eyes wider. He darted them back at Zach and then deeper into the forest, then towards the shore that he could see easily since the trees that had been in the way were mostly gone now.

"I've been hiding here, for over two years now," M started.

Everyone looked at the man who turned his back on them and looked at his bar instead, the shelves that he had built himself and the bottles he had gone into town to buy. He looked to his left and back towards the west side of the island. _If I go back, they'll still recognize me. Security cameras, and any cell phones that pick up my face will be enough for them to know. They'll come for me. And, they say the next stop is America too. It's like they came, to force me to go back and face it. Face my fears at least._ "And in those two years," Mark continued, his hands balling into fists down at his sides. "I've seen this world deteriorating from the peaceful state it was in when I got here."

M turned his head and looked back at the others behind him. "Stopping villains, with no recognition, staying in the shadows." Zach nodded his head back at the man.

"We'll bring peace to this world, our own way," Zach said, finishing strongly and with no hesitation in his voice.

M nodded his head back at Zach, and the others on Zach's right all stared at the man in shock at that nod. "I accept," M said. "Your strange, unconventional offer, I'll accept it… but, if I do, I won't kill anyone," he added, and his eyes darkened at the boy in front of him. "And, if I ever feel like you're turning into a villain, I will try and stop you. If you kill any villains who I feel didn't deserve it, I'm done. I'm not a killer." He paused and grit his teeth with a dark look flashing over his face, _Not anymore._

"That's great," Zach said. He cracked a grin at the man across from him, "Then, I'm sure you know the people on the other side of this island. Which is good, because you're going to need to get us a new boat…"

* * *

 **Present**

"He was just…" Zach's voice trailed off as he found it hard to respond to Ojiro when a thousand images started flashing through his mind all at once. "He was…" Zach's voice was softer, his eyes getting wet even as he tried to hold himself together. "Just a…" he said again, but any sentence that started with 'just' was too hard to continue. It was too hard to keep up the lie when his heart was broken in half in his chest. Zach's wet eyes closed and tears slipped out of both of them in front of the five sitting around him. "He was the second- person that…" _I can't say anything. But, but I can't lie. I can't be a liar. Not right now. I can't call him, nothing to me._

"Zach," Hagakure whispered, her own lips shaking at the expression of conflicted agony covering his face.

Koda stared at Zach in shock, and he lifted his hands but did not know what to do with them sitting across from Zach and he wound up just holding up his palms in an unsteady way.

Mineta felt like the person Hagakure had mentioned had been someone Zach knew, and he could see Zach was trying to just push past it so he tried to let him. Mineta pulled back though at the look on Zach's face as he tried to look away by turning farther left. "He was-" Zach started again, through lips that barely pursed open for a moment as he rose up his right arm and quickly rubbed over his eyes. "There were others who were closer," Zach said, lowering that arm and opening his eyes while shaking his head at his friends. "It's not like- I don't know. I don't…" Zach paused and he bit down on his bottom lip for a second, but he slipped his teeth off of it as there were scars on it already that his classmates suddenly noticed when they saw what he just did. "Mark was just," Zach whispered.

Saying that word, 'just,' again made him stop and completely freeze this time. Zach lowered his head and his eyes were wide as he stared down at his knees. _Don't give anything away! Remember- just- remember!_ He shouted it in his head, and he "remembered."

 _ **"Zach! Behind you!"**_

 _ **"Border patrols don't get paid a whole lot. We certainly could go around, but we're trying to stop them as fast as possible right?"**_

 _ **"Don't listen to Rebel. As much as he might believe it, 'bitch' is never the right way to call a woman."**_

 _ **"That's what new rulers do. They consolidate power. It's the same in anything, business or politics, or even just common villain gangs. They give Mongoloid this month grace period, and all the power in Saudi Arabia will be his by the time…"**_

 _ **"Cee believed in you, to the very end. She was the strongest of us. Aside from you."**_

 _ **"You're not just my comrade. I'm following you, Death… I know that's not how we started, but it's true."**_

 _ **"What should I do with him, Commander?"**_

 _ **"No matter how many of our comrades fall, you never falter."**_

 _ **"And that's… well that's why we follow you."**_

 _ **"You know, I asked myself this morning what kind of idiot jumps out of a perfectly good airplane without a parachute? I laughed at the question, but the answer was funnier. It's the same kind of idiot who would give up his nice retirement home on a tropical paradise to go to war when no one asked him to. But you know what? Seeing how things have gone, I know that island's safe now even without me there. And that makes everything we've done worthwhile. Death, I'd follow you to the end of the world, and then off the edge if you asked me to. So, please, don't ask me to do that… I really, don't want to die…"**_

"Now that I think about it," Zach whispered. _Dealing with Darling, La Brava and Gentle were different, and especially dealing with Exodus, and all the others after him were more subordinates and comrades but Mark… he was…_ "Mark was my friend," Zach said. "My, best friend?" Zach lifted his tone afterwards because he did not know. He didn't give that designation out to anyone since Kaminari, and yet the emotions he was feeling now were so strong he could feel his heart in physical pain as it pounded so hard. "We'd been through everything together. Good times and bad. We were so similar." It was pouring out and Zach couldn't close his mouth, though he wasn't even looking at anyone nor remembered what the original question was anymore. "Mark was one of the strongest men I had ever known."

 _One of the few who I believed had the power to defeat me._ Zach's expression got much more grim, his eyes darkening instead of watering up and his heart slowing down as that horrible look covered his face. _How many still can? How many people in the whole world? I'm one of them, so I need to shut the fuck up._

Zach started to lift his head, but when it was only half up his whole body tensed with a very strong flinch at the hands that grabbed him. Sero's right hand smacked down on Zach's left shoulder, and he squeezed it closer to Zach's neck with his chair closer to Zach's than it had been the last time Zach noticed. At the same time, Hagakure grabbed his right arm with both of her invisible hands, and Zach flinched so hard because he did not even notice that she had stood up and was leaning in front of him to do that. He was glad she had not tried to hug him, as he felt like that would have just been too weird now that he remembered where he was. _What was I doing? Shut up. You weren't here long enough, to care about someone that much…_ Zach grit his teeth and he shook his head back and forth a couple times to wipe that look from his face. "Or at least, he was one of by best friends," Zach said, somewhat retracting it without pretending like he was totally fine this time.

"Dude," Sero said, his voice quiet as he spoke up. "I'm sorry."

"Yeah," Mineta agreed quietly. "That's really…"

"Mark, and the other friends I made," Zach started. "I told them about the assassins. We went after Eziano, but no matter how hard we tried we couldn't stop him. I never even figured out where in the world he was hiding. Pretty sure it wasn't America though."

Zach's tone showed he wanted to change the conversation, or at least raise the mood back up a bit. The others were feeling like they needed to give Zach their condolences, and console him over what had just made him so sad for a moment, but Zach was trying hard to shift the conversation and Sero nodded while lowering his hand from Zach's shoulder. Hagakure backed off too with her eyes wide but she sat back on the couch again.

 _Fine. That's, totally fine._ "You were in America for most of the time before you left, yeah?" Sero asked, as he needed a refresher.

Zach nodded at him, and Sero smiled at his friend and asked, "How was it over there? Me and Pony broke up actually because I wanted to stay and sidekick for Ape Man after I graduate, while Pony wanted to go home. Think I made the wrong move?"

"Well, I don't know about," Zach hesitated as he did not want to make the call there. Instead he just continued with, "But America's great. I loved it over there at least."

"You were there with that girl, Darling, right?" Hagakure asked. She asked it cautiously as she knew he did not want to talk about her much. She added on top before he could get mad, "Because we saw this clip of you over there, and there was this girl with you…"

Zach nodded his head and did not get upset like she thought he might. Instead Zach smiled nostalgically as he thought back on his time in America, back in the time around when that video he had already seen was taken. "Yeah, the two of us traveled together for a little while," Zach said softly. His smile started to lower, _When I should have been protecting the others._ He shook his head and kept his lips somewhat curled up as he focused on the good parts of that time instead of what he regretted about it. "We traveled all over America actually. From west coast to east coast, Las Vegas to New York."

"Being a vigilante?" Mineta asked, leaning forward again interestedly and shifting his own mind away from the dark talk they were just having. Zach nodded at him and Mineta grinned bigger at it. The short boy opened his mouth to mention how it was probably easy for Zach to get started over there, since he was used to being a vigilante already, but he held off on it as he knew it could drag the mood back down again. "What were you doing in Mississippi? That's where the convenience store video caught you."

"Then?" Zach began, lifting his eyes up as he thought back to that time and not the earlier time he was in America with a lot more comrades. It was the time he was actually there with just Darling like he mentioned, and he thought back to the days they spent at the end of October and start of November back in the United States. "Mainly busting up drug deals. I went into Mexico for a little too while I was there, just hopping back and forth looking for villains and the products they were trading." The others were looking at him with more serious looks at the answer he was giving, and Zach paused as he wanted the conversation to be more fun than this. "Actually while I was over there, I went to a fraternity party."

"A fraternity?" Ojiro asked in surprise.

"Like those ones in the movies?!" Hagakure asked excitedly, leaning forward off the couch as she did.

"Were they villains?" Sero wondered, and Zach shook his head which just confused Sero more.

"No, but I figured I could get information, since I was sure some of the college students there would be doing the drug I was looking for the dealers of." Zach paused and he grinned more as he thought back on that night, "Halloween in America is awesome. Even if it's not on the exact night, everyone's just so excited by it. It might be my favorite holiday too now."

"Was the party that crazy?" Mineta asked with his eyes wide. Having never been to a college party himself, Mineta had no idea what to expect and was just staring at Zach in anticipation to hear about the crazy event. He felt it was likely full of hot girls in sexy costumes, or at least that was what he was staring to imagine from Zach's expression after his question.

"Yeah," Zach admitted. "There was loud music, and everyone was dancing, and they were all dressed up and getting drunk and just-"

Hagakure made a noise that got Zach to pause, but she hesitated after making it like she wanted to hold back her question. Zach noticed that Ojiro and Koda also seemed hesitant too, but Hagakure came out and asked, "Were you drinking?"

Zach shook his head back at the invisible girl. "I don't drink," he replied. Hagakure nodded at him, though his answer still sounded weird to his friends. It sounded like he thought it would have been fine to answer either way but it was just personal preference, nothing to do with the law. Zach continued with a small laugh, "Darling drank though, a little too much actually." In his head he saw her red cheeks when he asked her, the shocked look on her face as she realized it herself. _That was the first time she got drunk too. She didn't even plan on it._ "Haha," Zach laughed at his own thoughts and then added while lifting his eyes up to the ceiling, "She was much better than me at going undercover, actually drinking and using sleight of hand to not put any booze in my drinks. Even with people around who thought I was drinking, no one noticed her keeping my drinks alcohol-free."

Zach paused for a second, then he added quieter, "She did it without telling me. She just knew that I didn't want to drink, not even a single sip-"

"Zach," Ojiro started. The nostalgic and somewhat sad look on Zach's face made him cut in, and Zach lowered his eyes down to the blond boy who had a conflicted and also upset expression. Ojiro wanted to look stern, as the person Zach was talking about was someone who he had felt so strangely towards Zach because of for a year and a half. Yet the way Zach was talking about her also made him frustrated at the fact that he had no idea who this was. "Who was she? Why do you call her, Darling?"

Sero was still staring at Zach wide-eyed from what he said about drinking. He sat there with his eyes stuck on Zach but unfocused as he thought about the night of Kaminari's betrayal, about the things Zach shouted from his room about addiction and his father. _She knew? I wouldn't have even thought, to not ask Zach if he- That girl, really knew him better._

Zach started shaking his head at Ojiro after those questions, but Mineta leaned closer to Zach and rose the corners of his lips high. "I knew it! You must have really been going out." Zach turned to Mineta and held up his left hand defensively with a shake of his head, but Mineta shook his back faster at that denial. "Come on! You were doing it the whole time weren't you?" Mineta bounced his eyebrows a couple times at Zach and then opened his eyes wider at the slight red that came to Zach's cheeks.

 _Did it? It's not like, she didn't try. She was-_ Zach imagined Darling stepping in front of him and dropping her bathrobe. He could see her face when he opened his eyes leaning over him, and his cheeks turned red thinking about the time she walked into his room and stripped seductively without waiting to find out that Gentle was standing around the corner in his bathroom. "No," Zach said after a couple seconds. "We weren't, doing it." He shook his head and looked into Mineta's eyes to convince the shorter boy humming at him. "It was never like that."

"If you weren't like that, then who was she to you?" Ojiro tried to push it farther. "Your Quirk didn't-"

"Stop." Zach said it flat, his eyes shifting over to Ojiro and the mood dropping instantly. Ojiro froze with his mouth open, and Zach continued to him, "I said to never ask questions about her." He stopped the conversation dead and then grimaced hard at the looks of his classmates. "I'm sorry," Zach started again, "for bringing her up in the first place. I should have known that would make questions-"

"It's okay!" Hagakure cut in quickly, her sleeves raising and waving at him. "I still want to hear about the party. How'd you even get in? Aren't the alcohol laws in America like, super strict?" _Please don't stop talking to us,_ Hagakure got nervous at what Zach was just saying which made her feel like he was about to distance himself again. She nudged Ojiro with an elbow as she lowered her arms, and the muscular boy on her side in the middle of the couch frowned but tried not to make himself seem all that upset that Zach wouldn't answer his questions.

"I bribed the security guard at the door," Zach said after a moment of hesitating when Hagakure asked those questions. He was already dodging one set of questions by moving it away from Darling, and the idea of lying right after that made his stomach churn. _What's the point? This is stuff that happened before I left. I shouldn't lie, when I don't need to. That's what a liar would do. I'm not, what Jirou said. I'll prove it._

"How'd you get the money?" Sero wondered. _He dropped his bank card in the mud that night. Maybe that girl was loaded?_

"I usually kept a good money flow robbing drug dealers," Zach replied. His answer made Sero drop his bottom lip as it was not what he was expecting, and Zach looked around to see all the others gawking at him too for that casual response. "It was good business," Zach said with a half-shrug at those looks demanding an explanation. "I'd kick the crap out of them and take their money. Scare them with some Nightmare and threats about what would happen if they kept selling drugs, then I'd dip out."

Zach's tone had changed a bit when he started talking about this, and he was more relaxed back into his folding chair looking calm and even a little scary. Zach added, "Only the small-time dealers I'd steal from, instead of calling a tip in to the cops or something. I'd rob the low tier dealers, and most of the time I didn't need to beat them up to scare them straight, though I would sometimes just to make sure they remembered it, or maybe as a punishment since I wasn't turning them over."

"Why weren't you?" Koda asked in confusion, trying to push away the anxious feeling at the dark stuff Zach was telling them to figure out the reason for himself.

"I didn't want to ruin their lives," Zach replied. "They weren't really villains. Not the kind I was after, at least." Zach leaned back forward and glanced over to his left at Sero and Mineta, and he added in his explanative tone, "Most of them were just being stupid. A lot were young around our age or just a little older. Some just needed money for important things, or because they didn't think it was a big deal. They weren't villains, I couldn't see them as villains at least…" Zach's eyes darkened and he put his hands down on his thighs, thinking of a few times the things he was describing really happened. "I showed them what real villains were like though, and I never had to come back to one of those people after teaching them that lesson."

Zach's head turned a bit to look more towards Hagakure and Ojiro who were still looking at him in confused ways, but also like they wanted to see where he was coming from too. They were willing to listen at least, and Zach added, "It's hard in America for people with drug convictions to get into good schools or get good jobs, and those people begging me not to turn them in for it weren't bad people. They really weren't. But I took their money and beat them up, showed them my scary Nightmare form and warned what would happen if they kept selling drugs. Usually it was just some ominous, 'I'll be back.'" Zach tried to make a joke out of it even changing up his tone to be all low and fake-ominous.

A couple got nervous smiles on their faces, but Zach still sweatdropped, _I totally ruined the mood with this. What am I even talking about?_ Zach frowned and he glanced to his left at Sero who only tried at a fake smile for a second before lowering it down. "What did you think I was doing, if not stuff like that?"

Sero shrugged at the question and said, "You got me there."

Mineta nodded past him and Zach looked over to see the shorter boy losing his nervous look as he admitted it to himself too. "I guess, I kind of expected stuff like that," Mineta admitted aloud. "But it just sounds strange hearing you talk about that illegal stuff without caring about the consequences. Though I guess since you were pardoned-"

"I didn't talk about it at my trial or anything," Zach countered with a shake of his head at the shorter boy who got confused once again. "I wasn't on trial for that stuff," Zach explained simply.

"Wait, but does that mean they're secrets?" Hagakure asked. "If we tell people will you get arrested again?" Her eyes were wide which Zach could tell despite them being invisible.

Zach frowned and hummed for a moment, then said, "I might." The other five stared at him in shock, and Zach added, "Though I'm not sure as to what the Prime Minister would do. It's not like anyone expected I was just sitting around all year, but I got pardoned anyway." Zach shrugged while saying it and looked around in that carefree way to get the others to stop thinking it was as big of a deal as they were treating it. They each started to calm down too, and Zach continued, "Maybe with proof they'd convict me, but what proof is there except my confession right here that I'd never admit in court. There's no proof I did anything, and what reformed drug dealer is going to leave their new life to come to Japan and talk about how they used to sell illicit substances and want justice for me scaring them and maybe giving them a black eye?"

The others stared in surprise at Zach again at the explanation, but Sero admitted after a couple seconds, "That… is smart." He slouched in his seat and cracked half a smile as he looked across from him at Ojiro, before turning back to Zach and saying, "And it's a good way at looking at it, since I'm glad I can see it that way too." Zach relaxed with his shoulders slouching and a smile returning to his calm face. "It sounds pretty cool what you were doing too," Sero continued, and Zach's returned smile dropped a bit in surprise at Sero's response.

"Sero," Ojiro started across the gap to his friend.

"What?" Sero asked with a shrug back at Ojiro. "The prisons are full enough as they are, and sometimes giving people some mercy instead of sending them to jail might be…" Sero trailed off. It was not because of the focus of the conversation itself, but just the weird feeling he got mentioning 'mercy' and Zach in the same sentence.

Sero was not the only one to feel weird about what he was just saying. Zach understood why the others got those weird looks on their faces. "My mercy, huh? Maybe that was, something to make up for it. To myself."

"Zach," Hagakure started softly. He looked at her, and she paused but then said what she was thinking about, "Why'd you…"

"I get why you killed Kurogiri," Sero said on Zach's left side. Zach did not turn to his friend next to him, he just stared down in the middle of the floor at the nearly empty box. Sero continued to the side of his friend's head, "I get what you think you needed to, at least. But those other people…"

"I know," Zach whispered. His voice in those two words alone got through eighteen months of regret, but Zach was not satisfied with just that. His head snapped up with his teeth clenched and his eyes staring around at each of his old classmates closely. "I'm sorry," he whispered. His voice got hoarse as soon as he said it this time, softer and more emotional than he had been at the hospital when he apologized right off the bat. It sounded more genuine after the conversation they had been having, after they all felt like they knew for sure who the person they were talking to was, or _still_ was. "I didn't plan on… but that doesn't matter. They got killed- I killed them, after planning that night out. It's my fault, and I should have held back more. I should have, practiced using Trigger before instead of just using it like that and going…"

"You said on the news that you were sure you wouldn't lose your cognitive functions," Ojiro started. "But, that night, you weren't all there. It wasn't, you. Or at least not you, in control."

"That wasn't from the Trigger though," Zach said quietly. He shook his head at Ojiro and the blond boy hesitated but then nodded, remembering what Kirishima told them in the forcefield that night when Zach was losing it. "I didn't know how strong it would be, when I swung my arm at those two and, killed them. After that, and the pulse of Death that killed Kurogiri too…" Zach rose his right hand and he curled his fingers into his forehead.

 _ **"Oops. I don't know my own strength in this form. But telling from that power boost, the two of them are dead… And so is he."**_ Zach's friends remembered the voice echoing over that forest in such a dark and evil way. The tone had been so cocky, and even taunting, as he said those things. The way he threw Kurogiri's body after that, and the rampage he went on killing another three people, it wasn't the Zach they knew nor the one they were seeing now.

 _That was Zach, when he kills people,_ Hagakure realized at what he was trying to explain to them. _If it wasn't the Trigger, then it was really all just from his Quirk?_

 _We never knew he could lose control like that,_ Ojiro thought. _Because he had never killed multiple people like… He didn't even know himself, what would happen._

 _Zach apologized in the letter for killing those animals in front of me. Then he, killed a bunch of people._ Koda pursed his lips while looking at his old classmate whose tone from when he said 'I know' was still filling Koda's mind. _Someone as kind as him did something so contradictory. Zach, I still can't understand…_

 _A Quirk that makes him feel good when he kills people, makes him insane, and also makes him stronger?_ Mineta usually felt somewhat nervous when he thought about things like that. As he stared at Zach curling his fingers into his head though, the look of regret over his face as he talked about that night just made the short boy feel pity. _I always thought it was such a creepy Quirk, and scary. But the one it must be scariest for, has to be you._

 _After that night, I should have known,_ Zach thought. His fingers curled harder into his forehead even though his mind was far from the Lifebringer Incident now. Instead, there was sand all around him. His eyes were open but he was no longer in his apartment. His eyes opened wider as he stared down in front of him below the box on the floor, to the red sand that stretched out in every direction. He didn't want to turn his head, but he could picture it all in his peripherals and his eyes opened wider as his breath started to come out more staggered. _What happens, when I kill too many…_ Zach clenched his eyes shut and shook his head, leaning back in his seat and opening his eyes to remind himself with the faces of his classmates where he was.

"I'm just, sorry," Zach repeated. He looked back at Sero who shook his head at Zach like he was saying Zach did not need to apologize to him.

 _You didn't hurt me, man. You didn't hurt anyone, as much as you hurt yourself._

Zach looked around at everyone sitting in his living room. The friends he felt so happy came to visit him, and who he really did want to be his friends again. _I can't make amends if I can't be with you guys. I can't make it right with anyone, I can't help… anyone, if I can't first clean up the mess I made when I left._ "For leaving you all like that," Zach said, his voice louder and steadier as he looked at each of his friends. "I'm sorry, and I'll do whatever I can to make it right."

* * *

 **A/N Thanks for reading...**


	147. Chapter 147

**Disclaimer: I don't own Boku no Hero Academia**

 **Chapter 147:**

On Monday morning in the first full week of January, the students of Class 3-A were up early. They had woken up as early as they would have if they had school that day, even though they did not. Most schools still had off for a couple more days since the New Year was just behind them, but a whole extra week was not needed so classes would be starting on Wednesday. The hero-course students were not going to wait those extra two days of vacation before getting back to work though.

"I'm just glad Lunch-Rush was prepared to cook for a whole cafeteria. Seems we're not the only ones getting an early start," Sero said, while leaning back against the wall of the common room and stretching his arms up over his head. "All those first and second years really came out in force."

"I didn't know any other classes were doing this," Ojiro admitted from the armchair of the couch where he was sitting, already in his blue gym uniform as were most of his classmates who got ready before going to get breakfast. They had gone in much earlier for the breakfast than they needed to be ready though, as Iida told them there was a chance of other classes being there and causing some wait time. Though it was true, it wound up not creating much delay so they had some time before they needed to leave again.

Sero glanced to his left over to the front door from the wall he was leaning on, to see Shoji and Tokoyami coming back into the dorm together. They were still back at the cafeteria when Sero left, but seeing them return made him lower his arms back to his sides and push off the wall. "Better get to it then," he muttered, and he let out a long yawn at the idea of the day ahead.

Sero started forward off the wall towards the front door, going to get a head-start so that he could walk as slowly as possible towards the locker room. He turned towards the stairs though when he heard footsteps coming down hard and quickly, and he saw Tokoyami and Shoji move to the sides for the pink girl running in between them. "Excuse me," Ashido spun her body sideways and slipped between the boys without slowing down. Shoji and Tokoyami did not just keep walking, but they each turned and looked at Ashido's back curiously considering her choice of clothes.

"What're you up to?" Sero asked, as the pink-skinned girl ran up to him right near the door. Ashido grinned sheepishly and she bent down to grab her shoes. She was wearing a black and white crop-top hoodie with a purple shirt beneath it, and the word 'PINKY' in pink bubble letters over the sweatshirt where her breasts were pushing out. The hoodie stopped halfway down her stomach revealing the purple shirt below, then she had on a pair of purple-and-black-striped tight pants. "You know we have that training in a few," Sero reminded the girl sitting in front of him sliding her shoes on.

"Yeaaahh… about that," Ashido looked up and she stuck her tongue out when Sero lifted his eyebrows at her.

"You're not going?" He asked her in surprise. Ojiro looked over too from the couch he was still sitting on with his phone out in one hand texting his girlfriend upstairs. Tokoyami and Shoji decided to go upstairs back to their own rooms in the time they had, though Shoji glanced over his shoulder once as he headed off to look back at the pink girl.

"It _is_ optional," Ashido said, while grabbing her other shoe to get on now.

"Yeah, but we _all_ agreed to go to it before the break even started. All Might's going to expect us all to be there-"

"Yeah but that was before I knew I was going to have to make up that test yesterday!" Ashido exclaimed back up at her ex-boyfriend. She frowned and pointed a finger up at him, pausing putting on her shoes for a second to give him an accusatory look, "And you guys went to go see Zach without me." She moved her pointing finger past Sero and leaned to the side to look around him at Ojiro who just turned away and then back down at his phone, deciding not to take part in this.

Sero frowned at Ashido's answer though, even if he had to scratch the back of his head at what she was saying. "You know, we told him why you didn't come with us yesterday." Ashido looked at him in surprise, and even more of an accusatory look started to form on her face until he continued, "He asked." Sero paused for a second with a sweatdrop and a grimace as he knew that was only going to make her want to go more, and so he added, "But if you miss this training too, for him, just like you missed out on studying last semester for finals, you really think he's going to be happy when you fail?"

"Pssh," Ashido waved Sero off, smiling more now despite his attempts at warning her. "Do you really think I'm going to learn more here than with Zach? I bet he can teach me _lots_ of things that I wouldn't be learning here." Sero felt like Ashido was trying to make him jealous or something by the way she emphasized that 'lots,' but he sighed and just shrugged her off as she stood up in front of him. "Tell All Might I'm sorry, would you?" Ashido asked with a spin as she neared the front door. She winked at Sero as he opened his mouth to complain about that, then she spun and got out of the building quickly.

Ojiro got up from the armrest and walked over towards Sero's back. He pocketed his cellphone since Hagakure said she would still be a couple of minutes and told him to go ahead without her. "You know," Ojiro started, making Sero turn to him still frowning like he was at the front door. Ojiro was smiling though, and he patted Sero on the back and said, "I'll never understand how you manage to mess things up with all these girls. You always wind up still being friends with them."

"I'm on good terms with Pony and Ashido," Sero retorted. He stepped for the door and Ojiro walked with him, slipping on his shoes just as Sero was doing without needing to sit as Ashido had to. The two boys in their blue uniforms headed out, and Sero added with a hesitant grin, "But I swear, it doesn't always work out like that man…"

Back inside the dorm building, most of the others were still getting ready for the "optional" training that most of them considered mandatory the way they had been talking about it recently. Todoroki finished getting his gym uniform on and started down the stairs on his own. He was frowning, thinking about a conversation he heard between Sero and Sato out in the hallway of their floor the night before. _Sero almost convinced Sato to give Zach a chance. I thought Sato was one of the ones I had to be careful of, considering how he had gone out to fight to get Zach released. I don't know what happened, but he found some sense._

Todoroki reached the second floor of the building and turned the corner to look down the steps, and he stopped when he saw the two walking ahead of him. He paused for a moment at the sight of the shortest boy in the class and the invisible girl next to him who had bumped into each other just a moment ago. _They were both,_ Todoroki started to himself, and he began down the stairs at a quickened pace though he kept his footsteps soft.

"…Yeah, I think it was. I can't believe we barely heard anything about that Queen of Arcasia girl though. It's like, so much happened," Hagakure shook her head while trying to explain it, and Mineta nodded in agreement with her.

"We spent all that time talking about the time he was actually here, but that other stuff sounded so cool," Mineta said in a hushed voice. "It sucks though, I feel like the whole day was just… I don't know. The moment you-"

"Uggh, don't say it," Hagakure complained at the boy next to her who frowned half-apologetically at what he started to say. "That was so stupid of me. His friend died and I was smiling like an idiot when I said it. I should have translated it first but I was just- and he was so-" Hagakure rose her hands up to the sides of her head, then she lowered them and nodded in agreement with what Mineta was saying. "After that, it definitely felt like everything he was saying was trying to push the conversation away from him-"

"Hey," the two in front of Todoroki looked back to see their classmate with red and white hair walking up behind them. He was taller than them and looking down at his classmates who lifted their gazes in surprise at his approach. "What are you talking about? Who is this person?"

Mineta frowned at Todoroki for listening in on them. Hagakure just assumed he had overheard though coming too close behind them, and she started, "He was Zach's friend. We heard he died-"

"How do you know?" Todoroki asked.

"A letter," Mineta said, though he eased back as Todoroki turned and looked him in the eyes. "It was sent to him, with the package that had a hero costume in it for Zach."

"Did you report it to anyone?" Todoroki asked. Hagakure started frowning now too, not that either of the others saw her do so.

Mineta frowned deeper though at his classmate, his eyes narrowing and an unafraid look in his eyes as he stared down one of his strongest classmates. "Not everyone's as suspicious of Zach as you are," Mineta remarked at his classmate. Todoroki frowned deeper, but as he opened his mouth, Mineta continued before he could counter, "And when we finally had to leave his place yesterday, Zach left at the same time to go get his new hero costume registered. He said he couldn't try it on until he made sure it was legal. So what do you want me to report?" Mineta asked at the end, turning his head to the side and raising his eyes at the taller boy behind him still giving him an accusing look.

Hagakure added as she saw the other two frowning harshly at each other, "Zach walked with us all the way back to the station pretty much." She looked up into Todoorki's eyes as he turned to the empty space of her head, "I think it's because he knew he wouldn't see us for a while, and the getting his costume registered thing was just his excuse to come out with us, not that he didn't do that right afterwards! I'm sure he did."

Mineta looked away and he lowered his gaze down to the floor again as he let out a deep breath. It was too early to get upset about this kind of stuff, but he shook his head thinking about what he and Hagakure had been saying before Todoroki jumped in. "I felt bad about leaving Zach, after hearing how close he was with Mark. I wish he was living here with the rest of us…"

Todoroki frowned and watched as the two started away from him, Hagakure looking over her shoulder for another second before walking forward more with Mineta. The stronger teen behind them narrowed his eyes at their backs, ignoring most of what they just said. _Mark._

"You want a whole day pass? On a Monday?" Midnight asked the girl in front of her who put her hands together in a begging position. "And the reason?"

"I'm going to visit Zach!" Ashido said, lifting her lips into the biggest smile and then holding her hands together harder and shaking them in front of her chest to show Midnight just how much she wanted to go.

The teacher and pro hero who Ashido had interned with for a while a year ago hummed, though the smile was already cracking on her lips that made Ashido's grow wider herself. "Permission granted," Midnight said, and she signed her name down on a slip of paper that Ashido had brought already filled out for her.

Ashido snagged the paper and practically jumped for joy at the permission. "Thanks Midnght… sensei!" Ashido added on as she was heading away from the office, spinning around in a three-sixty to call it over as she remembered she forgot.

Midnight rolled her eyes at the younger woman, but she smiled widely once Ashido was gone at the pink girl's enthusiasm. The older woman with darker hair thought back to when she had her short internship with Ashido after the Sports Festival, when the two of them were out on patrol and talking about the first time they had each seen Zach. The day of the entrance exam, and the sight of Zach saving Ashido came back to Midnight's mind. _No matter what he's done since then, I'm glad you're still trying to be his friend. Maybe that will even make the difference._ Midnight knew about All Might's training he had prepared for Class A today, but she still smiled in the direction Ashido ran off in for a while after the girl was gone. Her lips lowered down flat and her eyes shifted down to her desk, _There isn't much I can do for Sazaki from here. But letting you go to him, I know will help with something. The way he looked and fought back at the licensing exam, he was so serious that whole time even as he seemed to be taking things not seriously. It felt like it was all planned out for him. So I hope that maybe, you can get him to relax for at least a little while. I know you can do it, Pinky._

* * *

Zach sat at his kitchen table in the center of his kitchen. He had dragged it across the floor to get it out of a direct view of the window even with the window covered by blinds, and now he had the fridge to his back and the counter across the table from him that he could see over all the way to the front door. Only the one folding chair he needed was around the table while the other was still sitting in the middle of his living room making an incomplete circle with his other few pieces of furniture. There was an empty cup of ramen on the counter, and some plastic cups and wrappers laying about, as Zach had come to discover he did not have a trash can in his house, not even a small one in his bathroom. He had the grocery bags from when he bought his food though, so he figured he would just use those once he decided to take the trash out.

On the table in front of Zach was a black laptop thick both on the bottom half with the keyboard and the half behind the screen. His eyes were red as he faced the screen, darting back and forth faster than he was scrolling down the tabs of articles, which he was doing without pause. He had a document opened up next to the internet tabs, and he pressed a keyboard shortcut to avoid having to move his hands from the keyboard which would waste part of a second that he did not need to use in order to flip over to seeing the document. Then his fingers kept typing and he pasted some information using another shortcut before typing some thoughts down below it. Zach flipped back to the tabs and he moved his thumb down to the mousepad to click it and drag to the side over towards the document that he released it in before flipping right back to the internet.

 _Looks like Dr. Olsen never returned to Norway. He and his family are still missing, though some of the others' families we evacuated to Life came back. Suppose Gen- Death feels it's safe for them now. Eziano isn't the type to go after families or associates to drag us out. He's more direct. Still missing reports out for a lot of the vigilantes we recruited, some heroes… Sooner or later people will realize that they're dead. Most of them are, at least. Jetflame's still alive. He's been missing for over a year now, but I'm not surprised they haven't given up hope. He is strong. Britain's doing very well right now too. Lower villain rates than when I went to prison. Looks like they rose in the month after, not by much, but that dropped back down lower fast. They probably visited- though heroes having less work to do could have cracked down seeing villains trying to rise back up._

 _They caught the Oilers? Must have been a new villain group. Had divisions in France too, so let's check out France's rates…_ Zach had two very different tabs opened up on different halves of his wide computer screen. One was a normal internet browser tab with the hero website he had access to thanks to his provisional license, and he was looking at past hero reports that there were much more of than last time he was in Japan. It was not just that a lot more villain incidents had occurred over the past year and a half to be added to the website, but also that the website had become more international with information about crimes across the globe located online for him to search through. There was a rough translation from French into Japanese that Zach felt like was not very great on the report he was looking at from five months ago, though he wondered if anyone in Japan had looked at these crimes and noticed the bad translation before. He switched it back to French for a moment but frowned as he found it harder to understand than the rough Japanese translation. _I need to study my French more. Tonight I should spend a few hours more on the reading and listening, put those together since I feel like I speak better…_

Zach flipped to the darker tab on the other side of the screen and he searched deeper in the dark web he had opened on a separate program and hidden browser. The sites he was searching through would not mark him as ever being there, nor would the record of it be left on his computer, and Zach's fingers moved quickly on his keyboard to the point that dark wisps started coming out the backs of them. Zach did not have a black glove on his right hand, and he typed softer with his left even with the darkness seeping around his hands, just using his Quirk to type as fast as his eyes were scanning and his mind was reading. _No message boards for French villains either. Not the old ones at least. Either the villains all somehow moved to a different form of dark internet, but that wouldn't work anyway as it would be discovered as soon as it started spreading. The AoD shut them down then. No more tracking down the ones dealing and searching for hitmen on here, taking down the market itself and just wiping the communication off the map. The dark web's emptying out, and they're probably feeling it's safer not to use it and to use the regular browser if the AoD could find them on the dark web. Then heroes will be able to track them though, and there's nowhere safe for them to go. Some will still take the risk and try it, and some will get away with it, but if they don't then no one will. How long until… until they find new methods? Why? Why not just think that it could be the end of crime like that…_

 _That's far in the future if it really is possible. There's still crime all over the world. Lots of villains, and villain rates that aren't all lower than when I went to jail. What's up with Brazil recently? Lots of villains caught this past week there, so the Army's probably there, right? It's only heroes,_ Zach started grinning and he relaxed a bit in his chair. A satisfied expression came to his face, _I'm glad. It's a good thing that I can't figure it out which incidents my comrades had a part in. Other than a few, where the "villains" had fought each other and left many unconscious for the heroes by the time they arrived, but the others "villains" escaped. Looks like they've been working with heroes more often than not to get that kind of report showing up so sparsely-_ Zach held down the Control button and pressed W on his keyboard four times in rapid succession. Then he did the same but clicking S instead of W to save his work on the document before tapping the W again and closing his document just as he had closed all the internet browsers.

Zach grabbed the top of his laptop and shut it, slowing at the last second and making barely a sound as he closed it. He got out of his seat and moved around his counter cautiously, his eyes darting to the blinds for a moment that he looked at in red tinted vision. Then he moved around over to his couch area and sat on an armrest, slipping his right hand into its glove he pulled out of his pocket. He grabbed the nearly empty box on his couch and looked inside it at the few new belongings he had that he did not have to go leave at an office to get registered. He pretended to be looking into the box examining what was inside, but he was listening to footsteps outside his door while keeping even his own breathing silent. The footsteps approached quickly, and he heard the tone of the breathing that was loud enough to tell him the person coming towards him was panting.

Zach relaxed and his eyes shifted back to their normal color. He let out a longer breath, though his eyes darted to either of the windows in his apartment as soon as he pretended to let down his guard. _Nothing? Alright. That's good._ Zach stood up from the couch and he turned to the door, with a big smile forming on his face this time. He composed himself with his lips lowering down into only being somewhat curved up at the corners, and he started walking towards the door where his visitor had stopped on the other side of. _It could have as easily been her as Kaminari. Two spies was never impossible._ Zach grinned a little more at that thought, as he did not believe it himself. _He was only that good because of his electricity. Ashido's not. I know she's not. Trust. Show trust at least. Zach would trust his old friends after everything he went through in those other worlds. Wouldn't he?_

Ashido knocked on Zach's door with the number 13 next to it, and she stopped with a surprised look on her face when the doorknob started turning right away. Zach opened up the door, and he smiled at the girl on the other side who looked at him in surprise as it seemed like he was already expecting her. Zach looked Ashido up and down, checking out her sweatshirt that had 'PINKY' on the front, along with the rest of the way she was dressed. Ashido had her hood down, and Zach saw her hair looked like it was done nicely that morning which he figured was the reason why she did not put her hood up even though it was pretty chilly out. After opening the door he felt the cool breeze come in at him, but he also noticed it did not feel as cold as the day before actually, which he did not know since he had been inside all morning.

 _I didn't notice it before,_ Zach thought as he looked at the girl just outside of his apartment. _Ashido's really sexy. She likes showing it off too. She's not as tall as Seraphim, but-_ Zach blanked out his mind and said, "Hey."

"How's your, shoulder?" Ashido asked. She hesitated on 'shoulder' because she had been right there and seen it was below what she would usually consider a shoulder. She looked at that spot high up on the right side of his chest and then up in his surprised eyes, "Is it healed?"

Zach moved around his right arm to show that it was. "All bet-"

Ashido dove forward before Zach could finish. Zach's eyes opened wide and he started leaning back, but he forced himself to stop and just stay in that position as Ashido's arms wrapped around him in a huge hug that she was unable to give him yet. Ashido closed her eyes once her arms actually wrapped around Zach and her hands touched each other on his other side. The most relieved smile formed on her face as she held her arms back behind Zach's neck and moved her head over his left shoulder. She had to stand on her tip-toes, and she pressed her face into his shirt on his left shoulder and sighed into it. Her hands disconnected from each other and slid down his back and apart since his shoulders were too wide, but she curled her hands into the back of his shirt as she pulled her head back a little. "You have no idea, how much I missed you," Ashido said, looking back up at Zach's face from close up with half the relieved look and half a pout that she could not make seem genuine considering her teary-eyed smile.

He had been shot in front of her before she was able to hug him before, and the way he looked in the hospital had her too afraid to run up and hug him then knowing it might open up that wound that she had tried to stop the bleeding of herself. Ashido looked around his face to search for any signs of feeling pain in case he had just been pretending that he was alright, now that she thought again about how bad that wound was. "I'm sorry-" Zach started to the girl who had not let go of him, as if making sure he was definitely real by holding on as long as possible.

Ashido curled her hands harder into Zach as he started to apologize though. "No," she said, leaning away and shaking her head at him fast. Ashido let go and took a step back from him, and she said with a shake of her head, "I don't want to hear any apologies today." Zach stared at her in some surprise, but he started nodding his head. Ashido was still standing in his doorway, but she reached out and closed it before stepping around Zach's left side. As she did, she looked back at him and said with a look at his shirt that she had gotten a deep whiff of when she pressed her face into it, "Your shirt is smelly."

Zach snapped his head down to look at the black long-sleeved shirt he was wearing, then he turned to the side at the washing machine just through the open closet doors. "I should try out my new laundry machine…" Zach started to mutter, though he looked down at his clothes and thought about the other set he should also wash though could probably do a separate load for. His eyes shifted towards Ashido as he thought that, since he knew he could not just do a single load with all his clothes right now as long as she was there.

Ashido was no longer looking at Zach though, but around his apartment with a frown on her face that got deeper every second. She ran a hand over the top of her couch as she was walking past, and she shook her head in disapproval that Zach noticed and got a bead of sweat on the side of his face at the sight of. Ashido peered over the top of his counter and looked down on the other side where his finished food wrappers were laying about, and she made a disgusted look that had Zach feeling a bit regretful that he did not shove all that stuff into a grocery bag earlier. She glanced towards his table in the middle of the kitchen in such an odd place, then back over at the other folding chair in the middle of his living room floor, right over a stain on the carpet that had some crumbs around it now too from the sandwiches they ate in there the day before. There was no living room table between the circle of sitting furniture, nor a tv on the tv stand, but worst of all were those horrible palish-yellow walls that made Ashido gag as she looked around at them.

"What?" Zach asked, as he felt the reaction was purposely over-the-top for no reason.

"Look at this place!" Ashido exclaimed back at him, a shocked look on her face that he even needed to ask. "I don't know how you can live here. The state of it, your carpet and the furniture, and those walls? Uck," she stuck her tongue out in disgust, then she shook her head around disapprovingly. Zach glanced around, confused as he didn't see anything wrong with them. Ashido's lips were still curled down in a frown and she said to him like she was explaining something simple to him, "You need to decorate your place."

Zach hummed and he glanced back over the living room himself. _The couch could use a cover, and I really could have used a coffee table in there yesterday, and just for when people are over in general. A small garbage bin maybe._ "I guess, I've thought about getting a few things," Zach admitted. He looked over at the box next to Ashido where she was standing now at the edge of his couch, and Zach added, "I have some money now so I could."

Ashido had heard about the money already from Hagakure, though she spun to the box he looked at and stared into it in surprise that the cash was just sitting there at the bottom in a smaller open box. Her surprised look re-steadied and she kept her lips flat as Zach added, "I need to get all new clothes and school supplies anyway…"

Zach slowed as Ashido was nodding and nodding at him, trying to hide her excitement behind a straight face at first. "How much money did you get?" Ashido asked.

"About four million yen," Zach replied.

Ashido just kept nodding for a few more seconds, but she gulped as much of a steady expression as she tried to keep on her face. "Well then," Ashido said, and she reached down into the box and pulled out two of the four stacks of apparently a million yen each. She lifted them up and hummed as she examined the stacks of bills, trying so hard to keep her straight face like she was thinking about something serious.

Zach could see she was hiding something and the excited look was just making him more confused, and he asked, "Do you need money for something?"

Ashido nodded at him and she slid one of the stacks down into the front pocket of her crop-top sweatshirt with her name on it. Zach thought she might have also been trying to figure out how he got the cash, but he stared at her in surprise that she pocketed it like that. Then she tossed him the second stack and ran up to him when he reached his hands up to catch it. A thousand images flashed through Zach's mind of him tossing something at an enemy or up like that to draw their eyes away for a single second before he rushed them, but as much as he had a counter for it, he was not expecting to suddenly need that counter right now. He also yelled at himself in his head not to as much as he was almost reacting to it in a violent way, and he caught the stack instead before Ashido smacked her hands down on his shoulders. "Why wait?"

"Huh?"

Ashido smirked at him, a face full of excitement that made a bead of sweat slide down Zach's face.

Thirty minutes later, Zach and Ashido walked into the closest mall. "First is clothes shopping," Ashido said, grabbing Zach's left arm with both of hers. She pulled him forward with a head-nod up towards the second floor where she saw a clothing chain store that she recognized.

"You're not going to pick out anything too, well-"

"I know I know! You've got an image to maintain," Ashido assured him, waving a hand to the side like saying he didn't need to worry about that. Zach nodded, cracking a smile that she was thinking about that while also having just an anxious feeling he needed to smile over so she would not notice it.

 _If I didn't draw attention enough already, having Ashido with me is just about the worst thing I could do. A famous, hot, super popular hero from the Class A, and Lifebringer. People are already recording us._ "What are you looking for?" Ashido whispered up to the side of Zach's head when she noticed him glancing around the interior of the mall. "You think the villains after you would attack you here?"

Zach had not been thinking about that, not that his focus was not completely split with a part of his concentration always on the possibility of assassins being nearby. He looked down at his left side and the girl walking with him very closely, and he replied in a calm voice, "Maybe. You never know."

Ashido rose her eyebrows in surprise at the response, but then she smiled and leaned up closer to him again. Her breasts pushed into his left arm as she did so, and she whispered to her darker-haired friend, "Well don't worry. If they attack, we'll fight them off together."

Zach smiled gratefully at her for saying so, then he looked to his right and up to some glass skylights that did not have anyone peeking over them. Ashido frowned and leaned back from his arm. After a moment she started to grin softly though, the failure to get any reaction out of him like she intended making her happier than upset that her allure did nothing.

 _Hope she isn't too worried about people attacking us now that I've made it out like it could totally happen._ "It was pretty dumb of me getting shot like that on the bridge," Zach began. He looked back at Ashido and cracked a small smile even as she lost hers in surprise at what he said. "I'm used to being hunted. The whole time I was in Arcasia the Queen had her forces searching for me. First, just because I had escaped the ambush she set up for me, and then because me and my ragtag group of… well, I don't know what I would have called us back then, closest thing would probably be bandits."

"You were a bandit?" Ashido asked, pursing her lips as she almost laughed at the sound of it.

"Before we went and teamed up with the allied forces, joining an actual army," Zach defended. "We were in Arcasia territory, and we didn't have the strength to hold any of the towns or lands we were fighting for, even if we did take out all the enemy forces there at the time." Ashido nodded along with him, and he continued as she listened closely to him, "But all those times they came after me, I managed to see them coming or fight them off once they did ambush us. When I actually came to be an officer and then a general, the attacks became even more frequent. Our forces were larger too so it was harder to hide, but the assassins and ninjas were just as good-"

"Ninjas?!" Ashido exclaimed, a shocked look flashing over her face before she smirked at him and leaned in with a look of disbelief on her face. "You're messing with me-"

"I swear," Zach said, shaking his head back at her and making Ashido's eyes widen again. Zach laughed at her surprised look, and he said, "It was a medieval society, so why wouldn't there be? It was very similar to our own medieval times except everyone had Quirks, but the parallels were crazy how similar that world was to our own. And just like there were special forces in old regimes who specialized in stealth and infiltration, those same kind of forces existed in that world. Though they were called nightcrawlers in Terra."

"Did you fight any of them?" Ashido asked. The two of them had walked over to an escalator and were standing on the same step facing each other as they spoke. "I mean you had to, if they were sent after you, right?"

"I did," Zach replied. "But not all the nightcrawlers liked their current arrangement with the Queen of Arcasia. Her military forces had completely surrounded their homeland at one point, and they were forced to swear allegiance to her, but there were some who were willing to switch sides and join me instead."

"How did you know you could trust them?" Ashido wondered in a soft whisper.

"I didn't," Zach replied. "But I never knew someone's true intentions until they were fighting by my side. Often I wouldn't trust someone up until the moment they died, but when I brought them back I'd… usually trust them fully." He hesitated there and cut back on what he was going to say, though he bit down after saying it with a frustrated look covering his face. Ashido stared at him with her eyes huge, the look of emotion that flashed over Zach's face for just a moment seeming far too real for what he was saying to be just a story.

She gulped at the idea of it, even though she had not been doubting him already. It was just that she felt in so much disbelief of all he was saying that it felt so strange seeing genuine emotions and hearing so much feeling in his words. Zach returned a smile to his face right away, but Ashido saw the reason why as they neared the top of the escalator. Some people on the second floor who had seen them coming up had run around and there were cameras out and people looking excitedly at the two of them.

Zach and Ashido slowly made their way over to the clothing store she wanted to bring him to. They had to talk to a lot of people on their way over, and Ashido took some pictures as selfies with herself leaning forward, Zach standing straight up in the back with the other people who took more silly pictures being with Pinky than Zach was used to. He wondered if he seemed like too serious a person, or if it was just Ashido's bouncy reactions when people asked for pictures that made it so people just seemed looser around him than usual.

"Glad you're back, Lifebringer." A mother of three teenage girls said after getting her camera back from Ashido who insisted on checking the photos first before someone got away with pics of her while she was blinking or not posing amazingly. Zach smiled back at the middle-aged woman and thanked her, then Ashido exclaimed at him that they had to get into the store before it closed, which was an exaggeration but certainly felt like it might come to pass if they got stopped any more times.

The owner of the store was already out talking to his employees who had heard the talk of the mall and were hoping to see Pinky and Lifebringer come into their store. The owner came over and excitedly told them before they entered about the hero discount they had, which Ashido had known about beforehand and kept Zach from walking straight into the store because of. Zach was curious as to why she stopped him outside the store and then looked at it as if pondering whether she should go in or not, but then she enthusiastically cheered when the owner told them about the deal that Zach wondered if he would have mentioned anyway even if they had gone straight in like it was their destination all along. _Clever,_ Zach thought with a look over at Ashido and an internal grin that he kept hidden just like Ashido's hidden smirk.

The two of them went to the back of the store where the changing rooms were, with Zach barely slowing down at all on a beeline to it. He knew already before he got there, that Ashido was not making it across the whole store without already having three outfits picked out that she thrust at him upon them reaching the changing rooms. Zach chuckled as he caught the shirts and pants he was ready for, and Ashido grinned more that he did not need her to say anything but was ready for what she was going to tell him.

 _It's better this way,_ Zach thought after stepping into the changing room. He continued his conversation with Ashido while inside, going back to talk about Arcasia when she asked about his 'ninja friends' and their techniques. _Going out clothes shopping on my own would make anyone following me suspicious of all I'm purchasing. Plus, the fact that she's picking them out for me clearly just because she wants to shows that they aren't intended for disguises. Except Ashido doesn't realize,_ Zach lifted up the black v-neck long-sleeved shirt that she had said was perfect for him when she picked it off a hangar they were walking past. _I'm going to use it all. Might have to explain it in a little though, when I ask her to buy makeup for me. I'll talk about the stealth gear I got in the package, tell her about how my costume's all about stealth and infiltration, and subtly motion at my own scars and why I'll need the makeup._

"…I could show you what I mean."

"Really?" Ashido asked in shock, after just questioning him about the confusing technique he was describing that all the nightcrawlers knew.

"It really was as amazing as I said, so I wanted to know how to do it myself. I learned a lot of new techniques there outside of ones I need Death for. Whole new forms of combat," Zach slid a pair of pants on but the waistline was too tight, and he pulled them back off and tossed them over the wooden door of the changing room. "Probably need 2 sizes up from that before I can even see how I look in them."

"Hey!" Ashido exclaimed at the doorway, making Zach pause and look back at it still in his black boxers and the v-neck he had tried on. "Each time you put on an outfit, you need to come out so I can get a look at it too! You've been checking them out without me!"

 _That was the second pair of pants I tried on,_ Zach thought. "I liked the first-"

"This is a democracy," Ashido countered before Zach could finish. "I maintain the right to veto if the outfits I picked out don't look as great on you as I imagined they would in my head."

"Fine fine," Zach said. "But I can veto too, if you pick anything too outlandish."

Ashido humphed on the other side of the door loudly enough for Zach to hear, but she smirked and said in a mock reluctant tone, "Alright."

 _It was pretty clear with the 'democracy' comment that you wanted me to mention having a veto of my own. Drawing me into the trap to accept that you have that power by accepting that I have it too, instead of just trying to take it all… This is clothes shopping, I didn't realize so much thought went into it._ Zach looked in the mirror at how he looked, and he grinned for a moment before turning and stepping back out of the changing room. He kept a stoic look on his face as he stepped out, his eyes strong and his expression stoney. His jaw was defined and his toned muscles pushing into the v-neck so that the line between his pecs could be seen at the middle of his collar. Zach had his hands down in the pockets of his dark-blue jeans, and Ashido was staring at him with wide eyes for several seconds before realizing what she was doing. Zach started to grin as she finally lost that look, but instead of calling him out on trying to look all cool or something, as Zach expected she would, the pink girl let out a whistle instead. She waved a hand at herself and then said with a nod back into the changing room, "Very nice. Next."

Zach almost looked embarrassed for a moment, but he decided not to and just smirked at Ashido's response proudly instead. Once he turned around and closed the door to the changing room again though, his smile dropped and he let out a breath. _I feel like this should be more… I don't know. I'm not feeling any shame or embarrassment at all. She's a girl, a beautiful girl, checking me out like I'm hot. Even with Darling I felt embarrassed and got turned on… for a while. When was the last time? How long back, did I stop feeling that way? What does it matter? Is that it? Compared to so much, something like this is so insignificant. That I'd have any emotions about it at all, except happiness. I'm happy right now, right? Would Zach be? To just hang out with Ashido again, would make him happy. I am happy then, because I am Zach. I'm back. He would probably be more embarrassed though. After that whistle would have been a good- no, the Zach who came back is clearly different. He wouldn't be pretending so much with someone like Ashido either. He wouldn't want to, with someone as close to him as her. He doesn't. I don't. I don't want to pretend like I'm flustered around her. I know she's not actually flirting for any certain end. I know I don't want to do anything with her. I shouldn't act like it's a possibility, nor should I act like I don't understand her intentions either._

"You get the next one on yet?" Ashido asked, looking at the door hesitantly as Zach was not saying anything. "Or are they too small too? I'll bring back the pants together, but don't go anywhere-"

Zach opened up the door again in a new outfit, but he was hesitant and frowning as he made his way out. Ashido agreed with a similar look that was on his face, shaking her head which made Zach shake his head in agreement. The pants were not too small, but upon the second inspection they did not pass Ashido's test as Zach was pretty sure they wouldn't when he checked them in the mirror himself. He stepped back in and tossed them over the door quick which Ashido was ready for on the other side already holding his other pair that she was going to bring back. "Give me a sec," she called in to him as she ran off.

 _Going to be a long day,_ Zach thought. All alone in the changing room, he leaned back against one of the walls, and a smile tugged at his face.

After a long stop at the clothing store, (which was even longer than Zach expected it to be), Ashido dragged him over to a different department store to get more "variety" in his clothing. Zach felt he had just gotten a lot of new clothes already, and some were designer brands which he did not know at first when he was trying them on, but that he learned when he reached the register. _She's going to run me dry. I'm glad we only took half of the money L sent me, or at least Ashido thinks we only have half on us right now. I've got to stop over at an ATM to deposit all this cash._

Zach mentioned his plans for disguising himself and asked Ashido if she could get him some makeup, hesitantly scratching the back of his neck while looking over towards that section of the department store. He did not think he could see her more excited, but he was wrong and thought she might explode at how much she started shaking in pure ecstasy before yell-whispering at him that she'd show him how to put it on too later. Zach said in a sarcastic tone, 'Can't wait,' and then he said he'd meet back up with her over at the men's clothing section in a little. She had some of his cash on her still, and Zach added that he didn't need all that much, just enough to cover the scars. He still thought as he headed off though, _I really hope she doesn't spend it all on makeup. Knowing her, she could definitely buy like a dozen things and say I needed all of them._

He left the department store and headed over to the closest ATM, which was inside of a bank in the mall. He stepped in and over to an ATM machine that he stood in front of in a way to properly block what he was doing without making it out too much like he was trying to hide it. Zach pulled out his phone in his other hand and checked his bank account while he deposited the money, and he refreshed it a couple of times to make sure the cash was going through. _Alright,_ Zach thought and backed off from the ATM once his transaction was finished. _Two million yen to invest. Darling, I hope I learned enough._ Zach opened up the Arkitock app on his phone that he had connected to his bank account already and put most of his college fund into to invest with. _Seems almost like I have insider trading information, though it has been six months, so it's not as unfair as it would be otherwise._

Zach looked at companies that he knew had plans for big maneuvers, ones that had made large-scale investments recently while he was in prison but that he knew would go farther, and ones that he was careful not to invest in as well. He frowned at a few names on the list he was scrolling through as he left the bank, but his frown lifted up at the right corner into just an unsatisfied one and not really upset at all. _New leadership kept under close watch is a better solution than taking away thousands of jobs and collapsing the market. "Too big to fail," is sometimes true. If it could happen once though, why not again? Carvean Pharmaceuticals? I want to invest there, knowing the business practices and what they're trying to cure, but a pharmaceutical business that cares is always going to be less profitable than the fuckers in it for the money. The ones who would buy from unknown sources, indirectly funding human experimentation laboratories with their promises of…_

Zach shifted his gaze over towards the front of the department store he was walking back over to. Ashido crossed her arms and frowned at him as he approached, and Zach almost grimaced but instead smiled sheepishly and scratched the back of his head, only because there were a few people watching him and he could not make it out like he got caught doing something wrong. "Sorry," Zach said as he approached Ashido, his tone getting better across how he was feeling than his facial expression. She did not have any makeup bags in her hands, and Zach felt like she must have been watching him and followed him out when she saw him leaving.

"Why not just tell me you were going to the bank?" Ashido asked, still frowning at him though pouting a bit at his nonchalant attitude as he walked past her and back into the store. "I wouldn't have said anything-"

"If I don't start saving, you'll have me spending everything in one day," Zach said. He lifted up a smaller but more genuine smile once they were inside and it was just them talking now with less people watching. "Here," Zach lifted his phone and opened it up, then he unlocked the specific stock-trading app that he was just on. Ashido leaned closer and got a confused look on her face at what she was seeing. "They're stocks I just bought. I used the rest of the money you thought we left back at my place."

"You took it with you?" Ashido asked in surprise, wondering when he had the time to do that and where he had hid the money that whole time.

Zach nodded his head at her, and he added with a more playful smirk, "But I knew if I said anything, you'd try to help me decide which stocks to pick. And it's not that I don't trust you, but…"

"Hey!" Ashido exclaimed at him with a shocked look on her face, smacking him on the arm at what he was implying.

"What? Do you know anything about stocks?"

"I know lots of great companies! Like, you didn't even know that Prucci shirts were so expensive, but you bought two anyway. You know why? Because they're that good! You should get Prucci stock!" Zach started nodding his head at Ashido while holding his lips down like he was trying to hide a smirk. She opened her mouth to ask what that was for, before realizing that she just did exactly the thing he said he expected she would. "Shut up!" She called at him and he held up a hand defensively as he was not saying anything, though he did turn away with a grin on his face.

"Just you watch," Ashido said in more of a grumble. "I bet Prucci stocks rise super fast and you'll wish you took my advice."

 _Maybe, maybe I should just buy a couple since I know you'll be happy. I'll do it subtly and then let you see all the ones I got later when I explain it, if it does come back up. You'll see the Prucci stocks on the list and I can look away and pretend like I had them the whole time… because that's what Zach would do. Or is it that Zach would react that way to try and make you happier, because he liked to see you happy? Who doesn't like to see their friends happy? Well, I made her upset now._

"When did you get into stocks? You never talked about it before, but you seem so used to them," Ashido mentioned, turning to the boy she was walking through the department store with in the direction of the men's clothing section.

"Darling was really good with them," Zach replied. Ashido looked at him in surprise at that response, but Zach shrugged as it was the truth and he looked happy to be able to tell her it. "By the way, don't I still need makeup-"

Ashido slid a hand into her front pocket and pulled out two different cosmetic items that Zach stared at in surprise. "Wow," Zach said. "I didn't think-"

"There wasn't much to think about for what you need," Ashido replied while turning away like there was no reason for him to be surprised. She said it like it was so simple that anyone could understand, and Zach got a bead of sweat on the side of his face and a nervous smile as he felt like she was comparing buying makeup to getting stocks, and in this regard Zach had no idea what he was doing. Zach decided against mentioning that he noticed it, and that if this really was a parallel then Ashido was admitting she had no idea about stocks. Instead he just kept that thought to himself and told Ashido that he was glad she was there, because he never would have known what to get, to which she humphed with a larger smirk spreading over her face.

The two of them shopped around some more, but they could only go to so many stores before they both got hungry. There were many places to eat across the mall, and the two of them wound up stopping at a pizza place that Zach felt had more of an American than an Italian feel to it. The pizzas they ordered tasted more American-style too, which Zach mentioned to the girl across from him who he was sharing with. They had gotten two pies that they had between them and were taking slices one at a time for their own plates. "You had Italian pizza too?" Ashido asked when Zach made the distinction. Then she pointed a hand over the table, still holding her pizza, and she pointed the half-eaten slice at him saying 'aha' in a way that almost made food fall out of her mouth.

Zach chuckled as Ashido got a pink(er) face and quickly chewed and swallowed the food in her mouth. She was still excited though and she said, "I knew you were in Italy! After I heard those rumors about you in Germany, there were rumors that you were popping up all over but I knew it was Italy!"

 _It might've been all those other places too,_ Zach thought, but he nodded at Ashido like she was right. _Guess the mob guys and their wives couldn't keep it to themselves. It was something cool, I guess, and Metallore probably went and told some other heroes what had happened too. A journalist somewhere had a source who caught wind, but luckily it was just that I was there and not what I was doing. Don't think the government here would be too happy if they knew I joined the mob… even if it was just for a few days._ "I prefer pizza in Sicily the most," Zach said as he took another bite of the pepperoni slice in his left hand. "But this is good."

Ashido nodded and made an affirmative hum, already with another bite in her mouth so she could not agree with words. As she finished chewing and opened her mouth to say something else though, she heard a commotion behind her and over at the door of the pizza restaurant. Zach had already seen them, but he pretended not to notice until Ashido heard the commotion. He leaned to the side and looked past her, then he pulled back into the booth and took a big gulp out of his soda. He sloshed it around in his mouth, and Ashido looked back at him in confusion before opening her eyes wide and quickly doing the same. She lifted a napkin too and wiped the corners of her mouth, frowning for a moment but wiping crumbs off her face before the guy with a fancy camera who had been stopped near the door got up next to their table.

"Lifebringer! Can you tell me where you were all the time you were gone?" The paparazzi shouted, and he held a recorder out in front of Zach while keeping his camera at the ready to snap the teen when he was looking his least presentable.

"I could," Zach replied. "But I believe you were asked to leave this establishment, and I have a hero license," Zach continued calmly. Their waitress and the manager who she had gone to get were coming up behind the man to complain again that they were going to call the police if he did not leave. They stared over at Zach in surprise though, as did the other customers sitting around the restaurant who all stared towards Lifebringer with their bottom lips lowering. "Would you like me to escort this man out of this restaurant?" Zach asked, looking over at the manager who darted his gaze back to the paparazzi who leaned back far at that question.

"Are you threatening-" the guy with the camera started with his voice getting louder.

Ashido opened her mouth with an annoyed look starting to form on her face, but the manager spoke up first, "He is being very disruptive to business, so if you could." The paparazzi spun to the manager, then he started turning his head back to the side as Zach wiped his hands on a napkin calmly and then lowered it down to the table in front of him.

"I'm leaving!" The guy shouted, throwing his camera arm and the recorder arm up at the same time. He backed off, then darted for the door of the restaurant. Zach had a hand pushing down on the seat next to him, but he cracked a slightly bigger grin as the paparazzi ran off.

"So sorry about that, Lifebringer," the manager started while walking over to Zach's table. "Your meal will be-"

"It's fine," Zach said, quickly cutting off the man before he could offer him something for free as far too many people had been recently. "Sorry if my presence is being disruptive for business."

"No no, of course not," the manager replied, shaking his head at the younger man.

"If you do want to repay him though," Ashido began, smiling up at the older man who turned to Pinky this time. Zach started to frown and gave Ashido a look telling her to drop it, but Ashido just continued, "Then you could get us some free refills." She shook around her nearly empty soda from when she drank a bunch to slosh around her mouth and wash down any sauce or pizza pieces.

"Refills are already…" the manager began, but then he just sighed and nodded with an accepting look at the young students. "Very well. Once again, my apologies," he finished, glancing back at Zach who shook his head while picking up another slice to show it did not faze him.

"That guy was so rude though," Ashido whispered, leaning forward over the table when the manager started away. "Just shouting in our faces like that while we're eating."

"It's his job to try and get us off our guard," Zach said, shrugging and then nodding to the side at the manager who walked back with two full sodas for them. He looked back at Ashido after taking a sip of his cola, and he added, "If he had gotten a good picture of me looking upset, maybe put a quote out of context over the photo that they print in an unflattering filter, it could have been on the cover of some magazine tomorrow morning. Or the news, and he could go on as a special guest to talk all about how he got his scoop, going farther than any other reporter _dared_ to go." Zach changed his tone like he was speaking as the man on the press conference, building himself up as some sort of master journalist which made Ashido start laughing as she thought about the guy's nervous retreat from the restaurant.

Zach paused for a second after Ashido laughed, then he scratched below the left corner of his lip and added, "He'll probably still get a nice payment, for whatever pictures he took of me and you eating together. And considering how I shut him down so fast, I wouldn't be surprised if some rumors started spreading before tonight."

"Really?" Ashido asked with wide eyes, and then she grinned slyly at the idea of it.

Their waitress stepped back over to the table as Ashido was grinning, and she hesitated for a second which made the pink girl turn and bring her smile back to a normal one. The woman only a few years older than Ashido suppressed a grin herself and asked, "How is everything?"

"Great," Ashido replied. "Thanks."

Zach nodded in agreement, but he did not respond yet and kept looking at the woman, waiting for her to ask. The brunette glanced towards Zach, then back at Ashido who she started to, "I just wanted to say…" Ashido tilted her head to the side wondering what the older girl was hesitating about, then the waitress kept going with a glance in Zach's direction, "You really made me want to go out and vote for Nikko." She looked back at Ashido while saying it, and the pink girl's black eyes opened wide. "That rally a week before the election, well," the waitress glanced back at Zach again. "I'm really happy you got let out early, Lifebringer."

"Thank you," Zach told the older girl.

"Yeah!" Ashido agreed excitedly. "Thanks for helping," she smiled bigger at the waitress with a grateful look herself.

 _Wish it was okay to tip service employees here,_ Zach thought. _Since it is American-style pizza… no, they wouldn't be okay with it. Well, she seemed to appreciate our gratitude enough-_

"So," the waitress continued, leaning her head down closer to the two so she could speak in a lower voice and avoid eavesdroppers from listening in. "Are the two of you, dating?" The brunette's eyes darted back and forth at the two, looking at their faces for their reactions.

Ashido spun her head more to the waitress in a surprised way, then back to Zach who she looked at in shock while he cracked a small grin at her. What he had just mentioned about rumors spreading had seemed realistic to Ashido, but now it felt more inevitable considering that question sounded more like she was calling them out on it. After seeing his 'I told you' look, Ashido turned back to the waitress and shook her head with a roll of her eyes. "We're just friends."

Their waitress nodded, then she turned to Lifebringer and hummed in skepticism at the way he was looking at his "friend." Zach had smiled a bit brighter though when Ashido called him that, and he turned to the waitress and nodded with what Ashido said. "Alright," the waitress accepted, standing back up straight and looking over at another table she had to serve. "Enjoy your meals," she added, heading back away from the "friends."

"You called it," Ashido admitted while looking back at the boy she was eating with. "Didn't think this shopping trip would get so much attention. Especially on a Monday."

"Can't go anywhere in secret anymore," Zach said with a sigh. It sounded like he was lamenting the loss of his privacy, but there was also a hidden meaning only those who had been close to him would understand. Ashido's eyes bulged at what he said, but he just kept eating and did not even raise his gaze and smile at her like it was a joke. _Does he, want to go places in secret? Does he want to go back to being an anti-hero while-_ "You should be extra careful for now on too, when you're outside of school. People coming after me might target you once the pictures get out of us together," Zach mentioned while continuing to bite away at a slice of pizza.

Ashido kept staring at Zach and he finally lifted his eyes back to her face to see her gawking at him. He chewed and swallowed, then he added, "You're a hero though, so I know you can handle it. Right?" He asked 'right' at the end with an eyebrow raising to see if she was going to counter him, but Ashido grinned proudly and scoffed at even the idea of not being able to handle it. _Good,_ Zach thought when she started responding to him without fear in her voice. _I didn't think I needed to explain that to her, but she really wasn't even thinking about it when she suggested this trip. I assumed she knew what she was doing. She does too, even if she didn't think hard enough about it. Don't worry about her. Just, trust her. Worrying about them always led to lying to them more, not less. They're all heroes now. Great heroes. I knew that when I was gone. No, He was keeping tabs. I was- or was I the one keeping tabs because he didn't know, or care… except I-he cared about all heroes around the world, but not really Japan- yes Japan. I came once. Not as Life- Present and future! Focus! What is important right now? Making sure that Ashido trusts you. Make her believe that you really are Zach Sazaki, and do what he would do._

"Speaking of places you went in secret," Ashido began, changing back up the conversation from potential villains targeting her which was always a possibility as a hero. "Can you tell me about the anti-hero life you had, now that you're not doing it anymore?" She ended in the tone of a question, which made sense since she was asking him something. However it sounded like she was asking both if he could tell her about it, and if he was still going to be having a secret anti-hero life.

"Yeah, I can tell you," Zach replied. "Only the fun parts about it though," Zach added, lifting up a finger as he said it to let her know that he was going to be holding some back. Ashido nodded quickly in agreement at him though, smiling wide at that clause which would keep the conversation more fun than depressing as she knew it could have gotten. "Well the first thing, is that I didn't just decide one day that I wanted my own motorcycle. I said it was Bikergang who inspired me to get one, but really it was Webb."

"The guy, who saved you from the villains, right?" Ashido asked.

Zach paused and he furled his lip for a moment. Ashido curled her own and gave him an expectant look, as she heard enough in the forest to know that much and just wanted to double check it there. "He did save me, but from the Hunter," Zach explained when she gave him that look. "I wasn't lying back then about how I escaped the villains. It was on my own." Ashido looked at him in surprise as she had been convinced differently for a year and a half now. She did not look to doubt him though, and Zach added softer and with a smile returning to his face, "But after a week on the run, when the villains almost took me back, that's when Webb saved me."

"Why didn't you go to the cops?" Ashido asked in confusion.

"I was paranoid," Zach replied. He took another bite of pizza and continued, "I knew the League had a lot of sources and a spy at U.A. at least, so why not in whatever police station I went to? And I figured I would get arrested, put somewhere I couldn't run from, and then Kurogiri would figure out where I was and _poof._ " Zach snapped his fingers of his left hand, and Ashido flinched at the image she just pictured of a younger Zach curling back into the corner of a room of a police station, a black portal emerging in front of him. "But even if that was just being overly paranoid," Zach continued. "I'm glad I didn't do it. Then I never would have met Webb, and I never would have known all the things I came to learn about the world thanks to him."

"Things like what?" Ashido asked.

"Like the role that anti-heroes play in fighting crime. The _secret_ role that they've always had from a long time ago. It became a lot less as time went on, but when people thought it went away, it was really just the anti-heroes going into hiding and doing all their work in the shadows."

"If they ever fought villains though," Ashido started, shaking her head in confusion. "Wouldn't it be difficult for heroes to arrest them afterwards? Since vigilante justice is outlawed."

"Sure, but remember Diamondfist?" Zach asked. Ashido nodded her head, thinking about the villain she only gained so much interest in because he was taken down on a weekend when Zach just happened to skip out on school and go on a trip to Kyoto. "You remember what the news and heroes reported was what happened to them?"

"The heroes captured them," Ashido began slowly, thinking back on what she had seen about that just about two years ago. "But some villains were shouting there was a single man who came in and attacked them. Was that you?!" Ashido exclaimed that too loudly, and Zach darted his eyes around only to notice that there really were a lot of people looking towards him.

Zach gave Ashido a look that made her give him a sheepish and apologetic one. Then he shook his head anyway though, and he said, "But whether it was an anti-hero like Webb, or a random vigilante, or actually another villain, what did it matter in the long run for that case?" Zach asked and then shook his head again as Ashido hesitated with a look showing she did not know. "It didn't," he replied to his own question. "Since vigilantism is a crime, it's technically just villains fighting each other, and heroes are allowed to go and arrest all of the parties involved when that arises. So even if they had proof that it was an anti-hero who did it, they still wouldn't really let off villains that easily. It's only if the anti-hero is the one who gathered up the proof, doing a hero's job for them and acting as the law, handing in villains straight to police stations or stuff like that. But if villains are left in their hideouts with all their illegal weapons and substances, and an anonymous tip comes in from some 'concerned citizen' that they heard loud sounds of fighting between villains or saw something in a building they were walking past, then heroes can rush in and arrest them all without the anti-heroes getting the blame, or the credit."

Ashido was nodding along with what Zach was saying for a little, but she slowed and stopped at how specific he was getting in his response. It still sounded just like a hypothetical, but she pursed her lips and examined his face closely near the end at what he was saying. "And did you use this little technique yourself?"

"All the time," Zach replied. Ashido opened her eyes wide in surprise at that quick response, but Zach just chuckled at that look and added, "I learned from the best. The way he did it with Diamondfist worked out so well, thanks to me calling in the tip and staying vague enough about just hearing gunfire." Zach added the last part with a more smug smirk at Ashido, but she was still staring at him in surprise as he admitted it straight out after staying more vague before and not even admitting that it was Webb who did it. She almost frowned, as she realized there was no reason for him to be worried about Webb getting in trouble for it, but instead Ashido smiled along with his smirk and shook her head at him for that smug expression.

"You know when anonymous tips became this huge thing all over the world, I had no idea," Ashido started to joke. Zach smiled along and laughed with her as she finished, "That it was really just you the whole time!"

 _You have no fucking idea._ Zach stopped laughing and nodded his head at her, "Yeah, it totally was."

The two of them finished up their lunch with Zach talking a little more about what he had done with the anti-heroes. He explained to her how he got his costume, leaving out a few details but telling only the truth as there was not much reason to protect Ganji anymore either. After they got the check and Zach left some money in it, the two of them continued to sit in the booth for a little as they were talking and felt no rush to leave. "…we heard about this guy when we fought the Stain Cult. Did you hear about that?" Ashido asked with a short pause. Zach nodded at the girl across from him while also still looking interested in who she mentioned that she heard about among the anti-heroes. "The leader of the cult, they called him Faith, was a Tartaros prisoner who got captured the first time by this guy named Lavamander."

Zach nodded his head, and Ashido examined his face to see if he recognized the name. "I knew him," Zach said.

"Really?" Ashido asked in amazement. "Wrangler said that he was the strongest man he had ever met."

Zach nodded again in agreement with that sentiment. "He was," Zach began, "very strong."

The brief hesitation in what Zach said, and the use of the word 'was,' made Ashido lose her smile. "Was it," she started softly. Zach looked into her eyes and saw an understanding look in them. She stared with her yellow irises into his hazel ones and finished in a low voice, "Because of you?"

Zach paused and he lowered his eyes down to the table. **"It's impossible. Maybe in another time, but the City of Villains is too… A plan? You're a fool if you think you can take Killmanjaro with those amateurs you call soldiers. You have a zero percent chance of victory… If I do show up though, I suppose it could be possible."** _Was it my fault? She's asking if Kaminari killed him in his purge. That's not what she technically asked though._ "Yes," Zach responded after a few seconds. "Because of me."

"I'm sorry," Ashido whispered. She wanted to know about him, as hearing about Lavamander was the most information she had gotten about Zach's secret anti-hero life since he had left. She felt bad about bringing it up now though and asking what had happened in what felt like such a mean way in hindsight. "Hey! So where do you want to go next?" Ashido asked, clapping her hands in front of her and looking ready to get moving.

Zach lifted his mood just as fast and he sweatdropped at the girl in front of him before glancing to his side at the pile on his seat as tall as he was. "I don't know how much more we'll be able to carry," he said, looking at the boxes and bags piled up on his side. "I probably have enough clothes too-"

"Then we should head back to your place," Ashido said, pressing her hands down on the table this time. "We still have a lot of work to do, if we plan on finishing the paint-job before I have to return to U.A."

Zach rose his eyebrows and asked, "Paint job?" His gaze shifted over to a mystery bag next to Ashido that she had been carrying after they split up a while back. Zach had his own mystery bags hidden inside of larger ones from earlier stores so she had not noticed that he was hiding something from her, while she had been more forward about it and just pulled the bags away before when Zach had started leaning forward to check what was in them.

Ashido grinned at that hidden detail of what they were shopping for, the most important thing actually after she had seen those disgusting pale-yellow walls of his apartment. Zach started laughing after a second at that sly grin on her face, and he shrugged his shoulders like he didn't see why not.

* * *

 _"Farther in the crowd…" ~_ _ **bum ts bum bu-bum**_ _~ "Open up your eyes!"_ _ **Wommm bu-dum du-dum**_ _"Approach the stage! Faster…"_ _ **bum bum bum bum bum**_ _"Faster!"_ _ **bum-bum-bum-bum-bum**_ _"FASTER!"_ _ **bumbumbumbumbum Sssshhh-**_

Zach and Ashido froze, and Ashido spun to the speaker sitting on a folding chair behind them that suddenly got silent with that hissing noise when things were getting so upbeat. She opened her mouth to say something, and then the beat dropped. The bass blasted out of the speaker making the chair shake for a second while the singer yelled 'faster' again and a crazy tune in treble started playing over everything and the beat returned in the background. Ashido started swinging her head back and forth and making her pink hair wave around for a few seconds before spinning to Zach a few meters away from her down the wall. "What's this song called?!"

"Faster!" Zach called back, which made Ashido laugh as the guy singing just yelled it too and she almost thought Zach was just singing along for a second.

"Hope we're not upsetting your neighbors," Ashido mentioned, though she did not look to care as she shoved the paintbrush down in the bucket she had next to her and then swiped across Zach's wall along with the beat of the song. She had to start swiping back and forth faster, and she shook her head and wiped an arm across her brow as she was starting to sweat. Zach had the heat on in his apartment since they had gotten cold on the walk back to his place, especially since they had to walk slower while balancing all the things they had shopped for. Ashido accidentally wiped a bit of light blue paint on her on forehead, but Zach did not mention it as he turned back to his wall and continued painting in a calmer way than the girl hearing this great song for the first time.

"They're all still at work probably," Zach said. "And Norita-san told me the walls here are thick so I shouldn't worry about it."

"That's great!" Ashido called out louder now, not feeling she needed to keep it down at all. "Let's hope your downstairs neighbors feel the same," Ashido added with a laugh as she jumped up and ran back and forth along the wall, painting and dancing at the same time which Zach noticed was getting a couple drops of paint on his carpet. The carpet was blue already, but a very dark navy blue, so the bright blue Ashido had picked out as she felt it 'matched him' contrasted strongly with it. She was already making comments about ripping up the carpeting though and getting a new one for the place though, so Zach wondered if she was actually trying to make it more pertinent with her 'mistakes.'

Ashido was really just enjoying the music though, as it was the fourth song in a row that Zach put on that she was loving. Each of the songs were in completely different genres, and the guy singing this one was singing in English but she didn't care whether it was English, Japanese, Italian, or Spanish. All four of the songs so far had been fire to paint to. Behind the pink girl shaking her butt back and forth in a tight pair of black pants, there was an opened cardboard box laying on the floor with some parts left in it, and a half-built wooden coffee table lay upside-down with the legs up just next to his sofa. On top of the tv stand was the box with the tv still in it too, as Ashido had complained that Zach could set all that stuff up later as she _needed_ to cover up the current paint job before anything else.

"And where did you first hear this song?" Ashido asked as the beat started to settle down on one section. She spun to Zach and kept aimlessly painting with her left hand over the same spot which Zach rolled his eyes at after turning to her.

"Sweden. There was this crazy rave…" Zach trailed off and pursed a grin as Ashido was staring at him with wide and almost disbelieving eyes.

She opened her mouth to call him out on lying about it or messing with her, but then she hummed and narrowed her eyes with a suspicious look. "Were you, looking for drugs at this rave?"

"Nice guess," Zach remarked back. Then he turned to the wall again and did another couple brush strokes before leaning down to get more paint on his brush. He wiped the brush on the edges of the inside of the bucket so it would not drip, and he gave Ashido a look while doing it like he was showing her what she should be doing before she got to waving around that paintbrush.

"Pssh," Ashido waved a hand at him and then noticed some paint on the side of it. She looked at it closely, the gears turning in her head as it was wet but smeared. Then she remembered rubbing it against her forehead, _I thought that was more than sweat!_ The first time she wiped it, she still felt sweaty there afterwards but figured there was no getting around it.

"If we want to get this all done today, we're going to have to move a bit faster," Zach said, though he was putting his paintbrush down and pulling out a sleek black phone from his pocket.

Ashido glanced towards him while getting back to painting, (after making sure she got the paint off her face this time). "Maybe if someone wasn't messing with the aux every ten seconds."

"I haven't made a good playlist yet," Zach countered back. "But I'll set one now…"

The two of them continued to paint Zach's apartment for over twenty minutes after Zach started his new playlist. It was getting late outside, and Zach had his blinds opened to let a bit of light in actually, though he was also continuously keeping an eye on what was outside. As he painted, and listened to music, and watched out for assassins, Zach was also telling a story that had Ashido painting over the same spot again over and over as she was too unfocused to care about it anymore.

Zach brought both hands back from the wall and stretched his arms apart while describing how big the creature in his story was, but Ashido called out at him with a laugh, "There's no way!"

Zach nodded at her though, "It was an _actual_ dragon. Not a guy with a dragon-type Quirk." Ashido hummed and nodded at him, though she rolled her eyes and looked back at the wall like she was going to focus on painting, as if that could happen. Her eyes shifted over to the corners as Zach continued, "And it was much bigger than Ryukyu. Bigger than the other ones I would see on those adventures."

"Other-" Ashido froze, and she flattened her lips and shook her head. _Not going to buy it. Not buying it…_ Ashido's eyes grew huge as Zach gave her a look showing he was serious. "No way!" Ashido shouted at him. She swung her brush at him as she did to call out some disbelief, but when she swung it, some of the excess blue paint that she had not wiped off on the edge of the tub splashed off of her brush. Swinging her arm like that threw paint over across the gap between them and onto Zach's new white long-sleeved shirt that had his own hero name on the front of it.

Ashido gawked and covered her mouth with both hands at what she did. Zach looked down and saw a line of paint splotched diagonally over the middle of the 'LIFEBRINGER' and even had some blue dripping down from it. He lifted his head back up from it with a flat expression, and he looked to the girl who had her long-sleeves of her new pink shirt rolled up just like Zach's were. Ashido still had her hands over her mouth, partially looking apologetic for it, but also like she was seriously trying hard to hide laughter.

Zach lifted his head up more and he looked from her face back down to her shirt with 'PINKY' italicized in shiny silver letters over her breasts that his eyes lowered down to. Ashido's urge to smile vanished and she started staring with wide eyes at where Zach was looking. _What is he-_ she started thinking, only to squeal as Zach grinned and swung his brush towards her. Ashido covered her face, but then she lowered her arms and looked down at her new shirt that now had a similar blue stain on it, though there was less there since Zach did not have as much excess on his brush. Ashido still stared in shock at the stain though, but as she rose back up her head it was only a crazy smirk that covered her face and not an upset look at all.

The music was blasting, the two of them were laughing, and paint flew as they started a paint fight out of nowhere. Zach grabbed his bucket and dove out of the way, turning the bucket as he rolled to keep it pointed up the whole time with no paint spilling out of it. Paint still did get on the carpet though as the last swing Ashido took at him completely missed. She gawked at the mess she just made on the floor after covering almost her whole brush in dripping paint before that swing, but she only had a second to be surprised before she had to spin and yelp in surprise as Zach popped up behind the armrest of his couch and sniped her with a carefully aimed paint slash. The blue got on her shirt, her arms, and on parts of the wall that she had actually missed before so technically they were still doing work.

Ashido covered her arms in some Acid when she saw Zach's grin at getting her with that paint, and the paint dripped right off as it could not stick to her slimy skin. Then she called out at Zach to move from the couch, since they had just put on a new couch cover that she picked out specifically and did not want to mess up. Zach did as she asked, though he was re-dipping his paintbrush as he did. Meanwhile, a Ray-V song turned on next on Zach's playlist, and the starting beat was one that Zach really liked and made him prefer this song over the rest of the rapper's. As he opened his mouth to call out the first line though, Ashido called out louder than him with the lyrics, and then splashed paint at him when she thought he was off-guard.

Zach could have dodged, but his place was getting over-painted enough as it was. Instead he acted more surprised as he got hit by the attack, and he asked with a laugh, "You listen to Ray-V?"

"I do?!" Ashido exclaimed back at him. "When did you start liking him?!"

"About the same time I went to one of his concerts-"

"You did not!" As Ashido shouted it, she saw too late Zach lifting his brush after catching her off guard. As she was hit by the paint though, all she could think about was whether or not he had just said that to get her with the paint or if he was for real. "Wait! Did you?" Zach just grinned at her, and Ashido shook her head, "Oooh," she put her brush back inside and started dipping in a frenzy. "There's no way!"

"That's what you said about the dragon too," Zach countered. "But both Ray-V and the dragons were definitely real."

"I know he's real!" Ashido countered quickly. "But did you really-"

"Now if I say I did, could you promise to not paint my face-"

"Gah! You did didn't you?!" Ashido knew it from the question alone, and Zach discovered that she would not have promised him that. Ashido was jealous, but only enough for one brush swing before she smiled again and started laughing at it all. _He did way too much in a year,_ she thought, shaking her head as every conversation they had she felt like she was learning something new.

Zach lowered his arms that just got some more paint on them, though he did not block his shirt very well. He looked at Ashido for a few seconds, then he looked at her shirt and a bead of sweat started rolling down his face. He looked down at his own shirt next, his new white shirt that he really liked so he paid for it with it on, that way he could walk out of the store in it. Ashido saw him look down like that, and she looked at her own pink t-shirt that she had just bought earlier too and liked a similar amount. Both the Pinky and Lifebringer hero names were hard to read under the blue paint, not that the context clues of the showing parts of the letters and the people wearing them would make it hard for anyone to guess what they said. There were drops of blue all over Zach's white shirt, under his arms on his sides and even a few lines on his back and smears from when he bumped into the wall (which he now wondered if they had enough paint left to finish painting it).

Zach glanced down at the paint bucket on the floor next to him. Then he rose his gaze up to parts of a yellow wall, then shifted it over at Ashido who was looking around at quite the mess they made. The two of them looked into each other's eyes, still able to see how much paint they had gotten on the other's clothes. Music was still playing, but it felt quiet in there for a couple seconds before the two of them started laughing. _Paint got everywhere,_ Zach thought, looking to his side for a second and seeing some on the underside of his half-built coffee table. _Glad I didn't take the tv out of the box now._ Zach stopped laughing as he saw Ashido settling down, and the two of them were panting and still half-chuckling while just smiling at each other.

"Well," Zach began. He looked around and at all the paint they got on his floor, "We've got some new work to do… and we didn't buy any cleaning supplies while we were at the mall."

"And we have to finish painting the walls!" Ashido reminded. She looked to the couch cover and frowned at the sight of some paint splotches on it too.

"We can flip it over," Zach said. "I think it works either way," Zach stepped to the couch, but then he paused and looked at his blue hands. His black glove was covered in as much paint as the skin of his left hand, but Zach was glad it was waterproof so he could just go wash his hands normally. "And I have a kitchen rag I can use for the floor," he mentioned when he looked over towards his kitchen sink.

Ashido wiped the wet paint on her right hand on her shirt and then pulled her phone out of her pocket. She checked the time real quick while Zach was facing away from her, then she looked around the room and hummed to herself with a thoughtful look over her face. _Three hours, plus another two if I give Midnight a call… I bet. I'll have to sound really sorry that I stayed too long. Super sorry,_ the sarcastic voice in Ashido's head made her smile towards Zach's back, then she jogged over to the kitchen herself to wash her hands too.

Ashido grabbed a bath towel Zach had bought while out, saying they could toss it in the wash after they finished cleaning. Zach had grabbed the kitchen cloth and Ashido did not want to make him clean on his own. They flipped the couch cover, rubbed most of the paint into the carpet that they couldn't dab up, and they cleaned off the handles of the paint brushes as they were ready to not have to wash any more paint off their skin. Ashido had washed her hands instead of just making the paint slide off the second time because she realized that she was just going to make more work for them in a minute if she had.

As they were cleaning up the last areas where they had gotten too much paint on the ground, Zach glanced over at the girl helping him clean his floor down on her knees a few feet from him. The way she was kneeling like that with her head closest to him made her shirt dip down a bit and it was not a very tight shirt already. A lot of Ashido's cleavage was showing under the collar of her shirt, but Zach's eyes were lower than that and on the shirt itself as he stared at her. "Hey," Zach started, and Ashido rose her head, losing the frustrated frown as she scrubbed back and forth with a bath towel way too big for this job. "Sorry about your shirt," Zach said, nodding down to the nice shirt she had gotten and not let him pay for earlier. "I hope it doesn't stain," Zach added as she looked down at her pink, and blue, shirt herself.

There were blue paint marks all over the shirt that were still wet but starting to dry. Ashido smiled softly though while looking down, and she said, "I wouldn't mind if it did."

"Yeah, me neither," Zach agreed. Ashido snapped her head back up to him, but Zach was turned partially away and looking down at the carpet he was rubbing again and almost finished with.

Ashido had only thought about it for a second when she said she wouldn't mind if it stained, so she did not know what she expected Zach to say after it. She thought now though that she would have been less surprised if he had asked her why, or if he had offered to pay for it again, or something. The pink girl with Acid powers pursed her lips while looking at the side of Zach's head, her heart pounding in her chest as she thought about why he agreed without even needing to ask her why she didn't mind. _Zach doesn't mind if his shirt stains either, because he, wants to remember this too. I want to remember this day. That moment._ Ashido turned away again, lifting her left arm near her face and rubbing her eyes quick while making sure she wasn't facing Zach.

"We might run out of paint if we do that again though," Zach started. He leaned back and sat on his butt with a glance up at the wall in front of him. "And I'm thinking, half-blue and half-peach isn't a very good look for my place."

"Ugh," Ashido agreed, the idea of that coming off even worse to her than if they had left it in its gross palish state in the first place. Ashido found herself only glancing at the wall for a moment though, staring over at the side of Zach's head for much longer after her groan. Her heart rate slowed down again, and she shook her head with a small smile coming to her face as she watched him. "Hey, you want to hear something crazy?" Zach turned to his left and looked at the pink girl with longer wavy hair than she used to have, covering up more of her horns now and curling farther down below her chin on the sides. He nodded at Ashido who leaned in towards him and said in a whisper like she was gossiping, "At the end of last year, Momo got asked to U.A.'s prom by, one of the seniors."

Zach perked up in surprise and looked at Ashido in an interested way, and then he stood up and looked back at his wall. "Huh," he said. "Well, of course she did. She's beautiful and smart, and there are less girls than guys who go to U.A. statistically so second years going isn't very rare." Zach dipped his paintbrush in the almost empty bucket and reached up to get the top of his wall with at least one coating of paint before they were finished.

Ashido was getting excited though, more from the first interested expression on Zach's face than the follow up explanation. "She didn't go though," Ashido added. Zach turned to her and Ashido continued while turning back to the wall herself to paint the final area they had missed. "Momo told him no. I wound up going with him instead, and Momo just stayed home." With that last part, Ashido was also mentioning that it was not just the guy Yaoyorozu said no to but that she had not gone at all. Ashido pretended to be fully focused on the wall and like what she was saying was just some gossip she thought to tell him. Although that was not very convincing, Zach appeared not to care about what she was doing as he looked back at the wall and hummed in a thoughtful way. "Wonder why she said no?" Ashido said in a tone as if it were a complete mystery to her.

"Yeah," Zach said. "Was it fun?" He asked, looking back at the pink-haired girl who frowned for a moment that he was not going to fall for her bait and say something incriminating to her. She changed her expression though after a second and nodded, before excitedly telling him all about what the prom was like. She made sure to mention how students from other high schools had shown up there, though Zach showed less of a reaction this time as she said it which made her hum at him for hiding the excited feeling she knew he felt.

Zach cut off his music, since it was actually getting pretty late and he had seen a couple of people walking by the front windows of his apartment over to their door a little while ago. They finished up painting as quickly as they could, talking all the while about their lives over the past year and a half that the other did not know enough about yet. Zach leaned back on the top of his couch and looked around the main room of his apartment they just painted. There was no paint left over to go paint his bedroom that was the same color that the living room used to be, but it was enough for now. "You were right," Zach said as he and Ashido leaned back on the couch back together. "Blue is much better… though admittedly, anything would have been better than that-"

"I knew you noticed!" Ashido exclaimed at the boy who had acted like there was no problem with it when she first got there earlier.

Zach shrugged and laughed while turning away and towards his kitchen. "Want to eat dinner here?" He asked, glancing over his shoulder at his friend who looked his way in surprise at the question.

She thought about the state of his counter when he got there, and she asked with a wily look, "A cup of ramen isn't exactly…" Ashido stared at Zach in confusion, as when he was rounding the corner around his counter he gained a smirk at what she was saying to him. Ashido pushed off the couch and stepped towards the kitchen but stopped and gawked at him at what he started pulling out. "No way- did you have… wait a second- wait a-" Zach pulled out a plastic bag, with the name of a store she recognized from the mall they went to earlier. "When?! How?!"

Zach put a finger to his lips after she exclaimed that loudly while he was pretty sure his neighbors were all home. "While you were getting the paint, I suppose," Zach said with a shrug. "Anyway, it'll only take me twenty minutes or so to cook up a meal. It's a really good one-"

"Of course I'll stay!" Ashido called over, running up to the counter and leaning over it excitedly. "I didn't know you knew how to cook."

"Well I didn't cook often while I was gone," Zach began. He unloaded some meat and vegetables, then pried apart some plastic that he had new silverware inside of including a knife for cutting vegetables. Using his fingernails on the plastic was tough when one hand was covered in a glove, so Zach put his left hand down into his waistband for a second and pulled out a different knife he already had on him. The thin black switchblade popped the knife part out and Zach quickly slid it along the edge of the plastic to get his utensils out easier. He pressed a button on the knife hilt that pulled the blade right back in, then he tucked it back into his waistband and in a special pouch just inside that kept it from falling. Zach continued after making that quick movement, "I knew it was a good skill to learn though, and this was definitely the recipe to remember if I needed to know one. I got it from the mystical land of Doitslandia."

"Really?" Ashido asked. She hummed at Zach and rose her eyebrows up, and Zach lifted his gaze and met hers.

He looked her in the eyes for a few moments and then rose his eyes up to the ceiling. "Well… maybe it was Germany. One of the two." Ashido's bottom lip dropped as he went back on it like that so easily, though then she sweatdropped as she thought about the name of that fake kingdom and realized it sounded a lot like Germany (doitsu in Japanese).

The pink girl shook her head at the boy cooking for her, then she asked while putting her arms folded down on the counter and leaning forward over them, "What were you doing there?"

"Same thing I did everywhere else," Zach replied. He turned and walked over to his stove for a second, continuing to cook the meal he had not described to Ashido yet but that she was watching him make almost as closely as she was listening to him. "Vigilantism." He pushed some chopped veggies into a pot of boiling water using the knife he chopped them with, then dragged the knife along the edge of the cutting board to get off the last bits sticking to it. "I know you heard I was in Germany at one point, but I actually went a couple of times. The time I went for cooking classes though was by far the hardest…" Zach started describing a story about the journey he went on to learn about this amazing recipe, which was a cool story that had Ashido laughing and clutching at her stomach at parts of it.

"What are you even- ah haha, what are you talking about?" Ashido asked through her laughter at one point. She shook her head but Zach gave her a look like he was being completely serious which just made her laugh harder. He lifted his lips into a small smile too after a few seconds of her just laughing at him. "Maybe it was the magical land of Doitslandia after all, because there's no way you went on a 'quest for the key ingredient' while the whole world was looking for you!"

Zach nodded with a tilt of his head to the side. His smile lowered back down though, and he looked away to the other side of the kitchen to do something about the meal while facing away from Ashido. _I need to think more about what I'm going to tell her in advance. Zach would freely talk to her without worrying about lying unless it was about something important, or something she might tell people. She might tell anyone anything though, unless I ask her not to go spreading rumors. I've already said so much though that I did want her to spread around, or that I made sure would be better if she did tell the others. I could make it clear she shouldn't go around talking about things I say. Zach wouldn't have just come out and told her either. The person she knew, is the one she still thinks she knows. That's who I am now though. Truth can help then, more than lying could._

"Thing is," Zach started, while checking on the stew he was making with a plastic spoon he just bought. He blew on it a couple times and sipped to see how it tasted, then he grabbed the salt shaker next to his stove and shook a little more into the pot. "It would've been hard for me to do that 'quest' here while everyone was looking for me, but more people were actually looking for me in Terra." Ashido lowered her lips down a little, a somewhat confused look on her face as she did not know whether or not it really was Germany he got the recipe from. What he said distracted her more though, and she tensed up at the look on the side of his face as he stirred the pot.

Zach turned off the stove and he got to work finishing up his meal. "Oh! I'll set the table," Ashido said, running around the counter to get in the kitchen and closer to Zach. "Never had a boy make me a home-cooked meal before," Ashido joked with a playful elbow into Zach's side as she came up near the stove.

She reached for the tasting spoon Zach had used before, but he grabbed it first and shook his head. "I'll make you a bowl," Zach said, giving her a small grin when she pouted at not being able to taste it sooner.

Ashido sighed though and told him she was expecting greatness now after he had hyped it up so much. She got some of the new silverware Zach had out on the counter and brought it over to the kitchen table, and when she turned around she stared in surprise as Zach was already walking over with two bowls full of the stew-like dish. "That was-" she began, but she was too confused and looked back over at the pot and then the bowls again that Zach filled up so quickly while she was turned around.

The wavy-haired girl frowned and she moved for her seat, giving Zach a suspicious eye at how quickly he filled their dishes. She was also wondering about where the recipe was from, but out of all they were just talking about there was one thing tugging at her the most that she wanted to ask about. "How were more people looking for you in Terra?" Ashido asked. She sat down and turned her head to the side to look at him suspiciously, "The whole world was on the lookout for Lifebringer here."

"Yeah, and that world probably didn't have the population this one does," Zach admitted with a nod of agreement. "But I guess what I meant to say was, they were looking _harder_ for me." He sat down but did not touch his spoon to start eating yet. In his peripheral vision he could see his front and back windows, around all the wet walls of his apartment, and down the narrow hall to his bathroom and bedroom. His eyes were locked on Ashido's black ones though and he continued at her confused look, "My enemies, always hunting me. It was safer in this world than in that one."

"But, even here," Ashido started.

"Maybe now," Zach replied to what she was starting to say. "But before I left, before all the villains in the world were terrorized by Death, and before everyone started saying that I was him, it was safer for me to be here. And still actually," Zach added, his voice getting softer. "That world was just… it's always safer in this world than that one."

 _I believe you._ "Was that world, really so bad?" Ashido asked. Zach started to smile again and shake his head, but Ashido did not want to hear a fun story about dragons this time. Nor did she want to hear a quest for the ingredients for a great recipe, which neither her nor Zach had started eating yet. "You said there were always wars going on in that world, right?" Zach lowered the smile he was raising and closed his mouth, and Ashido pursed her lips at the dark look that flashed over his face at the question. _I believe you, but you don't tell me- you never tell me the hard things. We talked all day about, about anti-heroes and your time in that world and this one but… but I saw your body. I saw…_ "Did you kill anyone else?"

Zach froze where he sat. His eyes had shifted down to his bowl at the mention of 'wars,' and he was waiting for Ashido to ask a more serious question. His heart pounded in his chest though, as it was not the question he was expecting and threw off the plans he had been making in his head. _Keep staring at it like this and she'll know the answer! You have to answer fast if you want to be convincing!_ Zach's irises turned red as he stared at his bowl, as his mind suddenly needed to race with way more thoughts than he had time for when hesitating would mean one answer that he did not know if he wanted to go with. _Say no! Quickly! The truth doesn't_ _ **start**_ _with that and get easier, it'll only get worse and you have to build to it! If you ever say it, it has to be-_ Zach's eyes lost their red glow, his teeth unclenching behind his lips.

Ashido stared at the top of Zach's head and his forehead, then down into his eyes that became less shadowed over as he lifted them to her. Unshadowed or not, they were dark. His expression was not cold or angry or upset though, he just stared at her in a dark way and with sadness in his those hazel eyes. "I went to war," Zach replied, not the 'yes' or 'no' Ashido was expecting to hear when she asked. "But I…" _Not "never," because there were times._ "…fought most battles, without…" _Saying "killing" here implies I did kill in those other ones._ "…hurting anyone. Our goal wasn't to hurt the enemy's soldiers, because it was impossible to tell all of their stories. And some, I assumed, didn't choose to fight for the Arcasians of their own free will. Some weren't as bad as the worst soldiers in the Arcasian army. They weren't the types to go around slaughtering villages, raping the women and enslaving the young. Some were honorable. My enemies."

 _He never answered the question,_ Ashido thought, her own eyes darkening and lowering to her dinner for a second. "In a war, both sides are usually at fault," Ashido began. "War isn't the way to…" she trailed off, as she did not know enough about the situation to continue what she was saying. "On Earth at least," she continued, raising her eyes to Zach's and giving him a more stern look. "There isn't any reason why things can't be handled with diplomacy, or by heroes. I wish that world, could've fixed their problems without going to war."

"This world hasn't had a war in a long time," Zach said. "But there were times in our past too when war was inevitable. When one side was the clear aggressor."

"Yeah but," Ashido started. She frowned again but lowered her gaze as she tried to counter him on something she really did not know much about. She shook her head though and rose her eyes back up after that second, "Even the sides who thought they were right, even looking back now and saying they were probably in the right, both sides suffer in every war. Even the winning sides in our history who were so 'right' for fighting back, for going to war against the 'aggressors,' they never won without, becoming-"

"What their enemies were?" Zach asked. Ashido pursed her lips as he finished with what she did not want to say in such a harsh way. They could each think about their own history with that though. To Zach, it was something he held very close to heart. Something he had thought about a long time ago, when he put a picture of Hiroshima in 1945 on a wall in front of his closest comrades. _Mark, Akhmed, Cee, Grabble, Access, Hank… So many who were in that room are dead._ "You're right," Zach said, his voice low and his expression darker now. "But I knew that. I-" Zach bit down hard with his eyes unfocused down at the table. "And I was in charge," Zach continued, saying it in one breath and biting down again while Ashido stared at him with wider eyes.

"I knew the history of our world, so even fighting a war in a world like _that_. Even fighting a war against warriors, and soldiers, in a world where people knew combat and warfare differently than the way I wanted to do things… I knew that we might go too far. I knew that once we won, if we won, people would praise us for the way we did it. And for hundreds of years, people would look to the way we won and say 'It was worth it for the victory they obtained.' And I _knew,_ " Zach paused and grit his teeth so hard. He thought about being in the bottom of the Dragon's Den that day, a black sword in hand as his captured enemies were clustered in front of him. And he pictured himself stabbing that sword into the floor instead of the one who killed Cee, his friend who had just died in his arms. "I didn't want us to win like that," Zach finally said after the pause. "It was war, but I fought it trying to stay as heroic as I could-"

"That's amazing," Ashido said. Zach froze and his eyes widened for a moment, his teeth clenching that she interrupted him there. She did not notice that shift on his face though as he had looked down again, and it was a subtle flinch he made while Ashido was smiling too much and feeling too amazed to care. "I'm sure it must have been hard to fight like that. But it was the right thing to do."

"Yeah, it was…" Zach's voice was low and it made the girl's smile slowly lower too. "But there were times," Zach paused and he lifted his gaze to meet Ashido's again. "There were times when my soldiers' lives were on the line, or the lives of innocents… or my own life. I couldn't risk them, just to play by the-" Zach shook his head, and he looked away to the wall on his right side just next to his fridge. His answers were vague, and he knew it but couldn't think of a better way to answer her question. He stared at the wall because it was easier than looking at Ashido's face, so much hope in her eyes that he would not give her reasons to doubt him. He didn't want to watch that face too closely and just kept it in the corners of his eyes instead, so he wouldn't be focused on it with his whole heart if it did lose that hope. He spoke in a far-off voice though, as his main focus pushed from Ashido to what he was going to tell her about. "Quirk warfare, has never existed in this world. We were too advanced already by the time Quirks spread around the world, and even in that chaotic time afterwards, we never had real wars."

Ashido opened her mouth to mention how fighting villains was itself like war, as she thought back on a few of the fights she had had over the past years. She specifically thought about a fight she had had in Musutafu the previous January when villain attacks were at near an all-time high. The chaos of the battle against the Stain Cult filled her mind, as much of it as she could remember at least before she had been hit. _Grater,_ her right side ached, and she frowned more instead of speaking. _I was so convinced I would be alright. That day, even if I had died… but you were, you were out killing more people? If you were leading then I thought, maybe, it wasn't what I knew war meant-_

"But you can't imagine what it's like, fighting tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands…" Zach shook his head, and images flashed in front of his eyes as he continued staring away to his right. Everything got blurry and his voice got colder, darker, "In cities and on fields…" In front of Zach's eyes flashed a field, in the middle of Tibet. In front of him stood thousands, behind him was the flaming wreckage of The Cloak, and below him was a pile of bodies. The sky was dark and bending, mountains were rising and breaking apart, cracks splitting through the earth around him. And as he pictured those things his mouth started moving, "The entire landscape ripping apart and burning. People dropping like flies and their bodies lying everywhere."

Ashido's breath caught in her throat and she was stuck not breathing with her eyes shaking as she stared at the scar-covered boy across the table from her. "And no matter how many wounds we sustained, no matter how many thousands of enemies ambushed us, we couldn't run away. I wouldn't let us," Zach bit down furiously at that last sentence. His eyes shook and he heard screams in his ears. When the communications finally came back up after the EMP, Zach could hear his comrades all over that battlefield they had turned into pure chaos. "My men fought for me. They were willing to die for me, for my cause, for the chance to make that world a better place and defeat the Queen." Zach's jaw clenched up and he said in a voice full of regret, and pain, "How could I go so easy on my enemies, while my comrades were being killed around me?"

"Because you're a good person," Ashido cut in, before Zach could scold himself any more for what she thought was the right thing. She leaned forward when he rose his gaze to hers again, and Ashido panted for another second as before she said that to him she had been holding her breath for too long. "And, I know, you did what was right. What you thought was right!"

 _That's not true though,_ Zach thought, his eyes looking painfully back at Ashido. _I did the opposite, so often. What I thought was wrong. I did what I knew was wrong, as long as it could make for a better future. She wouldn't understand that. Don't try to explain it. She's already trying, so hard._ "But being the right person was hard, in a war like that," Zach continued. He kept his eyes on Ashido this time, as he continued, "I decided that we couldn't run even in the most hopeless situations, and I also decided that we needed to fight more like the 'good guys.'" _As often as possible._ "But if I was going to be so greedy, demand so much from all my comrades, then I had to be able to protect them. So I became a master of Quirk warfare."

Ashido almost smiled at the sound of that. She leaned back and her lips almost lifted up at the corners, but Zach was not bragging to her in a joking way like she thought he was. The shift in tone was not to a jokingly serious one instead of a dark one, it was just serious. He sounded serious, more serious than he had sounded all day. "Strategy, maneuvers, flanking patterns and decoys, relationships between our enemies, knowing who could be used against who… And in the actual fighting itself, there were so many weapons I needed to be prepared to fight against. So many ways our enemies could fight, that I needed to be ready for. Spear and shield, sword and bow, ax and mace, fire Quirks and ice Quirks, control over lightning and wind, sludge and lava… blood and dreams… bending time, and space… and reality… dimensions." Zach's right hand was on the edge of the table, clenching down hard on it the whole time he was speaking. As he mentioned the word 'dimensions' though, his index and middle fingers lifted up and tapped down, then lifted up again and tapped.

Zach did not notice his fingers started tapping. He barely noticed that voice in the back of his head either, the one that started counting softly behind the rest of his thoughts. Ashido saw him tapping though, his face losing all focus and his concentration shattering. Then Zach's eyes looked down at his fingers though, because he heard the counting and felt his fingers moving. He froze with them lifted up off the table, his eyes huge staring down at them with his heart beating so calmly despite what he realized he was doing.

"What's the coolest Quirk you saw?" Ashido asked. Zach lifted his head back up and looked at the girl who he just listed off so many different powers to, some that definitely required more explaining. His right hand lowered off the table and he hummed, his expression completely changing as he tried to think of it. Ashido's expression had changed before she asked, but her heart was still pounding in her chest and she could only hide the pained look he never saw on her face. _I just needed to dislodge him,_ Ashido thought, which immediately confused her as to her own phrasing of 'dislodge.' Her heart just thumped in her chest harder though, at the genuine look on his face a few seconds ago of being completely lost. _From what was he just dislodged?_

"I haven't told you about Docy, have I?" Zach asked, lifting the right corner of his lips in a knowing look that he had not told her already. He reached for his spoon as he smirked like that, and he started talking all about the leprechaun he met in Terra which dislodged Ashido's own conflicted thoughts as she got dumbstruck instead. Then she was distracted further as she finally ate some of Zach's dinner and shouted that it was great, eating more quicker while still focusing on the story of the leprechaun. Zach decided to leave out some of the parts about the horrible history of leprechauns that he had told his prison guards though, instead staying vague with Docy's past and instead going much more in depth on the amazing dimension that Docy dragged him and Fraisha into once.

"You mentioned Fraisha earlier too," Ashido cut in when Zach was talking to some crazy thing that happened to his comrade in Docy's pocket dimension. "You seem to have spent a lot of time with her, hmm?"

"Yeah, I did," Zach replied, shrugging like it was no big deal even though he saw what Ashido was hinting at. He sighed and shook his head at her expectant look, and he said, "She was into me, but we had a war to fight. She understood that, and we never did anything."

Ashido frowned like Zach's story was boring then, but internally she smiled at the idea of it even if he did not give the reasoning that she would have liked better. "But she was a girl you were close with, right? There must have been some feelings there," Ashido hinted at it harder again, bouncing her eyebrows and taking another bite of his food while grinning at him.

Zach rolled his eyes at Ashido and continued away at his own food, not going to let her bait him into anything here. He brought the mood of their conversation back up though, talking about stories that were clearly more light-hearted and that he would have no problem with her going around and telling other people about. Zach got back to talking about the food, and then the journey he went on in Doitslandia that Ashido asked about in an interested way now that they had darted around the topic so many times. Zach kept the information about his recipe to a minimum, as he had already admitted earlier that it could have been in Germany and he was just mistaken, as much of a joke as that had been. He could tell she was still thinking of it as he talked though, as if checking on his story, and so his tale of Doitslandia stayed a lot more on fighting against one of the Queen's Generals.

"…and when I'm talking a Gigantism Quirk, I'm not talking Mt. Lady size. I didn't know how big he could get, but I kept telling myself it was better if he got even bigger because it would be an easier target to hit with some Death. Apparently I needed a lot more Death to take down something that size though, which I wish I had known beforehand-"

 _ **Brring-ding ding doo. Brring-ding ding dee. Brring-ding ding doo. Brring-ding ding dee. Brring-ding d-**_ Ashido pulled out her phone and she grimaced as she turned off her alarm. She looked back at Zach and then shook her head saying, "It's nothing. How'd you beat him if-"

"Do you, have to go back?" Zach asked. _Don't want her getting in trouble, or they might not let her come out again. You should think ahead more often,_ Zach kept that bit to himself but from Ashido's hesitation he knew he was right.

"I can probably stay longer," Ashido began to counter back. "Besides, I want to hear the rest of your story! Even if you beat him, the rest of his army was still guarding that city and the POW camp, right? How'd you do it?"

"I'll tell you," Zach began. He pushed back from his table and stood up. He reached down and grabbed their empty dishes, as they had been finished for a while now which neither of them noticed as they had been to into the conversation. Ashido started to frown as she felt like he was going to finish with 'some other time.' Zach continued though as he headed over to his sink, "On the way to U.A." He glanced over his shoulder as he said it, and he added to the surprised girl staring at his back, "Just because you have to be back at a certain time, doesn't mean I need to be here when that comes."

"Are you sure?" Ashido asked, though she was smiling and did not sound very against it.

Zach nodded again while looking down into his sink, a small smile on his face as he poured water into their dishes. Ashido came over with some of their silverware and their water cups, and she put them in the sink while standing right up on Zach's side. "I'm glad," she said, her voice quiet as she mentioned it. Then she rose a bigger smile and added, "Because now you can finish that story, and tell me what you did once you beat General Yurniko."

"Yuriniko," Zach corrected, still grinning as he continued to wash his dishes. "And I don't know if I'll get that far. Defeating him was no easy task, and the time it took us to recover from it meant his forces had more time to prepare. Enough time, that his lieutenants were able to pick one to lead them and spearhead the defense of their position…"

Zach told Ashido a story. He told her it through their cleaning up after dinner, and he continued as they got on their jackets and gloves and hats. It was already dark out. It was winter so it got dark early, but they had also been hanging out for a long time, longer than it felt to either of them. The two headed outside and down to the street they walked on at a leisurely pace towards the train station. Ashido was already planning on being late, so she was fine with taking her time now that she knew she would probably make it when she was supposed to.

Zach had on a hat that covered his hair still a bit spiky from when he did it that morning. He had on two matching gloves now, so no attention would be drawn to his hands either. His jacket's collar covered up most of his neck, and in the dark it was not so easy for other passerbys to see scars on Zach's face and recognize instantly the biggest celebrity in the nation. There was one group walking past them on the sidewalk to the train station though who recognized Ashido and called out excitedly that they heard she was with Lifebringer earlier that day. Zach then greeted the group who were somehow shocked that the one walking with her actually was Lifebringer even after they just shouted it, though it sounded a bit to the younger two that the group might've pre-gamed and were on the way to a bar.

They continued on to the train station, with Ashido reminding Zach where he was in the story. That interruption was one of the few times she was not happy with people recognizing her outside of school, and she rushed the conversation with that group despite the time she had as she wanted to know what happened next in Zach's epic battle against General Yuriniko's army. "…it was one of the first times I used this strategy that I would utilize again during the Battle of the Six Armies. They didn't know my men were already inside their walls until it was too late, and the sabotage was complete-"

"What's the Battle of the Six Armies?" Ashido asked curiously, tilting her head to the side as she had not heard him mention that name before. The name alone made her feel a bit anxious, but his look after she asked made her gulp at his expression.

"It was," Zach began. He glanced to his side at her, and then he looked back forward and said, "It was the largest battle of the war. All the Queen's strongest remaining forces came at me at once. She still had a lot of armies left, but she knew if I was allowed to keep fighting using my tactics for any longer that I would defeat her for sure. So she sent them on the offensive, and we met in an open field for the most devastating battle of the war. It was almost, the crushing blow. But we held on," Zach continued, his voice strong as he told the story with his eyes shifting to the girl next to him. _How will she think of me talking about this? How would she mention it to other people? Zombieman- What is Ashido thinking right now- Slipspa- Focus!_

"After that battle though, it was a clear shot at the Queen's capital. We were already on the border of actual Arcasia, the original kingdom that existed before the Doorway girl took over as Queen and started expanding all across Terra…"

Ashido nodded and got back into the story herself, enjoying it more when he talked about them like epic tales than the few moments he would get too serious. They got to the station, and the two of them got tickets for the shinkansen (bullet train) back to Musutafu. It was a little after rush hour, but the train was still plenty packed. Ashido and Zach still found a pair of seats next to each other though, and Ashido gave Zach the window seat since she did not want other people around the train to see him and start talking, which would interrupt the two of them.

Two and a half hours flew by, and the two of them got off the train together at Musutafu's shinkansen station. Ashido ran up to an electronic board after disembarking, and she checked the times of the next trains before turning back to the boy who had come with her all the way from Yutapu. "Next train back's in ten minutes."

"There's another in thirty," Zach countered, and he motioned with a nod towards the exit of the station he knew well. Ashido smiled for a second before opening her mouth to say that he didn't need to walk with her all the way back. Zach spoke up first though and turned to start walking as he did, "What kind of gentleman would I be if I let you walk home alone at the end of our date?"

"This wasn't a date!" Ashido exclaimed as she ran up on Zach's side.

Zach glanced to his left and saw the pout covering Ashido's face, and he knew why she was so against him calling it that. _Same reason she brought up the prom earlier. You really, want it to happen. Things won't just go back though. As much as you want them to be the same,_ Zach shrugged at the girl next to him and kept smiling like he used to when the two of them were together. _Not everyone can forgive and forget that easily. I'm sure, even you have things you're holding back right now._ "I'm sure that's not how the tabloids are going to see it," Zach countered.

"Uggh," Ashido groaned. Zach feigned a hurt look that she would be so annoyed by that, but Ashido pouted at him and complained, "Now all the cute boys are going to avoid me. Who wants to try anything with _Lifebringer's_ girlfriend? You're going to scare them all away!"

Zach laughed at her reasoning, and Ashido started laughing too after a second as she was just joking with him. As much as it sounded realistic and might actually be true, she laughed because if that happened it wouldn't matter much if that was all the cost of being able to hang out with Zach.

The two of them went out on the street and walked together in the direction of U.A. Zach's feet felt heavier the closer they got to the high school, and when it actually became visible a few blocks down when they turned a corner, he stopped for a second and took a sharp intake of breath. There were still cars on the road, and some people on the sidewalks too, but no one was looking for Lifebringer in the middle of Musutafu when the news had already made it known across the country where he was going to start school in a few days. _There it is,_ Zach thought, at the sight of U.A.'s front gates still so far away but closer than he had ever thought to see them again.

"Brings back some memories, doesn't it?" Ashido asked after Zach paused like that.

He nodded and started walking forward again, but the mood of their conversation had gotten a little heavier since they got off the train. There was a strange feeling they both felt with him being so close to U.A. again. Zach stared towards his old high school and in his head he saw the place from the other side, when the bus snuck out to take their class to the Enudora Forest. That last look over his shoulder had echoed in his mind for a long time, and every time he thought about it… _That was the last time. That was, the last time I ever thought I would see this place. I never thought I'd be back here. Even just this close to campus. Within shouting distance. I don't think I should get any closer._

"I had fun today," Zach began quietly.

"Oh just a little further," Ashido said, waving a hand to the side at him that he was saying that too early. The times before she was the one offering up for him to break off earlier, but now that he was so close, she had an optimistic feeling surging in her chest that was wavering now. "You know," she spun around and kept walking backwards on the sidewalk in front of Zach. "I bet we could get you a pass inside for a little. I don't know, thirty minutes?" Zach kept walking slowly, his eyes raising over Ashido's head and to the gates behind her and the school past it. "You said you didn't need to be back at any specific time, and there are circumstances where people outside of U.A. can get passes, and-"

"Not today," Zach said, shaking his head at the girl in front of him who stopped walking backwards and lowered her smile down at his response.

 _But if not today,_ Ashido thought, her heart racing faster and her head turning to follow Zach as he walked back up on her side. _Then when?_

"Zach," Ashido began as he walked past her. She spoke softly, but her tone had Zach staring farther away and not wanting to look back at her. "All day," Ashido continued, then she held her tongue and cursed internally as she looked at the back of Zach's head. _It was fun! I had fun… Why can't things just, be like that? It's because, because a relationship like that is just so, fake._ "We spent all day together, and I still don't feel like-" Zach turned his head and looked back into her eyes. Ashido shook her head and ground her teeth, her eyes regretful despite the fact that she was going to push on with this. "I don't know anything. You didn't tell me, anything."

"I did," Zach whispered, looking sadly back at the girl who he had been talking to all day. _Does she not believe any of it? Was I wrong all day? It felt like she was retaining it and thought I was being real. I got too comfortable around her though. I need her to know. The things she was holding back, she couldn't last. She couldn't just be the one person to not care._ "All of it was real," Zach said to the girl who pursed her lips hard at the response.

"You don't need, to pretend that much with me," Ashido countered. Zach just kept frowning sadly like he was upset that she did not believe his truth, and that made Ashido grind her teeth for a second before getting a sadder look herself. "I know, Zach. I'm not as ditzy and dumb and you think-"

"I don't think you are," Zach said firmly, frowning more at her and giving her as serious a look as he could.

Ashido froze for a second with her mouth still open, not expecting him to counter her so forcefully. His expression was serious too, which just made her grumble in even more frustration as she believed the look, and she believed he didn't think of her like that. "Then don't treat me like I am," she whispered. She lowered her gaze for a moment down to his feet, and she said through a strained voice, "I saw you. All of you, that day on the bridge." She rose her eyes back to meet his, and she shook her head at his steady look despite what she was imagining under his clothes. "I saw wounds and scars so horrible, and I believe it when you mentioned at the hospital that you had to wear a collar for a time."

 _She, isn't asking about-_

"And all those stories today," Ashido began. She shook her head and stepped closer to the boy next to her on the empty sidewalk. She looked up at his face from up close and whispered quieter but in a strong voice, "I do believe you. The things you were saying, I believe you were telling me the truth. But it's never the full truth. It's never _real._ " Zach's eyes widened while looking down into Ashido's, and she continued up at him as she saw that change. "When you omit all the bad, when you pretend like those stories were all fun adventures," Ashido scrunched up her face and glared into his eyes. "Do you really think I couldn't handle hearing them?" She asked, then her scrunched up look turned less accusatory, and Zach's eyes widened even more at the water in the bottom of hers. "Were they all really, that bad? That you had to spend all day talking about the good parts, leaving out everything that matters-"

"I didn't know, you realized," Zach whispered. Ashido froze and her eyes shot open wide. She did not even realize before she started speaking what she was going to say, and when it all came pouring out she had not thought much about any of it before. Even when he had told her the stories, she had preferred to just move right past it whenever she noticed. "I should have left in a little more, to make it more believable."

 _When you got so serious,_ Ashido thought as she saw Zach's regretful look that he was caught. His eyes shifted to the floor, and she pursed her dried lips again in the cold winter air. _And when you talked about the bad things that happened, how it was really "war" and not just fighting villains, I could see it. As many of the details were skewed to make it less dark for me though, you weren't lying._

"The story in Doitslandia, just wasn't as fun a story if it wasn't the crazy, funny adventure I told you about." Zach paused after looking back into Ashido's eyes. He glanced to his right over at U.A. that they were so close to, and his face scrunched up himself with a look like he needed to hold back more.

"Everyone wants to hear about what really happened," Ashido whispered, making Zach spin back to her and his face to just get more held-back at that response. "But," Ashido continued. "For whatever reason you want to keep hiding things, I won't go around telling them what we talked about. I'll keep it to myself."

"General Yuriniko, captured a bunch of my comrades," Zach started. Ashido froze in confusion for a second before lowering her bottom lip as Zach continued, "My enemies never knew much about us, so they tortured my friends for information. My comrades knew I could bring them back if I got there in time, but to give me more time they had to hold out as long as possible. I don't know if that was more incentive not to get killed, or if the idea I was coming made them just want to die quicker, but they were butchered and couldn't hold back the information they knew. Not all of it at least. No matter how brave, no one can withstand torture forever." Zach paused for a second, but then he continued to the girl who wanted to know more about this, "Each time I brought one of them back, I felt all of that torture. Six of my comrades at once, all killed brutally. The General killed others in the meantime, and he was able to avoid us because of the information he had gotten out of them. Before we had his forces cornered in that city, before that fight, he put an entire village to the sword. And I was too late, because he knew our positions… I could have gone after him from the start. When we found those six dead comrades, I knew Yuriniko had just fled. I didn't send anyone after him though. Because I needed to stay back to revive our friends, and I didn't want my comrades to go without me there to protect them or revive them if needed."

Zach paused and he grit his teeth in so much frustration that it was hard for Ashido to look at. She leaned back at that look on his face, as he hissed out through clenched teeth, "We had to walk over those bodies, to get to Yuriniko. Literally walk past them… and I knew each of those innocent people died because I was too slow. I took too much time to get to him. People die when I was too slow. Children," Zach whispered at the end and he pulled his own face back with regret filling his expression. "Not killing Yuriniko was hard," Zach whispered. "But he and his men needed to face trial for their war crimes. I knew that, but he deserved to die. It wasn't up to me to deliver justice to the enemies I defeated though. I left that to others. I left him to others, because I needed to get moving to the next enemy before they killed anyone else. I needed to be _faster…_ but I was never fast enough, and thousands of innocent people died in that war. Tens of thousands died, because I wasn't fast enough in stopping them all."

"It's not your…" Ashido began. Zach stared into her eyes and Ashido's got so much softer though she held back any tears. She just looked sadly up into Zach's eyes, knowing she had failed because her expression gave away how she was feeling. She knew the way she looked now, was the reason Zach had kept his mouth shut about this all day. As much as she wanted to hide it though, she was not very good at masking how she was feeling. "Was everything that year, always this dark?"

Zach's lips rose back up at the corners and he said, "It wasn't." She stared into his eyes in surprise, at the genuine smile and happy look on his face. "Fraisha, Docy, Vucre, Iranda, all my comrades I told you about, the friends I made, they were real too. Even in a world that dark, you need friends to keep pushing forward and to keep pushing you forward. And we did good. I'm sure the good we did, is making it so that so many people are living happily in that world. And if they can be happy because of me, then I'm glad I had to see those bad things if that's what got me there. I don't regret anything that happened before either now. As sorry as I am for some of it, everything I did brought me to the place where I could save the most people."

Ashido smiled brightly at her taller friend, "I'm really happy." Zach looked into her black and yellow eyes, and Ashido continued in a quiet voice, "After the 'Lifebringer Incident,' I got real sad for a while. I pretended like I was okay with it, that I was happy because you weren't… I don't know. But I was sadder than anyone actually, because I never knew how hard you had taken everything." Zach's eyes got softer as the girl in front of him shook her head to try and hold those tears back.

"I was never able to help you," Ashido said, her voice cracking for a second before she sucked in a deep breath to get ahold of herself. She looked back at him with a soft smile again and added after taking that breath break, "I know Kirishima felt the same way." Zach turned his head to the right again to look over at U.A.'s gates. "You should talk to him," Ashido added.

Zach nodded his head. "I will."

"I wish I had noticed back then," Ashido continued, her voice dipping back down which made Zach turn to her again. "Wish I could have helped you before that day, before you suddenly left us." Ashido sniffled in and lowered her eyes to the floor as she was speaking about the thing she regretted the most in her entire life. "But I didn't see anything wrong- we were close and yet I-"

Zach's right hand pressed down on top of Ashido's head. His glove no longer had a way for his fingers to even slide out of the fingers, and Zach preferred to use his right hand as he put the soft contact on top of her hair. "It's alright," Zach said. Ashido rose her head, bringing her hands up for a second to move his hand away before seeing that it was his right hand which made her eyes open wide. She sniffled after though, an even sadder look over her face and her arms dropping back to her sides. Zach's look softened more and he pushed down on the front of Ashido's hair before saying in a lower voice, "It's no one's fault but my own, what I did. You have nothing to be sorry for." Ashido sniffled again and tried to shake her head, but Zach slid his gloved hand down to the left side of her face which kept it more facing forward.

Ashido looked up between messy waves of her pink hair and into Zach's eyes. She sniffled again and opened her mouth, but froze with it like that as he continued, "I heard all about Pinky while I was abroad. Saving people and being a cool hero, taking down the Verillio crime family from Brazil."

Ashido pulled her head back and stared at Zach in shock for a second, only to see him meeting her eyes with no hesitation in what he just said. _He really was…_ Ashido's lips started to shake. "Not to mention the Riot shipment you and Midnight stopped at that port, keeping that drug out of Japan." Ashido's eyes started watering up more, _Checking up on us, the whole time-_ "I left because I felt I needed to. Nothing you said could have stopped me. So I don't want you to feel like you messed up at all, when you've been an amazing hero all this time. Going to school, and doing things the right way, and fighting villains like… Grater."

Zach said that name after hesitating for a second, but he finished and kept his look steady even as all the breath in Ashido's lungs sucked out. She was frozen and unable to breathe, her eyes shaking at what he said which she understood, and which he could understand her expression over hearing. _It wasn't even made public, which of the villains did that to me._ She thought back on that fight last January against the Stain Cult, where Ashido had been hurt worse than any of the others heroes who survived. She remembered a blurry moment after getting hit, how unafraid she was even when Yaoyorozu looked at her in terror at what might be coming. _I thought it would be fine even if I died, but then we saw that recording of you in some convenience store in America and… and I didn't know why, I was so confident that-_

"I would have been back in a heartbeat, if I heard you were dying," Zach replied to the expression on Ashido's face, making her finally gasp in as he said something she had doubted for a year now. Where he was didn't matter, how far didn't matter, she had no idea how he knew that it was the Grater, but he knew too much that he had to have been watching. "I never stopped caring about all of you. The 'goodbye' was so you wouldn't come looking, not because I really meant it. We'll always be friends. 'Til the end, okay?" Zach's voice got softer, while Ashido was sniffling more and had tears running down both sides of her face. She gasped in as the tears dropped, looking up at Zach's face finding it hard to breathe and choking in breath after breath while watching his face with blurry vision. Zach lowered his head down to hers and he put his forehead down on hers, resting them together in a way that made Ashido gasp in again, only to sob as he whispered, "Mina?"

Ashido felt warmth through her body as he called her by her first name, just like he used to. "Mm!" She hummed affirmatively in response, unable to actually make out words as she knew her voice would crack. Tears spilled down her face and right over the smile that spread over it.

 _Oh no,_ Zach pulled his forehead back from Mina and he smiled back at the girl who sucked in a deep breath to keep control of herself. She looked happily back at him and even laughed at the water she saw in his own eyes, and Zach rose up his right arm and wiped over those eyes giving her a laugh himself. _Shit. I missed you,_ Zach lowered his arm and laughed a couple more times, before just standing there and staring at the pink girl before him. "Well, I think you need to be heading back. And I've got to get back too," Zach added after when Ashido opened her mouth quickly to respond with something.

She hesitated with pursed lips again, but then the smile re-broke out over her face and she wiped her eyes and face quickly with a sleeve. Ashido nodded at him but leaned forward with a bouncy expression on her face, "Alright. I'm sad you're not back in our class, but I'm going to be coming by a lot." She poked a finger into his chest and then spun around away from him, though she looked over her shoulder and finished, "So you better be ready."

Zach looked back at her in a glad way, and he said to the girl looking back at him, "See you soon then."

Ashido continued towards the gate of U.A., looking back forward with a satisfied smile before letting the glee cover her face. Zach watched her go and kept his expression in a good mood that would keep Ashido's if she looked back again, and he watched her closely as she headed towards his old high school. _Almost there. All you fuckers, you mother fuckers watch yourselves- but I'm not going to be here next time. The next time she walks out of this school, I'm not going to be here. In a few seconds, just a few more,_ Zach lifted a hand and waved when Ashido looked back from the gate, and she laughed and waved him back before heading inside for the main office to sign back in.

Once Ashido was out of sight, Zach's expression dropped. His beanie shadowed over his eyes with bangs being pushed down by it instead of spiking up as usual. Zach's eyes shifted to the left side of the road, then the right, and his teeth clenched in fury. _What the fuck was I doing? What was I thinking?!_ Zach turned and walked calmly towards an alleyway between two buildings. _Walking around all day with her?! Everyone saw. And, and holding her right there, I really missed her! I missed her so fucking- AND THEY KNOW!_ Zach stepped into the shadows of the alley and his body immediately covered in a veil of pitch darkness.

A black aura covered his body, and then a black blur shot up over the tops of the buildings on either side of the alley. Zach flew up high over the buildings before flapping two huge black wings out to his sides. He flapped them down and kept himself up there, flying in the sky over his hometown with a look of rage plastered over his black face. _Look at me!_ Zach's red eyes glared down over the rooftops and all around the area of the city he was just standing. _I was stupid. I knew I'd be putting people in danger coming here. I knew, it would put the people closest to me in danger, but they accept that danger because my friends are heroes. But… If you go after Mina I'm going to SLAUGHTER you! No- not slaughter._

Zach's red eyes flared and he snapped his head back and forth. _Look at me now. Whether you're heroes or villains. All of you, watching me. Everyone coming after me for whatever reasons. If you go after her… you can't imagine the things I will do to you. If you think I'm who you think I am, then look at me right now and know this. I could imagine horrible things before I left here, worse things than most of you, but I saw things out there beyond my wildest imagination. I will do to you, worse things than the worst things I've seen in this world._ Zach's fists clenched at his sides and his red eyes focused over U.A.'s walls, towards a figure heading back towards her dorm on the U.A. campus.

 _I shouldn't have said anything about Grater. That was stupid. She was too happy though, to even care about the timeline. Why did I tell her though? That was so stupid! I knew though. I knew then, she would think that I was going to bring her back to life. What if she got so hurt in that fight against the Stain Cult, because she knew I was going to bring her back? Or what if… she had just died?_ Zach's red eyes flared and he kept staring towards the girl in the distance he felt his whole body so tensed in fear over, just like it was a year ago. _Rebel hacked the hospital's systems, and I knew the exact situation. I knew you were in critical condition, and I- I wouldn't leave this part of Asia for days. I messed up our plans. I kept fighting during that time, but it would have been more efficient if I could have gone everywhere else. I wouldn't leave though. I knew it was selfish. I was putting your life over the lives of others, and you're a hero so even more I shouldn't have- but I'm just human. I had all that power, and I used it selfishly because I wouldn't have let you die._

 _I still won't let you die._

 _All of you watching me. Anyone with their eyes on me right now, or even those of you just thinking about it… Know me. Know that I am who you think I am, and if you try to go through Ashido to get to me, I'll rip you to_ _ **fucking pieces.**_ The black aura flared around Zach, and he flapped himself higher up into the sky, his wings getting larger and his body transforming into that of a massive flying beast. _I am the most powerful thing in this world, and I can do to you worse things than you can think of. If I am who you think I am, you know that I've seen the worst of this world. You know, that I'm a fucking monster. And if it comes to it, and you go after the ones I care about again, this time there will be nothing holding me back… I'll destroy you. I'll kill you. I'll drown you in your own blood. You touch her, or Momo, or any of them, and it's over. I'm the strongest in the world! TRY SOMETHING! Try it and I'll tear you asunder. I am a vengeful Death. I AM DEATH. I AM YOUR END!_

* * *

 **A/N Thanks for reading! Hope you enjoyed the chapter, and next time Zach finally heads off to his new school. Hope you're looking forward to that! Let me know what you think of this chapter in a review below. I know there wasn't much action, lots of fluff, just a nice day between Zach and Mina. Time to push forward though... Review responses:**

QuestingforBitches chapter 146 . Mar 15

Aw no. Mark was so cool. Rip Waterbender bro.

 **RIP**

GDawg4826 chapter 146 . Mar 15

Aww Mark! He and Exodus are my favorite AoD membersRIP Mr. Waterbender  
Also I'm sorry but DID ZACH LOSE AN ARM! IS THAT WHAT THAT WAS! THAT SEEMS LIKE SOMETHING THAT SHOULD'VE BEEN MENTIONED EARLIER!

 **Second RIP. And thanks for the review! As for his arm... XD**

Logargon chapter 146 . Mar 15

MARK NOOOOO and wow just how strong is EM I've gotta know more about him he's just insane and has got to either have like centuries Of experience and gun skills or a god tier quirk

 **Triple RIP. Love all the love for Mark from you guys. As for Eziano Mozcaccio... we've been hearing about him since the Sports Festival Invasion arc. All bad. Final Shadow Boss still out there Zach never managed to catch. Alive for centuries. Leader of the assassins... Though maybe he won't show up in the story again. Who knows? Lol thanks for the review!**

Super Power Sensei chapter 146 . Mar 18

Random Thoughts type of review...  
:Intriguing chapter. Great to read how Mark met Zach and why they became so close. Now when I go back read them interacting in the AoD, I get even more chills. Especially in the chapter introducing "Lawless Towns"(chapter 115), where Mark said, mostly to Manbat, "Death can do, whatever he sees fit". It's sad to know he's gone but how did he die? Mark can control other people's blood so his killer(s) must have been ridiculously strong.  
:What Mineta asked about Zach carrying a knife everywhere it got me thinking...  
You know how babies are born, they're all crying and curled up and fragile? Not Zach. He came out the womb with a knife in hand trying to stab the doctors! XD lol!  
:ZACH HAS A CYBER ARM?! THAT'S what Momo was referencing back in the hospital(chapter 141)? Damn...this guy sacrifices everything to do right. Does his arm work like the movie "I robot" where he has a spray can of synthetic skin to cover his cybernetic limb in case of surface damage?  
:Now that I think about it, please don't have the story present some type of shonen, corny, and incorrect, lesson about how "real heros" save the day without sacrifice no matter what through the power of nakama bullshit. I'd consider it insulting.  
:Can Zach use death like the susanoo from Naruto? Especially with people he has already revived?  
:Iida's brother could become a hero again using quirk finished products like Zach. Grappler and Roady too!  
:Mina's grades suffered from helping Zach get out of prison? She was WORKING for that Zach "D" lol! Again, I'm half serious.  
:Last thing, can you give Zach's new helmet an x-ray scanner? He could use it to see if people are injured and stuff.

 **Glad you liked the new chapter! Zach's been holding that knife since birth lol, he showed he's always packing this chapter too at one point. Cyber Arm! Nice catch on that reference in 141, didn't show many signs before it at all though I think I knew the general time when Zach lost it and might've started subtly referencing... As to how it works and all that stuff, well, more information will always be revealed... in time. Lol this is definitely ending with a shonen ending, you got me. Friends are our true power is the meaning of Death. I can't believe you figured me out. Anyway, lots of stuff going on, lots of stuff I don't really want to spoil, so I'll just say thanks for another review! P.S. you mentioned before about fanart, hit me up in a PM if you do want to send me some and I might make it the new story pic. The old one's a bit outdated now.**

Guessst chapter 146 . Mar 16

Love seeing the character development. Chapter 20 zach compared to chapter 146 zack is so seamlessly well done. Question, will we be seeing that dessert battle scene which I'm referring to as "the ultimate power up"? Also, why do I have a feeling Zach was trapped in the void for longer than what he told Gentle?

 **Thanks for the review! I'm glad you're liking the character development. As for that battle... no spoilers, even for future flashbacks! And nice prediction on the Void thing! We'll see about that.**

Guest chapter 1 . Mar 17

Lol can't wait for the next chapter to come up (I check multiple times daily . ) Reading Nexus in the meantime which is pretty awesome too. Sorry I don't review much but I'm usually putting things off to just finish your updates. Just so happened to see that review from the last person who hasn't even read the story and I was like... O.o? Da fuq? Shame they're going to miss out on an amazing story because they're too close minded to even give it a chance. I think they were just overwhelmed by the word count :p Anyways, loving your work and keep it up. Can't wait to see what's in store next. Have a great day and good luck with all your school stuffs.

 **Think it's awesome you're reading Nexus and liking it! Had a draft of my thesis due today (which I probably should've spent all day doing instead of finishing and editing this ;P), but that's why it took me a week to get this one out, plus it's a pretty long chapter. And thanks, for that thing about that other dude who reviewed. Kind of pissed me off too they didn't even give it a chance but still took the time out to bash it. Glad you're liking Death though, and hope you enjoyed the new chapter!**

Guest chapter 146 . Mar 18

I love seeing those picky reader view these as "boring"  
Surely they never seen a succesful and true loved fanfic story like this one  
I hope they never seen this story again though  
I didn't want those a***ole to ruin the review page with their nonsense ever again

 **Another thanks for bashing on that guy! XD You guys are great with that, and it made me smile y'all getting defensive over this. Thanks for the review too!**

GuestP chapter 146 . 1h ago

So I was looking through the reviews and saw the one that Mimhere left and I was like, "What the actual F**k?" because, they got all of that from the f***ing summary? Who the heck do they think they are? A f***ing connoisseur in summaries? Idek why people like that bother to leave a review, why is it that they want people to have bad feeling based off of a f***ing summary. Advice is you ignore the f**k out of them and continue on with the amazing work you're doing.  
In other words, you do you my dude, because what you're doing right now is amazing as heck.

 **And lastly, thanks for bashing on them once more! Lol it a 'fucking connoisseur' is exactly what I thought of as I read that review too. Took that advice, they were just scared of 1.8 million words and didn't think they could read this far. Hope you liked the new chapter too, and thanks for reviewing!**


	148. Chapter 148

**Disclaimer: I don't own Boku no Hero Academia**

 **Chapter 148:**

In a government building in Tokyo, six people gathered in an isolated room from the rest of the building. The door was locked, leaving the two heroes in the room and four hero officials from any unwanted interruptions. The four officials sat in a line in front of the young man standing before them. The twenty year old hero with blond hair was the fourth ranked hero in the nation, yet he was still only the second highest ranked of the two heroes in there. Standing behind him and leaning back on the wall was a one-armed man with red wings pulled in close to his back.

Hawks was watching the younger hero before him with his lips curved down and a tired and uncertain expression on his face. _I should have just kept my mouth shut. The kid's looking for trouble,_ Hawks grimaced more as the boy before him continued strongly in his conversation with the hero officials.

"The story I have heard from Deku does not match up with our information. And I am not talking about the information we have gathered in the Anti-Death Task Force, as we all know that is inconclusive towards Sazaki. I know this, but that is not to say we had no information about Sazaki over the period he claims to have been 'off world.'"

"As impossible as that sounds," Amazie Yuiko began. The younger of the two women on the council of officials shook her head and said, "There is no way to disprove the story he told his friends. Nor would it matter if we could, as lying to one's friends is not an offense worthy of incarceration."

"It is, if he's lying because he's talking to heroes," Lemillion countered. "He is clearly hiding what he did over the time he was gone, because what he was doing was illegal. As Death," Lemillion's expression got darker and he continued strongly to the officials before him, "he killed many people, and now he roams our streets a free man."

"A boy-"

"He's eighteen years old," Lemillion interrupted the youngest official still twice his age on the left end of the table. Lemillion's look was steady and calm, and the man who started speaking up closed his mouth and pulled back at Lemillion's strong look. "I am in the ADTF. More importantly, I am a hero of Japan. If Zach Sazaki is Death, we need to know. I have talked to Hawks about his own investigation into Lifebringer's disappearance," the hero officials looked back at the winged hero near the wall who scratched a finger on the bottom of his left cheek. "He had credible information on multiple occasions between the time when Lifebringer claimed to leave this world and when he returned, that Lifebringer was in fact here-"

"Why was this information never reported?" Hinata Juuzo said, her voice stern as she looked towards the other young hero just a little older than Lemillion.

Hawks frowned towards Mirio Togata for another second before pushing off the wall and looking to the older woman in a semi-respectful way while standing up straighter. "None of those leads ever led anywhere. They might have been credible sources," Hawks admitted, looking back at the younger blond who turned his way and frowned back undeterred. "But in the end they're nothing more than rumors if they don't pay off. I heard a bounty on Sazaki was turned in," Hawks said, shrugging a shoulder. "Thought he had died a long time ago. Obviously that was wrong."

"My interns are both very certain that Lifebringer is Death," Lemillion stated. The officials looked to the younger hero in surprise at what he just said, and Hawks looked at him too with risen eyebrows though he had heard Deku tell him that before. Lemillion's expression was harder than the others' looks in the room though. "Explosion King hasn't said it himself, but when I questioned them about it I could see they both knew without a doubt what Sazaki had been up to. We know for sure that people are hunting him."

"Whether or not he's Death," Hawks started, and he grinned when Lemillion frowned back at him. "They'd hunt him anyway because of the possibility that he was. It's not criminal to get shot at."

"I'll find proof of it," Lemillion said. He looked back at the officials in front of him, and a few of them were nodding at the younger man who looked his eyes back and forth at them all in a serious way.

Amazie frowned after nodding once at the young hero almost at the top of the rankings. "If he is Death, I hope you do find this proof. If you're caught watching Lifebringer though…"

"You'll be on the lookout for villains trying to assassinate him," Kumono Ozo began. The dark-skinned official with large black horns sticking out of his bald brown skull shook his head at the younger man. "He denied his protection detail, so the story will be that you are to prevent any collateral damage if another attack does come. Yet this is just an excuse, to be used if you are caught while you are following Lifebringer around outside of your usual hero duties."

"Your true purpose," Juuzo began. She stared at the young man right in front of her and leaned forward over her table, "Is discovering Sazaki's reason for returning to Japan. Find out what he was really doing for 13 months, and figure out if he's Death or even just one in his army. Gather proof on this and return with it."

"I will," Lemillion said, his voice confident and making the officials feel he had a good sense of what he was doing.

The oldest of the four officials, a man sitting in the middle next to Juuzo shook his head with a dark look in his green eyes. Morro Noire growled in a raspy voice, "Endeavor did not try hard enough in his investigation of Sazaki, to have removed him from suspicion of being Death so quickly. I know you are in the ADTF as well, Lemillion. However for this mission you will not be reporting to Endeavor about your tasks, as they are not officially linked with Death, and will only come to be about him should you find that proof. If you find it, you would first take it to us and we would inform Endeavor of what we find."

Lemillion nodded his head in agreement with those terms. _Endeavor thinks he knows Death better than the rest of us. He's wrong about this though, and I won't allow Death to trick this entire country into thinking he's a hero._

"This is the equivalent of spying on a private citizen of Japan," Amazie began. She looked into the younger man's eyes and continued softly, "Should you find it that he is not breaking any laws, then this is against the morals of a hero."

"That is not a problem for me," Lemillion stated. The woman saying this to him stared in surprise at the young man at his response. Lemillion continued though, "As I strongly disagree with the full pardon bestowed on him. I believe Lifebringer should be returned to jail to serve out a much longer sentence for what we know he has done, alone. _When_ I find the proof I need to send him back, I will reveal it, and the people of Japan will no longer look up to a murderer." Lemillion's expression was stern and unwavering, and Hawks sighed behind him and looked away towards the windows on one side of the room.

"We wish you luck, Lemillion."

"I hope you are wrong about him, but if you are right then we need to know."

"We will provide you with any resources you require for this operation. You must make sure though not to allow any equipment to fall into his hands that he could use as evidence against you for spying on him."

Lemillion nodded at Morro after the man said that, then he spoke up again, "I believe I already have a plan to have him confess."

"Really?" Kumono questioned in surprise.

"The country knows the students of Class A well. They trust those students as much as they trust Lifebringer. They are right to trust them however, unlike with Lifebringer. Each of those students is a young hero in the making-"

"You want them to turn on their old classmate?" Hawks questioned skeptically, stepping up towards Lemillion's side.

"Just one," Lemillion countered. "I don't need all of them," Lemillion looked at Hawks and straight into his eyes under his goggles. "Do you really think there isn't one among them who would help us?"

 _Help you,_ Hawks thought, though he did not respond against what Lemillion just said.

"Who do you have in mind?" Morro questioned, though he glanced to his side after asking as the woman on his left was staying very silent for the last minute.

"I do not believe Explosion King or Deku would be for it, but my investigation so far makes me think that Todoroki Shoto would be a perfect candidate. He has yet to meet with Sazaki from what I know, but he was at the licensing exam keeping a close eye on his former classmate." Lemillion paused and his gaze shifted to Hinata Juuzo whose expression was dark while he was talking. He looked into her eyes and finished, "I believe recruiting him for this mission would provide fast results."

"Be careful," Juuzo said. Her voice was sharp, and full of warning. The other officials looked in at the woman, and both Lemillion and Hawks looked behind the table at the older woman who had been a hero official for a very long time. Hinata Juuzo felt a hand shoving through her back and out her chest. She could see her own blood splattered out in front of her, and felt the life fade from her.

 **"…by the time they realized it, the villains would have already set up inside Japan. And, and the people will have already started trusting Goro…** **In that time of complete panic, Goro would have come to the forefront and told everyone that things were going to be alright. He'd do it for popularity, to make everyone believe in him and to get behind any policy changes that he tried to put in place. They'd believe in him so strongly as he's out there in the middle of it despite his own wounds, yelling at them that they could rise again! And after everyone believed so strongly in him, after they** _ **trusted**_ **him! If they had to learn that** _ **he**_ **was the cause of their despair the entire time… If families who had lost loved ones started believing in this man and following him and caring so much about him, only to learn that he was a monster, betraying them from the start."**

The deep, modulated voice of Death echoed in Juuzo's ears. She could not say a word aloud to the others around her, as she was sworn to secrecy along with the others who had been there that day. **"It would crush them. They'd never recover from it. Goro would be sent to prison, the people would be disillusioned, and the villains infesting Japan would get even stronger."** She would not let what had happened the day of the Sports Festival prevent her from doing her duty, but she felt her heart race as she heard Death's pained voice before he even cut off the modulator. Juuzo looked darkly down at Lemillion and spoke in a low voice, "To use his friends to spy on him, is a very dangerous thing. If he really is Death-"

"I am not afraid," Lemillion started.

"You should be," Juuzo countered. Then she shook her head and continued before he could counter with a brave speech, "But that's not the real issue. If he is Death, it might be seen as a justifiable means afterwards how you discovered his secret. But," she paused and grit her teeth for a moment thinking about the tone of the boy shouting that day through a dark helmet. Then she thought about the face of the boy she had seen before the Lifebringer Incident on the news multiple times. "Zach Sazaki has been betrayed before. Death, has been betrayed before."

Lemillion's expression shifted, confusion covering it as it sounded to him like the woman before him was speaking from experience. "You would not only put that student in jeopardy, but you risk creating something if you're wrong. That boy, and yes- he is eighteen years old, but I am very old. To me, he is still just a boy, as you are." Juuzo frowned at the young, inexperienced man and continued, "Lifebringer's closest friend turned on him before. When that happened, you think he went and turned into Death." She paused, while the others on her sides felt chills at what they knew she was getting at already. Lemillion's plans faltered in his own mind, while Hawks cracked a smirk at the older woman's reasoning here, even if it did unnerve him. "Maybe he is, maybe he isn't, but if he isn't and you do this," Juuzo paused and her expression got extremely dark. "It won't matter what your intentions were."

"Lifebringer's already lying to his friends," Kumono began, realizing something himself. He nodded towards Juuzo and then looked darkly back at Lemillion, "If the first person who manages to get him to talk, turns out to be betraying him, again… It's not only immoral, but we could very well create a monster due to our own paranoia. You must be careful not to go too far."

"Hurting Lifebringer is not just bad for him, but for you as well," Morro agreed. The older man with white hair receding back over his skull added in a more logical tone, "For your reputation, Lemillion, among a population who love Lifebringer more every day that the Lifebringer Incident gets farther behind us. And also, for our country. Lifebringer could become one of our strongest heroes, or the most terrifying villain we have seen in a long time."

"As you will be putting yourself directly in danger of facing Lifebringer, you should know this," Juuzo began. "Lifebringer _is,_ a very dangerous person. No matter if he is Death or not, know this, Lemillion. You know of the villain known as Faith, the former leader of the Cult of Stain?"

Hawks stared towards Juuzo with his expression flattening and his eyes getting deathly serious. _What is this about? Why haven't I heard about it, when Faith was my target?_

"While Sazaki was in prison," Juuzo continued, the officials on her sides getting similarly dark expressions to their faces at the information they already knew. "Faith attempted an escape. What his plans were, are still unknown to us. We do know they somehow involved Lifebringer though. Faith killed several of the guards, and came face to face with Sazaki himself."

"Why don't we know about this?" Lemillion asked harshly. "How was this kept secret?"

"Because no one escaped, and no one was hurt," Morro replied, his eyes narrowed at the young hero who sounded too accusatory there. Lemillion looked confused for a moment, then his eyes widened in surprise as he understood what that meant. "Lifebringer re-apprehended Faith, and he revived the prison guards who Faith had killed… all from inside his prison cell." The two heroes staring at Morro opened their eyes wider, Hawks' growing bigger than Lemillion's and his heart rate speeding up.

"That's," Hawks started, shaking his head slowly and then examining the officials' faces only to grimace harder as none of them were joking. "That's not very encouraging-"

"That is not all," Juuzo continued, her tone getting ever darker. "Faith now sits in a padded room, in a straightjacket that he needs to wear to prevent him from inflicting self-harm." Hawks' breathing sped up faster, Lemillion's eyes shaking at what he just heard which exceeded what he could accept already with just what they previously said.

"Why?" Lemillion asked confusedly. "Did, Sazaki's Quirk-"

"From the reports of the prison guards who were tasked with watching Sazaki inside of Tartaros, it was not his Quirk that drove Faith mad," Morro responded. The old man stared at the young hero with a harsh look that made Lemillion straighten up and stop looking so shocked by this development. Morro continued darkly and kept looking in that young man's eyes, "Instead, Sazaki decided to hand down his own form of justice, and played a mind game on that manipulator." Hawks lowered his bottom lip and rose up a hand that he ran through his hair with an unnerved smile breaking over his face. "What he said to that villain, caused him to lose his mind."

"The man who made Ms. Joke retire, who gave Wrangler a heart attack by…" Hawks shook his head in disbelief, before biting down harder at the looks on the officials' faces. "I'd say it's impossible, but for Death, maybe doing something like that is easy."

 _"Easy," huh?_ Juuzo's eyes darkened and shifted down to the table and where her hands were held together. They shook and she bit down hard inside her mouth. _If he was really Death, then he wouldn't have done something like that, wouldn't he? He's not just a mask. There's a person behind it. I know. I know, how much it hurt him to do that. But, Faith was one of the worst villains this country has seen in years. He's certainly the one responsible for the most deaths of heroes, surpassing Stain through using his memory. But, even doing it to a man like that, to make a man go mad by just speaking a few words to him. To know that for the rest of your life, would haunt any person._

"Heed this warning, Lemillion," Juuzo began. "You are confident that you will find something and so we sanction this, but you have chosen a very dangerous enemy. The most popular man in many parts of this country, the person who many attribute the disappearance of the League of Villains to, the 'Hero of the People.' There isn't a good outcome of this investigation if you find the proof you're looking for, but we are a land of laws so this must happen. Know though, that people across the world care about Lifebringer. So make sure that if you do arrest him, you keep in mind the feelings of the people you're about to hurt."

"I understand, ma'am. However I will carry out justice. Delicacy is important, but it comes second to the truth. Justice, is truth."

 _Perhaps. Perhaps I am wrong for keeping my secret. It is an injustice, keeping the Sports Festival's truth hidden. If justice is truth, then truth is justice, and I'll face my punishment when I tell it. Today, is not that day though._

* * *

Zach walked down a street of Yutapu on the opposite side of Shiketsu High School as where his apartment was located. He was approaching the school from a distance of several blocks, after leaving two hours earlier and taking a walk around the city. The sky was clear, but it was frigid out and Zach had a jacket over his white school uniform. He had on his black Shiketsu hat over his black hair and a belt tight to his waist holding up his black pants.

The people of Yutapu had been hearing for days that Zach Sazaki was going to Shiketsu, so people who saw students of the prestigious high school on the regular were looking out for those black hats more than usual today. Zach nodded towards people who called out his name, smiled around at others, ignored a couple who gave him dirty looks (though even those people kept their mouths shut). _No hecklers this morning. People who dislike me actually saying stuff to my face wouldn't be common. It's more of a presence online and on certain tv stations._ Zach had his hands down at his sides with only his right in the thin black glove made of special material that kept his hand from killing anything it touched.

Zach's expression was calm as he headed down the street towards his new high school. He approached from a section of Yutapu with fewer residences and more businesses. The people around him were rushing into work and opening up shops and businesses for the day. The buildings around him were tall, towering skyscrapers in some places. Even the non-skyscrapers in this area of the city were still eight, ten, twelve stories high on average. There were pachinko parlors on corners, and ramen shops and bars and foreign food places all lining the streets. The second and third floors of a couple of buildings had karaoke signs sticking out of them showing what kind of businesses were above, and Zach saw a massage parlor across the road from him right next to an Indian place that looked good based off the pictures on the windows. _Maybe on my way back later. There's more of a chance of someone following me from school than on my way to it. They'll be able to see me coming out easily, and follow me anywhere from then on. I've moved around sporadically and without schedule or routine this past week. Not a great time to be attacked. Today starts my routine though, and most assassins would wait until they think they have a solid grasp on what I'm doing every day and set up an attack that way._

 _Then again, most assassins wouldn't stand a chance against me._ Zach's eyes focused down the sidewalk where he saw a van parked on the side of the road. _Ones who know who I am could attack me on the first day knowing that if I get in a routine I'll know all the good ambushing spots along the way and be ready for them. I might have picked a random route today and am checking out how it looks on a weekday when there's school. I don't know where you could be attacking from yet, and if you spotted me any time over the past few hours you have a good read on where I am right now and which direction I'm approaching by. If they're really good, my actions don't factor in. Great assassins plan every last detail, amazing assassins don't need to. If they're not worried about being caught or that they'll fail if they get one or two things wrong, then attacking on the first day would be best. If you think your situational awareness is better than mine to be able to adapt in the moment, no one has time to make plans and it's just you versus me. Right here. Right now. I'm getting closer, make your choice._

"He's on this side," Kiero Kimuo called out with a hand over her earpiece. "Open the van!" She shouted at her cameraman, who slid open the side door of the van and jumped out with a large camera over his shoulder he ran onto the sidewalk with.

"Start recording," Kiero ordered after jumping out of the van after her crew member.

"Three, two…" the cameraman pointed a hand at her and moved back on the sidewalk as his coworker stepped in front of him.

"This is Kimmy Kiero with Your News at 8, coming to you from Yutapu City only a few blocks away from Shiketsu High School. In front of me now is Zach Sazaki, otherwise known as Lifebringer." She turned as the boy was walking up close to her, and she ran towards him and held her microphone up with an interrogative look covering her face. "Lifebringer! It's your first day at Shiketsu, but the country still wants to know if you really plan on becoming a hero."

"I do," Zach said, and he kept walking forward but slowed down like he was about to stop. He looked at the camera, getting the guy behind it to stop walking backwards, then he took a few more steps in while the cameraman was not moving. "I'm just trying to go to school," Zach began.

"Why don't you accept calls to have a press conference?" Kiero called at Zach, getting close on his side and then pushing her microphone up near his face after asking that question in an accusatory tone. "What do you have to hide?"

"You know," Zach started. "You really shouldn't just run up to me on the sidewalk like this," Zach said it calmly and with a small casual smile on his face, but it made Kiero freeze and her cameraman to lower his bottom lip. He managed to keep the camera pointed at Zach though, as the reporter regained her composure too and got a much more indignant look on her face.

"Excuse me?! Are you threatening me-"

"I'm warning you," Zach said, and Kiero froze with her mouth open and her eyes widening more as he did not just back down there or try defending himself. Zach continued calmly though, "People are trying to kill me. You saw it yourself when I was released from Tartaros-"

"That's no excuse! The way you worded that just now was clearly threatening!" Kiero called out.

 _So it's not live. They'll cut parts of this later._ Zach held up his right hand defensively with a palm up to show he meant nothing by it. "It was more of a suggestion for future reference. It isn't safe to jump out at me like this, because the people trying to kill me might think I've let my guard down and try and attack."

"You say it like they're everywhere, watching you all the time," Kiero snapped, shaking her head still with an accusatory look on her face.

"Not everywhere," Zach countered. "But there are five of them watching me right now." The woman in front of Zach blinked once, her expression turning downright confused and then her eyes slowly widening, then narrowing in disbelief and anger. Zach's eyes were not focused on her though, but right between her and the cameraman who he was not looking at either but was still very close to. His expression was still calm, but a cool breeze blew between them and the air was different. "They're waiting for a moment to attack me. Oh- One of them can hear me," Zach continued, and his eyes darted up the wall of the building across the road straight at a window his red and hazel irises locked in on.

"Wait a second-" Kiero began confusedly, her heart racing at the change in Lifebringer's expression all of a sudden.

"He's alerting the others, they know I know- duck. Duck!" Zach snapped his left hand up and grabbed Kimmy Kiero, and he dove at the cameraman and tackled him down in the same movement. He had walked far enough forward after the two ran at him, that the cameraman had backed up close to being next to his own van. Zach tackled the man past the back edge of the van and on the other side of it compared to the building he saw the barrel sticking out a cracked window of. _**Ch-**_ There was no gunshot, but the sound of cement on the sidewalk breaking behind them made the woman who was just dragged to the floor spin her head back to the black mark near where they were just standing.

Kiero did not know what was happening, but she brought her head up and stared with panicked eyes at the scarred-up face of the teen down on a knee in front of her. "Stay here," Zach said while looking her right in the eyes, a calm look over his face and a smile showing nothing was wrong at all which got her calming down a lot. She still stared at the boy in shock though as he rose up his right hand and steel started wrapping around his wrist and down over his hand. The watch under Zach's sleeve opened up and ripped through his jacket's cuff, as a glove of powerful material spread around his right hand and gloved blue on his palm and the backs of his fingers.

Zach turned his head to the right at the tall building closest to him, and he aimed his palm up towards a window seven stories above him. The center of his glove's palm opened up and fired straight towards that window. The thin metal spike fired from the hole opened up upon piercing the window, and the hook clamped down on the floor before the wire retracted Zach into the sky. He shot up like a missile towards the window, but instead of smashing through it, Zach pulled back his hook after speeding himself up on the incline. He rose faster and dodged a shot coming from behind that went through the same window he already cracked, into an empty room where Zach saw the edge of someone running to his left when he had gotten high enough.

Zach snapped his left hand out to the point between two rooms on the other side of the glass, and his fingers dug straight through the outer frame of the building. Then with a lot of strength he flipped himself horizontally along the outside of the building and punched his right hand straight through the glass, and his right hand wrapped around the side of a man's head as the guy was running aside. Zach yanked backwards and the entire window shattered as he tossed the man out ten feet from the edge of the building.

 _Shit. Glass will fall in a couple seconds. No one's straight down, opposite rooftop, original shooter, watcher, the fifth's hiding with their Quirk._ Zach pointed his right hand across the road and at the rooftop where someone was running from the side closest to the block he was on to the opposite side of the building. _Can't let you get too far away. I said there were five of you, so I need to catch all five. You stupid fucks._ Zach landed on top of a building where he knew he was out of eyesight, and he shot forward like a black blur that made the assassin glancing over his shoulder yelp in fright before getting tossed backwards by a large black claw.

The man fell unconscious as he was falling back, while the first guy thrown out of a window was almost about to hit the ground and was screaming loudly in fright. A hook pierced through his right leg just below his knee, and his body jolted back up, his head bumping into the top of the van hard as he was tugged over the two panicked reporters. Kiero and the cameraman winced and curled up tighter as a bunch of glass shattered on the sidewalk, but the glass shatter was several meters from them and even the pieces that broke off did not get within three meters of them. "H-Hey, get up," Kiero snapped at the man next to her, jumping on her feet herself as she used that regained confidence Lifebringer gave her with his smile. "Get this on…" Kiero stared across the street and up towards a broken window of the ten story building Lifebringer just flew into. A woman's scream came out of that broken window, and then that woman came flying out of the building tied up in wire that jolted her back after she fell five stories, and just left her dangling there.

 _And there's the panic,_ Zach thought, as the fifth person he noticed showed themself. _Only one comrade left, and you think I knew where you were and was just going to save you for last because you weren't running. Well now I know,_ Zach flipped himself over in midair, firing the other end of a wire out of a glove on his left hand that was already attached to one of the villains. He shot that wire's second end into a telephone post down below him, dangling the second man he attacked by it instead of dragging him around through the air with him.

Zach dropped down in the middle of the road where all the cars had stopped moving as the drivers leaned out their windows to see what was going on. "Stay in your car," Zach said, running past a woman in a suit who looked to the side in shock at who just ran past her after falling from the sky in front of her vehicle. Zach jumped up twenty feet in the air and pointed his right hand towards a car that started moving after emerging right out of another identical vehicle parked on the side of the road. His right palm glowed blue, staying closed this time as the fingers on the back of Zach's hand glowed blue too more with each second he slowly curled those fingers while tensing the muscles in his hand. Zach uncurled all the fingers at once, pushing his palm out and firing at the back of the vehicle near its wheels.

The back of the car flipped up, its wheels popping and the hood slamming into the pavement before it could reach the next intersection. Zach's body was already turning as he fired, and the blast spun him the rest of the way fast enough to raise both hands and catch the two wide steel spikes being jammed down at him from the person Zach thought was the watcher. _The leader,_ Zach thought while looking into the short man's eyes, unafraid and still determined to kill him. He pulled his head back as the man's tongue snapped out of his mouth also in the form of a steel spike only this one was spinning.

Zach flipped the man over the top of his own head by the arm spikes, ducking below the spinning tongue one and kneeing the guy in the gut as they were both falling down to the road. Zach finished flipping them and he slammed his right foot down under the man's chin next, causing him to close his mouth and bite down on a spinning steel spike he was trying to maneuver after the quicker younger man. The guy screamed in pain as teeth broke, and then he slammed down into the street and his scream cut off with his whole body arching up in pain instead from the hard collision he did not brace for at all.

Zach landed next to the man and put his foot next to the guy's left arm as the man opened his squinted eyes. The toe of Zach's shoe touched the man's arm, and Zach forced some Death out of it into the guy for a brief moment before pulling his foot back away without any darkness showing. _A shit first attempt,_ Zach thought, his eyes dark as he stared down at the man on the ground next to him. _And all those who watch it won't be any more prepared to come after me._

… _Three, four, and that's five. Five!_ "Come on!" Kiero yelled at her cameraman, and she ran out into the road where Lifebringer reached down and grabbed the unconscious man with blood all over his mouth. Zach hoisted the man up and over his own shoulder, then he started over towards a building a woman was dangling off of. Zach curled in his left index finger and made her fall, while getting questions shouted at his back by the reporter he was currently ignoring. "Lifebringer! Just- could you give me-" Kiero moved aside as Lifebringer jogged past her, needing to gather up all the villains in one place instead of scattered all over the block as they were.

Kiero started frowning at the boy again at how much he was ignoring her. "Lifebringer!" She shouted, her voice frustrated and angry this time which had Zach grimacing internally even as he just turned to her with a questioning look, while properly tying up the villains in the pile. "How did you know?"

"I saw them," Zach replied, and he glanced back down and continued tying up the five unconscious men. "They're all alright," Zach added as he continued to wrap wire around the villains. Sirens were coming from one end of the road, but there were two heroes who were faster and coming straight towards Lifebringer. "Just unconscious," Zach assured the reporter he turned back to and her camera.

"If you saw them- if you knew they were around, then why were you just walking around in public?! You knew that you were putting civilians in danger?" Kiero accused, giving Zach a dirty look that he wanted to sigh at.

 _I just saved you lady- well, she wouldn't have been in danger in the first place if I wasn't here. She's right about that, I guess._ "Sorry," Zach apologized, standing up straight and giving an apologetic look to the reporter. "I tried to take a safe route to school to avoid being attacked, but you're right, it's my fault. I'll work on being more hidden on my way to class in the future." Zach lifted his head out of the bowed position it was in there, and he smiled again at the woman who froze with her mouth open. _And now, I can avoid you reporters all I like for the rest of my days. Thank you Kimmy Kiero._

"If you knew they were up there though, right before they attacked," Kiero shook her head and started questioning again, running up closer to the boy she knew was now going to be avoiding any interviews from her again. "Why didn't you warn us sooner? Why didn't you go after them before they started shooting-"

"I only have a provisional hero license," Zach said. A hero just landed behind the pile at Zach's back, and Zach continued to the reporter, "So the only thing I can do, is defend myself when villains attack. I can't go after my would-be attackers unless they've already taken a shot at me. Like so," Zach pointed over at a black mark on the sidewalk, then he turned and looked at the female hero behind him who had a lot of questions for what just happened here. Vallentina looked to the shot in the floor, then around at some broken glass and up at smashed windows on both sides of the street, then to the five figures Lifebringer had tied up. "It was in self-defense," Zach defended himself to the pro hero frowning harshly at him.

"I-It was," the cameraman began, lowering his camera and stepping up on the side of Kiero.

She turned to her coworker with a frown for a second, before loosening it as well and dropping her mic down to her side. "Yes," Kiero agreed while looking to Vallentina. The hero in a dark red costume looked at the two in surprise and then turned back to Lifebringer in confusion as they started explaining to her about what had happened.

"Are you alright, by the way?" Zach asked the two who were now trying to defend him to the heroes who had shown up. Vallentina turned to another pro and started talking to him about what she just heard, and then to some cops who came over too and looked ready to set a perimeter.

"Yeah, fine," the cameraman told the younger man. "That was some great work."

"You still," Kiero started. She frowned deeply as Zach glanced back to her, less in anger at him and more just a frustrated way. The woman ground her teeth for a moment and then grumbled, "You shouldn't have waited. And you put us in danger-"

"But I stayed within the law," Zach said. He looked seriously at Kiero without a smile this time, and the older woman looked back at the boy with her eyes wider at his statement. "I told you. I told everyone, that I'm going to do things right this time. I'm not going to break the rules, no matter what."

"Even if lives are on the line?" Kiero asked.

"If lives are on the line, the law will allow me to save them," Zach said. He then turned from the woman and walked over towards the heroes and cops, ignoring what the woman called at his back. _This wasn't an "assassination attempt." It's a mild inconvenience. Maybe a bit more than mild. Because I have to do things the right way, so I can't just run and leave this up to them. I have to clean this up on my own, and now, I'm going to be late for class. Damn, and I wanted to make a good first impression._

"Did you do all this, Lifebringer?" Recharge questioned the teen who stepped up to him and Vallentina.

As Zach started to nod, Vallentina cut in to the boy who had partially explained it to her before, "I understand your reasoning, that you could not attack these villains unless they had fired on you. However, if you saw them you should have called heroes right away. You put people in danger waiting for a change to fight them yourself."

"I didn't want to fight them," Zach countered with a shake of his head. "I thought as soon as I let my guard down they might attack, so I was hoping to go straight to school and never be attacked. Then I'd call in what had happened. If I had pulled out my phone, I thought they would attack. I even thought the reporters back there might have been part of the group acting as a diversion themselves."

The heroes and the few cops behind them dealing with arresting the prisoners all looked at Lifebringer with varying surprised looks at his intense response. Zach glanced up towards the broken windows and he frowned apologetically back towards Vallentina, "Wish I could have gotten it done with less collateral though."

"What are those?" Vallentina asked, motioning down at Zach's hands.

 _This is going to be my whole morning._ "Parts of my hero costume, I got them registered already so…"

* * *

 **Knock Knock**

Zach slid open the door that had a '3-1' sign above it in the hall. He looked in at the man standing near the front desk who had a shaved head and wore a black suit with his tie looking a little loose around his neck. The teacher in his mid-thirties looked towards the student in the doorway who had taken his jacket off and left it at the lockers in the front of the building. Worrod Hazano frowned at his tardy student, as he knew Sazaki's address from when the boy texted him the night they had met. "You're late, Sazaki," Hazano scolded the teen in his classroom's doorway. "I explained to you our strict late policy, did I not?"

"I'm sorry for being late," Zach said, bowing to the teacher with an apologetic look on his face. _He said "no excuses," and that it would count as skipping the whole day itself so I should just go home if I think about showing up late. On the first day though, please,_ Zach lifted his head back up and had a regretful look but hope in his eyes as he faced the man frowning towards him.

 _You're already going to be a problem student. I thought I was relieved that you weren't Death, but I hadn't thought about what else it could be until I lost that stupid bet. I shouldn't treat you differently… But I guess I'd let any other student come in, since it is your first day and all._ Hazano leaned back on his desk and motioned with his head into the classroom.

Zach did not want to show as much relief as he felt and instead nodded in a more grateful way at his teacher like he knew Hazano didn't have to do this. "Alright," Hazano began as the boy started walking inside. "I originally planned on you having a self-introduction this morning, but there's no time now. Put your stuff down over there, at your desk," Hazano pointed towards the empty seat in the room.

Zach looked around the classroom feeling such a strange feeling swirling around in his chest. The other students his age looking towards him all with different expressions had his stomach churning even though his heart was beating steadily and he did not feel nervous at all. _Apprehension?_ Zach looked past a blonde girl staring at him in shock, still unable to believe Lifebringer just joined their class. There was a shorter girl next to the blond who had shorter gray hair too in a bowl-cut around her head with long bangs hiding her eyes from him. _Excitement maybe?_ Zach saw a male student with broad shoulders giving him a stern, serious look, which was unable to hide the incredibly excited look in his eyes.

Inasa Yoarashi's hands were in fists down over his thighs, those fists shaking like crazy as he made eye contact with Sazaki. Zach glanced past Inasa after meeting that boy's eyes, and he held back his grimace at the look on the other teen's face that unlike Inasa's seemed to accurately represent the resentment he felt. The teen behind Inasa had a scar on his right cheek in the shape of a 'v' and was glaring in a dark way towards Zach from the moment he entered the room. He had bright green hair that had a flip to the right side and spiked back behind his skull and up on his bangs. His eyes were black like Ashido's, but instead of yellow irises he had green ones several shades darker than his hair.

A couple of the other boys farther back in the classroom glanced at the green-haired boy's expression before getting darker looks on their faces directed towards Zach. Zach noticed those looks, and he noticed there were twenty-nine students in the classroom on his walk towards his desk. _Is this like the situation with Class B? They could just be that upset with me joining their class, but that extra level makes sense. Shinso only got accepted by B because they knew him and saw him fighting villains with Shoda the day he died. They don't know me. I killed people. Hazano sensei's giving me special treatment letting me come in here even though I'm late. Like I'm a celebrity who deserves better treatment. It's going to be an uphill battle._

"As I was saying," Hazano began to his class, only a few of whom actually looked back to him as Sazaki made his way to his desk. "Your comprehensive exams will be on Friday to make sure you've retained everything from the past two terms. We're moving forward though, so don't expect any review today or tomorrow. As for now, we'll be heading to Gymnasium A for Ranking Day."

The students started getting out of their seats, and Zach looked back towards Hazano with a somewhat confused expression as he had never heard that term back at U.A. or had it explained to him. Hazano saw the look from Lifebringer and stopped turning to the classroom's door himself. "Oh yes, Sazaki," Hazano started. "Each student in this class has a number which is determined at the start of the term. On Ranking Day, we determine what that number will be." Zach's eyes started shifting around the classroom again, as every other student in there was staring towards him now.

"One on one combat. Any student can challenge any other. The purpose is that over the course of several of these, you students will know each others' weaknesses and better prepare your own counters against opponents most prepared to fight you…" Hazano paused and then added while turning away towards the door. "I suppose it doesn't really work with you, but you'll need a class number too so you'll be taking part."

 _Well then,_ Zach thought, glancing around at the other twenty-nine students staring towards him without trying to hide that they were doing so. _Best way to get to know people is through their fists._ The right corner of Zach's lips curved up, and he judged the twenty-nine reactions that came when he made that slight movement. "My name's Zach, it's nice to meet you." He bowed his head to the other students in his new class. "I look forward to working together."

* * *

 **A/N Thanks for reading! Took a little longer than I thought to post this, but I'm pretty free the next few days so I'll try to get a couple up in that time. Lemillion's coming after Zach. Zach's got assassins mildly inconveniencing him on the way to school. And he's made it to class... for Ranking Day! Hope you enjoyed the chapter! Leave a review telling me what you think below!**

Naruffoku chapter 147 . Mar 22

Did someone say that Zach lost an arm? Wtf... how come I didn't know this?

 **Was that said? I don't really remember either...**

Todorokiii chapter 147 . Mar 22

Who to ship now...? Anyway, that doesn't really matter for now but I guess when this rumor spreads I bet Momo would be jelly, hopefully. Hehe. Then again, Ashido is the captain of the Zach and Momo's ship, hehe. Anyways... I do hope no one will hurt Zach's U.A friends but it seems it still will happen sooner or later. Just hope Zach's there to protect them. Also, for the whole chapter I felt sorry for Mina, Sero and the others who actually believed Zach's story. They'll realized soon his lying again. Can't wait for that part! As for Todoroki, I love him but he's up to something after knowing the name Mark. Todoroki gotta chill. I miss AoD especially Gentle. Huhu. And Zach really lost his arm...? I didn't knew that... And if I remembered correctly, U.A and Shiketsu would have a battle something like that. Can't wait! And Kirishima, I need a battle between those two. Both of them promised but never happened. Thanks for this chapter!

 **Ships, ships everywhere! Lol we'll see where the romance goes in this... Couple chapters of Zach's interactions with his U.A. friends, but now his life is starting up at Shiketsu... hopefully no one goes after them while he's there. Todoroki lurking about, being all suspicious. Lemillion considers bringing him on his truth hunt, but Juuzo seems to think that's a very bad idea. If y'all didn't remember her, she was one of the hero officials in the Sports Festival attack Zach foiled, (if I didn't make that clear enough). Hazano did mention to Zach that U.A. would be coming for a joint training, so future event setting up! Lots left to do, and Death pushes on! Thanks for the reviews!**

Guessst chapter 147 . Mar 24

Lovin' it. The last couple paragraphs are like crack for me. Thanks for the time you're putting into this.

 **XD Love to hear it! You're welcome and thanks for that review!**

Super Power Sensei chapter 147 . Mar 26

I have no problem with this fic ending like a shonen. If ANYONE DESERVES to have a shonen/happy ending it's my boy Zach. I don't care what anyone says or does, he is the ultimate hero! The "KING OF HEROS"! Just please have the ending make sense. DON'T be like Fairy Tail! Or the Akame ga Kill anime!  
This chapter was great in getting my hopes up for the future. If you've written anything related to Mina, it's that she trusts, loves(as a friend/best woman friend), and is loyal to Zach. This, I approve of.  
Does Zach know ninja techniques?! I know you referenced some kind of ninja jumping back in the licensing exam(chapter 143) but wow. Can he take people out using pressure points as well? Can Zach use death like how "King" uses his magic in "Nanatsu no Taizai"? Make a hyper condensed sphere of death that spins like crazy...JUST LIKE A RASENGON?!(just thought of the rasengon while typing this!) His quirk really is next level. Reading and typing like his life depends on it(which it probably does), constantly on the look out for assassins while also give Mina a perfect day...Zach's work ethic multitasking skills are insane and I LOVE IT!  
Also there was a review posted earlier by a guest that read "The last couple paragraphs are like crack for me." and I concur.  
Good chapter and I'll be waiting for the next one.

 **The ending is definitely going to make sense. It's going to be the best ending ever. It's going to be huge! I know the best endings, and trust me, this is going to be great! ... Anyway, glad you like Mina in this, seems like a common trend y'all love her character. We'll see Zach's various abilities and powers as this continues on, so no spoilers of just stating it here. Saw a bit of them this time- and glad you think this is "crack" too! Lol Zach's a multi-tasking pro, and today his lookout for assassins pays off. Thanks for the review! Hope you enjoyed the new chapter!**


	149. Chapter 149

**Disclaimer: I don't own Boku no Hero Academia**

 **Chapter 149:**

"Hey," Zach walked up on the left side of a boy a few inches shorter than him. The teen had short blond hair less than an inch off of his head, mostly hidden under his black hat just like Zach's. They were walking towards Gymnasium A, Zach just following along with the class who he had introduced himself to back in the classroom to no response. Zach kept his expression showing a good mood though, and he blamed everyone walking out on the class representative saying that they needed to follow after Hazano sensei without delay. The boy Zach walked up to was one whose excited expression Zach saw upon entering the classroom, though he had noticed the other teen also looking at his fellow classmates on his sides who had harsher looks like that green-haired boy who was glaring at his back even harder now that Zach walked up to one of his classmates.

The teen who turned to Zach noticed his green-haired, six foot three, pissed-off classmate glaring their way too and he turned back forward after glancing to the side. "Lifebringer," the boy greeted curtly.

"You're calling me by my hero name?" Zach wondered confusedly. _Think about it. If you're trying to be combative, you wouldn't compliment me by treating me like a hero._ "And you are," Zach continued, trailing off at the end to allow the other boy to answer.

"Kotsumura Keiji," the blond student replied.

"So Kotsumura, how does this ranking system work?" Zach asked.

The boy next to Zach looked back again at the taller black-haired boy standing at his side and looking at him interestedly. He noticed the glare from Dendo behind him again, but this time he kept looking at Zach for a few seconds as they continued down the hall. "It's kind of like a tournament," Kotsumura replied, looking back forward but speaking in a friendlier tone without trying as hard.

A girl in front of Kotsumura who had long blonde hair falling out of her black hat spun her head after hearing Kotsumura respond to Lifebringer in less of an apprehensive tone. "Though there's no point in asking him about it. Kotsumura's only rank 27."

 _Is their entire school based around ranking? Do they treat each other badly determined on how high each person is ranked? That's such a-_ Zach cracked a smile as the blonde girl stuck her tongue out at Kotsumura in a joking way, and Zach noticed the annoyed look on Kotsumura's face was not as serious as he thought for a moment. He erased all the thoughts he was starting to have about some school hierarchy, and he wondered just where he was going with that.

"We only really care about rank on Ranking Day," the girl next to the blonde said, glancing back over her shoulder at Zach too. "The rest of the time it's just for seating and such."

 _She's a mind reader, isn't she?_ Zach nodded at the girl as she spoke, but he saw her eyes bulge at his thought. The short girl had brown hair falling evenly around her head, straight and curled out at the tips away from her neck. Her bangs were parted in the middle to either side, her skin was paler than most of her classmates, and she was the shortest person in the class from what Zach could see at a few inches under five feet tall. _Called it,_ Zach thought at the girl, lifting the left corner of his lip up which made the surprised girl spin back forward.

Kotsumura glanced towards the brunette who just spun around with red cheeks, and then he looked back at the taller teen on his side, "Careful what you think around here. Himazuri's a mind reader."

Zach looked to Kotsumura with his eyes wide, "Really?"

Himazuri's lips pursed but she couldn't help air from blowing out as she laughed. Kotsumura and the longer-haired blonde gave the short girl confused looks, and Himazuri composed herself but continued to grin looking like she was hiding something. Zach smiled in a similar fashion, but he stumbled a step forward and lost his grin as a rough shove hit his left shoulder. He bumped into Kotsumura on his right when he got hit, and he turned his head after stopping from one step. Three teens were walking faster past his left side, and the one in front who bumped him glared over out the corner of his eyes before smirking at Zach's look. "Oh, sorry about that."

"It's fine," Zach said, standing back up straight and continuing to walk, looking back at Kotsumura as he did. "You said it's like a tournament? How do they determine who fights who…"

Kotsumura got a bead of sweat rolling down the side of his face, as he saw Dendo's smirk wipe off his face in place of an even more annoyed look towards the back of Lifebringer's head. They reached the corner of the hallway though, and Dendo turned with a snap of his head away to march towards the gym, his two friends coming up closer behind him. Zach looked to the corner of his eyes as they turned the corner before him, which Kotsumura noticed and sighed at.

"We get to pick our own opponents," the blonde girl in front of Zach said, after turning the corner herself. She looked back at Zach and walked backwards, "You might want to wait a few rounds and see how it works… and see some of our Quirks." She smirked at Zach which made him get a more curious look at what she was thinking. "I'm Tiona by the way."

"Tiona?" Kotsumura asked, his voice raising in confusion.

"Did I say you could call me by my first name?" Tiona asked, darting her eyes and narrowing them at Kotsumura who froze with his mouth open. "But Zach here said to call him by his first name. You must have gotten very used to that over in America, didn't you?" She rose her eyebrows more at the black-haired boy behind her who just chuckled at the question.

A chubby teen with big pointy ears and a shorter and brown-skinned teen with a shell on his back behind Zach looked at him closely. The way he chuckled at Tiona's question, and their classmate's question itself had them both listening closely, not that they were not already watching Lifebringer with close gazes. "I didn't go by Zach when I was gone," Zach replied to Tiona's confused look. Then he glanced to his right at Kotsumura who was also giving him a curious expression, "Would have been pretty dumb using my real name while on the run."

 _He's way too… laid-back,_ Kotsumura thought.

 _What a weird guy? This is what Lifebringer's like off-camera?_ Tiona turned back forward and her lips lifted into a sly smile.

 _He's just, thinking about totally normal… I should stop prying. I'll just tell Dendo he caught me,_ Himazuri took in a deep breath and looked ahead towards the gymnasium. _I need to focus on myself anyway. Top 10!_

"You getting into the zone already?" Tiona wrapped an arm around Himazuri's head after spotting the intense look over the shorter girl's face. "You thinking about catching up to me? Is that what that look's for?"

"N-No, of course not," Himazuri said, waving her arms up and then pushing up on Tiona's arm to get it off her.

"Reika here," Kotsumura began softly with a nod at the blonde who gave Zach her first name. "Got ranked fifth at the start of the fall term." Kotsumura cupped a hand to his mouth and added softer, "It was actually her lowest rank so far, because Curly back there jumped up to fourth last time."

Zach looked back when his classmate motioned behind him. The two walking closest behind them made eye contact with him, and Zach looked at the teen with a large shell attached to his back that his shirt seemed designed to fit over and leave exposed. The brown-skinned teen's shell was the same color, as was his curly hair over his head which let Zach know Kotsumura was talking about him and not the pointy-eared boy with no hair at all over his dark-blue skinned head.

"See you boys in there," Reika said, grinning back specifically at Zach before turning to the right near the gym to go to the girls' locker room.

Kotsumura watched Reika's back for a second as she headed off the other direction, then he shook his head and turned back to Zach with an accusatory look. "What?" Zach asked, though he looked to be suppressing a grin himself like he knew what that look was for.

"You're here five minutes and you've got the strongest girl in the class flirting with you." Zach shrugged and gave his classmate a skeptical expression like he didn't know what Kotsumura was talking about. When he looked away though, the smirk grew more on his face and he was only half-turned from his classmate who easily saw it.

Kotsumura laughed and started, "You sure your Quirk isn't-" he stopped himself, and his eyes shifted over towards the locker room door they were about to reach. "Hey, be careful of Dendo," Kotsumura mentioned, muttering it under his breath and slowing down for a second. "When we heard you were looking to go back to school, he got real pissed about it, and shouted all this stuff about how if you tried to come here he wasn't going to allow it. I don't think he really expected you to, but he's not one to back down from something like that."

"Thanks for the heads up," Zach said, then he walked forward into the locker room without hesitating. _A mind reader. Don't know her range. Dendo, he looks strong. Confident. Angry, but I killed people and am now getting let into his class he's had to work hard for three years to stay in. Give him a chance._

Zach did not have any pause in his steps after entering the locker room, and Kotsumura watched him head straight over to a locker in a different row than his. _Guess he's already got his costume here,_ Kotsumura thought with a shrug, before heading over to his own locker and avoiding the looks of a couple of the other guys frowning towards him. He stopped at his locker and put in the combination, but he glanced to his side at a classmate his height but with spiky white hair who furled his lip back at him and rose his eyebrows as if asking what Kotsumura was doing. "He seems like an okay guy," Kotsumura said, then he got to getting changed into his hero costume without elaborating any further on it. _I think Dendo's just paranoid._

Zach saw out the left corners of his eyes as he opened up his locker, one of the class staring towards him with excited eyes yet still an intense and dark expression. He pretended not to see Inasa though, just going through his locker instead and checking out his costume that had been sent back to him in its entirety after he got it licensed. _The Super Costumes for Super Heroes' branch here really wanted to hold onto it longer. Of course they couldn't replicate the tech though. No one knows how it's made. I don't even know how they made this specific design. It feels like nobody messed with it though. No hidden microphones or sewn-up cuts._ Zach's hands ran over the fabric of his costume as he lifted it up, looking like he was just taking it out to put on.

The costume Zach lifted made the others in the row of lockers with him stare with confused expressions. They expected something more along the lines of the white or black costumes they had seen him wear on television in the past. He held up a vibrant blue costume that had green highlights on the shoulders though and a cool symmetrical red pattern across the back. The highlights of green were over the bulges on his shoulders where there looked to be extra armor, but also down on his belt and on the symbol in the center of the costume. The 'L' in the middle of Zach's costume over his chest was outlined in green with red filling the center, a black background in the circle, and a white outer outline of the circle that also cut in with four white lines from the circle's edges making a thin 'X' behind the L.

Zach rested the top half of his costume and the belt down on the bench next to him, then he lifted up his blue and red pants and stood up to get out of the pants he was already wearing. "Going with bright colors huh? You think that will make people believe you've changed?" Zach glanced over his right shoulder and saw a taller student behind him, the tallest student in the class from the looks of it. The tall, lanky teen had tanner skin than his two classmates with him. His eyes were blue, his hair short and red, and he glared into Zach's eyes when Zach looked back at him.

"I didn't pick the colors out myself," Zach said, and he looked away and just started getting out of his black uniform pants without paying much attention to the three behind him. "It was a gift from a friend."

Zach sat on the bench between lockers and lifted a foot to slide his pant leg off, and a foot stepped down on the bench just on his right side too close that it actually was an inconvenience. He continued taking his pants off without saying a word, even as another of the three behind him had stepped up into his personal space and was now leaning down his head on Zach's right side. "Cut it with the act, _'Lifebringer.'_ You're not fooling anyone."

Zach folded up his school uniform's pants and leaned forward, placing them down in his locker while ignoring the green-haired teen beside him. "You're not a hero, and you never can be," Zach slid his costume's pants up his legs. His tight black underwear went to just above his knees, and his socks went up past his ankles, but between his shins and his knees were several scars on both legs that Zach covered up with his pants. Dendo did not look down at them for as long as the other two behind him, but all three continued to glare at Zach even after he covered them back up. Dendo smirked at the side of Zach's face and added in a softer voice while leaning his head closer, "You, who killed your mother."

Zach froze. His hands were on the buttons on his shirt, but he froze and stared into his locker with his eyes widening a small amount. Dendo stared at the other teen in surprise, pulling his own head back at that expression that flashed over Lifebringer's face. _There's no way he could know. Calm down._ Zach continued unbuttoning his shirt, though a voice echoed in his head in a darker, angrier voice than Dendo's. _"You, who killed your mother." Why would he say something like that? It's obvious, when you think about it._

 _That's going too far, Dendo,_ Flugeru thought, looking down at the others as he always did since he was six foot ten.

Kelushi kept his expression as harsh as it was before he heard what Dendo said. The shortest of the three standing around Zach, he was still over six foot and had almost as muscular-toned a figure as Dendo. He kept himself silent and did not disagree with what Dendo said, holding his tongue despite what sounded like something he would usually consider too harsh. **"People want him to be this superhero, but I know better. He's a killer. He's killed before and he'll do it again. Who knows how many he killed that year no one knew where he was? As soon as he gets emotional here, he's going to show his true colors. Maybe it will be against other villains, or maybe he'll just lose his shit when some people who dislike him heckle him in the streets or call him out during a press conference. If he snaps on them though, they don't have any way to protect themselves. He's a murderer, and I'm going to show everyone that he's more dangerous than any of them are accepting…"**

 _I want to stop you, Dendo,_ Kerushi thought as Dendo smirked again while Lifebringer was turning his head towards them. _From making him snap like you say he could, but if he can snap so easily then you're right. Then this is the right thing to-_

Zach unbuttoned the next button on his shirt while staring straight into Dendo's eyes. He just continued to unbutton his shirt, and he stared calmly into his classmate's meaner gaze. "I'm sorry you don't like me," Zach said, and he stood up from the bench to continue undressing. His eyes were back on his locker, and he calmly took off his school uniform and folded it up again like he did with the pants. When he took off the uniform though, Zach had a very tight white shirt beneath it. The shirt was long-sleeved and pressed close to his muscles, while covering up his entire torso from his waist to around his neck as well as down his arms to his wrists. Zach had a watch on his right wrist and a thick bracelet on his left too, stuck in place over the end of his white shirt before the scar tissue on the back of his left hand.

Ignoring Dendo's attempts at bullying just made the green-haired teen grind his teeth in an even more pissed-off way. He shook his head and rose a hand, pushing the flip of green hair over it down to the right before pushing up in the front on his bangs. Dendo was in his green costume already, the same color head-to-toe except with some white designs on the front, his belt, and on his shoes. He had a tinted visor pushed up on his forehead, keeping his spiky green bangs up. The students had all taken their black hats off, and Zach did the same revealing his spiky black hair that the teen next to Zach who had done a lot of research on him recognized. Dendo's lips curled far down at the corners for a second, before he twisted them up and added to his newest classmate, "Changing your hairstyle doesn't make you anything like Titanium. Except, maybe the part where he lost his license."

Zach slid his arms through the sleeves of his costume, his lips flat and his eyes focused ahead as he continued to ignore the teen next to him. "Not going to take off your undershirt? Afraid we'll see what your body looks like with all those scars? Don't worry, we all know how you got them. Pretending you were in a spy movie and joining up with villains like an idiot."

Zach nodded his head while lifting up a visor of his own. He looked like he was barely paying any attention, and he lifted the visor up over his head and fit it over his eyes before pressing a button on the side that made the top of the visor open up and wrap over his head in a helmet. Zach punched both fists out in front of him and the watch and bracelet opened up and covered up his hands in powerful gloves, with different patterns on them though both looked high-tech and like Zach knew perfectly how they worked. Zach bent in his elbows a couple of times and he patted down on the front of his chest, then he looked down at the symbol over it and gained a small smile for a second at the design. _They did a great job on this. It feels so comfortable, yet strong. Shouldn't show off everything it has right here, just making sure it's still working._

"Listen here, Sazaki," Dendo started, as their class vice-president just called out from one end of the locker room that they needed to get out there. "You don't belong here." Zach turned to the side and looked into his classmate's eyes, his black eyes with dark green irises in the centers of them. "You're a killer. Don't think that being a celebrity means anything. Just because you get more news' coverage than anyone else, you're still just a name."

Zach closed his locker and turned away from Dendo without responding. The boy behind him snapped a hand out and grabbed Zach by the left arm, and he squeezed on his upper arm with a dark look on his face that the other five near him all saw when they looked over at the sound of Dendo's voice. "You're nothing here. You're not our classmate, and you have no right to be here with us."

"But I do," Zach said, and he shrugged his left arm out of Dendo's grip. He looked back at the muscular teen with an uncaring look on his face, "If you need me to prove that, then go ahead and challenge me. Then we'll see-"

"Oh I plan to," Dendo said, stepping forward and grinning down at Sazaki who he got in the face of. "You think you're a big shot, but you've never seen me fight." Dendo stepped past Zach even though there was no room, shoving into him and knocking Zach's back into the lockers. "You won't even touch me," Dendo finished, a wide smirk spreading over his face.

Zach looked after Dendo and watched him walk off to the other side of the locker room. Then he glanced back at the other two who were behind Dendo and not saying anything against what had been said. Zach's expression was blank, undeterred, and the other two got emboldened by him ignoring Dendo and continued to give him dark glares as they walked past too. Zach watched them go, then he looked near the end of the row where another muscular teen but with dark hair was standing. Zach looked at him, into his eyes, and the dark look was gone from his own replaced by a more competitive one. _Dendo's probably rank 2, isn't he?_ Zach turned away from the teen he looked at whose heart was racing in excitement, and who cracked a giant smile as soon as he turned away before returning to a more intense and serious expression.

Class 1 of Shiketsu's third-years gathered together in a room that Zach was pretty sure was not Gymnasium A. The room looked more like one at U.A. he could compare it to from back during his first combat training. Zach looked towards the opposite wall from where he entered, where instead of computers though, there was a long window going the length of the wall. The window was black like it was tinted to be impossible to see the other side, though he wondered why it would be tinted this direction instead of the other way around to make people in the gym unable to see them. Zach's question to himself was answered as lights turned on in the gymnasium, and he realized that it was just black because the light from their waiting room did not pass through the glass into that gym at all.

Zach stepped up close to the glass and stared through at a gym that looked very bland between the white walls and solid wood floor. There were square panels all over the ceiling that looked identical though some were illuminated and others not. "I'll explain this in some more detail than usual, since it is Sazaki's first time here," Hazano began after all his students had gathered in front of him. "Unlike at U.A., we don't have Recovery Girl here to heal you students if our training goes too far. But, since you're third years and all, that really just means we put more faith in you students not to badly hurt each other with that knowledge in mind."

Zach nodded in understanding at his teacher who turned from him to look through the glass next. There were some screens above the glass window across the wall, and Hazano lifted up a remote at the center screen. "The fights will only go as far as to the first knock-down though as an indicator for victory. As for our facilities, we are equal to U.A. or even exceed them in certain aspects. I do not believe U.A. has a gymnasium like this," Hazano said, while Zach stared up at the screen that had been split in half vertically with two different images flipping through rapidly on it.

The flipping images slowed down, and then it stopped all at once to show two different environments on display. One side of the screen showed a forest with scattered trees and grass between them, while the other was a rocky landscape with few natural barriers. After the screen stopped flipping through choices, the wooden floor of the gym made a loud clanking noise and a line split the rectangular room down the middle into two equal-sized square zones. The floor opened up, and out from the ground below arose the environments chosen by the randomized system. "The zones are picked before a challenge is made," Hazano began while Zach watched a forest rise out from below the surface.

 _Should be a pretty big advantage for the challenger then. They can wait for a zone best fit for them or least fit for their opponent._ Zach looked up at another screen that a list popped up on right before he rose his gaze.

"Last term's rankings," Hazano looked back at all of his students around the waiting room. "This is the final Ranking Day. You all knew that, and I hope you've been getting yourselves ready for this. However you're ranked at the end of the day will be your final ranking here at Shiketsu that you graduate with."

 _So that guy is Inasa,_ Zach thought as he looked at the top of the list. He turned his head to the side and looked over at the teen he thought about who was still staring straight over at him as he had been for a while now. _Heard all about him. Nothing about any of the others though. I recognize a couple, but I'm sure if their hero names were up next to their names on the list I'd know more. All of them have provisional licenses. They've interned for two years now, three for Inasa, or Gale Force. His costume's pretty cool. Definitely works well with his Quirk based on all those tubes-_

"I challenge Sazaki."

Everyone in the waiting room looked over towards the boy who just declared that with no hesitation after Hazano finished talking. Zach turned his head too and stared over at the green-haired teen with a v-shaped scar on his right cheek. Hazano frowned at his student who already had the second highest ranking in the class, and he started, "Sazaki doesn't have a rank, Dendo. You don't get any-"

"Sensei, I accept," Zach said, interrupting his teacher as politely as he could. Zach nodded at Hazano when the bald man looked back at his student, then Hazano sighed and looked back through the window into the gym they had booked for the rest of the day.

"Alright. Just to let you know, Sazaki," Hazano looked back at his newest student. "Should you win, you wouldn't be moved up to Dendo's spot. The rankings are fluid and will be judged at the end of the day. I decide based on all your fights."

Zach nodded in understanding back at the teacher. "'Should he win?'" Dendo scoffed, stepping closer to Zach and walking right up to his opponent. "That's not going to happen."

Kotsumura had beads of sweat rolling down both sides of his face as he watched Dendo step right up to Zach. _Dendo's never backed down before, but he could at least be a little more cautious. I don't get that confidence here. This is Lifebringer we're talking about!_

"Alright Dendo, you have position Alpha. Sazaki, you'll start at position Beta." Hazano pointed through the window and towards the other side of the room where a light glowed between the rocky area on the left and the forest to their right. Dendo's starting point was much closer to the windows, just on the other side of them with the huge half mile gap between the starting places.

A door opened up on the edge of the waiting room for the two to go through. Zach turned away from Dendo and headed over to the door first, Dendo following right behind him so Zach could see the slightly taller boy towering over his back. Zach walked straight through the door and then started a jog across the room to get to his starting point. He lifted up a hand to his visor and tapped a button on it as he got prepared, and he glanced back over his shoulder towards Dendo who glared through his own visor he pulled down over his eyes. The smirk still covered Dendo's face but there was another expression on it now too.

 _He's taking this more seriously than anyone,_ Zach looked back forward and his eyes darkened behind his visor. _He really wants to stop me. He's not just being a dick to be a dick. But, he still…_

"Hazano sensei," Muoko Kimi began. The class rep stepped up next to her teacher she was the same height as, the tallest girl in the class at five eleven. "Is this a good idea? We all know, Dendo's feelings towards Lifebringer."

"He's your classmate now too," Hazano started. "As the class rep, you've got to accept him first Muoko."

"It's not about accepting him," Muoko countered in a lower voice. She did not want everyone else listening in, but everyone was focused through the glass at the first two competitors and not many of them were talking. "But if Dendo goes too far, he may push Lifebringer to go that far in response. If Lifebringer counters with Death in a stronger form-"

"Do you not trust Dendo?" Hazano questioned, still just looking through the glass without looking back at his other student. Dendo was right on the other side of it, though from his side the glass was tinted and he could not see or hear them back in the waiting room. The other students looked to their teacher whose expression was calm and relaxed even as this fight was about to get started, "After three years, you don't know his strength by now?"

Muoko frowned and she turned her gaze back through the glass with a frustrated expression. _I do, but I don't know Sazaki's. Nor do I trust him._

"Dendo. Sazaki. Raise your right hands if you are ready." Hazano lifted up a microphone and announced into the gymnasium the two students had readied themselves in. They were standing on the split point between grass and rocks, trees on Dendo's right side and Zach's left on the other end the room. The students rose their hands, and Hazano could see both clearly as the screens lining the top of the window had camera angles all over the gym with one right on Sazaki's starting point. "First one to knock their opponent down wins the match. Commence in three, two, one. Start."

Dendo released an exhale as his legs unbent from the crouched position he was getting in during the countdown. He sprinted forward, his eyes focused across the room towards where his opponent should have been charging back at him. The gym was shorter in the gap between the two of them than it was longways, and the walls on either side of Dendo were farther from him than where his opponent was supposed to start. His eyes narrowed darkly and he slowed down his run, because instead of running towards him in the fastest way to meet each other, his opponent darted to his left farther into the rock zone where he became hidden in only a second as there were a lot of rock surfaces at different elevations.

"I thought you were going to prove that you belonged here, Lifebringer," Dendo called out while turning a bit and heading into the rock section. _High ground._ Dendo bent his knees and leapt up in the air, his eyes scanning around behind his green-tinted visor. _Where is he?_ Dendo landed down on the highest area of the rock section near him, giving him a good view over the most area that he could see. This section of the gym was covered from wall to wall in brown stone, lumped up in some areas and dipped down in others, though there were no deep crevices or ravines to hide in. It was just a rocky zone with what could almost be considered hills scattered about though with sharp cliffs on some sides, or the occasional boulder disconnected from any other rock surface. "Not a lot of places to hide," Dendo mentioned, calling it specifically towards the area where there were some clear hiding spots and that he suspected Sazaki was behind.

Dendo brought his right hand to his side and opened up his fist so all his fingers were pointed straight out. His palm and pressed-together fingers glowed with a white veil, his muscles tensed all over his right arm, and then he stomped forward and slashed his right arm diagonally in front of his body. Dendo's Quirk, Slicer, created a huge green slash with a white outline that came out of his arm and ripped a trench through the ground from Dendo's high ground over to a rocky outcrop ahead of him that it split straight through. The Slice he made ended after breaking through the other side of the rock face, making rocks blow apart from it but the slash to stop and not continue slicing all the way to the wall, or through whatever would have been on the other side of that rock face should there have been someone there.

The slice traveled a hundred and fifty meters in a couple of seconds before blowing apart that hiding place, cutting through the ground cleanly in its path without stopping. Dendo did not get dismayed that he did not see any sign of Lifebringer on the other side of that hiding place. His eyes scanned over the area, his head slightly turning left and right while keeping all the possible areas Lifebringer could be in sight. _His fighting style in the Sports Festivals relied on close quarters' combat. I took a look at his suit, and I didn't see any of the weapons he used to have on it._

"You over there?" Dendo called one direction, while keeping his eyes shifted the other way. He kicked his right foot up, dragging the toe of his right green boot with white crossing designs on the sides across the rocks. He slashed through the floor and cut across two hiding spots this time, blowing through the first one with such force that the green slash kept going before blowing apart the second one and stopping. "Are you just going to hide the whole time?" Dendo shouted, smiling in a taunting way he imagined Sazaki could see.

Zach crouched in an awkward position behind the first hiding spot that Dendo targeted and blew through. There was still enough cover on the side he pulled away to that he was fully out of Dendo's sight. _Staying directly in the middle. He destroyed the closest one to him right there while still targeting one on the outside where he projects I am. He was right with his first guess at where I was. He has good instincts._ Zach stared at the tip of his knife that showed him a reflection back towards the middle of the rock area. He watched and waited, and then he flicked a knife up into the air and moved.

Zach held his breath and he darted while crouched, his body moving quickly behind rocks and completely out of sight as he hid his presence which was easy from such a distance. He grabbed a rock as he was darting past the second spot Dendo had attacked, while Dendo swept an attack at a third place in the opposite direction. Zach kept running forward and keeping a far distance from Dendo, but he swung his right hand behind him and the rock he threw rolled out from behind the cover he darted out of the other side of.

Dendo snapped his head around and saw a rock rolling like it had been kicked by someone running the same direction as it, over to some cover that was still large enough that someone could be hiding behind even half blown to pieces. _There!_ Dendo slashed both arms down across each other, creating a huge green X that shot across the area. It was only halfway to its target, when a _**dink**_ on the rocks to his right made him snap his head that direction. At the same moment that Dendo turned like that, seeing a knife of silver steel and a black hilt hitting the floor, Zach threw three knives up in the air on the exact opposite side of his opponent. When he threw up the three knives he was also several meters closer to Dendo than he was a few seconds ago on the circle around.

"What is he doing?" Kerushi muttered, glaring up at one of the screens where he saw Lifebringer just throw three knives up in the air again. He glanced at Flugeru to see if his taller friend understood Lifebringer's plan, but Flugeru slowly shook his head in response at that look.

"Look at him go," Reika whispered to Himazuri next to her. She glanced down at the shorter girl and then got a confused look on her face at the brunette's huge eyes. "What? What's he thinking about?"

Himazuri's eyes were locked through the glass on the boy who started running as soon as he flicked those blades up. _He can't seriously, plan to…_

Dendo's eyes darted to the left, as the lowest of the three knives thrown was passing across the corner of his vision. He did not know that three were thrown, but after seeing the first knife he made several deductions as to his opponent's strategy. _He does have knives. They were hidden in that costume of his, the number of them is just unknown instead of displayed like his old one. The last one was made to make me look that way so he could get on the other side, so this one,_ Dendo spun the opposite way as the knife that was flying by his left side, but due to the half second that his eyes had darted over to it, it did not matter that he knew he was meant to look that way. The next knife had already been thrown, and Dendo's eyes had to snap up instead of to the side that Zach was currently on, as there was a loud _**Clink**_ above his head.

Two of the knives collided in midair, and the one that was lobbed earlier was slammed down by the second with the blade pointed down at Dendo's right shoulder. It came down fast, but Dendo did not stumble away only yanked his right side back, taking his foot off the ground and swinging his leg away while using his Quirk. As his yanked his foot back like that, he swung his leg in an arc and cut a semi-circle around the solid ground he was on. The knife hit the ground where he just was, the other bouncing off of it and falling near him. When he looked up at the clinking noise of the two knives though, Dendo had also seen the third of the knives Zach threw at once before. As the other two knives hit down, there was a brief silence where Dendo pretended to be looking around for Zach again and not expecting any noise. _As soon as that knife hits the ground, he'll be on the opposite…_

Dendo jumped away from where he was just standing, spinning around and swinging his right arm down at where he had been standing in a panic. There was no sound of that blade hitting the floor at his back where he was going to act like he was spinning in surprise. The knife never hit down on a rock surface, and the only ground around them was rock, which meant something had stopped it from hitting the ground and making a noise. _He caught-_ Dendo's eyes shook and he stumbled back a step upon landing, as the ground where he had been standing slashed apart from his arm swing. _That knife, where did it go?!_ Dendo's head snapped to the left as he heard something, only to see a rock bouncing off of a boulder only five meters away from him. The thought that had just rushed through his head had him in too much panic to realize it was just another sound trick, because the knife that he had dodged from hitting his right shoulder had no longer been on the floor right next to where he had been standing.

The green-haired boy's arms were risen to slash at the boulder, but he saw the smaller rock from one of the surfaces he had destroyed bouncing off it looking like it had been thrown over. Dendo's breath caught in his throat, as he felt something touch his right foot. His eyes darted down before his head started moving, his foot staying planted down hard as he expected arms wrapping around it to try and take him off his feet. Instead, he stared with shock filling his eyes, at the knife resting on top of his right shoe.

The knife was perfectly balanced on top of his foot. It was so balanced, that it rested on the guard with the hilt on one side and the blade on the other, only wobbling once Dendo's foot started to slide as he doubted it could actually be resting like that. _Impossible!_ Dendo's mind was rushing with possibilities for what could have just happened, but the fact that it was so balanced made only one of the options possible. He knew Zach could not have thrown the blade or even tossed it onto his foot to have it land there so perfectly, and he would have felt more than just the touch on top of his foot if it had been thrown. That left the only option, that Lifebringer had just _placed_ the knife on top of his foot.

As the shock left Dendo's expression, a look of anger flashed over it followed by pure rage. _He's going to regret that. That's the only chance he'll get! FUCK YOU!_ Dendo flicked his right foot up and swept his left hand across his body, catching the knife by the hilt and continuing to spin in a three-sixty. A circle of green with flaring white outlines shot off of his body in every direction and tore up the ground around him. As rocks rose into the air, Dendo spotted a knife flying between two and he slashed his right arm up towards it, cutting the blade cleanly in half while also splitting all the rising debris in two directions with the rubble blasting apart from each other.

As the rubble blew apart like that, Dendo stared across the rock area with his furious look turning surprised for a brief moment before his eyes narrowed darkly at the black trees out ahead of him. They were getting darker farther into the forest, trees dying one by one from the blackest at the middle of the room to the ones still blackening farther in. _Think you can lead me in there?_

Zach kept running around the rock zone, getting closer to Dendo again with his eyes darting from him to the next cover he was going to dip behind back over near his opponent. The others inside the waiting room watched as Dendo spotted the trees, and the look of realization hitting him that Zach had gone into the forest, while Zach was throwing knives up into the air behind their classmate in a new trap two after the one Dendo was currently falling for. "You think you can find more cover in there?!" Dendo shouted loudly, as he thought Sazaki had just darted far away from him when he started his broader attack covering more of the rock area. Dendo slammed his right foot down on the ground, still gripping a knife tightly in his right hand, and he swung his left leg up in a roundhouse kick at his shoulder-level, creating the largest Slice he had made so far… in the opposite direction of where Zach was, and aimed so much farther away than the boy rushing straight towards his back.

All the blackened trees started to fall as they were sliced through, only a few of the living ones around them getting knocked over by the same attack. Zach darted to his right as a knife came down on the same side, still a good distance away from Dendo. Dendo snapped his head to the left as the sound came from his right and back behind him, and Zach moved out of his cover as quickly as he swept behind, throwing the two knives he already had in his hands up in the air. One collided with one on its downwards arc, while the other flew just past the right corner of Dendo's vision, making him spin to the left instead as he figured the knife was thrown on his right to make him look right.

The trees falling on one side of the gym made for a lot of noise, almost drowning out the clank above Dendo's head of the knives colliding with each other. Neither one was coming down towards him this time, but he still moved just expecting they were going to come down at him. Instead he almost moved into where one was redirected, and he stopped short and leaned back, before curling his fists in fury at how lost he was as to his opponent's position. All around him rocks and knives kept slamming into each other and falling, like his enemy was on every side at once yet nowhere he ever looked.

Zach was running circles around his opponent, staying completely in his blindspot the entire time or creating that blindspot himself. When Dendo swung his arms or turned to make a kicking Slice, his movements blocked his own vision which worked as much as distracting him with sounds. Zach switched up which side he went on based off the expressions of the teen in front of him, telling him whether Dendo thought he was trying to make feints to have him turn one way or if he was flustered enough to just spin the sound of any noise. Earlier when he had run close to the forest as Dendo spun around and blocked off his own vision in every direction, he had swept his right hand to the side and created a rolling Death fog that flooded into the forest and got thinner on its way in, killing the trees farther inside slower to make the boy who finally saw them think that he was running deeper into the trees and killing more.

As he sprinted, he aimed his right hand ahead of him when he noticed Dendo regaining his bearings, looking like he was about to figure out which side he was on. A grappling hook fired out of Zach's right glove and locked onto the back of a boulder ahead of him, then the wire retracted fast with Zach popping the toes of his feet up so he was dragged on his heels. He slid across the ground with ease on his specially-made boots, barely any friction to slow him down or even make noise as he shot across the floor forty meters in a second. He tossed a knife up behind his back as he was halfway across to his new spot, and when Dendo turned he saw a knife just rising in the air diagonally but with momentum in the opposite direction as Zach was now, and the last spot Zach had been in got blown apart by a slash too strong that it kept going through that rock face and cut through the ground another twenty meters almost to the wall.

Zach's eyes darkened as he saw that trench through the ground in the corner of his vision. He pulled two knives out and they flipped around in his hands expertly a half dozen times before he stopped with the blades pointed down and back at his sides, his legs crouched and his eyebrows narrowed in as he took in a deep breath.

"He's, toying with him," Muoko whispered in disbelief as she stared towards the darker-haired boy on the screen before her. "Why put the knife on Dendo's…"

"He had the drop on him there," Flugeru muttered. "But he messed up not finishing it. Dendo's heated."

Muoko shifted her eyes to the right where the tall boy was leaning forward and staring through the one-way glass hopefully. _You don't get it,_ she thought with her eyes still wide as she stared at her classmate.

Hazano was standing behind most of his students, which was good since he was staring at the screens with his eyes wide too though his expression dark and serious. _Dendo hasn't seen him once since he left his sight earlier. This is absurd. I can barely keep track of him on the monitors, any time I shift my attention. It's not that he's that fast, it's just-_ **Ch-clunk.** Hazano turned his head and looked behind him to the door of the gym's waiting room.

A couple of the students glanced back at the door, but they all spun back quickly as they were afraid to lose track of their new classmate and whatever he was doing out there. "Norasaki," Hazano said, as the naturally bald administrator stepped up behind him. "What brings you here?"

"I came to inform you that Sazaki will be late today, if he comes in at all," Norasaki began. He kept his voice low as the students in there were clearly watching a fight with intense focus. A few of the students in front of Hazano heard what Norasaki said though, and they perked up and paid attention even if they did not look back to show they were eavesdropping. Muoko and Reika were both too interested, and the vice president on Muoko's left side, Tomoki, focused on what was behind him as well. Over on the far left side of the group, a blue-skinned teen with pointy ears darted his attention over to the teachers who he stared at with huge eyes as Norasaki continued when Hazano asked in confusion what he was talking about.

"Sazaki was attacked on his way here today. A group of five villains ambushed him on his walk to school, caught partly on camera by a reporter who tried to interview him this morning. He apprehended the five of them, but I…" Norasaki's eyes grew wider and his expression focused as he looked through the glass to a figure he spotted out in the gymnasium. "How…" he muttered, stepping forward on Hazano's side while Zach's new homeroom teacher was staring out with even wider eyes now too.

 _That's why he was late?!_ "Who were the villains? League?" Hazano questioned quietly, while staring out at Sazaki who was only five meters behind Dendo, and moving almost in step with the other teen, predicting his every move in a perfect rhythm with his movements.

"The police have yet to identify any of the villains," Norasaki began in just as low a voice. "They have not spoken, their faces aren't in any database, and all of their fingerprints have been burned off. They don't even know if they're Japanese. The news is calling them the Mystery Assassins."

 _Are they the ones who shot at Sazaki last week?_ Hazano thought with a dark look towards his new student. _Why didn't he tell me? He acted like he didn't have an excuse. Did he even consider it was an excuse, or did he just not want to draw further attention? What the hell's with this kid?_

Dendo heard a loud slam of something right behind him, sounding like someone landed directly on his opposite side when he had just turned because of a different noise. "SHI-" Dendo started spinning, kicking his left leg up as he did in a panic. A Slice started coming out of his leg, but when he was only halfway turned he saw that there was nothing behind him at all.

The other teen who had moved with Dendo's turn stood up straight only inches behind Dendo. He placed the knife in his left hand down on Dendo's left shoulder, while letting out an exhale on the back of Dendo's neck that had all the hair on the back of his neck standing on end. Dendo's head started turning to the left, a rage-filled look spreading over it even more enraged than the last time, as he recognized that soft touch and already knew what he was about to see when he looked at his shoulder. He started moving as soon as he felt the touch this time though, spinning around fast and swinging his right arm up and then down in fury on his other side. The swing of his arm cut a ravine straight down through the arena floor and made a trench that blasted all the way to the wall of the gym in an instant, carving a huge line through the wall from the floor all the way up to the ceiling.

Dendo was panting with his eyes huge and starting to get bloodshot as he had been unable to blink knowing that his opponent would dart right in front of his own face should he close his eyes. His breath hitched though as he saw what he just did, Slicing so hard that if Sazaki had really been behind him, that would have been very bad. Then Dendo's heart fell, because when he spun and swung like that so furiously, the knife on his shoulder obviously fell off. Yet despite it falling from his shoulder, he never heard a clinking of a knife hitting the ground next to him. Sweat covered Dendo's body, as the knife should have fallen within inches of him, and yet somehow it was caught again. Then he felt the small touch on the top of his head.

Dendo's dark green eyes snapped up, to see the tip of a blade sticking out over the top of his forehead. After Zach had reached over Dendo's head and placed the knife from his back, he immediately dropped down into the lowest possible crouch behind his opponent. As Dendo's eyes rose up to the blade sticking out over his forehead, Zach slid around the outsides of his legs so that he was directly in front of Dendo, pulling two new knives out of his belt and flipping them, clenching the hilts hard and with a furious look on his own face that he rose with just as Dendo's eyes started to lower in shock. Dendo realized when he looked up, that once again he had looked in the exact direction that his opponent wanted him to. This time when he looked down though, he finally caught sight of his opponent for the first time in the entire match.

Zach's right hand was slashing up close to Dendo's left leg, and Dendo pulled it back as quickly as he could. _It's a feint?!_ Dendo's arms that he started swinging up, he crossed in front of him defensively instead as Zach's knife coming for his left leg did not slow down and just kept moving up towards his upper body. Then Dendo saw the second knife. Zach had already risen it up, and he jammed it down while rising higher out of his crouched position. Dendo's right leg was the clear target, Zach's eyes even shifting to the part of his thigh that would make for a non-fatal wound. Dendo pulled his right foot off the ground, and Zach continued to rise up, his knife curving back as he did so it would have missed Dendo's right leg anyway. Zach stood up straight, both arms coming down flat to his sides with his knives pointed behind him. He stared down into Dendo's eyes, as Dendo fell, picking up his second foot when he was already stepping back with his left.

Dendo fell on his butt with his arms still crossed in front of his stomach in a half-assed way as he had become doubtful part of a second ago that his upper body was even a target. His expression was confused, panicked, and he was breathing heavily as he stared up into Zach's calm eyes looking back down at him. "You were right," Zach said. Dendo's eyes snapped open wide and he curled his hands into fists angrily, realizing how he must have looked sitting there, and getting ready to keep fighting. A loud ding rang out through the gymnasium though, and Dendo's huge eyes shook as he realized that he was currently sitting on his butt. Zach continued to stare down into Dendo's eyes, and he said to the larger boy staring up at him in shock, "I didn't even touch you."

* * *

 **A/N Fight! Well... kind of like a fight! Zach savages his new bully. Hope you enjoyed it! Thanks for reading! Leave a review below telling me what you thought!**

QuestingforBitches chapter 148 . 22h ago

Bit rich of Mirio talking about how Endeavour doesn't know what he's talking about with Death. Has Mirio even met Zach? And since when are Deku and Bakugou so in touch with him that they just know he's lying?

 **Well Lemillion was there for the League of Shadows battle and came to the Qingxiao flood too. And since no one else knows about Endeavor and Zach team-up during the Sports Festival... also, Lemillion's not wrong, admittedly. Deku and Bakugo figured he was lying from the start, plus Zach also had that specific convo with them in the hospital about All For One, though he didn't really say he was lying. Really, through the time Zach was in AoD, I mentioned often which of his classmates were always skeptical when they'd hear other things about Zach 'cause they thought he was Death, and Midoriya and Bakugo were almost always certain that he was. After their fight against the April Fool's Day Villain too we saw them talking about it. Glad to hear the questions! Thanks for reviewing!**

DarkJokes chapter 148 . 22h ago

Here he is Mr Death himself easily able to find the assassins that were hiding. If there is one thing I love about this fan-fic. At this point nah I won't even be calling this a fanfic. This is a story of its own. A different and much interesting story. The character development is really the best in this. We could see Zach being a little shy bitch in the first episodes to a calm and confident guy now. He's come so far and he's matured a lot. Zach truly deserves the best ending he can get.  
I never thought anyone would make me say this but at this point I really believe what Zach does is what a true hero should be doing. I considered Deku and others great heroes for never giving up and sticking to their justice but now it just seems flawed. Truly hope he gets the ending he deserves and if he's supposed to die at the end it better be one heck of an epic battle.  
Also wow lemillion needs to chill. He's really dipping his toes in dangerous waters. Sazaki takes betrayals way more seriously now. Especially if it's someone from his school I can't imagine what he would do.  
He might not kill anyone but I'm guessing he'd never consider His U.A classmates as his friends. Anxiously waiting for the next chapter.  
Thanks for your amazing updates!

 **Really glad you're so into this non-fan-fic! (though I still don't own BNHA)! Lol, glad I made you reconsider how you think about heroes too, I guess. Lemillion's playing a dangerous game, though he's been warned about it now too. We'll see how he moves ahead from here... Thanks for the review! Updated in 1 day, so here you go!**

Todorokiii chapter 148 . 7h ago

There are too many things to say, really. I love this story, it's so well planned and every chapter was made without a fail. Thanks btw, this like became my coffee since I jave exams tomorrow. Haha. Zach, you never failed to impress me. He was so calm when he took out by he assassins, what a pro. Zach is the best example of a hero, before he would hate his quirk and learned the hard way. He started from the bottom and practically tried everything, to be a hero, a villain, a vigilante, ah commander of an army. Hehe. He went through alot and since then, we all know he needs a break. And I guess going to school is like break after everything those past months and even if assassins are following him, he would consider still himself strolling in a park. Haha. And Lemillion, haha, finally someone who actually wanted to find out something about Zach and Death. Thats cool but seriously, spy on him? He knew how many was watching him and actually heard him and Todoroki as a spy? Your putting Endeavor's son to the hospital. Todoroki wouldn't stand a chance, even if I love him. Not in this fanfic though. Now, shiketsu peeps? Please befriend the Zach, and what's this ranking system? Interesting. And UA and Shiketsu battle, I'm still waiting. Btw, where's the scandal of Ashido and Zach? I need reactionss! Hahaha

 **Crack and coffee! Love how addicting my story is to you guys, and trust me it's as addicting to me too. Zach's done just about everything. Been everything he could be, seen the world, and now taking on a top prospect of even a school like Shiketsu is something he can do... with ease. Shiketsu peeps do not seem to be as keen to befriend Zach as you hoped... but Zach's making quick work of breaking them down and already has a couple people he's talking to in a friendly way. Ashido and Zach scandal, we'll see! Thanks for reviewing!** **Hope you enjoyed the new chapter!**

yasideen1 chapter 148 . 5h ago

Why is this fic so addicting  
And are you gonna add the extra OFA quirks

 **Apparently because it's crack and coffee combined. Also, I added Midoriya's dark capture Quirk thing we saw back in his fight against Phinx, which I was writing as we were coming to understand it from awesome ghost dude. Can only add in what I understand though, so a lot of the new stuff in the manga is likely going to be left out of this altogether as it might get tough to include it with them all in their 3rd years already and lots of this stuff happening in the past. I'll likely reference more stuff from the manga once it happens, and maybe shift around what did and didn't happen like I have before in this (Gran Torino losing his Quirk while Lemillion kept his, since Gran Torino wasn't on his mission to go after Kurogiri at the time because Zach and Kurogiri were doing their thing, making it so Gran Torino was the one to get in the way of Overhaul's shot and save Emi who he now watches over... stuff like that). Hope we get to see more of those Quirks though in the coming manga chapters! Thanks for the review!**

someguy1011 chapter 148 . 4h ago

Hey, this is the first time i'm doing this but I just wanted to say that this story is utterly incredible, I first picked this up when it was around chapter 30 and you just keep exceeding my expectations with every chapter. Zach is one of the best characters I have seen, his own flaws and strengths are very interesting and human It's really a breath of fresh air. Keep up the great work I always look forward to what you have come up with. BTW im cackling at zach just shrugging his shoulders at like 5 guys trying to off him.

 **Hey, you're incredible too. XD I'm really happy to hear you've been reading this for so long and continue to enjoy it! I really tried making Zach have his own flaws and problems too, along with the strengths I do give him, and over time I've tried making him a stronger character than where he started while showing how he was getting there. The "human" comment really just makes my day. So thanks, and I'm glad you liked the last chapter. Hope you enjoyed this one too!**


	150. Chapter 150

**Disclaimer: I don't own Boku no Hero Academia**

 **Chapter 150:**

"Dendo has hit the ground, Sazaki is the winner," Hazano announced.

"Holy crap," Kerushi whispered, as he read Sazaki's lips on the monitor zoomed-in on the two competitors. "Dendo said, Sazaki wouldn't even touch him."

Flugeru turned his head slowly to his friend at his side, piecing together what Kerushi said and what they just saw Lifebringer do to Dendo. A couple of the others boys had heard Dendo say that too, and Inasa stared through the glass with his lips flickering between a huge smile and the serious look he attempted to have before. He already knew what Sazaki had been doing though. He had thought of it when he saw the very first knife placed on Dendo's foot instead of Sazaki taking him down right there. Inasa grinned a huge smile as his excitement won over.

"I've never seen Dendo beaten, in such a way before," Jaime Crowley muttered. The American girl gulped and glanced towards Inasa, who was her only classmate she had seen defeat Dendo before today. _He's way too excited about that. I've never seen you beat him so, so- I don't even know what to call that! Dendo's an all-around…_

 _I've never seen him lose his cool like that before,_ Kotsumura thought, staring out towards Dendo in a shocked way at the expression on his face. _Does he hate Lifebringer that much, or did Sazaki just know how to draw that out of him? That was just… humiliating._

Zach turned his back on Dendo and walked away. His look was relaxed, and he was not panting nor even looked winded from that fight. Meanwhile Dendo was sitting on the floor, panting through his nose and curling his hands so hard into the ground that his fingers dug through the rocks and then crushed the pebbles in his hands into dust. He pushed down on his fists, but his mouth froze when he opened it to shout something at the other boy walking away from him. "You!" Dendo shouted after freezing up like that.

He slammed his fists on the ground and pushed himself up to his feet fast. His fists stayed clenched in rage, his fingernails digging into his palms through his green gloves. Dendo growled at Zach's back as the darker-haired boy kept walking away from him, "That's how you want to win? You really- you think tricks like those-"

"If that was a real fight against a villain," Zach started as he continued to walk away with Dendo without pausing. "How many times do you think you would have died right there? You going to make excuses after you're dead?" Zach's voice came out taunting, and he never even looked back at his opponent as he said it.

 _Is he- like I'm not even worth his fucking time?!_ Dendo's fists clenched even harder and his entire arms started to shake.

Flugeru glanced from Sazaki who was approaching the open door of the waiting room, back to his best friend who looked angrier than he had ever seen him before in the last three years. _Shouldn't have brought up his parents dude!_ Flugeru had ignored it before, but he thought that now as he needed to convince himself that Lifebringer was not insane and that it was a justified reaction to have after what Dendo had been saying to him.

"Didn't have to do him dirty like that," Roger Whitewood muttered in English, the other American exchange student in the class of thirty standing near the door and saying it as Zach was coming in.

"Don't know what'chu mean," Zach said in a nonchalant voice back, also speaking English. He turned to the white boy on his side with short orange hair with a white stripe in the middle of it, raising his eyebrows as if asking him to elaborate on what he meant.

"Nothing," Roger muttered, returning to Japanese and shifting his eyes away from Lifebringer's as he got unnerved looking into his.

"Clear out of the gymnasium, Dendo," Hazano spoke into his microphone. _Thought he was about to snap right there. Was Sazaki trying to get him expelled or something? If he had attacked a classmate outside of the training drill, he would have been kicked out immediately. Dendo's never been one quick on the trigger, but right there… He got-_

 _Humiliated. He fucking humiliated me. In front of everyone, I lost so fucking- FUCK! That fuck is a villain, he's a killer and instead of making him lose his… wait. Fuck- no! That's not- He couldn't have!_ Dendo's eyes shot open wide for a second as he approached the waiting room, then he darted them down at the floor and took in a deep breath to stop himself from panting by the time he entered that room too. _Did he know what I was trying to make him do, so he tried to get me to do it instead? I almost… fuck I almost just! And if I almost snapped at him right there, if I could do it- is he saying… what the fuck? Don't look into it so much! But he could, be saying that anyone could lose their shit if things got- this mother fucker. No! If he had snapped, that would have made him a villain! It would have shown his true colors…_

A frustrated and confused look covered Dendo's face as he came back into the waiting room. He avoided everyone's looks as he just stepped in and walked to the back wall he leaned on with his eyes dark and shadowed by the messed-up flip of his bright green hair. "Dendo," Hazano began towards his student who did not even look his way after entering the room. Dendo rose his gaze up to his teacher's, and Hazano could see he was thinking hard about something but he needed to mention this anyway. "When you thought Sazaki was behind you and swung with such force that you cut the wall, you lost control over your Slicer. If you had hit him you could have killed him."

Dendo's teeth ground across each other behind his lips, but he nodded and lowered his gaze back to the floor as he saw his classmates all looking back at him with different looks. Some of them looked like they pitied him for getting scolded like that, like they could see where his head was at when it happened. A few looked pissed, and Muoko actually had a disappointed look on her face as she stared at her classmate who never got so riled-up that he would risk killing a classmate. Most others just had nervous looks though as Dendo's fists were still clenching super hard at his sides, and Sazaki looked back towards him when the rest of them looked so they half-expected him to pop off again.

"And Sazaki," Hazano began. "This isn't the time to mess around," his voice was lower and just as serious as what he just said to Dendo. "If you had finished it earlier, as you easily could have, you would not have been in that dangerous situation. You put yourself in it, and in a fight against villains you put anyone else around you in danger by wasting time like that."

 _"Easily,"_ the only word that mattered to Dendo Takashi echoed in his head and just made him bite down harder. _He moved around so fast, but I got caught up in his stupid tricks! Every fucking time I got misdirected I just happened to pick wrong, and he guessed which side- If he had used… if he had used his Quirk, I could have cut through Death easily. It's only Quirks you control afterwards that Death can knock you out! I could split Death easily! But- am I… if he used his Quirk, it would have been easier? Of course not. So, so then he beat me only using…_

Zach was not looking towards Dendo. He nodded at the teacher and replied, "Sorry, Hazano sensei." Then he walked over towards Kotsumura and smiled when the blond looked at him with his eyebrows risen high and his eyes still full of surprise. "I get that doesn't make me rank second, but I bet I'm above twenty-seventh."

Reika heard Zach on Kotsumura's other side, and she lowered her bottom lip for a second before laughing out loud at the boy who spun his head. Kotsumura saw her laughing and looked back at Zach with his jaw dropped as that was all he had to say after that fight. _He looked so pissed! Geez, what the hell._ "Yeah, well I won't be twenty-seventh for long," Kotsumura said, and he turned his head and looked back towards Hazano who was typing something into a tablet he had in his third and fourth hands.

Zach spotted the teacher out the corner of his eye and looked back to see Hazano had two new arms suddenly sticking out of his sides. _Didn't notice the extra sleeve holes earlier. Looks like there are four more not in use under the bottom two. Oh- Hazano sensei's Hachiman? He looks so different outside of his costume, and I never knew his real name._

"Sensei," Kotsumura spoke up, and Reika looked at the boy next to her in more surprise now. She stopped laughing in his expense and instead smirked wide as he darted a competitive look at her. "I'd like to challenge Reika next."

"You know the rules, Kotsumura," Hazano muttered in annoyance. He lifted up the remote in his upper right hand while Kotsumura sweatdropped and Reika laughed at him. "I randomize the battlefield first. What are you going to do, if the two of you wind up in-"

The flipping images on the screen came to a stop, and Kotsumura's expression fell while Reika started cracking up now. "A lake and a swamp zone," Hazano muttered, even more of a dead-pan tone now. "No retracting your challenge though. So go out there and live with it."

"That's fine," Kotsumura said, getting Reika to lower her head and stop laughing as hard though still smirking victoriously at her classmate ranked far below her. "I can beat you even-"

"Pssh- HAahahaha!" Reika blew air between her lips as she tried to hold in the laughs at Kotsumura's serious expression. "Alright, alright," she walked up to the boy's side as he got a more annoyed look on his face at the way she was laughing, especially because the others around him were not giving him very confident looks that he could do this. "Tell you what. If you beat me, you can call me Tiona too if you want." She even flashed Kotsumura a flirtatious look as she walked by, making the blond boy freeze up which Zach sweatdropped at the sight of.

 _He's so screwed,_ a couple of the people in there, including Zach, thought. The majority of them were not really focused on what Reika and Kotsumura were saying though, as eighty percent of them were still stealing glances at Lifebringer who so effortlessly defeated their second strongest classmate and was now acting like a normal member of their class despite having joined them less than an hour ago. The embarrassing way he chose to defeat Dendo had a lot of them giving him disdainful looks too, but Zach ignored almost all of them.

He saw Himazuri glance towards him though after she watched Reika's back for a few seconds. She had watched the blondes almost walk out into the gymnasium, but when she darted her eyes towards Zach for a second she quickly shifted them back to the glass when she saw him meet her gaze. Zach walked over to her, and he stepped right up on the shorter girl's left side. "What's Reika's Quirk, Himazuri?" The shorter girl looked to the side and up at Zach with a frown, then a hesitant look as he just looked back at her expectantly and ignored the disdain she had as she thought about how he just beat Dendo. She felt a little bad though as she could see Dendo in the back of the room out the corner of her eyes, and she spun back to the glass instead of responding to him. "Has to do with water, right?" Zach whispered quieter, almost like it could be to himself if Himazuri chose not to answer him.

 _I don't understand,_ Himazuri thought, her chest all tightened up as she looked through the window from just next to Lifebringer. _How he could think about all that, during their fight- how he could think…_ She pursed her lips, then she slowly nodded her head and began softly, "It does. Reika's hero name is Tidal Wave. Her Quirk's called, Tide."

 _Makes sense that she's ranked fifth in the class,_ Zach thought, lifting the corners of his lips a little more as he stared through towards the blonde girl jumping from stone to stone in the lake area mainly covered by water. Reika was given the position Alpha to start at, so she was closer to them and able to loosen up for a little as Kotsumura ran across the gym to his own starting point. _Bet it's not as strong as Mark's…_ Zach's smile dropped down, his chest clenching up and fear flashing over his face. _No. Kotsumura- they wouldn't have looked at him like that if his Quirk was a water one too. So she won't- but it might not be exactly the same as what he did, back when he killed his friend. She could…_ Zach's heart raced as Hazano started making the same kind of announcement he made before his and Dendo's fight.

 _It's not Liquid Control. Tiona knows how to use it- except Mark thought he knew, back when he was trying to be a hero. I'm paranoid. I'm nervous._ "What does Tide do?" Zach asked, his voice softer.

Himazuri had started focusing on the fight, but she glanced back towards Zach and then out at her blonde friend again. "Reika can push and pull water from any surface she's touching. She can rise tides or make them completely disappear. And she can move water away from herself too," Himazuri added, right as Reika dove forward off one of the stepping stone rocks near the middle of the room before the zone evened out.

 _She could make a bubble around her own head? Keep air and breathe underwater,_ Zach looked towards ripples in the water to watch for his classmate who was suddenly hiding from Kotsumura. His eyes rose from the water to the boy searching for the spot his classmate would rise from. "And Kotsumura's?" Zach asked, making Himazuri glance at him again wondering if he really was just as curious as he sounded.

Himazuri avoided some looks from her classmates staring towards her and Zach's backs, and she replied softly, "Kotsumura can weaken the Quirk of anyone he touches. It's a temporary effect-" Himazuri had looked back towards Kotsumura when she started responding, but she shifted her eyes to the corner of her vision for a second as she was mentioning how it was temporary. Her mouth froze open at the huge, hopeful eyes that darkened when he heard there was a duration for the Quirk's power. Zach's expression steadied an instant later though and he smiled again as he saw Kotsumura's eyes looking straight towards the spot he saw the water moving.

 _Of course, since she's ranked fifth…_

Kotsumura leapt towards where the water was shifting around a lot like someone was rising. He rose up his arms in his costume, a sticky substance on his gloves that he pointed down towards the opening in the water. Then his eyes shot open wide, as it was not Reika's bubble running out of oxygen that caused that hole to appear. Instead it was just a hole, from the bottom of the lake that had no shallow section and was deep all around that half of the room. He fell deep into the lake, and it was only because Reika released her Quirk a second early that the walls of that hole flooded in and kept Kotsumura Keiji's legs from breaking twelve meters under the surface.

Zach shook his head, but he smiled at the effort and determination on Kotsumura's face when he made that leap. _He really thought he-_ Zach's eyes widened, as did everyone elses' in the waiting room as Reika splashed up out of the water, panting hard, with a pair of hands grabbing her front and back. The hand on her front was slightly too far up, resting just underneath where the tight blue of her costume wrapped over her breasts. Her blue fabric there had the appearance of scales, as did the orange arms and legs of her costume that she flailed at the boy grabbing onto her front and back with his hands sticking to her like glue.

"He, got her?" Flugeru asked, raising his voice and asking if he was really seeing this right.

"Damn- get off!" Reika balled her right fist and slammed it straight into Kotsumura's face as he was panting just over the water too. Reika had been panting because her bubble collapsed as soon as he grabbed onto her, though she blamed that on almost being out of air already. She did not feel the power of the tides though, and her eyes opened wide as Kotsumura opened his squinted eyes after that punch. _He powered up Deplete!_ Reika pulled back her right fist and slammed it forward again, but Kotsumura yanked his head away fast enough and the fist flew by his right ear instead.

Water droplets flew off Reika's fist, and Kotsumura kicked his legs hard below him to tread water more than the girl too surprised by his dodge that she stopped kicking her legs for a second. Kotsumura leaned his head back as he rose up over her, and then he slammed his forehead down into hers and knocked Reika's head backwards with her eyes rolling up into her head and a gasp slipping her lips. And then the two of them sank back under the surface of the lake.

Everyone leaned forward in the waiting room, staring through the glass from close-up. Even Dendo pushed off the back wall and stepped a few feet forward, looking at the screens above everyone's heads instead with his eyes wide. An arm splashed over the water at the mid-point of the gym, grabbing onto the ledge. Kotsumura hoisted up with a bare hand he had slipped out of his glove, which was still attached just beneath Reika's chest. _Reika's going to be pissed when she gets up and sees that still there, if it's still there…_ Kotsumura yanked Reika up more with the hand he had on her back, hoisting her with one arm as he could since his arms were very muscular under his costume. He cracked an even bigger grin after he rolled up onto the edge of the lake next to her, turning his head to the side and looking at Reika's blank expression. _Or actually, Tiona's gonna be pissed._

"Reika is unconscious it seems, Kotsumura is the winner." Hazano announced, a small grin lifted on his face for a moment as he stared at his student who smiled in so much pride hearing his name called right there. _Great improvement this last term. You deserve this. Even if, it wasn't quite the first knock down, but the lake zone isn't very good for that anyway._

Kotsumura turned Reika on her side, patting her on the back a couple times with a worried look on his face. The others watching him, a few of them clapping or cheering for their classmate who won the upset, leaned forward with more nervous looks as Kotsumura's expression appeared to be. Zach's smile dropped and his eyes opened wide as he had seen Kotsumura put a hand over Reika's mouth and under her nose there before he turned her on her side. Some water spilled out of Reika's mouth, but as a few others looked to be about to run for the door like Zach and Hazano sensei were, Reika coughed and a splash of water hit the ground at her side.

"Holy- are you alright?" Kotsumura turned Reika more towards her stomach. He did not think much of it when she was not moving after he dropped her next to him, but when he thought about how they had both gone back under for a second, and she was already unconscious before that, the fear became reality. Luckily there was not very much blocking up her throat, keeping her from breathing there. Reika turned her head back, her eyes angry as she glared up at the boy who just asked her that only to lean away.

Reika bit down after opening her mouth to shout at him, a much angrier look forming on her face at herself as she thought about the position they were in. _He beat me?!_ Her eyes shifted down to her chest, and a glove resting under it with two fingers bordering on and even touching the underside of her boobs. The anger towards herself was replaced, and she rose her eyes up darkly back to Kotsumura who stood next to her before she could lash out. "Great match Tiona," Kotsumura said, before turning and jogging off with a victorious look towards the waiting room.

 _Please don't,_ Hazano thought, as it looked like one of his students was again about to attack another after the fight had ended.

Kotsumura arrived back in the room adjacent the gym all smiles. Others in the class approached him and patted him on his wet back, giving him words of encouragement and mentioning his nice dodge. Kotsumura stepped up to his white-haired classmate with all yellow eyes that had small black pupils who gave him an encouraging nod. Porrolo Ven looked back through the glass himself towards an approaching and angry Reika, _Finish celebrating soon, Keiji._

"Should've let her drink a little more water," Satoshi mentioned quietly, leaning over Kotsumura's right shoulder and whispering it in his ear. "Then you could have given Reika mouth-to-mouth."

"And then she'd be really pissed with you," Porrolo retorted without looking back at the idiot over Kotsumura's shoulder who had managed to get Kotsumura's cheeks turning pink though his smile did rise higher.

His risen smile lowered back though at Porrolo's warning, and he nodded with a smirk. _Just the right amount of pissed,_ he thought, figuring any worse and it might actually lower his mood right now.

Kotsumura glanced over at someone he saw staring at him who did not come over with some of his other friends. He looked around Ven's head and saw Zach was smiling his way and gave him a nod once he looked. Kotsumura grinned back and nodded in response towards him and Himazuri who gave him an encouraging smile too, before turning her head and moving over towards Reika.

"Hey Kotsumura," Reika snapped, and three people between the door she just came in and the boy she talked to moved out of the way. Kotsumura turned his head and then his head snapped backwards, as a glove smacked into his face. "You forgot this," she mentioned, a smirk cracked back on her wet face that covered up her own disappointment and frustration. Reika reached back and she pried the next glove off of her back too that he had left on her in his hurry to rush off, and she threw it at him right as he pulled his first glove off his face, getting the second one stuck to it as he was breathing it, blocking his airways and making him stumble around in panic so that Satoshi had to quickly help him peel the glove off his face.

"And Hazano sensei," Reika started, spinning to her teacher next. "I challenge-"

"You have to wait one fight before fighting again," Hazano retorted at the girl who wanted to get in another fight to prevent losing her ranking now that she had been beaten by someone so far down.

Reika frowned at the teacher and grumbled some incoherent words under her breath for a moment. Hazano muttered under his own breath that he had not randomized the stage again yet, and he got to doing so while calling out at whoever planned on the next challenge to keep quiet until he called on them. Reika looked towards Hazano sensei and sighed, as it sounded like he was going to ask people in one of his "random" orders to try and get Ranking Day more organized, as he sometimes would if he was starting to get annoyed at them. The girl with long blonde hair reached up and squeezed the water out of her hair, and as she was doing so she turned her head and looked back towards a muscular boy back behind most of Class 1.

Dendo turned and saw Reika looking towards him, smirking and looking like she was going to challenge him next. His teeth clenched and ground over each other, but the girl looking at him did not even look away or nervous at his expression. Her look said 'I bet I could beat you too' and it had Dendo's blood pumping. Luckily for him, the next person Hazano called had a similar notion that Reika was showing on her face, and Dendo spun with an even angrier look as someone else called him out for a fight.

His angry look met a calm one though from his classmate in all black whose mask covered up everything except her eyes. Manzo Elia looked into Dendo's black eyes with dark green pupils, and she kept her calm even as his expression calmed too and returned to the more collected one Dendo usually had when he fought. The smirk and overconfidence did not return though, just a serious look as he turned and started for the door into the new gym set-up.

"It's been a match in between, but I didn't think Manzo would go for him so soon," Zach heard the tallest boy in the class saying behind him after the two competitors had gone in. He looked over his left shoulder, and Flugeru saw him and frowned for a moment but then turned back to Kerushi and continued in a lower voice, "Even if she thinks she could beat him. I mean, she's been the closest one to do it before, but Dendo's always challenged the most and he'd be more worn out later."

"She only got close last time because it was the end of the day," Kerushi muttered back at his classmate. "Though, if she's calling him out this early, it's probably so if she wins we don't blame it on him being worn out. Not like we could say that first fight wore him out at all. He didn't even get hit."

"Dude," Flugeru started, darting his eyes back towards Lifebringer. Kerushi looked too, but Zach was focused through the glass. His eyes were locked on Manzo whose dark costume he looked at closely. He looked at the weapons she had attached on what looked like a ninja costume, though he suspected there were more hidden inside.

 _He's not going to fall for the same tricks again,_ Zach thought, looking towards the girl who was dressed in a very peculiar way. _She knows him better than I do though. She came close to beating him before apparently. Maybe she can do it this time too._

Zach watched the fight, and he followed the fighters' movements closely. His eyes were locked on them through the glass the entire time, only darting to the screens on the brief moments when they were impossible to see through the window alone. Kotsumura moved back near him but was still closer to Satoshi and Porrolo on his left, though Himazuri was on Zach's right and Reika moved into the gap between Kotsumura and Zach after she came back with Himazuri. Kotsumura looked at the girl who stopped on his right in surprise that she came right up to him, but she flashed him a smirk that left him in a very confused state once she looked back through the glass and towards the fight.

 _Who'd've thought he had the guts,_ Reika saw the confused and flustered expression in the corner of her eyes and hid her smirk only on the right side of her face that Zach could see in his own peripheral vision.

Reika thought she noticed Zach seeing her smile, and she turned a bit to her right to see if he had caught her. Instead, she saw his eyes locked deep through the glass and focused intensely on what he was watching. Her own attention returned to her classmates, but her focus shifted to the right a couple of times during the rest of the fight which was the longest one so far. Dendo got a couple of cuts during the match, but Manzo was the one coughing up spit into her black mask that she had to pull down to breath better, while down on her knees at the end of the fight.

The two of them returned, and the next students went out there as Tomoki challenged Muoko. Apparently the vice president was only one place below his counterpart, one of them thirteen and the other twelve. "They're dating you know," Satoshi mentioned, coming up closer on Zach's left side than Reika who darted an annoyed look at the black-haired boy for cutting between them. He had the tongue of a snake and vertical irises of gold to match. He looked in at his new classmate who nodded, giving him an interested 'huh' before looking back out at the two getting ready to fight.

 _He's getting so into this,_ Kotsumura thought, a glance back towards his new classmate on his right again. _It doesn't mean anything to him. Not like it does to us, but yet he's so focused. It's like all he's thinking about,_ Kotsumura's eyes shifted past Zach to Himazuri on his other side who was staring back at Zach again with wide eyes as she read his thoughts.

 _Their "weaknesses?"_ Himazuri looked back through the glass towards her two class representatives who had very precise Quirks that required incredible amounts of practice to use. The two of them had taken Ranking Day seriously from the first term of the first year, and they had fought each other each time since then getting to know each other's strengths and weaknesses each time. Almost every time their ranking had changed by only a couple of ranks, one of them rising above or dropping below the other usually based on how they did in their fight against the other, the rest of their classmates meaning little in their overall ranking. It was the _final_ Ranking Day though.

Tomoki and Muoko fought even harder that Dendo and Manzo just were, even if the battle looked to be a little less difficult. Zach noted it himself, that he thought if either of the two out there had gone against Manzo they would not have beaten her, nor would they have lasted against Dendo very long at all.

Dendo was wrapping up his own cuts in the back of the waiting area where there was a small first aid station attached to the wall for their class's own use with no nurse to help them. His eyes focused towards Lifebringer's back and bored into the back of his head. Inasa glanced back towards his classmate who never failed to challenge him, even on Ranking Days when Dendo had already been challenged a half dozen times himself. _Do it Dendo! I want a warm-up!_ Inasa's eyes shifted towards Lifebringer, and at the side of his intense face focused solely on the fight out in the gym right now. His own attention shot back to the fight, where Tomoki and Muoko were up close to each other suddenly using hand-to-hand combat instead of using their Quirks which were both generally mid-rangers.

Zach started to move away as he noticed Muoko getting the upper hand in the battle that was already close to being over. Tomoki was getting less stable on his feet, and Zach moved closer to his teacher while still watching the fight. Hazano was watching the fight closely to judge his students, and when Tomoki got a palm in the center of his chest that knocked him onto his back, the teacher announced the winner of the bout. As soon as he lowered his microphone, Zach questioned the man next to him, "Hazano sensei, I get that I didn't move up to rank second from that last fight, but what rank would you say I am now?"

Hazano turned to the teen next to him who he did not notice approach which made him frown even more than the question itself. "It doesn't work like that," Hazano responded. "It's cumulative."

Zach nodded in understanding once then turned back around. The two class representatives were talking out in the gym, and Muoko extended a hand down for her classmate whose frustrated expression faded a bit as he chuckled at something she just told him. _I just needed to ask to show my interest. So that it's easier to get away with._

The class reps came back into the waiting room to lots of encouragement from their classmates for each of them. "Compared to the first Ranking Day," Hazano began, and the two who were being talked at by their friends turned to the teacher. Hazano just re-randomized the stage, but he was not watching the screens to instead smile at his young students. "The two of you have both made great progress. Don't let it get you down, Tomoki. This may have been your last chance to rank higher, but you will both continue training through the rest of the year so I'm sure you'll have more opportunities to spar together…"

Zach watched the screens flip until there were two new zones ready to emerge. _Rock zone again. Desert seems similar just with less solid ground. I'm sure there are some people that works better for, but it would probably hurt him a lot more than help. I'll stay in the rock zone though._ "Hazano sensei," Zach started once Hazano looked back to see which zones were emerging. "Could I challenge someone?" Zach asked, and the teacher looked back to his newest student and gave him a nod showing it was fine. _Because there's been a fight gap between my last fight now. I'm not at the top and there's no way to tell until the end so it doesn't matter what anyone thinks._

Zach turned his head, looked across the waiting room, and he said, "I challenge Imino Kurinou."

A lot of the other students who had looked to Zach in surprise at his sudden declaration of wanting to challenge someone, spun the other direction in confusion towards one of their classmates they had not seen approach Zach yet. The chubby boy with dark blue skin stared across the room at Lifebringer with his eyes wide too, and sweat formed on both sides of his face as Lifebringer stared straight back into his eyes with a smirk crossing over his face at Imino's expression. _With those pointy ears of yours, you've been listening to everything I said. More than Himazuri was even eavesdropping on my thoughts,_ Zach added to himself, while certain that the girl was currently listening to him which made her pull out again with a nervous look on her face.

 _How does he- no, he didn't know I was right there. He must've just been thinking weird things before while watching my expression,_ Himazuri calmed herself down after going wide-eyed right behind Zach. _So he knew I wasn't listening. Why was he checking though? He must be, being careful about his thoughts… I should really stop trying. He's not thinking about, the stuff Dendo wants to know._ Himazuri glanced over towards the muscular boy farther in the waiting room who had as much of a confused look on his face as most others around him.

Reika glanced up towards one of the screens that had the previous term's rankings on them. "Imino's ranked twentieth," she began, stepping towards Zach's side with a frown and confused look. "What's the point of challenging him?"

 _No one ever declines!_ Imino's breathing sped up, but seeing Reika counter Lifebringer like that snapped him back to the moment. _Not once! Not since the first term, and I'm- I'm not going to be the first!_ "I accept," Imino said, cutting off Kotsumura right as he looked Imino's way and before he could say anything himself.

Zach nodded and started over to the door into the gym without waiting for any instruction. Flugeru stepped back and looked down, watching the boy walk in front of him with confusion over his face and an uncertain look too at the cocky, smug look on Lifebringer's face. _After how he beat Dendo, this is going to be brutal,_ Flugeru glanced back towards his friend as he thought it and then turned away at Dendo's look of frustration still so visible on his face.

"You can do this, Imino," the boy on his side began, making Imino glance at the slightly shorter student with a large brown shell attached to his back.

 _Sure he can, "Curly." I still don't know everyone's names in here. You're up next though, so I'll figure it out in a minute._ Zach confidently walked into the gym, his overconfidence showing and making a lot more people back in the waiting room frown out at him. Kotsumura's look was more of just confusion, as was Himazuri's, but Reika started frowning darkly out at Zach too as she saw him look back with a look as if wondering if his classmate was even going to come out after him.

 _Is he that mad about Imino listening in on him? He was just having normal conversation with us a few seconds ago…_ Himazuri got unsure about herself, but Zach was getting too far from her to check as Hazano sensei sent him to the position Beta across the room. Himazuri glanced to her side as Reika curled her hands over a railing just in front of the window, her body leaning forward and her eyes narrowed at the teen walking away from them across the gym. "Asshole tricked me. What's he trying to prove?"

 _I don't think…_ Himazuri closed her mouth that she just opened, turning instead through the glass to her normally shy classmate who came walking around the other side of the wall towards his starting point. _Imino didn't want to decline because he felt pressured to accept. I don't need to be a mind reader to see that. This is,_ Himazuri pursed her lips and her eyes started getting angrier too as she brought them back up to look across the gym towards Zach.

"You can do this," Porrolo muttered, making Kotsumura glance next to him at his spiky-white-haired friend. "Come on, Imino. Wipe that look right off his smug face."

 _"Smug?" Because he's Lifebringer. Because he's a celebrity and has the whole country looking to him._ Kotsumura Keiji started to frown and he glared out across the gym too, but after a couple seconds his gaze softened and he just frowned more but in a confused way. _That's not right though. He wasn't just, tricking us. What's he doing? He's_ _ **the**_ _Lifebringer. That's what his expression looks like he's saying. So why? It looks so real! So then why-_ Kotsumura's eyes shifted back to his classmate just on the other side of the glass.

Imino took in a deep, long breath as he set up on position Alpha. The glowing circle beneath his feet was split on rock and sand, but he stood on the sand side looking like he wanted to keep the battle on that half of the room. Across the middle split-line he could see Lifebringer looking back at him, stopping on his own circle and looking somehow straight back into his eyes. They were in the flattest area of the room right on the center line, with the sand dunes on the right larger than the rocky cliffs and uneven surfaces on Imino's left. The surface of the rock zone had changed up a bit from the one that Zach and Dendo fought on before too, and Zach took his eyes off his opponent to instead look around that area wondering what happened below the surface every time one of the areas dropped down.

 _Is he even focused on me?_ Imino thought, trying to get himself angry but just making himself more anxious really with the thought of it. The dark blue teen had on a black costume with dark blue sleeves and highlights on his shoulders, calves, waist, and under his arms on his sides. He had a belt around his waist that looked similar to Zach's but less compact, more of the support items he had showing on it than hidden in the compartments like Zach's were. Imino's hands moved down and his fingers nervously twitched near some of his weapons. _I can do… I can! I can, fight him! But, he toyed around with Dendo. Dendo! I- I couldn't beat Dendo. But maybe, maybe he just beat Dendo like that because Dendo was being too cocky! That must be it. Dendo's too good- even the amazing way he was fighting, it just looked so much better because it was_ _ **Dendo**_ _he was beating. And if he could beat Dendo because Dendo got too confident…_

"Raise your right hands if you are ready," Hazano announced. Zach rose his first, but Imino took in a deep breath and then lifted his up as well. Imino's eyes narrowed in focus towards his opponent who smirked back at him seeing that composed look, which unnerved Imino again. Imino did not have time to analyze what that look could mean though, as Hazano counted down for them and the fight was started before he could re-prepare himself.

Zach ran forward. He sprinted across the middle of the room. He had his visor over his eyes with his dark blue helmet extended out of it up over the top of his black hair. His visor was dark tinted, but from his curved up lips Imino could imagine the super-confident look in Lifebringer's eyes that made his hands clench over the weapons on his belt he had been hovering them near. _I need to get away from the wall!_ Imino darted to his left, towards the closest cover as he saw Sazaki nearing the halfway point of the room and not slowing down. His plan to move to the sand side to get Zach going right into the rock zone did not matter anymore, since it seemed clear that Lifebringer was going to charge straight at him no matter what zone he wanted them to be fighting in.

 _You can run,_ Zach reached his right hand to the side of his belt and pulled a rectangular piece up off of it. A sharp blade snapped out of the green hilt, a new hilt replacing it on the belt popping out from inside to be grabbed easily. Zach flipped the blade around in his hand and stomped his right foot forward hard, swinging his whole arm ahead of him and launching his knife across the room at the first cover that Imino was running behind. His knife slammed off the rock cover and bounced up into the air, and Imino froze on the other side instead of running off.

 _How?! He was so far- it was just a knife!_ Imino heard the loud noise and did not know what it could be for a moment as it was much closer than he was expecting, and the noise almost deafened him. The clank still rang in his head, but Imino did not lower his range at all as he thought about all the feints and misdirections Zach made in that first match before. Imino's Quirk, Echolocation, allowed him to keep track of Zach's position even after he had darted behind rock covers to stay out of sight of the boy still running towards the first rock that the knife had bounced off of. As Imino was running though, and listening to Zach get closer to that rock, he ground his teeth in frustration with his eyes snapping wide for a moment. _I can't just run! I- I have to-_

"But you can't hide!" Zach leapt up high in the air, and his eyes were focused behind the rock cover that there was enough of going along an edge that Imino had been able to duck down on the other side and zip away from. Zach snapped his head farther back in the direction he came from, as a pellet hit the ground and made an explosion of smoke twelve meters to that side of him. Two more pellets flew almost out of the smoke cloud that just emerged, but they did not leave completely so that Zach would have been able to see them. Instead, it was just two more explosions of smoke billowing out from the first blast of it.

 _No,_ Imino thought, as he held up a handful of smoke pellets in his hands and waited for a few seconds. _It's you who can't hide._ He waited until the sound of his light footsteps on the ground bounced off of an approaching object close enough that his smoke cloud had already engulfed it. Then he spun and released a dozen smoke pellets in an arc ahead of him. Zach got hit by one of the small round pellets, and the smoke thickened especially right in front of his face.

Outside of the smoke, all the students looked in closely towards the left side of the gym where a massive cloud of smoke just plumed in all directions when Imino filled a section of the rock area with it. Hazano clicked a button on his remote, and the tvs above the window flipped to a thermal mode which gave them a look of two heat signatures inside all that smoke. They could tell easily which of the two was Imino, based on the way he was running at full speed jumping up on elevated surfaces and darting through the smoke undeterred by the lack of visibility. The other red figure in that smoke was turning his head back and forth, staying in one spot but not looking very panicked by the calm movements of his body and sight of the small heat signatures coming off his face showing his calm breathing despite all that smoke.

"You think I need to see you?" Zach asked, turning his head the direction he heard the footsteps closest in. He took a step that way, then he leapt up in the air too. "Think I might misstep because I'm unable to see the ground?" Zach called it towards where he thought Imino was, and he came down hard with a kick that he swept before he thought he was going to hit the ground. He did not land the kick on anyone, but the smoke was pushed away by the swing enough that he saw the appearance of the ground below him and could land cleanly on it. After he landed, he did not hear any movement in any direction of him though. _Close. An explosion of Death would knock him out for sure. What if I decide to use it?_

Zach eased his body to the left, and a fist flew by his right side. He reached up his right arm and locked his elbow in, squeezing the arm that just punched by his back between his forearm and his bicep. He turned his head to the right, looking back at the boy so close to him that his face was visible. The smoke was starting to thin out a little too despite how many pellets were thrown, and Zach reached his left hand over to the arm he had locked up. "Don't move-" Imino began, bringing his left hand forward with a weapon in it near Zach's back. Zach yanked with his right arm though, completely throwing Imino off and right into the path of his left fist. Imino flicked the weapon he had been moving forward off of his own left hand, right up at Zach's left arm that he dragged away in mid-swing to avoid Imino's weapon hitting it.

Imino swung up his left leg while still being swung around Zach, and he nailed Zach below his right arm that was still swinging Imino's. Zach's left arm had dragged the other way to dodge that small black weapon Zach did not get a good look at in the smoke too, leaving his right side below his arm unprotected from the kick Imino just landed. _Steel in the shoe,_ Zach thought as he let go with his right arm, stumbling away from Imino instead of trying to hold on which would have increased the damage of that kick he had to lean away from. Imino continued spinning, and he put his hands down as he was dropping, landing on his hands and feet instead of his knees or his butt.

 _I'm up!_ Imino snapped his head up, then he jumped backwards fast while Zach steadied himself after the stumble. The smoke was fading a lot more, but before it did, Imino rushed into the area where it was still the thickest to look for more cover. His heart was pounding, his ears ringing as he listened to his own footsteps every step bounce off of all the rocks around him and into Lifebringer. He closed his eyes in the smoke, and he had a full layout of everything within thirty meters of him based on the sounds bouncing off it all. _His head is turning. He knows which way I went, but not exactly where in the smoke. Stop moving before it gets too thin._ Imino slowed down, not wanting the small fluctuations in the smoke to give away his position in a few seconds when it would be thin enough to do so.

"Damn, he almost had him," Satoshi said, snapping his fingers and frowning more as he looked through the glass again to where he could see Imino in the same location as the screens showed him.

"Who almost had who?" Kerushi muttered over on Satoshi's right, not really to him specifically. _If Sazaki had landed that punch, it would've been all over. Imino reacted fast with that kick after he was already lifted off the ground, but it's his costume and the extra power he's got in those legs that saved him. I've seen Imino land kicks like that before though, and no one ever just stumbles a couple steps away after getting hit. The steel toes aside…_

"He doesn't even look fazed," Reika muttered, her eyes dark as she glared back through the glass towards Sazaki again. All the smoke faded away or rose up too high in the gym above them to block their views any longer. _Fighting Imino up close is dumb. We all know that. Sazaki didn't, but I didn't think it would matter since it's Lifebringer anyway. Well, it doesn't seem like it will. His kicks are strong._

 _With a Quirk that works too well as support, and not well at all offensively,_ Hazano looked towards one of his students who had a power that did not allow him to damage his opponents using it. _Imino's trained harder than anyone in combat. Himazuri focuses more on mentally facing off against her opponents, but Imino's Quirk is one of the weakest in the class_. The teacher frowning out towards his students narrowed his eyes a bit more over at Sazaki who was scanning the hiding spots in the direction that Imino really was hiding in. _So he's worked that much harder on close quarters combat, and with his weapons, than most anyone. Everyone knows about Lifebringer though. We all saw him fight in those Sports Festivals. We know, that he didn't know about the other uses for his power for years. Why he doesn't use that Quirk of his now, I don't know. But he's matching up his actual combat skills against Imino's, while Imino still has the use of his Quirk that gives him the upper hand. If Imino comes to this conclusion himself…_

 _He had me. He could have used Death there to knock me out and win the fight. It's not just about winning to him though. With Dendo, there was an ulterior motive in place._ Imino's eyes were focused and his breathing steadying as he held his back up against a boulder between him and Lifebringer. _He wanted to embarrass Dendo. I heard them back in the locker room. I heard what Dendo said and I get why, but what's his reason here? I don't know, but he's focused more on it than he is about winning this fight! He has too many motives. His focus is scattered. And mine, is not!_

Imino reached to his utility belt and pulled off a pair of tools he had attached there. He still had some smoke pellets left, but he did not grab them and instead pulled a small black weapon off the belt next to their pouch. His other hand slid through a handle that had openings for each of his fingers, and he pulled up from his belt to show that below the hole his pinky went through there was a sharp blade protruding. As he lifted that arm, he also snapped it to the side and made three blade spikes stick out of the black armor on his forearm. Imino crouched his legs and leaned forward, and he listened for the movements of the boy currently faced sideways from his rock. _He's not going to fully turn away, because he knows which side I'm on. But if he rushes the wrong one…_

Just as Imino was thinking it, Zach fired a metal hook out of his right glove and shot across the floor. He jumped up instead of skidding over his friction-less heels after skidding halfway though, and he twisted his body with a knife in one hand to throw down at the other side of the cover that looked the easiest to hide behind. He had a confident look covering his face as he prepared to throw it down, but there was no one behind that cover. Behind one of the rocks to his back now, Imino darted out of the cover to get even farther into Zach's blind spot. At the same time, he threw the black weapon in his right hand behind him at an angle of the rock cover he had been behind.

Zach turned his head and looked back and down at the sound of a steel noise. He caught a glimpse of movement in the top of his peripheral vision as to where Imino went, but he focused on the black weapon that bounced off the rock it hit. The flat steel weapon was in the shape of a bat, and after hitting the rock it seemed to increase speed instead of slowing down. The ricochet sped it up, the impact increasing the speed of its spin and making it shoot towards where Zach was coming down. _It'll pass me- but that rock there,_ Zach noticed a bump in the cover he had leapt towards originally that his hook was still lodged in. The way that bump protruded created a perfect angle, that he had to snap his body to the side a second later when the bat-knife hit it and shot up twice as fast towards him.

As Zach pulled away, he looked closely at the weapon passing over his body even at the speed it was moving. Imino looked up and cursed under his breath that Zach was able to dodge when it was so close. _His reflexes-_ Imino cut himself off from doubting because of Zach's strengths, and he jumped out and rose his right hand to the side while also lifting the outside of his left forearm towards Zach's landing spot. A small red glow appeared on the edge of the first bat-knife, making it curve in midair as it was slowing and starting to arc down. The first blade returned to Imino's hand, but when Zach looked that way after running around the cover, he saw three other similar weapons flying towards him or around him.

 _Just like he uses the sounds that bounce everywhere,_ Zach darted to his right to dodge the weapon perfectly on line with him. Another one bounced towards where he was dodging, then he heard the clink of the one hitting the cover behind him that he had just dodged. _He can think ahead to at least two bounces off objects. He knows how things bounce too, which directions and which angles the fastest. Throwing the fourth back into the mix, at the ground? The angle will still have it hit my feet even if it bounces,_ Zach leapt up into the air, and he pointed his right hand down towards the boy jogging backwards from the cover he had just been behind. A hook fired and pierced through rock. Zach approached him quickly, and he shot forward much faster as the hook jet-propelled Zach there with how strongly his wire retracted. _**Dink-**_

 _There was a ledge on the floor. Must have been small._ The fourth one that Imino had caught after calling it back to himself hit the floor below Zach, but instead of bouncing forward it shot back the direction it came. There was a small dip on the rock surface, but Imino did not just aim specifically for that. He got the first bounce on the floor before that ledge, at a low enough angle that after it sped up it shot into that little ledge and bounced backwards and up in the air, moving even faster again. The second speed increase while shooting back, made it fast enough that it would be near impossible for Zach to dodge-

Zach twisted his body in midair, releasing the wire from his right hand and letting the curved bad-shaped weapon pass just below his horizontal body. _Blade doesn't look too sharp. Probably wouldn't have even hurt that much._ Zach watched it zip below his face, and he snapped his head up right as it was passing him to give a serious look towards Imino. His smile was gone, his eyes focused, and his fists curled but opened in time for Zach to reach out and grab the cover he descended towards too early to get over it. He grabbed the top of the rock surface and swung his legs over hard, throwing himself towards where Imino had froze upon seeing Zach's impossible twist to dodge his last attack.

Imino's right hand moved for the smoke pellets, but Zach saw that coming and when he landed he came out of it in a sprint at his shorter classmate. He did not pull any weapons out of his own belt, instead charging straight at the other teen who brought his own hands up fast and spread his legs in a defensive position. He still had steel knuckles on his left fist with a sharp blade protruding out the bottom of it, while his right fist was in a black glove similar in appearance to the one Zach had been wearing. The extra material over Zach's glove actually pulled back into his watch as he was on that close sprint towards Imino, the black glove returning alone and no glove on his left hand where that armor pulled back too.

 _Too fast- there's no way I dodge! My counters he'll predict too! I heard Norasaki sensei! I- Only on the fight! Calm! Focus! Prepare!_ Imino's hands clenched harder, and his fighting stance got more steady with his legs spreading a bit more as he realized he was not as set as he could be. Zach slowed down too as he ran forward, his eyes examining his opponent's fighting stance closely though he was still running forward. _He knows I can actually get attacks close on him. It's not going as easy as he thought it would! That's not good enough!_ Imino bit down behind his lips as for a second he almost felt good about his fight so far, which had a secondary meaning in his head that he was thinking even if he lost there, it wouldn't be a total defeat.

 _There you go,_ Zach ran forward, crouching his body on the final approach and raising his fists up in front of his face to guard. He darted to his right, then his left, then straight in at his opponent when he was only a meter off. Zach pulled his right hand off his face first, swinging it in a punch forward at Imino's head. He took another step in as he was swinging though, bringing the gap between them closer. It would have made for less power in his hit, but he curved his right arm so he still had a longer swing, only with his elbow instead.

Imino yanked his head to the side, and he snapped up his right arm and punched his hand up through the crook of Zach's elbow. The blade on his left hand dropped from the knuckles, as Imino punched in an uppercut towards Zach's right side just in front of his own left. He went for the same area he landed his kick earlier, but Zach's left hand snapped down and caught Imino around his fist. As Zach lowered his hand like that, he was also yanking his right out of Imino's hold with his superior strength. Both of his arms were occupied in that moment though, and pulled aside while the two of them were close in front of each other. They were so close, that Imino instantly remembered one of the previous fights and did not hesitate to follow Kotsumura's example after seeing how it worked out for him.

Imino was a bit shorter, but he slammed his forehead forward and caught Zach in the chin when he lifted his head up and pulled it back to dodge. If he had been an inch or two shorter than he was, the headbutt would not have collided with anything but Zach's chest which was covered in stronger armor than Imino knew. Instead, Zach winced and he pulled back farther after the collision jolted his initial retreat to a stop. As he pulled his head up and knocked Imino's head back with his chin, his lips curled down into a deep, pissed-off frown. His head snapped back down while Imino's head was still pulling back, and Zach dropped down to a low crouched position quickly. He threw Imino's left fist out to the side, so that Imino was opened up on his left side that Zach rose his right foot on upon his rising back up.

Imino slammed his right hand that had lost grip on Zach's arm forward. He swung it towards Sazaki's face, but even as Zach planned his own attack he was still focused enough on defense that his head moved away. It moved away the slightest amount too, as little away as was necessary to dodge. The wind from the punch grazed Zach's face, while he twisted his body and slammed his right foot into Imino's left side, the shorter teen's left arm still moving down to block it. Even as Zach's foot was colliding, Imino was moving his left arm down with one thought in his head, _If I grab his leg I cou-_ "Gaughh-" Zach's leg dented into Imino's side and then threw the gasping boy off his foot and into the floor where he rolled for a few seconds before stopping face-down on the rocks.

Back in the waiting room, Satoshi exhaled and sighed with a disappointed look on his face. He snapped his fingers and tssked, "He almost had him."

 _His fighting was so straightforward. What the fuck is with that? You going easier on-_ Dendo ground his teeth and shook his head once while glaring through the window towards his classmates. _Maybe it was because he was ranked lower. Maybe he didn't think he had to be as cautious with Imino. Or maybe, his distraction tactics wouldn't have worked when Imino could detect exactly where he was the whole time. He knew that from the start, and just went straight at him with that smile to make it look like he was overconfident. The prick still looked to be fighting hard, and that was a great strategy, and Imino got hits on him? I didn't even- I couldn't…_

Zach walked over to the boy on his stomach who kept coughing for a few seconds, his left hand gripping his side in pain. _A little harder than I should have hit him. He was really ready to catch my leg there though, had to speed it up a bit._ Zach ignored Hazano who was calling out his victory, and he knelt down next to his classmate who stopped groaning as much when he saw Zach right next to him. Imino lowered his left hand from his painful new bruise and put it on the floor, pushing down which put his side in more pain though he tried to mask it from his expression this time.

Imino turned as he dragged himself to his hands and knees. He looked Zach in the eyes, and Zach smiled at his classmate while on one knee himself, "Great fight. You almost had me there for a second."

Confusion spread over Imino's face, then he leaned back and took his hands off the floor while opening his mouth to say something. He winced though as leaning back hurt his side, and he reached his hand back down and rubbed it. Zach rubbed his own right side as Imino did, and he mentioned, "You've got a strong kick." Zach stood up next to his classmate and lowered his hand from his side, smiling despite saying that he was in pain from it, and Imino lowered his own hand back down too.

"My kick," Imino repeated in a low mutter. He lowered his eyes to Zach's feet for a second, then he snapped them back up as he saw a hand in front of him. Zach had his left hand extended out, and Imino hesitated while looking from it back up to Sazaki's face. _It almost knocked him down. The guy who beat Dendo. Lifebringer. I landed a hit on him._ Imino lifted the right corner of his lip a bit and he rose his left hand to grab Zach's.

Zach hoisted Imino up surprising the other boy by how little he actually put into standing himself. It was easier this way though, and less painful on his left side that he rubbed again while hoping nothing was fractured. "Those smoke pellets were really annoying," Zach began as he started back to the waiting room. He looked to his side as he walked, and Imino began forward next to him as it felt like Lifebringer was going to walk with him instead of ahead of him. "Does the smoke not mess up the sound waves at all?"

Imino's eyebrows rose up and he turned more to his classmate. "Actually, there are some fluctuations in the echoes… depending on fog, humidity, air density, stuff like that. In the rain too I have a big problem, but those smoke pellets don't mess it up for me. I was worried about it at first too."

 _Guess people don't ask him that question a lot, but a Quirk like his is harder to understand than it seems. It's just a weak Quirk that works like a bat's radar, but even that isn't a certainty. Even weaker Quirks have their own downsides and restraints. Death doesn't work on certain people. It's hard to freeze someone who can break through ice or heat it up, and just as equally hard to burn someone who can push water out of themselves. Hard to use fire Quirks when your body isn't resistant to the flames._ "If you had gotten the area smokey again before that fight there at the end, I probably wouldn't have been able to dodge that last swing you made at me," Zach mentioned right after Imino finished replying. "I was rushing you pretty fast, but those steel knuckles you put on wound up not doing anything."

"Ch," Imino frowned and made the noise through his teeth as he had already noticed that when he took them off a few seconds ago and picked up his dropped blade to deposit into his belt. _Knew I should have pulled out more pellets. Just to have them ready or something. I could've actually beaten Lifebringer. He thinks so. At least, the way he was fighting I could've beaten him. What was his other reason? The ulterior reason I thought didn't matter, now that the fight's over…_ Imino looked towards his classmate who was facing back forward and looked out of the fighting mood. _He got pretty serious there at the end though. I don't know what he was thinking earlier on, but when his face got serious- that's when I should've been pulling out the pellets, but it freaked me out too much and I didn't grab them. Damn, I had that._

"It was a nice fight though," Zach continued again as they were nearing the entrance back into the waiting room. "You put up more of a fight than Dendo did," he added, then he turned forward and returned his expression to normal as he headed inside. Zach did not glance Dendo's direction but also did not make it out much like he was hiding what he just said, and he just stared back towards the middle of the gym's side room where he had been standing before making his challenge.

"Imino," Hazano began once the other boy stepped inside, having hesitated outside the door with a lowered bottom lip at what Zach said loudly as he had gone ahead. Imino was again confused as to what Zach was doing, but he turned towards his teacher who paused himself after saying his student's name. "Impressive work. That first kick landed nicely, so you should work more on strength training. You each landed a strong kick, but yours was first. On someone who doesn't have a strengthening Quirk your blows need to be able to take them down, or getting him off guard like you did doesn't matter when Sazaki can recover just like that."

"And Sazaki," Hazano began after his other student nodded at him. "I thought I said," he turned and gave Zach a dark look when Zach looked back at him. "This isn't the time to mess around."

"I wasn't," Zach replied. "I'm flattered you think I was though, I guess," Zach added, which made his teacher frown deeper back at him and caused a few others around him to drop their jaws at his comment.

"Why aren't you using your Quirk?" Hazano questioned.

"And knocking out all my classmates?" Zach continued back as a question. "Risking seriously hurting them, when there's no need to."

"This is training," Hazano countered harshly at the student retorting too much to him. He thought after first meeting Sazaki that the boy was more respectful than that, and he had gone back on his earlier thoughts he had that day about Sazaki on account of the reason for his lateness. He gave the boy a harsh look though and added, "I know you can control your Quirk to not hurt the others here. Everyone here knows what they have signed up for…" Hazano started frowning more at the student whose lips were flat and who was looking at him back in a way that said his teacher did not understand.

"I don't mean there's no need to, as in there's no need to risk it during just training," Zach said, shaking his head at his teacher who realized maybe he did not understand. Zach grinned and he continued in a way that had Hazano and most of his students going wide-eyed. "I mean, I don't need to use my Quirk to beat my classmates," Zach's eyes shifted off Hazano, and he was still grinning as he looked over at a few others around him who had initially given him angry looks with their shock at what he was saying. "And as you said, this is 'training.' Well, I don't feel I would be getting much out of this training unless I fight without using my Quirk."

"You think you're all that?" Kerushi asked, glaring towards the black-haired teen who looked back at him and shrugged a shoulder with a competitive look challenging Kerushi to challenge him if he didn't think it was so. That just made the other teen frown deeper at Zach though, giving him a dark look and grinding his teeth in frustration as he darted a gaze over to Dendo for a moment.

"I'll teach you to look down on us," Reika said, making Zach look over at the blonde who had a low smile but darker eyes as she stared at him.

"This is Ranking Day," Hazano began to his newest student. "It's not a time for… Today, you're meant to go all out to take your rank in the class and your number. I don't just base your ranking on who wins the fights too, I also base it on how quickly the fights take and how efficiently you defeat your opponents. I'll have a harder time ranking you if you don't try your hardest."

 _I don't care about my ranking though. No, that's probably not the right thing to say. Not yet at least. They don't know me enough and they all care about this Ranking Day too much. It's the final one they've been building up to for years, I shouldn't take it away from any of them. They're just kids, at the end of the day. For a few months longer at least. This might actually be one of the last times they get to enjoy it. I'm being a dick. There's no need to be so serious about something like this._ "Well, I'm sorry then," Zach began, though his voice was hesitant. "I just, would rather not use my Quirk. I'm not saying I won't use it. But if I take someone out with it they won't just get back up, they won't be fighting any more matches today, won't get to bump up their rankings or anything." Zach frowned at Hazano and finished, "I don't want to start off my first day of school getting everyone to hate me for ruining their final Ranking Day."

Everyone else in the room stared at Zach in surprise and confusion again. Some were confused because he just changed up his reason for not using his Quirk, and they gave him suspicious looks because a couple wondered if he was being serious about that or was just trying to give a better excuse. Others were staring at him in shock though, as the way Zach said it made that sound like his secret reason for the way he had been fighting so far without using his Quirk.

 _Zach Sazaki, cares about whether or not we all hate him?_ Kotsumura wondered, giving Zach a strange look after staring at him in surprise for a few seconds at his last statement. _I guess he did try and befriend me pretty quickly. I thought I knew what he was doing though, just trying to get information on us, or something. He really was being a nice guy though, and I- he's our age. Just because he's famous doesn't mean…_

"You can't weaken your Quirk to, like, not knock us out?" Reika asked, losing some of the annoyance in her eyes. She was planning on challenging him now after what he had said before, and she was not going to go back on that now, but she also did not want Ranking Day to end for her so soon. She would prefer him to use his Quirk on her if they fought too, but she really did not want to get knocked out for the entire day if she lost.

"Well I could," Zach countered, shaking his head back at Tiona. "But, I mean, one wrong move on my part and you could be out for a couple days. A little too much Death makes a huge difference." Zach paused and looked another direction towards people who had looked at him in a lot of annoyance before he started explaining. "And since I've never seen any of you fight before, it makes it all the riskier for me because someone could attack me in a way I didn't see coming that makes me react too strongly, or they could jump into it where it's too thick, or something… It's just safer this way." He turned back to Hazano as he finished, looking the man right in the eyes which had Hazano staring back into his.

 _He's not going to go all out. He's giving a lot of reasons, but that look, he's telling me he won't. Why am I trying so hard? Sazaki isn't really one of my students. He's here to get the final term so he can go out and be a hero. Whatever kind of hero he becomes, he decided it before coming here. I think I just want to see how he fights at 100%._ "Fine, but your ranking will be based on your fights alone, not what kind of power you might be holding back. Don't expect a higher rank even if you lose."

Zach nodded in understanding back at his teacher, and he said firmly, "Understood, sensei."

Hazano lifted his remote and looked back at the split screen to randomize the next stage. As it was happening, Zach moved back towards the railing and just looked through the window out into the gym interestedly. He ignored the looks from the rest of the students. They stared at him from his right, his left, and behind him all around since he was not looking their ways to make them feel less sure about staring. _Curly has his defenses up. He looked at me guardedly at first, and again in the hall when I faced him, but it was less when I challenged Imino. There are things that will leave him unguarded. Having that shell on his back for so long, his defenses are strong and his personality matches it. I'm sure it's difficult for anyone to get through his walls… If I break down his physical defense- he's fourth place though. Just physical force probably won't let me smash through whatever protective Quirk he's got. I'm almost sure it's a defensive one. If it has to do with the shell then, I'll use mainly the left…_

Another challenge was made by students of Class 1 who moved out into the jungle and "moon" battlefield. Zach's interest perked back up as he looked towards the half of the gym that looked to be filled with just rocks like the section he had fought on twice before only whiter. The make-up of the elevations and natural structures was only a little different, but a small smile formed over his face as he watched the classmate heading for position Beta leap up while on the moon half and rise high up on the jump. _Is it a Quirk? Someone could have affected the whole area, but it could just be state-of-the-art anti-grav tech. Amazing that they can make the low gravity only cover that half of the room without having a wall between. A physical wall at least,_ Zach looked closer and turned his head to the side, moving a bit more towards the middle of the room to try and catch a glimpse of what separated the zones if anything.

"It's cool, right?" Zach turned and nodded at Kotsumura who he had stepped closer to while trying to figure out the tech he was seeing. Kotsumura looked back ahead and let out a sigh. Whenever the moon zone was one of the two picked, someone was always quicker than him at challenging a classmate. _I'm still pretty tired. I'll get the next one. Beating Reika, I'm already going to move up some today. Don't look her way,_ Kotsumura almost turned to the blonde girl he just thought about smugly, but he saw her looking his direction out the corners of his eyes and decided against it.

Reika Tiona was actually looking over at Lifebringer and not the blond boy next to him, but her focus shifted back to the gym as well when their classmates got ready. She moved forward up to the railing, and she stared out at her classmates Enjino and Dimarko who were ranked ninth and seventeenth respectively.

Dimarko glared back towards the window behind him, his expression darkening as Hazano was announcing the start of the match. _Who is he to come in here like that? Treat us like second rate heroes?! He's not just a U.A. snob, but he thinks being on the news all the time makes him hot Shit?! Well he's not! FUCK HIM! Fuck all of this!_

"What's Dimarko's Quirk?" Zach asked, moving his head a bit to Kotsumura's side without looking away from the hulking beastly figure before them.

"Rage Fiend," Kotsumura replied while still watching his classmate too. "He's looking even bigger than usual."

"I'm guessing the angrier he gets, the more power he can draw out?" Zach asked, glancing next to him at the blond who gave him a nod back. "I think he's got some new material to think about to get him all riled up." Zach smiled as he looked back out at his classmate who was clearly glaring at him even through the glass that Dimarko surely couldn't see him through.

"And Enjino?" Zach added, looking across to Dimarko's opponent who ran forward despite Dimarko doing the same at the start of the match. It looked to Zach like Enjino should probably take a different approach than running straight at the barreling bulked-up monster, but Enjino _was_ ranked ninth so he kept from making any judgements just yet.

"Beam Body," Kotsumura replied, right as Enjino rose both arms and fired yellow beams of light from them.

 _Interesting,_ Zach watched as Enjino's arms started to get smaller after a few seconds of firing. The beams were strong, one of them stopping Dimarko in his path as it hit him moving too fast for the larger teen to dodge. The other Enjino did not fire at his opponent, but to his own side which propelled him from the edge of the jungle up into the air of the moon zone. _The beam might just appear stronger because of the decreased gravity to let him throw himself up high like that, but with that kind of power he can fly around the moon area easily… There it is._ Enjino landed and started running with leaps around the moon zone, while Dimarko charged in and kept his feet close to the ground to not have much hang-time on his steps.

Enjino fired off more beams at his opponent, as well as at the rocks around Dimarko that cluttered his path as they rose in front of him and took a while to drop back down. _The more beams he fires,_ Zach noticed, as Enjino ran around again with his arms slowly regenerating out of nowhere. _The longer it takes his body to reform out of those light particles. They come back so slowly it doesn't even look like a beam anymore, just some faint yellow glow at the end of his missing appendages- though that's a nice upside._ Zach watched as a thicker yellow beam shot out of Enjino's chest, leaving the middle of his costume glowing yellow but his opponent flying backwards and then bouncing up into the air when he hit a rock. _He can fire from any point on his body. It's not as good as creating Light out of nothing and making attacks with that, or just Beams to create without a charge-up or recovery time. Exodus and Fergus would each crush Enjino, but they both had a much longer time to train them. Fergus was old, and Exodus had… other things to help him._

Zach's eyes narrowed and he refocused on the fight, though he bit down and tried to not think of his annoyance or about the person he felt start listening to his thoughts again. The small tick he felt when Himazuri entered his mind was becoming a common occurrence at this point, though it got Zach to refocus solely on his two classmates which he used as a reason to lose his annoyed expression. Zach glanced up at a screen above him and the list on it that had not changed yet and still showed the rankings from last year. _So if Curly was ranked fourth, then, 'Kameko Tatsurami' is my next opponent. He's been darting me looks while talking to Imino. Seems like he might want to fight me too, or maybe he just noticed me looking over earlier and expects it's coming. Not that they all aren't thinking about it now. I gave them the motivation. Tell them I won't use my Quirk, and now they don't need to beat me to challenge me. They don't need to think they can win. Anyone who thinks they can even force me to use my Quirk, wants to prove they can do it. It's the new goal. Be the first person to make me use it. I probably shouldn't have used it for that distraction on Dendo, but now they have an idea of what I can use it for too and that whatever rumors they heard are likely exaggerated…_

Another huge blast from Enjino slammed Dimarko up into the air, but this time Dimarko was not able to land on his feet. He flew out of the moon zone and suddenly started moving faster, the attempt to redirect himself failing and making him flail around for a second. In his roided-up state he was still almost able to turn himself to try and land on his hands and feet, but then he slammed into a tree and bounced off flat onto the floor in pain. Zach hummed to himself and nodded as he saw the confused look on Dimarko's face more than pain when he slammed into that tree. _Once he left the moon zone he should have known there would be trees he was about to crash into. Didn't even cross his mind._ Zach watched as that large boy turned back with an angry expression as he got on his knees, looking to check what it was he just slammed into before his eyes opened wide in realization at how obvious it was.

It made Dimarko angrier that he did not realize what he had slammed into, but he still calmed himself down quickly when Hazano called out Enjino's victory. Enjino was still drawing his body back to him, yellow glows on his cut-off elbows and from the middle of his stomach that had cut in a bit to make him thinner. As Enjino reformed and Dimarko shrank down, Zach glanced over to his left and at a boy with a shell on his back who stared back into his eyes calmly despite Lifebringer turning to him. Zach turned away from Kameko and back to Kotsumura after giving his next opponent that look. "So what's 'Curly's Quirk?" He used the nickname Kotsumura used before, acting like he had not yet checked to see what Kameko's name was as that might make it out more like he would be Zach's next target.

"Haha," Kotsumura laughed as Zach used the name too, and he turned and glanced over at Kameko himself only to lower his smile a bit at his classmate's look. Imino was staring over too, after just muttering something under his breath for his best friend next to him to hear. "Why do you ask?" Kotsumura asked.

"Thinking about challenging him next," Zach replied just as casually as he had asked the question. "Does it have to do with his shell at least?" Zach asked, changing up the question a bit so that to Kotsumura it might feel like he was not giving as much away.

"Well, yeah," Kotsumura admitted. _He already knew it anyway,_ he thought, shrugging back at his classmate with the shell who hummed himself while staring at Lifebringer. "It's called Tortoise Fortress, but that's all I can say," Kotsumura added at the end, just wanting to tell Zach the Quirk's name as he always liked it. He grinned more as Zach smiled too at the sound of the Quirk's name. _Is he even winded after those last two fights?_ Kotsumura looked his new classmate up and down but saw no signs of fatigue from the scar-faced teen at his side who had his visor propped back up over his hair again. _Feel like someone would tell him to sit it out for a little instead of making another challenge,_ Kotsumura glanced around then back at Zach again with a lower smirk. _Except we'd probably prefer it if you kept going as many times in a row as you could. I don't think anyone but Inasa's going to beat you, and I know I'm definitely not going to try, but there are some others here who I think could make you use it._

Zach waited until the next stage was set, then he turned and saw that most of the room was already looking at him. He had not been speaking to Kotsumura softly, Imino had heard him and passed it along, and Kameko was already staring towards him with a dark and readied expression. Zach challenged Kameko Tatsurami, surprising Kotsumura for a moment as he half-expected Zach to call him out as Curly, though he then remembered the conversation they had back in the hallway would have made it easy for Zach to figure his name out.

Zach got the closer of the two sides this time, setting himself up at position Alpha with his back to the spectating room. Kerushi walked up near the window while they waited for their curly-haired classmate to jog across the gym to his starting line. Kerushi glanced down at his slightly shorter classmate on his side, and he frowned deeply which Kotsumura saw and looked up at. "What?" He asked, raising his blond eyebrows at his darker-haired classmate. Kerushi Garuda had dark brown hair and matching eyes, and he frowned down at his classmate who did not seem to understand his look just from the expression.

"What are you doing?" Kerushi asked, his voice low but not really trying to hide either. He looked back through the window towards Lifebringer's back, and he could see the side of that figure's face completely focused on his opponent heading across the room from him. "Why are you talking to Lifebringer?"

Kotsumura felt a twinge of nervousness, but he also felt pretty confident after his fight against Reika. He frowned in annoyance at Kerushi and just looked back out the window himself. "Because I've always liked Lifebringer," he replied, saying it like it was not against any unspoken rule to do so, even though it was. Some of the others around Kotsumura looked at him in surprise that he would say that, especially since Kerushi was one of the ones who was most outspoken against Lifebringer's entry into their class. Kotsumura continued though without looking back at his angry classmate, "Like, I don't know, 90 percent of the rest of the country?"

Kotsumura added the second part with the right corner of his lip lifting back up, and his eyes darting to the side at his classmate who was treating what he was saying like it was some super unpopular and unheroic thing to say. Kerushi lost his glare a bit, though he continued to frown at his classmate for a second before looking back through the tinted window himself at Lifebringer. Kotsumura continued, in just as low a voice that it was just to Kerushi, not that most of the class was not still listening since it was mostly quiet in the watching room, "And it isn't hard to see why people like him. He's a likable guy."

"I don't know about 'likable,'" Reika cut in from Kotsumura's right just past Kerushi. Behind Reika, a girl with a bowl cut of gray hair looked at the back of her friend's head with her eyes widening behind her long bangs. Reika grinned as she stared out towards Lifebringer's back intensely, her hands gripping onto the railing as Kameko had reached position Beta. "But he is beatable. I'm going to prove it."

"Then why haven't you yet?" Manzo questioned from farther back than the gray-haired girl behind Reika. Reika spun with a pissed off look that made Bibi scramble to the side, giving the blonde a clear look back at Manzo's eyes between the top and bottom of her black mask where her eyes were showing. "You could've challenged him right there," Manzo continued even after Reika looked her in the eyes. "Waiting for him to tire himself out first?"

"I'll fight just as many as he does before challenging him," Reika said, stepping back from the railing and narrowing her eyes with a threatening smirk across her face that exuded a murderous intent. "I'll fight you if I'm challenged, if you really want that top girl's spot from me," Reika smirked more and tilted her head back, looking down her nose at the other girl who got more damaged in her fight against Dendo than Reika did against Kotsumura. "We can see how that fight goes… _again_."

Kotsumura looked back with a big grin spread across his face as he watched Reika threaten their other classmate. Kerushi lost his upset look completely as he saw Kotsumura look at her like that, and he sweatdropped himself while turning back to the gym as their teacher began announcing the start of the fight. _How in the heck did you beat her?_ He saw Kotsumura in his peripheral vision spinning back to look into the gym. His classmate who had never risen above rank 20 in the last three years was smiling like he was on top of the world, which Kerushi understood after seeing him take down a girl he had never been able to defeat himself.

At the start of the fight, Zach seemed to go with the same strategy he had against Kameko's best friend in his previous fight. He charged across the gym towards his opponent, but then he stopped. He stopped in the middle of the room and watched as Kameko jogged lightly back towards him. Kameko's expression was stern and his eyes calm, focused on his opponent and examining his movements with careful determination. "I guess I _am_ the challenger," Zach began, as his opponent was moving too slowly and not looking to want to meet him in the middle of the room.

The battlefield was split into two sections: one was a grassy field with small hills around it and the other a lightly wooded area of a forest. The trees were spread out but could give some cover, and the ground was just dirt and some roots sticking out for most of that zone. Zach was just on the edge of the grassy zone though, and he cracked his neck to each side before rolling his arms out. Zach reached up to his left shoulder and rubbed it while doing arm circles with his left, a dangerous glint in his eyes as he glared at his opponent who stopped where he was and glared right back towards Lifebringer. "You consider yourself an intimidating person," Kameko started.

The fourth ranked student in the class spoke in an unafraid, un-intimidated tone. Lifebringer's smirk lowered down at his question, and Kameko stomped forward himself and bent his body forward as he did. The shell on his back rippled and doubled in size, and within the second it doubled again. Zach started frowning after two seconds of watching Kameko create a larger and larger shell that encompassed his body and then more of the area around him so he was already five meters wide in diameter. _It's not that I think myself intimidating,_ Zach thought, while moving towards Kameko again, his steps turning into a jog turning into an all-out sprint forward. His eyes flared red right as a strange face-like covering formed on the front of the shell closest to where Kameko's head had disappeared under the outside of it. _Enough men have just shit themselves in fear before me that- shit._

Zach's smirk dropped for a brief moment, but his left fist clenched harder in his own frustration and he sped up more even in his sprint straight at his opponent. _Let's see how hard that shell is!_ Zach charged right up towards it, and he darted to the right and then the left, dodging two brown spikes that protruded out of his enemy's hard shell towards him when he was still several steps away. The spikes protruded quickly, but Zach glared at the facial expression on the front of the shell that looked faint and through somewhat of a translucent brown plate. _He didn't wait for my feet to lift off the ground, giving me far too much time and opportunity to dodge._ Zach was mid-punch while thinking it, stomping his right foot just at the edge of the shell and smashing his left fist forward at full strength.

Zach's fist slammed into the shell, and his arm bent forward, his body bending over it as his momentum was stopped completely by his opponent's defense. Zach hunched into his own punch as he looked to throw his entire weight into the punch too, but Kameko stood firm inside his shell that had a perfect defensive barrier around him. "Did you really think you could just break through?" Kameko questioned, the curly-brown-haired teen glaring through his shell with dark orbs inside the plate that Zach stared right back into. "It's not going to be that easy," a spike shot out of the shell towards Zach, aimed at his right shoulder instead of straight at him.

 _He aimed away to not hit anything vital. Like I wouldn't dodge something aimed straight at me. If you had aimed in the middle, then the amount I dodged may have been… you don't know me enough I guess. I wouldn't just assume you would dodge and attack with a life-threatening move too. You're careful. That's your careful nature right there._ Zach was in a backflip, dodging the spike as easily as he would have if it had actually been aimed in a better position to hit him.

Inside the watching room, most of Class 1 were smiling and a few even called out cheers when they saw how Lifebringer got stopped in his tracks with that failed punch. Dendo scoffed and allowed himself to stop wallowing for a moment to step forward instead, watching his strong classmate instead as he figured he could see some of Lifebringer's weaknesses by examining their fight.

Inasa was up close near the window too, an excited look on his face he was no longer trying to mask. _How will he do it? He's impatient and…_ Inasa got a confused look over his face, while some more of his classmates laughed at Lifebringer's second attempt.

Kotsumura scratched the back of his head in confusion. "I want Kameko to win," he admitted next to him at Porrolo who came over and was watching in similar confusion though with a small grin on his face. Satoshi was cheering on his other side and laughing as Lifebringer went for that second punch only to be stopped short again. Kotsumura continued with a glance next to him at his spiky-haired friend, "But I want to know what, Zach's doing too."

 _Calling him Zach,_ Porrolo thought, his small grin lowering down as he heard that hesitation when Kotsumura almost called him Lifebringer again. _He's not going to become a part of this class. We could lose some of this apprehension though, if he gets humbled right here…_ Porrolo rose an eyebrow and started to grin again, shaking his head as Lifebringer dodged to the side of a spike protruding from the Tortoise Fortress only to jump back at it and swing a punch into the shell with his left hand again.

Zach jumped up on top of the shell to dodge another spike, even tapping down on the spike as it continued extending below his feet. He tapped down with his feet to jump up, then he leapt in the air and did a few backflips to escape as a spike emerged from the top right where he landed. On his backflips, Zach drew two knives seemingly out of nowhere and threw them down at the shell near where he had been punching before. Both of the silver blades with black hilts bounced off of the shell without even leaving a mark, but Zach continued to grin and his eyes narrowed more in a cocky way once he landed. He stared straight at the face on Kameko's shell, narrowing his eyes and smirking at his opponent as he charged forward again with his left fist clenched in a clear sign of what his next attack would be, similar to his last ones.

 _So confident in your defense, you don't have the power to actually fight back against me. Not inside that shell at least,_ Zach charged around a spike extending at him too slowly, and the second one Kameko was preparing to go to the direction Zach dodged was not ready as he meant for his enemy to go to the other side. Zach had seen that the protruding spike was a bit on his right side though, meaning his opponent wanted him to dodge to the left. So he just moved faster even more to the right around the spike, and he ran up to the shell and punched it as hard as he could with his left fist. His eyes darted down to the grass below his arm as it connected, watching the edge of the shell and individual blades of grass it was pushed down on, and he snapped his head back up before the next spike could come out at him with a bigger grin across his face that made Kameko flinch behind his shell.

Himazuri was one of the few people in the waiting room not grinning as she watched Lifebringer's seemingly futile attempts to smash through Kameko's shell. She heard her classmates around her making fun of how Lifebringer did not know just how strong Kameko's shell was, that he did not understand its durability, and that Lifebringer was going to wear himself down as is Kameko's signature strategy. Himazuri had sweat on the sides of her face though, and she gulped again while watching Lifebringer start to run around his opponent. The shell turned to follow his movements, and Zach yelled out something about Kameko not being able to move his face to different parts of the shell but actually needing to turn himself, which made a few of the other Class 1 students scoff that it was hardly a downside as Kameko's shell had no weak points.

"What's wrong?" Himazuri glanced to her side and saw Bibi looking at her, the slightly taller girl's eyes hidden behind her long gray bangs. Reika glanced over from the other side of Bibi, wondering what she was asking for as she was chuckling and grinning like the rest of the class.

Himazuri did not answer Bibi's question though, looking back out towards Zach with a nervous look as she had been reading his thoughts not too long ago. _People, shit themselves in fear, because of him. He- why did he suddenly curse and… he changed the direction of his thoughts. It's like he's being careful, of me. He knows I might be listening so he, he changed- how many people have 'shit themselves' because of him?_ Himazuri found her hands shaking at her sides, and she had to curl them into fists to try and calm down. _What if he was thinking something like that, also because he knew I might be listening? And he cut himself off to make it sound more realistic… that's too, unlikely. What the hell was he doing all that time? Who- I was too relaxed! He's not just a normal person. He's dangerous._

"Is it called 'Tortoise' Fortress because of the shell, or because of how slow you are?" Zach called at the boy who turned his body slower than Zach was running a circle around him. Zach ran to Kameko's left side but then broke off the circle he made around his opponent, running towards the trees at the edge of the forest area instead. Zach curled his right hand in a way that made his watch open up and spread down to cover his hand in the tight material inside, then he charged straight at the trunk of the closest tree. He stomped his right foot down on the side of the tree, leaned his whole body just past the tree's side, and he slammed his left fist into the bark with a thunderous crack.

Kameko had his head turned towards Zach already, his breathing still steady as he was prepared for Zach to run around him like this. What Zach was doing now was not part of his plan to tire him out though, and his eyes opened huge on the inside of his protective shell. _What is he-_

 _ **CrreeEEAK!**_ **SNAP!** The tree Zach punched his left fist through started to fall, and Zach moved his left hand wrapped in its glove out to the side. Zach opened his fingers and curled inwards at the tree while it was falling towards his hand, and he made a quick movement inwards towards the trunk. His fingers each dug into the bark, into the wood through it, and Zach bit down with the corners of his lips curling high up. The tree was six times as tall as Zach himself, and as thick as any of the other trees in the forest. Zach lifted it up though with his left hand, while pointing his right palm back towards Kameko with the palm of his glove glowing blue.

 _Hold strong!_ Kameko yelled at himself, and he braced as the blue light fired in his direction. The pulse Zach fired from his glove of some sort of energy did not hit Kameko though, instead crashing into the grass twenty feet in front of his face and making an explosion of grass and mostly dirt. That blast of smoke and dirt and grass separated Kameko from Zach for a moment, and he darted his eyes left and right to see which direction Lifebringer would come at him from. Then the veil of rubble rising in front of him was broken through, by a tree that came flying at him and slammed into his shell as he clenched his teeth and braced. Kameko did not even skid back as the tree smashed into him, and he started taking in a breath after the tree bounced off.

As the tree bounced back though, it stopped moving away and swung back down twice as hard as it had been thrown from the forest zone. Zach was in midair and he caught the tree with both hands this time, and he swung the bottom of the trunk up over his head and then whipped the whole tree down on the shell that the trunk shattered on. Zach still had chunks of wood in his hands as splinters and branches went flying everywhere, and as he landed in front of Kameko he sprinted forward and curled his fingers around those pieces of debris. Zach's smile covered his face and his visor locked on his opponent who stumbled back while faced with dirt, smoke, and exploding tree all in front of him masking where his enemy was.

Zach shot out of it all in midair though and swung his extra debris towards the unmistakable place where Kameko was looking through his shell. Zach came down at the shell higher up than it looked like he was descending then, and he smashed his left fist into the shell with his entire body weight thrown behind it. He gripped onto the shell's rough exterior with his right hand and pulled his left back again, then he slammed it down into the shell in the same spot again and again with punches that echoed out across the gym so loudly that the students inside the watching room were not smiling any more. The ones who thought Zach's attacks on Kameko's shell would do nothing started to get nervous looks, at the grin covering Lifebringer's face as he continued to bash that same spot another five times.

"Your attacks are too televised," Zach shouted, while sliding his body to the left down the shell and dodging a spike that pierced out at him. The area on Kameko's exterior got softer right as it was starting to happen, and Zach could see the change in color shade as the brown got a bit lighter before the spike shot out. Zach pulled to the left, dodging it easily, then he spun off of the shell himself as he let go of it completely. He spun his body with his left hand pulled far back, and he yelled out, "And not very strong!" He slammed his left fist into the middle of the protruding spike, and unlike the rest of Kameko's shell, this time his punch broke straight through the shell's protrusion.

Kameko let out a yell of pain, and the thick spike of his shell went flying away from the fighters to a hill in the grasslands it pierced through with its sharp point. "I'm guessing your shell lost some strength there, doing something like that," Zach said, as he hit the ground next to his opponent and bent his legs down into a crouching position. He curled his fists again, but it was his left hand that shook as he pulled it back. He slid his left foot back on the ground, bent down farther, and then he pounced forward at Kameko and straight at the point he had been bashing with his left hand. In Zach's mind flashed a fight he had seen a long time ago, a spiky-haired blond fighting a spiky-haired redhead. _No matter how hard you make it, enough blows in the same spot…_ Zach slammed his left fist forward while Kameko was sliding back and trying to think fast on how to recover. Zach's fist connected, and Kameko yelled out again as small cracks formed on his shell like they never had before.

Dendo stared in towards Kameko and Lifebringer with huge eyes. _No way! That's- I've never even… And just by punching- HOW?!_

 _Too strong!_ Kameko jumped backwards, but Zach saw it coming and sprinted towards his opponent as it was coming.

 _If cracking the spike is possible and the strength redistributes throughout the surface, then it should regenerate even from a hole on the shell itself._ Zach sprinted faster than he had been moving already, his feet digging down into the ground and his left fist opening up for a second only to clench so much harder as he swung his arm behind him in the most televised attack he could make. Zach leapt towards Kameko who was in mid-jump and rose above the bottom of the shell that Zach could see once Kameko leapt up. The retreating jump showed Zach the bottom of the shell was flat and covered as much of his body as possible other than two large feet below the center. Zach rose above the bottom and the edge, and he dodged the half-hearted attempt of catching him off guard with a spike on the rise. He did not even have to move very far, and definitely not far enough that he did not keep rising to the point the cracks had formed.

Zach reached out with his right hand and gripped around the small spike he had dodged. He used it to stabilize, and then he slammed his left fist forward while dragging his body forward even harder with his right and twisting his whole weight into the swing. _**Crack!**_ The small cracks on the shell broke inwards, a hole snapping open into Kameko's shell showing Zach a hollow interior where his opponent was yelling out in pain after his shell was broken like that. Zach gripped the inside of the shell with his left hand he just smashed through, and he swung himself inwards through the hole he made.

Kameko's feet hit the ground but it was impossible for him to fall with his shell extending out from around his feet in all directions. He opened his eyes that he clenched in pain though, and he lowered his arms from above his head where they were connected into the shell's top, and he yanked his feet up from the floor leaving a hole in the shell's bottom. _He can disconnect?_ Zach thought, though he kept his expression the same big grin he had had for a while. _Could have tried shrinking the shell, but it took you so long to make it this big I doubt you could shrink it very fast._ Zach balled his left fist again, and he pulled it back ready for a similar punch as all the ones he had been making on the outside of the shell. His attention was not on his next attack. His body was unprotected, unguarded, and Kameko crossed his arms and took a step back nervously inside his shell with his eyes darting around looking for an escape.

Kameko's gaze came from the hole behind Zach back to his opponent's body, when he finally noticed how many gaps in Zach's defenses there were as he ran towards him. Zach was super close, only a couple of steps away, and Kameko was a master of defense who could see a hundred gaps in Zach's guard. _All I-_ Kameko wanted to prepare a counter, because if he could just dodge one punch and get an attack of his own in, he knew he could actually hit his opponent this time. Zach's left fist had unnerved him though, as it was the same fist that smashed through his shell, so his body was not going to be able to handle it at all. He realized the holes in Zach's defenses too late, and he waited too long to focus on dodging instead of blocking the attack that was so televised it was almost like Zach was giving him the opportunity to dodge it.

Zach swung his left fist forward. It was not as fast as he punched earlier, though he only slowed down a lot near the end of the punch so as not to break his opponent's ribs. Still, Kameko's tongue flew out of his mouth along with a mouthful of spit, his eyes bulging and his back denting backwards looking like Zach's fist was pushing through him. Then the top and bottom of Kameko's body followed the middle of it, flying backwards and slamming into the bottom of the shell, bouncing, and crashing into the shell's interior domed wall.

 _Still too hard,_ Zach thought, frowning as he stared towards his opponent who flipped over from his back onto his stomach where he continued to cough up spit on the bottom of his shell for several seconds. _Though that makes it better. To prove the failures of his defenses. He was defensive from the first time he looked at me in the classroom. The shell was like a metaphor. Probably reserved, not easily trusting, but a defensive nature translates to a battlefield. I was open that whole time, if you had just one decent attack to use. Guess his hero work could focus on protection missions, working on a team with others who could be the attackers. Heroes should always be well-rounded though. Never just solely offense or solely defense. Those spikes were trash…_ Zach's red eyes lost their glow as Kameko coughed again, though he sounded to be trying to hold it back now to try and compose himself.

Zach took a step towards Kameko, then he noticed a few things at once. The hole in the bottom of the shell where only the soles of Kameko's feet had been sticking out of had started to shift locations. The hole in the back of the shell behind him was shifting too, and the shell itself looked a bit smaller. Zach darted backwards, and he dove towards the hole without any further delay. He landed outside of the shell in a roll, spinning and staring back with wide eyes as the shell was morphing down and changing shape.

Hazano lifted up the microphone in front of his face when he saw Sazaki roll away from the shrinking shell, stopping down on one knee when he spun back to it. He hesitated to call anything out though, as he watched the shrinking shell for his other student who he had not seen movement from since Sazaki leapt through that hole he created. _I've seen Kameko's shell withstand powerful Quirks, blows from the strongest students, but he just smashed his way right through it. He looks strong, but not that strong. Especially not without a Quirk assisting him…_

Kameko stood up before the shell finished shrinking. So when everyone was able to see him again, he was up on his feet facing his opponent who also stood back up again. Kameko had a hand over the bottom of his chest, grabbing it tightly through his clothes with a pained expression still covering his face. The top of his shell behind his head was cracked and still had a hole in it which hurt Kameko as much as the bruising on his chest. "Sazaki hit the ground," Hazano began, though he did not speak like he was announcing the match. He started it like he was asking a question, and Kameko frowned towards his opponent for only another second before turning towards the watching room and shaking his head. The look on Kameko's face cleared up what had happened inside the shell, making half the class who had allowed themselves to smile hopefully when they saw Sazaki hit the ground lose those excited looks.

"He almost had him," Flugeru muttered under his breath, grimacing and glaring out at Lifebringer.

"Yeah? Where?" Kotsumura asked, glancing over his shoulder at the taller teen who frowned back at him before just frowning more himself. Kotsumura added while looking back through the window, "Before or after he _punched_ his way through Kameko's shell?"

 _How did he do that?_ Flugeru thought, grinding his teeth at his inability to figure it out. _There had to be a trick. Kameko's shell is too hard to just break through like that._

Hazano called out the victor of the match to be Sazaki, and Zach returned to the room where the rest of the class was waiting. He walked over towards Kotsumura but looked at his teacher as he went, checking if Hazano had anything to mention to him this time. Hazano usually went over the person who lost first, but Kameko was slow making his way back to the room so he met Lifebringer's gaze first. "That was certainly impressive, Sazaki, but you should have been more careful at the end. If Kameko's shell had shrunk with you still inside there could have been serious problems."

Zach nodded in agreement, thinking about how quickly he turned and dove out of the Tortoise Fortress to make sure he did not get closed-in. "Kameko," Hazano continued, looking towards his other student who just made it back to the room and through the door he was closing behind him. The boy with a cracked shell turned his head and looked towards Hazano, masking his pain and all his feelings well behind his blank expression. "You need to work on your speed while inside the Fortress. Your attacks were too slow for Sazaki, as they have been for many of your other classmates in previous fights…"

 _Guess they already knew about that. I'm sure someone figured it out, and the others tried their luck after noticing it before. Not that it would make much of a different in the end for most of them. Just tire them out trying to run around and around him, until they were too tired to dodge him any longer._ Zach examined the looks on some of his classmates' faces as they looked back over towards Kameko. _For most of them who challenged him, he likely didn't even beat them. It would only take one Ranking Day for them all to try getting through his defenses, fail, and him to move up to a high enough place that…_

"…But you cannot rely on the strength of your shell alone. Work on that, now that you know it's not as strong as you might have thought." Hazano finished without saying too much, as despite Kameko masking it he could see how hard his student was thinking about it already.

Imino took a step towards his friend when Hazano finished speaking, lifting a hand a bit to mention how hard it was to fight Lifebringer. His hand hesitated and then lowered back down though, as he saw through Kameko's expression better than most. _His shell heals. He said it did back when he was a kid, but that it hadn't broken in… in so long._ Imino's eyes shifted back towards his former opponent who was not looking back at them but instead just talking to Kotsumura who was also mentioning about how strong Kameko's shell was, which Imino could hear.

 _Hazano sensei's right,_ Kameko thought, his eyes lowering as he moved back towards Imino without really looking at his close friend. _If I wasn't just relying on it, he left himself so open. Open enough that Dendo, or Imino would have easily been able to land a hit on him. Did he know he didn't even need to be worried about that with me? He just expected me not to be as good, even though I was ranked fourth? It wasn't just at the end of the fight! The whole time he ran around my shell- and in the beginning too! He left himself open, and if I had used a weapon, or if I just thought about how to fight him beforehand instead of just how to hold out against him… I was thinking about how he couldn't break in without his Quirk, that's all I thought about. Even with it, he wouldn't have been able to, or so I thought._

"Manzo Elia," Trabo called out, announcing who he was challenging as soon as the next stage had been set.

Zach glanced over towards the boy who made that challenge. _Manzo,_ he turned and watched the girl in all black walking back towards the gym door that opened back into a room with a jungle on one side and a swamp area on the other half. Manzo's whole body from head to her feet was covered in dark clothes tight to her body, looking less like cloth in most places and more like she was wrapped in tight black bandages. _She used some of those bandages like Aizawa sensei could. They look like they're stuck to her all around her body, but she's got more weapons hidden under some of them too. Dendo got cut by a couple shuriken I didn't see her pull out, but she has to be hiding them under there._

Zach's eyes shifted from the girl heading across the room back to the guy who made the challenge and got position Alpha. _Trabo._ "What's his Quirk?" Zach asked his blond classmates on his right side.

Kotsumura glanced left and Reika did from just a little farther down. "Trabo's?" Reika asked, looking back out the window with a smirk. "Triplet."

As she smirked and said it, the boy in front of them was splitting apart. Two other versions of himself pulled themself out of him to either side. They literally _pulled_ themselves out of his shoulders, arms coming out first and grabbing on Trabo's sides to drag the rest of them out from inside. "Bets, taking all bets," Reika called out, still with a grin covering her face.

 _Betting on the fight? No one's done that so far. Hazano sensei doesn't look to be- he's looking back and forth between the two._ Zach's focus switched solely to the bet for a few seconds, in order to raise his lips back up from the low way they dipped a moment ago. The beast roaring in the back of his mind that split into a dozen versions of itself disappeared as Zach focused on what Reika said and not on Trabo's Quirk.

"Left," Kotsumura guessed assuredly, leaning forward and nodding his head as he stared at the back of that particular Triplet.

"My bet's on the right one then," Reika retorted. Kotsumura frowned with a look back at her, but Reika kept smirking and added, "You know he's not going to give it away until after the bets are made."

"Right."

"Right."

"No look! He just turned his head back-"

"Trabo's going over his strategy. See, they're both looking. My guess is on right."

"Left."

Flugeru took his attention off Sazaki, even though he had been frowning at him awaiting some sort of reaction since his new classmate walked up right past him to stand in the gap between him and Kotsumura. "Right," he said, disagreeing with his blond classmate who was getting too friendly with Sazaki.

Zach opened his mouth to finally ask what they were all betting on, when the identical version of Trabo on the right lifted the left corner of his lip up the smallest amount. His head was turned left to face in the middle, so raising his lip like that was visible to the window behind and made half the class laugh and grin at their victories. Kotsumura sighed and then turned away when Reika looked his way with a big smirk. She looked over to Zach too as she saw her new classmate staring out with wide eyes. "They might look identical, but X is the best."

Trabo's Triplet on the center one's right side reached his hands up and spit on his hands. The other two Trabos looked over at him and frowned in identical ways, the two of them giving him the same look of exasperation as if asking 'every time?' "I don't get it," Zach began, a confused look on his face as he watched the Trabo on the right side start giving himself a different hair style. "Is it not just, Trabo splitting himself?"

"Well it is," Kotsumura replied. The version giving itself a cooler hairstyle with his black hair stuck up in the front turned his head again and looked back at the window turning his head left and right and looking closely like he wanted to see inside. Kotsumura laughed as the gaze was aimed towards their part of the window, and he figured that Triplet wanted to see Zach which Zach was amazed by. "But that one calls himself Trabo X. The other two are more identical-"

"And how different is he? Is he actually, his own person?" Zach wondered, looking back at Kotsumura for a moment and then back out in interest. _That's crazy! The individuality of his own clone- while the other one is just so identical! They looked exactly the same until he started changing it up too. His personality must have split certain aspects, certain character traits are maybe more exposed in that one? I don't know if Trabo controls it, but it looks like he would rather there not be a Trabo X at all and for his clones to both just be like him. Trabo X. That's amazing! What if one gets hurt? What if one of the clones turns on the other like Twice's? Does the damage to one get carried onto the others? Is it like Hawkins- the Hydra. Hydra! Recon ghosts. Destroying them didn't do anything unless it was the whole body, not just one part. Focus on Trabo though. Figure out how it works…_

Zach kept his eyes glued on his classmate's unique Triplet when he went out into action. Trabo wore a red costume, and his skin was light but had a tint of orange to it that Zach saw was even an identical shade between the three of them. _Will Manzo fight Trabo X differently because he's more- wow. They split up, but they can each hear and see- and obviously feel what the others feel. It doesn't look like it's as intense for any of them though. Pain one of them goes through is diluted, just like the sight and sound probably, just a translucent vision over their normal sight maybe? What about death then? Could two survive if one died? I suppose they haven't tried it before, or I hope they haven't, if the Triplets can each have their own personalities._

"Does Trabo's other, Triplet," Zach began slowly to Kotsumura as they watched the fight. "Act out differently?" He finished when Kotsumura leaned back towards him a bit to hear what he had to say.

"Not really," Kotsumura replied, his focus still stuck out on the fight so he was not thinking too much on it.

"Well," someone started behind them. Zach glanced back, but Porrolo Ven stopped mid-sentence as he realized what he was doing. Zach looked at him though with is full attention, waiting for Porrolo to continue. "It's not that he acts out, not like X at least. Who I guessed was on the right, by the way," Porrolo added, turning to Kotsumura and mentioning it to his friend who grimaced again while Reika let out a laugh. "He's just like Trabo though. He's not just a clone Trabo tells what to do. They're a pretty good team, the two of them."

"The three of them too," Kotsumura added on. "Trabo just gets annoyed by it and says X ruins his plans sometimes, but the three of them move so in-step that if they weren't all the same person it would actually be kind of creepy."

Zach started watching some of that teamwork himself, having to look up at the screens above the window for most of it. The jungle was too thick for them to see into very well from the watching room, but there were a lot of cameras all over the jungle area which showed them their combatting classmates. _Manzo's fighting style works much better in the jungle area than anywhere else._ Zach's eyes scanned back over to the Triplets making their coordinated movements through the thickly wooded area. _But if Trabo knew that and challenged her anyway, then- but she should realize that as well, yet she still went to the jungle side. She's going with her strengths, and by the way Trabo's moving she's doing exactly what he expected her to do. Except she would know, she does know,_ Zach's lips lifted into a small grin.

As Reika was darting her eyes back and forth between the screens above the window, Bibi walked up to her left side and whispered, "What's Trabo doing?" One of the three Triplets (not Trabo X) got hit unawares in the back by a shuriken that stuck out between his left shoulder-blade and his spine. It was a shallow wound, but all three of the Trabos winced and the one who was hit yelled out in pain. The hit Trabo reached behind him while spinning around to look for his opponent up in the branches, but Manzo had disappeared and was nowhere to be seen or even heard.

"He's putting himself out there," Reika began slowly, a smirk growing on her face as she saw a flash of a smile on Trabo X's face on his way to running to his injured clone. "Right in Elia's clutches. And when the three of them convene, well, he'll be attacked."

"Does he have a plan for when that happens?" Bibi asked, spinning from Reika back to the screen she saw who she thought to be the main Trabo running across the jungle on.

"He might," Zach began. The girl with gray hair in a bowl cut spun her head to the left in surprise at that voice. Reika looked over too and lowered her smile at Zach's grin after what he said, as she thought the grin meant he was suggesting something else when she was thinking Trabo had a trap set. Kotsumura looked to his left side for a moment too, and Flugeru ground his teeth while lowering his eyes from the screen above him to the boy on his right. "But Manzo knows that she's great in that area, and yet he challenged her and went into it anyway."

"She doesn't look to realize it," Kotsumura began slowly, looking back at the screens where he had seen Manzo acting like her normal self and fighting as usual. _Even with a plan, what could Trabo do against her in that environment?_

"But she does," Zach continued. "And, I think, she's just acting like she's fighting in the same way, to make sure Trabo carries out his plan. As soon as Trabo sets off his trap, that's when she'll make her move. She's the one trapping him here, making him carry out the plan by giving him the perfect conditions that he wanted-"

"You don't know her," Flugeru snapped, making Zach freeze with his mouth open. He turned his head and looked up at the taller boy with short red hair who glared at him harshly and then said in a lower voice, "You don't know us."

Zach nodded his head, "You're right." He said it before Kotsumura could speak up on his other side, as he saw the blond almost do in the corner of his vision. "I don't. Sorry," he apologized and turned back to the screens, to just watch quietly again.

Bibi looked at Zach's face on his right side for a few more seconds, then she looked back up at the screens where she caught both of her classmates in the middle of fighting a three-on-one. _So, neither of them have made their moves yet? They're both fighting so hard, but they have other plans set too?_ Bibi Reina gulped and she clutched the hem of her shirt with both hands. _Three years of this, and I've never caught up. I just want to be on their level. I, only got this far, I only made it to now because of my classmates. I never would have gotten my license without their help… I can't see myself beating anyone- how? How can they all challenge Lifebringer? How can they fight him and not be so, so… am I just a coward? I can't even speak, I couldn't even ask him what he meant when he was trying to- was he trying to help? Or just converse? He's a… murderer._ Bibi curled her hands tighter into the hem of his costume's shirt, to stop those hands from shaking as she slid her feet a few inches to the right.

"Yeah!" Satoshi leaned forward and shouted with a grin on his face as Manzo landed on a tree branch, and that whole tree shook and started to fall. Zach continued to watch with a flat expression, though he heard Satoshi who he had seen smirking before when Trabo had been looking to be cornered, and who he had seen talking to Trabo throughout the morning too. He spotted Inasa leaning forward with an interested look, though Dendo did not seem worried at all and was just watching the screen closely without being surprised. Most of the rest of the class was surprised though, and Flugeru started grinning as he saw Manzo's eyes widen between the black mask of bandages wrapped around her face above her eyes and just below them too. The only part of her whole body that was showing was the slit on her mask for her eyes, and so as she fell towards the Trabos on all sides of that tree they felled with their new support tools, all of the Triplets saw her surprise at falling from the tree.

The tree was falling with Manzo, and she was just falling next to the leaning trunk. Then she vanished. She was falling with gravity though, and one of the Trabos ran towards where she was coming down despite being invisible. Zach's eyes shifted to the trunk though, the one falling just behind her that she had not flipped herself for her feet to point at until after she turned invisible. His eyes shifted from the point on the trunk where he suspected she planted her feet, then he followed a line from it straight out.

"Hazano sensei! If Manzo's invisible when she hits the ground-"

"If she hits down hard, she'll gasp," Hazano replied without hesitation. He could see that Trabo thought the same, as one of them called it out at the space where the invisible Manzo should have been falling. Another that ran forward jumped up to make her visible sooner, swinging at where he thought she was if gravity had kept taking her. Trabo X lost his confident look though, the spikier-haired Triplet darting his eyes around just as his attacking Triplet was going through empty air. Hazano noticed it too on a screen right as Trabo X started spinning with widening eyes.

The other two Trabos turned their heads at once, panic covering their expressions as a twig from the felled tree was cracked in Trabo X's vision. The sound of the falling tree covered up the sound of that snap, but because of that noise Manzo had not cared as much about masking her sprint. Trabo X rose his arms and crossed them for protection, one in front of his face and one across his chest. The other two came running towards him, but a blade pressed up against Trabo X's throat and became visible which made all three of them stop. Manzo was up close to Trabo X, less than an inch away from most of his body as hers was pushed up close to him in a position like she was half out of a crouch. Her head was on the left side of Trabo X's and down a foot, below his shoulder so her back was under his raised arm, her arm looped under his with the blade turned backwards in her right fist.

 _She reacted so fast! No hesitation, or…_ "You saw it coming?" The Trabos asked simultaneously, and Manzo pressed the dull side of her knife harder into Trabo X's throat. Trabo X sighed, and he shrugged towards the other two who frowned deeper at him for that reaction while they were both cursing in their heads and trying to figure out a way past this. Trabo shook his head though as Manzo turned hers a bit to the side to look back at him. "You got me," only one of them said this time, the main one. "I give up."

"Trabo Santosa has conceded defeat, Manzo Elia is the winner."

Trabo X grinned again once Manzo flipped around the knife she pulled off his throat and made it vanish into her costume. He nodded his head at her and to the side while saying, "Farewell, my lady."

Manzo's eyes narrowed at the figure before her, then she motioned her head back towards the Trabo who conceded defeat. Her annoyed eyes shifted the way they looked for a moment as his feet started dragging across the floor. "Yeah, have a good one, X."

 _That's amazing,_ Zach smiled again as he watched the Trabo's slide back towards the main one who they combined into. The main Trabo winced again and reached behind his back to rub over his uniform where there was no mark but he still felt the wound beneath. Then he walked over to Manzo to walk with back to the watching room. As they were heading back, Zach did not turn to look towards Flugeru. He did notice Reika look over though and see Flugeru's pissed-off expression, and he cracked a smaller grin when she looked at the side of his face that made her snort as she knew he saw her look.

After Manzo and Trabo returned to the watching room, Hazano changed up the arena again. The randomization ended, and Hazano awaited a challenge. Everyone expected Zach to make a challenge. He was looking around at them like they were looking towards him. After he learned the rules about a one fight gap and how he needed to rank up, he had challenged Imino and then Kameko leaving only one fight between them. Zach shrugged though as he looked at Kotsumura who he saw an expectant look from.

Hazano hummed to himself and looked around to pick one of his students to ask if they had a challenge for the day. As he started to look though, Reika spun back towards Zach and he saw her expression settle with a competitive look in her eyes. There was a lake zone out there and a grassy plain on the other side, and she grinned at Lifebringer. _I'm not going to make a stupid mistake this time like with Kotsumura. Get ready, Lifebringer…_ Reika frowned as Zach shook his head at her. A confused look formed on her face as they made eye contact, and she hummed but looked away, deciding against challenging him.

"I challenge Yurinosuke!"

Hazano almost called out a different student, but he turned and nodded at the boy who just called out his challenge of a classmate eight ranks ahead of him who looked surprised by the challenge. As the two headed out into the gym though, Reika walked past Kotsumura's back and stopped right next to Lifebringer who was staring out the window towards them. "What's up?" Reika asked, some annoyance in her voice that they had let another two challenge each other on a zone she would have been great in. Zach pursed his lips and glanced to the girl at his side, and Tiona frowned deeper and added, "I wanted to challenge you there. Are you done?"

"It wasn't that I didn't have a challenge of my own," Zach began. "I just need to leave a space gap-"

"You did-" Reika started snapping right back at him, only to freeze. She stopped herself and turned, looking across the room which made Kotsumura's eyes widen too as he fully turned back towards Zach.

"You want to fight Manzo?" Kotsumura asked.

Zach nodded. He continued to look out at Yurinosuke heading across the gym to position Beta. He spoke in a lower voice just to Kotsumura as the watching room got a bit louder with rumors spreading around over to Manzo that Lifebringer planned on challenging her in the next fight. "I respect that fighting style she was using. I want to face it. It was impressive, and I might see something new."

Kotsumura rose an eyebrow and then asked in a low voice himself, "Do you even care about ranking up?"

Zach looked right at Kotsumura, then shifted his gaze for a moment to Reika who frowned at him again when she saw that look. Zach shrugged only half-apologetically though at them, as it was not like he had been going to Ranking Days for years and this would mean a lot to him, which he figured they would understand from that half-apologetic shrug. Reika tilted her head to the side in acceptance, tsking that he was not taking it that seriously without feeling like he was demeaning the entire day itself. "I still am going for number 1," Zach continued to the two, as well as to Himazuri who was watching from Kotsumura's other side, and to Imino listening from across the room, and unknowingly to Flugeru behind him who started paying attention after spreading it back behind him that Zach planned on challenging Manzo.

Zach went on, "But the main point of coming to Shiketsu is to train, yeah? Best way to train is seeing all the fighting styles there are to be better prepared against anything."

Kotsumura hummed and he glanced back through the window thinking about what Zach just said. He thought about his new classmate's previous fights and admitted in a mutter, "That probably works better, when you're good enough to be able to keep the fights going and see all your opponents' moves."

Zach shook his head in disagreement, making Kotsumura turn back to him in confusion. "It's the opposite," he said. No matter how much I learn in a fight that I win, I learn ten times more in a loss." Tiona rose her eyes and looked down her nose with her head lifted to see if Zach was being serious. Zach had said that in such an assured voice though, and she felt her heart racing in confusion as she tried to figure out what he was doing. Kotsumura stared at him with big eyes too, ones that grew wider as Zach added in a whisper, "I've lost a thousand battles though, so I've learned a lot."

Kameko looked at the side of Imino's face, wondering what his friend was overhearing for a moment before turning again to watch the fight that just started between their classmates. Imino was staring over at the back of Zach's head with his eyes wide though, and then he lowered them down and stared at his hands for a few seconds. _Is Lifebringer really serious? If, he is,_ Imino looked back up towards the window into the gym and through it, though it was his own last fight that he saw and not the one going on now. _What did I learn from that loss? That Lifebringer's stronger than me… sure. But what else? I landed hits on him. I caught him a few times, whereas Dendo and Kameko, two of the highest ranked in the class, couldn't. Was he purposely going not as hard against me, because I'm not ranked as high? It didn't look like it. Even if he was going just as hard as he needed to go, or as hard as he thought he needed to go, to fight us, I was the only one who exceeded his expectations then? I still lost, but I fared better than most. Against Lifebringer! Because I believed I could beat him. I don't know where I got that notion, but I believed in it and did as best I could and almost, I almost knocked him down!_

Zach watched the fight going on closely. He watched the people on his sides who were watching him, and whenever he would turn his head to look at different screens above the long window he would check on the people usually in his blindspot too. Zach checked on Manzo who he saw had heard what he was preparing and did not look nervous but instead had a very intense look covering her face. _No one looks like they're going to try and challenge me instead. It seems like they all want to see me fight more. They want to see as many fights with me in it as possible, in case they're the next one I'm going to challenge. They've seen a couple styles so far. I showed them what Death can do, and told them how I don't plan on using it on them. Manzo's good. Her weaknesses, well, her main weakness is easy to exploit. Shouldn't be hard to adjust either. Himazuri hasn't listened in for a while. She got a bit freaked out the last time I think. She would barely look at me since the fight with Kameko. I was too focused on him. I need to think about everyone, everywhere, all the time. The one I'm currently facing, the ones watching me, the ones listening to me and grading me and judging me. It's all important. The impression I make on the first day dictates the relationships I'll have with them through the semester. Be it fixing damage I did, or making better a friendship I started, or continuing work on support I gave. It all matters. This matters! Something like this…_

 _But most important is the fight with Manzo. In the moment. Right now. What's she got?_

Zach watched the randomizing of the next stage, as the previous fight had ended and they were all waiting for the new set-up already. _Perfect,_ Zach thought, as the gym was set to be half a 'tropical rainforest' zone, and the other half a jungle. "'What's the difference?'" Kotsumura asked Zach, making it out like he was asking the question that was on Zach's mind so he could explain it.

"I know the difference," Zach replied before Kotsumura could explain it to him. Kotsumura paused with his mouth open, and he closed it and scratched the side of his head with an 'oh.' _Rainforest has a thick canopy so there won't be plants down on the ground, while the jungle will be even thicker from bottom to top with those vines and bushes. Trabo found some good paths through it, but he had to push a lot away and she could have attacked him at any time on his way through. He didn't see half her attacks coming because of it. This set-up though,_ Zach looked left and right, as from just outside the window to as far as he could see there were just trees everywhere. He could barely see into the gym at all, and the rainforest side was darker as the canopy blocked off a lot of light from the ceiling as well.

"I challenge Lifebringer," Manzo stated when the forests had finished rising from below the gym.

Zach grinned more for a moment before getting a much more serious look on his face and turning to Manzo. Hazano frowned and got a sweatdrop on the side of his face, but he decided against mentioning how that wasn't the proper way to challenge a classmate. Zach accepted the challenge, and Hazano sent the two of them into the gym to get ready on opposite sides.

Kerushi walked up into the space Lifebringer had been in before he left. "This is Manzo's best combination," he said, looking to his left and up at Flugeru. "Think she can take him?"

"If he uses that Death of his, he could wipe out the forest in a second," Flugeru muttered darkly. "But if he messes around too much, against Manzo," his annoyed voice started to raise more optimistically and he nodded slowly as he thought of it. He glanced back through the room towards Dendo who had more damage on him from his fight against Manzo than he did from his fight against Zach, even if he had won his earlier fight against the seventh ranked Class 1 student.

Zach had to go to position Beta to start. On his way across the gym he was somewhat able to follow a line across the middle of the floor, as the jungle dirt had a slightly different shade than the rainforest's. The foliage was so thick even on the middle of the zone though, that looking back only halfway across the room and he could not see Manzo anymore. He looked back ahead, and he continued jogging across the room at a steady pace. His eyes darted over to a couple small hidden cameras he saw, though he barely checked them for a moment while making his way across the gymnasium. _Sounds like there's a waterfall over there. I didn't see one on the screens back inside, but there's so much cover in these kinds of zones I'm sure there are dozens more cameras than usual, meaning Hazano sensei likely has to switch around during the fight to be able to see them all. With Manzo's Breathless though, it won't help him much. She's going to disappear. And I'm going, well, I only really need to vanish from her. There's no point in hiding from everyone else. Letting them see me make my moves isn't a bad thing. Show them everything._

The announcement to begin was made, and within a couple of seconds both Zach and Manzo were up in the trees. They were across the gym from each other with a lot in their paths between them, so there was no way they could see each other yet. The two of them, neither seeing the other, started running across tree branches and jumping to other trees. Manzo had climbed up the easiest to climb tree she saw around her at the start, while Zach just jumped up to a thick branch he saw on a tree to his right side, which from position Beta looking towards Alpha was into the rainforest zone.

"Is he copying Manzo's style?" Bibi asked, coming back over next to Reika which her blonde friend realized this time was because Zach was no longer standing there.

Reika frowned at the realization, but she shrugged and looked back up at the screens herself to watch her classmates stealth-ing their ways through the thick forests. "I don't know," she muttered. _Why'd he want to fight Elia instead of me? I'm higher ranked. Then again, why'd he challenge Imino at all after already beating Dendo? It doesn't necessarily mean he thinks she's stronger than me. He looked like he was enjoying her last fight. I'll show him how I handle people next round… but what is he doing? It looks like Elia's, but he's good at it. The way he jumps and lands, it's soft without making much noise. He's not even watching where he lands closely,_ Reika shifted her eyes around fast to another screen where Zach just entered the angle after leaving a different one. _Huh? What is that?_

Zach lifted a hand to his visor and tapped a button on the side of it a couple of times, while he was pulling out a device from his belt that he crouched and attached on a part of the trunk. His dark visor kept its outward appearance, while on the inside of it Zach saw a small square appear on the top right of his vision. His visor perfectly covered all of his vision, and the screen that appeared in his visor was not fully solid so he could see through it while also keeping that angle in view. He had not just pulled out one of those devices from his belt too, and Zach tossed up in his left hand a handful of them before swiping that hand across his body and catching them all with a glance towards a camera he saw watching him.

It was through his visor so it was hard to tell, but Class 1 thought Zach just flashed a smirk their way without even smirking. His look in their direction while tossing up those small black devices made each of them stare closer at the piece he just placed between some bark in the tree to keep it there.

"Does he, have his own cameras?" Kerushi muttered, disbelief in his voice at what he just asked. "What is he doing?"

"He's setting up more," Porrolo mentioned himself, stepping forward and looking at a different screen that Zach had darted into before making a subtle plant of a camera that was almost impossible to catch. _If we didn't already see him place one, I wouldn't have even known what he just did- Manzo! She doesn't know, so if she's watching, she might move out behind him and start giving chase. If she lets out a breath while coming up behind him- his cameras must attach to that headset he has on. It's a great plan, but Manzo might see through it. I might not have known what he was doing from that small movement, but Manzo's careful. She got Trabo off guard because he thought she had fallen for her trap… just like Sazaki said she would. So he knows, that she might see through it, which means that isn't his only plan here._

Zach jumped to the next branch, and he snapped his right hand up as he saw a small spinning piece of metal flying straight towards him the second he jumped. _It curved! Which direction did she throw from then?_ Zach caught the shuriken right before he landed, the spinning blade with five points freezing between his fingers with the sharp blade millimeters from cutting through even the fabric of Zach's glove. He caught the shuriken in mid-spin, mid-throw, and as he landed he stomped down hard and threw it back in the direction he supposed it came from. The shuriken flew, spinning, at a tree that it imbedded into the trunk of halfway across the star. The shuriken looked like it would take a lot to rip it from that trunk, and Zach watched the branches around that tree but caught nothing in the next couple of seconds. _No panic from how fast I threw it. No quick jump away to make a branch shake or a gasp to make her visible, not unless she's in a blind spot. She's great at this._

 _But I'm better._ Zach leapt up high. He leapt up from the thick branch and rose farther into the canopy, into the small branches that would seemingly move more with each step so it would not be a great place to move to. The canopy was hard to see into though, and when all the canopies of the trees in the area started shaking, there was no way for Manzo to tell where in it Zach currently was. So she stopped trying to, and she darted away from the area to let him continue to make his moves for no reason.

Manzo darted away while Zach continued to shake the tops of those trees, and Manzo released her breath when she knew she was out of sight of him. Zach turned his head and he darted through the canopies, chasing after the girl who spun and looked up from a thick branch to the tops of the trees that were shaking on their way after her. _How did he see me?!_ Manzo sucked in a huge amount of breath even though she was in the middle of panting, but she calmed down quickly after holding it in. She stayed where she was for a few seconds after breathing in, _He picked a direction. He suspected I might run if I didn't know where he was, and back the direction he came from is the way he thought I would go. He called it, but he didn't see-_ A knife came flying out of the canopy towards the branch she was on, making her dart to the side while desperately holding in her breath.

A knife slammed into the branch between where Manzo's feet had just been, and then a second later a boy in blue and green and red landed down in front of her. Zach turned his head to the right, and to the left, his eyes narrowed behind his visor and his hands each gripped around a blade each. He slid his right foot to the knife in the branch and kicked it up out of where it was lodged. He swiped his right hand across the front of his body and caught that knife, making Manzo's eyes widen more as the knife she had just seen in his right hand was no longer there. Zach gripped the blade he had thrown that had a green hilt instead of the one with a black hilt that slid down into its hiding place in his sleeve when he made that swipe across the front of his body he knew she saw.

 _Which direction are you in? You're holding your breath right now. How long can you hold it for? What if my face was darker? Could you hold it in despite your fear?_ More of Zach's face shadowed over below his visor, and a red glow came out from below it that had Manzo staring with her eyes wider, though her breath stayed inside.

 _He wants me to gasp. It's like with Kameko. And Dendo. His tactics are brutal and intimidating. Villains who see him fight like that would give up early in fear of him. He uses that name, to make us afraid of him. And he can capitalize on it too. He's not all talk, but neither are we. Shiketsu's Class 1. Manzo Elia. The Stealth Hero, Breathtaker._ Manzo stepped off the branch she was on, and as she fell, she smacked a hand on top of the branch she just stepped off of.

Zach darted his eyes to the spot on the tree he just felt a vibration and heard a noise on. _If she's attacking she wouldn't land there! But objects she throws become visible, so that's her actual body?! It's a decoy, but it's her, unless she really can make things invisible for a short time too._ Zach leapt up high, and his wristwatch opened up over his right hand, allowing him to fire a hook away through the forest that he sped out into.

Manzo turned visible below where Zach had just been standing on the tree, taking in a huge breath and then swinging herself back up over the branch. Her eyes darted after where he just sped away, then they snapped to her right as she heard a ringing noise. Manzo looked towards the trunk and saw a small black device partially hidden there. Her eyes opened wide at the sight of it, then she spun back the direction Zach just ran off where more ringing started, then back to her left and then to the right farther back towards position Beta. _What are these things?!_

The ringing got louder, and Zach spun around the trunk he had grappled himself to. He slingshotted himself back towards Manzo, a pair of knives in his hands that he flipped around in a crazy way showing off his mastery of the weapons. Manzo snapped her hands up with three shurikens in either of them, and she leapt backwards while Zach was coming down at the branch he had been on before. She threw three shuriken at where he was landing, getting ready with the second hand to throw wherever his head and feet gave away he would be jumping to next. As Zach was landing on the branch though, he did not jump away to dodge those three shuriken. They were all coming at the same speed, and all on target, and Zach slashed his knives quickly in front of his body to deflect two of them. The third slammed into his left arm, and Zach reached his right hand over and pulled the shuriken out of his sleeve where it got stuck with him not even flinching from the blow.

Manzo landed, and she stared towards her opponent across not that wide a gap. There were loud ringing sounds around them, though she could pinpoint where they were coming from and calmed herself despite how disorienting the noise was at first. _If those work as cameras too, then he wasn't able to follow me before. I chose the wrong direction because this is the way he came from, but anywhere else and he wouldn't have been able to give chase._ Manzo held her breath, and she darted down the branch to her left. Her own shuriken passed behind her back after where she would have been had she leapt backwards after turning invisible to another branch farther from Sazaki. She threw her shuriken behind her while Zach was on his way to the branch she was running down.

Zach saw the branch shaking though after he threw her shuriken towards where he first thought she was going. He saw the shuriken become visible and come flying at where he would be landing, confirming what he already suspected from the shaking that got worse gradually showing she was moving towards the thinnest part of the branch. Zach aimed his right hand towards the end of the branch, but the hook fired just short of Manzo and caught the branch below where she had just jumped off. Manzo kicked off a tree trunk to the right of where she jumped, then off the one she bounced over to, then she rolled upon landing on a thicker branch.

Manzo put her hands and feet down and leapt to her right over at another branch she lifted her arms to and swung on like a pull-up bar to another branch she landed on with one foot and jumped off of to another. She felt the vibration in the branch she landed on as she was rising off of it, but she held her breath despite knowing how close he was to her. _Fall._ It was clear what the next branch she was going to jump to would be, so when she landed and was about to jump to it, she weakened her own lift-off strength. As she fell between branches instead of moving to the next one, she saw Zach shoot across the gap faster than she would have jumped, meaning he would have slammed into her midway through it. His head immediately snapped down when he did not hit anyone, and Manzo cursed in her head that he was able to react so quickly to his realization of where she was being wrong. _I'll never get the drop on him like this. I needed to counter as he was going for where he thought I was!_

 _I'm surprised she was seventh. I guess in some zones being invisible wouldn't help much. The lake zone, swamp where she'd leave so many footprints, same with arctic and even desert and beach. Not as much there, as she could keep light on her feet and- shit. She's really good._ Zach dropped off the tree, only to have to dodge as a short-sword came swinging towards him from a wire connected to the tree he dropped off of. _To make it swing like that, she must have cut the other end of the wire from up there._

Manzo snapped her body to the left, dodging a knife that flew right past her left shoulder almost grazing her black costume. _He thinks I jumped away!_ The way Zach's helmet moved when the branch shook from her dodge made Manzo see her moment. _I can't jump at him though or he'll see the second vibration. It's up to chance!_ _NOW!_ Manzo watched as Zach bent his knees and leapt up to the branch he thought she just jumped off of… Or at least, Manzo assumed he thought she just jumped off it. _He's not high enough!_ Manzo realized it too late, that Zach's jump did not have enough force for him to rise to the branch she was on. She was going to make her move right as he was about to land, hit him and then stay hitting him as they fell to keep him below her so he would not have time to flip himself over or attach himself to a tree with his grappling hooks. Zach was a few feet short though.

Zach was still rising to the level of the branch, but the branch was at about his stomach level as he hit the top of his arc. His hands he rose like he was going to grab on at first, making Manzo think that maybe he had just misjudged the height of the branch, curled into fists instead of open hands to grip on. Zach curled those hands into fists, and he smashed them through the branch just next to where Manzo was standing. He also hit closer to the tree trunk than to her, so she could not scramble to a safer side, as the thinner part of the branch snapped off and broke apart from how powerfully Zach just smashed his hands through it. Manzo's footholds completely broke apart beneath her so there was not even anything solid enough for her to kick off of.

As Manzo tried to kick off of the wood falling below her, it just pushed away from her feet without giving her anything, making her gasp as the attempt flipped her around in the air. As she was falling, suddenly visible, Zach focused straight on her face. Her eyes between the black marks of her mask stared at his visor, and she twisted herself around in midair with her right hand in a fist. The two of them were dropping together, and Manzo punched as powerfully as she could, which was not very strong with no balance. Zach caught her right fist with his own, and he swiped up with his left in the same moment as she was reaching for weapons with hers.

Manzo's left hand froze. Instead of reaching for her shurikens that were so close to her fingers, she tried bringing her hand back up to stop the knife going for her side under her left armpit. She tried closing her arm down on Zach's hand, but he finished his slash first and cut straight through her costume on her left side. The black fabric below cut, just as the tight bandages on top that were wrapped all over as another thicker piece of armor. Zach's blade sliced through it all, yet Manzo's light skin that showed below the mark did not get cut as Zach stopped before going one level deeper. He swung her right arm out to the side while Manzo was still wide-eyed in panic that he had slashed her before she could block, and now with her left arm moving down to that side and her right tossed aside, her stomach was opened up for Zach's right elbow to slam down into after tossing her guard aside.

"Oooh," Reika leaned forward and exclaimed as Manzo's legs lifted up on one side and her head up on the other, her body bending over the elbow.

 _Doesn't he ever hit lighter?_ Kameko thought in pain, just as Imino was feeling a similarly traumatic kick at his side.

Zach landed down on the ground of the rainforest, and a dozen of the Class 1 students leaned forward with panicked expressions. The teacher rose up his microphone but knew he would be too slow. Yet the girl dropping fast with Zach who had no means of catching herself after that elbow, never slammed down into the ground. After slamming that elbow into her stomach, Zach dropped the knife from his left hand and moved his left arm around her back. He rose up his right hand into a fist and lifted his arm over Manzo's body, as he caught her in his left with her body laying horizontally over his arm.

Manzo felt the jolt of stopping, her body bending over the arm for a moment with a crack of her back, but it was not that painful. She tensed up as she realized she was about to hit the ground and probably just hit something else first, but her head never hit down, and her whole movement had stopped actually. Manzo opened up her eyes that she had clenched from the pain, and she stared up in shock at the boy holding her with one arm while his body was leaned over hers. His right hand was lifted in a half-hearted fist and his expression was stoney and serious, but he also started to grin as her eyes opened up despite his powerful elbow in her gut.

Everyone stared at one of the screens with their bottom lips dropping at the way Zach just caught Manzo. It looked romantic. Especially since Manzo's actual form was a bit more noticeable now, which others realized with their jaws dropping more at how much more her breasts were pushing out into the black fabric of her costume now. Manzo noticed it too, but her eyes were focused up on Zach's dark visor with her teeth clenching in anger at the way he just caught her. Then his left hand moved, right as she was opening her mouth and raising up her arms from her sides to attack him. She opened her eyes in shock that he dropped her after catching her in such a "chivalrous" way, making her think he wouldn't take her down like he had taken down her classmates. Manzo tried to bring her arms down to catch herself, but instead she grunted in pain as she hit down on her back and the back of her head from a two foot drop.

 _I didn't even think Manzo was on that branch,_ Inasa thought, his expression amazed as he stared at Sazaki standing over one of his strongest classmates. _I didn't even think Sazaki knew Manzo was on that branch!_

Hazano had his microphone lowered again, after raising it fast to try and yell at Sazaki not to seriously hurt one of his students. He was still tense though. He did not raise the mic to call out his newest student's victory yet. _Those cameras. His gear. The devices, they made noise and, could they be motion sensors on top of cameras? That's how he was able to follow her movements even without seeing her? The tech, it's good. It's great. How does he have all that? It's compact. He has millions of yen worth of tech on him. Tens of millions even. Sazaki shouldn't have any money. Someone's funding him. Someone got him that costume and gave him great tech. I may not have even seen how powerful it is yet. The gloves that wrap over his hands, those blue blasts he fired, I've never seen gear like that. Not outside of prototype testing- but he isn't acting like they aren't safe. He trusts in the gear, showing he's been using it for a while. This is the first time since he's come back that he could though. So more than six months ago even, he was using this kind of tech. And it's still not known to the public? How far ahead is his gear compared to the equipment we make here?!_

The hero who doubled as Class 1's homeroom teacher and his usual costume development teaching job glared towards Sazaki on the screen he was showed on. _The kid hasn't talked about what he was doing all that time. Principal Memuria tried getting it, but either the big shots won't tell us what it was, or he never told them either and they just want to pretend like they know it by saying it's confidential. It's none of our business. Not unless it was illegal, which it almost certainly was. We can't just accuse him without proof though._ Hazano lost his glare as he noticed students looking towards him wondering why he hadn't called out the winner yet, and he got to announcing Sazaki's victory.

Zach turned from Manzo and started away. The girl snapped up to her feet behind him, and her fists balled furiously at her sides. She looked angrier than even Dendo after his fight, and everyone in Class 1 got nervous as they looked at the screens and saw how pissed Manzo appeared to be. She reached up and yanked the bottom of her mask down, and the top part up and off too while glaring and panting at Sazaki's back. "Why?!" She yelled at him, making Zach stop and look over his shoulder at the furious girl.

Zach lowered his eyes from her face down to her chest that was pushing out now instead of looking as flat as her stomach like it had for most of their fight. _I could understand it if your breasts got in the way, but I saw you earlier and they were small anyway. They don't get in the way like that. So why the excess? Why push them down, unless you were trying to hide something?_ "Why what?" Zach asked, lifting an eyebrow like he didn't know what she meant.

"You- why didn't you let me fall? Why did you, why- catch me?" She bit down so angrily, and then she snapped before he could answer as he was opening his mouth to do, "Don't look down on me!" Zach froze with his mouth open, and he closed it and looked at Manzo with a serious expression. He rose his hands up to his own visor that he removed the helmet from, retracting it back into the smaller equipment before pushing it up over his black hair that had pushed down again. Zach stared into Manzo's eyes and she got angrier by his look as he did not respond to her, "Just because I'm a girl, don't think you can treat me as less of a hero!"

 _Does she have something to prove? It doesn't really matter._ Zach frowned more at the girl before him and he shook his head once. He furled the right corner of his lip and looked half-confused, half like he just did not care about what she was saying. "I caught you because you would have hit down too hard. I would have done it for anyone else too," Zach said. _She's got a big chip on her shoulder. There's no point in hiding she's a girl, but the costume isn't just for its utility. She made it tighter there than it needed to be, since it would most likely constrict her lungs more than anything. It made her slightly slimmer, and it hides from her opponents that she's a woman, and she uses those excuses to justify restricting her Quirk's capacity? Maybe it doesn't restrict her breathing by much, but the fact that you care about this at all is holding you back._

Manzo ground her teeth at his response. She could feel the air on her skin under her left arm on her side where he had cut through her clothes, and she knew why he had done it considering the way he had looked down at her chest for a moment right there when he looked back at her. He was still just looking over his shoulder at her, and he continued too quickly this time when she opened her mouth to snap something else at him, "Why would it matter to me if you were a girl?" He asked it flat-out, an eyebrow raised in annoyance and even a pissed-off way at the girl who froze at the question and stared at him with wider eyes. "Half of the strongest people I know are girls."

Zach turned away from Manzo with that, and he jumped up into the branches above him. He leapt over to a new branch after landing on one, and he reached around the trunk and pulled a small, black, and very expensive device out of a crack in the bark. _Most of the class are guys. The strongest members of the class are all guys. Same with U.A. Only Momo got into the semifinals, but U.A.'s hero course is full of guys too. Pro heroes are more likely to be men than women. Statistically, what I just said was a lie. It's probably less than half. Only someone who cares about something like that though has done the actual ratios. I've noticed it, sure, but to let it bother you that much that you actively try to not be seen as a 'female hero,' means that you see yourself as a 'female hero.' You're a hero. It's simple. You're not a hero who graduates from Shiketsu against ones who graduate from U.A. You're not heroes who are girls needing to prove yourself against the male heroes out there. You don't need to prove yourself to people that women can be heroes too, because you're the only one who feels like you need to do that. All Might is a man. Endeavor, Hawks, Best Jeanist, even Lemillion rising above Miruko had to have hurt. But do you think Miruko gives a damn that the heroes above her are men? Miruko's an awesome hero. Just like Fantasma. Midnight too, and Mt. Lady. Creati and Battle Fist and Pinky. I've never seen one of them care about it, and they're all amazing heroes. No one cares except for you, and it's holding you back._

 _"Half of the strongest people I know are girls."_ Manzo stared up after where Sazaki vanished from her sight. She was frozen in place, a single sentence echoing over and over in her head. The look he gave her while saying it, was the first time in the fight that she felt like he was looking down on her. She thought she had seen it before when he caught her, when he was looking down after catching her in his arms. The way they had been facing each other up in the trees, during their fight, it had been intense and their fight matched that energy. The way he just looked at her though… _He- he was looking down on me! He really… but, not because I- because what then? Why did he, if it wasn't because I'm a… he doesn't care about that, but, but I… do? Wha…_

Zach grabbed the last of his gear, and he lifted back up his frown as he shifted his thoughts away from the girl back behind him. _Alright. Time for the main event. I can't waste their entire Ranking Day, but if I want that number 1 spot there's still one person left I have to beat._ Zach grinned as he landed in front of the long tinted window he knew his class was on the other side of. And before he headed for the door inside, he was already looking at a part of the glass where his opponent had been standing on the other side of for several matches straight. Zach looked through the perfect spot, that he stared straight into Inasa's eyes in a challenging way that everyone in Class 1 and their teacher saw.

 _Geez, does he ever even take a breath?_ Kotsumura almost laughed. If it wasn't suddenly so tense in the spectating room, he might have. He thought it might be tense from everyone's anger or something, but all that tension just came from one person's excitement, which all of them could feel as they looked towards Inasa and saw the glint in his eyes and the incredibly intense smile crossing his face. _Not like that guy's going to give him a second to breathe. If you think you're about to face someone on the same level as the rest of us… except he doesn't._ Kotsumura gulped, though he found gulping was hard at the way Sazaki was looking at Inasa too that showed he did not consider this another fight like the others he had been in. Even the intensity in which he had been fighting Manzo which made the fight seem so fast-paced and serious, in hindsight it felt so half-assed.

 _Wow,_ Reika thought, shifting her gaze from Inasa and Zach back up to a screen above her that showed Manzo slowly walking back across the forest. _I don't know what he just said to her, but she looks fucking baffled! Like her world's just been turned on her head. She looked super pissed one second and then, what the fuck Elia? What'd he just say to you? Did you fall for him or something?_

Hazano glanced over at Sazaki when he entered the spectators' room, instantly heading back over towards Kotsumura and Reika while pretending like he had not just been staring at Inasa through glass that they all knew he couldn't see through. The teacher's eyes refocused back up on his second strongest female student though a moment later, and his heart was racing at the look on her face that looked like something had just been shattered for her and she was trying to wrap her head around it. _Did he just do, what I think he…_ Hazano's angry and suspicious thoughts towards Sazaki only a minute ago faded from his mind, as his eyes shifted around the room towards some of his other students.

Hazano stepped backwards to keep any of his students from noticing his expression, then he turned his head more and looked around at the others Zach had fought already. He stared at the crack on top of Kameko's shell, and the look on Imino's face as he talked to Kameko about that last fight he just saw, and then he turned and caught a glimpse of Dendo grinding his teeth all alone on one side of the room as the others were getting excited for a fight between Inasa and Sazaki. _What is he doing? Seriously?! I've got to be losing my-_ Hazano's eyes stared at the screen above the window where Manzo had stopped walking for a second. Not many of the others were looking at her, too interested in Sazaki's next challenge that he had yet to make but had gotten them all interested and made them not watch Manzo on her way back to the room.

Hazano gulped as he noticed only two or three others watching Manzo, as she stopped in the middle of the gym and looked down at her breasts pushing into the black fabric of her under-costume that was still tight to her body but no longer squishing her breasts in so far that they were hidden. _What is she thinking about? Did he get everyone focused on other things to give her this- Himazuri's…_ Hazano's eyes opened wide as he saw that brunette girl's bulging eyes while she stared up at the screen he and Reika were also looking at. _This kid,_ Hazano's eyes shifted back over to Sazaki who was not just talking to Kotsumura this time, but Porrolo and Satoshi too, and then to Trabo who was close to Satoshi and who Zach mentioned something to about the difference between their two fights which Trabo countered with a 'plus, I'm not you,' that got a laugh out of Zach and Satoshi.

 _Does he even realize what he's doing? Or is it just coming naturally to him?_ Hazano watched his newest student's carefree expression as he laughed, making Trabo grin too after a second as he forgot why he wasn't smiling in the first place since his friends and classmates didn't seem to mind talking to Lifebringer like this. _Whether it's natural or he's actively thinking it all out, there's no wonder why this country banded together to get him out of jail. The things he does, and the things he says, he's magnetic._ A smirk crossed over Hazano's face and he shook his head once while looking away and back towards the screens that he noticed another student look to wondering why Manzo was not back yet. He rose up his microphone himself, "Manzo, get back to the room for assessment." _Not that I need to give you one. That was a great fight, I barely saw any of it, and the one thing I could say I don't think I need to…_

When Manzo heard her teacher's voice, she picked up her pace and steadied her expression again. She even remembered that she had pulled her mask off and reached up to pull it back up again. She covered the bottom half of her face but then froze as she reached behind her head to grab the black bandages and hood that she was going to pull back up over her messy brick-red hair. Her hair fell just down to her shoulders, straight but curlier near the tips, and Manzo held off on covering it back up as she lowered her hand with a confused look that was hard to see for most with her mouth covered up by her mask.

 _Must be hard getting that hair back in her mask,_ Kotsumura thought as he saw Manzo lower her arms. He looked back at Zach and asked, "You going to challenge him right after the next fight?"

"Challenge who?" Zach asked, before grinning as Keiji's look back showed he definitely knew.

Kotsumura shook his head at him that Zach would even ask that and play dumb after the way he just looked at Inasa though the window. "Just a warning, I think if I had to put a bet down," Kotsumura began.

Zach turned to his new friend and continued to grin, and he rose up an eyebrow offering Kotsumura to finish that sentence. He hesitated, but Reika was not as hesitant about it. "Then our money's on Inasa," she said, leaning past Kotsumura and giving Zach a serious smirk showing she meant it. "You ain't taking us all down today."

"And if I do beat him?" Zach asked her back, as she just made it out like she was willing to bet on this. Reika's eyes widened as did a couple others' around her, as none of them were expecting that. Zach shrugged his shoulders at her surprised look though, and he asked, "Then what do I win? You already said I can call you Tiona, so not that," he mentioned, glancing at Kotsumura as that was what she bet with him.

Tiona frowned, but only for a second. Then she cracked a smirk and said in a fake hesitant tone, "Well, I suppose if you beat Inasa, I would be willing to go on a date with you." All the guys around Reika and Zach spun to the blonde with wide eyes, while most of the others in the class just gave her skeptical looks like asking if she really just said that. Reika turned towards Inasa though after saying it, and she gave him an expectant look, "So you-"

"I asked, what would I _win_?" Zach repeated, his voice somewhat confused which made Reika drop her jaw, just like all the others around them now instead of just the guys who were jealous and shocked that Reika would make that offer. Reika spun back to him, giving him a shocked and skeptical look, but Zach just shrugged his right shoulder and replied at her look, "Sorry, not interested."

 _Be quiet while you still have the chance!_ Satoshi thought at the side of Zach's head.

 _He doesn't, want to go on a date with Reika?_ Kotsumura thought, still shocked by that, though for some reason relieved and then even more confused as he swore he saw Zach's eyes shift his direction for a moment there.

"'Not interested?' What? Are you- Oh, I see. You think 'cause you're mister hot-shot that you can have any girl you want, huh?"

"It's not that. I'm just not into you."

"Dude, be quiet-"

"Shut up snake boy," Reika snapped without taking her eyes off of Zach. "Alright then. If you win, then I'll let you pick the stage when we fight-"

"Well, I'm thinking this is actually going to be my last fight for the day," Zach countered. He rolled his right arm and then tilted his neck to the left and the right and then back really far. As he rolled his neck out like that, the scars on the sides of his neck got a lot of close looks from the others around him in a sudden reminder of how mysterious the person talking to them was. Reika suddenly realized who she was getting so heated by too, calming down herself as Zach spoke with the attention of the whole room but while acting like they were in their own private conversation. He spoke like he was used to having everyone watching him do every little thing in his life, so people listening in to his conversations was nothing new to him. "I'm actually getting pretty tired from all this fighting, and the next one's going to take it out of me for sure."

"You've got that right." Everyone looked over at another student, one who had not spoken to Zach so far that day who Zach turned to and grinned again in a more intense way to match the look on Inasa's face.

No one even noticed that Manzo had come back into the room, and she was now focused like the rest of them on Zach and Inasa staring each other down. "We need another challenge in the meantime," Hazano said, before sweatdropping himself as he realized that wording it like that showed even he was just trying to get to that next fight.

"Rrrgg," Reika finally broke the tense silence with a low growl of annoyance. She darted her eyes from Inasa to Zach, then back at Inasa as Zach had just fought and needed the gap anyway, but she decided against Inasa as that would mean there would be another gap before the fight she wanted to see as much as everyone else. So she spun to someone else who had pissed her off today, only to get annoyed as Manzo had just fought too, and she couldn't fight Kotsumura since they had already fought once and you couldn't fight the same person twice on one Ranking Day. "Hisashi!" She shouted, as soon as the screens stopped flipping through the possible zones and before Hazano could ask if anyone wanted to be the next challenge.

The third ranked student in Class 1 looked over at Reika with his eyebrows raised, and then he leaned his head back at the look covering her face as she glared at him with the anger towards all the other people she had looked to before making that challenge. Even Zach and Inasa took their eyes off each other and looked to Reika after hearing that furious challenge, and everyone between Reika and the door into the gym moved out of the way. Manzo even stepped back as Reika darted her a glare on her way towards the door.

Hisashi started towards the door after Reika, and he leaned in towards Satoshi on his way and whispered, "Help me!"

"Good luck," Satoshi just replied with a thumbs up at his classmate who sighed at the enthusiastic response when he was actually being half-serious right there.

As most of the class shifted focus to the new fight about to start, Dendo Takashi glared even harder at Lifebringer's back. His fists were clenched at his sides, his expression angrier than it had been before not that anyone was looking towards him to see it. _Fuck him! What did he do, to get- he didn't beat me! I fucking tripped up- that's, that's not! FUCK! They're not standing as far away from him anymore. What are you all doing?_ Dendo shot a glare at Kotsumura, but his eyes shifted around to others near them too. He gave a dark look at the others who were just ignoring that Lifebringer was standing amongst them and looking through the window towards the fight themselves.

 _"You were right. I didn't even touch you."_ Dendo's fists curled harder and he bit down hard to keep his mouth shut instead of shouting a hundred insults at Lifebringer like he wanted. _That bastard- he, is he just messing around- all those fights! Fucking Manzo even, he looked like- he was fighting her hard and he was against Imino and Kameko too, he fought all of them like… They were actually fights! But the others didn't have a chance- they couldn't have, and he wasn't even trying- but there's no way. It's impossible to fake a fight like that, make it look so intense and hard-fought, if the other person didn't know what- but maybe that's why he got hit by Imino, because he didn't… but then, he didn't want to get hit? In which case Imino hit him when I couldn't? No! He fucking went hard against me! To, to make me fall…_

Zach ignored the green-haired classmate glaring into his back as he had been since their fight. Instead he just watched Reika fight Hisashi, and for most of the students around him it was taking too long. Reika fought hard, and they fought for a _long_ time that felt longer with every time Reika retreated back to the areas with the most water. Zach wondered if despite her anger, she was making sure she showed off this time instead of getting beaten before she was able to prove it to him that she actually was strong. _She's got a shockingly level head, considering her personality. And that Quirk is closer to Mark's in strength than I thought. She knows her own Quirk much better than I do, so it's not my place to warn her about what-ifs. I can leave it in a conversation somewhere though, asking how her Quirk differentiates between water and blood maybe? Or just mention in a joking voice not to use it to push me away or pull me close, and say that since we're mostly blood she could probably- no, because then what if she tries it and rips someone apart?_

Zach was the only one in the room not focused on him and his next fight against Inasa. Even Hisashi was somewhat distracted by it, and he got hit by a wave he did not see coming from behind him, one that tried to drag him back towards the lake using all the water Reika had missed him with already. He got knocked around by it, but Zach watched as the third strongest in the class refocused solely on his own fight and showed why he deserved that ranking. As Zach watched interestedly though, his classmates kept stealing looks towards him, especially Inasa who kept thinking Zach would turn back to him again and make eye contact one of these times in another intense way, but Zach never turned to meet him which just made Inasa spin back and try to hold it in for a little longer.

The fight wound up being the longest one of the morning, and Hazano checked his watch when Hisashi finally slammed Reika into the dirt. He dropped her on her back at the edge of the lake, before dropping down to a knee himself and gasping exhaustedly for several seconds. Hazano frowned as he saw the time, _It's getting close to lunch. Maybe this fight won't last too long. Either way…_ "Reika's on her back. Hisashi is the winner. Get back in here and we'll have the next challenge, but that's going to be the last one for this morning."

Zach looked over at his teacher wondering for a second if Ranking Day would really end so soon without everyone getting all their challenges in. Hazano continued though, "After lunch we'll return for more challenges. Lunch, by the way," Hazano added while looking at Sazaki directly. "Does count as a fight between, in case those fighting in the final challenge of the morning have challenges ready."

Zach nodded in understanding and gratitude at his teacher for giving him the piece of information only he did not know. He glanced around the rest of the room after giving the nod, and by the looks on his classmates' faces when he made the scan, each one of them thought that him looking their way meant that he was going to challenge them after lunch. _Guess it isn't too much of a stretch. I've faced a pretty big fraction of the class at this point, about to be a sixth, more. Maybe I will come up with some more later. Who knows?_

 _He doesn't look tense at all! He's totally underestimating Inasa,_ Satoshi thought with a gulp and a grin at Zach's expression.

 _I want to think he's just being cocky, but he doesn't even look cocky,_ Porrolo thought, looking at Zach in an odd way. _He just looks calm. I guess if the fight doesn't mean anything to him, or at least the ranking, then he has nothing to worry about except being knocked down? Is being number 1 important to him?_ The teen with spiky white hair furled his lip but in interest instead of in an upset way. _Why even fight Inasa then? Is it because Inasa definitely wants to fight him too? Or is it to mark his place as the strongest in the class? He's already doing a pretty good job at that even without facing Inasa. He's made it out like using his Quirk would make this not even training for him, like we'd all be nothing against him. He didn't say it like he was trying to be a dick though, but the way he said it is even cockier I guess. Saying it like it wasn't a boast but a sure thing!_

 _I thought Inasa couldn't be beat, I really did,_ Kotsumura thought while watching Zach out the corners of his eyes. He was staring through the window towards Reika and Hisashi who were almost back at the side room of the gym, but he watched carefully the expression on Zach's face as his new classmate also watched Reika and Hisashi approach. _But I guess, there's always someone stronger out there. All those times he's said he lost, that means there's a whole lot of people who could beat him, at least at one point there was. Against him now? Who stands a chance?_

Hazano rearranged the gym at random once he gave out his critiques to the two students who returned to their spectating room. The gym changed with the previous floors lowering down and sliding to the sides, and different zones moving back in and then up onto the surface. One side was 'safari' and the other 'desert,' which actually translated well with the room looking pretty natural with one side just having more low grass and a couple scattered trees and cacti. The desert was just sand all around, and Zach looked over both areas closely before turning and making his challenge. No one else had considered making another challenge yet, so some actually forgot the challenge had not been made and that Zach needed to make it. They were just expecting Zach and Inasa to walk out there.

Inasa nodded intensely back at Zach, failing at suppressing his excited grin that he had to turn away to finally hide. He stormed towards the door to get out into the gym in a hurry, even though Zach got position Beta and had to be the one heading across the room. Inasa waited at position Alpha as Zach jogged across the safari zone, since it was easier to run on the sand there than the desert which was looser and had more dunes going up and down than the safari which was mostly flat.

Inasa jumped up and down as Zach was heading across the room, kicked his legs out and punched his fists together in front of him. He had on a maroon costume that looked baggy over most of his body. It consisted of the coat over his tight blue under-armor, along with a matching cloak that doubled as a cape behind him and covered up some of his arms too. He had on a steel belt with rungs down his thighs and up over his chest before vanishing under his armpits and below his cloak. His pants were the same dark red shade, as were his boots, and both his pants and boots had tubes on them with holes pointing out in different directions. The shoulders of his costumes had similar holes, and his muscular arms were covered in thick armor too.

His gloves were tan, and they looked soft while also with black metal protrusions and tubes sticking out of them as well. He punched his fists together in those gloves, his right one just a bit less thick and without the steel as far down it. Inasa also had small tubes on the knuckles of his gloves, as well as sticking out of his sides and out the back of his costume below the cloak so his opponent could not have seen them yet. Inasa stopped jumping around and he stared across the room, his expression intense, and a gust of wind rushing by him and through his short-cut dark-brown hair.

 _Inasa's the one my friends told me about before I even left. The strongest. The one who placed above even Todoroki out of the recommended students apparently, though he didn't come to U.A. for some reason despite getting in._ Zach was nearing his spot, and he turned around while continuing to jog, only he was jogging backwards now. He looked across the room towards Inasa, smiling like his opponent and with a similar level of intensity in his gaze despite it being less excited and more confident. It was not overconfidence that emitted from Zach's expression though, just a level of confidence in his own abilities that was somehow still humble, making it appear all the more intimidating and trustworthy to those looking at it.

Zach rolled his arms. He grabbed his right shoulder and rolled that arm out with a few big arm circles, then he rubbed his right hand over his left arm and over a mark in his costume where Manzo had pierced through the outer layer of his armor. There was no blood there, but Zach rubbed the spot while making some smaller arm circles with his left. He bent his elbows while grabbing his hands together, and he swung his elbows to either side. Hazano called out for the two of them to raise their right arms when they were ready, but Zach continued to do stretches for a few more seconds. Inasa got impatient as he wanted the fight to start already, but his expression stayed excited and serious as he wondered if Zach intended for him to get upset or something by taking a few seconds away while he was aching to fight.

 _He's really strong. I doubt I can beat him without Death. Ahh,_ Zach stretched his back by leaning backwards and pushing his arms up over his head with his palms together, then he set himself into a more readied stance. His eyes narrowed and he lowered his grin down a bit while lifting up his right hand like Inasa was doing. "Alright then. You both know the rules. First one to hit the ground, loses the match. Commence the fight in three, two, one."

Zach darted to his right. He moved for the safari zone at a sprint much faster than any run he had been doing through his other fights except in the first one against Dendo when he really needed to get into cover quickly. Without trying to hide though, he was showing off a full sprint across a zone with a more solid ground diagonally towards the middle of the room and also to the side wall. Inasa started a slower jog in the same direction, towards a middle point where they would meet each other if they ran the same pace. Inasa did not take many steps though, as his Quirk, Whirlwind, picked up. It literally picked up the one using it as the winds increased, and Inasa shot up high in the air of the gymnasium, while two separate wind funnels shot away from him to his right and the left.

Sand rose up into the funnels, yellow grass ripping apart and the few trees in the zone shaking and swaying from the force of the Whirlwind. _Anything I throw will be off course. I can't adjust in mid-flight either, while even if I do get off a good shot taking his wind into account, he can simply change the direction again._ Zach stopped running and his eyes glared between the funnels of sand to the top of a spinning tornado of wind his opponent was on top of. _He looks like a guy with a pretty clear vision of what makes a hero. A definition he holds dear, and one that he feels I don't match considering the way he kept trying to look at me. But he doesn't hate me. He wants to fight hard, and prove to himself that he can beat me. It's not about keeping his ranking. It's not about showing everyone else he can beat Lifebringer or being the strongest in his class. It's not even about our ideologies right now, why he wants to be a hero. That's the most dangerous kind of person to fight!_

Zach leapt backwards, dodging slashes of wind as one of the funnels broke apart still full of sand and sent gusts of it flying his way. He managed to dodge two of them with the leap, but three others slammed up from underneath him. Zach saw that Inasa intended for him to jump, to give his opponent an easier way of getting him up into the air. Zach rose, and he looked towards Inasa as he rose up without a panicking expression on his face, even as Inasa pointed his hands behind him and _flew_ across the gymnasium so fast they would be reaching each other in a few seconds. So Zach only had a few seconds, and in his peripheral vision with a dart of his eyes down and around the gym, he could see that all the wind that Inasa was not using to shoot himself forward, was being used to cover up the entire gym floor around them.

Wind was crashing into trees and blowing through the grass and shrubs. It picked up sand but even without doing so Zach could see the trails of wind that were so strong anyway that the had become visible. Any grappling hook he tried to fire to dodge Inasa and pull himself down to the ground faster, would be thrown aside by the wind before reaching its intended destination. Zach could not fall or he would be knocked down by the wind, and even before that he was already going to come up against his opponent who brought his left hand back and had a swirling tornado forming on his palm.

Zach's eyes flared red inside his dark visor, the red glow coming out below it while his hands were clenching and his fingers moving in a certain way that his costume was reacting too because of the gloves connected to the rest of it. The soles of Zach's shoes glowed blue as did the circles in the center of Zach's palms, as did light on the back of Zach's calves, and on the back of his shoulders, and in the center of his back where his costume was thickest. His whole costume looked tight, but not tight to his body, as there were sections where the armor was clearly thicker than in other places. And in the middle of Zach's thick back, four small holes on the bottom of that thick area opened up and blue light shot out of there before fading only centimeters off of his costume. Zach dropped his hands down at his sides, his fists snapping open into palms that the blue light intensified on.

"No way," Kotsumura gasped, leaning forward over the railing he was already grabbing tightly when he saw Inasa's plan about to succeed.

"Impossible," Hazano began in shock at what he was seeing.

"He can," Reika began before panting again and finishing, "fly?"

"That's not…" Dendo started, his eyes huge like all his classmates as he stepped forward towards the windows. _Without a Quirk that-_

Zach sped up into the air above where Inasa was on target to hit. Inasa's eyes had widened _a bit_ in surprise, but he redirected himself straight after Zach without hesitating. He threw the tornado of wind he had gathered at his opponent who pointed his right arm out to his side and kicked his legs out in front of him, retreating quickly away from his opponent who was hot on his heels. For once, it looked like Zach was on the defensive. It only lasted for another second. Zach did a flip over in the air as he pushed out his costume's full capacity to avoid getting dragged into a giant swirling whirlwind in the air of the gym. As he came out of his flip, Inasa jolted to a stop, as Zach had a black hilt in his hand, and a press of a button on the side of it extended a long silver blade from the hilt in three different increments that happened one after the other.

Then the blade turned black. Darkness spread from the hilt down over the steel and broke off of it like flames that moved in the wind. Inasa backed up and his look turned fully intense with his smile disappearing. He thought if he had gotten Zach to use his Death that it would have made him more excited for a more intense fight against an equal. Instead, the reality of what he had to do now hit him as he thought about all he knew about Zach Sazaki's Quirk. Zach felt the wind get weaker around him, though it was still there, just breaking off of other attacks Inasa was still controlling.

 _He'll figure out what Mark did. If he attacks with a huge force of wind and disconnects his own use at the last moment, he'll be fine. Already he can see the small parts of wind hitting me are not affecting him at all. The wind pushing the Death off my blade. The silence. The thrill of an opponent worth fighting. Can you feel it? How often do you have this opportunity? Can you see yet, that it is not an opportunity you are faced with?_ Zach's lips curled up, the red glow still coming out from below his visor, and the dark flames flaring harder over his sword.

Zach shot towards Inasa without warning. The smirk caught Inasa off guard, as did the black lines spreading down Zach's face from below his visor where his eyes were hidden. They branched off like veins over the scar on the right side of his face, and across his cheeks to the scar on the left side too. They moved like that as Zach flew using the impossibly high-tech blue and green costume glowing with blue light, and he slashed his sword of darkness across the front of his body when he was still several meters away from his opponent who had not decided whether to fly forward and meet him or to back off. Inasa increased the wind below him and rose up, before immediately cutting off his control of the wind tower when the black slash was about to go through it.

As soon as he stopped controlling that wind though, the black slash that flew off of the sword and came at him, changed directions and came up after where he was rising. Inasa twisted his own body as that slash of Death changed directions towards him, and a new gust of wind slammed into his side and launched him across the gym away from Zach. The right corner of Zach's lip lifted up a bit more, though in less of a smirk this time. The black markings disappeared from his face, though his eyes stayed red as he stared over towards where Inasa righted himself, over the desert section of the room where he could most easily use the environment to his advantage.

 _I've fought in more deserts than you have though. I bet you've never seen a real desert in your life._ Zach stared towards his opponent who was staring straight back at him with a smile back on his face again just like Zach had on his own as they took that brief moment just staring at each other. _He dodged, changed up his control, contorted his body in an immediate reaction. He's better than most everyone. Time to get a little serious,_ Zach rose his right arm out to the side with his sword held in that hand, and the blade flared wildly with the darkness rising off of it like flames. Inasa created tornadoes around him that rose up sand and had the entire zone around him filling with sand particles flying so fast they would damage anything they hit, though none came near him.

Zach stared into that sandstorm, his arm extended out to the right, and a bubble of darkness burst out of his back right over the blue jet on his right shoulder. The glowing circle became hidden by the darkness that flared out from that point, getting wider the farther from Zach's side it got. It expanded and flapped out six meters away, a huge wing of darkness that matched the Death covering Zach's arm from his hilt all the way back to his right shoulder. He kept his left hand pointed down with more blue light coming from it than when he had both hands, and the targeting system on his visor was locked in on Inasa's position through that sandstorm that was doing little to hide his heat signature.

Smiles vanished. Zach shot towards the desert zone, but Inasa flew towards him at the same time, an entire sandstorm moving along with him. Zach's black wing flapped behind him, and since it was only one, it sent him into a spiral right into that mass of sand that continued flying at fast speeds despite Inasa pulling his wind from the path Zach was flying through as well as anywhere within ten meters of him so that he would have long enough warning to pull from other areas when Zach attacked. Zach swung his sword towards where he knew Inasa to be, and Inasa flew upwards while slashing both of his arms across the front of his body in an X. Zach snapped his head up and flapped his wing down, shot stronger blue light out the soles of his feet, and he slashed his sword down the front of his body on his ascent to slash through an X-shape of sand flying down at him with a huge gust behind it.

The X broke and Zach flew straight through the splitting wind current that disappeared from sight as it lost strength with Inasa letting go of control when the slash came. The fading winds behind Zach grew stronger as Inasa pulled a hand towards him, and he swept it to the right too in order to slam the current of his Whirlwind into Zach's back left side. Zach got hit hard and spun in a barrel-roll across the air. He flipped his sword around in his right hand as he turned upside-down at one point, and as he continued the roll he twisted his arm in a backwards slash across his body. A circular slash of Death broke off from Zach's sword around his whole body, expanding out in all directions and making Inasa completely change up how he was controlling the wind currents over the gym. Half of all the wind being controlled quieted down, and Zach's red eyes darted around the far side of the gym from Inasa behind his back.

 _Controlling such a large area is difficult to do with individual currents, so he used large ones that he had to cut off pieces of he no longer controls. He had precise winds too, though weaker like the ones that hit my side. Maybe he kept those weaker in case I spun or covered that side in darkness as he attacked, hoping with less focus into it I wouldn't be able to damage him as much. People have broken down my Quirk's abilities in depth online, but everyone has theories and ideas about things I can do that are either right or wrong, and there are so many theories that there's no telling what's true and what's not anymore to the inexperienced eye. What can I do, Inasa? How can you attack me? How can I attack you? He's faster than me in the air like this. He might even be faster still that I need to speed up more, but if he's not showing it it's because he knows I'm holding back too. Just using enough speed to stay ahead of me and out of my range. My suit's power won't run out, Inasa. I don't need to flap this wing unless I want to speed up even more, and there's more energy in this suit than you know. How much do I want to show? I don't want to beat you with Death. I can beat you without using it on you. That's the goal. That's my victory. I can do this!_

Zach sped back into the wind funnel Inasa was spreading towards him again, only using a lot more smaller currents instead of the large ones from before. There were dozens of separate currents moving different directions, creating funnels and winds that pushed Zach around and made him redirect power in his suit and change directions over and over to keep flying towards Inasa. Inasa started off the next bout by backing off, making Zach push forward through a maze of winds, but Zach created a pair of Death Grenades in his hands that he threw to the sides as he flew forward. He blew the Death Grenades up and explosions of darkness threatened to suck into many of Inasa's currents, so he stopped controlling them. Zach also threw forward as he did to the sides, and the weakened power of the uncontrolled winds in front of him may have been enough to drag the Death around in swirling patterns for a few more seconds, but it was not enough to stop Zach.

The wind did do a good job of spreading the Death through the air though, and despite being thin, Inasa pulled all of his wind currents away from it which meant he could not feel the interruptions in the air which would have told him where Zach was coming from. He could not even attack behind the dark veil where he thought Zach was approaching from, in case his opponent he could no longer see had surrounded that area in more darkness in preparation for Inasa's attack coming. Inasa shot up high, getting farther from the veil as it got thinner while darting his eyes all around to try and find the spot Zach would break through.

Inasa spun his head to the left as a hole broke through in the darkness, and he prepared a tornado as he rose up his right hand. Sand funneled up into it and the cyclone grew huge in a second, but nothing came through the hole. Inasa started spinning his head the other way, his eyes wide as the hole had broken out towards him looking like someone had jumped through it. A part of him thought maybe Zach had gone through just moving too fast to see, or somehow making himself invisible with his costume, but he remembered the first slash that came off of Zach's sword changing direction and pulling towards him. _He has total control!_ The way the darkness broke out like that was to make Inasa think Zach had broken through at that point, while instead he had made some thicker darkness pool near the bottom of the veil and got underneath his opponent when Inasa was turning his head towards the first spot he thought Zach was coming from.

As Inasa spun back the other way, he saw Zach rising up from beneath him too close to easily dodge and moving at too fast a speed for his unmoving hovering form to dodge. Inasa swung his arm down below him, sucking himself into his own sand funnel that he released control of even as it hit him, so that he could not prevent it from beating him up too. It did shroud both of them in spinning sand though that was too thick for Zach to see up at his opponent, and when Zach swept his right arm he had covered in darkness with a claw at the end, the funnel continued to spin. Zach could not tell if Inasa had been controlling it up until he was hit or just before it. He saw a hole up in the funnel though, where Inasa made new wind to clear the area in front of his face and then his body as he made his way through the swirling sandstorm.

Zach flapped his wing down below him and then let it get dragged off by the spinning funnel that was already wisping away at his wing. Darkness spread into the funnel, and Zach allowed the rest of the Death on his arm to get yanked out into it too leaving his body without any darkness on it as he shot towards the open space Inasa was shifting with. It was easier for Zach to see the open area than it was for Inasa to see the form in the spinning sand, but Inasa still did see Zach half a second before Zach would reach him. Zach's body was shadowed in that first instant Inasa saw him, and through so much spinning sand he could not tell if there was still darkness covering part of him or not. _He won't,_ Inasa gambled, charging towards the spot Zach was about to bust through instead of backing away. His gamble paid off, as Zach had no Death on his body as Inasa expected, making Zach grind his teeth at the first look he saw on Inasa's face.

 _He thinks I'm holding back against him,_ Zach thought, his tinted red vision showing him the pissed-off expression of a strong opponent who was not going to let him get away with that easily. With that anger and desire to get a strong hit in to make Zach regret that choice though, Inasa tried putting too much power into a blow he would have got off in time if he had just gone for speed. Zach turned his body to the side and dodged a fist, then he pushed through the half-attempt at sending a wind gust into him when the fist was missing. He punched his left fist at Inasa's face, but when his opponent started pulling his head back Zach opened his hand and darkness came out of his palm covering the blue glow and all his fingers. Zach swept the hand across the front of his body, making Inasa flip himself up in the air above that wave of Death.

Zach slashed his right arm across his body and up towards Inasa, a sword in it that got covered in darkness again but slashed through nothing as the wind filled the tubes of Inasa's costume and sped him through the air. Inasa was coming down on Zach's other side while his slash was still moving up and to the right, but Zach's left hand opened up just a bit from the fist it had clenched into. There was no hilt in that hand, but a sword of darkness extended out of his hand anyway while his head twisted towards where Inasa was swinging some wind forward. Inasa swept his hands back outwards, just in time as Zach slashed his left sword where Inasa had almost sent a huge gust at Zach. As Inasa dodged though, Zach slashed his right sword back at his opponent and then his left too which made Inasa shoot himself backwards to dodge them both.

This time, Zach did not give chase after his opponent. Instead the black swords faded from Zach's hands that he had pointed down again, using the blue light coming out of them to stabilize himself a bit in the air. Zach took in a deep breath and then smirked towards his opponent who hesitated at that grin. Inasa's eyes darted to Zach's shoes that glowed brighter, and the others looking up could see the blue light glowing on Zach's back and shoulders illuminating brighter too. Zach lifted his hands back up, not needing to use them to keep himself in the air as the rest of his costume did it for him. Instead, he brought both hands down to his right side and pressed his wrists together, his palms opened up with his fingers curled forward.

The blue circles on the center of Zach's palms glowed brighter, and brighter, and the blue lines on the back of his gloves pulsed with it back into the sleeves of Zach's armor. The light on his shoes and back glowed a little dimmer, then brighter still and Zach's visor started warning him of the power situation. He ignored the red light on the top right corner of his vision though, while his hands glowed bright blue and he bit his teeth at the power he felt in his gloves. _Alright,_ Zach's red-tinted focus darted around Inasa on all sides, at his opponent's face directly, at his hands and his feet, and Zach pushed his hands out in front of him making a blue beam fire out of them.

Inasa pulled his body back and shot downwards out of the way of the beam, but the beam did not continue as a beam though. It looked more like a blue ball of light with nothing behind it, which made sense considering Zach shot forward immediately after firing. He was heading straight towards where Inasa dodged, so that before his opponent came out of his dodging position in the air, Zach was already on him with his left fist swinging forward. Inasa did not panic though. He did not even fall for the feint of that left fist hooking towards the side of his face, even though Zach had shown how powerful his left fist could be when he smashed through Kameko's shell. Instead Inasa ducked down below the elbow Zach was swinging with his right arm that kept its hand open and looking like Zach was using it to help fly better.

Inasa's right fist clenched, and then his teeth clenched in pain and his whole body jolted down as an elbow slammed down on top of his skull. Zach saw the duck and though surprised, was able to change directions before Inasa could counter. It did not have as much power in it, but it was still enough that Zach expected his opponent to get dropped out of the air. Inasa's head was pushing up into Zach's elbow though, and Zach looked down through his visor as Inasa rose his head up, his eyes pissed and his teeth bared angrily at his opponent who started to lean back. Inasa swung his right fist up and caught Zach under the chin before he could pull his face away, and his head snapped back and went farther the more Inasa pushed up into his punch.

"Take- THIS!" Inasa followed through on that punch, sending Zach flying up in the air spinning in loops that looked like a giant translucent coil of wind. Zach spiraled up into the sky, while Inasa took the much quicker route flying straight up through the funnel and twisting his body as he did a flip towards where Zach was coming up at the top of the coil. Inasa flipped his body with his right leg extended out, and he started slamming that leg down while coming out of the flip to increase the power even more. Zach was off-balance and spinning through the coil, but as he was about to hit Inasa, he turned into a blur by doing a three-sixty roll so fast and extending his own left leg.

Zach did not have as much of a build-up before the kick, but the powers looked the same for everyone leaning forward in the spectating room. The kicks pushed into each other before bouncing off, knocking Inasa backwards and twisting Zach back the way he just came spiraling in from. Wind pushed at Inasa's back as he was leaning backwards, and blue light pulsed on Zach's back that sent him twisting back that way again. The two who bounced off each other came up with their right fists punching forward, both of them thinking they were faster to recover than their opponent. Zach's fist was closer than Inasa thought it would be, and he shifted the angle of his own punch a little to the side so it was aimed at Zach's right fist.

Inasa and Zach's fists collided, and metal bolts on the back of Zach's glove broke with blue light fading from that palm as the shockwave rippled through the air. Zach punched his left fist up, and he nailed Inasa in the gut as his opponent swung his own left fist over Zach's right arm and towards his face. The left fist in Inasa's gut made his arm get pushed back enough that it just missed Zach's face, but that fist opened up despite the pain Inasa was in. Zach flew across the entire gym in a second. It felt like a tornado just slammed into his face, and he got thrown out of it moving over a hundred miles per hour. He shot down towards the ground so fast that a dozen of his classmates' mouths opened up to shout, only for a huge pair of black wings to rip out of Zach's back at the last moment and flap down on the floor. Blue light glowed through those wings that broke apart while lifting him, and the costume pushed Zach up more after he was just stopped only a few feet above the ground.

The wings that broke off of Zach's back curved around the sides of his body, and he swung his right arm forward and then his left. The wing on his right flew forward as a dozen black lines, and the left dozen lines shot up a second later towards the part of the gym Inasa had dodged too. Inasa created a hundred strong winds, and he released his control on them when they got close to the black lines he sent them flying at, clearing the middle of the gym on his way down towards where Zach was flying up at him. Inasa shot down towards his opponent, and he sped up as they were about to meet to come up on Zach's right side with his right leg in mid-spin. _Favoring his right. Maybe a former injury._ Zach ducked down below the leg, and he slammed his own leg in a kick on Inasa's left knee that made his opponent wince harder than he should have on a kick from a weird angle.

As Inasa winced, Zach snapped up and moved in front of his opponent whose leg was still coming down and who had no counter ready for Zach being in this position. Zach punched his right and left forward, slamming Inasa below the shoulders in the muscles that hold the arms up, before rising a knee up into Inasa's gut and pulling his head back to dodge a strong wind Inasa tried to break them away with. After the knee into Inasa's gut, Zach backflipped as the wind he dodged changed direction to try and slam him down into the ground. There was a lot of wind though, and just flipping away from Inasa did not let him dodge it. Zach forced out more energy from his suit as the power tried pushing him down into the ground, but the red light was blinking on his visor, and Zach started to raise his right hand with some Death forming on it even inside a huge wind pushing him towards the ground.

Inasa stopped with his huge wind, having gained some distance backwards after those punches that made him sore all over. He rolled out his arms a few times while glaring towards Zach, because his opponent put out those dark flames as soon as the wind stopped pushing down on him. _He's still worried about knocking me out. He still thinks he's going to win! And he thinks he can win without it!_ Inasa watched as his opponent balled his left hand into a fist, panting a little just like Inasa was himself. They had each landed hits, they were low to the ground, and the way it was looking, a single good hit right now was going to make someone fall. Neither were raising back up to lower the stakes back down though.

Zach balled his left hand into a fist and he stared through his visor straight towards Inasa. _You're that kind of person._ Zach's eyes were impossible to see, but his expression had Inasa clenching his own left fist as wind spiraled around his body and only around his body. _That's how I want to play this. You see it. There's no other way for you. Not right now. Even without my Quirk, you can't dodge this. You can't run away. It's just, not you._ Zach shot forward. He sped ahead with his body turning horizontal as his back pulsed more energy first, then the rest started glowing harder on the soles of his shoes. _Not a great angle. Can't even use my right to steady it._

 _Millions. This fight is costing millions,_ Hazano saw pieces of Zach's high-tech costume breaking off up in the air, and as he watched Zach fly in an initially unsteady way he knew why it was. _I should stop it now. The two of them moving that fast towards each other-_ Hazano stared closer with his breath speeding up just like most of his other students, though many of them were holding their breath instead as Inasa and Zach charged each other.

Inasa moved towards Zach faster than Zach was coming at him. Inasa flew faster and without wobbling as much, though Zach stopped his wobbling as well as he flew towards his opponent who had to come from across the gym after flying so far back a moment ago. The fact that Inasa had to approach from so far after Zach had just been punching him, punches that could have been covered in Death to knock him out, it made Inasa speed up even more towards his opponent who was losing his opportunity to dodge. Inasa's left fist balled tighter on his left side as well, his elbow pulling in and his body tensing to ready for the punch in a second.

Zach punched early. To everyone watching, it was clear his punch would not hit Inasa. Instead, it looked like he was punching so that his arm was extended and he could slam it into his opponent's face instead of try to punch at the last second when they were nearing each other. Inasa also though that maybe Zach was punching early because if he had the punch extra speed along with his own speed of flying forward, Inasa wouldn't be able to take it. That just made Inasa speed up more and get ready to punch and dodge Zach's punch he saw extending towards him early-

The fabric of Zach's costume ripped around his left shoulder, in a pre-cut location that allowed it to rip off cleaning unlike the tight white undershirt below that just ripped as it couldn't hold together either. Zach's body kept flying forward, slowly, while his arm broke off of him at the speed of his flight and how fast he had punched forward. Everyone gawked, including Inasa, as the fist that should have stopped in front of Zach's body continued going with a bright blue glow coming out of the back of it. There was a dim blue glow on Zach's shoulder now too, on a steel panel covered in little holes with a bigger one in the center that had some disconnected wires in it that were made to be disconnected like that. Zach's arm flew at Inasa faster than his opponent was ready for, and Inasa was only able to close his mouth and try pulling back, but it was not enough to dodge.

The fist lodged into the right side of Inasa's face as he was turning, and it hit him so hard that Inasa's head kept twisting to the side along with the rest of his body below it before the fist flew off his face and kept going while flipping around in the air. Zach's arm had not hit the ground yet, and Inasa had yet to open back up his eyes as he was flipped through the air, when Zach slammed his left foot down into Inasa's side. This time, the collision was at a perfect angle and with enough force behind it, that Inasa flew down into the desert below with enough force to blow apart the side of a sand dune.

Zach twisted around in midair and flipped himself over, landing on the sand at the bottom of the broken dune on his own feet. He put his right hand down on the floor as he landed, his left leg sliding out to the side and his body going low with his eyes fully focused on the cloud of sand that rose up on that collision.

The sand settled down, and Zach saw movement in the dune but from someone down on the ground getting up. Legs bent and hands gripped into sand, and Inasa dragged himself up to his knees and then on one foot, then the other. He stared towards Zach who lifted up into a straighter standing position as well. Zach faced his opponent who shifted his expression from Zach's own face over to his left side where he was missing an arm. Zach glanced there as well, and he frowned at the pain he felt as the nerve receptors ripped off right there. His shoulder moved, and Zach brought his right hand over to the spot where his arm was missing. He gripped it hard and turned his body to the side, while the blue light on that circular panel glowed brighter.

"What the-" Kotsumura had been staring out at Zach in shock since that crazy punch, but this blew his mind even more. He stared a few dozen meters away from the two combatants, to where Zach's discarded arm glowed brighter blue high up near the top of it just like Zach's shoulder was doing. The arm dragged across the sand for a second in Zach's direction, then it rose off the ground and flew towards him so fast that anyone in its way would probably get knocked out. Zach started turning his body in preparation, and he grit his teeth and spun a half-turn to the side as the arm slammed into his side back where it came from. He gripped it with his right hand, feeling pain inside his shoulder as he held it there and twisted a couple of times.

 _Come on. Thought this was going to get-_ "Nn," _easier._ Zach hummed out a strange noise as he felt the nerve connectors re-attach. He lowered his right hand and curled the fingers of his left a few times, raising it up in front of him and watching to make sure there was no time delay.

Inasa continued to stare towards his opponent mostly in shock, a shock he tried to push down right after the arm disconnected but was back in full now that the fight was over. _He had that hidden away, this whole time? Every fight?_ Inasa thought through the day and his eyes twitched a bit wider as he thought back on Kameko's fight. _He only used his left. That whole time he just smashed away with his bare hand, it didn't look like it hurt him at all. His hand wasn't even… It was more than just punching, I should have known that. But still, his arm. He's got a rocket arm? That's- that's, so cool._

 _Is the rest of his body like that?_ Reika stared out towards Zach with her bottom lip finally closing. _No, it can't be. He was still wearing the glove only on his right hand earlier. Unless it's just to make people think that touching it would still kill them? Is he a frickin' robot? Not, that I don't see, how he might've lost it._

 _Shit._ Kerushi rubbed a hand on his forehead with a nervous gaze out towards his new classmate. _The fuck was he actually hiding under that shirt?_ Kerushi thought on how Zach changed in front of them, keeping most of his body hidden the entire time other than what was always visible, and his lower legs. His lower legs were covered in more scars than Kerushi could count, but he had just gone along with giving Sazaki dirty looks for keeping his shirt on like they wouldn't be able to handle what was underneath.

 _He's too calm. Too collected,_ Flugeru felt chills down his spine. _Where does an arm like that come from? I didn't think stuff like that was real. The people who made it for him, the kind of power he's hiding- still? No, he was going all out even using his Quirk on Inasa, so there isn't much he's hiding anymore. He even showed something he was purposely hiding because he got pushed into too much of a corner!_

"Hazano sensei," Hisashi started, glancing at his teacher on his right side. "Did you know about that?"

Hazano looked to his left at one of his strongest students who asked him that in a low voice. Then Hazano just looked back out through the window and he rose up his microphone with a dark look on his own face. "Inasa went down. Sazaki is the winner… Sazaki." Zach turned towards the glass and looked though at his teacher who continued after pausing for a moment, "Where did you get that arm?"

 _Even Hazano sensei's getting mind-blown right now!_ Satoshi spun back from his teacher to his classmate who he really wanted to hear from about that amazing arm.

Inasa started walking towards Zach over the sand, and Zach glanced back at him to see he was waiting for an answer too. "It's just, a really good prosthetic. And my only prosthetic, by the way!" Zach added louder, as he did not need to see the rest of his classmates to know that some were suspecting him to be some sort of robot. Zach turned more to just Inasa who walked straight up to him and stopped only an arm's length away from him, a little more. "Nice fight," Zach said, nodding at his former opponent with the right corner of his lip lifted up.

Inasa hesitated for a second, then he grinned back at Zach wider than Zach was smiling himself. All the annoyed thoughts Inasa had been having were proved wrong, but that just excited him more than upset him. The fact that Zach won meant he had no reason to be annoyed about Zach not going all out and getting beaten in a way that he wouldn't actually know for sure which of them was better.

"Yaaa, I lost," Inasa rose his right hand and rubbed the back of his head through his hair in an exasperated voice though it did not sound very tired. He was still smiling, and he laughed as he conceded his lost. His smile lowered down a bit and his eyes that squinted shut there shifted to the window on the side of the gym for a moment. He sighed in an actual more disappointed way, and he mentioned while looking forward into Zach's eyes, "Last chance at showing that us Shiketsu students could match up."

He was still speaking in a friendly way, trying to keep his smile on his face, but Zach saw it was less disappointment Inasa was feeling. He could see the window in the corner of his eyes too, but he just grinned in a more friendly way back at Inasa and shrugged his shoulders. "Don't know what you mean by that." Inasa gave him a confused look, and Zach finished with a tilt of his head to the side, "Since I'm a Shiketsu student too now." _Might've been your last chance of showing that your class could beat me, but you didn't let down your classmates by not doing so. I'm one of you now. It's easier to push away someone weaker than you. Pretend like that person isn't important and just ignore them, but it's going to be hard to do that with me at the top of your class. And you won't want to do it. Not if I'm making the Shiketsu name better, as that's starting to click in your head._

Inasa's lips curled up and he nodded at Zach in agreement. He started raising up his right hand, but he froze. He stopped himself, and then he rose up his left instead which Zach looked at in surprise for a second before a grateful smile came to his face. He lifted his left hand and shook Inasa's, and though a part of him thought maybe Inasa just wanted to shake his rocket fist, he appreciated the gesture anyway. "So," Inasa started after Zach let go, "how'd you lose your arm?"

Zach looked to his left side, and he smiled. He stared at his left shoulder as he lifted his arm up, a small nostalgic smile on his face that made Inasa look closer with interest. Then Zach looked back at his classmate and just chuckled, "It's a long story. I'll tell you some other time."

Inasa frowned, wishing that other time was right now. Zach turned towards the spectator room though and glanced to his side to see if Inasa was walking with him. Inasa stepped forward fast and walked right at Zach's side, smiling big again as Zach asked him, "How's the lunch around here? I doubt you guys have your own Lunch Rush, but it's got to be pretty good, right?"

"Of course! And maybe it's not Lunch Rush, but it's definitely better than convenience store chips and soda," Inasa grinned at Zach as he said it, while Zach got a sweatdrop on his face and scratched the side of it laughing nervously.

"Oh, you saw that did you?" Zach wondered innocently. "Well, not like I was going to any five star restaurants or anything, but I did have meals while I was gone too. Fast food, mainly," he added at the end in a slower voice, looking away as he admitted to it. Their fight just ended, but Inasa laughed along with Zach's admission and started asking more questions without waiting to get to lunch. Zach turned back with a smile and answered in the most vague way, with lies sprinkled in with the truth, the same way he would answer everyone's questions in the coming days.

* * *

 **A/N Few things here to start: a rainforest really does not have as much vegetation on the ground as a jungle because the thick canopy of a rainforest prevents other things from growing down on the ground, due to sunlight not often reaching the surface. 100 yen equals $1, so if you need to make conversions where that appears in the story try and remember it (I know I've mentioned that before). Also, Longest Chapter! Also, the longest wait to get a chapter out, so sorry about that. Probably won't get another one out before graduation either, as I've been stacked with work and barely got the time out to edit and post this one. Anyway, Zach crushes Ranking Day all while full of ulterior motives that he's not even able to think of very clearly himself. I hope you liked his different battles and the new characters introduced this chapter. Zach's missing arm confirmed... but now he's got a rocket arm! Inasa never saw it coming. Thanks everyone for reading, and I hope you enjoyed this chapter! Leave a review below telling me what you think, comments, predictions, or questions about the story!**

Super Power Sensei chapter 149 . Mar 29

WTF?!  
YO ZACH YOU GOTTA CHIIIIIIIIIIIIIIILLL!  
(not really, please don't chill)  
WHY YOU GOTTA DO'EM LIKE DAT?!  
I knew Dendo was gonna lose, but MY NIGGA ZACH made him look like a complete dumbass! Zach was clowning him yo. The disrespect on him was real. Zach shoving what Dendo said back in his face was eggcellent! XD(I'm about to make breakfast). Which Dendo totally deserved. I'm from the hood so I can tell you right now, unless it's an obvious joke(and very rarely even a joke is too much), DO NOT bring a man's MOTHER into your beef...ever. That shit will start a shooting.  
Also I would like to briefly mention two more things. One, his grapple speed is 90mph?! Damn. Arkham Batman would be proud. Second, is it accurate for me to imagine the defaut kunai from "Naruto" as Zach's seemingly endless supply of knives(replace the black blade with a silver reflective one)? Because that would be sick.

 **Zach did him dirty! Dendo got made like a fool, and yeah he kinda deserved that. Zach's got that speed, and that strength, and that technique... and those default kunai! Lol Idk about the kunai's, they're a bit bigger than what I'm thinking of. More like small switchblades and daggers come to my mind: thin black hilts (or green) with a small silver blade sticking out (or black). Anyway, Zach does chill a bit in this chapter, but he still kicks the shit out of most of his opponents so, hope you enjoyed! Thanks for the reviews! (Too bad about missing review #1000).**

lolmyster42 chapter 149 . Mar 29

Zach's gotten to that point in his life that he has a dmc-esque style rank announcer going off in his head, and if he doesn't come out of a fight with a SSS he gets mentally defeated.  
(I'll also be snagging that 1000th review spot)

 **Zach finesses everybody once again, getting his SSS ranking even if some of those fights were "close." ;) Nice job on the 1000th spot!**

yasideen1 chapter 149 . Mar 29

1000th review  
And zach just straight up bodied dendo  
Gg

 **Yeah... Since the reviews aren't numbers idk if you actually fall there on the list, but lolmyster42's review got up before yours did so...;) Zach bodies Dendo, and flexes on the rest of Shiketsu's Class 1. Thanks for the review!**

GuestP chapter 149 . Mar 28

I'M SCREAMING  
BADASS ZACK IS BACK  
"You were right, I didnt touch you."  
F**k man, can you get any f***ing cooler? Also, Zach making new friends is probs the best thing ive read so far. Im looking forward to his reaction to the rumors about him and Ashido.  
As always I loved this chapter, cant wait for the next one!

 **Haha loved the review! We have seen Zach turn badass before our eyes, and I really like thinking back on original kinda shy, unsure, nervous Zach- man he's just gotten so cool, but don't worry... he can always get cooler XD. Thanks for the review, sorry for the long wait!**

Logargon chapter 149 . Mar 29

"I didn't even touch you" that's just savage

 **Yup, just about the most brutal way he could've beaten him. Glad you liked it!**

Rex559 chapter 149 . Mar 31

I'm curious this fic will have lemon?

 **Most likely no.**

Guessst chapter 149 . Mar 30

Great chapter. Wonder how Zach is gonna fare with a mind reader in class? Might bring in some complications. Hope he steamrolls the whole class with the ranking tournament but it's not really fair the the students to be fighting Death lol. Life's not fair though hmmmm

 **Thanks! Zach does his best to watch himself with Himazuri on the prowl. He does go and steamroll the class though, snagging that top rank with a bunch of great fights (though against kids still in school). Zach doesn't fare with much issue in this chapter, as one would expect from _Death._ He's going to have to be on the lookout for Himazuri moving forward though, he's got a whole new class he'll be spending his days with, and we'll see what comes for him moving forward next time on Death! Hope you all enjoyed, and I'll be back with the next chapter soon as I can!**


	151. Chapter 151

**Disclaimer: I don't own Boku no Hero Academia**

 **Chapter 151:**

On Zach's first day at Shiketsu High, he placed first in the school's best class, the hero course Class 1. Ranking Day happened on the first of the term for the third years, second day for second years, and the Friday of the first week of school that started on Wednesday for the freshmen. Before the first day was even over though, Zach was already known throughout the school for his strength, from rumors spread across the school like wildfire.

Dendo Takashi got mad at the rest of his class for the way those rumors had spread so quickly, that by halfway through lunch he had a first year asking him about Lifebringer and how powerful he was. His classmates told him they had not been going around saying that though, and the class came to understand where the rumors were spreading from of Lifebringer's amazing strength. Apparently a few of the second years and first years had seen Zach during their hero licensing exam, and rumors were spreading about how he had fought Best Jeanist all on his own during the exam. The rumors were different depending on who heard them; some people said that Lifebringer had taken on Best Jeanist singlehandedly, while others said that he held Best Jeanist off so the others in the exam could continue their rescue efforts, while others still gave Zach credit for defeating Best Jeanist and a dozen of his sidekicks all on his own while at the same time leading the other applicants to victory.

The first day of school had not even ended yet before the rumors started about what happened to Zach on his way to school. Kotsumura asked him about it when he finally heard what had happened, as Kerushi mentioned it to him in a whisper only for him to go and ask Zach since he no longer had the apprehension towards him that he felt at the start of the day. Zach admitted that he was attacked earlier, but he did not seem bothered nor surprised by it. Hazano asked him about it too, and Zach told his teacher that he was fine and just apologized again for being late because of it, to which Hazano mentioned he should give the excuse next time since he would have understood.

By the time Zach was leaving his first day of school, he was even more of a celebrity to his classmates than he was before arriving. He had become more than just the name, the celebrity that the news talked about. They had new information about him that they didn't know just from the news. Primary and secondary sources that told them that _the_ Lifebringer really was, amazing. Zach took long routes home on his first couple of days at school, making sure he kept an eye on everyone watching him until he was out of sight of all the classmates and reporters who tried following him off school grounds. He avoided most reporters, even jogging away despite being on camera. He had given his reason for it that morning during the post-interview post-attack, so whenever he felt there was a camera on him he just made sure to keep running while keeping his eyes peeled on buildings near him for assassins. It was what he normally did only more pronounced so that other people watching the clip later would be able to easily see what he was doing unlike when he normally acted like he wasn't doing it.

On the second day of school, Zach wound up having to sign a few things at lunch that some people brought up to him. They had heard things about how down-to-earth he was, seen how un-intimidating he was on the news the afternoon before, and the smile he had while talking casually to his new classmates set the other students around the school at ease. He made sure to smile and cheerfully sign the 'LIFEBRINGER' shirts and paraphernalia they brought to him too, and he always listened closely if someone came up to him and told him how they were inspired by the things he did before he disappeared. He didn't say anything when the people would also mention how they were amazed by the way he came back and turned himself in, but if they didn't mention it he had to add on to what they were saying that what he did was wrong no matter what the positive consequences were, even when they tried to argue about how the League had practically disappeared after what he did.

Kotsumura Keiji heard it from his little sister on their way home on the first and second day of school, and at home during dinner with his mom and dad, and all the time he was with his sister now. Anima was more excited about him being in Zach's class than he had been beforehand, though he suspected his classmates' reactions to Zach joining them might have made him cool down more than he would have normally. On his way to school on the Friday of the first week, so the third day of school, Anima continued to tell him how jealous she was that he had been born two years older than her and thus got to be in _Lifebringer's_ class. She continued on in a happier tone though about how since their was a crazy big celebrity at their school, and they got to see him more than everyone else (which was already amazing and awesome in itself), people were going to give them more attention now too wanting to know more things about him. So she continued to ask him about Lifebringer and everything about him, to which Keiji just gave her the same things he knew from what Lifebringer had told them.

Zach kept what he talked about pretty vague and only specific in certain aspects that his classmates wouldn't be able to understand anyway. He would mention something that sounded completely nonsensical, yet his tone was serious enough that to them it seemed more like they just didn't understand enough about the subject. Like when Keiji asked his new classmate about his missing arm, Zach had told him about how the dark elves and forest elves were about to start a civil war, and how he had lost it trying to stop that war. The amount of confusion he felt during that conversation was unlike anything he had ever felt before, but for some reason the look of pride on Zach's face when he said at the end how he had succeeded seemed more real than most of the time he had spent with Lifebringer thus far. It did not make any sense to him, and he was 85% sure that Lifebringer was lying to him, but Zach did lose his arm and he did have other scars that he then showed while saying that story, such as the huge horizontal gash across his stomach that jagged near the left side and was thicker than most other scars around it.

Kotsumura Keiji was the only one to have seen any more of Zach's scars so far other than his lower legs that a few classmates had seen. It was only during that conversation that Zach lifted up his shirt a bit to show the scar, and though Kotsumura focused on the scar in question, his eyes could not help but wander over the rest of his new friend's scars covering the bottom of his torso around where Zach lifted the hem of his shirt. In only a couple of seconds, Kotsumura had seen more scars than he was able to count, and he only had more questions after seeing them.

Kotsumura said goodbye to his little sister as they got to school on Friday, and he went to his classroom where Zach was already, sitting in an old classmate's seat who he had told Zach about the day before. Zach asked him about it, and though he was confused at how Zach knew, he told his new friend about their old classmate who had died in the middle of their second year during an internship. It was against the Stain Cult, and Kotsumura mentioned how Zach's old classmate Deku was responsible for putting the man who did it back behind bars. Kotsumura stood at the side of Zach's desk, leaning on the one next to it before class started as his was far away and he wouldn't be able to talk to his new friend for a while otherwise.

Zach had gotten to school early. He actually left his apartment when it was still dark, and he flew to school that day. He had already seen most of the city and memorized everywhere within a few miles of Shiketsu High School. Zach studied the layout of the city and of his new high school he had gotten a tour of several days ago, and so now he just needed to get there and get home without people following him and finding his apartment. He chilled out in an alleyway for a couple of hours, then he got into school when it would be too early for most everyone else but not too early that he wouldn't be allowed in. He had even beat any reporters who would have been waiting out front of the school over the next few hours to catch him coming in.

Other students filled into the classroom, and a couple of others came over to where Kotsumura and Zach were talking. After the tournament where Zach had gotten first on Ranking Day, (no one had challenged him in the afternoon after seeing his fight against Inasa), Zach hadn't bragged about his new ranking to his new classmates. He had actually been pretty humble about it afterwards, and he instead just mentioned how his fights were hard fought and how close they were, at least most of them. His mention of "most of them" had made his classmates around him silent for a few seconds, as Dendo was within earshot and it sounded like he was saying it directly at him. A couple of his classmates even gave Zach dirty looks for it, which he understood since Dendo had been their classmate and friend for years, and he was an outsider. Still, a few of the others had seen the way Dendo treated him, outside of a couple of stray insults. Inasa, as well as some others who heard, be-it from another row of the locker room, what Dendo said to Zach in there did not blame Zach for being overly hard on their classmate who was still giving him constantly dirty glares through their first week of school.

The day started, and Zach was confused at the start of it as his teacher never came in. Instead, a woman who looked a little younger than Hazano sensei came in two minutes late and immediately set her eyes on him as she got set up in the room. "Hachiman's got work on Fridays this term," the woman with long brown hair tied into a ponytail began. The other students seemed to recognize her from what Zach could see, but they all seemed surprised upon hearing that. Muoko and Tomoki had settled down the class around the time it should have started, and they had all just been waiting for Hazano sensei to come in. Their brunette teacher paused after her first announcement, and she kept looking at Zach while continuing, "I can't tell you what his assignment is, but don't worry about it. He told me though! That you, Lifebringer, haven't yet been properly introduced."

Zach gave his teacher a somewhat confused look. She smiled at his expression, her fully red eyes with green pupils narrowing towards him. "I'm Enorma, but you will call me 'Enorma-sensei.'"

 _Enorma. She can make things bigger or smaller. As a killer she'd be unstoppable. Make a heart bigger and blow it to pieces. As a hero, it's more difficult to use without destroying an enemy. As I know, she can use it on things she sees. I don't know if that includes internal organs or not, but in a fight against a villain- I'd have to see her actual fighting style to know. Her costume doesn't give much away, but- She's so weird. Does she want me to do an introduction?_ Zach felt Himazuri start reading his mind, and immediately his thoughts changed track to a less suspicious one. He kept his thoughts away from being annoyed by what she was doing too, and away from the hope that she did not notice his own exasperation at how early she was starting to read his mind today. Instead, he had an embarrassing thought about one time he was in his own room, and a girl with long brown hair walked in wearing only a bathrobe that she dropped.

Himazuri stopped reading Zach's mind with her face going bright red. She lowered her eyes down to her desk, thinking about the girl's naked body, and then on that girl's long brown hair which made her look back up towards her teacher with her eyes wide. _Oh no-_

 _Ah shit,_ Zach thought as he stared at his teacher, immediately realizing what Himazuri was thinking in the right corner of his vision. _She totally thinks I'm into Enorma._

"So! Since I don't know you AT ALL yet, and I'll be taking care of this class on all Fridays for now on, why don't you come up here and give a self-introduction?!" Enorma stepped aside towards the teacher's desk and motioned with a hand in front of her for Zach to move to the middle of the room.

Zach got up from his seat, pushing his hands down on the desk and standing up without much hesitation. Most of his classmates watched closely, all of them interested as Zach had barely said anything about himself so far. Zach stepped up to the front of the room and glanced towards his teacher who leaned back on the desk. The woman in her late twenties nodded at him to go on, and Zach looked forward at the twenty-nine students in front of him waiting for him to speak.

"Well," Zach began. He looked around the class at the students he had been talking to over the last two days. _I'd say about a third are willing to be my friends right now. Only Flugeru and Dendo are still really against me, and Flugeru might only be because of how pissed Dendo is. I even got Kerushi to laugh yesterday, and he was being a dick that first day too. Kameko opened up like I thought he would, especially since Imino seemed to want to be my friend after that fight. He got ranked much higher too; I think his afternoon fights went a lot better because of the confidence he got with ours, and he only lost because of…_ "My name's Zach Sazaki, but you can all call me Zach, as I've said. Um," he paused and looked to be thinking hard about how else to describe himself.

 _I mean, we all know like everything about him already._

 _What is there to tell us that we wouldn't already know? Other than the stuff he's keeping secret on purpose._

 _Is this it?_

 _Come onnnn…_

"Well," Enorma began after Zach was hesitating for too long. She thought more along the lines that they all knew so much about Lifebringer already that he was having trouble coming up with something to tell them. "How about you tell us three things you're good at, and three things you're bad at? Then you can sit down."

 _Three things I'm good at. Three things I'm bad at. Well, these would be easy to check. Don't need to lie either._ Zach nodded while looking at his teacher, then he turned back to his classmates and hummed like he was thinking of what to say. "I'm… good at close quarters combat. I'm a good shot too. And, I'm a good pilot. As for what I'm bad at-"

"A pilot?" Enorma asked, raising her eyebrows at her student.

He looked to her and nodded, and Satoshi asked from the second row back, "What do you mean? Like, flying your costume? Or have you flown like planes before?"

"Planes and stuff," Zach said, explaining what he was referring to. "A Super-Jet, the-"

"You flew a Super-Jet?" Enorma asked, her smile lowering down. _Those are top grade. Is he-_ "You can't- you're not allowed to fly one of those. The only way to get one-"

"I found some villains who had stolen them," Zach replied, cutting off his teacher before she could accuse him of anything. "They tried to escape in them, I chased them in one of the other ones." Enorma stared at him with her eyes wide at what he was saying. Zach looked back at his class though and continued, "As for the things I'm bad at, I'd say definitely French, oh and Korean." He paused and lifted his eyes up towards the ceiling. _Guess I'll count that as one. Reading Korean is harder but differentiating French from Italian and Spanish always got me._ "And I'm not good with computers. I don't mean like, I don't get how to use them. Just like, I tried to learn how to hack, and code, but that stuff was always just beyond me. And third," Zach paused for a second, then he smirked and said with a laugh, "Landing."

"Hold on," Enorma began, shaking her head and standing up straight off the desk. She had been stuck on what Lifebringer had said there for a minute, trying to figure out if he had just told her something super illegal or not. It was her first time meeting him, and she had no idea why he was being so frank with the stuff he was saying like he had not been on the run for thirteen months but out on his own missions. She gave him a somewhat darker look, though still hesitant as she wondered if everyone was hearing stuff like this from him since he came back. "Even if you stole that plane back from villains who had stolen it themselves, you would need to bring it back or-"

"As I just mentioned," Zach interrupted his teacher again, still smiling partially and raising up a hand in his own defense as he started. "One of the things I'm bad at, is landing." Enorma's eyes opened wide, her heart rate speeding up as instead of being put at ease by his statement she only got nervous that he had suspected what she was about to ask him before she even started elaborating on it. Zach continued despite his new teacher's uneasy expression, "I might have been a good pilot when I actually flew the thing, but _landing_ was one thing I never got a hang of." Zach lifted his right hand and rubbed his left shoulder for a second which made half his classmates grin too and almost laugh as he made the joke, while others got more cautious looks on their faces wondering if he was serious, and their teacher just stared closely at his arm with wide eyes at what she had heard from Hazano.

"You know French and Korean?" Porrolo asked from the seat behind Satoshi's, at the seat on Zach's right side which was an empty seat at the moment. "And you're 'bad' at them?"

"Yeah," Zach replied. "I'm much better at English, and Italian," Zach added. _Places people saw me very clearly. I could mention Germany too, but the rumors there were darker and would be better left for them to ask about and be left vague. I can mask my accent the best in English though. Both my parents had some American blood in them, though I'd say it was just from using English the most for a whole year. I needed people to think it was my native language too, and I had the most knowledge in it before leaving other than Japanese._

The class already knew he was good at close quarters combat, and the point of being a good shot most of them just applied to his grappling hook skills which he had shown off on Ranking Day too. "Even if you crashed that plane," Enorma started again, still frowning at her new student which showed Zach that the excited and carefree attitude she had when she came in was not the way she always acted. "You should have informed the authorities about its location."

Zach gave his teacher a hesitant and somewhat confused look. "Well, I couldn't really do that. Since, I was hiding from the authorities after what happened in the Enudora Forest." Zach avoided calling it the 'Lifebringer Incident,' but his teacher still got a darker look on her face at the way Zach just mentioned it without getting embarrassed to bring it up.

More importantly, he did not get regretful either as he said it, and Enorma gave him a darker expression as she said, "The forest where you killed several people." Zach looked at his teacher in surprise for a moment before his own eyes narrowed too. The whole room was silent after the teacher called Zach out, and Enorma added, "Are you just-"

"Do you doubt our justice system?" Zach questioned. Enorma froze with her mouth open, a confused look covering her face as she felt like she was the one on the side of the justice system right now for criticizing the way Zach had done things in the past. His face was serious though, and he continued, "Because I was pardoned. We have a provision in our laws to allow for a pardon, and I was given one. Do you think that was wrong?" Zach asked it and then he continued as his teacher opened her mouth, "Because it doesn't matter if you do." She froze with her mouth wide open, her eyes widening as her student continued at her before she had a chance to answer. "Heroes are the tools of the government to uphold the law. The law released me from jail. Your opinion that I should be thrown back in Tartaros isn't important to me, because you don't make the rules-"

"Whoa whoa, I didn't say that," Enorma pulled back and lifted her hands defensively as the kid in front of her was getting way too defensive, and before she came in she had not been decided on how she thought about him yet. She had felt he was being too unapologetic there for a minute, but she retracted as apparently she had made herself out to want him to get thrown back in prison. Zach lost his frustrated and accusatory look too, retracting his own confrontational expression as he accepted her own retraction and acted apologetically like he had just misread the situation. "Um," Enorma began again as she was standing right in front of this man who had just relaxed his expression as if saying what she did was alright and he was not mad at her. "Good, introduction. You can take your seat."

 _Does he seriously believe he should have been released early?_ Dendo glared towards Zach as he headed back towards his desk. _He's a killer, and he doesn't deserve this kind of treatment._

 _What he just said… makes sense._ Muoko watched as a new student of _her_ class headed back towards her seat. She hummed and looked down for a moment. _I may be wrong to be looking out for the class to protect them from Lifebringer, in case they start to believe in him too much. It is the judicial system of this country that heroes follow. Justice, is not decided by each of us. It is a construct the government creates… as decided by the people. The provision for a pardon is put in, because justice is dependent on how people consider justice. If they voted in Prime Minister Nikko so that he could release Sazaki, then Sazaki does "deserve" to be out of prison. That is not up for us to contest._

 _Geez, Enorma sensei was being damn harsh with Zach. Guess it takes talking to him for a little to get used to the kind of guy he is,_ Reika leaned back in her seat in a relaxed way. _Dude's crazy powerful, but he's more chill than anyone would think. Not as super-excitable as Inasa, and not a complete overconfident ass like Dendo is, or was,_ Reika glanced back towards her green-haired classmate who had been quieter the last couple of days than usual. _Zach shut him right up. Not that I don't blame him. That first fight wasn't even a fight. Fucking craziest shit I've seen, maybe ever. Out of everything you did that day,_ Reika looked back forwards as Enorma started talking, but her eyes rose up to the ceiling as she thought back instead on the fight between Zach and Dendo. _There's nothing crazier than that. Robot arm, smashing Kameko's shell, Imino getting hits on him, beating Inasa, it's all a mess. But what he did to Dendo was just… brutal._

Reika got confused herself at what she just thought. _Brutal? I guess. The way Dendo's been acting, it's like his whole fucking world's been- but damn that fight was crazy. He didn't even touch him. I heard that's what Dendo said before the fight: that Zach wouldn't even touch him._ Reika shook her head and then refocused on what her new Friday homeroom teacher was telling her. Her mind still strayed back over to her mysterious new classmate who had not told them what happened to his arm, other than vague responses and the joke he just made a minute ago which just added to the mystery he knew they all wanted to know about. _Savage. The way he beat Dendo was savage in itself, but if he was really going for_ _ **beating**_ _Dendo, the same way he "beat" Manzo and Kameko, he might've done it._ Reika Tiona's face got a bit more serious, her eyes focusing and her eyes shifting to the side where Lifebringer had taken his seat again.

Manzo Elia stared towards her classmate whose responses made her stare with so much interest after what he had just talked about. The girl with dark red hair falling just to her shoulders where it curled back up watched her classmate with a far-off look and a soft smile. _"Why would it matter to me if you were a girl?"_ Manzo smiled brighter and she shifted her gaze towards the windows. On her right side, Bibi Reina gave her a seriously confused and even nervous look at how relaxed and happy Manzo was, when usually she would be keeping her emotions in check and hidden.

Bibi had not noticed what Reika already had, as had only a few others in the class while most of them were just suspicious of it or thought it happened by accident due to the fights. So the gray-haired girl was just confused as she watched her classmate who was always so composed and serious give off such a relaxed feeling as well as looking almost dreamily towards Zach there for a minute. _What is going on?_ Bibi thought, shifting her gaze back over to Lifebringer herself who she felt was the cause of all these strange changes happening in their class. In only a few days, Dendo was always angry, Manzo had relaxed and was acting differently, the class seemed to be at odds and it was mainly due to how some of them were treating Lifebringer- _and_ their homeroom teacher for Fridays had changed!

 _Teachers at hero schools tend to take their jobs seriously,_ Zach thought as he watched his teacher speak to the class. _I get that All Might was sometimes late those first few weeks of school, because he could be everywhere. It's why I couldn't ever be a teacher. Being a teacher would be nice. All Might got in late because he was out fighting villains when we were supposed to be having class, or because he had run out of his time limit back when no one else knew about it- fuck!_ Zach narrowed his eyes forward but relaxed his expression, losing the annoyed look on it before Enorma could see it.

Himazuri froze where she was sitting. She turned her attention towards the front of the room, gulping and holding her breath as she heard that curse immediately followed by absolutely _nothing._ Her heart was racing, and she shifted her eyes to the corners to stare back over at Zach as Enorma talked to their class. She barely heard a thing Enorma was saying, even without thoughts covering up the audible volume. Everyone was focused towards the front of the room again, as Enorma talked about what their Hero-Practical class was going to be after their Biology lesson that morning.

 _Listen, Himazuri._

Himazuri held her breath, her eyes huge as she stared forward. No one had noticed yet. She sat there with her mind racing and her heart racing even faster as she heard thoughts directed straight towards her. It was only half a second after she started listening in to Zach's thoughts when he suddenly cut off his thought stream. She did not know what he had been thinking about, but apparently he did not want her knowing. Yet she was frozen where she sat because no one had ever done this to her before.

Himazuri had spent her entire life able to tell the fakers from the people she really wanted to be friends with. There were guys in her class who she never wanted to read their minds again, just because of some of the gross thoughts she had heard from them. She never read their minds again since their first years, and many of them she was actually friends with, telling herself not to judge them based off a few thoughts. There were also people whose minds she read often, and she knew she could never get caught cheating on a test and had done so since she was a child. Any question she did not know, she used her Quirk on half the room since elementary school and judged how she should answer based off a general consensus.

There had never been a time when anyone actually spoke to her like this in their own mind. No one had ever cut off their thoughts, like they knew she was listening. Sometimes people had called her out on reading her mind while she was doing it, and other times people accused her when she really wasn't which always hurt. But he did not call her out. He just thought it at her. It was something she had heard before too though. A lifetime of reading people's minds had prepared her for times when people might think something like he just did, in order to freak her out and get her to react because of it. Himazuri tried to keep her expression straight, but the way he cut himself off so suddenly when she started reading his mind made her think that this was one time when the person really wasn't just thinking it to test her reaction.

Himazuri's eyes shifted towards Zach and locked on the side of his head, but he kept looking at Enorma and even had a book out to write some things down like he was fully focused on her. _I'll give you one warning. Stay out of my head._ Himazuri lowered her eyes down to her desk in panic, taking her mind reading ability off of Zach and holding in any noise she might make in her sudden anxiety. She listened back in though, realizing he might still be trying to talk to her. Right as she started trying to listen again, he continued thinking, _I mean it. One warning. GET OUT OF MY HEAD!_

Himazuri leaned back in her seat, stopping Enorma from talking while most people in the class looked over at the sound of the scraping chair. Himazuri leaned down and quickly pulled a pencil out of her desk, pretending like it was nothing and keeping her expression hidden from most of her classmates who just turned back to Enorma sensei who continued on with what she was saying. _Oh my God. He did know! How did he know?_ Himazuri was no longer listening to his thoughts, but she shifted her eyes up while leaning down to reach into her desk's hollow slot. _He's so experienced! He must have faced a hundred people with Quirks like mine and just knows how to get around them! Is that something I'll run into more in the future? Why haven't any of the teachers said that I might run into this? None of them have ever seemed to realize it either. No one ever notices- he didn't even notice, all those other times… unless, he did?_

The short girl with brown hair held her breath again with her eyes focused down on her desk. _He's just been, he's been… keeping quiet about it._ Himazuri let out a breath and her eyes opened even wider. _He could have thought something at me the first time. And sure, he's probably been cautious about his thoughts the whole time, lying to me whenever he felt me- but he didn't say anything! For three days he- every time I listened in, he knew, and he just kept thinking without saying anything about how I was breaching his privacy. About how I was listening in to him while pretending not to! People joke about me always listening, but they aren't all wrong! I listen way more than anyone thinks, and if they knew no one would- but he just- he…_ The shortest girl in the class gulped thinking about that final loud yell he made at her, raising his voice in his own thoughts. _He's so strong. Maybe he doesn't want me to listen because he has a secret reason for being here though. Maybe, it wasn't him being nice not saying anything all this time, but just trying to trick me too?_

 _Alright, that might not have been the best way to handle that. She probably won't listen up for a while though. If she does, I have to go through with it. My word means something. I mean what I say, and what I think._ Zach wrote into his notebook, and he had a dark look covering his face for a second as he thought about the last mind reader he had faced. Amaterasu's face appeared in his mind, her head bowed with blood below her lips, her neck red, and her hands fingerless. _She got me. On stupid shit, she got me distracted. Because I hadn't thought hard about anything for so long, she used it and fucked me! I could have prepared better by knowing all my own thoughts, but Amaterasu's gone now. She won't get me again. The Void girl's being taken care of. Himazuri isn't a villain. She's not an enemy. But, she is using her Quirk when she isn't supposed to be. Me telling her to stop reading my mind is more me catching her than her catching me._

 _Whatever his reason was for not saying anything sooner, I can't listen in anymore. What was he "warning" me about? What would he do if I tried it again? Should I find out, just to check? Can he hurt me? No way, I've seen what his Quirk is. But what if when I read minds, I'm actually going inside their heads? Could he cover himself in Death- or even just inside his own head. I'd die, and no one would… Zach's not like that though! Don't get paranoid just because he caught you._ Himazuri relaxed a bit and she took in a deep breath. _I could ask him how he knew. The way he was doing things, he would want me to know to be better prepared against villains who might know how to do that just like him…_

Friday morning went by quickly for Zach, with no more intrusions in his mental space. He saw Himazuri keep shooting nervous looks his way through their classes, but he acted normally and didn't address the situation in the least. To him, the issue was currently resolved. The class went to lunch and Zach filled up his tray before heading over to the same table he had sat at for the past two days. He saw someone glaring towards him and shifted his eyes over in Dendo's direction for a moment, his lips flattening back out too as they met each others' gazes. He smiled again though while turning to his other classmates and took his seat at the table on Kotsumura's left side.

At another table in the cafeteria, Jaime Crowley sighed while looking over to the table that Lifebringer just sat down on. The American exchange student looked back across the table at Bibi who was holding a pair of chopsticks but was not focused enough on her bento to eat it. "My mom called me late last night," Jaime mentioned, getting Bibi to look at her as did Himazuri from down the bench on Jaime's left. The other two girls already sitting with their lighter-skinned friend looked at her wondering what she was getting at. "Apparently the news back home heard about Zach getting attacked again, and she bugged out hearing it was so close to the school. I told her not to worry about it, but she's really hounding me."

"She's just worried," Bibi began.

"I know that," Jaime retorted with a wave of her hand. She lifted her own plastic fork she had grabbed from the lunch line with her food, and she got to eating while mentioning, "But it's not going to be a smooth ride to the finish anymore. One more term? Pssh," Jaime lifted an arm and wiped her lips with her sleeve as the noise she made by blowing her lips got them wet and messy with some food particles. "This term's going to take for- _ever._ "

 _The last few days have felt very long,_ Bibi thought, poking around at her food with her chopsticks and shifting her eyes over towards Lifebringer again. _Then again, it's already the third day of class! It feels like it's still right after he came in- but there's still so much left too!_

Over at a different lunch table, Kerushi sat down on the opposite side of the table as Dendo and Flugeru who was on Dendo's right side and in the middle of eating. Kerushi frowned at Dendo's look and glanced back towards Lifebringer for a moment before sighing and getting to his own food. "What?" Dendo asked, and Kerushi lifted his head up before he could start eating.

"Nothing," Kerushi replied, shaking his head like it really was. Kerushi Garudo tried to avoid Dendo's look and just got to his lunch.

Dendo opened his mouth, then he closed it and he bit down in so much frustration as he did not know what he was going to say. _Why are we the only ones still mad?! That bastard's chipping away and,_ Dendo heard laughter from the other table where a lot of his other classmates were, some who would normally sit with him at lunch but who were talking with Lifebringer and smiling like usual.

Muoko and Tomoki were coming back from the lunch line themselves, and they looked over to the left as they heard the laughter and saw the table with the most of their classmates gathered at it but still a couple empty seats. Muoko then looked to her right and saw Dendo glaring towards Lifebringer, then shifting his attention towards her. Muoko moved towards Dendo's table along with her boyfriend and co-rep of the class, and she took a seat down the bench with Tomoki sitting next to her closer to Kerushi.

Tomoki looked over towards his classmate with green hair and the most frustrated look on his face that would not go away no matter how long since that fight it had been. He looked like he did right after the fight almost constantly, like any single thing could set him off on a tirade. _I wish he'd get over it already, but to lose like that._ Tomoki looked back at Muoko and avoided Dendo's look as the more muscular teen turned his way for a moment.

 _They're all- In front of everyone I got beaten and, fuck,_ Dendo ground his teeth, his thoughts not even finishing full sentences as his own frustration was making it hard to think straight. The way Tomoki looked away from him right there, made Dendo lower his eyes back to his tray while biting even harder. _All respect I had, it's all gone. He humiliated me. I've never been so… FUCK! He knew what he was doing too! He knew what it would do, he knew I'd be humiliated in front of everyone and- he's a fucking villain and he's tricking them all right in front of me, and I can't do anything!_

Dendo heard another loud laugh come from the table where Lifebringer was sitting, and his eyes widened and then narrowed angrily at the blue-skinned teen who covered his mouth after letting out that loud laugh. Imino lowered his hand afterwards though and did not look all that embarrassed for making such a loud noise, instead just leaning back forward and mentioning something and pointing down at his side which had Lifebringer scratch the side of his head and chuckle himself. _Everyone else,_ Dendo thought, seeing not just Imino, but Kameko, Manzo, and Inasa all sitting at that table with the guy who beat their asses. _He hit them all so hard. His fights were brutal and his hits left big bruises for all of them- while I just fell to the fucking floor! I fucking- tripped?! He didn't even need to touch me?!_

At a table with a few girls at it, Reika came over and plopped down right next to Bibi on her right side. She put her tray down with her food half-finished as she had been sitting at the more crowded table until a minute ago. Then she leaned in towards Bibi and put an arm around her short friend's side and pulled her close making Bibi start to complain and ask what she was doing. "Are you still freaking out?" Reika asked, stopping her friend in mid-complaint.

Bibi's eyes opened wide and she looked next to her at her strong blonde friend with her eyes wide behind her long gray bangs. Himazuri looked over the table to the two of them, and Jaime stared across from the other side of the table too with her head tilted to the side as she was more confused than the mind reader who had checked to see what Bibi was acting so nervous about recently. Himazuri glanced over towards Lifebringer for a moment, while Reika continued in a more scolding tone at her friend, "Stop being scared of Zach. Just stop."

"Wh-what are… How can I just do that?" Bibi's voice got much quieter and she whispered at her friend who just called her out on it without even asking to see if that was really why she was acting some way. The fact that Reika knew made Bibi think that Lifebringer must have noticed too, and she kept her eyes focused straight on Reika's head so she wouldn't have to see around it over at the table with more people at it. Jaime looked at the short girl across the table in surprise that it was true, and she glanced back over towards Lifebringer past Himazuri who was more subtly doing the same.

Reika pulled in her shorter friend closer with the arm around her, "Geez, just try talking to him." Bibi's eyes widened more in fear that Reika was about to drag her over to do just that, but Reika let go and just continued to her classmates, "Outside of fights, he's the least intimidating dude. Super friendly. And _hot._ " She said the last part with more of a smirk as she darted a look back over herself towards Zach.

 _"Least intimidating?" Even you don't believe that,_ Himazuri thought at Reika as she glanced back at her. _Though you do believe he's hot, I mean who wouldn't-_

"Not that you'd be able to tell," Reika added with an elbow into Bibi's side which made her flinch and spin back at Reika with a pout at the tease. "Seriously though," Reika began again, leaning in towards Bibi like she was going to say something inspiring and serious. "A mysterious guy like that, even a rug-muncher might flip sides- sup Roger?" Reika lifted her head and greeted the boy walking to the other side of their table, which stopped Bibi with her mouth open from whisper-yelling at Reika to stop.

Bibi coughed back the words bubbling in her mouth and looked away when she saw Roger giving them a strange look at the way they had been leaned in talking about something clearly not for him. Jaime moved to the side though and Roger sat down with his tray. "I talked to Zach earlier," Roger began to Jaime after taking his seat, though he was speaking loud enough that the others at the table could all hear him. "His English is like, fluent. I thought so from the other day but we had a whole conversation about the new Quirkball league they set up back home. Apparently he's a fan of the Morudor City Redbacks."

Jaime was interested for a moment, but she rolled her eyes when Roger started mentioning Quirkball. "He just happened to bring up Quirkball? I bet you brought it up-"

"I was going to! He asked where I was from though and muttered crap about the Manticores!"

"No way," Jaime shook her head with a disbelieving look. She dropped her bottom lip at his serious expression and spun to look towards Lifebringer, and she shook her head with an exasperated look growing a second later as she looked back at Roger. "Well look at you. Finally got someone to talk about it with-"

"Quirkball's such a dangerous," Bibi started, but she quieted down when Roger turned to her with a look of exasperated frustration. "It's true though," she said after stopping herself for only a second.

"Maybe you guys just haven't given it a chance yet," Roger argued back. "Japan's this super traditional kind of place, in certain aspects. And it's super conservative here too. When we go back home," he turned back to Jaime with a grin. "In a couple months, things are going to be way different from when we left. Quirkball got their recreational license certification over a year back, so I figure how many jobs you think can also use Quirks now? It's going to be crazy."

"And with all that excess Quirk usage," Reika began. She shook her head and continued at her American friends, "A lot more people are going to get hurt when people with trained Quirks use them for crime."

"And that's why they'll still need great heroes like us to come back and keep the peace," Roger countered right back with a grin. "Besides," he continued before Reika could continue her argument. "Even if there are a few more people who can use stronger Quirks for crimes, there are going to be a lot of other stronger people there who know how to use their Quirks too because of those changes. After all, there are always going to be more people who want to do right, that it'll more than even out."

The others at the table stared at Roger in surprise for a few seconds, though Jaime just smiled softly at what she just heard her childhood friend say. The two of them had come to Japan together for the exchange program years ago, after living next to each other since they were kids back in the United States. Jaime opened her mouth to mention something about how Roger had thought that for a while now, since about two years ago. Before she could hint at what he was referencing though, she turned her head more as she saw movement behind her and someone heading towards the table with the most of their classmates at it.

Reika lifted her eyes from Roger's head and got a bead of sweat on the side of her face. "Uh oh," she said, her tone joking but also foreboding as all of them watched Dendo walking by.

"…And you just got in the jet and tried flying it?!"

"I didn't just try," Zach countered back at Kotsumura on his right side. "I told you, I was a good pilot. Really," he added, looking around at the skeptical others who wouldn't think he was good on his first flight.

"Landing counts as a part of being a good pilot," Imino retorted across the table. "And being good at _crash-_ landing doesn't-"

"Hey, I didn't always crash." Zach paused for a second, then he scratched down on the bottom left side of his face over some scar tissue. It looked like he was just scratching thoughtfully with a small smile as he tried to come up with a time he hadn't crashed, but it also could have been him pretending like the scar there wasn't from crashing, or pointing out that it was. "Sometimes I jumped out before I crashed," Zach mentioned, smiling more and just chuckling once as he saw a plane smashing into a mountain after he had been dragged out of it. _Valkyrie…_

"Where was all this?" Porrolo asked from Kotsumura's other side, leaning forward and asking Sazaki with a curious and somewhat interrogative look.

"I think, one of the times was in Germany," Zach answered, but his voice trailed off and he was not that focused on the answer. He stayed vague as usual, but it did not sound like he was trying to avoid the topic. Instead, it just seemed like he had become focused on something else which had Porrolo turning too and forgetting why he had asked in the first place.

"Germany, huh?" Dendo asked, standing next to the end of the table and looking down at Zach, ignoring everyone else there who looked towards him with varying expressions.

 _They're all still much closer to Dendo than to me. That won't change. I'm not trying to make that change. He's nervous about it though. But none of them are going to tell him to back off. Not after what I did to him. The way he's been looking lately he's real serious about this too. Inasa looks ready to step in, almost like he actually thinks Dendo's going to attack me here. He's pretending not to be, but his look is warning Dendo not to and yet Dendo won't even look his way, so Inasa knows he hasn't even received the warning yet._

"And what were you doing there? Other than stealing planes and crashing them?" Dendo questioned Zach harshly, putting his hands down on the side of the table and glaring into Zach's eyes.

Kotsumura opened his mouth, ready to say Dendo's name and try and get him to cool off. His classmate darted his glare to the side for a second though telling him to stay out of it, and Kotsumura frowned as he closed his mouth and got a less understanding look on his face. The way Dendo looked at Kotsumura for just trying to speak up got a few of the others losing their understanding looks too, which just had Dendo getting angrier as he stood there glaring at Zach in his steady hazel eyes. "I didn't hear much about you over there. Or anywhere really, yet you've got all these ' _crazy_ ' stories, don't you?"

A couple of the others looked back towards Zach as Dendo accused him of lying to his face. "But if it is true, and you were fighting villains over there," Dendo rose the pitch of his voice suggesting it might be possible, then his green eyebrows narrowed down and he said in a darker voice, "Then what happened to those villains?" Dendo paused and when Zach did not respond immediately, he continued darkly, "Since there was no confirmed report of you being there. No villains ever caught by Zach Sazaki in Germany. Yet you say you beat them, didn't you? What'd you do with them?"

"I turned them over to heroes," Zach said. He stared back at Dendo who was accusing him of murdering all those villains with no one telling him to stop. A few of the others at the table had been nervously awaiting Zach's answer too, some of them getting more intense looks as they remembered they should be as cautious and accusatory as Dendo was being. "They didn't report it as me helping them," Zach continued when Dendo opened his mouth to counter. "Because then vigilante justice would be used in the villains' defenses, and they would've been let off." Zach tilted his head to the side and leaned it back while staring up into Dendo's dark green eyes. "And most heroes were willing to accept my help, despite my being a fugitive."

The others stared at Zach in surprise, though Dendo was still glaring harshly at him as every word out of Zach's mouth just made him angrier. He could see his own classmates believing it and even getting surprised or ready to ask their own questions, though he was not going to let Zach continue the lie further. "Bullshit," Dendo growled. "You're not just saying the heroes lied to go around the law, but the villains didn't say shit about you capturing them either? Even though you just admitted it would get them off-"

"Half the world thought I was Death," Zach interrupted while Dendo was in the middle of ranting and convincing the others how that didn't make sense. Zach's eyes got a bit darker as he cut in again, but Dendo's eyes opened wide this time like the others at Zach's explanation. He leaned forward and looked deep into Dendo's eyes, "You think any of those villains who I caught were eager to be released? Especially when the heroes weren't coming after me very hard?" Zach smirked and finished while looking back at his tray, "They thought they were getting off super easy and got shown a rare mercy or something." Zach stuck his chopsticks down into his noodles and picked some up, and he just said while bouncing the utensils a couple times to get off any loose noodles, "I'm not saying I wasn't out there being a vigilante, and I'm definitely not saying that the way I was doing it was right, because it wasn't."

Zach stuck his noodles in his mouth and chewed, looking like he was barely focused on the conversation and that it was not all that important what he was saying. "It was wrong. I should have turned myself in sooner. But while I was out there fighting villains," Zach turned his head and glared back at a gawking Dendo. "I was staying under the radar on purpose. I knew how to do that without killing villains. I did it before I left too. I was used to it."

"Hey hey," Satoshi leaned forward and started in an interested voice with his eyes still huge. "I heard rumors about that! The War Boys thing, right? Nobody had any idea-" Zach started nodding his head, while turning back to a classmate who was not looking at him the way Dendo was. "Did you really have an internal review for it? Like judges and all that-"

"People know about that?" Zach asked, actually getting surprised as he heard Satoshi say it. "I was pretty sure it was meant to be kept secret."

"So how did you really go and save those people?" Kotsumura asked.

"Those people?" Dendo questioned, snapping it at Kotsumura who turned back to him in surprise that Dendo sounded so angry over that. Zach's expression got darker before Dendo even continued, his eyes shifting down to his tray and his focus narrowing completely on his food. "It wasn't the hostages he went to save. It was your friend, Raijin," Dendo leaned off the table and walked around Zach's side of it. The others at the table were all looking towards Zach and behind him at their classmate walking up close. "Wasn't it?" Dendo asked, his voice harsh and his eyes cold as he looked down at the back of Zach's head.

Zach stared at his food for another two seconds, then he turned to the right and the blond boy sitting there. Zach responded to Kotsumura, "I had to sneak out of U.A., since they already had me under close watch after a different time I left to go vigilante around. Then I had to search out some old contact I knew from my time with the League-"

"Hey!" Dendo shouted down at the dark-haired teen sitting in front of him who ignored everything he said. "What the fuck do you think you're saying right now? This is a school for heroes," Dendo's hands clenched into fists at his sides, his other classmates getting more tense around the table and looking from him to Zach who once again had his lips flat and was just staring forward to his right side without saying a word. "It's no place, for a crazy, murderous, villain like you."

"Hey," Manzo put her hands over the table and glared hard at Dendo who rose his gaze to hers. "Zach got a pardon," she said it staring straight into Dendo's eyes, repeating the same thing she heard that morning which resonated in her mind. Dendo's eyes widened, but no one else at the table reacted in that way to what Manzo said. His eyes darted around at them all to find someone, anyone to back him up there. "It's not your place to decide if he's a villain."

"Manzo's right," Kameko said calmly, shaking his head at Dendo.

"Come on Takashi," Kotsumura said, looking over his shoulder and trying to cool things down with his tone as he could see Dendo just losing it more with his classmates turning on him. Zach stared at Kotsumura in more surprise as he heard that though, and he turned back himself which made Dendo stop opening his mouth to respond to Keiji.

"Takashi?" Zach asked.

"What of it? That's my name," Dendo glared at Zach, as the way he repeated his name made it seem like something was wrong about it.

 _ **"So would you be, Takashi Huga?"**_ Zach heard a receptionist ask that question before, and a small smile came to his face as the person he was thinking of was directly related to the last story he was talking about, even if he was going to leave Webb out of it. _**"…It's not my real name."**_

"Nothing," Zach said, shaking his head and looking back forward with that nostalgic smile that showed he was thinking about some other Takashi. He got back to his food, ignoring the furious teen right behind him as if there was no reason to be alarmed or even concerned with Dendo at all. Dendo hated that calm, collected reaction from this villain right in front of him who he couldn't do a thing to, but worse he hated the looks from all his _friends_ telling him to back off and leave them alone. Their looks that told him to stop bothering their new friend, that said they didn't want him there and would rather have Zach stay instead. Dendo's heart was racing and his fists balled so much harder at his sides, and he turned away and stormed off with a loud grunt and snort that sounded like he almost had steam coming out of his nostrils.

As Dendo stormed away, Himazuri had her head turned at the end of her table and she started, "Dendo." He walked right past her, and she got up from her seat and made to follow him out of the cafeteria. The other girls and Roger just watched Himazuri go, and Reika looked past her for a second at Dendo's back before just grunting herself and looking away. The pity she might've felt towards him after seeing his look as he exited the lunchroom was being overshadowed by what she heard Dendo call Zach in a cafeteria that had gotten completely silent during the exchange. _Be a dick. Get treated like a dick, you dick._

As Himazuri was about to leave the cafeteria on her way after Dendo, she looked back towards the table he stormed away from with an upset look on her own face. She wanted to look towards the others who did not back up Dendo and at Zach specifically who she was angriest at, but her heart just raced harder as she looked back and straight into Zach's eyes, as his head had turned and his eyes were focused straight at the cafeteria exit. Himazuri spun away after meeting his eyes, running after Dendo before he could get too far. "Dendo wait!" She called out, the brunette jogging down the hall but slowing into a speed-walk so no teacher would get mad at her.

Dendo kept marching away, his fists clearly balled in fury at his sides. He ignored her whisper-yells a couple more times, spinning around the corner of the hall and then stopping as he heard another call of his name for him to stop. Himazuri sped around the corner and then jolted to a stop. She was worried he was going to cut somewhere else and she would lose him, but instead he was right in front of where she turned moving pretty fast. She was relieved, for a second. "Did you find anything?"

Dendo turned to the girl behind him who was frozen where she stood after he asked that question. His eyes were dark and his expression beyond just pissed. She started to think there was more to him storming out of the cafeteria than she first thought, like maybe putting some distance between him and Zach before he snapped. "No," she began softly. Dendo's expression got angrier, and Himazuri continued quickly, "I can't. He caught-" she froze, and she pursed her lips again when he gave her a surprised and then annoyed and angry look.

"Are you serious? He was just testing you," Dendo muttered, shaking his head at the girl before him. "He tricked you into thinking he knew with his thoughts, just like he's tricking everyone else-"

"It's not like that," Himazuri said, her expression getting more serious as she shook her head back at him. "I know my own Quirk. I know how some people try doing that, like you did our first year," she narrowed her eyes at Dendo and then shook her head once more. "This wasn't like that. He _knew_ when I was listening in. He has known since the first day."

"How?"

"I don't know how," Himazuri snapped back. "But, I'm done trying to figure out what happened-"

"You have to keep trying," Dendo said, shaking his head at the shorter girl who pursed her lips again which only made Dendo grind his teeth in frustration. "I know what he's hiding. He's killed people and, he's here because he has some plan that's putting everyone in danger. I know it. I know Lifebringer's bad-"

"I don't think so," Himazuri cut in. Dendo froze, his eyes lowering to the ground and his heart aching as he heard her say that. His teeth clenched twice as hard, his eyes shadowing over with his light green flip of hair as Himazuri was another person to tell him this now. "Dendo," Himazuri whispered as she watched her classmate's expression. She stared up into his eyes which was easy considering their height difference, and she whispered up at him, "You have it all wrong. Zach doesn't h-"

"Don't read my mind," Dendo growled. He snapped it at the girl, lifting his head and glaring down at her in a furious way at what she was just doing. He turned and started away, without saying another word to the girl he left behind in the hallway.

Himazuri rose up a hand towards her friend's back. "Dendo," she started, but she did not follow after him as he kept going. Her hand lowered and her eyes shifted to the floor too. _You don't understand. He doesn't…_

Back in the cafeteria, the students of Class 1 were finishing up their lunches. Another class had come in for their lunch time, and a first year in the hero course named Mizahi came over to talk to Zach. The muscular boy impressed a couple of the third years by coming right up to Lifebringer to talk to them in the middle of their conversation, but apparently this was one of the two first years who had been in the licensing test with him. Mizahi motioned back behind him towards Ivo during the conversation when Zach asked about his friend, and Ivo was already looking over and gave a hesitant wave when he saw Lifebringer look towards him.

The first year left to go back over to his own table, but Zach's classmates all jumped in asking how that kid managed to get his license since Mizahi mentioned facing off against Zach in the first round. Zach quickly shifted the conversation away, mentioning about how he didn't have his awesome costume during the licensing exam. It did not convince most of his classmates who wondered what must have happened, and decided that they would have to go ask that kid later on for clarification, but before any of them could ask Zach more about it he got asked the question he tried to divert the conversation towards. "…the company is American based, but it has holdings on most other continents too. Most of the stuff I've got on my costume is just out of the prototype stages but not yet on the market."

"How'd you manage to get stuff like that? You said they sent it to you?"

"Saved some upper management from villains," Zach replied. He scratched the back of his head and continued, "I know heroes aren't supposed to accept rewards for helping people, but since I technically wasn't at the time, I didn't see any reason to deny the opportunity to test out their new gear."

"So, they sold you, an unlicensed person, hero tools?" Porrolo asked, raising an eyebrow as he wondered if Zach Sazaki really did just slip up there or if there was something else he was missing still.

"Well they didn't sell it," Zach kept his voice slow and he lifted his eyes up as he spoke like he was trying to find the right words. "Technically, I guess I stole the first set." Everyone was staring at him expecting to hear more, and Zach scratched the left side of his chin hesitantly. "They wanted to repay me, but they couldn't sell it to an unlicensed hero, and I knew I could use the help fighting villains without proper gear out on my own."

"So you just took it?" Manzo asked, her voice steady but her expression starting to look a little betrayed. _This isn't-_

"But you said they just sent you this new costume?" Kotsumura asked. Zach turned to the blond sitting on his right and nodded, and Kotsumura smiled and laughed as he put it together in his own head. "Guess they want to keep an exclusive contract. I bet all the costume companies in the world are going to be trying to get you to wear one of theirs."

Zach chuckled and tilted his head to the side in a half nod. "You've got that right." The others looked at him in interest, a few trying to shift their attentions away from the shady dealing Zach was discussing without trying to hide it, which made them think there was still something they were missing or just misunderstanding. "When I went to get this costume licensed to me after I received it, the Super Costumes for Super Heroes wanted to study my tech for longer and get me to start wearing their costumes. I doubt they were able to reverse engineer any of it in the days I left it with them though."

"Do you think all that kind of gear you have will be out by the time we graduate?" Imino asked. Zach looked across the table at the boy who seemed interested in the prospect of being able to fly, and Zach looked away with a hesitant look as he did not want to make any promises. "Didn't think so," Imino said, leaning back and sighing. "It all looked so futuristic."

"I asked Hazano sensei about some of it, trying to figure out how it might've been made," Porrolo began down on Zach's right. Zach looked over at his classmate who had a serious look on his face and said, "But even he didn't get how it worked, and Hazano sensei's our resident support technician too. He's the best at helping us with our costumes, but he couldn't figure any of it out just by watching."

"It's not _all_ that high-tech," Zach started to counter. "The cameras I placed around were simple surveillance technology. Sure, they had speakers in them too so I could make that distraction," he added while looking towards Manzo who remembered that. "And motion sensors too," he added with a small grin, "if you got close enough." He turned to his right again and continued to Porrolo, "And my helmet isn't much, other than the tech that expands the visor up over my head as a helmet. I know that's still pretty far ahead like my gloves." Zach lifted his hands over the table and showed off the watch and bracelet he was still wearing at all times, which the others understood the reason for after watching the attack on him on the news after their first day of school.

"But the visor is connected to the cameras which can allow me to see into my own blind spots during a fight," Zach continued. "It has a targeting system which can lock on to my enemies, and it's connected to the rest of my costume too so I can see power levels and control certain aspects with specific movements of my hands and fingers."

"Sounds complex," Kotsumura said, a bead of sweat rolling down the side of his face.

"I'm used to the set-up," Zach replied, implying that the company who made the new costume for him had the specifications of the old one in mind. The old one that he "stole," though some were wondering at this point if he changed his mind about that just to protect the company who sent him this super high-tech gear. "The helmet does a lot on its own too. There's some voice activation, but it predicts how to assist me to make using certain functions expedited." Zach thought about the different functions of his visor again and listed, "I can make calls through it, and access the internet too. The images on the visor are transparent so I can still see through it even when I have other things up. If it's dark, there's a night vision setting. And the targeting works through walls even, with thermal-" Zach paused with his mouth open, looking like he realized something bad right there as his expression shifted.

Zach sweatdropped as he turned towards Imino who was staring at him with big eyes. "I, didn't use it in our fight." He glanced towards Manzo too for a second as she realized it after Zach mentioned that to Imino.

Manzo frowned at him, but Imino got a much more frustrated look on his face. "Why?" He asked, getting everyone at the table looking towards their classmate and wondering what suddenly had him so upset. _Another way? He had so many- it was another way Zach could have easily beaten me. He even made it out like the smoke would have done him in if I had made more!_

"Because if I'm ambushed out on the streets again, I likely won't have my visor on me." Imino opened his eyes wider in surprise, his train of thought derailing a bit. Zach shook his head and glanced at Manzo too, then around the rest of the table again before admitting, "I really was just training, and using equipment that would make the fight so much easier wouldn't have helped me out at all." Zach looked back at Imino and the girl on Imino's right, "This doesn't diminish how hard I was fighting in those two fights-"

"It's fine," Imino said, sighing and accepting it reluctantly. _Most villains won't have Zach's advanced tech either, so it was better training for me too… Though, if I do fight villains in helmets I should be careful of it in the future._

 _Did he really not use it against me? I considered it, when he smashed through the branch. He could have_ _ **known**_ _that I was there for sure. I didn't want to accuse him of it, sounding like a sore loser. I still don't want to accuse him. Even if it was with some extra tech, he still beat me so easily while I was focused on- on something stupid._

Zach smiled internally at the reactions on the faces of the two across the table from him. Kotsumura leaned in towards Zach's side as there was a pause in the conversation, and he was able to bring up something that he had wanted to for a while. "So, I finally figured out why you turned down Reika the other day."

Everyone at the table looked over at Kotsumura. A few of them got interested looks, others just went to finishing their meals and getting ready to go bring their trays up. Manzo pretended to be one of the ones not paying attention, while keeping her eyes in the corner of her vision staring over at the blond boy with a nerve-racking smirk on his face.

"Yeah?" Zach asked. "You figured it out?" He smiled as he asked the question, since he was telling the truth that day and it wasn't something he was hiding.

"You're dating Pinky!"

Zach lowered his smile and got a nervous look on his face. "That's what I heard," Imino agreed immediately, getting Zach back with this since Zach didn't use his thermal vision on him.

"I saw that too," Satoshi began, a huge smirk covering his face as he leaned over the table down on Zach's left. "And I'm so jealous!"

"Same-" Kameko started. He was saying the one word to what Imino said, but he froze and his eyes opened wide as he had waited too long and it came out after Satoshi's comment instead. The others all looked at Kameko who rose his hands and waved them quickly in front of him to correct what he actually meant.

Zach waved a hand in front of himself too as Kameko was still trying to correct what he said. "You guys have it wrong," Zach said defensively. "Ashido's just a close friend. The tabloids just want to blow it out of proportion because we hung out the other day." Zach saw some disappointed looks that the juicy story wasn't true, and one from Kotsumura looking like he didn't want to believe it either. Manzo hid her relief and just got up to go put her tray up, and Zach took one final bite of his food before mentioning to the others, "You all saw how hard she was trying to get me out of prison, right? Doesn't mean we're going out, but she is one of my closest friends."

Zach got up and he went to go put his tray away before heading back to the classroom. _I looked more into it after Sero and the others visited my place. Watched those rallies and protests, how strongly you backed Nikko to get me out. They didn't tell me, just how much you really did. You didn't say anything about it either. You didn't act like it was thanks to you I was out, but I think it is._ Zach smiled softly and lowered his gaze down for a second. _I owe Mina everything I have right now. The others who helped too, but the most outspoken, and the one who tried hardest… I won't let you down._

* * *

Zach's first week of Shiketsu (technically only three days) ended on a relaxing note. His afternoon classes were boring. His teachers kept the class busy so he did not have to spend any time answering questions and coming up with excuses or responses, lies and half-truths that could one day be double-checked by his more curious/suspicious classmates. Every day was like walking through a minefield, as the closer he was getting with his new classmates the more time he was going to have to spend talking to them, though the closer he was getting the less he was being closely watched by his classmates.

There were only a few left in the class who Zach suspected were watching him closely and keeping a tab on every little thing he said that they might be able to piece some crimes together with. He figured Muoko might be on her computer through the weekend looking up crime reports in the countries she had heard Zach say he was in, checked against what her classmates had spread around that he had done after he talked to them. Zach stayed behind after school, as Enorma wanted to talk to him about his introduction earlier and get a clearer answer out of him about the jet he had talked about stealing back from villains and crashing. Zach was more vague with his response to Enorma than he was when talking to his own classmates earlier, telling his teacher that he simply could not remember it too well but that he escaped when he thought heroes were coming so he knows they got the wreckage of the plane anyway.

Zach had not worried about telling the truth during their conversation, as Enorma did not even call in Norasaki to listen in and check if he was lying. So the only one he needed to convince was his teacher, which he believed he succeeded at fairly easily. Zach left for the front of the school building, and he went to his locker that he opened slowly and carefully. He pulled out his heavy jacket and put it on, while patting down it all over and feeling for slits or microphones hidden inside the fabric. His mind was on full alert, his eyes flaring red as he stared into his locker and felt a pair of eyes on him. _Clubs already started. Most people have gone home. Assassins wouldn't be on school grounds. If they were they would have done something to my jacket. Did they? I missed it. No. This isn't that bad._

Zach sighed and he finished getting his things together. He slid warmer gloves over his hands; it was freezing out that Friday and he put on a beanie over his head too. He kept his black facemask off and in his bag, as he did not want to be seeming like he was trying to hide when he ran into the press he was sure he would see on his way home as he always did. Dealing with them had gotten easier since Wednesday, as he used the incident just as he knew he would to avoid the press and just jog on when they tried to stop him. Whether they shouted that he was avoiding them or that he was hiding from a press conference, he would always just call back 'not today' or 'some other time' or 'not when there might be villains around.' He would smile as he said it, looking at the camera with a grin like he knew he was getting away with not having to be bothered because he had that excuse, and he saw some late night host laughing about it on Thursday night when he showed a clip of earlier that day.

Before Zach was going to have to deal with the press today though, he had to deal with the person behind him who was glaring holes into his back. Zach turned around and made for the exit, ignoring the look of the boy standing inside it glaring at him and waiting for Zach to turn his way and speak. Zach just walked like he was going to completely ignore him again though, which had Dendo step forward and directly into his path. "Stop," Dendo said. He ordered it and Zach stopped, mainly because Dendo was now in his way.

"What?" Zach asked. He stared at Dendo waiting for his classmate to say something, and he rose his eyebrows up to the rim of his blue beanie as Dendo was pausing for too long. "You have something to tell me?" Zach asked. His voice was flat and he continued to stare at Dendo through half-closed eyes and a disdainful look that did not have much care in it. It looked like Zach just wanted to go around him, which had Dendo ball his fists at his sides and lose the cool he had collected before stepping up behind Lifebringer.

"Listen to me," Dendo began. His voice was low, and his eyes cold as he stared back into Zach's. "I don't know why, you're here," Dendo said. His voice was steadier than Zach thought it would be, and his tone calmer than the angry voice he had when he demanded that Zach stop. The last three days of their interactions raced through Dendo's head, and he took in a breath through his nose while keeping his expression flat towards his enemy. "But, I don't think I'm going to get you to quit, and, whatever you are here for, just keep my friends out of it."

Dendo continued to glare into Zach's eyes, narrowing his own more as he said that to see what Zach's reaction would be. He ground his teeth at what little reaction Zach had, and he growled in a more pissed voice, "Yeah, stay all stoic and that bullshit. You don't fool me," Dendo shook his own head, and he turned with a, "Ch." He looked to the side, and he stepped out of the way to give Zach a path to the door. Zach started forward, and Dendo shook his head once before muttering in a low voice, "Whatever it is you want, I'll figure it out. Even if it's after we graduate. But if you try doing your shit here, I'm going to stop you. Until then, if you just…" Dendo ground his teeth as Zach stopped in front of him and turned his way at what Dendo was starting to say.

Dendo turned his head to the left and glared away out the windows for a moment. "Then we'll just leave things be. I'll go on hating you, and you can go on hating me, but we can-"

"I don't hate you," Zach said.

Dendo looked back at Zach while he was saying it, and he stared at the teen in front of him almost as tall as he was. He stared at Zach's face in a skeptical and annoyed way that Zach would interrupt him when he was making his peace, somewhat. Then Dendo got a more confused look on his face, which made Zach scrunch up his too and ask, "Do you really think I hate you?" Zach looked at Dendo examining his face like he was checking to see if Dendo really thought that was true.

Dendo hated that look Zach started giving him, making him feel like he must have misunderstood something when he _knew_ he hadn't. "What you did during training," Dendo growled. "You humiliated me in front of everyone." His voice was cold, and angry, and his eyes narrowed harder into Zach's as he did not see an apologetic look even as he told Zach how it made him feel. "And you knew exactly what you were doing. You went harder against me than the others, and you embarrassed me with-"

"I did fight you harder than some of the others," Zach admitted. He leaned his head a little closer to Dendo's and then added, "But not that much harder. More, I fought you differently." Zach paused while Dendo scrunched his face up in more confusion at what Zach was telling him, and more specifically because he did not know _why_ Zach was saying it when he could have just walked out the door. "But I didn't fight you like that because I hate you."

Zach shook his head at Dendo and his own eyes got darker as he leaned back from his classmate. "I've seen, the worst, the absolute worst villains in the entire world." Zach stared at Dendo with his eyes squinted near shut, his face pained for a second and his expression darkening more as he looked away. Dendo stared at Zach's face with his own covered in confused shock, while Zach continued in a lower voice, "People who I can think of, and the thought of them makes my blood boil. They make me question how humanity can do such horrible things." Zach turned his head back and looked into Dendo's eyes with that dark look and also a confused small shake of his head. "Do you really think a couple of mean words and insults would make me think less of someone trying to be a hero?"

Dendo opened his mouth, and he paused and just got an even more befuddled look on his face. "But- what about-"

"No," Zach said firmly. Dendo was still trying to argue against it, but that one 'no' shook his own assurance even more. "You're here, because you want to be a hero. You want to save people, help people, protect them. And you're going to be a great hero one day, putting your life on the line and saving people for whatever your reasons are, and I respect that." Zach shook his head again and even smiled for a second before it curled down on its own. "I think highly of you," Zach said, "so I'm not really bothered by what you said. I get that it's because of what I've done that you act that way towards me. That you just wanted to see if I would snap, and to protect your classmates by being the one to make it happen so it was against you and not someone weaker-"

"This is all bull," Dendo snapped. His teeth clenched as Zach brought up things he had not really thought too hard about, things Zach was giving him credit for that he did not believe were true, though he was wondering to himself if maybe those actually were his real reasons in the first place. The fact that he had to question that though, made him grind his teeth in anger and he shouted, "Stop this- you're just, pretending. You're pretending to be this good, fun, fuck! But I know. You were pissed at me during that fight. You hated me, that was why-"

"I didn't humiliate you in that fight because I disliked you," Zach argued back. _He's too thick-headed. A subtle route isn't going to work for him._ "I did it because you went into that fight too overconfident." Dendo froze and stared at Zach in utter disbelief, his face showing he was not processing what Zach just told him. "Whatever reason you had for _'needing'_ to beat me, it shouldn't have stopped you from thinking a little harder about what you were about to do. I've been around the world. I fought against the League of Villains for years. I've never really shown off my Quirk, and you had no idea what I had spent 13 months doing after I fled Japan. And yet you came at me half-cocked like you were going to teach me a lesson?"

Zach rose his voice at the end and gave Dendo a look of disbelief this time, while his classmate had his jaw dropped and was gawking in a stunned state. "You're strong," Zach said slowly. "But only compared to certain people. You were the second strongest, in one hero class, at one hero school, in one country, in a very, very big world. You're not as strong as you think, and if I had just beaten you in a close fight then you might have thought that maybe you had made a mistake, or that I had gotten lucky." Zach shook his head at his classmate who finally closed his mouth but was still staring at him with huge eyes. "I wanted to show you just how far the gap between us was-"

"It's not as big as you-"

Zach's eyes got darker which interrupted Dendo before he could finish that interrupting sentence. He froze with his mouth open and Zach cut in while Dendo hesitated like that. "The gap is that wide," Zach repeated. Dendo had been spoken over without Zach needing to raise his voice, as the interruption came over no sound. Dendo pulled his head back, but Zach stayed where he was standing and just said in a calm voice, "There will always be someone stronger than you. And if you go into a fight against an unknown enemy, that overconfident, it's going to get you killed. And it'd get the people you're protecting that day killed. And let down all the others you could've saved in the future."

Dendo was frozen completely in place as Zach listed off reason after reason at him. All those reasons, about how Zach beat him in order to save lives, and that Zach did it so Dendo would learn something from it in order for those lives and his own to be saved. All he had been thinking about since the fight though, was how embarrassed he had been to have been beaten in such a way, and the excuses he was trying to come up with about how he had not lost because he was just that much weaker than Lifebringer but for some other reason. As he stared at this person in front of him now though, the scar-faced teen whose voice had conviction in it as he claimed to be trying to teach Dendo something, he did not see someone who hated him looking back in his eyes. _I, saw what he did with Manzo. She has been acting, less… Imino's been more confident the last few days, did he…_

Two dark green eyes started to widen as Dendo's breath hitched in. _He said he did go harder against me, which means there were those he didn't go as hard against. Imino, he, he could have destroyed him just like he beat me but, but Imino had the opposite problem that… that I had? He went in nervous, and no one blamed him because of course he would lose after Sazaki beat me! And yet, he fought anyway and fought hard, and against Lifebringer he got in blows unlike any of us- the way Manzo looked after that fight like- and even Kameko?! He smashed through that shell that no one's ever broken through, and it still hasn't healed up fully, but that was to teach him something? Was he- that whole time was he just… to protect us by, by making us better heroes?! To protect the people we might one day try protecting? What the- that's not-_

 _No one else realized it. That Sazaki, did that on purpose, do they?_ Dendo stared at his classmate, a new light surrounding him as Zach stared back into his eyes. _He did it without seeming like he was doing it! He didn't shove it in our faces, but- except for mine, but that's because I'm the only one who still just… wouldn't learn a goddamn thing from any of it! I'm an idiot- even if Sazaki's still dangerous and… I shouldn't have let that- I didn't just make a mistake, going in that confident! I am that- I was… I shouldn't be though. I shouldn't be that confident, if there really are people who can beat me without even…_ Dendo stared softer into Zach's eyes and his own lowered down to the floor at that look staring back at him. "You really don't, hate me," Dendo said.

It started off like he was asking it as a question, but the tone in which he ended it showed he already knew. Zach shook his head at his classmate who bit down hard, as all the anger and hatred he thought was two-sided the last few days, was all just his own imagination that got him worked up over nothing. The anger and suspicion he still had towards Lifebringer, without the multiplying force of his humiliating defeat on the first day, was not enough to keep him angry here in this confrontation. Not after just putting together what Sazaki did to try and help them. "Oh," Dendo muttered, feeling like more of an idiot while also having different feelings and conflicting emotions rushing through him. He still had not fully processed this conversation that was overwriting so much of his prior beliefs, beliefs he held strongly enough that they were fighting back against what he was hearing and telling him that it was all just lies.

"I hope next week, we can start things over on a better note," Zach said, turning away from Dendo for the door. "I don't have anything, against you," Zach stepped away but his step was slow and his voice got slower near the end of what he just said. His face scrunched up and his lips curled farther down again, like they did last time he tried to smile at Dendo. Zach glared through the windows in front of him, his bag on his back and his heavy winter clothes on to keep him warm through his long roundabout walk home.

Zach turned his head though before he left. He turned and looked back at Dendo, and then he turned back forward, before biting down hard and getting the attention of his classmate who was just staring at the floor in deep thought. "Oh yeah, and Dendo?" Dendo lifted his head and stared at the back of Zach's. Zach turned towards him, his head first as he continued, "Now that you know who I am, and we're somewhat acquainted and not strangers anymore, I need to tell you something."

Zach turned his body more to Dendo whose full attention was now locked on him and who looked confused as it felt like their conversation was over. _What does he have to tell me? Not strangers…_ Dendo got unnerved by the way Zach's expression darkened suddenly, his eyes going cold and his expression making Dendo feel chills over his whole body.

"Say shit about my dead parents again, I'll break your teeth with my steel fist." Zach paused while Dendo stared back at him with huge eyes, and Zach leaned his head forward and said in a lower voice, "Then you won't be able to say anything at all." Zach turned away from Dendo and started off with his fists balled hard at his sides. He intended on looking at Dendo longer there, making sure he understood and waiting for a nod, but the thought of what he might do if Dendo decided to test that threat made him storm off. _I'd do it. Don't you fucking say a word._ Zach closed his eyes as he walked away, hoping Dendo wouldn't speak behind him as he could feel his fists clenching harder.

 _"Changing your hairstyle doesn't make you anything like Titanium. Except, maybe the part where he lost his license." "You, who killed your mother."_ Dendo heard those words echo in his mind from his own lips. Despite the unnerved and scared feelings he just had, he thought of those lines in regret with guilt covering his face, because he saw the side of Zach's face as he stormed away. He only caught a glimpse of it before Zach was out of the room, but he saw the fury on it and the restraint he'd been showing since Dendo had said those things. _For days, he's been bottling that up without acting on it. I didn't realize, how hard they actually hit him…_ Dendo's face shadowed over for a moment, his own teeth baring as his guilt almost overshadowed with suspicion.

 _That threat was, intense. But,_ Dendo's dark look eased up again and he just cursed at himself while turning away, as the guilt overtook his other emotions again. "Shit," Dendo muttered under his breath. _I fucking deserved it for what I said to him. Damn it. What kind of hero says that stuff, even trying to protect others? There's a line! A line you're not supposed to cross. One, I'm mad that Lifebringer crossed. But what right do I have to treat him like shit for what he did, if I'm going to be a hero who tells someone he's responsible for killing his mom?! Someone trying to make a hero into a villain… I fucked up. I, I don't deserve to get off that easy- just like Lifebringer didn't. We're supposed to be held to higher standards. When we make mistakes, we… we shouldn't be allowed to just, be forgiven._

 _I shouldn't have done… But even if I didn't, Sazaki still would have embarrassed me like that. Because it wasn't about getting back at me. Just like it wasn't revenge that made him do what he did? He really, always is just, thinking about other people? Is that true? Is that really someone I hate?_ Dendo shook his head, as even thinking that did not feel right to him anymore. _I shouldn't hate anyone. Not for, for stupid… Sazaki has people he hates. People who have committed crimes that I probably haven't even heard of. Fucked up shit. If I'm going to hate someone, it should be for stuff like that. Yet even if I do hate them, they might still be stronger than me. I, I can't go into a fight like that again. Not against an unknown enemy. If I died because of that, it would be a disrespect to my name, and to the one I admire. I'll never make that mistake, as the Cutting-Edge Hero: All Slice!_

* * *

 **A/N Thanks for reading! Hope you enjoyed the chapter and the end of Zach's first week at Shiketsu. Sorry again for the slower upload speeds. End of my final semester at college and a lot's going on. Anyway, Zach calls out Himazuri on reading his mind this chapter and tells her to GET OUT, Zach's shown getting closer with a lot of his new classmates, and then his end conversation with Dendo... Leave me a review telling me what you think of the chapter, comments, questions, or etc! I'll try posting another chapter soon.**

Guest chapter 150 . Apr 12

Tfw you press next chapter on reflex but there's nothing there.  
;d

 **;( The day always comes when you can't binge anymore. We've become too used to the Netflix kind of life. I'll pound out the content fast as I can though (as long as I can keep up the quality). Thanks for reviewing!**

QuestingforBitches chapter 150 . Apr 13

Wait when did he lose the arm? I figured someone at the prison would have mentioned it or something...

 **I had Zach get a new arm afterwards, to try and explain a little why it wasn't mentioned during the prison chapters. Zach knew he wouldn't be able to keep a weapon in prison with him, so he replaced the weaponized super arm with a less powerful prosthetic, and his friends sent him the better arm when he got back out. I didn't really explain it as I wanted the last chapter to reveal it, but I knew there would be plot holes if I had the reveal and it was never mentioned before, and I didn't want to have to show it through flashbacks. I tried to keep vague with it though like Zach being against wanting to tell people, initially just had the scene of him and Momo in the hospital and how she called out his scars on being in the same place with no further explanation until his fight against Inasa. Anyway! 6 months of prison time passed within a few chapters, so there were probably conversations about the arm with the guards that I just left out.**

someguy1011 chapter 150 . Apr 13

Awesome work as always. A rocket arm...HOLY SHIT like fuck he can just crush ppl at this point, also im getting real DMC5 vibes from it. BTW i was thinking can zach replicate his death rain manually? like fly up in the sky and just shoot tiny amounts of death out over a large area?. Anyway this guy can just body whoever the hell thinks they can try him I LOVE IT, looking back to the first few chapters it's so satisfying seeing zach grow so much in every way. Im getting the feeling deku vs zach will happen later on, death vs one for all is gonna be a real trip. Good luck with your work btw i know what having a mountain of paperwork is like, I look forward for the next chapter.

 **Thanks! Zach wrecks his class, and we're seeing how strong he really is compared to most people after his life as Death. We'll see if Zach shows off any crazy death rain like that in the future... present Zach would body most everyone, but definitely past Zach. Glad you like to see that improvement, it feels cool having him come so far too for me, in under a year! (for me at least when I created the character). We'll see about those future fights too, but no spoilers! XD Thanks for the review!**

Naruffoku chapter 150 . Apr 13

I remember you saying that Zach didn't lose his arm. You were right, he didn't. HE LOST HIS HAND THOUGH! How did I not see that!?

 **Sorry if there's some confusion, but nah he lost the arm. It shot off from his left shoulder, and he reattached into it with... I don't remember saying Zach didn't lose it, but if I did somewhere then- probs just trying to avoid spoilers? Anyway, yup he's got a rocket arm, which I guess includes his hand! Lol I didn't leave in many hints about it so not surprised some people missed it. Anyway, thanks for reviewing!**

ILikeFoxes828 chapter 150 . Apr 13

Great chapter as always and I guess im kinda lucky getting a chapter on my birthday huh? But anyway a great chapter hopen to see more awesome chapter like this!

 **Well thank you and I'm glad I got you a present! Happy Birthday!**

Logargon chapter 150 . Apr 13

Ah yes Checkoves robot rocket arm a classic is literary writing. Also I be like "man I gotta sleep before work tomarrow" (chap comes out) "well I've got coffee"

 **Who needs sleep when there's coffee?! XD Great review, gotta have that rocket arm in there somewhere!**

Todorokiii chapter 150 . Apr 14

Bloody hell, what a beautiful chapter. I love the fights, Imino, Kameko, Manzo and Inasa.. They're all awesome. I like how Zach approached to his opponents. And not only Zach turned this cool but he became sassy! I love it. What's this I can smell friendship? Inasa and Zach are meant for each other. Maybe everyone he fought... Please. Reika? Begone thot! I love how Zach rejected her. Haha. I do love how Zach caught Manzo. Beautiful. Zach breaking Kameko's shell. Once again beautiful. That kick. Amazing. And that arm bruh, fabulous. Also, I love how Zach fought with his quirk on Inasa. He is a worthy competitor but he's not the one Zach's looking for. Thankss btw for this chapter. Im satisfied.

 **Thanks! Glad you really liked it! Had a bunch of characters to develop and figured I could get out their strengths and weaknesses, and personalities, out during this tournament. Hope that worked out well and we've got some cool new characters in here. Anyway, just happy to see you were really into those fights and liked how they went. Thanks for the great review!**

Shinn of Destiny chapter 150 . Apr 14

Koompa? i break that.  
Invisible girl? I see that.  
Wind User? I blew that.  
Ask me on a date? I deny that.  
Not gonna use my quirk till the end? I said that.  
I'm not a rapper, I'm a Hero.  
God Bless Zach and God bless u for this amazing story!

 **Great rap. Just think you mixed a Goomba with a Koopa though (Goombas are the mushrooms, Koopas the turtles). Still dope though XD Thanks for reviewing!**

GuestP chapter 150 . Apr 13

This chapter had me on edge the whole time, holy shit.  
I kinda feel bad for Dendo, but then i remember that he's a bit of an asshole so oh well  
The fight scenes and quirks are awesome, and also, Zach freaking out a mind reader is probably the funniest thing i've read.  
I LOVE IT!  
Can't wait for the next chapter!~

 **Awesome! Glad it was intense, and yeah Dendo's been having a tough time of it the last couple chapters. Delved a bit more into him this time, and seems he might cool down on Zach too by the end. Zach freaks Himazuri out again (though not before she gets the idea that Zach's into Ms. Enorma ;) ). Hope you enjoyed the new chapter, and thanks for reviewing!**

Guest chapter 150 . Apr 19

You know, I just realised. How does this fix not have a TVTropes page yet? I mean it's basically its own story now, itd need a wiki of its own.

 **I have no idea. Lol I've never had one of those before, but I guess this is the longest story I've made. A whole lot of characters to put in there too through 2 mil (almost) words. I'm def not making my own wiki, but hey wouldn't be against it. Or new fan-art by the way if anyone wants to make a new cover picture for the story. Zach's face is looking a bit out-dated from the last pic sent in... Anyway, thanks for the review! I'll get you another fix when I've got the chance.**


	152. Chapter 152

**A/N Just handed in my thesis. So now whether I graduate or not, got nothing in the way of Death for here on out. Love you guys. Hope you enjoy the chapter!**

 **Disclaimer: I don't own Boku no Hero Academia**

 **Chapter 152:**

"No Dad, it's about Zach," Shoto stood in his dad's office at Endeavor's Tokyo agency, not too far from U.A. that it was out of Todoroki's way. His father had been spending more time at that agency for the off chance that Shoto would come by, and today was one of the days it was paying off spending his time there. Endeavor's masked excitement simmered at how his son responded to his gruff question asking if he was there to learn from him or go on a patrol together. Endeavor grunted in response and he looked back at a computer screen in front of him for a moment, and he minimized some windows as his son started walking his way.

Todoroki stepped right up in front of his father's desk and frowned deeper at the older man who had short but spiky crimson hair and flames around his eyes even as he sat in his office. "What about him?" Endeavor asked, looking over the top of his computer screen into his son's eyes.

"You stopped examining him too early," Shoto replied. His eyes narrowed back at his dad when Endeavor gave him a dismissive look.

"And how would you know?" Endeavor asked. Shoto paused before he could counter at his dad in annoyance at how dismissive Endeavor was still being. Endeavor stared at his son harshly and said, "I take it you still have yet to see him." Endeavor did not need to hear a response to read his son's face, and he looked back at his computer in a harsher way this time as he clearly was dismissing his son instead of just giving him that look. Todoroki's face filled with anger first but then frustration as his dad looked away, as if saying that he was letting his emotions get the best of him. If he had actually gone to see Zach before coming to his dad with this then Endeavor might have listened closer, and it would have given better evidence too for what Todoroki did have with him, but he had not gone to see him once.

"I don't need to," Shoto replied darkly after a few seconds. "Enough of my classmates have, and I've heard things." Todoroki paused, and his father rose his eyes back up with some interest as Shoto got to the point of why he was there. "Mark is dead."

Shoto stated it and watched his father's reaction. He stared at Endeavor's face as his father stayed staring back at him in silence for a second, before standing up out of his chair in a calm way. Endeavor turned towards the windows of his office, "What are you talking about?"

"Zach got a letter, saying that a man named Mark was dead," Todoroki continued, stepping towards the right side of Endeavor's desk on the side Endeavor turned. "You know that name?" Endeavor continued to stare at the windows, his eyes narrowing and his mind working fast. "Zach received a box with his costume in it, money, and a letter that did not give away much about him. The person who sent it claimed he had saved them and that was the reason they sent him the costume, but the other message about the man, Mark-"

"Mark is a very common name," Endeavor said. He frowned and looked back at his son who was staring at him with wide eyes at that response. Endeavor shook his head though and he stepped back for a second towards his seat before turning to his son with a skeptical and harsh look, "What are you trying to do with this small amount of information?"

Shoto put his hands down on the other side of Endeavor's desk. "This Mark, couldn't he be an Army of Death member?" Shoto asked.

"That's not enough evidence, based off what you said is on the letter," Endeavor paused and he looked straight into his son's eyes. "I do know a Mark though," Endeavor added. "In the Army of Death."

 _I knew it!_ "Then that's proof! You might not think it, but if the Marks are the same person then you can, track," Shoto slowed down, a more confused look on his face as he watched his father in front of him.

Endeavor had decided already that Zach was not Death. What he saw during the licensing exam, the way the two of them acted, it was too different and unbelievable that they were the same person. _Spending his time in America, there are high chances he ran into a Mark there. If he was really Death would he, would he be so bold as to receive that knowing what we know? Mark… That man was killed?_ "This evidence, is not evidence," Endeavor started in a low voice, raising his eyes back up from his desk to stare into his son's with. "Did you really think, that your old classmate knowing someone named Mark would give any incentive to further an investigation? Your classmate who was in America-"

"But if they're the same Mark-" Todoroki started louder, but he stopped himself again as his father just frowned harder at his son's loud voice pushing the issue.

"I do not wish, them to be the same Mark," Endeavor said with a lower frown. His eyes narrowed at his son who he was explaining his look to as Shoto had given him that confused look as to how he must have been reacting. Endeavor looked towards the windows for a moment, thinking back on one of the most intense fights of his life. "The Mark I know, would not have died. I don't think…" Endeavor frowned again with a curled lip, then shook his head before just getting a more confused look on his face. _Coincidence? Is it really? Mark is common, but how many times do I have to say that to myself before I believe it? Could they be the same, and yet Sazaki still not be Death? Is Mark really, dead?_

"The Army of Death is your enemy," Todoroki told his father, his voice stern but also confused at his father's reaction to hearing this.

Endeavor frowned more at hearing that line from his own son. _It is. But, they are…_ Endeavor rose his eyes and stared into his son's eyes before choosing to speak aloud instead of keep it to himself. "It is. Yet, the Mark I know, if he was the same person as the one in the letter, it does not make me happy to hear that he is dead. There are villains in this world who I would not bat an eye to hearing of their deaths; I am not saying that I would care if Shigaraki, Intanzo, All For One, and their ilk were to drop dead and just fade from memory." Endeavor frowned more at his son when Todoroki started to get an upset and deeper frown back at him, which had his son freeze at how his father was not backing down from what he was saying but instead standing by it.

"They're terrorists," Todoroki said. He thought back on their mission overseas together the year before, and he ground his teeth as he thought about the way his father acted back then too as they wound up capturing dozens of villains unrelated to Death. It was only through tracking Death that they found enough information to go after those other villains though, and Todoroki hated how clues were left for them almost like the Army of Death wanted them to take care of the villains they did not have the time for, or to lead them on a goose chase and distract them from their goal of getting Death. Todoroki thought back on his frustration then, which matched the way he felt now as his father continued to defend these people. "If this Mark was a strong member of their organization, then it is a good thing he is gone. The Army of Death will be weaker-"

"I've never told you about the League of Shadows, have I?" Endeavor asked, taking his seat again and continuing to stare at his son who steadied his own look. Todoroki shook his head at his father, a feeling of excitement stirring in him though he made no outward expression of it. He had never even asked his dad to tell him about it, but a piece of him always wanted Endeavor to just bring it up on his own, like he was doing right now. "No, I wouldn't have. Not many people know about the League and what they were," Endeavor said. "Do you understand the reason for that?"

"Because you don't want the League knowing how much you know about them," Shoto responded. "You don't want people knowing how much influence they had. Because there are things too sensitive for the public eye, and even among heroes, the fewer who know the less likely it is the information is released to the media or villains."

"All correct," Endeavor responded with a nod. "But there is another reason," Endeavor added. "If people were to know how much influence the L.o.S. truly had, how horrible their plans for the world really were, then how would people think of the man who stopped them all?" Endeavor paused and Todoroki stared at him with his eyes wide. He continued while his son was staring at him like that, "In the League of Shadows' headquarters, Death, was the one who took down Turbo. The first of the Shadow Bosses to fall. Then as I chased after King, as I failed," Endeavor paused and grit his teeth hard, "he was fighting Zolo, who I heard from the others in the Task Force was a monstrously powerful man, who killed several of our men and Death's with his lieutenants and the mercenaries following him. But Death beat him as well," Endeavor lowered his eyes to his desk, his flames around his eyes flaring in frustration. "Bolivar and King, I was not there to see their defeats. The Shadow Bosses who continued to reign after our raid, even as we pretended to have defeated their organization."

"Death took them both down?" Todoroki asked with wide eyes. Endeavor did not respond for a few moments, and his son started in confusion, "But, I heard that King was stopped by a Russian and Eastern European coalition of heroes. And Bolivar? I heard about a drug lord by that name being taken down in Brazil, but-"

"He was a Shadow Boss too," Endeavor said. "And although you may have heard that it was heroes who stopped them, make no mistake. I interrogated the heroes involved, and I know, Death, defeated all four of the Shadow Bosses."

Shoto Todoroki ground his teeth and lowered his gaze to the floor. _Zach, did? Unless Dad's right- why am I thinking that now? Because I don't want to believe that, Zach…_

"As for Mark," Endeavor continued, making his son's eyes lift back up to his father across the table. "There are several members of the Army of Death who the Anti-Death Task Force gathered information on. Mark," Endeavor paused and his eyes got colder, angrier for a moment. They returned to a calm look as he looked away though, saying in a low voice, "He saved my life." Shoto stared at his father in shock, and Endeavor bit down as he was expecting to say something else there more about the man, but that slipped out instead.

 **A Year Ago…**

"King's escaping!" A man in a black costume roared at the others all around him. "We have to get through!"

Endeavor charged forward, and he slammed his right fist into the side of a spider-like man who had his fangs opened around the head of a younger Japanese hero near him. Tamaki Amajiki had fear covering his face as he lowered the tentacle arms he crossed in front of his face to try and protect from that attack. The cave illuminated brighter as Endeavor flared his flames, and Suneater could see his last opponent slumped against a wall on his right that had cracks covering it now.

The entire cave system shook, but the walls were not unstable yet. There were steel beams holding up sections, full rooms made of cement and what looked like actual buildings underneath the ground in the huge tunnel system of the League of Shadows' headquarters. The cave in front of them did not look much like a building though, and a figure in a dark costume had called out that it was Digger who was escaping with King. "Don't let him escape-"

"Endeavo-"

"AHH!" Two heroes who were ahead of Endeavor since he went back to help Suneater, came flying back towards him, blood splashing from their bodies that looked broken from how hard they flew back.

Endeavor stomped forward and glared furiously towards the enemy ahead of him in the dark cave. The man's body was shadowed over, and he was standing alone between Endeavor and where King escaped with his escort. Endeavor recognized the man, but he had no idea that The Tempest was one of King's top lieutenants. All he knew, was that this mob boss had powerful water powers, and the fact that he was not using them yet meant that the man bulkier than Endeavor himself had sent two heroes careening back, most likely dead, with his bare fists. The man's back opened up, and his left arm turned into a watery tentacle like the ones splashing out of his back. In the moment Endeavor spent thinking of calling one of his comrades over who could better deal with water, his enemy lifted his right hand towards his neck with a needle in it.

"Shit! TRIGGER!" A deep voice bellowed out of a black helmet on Endeavor's left.

"Mark! Water powers!"

"Charlie Squad, where are you?!"

"We're scattered all over the place!"

"We have two dead heroes down here! Coordinates 134.59 by…"

Endeavor heard the voice shouting behind him, and he ground his teeth in anger at the sound of his comrades and subordinates falling. Yet he also had hope because of what he just heard shouted, like there could be something done about their current condition. _If this one gets past me though- and I need to get past him! King is just beyond this point!_ "Step aside, villain-"

The powerful lieutenant charged forward, attacking with massive amounts of water that Endeavor dodged and tried attacking back with flames. His flames heated up the water, but his opponent just laughed from within it and yelled out, "Do you think I can't raise the temperature on my own?!" The water started boiling without Endeavor doing a thing, and steam started filling the cave to make it harder to see his opponent. The Tempest was more powerful on Trigger, but he was already super strong, and had great control over his Quirk. He was the head of a mob and a member of the League of Shadows, and he had just killed two top rank heroes of their respective countries before facing off against Endeavor with a fearless smile on his face.

Endeavor forced out all his flames as he was caught off guard in the smoke. There was a hole in the wall near him, a secret door he did not know about that his opponent had gotten behind in the veil of steam. He fired all of his flames and roared out, "HELLFIRE AAGhhghg-" the water pushed through his flames and slammed Endeavor back. He went flying across the room in a surge of boiling water, slamming into another wall harder than he had punched the spider-like villain into the wall before.

Others tried fighting against the monstrous water-Quirk mobster as Endeavor fell, but their momentum pushing forward and hope was dwindling fast. Their forces were cut down, some of them were dragging other bodies or injured back, and the mobster had two comrades come up and gather on him. He sent them back into the tunnel after King, saying he could hold them all off here. Endeavor pushed his hands down on the ground at his sides, flames ripping through his wet gloves and all around his body to re-illuminate this section of the cave that did not have much lighting.

The entire cave shook again, and King's lieutenant turned from the terrified teenager in front of him who was suddenly on his own against the villain. Suneater stared behind his opponent in shock too, as Endeavor rose up and glared with such intensity that his gangster enemy hesitated for a moment, even on Trigger. That moment did not last, and water exploded out on all sides of the man whose body grew, and who flooded the cave around him while yelling out at Endeavor, "Is this your second wind?! SHOW ME ENDEAVOR!"

Endeavor jumped backwards and plugged his feet into the wall covering them in so much heat. He melted himself into it so he would not fall, bending his knees farther into it as he planted himself and the entire cave floor covered in water, and then he pushed off. Endeavor shot straight into the water surrounding his opponent, and he slammed his first forward through the outer protective veil of boiling water, straight into his opponent's chest with a punch so strong he knocked The Tempest out of his own water barrier.

The water slowed his punch though, and the villain rolled around in the water before jumping up and pushing his arms forward, firing a jet of water so hard that Endeavor got flipped backwards on his follow-up after his rolling enemy. Endeavor slammed head-first into the ground, where there was no more water so it was a hard collision. He heard Suneater's shout for him, only to hear a yell of agony as a jet of water knocked that teenager into a hard wall and pummeled him there for a few seconds.

The Tempest stepped towards Endeavor, his body huge, water flooding the cave around him as more and more poured out of his back and rose up as a huge wall of it blocking up the new cave King went through. The cave system shook again, and a hole opened up in the ceiling of a nearby room. "I'd love to stay, Endeavor," the villain began, as Endeavor lifted his head and glared at his enemy furiously. His hands curled into the ground and he started dragging himself up again, but his flames were low. He was soaking wet, and his enemy had more than half of the room completely flooded with water. All of it was lifted up and connected to the mobster's body, filling the exit of the long cave and back through the wide circular tunnel for several meters, and curling around the edges of the room looking ready to collapse in on everyone. Water continued to pour out of the man's back like an overflowing tub, a faucet stuck on the highest setting, and the man started laughing as his enemy saw death about to slam down on him. "But it's time to get out of here! Know, we will never be defeated! Not by this pathetic generation of heroes! Not by YOU! What resistance this world might have had against us, dies with you Endeavor!"

The walls of water came down, splashed hard on the ground all around the room, and bounced back up to where they were before reaching any of the heroes or wounded or dead. The huge man surrounded by his water got confused, but one of the Army of Death behind Endeavor shouted in the most relieved and yet still panicked voice, "MARK!"

Endeavor turned his head. He knew about this man already. They had prepared to fight him, and he had evaporated the snow he melted on the surface knowing that Mark could use it against him. He stared back over his shoulder while getting up to one foot, to see not just a single man had come to assist them. Behind Mark were five others in dark costumes, and Mark commanded in a steady voice, "Cluster, Skater, get the dead to Death." Mark had a hand lifted, and his enemy was yelling at him, shouting at him to stop whatever he was doing, while being unable to move at all. The villain started screaming in rage, water pulsing out of his body so much that the tunnel back behind him was flooding with it, and the overpowering amount made Mark lift up a second hand.

"Faye," Mark added. He nodded ahead, and Faye ran forward with two others at her sides who she swung her arms out at. She pressed her hands into her comrades, and then they dove into the water wall and shot forwards through it towards the tunnel King went down.

"LET GO OF ME!"

Mark swung his arms to the right, and then to the left. The huge mass of water which all seemed to have one consciousness attached to a more human-like body, got smashed in every direction. His human form slammed down into the ground and then up at the ceiling. His own water wrapped around him in the shape of a fist, then punched him straight into the wall on Mark's right. Five more huge fists rose up and came down on top of the mobster, pounding away so hard the cave shook violently around them. Water whips coiled around his ankles, and they lifted him up in the air swinging him around and around and around, then whipping him into the wall, whipping back the other way and up into the ceiling, and then straight down in front of Endeavor where finally all the water broke off and collapsed.

Water flooded out everywhere, coating the ground of several rooms and making a few people brace for a second to stay steady. "Everyone who can move, after King!" Mark yelled around him in all directions. "We can't let him escape!" He ran forward himself, but he stopped next to Endeavor even as others started gathering themselves and moving forward. He stared into Endeavor's eyes through his visor, "You with me?"

Endeavor opened his eyes wider at the question asked in Japanese. The concern in it, and the way the man's helmet looked him up and down as if checking if he was alright to continue. Here he was, the number one hero in Japan, supposed to be leading the ADTF full of the strongest heroes in the world, and this person was checking to make sure he was alright. "After King," Endeavor repeated, turning his head to look towards Suneater who was down on his knees with an exhausted look, but who pushed himself up and then got helped the rest of the way by a blond who had just arrived through a wall to help him.

Lemillion and Suneater rose, and two other heroes came by, and Mark ran forward yelling at them all, "The forward team is facing two enemies! We have to push through and get to King before he escapes!"

* * *

 **Present**

"I wound up failing," Endeavor said, his voice low after he just told his son that Mark had saved his life. "In the end, King was smarter. He brought many forces with him, and left them at different intervals to slow us down. We fought small group after small group, while they continued to speed off until they reached a secret garage King had made far from the actual headquarters. When we cleared the debris, as King had collapsed the tunnel behind him after reaching it, we found the garage and a tunnel leading away to an exit point so far away that even the Army's search grid was too small."

Endeavor paused for a second, then he said, "But we never would have been able to continue after King in the first place, if Mark had not arrived when he had. I would have been killed by The Tempest, most likely," Endeavor ground his teeth at the thought of how few options he had in that moment, when the water was about to crash down and drown him. Only evaporating it all had crossed his mind, but the sheer amount that The Tempest kept pushing out made that idea seem like it would have been impossible.

"He was one of the strongest, in all the Army of Death," Endeavor continued. "The misty steam he controlled in that tunnel, swirled into the face of a demon to demoralize our enemies. His precision to turn liquid into weapons, to use it like extra appendages, to flood his opponent's throats and knock them out from loss of breath. And his blood control," Endeavor stopped and his expression got even darker as he stared straight into his son's harsh eyes for how Endeavor was speaking of this as a loss and not a victory while mentioning how strong Mark was.

"He's a villain," Todoroki said. "And if he could control people's blood, then that's definitely…"

 _ **"Just because you know what they told you, doesn't mean you know who I am, Endeavor…"**_

Endeavor stared at his son, a disapproving look and one that made Shoto feel like he actually was misunderstanding. His father's expression got darker, but also more upset and almost sad for a moment in a way that had Todoroki trail off. "I never saw him use that ability, but I knew about it because Mark was one of the few who we knew about before the raid on the League of Shadows. A former CIA operative, they told us his abilities… but shortly after the raid I did finally get the un-redacted versions of Mark's files I demanded through my power in the UN. The files the CIA initially attempted to hide from me. And the Americans fired their former CIA director when they saw what Mark had been forced to do by their government, the torture they asked him to commit for the sake of peace."

Shoto stared at his father in shock. He had not heard anything about this, and his eyes were huge and starting to shake in anger as he thought more about that. "And he was ordered to be hunted down when he fled, instead of continuing the blood-bending tortures for his government. A young man, recruited after accidentally killing a classmate at his hero school when he first discovered that his control extended to blood as well. I was, to offer him a pardon if we ever met again…" Endeavor bit down, then he stared at his son keeping his expression steady despite his anger, and frustration. "Why did you come here, Shoto?"

Shoto's shocked look shifted and an aggravated expression covered his face instead. The anger at what he just heard happened to this man, and what the guy had apparently done after fleeing from his country. Joining the Army of Death, saving his father, fighting the worst villains in the world… and he was here, trying to use his death to prove that Zach was Death. "I believe Mark could be the same as the one Lifebringer knew," Endeavor admitted. "Though if Lifebringer was in America, then there's no reason it couldn't be a different one, as Mark is a common name after all. It's why having this much, does not help me with anything accept give me a theory that I may be able to test the next time I have a run in with them. Even if he were dead though, and I received confirmation of it, many in the Army of Death have died since the last time I saw them."

Todoroki shifted his frustrated gaze down to the floor. _Zach's not, a hero. He's a liar and I know he's Death. He's Death… But there isn't proof. There isn't proof, and Zach wouldn't leave proof. Getting him this way, isn't going to work. Not with Dad…_ Todoroki turned away, his eyes darkening as he looked back towards the door of his dad's office. He hesitated for a moment though before leaving. "At the end of that letter," Todoroki began mentioning. "I heard that it said that he was killed by EM."

Todoroki looked over his shoulder and caught his dad's eyes wide at what he just said. _I knew, he would know._ "It said he's after Zach now. The one it's talking about, is that Eziano Mozcaccio?"

Endeavor's expression darkened much more at his son's question. His eyes were cold as he stared at Shoto, and he just replied in a low voice, "Be careful, saying that name…" Shoto's eyes shot open wide at the response his father gave, the hint of a nervous tone in it, but nervous _for_ him. Shoto's breathing sped up more though, as Endeavor continued, "I say Death defeated all four Shadow Bosses, but there's one who I never had any confirmation of his defeat. One, whose name is dangerous to even mention." Enji Todoroki gave his son a serious look, trying to hide the anxious feeling he felt for his young son asking such a dangerous question. "There is one Shadow Boss left in this world. If you believe the rumors about him-"

"Zach said his name once," Todoroki said in a low voice. "Back in the Enudora Forest."

 _He knew all the way back then?_ Endeavor thought in surprise. _I didn't even believe it until we saw the League. If that could be real, then why not Eziano? Why not, a man who there has been mention of since I was…_ "I've never seen him myself," Endeavor admitted. "But, Shoto, the villains after Sazaki could be after his life solely because he knows the existence of Eziano. Maybe, he knows something more." _I know, Sazaki was a member of the anti-heroes. And the League of Villains before it._ "I will not tell you what to do, about the feelings you have towards Sazaki. But do watch yourself," Endeavor looked towards the windows of his office in a dark way. "Even being close to Sazaki is a very dangerous thing these days."

* * *

 _Always so dark when I wake up. It's weird,_ Zach moved around silent as a ghost through his apartment. The lights were off and there was barely any light coming in from outside. _The prison lights were always on. Had to make sure they kept an eye on me at all times I suppose. Before that, I was never in the same hemisphere for more than a couple days in a row. Close to the equator where it's always light, or over China where our time-set was opposite the daytime. Morning just, lost meaning,_ Zach poured himself a bowl of cereal with some milk, and he ate quietly with his computer open in front of him.

The weekend started off quiet for Zach Sazaki. He finally heard birds start chirping outside, and he shut his computer and took out a pair of headphones he had in his ears at a low enough volume that he could hear all external noise. _J'aime courir. I like to run._ Zach walked up to his front door and he slid into his shoes. He grabbed a sweatshirt, his jacket, a black face-mask that covered the bottom half of his face, and a dark blue beanie over his head. _Talking with Mina on the phone last night went on longer than I planned. No other plans for this weekend though getting in the way. Can't be any less productive than last weekend, and last weekend I got into Shiketsu and a hero license and my apartment. How to step it up?_

Zach slid his hands into gloves to hide the fact that he would always have a black one over his right, and because of the cold. It was still well below freezing in early January, and the moment Zach opened his front door he let out a breath through his mask that hung visibly in the air in front of him. The sky was just starting to lighten so everything around him was the gray color of pre-dawn, not yet sunrise but bright enough that he could see everything around him. Automatic street lights were turning off, and a few cars were on the street though Zach could only hear them nearby.

His eyes scanned over the building across the street and the other three that had vantage points of his front door. There was the taller apartment to his left that was thinner too and doubled as an office on some of the floors. Another building next to that one which only part of it could see his door from, as the rest was blocked from the wide building across the street. To his right there was another building on an intersecting road that went diagonally into a more residential area, though that "building" was more a line of houses that were all connected and the same rectangular shape but looked less like apartments. _Eyes, eyes. Who's watching me? Let's see if you can keep up. I'm going to be careful on my way back here, but you better not lead villains here after I was forced to give you my address in the first place._

Zach turned and started jogging down the outside hall of his apartment's second floor. _Forty hours at least. I should get some rest before class. It'll look weird if I'm never at home. Get ready to get tired out though. I'm not changing my schedule for you, you fucking noob._ Zach jumped down the stairs when he reached the end of the hall, and he dropped into a roll at the bottom of the flight before immediately darting left down the main road on the left side of his apartment from the perspective of exiting his room.

 _Does he know I'm watching him? He scanned the roofs nearby and did not seem to notice anyone._ Lemillion backed up, then he sprinted at the wall in front of him and leapt at it. He passed through the wall and kept falling down to the building across the street that was lower down and he was able to land on. He did not have to roll on his landing, just crouching on the fall and then darting to the edge of the building but keeping low in case Sazaki was watching the roofs still. _He's just being cautious that someone's following him. And he wants to get away from his apartment quickly, to spend as little time near it as possible and to be far from it by the time any potential assassins see him. His mask and heavy winter clothes should prevent him from being recognized, but someone hunting for him could figure him out just from the parts of him exposed._

Lemillion watched from a hidden location on the corner of a building, only the top half of his face sticking through the obstacle in his path so he could watch Sazaki run down the block. _The scar under his right eye sticking out from the mask. His hazel eyes. His skin tone, his body size, the fact that he is hiding his face even though some might assume it's for the cold. Where's he going so early? Trains don't even start running for thirty minutes._

 _The tail is being smart. He or she was staking out my apartment, so it was easy to spot them knowing all the good stake-out spots as I do, but they're keeping a good distance._ Zach jogged into an alleyway and he started doing stretches in the dark again. He pushed his arms out in front of him as he walked down the alley, then stretched them up over his head and to either side. He popped a foot up on a garbage can, and he extended his body over his leg to touch his toes. His fingertips brushed his toes but he oofed and then started the next leg. His stomach hurt as he stretched again, but he did not lower a hand to it nor to his right shoulder when he was stretching that arm. He did rub the connecting point on his left shoulder where his fake arm began though, _I wish I could say I barely feel the difference. The nerves are all connected, but after popping it off so many times recently, and with Momo and the others, and now all of Shiketsu too, knowing about it, I can't even pretend. Going through all the effort of making the skin sleeve have the same scars they would expect, I could have just left it as is._

Zach jogged again and out of the alley on the other side as where he entered from. It was getting brighter, and in the reflection of a window up ahead Zach checked the roofs for tails. _Whatever hero is following me, could use the excuse that they were looking out for people following me or coming to attack. I denied the police detail, left their protection of my own accord, and I have a license of my own now. Provisional as it is, is it really prudent to be trailing fellow heroes? Especially if someone catches me calling you out on it on camera. It could be a whole big fiasco._ Zach hummed and frowned deeper to himself, ignoring some people on the sidewalk who were heading out for the day too. _I don't know if your being there will increase or decrease the chances of someone coming after me. Admittedly, it could lower it as they'd have two people to deal with instead of just me who they'd plan for in advance. On the other hand, if they want to get rid of you first to make it easier, then I have to be worried about someone coming after you…_

 _It's a hero. Of that I'm certain. Only a hero would give themself away so easily, because getting caught for them doesn't mean as much for everyone else. There is no consequence if they're caught right now. Only if I try to push a consequence will there be one._ Zach continued a morning jog that barely drew any attention at all, and the attention he did draw was quickly averted by people not wanting to stare at a passerby who could catch them doing so. _Their overconfidence is fine though. It's a strong hero. I don't need to worry about their safety. Villains will keep off my back today more than usual with this tail giving them second thoughts. Keep up the good work, Hero-san!_

Zach smirked behind his mask, and he took a nice long jog towards a train station several stops from the one closest to his apartment. He jogged faster at one point in a steady sprint, taking side roads that were nearly empty, and darting through alleys that he did not even look down before running into. In the week since he moved in, Zach had done enough running around Yutapu, that he knew his way around the whole city without needing navigation. He augmented his own runs at night, checking maps online for new routes he should try the next day and doing them before school or just in his free time. To Lemillion above and back a block, it looked like Sazaki was a mouse in a maze, taking unnecessary turns over and over that would just slow him down on reaching his final destination for no reason.

 _I'm not losing him. Then again, he might not know anyone's following him yet. Each turn he makes, can make someone who just starts watching think he came from that direction. Misdirection. Is this a route he takes often? There isn't much hesitation behind his movements._ Lemillion ran to the edge of the building and leapt up to the roof of another one, moving much faster right before the jump to prevent the people down below on the street from catching a glimpse of him. He was in his full hero costume, ready in case anything came up. The distance between him and Lifebringer was staying wide too, as he was not just watching Lifebringer but also trying to watch any ambush attempts that came for him. _No one else is following him yet. There's a chance no one does today. Once he thinks he's in the clear, he'll start whatever he's up to._

 _Why are you out so early?_ Lemillion wondered. _What's a high schooler without an internship with a hero doing running the streets? You could be looking for crimes to get close to and just say that you were in the area. That's the simplest answer. That, or a normal jog. Enjoying your freedom out of Tartaros. Easy responses for reporters who might catch you and ask what you're up to. Those would be your responses. What's the real reason? What lies below? What, are you thinking about right now?_

 _Got about three minutes. Time to make a bee-line for it. Anyone who sees me in that time won't suspect anything as the zig-zagging's going to stop._ Zach picked up his speed and took the most direct route to the closest train station. The first train was running in a minute after he arrived, and he made his way to the turnstiles that he swiped his train card in to go through. He ran to the train seconds before the door was closing, and he turned after getting inside to watch the empty platform behind him.

The train started going, and a hero watching from on top of the train station waited until the train was past him before dropping down onto the tracks and running after it. The train had just left the station so it was still speeding up, and the fourth ranked hero in the nation was fast enough to grab onto the back of it before it got too fast. He hoisted himself up but stayed low, his lower half stuck through the floor with only his head and arms over the surface as he used his Quirk: Permeation to hide.

 _Could be Lemillion._ Zach sat on the train that was nearly empty, his mask still up so he did not draw the attention of the other three people who got on the first train with him in that car. _To silently move between inside and outside like that. They didn't start on the roof, but they were suddenly moving building to building as soon as I started running. Let's say, eighty percent chance it's him. Matches his personality, he's seen Death, he'd be the best candidate anyway. I knew giving them my address would lead to this, but still, it sucks if they lead any villains to my place. If I guessed it would be Lemillion, others could guess it too and follow him, finding me. The only way I can get out of telling them my address is same way I get out of talking to the press, but I'd rather not be attacked at home and have to find a new place. For now I just have to deal with being watched._

Zach went halfway down the line, passing almost a dozen stops before getting off the train in a far part of Yutapu though one he had also jogged in twice since moving in. He left the train station without delay, and he went to a nearby library that opened minutes before Zach arrived.

Lemillion staked-out outside the Yutapu library to wait for Lifebringer to come back out, but his curiosity got the better of him. _Why the library? He could have stayed on his computer and read most books. Is he meeting someone here? Is something in the library that got dropped off at a different date and he's picking it up now? He could have planned for it before returning, and told them to wait a certain amount of time once he was released before leaving it for him._

Lemillion snuck into the library. He was fast enough to avoid anyone near him, slipping through walls and bookshelves with ease so that he was like a phantom. There was barely anyone in the library anyway, but Togata still made sure to keep as silent as could be. _If anyone could tell I was following them, it would be Sazaki. If he's Death, which I believe he is, then it's all the more likely he'll notice someone following him. I need to see what he's up to though…_

Zach sat on a chair in the library, alone at a table with several files out in front of him. There was a thick book opened up on his left and a thinner one on his right but that looked much older. The files in front of him were in old folders, and there were lists and lots of numbers of the sheets he was going through. He had his wireless headphones in his ears, and his mask was pulled down just below his chin as he read while listening to music. _So he is willing to follow me inside. That's risky, but it shows he takes this pretty seriously. He's not just following because he was told to keep tabs. This is likely his idea. Why would I be looking through public records? Building acquisitions, political payments and budget plans for recent years, layouts and original blueprints showing all the different rooms inside. Not just the streets of Yutapu, what if I'm trying to learn every inch of this city in case I need to run? I could slip into secret basements people have forgotten about because the old building's owners sold it and didn't tell the new owners about them. I could be planning a heist. So mysterious, aren't I?_

 _What is he doing? Why's he smiling like that while going through all those documents? Did he find something in them? I'll have to keep track of them all and search for what he found later. Someone might have left him a message in- are those, blueprints? What is he… Public records. Was he searching for something? Did he find it?_

Zach left everything out on the table, and he got up and walked away towards a different section than the one he was seated at because of the long tables there for people to work. He came back a minute later, as was clear he would do since his beanie and jacket and over-gloves were all still at the table with the materials he had not put away. Zach returned with more books, more records, and some more files that he looked at closely. Zach had not sat down yet, but he looked at the new file, then picked up one of the ones he had brought over initially, and he stared at them with his eyes opening wide. _Oh my God! That's amazing! A miracle! This is mind-blowing!_

 _What did he find?! Is there something in those files?_

Zach steadied his expression and he sat down again at his table. He turned his head side to side, checking again for anyone watching him. This time though, he looked more suspicious as if what he had just discovered might be reason for someone trying to get close and stop him. He had to suppress a smirk as he did this, before looking back down at the files and taking in a deep breath. _Not much to do until lunch. Breakfast could be fine, but I don't know for sure they'll be there yet. I never ran around this area during the morning. I checked out the library's website though, and saw all these records were here but haven't ever been digitalized. Strange they'd still have such an old system, unless someone's trying hard to hide something and doesn't want it to be easily accessible. This way, they can better check who comes in and out to read the files, so a librarian here might be specifically looking out for one of these records. Their job might be to notify whoever matters about anyone who looks at it. I'll have to keep the dates close in mind. They wouldn't destroy the record completely unless they want to draw more attention to that specific date. Then again, it would only draw attention for someone searching without knowing what they're looking for. For someone who's already trying to find that information, it could do the opposite and hinder their efforts…_

Three hours after Zach arrived at the library, he leaned back in his seat and stretched his arms up over his head. _Some interesting stuff,_ he thought, his expression relaxed as he started closing everything up. His eyes had stayed hazel through the morning, as he knew someone was watching and kept from letting his eyes go red which he suspected his nearby tail might take offense to. _Someone going out of their way to watch me so closely, makes it difficult to even do the normal amount of Quirk use. Lemillion, you'd be surprised how much I'm using right now. If you stabbed a knife into my chest, you'd pierce about a centimeter deep before just plunging that knife into darkness. If I have to act like I don't notice you, it might make some others feel like I don't notice shit. Assassins who are better at you at hiding, and who might be watching me right now. Not that you're shit at this, but this has to be getting boring for you too, right? Take a break._

Lemillion got back to the roof of the library and waited for Zach to leave one of the exits. He pulled out a nutrition bar for some quick energy, all he was going to get as he was going to keep Zach in his sights all day. It was just some protein and fiber, but it was heavy enough to keep him from getting hungry. Almost as if to shove Lemillion's lunch in his face though, Zach immediately jogged to a Burger Lando. He had his mask up again, though he pulled it down once he got into the fast food place.

There was a bit of commotion inside the store as Zach said hi to some fans already in there eating. A couple of people pulled out phones, and after Zach ordered and paid, he had to smile and get in pictures with regular Japanese citizens. A couple others ran into the store when his food was almost out, as the people who pulled out their phones did not just take pictures, but sent those pictures with their location to their friends. Zach got his food brought up for him and left quickly, apologizing to a few people that he had to run and couldn't stay for any more photos. He reached a hand into his pocket and tossed a handful of something behind him though as he was about to leave the place.

A few people trying to run after Zach stopped instead and reached up, catching the cards he tossed out behind him. They were hero trading cards, all of them of Lifebringer whose card got reinstated during the election when liking Lifebringer reached a new popularity height. The cards were all signed by Lifebringer too, and Zach left everyone behind to argue over who got which card after someone finally shouted what they were.

Lemillion sweatdropped as he saw the smile on Zach's face as he jogged away from the fast food place. The younger man seemed to be laughing at his diversion tactic and how well it worked. Lemillion's expression re-hardened and he narrowed his eyes. _He's luring me into a sense of security. I see it. The way he's been acting, is just about the least suspicious way… The library was a little, odd. He was studying. But that was just, carefree, and non-suspicious. He seems just like a normal person going about his day. As if the public Lifebringer he's shown is the real him._ Lemillion's gaze was cautious and he watched carefully as Zach started looking around more often, checking his corners and seeing if anyone was watching him.

 _Where is he going now? This, is a bad part of the city. The worst part of town actually._ Lemillion looked around as he noticed it. _So back to the first prediction then? He's looking for crime to pretend to have just been walking around near it when it happens. Going on a jog, even so far from his home. He can use the excuse that he's running everywhere around the city, and that he needed to go to the library which was why he was running here._ Lemillion hummed at how well-thought out that was, but his expression was still steady and suspicious. _What is the reason for fighting crime though? Get more of the public eye on himself? To show everyone that this might be the part of Yutapu he lives in? Or to be a hero? To better convince everyone that he's back to fight crime as a hero, despite going in with a provisional license. He did the same with Killmore. Deku tells me it was all Sazaki's idea. He finds loopholes. I have to be careful going after him for many reasons. They reviewed him several times before his departure, and yet he had his provisional license through it all._

 _He's smooth with the way he speaks. He can convince anyone of his motives. Faith. I read all the files on him when I heard what Sazaki had done to him. The ability to crush a man like that, destroy him, someone like Faith! You're too dangerous. Every action he makes. Back there in the Burger Lando he was on camera doing that, seeming like a nice guy giving out autographs while people will also understand why he did it to get them all off his back and give him a chance to run off. He's the "Hero of the People." Going to regular fast food joints just like them and running off with a couple paper bags in his hands. Does he really eat fast food like that, and still keep that body… His medical records were sealed, but I was there the day he got shot. I saw… And the reports of the guards of his old cell, they all mention his scars but also the amount of time he spent training and working out. An intense training regimen mixed with fast food- what am I thinking about?_

Lemillion sped up as Lifebringer was getting too far from him. _Every action might be fake. Only focus on what's important though. Where is he going with that food? We're just heading deeper into the bad part of this city. It's not much worse, but I checked the crime rates earlier. If he came this way it was so he could fight crime. He could have gone to a different train station and taken a train this way, but he's just runn- this again?_ Lemillion slowed down, expecting Zach to pop out the other side of an alleyway he just went into.

Zach did not dart into the alley though. He slowed down his jog first, then he turned into the alley casually and still smiling. He looked over his shoulder as if checking to see if any of the people chasing him were catching up, even though he had shaken everyone way back at the Burger Lando. Zach turned back forward, looked over to the right where there was an old man leaning against the side of a building on his butt, and he nodded at the guy who nodded right back with still a bit of a surprised look on his face. "Lifebringer," the old guy said, seeing the scars on Zach's face that distinguished him from everyone else easily.

Zach had walked into an alley that was illuminated partially on the ends, but was pretty dark through most of it as the buildings were close to each other and cast a lot of shade down between them. There was a dumpster in front of Zach on his left, farther in than the old man who was close to the edge of the alley and had a cup next to him with a little change in it. He also had a pack on his other side farther in the alley. The cup looked to be in case anyone looked in and decided to give him some money because the cup was close to them already, while he kept the bag on the other side so it could not just get taken by passerbys. Zach saw another bag up ahead of him more in the darkness, but he ignored it for now and just stopped in front of the old man for a second.

He opened up one of the paper bags he was holding, pulled out one of the burgers he had bought, then he hesitated. "Cheese?" Zach asked, waving around the burger he lifted up and checking if the guy was for it or if he might have a lactose allergy, or if he might just prefer hamburgers. The homeless man in front of Zach gave him a surprised look, then Zach tossed him the burger since the man did not reply quick enough. He reached into the bag himself and pulled out another cheeseburger, then he stepped a couple feet farther into the alley and hopped up on top of the dumpster.

There were two lids of the dumpster, and the one next to where Zach landed suddenly popped up. Zach figured the man might have been in there considering the placement of the other bag across from the dumpster, just a little farther down the alley which made Zach think it was so it would be better hidden in the darkness and make it look less like there was another person in there. The guy who popped out fast spun to the other lid where that loud noise was. Zach had his burger lifted in his hand, just starting to unwrap it. He turned to the man next to him without flinching or jumping in surprise or anything. The man who came halfway out of the dumpster smelled, he had a brown beanie on over his head that had some dirt and garbage on it, messy silver hair below it, and dirt all over his tan skin much darker than the wrinkly older man's near the end of the alley.

Zach held out the burger to the smelly man staring at him in shock from only a couple of feet away. His mouth was still open as he got ready to shout at whoever just jumped on the dumpster he was dumpster-diving in, but he closed it and lowered his eyes from Zach's face to the burger being held out for him still in its wrapping. "Cheeseburger," Zach said. "Want it?" He shook the burger once to see if the guy would take it before he could start eating it himself.

The man he was talking to rose his eyes slowly up from the burger. His face twisted in rage, and Zach grimaced as he wondered if that was somehow insensitive despite how the older man had just started unwrapping his a second ago. The younger man, who was still over twice Zach's age, smacked a hand across his body and knocked the sandwich out of Zach's. Zach stopped himself from pulling back faster than the man could hit the sandwich, as he did feel bad about whatever he had done to make this homeless man so angry all of a sudden. Then he saw the glint, and his eyes widened more as the homeless guy used the hand he smacked the burger away with to grab Zach by his jacket.

"Give me all of it!" The man shout-whispered. His eyes darted past Lifebringer for a moment to the street where he did not want anyone hearing him, then to the old man who was staring towards them in shock. The silver-haired guy grabbing Zach by the jacket had a knife lifted in his other hand up close to Lifebringer's throat. He glared back straight into Lifebringer's eyes, "Give me everything you got actually."

 _He's not trying to kill me? Seemed strange someone could have been lying in wait for me._ Zach lowered his eyes to the knife near his throat, surprisingly sharp for someone who did not seem to have much on him. Zach took the knife from the man. It took an instant, and the guy who just had the knife in his hand trembled nervously as Zach was holding his left arm by the wrist in what felt like a vice, while turning the knife over in his right hand examining the blade for blood. _Doesn't look like he's stabbed anyone else with this. The old man seems surprised by this too. He knew the younger one was in here but didn't see this coming._ Zach turned back to the man whose arm he lowered down with his left hand, keeping his hand gripped around the man's dirty sleeve which was getting his winter glove dirty too.

"Let me, go," the guy struggled to try and get out of Zach's grip. It was the first thing he needed to do to run, now that he was thoroughly terrified and knew he had to get out of there. "I'm sorry- just, fucking, let go!" Zach let go, but with a shove backwards knocking the man halfway out of the trash back down into the dumpster. Then Zach reached for the lid and he shut it on the man, and he pushed down with his left hand as the guy jumped up fast and tried to get the lid back off. "Hey! HEY! Please," the man's voice that he just rose cracked as he lowered back down quickly.

 _You think I'm calling the cops, and I'm going to trap you in here until they arrive. If that's what's happening, you won't want to make your voice too loud._ Zach lifted his eyes up towards the top of the alley. _And Lemillion's going to stay out of this too. Pretending to just be walking by right now would be a sure thing of me catching him following me. I'd call him out on it too. The whole nine yards, make a big deal of it. You know it Lemillion, so stay out of my business._

Zach turned the knife he was holding side to side in front of his face, then he spun it around, lifted his left arm, and slid the knife into his sleeve with a grin back towards the old man. "Hey, it's a nice knife," Zach said with a shrug. He took his left hand off the lid of the dumpster as he did this, but the man inside the dumpster was too busy pleading with him in a whisper that he not call the cops as the reality of what had happened was setting in. _Alright, he seems to realize how fucked he is,_ Zach reached back to the lid with his left hand and lifted it up, making the man inside hesitate and get a dumbstruck look on his face. Was it because Lifebringer decided to let him go like he was asking? Were the police already there and about to drag him away for attempted assault on a hero? Was his life officially over, or was he being given a second chance? The unknowingness was unbearable, and the dirty guy in the dumpster nearly had a heart attack as Zach looked down at him.

"Stand up," Zach said. "I didn't call the cops on you," Zach pulled out a burger and he slid off the thicker glove on his right hand before unwrapping it. He ate his burger using his right hand with a tight black glove over it. He ate slowly, watching the man next to him while chewing on the hamburger he wished had some cheese on it. "I'm not giving you another one," Zach said. He motioned with his head to the floor of the alley where the burger had landed, somehow still in its wrapped though the wrapping was loose and needed to be picked up carefully so the cheeseburger would not fall out.

Zach took another bite of the burger, then he looked in the dumpster around the scared homeless person. "Is it really so cold in there that you have to bring all your layers in with you? Seems like it might be better to take some off first."

"Some people do not sort their garbage well," the old man began, making Zach turn his head which baffled the man next to him who considered running but was too nervous to do so. Zach met the older man's gaze, seeing the guy wearing as many heavy layers as his younger compatriot in the dumpster. They were dressed warmer than Zach was, which made sense since they had to carry everything either on their backs on in their packs, and it was safer to have it on their backs. The older guy who looked to be in his mid-sixties continued, "Often there are sharp objects and glass in the dumpsters. More layers are not just for protection from the cold."

"Ahh," Zach nodded in understanding. _I thought about searching through dumpsters for food before. Might have been smarter- well, it was the Hunter coming after me. Whether or not I showed myself to get some food wasn't going to change… actually, maybe going into a dumpster would have thrown off the scent. Lucky I didn't do it then, or everything might've-_ "Anyway," Zach turned back to the man on his left who seemed like he might bolt. Turning like that had the guy's breath hitch in and become impossible to release, as Lifebringer's eyes bored into the side of his head in a serious way. "Why'd you choose this life?" Zach asked. He stared into the man's dark brown eyes, full of confusion as they stared back at Zach's. "Why are you so quick to pull a knife? On someone trying to help you no less-"

"I'm not so quick!" The man countered, his expression going from confused and surprised to angry. Anger covered his face, though also fear as he said, "I wouldn't for normal people, but you're the reason I'm in this place!" The homeless man yelling at the terrifying scar-faced person before him started tearing up, water filling his eyes as he leaned back but also pushed his face forward to give Zach his most angry look. "I lost my job because of you!" Zach's face looked confused, and the man yelling at him continued in an explanative while also still frustrated and angry voice, "Because other countries decided to follow _Lifebrigner's_ plan, and allow everyone to use Quirks. Now their businesses are doing better as they produce more efficiently, and consumers here are importing more for cheaper than my company could sell, for the same products."

"I got laid-off from my job. I couldn't support my wife, who left me for it. Took the apartment too," the man closed his eyes and the tears in them pushed down his face as he shook his head. A part of him was still trying to convince Lifebringer not to send him to the police, but that was overtaken as this was all just pouring out. "And I got evicted after missing my rent payments twice in a row at my last place, so nowhere will have me now. Not that I could pay for it anyway without a job."

 _Damn._ Zach stared at the grown man breaking down in front of him. _That sucks. That was a lot too, just, a shit time. Shit luck. Guys at his job were probably talking about it as their sales went down more and more, blaming it on me. More blame went around, because they couldn't produce the same way and keep making money. They should have adapted, but that's not this guy's fault. Not even the company's really. Still,_ Zach shook his head with a sympathetic look on his face. "That's rough. But, robbing someone, even after all that," Zach gave the man next to him a disapproving, and disappointed look. "It's shit. You know it is."

Zach turned from the man staring at him with huge eyes, mostly in confusion though Zach saw a hint of shame on his expression too. He looked back towards the older man who was still just sitting there with his back against the opposite wall, looking over interestedly at what was going on. "What about you old man? Ever rob anyone?" The old guy was smaller than the man in the dumpster, and he looked like he had always been rather small and did not just shrink from a long time on the streets. He did look like he was on the streets for a while though, and Zach asked when the man shook his head no, "How long have you been out here?"

"Oh, just about seven years now," the man replied, some pride in his voice as he said it. The man on Zach's left felt more shame hearing that, considering how long it had been for himself. The shame he had felt earlier jumping into the dumpster to search for things he could sell or eat was replaced with a deeper, less vain level of shame over what he had just stooped to. Zach did not look back at that man though, still looking at the old guy who he also felt bad for after hearing that.

Zach sat there and asked the old man about what led him to be out there for so long. The hobo told Zach his life story, his voice steady and his tone not regretful, nor hopeful, just accepting of the circumstances he discussed. He was an only child, never had a family of his own, and his last living relative was a distant cousin who died in the SFI. Apparently there was a medical condition that ran in his family, making it so most of his relatives had died young. He thought he would die early too, but it turned out he was the exception and learned too late just how much time he had. "…We have nice welfare programs here. Get sick out on the streets, our hospitals still have to treat you. Different shelters every week, especially during the winter around now," the older man paused for a second and he rubbed his hands together, resting his half-eaten burger down on his lap. "They want us out during the day, looking for jobs and such. Isn't enough food to give us three meals either, but a nice dinner served by kind youngsters like yourself, a cot in a old church with the heat on-"

"You don't plan to live like that forever, do you?" Zach asked. He looked at the old guy skeptically, and the man telling all this in a somewhat jovial tone lowered his half smile. He looked back at Zach curiously, before leaning back a bit at Zach's disapproving look again. "You learned you had longer to live, so now you're just waiting to die?"

"You don't know how badly I screwed up my life," the man replied, shaking his head with a low chuckle at Zach and the other homeless man looking towards him. He lifted his burger and took a bite, turning and looking out of the alley and across the road to a group of three just walking down the sidewalk during the day. There was a man, his wife, and their daughter in between them. A woman's face appeared in his mind, and the old man looked older as he lowered his eyes down to the floor with a sigh. "It's too late. When you think you're going to die, sometimes you do things you can't come back from."

Zach lowered his eyes to the floor of the alley. A woman's face appeared in his own mind. Cuffed to a pole, a terrified look on her face, a gun aimed in between her eyes… "That's not true," Zach said. The old man frowned more and turned back, only to see a similar look as was just on his face still on Lifebringer's. He froze before telling the kid he did not know what he was talking about, his eyes growing wider as he decided that might not be true. "You can come back from anything," Zach said. He stared into the guy's old, sad eyes, that just got sadder for a second after hearing that like Zach did not know what he was saying. "I mean it. Anything," Zach repeated. He turned to his left, looked at the man who had just held a knife to his throat a few minutes ago.

Zach reached into a paper bag on his side on the dumpster's lid, and he reluctantly pulled out another burger that he placed down on the lid as he hopped off himself. He tossed the crumpled wrapper of the one he already ate into the open lid next to his would-be robber, then he reached down and picked up the other burger he knocked some dirt off the wrapping of. Zach started unwrapping that other burger the man knocked out of his hand before, a cheeseburger. "It's never too late to turn it around," Zach said. He looked to the older man again, then ahead at the one who grit his teeth and looked away, feeling his shame but also anger towards the teen telling him this despite being the reason he was in this situation in the first place.

"Japan will change its ways soon," Zach said. The man gritting his teeth in anger rose his eyes back up to Zach's, confused and then widening as the kid continued. "When the government realizes what you already have. Once enough people start yelling at the reps what's happening out here. They're slow to change, and they're slower when the people who need that change the most don't do anything to bring that change themselves." Zach frowned at the guy staring in sheer confusion back at him. "You think it's my fault? Other countries that are allowing Quirks are doing better now. Allowing wider use of Quirks has made those places safer, but the positives aren't just limited to crime, and when our government sees that, change will come. And if _you_ want to make that happen quicker, then you should protest and lobby the government. Gather up all the other laid-off workers to have a bigger voice, and the companies that haven't gone under yet too but share the same concerns that they might soon fail like yours did. Go on social media and complain about what happened, people will share it. Find people who feel the same and your protests will get bigger, and they'll have to listen to you and change things, or you can vote them out of office in favor of someone who decides to run for you."

Zach paused for a second, then he said in a steady and strong voice as he stared into the laid-off worker's eyes, "In a democracy, everyone has one vote. It's fair. Some people think that means since they only have one vote, it doesn't matter. But democracy's more than that. Taking part in it, to change things the way you want them to change, it's not impossible." Zach shook his head like it was simple, making the man giving him a look that said 'It's not that simple' freeze and start to question his own belief on that matter. "Have you tried it yet?" Zach asked. "The things I'm telling you? You tried all these things, before pulling a knife on a teenager and trying to rob him? A hero, no less." Zach gave the guy a harsh glare, and he added as the man leaned back nervously, "And if while doing all that work to get your old job back, to get the government to change things so your job comes back, you need money, then go get a job! The Burger Lando I just went to had a job opening. I know it's not your career. It's not what you want to do for the rest of your life. But it's better than this," Zach motioned around him.

He turned towards the man near the end of the alley. "I'm Quirkless," the old man said when Zach turned to him. The guy sighed and despite being impressed with Zach's speech to his fellow hobo, he just shook his head at the aspect of going out and finding a job. "If things do go as you say, and Japan changes to allow Quirks to be used in the workplace, there will be fewer and fewer jobs for people like me."

"That's wrong," Zach countered back. The white-haired man looked at Zach in surprise, and Zach stepped towards him and gave him a harsh look too. "Jobs that don't require Quirks will still be out there. Not all of them will be replaced when things do change, as I think things will. A lot of _new_ jobs are going to form, as new technology and entirely new lines of work and created when super powers become something people use in their daily lives. And yet as many niche jobs appear for people with specific Quirks, _every_ job won't be assisted by the use of a Quirk. Even after Quirks become useful in the workplace, people aren't going to just decide as kids what job they want because that's the Quirk they were born with, so the majority of people's Quirks won't even be useful for whatever job they have." Zach stared at the man looking up at him with wide eyes and also a bit of frustration that Zach countered him. "You _can_ do it. Finding a job, I know you can. And you can get back on your feet. You're right, Japan's health care is great. You have decades left, and what quality of life is this? Get out there, and get back on your feet."

"You say it like it's easy," the man in the dumpster said, keeping his voice low though Zach still heard it.

Zach paused with his eyes looking down, then he turned and rose them to the guy who just said that. "You're right," Zach said. He looked back at the old man and nodded, admitting it with his look. "It's hard. It's harder than sitting here, waiting for hand-outs, and taking the dinners offered to you, and sleeping in a warm building that changes each night, or might not even be available sometimes. Those nights must be cold," Zach looked to the old guy who had been out there for years, who got a darker and more knowing look on his face than the newly homeless man. "But life, isn't easy." Zach looked back and forth at the two he was standing between. "It's not easy for anyone. It's really… really hard sometimes," in Zach's voice slipped through some pain, experience and knowledge of the hardships he was talking about. The scars on his face, on his neck, and the look in his eyes, it had the two men feeling sorry for themselves and trying to argue their ways out of this unable to keep on saying he was wrong.

"So, this is it," Zach said. His voice was still low, but it sounded like he was offering something when he rose his head to the man in the dumpster. "Try the things I said, and maybe you can change things sooner. In the meantime, the Burger Lando job. You could be a Ryde driver or something, maybe a Ryde Eats and rent a bike if you can't get a car because your credit is low after your eviction." Zach reached down into a pocket, in his sweatshirt below his jacket, and he pulled his hand back out with a pair of bills in it. "Get yourself cleaned up. Go to a bathhouse, rent a suit or just get a clean pair of clothes," Zach stepped up in front of the dumpster, and he shoved the ten thousand yen bill into the man's chest, making him reach his hands up as the palm hit him pretty hard with that bill in it.

Zach stared into the man's eyes from up close, his hand still pressed into the guy's chest. "There's a lot you can do before robbing someone. Robbing someone is like giving up. Accepting you'll be thrown in jail. And that might seem like an easy time from outside, getting three meals a day and a feeling of security that you don't need to take care of yourself anymore. The _easy_ way. But that's also the coward's way out, because you're afraid you'll fail if you try things the way I said. You've failed before." Zach curled his hand into the man's heavy jacket, then he let go, leaving the man holding a bill worth around $100 against his chest. "Try again. Try harder. Jail sucks, trust me," Zach said that with a half-joking smirk, but he continued in a serious voice. "You'll be thrown in with actual villains."

Zach turned and started back towards the end of the alley. He walked up to the man who had been leaning on the wall, but was now on his knees as he had been for a minute staring at Zach with huge shaking eyes. Zach got down on a knee in front of the old man who looked to be in his sixties, but who might have been younger now that Zach got a close look and saw how much the time on the street had worn him down. "I know trying is hard, especially after so many failures. I know," Zach repeated it, his eyes boring straight into the older man's as he reached down and grabbed one of the man's hands. He turned the guy's hand over and then curled it around the other ten thousand yen bill he had pulled out. "But look at me," Zach said, cracking a smile at the old guy after handing him money, while telling him to get back on his feet and do better in life. "Here I am trying to be a hero again," Zach stood up in front of the man and glanced back at the guy in the dumpster staring at Zach in shock, as that was absolutely true after all they had just heard.

"I never thought they'd let me. Never thought I'd get back to this place." Zach looked up and around him, a bright, hopeful smile on his face looking to the future. He looked back at either of the men in the alley with him, one who stood up just on his right and the other who finally climbed out of the dumpster. A hero listened too from just above, an ear through the wall just over a fire-escape above the dumpster. Zach looked confidently at the men in front of him who had stunned, disbelieving looks on their faces as they stared at Lifebringer at the edge of their alleyway. "I kept trying though," Zach said, "and sooner or later, things got better. That's what happens. But, only if you try."

"So try," Zach said. It was as simple as that, and that was the tone he used to get that message through as he turned away from them.

"Wh-What if it doesn't work-"

"Then you try again," Zach said. "It's why they call it 'trying,' because you don't know if it will work." Zach looked back over his shoulder, "But no one's ever succeeded at anything, without trying first."

* * *

 **A/N Thanks for reading. Had a different message down here the first time. My grammar and spelling might be off in the chapter as I changed more the first time around too. I finished editing completely, then I accidentally closed the tab and all my edits of 2 hours were deleted. It's happened to me maybe 12 times before and I thought I got better at this, but it always just catches you off guard when you're not thinking about it. Anyway, would've had this out a lot earlier today but needed to chill after getting real pissed. Some wise words from Zach at the end to the homeless, flashback to Endeavor and Mark, and we see Todoroki and Lemillion doing their best to get dirt on Lifebringer- a.k.a. Death. Hope you enjoyed the chapter! Leave a review below telling me what you think, comments, questions, and predictions for what's to come!**

diddles321 chapter 151 . Apr 20

Totally confused as to which girls have what description at this point. Dont worry though keep up the good work! Also I had a thought about Zach using Death to create Susanoo from Naruto and now I can't get it out my head lol.

 **Only been a couple chapters with them so no need to worry. Reika's the blond, strong, Tide girl, Himazuri's the mind-reading brunette, Manzo dark-red hair ninja, Muoko glasses and class rep, Bibi the gray hair with long bangs covering the eyes, Jaime is the American exchange girl (I think those are all the Shiketsu girls I've introduced so far). Just a refresher. And who knows, maybe Zach will be Susanoo-ing in the near futures... weirder things have happened. ;)**

PHD in oof chapter 151 . Apr 21

I enjoyed the story, I like how to try to be creative with all the different possible powers and how they can be used. A slight problem I've noticed that was pretty frequent in the beginning (a little less so towards the end) is that you tend to put commas in dialogue when they don't really add anything and just end up making the dialogue sound stilted. Other than that I think it's fine. Zach's kind of a dick, but it's fun watching him interact with the others. Also how the hell do you get out chapters that fast? It takes me like a month to get 5k words down lmao.

 **Glad you've liked it so far! Commas in the dialogue I use when they're not grammatically correct to signify a pause in the character's speech instead. Reason it may have come up more in the past than now, might be because Zach's gained a lot of confidence since the early chapters and doesn't hesitate when he speaks as much anymore. The pauses aren't just for nerves, but also subtle things like emphasis, or if you read it aloud in the character's voice the comma could be a dramatic pause for a second. I also use ellipses (...) and hyphens a lot in the dialogue to try and show a more fluid way of how people would speak, long pauses and sudden cut-offs, (the dot dot dots are longer pauses than the commas, is really what I'm saying here). Just write really fast. That's the only real secret. Plus, my studies are really boring compared to my imagination and this story, so I just prefer to spend most of my time on this! XD Lol thanks for the review and I hope you continue to enjoy Death.**

Guest chapter 151 . Apr 20

First Lifesaver and now All Slice. These new gen heroes are ridding on the nostalgia of their senpais.

 **Happens a lot: Red Riot, Ingenium... All Tight was another character I mentioned earlier in the story, figure if Crimson Riot can influence Kirishima's name, All Might's probably influenced a ton of other heroes to follow in his footsteps. Zeira and Dendo've got their heroes too... and they've got a lot to live up to riding on those names. Thanks for reviewing!**

verse chapter 151 . Apr 20

Nexus héroes end ?

 **Someday I'll get back to it, once Death is finished. And there is an end in sight: (40-50 chapters from now).**

Guest chapter 151 . Apr 21

I. NEED. MOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOORRREEE.

 **More coming soon! Sorry not gonna do a lot of responses today guys- again, just edited this chapter for the 2nd time, and spent the last two days writing my thesis nonstop just to do this soon as I got it in. Graduation in 19 days! Looking forward to it and what's to come afterwards. Post the next chapter in the next few days! Cya!**


	153. Chapter 153

**Disclaimer: I don't own Boku no Hero Academia**

 **Chapter 153:**

 _I hope that worked. They really seemed motivated by the end of that._ Zach walked down a sidewalk of Yutapu, his mask pulled down off his face to just cover his neck. He was not hiding very much, but also not trying to stand out. There were enough people out though now that some would recognize him even with the mask up, and if they started recording with him looking like that in the middle of the day it might come off as trying to hide. _I could have left them on the more optimistic note though. I should have made the threat earlier on. I didn't even think it was necessary at that point, but it needed to be said. "I know you said it was only because it was me, but if I hear you do try robbing someone again, I'll get myself thrown back in Tartaros and…"_

Zach rubbed the back of his head below the bottom of his beanie. _He needed some tough love though. Both of them did. Can't just be the nice guy there. Carrot and a stick. Incentives to do better. Threats if they do worse._ Zach pulled out his phone and checked the time. _Still have time before night. Gets dark early enough though. And colder, which means fewer people on the streets, which means more opportunities to catch the fuckers making this the bad part of town._

 _Might as well practice on the move._ Zach pulled out his headphones, opened up some downloads on his phone with a _lot_ of data on it, and he started listening to a lesson in intermediate Korean. _I'll stop at the All Might Park nearby. There've gotta be a hundred of those around the country. Reading Korean's my worst, so there's no point doing this lesson without using the supplemental videos._

Zach went to the park close to Junomonji Station, in the worst neighborhood in Yutapu far from his apartment and even farther from Shiketsu. Despite the status as a bad neighborhood, that was still only relative, and it was still a safe place during the day for families to bring their children. Zach frowned at one point as a family left the park's playground near him. _"Mutant" type Quirks are too frequent in areas like this. It's more expensive for a lot of their clothes and special needs for housing, must be a burden on them. Discrimination isn't bad in Japan at all, not compared to some places around the world. Don't like that this is known as the bad neighborhood though, with a lot of unique-looking people in the area. Well, maybe it's not as disproportionate as I thought._ Zach watched as some children with just brown skin and black hair came to the playground with their parents, only one of whom actually had a single horn sticking out of his forehead to make him look a bit less like a "normal" human.

He got back to his Korean lesson, but a few minutes after he saw the new people arrive at the park, the kids were the ones who ran up and called him out on being Lifebringer. The parents were initially ignoring him, but they looked closer when their curious kids who ran over called out his name. Zach took pictures with the kids, then the parents came over to talk to him after getting as many pics as they could. The kids got back to their games, losing interest quicker than the adults who wanted to know if Zach had moved into their neighborhood. He said he was just walking around the whole city, and that this was a nice place to sit down and get some work done. He mentioned how he had lost track of time because of how nice it was around there though, as he knew he had to be the one to get going or they would stay and talk to him all day.

Zach apologized as they seemed to want to talk to him longer, but he waved his phone he had looked at before mentioning how long he had been there, reminding them and himself about how he had to go. The kids called goodbye towards him, and as soon as Zach left he went into guard mode and watched out for the rooftops around him and alleyways cutting between houses. _Geez, how long is this guy going to follow me? I've literally done nothing all day. Nothing that should bother you at least. You didn't try to arrest my mugger either, so that's good. You know I'd know what happened if he gets arrested now. Must be tough for you. Well, unless you come out soon, it's only going to get harder. I'm about to make your job suck._

 _He's not heading back. It's going to get dark soon. What are your intentions for tonight?_ Lemillion watched his target carefully yet from a distance. _He has one strike already. Letting that villain go after the man tried robbing him. He paid the guy instead! Rewarded him… no matter what he said, he paid a man who just tried to steal from him. Armed robbery. Assault with a deadly weapon. He really listened to a sob story and just let the man off?! The guy could have pulled all that out of his ass!_

 _Lifebringer can't be that naive. Is he going to keep tabs on them after what he just did? The threat he made at the end is the only thing that might work, not that he'd go through with it._ Lemillion frowned deeper, _Though the mugger definitely believed him. What are you doing? What are you planning right now?!_ Lemillion pulled out another nutrition bar and chowed into it, frowning frustratedly as he was spending hours watching Zach Sazaki spend most of his time studying.

Zach went to a nearby dive bar. The place also sold food so there was no bouncer checking I.D.'s, and Zach was only there for some ramen anyway. He took off his hat and mask when he sat down though, drawing attention to himself before he removed his outer gloves to show the single black one on his right hand. He draped his jacket over the chair he sat at, on an aisle of chairs all against one counter crossing the middle of the room. He took the corner one closest to the wall but before the curve where there was a higher counter and a couple stools behind him for when the place got crowded.

 _Doesn't look like a place like this would get very crowded. The guys here seem to know the bartender, and cook. Is it just the two of them working here? Guy behind the bar looks flustered, isn't telling someone else to get ready, so he's coming himself._ Zach pulled out his phone and removed his second earphone, putting it down in his pocket and pausing the news' story he had been listening to as it developed. The story was in Spanish, and the villain attack was developing on the opposite side of the world. _I'm sure someone's got that._

The waiter, bartender, and apparently owner of the dive came to Zach and welcomed him. Zach saw the older men at the front bar, and the chef poking his head out of the kitchen, all looking towards him with different looks, but none too nervous that would make him get suspicious of them. The waiter's attitude was also just more nervous as he wondered what Lifebringer was doing at his place, since there had to be a reason other than food, right? Zach just ordered some ramen though, a large bowl with extra meat on it and a side of white rice and dumplings since there was a special meal deal. He asked for just water when the waiter questioned about that, and the guy went and got a pitcher and filled it up, bringing it back to Zach's counter with a reusable plastic cup.

Zach ate dinner in relative peace. One of the older men at the bar, a guy in his early fifties, came over to him and mentioned how he thought Zach had always been in the right. Saved one of his clients at the Sports Festival, and killing Kurogiri- Zach had to cut him off there, saying as he shook his head that killing Kurogiri was wrong of him. "Yeah yeah," the older man said after pausing and giving Zach a skeptical look to see if that was just his public line or if he really felt that way. "Well either way. I slept better at night knowing he was gone."

Zach finished up his food, then he walked up to the bar and talked to the four in there from when he arrived. Neither of the two who were already there left before him, but no one else had arrived either. It was dark out now instead of just dusk, and Zach got a bit more of a serious look on his face. He asked about the neighborhood, about how he had heard it wasn't too great in the area and if they knew why that was. This time, Zach saw the waiter/owner's face get a bit more suspicious of a tone in the nervous look he had at Lifebringer's line of questioning. The older men did not know, and the chef went back into the kitchen to prepare for the "dinner rush," not that anyone else had come in yet.

He pushed a little harder on the waiter for looking like he knew something, which was all it took for the guy to quickly deny it too forcefully, which the guy instantly knew looked more suspicious itself. "If you want to ask someone, talk to the Karbo brothers!"

"At the coffee shop?" The older man on Zach's right asked. Zach had gotten between the two at the bar as he asked the man on the other side of it, staying between everyone right in the middle of the discussion. The guy on Zach's right was the one who thanked him before, and he mentioned as he nodded his head, "Those two always did seem a bit fishy. Brew a good coffee though. Better than that Moondollars' garbage."

His friend on his left side nodded in agreement with that. "Find it strange they stay open so late. Who needs a coffee at night anyway?"

"I could use one," Zach said, putting the money for his dinner down on the counter with his bill he already had and was not paying yet. "Keep the change. The ramen was great!" Zach called it over towards the entry into the kitchen, then he turned and started for the exit of the bar.

"Karbo Kafe," one of the older men behind Zach called to his back.

Zach rose a hand in goodbye and thanks to the man who just said that, then he walked out of the building and out onto a nearly empty road. He saw a couple men to his left heading his direction, and he turned right while pulling his mask back up his face. _Karbo Kafe's not too far. Everyone knows everyone in this district. That's great. If guys who aren't involved in anything know who seems up to something, then the ones actually involved and being more careful must have a lot._ Zach chuckled under his breath as the men behind him headed into the bar, imagining the talk they were going to have with the people he had spent dinner with. _Was actually pretty good for a place like that. Chef took some pride in it. Might've just been since he was serving Lifebringer. Nice that people try harder for me. Even those burgers earlier were above regular fast food quality. Japan's fast food really is the best though…_

Lemillion trailed after Zach, his eyes dark as he watched the boy whose conversations he kept eavesdropping on from nearby places. _He already knows where this cafe is. He's been scouting out the area all afternoon while studying Korean. He knows this layout, maybe even some of those papers at the library he's got the original designs for buildings and the district's set-up. Lifebringer's moving cautiously. He's not just rushing into this, looking for a criminal to fight. It's like he has a plan, yet without villains he's actually after. He could be looking for something that isn't even there. Does he have a hunch?_ Lemillion gazed carefully towards his target's back, but Zach was not jogging or drawing any unwanted attention to himself. It was dark now, and wearing a black mask to cover the bottom half of his face was not suspicious at all as it got colder. Lemillion had put on a mask of his own not too long ago, and he grimaced as a frigid wind blew by the top of the building he was crouched on currently.

After watching Zach eat such a nice meal, Lemillion wished he had brought something more substantial than the bland energy bars he had been eating all day. _He can disappear at any time. If he suspects someone was listening to that conversation too, he could pretend to be heading towards the Karbo Kafe only to go somewhere else when the people following lay in wait at that location. This could be where he tries to slip me! If it's a ploy to…_

Zach turned on the street of the cafe, and he crossed the street after looking both ways. He jogged across in case any cars did turn so he would not slow them down, then he made his way towards the coffee shop while rubbing his hands together in front of him. _This is going to be tough, but stay out of my way._ Zach got closer to the coffee shop that had the lights on inside. The street was a side road that was empty of most businesses save a bookstore back on the corner and another bar that served some food just past it down the road a couple apartments. The apartments looked occupied with some lights on inside, some laundry hanging out on balconies, and there was a dark apartment above the cafe Zach figured the brothers also owned and lived in.

 _I don't want to call you out. It would be this big thing where people learn the government is keeping tabs on me, people could get fired, and if it ever comes out that I really was him then everyone would be even more upset that I caused so much controversy that they all defended me so strongly over. I don't want to do it. You don't want to call me out without sufficient proof. Even if I do something bad here, it's not what you're looking to prove. It'll give you more just-cause to keep following me around though, but you'd follow me anyway. So fuck it. Let's see how you deal._

Zach walked into the cafe, and he started rubbing his hands together again like he only stopped because he had to grab the door handle. "It is freezing out there," Zach said as he rubbed his winter gloves.

The two men in the place were sitting behind the counter, eating some dinner themselves. One of them was a wide man, broad shoulders that seemed pointy from what Zach could see through his shirt, though they might have had rounded edges just like his pointy head that rounded at the top. The man was bald, though he had a cap backwards on his head with a hole in the middle that his rounded tip went through. The other man had bright red skin, was skinnier than his brother, and he had four eyes with a pair of four-lensed glasses over them. He had two earrings in his right ear, his larger brother had a chin covered in brown ragged facial hair, and neither were wearing a specific uniform for the place but instead just some casual and warm clothes.

The men in sweats and long-sleeved shirts looked towards the door, and the skinner Karbo with red skin frowned at the tall figure who just came in looking like he needed to warm up. It was heated in their place, but this was a business. "Oi, you here for coffee?"

Zach looked over, then he hesitated at the look he received from the men like he was realizing he could not just stay inside unless he did get one. "Uh, yeah. Yeah, could I get a small coffee? Black's fine," he added, like he did not want to put them through much trouble. It was trouble enough though, interrupting their dinner and then staying to waste their time with the cheapest thing he could get.

The skinner man grunted and looked away. "Fine," he started over to a coffee machine. He could not well turn away paying customers, as much as it did annoy him that someone came in during dinner when usually no one was around.

Zach walked towards the counter, but he stayed to the side where he could see partially through an propped-open door into a back room. Zach leaned his head to the side and looked in there, then he turned back to the broad fellow with the pointy head that was still just an inch above his own head. "Not very busy tonight, huh?" Zach asked the man, keeping his voice friendly though in a different tone than his usual one that might be recognizable on the news. Only a piece of his scar under his right eye was visible, not noticeable enough for the men to realize anything yet though. The guy did not respond to Zach as his thinner brother was fetching coffee, giving Zach a dark look instead because of his interruption of the brothers' conversation and dinner.

Zach leaned back, looking slightly intimidated like the man was trying to do to him. "Oh, yeah, I guess you wouldn't be," Zach said, nodding in understanding like that look was telling him not to ask stupid questions. He kept speaking rapidly though, a nervous talker apparently. "Must not get a lot of business at all at times like this. I'd ask how you pay your employees keeping a cafe like this up all night, but you both run this place together right? The Karbos?" Zach motioned his head back like he figured it out from the sign.

The larger man grunted again, while the one brewing Zach a fresh cup of coffee glanced back over his shoulder for a second at the questions only to turn forward as it did not seem like anything. Something put off the four-eyed man though, for some reason making his stomach churn with a pit of dread he could not shake. "The apostrophe's in the wrong place though, I mean," Zach continued, only hesitating after he said it like he realized he might be insulting them. The muscular guy with pointy shoulders and head just gave him a confused look though, before looking past towards a window at the front of the shop with their cafe's name on it. "Karbo's Kafe, the apostrophe should be after your names. It seems like it just belongs to one of you this way."

"It belongs to the family," the thinner man said, his voice annoyed that he had to explain it. "To the family name. Get it?"

"Yeah, yeah, that makes sense," Zach said apologetically. He pulled back while saying it too, and now he had them completely thinking he was an innocent, unthreatening person who made nervous conversation about grammar. "Um, but still," Zach continued, making the two both start getting angrier. The red brother, his thicker brother's older twin despite them looking so different, cancelled the brewing process to just get the coffee out sooner. "Keeping the place open so late without making much sales, it must be a waste of like, the power? I don't know. Do you guys sell other stuff too?"

The man right behind the counter smirked big at the question, and he snorted at the nervous man before him still wearing all his winter gear. It looked like the customer was ready to get out of there as quickly as possible. Not taking off any clothes gave off a sense of insecurity, a nervous personality, unable to let go at all and that he was intimidated into being ready to run at any time. "L-Like what about those bags?" Zach motioned towards the back room that the big guy looked towards with his smile dropping down, into a deep and angry frown.

The other brother making Zach's coffee stopped pouring. He turned and glared at the customer who was still looking back at the back room without realizing how the others started to look. "What is that stuff? You guys like, making-"

"Hey," the thinner brother started back towards the counter with a coffee. Zach looked back and his eyes grew wide and very nervous at the way the man was looking at him. "A thousand yen," he said, putting the cup on the counter in front of his cold customer.

Zach's eyes widened more. The cup of coffee was small, and his eyes darted up to a board with the prices on it. "But, a small is only-"

"Aniki, I don't think he heard you," the large man started towards the corner of the counter. He walked past the back door, reaching inside and grabbing the doorknob to pull the door shut. As it was about closed, he slammed it and gave the customer a dark look. "A thousand. You have a problem with that?"

"Get the fuck out of our store," the older brother behind the counter said. His voice was steady, but cold, and his eyes were dark as they stared at the customer who darted a gaze back to him. "Go on. Out into the cold with you," he waved a hand towards the door like he was shooing him away.

"Uh- can I get the coffee first-" Zach started reaching for his pocket and the coffee at the same time.

"My brother just told you to go," the big man walking towards Zach on this side of the counter started. He glared darkly at the part of Zach's face uncovered by his mask. Zach's hazel eyes narrowed back though, but from a man who had made himself out to be so un-intimidating, the look did not get well received by the bigger man. "We said, get the fuck-"

Zach's left hand snapped up, and he caught the big man by his wrist. "You threatening me?" Zach asked.

The older twin behind the counter ground his teeth in a furious way. "Ondo! Get him-" he started snapping at his brother to throw the customer out, to stop looking so pathetic getting caught like that, but his face covered in fear instead at the look of pain covering his brother's face. Zach twisted his wrist, and the brother on his left side dropped to his knees as his arm was bent in a way that not falling would have put him through excruciating pain. "Wh-What are… Who are you?"

The man behind the counter was reaching down to his waist behind his back. Zach stared into his eyes in a way that made the man's hand stop lowering, and move back in front of him where Zach could see. Zach lifted his right hand towards his face, and he slowly pulled his mask down. The man behind the counter and the one cowering down on Zach's left stared at his face in sheer panic and terror, the bigger man's whimpers cutting off at the sight.

Zach let go of the vice grip with his left hand. He took off his heavy gloves and put them down into his jacket's pocket, then he reached his right hand forward and took his coffee. "You brothers have no idea how screwed you are now." Zach took a sip, then he put his coffee back down on the counter. "A cream and sugar, please," Zach requested.

Ondo Karbo got up and scrambled back away from Lifebringer. He gulped, then he made his way behind the counter quickly like putting that small barrier between them would protect him. "Omalo," Ondo whispered, looking towards his older twin in a nervous way.

"What are you doing here, hero? You don't have a warrant-" Omalo paused at Zach's smirk that rose at what he was saying.

"I was just here for a coffee," Zach said in an innocent voice, shaking his head confusedly at why Omalo would think he needed a warrant. "It was your brother, a co-owner of this cafe, who came at me as you both threatened me."

"We didn't know who-" Ondo started countering loudly.

"So if I was a regular Japanese citizen, it would have been okay for you to violently throw them out of your store, just for questioning you about a jacked price?" Zach questioned it in a softer voice, in a tone that told Ondo not to raise his voice that loud again and had the pointy-shouldered man gulping again in fear. "And why was it you jacked the price?" Zach continued calmly. "You didn't like what I said about what's in the back, did you? Why not? What could have been, in those bags I saw?"

"You don't…" Omalo started, but he ground his teeth as he stopped himself.

"That's right. Now that there's an active crime here- attempted assault on a hero, I have certain rights don't I?" Omalo stared right back in Zach's eyes as he was saying this. His expression fell as Zach continued in a lower voice, "A man like you would know exactly what those rights are, in order to protect himself."

"Aniki," Ondo whispered, his fists clenching as he got closer to his brother.

 _Strength in numbers won't work. Not with me. You know it. Your brother seems a little slower. Better stop him._ Omalo lifted his right hand in a bit of a 'stop' motion at his brother, calming Ondo who thought his brother had a plan.

"Don't try to run," Zach continued. He took his coffee that Omalo brought back with what he asked for in it. He walked towards the end of the counter and around it, and he leaned back on the same counter the brothers were leaning on as they ate dinner before. The scar-faced teen calmly stuck his finger into one of the man's dinner and licked his finger of the curry. "That's good," Zach said, nodding with a smile at the taste. Then he picked up their dinners, and he dropped them into a trash can behind the counter on his right. He looked to the two and shook his head again, then he turned left and opened the back door that Ondo might have slammed but did not lock afterwards.

Ondo made to climb over the counter, but Omalo grabbed him and yanked him back to stand still. "Chill, brother. Stay cool," Omalo said. His voice was soothing and in control, getting Ondo to calm down too. At the same time, Omalo had sweat coming down both sides of his face. _Oh fuck. Fuck! He's Death! Everyone knows it. I should have listened to the Gunzos, I should've quit when I was ahead. Fucking Death is right in front of me. This is no time to lose my shit. It's Death. Death. He doesn't do things like heroes. I have no fucking idea how he'll do this. He's not treating this like a crime scene though. He's leaving opportunities open… oh shit._

Zach nodded at what he saw in the back room. Then he stepped back out and looked to the brothers again. "Ondo, and Omalo," Zach said, nodding to each of the brothers as he said their names. "You're involved in the black market for Quirk drugs." Zach stepped towards them, picked up his coffee off the counter and took a sip. His expression was calm, and he lifted his free hand and waved it in front of him a couple times, rolling it like he was telling them to start talking.

"Trigger, Double Trigger, Effectless," Zach named the drugs confidently, like he already knew it all before coming in here and he was listing off their crimes. Effectless was the street name for a weaker Trigger with fewer side effects that also gives a stimulant sort of overconfidence. People snort it, and he actually saw some in the back room despite having lied about that at first. Saying he saw 'bag's was always an easy way to make people nervous. Too many illegal things were kept in bags around the world. Zach continued after his pause, his eyes darkening, "Cocain, Spur, Kick-"

"We don't do Kick-" Ondo started, only to get a strong elbow from his brother on his side who could have face-palmed if what his brother just said wasn't so fucking damning.

Ondo seemed to realize what he just did himself too, a look of despair covering his face as well as one of anger as he felt Zach tricked him. Zach just took another sip from his coffee though, his expression calming Omalo down. Omalo turned to the coffee pot that still had some left in it, and he got out another paper cup to pour himself some. Zach did not stop him, though he saw Omalo was testing the water to see how much he could get away with.

Ondo was shocked at his brother's balls though, and he decided to just keep his mouth shut as hopefully Omalo knew what he was doing. On the other hand, Lemillion was glaring furiously at the wall from inside the back room he was listening from silently. His teeth were clenched, but he stayed mostly on the other side in the small turnaround space with stairs up to the apartment above. Only his head was through the wall, just close enough that he could hear what was happening. _Call the police, Sazaki. Do it now. This isn't your job! You have a provisional license. You can't work on your own, not like this! When you see a crime you need to report it!_

"All I want is information," Zach said. "Your suppliers," he added, getting more specific and watching Omalo to see what he would do.

"No can do," Omalo replied.

Ondo spun to his brother, then nervously turned back to Lifebrigner who he frowned at in a more villainous way ready to fight if need be. The boy in front of them did not say anything for a moment. He stood there letting the two stare at his face covered in scars, his split ear, his neck that was partially covered by a mask but they both knew there were even more scars on. "Alright, I just want to know the supplier for Double Trigger." Zach narrowed it more and stared into Omalo as he offered it up. Just one thing, with the connotation that it would help the Karbo brothers out.

"Gives an extra boost after the first peak, which ultimately leaves people stronger than before," Zach explained. He continued darker, "But also leaves them disfigured, and less mentally stable. Some people accept those side effects though for a stronger Quirk, and more might as using Quirks become more acceptable, and it's bad news." Zach paused. He looked darkly at Omalo, _I'm surprised they actually have a connect. Double's hard to come by. They're involved with a lot. They might not have it all on them right now, small-time as they are, but Ondo made it clear Kick was the first one I mentioned that they've never peddled._

"I can't tell you," Omalo said.

 _The wording's different. "No can do," indicated a more finality. This time, the tone with it, it's like he's saying he can't because of certain reasons. Well, I'll quell your concerns about those reasons._ Zach nodded in understanding, but he spoke darkly, "If you keep selling that stuff, I'd have to arrest you." The first sentence indicated that he might not arrest them, and that their intense fears about this situation being the end of their free lives were dashed by some hope. Then black wisps came out of Zach's hands making that hope shaky too, making them unstable and their faces cover in fear as the brief hope made them realize how scared they actually were of losing that freedom. "You don't need to worry, since I don't give away my informants. No one will know you snitched. You can stop after too without raising too much suspicion, trying to just lay low as people you knew and were in business with got caught. No one would think twice about it."

Zach lowered his voice, "But you _will_ tell me." His black wisps disappeared, but he did not need them to stay looking as menacing to the men as any person they had ever seen before.

Ten minutes later, Zach lowered his phone that he took some notes on during his conversation with the Karbos. They were both drinking coffee with him now, as he repeated his assurances to them a couple of times which got them to calm down and start getting friendlier with him. With Ondo it just happened naturally, while Zach could tell Omalo was trying to make Zach his friend so that Zach would sympathize with them and not turn on them at a later date. He got some good information to leave with, but he finished by first threatening them in a similarly scary way as he threatened a homeless man earlier. This time he added on that they had to destroy all the drugs they currently had too. He knew they would lose a bit of money doing so, as they already paid for them. But that's what making risky investments is all about. Sometimes you lose everything. "Try stocks instead," Zach suggested, before turning and grabbing the handle of the cafe's door. "I'll know if you don't do what I said."

He left, his new informants that he would check in with again soon watching him through the windows with fear all over their faces. _You might not want to tell me about the others now, but after a few days of being out of it, the others will start threatening you. Telling you to get back in, stop being pussies, maybe even threatening you themselves. You'll be happy to be rid of them. For now, I'll stick with Double. I haven't heard anything about it being in Japan, so either it's small or it's new. Either way, I need to prevent it from getting big. It could be small because of Japan's low tolerance of Quirk usage outside of hero activities or training by heroes. Making a Quirk stronger doesn't do much here, not like in some countries where they can use Quirks at their jobs and actually get a pretty big pay raise if they could do more. It's not a bad idea, which means a lot of people are willing to do it, screw the consequences…_

Zach headed to the train station, and he traveled four stops away. It was no longer the heart of the worst area in town, but it was nearby and still not in a great neighborhood. There were no high-rises in the area. There were a few industrial structures farther out from the train station than the initial residential and commercial area, and one of the old warehouses had been transformed into a club similar to the ones on the commercial strip. _Innovative,_ Zach thought, figuring the people who bought the warehouse made a lot of money flipping it like that.

He headed past that warehouse night-club though. He went past a couple other industrial parks, businesses that were closed for the night or closing around the time he was passing them. There was a construction zone that was still packed with workers, bright floodlights on to allow them to work later. _Now here's the big question. Do the Karbos warn them and try to flee the country with whatever pocket change they have on them? Unlikely, but it's happened before even when I was certain the informants were solid. Sometimes they could trick me, and other times the fear they felt just fades as they convince themselves that they could have handled that better if given a second chance. They hype up how brave they are. But if they call Rancor now, they'd be telling him that they snitched about his location and telling me that they were going back on their word. They looked like they were going to destroy all their stashes as soon as I left._

Zach turned around the side of a building when he was still a fair distance from his desired location. Lemillion watched from nearby, his heart racing as he questioned what he should be doing right now. He had decided against calling the police and rushing to the location when he heard what the cafe owners told Sazaki. As much as catching them was a priority, he knew it would give him away to Sazaki. It would give away that a hero was following him. And he needed to see Sazaki do this himself. He needed more than just the kid threatening some shop owners who would never fess up to it happening, not once they destroyed their stashes so there was no proof of them ever being criminals in the first place. As much as he knew Sazaki needed to tell them to stop selling drugs too, he hated that Sazaki was giving up the leverage he had on them as the next time he ran into them, they wouldn't tell him anything.

Lemillion snuck after Lifebringer. He watched him from above and from a distance, staying even more hidden now as he knew the villains Sazaki was after could have lookouts too. Someone approaching like he was would be more suspicious than Lifebringer's approach too. The kid was not acting like he was hiding. He had his hoods up over his beanie, and he looked as sketchy as possible. His hands tweaked at his sides on occasion, even when no one else was watching him. He scratched the bottom left side of his face over his mask, and he looked around as if checking to make sure no one was watching him.

Zach made a wide loop around the building he was going for. _How am I doing this? Slowly moving up, sooner or later they're going to fight back. How big could these villains be? There are lots of big villain groups across the country. People consider the Radians most dangerous right now. Other than the hit on Midoriya's mom, and the base Lemillion and them found before I came back, there hasn't been any big news about the League at all recently. Nothing while I was in jail. They got a lot smaller. Easier to handle like at the beginning. Less control over everything, which is why all these other groups are free to do as they like without interruption from Shigaraki and Raijin._

 _Subspace Devils and Jazz too. Any of the three could be big. This could lead me to a lot more. They might not have told the Karbo brothers too, so them not knowing anything about what their group is called could mean jack shit. Rancor's guys. Rancor, and some guys he pays. That's what Karbo thought it was. Just some small time shit. Double in a country without reports of Double though, means it's coming from somewhere else. Means shipping and international drug trade, production from someone who is willing to spread to a market as small as Japan. Something with as little reward and as high risk, means they don't care about the risk, means they're big enough to feel invincible. They're spreading too far though. Too far too quickly, and now they're going to get a rude awakening. This is my country. This is my trade. You fuckers are going to get with it or get dead._

Zach walked towards the building he saw movement inside of. There was a garage that was closed, and a gate with a lock on it at the end of a driveway that was oddly clean when there were so many signs that this building was abandoned. There were no lights inside the warehouse, and the signs on the gate that said not to trespass were new. It looked like the fence was more well-kept than everything else, as if a warning to people in the area that people were serious about people not trespassing. There were warnings about penalties, and some signs of old construction like the building was owned by someone, just unfinished and that it would be a while for it to get to that point.

 _Likely only move in and out of there late at night. The scouts make sure no one else is around first. Luckily there is no 'shoot first ask questions later' policy in Japan. You can't do shit to me legally except call the police. And you won't want to call the police. You'll want to ignore me as much as you can._

Zach pushed part of the fence forward while pulling the other part back towards him. He crouched down and slipped through the fence, yanking his body through when his jacket got caught and then staggering forward after coming free. A small hole ripped in his jacket as he did that, some fabric strings waving off in a breeze afterwards, giving him more the appearance he was looking for in case anyone noticed the tiny things, like how clean his clothes were. He noticed he had caught a bit of a smell due to his time on the dumpster, but he aired out throughout the day and just had a bit of a sweaty smell now that would only be noticed if he was inside for long enough.

He tweaked his way across the industrial yard, staying off the driveway and towards a part of the area with the darkest shadows. He got around the side of the building, and he shook around the locked handle with a frustrated grunt or two for the guy watching him just upstairs. The woman was not even trying to hide as she looked down at him, as Zach yanked at the handle frustratedly without looking around at his surroundings. He glanced up, and he pulled back nervously only to shake his head around and rub his eyes with an arm before going back to pulling on the handle. The villain above him ground her teeth in anger that he thought she was a hallucination or something.

Then Zach opened the door. Her eyes opened wide, and she lifted a walkie back to her mouth while making her way back to the stairs herself.

 _I can't let Sazaki kill them. Is that why he's here? Is he trying to find even more villains after this?_ Lemillion slipped through a fence when he was sure the scouts he saw were watching Zach. He got close to the building quickly, right up against the wall and then inside of it and through into cramped spots. He was set up inside close to the villains before Zach even showed up. _I can't let these ones escape. No matter what, they'll be arrested for this. I'll get Sazaki too if he tries to let them go. Negligence and the crimes he's been committing, doing whatever this is! I won't let it continue. You can't just tell people not to commit crimes anymore. That's not…_

Zach walked through an old industrial complex, abandoned long enough ago that it was hard to tell what the place had been before what it was now. An abandoned old building, with signs of use inside but also signs that it was being made to look even more abandoned. There were areas where big machines were resting against the wall, rusting and covered in dust, while the floor next to them was oddly dust-free. There was a cracked window near there though, so it could have been the wind, and yet it could have also just been the dust was swept away to avoid footprints being seen on the floor.

He moved forward without caring to be quiet. Then he stopped his stumbling. Zach pulled his mask down, and his eyes were dark as he walked normally and with loud steps towards the room he knew they were in. He grabbed the doorknob and opened the door, and he stepped into a room that was lit-up so the light had been going under the crack in the door. There were no windows inside the room. It was attached to the garage, and Zach saw a pair of large trucks along with a couple of normal cars too. _What a hideout. Inside a city with a lot of heroes and a top hero high school, so less suspicious than an abandoned building out on its own. They've done a good job of keeping this hidden. If a hero had approached, they probably could have slipped away somewhere. They thought I was just a random druggie until a few seconds ago though. Look at them. So scared. So small. You fucking pathetic little cowards._

Zach stared ahead at all the men and women aiming weapons at him or just ready with their Quirks. Some of them still backed up, despite having over twenty people ready to attack. No one said a word when he opened the door and stepped inside. He walked forward into the doorway like he belonged there. His eyes casually scanned around them, terrifying and confusing all the villains in front of him. _Recognize one other as a wanted villain. Rancor's easy to tell from his description, though he looks as scared as the rest of them. Doubt they're connected to the big timers._ Zach's irises were red, his eyes with a faint glow in them though not too threatening that the people before him would think he was attacking them. His body posture gave off that opposite feeling actually. It's what kept anyone from retaliating to him attacking them. They just inched backwards or stared frozen where they were in front of the person who they learned was outside their door only seconds before he entered.

Most of them had not even heard about the person approaching. The guards mentioned it to Rancor that it was a homeless person at first, then a druggie finding a place to shoot up, then they told him the guy had somehow gotten inside. No one was ready for him. One man was even holding a brick of cocaine in one hand and a pistol in the other, because the brick was opened on the top and he could not have tossed it to the side without coke flying everywhere. He looked from the brick to the teenager who just came in and then back again, his gun shaking nervously in his other hand. He was one of only four who had firearms, though Zach saw a lot more guns off on one corner of the room.

One of the trucks was pointed back towards him, with the back of it opened up so Zach could see a lot more contraband inside. _Guess these guys aren't just dealing in Double. I don't even see any Double Trigger around here. Maybe the market's lower for it than I even thought, and their attempt through the Karbos failed. Karbo said they rarely work with these guys. Too big, yet not very close with them, so they wouldn't suspect it was the Karbos out of everyone they usually work with. Let Omalo believe that anyway. Whether they've got any Double on them right now, this is more than I figured. On the high end at least. Gotta be getting this from overseas. Stupid fucks worked with snitches. How dumb can you retards be?_ Zach's mindset was cold, menacing… his whole expression was just straight villainous as he smirked at everything he saw.

The smirk was not a "look at how big a bust I just got" kind of smile. It was a "good," smirk. Zach looked around and stopped on Rancor, and he said in a low voice, "What's it going to be, chief? Who wants to take a shot at me?" Zach's voice was dark and intimidating. His eyes were cold, his expression fierce yet hidden behind his villainous smile. With his scars, his tinted red eyes, and his reputation alone, it would have been enough. That smirk and his taunt though, it had Rancor dropping his arms slowly to his sides.

Others lowered their guns. Some of them shook with their arms up longer, looking like they would rather go down fighting than get caught. That mindset worked better when they were faced up against heroes though. They all knew that if a hero had just busted in, all of them would have started attacking. This wasn't a hero though. This was _the_ Lifebringer. No one knew what he would do to them. His expression made every one of them believe he could do anything, that he was not constrained by the rules of normal heroes.

"Wh-What are we doing?!" A girl in the back shouted, looking around at the others and still keeping her hands covered in ice lifted. "We, we can take-"

"Fuck that!"

"I surrender. Lifebringer, just-" a man starting to speak to Zach softer and more pleadingly, took a step towards Zach as he lifted his hands in a defensive way. Zach did not know if the man was going for a fake out, to get close while begging like that only to attack, or if the man really was begging. He wondered if the man knew the answer to that himself, but it did not matter anymore. The look Zach gave the guy froze him in his tracks with his mouth open, and then guy took a step backwards instead of getting any closer to Lifebringer.

"It's fine," Zach said, lifting up his hands on his sides too in a defensive way. He laughed, looked around at the others while lowering his arms and relaxing his posture, "Everything's fine. Okay? I don't want to capture you. That's not why I'm here."

 _This fucking kid!_ Lemillion bit down and shook where he was, getting ready to jump out and do it himself.

"You're, not going to arrest us?" An eight foot tall man with four arms bulking through his tight black shirt asked. He gave Zach a skeptical look, then he glared harder through his pure white eyes and said to the boy looking back at him, "We won't snitch, if that's what you're after."

Rancor's look got darker too. He thought in some confusion despite keeping that steady, unwavering look, _The fuck is happening right now? Was not expecting something like this to happen tonight, but the biggest moves are always spontaneous. Opportunities come in the moment, not with long plans. Something's up-_

"No no no," Zach's tone got ominous, his voice lifting and he even laughed as he shook his head at what that villain just said to him. "I don't want you to do that either," Zach said it with a smirk, with the most evil aura emanating from him that had almost all the villains in the room thinking the same thing at once. It was the same thing Lemillion thought in a frenzied state from his hiding spot.

 _He's here to kill us!_

 _FUCK! WE'RE DEAD!_

 _Oh God no._

 _Please- someone!_

Rancor's eyes were shaking, as the idea of this being an opportunity vanished from his mind as sheer panic and terror covered it instead. This teen known for killing villains stood in front of them, with no one else around. For the first time in Rancor's adult life, he had the thought of calling heroes to come save him. The smirking teen stared ahead in the room full of villains and once again shook every single one of them to the core as he said, "This is my operation now."

The statement floored some of the villains who could not believe what they just heard. Others took a few seconds to process it, before opening their eyes huge and staring towards Lifebringer in actual disbelief. Zach looked at Rancor while saying it. He looked at the man who he was "assuming" was in charge of this operation, as if daring Rancor to go against what he just said. Rancor had just seen his life flash before his eyes though. All hope had been lost for a moment, as he accepted deep inside that he would have rather been thrown in Tartaros than get killed right there. He actually wanted heroes to show up and arrest everyone to prevent Lifebringer from killing him, and now suddenly, that feeling of this being an opportunity re-arose and made the villain happier than he knew he could be in this situation.

"You, you're taking over?" Rancor asked. He asked it, not in a confrontational tone, more like he was just asking to make sure he heard Lifebringer correctly.

"That's right," Zach said. He stepped farther into the room, "You'll do what I say, how I say it," Zach looked to the right, then to the left after the pause. He lifted his head and said in a confident voice, in a tone so cocky he was threatening all the people who might be thinking of going against him, "I'm in charge now."

 _I was wrong,_ Lemillion stayed hidden in the shadows. _About everything. I, I had no idea…_ He watched as Zach turned his head. Zach looked away from the villains who had been ready to attack him a minute ago, and he called out at the people outside to get in there. The guards waiting in the hall came in slowly, too nervous to try and run since he knew they were there, and because they had heard what Lifebringer was saying and now thought they might not have to run at all.

"Ha, hahaha," Rancor started laughing. He lifted a hand to his head and ran it back through his dark blue hair. His laughs were of relief, and he said while staring towards the teen in front of him, "I swear, I thought you were Death! But now I know, Lifebringer's just one crazy bastard!"

Another two people started laughing only to cut themselves off just as fast as Rancor did. Zach gave Rancor a dark look, his eyes so cold they shut him up in an instant. Zach walked forward, right up to Rancor who leaned back but did not start running or even take a step away. Zach stepped right up in front of Rancor and warned in a low voice, "Don't push my buttons. And don't bullshit me. We'll get along just fine, yeah?" Zach rose his eyebrows, and Rancor nodded with a more serious look, changing up his tune a little.

"Alright guys, come on," Zach looked around, easing his expression a bit and smiling again. "It's all good. _We're_ good," he corrected, giving a reassuring look to some of the more scared people who were too jumpy. "Who are you? Formerly in charge…" Zach looked to Rancor and trailed off, waiting for Rancor to give him his name which the man did. Rancor said his name, finishing Zach's statement of 'Formerly in charge,' with 'Rancor.'

"Good response, Rancor," Zach said, lifting his left hand and smacking the man on the cheek twice with it. He walked past Rancor while the older man turned his head and watched him walk by, any emasculation he felt overwhelmed by the relief and confusion, and even excitement he was starting to feel. "Everyone gather up over here," Zach said, waving a hand towards himself. _Don't want any of you wandering off. You don't need to get back to your guard posts, and it's not work as usual. It's time to listen. It's time to still feel afraid I could just kill you, and time to stand in front of me deciding whether you will stay in my ranks or run off. You don't want to be the only one to leave. You definitely don't want to be the first, not after I just told you to come._

Zach jumped up and landed on top of the truck that had the back open. He landed and turned around, looking down at the villains with a dark look and his eyes glowing a bit brighter red even as the top half of his face shadowed over more the way he was looking down at them. "How's this operation set up?" Zach looked down at Rancor while asking, but he shifted his eyes around offering the floor to anyone else.

Rancor saw Zach shift his gaze like that, and a few opportunistic others spotted it too. If any of them wanted to get in with Zach, if they wanted to rise up in whatever the new ranks would be with Lifebringer in charge, this was the moment before Rancor established a more permanent position. The way Zach smacked Rancor's cheek just a few seconds ago did so much to the hierarchy of the gang. Their impressions of Rancor were shaken, and that made the quickest to adapt in the room quick to try and take his place. Most of them were still too nervous to say or do anything, but before Rancor realized it two of his comrades were speaking.

The four armed man in a tight black shirt nodded at the truck Zach was standing on. "We've got a deal to get rid of these guns tomorrow. A drop at a site in the woods north of Yutapu. We stay with the drop until we get word that the money's been wired, then we leave it there. No need to meet with the buyer that way."

A woman with long orange hair looked next to her on her right at the big man with four muscular arms, then she turned to Zach herself and added, "I'm in charge of distribution of our product through Yutapu. The smaller dealers we've got on our payroll-"

"Answer to me," Rancor growled, his eyes dark as he glared at that woman. She turned, ready to say something snarky to him as she had lost much respect for Rancor a minute ago. His eyes were black though, and the second she looked towards him she tried darting her eyes to the floor. It was too late though, and her own eyes started to turn black. The woman started to panic, grabbing at her face and yelling Rancor's name, as black liquid started dripping out of her eyes and down her face.

"Chill, chill," Zach said. He told Rancor to relax in what sounded like a relaxed tone of his own, yet he was giving orders as he said to "chill." Rancor hesitated, but he turned away back to Lifebringer fully and looked into his eyes. Zach stared straight back, and Rancor's eyes quickly turned back to their normal shade. The fact that Zach looked right in his eyes, no fear despite just seeing what Rancor's Quirk was, it gave off the same feeling of control that had Zach running shit all of a sudden.

Rancor continued once his eyes were back to normal, "No one here knows how this shit is run better than me."

"Then explain it to me," Zach told Rancor, giving him the chance. Before Rancor might have a second thought about it and realize anything, Zach added, "I need to know, if I'm going to incorporate this operation into the network I'm building." Zach grinned down at the villains, his face scary with the shadows and the red glow at the top of it. "I'll let you in on a secret, Rancor," Zach said to the man who stepped forward closer to the back of the truck. "Since I've been back," Zach said, all the villains leaning in while Lemillion watched with huge eyes from his hiding place. "I've already started establishing a whole new network of villains. I'm building trading routes and communications between them, to get around the heroes I'll be watching even closer from the other side." Zach smirked as he finished with that, making it sound like the greatest idea ever to the villains who would now know whenever a hero was onto them.

Lifebringer was giving away his evil plans. He couldn't turn on them now, because they all knew what he was planning! This knowledge turned more nervous looks into nervously excited expressions. Villains started looking at each other, easing up and getting hesitant smiles on their faces as they checked to see if the people next to them were seeing this?! Others became convinced of what the first ones to speak up had realized, that it was alright to talk to Lifebringer and that they should do it to become part of whatever his huge plans were that he chose _them_ to be a part of.

Lemillion's eyes narrowed. He watched as those calmed looks spread around the villains. He saw them smiling and getting convinced, quicker than he expected it to happen. The blond hero in the shadows slowly backtracked on his own thoughts. _I was wrong again, wasn't I? He looked so serious about it. He looks, evil. Yet he's just going to stand there, and they're…_

Rancor started speaking up fast when the guys around him were looking more ready to talk to Lifebringer. He mentioned big names he figured Zach might know. Well-known villains in Japan who he had met with before, usually with different members of the gang around him so not all of them had met as many as Rancor had. Then Rancor mentioned the "port crew," motioning at a group who grinned as Zach looked their way. "…There's a night-shift at the port in Kobe who we got looking the other way when our shipments come in. Sulu told me about it-"

"Sulu, the Subspace exec?" Zach asked, lifting his right eyebrow and getting an interested look on his face. His look of approval that Rancor knew some famous villain in the Subspace Devils made the gang leader grin right back.

Rancor was realizing it, but Zach talked about having an entire system established that he was working on. Even though Lifebringer was taking control, that was big picture shit and Rancor was likely still going to be running things the way he had been. In that case, he needed to regain some street cred that he lost, and he continued, "They use the same port, if you're thinking of pulling them in."

A few of Rancor's guys looked at him with huge eyes, others got more nervous looks on their faces at the suggestion. "Yo, Overlord's known as a crazy fuck," another of the guys behind Rancor started. He was looking at his old boss as he said it, then towards Lifebringer who he shook his head at, "I don't want to work with him. Heard the guy kills his own men. Pops off at random."

"They can get down, or they can be put down," Rancor said. He glared back at the other member of his gang, then he smirked at his man's disbelieving look. "We have Lifebringer. They're fucked," the way Rancor worded it made Zach smirk and even chuckle under his breath. _They "have" me, like I'm Rancor's secret weapon to use against them. He's a pretty dangerous guy after all. Just smart enough to be scared shitless of me, and still try to keep control over his own situation._

"You mentioned your shipments," Zach began, getting Rancor to turn back to him and nod. "When do they come?" Zach asked, and the former gang leader started replying right away. His confidence was restored, and Rancor spoke collectedly while focused more on the way his men were seeing how steady and unwavering he was being while talking to their new terrifying boss most of them were still nervous about. Rancor described the ship that came in and how the shipping containers meant for them were marked. He talked about the Brazilians, the different goods and deals they had going, and his ideas for how to expand further that he was bringing up for the first time now that Lifebringer was telling him they were going to be making it big.

Lemillion listened as Rancor discussed big plans for the future. He was recording all of it on a tape recorder down in his pocket, though he had to listen closely as the conversation was going on in the open between the garage and the main room, with not many places for him to hide close to it. _Sazaki's bullshitting them. I don't know the kid well enough, but the way Deku and Explosion King talk about him, this isn't something he'd ever do. Lifebringer's shrouded in mystery though, and these villains feel like they're seeing a side of him the public never would. They already thought he had a secret side he didn't tell people about, but they just assumed it was him being Death. Death wouldn't come in and make friends with them though, he would have come in and destroyed them. He's destroyed all their preconceptions of him. Now all they know, is that they know nothing. All they can believe is what they're seeing, and he's doing a great job of convincing with the way he looks that he's more evil than any of them. Hold on…_

"…He goes by, Spade," Rancor said. He had hesitated when Zach told him to just say it, as Rancor wanted to speak in private as his men did not know this yet. "Brings in all the drugs from South America on a ship where all the workers are actually villains in disguise. They ship a lot of other goods too, a real legitimate business they created, in order to keep hidden from Death." Zach nodded with his expression getting darker as Rancor mentioned that name. Rancor nodded in agreement with that dark look, "Apparently once you leave Japan these days, it's a lot more dangerous to do any kind of villain activity out in the open."

 _How much is all that? Spade. The time of their next shipments. I think I have everything I need. I'd have to stay much longer to try and drag everything out of every last one of them._ Zach's lips stayed curled down after they lowered when Rancor mentioned Death. His face did not return to the cocky, villainous look it had stayed in from as soon as he entered the room. "It's just as dangerous here now," Zach countered Rancor. _He's still waiting for me. Waiting for me to build off all he just told me. Tell him that his plans are great and we can do it together. You look so fucking excited, you small piece of shit. His look in a second, the moment it hits him, it's going to suck._ "Because I'm back."

The room was frozen. People's hearts had already started to speed up a little, getting nervous at the way Lifebringer looked and how his expression had shifted. His tone changed, his expression had lost its villainous appearance, but it did not become heroic either. His eyes were just cold and back to their normal hazel shade. He stood there staring down at them after what he just said, telling them how it was just as dangerous to do villain activity in Japan now that he was here. The fact that he countered like that, right after Rancor said it was more dangerous everywhere else _because_ of Death, put the doubt in their minds. It fed the fear they already had before this. They stared towards Lifebringer, a few of them taking steps back as they lost their smiles and excited looks.

The look on Rancor's face changed slowly, as he had come to fully believe that he was about to start a whole new villain enterprise alongside Lifebringer as his "in" with the heroes. The betrayal hit Rancor, but the look of betrayal never came to his face. No one could breathe. Lemillion held his breath in his hiding space, a position he had moved to so he could get a better look into the room. He had never in his life seen so many faces shift so quickly to such absolute, hopeless dread. None of them were confused. They all believed it enough to not even be surprised, and they all understood that the only reason they were going along with it in the first place was because of how much they _wanted_ to believe that what was happening was real. They all hoped with everything they had that he was not actually going to arrest them, and the longer he pulled the bluff the more hope they had, but their hope was shattered and their dreams dashed.

And then Death fell upon them. Zach's body ignited in a black flame. It flared atop the truck in a huge fire shape, but his actual body shot out of that flame in the same second it ignited. He landed one foot in front of Rancor with his fist pressing forward into Rancor's face in the same momentum of his landing. He took his next step forward and sent Rancor flying off his fist into the door to the room, slamming it shut with Rancor's unconscious form slouched on the inside of it, effectively locking them all inside this closed windowless room. A breath of black steam came out of Zach's mouth, as he stood there after his punch with his arm extended and no one attacking him.

It was like every one of the villains held on to a small hope that Lifebringer had just attacked because he wanted to get rid of Rancor. Maybe Rancor was getting too uppity with him, too cocky like he still had power in the gang, but this time they realized sooner that it was only their own false hope making them believe something stupid like that. They knew what was happening. They knew how Lifebringer could do something like this. Fight them in this way.

Some of them tried to fight.

Most surrendered.

Zach knocked them all out.

The ones who tried to fight he removed from the equation first. The ones who looked most ready to go after him, who he already knew would react fastest from when he stood on top of the truck watching them all through his red eyes, examining each and every one of the gang members he was getting ready to take down. He took them out efficiently. He purposely avoided hitting the ones down on their knees in his first attacks, though purposely aimed close to those people to show the others that maybe going down on their knees was the move to save them. So over three quarters of the villains surrendered and dropped to their knees, some of them covering their heads with their hands and curling up more, making others do the same as it looked like Zach avoided them specifically too, or so they hoped.

Even if this was Death, even if Lifebringer had the ability to kill them all, the rumors they heard told them that maybe he wouldn't. Mercy was possible for him. What if- The ones thinking like that found themselves unconscious on the ground in mid-thought about Zach's mercy. Zach lifted his hands and aimed fingers at the ones down on their knees. Some shouted at him to wait, others tried a last ditch attempt at fighting like the ones who moved first, but in the end, thin black lines pierced through all their chests and out their backs. They collapsed to the ground on their faces and stomachs, a few on their backs if they were leaning backwards when they got hit.

"Thanks for all the information," Zach said, looking to his right at the unconscious body of a woman with long straight orange hair. He looked around the place full of illegal weapons and drugs, then at some of the villains he knocked out who had just seemed afraid that whole time. _Shouldn't join a villain gang if you aren't villain material. Too bad they'll try all of you the same way. Except the ones who have warrants out. Shouldn't be too bad though. Rehabilitation is possible._ Zach pulled his phone out and called the police, while turning a man over with his foot so the heavyset guy was not resting on his nose any longer.

"Yeah, I'd like to report… I- I heard gunshots," Zach's voice was higher pitched and nervous as he spoke into his phone. His expression matched the panicky and scared voice he was using, and yet he casually walked over to a table on the side of the room and picked up a gun in his left hand. He lifted the submachine gun in front of him while wearing a glove, and he kept talking in a nervous tone while holding his phone to his head in his right hand, "No, I'd like to leave it as an, anonymous tip? Please, I don't know if anyone got hurt. The address was, 1272 Edogawa Road. It's an old building, looks abandoned but I definitely heard gunshots inside. I, I used my Quirk too to listen in, it's a sensory Quirk- that's why I'm staying anonymous. I just thought it would be useful to let you know what I heard them talking about…"

Zach pinched the bridge of his nose with a couple fingers of his left hand, keeping the gun to the side with other fingers though the cold steel did brush his face as he grabbed his nose in annoyance. _Japanese police aren't used to this at all. Just accept the fucking tip you pigs- I'm not a villain. Calm down._ Zach lowered his hand from his nose and took in a deep breath. "Well I'll just tell you anyway. Please, it's pretty important. They were talking about this other villain, Spade, who's apparently going to meet them…" Zach listed off some useful information in a way he was positive would work out well, unless the officer he was speaking to happened to be on someone's payroll. After finishing he hung up quickly, as he had given up the address earlier in the conversation and needed to go before heroes arrived.

Zach started for the door, but he turned the gun in his left hand to the side and fired off half a mag. He just dragged the gun up as he fired, lighting up the floor up to the corner of a wall. Then he turned the gun and fired to another part of the room without hitting anyone. Then he tossed the gun aside and kicked Rancor's body away from the door, and he headed out.

Lemillion ran out of hiding to the closest body to him. He dropped down next to it and checked the man's pulse. _I should have come out sooner,_ Lemillion scolded himself, as even the possibility that Lifebringer had just murdered them all was enough that he knew he should not have let it happen. Mirio Togata stood up and glanced around the room. The bodies were scattered all over the place. Some looked in the middle of fighting, others like they were running, and Lifebringer had moved a few with his feet while he walked around during that call. _He said there were gunshots. The tip would have been suspicious if there weren't. It sounded so genuinely like a concerned citizen. Anonymous tips,_ Lemillion ground his teeth and glared over towards the door of the room that Sazaki just left through.

 _I have to leave this to the police. He's getting away!_ Lemillion realized that Zach would have been rushing out of there, and he sped after the younger man. He calmed himself after a second, reminding himself that Sazaki was going to be on the lookout to make sure no one saw him escaping from there, so he needed the kid not to see him while also making sure he could follow him away from the crime scene. _I want to take care of this, but there's no telling where Sazaki goes from here. Is he going to Kobe himself? Then to Brazil?! Who knows with this kid. Is he Death? The way he looked at them, he certainly convinced most of them in that final moment of their freedom, that he was Death. They all believed it, and because of that…_

 _They'll be out long enough they won't be able to warn Spade,_ Zach thought as he fled. _Their process is dumb. A guy like Spade, he should be smarter than that. I asked Rancor if they had to call first so Spade would know they're coming, but the times are set in stone. He will be there tonight. The shipping containers the police know are marked in the way I described will be opened. Heroes can do this. If Spade had to confirm it was them, I might've had to keep this going all night. If he picked a different dock each time, but that would require bribing more dock workers and bringing more people into it risking someone talking. Always hard choices, always bad consequences. Hindsight sucks for him in this case, but if he tried being more careful someone might've missed a call for no reason and fucked up profits for nothing, or other people who might always be watching certain docks…_

Zach ran for the part of the lot on the opposite side as the road. He jumped up twelve feet and right over the fence, and he ran between two buildings to the other side where he just started casually walking down the sidewalk in the direction of the station. In the distance he heard sirens, and the dark sky was illuminated in some red and blue light to one side of him. As he walked he turned his head, like a regular citizen looking over to see what was going on. A hero jumping on rooftops ahead of him went by and around the corner without looking Zach's way. He was glad there were another two people on the sidewalk and a couple cars on the road too. _Warehouse club isn't too far ahead. Should get closer to that and head from there towards the station._

Lemillion followed after Lifebringer again. He suspected Zach would go the opposite way as the road he came in from, and he was able to track him back the direction he came from. The whole time, the young hero had a pissed-off expression on his bland face, his expression dark as he followed Zach. _Is it illegal? I'm so… I thought he was a villain there for a second. What he talked about at dinner could be considered regular conversation. Sure, he heard that the Karbos would know, but he still could have just gone there for coffee. Once he saw something illegal, it's his responsibility with a provisional license to do something. And though he was bluffing, there really was stuff in that back room. Not calling the police could be though. Creating C.I.'s, his file said he's done it before. He had confidential informants back in his first year at U.A. That information had an asterisk next to it though, as his connections with the Anti-Heroes countered the C.I. argument, possibly. Hearing about the Double Trigger, he went to see if there really was a crime there. Calling the police if there was nothing, just because he heard something, that's not the extent of what he could do. He heard there was a crime going on and went to check it out himself. That's fine. Pretending to be someone else though, pretending to be evil to get them to explain… it's not standard. It's not, it's not how heroes are supposed to act. The way he just tricked them and acted, he took most of them down without having to fight them. He convinced them- less of them were willing to fight him in the end than they were at the start when he had gotten the drop on him. He could argue away that all he said was just a way to get the villains to surrender peacefully._

 _But then there's the anonymous tip. He called with that instead of as Lifebringer, because he knows he did something wrong. He knows he wasn't allowed to do this. And he lied to the police. He called in a fake report. He fired an illegal weapon. There are crimes he has committed now. If Lifebringer was arrested though, for capturing a lot of villains and trying not to take credit for it… It's impossible. If I had stepped in during the act, then maybe- but he hasn't proved any ill intentions yet! Not that he was Death, not that he still is! He scared the senses out of some villains… after finding them in a couple of hours. He had no idea what he was going for this morning, did he? No idea where the day would take him?_ Lemillion slowed down as he followed after Lifebringer. He watched the teen with his mask back up talk to some people on the sidewalk outside of a club, and those people laughed along with him at something he said.

The college students who pre-gamed hard before heading to the club told the person asking how awesome the club was, and Zach had to apologize and laughingly say another time at a dude who called at him to go in with them. _Maybe another night,_ Zach thought, as he headed away from the club towards the nearby station. _Right now, I've got to get to the outskirts of the city. I could've gone to the edge not far from here, but heroes might head that way looking for the other gang who left all those guys in such a sorry state. I'll head around the loop before I start…_

 _If Sazaki knew where he was going, if he had made plans beforehand, traps could be laid for him. Is that why he's acting immediately on everything he sees? Because if he waits, a trained assassin would get ready for him? Are there others following him right now? No, he's done enough shaking off today to… except, I can track him. If Sazaki is Death, then Eziano Mozcaccio is a possibility. It could be someone related to that Shadow Boss. Deku mentioned the name before. He doesn't know how much it means. He seemed to understand a little, but that he's a Shadow Boss is classified. Eziano's name is classified too. And that's all we know about him, his name. Do you know? How much do you know?_ Togata glared towards the target he was tracking. _What is your plan here? What did you hear in there that has you heading to the station? Is it Kobe?_

 _Are you going to try and get there before the police- why would he tell them in that tip in the first place though? He could have called with another after dealing with the ship on his own, but he's letting heroes deal with it. He even kept more vague than how Rancor talked about some of it. I'd almost say that's withholding information, but I could have pieced that stuff together without it being spelled out. A citizen who just heard the other stuff wouldn't have pieced it together like that though, not how the system of trade really works. Lifebringer put that together though. He wasn't surprised by any of it. He's calm. He's just, doing whatever he wants! He is dangerous. The way he took them down was not just effortless because of his Quirk. He shattered their wills, getting them to snitch to him in hopes that he was their friend. He betrayed them. Sazaki knows how much betrayal hurts, how crushed it could make someone, and he destroyed them after giving them hope that he was on their side. That kid, did it easily. He walked straight in, and he got them to… is he Death? To be that good, at doing things in this way? A regular vigilante- even one trained by an anti-hero society, who was also a villain once himself… and now back here to be a hero? What is he- what are…_

 _Who are you, Lifebringer? And where are you going?_

Zach got to the train station and hopped on a train that was heading to the farther end of the line from the side of the city he was on. _I'll do a lap of Yutapu on foot for the rest of the night,_ Zach thought, grinning as he took a seat on the train. He stretched out his legs and relaxed, as he was going to have a long walk ahead of him and would not be able to sit for a while. _See what the rest of the outskirts are like. There are probably some more places that look even more suspicious in the dark than that last one. I doubt there are many other gangs working out of Yutapu. Those guys seemed strong enough that there would've been a turf war between the gangs, which would've drawn hero attention. Rancor said no one even competes with them in Yutapu too. It's a big city, but even a big city is small for villains when there aren't many around. All heroes can just be focused on the ones who are there. Might be something though. Might see some lights where there shouldn't be lights. Or maybe, it'll just be a nice walk. Hope you didn't plan on me heading home tonight, Lemillion. Because you're in for a fun weekend._

The next morning, Zach headed back towards the center of Yutapu. Lemillion was as angry as the angriest he had been the night before, as he stood on the corner of a building feeling tired and done with this.

After such an exciting start to the night, Zach had started a walk after a long train ride. The slow descent into realization that nothing more was going to happen crushed Lemillion's resolve to see everything Zach did. Only about five percent of the time he had been following Zach, anything of interest had happened. He understood that this happens often on a stakeout, but the last ten hours seemed to be intentionally to piss him off. Zach wanted to take a nice walk around the city, seeming partially focused on the outskirts of Yutapu, but also multi-tasking as he got back to studying again with his phone that never seemed to run out of batteries.

The sun was rising, and Lemillion yawned as he glanced up at the sunrise and realized he had been up all night. He was feeling bored, and he shook his head around to refocus on Sazaki, which just made him angry again to cover up the boredom. He checked his phone again, and he saw a new message about a case he had asked to be kept in the loop about. The notification this time made Lemillion freeze up though, and he lifted his phone up in front of his face and read what he just saw closer.

 _Spade talked. The plea deal hooked him! They've got the people Spade bribed at different countries' ports, as well as some producers of the goods his company was shipping. A shipping company being completely used as a front. It's insane. None of the workers could get suspicious and check the crates, because they all know anyway. Spade only hired people willing to become part of it. Must have gotten his crew from villains without warrants all over the world. Stay legitimate while making sure they weren't moles. It was smart. He did things smart. Not smart enough though. He got ratted out… to Lifebringer. Villains don't talk. They have a code, and they don't talk to heroes. Everyone knows it. Spade talking is amazing. With how big his enterprise is though, without talking he would have been seeing life for sure. With how widespread he was though,_ Lemillion lowered his phone and he glared down towards Lifebringer's back on the street below.

Zach went for a breakfast sandwich, then he headed to a nearby coffee place and ate his breakfast with a nice cup of coffee that Lemillion was really hoping for right now. The hero watching from outside and across the street, in a disguise over his hero costume, stared at the cafe jealously. _Is it the coffee? How is he staying so, chipper? He looks well rested and fresh out of bed. He's smiling and talking to the people who recognize him. No one knows he spent the entire night just wandering around outside of the city. No one knows he took down two dozen villains, and no one ever will unless I reveal it. I should put it in my report, but until I find proof that he's Death I can't reveal that I'm following him! I can't!_ Lemillion bit into another energy bar. He took an emphatic first bite, but he slowed down and ate it in a painfully slow way as he did not feel energetic about this anymore.

 _He hasn't done anything vigilante related for hours._ Lemillion lifted his phone, but he quickly pocketed it. Lemillion started away to get far from Lifebringer when he saw the kid getting up to pay for his coffee. Lemillion got in an alley and climbed up the walls, jumping from side to side as he ran up the walls using anything at his disposal. He got back up to the roof and yet still hid while out of sight. He needed not to be seen by heroes who might be jumping or flying by on patrols, as well as stay hidden from villains who might be tracking Sazaki. Most importantly he needed to hide from Sazaki himself, which was feeling harder and harder to do the more he told himself that what he had seen so far was confirmation of his suspicions that Lifebringer was Death.

Lemillion pulled back out his phone, as he made a rebuttal to his own suspicions in his head that _"Would Death really spend a whole night just walking around on his phone?"_ Lemillion paused his own internal argument about the person he was following, as he read another message from a hero friend keeping him in the loop about that case. _So quickly? Heroes around the world are preparing simultaneous raids to prevent any of the others who hear about what happened from getting spooked and escaping. Some could have moved sooner, but this, this will be…_

Zach let out half a yawn, but he shook his head around and got back to walking around with a clear mind. His focus was scattered everywhere: the people on the street around him he had to check to see if they recognized him and how he should react when they did, the hero following him on the rooftops, and his lookout for any other possible stalkers. He put a headphone back in at a low volume too, though he was streaming morning world news from his phone instead of the macroeconomics lecture he had been listening to before making it to the coffee shop.

 _Shouldn't go back to that Burger Lando for a couple days. Give them time. No need to rush it._ Zach started towards the second biggest park in Yutapu. He walked to the Ieyasu Park and took all the different trails and sidewalks around it. He stepped off the sidewalk on occasion when no one was looking, (except for the person following him), and he checked down in riverbeds near the streams that cut through the park that the occasional sidewalk bridge would cross over. He saw a sewer drain in one area sticking out of a rock structure made to transform the sewer into something nicer. Zach passed a few homeless people as he walked the park, and he looked at them closely as he went by.

Then he stopped in front of a building in the park. It was up a little from the sewer, near the edge of the park itself and in a section that had more trees and no real trail leading to it. There was a fence on the other side of the building, though the road off the park did not start for a little after the fence, some scattered trees on the other side instead. Zach looked around from the end of the ragged path he went down. _Barely any signs anyone's been here lately. This place looks fully abandoned. No stepping stones near the windows, and most are cracked but not wide enough to slip through. Plans for this place got scrapped a couple years back, but there should have been enough in the budget for it before cancellation that it would have gotten farther than this…_

 _The hell is he doing?_ Lemillion ground his teeth in frustration as he hid in a forest Zach just walked through for some reason. Zach might have had a bit of an old path to move down, but everything around that small path was difficult to walk in, and Lemillion could make parts of his body permeable but not all the time so he was in a very uncomfortable place to be. _Checking out old abandoned areas, making connections with shady people, getting in with the homeless? It's like he's establishing himself right in front of me. He can't do this. He's not a hero. Where is he going?!_ Lemillion bit down and watched from a distance as Zach turned back and headed back into a more public area of the park.

 _Man, he is dedicated. I don't think he's taken a break since yesterday morning._ Zach glanced over his right shoulder as he walked through the park. _Am I smirking at you, or just trying to coax a villain tracking me into showing himself? It's a bluff, don't worry._

 _Is he looking towards me? What is that look?_ Togata stayed still where he was, hidden from sight yet nervous as Zach's expression said he knew he was being followed. _No, he's just trying to see if someone jumps because they think they got caught. He wants me to slip up. No he wants someone to slip up. He's not as good at this as he thinks though. His cocky attitude isn't just a guise. He acts with confidence in everything he does. He has no hesitation to break rules as long as he achieves his goals. Lifebringer, doesn't think about the consequences. He'll do whatever he wants until it gets someone hurt, gets people killed, and gets him thrown back in prison or forced to run. He had a chance to live a normal life…_ Togata watched his target darkly, his lips curled far down. There was no signature Lemillion smile on his face. His phone buzzed in his pocket and his teeth just clenched as he suspected a notification.

Lemillion pulled out his phone to see a message from his agency. Deku and Explosion King were on patrol in Tokyo with a sidekick of Lemillion's who was actually pro licensed so that it was alright. The interns had broken off from Scorchle and stopped a robbery at a Shake N Sandwich, and Scorchle sent him a report on what happened as well as a question about when he might return from his solo mission. The press asked his sidekicks about him since he was not there that morning, and they could only give that he was out on a different mission. None of them knew what his current task was. None of them knew who he was tracking. _Do I bring the agency into it? It's under my discretion how to handle this now. Using Todoroki Shoto may be too much, but the two of them, if they hear what I have already, would they go for it?_

 _I could have spent the weekend with them. Do more than… or I could have brought them along, to give me more insight. Deku at least, since Explosion King wouldn't have been able to handle something like this. Deku could keep up though. Deku's too earnest though. If I tell him, he might go to his friend. He might warn him… no, Deku's a good friend, but he understands being a hero comes first. He will._

* * *

Zach put his phone in front of him leaning against the napkin dispenser on his table. He had his headphones in so the ringing of his phone did not disturb other nearby patrons, and he had on a cap instead of the beanie he was wearing earlier. The beanie was in the pocket of his jacket draped over the chair behind him, both of his gloves were on, and he had his head down as he sat in a slouched position to hide as well as possible.

Zach was in the food court at a mall in Yutapu. It was a different one than the one he went to with Ashido the week before, slightly bigger but with a much bigger food court that had a wider variety of options. Zach sat with an expression on his face like he was watching a video, and with the hot dog on his plate with some fries next to it, he looked like any other mall-goer. His phone rung a couple more times before connecting to one of the three people Zach just called up. He was not using his phone's regular call function, but he had called using the mall's wifi through the hero website that allowed heroes to get in touch with other heroes easier.

 _Not surprised by the order,_ Zach thought. All three were slow to answer the call. He supposed they looked at the caller I.D. and did a few double-takes before answering, coming up with how they were going to respond as none of them were expecting this sudden call. None of them were expecting a four-way call either to be the first call they had with Lifebringer, but all three still picked up. First Power Loader picked up, then Grappler a second later. It took two more seconds for the third person to answer, and Zach watched as Endo's face appeared on one third of his screen with two other faces on his left.

"Sazaki," Power Loader started, only pausing for a second because the others were still connecting. "What is this about-"

"Why are you calling?" Roady snapped, a more pissed expression on his face. The man a couple years older than Zach with spiky orange hair glared into Zach's eyes through his computer screen. He was sitting in Bikergang's agency, back to work after a long absence though as a support member at the agency rather than a hero out in the field. Keiko looked over towards her comrade for a moment but got back to a call she was in with Bouncer Man.

Zach lifted up his left arm and held it across his body as he slid back from the table. Grappler had yet to say anything to the boy, instead just looking into his eyes once looking like he had a lot he had to say, yet was not sure about saying it in front of others. Power Loader stared just confusedly at his screen though, no personal reasons hindering him from just being focused on what Zach had called him for. "Power Loader, I remember how you got your arm ripped off by Saberclaw at the Sports Festival." The other two heroes on Zach's phone looked to the hero-teacher who was off duty so did not have his unique helmet over his head.

Higari Maijima lifted his right hand up to his left shoulder and rubbed around where his prosthetic limb started. He lifted the prosthetic too after a second to show the others. Maijima did not have his helmet on which revealed his long orange hair covered up his eyes with draped bangs falling to his nose. Power Loader turned his left arm in front of his face and showed it off to the group. "I remember something like that happening," Power Loader mentioned. Zach looked closely at the arm as Power Loader showed it off, and it looked more impressive than most prosthetics he had ever seen before. It made sense to him considering his teaching job in the development of hero tools, and Power Loader seemed proud of the arm he had made since he lifted it right up when Zach mentioned what happened.

Grappler's eyes grew wide though after he stared at the arm for a couple seconds wondering why Sazaki had called him for this. _Does Sazaki, want me to…_ Grappler frowned. The man with no arms shifted his gaze to Roady for a second too, and he knew about the incident with him that made the younger man's teeth bare after he put together what Grappler already had.

Before either of them could speak up, Zach popped his left arm off his side. He took his arm off and he kept his same posture, same look on his face, and unless someone was already staring towards him he would not draw any extra attention to himself even as he slid his arm forward halfway out of his sweatshirt's sleeve. "While I was abroad," Zach started, interrupting the two he saw about to get angry at him or start talking about whatever it was they wanted to talk about. "I lost my arm. This arm though, _feels_ , exactly like my old arm used to. Almost," Zach finished at the end less strongly, shrugging his right shoulder to show it could not be exactly the same, but the motion was subtle to say there was not much of a difference.

"What are you-" Power Loader began as he stared at the arm closely.

"While you were abroad?" Roady questioned, lifting his eyebrows up and asking in an exasperated tone that Zach was going to word it like that. "What were you doing 'abroad?'"

"Sazaki," Grappler finally started. "There are things-"

"I didn't call to talk about myself, or about the things I did," Zach started, shaking his head at the group staring at him through his phone. Zach pulled his arm more out of his sleeve and then turned it over in front of his phone for the men to see. Even if someone looked over to see Zach doing this now, he figured they would more than likely assume it was part of his Quirk and suspect much less that he was Lifebringer. "Looks real, doesn't it?"

"You had them put the scars in the same place?" Roady muttered after a second, as he had opened his mouth to snap that that was really Zach's arm only to hold off on it. He shook his head in annoyance, then his eyes shifted down to his prosthetic right leg under the desk he was sitting at. He had a cane leaning against his desk too, and his eyes darkened as he shifted them back to the screen. "I don't want a new prosthetic- I don't need-"

"It's not just a prosthetic," Zach said. He interrupted Roady again and made the sidekick of Bikergang grind his teeth in frustration, pulling his head back with a warning look at Zach to do that again. Zach slid his arm back up his sleeve when it was almost out, doing it with little difficulty and then reaching up towards his shoulder and twisting it around. He locked it in place, then he lifted his left hand and put it close in front of the screen. Zach curled in his fingers, one by one, and then he reached over to his left hand and pulled his glove off. Zach showed them his palm. The skin looked normal. He had veins going through it, and scars where his old scars should have been. A scar they had all seen of a spike going through that left hand, left the circular darkened mark on his palm and the back of his hand.

"This new arm of mine, is connected to my nervous system," Zach explained to the men watching his fingers. Power Loader lifted his eyes up from the hand to Zach's face in disbelief for a second, then his eyes widened more behind his bangs as Zach continued, "The limb is built using Quirk combinations. Pieces connected through other Quirks, and the arm has nerves, an entire system of them to replace all the ones I lost, and when it connected back into my shoulder the systems lock together." _I can't tell you how exactly. The specific Quirks, the Cyborginization, or how strong this metal really is. It's not something you'll be able to re-engineer._ "I'm just telling you, because losing my arm, made me a better hero."

Grappler froze completely, his eyes rising back up to stare into Zach's. Roady ground his teeth in anger that Zach would just say that, while Grappler was in more disbelief at what he heard. Zach added after what he just said, "The arm is stronger than my old one. Takes more to damage it. And I have perfect control, the neurons sending as fast as originally so the arm responds when I want it to move. I barely notice the difference. And, I could get any of you a limb like this, if you want."

"The tech you're describing," Power Loader began, shaking his head at Sazaki as he started it. Zach looked him in the eyes though and cracked a small smile at how Power Loader started his sentence, making the teacher unable to finish it and to just stare back at Zach's left arm instead.

"You think this is going to make up for it?" Roady asked. His voice was low, and Zach looked back at his old friend who just glared harshly at him for a second, then hung up the call.

"Sazaki, if you wanted to have a serious call," Grappler paused. He sighed and he leaned forward over the computer. He used his head and shut the laptop, then he leaned back on his chair and let out a long breath. Grappler frowned while staring at his closed computer, and his head turned to the right and then the left. The former hero looked around his empty house, quiet… and his eyes lowered to his right shoulder. In his head appeared the snarling face of that black beast. **CRACK!** _ **RRIIPPP!**_ He clenched his eyes shut, hearing the cracks of his bones, the sound of his flesh ripping. The look on the Nomu's face and its roar, rippled through the man's mind. His head turned back and he stared at his computer with less of an upset frown at the boy who just called him, instead just a distant look of shameful self-pity.

Power Loader looked back at Sazaki after seeing the other heroes end the call early. "It's not going to be easy," Power Loader said, making Zach's eyes widen for a moment as Power Loader seemed to read his thoughts. He figured his expression gave it away after the two who he was more hopeful for both ended the call without even responding. Power Loader gave him a smile though and added, "But that arm of yours is something. You can really feel it, and there aren't any bugs? I know people have been trying for fake limbs for a while better than regular old prosthetics."

"I'm sure your arm's much better than a 'regular old' anything," Zach countered.

Power Loader looked surprised for a second before chuckling and shaking his head. "You've got that right. But still," Zach's face lit up and a brighter smile came to it at how his old teacher was responding. "I'd like to take you up on this offer. How much would it cost me for something as high-tech as that?"

"I'll get you an estimate," Zach offered. "I just need you to send me your measurements after the call. I'll transfer them over, and I'll let you know as soon as I get back from them…" _Nice. He looks like he's buying it. If I told him it was free now, he'd be a little more hesitant and question how I have that sort of influence or money. I'll just get it sent to U.A. for him… well, one of the techs might need to come with it to set up his shoulder too. I'll figure it out later._ Zach bullshitted half of the conversation he was having with Power Loader but spoke in a believable way and seemed pretty excited that Power Loader accepted the offer.

"Yeah, yeah I'll get you all that in a bit. Thanks for this, kid." Zach started shaking his head to say no problem, but Maijima continued, "Listen, Sazaki. Me losing my arm, it had nothing to do with you-"

"I know that," Zach cut in quickly.

Power Loader cut right back in, "But neither were those other two. They might not have said it, and you might not have made it out like you feel that it was, but you got to understand something. Just because you were there at the time, didn't make it your fault. Grappler and Roady, I heard about them, we all heard about them." Zach's lips were flat and he watched his old teacher seriously, nodding once when Power Loader paused to see if Zach was following. "Whether or not there _was_ something you could have done, you didn't take their limbs."

"Hindsight's twenty-twenty," Zach said. He stared into his old teacher's eyes through his bangs, an unusual feeling for Maijima who did not usually lock eyes with people who could not see his. Zach's expression was serious as he just said that. His eyes were intense, and he nodded in understanding at Power Loader who was trying to get that point to him. "I know. But thank you, sensei." Zach rose up the corners of his lips again into a small smile. "And get me that information soon. This arm's really amazing. You won't regret it."

"Just hoping it's in my price range," Power Loader admitted. _How can an arm like that…_

"I'll see what I can do," Zach said, and before he could get questioned on that he ended the call. _This is great. Can help Power Loader. Maybe he'll speak to the other two, make them actually listen to the proposal instead of just being focused on the fact that it's me offering it._ Zach started back into his lunch, and he ate quickly and in a good mood. _They didn't curse me out or anything just for calling. Really thought that might happen with Roady, if he even picked up. Which he did! Not that bad._

Zach checked out a couple stores in the mall once he was done eating, but after enough people noticed him that he figured more were going to show up at the mall looking for him, he left. He walked back out on the street and pulled his mask up despite it being in the middle of the day and actually a little warmer than the day before. It was still cold, so a warm face-mask was not going to draw that much attention. Zach just walked calmly down streets of Yutapu, his hands down in his jacket's pockets and his eyes wandering about.

Lemillion trailed behind, bags forming under his eyes. He was coming to realize that even if he only spent certain days following Zach around like this, he might need a second person to help him out so he could get some rest between shifts. Togata felt unsatisfied from his last meal, he was tired yet forcing himself to stay alert which had him frowning more- since his heightened alertness seemed to be for no reason when Zach had not done anything for sixteen hours now.

Lemillion felt a buzz in his pocket and pulled out his phone. He looked at a message that should have made him happy, but his eyes got so much darker instead. He rose them from his phone to a boy down on the street crossing at an intersection. _I can't believe this. He, did it. It was him. And now, I definitely can't say it was him, or they'll give him all the credit for it. Is that his plan? Keep it a secret so that when it does come out, it seems like we kept it secret to prevent people… he didn't have to do it like that though. It's a roundabout way, and he has no proof it was him- and he'd screw himself by saying anything! But then, how? How is he using that?_

Zach walked past a store with televisions in the window, but he stopped and stepped back to turn and look in through the glass. A few others walking by the store stopped and looked in too, and the groups there talked to each other in excited voices. Smiles spread on faces, but none bigger than the amazed one on Zach's face as he watched the news report going on. Lemillion glared harder down as he read Zach's expression, catching a glimpse of the breaking news story he had gotten word about a couple minutes before.

On the news, the anchors were discussing the breaking story of how heroes caught several drug traffickers all around the world that morning. _Wow,_ Zach thought as he saw clips of different ports with dock workers being arrested, small factories and warehouses that got raided and tables lined up with their drugs while criminals were escorted away in the background, and he saw heroes in charge of the raids going up for press conferences in their respective countries to discuss the combined effort. _The heroes really acted fast. They've gotten their shit together,_ Zach continued to smile as he watched the tvs. There were a couple different news stations turned on, all talking about the same breaking story that had to get released to the public all at once because the raids had all been timed to be simultaneous and kept quiet about until the operation was done.

 _They kept villains from finding out it was happening. Just keeping it off the news, that's all it takes to catch them off guard. The heroes are more organized than the villains now, more international and more in-contact than the villains can be. And with all those arrests, they'll find even more villains. Some are sure to talk, given the right incentive. I wonder if Spade was really easy to crack, or if the heroes just offered him a lot in a plea deal to be able to work so much out so quickly? For this much- he may have gotten barely any sentence. They needed to do it fast like this though, or others would have scattered hearing what happened to Spade, so they might have offered him a great deal right away and explained to him that the offer would only decrease in value with time. The less they could get, the less tempting a deal they need to make,_ Zach turned from the screens and he started down the sidewalk. His heart beat slowly and his face relaxed, a light look of relief spread over it as he let out a long, heavy breath. _It's how I would've done it…_

Zach walked through Yutapu, feeling lighter on his feet than he had the rest of the weekend. He looked up into the sky and watched a couple birds fly over the tops of tall buildings. The sky above was blue with puffy white clouds moving slowly through it. _As Zach Sazaki. I did that, stopped them… Just because I'm still going to keep quiet about it, doesn't mean it's not true. I was still Zach while doing it. I know how to- I know why it's important to stay in the shadows sometimes, even as a hero. Heroes accept conspiracy sometimes. We all have to._

Zach went back to a park he had been to earlier that day. He went into Ieyasu Park and looked to just be wandering again, but Lemillion watched him closely. Going to the same place in a close timeframe like this was unlike the teen he had been following so far this weekend. He trailed Zach back through the thick brush, but then he shook off the tired feelings he had as the kid went to the front door of an abandoned building near the edge of the park.

Development of the building looked to be on permanent pause, and the park forest rose around it so the building was hidden from the outsides of the park other than the closest side. That close side had a fence touching a side street a few dozen meters from the edge of the building, with sparse tree cover between the building and the road. Zach went up to the door of the building and he opened it up, turning the doorknob and pushing in like the door was unlocked.

 _Did he just break the lock?_ Lemillion did not get tricked by how easy it was for Zach, and he stared closely at the door to check for himself instead of just taking it at face value. _He scouted this building out earlier. What's he doing here? Is he meeting someone? Did he come earlier to scope it out, so that he could check all the entry points and make sure it was safe? Who is he meeting? Something's going on here. Did he hear something at one of the other places he's been to? Did I miss him talk- his phone call wasn't suspicious. It was as… I need to get in there. The person could already be waiting. They may have left it unlocked for him. Whatever's happening in there, I need to see it._

Lemillion went around the back of the building. He spied in through windows looking for others who might be around, keeping as hidden as he could and even using his Quirk to effectively teleport around when he might get spotted moving from one vantage point to another. He found a clear location with no eyes on him, and no eyes inside, and Mirio Togata slipped into the old unfinished building that was three stories tall and worn down.

Togata entered and heard Sazaki right away on the floor above him. Keeping his footsteps quiet, Togata maneuvered through the park building towards a staircase there was a sign for on the walls. There was a dusty sign that looked recently brushed off, and Togata glanced at it to see they were in an old government building meant to be for park maintenance and waste management offices. The offices were not furnished, though the first floor looked mostly built. Once he got up to the second floor though, it looked like that was as far as they got before construction must have been cancelled.

 _There's a third floor?_ Togata thought with a glance up in surprise. The fact they got any farther was surprising when a divider in front of him was only the inner structure of the wall and a general foundation. The ceiling looked sturdy despite chipping in some areas, but the inner walls other than some support pillars did not look well-made. _Looks like the ones who set this up had an idea the building was never getting finished. They didn't put much care into this place. Why is Sazaki here? How did he know that this place was abandoned- well, he could guess just by looking. But he did look to be checking-_ Lemillion ducked down, and he darted over on soft steps to some close-by cover.

 _ **Chhrrr-ssss**_ The loud scraping of something hard dragging across the floor got Lemillion to hide. He realized what the sounds were that he heard downstairs, and he looked through some cover carefully. He kept his lower half solid as he eased his body through the cover, allowing him to control how much of himself he slid through until the smallest amount of his face stuck out for surveillance.

Zach walked back near the center of the room and picked up more cinderblocks from the stacks of them dispersed around the wide floor. The middle of the second floor was pretty empty; only the rooms for offices on the outside of the floor were built, and even most of those the walls connecting the inner main room to them were slotted and easy to see through. Zach kicked a couple broken pieces of cinderblock aside, then he reached down and picked up a few steel bars. The thin metal beams looked to be for the walls, and Zach slid them over to the walls and stacked them up to clear the floor as much as possible.

He kicked away all the loose debris, and he scraped his feet on the floor to clean the place up as much as he could. Zach kept his mask up as he did all this, as he was kicking up a lot of dust. Once he was finished though, he pulled his mask up and over his head. He took off his beanie, his thicker gloves, his jacket, though he kept his sweatshirt on as he tossed all his over-garments to a nearby support pillar they piled up against.

Zach walked over to another pillar in the section of the room he cleaned up. He reached his right arm across the front of his body and yanked on his tricep with his left hand, then he extended his arms up over his head to stretch out his back. Zach stuck his right leg out on the pillar and leaned his body in, pumping a couple times to touch his toes before lifting his left leg and doing the same. He cracked his neck to either side, rolled his head out, then he jumped and did a spinning kick into the pillar with his right leg.

 _Sturdy, but not too strong. I could break it._ Zach backed off from the pillar and waved a hand in front of his face. He waved off the dust that fell from the ceiling around the top of the pillar, and he glanced up to see if any cracks had formed. _Definitely not a stable floor above. No need to go up there though. Middle floor is good enough._ Zach did some more stretching, and then he rose up his hands in front of him and started bobbing his head as he crouched down.

Zach stomped his right foot forward and punched his right and left hands. He punched right, right, left, right in an uppercut, a left jab three times. Then he stomped his left forward and kicked his right out, before dropping the right down hard and spinning to back-heel behind him with his left. As he did so, he imagined something flying at his face and leaned backwards. His leg was extended, so he dropped his hands out of their fists and grabbed onto the floor. He kicked up his leg he had planted and flipped backwards, kicking his extended leg to the side to twist himself during his flip.

Two knives were in Zach's hands as he came halfway through his flip, and he snapped his arms out after his hands lifted off the floor to throw his knives. One of the knives went into a hole in a cinderblock, while the other hit the rim of the hole of a different one and bounced off. Zach frowned as he landed, but he leaned backwards dodging an imaginary kick. He reached out to grab the kick, but he created three gunmen popping out of one of the rooms on the side of the building. They appeared out of nowhere, even his own thoughts working to try and catch him off guard. He jumped backwards though and pressed his left foot against the pillar that his clothes were resting on, and he pushed himself off in a jump across the room.

During his leap he kicked three times, and he did a spin and reached his right hand out to catch a knife flying at him. As he pictured himself catching it, he snapped his arm straight out and popped a knife from his right sleeve down into his hand. He spun the knife around in his grip and grabbed it by the blade, and he flicked it behind him hard. He landed and continued doing punches and kicks, though he smirked while facing the opposite direction as where he just flicked his knife.

Lemillion had managed to avoid yanking himself backwards, but the knife that hit remarkably close to where he was watching from was still in his peripheral vision a foot away on his left side. It had stuck into the finished wall blocking the hallway near the stairs from view of the main room, and Lemillion kept completely still as he knew making a noise would give away his position. Zach continued doing his motions without pause, so it was clear that the throw was coincidental…

Darkness seeped from Zach's hands, and he reached his right towards the side he threw his first two knives, his left behind him. Out from his arms extended longer, blacker arms. They stretched across the room, dropping down to the floor and then extending out like snakes away from his body. Zach was still faced away from Lemillion, but the hero in the wall watched the snaking black arm moving his way in complete apprehension. Lemillion disappeared back into the wall as Zach started to turn.

Zach grabbed his knives with the black hands that extended off his arms and reached across the room. His arms retracted back, the solid black forms of his arms pulling towards him so fast it looked like a wind pulling inside him. The darkness disappeared, and the knives were not in Zach's hands anymore, as they had gone back into hiding when his arms were completely shrouded in all that darkness. He stood there looking back into the empty room for a few seconds. The building was silent as he stood there, and as Lemillion hesitated on the other side of the wall wondering what was going on.

Zach continued his work out. He did combos, punched and kicked, and he did not focus on anywhere in particular. The sound of Zach training got Lemillion moving back into a position to spectate from, though he moved around a bit first to watch from a more hidden area he spotted during his first view. Lemillion got into the most hidden part of the floor he could find, deepest in the shadows because it was farthest from the windows and behind some pillars from the middle of the main room. He slid out of hiding and watched as Zach trained, _This can't be the only reason he's here. Breaking into a government building, abandoned or not, just for this? What is he doing in here? He has Shiketsu to train-_

"Lemillion."

Zach had his arm extended after his last punch, but he lowered it down after speaking that name aloud. His expression was steady, and he turned his head towards where Lemillion was watching him from. "You can come out. I saw you watching me back at the mall," Zach stated it and he just waited. He stared towards where Lemillion was hesitating, and he kept his arms down at his sides in no threatening pose. Lemillion was not fooled by a non-threatening pose though, not after what he saw the night before.

Lemillion slid out through the wall though. He emerged and then slid through his disguise that fell to the floor behind him as he walked forward. His costume stayed on, and Zach looked past Lemillion to the exterior layer of clothes he managed to slip through the wall with him and then precisely remove while staying dressed. Zach's eyes shifted back to Lemillion's bland face and the older hero's serious expression.

"Why are you following me?" Zach asked.

"What are you doing here?" Lemillion questioned back.

"I didn't want to call you out in public," Zach replied. He stared into Lemillion's eyes and said in a calm voice, "I figured you had a good reason, but I needed to make sure no one was nearby before I asked." Zach gave Lemillion a quizzical look. He looked genuinely interested in learning the reason Lemillion was following him.

 _He's fucking around with me._ "I've been following you for a while," Lemillion stated. Zach's lips curled down a bit at the corners, but Lemillion continued without breaking eye contact, "Since yesterday."

"If you needed to ask me something, you could have given me a call," Zach said. His expression had not changed much, nor did his tone, but the mood of the conversation shifted at Zach's statement. He gave Lemillion nothing to work with, while still questioning him on what Lemillion was doing following him around. "Am I a suspect in a crime?" Zach asked, as Lemillion continued to stare darkly at him without saying anything for a few seconds.

"I saw what you did last night," Lemillion said. He specified, and he glared at Zach when the younger boy's expression got darker itself. "Confronting a gang of villains, using your Quirk on them, without a hero license."

"I have a hero license," Zach countered. He said it calmly, and he continued before Togata could speak, "And although provisional, if I see a crime occurring it is my job to step in."

"You didn't see anything 'occurring,'" Lemillion said. He looked darkly into Zach's eyes, and he stepped closer to the younger man who stayed still where he was and just gave Lemillion a more warning look that had the blond hero stop after the single step. Lemillion's fists balled, and he said in a low voice with the room full of tension, "You investigated on your own, and you made moves that are reserved for pro heroes to make-"

"I was having a look around the city I recently moved into," Zach said. He said it as darkly back at the older man. His eyes were cold and his voice dry, "I went to the coffee shop, because the people I had dinner with suggested I go there. I just wanted to know why that part of the city was known as a bad part," the right corner of Zach's lips curled up and he continued in a less confrontational voice, "but when I got there, I saw that the shop owners had drugs on them. They were out in the open, and _that_ was something that I was able to investigate because I _saw_ a crime right in front of me."

 _He was bullshitting. He knew I was following him from all the way back then?! Shit, all the way from yesterday morning? He never showed any sign- except he did, but I thought it was just him pretending to… and he knows that I'd think that. He's manipulative. Every move he makes is a lie. Every action he takes. But as smart as he is, he slipped up. If he knew I was following him all that time… if he knew, then, then-_ Lemillion ground his teeth behind his lips as Zach continued to stare at him waiting for Lemillion to respond to what he just said.

Lemillion knew he could counter about Zach not calling the police right then and there. He figured Zach had a response for that too though. And the next thing he could mention, he did not want to mention. _If I say it, he gets credit. Only if I bring this conversation out of here. We both know._ Lemillion's eyebrows narrowed down, his eyes getting darker, and Zach lowered his lips into a much more intense expression.

 _Alright Lemillion, let's get real,_ Zach saw the shift in his opponent's face. He had his hands down unthreateningly at his sides, but he saw Lemillion's had clenched there for a moment and were still more tensed up than his.

"The villains you knocked out last night," Lemillion started. Zach nodded, and Lemillion's pause lasted for another second as Zach did not try to deny it to his face. "The ones who woke up haven't said anything about who captured them. They haven't spoken to the authorities. They're all just staying quiet." Zach nodded, humming with a thoughtful look on his face like he was surprised. Lemillion continued darkly though, "I knew it would happen, because it always happens."

"I don't know what you're talking about," Zach said. He denied whatever Lemillion was accusing him of, shaking his head and giving a partially aggressive and partially confused look at Lemillion's last statement. "What are you saying? 'Always?' What 'always' happens?"

 _Saying that like he doesn't know how the Army of Death acts. Like he doesn't know that villains won't say shit, in fear of retribution. They shouldn't fear a hero. But it's not just about fear of him. They know that if they mention Death, other villains know they snitched. That's the main reason. And, it's true this time too. They snitched to Lifebringer. Just like they always snitched to Death, only without the torture… except, it's just as plausible, that Death "interrogated" villains in a similar way. How much truth are in those rumors? Or are the rumors just spread, to make it easier for them to do something like that? To make villains less likely to say anything about what happened to them? If they talked, and they said it was Zach Sazaki who came after them, they might be able to get him in trouble… but that's not what they're thinking._

Lemillion glared at Zach with his teeth clenched harder at all he was thinking. His eyes narrowed, and the tension got thicker as Lemillion stared deep into Zach's unwavering hazel eyes. _Zach Sazaki killed villains. He killed six villains, and he got six months of jail time for it only to be allowed to come back and be a hero again. It's like, their lives don't matter. To society, villains' lives don't matter- except they know that's not true either. When it comes to other heroes, they do get in a lot of trouble if they do things outside of the rules. But Lifebringer, even before those villains were killed, everyone knew he broke the rules. Everyone knew he had killed villains before, he had joined the League of Villains, he did whatever he wanted! Seeing someone like that in front of them, they have no fucking idea how he'll act. I didn't know what he was going to do. No one knows, because Sazaki's a mystery. He's an enigma who gets away with, with murder! People love him and villains think we'll let him get away with anything. Villains think he's Death, just like I do. They think he has the ability to kill them, and they really don't know whether or not he'll do it. A loose cannon isn't a hero! That's not what heroes do. By the book, means something. We're not doing things his way. The law in Japan will not become the way the Army of Death acts. I won't allow it._

"I know," Lemillion started. "That you're-"

"Lemillion," Zach started, his voice raising in pitch and his head lifting up. He looked down his nose in an accusatory way, "Have you been following me, all this time?" Lemillion paused, looking at Zach confusedly and then with his eyes opening wider at the darker look covering Zach's face. "Now that I think about it, were you the one watching me at my apartment yesterday when I woke up? Wait wait," Zach shook his head, and he frowned like he was putting this all together.

"Stop with all the bullshit," Lemillion snapped. "I saw you take down over twenty villains who you had no right to be fighting-"

"It's weird that you'd know something like that though," Zach said. He glared at Lemillion and took a step towards him, and he asked in a confrontational tone, "You been stalking me or something? Watching my every move?" Zach was getting self-indignant, but to Lemillion it all sounded fake and he just ground his teeth more for a moment before freezing. Zach glared darker at his stalker, and he snapped, "Sure, I wouldn't have had a warrant to do those things, but do you have a _warrant_ to come after me?" His emphasis on warrant made Lemillion hesitate. Before he could counter with a defense though, Zach continued in a lower voice, "To spy on my every conversation? Watch me at every meal?"

Zach took another step towards Lemillion as the older hero got a much angrier look over his face. "I was pardoned, Lemillion. That means you have no right to infringe on my right to privacy like you've been doing, especially when you have no ongoing investigation to do so."

"I do though-"

"Don't tell me that," Zach said, tilting his head back and to the right, glaring harder down at Lemillion than he was before. "You don't want to implicate anyone else in this. Any officials who you might've dragged in," Zach said it darkly, and then he leaned forward and growled at the hero who stared at him in shock at what the teen just snapped. "Because if you keep going like this, and I confront you in public next time, you know there'll be an investigation into your fucking stalking. And when you say that your investigation, is the same exact investigation Endeavor is supposed to be running? That your investigation is based on nothing except your own hunch and some circumstantial evidence you think points to me?" Zach bit down and he glared twice as hard at Lemillion, "I don't want to do this. I don't want to call you out, because you're a great hero the people look to, and I don't want everyone to turn on you for being a creepy fuck following Lifebringer around all day, watching him take shits and eat ramen."

"I didn't-" Lemillion cut himself off, deciding he did not need to finish that sentence. His eyes shadowed over at all Zach just said, then he said in a lower voice, "You can't do things like that-"

"Why not?" Zach asked. He asked it and gave Lemillion a harsh look when the hero lifted his head to look back at him. "Did you really have a problem with the way I handled them? I found out all that information without doing a damn thing to them. What's your problem?"

"You don't have a full license," Lemillion snapped. "You don't have the right, by law, to do the things you're doing-"

"Well I can't just sit around doing nothing," Zach said. He gave Lemillion a cold glare, and he turned his palms towards the man in front of him. Lemillion's fists balled tightly and rose up, but Zach lifted his hands slowly up in front of him and up at his sides in a surrendering pose. "You going to take me in?" Zach questioned it and he stood there in a defensive stance as Lemillion glared while in a fighting pose. Zach stared back into Lemillion's eyes and said in a lower voice, "I know why you don't want to. I know, that you _really_ don't want to give me credit for what happened this morning. You're afraid it's going to happen, and you're right to be. They would think it was all me. They'd be wrong, but they'd give me all the credit."

"Shut up."

"Then take me. Take me in and charge me, and see if it holds up. See if the people who released me from prison for _murder_ , are really going to throw me back in for capturing a group of villains without hurting them. See if they'll really have a problem with how I, a kid of eighteen years old, attempted to avoid taking credit for capturing dozens of international villains. You think they'll think it's because I was trying to avoid getting caught? No," Zach shook his head and gave Lemillion an even darker look, chilling his opponent who kept his hands raised in a fighting stance but was feeling less in control of this situation even as Zach held his hands up in surrender. "It would probably relieve some of them. The ones who think they really released me just so I could go back to school? The ones who thought that by releasing me, I'd be making the world a safer place. I have a duty to those people, and although I'll stay within the law- I'll do things by the law, as a hero, I won't just let villains get away with crime right in front of me. And to me, that was _right_ in front of me."

Zach stepped forward towards Lemillion. He stepped forward and he said in a lower voice, "Because I can move around very quickly. Imagine if a crime was going on within five miles of All Might, and he called in a different hero to handle it because it was closer to them? That would be stupid. He's close enough to handle it himself. And with a provisional license, I can only deal with crimes right in front of me. A warehouse not far from where I was, might as well go check it out myself. I didn't have proof anything was really going on there. If those Karbo brothers were lying, I would have called the cops on them instead upon finding an empty warehouse. But instead I did find villains, and I was right there so I acted when I saw the villains, and the way I acted is the way I know how to act. It might seem un-heroic to you, and it might not be what you like, and it may make you think that I'm someone who I'm not, but it wasn't against the law. And when I defend myself like this, if you choose to turn me in for this 'crime' of capturing villains without hurting any of them, in a way that I got a ton of useful information without touching them, not one person is going to back you up."

"And Lemillion," Zach took another step towards the man in front of him who was just starting to lower his arms. Lemillion was lowering them, though he was opening his mouth to counter with something despite deciding that there was no way he could capture Sazaki here. "There's no one within thirty meters of us. I can extend Death out from my body in all directions, for over thirty meters. I could fill up every floor in this building, and all around the building, and the second you teleport I'll do it and there's no way you'll get out of my range before reappearing, and taking in a huge breath of Death." Lemillion's breath was stuck in his throat, and he stared at the teen straight in front of him without moving a muscle. Zach glared into Lemillion's eyes and said in a lower voice, "You're following me. You could be someone trying to kill me. Maybe I didn't know it was you, when I attacked the person stalking me. Maybe, I knew it was you, but I knew there was no way Lemillion would be following me in an illegal way like this, so he must have been working for the people trying to kill me. Test me."

Zach said 'test me' when he noticed a slight shift in Lemillion's expression. The tone he spoke in, made Lemillion completely believe that Zach would extend his Death as he just claimed he could to a range farther than he was ready to try and permeate himself out of. Lemillion's face got darker though even as he decided not to try and get out of range. He told himself Sazaki was not trying to fight him, but the argument Zach just used at the end to defend himself made him angrier than ever. "Hearing that from you-"

"Oh what?" Zach asked. His tone got sarcastic and he lowered his arms down to his sides. He did so and his body language showed he was not trying to fight, his expression shifting too. His last rant told Lemillion that this was all not just a place to "talk" to him, but it was a trap in itself and he had walked right into it, and right up to Sazaki so the kid had the largest range to attack him. Zach looked at Lemillion sarcastically and in a pissed way, "What's wrong? You don't want to hear that from me, because I bend the rules too? I bend the rules, so you decided to follow me without just-cause and spy on my every move? Is that not, bending the rules?" Zach asked it and looked at Lemillion like he was being a hypocrite, which just pissed off the blond much more.

"You aren't just bending the rules," Lemillion said. "You're Death. You're a murderer, and you aren't acting like a hero. Using your popularity as an excuse-"

"I'm not excusing my actions," Zach snapped. "Not like you're trying to defend yours, by saying that what I do is worse." Zach bit down and then scoffed at Lemillion's self-righteous expression, "Oh I get why you're angry. It's because bending the rules is okay, as long as it's _you_ doing it." Zach gave Lemillion a threatening look, but it lowered after a second and Zach just let out a sigh. He lifted his head and looked down at Lemillion again, a calmer look on his face despite how tense and dark their conversation was. "You're wrong. I'm not Death. I know that's why you're following me, and I've denied it over and over. The way I do hero work though, is going to be influenced by all my experience in the many different paths I've followed."

"That's wrong," Lemillion said. He spoke in a calmer voice too, though it was still angry despite them getting to a more civilized kind of conversation. He gave Zach the angry expression but said, trying to convince him this time, "When you decided to come back to be a hero, you have to accept all that comes with that. You have to _act_ like a hero too. You can't be, this-"

"I get what you're saying," Zach started, lifting his tone in a way that made it clear he was going to say 'but' after it. "But," Zach continued, after a long pause and the 'but' coming out in a condescending tone. "I want you to listen very closely to what I hear. It sounds to me, that what you want, Lemillion," Zach paused and his eyes narrowed fast at the man in front of him. "Is to take back what it means to be a hero."

Lemillion froze and his body tensed up. "Struck a nerve there, did I?" Zach asked. "Good, because that means you realize it too. That it's _exactly_ how you're acting. Bending rules, choosing to follow me around to try and take me down, you weren't even coming after me in here with arguments about how you think I'm Death. If you tried arguing that, then you'd have a moral high ground, maybe. But to come in here telling me how to be a hero. Telling me that I'm being a hero wrong, and that you're trying to arrest me because I'm not being the 'right' kind of hero, it sounds to me like you're doing exactly what he did. Trying to take back what it means to be a hero. Breaking rules to do it. Stalking private citizens, spying on their phone calls, their conversations, their every moves. Watching them at home…"

Zach let out a breath and he turned away from Lemillion. He looked towards the wall the stairs were behind, then he turned his body towards it but looked back at Lemillion. "You want to come after me, that's fine. You want to follow me around all day looking for your moment to catch me being too Death-like, go right ahead." Zach shook his head at the man, "But don't come at me acting like you're better than me, just because I'm not waiting three months to catch really easy-to-catch villains in my own backyard. I get that I'm not supposed to yet, and that's why I sent in the tip instead. That way people don't go, 'hey, breaking the rules could be good,' so there's no problem with this. If you want, you can ask your intern Deku about the guy I was comparing to you a minute ago. See if Endeavor really was the one who caught Stain."

Zach started for the stairs, leaving Lemillion frozen behind him looking towards Zach's back with his eyes growing wider. _Deku… what?!_

 _Sometimes it's better, to just break the rules and then cover it up later. It's been years. Lemillion won't say shit about it, to anyone but Deku… maybe I should've kept that a secret. Fuck it. Fuck him. I needed something to stun him to give me a moment to leave._ Zach walked around the wall and his lips twisted in rage. _I decided not to break the rules! What the fuck am I doing?! Three months! I just needed to keep it together- it's the first fucking weekend- second- NO! I can't always talk my way out of it. I'm going to fuck myself here. I need to be smarter. This will keep him from following me, probably. I needed him not to be coming back every weekend, and making him think he's being a lot like Stain will get him questioning if this is really what he should be spending his time doing. But will he think I was just fucking with him? No, no the way he flinched, it looked like it hit him as I called him out on it._

 _Doing it to villains is alright, but not to heroes. What the fuck am I doing? He was just following me, because it's his job! I was breaking laws and- FUCK! I needed to do that. I needed, I needed to do something!_ The relieved feeling Zach felt when he looked at those tvs through the store window had completely faded now. Frustration replaced it, much more than he had before at how little he was doing. _I made a plan! I had a fucking plan and I'm breaking it to what? To stop some drug dealers?! I could have, I could have waited a week, or even just a couple days until Lemillion wasn't… waiting, even a second, could get people killed. Time is always of the ess- NOT ANYMORE! There's a plan in place and I can't- I can't be doing this! While a hero was fucking following me?! I need to go to school! I need an actual hero license, and then things like this won't be against the law anymore! I just need to get, to the end of the term. Calm down. You spent six months doing nothing in prison. You could have gone another three, and it would have been fine. Just because you're out, doesn't mean you're free. I still need that license._

 _I need a pro hero license. I need it. And I need, patience… Fuck. Patience, was always something Zach sucked at._

* * *

 **A/N Hope you enjoyed. Zach and Lemillion's cat and mouse game come to a head and narrowly escapes turning into a violent confrontation. Zach's doing... stuff. Don't want to say much here, so I'll just say thanks for reading! Leave a review telling me what you think or what's to come from this below.**

someguy1011 chapter 152 . Apr 24

Awesome work as always, Zach is just running circles around every hero around huh. I get the feeling tho that kaminari is gonna resurface soon, Also it would be super cool to see a fight between zach and lemillion i doubt it would come to that just cause zach is too damn persuasive. Still good luck with your work and congrats, graduation is in sight! with the quality you've been providing here I know you got this

 **Thanks! Sorry if I got your hopes up on that Zach v Lemillion fight you guessed, but hey it could still happen. No spoilers though! I have to defend my thesis on Friday, then finals week, and then Graduation! Lol thanks for the review and hope I can keep the quality up for ya!**

Guest chapter 152 . Apr 24

40-50 chapters left ;_;

 **Maybe 60 ;) who knows?**

Guest chapter 152 . Apr 24

Zach calling Mirio a "Fucking noob" though. Fucking ouch

 **Togata stays on him through the weekend, but Zach still catches him off guard in their confrontation. Lemillion does not like Zach's way of doing things, and we'll see what comes of that... thanks for reviewing!**

GuestP chapter 152 . Apr 24

The feels! MARRKK WHYYYYY!?  
Poor Endeavor won't be able to pardon Mark anymore now that hE'S DEAD  
;-; I cri  
I love how Zach just throws a bunch of cards at people, like wtf?! How much more fun can he get out of being famous, just running away and throwing his cards at them XD  
Lemillion and Todoroki are digging deep, deep, deeper into Zach's graveyard. Can't wait till they find out - wait is it good if they find out? Or is it bad cuz Zach goes to jail- IDK WHAT I WANT TO HAPPEN  
Anyways, AWESOME CHAPTER I LOVED IT!~ Can't Wait for the next one!~

 **Mark ;( always sad hearing about him now. Mark really was a great guy, and I loved his character. Sad for Endeavor too. But hey Zach's got some upbeat moments these chapters. Lemillion going real deep into looking into Zach now, and though he doesn't get proof he's Death, Zach's not doing a great job of making him think otherwise. Will they find out?! ... no spoilers. XD Thanks for the review and I'm glad you're loving it!**

Super Power Sensei chapter 152 . Apr 24

Mom: [Comes to the basement] Why are you so loud?!  
Me: Because he's doing it again.  
Mom: What?  
Me: Zach's popping off again!  
Mom: ...Oh. Make sure you thank Author-san. [Heads back upstairs]  
Me: [screams into the air] ARIGATO AUTHOR-SAN!  
You can always count on Zach to randomly pull you out of a slump and hype you up for no reason. Even when he isn't referring to you. I obviously loved Zach's interaction with those hobos. He even took the "slapped away" burger for himself(mostly for the cheese lol). Plus him fucking with Lumillion was funny as hell.  
Both Lumillion and Todoroki are still undeterred from thier goal of getting at the former Death. We'll see where that goes as time goes on I'm sure. It's also nice to read Enji and Shoto getting along.  
Can you show us some quirk classes?(meta within the classes?(like people just using them to socialize and blow off steam)pricing? overall worth? someone's transition from quirk classes to a hero course because of new percieved usefulness?)  
As always I'll await your next upload. Hope you get a good grade on your thesis too.

 **XD lol at your review. Glad you liked it, and Zach really pops off this time as he gets back to his roots and hunts down some villains. I'm happy you liked the hobo scene, because I was writing it while procrastinating on my thesis and feeling like I couldn't do it anymore. Zach hyped me up too, felt like I motivated myself through him that I needed to try instead of just giving up on graduation. We'll see about Lemillion and Todoroki moving forward, as well as maybe more stuff about how society is changing around Quirks that I touch on occasionally. Thanks for the review as always, and hope you enjoyed the new chapter!**

Todorokiii chapter 152 . Apr 25

Im no homeless dude but I could relate with him. I want my life to be easy, I guess everybody does. But it's never easy and I know that. I always wanted to give up because problems would never leave, and it gets harder to solve. That's why I'm here, involving myself with the fictional world so I could forget reality where I don't want to face. Then Zach slapped me on the face and woke me up. Gosh, I'm inlove with this character. Thank you Author-san, this chapter is truly and still amazing. Btw, hehe. Lemillion and Endeavor is a confirmed noobs.

 **Feel you too. The characters in that alley just felt realistic to me as I wrote them out, felt like ways I've felt sometimes and I know I could end up in the same place if I don't take Zach's advice. I'm glad you took it to a personal level too, and really happy you guys are all invested in Zach. XD Thanks for the reviews, and hope y'all enjoyed the new chapter!**


	154. Chapter 154

**Disclaimer: I don't own Boku no Hero Academia**

 **Chapter 154:**

Zach returned to Shiketsu on Monday to a warmer reception than he had the Wednesday before. He avoided a couple reporters on his way towards the school, but he had to jog away from one who tried to get him unawares while undercover herself. Zach half-suspected the woman was an assassin, but the way she had her hand reaching into her coat told him she was pulling out a camera and not a weapon, and he gave her a nice surprised look when she got the camera up to snap a picture of him.

He went into the school building though and greeted a few people he knew or who said hi to him as he put his stuff away. Class 1 seemed generally happy to see him back too, though Kotsumura had a questioning look and asked Zach if he got attacked on the way to school again. After the first day, Zach had come in super early to class so Zach understood the question, but he just said he took a different route to school today which was much longer. "Have to keep those villains guessing," Zach said jokingly, and Kotsumura scratched the back of his head but laughed along, even if he did not get the humor in his routine that much.

Dendo Takashi walked in the classroom, and most of his classmates watched in disdain as he walked straight towards where Kotsumura and Zach were standing. Himazuri was already in, and she put her hands down on her desk nervously as she saw Dendo moving straight for Zach. Kotsmura looked over Zach's shoulders with a surprised look that lowered into more of an upset expression that this was starting so early. Zach looked behind him, and he moved a bit which allowed Dendo to walk right up and make a triangle with him and Kotsumura. Dendo looked to Kotsumura for a second, and the shorter blond-haired boy got a more confused look on his face, then Dendo turned to his left and at Zach who was watching him closely wondering what was happening.

"What'd you do this weekend?" Dendo asked.

 _Did something happen?_ Kotsumura thought. He turned to Zach, wondering what Dendo was referencing.

Zach just looked surprised for a second though and then cracked a small smile. "Not much. Walked around Yutapu a lot. It's pretty similar to Musutafu."

"You even know what Musutafu was like?" Dendo muttered back. Zach got somewhat confused, and Dendo hesitated as he noticed everyone staring towards him with looks similar to Kotsumura's gawking expression. "Since, U.A.'s a boarding school," he explained, looking away in annoyance at the looks he was getting.

"Ah, got you, but I actually lived in Musutafu since I was a kid," Zach said, nodding as he understood why Dendo would ask. "What about you? Do anything this weekend?"

 _What is happening?_ Muoko Kimi stared towards her classmates in astonishment. _What the hell changed with Dendo over the weekend?_

 _I don't- how-_ Kotsumura looked back and forth between the two having… a decent conversation with each other? _What happened over the weekend that they're suddenly chill? Wait- they're asking what each other did, like they didn't even see… What?!_

Zach had been pretty surprised too, but he smiled as he talked to Dendo even though the green-haired boy was not overly enthusiastic in their conversation. _Looks like Dendo spent the weekend thinking about it. Was a great move saying all that and then giving him a few days of space. I really think he changed how he thinks about me. Might've even learned something if he took it seriously._

Hazano came into the classroom on time, and he got questioned by his students on where the hero Hachiman was going to be spending his Fridays. Hazano did not give them much other than he had been out of the country over the weekend, not just Friday. Zach spent the next fifteen minutes of class thinking back on all the different news reports he had seen over the weekend. He could not come up with anything conclusive, deciding it was more likely that none of his theories about where he could have been were right. _Enorma said he'd be out on all Fridays. It might not be an actual incident or villain group, but some other kind of mission that wouldn't get any publicity. It doesn't sound right though, considering Hachiman's record. Could have something to do with them. If they still think I'm top suspect, could be inviting Hachiman to report on me and my actions through the week; see if there's any indicator that I'm him and I'm here._

Zach's thoughts were vague, but Himazuri was keeping out of his thoughts that morning. He chose to be careful anyway though since she had caught a couple strange thoughts the week before. Questioning where their homeroom teacher was on Friday was something many of the students in the room were doing. He focused on his morning studies, and he felt he did fine on the pop quiz Hazano gave on stuff Enorma taught, which Zach figured he did so his students would be sure to treat her lessons as seriously as his on the days she ran the class.

At lunch, Dendo sat at his usual table instead of next to Zach, though he did look over for a second like he was considering it. Flugeru gave his best friend the most confused look when Dendo sat down next to him. Kerushi had his eyebrows raised too, as the last time they talked Dendo was still enraged at Zach. Kerushi could see during that last conversation too that Dendo was still stuck on what happened during their fight on Ranking Day, but there was no more lingering embarrassment or humiliation in the way Dendo was acting. It was a breath of relief for him and most others in Class 1, but Flugeru was at a loss for words as Dendo said calmly, "We're not going after Sazaki anymore."

"Fuck that," Flugeru snapped. Dendo turned to his left, but the tallest teen in the class lost his shocked look and just glared harder at his green-haired friend. "He got you. He really got you?" Flugeru raised his voice, checking if Dendo was really serious about this and it was not just a new plan to lure Zach into a false sense of security.

"We were wrong-"

"No, we weren't," Flugeru said. His tone was flat and he looked into Dendo's eyes seriously. "I don't want to hear it. I don't want you to tell me," Flugeru cut off Dendo before he could speak. "Whatever it was that convinced you, was part of his plan. I thought you knew it was coming."

"Flugeru," Kerushi started across the table. Flugeru looked across and twisted his face into a more frustrated expression at Kerushi's tired-of-this look. "Just give him a chance. It's getting annoying."

Without Dendo backing it up anymore, the side against Zach had lost its strongest defender. Flugeru lowered his bottom lip that Kerushi would say that flat-out, but Dendo got a more self-annoyed look on his face showing he could see from the other side now how he must have looked doing this. "He's right," Dendo said, glancing back at Flugeru. "Let it go before you feel like an idiot."

"What changed your mind?" Kerushi asked, looking back to Dendo with an interested look as Dendo was not even hiding that he thought he was wrong before.

Dendo opened his mouth, but Flugeru stood up before he could listen to this. _Am I the last hold-out? Is no one left?_ Flugeru looked around, and his eyes narrowed on Zach's table full of his classmates all talking without a care to this villain.

At the table Zach was sitting at, a few of the students next to him looked in at their scar-faced classmate when a dinging sound came out of his pocket. Zach looked surprised as he heard it, and he pulled his phone out and opened the notification he just got. A smile broke out on his face and he let out a small laugh as he looked at the line graph that showed a very sharp incline at the end of it. The line shot up more, making it look almost vertical, and Zach's eyes opened wider before he scrolled down on the app he had open. A news alert popped up as he looked down, showing the Rembro Therapeutics board had just released an investment report suggesting earnings for that quarter were going to skyrocket. The news caused a rapid increase in the amount of people who wanted to buy a stock in Rembro, which shot up the price of the stock as all the holdings were being bought up and not many people were selling.

Zach already had a large number of stocks in Rembro though, and every dollar amount that the stock went up, Zach got that increase by a multiple of five hundred. The app showed his net profit since buying those stocks above the news report Zach just looked down at, and Kotsumura and Reika who leaned in from his sides looked down at his screen and spotted the increase of almost double what Zach had initially put in only a week ago.

"Did you-" Kotsumura paused, his eyes opening wider as the incline of the stock moved up higher so now Zach really did have double what he first put in.

 _No way it's getting much higher._ Zach slid to a button down near the bottom of the app's screen, and he sold ninety percent of his stocks at the new high point. _I spent almost this much on shopping and just throw-away cash this past week. Haven't really made much, but it's a solid way to keep the amount I have the same._

"You just made a million yen?" Reika asked, looking up from Zach's phone to his face after looking at the total amount he had invested in the Arkitock app. "That for real?"

 _10k in dollars, but I guess I'm not international anymore. I should think more in terms of yen. Get used to it. Feels strange though after adapting to use $ everywhere._ "Yep," Zach replied. He turned off his phone and put it back in his pocket. _I'll re-invest most of that, take some out once I need some more spending cash. Still have about ten- a million in hard cash on me though._ "Needed some way to support myself before I get a full license," Zach explained with a tilt of his head as he looked at Reika, then around at the others who were all looking at him after what Reika said. "And investing just seemed-"

"Wait- you really," Kotsumura shook his head around again. "Could I have, done that?" He got hesitant near the end, looking at Zach's face in confusion and then with big eyes as Zach shrugged and looked at him like 'why not?' Kotsumura's face lit up and he pulled out his own phone, "What was that app called?"

"Well- wait," Zach hesitated and he changed up his last expression a bit. "You know it's not easy, what I just did. It might have seemed that way, but you could lose that much money just as easily as I made it."

Keiji's excited look lowered down a bit, as that was what he always thought (even though he had never put too much thought into it). The way Zach just calmly took out his stocks though once he hit a certain profit made it look so easy though, and he still thought about looking into it once he got home later. He shook his head around though and then asked, "How'd you invest that much in the first place anyway? Are you loaded?"

Zach shook his head back at his classmate. "Not really. I don't have that much, but if I could make a lot more," Zach hesitated and looked over his shoulder. He looked at Flugeru who stood six feet ten inches, had bright blue eyes contrasting his short crimson hair, and his skin was tanner than most in the class. _Surprised he's the last one of those three. He seemed the least harsh the first day. Reserved against going in too harshly, but restraining from giving in as easily. Definitely not going to be easy if he hasn't already given up._ "With more spending cash on me," Zach continued, looking back at Kotsumura who hesitantly turned back to him too despite looking back and noticing Flugeru had just walked over. "I could do a lot more. Help more people out."

Kotsumura opened his mouth to ask what Zach meant by that, but Flugeru was not going to just stand there and be ignored. "'You can't do good without money?' Is that what you're saying?" His question was harsh and he glared at the black-haired teen who glanced back at him and shook his head.

"No," Zach said, denying the false quote Flugeru was calling him out on saying. "You can do good without a single yen to your name. But you can always do more good, with money," Zach said it to the confusion of the boy who came to confront him as well as to the others who started listening, wondering what he was getting at with this weird theory. Zach looked back at Kotsumura, and seeing the equally as confused look on his face as was on Flugeru's, he held up his right hand in front of him to give an example. "I could go out right now and stop a villain from beating on a homeless man, _or_ I could stop that fight _and_ give the homeless man some spending cash to get back on his feet, buy a suit and go to a job interview. That's a simple example but it all kind of works the same way," Zach finished and lowered his hand back down.

"I mean, I get how in that case I guess you'd do more because you had some money," Kotsumura began.

Zach cut back in, as Kotsumura clearly wasn't getting what he was trying to get at if all he was thinking of was that single case. "Stopping villains is good and all, but that rarely stops the root problems that face society," Zach looked down at his food while he was mentioning this, and he lifted his chopsticks and pushed around the different items on his tray. There was a variety of food in front of him, and those were just the choices that Zach took from up at the lunch line where he had a much larger variety, and yet today's lunch was different from every other day he had been at Shiketsu so far. While looking down at his food Zach continued, "It always comes down to money. Why people become villains, why children grow up hungry, why women are willing to take jobs they don't actually want…" Zach curled the right corner of his lip down as he started to mutter near the end, his words trailing off as he looked to drop deep into thought.

"You're thinking too deep into it," Reika said, and Zach turned to his left to the girl on his other side as Kotsumura. Reika picked up a piece of meat and shoved it in her mouth without a second's hesitation after how she saw Zach staring at his food there for a moment. "It's the way things are. Some people in crap circumstances turn into villains, but there are just as many rich a-holes who break the law."

"And they, more often than the poor, get away with those crimes," Zach countered. Reika frowned while chewing her food, glancing to her right at Zach with a look that did not deny what he said had some truth in it. "With more resources and more money, they have the power to get away with things that people without money couldn't. I'm not saying there's a better alternative, but when someone rich breaks the law it's not often because of 'necessity.' They didn't feel forced into evading taxes, or abusing foreign laborers, or skipping out on inspections that caused huge accidents. They do those things to make _more_ money. And sure, poor people do those things to make more money too, but if they can't make that money sometimes it's the difference between life and death for them. Or for whether or not their kids go hungry, or they have a roof over their heads for a night."

"What are you even talking about?" Flugeru muttered. He wanted to sound more angry, but it just came out as annoyed since getting angry over Zach talking about the disenfranchised would just make him seem like a dick. "You want to help the poor? And so you're trying to make more money to what, give it to the homeless?"

 _Why not?_ Zach hesitated after looking at Flugeru for a moment, then he shook his head and tssked under his breath. _Except that won't work. It's small time. It's something, there's no questioning that. It helped those people for sure, but that's not going to fix the institutional problems._ "It's not like that- it's not that simple," Zach said, correcting himself midway as what he was saying could be like that too. "One person, even one hero, can't solve issues like that. And no matter how much money I could make, I wouldn't be able to solve problems like those without other people helping. You can't force them to help though. Taking from those who have and giving to those who don't isn't a solution. That's just communism. And admittedly, some people do deserve more than others. They work harder and try harder, and many of those people do then give up a lot of their money themselves, to charity and to those who need it more than them."

Zach looked to his left back at Reika who had a quizzical look on her face but also appeared to be listening closely to what he was talking about. He glanced across the other side of the table as he turned back to Kotsumura, to notice that the others were all staring at him again. He looked to Kotsumura and back at Flugeru behind him, "And if a philanthropist who might be rich and own a mansion and a yacht, gives a few million to a charity to build schools in third world countries, or develop sustainable agricultural tech to keep people in those countries from ever being hungry again, then they are as much of a hero in my eyes as any hero who fights villains for a living and gives people hope."

Manzo lifted up some rice to her mouth and chewed thoughtfully while watching the side of Zach's head. He wasn't embarrassed saying his point of view here, he just calmly stated what he believed in and looked confident doing so. If he had hesitated any more or acted unsure about what he was saying then maybe some of them wouldn't have thought deeper into it, especially since they barely thought that much of it before in the first place. _We're here to become heroes. That other stuff, is supposed to be for other people. He even said it there at the end,_ Manzo thought, looking around the side of Zach's face towards his eyes. _Do they have to be different people though? If the richest people in society were heroes, then we'd know that money is going to the best-_

"Those who want to do good and help each other far outnumber the bad people in this world," Zach said after pausing for a moment and allowing the two he had looked at the end to say something if they wanted to. Neither did though, both just getting more thoughtful looks on their faces. "And I think some just need assurances that if they're going to put their money towards something good, that they know it's actually making a difference. There are too many barriers in place holding non-heroes from doing these heroic things, I think at least…" _I've seen the worst in humanity. But, I've seen much more often the good in people who stand up for what's right._ Zach continued speaking to his classmates who were willing to listen to what he had to say. _We all know, somewhere inside, that there are so fewer bad people in the world who just get so much more publicity. And the percentage of those villains who could not have been prevented is 0. If we focus more on development and treatment of mental illness too, even the most radical cases could have been prevented._

 _Should heroes make more? Endeavor already makes a ton of money. The Todoroki's are loaded because of it, but that means Endeavor also spent a lot selfishly. Which is fine. He had kids… not that- whatever the kind of man Endeavor was before, I don't judge that man against other heroes who do the same. A hero like Endeavor who resolved more incidents than any hero Japan's seen before, deserves to get paid more. Risking their life every day. Sure, he could have spent that money better, in more inspirational ways to people watching him. He could have gotten the news to report on him without telling them to, just them catching him giving his money in a heroic way to RCW or Homes For Kids. Stain was wrong though. Heroes making money is important, because society is run by money. Making it so heroes get paid nothing would be stupid since the best society has to offer would be given minimal power to only stop villains and do nothing else for the betterment of society. And heroes are the best of society, but because of heroes' actions a lot of other good people tend to follow their examples. So if through using money, I show people ways they can all help in ways that they can't without being heroes, they could- and would all help._

 _I know it._ Zach finished talking to his classmates while having his own internal dialogue. He ate more of his lunch, a smile spreading over his face as he thought back on a really hot day in a country covered in desert. _I know it's true, because as much as a smaller thing like helping the homeless does translate up into societal issues, more radical ones also transfer down. All those people in Saudi Arabia who rose up when we invaded, who fought to take back their country from those who killed their heroes. And all those people who stood up when given the chance to fight for what was right, for their homes and their children. When the situation arose that they could help, they did. But we had to tell them that they could. We had to tell them that they should and show them it was true. If people knew that they could make differences like that, in every day life… if I show them, then it wouldn't just be helping a few random people at a time. Fixing whole societal issues as a group. It's not what heroes do. This isn't the job of a hero, but I've always thought it should be._

* * *

"Rafaielo's?" Zach looked from the sign back down to his right at Hanodo.

"It's great. We come here all the time," Jaime mentioned, motioning forward with her head and then starting in herself. Roger followed right next to her, and Zach walked forward with Hanodo, Kotsumura, and Subara. The cafe was not very full, but there were a couple of other students from Shiketsu there already on line or sitting at a counter near the window.

Everyone looked surprised to see Zach walk in with the group who invited him to come out for some after-school coffee. It made sense to him that it was mainly other students there, high-school students at that as middle school and elementary ended after the high-schools did. There were some people there who looked around their age but were not wearing Shiketsu uniforms even under their outer warmer garments. The non-Shiketsu students who had seen none of Zach Sazaki since he moved into their town all nearly spat out their coffees (or actually did for one guy who was not expecting to turn left and see Zach walking past his seat).

Zach stopped for a moment as the guy nearly spat a mouthful of coffee on him. He turned to the guy who looked his age and who looked mortified as they made eye contact after what caused it. Zach just laughed though and nodded his head at the napkin dispenser on the center of the guy's table as he kept walking towards the counter. He got on line with the others and never looked back at the teen who quickly got to wiping up the floor while cursing internally in embarrassment.

"Told you," Subara said to the male barista behind the counter. She made the remark after he took her drink order, and the slightly older man looked over her shoulder to see Lifebringer talking with some of her classmates.

"Yeah, I take it back," the barista with a nametag on that said 'Tanaka' smiled as he glanced back at the girl right in front of the counter.

Subara frowned as even winning here felt more like she was giving the cute barista she was flirting with the win. She turned and walked over to the waiting area for her finished drink, and she noticed happily that he watched her go for a second longer than for most people before turning to get Jaime's drink order.

 _Even if it's not every day,_ Zach thought while still talking with Hanodo and Kotsumura. _She mentioned it to the barista. That I'm in her class maybe. Maybe more._ Zach hummed to himself, and he just ordered a small regular coffee. Tanaka did not make a big deal about serving him which Zach appreciated, as it was a first since he had returned to not even get a comment. _I'd actually come here more often because of that, so it's a good move on his part. Don't think I can though._

Zach got quieter in the conversation his classmates were having. He chimed in less often than usual, which was noticeable since he was talkative enough that most of the conversations bounced back and forth off him to the others. They were even on a topic he had brought up in the first place, but Zach lost some interest in it and just focused on the workers of the coffee place as they made his and his friends' drinks. In the corner of his eyes he could see people who had ordered their drinks right before Subara. They were drinking, and he had seen their coffees being made too, using the same technique and ingredients that they were making his coffee with now.

 _He keeps looking towards me. Everyone keeps looking my way though, which means looking towards me is also a way he could be blending in. It would be more suspicious if he didn't look, and he knows if he acts like he's worried about me thinking he's trying to poison me he'll give away that he's thinking about poisoning me._ "You guys have been coming here for a while?" Zach asked, looking around the place like that was why he had been distant for a minute; he was just too focused on the cafe they brought him to.

"It's got good coffee," Kotsumura said with a shrug, wondering if there was anything else it needed.

"Not far from the school, and it's got good reviews," Roger added in agreement.

Zach looked at Subara who just got handed her coffee and stepped back into their group. They were all going to get their cups before going to sit down, but Zach looked at Subara and then lifted his eyebrows and shifted his gaze over to the guy behind the counter she had flirted with. "And you and the barista?" Zach asked.

Kotsumura, Roger, and Hanodo gave Zach confused looks at the question. Subara attempted to play it off like Zach was making a joke, though Zach could tell from Jaime's first split second reaction the things he wanted to know. He allowed Subara to just ask him what he meant by that, and he just said he thought they knew each other by the way they were talking. She replied that since they came so often he's usually working there at this time, and Jaime looked confused for a moment before nodding and agreeing about that. Subara continued to keep a straight expression that made the conversation move on, neither Kotsumura, Roger, nor Hanodo realizing what the question had really been as Zach played it off so well that even Jaime thought she had initially misunderstood what Zach asked.

 _Is he just calling me out on it? I think he's asking if there's some secret relationship going on here, but I'll let him know what… but, what if he really just- no, no he knew exactly what he was asking. I'm not as easy to trick as these guys, Zach Sazaki._ Subara watched Zach closely even as she was facing Kotsumura while he talked.

 _By Jaime's reaction, Subara's mentioned it before. Maybe several times. Jaime says she knows him too, which means even someone not into the barista is familiar with him. Familiar enough that he couldn't have just gotten the job to get close, because he's worked here for a long time. What about the other worker though? Or what if that's not even Tanaka? Doesn't seem like there is anything other than a crush, so the chances they know him well enough to be able to tell if it was an imposter are low._ Zach grabbed his coffee that was the last one to come out, and he nodded in thanks at the older female barista who smiled back at him in a friendly way though cautious too. _It's caution because of my past crimes, not because she's nervous that I'll figure her out. It has to be. Didn't see anyone following me today, but I still can't risk it. Not with Lemillion so close._

Zach walked over to the counter with the creamers and sugars on it. Hanodo came over too, and the muscular boy six inches shorter than Zach gave him an odd glance as Zach hesitated at the creamers. _Even without anyone needing to be planted. I get a cream and a sugar in my coffee. I just, do that sometimes. How often? Often enough to be considered a pattern._ Zach gave a hesitant look and then turned and headed over to the table his friends grabbed, looking like he just decided he'd rather go straight black today.

 _It's a new place, relatively. Not part of a big chain, but it seems popular with students. Like its product is directed at students. People knew I might get out of prison months before I actually did. Soon as pardon talk came around, or even before possibly? People who might have made the first push, because even having me in prison was too dangerous knowing that I was still too close. The others who backed the push don't have any idea that the ones who created it in the first place could have done so just to get a shot on me. Was Nikko involved? Or just riding the wave? How many of the people here are watching me get ready to drink this coffee?_

Zach turned to Kotsumura and replied to something he just mentioned to Hanodo, getting both of them to look towards him. Roger turned from Jaime after a second as Zach said something interesting, but when Roger looked towards him Zach quickly got to the point in a natural way. That way he was able to just turn to Roger who he saw looking at him, and he asked, "When you mentioned reviews before, who told you about this place?"

"Well, I think we all heard about it when it was opening up," Roger mentioned.

"There were those fliers that they handed out before opening day," Kotsumura added. "Why?" He asked too, looking at Zach wondering what was the point of his question.

Zach opened his mouth, closed it, and he lifted up his coffee like he was going to take a sip. He hesitated in responding, but then he doubly hesitated as he did not finish bringing his cup up to his mouth. He started to lower it while opening his mouth again like he was just stopping because he was going to start talking, but he grimaced as he did that too. It just came naturally to him to play that off and lie about why he was lowering the cup, or as to what he was doing altogether, but he was just sitting there with a cup full of hot coffee that he just decided he was not going to drink. He did not have a great way to lie his way out of it, and the longer he would have to think about it the harder that was going to get. "I, don't really…"

 _It's a little out of the way. Not directly on line with the station. There are other cafes that way._ Zach frowned for a second and he looked down at his cup, then at his classmates around him who had already started drinking and were fine. _How many people were watching me on my way here? Could any of them have known beforehand that this was my destination? Yes. That's the problem. You wouldn't have to be a mind reader to know._

"I'm just not sure about my drink," Zach admitted, lifting his cup and moving it into the middle of the table.

Hanodo thought on how Zach hesitated at the creamers, and Subara on his question about the barista who took his order. Kotsumura was already half-suspicious without noticing it, but his eyes still opened wide at Zach's admission right there of something he rarely ever mentioned despite what happened on the first day of school. Roger tilted his head to the side confusedly though and glanced next to him to see Jaime looked just as lost. "You think someone poi-" Subara started, only to stop as Zach gave her a look to get her not to say that so loudly.

The eighteen year old girl with smooth, hairless, snow-white skin, and the Quirk- Soap, lowered her voice as she leaned in more over the table. "If you thought so, why didn't you say so earlier? Before we started drinking?" She got an annoyed look on her face, and she shook around her own iced coffee that she was a quarter of the way through.

"It's not that I think it happened, I'm just being overly cautious," Zach countered with a shake of his head. "I know I said I'd come when you guys invited me, but I probably just over-thought it since then and psyched myself out." _Why'd I mention anything?_

"If you think so, then why not take a sip?" Kotsumura suggested, lifting his own cup and taking a nice long one to show there was nothing to worry about. "No one could have known you were coming here. You just decided to come before leaving school," he added, when Zach did not just reach out and grab his own coffee after his suggestive question.

"I don't think that's true," Zach argued, shaking his head with a look to his side at the blond on his left. "That no one could have known," he specified at Kotsumura's confused look.

"How could they have?" Jaime wondered. The fact that Zach did not counter that he had just decided to come, but that someone could have known he'd be there made her think deeper on it. "You think someone had a Quirk telling them you'd come? Like, Foresight? Or-"

"It doesn't have to be that, specific," Zach replied with a shake of his head. _Though it could just as easily be that. If I spend my life thinking there's someone with Foresight after me though, I wouldn't be able to eat or drink anything again. On that one you just have to live with the fact that you can't avoid it. Seeing the future is rare though, very rare, and it always has its drawbacks._ Zach paused for a moment after the start of his response, but his classmates were all listening too closely now. The conversation was stuck on this topic, and Zach hummed before speaking in a low voice, "So, maybe I decided to come here just at the end of the day, but other people could have known I'd be coming here for much longer. People like, you guys?"

Zach asked it and rose an eyebrow to see if they got what he was saying. "You guys came up and asked if I would come at the end of the day, but you were planning to do that before, right?" It made sense that they had done so, considering they all came up to him together and seemed to be going whether he went with them or not.

"Sure, but we aren't trying to…" Jaime trailed off, as she felt like that was not what he was accusing her of.

"We didn't tell people that we were going to ask you either," Subara mentioned. He looked towards her and his look showed he was asking if she really meant that. She nodded and then added, "We get that people are after you. Unless those guys you took down really were the same ones who shot you coming out of jail," she finished, suggesting it was a possibility and maybe Zach did not have to be so paranoid.

"No one did?" Zach asked, glancing around at the others besides Subara too. "Not even say, your parents?" Zach immediately got frowned at by his classmates who thought he was accusing their parents of trying to kill him. He stayed calm though and just said, "Listen, does this sound familiar? 'Hey guys, might be home a little late today. Heading to Rafaielo's. Yeah, yeah with Jaime and the others. We're going to see if Zach wants to come today too.' …" Zach paused after he finished, glancing around at each of them and seeing a couple of more hesitant looks on his classmates' faces.

Roger nor Jaime had that kind of look, but Subara frowned deeply as it sounded far too much like a conversation she had that morning to be coincidence. She opened her mouth to accuse Zach of something, because the way he said 'Jaime and the others' was a direct quote out of her mouth that had her feeling deja-vu too strongly. She had called him Lifebringer to her parents though, unlike Kotsumura who did use 'Zach' when saying the final part of the line that Zach mentioned. Kotsumura also thought about how his sister was at the table with him then too, and his eyes darted around the coffee shop in a sudden panic. _Anima can't keep a secret for her life, and I didn't even tell her it was a secret! I was pretty much boasting about it anyway to her-_

"Even if we said something like that," Subara started. She did not admit that she had, and a lingering piece of her believed that somehow he knew for a certainty, but she played it off as a hypothetical for now. "How could that, have given someone the opportunity to poison your coffee?"

Kotsumura started nodding, realizing that too and calming himself down from the idea that he had almost gotten Zach poisoned. "Well if what I just said sounded realistic," Zach began again, feeling more confident about his caution now after seeing a few of those reactions. "Then how about this one: 'Hey Subara, how's your daughter? Carina staying away from that Lifebringer?' Or, 'Your son's in Lifebringer's class? No way, I don't believe you. They don't really know each other, there's no way!' And then in response to these things: 'No, the opposite. Just this morning she told me…' or 'Really! I mean it! They're friends now. Going out for coffee-"

"Alright alright," Kotsumura held up a hand to get Zach to stop having these theoretical conversations with himself. "So, sure. I'll admit I told my parents about this, and yeah _maybe_ , maybe they could have-"

"Any villain after me could have bugged any public area where people I know, or people who know people I know, frequent," Zach explained before Kotsumura could question further. "It's unlikely, but it's possible they heard about this opportunity if they're around here doing recon before making an attempt on my life. If they want to be 100% sure they can take me, especially after seeing how I handled those pros last week, then doing something like this where they wouldn't have to even be here is entirely probable."

 _"Probable," he says that like a joke instead of saying "possible" at the end there,_ Subara frowned and looked down at her coffee herself. "What do you mean, they wouldn't even have to be here?"

"As I said, it's probably not-" Zach stopped himself as Subara looked up at him. She was asking him this seriously, and he frowned at the sight of her look before getting a slightly more serious expression on his face too. He nodded at her and then looked to his coffee. "There's this poison, that I'm thinking of. It's unique, because it's not technically a 'poison' at all, though it is still something you'd ingest which would kill you."

Zach paused, checking with the others seeing if they wanted to hear more. All of them looked interested though and not that afraid of what he was saying, and Zach relaxed a bit as he reminded himself these were all people about to become pro heroes in a few months. "This poison consists of two different liquids that react a certain way to each other. Separately, neither would really hurt your digestive system and you could pass it like nothing. They're harmless. Because of this, it's a popular tactic among assassins as they can casually move around with a vial of one of the liquids without being seen as suspicious or even technically having a weapon on them. Maybe one person holds each vial and they work in a team," Zach trailed off for a second, as a couple of the others had more serious looks and even accusatory or disbelieving looks at what he was saying.

 _Is he getting his worlds mixed up?_ Kotsumura thought. The thought made his chest churn, and he had almost a pitying look forming on his face though he was still taking Zach seriously.

 _Are there actually, assassins- like I would get it if he had said hired-killers so maybe,_ Subara frowned in a darker way. _Unless, he just counts all of them from all the different worlds as assassins. The ones on Terra he talked about really sounded like assassins, so associating them with the people trying to kill him here makes sense. Maybe this way of killing even existed in that world too._

 _What is he even talking about?_ Hanodo asked himself, as he was already lost.

Zach continued more on track with just describing the poison. "When mixed together, however, they bubble and then create a violent explosion." The others all thinking about different things opened their eyes wide and looked back at the coffee that they thought might have some completed poison inside it. The cup was not exploding though, which meant that Zach was suggesting it had one of the parts of the poison in it.

"How could you find out?" Subara asked, looking back up from the cup after a second.

"I can't," Zach replied. "They both taste and smell bad, but there are other liquids that can get rid of a scent and nullify taste. They're pretty common solutions in science labs and classrooms so anyone could get their hands on them. If some of the taste and smell nullifiers were mixed with each part, then I were to ingest one part here unknowingly, I could wind up having a drink in my next meal or something- or maybe the second part is going to be the juice in a burger, or the soup of the ramen I eat next. Or maybe," Zach hesitated and looked at the drink with a darker expression. "Maybe this is already the second part."

 _If I'm worried because they could have predicted I'd be here, and they could have contaminated all of the coffee, then they could have gotten Shiketsu's food supply knowing I'd be there too. In order not to just massacre everyone though, they'd have to make sure it was mine specifically. That's why this doesn't make too much sense. It's why if anything this would be the first part, because everyone else could have just ingested it, yet the other Shiketsu students aren't all exploding right now. They could target me more specifically later, or in a big group just without people who could have been here with me._

"Dude," Kotsumura reached a hand out and placed it down on Zach's left shoulder. "I really think, you're overthinking this."

Zach sighed and let out a laugh as Kotsumura's tone shifted the mood instantly. He nodded in reluctant acceptance to that, but said with a look over at him, "Probably. Still not going to drink it though." Zach leaned back in his chair, "I'd rather not risk exploding from the inside, unless it's from eating too much Burger Lando."

"Haha, I saw a story on the news the other night about you and a Burger Lando…"

Zach put a hand on his forehead like half-embarrassed and half-exasperated that there was another news story about him and this time at a fast food place. _It does feel a bit like paranoia,_ Zach looked at the palm of his head he just dragged over his eyes for an instant. His eyes were dark in that moment even as he was still smiling about the conversation he just shifted them onto which could lead to him talking about the others' weekends. _But people have called me paranoid for years._

 _And I'm still alive._

* * *

"Yeah yeah, won't do it again," Bakugo muttered. "Seems like you already know all about our weekend." His voice was accusatory, and he glared at the older blond standing in front of him who had tried to give him a lecture there about reckless actions he heard Explosion King made that past weekend.

Scorchle frowned at Bakugo for the tone he had with their pro, but the sidekick of Lemillion's agency also looked to Lemillion like Deku for an answer to the intern's implied question. Lemillion gave Bakugo an annoyed look and made Bakugo look hesitant for a second. Lemillion's expression was serious and also fed-up, but he turned after a second and scratched his chin with a deeper frown on his face. _It's not him I'm angry at. Cool it._ Togata let out a breath to relax, as he figured he might be overly mad at Bakugo for reasons other than Bakugo's own attitude.

Lemillion continued to frown as he looked away from his comrades who he called to the agency that afternoon. _I made the decision already. It's no time to back down now._ "I've started an investigation into Lifebringer," Lemillion turned back to his interns and his sidekick who all looked at him in surprise at this news. "That's what I spent the weekend doing, and I'm bringing you into it."

Scorchle got a bit of a hesitant look on his face. The man of nineteen had what looked like steel pipes sticking up over his shoulders out from his back, with openings on the ends that he could fire water from. His costume was orange like his straight hair that curled up at the front, and there were flame patterns on his sleeves and pant legs too. He looked to either of the other younger boys in the agency, then back at Lemillion with a questioning look at why Togata would do something like this with the two of them there.

"What, are you investigating him for?" Deku asked, trying to push his emotions down for a second as Lemillion had an intense look on his face and was waiting for some kind of response from them.

"Being Death," Lemillion replied. Scorchle's eyes opened wide though neither of the other two reacted. "I've talked it over with certain hero officials, and I already started an investigation on my own. I've found it is going to be difficult to do this on my own though, and I need your assistance." _I'm not doing it because I want you two to betray him. We're not there, yet. Right now I just need my agency's support in this._

"Did you find any proof this weekend?" Scorchle questioned.

"If he did, you think Zach'd still be a free man?" Bakugo scoffed at his senpai's unnecessary question. Midoriya glanced at Bakugo hesitantly, wondering what he thought of this. Bakugo did not look back at Midoriya though, just frowning more and humming to himself in a pissed way.

 _I knew, Zach would get investigated for…_ Midoriya's conflicted feelings could not stay internal and showed strongly on his face. _But by me? I, I thought we might have to fight one day, but if I'm the one who pushes it…_

"I did not find definitive proof that Sazaki was Death," Lemillion began after a long silence in his office. "But that is not to say I did not already begin gathering evidence." Lemillion lifted up a recorder and he pressed play before anyone could ask him what it was.

 **"Everything's fine. Okay? I don't want to capture you. That's not why I'm here…"**

As the recording started, Lemillion spoke up to his comrades listening to Zach Sazaki's voice. "I followed him to an abandoned industrial complex that he discovered a large gang to be operating from. Drugs, guns…"

 **"This is my operation now."**

"It's not what it sounds like," Lemillion said, looking to Scorchle. _Not even a flinch. The two of them,_ Lemillion frowned while they continued to listen to the recording. His expression darkened at the way his two younger interns reacted to the things Zach was saying. _They know exactly what he's doing._

 _It worked?! Wait-_ Midoriya's bottom lip lowered and his eyes shot open huge.

Bakugo's eyes snapped open wide too and then his teeth clenched down hard. _"Spade?" That mother fucker. They just gave it to him. He didn't even have to push that hard._ The corner of Bakugo's lip curled up a small amount but dropped back down far in under a second. _They're scared shitless by him. The only reason they'd say all this. Straight to a hero. Even if they thought he was… it's because they're scared. They're so scared, they would rather believe he was just taking over their operation than he was tricking them into giving up everything._

"Spade, is the one everyone's been talking about," Deku started slowly, looking into Lemillion's eyes for confirmation at what was not really a question. It was not public, but heroes shared information and Sunday morning was full of updates about the investigation and how it had started in Japan, which was not widely known because the operation occurred in so many questions at once. Lemillion gave Deku a single nod at the statement that made the youngest in the agency grind his teeth frustratedly.

 _You can't do things like this, Zach. You're, you're not allowed to without a pro hero- and in this way, that's not…_

"So what?" Bakugo asked once Lemillion lowered the recorder. Lemillion looked to the blond with spiky hair who shook his head once and asked, "What kind of evidence is that? Evidence of what?"

Scorchle looked to his side at Bakugo, then back to Togata who he shook his head at too which made Deku look at him in surprise that he was agreeing with Bakugo. "Did the villains say-"

"Not one of them has said a word about Lifebringer since they woke up arrested," Lemillion replied. "Even if they did, I had followed Lifebringer through the day leading up to that night's capture. His path is clean, as he just 'heard' about some people who might be able to tell him more about the bad part of Yutapu. Then he just happened to 'see' some illegal substances in said store. And then he created a new C.I., like it was nothing." Lemillion paused and then added in a lower voice, "It's the one thing I could get him on. The only thing: that he didn't turn in the two men he caught with drugs first, and instead had them tell him where they bought from in order to catch a bigger fish."

"And the way you know that, is by following him around all day hoping to find something," Bakugo muttered. He scoffed at Lemillion when the older man looked back at him, his own expression already turning to a grimace at the way Bakugo worded that. "Yeah, like Zach would get punished for it. If anything, you go after him like that and he'll make you look like an idiot."

"That's what he told me," Lemillion said, his voice darker and making Bakugo lose his look to instead stare at Lemillion in shock at that.

"You confronted him?" Deku asked with wide eyes.

"No. He led me into an abandoned building with no one else around, then he called me out," Lemillion replied. His expression was dark and he looked back and forth between his three sidekicks. "Sazaki, is dangerous."

He was glad not to see either of his interns denying that statement, but he still needed to continue. "He threatened to attack me, and that he could claim that he thought I was a villain, following him like I was. He said that even if he knew it was me, I could have been working with the people after him. Sazaki knew I was there, from the minute I started following him, and yet for over twenty four hours I believed he had no idea that I was there. He did things in front of me that don't make sense for him to have done, knowing that a hero was following him." Lemillion paused and his voice got lower, his eyes serious and smoldering as he said, "He was testing the water. Seeing how long I would stay in hiding. He did just enough, that he thought I would come out and try to stop him. I think he wanted me to try earlier, so that he could see where the limit was while also being able to use his excuses to get me off his back with the support of whoever heard what had happened."

"And now that he called you out and thinks you'll be staying away from him," Scorchle began. "You think he's going to do something worse than… that?" Scorchle paused before saying 'that,' wondering about the way he was wording it. _"Worse?" Was what he did really a bad thing?_

"I don't think he'd assume that," Lemillion replied. "I don't think, he'd make any assumption of safety at any time." Lemillion looked around between the three in front of him, and he focused more on his interns who had thoughtful looks yet reluctance in them as well. "Whether or not he is Death, Zach Sazaki is a threat to everyone. The way he acted, knowing he was under surveillance for as long as he did," Lemillion paused and then lowered his voice more, "How he switched tones instantly, moving in and out of different personalities. It almost seemed like he was an entirely different person, several times throughout this weekend."

Midoriya lowered his eyes down to his fists that he had clenched so hard at his sides. _Zach._

"The way he acted was not that of a stable individual," Lemillion said. "He changed up the way he confronted me midway through, revealing that he knew I was watching for longer than he did at first. Then he changed tactics to telling me we were on the same side, and we both did not want him getting the credit for what happened with Spade. And then he made threats. Veiled threats against me, a promise to take me down if a fight had happened, and he got angry. He set a trap that he planned out right before my eyes, and before he walked away his voice got darker, his words more threatening. If I had followed him on his way out, I am certain he would have attacked me."

Bakugo turned his head to the side and glared out the windows on his left. Scorchle got a more nervous look on his face at all Lemillion was saying. Deku's face got more intense though, his eyes hardening as he looked into Lemillion's eyes. "I don't think he would have," Midoriya said. Bakugo looked back and Scorchle turned to the younger intern too. Togata frowned at the green-haired boy but Midoriya did not back down, "Zach's wrong to go outside of the rules. I don't know why, he did what he did knowing that you were watching him… But he's trying to help people, Lemillion. If you want to investigate him for being Death I think that's, fine, but otherwise… Zach served his time."

"He served a fraction of his already lenient sentence, which I believe he knew he would," Lemillion countered without losing his dark and low voice. Midoriya got a less sure look on his face as he had had that doubt before himself, wondering if Zach knew everything that would happen before he even turned himself in. Lemillion continued with a frustrated look on his face, "What he did to Rancor and his men. Betraying them like that after joining them, just to move right on to his next… And how he dealt with the first drug dealers he found. What he spent his entire weekend doing: mapping out Yutapu, and studying foreign languages, and searching public records. He's manipulating everything and everyone around him. And what he did to Faith-"

Midoriya and Bakugo's expressions changed fast although both had already been looking conflicted or grinding their teeth at how Lemillion was listing those things. The tone in Lemillion's voice showed he really thought Zach to be a villain, and neither of them could blame him as they thought similar things but knew a better side of Zach that he didn't. Bakugo growled when Lemillion cut himself off though, "What he did to Faith? The fuck do you mean by that?"

Lemillion glanced to his spiky haired intern then to the one with short curly green hair. Deku's eyes were huge and his breathing started to pick up which had Scorchle looking to him and the other intern nervously. Lemillion ground his teeth for a moment and then took in a deep breath. "Keep this to yourselves," Togata began in a low, soft voice. "I know both of you fought against Faith though," Lemillion said with a look into Deku's eyes and then to Bakugo's. "And I want you to know, so you understand why it is I believe Sazaki is the most dangerous villain in Japan right now."

"While Sazaki was in Tartaros," Lemillion continued without pause. "He destroyed Faith. When I heard about this I should have realized how dangerous he was, but I only understood it after what I saw this weekend." Lemillion paused and he stared into Deku's eyes with an intense look that had not pity or apologetic tone to it at what he was telling him about his friend. "Faith attempted to escape, killed several prison guards, and he came face to face with Sazaki. Whatever it was he had to say, Sazaki did not allow him to. Your old classmate stayed in place, and he called Faith 'predictable.' Then from the position he was waiting for Faith in, still inside his own cell, he attacked and knocked out Faith without listening to him."

Bakugo's eyes widened again and his fists shook down at his sides. He could feel the tingling sensation and shocks leftover, and a jagged scar on his right side and under his right arm hurt at the thought of the Stain Cult's leader. Midoriya thought about what he saw when he came out to fight Faith though. When he saw Faith standing there over heroes' bodies, and the look he saw on Ms. Joke's scarred face when he went to her to ask what had happened weeks after the fight. His breathing sped up more as he thought about what Faith had said to him, what Faith had managed to do and how he had destroyed as many heroes as he had killed.

"Faith is currently in a padded cell, in a straightjacket," Lemillion went on after a moment. "It was not his failed jailbreak that did it, but what Sazaki said to him. And Sazaki _knew_ what he was doing, when he did it." Lemillion's lips curled farther down and his face twisted for a moment as he thought about it. "The guards' reports confirm that Sazaki knew exactly how Faith would react. The state he's currently in, Sazaki planned to do that to him, and yet he did not- Sazaki didn't force Faith to…" Lemillion's expression got so much darker as he thought deeper on this. He thought about it in a way that he did not want to the first time, because the idea of it was actually horrifying to him.

"A man like Faith," Lemillion started in his darkest voice. "Who spent his entire life doing 'random' villainous deeds. Whose entire personality built off of his spontaneity… He gave up information on other villains to get moved, so that he could see Sazaki, but after what he did there's no way that he'd ever get a chance again. Even his mental instability could be just another manipulation. It could all be a ruse to get the guards to let him out again, to kill them again, so he won't get the chance. He's now trapped in a single room for the rest of his life. Stuck, in the, _paradox,_ Sazaki put him in. The idea that he was predictable. Sazaki could have had two reasons for saying it. Either, he really meant that Faith was predictable and that's how he was able to see him coming, to just stand in place and take him down effortlessly. Or, Sazaki could have said it just to mess with Faith's head to make him think that he was always predictable because Sazaki knew that he cared about that. But… but even if it was the second option, even if Sazaki did just say that to him to make him think about it and be stuck on it, then by thinking about it and being stuck on it Faith showed that he really was predictable. And that means it was really the first option? Was he really always that predictable? Is that why he's in jail now, stuck there for his entire life? Was he never the random and chaotic evil that the rest of the world knows him as? Was-"

Lemillion stopped himself as he had been speeding up how he was talking. He cut himself off and just bit down hard while trying to push away how that man must currently be losing his mind. "It confuses me just thinking about it. Hurts me to know, that the paradox exists- so to even imagine what it's like for that man who it's actually affecting. The man trapped in the center of it, stuck in a cage that will always remind him of how he got put there, always return him to the paradox that no matter what he was predictable." Lemillion paused and shook his head before speaking to his interns who had been staring at him in shock for all of that. "You know the kind of villain Faith was. Probably worse than Intanzo, he's the worst villain Japan has seen in years. A manipulative monster… and your friend shattered his mind. Intentionally."

 _Faith, fucking deserved it,_ Bakugo thought. The thought did not make his frown lift any though, and his eyes were cold as he pictured Zach's face.

 _Why, Zach?_ Midoriya's shaking fists steadied on his sides and his eyes opened wider. _Gogogo? Or Mandalay and Pixie Bob? Was it for revenge, Zach? Revenge for heroes you knew… or for Ashido? Because he almost got her killed? Did you really predict him? You really saw it coming and- but even if you didn't, you knew what you said to him would do that. I, I believe that. I don't want to believe that's something you would do though._

"He's, insane," Scorchle whispered. He looked around at the others to see if they all felt the same way after hearing that.

Lemillion waited a second and then nodded his head. He felt he got across how dangerous Zach was, and he said to the members of his small agency, "I believe he is. Mentally unstable at the least. He was messing around with me over a course of two days while at the same time acting like a hero to certain people, a monster to others, and he has plans for something that he's in the midst of working on. I haven't figured that part out yet, but I need you to help me figure out what it is. We cannot just wait for Sazaki to make his move. By that time, I'm afraid it will already be too late."

* * *

"Fine, don't tell me." Kotsumura sighed in exasperation and then shrugged his shoulders. "But whatever you told him, Dendo really seemed like he's cool with you now. Didn't think Flugeru would jump on your back like that, but hey, can't win 'em all."

"If Dendo's changed his mind, anyone can," Roger admitted with a laugh. "I think Flugeru's just being careful. Don't take it too personally."

"I don't," Zach replied with a shake of his head and a small smile towards the American boy. They were walking on the sidewalk away from Rafaielo's, and Zach continued to the five with him, "He's not wrong to be suspicious of me. Some people are just going to take longer for me to convince I really am trying to do good, this time around-"

"Hey," Subara cut in. Zach turned from the boy on his left to the girl on his right side, but when he turned, his eyes looked past the girl on his right to the other side of the road. He stared straight past her as the white-haired pale-skinned girl said in surprise, "Is that, Yaoyorozu?"

"Oh hey, it is Creati."

Zach stared down the sidewalk to the busty girl whose chest pushed out even in heavy winter clothing that still looked great on her. Her hair fell behind her in a ponytail instead of spiked up in it, allowing her to wear a wool hat that went well with her peach snow-jacket and black pants. "Hey, you guys can go on ahead," Zach said. He looked around at the others after they all looked across the road at the girl standing there. "I'll see you tomorrow in class," Zach said, and he started away before any of them could say something about coming along too.

"Let's go," Jaime grabbed Roger by the inside of his arm and pulled him along down the sidewalk. Roger's head turned more and more the farther they walked, and an elbow caught him in the side when his head was twisted almost all the way around.

Zach jogged across the street at the close-by crosswalk, as they had just rounded a corner a moment ago anyway. The girl on the other side of the road as him but farther down from the corner started walking towards it again after stopping when he and his friends rounded onto the same street. "Hey," Zach said, slowing down and walking towards the girl in front of him who stopped when they were close. "I'm, surprised you're here," Zach said as he stopped five feet in front of her.

"I wanted to check in on you," Momo Yaoyorozu said. "And I finished the practical class early, so I could get here…"

Several other people on the sidewalk were staring towards the two of them with wide eyes. Zach saw his classmates across the street and down a bit were all looking over their shoulders and towards them. He turned the opposite direction and motioned that way with his head. "Want to go on a walk?" He suggested, and Yaoyorozu nodded at him and walked the rest of the way up to his side. She was a few inches shorter than him, but they were both pretty tall. Yaoyorozu stepped onto Zach's side and they started walking together down the road, with Zach's hands down at his sides, and Yaoyorozu's in her pockets.

* * *

 **A/N Thanks for reading! Dendo's chilled out with Zach, Zach's being cautious as usual, Midoriya and Bakugo are let in on an investigation, and Yaoyorozu shows up at the end... What is she there for? How will Zach's old classmates handle Lemillion's investigation? Find out next time... soon! Since I just defended my thesis yesterday, and I have finals' week next week so that'll probably slow me down for a day or so. I have the next chapter finished though, with the one after it going to be started up later tonight once I finish this paper I'm procrastinating right now. Should probs get to that though, so 2-3 review responses now. Let's go:**

Guest chapter 153 . Apr 30

Right now im just waiting for zach to casually mention that he killed stain and then turn around and say "nobody will ever believe you"

 **Might be a little dangerous with Lemillion's trusty tape recorder on hand! XD**

yasideen1 chapter 153 . Apr 29

Imagine Zach as a politician. This man would be conquering countries by the hour  
His fear factor and ability to throw curveballs at people is insane as well  
Thanks for the chappy

 **I can imagine it. Things would be much better with Zach in charge, I think. Especially with some of what he was saying at the start of this chapter, he was getting more political than heroic on his classmates with his "money matters" talk. If Zach wanted to conquer countries too, think he could've done it a long time ago too. (Saudi Arabia seemed like they were down for a King Death back when Zach was on the walls of Hatto's palace). Thanks for the review!**

Guessst chapter 153 . May 1

Great chapter! Looks like you'll be breaking the 2 million words mark next chapter! Wow! Very nice! You've definitely ruined a lot of fics for me lol. "Only 400k words? Ehhh" lol that's me now after reading this

 **Lol maybe not this chapter... or next chapter. Guess it's a good sign when I have you guys expecting 24k+ chapters every time though. Could've happened, but only 12k this chapter and a little less in the next one I think. Definitely hitting that 2 million mark though, and I want to say thanks for keeping up with this story as I reach another milestone in it! Thanks to all you guys for all your interest in Death, and I hope you enjoyed the chapter and continue to enjoy Death moving forward!**


	155. Chapter 155

**A/N I know I said I had this one done already on Saturday when I posted the last chapter, but I had two finals yesterday on my birthday so it took be a bit to get this up. Starting editing on Thursday at 2 A.M. though, and maybe I'll get 156 that I spent all day today (yesterday technically now, I meant Tuesday for my birthday- it's a weird time of night), out also today! Anyway done with the rant, on to the chapter. Hope you enjoy it!**

 **Disclaimer: I don't own Boku no Hero Academia**

* * *

 **Chapter 155:**

"So, how was your weekend?"

Yaoyorozu gave Zach a look with a raised eyebrow. "It was, uneventful. I'm sorry I didn't come with the others."

"Well I'm glad you came today," Zach replied. "Though you could have shot me a text first."

"Are-" Yaoyorozu paused. She frowned and they stopped walking for a second. The tall, dark-haired girl turned and looked into Zach's eyes when he faced her. "Are you testing me?" Yaoyorozu questioned. He got a confused look on his face that made her frown, and say accusingly, "Why aren't you?"

"To see if it's really you?" Zach asked, specifying what he thought she was asking him.

"Yes," Yaoyorozu replied. People were coming up behind them so she started walking again, and Zach continued down the sidewalk with her. "Why don't you test me to see if it's really me?"

Zach got a small smile on his face and he looked ahead as they walked. "It wouldn't matter, so I'll just believe it's you."

 _Why wouldn't it matter? Did he do something? Is he doing something right now?_ Yaoyorozu hummed to herself. _I guess I shouldn't ask. He's staying vague without saying why it wouldn't, which makes sense._ She still frowned deeper even as she tried to convince herself that what Zach was doing made sense. "You still have to make sure you're being careful."

"I am," Zach said, smiling more and replying almost as if in a mock exasperated tone that she was so worried about him. He continued in a casual way while smiling like that, "I didn't even drink my coffee with my friends back there. Since it could have been poisoned," Zach explained when Momo turned to him in surprise.

"Really?"

"Yea," Zach replied, nodding his head in a slightly more serious way though his lips stayed in a small smile as they continued to walk.

"Zach," Yaoyorozu started softly. He turned more to her, as they walked close together in a random direction through Yutapu City. "I won't say anything to anyone, about what we talk about."

"I don't-" Zach started.

"I'll never say a word," Yaoyorozu cut him off. He stared at her in semi-confusion, though that look faded from his face with a hesitant and conflicted one emerging, his eyes shifting away from the tall girl beside him. "I heard the others talking about their visits with you, and I get that maybe you didn't want to tell them to keep secrets. You knew they would talk later, and so you were censoring yourself when you talked to them. Saying things carefully," Yaoyorozu gave Zach a stern yet somehow still softer look as she finished, "but you don't have to with me. I won't talk about what we talk about. Not to anyone."

Zach sighed, and then his lips lifted at the corners into a smaller, more distant smile this time. "You get me too well," Zach whispered.

"I feel like I don't understand you at all," Yaoyorozu countered in just as soft a voice. Zach's lips curled back down flat, and his eyes lowered to the floor for a moment before rising back up to keep a wide view of his surroundings.

 _She's giving me an out. The chance to talk without fearing other people learning what she says. Might not be her. Can't just assume that though. People will see the two of us together right now, and if the real Momo saw it she'd freak out and text me probably while we're still together. She just wants to talk. And she's giving me the option to speak freely. I know Momo won't say anything, because she said she wouldn't._

"You can say anything, and you don't have to be afraid of it going to someone else," Yaoyorozu promised in a quiet voice as she watched Zach's conflicted but thoughtful expression.

 _I'm glad she came._ "Thanks," Zach said. He looked to his side at her and nodded, and he motioned ahead with a nod, "There's a park up ahead that'll be less crowded. We can walk and talk over there."

"Okay," Yaoyorozu replied. Her look was still soft and somewhat serious, as she wanted him to feel comfortable talking yet at the same time had to make him know that she wanted him to share and not just feel it was okay to keep to himself.

Zach started talking before they reached the park. His voice stayed low, and no one else was staying close enough to him that at that volume he was afraid of being listened-in to. "…Those weren't the last assassins to come after me. I know there will be more, but I promise I'm being more careful."

"Do you think the ones you ran into last week were involved with you getting shot upon your release?"

"Hmm," Zach hummed like he was thinking about it, but he had a bead of sweat on the side of his face and looked away from Momo as she turned to him. "Probably not," he admitted. In his head appeared the look on Momo's face as she leaned over him, then Sero and Mina's too. "Sorry about that, by the way. I shouldn't have-"

"It's not your fault," Yaoyorozu said with a shake of her head, using a tone telling him to stop apologizing for something she did not believe he needed to apologize for. _There are other things…_

Zach hesitated while looking to the side at her, and he looked down as they were nearing the entrance into the park. _It was though._

"I'm worried about you, Zach," Yaoyorozu said. The two of them walked into the park, and Zach lifted his eyes back to the girl next to him. She looked at him in a concerned way and said softly, "Are you taking care of yourself?"

Zach laughed as for a moment he thought she was going to mention something else about future assassination attempts. "I'm doing fine," Zach replied. "Spent a lot of time on my own during those months. And I know how to live alone."

Yaoyorozu had opened her mouth there but she closed it slowly and glanced away to her right. She was going to mention how Zach said he had comrades and an entire army for a lot of the time he was gone, but the second part of what he said reminded her that he had been alone for a long time before he left too. _Zach's whole family. His neighbors. All those who helped him before are gone now. Or at least, not longer by his side._

Zach darted his eyes to his left side and looked between some trees of the park they were walking through. His eyes narrowed and he watched the movement of some bushes past the trees and over a hundred meters away from him. _I don't like this. I was right getting nervous about spending that day with Mina, even if she hasn't been attacked yet. This is too dangerous._

"The people after you," Yaoyorozu started, making Zach turn back to his right at the girl on that side of him. She saw the way he was looking around, checking to make sure no one was around as she could see there weren't. "Do you know who they are?" Zach looked ahead and he hummed for a second in a low tone, his eyes shifting down and then around again as he saw people on the sidewalk up ahead coming his way. "Is it, Eziano Mozcaccio?"

Zach turned back to the girl next to him again. His eyes widened for a second and then he said in a lower voice, "Be careful, Momo." Her eyes widened too at the concerned tone in his voice right there and how quietly he spoke to her. "Don't feel so comfortable saying that name. Not even with me."

"Why not?" Yaoyorozu asked, though she did keep her voice softer this time.

"It's just dangerous," Zach replied with a shake of his head. He frowned when she did the same, looking like she was going to tell him that she was fine with danger as she was a hero after all. "I made a mistake, saying his name in the forest like that. Just, refer to him by his initials."

"What's so dangerous about saying his name?" Yaoyorozu asked. She quieted down and they walked silently past a couple old people taking a stroll in the park who barely noticed them, apparently not recognizing the two. Zach's eyes narrowed on their sides and then at their backs as he turned sideways to watch them keep going, suspicious of their lack of recognition, and doubly suspicious due to Momo's current line of questioning. The girl next to him could see how paranoid that look was, and she said in a more steady voice less trying to hide it, "If you know who is after you, then you should work with heroes to give them the information you know, and help them stop EM before he can hurt you again."

Zach shook his head, a deeper frown though more just conflicted this time at what she said. He looked back to the girl next to him, _She won't talk about anything. She said she wouldn't, and Momo's…_ "It's not that simple." He continued fast as she opened her mouth to argue, "I've tried, to stop him. But back when I said his name, I didn't know anything. I didn't know anything about him, or who he really was. The amount of power he really had." Zach paused for a moment and then whispered, "While I was gone, I thought I needed the Hunter's help again. So I called him, and EM picked up."

Yaoyorozu's breathing got faster, though she kept her expression steady and nodded for Zach to continue after he paused. Zach kept his voice low as they walked slowly through the park, "I don't know how he knew, but he was angry with me for saying his name in that forest. Maybe he looked at the police records and some of you mentioned what I had said. Maybe some of the villains who escaped let him know. I don't know. But he had killed the Hunter, and he was waiting for my call." Zach lifted his right hand and rubbed his forehead for a moment, a look of regret on his face, "And I stupidly challenged him. I told him I didn't care that he was after me now, because I was going to destroy him and his whole organization."

A grin formed on Zach's face, sarcastic and like he was taunting himself with it as he let out a single laugh. "It was a stupid thing to do. I challenged him before I knew any of the secrets of the world. Before I knew about who he really was, about Fergus, the real League, the corruption that went deeper than anyone knew… the labs, Quirks, I didn't know anything about them. And I challenged possibly the most powerful man in the world." Zach ground his teeth for a moment and then muttered in a lower voice, "He was right when he called me green. I didn't know his power, but I would come to."

Zach looked back at Momo and his heart fell. _What am I doing? Fergus is General Faraz. I'm not supposed to say anything about Eziano! This is just stupidly dangerous to do- and so why am I?!_

"The secrets of the world," Yaoyorozu whispered, giving Zach a serious but soft look at the way he had just talked there for a minute. "So it really was, all on this-"

"Just because I fought here, for a long time," Zach cut in. "Doesn't mean I wasn't on those other worlds too," he finished.

"Alright," Yaoyorozu said. She said it quietly and without confrontation in her tone. She just gave Zach an 'okay' so that he wouldn't feel he needed to convince her here. It wasn't what she wanted to talk about anyway. _I know, some of what you say are lies. But in the lies you treat as truths, and in the truths that sound just as unbelievable, are things that terrify me._ "If someone like that is coming after you though, Zach." He looked away with a deep frown, still angry at himself for saying anything in the first place. "Then I'm even more afraid for you. You need more help. I know things are bad, but-"

"'Bad?'" Zach snorted. His lips curled up at the corners as he asked it, and then he shrugged and let out a sarcastic laugh. "There are just trained assassins coming for me at all times. And not to mention the heroes following me around too, trying to catch me slipping up so that they can throw me back in prison. And cameras and press waiting for me behind every tree and around every corner and in every restaurant and grocery store trying to catch me not looking like a hero." Zach started lowering his lips from the fake smile as he ranted all of that, as his eyes shifted to Momo who looked like she pitied him, and he reminded himself that it was not all bad. His smile got smaller but looked more genuine as he took a breath. "But I can talk to people."

Momo's eyes widened for the first time since that rant started, as she figured Zach needed to let off that steam. She understood why he would be overwhelmed by all of that, but she got confused and stared at him closely as he mentioned that last part. "Regular people like talking to me because they think I'm one of them. The 'Hero of the People' they call me on the news. And villains, they don't hold back when I talk to them because they think I'm one of them." Zach shrugged at Momo's confused look, and he added, "I can play the part of a villain very well after so many infiltrations." His eyes narrowed a bit and the corner of his lip lifted up in a smirking way that he thought would look villainous, but Yaoyorozu did not get surprised by the look or even pull back. She just lost the confused look as he explained it, making Zach get surprised this time and look away, feeling hesitant about what he just showed her.

"Heroes too," Zach added. He paused after saying it then muttered lower, "Though they're the hardest for me. Out of everyone, some heroes openly just don't like me. I get why they don't. I get why they're not supposed to accept me, and why it might be hard," Zach got more hesitant in his speech, and he looked up while letting out a sigh. "But I thought I needed to do something about what was happening, and I couldn't do a thing about the… not from school."

"What was happening?" Yaoyorozu asked.

"The rise of villains," Zach replied. He looked at her in a hesitant way, but his look steadied at hers that just wanted to hear him. The way he really felt back then, that he had kept from her. And Zach didn't want to stand there lying to her either. "I thought, back then," Zach started. "I could see the world, falling into… chaos." Zach's voice lowered and he shifted his eyes forward, but they were looking so far ahead of him his expression got distant. "A world descending into chaos is a world with lots of opportunities."

 _Opportunities? That's not,_ Yaoyorozu started thinking in an anxious way, but she stopped herself with how Zach continued.

"To villains, chaos is a ladder. Heroes were expected to deal with all their own villains first which allowed smart, international ones to gain ultimate power." Zach paused for a second and shook his head, "Allowing the smaller ones who heroes thought were the biggest around to deal with heroes and occupy them, while in the meantime plans for much, much bigger operations took place. The opportunity arose to take advantage of weakened states and the distracted focus of heroes. But, even though this was happening, even though I could see it coming, people didn't want heroes to change. They wanted things to go back to normal, so heroes had to do things the same way, and the world teetered on collapse." Yaoyorozu stared at the side of Zach's head, frozen in place which had him subconsciously stop next to her as well.

 _Time and time again, I stopped the collapse of the world._ "But, why were villains the only ones allowed to take advantage of the chaotic world?" _The world that was so weak, with a faith in heroes that was about to be destroyed forever. It would have been if they had failed to stop the things that I needed to stop on my own._ "I had the ability to. I _knew,_ how to use villain tactics and the anti-hero tactics, while still making people see the heroic nature of saving the world…" Zach trailed off and turned to Momo with a pained and hesitant look in his eyes. _I revived that weakened faith by ending the age of villains so quickly. I did it. I, did I? That's not how it will be remembered. That was the point. I wasn't even here. I don't remember doing that. I was on a different world. What am I saying to her?_

"But I couldn't translate what I thought I could do, into action," Zach muttered, and he started walking again with a frustrated look covering his face. "And when I got back, it had already reversed without me."

Yaoyorozu took a second to start walking again. She watched the side of Zach's face with anxiety covering her expression. _That look in his eyes. That wasn't- that was Zach, but it isn't- it isn't the side of him he shows… It could just be something that hurt to think about, or… or what?_

 _I stopped people from feeling like things might need to change in regards to how heroes do things. Even if I was fine with them pushing for change in other directions, it couldn't be with the morals and foundations of heroes. I, I came back here to make that concrete!_ "I was wrong about it all though. The way I wanted to do things, I was wrong." _And I came back so they would think it was wrong. So no one would doubt that what I did was wrong, but then they released me! They got me out of prison without even knowing! That the entire state of the world, how everyone thinks and considers the world and how it was made, their mindsets and morals, they're all due to actions I took!_

Zach lifted his left hand and grabbed into the side of his head. _I can't say any of this. The entire world would be so different though… So much has happened. Compounding on top of itself to give people opinions and then strengthen those opinions and confirm their beliefs… and all of it is built on lies._ "That war, in Arcasia," Zach whispered, his voice getting stronger after the start of the sentence. His eyes cleared and he got an intense look on his face as he stared less far away ahead of him. "The things I was doing, the way I was doing them, were accepted by people as a legitimate way to fight." Zach looked back at Yaoyorozu and his voice got lower, "But that was in a violent world. That was in a world at war, and it might have been necessary to fight that way in a world like that, but it isn't here."

"To fight like what?" Yaoyorozu asked. He turned to her and she looked at him trying to hide the fear of what kind of answer he was going to give her.

"Like victory was all that mattered," Zach replied. His voice stayed steady, but when he saw the look in Yaoyorozu's eyes after saying it he hesitated. "We were fighting for what was right though. My comrades and I fought for a world free from Arcasian rule but also a world of law. Of better morals, without discrimination, built around respect and the good nature of the people who lived there. And victory towards those values meant fighting in a heroic way- or at least, more heroic than they were used to…"

 _What is he talking about? I don't understand at all._

"…Entire kingdoms were ravaged by the wars of conquest before I got there. Arcasia's expansion needed to be stopped, the conquered people had to be freed, and I needed to do it without turning into my enemies or I would have lost my right to fight. In that strange world, where I didn't belong, I couldn't fight them for one side or another unless one side was _right._ I needed to make sure I wasn't just picking sides because of my preferences, and that was hard sometimes. But when I knew my enemies were in the wrong… when they wiped out villages and towns, kidnapped and enslaved hundreds, raped and murdered innocent women, and _children…_ Then victory was most important. Not becoming my enemies, was less important the worse my enemies were, and there were some who I considered less men and more monsters."

Yaoyorozu paused for a few seconds. They were walking slowly, and Zach led down a sidewalk off a split that seemed less used so they could stay isolated from other people. All that Zach just told her bounced around in her mind, but the final part had her heart clenching up and chills resting at the top of her spine. She didn't want to assume, and so instead she asked, "And what did you do, to the ones you considered monsters?"

Zach's eyes lowered to the floor at her question. _I can't even- even with these stories I can't…_ "I defeated them," Zach said. His eyes were steady, staring forward, and his lips were flat as he responded. The chills ran down Yaoyorozu's spine and she clenched her teeth at his vague answer that she felt was both the truth and yet not a real response to what she wanted to know. _Even if it's just you. Even if I trust you,_ Zach's expression was unshaken and his breathing steady once more. _There's no need to go into the Siege of Razmatan, or the Battle of 6 Armies, or the horrible things of that world. If I'm telling you it should be coaxed out, at a later point not the first time you've asked._ Zach's expression got darker and he felt a pang of something faint in his chest that he pushed farther down. _How will Momo react to what I'm saying? What will she do with the information? Except… she's said- she won't say anything- so I can't just, focus on her future reactions…_

"But as much as I think I left Terra in a better state than I found it," Zach started again, smiling and getting into a story-telling voice. "I never defeated the Empress when-"

"Zach, I don't want to hear, about those other worlds," Yaoyorozu cut him off and made Zach turn to her with his eyebrows raised and a confused look on his face. Yaoyorozu frowned back at him though, making him get a hesitant frown on his own, looking away like he knew she would find it hard to believe him. Yaoyorozu sighed at that look he showed her, and she continued walking but stepped with a few inches wider of a gap between them. "The things you said about this world. About here, with EM and the secrets that you say you know," Yaoyorozu looked at him seriously which had Zach looking farther away to his other side. "We're going to be heroes together, Zach. If you know so much that you feel is important, then tell me some of it."

Zach looked back at the girl next to him with a hesitant expression on his face. "Even if you think it's too 'dangerous' for me, I want to know," Yaoyorozu said. She looked into his eyes and said sterner, "I want you to tell me."

 _You want to know everything? There's too much. You want me to tell you, because you don't want to hear it from someone else. You don't want to catch me in a lie that I could have told you when I had the opportunity, and right now I have the opportunity. You're trying so hard for me, and I can try- I can, if it's only right now._ Zach's pursed lips parted and a heavy breath slipped out. "Alright, then. While I was, being a vigilante out in the world…"

* * *

In Musutafu, on the way back to U.A. High School, Midoriya Izuku and Bakugo Katsuki walked at each other's side after leaving their internship for the day. A lot had been said and was stuck on their minds, making for a mostly quiet trip back to school which Bakugo preferred rather than Deku's usual annoying conversations. Bakugo had just a focused look though as he walked, his eyes straight ahead while everything he heard at that meeting echoed in his head.

"What do you think?" Midoriya asked. Bakugo shifted his eyes to the corners and looked at his childhood friend's deeply conflicted expression. Midoriya had his head turned more towards him and asked in that conflicted tone, "About Zach? Lemillion's plan… Of all of it?"

"It's stupid," Bakugo said, but the left corner of his lips closer to Midoriya rose up when his classmate mentioned 'Lemillion's plan.' He smirked, and Deku's eyes opened wider as Bakugo looked to enjoy the idea of going after Zach. The focused look Bakugo had had was replaced for a moment as he considered an actual fight, and he could not hide that smirk of excitement from his face.

"You shouldn't-" Midoriya started, then he frowned deeper and just looked forward instead of finishing that sentence. He knew Bakugo too well to try and change how he felt about the fight or even to try and tell him why he shouldn't be feeling a certain way. He spoke quieter after a second's pause though, "If we do it, and we catch him, Zach will go to jail for the rest of his life." Midoriya had an upset look covering his face and his eyes were dark but scared and sad rather than angry. He shifted them towards Bakugo and whispered, "I don't know-"

"Zach knew the consequences when he left," Bakugo snapped, keeping his voice low too as the two of them headed towards U.A. He walked down the sidewalk with his hands down in his pockets and without giving Deku a look as he spoke. "He shouldn't have come back," Bakugo said flatly. "He knew what it would mean to come back after how he left. Zach knew that he could never come back because if he did then everyone'd all be against him, and it would be the end of the line." Bakugo ground his teeth and the corners of his lips curled down more. "He had that conviction before, and yet he's back anyway."

 _I don't know who this fucker is,_ Bakugo's spiky blond bangs shadowed over his eyes for a moment. His expression darkened even as he smirked again, but his expression was angry and fierce despite the smile. _But the Zach I knew who left wasn't ever coming back, and the one who returned isn't the same guy or he wouldn't have._ Bakugo rose his head back up with less passionate a look, more just staring ahead with a smile of an anticipated fight. If it wasn't Zach he was even thinking of, then the person he was going after really was just another strong opponent and it took some of the feelings behind that last look away.

"But something must have changed," Midoriya started. "And we don't know-"

"That doesn't matter," Bakugo growled. _It wouldn't have. Not with something like that._ "We all knew he was never returning. You knew, and I knew," Bakugo darted a look at Midoriya for a moment telling him to counter if he was wrong, but Midoriya didn't. Bakugo continued in a low, pissed-off voice, "I knew it from the start that the conviction Zach showed that day, he was never returning. And yet he's back. It's stupid. It doesn't make sense." Bakugo sounded more annoyed than angry as he growled that. He shook his head once and then snapped, "And I'm not letting him get away with that. Whoever…" Bakugo's teeth ground again, his mouth snapping shut for a moment while Midoriya looked at him in confusion.

 _I thought,_ Bakugo's own thoughts cut off as he growled deeply in his own throat. _I thought the world, of the guy in that forest. That fucker who-_ _ **"Whereas Kurogiri, you're, you're the biggest threat to peace in our world."**_ _That fucker! The one who said that was, he wasn't coming back. He laid it all on the line, and he had the balls to give up everything for that. For what he believed. I fucking- that shit was…_ Bakugo ground his teeth harder, biting down with more force as he stomped across Musutafu back towards his dorm. Every second he thought about the times in the year after Zach left, when he would think back on those words and actually feel, inspired, he just got angrier now. _I was fucking wrong. And stupid, to think he was really going to just leave it- except he did. The one who left that night, wasn't going to come back! That was real. That was all fucking real, and the one here now is just some… some bastard acting like he's Zach._

"Bakugo," Midoriya whispered.

"That's not him," Bakugo growled. He heard what Midoriya's annoying tone was asking or saying, and he just snapped in a pissed voice, "Don't feel fucking bad about going after him. That's not the person we knew anymore, even if that's still his body. And even if it was," Bakugo snarled. "Then he knew what would come of coming back here, and he did it anyway. He's gotta pay for that."

Midoriya looked at the side of Bakugo's head for a couple more seconds then he turned forward when Bakugo snapped at him to stop staring like an idiot. Midoriya looked ahead and he rose his head up, his expression steadying and hardening as Zach's face appeared in his mind. All the recordings Lemillion had shown them echoed around in Midoriya's head, and his fists balled down at his sides in frustration. _It sounded like Zach,_ he thought.

Midoriya was confused as he thought to what Bakugo was saying that made sense, yet also what Zach had told him sounded real too, and how he felt himself. _He's a good actor. He used to joke that he could, as a fall-back job, be an actor. Is he just acting with me now too? Or was he always acting, and we never really knew- no, that's not true. But the version of him back right now, I don't know. Bakugo's right._

 _The day he left, I never thought we'd see him again. Not by his own decision at least. That wasn't even…_ Midoriya curled his fists tighter at his sides. _So something must have changed so much in him for him to do that. Something changed so much, that what if Bakugo's right? What if that's not even Zach?_ Midoriya's heart ached and his eyes lowered down to the floor in such an upset way. _Then the Zach I knew is really gone. He's gone for good, replaced by… by someone I need to stop._

 _ **"RUN!"**_ Bakugo imagined Zach screaming at him in Camino Ward. He saw Zach's face when he looked back down after flying up to the others, and he grit his teeth at the memory. _Never got to fight him. Not at the Sports Festivals. He was always on my teams in class. I never considered him, a threat._ Bakugo grinned again thinking back on the Enudora Forest, and the fight between Zach and Raijin. _But he's going to be even stronger now. And I'm going to wind up fighting him. One way or another, it will come._

* * *

Zach and Yaoyorozu neared the edge of the park and Zach glanced up at the darkening sky. There was thin gray cloud cover above them, but there was some orange cutting through the clouds too showing how it was getting late. Zach looked next to him at the girl he had been walking and talking with in a low voice. "Momo, would you like to get some food?" Zach asked suddenly, making Yaoyorozu turn to him in surprise at the shift in conversation.

 _In public. Where we can't talk freely like this,_ Zach thought, wondering if that was what she was thinking as her expression seemed to sour after the initial surprise.

"I'm just here-" Momo started. She stopped herself, and Zach kept his expression flat like he did not know how she was starting that anyway, though his chest did start pounding. The girl in front of Zach glanced away for a moment, feeling something similar in her own chest despite being the one to start saying that. "I don't have a very late pass out from U.A.," Momo continued quieter. "So I'll have to go soon."

"In that case let's sit over there," Zach said, and he nodded his head towards a bench behind Momo that she looked back at.

He walked past Yaoyorozu and for a second his hair shadowed down over his eyes when his face was out of sight of her. _Still privacy, if that's what you're mad about… Unless she's not even mad. She just, doesn't want to go out to dinner. That's what she thought I was asking. Was that what I was asking?_ Zach's expression lifted back up as he turned and took his seat down on the bench. Yaoyorozu was right behind him, and she sat on the bench keeping a foot between them that neither of them addressed.

"Where was I?" Zach asked, smiling softly like he had forgotten and then nodding as he got back into that story-telling mood. "Yeah, Amaterasu. That corruption I heard they were in charge of ran so deep that trying to tell some corrupted official's superior about the corruption wouldn't work. I kept making calls, trying to get things going, but it kept going under the radar. The calls kept getting ignored, and it made sense because the sheer number of people in positions of power who Amaterasu had bribed or blackmailed must be higher than anyone knows."

"And Fergus?" Momo asked.

Zach paused and stared at her for a second with is mouth closing and his semi-smile lowering down. "You mentioned that name earlier," Momo continued at the way he reacted. "Are you talking about the Fergus Conglomerate?" Zach stayed quiet for another second, his eyes shifting away and his frown deepening. Yaoyorozu watched as he sat there thinking of how to respond, _how to lie to me._ Her own expression shifted but did not look betrayed which Zach saw as he looked back to her. He saw her expecting to hear him lie or give some half-truth, and yet she wasn't even disappointed.

 _She expects it. She doesn't believe, in me. Momo… She's right not to. I can't even- why not?! I- I destroyed them, didn't I? Did I? I never, really finished._

"If you can't, that's fine-"

"I don't mean the Fergus Conglomerate," Zach said.

 _Yes you did,_ Yaoyorozu thought even as she gave Zach a single nod showing it was okay. _Starting with the Atlas Corp., lots of Fergus subsidiaries eventually were investigated for corruption and-_

"I was talking about Fergus himself," Zach continued after waiting a couple of seconds. He stared at Momo as she shifted her eyes back to him, having looked away after giving him that accepting nod. He had seen how fake the nod was, and Zach cursed in his head as he said it but told her anyway. They were sitting alone in a park at dusk, and it was getting darker and darker around them the longer they were there. A cool breeze flew in and blew by them after what Zach just mentioned, and his eyes darted around before settling back on the confused girl in front of him.

"Fergus?"

"Mr. Fergus," Zach stated in a low voice. "All the way back when I first heard about the Fergus Conglomerate, what kind of things they were really doing in the shadows, I knew someone had to be in charge. Even when we discovered Fourth Eye, I knew there was someone on top of it all. Why was it called the 'Fergus' Conglomerate? There was no explanation, which meant there had to be someone named Fergus out there."

"Kind of loose logic," Yaoyorozu whispered. Zach smiled briefly as she mentioned it, as her tone bounced it back off of him without seeming as distant as she had been starting to look a minute ago. He had told her something true though, and he heard in her tone a voice that knew that what he said was true compared to the one she used when he discussed other worlds. Even as she told him his reasoning was loosely founded, it sounded better to him than the dry questions about Arcasia.

"Maybe," Zach replied back, and his smile dropped back down completely. "But I was right. And yet, Fergus was too powerful to just try and reveal what his conglomerate was." Zach paused for a moment, _I can't mention myself in this. Nor anything I did with my comrades, lest any of that ever come out._ "His companies couldn't just be shut down. His conglomerate was too big to fail, and Fergus knew it. He knew that the world would collapse if he chose to make it so." _So I stripped him of his power when I killed him._

"How do you suppose that?" Yaoyorozu's voice was skeptical and she shook her head as she asked the question.

"The companies of his conglomerate helped the world in so many different sectors," Zach began without hesitating. "Agricultural, political, industrial, technological, financial," Zach paused and he rubbed the back of his head with his right hand. "He employed hundreds of thousands of workers who had no idea that the group at the top pulling the strings were doing evil things too that some of the money they made went towards. Those people were innocent, and they had no idea how it all started in the first place. They didn't know who at the top was part of the secret society. They were just workers who would have been laid off by the thousand if investigations had shut down all those companies, and even worse, all the good things those companies did would have stopped. And despite the evil, Fergus had made advances in all those different fields he had businesses in. Medicine that helped millions and was re-tested on animals-"

"Zach," Yaoyorozu cut Zach off as he was moving too fast. He was skimming by things that she needed to delve farther into, but something he mentioned during all that had made his expression shift for a moment. It was why she had to stop him, because everything he said after it seemed to just slip by her as all she could focus on was that look he had a moment ago. "What do you mean, by 'how it all started in the first place?'" Zach's face flinched and he looked at Yaoyorozu in surprise, like he had forgotten he had said something like that to her. Her own chest started pounding faster, as she had felt like his voice picked up speed after he mentioned it too, while his expression shifted back to normal.

"I don't…" Zach trailed off before finishing that he didn't know what she was talking about. He frowned deeper and he spoke in a low but fast voice, "The human experimental facility in Virginia. It was the worst thing I'd ever seen before. And it was how Fergus started off over seventy years ago. All those medical advances," Zach paused for a second but then sped up quickly. "It got re-tested on animals, and then passed off as always having been tested on animals first to see if it was safe for people. That would work, get it certified, and they could sell it to drug companies willing to fund them. Even the tests on animals had to be humane for them to get funded though, and there were a bunch of rules to be followed in that public sphere, but not with the secret labs."

"You saw these places?" Yaoyorozu asked.

"One, at least," Zach replied with a shake of his head. "They were as bad as anything-" Zach hesitated. _The others worlds are supposed to be so much worse. I'm not supposed to say- why? BECAUSE! There's a fucking plan! Why am I- why with her does this always-_

"Why waste time on tests on animals that might not translate, when they could see if it works directly on people?" Zach asked. He posed the question while looking at the girl next to him on the bench with a sad look and serious eyes showing he meant what he was saying. "They could use cultures on a multitude of subjects without…" Zach shook his head again and he leaned his head back for a moment, looking up at the darkening sky. "And it was huge. A massive place. All in secret. A place that no one knew about. Completely in the shadows of this world, as it could never exist here in reality." _General Faraz's torture sites. His camps, with the worst things I saw in the war. Some of the workers at the camp had powers to regenerate subjects or to reverse things back on them like Eri's power. The clones, the torture, the darkness…_

Zach's closed eyes snapped open when he felt Yaoyorozu's hand on his shoulder. He looked at her with a troubled expression, his face twisted in confusion and shaking eyes. His look was disturbed, and he shook his head again fast, "I couldn't describe these secrets to people. I shouldn't," Zach whispered.

"You can to me," Yaoyorozu said.

"I can't," Zach countered. She opened her mouth again, and Zach ground his teeth and snapped lower, "I don't mean, I don't trust that you won't repeat it- I _can't_ tell you. I just can't, talk about-" Zach darted his eyes away from Momo's when he saw the look in her's shifting. "Fergus, took things from me," Zach said in a low, dark voice. "And I'm not talking about my friends he killed, or the innocents I promised I'd protect and who I failed. He took things from _me._ Things I can't ever get back."

Zach looked into Yaoyorozu's eyes and focused on her expression and the way she was reacting to him. The idea that she was not going to repeat this to anyone though, and the fact that she was just sitting there allowing him to speak, made it hard to focus on either the present or the future. "People don't want to believe that certain things exist," Zach said in a soft voice. "And certain things, I think, would destroy our world just by people knowing they were possible."

"What happened in that place?" Yaoyorozu asked.

 _I told you! I can't say. I won't, even scratch the surface. I can't explain that to you though. I can't tell you why, I can't even-_

Zach's eyes softened as he stared back into Yaoyorozu's light gray ones. "I don't want to think about it," Zach replied. He said it while looking straight into her eyes, and he whispered softer when she started to get more of an understanding look in those eyes, "There were things I saw there beyond my imagination. And I had been able to imagine a lot by that point but still…" Zach's head turned to the side, his eyes squinting in pain as his own voice echoed in his mind. His heart clenched up and his hands balled into fists down on his thighs. He could picture the face of a man in a white lab coat with a pair of horn-rimmed glasses on, staring up at him in terror but with a twisted smile on his face, a face with tears streaking down it.

 _I had seen places like it before. So why? Why was it that I couldn't even-_ Zach's own voice echoed in his mind again, in a tone that gripped at his heart and made his head physically hurt. A single sentence that repeated as the only clear detail he was letting himself think of while pushing so much else away while sitting on that bench. One sentence he spoke that day in a voice that cracked halfway due to what he was seeing…

 _ **"What is this place?!"**_

* * *

 **A/N Thanks for reading! It's so late the sun might start rising soon, so I'm just going to finish up here. No responses today, but thanks to all of you for the many many reviews to this story! Huge chapter coming next time that I just finished before editing this, so look forward to it! I hope you all enjoyed the chapter, and leave a review below telling me what you thought!**


	156. Chapter 156

**Disclaimer: I don't own Boku no Hero Academia**

 **Chapter 156:**

"Open the gate!"

A four-legged man on top of a wall called down behind him, and two others ran to the gate and started unlocking and opening it. The guard at the top of the compound's wall looked back forward and down on the dirt road where the truck was waiting to be allowed in. The eighteen wheeler had a pickup truck in front of it, and two more inconspicuous small Japanese-made cars behind it. The person sitting in the bed of the pickup had stood up and given Crable the signal, and the man on top of the gate whose hard legs bent upwards before pointing down at his knees allowed the convoy into their compound hidden deep in the forest on the island of Kyushu.

The compound had several cement buildings, but the main one was a four-story tall structure that used stone which camouflaged better with the forest after the second story where it could possibly be seen over the gate. As the four vehicles were allowed in, dozens of men and women were walking around the compound, sitting near the outer fences, up on the walls and watchtowers scattered around the compound, and packed together in groups near other vehicles or at tables where some of them were eating or drinking. On the fourth floor of the central building of the compound, Kousen stepped out onto the balcony and looked down towards the open area of the compound where their comrades just rolled in.

A brown-haired man hopped off the back of the pickup that came in, and he jogged around the side of the huge truck that entered behind his vehicle. "Help unload this rig!" The guy shouted, while the back of the truck slid up fast thanks to the short man on the inside of it. The younger-looking man just inside the back of the truck had on a pair of goggles with tinted orange lenses, and he had a sniper rifle strapped to his back with the barrel sticking up over his curly red hair. In the front of the truck, a blue-furred beast of a man parked the vehicle and then stomped outside and yelled louder at a group over near the fence who had ignored the first calls to unload.

Kousen watched as Blion stomped towards the group who ignored him for a moment, his claws extended out of his pads and the lion-like man baring sharp teeth at the group who finally got moving. Blion had a pair of gray horns sticking out of the red trucker's hat he was wearing, he had on a plaid button-down, and jeans with the knees frayed so his blue fur stuck out of them. He glared at the group who came towards him, and he snapped at two who were giving him daring looks.

"I said help us unload this thing!" The brown-haired guy leaned out the back of the truck and shouted around, as there were still dozens of villains around just glancing over or giving the convoy disdainful looks. "Overlord's orders," he added, a smirk on his face as he glanced around to see if any of them would stay still after that. A lot of them started giving the man harsh glares, but no one who was free stayed where they were. Even if their comrade was just using that as an excuse to get them going, if Overlord heard they heard it was his order and they still didn't move…

Kousen's eyes narrowed down on the men working on unloading a truck that really did not have much in it in the first place. _Getting the whole base on it. Poole's trying to make it seem like he's got more than he did. And the guys all know it. No one wants to do any fucking work. A bunch of losers and weaklings really._ Kousen grimaced deeper at the two voices he heard behind him through the glass doors he left open when he stepped onto the balcony.

"They confiscated all our shipments, and we can't even get our money back since the guy's we bought from are all gone!" Sulu yelled at the taller man in front of him.

Girder glared down into Sulu's eyes, but Sulu snarled right back at him. The taller, dark-skinned man with a mohawk of every color of the rainbow starting with a purple spike in front growled in a low voice, "We'll make money a different way. We don't need the port."

"It was _every_ port," Sulu snapped again, his voice louder as he cocked his head to the side and looked at Girder like he was an idiot. He shoved his face forward up in Girder's and hissed, "You think any dock workers are gonna take bribes now when they see those shmucks get prosecuted? You think anyone's gonna ship jack SHIT into this country, knowing that we fucked it up for the whole community?"

Sulu's voice sounded unhinged and crazy, but Kousen ground his teeth at how he made sense and was well-spoken despite it. Girder just growled harder at the crazy yellow-haired man in front of him looking like he was about to bounce off the walls. "We still have our buyers. We just need to start producing-"

"Where?!" Sulu yelled, throwing his hands up and then leaning back as Girder's expression got seriously dark at another interruption.

"Right here," Girder snarled, and his voice dared Sulu to counter him on that.

"You idiot," Kousen growled, looking back over his shoulder. Girder turned and saw Kousen looking back at him while still leaning forward with his hands on the railing of the balcony. "You see how cramped it is in this place already?" Sulu had kept his mouth shut for a moment after Girder stated where they would do it, but he looked back at Girder like the larger man was an idiot again for these exact reasons. Kousen continued to the bigger man who did not seem to realize why they were looking at him like that, "It's like this here, because any bigger and we know we'll get caught. As it is we're barely keeping off the radar. The _instant_ we start running any shit out of this place, and it's not just a hideout anymore, we're going to get overrun."

"Well then," Girder started, but he ground his teeth and got a frustrated look as he could not come up with anything to counter with. "Then what are we going to do?!"

Kousen looked back forward and down to the clearing in the compound where a lot of the guys were getting more and more frustrated with each other. They had unloaded the truck fast after Poole got them all working on it, and now they were talking about similar things down there as they realized just how little they had been able to get. _Money supply's cut off. We won't be able to keep up business as usual. And if we get more risky because of it, we'll wind up like all those other idiots._ Kousen glared harder down towards his subordinate gang members, and he rose up his right hand and pointed it off the balcony.

His hand glowed orange, like his straight hair that flipped up at his bangs into a curl above his forehead. Then from his hand fired a beam of orange light that hit the ground in an instant after firing. The ground got a hole opened through it three inches in diameter, right between two men who had been starting up their Quirks against each other. Everyone down on the ground looked up to see Kousen glaring at them, and a large number of them split up and moved back around the compound to where they had been before. _Everyone's on edge. No one knows what's going on anymore. Sulu barely escaped the port with the others thanks to Potaru, but if the heroes had actually been after them it would have been a different story. Rancor's gang's gone, Spade's out, Tyreke's back in jail, no contact with any of the ones not reported to have been caught, so they must've gone even deeper into hiding than us since we're at least trying to keep it going. Or maybe they just isolated us for being in this hellhole of a country._

"If we can't get more money," Girder started after glaring at Kousen's back and trying to think for a minute. "Then everyone's gonna bail. We won't be able to keep bringing in food and living like this, not unless we can run something!"

"And if we run a business out of here," Sulu grumbled at the big man he had walked away from to lean against a wall instead. "Then we're all going to get caught. I'm sure Overlord's got a plan. Just have patience, you fucking mook," Sulu whispered the last part with a wide smirk at the man who could not hear him but got angry just by the way Sulu smirked showing what he said was not a compliment.

Girder took a step towards Sulu, then he spun to the left. Sulu turned right, and Kousen heard the _whoosh_ and turned around to look across the top floor of their hideout. In the middle of the fourth floor's wall opposite the balcony, a wide blue circle glowed out of nowhere with swirling green lights inside and a smooth, water-like interior that looked like you could just touch it and push right through.

The Subspace Devils were not the largest gang in Japan. They were not the strongest either. But they had risen to be known as the second most powerful gang in the country, the same way the League of Villains had managed to gain so much power in such a short time. Five figures stepped through the swirling bright portal into the hideout, and Potaru's portal closed behind him when he came out last after the others.

The high school kid who stepped out of his portal last leaned back against the wall opposite of Kousen once it returned to its normal form. He had a lollipop in his mouth and piercings in both ears, and he reached up and yanked off the blond wig he had on covering up his short black hair. Potaru tossed his wig to the side and then used the same hand to unbutton the top few buttons of his collared shirt too, an annoyed look on his face while he did it. _Stupid thing,_ the seventeen year old thought, but he kept quiet about it with a glance at Overlord who had told him to wear it.

"How'd it look?" Kousen asked.

Sulu and Girder glanced back at the other executive of the gang who seemed like he actually knew more about what was going on than he had let on to them. They turned back to their leader though who in turn faced the other three he had brought with him. "Well?"

"Kris got spotted by a hero," one of the three mentioned, nodding at a villain in a baseball cap who had faint pink skin and lots of freckles on his face. The other two did not have hats on, but they also had more inconspicuous body types than the skinny pink man who spun to his comrade with his eyes wide.

"Yeah, definitely got seen," the other in the group of three agreed with a nod.

"You guys said-" Kris started, but then he pursed his lips fast in anger and betrayal. He spun to Overlord also with some fear on his face though, and Overlord's expression just made Kris more frantic. "I'm sorry boss. He didn't know- I spotted one of the heroes who's supposed to be guarding it, but I must have looked too long because he turned to me. I looked away casually like I hadn't been staring or anything-"

Kousen rubbed his forehead with a pissed-off expression forming over his face. _Why would you look away from a hero like that? A pro would be able to tell, that that's exactly what someone trying to hide their intentions would do._

Sulu's eyes narrowed in at their comrade too, his teeth baring. Overlord got an angrier look himself for a moment, and then he started walking forward towards their comrade who got a terrified look on his face. "I'm sorry. It- It was really nothing! There's no way Unlock even-"

"Shh," Overlord shook his head, and he got Kris to quiet down while everyone else watched. Sulu smirked, a couple of the others got nervous looks on their faces, including Potaru though he just looked away pretending not to care. Overlord reached his right hand out and put it on his subordinate's cheek, making the pink guy flinch but not pull away as he was afraid of what would happen if he did that. "I'm not pissed that you got spotted. It couldn't be helped with a pro…"

 _We only have a few guys left the pros don't know,_ Kousen thought while watching Overlord pat Kris on the cheek in a calm way. _So many warrants out, and because we've had successes in escaping before while on camera, they've got just about everyone. These three aren't any use if the heroes start looking out for them._

"But it sounds like you asked the others not to say anything to me," Overlord said, and he started shaking his head while pressing his hand back on the side of Kris' face. He had patted it a few times which started to make that thinner man feel some relief, only for Kris' body to tense up a moment before Overlord pinched his cheek. "You wanted to hide something like that, from me? I might have put you on the heist team, without knowing that it would get you all caught and ruin everything. You get that? You get why that's bad?" Overlord started shaking his right hand around that he was pinching Kris' cheek with.

"I get it- I'm sorry! Ow- AH! PLEASE!"

Overlord kept shaking his hand, faster and faster, and Kris' face started to stretch and pull apart. He was screaming only for a second after yelling 'please,' as his head looked like silly putty in Overlord's hand that he stretched out and then let go of. Kris dropped to the floor with his head stretched out and blood pouring out of his ears, nose, and eye sockets that his eyes had rolled out of. Overlord wiped his hand down the front of his white shirt that said 'ALL MIGHT' across the front of it. Five finger-smears of blood crossed down over the 'ALL MIGHT' that was already red, and Overlord smirked and let out a laugh as he glanced down at it.

"Who would ever think the mighty Overlord would be walking around Desusuta wearing an All Might t-shirt?" Overlord asked, grinning around at his comrades. His eyes narrowed when he looked to the two subordinates of his who smiled like the others thinking they were in on it too. "Didn't I ask you a question? Or are you two too afraid because one of you got seen as well-"

"No way."

"We were hidden the whole time. No one noticed either of us."

"Then talk!" Sulu yelled at the man closer to him who jumped and leaned away when he saw the yellow-haired man leaning his head in.

"The gem's there. A four hero protection detail. It's going to be on display for only 14 hours, and it's only going to be in the building for 24."

"We sure it's the real thing?"

"Wait, what gem?"

Overlord looked over towards Girder and cracked a grin again. "I figured it out," Overlord said. He chuckled and stepped towards his comrade who looked confused but interested in the change in strategy. "Business is never going to recover. Black markets aren't going to rise back up. Only get worse," Overlord smirked bigger with the corners of his lips pulling up his cheeks, and he threw his hands out to the sides. "But some things are priceless, and timeless- as in they'll only be worth more no matter the age."

"Wouldn't say priceless either," Potaru mentioned from the back wall, a smirk spreading over his face again. He held up three fingers when Overlord glanced back at him, and the leader of the gang's smirk stretched up so much at the corners.

"Three? Three what?" Girder muttered, annoyed someone wouldn't just say it aloud.

"Billion," Potaru said over with a nod up of his head.

Sulu and Girder's eyes both shot open huge. "It's going to be-" one of the others who had gone in to surveil the location began, only for Overlord to turn and glare at the man darkly and shut him up.

"Get out of here," Overlord motioned for the door, and the other two who he did not want in there scurried away quickly.

Kousen walked up to Overlord once the peons were gone, and he looked his comrade in the eyes from up close. It was something not many dared to do, with Sulu and Girder rarely getting that close themselves. "We really doing this? Setting up takes longer, but the risk-"

"Months' worth in a single day," Overlord said, and the words tasted good coming off his tongue. "And that's just from the Escario Jewel. The rest on display I'm snaggin' at the same time is going to set us up for good." Kousen continued to look at Overlord still with a questioning look, and Overlord nodded his head with his smile lowering down a bit. "I got word back from Intanzo. He gave his permission."

Sulu grimaced hard behind Kousen, and he glanced down at the bloody floor when Overlord looked his way but did raise his eyes back up after a second. "I don't like it. _Asking_ , for permission."

"He's the current Kingpin," Overlord said, his voice much calmer than usual if he was speaking about such a thing. His lips twisted back up and he started laughing which confused a couple of his guys who had pissed or annoyed expressions about that response. "But after this haul, we'll have all the money we need to take over. And this whole fucking country's going to be mine!"

* * *

 _I'm so dumb,_ Zach sat in class at Shiketsu High with his chin on his left hand. His elbow was resting on his desk and he looked focused on Hazano sensei, at least enough that his somewhat lazy posture could be overlooked by the teacher who saw Zach taking notes despite looking tired. Zach did not feel tired though, not as much as he felt stupid while sitting there thinking about the previous weekend. _Two weeks. Not even two weeks and I- oh my God, I'm so dumb._

Zach slid his hand up from his chin while leaning back in his seat. He ruffled his own hair under the hat of his school uniform, and he rose his eyes to the ceiling for a moment in regret. _Everything. In hindsight I was being too rash. Too, just stupid! Talking to Momo about all of that was idiotic! I have different stories to describe those things. I'm not supposed to know about all that- but I'm also not here to lie and I don't want to lie to her, and that felt like the truth at the time. What happened elsewhere was true too though. The stories are all true. Why couldn't I just tell her, something else?_ Zach sighed internally and got to writing something else Hazano just mentioned which he heard in a piece of his mind.

 _And Lemillion? God! I practically told him I was Death. Even when I was telling him I wasn't, I know it's all he could think! Every time I talk about something I wasn't supposed to be doing, it confirms their beliefs I was Death. Can't you just understand that I could know all that stuff just because I was a vigilante? I don't deny that! I tell you I was being a vigilante, and you treat it like I just admitted I was Death- you're all so… And even Mina. I shouldn't have said anything to her either, because the timelines don't match up now. Telling her I would have come to save her when I wasn't even here on this world. If she ever looks back on it less emotionally and wants to ask, I wouldn't have an answer for her! I'd have to go back on it, and say that I just said that so she would feel better thinking I would've saved her. And that's true. I, might not have been able to get there in time…_

 _3 months I need. I haven't lasted 2 weeks. How am I supposed to do this? It's supposed to be easy. Compared to all of that, it should be easy._

 _Except, I got used to all of that. I became someone who could deal with all that, and that made me think I could deal with anything. But I knew it back in Tartaros. I knew I couldn't face them yet. I wasn't ready. How to lie to their faces constantly, and confidently. How to completely become Kaminari and even mess with my own mind to fool them. I don't want to be just like him. I don't want to do it, maliciously. It's malicious in itself though. The act of what I'm doing, my acting at all times, it's all so fucked up. And what's the end goal? Is it enough, that these means that are so fucked are worth it? Could I confidently say if they called me out, that what I'm doing this for is really worth all of this?_

 _I, I don't know…_

Himazuri gazed over to the left side of the room at a row closer to the windows. She looked at the side of Zach's face from a seat behind him and across the room, and she got nervous at the conflicted expression she saw for a moment on his face before he refocused on Hazano and wrote something down. Her eyes focused above his eyes and on the top of his head, but she quickly looked away and shook her head as she wrote notes of her own. _Don't risk it._

 _What's that bastard doing?_ Flugeru frowned at the back of Zach's head from more directly behind him, so he did not even see Zach's somewhat suspicious expression. _Did he really spend the weekend doing nothing? Dendo says they didn't meet up outside of school or anything, but there must have been some kind of event._ Flugeru looked to his side towards Dendo who himself glanced at Zach for a moment before just focusing on his classwork like the others.

 _I don't understand any of this,_ Kotsumura lifted a hand and rubbed it through his blond hair in frustration. In the corner of his eyes he saw Reika writing fast, a look of bored understanding on her face that made his eyes widen for a second. He snapped his eyes back to his paper and then rubbed his head harder as he really was not getting this. He turned to his side where Zach was sitting, and he leaned over a bit to see if Zach got it all down on his page. As Kotsumura looked, Zach's phone buzzed and he looked down at his left pocket. He continued to write with his right hand, while he looked down to where his phone was and then back at Hazano who turned to face the class.

Zach's left hand moved for his phone, and he pulled it out and looked down at it once Hazano turned back to the board. _How does he do that?_ Kotsumura thought, grinning but holding back a laugh as Zach continued to write while appearing like he was not paying attention at all. Keiji had sat back straight up when Hazano turned their way, but he leaned over a little again and checked Zach's work only to realize with his eyes growing wide, that Zach was writing absolute nonsense down on his page near where his pencil point was down. Kotsumura leaned back into his own seat and frowned, _Either he's not actually paying attention at all and just tricked me, or he's not getting this any more than I am._

Hazano continued talking to his students about certain hero duties that they would be expected to do during their first years out in the hero workforce. He explained the math of the competition that would likely arise again now that the villain rates were at new lows for the last few years. They were not yet back up at the surplus of heroes they once had, but Hazano warned them about the skills that heroes who survived Japan's spike in villain activity would have and that they all have lots of experience that will make them look down on newer heroes who never experienced those hard times.

"We were all out there interning last year," Reika muttered towards Hazano, who turned back to her at her comment. Reika sat up straighter but did not back down despite speaking at first not in as respectful a tone as she should have. "We 'experienced' those kinds of villains too."

"In part," Hazano accepted with a nod. "But you'll see over the first few years that you are heroes, as more and more younger pros emerge and move into the limelight, older heroes will look down on all you younger heroes for the mistakes of a few inexperienced ones. 'It's those new age heroes again. The heroes who didn't have to deal with the League of Villains.' If the rates stay low, and competition rises, then there is more than likely going to be a split between heroes of that old age and ones who emerge after all of you. Which may make your year the hardest, being right in the middle associating both with your senpais and juniors. Or more than likely, neither of them, isolating you from everyone."

 _Well that's encouraging,_ Kerushi thought with a low frown. The student who listened to that small speech unenthusiastically looked at his teacher in a bit of confusion, as Hazano's expression looked strange while he faced one part of the room.

Hazano had noticed one of his student's expression while he was speaking, and he tried to keep going in his teaching tone to finish what he wanted to tell his class. He could not help himself from staring over though, at the expression on Zach Sazaki's face that had his heart racing faster and faster every second he watched it. _Is Sazaki-_ Hazano got nervous, as he saw his student's shaking eyes and panicked expression while he gripped at the edge of his desk right in front of him.

Zach's lips had parted a little. They were not spread apart enough that it was drew attention from anyone else, but the perceptive hero at the front of the room facing his students could not avoid seeing it. Zach's breathing had picked up pace, his fingers curled into the edge of his desk, and his eyes were huge with shaking irises. _"DEATH! Help me!" "PLEASE!" "AHHHHHHHH!" "Zach- please save me- Ah AHH!" "MOM!" "KILL ME!" "He's killing me! Please…"_

Zach stood up out of his seat. He looked at Hazano with his expression suddenly flat when the rest of the class looked towards him. "May I use the restroom?" Zach asked, his expression steady when he said it but his voice speaking in an odd tone that made most of his classmates give him strange looks too.

Hazano had seen his expression before hearing that odd tone though, and despite not usually allowing it in the middle of his teaching, he nodded at Sazaki and allowed the boy to walk out of the classroom. Hazano Worrod turned back to the board behind him and spoke in the same tone to his students to get them all to focus on him. _What was that look? What was he thinking about? For a second there, it looked like he had completely lost it!_

Hazano's speech had gotten a bit less enthusiastic, and he realized that his students might have noticed it too. Luckily, his phone buzzed and he reached down and pulled it out, stopping his lecture for a moment. That moment turned longer though as he read what he just got sent, and then he put down the marker he was still holding in one hand and walked to his desk. "What is it Hazano sensei?" Muoko asked, getting a sense from her teacher that something was wrong.

"Breaking news," Hazano replied. He pressed a button next to his computer that started dropping a screen in front of the board the class was staring at, and the computer Hazano was typing into using four hands popped up multiple browsers on the screen all at once. Hazano searched across the web, and then he pulled up a news source that had a 'LIVE' icon in the preview of the link. "There's an incident in Desusuta right now-"

Hanodo jumped out of his seat. "I'm from Desusuta!"

"It's not bad yet," Hazano said to his student, using a scolding tone to get the boy to calm down which worked and had Hanodo lowering back down to his seat in the middle of the classroom. Hanodo was still leaning forward on the edge of his seat though, a lump in his throat gulping up and down at the way Hazano just worded that. _"Yet,"_ echoed in most of the students' minds, and they could see why Hachiman included it. Their homeroom teacher looked at the screen with a dark look in his eyes, while most of the students in the room had more shocked or panicked expressions on their faces.

"This is unreal," Reika whispered, the shock fading a little from her face only for her eyes to dart around to her sides to see if anyone else felt the same.

Kotsumura leaned back in his chair. "No way man," he said, his voice coming out as a breath. On the screen, a cameraman and reporter were getting told to back up away from the edge of a city that had a very strange cut off. Usually buildings got gradually fewer the farther from the city one got, but in Desusuta on the east side of the city there was a line called the 'City Limits.' It was part of a restoration effort to make the environment even close to the city look greener, and the city development board had gone with a nice grassy plain that people would often go out on for picnics. It was still early in the day, but a young elementary school class were running back towards the city with their teacher, some heroes running with them and evacuating them towards the city and away from the massive force far out in that field.

The City Limits had overlooks for people to get good views and pictures from the edge of the city over the grassy fields that stretched to the horizon, or at least to where trees started on the horizon line. On those overlooks were police and some heroes who were still arriving and yelling at everyone to move away as they prepared the city's defenses. More heroes were running out straight over the line of the City Limits and onto the grass from where the street suddenly ended just past the reporters who could not leave the city with the others. Far ahead of all of them, out in the middle of the picnic fields, pickup trucks and eighteen wheelers and military humvees and black SUVs shredded towards the city tearing up the grass and making a huge entrance.

Riding on top of the vehicles were more villains in costumes and masks, some of them with weapons in hand and all of them looking ready for a fight. The vehicles were spread out wide, and there were multiple lines of them going back despite already being spread far across the field. And above all the ground vehicles, was the cherry on the cake as a single helicopter flew with the nose pointed down a bit at the front so the spinning rotor spun just above the cockpit window like a man with his eyebrows pointed down in towards his nose. The helicopter looked angry and ready to fight, while smirking because of the paint job of a huge sharp-toothed mouth just below the cockpit's glass window.

 _The fuck is going on?!_ Dendo curled his hands into fists over his desk and bit down hard.

 _Why are they doing this? Who is it?!_ Muoko's eyes darted back and forth over the screen in examination.

Kotsumura watched with a bead of sweat rolling down the left side of his face despite his intense expression. In the left corner of his vision though, Kotsumura saw an empty seat that he slowly turned to. Kotsumura looked at the seat and then behind it, at the person who sat behind Zach, Subara. He looked at the pale-skinned white-haired girl who did not notice or seem to think the same thing he just had a crazy thought of. As he was about to turn back forward though, Kotsumura saw Inasa a few seats back shift his head over a bit after Kotsumura had done it. Kotsumura turned farther back and he met Inasa's eyes for a second, and then he turned more and looked at Himazuri who gave him a wide-eyed look at what she heard him just think.

Kotsumura cracked a nervous smile. He was turned around so a few more of his classmates saw him smile, making them frown his way as this did not seem like a situation to be smiling in. "Zach sure, has been in the bathroom, for a while," Kotsumura hesitated a couple times while saying it, and his smile grew more like what he said was completely, definitely, a joke. It was almost laughable.

"No he hasn't," Reika muttered without glancing back at Kotsumura who she heard make that joke. Her eyes barely shifted to the door upon hearing it, and it annoyed her that she even did that much.

 _It's only been a minute or two,_ Hazano told himself too, calming down despite Kotsumura just freaking him out there.

On the screen, the villains' vehicles slowed down in the line away from the city. Villains piled out of the vehicles, and some of the fastest ones started running forward, others flew up in the air. A truck that was in the back of the huge convoy opened up, and a half-dozen off-road motorcycles whipped down a ramp and sped around to the outsides of the force. Two of the humvees popped the tops open, guys sticking up out of them while the drivers were all staying in their vehicles and moving forward slower now.

"You have to get back from here!" Kaleido yelled at the press, and this time the media were going to listen. They backed up faster as the enemies showed their true force. The villains emerged from their vehicles or dropped down from on top, and they all definitely looked ready to fight. They were moving in towards Desusuta after appearing out of nowhere just outside of the city in full force. And now that they had exited their vehicles, the camera had picked up exactly who these people were.

"It's the Subspace Devils," Kameko said, his voice dark but also somewhat confused. _What was the purpose of the Sports Festival Invasion? It was seemingly about destroying faith in heroes and Lifebringer, but in reality it was the Tartaros escape. What purpose does this attack have?! We didn't know the League's purpose until after the SFI was over. That can't happen again!_

More heroes showed up at the City Limits, but there were not nearly enough of them. Only fourteen had shown up so far, and the villains were still approaching fast even if they had slowed a bit. The heroes were frantic too, and Sky Smasher tried grouping them up in a way that would benefit them in stalling the villains while also showing the other heroes around him that he was willing to take charge and be the leader here. _We just need to hold off long enough for reinforcements to arrive. How long will that be though?! They'll be on us in two minutes, three maybe if they slow down again, but it'll be at least fifteen to twenty for even heroes from the closest city to get here!_

Another three heroes came running to the edge of the city from a detail they had on the opposite side. Three more than fourteen was still not enough to even get close to closing the gap between the two forces. Sky Smasher glanced back in the corners of his eyes and spotted some more police officers lining up vehicles directly on the city's edge instead of out on the start of the field with him and the other heroes. _Do I break protocol? Police aren't allowed to use Quirks,_ Sky Smasher's eyes shifted straight ahead of him again, narrowed on certain figures he saw at the front of the crowd of enemies. _But the Subspace Devils aren't just a ragtag group of thugs. It's not just the executives we have to worry about, and the small-time guys they have with them are going to be used as distractions to let the more powerful take us unawares._

 _What are they doing here?_

 _Why are they attacking us?!_

 _We need more help!_

 _We'll just have to hold them off as long as we can._

Unlock marched forward into the ranks of other heroes directly in the path of the villains. "We only need to hold them off for fifteen minutes, twenty max before Endeavor or Hawks arrive."

Vital Indicator glanced to his right at Unlock and then back straight ahead towards his enemies. _If only Endeavor were in the country right now. Not many know, but those of us in the ADTF do. And who knows if Hawks is that close either. Closest city to us with a reinforcing hero team to help would be Tuusuta, but unless Silva can take half of them on his own…_

One of the heroes who had arrived with Unlock hesitated near the edge of the city. She glanced over her shoulder towards the press who were backed up by the police but were still so close that if they got overrun those people would be hit first. _We need to evacuate this whole section of the city,_ Cyn-Thia turned forward and stepped farther past the City Limits. _Or we have to rush out there and meet them before they hit the city. They're coming in fast though, and we need all the time we can to organize._

"Cyn-Thia," Sky Smasher called out, having thought up a better plan after seeing the woman who arrived behind him and working her Quirk into his ideas. "We hold the line here." Sky Smasher's voice was dark, and the heroes around him on all sides looked in. Some had intense and accepting looks, nodding at the hero in a yellow cape whose expression gave away what he meant by that. Other heroes got nervous looks on their faces, and one or two looked like they wanted to run, but none of them did.

 _I put a wall up behind us, we won't get any help from the police or citizens who could…_ Cyn-Thia ground her teeth but stepped backwards and then pointed her palms back at her sides. She aimed behind her instead of in front, creating the wall at her back to trap her between it and the enemy force rapidly approaching. "Evacuate away from the City Limits!" Cyn-Thia shouted behind her, turning her head to look at a chief in the Police Force whose three eyes widened as he watched Cyn-Thia put up an almost invisible wall behind her.

The Cyn wall created with her Quirk spread wider to the sides. The cameraman televising what was happening outside of the City Limits panned his camera to the side as he caught the edge of the Cyn glass. They would not be able to tell the difference once it spread far enough, as it was like a giant thick pane of glass being put up, but as it spread there were clear edges to it. At U.A. High School, Class A watched closely the reactions of the heroes of Desusuta who quickly organized a defense. Even those heroes who had complaints or other ideas did not argue and create any unnecessary actions after Sky Smasher had given out commands. The pros were quick to react and follow one set of orders, and the students watching had to imagine the kind of pressure those seventeen heroes felt on their shoulders having all of Desusuta behind them.

"There was no warning?" Hagakure whispered in shock as she stared at the huge group approaching in the shaky camera angle. The cops were all rushing about, and citizens were flooding out of buildings around them to get away from the City Limits. The reporter shouting about the heroes' efforts and the enemy's forces argued with one of the officers that she needed to stay there and had the right to be. The officer was trying to argue back, but the conversation alone was giving them a longer time close to the City Limits while most other people were running from the Cyn wall by this point.

"Because of Potaru," Shoji mentioned quietly from behind his mask next to her. He glanced to his side at the nervous invisible girl and added, "His Quirk, Portals, allows him to connect and keep open several portals at the same time. We don't even know if this is their whole force or if they're going to make more appear on the sides and flank the heroes."

"I'm sure they're thinking of that," All Might assured, though he did not look away from the screen either as he stood in front of his class. The scrawny man with pushed back light-blond hair had a dark look in his eyes, and regret filled them too as his fists clenched. _Unable to do a thing._

Midoriya was leaning forward on the edge of his seat, and his eyes darted towards the windows again anxiously.

 _"All Might! I could get there-"_ Uraraka looked to her left over at the boy with curly green hair who had such a frustrated and conflicted look covering his face. _Deku's so fast. But All Might can't let him go. Those other heroes can handle it!_ Uraraka pumped herself up in her head, though her expression got nervous again as she looked back at the screen and the heroes moving farther from the edge of the city while the villains rushed at them from less than a mile away now.

Yaoyorozu's expression was steady, but her mind was working fast. _Out of all the cities within a hundred mile radius of Desusuta, there still are not as many heroes as there are villains in that group. Subspace Devils. Yet I don't see Overlord or Potaru in the attack force. The force is still strong enough though to get the full attention of-_

Bakugo's eyes shifted to the windows just to his left again, but he ground his teeth and shifted his eyes back to the screen at the front of the room. _This is fu-_

On the screen in their classroom, the camera aimed out towards the Cyn wall caught something fall from above the angle straight down into the heroes. The cameraman's legs had already extended while he was retreating, but he stopped moving just as everyone in front of him looking that way froze completely too. His camera was zoomed in through the Cyn that they could not even see anymore, focused on the heroes with the villains in the background past them picking up dirt and dust with their charge. The villains' charge was closer than a mile, and many of the villains out there were close enough that even without being zoomed in on they were visible and in focus.

Those villains slowed down. The heroes who all spun in opened their eyes even wider than just from the form dropping between them, as most of them had just assumed it was a villain coming to attack them or maybe their hero reinforcements. All of the cops behind the Cyn, and the cameraman and reporter who just saw this, and the heroes, and the villains, and the students of Class 1 and Class A, stared in a sudden silence at the figure with spiky black hair who just landed outside of Desusuta.

Kotsumura's jaw dropped farther and farther until his jaw muscles hurt. _I was… kidding._

Hazano's eyes shot back to the door of his classroom, then to the screen, then behind him at the windows of the classroom again. _HOW?!_

He wore a black hoodie, his school uniform either missing or hidden under it. He stood there over six feet tall at the front of the seventeen heroes who had gathered to fight the Subspace Devils about the enter their city. Zach stared from where he landed straight out towards the villains, his face hidden from the camera behind him and partially masked from the heroes he was not looking at. Zach landed, and the villains he looked at came to a stop.

The other heroes behind Zach darted their gazes past the person in front of them to the force of villains many expected was about to kill them as they stalled. Sky Smasher wanted to say something to Lifebringer who he recognized instantly, and yet he found himself speechless and at a loss for breath as he looked to the Subspace Devils.

The cameraman zoomed farther out too, as the reaction of the villains was unusual. All the vehicles stopped. The helicopter pulled its nose up after Zach landed, and now it just hovered over some of the vehicles, if anything backing up so it was no longer at the front. The men and women who had gotten out of the vehicles and started running all stood still. The motorcycles were humming but unmoving, and the drivers of all the land vehicles just stared towards Sazaki without a move. The expressions on their faces as they all looked closer, were caught on the camera and televised out across the country.

Inasa had jumped out of his seat when he saw the blur drop down on the screen, and the boy standing in his classroom lifted a hand up to his head and ran it through his hair with a worried look covering his face. _Zach!_

"Is he stupid?!" Dendo shouted, only to freeze and stare closer at the expressions of the villains who had all stopped charging at Desusuta. The reporter stopped talking for a second after shouting for a few that Lifebringer had just shown up on the scene. They all just stared out at the villains who were supposed to be coming full-speed at them, and who had all lost the crazy smiles and excited looks that covered their faces before.

It was a sight to see: over a hundred people crashing into the new reality. Their lips curved down, their eyes that had gotten wide narrowing or getting shaky, their hands clenching tighter around weapons with hilts that were getting covered in sweat. Wheels and bike handles got wet with sweat, and the drivers were tensed while gripping as hard as they could with sweaty palms. A couple of them looked up, as if searching for whatever plane Lifebringer just jumped out of. There was nothing above them though. Nothing in the sky to indicate where this person just came from. A few took nervous steps back, though they stopped themselves and got angrier looks that they did that in the first place, only for their anxiety to show through the anger.

Ashido's jaw that had dropped snapped closed and she spun to her right. She opened her mouth to shout something at Ojiro, only to shake her head and spin back. She threw her arm at the screen like she had to show him it. Ojiro nodded his head absently, seeing her out the corner of his eyes but unable to tear his gaze off the image he was slack-jawed gawking at.

 _Zach,_ Yaoyorozu's heart pounded but she felt a strange sensation inside too as she looked at the back of the boy's head on their screen. _Can you handle this? You can, right? If you die- I… You won't die._

"All Might," Midoriya jumped out of his seat. All Might spun and looked towards his student, then over to Bakugo and to Todoroki who both got up right after Midoriya. Midoriya continued though, "We have to go there-"

"No," All Might said. He spoke firmly and gave his successor a harsh look as Midoriya tried this again. All Might pitied his students, but he continued with a look over at Bakugo and Todoroki too, "What Sazaki does, does not impact the rules we have here." _Sazaki. I knew you were not going to take the law seriously, but,_ All Might looked back to the screen. "This decision he has made is his alone, and you will not follow in his path."

Mineta looked at All Might's back with his eyes opening huge again. _Whoa, All Might's so… He's not smiling. That's so weird! Zach! Why are you doing this?!_

Zach stared out towards the Subspace Devils, most of whom he recognized. His eyes narrowed in on a few members in particular, but he continued to scan down the line of his enemies who had all stopped to stare back at him. "Lifebringer," Vital Indicator started, the redhead shaking off the shock of who just landed before her. She took a step towards Sazaki's back and said in a lower voice, "What are you doing here?"

"I saw this going on, and I was close by so I thought I should come and help," Zach responded loudly. He smiled while looking out at the villains, but he turned his head to the side. He turned away from the villains while smiling like everything was okay, a smile that was seen by the camera back behind him as well as the stunned older heroes at his back. "Since I have a provisional license, I can help out can't I?"

Sky Smasher stared at Sazaki in shock for a second after hearing that, then his eyes narrowed and immediately snapped behind him towards the villains again. Zach looked back forward himself which got the villains getting enraged that he would turn away into freezing in the middle of yelling at the others around them. They felt like Zach just stared straight at them, and seeing their reactions a second time Sky Smasher's plans had the ability to change. As he started thinking about using the effect Sazaki had on these villains to stall them longer though, Zach started speaking to him and the others behind him, "I'll take care of the decoy force."

"Decoy Force?" Cyn-Thia asked quickly, nervous and confused about what Lifebringer was talking about. "Where is-"

"In front of us," Zach replied. "It's why they appeared so far out of the city, instead of just teleporting inside. They _wanted_ all of you to leave the city and come to this side of it. Whatever Overlord's real plan is," Zach had not finished yet, but most of the heroes behind him already spun around and looked back into the city Zach was speaking of in a low voice so only they would hear him. "It's going to happen behind us."

The first thing Sazaki said echoed back into Sky Smasher's head, and the hero spun back forward to stare at the kid's back in utter shock. "Wait a…" _"I'll take care of the decoy force." He couldn't mean…_ "You can't do this alone."

"Look at them," Zach said softly, while cracking a larger smirk on his face for the villains ahead of him who were talking to each other and trying to get re-organized. "You know what they're thinking right now? Every single one of them is thinking…"

Across a field that felt much too small to both parties on either side of Lifebringer, the villains who had frozen at Lifebringer's arrival were trying to figure out what to do now. Kousen had not looked as afraid as his comrades when Zach met his gaze from across the field. He looked into Sazaki's eyes with his thin orange ones, and although his expression got deadly serious and his mind was racing with regret for the first few seconds about how they should not have done this, his focus had narrowed and he was yelling at the men around him to continue on with the mission.

Kousen's Quirk, Steal, worked in a very simple way. Kousen discovered his Quirk at the young age of nine: that he would obtain the Quirk of any person he killed. The twenty-eight year old standing in the center of the Subspace Devils' forces currently had three Quirks from the last three people he had killed. His Quirk used to erase the last Quirk he had stolen once he took a new one, but after years he had brought the limit of his Quirk up to allow him to keep three at the same time. Due to this fact, Kousen's Quirk was unknown to the public who had believed him to have various different Quirks over his criminal history.

Kousen did not get cocky over the fact that Sazaki did not know his three Quirks though. Instead, his intense focus on his enemy was wary and his orders to his comrades had hidden purposes in them to get many of his own men to fight Lifebringer first while he got a good read on his opponent's power. _I want that Quirk! DEATH!_ Kousen's lips stayed flat, but he fought the urge to twist the corners of his lips into the deranged way in which he was thinking. _GIVE IT GIVE IT GIVE IT!_

Sulu's eyes shifted to his left towards the man who started yelling louder at everyone about who they were, how many of them there were, and what they had done to this country. Kousen was doing a good job at calming everyone down and rallying the forces into a return to their state before Lifebringer dropped, but Sulu saw the look in Kousen's eyes he rarely saw. Sulu was usually the craziest of the executives, but he was also much smarter than he let on and he had been one of the ones to take a step back after the shock of seeing Sazaki.

 _I didn't think, he'd be here,_ Sulu thought even as he twisted a smirk and yelled at the others around him too that this was their chance. "We kill him now, we rule this fucking world! No one will dare…" _Overlord, do it fast. As soon as we collide we've got to make it look like we're winning. Sazaki will have those other heroes to use on us though so we can't just focus solely on him- dammit! This is shit! I- I AM SULU! I don't get this…_ Sulu had to curl his fists tighter even as he shouted to his men words convincing them to be less afraid than he was. He clenched his fists that tight because if he didn't then he knew his open hands would be shaking at his sides.

 **Four Months Ago**

At a port in Kobe, Sulu and a group of twenty guys were unloading a ship and packing up a line of trucks late in the middle of the night. The docks were empty except for their group and the fifty who came on the ship and were assisting them. The dock workers supposed to be watching the place for the night knew not to even get close during this time period, and Sulu felt confident to call out to his men in a loud cocky voice without anyone hearing him who wasn't supposed to.

One of the villains who just arrived on the ship was not as okay with it as Sulu was though. "YOU! Shut it!" The man stormed to the edge of the ship and yelled down at the blond Japanese man on the ramp who had just called out a joke in a loud voice before cackling into the night sky. Sulu turned his head and glared up at the edge of the ship, at a man who was vice-captain of the villains they were trading with and who did not back down from the murderous smile on Sulu's face. The Somalian man stood at seven feet tall and three wide at the shoulders, with six muscular arms that stuck out of his sides all crossed in front of his chest.

Sulu leapt up in the air and he landed on the railing of the ship just ten feet from the African villain glaring at him. Drago's bottom two arms uncrossed and lowered to his sides with clenched fists, though he kept the other four crossed suggesting he was still ready to just keep standing there, as much as he was ready to fight if it came. Sulu cocked his head to the side while grabbing the railing on the insides of where his feet rested on the smooth curved edge. "What are you so afraid of?" Sulu asked, looking into the other man's eyes while still grinning madly at him.

Drago's eyes shifted over Sulu for a moment and around the port behind him. The other workers on his ship continued moving around with Sulu's own guys, though there were some moving closer to the two readying their weapons. It was the more high-tier guys moving to their comrades, telling the peons to keep up the work while they dealt with any potential outbreaks of violence between their leaders. Sulu spotted Drago's captain standing on the ledge of the ship's bridge fifty feet up and more towards the middle of the ship. The woman at the bridge was not looking his way though, but more like Drago was scanning the docks and the surrounding area.

Sulu's smile lowered a little. There were insults he wanted to say and taunts he thought he could throw at the other villains, but their profits had taken a slip recently. "Don't tell me you're going to back out too," Sulu began, and he smirked more as Drago looked back. "Like all those other cowards."

"We're here, aren't we?" Drago asked back, his eyes darkening at the word 'other' which made it sound like Sulu was almost calling him a coward to his face. Drago's expression got darker and his voice lower as he added in defense of his actions, "But you're the fool, for not being more careful."

"Heroes haven't shown up here in-"

"I'm not talking about heroes," Drago said. He interrupted Sulu and narrowed his eyes at the blond man's angry reaction. His eyes shifted towards Sulu's gang members as well, the ones who looked ready to attack his own crew should Sulu start fighting. "You wouldn't dare alienate us now, when as you've just said," Drago looked straight back at Sulu and into his angry eyes. "No one else wants to come here, with Zach Sazaki back in this country. It's why no one is coming close to this place."

"Lifebringer's in prison," Sulu growled back at Drago, though his smile was gone as well as his dangerous look. The talk of their business and the loss of it upset him but reminded him of how important this relationship was to keep. Overlord would not be happy if he lost it due to his own rash actions here, and he knew fighting Drago would be a quick way to lose Felisha's business. Sulu lifted the right corner of his lip and added, "And he's going to be there for a very, very long time."

"If you think he's going to spend the full six years in that hole," Drago started, his voice not losing its low tone. Sulu's smile vanished, and Drago continued to the shorter man who did not seem to hear what he was saying yet. "Then you're delusional. And the moment he gets out of there, you'll be hard-pressed to find a single soul willing to come to this fucking country." Drago spat to the side off the edge of his ship, but when he did so he had a nervous look on his face for a moment that he shook off before turning back to his partners.

The other six Subspace Devils who had gathered around Sulu glanced at Drago's men too after seeing Drago's look there, and pits formed in each of their chests at those looks alone. " _If_ he really is Death," Sulu said, raising an eyebrow and cracking a smirk again.

"It's not an 'if,'" Drago spat out, though it was not at Sulu as much as it was at the boy he was talking about and the ones in public who still called it an 'if' scenario. "Everyone knows it. The entire underworld has known for a long time, with certainty," Drago said it with an annoyed look at the Japanese villains who were supposedly some of the best in the whole country yet still did not know these common things. He countered his own annoyance though and muttered in a more pissed-off voice, "You were all lucky, Death, did not return to his home during his reign."

"'Reign?'" Poole asked. The brown-haired man looked ready to laugh, and he had snorted before saying that in a skeptical tone, but the international villains they were trading with just got darker looks. Two of them tssked or bit down, and they started away with unnerved looks just from the start of the conversation alone. It did not seem like Sulu was going to start a fight anymore, so they just went back to yell at the others (more quietly now) to keep unloading. Poole's smile did not drop though, a snarky look forming on his face instead at the fear their allies were showing while showing some shame at being so afraid.

 _Felisha's no joke,_ Sulu thought with a glance back towards the captain watching over everything from above. _Her crew shouldn't be either. Not inexperienced. Not afraid, of just a name. A name in a conversation about a person trapped in the strongest prison in the world!_ "Even if he really is Death," Sulu started. His expression looked creepy, and the most menacing he could without looking like he was threatening the people directly in front of him. Most of them got unnerved by the crazy man's look, the look of a true murderer, and Sulu continued, "He doesn't have his army anymore. He gets out, he's still just Zach Sazaki. And I'm not afraid of any hero."

Drago ground his teeth and looked away for a moment. Despite Sulu's most convincing evil look like he was ready to keep on as usual with Sazaki there, Drago did not feel any better at all. "You say that because you don't know him. You don't know the things he's done." Drago shifted his eyes back and looked straight into Sulu's scary eyes, "He's a monster, and he's going to get out of that prison soon. You've seen how this country loves him. The whole world thinks he's this fucking savior, while to us he's been…" Drago trailed off, but he looked at the Subspace guys who did not look all that afraid or were just giving him less respectful looks now because of the way he was talking.

"You know why we're all so fucking confident all the time? Why we're not afraid, and we act like we're the biggest thugs in the world?" Drago asked. A couple of his own guys looked in at him, surprised looks on their faces at what he was saying here. Drago stepped towards Sulu though and his voice deepened as he growled at the blond man, "It's because we know nothing's going to happen to us. Even if we get caught, even if the worst case scenario comes up and heroes bust in here, they'll throw us in a prison with a bunch of our own kind and life will go on. Sure, our freedom will be gone, and it will suck," Drago leaned his head forward and snarled, "but we _know_ that's what would come if heroes came for us. Don't act like you know things will be fine with Death out of jail, when you've never experienced the world with him roaming free in it. With Death or his soldiers waiting at every deal, picking off every one of our allies and rivals and every villain we've ever fucking heard of like it was sport."

It got quiet on the deck around Drago. Some of the others close to them but not in the small group were staring over, and the other Subspace guys saw their allies looking around nervously as it seemed like Drago was talking about Death. Why was he talking about Death? Was Death there? Sulu saw the looks of the men who did not know what was going on, who heard what Drago said and were freaking out because they were in the same country as that man. "You don't know what Death will do to you, so don't tell me you don't fear him. The things he's done to the villains of this world… we're lucky to be alive having roamed at the same time he was out there."

"And what kind of things would those be?" Sulu asked. His tone was dark and accusing, like Drago was still just being a pussy even though he just used that tone for his own sake this time.

"Torture, murder," Drago said. His voice was flat and his eyes cold. "Death is what his name implies. He was a fucking ghost, leaving a trail of dead bodies across the world. Slaughtering hundreds of us like it was nothing to him."

"And you saw this?" Bilon growled. The blue-furred man had a bead of sweat rolling down his face, but he kept a disbelieving expression for a moment longer. "You saw Sazaki do this?"

"If I saw it, I wouldn't be here," Drago snarled back. "But enough have. Rumors turn to fact when you've heard enough of them. The survivors, the witnesses, they all say the same things about him. But even when you don't hear anything about him at all, you know when he's been somewhere." Drago paused for a moment and tilted his head back, "Because all of a sudden those guys who were there aren't there anymore. They're not in any prison, and they're not laying low, they're just _gone._ They fucking disappear without a trace, leaving the heroes as stupefied as everyone else! And if he can do that as Death without getting caught or seen or anything, what makes you think-"

"Get back to work!" Felisha shouted down, as her crew and Sulu's were lagging around and all looking towards Drago.

Her vice captain snapped his head up and then spun and yelled at everyone to get back to it too, marching away as he realized they were wasting precious time. "Double time it!" Drago yelled at his men, and they did not hesitate to do so as they had renewed incentive to get out of this country faster.

Sulu watched as Drago walked away from him. He did not start smiling and joking about their paranoid partners and their ghost stories like his comrades did behind him. He stared at the man who he had been sizing up at first because they might have started fighting had the conversation gone a different way. He watched a powerful villain who had survived out in the world when most of what Sulu had heard about outside of Japan was how villains couldn't survive out there anymore, let alone ones that worked internationally. _It's a rational fear. And it's smart to be afraid, because without that fear they likely wouldn't have made it this long._ Sulu turned and looked out over the water past the other side of the ship, _Though I'm sure there were some who were already terrified when Death showed up for them. How much of the rumors are just exaggerated though? How much is truth? Whatever it was, Sazaki can't be Death now that he's back. He can't do things like he did before. And he won't even be out for…_

 **Present**

 _How is he here? He's not, supposed to be here!_ Sulu heard all the other stories, all the rumors he had asked their international contacts about in order to prepare himself. None of it worked to quell the immense fear swelling inside him at the sight of the person staring towards them while talking to the people behind him.

"Look at them," Zach said in a quiet voice while still smirking out at his scared enemies. "You know what they're thinking right now? Every single one of them is thinking, that I am Death." The heroes behind Zach Sazaki stared at his back with their eyes growing huge again. "So I'll use that," Zach suggested. "It will keep them from rushing at the city and give us enough time for help to come and stop their main attack."

Kousen yelled at the others on his sides, "Charge at the city! Push on with the attack! Whoever kills Sazaki gets a spot as an executive, and a hundred million bonus!"

"Kill him and you'll be the most famous villain in the world!" Girder roared down from the helicopter that started flying forward again.

A surge of villains moved forward, making the rest of them start up again too. Zach continued to grin in a cocky way towards them, and he spoke in a calm and confident voice to the heroes behind him who started shouting questions about what was going on. "No. You all need to stay here or go back and guard the rest of the defenseless city behind us. My Quirk spreads too wide of an area and I can't use it to its full power around allies. I'll be fine," Zach promised, smiling calmly with one last look back. "Protect Desusuta from the main attack."

Zach looked forward, and he started walking. His steps sped up so he was in a light jog, his arms swinging at his sides and then swinging faster as he leaned forward and started taking longer strides. Zach's jog turned into a run, into a sprint, and his lips twisted up higher at the corners while the villains moving forward all stopped again. Nervous looks covered all their faces again. Kousen's grin as he had gotten some cocky men to move forward just in front of him, dropped into a shocked look as he thought Zach was just bolstering the defenses. _He's running straight at us?! Why would he leave the other heroes? He could have used them to…_

 _He's coming, alone?!_

 _He doesn't look afraid!_

Zach ran forward at his enemies a little over a half mile away from him. _Wish I had some entrance music. I could put in a headphone right now, blast something epic to get me going. Wouldn't be very professional though, as much as it would make them think I see them as a joke._

 _He's so calm!_

 _He doesn't even think of us as a threat!_

 _It's Death!_

 _Death's coming for us!_

 _The heroes aren't doing anything! They just let Death…_

 _I'll- I'll kill him and take all the bounties!_

 _I'll be rich!_

 _I just need one good hit!_

 _He's going to kill me!_

 _HIS EYES!_

Zach's eyes changed color and started glowing. The soles of his feet covered in black, wisps coming off of his shoes and then off the backs of his knees and upper thighs as well. Zach's speed increased more, but not all of his enemies were completely shocked by his sudden charge on his own towards them. "Attack!" Girder yelled from up at the edge of the helicopter.

"Flank him from the sides!" Kousen yelled out.

"Everyone fucking KILL HIM!" Sulu roared, pulling out a pair of pistols from his sides and firing without a second's hesitation.

A turret-man on top of one of the military grade humvees they bought loaded and locked his weapon. He turned it, while others in between vehicles ran forward instead of back and got down on their knees to either side of the humvee with rifles in hand. The turret started up its up, and the barrel began spinning with the man on top cracking his smile again before he started to unload across the field.

"Cyn-Thia!" Sky Smasher yelled at his fellow hero. "Put up a smaller wall between us and Lifebringer's back, everyone else build up defenses and work on the evacuation away from this side of the city."

"I know what Overlord might be after," Unlock shouted, after getting off his comms with the fourth member of his team who stayed behind and did not rush to the edge of the city with the others. _Just hold on for a few minutes Fern Girl._

"Still no sign of Fern Girl?" Overlord growled into his own communicator.

"No. If anything, the heroes seem to be up to something now behind Sazaki," Ego-God replied from the pilot's seat of the helicopter where he felt safer than most of their comrades.

Inside Desusuta, the press managed to set up away from the cops, and the cameraman whose body could stretch his legs up high was zoomed out of the city. His partner shouted at the top of her lungs about what she was seeing on the screen in front of her depicting what the camera was catching. "…Zach Sazaki appeared out of nowhere and is running at the villains on his own! I don't know what the other heroes are doing, but they're letting Lifebringer go after the villains by himself! And they're- The villains are shooting at him!"

Zach kept running straight ahead for a second or two after the bullets started flying. He curled his right hand, the watch on his wrist spreading down his hand and covering it in a glowing blue glove. He leaned his body to the right, dodging a bullet on his left side, and then ducking his head and pulling back to the right in the next moment while in the same step. As his right foot was coming down he brought it farther to the right of where he was initially coming down. He darted to his right side, his legs flaring with more black that left a trail of it behind him as he suddenly darted away at twice the speed he was already moving in a line across the field.

The ground covered in dust rising up from bullets slamming behind Zach. Zach lifted his left hand up towards the enemies on his left side now as he sprinted, then he came to a sudden stop and a sniper rifle round flew in front of his face only inches away. He was twisting his body while stopping like that, using his momentum and continuing to step by lifting off his back foot while turning one hundred and eighty degrees. His left hand that had raised was glowing blue already with a similar glove to his right on it, and as he finished his spin now with his enemies on his right, his left arm was crossed in front of his body aimed back at the Subspace Devils. The blue blast fired from his hand and hit the bottom right side of the vehicle with the turret on it, flipping that one on its side and throwing the turret-man out of it.

A young villain opened his eyes huge behind his orange goggles, falling backwards on his butt as his round missed Sazaki on what he thought was a perfect shot. Zach sprinted back to his left, moving even faster and diving forward at one point dodging a bullet at his leg level and one at his neck at the same time. He rolled on landing and then cut straight forward as a man ran forward once Zach got into the range of his Flamethrower Breath. The white hot flames burst out from the villains mouth and ignited a portion of the field on fire towards Zach. Vehicles raced ahead again, only on the sides where Zach was not running forward, and a couple of those vehicles curved in to start towards him while others looked ready to go straight towards the city.

 _Some are ignoring the orders to go at me first. They'd rather fight seventeen other heroes. I can't let them get past me,_ Zach lifted up his right hand, and darkness swirled above his glowing blue glove. His whole hand shrouded in black, and a mass of it formed above his hand as he slowed into a stop before all the villains. He lifted up his hand and stomped his left foot down, still over a quarter mile in front of all his enemies and on the right side of a line of white flames he had easily dodged.

Hanta Sero leaned forward over his desk with a giant but nervous smile spread over his face. "He's dodging bullets out there." Sero said it with a glance to his right at Iida who did not turn away from the screen, and Sero shrugged as he figured to Iida that might not be all that amazing of a thing. _He's doing it easily though,_ Sero thought with a grin. _He can do this!_

"He's going to get himself killed out there," Todoroki muttered, then he grimaced at a look he received from the girl next to him with a spiky ponytail.

Yaoyorozu turned back to the screen where she saw Zach's back in an angle that was changing as the reporter told her cameraman to move with her to a better location. Zach had his hand lifted and the black mass over his palm was shifting around while the villains stared at it nervously or tried attacking him some more. He was directly in front of the middle of their pack again, but he no longer seemed to be dodging any bullets. He had stopped a couple of them with his first attack, but there were still villains shooting at him and others without weapons looked to be getting ready with longer-ranged Quirks now that he was closer.

Above Zach's palm formed a long, thin weapon that condensed more until there were no wisps coming out of it. "Death Spear," Zach growled, his voice loud and his lips moving in a clear way as to what he was saying for the villains who could not hear him over the gunfire. The weapon he was holding made it clearer what it was he just said though, as his black hand gripped around the center of his spear that was twice as long as he was tall. Zach lifted his head up, yanked it to the side and dodged a bullet the sniper tried again to hit him with, then he ran three steps forward and threw up towards the helicopter.

"Girder!" Kousen shouted up.

"He's aiming at the helicopter first?!"

"PULL UP!" Girder shouted to the front of the vehicle.

The helicopter's pilot was no longer calm, and Ego-God twisted the sticks in panic that jolted the helicopter so hard to the side they almost turned sideways. The back swung out from behind them and Girder grabbed onto the inside of the opened doorway as his legs flew out and he was almost thrown from the vehicle.

The spear flew just below the tail of the helicopter. Most of the villains down below who looked up got relieved expressions at their bird's dodge, but Kousen and Sulu did not feel the same kind of optimism that Sazaki "missed."

 _The arc,_ Kousen thought, his breath hitching and his eyes growing wide.

The Death Spear curved at first like it had just missed its target, and then it became a sharper descent into a straight shot. It dropped from its current position to a target farther back that the momentum shot it towards along with another burst of speed even faster than Zach's first spear-like throw. The spear pierced through the windshield of a black SUV, straight in between the driver's seat and the passenger side. Overlord slowly turned his head from the passenger seat where he was sitting with his head pointed forward with a shocked and furious expression, which was turning into all-out rage as he turned left and looked into the back seat where that spear was sticking through.

The Death Spear faded away after a moment, and the four people in the vehicle who all pulled away to the sides looked into the middle of the back where Potaru sat slouched and motionless. He slouched too far though, and his head fell down into his own lap and between his legs as there was nothing holding him up anymore.

All the vehicles stopped completely. Every villain in the Subspace Devils looked back towards the vehicle in the most protected point in their formation. They stared at the windshield of the vehicle in the third line that had a hole in the center of it which had cracked to every edge. Zach smirked and lowered his arm back down to his side, then he uncurled his right and left fists and created more darkness inside his curled fingers.

"Get control of this thing!" Girder yelled to the front with his back against the inside of the helicopter's middle section.

"Did he just do, what I think he did?" Poole asked, stepping up to Kousen's back and speaking in a nervous voice.

 _Why?_ Kousen's eyes shook as he stared at the teenager he had been excited to kill when he first saw him. _It doesn't make sense! His goal should be stopping our attack… That should be his main goal!_

"He took out Potaru?!"

"Is Potaru down?!"

"What's happening?"

"What do we do?!"

Overlord threw the door of his vehicle open. Chaos was starting to break out on his side. He saw it coming the second the spear pierced the window and caught him unawares. _I wouldn't have been able to dodge in time,_ Overlord thought, while as the rest of the heist team poured out of the vehicle around him. _You picked the wrong target if you wanted to end this before it started, you stupid, fucking, KID!_

"Overlord! Is Potaru-" the man shouting towards Overlord stopped and turned to one of their other comrades who had gotten out of the car and was carrying Potaru over his shoulders.

"There is no running away!" Overlord bellowed at the top of his lungs. He was smirking while marching forward past the vehicle he was leaving behind. "Turn around and you'll never make it. Potaru's got the secondary escape route open already near the heist's location. It's the only way we get out. Moving, FORWARD!" Overlord roared it and he glared around at the others who had looked so ready to panic and flee a moment ago. "You want to survive?! The plan's fucked, but we don't need it anymore! We have everything we need to become number one right in front of us," Overlord glared past all his comrades and straight at Zach Sazaki. "And there's no other choice but to go straight through him anyway!"

The Subspace Devils listened to their leader and turned back towards Sazaki. Their boss's voice echoed through the air as he got even louder, "Kill him and we become known as the baddest mother fuckers in this world! Try to run and I'll kill you _**myself!**_ But come with me, kill this fucker and show the world who we are, and you will be GODS! I'm the only one who knows where Potaru's portal is," Overlord jumped up and landed on top of a truck in the middle of his forces. He landed down hard and yelled out for all his subordinates to hear, "KILL LIFEBRINGER!"

"It's our only way forward!"

"Our only way to survive!"

"There's no other escape!"

"Kill him or be killed!"

"RAAAA!"

 _ **VRRROOOM**_

Engines revved and villains roared. They were thrown into a frenzy in seconds, for different reasons but all with a new single urge. They needed to kill the person in front of them. Whether it was for their own survival, for the fame and glory, because of their fear of Overlord or their desire to move up among the Subspace Devils, they all _needed_ to push through the person in front of them. Zach snapped his arms out to the sides as those vehicles that revved started racing forward though. The ones that were farthest forward out to his sides already could not be allowed to go any farther, and Zach cracked long whips of darkness down at his sides a few times, blackening the field around him.

The villains ran forward anyway despite Zach's weapons. Some set up better with their weapons or Quirks now, telling drivers below them to get closer but keep a distance so they could fire accurately without putting themselves in too much danger. The ones better at close-range combat ran in with Sulu near the front, Kousen around the middle of the group, and Overlord coming up in the back with a horde of other villains moving forward with him as they did not want to be left behind to get caught.

Zach jumped up in the air and dodged a couple of well-aimed shots. As he rose up, he cracked his whips again out to his sides in a way that looked like he was just waving them away from him. As he cracked them though, the ends of his whips extended out farther and curved down towards the ground. Zach dropped back down faster, dodging attacks meant for above him that went through a black veil that was left behind by Zach's sudden drop. With his drop that fast, made the rest of his whips slam down into the floor too even though the black continued snaking out farther and farther away from him. The black lines of his whips seemed to have turned flat into the floor like snakes in the withering grass. Out from those snakes emerged black flames though as Zach stood up from his crouched landing position, his hands free no longer holding the whips.

Those whips were now creating black walls of flames out from either side of Zach's body in the center of the gap. Zach stepped forward, and darkness came out of his heels and filled up the gap behind him to create the point in the wide 'V' of black flames that pointed to his right and left, but also a bit in front of him. He stood in a corner of his own making, with his 'V' keeping villains diagonal from him on his sides from getting any farther towards Desusuta or in a better position to flank him. His black flames did something else though. They put up a barrier between him and the city behind him where people were watching him from.

And the idea of the people behind Zach not being able to see what he was about to do, the thought that Zach Sazaki had done this on purpose solely to prevent anyone from seeing what he was about to do to them, the fear that Death was about to do monstrous things to them, broke the resolves of some of those in the frenzy charging at Zach. It did not stop many of them, or even slow that many, but even in the most hardened of his opponents Zach knew he had stirred anxiety and doubt that had to exist if they knew even something about his time abroad. Zach's enemies were close now, and he was running forward again, this time with black lines carving in from the sides of his face making what looked like veins from the corners of his eyes down his cheeks over his scars and down his neck into his sweatshirt.

Zach's lips vanished in the darkness allowing his mouth to twist up more with more of his jaw exposing in a twisted smile, and he swung his right arm in front of him creating a wave of Death he threw at his enemies.

"Block it!"

"Poole! Break the floor in front of me." Kousen ordered.

"Blow it back!"

"Reflect it!"

 _Don't recognize some of them. Some Quirks were unknown._ Zach darted to his right after his attack, his Death strongest on that side to shroud him more until he suddenly popped up running at the weaker right flank of his enemies who had hesitated more upon each of his terrifying actions. His speed shot up three-fold as his legs turned completely black and wispy, and his body lifted off the ground as a black blur that shot into the men who dodged away or got slammed for a few of them.

Zach dropped his legs back down and pushed off the floor hard. He rose up and smashed his hands down on a cube of field that came flying at him, front-flipping over it and then kicking another larger piece into pieces that shattered in just a way to nail two nearby enemies in their faces. _Kousen. One of his Quirks. Don't know what his composite is like, or if he just has a new set each time. Mystery box but with all of the possibilities trained. Copy Quirk allowing for multiple steals at once. Lots of possibilities, but he's fighting smart and testing me. Didn't lose it once, though he looked to come close once or twice._

Zach came out of his flip and waved his left hand in front of him. He swung his arm and Death flew off like a visible wind down into the ground that it rolled across like a wave into three enemies too slow to realize that the miss did not mean it would not get them. Zach's red eyes darted around to all sides as his feet came close to the floor. His face got blacker and his bones and teeth showed through less, and he created a huge amount of Death down on the soles of his feet right as he was getting close to hitting the floor.

"Back up!"

The darkness did not explode out in all directions of where Zach landed like Sulu thought when he shouted it at the other close-range fighters with him. Instead it all blasted out behind him and made the wall of Death rise higher to Zach's back, while also propelling him forward in an instant so quickly that most villains he was fighting did not notice him reinforce the wall behind him. Zach shot towards Kousen between a dozen enemies who turned in and dodged away without yet realizing Zach had not attacked any of them.

Zach pulled his right fist back with a lot of Death swirling around it. _Better not to know what those other Quirks-_ Zach stopped short and dove to his left. A huge steel beam impaled the ground where Zach was about to sprint into. It had come down so fast that Zach nearly got hit even moving very quickly at Kousen, and as he did his roll Zach followed the angle that the beam had come in from into the sky where Girder stood at the edge of the helicopter.

Two more huge steel girders formed in front of Girder while he held his palms out in front of him. The beams were thirty feet long and in the shape of capital 'I's, and Girder shot them down to the point Zach finished his dodge. They moved as fast as the first one Girder threw, but Zach saw them from the moment they were thrown this time and had more time to both dodge and do so in a way so he was moving at an enemy. In the moment he had dodged though, other villains had seen him fail for the first time to do what it was he looked like he was trying to do.

Kousen lifted his arms up quickly and he curled all his fingers at Zach before twisting his arms so one was above the other and an orange circle formed in the air in front of him with strange patterns all over it. El Diablo was lifted up in the air by Dread Hawk, and a fiery white breath started firing down at Zach in a line that was also going to hit two men unconscious down on the ground at the angle he was at. Sulu was looking closely at Zach for whatever direction he was going to dodge, and Zach could see Kousen was doing the same as the first attacks started.

Zach darted to his right for a man covered in blue fur whose cap had fallen off his gray horns and who lay unconscious. Zach kicked Bilon into a man running at him on his right side who had not expected Lifebringer to choose him as the one to suddenly turn to as he was not even one of the five closest people to Sazaki. Zach leaned down and snagged one hand into the other villain's shirt while still running, and he jumped up to dodge an orange flash of light that flew at him from Kousen that he did not know what it would do. He brought up the other villain he had grabbed while spinning in midair, and he threw at the man who was breathing fire and his partner.

El Diablo and Dread Hawk got smashed back through the air by their comrade and fell to the ground. Zach watched their angle of descent closely while moving for the vehicles. He sped straight past the front line and jumped up into the man running past the back of the vehicle trying to get the drop on him. Zach's right knee kept only a small bit of Death on it, while he mainly just used the force of his sprint and his knee to take the man off the ground and send him flying into the hood of the vehicle behind him. Zach jumped at that truck and punched a hand down through the roof, but before he could flood the inside where he still saw two guys preparing something inside of, he spotted an enemy that he knew of running his way with glowing purple hands.

Zach reached to the side of the truck he was on, and he swung himself off the edge right before a spinning horn pierced through where the villains below thought he was. Zach swung himself off the side of the truck and through a window, kicking one of the men in the face with both of his feet. He grabbed the two of them and dove through the door on the other side that he came in from, and he threw the two of them into the opening door of the next vehicle over that slammed shut and knocked the man inside across the inside of his vehicle. Then as Zach landed outside of the vehicle he just cleared, he kicked his left foot behind him with a huge amount of Death bursting from his knee at the last moment when he extended it.

Blast-Burst slammed his glowing hands together to blow up the vehicle in front of him that Sazaki was still close to. Right as he fired though, the truck started skidding over the field towards him, making the explosion hit close enough that it threw the man who made it off the ground himself and back into his comrade just behind him.

Overlord glared back into the area full of his vehicles that had not fully unloaded when he told his men to charge. _He's taking them out fast back there. He ran past the strongest first, taking out the more scattered and weaker ones when he saw he couldn't handle everyone at once._ Overlord turned his head back to the side so he could glare at the wall of black on his right between him and Desusuta. _The edges of his wall are already gone, and only the extra burst is keeping it alive though shrinking every second. He'll come to reinforce it, but we can't move forward anyway. The goal needs to stay as fighting Lifebringer. The second we change it to moving into the city, he'll block us off again. He wants me to change up my goals and lose their faith._

"He's going to come back here," Kousen said, jogging over to Overlord and keeping his voice loud as he announced Zach's plans. "What do we do when he does?"

"Set up position and get-"

A motorcycle flew past the side of one of the SUVs in front of Overlord and Kousen, smashing into the top of the pickup truck past it and then bouncing up into the air. Another motorcyle flew up towards the helicopter a second later, flipping around in midair so fast it was like a blur. The helicopter pulled up, and Girder's next beam missed by a much wider margin as the man stumbled backwards while firing. Girder yelled up at Ego-God to control it, only for the man at the front of the helicopter to scream and curl up in his seat which made the helicopter start spinning. Girder leaned back towards the door, then he turned and sprinted to the other side and dove out of the helicopter. "Dread Hawk!"

Zach's wings broke apart behind him as he smashed into the ceiling of the inside of the helicopter moving so fast that he dented into it and broke the rotor above. The rotors stopped spinning as fast, which was good anyway as Ego-God was trying to scramble away from his seat and to attack the person behind him covered in dark flames. Zach grabbed a man next to him who had been in the main cabin with Girder, and he tossed him backwards out of the helicopter before reaching up front with his right arm that extended out and gripped a black hand around the villain's face. His hand was completely solid without any wisps coming out of it, other dark areas of his body getting thinner so his bones were showing through as he condensed his right arm so solid that barely any was absorbing into his opponent's skin.

Zach's arm retracted and he used less Death as his real arm reformed beneath, then all the Death disappeared so he was just gripping the man using his glove. He ran to the edge of the helicopter that Girder had dove out of, and he threw the pilot down falling unconscious into his enemies. Zach flew out of the side of the helicopter and around the back of it, and he grabbed the tail and spun, throwing towards where Overlord and the others were near his disappearing Death Wall. As soon as he released it, Zach dodged a lot of aimed long-range attacks flying up towards him. His Death all transferred to the huge wings sticking out of his back again, and he flapped again in a powerful way to send him down to the ground much faster than gravity would take him. He landed, then he bounced from that spot to where an unconscious man was falling so he could catch and "drop the man hard" into a villain he swung the guy at using his left hand.

 _I still can't feel it._ Zach darted towards three men planning out a coordinated attack farther from the main group of powerful enemies. In the corner of his eye as he was running that way though, he spotted a pair of eyes in the shadows under a truck watching those three already. Zach sidestepped to his left, ducking down and allowing the girder to fly inches over his shoulder and through the back of an empty jeep behind him. the jeep got impaled down into the ground, but the sparks of the girder shredding through the gas tank ignited the gas inside and made an explosion that blasted Zach farther to the right and into the floor that he bounced off of and gave himself an extra push as he was finishing his roll to send him springing back up on his own terms. The three who thought they had their moment when Zach was blasted off course tried to pull back and dodge, but only one of them avoided a thin black line that shot out like a bullet from Zach's right hand.

The other two black lines pierced the sides of Zach's enemies, while at the same time his black wings ripped back out of his back to keep him from dropping to the spot the person hiding under a vehicle was darting to in order to get him on his landing. _Paralysis Touch,_ Zach shot himself farther from The Nerve Thief who had gotten within ten feet, much closer than Zach planned to let that particular villain get to him during this fight. _They're fighting hard!_ Zach flapped his wings behind him, and he felt the blood rushing in what parts of his body were still physical inside his dark form.

 _He was slower to make the wings this time._

 _He's using more Death around the rest of his body._

 _There is a limit!_

The helicopter exploded on the simmering remnants of the center of Zach's Death Wall. A fiery explosion blew smoke up into the sky, but through that smoke a truck came flying into the air and dropped on the side of the broken helicopter so close that it seemed intentionally thrown in that position. A flash of white light came from past the wrecks, and then a pillar of darkness blew up into the air around the same area.

The ground below Zach lost all stability. _Not my mind,_ Zach thought, seeing a tire down on the ground near him rolling down to the right where he felt himself start leaning. Even though four villains rushing at him in the middle of using their Quirks all seemed to feel it too, Zach knew there was the chance another villain was using a mental ability on a wide area as long as it meant that they could hit him. _FUCK!_ Zach shot forward and slammed his right fist into a villain ahead of him who was charging full-sprint forward, as Zach was backpeddaling after using a big attack that made many of his enemies try to take advantage of the recovery time they thought they noticed. Zach pounded the man in the face with his punch, and he curved his arm down as he followed through. Zach slammed the villain into the ground while the guy was falling unconscious and his raising arms dropped limp. Then he tried to pull away just as fast as he had suddenly charged, but the bullet the redhead in goggles fired at him still grazed through his right shoulder.

Blood splashed out of Zach's arm. He made no noise as his upper right arm got ripped like that just below his shoulder but above his bicep. His arm had been very solid inside the veil as he was not using enough focus to make it completely Death, and he could not have so much that it was one level below that or it might be too much in the punch. There was enough to knock his opponent out for sure, but not enough that he was protected by the shield. The three who had come at Zach with their comrade he smashed into the floor were all considering backing off after he had changed directions and taken one of them so quickly, but the splash of blood that came off Zach's body was something every villain around him watched in shock.

"He can bleed," Sulu said. His breathing calmed down and his knees bent. "HE CAN BLEED!" He shouted much louder this time, and he started cackling at the top of his lungs. "Which means he can die!"

"Kill him!"

"HE'S JUST A HERO!"

"He's getting slower!"

"You five, flank him on the right!"

"Yes sir!"

Zach's head turned left and right. His eyes darted on all sides of him with a full three-sixty view of his surroundings. The movement through the flames and smoke, through cracked windows and shadows cast below sides of vehicles his enemies were crouch-sprinting behind, he saw it all. _Only nineteen down. The fear is decreasing._ Zach turned his head and his red eyes focused on a single figure. He leapt up in the air and the wings still on his back flapped him forward even faster than he had attacked the man he left unconscious on the tilted floor back behind him. The man he punched in the face was going to have the back of his skull pierced through by that sniper round in order to catch Zach unawares so he would not to be able to dodge, and Zach roared at the villain he flew at from a distance, **"WHO AM I?!"**

The guy Zach was rushing at tried using a jetpack on his own back to fly backwards off the roof of a truck while aiming his rifle at the same time. Zach did not dodge though when the man with shaky hands fired, the bullet whizzing past the side of his head still close for a guy so scared, but not on-target with his opponent. An arm of darkness broke off of Zach's back and formed a giant fist that punched behind him, slamming into the SUV thrown up towards him and slowing it in midair though it was moving fast enough that it broke through the fist before falling behind him.

Overlord grit his teeth in annoyance that Sazaki slowed that attack without even turning around. "After him," Overlord ordered. Some of the faster members of his organization who had chased Zach initially when he rushed past their main group had gotten taken down individually. "Fight as the pack. Overwhelm him with our numbers. And kill him quickly. We're running out of time!"

A few of Overlord's comrades who wanted to keep watching for a weakness, for Zach to give them an opening, heard Overlord's voice and reminded themselves that other heroes would be showing up if they took too much longer. The thought of Endeavor or Best Jeanist arriving in the middle of this madness while they still had Sazaki to deal with had the ones who already came up with half-baked plans finalizing them and putting their plans of attack in motion.

Zach broke a sniper rifle in half after smashing in its original user's nose with the butt of it, then he spun and threw one half at the closest man to him. He left some Death on it while running at the guy, making him dodge instead of knock it away in fear of what it would do. He threw it in a way to make the guy dodge to the right, and Zach threw the other piece before the guy even finished dodging so the man had to dodge faster or get hit in the face by a blackened butt of a guy. He ducked down, and Zach rose up his knee into the bottom of the man's chin which snapped his whole body into the air. He reached up and grabbed the man by the ankle as he was rising, and he swung to the left while still sprinting forward.

The woman Zach threw the fatter villain at slid below him with the ground below her turning slippery and the grass looking shiny at her back. Zach pushed his left hand back to his left after almost pulling it forward while he continued running straight, and he fired a blast of Death out of his palm near where the woman was coming out of her slide. She leapt up into the air and swung shuriken with blinking red dots on the centers of them towards Zach. The slimy grass died below her, and Zach leapt up in the air towards where she was rising. He allowed the shurikens she threw at him to pass below him and explode on the ground still several meters from the other closest enemies straight ahead that he had been attempting to ignore her to go against. Those explosions slowed the other enemies from coming right after him, giving him the moment he needed to knock the woman out with a blackened fist in her gut, and also to push her forward so the girder glowing red from being heated up would pass her.

From the angle the news camera had moved to, it caught Zach jumping up in the air to hit that villain who just threw something down at him. Explosions happened below them, a girder came flying towards them, and Zach pushed the woman one way which pushed him the other and allowed the girder to pass just between them without hitting either. He flipped around in midair and kicked down at a man rising towards him who continued to rise thinking Zach's foot was going to pass too early, only for the Death on his leg to swing off of it down into him and knock him out in the middle of his rise. Zach flapped wings behind him and shot towards the man giving him a lot of trouble with all these girders, but when he flew off he passed behind a pillar of rising smoke and left the camera's view.

"What the hell is he doing?" Kirishima growled. "He's going to get killed out there," Kirishima's voice was low, but most of the class was quiet letting the reporter's voice alone fill the room.

Sero glanced to his side and saw behind Kirishima's angry look there was actually some worry in his eyes. _He'll be fine, Kirishima._ Sero did not say it aloud, but he looked back at the screen himself and replied in a low voice to the redhead at his side, "What he always does." Kirishima glanced back at the black-haired teen to his left, and Sero finished lower, "Whatever the hell he wants."

 _What he wants?_ Tokoyami looked at the back of Sero's head and his eyes widened at that response. He looked past and to the screen and the carnage going on out there, outside of the city, confined to a field with no one else on it but the people involved in the fight. _Is that what Zach wants? Is that why he went out there, because he just wants to stop this? He saw it and decided that he could do something, and screw the consequences he was going to do it._

 _He can't do this alone,_ Midoriya watched with his hands clenched so tight at his sides. He looked to All Might again, but his teacher who looked frustrated too was just watching the screen closely which had Midoriya turn back to it as well. _Someone has to show up and help him. They need to! He knows he can't do this alone, but he couldn't let them get to the city!_

 _Is it because of the camera? Why did he put up that wall before, and why is creating that new one now?_ Todoroki's eyes were narrowed at the screen and the boy he kept catching glimpses of but nothing for long. _He doesn't want everyone to see how he fights? His moves, his tactics, he's afraid someone will recognize they're similar to Death's. Or he doesn't want us to be ready to fight him when the time comes, or other villains as well. Zach's planning something right now with this. When he stops this on his own, he'll have far too much support. Dad, if you were here right now you could get there quick enough._

 _It does not seem Endeavor will get there,_ Yaoyorozu looked back towards the screen from her glance at Todoroki's expression. _Yet why does Todoroki seem so confident you will be alright? This is so dangerous. I was just talking to you yesterday, so I know. I know you think this is easier than your war but Zach, did you forget-_

A barrier flew up in front of Zach as he was smashing his fist through a huge dirt wall that was not fragile but was not thick enough to stop his fist at high power. He did not expect the other wall behind it, and he put enough strength into his fist to smash apart a wall while also trying to hit the person behind it who had created it. The two wall-creators smirked at him through the translucent reflective wall, right before all of Zach's force was transferred back into him and made his left shoulder ache as he was thrown up in the air and backwards about forty feet.

The ground below where Zach was landing started breaking apart, and in all the cracks below him water flooded into all of a sudden. The tendrils of water shot up from the cracks, but Zach pushed off a cube of the floor upon his crash down on it before he could get wrapped up. He bounced backwards farther, dodging the explosion that blew apart that whole area a moment later anyway. He bounced himself right back into the smoke of the vehicle he threw next to the helicopter that was flaming too now. He landed closer to the city and skid backwards, leaving two lines of blackened grass in front of him like tire treads.

A man with four white wings sticking off of his long slender orange back shot down through the smoke, and three others dove down at the ground where Zach just stopped skidding. One of the ones diving at him multiplied into ten, and then twenty enemies right before he was about to crash down. Another who hit the ground passed straight through it and then dove up near where Zach was coming down after jumping away in the perfect direction they had planned for with the locations the clones had attacked in. Zach knew the man was going to rise from the ground there though and let himself fall right into their trap, and he had darkness shoot out of his right foot towards his enemy who tried slashing it away with a sword he was already about to swing up. He slashed through the darkness but just split it to the sides of his sword so it still hit him in the face in the same instant. A moment later all twenty of the cloned man pulled back into the same collapsed figure whose twenty bodies had been unable to protect themselves all from some of Zach's darkness that he left behind when doing his initial dodge, then called back to his body as he was about to land.

Dread Hawk emerged high above the smoking carcasses of their vehicles, still holding Girder up under his shoulders as the executive ordered him to do so despite Girder's heavy weight. "Girder!" Overlord shouted up, and the dark-skinned man with a rainbow-colored mohawk glanced down and then nodded after a second of making eye contact with his boss who was running forward with many of the others. He saw what several of those others were doing, and Girder reached down to his waist and a pouch he had there.

 _One positive about not having too many buyers anymore,_ Sulu thought as he leapt up in the air, six sharp blades sticking out of his upper arms, three on each side emerging while he dropped an empty needle behind him. _Got a whole lot of, product, surplus!_ Sulu's lips twisted higher and his eyes started to get bloodshot.

 _Riot's lost favor around here,_ Overlord thought while running forward, his men shooting up around him on promises that as soon as Sazaki was dead they would be escaping there. _But a bunch of Rioted guys thrown into Desusuta is the type of chaos I need to make my escape. As long as I've got Potaru nothing's over._ Overlord could see one of the heist guys still carrying Potaru not far behind him, but he put all his focus back on Sazaki who had destroyed all his plans with the first move in this fight. _And once we've killed Sazaki, Intanzo will have to bow down with the surge of business and men I get. He'll lick my boots and beg forgiveness for the way he spoke to me before, and he'll receive none._ Overlord's smile twisted up as high as his guys injecting with Riot.

 _Looks like the effects of Riot,_ Zach thought as he fended off enemies getting more confident and powerful every second. _Thought I destroyed most those labs. Fuck-_ Zach backflipped three times into the air with darkness swinging from his spinning body. His enemies cornering in on him were not getting hit though, and Zach's red eyes flared as he came out of his spin still in midair just starting his downwards arc to the floor. Darkness swirled around him and Zach strained to use all he could as he surrounded his body and created wings and Death Grenades at the same time. _I don't need any more! This is enough. Three ready to attack by the time I hit the ground. Another two prepared on my right, Overlord getting the strength types to do something behind the wrecks. Even if I use the Death Grenade at the front and push through, at least eight will dodge it and come after me. Use to my right and dodge around, Overlord could attack the city just to prevent me from doing something like that again and to draw in other heroes probably getting nervous about me being pushed back. I'm covering up the blood but they may have seen the shot graze me. One second until I hit. What is Overlord saying? Girder's injecting with it too, he's already such a problem but Dread Hawk's too evasive. I had two shots I could have taken Dread Hawk down already and I let them keep air superiority. The serpent-type disappeared again, probably getting more to attack me from above after the last plan failed. Sulu coming in straight. Riot's made him too cocky, he was better cautious._

Zach's right foot touched down on the ground and he pushed back on it, stepping his left foot forward and bending down his knee on landing. He went farther down than just landing, going down into a full crouch and dodging a trident of ice that flew at his chest level moving a hundred miles per hour. _Already starting to dodge, but not fast enough,_ Zach shot forward and he dragged his right foot on the ground as he sprinted for one of his steps, kicking up dirt as well as a slash of Death Wind that whipped in an arc to his right at a few villains in the middle of attacking him. Their attacks went through his own, but his kept going and hit them while theirs that kept going he flew up in the air over. He threw a Death Grenade to his left and behind him, and he clenched his fist exploding it still in midair so the Death rained down on his enemies.

The other Death Grenade Zach threw forward while coming down, creating a black explosion in front of him that exploded outwards. He sprinted through his explosion of darkness that some villains were dodging just fast enough away from so that they could be close to Zach and be able to attack in a moment. He rushed out of his expanding explosion moving twice as fast as the Death Grenade's blast, and he grabbed two men by their faces and threw them forward as he extended his bent elbows out. He stepped to the left and dodged a three-shot from a rifle fired from behind smoke that did not seem to hinder the shooter's aim, then he pointed his right hand that way while swinging his left out to the side. He fired a black line from his index finger into the smoke in an attempt to hit the man behind it, while a wave of Death came off his left side including his wing that broke off his back for part of the attack much bigger than enemies approaching on that side were expecting.

Zach's wing knocked out all three, as they had kept rushing forward while dodging the wave that they had already deciphered the size of and predicted would be coming at them while Zach was distracted and only had one hand to use as an aside. All three were powerful villains who Zach felt lucky all fell for the trap. With all three of them down, Sulu did not have the distraction he thought he was about to have with Zach being swarmed by close range fighters all at once, which would allow him as the best one of them to get the killing blow.

Zach brought up his left arm with a black knife in hand that shrouded in darkness to become wider and look like a sharp flaming black dagger. Zach blocked Sulu's sword slashing up at him, then he swung his right fist forward and broke off part of his wing while leaning forward. The extra Death from his wing flooded the front of his body, but his legs were spread because of a sidestep he just made without completing as a bullet soared past the back of his head. Sulu slid down between Zach's leg while dragging a sharp blade his body just created down Zach's black knife and towards his left leg. The darkness attempting to shoot down Sulu's blade before he could make the next move did not move fast enough to get the small man on Riot. Eight blades shot out of Sulu's arms as he was sliding under Zach, but Zach jumped up so the blades did not pierce through his lower legs. Zach swung his right hand down the center of his body after missing the punch Sulu slid below, hitting Sulu's hands he was slashing up at Zach while his arm blades missed. Sulu tried pulling his hands out of the darkness and to roll away, but he was losing strength and finding it hard to keep moving at all, or even hold open his eyelids.

As Zach landed he swung his left hand up to his side and fired a blast of blue light towards the serpent-like figure who came out of nowhere with a crew of five villains looking ready to attack him from close range. The blue light fired faster than his Death, and though it still missed, the speed of his attack made his opponent slow and try to come in from a better angle where Zach would not see him from. Zach's legs moved forward, his eyes darting back in front of him as a piece of helicopter rubble came flying his way. He reached his hands up and slammed his fists into the huge steel plate, and he grimaced as he heard breaking sounds from his gloves. _Fucking again?!_ "Shi-" the steel he slammed his fists into was incredibly hot and getting hotter, and it started to melt. Before it could melt though, the huge black ball was going to hit him as it pushed through the scalding hot wall and almost collided straight with his chest.

Zach jumped backwards, and he took the Death away from his left leg which was not too hard considering how little was on it. He kicked away Sulu's body harshly and strong enough that he felt a rib crack on the unconscious man's body, but it was better than getting caught in the explosion he would have been caught in when that black ball hit the floor and blew shrapnel everywhere past its actual explosion that Zach was still too close to. In that instant he forced so much Death covering his body that shrapnel slammed into his chest and his stomach, his legs and arms, even into his neck and face, and all that shrapnel passed out the other side of him like passing through a cloud of black smoke.

His legs recreated stronger first, and he sprinted forward while panting out a breath of black steam. _I can feel it! Can't I?! This is IT!_ Zach darted to the left side of the melted steel wall that had stuck in the ground that was now flaming around it. He did a cartwheel without using his hands over a line of white flames that shot at him from a low level, and he stuck his left hand out in front of him as he did his spin in midair. "What the fuck?" The man who fired above the flames at Zach lowered his gun, while Zach landed and opened his left hand, dropping the bullet he just caught that crunched in after hitting his palm made of a stronger steel.

The man snapped his gun back up though after Zach dropped the bullet, and he unloaded the rest of his clip while enemies moved in from in front of Zach on all sides, and while girders rained down from above. In the top of Zach's vision, he could see Girder much higher than he was before. Dread Hawk had risen him up so they were out of range after seeing that blue blast Zach almost hit Silent Snake with. Silent Snake flapped his wings to send him back and the guys running at Zach slowed down on his right side too. They backed away from the huge metal bars that were even bigger than they were earlier that were slamming down into the ground and piercing several feet before stopping. Metal bars rose up around Zach, diagonally pointing into the sky around him while he was stepping around with fancy footwork to dodge as they impaled the floor near his feet. Bullets dinked off of metal bars and passed by him as he danced around the bullets and girders at the same time, then he jumped up and kicked off one of the bars as an orange beam hit the spot he was about to dodge to.

Kousen clapped his hands together when Zach rose into the air, right where he expected the boy to dodge one of his Quirk's attack. Zach's sense of hearing shattered. His ears were ringing and in pain, and he suspected they were bleeding under the darkness. He could not hear a thing anymore, but he did not flinch and just punched his left fist forward to break apart the huge chunk of broken vehicle Kousen tried kicking up at him. The rubble from it blocked the next orange beam coming up at him, then Zach kicked off the top of one of the girders he had risen to, dodging another about to hit him that bounced off the first one and made a huge ringing sound while flipping back up into the air. Zach dodged two bullets as he spun back in the air, and he rose his left arm and blocked two more with his forearm and elbow. He landed just outside of the girder field, only to be trapped between it and an eighteen wheeler that dropped out of the air over his head and hit the ground behind him.

Overlord marched forward with a fourteen foot tall beast of a man dragging another of their vehicles forward at his side. "You're not the only one who can corner his enemies!" Overlord yelled towards the teen. Zach had the bottom of a truck behind him, and he half-expected there was someone actually inside the back part of it waiting to jump through the side if he tried jumping over it. He already told himself he could not go any farther back though, and being on this side of all those girders alone was too much. More girders dropped down on his left side, closer together this time and in a row that fell seemingly all at once. On his right side were the five guys who came with Silent Serpent and blocked off one of his escapes. Others were just on the other side of the girders, a couple of them reloading weapons while Overlord moved forward with Keibutorol dragging a pickup with a crunched hood with him.

 _Taking down Sulu didn't slow them at all._ Zach's red eyes darted about, black breath panting from his visible jaw. _Riot does that to people. More of them injected than I first thought. I didn't expect Japanese villains to be carrying on them for personal use, not top villains like these guys. It's a street drug… which they must be peddling slower these days with crime so low. This was a big planned attack, and they didn't know what the day might bring them during their heist. The League of Villains brought Trigger to attack Musutafu, so they followed suit even if this was just a distraction…_

"I want the finishing blow," Kousen said, glaring out the corner of his eye at two men next to him he just heard talking about stepping in and getting the final hit to become the most famous. "You two help me get it for sure, and using Death, I will conquer this world," Kousen growled it with a crazed look in his eyes, and his comrades who first got nervous at what he said started to grin instead at the idea of helping Kousen do that and be his number 2 guys considering how he was telling them this right now.

Overlord shifted his eyes over towards Kousen who was closer to Sazaki than he was. _If you kill the brat, you know I'll have to kill you._ "Keibu, throw it. Try hitting on his left side- to our right."

Kousen was on Overlord's right near the edge of the new barrier of girders where Sazaki might dodge if he did not want to get any closer to the city and thought there was one empty side to dodge to. Overlord would rather have him charge at the five on Sazaki's right, where much more of his forces were ready to attack as they suspected those five would lose; or even before they lost the other attacks might come. Sixty-eight villains all moved closer, with fourteen on Riot and two on Trigger, and two of them carrying unconscious comrades forward as they still intended to follow Overlord into the city after this and escape through a backup portal their boss promised them existed.

 _I can't stop them like this,_ Zach thought. The chances there was someone hiding behind him in the truck were just under fifty percent he figured, but he could not go back anyway as any closer to the city and he knew the other heroes would start rushing to help him. The last time he looked back there it seemed like Sky Smasher was getting ready anyway, so there was not much time as long as he looked cornered like this or like he was retreating. Kousen was to his left, and his ears were now pounding with what sounded like deafening drums which was only slightly better than the ringing that had pierced his eardrums and made it impossible to hear. Moving forward into the girder field would put him back in the situation where he could be shot at from all sides and barely have time to react to the bullets or judge the ricochets, while more girders would be falling with less space to dodge in. He did not need to look up to know that Girder was amassing a huge amount of girders below him that were all hovering in place as he formed more and more out of thin air, with over twenty already gathered and casting a shadow over them as he prepared to attack. Overlord was watching and just ordered his brute to throw the pickup that was being lifted off the ground, and Zach's right side was full of villains who he knew would get killed as soon as he ran that way by their trigger-happy comrades.

"You think you got me?" The villains continued to stare towards their opponent, but they got unnerved by his voice. His tone was low and scratchy, but it sounded like he was speaking in his normal voice and not faking it at all. It also sounded like he was smiling at them and feeling confident, which annoyed and formed doubt in some of their minds as it looked to them like they had him cornered. The bulky thirty year old woman laying in wait just inside the truck behind Zach opened her eyes wide as she heard his voice through the floor of the vehicle that was now the wall in front of her the way the truck lay on its side. Zach was smiling, and he stopped panting while looking through the bars straight ahead of him. He looked between two crossing bars that gave him a perfect angle to look into Overlord's eyes, "You're fucking fools," Zach continued, his voice darker and darkness swirling on his body.

Girder wanted to wait. He wanted to hold on and attack in a way he would be more confident that Sazaki could not dodge. _This is Death!_ was the only thing Girder could think though as he stared down at this sole figure who did not sound afraid at all despite having blood visible on his right shoulder where the darkness was not thick at all anymore.

 _He's planning something,_ Kousen thought, narrowing his eyes towards Sazaki through the bars and raising up his arms in preparation for what was about to happen. _What's about to happen?!_

Overlord lifted out his left hand as a palm to his side, stopping Keibutorol from throwing the pickup for a second. "You came at us on your own," Overlord announced. "And now you're cornered. Trapped. I'm going to kill you and become the kingpin, and this world will-"

"Remove Limiter Number 1."

Zach's voice topped over Overlord. It was booming, deep, and the words he said could not have been anymore ominous. _While I'm on camera. Against a group that's not even the League. Giving them all a good look before it comes._ Zach got attacked, but it did not matter. The attacks went straight through him.

A huge arm of darkness that ripped out of his right side around his right arm reached forward and yanked a steel girder out of the floor, and he spun it back and slammed the huge truck on its side far away from him in a single blow. Then he spun it up and threw it into the air where it hit another girder coming down towards him, the only one on target as Girder sent them all flying at once. Zach stood still as dozens of girders pierced into the ground around him, leaving a single space of a hole where he was standing that the one he knocked away would no longer fall. All the others attacks coming at him were blocked by Girder's, with a pickup that was on its way to flying at him getting pierced by five huge steel beams and impaled into the floor before exploding.

Out of the explosion rose Zach with a thirty foot wide wingspan as he shot a hundred feet up in the air in an instant. Girder tried forming more girders but after so many, he was drained and just yelled at Dread Hawk to get them out of there. Dread Hawk dove before Zach reached him, wanting to be closer to the ground in case he was knocked out so he would not fall to his Death. Zach moved slower and attacked those below him with lines of Death that shot out of him ten at a time and made sharp corners through the air below to chase after his dodging opponents. He waited until Dread Hawk was at a height he suspected both the flying villain and executive would survive falling from, then he turned around and flapped his wings behind him towards where those two were, blowing a black wind from the tips of his wings that engulfed the two for a moment and dropped them from the air.

Zach fell straight to the floor and his wings broke apart and slid back on the grass, spreading out far to either side and blocking off the city again with a wall that instantly rose much higher than his one earlier. It stopped any heroes that were considering going to help him from doing so. _Can't let them get hurt because I was holding back. I won't do it, as much as this complicates things._ Zach moved faster than his fastest opponents who tried to keep up. More of them injected with Quirk-improving drugs as Overlord shouted at all of them to do so, but when Overlord was suddenly hit by a black line that went through the right side of his neck and out the left, morale immediately took the biggest hit imaginable.

"Kousen! Do you know where the other portal is?!" Poole screamed towards the last executive standing.

"YES! Everyone follow me!" Kousen made for the black wall, and he swung his arms in front of him and twisted his hands in a way to create a large orange circle in front of his body. He fired at the floor of the Death Wall, and he created an opening with the city in sight behind it. They were closer than before, and he pressed his feet down hard on the ground below him and pushed off. The ground cracked where he had been, and he shot forward into the Death Wall and through the gap before Zach closed it in on him.

Zach could not hear well. Kousen had made sure of that. The attack had been invisible, or at least invisible to his eyes, but he knew Kousen had to target it and did not think his foe could do that attack with something between them based off the way it was used the first time. _A solid thirteen of them are following Kousen now. Quick transition, but most either don't believe he knows where the portal is or are still too scared to do anything seeing Girder and Overlord go down one after the other._

Zach flared his wall while jumping through the middle of it, creating a Zach-shaped hole in it for a moment before the Death rose like flames back in that spot and refilled it. His enemy spun and had his hands close to his chest with the orange circle already formed there, even bigger this time than it just was to destroy part of the wall. "Attack him from behind!" Kousen shouted, while firing off the biggest orange beam he could at Zach.

 _It's too high to dodge. Could be someone right behind the wall. It makes things disappear. Don't know if it dematerialized the floor or teleported it somewhere else, but it can't hit anyone. Let's try this._ Zach pointed his right hand forward and fired a beam of Death out of his palm straight at the orange beam coming at him. Kousen roared at him and stomped his feet harder into the floor, cracking down a crater with his strength that pushed even farther down as his beam was getting pushed back. All he needed was a single blast to dematerialize something, and the continuous beam could have bore a hole a mile down through the surface fired like this. As quickly as his beam was destroying the Death coming at him though, the black beam was firing faster at him and seemed to have no limit- Kousen felt his head get dizzy and his eyelids start closing.

His eyes lowered to his legs, where a thin black line Zach had fired in a wide arc around using his left hand had curved down in Kousen's blindspot and wrapped around his right ankle. "Fuuu…"

Zach stopped firing his beam and jumped up in the air instead. The black beam and orange beam continued firing in towards each other with the backs of the beams getting closer together, with Zach's fired the perfect amount that the last of the orange fired from Kousen's circle hit almost the last of his Death Beam, with just a little extra Death for safety purposes and not too much excess that it would have been a waste. Zach looked back towards his wall where three villains had made it through already, while the fourth who had made a gap backed away instead of going through and allowed the wall to close back up.

"If we get into the city, we can make chaos and some of us could-"

Zach rushed at the first of the three on this side of the wall. He was the one who still had a plan, a smart villain who suspected he knew what Kousen and Overlord were thinking all that time. The other two just turned to flee and opened back up gaps in the shrinking Death Wall to get closer to other comrades Lifebringer could focus on while they ran. Zach moved from the one who wanted to keep moving forward to the one who got through the wall slower than the other. That way there was already one guy through the wall and running away from it when Zach came back to the other side and took down the other. It showed that the one who ran faster was the one Lifebringer would get last, and the man who ran through that wall felt he had made the right choice as he ran past several others who were still trying to think of what they should do with Kousen down, or with Overlord down for those who had not adapted to even that situation yet.

There were still around half of the Subspace Devils left. Many of them tried fighting as they knew there was no escape back the way they came. Zach got many of them to run too though, and their leadership was gone meaning they had no real chance of making it into Desusuta anymore. The rush he had felt for a minute there started to go down, only to rise back up quickly as a truck came barreling his way with someone blasting the horn and cackling like mad from the hood of the vehicle they were controlling it from with their mind. _I can hear again,_ Zach thought as the horn and even that mad villains' laughter reached him. Seeing someone attacking in such a cocky and mad way got the other villains wondering what there was to do but surrender or fight, decide fuck it. Some even turned around and rushed back towards Lifebringer as they had looked farther back for a minute and remembered that they had no reason to be running when there was no escape in this direction.

A couple villains tried running all the way back to get vehicles and drive away from Desusuta with them. One of them was even dragging Potaru with them as they went. They had the slim hope that Potaru would wake up as long as they could run long enough, and they could escape with the teen who was their best chance of getting out of this horrible situation. Zach marked in his head which ones were running and how far he figured they would get, but he had to focus on the ones around him right now first. They knew how much stronger he had gotten yet were fighting him anyway. _Cornered animals are a frightening thing. And that's all you are. A bunch of fucking animals._ "You can run!" Zach yelled out as the truck barreled closer to him, as dozens of villains charged his way screaming in rage and fear, and as a few ran away. "Or you can face me right here, right now! BRING IT ON!"

Everything was moving so fast for a minute straight that no one watching really knew what was going on anymore. Overlord had been taken down behind a wall of metal girders, so that had not been caught on camera. What was caught was Girder dropping dozens of metal bars down into the area where Zach Sazaki was thought to be cornered, only for the truck behind Zach to suddenly get sent skidding across the ground over the field, and then the same metal bar he just used as a baseball bat to be thrown up at Girder and slam into one of the bars coming down at him. It still seemed like Zach was going to get hit, as this was all happening in the same few moments, and all those bars slammed down right on top of him and a truck which was shredded and exploded. Zach flew right up from that mess though and the next minute was too hard to follow with Zach moving fast, re-blocking the camera's sight, then moving in and out of the wall and attacking his enemies with huge attacks over and over. Once he got back on the other side of the Death Wall though, the wall that he did not refill as he moved to the other side of it, everyone could see the truck flooring it straight towards where they suspected Sazaki to be.

Overwhelming Kousen in the beam clash put many of those watching at ease, as they had feared there for a minute that Zach was running out of Death only for him to show them reserves like they never suspected he had. The massive wall of Death that had flared on one side of him while he fired his Death Beam with one hand shocked his friends watching who had never seen him use so much at once before. The reporter stopped speaking slowly, her voice trailing off when Zach was on the other side of the wall. The truck went rolling to one side so fast it passed the edge of Zach's Death Wall before hitting a side it stopped rolling on and instead just skid a bit farther away on. A wave of Death rose up to the right and an explosion blew up on the left of where the truck just went rolling from. Another explosion happened farther back, and then three metal girders rose into the air spinning around like crazy.

The ground broke apart around Zach, and Zach ran over broken cubes of Earth like it was nothing even as they started waving about in a flood of water created by an enemy on Trigger. He kicked Poole in the face and then whipped his right arm out with three black whips snapping off of it and wrapping around three men close to him who were using Quirks at the same time as a combo on him. He swung his right arm to the side and slammed those men into two others, still with the whips wrapped around them, knocking out all five while he was spinning to the other side.

"He's, so strong," Kerushi was out of his seat since all those girders came falling like they were about to crush Zach. Half of the class had shot up at that moment, only for the next two minutes to be so intense that it did not have any of them sitting down.

"Too strong," Flugeru whispered quieter, his eyes huge as he leaned back in his chair watching waves of Death rise up and roll around in the outskirts of Desusuta.

Kotsumura was out of his seat and had stepped forward so he was just on the left side of Reika's seat now. She heard his voice in a low mutter and darted her eyes off the screen for a second, to see Kotsumura smiling despite the nervous look over his face. "…gotta be the strongest guy in the whole country."

Reika looked back at the screen and shook her head in disbelief for a second, only for her eyes to bulge at what just came flying up over darkness and smoke blocking their view.

"Did you see Overlord out there or not?" Cyn-Thia asked, stepping towards a comrade who started shaking their head in a hesitant way.

"I don't know."

"Even if he is," Sky Smasher started. "Has anyone seen Potaru?" He wanted to move forward himself, but he had yet to see the teenager he was most wary of.

Sky Smasher looked behind him and around at the other seven heroes still there with him. Others had spread back out through the city in groups to look for Overlord and the main attack force they suspected Sazaki might be right about. Sky Smasher frowned as none of the others had seen the teenage villain either. "Then we stay here. Overlord may not have started his attack behind us yet because we're still over here when he wants us out there. The second we leave the city unprotected he could have Potaru teleport him and some others behind us. We just need to, trust Lifebringer for a little longer. Just until help arrives…"

In U.A. Class A, Zach's classmates from his first day of high school watched mostly in disbelief as Zach rampaged on their front board that had turned into a television screen. They thought about the quiet kid of their first few days of class who wouldn't tell them about his Quirk. Some thought about even after he came back from the League of Villains, and they remembered the scared kid who looked as if he had seen too much. He was scarred, and he looked terrified as they did the bomb-defusal course. His movements that day had been erratic, but experienced. He made decisions without hesitation, and Uraraka thought about that before going wider eyed as she stared at her old friend on the screen.

 _No hesitation?_ Uraraka thought with a stunned expression _That's p_ _robably what happened today. He saw what was happening and just, decided he should be there. He decided to go stop it and now he is._

In Jirou's mind flashed the face of the terrified boy held by Shindeki Buda. The short kid who was injured, who was so scared and helpless, looking at her for a way to get him out of that situation before he would be forced to use his Quirk that could only kill… A man leapt up into the air still holding an assault rifle and firing blue beams of ice from his eyes as he rose shooting down towards the ground. A black whip shot up and wrapped around his torso faster than the man was rising. The whip swung to one side before whipping back the other way and smashing the guy into his buddy who tried jumping away too but looked more like he was just trying to run. _He's not helpless anymore._

Zach was surrounded by enemies on all sides, and he moved from one to the next while taking down three or four at a time. His body bulged with dark bumps, and his red eyes darted every which way allowing him to react faster than any of his opponents even as they all fired at the same time. Flames came in from either side of him and Zach stepped past them, ducked below the bullet, and a wave of Death came off his left leg as he forced it out that way. Death simmered on his right side while he did it, only as a ploy to make the six hesitating from moving in to charge at him before he bulged that side too and got two of them who were not quick enough to back off.

He leaned his body backwards and allowed a spinning circular saw to fly over his bent-back body. The sound of the spinning saw whizzed through his ears, but he heard the yell of the man over it before the saw cleared his vision to allow him to see the one dropping down towards him with both fists raised looking the size of a person each and doubling more. It would have been impossible to walk with hands that big and heavy, but the man did not need to walk with them as he was already in the air. He slammed them down, surprising Zach who did not think someone would try touching him after all that had happened to the others. He rose his own arms to catch the guy instead of dodging into one of the other attacks coming for him, but his knees buckled down and he dropped to them as the floor cracked into a huge crater.

 _Not his strength alone. Someone made him heavier before they dropped him. These guys have survived this long in Japan, and against me,_ Zach rose his head up while gripping his left hand into the man's wrist as the guy continued to push down. _Heavier, not more durable._ The man above him started screaming, then Zach got up off a knee and spun to his right, firing three black spears out from his body that shot up and then cut down with sharp angles that always seemed to terrify his opponents more than curved ones. Two of his opponents were hit by those lines that cut through them like arrows, but the third darted to the side moving much faster than Zach's attacks and rushed at him with a pistol raised in his right hand while smoke came off his heels.

Zach was swinging the man he caught around that side, but the thought he just had about the man not being any more durable kept him from pushing the guy in front of his other close enemy. The heavy man he was swinging with the giant hands was also trying to slam Zach down on top of his head with his right hand that he had freed from Zach, or more precisely had been released as Zach needed to bring his right hand around to aim at the man with the gun. The fist coming down for his head was heavy, and Zach cursed that the guy was still conscious as he had used the same amount of Death he needed to knock out most of the others but it turned out this guy was strong enough to hold on a little longer. Even if the man's strength was down, with the weight of the left hand that Zach was still clenching a hand into and trying to hold above his head with some difficulty, Zach knew the right fist coming down was going to knock him to the floor which was not an option in a situation like this.

He dodged the bullet instead, even from only a few meters away. His enemy got very close before firing, and he did not even aim for the head as he had seen too many times Zach pull his head to one side or the other to dodge with ease. Zach needed to actually move, and he stepped to the left and had to keep side-stepping to dodge as more bullets fired. He dragged his left hand from above his head down in front of his body too as he went, and he opened his right fist into a palm and slammed forward into the guy's elbow that he knew had to be struggling to support the weight of his huge hand. Zach cracked the bone and let go of the guy who failed to hit him while in so much excruciating pain, and while passing out so his eyes were closed by the time his face hit the floor. Zach darted forward to get the man still running closer while firing at his torso, but the smoke popped out of the barrel one more time when he was reaching out for it. He managed to yank his right hand away from the barrel as he saw the gun shaking, but he was still coming down with his last step and could only yank his body so far to one side as the bullet flew at him.

Most of his Death was currently pouring out of his back and sides as the other enemies who tried coming at him during that confrontation needed to back off, and Zach felt the bullet pierce in before he focused his excess Death down there. The slowed bullet passed through the middle right side of Zach's body and out his back, but as he grabbed the gun out of the villain's hand he grit his teeth in the pain of the not-so-shallow bullet wound he just received. He ripped the gun from his enemy's hand and then rose up and to the right, spinning and pistol-whipping him in the side of the face. He kicked the man as he was falling back into a comrade of his who ran around to get a better angle on Zach than the sides where his Death was waving around without much aim and just keeping back his enemies afraid of what was in the middle.

Zach had some Death on his foot when he kicked his falling enemy who had broken teeth coming out of his mouth from the pistol-whip. That Death transferred over to the man he collided into knocking both of them out, then Zach turned his head and sprinted through the dark wall on his left to come out for four people who just attacked that wall to no avail. They started screaming, and the last of the villains' resolve broke when a couple started running. They had gone from still half their forces into less than half of that in a minute, and the bloody unmoving forms of their comrades, some of whom they knew to be stronger than themselves, was too much to keep standing there looking for a gap in the Death.

"We can't win!"

"Run away!"

"FUCK! Help me- AHH!"

 **"None of you will escape."** Zach walked after the villains who were running and who looked back to see that their scared comrades they left behind to fight were quickly overwhelmed. Zach lifted his head back, while darkness from behind him sucked back into his body and made him a pitch black form with only dark red eyes full of black swirls visible near the top of his body. **"You know what happened when the League lost Kurogiri. But even with a Kurogiri of your own, you could still only rise to second. You're pathetic.** _ **You're weak."**_ Zach started jogging again, and the darkness around the part of his body just below his eyes condensed and twisted up into a horrifying smile for those looking back who all turned and started running faster. Zach ran faster too though, and faster than them as he yelled out, **"And I'm going to show you exactly how weak you are!"**

Zach chased his enemies down, and when he finished off the ones on foot, he took to the sky and flew after the vehicles that had not escaped very far. _I made it here from Shiketsu in a couple of minutes,_ Zach thought while shooting through the air leaving a black trail behind him with every flap of his wings. _You idiots really think you were going to escape me this way?_ Zach landed down in front of the farthest vehicle, and he rose up his palm telling them to stop.

They didn't stop.

One leaned out the passenger side window of the closest pickup truck to him. The woman with blonde hair only on one side of her head leaving the other half shaved aimed an assault rifle towards him, and Zach swung his arm towards the vehicle that was not going to be able to dodge as easily as a person. The driver yelled at the passenger to get inside and started closing the window, but he swerved the wheel a bit and she started hanging out of the truck falling too much and missing all of her shots. A black wave crashed into the truck, and then the woman falling out of the passenger side got caught by the teen already sprinting forward who skid to a stop while keeping as much Death away from his arms as he could. He dropped her to the floor while the truck rolled to a stop, then he turned to the next vehicle back which was starting to turn a different direction.

"Really?" Zach asked, staring at the vehicle which slowed to a stop after a second as the driver decided against it. Hands stuck out of the window and up in the air. "Good choice."

It did not take Zach long after dropping his limiter. The couple of villains who tried to surrender at the end, Zach still knocked out just for good measure. He finished them off after getting back closer to the initial spot the vehicles had stopped, as there were actually a couple villains in hiding back in those vehicles who did not try driving off yet while Lifebringer was still there but would try making escapes later during a clean-up procedure. He figured they were going to kill whoever came to clean up and try sneaking off in a police uniform or something, and he was glad he had kept a close watch on the vehicles he had seen people watching from since the start as he had expected some of them to be the hardest to fight as they would have seen more of his tactics than anyone.

While Zach finished off those villains, the other heroes near the edge of the city started moving forward. Sky Smasher flew forward faster than the other heroes behind him, but he dropped down to the ground into a jog and then a slow walk as he saw Zach Sazaki coming his way. Zach walked towards Desusuta without any darkness around him. He had his arms down at his sides, his sweatshirt had a couple holes and cuts in it, and there were wet spots around those marks that were more dark red than black. He was walking without a limp though, in a confident and strong way. And he was smiling. He had the smile of victory as he walked away from a battleground covered in dead grass, broken and burning vehicles, and unconscious villains in every direction.

"I found Overlord and Potaru," Zach called to Sky Smasher as he approached the other hero. "They were planning to come in behind you all like I thought, but I took care of them too," he mentioned that in a half-apologetic tone since he knew it would look odd that the other heroes had stayed where they were in hindsight.

 _It was the right move then?_ Sky Smasher looked behind Lifebringer when the teen mentioned the two he was looking for by coming out here. Lifebringer telling him that assured him the attack was over though, and the part after Sky Smasher had not even begun thinking about yet but he nodded with what the kid said anyway. _I'll stand behind it. The results are what matter most, and moving from that position could have made for… How did he do this?_ Sky Smasher could not keep thinking on track, as his eyes scanned around for a second time from up close to the battleground Sazaki had taken care of.

Zach's eyes widened and he kicked off the floor. He shot past Sky Smasher, and other heroes behind him all spun the same way as they saw movement in a truck on its side not too far from them. Black wind came off of Zach's legs as he sprinted to the truck, and he jumped up and pointed his right hand forward with his index finger extended like a barrel. _So there was someone in here after all,_ Zach thought, while hitting the woman crawling out of the top side of the truck with a bloody face and a gun in one hand. _Almost missed one. Would've sucked if someone else got the final blow._ Zach landed and skid for a couple of feet before letting out a relieved sigh and turning back to the heroes behind him who all got ready for a fight again in that moment. "Pretty sure that's the last one," Zach said, cracking his smile again and scratching the back of his head.

* * *

"…Based on what Lifebringer heard the villains say during the confrontation, we do believe it was the Escario Jewel the Subspace Devils were after," Unlock announced to the press he was speaking to on the stage set up at the outskirts of Desusuta. They were at the edge of the city that had the battlefield behind it full of heroes and cops still cleaning everything up, but some of the heroes were needed for this press conference and had to take a break from the efforts to put out flames and arrest and process all the villains. "Overlord's plan was most likely to draw away the protective detail surrounding the gemstone on display at the Zuna gallery, then once the majority of the Subspace Devils were fighting Desusuta's heroes, Overlord would have Potaru open up a portal inside the Zuna…"

Zach looked at Unlock's back as he was talking, listening to the older hero who spoke to the public in a clear and heroic speaking voice. _As much as I kept telling them afterwards that the only reason it wasn't worse was because they didn't come out to help, the two of them were really beating themselves up over these wounds. Tried saying this was nothing, but the EMTs even made me wear this stupid sling. I'm not going to move my right arm. Just wrap the wound and get to helping those villains. Nearly killed a couple of them out there- well, I shouldn't think of it like that. I didn't kill even one person. I didn't even let one person die! Damn impressive if I do think so myself._

Sky Smasher stepped up to the podium to answer questions since he had told them at the start of the conference that he had taken command of the defense. The very first question though was, "Why did you let Lifebringer go out there alone to fight the villains?! Were you too afraid to fight them yourself?" This was met by a lot of the other reporters around the woman who shouted this out to start clamoring in agreement.

"It was not a matter of fear," Sky Smasher countered. He paused for a moment and then continued in a steady and strong voice, "Lifebringer suspected Overlord's plan and requested we stay where we were to prevent a disaster. If we had left that position then we would have left the city defenseless. Getting past us was not an issue for the Subspace Devils, as long as they had Potaru. As soon as we had left to go fight outside of the city, we would have left Desusuta vulnerable to Overlord's scheme."

The clamoring started again, but the reporters were mainly looking around and muttering to each other in some agreement or disagreement with the way things were handled. "Ultimately," Sky Smasher began again unprompted. "The decisions were made in instants, and looking back on them we can say firmly that those decisions were the right ones."

"How can you say that when Lifebringer got hurt because you sent him out there all on his own-"

Zach stepped up to the podium they set up in front of him. He had been told to wait until it was his time to move forward and accept questions, but he looked over at Sky Smasher with a look asking him if he could take this one, which Sky Smasher was glad to let him do. "I'm not hurt," Zach assured after stepping up to the podium. He moved around his right arm which he knew was making a doctor somewhere very angry, but he just smiled at the crowd in front of him instead of reacting to the pain of it or the pain he felt down on his side where he got another wound bandaged up too. "I got a couple of scratches out there, but it was nothing that bad that you could argue it wasn't the right move-"

"Lifebringer!"

"Lifebringer!"

"Over here!"

The former question did not matter to the reporters anymore, or even when Zach was answering it. The fact that he was up to the podium was all that really mattered and they were all ready to ask their most important questions. Zach leaned back a little at the sudden shouting all coming at him at once. _Alright, confident but not too heroic. Somewhat nervous to be getting shouted at like this,_ "Um, yes. You," Zach pointed at one of the reporters in front of him who looked nice and who had a camera with one of the big station's logos on it.

"Lifebringer," the young woman with gray hair in a bob style began. She calmed herself down from the way she was shouting a second ago to get his attention, then she spoke in a more professional voice, "How does it feel having taken down two of Japan's five most wanted, as well as the second most powerful villain group in the country single-handedly?"

Zach's expression turned a bit hesitant. _How do I answer that without bragging? She set it up to get me bragging, which I can't do when the next questions are probably going to grill me on why I'm here._ "Well, I don't think the Subspace Devils were that strong- I mean," Zach stopped himself, grimaced for a moment and he hesitated again. "What I mean is, well, take the League of Villains for example." He seemed to be side-tracking, though it would be odd to deflect a softball question like that so everyone was listening closely in confusion as to why he was digressing. "They only really got to the place they were because of Kurogiri. Every one of their moves and plays was dependent on Kurogiri, just like the Subspace Devils relied on Potaru to make them as renowned as they were."

Zach paused for a moment as he felt like he did not say that right, and he was regretting bringing up Kurogiri at the way some of the press changed up their expressions like their questions had changed. _Don't ask them anything,_ he thought, and he also needed to continue with more to be able to shift what his next questions would be. "But Potaru was only ranked fifth because of what his Quirk was and what everyone knew he could do with it. I just mentioned the part about him being the center of their plans, because there's still some confusion about what happened out there and why the Subspace Devils didn't try to run or just teleport into the city early. Since I suspected that Potaru was the most important part of whatever their plan was, I looked for him first and took him out of commission before they could enter the city."

 _Seems like a good place to end it. I suspected that because I knew how integral Kurogiri was. You aren't thinking of Kurogiri now though, you're thinking of how I know the importance of Kurogiri better than anyone. Because I joined the League of Villains. I make bad decisions. Like I did… There._ Zach asked for another question, and then he pointed towards a man who he hoped he judged correctly.

"Why was it that you put up that wall using your Quirk?" The man asked, making Zach frown internally while just nodding at the man from behind his podium. _Really thought I had that one._ "Was it to prevent us to see the way you were fighting? And if so, what were you trying to hide?"

"I just didn't want the villains running to the city the old-fashioned way with Potaru down," Zach replied. He looked around for another question after answering, showing that was the only response he was going to give for that question which had been easy to answer like it was a joke because the real reason was so clear. "Yes, you in the red," Zach tried to curve his point back towards another of the reporters. _Come on. Ask me quickly. I already turned on my phone. If everyone's watching though- I could send a secret message. How could I tell someone to give me a call without it being super obvious? Maybe just something me and someone have talked about. Mina. No, if I mention it she'll just think I'm making an inside joke and laugh. Momo? No. Midoriya might get it but he wouldn't give me the call to give me my out. Not the way things are right now. I don't know if Lemillion's gotten him anyway…_

"Lifebringer, my question for you is mainly, how did you get here? And shouldn't you have been in school- shouldn't you _be_ in school right now?" A couple of other reporters started nodding along, and others looked closely at the eighteen year old who needed to give an explanation for this even though some of them were nervous as to what it would be.

"I wasn't feeling great so I skipped," Zach replied. He shrugged his left shoulder like it could not be helped, while smiling in a more heroic way down towards that reporter. "Then I saw what was going on here and knew I was close enough, and since I have a provisional license that meant I was allowed to help."

"You were 'close' enough?" The man in red questioned Zach's wording. "What do you mean by that? Were you in Desusuta? You should be living in Yutapu if I'm correct, so what were you doing around here?"

"I was," Zach hesitated and then began anew. "I don't think 'close' enough in terms of deciding when to help as a hero means the distance, but the time it takes to get somewhere." Zach's explanation made sense and he said it in a common-sense tone, even though what he was saying was somewhat unfamiliar. "If I can be somewhere in five minutes, then I'm five minutes away from the crime scene. That's how 'close' I was to it." _Time can work as distance. Is that why they call it Light Years? Probably not. The Void was time and distance mushed together so- you're in a press conference!_ Zach answered the reporter's question while also giving a theoretical way to consider looking at how 'close' he was and if that would even matter when reviewing this case.

The question about whether Zach had been close enough to get involved had only two bad answers the reporter who asked it thought of. If Zach was not close enough then he had broken the rules by coming all the way from Yutapu where he had been, when people with provisional licenses were only allowed to take part in crimes going on around them. If he had been closer than all the way in Yutapu, then why was he there? Did he know something was going to happen today and did not tell anyone about it? Was he working with those villains just to get more fame?! That was the farthest extreme, but either way the reporter figured he was going to get a juicy answer there. Instead he was left staring at Sazaki with big eyes, _Can he do that?_

"Is, is he right?" Present Mic asked, turning to Ectoplasm and then looking back at Principal Nezu who was watching the press conference with them while sipping on a coffee.

Nezu hummed in a high-pitched way while his teachers looked at him. _If it were All Might, no one would think twice about that meaning of the word "close." As a student with a provisional license, however, the same rules do not apply. The exact wording of the law is not specific though, and there is precedent of turning a blind eye to something like this. Precedent that Sazaki himself created, finding the loophole in order to stop Killmore._ Nezu looked to Present Mic who asked him the question and replied, "Only time will tell."

Ectoplasm frowned and turned back to the tv they were watching together. _The kid's got a second chance here. If he had messed this up… he would have died. Failing wouldn't have meant that he lost his right to stay here. And even succeeding but doing so a little differently- but the kid didn't let any of the villains die. In a situation like that it should've been impossible that not even one of the villains sacrificed a comrade to get a better shot on him…_

"…This blow wiped out the Subspace Devils. They took everyone I've heard of in their organization with them," Zach continued to reply to the next question that the reporters asked him, and he looked more confident after having answered a couple of questions already. The fact that the question after the one asking about why he was not in school was not on the same topic helped him out too, and he appeared like he was glad not to have to answer any more questions like that for the moment. He was speaking more freely to the reporter who did ask something in a way that was appreciative of what he had done too, and he continued with a smile but a serious look over his face, "It was a risky move they took, and they got caught. They needed the money probably because the traders bringing illegal goods into the country were caught last weekend. The international drug trade was interrupted, and I bet the Riot and Trigger those villains used today was the last they managed to get in thanks to the heroes who shut down those ports and arrested the villains involved…"

Lemillion stood in his agency only five feet from his tv, glaring furiously at the kid staring at the camera so it was like they were looking into each other's eyes. Zach's smile did not look cocky and all in-your-face, but that was all Lemillion saw as the only person who Zach knew also knew about who was really responsible for those ports getting raided and the international drug trade being interrupted. _He's taunting me,_ Lemillion thought, shocked that he was seeing this double meaning while his sidekick behind him started talking to the back of his head about how maybe they were wrong about Sazaki.

"…If their profits were down, they had to try something riskier to keep supporting their organization. It got them caught, and it was because of the actions that arrested the port workers working with the villains, the villains running those docks, and international villains who the world's heroes and Japan's own caught and stopped that big thing that was going on." Zach nodded and continued while looking to a reporter who gave him more of a skeptical look and raised her hand like she was going to call him out on being too modest and trying to push the credit onto other heroes. "Really, the fact that they're happening so close together makes me confident that Overlord only tried something like this because something cut off his business."

Class A was at lunch, though most of the class had their phones out and were streaming the press conference Zach was at. Class B and most other people in the cafeteria were watching it too, with Kirishima being one of the few not watching with just an annoyed look on his face instead as he gazed around to see how many people were doing so. He was surprised Bakugo was watching when he looked to his side at the spiky-blond-haired boy who had his phone sitting next to his tray on the table. Bakugo was eating while distracted, unlike Midoriya across from him who was staring at his phone solely and had barely touched his food. At what Zach was talking about though, both of them stared in different ways than the others around the cafeteria.

Most of the students thought Zach was being overly modest, even if they did think what he was saying sounded convincing and might be right. As Mineta said on Deku's right side that it sounds like Zach's right, Midoriya lifted his head up and looked across the table to his childhood friend. Bakugo glanced up with a dark look in his eyes and a pissed-off expression on his face. He turned off his phone and shoved it in his pocket, getting back to eating which had Kirishima look down at his tray and continue to eat as well, glad someone else around him was not watching anymore.

 _He's just another one of us,_ Kirishima thought as he chowed down. _There's no reason for everyone to talk about him all the time. Something like this though isn't- damn it. But he's…_

As Kirishima dealt with his own frustration, Bakugo and Midoriya were thinking very different things than him or any of their other classmates. _Is he bragging at Lemillion?_ Bakugo wondered while eating his food, seemingly only focused on it. _Sounds about right. He's a huge dick sometimes, but he was always acting before when he would be. Is he pretending to still be pissed at Lemillion and is bragging about this now? Or is he just smug because even if Lemillion still wanted to use that evidence for something, now there's even less of a reason he can do it? Maybe it's not even about him._

 _Why is Zach saying all of that?_ Deku had an anxious and disappointed look on his face as he watched Zach speak to the crowd and the nation watching him right now. _If it ever came out what he did that got Spade caught, and people think that Overlord only came out and got caught because of it, then he'll get more than just the credit for stopping them. It will have all been Zach's-_ _ **"Sulu, the Subspace exec?"**_ Midoriya almost choked and he wasn't even eating any food, but he coughed a couple of times and then refocused on his phone while ignoring the looks from his classmates who glanced in at him from his sides. _He couldn't have. It's impossible! There's no way he expected this. THIS?!_

Midoriya took in a deep breath to calm himself down. _I'm overthinking that. He just knew who Sulu was, because he was already looking into all the villains in Japan as he should. I would have asked the same thing if I heard that name, just to check._ Midoriya brought a hand up to his mouth but kept from muttering as he just thought faster instead. _Maybe he's just proud of what he did this weekend?_ Midoriya offered up to himself. _Togata said that the way Zach betrayed them was harsh and it sounded cruel what Zach did to them, but it was effective. It was effective and he couldn't deny it, but to do that and then just keep on about his day was what disturbed Togata so much. What if Zach really was struggling with it? What if he's not saying that to us, to Lemillion, but actually just saying it aloud because he wants other people to talk about it too and confirm that what happened this weekend made this happen. He did this without any damage, stopped the Subspace Devils, took down Overlord, and he thinks it's because of his work this weekend just walking around and trying to find crime? That sounds, like he really was struggling. It could be subconscious. He might even think he's just trying to make people appreciate the work those other heroes did, since he knows they don't know about his involvement and definitely won't now as Togata can't use that now. He won't at least._

 _Zach, you're thinking too much. Working over the whole country as you do this._ Midoriya frowned and his eyes narrowed down at his phone screen in a darker way. _I'm probably wrong about everything I just thought. You always catch me off guard, but this time I'll expect anything. There could be way more reasons as to why you're doing this. As to why you even went out there in the first place! I don't know, and whatever you've said so far doesn't give me any explanation either. I need to investigate on my own. I need to- I need to figure out what your plan is!_

Zach's phone started ringing. He got cut off in the middle of speaking, and he pulled out his phone. He leaned forward and said into the mic, "Sorry." He had a sheepish smile as he said it like he did not know his phone was on ring, but then when he looked down at the screen for real instead of just to pull it out of his pocket his eyes widened and he lowered his smile a bit. "Um actually, I have to go. Thank you," Zach added, giving a small half-wave at the reporters who all started shouting after him asking him to stay and calling out their questions they never got to ask.

Sky Smasher and Unlock turned and watched as the kid walked away. They both saw the screen had lit up and actually did have a number on it, though they were wondering who would be calling the kid while he was up on stage in a press conference. When he did his half-wave too, he had waved with his phone facing out so some of the screen got seen for a moment enough that a receiving-call screen would be able to be paused on for anyone checking to see if he was really faking it. Even that did not seem really intentional but more like he just couldn't wave with his other arm since it was in that sling so he had to use the same one he was holding his phone with.

Zach answered the phone while dropping off the back of the stage. The number calling him was one he did not recognize, and he did not say anything for a couple of seconds after picking up. He walked on the grass back towards the clean-up on the outskirts of the city that only heroes and police were allowed near right now. He would be allowed past the police line just ahead of him, and he was planning on staying there for the rest of the day as he already said he skipped school on camera not long ago. "Hello?" Zach asked after five seconds of walking without saying anything. "Who is this?"

Zach's steady look started to change. No one responded over the line, but his smile dropped down confusing some of the cops looking towards him who wondered who he was talking to as they neared the police line. The call ended. Zach heard the click telling him the other side had disconnected, and he lowered his phone and put it in his pocket without looking at it again. _Well, thanks for getting me out of that._ He shook his head around and smiled again to give a cop he was approaching a reassuring look that everything was fine. "Back to it," he said cheerfully, and the cops looked at him more in shock than anything as he was heading back out there to keep working despite all he had done already.

 _Don't give me those amazed looks. I really just don't want to deal with school right now,_ Zach thought with a bead of sweat rolling down the side of his face. _That's a problem for tomorrow._

* * *

 **A/N Thanks for reading! Hope you enjoyed the chapter. So... well, no need for a recap of what you just read I guess. XD Leave a review letting me know what you think, comments, questions, predictions, etc!**

Shinn of Destiny chapter 155 . May 9

And of course my home state has the experiments. welp Virginia, it's been real.

 **Oof, rough break. ;) lol thanks for the review.**

yasideen1 chapter 155 . May 9

Next chappy is 2,000,000 words. What a journey. Congratulations in advance to you.  
Glad to have found this story, as this is my favorite of all the fanfics I've read.

 **Thanks! We've broken the 2 mil mark... wonder if it's going to reach 3 mil? I don't think so, but hey, ish happens!**

orangelarcenist chapter 155 . May 9

Chaos is a ladder? Did GOT also exist in the Death-Universe? Zach really seems to have a weakspot for Momo, telling her so many things... I cant fucking wait for Ezianos Grand Appearance. Thanks for the chapter, cant wait for the next one!

 **Zach has been watching Game of Thrones lately... I mean I have been watching GOT lately, and Littlefinger's got some great wisdom to share (wisdom for super-villains at least). Glad everyone's super hyped on Eziano... and don't worry, he's- NO spoilers!** **Lol, thanks for the review though, and hope you enjoyed the chapter!**

Ace Amity chapter 155 . 17h ago

Great job as always. I was wondering, since you usually have the next chapter done when posting a chapter, what's your update schedule? I know things can get out of whack with schooling and such but is there an update pattern you have?

 **Thanks a lot! My schedule always changes up really. There's no pattern to the madness. XD When I started this story I went like 60 chapters in 60 days, (maybe fewer days actually). Life picked back up though and got really busy this semester, and now it's probably going to slow down again so I'll probs be picking up pace again. As to having the next chapter done, sometimes I'd rather write then spend a couple hours editing (this edit took me 4 hours). When I edit, I reread the entire chapter I wrote to try and remove all spelling/grammar errors. The update pattern is really just whenever I feel like taking the time out for it. Currently I only have 2 scenes out of x of the next chapter done, and my college graduation is tomorrow, I have a 15 page paper due tonight I haven't started yet, and have family coming down to visit this weekend... so probably won't get another update out for half a week or more. Anyway, glad I could explain this down here for you and anyone else interested! Thanks for the review!**

AMR-MNR chapter 155 . 12h ago

DAMN. it's been a really, really long time since I started reading this non-stop... Three weeks? At any time I had a moment, even staying up to read for hours till just before the sun peeks over the horizon... At chapter 60 or so, I was uncertain of how long it would take. I never would have thought you could keep writing this, so much. But now, now you're still here, pushing the story forward, at a pace I could never hope to achieve...  
It's nearing the endgame. In times like this, when all seems to be drawing towards a conclusion, it suddenly shatters. It won't be Lemillion to come out and ruin Zach, it won't be Todoroki, or Deku or Bakugou. It will be something so much more unexpected, so much more daunting, that it will literally hit like a freight train.  
All For One, Eziano Mozcaccio, they may be the two big enemies left here. But it won't be their action that tears Zach down. It will be, himself. Be it deliberate or not, his actions will destroy him, but pave the road to a future that Hawks would very much enjoy. A world that he, crafted himself.  
I don't know if he will die doing it, or kill himself, but if he doesn't, I'd hope that he lives anew... Watching from the shadows, a force unrecognizable to anyone, but everyone knows about it.  
DEATH, is who you answer to, for commiting truly terrible deeds. Not the Army, not the person, but just... Death. He'd become the all encompassing Eziano Mozcaccio, who doesn't just kill people without a trace, but is a literal barrier between Society, and Evil.  
This has been my first review, thanks for the weeks of entertainment, and I'm sure to enjoy what is left in the next few Arcs... Whatever that may be, I may be wrong entirely... But, we'll see!  
Ciao!

 **Awesome. This review was great, and I'm really glad you've liked the story so much. Reading this was a great way to wake up, and I hope I can keep up the quality as it moves forward. Know it'll be tough being able to read whenever you want to being all caught up and having to stick with my schedule, but it sounds like you're in this for the long run. The endgame is coming. Nice prediction on your middle part... and I'm glad you're psyched for the coming arcs. We'll see what they have in store indeed! Ciao, and thanks again for reviewing!**


	157. Chapter 157

**Disclaimer: I don't own Boku no Hero Academia**

 **Chapter 157:**

Zach did not head to his classroom the day after his fight outside of Desusuta. He entered Shiketsu and went straight to the principal's office, as he had contacted the school the night before and already knew what was coming for him. Zach stood before Principal Memuria's desk, while Mr. Norasaki stood on the left side and Hazano on the right of it all facing him. Memuria sat at her seat behind her desk, staring at the boy who had come forward and stood there with his hands overlapping behind his waist and his elbows pointed out at the sides. He did not have a sling on his right arm as she expected him to have, and he looked perfectly fine so she did not ask if he was alright.

Zach's wounds were hidden underneath the bandages below his clothes, though he felt some lingering pain with the way he had his right arm bent to stand in a respectful way before the principal and staff. "Sazaki," Memuria began. The woman with receding grayish purple hair paused, then continued in an inquisitive tone, "Do you have any explanation for your actions?"

Hazano stared at his student who had arrived early so that he could take part in this review as well before homeroom started. _What will be the verdict?_ Hazano wondered while keeping the principal in his peripheral vision. _Cutting school like that, and lying to everyone about skipping school. Shiketsu has not given an official statement as to what Sazaki said yet, but it will come._

Zach glanced to Norasaki, then back to the principal with a hesitant look on his face. The bald lie-detector watching Zach gave him a stern look at the way Zach turned to him almost in disdain that he could not lie his way out of this situation. "I, admit I lied," Zach began. "And I'm sorry for leaving school like that so suddenly, without telling anyone."

"Is that all you really have to say?" Memuria asked. Her voice was harsh, shrill, and her eyes narrowed in at the boy who was not doing a good job of convincing her he should be allowed to stay. "I warned you that I was hesitant to accept your application because of the same reason Mr. Principal did not. The law forgave you for your crimes so I gave you a second chance, but if you cannot follow the rules then this school is not the place for you."

"I wasn't trying," Zach paused and he stopped himself, closing his mouth and looking like he did not want to make excuses.

Memuria wanted to hear his excuse though, and she asked, "You weren't trying to what? Answer this. Did you or did you not deliberately lie to your teacher in order to sneak out of school and fight the Subspace Devils?"

"I did not," Zach replied.

Norasaki's eyes shot open huge. _What?_

Memuria and Hazano both looked confusedly at Zach first at his reply, but their confusion turned into more surprise as they looked at Norasaki to see him looking baffled. "Are you lying?" Norasaki asked, stepping towards Zach and giving him a stern and angry look. _How is he getting around it?_

"No," Zach answered. Norasaki's Quirk did not signal to him that Zach was lying, and his eyebrows rose but he lost his accusatory look.

"Wait, wait," Hazano shook his head and frowned at Zach as he turned back to his homeroom teacher. "What are you saying then? That doesn't make sense." Hazano tried to think of some other explanation but did not see anything else making sense at all.

"Why did you leave your class?" Memuria asked the student in front of her desk. Her expression was not as harsh anymore, but she continued to look at him impartially and ready to expel him depending on his response. "Were you really going to the bathroom?"

"No, I…" Zach stopped himself and pursed his lips for a moment. Then he stood up straighter and took in a deep breath through his nose. He shifted his eyes to Hazano's for a moment and said, "I needed to, get out," Zach paused, while Hazano's confused eyes started to widen more. He thought about the look on Sazaki's face while he was still in the middle of teaching his class. His heart started racing, skyrocketing in a matter of a couple of seconds at the hesitant look on his student's face.

"Why?" Hazano questioned.

Memuria looked to her side at the younger man there who was staring in disbelief at his student but also like he was starting to realize something else. She turned back to Sazaki herself and said, "Even if it is hard to say, I need you to say it or I'll have no other choice. If there was no extenuating circumstance that demanded you leave campus without signing out using proper procedure, then I must punish you accordingly."

"I was having a hard time," Zach replied. He looked at his principal and his expression was steady for a moment, but his eyes shifted aside at the way she looked at him demanding more. "I was, thinking about things that I, I usually don't think about. Things I can push back, most of the time," Zach's voice got quieter, while the staff in front of him stared at the student whose eyes shifted down and whose teeth clenched for a moment before he steadied again. "I don't like to, bother other people with this kind of thing. I can deal with it on my own, and so I said I needed to go to the bathroom because I- I didn't think I could keep the things I was thinking about from showing…"

Hazano's breath picked up faster, his hands shaking for a moment at his sides and then curling tightly into fists. _Impossible. At the same time?! And he what? Left and then saw?! But Norasaki!_

Zach rose his eyes back up to his principal who continued to give him a stern look despite what he was saying. "When I was gone, I fought in a war on a different world that took everything I had. I saw things and, I did things," Zach paused at the look on his principal's face that followed with her turning to Norasaki only to spin back to the child in front of her with huge eyes. Zach's eyes were just sad and pained though when she looked back into them, and he turned away again with a look towards Hazano and then at the wall on his right side. "I was having a flashback… it's PTSD, and I just didn't want everyone to see me start losing it so I bailed. I made an excuse and left the class, and then I flew up as high in the sky as I could so no one could see me… or hear me."

The thought of the kid in front of them flying up high and screaming at the top of his lungs appeared in the three faculty members' heads. The way he looked right now, it did not seem all that far-fetched to them. Zach turned back and his expression steadied back out though, his mind going off of what they were talking about as he continued, "But once I was up real high, I got a notification about what was happening. It, it actually pulled me out of the past. It reminded me of what I came back to do." Zach paused for a second, and then he spoke in a lower voice, "And when I skipped out on school, I saw what was going on and decided I was close enough to help."

His wording came remarkably close to how he worded his explanation during the press conference. What had seemed to them like a blatant lie, was apparently just a small omission of the "out on" after he said he "skipped" during that conference. He made it sound like he had never been to school in the first place that day, but the way Zach just worded it to them told his teachers that even if the truth came out the boy would be able to spin it as he had been telling the truth the whole time. Or at least Zach seemed to think he would be able to…

"I'm sorry to hear about this," Memuria started. Zach got a grimmer look on her face as to what she was referring to, cementing further the idea that he had not mentioned it before and lied just because he did not want them to be bothered by it or think less of him for it. The principal felt the need to continue though, "However, Sazaki, if you do believe you are having problems with PTSD, then I need to know if they will cause further problems here."

"I'm fine, ninety-nine point nine percent of the time," Zach replied with a shake of his head. "It was a lapse, and not even that long of one."

"But could it happen again," Memuria asked, her voice sterner as she did not want him avoiding the question.

Zach hesitated, then he nodded his head. "Yes, I suppose it could. It might."

There was a silence that filled the room for a few seconds. Then Principal Memuria nodded her head, "Alright. Then I am not making a suggestion, but a demand that you get help for that." Zach looked into her eyes, and Memuria told him straight out, "You will get yourself a therapist. You have hero health insurance, and I am going to notify through the proper channels-"

"I can do it myself-"

"But I will still do what I must as well," Memuria cut back in just as Zach tried cutting her off. He was frowning at the idea of it, but Memuria said firmly, "You may think that hiding your problems is best for everyone, that you don't need saving," Zach looked at her with his own eyes widening a little this time. "But you need to deal with these problems so that the point-one percent of the time it comes out, it's in the proper setting." Zach nodded at his principal in understanding and with the decision not to argue with her anymore.

Memuria gazed to her right at Norasaki, then back at Hazano for a moment who she felt she needed to talk to for longer at the way he was still looking. She turned back to Sazaki and said, "Then this time, and this time alone, I am going to let you off with a warning." Zach's eyes widened more this time than when she said her wise quote a moment ago. The male teachers looked in with surprise too at the usually strict principal's lenient decision here. "In part," Memuria continued, with a small smile forming on her face, "because of the good work you did yesterday. You did a good thing going out there, and winning."

Her expression immediately returned to normal and she motioned for the door with her head, "You may go."

"Thank you, Principal Memuria," Zach replied with a bow to his teacher he was grateful to. He went for the door and left without looking back.

Hazano watched Zach leave, the nervous look back on his face as he stared at his student's back. _It's impossible. But what's more impossible? Could he have thought it all through from the very first second? Yet he's slipping past Norasaki's lie-detecting? It doesn't make sense. Yet it's too much of a coincidence for this to be the truth!_

"Hazano," Memuria started. Her voice was low and scolding which made the younger man next to her snap his head up in surprise. "You should not show your student such a suspicious and unnerved expression. Even if what he says and does are very contradicting things."

Norasaki looked at the other two in a bit of confusion himself, and the older bald man began, "Everything he said was the truth."

"I wonder," Memuria said. She glanced back to Norasaki who grimaced himself, as she was calling him out on doubting his own Quirk with that look like she knew he had been doing so already.

"He was…" Hazano started. The other two looked to him, and Hazano stared at the floor with his expression back to the way it was since he could listen to the principal and still not show Sazaki this look right now. "Yesterday in class, Sazaki suddenly started looking, strange. He was struggling to keep a straight face," Hazano shook his head, biting down hard at how much of a coincidence this all was. Hazano's voice spoke up softer, "He looked like he was really having a PTSD attack. It sounds like exactly what I had seen, but what I had just ignored at the time and allowed him to go to the restroom because it seemed like… Maybe because it seemed like he was thinking about something bad, and he wanted to go," Hazano frowned deeper as he trailed off again.

"Then what is your concern?" Memuria asked.

Hazano shook his head. _It's even more of a conspiracy than the coincidence of him flying off… isn't it?_ "The coincidence is just, mind-boggling," Hazano admitted, shaking his head stronger and then letting out a long sigh. "I should start getting ready for class," he said with a look back at the other two.

Memuria hummed but dismissed her teacher who she watched closely on his way out of her office. Hachiman left the office and closed the door behind him, then he grimaced and lowered his eyes to the floor as he started walking. _It's an option though. It makes sense, as much as I wouldn't even say it because it would be crazy. Sazaki, could have planned from the moment he heard the attack was happening- maybe before I even got my notification, when my back was turned or something! He got that notification, and in that exact moment, he thought fifty steps ahead to a couple minutes ago when he would come to that review at Shiketsu once the battle was won and he had given his press conference. If he really thought that by talking about PTSD he would get off, and he did! He did get away without any punishment… so if he thought this was coming, and just acted surprised- and the fact that he had this attack right when Overlord made his move is too close! It's impossible. So as crazy as this sounds, did he really do it?_

 _He looked like he was having a PTSD attack, which allowed him to get backed up here by a legitimate reason, which means he thought about the review the moment he saw something going on. Maybe it wasn't about thinking fifty steps ahead. Maybe he just thought about the first and fiftieth step first. When thinking of how he could leave the school, he just planned for the future too. He found a way he could get out and still ensure he could come back. That's not, unbelievable? But could he have faked those looks? He seriously looked, like he was seeing terrible things and barely holding it in. Right? I'm overthinking this. If Norasaki didn't call him out, then it was the truth. Even if he thought from the first move to how he could get back into school, he needed to do that anyway just to get to the bathroom and to his final goal of flying into the sky… to scream. Because he needed to get to a place no one could hear him lose it. Where no one could see Lifebringer, who so many people look to as this strong beacon of someone who has it all together._ Hazano rose a hand up to his forehead and rubbed it as he walked down the hall, losing his dark look and instead just getting a pitying one on his face instead. _It's way too much pressure to put on a boy his age. No matter who he is, all that plus the kind of past he's had; there's no wonder he needs therapy._

* * *

Zach sat in on class the day after defeating the Subspace Devils, and he was surprised that his classmates managed to hold off from spending the first half of the day grilling him about it. He had entered right before Hazano though, slipping into the class from where he was hiding out just before his teacher arrived so the people who all got up to run to him had to rush back to their seats as the day was starting. Most of them wondered how Zach was getting away with this as they knew nothing about his review that morning, though there were others who were not surprised Zach had managed to avoid getting punished for what he did. His uniform had a couple of marks in it so it was not up to standards, but no one mentioned that either. They all spent their whole mornings thinking about him and keeping their theories to themselves.

Lunch was different though. At lunch, Zach had to deal with every single person in his class coming up and crowding his table to ask him everyone from how he took on the Subspace Devils to how he got out of school, to how he got from school to Desusuta so fast, to how he managed to stay enrolled, etc. As Zach gave some vague response for one of the questions though, he noticed Kotsumura on his right side give him a strange look and questioning gaze when Zach looked fully at him. "What?" Zach asked.

Kotsumura shook his head, saying 'nothing' and getting to his food. _Fuck,_ Zach thought, while turning back and answering another question from an excited classmate of his asking if he was serious about how he really did just happen to bail on school first. Others called him out on it as BS, but Zach stuck by it and said it wasn't until after he left the class that he got notified, and since he was gone already…

Lunch finished, and Zach walked with Kotsumura back towards class. "Are you serious about all that?" Keiji asked his new friend, giving him a somewhat serious look and also joking like he did not expect Zach to try and stick to his story now that it was just the two of them talking. Zach looked at him like he was wondering what part Kotsumura was asking about, and the blond boy continued, "That you really didn't know until after you left?"

"It's true," Zach replied. _Why?_ "There was a different reason for leaving."

"Which was?" Kotsumura asked.

"I was," Zach paused, and he started to frown a little, in a way that Kotsumura recognized.

"Hey hey," Kotsumura shook his head at his classmate. "Don't," he said, and Zach's lips lowering into a frown flattened out instead of shifting in a confused way.

 _He definitely saw._

"I saw you look at your phone. I was trying to check your notes and, I barely noticed but you checked it _before_ you started looking all…" Kotsumura trailed off and his eyes darted around the hallway. His voice got quieter into a hiss as he and Zach both stopped. "Is that how you got away with it? That's what you told Hazano sensei-"

"It's true-" _I can't do it! I won't get away with it just by sticking to my guns!_ Zach's expression stayed calm but he was caught in a lie and not doing a great job at adjusting. "Kotsumura," Zach began, his voice serious and his expression showing that he was about to tell the truth. "I'm not lying. I really was, having a panic attack when I asked to go to the bathroom."

Kotsumura looked closely at Zach's face, and for a moment he hesitated, _Is he lying? I, don't think so. But then-_ "Why would you do that?"

 _FUCK!_

"Because you saw your phone first," Kotsumura whispered, shaking his head confusedly. "You did," he repeated when Zach tried to shake his head.

 _I panicked first, then I saw my phone after I left. That's the story and what it has to stay as! Kotsumura can't know the false reality-_

"It's fine," Kotsumura shook his head and turned away. "Let's just get back to class."

"Kotsumura, wait-"

"Let's talk after school," Kotsumura said. He looked to Zach who paused and then nodded after a second. _I need to think about this for a little myself,_ Kotsumura thought while looking back away from his new friend.

The two of them went back to class and sat through the second half of classes for the day. Their practical training for the day was in the classroom instead of one of the gyms, and it wound up being a very study-oriented day leaving Kotsumura a lot of time to think throughout the afternoon, and Zach to watch him nervously from the seat next to his.

 _He's never been slow. I didn't usually peg him as one of the quickest in the class, but he's closer to me than any of the others have gotten yet and was the first to catch me in a lie. I don't have a way to fix this easily. Unless I just straight lie to his face about what I saw on my phone, which only would have worked if I had used it earlier when he brought it up. I could pretend like what was on my phone was super private, so I was just accepting that he believed it was the notification. That could work, because something super private could have set off the PTSD. Except I don't want to ruin this relationship, and that lie is sure to when he's got me already on the truth. He knows it. How'd he figure it out so easily? Maybe it's because, it wasn't meant to be thought of at half-level by someone like him, because he could take that next jump without thinking of how crazy it would be!_

 _He saw his phone first._ Kotsumura watched as Tarangla sensei discussed the various kinds of fighting techniques villains would use most often and the rarer types as well. His mind was churning around what he had seen Zach tell the others in such a casual way and like he was telling the truth, the same way he had told them most of his stories recently. _He's nervous about me knowing this. He seems like it at least,_ Kotsumura looked to his side at Zach who turned back to him thinking he had something to say, and Keiji just turned back forward after a moment. _This is weird. If he saw the phone first, and he's not lying about the panic attack thing- which he totally seemed to have too at the time! I remember that seeming weird, and the way he asked was too, not like he was asking to be let out so he could sneak away but that there was something wrong I just didn't get. But even if he wasn't lying about that stuff, that doesn't make a difference about him checking his phone_ _ **before**_ _that._

Kotsumura lowered his gaze down to his desk. _If he wasn't lying about any of that though, then did checking his phone just make him instantly have that attack, because a piece of him knew it would be a quick way to get out there and stop those villains? How quickly does his mind work to be able to come up with something like that?! And, wouldn't that hurt? Having to- he looked like he was thinking about… It was something bad. I knew that much. I looked away when I saw it at first, but what if it was just faked so he could get out? And then he just lied to my face after lunch? No. That wouldn't work! Because of Mr. Norasaki! Holy crap- if Zach knew that too, that he couldn't just lie and fake it- then it's definitely that! The order was all messed up? He's lying about the order, to everyone, or at least everyone who knows. He was super vague at lunch about why he really left, he never really said it was just to use the bathroom._

 _I'll need to keep him quiet._ Zach looked at Tarangla sensei closer and got to his notes in a more focused way. _So I'll have to tell him some more. Like I decided to let him in on it all, instead of me just confirming some of what he's figuring out over the period of this afternoon. Kotsumura, I really hope you're not fucking spying on me._

* * *

"…but even though I was right about that, and the heroes staying back probably stopped Overlord from starting his plan, it wasn't my main reason for having them stay behind. I didn't want any of those heroes to get hurt."

"Unlike you," Kotsumura said. The two of them were walking down the sidewalk in Yutapu past the usual train station Kotsumura took to get home. His apartment was not too far from Shiketsu though, only a couples stops down the line, so the two of them were walking to it together. "It's totally fine if you get hurt, yeah?" Kotsumura was accusing Zach of it even as he smiled and said it in a joking tone.

"That's not…" Zach shifted his eyes away as Kotsumura looked at the side of his head waiting for a response. "I wasn't going to get hurt, so there was no need to bring everyone into the fight where the only difference would be some of them might have gotten killed before I could win."

"Man," Kotsumura said, leaning his head back and looking up in the sky with a bigger smile that made Zach turn back to him. "I wish I had that kind of confidence. You just knew you were going to win from the start? That's crazy." Keiji glanced back at the guy next to him and added, "But what if you were wrong? What if they were stronger than you thought?"

"They were," Zach replied. Kotsumura's eyebrows rose up, and he slowed down with a confused look forming on his face at the frown on Zach's. Zach looked forward down the sidewalk and he said in a lower tone, "Overlord rallied his forces as soon as I took out Potaru. That was supposed to be the biggest deterrent and really get them afraid, but Overlord saw what I was doing and reacted quickly. Kousen was strong, and Girder's Quirk meant that no matter who I was fighting I had to be careful of the attacks falling from the sky too. Once he used Riot, and the girders were dropping all around me with shots coming in from all directions, Overlord out of reach and with powerful comrades around him like he wanted to draw me in which kept me back, and the truck he had tossed behind me blocking me in, it was too much to handle. I had to drop Limiter 1 and show my real strength-"

"Whoa what?" Kotsumura had thought for a second there that Zach was bragging. The fact that he was talking about how hard all that was and the situation which to Keiji seemed impossible to beat, yet Kotsumura knew he had beat it, made the blond boy think Zach was just being overly dramatic. But what he just heard shook him from that feeling, his eyes opening wide while Zach turned back to him and gave him a serious nod. "You dropped a limiter- Limiter 1?"

"Yeah," Zach replied.

"You looked so strong out there," Kotsumura started softly, his eyes still wide as they walked, but his head turning back forward as he pieced it together. "But for a while there I was getting worried you were getting weaker, and then it just-" Kotsumura thought about what Zach was just saying too, about the truck behind him and the girders falling out of the air. _The moment he was cornered! He really was- He was!_ "You couldn't beat them without going all out?" Kotsumura asked, looking back and seeing Zach shake his head at him. "But, Limiter 1? How high do your limiters go?"

"Just 1," Zach replied. He grinned and scratched the back of his head at Kotsumura's sweatdrop, and he explained defensively, "I figured I'd gotten so much stronger in such a short time, that if I already needed it I'd probably have to put on more later."

"That's still crazy though," Kotsumura said, though he did relax a bit. The idea that Zach had several of these limiters came to mind first and had him flustered at the thought of Zach being several times stronger than even what he saw the day before. Backtracking to only 1 made him feel a little better and less stunned by all of this. "So, you didn't need your limiter down to even beat Inasa?" Kotsumura asked, checking if Zach dropped it in that fight and he just didn't know.

Zach shook his head though, and Kotsumura sighed at the gap in power that seemed so much wider now between him and his classmate. "I doubt Deplete would even lower your Quirk's power enough to make a difference if we fought."

"Probably not," Zach agreed with a stoic nod, making Kotsumura drop his bottom lip and then snap 'hey' at his friend who laughed. _This is good,_ Zach thought, as the two of them continued to walk but rounded a corner as Kotsumura mentioned his house was down the street to their left. _Kotsumura was just worried about me when we started talking, even though I'm pretty sure he figured out what I did to get out of class. I didn't expect him to put it together so quickly, but he even suspects that I'm not just lying about it. That could be bad in the future with him realizing I can get around Norasaki, but right now it probably helps the case that he thinks it has to be true because of Norasaki. It doesn't though, Kotsumura. I just have to believe it's true when I say it. If I'm not lying, they can't catch me in a lie. And I can convince myself to believe anything._

Kotsumura looked back to his slightly taller friend walking on his left. "Hey, you want to come over to my place? We're getting close already."

Zach looked down the road and got a hesitant look on his face. "I know you said having people over your place isn't good, because of the whole 'there are people coming for me' thing." Zach turned to Kotsumura with a curled lip and one risen eyebrow, his expression asking if Kotsumura was seriously calling that paranoia here. Kotsumura just continued on though, "But you're allowed over at mine. Come on, I'm sure my parents wouldn't mind having you over for dinner. And Anima, well, she might annoy you, but it'd still be fun."

Zach shook his head. _Sorry Kotsumura._ His classmate's optimistic look fell but he just sighed instead of actually looking disappointed, as if he suspected Zach would decline anyway and was only asking because Zach had gotten so close. _They haven't accepted the risks of knowing me like you have, just by you being a hero. I shouldn't put them at risk,_ Zach slowed down and he stopped, and he looked to his right across the street past Kotsumura at a place he might stop for dinner. "I'm going to head out," Zach said.

"Huh? Oh," Kotsumura glanced back down the road, and his place was still pretty far off. "Alright. Sure you don't want to come over?" He seemed surprised by Zach's decision to suddenly leave after Zach had been the one to suggest they walk together home after school.

"Yeah, I just have a couple things to do today," Zach replied, and he stretched an arm in front of him in his heavy winter jacket. He lowered his arms in their green sleeves back down to his sides, and he got a more serious look on his face as he looked at Kotsumura. _He figured it out but just wanted to see if I was fine,_ Zach thought as he looked into his friend's eyes. _I like you for that, but I'm doing this for safe measure._ "You can't tell anyone about any of that stuff," Zach said, speaking as if reminding Kotsumura of something he had already told him. Kotsumura nodded quickly in understanding like he was not even thinking about telling other people, not realizing that he did not actually think he was supposed to keep it a secret until that moment. "Because my limiters and my weaknesses could all be used by villains trying to kill me…"

 _I don't like this. Tricking him. I could just ask him not to say what I did in the classroom, but I can't bring that up. He never did either, and I have to stick with my story or it's no longer the truth. If I was the only one and I changed my truth, then the real truth would have changed. That's- that's not how… That's not-_ Kotsumura agreed with Zach and told him he wouldn't talk about that kind of stuff, and Zach thanked his new friend before turning away. He turned because he hoped Kotsumura would not notice the look forming on his face, but it had already formed and Kotsumura watched in semi-confusion as Zach started walking away.

 _I'm losing control over it all. Even a single slip feels so big. Like it will all catch up to me at once. All the little details I notice, and the ones I'm sure I've missed and let slip, it's all compiling and getting ready to tear me down. I have to get it back. I have to, make it believable._

* * *

"Wow," Zach stared out over a massive forest stretching as far as he could see. It was beautiful, even without sunlight casting down on it as the sky was full of gray clouds signaling it might snow soon. Zach sat on the edge of a boulder low to the ground but at the edge of a cliff so the soles of his feet were pointed off of it. His legs were extended out in front of him and barely bent at all in his sitting position close to the peak of the mountain he hiked. "This is beautiful," he whispered. His eyes shifted to the right and the left, but there was no one else up there on the popular viewpoint of the trail. _Thought maybe some kids' clubs would be here, on a camping trip or something. Haven't seen anyone all day though. An national park all to myself._

Zach lifted up the water bottle he brought with him and took a long sip. Then he screwed back on the cap and stood up, stretched his arms over his head, and he turned and started a jog again back onto the trail and then continuing the way he was going. He picked the hardest trail, and as he started his run again he quickly hit a point where the trail got steep and most people would slow down on it, grabbing roots and using their hands to steady themselves on rocks as they went down. Zach picked up his speed though, and his eyes darted around without turning red as he looked for the best footholds while still staring mostly straight forward. He stepped off the dirt and pushed his other foot against the bottom of a tree trunk just over where the root started. He got a good angle in to get some extra force over to a large rock that he landed on, rolled over the top of, and dropped down eight feet to a flat surface he sprinted right off from.

 _This is something Zach would do, right? Just go on a trip?_ Zach was distracted even as he tried distracting himself from those thoughts by running. _See a beautiful part of the country he's never been to before. And it's not like I'm not training too. This counts as training._ Zach frowned and just picked up the speed a bit more, but the ground was leveling out and it was not hard to maintain his speed and footing anymore. _This doesn't feel like something he'd do. If U.A. wasn't a boarding school, I could totally see it though! On weekends, just coming out to enjoy a park. Zach went on vacations. Like Kyoto._

 _Except Kyoto wasn't a vacation. He was working. Kyoto was just a cover-up for Diamondfist, what is this for?_ Thinking about Diamondfist made another face appear in Zach's mind, and he grimaced harder as he continued to run. _Zach Sazaki loved this world and would like to see all the beautiful parts of Japan he never had before. He would enjoy those things. He'd have, a good time… Webb,_ Zach slowed down and he let out a breath, deciding to stop trying to force that face from forming in his mind. _I'm sorry. I'm so sorry._

Zach let out another breath, then he focused his thoughts with an intense look on his face. _I was wrong, back when we met. Not about burying everything deep inside to keep sane. That part was definitely the smartest thing I said that day. About leaving and how it would have made me a coward if I didn't try going back… Though then I came back this time, because I was just afraid before too- no that's just what I said! But it is true, partly, that I was afraid to face them. Just like I was afraid to face everyone when Webb saved me, when I had left on my own to become a villain, and when I had just done so much already. But now that I look back, I think I was being a coward. Because much harder than going back and facing them, would have been giving it all up. I was willing to come with you, Webb, but once you put that other option out on the table, I suddenly had all those things again. They were just within my reach. A normal life, friends, school, my own name, it was all there right in front of me. I had the choice and I said I picked the harder one. I decided that I wasn't going to "give up," yet I did that because I was afraid of what would happen if I continued to go around the rules after going around the rules had gotten the Akers killed._

 _Webb gave me two choices. I chose one because I thought tossing aside Zach Sazaki, faking my death there, was cowardly. Giving up. I came to realize though, after Kaminari's betrayal, that I was foolish to believe everything that happened to me was my fault for leaving their society. With a Quirk like Death public, there was no way I was ever going to live a peaceful life. Not in this world. Not in what it was. There was no way the Akers were ever going to survive being that close to me. Or maybe there was, and I did mess up, but I didn't mess up by throwing it away this last time. Giving up Zach Sazaki was one of the hardest things I ever had to do. It was the opposite of "giving up" like I once thought it to be._

 _That was the starting point. Doing that meant I had to do more than ever, work harder, make decisions that had millions of lives relying on them, decisions I knew would haunt me but I had to do anyway because someone had to… Except, no one_ _ **had**_ _to._ Zach bit down hard and he started speeding up his run through the park's forest. _People wouldn't have made those decisions, they would have just dealt with the aftermaths and handled things in different ways. I created the decisions that had only bad options to pick from. I was always so upset when there were only two horrible choices to pick from, like how unfair it was that night I fought Hunter that my only two options were dying or getting brought back to Shigaraki. I had thought it was so unfair, but I was the one who put myself in that situation!_

 _I didn't trust the police or heroes enough at the time to go to them for help, or to my classmates. I convinced myself they would be in too much danger if I even said hi to them when I saw them on the street that day, prepping for their New Year's party. Instead I tried to fight Hunter, made bad decisions during the fight that allowed Hunter to get my hand into a sack, and I didn't call for help. I made countless stupid decisions that I look back on and hate myself for. But, so many of those horrible decisions I made back then, I had to make one of two bad choices that would create a better result than not making any choice at all. Even though doing nothing was a third option I could have picked, the same option everyone else chose to pretend like there was no choice at all. I wish I could just pretend like there was no choice sometimes. Sit in class and see something happening, and not immediately think it's my decision to go fight them or to do nothing. No one else thinks like that! Except, I'm not everyone else. I'm Lifebringer. I need to show up at times like that especially when I have the power to._

Zach sped down the trail and he started going uphill again in an area with a more narrow path. It still looked more frequently traveled than the rest of the forest, but whoever made the trail mainly just marked trees with the white diamond symbols to make sure hikers stayed on the path. He had his hood down behind his neck, and the cool wind blew through his spikes of black hair he had styled up in case anyone saw him out there. He had headphones in while he ran, but his music was currently paused as he lost himself deep in thought. _…Webb thought so too. Lifebringer needed to be a symbol. Not the symbol of peace or a symbol for all heroes, but I did stand for something back then and if I had faked my death then I would have left that legacy. People thought I would go do good no matter the cost or the rules. Was that my symbol? That I'd save them even though the country labeled me as a threat and a villain? That I could save them and do good despite the horrors of my life and my scary Quirk? Whatever it was, I'm molding a new reputation for Lifebringer._

Zach took longer strides and focused more on his footing as he hit an area that some people would need to slow and take careful steps up on small rocks and tiny ledges at a natural staircase in the woods. He stepped back and forth on the sides of the path and made his way up it without breaking pace, and he reached up and grabbed a low-hanging branch he swung himself up onto. He leapt off from the branch to the top of the hard-to-climb section of the path and then kept running upon his landing. _…And thanks to Overlord, Lifebringer has the best reputation he's ever had now. Could have been better, but I'm glad the media's laid off it._

 _The news isn't anywhere near as massive as it could have been. I made it out like it wasn't huge. Like even the second strongest villain group in the country weren't all that much of a threat in the first place. The fact that one hero alone was able to handle them? It'll make people feel like there really isn't anything they need to be afraid of anymore. Make villains feel like even the strongest among them can fall easily. And the villains who got afraid when I came back but continued going, thinking that because I was public meant I couldn't come for them… well, I didn't kill anyone so that might not actually do much. They will still be discouraged though. That didn't happen much with Kurogiri though, but after I left- Well when I came back! It did. It slowed villain activity from all I've heard. My presence alone is a deterrent. My- The Army of Death's presence out in the world, might be a similar presence that scares villains. Just like heroes are. Any force who fights villains!_

 _I've made some mistakes since I came back. Already, I've talked too much to too many people. Too many can contradict what I'd say in public. I make mistakes though. That's very Zach-like of me. I always made mistakes before I left too. All those things I did before the Lifebringer Incident…_

Zach slowed down his run. His eyes darted to the right. _Wind is weird over there. Someone's here. I don't see anyone watching me._ Zach continued up his jog, and he rose an arm and rubbed his forehead like he was just wiping off some sweat in a casual, non-suspicious way. _Feels chilly. Could just be a cold front. The wind a side-effect. Weather patterns don't change without reason though. Hope it's not Maelstrom. Something's definitely happening._ Zach's red irises focused on what looked like a broken twig from a branch that was resting on another branch near it up ahead and to his right thirty feet. The wind was not that strong right now, but that twig was resting in a position that it would most definitely fall from there if it was there for long. It fell after he focused on it for a second too, confirming his suspicion even more that it had only recently been broken off.

 _Wind could have been strong enough to break it off. Tree above isn't dead though. Natural causes? Birds, rodents, wind shifts. Unlikely. Someone being careful not to leave tracks on the ground? More likely. Someone coming after me and lurking somewhere in the vicinity?_ Zach reached down into his pocket and he pulled out his phone and a pair of headphones. He slowed into more of a speed-walk that looked like he might pick back up speed at any second into a steadier jog. _Just picking a song. I don't notice you yet. After that long sprint I'm tired._

"He knows we're here."

"Wait- are you sure?"

"I agree."

Zach stopped walking. He stood where he was on the path, staring ahead at the two figures who just dropped out of hiding on either side of the trail he was hiking. On the right was a boy with spiky bleached blond hair, standing just under six feet tall at five eleven. Bakugo had on a black and red jacket, his hands uncovered by gloves despite the cold that had Zach wearing gloves on both of his. The other boy ahead of Zach on the left was not wearing gloves either, though Zach supposed Todoroki could handle the cold well. Todoroki stood at six foot three, his white and red hair split down the middle as always. Although his hair was longer than when Zach had last gone to school with Shoto Todoroki, his bangs were not as long anymore revealing more of the burn scar on the left side of his face around his bright green eye.

There was a space between Bakugo and Todoroki that Zach looked into, before raising his eyes up towards the trees at the hesitating figure he assumed was up there. Another teen dropped down, standing six two closest to Zach's height, his hair shorter than it had once been but still showing off how it naturally curled. Midoriya Izuku walked forward until he was in between Todoroki and Bakugo on a wider section of the path up ahead. _Doubt they've been following me. Such a sloppy mistake. And I only just noticed those winds and the chill factor. They were probably looking for me but intended on staying hidden. I'm surprised one of them noticed I noticed them. They probably saw the twig fall and knew I would've reacted to it if I wasn't pretending not to notice. Should have given it a direct look._

Zach jogged down the path towards the three staring towards him. "Hey," Zach called out. Bakugo and Todoroki were glaring at him. Their looks were harsh, confrontational, and telling Zach not to keep running at them. Zach just jogged closer though, focusing instead on Midoriya in the middle of the three who seemed most uncertain. "What are you guys doing here?"

"Don't give us that bullshit," Bakugo snapped.

Zach stopped where he was. He stared across the twenty meter gap still splitting those three from him, and he got a confused look on his face at what he was just told. Instead of telling Bakugo off though, Midoriya's expression steadied himself when he saw Zach's confused expression about what he was just asked. Todoroki stepped forward on Midoriya's right side, to Zach the person farthest on the left of the three confronting him.

"What are we doing here?" Todoroki repeated, his voice cold and accusatory. "What are you doing out here?"

 _How did they find me?_ Zach wondered while looking at Todoroki. His confused look remained, though he rose up his right eyebrow like he was asking his old classmate to be more specific. He figured he already knew what they were asking him, but he wanted them to drag this out for a little as he got a hold over the situation. _I didn't fly. Probably a mistake. Getting caught doing that though would be the stupidest thing to get caught for. Almost used that as an excuse at the press conference "Oh I was just out on a flight," try and push the agenda that way. "But he saved so many people because he was using his Quirk in that way-" would help, but it's certainly the opposite of doing things the right way. Probably would have caused a confrontation like this earlier in the week. Haven't talked to any one of these guys since Tuesday. This is probably related to the Subspace attack in some way._

"Just, out on a run," Zach replied after a pause like he was trying to think of what they were asking, which in actuality he was.

 _Out in the middle of nowhere?_ Bakugo thought, his eyes darkening more at Zach's response. His teeth clenched and he glared harder at the boy not far ahead of him, _What is he trying to do all the way out here? No one around for miles. The fuck is he doing out here? Was it just to make us show up? This fucker isn't even that surprised. His look is crap._

 _Are they behind him?_ Todoroki's eyes were solely focused on Zach, but his vision scanned the woods behind his old classmate too. _He met with them out here in the woods. This talk is just to stall us long enough for someone to escape. If they're still reporting to him, then he's still acting as Death even within Japan. They could be moving around us, but more likely he sent them away. There's no chance of getting them by going past Zach. He doesn't need to stall us and doesn't look like he'd try. What other reason could he have had to come out here? He could have left something in the forest behind him. A designated spot even if there's no one out there right now, they'll come and pick up his message. Or he might still have it on his person. He could be carrying something right now under that jacket._

"Just running?" Todoroki repeated, his voice cold and skeptical as if asking if Zach really thought he'd believe that.

Zach got an exasperated look on his face and rolled his eyes. He looked to his left at the end of his eye roll, _This is fucking ridiculous._ Reading Bakugo and Todoroki's faces alone, he could see what they were so suspicious about and he was getting tired of it. _This is my day off. Is that really what this was? Damn it, this is-_ Zach looked forward and to Midoriya to try and get some help here from this ridiculous situation, but Midoriya's expression had hardened and his eyes narrowed into Zach's when they made eye contact.

The way Zach gave them an exasperated sigh and look made Midoriya lose the anxiety he had about this whole thing. _He wants us to think he's just tired of going through this. That our suspicion is unfounded because he's just acting normally. But we can all see through that, Zach!_

Zach's surprised look at the way Midoriya started looking at him relaxed. His expression returned to normal, his lips flattening and his eyes staring coldly ahead at his former classmates who all glared back at his expression shift. Now that all of them had the same kinds of expressions, Todoroki continued while glaring at his classmate he had not spoken to before this since Zach returned. "Tell us," Todoroki paused and then said in a darker voice, "what it is you're planning."

Zach shook his head once. It was not a head shake saying that he would not say, but just an annoyed shake of his head saying that they did not know what they were talking about. Midoriya stepped forward this time though back to just on Todoroki's side, "You're manipulating everyone." Zach looked into Midoriya's eyes and kept his expression flat despite what was just said to him. Midoriya continued to his old friend who did not even react to that statement to deny it, "Manipulating the media, the others, everything," Midoriya paused and then he continued with a shake of his head and a desperate but still harsh look at Zach, "you're trying to get everyone on your side so they'll do what you want and accept what you do. But, what is it you're trying to get them to do? They already let you get away with so much, and no one's even talking about what you did earlier this week like it's… you weren't allowed to do that and-"

"Deku," Bakugo growled. He stepped forward and glared at Zach while Midoriya looked to his left side at his childhood friend. Bakugo got annoyed by Midoriya's tone that was sounding like he still wanted Zach to give an explanation for all this, to see what Midoriya was saying meant that he was on the wrong side. He glared at Zach coldly and did not expect anything else but the cold look that came back his way. "He's not going to listen to you. Whatever happened to him, that's not Zach."

 _"That?"_ Zach wondered. _Not even going to say "he's not Zach?" Dick move. I suppose you're looking for a sign that I might be Zach, because of the recognition of what All For One said that night. Has it bothered you since then? In the back of your mind, wondering if maybe he had a point? Fuck you. Fuck all of this…_

"Yes it is," Todoroki muttered, his voice still loud enough for Zach to hear. "That's always been who he is," Todoroki said. He glared into Zach's eyes and Zach grimaced at the look his old classmate gave him of anger. The look of regret Zach started to show made Todoroki bite down harder and then say darkly, "A lying, deceptive, villain. A terrorist hiding in plain sight. Where's your army, Death?" Midoriya and Bakugo each glanced to the side at Todoroki who looked around the forest before turning his head back to Zach. "Are they coming to meet you out here? Are you leaving something for them? Or did it already happen, and you think they're getting away behind you while we do this?"

"That's not why I'm here-"

"Then why are you here?" Bakugo growled.

"I told you-"

"Zach," Midoriya started, his voice firmer.

"Stop, lying!" Todoroki ordered.

Zach's lips twisted and he ground his teeth to hold back. "I'm not- I really did just come to think, and to clear my head-"

"That's bullshit," Bakugo said. He shook his head and looked down his nose at the teen not even trying to be convincing, "Try again."

"WHAT FOR?!" Zach roared.

He yelled it at Bakugo, and all three of the others ahead of Zach tensed up. All of them stared towards their old classmate whose eyes flared red there for a moment as he let out his scream. Birds in trees nearby lifted off the branches and flew away, and a cold breeze came through the woods after the yell that was followed by a few seconds of silence. Zach took a couple of heavier breaths to stop his panting after he let out his yell, and his vision lost the red tint he noticed in it for a moment. His face lost the stoic, calm and collected expression he had to it before though. He glared towards Bakugo and spoke in a pissed, understanding but still annoyed voice, "I get it. You know? I get, why you can't trust me."

Zach shoved his hands in his pockets and leaned the top of his body forward. He leaned in and said with a pissed look covering his face, "I manipulated and lied to all of you. I lied to the three of you so much, and of course there's no reason to believe anything I say. You have no reason to trust me, but I really am not planning anything!" Zach bit down hard after his shout at the looks of the three who clearly thought every word out of his mouth was to get some emotional response from them. His words were obviously just meant to get them to believe him, when clearly he was lying. Zach shook his head and then continued, speaking at them in a voice that wanted them to listen but also was just annoyed, "I didn't have some elaborate plan when I came back here. I didn't turn myself over planning for- and I know!"

Zach looked to Todoroki and shouted that, a look of more regret flashing over his face and making him clench his eyes shut for a second. He snapped them back open and looked into Todoroki's eyes, "I know I said that last time you confronted me, but this time I really don't." Zach said it and even as the words came out of his mouth, he knew there was no chance of those words carrying any meaning to Todoroki. He could see Todoroki confronting him on his way storming out of school one day after Kaminari betrayed them, and how Todoroki had believed more than anyone else that he had some huge plan in the making. "You don't believe me-"

"Of course I don't," Todoroki said.

 _He hasn't denied certain things though,_ Midoriya glanced to Todoroki and then back to his old friend who he actually felt himself feeling bad for, though he was trying to suppress that feeling. _But he does have a plan. There's no question about that. I have to be hard on him too!_

"No one with half a brain would trust you," Bakugo growled. _There's no ignoring him. He's here to fucking stay, and we have to fucking deal with him. Not Lemillion's way though. He won't get Zach like that. The only ones who can stop Zach are us._ "And every word out of your mouth right there was a load of crap. You don't have a plan? What kind of-"

"My plan was to get sent to Tartaros!" Zach yelled at the spiky-haired teen he stared at in anger and with wide eyes. He shook his head at Bakugo while looking at him like that, and he looked back to Midoriya too and yelled, "That was the full extent of it! I never thought I'd be out this quickly. I'm improvising!" Midoriya stared at him with slightly wider eyes, and Zach stared desperately into those eyes for a second before stating firmly, "I just wanted to go to Tartaros, to _get out of reach_."

It sounded to Midoriya and Bakugo like Zach was talking about what he said in the hospital. He was using the same thing he said back then like he was talking about All For One, and secrets that only the three of them had as another show of why maybe they could trust him more than they were thinking. He was being secretive because Todoroki was there, and Midoriya said in a low voice after looking to the white-and-red-haired boy on his side, "Todoroki knows, Zach." Todoroki did not take his eyes off Zach though he did notice the reactions of Midoriya and Bakugo on his sides and just glared harder at the teen whose reason for getting arrested he already heard about. Midoriya continued, "About all of it. One For All too," Midoriya added, specifying so Zach would know he really meant 'it all.'

"And if you really think I'm going to believe that your sole reason for coming back was to go to prison," Todoroki started. He glared at Zach angrily, not even disbelieving since it felt to him like Zach wasn't even trying to make a believable excuse.

Zach sighed again. He looked down at the floor. _Stop getting so angry. There's no point. There's no point in any of this._ The three ahead of Zach all got ready to say something else, but Zach started first, "Can we stop this?" He looked up and his expression only had one word to describe it: 'tired.' Zach looked at them with tired eyes, and he spoke in a calm, no longer annoyed voice, "I get it, I really do. I get why nothing I say means anything to all of you, but can we just stop this? Nothing I say is going to matter." Zach shook his head once and just looked back and forth into the eyes of his old classmates who were glaring at him and looking annoyed and wanting him to speak already what they wanted to hear.

"I could stand here all day telling you everything, and you wouldn't believe a single word out of my mouth." Zach shook his head and gave the others a pestered look that did not have much feeling in it. "I could confirm everything you think. I could tell you exactly what you each believe, and you'd leave here thinking that I said those things because that was what I thought you wanted to hear or thought you might, and suddenly you might not believe those things anymore." Zach described this in a bored tone, despite talking about how he could manipulate them or at least how they would have thought he had manipulated them after the conversation. The way he said it though, without even caring that he might be giving away his own tactics to them, it diffused the situation quickly.

 _He's right. I wouldn't believe a fucking word,_ Bakugo humphed and he got a more annoyed look on his face. This time his annoyance was directed at himself for coming out in the first place if there was no purpose in confronting Zach.

Todoroki just bit down harder though after a second, his face getting angrier and his fists balling at his sides at how quickly he almost just calmed down and decided to leave. _That's what he wanted me to do! He just wants to get away with this-_

Zach bit down harder at Todoroki's expression he was reading that had his heart racing faster at how much Todoroki thought him to be manipulating. _Was I really just doing that to get them to leave? Is this all just another manipulation?! I can't even fucking tell!_ "I get why you think I'm still manipulating," Zach said aloud, speaking it to Todoroki and his other former classmates who were all accusing him of it at some point in this argument. "Because I do too!" Zach shouted. His face got more distressed, lines forming on his forehead as he scrunched it up for a moment at the way the three started looking at him. Before he could think about what to say based on those expressions though, he thought about thinking about coming up with a way to respond based on them, which made his eyes snap open wide and a huge breath to suck into his mouth.

Zach's heart pounded and he pulled his head back for a second, his hands sliding out of his pockets and shaking at his sides. "I can't-" Zach's lips twisted, and then they dropped to rage-filled at the way all three looked at him for his voice cracking there, like not one of them believed in the way he was speaking to them or that this was actually what he was thinking. "I'm not lying! I really do, feel the same way as you! I can't even have a conversation with Mina without thinking, 'How would Zach Sazaki answer that?' Or, 'what would Zach feel like' if I heard what she said, and then how I could respond to make her feel good so that she thinks it's really me." Zach shook his head and he balled his fists hard at his sides, ignoring the looks on the others' faces now as he spoke these things aloud when he never even thought about them in his head to keep the act going nonstop. Now that he was going though, thinking hard about the way he had those kinds of conversations, he just kept going as he looked inwardly onto them, "I get so angry though, because I'm the only one who thinks I'm manipulating in that conversation. Because it doesn't take me any time at all to come up with those things to say, or how to _pretend_ to feel like Zach Sazaki, because they're the things I want to say or would feel anyway."

Midoriya stared at Zach with his eyes huge and his breath stuck in his throat. The other two next to him were watching in different levels of disbelief and frustration, with some realization or believing in their looks. Midoriya pushed away all his doubt for a moment though, and he found himself standing there without trying to interrogate Zach and just listen to him. And he stared at Zach as Zach ranted without even seeming to care that he was saying this to them, as he barely looked like he was talking to them anymore. _Is this really…_

"I'm jumping through loops to 'act' like the person I actually am, because I can't just step back into Zach Sazaki's shoes. I can't!" Zach yelled it and snapped his head back up after staring at the ground there for a few seconds. Bakugo's eyes widened at the shaking ones on Zach's face, and especially what he just shouted that was the main point of Bakugo's anger towards his old classmate who looked straight into his eyes after Bakugo reacted. "I'm trying," Zach continued, "but after I abandoned him like that… After all I said in that forest, about throwing it all away, how could I just come back and be myself?" Zach asked it in a pained voice, almost apologetic to Bakugo for even trying. "I have to pretend, because how could I leave like that and still be me? But, I'm only thinking that I'm pretending, because I really do feel happy when talking to Mina, and angry when I can't convince you three that I'm not trying to trick you, not just angry because Zach Sazaki always pretended to get offended when people called him out on his bullshit."

Zach's voice got lower and his lips pursed together hard. "I'm so frustrated," Zach whispered, and he winced as he heard another voice say that in his mind that made him draw his right hand up to his head and grab it before rubbing in a softer way so as to look less pained. "Because I've separated myself from Zach Sazaki," he continued softly. "Because I abandoned that name altogether and think I have to step into those shoes that I left when I discarded it. But I'm frustrated, because stepping into those shoes isn't a difficult thing at all. It isn't this huge challenge I have to take part in. It's just coming so naturally to me and it confuses the hell out of me because I don't _feel_ like the same person anymore! But as much as I changed, I'm still Zach." Zach paused, and the tone in his voice didn't sound like he was trying to convince them.

Todoroki stared at Zach less harshly than he had since emerging in front of him. He stared down his former classmate and pondered what he just said as the truth for a minute, because it felt odd to him that Zach would use this as a lie even to get them to feel bad for him or something. _If that's real. If what he's saying is really, real. Then maybe, maybe he's not as put together as I thought. The reason he stopped being Death may not have been malicious, initially. But for him to be out here in this forest alone. It's too suspicious. Something else is going on. He has plans, which might be even worse now that I can accept that he might be losing it._

Bakugo turned his head to the side and looked out in the woods. _No one's out there,_ he thought darkly while just staring out at nothing but trees. _Maybe, he's just dealing with his own shit right now. It sounds like he's having a fucking, identity crisis? Something normal for someone in his shoes. Too normal,_ Bakugo ground his teeth for a moment but stopped with just more of an annoyed look on his face.

His old classmates got confused by the admission Zach just snapped at them. The three who expected him to be attempting something huge to top all the other things he'd done so far, looked at the black-haired teen who was just frowning back at them now even as they had skeptical or half-believing looks. They didn't fully believe him. They were questioning what he said and wondering if some of it might be true, but Zach could see on their faces still so much suspicion. "It doesn't matter," Zach muttered. He started walking forward, and he spoke in a calm but somewhat sad voice as he did, "Whatever I say, you can believe it or not, it doesn't matter. I did as much as I could." He looked at his former classmates with no hope of this ending well between them, just a reluctantly accepting expression on his face.

"What do you-" Midoriya started.

"I came back here. I tried apologizing to everyone, and I'm trying to make things right, and I've left it open that if anyone wants to come and talk I'm ready anytime. But I can't do this," Zach shook his head and stopped for a moment only ten meters ahead of his old friends. He looked at them and said in a lower voice, "I'm not going to. Todoroki, I'm sorry." Zach looked at his classmate who had not been at the hospital to greet him and who he never got to say this to. "I should have told you things sooner, and I shouldn't have lied to you, and if you do want to talk about him then I will," Zach paused and grit his teeth as Todoroki started doing the same in such an angry way. "But if you don't trust a word out of my mouth, then what's the fucking point? If you really thought I would tell you the truth then you would have asked me about it already, so whatever, don't, it's fine with me."

Zach looked to Bakugo, and he just scrunched his face for a second at his look before looking to Midoriya and shaking his head too which had his green-haired friend feeling his heart drop. "You might think I'm using the media, Midoriya, but I'm trying to avoid them as much as possible. And when they do see me, and I do say stuff you think I'm saying just to manipulate- that's just how I talk! That's just who I am, and I can't turn that off. So get off my back, and don't follow me again." Zach's eyes darkened and he jogged to his right to go around the group and head down the trail. He did not look to his left at them as he passed, but he said in a lower voice as he did, "Or I might mistake you for the villains after me."

Bakugo did not look back like the other two next to him who spun when they heard Zach finish with that. Todoroki's eyes widened and then narrowed in anger at the veiled threat from the boy running away from him. His fists clenched, but the boy with red and white hair could not chase his old classmate without any reason to do so. Bakugo glared ahead of him where Zach had been confronting them from, _It wasn't supposed to be you._ Bakugo's fists clenched too, and he made a 'ch' sound through his teeth and the right corner of his lips that pulled apart for a second. _But it is him. That fuck!_ Bakugo got even more pissed off than when he jumped out in the first place, more pissed than he had been in a long time. _It wasn't supposed to- he fucking left! The one who left lost all that conviction to stay gone. Damn it. Something happened._

Bakugo turned his head once he was sure Zach was far down the trail and would not see him looking back. His face lost some of the anger in it after only a second of being enraged. _He changed. He lost all that conviction, but that doesn't make him a different person from the one back then. He was right about that. He's still the same scarface, but he…_ Bakugo let out a breath through his nose and he looked away from the trail he just looked down. _Fuck it. I don't care. I don't, hate him. But he can't come back to U.A., and that's enough. He accepts that too. No need to even bother with thoughts on him anymore._ Bakugo grunted and he jumped up in the air, pointing his hands below him and blasting up before he reached the canopy so his explosion would not catch anything on fire. He rose up through the canopy with the burst of speed and then used more explosions to change directions and blast himself back the way he had come from.

Todoroki stayed where he was staring angrily after Zach, the last things Zach said to him making his teeth grind in fury the more he thought about them. He turned his head a bit as the other boy next to him started walking forward. _We're going to need to fight,_ Midoriya thought. He stopped for a second when he had that thought, his face getting so hesitant as that belief was so strong within him. He believed in it so much that it unnerved him into stopping, because it was not a question that he had but an assurance he felt when he considered running forward. After having that thought though, and unnerving himself with the fear of the certainty of it, he thought back on the look on Zach's face as he admitted how much he was struggling to them. _But he's still…_

"Midoriya," Todoroki started, but Midoriya had already started forward again. "He's not-"

"Go back ahead of me," Midoriya suggested over his shoulder. "I need to talk to him," he added, and he spun back forward and started sprinting down the path the direction Zach went.

The path led uphill, and the trail got narrower just ahead so it was impossible to see where Zach had gone from back where they were. _Don't go too far._ Midoriya ran up the path and started spreading some One For All through his body. His steps got quicker, and he strode forward faster but kept from going too fast as the ground was uneven on the hard hiking trail. "Zach!" Midoriya called up ahead when he caught a glimpse of the back of Zach's jacket.

Zach just kept running. He picked up speed and ran faster up the trail. His eyes focused on the path and the path alone, because he sped up to a speed that one misstep and he was going down hard. He stepped to his right off a root coming out of the path, rolled the sole of his shoe over the other side of it, then pushed off and kicked off the tree to his left to bounce over a rock he would have had to go around or climb over. He landed on a ledge and jumped up, and he jumped up again and rose high on the trail that would have went farther forward then cut back and gone behind him before cutting ahead again to rise up the mountain in a more gentle slope. Zach kept any darkness from covering his legs and just rose up the mountain towards a tree he saw marked with the same trail marker. He was skipping a portion of the trail, but it was harder this way and made it more worthwhile.

"Zach, wait-" Midoriya looked down and made sure he landed right as the ground below his feet felt wobbly. He snapped his head back up fast though and put a little more speed in as Zach was about to leave his sight again, and it felt like he might just leave the beaten path and disappear into the woods. "Just- hold on!" Midoriya sprinted uphill in a straight line towards Zach as that would be the most direct way without speeding up anymore to a dangerous speed. There was a reason Zach was not going straight though and instead bouncing off rocks and trees and roots. The ground had leaves on it, most dead, some with a wet layer below, and many of those leaves were covering small divots in the ground or roots that one could not notice until they had stepped on it.

"Wai-Ahh!" _**Ch-**_ **KaCrSHhh Dnnk** Zach stopped where he was and turned his head to the side. He looked over his right shoulder and let out a low sigh, then he jumped back the same path he took up.

Zach dropped off a steady rock he had used as a foothold when he reached Midoriya's spot on the floor. Then he leaned on the tree Midoriya finally hit to stop sliding through the leaves, after he had taken a bad step on a root and tripped while moving around thirty miles per hour. "I thought I was pretty clear back there what I was going to do if you guys kept following me," Zach said, though he could not get the same threatening tone out as he looked at Midoriya's disheveled appearance while getting back to his feet. "What are you doing?" Zach asked as Midoriya stood up in front of him.

Midoriya looked ahead and up a bit to where Zach was standing. Zach pushed off the tree to stand straight and look into Deku's eyes slightly down in elevation on the hill. "Back there," Midoriya started, and he stepped up and to the right to get on equal footing with Zach. Zach turned his body to keep looking at Midoriya as they got eye-to-eye with one another from only feet away. "You were- I want to believe you, Zach." Zach nodded his head once, but he grimaced at the same time as the way Midoriya worded it made it clear he didn't believe him. Midoriya shook his head, "I'm sorry. Zach," Midoriya looked at Zach in the same way Zach was looking back at him, both holding back and upset, frustrated. "I want to be friends again."

"You do?" Zach asked. He kept the surprise from his face and asked with a straight expression, but he felt confused and only masked that surprise and confusion with his bland look.

"Of course I-" Midoriya paused and he grit his teeth at the feeling that Zach was surprised he actually wanted to be friends with him. Midoriya looked into Zach's eyes that were hiding so much that made it so hard for Izuku to understand, because even what he did see in those eyes he could not figure out. "I hate this- not knowing. Not knowing who you are," Midoriya admitted to the person who used to be one of his closest friends. Zach's expression softened and his eyes did more, looking back at Midoriya in a guilty way, with some hope, and reluctance in them too. "Not knowing if we can be friends, or if I want to fight you, or-" Midoriya pursed his lips, a conflicted look on his face even as he was saying it. _I don't even know who I'm talking to!_

Zach grimaced back at the pursed lips and frustrated look on Midoriya's face. Zach kept standing there, taking this from him in a way that made Midoriya curl his fists and yell at himself internally. _But Zach is trying so hard. This Zach. And, whether or not he's changed in irreversible ways, even if he's like an entirely different person. It's still Zach. Like he said._ Midoriya uncurled his fists and started nodding more at the person in front of him. "You're still you," Midoriya said aloud. He looked into Zach's eyes and told his friend who he felt needed to hear that from someone else too. "And even if you didn't just spell that out for me, in a way that could possibly be a trap, I should have felt that way from the start."

Zach's eyes widened at Midoriya's mention of it possibly being a trap. Not because he had not been thinking about it, but because he was wondering if Midoriya would look back on this and question why he brought it up in the first place if not to get this conversation to happen. As he was doubting the longevity of Midoriya's belief though, Midoriya countered him and left Zach staring at him in surprise. Midoriya continued after Zach started looking at him in that way, "Because I'm a hero. I need to support my friends in their hardest times, and if you're having a hard time I want to help you too Zach. And I want to get to know you again, and, be your friend again."

"Even without knowing what my secret plans are?" Zach asked. The sarcasm in his voice was dry. He was not trying too hard to make it sound sarcastic, because that would make it out like he was trying hard to pretend like he didn't have any plans. He just asked it and watched Midoriya's reaction as the question was legitimate as much as it put a tension in the cold air between them.

Midoriya nodded back at Zach though. _I've always thought this, Zach. And I don't know why I stopped for so long. I always thought that the biggest thing holding me back from being a hero, was 'how could I be a hero, if I couldn't even save my friend?' It's all I could think about that freshman year when you were gone with the villains, but I didn't feel it after when you left on your own, of your own free will after killing people and turning completely into a villain._ Midoriya's expression steadied and he stared seriously into Zach's eyes again in a way that got Zach looking more serious too. _I believed you were a villain. But I also have to believe that people can change. You came back saying you knew what you did was wrong and that you want to be here again. That should have been the best outcome!_

"Did you change your mind?" Zach asked. "Before you came out here. I just, felt like you weren't this against me that you had to come here and tell me straight out: let's be friends again."

"I know, I'm sorry," Midoriya repeated, shaking his head once as he had been acting the last couple of time he saw Zach like everything was fine. "But I had convinced myself you were a villain. And I think, I've always thought there's this huge gap between heroes and villains. So I forced myself to think of you as a villain for so long, so that I could be ready to catch you at any time if we met again." Zach nodded his head back at Midoriya as his friend told him this, holding back a smile and just giving Midoriya an understanding look instead. "But I'm trying to just see you as you again. As Zach, and not this villain I have to catch, or stop. Can we try just… hanging out again?"

 _That's all I've wanted since I got back, Midoriya,_ Zach lifted the corners of his lips up a bit. The anxiety and frustration he'd felt since noticing those presences back on his run faded, a more relieved and calm feeling forming in him than he had had even before the confrontation with his old classmates. "Yeah."

 _I've taken too long to say this. Maybe because I'm often given the other way out by Lemillion, or Bakugo, or Todoroki, or Iida telling me it's fine to see Zach as a villain still. But we were closer than you were with any of them. And I don't want to. And it's not being negligent of my hero duties to accept you, but the opposite!_ "The spirit of a hero, of not just killing villains, is because we have to believe in second chances and forgiveness," Midoriya said aloud, even after Zach agreed with him already. Zach stared at him frozen in place, his eyes growing much wider at the reason Midoriya was giving for why he was doing this. As quickly as he mentioned it, he moved on though, "I want us to be friends again, but I have to get to know the Zach who came back. Since we can both agree you've changed a lot."

Zach nodded his head and replied, "Yeah, that's all I want too. It's all I've wanted since I got out."

Zach turned and looked up the mountain he was hiking, then back at Midoriya. His gaze shifted to Deku's elbows and knees he expected to get messed up due to his trip but that his friend had not grabbed in pain or anything yet. Then he brought his gaze back to Midoriya's eyes once he saw that his friend was good to go, "Think you could keep up this time?" Midoriya looked at Zach in surprise this time, then further up the mountain too as he realized why Zach looked around like that. Zach turned and started jogging up, hitting the trail and then running down it and actually staying on it this time. There was no time to hesitate or wonder if he actually did want to go on a run right now. The decision was a split second one to be made, and Midoriya chased after the other teen getting away from him.

* * *

 **A/N Thanks for reading! Hope you enjoyed the chapter. Zach's facing pressure from all sides, but the chapter ends on a lighter note. Let me know what you think of all that happened, questions for the story, predictions, or comments down below!**

grimXblade chapter 156 . May 11

HOLY F*CKING SH*T!c(0_0c)  
This chapter was just amazing. I've been reading this fanfic since November last year, and you just keep blowing my mind!  
BEST FANFIC EVER!

 **XD Glad you're loving it! Hope you enjoyed the new chapter!**

someguy1011 chapter 156 . May 11

Awesome chapter as always! I got 3 things to say:  
1- My hero is a story about midoriya becoming the greatest hero but with death? I truly feel this is  
zach molding himself into the greatest hero who ever lived, and i gotta give kudos to ya for being  
able to pull off this kind of feeling well.  
2-I dont know if this was on purpose but there is a nice parallel between darling stalking zach and  
lemillion doing it, cause we clearly see how zach changed, at first he's paranoid and thinks  
anything is the LOV's making their move compared to being able to identify where the person is  
know they are a hero and narrow it down to like 2 possibilities. WHAT A CHARACTER!  
3-Things are going to come to a head between UA and zach i can feel it, also for that final showdown  
if zach dies imma just play 'may i stand unshaken' in the background cause i feel like that perfectly  
describes his life

 **Really glad Death conveys that kind of feeling to ya, and thanks for this review. Like the parallel to like a hundred chapters ago, definitely a different sense that Zach knows what's going on now compared to back then. This chapter we see it too, he's quick to identify when he's being followed. Anyway, I'm happy you've liked Zach's character growth, hope that keeps on going 'til the "final showdown"... if that truly is what's coming. ;) No spoilers though, but nice guesses!**

GuestP chapter 156 . May 11

Damn, he took out all those villians without killing any of them, that's impressive! His real personality came out a lot in this chapter, i honestly missed the badassery that came with being Death of the Aod. Unfortunately he can't be Death again (yet?).  
Zach blows everybody's minds with his wicked awesome skills, meanwhile the readers are just like 'Oh wow, he's halfway embracing his true self again, yay Zach!'  
lol  
I want to know who called Zach, was it Gentle-Death? Was it EM? Was it L? Was it Denki? Or maybe Tomura?  
aaaaaaaaahhhhh idek anymore, plz give me answers ;-;  
Anyways, awesome chapter, can't wait for the next one!~~

 **Zach whips out some badassery, while intentionally blocking most of what he did from the people trying to watch him. Just that though, is already building up his rep (as he thinks about this chapter) a lot. Who called Zach? How long can he maintain his cover from everyone when he's finding it harder to keep it up to himself? What about the League of Villains? EM?! Lots of questions... we'll see about those answers soon, on Death!**


	158. Chapter 158

**Disclaimer: I don't own Boku no Hero Academia**

 **Chapter 158:**

Hazano Worrod walked out of his classroom, and half the class got out of their seats to move around in the time between periods before their next teacher came in. Subara got up behind Zach and made for the other side of the room to go talk to Muoko and Tomoki, but a second after she stood up, Satoshi was in her seat and leaning over it to be a part of the conversation going on. Zach sat sideways on his seat, Kotsumura turned left and faced him, Porrolo Ven stood on the other side of Kotsumura's desk but leaned over it with his hands on the surface, and Hanodo came over and stood between Zach and Kotsumura's desks but in front of them too to make for more of a circular group.

"So we on for later?" Kotsumura asked, looking over his shoulder up at Ven who nodded at him with an intense look. "Nice," Kotsumura said with a grin, looking more carefree even though Porrolo had gotten them one of Shiketsu's gyms reserved for after school. He looked back at Zach after saying it to his spiky-white-haired friend, and he leaned forward with a mock-confident look, "You're coming right?"

Zach glanced around at the four others who had talked about getting the gym reserved the day before, with him in the vicinity. He had not confirmed nor denied that he was going to be going with them, and he hummed like he was thinking if he had any plans already for after school. "Oh come on," Satoshi said, leaning even farther over Subara's seat to bounce his eyebrows at Zach a couple times over his snake-like eyes.

The muscular boy with broad shoulders but only standing five seven crouched a bit too and leaned over the front of Zach's desk. "Or do you have something better to do?" Hanodo asked, switching up the tactic to using a guilt-trip voice like they weren't worth _the_ Lifebringer's time to hang out with. Porrolo cracked a small smirk as he glanced at Hanodo seeing what he was doing, and he shifted his gaze back to Zach to see how he'd respond.

 _The four of them are probably going to challenge me all four at once. I don't want to fight against Kotsumura though. If he gets too into it he might tell the others about my limiter, or if they come close to beating me he might let it slip afterwards about how it was only close because- etcetera._ "Wish I could," Zach replied, after giving Hanodo an apologetic look that actually looked guilty for how he was responding, which in turn made Hanodo look a bit guilty instead.

 _Nice play,_ Porrolo thought with a slightly bigger smirk as he saw Hanodo's expression flip due to Zach's response.

"But if I stay after school, by the time I'm heading home it'll be dark," Zach explained.

"Afraid of walking home in the dark?" Satoshi teased. He had laughter between in his own words as what he just said sounded so funny to him when talking about Lifebringer.

"A little," Zach replied, shutting up Satoshi by the way he said it not in really a joking tone but with a shrug of one shoulder and tilt of his head to the side. He glanced towards Satoshi with a grin of his own and chuckled at his look, before turning back to Kotsumura right in front of him who had a curious look on his face too. "It's easier to check the roofs around me on the way back when it's daylight. Easier to spot the villains coming after me."

"You serious?" Porrolo asked, looking at Zach with wider eyes at the thought he had put into that. _He took care of the first ones to go after him so easily, and the Subspace guys- except, he didn't stop the_ _ **first**_ _ones to go after him. He got shot first. He just… learned from that mistake? Holy shit, that's what he was saying the first day! Damn, each time he messes up he gets better. I've got to focus more on my weaknesses…_

Zach shrugged again, being real nonchalant about this which had one teen watching from behind Zach glaring harder now. There was another boy next to the tall one glaring over, and Dendo glanced up as his classmate stood up next to him. "Hold-"

Flugeru stomped forward as Zach calmly mentioned how he could much easier deal with _assassins_ in daylight. "Are they even still after you?" Flugeru asked. Zach turned to his right and looked up at the towering redhead who glared down at him for the relaxed way in which he was talking about much too serious a topic.

"Hey Flugeru," Kotsumura began. "I'm pretty sure he'd know."

"If they were still after you, and you noticed them," Flugeru cut in, still just looking at Zach. "Then why haven't any more villains been arrested for coming after you?"

"Just because it hasn't happened yet," Satoshi started, but he pulled farther back into Subara's seat as Flugeru darted a look back at him saying to be quiet.

"So no more have come? And you're still just going around talking like there's an unlimited source of villains hunting you?" Flugeru scoffed, looking back at Zach in an accusatory way, like Zach was clearly lying and using a bad excuse for whatever it was he was getting himself out of.

Porrolo glanced back towards Zach, some doubt forming about why Zach really wasn't going to stay late with them. _He did say that, pretty casually. It could just be not to bring the mood down though. Like, this is._

"Who said no more have come?" Zach asked. He tilted his head to the side while still sitting sideways in his seat, looking back at Flugeru with an eyebrow lifted and only a semi-annoyed expression on his face. He relaxed it and smiled instead though and Flugeru's first confused look, then denying one at what Zach said.

"If you were, we'd know-"

"Why?" Zach asked. He looked at Flugeru awaiting an answer, but he was not really expecting one quick enough to cut him off from the rhetorical answer he already had. "Because there were cameras there the last times? Because when I got shot there were cameras on me, and on my way to school that first day they got me getting attacked on camera too?" Zach leaned out of his seat a little more and pushed his head back so Satoshi pulled farther away in Subara's seat closer to the windows and away from Zach. Zach looked up at Flugeru's face and grinned as he said, "But since then I've been avoiding the press, so how would you know if I've been attacked since?"

Flugeru ground his teeth the whole time Zach was speaking with that cocky grin like this was actually a good counter to what he was accusing. The others around them were all just looking over at one of the two with hesitant looks, (and most others in the class were glancing over too even if a couple kept their own conversations going and most didn't look directly at them). "Even if it wasn't caught on camera," Flugeru said slowly, stating it like it was obvious and glaring at Zach for making him explain something so obvious. "It would have been big news if you got attacked again."

"Then why wasn't it?" Zach asked.

"Huh?" Flugeru asked, the question Zach asked not making sense to him. A couple others looked to Zach in more confusion though, their heart rates speeding up at the serious look behind Zach's smile.

"Why wasn't it big news, last time I got attacked?" Zach asked. Flugeru was silent, his look disbelieving and looking to try and stay that way despite the intense way Zach was staring back at him. "A couple nights ago," Zach added, lifting his tone as if asking if Flugeru had heard about it.

"Did you really," Kotsumura started, but he stopped as Zach started nodding while still looking up at Flugeru.

"What happened?" Flugeru asked. _This is just going to be another of his stupid stories. There's no way._

"A couple nights ago I was being trailed as I took a long route through the city trying to get home," Zach started. His tone was calm, but his lips were flat now and he stared into Flugeru's eyes seriously and in a way to show him he was not lying about this. "So I headed for the outskirts of the city. Went far from where anyone could get caught up in collateral damage, since I didn't know how many of them there were." Zach paused for a moment, noticing that more people were looking straight over at him now. "Maybe they knew which way I was going to lead them, or maybe they called their friends to let them know where I was going, but the four guys following me had another fifty ready to ambush-"

The door of the classroom opened, and Zach turned to see Thumper stomp into the room and look around at the students who were not in their seats with a surprised look on his face. He turned to Muoko who stared back at him in horror for a second, as she had failed at her class representative responsibilities. Worse, she was one of those still out of her seat as the next class's teacher came in. "Everyone to your seats," the highly embarrassed class rep scolded. Her voice was low as the period had already began and she should not be calling out during it, but in her voice was a tone that had everyone making for their seats quickly.

They all sat down again or faced forward, no matter how much they wanted Zach to finish what he was just telling him. "You asshole," Kotsumura whispered over the first moment he had when Thumper sensei turned to the board. Zach kept staring forward, a look on his face like he was pretending to have no idea what Kotsumura was talking about. "You totally planned that," Kotsumura could not stop himself from grinning even as he said it, because the right corner of Zach's lips lifted up a tiny amount too like he could not hold out any longer.

 _Maybe you're right,_ Zach thought, while diligently writing notes when his teacher turned back from the board to his students. _Doesn't mean I was lying or joking about what I was just saying. Might leave some of the others thinking it was just some exaggerated joke though. Muoko's probably mad about it already, though I doubt she's figured it out yet since she's probably just thinking about not getting everyone in their seats. Shouldn't have done that to her. Needed to get out of that though. Having to tell that to all twenty-nine of them. Sheesh. I've gone days without even hearing about it except for one follow-up text from Chief Karlo. I should just focus on class. Enough of them will "realize" that I was messing around to play that joke on them that they probably won't ask me about it…_

Zach was right, partially. The rest of the morning went by and he did not get seriously questioned about what he had started saying before Thumper came in. At lunch he shifted the conversation intentionally to some of his times on Terra and in space, keeping up an interesting story without needing to bother with what had happened just a few nights earlier. Unfortunately, one of the people who did not come to listen to his story was the one who interrogated him in the first place back in the classroom. Kerushi was glad he had given up on being mad at Zach early on, as seeing this progression a second time around was really making him question how harsh he had been initially.

Flugeru did not make as much of a scene as Dendo had the first week of school though. He had gone on much longer without making much of a fuss, and even earlier in the classroom it was more like he was being suspicious then outright insulting, which kept his classmates from telling him to back off from their newest classmate. Flugeru waited until near the end of the day instead, catching Zach during their practical training which the two of them got paired up for. Flugeru intended for it and intentionally made some fuss when the picking procedure came, glaring at Zach and saying stuff loudly and in a negative tone about his classmate. That got Enorma to put them together on a squad of two for their mission, exactly as Flugeru intended.

 _That was pretty impressive,_ Zach thought even as he saw Flugeru staring at him, getting ready to ask him something serious by the looks of it. _Enorma sensei totally thinks this is some team-building exercise for the two of us. He might have even showed her some hostility last Friday intentionally to set this up. Did he? I can't remember it well, but I feel like the way he's hiding that look of smug satisfaction he definitely planned this out for a while and it's all working out for him. Props._

"Zach," Flugeru started.

 _Calling me by my first name? That's cool. Doesn't sound like his tone is as hostile either. He's really the only one left I'm struggling with._

"Earlier you said you got attacked a few days ago. Was that a lie?"

 _Pretty direct wording. Yes or no questions, keeps me from going all roundabout and dodging them. Solid play._ "Nope. It happened."

They were in a training ground on Shiketsu's campus which was not as massive as U.A.'s campus, but it was still the largest property inside Yutapu's city limits. Flugeru had not argued when Zach said how they should set up, but even though Zach had them on opposite sides of a room one away from the one with the safe door in it, they both had earpieces in to allow them talk to each other. They were in the room away from the one with the safe because Zach figured his opponents would assume they were setting a trap inside, so they would rush here before coming up with a plan right in front of their hiding spots about how to get around and inside the room that only had this one entrance. Even if they somehow busted silently into the room behind them without ever coming this way, Flugeru had already set up a trap using his Quirk on the circular safe door itself to go off. The trap would not hurt their opponents that much but would make a lot of noise and disorient them while Zach and Flugeru make their way back into the safe room and take them down.

Flugeru could not argue with the strategy, and he felt so confident about the set-up that it was okay to talk about this now even during the exercise. He frowned when Zach responded, but he kept from just denying him right there as much as he wanted to. "How'd you keep it a secret?" Flugeru asked, his voice darker as he accused Zach in his question of doing something illegal.

"Thing is, Flugeru," Zach started. "I drew them out of the city first, so no one would see it. As much as it was to contain collateral damage, I also wanted to stay out of sight." Zach had his back leaning against a stone pillar in the fake bank room with them. He stared ahead of him and responded in a low voice in case their enemies were getting close. "As for the villains whose existence you're wondering about, I can assure you they were real."

"And why were they after you?" Flugeru asked.

Enorma watched with her class over monitors in a nearby area as the second team made their way towards the bank, acting as both bank robbers and heroes who needed to save hostages from the safe. Zach's team were also acting as both, needing to protect the safe from robbers coming to steal from it, while also having to be careful not to make much collateral damage as the bank patrons they had been unable to evacuate were inside the safe and under their protection. Both teams were meant to look at the other team as the robbers, which Zach assumed was to keep total damage to the training area down as it was not as simple for Shiketsu to repair everything as it was for U.A.

The teacher running the practical kept her expression flat so as not to alert her students to what she was hearing over her own headset connected to both teams. She stayed quiet, hoping Sazaki had forgotten about her and would just talk as if only to one of the other students.

"They weren't like the ones who came after me last time," Zach responded quietly into his earpiece. "I easily spotted the four guys trailing me on my way home, so I couldn't go back. I led them out of the city and 'fell' into their trap," Zach put emphasis on "fell" like he was putting up air-quotes. "A couple of them suspected that I had come out to fight them, but even they didn't think I would expect how many of them they had gathered to fight me."

"How many?" Flugeru asked. His expression was dark as he stared ahead on a different part of the room connected to the main bank floor but between it and the room with the safe in it. _Don't lie to me. I'll be able to-_

"Sixty-three," Zach replied.

Flugeru darted his eyes to the right, his breath catching in his throat. He heard a crashing sound in the main bank room, but he only darted his eyes that way for a second before getting back to what he was just thinking. _There's no way I wouldn't have heard about that many villains being caught. Even if it wasn't about Lifebringer. Unless, he didn't catch them._ Flugeru calmed his breathing, though he put his hands back on the pillar behind him and made them glow red, forcing out a strange design onto the pillar that spread from his fingertips. "And why did they come after you?" Flugeru asked, recalling how Zach mentioned their reason.

Zach continued to stare ahead and spoke in a low voice, "Their business was failing. It started doing worse when I came back to Japan. Apparently a lot less people were willing to work with them, buy from them… villains just got scared. They're already all a bunch of cowards, so the fact that the news kept calling me Death made a lot of them too afraid to keep going."

Flugeru curled his lips and got a frustrated look covering his face as Zach said how the "news" were the ones responsible for making people think he was Death. _You are Death!_

"The leader was yelling this at me after 'catching' me with his forces in a trap that one of them set off using their Quirk. I couldn't move from where I was, because the farther I went from that exact spot, the weaker I would become until I collapsed only a few meters away." Zach cracked a smirk and said in a lower voice to his teammate who he suspected was getting ready to attack, and their opponents in this match weren't his targets. "He yelled at me about what I had done to their business, giving his 'righteous' reasons for needing that money, and about how after I got out of prison, pretty much their whole cash flow cut off. They all blamed me for it, which, you know, felt pretty great."

Flugeru bit down harder. "And how'd you get out of there? Stuck in their trap?" He listened in for his other classmates who must have been approaching silently or something towards this room. He whispered into his headset, "And what did you do to them?"

"It must be hard," Zach whispered back. "Imagining what happened to these guys you never heard about." His voice was cold, and low, and Zach's lips were curled down into a deep frown as he continued to lean back on his pillar. _I'm tired of all this fucking distrust. If you're going to make me feel like this all day, every day, then expect some payback._ "What do you think happened to them? Did they all just, disappear?" Zach lifted the corners of his lips into a grin while Flugeru and Enorma were both wide eyes and lowering their bottom lips. "Or am I just making up stories for the rest of the class. That could totally be it, right? But if I am telling the truth, and those sixty-three villains did attack me, then why didn't you ever hear about them? Is it because, when I fought them I made them all disappear?"

Flugeru's throat felt dry, and he felt like there was this massive presence behind the pillar he was leaning on that suddenly showed itself to him. "Or," Zach continued. "Did the cops I called just arrest them without making a big scene? Because they were all unconscious, and the only crime they were being charged with was attacking me, and there were no witnesses to call the press and make a news' story?" Flugeru turned his head to the side, confusion covering his face as for a second there he had completely believed the 'disappear' version. Zach continued with a bigger smirk, "And since it happened so recently, and they haven't even had trials yet, nobody outside of the police and the other criminals they were thrown in with probably know what happened. That is, if they've all even woken up yet. It was only two nights ago, after all."

"Are you-" Flugeru started, his voice raising and anger covering his expression as he began.

"Believe me or not, you can go check for yourself if you want," Zach said, hissing it into his earpiece to get his partner to shut up when he was ninety percent sure their opponents were just outside the doors in the bank's main room. "It's that simple, Flugeru. You really think I'd make up a story so easy to contradict?" The tall redhead across the mid-room from Zach calmed down, his breathing steadying and a look of realization spreading over his face. "I sent them all to prison for trying to kill me. If I was the monster you think I am, wouldn't I have done it the other way? Wouldn't I have just gotten rid of them?" Zach growled it and his classmate froze up, his head leaning back as Zach said 'the monster you think I am.'

"I don't think," Flugeru started hesitantly. He frowned after starting that way, _He just wanted me to feel bad for what I'm doing. He's doing this intentionally! I can't fall for it like everyone else. But, if those men really are in prison and when I check, I can see if there were really no witnesses as to the crime. But if there were no witnesses, what if he actually caught them by going out and searching for criminals when he's not allowed to?!_

Enorma lowered her eyes from the monitors in front of her for a moment. _Shit,_ her hand that had reached for her phone moved slowly away from it. _I don't need to check. Checking itself, proves his point._ The teacher lifted her head and rubbed her forehead with it, ignoring the students talking around her about the way the invading team was about to bust through into the room Zach and Flugeru were in. _The kid's not a monster. Getting treated with so much suspicion every day has to suck. Why'd he have to act so creepy there for a second though? It sounded so realistic, that he just made them disappear. He probably, could have done it…_

"Is that really, what happened?" Flugeru asked after pausing for several seconds.

"Yes," Zach whispered back. "I swear-"

 **BOOM-** _ **CRASHHHH!**_

A couple minutes later, after Zach and his teammate defeated their opponents, Zach found his teammate pulling him aside away from the rest of their class as the next teams started up. Enorma sensei had seemed a bit distracted to Zach too during her review of the practical, and she had not said much to them. He figured it was hard for her to tell his team anything since they won fairly easily, and yet it was also hard to criticize his opponents too considering who they were up against. 'Don't take it so hard,' seemed like the tone of Enorma's voice when she spoke to the defeated classmates who sighed disappointedly, but not very, considering they doubted their chances from the second they heard who they were matched up against.

"What we were talking about back there," Flugeru started, his expression intense as he stared at his shorter classmate. The tallest person in the room stared seriously into Zach's eyes, but Zach shifted his gaze for a moment and looked past Flugeru towards the main group who were mostly focused. _A few watching closely. They wonder what Flugeru's getting out of me. He hasn't hid his continued disdain over the past weeks. Not many look to care very much though. That's nice._ Zach turned his attention back solely to Flugeru as his classmate was starting to get angry by the lack of focus Zach had on him.

"It was true," Zach said. He said it with his lips lowering down into a small frown again. The way Flugeru's expression looked, even after he said it for probably the third time now, it exhausted him. The look covering Flugeru's face was one Zach saw far too often, and one he was tired of seeing after finally popping off about it in the woods the weekend before. "Look," Zach started, then he paused and he let out a heavy breath of air. _I can't do this every time. I won't. I don't want to. That's as tiring as dealing with the looks in the first place, and I'll just have to deal with other kinds of looks after what I say. It's all so… I'm just done._ "I know you're going to keep doubting me, but can you stop with this?" Zach asked it in a lower voice, like he was whispering low enough that no one around would hear him. Imino was out setting up in the bank with his partner to prepare for the attackers, so there was a chance this conversation really was just between the two of them.

"Stop with what?" Flugeru asked. Confusion snuck onto his face, his right eyebrow lifting up a little as Zach never mentioned anything about his suspicion before. It always made Zach seem more suspicious to him the way he so quickly and easily answered any question or diverted to a different topic without anyone noticing. _Being so straightforward is unlike him. Unless this is to lure me in to thinking he's changed-_

"I have to deal with looking out for these assassins every day," Zach said, frowning at Flugeru and whispering it in an imploring tone. "And I have to go to school to get a full hero license, and deal with paparazzi all over the place who could just be villains in disguise, and I could really do without the constant suspicion here at school that makes my life even harder." Zach said it flat out and frowned at his classmate who stared at him with wide eyes for saying all that to him. Zach continued, "I have to deal with that suspicion enough with my U.A. friends who have a hundred more reasons to be suspicious of me than you, and while I'm doing everything else I'm still trying to make things right with all of them but they just wind up doubting everything I say."

Zach sighed and lowered his eyes down to the floor for a second. _Not to mention my extra-curricular activities. Those are important too- even though I shouldn't be doing them. Just wait- not now. Argue about this later._ Zach almost sighed a second time, but he lifted his eyes and looked into Flugeru's, "Please? This is the one place I'm even somewhat relaxed. It's safe here; I don't have to worry as much about getting shot at, or ambushed on the streets," Zach frowned more and opened his mouth to continue, but Flugeru cut him off.

"Yeah, I get it," Flugeru held up a palm to get Zach to stop speaking. He lowered it after only getting it partly up and saying that to Zach, looking at his new classmate who stared at him in some surprise at his response. _When he was talking about it earlier, all I could think of was whether or not it was the truth. Even believing it might be, not that I'm not going to check after school, I didn't really think about how it affects him._ Flugeru nodded at Zach after lowering his arm back to his side. _Constantly being hunted like that is hard enough without me… trying to play detective. There are people on it already, I'm sure. People who know more than I do about where he really was, what he was really doing, and if those people are letting him come here then I must be wrong. Or maybe… No, whatever the truth really is, I shouldn't be doing this to him. It's like Dendo did on the first day. He made Zach angry with some sudden mean taunts, but I suppose weeks' straight of giving him dirty looks and interrogating him on every doubtful thing out of his mouth, is probably stressing him out more._

"So, we good?" Zach asked. _I really haven't done anything to you, Flugeru. Nothing to make us be this confrontational right now. As frustrated as you are that no one else is even being suspicious towards me anymore though, if you try and think about how frustrated you'd be in my position it should work out in my favor._

"Sure," Flugeru replied after a couple seconds. "Those guys you caught who came after you recently though," Flugeru began. Zach started to lose the smile he just gained at the normalization of their relations, but he stopped as Flugeru continued, "Don't you think they could be the last of them? Maybe even the others were just working with them, and now you've got them all." Zach cracked a small smile again, glad it felt like Flugeru was trying to make him feel less like he was constantly being hunted. "Wouldn't that mean no one's after you now?"

Zach shook his head with that skeptical smile on his face. He spoke up before Flugeru could get mad by the way Zach was treating his theory like a joke, "It's not just them. I'm always going to have people after me." Flugeru opened his mouth to counter, but Zach continued first, "I have a bounty on my head." Flugeru froze and stared at Zach in confusion, and his eyes shot open huge as Zach continued, "People in the underworld have put out bounties on me, and they've really piled up. Those guys after me this time were doing it for personal reasons, but there are the bounty hunters, hitmen, assassins out there too. Guys like the Painter-"

"The Painter?" Flugeru cut back in. He was trying to absorb all this information, but it was a lot to take in. "Well, that doesn't sound too bad?" He cut in because it was the first time he heard something that he did not recognize at all and could not just think about later. It sounded like Zach was giving him an example of a specific person after him when he was staying vague at first, but the name did not make him all that worried. He rose his tone at the end though because he did not know for sure and had to check if maybe he was wrong about that.

And he was very wrong indeed.

Zach chuckled darkly and shook his head at Flugeru's hopeful statement/question. "The Painter is called that because every time he takes a shot, he's painting something red." Zach said it almost jokingly to explain the name, but his smile was gone and he got a darker look on his face instead as Flugeru looked a little skeptical and he wanted to erase that skepticism. Flugeru's face came to match the level of seriousness on Zach's, and Zach continued once Flugeru looked like that, showing he was actually listening about this person and believed what Zach was going to tell him about the man. "He's never missed a shot. In the underworld community he's known as one of the deadliest men in the world."

 _Holy shit! He knows so much about this "underworld community." That's not surprising though, but if a guy like this really exists…_

Zach continued while Flugeru's mind was racing, "The only assassin who avoided EM's punishment, who avoids his rules and kills whoever in whatever way he likes. No rules like the other assassins all follow," Zach's voice was getting lower and his eyes less focused on Flugeru, shifting away and getting a darker look in them. "He has hundreds of confirmed kills, among them politicians and heroes, civilians, company execs, and other villains alike."

Flugeru had sweat dripping down both sides of his face, a real fear rising within him as he listened to all of this with a willingness to believe everything Zach said to him. "Then, you're in a lot of danger," Flugeru said, making Zach refocus and notice Flugeru's nervous expression that had sweat form on his face though more of a sweatdrop than from fear. "If that guy decides to come for you, it's not going to be like a group of low-level thugs, right? Do you think he's the one who shot you on your way out…"

 **"Gah- ugh, you bastard. Heh, heh heh, aghh fuck that hurts."**

Zach's expression stayed the same as Flugeru expressed his concern for him. He showed no signs of vividly seeing the man he just described in his mind. There were some other figures in all black like Zach was in standing behind him and to his sides. A couple of his comrades sported injuries, just as Zach did himself while standing directly in front of a man on his ass coughing and bleeding out a cut on his forehead and several other wounds on his arms and left side. **"Who hired you? Not just for this job, I want a list!"**

 **"You know who I am, Death. You really think that's going to work?"**

Zach could hear himself getting nothing out of the man he tried intimidating only for a few seconds, less than most everyone he had ever interrogated before giving up. **"…The justice your victims want is from the people who hired you, not from the one who pulled the trigger himself. Plus there's too many of them to decide where to send you for your justice, so I'll do it this way."** Zach heard his tone shifting, the darkness in front of his face twisting up into a smirk. _Was it a last ditch effort at intimidating him into changing his mind? I didn't believe he ever would. That's why, so quickly…_

In Zach's head he saw his right hand lifting up towards the man's head while the guy stared at it in regretful acceptance and anger. Zach's hand hesitated though, and he could remember how he stood there, staring at the hand that trembled with black wisps coming out of it. Those black wisps dragged at Painter without Zach commanding them to, consciously at least. In the present his expression soured, his heart racing as he saw himself lowering that hand while the Painter's eyes grew huge and started shaking. Zach grabbed at his right wrist with his left hand, and then he let go and he walked a few paces to his right. He leaned down and grabbed Painter's sniper, lifted it, and he turned back to Painter with the darkest voice coming out of his helmet. _**"How many people have you killed with this weapon?"**_ Zach rose the barrel of the sniper and pressed it into the center of Painter's bloody forehead…

Zach rose his eyes to look into Flugeru's with a more thoughtful expression on his face, turning it from the dark one he had gotten for a moment. "I doubt the Painter would risk it knowing that I'm prepared for assassins after what's already happened." Zach smiled and shrugged it off like the example he had given before was not a great one, and he added, "Doesn't mean there aren't opportunistic others who will try to do it though." _No one ever found Painter's body, because there is no body. So he'll just remain on the UN's most wanted list of villains for a while._ Zach motioned back towards the monitors as the others were getting loud about the fight going on, and Flugeru looked over his shoulder to see Imino standing between the safe and both opponents while all on his own now.

As many new questions as Flugeru had now, he agreed with just a nod. The two of them started back over to stand with the rest of the class, and a couple of Zach's classmates turned to him asking what he thought of the situation since it looked very one-sided to them. He was glad to get into the fight and try and find a way that Imino could still win. It was a great way to distract him from the sound of the trigger clicking, and the 'fft' of the silencer at the end of Painter's sniper barrel, and the thud of the man's body hitting the ground. It kept the image of Painter's body sprawling backwards, his blood _painting_ the wall behind him with his own brush, and the dark figures who stood there and stared at him afterwards, hazy in his mind. The sounds and sights still came, but they were unfocused and his thoughts on the fight were louder and much clearer.

* * *

"See you tomorrow Heizou-san," the doorman at an office building in Yutapu bowed to one of the section managers of the Enugi Corporation. Heizou nodded at the doorman not as far as the lower employee bowed to him, then he walked out of the door being held open for him.

Shinzo Heizou stepped onto the sidewalk and turned to the left. The station closest to his office was only a block away and he needed to go there since his apartment was not very close. As he started walking though, he noticed there were people on the sidewalk ahead of him turning to the right and looking across the street to the opposite side. Heizou turned himself and rose his eyebrows in surprise at the sight of the two figures jogging down the opposite sidewalk. Heizou looked at the two students wearing jackets over their school uniforms who seemed to just be out on a normal after-school jog, even though it was two hours since their school should have ended.

Heizou reached down for his pocket, and he pulled out his phone while turning his head more and watching the backs of the two teens who kept going down the street the opposite way he was heading now. _I wonder if Reika-Shachou knows already?_ Heizou lifted his gaze up towards the top of the building he just walked out of, then he rose his phone anyway and got to sending an email as he continued on his way towards the station now. As he was typing, his eyes glanced up for a second at the reddish-orange sky that was soon to be dark due to the short days of winter. He shook his head around though after a moment's hesitation, _It would be more of a blunder to see something and say nothing. If it became known that they ran past here while I was on my out, I would be suspected of keeping secrets from her._

Down the block, Reika Tiona did not look over her shoulder, but her head did half-turn and her eyes darted back to a man in the upper management of the Enugi Corporation who she had seen before. "Someone you know?" Zach asked, glancing to his side at the blonde girl running with him.

Tiona turned back at Zach with a frown, giving him a suspicious look for a moment as if saying 'like you don't know everything already.' "Yes, I know him," Reika replied, her tone hardly masking her annoyance. She got a smirk on her face that only lasted a second, but then she sighed instead as the idea she had did not seem like it would work out in her head. "My mom's a real stickler. Bet Heizou already let her know the kind of company I'm keeping." Reika reached down into her pocket and turned her phone off without even pulling it out, decidedly against whatever call or text she would probably get soon.

"Ohh," Zach said in understanding, nodding his head like he figured it all out just from those couple sentences what Reika meant by that. Reika figured he would and she wouldn't have to explain anything, but she stumbled and hunched forward as Zach said, "I had no idea you were a rich girl. Never would've pegged you for the heiress type-"

"I will kill you," Reika said, standing back up straight and speeding up for a second to get back to Zach's side. She panted after saying it but stopped herself with breathing exercises through her nose, and she ignored how tired her feet and legs were and just kept going at Zach's pace. _I'm not going to be the one suggesting we stop!_

 _Geez she's determined. I want to win too though,_ Zach thought while chuckling at the harshly worded threat she just told him. "What made you want to be a hero though?" Zach asked.

Reika turned to him in surprise but Zach was still just running forward and focused on the sidewalk and where they were going next. She turned back forward too, figuring it was just small talk to him and that he might be interested. _No need to make a big deal out of it._ "You mean since I had all those great opportunities working at a company of snooty bastards?"

Zach rose his right eyebrow and turned his head a bit to the girl next to him at her description of the place. Reika scoffed and then rolled her eyes, ultimately turning the same way as Zach to her right, avoiding his look. "Alright, they're not that bad. Mom said I could work there too for sure. Always said being a hero is a stupid idea for me, and I could do a lot more good running her business one day than as a hero."

"She might be right," Zach admitted.

"She always is," Reika said in a sarcastic tone, though she sounded annoyed by it that got Zach looking straight ahead again and deciding not to push it. Tiona continued though, "But, running a business? Going to fancy dinners with a bunch of rich people every night and talking about, I don't know," Reika lifted her eyes up to the darkening orange sky above. "Psh, half the time all her job is is going out and playing golf with her subordinate chiefs or competitors. It's just dumb."

"Sounds like it," Zach agreed.

He spoke in a tone like he was just agreeing with Reika, but agreeing right there made Reika almost think he was saying her mom's job was unimportant or stupid too. She turned to him with a frown and snapped, "She still does give to charity and- why am I talking about my mom!?" She snapped it louder at Zach, figuring she wouldn't be talking about this normally and he must've twisted the conversation this way.

Zach just responded calmly though and with the right corner of his lip closer to her lifting up, "Maybe you're getting nervous about turning off your phone." He darted his eyes over and caught her glancing down before snapping them up and grinding her teeth at the fact he caught her wondering if that was actually the reason. "Maybe you want to use her as an excuse to turn it back on, and get that call that says you have to go home?"

"Not a chance," Reika said, grinning back at Zach in a taunting way that he would even suggest it. He was the first one bringing up what she was already thinking this run had become, though she had not said so herself as there was always the chance Zach always ran for this long after school. "But I'd understand if you don't want to be seen out here with me for much longer," Reika added, and she grinned more this time while Zach lowered down his smile.

Zach turned forward and he nodded to the right. Reika checked down where they were running, and she saw the next intersection was impossible to go straight ahead on because the crossing post had a red palm indicating they could not walk. Every time they hit an intersection like that they would either cut to one side around the corner of a building or cross the street as they were about to on the crosswalk that had a walk signal indicated. The two of them cut around the bend, and Reika smirked to her side again at Zach after letting him sweat it out for a minute there, "That's right, I finally figured out why you shut me down on the first day."

"Did you now?" Zach asked, his expression still flat though he was partially dreading what he was about to hear. _If you really think so-_

"You're going out with Yaoyorozu," Reika said.

Zach stopped for a second, then he kept running to catch up to Reika and to get out of the street as the walk signal started blinking. They made it onto the next sidewalk and kept running straight from the corner, and Zach replied after a few seconds, "No I'm not."

"Oh?" Reika asked, lifting her tone in an accusatory way. Zach just shook his head though with a flat expression that made Reika lose her smirk for a second. "Then weren't you lying that first time, and it really was Pinky you're into-"

"It's neither of them," Zach said. He turned to Reika and said, "I really don't have a girlfriend." He stopped himself this time, instead of going on to say 'I'm just really not interested in you.' _Wonder if that was why she's still thinking about it this long after. I should've just come up with an actual reason instead of shutting her down with nothing. A rich, hot girl like her probably never gets rejected. And now famous and strong too, well I'm sure she'll find someone with all that._ "It would be too dangerous for me to have one," Zach said after hesitating for a moment. _That's a pretty good reason._

Reika frowned and she stared ahead with more of a serious look on her face than she had since they started running. Zach grimaced at the mood shift, and he thought to himself while looking ahead in a similar way as Reika, _I have to stop talking about the villains after me. Other people aren't as nonchalant about it. They care about me and get worried when I mention stuff like people hunting me down. I could show them a hundred times how well I handle it, but they'll always think about the first time where the bullet actually hit me. None of them will just accept that I can protect myself. Especially when I throw something like this on top of it._

 _That fucking sucks,_ Reika thought after what Zach said as his reason. _I can't say anything about it. He's right. If I was in his shoes I wouldn't risk it either. That's unfair though. This guy who spends all his time in class helping the others out- I've even been struggling to keep up his pace here but he's got me pushing harder! Fuck! Is that why he hasn't suggested ending it either? He could probably keep this up all night, couldn't he?_ Reika bit down behind her closed lips and she glared ahead in a frustrated way. _I've noticed you doing it since that first day. You're being targeted by villains, but you're still doing so much. It's unfair, really. That one guy can- wait a second!_

Reika's eyes darted up and around at the buildings on the street with them. _I wasn't even thinking about it!_ She had gotten into the idea that one of them was going to have to concede and give up their run first, so Tiona had forgotten about something she had thought earlier before even seeing if Zach was down for this run. Reika looked back at Zach and gave him a look that made Zach shake his head and then let out a sigh at her wider eyes that he immediately understood too.

"I know I told the others I didn't want to stay at school late last time because of potential assassins, but it doesn't matter if it gets dark now. No one's following me today," Zach smiled while saying it, and he took in a nice breath of fresh air after the statement.

"Is that really your reason for not going out with those girls?" Reika asked, her expression hardened and her eyes examining Zach's face for a sign he was lying.

Zach looked back at her and pulled back a bit at her intense gaze at what did not sound like a very serious question to him. He relaxed immediately though and reasoned with himself, _We've been running around for a couple of hours together, and the fact that I know there's no one following us means that I was worried about it. So either I didn't care about her safety, or I would just be more worried if she was my girlfriend who I need to protect. Problem is Creati and Pinky could both protect themselves just fine, couldn't they? No. Not against everyone. But, I just-_

"Aloud," Reika said to the thoughtful boy jogging at her side at a slower pace now. She slowed with him, more focused on what she just asked than on the run now.

"I really am, worried about my friends," Zach admitted. He looked at Reika seriously while saying it, a soft look but stern to show he meant what he was saying as dark as it might be. "And that they might be in danger around me, but I'm not _that_ worried about it. I guess, the level of worried I am is maybe where I don't want someone to be any closer than the levels they are now? Close enough that villains would know they are the _one_ person to go after."

"And you don't think villains would just go after any of your friends at the current 'level of friendship' you have with them?" Reika asked, raising up air-quotes while saying it in a somewhat skeptical tone. "You don't even think that's a possibility?"

"It's a possibility, sure," Zach replied. "But my friends are all heroes. I've accepted, that they've accepted the risk that comes with being a hero that they might have to fight villains," Zach looked at Reika to see if he was wrong about her accepting that, but she nodded after a second as that made sense to her. "But you don't need to worry about it anyway, I don't think," Zach said, smiling more and shaking his head as the way he just described it made it seem like villains really could jump out and attack them.

"Why not?" Reika asked in annoyance.

"I told you, Tiona, I'm not that worried. If it does happen then I've accepted there was that small risk at the start. I wouldn't have come back though if I was that worried, but I thought ahead and I'm pretty sure they wouldn't kill my friends." Zach said it in a calm voice, but Reika was getting more confused and stared at the side of Zach's head with eyebrows risen and a frustratedly confused expression on her face that she was not piecing it together.

"I don't get it. Why?" Reika asked. _Wouldn't it be the smartest move for assassins? Those villains who have seen the others' failures might switch it up and go after some of the friends they've seen you on the news with. People who cameramen have caught you together with, and pictures posted online of you and our classmates or your old ones. All of them should be in danger- all of us now, since I'm sure lots of people other than Heizou-san saw me and him. Go after one of us and hold us hostage, then force you to show yourself while you're defenseless… unless, they don't think that would work? Because you could just let the hostage die,_ Reika's eyes started growing wide, _and, then you could defeat them and bring back the hostage anyway? You could try saving them instead of surrendering, and then just revive them with your Quirk if you fail? That's what the villains might think anyway… Would you really let us die if we got caught?_

"This is a conversation I imagine the pro assassins having," Zach started. Reika turned back to her side at the boy who had noticed her expressions and wondered what it was she was putting together. Whatever it was seemed bad, and Zach thought in a calm way to himself, _She'll understand. It's all hypothetical. The truth is probably better than whatever she just imagined… Maybe._

Zach lowered his tone and spoke in a dark, menacing voice, "Why don't we kill someone he cares about?"

His dark and spooky voice had a hint of insanity in it, making Reika stare in more surprise at her classmate whose expression did not match that voice at all while still looking like he was just speaking in a casual tone. It got much weirder though, as the voice that Zach used to respond as another villain was deeper and scratchier than the other, with darkness coating the inside of Zach's throat as he spoke. **"Are you insane?"**

"It would draw him out, show his true colors…" Zach took in a breath and he paused for a moment. He and Reika kept jogging, and they ran past a few other people on the sidewalk who Zach did not want hearing this. The other people were surprised to see them, and Zach smiled brightly at the group but kept going on his run without pausing. Then he turned back to Reika who was waiting for him to continue his hypothetical conversation, "In this situation, I'm assuming all these assassins think that I am Death for certain, as I'm pretty sure that's the main reason they're all coming after me even with Death still out there."

Reika nodded in understanding, and Zach nodded back to show he was going to continue now. "The second assassin would probably counter with this to that suggestion though," Zach started again. He lowered his voice with Death again and spoke in a scratchier tone, **"You're wrong. Sazaki coming back here was perfect for us, and we're not screwing it up."** Zach lifted up his left hand between him and Reika now the way they were jogging, **"Him coming back here says two things: 1: 'I'm here to be a hero and do things in a more heroic way.'"** Zach nodded after saying it, lifting up a finger which Reika figured was more Zach Sazaki lifting it than the villain whose lines of the conversation he was saying. **"And 2: 'Here I am! I'm putting a target directly on me!' Both are perfect for us. And he's giving us this as a compromise."**

"What do you mean by that?" Reika asked, cutting in as she was following this hypothetical conversation so far. "What are you 'compromising' with the villains after you?"

Zach lowered his fingers and nodded, saying with the nod that he was about to tell her which got Reika to look back forward and just listen. Zach spoke using the villain's lower voice, as Reika already said the line he would've said for the first assassin. **"He's out in the open letting us shoot our shots and try and take his head. The minute you try and get greedy, try and make it any easier than he's already made it for us, and you kill one of the people he cares about… it's all over. It will take ten seconds for him to disappear forever, and then all of us will disappear too and never be seen again."**

Zach's voice in its scratchy, deep tone, saying something so ominous, in a voice that Reika could not tell while not looking directly at Zach's face whether it was the villain he was pretending to be saying it or Zach himself speaking in the third person… it chilled her to her core. Her head slowly turned back to the taller boy running on her side. Zach was staring forward like she just had been, and his head did not turn back to her when she looked his way. His eyes were cold and serious, but the chills left her as she did see some fear in them too, a nervous expression hidden behind that cold gaze. Zach spoke in his own voice again though it was lower in volume, "I suspect that's why the villains aren't coming after me like that. They're nervous of what I might do if it's not me they go after…" Zach's eyes got darker and his expression more fierce. It was darker on the streets and he did not have to worry as much about people far away catching glimpses of him looking so scary. "And they're right to think like that, as they might actually be right."

Reika stared at Zach's face sternly. "Are you serious?" She asked in a scolding tone for him talking that way.

Zach's head nodded though. His eyes shifted back to the right at her, and Reika looked into them in the faint light of dusk that just started making some streetlights turn on. He stopped nodding though at her wide-eyed look, but he kept an intense look on his face and did not retract what he just said. "I came back knowing I might be putting my friends in danger, but this failsafe I have in mind convinces me that it was okay to do so. If I'm wrong, then I have to go again," Zach said. He said it calmly and in an assured tone, certain that it was the right thing to do. "But I really think the ones after me are happier with this arrangement, having me somewhere they can keep an eye on me and try killing me over and over, failing every time as they always will."

Reika looked back forward when Zach stopped speaking. _Even, if they didn't think you were Death. I don't think that's an unrealistic way to look at it. People know the kinds of things Zach Sazaki has done. What you did to those villains in the Lifebringer Incident, it was fucked up. And yet here you are free on the streets and legally fighting villains again. That's gotta scare the shit out of the villains out there. Knowing that you're walking around, but, I suppose, they're happier about that than if you were back but not as a hero. If someone kills a person close to you though, just to get to you… are you really going to-_ Reika bit down and she shook her head. _He said it as a hypothetical. It probably won't happen. And he might be right to leave even, if he knows staying will get everyone close to him killed- but not that other part. Not, those villains "disappearing."_

 _Admittedly, Tiona, a part of me decided to say all of that right there in case any assassins or their informants are listening in. I don't like that no villains are trailing me right now. It's been too long, which means we might just not be spotting them. I know they're still out there though. And I hope they're listening. If you can read my mind too, I want you to know this. I meant every fucking word._ Zach's eyes were full of conviction as he rose them up towards nearby buildings assassins might be watching him from. He rose his lips back up into a smile though a second later, _I need to keep up appearances. I just want you to know how things stand. I don't like how Reika thought Yaoyorozu was my girlfriend. That's unsettling, but those rumors will fade as quickly as me dating Ashido. They're all fake._

"That's," Reika started. Zach turned to her glad to get his mind off certain subjects after just imagining someone reading his mind- always a bad path to go down. Reika paused for a moment, but she shook her head of her misgivings and admitted in a low voice of her own, "It's gotta be hard living like that." Zach stared at her in surprise, but the always tough girl next to him looked at him with sympathy on her face and said while slowing down like he was, "I hope none of your friends get hurt though by people after you, and I hope you're right about the reason they aren't doing anything. It makes sense."

"Doesn't it?" Zach asked with a smile, glad she felt that way as it reconfirmed his strategy.

Reika snorted and she rolled her eyes at his smile and excited way in which he responded right there. The shift in mood was too much and she could not completely get off of the last one, making her grit her teeth to prevent from getting chills again. Just thinking about that deep voice saying in a villainous tone about how Zach's enemies were going to disappear and _'never be seen again,'_ made her crack a grin that spread over her face. She looked up into Zach's eyes on her side and said, "I have to say though, you can be one scary mother fucker."

Zach laughed and rubbed the back of his head with his face left hand. _It was just to scare the nearby assassins. That's all. That's why I looked and sounded like that._ "Yeah, should probably cut back on that. If my voice and my Quirk and my history weren't scary enough, saying ominous shit like that's probably not the best step to take to being more heroic. Guess number 1 of those two is harder than I thought." Reika laughed this time, and Zach smiled more at her laughter. _That's what I like about you, Tiona. You're not a pussy. Feel like your humor is similar to the guys…_ "Hey Tiona," Zach started all of a sudden, turning to her with an interested look on his face.

* * *

In Class A's dorm building in Heights Alliance, Kirishima turned to Sero who stood in the table area but leaning over the kitchen counter closer to where Kirishima was. Kirishima had a plastic bottle in hand he was shaking up a protein drink with, but he paused and looked at the taller black-haired boy smiling at him using the whole bottom half of his face. "What are you talking about?" Kirishima asked, a frown on his face as he questioned his friend.

"Fight night at Zach's," Sero said with somehow a bigger grin as he repeated it.

Sero did not notice but Bakugo was walking from the showers towards the stairs, and he stopped and looked over at what he just heard. "Hm?"

"What is that? 'Fight night?'" Kirishima asked confusedly.

"He said he's having people over to watch this fight on pay-per-view on Saturday," Sero replied.

Bakugo grunted and turned away, continuing back towards his room with an uncaring look.

Kirishima started frowning more at Sero, and the boy with tape dispensers for elbows continued while standing straight up and lifting an offering palm, "It's gonna be a total guys' day. He's getting wings and I think he said he's inviting some of his Shiketsu friends too."

"We can't go out at night," Kirishima said. He got back to shaking his drink, and he said while looking away, "If the fight's at night, there's no way we could go. Even if it is before the curfew cut-off for when we could get passes, the trip's too long."

"Well," Sero backtracked, and Kirishima turned to his classmate who seemed like he actually had thought of this. "I say it's 'fight night,' but the boxing tournament Zach's got us watching is in Los Angeles on Friday night. And 9 P.M. Friday night there, is 1 in the afternoon on Saturday for us." Kirishima started frowning again and Sero lowered his own smile too as the excuse Kirishima was using to just brush this idea away was gone now but Kirishima still looked annoyed by it. "Come on, it's going to be fun. We'll go hang out with him for the day, and those Shiketsu guys too we'll be seeing again at the joint training soon."

"I've got plans," Kirishima said. He stopped shaking his protein shake and rolled his shoulders, thinking about going to the gym and working out on Saturday to work-out the frustration he was feeling right now.

Sero frowned deeply at Kirishima though which stopped the redhead from going up to his room as he was about to. "No you don't," Sero said. Kirishima frowned back at Sero, but Sero continued, "Dude, Zach's your friend too."

"Hmph," Kirishima grunted. He looked away and got a darker look on his face. _Is that what I'd call him? Still?_

Sero continued quickly, "Maybe it doesn't feel like it right now, but _you_ have to be the one to take the first step." Kirishima looked back and saw Sero giving him a sterner look. _You're acting like a kid,_ Sero thought, though he kept that opinion to himself. "I can see how upset you are about the way you guys left things after the hospital. But you have the be the one to go out there, man," Sero shook his head at Kirishima's stubborn and defiant look. Kirishima's look loosened and a more thoughtful one came to it at what Sero was saying to him. "You don't want to leave things like they are. He's left his door open, but he can't come here. It's gotta be you who goes to him, or things are never going to go back to the way they were."

"Things can't go back," Kirishima muttered. Sero started frowning even more, but Kirishima rose his eyes up in an accepting way that got Sero to stare at him in surprise instead. "But," Kirishima continued, albeit reluctantly and looking like he was not too happy about this. He shifted his eyes away from Sero's victorious look, telling himself it wasn't because of what Sero said but what he just thought himself. _Things can't go back, but they shouldn't be like this. I'm avoiding him. It's that stupid, "pathetic" "terrorist" comment. I'm not even sure- I'm pretty sure but still, I… I won't apologize for it. But it'll be awkward- and I'll deal! Zach, we're setting things straight._ "You're right," Kirishima admitted, losing the stubborn look a bit to not even say it was due to what Sero said.

Sero smiled and he laughed at his success there that he was doubtful for at the start. "He is my friend," Kirishima said. _And that's why, I have to try._

* * *

 **A/N Thanks for reading! Hope you enjoyed the chapter. Zach's been attacked again (off-screen), which has ultimately helped him get past that last hold-out in his class. He and Reika go on a run and we see some scary Zach but also an explanation as to why Zach's able to not be super worried about all his friends' safeties now that he's back and being seen with them. And next chapter is... fight day- or night? XD Anyway, fun chapter coming up, look forward to any predictions you might have for it, comments, questions, and any other reviews welcome below!**

Guest chapter 157 . May 18

I have a feeling that it was either Darling, Eziano, or Internet kid (forgot his name already...) Hell it could have even been Raijin!  
Anyways, this chapter was a little unexpected... That they would turn around and believe that he really was himself, simply having an identity crisis amongst severe mental troubles trying to figure out how to get people to trust him again after burning so many bridges... Repeatedly... That he simply doesn't deserve trust at all. At least he understands that.  
I was half expecting him to say that he was death and the leader of that army for the time he was gone, after he said that they wouldn't believe anything he said unless it was what they wanted to hear. Then, point out a clear difference between himself - he makes mistakes. Constantly. If he really was the all mighty Death, the leader of an army so well known, chased after and feared in the world, then how the hell could it survive if he was in charge? He makes mistakes all the time that lead them to believe things that aren't true, yet also into contradicting theories about his own identity. It just wouldn't make sense. Maybe it could make them more suspicious, but if he puts enough 'facts' between himself and Death, then that would probe him innocent.  
If only they had a copy quirk back on the Cloak who was like Monoma, then a fight between Death and Lifebringer could finalize it and put a nail into the coffin. It would have to be highly publicized, perhaps, and Zach would have to lose, but that would clear his name no questions asked.  
The problem with that is, as we already know, Zach can mop the floor with literally anyone he comes across with just his skills alone, no quirk included. So unless they had somebody really good, someone even better than Exodus and Gentle, then they'd never pull it off. At least, to make it seem believeable.  
So I suppose he just has to if ore them... Or take on the AoD as a whole to clear held doubt.  
Anyways, good chapter, and I hope you did well on your finals! Hope to see more soon!

 **First off, thanks for the luck! I did well on all my finals, with the exception of the class I failed so now even post-graduation I have to take another international business class to make up for it *sweatdrop emoji*. Anyway, that class ends in a couple days anyway then I can really get back to some quicker updating (I hope). As for last chapter, I wouldn't say they just turned around and believed him. Bakugo was telling himself that it couldn't be Zach all that time, but even he was hesitant about that and couldn't really convince himself, and after that talk he's lost the conviction that it really wasn't "Zach" who returned. The rest of it though, that Zach was having identity troubles and problems wasn't so easy to believe, and even Midoriya as he comes up to Zach afterwards can't confidently say he believes everything Zach just said, but he is willing to try! Definitely some ways Zach could be more convincing than just Gentle going around being Death and telling people to say they were brought back, but we also didn't see Zach telling him to do that in the first place. Zach's efforts to convince them otherwise seem to be pretty half-assed, but he admits that to those three there would be no point in trying any harder anyway as they probably wouldn't believe the proof if it was shoved straight in their faces like that. Thanks again for your review, and hope you enjoyed the new chapter!**

Todorokiii chapter 157 . May 19

I'm also confused, I don't know if Zach is telling the truth or not but after the conversation Zach had, I never felt pain for him. It's true that's he's having a hard time being himself because of course, he was Death— a different person Zach made that's why he keep forgetting. So is Zach really want to start new, be the Zach he used to be and the hide the fact he was Death? Or he seriously have other plans? If he just want to be back? Well poor him, he needs a break for crying out loud. There are alot of traumatizing things happened but he's still trying to keep sane although he would in the end breakdown. I'm so glad Deku is the person he is, a hero. He knows what to do and all. I love it. Hmm, what dis? Bromance incoming? Dejk. Lol

 **Love it. Haha, this is exactly what I'm kind of going for I guess. It's hard to feel pain for Zach just like those three in front of him didn't, because I've left it vague to you guys, the readers, as to whether or not what Zach's saying/ or even thinking, is the truth. I've become almost an unreliable narrator in that _I_ haven't explained any of his reasons for returning, and the one thing you can usually trust shows his true intentions, his thoughts, are so unclear most of the time you see them. You guys have to either trust Zach's stated reasons for returning or not, but I won't ever narrate what his plans are flat-out. Does he need a break? What deeper plan does he have? Is he trying to just start anew? Lots of questions, and I'd love to see y'all with some predictions as to what he's really doing here if you don't think what he's been saying has been real. No spoilers though! Deku's tryna be a friend though, and we'll see more about that soon... probably, but yeah no spoilers! Thanks for the review! **

Shinn of Destiny chapter 157 . May 19

Lowkey thought we were gonna have Zach vs The Big Three. I was about to freak out lol

 **And expectations subverted! Lol, sorry about that. Would've been wild having that come out of nowhere, but I can see why that might've been expected as they're out in an isolated area and tensions were high. Again, my b XD. Thanks for the review though!**

Guest chapter 157 . May 19

I want to believe that Zach and Midoriya have started in the path of friendship again, I really do! But after 157 chapters of things just fucking exploding in Zach's face when it seems that things are looking up, I just can't bring myself to hope for the poor guy anymore.

 **Been hearing this all year (almost been a year since I started this story). After everything Zach's gone through, can things actually be better for him? Every time he's got something good it gets royally screwed up. But, maybe this time's the time to break that wheel! Zach's going to become happy and stay happy forever with all his friends! ... maybe. ;) Thanks for the review, and hope you enjoyed the chapter!**


	159. Chapter 159

**Disclaimer: I don't own Boku no Hero Academia**

 **Chapter 159:**

"Hey, come in," Zach welcomed his guests into his apartment. He stepped aside and looked around outside his front door, checking clearly the rooftops around his building. As he looked around, Mineta started to mention how they didn't see anyone following them, but Zach was more focused on the apartment two to his left where the door opened and a man and woman stepped out. They looked his way, and Kirishima and Sero both looked over with Zach just behind them. The couple gawked at the Class A students, and Sero turned back to Zach with an apologetic look on his face.

"It's fine," Zach said, shaking his head at Sero and then giving a wave at his neighbors who he was pretty sure by their expressions had no idea he lived there. It did not take very long for those two to put together why Zach Sazaki would be there, as everyone knew he lived somewhere in Yutapu though the exact location was unknown. Zach put up a finger to his lips with a hopeful look at those two who opened their eyes wider in surprise at what he was asking them for. The couple looked at each other, then the woman turned back to Zach and pulled her thumb and index finger along her lips in a zipping motion like her lips were sealed… except when she did it her mouth actually turned into a zipper and closed up. Zach smiled and laughed at the action and then gave the two a grateful look before turning back and stepping into his apartment, closing the door behind him.

 _Shit. Well, they won't be able to keep their mouths shut. Hopefully they don't spread around my exact address, but they'll tell their friends and they'll… people already know I live here. Heroes do, and someone must be corrupt and could have figured it out, sold it to villains for a ton already. It's not that big a deal,_ Zach looked at Kirishima who still stood next to his front door just inside it, glancing towards his washing machine and dryer but more specifically at the wall towards those two people they just saw. "Shouldn't you say something to them?" Kirishima asked, looking back at Zach with a frown even though his question sounded like he was at least worried something might happen to Zach if he didn't.

Zach shrugged his left shoulder and just gave Kirishima a small smile, "Not much I can say. I'm surprised it's been this long without me running into my neighbors." _Though I usually am pretty careful to avoid them. It's just been luck that the people who have come over before weren't spotted._ "I'm sure it'll be fine-"

"Hey, you painted the place!" Mineta spun back to Zach after calling it out, and Zach turned to his shorter classmate who had just looked around the apartment after coming in.

"I guess it's, better than before," Ojiro mentioned, though he said it slowly as he did not have much taste in the matter and could not really tell the difference.

Sero looked down ahead of his feet as he was taking his shoes off on the wood part of the floor, and he laughed while glancing back up at different shades of the light blue on the wall where the paint was thinner. "Looks like you messed up a bit while painting though."

Kirishima looked down at the carpet too, and he noticed the paint stains and and splotches that seemed odd. He glanced up at the shoddy paint job too, then he turned to Zach who was still standing on his side and said, "I saw Ashido with the same blue paint on her shirt when she came back from here." Zach turned to the redhead who he thought was just making idle conversation which felt a little awkward, but more awkward was that somehow he looked accusatory with that question. "But when I asked her she just started laughing about it and wouldn't say what happened."

Zach lifted his eyebrows. "'What happened…'" he repeated slowly, and he cracked a smile that spread over his face. Zach laughed and he started back forward into his apartment, shaking his head like it was nothing and just laughing a couple more times that got his classmates looking at him oddly and in confusion. Kirishima got an annoyed look on his face, but Sero laughed after a second at the apparent inside-joke between the two that neither of them said anything about.

"Thought you were inviting some Shiketsu people over?" Mineta mentioned, walking up to Zach's kitchen counter and pushing his hands down on it to prop his head over on his tip-toes. He leaned himself more over so his feet left the ground and looked to the other side on the lower part of the counter next to Zach's sink where there was a bowl with a bag of potato chips next to it, a box that had some steam coming out and smelled like wings, and Zach's oven was on too with two empty sliders' boxes next to the stove above. "Whoa, you went all out on the American food," Mineta said as he looked around at it all.

"Well, the fight's going on in America," Zach said as an excuse, though he thought, _Plus Americans have better food for sports. This is like, the go-to meal I feel like. I remember they had it on their table that Sunday when we busted in the Crang Gang's base during a-_ "Oh yeah, and I did invite some Shiketsu friends of mine," Zach added, while opening up the potato chip bag and pouring them into the bowl now that some of his friends had arrived. "You guys are just early I think."

Kirishima was frowning towards Zach still just inside the entryway to his place. Ojiro, Mineta, and Sero had all been there before and were just casually walking in like the place was their own. _This is weird,_ Kirishima thought, which made him bite down harder since it actually felt very casual and not awkward which was why it felt so weird to him. He expected some sort of conversation, more like a confrontation, because of what he said in the hospital that made Zach say he thought better of him, and made him think about that for the last few weeks every day. _Does he not even care about it? He didn't even… grr._

"Well it wasn't three hours this time," Sero said while tossing his jacket over the recliner he dropped himself on the armrest of. "Figured out the route by now, and made it in under two and a half."

 _If it had taken three they probably would've gotten here after the others. I don't even know if they're all coming together. Kotsumura just texted me they're on their way, but he didn't specify who 'they' were._

There was a knock on Zach's door, and Zach turned that way in some surprise as Kotsumura's text was not long before and he doubted Keiji was there already. "Hey Kirishima," Zach said, nodding at the spiky redhead who glanced back before giving a single nod and going to open the door.

Kirishima opened the door, and he stared out with a surprised look at a green-haired teen who looked back in with similar surprise. The surprise disappeared though and the two started glaring at each other, with Dendo's lips curling into a smirk despite his glare. "Dendo," Zach called over to the door. "You came…"

"Dendo?" Mineta had gone to the couch and just dropped on it before the knock came, and he stared over in surprise at the large boy who looked past Kirishima and frowned darkly at the short boy who smirked back at him like Dendo first smirked at Kirishima.

"You guys all know each other already, right?" Zach asked, looking to his side at Sero after seeing the others' looks. "What's up with them?" He asked in a quieter voice.

Sero grinned and chuckled as he turned to his friend who didn't know what those three were acting like that for. Ojiro had a sweatdrop rolling down the side of his face as he looked their way too, while Sero had just been grinning like an idiot through it all. Sero said to Zach in a voice loud enough for the whole apartment to hear, "At the joint training we had last year at U.A., Kirishima and Dendo over there got in a one-on-one. Dendo wiped the floor with him," Kirishima started frowning more, feeling like this whole thing was a bad idea now, though he did grin after Sero finished, "But at the end of it, Mineta stuck him with like a hundred Pop-Offs."

"He caught me off guard," Dendo growled into the room that he was now considering not going into.

"Thanks to Kirishima's great distraction," Mineta said, giving a thumbs up over the couch to try and ease both Kirishima and Dendo's more angry looks that he was no longer smirking at. The idea that Kirishima had been the one to really defeat Dendo made both Kirishima and Dendo feel better about that last training they had.

"Well," Dendo started, still standing just outside Zach's apartment. "I think-"

"Is that Dendo?"

Dendo turned his head, and he grimaced as two of his other classmates were walking towards him. They wound up coming behind and ushering him into the open apartment they knew must be Zach's. Imino and Kameko said hi to Zach and then Zach told the three guys who just came in (since Dendo only thought about leaving when there were no other Shiketsu students there), to put their jackets down on his bed in the other room, and he motioned down the hall. His friends all left their shoes near his door on the small wooden area in front of his washing machine closet, and the U.A. teens already there grabbed their coats from wherever they left them too to go bring over to Zach's bedroom. Ojiro and Mineta took off sweatshirts they had on underneath the jackets initially too, as it was warm in Zach's apartment and after a couple minutes it was starting to get to them as they adjusted from leaving the cold air outside.

Zach stayed in the kitchen while the others were putting their things over in his room, and he smiled while calling out that he had sodas and water bottles in the fridge if anyone wanted them. _Seems like everyone knows each other. Or at least they were acquainted, once._ He heard Mineta asking Imino what his name was again, calling him 'Super-hearing-guy' first before admitting he forgot.

"Hey Zach, do you want some money for the food?" Ojiro asked, walking towards the kitchen as Zach was still getting some things out. The timer over the oven still had twenty minutes on it, but Zach pulled out a thing of mini-hot-dogs from his freezer he got ready to put on a plate and throw in the microwave for before the sliders were ready. "You really got a lot."

"I'm good," Zach said, waving Ojiro off as his blond former classmate was reaching for his wallet. "Really," Zach added with a grin when Ojiro seemed like he might still give him some cash anyway. "My stocks did real well this week," Zach said, glancing away from Ojiro towards the hall where Kameko just came back out of.

Kameko's shell had fully healed since his fight with Zach, and the two of them were on good terms having sat together at lunch from that day since. Kameko had listened closely to Zach when he was talking about the Arkitock app, and he grinned back at Zach which surprised his classmate for a second. "You download it?" Zach asked.

"Yeah, I thought it was a good idea after watching you make so much so quickly," Kameko said. He started to lower his smile with a sweatdrop, but then he grinned again and said, "And it was. Though, admittedly I did pick the same ones I saw you were investing in."

"Great move," Zach said, and he laughed about it before he and Kameko turned to Ojiro and explained what they were talking about to the more confused teen.

Sero came back out of the hall after tossing his jacket onto Zach's bed cluttered with them now. He looked over his shoulder, but Imino and Dendo came out of Zach's room not a second later and Sero just turned back forward.

Dendo watched as Sero walked over to Mineta and they went to grab sodas from the fridge. Imino did not seem to notice, turning to Dendo to ask if he wanted a drink as he was going to grab one too, but Dendo was focused on Sero for another second even after the question. _Taping Hero: Cellophane. The way he was just looking back at us, he thought we might have been snooping in Zach's room to be there too long. I was looking around it when I put my coat down, but I did not investigate as much as I would have had it been a few weeks ago. Even if he was still planning something, the chances he'd invite all of us over and leave something incriminating out are zero._

Kirishima sat on Zach's couch and pulled out his phone. _What are we even watching? This is weird._ Kirishima pouted with a glance back towards Zach who was talking with Kameko about how the world economies were booming right now, and the carefree way in which Zach was talking to his current classmates made his old friend glare at him for a second before turning away when he thought Zach might have noticed. _Don't even pretend like… is he really not- not what? Depressed? Manipulating- What is the reason for this-_ Kirishima spun towards the door of Zach's apartment.

"I got it," Zach said before his guests could say they would get the door for him. He headed around his counter, "Should be the last…" Zach opened the door and smiled as it was the last group to show up it looked like. "Hey guys," Zach moved out of the way and motioned inside.

Kotsumura headed in with Reika right behind him, then Satoshi popping in behind them and looking around with his snake eyes big and amazed at the abode. _It's just a normal apartment,_ Zach thought at his classmate who was admiring the place too much. Sero looked over his shoulder, and he rose his eyebrows for a second at the sight of the bombshell blonde who came in. He looked around and then mentioned over at Zach as he was telling the new arrivals where they could put their shoes and coats, "It's a total Shiketsu fest in here."

"We're so outnumbered," Mineta said, quieter and as he got to the couch that he plopped onto next to Kirishima.

Zach walked over towards Sero while the other three who just came in made for his room to put their jackets. "Who else did you invite?" Zach asked.

"Just some of the guys," Sero replied like it was not many. He almost pulled it off, but Zach furled his lip and rose his right eyebrow at Sero who sighed after a moment of trying to hold the bluff. "Alright, I invited everyone except Bakugo and Todoroki, and Iida," he added at the end, thinking about how he started inviting Midoriya and saw Iida move away like he did not want to hear the invitation himself. Sero sweatdropped as he responded, but he did not know what to say as Zach just nodded in understanding.

 _No Koda, no Sato, no Aoyama, figured maybe some of the others might come too to at least check up on if I'm doing anything too… whatever. This'll be fine,_ Zach rose up his mood as he was almost getting down there for a second. "So, how've things been going with you and your girlfriend?" Zach asked, making Sero open his eyes a bit wider in surprise. They never texted about that, but Zach remembered it being mentioned the last time Sero was over. "Azure, right?"

"Things with me and Azure, haven't really been working out," Sero replied reluctantly, tilting his head to the side like it couldn't be helped.

"Might be because you're not hanging out with her on weekends," Ojiro said, a small smile on his face as Sero sweatdropped at the comment.

"Well what about Hagakure?" Sero retorted back after a moment. "You're not hanging out with her today either."

"Yeah, where is Hagakure?" Zach asked. He looked to Ojiro when he asked it, but he glanced to Sero after too and said, "And Mina? You invite either of them?"

Ojiro rolled his eyes and responded for Sero, "Sero was making it out like it was a guys' day."

"Hey, Saturday's for the boys, right?" Sero asked with a grin back at Zach who laughed at the comment he had heard sometimes while he was abroad more than he ever had in Japan. Sero had, during what he considered his best relationship with Pony, been told by her that very thing when he apologized for not hanging out with her one Saturday. Mentioning that phrase made Sero think of Pony, which then made him think of his current girlfriend in the second year who he should have been thinking of instead of a past girlfriend. _If Pony's the first one on my mind though, probably not too invested in this anymore. Ahh, this is going to suck._ Sero shook his head, deciding to leave figuring out how to end things with his girlfriend to a time when he was not hanging out at Zach's.

Sero had laughed when he mentioned Saturday being for the boys, but Zach turned and looked at Reika who came out of the hall and frowned at the dark-haired teen who just said that. Zach sweatdropped and then laughed as Sero noticed her look too and threw his hands up in defense. As Sero started talking to the blonde who snapped that she hoped she wasn't "imposing" in a sarcastic tone at him, Zach thought while watching Tiona, _Admittedly I somehow thought of this in the same way, Sero. I didn't say to only invite the guys, but it wasn't until the other day during the run when it felt like she was 'one of the guys' that I thought to invite Tiona too._

"No Deku here?" Kotsumura said, and Zach turned to see his neighbor in the classroom had just walked up behind him. "Was looking forward to seeing him again."

"You guys meet at the last training?" Zach asked, surprised Kotsumura had not brought it up before.

"Yeah, even got in a fight for a moment." Kotsumura scratched the back of his head, and he added with a sheepish laugh, "Wasn't a long fight."

"So what's this fight?" Reika snapped, turning to Zach after standing where she was for a few seconds without anyone saying something to her.

 _Glad someone asked,_ Kirishima thought, looking over and standing up as he was ready to start watching this. "The tournament starts up…" Zach looked at his phone, and he put it away after a second with a shrug. "In a few minutes. We've got to get it set up on the tv from my laptop though, but I've already got it over there almost ready," Zach motioned towards his tv stand where his laptop was sitting on top of with a drive sticking out the side and a matching one sticking out the back of his tv.

"Why do you even care about this tournament?" Kirishima asked as Zach started over to the sitting area of his main room. He frowned as Zach glanced to him, "Any reason?" _There has to be something. Was this just an excuse-_

"I know one of the fighters in it," Zach said.

"Whoa, really?" Sero asked in surprise, as Zach had not told him about this and he really thought it was just for fun.

"Yeah," Zach said, picking up his laptop and opening it up. He unlocked it with his thumbprint, and he had some tabs opened already on the internet. The first screen had the 'Purchase Completed' icon for paying for the pay-per-view on it, but the screen below was just a place-holder until the live stream started. There was a countdown under the place-holder that just dropped below three minutes left. Zach flipped to the next tab and spun his laptop to the others in his main room, and he pointed down the bracket at the name at the bottom since the fighter was the second seed in the tournament. "Bobo Cambri, he's an Italian boxer."

"The fight's in Los Angeles though?" Kotsumura said, reaffirming it as he thought that's what Zach told them at school.

Reika looked closer at the bracket Zach had up and the title above it while she pulled her own phone out. _Let's see, if he's going for Bobo- picking the number 2 seed right off the bat? I'm not going for Valente, picking the 1 I'll look like a little bitch. How about the 3? If no upsets, the second round he'll be up against Cambri? Alright, let's go DeCarlo._ "I'm going for DeCarlo Jackson."

The guys in the room looked back at the blonde girl leaning over the back right corner of the couch with her phone up in her hands. Half of the guys then pulled out their phones since Zach turned the computer back around to get to setting up the broadcast to stream through his tv. His kitchen timer started ringing while he was finishing it up though, and Ojiro looked over from just at the end of the counter. He was standing there and watching the others all argue about who was going to win while doing quick research on this random fighting tournament none of them had heard of before today. "I'll get it," Ojiro suggested since Zach was still working on tech setup.

"Got it," Zach finished, tapping a key that made his tv turn to show the computer screen. He put his computer down next to the tv and headed towards the kitchen. "But yeah, I could use the help," he added to the blond looking hesitant as he did not know if Zach finished quicker so he could do it himself or not.

"What's in the oven?" Kotsumura asked while heading back to the counter himself.

"Sliders," Zach replied with a look to his side. "You pick someone you think's going to win?"

"Bobo," Kotsumura replied and grinned. "Figure if you're picking him, he's definitely taking it."

"I picked him 'cause he's my friend," Zach countered while looking away from Kotsumura and opening his oven. He reached in with his left hand and took out the tray that he put up on the stove without wearing a pot holder.

"Shit- oh yeah," Kotsumura shook his head after seeing Zach do that casually and almost freaking out. Ojiro was still staring with wide eyes though, before remembering something he saw in that box Zach received last time he was there. "Thought you said you could feel the arm though," Kotsumura mentioned.

"I can," Zach replied. "But it's less a pain I feel when I should be in pain, but an indicator of pain. Like my fingers are still stinging with that notifier pain signal, but it doesn't actually hurt like if I had used my right."

"What does a 'notifier pain signal' feel like if not pain?" Kotsumura asked.

"I could show you," Zach replied. "I have another fake arm around here somewhere, so all we'll need to do first is-"

"I'm good," Kotsmura crossed his arms in front of his chest and leaned back from the counter.

"Here," Zach said after laughing for a second. He handed the plate of mini-weenies to Kotsumura that had been sitting on the counter to cool for a minute. "Put these on the- the plate's not hot," Zach assured, since he was handing it off with his left hand and Kotsumura hesitated wondering if Zach was about to unintentionally burn him. "Coffee table," Zach finished, motioning over towards the living room.

"Ok," Kotsumura grabbed the plate and let out an audible sigh of relief that Zach rolled his eyes at before Kotsumura went back to the couch and announced the arrival of the weenies.

"Nice!" Satoshi called out, having not seen the weenies yet and jumping up at the sight of them. Reika moved in as soon as Satoshi was up, and she casually sat down and leaned back to get comfortable in the seat by the time Satoshi looked back and lowered his bottom lip covered in crumbs.

"You got some more furniture for this place since last time I was here," Mineta called over to Zach. He wondered how so many of them were sitting in that room for a moment before realizing there was a second cushiony chair and some extra seats not including the folding chairs at Zach's kitchen table he had to bring over last time.

Zach had already counted and he was going to have to bring those other two over again once everyone was sitting, but he did agree with Mineta for a second before getting interrupted by Kotsumura. "Hey! I thought you said we couldn't come over or we'd draw too much attention," he frowned at Zach for saying that before if he was letting the U.A. guys come over. "No discriminating against Shiketsu," he said in a defiant tone.

"Why would I? I am Shiketsu right now," Zach replied, and then he grinned towards his old classmates who felt even more outnumbered now. "Joint training's going to be more fun this year for sure," Zach added while turning back to the food he was prepping now that the countdown was about to end and start showing the stream from L.A.

Kirishima looked over and narrowed his eyes at Zach for what he just said. _Joint training at Shiketsu in a couple weeks. If he stays in place that long, it'll be a lot different from last year's. Inasa couldn't take Midoriya and Todoroki together. This time we know all their Quirks though too. They had the advantage last time of us only knowing Inasa's, and them having thirty people while we only had nineteen. And they still lost. Zach won't…_ Kirishima bit down behind his lips with an intense look covering his face.

 _Zach will make a difference,_ Ojiro thought while looking at Zach's back from up close in the kitchen. _He knows us, our weaknesses, our fighting styles he watched us build from the first day. It's been a while, but he knows us better than any of them who only saw us fight once. Plus, just having Zach's power on top of everything else… Save this for when it comes._ Ojiro shook those thoughts from his head, and he asked Zach as his friend was getting out a plate to put those sliders onto, "What were you saying before, when those others came in," Ojiro specified as what Zach and Kameko had been talking about got interrupted by the arrival of Reika and the others. "About the stock market, and what you started saying about the world economy only going to rise? Why do you think that?"

Zach nodded as he had been cut off and figured he could finish in the minute they had before the show would start. "It's not just nations that are changing their Quirk laws," Zach began. "Some people attribute the changes to those kind of law shifts, but then others argue against it because the rise is everywhere at the same time." Zach reached over to the fridge and opened it to get himself a soda, and he continued while he did, "Even nations that aren't adapting to allow Quirk-use in more businesses are benefiting from the ones that do. New tech advancements, and cheaper manufacturing costs in countries with lax Quirk laws that make it cheaper for consumers everywhere, which allows more consumers to use their excess money to invest in stock markets…"

As Zach talked some economics with Ojiro, the screen in his living room flipped from the countdown to a live recording from a huge arena in Los Angeles, California, on the west coast of the United States. The arena's seats were full of people and the place was getting more crowded still, but the Japanese announcer for the stream called out from their box near the edge of the room looking down at the ring, "Welcome ladies and gentlemen to the Diamond Gloves Invitational! This Friday night we have quite a lineup of…"

"Hey guys," Sero said over to his right, looking from behind the couch where he was standing. "It's starting."

"Turn it up," Kotsumura said. "Wait, who's got the remote? Reika?"

"It's loud enough," Reika said, holding the remote on her lap and smirking as she took control of the volume, and thereby the tv.

"Damn, you got a lot of food," Satoshi said while looking over and seeing Zach and Ojiro walking in with bowls of chips and plates of burgers and wings.

"Didn't know how many people would be coming," Zach said, and he put his bowl and plate down on the coffee table before heading back to grab a chair from his kitchen.

"Oh hey, you can sit here," Mineta started from the recliner. _Be impressed-_ out the corner of his eye he saw Reika was intently watching the tv as the announcer was going over what the fights would be. _Oh,_ Mineta thought disappointedly.

"I'm fine," Zach told the short boy who he figured was not offering up the seat for any wholesome reason anyway. Zach grabbed two folding chairs from his kitchen, and he tossed one to Ojiro who rose his hands with quick reflexes and caught it right as he started heading over to grab it himself. He looked at Zach with a sweatdrop rolling down his face as that was unnecessarily dangerous, and Satoshi had pulled away far to the side on the couch making Kirishima grumble at him in annoyance.

"Sorry," Satoshi said to Kirishima, at the same time Zach said it to Ojiro with less of a real apologetic look as he knew Ojiro could catch the light chair. He put his chair out in between the recliner and the couch, and he scooted it to the side to let Ojiro put his down too and make a full semi-circle, though the gap was small now and it would be tough for anyone to get out except by sliding between Kameko's chair and the couch, or by going around the far side of Mineta's in the gap near that wall.

"So Zach," Mineta started when Zach was sitting on the left of his chair. Mineta had reached forward and grabbed one of the paper plates they brought out, and he was stacking his plate up with the not-so-spicy-looking wings Zach had gotten compared to the really dark red ones Dendo and Kirishima both went for simultaneously. "How do you know this Bobo guy?" Mineta asked while leaning back into his comfy chair.

The others looked over at Zach too for a moment, though some of them looked back at the tv as apparently the stream was starting up just before the first match. There was a minute or two of the camera showing around at the American celebrities and a few foreign ones who had bought front row tickets to the boxing tournament. The first round with the top seed in it was coming up though, and after getting into the tournament a few minutes ago the teens at Zach's apartment were actually looking forward to seeing how well the favorite would do.

In Zach's living room, the chair opposite Mineta's had Kameko in it with Imino sitting on the inside armrest almost blocking that already small gap between it and the couch. Reika sat in the corner of the couch, with Kotsumura next to her and then Kirishima and finally Satoshi. Sero went around the side of the couch on Imino's side and sat on the armrest there now fully blocking the gap so the two of them would have to move their legs to allow others in. Dendo had another chair that was not a folding chair but not a comfy recliner like the others sitting just inside of the windows on Kameko's other side, the very last spot on that side one could sit while still being able to see the screen. _Figured there'd be enough room,_ Zach thought as everyone was sitting now with Sero down and no one looked too uncomfortable.

"Bobo's a pro boxer from Italy, and I met him over there back last spring," Zach replied. He did not sound too focused on answering that question, instead leaning forward and grabbing a cheeseburger slider himself that he dug into as the Japanese announcer paused for a second so they could listen to the ring judge who started shouting out to the crowd to a huge amount of applause. Intro music for the first combatants started, and the cameras zoomed in on the boxers as they entered wearing only big coats over their shorts.

Zach felt a buzz in his pocket and he pulled his phone out to check who it was from. He looked at the screen in surprise for a second, then a small smile formed back on his face at the text he got from Midoriya. _So Lemillion's got them busy this weekend. Probably not following me, since Midoriya knows I'm with the others here right now. Well, good luck,_ Zach responded to Midoriya's text and then put his phone away to focus more on the fight. _That's good. Great. He's not just avoiding me. Not like all of them- that's not what matters here. Midoriya's going out there today to fight villains, and here I am watching tv and playing high school student. I should be out at the waste office, or find a legit internship- except it's too late to do one through the school, and Shiketsu doesn't allow private ones for its students! This is a day to relax, and to make opinions change, to make things better with Kirishima! I have the chance to do that here, and I haven't been focused on it at all. He looks like he's not even enjoying this, and it's because he still has so much he wants to talk about. I don't want him to leave though, and he won't want to stay if our talk goes… Maybe I should check the news to see if Midoriya needs help-_

Zach tried to focus on the screen while his classmates old and new started arguing about the first fight. "Even the eight seed was still invited to this 'Invitational,' and since Bobo's from Italy they've got world-class boxers every one of them," Zach chimed in when Mineta said that obviously the first seed was going to win. _Just focus on the boxing. There's a lot going on, but this is what you're doing today. It has its own purpose. There are things I can get done while we do this. It's a fight in itself, keeping up appearances and leading them to believe I'm… for future interactions! I'm alright. I'm dealing with stuff on my own._ Zach leaned back in his chair as the announcer started calling out the boxers who were in different corners of the ring now.

"Hey Zach," Ojiro mentioned to his right while they were still waiting on the fight to start. "I haven't asked, but that thing you did going to fight the Subspace Devils," Ojiro paused and Zach nodded at his friend on his side speaking in a low voice. "How did you get to stay in school after it? You didn't actually skip that whole day, right? You left in the middle?"

Zach was just thinking about dealing with his own stuff, and what Ojiro mentioned brought another thought to the front of his mind. _That call from the Prime Minister's office was easier than I thought it'd be. They want to keep it on the down-low though that they heard from my principal that I need a therapist. Nikko doesn't want it getting out if I'm unstable and he pardoned me anyway. Especially if news about what I did to Faith in prison ever came out, he'd be wrecked for knowing that beforehand. I'm assuming someone told him before he could sign the pardon? Probably._

 _The office let me get away with it too easily though. They shouldn't let me just get away with everything. I told them I was getting therapy, and they just believed it. Saying I'd get one "inconspicuously" so that no one would hear about it, made them thank me for my discretion. Took that as my out for not going to therapy since I can always just pretend I have a therapist no one else knows about. The school administration will hear from the PM's office that it's all settled, and I'll get away with all of it without even a punishment. Again._ "Yeah, but I convinced them it was alright," Zach replied, looking back to the tv as the match was starting and he did not really have another way to respond to Ojiro's question he hesitated on for a couple seconds.

 _How did you do that?_ Ojiro wondered at Zach, though he was quiet and turned back as Kotsumura and Satoshi both got loud on either side of Kirishima going for the eight seed to pull an upset in the first round against what Dendo had said would happen. Dendo said firmly that the top seed's stats spoke for themself when they were put up earlier in comparison to his opponent's.

Mineta also had looked to his left as he heard the question Ojiro asked Zach. He kept looking at Zach oddly for another few seconds after Ojiro turned to the screen though, _No one brought it up so I just pretended like it didn't happen, but are we not going to talk about that?! God I wish Zach was back in class, those Shiketsu guys aren't even treating him like, like a celebrity or anything. They're more like his classmates now than we are,_ Mineta's frown deepened a little, but he spun to the screen as Dendo grinned and Satoshi and Kotsumura pulled back on the couch.

"Not looking too good for your underdog there," Reika said with a smirk at Kotsumura on her right.

"I wouldn't count him out," Sero said, making Reika turn the other way and look on the armrest right next to her. Sero was sitting on the edge of it but not that far off it like he was making sure he gave her a lot of room. He glanced back at her for a second and then grinned past at Kotsumura and added, "Our guy's got this."

Kirishima looked to his left towards Sero, then he frowned and shifted his gaze past Dendo to the tv. If Dendo had not already picked the one seed he would have argued with Sero right there, as it looked like the top seed in the tournament was kicking butt.

 _He's going to get gassed if he keeps up that pace,_ Zach thought while watching the "best" fighter in the tourney. _He has the most knock-outs of any of them, most wins too, but the second lowest wins by points. Still a lot, but it shows Valente's not in it for the long-run, unlike Sanchez. And something about Sanchez not seen in those stats, is that despite his losses, he's never been knocked out in the ring._ Zach leaned in and looked closer at the match as Valente got in another strong right hook that slammed Sanchez and made the Hispanic man throw his guard higher while backing up faster. _Always a first for everything though, and Sanchez hasn't fought Valente before._

"Sanchez has to have a Quirk like yours to let him take all those hits," Kotsumura said to the redhead next to him who glanced his way and then to the tv with a grunt-hum.

"Nope," Reika said while sitting forward on Kotsumura's other side. He looked her way and saw Reika staring closely in at the screen with a smirk on her face. She did not turn Kotsumura's way, but she said, "When I looked it up, none of them had Quirks that would help them in this tourney."

"Would be pretty unfair-" Satoshi started, only to go "Ohh!" as Valente nailed Sanchez in the side of the head and knocked him down.

Ojiro glanced to his left side at Satoshi when the other boy let out that yell. He looked back to the tv himself afterwards while the announcer was calling out about the knockdown too, the crowd was going wild, and some of the others in the room like Satoshi were grinning or calling out at the screen after the last blow. _Fighting like this is… It's a different culture. Old fighting styles in Japan people still just fought mainly for points. This kind of fighting going for the most damage, stay down._ Ojiro grimaced as the man who had been getting beaten throughout the first round was getting back to his feet again.

"There we go, come on," Sero smacked down on his knees a couple times. He saw Dendo turn to him and Sero looked back with a competitive smirk as Dendo had _loudly_ picked Valente before the fight. "It's not over yet!" Sero called out, spinning back to the screen as a ding signaled the fight continuing.

 **Knock knock,** Zach looked over to his door, and he got up from his seat that he slid to the side a bit to get behind the couch easier.

"Who else is coming?" Kotsumura asked, looking back at Zach and then next to him past Reika at Sero. Sero shook his head though, since he doubted it was anyone from U.A.. Reika snapped at the screen between them making the two look back towards it where Valente was slamming a flurry of punches into Sanchez' guard, turning his brown skid more red by the second.

Zach looked through the peephole of his door. _Uh, well shit,_ Zach opened the door and greeted the man standing outside his room. The chubby, five foot one man standing outside Zach's room leaned his head to the side and looked around Zach into his living room where there were quite a lot of people gathered. Most of them looked over too when they saw it was not another of their friends showing up late, but an older man for some reason. "Hey, Norita-san," Zach greeted.

"What's going on?" Norita wondered at the sight of so many young heroes he recognized at his apartment complex.

"Zach, who is that?" Sero asked, looking over at the door and the strange man outside he did not recognize.

"Norita-san's my landlord," Zach said, darting Sero a look that got him dropping his smile. He thought about how he just shouted at Dendo about the match being far from over, and he slouched with a bead of sweat rolling down his face as he wondered if this was his fault. Zach turned back to the landlord standing in his entrance in warmer clothes than the students inside who were starting to feel a breeze from out there. "Sorry, Norita-san, were we being too loud?"

"Oh no, not at all," Norita said with a wave of his hands in front of him. "I just had to explain to some of the other residents though about you living here though," he mentioned, and Zach nodded as he thought about seeing the neighbors when he let some of his friends in. "And I thought I would see what was going on, but it seems I've just interrupted a get-together-"

"Would you like to come in? I've got food," Zach offered.

Mineta sweatdropped and glanced towards the door with some apprehension on his face. _Are we really going to hang out with that old dude?_

"I'm quite alright," Norita said with a laugh, though he lowered his arms he had risen defensively at first and just smiled gratefully at his tenant. "Well, I just wanted to check up on what was going on. Anyway," he made like he was going to leave, but he hesitated and mentioned a little louder back into the apartment, "And if you all could keep it down just a little, I would appreciate it. Not that I don't already appreciate all of you, you know," he added at the end with a laugh that got the other teens who looked his way to smile too.

Reika just rose up a thumb above her head without taking her eyes off the tv, making Kotsumura sweatdrop next to her as she did not even look back at the man. He spoke to the guy though, "You've got it." He spoke-whispered his assurance and gave an 'a-okay' hand signal to the man.

 _ **Ding ding**_

The first round ended while Zach was up, and he rubbernecked to look over while still standing in his doorway. Sanchez ended the round on his feet, and he lowered his gloves from in front of his face with an intense expression covering it that Zach looked at closely while Valente walked away from his opponent in a cocky way. "Well then," Norita gave Zach a wave as he turned to head off, and Zach looked back and apologized to his landlord once again since Norita mentioning the noise at the end made him think the initial denial was actually just to be polite.

"He didn't even want one burger?" Kotsumura asked as Zach started back to his seat. He had just reached forward and lifted his new slider up when he said it. "By the way, you get these from Marutowaru?" Zach nodded over at Kotsumura who grinned back, "Knew it." A few others looked to him and he said, "I cooked some of these exact sliders up a couple days ago right when I got home from school-"

"Alright Valente's got this in the bag," Reika said, making Kotsumura cut off and look the other way to the blonde girl who turned the conversation back on boxing. "He's going to be the one facing DeCarlo in the championship bout."

"You already calling DeCarlo beating my boy Bobo?" Zach asked over, leaning forward in his seat he just dropped back in. He looked at Reika with an accusatory look and a strange expression on his face a couple of the others around him noticed.

Reika thought it was just a trash-talking look back to her though that did not seem all that weird. She opened her mouth to counter that Jackson definitely was going to beat Cambri in the second round, if Zach's guy even made it past round 1, but Ojiro asked his friend sitting right next to him first, "Who do you think has this fight, Zach?"

"Huhh?" Satoshi looked over the armrest at the blond on his right side whose tail stuck through the gap of the folding chair's back and the seat. "Valente's crushing him-"

"I'd bet on Sanchez," Zach replied while Satoshi was speaking. The snake-eyed boy spun to Zach with his vertical gold slits of irises narrowing even more as he checked to see if Zach was just messing with him and wanted him to go back on his own assurance here. "Didn't you want Sanchez to win?" Zach asked.

"Well yeah," Satoshi started. "But, that doesn't mean he will."

"You're full of it Zach," Reika said. She shook her head and did not even look towards the black-haired boy who turned her way when she said that. _If he's serious then he hasn't been watching. While he was up at the door, alright Valente didn't get any more_ _ **big**_ _hits in, but Sanchez didn't land shit!_

"Not basing it off their stats or anything, and just based on the fight as we've seen so far," Zach said over to her. He noticed all the others in the area looked towards him, and Reika even lifted the remote and muted the screen for a second to hear Zach's analysis instead of the announcer's. "I think Sanchez can do it. From what I've seen, Sanchez has barely thrown any punches and doesn't look all that fazed from Valente's hits besides the one that knocked him. Sanchez's durability is high, and he's saving strength for when Valente gets winded-"

"Even if that's his plan," Dendo cut in before anyone else could speak, his voice coming out loud right as Zach seemed to be finished with his prediction. "No way Valente gets gassed in one fight. The tournament's three fights long if he keeps winning, so even what he's been going at is probably half-pace."

"Maybe," Zach admitted. "But it'll still tire him out a little, compared to Sanchez. And even if Valente only goes down a little in stamina, if Sanchez starts up at full right when Valente's getting slower-"

"Alright Sanchez!" Kotsumura called out, believing in his pick once again after losing hope there when Sanchez got knocked halfway through round 1.

A bunch of the others frowned over at Kotsumura when he called out like that though. He remembered how the landlord had just come to check on them too and slouched back into the couch. "Idiot," Reika said, and then she un-muted the tv before he could respond. The fighters were moving away from their corners and Reika had it back on right at the start of the round.

Kirishima glanced over to Zach and saw him refocused in on the fight like most of the others around them. _Is he actually into this? What is he doing all this for? I thought it might be, his way of trying to gather together the people he still needs to apologize to. I thought we were going to talk about, about everything! I don't want… later. This is a whole tournament. I, I'll have time._ Kirishima almost thought for a second that he just wanted to leave, but he calmed himself down and refocused on the fight himself.

 _Who's going to win this one? What does it matter? That's not why I'm…_ Zach lowered the corners of his lips down a little when Kirishima's gaze was back fully on the screen. _Why am I trying to look so interested in this? Kirishima doesn't believe it, and just pretending like things are alright isn't going to fix what's up between us. What is the plan here? The reason I'm doing this. How does it contribute to the plan?! Zach would want to do this so- would he? Fuck. Kotsumura's already onto something, just get into the fights and remember to keep up appearances! That's the goal. Kirishima being here will let him overhear more conversations about my time on Terra and in space, and he'll have to start believing it… What's the point though? Can I recover the friendship we once had, while lying to him? Jirou called me out on it and she was right. I'm a liar. I'm lying right now. This whole thing. This isn't a get together. I'm just tricking everyone here into thinking I threw a normal event like this. But that's what I have to do. In order to stay here. I had the conviction to return and do this before I left, and I knew it would suck once I did, but this is how things are now! Just focus on the fight!_

"Whoa!" Sero leaned forward and called out.

Reika lowered her grin that she had since telling Kotsumura it did not look good for his underdog, but Kotsumura and Satoshi both jumped up too as Sanchez started his counterattack. He had kept waiting through the second round too, but Valente was getting frustrated by his opponent's lack of showing pain or any reaction to his hits, and he left himself open for a devastating uppercut. Sanchez followed up the blow while Valente was disoriented, and half of the room in Zach's apartment jumped up as Sanchez hit exactly where Valente did not have his guard each time. Valente was switching up guarding his face to body, trying to get a hold of himself while staying on his feet. It would have been better if he had gone down first though and then recuperated while standing back up. Instead, he was dealt a dozen powerful blows before he lowered his arms to protect his chest again, which resulted in one final punch to the face by Sanchez that looked to dent the 1-seed's face in.

Valente fell backwards, and since he had already been pushed nearly back to the ropes, he fell into the ropes and slouched down into them nearly falling out of the ring. Ojiro had been watching with wide eyes as he was not expecting Sanchez to go on that sudden counterattack, but as the others started cheering or groaning he just checked closer on the boxer who was not moving on the ropes. The referee called the fight and got the boxer's team up there to help him out, and Ojiro saw the guy dazedly moving his head around that made him relax again. _That was an intense turnaround,_ Ojiro thought to himself, admitting that he enjoyed it even though afterwards he had been anxious for a few seconds.

"Well, there goes your pick," Kameko said to his side, making Dendo grind his teeth behind his lips and look away in annoyance as he could see Reika smirking much wider towards him than Kameko.

 _Hope we're not being too loud,_ Zach thought with a glance down at the floor.

Kirishima glanced over towards Zach again and frowned at what it looked like Zach was thinking about. _He was right about the fight. Sanchez exploded out with that flurry, while Valente was at the end of his last flurry himself and couldn't catch- damn it, what am I thinking about right now? I should be,_ Kirishima turned his head a little and looked towards the hallway to Zach's room where he had left his jacket. _If I say I left something in my jacket, I'll have thirty seconds to a minute to go over there and get it. Not much time to search his room, but it wasn't a big room. Would Zach have left anything for…_ Kirishima's eyes turned back forward and locked on the laptop next to the tv where the arena's announcer was calling out for Armenio Sanchez who threw up his arms in victory with the ref raising one of his wrists.

The others started talking more about the fight, but even though Kirishima turned and listened in without chiming into it at all, his thoughts were focused on that laptop he just looked at. _Right in front of us. The one place we can't check or look through even if he's out of the room or not watching us, because he has the computer occupied. It's the perfect place too. Inside there, he has anti-hacking equipment I think Sero said he mentioned when he got it. No one can see what he's doing on there but him. There have to be some files. Something on there about what he's really doing here. Something the people who sent the laptop to him left on it. Mission briefings? What if he's really not Death, but just one of them, and Death sent him back here on this mission? It could be on there! And he already unlocked the laptop. It's open and sitting there like it clearly doesn't have anything on it, but that could just be what he wants us to think by putting it so blatantly in our faces._

Kirishima's eyes shifted over to a teen with blue skin who he thought he saw looking at him through the corners of his eyes. Imino was not looking his way so Kirishima just focused on someone else, and though Imino thought he got away with that, Kirishima was thinking while Mineta talked confidently about why Valente lost, _That's right, he can hear super well. If I went searching through Zach's room he would hear dressers and closets being opened and know I wasn't just grabbing my jacket or something. He might even be able to hear my heartbeat and knows I'm thinking of something like that. Is that why Zach invited him while inviting me to come? He knows what I was thinking about the laptop? Damn it, he's not even the one who can read minds! If that girl was here though… hold on, why doesn't- why hasn't she caught him yet? Did he trick her or something?!_

The announcers switched to start talking about the next match, and the teens in the room all focused on it too. Imino was the only one to pick one of these guys to win it all, with a lot more of them picking from the lower half of the bracket either choosing Bobo or someone they wanted to beat Bobo.

After the second round, Mineta leaned back in his chair with his hands behind his head. "I could've beat either one of those guys. A pro boxer has nothing on a hero," his look of sheer boastful confidence made most of the others look at him in disdain.

"I don't know about that," Sero began. "But I don't think either was as good as Valente or Sanchez. I bet Kaibara could've taken either of them."

"Sen Kaibara?" Zach asked, leaning forward and looking to the other end of the couch from the side he was sitting on.

Sero nodded his head, and Dendo looked over at the sound of that full name from Sero's other side around the bend of the room, "Spiral?"

Sero nodded again Dendo's way, "Yeah, that's his hero name. He boxes…"

As Ojiro spoke up too about Kaibara's fighting skills, since the two of them had fought it out intensely in a match before, Zach looked back to the tv with his expression the same but his eyes more distant. _Spiral, huh? The Spiral I knew would kick Kaibara's ass. His Quirk- Top, is much better than Gyrate. Was, better._ Zach's expression saddened, for a brief moment, and then he got back to the same look he had just had a moment ago while thinking, _The Battle of the 6 Armies took a lot of good soldiers though. Spilaro fought hard, he fought through a lot, and he died a hero on the battlefield of Tebit…_

The third round started and went quickly, with a first round knockout from Jackson who Reika cheered for _way_ too loudly for someone who did not even know the athlete before it. Zach nodded as Reika taunted over that his guy would not stand a chance in the next round if he even made it. _Bobo will have a tough one, but all of these should be tough- alright. Here we go. The reason I invited everyone over. To see Bobo, and ultimately lead to a conversation about him._ Zach's expression looked more excited, but in his peripheral vision he saw a few people staring over to him. _Get more into it. This is why they're here. This is why I had a party. There's Bobo! I'm excited! Jump up._

"Alright," Zach clapped his hands together and then rubbed them on his knees while leaning forward in his chair. _Is that all? It is the first time I'm seeing him in more than half a year. He looks good,_ Zach leaned back in his chair. He lost some of the excitement, but the intros and long entrances for the fighters was going to take a few minutes. _I had to do this. I'm doing this as a, a trick to get a conversation going about my time here. To shift lingering feelings that I might be Death. Without looking like I'm trying to tell them directly. It should work great. It'll be verifiable if they do decide to dig. You can erase doubt. How can I be excited about this, knowing how convincing this lie- it's not a lie though! I really did go to Italy… but what I'm doing right here, will imply that I never was. Which I wasn't. But it's a lie to them anyway. If they discover, they'll have believed it so strongly, just like I believe it. I'd never come back from it. But, that's the price. I accepted I would pay it. Now just do it! Fuck._

Zach continued to smile at his tv screen, and he said in an impatient voice, "Come on, get it started already."

"This is actually looking like a pretty even matchup. Their stats are the most even out of any of the other fights."

"How did your friend Bobo get the second seed and Tunco seventh with them so even like that?"

"Maybe Tunco's had all those losses more recently. He's older than Bobo by a couple years-"

"I checked the record," Reika interrupted. "His last four fights were wins. While Cambri lost his last match before this. Not looking good for the Italian."

"Bobo's got this in the bag," Zach retorted back over.

"He does look, imposing," Satoshi admitted as Zach's boxer was heading to the stage.

Bobo Cambri had a couple scars on his large, muscular body, and his face was intimidating with a look of menace on it unlike the other boxers before him had. The heavyweight boxer stood six foot six, he had tan skin, and he walked towards the stage with his coat off so all he was in were his black boxing shorts. He had an x-shaped scar up around his right shoulder, and when a camera angle caught him from the back there was a clear small circular scar on the lower left side of his back not far from his spine. His right arm had a long scar going down the outside of it that curved onto the inside of his forearm before getting fainter and fading off, and on his upper left arm was a tattoo of a snake coiled around his bicep with the head coming up on his collarbone but staying below the neck.

Bobo stepped up onto the stage with an American man with darker skin than his already dark tan skin tone. Tunco glared back at his opponent who gave off a menacing vibe while shoving his mouthpiece in and glaring ferociously at his first round matchup. "You can see the sparks flying between these two!" The Japanese announcer called out while the ring announcer was giving out their stats and weights.

 _Bobo's opponent doesn't look fazed._ Zach examined the look on the other boxer's face. _He's seen some shit of his own. Boxing's not a very lucrative sport these days. Too difficult to regulate strengths in- alright, let's go._ Zach leaned forward in his seat as the boxers made for the middle of the ring to touch gloves. Despite Bobo's angry and rough demeanor he still respectfully bumped gloves at the start. The action was not focused on at all by the announcers, but to Zach's friends who were watching the person Zach called a friend closely, the action said a lot.

Sero shifted his gaze towards Zach for a moment before the bout started. He was the only one who had seen Zach's body since he returned out of the people in the room. _Did that Bobo guy get his scars from the same place Zach got, some of his? Zach looks really invested in the fight._ Sero looked back and got into the fight too, "Let's go Bobo!"

"Gotta go for the American," Kotsumura countered over to his left and then grinned to his right too towards Zach.

"I'd say Cambri on this one," Mineta said, humming and speaking as if his opinion meant a lot here as he had thought about it deeply. He really just assumed Zach was picking the winner, but he managed to maintain a pretty stoic look as he said it.

Someone wanted to argue with Mineta that he was only saying it so confidently because of the reason he really was, but the match started and both competitors rushed forward. Neither was willing to let the other set the pace by pushing them back towards the ropes, and they moved to the middle and started jabbing away at each other. They circled, throwing punches out and testing out the others' defenses without forgetting to keep their own guards up too.

Bobo swung his right out twice, his opponent pulling his head back both times. On the second time pushing his head back in, Tunco swung a right hook, and Bobo did not back up from it. He rose one arm to try and block while swinging a punch of his own. He was not in a great position to get a lot of force into the jab of his left, but he hit Tunco in the face while only getting hit by a half-powered swing himself from what his right hand managed to slow down. Bobo then swung his own right forward, and his left again towards the body only to get blocked and a swing come at him. He pulled his head back and the punch in a red glove flew right past his nose that looked to have been broken multiple times it looked a little deformed. He moved his head back in right as the punch finished passing him, and he swung his left in an uppercut underneath his opponent's guard that Tunco tried to protect his face with.

Zach leaned his head left, and right, and he nodded along while watching Bobo and Tunco slug it out from close range. Tunco still did not want to back up even as Bobo was getting that flurry of hits on him. They circled each other, neither locking up or backing off, and Tunco pulled his head back as Bobo tried another uppercut, and he hit a body shot underneath Bobo's punching arm on his side. Bobo lowered his guard to protect from another body shot he expected, but Tunco thought he would lower his guard there and his left fist slugged into Bobo's jaw making Bobo Cambri's head look like a bobblehead for a second as it snapped to the side and he stumbled back a step. Tunco stepped forward and slammed another fist into Bobo's face, but Bobo's right foot that he had stumbled back planted firmly on the ground right before he was going to get hit. He prepared himself for the punch in the face, while swinging his left fist up and nailing Tunco under his chin that caused his darker skinned opponent to stumble back from him now.

After just taking a hit to the face, again, Bobo still stomped forward after Tunco and he went for a body shot and a body shot and a jab straight into the middle of Tunco's arms that he had up guarding his face, then another body shot that made his opponent slouch to the left. Bobo ducked down as Tunco swung a fist out from his guard, and Bobo went for a hit on Tunco's side only for his opponent to jump back, putting him close to the ropes that Bobo was going to keep him near, moving forward and weaving left and right so as not to give away where he was coming from. The right corner of Bobo's lips curled up the smallest amount, revealing his teeth in the taunting smirk he had for the brief moment that made Tunco snarl at him, and Bobo's eyes to get darker as he came out of his crouched position and started trading punches with his foe again.

Out of the four fights of the first round, none had been so brutal right out the get-go. The ref was not stepping in, as the two of them were keeping the hits legal, but it almost looked like the ref had wanted to step in a couple times as too many hits were getting in unblocked only for the one who took them to bash right back at his opponent. Zach watched closer, his thoughts racing as he saw Bobo's right cheek get grazed by a punch he almost dodged fully. In his head he saw a punch flying towards his face and how he yanked to the side quickly, but not quickly enough so he was still sideswiped. _Recover fast,_ Zach thought, and he saw Bobo's recovery mimicking the one he saw in his own head as he ducked the follow-up. _Don't go for the uppercut- fuck!_ Zach grit his teeth as Bobo went for it, which Tunco expected and leaned away from while already swinging for Bobo's dominant side that he threw that punch with, opening his body up for a powerful blow that made Bobo wince and take a step back, allowing Tunco away from the edge of the ring.

"Come on," Zach muttered, his eyes locked on the match in front of him. His classmates new and old were 'oof'ing and calling out at each of the big hits, with Reika getting into it and even rooting for Bobo now after watching the start of the fight. "Fuck him up," Zach muttered under his breath, his expression getting more intense as Bobo dodged three hits and swung back one of his own only for his to be dodged this time. The fighters were showing that they no longer wanted to take each others' blows, but they were not backing away from each other very much either. _Can't show weakness. They'll be on top of you if you look like you can't take it. You can't just win, you need to win looking like a monster. Crush him, and the one before you will get unnerved because you know he's watching right now to see who his next matchup is. You know the families watching would shit on you if you lost without at least going strong through it. And you fight that hard all the way through because it'll break down each others' resolves too. If you're punching someone who never goes down, but you keep punching away anyway most people would get discouraged. But I smashed away at Kameko, some people wouldn't go for that. Some people give up or run, or just allow themselves to be defeated earlier if they think there's no chance of victory. Bobo, crush him! Make him give up- Damn it!_ Zach ground his teeth as Bobo got nailed in the jaw in the same place he got hit earlier, only for the round to end a second later before Bobo could get a counterattack in.

"Whoa!" Satoshi leaned back into the couch with a laugh, only to lean right back forward as he did not want to miss anything when the second round started back up. He looked to his left and said, "Hazano-sensei would never let us go this far even in just normal sparring."

"Look at the damage in just one round," Mineta said, as the camera just zoomed in on both of the fighters' sweaty faces. Bobo had some blood on the lower left side of his face, while Tunco's right eye was a bit swollen with blood all around it but not getting into it much. His trainers still wiped some away though and put stuff on to slow the bleeding. The next round was starting though after barely any time, and the fighters got back up with their corner-men dropping off the stage.

Ojiro looked to his side at Zach who was fully focused on the fight though looked to be staring farther away than just the tv as he watched. _"Fuck him up?" You just want your friend to win, and I get that, I think. You don't even look like you're enjoying the fight though._

 _Right from the start this time,_ Zach thought, staring at the two boxers moving towards each other who made to punch each other right as the bell rang. Tunco pulled back after making it look like he was going for the first strike, but Bobo did not and swept forward with the right, then the left, and he chased after Tunco as Tunco started circling from the outside position. Tunco was making Bobo chase after him now, and Bobo realized it but moved faster after him and forced Tunco to either hit back or just get battered. Bobo even left himself looking open, only to pull away as Tunco threw the punches he was holding back in the first place to let Bobo get winded before going after him again. Seeing that he had missed a couple times, Tunco growled and moved forward to hit Bobo from close range, giving up on the new strategy he and his trainers had just gone over. _Bobo's an idiot, but when it comes to boxing he's suddenly a genius,_ Zach watched as Bobo did not manage to dodge a hit in time, though he was pretty sure Bobo could have dodged that one. _Make your opponent think they made the right choice, even if it's the choice you goaded them into. Make them believe they made the decision on their own and get them fully into whatever trap you have._

Bobo ducked under a punch, and Zach could hear the _woosh_ over his own head of the fist flying over him. His focus did not leave the screen, but after Bobo bounced back up he ducked again, and again, dodging the hooks Tunco was throwing at him rapidly now as Bobo had switched the tactics on him. Zach heard it again, _woosh woosh **whoosh**_ the thing swinging over his head stopped sounding as much like a fist moving fast over it, but the whirring of helicopter blades moving faster. He saw Tunco duck and get a headshot on Bobo as Bobo ducked another punch, and Bobo stumbled back only to leap backwards and run around the outside of the ring for a few seconds. He ran back in at his opponent and flurried some punches at him after just running like that, making it look like he was only rattled for a second there. Zach saw Tunco move back, then meet Bobo halfway instead of letting Bobo be the one to come all the way to him. Zach ran from the helicopter at the men running towards it, and he weaved to the left as a bullet flew towards his face, just as Bobo jolted to the left and dodged the jab Tunco threw at him.

Tunco's punch was only half-hearted, as was his step back at Bobo to make it look like he still wanted to be the one pushing in as he had been since the start of their match. That round had showed he was more inclined the back off though because of the way it started, and after his flurry of strong punches that Bobo ducked, each of which had a lot of power behind them, Tunco felt he had messed up in choosing one strategy. He was uncertain about what to do, or if moving back forward to make himself look on the attack was the right move because he had already failed at that before and was intending to stay on defensive- Bobo's left fist caught Tunco on the side of his face when his guard dropped to cover his sides. Bobo slammed a fist into the right side of Tunco's chest as he rose his right arm to protect from a hook on the other side, then Bobo hit another left fist into Tunco's face again.

Tunco swung back wildly with both arms, neither punch having much power in it though both did hit Bobo. He swung back at Tunco and got blocked by one arm, though his other fist hit Tunco in the chest and made the large American man stumble back a couple of steps. Blood was back in Tunco's right eye, and the sweat on his face got in the other and in his mouth, a salty taste and a salty feeling in his eye that made him squint. His vision was lacking, and his ability to read Bobo's moves dropped. He blocked where punches weren't coming, and he swung where Bobo wasn't, and Bobo stomped his right foot forward and in between Tunco's legs that were still firmly planted on the ground and not wobbling to show the ref it should be stopped. The ref's eyes started opening wide though and he rose an arm, but Bobo took his whole body weight behind his right fist after stomping down forward less than a foot away from his opponent. He pulled his head to the side of Tunco's right fist that passed by his shoulder without touching him, as Tunco's vision got blurry and he was too afraid to wipe his eyes in that moment, and too dizzy to realize he should actually back up and not stick to his earlier thought of not backing up any farther. Then again, there was another reason he could not step any farther back.

Bobo's right fist jammed into the middle of Tunco's unguarded face, taking him off his feet and throwing him into the ropes right behind him only a couple feet away. Hitting the ropes kept Tunco from falling backwards and off the stage, but they also kept him on his feet and the ref was not fast enough to end it yet. Bobo's right fist pulled back again and Zach's lips curled down at the corners. Bobo's blood was up though, and no one was stopping him as he slammed his right fist forward again right as Tunco bounced back towards him. Tunco's legs flew up in front of him this time, his body turning horizontal still in the air and then slamming down into the ground, hard. The ref grabbed Bobo and pulled him back, and he started counting loudly to ten, but he stopped and just waved his arms in front of him before calling to Tunco's corner.

Bobo threw his arms up in the air, grinning with his mouthpiece still in unlike Tunco who just had his knocked out of his mouth with that final punch. A giant smile crossed Bobo's face while much of the crowd cheered, though there were also some boos thrown in there with people thinking he had gone too far with the final punch when Tunco was likely on his way to the ground anyway. Bobo waved his hand off in the direction of some booing, ignoring it and heading towards his corner where he looked over and waved a fist up while grinning towards some people in the crowd with great seats.

"Nice friend you've got there," Kirishima said, looking over at Zach to see if he was going to counter him and defend what they just saw.

"He went a little far," Zach admitted, sitting back in his seat and nodding in agreement with Kirishima. "But hey, look." The others looked back at the screen, and Zach said, "Tunco's fine. He's a big guy, he can handle getting punched in the face. It's his job, actually," he finished with a laugh while Tunco's friends got him up and helped him over to his corner for a second to sit.

Kotsumura laughed and Sero shrugged his shoulders. Reika had lost her smile there for a moment, but she got it back before mentioning, "I'll admit, Camrbi's pretty good. No Jackson, but we'll see that in the next round."

"You're still saying that after seeing that fight? Those two were better than everyone else-"

"We didn't even get to see Jackson fight for very long, since he practically one-shot…"

At the end of the first round there was a break for the fighters before the second would start up. They had thirty minutes without any fighting, and the show turned to talking to the celebrities who had arrived for the fights, listening to the commentators talk about the matches they'd seen so far, and make predictions for the upcoming bouts. At Zach's apartment, the break meant a break from sitting around the living room. Some of the group got up to help clean up the food they'd finished most of. Ojiro gathered up everyone's used paper plates, and Reika got up to get herself another cola from the fridge. Kotsumura followed her up saying he could use one too, sweatdropping behind her because he almost just asked her to grab him one but doubted she would. Satoshi and Mineta met up and were speaking in low voices with each other, looking very suspicious with the way they were darting their eyes away to see if anyone was listening in to them.

Zach went to the kitchen and covered up some of the food they had not finished. He got more than he needed, as he did not know how many people the final total would be coming to his apartment. _Some leftovers for later- how are things going? Everyone saw me into that fight- but no more than anyone else was. How did Bobo do? Decent. He was too reckless though. Not often he'd have to face multiple opponents one after the other. Jackson finished his quickly, so he's less damaged and fatigued. He's also seen more of what Bobo can do than Bobo saw of Jackson. Hopefully he's watched former clips of all his opponents and changes his strategy accordingly- but did everyone else see me caring about that? Did anyone notice when my thoughts strayed for- I need to put those wings into a tupperware- shit, I don't have tupperware. I don't usually have leftovers. **Whr-whr-whr-whr-**_ Zach shook his head around and he turned back to his fridge from the counter, deciding to just put the plate in without covering it up or anything. _I'll eat it soon. No big deal._

"Wait, Reika was that the last cola-" Kotsumura leaned back as the blonde girl in front of him glared back his way in the kitchen next to Zach.

"Maybe, got a problem with that?" She asked harshly, and Kotsumura scratched the back of his head and shook it at her. She humphed and turned away, heading back to her seat while Kotsumura sighed back behind her.

Zach watched Reika head back over, then he turned next to him at the blond who thought Zach was about to mention something along the lines of apologizing for not getting more cola. "You should really start calling Reika 'Tiona' again." Kotsumura's eyes went big as Zach said that in a casual tone and normal voice. The way he said it did not draw any attention to him however, and the kitchen was empty now except for the two of them. Ojiro had gotten in a conversation with Imino and Kameko, and Reika was snapping something at Satoshi and Mineta whose conversation she overheard.

"What, are you talking about…" Kotsumura trailed off as Zach just continued to look at him in a normal way.

Zach turned his head a bit and shifted his irises to the corners of his eyes though, then he looked back at Kotsumura and said, "You did right after your fight, then more sporadically, and now you're back to calling her Reika. What are you doing?"

"It was just a stupid bet," Kotsumura said, shaking his head once as there was no reason to look deeper into it.

"She's the one who told you that you could call her Tiona if you won," Zach countered. He shrugged while Kotsumura looked at him hesitantly, shifting his eyes over towards the blonde girl in his class who he had been into for a long time. Zach could tell that pretty easily from the first day, but what he did not think Kotsumura noticed as much was that the bet they made was some obvious flirting between the two of them. _Actually seemed like it might be going somewhere, but you've backed off and just act like friends still. Never going to get anywhere this way._ "It's pretty clear you're into her," Zach said, and before Kotsumura could say anything he added, "but I think Tiona wants a boyfriend who's not afraid of what he wants and is willing to go after it. A strong guy."

Kotsumura frowned, and with a scoff he said, "She likes you." _A strong guy? Just because I'm not hitting on her at every chance like Satoshi- It's not like I haven't been doing anything. We've been hanging out a lot recently._

Zach shook his head at Kotsumura's retort. "That's never going to happen even if she does, and I'm not so sure about that," he said.

"Why not?" Kotsumura asked. His frown was gone and instead he just looked more interested. _Zach denied her once before too. Does he really have a thing for one of his old classmates? There's no way he doesn't see how hot she- shit._

"'Cause I wouldn't go for a girl my friend's into," Zach responded, making Kotsumura's eyes grow wide again.

Keiji grimaced at how his expression gave it away, then he let out a laugh and grinned at Zach's smooth answer right there. "Alright, good reason I guess." Zach smiled back at him, though his smile was lower as Kotsumura added, "But I'm going to do things my way. I've got this. _Reika's_ my close friend and classmate. It'd be weird if I asked her out and she said no."

Zach hummed and shrugged a shoulder while heading for the end of the counter to walk around. He turned to Kotsumura as he went though, and his expression showed a 'you do you' look that made Keiji hesitate feeling like what he had decided was not a great idea. On top of that expression though, Zach added, "You might think the slow game's the right move, but it's the last term. You won't get a chance soon, so be quick about it."

 _If I ask later in the term anyway, then we'll all already have plans for after graduation and only with a just-starting relationship it's not like we'd go together anywhere or anything- oh shit I can't wait- I'm-_

"Plus, there are guys like Sero out there 'bout to steal your girl," Zach finished. He started heading away after saying it, while Kotsumura turned and looked back towards Reika with his eyes opening wide. She was standing over in the couch area talking to Sero, and she just laughed about something he said which made Kotsumura's bottom lip drop. Zach saw it out the corner of his vision too, and besides thinking about how smooth his friend was, he also thought, _Sero's got good timing. If you don't do something soon Kotsumura, you're going to lose your chance. If that happens, then maybe it just wasn't meant to be, but I think you've got a real shot. What the fuck am I doing?_

Zach walked over to the couch and put his hands on the back of it. He looked at the tv and watched as the camera view switched to show Bobo in his locker room with a couple of trainers. _Guess Typhoon didn't come. That's good. He's meant to stay in Italy. Keeping his face out of any news is better too. Gino of the Garbaldi mafia. Vinny's looking good though._ Zach's eyes got bags under them, and he followed up the expression he knew just formed on his face by taking in a yawn. _Did I really stay up last night planning this? It's like I said in the park. There's nothing to pretend. Nothing to pause and think about what I'd do as Zach. I am Zach now, I've accepted that!_ Zach closed his mouth and refocused on the screen with an interested look hiding his true thoughts. _And there's the Don again. They haven't talked about Don Cambri much, but the farther along Bobo gets the more likely the announcers will bring it up. I don't want to have to say it on my own. It has to be asked. I've already invited them over to see this boxing tournament solely for this reason apparently, but as long as I don't make it out like I wanted to explain, then it'll be fine. And it will happen. But even if it doesn't… does it even matter? Does anything I do right now?_

 _Looks like he brought the whole family,_ Zach thought as the camera zoomed out from Emilio for a moment and showed who was around him. It was not the entire Cambri Italian mafia, but Don Cambri's actual blood-related family. _They're all looking good too. That's good to see._ Zach's lips flattened even as he thought it. In the background of that thought, he heard the whirring of the helicopter again. _Damn it._

Ojiro looked over Kameko's shoulder in surprise, then back to the curly-haired boy with a shell sticking out of his clothes. "He broke your shell?"

"Yes," Kameko replied with a serious nod. "It was the first time, but by punching with that left fist of his over and over in the same spot… So you did know," Kameko said, making Ojiro dart his eyes back to make eye contact again.

"Yeah," Ojiro replied after a second. _His left fist is made of something strong then. The prosthetic he got in the box looked like a regular arm, but he broke through Kameko's shell with it?_

"He beat Imino too that first day," Kameko mentioned, motioning next to him at the pointy-eared boy who had not been a part of the conversation much for a minute there. The two talking looked to Imino who turned his attention back to them and nodded, though he was really focused on a conversation across the room between a couple of blondes. Imino had heard Zach and Kotsumura's talk a couple minutes ago, and he lifted a corner of his lip as when Reika turned to head back to her seat, Kotsumura finished with a 'whatever you say, _Tiona.'_ The way he emphasized her first name was a reminder of their fight that he _won_ , and Reika turned back to him over her shoulder with a narrowed gaze and a smirk questioning if he thought he would win if he fought her again.

Kotsumura hesitated at that smirk back his way, but then he grinned back at her that had Reika's eyes widening for a second at his confident look that maybe he would win a second time. He had beaten her in her best zone after all. Reika frowned back at him after seeing his look, and she humphed and turned away to go grab her seat before she'd have to squeeze in when other people went to sit. Kotsumura hesitated after she turned away, as now he had to go sit back next to her after giving that daring look. He took in a deep breath though and then started over to the girl who had grinned herself for a moment after she turned with that humph.

Zach was focused on the tv and did not notice Reika's expression even though she was in his vision as she walked across the front of the couch. She glanced back at him, saw how focused he was, and she turned to the screen while pulling her phone back out. _No clue who's got this next one. Based on the first fights though, I'd say Sanchez looked stronger out of the two…_

"You going for anyone in this yet?" Sero asked the redhead he was talking to near the counter on the main room's side instead of in the kitchen.

Kirishima shrugged, though he thought back on the first fights and tried to come up with someone to pick. _Not that Bobo._ "Not Bobo," Kirishima said aloud after just thinking it, since he doubted he would come up with someone he was rooting for here. Sero frowned at him, so Kirishima added, "He went too far. It was unnecessary." Sero lost his frown and shrugged in admittance that Kirishima had a point there. Sero had also gone 'Oooh' and leaned back on Bobo's final knock-out punch.

He had already winced on the first of the final two blows, but if it had just been that one Sero doubted he would have had a problem with it. _Guy was falling off his feet anyway. Someone should've called that. Hopefully they've got a healer Quirk on hand at the tourney._

"Hey, it's starting back up," Kotsumura called over. He just turned his head and called it out to everyone around the room who were not yet back over in the living room.

Sero started over towards the couch, but Kirishima just looked over and then leaned back on the counter. _Still time,_ Kirishima thought. He turned his head and looked down the hallway towards the room he left his coat in, then he turned back into the empty kitchen. _I didn't eat much. I was distracted that first round. What is he doing?_ Kirishima looked over at the back of his old classmate who was just watching the screen with a carefree look and small smile on his face. _He's just thinking about this fight? I can talk to him later then. If he's… this is too normal a thing to be doing. It's not like him._

The second round started to commence with the underdogs of the first two matches preparing for their next bout. Sanchez's opponent was not a big upset, as he was only the fifth seed beating the guy who came in ranked 4th, but they were still both underdogs compared to the bottom half of the bracket that had gone the way the people setting up the tournament predicted. The volume on the tv was still down from when the break started and Reika turned it lower, but she turned it back up a bit as the second round was starting. A few others came back over to their seats, but others just kept talking as they were not all that interested in the matches and would rather keep up the conversations they were having over the break.

"Who do you think has this one?" Kotsumura tilted his head back on the couch and looked over the back of it where Zach was standing.

Zach shook his head, looking like he was still trying to figure that out himself. Kotsumura's voice came in soft though, muffled in his head as much as he tried to look like he was focusing there. "I've gotta hit the head," Zach said after a second. He paused after saying it, looking down and meeting Kotsumura's eyes and then looking around at the others in front of him who all turned his way when he said phrase that in English. "I mean, I gotta piss," Zach corrected in Japanese and laughed as he said it.

Reika's eyebrows rose up and she snorted, before curving the right corner of her lips up at his mistake that she realized was actually accidental based on the way he reacted. Mineta smacked a hand to the side in front of his chair and reminded over at Zach, "You're in Japan."

"Yeah yeah," Zach shook his head with a laugh and turned to walk to his bathroom.

Satoshi and Kotsumura laughed at the way Zach clearly got too into this American tournament and forgot he wasn't in Los Angeles himself. The snake-eyed boy even started speaking to his classmate in a half-hushed voice, saying he bet Zach had been to L.A. himself before.

Everyone in the living room continued talking or got to watching the tv without lingering on Zach's back as he headed off. Only Sero turned back to Zach after initially turning away and laughing like the others. His smile lowered down as Zach rounded the corner, and he lowered his eyes for a second before turning back to the screen from the chair he snagged while Kameko was still up.

Kirishima turned his head and followed Zach as he went down the hall for his bathroom. _He's just peeing. This could be a chance to catch him alone. Or better, he wouldn't notice me going into his room. Everyone's up, the break's going on- if he comes out though and catches me… then what? What would he do? His laptop is right over there, and I don't have a chance to use it._ Kirishima ground his sharp teeth together, as in both directions of him he saw no good way of making this visit beneficial for proving his suspicions.

Kirishima turned to his right as he saw someone looking at him. He frowned more at the sight of who it was watching from near Zach's kitchen table. Dendo did not turn away when Kirishima faced him as he did not care that he was caught staring. _What's he looking for?_ Dendo stared into Kirishima's small red irises which after a second got Kirishima marching towards him. Dendo took a sip of water then closed the bottle he was holding and put it down on the table behind him. He crossed his arms and stared seriously at the guy with spikier hair who stepped right up in front of him. "What?" Dendo asked.

The U.A. student wanted to snap about Dendo staring at him, but he hesitated about that as he wondered what Dendo might say as a response to that. Thinking about that possible response just made Kirishima more upset though, and he said in a low voice for just the two of them to hear, "What happened to you? Why are you here?" Kirishima's eyes were angry as he looked into Dendo's dark green ones from close up. _It's not the same reason. I thought it might be, but that look he gave me means it's the opposite!_ Kirishima grit his teeth harder as Dendo did not response yet, "You're really friends with Zach now?"

Dendo hummed and he got a darker look on his face too, though there was regret in his expression too. The two of them thought back on the day they met around a year ago. The last joint training. Kirishima stood in front of Dendo like he was now, only farther away having bumped into each other in the training ground. Dendo remembered the insults he used towards all of Class A, but he recalled the reason the hero-in-training in front of him had charged at him in fury. The things he said about Lifebringer had pissed off Kirishima more than Dendo expected to happen, even though he already knew the two of them were friends. _Didn't he bring you back to life?_ Dendo thought while staring closer at the teen in front of him. "Yeah," Dendo replied.

Kirishima curled his fists at that answer. _"A class full of murderers aren't you?" "…you lived with him, trained with him, fought with him, and you never noticed a thing?" "…soon as I graduate, Lifebringer's my first target! Your murderer of a classmate!"_ Kirishima heard Dendo yelling that at him, making him lose his cool and open himself up for a precise slice straight down the middle of his body that broke through his Hardening mid-sprint. "He changed your mind, huh?" Kirishima asked, a taunting grin coming to his face as he continued to glare at Dendo.

Dendo did not reply for a moment, then he just said in a low voice, "It feels like we flipped."

Kirishima's smile vanished with his eyes going wide. He narrowed them back at Dendo and ground his teeth at the way his peer was looking at him. _If he would have stayed gone, I never would have had to face any of these feelings._ Kirishima curled his fists in fury as he thought about how hard he defended Zach back then. Now that Zach was back though; alive, healthy, having a good time with friends… _I defended you that hard because you gave up everything. That's what justified what you did, if just a little! It's why I couldn't say anything! But, you came back. You can't come back and expect us- expect me, to still forgive it._ Kirishima's fists uncurled and he turned his gaze away from Dendo, a darker look in them now though then when he was confronting the Shiketsu student. _You didn't give up anything. You have it all back, without even trying. That's not right. It's why Bakugo's pissed. Your sacrifice means jack shit now. If you can be here and enjoy a fun day with friends, as Zach, a name you threw away! It's infuriating!_

Dendo watched Kirishima's expression from close up. He did not say anything, but the look on the U.A. kid's face was much stronger than any expression of anger or emotion he had shown towards Lifebringer since the day he arrived in their class. He kept his mouth shut and did not try to say anything, because as much as Kirishima's face was furious right there, it was full of more emotion than Dendo felt in the matter. _I saw it that day too. Whatever I thought about Lifebringer, I decided to stop talking about him after that. At least to you U.A.'s,_ Dendo Takashi turned and looked down the hall Zach headed to use the bathroom. _The threat you told me that first Friday was intense, but I deserved it for what I said to you. Now that I can see what a nice guy Lifebringer is usually, even when he's being intimidating and mean, I know he's still just trying to help us._

"He's a nice person," Dendo said. Kirishima turned his head slowly back to Dendo, and Dendo refaced him to look back in Kirishima's surprised eyes at the sudden statement. "I was wrong. And, I can believe that Zach killed Kurogiri for everyone else and not for revenge." Kirishima's eyes widened more, before narrowing and staying locked on but full of frustration this time. "Because I don't see him doing something like that off a grudge. I don't think that's him."

Kirishima was angry, but he calmed himself down and said in a low voice, "It's true. Zach did it for us, or he thought he was at least." He kept his voice quiet and angry, as he did not want Dendo thinking he'd forgiven Zach or anything based off what he was saying. He still believed that himself though, but there were a lot of other things on top of it that Dendo could see murdering Kurogiri was not the only reason Kirishima was pissed here. _Revenge wasn't Zach's style. Instead, he makes friends with the people who kill his friends._ Kirishima's eyes darkened and shifted back down the hall again to where Zach went before. He heard what Zach said before going, and he frowned, _What's taking him so long?_

Zach stood in his bathroom with the door almost closed, cracked open the slightest amount as he just pulled it behind him and let go to let it close on its own. He never heard the click of the door shutting fully, but he was not focused on the door at all. He had his hands held out in the sink, and he washed them together while keeping his head up and his eyes locked on the mirror in front of him.

The sounds from his apartment were muffled by the walls and distance between him and his friends. The toilet near him was full of still water, as he had not used it and was just washing his hands as he had been since he came in. His eyes were locked on themselves, and Zach forced his expression normal as he continued to wash his hands, the running water working as a white noise that drowned out all other present sound around him. Zach's expression was flat, and yet his heart pounded so fast he could feel it in his chest and had to fight harder to maintain a straight expression at the pain he felt in the left side of his upper body. _..._ _It means nothing. If I do this or don't, it doesn't even matter. This whole day means nothing at all._ His eyes glazed over while he was thinking it, his heart pounding even harder yet and his mouth feeling dry all of a sudden. _What the fuck am I doing? I, I'm supposed to be doing something here! Even playing the longest long game doesn't involve being this idle. In one day how much could I do? I know! I know exactly how much I could- but I'm here now, and there's no going back on it!_

Zach stopped rubbing his hands together. He shook his head around and he reached for a towel next to his sink to dry off with. He turned off the nozzle with his hand wrapped in the towel, and he wiped his hands together before sliding his glove back on his right hand. He pulled it down over his hand and stared down at it. The elastic part ending up his wrist higher than most gloves would tightened on him just below his watch that slid back down as he lowered his arms. He dropped his arms and took another look in the mirror, and he frowned deeper at the person staring back at him who did not look like someone just enjoying a day of watching boxing with friends.

Zach lifted his hands and put them on the sides of his sink. He leaned forward and stared at himself in the mirror, _Get back in there._ He still could not hear the other room, and without the white noise of the sink the silence had left room for other sounds that flooded his mind as much as tried to focus. The helicopter blades he heard earlier buzzed in his ears, but this time he was not out in front of people and felt no immediate need to wipe his face of that expression. _Just, think it then… if it's going to keep bugging, me. Quickly._ Zach's lips twisted as the blades got louder, and the person in the mirror looking at him looked darker as the bullets firing from the barrels of guns got louder than those whirring blades.

 **"Get the injured on the bird and get up in the air!"**

 **"Commander! We have to get these civies out of here! Heroes are on their way, they can handle this!"**

 **"I'll provide cover. Get them onboard and go."** Zach ran forward on sand at a group of enemies chasing after two of his comrades who were trying to keep using their Quirks while backpedaling towards the heli behind them. He yanked his head to the side and slammed his right fist forward past the barrel of a gun of the farthest forward enemy, and his fist punched through the man's head that turned into some strange red goop upon contact. Zach's fist had darkness on it though, and he kept running past the guy who collapsed behind him with his head reformed and his eyes rolled back.

The sand opened up below Zach into a swirling whirlpool of tiny particles that sucked his feet down then his legs. Green demon arms shot up from the sand and wrapped around his arms as he was raising them, and they yanked him backwards so his back hit the sand pulling down and sucked his body under. He heard the shouts in his ear, and the bullets whizzing overhead, and the sound of his own roar as he emerged from the sand with two massive black wings.

And he saw the helicopter rising overhead, while most of his comrades stayed on the ground with him to keep fighting and provide cover for their injured and the civilians with them. Then he saw the surface-to-air missile flying up above him, and though he intercepted the first one he saw, the second and third missiles took out the helicopter behind him in a fiery ball of death that blasted him forward through the sky due to his close proximity trying to catch the other two he missed. Zach felt the burns on the front of his body as he had forced all his Death to his back to fly as fast as he could, and he felt the collision with the ground as he fell smoking from the air… and he heard his own growl as he charged at the men firing at him and his enraged comrades in black armor.

 **Dt-dt-dt-dt BANG BANG BD-BD-BD-BD-BD-** _ **"AHHHGGhh!"**_

 _In a single day._

Zach heard the terrified shouts of the men ahead of him. The panic in their voices as he charged down a hallway at full speed. Their volumes increasing so he knew he was getting closer to them. The doors smashed down in front of him and the enemies screamed and fired at his body surrounded in darkness so thick that the bullets flew through him. He rose above the flames, and he punched through the clear wall of air the enemy group's sub-leader put up to try and reassure his comrades. That sub-leader was smashed into the side wall so hard his head bowed and his legs bent the wrong ways, and Zach's enemies screamed at the sight of the unstoppable beast in front of them.

 _ **"Monster!"**_

 _ **"DEMON!"**_

 _ **"Oh my God- please! No!"**_

 _ **"IT'S DEATH!"**_

 _ **"He's here. I saw him. He was just- wha- Andropov! Where are you?! Lev?! Ah AHHH!"**_

 _They were all so afraid. Sooner or later, it was just constant fear. Every face that saw me._

 _ **"Ahhaa aah aaha, NO! AHHH-"**_ Zach gripped the sides of his sink harder as the cries that turned into a furious final scream cut off. He saw the face of the young villain in front of him only a few years older than himself. The man's voice cut off because of the pain he was in, though the pistol dropped from his hand that now dangled limply from his snapped arm. Zach looked down towards the boy's arm himself with his red eyes huge behind his helmet. He had needed to get to the villain fast though, because the man watching him approach by flooding Death through every one of his comrades had turned the gun on himself. He grabbed the boy by the wrist and pulled it away quicker than he could pull the trigger, making the shot go up in the air, but he had twisted too hard and snapped the guy's arm so his bone was sticking out through skin.

Zach's head turned back to the figure in front of him who was going into shock whilst staring at his own bone through his arm. **"You would rather take your own life than surrender to me? I won't kill you."**

 _ **"You're Death. I know what you'll do to me. Dying, is better than that."**_

 _How many of them pissed themselves?_

 _How many shit their pants, just from the sight of me? So many. They were right to though. What I was doing, the fights I fought! Without ever losing! Undefeated. A warrior. That's who I am. A soldier._ In his head he saw through the window of the plane he was in, anti-air bullets shredding through the wing, just like they tore through another plane next to his and made it explode in a fiery blast. He saw himself falling from the sky surrounded by dozens, hundreds of others as high caliber bullets flew up towards them, ripping apart a comrade to his right who dodged but not well enough. A city, full of explosions. Towers on one side, one of them falling with the plane that just cut through it midway falling at a sharper decline now. He saw the inside of that plane as it fell, and the explosion of dust rising into the air and billowing down every street and interrupting every fight, only for those fights to keep going in the new environment.

Flames covered every house and buildings. The street cracked, and a tremor split open the ground and swallowed up a half dozen flaming buildings on one side of the road. And figures in black and villains screaming out in rage rose from the crack, fighting each other and killing each other as the ground turned into cubes and rose up into the air. Fifty of those cubes came flying at him at once, and wings flapped on his back to make him shoot forward swerving through and around every block. He passed several at once, and in his peripherals he saw that on top of those cubes had been ten enemies waiting for him to go by before attacking him from there. And they came from below, and above, and at the front a much larger block of city came flying towards him. Everything turned black in a massive pillar that rose into the sky, and then Zach saw himself standing as tall as that pillar had been only in a field somewhere different. And around him as far as he could see in every direction were battles between dozens, hundreds, _thousands_ of people. The sky was full of platforms both visible and invisible, forming and breaking apart as a black hole erupted in the sky, and then twelve smaller ones appeared. Day turned to night and back again in a strobe that echoed across a hundred miles.

He could see what it all looked like from a hundred feet tall, through red tinted vision as his enemies attacked him. Fifty or so grew to try and match his height, but his Death knocked them out all the same and just made them fall harder as waves of darkness crashed on the battlefield. And he heard the screams in his ears as the comms came back on. _**"HELP ME!" "They're killing us, please… Ah- AHH!" "No- no WAIT!" "Mommy. I want my mommy." "Did it mean anything? Did it, mean, a God damned…"**_

 **"RUN!"**

 **"Zombieman?"**

 **"There's too many of them!"**

 **"Death! We need to retreat!"**

 **"We do not back down."**

 **"Hahaha! That's why they have those tattoos? Great thinking ya' goofs."**

 **"Push forward!"** _ **Doof-dt-dt-dt CRASH!**_ **"KEEP FIGHTING!"**

 **"We're with you all the way."**

 **"Alpha Squad's been wiped out! There are over twenty awaiting revival and the infirmary's being overrun! Death! Where are you?!"**

 **"Do not stop! Do not falter! Do not slow down!"**

It had been getting too loud and boisterous in the other room. The atmosphere in there was too similar, as the last time he had felt like it had been with his men, his soldiers who he had fun times with like that, and who he had watched get gunned down and ripped apart. Who he was watching get gunned down and ripped apart again as he stared into his mirror. Zach had lost track of time, and the second round was about to begin but he wasn't back in the living room yet. And his friend who also had to piss before the round got started stood in the open doorway staring in at Zach as he stood in front of his mirror with eyes glazed over and fingers gripping into the porcelain of his sink so tightly the sink was starting to shake.

Sero had not said a word since opening the door a few seconds ago. He had opened his mouth to say something when he opened it up from a crack to wide open, but Zach did not even seem to notice him despite being only a couple feet away on Zach's left. He stared in at Zach for another moment before realizing what he was doing and saying, "Hey Za-" His voice snapped Zach out of it, but much too abruptly from the current bloody thoughts Zach was having.

Zach's hands left the sink and rose as his head was spinning to the side. His eyes did not turn red but they were dark and cold as they snapped to the person who had snuck up on him. He had not noticed he let his guard down, but the fact that someone was so close meant that he had fucked up and allowed it. His hands curled into a fighting position as he was twisting his body in a swift movement with an expression so full of rage meant to intimidate his sudden attacker into thinking he knew they were there the whole time and that they should reconsider what they were about to-

Zach froze. His expression flipped instantly into shock as it was Sero in front of him and he realized why it was this made so much more sense than someone about to fight him. Sero relaxed and stepped into the bathroom, "You alright?" Sero asked. Besides flinching and pulling back, Sero did not care that he was almost attacked. He immediately lost the nervous look on his face as Zach's expression turned to shock, _I'm not afraid of you man._ Sero didn't want to see Zach's expression drop into one of despair or something after seeing how he had just looked at a friend. Sero's reaction made it seem like Zach's look had not actually been that bad at all, making Zach question if he had lost his intimidating nature while Sero was doing just a great job at hiding how horrifyingly menacing that turning look really was.

Sero put a hand on Zach's shoulder without hesitating after he came into the bathroom. "You looked spaced out there for a minute," he said while Zach let out a deep breath and slouched his shoulders that Sero had felt were tense when he put his hand on one. Sero looked real worried about his friend, and Zach nodded his head but Sero still added, "You sure? You're good?"

Zach shook his head once with a sighing expression on his face, then he shook his head around faster and got a smile back on it. "Yeah, sorry." He opened his eyes he closed there for a second and looked calmly back into Sero's eyes with a small smile on his face. "I was just thinking back on something rough."

It was vague, and technically it wasn't really a lie, but Sero could see through that. _He's making it out as not as big a deal as it really is._

"You got to go?" Zach asked, and he moved for the door. Sero turned and watched Zach head out, and Zach looked over his shoulder again and said in a lower voice, "Really, I'm fine. Sorry about that."

"All good," Sero replied, knowing Zach was referring to how he turned and spooked him. "Sorry about barging in on you."

"Nah," Zach shook his head that it was nothing, and then he heard Reika shout towards the hallway at them both that they were missing the fight 'jerking' each other in the bathroom. Zach walked out of the hallway a second after that and said, "Well that's a weird thing to say. I guess believing I'm gay is easier than accepting I'm really just not into you though…"

Sero closed the bathroom door though still heard the shouted retort from Reika after Zach's comment. He turned to the mirror himself, checking for a moment if there was something Zach had a reason for staring so closely at. It was a fleeting thought though, and he walked over to the toilet himself to take a piss as he actually did have to go as much as there was another reason for him coming over. The second Zach said that he had to take a leak, Zach's statement echoed in his mind just phrasing it a little differently. _**"I… have to, go behind that tree…"**_ _Weird hunch to actually be right,_ Sero thought darkly while taking a piss himself.

 _I was standing there for fifteen seconds or something. What an asshole,_ Sero's piss was a sad piss. _I knew I needed to check as soon as I heard that._ He shook his dick frustratedly and then put it back in his pants before flushing and heading to the sink to wash his hands. _**"Did you notice anything wrong with Zach?"**_ Ashido's voice rang in his head and Sero hummed as he looked from his hands up into his own eyes in the mirror. **"What do you mean? Not really, I mean, did you?"** _ **"No! That's good… but there was something about how normal, even in the emotional times we talked it was still normal. Too normal maybe? I don't know if that makes sense…"**_

 _I told her I didn't get it. I didn't even think about it. I'm such an idiot._ Sero washed his hands with a dark look in his eyes. As he looked at his own dark look though, he was underwhelmed by his own expression of darkness that looked sweet in comparison to even Zach's look before he turned his way. _Just the way he was looking into the mirror. Think about it. Really think about it this time…_

 _Forget about what just happened,_ Zach stood behind the couch and looked at the tv past it with an excited look on his face. _Get a grip. There isn't time for sentimentalism like that. Everyone who died before me didn't give their lives so I could wallow in sadness over them. What did they die for? For me. For my goals. Why? Because they believed that I knew what was right and how to make the world better. I am right. This is the right move to make. This is how I give their lives meaning. By believing in my decision to come here, because they believed in me. Now stick to that decision, and become Zach Sazaki again!_

 _Bobo could beat Sanchez easier than he could Jackson, but he needs to get through this fight first…_

Sero stared at his face in the bathroom mirror as it actually got darker from what he was thinking about. He no longer noticed his own expression's dark look though, as he was trying to really think about something he had heard but not really delved into until what he just saw. _Zach, went to war,_ the thought alone of something Zach had told them but not discussed in too much detail made Sero's stomach churn. _What he does talk about are the people. The races. The worlds. The results of his fights and how he made the worlds better. But, that was war. War. He wouldn't have used that word, repeated it, if he didn't mean it. And the way he talks about it is so, vague. I know though, he was fighting battles that gave him those scars._

 _Battles? What does that even mean? He said the Battle of 6 Armies before. Six whole armies? That had to be thousands of people, right? What is that like? …_ Sero stared at himself in the mirror and his face scrunched up as he tried to imagine it. _The look on his face, he was thinking about it wasn't he? A war with Quirk users, in a fantasy world full of warriors training since they were kids. Don't think of the idea of it, and how insane that sounds, but if I actually consider what it would be like to be out there, in the mud, fighting and killing people-_ Sero grit his teeth and he dried his hands off. "Fuck," he cursed under his breath. _As hard as I try, I can't even imagine it right, let alone try to feel what he was feeling. I've never had a great imagination, so I'd need Zach to explain it to me, but Zach's been constantly vague about it and only talks about the good times. The fun experiences and adventures, and the logistics and victories of his battles. But, I know Zach saw a lot of people die. And I know he must have brought back so many people._

Sero gripped the sides of the sink and then looked down where he was grabbing and slowly let go of the spots Zach had been grabbing before him. _The people I've seen him bring back before, the way he brought back Tsuyu, they looked so painful for him._ Sero thought about the basement Kaminari had betrayed them in, where he had not started getting up like some of his more furious classmates, instead keeping his head down with his teeth bared in confusion and anger at all that had happened. And he recalled lifting his head, raising his chin and staring across the floor as Zach screamed while bringing their friends back. _What would it be like for him if he had saved hundreds more- thousands even? Dying, thousands of times?_

"And the dark horse of the competition moves on to the finals! Armenio Sanchez takes a win by points in what was…"

"Hey, by the way, where's Inasa?" Mineta mentioned over to the couch where many of the Shiketsu teens were sitting. "Figured this kind of thing'd be right up his alley."

"Internship," Zach replied from over the couch, making Mineta raise his gaze and see Zach already knew Inasa was not coming. Zach had asked Inasa right at the start if he wanted to come though, and he explained to his shorter friend, "He's planning on starting his own agency straight out of high school, so he's making sure he's got the ropes down before graduation."

"I'm actually," Imino started. He hesitated, and the others in the room all looked over at the blue boy with pointy ears who took a deep breath after stopping and getting everyone's attention. "I'm actually going to work with Inasa at his agency after graduation. We're starting it up together."

Kameko looked like he had already heard about this, but the other Shiketsu students including Zach all looked towards him in surprise upon hearing that. "So what, you'll be Inasa's sidekick?" Satoshi asked.

"No," Imino replied in a deadpan voice, keeping it free from annoyance despite the small frustration he felt there. "We'll be partners. Echolocation works best as a support, and Inasa and I work well together. It's mutually beneficial."

Zach looked back to the screen as the announcer started talking about the next fight. He looked at the screen where it showed DeCarlo Jackson's family in the stands, then there was a clip played showing Jackson in his training gym with his trainers. After a practice flurry of punches against the bag, it showed Jackson sitting in a room talking to the cameraman about his matchup, his family, and about his charity in Chile working with kids. Reika's eyes widened as the cameraman asked about that, to which Jackson lost a little of his focus on the fight and his reasons for fighting, just for a second though before he refocused on it and they flipped to showing him practicing with a coach.

"Aw, you really picked a nice guy," Kotsumura said with a grin next to him at the surprised girl who had missed anything about that when she looked Jackson up. All the top searches though on her phone were about the tournament today and boxing in general, so she realized why she had not seen anything on it.

"Well, comparatively," Satoshi started. He paused and glanced up at Zach who frowned towards him, making Satoshi hold up a hand defensively, "Just based on that last fight, I mean."

Jackson's introduction video ended. The teens supposed the production of the tournament had made videos for each of the contenders that would only be shown if they passed the first round. There was likely more in store for Sanchez and whoever the winner of this fight would be too. Next the cameras in the arena shifted over towards Bobo Cambri's family though. The feel was different from when it showed DeCarlo's mother, his sister, and his sister's husband and two kids.

"At the fight tonight for Bobo Camrbi, coming all the way from the region of Tuscany in Italy, are his father, his mother, his two half-brothers, and his grandmother…" Next to the man the camera initially zoomed in on was a younger woman, Don Cambri's second wife who he had Bobo with alone. She was just a little older than Bobo's two older brothers who sat in the row behind their father, his wife, and their grandmother who was up on her feet and cheering as Bobo was being announced back into the arena.

The other American commentator for the tournament laughed and said, "Wow. For a woman of ninety-two years of age, she is really lively isn't she? She doesn't look her age at all."

Sero had just come out of the bathroom and walked up next to Zach behind the couch instead of going over to sit back on an armrest. His eyes opened wide after staring at the old woman on the screen for a few seconds though, and he turned his head to the side to Zach while Kirishima, Mineta, and Ojiro all looked over from other parts of his living room. Zach's U.A. friends knew the most about his Quirk, and the sight of this active old woman over ninety felt suspicious when Zach knew her family.

"Hey Zach," Mineta started. "You didn't, happen to…"

"Yeah," Zach replied with a nod, taking his eyes off the screen for a second then looking back at it as the show started the video of Bobo and his training for the fight.

"Wait, what?" Kotsumura looked back and forth from Mineta to Zach a couple times but couldn't put together what was being asked there.

"I brought the Don's mom back to life," Zach said. "She'd been senile for years, bedridden even longer, and now she's the pinnacle of health," Zach smiled while saying it, though his Shiketsu classmates were staring at him with huge eyes.

"What are you saying?" Reika started, her head turning more as she fully faced Zach in shock at the sound of this. "When you bring people back, you get rid of their illnesses?"

Zach nodded his head with a look down into Reika's eyes showing he meant it. "That's crazy," Satoshi whispered. "Then, wait," he got a hesitant, confused look on his face as he figured he must be wrong here. "Even if you were just bringing back super old people dying at hospitals and stuff, they'd still have a long time left to live afterwards?"

Zach didn't nod for a few seconds, focusing on the screen instead, then he said, "That's about right." His voice was lower as he said it, sounding like he wanted to shift the conversation to something else.

Satoshi spun back to the screen as he felt he just annoyed Zach. Others kept staring at him for a few seconds though, pondering the implications of all his power could do.

 _Considering how fast he got to Desusuta from school…_

 _He could save just about anyone…_

 _No matter what they die from, or where they are…_

 _And yet he's just sitting here watching tv?_ Imino frowned while focused back on the screen himself, though he turned his head more so Zach would not see his upset expression there. _He could be saving lives right now if he wanted. He's shown he can get away with it too. No one would tell him he can't. And yet, he's not. Why not? Why that old woman but not people who die every day around Japan? I don't get it._

The silence that followed Satoshi's question became less awkward as everyone focused on the video more interesting than Jackson's. The heading at the bottom as it showed the gym had 'Florence, Italy' written there to show where the camerawork had taken place. The gym did not look as nice as the one DeCarlo had been training in. It was smaller, but it looked more private by the way it had pictures of Bobo in Italy's title fights put up as posters on the walls. Bobo was standing in front of a small bag hanging in front of him and hitting with a focused flurry that made the small bag swing forward and back into his next punch over and over again. His swings were fast but his form maintained in each one showing the power in each hit was real strength.

Then the camera switched to show Bobo with a training partner up on the ring in the center of the gym. Bobo's opponent came at him and lifted a pad that he swung and made Bobo duck, then he called out body and put a pad there to block it. Bobo's swing came out of his rise from his crouch, and it made his trainer take a step back before swinging again to have Bobo duck and weave and hit all at the same time. The training was intense, and Bobo was focused despite what was going on at the sides of the ring.

One of Bobo's older brothers who had been shown at the L.A. arena was at the side of the ring with four other guys, all wearing wife beaters and sweats. The others had tattoos similar to the snake tattoo on Bobo's upper left arm, though most of them had more tattoos along with some piercings and gold teeth replacing teeth they had lost. Some had scars on their arms, and some of those scars weren't hidden by the tattoos. Two of the guys were over eight feet tall and would be considered mutants due to their horns and strange skin colors, and though Bobo's older brother himself was shorter and not as big as Bobo himself, he snapped something in an intimidating way at one of the big guys who shouted at Bobo during his training and distracted him for a moment.

The video switched to showing their interview of Bobo now at the side of the ring. There were subtitles on the bottom of the screen as he spoke in Italian, those subtitles were in English though and the stream Zach was going through did not translate them over. "I'm going to win," Bobo responded to the interviewer's first question. His voice was low but he smiled as he said it with a cocky look on his face. "That's all there is to it. Who my opponent is doesn't matter. I'll crush each of them and win the tournament."

"Sure is confident," Sero mentioned to his side.

"He's Italy's heavyweight champ," Zach replied. "But he's not as confident as he makes himself out to be. Part of that is an act for his opponent, part of it's just for his tv personality."

Reika looked over the couch at Zach with a raised eyebrow. Zach shrugged and lifted the left corner of his lip in a small grin, "I heard Don Cambri suggested it. Told his son he'd be more popular with that kind of personality. The fights get more attention when there's a lot of pre-fight beef."

 _"Don Cambri?" They called his father 'Emilio' earlier._ Dendo watched the screen closely and got his answer at the interviewer's next question.

"…the scandals surrounding your father and brothers who were here earlier? Each of them have been brought up on several charges of racketeering, assault, and various other crimes."

"Lies," Bobo replied, his expression darker as he glared at the interviewer talking to him now. He brought back his cocky smirk again and asked while tilting his head back, "They were all found innocent, weren't they? Not enough proof?" Bobo's eyes narrowed at the interviewer's look when she opened her mouth ready to say something about rumors of threats against witnesses from old trials. "Innocent until proven guilty, am I wrong?" Bobo asked. For a guy who had looked like a blockhead when it came to anything except for fighting, only talking about the fight and looking interested in it, he was much too well-versed on the law.

"Here in Italy, the Cambri is a well-known 'family' who many of those men we met earlier were a part of. Will they be coming to the tournament in Los Angeles?"

 _Trying to trick Bobo,_ Zach thought with a frown at the interviewer talking to his boxer friend. _He looks confused right there. Were you asking him about the prestige of his family, or is it really about who is coming to watch you? Unlikely they had the Don watch this first. Hopefully Bobo didn't say anything too stupid. No, even if he admits their notoriety, if he had said something damning then they would have been arrested already. Bobo's not that dumb._

"…and my Nonnina," Bobo finished as he listed who was coming. The term was in reference to his grandmother but by adding 'ina' at the end it became an endearing term for 'little grandma.' He looked happy while saying it, and Zach smiled more at the screen himself before dropping his smile at the next question.

"Speaking of your grandmother, we heard that she had been bedridden for over a decade. Yet we just saw her earlier-"

"A miracle," Bobo replied, shaking his head. "That she can come to America and watch me fight is all I could ask for." Bobo turned to the camera and punched his gloved fists together, "This one's for you."

The video-makers decided that was a good place to end their clip. They had edited a lot from their time in Italy to make a video like that, and as it switched back to showing Bobo's family in the stands to focus on the old woman herself, in the edges of the angle Bobo's brothers and father did not look pleased with how that editing went. A lot was left out, some things were edited around in ways that made the family look bad, but Don Cambri turned to his mother after a second and smiled with her as she saw herself up on the big screen above the ring. The nice old woman who looked not much older than her son but with a few more wrinkles put a hand to her mouth and blew a kiss that had most of the arena's spectators cheering for the old woman who had made such a "miraculous" recovery.

"That 'family' they were talking about," Ojiro began, looking towards Zach from his seat. He was hesitant about asking, especially while sitting down so it felt like more of a common conversation question than him asking something serious here. "Are they actually criminals?"

Zach shook his head side to side. "Nah," his expression got more serious as he said it, even while keeping the corners of his lips slightly up. "Not anymore." Zach's smile rose up more, and those who were looking back at him and thinking about what he just said turned back as the men of the next fight were entering back from the locker rooms to walk up to the stage. DeCarlo waved a fist around for the people cheering at him, but Bobo stared straight forward and his expression was darker. The people in Zach's apartment figured he had just seen the video too, which would make anyone angry considering how it had painted him in some of it compared to how kindly they treated Jackson through his interview.

 _The event coordinators are making use of Bobo's personality. They want to make a bigger deal around the fight too, Bobo. That's all it is. Get some drama in there. Don't actually get riled._ Zach's hands curled into the top of his couch as he focused on his Italian friend who looked pissed. _Maybe he's just doing the same._ Zach saw Bobo heading past his older brothers who shouted towards him, and Bobo looked their way and gave a single nod before turning back ahead with single focus. His eyes locked on his opponent across the room before he even reached the stage, and he shrugged his shoulders to drop the coat draped over them that one of the posse walking behind him grabbed off the floor and ran to the side with.

"Zach," Sero started in a low voice to his friend on his right side. "What do you mean by 'not anymore?' Are those guys really villains?"

"It's not like that," Zach replied. "They didn't include a lot of things in that video I'm sure the Don talked to them about. The good works the Cambri's have been doing in Firenze, and around Italy with the other families. They're just trying to push this 'Bobo's the bad guy' image in here."

"Well, he's doing a good job of making us agree with that," Kotsumura admitted from the seat in front of Zach. "Dude, he looks pissed."

"He knows what he's doing," Zach said confidently. "He's just going along with their plan and image for him. Working along with their script." A few of Zach's friends looked towards him skeptically, but Zach added with a look towards each of them, "Seriously, he's a fighter sure, but this is the entertainment business. There's an amount of scripted-ness that comes with it."

"Why did you get to know this guy?" Kameko asked. Zach looked over, and he thought, _There we go,_ while at the same time curling his lip a bit and hesitating upon the wording of that question. "It was about his family right? Was he in the mafia or something?"

"Bobo isn't," Zach said.

Immediately after specifying that, Reika snapped without looking behind her, "So the rest of them are?"

"It's not a mafia in the sense you're thinking of," Zach started.

"Where they extort and beat people, getting them charged for racketeering and other crimes? Where they probably paid off witnesses or threatened them to keep from getting caught?" Reika asked without missing a beat. "That kind of mafia?" She turned her head to the side and glared back at Zach through the corners of her eyes.

"Nope, not that kind of mafia," Zach replied with a calm look at the girl glaring at him for defending the villains. Reika's eyebrows lifted up and she turned back to the screen with an unenthusiastic 'oh.'

 _You believe that?_ Kirishima thought, darting his red eyes over from the chair he was sitting on now to the right of the couch.

"Bringing Mama Cambri back gave me my in with the Padres," Zach said, after looking around and 'noticing' how many of them were still thinking about it. "I knew Italy had a very structured underworld with the families in charge, and I wanted to meet with the heads of them," he explained. "The Dons, as they're known outside of the families."

 _So then from inside the family they're known as "Padres?"_ Imino wondered. _Why call them that then? Why would you have said it like that?_

Reika focused on the interaction between Bobo and DeCarlo once they were up on the stage inside the ropes. _He's not going to touch gloves,_ Reika predicted as she looked from Bobo's face to the fighter she had picked herself. _He's the son of a mafia boss? I hate this. Fuck, Zach. The fact that guys like them can go and enjoy high-life vacations and front seats like those celebrities. Using money they got in dirty ways. Being villains! Damn it._ "And why'd you need to get in with them?" Reika asked. "Were you looking for someone?"

Kotsumura glanced to his side at Reika. Her tone was upset, but she also said something that confused him for a moment. _Zach didn't stop them, so going through the mafias must have been for some bigger purpose. I get it. He must have used their network to find some worse villain hiding out in Italy or something-_

 _I couldn't bring it up on my own. Someone had to ask, and no one did! That's why I pushed it- Lying to people and manipulating them isn't me! That's not who he is! Who I am…_ "No. I just had some business with them back in May right after I came back."

Kirishima ground his teeth and bowed his head a bit so his red bangs shadowed over his eyes. Ojiro could see the reaction of his classmate next to him and got a bead of sweat rolling down the side of his face. _Kirishima doesn't believe he was actually gone. It seems strange sometimes when he's done so much on Earth too since he left, but he mentioned the timeframe there and it's not impossible. He was spotted in Europe multiple times in the months right before he came back…_

"What kind of business?" Dendo asked, his voice not suspicious and accusing, but just interested which received strange looks from all his classmates along with a couple U.A.'s.

 _Seriously?!_ Kirishima thought as he stared at Dendo in shock. _What the hell happened between you?!_

"Tell you after the fight," Zach said, focusing in as Bobo and his opponent approached for the starting of the match.

Dendo frowned for a moment at that response, but he shrugged and looked back to the screen himself. _He doesn't need time to come up with a cover story. There was the possibility- no, the probability that this was going to come up today. He knows exactly what he's going to tell us already, which means it really is just a pause so he can watch the fight._

 _What kind of business did Zach have with the mafia? And, there's really an Italian mafia?!_ Mineta tried to refocus on the screen himself, but his anxiety and excitement over that conversation told him he was not going to be able to focus at all through it.

"As I thought," Reika muttered. Bobo just stared down his opponent as the referee told them to touch gloves, then the Italian turned and walked back to his corner with an intense focused look over his face. DeCarlo did not seem fazed as he had not been through his time looking at Bobo's angry expression. He just walked back towards his corner himself, tapped his forehead, chest, then each shoulder, and he turned around and stared across the ring with an intense look of his own as he was ready to go.

"You think your guy's got this?" Sero asked, focused on the fight himself. He figured there was no point wasting his time speculating about anything else if Zach was going to tell them anyway. The stats had popped up on the sides of the screen for both fighters when they stood side-by-side, and Bobo's win record and knock out counter were more impressive. He had several inches on his opponent and since they were in the heaviest weight class they had a huge range of weights the fighters could be, so Bobo was also over thirty pounds heavier than his lower-seeded foe. "He's bigger and has more reach," Sero said, suggesting it was looking good for him.

Reika smirked and was going to retort something to the boy standing behind her, but Zach spoke first, "That's the one thing I'm worried about." Sero looked at Zach in confusion, then the fight started and he turned back. The two fighters approached each other, and despite Bobo's demeanor before the fight began, he was being more cautious this time just as DeCarlo was. DeCarlo was the first to make for a more offensive strategy than just testing their range, and Zach continued as Bobo blocked, dodged, and threw some counters of his own without being too aggressive, "Bobo could get overconfident due to the size difference, but it seems he's got a handle on it. He looked a bit like he was going to rush in there, but he's in control."

A nasty hook landed on Bobo's face when he fell for a feint and blocked his body instead. His head snapped back forward and he ducked the next punch then went on the attack looking pissed with his mouthpiece showing through his snarling lips. "Hate to see out of control," Kotsumura joked. "But damn, that Bobo's quicker than he looks," Kotsumura laughed as DeCarlo seemed surprised by that too as he tried to get his rushing opponent into a similar punch as he had just gotten him in, only for Bobo to be expecting it this time. He was able to react and pull his head back, the punch just missing his face and turning DeCarlo's body sideways as he put a lot of momentum into it only to miss like that when he was confident he was going to get Bobo due to how close they were. Bobo twisted his body as he got back close again, and he hit down low but still above the belt. However, due to DeCarlo turning a bit, Bobo's hit came more around his back than on his side, nailing him right in the kidney.

"Hey!" Reika shouted.

"What?" Satoshi asked, pulling back and spinning to the girl on the couch who looked pissed.

Bobo pulled back and threw another punch that looked hard by the way DeCarlo winced again and his body jolted before he could pull back. Bobo had locked up his other arm when DeCarlo was trying to turn back, looking like as much an action to keep him close up as it was to make it look like the action was on the other side where the ref was to keep him watching there and not checking closely where those body shots were landing.

"Damn it Bobo," Zach growled. "Don't be an asshole, asshole," he grumbled the last part lower, while Reika snapped about how Bobo was doing dirty shots while the ref was not looking. DeCarlo had not fallen though, and the look on his face changed up a bit as he glared at Bobo with a real anger now showing back on his face too. Bobo glared back though, and the two of them went at each other only for the round to end after a couple blows. DeCarlo hesitated as he was readying a punch as the bell rang, then he turned back and walked away from the ref who got in the way but would not have been able to stop his punch in time, had he thrown it and pretended to have already been doing so when the round ended.

The announcers started arguing over whether Bobo knew what he was doing or not as they reviewed the first round and the most devastating hits of it. Some of Zach's friends got a deeper understanding of the rules of boxing, and more of them frowned as the camera showed Bobo again sitting in his corner and nodding along with what his trainers were telling him. One of them made a punching motion down low again, and Kameko said with a look towards Zach, "I've got to admit, I don't like Bobo Cambri."

"He's fighting dirty," Imino agreed.

"I still think, he'll probably win," Kotsumura said, though he said nothing about his opinion of the boxer.

 _He definitely did it on purpose. Shit, I can't even defend him here saying it could have meant to be body shots. We all saw it. Maybe the others didn't notice what he was doing to keep the ref from noticing, but I saw._ "Bobo didn't finish his first fight as quickly as DeCarlo did," Zach started. Reika turned with a confused look to the boy behind the couch who was giving some strange defense for what they just saw. "He tired himself out more, and probably, he thinks DeCarlo might be better than him. Not saying he's right for those dirty hits, but, maybe he doesn't think he can win… I don't know. He's my friend though, so I'm still going for him." _Long as he doesn't pull any more shit like that. Damn it Bobo, you're better than that._

"You said you were worried about Bobo being bigger," Sero began, before anyone else in the room could counter Zach and call him out for defending a guy like this. The second round was starting back up, and Sero asked Zach, "You mentioned it was because he could get cocky, but you made it out like there was another reason too."

"Yeah," Zach said and nodded at what Sero was getting at. "Bobo depends on his reach, but as agile as he might look for a guy his size, he reacts as if fighting someone his size. His hooks aim high on someone smaller making it easy for them to duck him. When I fought him he-"

"You fought him?" Sero asked in surprise.

"We boxed once," Zach replied with another nod. "And I noticed he was always going for the head, even when I left myself open to try and get him to test out some body shots. It was harder for him to reach down to my sides, punch ahead and down like that. Size difference usually works in favor of the bigger fighter, especially considering his agility, but Bobo only fights guys like him. DeCarlo looks like he's at the bottom of the weight class. He used to be the cruiserweight champ of America, but he moved up a weight class."

"He was the champ but still only got put third?" Kotsumura wondered.

"Moving into a weight class with huge guys and weighing less than all of them, big disadvantage," Reika said. She calmed down a bit from before as the fight going on now looked cleaner, with Bobo and DeCarlo going at it like a regular boxing match. Bobo had taken advantage of DeCarlo leaving a weak point wide open in the last round, but as DeCarlo left that area open again Bobo did not go for it. She wondered if Bobo could tell that DeCarlo was baiting him towards it, or if the Italian had second thoughts about the way he was fighting in the first round. She added while thinking about it though, "He's only fought a limited number of fights at heavyweight level, but his stats didn't distinguish between his wins as a heavyweight and his wins below."

"Wins and losses, it doesn't matter," Zach said, leaning forward and looking closer with a growing smile as Bobo got hook after hook past DeCarlo's raised guard he was trying to protect his head with. "They're both just focused on each other right now. And Jackson doesn't notice Bobo's weakness yet. Tunco didn't show him anything except that Bobo can take a beating. Ey!" Zach pulled his head back and yelled out as Bobo thought he was going to get another hook only to get railed with an uppercut under his chin that he was not protecting.

Zach pulled back from the couch and ground his teeth as Bobo got hit past his guard in the left cheek. His face vibrated around the punch with ripples going through his skin as his head knocked to the side, but he straightened back out and blocked the next hit. "Nice! Now back at- Lower the- Watch for the body shots! What are you doing?" Zach threw his hands up from the back of the couch, and his voice was starting to shift with a strange accent hinting into it. He waved a hand at the screen as DeCarlo hit Bobo below his guard in the sides over and over after the face shot that had Bobo pulling his guard higher. "Keep your guard low! What did I fucking tell you?! He's shorter than you!"

Bobo stepped back and avoided another hit coming for him. He stomped forward and threw a heavy punch at DeCarlo's head, but DeCarlo ducked down not much but enough to get below Bobo's high punch. "Basta! Get him- catso!" Zach leaned back and put a hand to his forehead as DeCarlo came up with an uppercut between Bobo's arms and slammed a fist into his unguarded chin.

Bobo's head snapped backwards, and Reika yelled out, "Get 'em!" Bobo's feet almost came out in front of him, but it looked like he was trying to stumble and keep himself up. Zach yelled at Bobo to counter, but DeCarlo Jackson did not give his opponent that chance. He stomped forward and slammed Bobo in the right side of the face, hooked so hard that Bobo's head bobbled while his body spun and he came off his feet. "Yeah!" Reika shouted, having gotten more into it in the last minute the more Zach was rooting loudly for Bobo.

"Nice hit," Satoshi added, glancing over his shoulder after saying it with a smug smirk at his classmate who was rooting for the other guy.

"Serves him right," Kirishima muttered, only smirking for a second before glancing towards Zach and getting angrier again. He glared back at the screen and the man down on the floor who rolled himself over onto his stomach as the ref started counting to ten. _He's a villain. Everyone Zach met that whole year were villains- how the hell did he meet this guy while Death? Hold on…_

"He's one tough bastard," Mineta admitted, leaning back in his chair while watching Bobo push his hands down on the floor to get to his hands and knees. The ref counted out 'FIVE' loudly, and Bobo smashed his right fist into the floor, punched his glove into it twice more, then he got up on shaky legs. "Nine… TEN!" The ref yelled it at the man standing in front of him who had yet to fully steady but was back on his feet. The ref looked into Bobo's eyes checking for a concussion, and he stepped right in front of the boxer who was trying to look past him at his opponent. "Hey! Hey are you- what's your name?!" The ref had to shout it over all the cheering or booing in the crowd, and Bobo pulled his eyes off his opponent to the ref screaming in his face. "What's your name?!" The ref shouted again.

As focused as Bobo was solely on his opponent, he could not keep fighting if he did not tell the ref the right answer. Bobo looked the ref in the eyes and shouted through the mouthpiece he had in, "CAMBRI!" The ref nodded and moved to the side, waving his arm and having them start back up the time.

"Get it!" Zach yelled out, leaning back forward over the couch with a grin appearing again on his face. _He's fucked, but,_ Zach heard the yells out in the stadium Bobo was in get much louder as he got fully up this time. The blood coming down over his mouth from his nose, his swollen eye, he looked like battered shit. When the time started back up though, Bobo was the one moving forward… straight into a punch in the gut he missed to block his face instead. He lowered his guard to block the second body shot, but DeCarlo hit up in his face. Bobo stepped back, then he swung back forward with the momentum like he was on a pendulum, nailing DeCarlo as he came for his follow-up punch that went short as Bobo used his extra reach.

The connection of Bobo's fist with his opponent's face encouraged the Italian boxer. He heard the cheers too, and he went for a combo on that hit- His decreased vision because of his squinted swollen eye, meant that he couldn't see the fist hooking around on that side until it had lodged full-speed into the side of his face. "Ohh!" Zach leaned his head back and lost his grin, shaking his head as Bobo fell to the ground, moving a lot less this time than the last one.

"Those body shots, they tired him out," Zach said, still looking at the screen but moving his head a little closer to Sero's as he explained it.

"He really took a beating there," Sero agreed, glancing at Zach oddly but just accepting it at this point. "And, when you fought him, did you win?" Zach looked to the corner of his eyes and flashed a small grin at Sero as if saying 'Do you even have to ask?' Sero specified though, as he wondered if Zach actually fought him in a ring or if it was while fighting villains, "In a boxing match?" Zach nodded this time, understanding why Sero needed to specify it.

"And that's it! Bobo Cambri was unable to get back up in the time allotted, DeCarlo Jackson advances to the finals…"

Zach sighed while looking back at the screen. He did not think Bobo was getting up after that last one, but it was still disappointing to hear getting called out. "I told him to be more careful against shorter opponents. It's how I got past his guard- hahh," Zach just sighed and he rose his right hand to rub his forehead for a second. "He could've gotten DeCarlo if he just relaxed a little and focused on guarding. He's durable enough that if he could just block better, he could have-"

"The only reason it was close was because of those early kidney shots," Reika retorted at Zach as he was giving excuses. As much as Zach was analyzing flaws and talking like someone who knew a lot about boxing, Reika snapped back at him, "He's a dirty fighter, and he got what was coming to him."

Zach grunted and frowned but did not try to defend Bobo there. Just that much pissed off a couple people though, with Kirishima standing and glaring back at his old classmate who grimaced more and sweatdropped at Kirishima's look. "What? Is that wrong? He fought dirty, just like you'd expect from a mobster. Right?" Kirishima glared at Zach after asking, waiting for Zach to correct him here.

As if on cue, the announcers started talking about the Cambri family again. The camera pointed to the stands where Bobo's dad had gotten rowdy, and people around their seats were yelling at him with him and his sons yelling right back at them. "…that the Camrbi family is infamous across Italy. Emilio Cambri, otherwise known as 'The Don,' has been a suspect in many investigations that wound up being dropped." Zach frowned more at the screen as everyone looked back at it while hearing that. _They were probably waiting to talk more shit on his family if he made it to the finals. Got to get it all in now, huh? Assholes._

Ojiro shook his head and he stood up too. He said in a calmer and less confrontational voice than Kirishima's, "I agree, Zach. That Bobo is not a good fighter. In professional fighting you don't do something like he did at the start of that fight. It's unsportsmanlike-"

"It's cheating," Kameko said, going to the next step with it. "And you're friends with the guy?"

"They're mobsters," Kotsumura said, looking back at Zach with an eyebrow raised, wondering if Zach wanted to change up his affiliation with them now. Zach's unfazed look made Kotsumura add, "They're in the mafia."

Zach looked down into Kotsumura's eyes. He shrugged at his friend awaiting an explanation, and he responded, "So what?"

"So they're villains!" Kirishima snapped, a pissed-off look covering his face. A couple of the people in Zach's apartment looked to him hesitantly for his tone right there, but most of them were just frowning at Zach for responding like that. "Why the fuck are you saying that like it's totally fine?"

"Zach," Ojiro started. He looked towards Zach who stood behind the couch getting accosted by everyone seemingly, even though Sero was still just standing there right next to him and had not backed off. Sero was watching Zach closely wondering similar questions of his own, he just wasn't snapping them like many of the others at his friend. He even looked towards Kirisihima with a semi-frown that Kirishima was being so confrontational right now to the point of cursing at Zach. Ojiro continued though, "Why are you friends with such a guy as Bobo?"

"Sure, those hits were bad," Zach started. "But you can't call a guy a shitty person just because he did a couple unsportsmanlike hits in a fight, and for the rest of the fight he fought fairly he just, he just messed up there for a minute."

"He's in a mafia family-" Reika started.

"And doesn't that make Bobo more impressive?" Zach asked, looking back to Reika and frowning at her. She froze and stared at him in confusion instead of the accusatory way she had been. She looked at him with a frown but confused eyes, trying not to show that she had just gotten lost. Kirishima had more of a blank and angry expression on his face as he tried to make sense of that but couldn't figure it out. Zach continued before anyone could question him on it though, "He's born into a mafia family, to the son of one of the _Dons,_ and yet he followed his own passion and got into boxing. Sure, he's rough around the edges because the company he keeps is an Italian mob," Zach turned and looked to the left side of the room at Kameko and Imino who had been looking at him harshly, and to Dendo for a moment who he was surprised had waited to let Zach give his explanation before judging.

Kotsumura eased up his expression that had almost gotten harsh there for a second. Zach looked back and down at him anyway, "But here he is acting out his violence in a legal setting, making his money legitimately before the rest of the mob was. He could have been pressured into running the mafia, being a bigger part in it, the family business. But he didn't. He did what he wanted and became a pro boxer even with such a powerful mental Quirk- Persuasion." Zach grinned and looked back at Kirishima, a dark look in his eyes despite his smile, "He never wanted to use it on people, so he didn't study very hard and instead actively made an effort to make everyone think he was too dumb to use his Quirk well, and he took himself out of a position where it would matter that he could use it." Zach glared harder at the redhead in front of him whose eyes had just opened wide like everyone else in the room who glanced back at the tv where Bobo was getting treated as a mafioso. He was being insulted as the bad guy, a villain, and his family was being criticized while he was bloody and getting helped to the locker room.

After most of his friends looked back at the screen, Zach looked there himself. He listened to them treating DeCarlo as some sort of miracle worker to pull out a win despite his opponent's "villainous" tactics he used in the fight. "A don of the Italian mafia with the power of Persuasion could have been a horrible enemy, an evil villain so powerful, and yet despite who he was and the Quirk he was born with, Bobo chose his own path. So why again is he a bad guy? Because he got riled up in a boxing match and made a mistake? Because he hit someone too hard… in a boxing match?" He added the second part referring back to the first fight where he saw most of his guests already judging Bobo from the end of that fight.

"It's not just about hitting him too hard," Ojiro said, seeing what Zach was referring to and defending his own feelings back when it happened. "It was unnecessary-"

"Maybe you don't watch the sport that often," Zach started to his former classmate who hesitated as that was the truth Zach began with. "So it seems like a terrible thing he did, but sometimes the setting just gets to their heads. They're in a one-on-one fight getting cheered on every time they hit their opponent, the guy's hitting him back and if he doesn't take him down for good then he'll get hit again, the environment around them has them going from one second in the middle of an intense fight and we're shocked when they aren't immediately able to pull themselves out of it?"

"Makes sense," Sero admitted. He shrugged his shoulders, and he added when Zach looked at him, "I'm guessing he's been in some fights that weren't just boxing matches too. From the look of those scars, he's seen some fights that didn't have the same strict rules about where he can hit…" Zach already started nodding before Sero was finished, as he believed that was likely a reason Bobo did not hold back much and did those dirty shots. _He just, forgot he wasn't allowed. He's not malicious. Even if he didn't forget, his attitude just got to him… I can't really defend him there, but I'm not going to let them treat you like a villain too just because of that._

A couple of the others admitted that it sounded like Bobo could have turned out a lot worse. There was a break between this fight and the finals, so a lot of them got up and started for the kitchen or the bathroom, or to just get out of this awkward situation where it felt like they had put Zach on blast in his own home. Zach thought for a moment when they were all getting up, _That worked as expected- Bobo really isn't a bad guy. I do care about that._ "Bobo really helped me out," Zach said to Sero who he had turned to and who he felt still wanted something else to defend why Zach was friends with this guy, as what Zach had said so far was more just defending that he was not that bad of a person. "Working with Don Cambri was easy because of his mom and how angry she got when she was up and about, hearing what her son had been up to for decades. But it was Bobo who really helped me convince his dad and close family that being legit could work."

"What do you mean by that?" Sero wondered.

Zach smiled softly, "I'll explain in a bit, but Bobo was really helpful to me in what I was doing over there. He didn't want to lose his sponsors, and he didn't want his family getting arrested, and the mobs all loved him for representing them out as a fighter who didn't care that the media and more-renowned boxers were all criticizing him for where he came from." Zach paused for a second, and he thought of how he saw that bloody Bobo up on his shaky legs shout his name 'Cambri' in such a proud way at the ref. He had not heard it, but he read Bobo's bloody lips and it made him smile during the fight even though he suspected Bobo was about to lose. "When I finally accepted to fight the 'mob's champion' in an exhibition match, it was more of a thank you to Bobo than anything. I knew Bobo wanted to fight me, and I think the only reason I was able to turn the mob as quickly as I could was due to Bobo's help."

Kotsumura had tried to start up a conversation with his friends still on the couch, but he had stopped talking and just listening in instead to Zach behind him. He could not help himself, and despite how much in what Zach just said confused and interested him, he spun and asked with an amazed look, "An exhibition match with the 'mob's champion?' Did that really happen?"

Zach grinned back at the blond who reacted like that was as crazy as some of the other stories Zach had told him. "Found out I was one hell of a boxer."

"Oh really?" Reika asked. Zach looked to her, and he was glad her tone sounded back to usual as cocky and arrogant as it was. "So then, Mr. Boxer, who's got the next fight? Jackson or Sanchez?"

"I know who you want me to say, and you're right, my money's on Sanchez-" Zach paused, and he laughed and shook his head at the way he worded that. "Not that I'm putting money on this one. I don't like to gamble, not unless it's a sure thing. Wasn't going to bet on Bobo though. Not in this tournament at least, the competition was too good in each-"

"Have you, gambled before?" Satoshi asked. _He talks way too calmly about stuff like this!_

Zach glanced around at the others still around him. "Well," he began. _Might be illegal to do. Problem with only hanging around heroes._ "Not often, but I mean, I did in my fight against Bobo." Zach smirked and added, "I made a quick buck betting on myself there. That was while I was vigilanty-ing around though, so no more gambling for me," Zach finished by crossing his arms in front of his chest and speaking half-seriously, which got a laugh out of a couple of his friends.

Satoshi sweatdropped and thought, _Like gambling was the worst he was doing at the time._ The idea that Zach gambling was some horrible thing did not make much sense when he put it that way, and the other things that they each thought about when Zach pushed it that direction were things they had each thought about for a long time already and no longer got awkward around Zach thinking about.

As Zach worked his friends, he thought to himself, _Even if it wouldn't be illegal to call up a bookie in Vegas, or have L gamble for me and then send me more money- gambling can be addictive. Stop thinking about it. I have money. Don't do that anymore. Even if it is pretty fun. I'm sure those other things I don't do are fun too… Stocks are like gambling though. I'm betting that my stocks will rise. Though, it's not a bet if you know…_

There were much longer intros for the finals than they had for the earlier rounds. Armenio Sanchez had become known as the "dark horse" of the competition, going from the lowest seed to fighting 3rd ranked DeCarlo Jackson in the finals. Reika elbowed Zach in the side after getting up during the long intros that had extra clips attached, and she mentioned how she was "ready" to bet on DeCarlo she was so convinced he was going to win. Zach did not know if she was trying to mess with him and get him to agree only to call him out on it, or if she really was ready to start gambling herself, but he decided against playing along with it and just said he wasn't too confident Sanchez was going to beat her fighter.

Imino walked over with Kameko close to when the fight was starting. He had heard Zach mention something to the others and told Kameko who wanted to take part in the conversation, and Zach repeated what he just told the others about his time in Italy. As much as some of them were invested in the finals and how this tournament was going to end, more of them cared more about what Zach had done in Italy. They asked things about the tiny details or words he used before while talking about Bobo to figure out more of what he had been doing there, and even when the fight finally started Zach just kept talking about Italy because they kept asking him about it.

"…I mean hey, Garbaldi and Picciano might've been known for some bad stuff, but it wasn't my job to arrest them. I just did things my own way, which I admit was the wrong way looking back on it," Zach paused and looked around a friend's shoulder towards the tv not many of the people around him were looking at. It had become less of a watch party and more everyone just up and talking to each other, mainly to him. The few still in his sitting area had gotten into it more, and Kotsumura sat next to Reika cheering for Sanchez and getting competitive with the girl Zach heard him say 'Tiona' to in a moment that caused him to crack a grin again. "…But ultimately, where did you guys think I was going? What did you think I was going to do?" Zach looked at Mineta and Sero who stared at him in some surprise as it seemed like he was referencing the Lifebringer Incident and the moment he left.

"Not that," Sero replied after a second, and he laughed as he shook his head. "I guess being a vigilante though wasn't just showing up to fight villains with heroes. You did some crazy stuff out there."

"If you knew they were committing crimes though," Mineta started after listening to how Sero replied. He hesitated when Zach turned to him, then he finished with a brave face on, "Why not call heroes? Call in an anonymous tip," Mineta suggested it like it was a great idea. Zach frowned though looking unsure of it, and Mineta started in a more encouraging way, "You wouldn't have to say who you were. I know you usually didn't call the heroes, with the small drug dealers you talked about scaring…" Mineta hesitated as he noticed some of the Shiketsu people around him look his way or start frowning a little more. He continued quickly while trying not to get sheepish as he just said something that might not have been his to share, "But those were big time villains weren't they?"

"As big as Italy had left," Zach admitted. "But this was already in May that it was happening. If it was just a little earlier I probably would have, but they were ready to change up and didn't take much of a push after all that apparently happened in March and April. Tens of thousands of villains getting caught both months, so many villain incidents records were being broken daily, and prisons are still full. It was crazy coming back to that," Zach shrugged and tilted his head to the side as he mentioned it. "I thought I was ready to turn myself in right after I came back, but I told myself that because of all those records broken in April that I should help if there are that many villains still around. There were just so fewer though in May, and even less in June, and I finally admitted that I was just too afraid to come back after all I had done and said. Even after coming back, I still… wasn't ready to face you guys."

"That's why you wouldn't see us when we came to visit you in Tartaros?" Sero asked quietly. He had avoided the topic so far as he was salty about it and didn't want to get in a fight with Zach. Hearing him say that though made him think about why it was Zach had turned them away, which made him frown more in the present as he had just been able to blame Zach at the prison those days when the guards wouldn't give him a reason because Zach wouldn't give them one. _Guess he's gotten over the fear of seeing us though… or more like, he was forced to. We got him out of jail early, and if we hadn't he probably still wouldn't have met with any of us. That's not cool. No! Though, I guess even Zach's afraid of something? Was meeting with us really scarier than all that other stuff he was doing? I guess, if I had left like he did, then I never would have been able to come back here. I'd probably be too ashamed,_ Sero stared less harshly at Zach as he thought that, wondering if Zach felt any shame at all for what he was saying and defending himself over.

The fight ended with Sanchez's win while Zach was talking to his friends. The day had gotten awkward around midway through the second round, and Kirishima snapped at Zach after the final fight that he should tell heroes everything he did in Italy with those mafias. He had been listening in to the conversation but did not take part in it, and what he said caused a brief silence in the room as most people thought he was right and Zach should do that. "No," Zach responded after the few seconds of silence in his apartment. Kirishima ground his teeth in even more anger, and though Zach tried to give an explanation that there was no proof or anything anyway, even when he was there himself which was one of the reasons he couldn't just call the local heroes, Kirishima was done listening. He said he was heading out without much of a goodbye, and he went and grabbed his coat and things to go.

The final fight was over, so the other U.A. students did not have a great reason to try and get Kirishima to hold on. Sero sighed, as he had had to convince Kirishima to come only for it to end up this way. He told Zach he was going to head off too then, and Mineta and Ojiro agreed to leave as a group then. As they were heading out though, Dendo asked Zach if he wanted them to head out too, to which he responded that he was fine having them all over longer. Kirishima was the first one out the door, but the other three about to leave looked back and saw Zach sitting in his living room with the rest of the Shiketsu people sitting around him. Their homes were closer, they had no curfew, and they would be seeing Zach almost every day for the next few months. As much as they had mixed feelings about Zach and all he had been up to over the year he was gone, Ojiro, Mineta, and Sero all felt a twinge of sadness and jealousy upon their last look back where Zach and the others said goodbye to them.

 _He's a Shiketsu guy now._

 _Wish you were coming back with us._

 _Oh shit,_ Mineta thought, in a much more nervous way than the other two with him who turned to head out the door. Mineta stared into the room nervously and then spun around and shut the door behind him, _We're going to have to fight Zach in that joint training?! He's going to tell them all our weaknesses! That's probably what he's doing right now!_

Despite Mineta's thoughts being what Sero would call 'paranoia' when Mineta brought it up on the train back to Musutafu; while he was first thinking it, Dendo was questioning Mineta's former classmate, "So Grape Juice's Pop-Offs, is there any way to get unstuck from them quicker once they're attached?" Zach grinned at his new class, and each of the Shiketsu students grinned back.

* * *

 **A/N Thanks for reading. Sorry for the super long break. Had to drive home from Mississippi, meet with all my friends... really just excuses I've got down here. Real problem was this chapter was just tough to write, but hey the next one's looking quick so I'll try to get it out by this weekend! Anyway, Zach has the boys (and Reika) over for fight day! Wasn't the most happening this chapter, but I feel like sometimes my non-action chapters that are all just dialogue are way too much sitting down and talking than normal high schoolers do. Felt the boxing tournament was a good way to get them together outside of just another talk sesh. Hope you guys enjoyed the chapter. Leave a review below telling me what you think, comments, questions, and predictions for what's coming! Been around a year of writing this story now, and I thank all of you for sticking around with it, following, faving, and reviewing over the past fun year of coming up with it! To another great one!**

Super Power Sensei chapter 158 . May 25

I've been thinking a lot about this fanfic; about the idea of stories themselves. Game Of Thrones recently aired its final episode and while I never watched the show, I have heard all the disappointment and outcry from fans of the series. The ending rushing to a conclusion, plot holes created, and characters being inconsistent are all common criticisms. But the biggest one, among hardcore fans at least, is that the show lost its identity. Game Of Thrones started as one thing, but over time became something different, something they consider WORSE. That's what I hope this fanfic DOESN'T do.  
When I saw this fanfic for the first time and read the summary, I dismissed it completely. I thought you were just some 14 year old outcast who really likes my hero but also wants to be edgy. It wasn't until one day after work, I was irritated and bored, when I finally gave this fic a chance. "This person updates it quite often and it has 63 chapters...might as well make sure it's trash before I erase it from my memory". Didn't even start at the beginning of the story. Skipped straight chapter 28 to see if it was worth my time and...you should be able to guess what happened since I'm typing this. Took me a week and a half to read from the beginning to chapter 63 where you trolled us. Heartbroken best describes my state of being back then and just when I was starting to move on you put out another chapter. "I'm in love with this story." And what captivated me so much was and IS the idea of a character in the fictional world of a show/manga I really like. A character who suffers from the worst of mental, physical, and emotional pain, but against all odds rises above thier tormentors and achieves victory and freedom. THIS concept is what enticed and kept me reading YOUR story. Now I might have been wrong and this story is really about Zach finding out who he is. However, to say I'm COMPLETELY wrong isn't quite true either(at least I don't think so). My point is right now this fanfic shows signs of going in a direction that is not only different from where it started but also worse.  
It would suck if this turned into a typical "stop the main character from going too far using the power of friendship". You told me in a past response that I was on the nose when I mentioned the "power of friendship" being used as a theme/plot point during the end which I still believe is fine(as long as it follows the logic of the story). All (good)STORIES serve a point but I really don't want it to be the MAIN theme/point of THIS story. If it's a side theme then all is well.  
But the MAIN one, in my opinion, should revolve around an underdog (no parents, barley any money, distant relatives, non-versatial quirk) whose been dragged through hell (tragic backstory, prosecuted by authority and colleagues, lied to by his idol, abandoned by his idol, lost loved ones, PTSD, physical torture, betrayed by best friend, guilt complex, etc.), but still rises to the top (severely nerfing the LoV, creating AoD, becoming one the strongest and most popular in the world, giving broken/misguided people a will, home, and/or purpose, hero of the people)using willpower (Zach moving before anyone else in the room where Kaminari betrayed everyone), sacrifice (becoming better from mistakes, suffering to bring back the dead, giving up his life, his friends, even sanity), and of course the power of death.  
Now this is your fanfic so write whatever it is you wish. These are just my thoughts.

 **I think the people disappointed in GoT's ending were just a lot louder than the ones who liked it. A bunch of my friends raged about it, but I felt it was a nice wrap-up that could have done better. This story will end much better, so don't worry so much. Won't spoil anything by giving my thoughts on themes and plots as it'd probably give people ideas as to what kind of endings are coming here, or I might just mess up and hint at it in a response to all that. I do enjoy that description of Zach as the underdog though, and it's pretty awesome thinking about him as one and seeing where he went from it. Still room to grow more though, and I hope you guys don't think Zach is a perfect person. Because I don't think he is. As much as he's done so much good, from the very start I've tried to pronounce not just his victories but his failures too, his faults (that most of us can just overlook knowing everything, but that he and most people in that world see), and I've never really said that Zach's way of looking at everything is right. We see all his reasoning and why he made all his decisions, and because we've seen more of his reasoning than anyone else's for why they disagree, I feel it's easy to side with Zach at all times. That's what I've loved about this story the most (reason I'm mentioning it here because you were saying what you really like about this), that the character I made just felt so human to me. And it's tough writing someone like that, but at the same time easier? Because he does screw up, but he learned from those mistakes and continues to learn from them... Anyway! Long review, followed by long response, but I think what I'm getting at is more that there's still a lot left and a lot of room to grow and continue building off current plot lines and what's going on. So comparing it to Game of Thrones that just ended, I'd hold off on that. Thanks for the review!**

Hello chapter 158 . May 24

I'm surprised we haven't heard anything of the AoD, Though you seem to have hinted that they have been active offscreen. I guess that's to emphasise zachs separation from death, or just nothings happened. Also, wouldn't Internet guy and or darling be able to easily communicate with him?

 **Main reason is because AoD doesn't like to be recognized. The world doesn't really care about them _that_ much, not nearly as much as they should I mean based off all they've done. Zach kept most of what he was doing with them secret. Called in tips, left unconscious villains for heroes, taking out villains (Stain) and just making no note of it so it never got any attention at all. Back the last time we heard about them, they made some noise after Zach turned himself in, and the news said that people in those areas where the AoD came had been brought back to life, which Zach considered his comrades did intentionally to help him out with not being suspected as Death. Without good purpose for popping up though, I don't think there's much reason for them to show up, and getting in contact with Zach after going to that effort to make him seem unrelated to them would be counterproductive too. Just a couple reasons. Thanks for the review, and hope you enjoyed the new chapter!**

GuestP chapter 158 . May 24

Aww, poor Zach. Forever alone... ;-;  
(If he doesn't get with somebody, I'm flipping this fucking table out of the window and to the fucking freeway)  
Kiri is actually gonna make-up with Zach, and also, UA friends meet up with Shiketsu friends!~ *Tension?*  
Ahhh, I know it's bad to say. But. I really want Zach to be Death again, like, I don't know what his plan is. Is he trying to lure a certain someone out? I DONT KNOW ANYMORE! (I really wish I could binge read this again but I can't , I cri.)  
Anyway, loved this chapter, and can't wait for the next one!~

 **Kirishima making up with Zach... well, they did talk a couple of times. ;X wasn't exactly what Kirishima was hoping for, and Zach telling them about his time in Italy didn't help much with that. Some U.A. x Shiketsu tension in there, some thought of Death in the bathroom- but still Zach just being Zach. It sucks that Zach doesn't just stand there and tell us what his master plan is, right?! Hope you enjoyed the new chapter, wonder if you got any more hints as to what he's really thinking? And thanks for the review!**

Pringles Can Mafioso chapter 158 . May 30

After 2 weeks of binging I finally got from Chap 110 to 158. Sometimes I get hella sick of it and other times I get hella hyped. I love how I can't tell if Zach is being overestimated or underestimated by the others cause you really can't expect what he's gonna do next, be chill or the next literal satan.  
Anyways good job, keep up the good work, love ya.

 **Awesome! Glad you're all caught up now. Not all the chapters can be gems of plot-twisty epic-battly goodness, but I'm happy you're enjoying the work and hope you keep liking it! 3 u too!**

Artamos and Co chapter 158 . Jun 4

Hey, I was wondering if you would do a non Canon series of what ifs surrounding this fic. Like maybe when this is all over, then if you want to you can write mini fics that revolve around things like, what if raijin truly broke zach or if zach never became a hero, or if the villains finally made zach into a villain and all sorts of other bullshit. Just an idea, you do whatever you want.

 **Hey, thanks for reviewing. As for your question, probably not. The end of this story is coming... but it's still going to be a long time before I finish it. Can't make any promises for what I'd do after, and I think if I pick a part of this story and try to diverge on a different path I might just realize it could've been better. Fanfic-ing my own work just feels a bit strange I guess. Sorry, but still lots of Death to go! Hope you enjoy the canon story, and thanks again to you and everyone who reviews and reads this story!**


	160. Chapter 160

**Disclaimer: I don't own Boku no Hero Academia**

 **Chapter 160:**

"Grrr- rrgg, Gah! Nn," Zach ground his teeth, and he clenched his eyes shut for a moment. He managed to hold back any more noise, keeping it down and then letting out a gasp as he felt his stomach completely seal up.

"Lifebringer! A moment, please!"

Zach Sazaki's head turned as he was standing back up, and he rose his lips up into a smile and stopped panting as much. Behind him an EMT got back on his knees next to a patient he had lost at the scene of the crash in downtown Yutapu. There were a couple other heroes still cleaning up the mess that had happened when the out of control driver flew into an intersection when he should have stopped at a red light. Zach was ready to go though, as the only reason the corpse behind him was still on the scene was because the reckless driver had gotten pinned between crunched steel in the middle of the pile-up. He had died shortly after they removed the wreckage trying to get him out, and despite the EMTs on hand to provide immediate assistance they knew he would need, the man in his mid-twenties had died of blood loss due to his body almost being bisected.

 _Some others in critical condition got taken to the hospital. I should head there and check on them,_ Zach thought, turning from the camera and looking down the road ready to get going.

"What took you so long to get here?"

"Why don't you want to talk to the press?!"

Zach held back a sigh and turned to the reporter who called that at him. He smiled and gave her a look like he did not know what she was talking about. Then he turned to the one who had asked what took him so long, and he responded, "Sorry, school just got out. I'm not allowed to skip anymore or I won't be able to graduate, which means I won't get my full license to be able to keep doing this." Zach glanced back over his shoulder, as the man who was helped up to his feet was being apprehended by police officers. The guy was not struggling and instead just thanked Lifebringer for bringing him back, a look of regret covering his face as he could see the damage his driving created all around him.

"Lifebringer!"

"Lifebringer will you answer more questions?"

Zach looked back forward and he hesitated. "I'll let you know if any of the patients pass away," the EMT behind Zach told him, referring to the ones Zach had asked about who were already taken away in ambulances.

"And there are other heroes around right now, so there's less of a chance of being attacked!" Another member of the press called out at Zach, as the guy figured that might be why Lifebringer was avoiding this. Even if Zach wanted to use it as a reason now though, it had been addressed so directly that he needed to smile instead and stand there to take an impromptu press conference.

 _Good move, even if he doesn't realize what he did. People would start getting real nervous on the street if they saw me dip now because it was too dangerous. Even in a situation like this, I need to run? Yeah, I need to give them some of my time. Not much though. I'll hit the hospital whether or not I'm notified. Just a quick stop. If the only person I bring back today is the one responsible for this, they'll get me misconstrued and shred me by tonight. Has to be everyone involved. Unfortunately- no, fortunately he was the only one. So far- but hopefully it stays that way._

"And?" Zach asked. He had fully turned back to the reporters and stepped towards them, but they were all just waiting on him to say something. "Did you have questions for me?" Zach asked, cracking a slightly bigger smile at the way they were all just staring at him. He chuckled hesitantly as they all started questioning him at once, and he stood there awkwardly as the press just got louder to try and shout over each other to be the one whose question he answered.

"Lifebringer! What do you think of United Korea's new vigilante exception law?!" The reporter who called it out was up close to Zach as he shouted, and the others around him quieted down a bit as Zach looked to the man and his microphone the guy was holding up towards him.

 _I don't really like it,_ Zach thought, while his expression turned thoughtful showing he knew exactly what new law the reporter was talking about. _Case by case decisions are allowed by heroes on the scene to choose whether or not to chase vigilantes. It used to just be an unwritten kind of thing that happened, actually making it legal has a different feel to it where now the pressure's actually on heroes not to do anything unless there's a lot of damage. That puts restrictions on heroes and them carrying out their justice, but, it could also be used as an excuse for heroes who happen to let vigilantes get away when they weren't intending to. Like whenever Death shows up, heroes can't be held accountable- well, considering the terrorist status remains I guess they wouldn't be considered part of it._

"I think it's not my place to question the law codes of other countries, or to even give an opinion on them as I'm not a citizen of United Korea who that law will affect." The way Zach replied made it sound like he was avoiding the question, but that did not actually give anyone a good idea as to what he was thinking. Most of them figured he would support it based on his past, but his response sounded almost like he did not want to support it but did not want to criticize either. The man who asked the question wanted to follow up, but everyone else shouted louder than him before he could even open his mouth to begin.

"Then what do you think of Japan's current laws surrounding vigilante justice?!"

"What do you think of Prime Minister Nikko's proposed plans for shifting Quirk usage into key manufacturing jobs over the next three years to keep up with foreign competition?"

"Why haven't you been bringing more people back to life?!"

"Are you Death?!"

"Why did you bring that man back to life and not Hiro Rekinawa?! An eight year old girl who died in the emergency room two days ago here in Yutapu…"

"What are your plans for after graduation?! Will you be starting your own agency here in Japan?!"

"Do you agree with the Prime Minister's stance on Quirk education starting earlier at the middle school level?!"

"I think..." Zach began, looking at the woman who called that question at him between all the shouts of the news' crews around her. The reporters all quieted down so their microphones would catch what he was going to say. _Man, they really care about what Zach Sazaki has to say. Half of those questions weren't even about me. Does Lifebringer's opinion really carry that much sway? Why didn't anyone ever ask All Might about his thoughts on laws? Guess the legal climate at the time was at a standstill. No one wanted anything to change, but now people saw changes occur with a correlation to crime rates dropping, and everyone's wondering if more change can mean an even better and safer world. I think so too. Down to middle school though?_ "...That starting education of Quirks earlier is a great idea. Not just for aspiring heroes, but for everyone to learn how to properly use their own Quirks in a safe environment."

"But is just starting in middle school alright?" The woman called out before it sounded like Sazaki was finished, because she knew if he was allowed to finish his reply that everyone else would pounce with their own questions. "Or do you think the Prime Minister isn't going far enough? In the leaked report you wrote two years ago at U.A., did you not claim that Quirk education should start at the earliest level and continue through school?"

 _I don't know if I phrased it like that,_ Zach thought, while hesitating with a thoughtful look at the question. "I think it is, again, not up to me to decide. I do believe it is a good first step though to broader Quirk education and comprehension-"

"Sazaki!"

"Lifebringer! Over here!"

"Yes, you," Zach said with a point at a reporter slightly farther back but who did not just start shouting the question, instead raising their hand to be called on. The others who saw him do that instantly noted it for the next time, as Zach intended when he pointed.

"Although you have responded to questions at impromptu press conferences, such as these," the thin man with slicked-to-the-left black hair began. "Why is it you have declined more formal press conferences? Or television appearances as you have been offered by several stations?"

"It's just a safety concern," Zach replied with a shake of his head like there was nothing big to this like the press often made it out on tv. "I think-"

"Is that also true with the press conference you denied with the Prime Minister?" The same reporter called out, making Zach freeze with his mouth open. He continued while catching Sazaki off guard, "My sources say that you were requested to have a make-up press conference with Prime Minister Nikko after the first one was, cancelled. Do you have any comment on the validity of that statement?"

 _He already knows. Can't catch me in a lie though if I don't lie._ "It's correct," Zach replied. "But again, it's for the same reason."

"So you don't have anything wrong with the Prime Minister? Do you not support him?" Zach Sazaki paused, and the reporter jumped on it, "Nikko's first act as Prime Minister was to pardon you for your crimes and release you from Tartaros. Don't you feel gratitude towards him?"

 _This guy's good. If I don't feel gratitude then I'm a shit person. If I feel gratitude then there's the risk that I'll be used._ "The Prime Minister, like myself, is a public servant," Zach replied. He stared at the reporter while saying it in a calm voice, and he continued before that man could interrupt him, "He pardoned me because it was the will of the people who elected him. I am not a political piece to be used." He said it while staring at the reporter in a way non-accusatory, yet the words he said were clearly accusing the reporter of trying to get him to incriminate himself as such. "But do I feel gratitude? Yes, I do, but not that I owe him. I know the Prime Minister released me feeling the same way, and it was just because he believed I deserved to be pardoned like many others did."

An EMT came up behind Zach as more reporters started calling out questions at him, and Zach turned and listened as the man whispered something into his ear. The tvs broadcasting the scene of the accident showed Lifebringer turn to the crowd of reporters and apologize for cutting it short, saying he needed to get to the hospital without elaborating on what he meant by that. He turned and started running though, just sprinting to the sidewalk and then down the road still in the jacket he wore over his school uniform that day and had left Shiketsu in not an hour earlier. One of the people watching Sazaki run off was standing behind his desk with his hands curled onto the top of it so his fingernails were nearly digging into the wood.

"Can you believe him?" Nikko said, his voice full of frustration at what Lifebringer just said.

"How did it get out about your second press conference-"

"I don't know!" Nikko snapped, then he took in a deep breath and lifted his hands from his desk. He turned towards his wife and got an apologetic look on his face, "Sorry, for yelling. But this is twice now he's accused me of being dirty with no evidence!"

Enri Nikko stepped towards her husband. The shorter woman with brick-red hair falling to her shoulders began in a soothing but stern voice as she got close to him, "He isn't saying you're dirty. Both times he said the opposite, and last time was harsher but it was also private and more directed straight to you. You realized that-"

"But this time he brought it up in front of the world," Kaizo snapped again, his fists clenching in anger this time. "No one was even thinking about it. Now, it doesn't matter that he says he believes in me. Everyone else is thinking I let Lifebringer out just so I could have him at that press conference say all sorts of great stuff about how grateful he was to me! I didn't care! Just having a single press conference wasn't much to ask when I just released him from prison! Wasn't it?"

"Not much at all," Enri agreed with a nod, and she frowned back towards the screen for a moment but Lifebringer was no longer on it. "He's still just a boy though, Kaizo. Give him some time, then order him as his boss to come speak with you. Not a publicity stunt or anything, but just a meeting." Kaizo frowned deeper at his wife's suggestion, as the idea of meeting with Sazaki now just made him think of all the media would run with him asking for favors or being corrupt. "But before that, show that Lifebringer doesn't define you as Prime Minister."

Kaizo looked back at his wife and into her eyes. His pretty but professional-looking wife in a business suit stepped up close to him and looked up into his eyes, "It's still early in your term, but people are starting to forget why they elected you. It was not _just_ because of Lifebringer. You got that done on the first day, as you promised. Now, you need to get to work."

Nikko kept his face steady for a few more seconds, then he sighed and let out a long exhale. "You're right. You're right!" He said it louder and nodded as he knew it to be true. He shook his head around and took in another deep breath, "He helped me get elected already, I don't need him to get done what I wanted to get done." _Though it would have been easier to pass what I want to get passed if Sazaki would just play along. His support would make it all so much easier._

"That 'first step' comment he made, Sazaki's still in the extreme on most issues," Enri added. She gave her husband a smile and put a hand on the side of his arm to encourage him. "Most people don't want such radical changes, but the moderates will all be happy to see your small changes. The conservatives will be glad you aren't pushing all of Lifebringer's extreme progressive ideals, ones we all know only because of a high school paper he wrote at sixteen year's old." Kaizo nodded again, and then Enri finished, "The only ones you'll have trouble reaching are the ones who solely want everything Lifebringer suggests and nothing less, but you don't have to please everyone. You got elected because of the policies you believe in. Let's start with those, and we'll see what comes after."

"The next election is far off," Kaizo Nikko agreed. The Prime Minister walked back behind his desk and looked down at some folders full of papers he had to go through today. "It's time to work," he said, and he took his seat while giving his wife one more encouraging look before she said she was going to get back to her own office. As Enri left the room though, Nikko frowned back down at his desk and his face scrunched back up in annoyance and frustration. _Approval ratings have never dropped so fast after an election before. And they're only going to drop more now. Lifebringer was supposed to be helping me. Instead, it's been all take and no give. I can't rely on him at all. People voted for me for my policies? Don't kid yourself Enri. Most of them picked me for one policy and one policy alone. Freeing that brat._

* * *

Near the top of one of the tallest skyscrapers of Musutafu's skyline, Kaizo Nikko sat at a wide desk across from a business executive he was meeting with alone. The office was wide and took up most of the thirty-eighth floor of the building, though the Prime Minister was a bit surprised they did not have the meeting on the top floor above them. "…Your interest in Quirk advancements in technology is shared by many in the Japanese government, including myself," Nikko assured the CEO in front of him. "We need the assistance of the private sector in order to change perceptions inside Japan, however, and those perceptions will only change slower if companies like yours choose to outsource business and manufacturing outside of the country."

"The cost of producing inside Japan is now unreasonably higher than in even China or Mexico. The countries _I_ have subsidiaries growing in have even lower costs of production than those two, and that cheap production outweighs the cost of shipping goods back into the country," the man before Nikko said it calmly, not in as much an argumentative tone as one just explaining why he could not fold easily on this.

"But you do this and consumers get to pay the lower prices, which in the short run will be good for them, but we need to think about the long term here," Nikko countered. He was younger than the man in front of him, but Adam Rasheed was still a middle-aged man himself despite being in charge of the multinational Rasheed Corporation. Rasheed hummed at Nikko's counter and looked to be thinking harder about it, but a bead of sweat was sitting on the right side of his face and his fingers tapped on the underside of his desk as he continued his talk with the Prime Minister. _He knows I'm right,_ Nikko thought, noticing the strange behavior of the executive before him. Nikko leaned forward and continued strongly, "If consumers saw prices getting lower everywhere else but staying high here because of your higher cost of production, due to you keeping your businesses in Japan, they would be more inclined to support bills altering laws regarding Quirk usage in the workplace. We missed the gap, Rasheed-san."

"How do you mean?" Rasheed asked quickly.

"When the world was going through such rises in villain activity and a large-scale spread of chaos, people were inclined to change things to make their lives better. We missed that surge though, and now things are better and we did not change very much at all, leaving people to wonder if anything need change in our status quo." Nikko said it firmly, then he sat back straight-up in his seat and he said, "I know you don't want to lose business by accepting lower revenue and higher costs, but I assure you that many in Japan would choose to purchase your products more exclusively should you make a pledge to keep businesses and jobs in Japan. I will do my part by doing what I can to raise prices on imported goods, and it will hurt the consumer in the short run but I believe, strongly, that it will lead to greater support for the bills I plan to pass over this term alone. Rasheed-san, we are falling behind. Your company is falling behind to foreign companies who were early on this trend too, and without government assistance you will not be able to get back in the race to compete on an equal playing field."

"So that's the kind of man you are?" Rasheed asked. He took in a deep breath and sat back in his seat, staring intensely at Rasheed though still with some anxiety covering his face even more pronounced now. "I like the way you think, and I would be happy to work with you on this," Rasheed said it in a calm voice, but he gulped afterwards and the way he was acting made Nikko start feeling a bit more hesitant about all this. "Mr. Prime Minister, would you look over at that wall?" Adam Rasheed said, and he turned his head to his right to look at the wall on the opposite side of the room as the windows.

"Why?" Nikko asked confusedly. He looked where Rasheed had him look over to, and he asked, "Who is that?"

There was a picture frame on the wall of a large man with broad shoulders and a stern but somewhat friendly demeanor. "My former CFO," Rasheed replied. "Seiki Ganji. This was actually his office." Nikko looked around and back at Rasheed, giving him a look wondering why he was letting him know that. "Ganji went missing, some time back."

"I think I heard something about that," Nikko began, nodding his head with some familiarity though he was still lost as to what was going on.

"The truth though, is that Ganji was killed," Rasheed said. His voice got lower and his eyes more nervous as the Prime Minister stared at him with wide eyes. "By the League of Villains," he added softer.

"You know this? And you haven't made it public?" Nikko asked. He gave the CEO a stern look and frowned deeply as he had thought he just made an alliance with a reputable businessman. "Withholding information like that-"

"I couldn't make it public," Rasheed countered. "As I was being blackmailed, due to the former CFO's villainous activities he used Rasheed Corp's resources for." Rasheed's eyes grew wider as he said this, more sweat forming on his face while the Prime Minister stared at him in shock. "That information the villains had would destroy the company I spent my life building, and it would destroy the memory of my best friend who they killed… due to his being an anti-hero who worked outside of the law to fight villains."

Nikko stood up out of his seat. "I don't think you should tell me anything more," he said. _Does he think I'll sympathize because I let out Lifebringer? This is too much._ "If you are supporting the League of Villains-"

"I just needed to let you know, why," Rasheed said, while getting up from his seat too with an apologetic look over his anxious face that made Nikko feel an immediate need to get out of that room.

 **Clank.**

Nikko turned his head, and he looked towards a crack in the wall on his left not far from that picture of Seiki Ganji. Part of the wall slid apart, and a low voice chuckled from inside which made Nikko's body cover in sweat and for him to take a step back. "What is this?!" Nikko shouted, spinning to Rasheed and then back to that dark crack that got wider and showed silhouettes inside of some secret room connected to theirs. He opened his mouth to yell at the figures inside asking who they were, but he had no need to do so when the light from this room illuminated the two men standing there looking out at him.

The two of them stepped out of the secret room of Ganji's old office. One was a man in a pair of dark blue jeans, with a black jacket on over a white shirt that could be seen since the jacket's zipper was down and opened up. He had spiky black hair, and his skin on his ankles, wrists, neck, the bottom of his face, and around his eyes was purple and scarred like burns. Dabi lifted a hand and blue flames came off as Nikko opened his mouth to shout again, and the Prime Minister saw his life flash in front of his eyes. The man next to Dabi spoke up though, "Please, use your inside voice Mr. _Prime Minister._ Wouldn't want anyone to interrupt our meeting."

His voice gave Kaizo Nikko chills and made his hair stand on end. He had on all black clothing but had a gray cloak over his clothes falling behind his back with a raggedy bottom and sharp edges to it. His arms were partially hidden under the cloak, but the material protruded out due to the hands connected to his arms going from his wrists up to his shoulders. He had another two gray hands on his head: one over his face and the other grabbing the back of his head and connected to the ones on his shoulders by two red cords sticking out of it. Shigaraki Tomura stepped farther into the room but towards Rasheed's desk that the CEO nervously moved away from in the opposite direction until he was standing between it and the windows.

"Shigaraki, Tomura," Nikko said. He turned his head and followed Tomura around his desk to the spot Rasheed had been sitting at before. Shigaraki sat down, scooted the chair back in, then he motioned at the seat across from him. Nikko could see Dabi in the corner of his eyes, but his fists curled at his sides and he said in a low voice, "I have no time to waste listening to you. If you are not here to kill me, then you should start running." Nikko told himself to turn around and leave after saying that in such a convicted way. His eyes darted towards Rasheed though who he had been considering letting get away with something, maybe, if they could work something out here. _I would have been working for the League then though- wait a second. If he had just entered into a partnership with me, they would have had their in! Why would they do this?! I don't need to know, just leave!_

"Are you sure you'd like to do that?" Shigaraki asked the Prime Minister standing before him. "The Prime Minister caught in a meeting with the League of Villains. Or, the Prime Minister crying wolf when the press and heroes arrive to find we aren't here?"

 _Don't listen to them. They're villains. There is only one course of action here for the Prime Minister to take._ "That secret room too? Can you make that just disappear?" Nikko scoffed.

"Maybe not," Shigaraki admitted. "That's a good point. You were making a lot of good points a minute ago, actually. It's a shame more people don't listen to you."

"I'm leaving," Nikko said.

"No you're not," Dabi replied, and Nikko spun to him to see the spiky-haired villain smile at his stunned look. "Just give us a couple minutes of your precious time. We came all this way to see you."

"All the way from where, exactly?" Nikko said, and Dabi looked surprised this time at the angry look Nikko gave him while sounding like he was trying to find out their base location. "You've been in hiding for so long, I figure all of you must have run so far away I'd never have to see your _ugly_ faces again." Nikko spat it out at the scar-faced man, then turned a glare back to Shigaraki Tomura with that hand attached to the front of his face covering up his expression that Nikko figured was probably as dark as Dabi's just got. _I'm going to get myself killed here! They aren't trying to take me hostage or anything though. I can't let them talk to me. They're going to try and blackmail me. But there's nothing they have on me! My record's clean! I've never committed a crime in my life!_

"There's no need for insults," Shigaraki said, holding up a hand to his side while chuckling at the way this was going. "Sit," he said, motioning his hand for the chair in front of him as he repeated it in a darker voice full of malice and yet still sounding like Shigaraki Tomura was smiling. Dabi stepped towards Nikko, who this time walked back towards the chair and just took his seat despite having told himself he was going to try and walk out earlier. "That's better," Shigaraki said.

 _If I can stall them, my security detail will come and find out what's going on. I should have brought them in with me. Then again, the fact that they knew I was having this meeting today- is because of Rasheed! But who suggested to me Rasheed over other execs? Or was it just that he accepted a meeting quickly, or he even made it out like he would accept or had similar views so that my people would try to meet with him? How long have they been planning this meeting?!_ Nikko had a serious and more calm expression on his face than his panicked fast-paced mind was working. "What do you want?" Nikko asked. _I can at least find out their plans during this meeting. No one could suspect me if I found information, without even being a hero, on the long-missing League of Villains!_

"To help you," Shigaraki said with a friendly smile hardly seen under that hand over his face.

"I highly doubt that," Nikko responded.

"Oh I'm sure," Shigaraki agreed with a chuckle. "Instead, you can rely on much more reliable people to help you out, can't you? Such as… Life _bri_ nger _?"_ Shigaraki said the name and his tone shifted the smallest amount. It sounded like he was just trying to keep up the facade of the voice he was using, but halfway through the name, Shigaraki's lips twitched and Nikko saw a darker look in his eyes between the fingers of the gray hand in front of his face. Nikko's heart fell as he heard that tone shift, suddenly remembering that he was speaking to an insane mass murderer and not someone he should be bantering back and forth with like he was in any way trained for something like this.

"Wh-What do you mean?" Nikko thought, and he only cursed internally for a moment at his stutter there after a life of public speaking.

"Don't you think it's a bit unfair, how he's been treating you?" Shigaraki wondered.

"You got him out of prison and what did he do? Straight up accused you of corruption on live tv," Dabi remarked, moving around behind Nikko and making him flinch as the voice went from one ear to the other as Dabi passed his back. "He's a cautious one, not trusting the government. Then again he has lots of reasons to. You're all a bunch of slimy bastards."

"Well, most of you," Shigaraki said, countering with a look towards Dabi and then a turn back to Nikko who could clearly see they were pitching something to him. He was trying very hard to just keep thinking about how he was stalling, and that he should not agree with anything they were saying as much as they were some of the things he had thought himself. "But you, you haven't done anything. You aren't anything like all those corrupt officials and politicians he exposed around the world over the year he was gone."

"As Death, you mean?" Nikko asked. "Do you have proof it was him?" He questioned again, wondering if the villains were attempting to give him this as the whole purpose of the meeting.

"No one has that proof," Shigaraki countered with a shake of his head. "Which is why he knew he could come back here. So that he could start his plan, whatever that plan may be."

"We don't know what it is," Rasheed mentioned, making Nikko turn towards him and frown much darker at the CEO who he did not feel as scared to be talked to. Both Dabi and Shigaraki gave him darker looks too, and Rasheed shut up instantly and just stepped farther back towards his windows at those three dark looks.

"But whatever it is, he's coming for blood," Dabi said. In his head, he saw the last time he saw Sazkai in person. He saw that dark figure firing a beam of Death at him that killed more of the League around him before he sprinted away. "He's coming for us, and Mr. Prime Minister, we don't feel very comfortable about that."

"Then turn yourselves in and go to prison," Nikko said calmly without looking back at Dabi. He stared at Shigaraki and said in as confident a tone he could muster, "I promise you'll be safe from him in there."

"That's not going to happen," Shigaraki said, but he left some wiggle room in his voice like there was chance for negotiation here. Nikko opened his eyes wider and actually listened closer as Shigaraki continued, "But we do have our own idea for how to be safe from him. Nikko, Mr. Prime Minister, your popularity is dropping by the day. Everyone can see you only got elected thanks to Lifebringer, and they think you don't have the balls to stand up to him. Letting him get away with doing whatever he wants. People think you're his puppet."

"And yet he plays it like you wanted it to be the other way around," Dabi remarked with a scoff. "Like he didn't get himself thrown in Tartaros knowing exactly what you'd do."

"He couldn't have," Nikko retorted quickly. _Stop listening to them! They don't know what they're talking about. It's all lies-_

"We knew," Shigaraki said. Nikko froze and got confusion over his whole face, then sweat all over his body as the door far behind him opened. He turned his head partially to the side and looked back, but it was the worst person he could imagine who just came in and was coming towards him. _My guards? How did he get past them?! Are they dead? Did they get bribed?_ Nikko turned his head slowly back forward from the blond he just looked back through the room at, looking into Shigaraki's eyes with his own shaking and wide at what the leader of the League of Villains was saying. "We knew long before you even announced you were running. What platforms you planned to run on. The fact that you were going to release Lifebringer. Well, we didn't know that part, since Lifebringer had not turned himself in yet at the time, but we knew exactly what you were going to do every step you took to do it."

"Good for you," Nikko said, trying to keep his voice steady though it did shake there for a second. "You think that scares me? You think, I'll help you just because you knew… or because you think Lifebringer's using me? He's staying out of politics, and that's good for him. I don't need his help to fix Japan."

"Maybe not," Raijin began behind him, and Nikko grit his teeth hard at that cocky voice he heard coming closer to his back. "But no matter what you do, no one will ever believe it was _you_ who fixed Japan. No matter what measures you get passed…" Nikko's eyes widened again, and he bit down even harder as he knew this already. "No matter what accomplishments you make in the Diet…"

Nikko had kept it in the back of his mind, trying not to think very hard about it. Raijin brought it to the surface though instantly, and Nikko lowered his eyes down with his dark hair shadowing over them. "You released Lifebringer on the same day you came into office. And everybody cares about him a lot more than they care about you. So if things get better over the next couple years, while everyone's focusing on Lifebringer and what he's doing… you know it's him they're all going to give credit for ' _fixing_ ' this broken country."

"You're right," Nikko whispered. _Call the police as soon as they're gone._ Nikko's expression was dark as he stared down at the desk in front of him. "But, there's no way to avoid that. Lifebringer will always be popular, and I'll never be able to surpass him." _Tell me your plan and I'll agree, and they'll let me live. I'll report them as soon as I'm clear and it'll be up to the heroes to catch them. I can even call Lifebringer and get him here to help me! He's my true ally! I don't believe any of this- I mean, I do. But I am not a villain._

"We have to throw him back in prison, and only you can make that happen," Shigaraki said. "You'll get the proof you need to charge him for being Death, and you'll throw him back into the deepest part of Tartaros."

 _If I agree with them here. Even if I say I did it just to get them to leave me alone, they could be recording me and it would all be over anyway. I… I can't fold!_ "I won't make a deal with villains-"

Raijin stepped up behind Nikko. He leaned over the Prime Minister's right shoulder, making the man lean hard to the left at the unsettled feeling welling inside him. "How can you say no to us?" Raijin asked. He put his phone over the chair and in front of Nikko's face with the screen facing back towards them. Nikko's unsettled and anxious expression flipped. His eyes bulged and his heart nearly stopped before racing as fast as it had when he first saw Shigaraki Tomura in that secret passage. In fact, this time it was racing even harder. His vision started getting blurrier in the corners, his breath getting harder to get out of his own throat at the sight. "Do you really want these pictures getting out?" Denki Kaminari asked.

Nikko stared at himself in his focused vision. He heard Raijin but the words were muffled, as he stared at himself naked on a motel room bed, with a woman… who was not his wife. The bombshell blonde laying there with him on top, with her on top of him, pictures were taken from various angles around the room somehow in the middle of the love-making without Nikko ever seeing it there. And then Raijin flipped to the final picture of the blonde woman with her eyes open staring straight into the camera, and Nikko's bottom lip dropped before his jaw fell the rest of the way at what Kaminari spoke straight into his ear, "What would people think if they found out their Prime Minister was cheating on his wife? What would people do, when they find out that she was actually a teenager? And a _villain?_ A _murderess_?" Raijin's voice hissed at the end and he brought his lips right close to Nikko's right ear while the older man had completely frozen up and felt his world crumbling around him.

"The most wanted, _Himiko Toga?_ "

Raijin smirked while pulling back. He saw the Prime Minister's horrified look of realization at how these pictures were possible. The reality of what had happened slammed down on him over and over, a soul-crushing revelation that continued even as his vision came back to him fully and the panic completely set in. He snapped his head up and reached a hand for the phone, but Kaminari pulled it away and smacked him on the opposite ear for the attempt. "Uh uh uh," he said, wagging his finger in the Prime Minister's face and then sparking some electricity off the tip when the PM was about to try and stand.

"Since these pictures were taken _before_ you were elected," Raijin began again, while walking around Nikko's chair and to the side of the desk he leaned on between Shigaraki and Dabi. "It could be said that you got into this position of power just for the League of Villains if it came down to you being discovered." Nikko's already collapsing world just fell even deeper, and Raijin added, "If you were being blackmailed the whole time, well that would be treason wouldn't it? Life without parole in the _deepest_ part of Tartaros. No more loving wife. No more adoring country. But a cell to spend the rest of your days in." Raijin shrugged his shoulders and leaned his head back, "A pretty harsh punishment for one unfaithful night, for a drunken mistake! But, that's politics for you," Raijin chuckled ominously and slid his phone back into his pocket that he patted once for safe keeping and had the Prime Minister staring at with a dry mouth.

"Th-That might- How do I know that was actually Toga-"

"I photographed the real Nozaki Tanja on that night too," Raijin said with a smug look over his face. He leaned his face forward and smirked maliciously at the Prime Minister staring at him in horror, "She has a strong alibi to claim that she never had sex with you. And when the video of Toga's initial blackmail comes out, threatening you to run for Prime Minister, her disguise melting away to show who she really was as she holds up these photos… well, the evidence just stacks up against you doesn't it?"

Nikko bowed his head and brought his hands up to his face. He felt like screaming at the top of his lungs, and yet he was too scared to do so as the villains in front of him could just decide to kill him if he did something like that. Rasheed bit down as he watched this happen to someone else, and he turned away and looked out the windows of his building in such a hateful way. _Fucking, League of Villains._

Dabi glanced to his side at the smirking blond next to him who looked so proud of his work right here. _How he did this is nothing short of fucking prophetic. A whole year leading to this moment. And now,_ Dabi's head turned and he looked back at the Prime Minister grabbing his face and looking like he might be crying. _We have him in the palm of our hands. We needed this though. This, and everything else we can get, now that he's back…_

"You know," Raijin began again after Nikko had a few moments to try and process how horrible his life had become in only a minute. "It's only because of Lifebringer that we're doing this to you."

"All for a kid who isn't even thankful that you let him out of jail five and a half years early, in his sentence for _murder._ " Dabi paused after saying it, and he was glad Nikko's face was still down as his expression did not match the tone he just used to try and fake this as well as the other two were.

"And we don't want much, Mr. Prime Minister" Shigaraki said. He shook his head while Nikko was raising his. Nikko's eyes were red and his face ten years older than when he bowed it as if all that stress had already worn him down. "Lifebringer's the one we're after. He's the _only_ one we're after," Shigaraki specified. _The reason we've come out of hiding. Imagine that! That we came out of hiding just for Lifebringer, and we might go back into it should we get what we want._ Nikko blinked a couple times, his eyes widening as his heart started speeding up again. Shigaraki held back his smirk as he could see his own thoughts being echoed in Nikko's mind the way he intended them to.

Shigaraki stood up and he shook his head in a pitying way. "Do you really want your whole life destroyed for him?" Shigaraki asked while looking down at the man who felt so small now, so out of control of his life and everything happening within it. "For someone who doesn't care at all about you?"

Nikko's head bowed again. He looked down at his hands. He clenched his eyes shut and saw himself waking up in that room, next to that beautiful woman he had been talking to the night before who was just so easy to get on with. Who had been so much more attractive than his plain wife, and who had taken such an interest in his ideas for the future… and in his political future… Nikko opened up his clenched fists. His face looked defeated, and he slowly lifted up his head trying to muster a bit more of a stern look over that hesitant expression. "Is Lifebringer… really you're whole goal?"

The group of villains nodded at him. Nikko's eyes dropped back down, and smirks rose, all around.

* * *

 **A/N And they back! About 40 chapters ago while Zach was Death-ing about the world, we had that one scene of Kaminari in his hiding place with some comrades, and that blonde came in who melted away to show Toga... anyway just reminding in case anyone forgot about that. XD The League of Villains are starting to move in the shadows, huge corporations and government leaders falling into their hands one by one. Zach's busy with school, dealing with the press, and his own moves, but other plans are being put in motion at the same time. The League know who their most dangerous enemy is... Anyway thanks for reading! Hope you enjoyed the chapter, and leave a review below telling me what you think, comments, predictions, or questions for the story!**

Licorice chapter 159 . Jun 6

I just noticed that the anniversary of death is in 9 days.

 **5 more! Probs get another 2 chapters in by then!**

GuestP chapter 159 . Jun 7

*Maniacal Laughing*  
tHiS StOrY iS bReAkInG mE  
Okay, I'm fine now.  
Zach has PTSD and it's making me really sad, because gosh Zach's just got all this pent up emotions and rants that he can't do away with and I actually feel bad for him.  
I've always loved how you manage to make him act so human-like. For example, the flashbacks that Zach has in this chapter and the call backs to characters that are long gone, it physically and mentally affects him, it reminds me of soldiers who come back from war - the regrets and grief overwhelm many. I don't think I've written enough about how much I admire the way you write, and the inspiration you give me as both a reader and writer is incredible. Thank you!  
Keep up the awesome work my dude!~  
Can't wait for the next chapter!~

 **Thanks for the review! Zach's got so much he could rant about... if only he had someone to rant to. ;( Too much of his stuff he's keeping hidden, but he's in it for the long game (as much as he has to remind himself of it sometimes). Zach's PTSD showed last chapter a lot because of similar reasons as what happened to him when he returned from escaping the League of Villains in the past. He's just trying to keep on with whatever it is he's got going on. I'm glad you enjoy my writing style, and that you feel the way Zach's feeling and what he's going through is pretty accurate for someone who'd gone to war. Zach did that, and a whole lot more too. He's still keeping up appearances best he can though and living it out as Zach Sazaki. Can he keep that up? What will the League do now with Nikko's help? What's coming?! Find out soon on Death!**


	161. Chapter 161

**Disclaimer: I don't own Boku no Hero Academia**

 **Chapter 161:**

"Are you sure they can't see us?" Bubble Girl whispered. She stood at the front of the stealth submarine up close to the thick glass panel wrapping around the cockpit. The sidekick stood next to another young woman with blue hair though Sirius' was straighter and a brighter shade than Kaoruko Awata's. Awata wore her usual skimpy Bubble Girl uniform, just as Centipeder was wearing his usual costume behind her on the "bridge" of the submarine being used by Japan's heroes for their mission.

A few of the heroes on the sub had on special uniforms meant for deploying underwater, while Sirius' pro hero Selkie's costume was already meant for use underwater. Selkie stood at the bridge with Centipeder, along with the two in charge of the mission: Amajiki Tamaki and Hado Nejire. Nejire's sidekicks stood behind in the separation between the front room of the sub where the older heroes were and the longer back section that extended past the room just behind them with the pool that dropped to the water below the sub to allow for mid-use deployment of heroes. It was not Selkie's usual vessel, but he had used it from time to time on operations requiring stealth for a greater number of people.

Sirius nodded at the girl next to her after hesitating for a second, because the white floodlights panning underwater had almost hit them again after Bubble Girl's question. "We shouldn't be detectable from this far away." Sirius grimaced and thought to herself after as another strobe almost caught them, despite how their sub should camouflage into the ocean as well. _The one time I wish the water was just a little more polluted,_ Sirius thought. The girl with two large blue fin devices on her ears to help with her Quirk: Good Ear, leaned closer to the glass and closed her eyes while putting her hands up to her ears again. "Any closer and they'll spot us though."

"What's the status on the negotiation?" Centipeder asked, looking to his side at one of his other sidekicks at the computers around the room full of his and Selkie's. Centipeder had taken over the Nighteye agency after his former pro's death, but although being older heroes, he and Selkie combined did not have as many arrests in the past year as either of the younger heroes in between them had on their own.

Two of the former Big Three of U.A. stood next to each other staring around the room at the different computers and then back through the front glass window towards the oil rig ahead. Behind the young pros, a pair of teens who had only graduated nine months earlier from Shiketsu watched the others work. Camie Utsushimi looked around the room with interest at every new thing she was seeing for her first time on a sub. Seiji Shishikura had a more intense look over his face, staring ahead and awaiting his orders from his pro hero who despite the situation was smiling and full of optimism. For a moment, Shishikura's eyes started to narrow at the bubbly older girl with long blue hair falling to her mid-calves, but as Nejire-chan turned to Suneater to mention something she noticed on one of the screens, her sidekick eased himself back at how calm she looked even in this intense scenario.

 _U.A.'s were taught by the best of the best. If it had been Shiketsu, then we would have been considered Number 1. Thus there is merit… in learning from someone like Negire-chan._ Shishikura took in a deep breath through his nose, and he steadied himself again to refocus on the mission and not the complex he was still working on getting over. _There are seventy-three innocent lives on the line. We must act quickly to save them all._

"Negotiation is still at a standstill," one of the sidekicks dressed as sailors sitting on a chair to Selkie's left reported. He turned his chair around while holding a hand up to the headset over his head, and he told the pros looking at him, "Both the Chinese and Americans have promised to pull back the heroes in their response teams after the last threat, and the villains are receiving updates every ten minutes from the negotiating teams. They have their own backup plans to maneuver other heroes around in longer routes the villains won't see coming-"

"But we can't leave the hostages in their hands any longer or we may lose one," Suneater said. His voice was not overly confident, but he spoke it like it was common sense that they needed to act now and the others around agreed with him. Nejire gave Suneater a strong nod at his decision, and she smiled while looking at the side of Tamaki's face as she could see him formulating a strategy in his head right now. Her shy and soft-spoken former classmate wore his white cloak of a uniform, but in his pouches and pockets was a lot of seafood he brought along in preparation for this fight. "The last we heard of the hostages' status, they were tied up in several different rooms and guarded by many villains each."

"No firearms," Nejire added around to the team in the room with her. "And the security team on the rig noted in their last report that the villain they took down was frustrated they didn't have any Trigger."

"Just their Quirks is still dangerous though when we know nothing of what those Quirks are," Tamaki cut back in, as he felt Nejire made that sound too optimistic for a moment.

"We can't bring the sub any closer," Selkie said, looking to the two younger heroes with a firm look on his rough seal-like face. "So from here on we'll have to swim."

Suneater nodded and turned to Centipeder who looked to be awaiting his specific orders too, though Suneater could not tell very well with Juzo Moashi's head looking like that of an insect's. The centipede-man in a tuxedo nodded as he saw the younger man wanted to tell him something, and Suneater spoke in a low but steady voice to him, "Our first move will be disabling any sensors they have. We'll let you know when they're down, and you'll bring the sub to the surface platforms."

"I've got that," Sirius assured while heading back towards the middle of the room. She was more familiar with the sub, and since Selkie was going with the first team she assured Centipeder of it and gave him a thumbs up.

"We're, getting some new information," one of Centipeder's sidekicks, Volarum started while holding a hand over his right ear where he had a soft headset over. His eyes were wide, and he turned to the heroes who all faced him with more gravity at the look on his face. "The rig…" the red-skinned man speaking out the top of his two mouths paused, and then he took off his headset and lowered it down with a more intense look over his face. "We just received a call from official Kumono Ozo. He was in contact with American and Chinese officials trying to learn all he could about what we're heading into. He told them that we're moving in, and they informed him of what this place really is."

"Is it not an oil rig?" Bubble Girl asked, stepping back towards her comrade and looking at him in confusion.

Shishikura and Utsushimi both stepped farther into the room and looked towards the red hero who was wearing a wetsuit and had his breathing gear attached and ready to go with only his helmet still off, just like Camie. Volarum paused and shook his head at Bubble Girl's question, "Publicly, this rig is a joint venture between two companies to drill in the South China Sea. Since the rig is half owned by the United States and half by China, zoning issues are circumvented. So it avoids a lot of attention-"

"Get to the important part. What is it really?" Centipeder questioned his sidekick.

Volarum nodded and spoke in a lower voice, "It's a joint-governmental research lab designing weapons using Quirks." Every person in the room frowned just at the sound of that, and Volarum continued, "It seems the villains already knew what was really going on there when they attacked. They tried to move quickly, but the rig's security detail was stronger than they suspected and when they knew heroes would be on their way soon, they decided to change it to a hostage situation."

"Now we know why those security guys were as good as they were," Sirius said with a look towards Selkie who nodded in agreement.

 _Taking down a villain and getting useful information like that out,_ Selkie thought, having already been interested in it but deciding to push it to later to think about.

Nejire-chan looked around the room and let out a small sigh at the looks that covered everyone's faces. "The security detail, although admittedly 'sketchy,' had every right to fight the villains." Nejire smiled around at the crew who all turned to her upon her saying it. Even if they were not thinking about it, the connotations of everything going on right now were not sitting right with them. Nejire continued, "In both America and China, there's a law permitting the use of Quirks on anyone who breaks into your home if you feel the need to defend yourself. And since the security detail would have lived on the rig, the technicality allows them to combat the villains as if they were defending themselves."

"So it's not an armed force working for the rig," Suneater said in a much flatter tone, though Nejire did relax him a bit too right there. "Just the same as any other security guard. And the work being done here was private, but we'll determine whether or not we need to look into it more, once the hostages are safe and secured. Understood?"

"Understood," most of the room responded back at him. Suneater did not even sigh or get nervous this time as they said it to him. There was no more time for hesitation. They had a better idea of what they were going into now though, and Suneater looked to his side to tell Selkie they should get moving. In the corner of his eye though, he spotted one of the other sidekicks of Centipeder's agency looking somewhat surprised and then confused as she spoke to another team on the line. "Heliam?" Suneater asked.

Shishikura frowned and stared at Suneater in a frustrated way. The younger boy and graduate from Shiketsu darted his eyes to the glass at the front of the sub towards the bottom of the oil rig in the distance that had lights on it and lit up the sea in that direction. _We need to get moving._

"The surface team to our east just reported in that Beluga noticed strange activity underwater moving in our direction." Heliam paused, and the young woman with spiky red hair nodded while listening to something else she was hearing from the other team. "Something else," she added, looking back up at the main heroes of the mission. "They say the water's getting choppy, and there's apparently a storm moving in…" Suneater stared at the girl with his eyes growing wide, a bead of sweat rolling down the side of his face right as it formed. "They hear thunder, and it's rolling in from their east, so, also in this direction."

"The underwater movement could be a problem," Selkie began. He narrowed his eyes and turned towards the pool in the back, "If there are scouts moving around outside checking for hero activity, they may have already reported our comrades' positions."

"And if they're moving from them straight to the rig, they're going to run into us and see us sitting here," Shishikura added in case no one else had realized it yet.

"Meaty's right," Nejire said. "Move us around to port, but keep us equidistant from the rig."

"Selkie, take half the team and intercept the ones coming from behind us if that movement Beluga picked up turns out to be villains," Centipeder started. "Suneater, you should still get to the rig as fast as you can. If they haven't reported in about us yet, or worse if they already have, the hostages are in imminent…" Centipeder stopped himself from finishing his warning of how dire this situation was.

Suneater looked towards the radar, but he did not see anything blinking behind them despite their radar picking up clearly the oil rig ahead of them. He looked to his right where Heliam kept talking to the surface team, and then back through the front windshield and towards the rig. _What do I do here?_ He thought, while raising his head up and staring at the top of the sub in a nervous way.

"What? Scared of a little thunderstorm?" Nejire asked her friend, prodding in a joking way but also raising an eyebrow at his strange behavior.

"I think we have company," Suneater muttered.

"The villains know we're here?" Selkie asked, getting ready to rush to the pool to dive. "Aquatic team get ready," he ordered.

"It's not more villains," Suneater said hesitantly. A bead of sweat rolled down his face unlike it did in their whole preparation for fighting these villains. "They're coming," he muttered.

Most of the others on the sub with Suneater stared at him in confusion. The ones who were putting their helmets on turned back with Selkie towards their team leader who said it was not villains coming up behind them like they thought. Nejire realized it, which made her two sidekicks come up behind her and ask her what was going on at the big smile that just flashed over her face. "Oh, you're in for a show," she said with a look over her shoulder at the two teens who just got even more confused by that.

Selkie's eyes grew wide as he put it together himself. "'They bring the storm,'" he said, and others around him looked towards the pro hero who started back forward through the bridge towards the front window. He turned to Suneater and stopped after walking past midway, "I've heard that phrase before."

"Where?" Shishikura asked, confused at all of this. "Who brings the storm?"

Suneater turned to his side and spoke to the red-skinned man looking at him with huge eyes. "Contact Endeavor," Tamaki said. He took in a deep breath after saying it, and then he said in a low voice for the sub to hear, "The Army of Death is here."

"What?" Camie asked, her eyes bulging as she spun to Suneater. "How do you know that?"

"Even if they are," Nejire began, turning fully to her friend and giving him an intense look less smiley than usual. She gave Tamaki a serious and disapproving look, and she said, "The hostages' lives take precedence."

Suneater frowned at the girl in front of him questioning his last order like that when they were supposed to be co-leading this mission. He saw Volarum hesitating too, and he took in a deep breath and clarified, "Calling Endeavor will not put the hostages' lives at risk. Because, by the time he arrives to deal with them, they'll have already defeated all the villains."

Tamaki said it not so much as in a hopeful and confident way that he was optimistic the Army of Death could handle it. He sounded more accepting of an inevitable fact, making Nejire step back and nod her head with huge eyes at the way in which he just spoke. _You never tell me why it is you quit the Task Force, no matter how much I ask,_ Nejire Hado turned to Selkie and smiled again back in her optimistic mood. _Mirio's so into it still, and I've noticed you two have been weird about it lately. But I didn't realize how much you really…_ Nejire froze as she started telling Selkie to get out there and start the mission anyway.

"How did that thing not show up on radar?!" one of Selkie's crew exclaimed while jumping out of his seat. The sub shook from the movement directly below them, and everyone on the bridge stared through the front windshield at the creature swimming past them that was longer than their sub itself.

"It's, a whale," Camie said, cocking her head to the side.

Suneater sweatdropped more. _If that was just a whale being the suspicious movement, could the storm just be… a regular storm?_

He was not the only one thinking it, and Volarum got the most anxious look on his face as he heard the ringing over the line as he was finally getting transferred to Endeavor. The whale was not on line to hit the oil rig, but the farther it got towards the rig, the more noticeable it was going to get. Lights pointed at the whale, and underwater drones around the base of the rig's steel support pillars turned to move along with it as it neared and came close to the platform.

"Um," Volarum started, sweat covering his face as the gruff and angry voice of Endeavor asked him what was so urgent he had to be interrupted while in the middle of fighting villains himself. He looked towards Suneater, and Tamaki nodded once in a confident way that had Volarum immediately reply to Endeavor.

The confident way in which Suneater nodded made everyone who thought this might have been overthought spin to him and then back towards the rig. It was harder to see the rig now than it was to see to the left of it where the whale was passing by. An attack of some kind hit the water near the whale, and the huge mammal let out a loud noise as it turned and swam the other way from the green liquid in the water making the ocean around it bubble.

"Are you sure it's really them?" Shishikura asked, spinning to Suneater again with a frustrated look. The way Suneater had been so confident that the villains would be handled by the time Endeavor arrived, along with all this mysterious stuff happening around them he did not understand, angered the teen with such a strong view of heroes.

"They're far ahead of us," Tamaki said, while pulling seafood out of his costume and spinning around. "Keep careful not to be spotted, and follow me," he ordered it while running back towards the pool in the room behind him. Everyone stared at Suneater in shock, wondering what they just missed that he had seen, but the aquatic team all ran after him and dove in the pool as soon as they were ready.

Far ahead of the heroes, two teams of soldiers in all black uniforms neared the lowest platforms of the "oil rig." The first team that had gone straight down the middle past the top of the submarine but closer to the surface, had avoided being spotted thanks to the whale taking most of the attention away from them. The second team, which had been hiding inside Dongwu's mouth as the Chinese man who had transformed into the biggest whale he could muster swam close to the rig, had dropped out of his mouth when he opened his mouth to make that noise of panic and pain.

Fly-By swam forward in his team of five with his comrades surrounding him all invisible thanks to his Quirk camouflaging anyone within fifteen meters of him from everyone except for people within that range. It was not too useful once it came to fighting in close combat, but he had a waterproof sniper rifle on his back due to that fact anyway.

 _Nice work Dongwu, just wait away from us until things get loud before coming back._ Beta Squad's leader looked back at his team and made hand motions around the surface platform they were nearing. Fly-By nodded at his leader, and he turned to the two who he got motioned at to send around the other side of the thin part of the platform they were nearing. Then he swam down from the rest of the group before he reached the platform himself.

 _Two heat signatures,_ Blackstar thought as he stared up through the surface at his platform. He turned his head to the right and looked over towards Charlie Team who were still out of range of Fly-By's ability. _Can't stay under any longer,_ Blackstar thought, and he nodded at the other team who were too exposed over there despite being made up of quicker movers underwater and generally more stealthy members of their forces. Blackstar pointed a finger up, then he lifted three fingers. He started counting in his own head while rising up to the surface, and he listened as the two men on the lowest platform he was just below were talking about how they had heard of heroes who could transform into whales.

Blackstar rose up over the surface and he swung his arm up over the platform. His arm transformed into a long steel two-pronged hook that caught on either shoulder of the man closer to the edge he was on. He yanked backwards and tugged the man straight underwater in that instant, and he wrapped his other arm around the guy's neck and choked him out as the man flailed around. The villain was too panicked to use his Quirk in the few seconds he had, and Blackstar had him unconscious and docile soon after first emerging. He rose back up over the surface and lifted his free arm that was back to being a normal hand, and that hand was grabbed by a comrade who already got onto the surface platform while he knocked out the guard.

Blackstar turned to his right after getting on the platform, and he nodded over at the other team on another one that had pulled up both of their unconscious villains as well who had gone down without alerting the rest of the villains above. Fly-By swam back up and was the last to surface, having needed to drop down to almost out of Beta Squad's range so as not to catch the guards above, and risk the ones on the other platform from noticing their comrades suddenly vanishing on them. He turned off his Quirk once surfaced, as once they ascended the stairs there would be a risk of problems happening when his Quirk worked through the rig's walls and ceilings. "Heroes are coming up behind us," Blackstar said, and he motioned with his right arm at the same time for Charlie Squad whose leader just looked over at him.

Incite nodded at Blackstar's movement, and he rose up his pistols he took from his sides that each had suppressors on them. The three team members he had behind him moved forward quickly towards the ramps up; the platform Charlie landed on had only long gentle ramps to make it up to the rig's main first floor. Blackstar's team had a more regular staircase ahead of them, and Blackstar moved forward towards it with his team while lifting up a rifle of his own he popped off his side and elongated. "Fly-By, Ledge, scout forward and get to the Nest," Blackstar ordered, referring to the pre-determined sniper point for Fly-By by the codename they gave it. They had acquired blueprints for the rig and each person had memorized the layout on their ride there. The Nest would be far enough away from the others that Fly-By could keep himself invisible while firing, and Ledge was to go with him in case a team was sent to him so there would be a better close-ranged fighter on the team.

Fly-By and Ledge, who was twice as big as his partner, sped up and kept weapons raised as they neared the top of the stairs that would drop them out right onto the rig's main floor. They did not slow down despite the cameras aimed at the top of the stairs, just as they were not worried about the cameras that had been watching the surface platforms. The cameras were not originally a part of the oil rig, and therefore not planned for by the heroes who had been planning on coming in from the same side but would have been spotted by the new security cameras that had been installed. Despite being new for the rig though, the system itself that was put in place was an older model, one that was very easy for the woman hovering ten thousand feet above to crack into and loop footage of.

"Sure you don't need my help?" Rebel asked, leaning back in his chair with his legs propped up on the edge of his desk. "Looping so many cameras, I wonder if even your magic fingers can take it?"

Rampart rolled his eyes at the man in the command room with him across the world from the incident actually taking place. The woman Rebel was talking to got a slightly more agitated look on her face though, but Raylei spoke in a deadpan voice, "Stay off the comms." The woman with a blocky, rectangular-shaped forehead, moved her sixteen slender fingers quickly over her keyboards from the cockpit of a stealth jet she was coordinating the mission from. Two other jets were on her sides, and she finished typing for a moment right as the plane she was on shook from the intense rumbling around her. "You almost here, Maelstrom?" Raylei asked after feeling that.

A fourth jet on its way to the other three had to move slower while inside of the center of the storm rolling in towards the oil rig. The storm itself had already surrounded all three of the other planes as well, but the ship Maelstrom was on directly in the center was actually shaking the least of them all. Her comrades could not stop staring in shock at her as lightning shot around their plane without hitting it, and the strong winds of the storm did not hinder their flight in the slightest. Rain even moved away from their cockpit window to give them a clearer path ahead. "Almost to you. Going to lower the clouds to the north of the rig, get their attention over there."

"Alpha Squad, ready to drop?" Raylei questioned.

"Awaiting the signal," Jetflame replied.

"Use equipment only," Death said. He looked next to him while saying it, and Jetflame gave an affirmative nod at his comrade. Jetflame had been slower than most to start following the new Death's orders as quickly as they all did the old one's, but he agreed there fully that he did not need to illuminate the sky with flames during this stealth mission. Death saw that affirmative nod, then he turned himself and nodded towards a short woman standing next to the side door to their jet that was the biggest of the three hovering together already in the storm. La Brava slid the door open and wind blew in at the group of five standing inside, and Death spoke in a calm voice to his troops already down below, "Have all hostage rooms been marked?"

"Final one just marked," Blackstar replied. "A large number of forces are gathered in the control room at the top of the rig. They don't have any hostages with them, so they don't want them hearing what's going on. Or, they don't need any of the hostages to find what they're looking for."

"And have you found what they're looking for?" La Brava asked.

"Looks like they had some trouble getting into these wings," Incite replied. "But the doors are cut down and-" Incite stopped talking.

Down on the rig, in one of the mid floors in a secure wing of the research lab, a group of four villains were moving towards Incite and his three comrades. He and his team moved to the sides of the hall silently, and they watched as the unarmed villains walked right past them. Evader turned her helmet to Incite for a second, in a way as if asking him if this was really the best move. Incite just held up a palm though, as one of the men walking with the others was not talking to them and instead had a hand to his head and was talking to someone above. "…not responding to comms? They're still down there though? If you can see them then it must be- fine. Fine! We'll go check it out."

"Time's short," Incite said. He motioned at his team and started running back the direction they came from towards one of the markers. "We need to move within a minute. They're going to check the surface platforms."

"Drop."

"Hostages take priority. Simultaneous attack on all hostage rooms in T-minus twenty," Raylei ordered.

"Count off hostiles," Blackstar added.

"Four hostiles in room designation A."

"Three in B."

"Four in C."

"Four here too," Blackstar finished.

"T-minus ten," Raylei said.

"Move in," Blackstar ordered.

Gentle put his arms down harder at his sides and pointed his body as vertical as he could to speed up his drop. _Should have had another minute._ "Dongwu, move back for the surface platform," Gentle ordered. "Soon as they see the dropped others, take them down."

Dongwu's body shifted. His skin morphed, and the right side of his head hurt where he had implanted the headset for this mission and which shifted around in painful ways when he transformed. It was not too bad though, as his Quirk adapted to the outside tech just as it could adapt to his clothing when he transformed into animals of a reasonable size proportionally to what he normally looked like. A massive whale was not one of those creatures that his clothes would shift around and work with, and neither was the humongous one-eyed squid shooting back towards the research lab out on the water.

The Army of Death already knew about the lab being out there, what it really was unbeknownst to the public, but the check they had already made on it a while ago came back clean. Having this closer inspection would be nice, and they were planning on searching the lab thoroughly while they were there, but that objective was secondary considering Japanese heroes were already there. Those Japanese heroes were shocked by the giant squid rapidly approaching the oil rig, but Suneater knew they had to use it and ordered, "Move in now!" The lights on the bottom of the rig focused on the squid, and this time there was no question of it being a coincidence, as the animal was headed straight for it and moving much faster than the whale had.

 _Same person?_ Camie wondered, though she refocused on Suneater's back and swam after him faster as he sped up with Selkie so they would arrive at the platforms first.

Selkie and Suneater jumped out of the water at the same time. As they emerged from the surface, they saw that the platforms both had two unmoving bodies of villains on them. It was something they already suspected from what they saw at a distance while the lights around the rig were pointed outwards and not in at the attack going on past its defenses. What they were not expecting was the second villain squad that just got halfway down the stairs and turned to the platforms they now had a good angle on. None of the villains had firearms, but one reacted quickly and rose up his arms that popped open at the wrists to look like cannons. Another of the men yelled into his headset, "Heroes are here-" as he was shouting it, a tentacle wrapped around his body coming up from the other side of the stairs as where the team just spun.

The other three in the squad spun back, the one with arm cannons turning in a terrified way right before he got smacked by an arm of suction cups. Three of the villains were lifted up, while that one who just got smacked flipped over the railing of the stairs and dropped down into the water. As he was making his splash, and the other three were getting yanked down, explosions went off above that shook the whole rig and made Suneater and Selkie snap their heads up. "Do you know what's happening?" Selkie asked, spinning to Suneater who he knew had some experience in this.

"No," Suneater replied truthfully. At the same time though, he was expecting something to happen and was already prepared to lift up his communicator. "Everyone move in. All teams advance to the rig now."

Stealth was out the window. Suneater had hoped to arrive before the teams who had taken out the lowest guards could get above, but apparently in the last two minutes they had already fully prepared and were starting their attack. Suneater also noticed a camera up on steel bars above him that made his eyes grow wide during the initial shake of the platform, and he cursed internally as he thought about why it was up there. The rest of the aquatic team rose up on the platform, and Suneater decided to save that 'what if' thought for later, as he called to the others around him to get the hostages down to that spot for extraction.

On the main floors of the rig, the hostages had been split up into four different rooms because the villains thought having them spread out would make it more difficult for heroes to free them as freeing one room would mean the hostages in all the others would be in danger. The villains searching the lab rooms shot up and spun around as the rig shook and they heard the blasts. The ones in charge in the control room monitoring everything and giving out orders while they discussed what to do moving forward, yelled out at their subordinates demanding to know what was going on.

For the fifteen villains in charge of watching the hostages, it was a very stressful environment. The hostages were tied up, but any one of them could have a Quirk that would allow them to fight back if they chose to break free from their binds. Splitting them into smaller groups was also to prevent that, but having fifteen to twenty hostages in each room meant there was margin for error there. Two of the rooms were small too, which made it harder to separate from the hostages or separate them from each other. They had been gagged to prevent them from coordinating a plan with each other for escape, and the villains assured their hostages that as long as the heroes played nice then they would all be released safely, so there was no need to try and be heroes and throw their lives away. That strategy had been working at keeping things under control, but the villains remembered all their misgivings and fears about watching their hostages as soon as their doors were exploding inwards.

Most of the fifteen villains had a hostage in there they had already picked. They knew the possibility of heroes attempting a rescue was high, and they knew which person they were going to grab to either use as their own personal shield or hostage, or who they were going to kill first before grabbing their real hostage to show that they were serious. They all had a person, though some of them were going to try and fight first before going to that backup plan of getting a personal shield to assist them in fighting. Thirteen of the fifteen hesitated though during the explosions, while two were able to ignore the shock of the sudden attack to just immediately start moving. Those two who started moving right away though, still felt that secondary impact of terror when the dark soldiers came into their rooms.

When the storm was heading their way they had been assured by their leaders that it was a natural thunderstorm. They had made jokes about it and even laughed, as no one was going to pretend like they did not all think about it as soon as they heard the first rumble in the distance. _DEATH!_

Evader ran into the room with two others, and only the four villains in their room did not have that realization that the Army of Death was there. Her Quirk, Targeted Ignorance, made it so that up to 5 people could not see up to 5 other people. Her and her two comrades were invisible to the four villains in front of them, while the eighteen hostages in the room all watched these three sprint inside lifting up pistols in their hands. Evader pulled out two, running in between the two female villains in the middle of the room who were reaching down for hostages. Vintage stopped short before getting up close to his enemy, as the man was opening his mouth while aiming towards a cluster of five hostages. He fired his shot first, and a dart flew into the villain's neck making him gasp out.

The other three in the room could not hear his gasp over the sound of the shouting of their own comrades, but that man's voice as he began to yell did cut off making their eyes dart over to see him start falling from the fast-acting tranquilizer. Three more shots hit the villains as they saw him falling, and all three of them fell to the ground with their shouts cutting off too. Vintage slid his pistol back into his holster quickest and he pulled out a pair of knives from his belt. He darted towards some of the tied-up men and women who had seen the villain opening his mouth to fire some sort of Quirk at them, and he slashed their binds ignoring their muffled shouts of protest. The scary figure in slick dark armor slashed at them, and suddenly their legs and arms were no longer bound.

"Follow us to the heroes," Evader told the hostages before they could all pull out their gags and start shouting. The ones just about to do that froze, and Evader added in a soft voice, her modulator off, "We'll get you to safety." She turned and ran to the door, and she pulled back out the rifle from her back that she pointed around outside the door. She moved out and Oscillate darted out just behind her, pointing his rifle the other way to watch her back. "Move," Evader called out.

"Go the most direct route to the surface platform," Vintage told the people in front of him. He made like he needed to get out too, getting them all in a rush to get out of there so he could get past and guard their backs. All the hostages had been workers on the rig, so he figured, correctly, that they would know exactly what that route was considering they had not been blindfolded and knew exactly where on the rig they currently were.

"We've got three hostiles going down through the bridge, four out on its balcony," Fly-By's voice filled the headsets of his comrades thanks to Rebel patching him through to everyone based on what he was saying. Rebel held a soda up in his other hand and took a big sip, then he tapped two other buttons on his keyboard, separating Blackstar's voice from the full comms to just speaking to Beta and Charlie Squads. Then he reconnected Death's mic to everyone instead of just the dropping Alpha Squad he had just been talking to. Rebel checked all the cameras, (the actual angles they were showing and not the rigged ones), and he announced, "Hero sub is-" Rebel paused and lowered the giant smile he just got, "at the surface platform. More heroes emerging. You've got Nejire-chan, Meaty, Centipeder, Sirius, Volarum- and another hero team only two minutes out by the boat they're racing to you."

Rampart covered up the mic on his headset and smirked over at Rebel. "Aren't heroes and subs the same thing?" Rebel spun with the biggest grin on his face, as it was all he could think of after he had said 'hero sub' but decided to save for later and not disturb the fighting Army about. The two of them spun back to their screens after getting a kick out of that, delving back into the current combat situation neither of them ever had to worry about but respected enough not to bother them with something like that.

"Room B's hostages have met up with heroes and are on their way out," Incite reported. "Heading to the bridge."

"Hit from below, get all attention off the sky," Death replied. _Pincer them._

"Whoa- we've got a cloner!" Fly-By reported in a bit of a panic.

"Shit, they're flooding out of the halls-"

"They cut off the hostages from Room A. Engaging now!"

"Find the main body… how many can this guy create?!"

"Focus all efforts on getting the hostages out," Death ordered.

"Grab as many hostages as you can!" Reyansh Dhiren shouted down at the villains running about on the deck who had somehow missed the fact that they were already under attack by heroes. Their cameras still weren't working in the bridge, and all they had heard was the cut-off shout from the team they sent to check on the surface deck squads. The Indian villain co-leading this mission and funding the whole group through his small but legitimate tech industry had on a red mask over his face and a high-tech costume on that few of the other villains on the ship possessed. "We can renegotiate with the heroes-"

"Screw that! Kill them all!" Asura shouted. The villain who named himself after the evil Hindu Gods shouted through the comms, "Use the hostages as shields. Kill them, and force the heroes to retreat seeing what their tactics are causing!"

The villain cloning himself once every three seconds agreed with the second option. He had been preparing for an attack from the inside of the ship in an isolated room where none of the people who had seen him so far would be able to get a message out to heroes on their new numbers. Their group of villains had just increased four-fold, and despite his clones not having any Quirks of their own, each of them unable to even clone themselves, his clothes and weapons cloned with him to a certain degree. All he needed to clone was the one knife he had on his person though, and that, his Quirk could do.

"Get behind us!" Suneater shouted at the civilians he was running towards, as he saw the wave of identical enemies running at their backs all wielding knives with serrated blades. There was a chubbier woman running behind the pack, a pair of glasses on her face that fell off and made her stumble as she had a second thought of stopping to pick them up. The look back showed her how close those villains were to her though, and despite Suneater running thirty miles per hour on newly furry legs, he was not going to reach her in time. The villain reaching for her back grabbed a handful of her shirt, and then his right shoulder blasted backwards with blood flying out of it. The woman stumbled forward and fell to the ground, and Tamaki ran past her anyway to get between her and the villains still charging at her in a wave after the first one.

"When the clones take damage they react like normal people, but they disappear with time," a voice announced over the entire oil rig. It blasted out of each of the helmets that the announcement just relayed through. Blackstar stood up from the bloodied body of one of the clones he had dragged into an isolated corner, and he left the corpse of that clone covered in a dozen gashes to disappear in twenty minutes. His voice got lower, and he said calmly, "So killing them is fine."

The second closest clone to the fat woman who had fallen and was trying to scramble up, did not get hit in the shoulder. Suneater watched from only a foot away as the clone's eyes were growing wide from hearing that announcement, and then its head snapped to the side with blood flying out. The others behind that one hesitated. Suneater had been following the falling one with his eyes, but they scanned back and grew even wider at the looks on the other clones' faces. Despite not living for very long, he could see in that single moment that each one of them would prefer to just disappear over that allotted time. _They don't want to die-_ Three more of the villains went flying off their feet, their tan-skinned heads pierced through or the neck for the third who turned and ducked before sprinting for cover.

Fly-By adjusted his aim a bit, looking over from where Suneater finally started helping that big woman get out of there, to a different group of hostages being met by more than just clones. He fired, then he said in a low voice, "Need less wind down here."

"That's not me," Maelstrom began. "But I'll see what I can do." She made for the side of the plane, and she opened the door and jumped out without waiting for anyone behind her to say anything.

"Four moving for the edge of the rig on the opposite side as Fly-By. Looks like they're going below."

"Whole lot of heroes down there."

"Dongwu assist."

"He's dealing with the heroes right now," Raylei countered. "And he can't explain well while squid-ing. Jetflame get down there."

A speeding motorboat shot under the edge of the rig and only started slowing where going any longer at full speed would mean crashing into a platform. "Take the first group of civilians away on this boat!" Gunhead called out towards some sidekicks ahead of him who he saw trying to get the hostages to calm down and be careful when trying to board a submarine. The civilians were more confident seeing Gunhead arrive with new heroes, and they ran over but were more calm this time as it seemed the heroes had a handle of-

Four villains dropped off the side of the rig and swung towards the platforms while already in the middle of using their Quirks. The unsuspecting parties below turned and shouted, but even the pro heroes could not do much against the icy hail, poisoned spikes, green acid, and earsplitting shout that came their ways in the second after the villains rappelled down for them. "Get back control of the surface platforms!" The announcement echoed over the rig, and the villains who were already going down there realized in that moment as they attacked with the element of surprise, that they did not necessarily need to run. Running would only mean more heroes would catch them out on the water. The hostages were still there. If they could take this area back, they could prevent anyone from boarding the rig again-

Unless they came from the air.

The heroes and sidekicks and civilians all winced and closed their eyes. They huddled and grabbed at their ears as the scream hit them in the eardrums and felt like someone was shoving knives in them. Some of the heroes managed to grab civilians and try and protect them with their bodies, like Gunhead, but the projectiles never came. Gunhead spun back around and he stared through the holes of his mask with wide eyes at the mass of flames that blew away all of the other projectiles other than the scream. The attack had been aimed at the projectiles and not the villains themselves, but as Gunhead looked up he saw through the fading flames a figure in all black firing jets of fire out of his hands and feet to keep himself moving at nearly seventy miles per hour through the air.

Jetflame darted back and forth in front of the villains and behind them, turning them around and slamming flaming fists and kicks into their bodies. He burned the ropes they were using, and he lit them on fire while they were falling only for them to splash into the water and be put out a second later. "Dongwu, get them out," Jetflame said in English with a turn of his head towards the giant squid some of the hero sidekicks were accosting with Volarum at the front. Volarum stared towards the flaming dark figure, and the hero was frozen in place as it felt like that man was suddenly looking at him and waiting for him to say something. Dongwu moved though despite Volarum's previous shouts that moving any closer to them would give him cause for attack… and luckily nobody attacked him.

Meaty and Mirage met up in a hallway of the rig after making sure the hostages they had run into were all behind them. They had not intended to bump into each other, but Mirage had made a half dozen guys who all looked alike start imagining a victory party in a nearby room she barricaded behind them, then she sprinted down the hall and bumped into Meaty coming from a similar engagement in the opposite direction. The clones Meaty had run into though, he had been about to attack with his Quirk when three figures in all dark armor sprinted straight through them. He had barely blinked, but they rushed in from one side of his enemies who had been focused on him, and they cut down or gunned down every single one without hesitation. As Utsushimi asked him if he was doing alright, Shishikura could still just see those five bloody corpses in front of him and the backs of those figures in black who had not stopped to even respond to his shout.

"This is crazy, right?" Mirage whispered as they jogged quickly but cautiously deeper into the rig. They had word on all four groups of hostages, a number that Selkie had been told by one of the dark soldiers there were total. The fourth was still cut off from the routes to the surface level, and the second to last to escape below had hesitated with many of them trying to turn back as they had heard an explosion down below and some saw the flames from the top of the steps. All four had groups of heroes on them though, and they were receiving new orders now.

Suneater's voice filled their heads, "…The AoD are gunning for anyone who looks like the clone creator. They'll kill the main body without hesitation at the rate they're going."

"What do we do about them?!"

"Do not engage," Suneater specified very clearly. "They will scatter if you do, and Endeavor is on his way."

Tamaki said it, while he stared in front of him straight at a man whose palms lost their white glow. The large man taller than Tamaki and much broader at the shoulders nodded once in gratitude at him, then Exodus turned around and transferred that information around to his comrades. Suneater frowned even deeper in the next moment, his eyes darkening and his teeth gritting together. The man in front of him was one who Suneater recognized from the raid on the League of Shadows headquarters. He recognized him from even earlier when they went over the strength of their enemies who they had knowledge of. And he had just seen his strength again as Exodus had dropped down on top of a villain who had just caught him with a surprise attack as he faced off against several at once close to the bridge tower.

The one who went for the surprise attack was dented into the floor in front of Suneater's feet. Another was slouched against a wall to Suneater's left, burn marks all around that wall behind him. Another villain was slouched over the railing of the floor above them, while two others had been thrown completely from the rig. When Exodus had done that, Suneater had grit his teeth in anger despite his surprise and gratitude, because there was a reason he was trying to fight as many of the villains as he could right now. After that second of gritting his teeth though he had stopped, as Exodus had ordered someone named 'Dongwu' to catch those falling from the rig.

"They called Endeavor?" La Brava asked in annoyance as the message was relayed across the Army of Death. "There's no way he'll be able to gather a force quick enough."

"But he'll come himself, and that's enough. If he grabs one of us, it will be impossible to get them back," Jetflame countered.

As the fight continued, the villains' leaders had gathered back inside the bridge. "These cameras are useless!" Asura yelled. "The Army of Death is here! When the fuck did they get here?!" He spun to Reyansh, but the man in a red costume covered in tubes that attached to a mouthpiece breathing device over the bottom of his face had a frustrated expression too at how this was turning out. "Well what are we going to do about it?!"

"Stop shouting you imbecile and let me think!" Reyansh yelled back.

"Don't call me stupid you fucking prick!" Asura roared. Cracks formed on his skin and started glowing red, and his muscles bulged in his anger as he stomped towards Reyansh.

"Neither of you two know what you're doing," Craig growled. The white man from Minnesota stomped forward, and he swung his right hand forward extending it in between the other two about to charge at each other and see who could kill the other first. Craig's arm stretched out from his body, looking fainter the farther it got from him so it was translucent by the time it reached the wall. His hand went through the wall with ease and all his fingers opened up.

Craig grabbed the man on the other side of it and pushed backwards, then pulled towards himself and into the wall. He smashed Incite's head into the wall, then he did it again, then Asura smashed down the wall completely as he realized his anger was not really all directed at Reyansh right now.

Incite fired his dual pistols up into the arm gripping him by the helmet, but his shots went through the translucent arm like it was nothing. There was not enough arm there for the bullets to cause pain, but there was enough hand to give his enemy a grip. He dropped one of the pistols while getting back to his feet, and he jumped away while drawing a knife with his new free hand. He pointed his pistol, Upload's old pistol, a thick black piece that weighed a lot, towards Asura as that beast of a man charged at him. He fired, and Asura slammed his right arm forward with the cracks glowing brighter. His fist shattered the bullet on impact, and it broke through the gun too though Incite managed to pull his arm back and only get a couple fingers broken there as the gun shattered.

Incite hit the ground and rolled, slashing up despite shouting in pain, and cutting through Craig's arm still tugging on him to try and keep him where Asura could just beat him down quickly. Smoke came out of some of the tubes on Reyansh's body, but Craig told the man next to him to relax and focus on figuring out how to get them and the "goods" out of there in all this chaos.

Incite ground his teeth and swept the knife through the arm grabbing at his head. This time he fully cut through it, and though it reconnected right after, he was able to yank his head backwards and straight through the fingers in the instant that Craig's full arm was not connected. Asura jumped up in the air over Incite as he stumbled back no longer having that pressure pulling him the other way. Incite took one too many steps and rose his broken hand as well as the one with the knife while falling backwards in the room next to the command center at the top of the stairs. He wished he had taken one more step to just fall down the stairs instead, as now- _I'm gonna die!_

Asura smashed both of his glowing red arms down, his fists put together to bash onto Incite's skull and pound him into the floor. His hands slammed down hard in a fatal blow… but they stopped before reaching Incite and slowed down, pressing against something that stretched down at Incite and pushed into him but at much less force. Incite hit down on his butt, and then Asura's fists bounced back at him hitting him straight in the face while he was bounced backwards straight back through the wall and into an unsuspecting Craig.

Death flipped up into the room from below Blackstar under the stair's top platform. He bounced off the air over Incite with a quick look down where he saw Incite looking up at him. Then his head turned forward and he shot through the forming cloud of smoke into the man whose breathing device he kneed with his right leg so hard it shattered. The villain started coughing as he spun out and hit the floor, gasping for breath with blood coming out of his mouth full of broken teeth, and his lungs filling with his own smoke. Gentle could not be bothered by it due to his own helmet's breathing mechanism, though he was bothered by the pair of hands that gripped him by the ankles in the middle of that smoke.

Death swung his arms behind him, and he bounced in the direction of Craig moving far faster than Craig was expecting as he opened his mouth to say something to this Army of Death member. Death did not care what he had to say though, and Craig's arms retracted back to normal size before Gentle clocked him in the back of the head which was easy since he was still pinned underneath Asura's enlarged body. Then Death surrounded his right leg in Elasticity, and he kicked Asura as that big man with a bloody nose and glowing red skin was starting to stir back up.

Asura bounced off Danjuro Tobita's leg, and the man formerly known as the Gentle Criminal swung his left arm in front of him, throwing a distanced Gently Rebound behind Asura before it expanded to cover the wall. Death used the same hand he tossed that barrier with to put one in the air right in front of him. Asura started bouncing off one Rebound into the other over and over again, flipping around and spinning into the floor and the ceiling he bounced off until he was no longer looking able to keep going.

Then Death moved back in and covered his right arm with Elasticity, and he pounded Asura in the side as he was flying one direction, flipping him over again with a crack of some of his ribs just in case he was thinking of getting back up even after all of that.

"Gent- Death," Incite walked up towards Death, grabbing his right hand by the wrist as his fingers were in a lot of pain. "Thanks."

Gentle had a remark to make about what Incite just did recklessly, but he held off on it for now. "Extraction."

"Endeavor's on his way to you guys. Should be there within… twenty minutes!" Rebel exclaimed in a _sarcastic_ panic.

"Bringing transports back down," Raylei announced in a less sarcastic tone than Rebel's, though she also sounded relaxed herself.

"This clone guy is still hiding somewhere, and we haven't cleared out the inside of the rig," Blackstar called out, still in the middle of fighting these clones. Meaty and Mirage looked towards him in confusion as he called that out unprovoked, though they figured he had a headset and was talking to people they did not hear. Meaty and Camie were each finishing off a group of clones themselves. The farther they got into the middle of the rig, the more likely it felt to them that they were the ones on track to finding this clone guy, as more and more of the clones kept coming straight for them while they were hearing more of all-clear signals from around other areas of the rig.

"Packing up the Nest, moving to extraction point Zeta," Ledge reported in.

"Flight Squad take to Eagle View," Jetflame ordered.

"Usual Flight or all of Alpha?"

"If you aren't currently fighting, evacuate or move for extraction point Zeta."

"First two transports will arrive in two minutes and counting. Anyone who stays will have to wait three minutes for the secondary transport."

"Think they'll prevent us from going after the first extraction?"

"Beta Squad move out, but Nines meet me near Zeta for diversionary tactics," Blackstar said, his voice lower this time. "We'll make sure no one's watching when the birds come uncloaked and go back up."

"Worst comes to worst, you'll just have to fight Endeavor yourselves," Rebel joked.

This time, despite the sarcasm, Blackstar still felt that intimidating presence he felt every time he saw Endeavor in person while in this suit of _illegal_ battle armor. He had spoken quieter that time so the younger two behind him did not hear him, and though it worked, it wouldn't have if the two would just come up and help him out already. Blackstar ducked under the swiping of a serrated dagger and he blocked another coming for his ankles from a clone diving around the legs of the one slashing near his throat. His right arm's metallic form turned more loose and reshaped into a scythe he slashed across the front of his body, and his left turned wavy and curved up to dodge a throwing knife coming through the blood of one of the other clones. That arm turned from wavy back to normal, and Blackstar pulled out a knife of his own he flicked right as the blood was dropping, sending it flying into the eye of the one who just leaned down to pick up a discarded other knife that he could use to fight with.

Blackstar kicked to his right as a clone tried to flank him from there, then he pulled out a second knife and rose it up, blocking a sword coming down at him that had the teens behind him rushing forward again only to freeze once again too. The new attacker was not just another clone but an entirely new villain who had just blended in with the others in the hall behind him because of his similar body size. As he pressed his sword down into Blackstar's knife, blades stuck out of the toes of his shoes that he kicked forward after jumping over a clone to get that swipe. Another clone flanked from the left of Blackstar, and one who the new villain jumped over went around the colliding blades to Blackstar's right where that flanking villain had just been kicked backwards. Blackstar pulled his body to the left, making the kicking villain's left foot miss. The sword he was pushing down too knocked the knife away, but Blackstar let go of it in a slow way while turning the blade so the sword would slide the other way as him, missing his right shoulder by inches and slamming into the right-flanking clone's foot as it stepped forward to try and stab Blackstar.

Blackstar's left arm turned into a straight longsword that pierced through the clone on his left who had had stepped towards, catching the clone through the chest while its arms were raised with the knife lifted in his hands together. Blackstar then swung his left arm around the front of his body. He used the clone he had impaled's legs to kick two other clones still trying to rush forward even in this, then he released the clone he swung around into the other man on his right knocking him into the clone with the stabbed foot. "Switch," Blackstar called out, and he jumped backwards towards the two younger heroes who were surprised to hear that but both attacked as they realized most of their closest enemies were on the floor and could easily be taken down.

Meaty stomped forward and growled while using his Quirk- Meatball to gather up more and more of the villains and clones down the hall into lumps of meat. "Your tactics are brutal and cruel. Unbecoming of someone who fights against villains. Whatever goal you had in coming here today, it is us heroes who-"

"Hey Meaty," Camie started to her old classmate.

"What?" Shishikura said in a low, dark voice as he wondered if Mirage was going to counter him right here.

"He ran off before you started talking," Mirage said, and she smiled more and started using her Quirk- Glamour, as Shishikura spun around with shock covering his face that none of what he said was even heard by that Army of Death member. _It's not that I don't agree with you, Meaty,_ Camie thought, while her opponents started running back towards the original as they imagined the original just ordered them to. One of them mentioned how it was weird since they only just left the room, confirming Camie's belief that these were the newest batch of clones and their target was just ahead. _But they don't seem to care what we think very much,_ Mirage thought as she neared her final enemies.

"Where are you going?"

"We have injured," Blackstar snapped at the hero in front of him who had countered the Death member when Blackstar told him the rookie heroes were back there still fighting clones.

Centipeder frowned after Blackstar for another second, but he turned to Bubble Girl and said, "Let's go. We'll deal with them later."

"Birds one and two are away," Cleater called out from the pilot's seat of Bird 1.

Blackstar slowed down on his way to extraction point Zeta. He grimaced, then he pushed his feet down and ran harder for the place he had said he would be. He ran into Nines near Zeta, and he said, "Sorry. Got held up."

"It's fine," Nines replied. "I had someone better for distractions." Nines glanced down at Blackstar's left side while mentioning it, as he saw a cut in his comrade's armor between his side and his left arm were there was some blood coming out of the gash deeper than any of the other superficial slashes that did not break through his armor.

"Better?" Blackstar asked.

"Me," Maelstrom said, making Blackstar turn to see his comrade sitting on top of an escape boat resting upside-down at the edge of the rig. "Figure if Endeavor does show up early, you should have someone down here who can take him."

Blackstar sweatdropped, _When did she get so cocky?_ He smiled though and actually did feel some relief on hearing that confidence. He sweatdropped again though while Maelstrom got a tick mark on her forehead as Rebel burst out laughing over the comms in the most obnoxious way possible.

"I'm going to make it rain across America nonstop next week," Maelstrom said suddenly while Rebel was still laughing. She smirked and said, "I know I'll get you somewhere-"

"You know I never leave my room," Rebel said, then he laughed even harder while Maelstrom just grumbled to herself at his counter.

"Well that's sad," Maelstrom taunted back after a moment, figuring it was a better comeback anyway.

"Stay off comms," Death ordered right before Rebel could make his own new comeback.

"We're tracking Endeavor from up here," La Brava brought back up. "We have plenty of time. Transports three and four are on their way down. Dongwu, Blackstar, Nines, Incite, Maelstrom, Alpha Squad, and Death all need to evacuate. You have ninety seconds."

"Incite?" Blackstar questioned.

"With Death," Incite replied.

"I'll grab Dongwu," Firefly reported. She flapped her four thin, long wings very fast and shot off back down towards the edge of the rig. Firefly dropped below the side and she made a sweep over the water. A fish jumped up in the air, and Firefly swept back while ignoring the calls for her to stop from many of the heroes and sidekicks gathered on the lower platforms with some former hostages they had yet to evacuate. Firefly reached down her hands and bobbled Dongwu as he jumped again this time into her arms still all slippery and scaly.

Dongwu's body started to change while Firefly held him, and she grunted as he gained weight while transforming. "Not human," she said, looking down at the figure who froze mid-transformation. "You're too heavy, plus I don't want to see your dong, Dongwu," Firefly smiled as she said it, then she smiled more as Dongwu changed his transformation midway and turned into a beagle over the course of eight seconds. Everything between a tuna and a beagle was horrifying to look at, but it was a nice final picture.

"Arf!" Dongwu barked up at Firefly.

She laughed and kept flying up after looking down at his cute face when he barked. "Yeah yeah, you've heard that joke a hundred times."

"You aren't going to stay and clean up at all?" Tamaki asked the large man in front of him as they jogged the same way over the rig. "There are still villains around here we're sure. And if anyone's died-"

"You said it yourself, Endeavor is coming," Exodus replied.

Suneater ground his teeth again from behind the figure in front of him. His eyes darted down at the floor, then he stopped and brought his head back up as he saw Exodus stop too. Exodus turned around and faced him fully, "I am grateful." Amajiki Tamaki's eyes opened wide at the statement, as it was he who got saved by this man not a couple minutes earlier. "I hope there is no need for us to meet for a third time," Exodus added.

Tamaki froze. His heart clenched up, but he just nodded at Exodus and stayed in place this time when Exodus turned and ran off. He glanced up in the air and watched as a dark figure flew over head holding another one up under his armpit. They went in the same direction as Exodus, and Suneater started walking after them. He wore his slick dark blue wetsuit with his soaked white costume over it, and he was getting wetter as he walked towards the side of the "oil rig." He stopped and stared to the edge of the rig where two planes were hovering in the rain with the sides open just a few meters from the ledge. The planes shifted closer until they were practically touching the rig, spinning jets in the wings holding them up and hovering them so precisely that it looked effortless.

The wings closer to Suneater lifted up a bit as the members started jumping or flying into the plane. The pilots did so to even out the weight distribution of people jumping on, and they did so a little more when Nines and Exodus jumped on. As the members with their backs turned all got on those planes, Suneater stared at those backs and the various languages that spelled 'Death' down the middles of them. His expression hardened and he focused on the one that had 死 on it, then that man turned around and Suneater stared straight at his visor as the man lifted up in the air. The planes rose higher into the clouds before they turned invisible, and the clouds did not move down to meet them but instead seemed to be thinning out like it was harder for that jet to escape from sight than they desired. Lightning cracked through the sky above Suneater though, and he lowered his head and shook it in a dark way.

 _They bring the storm._ "The rig is secure. I repeat, the rig is ours. We have secured all hostages, and the final villain has been neutralized."

"Quite a mess in here."

"They tried to use these weapons…" Mirage began. "They're dangerous. Beyond normal firearms, and even those are outlawed."

"Doesn't stop some people," Meaty growled.

"But it did keep the villains today unarmed…"

Suneater turned his head when the chatter started up among the other heroes. He turned towards the rig that he had to check out now after hearing what Mirage just said. He paused though and turned his head, looking up into the sky and squinting his eyes as the rain started coming down much harder than before. He was on an open section of the rig too unlike most areas around it that had some sort of overhang or balcony above, so he stared straight into the downpour after the AoD he just allowed escape. _I just let them go without a fight,_ Suneater thought, but he ground his teeth for a different reason as he lowered his right hand down to one of the pouches on his costume he kept his food for transforming.

Suneater thought about Exodus again, and he closed his eyes in regret but then snapped them open with a stronger resolve that he had had earlier when he acted. _**"Leaving the ADTF is your choice. I will not stop you. Many have made it already. Suneater, I will tell you the same thing I told them…"**_ Suneater opened his pouch and he pulled out a tiny black receiver, and he looked at the red light on it that was not yet glowing but could be turned on with a single flip of a switch. _**"…Take this with you. Even if you will not fight them, you need to allow me to do my job. Someone has to stop them. If you see them again outside of the Task Force, attach one of these to them. They are only meant for the Army of Death, not for other hero activity…"**_

 _I don't know what's right,_ Tamaki thought while staring up into rain that did not feel like it was falling as hard as a few seconds ago. _But I had the opportunity and made my choice._ Suneater lowered his head and he started for the inside of the rig where he could get to work on coordinating everyone and figuring out what to do about what was about to be a very, very sticky situation considering China and the USA both already knew about this place and what it really was. As much as that should have been all he could think about though, he knew inside that once Endeavor arrived he would be taking charge of that too. Which meant he could not help but think about what he had just done, and how he had the chance to still turn around and toss his receiver over the side of the rig.

 _The world is safer now than when I quit,_ Suneater thought, pocketing the device again with a determined look over his face. He ignored the feelings he had been having since planting it on the man who had saved him, pushed them down and hardened his gaze as his fists clenched at his sides. Instead he thought about the villains whose heads were being pierced by bullets while their eyes were full of fear. The one shot through the neck who fell to the ground grabbing at it to try and stop the bleeding, but who bled out in only seconds right in front of Suneater. _Maybe it was the right move to leave back then but still stop them now. I no longer know if there is a need for the Army of Death. Could I have ended this on my own? I could have… failed._

 _Sure, today there were no casualties. But if their plan had failed who would have been held accountable?_ The brief hesitation Tamaki just felt faded, his resolve hardening more. _I was willing to take that accountability myself if my own plan failed. I would have taken the heat, stepped down, it would have been my failure as a leader and as a hero if that had happened. Them, however, if they had failed they would have disappeared all the same. I know they would not have taken the same punishment. They do not take accountability for what they do, and at any time today they could have killed those villains. They have the ability to do so, and to get away with it, as they have before and will again. The time of zero accountability must be over._

 _I'm sorry._

* * *

 **A/N Thanks for reading! Hope you enjoyed the chapter. It was a lot of fun to write. Army of Death still carrying out operations, but although Suneater's long quit the ADTF, he's placed a tracker... Anyway, once again I hope you guys had fun reading this. Still working on the next chapter, but I'll get it up soon as I can.**

someguy1011 chapter 160 . Jun 11

its great to see you back at it, awesome job once again! zach's PTSD coming through hard these last few chapters but now the LOV is back and once again they made the wrong enemy like even if they get zach thrown back in tartaros Death is still gonna come around eventually besides i now have to know if zach will kill dabi and raijin or not. Also the hunch im getting is that zach will martyr himself fighting raijin, dying to stop the now strongest group of villains, that is what i think his plan is.

 **Thanks for reviewing! Glad you enjoyed the chapter. You're right, Death's still out there even if Zach gets tossed back in jail, but will they be out there forever with heroes cracking down? Zach's having a tough time of it, and we'll see what happens when he finally meets back up with his old "friends." No spoilers, but nice predictions!**

orangelarcenist chapter 160 . Jun 11

Sooo, this is kinda of topic, but Does the Meta-Liberation Army exist in this Universe? I feel like they would somewhat sympathize with Lifebringer for his views on Quirk usage.  
Great Chapter btw. Shigaraki, Dabi and Raijin finally resurfacing! It feels like they are afraid of Zach and want to get rid of him as fast as possible... I mean who would want to be chased by Death itself/himself anyway, right?

 **Probably, maybe, I don't know yet. So here's how this goes: I don't want to put anything into the story that might come back to bite me later on. Like, when I introduced Gentle and La Brava, their character arc was over and I knew exactly what their full story was, their max abilities, etc. If I had introduced them as a certain way only at the start of their manga appearance, and then discovered more about them later that made things non-canon, it would start to bug me... Anyway, until the Liberation Army arc is done (if it really does end in just one arc), I'm probably not going to put them in. If they're destroyed by the LOV or arrested, I might make a mention of them in the story as part of the lore of Death, perhaps edited around to make sense with the kind of LOV that formed in this story comparatively. Maybe they never needed to surface at all in a big way, and their forces kind of faded off because things in this world have changed a bit to allow more Quirk usage. Maybe Re-Destro will contact Zach about recreating it, or maybe he's been dead for years. I won't know until this arc ends, and that's when I'm going to decide what to do with Gigantomecha, the MLA, etc. Thanks for the review! And we've got our main LoV villains back, and looking to get rid of our boy Zach/Death... we'll see how that goes for them.**

Tetsuzora chapter 160 . Jun 10

Did you actually plan for all this stuff that far back?  
I now realise, everything you write has a purpose, and that is terrifying.

 **Yes. In order to write out Zach and Kaminari's epic plans... I need to become Death, and Raijin...mwhahaha. Lol if I'm writing a scene and I don't feel like it will progress the plot at all, it gets bland to me and harder to write, so most everything I write in this story does progress it in some way. Thanks for noticing, and hope you enjoyed the reveals and the new chapter!**


	162. Chapter 162

**Disclaimer: I don't own Boku no Hero Academia**

 **Chapter 162:**

In the middle of Musutafu, two boys walked next to each other down the sidewalk away from U.A.'s gates where they met up. Midoriya Izuku had planned to go to the train station after school to start on a long trip to Yutapu City, but the person he was going to meet there had been leaning up against the wall of a building practically across the street from U.A.'s gates. As the two of them walked farther from the school they used to go to together, Midoriya was questioning his friend on his quick arrival when he had told Zach that he was going to meet him in Yutapu. "…so you didn't get out early at all?" Zach shook his head as that was how he just responded to Midoriya when he figured Zach had found a way to do that.

Midoriya frowned a bit more at Zach's casual head shake with a smile like he was fine with what he knew Midoriya was implying here. "Then you flew here?" Midoriya asked. "Using your Quirk?"

"That's right," Zach replied. He smiled at a pair of businessmen in suits across the street who looked over interestedly as they thought they recognized the boys, and the two opened their eyes much wider as they realized they were right about that. Zach looked back to Midoriya, "Taking the train would've taken hours. I didn't want to do that, plus you couldn't talk for long if you had gotten there then had to head back to make it home in time for your pass. Since I knew you wouldn't fly yourself-"

"Because it's illegal, Zach," Midoriya stopped. He stared firmly at Zach who looked back at him and smiled even more at Midoriya's upset look. "I'm serious. This isn't good. I'll have to-"

"Someone died at Musutafu General, just an hour and a half ago," Zach interrupted. Midoriya froze with his mouth open ready to continue his upset talk at Zach, but his eyes went wide instead at Zach's counter. Zach looked at him and said in a steady voice while still smiling, "To get there fast enough, I had to fly. I was close enough to reach her. Using my Quirk in that _emergency_ situation was justified then, am I wrong?"

Midoriya started walking again as Zach continued forward. Midoriya sped-walked a few steps so he was back on his darker-haired friend's side, then he said in a low, but hesitant voice, "You saved this woman's life, just so you could, save time?"

Zach dropped his smile into flat lips, though he rose it gain as there were people ahead of him heading his direction. "I know, it's not a great reason. It's justification for using my Quirk though." Zach spoke quickly as Midoriya was opening his mouth next to him, "And don't give me any more shit about it. I just felt my brain hemorrhage and died a few minutes ago, and that lady's back to life. Just leave it at that. Okay?" Zach looked to his side while still smiling, but despite his expression looking totally carefree and happy, the tone he just used showed the expression was solely for everyone else nearby and not for Midoriya himself.

Midoriya smiled a small smile himself to try and do the same as he saw a couple of people pull out phones, but he knew he was not as good as Zach at being that convincing when he wasn't feeling like smiling. "Sure," Midoriya said after giving that unenthusiastic smile. He looked back forward and the two of them got silent for a moment. _To only bring someone back for that reason though- or maybe that's just what he's telling me! Except, some people are getting upset that he isn't bringing back more people dying all the time around Japan. This case could work to show he's trying to listen to them? He's trying to listen to their demands, and gradually more people will wind up accepting the amount of people he's able to save? Is that what he's doing?_

 _You don't have to think so deep into this one, Midoriya,_ Zach thought as he continued forward himself on Deku's right closer to the street. _I was just checking through the message boards of people all asking me to show up and save someone. This one wasn't too far back, so I could still save her. It worked out well. Saving a few shows that I really am trying, while getting so few indicates it's still difficult to save everyone. Maybe I did have ulterior motives! …Though, earlier I really was just thinking about getting myself a reason to fly here._

"Sorry, for what I was just saying," Midoriya started. Zach looked to his side at his friend walking with him. He was glad Midoriya had suggested this, as since their private talk in the woods after Bakugo, Todoroki, and Midoriya confronted him together, he had been hoping things would normalize a bit with his old friend. Zach nodded but was going to say it was fine. He knew Midoriya was referring to how he almost said he was going to 'have to' do something about Zach using his Quirk unprovoked. "But you always say things in such a… I don't know. Vague way? You act almost intentionally mysterious sometimes."

"I don't try to," Zach said. "In fact, I've been trying to be more open about everything lately." Midoriya frowned at him with a skeptical look as he said it, which made Zach lower his smile a little and hum himself. _Little over a week ago he was suspicious enough of me to track me out into a national park with Todoroki and Bakugo. Ready for who knows what they were thinking was waiting for them._ "The old me never would have told you guys what I was thinking about the other day in the forest," Zach reminded.

"About having to pretend to be Zach Sazaki?" Midoriya asked, his voice getting softer.

"Yeah," Zach responded. "It's been a bit better since I said it aloud. I had to admit it to myself in that moment too, and now it's a lot clearer when I'm purposely doing it and when I really don't have to."

"But you still are?" Midoriya questioned. "Doing it?"

"Sometimes," Zach replied, only a brief hesitation there before he said it. _Fight day was tough. The more incidents I appear at though "randomly," the easier it is to just be myself. All of myself._ Zach's eyes widened a bit at that thought, then he hummed in a more thoughtful way retrospectively.

Midoriya just frowned deeper though at Zach's response right there. He could see his friend looked thoughtful afterwards like he was still thinking hard about it and trying to deal with his problems, but everything in their conversation so far rubbed Midoriya the wrong way. How Zach had gotten there, his reason for using his Quirk, how he was still deceiving, and the fact that he was admitting to it like it was something he was trying to get over and not something he was actively doing to his friends and people around him. _The way we think is too different,_ Midoriya thought while shifting his eyes to the corners and looking at the boy on his right of equal height to him. Their eyes were almost on-line with each other, and Zach shifted his to the corners of his vision too to meet Midoriya's gaze.

"What is it?" Zach asked.

"Nothing," Midoriya said.

Zach rolled his eyes and looked back straight ahead. "What?" Midoriya asked after he saw that look.

"Well here you are, calling me vague and mysterious," Zach began. "But I'm answering your questions, while you're pretending like there's 'nothing' bothering you?" Zach asked it in the most skeptical voice like there was so clearly something bothering Midoriya. "You know, I'd think after years of lying to people you'd be a little better at it by now." Midoriya's expression saddened at Zach's comment which made the black-haired teen sweatdrop that what he said actually got to Deku. "Sorry," Zach said, making Midoriya raise his eyes in surprise at the genuinely apologetic tone in that voice. "Know that's tough on you," he said, and Midoriya frowned so much deeper as Zach said that to him in almost a pitying way that Midoriya had to deal with this burden.

 _The way he flipped like that! He just, spoke what he thought I wanted to hear the most! He went from genuine which was what he was joking about to, to countering to make me feel better about lying! Is that actually… wrong of him? He saw that I was upset and apologized, and I think that's him what? Messing with me?!_ Midoiya ground his teeth but then rose a half-baked smile at some high school passerbys who were surprised to see the two nearing them.

"Lifebringer! Can we get a picture?!" A couple of first year girls from a public high school called out at him.

"Deku too!"

"Sure," Zach responded cheerfully. He walked towards the three, and he motioned towards them with his head when he looked back at the hesitating Deku. _Guess this doesn't happen for him as often. He sure is recognized though, but I guess my celebrity status takes it to the next level. And since other people have posted selfies of them with me online, people know that if they ask I'll be willing to take one with them._

The two eighteen year olds continued through Musutafu towards a less crowded section of the city. They headed into a residential area near a college, where there were lots of restaurants but not many high-rises, and the two of them stuck out less because the people in the area were really not expecting to see them. Zach's black hair was spiked as usual, and Midoriya's curly dark green hair stuck out a bit too, but neither of them any more than some of the strange people with mutant-type Quirks or flashy bodies who normally walked around. "…That? I feel like the news took what I was saying the wrong way. I don't have anything against Nikko. I really don't. But it's like if I'm not praising the guy, everyone thinks I hate him because how could I not love him for getting me out?"

"I, understand that," Midoriya said, as the way Zach explained it made a lot of sense to him. "But, you know he didn't have to just pardon you?" Zach looked at Midoriya confusedly wondering what he meant by that. Midoriya continued in a serious way, "He could have kept his campaign promises, but still just put you on the spot and made you talk about what you did for the thirteen months you were gone before pardoning you. He let you off easy, and you didn't have to tell anyone anything."

"I wouldn't have gone for it," Zach said. Midoriya frowned, but Zach shrugged and added, "If they had told me to do that as a condition for being released early, I would have just stayed in prison for the extra years."

"Would you have?" Midoriya asked. His voice had a hint of a stern tone in it, though he was trying to hide it and not sound accusatory like he thought Zach knew he was going to get out in the exact amount of time he did.

"I told you why I went to Tartaros," Zach replied. "And until I got shot on my way out, I still really thought All For One was coming for Death. Keeping it locked up down there was better in my mind, and it was an excuse to keep myself secluded down there longer."

"So you would rather still be down there than up here?" Midoriya questioned, his voice starting to sound like an interrogation.

"I thought so, when I was still down there," Zach answered. He lifted his gaze up to the sky and smiled a bit brighter, "But I'm glad I got out. I got over the complex I had: not being able to see anyone and giving myself all these reasons for why I wouldn't. Making all these friends at Shiketsu, making up with you guys while too much time hasn't already passed… though, I think the amount of time that passed was actually the weirdest possible." Midoriya grimaced himself at what Zach just said, and Zach elaborated despite Midoriya's expression making it seem like he got it. "It wasn't enough time for everyone to get over it, nor for some people to stop thinking of me as a friend or classmate, and issues people had with me that probably would have died down over time still lingered and were swept back up by my return."

"You think their feelings would have just gone away after a certain amount of time?" Midoriya asked harshly. "Our feelings?"

"After 6 years?" Zach wondered back at him. "How much did they change in just the year I was gone?" Zach asked. Midoriya's expression got less harsh as Zach did not back down and was responding with logic instead of emotion. "I'm sure everyone changed a lot over the year I was gone, and some more while I was in Tartaros. I changed too. If the last time I had seen everyone was when I was 16 though, and the next time was when I was 23, I'm sure it would have been a lot different than meeting up again when I was eighteen. It would have been 'long term' for everyone. Instead, I'm at this point where I don't know who's had enough time to really settle with themselves how they felt, and who feels like it had been long-term already and had gotten over it, and who felt like it was no time at all and were willing to welcome me back as their friend with open arms!"

Midoriya stayed quiet for a few seconds. He thought about his classmates who had been watching on their phones or on tv when Zach got out of Tartaros. He thought about the others who had been there when he was shot, and the ones who he knew had gone to see Zach earlier than he did in more personal trips to his place and in friendly visits instead of what this was turning out to be. _Why didn't he let me come to Yutapu? Does he not want me knowing where his place is? Does he know that I'm working with Lemillion then?! But… since he knew Lemillion was following him the whole time, he knows Lemillion knows where he lives. Then did he really come all this way just so we could… talk for longer? Is that it?_

"You don't have to think about everything so hard," Zach said. That just made Midoriya frown deeper that Zach thought he was, but Zach continued, "How are things with you? How were classes at U.A. today? What you do for practical training? Do you think you guys stand a chance against us in the coming joint training?" Zach bounced his eyebrows once while asking that question, hoping he could get some banter going back and forth or even just a better reaction than he had been getting. Midoriya just kept frowning though, wondering why it was Zach was trying to push the conversation onto Midoriya and what he had been up to. _You said you wanted to be friends,_ Zach thought, trying hard to keep his smile, though he was getting tired of this more by the second. _But you're so suspicious of every little thing-_

"I'm, cautious around you," Midoriya said. He turned his head and looked at Zach seriously, but with a look of apology in his eyes too at what he just said. The way he said it was like he could not turn it off and was sorry about it, but he was still accusatory at the same time because of that caution he just mentioned.

Zach got a slightly more serious look on his face too, but at the same time he relaxed in a big way. _Finally. This is all I want, Midoriya._ He kept that serious look while asking, "Why?"

"Because," Midoriya began. They were on a residential road now and there was barely anyone else on the street besides them, and no one within earshot. He looked to his side at Zach as they kept walking, and he said in a stern voice, "You did what Stain did." Zach curled the corners of his lips down, while Midoriya continued, "You knew what he had done, but you went and did the same thing anyway."

"That's not true," Zach disagreed.

"You tried taking things into your own hands," Midoriya said. He said it firmly in a voice that revealed his true beliefs to Zach and why his friend was cautious of him and so against all he had done. Midoriya stared at Zach sternly and continued, "To change society and fix things outside the law." Midoriya paused for a second and he narrowed his eyebrows down at the bridge of his nose. "Even in those cities where the crime rate went down, what Stain did wasn't right. You understand that, right?" Midoriya questioned him.

"I do," Zach replied. "I understand that, because Stain decided to purge heroes. What he did was wrong."

Midoriya's voice got lower and darker, his face intense as he said, "Purging villains is wrong too."

Zach just nodded in agreement with that statement, "You're right." His eyes shifted to his side at his former classmate who tried to keep that intense look despite Zach's agreement. "But that's not what I was doing." Midoriya continued to glare at him, but Zach looked harsher back at him and continued, "You don't know what I was doing, so don't say-"

"You hear of the villain Faith?" Midoriya asked. He looked at Zach questioningly when he asked, and Zach nodded his head while searching Midoriya's expression though he did not see what he was searching for in it. Midoriya managed to keep from letting on what he already knew because what he was bringing up was not about what he had heard from Lemillion recently. Instead, he continued after Zach's nod, "You know how we fought him?" Midoriya asked, his tone showing he suspected Zach already did but was just checking. Another nod.

"When I faced him," Midoriya said. His eyes got colder and he looked into Zach's with a frustrated and passionate look in them. "He taunted me about what 'real' heroes were while telling me how I wasn't. In that chaos, in what was like a war-zone with flames all around and more villains than heroes, Faith used _your_ name to rally the villains." Zach's hands clenched instantly into tight fists at his sides as he and Midoriya stopped near an awkward intersection showing poor city planning for this part of Musutafu. "He used you as an example to get the villains of the Stain Cult to think of me as not a hero and attack me. Because I was 'too afraid' of going around and stopping everyone without a license. 'And of course you would be terrified of stepping out and being more like him, because it got everyone he cared about killed. His friends, his family, and his _mother._ '"

Zach did not get upset at what Midoriya just said to him. His eyes grew wide instead though, as the way Midoriya was quoting it sounded like Faith had been threatening Midoriya's mother. Before he had time to wonder if he was just jumping to conclusions because of something else he already knew, Midoriya continued quicker, "It sounded like Faith was threatening my mom there, like he knew Phinx and Lee would come for her." Zach's eyes went from wide to narrowed in an instant. His expression turned harsh, and cold, and as it happened Midoriya snapped quicker, "I already know you know them, because of the horrified way the two of them reacted to hearing your name."

Zach stared at Midoriya in surprise. He stared at him in confusion, and hesitation at the intense and frustrated way Midoriya was staring back at him. "When Wonderlass was killed," Midoriya began softly after a few seconds' pause. "I yelled out your name," Midoriya continued. "But you didn't come."

Zach bowed his head a bit and his front spikes shadowed over the tops of his eyes. Midoriya continued with his own head bowing a bit, "The two of them were so terrified when I shouted for you to come, but they had no reason to be. You didn't show. And if it was my mom who died…" Midoriya's face scrunched up as he was finally able to say this for the first time. "And you weren't there- but even it being Wonderlass I still can't-"

"Who should I save?"

Zach asked the question to interrupt Midoriya. His former classmate stared at him still angrily but also in a somewhat confused way at Zach's counter right there. Zach looked him seriously back in the eyes though, and he posed this question, "If I was currently saving someone else when Wonderlass was killed, a hero I barely knew… If I was saving an innocent person at the time why was her life more important?"

Midoriya opened his mouth, but he hesitated. _You weren't at the time…_

Zach continued too quickly, "You don't know if I was doing that at the time." Midoriya's mouth closed, and Zach went on before he could recuperate and think of countering, "But you think I should have been there to save Wonderlass because _you_ cared about Wonderlass." The way Zach said it flipped the situation onto Midoriya where he now realized he was the one being put on blast for being selfish and in the wrong here. He opened his mouth again to make a new counter, but Zach continued, "And yeah, I knew Phinx and Lee. They were a couple of murderous fucks who I should have killed the first times I met them."

The cold, dark way in which Zach just said that made Midoriya completely freeze up with his eyes growing huge. Zach's expression was dark after saying it, but he added, "I didn't though." He said it firmly and while staring into Midoriya's eyes. Then his dark, stern look faltered. His face filled with more hesitation instead, and he scrunched up his face a bit while asking, "Was it wrong of me not to kill them?" He asked it in a skeptical tone, but the face he made right before it made that skeptical feeling feel not as such. Midoriya was shocked by the question itself and the scenario Zach was putting out before him. Zach went on darkly, "If when I brought them to prison and threatened to kill them if they ever broke out, because I was afraid that with their skill sets they would be able to, I shouldn't have just killed them right then and there? It would have saved Wonderlass' life right? Maybe some others' too?"

Midoriya shook his head and Zach finally stopped. "No," Midoriya answered. "It wouldn't have been right."

"I. Agree," Zach said. He shook his head and then continued, "And that's why I put them in jail, and that's why even though they broke out and killed good people, I would still do it that way again. Because I didn't know how it would turn out, and there are other people I got sent to prison who never did break out, and who maybe will rehabilitate in there after a while. They can still have their second chances."

 _People he "got sent to prison?" He's not even trying to hide the fact! …_ Midoriya grimaced and started walking right as Zach looked to be turning to get on the move again. He grimaced like that because he knew the tangent he was starting to go on in his head about Zach's illegal activities over that year was his easy escape from admitting the things right about what Zach had just told him. _We don't disagree on those points. Everything he said, it's all… it's the right thing to do._ The frustration of being unable to push this on Zach anymore though, when for so long he had been angry about Wonderlass' death and what 'could have been' had Zach been there or done things differently, didn't make much sense to him anymore and just frustrated Deku more.

"What you were doing out there though," Midoriya started back up. "It was still wrong."

Zach nodded his head slowly on Midoriya's side. "We don't disagree there." Midoriya shifted his gaze to the side and wondered what Zach meant by that. As he did, Zach did not turn back to meet his gaze though. _Faith used my name. That mother fucker. I already punished him. I couldn't have made it any worse, but still! I killed Stain for that same thing. Other people using his name to do monstrous things. FAITH using his name to do horrible things, while Faith was using my name at the same time. But it was still… it has to be different._ "But, Midoriya," Zach continued after agreeing that what he had been doing was wrong. "The fear I'm sure those men showed you that day was because of the threat I made if they ever broke out of prison."

Midoriya looked at Zach with a look wondering what he meant by that. Zach continued, "When you called my name, they feared that I would carry out the _terrible_ things I said I would do to them if they escaped and I saw their faces again." Midoriya stopped, and Zach turned towards him and leaned forward with a dark look over his whole face. "And I can't even remember what that threat was," Zach hissed. "But it was something so fucked up that I'm not surprised their reactions have stuck with you this long." _After all, my own comrades gave me strange looks for the rest of the day after that. They didn't have that kid die in their arms though. Killing Phinx would have been easy for me. Maybe I should have. Did I want to? I wanted to. If I did though, I could have. I could have justified it for countless reasons and no one would have questioned me. I guess, I never wanted to kill… any of them._

The two boys had stopped walking and Midoriya realized his heart was racing and his body tensed up as if he was about to get in a fight. He tried telling himself that wasn't right, but his face scrunched up instead and he ground his teeth in frustration. "Why are you so, why do you try and be scary all the time?" Midoriya chastised. He glared at Zach while asking, making Zach hesitate and pull his own head back as he realized what he just said had been unnecessarily intimidating.

 _Why am I doing that?_ Zach thought, and he gained a partially apologetic look while turning away from his friend. "I don't know," Zach muttered. He started walking, and Midoriya hesitated himself for a moment as it was his turn to feel apologetic for what he just said. That moment was fleeting though.

"You don't know?" Midoriya repeated back to Zach while walking up to his side again. He frowned as Zach started smiling, and Deku did not care that he was not since the two of them were on a side road without any other passerbys. "I'm not just talking about right there. Why did you act that way towards the villains you fought too?" Midoriya asked. Zach lowered his smile a bit, as it was hard to keep it when there was no pressing reason to like someone watching them. "The two of them weren't just afraid," Midoriya continued in a quieter voice. He thought about the looks on those two mercenaries' faces, and he said, "They were nearly unconscious but they lifted their heads… and the pure terror on their faces exceeded anything-"

"Good," Zach said. He didn't turn back to Midoriya as he said it, despite his friend spinning towards him with a surprised look at that response.

"'Good?'" Midoriya asked in almost a sickened tone if Zach was serious about that.

"Yeah, that tells me that doing that to them really worked. And other guys who weren't as hardcore as those two, who still might have been able to break out of prison, will now second guess themselves and miss out on opportunities to escape." Zach said it in a calm, calculated voice while Midoriya's face was more full of emotion. Zach turned to him and said in that monotone voice, "As terrifying as I was to them when I captured them, if that prevents them from killing prison guards and escaping then it was worth it. If it saved a single person then… then it was all worth it." Zach's eyes darkened, as faces flashed through his head with expressions full of terror over them.

"That's wrong, Zach," Midoriya said. Zach turned his head to the side, and Midoriya continued in a firm voice, "You could use that same argument for just killing every villain you ever catch." Zach lowered the corners of his lips and looked away at Midoriya's point. "They wouldn't be able to hurt anyone ever again. Right?" Midoriya looked to his side and said in a softer voice while keeping eye contact with Zach, "You can't make assumptions for the far future to justify bad decisions in the present. Even if it's not to the same degree…" Midoriya did not continue, but he was alluding back to Stain again and despite holding off on it himself, Zach thought of it this time without that last push and just lowered his eyes to the sidewalk.

"But what you were doing as… when you were being a vigilante," Midoriya said. He didn't finish 'as Death,' instead keeping the conversation on track as he knew Zach would just counter him and derail what he was trying to get across. "Bringing that much fear into the world. You were fighting villains with villains' tactics. Weren't you?" Zach started shaking his head, but Midoriya countered that shake, "Using fear as a tactic _is_ what villains do. It's a tactic they use-"

"It's a tactic of war," Zach growled. He grit his teeth after the words left his lips, but he continued walking without missing a beat even as Midoriya felt himself miss a step and almost fall off the sidewalk as his foot came halfway off of the curb. The fact that he did that despite having been walking in a straight line told him that he had unconsciously stepped to the right. His head spun back as Zach continued while getting farther in front of him, "You might not believe me, Midoriya, but I learned what I learned on the battlefield."

"You weren't at war," Midoriya jogged up to Zach's side and got in front of him to look back in his eyes. Zach kept walking and Midoriya had to side-back walk as they moved on, "You were fighting villains illegally-"

"Don't tell me it wasn't war," Zach said. His voice was dark and he gave Midoriya a cold look that had his old friend ease back at the look in his eyes. "You weren't there. You didn't see that world and the things I went through, so don't tell me what it was I went through over there."

"In Terra?" Midoriya asked. "Arcasia?" He lifted his tone higher and scrunched up his face in disbelief, not going to lean back any farther due to the way Zach was trying to guilt-trip him here.

Zach was not trying that though. He just glared harder at Midoriya and replied, "Yeah. In Terra. I fought there against forces that wanted nothing more than to kill me and my friends, kill their families, raid their villages and rape their wives and daughters. _Enslave them,_ " Zach emphasized it and bit down hard as he did, turning his head partially to the side and grinding his teeth harder. Midoriya's face eased back again, and it got more and more unsure as Zach faking all this was getting harder and harder to believe.

Zach's fists balled and he said in a lower voice, "The people I fought with were ready to kill, and the ones I was fighting against were definitely going to kill us, but _I_ held people back and tried to fight in a way without just killing everyone. In that world at war, I was the one making sure both sides didn't just massacre each other. We could have, it could have come down to that, if I had gotten any softer than I did. If I had tried to take the high ground any higher than what I did, we all would have been killed." Midoriya opened his mouth, and Zach snapped, "My comrades died, because of enemies they thought were surrendering or who they thought they had knocked out, jumping up and stabbing them or killing them using their Quirks." Zach leaned his head towards Midoriya's and spoke darker, "I kept everyone from just killing their enemies, but in order to prevent those men and women we took down from coming back and killing us, I put the fear of _Death_ in them."

"Zach," Midoriya started.

Zach looked where Midoriya was looking, and he grit his teeth so much harder while feeling rage bubbling inside him. _Even in Terra. EVEN with it being the war in Arcasia, it's still so fucking vivid!_ Zach clenched his eyes shut and rose his head back. He lifted his head to look away from his shaking fists that had darkness spilling out the cracks between his fingers, and he took in a deep breath while those dark wisps faded away.

"Death is partially connected to my emotions," Zach said which had Midoriya snap his eyes back up to see Zach's open again and looking at him in a calm way. He started walking forwards again and continued as Midoriya stared at his back, "I learned that while I was in Arcasia too. My teacher, who also had Death, he told me about it. And when my Death got strong enough that it started to happen more frequently, Fraisha helped me get it under control. She was in my army before we even joined the Allied Forces against the Queen. And she stayed with me through that to the point where I became a general myself, coming with me all the way to the Queen's capital."

 _Is any of that real?!_ Midoriya kept staring at Zach's back with his eyes huge at how all this fact was mixed in with fiction. _His Quirk being connected to his emotions makes sense, because I don't think he was trying to make those wisps come out a second ago. But, anything else? Getting it under control, makes sense, but Fraisha was his friend in Terra? His teacher also had Death and taught him- I don't understand, Zach. It's all nonsense to me._ He started walking after Zach as his darker-haired friend looked over his shoulder back to him. He got close to Zach, and then he sped up and got right back on Zach's side as he had been hesitating to do so. _But even if I don't think you're telling me the truth. Even if what you say, isn't what you really did, there are things I can still say. Things you will still tell me and things that I can convince you of!_

"You're right, and I'm sorry," Midoriya started. Zach looked at him confusedly at how Midoriya just started. "I don't know what you went through. But whatever it was, Zach," Midoriya looked to his side into Zach's eyes as they headed down another road in a residential area without many people. There were some middle schoolers ahead of them who must've just gotten out of school, but they were heading the same direction and did not notice the famous heroes back behind them. Deku continued in a low but strong voice after a pause, "You aren't at war now. You're trying to be a hero, aren't you?"

"War and being a hero aren't mutually exclusive," Zach responded without delay. Midoriya meant for his question to create a pause where Zach would think of that and realize… or something. Zach countered him though and continued like he was the one informing Midoriya, "Actually, they share a lot of similar aspects. In war, Midoriya, my ultimate goal was to defeat my enemies without fighting." Midoriya froze when he opened his mouth, as he wanted to get back to talking about _not_ war. How Zach just described it was not what Midoriya thought he would say though, and he got a quizzical look on his face which had Zach lift a small grin. "The greatest victory is one where I never have to fight. Because without fighting there's the least amount of risk to my soldiers and to innocent people who might get caught up in the violence."

 _That's just being a hero-_ Midoriya wanted to say it aloud, but he also felt like saying so would just make Zach confirm to him how similar they were which Midoriya did not accept.

"In order to make it so I don't have to fight though, I need fewer enemies and my enemies to be weaker than I am so that they surrender easier." Zach held up a hand while saying it, then he rose up his other palm and added, "And I want them to fear me because if they fear me, they'll surrender quicker and tell me what I want to know without me even needing to interrogate them-"

Midoriya cut him off before he could continue with that, "Heroes shouldn't be feared."

"You think villains didn't fear All Might?" Zach countered right back. Midoriya said what he thought firmly at him, but Zach responded just as firmly and locked eyes with Midoriya who hesitated after the question. "They were kept in the shadows for so long because of his existence, because they _feared_ him. Striking fear into my enemies was a good tactic in war too, because it helped me in the most basic aspects of warfare. Even when you are weak you have to appear strong. They must think you are there even when you aren't. Crimes won't happen if they fear that I might be there; lingering near a town the monsters might try and raid and conquer."

Midoriya's nose scrunched up and he furled his lips at the logic in what Zach was saying. He had been getting upset about it because it felt like Zach was talking about the Army of Death though, but then Zach mentioned monsters again and raiding towns, and his heart churned with uncertain emotions wondering if he could accept any of this if it was all based off fantasy. Zach went on even as Midoriya was clearly having trouble absorbing everything, "It's all the same, Midoriya. In war, every action I took was a deception. And I won that war in which I was the underdog by far. And when I lost, it was because my enemies didn't believe in the ploys and false information I tried to get to them. They didn't fall for my strategies and they expected my maneuvers. They had to think I was there when I wasn't, but they also had to think I wasn't there when I was. That way I could get right up to them without them knowing and catch them off guard. Rush them fast and hard before they can get their bearings. Make them afraid and unable to organize a counterattack or defense. And you know where I learned all these strategies?"

Zach had spoked rapidly towards the end through his last five or six sentences. Midoriya was looking at him intensely and listening to what he was saying, (whether or not he could believe it all being put on the back-burner for later). He hesitated after Zach asked the question because it seemed like Zach wanted him to answer. Then he responded in a question, asking, "Your experience-"

Zach started shaking his head before Midoriya was finished which had him close his mouth. Then Zach replied, "Camino Ward." Midoriya's eyes opened wide while Zach continued to stare straight into them. "That's right. I was in the villains' lair, and Edgeshot came to the door and pretended to be the pizza guy. All Might busted down the wall, and Kamui Woods wrapped them up before they could react. Gran Torino and Edgeshot knocked out Dabi and Kurogiri. They rushed the villains fast, and the villains were afraid as their worst enemy was suddenly there in front of them and overwhelming them with his power."

The green-haired teen Zach was talking to closed his mouth for a second and then opened it to say something, but Zach continued first when he was about to counter that that type of fear was not the same as what Zach did. Zach could see him about to do that though, and he said, "They didn't let the villains know they were there until the trap was ready and set, and going. Even knocking on the door first I didn't understand, for so long, but I think Edgeshot did it as part of the fear factor. He knocked, scaring the villains who weren't expecting anyone, but by saying that he was the pizza guy they all started to feel that relief that it was not a hero. And then bam! The walls cave in and that fear reemerges ten-fold because they had a moment of hope and relief that nothing bad was going to happen, and they treasured that freedom and the idea that they were not going to risk going to jail tonight. And then…"

Zach looked into Midoriya's eyes deeper as Midoriya reacted with his eyes growing a little wider and his breath hitching. Zach nodded his head at what he saw, and he commented, "So Lemillion was recording everything I said."

Midoriya's eyes that had twitched before, shot open as wide as they could get in an immediate panic and flip of the stream his thoughts were on. Zach grinned and he laughed at the way Midoriya completely froze up right there. "You need to work on your own art of deception," Zach said, while Midoriya was getting angrier now as he realized what had just happened. "I just described to you the same tactic I used on Rancor and those guys, scaring them and then giving them the relief before intensifying their fear so much more." Zach kept smiling despite Midoriya's upset look, and he said, "I doubt Lemillion would've worded it like that, so it makes sense it would be a recorder."

"That's not alright," Midoriya said. He was frowning at Zach and clearly upset, his fists still clenched but more of a defeated and embarrassed look on his face that somehow his expression had given Zach all that information. He had been kept up late at nights mulling over whether or not he should tell Zach himself, and now the choice to do so was taken out of his hands. As much as he thought it would make him feel bad if Zach had found out without Midoriya telling him that he was working with Lemillion to come after him, he didn't feel guilty when Zach just manipulated their conversation to figure it out from his own expressions.

Midoriya glared at his former classmate who got a bit of a hesitant look on his face and looked ready to apologize too, but Midoriya's lip trembled for a moment as his mind worked faster and his heart raced. _Unless…_ Midoriya thought, watching Zach carefully while his friend leaned back in a hesitant way at the way Midoriya was looking at him now. _He knew, already? Or maybe he didn't know, but when he just found out he could have kept it a secret he didn't know and just pretended! He could have used the fact that he knew, to give me wrong information or- or maybe, he knew that if I told him, I'd be betraying Lemillion. And without telling him, I was going to keep feeling guilty that this was in part an interrogation even if neither of us want it to be?! Is that what he thought- in that single second after I reacted where he knew I was working with Lemillion?! He could have, already had contingencies! If I or Bakugo was… yeah, that makes more sense._

"I really wasn't trying to get it out of you," Zach started while trying to read what Midoriya was thinking based off his changing reactions. "I really did mean what I was saying about fear, but what I was talking about does relate directly to tactics I use now. You just gave it away right there though, and I didn't want to pretend like I hadn't figured it out by not admitting that you gave it away."

 _He… could have known, that's what I was thinking,_ Midoriya stopped looking as harsh and just lowered his look a bit. His eyes shifted to the floor, _But, I get the feeling he isn't lying._ Midoriya frowned but this time at himself for not being a good deceiver. "Deceiving people is wrong," Midoriya said, as if defending himself for the mistake he just made.

"Does your secret still tear you up inside?" Zach wondered.

Midoriya looked to his side at Zach in surprise, then he frowned even deeper while looking back forward. _**"You lie too! Deku, what about your lies about All Might?" "…And I pretended I was fine with what you 'told me,' but I'm not!" "…Because, because I liked you, Deku. I liked you a lot, because of how earnest you were. How trustworthy… But you lie. You lie when you tell me that Kaminari was just, saying it because your Quirks were similar. I noticed how close you and All Might were a long time ago so you can't just pretend…"**_ Midoriya rose his gaze with a pained look on his face, and he replied softly, "It does."

 _ **"You, you get mad at Zach for his lies despite being a total hypocrite! Despite the fact that you lie to all of us, to me, straight to my face."**_ Midoriya turned to his side at Zach and he bit down while pursing his top lip in. _I lost my chance with Uraraka. A ruined chance of a relationship with her, that I've tried to push from my mind. Long gone now…_

"You have to accept that you're deceiving people though," Zach said. He said it softly and looked at Midoriya with a sympathetic look as he knew how earnest his friend was. "If All Might's really your role model, then think about how All Might's been telling everyone for decades that he's a natural-born hero. Lying to billions. The entire world." Zach stared seriously at Midoriya while his friend got an even more upset look on his face which showed Zach he had not thought too hard about that, most likely because he did not want to. "Midoriya, if you're going to go with that, then you have to decide soon too."

Deku lifted his head in surprise. He turned to Zach confusedly too, and Zach said to him, "A great hero can't lie." He said it and Midoriya's surprised look turned shocked that Zach would say or even think that. "You're not allowed to," Zach continued, "but if you never get caught in the lie then it doesn't matter because the ends would justify it if people really were encouraged by the idea that Deku was natural born- like All Might thinks they were for him."

"They were," Midoriya said. _All Might always said so. That, his symbol couldn't be tarnished. He was right about that!_

"What All Might did was great," Zach said. "Don't get me wrong. But had it been discovered then it would have been much worse than people finding out what the truth was, because people would have also found out that All Might had been lying to them. Their greatest hero." Midoriya's face got dark lines over the top of it and a look of dread at the aspect of that. "So if you think you won't be able to keep it a secret forever," Zach continued when he saw that look covering Midoriya's face. "Then you've gotta come out and admit that All Might gave you the Quirk. Or that he passed it on to you." Midoriya's eyes grew huge at that suggestion and he stared at Zach in disbelief as he had never even humored the idea of breaking All Might's trust and telling the secret to the world.

Zach saw that disbelief but continued to stare just as intensely at Deku. "All Might kept that secret for decades," Zach said in a serious tone. "All Might isn't married. He doesn't have kids. I wonder if it's because All Might felt he had to keep that secret from them all." Zach paused to let Midoriya just think about that as it was clear he hadn't before, and this was something that greatly affected Midoriya's life more than it did his own. His voice got softer and he finished, "You have to make hard choices. There might only be two bad options, but you still have to make the choice. You don't have to make all the choices All Might did though. You don't always have to listen to his advice."

Midoriya stared straight ahead for a couple seconds with a frozen, dreading, stunned look. Finally he spun to his side to say something to Zach, but Zach was looking ahead again with a thoughtful look of his own but nowhere near as intense as Midoriya's was now. Saying something to Zach right now, countering about how great All Might was and how listening to his advice has always been right… it didn't seem as important as what it was he had to think about right now. His brow furled and his eyes narrowed, and Zach caught it in his peripheral vision and nodded to himself at the sight.

 _All Might was an amazing hero, but maybe he was more okay with lying for the greater good than Deku ever will be._ Zach rose his eyes towards the sky for a moment, _In that aspect alone, we're more similar. But that aspect is also the one thing that puts All Might more on my level, which is the opposite direction as heroes. He also didn't take in Eziano, thinking bigger picture than Deku would have. At least, that's what Midoriya says…_

Zach rose the left corner of his lips farther from Midoriya, a growing smile at what he just thought while keeping his friend in his peripheral. _Maybe Deku really won't be able to handle lying like that though, because he's even more of the picture of what a hero should be like, at least to me._

"If the art of deception isn't for you, I get it," Zach told him after the moment of silence passed. Midoriya looked back at him, still thinking hard about it but trying to hold the conversation and leave those kinds of deep life-altering thoughts for a different time. "Because I don't think you would do well in war either," Zach explained. He turned and smiled at his friend though, "But you can be a great hero without being deceiving." Midoriya got confused again, and Zach said in a common sense way while lifting up a palm again, "War and being a hero aren't mutually exclusive, but they're still very different things and require very different types of people. No offense Midoriya, but you never would have cut it as a soldier."

Midoriya let out a heavy exhale one step away from being a sigh. "No offense taken," he responded. _Because I don't want to be a soldier. Not being able to be one, isn't something that bothers me. What bothers me more was that you_ _ **were**_ _able to become one._ "Hey Zach," Midoriya began. He looked to his friend and gave him a serious look, "Now that you know I'm part of the investigation against you… what are you going to do?"

Zach scratched the back of his head, and he replied slowly, "Nothing?" He rose an eyebrow and looked at Midoriya funny, then he laughed at the serious way in which Midoriya frowned back at him. "You and Lemillion can spend your weekends trying to prove that I'm Death, but you're going to fail because, and don't forget it this time- I'm not Death."

"Zach," Midoriya said, shaking his head. "I know you are-"

"Gah," Zach tilted his head back and let out an exasperated noise though while still smiling. "Well, whatever," he said with a shrug as he knew there was no point in trying to convince Midoriya otherwise. _The more I talk about not being Death, the more… actually, he's already fully convinced. I don't think he could be any more than "fully."_ Zach rolled out his shoulders and he continued to smile in a carefree way as they were nearing an intersection onto a slightly more crowded road where the two of them would have to keep more professional appearances. "Did you hear about what the real Death was up to last night?" Zach wondered.

 _Because Lemillion immediately went to your house and staked it out to make sure you weren't going to sneak back in, yes. He said you left your house in the morning seemingly oblivious to what had happened. It was before news came out of everything going on, but you had to know beforehand didn't you?_ Midoriya found it hard to answer Zach's question when he felt like the way Zach worded it at the start of the conversation was so fake. "I heard," Midoriya finally responded though. "Death was reported to show up on that oil rig hostage situation."

"Only it wasn't really an oil rig," Zach replied.

Midoriya nodded. "Weapons designed to amplify Quirk powers. The research going on there could be considered part of a program to increase the strength of support equipment for heroes."

"I'm sure that's what the Chinese and Americans are going to argue," Zach added. "But the fact that it was disguised as an oil rig actually takes that option away from them. It throws conspiracy into the mix, and the extent to which they were forging those weapons also exceeded UN agreed-upon codes. Suneater said the weapons found there were more powerful than most banned firearms."

Midoriya agreed, and he spoke in a lower voice while thinking of the press conference they each watched earlier, "Have you seen many places like that, in your experience?"

"Yeah," Zach replied. There was no delay in his response, and Midoriya frowned deeper at the answer he did not want to hear for a lot of reasons. The fact that Zach would say it so plainly though, meant that there were enough that even just in the time he said he was on their world, he had seen multiple of these places. _I knew about that place too, Midoriya,_ Zach thought. He smiled and gave Midoriya a look to get him to do the same as they headed onto the main street with lots of people on it who had yet to notice them but likely would soon. Midoriya looked at him and smiled back after a second, though softer than Zach's. _I knew it was illegal,_ Zach thought while turning back forward, the person next to him clueless as to what he was thinking about. _But I wasn't going to get involved in something just over the line like that. Checking "research labs" meant I was searching for human test subjects. A place like that working with adapting Quirks to weapons and still doing so humanely and with volunteers, paid employees, it was far better than most conspiracies go…_

"I was surprised Amajiki-senpai was the one speaking through the press conference," Midoriya mentioned. Zach looked back at him, and Midoriya asked, "Have you ever met him? Suneater?"

"I don't think so," Zach replied.

"Well, he's not the best at public speaking," Midoriya said, though hesitating for a moment as he wondered if Zach was lying about that. _He was a member of the ADTF with Lemillion for a little-_ "And with Endeavor there on the scene too, I thought Endeavor would be the one taking charge of dealing with the press."

"I think Endeavor only showed up there because of Death," Zach responded.

He offered it up and Midoriya nodded after a moment in reluctant agreement. _The new Death,_ Midoriya corrected though he kept it inside for now.

Zach continued, "But since Endeavor is there, he's not going to go easy just because it's the U.S. and China he's dealing with. I'm sure he had something to do with how quickly the response team is getting moving."

"Maybe," Midoriya said. "But it's also because of the crisis itself," Midoriya countered. _Endeavor's personality shouldn't have much to do with the speed at which other countries react._ "The lab's workers got held hostage by villains, and those villains could have stole those weapons, reinforcing UN rules against countries creating such places. Don't you think?" Deku asked, and he smiled a little more at Zach's strong nod of agreement back.

"Plus, those weapons were surely funded by those countries' citizens who didn't know something like that was going on," Zach added. "So there's domestic outrage, _and_ the international community is upset at the U.S. and China. Star-Spangled Man and Yue Fei are heading the investigation into which parties of their governments were responsible for keeping this place from the public and making it a conspiracy…"

Midoriya stared at Zach in surprise. _Did that information just come out? I didn't see-_

"…Since some people wonder if the heroes on the response teams were in on it too, they're being kept out of the investigation. The heroes on those teams, however, have worked with the investigators so far and admitted that the orders they received during the initial stages of the response seemed strange-" Zach hesitated for a moment at Midoriya's confused and slowly more accusatory look. "They're moving fast. It's a big conspiracy, and they're keeping everyone updated so as to ensure the public that the conspiracy won't go unchecked." Midoriya lost his accusatory look, as the way Zach said that made it sound like there really had been another press conference more recently that he missed… and it wasn't Zach receiving information from some sketchy source.

"I'm sure they'll find out who in those governments were responsible for establishing that lab with the kind of research going on there," Midoriya said. "Those weapons can't be allowed out into the world."

"Agreed," Zach said. He scratched the side of his head and mentioned in a quieter voice as a couple people looked towards him on the opposite side of the road, "Apparently a couple of the villains tried using the super weapons towards the end of the fight when they got cornered in a central room." Midoriya hadn't heard about this and glanced to his friend wondering about it, and he grimaced for a moment as Zach finished, "But the weapons were experimental prototypes and blew up in the villains' faces killing them, and nearly a couple of my recent alumni from Shiketsu." Zach took the hand from the side of his head off and waved it, "Hey there!"

Midoriya wanted to continue talking about that, but he had to turn and saw a group of people all heading towards them looking excited at who just returned to Musutafu. As much as everyone was mainly focused on Zach though, what he and Zach had been talking about earlier returned to Midoriya's mind. It dug its way back in there and he felt the nerves well inside him that someone was going to ask him about his Quirk, about where he got it… _If All Might could do it then I- not that I'm thinking I can do anything he can! But- but don't I have to? I do! I think…_

* * *

On the roof of U.A.'s main building, All Might stood in front of a man he had met on this roof a couple of times in the past year. Hawks faced All Might with his hands down in his pockets and a serious expression that made for an eerie chill only intensified by how cold it actually was up on that roof. All Might ignored that chill though despite his skinny frail body not being as good at handling rough environments as he once could. "I was surprised you contacted me again," All Might said at the man in front of him who was hesitating from saying what he came to talk about.

Hawks had his eyes lifted up to the rolling light gray clouds above them. His eyes narrowed at them, but he took in a deep breath through his nose, _Every storm isn't them._ "I considered not doing so for a while," Hawks replied as he looked back down to make eye contact with the former number 1 hero. "But there was something I needed to talk to you, specifically, about." Hawks paused, then he continued on this time without waiting for All Might to inquire about it. "It's about Sazaki. Not my current investigation into him, but, that thing I told you about a while back."

All Might nodded his head seriously back at Hawks. His eyes were steady and his lips flat, and Hawks could see he was ready to hear about this despite him also looking like he dreaded the information he was about to hear. "I'll have to report what I found to Lemillion too, but I came to you first thing since getting back in-country." Hawks rose a hand out of his pocket and rubbed the back of his head for a moment, and All Might felt more uneasy by the fact that Hawks was having trouble finding a way to start talking about this… whatever this was.

"Did you discover what caused that rumor of Sazaki's bounty being turned in?" All Might asked. Hawks rubbed the back of his head again slower, and All Might said in a lower voice, "You said you confirmed-"

"I did," Hawks said. He interrupted All Might and lowered his arm back down to his side. He stared into All Might's eyes with a truthful gaze and said, "The guys I was talking to had no reason to lie, and they were contacts with a lot of good information. I tried to find the place they sent him, tried to find the bounty hunters, but it was always dead ends before I could get anything of value. Until this time," Hawks finished in a way that made All Might's eyes widen for a moment, though he returned to normal a second later as this was what he was hoping for anyway.

Despite hoping for this information, All Might also felt wary based on the expression on Hawks' face. "And?"

"You're not going to like it," Hawks said. He did not say it like he was offering All Might the choice of not hearing it. He was just warning the older hero beforehand of what he was about to say here. Hawks took in a deep breath and then began quietly, his eyes quickly scanning over the roof of U.A. before he spoke, "I finally tracked down the source who gave out the wrong information long ago. It's the reason why I've been abroad for the past couple weeks. The source led me to the bounty hunters-"

"The ones who caught Sazaki?" All Might interrupted.

"The very same," Hawks replied. "They were pretty tough, but nothing he shouldn't have been able to handle. I don't know how they managed to capture him, but the rumor about the bounty was true. I had thought it was fake for a while since Tsukuyomi and Deku assured me that their pal Sazaki was Death. I discovered where the holes in the story were though. I figured out why it is, Sazaki could be here and also… Anyway, I was wrong. I found the bounty hunters in a well-hidden hideout in central Africa." Hawks did not want to bring up how he had doubted Zach Sazaki's reappearance the whole time and thought it might be some sort of fake, so he just left that part of his explanation out.

 _Africa? If Sazaki was Death, then he would have been there often,_ All Might told himself. _But with Death out bringing people back to life still, I am not as sure as Young Midoriya that Sazaki truly was that man. Acting as a vigilante would mean there were no borders for him to act in, and there was a lot of chaos…_ All Might's eyes started opening wide as Hawks continued his next couple of sentences.

"When I found them, I doubted they would tell me about the people they handed Sazaki off to. There was a small chance that I'd find evidence," _(of Sazaki really being dead),_ "but I doubted I would be able to find out anyway. But those bounty hunters told me the truth. They were scared," Hawks said that in a lower voice which was what made All Might start to sweat even in the cold. How Hawks continued did not help with that cold sweat any though, "They told me why they had gone into hiding and stopped collecting bounties for the last year. They sold Sazaki off to Umbuju, and a week later they heard what had happened and…"

"Umbuju?" All Might asked softly.

"A Nigerian," Hawks replied. "I looked into that too. I followed the breadcrumbs as far as I could, and I fell down that metaphorical rabbit hole only to bite off," Hawks hesitated. _More than I was ready for,_ he finished in his own head. He looked at All Might though and saw the blond older man in front of him did want more of an explanation. "Umbuju," Hawks began. "He paid for Sazaki alive. I tracked down that name, and I came to a mostly redacted file on the hero network, though it showed Umbuju as deceased."

 _Did Sazaki kill him?_ All Might thought darkly. _And if so… what caused him to do so?_

"I had to go to Nigeria myself, and get some Nigerian heroes to tell me in person exactly what happened the day they found The Pit." Hawks paused again while All Might got an even more confused look on his face. "It was the place Sazaki was brought to," Hawks explained. "They learned about it after they showed up, but they kept what the place was from public eye. The villains they found there were arrested and all have life sentences in a Nigerian villain prison, though many of the villains were dead when they got there. There are still some reports of 'missing' Nigerian businessmen, and mysterious disappearances of various west African gang leaders and cadres. They were all there at the time of the breakout."

"What was this place?" All Might wondered. "Some sort of villain camp? Did they torture Sazaki there?"

"All Might," Hawks started.

"You can tell me, Hawks. What was the purpose of taking Sazaki there. Was his escape-"

"All Might," Hawks repeated it, and this time All Might fell silent at the tone in Hawks' voice. It fully unnerved the former top hero who did not like how the always calm and relaxed Hawks was looking. Hawks shook his head once at All Might, "They didn't want information or anything. The Pit, it wasn't that kind of place," Hawks bowed his head a bit, tssking and shifting his eyes away at the thought of telling this kind man about what he was hesitating so much on already. "Heroes wouldn't have hid something like that. They wouldn't have lied about it to everyone, but it was something that… they didn't want people to know about. They didn't want to give other villains ideas, or any of their civilians to realize what they had been allowing to happen in their own borders."

"Give it to me straight," All Might said, mustering up a strong look after realizing he had gotten unnerved by Hawks' voice there, which he suspected was why Hawks kept beating around the bush.

"The heroes described it, as a modern day Colosseum," Hawks said. He looked into All Might's eyes for recognition, and he shook his head as he didn't expect much from that explanation alone. "The prisoners were forced to fight in an arena. Villains and rich, evil bastards, would show up and gamble on the matches." All Might stared at Hawks hesitantly, his face slow to change as the initial disbelief at such a thing was being replaced by shock and then anger. The anger subsided though, as Hawks said in a dark voice, "When the Nigerian heroes arrived, a large number of the villains in charge of The Pit or just there to watch the fights were dead. None of the prisoners were there. The gladiators forced to fight and kill each other, like Sazaki must have been." Hawks got lower there and then said in a darker voice, "Forced into The Pit, to be a gladiator to fight to the death with other prisoners."

"Sazaki wouldn't have done that," All Might said. Hawks snapped out of his darker look for a moment. He rose his head in surprise, and he was more surprised to see how certain All Might looked after saying that. Unlike the time when Tsukuyomi and Deku told him Sazaki was Death though, a single look did not make him change his mind this time. _There's too much evidence,_ Hawks thought, regrettably. All Might saw that look and shook his head at Hawks' response, "He couldn't have-"

"The prisoners," Hawks began slowly. "They were, forced to wear collars, that would have killed them if they refused…" All Might grit his teeth, and he closed his eyes trying to tell himself it couldn't be. With his eyes closed though, he just saw an image of Sazaki with red marks all over his neck. _Could that have been a collar-_ "…or, if they used their Quirks."

All Might opened back up his eyes as Hawks added that last bit. "Huh? Wait- I, I don't understand," All Might said. "Why wouldn't they be able to use their Quirks?"

"The fighting was hand-to-hand combat," Hawks responded. His expression was just as dark, and All Might's confusion went away with an even more disturbed look forming on it. "Or with melee weapons, I heard," Hawks added. "The prisoners came from all walks of life, some not guilty of anything at all, and they were forced to fight to the death for the amusement of those villains. Our own Lifebringer…" Hawks shook his head, and he regained a composed look but still felt himself getting upset just thinking about the kid who had fought him, and had left him in someone's care on a beach after beating him.

"The place was fucked up, but almost as bad were the unredacted reports of what the villains who said anything told about what had happened to the place," Hawks said. All Might stared at Hawks with wider eyes that all that cruelty might be matched. Hawks did not look as upset this time, though his face was still dark as he said, "The gladiators broke free, with the help of the Army of Death. I think maybe Death's army came for their captured leader, or maybe Sazaki was just another prisoner of The Pit when they came." All Might stared at Hawks with his eyes huge, but Hawks gave him a look showing he should save that shock for a few more seconds. Hawks' face turned to the side and he looked off the roof of the U.A. building, to the West in the direction of Yutapu City. "One thing was agreed on by the villains who told me the truth though."

Hawks shifted his gaze back to meet All Might's, and he said in a low tone, "When the gladiators rose up, Lifebringer led the revolt. By that time he was already known by another name there though, one he lived up to during the uprising. They called him… The Champion of The Pit."

* * *

 **A/N Hope you enjoyed. Zach and Deku hang out and talk philosophies, while Hawks and All Might discuss The Pit. Thanks for reading! Leave a review below telling me what you think, questions, predictions, etc!**

DarkJokes chapter 161 . Jun 13

The army of death is finally back and even got a tracker placed on them. Raijin and league of villains is back as well. This is really setting up to be some epic arc. Can't wait for the day the world knows zach is Death and he makes a badass statement.  
I feel like the league is really ignorant. They are still out here messing with Zach when even Raijin with his quirk was still played by Zach in the end. Honestly if Zach wanted to be a villain he'd probably be the better successor for all for one. Like his minds so messed up and he can come up with such clever ways to fool one day we would see him as a villain or have different ideals to the rest of the superheroes and see an epic fight between the AOD and heroes. You know they should really make a small country for those not accepted by the world cause of their quirk. Where the AOD is the ruler but not in the traditional way. Like everyone happy and there are no crimes that would be awesome

 **A whole lot happening all over the place. The people close to Zach are suspicious, the AoD are moving and now being tracked, the LoV are back and blackmailing into power... Whole lot coming, and glad you're excited for it. Raijin's had his first loss, and now he knows he can lose. We'll see if he's learned from it and if he can keep up with our boy Zach... at some point. Nice predictions and comments, and thanks for the review!**

yasideen1 chapter 161 . Jun 13

I know this probably ain't on your mind but does one of your alternate endings involve time travel, or could you consider a spinoff that does?

 **Not on my mind at all, or considering a spinoff- this story's still got a lot left! XD Trying to go faster but I can't think _that_ far ahead. **

lolmyster42 chapter 161 . 16h ago

Man, every time I read about Rebel I can't help but picture that one hacker guy from the first Transformers movie. The one living in his grandma's house that the FBI breaks into, followed by him screaming and clumsily running through a glass door. That guy.  
Great chapter as always.

 **Glad you liked the chapter! And lol I pictured the scene of him getting rushed by the FBI in my head as I read this review. Rebel's always a fun character to write, as he never really adapted into the whole war atmosphere and is kind of an asshole. Thanks for the laugh, and hope you enjoyed the new chapter!**


	163. Chapter 163

**Disclaimer: I don't own Boku no Hero Academia**

 **Chapter 163:**

"Just two more weeks," Mineta said, and he bounced his eyebrows at the taller teen in front of him standing behind his counter. Mineta sat on a stool across Zach's counter, and he leaned forward and cupped a hand to his mouth, "Come on. Give me a hint," Zach smiled and chuckled to himself at Mineta's look. "What's your strategy? You're going to go after Midoriya first right? Or are you going to pick us off first?" Mineta looked back with a nervous look and then back to Zach in faked fear that Zach was coming for them.

"You really want to know?" Zach wondered. He picked another chip out of the bag and dipped into the hummus next to it, and he tossed it in his mouth while Mineta stared at him in surprise. "Even though it'd give you guys the advantage? You really want to win like that-"

"I don't care," Mineta said with a bright smile.

Zach lowered his own smile for a moment. Mineta lost his too with a hesitant look replacing it. Zach glanced aside, then he shrugged a shoulder and faced back to Mineta. "Alright. Whatever. If you really want it," Zach leaned over his counter and motioned forward for Mineta to do the same. Mineta was about to say how he was just kidding, but now that Zach was leaning in, an excited look formed over his face that he was going to have all this insider information.

Sero rose his eyebrows up from the armrest of the couch closest to the kitchen counter, and then he rolled his eyes as Mineta started nodding with whatever Zach was whispering to him. "Don't listen to him, Mineta."

Mineta turned his head in surprise, and he said, "What? He's the one offering-"

"He's giving you wrong information," Ojiro mentioned, getting Mineta to turn to the end of the counter and the kitchen table where Ojiro and Koda were sitting with their homework in front of them.

Ashido started laughing as she did not get why Sero cut in there at first. "And you're dumb enough to believe it and pass it around as fact," Ashido added.

"I am offended," Mineta said in a shocked tone. "That you would think Zach would do something like that," Mineta waved a hand behind him while looking around at his own classmates who all looked over his head at Zach. Zach smirked down at the back of Mineta's head, then when Mineta spun around Zach nodded in agreement with him looking offended himself but in a genuine way with a look around at the others like they were accusing him of being way too manipulating. Mineta turned back to the others after checking Zach's face, and he continued making a fool of himself, "Zach said his plan is to go straight after Bakugo with Inasa since-"

Sero and Ashido were laughing in front of Mineta, and this time he spun around quicker and Zach let himself get caught grinning too. He laughed at Mineta's aghast look, only half-faked as he had started to believe the others there for a moment and was only holding onto his trust in Zach by a thread. Zach tilted his head to the side though, and he said, "Hey, if you want to start early by getting info on us, I can start early too."

"That was you starting early?" Sero wondered. "I think you could've been more convincing."

"Maybe, but had I gotten any more serious you guys would've told me not to give it away," Zach admitted right back. Sero looked surprised he got countered there, but he shrugged and admitted it with his expression that Zach was probably right there.

"Look here," Koda leaned over the table and pointed down near the top of the page as Ojiro was having trouble with a math problem farther down it. "The set-up is different, but you use the same formula for number 1."

"How? There is no z value-"

"You have to find the z first, by separating these two…"

Zach looked over at Koda and smiled a bit more at his voice that was louder and more confident than it used to be. His eyes shifted to Ojiro though who looked happy all of a sudden and thanked Koda while writing something on the page. "Hey Ojiro," Zach started. "No Hagakure today either?"

Ojiro finished writing and looked up towards Zach. "She had work, again."

"That's like every day this past week," Ashido mentioned with a sigh. She was sitting across the room from the kitchen on the comfiest chair reclined with the footrest popped out. She tilted her head back while already leaning back, and she put her hands behind her head and wondered, "What do you think Incognito's got her doing?"

Ojiro shrugged unknowingly. Zach watched him out the corner of his eyes though, _He knows. I'm sure Incognito told her not to tell anyone, but at least the person she told is someone trustworthy._

Sero was watching Zach after Zach's last question, and he saw Zach's eyes move over him for a moment when Ashido mentioned something behind his back. "I checked to see if Sato wanted to come by today," Sero mentioned casually. Zach looked back at him in a casual way too, but a couple of the others felt more awkward talking about this. "He said he was busy."

"Oh, okay," Zach replied. He had talked to Sero about seeing if Sato wanted to come over, and though Sato did not come this time he wondered if Sero had made the extra effort with his old next-door neighbor back in the dorms. "Glad you asked though," Zach mentioned.

"I saw Midoriya when we were heading out and invited him to come too," Ashido mentioned while sitting up in her chair. "But he said the two of you hung out yesterday?"

"Yeah, we did," Zach replied, as the way Ashido said what Midoriya told her made it sound like she was asking him if that was true. His confirmation made Ashido and the others in the room smile, and Zach felt like doing the same. _He's the only one I've really improved things with since returning. I think… I guess everyone here right now- why doesn't Momo come over more often? I should invite her, more. Does Sero not? The others? Or do they just not tell me- Why don't I ask about her when I'm fine with asking about the others?_

 **Knock knock knock**

Everyone in Zach's apartment looked towards the door giving it funny looks. _Three knocks?_ Mineta wondered, spinning his stool fully around and hopping off interestedly. _Who knocks three times?_

 _What kind of person…_

 _Three times?!_

Zach glanced around with a sweatdrop for a brief moment, before looking back at the door interestedly himself. _Unlikely a Japanese person. It's not impossible, but it's weirdly formal here. Guess I never thought anything of it though before all my time abroad. Knocking isn't standardized or anything._ Zach's eyes were red as everyone in his apartment stared towards his door. He darted them around checking his classmates' expressions, and he stared harder at the door and then the windows to the side checking for the shadow since the sun should be casting the person's shadow in that direction based on its position in the sky. _Must be some cloud cover. Still bright out, but- oh shit. That's all the shadow?_ Zach could see a slight change in shade of the brightness in a corner of his window that was not changing steadily like a cloud was moving to shift it.

 _The change in shade is still slight, so there are probably clouds blocking the sun anyway. Wasn't wrong about that. It's someone big though. Knocking unlike someone who knows me on a friendly level, at least if they were from Japan. They're still standing there so it's not a package. Would be a pretty bad coincidence if that happened twice while they were all visiting me, even if it is Ashido this time instead of Hagakure. Getting regular packages would be sketchy alone. I should answer the door myself. Stop him. Wait- would stopping him be suspicious? It would make them think I'm worried about the person attacking me. I could play it off and say "I got it," but unless I say it seriously Mineta's not going to turn back or stop. He'll just wave me off and get it himself. Not saying anything is fine._ Zach started for the side of his counter, sliding a knife down his shirt sleeve with twitches of his right arm without going that extra step of wrapping his power glove over his hand since he was in view of Ojiro and Koda's seats.

 _It's not an assassin. It's not an assassin. It couldn't be. Without warning like this. It would have to be the most powerful monster for them to have it come straight to me. Sane enough to stand there calmly after knocking. Not fast enough to kill Mineta after he opens the door. It can't be. Who is it then? Who would come straight here? Who knows my address? Some Shiketsu friends. My U.A. classmates. Hero officials and the heroes and cops they've told. Norita and the neighbors who saw- all my neighbors. Everyone they told. It hasn't been long and the exact address hasn't been posted anywhere. No press have shown up as they would should my home address become public. Don't be a reporter. I'll have to move. Who then? They know my address too. The package came straight here. Don't know how they found out so quickly, but then again they do have Rebel, Cody, and Raylei. Those three could do anything. A thousand people then? That's a high mark, but it's probably a hundred at least in only one month. I should increase by a factor of ten to be safe. When the number is high enough the secret is no longer a secret. How long until the assassins know where? Sooner than the press I'm sure. The press not finding me yet is not an indicator that I am safe. They would make their move between their discovery and the press' first glance. A short window._

Ojiro turned to look at Zach and ask who just arrived. Mineta was about to reach the door anyway, but Ojiro asked the boy next to him whose eyes were back to normal by the instant they were in Ojiro's vision. Ashido leaned over the back of her chair and tried to peek through the crack in the blinds. She did not want to move them and draw the attention of the person outside whoever it might be, but she realized as she looked through the crack that it was a bit darker there than it was a minute or two ago when she last looked out. Her eyes rose up and she saw a blue sky with lots of white clouds filling it, and she got confused while shifting her gaze over to the inside of the door where Mineta reached forward and grabbed the knob without delay.

Zach shook his head in response to Ojiro's question. He stepped closer to his door so he was behind his couch that Sero stood up from on the other side, and Ashido got up from her chair too so that she could lean farther into the room and look towards the doorway as Mineta opened it. "You've reached-" Whatever way Mineta was planning on greeting the person standing there caught in his mouth. He stared forward into a pair of legs, and he rose his head up slowly. Everyone in Zach's place lifted their heads up, bringing their eyes over the man's belt that somehow wrapped around his whole waist far wider than any of theirs. They rose their eyes over his black suit jacket towards his collar that had the top button open and some white fur sticking out.

Koda and Ojiro both got out of their seats, and Mineta took a step back just from the size of the guy standing there. Ashido's mouth made an 'o' of surprise, and she spun to Zach to see if he knew who this person was. The problem was, the guy's head was taller than the doorway itself, and his body was nearly too wide for his shoulders to be seen through it. He bent his knees though and leaned his head down, looking into Zach's place and straight towards the teen who already recognized him based on that body shape alone.

Zach's face was covered in surprise, but he started smiling more and more while Mineta moved out of the way. It was a good thing Mineta moved too, because the guy dropped into Zach's house on his hands that were the size of Ashido's head each. The room shook when the huge guy dropped down like that, but it vibrated more as he ran across the room on all fours still almost as tall as Zach was standing straight up.

"What the-" Sero started, then he pulled back and gawked as Zach lifted up his arms and tried to stop the charging figure. The guest pulled his head up at the last second, and from close up there was no mistaking it for Sero, _A polar bear?!_

"Dover," Zach greeted in surprise after pushing back into the man who ran into him. He wrapped his arms around the guy's back and shoved back, but his feet skid backwards and his feet came out from under him since he was in his socks.

"Zach," Dover said as he tackled Zach to the ground and had his front paws down on Zach's forearms. It looked like he had Zach pinned under him, and he smiled in a way that showed off his mouth of very sharp teeth almost like he was baring them though somehow it still felt friendly to Zach's other friends who were all just so confused at what was happening. It only looked like Zach could not escape though, as he rose up his right arm for a moment and then dropped it down quickly and pulled out before the paw that was falling back could get all its weight back on him. As that paw was hitting the ground, it touched down farther down than the other one that started pressing harder on Zach's left arm to keep him pinned like that. Zach pushed back with his left arm though and Dover did not have the support on his own left side, so as Zach wrapped his right arm around the underside of Dover's body and yanked to his right, while pushing up with his left, he shoved Dover off of him and onto his side (and into the couch).

The whole couch skid forward over Zach's carpet, and Sero had to jump backwards as it almost knocked him over. "Hey-" he started, only to raise a hand he had used for balance to scratch the side of his head as Zach had fallen on top of the guy after pushing him over onto his side. "Um, Zach," Sero began while walking back around the side of the diagonal couch.

Mineta blinked a couple of times, then he turned to the open door and closed it as he realized he was shivering. _What is happening?_

 _Kind of forgot about them,_ Zach thought while lifting up his head. He was still smiling happily, and he jumped up and moved back before the strong paws could grab him again. His other friends around him were all confused, but Zach had been happy to see his old friend and rolled around wrestling with him without caring about their appearance for a few seconds. "You're in a great mood," Dover noted while rolling back onto all fours, then standing up on his legs and crouching with the top of his body hunched forward so he would not be touching the ceiling. His voice was low, excessively deep, and yet he sounded happy and his lips were up which was not hard to see even with his face looking like that of a bear's.

"It's true," Zach said to his new guest. Dover's tone sounded like he was pointing it out but also asking if this was real or an act.

"Zach, who's this?" Ashido asked, running over from where she was standing and getting next to Sero who was the next closest in front of Zach and his friend. Ashido was smiling and leaned up super-interestedly at the man who turned to her and lowered his smile at the way she was looking at him like he was cute. Ashido pulled her head back a bit and gulped, and she scolded herself for acting like that to this grown man.

 _Way to give a false first impression though,_ Sero thought at the guy who would frown at Ashido like that after acting the way he did when he entered. "Dover, right? I'm Sero."

"I know who all of you are," Dover mentioned, raising a hand to get them to stop before they all introduced themselves. The right hand he rose looked just like a paw, with a paw pad on it, fur on the back of his hand, and even sharp claws sticking out of that fur too. His claw nails looked dull though, the tips rounded at least a bit… though they were still intimidating when matched with his size and appearance. "And yes, my name is Dover. It's a pleasure to make your acquaintance."

He nodded his head in a respectful way at Sero who stood up more himself this time, sweatdropping but nodding and saying, "Likewise" in agreement. _What's up with this guy? Are we supposed to just ignore all of that?_

Mineta wanted to mention something about how Dover acted too, but he decided against it while inching himself along the wall to get past him and Zach. He got closer to the others and let out a breath, and then he turned back and asked, "Zach, who is this g-?" He stopped himself as the bear-man looked to him with an expression that made Mineta's sweat glands act up. "Uh- I mean, how did the two of you meet?"

Zach was standing on Dover's right side, with his left hand up and rubbing the back of Dover's neck in his white fur that had tints of brown in some patches. Dover bowed his head more and rubbed it to the right into Zach who wobbled back at how much weight was in that head, but he kept petting and then took off his glove from his right hand. With a hand that was actually his own, Zach started scratching Dover on top of his head with strong scratches. He dug his fingers down and pushed Dover's fur down near his eyes, and he got behind the ears, and he smiled despite his friends' surprised looks at what he was doing touching Dover with his right hand. There was no need to say anything at all to explain, as the implication was clear.

Ojiro smiled after a couple seconds of watching Zach in surprise. _He really made a lot of friends out there…_ Ojiro caught a strange look in the corner of his eyes and turned right to see Koda staring at Dover more oddly than the rest of them. _What is it, Koda?_

 _His Quirk isn't for a specific bear, is it?_ Koda looked at different parts of Dover's body. _There is no bear that looks like this in the wild. The different fur patterns too, and the size alone is so off. But… but at the same time…_

"I just arrived in Japan," Dover said to the three right in front of him. Sero had mentioned how his Japanese was great, and Dover's response confirmed that he was not from the country as Sero suspected. "I'm originally from Russia."

"Speaking of," Zach started in Russian with a turn back to Dover. "How is the Flying Bear of Siberia? Still doing well?"

"Japanese please," Ashido said with an expectant bounce of her eyebrows at Zach for showing off and keeping secrets at the same time.

"Caterina is well," Dover replied, still in Russian with his eyes shifting over towards Ashido in a slightly darker way.

"Back to Japanese," Zach said, shaking his head and making Dover look back in an apologetic way.

Ashido wondered if he was still speaking Russian as a way to tell her that she could not tell him what to do, and she tried to stand up straighter herself. _How old is this guy? I can't tell at all. I don't want to ask his age though. What if he's like 100?!_ The casual and annoyed way in which she told them to speak Japanese so she would be able to hear their conversation, made Ashido slink back a little even after Dover turned back and spoke Japanese again.

"I did not expect Japanese people to be so small," Dover said. "I received so many more strange looks on my walk here than I have in years."

 _Are all Russians like this?_ Sero thought. The only other person he could base his judgement on the matter was Mother Russia, and he thought it without realizing that Zach and Dover had just talked about that very same woman right in front of him. Caterina Makarov, the Flying Bear of Siberia, was the pro hero known as Mother Russia. _She was pretty big too, but nothing like this! Well, even an average between the two is still crazy big._

"If you don't mind me asking," Koda began.

Zach was even more surprised than before as he looked towards Koda who was stepping closer to them. Dover also looked at Koda in mild surprise though he hid it more from his face at the voice he heard. "What is your Quirk?" Koda asked.

"It is a very powerful one," Dover replied in his deep voice. He stood farther up with his shoulders spreading out, his body looking bigger as he intimidated them with his size. "It is a combination Quirk," he began, pride in his tone that also sounded somewhat restrained though. "Between my enhanced intelligence and super strength, along with speed greater than most, it is a Quirk to be reckoned with."

"His skin under his fur is also really strong," Zach said, hyping up Dover's powers more. He rubbed Dover on the back again with his right hand, though he had put his glove back on for overall safety reasons.

"Oh, that does sound, very impressive," Ashido said. She smiled a little more after her compliment as Dover seemed to enjoy the praise. A bead of sweat was rolling down the side of her face though at the way in which he beamed at her comment.

"I have learned even more about my Quirk recently, and I have been training different combinations of my abilities," Dover said with a look back directly at Zach.

"I'm surprised you're saying so much about it," Zach said while petting his friend. "Dover used to be more humble about it," Zach said with a grin and a turn back towards his other friends. "A more shy bear," he joked, raising his hand up and catching the side of Dover's neck with a couple more scratches that made the man tilt his neck to that side and rub it around into Zach's hand.

Mineta felt another bead of sweat rolling down his face as he watched this. Ojiro scratched the back of his own neck, while Ashido told herself again not to make any expression that would have Dover thinking she thought he was cute or something. "So uh, Dover," Sero started. There were things he felt like asking like what incident caused the two of them to meet exactly, or what Dover's purpose was in Japan, but he had to ask first, "Does your, Quirk make you look like that? Or, were your parents' Quirks-"

Dover rose a paw in a stop motion, a look on his face and in his eyes that showed he totally understood the question. Sero had been asking slowly as he did not want to offend, and he was glad he got that look and that Dover was responding right away instead of making that situation awkward. He had to have heard the question a thousand times before though, so Sero had hoped it would be more like this. "Actually, my mother and father each had bear Quirks. However, my mother's was called: Polar Bear, while my father's was a smaller, brown…" Dover looked down to his side at Zach who faced him and shook his head.

"Dover," Zach started. "It's okay to tell the truth around them. I trust them," he said. He said it in a way that despite his friends all realizing in that moment that they were being lied to and had completely believed the start of what Dover was saying, they all actually felt happy anyway. "You can tell them," Zach said, and he rubbed Dover's back again in an encouraging way.

"Oh, that's great," Dover said, and he immediately started rubbing under his opposite arms with his paw pads. His expression eased up with the muscles in his face relaxing, the thicker fur around where his eyebrows would be curling up and his face looking even more bear-like than it already did. "I'm actually a bear," Dover admitted. He rubbed the areas on his body where the clothes felt the most uncomfortable, though he was careful not to scratch too hard or curl his claws in or he knew he would shred up his cheap suit.

Zach watched his friends' expressions with a calm look. _Koda,_ he thought first, seeing Koda's eyes shoot open wide but also in realization like he knew something was off. The others were all just confused for longer, their eyes growing wider and bottom lips dropping as Dover continued, "A kodiak-polar bear hybrid, genetically engineered to be the best bear ever." _Now that's just bragging,_ Zach thought, though he smiled more at the sound of it with a look to his side at Dover again. Dover rose his right claw to his buttons with a glance at Zach, and Zach nodded at him with a shrug showing he did not mind.

Dover took off his suit jacket and the shirt below that had buttons that slipped right out of their holes when he pulled on one side. Dover took off his pants and dropped down on all fours, and he was just a giant bear standing in Zach's living room, in the middle of Yutapu.

"Well," Sero said, finally breaking a silence that followed for ten seconds after Dover said what he really was. "I guess, I mean… Principal Nezu," he said it, and he glanced around at the others who looked back at him and nodded after a couple seconds themselves. They each relaxed and reminded themselves that this was nothing new at all. Principal Nezu even looked part bear himself!

 _Still, it feels a little weird,_ Mineta thought. _Since he's naked? I mean… bears are usually naked though._ The more he looked at the bear in front of him, the less he was feeling like he should be awkward in this situation at all. And as Zach started petting Dover on his back again, rubbing his hand through the thick fur covering the bear, Mineta eased up the most since he saw this intimidating figure in the doorway. Zach's weird way of interacting with the guy made a lot more sense too, and it felt less weird actually after Dover took off his clothes because it seemed like the bear was more in-tune with his animal side than their principal was.

"Yeah, totally normal," Ashido finally said herself. She shook her head around and then smiled back at the bear again, "Nice to meet you, Dover. You're so cute!" Ashido put her hands together in front of her chest and jumped up once at the bear's face when he looked up at her. He did not seem upset this time, instead glancing away for a moment almost in a shy way.

"Hagakure is going to kill you, man," Sero said with a look at Ojiro on his side.

As Sero was saying it, Ojiro was already dreading that very thing when he thought about telling Hagakure what happened here. His girlfriend who loved all things cute and cuddly, like this massive teddy bear in front of him he doubted she would be able to see now if this was just a visit. "I really thought, you were a person," Ojiro started. "I mean, I thought you were human," he corrected himself, before wondering if those two actually meant different things to animal creatures.

"Yeah, you did a great job," Zach told Dover, sliding his hand up Dover's back to his head again and petting it in a way like saying 'good job' to a dog. Although Dover was looking more like an animal now, the way Zach did that made each of his friends feel awkward once again. Especially when added along with Dover's happy reaction to the praise seen by the clear expression he made. Zach asked the bear next to him who he did not have to bend down at all to pet, "Did you fly here?"

Dover nodded his head and walked forward. The people in front of him moved to the sides, and Dover walked on all fours around the side of the couch and over to the front of it. He stood up on hind legs and sat back on it, and Zach glanced at the bottom of his couch while walking around its side. _Should probably hold,_ he thought while heading to a different seat himself. Dover frowned for a moment, but he looked down at the couch and hummed as he understood why it was no more weight could be put on. "Well I flew in to Narita. I walked all the way here-"

"What?!" Mineta exclaimed while running around the side of the couch, beating Ashido back to her old seat. He almost jumped into it before the pink girl about to give up, but what Dover said made him stumble and spin in shock. "But that's like, hundreds of kilometers away!"

Ashido took back her own seat and Mineta looked over his shoulder in disappointment. He only looked back for a second though before refacing forward and seeing Dover shrug his large shoulders. "But didn't you say you just arrived?" Mineta wondered.

Sero, Ojiro, and Koda all came over and pulled up seats around the living room. They looked to Dover wondering how he would respond to that, wondering if there was some secret he had that he would rather just talk to Zach about. "I did," Dover replied with a frown at Mineta. "Just a few days ago. Walking here rose more eyes than I thought it would," he added, frowning a bit more but getting back in a better mood as he turned to Zach. "But the flight process was easy. I bought multiple seats, and I applied for a passport and everything so I'm pretty much considered human at this point."

Zach lowered his smile a little though he was happy to hear about most of that. "You'll always be a bear," Zach said from his chair just in front of the edge of the couch. "You shouldn't try to be more like people."

"People are amazing," Dover argued back. He leaned forward on the couch as he did and then looked around at the others who all looked surprised to hear him say that. "So much more amazing than bears with all your culture and art. I enjoy acting like a person," he said, turning back to Zach after saying it firmly that that was his opinion. Zach nodded in understanding and decided not to say anything else about it, but then Dover added with a serious look, "Though I will always be your bear too."

The way he said it sounded so sentimental and serious, that no one in the room thought for a second that he was joking about that. It was almost like he was reassuring Zach of that fact in case Zach thought he had forgotten while pretending to be more human. Ojiro looked to Zach to say something, but instead he saw an accepting look instead that made him curl his hands into his thighs. _I can't just-_ "That's," Ojiro began. He looked at Dover, and his eyes shifted to Zach for a moment but right back again. "If you have this intelligence, the calling yourself Zach's is kind of like slavery."

 _Does he think he's Zach's pet or something?_ Mineta thought with an uneasy expression of his own as he nodded with what Ojiro was saying and glanced hesitantly to Zach and Dover during it.

Zach opened his mouth to admit Ojiro had a point, but he could not get it out quick enough. "Except I'm only five years old," Dover argued back at Ojiro, frowning at him and giving him a dark glare that had Ojiro easing back up again. "And I am an animal," he added. "And I want to be Zach's," the last point was not that great of one, but it was the one he said while looking back at Zach with a softer expression. Zach rolled his eyes at the look and then just smiled at Dover showing it was fine for him to call himself that. Dover smiled back, but then he added, "Though I'm sad Zach won't ride me into battle covering us in Death armor anymore. I wanted to-" Dover looked around while starting it, a big smile on his face showing off his sharp teeth and an excited expression that also started to appear far more intense with the words that he was speaking.

It was only when Dover looked back to Zach and saw him shaking his head back and forth fast, that Dover froze with his mouth open. "I thought you said I could trust them," Dover said accusingly, though he was pulling back into the couch and the sentence he just said sounded more like he knew he had done something wrong and was trying to make excuses in an ashamed way. "I'm sorry," he added as Zach opened his mouth to say it was no problem, and then when Zach decided to change what he was going to say, Dover added himself, "I should have known to keep everything more mysterious."

Zach frowned this time and gave Dover a look as he was compensating for what he just did by making it out like Zach only didn't want him saying anything because Zach liked to be mysterious. He figured it would probably work, but it was not what he wanted his former classmates thinking of him: that he was always being intentionally vague for the sole purpose of seeming mysterious. Zach gazed around at his five friends from U.A. in his living room who were still mind-blown and imagining the two of them riding into war together.

Ashido's jaw had dropped as soon as she saw Zach shaking his head fast at Dover to get him to stop talking. Her first thought was, _He's serious?!_ And from there, her mind ran wild with the thought of Zach on that brownish-white bear's back. _Wait! Covered in "Death armor?" Does that mean-_ In Ashido's head, the vision of Zach on top of Dover turned into a dark form with a skeletal outline on top of a much larger black bear whose skull showed through with flaring red eyes just like Zach's. Ashido leaned back into her chair just at the thought of it. _That's scary._

 _THAT'S SO COOL!_ Mineta thought.

 _We did that_ _ **one**_ _time,_ Zach thought, though he hesitated against saying that aloud as he thought it might seem like he was just trying to hide things. _Everyone's too amazed by it right now to consider time tables or where we were or anything. I have ample time to adjust. This isn't the end. Don't panic or show any signs that this could be life-shattering._ He came up with something he figured might be a good idea to say just as a hint as to what his bigger explanation later would be, that way when he told his friends the "full" story, they would see that he had not had all that time to think about it and was actually telling them whatever he had thought right after that truth had come out when he mentioned that detail that didn't make sense without the rest. Before he could say it though, Mineta had jumped out of his seat and asked excitedly, "Can I ride you too?"

Dover's head snapped to Mineta and his teeth bared at the boy who stepped towards him with the intention of riding him. His body hunched forward when he did it, and a snarl came out of the back of his throat which caused Mineta to stumble several steps backwards and fall on the floor. "No," he said through his snarl. "Only Zach can." His voice was lower and scratchy, and then he saw Zach's disappointed look out the corner of his eyes that made him snap back straight up in his seat with a surprised look at what he was doing. "Oh, sorry," he said, his voice much more casual again and his tone more normal than it had been so far. "Still a bear," he reminded to the short boy who was staring up at his face in nervous shock.

Mineta nodded his head quickly to show he totally understood. Then he scrambled back up to his feet and got back on his chair. _Oh thank God I held it back,_ Mineta thought, and he decided he would wait five minutes before going to pee as it would make it look like he wet himself if he left to use the bathroom now.

Zach shook his head at the animal who pulled back sadly at Zach's look, then Dover got up and ran over to Zach who he leaned into. Dover cuddled up with Zach as his teddy bear to play around with him and not have to be super-intelligent for once. Zach sighed while petting around the sides of the huge bear that was being careful with his weight, and he thought, _He acts so much like an animal when it's just us. Everyone else says he almost never shows it. I guess I do tell him it's fine for him to act bear-ish. Bears don't massacre and torture their own kind though. Not most of them, at least,_ Zach thought with a sadder look hidden by Dover's chest fur, and he pet Dover in a softer way afterwards.

 _Why when it comes to Mineta, he hates it…_ Sero thought confusedly, and he glanced to his side only to be surprised at the understanding look on Koda's face that Ojiro was already staring at.

Ashido was just looking straight at Zach and Dover though. She had a soft smile and her whole body felt warm as she watched the two of them. _Zach's the only one who can treat him like that._

* * *

 **A Year Ago…**

In a snowy forest in the middle of a frozen expanse of wilderness, two figures in heavy white costumes crawled through the snow in far below freezing temperatures. They had black masks on their faces under their thick white hoods that had fur linings on the outsides. They had goggles over the masks with anti-freeze glass that melted the snow and ice that tried sticking to them. Over their mouths were protruding cylinders with holes at the ends of them, and out of those holes of the mask came thick breaths of steam each time one of the seventeen year olds breathed out.

Zach and Darling crawled together towards a tree at the edge of a small cliff. If they went to either side a bit back, they could have crawled around the cliff that just lifted up a few meters higher than the regular ground on the other side of it. Most of the landscape was flat, but that little slope gave them a high ground to be able to look around in every direction while also blocking them from sight in the direction they were trying to do reconnaissance in.

Zach crawled a bit faster than Darling was moving. His eyes turned red as he poked his head up and looked towards the round white dome sticking out of a clearing in the forest ahead. He brought his head back down fast and thought about everything he examined in that moment. He lay flat for a moment but his face scrunched up at what he thought he just saw out there. "What'd you see?" Darling asked, crawling right up next to him on his right side.

He turned his right to look at her and she looked left, and they both stared at each other in these heavy outfits with scary masks over their faces for a second. Their steam hovered in front of their faces, and Zach could not help but smile at the girl who was next to him after so much. "Looks like two guards, bear Quirks." He scooted forward a bit more to the edge of the small snowy cliff they were on, and he looked past the tree near the top of it while Darling did the same.

"Bears, huh?" Darling asked softly. The forest was nearly silent around them. There was the sound of some snow falling off tree branches where it had packed on too thick, and the wind blowing around that made it colder also made some noise too. They looked closer and then Zach reached back and pulled a white sniper rifle off of his back that he rested on the ground in front of him. He looked through the scope on top, and Darling did the same with the one she pulled out at him doing it.

Outside of the white dome they were looking towards, there were two men standing there covered in white fur. They were heavyset, and they had thick arms that ended in claws too. They stood on their thick hind legs though and they were wearing body armor, and Zach and Darling both had strange feelings swirling in their guts as they looked at those creatures. "They really do, look like bears, don't they?" Darling asked. Zach nodded with her, and he frowned deeper while staring at the door of the dome behind the guards.

The door opened up and another bear-man stepped out of the research facility they had heard about. They looked towards this larger bear, covered in thick black body armor over its torso but leaving its arms and legs exposed just like the others so that their joints would have free range of movements. This one's fur looked brownish too, though it was still very white around it. It was bigger by over a head from the other men standing on both hind legs, and its face also looked just like a bear's. Instead of a polar bear kind of face though, this one's face was a big thicker and had a rounded jawline. "Kodiak, polar, grizzly? Polar kodiak hybrid?" Darling wondered, zooming in more towards those bear-men and especially the big one that turned to the others and started talking.

 _Something's weird here,_ Zach thought. _So many with bear Quirks, could they have figured out a way to designate what kind of Quirks people get here… or, could those actually be? Like, Principal Nezu…_ Zach's eyes started to grow wide, his heart rate speeding up as he stared at the large creatures standing on two legs and speaking to each other. Then he heard Darling start in a slow voice on his side, "Hey Zach, what was it Michael said, about how far bears can smell? Because, I'm pretty sure they're distracting us."

Zach's eyes opened huge, his heart rate sped up, and all three of the bears snapped their heads towards him and Darling. _Oh shit!_

The two guard bears hit down on all fours and started sprinting forwards as the one behind them shouted something. He was too far for Zach or Darling to hear him, but at the moment that bear-man yelled, a dozen holes opened up in the snow in the forest around them. Darling fired her rifle that had a suppressor on the end of it, and a round went into the front right leg of the bear on the left of the two sprinting straight towards them. An instant later Zach fired, while getting up on his knees, but his own movement was not what made his bullet miss. The bear on the right moved like a blur when the one next to it fell down face-first into the snow and skid forward.

 _Other Quirks?_ Zach thought while getting fully up onto both feet. He spun to his right and saw the ground only ten meters from them moving. _Not the ground!_ The movement in the corner of his vision while he was turning made it seem just like snow, but the figure charging at him from that side had a camouflage ability Zach pinpointed solely from the prints in the snow that knocked flakes up into the air. _More bears!_ "Rebel! Full comms! Primary assault team move in," Zach ordered. He fired off a couple of times towards where the camo bear was, while Darling jumped up and put her back up against Zach's after she took out the speedy bear that had blurred when Zach fired at it.

Darling had fired off two shots in succession, getting the bear to dodge one direction and then hit it as it was dodging the first bullet. She saw the blood splash out the back of its right foreleg and paint the snow below it before it crashed down and made a trench into the snowy forest. Even though she stood up right after and put her back up to Zach's, she could not help thinking about what she saw back near the dome. "More reinforcements coming from the dome," Darling said, while her eyes shifted back that way again and focused on the thing that had her full attention. _Are they really all bears? Even that one?_ Darling saw the largest one standing near the entry to the dome, staring directly out towards her and Zach even as he called out orders to the others who were on all fours unlike him. That bear then turned and headed inside, the dome's steel doors slamming shut behind him while over twenty others were left outside to deal with the intruders.

"What happened to a 'good amount' of recon?" Rebel questioned.

"We're on our way Death!"

"Flying in! Should be there soon-"

"Three minutes out!"

Zach and Darling turned their heads either way and looked at the two dozen bears charging at their position. Zach tossed his rifle onto the ground and pulled out a pair of swords he spun around and then held pointed back at either side of his waist. He bent his knees, his right foot sliding forward in the snow, and his eyes locked on the closest bear to him that finally slowed down like the others around it. _Focus it out solely on the weapons._ Darkness came out of Zach's arms and steamed into the air around them, then the black of Death stretched down from his fingers onto the hilts of his curved blades. The blackness covered the steel itself, and Zach slashed his arms in front of him back and forth before stopping with one blade pointed either way and his head just between them with one hand at his forehead level and the other just below his chin.

His red eyes glowed through his goggles, and the breath that came out of the filter in front of his mouth was black instead of white like before. His white clothing had black wisps coming out of it, darkened as Nightmare stretched around Zach's body but managed to mostly stay under his clothes. "I think these are actual bears," Darling started while darting her eyes around at all the furry creatures walking towards her. They bared their teeth and dug their claws deeper into the snow as they moved forward.

Most of them looked like polar bears, though some of them had stranger appearances with patches of brown or red fur; one had antlers like a stag's, another completely black but pitch black unlike a normal black bear would be. The pitch black one also had a similar body type to the polar bears, wearing similar black body armor to the rest. Two of the polar bears had miniguns attached to their backs, each one with two sticking out to the sides of their heads that had dark helmets on over them thickest around the earpieces. Those miniguns started to spin, the winding noise getting loud as they aimed at the two seventeen year olds who moved as soon as the attack was coming.

"Try not to kill them anyway," Zach replied back as he sprinted away from Darling. He slashed the sword in his right hand down before getting close to any of the bears, and a slash of darkness came off the blade, "Death Slash!" The darkness carved through the snow and slammed into the bear spinning its miniguns while all the others around it started charging Zach. It was his first time using his Quirk ranged during the fight, and he knew the others would all expect it now. He took out the long ranged enemy first though while showing off that power, as even with the bears knowing how far he could attack without his rifle, if they needed to get close anyway in order to fight him then he was fine.

"Understood, Commander!" Darling called out, while she skied off the side of a lifted ledge in the forest. The two bears running up the slant after her reached for the girl with their sharp claws, and they fell forward off the ledge and twelve feet down where they hit down harder than the girl landing on her skis while doing a 180 twist. She rose up both hands and fired at the bears, and darts hit them in the sides of their necks while they were in the middle of getting up. The darts fell to the snow a second later though, and Darling spun back around and stepped with the skis still as her feet to cross-country ski her way between the trees and make some distance. _Their hides are too thick. And now that I think about it, the amount of tranq' in each of those wouldn't have been enough to drop them._

"Above you!" Zach called out, his red eyes darting over and spotting the movement above Darling's path and dropping down.

She stopped short and dove to her right, her feet turning back to normal in her black boots that stretched and returned to form when she needed them to. The bear that had been moving up in the trees slammed down into the snow where Darling would have been right under without the warning, and snow exploded out in all directions like a wave rising up. As that snow was lifting, Darling darted back towards that landing spot straight through the snow. She pulled out a knife from her belt and dropped to her knees that extended out upwards and downwards with her legs bent, so that short skis formed on her knees this time allowing her to slid under the swinging bear claw coming through the snow at her as the bear smelled her approaching. The claw swung over the top of Darling's head and blew away most of the flakes lingering there, and the white bear lowered its eyes to see the girl slash her knife behind its right knee so deep that she cut through hide and tendons, and the bear let out a pained roar as it dropped down. It tried twisting its body and slashing at the girl, but Darling got back up on her feet after the slide and pointed her free hand up in the air with the grappling gun she had on it.

Darling fired her hook up into the trees and it wrapped around a branch and yanked her up there. Four bears closing in on her position right past the bear she just took down all spun their heads and ran after the girl who spotted two she chose to go after. A loud whirring noise filled the forest around her though, and Darling retracted her grappling hook as fast as she could and pointed a different direction. She pulled herself off in a completely different direction in the woods, and the trees behind her started getting shredded by the miniguns on the back of the second turret bear. The hail of gunfire caused huge branches to break off trees and fall down into the forest, snow from the canopies falling too while more was knocked up in the air as the branches and chunks of trunks hit down into snow banks.

 _Keep moving,_ Zach thought, though he did not look back at Darling to check if she was alright. He just sprinted straight towards the bear that was clearly focused on her by the direction it was aiming. He sprinted between other bears, into the area that was getting so much snow knocked up from the floor and dropped from above. Zach heard the primary attack team announce how they were 'almost there' again in his ear, but there was a lot he had to do before that 'almost' was to come. _If that one's still around when the jets arrive, he could take them down-_ Zach heard the minigun the loudest it had been, and bullet holes were still ripping in the trees above so he knew it was not aimed at him. However, the snow in the air around him had gotten to its thickest, and he didn't see the bear charging at him and leading him to meet him head-on until it was too late.

Zach spun and tried to raise the sword in his right hand, but he got tackled to the floor by a bear that weighed so much he felt the wind get knocked straight out of his lungs. His Nightmare form was more off than activated, and the sudden disorientation made the darkness leave his other blade that he returned a strong grip on after losing one of the swords. The bear that tackled him had made them skid forward in the snow, and there was still snow on all sides of them falling from the chaos around the forest. The bear that had Zach pinned beneath it snapped its head down, but Zach pulled his left arm up and shoved his sword into the bear's face. He put the flat end of the blade up into the bear's muzzle, but the bear pushed harder down on him and bared all its teeth at the figure below who had a panicked look on his face covered in sweat as this thousand pound creature crushed him with its weight.

 _More are coming! I need to get the one with guns!_ Zach's eyes flared red and his hands surrounded in darkness again. He had his right hand lifted and pressed up against the back of the flat part of the blade, but both of his arms were shaking as the bear desperately tried biting him. The bear's mouth opened and Zach thought it was going to try biting on the blade, but instead its mouth opened more and Zach heard the guttural growls and roars turn into something else. His heart rate that was already high sped up even more, his eyes huge and shaking in his goggles and losing their red glow. **"K-kill… m-me…"**

The bear snarled it through a voice-box that did not sound natural, like human speech coming out of that larynx was an entire struggle in itself and barely managed to escape its twisted lips. Zach's eyes turned red again and his entire body erupted in darkness this time. As heavy as the bear was, it was the pressure the beast was pushing down on him too that really made it impossible for him to get out. Once that bear was dead, Zach was able to push it off easier. He stood up with a flame of darkness around his whole body and showing off his location to everyone in the woods around him.

Huge turrets just emerged out of the ground from similar holes as the first squad of bears. They were pointed up at first but all turned and targeted the black mass that all the bears were looking at too. Darling landed on a tree branch and stared over through all the trees with worry over her face at how much attention Zach was drawing to himself. While all the bears focused though, and the turrets locked on, Zach's mind was moving faster than them all and his teeth clenched furiously behind his mask. He felt the surge from the bear he just killed using way more Death than he needed to. It just made him angrier though, and breath came out thick and black as he let out a single exhale in the moment before they were all going to attack him. _Whatever experiments they did, they gave the bears intelligence. What they did- they made them smart enough to understand what's happening to them! These creatures were turned into slaves, but they aren't mindless. They're weapons. They're fucking experiments! And all they want to do is DIE?!_

"Kill the bears," Zach ordered. "Put them out of their misery." His voice was scratchy and deep, and the thirty people listening to him felt themselves getting darker and more intense from his tone alone. Most of the incoming group had no idea what was going on other than the vague information they had on this place before their own reconnaissance. They heard it was a "research facility" though, and their leader had warned them what they might find inside. Even though his last order did not sound like the worst of what he said could be waiting for them, his tone had everyone as serious as they could be. His tone… along with the sounds of gunfire and loud roars coming over their headsets when his voice was patched in for them.

 **"Intruders."** A low, mechanical voice announced over the forest. The beasts surrounding Zach did not charge in yet, and the turrets aimed at him were not firing. **"Vacate the premises immediately. This is a secure government facility-"**

Zach turned in a circle while the voice was announcing at him. He looked at each of the turrets and tapped on his goggles while making his three-sixty turn. Then he sprinted to his right at one of the bears awaiting orders to attack him. The mechanical voice giving him orders to leave cut off, as whoever was speaking to him could clearly see him and saw that he was ignoring them. Black flames just shot out the back of Zach's legs and propelled him faster through the snow he sprinted over at the closest bear to his right that had darker brown fur patches mixed in with the white.

"I'm marking targets," Zach called out, as he ran past the bear that never got its claws up to block in time. That bear fell behind him, but it never hit the ground as it was slammed backwards and up into the air by the high caliber bullets that shredded through its body and the bear behind it that was turning to follow Zach. Five trees had their trunks completely shredded through too, and the sound of the gun fire was much louder than when it was from the miniguns attached to bears' backs. The large metal turrets that came out of the ground had twelve holes on the front of their rectangular surfaces, and they were on round swivels that turned to drag after Zach.

The turrets stopped firing all at once, and the gunfire came out more sporadically as Zach was trying to lead the rounds to get them to fly past into more enemies or even have the turrets aim at each other. "We're almost there!" Tama's voice shouted over the comms. She was standing in the jet with her helmet on and gripping the handle hanging off the ceiling frustratedly that she was not already there. Her Quirk: Target, was needed, and here she was still late to the fight. "Thirty seconds!"

"I can't wait," Zach said, knowing Tama was going to try and get a better lock on the targets than he could while in the middle of fighting. The moment they had given him gave him an opportunity, but he had to rush his opponents during that moment or risk losing it so he had not finished. "You hear me? Fire missiles at each marked location!" Zach yelled.

The Cloak was flying in Zach's direction, but it was still far from him. The Cloak's weapon capabilities were well within range though, but Access called out as he heard Zach's shout from the bridge, "But you're right there-"

"That's an order!" Zach yelled.

"Firing!" Raylei yelled, accepting the coordinates and firing the missiles herself without anymore argument. "Missiles 1 through 4 away!"

As Death heard the response, he ran behind a tree to try and get cover as two turrets firing at him dragged from opposite directions. He only had a split second of hiding behind it before it was ripped apart, but in that moment he was able to leap up in the air so the hail of gunfire went below him. He used the falling tree trunk for cover, running along the side of it and turning the wood black in the shape of footprints that spread out along the darkening tree as it fell. He dove forward through some falling snow at a bear that had two black bat wings it used to fly up towards him. The wings were muscular and covered in popping veins, and the fur all along the back of this bear was patchy, most-so around where the wings sprouted out of the creature. There were boils and scars all around the protrusions, and as Zach pushed down on the top of the bear's head and flipped over her, his teeth bared in even more anger at the disfigurement that looked so painful.

The bear that went past him turned with a rabid snarl on its face, and then a knife stuck through its forehead and into its brain before it even saw the black weapon flying at it. The creature spun in the air with its body turning upside-down so it fell onto its wings. Blood fell out of the air after the bear, and all the other creatures down below looked up waiting for the dark figure that had used the tree to jump that high. They waited for him to start coming back down, but a pair of black wings ripped out of Zach's own back and spread ten feet in either direction. Zach spotted Darling taking precise shots from a distance, but he also spotted two jets flying towards him and called out, "Drop there! Move in on foot and get the jets away until the turrets are down!"

As Zach yelled it he swooped down to keep fire on him with his comrades so close-by. He started swerving around through the air, flapping his wings behind him and then twisting his body and flapping behind again to shoot a different direction. Bullets ripped through his wings and Zach wobbled in the air, feeling not very aerodynamic with his wings as thin as they were. The amount of Death he had to put into them to make their flaps down actually propel him up was far too much, and Death ripped off of his wings in chunks with every flap. _Not good. I need all I can get for once we're inside!_

"Don't forget you've got those missiles coming in hot!" Access called out as he heard the very loud gunfire over Death's comms sounding like he was right on those turrets.

"Attack squad moving in!" Tama yelled.

"We're heading towards your location," Mark added. "Death, is killing these creatures really what we should do?" He asked while sprinting at the front of the group who had just evacuated their planes together.

Rebel was leaning forward at his computer, and Cherasaw turned his head slightly to the right with a nervous look on his face. Rampart typed even faster too while seeing the four missiles shooting through the air on one radar, a projection map for the location of the others based on where they knew this base was and sent Zach to, and the blinking red notification that Cherasaw made start blinking on all their computer set-ups. Cherasaw just patched in the other two to a call he picked up shortly after the missiles were fired, and the dispatcher continued in Russian that instantly translated on all of their screens into English, "…Ivan the Bold, and Mother Russia are responding to whatever location the missiles land. Another team is heading to the source consisting of…"

"Cloak, You hearing this?" Rebel asked after just patching that call through into Access, Raylei, Mark, and Death's headsets.

"Pull away," Mark called out before Access or Raylei could respond from the bridge. "Move towards the next location and get out of Russian airspace. We'll take the jets back to you."

"What if what's in there is too much for just the primary attack team?" Access asked.

"Missiles fifteen seconds out!" Raylei reminded in case everyone was too distracted. She had herself on an open channel for the whole attack team to hear right now, and several of them spun around at the warning of how close those rockets were.

"Then the heroes will help us handle it! Just pull out!" Mark yelled. He sprinted forward faster towards the sounds of all those loud turrets. "As soon as the missiles blow," Mark said, speaking to the squad of twenty three behind him who did not question that they should follow Mark's lead here even though they were all just on the primary attack team. The most senior member of the group got louder as the missiles were heading over his head, "Push quickly into the chaos and overwhelm them!"

Whenever Zach tried getting close to the turrets, they would swivel quickly and drag around to aim at him. The closer he got to the turrets too, the harder it would be to dodge the shots as they had less distance to fly and he had less time to dodge in that shorter time they were moving the fastest they would travel. He determined that even at the start should he be able to get in close to one it would require a large burst of Death fired out behind him, and at the moment he took it down he would have to slow for a second too for enough time to get fired on by all the others or swarmed by the several bears still around him. Despite not being _that_ close to the turrets though, when Zach saw the missiles peeking over the trees of the new treeline and dipping down, he turned and sprinted away from the closest turret to him.

He had to keep serpentining as he ran, but he spun his head to the right and yelled out, "Take cover!"

Darling jumped off the tree branch she was on and fired a grappling hook at a tree even farther from a turret she thought she was well far enough away from already. She pulled herself towards that tree and then spun herself around the trunk and grabbed it for dear life as the whole forest shook around her.

Zach jumped off the ground as he felt the initial vibration, since he knew the tremors would take him off his feet anyway at the speed he was sprinting. At the bottom of his vision he could see cracks breaking through the snow, then all the snow getting covered by snow blowing the same way he was leaping, and then all that snow that was just covered being lifted up from where it was and blown ahead too. Zach crossed his arms and curled up as he felt the heat behind him, but he focused Death on his back and made it stronger to the point he felt nothing.

Zach hit the ground and spun around to look into the explosions. He darted his eyes towards the final turret, and he called out, "Darling! Last one's aimed in the direction the others are coming from!"

That turret started firing even in all the explosions around it, straight at Mark who thought with the sudden attack they would catch everyone far more off-guard. "Hold!" Mark yelled, while swinging his arms up in front of him and raising up a ton of water from the snow just melted in the blasts. The wall of water was so thick that the high-caliber bullets shooting through smoke slowed down in the wall with visible trails left behind them until they just sank down without any more momentum behind them. Mark started pushing the wall forward, but bears came rushing from either side of the wall, and the bullets firing at him got farther through the water wall the closer it got to the turret. He had to spread some water out at the start trying to stop those bears who escaped the explosions by not being very close to the turrets in the first place, but he yelled, "Don't stop! Keep pushing forward!"

The two dozen who had hesitated when the turret started firing their way, and who had watched in awe as Mark managed to react instantly and save them all, recovered from those shocks and reminded themselves where they were. They ran at the bears and attacked as a group, and the ground shook again as the turret on the other side of Mark's water wall exploded in a ball of fire.

Darling lowered her arms that were connected in front of her chest and in the form of a grenade launcher. They split back apart and turned into normal arms again, and Darling reached down and pulled out a few nutrition bars from pouches on her sides. She pulled her mask down and shoved the bars into her mouth, then she pulled the mask right back up and ran forward while chewing as fast as she could. All the bullets she was firing from her own converted matter were catching up with her, but the grenade was what made her stomach start rumbling and her whole body to feel like she was getting drained. _Need to keep to short range for now to increase efficiency._ She darted forward and pulled out a knife in her right hand, while transforming her left arm completely into a sword with batteries attached to either side and sparks coming off the blade.

At the point where Darling's left arm was human again, her skin transformed into a rubbery substance with even higher electrical resistance than rubber which kept her electrified sword arm from shocking her. Unfortunately for the first bear she was running towards that was in the middle of charging at Death, the creature's armor did not have the same kind of resistance. Darling stabbed through the armor into the bear's back and penetrated into its body but not through it. The bear still fell though while all its fur stood on end, and Darling flipped the rest of her body over the bear's back while yanking her left arm out of it now covered in blood. She landed on the bear's back and swung her right hand down towards the bear's skull, jamming her blade into the bear's skull in the soft spot under its ear.

 **"KILL ME!"** Darling spun her head to the left, and she let go of the knife instead of trying to rip it out of the other bear's skull as this grayish white one with strange glowing purple eyes sprinted at her faster than most of the others. _It had the drop on me,_ Darling thought in confusion, with another feeling swirling inside her chest too that made her jump back again as the bear charged right over its fallen comrade to the point she landed first. _If it didn't shout that… these bears all, they all want to die?! This is why Zach said it!_ Darling rose her right hand, transforming it into a pistol. For a moment she ignored the weakness she had already felt, and she just fired a bullet from her pistol hand in between the bear's eyes.

The bear kept charging her. Darling's eyes opened huge in shock, as she expected the bear to collapse and skid forward in the snow dying. She blinked though, and she realized that her right arm was pointed the wrong direction and she just fired off randomly. _Like Cee's!_ Darling thought, and she took a step back in panic but the bear was already on her- The bear's gray fur slammed into Darling with a rush of blood forcefully exploding out behind it. Darling got knocked backwards by that mass of innards alone still moving at the speed the bear had been moving, even if the creature itself did just get turned inside-out in a second.

Darling stood back up, brushing her hands that turned back to normal down her body and grunting at how gross doing so was. She turned away from Mark without as much as thanks as she saw him running towards her with a hand raised. Darling looked the other way where she heard an explosion in the part of the forest where Zach had led the majority of the remaining bears he was fighting on his own. "Death! I'm coming to you!"

 _I heard one growl 'kill me' earlier too. I ignored it then, for some reason- but what is that one then?! The one that actually looked to be talking._ In Darling's mind she imagined the bigger bear that she had seen giving out what seemed like more coherent orders. _Is that one, at least, actually a person? There have to be real people here too, right?!_

Zach flipped backwards and kicked up under the chin of the twenty foot tall bear that had grown rapidly during its charge at him. The beast's fur did not extend or spread out while the rest of its body did, showing the pink skin beneath rippling and pulsing with each foot the bear grew. It roared at Zach after he kicked up under its chin, and Zach ground his teeth as the amount of Death he put into the kick was not enough for a creature of its size anymore. He landed down in the snow and his red eyes darted every direction around him. His hood was down and his black hair fell over the back of his mask that still covered the bottom half of his face, and he had tossed aside his goggles that were only getting fogged up and blocking his red vision from catching everything around him.

 _Five enemies around me. The sixth has a long-range Quirk to be staying back there. It hasn't used it yet._ When Zach landed, three of the bears were already rushing in at him. He heard Darling shout that she was on her way, but he ignored her and the rest of his comrades as he stood between a cluster of powerful enemies. They were not villains, but they were bigger than him, took more Death than usual to take down, and his blades did not pierce their skin as easily as they did most humans.' _Can't try wings again or I won't be able to keep it up. I don't need to get thick enough to allow pass-throughs either. Just six left. I can do this using minimal Death. I have to._

Zach ducked his head as the faster bear on his right swung a claw at him and fired the sharp nails from its paw. He saw them removing from the claw at the last moment, but he knew they were going to do so or that something similar was going to happen when he saw the bear slashing before it would have hit him. Two of the sharp nails passed so close to the top of his head that black strands of hair fell out of the dark veil. Zach twisted to his right where that bear was bringing its claw down close to him, and he swung his left arm around that side with a 180 turn pivoting on his soles in the slushy snow. _Death Wind,_ Zach thought, and Death swept off of his hand in a thick mass that slammed into the bear to his right while also sweeping around his back where the next two closest bears were.

The two in front who had hesitated more before charging, putting them slightly farther behind on the charge, were about to reach Zach. The Death Wind partially caught both of the other bears besides the one that collapsed down to the ground, but neither collapsed and instead just backpedaled away to keep awake after seeing what the darkness had done to their comrades. Zach knew those two would back up instead of run through the darkness, and he pulled out a knife using his right hand while still facing backwards. He twisted more around, raising his left hand and looking like he was going to make a second Death Wind. He did, but the second was much weaker and the bears were able to each avoid it by jumping up in the air over the dark wind passing close to the ground.

Zach clenched his left hand into a fist and pulled that darkness he just fired in both directions back towards him. As much had faded, there was still a good amount left to come in at him and make more of a dark sphere around his body cloaking where inside it his actual body was. The two bears falling towards him could not pull back having taken off the ground, and Zach aimed for the one that looked more likely to be able to pull back and get out of the mass. He ran forward and jumped up at the perfect moment to pass under the forelegs of the bear farther back. He reached up his right hand, and he cut his knife from between the bear's arms all the way down its stomach and then yanked down quickly to dodge the swipes with its hind legs it tried to hit him with.

 _Die- shit!_ Zach felt a pulse of energy fill him, and he ground his teeth with his lips twitching disturbingly behind his mask. The first bear that fell into the dark mass he just left behind passed out, but the one that got so much weaker while falling into it was on the verge of death already. Its cut open stomach just made it easier for the lingering Death to take its life, and Zach felt the pulse of strength along with a feeling inside him that had the corners of his lips trying hard to pull up. _I don't want to enjoy this!_ Zach screamed in his own head, while turning and then yanking his head to the right and dodging a bullet that passed so close to the right side of his face that part of his mask ripped under the black veil.

Zach's vision focused ahead and between trees where the long-distance bear had rotated to. Out from its open snout had emerged a rifle barrel, and there were scopes extended out from its eyes that had blood running out the corners of them and down its face to drip off its snarling jaw. The sight of how pained that clenched jaw looked, with the blood coating the bear's fur just from it using its Quirk, the Quirk it was being forced to use, it helped Zach refocused all his feelings on rage again. As much as it helped him stop from feeling the natural euphoria his Quirk gave him when killing with it, it also made him so focused on that rage and the horror of what he was seeing, that he did not notice the red glow behind him until it got much brighter.

His red vision shifted to his right side, and he saw the bear farther back of the two who survived his first Death Wind had opened its mouth and was firing flames from it. Even when he was glaring at the long-distance bear, his peripheral vision had been more locked to his back-left where the closer of the other remaining two was charging towards him. The one on his back-right was more mid-range than he expected though, and Zach bent his legs while surrounding his legs in more Death than he had planned on using. _MOVE!_ He realized it while he was flooding Death to his legs, and he tried to bend faster but wound up just extending early since the flames were on him. He dove to the side without the amount of force he needed to really get out of the way, and the fireball flying towards him caught his right side before he could get out of its range.

"AH!" He yelled out in pain and then ground his teeth as he hit the floor and rolled over muddy, slushy earth. He slammed his left hand on the floor and pushed himself up into the air, and he dodged the shot that flew right where he was finishing rolling. He ignored his right side and how burnt it felt, and he pressed his feet against the top of a broken tree trunk behind him. The force at which he pushed off the tree sent him flying back at the charging bear that changed directions to get close to him. He reached it much faster than it thought he would, and Zach cut a knife into its throat before pressing down on its back with both hands.

He flipped off into the air, dodging the next fireball that engulfed the bear with a cut throat. A pulse of Death fired out of Zach's back before the bear firing flames could even close its mouth, and Zach passed over the path of fire and smashed a hand down on the top of its jaw. Flames exploded out between the bear's teeth, its teeth blasting outwards as all the flames trying to escape got trapped inside, causing an explosion that collapsed the bear to the floor before Zach even jammed a knife into its skull.

He stood up with his blade down in the bear's brain, and he was panting as he turned his head and glared towards where he thought the final bear was. **Bang!** The bear he looked towards fell to the side, blood splashed all of the ground and a tree trunk to its left side. Running in from its right was a girl who spun her head and then darted towards Zach as fast as her skis would let her. Her skis shrank and shrank as the ground turned slushier and then to just regular dirt as all the snow just around Zach had melted with that explosion. "Zach!" Darling exclaimed, running right up to him and only stopping because he lifted his right palm in a way telling her he was alright. "Your side," she said, looking down to his right.

Zach glanced down finally at his own right side and stared blankly at the underside of his arm and his right side under where his arm was when he put it down. He held back the wince when his arm touched the tender skin underneath where his armor had been burnt off. "You're burned badly," Darling whispered, looking back up at the boy standing too strong to have an injury like that.

"I'm fine," Zach said. His right side covered in darkness as he spotted other soldiers running towards him, most of them in all black though some had on winterized costumes with some white coats over them. Mark frowned towards Zach as his right side coated in darkness despite the rest of his body being back to normal. Zach looked into Darling's eyes with his own still slightly red, and she looked out of her goggles back into his eyes. She was panting behind her mask, but she nodded at him strongly when he gave her that look like he was checking if she was alright. Her hood was down and her brown hair messed up below the tie of her ponytail behind her head where it had come out of her jacket. Zach's black hair fell behind his head to around the back of his neck, and it waved around messy from the hood and in the wind of the cold Siberian wilderness.

 _I hate every part of this,_ Zach thought. He turned his head and looked towards one of the tortured bears lying on the ground barely moving after his Death had knocked it out. He yanked the knife out of the skull of the last bear that he did not know if he killed with the blade or by making those flames erupt inside its own mouth. Then he walked over to the other bear and he jammed the knife down into the exposed side of its skull as it lay on its right side. Its chest stopped moving at all, and Zach pulled the bloody knife out and put it down into a sheath at his side.

"Death," Tama began softly. "Are these all, actual bears?"

"They are," Darling said. She pointed a pistol to her right and fired. It made a light _**pft**_ sound since there was a silencer on the end of it, and Darling put down the last unconscious bear that she saw Zach turn to ready to kill that one as well. "Though, there's one that went back inside, I think it's the leader." She turned to Zach while saying it, and she added hesitantly, "That one might be a human. But, even still…"

"Heroes are coming," Zach said darkly. _Maybe I should have replenished more Death. I really, really don't feel like smiling right now though._ "Just take down everyone inside. They'll sort them out. These bears though, they can barely speak at all. The one thing I've heard them say though, is 'kill me.'" Zach turned his head from the dome he just glared over to. He looked at his comrades and said in a dark, menacing voice, "They might just be animals, but they've been given some sort of human sentience. They know what's happening to them. They understand what they are, and what they're doing, and the fact that they would rather die means it's not about escape. Some things, shouldn't exist."

He turned back towards that dome, then he looked to his right over at a smoldering mess where one of the turrets had been blown apart. Zach's eyes got redder and glared around the smoke and the ground around where the turret had risen. _Their lives are pain. They're slaves to life. Their entire existences are just, so fucked up._ Zach's hands clenched into tighter fists, and he ground his teeth in anger to prevent himself from feeling the sadness of this whole situation. _We'll go in through there. The front doors are clearly going to have traps established by now._ "Tama and Wasteland, stay up here," Zach ordered.

The two Zach ordered nodded their heads behind him. Tama knew that if anyone got out, she would be able to track them best afterwards even if they escaped from their team. Zach continued, "Jackhammer. Take point with me and Darling, we'll break through the ground around where that turret came up. Let's move."

"Death," Mark started, stepping towards Zach's back. Zach turned his head and looked back at the older man who did not hesitate to continued, "Let me take point." He could see Zach and Darling were tired, and he wanted to give them a break. The two in front of Mark just seemed to get darker looks on their faces though at the suggestion.

"Follow me," Zach ordered, turning back around and moving for the turret. His answer to Mark's suggestion was clear, and Jackhammer ran forward to get on Zach and Darling. The others behind Death moved forward too, all of them including Mark staring at their leader who was marching forward looking so intimidating. After hearing all he had to say about what kind of fucked up shit was happening in this place, they all understood the feeling though. Zach leaned forward with his fists shaking at his sides, and he growled, "I'm going to tear this place down…" _No matter how deep it goes._

* * *

"You can't move yet- I said-"

Zach shrugged his right arm and shook off the man grabbing it after he started moving. "I'm fine Hank," Zach said.

Hank frowned at the teen's back as he walked away, ignoring the doctor's orders _again_. "Those burns aren't some minor wound you can just walk off." Hank ground his teeth as the boy did not slow down, and he said in a louder voice when Zach was about to leave the room they decided as their ground infirmary, "See Miraculu and Curalia once you return to base." Hank kept from mentioning The Cloak, considering there was an injured hero sitting on one of the medical beds they rolled in with another hero standing next to him.

The Russian heroes watched as Death left the room. Although the Army of Death were speaking English, which neither of those two heroes understood very well, they could tell what the doctor was saying based on the battered appearance of Death alone.

Zach stepped out of the room though and walked back down a hallway with flickering lights on the ceiling, but red flares down on the ground at the corners and in most doorways. Zach glared at a door at the end of the hall, but his eyes shifted around as he headed back towards that room he finished fighting in. _It wasn't as deep as Scotland after all,_ Zach thought darkly. His head filled with memories of those deeper basements, and then just as quickly all those thoughts pushed farther down as the images of that place were even more twisted than what he was seeing today.

 _I have more control here than we did in Scotland too. I should have taken it more seriously back then from the start. Now,_ Zach was passing a room that he turned to the right and looked into. He had a couple of soldiers in there, standing close to the door and quickest escape route. The majority of the heroes who had arrived were in that room, as they had taken prisoners from the scientists and human guards of the facility. _Another difference,_ Zach thought, imagining the sole surviving worker from the research lab in Scotland. _Richie didn't last long either. Another mysterious suicide, and the two clean-ups Sandlot tried to charge were released with lack of evidence and went missing too. Here though, there's evidence remaining. Evidence that proves this place was being funded by the Russian government. And enough heroes have already seen it…_

 _It's not human research,_ Zach turned his head back forward and continued down the hall. His expression got darker, which was visible to two of his soldiers ahead of him who looked his way from the intersecting hall Zach was about to walk into. He was heading to the door straight in front of him, but to either side near his own soldiers, there were bears dead on the floor looking more deformed and experimental than the "finished" ones that had been the base's first line of defense. Zach still had a mask on covering up the bottom half of his face, but his eyes shadowed over anyway as he headed into the doorway without looking left or right at the disfigured corpses around him.

Mother Russia stood in the room Zach walked into. She was the only hero in there with the Army of Death member Zach left behind in here when Hank dragged him away for emergency treatment. _Darling needs help too,_ Zach thought while looking at the girl down on one knee next to the heaving creature in the middle of the messed-up room. One of the largest bears, and the most intelligent, it lay on the ground with its eyelids half opened and its jaw open enough for its wheezing breaths to get out doggedly. Its back pushed up as it took in another breath, its chest pushing out below it into the puddle of blood slowly widening around its body. "How is it?" Zach asked after a moment of standing in the doorway.

Darling turned her head from the bear's head she was leaning in close towards. "Still dying," Darling replied. "He's barely able to speak anymore."

Mother Russia looked next to her at the boy who fought this bear with her. The three of them had taken it on together, and she did not understand why they kept it alive when as she arrived she heard the dark soldiers calling out to 'kill all the bears.' She understood that order after seeing what had become of the creatures, but over the last few minutes while Zach was gone, she came to understand why the boy acted differently this time. "Sazaki," Mother Russia started. "More heroes are on their way. I have yet to announce your presence, and I would like you gone by the time they arrive." _Should we have received help from the Army of Death to reveal this conspiracy, it could be used to counter how bad their own actions were in making this place. I will not give them that ammunition._

"I'm not Zach Sazaki," Zach said, though still in Japanese like the woman just spoke to him. He did not have a voice modulator, and he normally spoke in English but without really trying to mask his voice. He did reach up though and pull his mask a bit up to make sure that his scar under his right eye was still hidden completely from sight. "But I understand, and we will be," Zach added to the muscular woman on his side who had four shallow cuts going through her red costume on her right side around her chest.

Zach walked right up next to Darling and then got down on a knee more directly in front of the bear than to the side of its head. The bear had its cut chin on the floor and its body slumped and coated in blood both wet and drying. Its dark brown eyes lifted up to meet Zach's hazel ones, and its eyelids opened a bit more too so Zach could see deeper into the creature's thoughts. _She said "he,"_ Zach thought, recalling what Darling said when he came into the room. _Not "it." And, in those eyes I see thought. Real thought. Conscious thought. What is he thinking?_

Zach kept his gaze on the bear but spoke to the girl on his side, "Did you get anything out of him we wouldn't find in the files?"

Darling opened her mouth, but a weak voice came out from in front of Zach before she could speak, "It was, well-documented." Zach's eyes that were locked on the bear's widened, as he watched those eyes getting wetter so they seemed to glimmer. The tone of voice he just heard too, yanked at his heart and made the girl next to Zach curl her fists tighter at her sides. Mother Russia's eyes shifted from the bear who she was surprised to hear speak in that voice, to the two she had fought with who seemed around the same age.

"Why were they," Zach started, but he stopped as that was something he could get out of the files too. The bear in front of him did not have much time left, but there were questions that only _he_ could answer and would never be able to soon. "Why did you," Zach corrected himself in a lower voice. His tone was soft, but harsh. His eyes stayed steady as he stared into the bear's sad ones so full of regret at the start of that question. "Help them? You're not like the others. You… you knew. What was happening here, you understood it and could have fought it," Zach said it in some anger, but mostly confusion at why the bear didn't when he looked so much now like he wished he had.

The creature took in more heavy breaths, and its eyelids started to close as its eyes shifted down to the floor. The bear closed its eyes and for a moment the three in the room with him thought that was it. Then his eyes parted a small amount, and staring straight ahead the creature started in a stronger voice than they thought it could manage, "The process enhanced all of us. Most, like myself, were born into the program. It was, all we knew."

"That's not an excuse," Zach said. He spoke through his mask while panting himself, and he clenched his teeth as the air on his burnt skin stung like crazy despite the numbing painkillers Hank injected around his wounds. Zach glared at the bear that had much worse wounds than him though. He glared at it and watched the expression of someone truly regretful and full of guilt that became even more intense after what Zach said.

"I… know," the polar bear/ kodiak hybrid responded. "Because I was different," its eyes looked farther past Zach, and the shaking watery look they had got even sadder but for a moment his voice became monotone. "Our senses, our power, our intelligence… We were all enhanced, to the point that each of us became smart enough to understand that we were… nothing more than test subjects to be used and killed at the will of our masters. Tools, not looked at as living beings," his voice got quieter, and his teeth bared for a moment before a pained breath had to escape through them. His eyes filled with so much regret, covering up the sadness and fury, and he spoke in a voice more human than any of the other bears could manage so it actually felt like they were listening to a person speaking English to them.

The other bears only knew Russian and only managed to say "kill me" in that language, but this bear's voice was intelligent. And in that intelligent, most regretful voice, the bear said, "We were forced to be obedient…" Tears spilled out of its half-closed eyes, "but I always knew I could have stopped." His eyes clenched shut and squeezed out more tears as the humans stared down at him. "Unlike the others, I was intelligent enough to override that feeling of blind obedience. I didn't though." He paused and his teeth clenched so hard in anger, and then he growled out, "I knew it was wrong, but I stayed and followed orders… and acted as an in-between for the masters and the bears."

His brown eyes were bloodshot as he opened them back up and stared through hazy vision at the humans staring in shock back at him. "I worked at the prison camp for my own kind," he whispered, in a low growl that cracked midway through as his face twisted in the most severe sorrow the humans never thought a bear's expression could make. Mother Russia frowned down at the bear in a darker way herself after a moment, while Darling turned her head to the side and looked at Zach's face above his mask where she tried to read his eyes.

The bear's heaving was slowing down, and the creature could feel its mind slipping. "We were, all born with Quirks, along with our enhancements," he told, as the corners of his vision got darker and everything became one messy blur. "Randomized, just like humans' Quirks are. They were- unable, to pre-determine which Quirk we would receive." His eyes that could not see anything anymore closed, as there was no point wasting energy to keep them open when they had no utility. His breath came in, and he spoke softer, "Part of my Quirk, was intelligence far superior to any other bear, more than most humans too… I had the self-awareness to know exactly what I was doing, but knowing what I was… where else was there to go?"

Even though his eyes were closed and not functioning for sight, more tears spilled out onto his furry face as his raspy voice filled with so much pain. "What else was I to do?" He whispered. In his mind flashed all the other bears from the lab. All the experiments he stood by the human researchers and watched. The roars of agony filled his mind, and guilt washed over him that he would only regret it this much in the moment he was about to die. "I stayed, because… Life was pain, for all the others… but at least they were _my_ kind. Even with what I was doing to them, I was just, too scared to leave."

The bear's body stopped heaving. In the moment he said it, that his actions or inaction to stop sooner was all a result of his own cowardice, he died. Mother Russia bowed her head for a moment. _To think, that bears could become so…_ She shook her head and rose it back up with a serious look covering it. Caterina Makarov turned to the side and looked back out into the hallways. She spotted the two dark soldiers just outside both looking in with shocked looks, or so she imagined behind their helmets. She let out a low grumble as she thought about how distracted she had just gotten from her overall mission goals at the moment, and she turned her head back to mention to Death that he had to go.

Zach put his other knee down in front of the bear's unmoving muzzle. He lowered his right hand in front of its nose and felt for breathing. There was none. Darling stared at the side of Zach's head in surprise, then she turned around and glared at the older woman who took a step back towards them. "What are you doing?" She questioned.

Death lifted his right hand and his fingers slid out of the fingertips of his glove. Then he put his hand down on the head of the creature laying dead before him. "Stop that," Mother Russia said. Her eyes darted to the bear past him, who despite saying he did not live in as much pain as the others, sure sounded like his life was torture by how he just died. "Let it die."

"I won't," Zach growled. He had to seethe it out through clenching teeth as the pain started. He felt pain in places that he had never felt before, places that did not even exist on his body and yet he felt them anyway. He felt his own knives and Darling's shots and the broken bones Mother Russia dealt to it, all rushing at him at once. And he felt a sudden surge of sheer anguish that made him gasp and tears to push out of his eyes. "Gah- AHHH raa, chhhh-" Zach slammed his mouth shut and pushed air through his teeth harder to stop yelling.

"Sazaki, enough," Mother Russia started, but when she took a step farther, Darling snapped up on her feet and stood between Zach and Mother Russia. Mother Russia stopped where she was. She stared back into the bright green eyes of the girl before her, and she saw the girl was willing to fight her if she tried to stop Sazaki from doing what he was doing. "You can't bring him back," Mother Russia stated. "You-"

"You don't decide that," Zach growled. He spat it out and then snarled in agony that he felt tearing through his body. The older woman behind him stared at the back of his head with her eyes opened huge. "I spent, all day! AHH!" Zach shouted it and then bared his teeth again and shook his head around to get a grip through the pain. "ALL DAY! Killing- taking innocent lives!" Zach clenched his teeth even harder. _I don't know if I was right. I don't know if the decisions I made were right, but I have to stick to them. I couldn't risk my comrades' lives having them hold back against things that didn't even want to live! It's feeling his guilt, that's making me care so much about them now!_ Zach had the introspection to realize why it was he was questioning himself now, as it was not just the bear's anguish that he felt inside him messing with his own emotions and thoughts.

Zach panted as he felt his fingers slipping off, and he felt the pain subsiding to give him that out and show him that if he just let go a little more he'd be fine. But instead his hand gripped tighter into the bear's fur and he slammed his head down, pressing his own forehead into the creature's while he felt his stomach opening up. "Only I decide!" Zach yelled. "Who gets brought back… AAHHhaaAND I CHOOSE HIM!" Zach screamed it in pain, and he felt himself die as the final word came out of his mouth.

His right hand slid off of the bear's head and his head bowed down harder as he panted heavier than he had all day. His wounds seared in pain, both the mental ones he just received and the physical ones the strain on his body made reignite. Spit slid out of Zach's parted lips and soaked into his cold wet mask, dripping through the saturated material where the breathing mechanism had broken off. Zach's eyes were closed as he had his head bowed on top of the bear's muzzle. _That's only two today. Jackhammer's wasn't as bad,_ Zach thought about the man who had been killed due to the bear below his head predicting his moves and catching them right when they busted inside. He opened his eyes with that dark thought in mind and looked straight ahead into the bear's open eyes that were staring at him in utter shock.

The creature did not move after opening its eyes. It stared in front of it at the boy whose face looked so much more exhausted than… whenever it was he last saw it. He stirred, his eyes shifting around looking at the room around him which seemed to be the same room he had gone from. "I- I don't-" it started, confusion in its voice as it started to lift up.

Zach pulled his head back while still down on both knees staring ahead at this beast. Darling's right hand had turned into a pistol, but she did not have it raised nor had a look like she really thought Zach might be attacked here. Zach stared at the bear's face from a foot off, right into his eyes that stared back at him in such a perplexed way. He cut off the bear trying to say that it did not understand, "You, can't die like that." Zach's voice sounded tired, but he took in a deep breath to stop from panting and so he could speak in a steadier voice. He didn't notice the small crowd gathering at the door behind him who had heard his screams and come, both of his comrades and Mother Russia's.

"Wh-what?"

"To die feeling like that," Zach muttered. His eyes were dark, and his hands curled into his sides as he sat back on his knees. "After living a life so fucking horrible, to die a death even worse, what did you even live for?" Zach asked it in a pained way himself. He asked it and the bear in front of him started getting up, his huge legs moving below him and his eyes shifting down towards them to see his wounds gone. The bear rose up, taller that Zach on his knees but still feeling smaller than the boy who he leaned back from as Zach glared up into his eyes. "Why should someone have to die feeling that much guilt? Feeling their whole life, meant nothing except pain for others." Zach pushed his left hand down on the floor, and he shoved his right hand down next and staggered up onto his feet.

Even standing at his full height, Zach was not a very tall person. He was below average height for normal men, and he was muscular but still smaller than most people around him too. The teenager standing in front of the beast he just revived took a step forward that resulted in that bear taking a step back while staring forward in shock at him. Zach walked another step though, and he got right in front of Dover and rose a hand towards the creature that stared at it in so much fear because of the complete confusion it was in that kept it from comprehending what was happening. It bared its teeth, then it clenched its eyes shut as Zach's hand moved too close to its face and its eyes.

Zach put his hand down on the bear's head and he rubbed it once over his soft fur. The creature froze. It froze, and then its eyes opened up and rose to the arm above it. Those eyes stared without any recognition, something that should have caused discomfort, and yet- _It's, nice?_

Zach pet the bear on top of its head, and he felt his chest tighten at the look on the creature's face. He saw a look that so closely resembled a young boy's, dying in his arms with a smile on his face because Zach had held him in a caring way. Zach clenched his eyes shut for a moment as he thought of that boy, one he did not bring back to life. _He believed, at the end, that he had saved me though. It was the best way to die. Whereas, this bear,_ Zach opened his eyes and stared so softly into the eyes of the massive creature right in front of him who finally took his eyes off that arm petting him and looked at Zach's face.

"Maybe you shouldn't have helped them," Zach said. He stopped petting and slid his hand down the side of the bear's head a little, making him nervous. Zach started petting again though closer to its right ear, and he scratched the bear's ear too for another new sensation it had never felt before. "But if you think that in your whole life, you've only done wrong, then don't just die. That's not fair to those you hurt. Instead, be better." The bear Zach was talking to stared at him with shaky eyes. It stared at him in disbelief, and then it finally blinked a few times at the realization of what was actually happening right now.

Zach watched as the bear started shifting its eyes around, and how it looked down at its own feet, and the thoughts he saw flashing through its mind the way its expression appeared. _I know,_ Zach thought, as he continued to pet the bear that had been their strongest enemy, who everyone behind Zach was staring at in shock at what was happening here. _Because I came back too, and I had Monoma. My life really was shit before I died, and when I came back I had that new life laid out before me. I saw so many options. I knew, that there was more. But it took him telling me to even make me consider it._

"This lab is done," Zach said. "You don't have a master anymore. And all the other subjects are dead." Zach lowered his hand from the side of the bear's head. "You died just now. So take that as your punishment for what you did before." Zach paused, and then he continued stronger, "And if you can't just leave it at that, then make sure that whatever you do from here on out, you help others instead of hurt them."

"I-" the creature started. It stared at Zach, its face so confused and lost for purpose. It stared at him and said uncertainly, "I don't know how."

"You're a smart bear, right?" Zach asked. "Figure it out." Again the bear stared at him in shock. "You feel regret for what you did, because you know that it was wrong. That means you already know right from wrong, so do right this time around." Zach panted a couple of times after getting that all out in a confident and assured way. He felt his body in pain all over, and he grimaced as he thought how Hank was right and he needed to go see his healing doctors soon.

Darling watched the boy in front of her in absolute amazement. Her eyes shone brighter green and her heart pounded in her chest as Zach stood there sturdily despite seeming like he was about to collapse or pass out for so long already.

Mother Russia watched her old student in a different way too. She had decided not to pass judgement on the Army of Death due to what they were here trying to stop, but her opinion on the leader of this group itself changed as she watched him. _He makes his own decisions. He chooses what he believes to be right and acts off that alone, and others believe in him because of it._ She could see the dark figures behind her in her peripheral vision, watching their leader in silent admiration, not one of them arguing about what he was doing or saying. _He never really fit in back in Japan. Sazaki's only place, might be here._

"I, don't think I can. I'm not- I'm not a person. I'm not a bear either. I'm the last of my kind," the bear whispered it and his expression shook in bafflement, in fear, and regret. Too many emotions were rushing at it at the same time. He didn't expect to still be alive, and he did not know anything except for that lab and the life he had known since being born in it. "How will I know what's right, when I'm not even- I'm not like you," he said it with a shaky deep voice, staring at the boy in front of him who was in his eyes in this moment the opposite of the men who he had known his entire life. In his eyes right then, Death was perfect good. The bear couldn't imagine to live up to him, to anyone in that room behind Death looking at him. His head shook and he pulled back more, his whole body trembling at the terrifying world being laid out before him. "I'm not even real. This world wouldn't… I wouldn't fit in it. I- I don't even have a name!"

The bear shouted it, then he pulled back even more as he knew that should not stop him. Seeing as the figure before him was going by 'Death' which clearly wasn't a real name either. And yet even as he regretted saying that, and trying to come up with another excuse, Zach just said after a moment, "Dover." The bear in complete confused panic tensed up. He froze, and all the emotions jolted to hard stops too.

 _Hell, I named Snow. I can name a bear a lot easier. She might like him- actually, she might even be older than him. I didn't even ask._ Zach's skin was pale, and he was sweaty despite it being pretty cold in the lab. _I really need to listen to Hank,_ he told himself, as he could see Darling's look getting more worried on his side, and she always believed he could keep going if he said he could.

"Dover?" Dover asked.

"Yeah," Zach replied. "That's your name. For now on," Zach added. "And there are others of your kind. You _are_ a bear," Zach reminded, as Dover had said a minute ago that he wasn't real and wasn't a bear. "Clearly," Zach added with a nod at Dover's body. "Alright, Dover? You going to, make me regret bringing you back? Because I…" Zach blinked a couple times, and he was feeling wobbly on his feet and swayed more noticeably at his pause. "I really need a win…" Zach muttered under his breath, and his right foot slipped out from under him.

"Death!" Darling ran up to him and caught him by grabbing his sides. She also felt like she did not hold up much weight though, and she looked around him to see the bear had moved forward and rose a paw. Despite having sharp claws on that paw though, the massive bear pushed its hand gently into Zach to hold him up without harming him at all. And when Darling looked around into the creature's face, she saw it staring at Zach in a way far beyond the admiration she had stared at him with a minute ago.

Dover looked at the half-conscious boy who responded to the calls from the others behind him despite looking out of it. He ordered his comrades to start extraction, and he turned to the closest hero behind him and asked her if she could watch over Dover. "…try not to kill this one," Zach joked to the woman as two other Army of Death members held him more up and started helping him back out of that room. Dover looked to Mother Russia for a moment in hesitation, only to see her frown deeper at the man getting led past her who most people around them thought was referring to how she had handled other bears in that facility. Dover saw the difference in recognition on her face though, and how the tone in Death's voice implied what was likely an inside joke.

 _He saved me,_ Dover turned and looked back after Death. He watched as the dark figures accosted any of the heroes looking too aggressive. Each of them seemed ready to fight if one of the heroes decided to take advantage of Death's wounded state. _I was his enemy. I'm, I'm a monster. A freak of nature and he- he's in more pain now because he brought me back. Like what it was like for him to bring back that other human! He did that, for me? Took all my pain even after he- he's the one who put me in it in the first place but I-_ Dover's lips trembled and he leaned back and got up on his hind legs, towering over everyone around him and walking out the door and after the group getting farther from him. _Why would he save me? I didn't deserve to…_ _ **"I really need a win."**_ Dover's eyes grew huge and he froze and just stared down the hall after the group about to leave his sight.

 _Was it just for him? Or does he- he killed all the others. He killed them, but he saved me. Why? Why?_ _ **"Dover."**_ _He gave me a name. I have a name._ _ **"Be better."**_ _Is that what I have to do? No, I don't_ _ **have**_ _to do anything. I'm free? I'm free._ Dover lifted his paws and curled them while staring at his sharp claws. His heart wrenched and he shifted his gaze back down the hall, but those soldiers were gone and he could barely hear them anymore. He could still smell them though, specifically the scent of the person who had been there right in front of him when he woke up again. _He's not my master. I'm not a slave. I'm not anyone's tool, or weapon! I'm a- I'm an animal! Which means I can have a master and it's not slavery. I, I can be…_ Dover dropped down onto all fours and started running down the hall.

* * *

 **Present**

Zach rubbed his hands up and down on Dover's sides as the bear continued to hug him in a dog-like way only so massive that it was impossible to see anything but fur for the moment. _He always does this,_ Zach thought with a smaller smile, petting his bear slower. _Maybe I should have told him he was human. Could have said it like it was obvious then that since he talked like us he really was a person. It wouldn't have changed much, probably. He still would have found an excuse to always chase after me. I didn't want to risk his life though. Not until he had a full life, not until he had his own happiness. But King's compound, and Wampajawa, there were times when I needed everyone. I'm sorry I dragged you into that though._

Zach gave Dover a tighter squeeze for a second before shoving away lightly to get Dover to move off him. As soon as Dover turned back around so he could see everyone in the room and not just Zach, his expression changed again back into a more reserved one that had a couple of Zach's former classmates sweatdropping. They wondered if the bear thought they could not see him when he was not looking at them, and Zach lowered his smile down at Dover's cautious expression. _For four years all he knew were bad people. Even now, I think there are only three people he trusts. He seemed close to Mother Russia at the raid on King's compound, and he trusts Darling too. I hope she went to see him._ Zach's chest hurt and he looked away from Dover and back to his other friends who all had so much they were holding back right now.

"So, Dover," Ashido started. She leaned forward after he looked at her in a serious way, and she smiled as she knew after watching him that this gruff exterior was not all there was to the big bear. "Were you in that other world Zach went to? How did you get here?"

Dover opened his mouth, but Zach said first, "No." Dover looked over at Zach himself as Zach decided to answer instead. He did not know how Dover was about to explain himself, but he figured Dover just figured out what he had been telling everyone and made up some elaborate story to make his alibi work out well. As much as Zach appreciated the effort that Dover actually did go through in that instant without showing any hesitation like he was lying, Zach didn't want that.

Dover was somewhat confused as he looked to his master, or the one who he called his master despite Zach telling him repeatedly that it was not the case. Zach had initially said that he could trust the others in the room, but he also cut him off from saying the truth earlier in order to hide it from his friends. Zach continued after shaking his head and giving that one word reply to Ashido. "Dover was like Principal Nezu, a result of some fucked up experiments."

"I thought all experiments like those were shut down a long time ago," Mineta started confusedly. He remembered Dover calling out that he was only five years old, which made the short boy start feeling very uncomfortable along with the looks both Zach and Dover gave him.

"Just because something's illegal to do, doesn't mean everyone's going to listen," Zach replied.

Mineta's eyes opened wide at the response and he nodded once as a reply back seeing Zach's intense look behind his normal smile. Zach saw the others in his room all getting ready with their questions. They wanted to know when and where it was that Zach saved Dover, and Zach asked first, "Hey, you guys wouldn't mind heading out early?" It was asked as a question, but toned as a suggestion, and worded in a way that would be difficult to say no to. He gave them apologetic looks after asking out of the blue though. "I want to catch up with Dover. It's been a while."

Sero took in a breath through his nose and let it out as a sigh. He had questions of his own, _but they can wait,_ he thought. "Fine," Sero responded first. A couple of the others spun to him in surprise at his response that was quicker than any of them could mention it being suspicious, or how they wanted to talk to Dover too. _He's Zach's friend. They have things they want to talk about without us hearing. That's fine. It's not our place to try and listen in._

 _I need to know what they're talking about._

"Ahh, alright," Ashido stretched her arms up over her head and then hopped out of her seat. "Should probably start studying anyway."

"You could have studied while you were here," Mineta said to her with a smirk at her laziness and bad excuse.

"I don't want to hear that from _you,_ " Ashido snapped back at the boy who was not being studious like Ojiro and Koda were before.

Ojiro finally turned away from Zach who he had made eye contact with for a few seconds there. "Okay," he said. He got up and he walked over to grab his coat, but he added with a look back towards Zach as he was going, "Tell us how you guys met, next time we come over. Yeah?"

Zach nodded his head over at Ojiro. "You got it," he replied softly, with a half-apologetic look to his friend who knew he was getting secrets withheld from him, again.

 _I accepted that you wouldn't tell me about that girl, Darling._ Ojiro looked away and he frowned deeper once Zach could no longer see his expression. _I don't want to accept it, but I do because you really do seem to care about her. I believe that. But here, you have so many secrets and I- I can't trust you as long as you act this way._

Koda grabbed his coat and he said in a soft voice, "Thanks for having us over, Zach." The bear next to Zach looked over at Koda again in a more intrigued way at the tone his voice had that was different to other humans' voices.

Zach nodded at Koda, "Anytime." Koda was the first to reach Zach's door, actually making the others getting up rush more as it seemed like he was ready to go.

 _Weird, figured he'd want to talk to the bear more,_ Mineta thought while hurrying to get his jacket back on.

Koda looked back to make sure everyone else was coming. The others behind him turned and said their goodbyes to Zach, and Koda opened up the door to go. He walked out and around the side of Zach's door, and he lifted up his right hand he pulled out of his pocket. "Please little one help me…"

"Thursday good?" Sero asked, slipping his hands back into his gloves while standing in front of Zach who got up to see his guests out.

"Yeah, I'll see you then," Zach agreed and smiled at the boy in front of him he just made plans with.

"Aww, well then you can't come," Ashido said to Mineta as the two of them were having another conversation just at the door. Mineta mentioned how he could not hang on the weekend, and Ashido grinned back to Zach, "We're still doing the carnival this weekend right?"

Zach gave her an odd look at the way she worded that. _We never made these plans._ "Actually, I thought you meant next weekend," Zach corrected her.

"Oh I can do that!" Mineta exclaimed, happy to join in. He looked to Mina to grin at the girl who seemed happy he couldn't come, only to get confused at Ashido's own surprised and confused look.

The way Zach responded made it seem like the two of them actually had made the plans and Zach only gave her the odd look because he thought she got the date wrong. He was so convincing with it that she did not even realize until five seconds later that he had just messed with her right back and actually got her far worse than she got him. Her bottom lip dropped, but then she laughed and rose it into a big smile instead. "Alright then, next weekend," she said in a happy voice.

 _I'm busy this weekend anyway, but messing with her back was an easier way to avoid having to say what I'm doing or dodge the subject,_ Zach thought, while giving Ashido a look like he just realized the way he had messed with her was actually beneficial for her anyway as she managed to cement those plans. He felt slightly guilty at the look on her face that showed she was thinking exactly what he predicted she would think seconds before she thought it, and he looked back to Sero with a less bright look than the one he gave Mina. "Thursday," Zach repeated, and Sero gave him a nod too before sticking out his right elbow. Zach bumped his elbow into it with a laugh and Sero laughed too while turning and heading for Zach's door.

"See you Zach!"

"Next time man."

"Bye guys."

Zach turned back to Dover as Ojiro was closing the door behind them, having just nodded goodbye back at Zach who gave him a final nod back. Zach stood at the end of the entry hall and faced Dover who stood in his living room with an equally intense look as the one covering Zach's face. The two of them stayed silent for several seconds. Then Dover turned his head towards the fly on the wall just inside of Zach's door that it had slipped inside of while the last of Zach's classmates were leaving. The bear glared at the fly, and after another second Zach turned to it too and kept a serious but not very harsh look on his face.

"Koda, I understand why you have to try," Zach walked back towards his door that he was sure his classmates were far enough away from by now. "But this is a private conversation," he finished, and he opened the door and motioned at the fly to leave. He stared at a small black fly on his wall and motioned with his head out the door. _If it doesn't leave, I'll just smush it- alright._ Zach watched the tiny insect lift off his wall and do a small loop in the air, before turning and heading out of Zach's apartment.

The fly headed out and flew towards Koda who was down on the street walking with the others. "…maybe he really was from that other world," Mineta said in a soft voice, cupping a hand to his mouth while suggesting it.

"Why would they lie about that?" Ojiro asked.

"Well," Ashido began, and Ojiro turned to her in a bit of surprise as she seemed to have her own doubts. "Zach did, stop him from responding himself. The story he told us makes more sense, for a backstory for who Dover is in this world."

"You think talking bears are one of the species on Terra?" Sero asked with a smirk on his face.

"I don't know!" Ashido exclaimed at his tease, pouting at the way he was grinning at her. "But Dover said Zach rode him into battle! He's gotta be talking about Terra don't you think?"

Sero lowered his grin a bit and hummed with a nod/tilt of his head to the left. "Makes sense. Could have been after he came back though too. Dover probably just considers the fights they got in as battles," Sero suggested, leaving the option that Zach wasn't lying as the more likely choice. "And if Zach told him the stories of his time in Terra, then maybe he projected their own kind of fights as those…"

Koda had slowed down in the group, and no one noticed yet but he just stopped cold where he was on the sidewalk. He had been surprised when his fly came to his ear that it was so quick, but he froze in place as the message was relayed back to him. He told the fly using his Quirk Anivoice to listen and tell him what it heard inside. The single sentence he received from that attempted surveillance, only worked in making Koda feel guilty about getting caught. Despite Zach's message of understanding why he did it, he still glanced back towards Zach's apartment, wondering, _Can I come back here after that? I'm sorry, Zach. I just- I still think you're Death though. I don't know if Dover really is there just to visit or if there's a plan in place, but if the AoD are planning something in Japan I need to know… as a hero._

"Hey Koda! What are you doing?"

Koda turned forward and hurried after the others who were staring back at him oddly. They had been looking his way for a couple seconds so they saw his serious look while facing backwards, but Koda looked mostly back to normal as he jogged up to them. No one asked what he had been thinking about though, as his eyes still looked too serious for them to believe that it was nothing. Koda walked behind the group who continued forward, a couple of them darting looks back at the boy who did not focus on them.

 _ **"I know it's him. Without a doubt in my mind. No! Koda, he's a terrorist. He's a liar, and a killer… I hate him. He betrayed all of us. He betrayed you… and me."**_

 _Jirou's right, Zach._ Koda's boulder-like face got more intense, which was strange for the teen who always looked far more reserved and nervous. _I want to forgive you, but I can't._ All his talks with Jirou about Zach, and the rants she went on, influenced strongly how he felt towards his former classmate. And yet after a few seconds, the guilt did creep back up on Koda who returned to his usual expression as he worried that he was only thinking about Jirou in order to make himself feel less guilty about what he just did.

Back at Zach's apartment, Zach finished checking the cracks of his couch cushions. Dover continued to sniff the air while standing close to the windows, and the two of them did a thorough scan around for any signs of surveillance. "They're gone," Dover assured with a look back towards Zach. He was up on his hind legs, but he dropped down again after saying that and ran around towards Zach again.

Zach gave him a more tired look of the way he was acting, looking more like he wanted to talk seriously to Dover than play with him. Dover lowered his smile a little, but he backed off and went back to the couch that Zach walked around in front of and sat across from. "How are you? Is everything alright?" Zach asked in Russian. He didn't want to get serious at all while his friends were over, but his expression got harder and his eyes focused on the animal that had become friendlier and friendlier every time Zach saw him.

Dover nodded his head back. "I'm fine," he replied. "Your Russian's a little rusty."

"Is it?" Zach asked in surprise. _Thought I had it mastered back in prison. Guess I need to keep up with all of them-_

"Not really," Dover said with a tilt of his head. "Maybe it's the Japanese accent. You had lost it back then."

Zach nodded, "I did." He leaned back in his chair as it seemed there was nothing imminent they needed to discuss, and he let out a heavy breath that there was not something he needed to deal with. He also noticed he felt some disappointment too, which he mentally scolded himself over at the realization. "So," Zach began again. _Why is he here-_ "Have you heard from Darling?" Zach asked.

The question was not the first one Dover was expecting, and his eyes widened. Dover stared at Zach with a look of confusion growing on his face. "Has she contacted you at all, I mean?" Zach said, and Dover hesitated for another second before shaking his head.

"I didn't…" Dover began, still looking confused. "Gentle though…" Dover's voice got softer still even as he spoke in Russian. He was not one of the Army of Death. He never had been, but he had been with them on several occasions and knew many of the members by name or even through acquaintance or by fighting together. Zach nodded at him to continue, and Dover said quietly, "I did get asked by Gentle if I had been in contact with Darling, just like you asked me."

Zach hummed at Dover's response. A darker look formed on Zach's face for a moment, _Gentle doesn't know where she is then, or what she's up to._

"Zach, do you-" Dover began.

"So why did you come here?" Zach asked.

Dover paused, and then he smiled again and leaned forward with an excited look on his face. "I decided to see the world," Dover replied. Zach rose his eyebrows up and smiled after a second of surprise. Dover sat back in his seat again after Zach smiled at him, and he lifted his paws at his sides and tilted his muzzle up as he continued. "I talked to Alexi who got in contact with your old friends, and they gave me some money to get started." Zach kept from lowering his smile even though he wondered about that decision made by his _"old friends."_

"Then I said goodbye to Caterina who was sad to see me go. She said so," Dover added while looking into Zach's eyes.

 _Is he mad because I don't say I'm sad to see him go? Guess I could when he's leaving._ "I'm surprised she did," Zach said. _Think about why you would be surprised. Because I was hesitant to leave Dover with Mother Russia in the first place considering the story she told the first day she started as our homeroom teacher. I was glad to leave him with someone I trusted though and who I knew would be able to protect him and teach him how to protect himself._

"She didn't give me anything to get started though," Dover said. "Told me I should have gotten a job already if I was planning something like this."

"Do you need more money?" Zach asked.

"It's fine," Dover said with a quick shake of his head. "I don't have much, but I'll work jobs overseas as I go. Stay at cheap lodgings until I get some experience and reputation to my passport name. Dover Makarov-"

"Here," Zach pulled out his wallet anyway, and he took out a ten thousand yen bill that he stood up and leaned forward with.

Dover gave a roll of his eyes but smiled more and then reached his paw out and took the bill gladly. "Thanks," he said, clearly happy to have it despite turning the gift down the first time.

Zach shook his head back that it was no problem. Then he sat back down and said with a soft smile, "I'm glad you're doing this."

"Me too," Dover replied in a serious but also excited voice. He sounded intent on doing it which made Zach happier that this was definitely what he wanted to do. Dover continued, "I need to figure out who I am and what I'm going to do with this life. It's not a question many bears ask themselves, but I have options."

Zach laughed, _And humor, apparently. It has been a while. He's picked up more on human culture actually being out in it around normal people. That's great._

"I don't know what it is I want to do yet," Dover continued, his tone the same though his face looked more prideful as he got Zach to laugh. He looked at Zach a bit oddly afterwards, but it was a happy oddly because the Death he remembered was so serious most of the time, and dark. Dover continued in a carefree tone as he did not want to get thinking about that and somehow bring down this good mood. "But whatever it is, I'm going to make you proud." Dover stood up and stepped in front of Zach's seat on his back legs. Then, in traditional Japanese fashion, Dover bowed the top half of his body so deep to show the utmost level of respect and appreciation.

"Dover-"

"Thank you," Dover said while bowed with his arms down at his sides. "For bringing me back to life. You won't regret it. I will- make something good of myself. Something better." Dover dropped his arms from his sides into forelegs again, and he stepped forward and rubbed the top of his bowed head into Zach's chest. Zach's eyes opened wide at the tone Dover had just spoken in while bowed so far, as it sounded like he was crying while hiding his face like that. Zach's face distorted as Dover rubbed his head into Zach's chest. He scrunched up his forehead and pulled his head back with an agonized expression covering it, at the genuine joy he felt feeling Dover rub his head on him in that much gratitude.

Zach lifted his hands and he put them around the back of Dover's head. He bowed his own head with a sad smile on an exhausted face. Zach stared down at the bear just below him who could not see his exhausted look. "I know you will."

* * *

 **A/N Thanks for reading! If you noticed, the first few paragraphs of the flashback were taken directly from a chapter 50 chapters or so ago. It was a scene I did not want to flesh out in a whole chapter at the time despite the ideas I had for it, because I had _so_ many ideas for AoD chapters that each could have been made into individual chapters back then but would have stalled the progression of the story for a while. Anyway, Dover comes to visit Zach in Japan and we get a flashback to another kind of research lab Zach dealt with during his tenure as Death. I hope you guys enjoyed the chapter, and leave a review below telling me what you think or predictions for what's coming!**

Oblivious IJ chapter 162 . Jun 15

Happy one year anniversary birthday thing... this story is a year old and over 2m words... i have three words for ya Holy fwicken Shit! You a beast tho.

 **Thanks! Wonder if it's the most anyone's ever written in a year for a single story? That would be pretty fwicken awesome XD Hope you liked the new chapter!**

Super Power Sensei chapter 162 . Jun 15

Good chapter. The philosophy talk was interesting to say the least. Zach and Deku are way more similar than they realize. And imagine Izuku actually admitting to everyone about One For All just because that's more in tune with who he is. The way Zach can teach people things is fucking EPIC. They mentioned how China and the U.S. are getting berated for having a quirk weapon research facility but this is inevitably. Oh man. Now that I think about it, it IS AN INEVITABILITY! A new arms race with QFWs(quirk finished weapons)! Unless if you take into account the current state of the world. Becoming more peaceful by the day, global booming economic growth, the world's "safety net" in place, and icons like Lifebringer encouraging "needed good change" for the sake of everyone.

 **Thanks for another, very long, review! (Didn't paste it all here for length reasons). You've got a lot of cool ideas and theories on the progression of this world that Death's taking place in. I've been dropping hints/ mentioning law changes/ R &D type of stuff for a while on a greater world-building level for this story and I like that you can see how things are gradually changing and will likely change to a much bigger degree while the story's going on. Won't say if any of those QFT's are going to happen (or if they already exist), but another cool review and thanks for it! Always glad to hear from you, and I hope you enjoyed the newest chapter!**

someguy1011 chapter 162 . Jun 16

Things are really ramping up huh, i appreciate zach calling out deku like he did and now all might and hawks are piecing everything together (better than lemillion could've anyway). idk if this is annoying or not but i gotta put this down, a super hype way to end this is if zach is revealed as death and literally has to fight everyone in a final stand, heroes and villains and if you are gonna dissolve the AOD you gotta give us a shot of the cloak 2 going down in flames crashing above zach as he fights raijin. Again this is your story and you know what you are doing but i just love this so much my mind runs wild with the possibilities.

 **Not annoying at all (the thing you mentioned thinking might be), always like to hear predictions! It sounds like a cool ending, but no spoilers as to whether or not it will happen! Glad you liked Zach and Deku's talk, and Hawks really is good at this kind of thing so he's going to be speeding up the investigation into Zach. Unfortunately for him and Lemillion, they're doing exactly what Shigaraki and Raijin want too. Everyone's coming after him and trying to prove who he is, but we see again this chapter Zach is a cautious person. He slips up a bit at the start, but he checks for surveillance and could see through what Koda was up to easily. Glad you're loving the story, and thanks for all the predictions and thoughts! Thanks for the review in general XD!**

James947 chapter 162 . Jun 16

Happy one year anniversary

 **Thanks!**

abbasshashemh37 chapter 162 . Jun 16

Whenever I see Exodus i just imagine Escanor from seven deadly sins XD

 **XD hahaha well he is a beast just like Escanor! Thanks for the review!**

R-Dawg chapter 162 . Jun 18

Badman story bro! Binged this over the last couple days, and now I'm craving more haha. I read quite a lot and have normally had a bit of aversion to fan-fictions if I'm honest, but you've completely changed my mind. Which is harder then it sounds since I'm stubborn as hell, anyway just wanted to to give my 2 cents. Keep it up man looking forward to more!

 **Awesome! Love to hear reviews like these, and I'm really glad my story changed your mind on giving the whole genre a chance! I hope you enjoyed the new chapter, and thanks for the great review!**


	164. Chapter 164

**Disclaimer: I don't own Boku no Hero Academia**

 **Chapter 164:**

In an abandoned building in the industrial district of Yutapu, not far from his apartment, Zach Sazaki sat on a counter sticking out the wall that was sturdy despite the whole building being so run-down. He was chilling in a building that had bad air quality and was full of dust, because there were a group of squatters who he knew used the building for shelter occasionally. The homeless guys around him all had burgers from a fast food place down a few blocks in their hands just as the boy who had gotten them all lunch that Saturday was eating.

There were eight men in the building plus another man wearing a dress with his hairy arms and legs sticking out and covered in brightly-colored sleeves to keep warm in the cold room. Zach just talked to Rebecca and gave him/her a burger too, and he figured he'd ask her what his story was later on when he had a minute. Most of the guys in the building were ones Zach had already met before, and the others had heard about his deeds from their fellow homeless people.

"No, you'd really think it would be a utopia as the biggest city in all of Arcasia, all of Terra really," Zach continued, and he took another bite of his burger while telling his story to the hobos surrounding him. "But instead of a super metropolis like Tokyo, it was more a spread-out slum that had the occasional good area, and a nice main street cutting straight to the Queen's palace from the main gates. There was a wall surrounding the whole city, but even that wall was in disrepair and run-down in certain areas. It had to be expanded often, and the expansions weren't made very well when they suspected they would need to knock them down sooner or later anyway."

"They didn't have good walls, while they were at war?" Tedo wondered from the seat two guys down on Zach's right. He was plopped down on the floor with his back against the corner of the wall the counter stuck out of, so the overweight bald man was looking up at Zach when he asked it too. "Sounds unlikely."

"The Queen didn't care much about her people," Zach said and held up a palm. "City planning wasn't really something she focused on. They dealt with building, repairing, and expanding the walls themselves. And considering how much they hated the Queen, by the time we rushed the capital, we had enough supporters inside the city to let us know what were the weakest points of the walls. We breezed straight through the outer defenses. I had never been there before the final invasion myself, but I had gotten a lot of intel before it. From that sole raid alone though, I saw more of a dystopia in that city than anywhere else in that world."

"If things were that bad, why didn't the people rise up against the Queen sooner?" Rebecca wondered in a falsetto.

Zach looked to the cross dresser and shook his head. "You say that like it's easy. Her armies were huge, and dissenters in that world weren't given platforms to speak their grievances with the government like in our world. They don't have the chance to grow support and gather followers to rise up, because at the first signs of that happening the Queen would just massacre everyone she thought was involved."

Most of the homeless people around Zach stared at him with their eyes wide at that simple yet horrifying explanation. "Living in a state like that, constant fear of their government so they can't complain about the conditions, and yet the inability to leave since the outskirts of the Queen's Capital was one of the most dangerous areas in the world. Mobility was impossible, except with the most unique and rare of Quirks… Most people turned to drugs. A city where the majority of people we came to save were doped up and totally out of it, just to deal with the shit show that was their lives."

Zach put the rest of his burger in his mouth and chewed it, making a hum of how delicious it was. "People really young were doing those drugs," Zach added after he swallowed. "Kids, using drugs that I know are going to keep them fucked up for a long time even with the Queen out of power."

"What kind of drugs?" Scye asked. He grinned while asking and smirked over towards Zach from across the room where he was leaning on the opposite wall as Zach's counter. "Were they good? You try any?"

"No," Zach replied. He did not get upset at the tone or Scye's intentionally aggressive and combative tone. He did look a little sad though as he stared towards Scye wondering why he would ask something like that. Scye tried to keep his same uncaring arrogant expression, even though he did suddenly feel guilty at the look Lifebringer just gave him. "There were lots of types. I know some numbed them to the pain, but it kept them from doing anything to better their positions. Others, used some more uplifting ones to party and forget about their troubles, if just for a little while. Or just for one moment of fun in their hard lives. But those people, they didn't know the side effects of Enjoyful until it was too late. The drug was killing them but it was fun, and so they took the risk anyway and it just killed more kids."

"Sounds like that drug, uh, what's it called?" Rebecca leaned into the older man next to her who had an exhausted look but nodded his head at the question.

"I have heard of many that match the description," he replied, sounding experienced and wise, while he reached into his hiking backpack to grab a reusable cloth he used for a napkin.

"No no no," Rebecca shook her head and wagged a finger at that answer. "I mean the recent one. The one everyone's been talking about!"

A couple of the guys in the room just shrugged, the old man seemed unknowledgeable, and Rebecca hummed and started trying out names she said were on the tip of her tongue. Two guys Zach noticed were acting like they didn't know what was being talked about, while they clearly did. "I swear I heard of something new too," Zach muttered. His voice was still loud enough for all the others to hear, including Scye and Tedo who looked back his way in surprise as it seemed Lifebringer might not actually know this. "The stuff is supposedly the best- umm, huh? I can't remember-"

"You talking Flyer?" Scye wondered at Zach, scoffing at Lifebringer's inability to name the drug.

Zach spotted Tedo seeming to agree so this was the drug both of them were thinking about. _So I don't get two. The hook caught though. And if both heard about the same thing then it's bigger._ "Yeah, that's it. Flyer. Real bad stuff," Zach said it knowingly and with a dark shake of his head that surprised Scye who had heard the opposite. He had heard that it was the "best," but the way Lifebringer just spoke made him question if this was one of those drugs with horrible side effects.

"I knew it," one of the guys who Zach didn't notice knew earlier said. Paiku shook his head and looked back to Zach with his solid glowing green eyes. "Some guys tried getting me to try and sell it around here," Paiku admitted, surprising a couple of people around him though Zach just nodded in a more serious way at the homeless man who hesitated for a moment. He continued though as he saw Lifebringer waiting for more information, "I told the guy my kind of clients couldn't afford it, but the guy pushed saying it was cheap stuff."

"Stay away from it," Zach warned, looking around at the others who might have been tempted by Paiku's "guy"'s pitch. Anyone remotely considering it decided never to touch the stuff at Lifebringer's sudden warning.

"You don't need to worry about that," Tedo spoke up. The bald man in his early sixties shook his head and grunted, then said in a low voice, "I've heard rumors about some bad overdoses with the drug. Doesn't kill them-"

"But there are some infinite trips happening," Zach finished for him. It was not how Tedo was going to finish, but he nodded as Zach's description worked fine. _Bad overdoses from some unrecognized drug are getting more common in multiple cities now. Autopsy reports had an unknown substance in their systems. Preceding the first deaths were always increases in bad trips lasting too long. If those rumors are already spreading this far, it won't be long before Yutapu has its first deaths to "Flyer." Must be a street name. Might just be Yutapu's version, and it might be a whole different strain or something from the other drugs, but whatever it is I'm not going to find it just by finding Paiku's guy. I can't ruin what I've got with the homeless of the city by forcing it either._ "Imagine losing your mind and being stuck like that," Zach said in a low voice, and he whispered after, "Remembering what it was like to think normally, and knowing that it was your own shitty decision that put you in that state."

"We won't do drugs, _Mr. Hero_ ," Scye sneered over. His attitude was not great, but Zach smiled over at him glad to hear that kind of response.

"Model citizens us squatters!" Rebecca called out in agreement. She got a lot of dark and annoyed looks from the others who did not want that shouted for people who might be nearby to catch them. "Which doesn't technically count as a crime if Lifebringer is fine with it," she reminded the others, though she was whispering this time.

"Yeah yeah, don't tell anyone I saw you," Zach said with a roll of his eyes at Rebecca's last statement. He said it in a more carefree way, calming down some of the homeless guys who got darker looks on their faces now and were ready to teach Rebecca a lesson if she was considering using that as an excuse to other heroes or police if she was ever caught. "I don't want to get in trouble for that. And you guys should probably clear out of here quickly if you want to keep using it. Once someone notices a single time-"

"Oh, we know," the old man with almost closed eyes said with a low, experienced chuckle.

"Good," Zach said. "Well then, I've got to head out," Zach dropped down off the counter. He leaned back on it and put his hands down on either side of him as he did. "One last thing though. This drug, you know the kind of drug it's being passed off as? I heard a party drug, but so little's known about it still…"

Paiku hesitated, but then he smiled towards the young hero and nodded his head. "My guy told me they'd be great for parties. Clubbing and such," he specified. "Hope that helps."

"Oh definitely," Zach assured, surprising the man who felt like Lifebringer sounded genuine about that. "Should help me out a lot. Thanks guys, always fun talking to you."

"Come by anytime," Tedo replied with a nod after Lifebringer's back, the fat man getting to his feet as the kid walked away. All the homeless behind him stood up, and Tedo called after him, "Or to the alley we first met, or the one on 15th and West- you know the place!"

"And if you've got food again- hey! Just saying…"

"Thanks for today."

"Thank you!" A chorus of voices echoed after the oldest man's first one like the rest were all reminded they had forgotten to thank him properly yet.

* * *

 **22:06 Saturday**

 _ **nnc nnc nnc nnc nnc nn-nn-nn-nnc nnc nnc chhh**_

On a brightly lit sidewalk in Roppongi, a district of Tokyo know for its night life, a line stretched out the door around ten o'clock and down along the sides of the closed buildings around the entrance to B-Low. The club's entrance was in between two buildings and had a staircase just behind it that descended into immediate darkness compared to the street above. The floor close to the entrance was vibrating, and out from the open doors and down the stairs, the music came out with mainly only the deep base being heard from this distance and through the floors.

The night club's name was above the open doors and lit up unlike during the day when the sign turned off and made this part of the street look totally inconspicuous. On either side of B-Low's entrance too, there were normal stores in a popular shopping area of the district of Roppongi. Not far down the road at either of the corners of the block were convenience stores still open as they were 24/7, but they got pretty crowded around this time as people heading to the clubs went to those stores first to buy cheaper drinks to pregame with. Two people who each just grabbed a 16 oz bubbly Heavy Zero, a popular beer in Japan with high alcohol content and good taste despite having zero calories, stood on the line into B-Low and were trying to drink fast as they were not allowed to bring the drinks into the club itself.

Behind the man and woman drinking their beers, was a slightly older woman than those two along with a younger-looking girl in a bandanna that wrapped around the top of her head. The older woman looked at the girl next to her while the two in front were drinking heavily on their way inside, since everyone knew B-Low's drinks were overpriced. She opened up her purse hanging off her right arm and pulled out a small flask, and she said to the girl next to her who was shorter by a couple inches, "You're driving tonight."

"Hahh, yeah alright," the girl conceded, losing her super disappointed look after a second and just agreeing with that statement. _Would I have already known that? Maybe I should have said "yeah yeah" like it's been a few times she told me?_ The girl standing next to the older woman did not see a look of disapproval back at her though, instead just a smirk and then the woman taking a quick sip out of her flask. The shorter and younger girl glanced behind her and rose her eyes up at two men standing behind her who she just noticed were checking her out only once she turned. She spun back forward quickly after making eye contact, though luckily the college-aged men behind her did not catch that they had locked eyes for a second.

The girl in front of them had light beige-colored skin, though around her eye sockets she had no skin, or eyes, and all they saw looking into them was red actually from the bandanna wrapped around the back of her head. The girl wore a blue dress with straps up over her shoulders that also went down the tops of her arms too, and her dress went lower than her friend's that was higher to midway up her thighs. The older woman had short black hair she let fall naturally straight around her head, she had a more carefree look on her face and appeared older than the girl at her side who had gotten real nervous when she looked back.

"Hey," the man right behind the girl started, leaning his head forward on her left side and surprising her that he would do so. "No need to be so shy. If it's about your eyes, I think it's interesting you can't see them actually."

"O-Oh, really?" She turned to the man and asked with her smile rising. _That was, very nice._

"Ohh, do you guys go to Hommino?" The older woman who turned after her eye-less friend asked. The second of the guys behind them who was blond unlike his brown-haired buddy, was wearing a college sweatshirt unzipped halfway as it was already hot just out on the sidewalk outside the night club. The walls going down the line had heaters on them, getting everyone ready to go inside where they would be prepared to take off their coats immediately and leave them at the coat rack that would be difficult to get back to if they went all the way down first just to realize they wanted to leave their coats back upstairs. Both of the girls already had their light jackets tucked into their left elbows, having shown off their dresses as soon as they felt warm enough on the line.

The college guys started talking to the older woman more specifically as she seemed interested in their college and knew about their rivalry with her own college she was graduating from that year. The shorter girl next to her older friend shifted her invisible eyes over at her mentor, _Am I doing something wrong? I should take part more! Incognito's not cutting me off, I'm just not being assertive enough! Or… was he only nice to me to get her to talk to them? I don't look good at all with all this makeup on. It's just clumped on there so thick._

Toru Hagakure could feel the thick makeup on her arms, her legs, and all over her face and neck. She wore a more modest dress so she did not have to cover her chest at all in it like she would if she was wearing Incognito's dress that revealed more cleavage. The makeup was uncomfortable though, and worse was the knowledge that it was waterproof in case she started sweating down in the nightclub that was sure to be hot. There were two basements down below them, and each basement stretched much wider than the buildings above as the club had the deeds to underground several stores and offices on the block. The reason they could feel the ground shaking below them already was because the club extended directly below their feet, and Hagakure glanced down as her next step was to a spot that vibrated even more. _Am I right over the DJ? I'm so excited. I've never been to a club before!_

Hagakure's excitement saved her, as she only got nervous again right as she was about to hit the door. She handed off her fake I.D. just as Incognito did the same right before her. The pro hero was going by the name Kimiko Amia, and Hagakure was Yukino Nodo. The picture taken not very long ago that very night made the photo all the more convincing since it said she was twenty years old and her birthday was only last week. The eighteen year old girl trying to pass for the drinking age got asked her birthday, and she replied confidently what it was while still looking nervous. The bouncer checked the photo again, then he rose his head and smiled at the small girl in front of him, "Happy birthday then," he said. "And enjoy," he added while handing it back to her, a knowing look on his face like he could see this was her first time heading to a club since she now could.

Hagakure took it back and smiled brightly at the man in front of her. "Thank you!"

She turned and headed inside, and the boys behind her called out after Yukino and Kimiko, "We'll see you girls inside!"

"Yeah," Hagakure called back with a wave. Then she rushed up to Incognito who frowned at her as soon as they turned to go down the stairs. Yukino's invisible eyes opened wide at her pro's look like she had done something wrong.

"Couple things," Incognito said. She handed Hagakure an earpiece that Hagakure put in quickly while they continued down the stairs into a much louder room, which was still far from any of the four DJs in the club. Even as it got louder around them, and darker so Hagakure would not have been able to read Incognito's lips well either in the dim red light that filled the rooms normally when there was no strobe (which flashed often but at the beat of the songs). "Remember not to make such emphatic facial expressions. Your makeup will mess up if you smile that much like you just did, a couple of times." Hagakure lowered her smile down and reminded herself of that which she already heard from Incognito's support team who equipped her for the mission. "It was good work making them seem genuine, but if the makeup cracks it's not such a simple fix. At first it might be hard for some people to put together, but as soon as chunks of your face become invisible people are going to realize who you are, Invisible Girl."

"Yeah, made it seem genuine," Hagakure agreed half-heartedly, chuckling in a nervous way to herself afterwards.

"Also, you shouldn't have given those guys the idea that we'll meet up with them in here. We can't have them compromise our work," Incognito added. "So follow me. We'll disappear in here before they get inside…"

The two undercover heroes slipped into the night club and moved through the middle of the first room between two bars on the sides where most people were crowded around. There was a huge room to their right around the bar closer to them, with some fog coming out of there and great music playing as the only DJ on the floor was on that side. The other side of the floor was a more open room, some poles in it on top of long tables not high above the ground, some booths, and groups of people up and drinking and talking. It would be harder to be seen inside the foggy room that was so crowded it was difficult to even move once they entered. So they went into that room, and immediately the two heroes made a bee-line for the opposite side and doors over there that connected to more of the huge club, as well as to a staircase going down in a cut-off to the left.

Yukino and Kimiko smiled and moved like any other club-goers ready to enjoy a night of partying. As they finally squeezed through and reached the stairs to farther down in the club, Incognito leaned in towards her younger associate's right ear, "Let's get drinks in our hands. Guys will approach us more often if we have no drinks."

"You think they'll offer to buy us-" Hagakure stopped asking as Incognito gave her a look. "Y-Yeah, let's go buy our own," Hagakure agreed with the pro who turned away before rolling her eyes at her young sidekick's excitement.

Hagakure felt weird buying alcohol for the first time, even if Incognito was the one ordering for her. She watched the pro hero who was well into the act and drew lots of eyes from the guys around her, only for those guys to mainly lose interest after a second or two. Hagakure watched this and got a relieved look on her face at how nonchalant they were about looking away. _Villains only notice during fights when they need to be paying attention to her. She can be as invisible as me in here though- more actually!_ Hagakure reminded herself after thinking it that Incognito really was going to stick out less in there thanks to her Quirk than Hagakure would.

Incognito's Quirk, Pay-No-Mind, worked well for operations like these. It was a Quirk that could be used without anyone noticing, a passive ability that kept people from looking at her for very long. Her real appearance was attractive for when she needed it to be, but at the same time for all the guys who had looked towards her at the bar, she wasn't attractive enough to go after. Or she was too attractive to even waste time thinking about going and asking to buy her a drink, because it wouldn't lead anywhere. Or she just seemed like a boring person. All Incognito had to do was stand there, and everyone else would lose interest after barely a moment. And should there be villains on the lookout for heroes, one look at her and they'd be convinced by how bland and un-heroic she looked that she was just another random clubbing twenty-something.

Hagakure got her drink, and she and Incognito walked away from the bar with the cups given out by the bar that would not draw attention. The two of them headed straight to the bathroom where they dumped the drinks, poured mostly water back in, then spiked the water with the liquor-smelling drink inside of Incognito's flask that gave a little color to the insides of their plastic cups too. "It'll be bitter," Incognito told her intern who took a sniff of the drink and pulled back with her nose scrunched up.

Hagakure looked up into the mirror and stopped scrunching like that, _Deep breaths. No faces!_ Having to be careful about what kind of facial expression she made was a totally new concept for Hagakure, and she gulped at the thought of that inexperience. Incognito told her over the loud thumps of the bass shaking the bathroom that they were heading back out though, and the invisible girl not living up to that hero name nodded in agreement and made for the exit.

The heroes stayed undercover in the club for over forty minutes before getting any hint of what they were looking for. Hagakure mainly just listened when Incognito tried throwing out hooks, but no one they spoke to so far after some long-initiated conversations had any inclination towards hard drugs. A couple guys mentioned having marijuana, but although Hagakure was surprised and looked to her pro hero to see what they should do, Incognito just laughed and declined doing it with them. _We're after bigger fish tonight!_ Hagakure reminded herself, then she reminded herself of something else and stopped looking so serious to return to a more ditzy appearance.

Around eleven at night, Incognito and her intern spotted a deal. They had failed to get in with anyone, but they spotted a transfer of money and started tracking the two who headed a different direction. The club was packed, and there were more rooms than Toru could count. When they lost track of the two guys for a moment, they wound up seeing them again and witnessing the guy who handed off the money pocketing something and walking away from the guy who had led him through the club first. _Why here?_ Hagakure wondered, and she looked around for someone else who must have handed off the drug at some point for that deal to happen.

"Hey! Amia-san! Nodo-san!"

"Play along," Incognito reminded her sidekick. She was about to mention something too to Hagakure about blending in immediately as she was worried their mark knew they were tracking him. There was no need to make themselves blend in though, as the two guys from Hommino who met them at the door happened to be in the room they just entered. The two seemed to have drank a lot more in the past hour than the two female heroes who noticed their polite demeanors and friendly expressions at the door had gotten cockier as they played it like they were close friends already.

After spending a good ten minutes talking to the guys, Incognito mentioned how they had to use the bathroom. The two of them left the area hoping not to see those guys again inside the large club, and they tracked their dealer who they had a good look at once which was all they needed. As many people as there were in the club, losing sight of the man was not their biggest worry right now. "It's still early," Incognito said, her voice coming into Hagakure's head over the music thanks to the earpiece. "We'll stay on him. Make sure it's Drug X that he's pushing."

"Even if it's not…"

"We'll stop it anyway," Incognito assured the hesitant girl at her side. "But we have a goal tonight. Don't lose track of it. The police deal with matters lower than what we're chasing." _And even this would normally be a mainly police issue. But with a killer drug like this there's a good chance of the dealers being hardcore villains. If we can track the dealers to a base tonight though, we've got the others in the team and the police on standby. The raid is all set up. But if we fail, the raid's a no-go._ Incognito's eyes shifted to the side at the young girl who was smiling and shaking her hips as they continued their way through the club. Despite Hagakure's misgivings a minute ago, she was playing her part well, and Incognito's smile shifted a bit more genuine in a soft grin at her future sidekick who she'd already offered a real job for once she graduated.

Incognito's smile would not last long. Although she was great at disguises and going undercover, she was not prepared for what she saw as they watched their mark far back from one of the stages but staying in a crowded area. "Yukino, look at our dealer," Incognito said while turning away, dancing while facing the other direction but fully losing her smile now with a much more serious look on her face.

Hagakure danced around so she was facing Incognito but off to the side so she could see far through the club. She was short, but she maneuver-danced in a way to get a view over towards the dealer. _There's him. And that guy, totally seems like a drug dealer._ Hagakure saw the one they were following get approached by another dealer who she figured out was probably a smaller time one. The guy had a tattoo on his right arm that stuck out of his shirt sleeve, and his bottom lip was pierced twice just like his tongue that had two rings in it. He brought a guy with him with slicked-back black hair who their mark stared at closely just as Hagakure was. She focused more on that guy who the second dealer brought over and started talking about to the dealer they knew was one, which was another reason she could tell he was a dealer too.

 _Who's that?_ Hagakure thought. She wondered it while staring at the man who was broad at the shoulders but also lean and relaxed so he did not look all that big. His dark hair was slicked-back and appeared gelled, he had a smirk on his face, and his black t-shirt had a low v-neck that showed off the top of his chest and his gold chain necklace. He wore a pair of jeans with the knees torn so the material was thin and white, and holding up the jeans was a belt with a chain loop hanging off the right side of it. The guy looked good, handsome, but he didn't have an intimidating presence nor did he give off a vibe of a dealer… He was facing sideways from Hagakure's perspective, but her eyes shifted up to the right side of his face closer to her and then shifted back down. _Why did I look there? It's not like…_

The smaller-time drug dealer started saying something excitedly to the one Incognito and Hagakure were following. Then, the third guy leaned in and said some stuff and smirked, and he laughed along with the dark-red haired dealer who had been suspicious and cautious at first. The younger-looking guy with slicked hair added something else that got the three of them laughing again, and the redhead dealer leaned in and added something himself with a big smirk that appeared so villainous to Hagakure.

"You're staring too much, Yukino," Incognito warned.

Hagakure turned back to Incognito who looked at the girl next to her with a serious look all of a sudden. "Hold it back," she added in her warning. Hagakure's breath was already picking up there when Incognito warned her, and the look on Incogito's face confirmed the feelings Hagakure already had welling up inside her. She turned her head to the side again, desperately trying to hide her shocked expression which was not something she could easily manage after years of having no reason to. She stared back towards those villains and the good-looking guy with them, and her invisible eyes were massive as she thought, _ZACH?!_

* * *

 **21:52** **Saturday**

Fourteen minutes before Hagakure and Incognito would be at the same spot on line for B-Low, Zach Sazaki approached the entrance himself. He was alone on line, but he knew the names of the people both in front and behind him. He had talked to both groups and both really liked the guy who had said relatable things that came out as jokes about the long-ass line and the freezing cold despite those heaters, and about how he had heard the DJs tonight were going to be great which interested the people who did not look it up beforehand.

It hadn't taken him very long, and he had a good grasp on the eight people closest to him. The ones farther than that in front and behind him were all detailed characters in his head by now too. Many of the people who had already headed into the club were the ones he focused on the most at first, since he knew he had the least amount of time in line watching them. His usually hazel eyes had red irises instead tonight, though it was a light red that kept his vision not-so distorted. He had to forcefully move his eyes slower than he could though so as not to draw unwanted attention. Zach watched the bouncer up ahead of him and relaxed some as he caught a transfer of some yen folded underneath an I.D. just handed over. The bouncer took the I.D., pretended to look at it while taking the money instead, then he just handed it back and allowed the underage minor into the club.

 _She didn't look too young. Not great, but it's great for me._ Zach stayed close to the edge of the sidewalk. He already had his jacket off and held in one arm, which showed off his style more and drew attention from more than a few of the girls on the line. After what he mentioned about the heaters he knew it was strange for him to be far from them now, but if any of the guys he talked to about that were to turn and ask, he'd tug at his collar and mention how they must have heard him and turned them up which was why he had to take off the jacket. _Don't want to sweat too much. I put it on carefully, but this stuff's not waterproof. I wish Mina had taken into account what I'm using it for instead of just getting what she preferred. I won't sweat very much though in this kind of environment. As long as I'm careful._

 _Biggest thing I'll have to be careful are handsy women. Brushing up against people won't be a problem as long as I'm paying attention, but I can't "casually" pull away from girls trying to touch me while going along with my Dimmin persona. Wouldn't make sense, and would draw unwanted attention to the areas I don't want people touching._ Zach checked out one of the girls ahead of him only one spot behind the group talking to the bouncer currently, as she was checking him out too and he wanted her to see him doing so back. Her friend said something to her with an exasperated look and made her friend look back forward to step up as the bouncer was ready for them. Then that girl looked back to see the guy her friend was making eyes at, and Zach looked at her with a look that said she was the one of her and her friend that he was more into in the first place.

 _Such a weird thing,_ Zach thought as the second girl had to spin and fumble with her I.D. after getting completely distracted there for a second. He turned his head and looked across the street aimlessly as he waited, _It's a long line for not even ten o'clock yet. I showed up early since guys don't get into clubs when they're too packed, especially guys doing what I'm about to do. It's early though, and it'll probably work based on past experiences. That was a girl right there, but I'm a good-looking guy in my makeup and with my hair slicked back. That'll be a second incentive for the bouncer as he's not going to get in trouble from his boss for accepting a bribe when the person he let in is good looking. The ratio or something. It should be fine, probably, though I don't really know how I can judge my own looks._

Zach went back to examining all the people on line far behind him as he was almost at the front now. His eyes shifted back while still facing the side, and he wondered, _I never got why the guys in my army treated me as the cool/hot one, acting jealous of my appearance that all the girls "fell for."_ Zach looked back forward and reached down into his pocket to get ready with some money. He had to admit it to himself though with a small shrug, _I did notice many of the girls in my forces were attracted to me, at times. Other than Darling they all stayed very professional though… well, maybe_ _ **because**_ _of Darling,_ Zach admitted again, and he lowered his smile down but then tried to return it strong as it was just about his turn.

B-Low was a popular night club in Tokyo. The bouncer was paid decently, but an extra 10,000 yen bill was something he was not going to decline. Even though the guy did not do it as discreetly as most people, talking to him with a friendly look and going for a low-five that he handed off the cash with, the bouncer did not even make that much for the whole night so he just motioned past him which the club-goer gave him a look of gratitude for.

Zach left his jacket in the coat room and headed downstairs into the huge underground nightclub. His head nodded with the beats and his lips curled up at the right corner. He got a kick in his step on the last few stairs, and he cracked his neck to either side while shrugging his shoulders to loosen up. _Who's playing? Solid set, got a mix of some EDM and Rap, don't recognize the songs in the mix- oh shit is that Summer's Gone? Nice,_ he walked up to the entryway into a huge foggy room and moved around with a confident look over his face that never faltered.

A lot of the guys in the club stayed close to their friends. They were in tight groups and the idea of walking up to girls and talking to them was even more nerve-racking when they had their best friends to make fun of them when they failed. Many of the groups hanging around the dance floor were both guys and girls who arrived together, but people on their own was a very rare occurrence. It was a party atmosphere and not the best place to pick up dates either, much too fast paced especially out on the dance floor for anything other than an eye-lock hook-up. Zach was not looking for a girl to take home though, nor was he there to just dance and let loose from a tough day at work, nor did he come to get plastered with friends. And someone whose intentions were unlike everyone else at the club's, was someone who could relate to everyone else at the club whose true intentions he could see from a single glance at them and their friends.

 _They're not looking for guys who are going to hit on them,_ Zach was near a few girls as the area around him just got a lot more crowded. When he had to step closer to them to let people go through the crowd, he made eye contact with one of the girls. In two seconds he watched as her expression went from curious, to annoyed, to surprised. Her curiosity that maybe she knew him was replaced by the annoyance that this random guy was just going to walk up and awkwardly dance next to her, but that turned into surprise as the guy in front of her (who at second glance was actually really good looking), did not give her a flirtatious look back but more of just a friendly one that made her feel like he actually did not intend to "bump" into her like other guys would attempt to get away with.

The club was still really crowded around him, and Zach's head turned left and right for a second before he shrugged and just stayed where he was. He looked back at the girl he saw looking at him again, and this time his eyes did raise up and then down as he checked her out. Her friend turned too in surprise as her friend was dancing with someone based on the way she was facing someone facing back to her. Zach turned to the friend too and pushed his hands out to the side and down at a drop in the song that made the girl raise her eyebrows in surprise and then laugh as the guy in front of her did not seem awkward or embarrassed at all about his lame dance move. His confidence did not seem cocky either as he laughed too when she did, and the other girl he had faced first giggled at his surprisingly silly demeanor she was not expecting at first look at him.

The handsome guy who could have played it slick and tried pick-up lines on them finally started talking to the girls. The one he had made eye contact with first had pointy ears sticking out of her orange hair, and her ears were triangle-shaped and covered in slightly darker orange fur than her hair was. She had a tail of that same dark orange color that waved back and forth behind her with the music, as much a part of her dancing as moving her hips or feet was. The other girl wore less skimpy of an outfit as her cat-like friend, and her whole head was made of braids of blonde hair that all pulled up and then fell back in one long braid falling behind her back down to below her waist.

Zach didn't point out their Quirks. He didn't mention how he liked their mutations or found them more attractive or something, which he figured any/most guys would try when picking up those girls. Instead he just talked to them about how he hadn't been to B-Low before, which was true. And he asked which special drinks there were the best, which the girls knew and were excited to tell him about considering they had been there several times before. They made a joke to him about pregaming beforehand, but Zach told them he hadn't which surprised the girls who felt the person in front of them was even cooler that he was acting this confident with girls he just met… without being drunk even a little bit.

After a couple minutes Zach headed off. The last song had ended and the DJ was shouting something, and Zach slipped off saying he was going to try one of those drinks that he thanked the girls for telling him about. He didn't ask for their numbers, and he made no promise of seeing them again in the club, and the two girls watched the guy head off. And once he was gone, for some reason neither of them understood, they felt like they recognized him.

Zach went to a bar between a couple of the big dance rooms. A recognizable song was blasting through the place after the pause from the DJ, and Zach could hear people singing along from both sides of him. A group of guys near the bar were laughing and talking, and Zach could see a couple of them recognized the song but one of their friends was talking about something in a rushed voice making it seem like an awesome story. Zach stepped right up between them and yelled out some of the lyrics, interrupting the guy who laughed at Zach's stumble right after calling it out. Two of the others Zach just stepped between threw their arms out around Zach's back as he did the same over their shoulders and leaned forward, and the next line was the most recognizable of the song that had the title in the verse, so the whole group belted it out with their new drunk friend who laughed his ass off when everyone sang along the chorus with him.

The whole group laughed too with their buddy who one of them asked how old he really was, as he seemed like a high schooler the way he was acting and handling his booze. Zach just laughed at the question though and pointed a finger back asking how old _he_ was! Zach said proudly which college he went to school, surprising the guys who all went to the same one and laughed that they did not know this guy who they wish they had met sooner.

"You guys are a-urp- awesome! Let's do shots!"

Zach's newfound friends were even more inclined to keep hanging with him now as he offered them free booze, and he got them a round of shots at the bar while trying to act a bit more sober for the bartender's sake. The other college guys behind him held back laughter at Zach's straight-up posture and how he attempted to pull his money out of his wallet very professionally only to bobble it for a moment and smirk back in a proud way that he didn't drop any.

"Yo! On three!" Zach handed out the shots to the guys who came to the counter with him.

"To Dimmin!" The guy on Zach's left called out with a look down the line at his other friends.

"THREE!"

Zach slammed back down his shot glass that had none of the liquor left in it like the others next to him who were none the wiser as to where his drink actually went as they had all tilted their heads back at the same time. He shook his head around and scrunched his face for a second, but he laughed with the others at the guy who reached for another drink quickly to chase down that bad shot of straight tequila. "Yo you guys rock," Zach said with some laughs as he backed off from the counter.

"Ey! Where you going?"

"I'll- I'mma go dance," Zach pointed a finger over his shoulder and laughed. "Maybe pick me up a dime. Wish me luck," he spun looking confident and fresh, and he pulled at the front of his shirt a couple times before leaning back and walking in a slightly funny way away from the guys. He knew two of them were wondering if they were going to have to spend the whole night with him, but as he was the one to start backing off he saw those two apprehensive looks fade the rest of the way as they were more disappointed they didn't know more about this Dimmin guy. Others laughed at his confidence that they wondered if they could even manage, though they told themselves they would be able to if they were as drunk as Dimmin was.

 _Alright, good warm-ups._ Zach clapped his hands together while heading down a flight for the lower basement. _Was that really Hagakure I saw up there? If so then the one next to her was Incognito. Wonder if they're after the same thing? Maybe I should've stayed in my own backyard. It's not that popular in Yutapu yet though, whereas this is a hotspot for it. One of the places where two of those who have died frequented. But since they weren't here the nights they O.D.-ed, the clubs never got associated with the drug and so the dealers wouldn't start avoiding it yet. Nobody ever **will** die from that drug after going to this club. Not anymore. _

Zach descended into a darker floor of the club where the music changed up. He was moving through soundproofed floor so that the DJs would not interrupt each other, and the narrow stairway was not enough for the sound to seep through even with as many speakers as there were all over the place. Zach moved to the side of the stairs as a couple had stopped on it right in front of him and were making out with the three foot tall guy pressed up against the wall to make out with his bigger and taller girlfriend. They saw him and then giggled and continued up the stairs, looking to be on their way out of the club.

Zach turned his head and watched them continue up behind him, then he laughed while heading down the rest of the stairs. He flashed a laughing smile at the guy on his side who had been at the bottom of the stairs, and the guy laughed back while rolling his eyes at the two who headed up before him. He dropped down onto the lower floor and smirked in a more cocky way than he had been earlier. His body language changed in an instant, his hands sliding down into his jeans' pockets and his eyes getting narrower for just walking around normally.

 _Time to go buy drugs._

Incognito and Hagakure spotted Zach on the lowest floor of the club. They saw him over with the dealer they had been tracking along with another who brought this guy over not just for drugs apparently, but to talk instead as the guy with the v-neck black tee was laughing with the two dealers. He motioned with his arms in front of him and made a sound effect with his mouth that had the redhead dealer staring at him with wider eyes for a second, then Dimmin leaned in and added something that made the guy shake his head and turn to the club-goer in skeptical disbelief, only to see a serious look on the guy's face that surprised his new drug dealer buddy.

The dealer with the pierced bottom lip and tongue cut back in to mention something to his own comrade who looked to him in a slightly annoyed way as he wanted to continue his conversation with this guy. The redhead turned back and got a slightly more suspicious feel to him again, but the guy before him said something that put him ease or so Incognito thought as she turned to the side and watched them again. Incognito and Invisible Girl watched without watching as the guys talked about something for a little longer, then they moved farther back in the room but stayed in the same room anyway as they moved more for the shadows.

Hagakure's chest pounded harder, her heart rate speeding up so much as the drug dealer they had been following took something else and traded the guy in the black shirt for some cash. _Zach, don't-_ Hagakure's head turned the other way and she clenched her eyes shut. She just watched as Zach bought that small pink square of the drug, then popped it into his mouth without hesitation. Hagakure's hands clenched as fists, but Incognito grabbed her by the sleeve. Hagakure turned, and Incognito gave her a serious look in the moment that made Hagakure try to force a smile.

For a second there, she was so hurt that all she wanted to do was break cover to go and stop Zach. She told herself it did not matter if she stared over in shock, but then she reminded herself that due to the makeup it did matter what her expression appeared like. She tried to keep a happy-go-lucky expression while dancing again, but she kept Zach in her peripherals while moving around in the crowd to be able to keep a bobbling view of him. She saw him start laughing with the dealers after taking the drug, and he shook his head around making a "brr" sound with his lips.

"That was what we're looking for," Incognito told her sidekick. "And you know who that is, don't you?" Incognito was a master of disguise and still only recognized him after staring closely at the areas where she knew there had to be makeup based on her hypothesis. Her sidekick knew Sazaki much better though, and the look on her face showed she clearly recognized him. "That doesn't matter right now though," Incognito added, and Hagakure darted her eyes to her and then back towards the men who were talking about something else now that had the two dealers looking a bit more serious.

Zach kept talking to the dealers for a few seconds, then he flashed a lot of money that the women watching from afar barely caught a glimpse of and quickly had to turn away afterwards and blend in with the crowd as the dealers looked to get more intense. Zach spoke just like them though, and he laughed while looking around at all the people around him before turning back to the redhead who he saw peel that pink square off a bigger sheet of the drug.

The guy Zach was talking to originally looked more hesitant like he did not know this was how this was going to go, and he eased back a little as he was no longer really needed in the conversation. The one Zach was talking to considered it for a second, then he smirked and nodded at the guy he liked. He turned his body and pulled back out the full sheet, and he peeled off a full line of them and turned to tell Dimmin the amount he had to pay. Zach grinned more as he heard it, getting a discount for buying in bulk like this. _I can flip this shit for double,_ Zach thought, and he made his expression reflect what he knew he could do with this.

"I'll get the upstairs," Zach offered. "Come back to you when I'm out."

"You think you can push all that-" the guy who brought Zach over began, surprised as he did not even have that much on him whenever his buddy he was working with (for) let him sell any himself. Zach was not currently working for him, but the redhead started to wonder if maybe he should get him to considering how confident the dark-haired guy seemed to be about selling it all quick. He dealt drugs himself and yet wasn't there to be competition since he did not have a supplier for the same shit, which meant he was going to have to go through the redhead and pay him for anything he wanted to do in the club. The way Zach worded what he wanted to do made there seem to be no down-sides for the dealer who could not imagine him as a cop or hero based on that violent and illegal story the guy told them when he came over.

Zach headed off after paying a hefty sum for the amount of drug he now needed to go push. _Spending a whole lot tonight. Took out my whole savings for this. I'll have to pull out some investments if the night doesn't go as planned._

"Stay with Sazaki," Incognito said. She said it in a whisper and felt bad but kept her voice steady and serious. Hagakure felt her heart ache again but she nodded her head, as that was what she wanted to do anyway. "Keep track of what he's doing. And, don't let him see you," Incognito added. Then she spun to fully face her friend she was dancing with and called out about getting them new drinks so she could be heard over the loud music.

"Okay! I'm going to the bathroom," Hagakure called back, less enthusiastically though she felt she made it as believable as possible.

Hagakure tracked Zach through the lower floor of the club and then waited a little before going up the stairs after him. She searched around for him and spotted him not too far from the stairwell, making her turn away and pretend to just be looking for a bathroom. _Who's he talking to?_ Hagakure wondered while trying to keep him in her peripheral vision though it was difficult with taller people walking between them at the distance she was keeping.

Zach moved from the group he first started talking to, over to a couple guys he saw near the closest bar who he had met and talked to back outside of the club. They had met up with some friends inside the club and had talked to some other people too, all of whom Zach was now acquainted with too after a few seconds of his old acquaintances mentioning who this was to the others. He acted drunker than he had been out in front of the club, and he joked about how hot it was down there as it was something he had been talking about with the guys back out front of the club. It was also something one of the girls _just_ mentioned which made her face light up as she exclaimed, "RIGHT?!"

He had seen her tugging at the front of her shirt before seeing her mouth those words when he was talking to the other group he just met, but he still laughed along in surprise that she had thought the very same thing. She got closer to him as this hot guy laughed at what she was saying, and Zach acted the same drunk level she was at for a moment before noticing one of the guys seeming to get jealous watching him. He made eye contact with the guy, and he made a small motion of his eyes down before looking back up with the best wingman look he could have for this man who was almost a complete stranger to him. The green-skinned man with spiky horns on his scalp instead of hair lost all jealousy immediately and instead felt the guy he was looking at was even cooler for not just coming and stealing his girl but actually going to help him out with flirting with her.

When Zach headed away from the group, he lowered his left hand and low-fived the guy in a subtle way that only he and one of Zach's acquaintances from back front of the bar saw. The guy who knew Zach from back outside shook his head and had a shocked look on his face for a second though also a huge smile that someone like this was real. _Always better having a lot of friends in here. People to blend in with. People to help me out. No one will get your back quicker than drunks you've just met who think you're great. And I can't show any badassness at all, even without using my Quirk, as long as I'm in here. As soon as I do, that's when people start to notice the gloves._

Zach had on a pair of black gloves that were thin and looked to match his clothes somehow, just as his watch on his right hand and bracelet on his left looked cool with the way he was wearing them. The scars on his skin sleeve of his left arm were covered up with makeup just as much as the ones on his neck and upper chest and right arm were. _Feeling a bit sweaty. Better reapply in a stall._ Zach dipped out and headed for a bathroom, though he made careful to slip between groups and move quickly across the club like he really had to go all of a sudden. Then, as he neared the bathroom he was heading for and looked like he needed to go to, he continued past and rounded a corner to continue on just as someone else was opening the door to go inside.

Hagakure found herself standing a short distance away from a bathroom for close to ten minutes before feeling like she had been given the slip. _Did he know I was following him? Is he still in there? Did the drug give him a bad trip- is he dying in there?! No, no no Zach's- he's better than that! He's not just in a toilet throwing up or, or losing his mind! Something else is happening here. I need to… go tell Incognito that I lost him. I never really saw him go in here in the first place, did I? He looked like he needed to go though?_

Hagakure scratched the back of her head over her bandanna as she went back through the club and headed downstairs again. _What was he doing though? Why was he talking to those people like that? The things he was doing didn't make any sense. His demeanor completely changed a couple times too! He's so good at this, but why did he…_ Hagakure's invisible eyes lowered down and her chest tightened up as she thought about the sight that made her so quickly turn away. The pink square going into Zach's mouth and the look on his face after he swallowed it and laughed with the dealers. It flashed through her head again and she felt sick at the thought.

"Incognito," Hagakure started. "I'm walking towards where we were before-" Hagakure saw her mentor looking her way and waving her over with a call for 'Yukino.' Hagakure tried to make herself look more Yukino-ish as she headed over, but her expression was darker than it was before. "I'm sorry," Hagakure began as she neared her pro hero. In a disappointed voice, Hagakure said, "We lost him-" Hagakure's eyes widened as Incognito darted her eyes to the far side for Hagakure to look behind her. "Wha-"

Zach was back with the redheaded dealer again who was not far from Incognito's back but still close to a wall and talking discreetly with the other teenage hero in disguise at B-Low. Incognito told Hagakure to come with her to the bar, and she had Hagakure order drinks for them this time while her young intern was still trying to figure out just how Zach got out of that bathroom and here before her. Incognito turned around at the bar and was finishing off her last drink as the new ones got ordered behind her. Incognito was not looking straight at them, but she still examined them closely. Zach's back was turned to her, but the dealer was more focused on him than on anything behind him including the heroines in disguise.

 _So that's what he's doing,_ Incognito realized, watching Sazaki talking and trying to buy more with more money he had on him that he did not seem to have before. "Your friend must have just 'sold' all his product that he bought."

Hagakure got a confused look but tried to keep facing over the bar where the bartender was making her drinks. "But, he wasn't selling to anyone. He just went off and danced for a bit with people until I lost him."

Incognito hummed at that response and turned her head away for safe keeping. Her head turned back the other way as Yukino was being handed her drinks, and Incognito and Hagakure each watched while trading cups the new deal that was going on over at Zach and the dealer Incognito had been tracking for around an hour now. The redhead dealer gave Zach some more stuff, but not as much as he did earlier. Zach gave him a look and glanced down while mentioning something about being able to buy more than that. The dealer was already darting their eyes around though, getting a bit more serious despite the good luck he was feeling at how well the night was for business already.

"…yeah yeah. I feel you. Come back to this spot in 6 minutes." The guy lifted up a hand with 7 fingers on it, with only six of those fingers up.

"Haha, alright," Zach agreed. He laughed and added, "I'll probably sell the rest before you come back." That extra sentence made the dealer feel more confident this was the right decision, as it would be unnecessary in the long run if they failed to sell what they already had anyway. But if he waited until there was none left before getting more, he could be losing out on profits. Zach did not explain any of that to him, but the fourteen-fingered dealer with dark red hair understood it well enough on his own, and Zach suspected he would.

Zach continued to grin and looked to be about to just move off as the dealer headed away. He was supposed to "come back" in six minutes, which meant he was expected to not just stand there and to move around a bit. He watched the dealer leaving though, and as the man was leaving his sight, Zach's eyes narrowed and his feet and hips stopped moving as much with the music. His expression darkened and his smile faded quickly. Then he turned the opposite direction as where the dealer just went and he headed away with purpose in his stare.

"Um, what are we-"

"Follow Sazaki," Incognito said. She did not hesitate for a moment on it, _What is he doing?!_ The panic she had over Sazaki's plans was much more intense than what she could easily predict was coming from the dealer.

"Not our- okay," Hagakure quickly followed after Incognito who left her drink where it was and started away quickly after their new mark. "He's going faster," Hagakure realized as the two of them had sped up but were only losing Zach more. They were drawing attention to themselves too now, and Hagakure got even more nervous darting her eyes to either side seeing so many people looking towards her. "They're going to- where did he-"

Incognito lost him too. She had locked her eyes more on him than her sidekick did, but with every guy around her being taller, in a club that had gotten more packed over the past hour to the point she could not see ten meters in front of her, it was impossible to keep him in her view at all times. And in the brief moment she thought he was going to slip out of sight for a second or two, he had completely vanished from sight. She moved quicker into almost a run as she made for the area around a staircase. There were paths cutting each way near the bottom of the steps, along with the steps themselves, and a locker room to one side and bathrooms on the other.

"What do we do?" Hagakure asked, her voice serious but also confused and panicked as they had lost everyone now.

 _How did I lose him?!_ "Follow me," Incognito said. She rushed up the stairs and Hagakure kept close behind her. They ignored people around them asking what was going on, or why they were so serious or rushing, and the female heroes just pushed their way quickly through the first floor. Hagakure wanted to ask why they were heading farther back into the club instead of to the front doors where she thought Zach was going, but she decided not to doubt Incognito's intuition and just kept close to her as they moved farther in.

Incognito looked around as they crossed the first basement, but she did not slow down at all in her speed-walk across the floor. Her expression was serious and her eyes focused even while darting around for a sign of her targets. "Zach wouldn't…" Hagakure began behind her pro hero, but Incognito turned her head to the side and looked back at her as if asking if Hagakure knew what she was about to say for sure. Hagakure just got such a hurt look on her face instead though at the look Incognito gave back to her.

The girls reached the back of the club and went into a doorway with a bigger bouncer than was at the front door. "You can't-" Incognito flashed out her hero license and barely slowed down as she gave the bouncer a serious look.

"Hero business, do not interfere," Incognito said loudly while rushing into a large private room behind the main club area. A few groups of people in the area less crowded got up and looked towards the heroes in surprise as they rushed through, speeding up and running towards a back area where there were only some staff and a small kitchen off to one side. "This way," Incognito ran into the kitchen, and she spun her head every way and looked around at the paths around her trying to judge which way she needed to go.

"Excuse me! You cannot be-"

"Come on," Incognito said, and she rushed forward with the sides of her dress at her thighs pulling apart easily to allow her to run quicker. Her heels slid up into her shoes at the quicker pace she was running so they were more flat on bottom and kept her from tripping just as they did for Hagakure. The two of them got even shorter, but it did not matter anymore without the huge crowd they had to look through and over. "Out here," Incognito said, her voice getting quieter as she motioned for set of double doors down a dim hallway.

They rushed forward and threw open the back doors into a dark back area behind the club. They were at a loading dock with steps leading up on the opposite side as the main entrance. The area was mostly dark with only some light coming down from the top of the steps and the city outside, and the thudding of the bass in the background behind them got quieter as the double doors closed behind the heroines frozen where they stood.

They ran outside, and Zach spun to them. He still had on all his makeup and his disguise, including the black glove over his left hand that he had lifted up to a wall that he was pressing a guy up against. Zach's fingers lost their grip on the man's shirt and dropped him. The man fell down and landed on his butt still pressed with his back up against the wall, though he winced again and then snapped his head up with wide eyes a the figure standing right in front of him. There were three others out in that loading dock, with the redhead dealer Zach met inside unconscious on the floor along with two other guys slumped over and unmoving.

Zach grimaced as he turned to the two women staring at him as he dropped the drug dealer. "This one was the leader," Zach mentioned. Incognito looked down for a moment at the guy who spun to the two women wondering who they were as he did not recognize either of them. Zach's voice was low as he spoke, and guilty, and he hesitated for a moment as the two looked back at him. His eyes lingered on the eye-less girl with heavy makeup on all over before he shifted his attention back to the older woman. He continued to grimace but mentioned, "I knew I couldn't just leave after already being spotted."

Incognito frowned deeper. _Is he serious? It seems we caught him in the act, but could he have just gotten away quicker? Probably. He decided to stay because he knew I was following him._ "I'm glad you didn't," Incognito replied back, making Hagakure spin to her as they were finally talking and this confrontation was actually going on. Hagakure spun back to Zach with a nervous look over her face, panic spreading through her at what the implications of this were or the consequences for the boy in front of her would be. Incognito continued, "Since I would have to report about this anyway."

"I know," Zach said, admitting it in a low voice. He reached down, and he pulled out a pink sheet from his pocket when Incognito gave him a dark look at what he was doing. Hagakure never suspected a thing though and her completely unsuspicious attitude had Incognito staying calmer when Zach reached for something. He stepped forward and held the sheet out, and he handed it off to Incognito who stepped forward and took it from him. Then, Zach pulled out one individual tab that he handed off while looking back towards Hagakure who stared at him with her invisible eyes huge.

"You, really didn't take it yourself?" Hagakure asked.

Incognito was surprised too, but more-so she was surprised by how Sazaki immediately looked at her sidekick in an apologetic way for what he had pretended to do. "It was just sleight of hand," Zach assured his old classmate who felt so much weight lifting off of her shoulders. It was not all the weight, and she told herself not to feel that much relief, but she couldn't help it after how depressed she had been inside when she thought she saw Zach take it. And the fact that he was saying it straight to her meant he knew that she must have felt that way and had wanted to tell her it was not real since back then too, since he was in so much trouble right now but took the time out to assure her of it.

"I wouldn't do this drug knowing how dangerous Flyer is," Zach added while taking a step back from the hero he had stepped towards.

"'Flyer?'" Hagakure asked before Incognito could respond to Sazaki.

"It's a street name for the drug," Zach replied. "I'm just looking for the supplier."

Incognito's annoyed expression got stronger and she said in a frustrated voice, "I was looking to find the supplier myself, Lifebringer." Zach looked back at the woman who used his hero name but seemed to struggle to get it out. He could see on her face that she felt he had good intentions when he was doing this, which she accepted, but she was on the verge of snapping and just holding back. She glared down to the man still down on his butt who eased back at her look, though he appeared furious and turned back in that angry way towards Sazaki again. Incognito said while glaring down at the man still, "I could have followed this one back to wherever it's coming from if you hadn't-"

"1438 16th Street," Zach said.

He spoke the address, and Incognito rose her eyes up with them opened wide just like Hagakure's. The guy at Zach's feet leaning on the wall ground his teeth even angrier while shaking his head. Then he snapped up to one foot and reached a growing claw for Zach's side. Hagakure and Incognito both got ready to fight as they saw him moving like that when they thought he had been defeated or something already, but Zach did not move a muscle. He stood still while a black line whipped out of his left leg through his jeans and smacked the villain across his face, knocking him out and dropping him onto his side with what looked like the most minimal effort Zach could have put in.

Hagakure stared down in shock at the dealer who was out cold instantly from that attack she thought had caught Zach off guard. He never even looked back down at the man he knocked out. He just stood there in between four unconscious villains, none of which looked to have a scratch on them. And Zach just gave them an address which they assumed was the supplier's location based off the biggest dealer's reaction right there.

 _He did it faster than I could. If we wait any longer too, the suppliers will notice when these guys don't check in or come back. We have to make our move,_ Incognito thought it, and she could see Lifebringer watching her put that together in that moment. Her lips curled down farther at the corners as her eyes shifted over the dealers again, specifically the one who had apparently given Sazaki that important information. Her eyes locked on Sazaki's hazel ones, "I'm going to have to report you doing this without a hero license."

She warned him in a serious tone that sounded like she disapproved of what he did. Yet the fact that she was giving him the warning, and the fact that she did not say that she was going to arrest him herself, seemed more generous to Zach than disapproving. It also seemed to him like Incognito was mad at him more for putting her in this position where she needed to report him rather than let him go, like she was one of those who appreciates all he does. Zach shook his head though with a small smile at the warning she gave him. "I didn't use my Quirk without one," Zach told the woman, who gave him an odd look that he would even try that after she and Hagakure clearly just saw him use it.

"I only used it for self-defense after confronting some drug dealers," Zach said. He shrugged his shoulders while still smiling in that carefree way, and he motioned down at the only guy who had still been conscious out there when they arrived. He was their only example to back up what he said, and the two realized that Sazaki had waited until the guy tried attacking him to defend himself in front of them. The amount of thought that went into his actions was almost unnerving, if not for the more relieving aspect to it that Incognito noticed she was feeling. "This was all I was planning on anyway," Zach added as he put his hands down into his pockets, his tone more casual and relaxed now that made it sound like he was finished.

Hagakure gave Zach a confused look that he smiled a little more at seeing on her face, which Hagakure saw him staring at and made her shy away for some reason. With his hands still down in his pockets, he told the girl his own age, "I was just going to send in a tip about the location and head home." He turned back to Incognito and added, "I didn't expect heroes were already on the case, and I knew this nightclub was a hot spot for the drug. But, I should have just left it up to you," he admitted in agreement with the kind of look Incognito had given him. In that same more apologetic manner, Zach said in a lower voice, "I'm sorry. Just, could you make sure you get the suppliers?" He questioned.

Zach frowned more after he asked, and he gazed back at the club behind the girls where there had been a lot of cool people he met that night already. "This drug really bugs me," he muttered in a dark voice.

Incognito looked around at the four men who she could see some slight movement coming from each. None of them looked injured, including the one who had apparently given up the information. There weren't any bruises or marks on him, and she frowned a little more as her eyes shifted back to the teenage boy in front of her. "You can go," Incognito said. Hagakure turned to her pro hero in surprise, while Zach just nodded at the woman who had already made it out like she was going to release him here. But then, Incognito added after a moment, "I'll agree, not to say anything about your involvement, as you didn't really do any harm here."

Zach's eyes were wide just like Hagakure's this time as they looked at Incognito. The pro who just told Zach that got a more stern look on her face, "I will warn you not to overstep the bounds of your provisional license again though." Her stern look eased up and she gave him more of an expectant and semi-disappointed one, "You only have to last a couple months before you can get a full one."

Zach could see on her face that the disappointment she showed was because she believed he was going to screw up this chance he had. He nodded in agreement, and he just spoke softly in response, "I know." He paused for a second, then he said it aloud, "I just didn't want more people getting hurt from this drug during these months where I can't do anything. I don't like feeling like I can't do a thing…" Zach let out a low sigh and then lifted his head with a smile and a more grateful look at the older woman right in front of him. "Thank you, Incognito."

The boy looked back and forth at the two heroes in front of him, gave Incognito a small bow of his head, then he started towards and between them to the back doors. "H-Hey," Hagakure started while spinning fully to face her friend. Incognito glanced back too, but she turned away and pulled out her phone as she had more to deal with now as they were on a tight schedule. "Where are you going, Zach?" Hagakure questioned. "What are you doing now?"

"Going back into the club," Zach replied like it was obvious. Incognito frowned but continued her phone call despite what she just heard in the background. Zach continued to Hagakure who stared at him in total confusion, "I spent a lot of money already-" Zach paused suddenly. He turned and he walked back over to one of the unconscious men in the loading area, and he reached down to the redhead whose pockets he patted down. Zach pulled out a rolled-up stack of bills, and he counted off a specific amount of them before reaching back down and putting the rest back in the guy's pocket for evidence. He slid his own cash into his pocket with a grin back at Hagakure who gawked at him for doing that so casually while Incognito was on the phone and could not scold him.

"I can't believe you," Hagakure whispered as Zach walked back in front of her. She started smiling though and laughed at the look he gave her back like saying 'hey, it was my money in the first place.'

"I just want to say goodbye to a couple of people I met inside," Zach told his friend who he was glad to see that smile from right there. "Then I'll grab my jacket and head home." He turned and looked at Incognito as she lowered her phone and got ready to tell Hagakure something. "Good luck on the raid," Zach told the two girls. Then he reached back behind him and opened the loading dock door, and he disappeared back into the nightclub.

* * *

 **A/N Thanks for reading! Had the idea for this chapter back like a year ago or something after going to a nightclub in Roppongi... took a while to finally get it out but I hope you enjoyed it! Getting in these quick updates again, and I plan to keep doing so... though for the next week or so I might be a bit busy. My mom's getting married, all my family is coming over, but I'm working on the next chapter at a Starbucks right now so let's hope for another one out by tomorrow! Anyway, Zach uses his network of homeless friends, his bribing skills, and his acting, to work his way into finding the suppliers of a dangerous drug he wants off the streets. He even manages to keep from getting revealed for acting _(again)_ outside his normal means of his provisional license, but Incognito's worried he won't be able to keep that up for much longer- So leave a review below telling me what you think of the chapter! Questions, comments, predictions, or anything else you've got! **

Logargon chapter 163 . 8h ago

Oh a bear seems leg ... (double takes) ... WHAT THE HELL MAN WHY ARE WE ONLY LEARNING ABOUT THIS BOSS BEAR NOW!

 **XD lol I had the idea way back but when I decided not to write the full chapter for him during Death times I knew I was going to do it in a flashback after Zach returned instead due to Dover showing up unexpectedly. Once I thought that, I decided I wanted to keep Dover more of a secret to be suddenly revealed as a reminder that there was so much during Zach's year+ gone that even we don't know about, for us to have had no mention of him at all from the scene where he first appeared for a second. Plus since he wasn't a full member of the AoD, and we didn't see the King compound raid or Wampajawa which were alluded to a couple times (including last chapter where we heard that Dover had been involved with those two), there was little reason for him to be mentioned. Thanks for the review! Only one in the short time between these two chapters!**


	165. Chapter 165

**A/N Hey guys. Sorry for the long wait. My Mom just got married and I had to visit with family for the past week, but I've got a couple chapters going strong right now so I'll hopefully get up another tomorrow or day after too! Hope you enjoy this big one and look forward to those coming soon!**

 **Disclaimer: I don't own Boku no Hero Academia**

* * *

 **Chapter 165:**

In U.A. on Monday morning, Hagakure could hardly sit still through the first class of the day. She saw so many eyes on her, and All Might even mentioned something during homeroom about the good work she had done over the weekend specifically early on Sunday morning which all of her friends had woken up on to see her on the news.

She had been busy most of the day before, and when she got back to campus she fell asleep almost immediately after being awake for the whole night before. Now that she was surrounded by her classmates though, and there should be no need for confidentiality about her hero activities since the press conference already happened, she knew the questions were coming and found herself shaking in anticipation. _Oh no. I don't think I can do this!_ The excitement and anxiety Hagakure had felt through the weekend from the nightclub to the fight at the suppliers' production lab for Drug X, also known by the street name Flyer, all the way through the last talk with the press on her way back to campus, returned greater than ever while faced with the aspect of talking to her classmates.

 _I haven't even talked to Mashirao yet! If he asks me- I can't lie to him! I want to tell him too!_

As soon as the first period was done, Hagakure's classmates rushed around her seat. "Great job this weekend Toru!" Uraraka said as she leaned over the left side of her friend's seat.

"I had no idea that's what you've been working on…"

"You looked great at that press conference!" Ashido called out.

Ojiro walked up next to his girlfriend's desk. He had been in occasional contact with her over the weekend but knew she was working and tried not to distract her. When she came back too, he told her to get some rest when she said tiredly that she wanted to tell him all about it. He had hoped to talk to her that morning for a bit, but Hagakure overslept and was the last one into class too which prevented everyone from talking to her before homeroom.

"So how'd you do it?" Mineta asked, leaning over the front of Hagakure's desk. "Incognito said at the press conference that your agency headed this thing right?"

"Yeah, we did," Hagakure started to reply.

"What kind of tactics did you all use?" Midoriya wondered from next to the invisible girl's seat, a notebook ready down at his side with a pen in his other hand. _Incognito's a great hero but I never hear much about her fighting style or how she handles villains. Hagakure can finally give me a more detailed description for my notes!_

"Well I uh, used my Super Move during the start of the raid," Hagakure began, and half of her classmates surrounding her seat leaned in with big eyes at her recounting of the story. Hagakure felt a strange churning in her gut though and her expression matched that uneasy feeling. "But we didn't even know the location where the drugs were being made at the start of the weekend. First we had to find it, and so we had to go to a nightclub to look for dealers…"

Ojiro looked at his girlfriend in a confused way at the tone she was retelling this in. Others were not as observant though, and Ashido leaned forward even more excitedly, "You went clubbing?! Without me?!"

"That's amazing, Toru," Uraraka told the girl in front of her. Uraraka really did look amazed, and she added when the invisible girl looked her way, "You found the villains responsible for the drug and took them down all in one night."

"It was Zach who-" Hagakure paused with her mouth open, while her classmates surrounding her desk and the others sitting around the room all stared towards her frozen in the sudden silence too. "I mean…" Hagakure continued, but she did not have anything to finish that sentence which started with 'I mean' like there was an excuse for why she just started it like that.

"What are you talking about?" Iida asked, standing up from his seat and stepping towards Hagakure who saw him over all the other students between him and her.

"What about Zach?" Sero wondered.

"Toru?" Ojiro asked, sensing his girlfriend was on the edge of her seat but also trying to hold back so much. "What happened?"

"Zach was at the nightclub," Hagakure said, revealing it while leaning forward in her seat. She spoke in an excited whisper and let out a gasp after it finally pushed out of her lungs. For the past day, everyone had been giving her so much credit at press conferences and on the news and even during homeroom and right now. Hagakure let out a long breath finally feeling some weight lift off her shoulders from the guilt of not telling anyone the truth, though a different guilt kind of took its place as she thought about how Incognito said they would keep Zach's involvement a secret. _No one knows how amazing he is though! It's not fair!_

"What was he doing there?" Mineta asked in confusion. "Wait. How did he even get in… did he bribe the bouncer?" Mineta remembered Zach telling him about doing something like that back in America at a party he went to on Halloween.

"Uhh, I don't know. I didn't have time to ask. We were kind of busy," Hagakure explained in a way so no one would get upset with her for not being more interrogative at the time. "But he was there for the same reason we were! He was after the drug- Not like he 'wanted it' wanted it! But like he wanted to stop it like we did."

"Was he there with a hero?" Midoriya asked. _I doubt it, but it's a possibility that a hero took him under his wing so that Zach could-_

"No," Hagakure replied with a slow shake of her head. "He did it all on his own. It was amazing. He infiltrated the dealers and found the suppliers right in front of us!" The others around Hagakure stared at the invisible girl who was not speaking like this was some secret or messy issue that she should be speaking with more care about. A couple of them wanted to even mention how she should probably calm down a little about talking so freely about it, while others also wanted to keep their mouths shut instead of interrupting in case she was going to reveal anything else.

Yaoyorozu looked at the back of Hagakure's head from farther back in the room where she stood, but her eyes shifted to various students in the room with her. She scanned right past Bakugo who just looked annoyed more than anything with very little care for what was going on. She saw Kirishima who was pretending not to pay attention while back at his seat with his eyes pointed the opposite direction and his lips curled into a deep frown. Tokoyami and Shoji each started talking to each other in low voices, and Aoyama had an awkward look on his face as he glanced around like Yaoyorozu was at his classmates' various expressions. Yaoyorozu avoided looking back at Todoroki whose harsh glare she could already feel just past her peripheral vision.

"But, he wasn't supposed to be out there that night-" Mineta began to the girl right in front of him, backing up Midoriya as Hagakure just rebuked what he tried to counter with.

Hagakure pouted at Mineta's response and she crossed her arms over her chest. "He did half of our job for us and then went home. Nobody got hurt, and we stopped the drug quicker with his help. I don't see any problem do you?" She asked it and leaned her head closer to Mineta who pulled back and then shook it with a smile growing as that did sound like a good thing. Hagakure smiled at that reaction, glad someone understood it like she already did.

"Shouldn't, people have recognized him?" Sato wondered from next to Hagakure's seat on her right side where he was looking at her with a small frown.

"Zach totally looked different in his disguise," Hagakure said in a quick whisper as she needed to get more in before their next class started. "He must have had on so much makeup to cover his scars like…" Ashido's eyes bulged and her mouth opened wide in shock for a second before lifting into a giant smile. "…and he looked so cool in disguise-" Hagakure paused, and she looked to Ojiro as she cut herself off. Hagakure rose up her hands and waved them apologetically, though Ojiro just shook his head without a trace of jealousy on it. Hagakure added anyway for his sake though, "He was also pretty scary sometimes too, but really…" Hagakure paused as a couple of her friends got various levels of dark or judging looks on their faces at what she just said.

Hagakure got a stronger look on her invisible face that came through in the tone she spoke with, "He was just amazing to do what we wanted to faster than we could, with less resources, less information, and a worse disguise on a more recognizable face." _I shouldn't have doubted him so much back in the club. The second I knew it was him, I knew that he was there to go after drug dealers. But the idea that he had actually taken that drug himself?! I shouldn't have believed it for a second. Zach's too cool for that._

"Why didn't you mention him at the press conference?" Ashido asked her friend who seemed like she wanted to give Zach so much credit now. "I don't think anyone would've gotten mad about him helping out-"

 _Don't speak for everyone,_ Jirou thought with a look over at Ashido from where she stood on the opposite side of Hagakure's seat. _If you had mentioned it then it was just him doing it to make himself seem… why didn't he then? What is his goal here if he's not going to accept positive media attention like that?!_

Hagakure shook her head at Ashido that got her to stop asking midway. "I think he just wanted to do something, to help," Hagakure said. Her voice came out a little more serious for a moment as she turned straight to Ojiro who she had often talked to about what they thought of Zach since he returned. "He said he didn't like feeling like he wasn't doing anything, and I believe him. He just wanted to help and go home, and, and I think he has enough press to deal with every day that he doesn't need this kind of extra attention. Right?"

 _That has to be why, right?_ Hagakure second guessed it herself after wondering it to the others. _Or does he just not want the credit? Does he want us to get it all? Me? Or was it really because he could get in trouble for helping even without hurting anyone? He gave Incognito an excuse that she said made sense and made it so what he did wasn't illegal. Is it just to avoid scandal? I don't know. All I know, is that Zach's a great person!_

Midoriya frowned deeply at Hagakure's idea of why Zach did it. He turned his head though as the door was opening up, and Iida called out in a yell-whisper for everyone to return to their seats. They all rushed back though Present Mic still pointed a finger forward and yelled out "GOTCHA" at the people who weren't in their seats already. He put his hands on his hips and started laughing about it as it never happened with Class A, and he poked fun at their status as the infallible Class A to have made such a sloppy mistake. His loud teases at the most famous class in the country annoyed a few of the class, but most were focused on something other than Present Mic.

 _Even after all we talked about, you still keep doing these things! Lemillion caught you and you don't even care!_ Midoriya curled his hands into fists below his desk. _One of these times someone's going to catch you slipping up, or interrupt you before you get the end results that will make what you're doing right! I have to stop you before that happens! I'll do whatever I can, Zach, to prevent us from fighting… But you're making it so difficult!_

* * *

"…But it isn't your place to just make decisions like that!" Midoriya scolded his former classmate he met up with on Monday after school. He told Zach he would come to Yutapu this time in their texts, so Zach spent a couple hours after school at the hospital in his own city first. He did homework in the ER waiting room, since he was not going to Musutafu General as he would have if Midoriya did not send him that specific message to prevent him from doing something like bringing back the dead solely so they could have a talk.

He decided not to mention the two people he brought back that afternoon to Midoriya anyway when they met up at the train station. Zach already knew what Midoriya was going to talk about, as he had seen Hagakure's face during the press conference she had been to and subsequent talks with the media. She had been holding back a lot to prevent from saying it to everyone, and he knew she was not going to be able to hold out very long with their own classmates. Zach still gave Midoriya a somewhat harsh look at how loud Midoriya just got with that when there were a couple other people on the street in Yutapu with them.

Midoriya took in a deep breath to quiet down, but he was frustrated at the calm and uncaring ways in which Zach was responding to his very serious accusations he had been planning out all day and finalizing on the train ride to Yutapu. "Sure you don't want to grab some food and hang at my place?" Zach asked again, the same thing he offered when they were first leaving the train station. "Could talk more freely there."

"We can talk freely here too," Midoriya countered with a deeper frown. "There shouldn't be anything to hide if what you did was totally fine?" Midoriya rose his eyebrows to see if Zach understood the fault in his logic of getting off the streets while at the same time saying that he was not doing anything wrong.

"Fair point," Zach replied with a tilt of his head to one side. "But despite what I did Saturday night, you're just using that as 'another' example of the bigger picture here, isn't that right too?" Zach countered the idea that Midoriya just wanted to talk about the single incident of this weekend, which Midoriya opened his mouth to argue but hesitated over for a moment. "If what I'm doing is completely legal for a pro hero to do, then why not one with a provisional license?" Zach asked. "I'm more capable than most heroes, so why shouldn't I be doing my part to help?"

"'More capable?'" Midoriya repeated. He said it like he was checking if Zach really just said that, giving him a surprised look as Zach never bragged or talked himself up compared to others.

"Yes," Zach replied with a laugh that Midoriya would be surprised by that. "While acting within the law, as a student at a high-school who only has a provisional license, I still get more done than more than most pro heroes do-"

"Except you're not acting _within_ the law," Midoriya countered back in annoyance, and his face got more frustrated that _that_ was the point he was countering out of all Zach just said. It made him get flustered for a moment as Zach gave him an expectant look for him to realize what he just admitted by only countering that point. "Zach," Midoriya started seriously. "Even if you do get work done, and you do, no one's ever doubted that. You've always managed to get things done, and yet you've always gone too far. Every time." Midoriya said it sternly and gave Zach a more intense look that had Zach staring back at him seriously too despite where they were in public.

"I won't this time," Zach began.

"How can I believe that?" Deku questioned back. "You spent a whole year as Death, leading an army of killers."

"I'm not Death, and that's not all they are," Zach countered back strongly. He gave Midoriya an intense look of his own at Midoriya's frustrated look, "Heroes have killed villains too. But in the end, we say it's justified because that's their job and they were within their right to do so. And we know that because we have the oversight committees and people to judge them-"

"Which the Army of Death doesn't have," Midoriya snapped. "And that's an important difference! You can't just say that they're the same when they lack the oversight to ensure that they do act within the law-"

"I never said they act within the law," Zach retorted. "But that doesn't mean they're all to just be branded killers. To say that they had _no_ reason when they went too far, just because we don't _know_ for sure that they did? Now that's the biggest jump I've heard."

"Well what reason would we have to believe they _did_ have a good reason? They don't even try to defend themselves," Midoriya countered loudly.

"Because they saved an entire country," Zach replied softer. He turned forward and kept walking, deciding not to argue about it loudly there anymore when too many people were looking over and he spotted a couple of cameras coming out.

Midoriya stepped quickly after Zach though and got in front of him on his side, almost preventing him from continuing though Midoriya did side-step with Zach. "You can't use that as a blanket excuse for everything they've ever-"

Zach and Midoriya's eyes shot up at the shadow they caught moving on the sidewalk up ahead of them. Midoriya saw it out the corner of his eyes while walking sideways, while Zach's eyes darted to the spot and then his head snapped back as he saw something flying towards them through suddenly red-tinted vision. Midoriya turned his body forward, and his eyes started to grow wide in shock as Zach's lost their red tint though also filled with surprise.

A foot slammed into Midoriya's face. It was a foot in a yellow boot that planted in Midoriya's face and squished it in while Midoriya flung his arms up at his sides still in complete shock but also some pain now. Zach just turned to the side with his eyebrows raised and an amused look coming to his face after a moment. The man who just slammed a foot into Midoriya's face dropped down and landed on the sidewalk in front of the eighteen year old boys who stared forward at him.

Deku's eyes that slammed shut when the foot planted in his nose squinted back open. He then shot them open wide again while staring straight ahead into the eyes of a man the same height as him. The tall, muscular man wore a black mask over his eyes, and he looked like a hero considering he was wearing a white costume with the yellow boots, a yellow belt, and a yellow cape that bunched up around his collar and made him look pretty cool.

"Whoa! Who's that?!"

"Is that another hero? I've never seen him before!"

"Why'd he just kick Deku?"

"Is that Lifebringer too?!"

Deku stared in front of him in absolute shock at the young man with wavy white hair who looked like a teenager just like him and Zach. He had no hair on his chin or wrinkles on his face, and he was a couple feet taller than the person who Deku felt he resembled far too closely. "G-G-G-Gran Torino?!" Midoriya exclaimed at the teenager standing in front of him with a pissed off look on his face.

Gran Torino's face scrunched up more and he looked more like an old man there for a second as his eyes turned pure white and he got several tick marks all over his forehead. "Don't 'G-G-Gran Torino' me! What did you do Deku?! You've been reckless before, but you did something very stu _PID_ this time!" Gran Torino's voice cracked with a high-pitched tone, and a look of rage plastered over his face as he restrained himself from strangling the teenager right in front of him.

Zach's bottom lip lowered, and he turned to Deku for a moment before turning back to the older hero again. Deku was still floored by what was going on, but there was no denying who this costume and that voice belonged to, even if the voice did crack like a boy in his teenage years. Gran Torino noticed a lot of people looking over from all over the place, then he looked next to him on his left at the scar-covered teen in a jacket who had been walking with Midoriya. "Nice to see you again, Gran Torino," Zach said. He spoke in a respectful voice and hid the smile from reappearing on his face. Instead he just looked at the man as if he was still looking at the short but much older and venerable version of the hero.

"Sazaki," Gran Torino said with a half-nod at the teen he did not have time for right now. He spun back to Deku and glared at the teenager who was still trying to piece together what was happening. "You told Eri she could use her Quirk, didn't you?" Gran Torino snapped it and glared even harder at the boy whose eyes bulged and whose jaw dropped even farther at what he finally realized happened.

Zach turned and looked skeptically back at Midoriya. Deku froze even more and his eyes darted to the side for a second at Zach, who he was just arguing to about the rules. Zach shook his head at Midoriya and then turned and started away. "You've got a mess to clean up," Zach just said while heading off. _Geez,_ Zach thought once he passed Gran Torino's back. _He's going to live to like two hundred now easily. Eri could probably turn back her own age once she's mastered her Quirk too. Man, immortality is just such an easy concept nowadays. I hope no one else realizes it. She has to stay hidden. That sucks, but more than me she's got the ability to become a… Don't think about that._

Midoriya looked past Gran Torino for a moment at Zach's back, frustrated as he had come all the way to Yutapu with so much planned only to get interrupted by the worst thing possible. There were bigger things to focus on at the moment though, and he looked back straight into Gran Torino's pissed eyes. "Gran Torino, I-"

"What would have happened if she messed up?" Gran Torino asked. He did not want to hear what the guilty-looking boy in front of him had to say. His voice was somewhat deeper than it had just been, almost like he was compensating for the voice crack a minute ago. "What if she had sent me before I was born?! She was only trying to give me my Quirk back, and take off 'a couple years' she added when she started crying after I woke up. But look at me!" Gran Torino looked down at his muscular body much taller and younger and stronger than he had been for the past several years. Midoriya looked at his body and started to feel hesitant about what Gran Torino was trying to say, but Gran Torino bit down even angrier at that expression like Midoriya thought for a second 'it doesn't look that bad.'

Gran Torino reached forward and grabbed Midoriya by the jacket. "I'm a teenager again!" Gran Torino yelled at his former intern and pupil. He shook around Midoriya by the jacket, "Do you know what it's like to go through puberty a second time when you're over 70?! Of course you don't!"

"Is, Eri okay?" Midoriya asked.

Gran Torino's hand gripped into Midoriya's jacket tighter, then his grip loosened and he dropped it from the boy's jacket. He brought his hand up to his head and pinched the bridge of his nose, and the "old" man let out a sigh as he told himself to calm down a little. "She's fine," Sorahiko finally said in a steadier voice. He turned and started walking, and Midoriya stepped after him but stayed at his back instead of moving up to his side like he had been walking with Zach. Gran Torino continued while facing away from the boy he was walking with, "Just shaken up. I had to warn her what could have happened to me, make sure she never tries something like that again."

"I'm sorry," Midoriya began. Gran Torino frowned deeply as he already knew it was Deku's fault, since Eri tried to defend herself by saying it worked with Wonderlass- before cutting herself off and looking even more guilty that she had given that away. "When I did, what I did," Midoriya said quietly. "I thought I could- if I was watching her and helped her control it-"

"She's a child," Gran Torino grumbled. His voice was harsh, and Midoriya stopped giving his own excuses at the man's scolding tone. _Just like you were, but you're held to a higher level of responsibility!_ Gran Torino just sighed again, feeling much older than his body looked. "You can't show a kind girl like Eri something like that and expect her not to try it again. I should have seen it coming," Gran Torino got more self-reprimanding which had Deku looking at him guiltier that Gran Torino thought this was somehow his fault for not watching the girl closer. "Recently I had been having coughing fits, and I could see that she was looking at me in a way not just worried. I didn't want to believe that she was considering using her Rewind Quirk on me."

"Your Quirk though," Midoriya began. "You have it back-"

"That is not the point," Gran Torino snapped, turning his head quickly and glaring back at the boy who was the successor to One For All. Midoriya bowed his head in a more guilty way, and Gran Torino snapped again, "Head up! Think about where you are."

Midoriya rose his head, and he forced out a smile though his eyes were not convincing with it. _What right do I have to… Just because I did wrong, doesn't make what Zach did any more right. And someone still needs to have that talk with him! I'm, I'm just not…_ Midoriya felt his stomach clench up at the dirty feeling he had swirling inside him. _If she had hurt Gran Torino, it wouldn't just be him. How scared must Eri be that she almost sent him back that far? I- I never should have involved… But if Wonderlass wasn't there, would Mom still be alive? All Might? I- I don't know._

"Come with me," Gran Torino said. "We're going to go train for a little." Midoriya rose his head in surprise, staring at Gran Torino's back confusedly as this had not happened before. Gran Torino continued though while marching forward, "It seems you need more discipline, so we'll switch to the training your predecessor did…" Midoriya froze where he stood, his body covering in sweat as the old/young man marched forward ahead of him. He thought of All Might's terrified expression and what he had heard of Gran Torino's training. Gran Torino's face got a small grin on it while his eyes were still angry, and he said in a low voice with no room for argument in it, "Practical training."

* * *

In a residential area on the opposite side of Musutafu as where Zach used to live, he walked on the right of two people who had wanted to meet with him on Tuesday. The invisible girl on his left and her boyfriend walking on her other side were talking to their friend they had texted the night before about speaking to in person "about this past weekend."

"It's alright," Zach told the girl who finally brought back up what Zach had done over the weekend. She had been so hesitant at first, instead asking about Shiketsu and talking about what they had done recently at U.A. for the first twenty minutes they had been hanging out while walking around. "I know you told everyone," Zach told the girl who had just finally started mentioning it, seeming so hesitant because Ojiro did not know so she had to let him know that he already did. He explained to the girl who stared at him in surprise, "I hung out with Midoriya for a bit yesterday. You didn't know?"

Hagakure shook her head, and Zach hummed to himself while checking with a glance at Ojiro too. _Seems like he didn't see either. Guess it's not_ _ **that**_ _big of news. Saw a few pictures of me and Midoriya looking real serious with each other circulating around. We're still teens though, and there's some drama between all of Class A and me, so it shouldn't be_ _ **big**_ _news. Still, the speculation they made about what we were discussing wasn't good…_

"That's actually, not what I wanted to talk about though," Hagakure started up again. "I mean, I am sorry I talked about it when Incognito- when we agreed not to mention you."

"You didn't promise me anything like that," Zach countered with a small laugh at the girl for trying to put this on herself. Hagakure still seemed hesitant, but Zach flashed her a smile and added, "Plus, you only told the others in Class A, right? I don't mind that at all."

Hagakure breathed out a breath of relief, but then she returned to a more serious gaze as there was something else she wanted to talk about. "Zach," Ojiro began from Hagakure's other side. "It's not about how she told us, but about something that happened yesterday afternoon."

Zach looked to Ojiro as he spoke, then he refaced Hagakure who took in a deep breath as they walked through an uncrowded area of Musutafu. There were few people about, fewer cars driving by, and the street was only a one-way narrow block anyway. Zach knew the area though despite it being so far from his childhood home, and he was leading the way walking a bit ahead of the two on his left farther in from the road. _Not surprising,_ Zach thought as he imagined the girl's facial expression based on the body language he could see from her clothing. _From that smack alone, he should have woken up within 12 hours._

"It's about, what the villain who gave you that information said, when Incognito questioned him yesterday," Hagakure said. She looked at Zach to see if he would start appearing guilty or something after it, but he just nodded at her to continue what she was going to say. Hagakure lowered her eyes for a second, then she spoke in a lower voice, "I only told Ojiro." Zach nodded, as it seemed to him like she wanted to talk about this in private, and yet it also seemed like she talked about everything with him. "When Incognito questioned Arclaw, he didn't say anything about you, but she did something to make him talk. Incognito told him that she would reveal that it was Lifebringer who caught him if the man didn't tell her, which she said she knew would work."

 _Good on her for figuring that out. Maybe she thinks I'm Death, maybe she just realizes why it was he wouldn't want me to get in trouble for it. Or want other villains to know I had caught him._

"He was very specific, that you didn't torture him," Hagakure said. She gulped while watching Zach nod his head almost like he suspected that. "Incognito said, it was because he didn't want you thrown back in prison where he was now going. All those dealers are heading to Tartaros, for selling drugs and resisting arrest, and since they're being held responsible for murder of various degrees based on their involvement with the drug."

"Good," Zach said simply. _They killed the people they sold that drug to. It only makes sense…_

"But Incognito said, that she made him tell her _exactly_ what you said to him. In order to get him to talk…" Hagakure trailed off while Zach's lips curled down a bit. He slowed on the sidewalk and looked back to his side at the two watching him who already knew what Hagakure was going to say. She spoke anyway, "You told him something after knocking the other three unconscious. When you confronted them and grabbed that guy by the shirt," Hagakure paused. She wanted Zach to say something about how this was not how it happened, but he was looking at her like she was not wrong so far. She spoke in a softer voice, "He said that your eyes glowed red, and you 'snarled this in the most _horrifying_ voice' after that guy told you he couldn't tell you anything." Hagakure quoted him there for a second, but Zach still just nodded at her to finish what she needed to say.

Hagakure hesitated, then she looked Zach straight in the eyes and repeated softly but in a steady voice intending to be scary and intimidating, "'I've killed men worth twenty of you without batting an eye. You think I'll give a fuck about wiping your shit-stain of a life off this planet?' Then, he said that you asked after what had suddenly become the most terrifying moment of his life, 'Where is your supplier?' He answered you, and the next second the doors flew open and me and Incognito came running out."

"I just said that to get the villain to tell me quickly," Zach said. He did not smile while saying it, but he nodded his head seriously at the two on his left side. "I mean it. I just said that to him, so he would tell me where his supplier was before someone could interrupt."

"Really?" Hagakure asked excitedly.

"So it's not true?" Ojiro asked instead.

Zach looked to the blond who was more specific with that question. "Yeah," Zach replied, nodding while looking him right in the eyes. "No human life is worth 'more' than any other," Zach said plainly. "So it couldn't have been true," he stated that as an obvious example. Then he paused and got lower, "And without batting an eye? I, am not that cold, that it doesn't affect me-"

"I don't think you are," Ojiro said. He said it strongly and made Zach lift his head back up fast at that assurance. "Sorry. I just, wanted to know what he meant."

"I'm not surprised he memorized _exactly_ what I told him," Zach said, emphasizing what Hagakure had emphasized too to remind her why it had happened like that. "I meant for him to remember it. To really scare him, because if I didn't then he wouldn't tell me."

"If you didn't scare him like that though," Hagakure started. She stopped, wondering if she was right to counter Zach here when he knew so much about stopping villains. He had so much experience, but she curled her hands tighter at her sides and decided not to hold it back. "Then we could have followed him back to his base and caught him and all the others there anyway."

"It would have taken longer too though, and he could have possibly spotted his tail and slipped it, or just looped you around and around while-"

"But that would have been the right way-"

" _Incognito's_ way," Zach corrected Hagakure for saying 'right' way there. He shook his head and was not going to back down from this while the other two watched him. He kept a serious look on his face and did not get guilty, or show any sign of regret. He just said while facing them, "I did things in a _different_ way, which had the same result, and caught them faster. Speed is one of the most important factors often overlooked in hero duties to make room for safety, or the 'best' way."

"If there were better ways though-" Ojiro began.

"And what if in the time it took to get one of those better ways done, someone else died from the drug?" Zach interrupted. He frowned at Ojiro who stared at Zach in surprise at the sudden passionate response. Zach eased back and his look returned calm and more detached like he knew it was correct anyway as he usually appeared to be. "Speed, is vital," Zach said. "We don't know if anyone else would have died had I not done what I did, but that's fine with me. I'd rather not know. All I know is that there was the _chance_ that doing things my way, the _fastest_ way, would save a single innocent life."

"Okay…" Hagakure started, as this all made sense to her but she still wanted to counter it somehow. "But, even if we had done it a little slower and someone else died, couldn't you have brought…"

Zach bit down hard in his mouth. His jaw locked and Hagakure stopped speaking without even seeing it, as she got an uneasy feeling about saying something like this. Zach responded though, "And what about the infinite trips? Those, who have gone insane from the drug and don't look to be getting any better? What could I do to help them?" He looked to his side at Hagakure who was expecting him to say something about those people still dying anyway, only for him to have a second reason just as good that made her point moot.

"You're right," Ojiro said. Hagakure turned to him, but then she spun back to Zach and nodded herself a bunch of times. "You might have saved people the other night. And since no one else will say it, since you won't tell anyone it was you," Ojiro paused and a brighter smile formed over his face. "Good job."

"Yeah!" Hagakure exclaimed, before getting much quieter at how loudly she called that out for him. "You were so good at it!" She yell-whispered at him with a hand cupped to her mouth that the others couldn't see. "And not just with getting in with the dealers, but slipping away from me too!" Hagakure leaned forward and put her hands on her hips as she said that only half in an impressed way, while also sounding half-accusing at him trying to get away from her.

"Hey, I did spend a _lot_ of time avoiding heroes," Zach said. He laughed even as the other two got more awkward looks on their faces. "I'm very good at slipping away without being seen."

"Ha, haha…" Hagakure laughed a bit after a couple seconds. Then she turned to her other side at Ojiro who appeared more awkward, and she elbowed him in a way that made him 'oof' and then let out a single unenthusiastic laugh of his own. Hagakure shook her head around after that though and she smiled brightly as she was glad this conversation went the way it did. "So how did you get into the club the other night? And how did you cover up all your scars?!"

Zach walked with his former classmates down a narrow block that did not even have sidewalks due to how small it got the longer they walked on it. He knew there were cut-offs up ahead for them to get back to bigger roads in the residential area, but this one was just between houses on either side of the road that all looked alike and were squished together so the outer walls were connecting to make the buildings look more like apartments than homes. In a condensed city like Musutafu though, no one could have a lot of acres for any of their properties, and homes touching each other was more the norm than anything like it was in most big Japanese cities.

He told them about how he had gone to the club after doing his own research about the drug and going through their hero database to find everything he could to help him. "It was like your own investigation," Ojiro mentioned. "And, as much as that's impressive, you know you need to wait-"

"I know," Zach replied. "I'm just really bad at that part," he added with a glance away guiltily. "But, it worked out in the end this time. And with not much time left 'til graduation," he continued while refacing his friends. "I'm sure, I won't have to, worry about…" Zach lifted his head up and looked over a nearby fence while trailing off. The direction they were walking down the road had them going past a lot of houses that had very small driveways that were just horizontal strips in front of their houses, though a couple had narrow paths going alongside the buildings too either in alleys or the small gaps between buildings that existed occasionally.

Over a fence dividing two buildings because of a small alleyway between them, Zach saw an older couple who he wanted to lower his voice because of, at first. The more he looked at them though the more it appeared to him like they were in distress. The two both looked flustered, and like they were getting angrier with each other as they argued about something in front of a car. Ojiro and Hagakure turned as they saw Zach was staring at something, and the two of them slowed and stopped at the bottom of the driveway as Zach did to just look up at this elderly couple each over ninety years old by the looks of it.

The hood of their car was popped open, and Zach saw the two arguing right in front of it with them each speaking in louder voices than they looked to have based on their ages. The two were short, but the elderly man was still taller than Hagakure even if the teenage boys were bigger than him. The man was saying in a frustrated tone as the students reached the bottom of the driveway, "…don't need a mechanic! I told you I can handle this! I repaired cars all the time back in the day-"

"But my appointment!" The woman exclaimed back in a more shrill voice. "The cars you fixed were much different. We need to go already and we're going to be late. Let's call an actual repairman!" That term 'actual repairman' only made the man more upset, and the woman scolded in a condescending voice at his pissed expression, "This is exactly like the time-"

"Could you two use any help?"

Hagakure and Ojiro spun to the side and looked at Zach in surprise as he was walking past them and up the driveway already. The couple turned their heads ready to each respond, the woman with 'yes' and the man with 'no!' The two of them completely froze though as they saw who it was who asked the question, which allowed Zach to walk up right to them and then look down into the hood of the car and the engine the couple were looking at. "What seems to be the problem?" Zach asked, looking back to his side at the man and then to the woman who he figured wanted him to help more anyway.

"Ah! Lifebringer!" The woman finally called his name out as she got over the surprise of seeing this well-known, yet still intimidating, hero. The scars on his face and neck seemed so much more unsettling up close, but she got over them quicker than her husband and reached to her side and grabbed the boy by his jacket sleeve. "Right here. I think it has something to do with the starter. Do you see if there's anything wrong?"

"He's just a lad," the man suddenly chimed back in, leaning forward and getting upset as Lifebringer looked at his car like he knew what he was doing as if the older man didn't.

"Ahh," Zach nodded his head while letting out that noise like he saw what was wrong. Both of the older people spun to him in surprise, and Zach nodded his head, "I see what's wrong here."

"You do?" The two asked, the same time as the other two behind Zach who were his own age did.

Zach stood back up fully after leaning in, and he glanced behind him with a small smile as he gave Hagakure and Ojiro a nod. Then he turned to the man on his side and said, "It's something only the new models have. Don't know why they changed it," he said it and shook his head like it was stupid, which the man agreed with wholeheartedly and decided to let Lifebringer take charge here if he knew what that stupid change in the car engine was.

 _Don't know if that's true at all,_ Zach thought while looking back into the engine. He reached in though and down to a piece he saw loose inside the car that was actually pretty old, at least in comparison to the vehicle he was thinking of as he started screwing a disconnected piece back in. "Could you step aside for a moment?' Zach asked, as the two were leaning in too close to him. "I think I know the problem, but it'll take me a minute."

"Fine," the man with short white hair replied in a gruff, but interested tone as he stepped back and continued to look in at what Lifebringer was doing.

"Thank you, hero," the old woman added. "It's so great that you're back in Musutafu. I thought you were going to Shiketsu these days though, Lifebringer?"

"Oh, I am," Zach replied. "But always nice to come home once in a while."

"Hey Zach," Hagakure started while stepping up right behind her friend. "Do you know what you're doing?"

She asked it quietly, but the older couple also heard what she said and glanced to Zach to see how he would respond. He seemed confident enough that the older couple wanted to believe in him here, but they all also wondered how it is he would know how to fix this as none of them could. Zach just leaned into the hood though and tilted his head to get a look under some of the system installed in the car. _Yeah, Hagakure. I've got this…_

* * *

 **16 Months Ago**

 **Qarlaf, Gorran**

Zach stood on a stone floor partially covered in sand that he and his friends had tracked into the garage they were using. The garage was already sandy beforehand anyway though so the owner told them not to worry about it. It was impossible not to get sand everywhere though, when outside was a desert that the village of Qarlaf was smack in the middle of. The village was small and obscure, a place no one would think to look for a newly created army.

The sixteen year old leading this new Army of Death was standing near the front of a beige sand-colored jeep. The jeep was propped up higher than usual with a jack stand, and there was a thin platform rolled under that had a large man laying on his back on it. The man who rolled under the car had two large pincers sticking out from under the other side of it, but his head was right in the center of the vehicle that he was looking under with a grimace on his face. "What do you see?" Zach asked as the man underneath let out a disgruntled grunt and then a groan while reaching up and touching something.

Grabble slid back out from under the car and sat up on the wheeled platform, otherwise known as a creeper, to face his two comrades in front of him. Zach stood closer to the jeep, while Blackstar was sitting the hood of a black humvee that also needed repair behind their leader and to Zach's left more towards the back of the jeep. "I have no idea how this thing managed to run as long as it did," Grabble said with a smack back on the car door behind him. It had a couple bullet dents in the side that did not make it through the exterior, luckily for those who had been inside at the time. Grabble motioned down where he had just rolled under, "There's a whole rifle gnarled up in the undercarriage."

"A rifle?" Blackstar asked in amusement, while snacking on a bowl of stew the locals had made a ton of for them.

As Grabble described how the car must have ran it over and got it all mashed up with the actual car parts underneath, in another area of the temporary base they set up, a local helping the group finally got a water hose hooked up to a wall faucet outside of the garage. The men and women in black clothing thanked the Arab woman who brought it over with grateful looks and words of thanks she did not understand well. "We got the hose!" Aces called out victoriously while running back towards the open garage doors and holding the end of it up in his hands.

"Make sure to wash the vehicles with it too," Zach called out over to the entrance.

Cee was heading towards Aces and spun her head in towards the younger boy who leaned back at her harsh look. "We take priority over the vehicles," the teenage girl slightly older than Zach yelled at him, while in the middle stripping down out of her black armor she'd been wearing for _too_ long in the Middle East desert heat. The others gathered around outside were not far behind her in stripping down when they saw her doing it, and Aces sprayed the water up and let it come down in a shower for everyone getting close to him.

Blackstar looked over from the hood of the car and then leaned back with a grin towards the girls who all agreed with Cee that it was time for showers. "Oh I sure hope Zach doesn't look towards me while I'm taking off all my clothes!" A voice called back into the garage in English, the Army's primary language, and Zach ignored it while Darling stripped in the corners of his eyes. He focused instead on the most-badly-damaged vehicle of their arsenal in front of him that Grabble described like it was pretty messed up.

"Once we get the gun out from there," Zach started while refacing Grabble who focused on the task at hand again. The bald man was sweaty and wiped his brow, liking the idea of a shower right now, but the person who brought him to life earlier that week had other things for him to do first. Zach continued to the older man with pincers that added more than a foot to his height over his skull, "Will we be able to get the jeep moving again?"

Grabble shook his head while standing up from the creeper. "It's not just the undercarriage," Grabble explained while walking towards the hood of the armored vehicle Zach stepped back from. Grabble popped the hood and Zach stepped back in and looked inside, only to see a bunch of stuff inside that he was completely lost as to what he was looking at. What he did see with the hood popped though, was that some of those black bullet marks on the hood were actually bullet holes, as he could see through them on the popped hood better than he could when he just walked over. The windshield had some (a lot) of marks on it too, making it hard to see through though not impossible since the glass was bulletproof and kept from cracking despite all the hits it took.

"Although the axels aren't messed up badly down there, so that should be fine, the hood got shot up in Hatto and I'm stunned that after taking so much damage we still managed to get it out of the country," Grabble explained. "Any one of the bullets that flew in here could have irreparably fucked the engine, but instead just a couple of easily replaceable parts got hit, so if we can get those replacements quickly, I can fix this baby before we have to move out from the village."

Zach hummed to himself. _How long can we stay here? We'll draw too much attention if it's more than another day. Farid says the locals are fine with it, though I wish he didn't mention Muhammed to his family. It's a good thing he knew about this place and that we could come here, but if people track our paths they could find the others' families they left behind. Use them as leverage. Make the others- my army members? Make them betray us. The local heroes might be fine with us now too, after how we just saved Saudi Arabia, and since we're here to stop Shakad and SISIS. Internationally this group is going to get spun as evil soon though, and heroes will come for us too which could put the people of villages like this in danger just for helping us. I need a better strategy for how to handle necessities and living on the go. Staying on the go is imperative._

As Zach was looking so thoughtful about their situation, Blackstar asked, "Didn't Rebel say we've got some new sponsors lined up other than L? Shouldn't getting those parts be easy? Or better yet, whole new vehicles?" Blackstar grinned more excitedly on that one, but Zach shook his head while still thinking about something on a bigger scale that Blackstar's questions helped him along with.

"I want to start saving up some money," Zach responded, but then he lowered his gaze and met Blackstar's. "But buying parts is a necessity," he added. Zach turned to Grabble who leaned back from the hood, and he told the man, "Make a list of whatever you need, and let Rebel know. We'll get everything shipped to us as fast as possible before we roll out. Hopefully, Akhmed locates Shakad by then," Zach added. Thinking about it made him lower his lips into more of a frown, but he rose a hand and scratched at the bandage on his neck for a moment, and then he rubbed his chest around where his bruised ribs were that Hank told him to take it easy on.

Zach turned his head and looked out the garage which made him smile a bit more. He heard the laughter in that direction and saw some buckets had been filled, initially so everyone could use their own water at their own paces instead of needing the hose, but somehow it had turned into a water fight in the last few seconds that had all of the nearly naked vigilantes splashing and spraying each other. _We need to get moving fast though,_ Zach thought as his reasoning for why he wanted Akhmed to finish up quickly, though he had relaxed a bit himself as Grabble and Blackstar laughed too, wondering 'how did that happen?' _Rebel's found more information in Russia as well as new recruits all over to the north of us. That Ling girl found us on her own, but I need to actively recruit. Plus I want to get farther from Saudi Arabia after that big announcement._

 _I can save that for later though,_ Zach thought with a laugh of his own as the hose was turned on Cee who had been calmly bathing despite the boisterous roughhousing of her comrades around her. Her Quirk was used immediately on the sprayer that got him pointing it the other way at someone he had been teamed with, which made that guy tackle his buddy for the sudden betrayal his friend didn't even know he did. The hose flailed around as it came out of Skater's hand, and Cluster grabbed it and pointed it at someone else who was just washing without messing around like Cee had been.

The water sprayed out towards the man, then it curved up in the air and looped back to spray Cluster right on the face much harder than it had been coming out of the hose. The spray knocked Cluster off his feet and backwards, and it made him drop the hose that waved around for a moment before raising up in a slow and calm way on its own. The hose flew over right into Mark's hand, and then he calmly lifted it over his head and hosed himself off of the soap he had washed with on his own. Then he dropped the hose and walked off, and the others had calmed enough in that time that they were no longer in the mood to play around like that. They wondered what came over them in the first place, and they got moving as Mark firmly reminded them about maintenance of the vehicles.

Zach frowned as he watched Mark away for another moment until he was out of sight around the corner of the building. His frown was not upset that he had lost the smile at the fun they were having, nor that Mark's attitude got them all getting more serious to clean off faster to get to work. He was glad Mark said it so he wouldn't have to do so himself, but he looked after Mark in a more worried way. _He's been quiet since he killed those two Demons._

He was not the only one looking after Mark in that way, as both Blackstar behind him on his left and Skater outside bathing with the others looked after their friend. The other two had been there when Mark did it, and they knew they were part of the reason Mark had killed those two: in order to protect them. The two had pretty bad injuries after the fight too, like many in their group had which was why they were all in the team staying at this village while Akhmed took point on hunting Shakad's SISIS.

Zach's head turned a bit as he saw a pair walking around outside not in their black costumes but in more normal clothing for the area that they had been given from someone living there he assumed. He had not seen Gentle or Hummingbird in a while, but he sighed as he saw them talking while wearing the local garb. _Always cares about his fashion,_ Zach thought, though he did not linger on it while looking Gentle's way. _I promised I wouldn't get in his way though. He wants to stand out, and I'm glad to have him hiding even his face._ The leader of the Army of Death watched as Gentle got a call which made him head off from Hummingbird. She came towards the garage to wash off before the others could get to cleaning their remaining land and air vehicles, while Gentle answered a call from La Brava who was with Akhmed and the others of their split organization of 40 people.

 _Mark will be fine,_ Zach told himself. _They all will be._ He shook his head around and looked back at the task in front of him, something he could do even while the others were out fighting. _She's not calling about a dead comrade. I'm fine. Focus on vehicle maintenance._ Even though he reassured himself, he still checked one more dart of his eyes over to feel some real relief at Gentle's bigger smile as he spoke to the short woman on the phone with him.

With the bit of relief Zach felt, he loosened up and watched closely instead at how Grabble was examining the inside of the vehicle. He had a phone out and was listing out parts he needed in his notes, and Zach asked the older man in his twenties despite Zach having guessed older initially (due to his baldness), "How do you know all this stuff about cars anyway?"

Grabble was reaching deeper into the hood as he was being asked, and he pulled out a small piece of metal that was crooked in one part and had a chip in it where there clearly wasn't supposed to be one. "Well this is broken," he muttered.

He tossed it aside to a snort of laughter from Blackstar who then mentioned, "Grabble was our old squad's resident mechanic." Grabble turned and gave a nod like 'that's right' to Zach who looked at him in surprise.

"I thought you were the leader?" Zach said.

Grabble tilted his head to the side with a half-shrug. "We didn't really have much manpower; it was a very small special forces."

"Practically everyone had two jobs," Blackstar chimed in which had Zach turn back to the darker-skinned man behind him. "I myself was the field medic," he said with a grin.

Zach was more surprised by that bit of information than by Grabble being a mechanic. "Why didn't you say anything about that experience then when Hank was-"

"Whoa whoa whoa," Blackstar cut off Zach with a laugh, a laugh that made him wince as his body was still badly messed up from his fight against Madame Worldbreaker and Dooku. "Who said anything about experience?" He asked sarcastically and chuckled at Zach's somewhat confused expression. "They just gave me the title because it looked better and more like an actual military outpost if we had a medic on station." Blackstar motioned a thumb at Grabble and said, "I had the same first-aid training the rest of the team have."

"And we never focused much on it during basic," Grabble finished. Grabble scratched the back of his head after saying it, then he grumbled in even more frustration. He had been looking confusedly into the hood of the car, but he had not realized he had gotten oil on his hand and now there was a smudge of black on the back of his smooth scalp. Grabble lowered his hand in front of his face and grumbled at the sight of it, but he could already feel the oily feeling on the back of his head that had him angry in the first place.

"What's the problem?" Zach asked while stepping forward towards his comrade again. He looked into the hood to see if he noticed any changes but couldn't tell the difference.

Grabble glanced to the side then back in himself, "I'm trying to assess the damage without damaging it any further, but I can't get out all the broken parts without completely removing the engine it seems."

"Then why don't we remove the engine?" Zach asked. Blackstar lifted a finger while chewing on another bite, like he was pointing out that Zach had the answer right there.

Grabble shook his head though. "First of all it's very heavy," he started. "Plus taking the whole thing out only to put it back in, we'd practically be reassembling the whole vehicle. That along with fixing the undercarriage, making sure we don't fuck that up too," Grabble shook his head that he scratched the back of with an exhausted look just talking about this. "It's going to be a whole ordeal."

Zach turned and faced his comrade he was standing next to who looked him back in the eyes. "We've got time," Zach said. He gave his older friend a small encouraging smile and then added, "Let's start working on it now, so that by the time those replacement parts come in we're ready to install them and get on the road."

It was not a long motivational speech, but Grabble did not feel as tired anymore. He sighed, but then he grinned and said, "Whatever you say, _Death._ "

The youngest boy there rolled his eyes, while Blackstar let out another laugh behind them. Zach lowered his head for a moment and muttered under his breath, "Don't call me that…"

* * *

 **Present**

Zach waved back up the driveway at the couple who were smiling down it towards him. The man with a humming car behind him gave Lifebringer a nod, while his wife was waving and called out thanks again. "It was nice to see you too Invisible Girl! Great work with that raid this past weekend!" The older woman smiled more as the invisible girl spun around excitedly about that to say she was just 'doing her duty.' "And it was nice seeing you Tailman," the old woman added, apparently knowing all of their names which was not uncommon for Japanese people. "You better take care of Invisible Girl now."

Ojiro grimaced for a moment while facing away from the old woman still. _Is it really that common knowledge?!_ He thought, before turning with an awkward look to the woman whose husband finally started telling her to get in their car that had the engine running and was wasting fuel. Ojiro gave an awkward wave as she did not even wait for him to respond or anything, then he turned back away and headed off with the others who were ahead of him now.

"Great work with that," Hagakure mentioned as Ojiro caught up behind them. She was looking at Zach, and she said in a happy tone, "That was really nice of you to do."

"Where did you learn to do that?" Ojiro asked too. He had seen what Zach did in the hood, but he had no idea what he was looking at in there and was surprised Zach knew his way around the inner workings of a car so well.

Zach looked ahead of him down the block, and a face appeared in his mind. The face in his imagination stayed blurry, but the silhouette was clear enough with the pincers over it. It took him a couple seconds, then Zach just replied plainly, "A friend of mine taught me."

* * *

 _I wish we talked more often. I could invite her over- to my apartment? That's not… really something you do, with your ex._

Zach walked with Yaoyorozu around Yutapu. His mind was not focused much on their conversation though as he could feel the girl next to him looking at him in a way doubtful of every word despite how closely she was listening to him. _She hangs onto my every word. This is, this is exactly what all the training was for. For moments like these. With people who will remember everything else I've told them, as well as what I've told other people who they heard from, looking for that single hole in my story. I need to keep it up! I need to… tell her what really happened, in Arcasia._

"…and, at one point during that fight against General Rorsho, I saw Indola use a move I had taught her." Zach's tone about how crazy the fight had been, about the different races and various Quirks of the fighters both on his side and those of his enemies, shifted softer without him turning to look at the girl next to him to acknowledge it. She glanced at him though and saw that softer look that almost appeared nostalgic, and yet it was so distant as if he was thinking much faster than he was speaking right now. "She used a hold that got countered, but I had shown her a counter to that _exact_ counter only a day before. I swear she looked proud in that moment after she dropped her opponent, and she looked towards me, and I gave her a nod but had to keep serious and look forward to get her to keep moving too. No time to linger on it. Not a moment to even mention, that I had seen her do it. She knew though… I think she knew."

"You taught her how to do it?" Yaoyorozu wondered after Zach finished.

Zach looked at the girl at his side in surprise that that was what she had to say about the whole conversation so far. _Am I talking too much? What should I ask her? No, she looks like she wants to hear about this. Finally._ "I trained a lot of people," Zach replied at the dark-haired girl's question. He turned to her while saying it, but he spotted people behind him back a bit on the sidewalk watching him closely and holding phones up like they were recording him. He turned back forward and spoke softly, "I used to gather up my soldiers and teach them new techniques. I would spar with someone and show the others moves I knew, basic moves and the more complex ones."

He paused for a second while seeing the girl next to him giving him a look out the corners of her eyes. He could not tell what it was she was looking at him like. _Doubt? Belief? Trust? Denial?_ He continued quieter though while just staring straight forward and trying to distract himself from that strange look. "We had a mission back in Terra. And when I took charge, I knew that the only way we could win was by moving faster. I had to move faster and faster, but I wanted to keep everyone alive, wanted to protect them, _needed_ to train them and train myself and prepare for battles." Zach's gaze shifted up while looking out, and he rose it to the sky above that was blue but had some dark gray clouds in the distance. "Then I started moving too fast that I could no longer train my men. I could no longer take the time out to help them prepare for battle, or, anything."

 _This part is true? Is it? I can't even tell anymore._ Momo nodded her head for the boy next to her to continue, but his eyes were barely focused on her at all anymore. _Did he even train anyone-_

"I didn't have the time," Zach whispered. "So, I learned how to train them easier. I learned how to identify my enemies' weaknesses immediately, learned how to spot people's weaknesses and figure out the most immediate way how to beat them, and how to beat them in the most intimidating way possible." His eyes darkened and he said even lower, "How to beat them in scary ways, beat them showing my dominance, or other times while holding back so my enemies think they can win and decide to stay. I kept them from trying to run away which gave me more time to beat them all. I became able to just spot people's weaknesses at first glance: in their personalities, their fighting styles, their words and how their words would equate to their fighting styles and strategies, and I changed my strategies based on who I was facing and what those weaknesses were. And I became a teacher who never needed to teach, never needed anyone to know that I was teaching… I became a leader."

Yaoyorozu stared next to her with wider eyes at the boy who said that without sounding humble or like he was bragging. He just said it and continued on with barely a pause, "Men watched what I did, and they saw the flaws in what they were doing, because _I_ meant for them to see it and I made them believe they were seeing it for themselves. I made them discover their own weaknesses without being told what they were. I taught them in sparring sessions, fighting in a way that would make their weakness so obvious so they had to see it. I taught them on the battlefield, leading by example. Sometimes I had to humiliate a man to get him to be less cocky so he wouldn't get himself killed like my cocky friends had gotten themselves killed before. Sometimes I had to build up someone's self-esteem, or sometimes show them that their greatest strength is something I could still break through with ease…"

Zach trailed off while thinking of a few people who made him hesitate about what he was actually talking about. His teeth clenched for a moment, and then he whispered, "What it was like to become a teacher, it came so easily… and I can't turn it off." He looked to his side with a hesitant look, and he stated, "Being a leader just became something that came naturally to me. Before I knew it, I was trying to teach the other students of Shiketsu. All of my classmates around me every day I just can't help but try and teach the things that make me strong. And! Even before that, at the licensing exam," Zach gulped and turned back forward with clenched teeth for a second. "I went around that room and tried teaching all those new heroes their weaknesses, dragging out their faults and showing them how weak they are compared to some. I did it- I _broke_ them down and built them up as my soldiers- as better heroes and better warriors who will better protect themselves, better protect the innocent, better defeat their enemies with the least collateral damage."

"At the licensing exam, I tried to reach as many as I could in the first round. Those who were discouraged and failed, I didn't need to train them. The ones who I thought were worth teaching, the ones who proved themselves, I allowed to pass the exam." Zach said it in a low voice, and then he lowered his eyes down to the floor for a moment. _What was I thinking that day? I just did it because I felt like it, didn't I? There was no purpose to it other than teaching them. Other than, making them stronger. To make them all more prepared to be heroes, to save themselves and the people they'll be protecting. I just, did what I could to make people into better heroes. So that they can help more innocents and stop villains with fewer deaths. Fewer people I'll have to bring back? No, no that's not why. Though, it is a positive._

 _You "allowed" them to pass? I heard, from Uraraka, that you were amazing at the hero exam. She did not say much about it, and Midoriya and Todoroki were very quiet about it. You tried to teach the other participants? I don't understand any of that. However, I can believe that at least this much, should likely be true._ Yaoyorozu opened her mouth to say something to Zach, but she froze as her pocket started buzzing and making a ringing noise.

Zach turned as Yaoyorozu pulled out her phone and looked at the timer she had set for herself. She turned it off and pocketed the phone, then she said to Zach with a nod and a very small smile, "I must be going. Zach-sensei," Yaoyorozu lifted the corners of her lips a bit more for a moment after she said it. She had to reference all he just said instead of just ending it there, and Zach smiled in relief at her joke.

"Let me walk you back to the train station-"

"I'll be fine," Yaoyorozu assured with a shake of her head like it was no problem.

"Oh, uh, alright," Zach said. "Then, I'll see you soon?"

Yaoyorozu nodded back at him and then turned away from the boy she had come to Yutapu to meet. _This is why I should have gone to Musutafu,_ Zach thought while watching the girl who just turned from him. _We could have talked for longer. She has a long trip back, so there's nothing I could say. But for only this much time, she wasted a whole trip out here just for me to ramble like I did for the past hour! Ugh what am I doing ?_

As Zach turned the other way and started off with a frustrated look on his face, Yaoyorozu's lips had lowered into a frown too. It was darker in the sky above her, and chillier too so she put her hands down into her jacket's pockets as she continued towards the train station. _Why?_ She thought. Her lips pursed and she turned and flashed a smile at a group of men walking by who all seemed to recognize Creati. She kept going though without slowing down to talk to them, and she walked down the sidewalk with a sad and frustrated look in her eyes. _I know you're Death. I knew it from the first, but I also gave myself the small doubt when it happened. I told myself and the others that I would wait until we heard that people were being brought back to life where the Army of Death went before making my judgement- and then you did! You brought them back and I couldn't even deny it in the least._

 _But you stand there and tell me straight to my face about your adventures in Terra. Your elven soldiers, and your life as a soldier fighting General Rorsho and the Arcasians like it's so real._ Yaoyorozu lifted a hand up to her forehead and rubbed it, then she let out a sigh and lifted her eyes from the floor just in front of her. Her expression got less frustrated and more just upset, but also without much emotion in it and more of a look of reluctant acceptance. _You never used to do that. Not to me. You can lie straight to my face now, and you never could before. We, don't have the same relationship we had back then though._

Yaoyorozu felt a retching feeling in her gut, and her heart ached a bit, but she shook her head and kept a steady face. She ignored the hurt and just walked forward strongly, _That doesn't mean we can't still be friends, and of course I still care about him, but not like-_ She clenched her own teeth and not from the cold around her, though her fists did clench in her jacket's pockets. _Not if you're going to lie to my face. Just lie to me like you do to everyone else. I care Zach… but I can't stand it when you lie to me. Maybe it's because you never did before, or maybe it's because now you feel you have to._

* * *

Two men walked into a Boraton Hotel on the eastern part of central Yutapu. The hotel was one of the tallest four buildings in the city, and the men had a reservation for a room very near to the top of the building. The first to walk in looked like a native Japanese. He wore a black suit, sunglasses, and a pair of tight white gloves over his hands. He took his sunglasses off after stepping inside and slid them into his coat pocket as he continued forward calmly and discreetly through the lobby without drawing any attention to himself.

There was a foreigner with the man though, who kept his sunglasses on longer and took the more expensive lenses off with more of a motion with his arm before shaking his head once. The blond hair on the sides of his head flushed out a bit and fell around his ears after being pushed down by the glasses' temples. His hair was longer than the other man's short black hair, falling behind his head and to the sides around his neck or below where it curled up a bit in the back. He did not have gloves on, and his hands were out of his pockets and rose at his sides as he lifted his arms up in a stretch and then looked around the lobby at the other Japanese people who looked his way. He flashed a smile of white teeth at the people who looked away, and the Canadian man shrugged and looked back forward at his partner who he stepped quicker up to.

The man who walked in first reached the desk right before his partner, and he spoke to the woman behind it who looked to him first, "Reservations for room 5401."

"One second, sir," the woman replied quickly. She wore a uniform for the hotel and quickly looked down to her computer as she typed quickly, hoping to get this intimidating man's business done quickly.

"How's our room?" The other man behind the counter asked. He leaned his right elbow on the counter and moved his head closer to the woman who looked up in surprise at the smiling Canadian guy who acted quite the opposite from the man she did not even think was with him due to their different demeanors.

The Japanese man continued to stare straight at her with an unwavering gaze that made her snap her head back down, but she shifted a look back up at the foreigner with a small smile. "It is a very nice room. One of our finest here at Boraton."

"That's great to hear!" He replied emphatically. His Japanese was good, though he laughed louder than most Japanese would with mannerisms only befitting a westerner. The woman behind the counter felt more relaxed by his laughs though than annoyed considering the unease she felt initially with the first man who came to speak to her.

"Ah yes, Mr. Yamada. Your reservation for 2 is all set. Here are your keys," the receptionist pulled out two keys that she held over the counter with both hands while bowing her head a bit. "Please enjoy your stay here at the-"

Yamada took the key cards and then turned without a word to the woman who gulped and stopped short with her greeting. The man behind his partner leaned back over the counter though for a second and rolled his eyes, then winked at the receptionist whose eyes widened at how contrasting these two were. The Canadian stepped after his partner over towards the elevators after giving that woman a wink, and he shoved his hands down into his pockets with a relaxed look over his face. "No need to be so moody," Edward said with a chuckle as he got right up to his partner's side. Although he had on a suit too, his jacket was unbuttoned revealing a striped yellow button-down underneath instead of plain white like Yamada's. "Someone might think something's up if you act so uncool."

"Keep your opinions to yourself," Yamada said. He held a briefcase in his right hand and had pressed the elevator button with his left, while Edward had a backpack on over his suit as the only luggage the two of them had on them.

The elevator doors opened and the two men stepped inside. Yamada swiped his key card which turned on the elevator and illuminated the button for their floor, then he glared out the doors for anyone who was considering following them to double-back on that and give them the elevator to themselves. Edward leaned against the opposite wall while holding a finger on the doors' close button, and as soon as they were shut he said, "So what's with you? You never smile before? It's not actually that hard."

No response from the other man in the elevator. "Mr. Yamada" stared ahead at the doors without making a sound, though his thoughts shifted to the man at his side without him looking Edward's way. _Edward McMillan. Ex-Special Forces from the experimental CEDF. The Canadian Emergency Defense Force failed in its initial foundation though. If it had not, there was no way a man such as this would have been released. The Canadian division could not replicate the US Special Forces that many suspect must be why the US' crime rate never rose as high as the rest of the world. Canada and Mexico's rose faster on either side, so his nation attempted to make up for it by following their neighbor's policies._

 _"…J-1 will meet you at the airport. Follow his instructions once you arrive. Initial payment will be deposited this Friday, and payment for completion of the job will be…" blah blah bah. This guy's got no personality at all. I thought J-1 was just a codename, but it's more like he's an actual drone or something!_ Edward looked at his "partner" closely, _Could be actually. Though it feels like he's sizing me up. Even if he pretends he's not._

 _…The CEDF never received much support inside of Canada,_ J-1 stepped forward as soon as the doors opened on their floor. The rooms this high up were as wide as the floors themselves, and the two stepped out into the entry-room of a large loft with a huge living room, multiple bedrooms, a kitchen and bar area, and windows almost all around the room. J-1 walked straight towards the bar to put his briefcase down, _And once crime rates started dropping again the program was shut down. And now men like Edward have all the skills and no work for them._

 _Good thing there's still someone hiring,_ Edward dropped onto the couch while swinging his backpack off his back and around in front of his body. He unzipped the bag while J-1 typed in the code on his briefcase's keypad. The case clicked and he opened it up, while Edward pulled out a black cloth wrapped around one long hard piece in his bag. "I was real glad to hear from you guys," Edward started, while he started to put together the sniper rifle he pulled out in pieces in his backpack. At the top of his eyes as he put it together, he saw his partner ignore him but that encouraged him more as it confirmed something. _So he is with him._

Edward leaned back and continued putting his gun together but while staring straight at J-1 as he did it. "So, what is it with our employer?" Edward asked. J-1 was facing to the side and down at the counter as he put together his own rifle that had been hidden under a false bottom of the briefcase. He stopped moving for a moment as Edward continued, "It's the first time I heard about Eziano Mozcaccio, but is there anything I should know about him?" Edward watched as his partner turned towards him with the first look of genuine emotion on his face since they met at the airport earlier that day. His own eyes got more dangerous as he sat there brandishing his _already_ put together rifle, but he held it in that intimidating way because of the intent he felt from J-1 at the mention of that name.

 _Wasn't hard to figure out what those initials were. Just asked around with some contacts, until finally someone told me what it was they really didn't want to tell me about. And seeing as he gave you a codename I'd bet you're one of his. The top assassin in the world hires random guys like me? No way. Not exclusively at least. I knew, there had to be guys like you out here._ "Come on, _J-1,_ your boss really all-"

"For one thing," J-1 started. He interrupted Edward which was a first despite the Canadian man speaking constantly almost hoping he would get interrupted one of those times. Edward shut up at J-1's dark voice, and the Asian man glaring at him finished, "Never mention that name again or I'll be forced to kill you."

Edward wanted to test it, but the job would be ruined. He wanted to make a joke, but he also wanted J-1 to tell him what was 'for two.' J-1 was not finished with his threat though as he saw Edward's focus more on what other information he could get and not on that warning a moment ago. "You are correct, and there is an organization that I am a part of. You do not attempt to join us. You will be contacted if he sees it fit."

"And would you be okay with that?" Edward asked. "If your boss lets me in?"

"Yes." J-1 replied, and he turned back to his weapon. "I am a member of his organization. I have no fingerprints. I have no record of ever existing, as my face has long changed and there was never a record of my DNA." Edward lowered the corners of his lips into more of a frown as he watched the other assassin, an actual professional assassin very unlike himself. "I go by J-1, though I have no true name." He clicked in the final piece of his rifle and then turned his head to Edward once more, glaring into his blue eyes with darker brown ones. "There are very few things I care about in this world. I follow our employer's orders exactly. I believe in our Lord and follow his will. And I obey the rules of our organization that carry down to _all_ professional killers on Earth. Rules that you will learn and obey, or you will die."

"Hey hey, I've been a soldier," Edward said defensively, holding up a hand without looking threatening at all anymore. "I can follow rules." _Sounds like I'm entering a whole new world here. Sounds fun actually! I'll be starting off ahead of the curve though, with the best rep someone could get in this game._ Edward turned his head towards the windows on the west side of their floor. His determined and hardcore look only lasted for a moment though before a more curious one appeared again, _This guy religious or something?_

 _And one other thing I believe in,_ J-1 started loading a magazine and checking all of his rounds to make sure he was ready. _The only way to make up for the Painter's death which I wanted to cause myself, the only way to prove myself the best sniper in the world…_ J-1 snapped the magazine back into his rifle and his eyes darkened furiously as he glared over the bar at the wall across from him. _Is to kill the one who killed the Painter, as I know Sazaki did._

"So how much do you know about me, by the way?" Edward asked while stepping off the couch. J-1 turned back with the same emotionless look as before, and Edward sighed and held up his free hand as he was lugging his sniper around with him. The rifle was almost as long as he was tall, and the muscular former soldier grinned at his partner who turned while also holding his rifle with one arm. "You think I could beat you in a snipe-off?" He asked it and bounced his eyebrows at the other man a couple of times. Then he turned his head to the right where J-1 just turned left, and he spun back, "Oh come on. We've got time before school's out. Tell me, you think you have what it takes to match up with me?"

"This is not a contest. It is a mission." _But yes, I am better than you-_

"So you do think you're better than me," Edward called his partner out at the way he responded. "But you know, if your boss was really confident that you could do this he wouldn't have called me in." J-1's face did not have a reaction, and Edward could not tell if what he just said actually got to the guy this time. He walked around J-1's side to the edge of the bar and around the other side where he got a good look at the drinks the hotel stocked their bar with. He smirked at the sight of them but rose his eyes back up to the Asian man scanning his eyes around the room locked on him, "I had a 'natural affinity' for sniping, the instructors said, which put me at the top of my class. But added with my Triple Zoom Quirk," he leaned forward over the opposite side of the counter and smirked wider. "I'm a monster with my rifle."

 _Triple Zoom has it's flaws,_ J-1 thought while keeping eye contact with the Canadian. _He does have the advantage with it, however only at 3 pre-locked distances that he can zoom his eyes at. He must determine them an hour in advance however for it to work._ "And what use is that Quirk if you wait until his school is out to set your distances-"

"I memorized the schematics for this city, this hotel, and all the streets and buildings around us," Edward countered with a cocky look at his partner. "You think I don't have the three most likely routes he's going to be heading down already locked in here?" He tapped on his right temple only a couple centimeters from his eye, and he chuckled as he left J-1 quiet for a second. "If anything, it might be the opposite way around. Your boss probably could have just called me here to do this on my own."

"I have far more experience in this field," J-1 said. His voice was calm, and he calmly turned away and started for the west side of the building. "And I can hit from farther-"

"Bullshit! I could hit an apple off a tree at two thousand yards like it was nothing!" He called it out and marched around the counter after J-1 who kept walking without pause like he was unimpressed by that stat.

"Good," J-1 replied though when Edward was getting close to him. J-1 knelt down in front of the window he chose, and he pulled out a small round device he pressed up near the bottom of it. He twisted his wrist and finished, "Then focus and hit the target. If you fail on the first shot, know there will not be a second." J-1 pulled his hand back from the glass and took a small circle of glass with it wide enough in diameter for his sniper's barrel to fit through.

"Toss," Edward said after picking his spot and kneeling down at it himself. He caught the glass-cutter and got to it himself, but he asked while going, "Why not? From this distance, there's no way he figures out where we are from one shot-"

"Do not underestimate Death," J-1 said firmly. He twisted knobs on the sides of his scope while down on one knee. He leaned his head up a bit while tilting his barrel down more to check that he had an angle on another roof that might be used as a point to jump up to. _Predicting his movements is impossible. So I need to have every location locked down._

"And you're sure he's Death?" Edward asked. He continued messing with his own sniper, though he looked to his left while working on it and towards his partner. "I've heard Death's still out there. It could be-"

"The man currently holding the position of Death is Danjuro Tobita, a man formerly known as the Gentle Criminal here in Japan. An associate and former subordinate of our target, Zach Sazaki." J-1 paused for a moment, then he added in a lower voice, "However at any time, Sazaki could return to his former position. He could return as Death and bring an end to all of us. Surrounded by his powerful comrades, with more resources than any organization in the world, and we would never again have as great an opportunity as we do now. Alone. Unprotected. Out in the open because he made it so he has to be." J-1's hands tightened on his weapon and his eyes focused on the roof of a school building in the distance blocked by too many buildings around it for him to see the windows.

 _We're hunting Death! I already knew, it was a possibility that he was once… I didn't really think that's what this was._ Edward shifted his gaze to his side at the man who had spoken so strongly about this a second ago. _We're not hunting him because of what he did to the League of Villains. Nor because of Sazaki's underworld bounty I heard about but didn't consider until this super paycheck got offered. That Eziano- EM guy, and Sazaki- Death! They've got a fucking war going on under the surface! And despite going against that guy whose name we can't even say, and all his super assassins- he's just walking around out in the open like there's nothing fucking wrong?! Jesus Christ! This kid- if I kill him it won't just be setting me for life or making me the most famous killer… we could be deciding entire wars and the- the fate of the whole fucking world?!_ Edward's grin could not get any bigger as his slight anxiety was replaced by the complete, utter hype at how big what he was about to do was.

"And why is it, that he came back in the middle of all this?" Edward asked while knelt and aiming down his scope. "What's he doing back here if he's really the true Death?"

…

J-1 did not reply to Edward. He did not answer, and Edward started frowning again as he wondered what made his partner answer those other questions if he was going to ignore this one. "I do not know," J-1 said after a minute. He said it and Edward looked at him in surprise and then even wider eyes as it looked like J-1 had spent the last minute thinking of reasons. "But as many men as I have killed, our target has killed more. Far more. Many powerful villains have fallen to his hands. The Shadow Bosses, Mr. Fergus, Keibald, Umbuju, the Capos of Wampajawa. His plans will mean the end for all of us," J-1 looked to his right and into Edward's eyes that got much more serious this time instead of excited. "Kill him. Or he will kill you."

"Yeah, I got it," Edward said. He looked back forward and focused on the roads in case anyone was being let out of school early. "The files I received showed projected routes where he could go after school, but are we sure-"

"The third member of our team has been tracking Sazaki's movements subtly for weeks…" Edward's eyebrows raised up and he chuckled, as he had no idea there was a third member of their 'team' until now. "We believe with a high level of certainty that he will pass down one of the three routes on this side of Shiketsu that you have established angles at along with your zoom. Each of those routes at some point move along streets in view of our hotel room today. At his home he is sure to be most alert, and at school he is too protected. In the streets he must stay relaxed and smiling. We've determined he is desperately trying to make everyone believe that he is just Zach Sazaki, a normal eighteen year old hero prospect trying to live a normal life."

"Surprising so many people believe it," Edward retorted under his breath.

J-1 did not make a response to that, though he did think skeptically, _You did not believe he was Death until a minute ago. Yet you say… It is unimportant. It is unlikely we will work together again. I must succeed in this mission. I have to kill Death once and for all. It will be me._

The snipers waited patiently. It was a necessary trait for someone in their position. They established their shots and readied themselves for their target to get out of school.

Zach Sazaki got out of class and left with the rest of his classmates as usual. He had plans for the afternoon or so he said, so he denied Kotsumura Keiji's invite to hang out at his place after school. Then he headed to the east of his school, though not on the street he took most frequently. Zach went down a different route more to the north, and the snipers first spotted him crossing an intersection going northeast. The two of them both turned at the same time and then scanned their snipers to the corner of the next building down on the intersection. Zach walked past the corner and was out of sight again.

"Contact."

"The next intersection is blocked. Plot out possible routes."

"Do you have his end destination?" Edward wondered while moving his barrel around and adjusting the sights at different intersections or roads where Sazaki could once again return to his sights.

"… Where he is going at this moment is unknown."

"I think he's cutting back in towards us."

 _Of course you do. His most used routes are all in this direction. Even a misdirection to the north would have to cut this way if his intentions take place… Here we go._ J-1 fixed his sights and moved his gun to track Sazaki's position just over two miles away. "Hold," J-1 said.

"Too far for you?" Edward asked, though he was also carefully adjusting his scope and checking the wind and air pressure ahead of him.

"He is moving closer. We will only have one shot..."

"Distance at 3,400 meters... 33-90... 33-80. Look at him," Edward cracked a slightly bigger smile at the sight of the kid in his scope who he was looking at even closer up. His eyes focused on the kid's scarred face, but his tone was referencing his smile and carefree expression as he waved at some people down the sidewalk ahead of him coming his direction. He stood where he was for a minute and took a picture with a couple of girls at a different high school who gathered around him and held up two fingers in a 'V' which had Zach doing the same with his right hand in its glove.

Zach continued down the road, and the two snipers moved their weapons to follow him on a route diagonal to their building. He was on the sidewalk closer to their building, so they could not see his whole body, but from such a high vantage point they had a good view down over the roofs of the buildings between them. _He shouldn't be able to see the shot,_ J-1 thought as he stared down at the top of the boy's head. _If he can see it, he could dodge it or block it in some way. The shot taken on him upon his release almost hit the heart, and no one ever caught the shooter. He's not invincible. One, good, shot._ J-1's right index finger rested on the trigger gently.

 _He just looks like, a normal kid._ Edward watched the teenager closely as he walked down the sidewalk in a completely casual way. He had his hands down in his pockets for a few seconds, then he pulled them out again and returned a more friendly smile to his face as he looked right and across the street. _But this is a job, and even if my employer's wrong, I'm not getting this guy pissed by backing down now. Sorry kid, this is how I get into the big leagues._ Edward chose a similar time to take in a heavy inhale as his partner. There was another intersection that Sazaki was nearing and that neither assassin wanted to risk their target taking a wrong turn on to get even farther from them.

It was a difficult shot. It was longer than most people would say was a possible shot to take. Neither of the snipers thought about that as they judged the distance, the wind, and all the other variables coming into play that could mess with their shots. Edward looked through his scope and his eyes were more focused on the detailed person he could see through it. He saw all of Zach's facial features on the left side of his face from an upwards angle, while the boy turned his head to the right and rose a hand to wave at some other teenagers across the road who recognized him and called out his name. Zach's hand half-rose, and then his head blurred to the left. It spun left with his eyes red and dragging a glowing blur with him so those red eyes snapped up and over the top of the building next to him, over the one past that which was only three stories tall, to a massive hotel with a vantage point on him where he glared towards the highest floors of the building.

Black wings ripped out of Zach's back and slammed down hard, causing the other people on the road with him to scream.

"WHAT THE FUCK?!" Edward tried to yank his gun up but the circle it was pushed through was too small.

J-1 had taken his first shot when Sazaki's head moved faster than it should have in his direction. His shot missed, and he pulled his rifle back out of the hole and jumped backwards, then jumped back again onto the bar near the middle of the room. He aimed out the window more on-level with his own room, and he fired again with a shot that put a hole in the window and made five long cracks spread from that hole towards the window's edges.

The figure that flew up high in the sky swerved to the right and pulled its left wing up, but a hole still tore through the black wing only to get filled in with more darkness in an instant. _That floor,_ Zach flapped his wings behind him and shot like a rocket towards the room. He smashed through the window already cracked, sending glass flying inside and cracking the windows around that one that could not handle the force of Zach flying through so fast. Darkness dragged behind Zach's body as he ignored keeping it all close to himself, discarding that for the purpose of speed.

Zach flew into the room and straight at the man on the counter who tossed his sniper forward while doing a backflip and pulling a sidearm out from his side. Zach's eyes darted to his left though as he saw another man rolling from his stomach onto his back and pointing up his rifle that was loaded and ready to fire. Zach's body lost all darkness around it and he ducked down, and a bullet whizzed over his head. He hit the ground and darted towards the blond man who tried to pull his barrel down to fire off another shot.

J-1 aimed in front of Zach and fired to get the boy he was leading with his pistol. The teen was running so fast that his momentum should take him right into the bullet, and J-1 still felt confident until the moment he was pulling the trigger, when his gun jolted backwards. His finger was still pressing down, but his eyes snapped back from Sazaki to the end of his pistol barrel, where there was a knife blade sticking out of- the gun exploded in J-1's left hand and he yelled out in pain while falling backwards, his left hand shredded by the shrapnel of his exploded gun.

Zach grabbed Edward by the face with his left hand and yanked the man up so hard that Edward dropped his sniper before ever getting off that second shot. He brought the man up and then slammed down into the ground taking all the wind out of the sniper who gasped in pain. Zach turned his head and glared at J-1, who rose up his head slowly while standing and glared at Sazaki right in those glowing red eyes. "This is not over," J-1 said. Then he disappeared. Zach's eyes darted around the floor near where the man had been standing and dripping blood from his left hand, but no more red drops were falling nor were the small pieces of shrapnel on the floor being kicked around or stepped on by some invisible person.

 _Teleportation._

Zach lifted Edward again and then slammed him down before letting go of his face so the man could breathe better out his mouth. His nose was broken by Zach's steel hand when he smashed it hard into the man's face, and blood poured down from his nostrils over his chin. Zach lowered his hand after releasing Edward's face, and that moment of relief the sniper felt when he was able to suck in a huge deep of breath, turned into panic as Zach clenched his metal hand around his neck and hoisted him off the ground again.

Edward looked down and was out of jokes. He stared down into glowing red eyes of a monster who had looked like a normal kid thirty seconds ago. Zach's steel hand tightened its grip, making it so Edward could no longer breath as his windpipes were being squeezed. He really needed to breathe in that moment too, as Zach Sazaki's face flashed as a skull and black lines ripped across his skull as it strobed from skin to see-through. Then he pulled Edward's face in towards his own with for the scariest moment of Edward's life. **"Tell me…** _ **everything."**_

"Wh- I can't, speak-" Edward was gasping out breaths that made out words just barely. His heart pounded and his eyes were getting bloodshot as his face reddened and then purpled. "Eziano-"

Zach's hand finally loosened a bit. He kept a strong grip ready to clench again at any moment, and his body flared with darkness that crawled down his left arm towards where he was holding his enemy. Dark wisps moved like snakes inching up his arm towards his terrified captive. "If you tell me everything you know about your comrades, I won't turn you in. But you speak now or you lose this mercy." Zach's fingers started clenching in again.

A minute later, Zach knocked out the sniper he was still gripping by the throat through all the man just told him. _You're a fool for believing me,_ Zach thought, as Edward's last sentence to him was asking if that meant he could go free now. He dropped the unconscious man to the floor and turned back to the broken window, but then he stopped and turned back. He leaned down and picked up the foreigner he almost left in the empty hotel room he suspected was about to get swarmed. _That J-1, Yamada guy could come back here for his partner if I leave him._ Zach's body erupted in darkness other than his left hand that he kept the black flames away from even as wings ripped out of his back.

 _Third member. Must be somewhere to keep an eye on me if he knew the paths I took most frequently. Stays subtly behind me usually. I've noticed the ones tracking me usually, but hopefully I've shaken him each time before I got home. I never noticed him on me back at the apartment. Now that there was this attack though, I've got just cause to search and make a mess to find them. J-1 got off that shot as soon as I turned. A single glare on some store window glass and I knew, but he couldn't hit from that far. Not many people could. I had luck on my side though…_

 _Yeah, luck. Or else I would've been dead. Again. Probably. Just have to find this third member now. If J-1 couldn't teleport straight to him and get him out of there, then most likely he continued what he normally does and followed me around. He could have gotten in contact if they never saw me, or he could have done something to try and get me to go a certain direction- he might have done it already! What made me decide to go this way? What things did I see after school that could have influenced the decision! Search everywhere!_

80 seconds later, Zach landed back at the base of the hotel where lots of police cars had rolled up and some new heroes just arrived as the secondary force. The first two heroes who arrived were already heading up towards where people heard the loud commotion and saw fighting going on from other floors looking down or up, but others who just got there were down at the base of the building with a group of forty cops. Zach dropped two unconscious men at the feet of the police officers speaking to the heroes who all spun and lifted their heads to the figure whose wings vanished and dropped him to the ground. "I caught these two villains on attempted murder-"

"Sazaki," one of the officers began. It was a voice he recognized, and he turned to the higher pitched tone to see officer Riumi stepping towards him. The woman with short gray hair under her blue police hat had picked him up the day he left the hospital early and went to get a haircut. Unfortunately, the hero who caught Zach that day and was much more unpleasant to him about his running off was also there, and FlyGuy marched up towards Zach after looking at the two unconscious men Sazaki dropped there. "Are you-"

FlyGuy interrupted the officer, "What are you doing here? This is not your job yet-"

"They shot at me," Zach snapped at the older man who leaned back fast at Sazaki's dark look straight in his eyes. Zach's face relaxed an instant later as there was a bit of a crowd around the bottom of the hotel. "One of the shooters escaped. A teleportation Quirk. This one was one of the snipers, a Canadian named Edward McMillan. The other was a spotter, but both are villains involved in the incident." Zach motioned down at the men he had dropped on the floor. In a couple of seconds, he not only explained the situation but also defused it and explained how there were no villains to fight anymore. No one knew what was going on here, and Riumi nodded at Lifebringer after a moment and started relaying that information around to get everyone on the same page.

Zach put his hands behind his head and let out a stretched-out yawn. "Anyway, let's get them processed. I'll give my statement to whoever wants it," Zach added while looking around to see who would finish up this incident with him. He ignored FlyGuy completely and looked mainly at the police to see who wanted to talk to him. Zach turned to FlyGuy who looked like he was about to start speaking, "You should let the hotel know they don't need to evacuate." He could see behind the pro who spun around himself as there were a large number of people evacuating from the huge building. "It's unnecessary."

"What if they did something to sabotage the-"

"It's unnecessary," Zach just repeated. "McMillan's plane came in around noon, they arrived at the hotel only an hour and a half ago. If you check the record for his key card it should show he only traveled from the lobby to his floor where there is no danger. They didn't do anything except prepare for their attack since they arrived." Zach looked around at everyone facing him, then he motioned towards some press vehicles behind the police line. "But I think the rest of what I have to say, I should wait until I'm at the station…"

* * *

"And you're totally up for going to the carnival on Friday? I'd understand if you don't want to-"

"I told you Mina," Zach said on the video call with his friend who called him from U.A. He let out a low sigh that turned into a chuckle as he repeated, "I'm fine. They're making a bigger deal out of it on the news than it is. I just hope it doesn't turn into some big international incident with people trying to push blame around."

"Mmm," Ashido hummed over the line at the boy she had called worriedly a few minutes ago. She looked towards her laptop where she was streaming some news. The news was currently muted but had subtitles on the bottom, and she frowned deeper at the pictures of the two men on it. The Caucasian man was the one Zach was referring to when talking about the incident becoming bigger, but Ashido's focus was more on the mysterious person whose identity was still unknown. Her eyes shifted to the subtitles too, _"One assailant still at large." That means Zach didn't catch one of them. I want to ask about it, but if he's not worried the guy will come back then I should just accept that!_ "Ok! Then Friday, do you want to meet up beforehand or should we all just try and meet at the ferry?"

"I think the ferry should be good," Zach replied. _Don't even put meeting up at the fair itself as an option, but allow me to pick one that's closer… if that's what you thought I would suggest myself I mean. Is that what she's-_

"I looked up ferry times this morning, and since we'll have to wait until after school, plus the time it takes us to get ready, and the travel time to the ferry first before we can get to Inazuma Island…"

Zach nodded along with the pink girl excitedly making plans and using him as more of an agreeing bystander than someone helping with the decisions. He turned his head in his bedroom and looked at the windows across from the foot of his bed. His gaze lingered out there though he shifted his eyes back for a moment to nod at the time Ashido concluded worked best for everyone. She got to talking about getting transportation from the train station to the ferry or just walking, and Zach listened with a small smile on his face. He appeared like he was paying attention but also looking at something else, and Mina Ashido tilted her head to the side of her phone like she was trying to look around Zach to see what it was.

Zach turned his phone a bit and showed her his window which did not have anything special out of it except some sunlight and more buildings. He turned it back to himself and nodded at her to continue, which Ashido did slowly, but she got a confused look on her face again as Zach's eyes shifted back over to the window anyway. He stared back over there while sitting in his chair, and Ashido tried to keep speaking strongly but she trailed off. _He looks so far away again,_ Ashido thought it and lowered her lips into more of a pursed frown at the idea. Her friend's smile looked distant, and older, more mature and so far from her. "Zach… You've changed."

The boy on the other end of the line kept looking towards the window for a few seconds, then he looked back at the girl whose eyes widened. Ashido pursed her lips after a second though and decided not to cut back on what she just said, instead just staring at Zach closely at the way he turned to her without denying her sudden statement. "Maybe," Zach admitted. He leaned back on his chair and held his phone out in front of him as he looked at the girl on the other side of it. "But sometimes, it's not the people who have changed. It's the mask that fell off."

Ashido's heart raced as she stared at the boy right in front of her but so far away that she couldn't run to him in person when she heard about him getting attacked. "So the you now, was the real you back then?" Ashido wondered quietly.

Zach tilt-nodded in a way like he was saying that was partially true at least. "More-so than when I was here before… I feel like I'm not hiding at all. My past maybe, certain things, but back when I came back from the villains I had all sorts of secrets." Zach's eyes rose up to his ceiling and he lowered the corners of his lips down, "About my plans for working with anti-heroes. My plans for getting Japan to be a society more welcoming of my ideas about people using Quirks."

 _Things you're so open about right now,_ Ashido thought while staring at the boy saying this so casually in front of her.

"I don't care to hide those things anymore, not from you guys," Zach said while looking back down into Mina's eyes. She was staring at him with bigger eyes, and Zach said softer, "I don't care that it makes me seem so far either, to be caring about such things."

"Well," Mina began, stopping Zach before he could continue. As much as the things he talked about were huge, beyond her own concerns and normal worries, she shook her head at what he just said. "You've always been that far away, if it really was a mask before," Mina said after realizing it herself. "You wanting people to be able to use Quirks just normally, isn't a very popular viewpoint, but I think if you explained your reasons to people, people would totally listen to you!"

"I just, think it's common sense," Zach said while nodding thanks at his friend for that encouragement right there. "The reason behind that being that I think kids who have cursed Quirks like mine was wouldn't see them that way if they were trained from a young age. If everyone understood their Quirks better, even if it is harder for those cursed kids, it would be better than just giving up on so many." Ashido nodded along with him, though she was more-or-less doing what Zach did while she was making their plans for the weekend. "Before," Zach started after a pause. "I wanted to change things so that in the long run there wouldn't be children like that, like me and like Eri. In order to create a world where they would no longer exist, I was willing to go outside of the law: To find the League of Villains, to fight the people who had tortured me and killed my family, but not anymore."

"You're really going to do everything, lawfully this time?" Ashido said, hesitating after 'everything' because she did not know if she wanted to ask him this question only to be disappointed when he ultimately broke his word in the answer.

"I am," Zach replied. He gave her a steady look during his response, and he said firmly afterwards, "I'm staying in the law not because I think I can find the League of Villains better this way, because that's not true and I could find them easier outside it." Ashido's eyes grew wide again as Zach stated that so plainly like he had ways he could be tracking the League down at that moment if only he could do whatever he wanted. Zach continued though, "But because I've come out as trying to do things right, I can't go and do them some other way or I'll lose the faith of the people. And they don't just believe in me, they look to me for guidance on how to be strong and come back from dark times."

Zach's voice got quieter as he said that, and he looked somewhat awkward while hunching forward in his chair to say it in a softer voice to Mina. The girl he was speaking to stared at him astonished at what Zach was saying though, as Zach went on, "I can't fall again though. If I fall again then they'll feel it's the exact opposite. That no matter how strong someone is, they'll always break. That's not what I want them to believe, which is 'that no matter how weak you are, how many times you fail, you can always get back up and become something great.' I've become famous for doing just that, and people are waiting for me to falter and fail, but I won't give them that excuse. I won't give anyone the excuse that 'even Lifebringer couldn't hold on forever.'" Zach rose up his eyebrows he realized were narrowed down at the girl who was leaning far back on her bed while talking to him.

He paused for a moment and eased up on how passionately he was just speaking too. "Maybe, I have changed," he admitted, while Ashido eased up herself as she felt like Zach was backing off due to her expression.

"What do you mean?" She asked him quickly.

Zach held up his free hand and just shook his head with another small laugh. "Well, to be more forthcoming about what it is I'm doing, at least to my friends." He smiled bigger at the girl on the line with him whose heart raced faster and whose entire face brightened at the sound of that. "How I want to save the world, make it a better place, stop villains and make people have better lives that stops any more villains from appearing. Have people help the insane and mentally ill before they become criminals, and create outlets for people who need them to keep them from going down the wrong path. Be they teenagers whose grades are slipping, or orphans who feel like no one cares about them and that everyone else has so much more, or adults who have lost their jobs and think there's only one direction to turn to." He took a breath and then felt free to continue at the nods Ashido was giving him to go on.

"Stopping villains is the job of a hero," Zach started. "But, I don't really want to be just a hero anymore." He looked at Ashido hesitantly while saying it, as she was still trying to be a hero so he did not know if that would sound alright. She nodded at him though in complete understanding, and Zach added, "I want to do whatever it takes to make the most possible good outcomes. It was my goal for so long… but now I'm continuing that goal from inside the law. I'm doing it publicly, because the _means_ matter a lot in order to obtain certain ends. Only in seeing how hard someone worked for it, in the right way, can some things ever come about."

"That's why you came back here?" Ashido asked. She stared at him closely as his eyes locked into her soft ones that also looked a little sad at her question.

"One of the _many_ reasons," Zach replied. "Making up with all of you was also up there," Zach assured her, and Ashido smiled back at him at that assurance. His own smile dipped down a bit though at the mention of those reasons, and his head turned to the side and he looked away for a moment. "So, do you know how much a ticket-"

"There's a hero discount! And when you come in a group of five or more there's…"

Zach looked back to his former classmate who excitedly got back into their plans, feeling all the brighter because of how much Zach actually talked to her about. All that talk had made her completely forget about the attack on Zach's life, as he seemed so far beyond normal little attacks like that for her to worry about something so trivial. He watched the girl on the line with him though and although he kept smiling and nodding, laughing at the occasional thing she said, his mind shifted to someone he knew was in the same building as his pink-skinned friend. _Mina wanted to talk to me, and like everyone else she initiated our talk by calling me. Others make plans to meet with me or come to my place, since I told them they had to because I can't go to U.A. They all initiate meeting with me, whereas Momo only did that once and by surprise. I had to ask her to meet earlier this week when I asked if she wanted to talk, which she accepted!_

 _But why did she accept if she wasn't going to text me herself? I'm sure Sero and the others tell her when they- they have to! What if she only accepted because she felt she had to?_ Zach's brow furrowed but Ashido did not notice as she was scrolling through her computer next to her at that moment. _I should invite her,_ he thought with a more serious look on his face for a moment, his right hand curling tighter around his phone and his left digging into his left leg much harder. _Since I doubt she'll come if I don't._

* * *

"Satoshi! Hanodo! If you have time to talk you have time to train," Enorma glared at the boys who were slacking off and nodded quickly at their teacher before turning back to some exercise equipment near them. They were taking too long between their sets, and the boys got back to muscle training in the huge state-of-the-art gymnasium that Class 1 was using for independent preparation for their upcoming joint training with U.A. "You think Class A's sitting around smacking their gums? The lot of you want a repeat of last year?"

Enorma's encouragement and taunts had a few of the class getting more into it, while the majority of the students were tuning her out. Her newest taunt got a couple of them getting more frustrated looks on their faces though that did have them moving faster and harder in their workouts. "I'd say it was funny seeing you all get thoroughly embarrassed by your U.A. counterparts, but it just so happens to reflect on my teaching skills when my class with 50 percent more students can hardly put a dent in their Class A's. I heard Class 2 did a much better job against Class B from U.A., not that they won, but I'm sure you've heard all about it from them this past year, several times I'd imagine!"

The teacher calling out to her students shifted her gaze across the room and towards a bench press where one of her students was laying and tuning her out like many of the others, (fewer now after that last remark). He had on a pair of wireless headphones and was wearing a tight long-sleeved white shirt that pressed close to his muscular body unlike his black sweats that were baggier on him. Enorma's eyes shifted down to the arms that were extending up and then bending back down to allow the heavy bar with lots of weight on either side to nearly touch his chest. _None of the students have seen his body under that shirt. Not even his arms I'd imagine. We know he has a fake arm, but how much of his body is-_ "Reika! Just because you've got a single digit doesn't mean you get to slack off and distract Kotsumura!"

"Yeah Tiona, stop distracting, ugh me," Kotsumura said, grunting as he did another rep while trying to keep his head turned and still talking to the girl next to him.

"Fine," she retorted and turned away, making Kotsumura turn his neck more to try and say something only to feel the strain too much on his flexing tri's. He had to spin back with a 'whoa,' and he was the one yelled at by Enorma this time after the loud clanking of weights.

 _Nice save,_ Enorma thought after yelling at Kotsumura, since she was pretty sure Sazaki did not see her staring when he had finished his set and sat up all of a sudden.

Zach stood up and he wiped his brow despite not being sweaty at all. He frowned after doing it, glancing around and seeing a couple of people looking his way but not really looking as they pretended to keep up their own workouts.

 _How does he lift so much? It has nothing to do with his Quirk?!_

 _He doesn't look as big as Rekishi, but he lifts way more._

Zach looked back at the weights he had been lifting, and he rolled his shoulders a couple of times before cracking his neck to either side and taking in a nice long inhale. _Muscle training good. No one noticed the use of Death, so despite the strain I kept it inside the skin. Increasing physical attributes with no visible Death use nor risk of Death damage to others other than absorption through skin from within. Skin blocks better than most clothing material however, except for the tevlon._ Zach's eyes shifted to the glove on his right hand for a moment that he curled his hand inside of. _Won't be long until I don't have to wear it. If I could subconsciously keep Death as my entire hand for a month straight without even thinking about it, I could keep it that way normally- like it is now. But I could have it out too without risking instant death. Then I won't have either hand…_

The dark-haired teenager curled both fists at that thought and then shook his head around. _Back to it. This isn't going to be easy,_ Zach turned and he headed towards an empty section of the gym where there was not as much going on. Most of his classmates were utilizing Shiketsu's high-tech training equipment or just using more traditional weights like he had, but Zach moved for an open area and then to the opposite wall as where all the equipment was centered around. He stood in front of a punching bag and took in a deep breath before glaring at it and raising up his fists in front of him in a boxing stance.

His legs spread. He bent his knees. Zach imagined the face of an enemy in front of him, _Zolo._ Zach's eyes darkened more at the sight of dead heroes and dead Army of Death members scattered around. Zolo's comrades fought his own to his sides and he heard the yelling bouncing off the walls of the cave system around him. The echoes filled his ears, and his hands snapped open from clenched fists into having more curled fingers and a weird-looking stance. He pushed his right hand forward while weaving his head down to the right, then he pushed his left hand across the front of his body and hopped up as the sweep from Zolo's tail came at his legs. He kicked out his right leg and then his left into the punching bag, then he swung his right hand up before chopping down diagonally from the top right into where Zolo's left shoulder would have been.

Zach moved to the left as the bag was swinging back towards him after one of his hard hits. He hit it more from that side, making it come back to swing into him there instead, which had him stepping around again. Zach circled the punching bag, his arms and legs bashing away at it at different points each time. His forearms, his elbows, his wrists, his hands, his ankles, his feet, and his knees all seemed to get equal attention in his moves that switched up effortlessly and like there was some pattern to the madness instead of Zach just beating the bag to get out his frustration.

After a few minutes straight of going at it, Dendo stepped back from his last go at the virtual battle simulator he had been standing in with three of his classmates. He removed the attachments to make the machine work along with the headset and handed them off to a classmate behind him waiting to go in and use it. Dendo then heard the smacking and he turned his head and looked across the room, "Back at it," he muttered.

"He hasn't stopped," Kotsumura said while turning to his left with a bottle of water lifted in hand.

Flugeru and Kerushi looked over at the blond to see if he was serious, then they and Dendo all looked back towards Zach who moved like he never got tired. "He's a damn machine," Kerushi joked, only half-jokingly.

As the boys were looking over that way, and as Enorma was about to call them out for it, they all spotted someone heading in Zach's direction across the gym. The boys lifted their eyebrows and Enorma lost focus on what she had been paying attention to. "Hello Zach!"

Zach turned his head and looked at the most cheerful of his classmates, who was also ranked 2 in the class for the first time in his career at Shiketsu High. Inasa Yoarashi even gave Zach a wave as he stepped right up to his classmate who stopped punching the bag for a moment to see what Inasa wanted. "We should train together!" Inasa suggested in the same cheerful tone, though Zach watched his expression closer this time and saw the look in Inasa's eyes that betrayed his always carefree and positive attitude.

"You want to?" Zach wondered, and he wiped his brow again which made him bite down hard inside his lips. He relaxed his jaw and then nodded, and he asked, "No using Quirks?" Zach started away from the bag towards the middle of the room where there were a couple of mats. They could be used for stretching, or yoga, or practicing wrestling moves or something. Inasa did not even question what they were going to do as Zach gave him that response though.

"Sure!" Inasa replied at the kind of training Zach suggested.

"Keep at it!" Enorma called at her students who got distracted by what they saw coming. She grinned to herself as all the kids got back to their activities, leaving her as the one who got to witness this (not that the others weren't all going to be watching out the corners of their eyes or by stealing the occasional look). _Hazano said this was the fight to miss Ranking Day. Would've loved to see that Inasa lose for once, though I really want to see how Lifebringer fights. Rumors have him all over the place!_

"How do you want to do this?" Inasa asked, bouncing around on the balls of his feet and looking excited for the coming spar.

"Just until someone hits the floor?" Zach suggested, but he rose his intonation at the end to show he would let Inasa agree to it or suggest something else.

"That sounds fantastic!" Inasa bowed to his partner and punched his hands together. They were wearing normal work-out clothes instead of their costumes, and Inasa had on a tank top and shorts like most of their classmates. His arms and legs were muscular sticking out of his sleeves, and he was bigger than Zach by a bit though the two had similar statures. They faced off against each other with only a few feet in between them to prepare for the fight.

Manzo stopped her own target practice with the knives she was pulling off the target dummy's thighs and upper arms. She put her knives away and got to stretching, making it believable while also giving her the focus she needed over on the boys about to fight each other. The redhead's eyes locked on Zach and she gulped which immediately made her turn away for a moment with a frustrated look on her face. She glared across the room towards a blonde girl also pretending to work out at full pace while in reality checking out Zach and Inasa's fight that was about to start. Manzo frowned more for a second as she saw Reika staring over at Zach, but then she clenched her teeth and darted her eyes away quickly as she remembered why it was she had looked over in the first place.

 **"You know it's been three years now, and I don't think you've ever looked as 'girly' as you did right there… Hahaha! Don't take it out on me, I know who's got your heart all knotted up. What'd he say to you out there? What drenched your…"** Manzo lifted her frown with a light chuckle at the memory of what Reika joked with her about after Ranking Day. It got her mind off of who they had been talking about then too, but only for a second as she saw other people looking over and spun herself as Zach and Inasa started fighting.

"Let's do it," Inasa said, and he stepped forward at Zach.

Zach stepped forward too. They were not far away at the start, and Inasa stepping forward was setting the pace for it where Zach could have backed up, or prepared for his first move. Instead, Zach just made for doing his own first move like he would get it off before Inasa. Inasa did not want to back away, so he got ready to attack anyway without using his Quirk so he could not speed up his swing at all with his wind. Unfortunately, Zach did not need any Death to swing his fist faster than Inasa was swinging.

 _There,_ Inasa saw Zach's left hand tightening and his elbow pulling up a little. Zach's right arm was the one swinging fast forward at him, but it was below Zach's tightening left fist that his foot seemed to be lifting up at the toes. That foot was the one already forward, so Zach was not going to be stepping again with it especially with his right foot planted as hard as it was. _His body's clearly twisting with the right side pushing forward, but the feint to get his left arm a-_ Zach's right arm sped up and he smashed his fist into the side of Inasa's face while his opponent was switching moves and going for a block of a kick with one arm raising in back-up to block the left fist if Zach went for it.

Zach's knuckles in his right glove smashed into Inasa's left cheek. He finished twisting the right side of his body and threw his right hand forward to completely follow-through with the punch, taking Inasa off his feet and then kicking his left leg back off the toes of his feet and curving his right arm down. He slammed his fist down towards the floor and smashed Inasa's body into the ground.

"Holy shit-" Satoshi covered up his mouth, but Enorma was not looking towards him.

Inasa opened up his clenched eyes that he slammed shut in the pain. His eyes opened more in shock than anything else as the pain was not that intense, but then his eyes stayed wide as Zach leaned down over him and held his left hand out for Inasa to take. Inasa was slow, but he reached up quickly when he realized what it was and let Zach help him back up to his feet. Zach helped him up and then held his hand after Inasa was still up for another second, and he said from that up-close position, "It's not always going to be some complex move. Most of the time, if it looks like it's coming from the right, it's probably coming from the right." Zach let go and took a step back from his opponent who continued to stare at him in surprise for a few seconds, before smiling and nodding his head as he took a step back himself.

"Let's go again," Zach said with a nod back at his opponent.

 _I thought it'd be better without him using Death, but Whirlwind is what made our fight even close! He's amazing!_ Inasa's excitement was replaced more by awe for the rest of his classmates who stared at him or Zach feeling amazed by them. Inasa had just gotten knocked to the floor in one hit, but he was up and smiling again right away despite who just knocked him off of his feet. And Zach… the fact that he took Inasa down in one hit was enough but the fact that he stood there like he was about to test if Inasa could come at him again was what really had most of his peers gawking at him.

Dendo never got as surprised as most of the others. He had already been defeated by Zach without him using his Quirk at all, and Dendo expected the outcome even if he did think it might have lasted a bit longer. Dendo turned back to the narrow hall he was looking down off the main room that had several "hostages" in front of targets at the end he was trying to direct his Quirk, Slice, around. He faced forward and his eyes narrowed as he heard another slam on the ground behind him, _Even without using Death, he's just_ _ **stronger.**_ _He's_ _ **faster**_ _than the rest of us._

Kotsumura looked back at his own equipment and he put down his bottle of water. _You're already number 1,_ Kotsumura thought, and he leaned forward and added more weight to the set he was on.

Zach dropped Inasa after a couple more seconds than the first spar took. His opponent hit the ground this time and lost his smile fast, punching down at his right side while he was flat on his back. Then he hopped back up this time and just nodded quickly at Zach before getting back into his stance. Zach frowned as Inasa nodded fast like that, making his opponent who had a very serious look on his face get confused. Inasa looked at Zach wondering what the problem was, but Zach shook his head like it was nothing and rose his arms back up himself.

 _Pay attention. I get that the second time it confirms it really wasn't a fluke, but you already knew that after the first. I thought at least. I'll drag this one out longer, make it harder on myself to get something more out of it. Show you that I'm doing that like how I showed the others I put the handicap on myself during Ranking Day I couldn't do for you. Your Quirk is so strong that you aren't as good at combat like this as you imagine you are. And no one knows how hard I could really go here, but it'll definitely be lighter than what you saw on Ranking Day getting ready to fight me._ Zach fought Inasa again. He fought him longer this time, with his arms being used for blocks and the occasional feint before he would swing a leg up for a kick.

He kicked and kicked, and Zach headbutted Inasa in the face that made him stumble back the perfect distance for a kick in the chest. Zach took Inasa off his feet with a kick of his right foot, and then he relaxed his tensed body and let out a heavy exhale. The last kick was the hardest and knocked the wind out of Inasa who was laying there gasping for a few seconds and grabbing at his chest. "I think that's enough for today," Zach said, during the time while Inasa still couldn't say anything back to him like he wanted to fight some more. Zach had beaten him using only kicks this time, and Inasa couldn't even say anything against it as Zach unilaterally decided to end their short-lived training.

The way Zach finished the whole session so quickly too, made it seem like Zach initially agreed because he thought it would be more difficult and taxing for him. He thought he might be able to gain something, and the fact he ended it so quick meant he was not gaining anything from it. Inasa ground his teeth and clenched his eyes shut as Zach started walking away, but he shook his head around and focused back on breathing and getting back to his feet.

Zach walked straight from where he was fighting with Inasa, over to a strenuous "hostage carrier." The machine forced you to run on what was like a treadmill except the ground below you constantly changed shape and slope so it would be like running through an active crime scene. While doing that tough run, there were also handles above your shoulders you were meant to push up so that you were carrying weight during the run, and Zach turned up the weight setting and got to sprinting while Inasa was still standing up near the middle of the room.

"Geez," Satoshi said while walking by "incidentally" at the start of Zach's training. He made it out like he had just been walking past the machine to something behind Zach, but he stopped when Zach turned to him and added with a laugh, "No need to strain yourself-" Zach pushed the hostage bar up to carry the weight, and Satoshi sweatdropped at Zach going that intensely while still making eye contact like they were going to talk during this. Satoshi lowered his own usual smile for a moment as Zach locked eyes with him looked serious and with a flat lip. The Shiketsu boy with snake-like eyes felt strange from the look in Zach's eyes, almost like he was being judged for _not_ doing what Zach was doing right now and being there talking to him even if Zach did just look like he was waiting to talk.

"Why," Satoshi started. He paused, then he finished anyway, "Why are you going so hard when you're already so strong? You're just going to widen the gap."

"It's not about the gap," Zach said, and he turned back forward while speeding up his run because the machine told him to. "I want to be stronger so I can save more lives." He said it and ran while holding up three imaginary hostages over his shoulders. After his response, the machine called out in a feminine hero's voice how they just found two more hostages 'over here' and needed another hero to evacuate them. Zach felt the jolt of two bodies being added to the weight he was already carrying, as was expected due to the settings he chose when he got on the machine in the first place. Satoshi was staring at Zach in surprise at the answer which seemed so bland and vanilla, but for some reason also sounded so genuine like it really was Zach's true reason for doing this at this exact moment.

Zach spoke through the teeth he clenched for an instant there, "If I failed to lift something when I needed to in order to free someone from getting crushed beneath…" He stepped to his right and dodged a lump in the machine that rose up below the sliding ground as a new obstacle that appeared suddenly instead of earlier when it came around the belt from below. "…Or if I ran to a location a second too late when I could have cut down on that time by being two seconds faster," Zach had to say it louder because there was a shout on his machine that made the scenario seem more realistic and came only from his left side. He spoke louder and others besides Satoshi who were looking over at him heard him talking like that while moving even faster than before as a shout called out from behind him that there were more 'casualties' behind him who were stuck in the middle of the attack full of villains who could grab them to make them hostages at any second.

"Then it was the fault of me right now for not taking this as seriously as I could," Zach said, while feeling the brief relief of loading off all his passengers. He started sprinting super fast again to get back while feeling light on the handles, and he glanced to the side at Satoshi while running. "And as a hero, I will come upon villain incidents all the time, and I suspect there will be close calls." He said that in such an assured way, with a tone of anxiety and fear in his voice too.

At first it had sounded like he was just being overzealous. That slight tone of fear though made them consider the situations Zach was posing to them, and the fear was a very rational one.

Satoshi's eyes grew wide as he stared at his classmate right in front of him who turned his head back forward and sped up more, reaching ahead of him and changing the machine settings to make it even harder on himself to the point the machine beeped to warn him of the danger he was putting himself in. _That's a, very real thing to be thinking about right here!_ Satoshi thought with a nervous look over his face.

 _What if I came to one of those close calls?_ Reika thought as she looked down at the bench she was sitting on. _Shit. He knows what he's doing. He knows exactly what he just said to us… but he's not wrong._ Reika had noticed it before; back on Ranking Day she had seen Hazano and Himazuri looked to be the only other two who really did. She got it though as she glanced back over her shoulder with a humph at Zach's focused expression showing he was not paying attention to what they all did at all. _You're right. I'm afraid of that as much as anyone else here. But now if I come to one of those close calls, I wouldn't just be able to tell myself 'if I had gotten the notice a few seconds earlier.'_

 _…I can't think 'if only I had been faster.'_ Porrolo shook his head around and he got back to running on the treadmill, though he ignored the cramp in his side that had him slowing down for a moment there. _Not if I don't do this at full pace. Not if I don't treat it, like actual training!_

"I mean, you can't always be there on time," Satoshi started, though his tone was hesitant as he spoke to Zach. "For you maybe- but…"

Zach curled the corner of his lip down more, but he lifted it back flat while darting a look to Satoshi like he was listening to what he had to say. "Nevermind," Satoshi said, and he backed up before heading off somewhere else. He and some of the others had excuses they wanted to say in order to protect themselves from that pain in the future, the pain of blaming themselves when they didn't get somewhere on time, but he could see Zach didn't care about those excuses. He was going to try harder anyway, so that he wouldn't have to worry about coming up with those excuses in the first place. And as Satoshi saw that… and as everyone else in the room saw it, a new surge of motivation moved through them, and they all worked out even harder.

* * *

 **A/N Thanks for reading! Hope you enjoyed the chapter!**

Logargon chapter 164 . Jun 24

Yeah that brings up another question. Will we ever get to see all the (what I can assume only to be epic beyond belief all out brawls) that are constantly thrown back to?  
Also is darling missing?! Am I reading this wrong?! IS SHE IN LIKE SOME SUPER VILLAINS EVIL LAIR?! YOU LOYAL READERS NEEDZ TO KNOW!

 **I shall never spoil! Mwhaha, but... as for those epic battles, I will say that yes, there are still flashbacks remaining to be seen. Won't say what may show up or be seen or whatnot, but it'll be cool if/when it happens!**

Hi chapter 164 . Jul 1

His appearence being brought up reminder me that I've lost track of what he looks like. That story pic is really outdated, but I'm gonna imagine him as looking like that.

 **Zach's much older now than the last time I got an updated pic for him. If anyone wants to make a new update I'd be happy to switch up the cover photo for Death! But for now, just try and remember that he looks a bit more f**-ed up than that. XD Short on the review responses and end note today (been editing for like 5 hours now), but hope y'all enjoyed the chapter!**


	166. Chapter 166

**Disclaimer: I don't own Boku no Hero Academia**

 **Chapter 166:**

"You have five minutes." The guard in front of Midoriya Izuku said to the eighteen year old about to step into the visiting room behind her.

"Five? I think-" Midoriya hesitated. He tried to show a strong look though that showed he was confident in what he was about to say, "I think it might take longer to get the information I need him to tell me. It's very important that we know everything he does… so, could I get some extra time?"

Tachibana Miyuki hummed, then she looked over at another guard in the room with her who flashed her a grin at her look. Doruno turned away and made a whistling noise that he was not all that good at but got the point he was trying to convey across. Deku spun in surprise towards the male guard and then back to the woman in front of him who gave him a small smile herself, "For one of 1667's friends, I guess you could get that extra time."

"1667?" Midoriya wondered.

"Heh, it was Sazaki's inmate number here," Tachibana replied. "You know, we've never 'retired' a number at this prison before that. Like a sports team," she specified in case Midoriya did not get what she meant by it.

 _They retired his number?_ Midoriya thought with a bead of sweat rolling down his face. "Oh, well um, thank you-" he was glad to get that extra time anyway, but the Tartaros guard in front of him stepped forward and got within his comfort zone with that step. "Ummm-"

"Speaking of," Tachibana started. "If you get that extra minute or three or five, how's the kid been doing? Alright we're hoping, yeah?"

The way Tachibana worded it made it out like Deku had the choice of how long his extra time was going to be here. As much as he wondered what that meant for the regulation codes at the prison, he decided to use it and nodded with a hesitant smile on his face. "He's good. Real good actually. I'm seeing him tomorrow actually, so I could give him a message if you want-"

"That's fine," Tachibana replied with a shake of her head, smiling more herself now behind her helmet's visor. "As long as he's doing alright. He was a real mess when he got in here, you know?" Midoriya paused and his look turned more genuine as he looked at the older woman in front of him. He shook his head showing he did not know, and Tachibana lowered the corners of her lips a bit as she wondered if she misread their relationship. _Saw some stuff about the two of them on the news a couple nights ago actually. Didn't look like they were too friendly, though they were hanging out together._ "So, did he tell you what he spent that year he was gone doing?"

Midoriya's eyes opened wide and he looked at the woman seriously to see if she had this information for him. Then he paused, and he said, "If you mean, his time in Arcasia-"

"He did tell you," Tachibana said with a laugh, relaxing again at the young hero's response.

"Yeah, he told me," Midoriya repeated in an unenthusiastic voice as he was not as thrilled about hearing that story.

Doruno chuckled and shook his head at the green-haired boy who glanced his way in confusion at that guard's reaction. Tachibana smirked herself too, and she said, "I felt the same way there Deku. Story sounded like the craziest thing I had ever heard, and I was _positive_ he was lying about all of it… at least for a couple of days." Midoriya stared at her in confusion for how she could change her mind so quickly, so she continued, "After a few months it was impossible not to believe him. See we had shifts watching outside his cell, and your friend spent five months telling us every last detail of every day he spent on Terra. All about the history of that world, its different races-"

"The Ages," Doruno mentioned with a lift of his head.

"And the wars," Tachibana finished. She paused for another moment and then asked in a lower voice, "Have you seen what he looks like?" Midoriya opened his mouth, but she cut him off, "I mean, what he really looks like. Underneath."

 _I already saw him back in the locker room when he came back from the League. After seeing that, it couldn't shock me anymore._ "I need to get in there," Deku said, getting more serious again which had Tachibana return to a more professional demeanor.

"Alright, I'll give you a knock when you've got a minute left," Tachibana replied, also without giving him a time limit for when she would let him stay in there.

Midoriya nodded his head in a grateful way and then stepped up to the heavy mechanical door in front of him. "Bring the prisoner in," he heard the woman say behind him, and he waited with his hands balling into fists at his sides.

 _Things have been going on in the shadows,_ Deku's eyes focused on the door in front of him that he heard clanking coming from behind. The door opposite his own opened up to allow the prisoner inside, and Midoriya took in a deep breath and loosened his fists as he thought about what he was going to say. _The ability to create Nomus was supposed to come to an end with his arrest. He was caught by heroes and has been in Tartaros for a while, but these recent reports are unsettling. Lemillion says we've been too distracted by Zach, and we all agree. Whatever it is he's doing… it can't wait! The moment we give Zach some wiggle room, he'll put his plan into action! But we can't ignore this either! I can't! I need to take care of all of it. There's a lot resting on my shoulders now, and I need to be ready before graduation for what I'm going to be doing as a hero. As All Might's replacement!_

The door in front of him made the same clanking noises he heard before, only a lot louder as they were coming from right before him. His eyes focused straight ahead as the door opened, and then he felt his stomach churn and his heart pound at the sight of the man sitting in the middle of the room just on the other side of some thick glass. Midoriya stepped forward as he saw the guards behind him looking at his back and waiting for him to go inside so they could close the door. He stepped inside while facing the short and chubby man on the other side of the glass who had a bushy mustache and some light stubble around his chin and cheeks. The man stared at him through small, squinted eyes that looked damaged around his eyelids with some scar tissue above and below them.

The older man appeared in his fifties or sixties, maybe older. He smiled under his bushy mustache while watching the young man approach the glass. "Daruma Ujiko," Midoriya started. "An alias, I've heard. Do you want to give me your real name?" The older man across the glass from Midoriya chuckled and he leaned back in his seat where he sat cuffed and alone.

"Midoriya Izuku," Ujiko began. "I am pleasantly surprised that you came to visit me. Even All Might has yet to come. I thought he would like to meet-"

"You were the League's doctor who created the Nomus for them," Midoriya said. His expression was harsh and his eyebrows narrowed down towards the bridge of his nose. His forehead wrinkled in confusion but he continued to glare at the man before him who he had never met before, despite feeling a strange sense of recognition from him. _I saw him in pictures from when he was arrested. That's all I know him from._ Midoriya tried to convince himself and steadied his churning stomach for a moment to get an even more serious look on his face. _Catching him was a huge story, Endeavor's huge victory after the High-End Nomu was the one that scarred him so badly. Reports of the Nomus haven't gone public yet, but the spottings all resemble what appears to be a new Nomu, and multiple accounts can't be a coincidence._

Midoriya stepped forward and took a seat in front of the man who appeared to be willing to talk to him. _I have to push my questions. He's going to try and get to me, being someone so close to All For One._ "How many Nomus are still out there?"

"Coming to meet me all on your own?" Ujiko wondered, like the two of them were having completely different conversations. "I'm impressed by your drive, young Midoriya."

 _Don't call me that._ "How many Nomus did you complete that were not caught by heroes? How many are still in Shigaraki's hands?"

"You say Shigaraki's hands?" Ujiko wondered. He rose a bushy white eyebrow and examined the boy's face in front of him closer. "And how do you know the Nomus are not being controlled by my master?"

Midoriya hesitated, and Ujiko grinned much bigger in the next moment at the look on Deku's face. "Deku Deku Deku…"

 _I don't need to be here._ Midoriya cursed in his head for thinking that, but it came quickly at the new look on this villain's face. _Lemillion, Scorchle, and Bakugo are following up different leads. Someone has to have something by now- but that doesn't mean I can give up this quickly._ "Ujiko," Midoriya started harshly right as the man was speaking condescendingly towards him, saying his name three times like he was tssking at his young opponent. Deku's eyes stayed harsh and his expression stern as he asked, "Was the lab that Endeavor destroyed not the only place the Nomus were?"

The doctor chuckled at Deku who ground his teeth at the man's look. _He's insane. He doesn't seem upset about being thrown in prison, but that's just a-_

"It wasn't Endeavor who destroyed my lab and captured me," Ujiko responded. He chuckled again once but with a darker look on his face and yet still smiling as he faced the young boy who he recognized just as Midoriya had recognized him. "Sure, Endeavor and those who came with him were the physical members, but they found me because of the information they gathered at various different bases that were all attacked in the week after Reaper made his move and killed Kurogiri."

"This isn't what I came for," Midoriya snapped.

"Isn't it?" Ujiko wondered back. He asked it in a knowing voice, one that made Midoriya question his own intentions and why it was he volunteered for this task out of the different leads their agency was following up that afternoon. Daruma Ujiko leaned back forward, "I can see you want to know the truth. It's written on your face. So let me tell you the truth," Ujiko paused for a second and then smirked more at the kid on the other side of the glass who decided it was better to let the villain talk so he would hopefully give up important information, as asking him directly about the Nomus was not working so far.

"Sazaki's out of prison already from what I hear," Ujiko started. Deku kept his mouth shut instead of immediately going back on his last decision, though he did question if he made the right call. Ujiko continued to make him feel that uncertainty as the doctor went on, "Any Nomus the League may or may not have salvaged from my work, any plans the League has, do you really think they're important in the endgame? Deku, it's Sazaki who's going to bring this world to its knees." He said it fully confident and like he knew something Deku did not, and the doctor kept that expression on his face even while a more twisted smile tugged at his face.

 _He's messing with me! I know that's all he's doing!_ Deku yelled it at himself and then glared at the doctor with an angrier look. "Nomus they might have? What kind could they have? The normal ones or is this one a new type? How many could have gotten away? Are they like the High Ends?"

"There was once a boy who developed an unstable Quirk, and he killed his family with his own hands," Ujiko said it and Midoriya's hands clenched on the counter in front of his seat. _I'm getting nowhere! He's just going to talk about Zach this whole time to mess with…_

Daruma leaned his head forward towards the glass, and he whispered through it at the teenager, "Shigaraki and Sazaki are much more alike than you think."

Midoriya Izuku's heart leapt up in his chest. His eyes that he lowered angrily while getting ready to stand and leave, lifted slowly up to Ujiko and stared into the knowing eyes of All For One's personal doctor. _What does he mean by that? The boy- he was talking about Zach! Wasn't… he? Did- I don't…_ Midoriya started breathing heavier, while the man leaning in towards him nodded his head and gave him a grin at Midoriya's own shocked expression. "Shigaraki never told Sazaki," Ujiko continued in a low voice. "He never admitted it to himself either, but Tomura always drew the comparison between them and I knew it. I saw it."

Deku was frozen with sweat all over his face. "No one went to save him," Ujiko said to the boy frozen before him. "Even though he was Shimura's grandson, All Might's master's own relative, the greatest hero did nothing. No heroes did anything. No people, tried to help him."

 _The comparison between Shigaraki and Zach?_ Midoriya thought with his heart pounding in his chest. _I haven't- I, I have though. How could I not, make that comparison between them? Between their Quirks though! It was just, between their Quirks… Except we all thought, Zach would become a villain. Everyone thought it at least once. Everyone who knew his Quirk- and at VTS I thought! I would have understood too, why he would have become one. I would have understood for Zach, but not for Shigaraki. They're not the same though!_

"They're not the same," Midoriya started.

"You're right," Daruma replied. Then he smirked more and added, "And that's why Shigaraki hated Sazaki so much." Midoriya's eyes widened again and he stared at the doctor in confusion as the older man continued, "From the start, even back when Shigaraki pushed that hatred aside and accepted the need for Sazaki, accepted how he could be good for us, Shigaraki never liked him. He _hated_ Sazaki from the start." Ujiko chuckled darkly this time, some anger on his face as he mentioned, "He would come to make a few bad decisions because of that hatred, but after he killed Sazaki's new family and tortured him, when he saw Sazaki still trying to be a hero, his hated only grew more. 'Nobody came to save him.'"

Ujiko rose his head and looked intensely through the glass back into Midoriya's eyes. "Shigaraki once told me that. Actually, it was more just Shigaraki saying it to himself, muttering it under his breath in confusion. He scratched his neck so hard it looked like he would rip through skin." The crazy doctor smirked out at the teenager who was thinking of Shigaraki and could feel a scar on his back searing in pain. He imagined his mother's scared face, and Wonderlass' smile as she died, and then he pictured the man standing in front of Zach as he hung by hooks. He saw Shigaraki cutting his friend up, and he saw the way Shigaraki looked at Zach the same way they all did when Zach yelled those things about how the League would be stopped by Class A, about how he was _Lifebringer._

"Just like Shigaraki," the doctor continued lower. "No one came to save Sazaki while he was strapped to that chair. Sazaki believed that heroes would. That Deku's Class A would. And they never came. They never came for him. And what's more, is Shigaraki _saw_ that Sazaki knew it. The same things he thought about his entire life: 'Surely a hero will…' 'Just leave it to the heroes to…' Everyone thought like that, and they left him to suffer after what had happened to him."

Ujiko smirked out at Midoriya whose heart thudded in his ears at the similarities, and Deku gripped down on his knees while yelling at himself that this wasn't why he was here. _I want to know more about the villains though, but I need to focus on the Nomus! He's doing this, just to trick me or something. Why else would he tell me all about Shigaraki? Why else…_

"It might be the most damage Sazaki has ever done to him," Ujiko said while still smirking out at the other teen. "That he had broken Shigaraki's faith in those phrases. 'Just leave it to the heroes to…' Not everyone thinks like that. Sazaki, came to understand that heroes wouldn't always come. Instead of becoming like Shigaraki though, he decided to be there when heroes weren't."

 _I'm not listening to this anymore. I don't need to._ Midoriya shook his head and got up from his seat. _I'm not going to get anything about our mission here._ "Seeing as I'm not hearing anything about the Nomus," Midoriya said, a last-ditch attempt to get the guy to change his mind and talk about his Nomus. Maybe even just so that he would stay longer, he was offering up the man the chance to give him something that would make him stay there. "I can tell you're just trying to mess with me, seeing as you haven't been out of prison for a long time."

"I hear rumors in here though," Daruma replied while looking up into Deku's eyes. "I know what Sazaki was up to that entire year. Not the stories he convinced the guards that some of the prisoners heard and passed around, but the reality."

Midoriya had turned around from Ujiko while he was speaking. He turned around but as hard as he tried to walk away, his feet would not let him. _The reason I'm trying to get out of here so quickly isn't because I'm not getting anything about the Nomus. It's because, of this._ Once he had accepted it, he could not hold back and knew what he needed to ask. In a low voice, Deku questioned, "And what is that reality?"

"That Sazaki is a shadow," Ujiko replied at the teenage hero's back. "No longer man, he is a beast of an _ideal._ That evil will be punished. There is no way around it!" Ujiko rose his voice and he leaned forward closer to the glass, "Most men in here would never have done the things they did, if they knew some- _thing_ like Sazaki would appear in this world. The idea of him spread across all corners of the world and subdued the darkness. Reaper, Lifebringer, Sazaki… He's a cork that every villain and every hero wants to get rid of. A monstrous hero! A dishonorable villain! The _king_ of the anti-heroes! It's impossible for one person to be all these things. But a concept, a concept everyone understands from the time they're children, a concept that would exist in every setting with every person who may try to cause harm. That could do it! One thing we all know is coming from childhood. Something that scares us all, unites us all in the singular fear, no matter how hard some try and pretend like they're not afraid of it!"

Midoriya walked away. He was ready to leave now and done listening to this maniac. His expression was dark as he slammed a knock on the door, but as it opened he heard the man behind him yelling at his back, "Death! Deku! And you cannot defeat it! No one can!" Midoriya's fists clenched harder at his sides in fury, an even darker look covering his face as he stepped out of the interrogation room.

Daruma smirked as the door closed behind Deku and guards came in to take him away. _Focus on each other, you fool._ The doctor looked smug as he thought that he succeeded, and he was right to look that way, as in the next room over there was only one person on Deku's mind.

 _Zach is Death! I can't wait any longer! I know better than anyone how dangerous he is, but I tried to ignore what he had really become while he was gone. Not any longer. I need to end this now!_

* * *

Midoriya walked back towards his dorm after dark with two of his classmates. They had all eaten dinner together, and his expression was dark as he walked just behind the two who he was afraid would be able to tell something was up if he walked alongside them the whole time. He could fake a smile or a calm expression each time they glanced back at him during the conversation, but he did not know if he could keep it up the whole time. Already Midoriya felt he was struggling, because the line of conversation was one he intended for them to talk about even though he had done so in a roundabout way, _like Zach would have done._ The thought managed to make Midoriya's expression straight again as he looked back and forth from the shorter Mineta on his right to a taller Sero on his left.

"I'm not saying I would want his life!" Mineta defended loudly back at Sero who had given him a stern and guilt-trippy look at something Mineta just said. "But think of how cool it's been! I don't think anyone's ever done anything as cool as _half_ of what Zach's done. All that stuff about Terra and his time as a space marine!"

"Okay yeah," Sero admitted with a lift of his right palm. "The stuff about space was pretty freakin' dope." He looked back at Midoriya, "I know Zach said you guys don't really talk much about his time while he was gone, since you refuse to believe any of it…" Midoriya sweatdropped at how Sero started that, but then he shook his head 'no' as Sero asked, "But you hear about any of the space stuff he did?"

"It was the second world he went to, right?" Midoriya asked. His tone was hesitant and sounded disingenuous, like he knew but he did not really care if that was the answer since he did not believe it anyway.

"Yeah," Mineta replied, ignoring the tone he heard while he looked back himself at Midoriya. "But I'm not just talking about that stuff either," he added, looking back at Sero too and then to Midoriya again who was not believing the stuff that was just in the stories. "Dover too, and Bobo Cambri, and that hottie he partied across America with!"

"They weren't partying," Sero countered. Then he hesitated and Mineta's bouncing eyebrows, and he admitted, "Okay, Zach said they went to _one_ halloween party."

"He only told us about one family-"

"Who's Bobo Cambri?" Midoriya wondered. "That's that boxer you all watched fight, right? The Italian…"

"He's Zach's friend," Mineta started. He glanced at Sero after starting that in the same carefree tone happy to be the one knowing more than Deku about all this. Sero was looking back with less of a carefree look though at Deku the way he was speaking, and Mineta hesitated himself before continuing while facing forward, "He's just a boxer who Zach met, back when he was in Italy."

 _Cambri. I've heard that name. When I was in Italy, they talked about the Cambris! Who were they? It was the heroes with Pasta Donna talking about them. Another villain group? If Zach met with these people and is willing to talk about it with the others, it's when he's pretending to have "returned" from the other dimensions._ Midoriya nodded along and just stayed a part of the conversation as it shifted a bit, moving off of Zach subtly which Midoriya noticed but pretended not to despite seeing a look from Sero he felt a wave of guilt over as he was almost getting caught here. _I will find the proof I need. I'll destroy so many relationships doing it, but I can't let this go. I can't let him carry out his plan while I just sit here pretending like I don't have the means to stop him. I have everything I need. And I'm going to do this!_

* * *

 _I'll record tonight. I'm sorry Zach, but I have to do this._ On Friday, Midoriya spent his whole morning on his computer and phone. He spent his time throughout school investigating as well, as much as he was trying to make it look like he was into his normal classwork as usual. He was taking off from his internship that afternoon though, having already requested with Lemillion the night before when he talked to Sero and Mineta about their plans for tonight.

 _The Piccianos were known as a more violent group up until around eight months ago when the former boss, Alfonso Picciano got arrested. Ramosi is known as more of a business tycoon and philanthropist than a mobster, but the Picciano family is still listed here as the second most powerful in Italy. Or it has the second most numbers, so why are all these articles on the search engine just coming up positive?_ Midoriya went from the hero website full of shared information across borders, to the screen above his phone where he had several tabs opened up about news on the Picciano family working with Italian heroes.

Midoriya closed out some tabs and refocused on the research he was doing for a senior project Class A's students would have to present individually in a couple of weeks. He was in the library and Midnight sensei was walking around, and she had seen Midoriya doing some careful research so she barely glanced towards his screen for a second before moving on with a nod that showed she did not think she needed to tell him anything. Deku's eyes darkened for a moment at hiding something like this, but his eyes shifted around the library at his other classmates sitting around him doing their independent research. _As much as Zach must be careful when talking to us, I have to be even more careful. It's more likely one of us will go tell Zach what I'm doing than any of the people he talks to ratting him out. 'Ratting,' like it's something so bad. Turning him in! That's what they'd be doing._

 _Rome is 7 hours back from here,_ Midoriya thought while checking something online. _Michelangelo is the least likely to hold a grudge against me for capturing a villain… even if it was AoD. He was insane, and Michelangelo accepted my decision!_ Midoriya thought again of the woman with light powers and the man in the magician hat who he could see giving him such harsh looks after he had caught that soldier in dark armor. He remembered those two talking about the Cambris with Pasta Donna, while he and Tokoyami were next to them observing the heroes who spoke mostly in English when they were around. _If Zach wanted everyone to come over and see Bobo Cambri, he wanted to get the opportunity to tell them he was in Italy. He wanted them to look into it and be convinced that he really was. So the proof won't be just on the surface. It's a trail he's left, but if I dig deeper I'll see what really happened. What he was really doing there, and not just that he was there and made a friend out of an Italian boxer._

Midoriya waited until after classes so that he could be sure the person he wanted to call would be awake halfway across the world. Then he called the number listed on the hero website which got him in contact with Michelangelo who was luckily at his office and not currently fighting villains or on patrol. "Deku," Michelangelo greeted the young man who he was surprised to have called him. His tone was as it normally was though as he spoke English to the teenager he was speaking to for the first time since the boy left his country. "What can I help you with?"

Deku told Michelangelo what he was dealing with. He mentioned his investigation into his old classmate Zach Sazaki, about the boxer Bobo Cambri and his sketchy family, and how he knew Zach to be Death. "…He's planning something here, and I have to find the evidence to convict him before he carries it out. I know accepting Zach's help would have been a crime at the time he was in Italy, but I need to know any activities Lifebringer was carrying out there. My investigation is solely surrounding Zach's identity as Death, or other criminal activities _he_ perpetrated during the time he was missing last year."

Midoriya spoke clearly, in his best English voice that he had been practicing ever since seeing how well everyone else could speak English when he went abroad the first time. He felt he was right already in calling Michelangelo as there was no lingering grudge in his voice against the incident Midoriya had caused by capturing one of the AoD which resulted in a lot of flack for Italy allowing him to escape. "You are correct, Sazaki was here last year. In fact under a year ago, around eight months ago to be exact."

Midoriya grimaced and his left hand clenched hard at his side at the sound of that. _It's a coincidence. There were lots of changes across Italy over the past year and a half. Gangs rising, falling, the biggest ones all collapsing after killing so many heroes. I get why Zach would show up._ "What did he do there? Is there anything that connects him and the Cambri mob family-"

"Although I agree that what you are trying to do is real hero work," Michelangelo interrupted the boy who shut his mouth quickly at the older man's stern and booming voice. "Do not get involved with the mafias here in Italy. They have changed and are still changing for the better."

Deku's face scrunched up in confusion. "What do you mean? What happened?"

Michelangelo lifted a hand and rubbed his forehead for a few seconds. _These Japanese, always pushing in where they're unwanted. However, without men like them we would not have gotten so far. Though the same could be said, about that other Japanese boy._ "Hahh, Deku," Michelangelo began. "You should get in contact with Metallore if you want to know about Lifebringer's activities in Italy. I hope this helps."

"Ah- yes. Yes it does. Thank you very much," Deku finished. He could tell Michelangelo wanted to be done, and he was happy for the information he already got and would rather end on good terms than upset the older man any more. _I shouldn't involve myself with investigating the Italian mafias,_ Midoriya thought after hanging up the call. _They understand their own situation far better than I do, and I could create a worse situation if I get involved carelessly. However the same can be said for them. I need information on Zach, because he's here in Japan_ _ **now.**_ _They need to help me, and I need them to understand that. Metallore… We've never met, but this is as good a time as any._

Midoriya sighed and he lowered his phone to rub his own forehead for a few seconds. He scrunched up his face and stared down at his desk in a confused and frustrated way. _"...Lifebringer's activities in Italy?" He says it like Zach was actually there just as himself. It sounds like he was still being a vigilante, but if he wasn't being Death then- He is Death!_ Midoriya wiped the doubt quickly from his mind and shook his head around as he sat back up in his seat. _Metallore has a strong sense of justice. Whatever happened that made him accept Zach's involvement in Italy, I need to find out if I'm going to get anywhere with this investigation before tonight._

Midoriya searched through the hero website and got a more serious look on his face again. **"If we can take down the Gazpaccio and a few others, the worst villains we'll have to worry about are guys like Don Cambri. Hardly Porzoni or Influx."**

 **"Oh come on, Cambri's a tough bastard. Can't catch him on anything illegal."**

 **"Cambri's an old man though, and the most powerful villains who emerged and surpassed guys like him have all fallen just as fast as they rose…"**

 _What they were talking about made him seem like a small time villain, but also one who had been around for a long long time. That meant there had to be a lot on Cambri, at least of suspected crimes, over the years. Bobo is Zach's friend, and he's the son of a man who was charged with being involved in some of the worst crimes there are. They couldn't get him on any of it, but those cases I looked into were bad. Bad enough that he should be deep in a prison somewhere and not becoming some celebrity appreciated by the Italians!_

Zach found the phone number he want while he was thinking about Cambri, but he stopped himself before calling up the hero whose face appeared on his screen above the phone number and address for his new agency headquarters. He looked at his computer screen on his desk and felt some hesitation at the story he was reading during his idle moments. The title of the piece translated into Japanese had a positive tone, and the picture was of the old Don Cambri and his younger wife along with a team of twelve people and a manager behind him. He and his wife had started a charity Quirk-baseball league that's first season was starting that spring, and the games were going to be televised with the proceeds going to a foundation for orphan kids. The piece was on how Cambri got a license for the league to be allowed to use Quirks, a new phenomena Italy was trying out after seeing it work out well in America with Quirkball having much higher viewing than traditional sports did.

 _Maybe there's a reason those trials never got anywhere. Maybe, he really wasn't guilty? A guy who did those things suddenly turning this good, seems more unlikely than prosecutors just trying to pin crimes on a mobster like him… but then again, I don't know anything about this. I have no idea why he's doing this, and it could all be an act. He could feel he's being forced to do it. That smile is faked,_ Midoriya grimaced but he closed the tab anyway so he would not have to see the guy's bright smile in front of his team of ball players. He had worked to start the league, but he was also the owner of one of the clubs and looked to be a proud owner at that.

The phone started ringing in Midoriya's hand and he got a serious look on his face as he remembered to make this serious. _Metallore isn't much older than I am. I have to talk to him like an equal, and get him to respect me enough to believe that what I'm saying is what's right for everyone. Zach may have told him otherwise, but if everyone listens to Zach we'll never get him on anything!_ The phone clicked in the middle of ringing, and Midoriya heard a response over the line that did not sound like a receptionist or anyone else going to hand the phone off. "Metallore. This is Deku, a hero from Japan. I'm investigating Zach Sazaki and I have been told that you could help me."

The line was silent for a few seconds. Then a voice responded, "I know who you are, Deku. It's nice to meet you, if not in person." Deku hesitated instead of responding with a pleasantry of his own. He had gotten serious straight from the start, and the fact that he was waiting had Metallore getting more serious himself as there was a sense of immediate urgency in this conversation. "How did you know that I could help you?"

Midoriya hesitated himself this time. "Michelangelo told me to give you a call. I called him first," Deku replied. _I shouldn't lie. If he's wondering how I knew, than it's likely not many people knew about the connection. Which means I'm part of the secret now._ "I promise to keep what we talk about between us. The fact that I'm receiving this information from you won't be passed to anyone else." He assured his fellow hero of it and Metallore hummed over the line in a thoughtful way at how the younger hero was trying to convince him that this would remain a private conversation.

"Alright, Deku. Let's talk."

"Thank you," Midoriya replied. He used Italian for that thanks, but Metallore told him not to worry about it and that they should speak in English. Deku accepted and his English voice stayed intense as he questioned Italy's number 1 hero about the things he was investigating. "…I know Zach was in Italy. He doesn't deny it, but I want to know exactly what he was doing with the Italian mob known as the Cambris. I've seen what Emilio Cambri is doing publicly in Italy right now, but could his charities be a front? A non-profit where the money going missing wouldn't be taxed-"

"I've been working closely with Cambri and the other mafia families," Metallore replied. "You don't have to worry about anything like that. All those stories you have seen are true."

Midoriya frowned more and lowered his eyes to his desk for a moment. He wanted to ask about the criminals, about how Metallore was just working with them even if they were doing better things now. "While Zach was there, did you see any proof that he was Death?"

Metallore frowned himself on the other end of the line, as he had wished the talk would have continued longer on the mafia families rather than shifting to Sazaki so quickly. "So you're still doing this, huh," Metallore mentioned in a low voice. Midoriya's eyes widened for a moment at the statement, but Metallore was not saying it as a scolding. He did sound more reluctant to speak than Michelangelo who was just a very stern and serious individual that Midoriya remembered from his time in Italy. He almost asked Metallore what he meant by 'still' since the two had not met, but he realized that what he had done in Italy must have been known to all the Italian heroes.

"I told Michelangelo what really happened with your friend Sazaki and the mobs here in Italy," Metallore admitted after a couple seconds. "I wanted to keep it between the two of us, as this information would now be considered conspiracy in our country. But, you need to know, Deku," Metallore decided it and his voice got more serious which had Midoriya sitting up and taking in a sharp intake of breath. "If you're going to be the one watching over Sazaki to make sure he stays within the rules back in Japan. Deku, when I found Sazaki here in Italy it was not just with the Cambri family…"

* * *

Midoriya paced back and forth across his room. His expression was angry and his pacing was more like stomping back and forth as so much bounced around through his mind. _No matter the results, Zach's actions are inexcusable. Fighting in Italian mafia cage matches? Joining the Italian mob, even if it was to try and change it from inside! He actually joined the mafia! That's insane!_

Midoriya reached his wall (considering the rooms were small), and he just turned around and marched back across towards the other side. _He was friends with murderers and thieves. Metallore says they all still consider him one of the "family." And unlike the other families where you're part of just one, he said Zach's a member of_ _ **every**_ _family! It's like he went undercover with them and just ended on good terms instead of finding out some illegal activities and turning them over for them. If you weren't going in to catch them, then what were you doing there in the first place? Who were you working with? Metallore's convinced that many of the positive changes in Italy are because you helped change things, but to get in with the Italian mobs what did you have to do? What kind of person were you to manage something like that even while they all knew who you were? I don't even understand how they could come to trust you knowing what you've done to other villains._

The green-haired teen paused after he turned in his dorm room again. He clenched his teeth and he glared towards his door, then he looked down at his fists and he gave them a frustrated expression. _I'm learning too much to just keep it all to myself. I need to question Zach about it. I can't wait until we're alone, it has to be now! And I have to bring it all to Lemillion, whichever comes first._ Midoriya started towards his door, and his look got more frustrated as he turned his doorknob. _The fact that Zach didn't do it as Death is aggravating. He used the fact that they all thought he was Death to get them to listen, which is a possibility if Zach just realized that Death was so similar to him… but no!_

Deku got angry as the thought he just had was almost like proof that Zach wasn't Death. _He was out there being a vigilante without a helmet and armor even before he returned. While Death was still going around bringing people back to life and he wasn't here, just like Death continued doing so when he_ _ **was**_ _here. It looks like an even clearer coincidence, which is why he did this! It's why he did this thing in the first place and why he used it by telling the others- by having them come over for that fight day just so he could get them to hear about it! It's all his plan!_

Midoriya walked downstairs with his footsteps slowing down the farther he got from his room and the less confident he got about what he was doing. _Where am I going? Where first?! I, need to pick somewhere. Something, to follow up with…_ As Midoriya walked across the first floor, he spotted Sero sitting on the armrest of the couch but having just turned off the tv with the remote he was lowering back down. Sero turned his head as he saw Midoriya standing not far from him, and Midoriya turned and made a bee-line for his black-haired classmate.

"Hey Midoriya. That what you're wearing tonight?"

Midoriya glanced down at his clothes and hesitated at Sero's question. "Um," he began. "I'll probably change beforehand." He rose his head back up and got an interested look on his face instead that made Sero give him a questioning gaze as to what Midoriya wanted to ask him. "Earlier when we were talking, you guys mentioned Bobo Cambri? Right?" Midoriya asked it, his voice sounding uncertain about it.

Sero stared at Midoriya oddly wondering where he was going with this. He rose up an eyebrow and asked Midoriya, "Zach's mob buddy?"

Midoriya's eyes widened in surprise, then they narrowed in a more serious way that Sero would respond like that. "Do you know about it?" Midoriya asked quietly. His own eyes shifted either way but the two of them were alone on the first floor of their dorm for now. He looked back to Sero and continued to check the information he just got off what Sero knew, "I found out that Zach had joined the mafia in Italy, and he changed them from the inside to-"

"Have you been doing some investigation on this or something?" Sero asked, interrupting his classmate.

Deku froze. He stared at Sero with a hesitant look that grew nervous as Sero's darkened and got angrier at him. _I knew he was acting off! Damn it!_ Sero's fists balled at his sides and he glared at Midoriya right in front of him in a much harsher way as his nails started digging into his own palms. "What are you doing?" Sero asked, his tone disappointed and disgusted at the same time as he glared at his classmate who was surprised by _how_ harshly Sero just said that to him. "Is this for Lemillion?" Sero wondered, "Or are you just doing this on your own trying to get Zach arrested again?"

Midoriya opened his mouth to respond but was at a loss for a words as he tried to. _This time, it really was just for me. For everyone though! Just because I wasn't ordered to, doesn't mean it's not my responsibility to deal with Zach._ "You don't understand, Sero," Midoriya started.

"No, I don't," Sero replied. He crossed his arms in front of his chest and continued to frown at his classmate in front of him, "But you didn't need to do whatever it is you did to get that information. Zach already told me all of that." Midoriya's eyes widened though he knew something must have happened for Sero to already know as much as he did.

"He did?" Midoriya asked. He stared confusedly at Sero for a few seconds, then he racked his mind wondering why Zach would just say it.

Sero glared even harder at Midoriya seeing how hard it was for him to figure this out. He gave Midoriya a harsher look and said, "Zach told all of us on fight day. He would have told you too if you had gone." Midoriya opened his eyes even wider while staring at Sero, as he knew that Kirishima and a lot of others had gone to that day as well. Sero countered his growing look of disbelief, "Really distracted us from the fight, as everyone wanted to know all the details. We didn't all agree with what he did or how he was doing it," Sero narrowed his eyes at his classmate, "but he wasn't hiding it."

Sero's voice was steady and not quiet like Midoriya had started whispering when he began the conversation. "Zach went out to be a vigilante and make a difference. That's what he said."

"What about the other worlds-"

"This stuff he did," Sero cut Midoriya off. "He did after, when he said he came back." He frowned deeper at Midoriya again but then lost the dark look at his classmate getting all thoughtful and hesitant again, and looking pretty guilty too after being called out. Sero lowered his voice into a grumble, "I thought you and Zach were on better terms now." Midoriya rose his eyes back up and saw Sero's pissed off look directed at him though also understanding as well. Not everyone in the class was okay with Zach, but Sero was most upset because he _thought_ Deku had been more like him. "Zach seemed surprised when you didn't come to fight day, and I thought you were going out some days to go see Zach on your own."

"I am," Midoriya replied instantly.

This time, Sero's eyes narrowed much more and his face bowed forward a bit. His black bangs shadowed over the tops of his eyes for a second. Then he rose his head and looked up through the shadows into Midoriya's wide eyes at how dark Sero's look was which made him feel like he just answered wrong somehow. Sero got much more serious in that moment though, and he told his classmate in a low voice, "Don't Raijin Zach."

Midoriya's eyes opened much wider and hurt filled them. Sero saw Midoriya's hurt expression and started to ease up, but only did more when Midoriya said in a pained voice, "I'm not pretending. When I see him it's not like, that… I'm really trying to be friends with Zach again. I just- there was just-"

"Sorry," Sero interrupted. Midoriya's stammering was making him feel bad now and he grimaced for a second at the assumption he made right there. "I just wanted to make sure," he added while turning away. _I needed to._ "I didn't really think you would do something like that, Midoriya." Sero said it in a certain tone to assure Midoriya he really meant it, but his eyes focused over towards the stairs as he said it aloud. _Todoroki though,_ Sero wondered to himself, though he shook his head with a smile reappearing again after only a couple seconds.

"But, Zach told you guys everything?" Midoriya wondered.

Sero looked back to his classmate who could be asking for one of two reasons. Either Midoriya wanted to hear more about it from Sero, or Midoriya knew more about it than he did and was wondering if Sero had heard even the worst parts that Zach left out. So Sero decided to assume it was the first option, and he said in a more carefree tone, "I could tell you what he told us. Like I said, he wasn't hiding it. As much as it wasn't legal, nothing he did while being a fugitive technically was."

Midoriya sweatdropped and gave Sero a hesitant nod. Sero held up his hands defensively, "Not that I'm saying that whatever he did all falls under one broad category or something, I mean," Sero lowered his hands as he did not know why he was getting so defensive all of a sudden. He sighed and just shrugged his shoulders while looking at his classmate and good friend. Then Sero's voice got softer before he started, "I really don't want him going away again, Midoriya." He looked into Deku's dark green eyes that grew wider on that statement. "So, I don't know, don't take this information and go try and get Zach arrested with it? K?"

"…Yeah, I know," Midoriya replied. This time, his look was sincere and he was not hiding his true intention behind it. His eyes lowered at the thought of how he had done that earlier, something that felt so wrong, just so that he could catch Zach- which also felt so wrong now.

"Alright then, well Zach went to Italy back in the spring after he came back…" Sero walked back over to the couch and sat on the armrest again. Midoriya stepped up in front of him and listened as Sero recounted what Zach told him and the others at their "fight day." It had made the day awkward at the end, and Sero mentioned how it seemed to him like Zach didn't talk about his stories while being on Earth as much with his Shiketsu friends. "…Kirishima got pretty mad about it too," Sero added with a tilt of his head accepting that too. _Really wanted them to become cool that day. Didn't really work out like I'd hoped._

"I don't understand any of this though," Midoriya started. Sero gave him a questioning look, and Midoriya said, "It doesn't sound like Zach to go so easy on villains, don't you think?" He frowned more as Sero did not seem to think the same, and he continued, "Why didn't he just investigate with the free reign he had? He could have searched them without warrants the way he was doing things, and he could have fought them and turned them over- I don't see why if he was going to do things illegally anyway, he'd join the mobs instead of just fighting them."

"Zach told us that too," Sero said. "You weren't the only one wondering," Sero added, as Zach did not explain it unprovoked. He had defended himself strongly though, and Sero repeated it back to his classmate. "He explained that he didn't just fight the mobs, because they were smart. They didn't get caught for crimes for a reason. The mafias knew how not to leave evidence behind. They weren't villains going into hiding after each attack, they were a public group that never got caught for anything even if everyone was suspicious of them. So why did Zach just call up a meeting with them at first? To try and change things by working the people who needed to change. Why didn't he just arrest them? Because what would he do? Knock them out and call the cops where they are?" Sero asked it and Midoriya curled the bottom right corner of his lips down more.

Sero nodded at what Midoriya was thinking, and he said aloud, "What would they be charged with? Nothing. It's not like he went to their bases and caught them red-handed committing crimes and recorded them doing it. He called them to him, and so he worked them in a different way by trying to make them change their ways. I've never heard anything like it, but Zach does come up with crazy stuff like that." Sero paused and then got back more into what Zach had told him instead of saying his own thoughts on how crazy it was. "He showed them that they were not allowed to deny him, as another mafia family got caught right after he brought his proposal, and it was the guys who straight out denied him and left the meeting before Zach could fully explain. Zach told us he tracked them, and he sent in a tip when they were committing a crime just to prove he had no power to tell them 'the way things are now,' and he got them arrested."

Midoriya's eyes opened wide again, and Sero got up off the armrest at the sight of it. "Why was it he arrested them and not the others? I don't know. Why was it he came up with this plan in the first place? He told me the other day when I asked, that the prisons are all overcrowded anyway. In May? The biggest problem the world had was overflowing prisons and so many captured villains with nowhere to send them. Zach said he mentioned that too in order to scare the others, and it worked. He said the way he did things worked out, and whether or not those other mobs were conducting illegal activity in the shadows, they aren't anymore. Crime doesn't pay, Midoriya." Sero said it with a laugh, and Midoriya could hear in his voice that it was something Zach had told him too.

"He told you, all of that?" Midoriya asked softly. _He didn't just mention some vague actions in Italy. He told them, everything? That's not-_

"Yeah," Sero replied. He lowered his smile a bit and added, "No need for interrogation or to investigate. He just told us all of that, and you know, I'm actually glad you looked into it." Sero added that with his smile rising back up, and he put his hands behind his head as he said in a relaxed voice, "Because it confirms that I didn't have to investigate myself after all. I didn't want to doubt him, and it turns out what he said is exactly what happened." He gave Midoriya a carefree look and then walked forward and past his friend's back. He smacked a hand back into Midoriya's shoulder as he passed him, "Meet up down here in a couple hours. Might want to wear something warmer, I hear it could snow around midnight."

* * *

Midoriya sat at his desk again. He sat down with his right elbow on his desk and his forehead pressed into his hand that gripped around it with so many thoughts rushing through his mind. _I know he's Death. I know it and yet evidence just piles up otherwise. If it didn't though, then no one would accept the coincidences were just that: coincidences._ Midoriya rubbed his forehead and he shifted his eyes over to the clock at the top right corner of his computer screen still open in front of him.

 _Death's still out there bringing people back to life. Or at least enough people are claiming he is, in several different countries now, that it's common belief there is a second person out there who can revive the dead. That's not impossible. Zach's reasoning for it makes sense too. Someone could have seen him get control of a Quirk that wouldn't have been trained before, and that led to this person training their Quirk to the same level. There were Army of Death operations continuing through the time Zach was in prison too, so either he somehow managed to control from inside Tartaros or someone else really did take command. Would Death really just hand over his power- Would Zach? All Zach ever wanted was to be able to change things. The big picture. And he would have had so much power as Death._

Midoriya rose his head and stared at his computer screen that had hundreds of tabs of research open on the internet. _Even right when the Army of Death appeared._ Midoriya flipped to a video player he had open with the first ever clip of the group, and that tall figure standing on the walls of Hatto's palace taller than Zach was even when he finally came back over nine months later. _I already knew he was going to become so powerful. That day, I knew he had found what he was looking for. A way to do what he thought was right without having anyone stop him or make the rules for him. That's all he wanted! Did he really throw himself in prison to escape from All For One? The way Ujiko responded made it seem like he knew already. Yet he was thrown in shortly after the Lifebringer Incident, so he couldn't know! He knew All For One though. He knew him better than most, just like he seemed to know Shigaraki better than anyone. Shigaraki and Zach are alike… So why was it that their circumstances turned Shigaraki evil and made Zach into, Death? No, a good person. That's what I… I think that, don't I?_

The young hero in his final term of high school before he would become a pro leaned back in his chair. He put a hand up to his mouth and muttered into it, "If I really thought he was a good person, would I be trying this hard to stop him? To thwart his plans that have to be huge. They're massive for him to be playing the long game _this_ long. What if he really was willing to accept six years in prison before carrying out his plans? That's Faith level of… beyond Faith." Midoriya reminded him of what Lemillion said happened in Tartaros, and he ground his teeth at the thought of Zach doing what was reported. _I wanted to see Faith in there. I, I didn't want to though. I should have. I needed to, in order to strengthen my resolve. By looking at something bad he did? By finding the worst thing and basing my actions solely off of that? Judgements are based off crimes though. Based off the bad things a person does, not off the good. Punishments may come less severe due to a person's actions, like Zach only getting 6 years for multiple murders, but- but what?_

 _Zach wasn't just not Death after he came back. He wasn't Death back when he was in the US with that girl, Darling. They were traveling around being a vigilante team I've heard, and that clip we saw of them at a convenience store in November was real! And now Zach was in Italy in May?_

Midoriya flipped to another tab while that video played on mute in the background. _Orzoni family investigated for racketeering and tax evasion. Don Orzoni and twenty-three others arrested._ He looked at the date on the article and felt his hand curling tighter over his mouse at the date that worked so perfectly with Zach's story Sero had told him. Then, Midoriya's hand loosened and his body slowly leaned back from his desk. _There's no way Sero knows more just from what Zach told him alone. Zach left out the parts he wanted to leave out. But, I also didn't hear this much at the start. And there's someone who must have known more than he said when we first spoke._

Deku did not hesitate as he pulled his phone back out. _I have to be stern. I need to make sure he takes me seriously!_ His phone call got picked up and he opened his mouth wide with an angry look on his face, then he paused and closed it slowly while saying, "Metallore?"

"Deku. Do you have something else you need to ask me?"

"Well I…" Deku's voice sounded less sure of himself. He lowered his voice and for a moment he closed his eyes tightly. _Is this really right?_ In his head flashed the look on Lee's face, and the terror in his voice at the idea that Zach was coming. He saw a wall of darkness outside of Desusuta that blocked him from watching how Zach fought against the Subspace Devils. Faith's face appeared in his mind, and what Zach did to him echoed in his head in Lemillion's voice. His eyes opened up with his lip steadying flat and his expression getting stern again. "I need you to tell me the truth this time," Deku said, his voice no longer unsure and instead as serious as could be. "Metallore, what was it Zach did in Italy? I need the real truth, not what I can investigate on my own, or what I could have discovered from others in Italy who saw Zach."

Midoriya paused and then finished, "I want the in-depth reality that I know you must've already investigated." _He wouldn't have let Zach do what he did without trying to find out what all his ulterior motives were. Metallore's the best hero in Italy, and whatever Zach did, he knows more about than anyone._ Midoriya stared straight ahead and got ready to say how he was not going to take 'no' for an answer.

"Deku," Metallore began. "What I told you before was the truth. As I said, Sazaki met with the Dons of the mafia families here in Italy and worked with them in order to change their ways. He really did get in with them through reviving Don Cambri's mother, and his actions that I witnessed were legal however sketchy." Metallore paused, then he added in the same steady English voice, "And since he left, this country and its people has been benefiting greatly from his actions without any knowledge of what he did to help us. Whether or not I was wrong to let Lifebringer escape, I am certain that what he did here has helped Italia."

Midoriya frowned deeply and rose his free hand to the other side of his head as where he was holding his phone. _And I'm investigating him for something like this? Zach helped people! That's what he does. As deep as I dig, I'm just going to find him helping more and more where he never wanted to take the credit._ Midoriya opened his mouth to relent and say that he was sorry for questioning it as Metallore mainly repeated things from the first talk they had.

"I would like to say that his actions caused a lasting effect, but not everyone changed for good after the short time he was here," Metallore continued. Midoriya nodded along and listened closer as he heard Metallore's tone shifting strangely. "Out of the mafias Lifebringer reformed, only the Garbaldi family have broken his codes since reforming. Don Garbaldi was arrested…" Metallore paused, and he held his phone away from his head for a moment with a look of frustration spread over his face. The reluctance pushed aside for duty though, and Metallore pulled back the receiver slowly to his mouth, "And although I promised not to tell anyone, the one who informed on the Don was the same man who had become his second in command a few months back."

"What are you talking about?" Midoriya asked confusedly.

"He had apparently been an Italian vigilante who Sazaki went to in order to figure out who the mobs were, and where they were, and the two agreed that the way to get the mobs to change was to join them." Metallore paused again then continued in a low voice to the younger hero, "I could see back in the first meeting with them all, at the 'picnic' Sazaki organized with the mafia dons, that his buddy Gino was already secretly working closely with Garbaldi. At the time, I thought that he was probably informing on what Sazaki was doing. I suspected Garbaldi paid him a lot."

 _Gino? Is that just another of the "friends" you made out there Zach? You joined the Italian mafia together? No one else has mentioned this guy at all. Metallore does know the most!_ Midoriya wanted to ask a question, but Metallore continued first and he allowed the Italian hero to tell him as much as he could.

"Gino was also the go-between for the mafias and the heroes. Sazaki led me to that picnic without my knowledge or the dons' knowledge that he was doing so. He wanted to make sure that heroes were watching over the mafias to ensure that they did change after he had left, but he also told Gino to watch me closely to make sure I did not illegally spy on all the family members while they were not doing anything illegal." Metallore did not know how big Deku's eyes already were on the other side of the line, but he paused anyway for a moment at the mention of what Sazaki had really put in place. "The system was meant to have all these failsafes so that it would not collapse easily. And he established it in only a few days. However, I saw there were flaws in it. Gino being the go-between but also being closer to one mafia family was going to be a problem. Garbaldi having him on his payroll meant that he thought he was safe to go back to doing things the old way."

Metallore's voice got darker and he lowered it, "But Gino was staying with Garbaldi because he and Sazaki apparently knew that Garbaldi would be the least likely to change after Orzoni, who they already had to get arrested because he wouldn't get in line. Lifebringer expected it from the beginning, and so months earlier they planned for Gino to get in with Garbaldi. And Garlbaldi wound up going for something, like they thought he would." Deku's left hand lowered from his head that he was scratching and he placed it on his desk. His eyes that were huge narrowed for a moment, but he still felt a bead of sweat rolling down his face that slid farther down as Metallore continued. "Gino was somewhere else watching me at the time of the crime, but some other heroes 'happened' to be in the area the crime took place. They caught Garbaldi along with a couple other higher members of his gang…"

The Italian hero speaking to Deku kept his voice near a low whisper, "This is why you need to keep this a secret. Because, Don Garbaldi still trusts Gino, Gino told me after he went to visit the incarcerated Don in prison. He let Garbaldi know he had things running still but back to Sazaki's standards. Gino contacted me to inform me that the rest of the Garbaldi family will be getting back in line. Garbaldi is going to be in prison for a while, and in the meantime Gino now has control over possibly the most powerful gang in Italy. The Piccianos are next closest, but even with Garbaldi gone his family is still huge and has massive influence over the less glamorous sectors of our society."

"A vigilante in control of the biggest mafia family in Italy?" Midoriya questioned.

"He's not a vigilante-" Metallore started it but he shook his head for a moment. "He's a full on mafioso now. Some have even started to call him Don Gino, because of the amount of influence he has over the other families. He's been adopted into the Garbaldis and continues to make life better for its members even without them being able to commit crimes anymore. He's dedicated to changing things for the better in Italy through the use of the mob, and many mafia members are becoming more like celebrities as they work to make our country safer in a time with few Italian heroes remaining." Metallore's voice became more stern as he spoke to the younger boy who might try to do something with this information without understanding the circumstances. "Jupiter was killed, as were many other of the top Italian heroes soon after the League of Shadows' raid. King had the old strongest Italian mafias hunt them down, and Michelangelo survived two attempts on his life. It was a dangerous time, and now we have peace. Until the country has more heroes to protect it, the Italian mob is helping prevent other villain groups from rising in Italy and all Italians know it."

 _A full-blown mafioso, yet he's working with heroes closely? Except… the other members know that's what he's doing. That was his job under the old Don and he's still doing it. How can they trust him then? Unless, they're really not doing any illegal activities anymore? Some might be trying to hide things from him, but what if he turned on Garbaldi and managed to get him arrested while he wasn't around, in order to get that position?! What if this is all just a ploy for him to get in with heroes and the mobs? This guy, could be the worst villain of them all! Even Zach might not have realized what his real plans were. The amount of power he has though, it's crazy!_

"Metallore, whatever the situation in Italy is," Deku shook his head around for a moment. "I need to know about Zach in all of this too. Did he do anything with the mafias that could help me? Anything you've heard since he left that leads you to believe he may-"

"Deku." Metallore said it firmly and shut up the boy younger than him by a couple years. He took in a breath and then spoke calmly to the Japanese boy, "What Zach Sazaki did here allowed Italy to maintain one of the lowest crime rates over the past eight months, from being a nation with one of the highest back only a year ago." Deku's hands curled tighter in anger and frustration. He wanted something else other than hearing that positive sentiment about Zach, but then Metallore finished on that darker note Deku had been hoping for, "Though I still believe it is your job, Deku, to suspect him and watch him closely."

"You do?" Midoriya asked. It came out in surprise and he didn't really mean to say it, but the sudden dark shift on Metallore's voice and that statement seemed to contradict all the things the Italian hero was saying about Zach.

"Yes. Because, I do not know if Gino is really just a vigilante from here. I don't even know if he's Italian." Deku's face covered in confusion, and then his eyes started opening huge as his breath got harder to escape his throat. "There were no reports of him anywhere before the change," Metallore continued. "Maybe he was just in the shadows, but he was working with Zach Sazaki…" Metallore paused and was silent for a second just like Deku was on the other side of the line. The older hero continued after clenching his teeth hard, "And they even acted like they had only just met, and Sazaki seemed closer with other members of the mafias after only a short time with them. Ramosi Picciano, and Bobo Cambri, Sazaki had made real friends in the mafia other than Gino who I really thought was working for Garbaldi."

The tone in Metallore's voice sounded regretful, like he was asking himself how he did not realize it sooner. His dark tone got lower as he said to the boy on the phone with him, "But despite all that, my theory now is that it might have just been a ploy to get Gino planted in Garbaldi's ranks… So that when Garbaldi ultimately betrayed the new ways as they knew he would, Gino could rat him out and take charge. So that instead of just an informant in the Italian mob, they'd have the leader of the mob himself."

Metallore paused and then spoke in a soft and uncertain voice, "I don't know why the mafia listened to him. To Lifebringer. I couldn't figure it out at the time why they had changed so suddenly and without a fight. But I know what I suspected, what I feared might be possible, was what the mafia Dons probably feared too. Zach Sazaki was Death." He stated it and the boy on the other side of the line grit his teeth so hard while his eyes shook at what the Italian hero continued with. "He was there to force them to change. And maybe, he left one of his soldiers behind to take care of Italy for him. And maybe, that soldier is still loyal to him, if it ever came to it."

"I'm warning you now, Deku. I appreciate what Sazaki did for my country," Metallore said. "But there's a good chance that all the criminals- or former criminals in Italy would follow Sazaki's commands without knowing they were from him. I'm almost certain Gino was working under Sazaki and not with him. And I know Sazaki was not in Italy for very long, and he threatened to take me down so that he could escape because there was more he needed to do, in other countries that needed his help…" The twenty year old man got eerily silent. Then he spoke very quietly as he warned, "There is a chance that Sazaki has more power than anyone in Italy. I haven't told anyone except Michelangelo about this, since I needed guidance about what to do, and since then we both agreed to keep it quiet the origins of Italy's change."

"Deku, I ask that you keep it quiet too, but do not give up on surveilling Sazaki because of the good he has done." Federico Jackson, or Metallore, rose his voice and said in an assured voice, "Sazaki, has been influencing the world for a long time now. I don't know what he's doing to change Japan, but even while he's over there, countries all over the world reported what he did to the Subspace Devils. How he survived a gunshot wound to the chest right after getting out of Tartaros. The rumors and myths and legends about him are getting backed up by what people are seeing him do in public. So Deku, be careful."

Deku's eyes widened at the genuine concern he heard from the older hero on the line. He was already staring forward in shock trying to accept all of this, but his eyes shifted to the side at his phone as Metallore finished, "As powerful as I've seen you are, if even a few of the rumors I've heard of Death are real… there might not be anyone who can stop him."

* * *

Zach stood in front of his bed looking down at two shirts splayed out on it. "Hmmm," he picked up the blue one and shrugged his shoulders. _Whatever,_ he turned to the mirror in his bedroom and held up the shirt in front of his torso. _Mina said it looked good. Why not?_ Zach pulled it aside for a moment to unbutton it and put it on, but his eyes lingered back on the mirror. He picked the shirt up and put it over his head, blocking his vision from the mirror. _Geez. Pull it down._ Zach thought it in a joking, teasing way at himself as his shirt was still in front of his face and enough buttons at the top were undone that it should have been easy to slide it all the way over.

He tugged a little, but when he got it down he was already turning and he walked over to his door without another look back at the mirror. Zach's phone buzzed in his pocket again then twice more. He glanced towards his bathroom but then turned and headed over towards his kitchen. _There are going to be snacks there. Super overpriced though once we're on the island. Should bring some snacks too after eating._ Zach glanced towards his front door and out the windows next to it where the blinds were partially opened. It was almost dark with little natural light remaining outside, though Zach glanced back at a clock over his kitchen counter on top of the stove. _Used to be pitch black around now. Been a while I guess. Not long enough though. I need to graduate, but time's moving so slowly right now. Then again there are things I can do only while we're still in school. Like this. Like tonight._

He pulled out his phone and checked the texts he had been receiving for a bit. Zach sent a quick reply to Sero and then to Ashido who had double-texted him saying when they were heading out for the train station. _They're a little closer to the island. I can leave for the train in 10 and still make it there before them though. Check around to see if anyone knows my plans and is going to be waiting for me._ Zach thought it casually while going through a cabinet in his kitchen. He pulled out a couple of protein bars, as well as a thing of ramen that he started to make for a quick dinner. _Should eat the healthier one right now. I didn't know it was vegetarian, but I'll have some protein in those bars I eat at the fair. Might not be a lot if I have to split. Midoriya'll probably bring some snacks too though, even if Mineta's going to ask for sure. The others it's a toss up._

Zach smiled while his food was cooking, and he pulled out his phone again and turned to a message thread that he had not sent another one to in a while. He scrolled up a bit with a satisfied look on his face. _So nervous about nothing. Things are still fine. They're how they should be._

 **"Hey Momo. I don't know if you've heard but we're going to Inazuma Island for the carnival/fair thing they have going on there. Do you want to come?"** _I'm glad I didn't ask 'Are you coming?' It sounds more like I invited her- even if she already knew?_

 **"I heard. That sounds fun and I would be happy to join you."** _Did she mean 'you' as in me? Or was she talking about the plural 'you?' Like she was talking about all of us? Things are only weird if I make them weird! Stop overthinking it! She just accepted because it sounded like a fun time and she wants to, she's not as weird about hanging out as I am. I'm making it awkward when it doesn't need to be. Just stop overthinking already._

Zach pulled his cup of ramen out of the microwave and he blew on the water he had filled the cup with beforehand that was now steaming hot. He left it on the counter as he grabbed some chopsticks, but his mind lingered back, _Sero didn't mention her coming beforehand. Neither did Mina, and the two kept texting me when someone else said they would. They didn't text me after Momo texted she would though, unless they knew because she mentioned that_ _ **I**_ _said it to her, in which case they knew I knew already? That's not it. I know why, those two don't say anything…_

 _If she won't come unless I ask though, does she even want to come? Or does she just want me to invite her? Or does she feel obligated?_ Zach's lips curled down at the corners and he tssked while stirring his ramen and breaking up the noodles. _I don't like this distance growing between us. I didn't think it would be there when she was the first one I saw in the hospital._ He could see her face when he woke up and looked at her. Sitting at his bedside, the only one there inside his room with him. Then he saw her walking away the last time they were talking and his forehead wrinkled up as he started eating. _I've made things worse since then, I guess. I don't know what I'm doing wrong, but maybe tonight I can change it._

On the fifth floor of a dorm complex in Heights Alliance, Momo Yaoyorozu stared at the phone in her hand and the messages on it. Her bottom lip was pursed in and her expression nervous as she stared at his final message to her that she did not respond to. _It was the end to the conversation. I'm not just ignoring him. What he wrote sounded like- like he wanted to just save the rest for tonight? Does he have something to tell me? The truth?_

Momo lowered her phone and she brought her left hand up in front of her face. She pushed her thumb and index finger outwards on her forehead while shaking her head into her hand. _That's not it. I just want him to. I want him to talk to me, be more serious even though he is every time we talk! He acts so serious, even though I know he's lying._ Her teeth clenched briefly behind her lips and then opened up with a heavy breath escaping her lips. Yaoyorozu dropped her hand from her head and sat back on the side of her bed for a second, _I don't understand why you would act so serious telling me those lies. You can tell that I don't believe you, can't you? You know that I can see through them. And yet he still sounds serious, while he looks me in the eyes and lies to my face._

Yaoyorozu's heart ached but only for a few seconds. _I want to believe him, but I know for certain that he is lying to me. I cannot just accept that. I will not._ It panged her heart to do, but she pushed aside that aching feeling and got a more serious look on her face. That look faltered after a moment though, and she looked down at the clothes she was going to wear under her jacket for tonight. _I'll still go tonight though. And I'll give him another chance- one, one more chance._ Yaoyorozu felt hesitant on thinking that, but she nodded to herself afterwards with a sadder look forming on her face.

 _Kyoka might be right. Maybe Zach really can't help it, maybe he's just… not a liar but- or maybe, a liar really is what to call him._ Yaoyorozu stood up and shook her head around. _He's not. There should be something else. A reason, right? But even if there's a reason he's lying to me, even if it's not just to hide your identity… I would have been fine if you wanted not to say anything but all those stories! Straight lies that you act like are real. I can't take it anymore. Don't try to do the same tonight. If you do- if you do…_

 _One last chance._

* * *

 **A/N Thanks for reading! Midoriya meets up with Daruma Ujiko in jail, but instead of getting information on the reports of Nomus he just hears the doctor's speech on Zach. He looks to investigate Zach's past more, and he learns from Metallore (and Sero) what Zach was doing back in Italy. Zach's old friend Gino (Typhoon as Zach called him when he mentioned installing him into their ranks that chapter), is now practically running the Garbaldi "crime" family, and Metallore's got a theory on some grand conspiracy that he tells Deku. About how Zach's the most powerful man in Italy, without even being there... Meanwhile, Zach's wondering what to wear as he goes out on Friday night with some friends! XD Hope you guys enjoyed the chapter. Leave a review below telling me what you think, predictions, or questions about the story!**

Raven Mordrake chapter 165 . Jul 3

Midoriya says that cheating people is wrong but that the police do not deceive the public by making them believe that it was Endeavor who defeated Stain when in truth they were Izuku and the others?

 **Yeah that's true. Then again, Midoriya was a lot younger back then and hadn't really developed his hero ideals as strongly as he has now. Plus he had made the mistake there (he and Iida both scolded since neither even had provisional licenses), and as a kid in his first semester he had to feel pretty forced to do what the police chief and the older heroes said rather than taking a stand to not lie and tell the truth, which totally would have sounded like he just wanted the credit for beating Stain to himself. There are things that he has secrets of too, like that and like his One For All secret, but we've seen the guilt he's got for holding that back already in the show where he felt he had to tell Bakugo, and he almost let it slip to Uraraka here when she was calling him out on the same hypocrisy you mentioned. He struggles with his own, but Zach does it to a much different extreme and continues to do it more and more instead of the isolated things Midoriya's got. Anyway, thanks for the review!**

papaprep chapter 165 . 5h ago

was reaally expecting a chapter today..

 **Well seeing as this was 5 hours ago... here's your chapter for today! XD**


	167. Chapter 167

**Disclaimer: I don't own Boku no Hero Academia**

 **Chapter 167:**

Inazuma Island, an island with a population of 0, had a great number of people on it for a Friday night. The island was off the coast of Honshu, the biggest of Japan's four main islands and where both U.A. and Shiketsu High were located. The island was currently hosting a fair, one that traveled internationally and was big news when it got to Japan… three months earlier. The crowds were still large, but there were no longer massive lines or sold-out tickets for the mega-fair going on. Because of declining turnout, the fair's owner had announced that they would be announcing their next destination "soon." This made for a bit of a resurgence in ticket sales as people who had yet to visit wanted to go before it left, including one pink girl and her friends who arrived to the island Friday night ready to see all it had to offer.

On the way to the main gates of the fair (which was surrounded by tall fences to make sure people had to go through the legal entrances), the arrivals for the fair had to walk down a gravel road from the docks that split off only once in an intersection for a slightly bigger road that wrapped around the island. The group looked to the left on that paved road towards the overgrown forest and an abandoned house they could see between a few trees in the dense thicket. A couple of tourists took pictures, though Hagakure was quick to pull out her phone too and snap shots with the foreigners who were unaccustomed to areas like this. In Japan centuries earlier, there had been a huge surge in migration towards more urban areas that left small towns and villages shrinking and disappearing when the elderly population that remained passed away. The young people moved to the cities for more work opportunities, and rarely any ever returned to their rural villages that became obsolete over time… and which were now considered like ghost towns that lingered across much of Japan.

The island of Inazuma itself was not very large, and the trouble of transporting produce from the island to shore and getting the necessities to the people living there became too much. Even the ferry from the mainland cancelled most trips and switched to traveling to other bigger islands, or to ones better for tourism than the small island covered half in a forest and half in some farms. Those farms had been long abandoned and overgrown, but where they had once been cultivated was now the location of the fairgrounds as the company had leveled out the overgrowth and built up on the flat land between the surrounding forest. Even some old barns and farmhouses on the land had either been knocked down or transformed into part of the fair as haunted houses (with minor construction updates to ensure safety), or as gift shops or staff buildings.

The sight of the fair itself amazed the students who knew about the island and did not expect it to look so lively even with a fair there. Ashido and Zach had done a lot of research on it and both saw lots of pictures of what it looked like, but from up close it still made them look up in amazement at the bright lights illuminating the entire island even in the middle of the night. Coming as late as they did they avoided the time when younger children were visiting with their parents, mostly, and instead the groups of people mainly looked their age or a little older in their early to late twenties. There were a lot of couples in the line to the front gates, but also some big groups of people too. All those couples and groups were turned towards the spot in the line though where a group of the most famous people in all of Japan were standing.

A group of eight U.A. students stood with another former member of their most famous Class A as they made for the tall front gates of the fair. Mineta Minoru and Ashido Mina were not ones to shy away from the attention and were happily talking to the people in front and behind them (Ashido with some guys and Mineta with a few college girls). Sero Hanta rose his eyebrows up in surprise as three girls started laughing in front of him, and he looked down at the top of Mineta's head in a somewhat impressed way. Mineta's head snapped to the side and he sniped Sero's gaze with his own, and he smirked catching Sero's look that made him even more proud and made Sero roll his eyes and turn back to his conversation with Zach and Ojiro on his left.

"The last carnival showtime is at ten! So if we can get through the other stuff in under an hour we could probably-"

"Booo," Ashido spun back forward from the back of the group and cupped her hands to her mouth to boo at Hagakure. "The show'll go to the end of the night, and I don't want to rush through everything anyway. There's so much going on here!"

"I think Ashido's right," Ojiro admitted next to him at his girlfriend. Hagakure pouted at him and crossed her arms over her chest for him disagreeing with her, and Ojiro leaned back for a second with both Zach and Sero looking over at him like he had made a mistake. "I mean, seeing this line, I don't think we'll be able to move as quickly from one thing to the other, as much as we thought we could…"

Hagakure turned her head forward and back, then she lowered her arms while nodding her head that had a beanie on it which let them to see what she was doing. "I guess," she admitted, as they had been talking earlier on the train to the ferry that they were going to be getting straight in everywhere. Hagakure Toru spun to Ashido and crossed her arms though, "You said we were going later because there wouldn't be any lines today anyway!"

Ashido stuck out her tongue with a giggle. "Yeah, my bad," she admitted as she did not think it was going to be this crowded, even if they were almost at the front of the line already.

On Ashido's right a couple of feet, Midoriya Izuku had his hands up defensively in front of him and waved them nervously at a group of girls who were trying to get more pictures with him as he was stuck in line with them and they did not like _any_ of the pictures they had taken so far. Yaoyorozu Momo gave the awkward boy to her right a sympathetic gaze at how red his face was getting as the older girls on either side were pressing their chests into each arm they were grabbing. Then she turned back to the tall boy next to her who was frowning while staring over everyone's heads and through the gates to the inside of the fair, "I see quite a few people walking around with what looks like bear in their clear cups. Many of them appear to be underage," Iida Tenya said it in a disapproving voice that got a lot of the people close to him turning and giving the tall boy in more formal clothes than most people around a strange look.

Iida had a shirt collar sticking out of his nice sweater and had an intense look on his face to be visiting a fair. His eyes followed two people who looked no older than him, if they even were older, but those two he was tracking went through the red-and-white striped entrance to the huge tent near the middle of the fairgrounds. "Hmm, I do wonder if their choice to set up grounds at a location without any heroes was solely for the space and dimensions of Inazuma Island."

The girls around Midoriya backed away while whispering and looking over at the next Ingenium with anxious expressions. _Thank you, Iida,_ Midoriya thought, even though he knew Iida was not saying any of that for his sake.

"Well there are heroes here tonight," Yaoyorozu assured the taller boy at her side who glanced next to him at his fellow class rep. "But do try to let up a little, Iida-san. Tonight is meant to be a fun time."

Iida nodded at Yaoyorozu in agreement and with a look like he was saying that he would try. When she looked back forward though and then turned to her left at Ashido, Iida's gaze shifted to his right at Midoriya on his right who also looked at him. Then the two of their gazes shifted subtly over to a black-haired boy with them who laughed with the others next to him and then continued forward as they were about to reach the gates. Iida's gaze shifted straight ahead again like he was examining more about this fair he had voiced his concern for, and which his careful looks around and examining gazes would now be seen as the reason for. _Investigating a friend is not an easy task. Midoriya, I will ease this burden for you as I too, know who he really is._

 _ **"You say those people forgot about the bad things he did, but I think you're forgetting all the good, Iida."**_ Kendo's voice echoed in Iida's mind, but he frowned deeper for a moment at the memory of it. _I had been convinced that you were right. I accepted what Zach was doing and decided not to judge him, but that was then. That was before he returned to Japan with a new plan. That was before, he started this deception._ Iida's gaze stayed locked forward but he watched Zach in his peripheral vision constantly.

Zach stepped up to the gates first out of the group he had arrived with. He pulled out his provisional license for the guy at the ticket booth who had barely looked up while asking how many they were. Each of the students was paying separately, so despite walking up together to the booth next to the gates, Zach just asked for one ticket with the hero discount. The guy behind the counter grimaced and reached forward to check the I.D. he figured was probably fake, since heroes didn't usually… His blue eyes focused on the provisional license and grew three times in size. His whole body tensed and his eyes shifted upwards, then he snapped up in his seat and blinked a few times at the sight of the people in front of him and specifically the boy talking to him.

"Hi," Zach said with a small laugh at the guy's stunned look.

"L-Lifebringer! Uh, wait-" he looked down at the license and then slid it quickly back over the counter and pushed away the yen Zach was trying to give him too. "You don't need to-"

"Yes I do," Zach assured the man back as he slid the yen forward again. Ashido rolled her eyes behind Zach as he denied the free ticket, but Zach gave the man behind the counter a semi-serious look and mentioned, "Don't want you getting fired-"

"I'd get fired if I charged you," the guy countered back immediately with huge eyes still.

Zach sweatdropped at that response, then he just said, "Well, tell them I forced you to. Now come on, got a lot of people waiting here," Zach motioned back with a nod, though everyone behind him was just staring towards them and made the ticket counter guy gulp again as he looked down at Lifebringer's money.

Zach sighed as he finally got his ticket, and he walked towards the gates and through before waiting for his friends to come in after him. Only Ashido had another problem as she leaned forward and asked the ticket counter guy why he didn't offer _her_ a free ticket into the fair. Hagakure walked up to Zach and jealously put her hands on her hips with an expectant look on her face, or so Zach imagined. "It must be tough with that next-level fame you've got there."

"Eh, I think I just make people more nervous than the rest of you," Zach replied with a glance back towards that ticket booth where that whole interaction had felt so uneasy and awkward.

Hagakure lowered her hands from her hips and lost her look for a less envious one. "Oh," she said, wondering how she was supposed to reply to that. _Is it really not because of his fame that the guy offered, but because people are nervous around him? Did he feel like the guy was giving it to him because he felt threatened?! Oh Zach-_

"I can't believe you denied the free ticket," Ashido jumped up behind Zach after getting through the gates and snapped at him. Zach sweatdropped and then chuckled as Ashido got in his face and continued, "You could have given it to me and at least _one_ of us could have gone without paying!"

"Worried you won't be catching enough villains as a hero?" Zach wondered at the shorter girl whose eyes opened wide at the response. "You'd be tight on money if you can't catch anyone-"

"That's not why!" Ashido exclaimed back at him, but Hagakure and Sero were already laughing next to them and Zach chuckled along while giving her a sarcastic 'sure.' "I just like to spend my money, sometimes too quickly. As you know," she added as a reminder to Zach about their shopping trip.

"Sometimes you like to spend other people's money too," Zach reminded back, as it was _his_ money they went shopping with that day. Ashido held up a finger to make a counterpoint, but she lowered her arm with a bead of sweat on her face as she did not have anything to counter that point with. "Come on, let's start hitting the rides," Zach suggested before she could come up with anything, looking up at Sero who agreed quickly to back him up.

"What do you guys want to do first?" Sero asked with a turn to look around at all the others.

"Haunted house!" Mineta called out with a mischievous look on his face.

"Ferris wheel!" Hagakure called out right after. She looked over the carnival tent and at the tallest of the rides with cars that went up high in the sky all covered in bright white lights that showed off the amazing design of the beautiful ferris wheel.

"I'd rather the roller coaster over there," Sero mentioned with a nod to his left and the southern edge of the park where a fast coaster shot along the tracks with people screaming on it.

In Mineta's head he imagined a scared girl screaming and leaning to her side to hug to closest person to her, which was him, with a nosebleed. His imagination cloud puffed away and he pointed at Sero, "Wait! I change my mind!"

"I'll go on the ferris wheel with you," Ojiro assured his girlfriend who spun to him after seeing the trend of what the guys wanted to do.

"Well let's pick something fast," Zach suggested. He glanced at Midoriya while saying it who was already looking around at the crowd they were drawing towards them even if people were mainly staying to the sides right now and just pulling out phones to take pictures or record them. Midoriya looked back at Zach, and he hesitated for a second before nodding his head at Zach's suggestion. Zach turned and started walking while saying how they could split up and meet back together after the first runs, but before Sero followed after him his eyes shifted towards Midoriya and then Iida who he swore he saw Midoriya's eyes dart to.

Sero frowned and he looked back forward with a more serious look on his face. _Did Midoriya really give up on what he was doing earlier? Iida's acting diligent and he's being socially awkward, which is just like those guys. But Midoriya was acting earlier, or doing his best to at least. The only way to catch Zach is to act like him, huh? Just like how Zach caught Kaminari off guard? You're all ready to act like the ones you're after. Damn it, I knew we couldn't just have a fun time here. Kid stuff like this, is a long-gone luxury for us._ Sero's eyes shifted ahead and to his left as Ojiro got tugged away from Hagakure as they broke off from the group, _Maybe not all of us though._

"I know what your plan for the roller coaster is," Ashido whispered as she leaned up towards Sero who let out a sarcastic whistle like he had no idea what she was talking about.

"I think you've got me and Mineta mixed up," Sero replied.

"What's the difference?"

Sero gasped and spun to the girl next to him who laughed and ran forward to tell Zach the joke she just made. Zach chuckled at what she said, but his eyes shifted back behind Ashido for a second and to a girl behind her who was talking to Iida again and missed his look back towards her. He turned back forward, _Did I want her to see that look? I haven't really talked to her, yet._ Zach furled his lip for a moment and got an unsettled feeling in his chest. _Meeting with her in a big group was asking for things to be like this though. I won't get a chance to talk to her about… I don't know. I wouldn't have been able to just talk on a roller coaster either though,_ Zach admitted that to himself with a shrug and just looked at the ride with a smile again as their group headed there.

"Well that is not fair," Iida mentioned as he looked at a tall cardboard sign next to the start of the line. Mineta let out a breath of relief as the line for 'you must be this tall to ride' was below the top of his head, but Iida was looking up at the line several feet above that at around nine feet tall where it said 'you must be this short too.' He frowned at that, then he looked back towards the ride and hummed in acceptance as he saw the tunnel and the steel bars above certain parts of the ride that made it unsafe for people who might have mutations that made them that much taller.

"I agree they should have made it differently," Midoriya said next to his close friend. "But most people who can get that large can also shrink down as well. It is not perfect, but-"

"Aww, Dover never would have been able to ride this," Ashido said loudly with a spin to Zach who shrugged and tilted his head to the side with more of a frown on his face.

"Maybe if he walked on all fours… but no, not in the seats," Mineta admitted as the height limit was for when they were all seated in the ride.

Sero glanced back at Yaoyorozu on his left side and mentioned, "Dover's Zach's pet bear."

"Pet bear?" Yaoyorozu asked with a straight face though she could not help a corner of her lip from lowering a bit.

"Yeah, it came to visit him two weeks back." Sero gave her a serious look while saying it at the disbelieving one that she had. He nodded at her that he was serious and it was not just a story, then as her look shifted he turned back forward and headed up the line to walk with the others in the group ahead of him.

Yaoyorozu felt a twisting in his stomach. _Just because that's real- Don't say something like that expecting me to, to? I don't know. Is he going to just spend the night barely talking to me? I came because you asked me to._ Momo stared towards Zach's back and she lowered her eyes to the floor, then shifted them to the side at the two boys slightly ahead of her on her right. _And these two have their own plan. I knew Iida had not seen you since, the hospital._ Momo bit down behind her lips with a frustrated look on her face again, as she imagined what his face looked like when he looked at her in the hospital after he woke up. His face when he was on that bridge bleeding out on the floor, and when he had first looked at her just before… _I believed it then. I, did I do something? Since then what did I do except… was it because I snuck up on him that day? Not giving him time in advance? Did he stop trusting me or, or he never did. He lied in the hospital from right after, but if I had asked him before getting everyone back in the room would he have told me the truth? What truth? Why he's really here? That he was Death? That he plans on returning to Death one day once his plan… what plan? If he was ever going to tell me, he would have already. But if I ask, tonight…_

 _Would he tell me?_

"Hey Sero, ride with me," Ashido said quickly as the car in front of them stopped and the bars all lifted up for the next passengers to get in. Sero glanced at his ex-girlfriend wondering what she was doing, as he doubted she was actually flirting with him here as they had both been in agreement for a long time that their relationship was a mistake. Then he saw in his peripheral vision who might have gotten in the car next to him, and he grinned while nodding in agreement and going towards Ashido to play-flirt with her.

Zach felt a slight sense of gratitude while also anxiety as he saw what the two of them just did. _They want something that's not going to happen, but it does still help with what I_ _ **need**_ _to do tonight._ "Ah! Yaoyorozu sit here!" Mineta called over to the tall girl who was walking up towards the roller coaster and who sweatdropped a bit as Mineta called her over.

Zach looked towards Mineta, then he turned his head fast and watched as three girls who had been right behind their group in line ran forward and jumped into individual cars each. They looked to be friends, but now there were only rows with one open seat left in them each so the standing _eighteen_ year old heroes would have to sit with one of them each. The young twenty-something girls each grinned over towards Zach, Deku, and Iida respectively who immediately switched up which car they were going to based on who was _not_ looking at them with those eager eyes. Unfortunately, none of the girls were that picky about who they were looking towards, and they had actually argued beforehand about who to pick and wound up getting people they liked anyway but just had not agreed on.

Yaoyorozu sighed while walking to Mineta's seat, while Mineta looked disappointed too that none of those three girls had come to sit with him after he made it out like he was going for the hottest girl there, and most famous, and a hero. His strategy to get them all thinking he was in Creati's league failed, and he sighed with his chin down on his right hand as he looked off the side of the ride. _It could have been…_ He thought, and he jealously looked at the three cars in front of him where the random girls were trying to talk to the male heroes with them.

Midoriya and Iida were not doing well responding to the girls who were all over them talking about how they had seen them on tv and thought they were amazing. Zach's partner at his side suddenly got butterflies and far too nervous instead of excited as the guy next to her turned her way. She stared at the scars on his face more than she looked him in his eyes, and her eyes shifted down to his neck and the various gash-scars and red marks that wrapped all around changing the shade of his skin. She stared at the scar under his chin on the left side of his face that wrapped over the curve of his jaw and up towards the middle of his face taking almost his whole cheek all the way over to his split ear. In her head she saw the dark form with bones showing through, and the faces of the dead from the Lifebringer Incident, and her head spun forward in the sudden uneasy panic she felt.

"Hey," Zach started. The girl darted her eyes back to the side as it seemed like he was talking to her, and those eyes widened as he reached next to him with his right hand that was closer to her. "Make sure the bar's down tightly," Zach pushed the metal bar down a bit more for a couple more clicks that the attendant walking down the line of the ride did not push down all the way. "You don't want to fall out," he said it in a relaxed and soothing voice that she was not expecting to come out so softly from Lifebringer.

"Ha, ha thanks," her face started to brighten back up and relief filled her as his intimidating appearance replaced with the idea she had of him in her mind before this. "The way you stopped the Subspace Devils was amazing, by the way. My friends and I were watching on tv the whole time and…"

The Class A group finished the roller coaster before Ojiro and Hagakure came down from the ferris wheel. They went to the base of the wheel and watched the cars go around for a bit while talking, as they saw which car their friends were in from Hagakure going to the window and waving down at them over and over for them to see her. The area around the ferris wheel was pretty open with lots of different booths set up for them to use while they waited. There was a house of mirrors to the right of the wheel that Mineta headed into with Ashido for a minute, while Sero walked over to grab a hot dog from a stand next to a barn with a sign on it saying to 'Keep Out. Employees Only.'

The fair was lit up by lights all over each of the rides, though one ride in particular made the fair seem even more lively. The second tallest ride was a tall pillar-like ride that had a round top almost looking like the carnival tent did. However, the top of the ride was spinning around and had dozens of thick wires coming off of it attached to seats where the most hardcore visitors were strapped in and spinning around screaming for dear life at the "fun" and horror they were experiencing. There was a guy from the previous round on the ride standing below it throwing up into a garbage can around the fence boxing the pillar and the controls off. He had lights flashing on his back of different colors, as around the pillar there were purple and green and orange lights flashing and strobing. The strobes worked even better as the chairs swung around blocking off the lights every second or two, which kept them coming at odd intervals and reflecting off all sorts of surfaces to bounce bright colors around the fair.

"You've never played basketball?" Zach asked the tallest guy in their group who he was still standing with along with two others. Midoriya and Yaoyorozu looked to Zach with lifted eyebrows as neither of them had either, and Zach turned to both of them in surprise. "None of you? Really?"

"Well, we never had the unit back in middle school," Midoriya started.

"Mine neither," Yaoyorozu said.

"Huh, mine did," Zach said. "But also my dad taught me. We had a park near our house with a hoop at it. He said he learned as a kid so he wanted me to, too."

"Why were you so surprised by me but," Iida stopped himself, wondering why he was asking in the first place though he was curious as Zach seemed less surprised by the other two.

"Well, I mean, look at you," Zach nodded up and down at the taller teen in front of him built like a basketball star. He grinned and added with a laugh, "If you weren't going to be a hero, you could totally be a basketball player."

Iida sweatdropped at that sentiment that sounded so carefree. _What is he talking about? We have not talked in weeks and he…_ "I suppose," Iida said as Zach looked at him awaiting a response as Iida was just staring. Iida lowered his bottom lip after saying it as it was mainly just for the purpose of responding that he did. Midoriya and Yaoyorozu looked in with surprise at him that he would agree to that so easily. "Though there are many other things I would do first-"

"Can't take it back," Zach said with a chuckle.

Iida frowned at the track of this conversation that was not serious at all. He looked to his side and then stared across the open area between all the booths to an outdoor eating area with a couple tvs set up on the walls. There was news up on one of the screens, and Iida's eyes narrowed at what they were reporting on which was the same story he had seen earlier that day right before Midoriya came to him. "Army of Death pinned with five counts of unjustified villain deaths in January," Iida said, reading off the screen that had the other three next to him turning at his sudden statement to look over there.

Zach finished reading out the line on the screen as Iida didn't seem about to, "Lowest since they were designated as a terrorist group back in October two years ago."

Iida frowned, but he hesitated as Zach was not actually defending them, just reading off the part that he decided not to say aloud as it was not the important part of what he was seeing. "Seems like they're disappearing," Zach mentioned with a look to Iida who had brought it up like this was a huge problem.

Iida turned his head and stared into Zach's eyes, and he hesitated again as the two of them made eye contact without any glass between them, as Iida had perfect vision to see what his former classmate looked like. Zach glanced back towards the screen all the way across the fair from him and added, "I saw this story earlier. The ADTF has received some new funding and focus from the international community too, saying they will double down on their efforts. 'The world will no longer tolerate their continued presence without any oversight or authority to carry out their operations,' or something like that."

"You think that's a joke?" Midoriya questioned as Zach was not saying it in a very serious voice. He glanced to Midoriya who frowned darkly at him about this line of conversation that was more serious than Zach had hoped for.

He saw Yaoyorozu looking at him too for an answer, but Zach only glanced at her for a second before turning back towards that screen far off and saying, "5 counts of murder isn't an impressive stat, especially when it's being called the ' _lowest'_ since-"

"That's not true," Midoriya replied before Zach could finish. He looked at Zach with a frown as Zach glanced back, saying 5 counts was nothing as he himself had been charged with 6. Zach gave Midoriya a frustrated frown back that they had to talk about this now, right here, but Midoriya gave him an intense look and was not going to let it go. "The Army of Death are as big a problem now as they have ever been. Only now, more people are willing to do something about them so they have to go deeper into hiding, which is _why_ they've only been allowed to kill five people last month."

"'Only?'" Zach questioned with a raise of his eyebrows like Midoriya had just countered his own point.

"Yes, 'only.' Because usually they are responsible for killing many more people," Midoriya replied without hesitation while staring Death down. He looked Zach in the eyes with a look that showed he knew he who he was talking to and was not afraid to call him out on it. "They are terrorists who kill without mercy."

Zach's lips curled down into a frown at Midoriya's statement that sounded similar to what Kirishima told him in the hospital when he returned. He turned his head and looked away, appearing tired of this conversation and deciding not to talk about it any longer. "I'm going to find a game to play until the others get down," Zach said, as there was no reason to stand here and talk about something that was only going to get all three of the others staring at him more disapprovingly.

"You can't just run away from-" Midoriya started walking after Zach as he started in the direction of some booths.

"Iida-san, could you tell me," Yaoyorozu started as Iida was about to follow after the two and help Midoriya out. He stopped and looked back at the girl behind him who gave him a serious look as she questioned, "What it is you are really doing here?"

Iida turned around fully and looked into Yaoyorozu's light gray eyes. His hesitation was brief, and then he said in a steady voice, "I am looking to find something that incriminates Zach as Death."

"I thought so," Yaoyorozu whispered, surprising Iida who thought she would open her eyes wide or ask him something angrily in response. Yaoyorozu just turned her head though and stared after Zach with a frown on her face. She thought about what she heard him talking about with Sero, Ashido, and Mineta when they had headed back towards the ferris wheel after their last ride. She heard him talking about Arcasia when Mineta asked while laughing and excited from the rush if Terra had anything like that. He talked about the Quirk of an enemy he had fought, one of the top soldiers of one of those Generals he spoke of so often. The power worked to make them all feel like they were standing on top of a roller coaster as they fought, and how they had to have an entire battle fighting like that while feeling like they were moving two hundred and fifty kilometers per hour.

 _I wanted to give you a chance. I came here to do just that, but you lie to them so easily and you have them all believing you. It's not just with me where you can see that I don't believe you. You told it to people you knew would trust you and did the same._ Yaoyorozu did not feel a pit in her chest this time, and her stomach was steady as she looked towards Zach's back. _I tried, Zach. I really tried for you._

Zach and Midoriya walked down the path with Midoriya continuing his interrogation harder than he usually, or ever, did with Zach. "Your friends aren't vigilantes, Zach. They're terrorists as they have been branded by the UN. They're just villains-"

"They're not my friends, but they're not villains either," Zach countered back with hardly a look at Midoriya to show he was not even taking him seriously. "And you're not going to convince me they are. So stop trying, and stop saying that I'm Death while there are so many people around-"

"But you _are_ Death," Midoriya said which had Zach clenching his teeth in anger at the accusation in the middle of this fair. "You led a band of vigilantes who killed without repercussions, and you let them continue to act even after you left for whatever it is you're doing here."

"I told you what I'm doing here-"

"And I told you I don't believe that," Midoriya countered right back. "If it was just for All For One, then you wouldn't continue the farce after getting out of prison where you were hiding from him."

"I wasn't _hiding_ from him," Zach growled. He snarled it and then froze, and while Midoriya stared at the side of his head with wider eyes, Zach turned his head back and glared into Midoriya's. "I _wanted_ him to come for me down there. In a place he couldn't escape from. I gave him a target and _hoped_ he would come for me down there." Zach leaned in towards Midoriya and whispered menacingly, "I wanted him to know exactly where I was while I waited with all my strength, and I trained every day preparing for his arrival so I could _cut, him, down._ "

Zach turned back forward and he cracked a smile as he said in a cheerful voice, "Or did I?"

Midoriya was still frozen behind him and staring at his side, but then his eyes widened even more and he shook his head as everything Zach just said could have just as easily been a lie. In fact, he thought it was a lie, but the way Zach had said it sounded so real and like he was admitting some dark secret to him. "Whatever I tell you, you're not going to believe a word of it, so stop with this already Midoriya. There's no fucking point-"

"But there is, if you'd just tell me the truth. The real truth-"

"You mean the 'truth' that you believe and want me to admit to. That's the 'truth' you're talking about, right? Because you've already figured it _all_ out?"

Midoriya darted his eyes away and bit down himself. "No. You're right, I don't know everything." He turned back to Zach who looked his way though, and he saw the pain and the betrayal on Midoriya's face, as well as the determination not to just let this go here. "But I know enough. I know that at the least you _pretended_ to be Death while you went around as Zach Sazaki. I know that you had subordinates who followed you-"

"I had comrades, sure," Zach replied darkly back to his classmate who was speaking in much too assured a tone.

"Insane comrades," Midoriya continued at Zach's response. "I caught one of them," he continued, and Midoriya's heart raced faster as he saw Zach's expression darkening and his eyes shifting back in an angrier way. "The man I captured was out of his mind. He was a maniac given powerful tech to break the law with by the Army of Death. He was a lunatic babbling like crazy and I know that a crazy villain like that shouldn't-"

"You shouldn't speak ill of the dead," Zach growled. He turned away from Midoriya and walked forward away from his classmate standing frozen where he just was.

"What?" Midoriya stared ahead and muttered, then he turned and looked towards Zach's back with his eyes huge and his stomach clenched up at what he was just told. He sprinted forward as his mind started to process, and he asked quickly, "Explain yourself! What do you mean by that-"

"I don't know what you mean," Zach said as he continued to walk.

Midoriya stared at him with shaking eyes and his hands twitching at his sides. _Wait- wait wait! Zach, he called Kirishima out in the hospital for talking ill of the AoD as terrorists too! He said they were fighting and dying, so he could just be saying it like he suspects he might be dead- but this time it seemed a lot more personal! It sounded like he_ _ **knew!**_ _He did know. What he just said was proof… He just told me. He just, told me._ Midoriya's hand moved down for his phone while Zach walked farther ahead of him. Iida had been looking down the dirt path towards Midoriya, and as Ashido and Mineta got back over and talked to Yaoyorozu, he started towards Midoriya whose face he saw take a sudden turn.

Zach walked forward and returned his face to normal despite the thoughts rushing through and his heart pounding like crazy. He turned his head as he heard a click and a snap, and he looked over towards one of the booths near him that only had one person on it playing the game for a prize from the shelves on the side walls. There were many booths with a ring toss, tossing a ping pong ball into a goldfish bowl, among others, but Zach smiled more as he looked at the guy who aimed the rifle in his hands and leaned forward more to try and get a closer shot on the targets across the booth from him.

"One more shot," the booth's worker said with a grin. "You can't get a prize, but at least try to hit one-"

The man holding the air rifle fired again and then cursed as the tiny ball missed the target by a few centimeters and hit the soft wall behind to drop into a collection tray.

"Oh! So close!"

"Screw this, those targets are too small," the guy in his early twenties muttered while putting down the rifle and storming off, his hands down in his pockets.

Zach rolled his shoulders while walking up to the booth, and the man behind it stared out with wide eyes at who was approaching him. "How much to try?"

"Uh, five hundred yen," the man replied hesitantly. _Oh crap. Is Lifebringer going to figure me out? Those are other heroes behind him too! This game's totally rigged!_

Zach picked up the rifle and he asked, "How many shots do I get?" He pulled out a five hundred yen coin and flipped it to the booth's manager who bobbled it for a second then snatched with both hands to pull it close. "And do I get any of those?" He asked with a nod at the shelf on his left that had different prizes on each of the three rows.

"You get five shots. If you hit, at least three, you can pick from the bottom row-"

"Four from the middle? Five for the top?" Zach finished for the guy speaking too slowly but who he figured out would say the rest. The man nodded, and Zach checked the gun to see if there were still more shots in it. "Alright," Zach lifted up the butt of the rifle to his shoulder and leaned his head closer to it. He pulled the trigger. There was no wait after he brought it up to his shoulder, he just fired at the target straight ahead of him. The ball missed and Zach lowered the barrel of the rifle and turned his head to the left to stare at the manager of the booth whose eyes shot open huge.

Zach looked back forward after giving the booth's runner a start, and he turned the barrel when he lifted it up again. _So the sights are off._

As Zach adjusted his aim, he completely ignored the two farther back along the path who were talking while staring towards him. Iida's eyes opened huge and his heart skipped a beat at the word Midoriya just said to him. _"Proof?" He's, acting like it wasn't. He's smiling and pretending like what he said was not damning at all, but that's incriminating evidence! I knew it! He had to be Death and there's no denying it now!_ As sure as Iida was, the shock of what Midoriya just told him showed him the doubt that had still been lingering inside as it all disappeared.

Hagakure and Ojiro reached the bottom of the ferris wheel and got off, with Ojiro holding Hagakure's hand and the invisible girl next to him blushing hard as she got worried that everyone was going to know that she and Ojiro kissed at the top of the ferris wheel. Ojiro was better at hiding his own expression though and just asked what the others wanted to do as Sero came walking back over too, wiping his hands on a napkin as he saw the others gathering about.

 _ **Clink clink clink clink.**_

The man standing inside his booth turned his head from Lifebringer and looked at the targets behind him. _But… what?!_

Zach put the rifle down on the counter and gave the man behind it a smug look that turned into a completely oblivious one a moment later. "Well look at that, I guess I just missed one. Second shelf, right?" He turned to the left and looked below all the huge stuffed animals that he told himself would have been a hassle to lug around anyway. After thinking that though, he looked at the medium-sized ones with a look of hesitation too. _What do I need a stuffed animal for? It's not like… well, I might not want it but,_ Zach pointed at the stuffed animal he was thinking of, and his head shifted a bit to the side with his eyes looking left down the dirt road to a group of six people all gathered together now.

His eyes lingered on one girl in particular, and then they shifted closer at two others.

Midoriya's eyes shifted to the pole on the right side of the booth. He stared at a flash of purple light, and his thoughts cut off mid-stream. The tall spinning ride's purple light was not facing them, as the side he just saw purple flash from was the opposite direction, closest to the outer fence on this side of the fairgrounds. Time started to slow down, as his eyes shifted past the fence while his head was snapping to the side, towards some reflective surface he saw out in the forest through the chain-link fence and between two rides. The light vanished, but his body was already twisting, _Someone's taking a shot!_

Iida's Engines turned on and shot him across the ground faster than Midoriya moved as that light disappeared. _It's the one Zach missed who vanished!_ Iida and Midoriya had the same thought at the same time, as they both heard the last report about the attempt on Zach's life and knew one of the villains had gotten away.

"No! Wait-" Zach turned while yelling it towards Iida, his face covering in panic as Iida sped away from him. _No no no no no!_ He spun back from Iida towards Midoriya who looked at Zach and saw a look of sheer panic and fear over his face that had him curling his hands into tight fists.

"What's going on?!" Sero yelled while zipping over on some Tape.

"Guys?!" Ashido exclaimed.

"There's a villain in the forest!" Midoriya called out, then instantly regretted it as there were a lot of people between him and his classmates who he informed since they were all heroes. "Protect the fair!" He called it out while bending his knees.

"Midoriya don't!" Zach yelled while running towards the fence that Iida had sprinted to and leapt over in one high leap.

"What's going on?!"

"Did he say 'villains?'"

"Everything's fine!" Yaoyorozu called around at the people around her, not wanting to start a panic. "There are several heroes here to stop whatever is happening. Just stay calm."

"I'm not staying here," Sero said, watching as Zach leapt over the fence calling after Midoriya who shot much farther ahead of him moving faster than Zach was and almost catching up to Iida.

"Me neither!" Mineta called out, pulling Pop Offs from his head and throwing in front of him for stepping stones he was going to use to bounce over the fence with.

"Hagakure! Ashido! Ojiro!" Yaoyorozu turned to the three behind her while tugging on her jacket at the back collar to pull her clothes farther from her skin where something was emerging back there. "Stay here and keep everything under control!" _What am I saying? Ojiro has better mobility and should-_ Yaoyorozu spun before she could think more on it, looking towards the forest where her classmates were running towards and then firing the flames out the bottom of her jetpack to fly over the fence Sero and Mineta were rushing over.

"I'm not staying!" Ashido called out, and she sprinted ahead sliding on Acid as she realized she was going to be left behind if she stayed any longer.

"Mina! Wait-" Hagakure closed her mouth as Ashido did not even slow down for a second.

"Come on Toru," Ojiro said as he looked around and saw people spreading rumors too quickly that they needed to take control of. "Everyone listen up…"

Iida's jets burned bright behind his legs as he shot into the tree line and a dense forest that had not been cut or maintained in decades if not centuries. The fair company did the minimal amount of work towards any areas they did not plan on building up over, so once they were past the fence the entire island became as abandoned as it had been before the fair moved in. Iida could not move the same speed that he had been going across the field, but he spotted movement through the trees, and moving away from him. "Wait! Villain!" Iida spotted the head of the figure turn for a moment, then a blast of red like what was coming out of his own engines to propel them farther into the woods and out of sight.

Iida leaned his body forward with his eyes darting left and right and every which way ahead of him. His left leg bent down hard on his next step, his route planned out in his head, and he shot forward yelling, "I said not to move!" _The assassins after Death. Powerful villains who can even escape from Zach, and who are here to kill him!_

Midoriya bounced off the tree closest to the tree line and ignored Zach's shout behind him and getting more distant. _Does he not think we can handle the villains he deals with regularly? The ones who are hunting Death?! Zach, whatever we have to do next doesn't mean anything here! If these people are here to kill you…_

 _We won't let them get away!_ Iida's face covered in anger and he jumped up, and he kicked off the side of a tree that had lots of weeds and tall roots and bushes all around it. He bounced over the bushes and then pointed his calves up as he was nearing the ground so as not to catch the bushes behind him on fire. He turned off his engines for a second and came out in a full sprint towards the person he caught another glimpse of up in a tree branch jumping farther ahead of him and keeping the same distance he saw them at when he entered the woods. _They're fast!_ Iida lost sight of the person right as Midoriya hit the tree on his right side and pressed his legs up on the trunk, splintering the old tree and making pieces of bark break off of it.

"You won't get away!"

"This is a small island!"

Mineta heard the quiet shouts deeper in the forest as he was nearing the edge of it, and he spun to Sero who used his Tape to pull to the tree close to where he just bounced to. "Should one of us cut them off at the docks?"

"Ojiro will stop any boats from leaving," Sero said without looking to his side at the shorter boy. "And they might have their own means of transport away from here."

The fact that Sero did not say 'boat' made both Mineta and Ashido sliding up behind them going wide eyed as they imagined some kind of aircraft parked on the opposite side of the island or something. All three of them sped up into the forest, chasing after Yaoyorozu who flew ahead of them with her jetpack, after Zach who was ahead of her and sprinting through the trees leaving a dead path behind him. Zach had black wisps coming out of his legs and feet, and he sprinted faster than normal men could as he made a straight path through the forest with his fists clenched furiously at his sides.

 _This is bad! What was I thinking?!_ Zach had sweat on the right side of his face and opened his mouth to yell ahead to Midoriya and Iida again, but the two of them sprinted too far and leapt straight off the ledge that they hit and figured out why they lost the person they were chasing. _They won't stop. The two of them were going to call me out on being Death! Why couldn't that have been the worst thing to happen tonight?! This is- I can't-_ Zach's teeth clenched even harder and his feet dug into the floor as he seethed air through his teeth. _It's all getting fucked!_

"Midoriya! Iida! Stop!" Zach yelled ahead through the forest.

His words fell on deaf ears. Midoriya and Iida reached a steep slope down to a sudden cliff. They knew they had gone uphill since the docks as the main path to the field was on an incline, but the forest had also been inclining for a bit until this ledge too. There was a waterfall hidden in the forest dropping into an overgrown river down below, and the two boys who reached the ledge looked down to see a person landing on a tree branch and then using the spring of the branch to bounce themselves back up and deeper towards the other side of the island. They went under the canopy too so neither were able to see the figure anymore, for a second before Midoriya hit the branch they had been on an instant before. Iida took a different route sprinting along the almost straight-down wall of the cliff on a diagonal slope around towards the waterfall. He ducked underneath it to stay between the water and the wall, the back of his head getting splashed by water droplets before he came out of his crouch and kept sprinting down the wall to jump into a heavily-bushed area that softened his landing which he ran straight out of.

"Zach!" Yaoyorozu called ahead to the boy who was not slowing down as he got farther from her and neared the decline to the ledge.

He sprinted straight down it and leapt off with his arms and legs swinging in the air like he was hurdling the cliff, then he started to plummet for the forest below that he tilted his body forward into a dive for. _I have to catch them!_

Down at the lower part of the forest, Midoriya was hot on the tail of the person shooting ahead of him. They were wearing all black and had jets coming out of their back, but those jets turned on at rapid and sporadic intervals with the guy dropping and running for two steps then jumping to the side at a tree, then bouncing over to the left and hitting a window that they went straight through. Midoriya's eyes opened wide and his eyes darted around, and he realized in that moment that they had come across the village completely engulfed by the forest. He jumped towards the window and through it with his arms crossed in front of him and his eyes darting around for where the person in the house would be, but the front door smashed open as he was entering the window for the person to escape out of. They did not even look towards him as he was coming in, and Midoriya realized that his move to follow straight through that window was predicted rather than the assailant guessing he was going around.

 _Zach said on the ride here that the guy who he dodged the other day had a teleportation Quirk which was the only reason they escaped him._ Midoriya rushed out of the building and spotted a sliver of movement going behind another wall ahead of him. His body glowed as he bent his legs and then shot at that house that he broke straight through the corner of. As he was shooting over like a rocket about to smash through that house, his fists were clenching and his face full of intensity as he imagined this assassin. _If he isn't using his Quirk to escape, then the teleportation likely has a limit that Zach was unable to test when the man first disappeared. But if this guy had teleported right there and we continued to chase and found him, then he didn't use his Quirk because he wouldn't have been able to use it again that quickly! Or he doesn't have the distance to teleport off this island- but he's trying to get to the coast? There might be a vehicle! Whatever it is, I'll stop him here!_

Midoriya broke through the front corner of the house, into the house itself, then through the side wall where the other person had ran around a moment ago to leave his sight. He broke through the wall and his eyes shifted to his right as the rubble did not slam into someone, so he thought the guy had gone faster than he adjusted for and was farther down the house. Instead, his eyes moving to the right started rising up instead as he saw the movement above him that was not a piece of broken wall. The person who had rounded the corner of the house had jumped up and was above Midoriya with a gun pointed down towards his head as he was raising his gaze towards it. His eyes started to grow wide, right as the white glow came from inside the barrel.

 _ **BANG**_

The white glow turned into a horrible bright flash that blinded the teen along with a deafening blast that turned into a ring and disoriented him even more. He botched his landing after smashing through the wall, and he hit the floor at a speed moving fast enough to break through those walls like that. Midoriya rolled ahead and through a thin tree growing between two nearby houses, before cracking the next wall he slammed into not fast enough to smash through but hard enough to make the whole building shake and risk collapsing on its old foundation.

The person who just set off the flashbang in Midoriya's eyes spun upon landing and took two steps. Then Iida raced around the opposite corner of the building that Midoriya had broken down, and as he was rounding that corner his legs started to glow blue on the back during his turn. His left leg planted down at the corner and his right leg rose up with a bright blue glow coming out of his calf in his roundhouse kick, "Reciproburst!"

On the front of the dark armor the person in front of Iida was wearing, on both upper arms and on their shoulders, bright blue light glowed. The front jets slammed the person's body backwards to a ninety degree angle as they also dropped on their knees at the start of their sprint. They were not moving too fast to be able to slide under Iida's spinning kick, but they did drop low enough and bend their body back far enough in the instant the leg was nearing that Iida could not readjust. He still had time in his Reciproburst and did not get deterred by his first miss that still broke apart the wall of the building next to him when his leg skimmed it. He slammed that leg down as the blue light shifted legs and he brought that left leg up high so his shoe's sole was pointing up and his whole leg was raised ready to smash down at the figure who had dropped to their knees and then slammed their hands on the ground.

Iida started to bring his leg back down, when the person on their hands and knees below him suddenly bounced up to his eye level. His right foot pivoted while Midoriya stood up from the wall he fell off of. Midoriya's eyes were blurry and his ears ringing, but he could see a blurry Iida with his left leg lifted up high. Blue flames came out of Iida's Engines and his leg started slamming down, but the figure who had just brought themself much closer to Iida's foot, did a barrel-roll in midair with jets firing out flames and a lot of black smoke out of their back on the right side only to make them spin like that. When their body first spun perpendicular to the ground was when Iida's leg kicked past them, in the middle of the spin with his leg just brushing the person as he tried to shift it even in that down arc. The dark figure yanked their head away as Iida's foot brushed by it, and as Iida's foot slammed down into the ground, the person stopped their roll with jets turning on at both of their shoulders and their right leg up high over Iida's head now.

Iida's momentum was still going down, with the ground around his foot breaking apart. Cracks split off underneath the foundation of the nearby houses and breaking apart roots of the trees in the vicinity that all shook like the ground below him. His and Midoriya's eyes were not on the shaking ground though, but on the foot raised above Iida's head with the heel coming down at the top of his skull. As Iida rose his head to see that heel coming down though, he saw the heel of the shoe opening up with a sharp blade sticking out of it and slamming for the center of his forehead. He was in no position to move, but the kick coming down at his head passed right in front of his face with the blade getting so close to his nose that he swore he felt the little hairs on the tip of his nose getting sliced.

The person's foot hit the ground, and then as if with Iida's Quirk, jets blasted off the back of their calves and shot them ten feet forwards. Those jets turned off though, as Midoriya appeared in front of the guy with his fists raised back up and his expression still ready for a fight. _He could have killed me- he could have killed us both but he… he…_

Iida was running up to the right, keeping a small distance between him and the person who stopped while facing Midoriya, but Iida slowed down his run too as he stared at the person who had lost the top of their mask when his foot skimmed it. The black suit the person was wearing had been ripped on the head piece, and in the dark of the forest neither had adapted to very well, with Midoriya's vision blurry and Iida's having been more focused on that knife that almost pierced his face, neither had focused clearly until that moment.

 **Thud** Zach slammed down on the ground right where Midoriya had been standing, with Midoriya seeing the movement at the top of his vision at the last second and diving away towards Iida who stepped back in surprise and stumbled as Midoriya hit in front of him. Midoriya spun as he landed in his dive, and he stared back at where he just was in front of that person with his eyes as massive as they could get. "What are you doing here?" Zach growled, while glaring straight ahead at the person who was staring at him and not moving.

Midoriya and Iida stared ahead at the two of them standing ten feet away from each other. The person they had been chasing was standing there panting with a black mask covering the bottom half of their face from below their eyes down over their neck to the tight black costume that covered their whole body. Falling behind the person's back, and down their sides, and over the protruding area of her chest, was long brown hair that waved in a cold wind blowing through the forest. Zach stared straight ahead over the top of the mask and into the green eyes staring back at him so full of rage.

 _That's…_ Iida's eyes shifted from the girl in front of Zach back to his old classmate himself. Then those eyes snapped right back to the girl as her arms snapped up, only they were not arms when she raised them together pointed straight ahead at Zach. As Iida's eyes grew even huger, someone was flying towards their backs and opened her eyes in shock at what was getting more illuminated in front of her thanks to the ultra-bright glow-sticks she had attached to her waistband.

"Wha-" Midoriya reached a hand forward, his right foot lifting off the ground and stepping forward. The girl facing Zach just rose up a huge rifle with a scope on top of it, one that appeared literally out of nowhere as her hands had been empty a moment ago. Deku's eyes examined her arms as he was reaching forward, stepping forward, _Her arms are the rifle itself-_ Midoriya's thoughts were jolted as he was about to delve into how all those crazy techniques had happened at the start of the fight. He was unable to continue the thought, because Zach snapped his left arm out and swung down as hard as he could with darkness completely covering that arm.

A whip of darkness shot off of Zach's hand and past the front of Midoriya before going another twenty meters past his left side. Zach's arm followed through when he swung it down to whip it behind him too, and he created a wall of Death that in a second split the abandoned village with him and the girl on one side and Class A's on the other. "Stay back," Zach growled, his eyes not shifting over to his side but his voice taking a deeper and darker tone to it that silenced all of his friends who were already there and staring forward in shock at what was now hardly illuminated again through that black wall letting through so little light.

Zach stared ahead at the woman in front of him pointing a sniper rifle at his chest, then raising it up so that the barrel was locked on his forehead with the girl behind it looking enraged out of her mind. Her teeth bared with her lips pulled far apart, her steady rifle aimed forward with a shaking trigger on it that needed no fingers to be pulled. Her head leaned forward and brown hairs of her bangs shadowed over those usually bright green eyes as she glared madly towards Zach's face.

His face was expressionless as he stared forward at the girl. His arms lowered down flat to his sides and his eyes locked on hers past the end of the barrel between them. Others were arriving behind where Yaoyorozu had landed near Iida and Midoriya. They could see the light and they shouted asking what was going on as they ran closer, only for all three of them to shut up as they got close and stared through the black wall at the two dimly illuminated on the other side. The tension filled the air so thick that it was hard for anyone to breathe, as Zach stood at the end of a sniper barrel and there was a wall of Death blocking any of them from getting to him. The other three who just arrived recognized who this was facing Zach too, but their eyes still darted back to the wall of darkness spreading in both directions to Zach and to this girl in confusion as much as shock.

Zach stared the girl before him down as she glared furiously at him and kept him at the end of her rifle. His eyes shifted to the arms she had raised as a single weapon, then he shifted them back to her face with a dark one covering his own, "Are you going to shoot me again, Darling?"

Zach's question cut the tension in the air and only resulted in making it thicker for the six people standing there watching this through the rippling black flames, flames continually getting fed by the pitch black line cutting from Zach's feet towards it so it looked to be raging infinitely. Wind blew through the woods but the dark flames looked unaffected by it, waving in the same random pattern and flaring in front of the heroes who looked like they may try to do something.

 _"Again?"_ Yaoyorozu stared towards Zach with her trembling eyes steadying and then shifting back to the brown-haired girl who bit down even harder and tilted her head back with a distorted and enraged look covering her face. Yaoyorozu's heart rate skyrocketed as Zach's bloody body appeared in her mind, laying on the ground covered in blood with a hole in his chest.

" _Yes_ , I am," Darling hissed her response and then stomped closer to Zach and pushed her arms forward. She pushed the end of the barrel closer to Zach to make less of a distance between it and his face. "And this time, I'll go for the head." Her voice came out raspy and she slammed her teeth back together and ground them over each other in fury.

"Nobody move!" Zach yelled out. His eyes did not shift to the side, but Iida was considering sprinting straight through the black flames in front of him that only he could go through out of his classmates. He even considered for a moment that Zach had made those flames to put the would-be assassin at ease, so that he could catch them off guard. "Iida! Stay back," Zach snarled it and he stepped forward himself towards Darling. He stepped towards the girl who his eyes were locked on with his face covering in rage just like hers. His face twisted with his forehead scrunching up and his eyes filling with pain as he leaned his head forward. "Do it."

"I will!" The girl in front of Zach yelled, taking another step and pushing the barrel closer to Zach's face.

"Then do it!" Zach yelled, planting his feet down and glaring down at the shorter girl whose face twisted more as she stared up at that face looking down so furiously at her. "Shoot me!"

 _Does he know what he's doing?!_

 _He's going to get himself shot!_

 _Wait! THAT girl's the one who shot him?!_

 _He knew, the whole time?_ Yaoyorozu looked back towards Zach with heavy pants coming out of her mouth and a nervous expression covering her face as she darted her eyes back and forth between the two.

Ashido's eyes shifted to the side at the taller girl on her left who she had run up to before freezing in place. Then they snapped back to the brown haired girl and specifically her arms that were shaking, almost like holding up that heavy rifle was too much on her body. Ashido also noticed as she made that comparison, even though she suspected the shaking was something else, that the girl's body was bigger than it looked the day of the Lifebringer Incident. Not just that she was taller as she stood in front of Zach, but more filled out both in the chest pressing against her black uniform, and at her arms and legs and shoulders. The girl was shorter than Yaoyorozu and closer to Ashido, but her body was lean and muscular under that tight black clothing she had pressed to-form.

Darling's arms started ripping apart, but her right hand stayed pushed forward in the shape of a pistol that was aimed straight at Zach's face. She tilted her head back that shook as she glared at him, and she reached up to her face and ripped down her mask with her left hand and tore it straight off with the steel claws that her fingers had turned into. "I HATE YOU!" Darling screamed, making sure Zach saw her face and watched her scream it at him. She curled her head down with her chin nearly touching her chest for a moment as she scrunched up her face and looked deranged, her left hand pulling up and grabbing at the side of her head as she took in and let out huge breaths of air like she was wheezing from this moment. Zach's teeth clenched but his lips stayed covering them, and he stared straight forward at this girl emotionless as she screamed at him and looked at him in this way.

The others looking at the girl found themselves freezing again as they stared at her face. It was a face they recognized, not because they had seen it before in the light of the Lifebringer Incident, but because of how closely it resembled Zach's. Across her left cheek was a long scar looking like she had been cut there. Below her right ear there was a gash cutting down onto her neck and then curving up over her chin where there was a patch of scar tissue around her jaw and over her chin. There was a scar on the left side of her neck too curving around the front that was only slightly visible under her hair, and the top of two more scars could only be seen at the top of her chest at the lowest point her mask had been ripped off from. The rest of those scars were hidden under the clothes on her chest, but Sero, Ashido, and Yaoyorozu all stared at the girl in more shock than the other three with them.

 _Holy shit. Her too? Did he- was she with…_ Sero's eyes shook as he stared at the girl whose body he imagined under those clothes looking the same as Zach's.

Ashido rose her hands and covered her mouth with them, then her eyes snapped back to Zach who was glaring at this girl but could not keep the same expressionless face he had a few seconds ago. Ashido saw how tightly his fists were clenched at his sides and how hard his teeth were baring behind his lips as he kept that straight expression as calm as possible. _Zach,_ Ashido thought with her chest pounding and her shaky eyes darting back and forth and getting watery even in all the confusion she was in.

"Then shoot me," Zach said after the girl yelled how much she hated him. He stared her in the eyes as she pointed that pistol towards him. She stomped her right foot forward and pushed the gun ahead more so that it was only a couple of feet from his face that it was pointing up at. Darling's gun shook, but Zach bit down harder and then said while staring her straight in the eyes, "Don't miss this time." Darling's teeth bit down hard this time and her expression twisted in so much raw emotion that no one else there understood but Zach. And as no one could understand what was going on, they realized in that moment that Zach did not care about them at all. Their being there, was insignificant to him to the point that the only thing he had yelled at them was to stay out of this, and he had put up that wall to keep this between the two of them with no one else involved.

 _He knows what he's doing. She won't shoot him!_ It was a similar thought that went through all the Class A students' heads, though none of them could believe it fully and were holding their breath as the girl bared her teeth again and looked so insane while aiming at Zach's face.

"I didn't dodge last time," Zach said. He looked into Darling's eyes and said, "So I know you missed on purpose."

"I didn't!" Darling roared at him. She yelled it at his face and her gun-hand steadied with rage completely covering her expression. "I wanted to kill you!"

"Then why didn't you kill me?" Zach asked. "You're the best shot in the world, and I didn't dodge-"

"You couldn't dodge!" Darling screamed. "Because you were distracted, by _HER!"_ Darling's face twisted even more and her eyes opened wider as her head tilted back. Her right arm trembled in front of her but she kept the hand-gun aimed straight at Zach's face. Her face twisted in sheer betrayal, and guilt, and rage, and jealousy. "You knew they were after you! You _knew_ they were coming to kill you and you let your guard down?! How could you do that?! How could-"

"So you shot me," Zach interrupted. He said it in a calm voice and the girl yelling at him in a cracking one froze with her lips trembling at what he just told her. The others who had thought they were following this and figured out why the jealous girl had shot Zach, froze and lost all idea of what was going on as Zach lifted his lips into a small smile. "Thank you, Darling."

"NO! That's not- I didn't-"

"You shot me so that I would make sure not to let my guard down again, and I've been able to stop all the real attempts on my life since then." Zach stared at the girl whose face was confused and in denial, and yet she was clenching her teeth so hard as the words he was saying echoed in her head with the tone of absolute assurance in his voice that she knew he was not wrong. And Darling pulled her head back as her gun shook more, as tears spilled out of her eyes and as Zach said, "Thank you for saving my life again. But now, you need to leave."

 _What- wait? She-_ Midoriya darted his eyes left and right through the rippling black flames in front of him. _She shot him, because he let his guard down? Because, she wanted him to… that's insane! She's insane! And, and powerful. The best shot in the world? She took on me and Iida- and she wasn't even trying to kill us. She had the chances- could she have?!_ Midoriya's eyes shook and he turned back to the girl whose face returned to rage at how Zach just finished. _She's deranged. That's her way of showing him she cares? He told her 'thank you!?' That's like encouraging this kind of insanity-_

"Not. Without. You," Darling said. Her right hand steadied again, the pistol aimed at Zach's head and her eyes narrowing. She wiped her left hand across her face and glared Zach down as his expression lost the smile on it and got darker itself. "You have to come back."

"I can't," Zach replied.

"You have to," Darling said, raising her voice and tilting her head back again.

"Darling," Zach said. His voice was low and stern, but she just twisted her expression in more anger at the way he was looking at her.

"You don't get to tell me that! Not now! Not as Zach Sazaki!" Darling shook her head around while Zach's eyes got darker and glared at her harder. She shook her head though and Zach's breath started getting heavier as the girl rose her eyes to him. "You're not alright! You didn't make the decision to go back in the right mind! You have to come back with me!"

"Stop it," Zach said. His tone was warning, and he shook his head at her with the most serious look on his face. "Don't."

"I have to!" She screamed at him. "You _need_ to come back to me! I'll, I'll make you-" She said it with regret and pain in her voice, but her eyes shifted to the side quickly and then back at Zach from those dark flames.

Zach's jaw clenched and his hands balled into tighter fists at his sides. "Please," Zach said. He looked at Darling desperately for a moment, but his face was full of more regret and pain than anything as he saw how much more desperation was on hers than his own. "Don't do it-"

Darling saw that look and pulled back, her eyes clenching shut and a flood of emotion slamming into her. "I have to!" She yelled. "Because you- you have to come back with me! This isn't where you belong!"

"Zach, what is-" Midoriya started through the darkness as he was going to get himself involved instead of standing there and being a bystander to all of this.

"This is where I belong," Zach said loudly, snapping his head up and looking into Darling's eyes. "I need to be here. This is where I belong now. I can't leave-"

"It never mattered to me," Darling cut him off. Her voice was softer, smaller, and it cracked as she said it like she was in pain. She stared at Zach who flinched and then shook his head. He shook it at her like she was wrong, but Darling rose her voice and leaned her body forward, "Only you! You were all I cared about! I- I love you! Why won't you be with me?!" Her voice rose shriller and her face looked insane for a moment as she screamed, "Why don't you love me?!"

 _WHOA!_ Mineta pulled his head back with a panicked look on his face at the sight of how crazed that girl's looked.

Zach just stared painfully back at the person in front of him though. "I do though," he whispered. He stared at her with his expression losing the anger and the detachment he was showing before. His voice got lower itself and he looked into her bright green eyes that widened as Zach told her, "I do love you."

Darling's wide eyes shook, and she pulled her head back with tears pushing out the cracks of them when she squinted in the agony she felt piercing through her heart. "Not, the way I love you," she gasped out. "You've _never_ loved me like that. Not how I want you to," she said it in tears, while shaking a gun at his face and looking like she was having a mental breakdown. She rose her head and her squinted eyes pushed open, and she said to him with the rage returned to her face, "I would have followed you to Hell and back, and so many others would have too- but I was the first! The first one!" She yelled it at him and he pulled his head back at the look on hers full of despair, and abandonment. "I loved you the most! I did _EVERYTHING_ for you!"

"Darling I-"

"I gave you my life! My soul!" Darling yelled it at him and then turned her head down, a flash of horror over her face as she reached up her left hand and grabbed the side of her face where the long gash covered her cheek. "My body-" her head lifted as she gripped that scar so much, then moved that hand over to her arm with a look of terror and rage mixed on her expression. "I-I put myself in those situations for you- and I- I-" she blinked a few times as her eyes were too full of tears and the memory was just making more push out. "And when those pirates tried to force themselves on me, you saved me from those rapists and-"

"Darling!"

"And you saved me! You covered me with your body and snarled at them like a beast to protect me!" Darling's lips trembled and she yelled, "And you ripped them to pieces like an animal for me! You tore them apart FOR ME!" Her heart ripped and she yelled at the boy in front of her, "And you loved me! I knew you loved me."

"I do," Zach whispered. He shook his head while his face filled with regret, and agony, and he told the girl in front of him, "But I never should have brought you along." Darling froze and her eyes shot open huge, her breath catching in her throat.

"No no no no-"

"I regret it," Zach said.

"NO!" Darling yelled. "Stop saying that! You have to come back with me right now!"

"No. I left-"

"You abandoned me!" Darling yelled at him in a voice that cracked during it.

"My work is done!" Zach yelled right back.

"It's not! It's not done until all the villains are gone." Darling said it and her voice got darker, and lower. Her face had an amount of regret on it but she did not stop even as Zach shook his head at her. "The you here doesn't do anything! Can't you see that? Compared to how much you did out there?"

"I can't leave-"

"You!" Darling called out, her face so hesitant and apologetic, and yet her voice louder and not like she was just yelling it at the boy in front of her. "The Savior of Paris!"

"Don't-" Zach whispered, one last time at the girl who shook her head and just continued in as loud a voice.

"Underlord! The man who killed Stain! The Champion of the Pit! Destroyer of the Shadows! Our Commander..." Darling shook her head around and clenched her eyes as she opened her mouth wide, and she yelled out at the boy in front of her, "Death!"

Wind blew through the forest and carried off Darling's shouts into a silence that fell across the overgrown town in the forest. Iida was already stuck to the spot from one of the epithets Darling shouted for Zach, while the others who had been stunned by that shout and the others were all focused on the final one. Zach's eyes shut and his head bowed as she yelled that word at him. Sero's eyes were as wide as saucers, and they shook as he stared at Zach and that appearance of dread and acceptance. Then, for the first time since Zach created that dark wall, his head shifted to the side the smallest amount as his eyes opened back up. He stared out at the six staring through the darkness at him.

His expression was so different from anything they had ever seen on his face. Zach stared their way without regret or dread, or any sort of emotion regarding what was just revealed so loudly to them. He just looked at their expressions and then turned back himself to the girl before him who was panting while looking at his face. And then Darling smiled. She smiled at the face looking back at her. "You're back," she said. She smiled brighter, and she laughed a few times while the others stared at Zach with shaking eyes at what that girl just said. "I knew it. Now, let's go before-"

"I'm not leaving, Darling," Zach said. He stared at the girl who started to look to the side to see how they were going to escape, and who spun her head back with her eyes confused and then opening wide at his serious look. "I told you, and I'm not changing my mind."

"You have to!" Darling shouted, though it was quieter as she cut it into a whisper halfway through. Panic covered her face with her eyes darting to the right at the other teens who were struggling to keep up and were also looking back at Zach now in confusion and shock as well. A few of them thought a moment ago that things were about to get crazy chasing them, but Zach shook his head at the girl who started to look at him desperately. "But they know! You have to-"

"I won't leave," Zach declared. He said it firmly and in the most certain tone, strong and with no room for argument that had Darling stammering to herself for a moment as she did not know how to respond to it. "If they throw me in prison then so be it. I won't be leaving with you." Darling stared at Zach with her eyes growing wider and wider, a horrified look on her face as she darted a look back to those heroes and then to him again. "I came back to Japan and I plan to stay here."

"Wh-What- why-" Darling stuttered a couple of times but then her voice faded off as she stared into Zach's eyes. His expression was unshaken, but her eyes started to shake as she stared into his. "How long?" Darling whispered. Zach's lip twitched, and Darling dropped down the gun that was her right hand and that had already lowered a bit when Zach's facial tone completely changed. She stepped forward and whispered, "I knew, it had to be so long. How long were you stuck in there?"

"This doesn't have anything to do with that," Zach said firmly.

"Tell me!" Darling called out louder.

"It won't change anything!" Zach snapped back louder, his voice getting angrier and coming out quickly which seemed strange when his expression looked so steady and strong like that.

Darling shook her head though as she stared at that strong face that was not fooling her anymore. "How long were you in that Void for?" Her lips trembled and she searched his face with a nervous expression over hers. He opened his mouth, but she yelled at him when she saw he was not going to answer, "How long?!"

"Two months, twenty nine days, sixteen-" Zach started to respond.

"Not the answer you gave Gentle!" Darling yelled back at Zach. "Tell me the truth!"

"That _IS_ the truth! I was in that Void for months and-"

"You're lying!" Darling yelled at him, while the others watching were getting more and more lost by the second. "I can tell! How long were you in there?! That dimension-"

"Two months-"

"HOW LONG?!"

 _"YEARS!"_ Zach screamed it back at Darling with his lips curling away and his eyes trembling. His right eyelid shook halfway closed and his face twisted and distorted as he brought his left hand up to his head and grabbed his temple with it, digging in his fingers and yelling, "Years! Darling. I was there for-" Zach clenched his eyes shut and he slammed his chin down into his neck, his head twitching and his right hand tapping on his right thigh which Darling snapped her eyes towards for a second before snapping them right back to his face that rose up and glared at her in panicked rage. "Years of absolutely nothing in all directions!"

The mention of 'dimension' had Zach's other friends staring at him in shock as they wondered for a moment if everything he had told them had had some truth to it. Instead though, all of them stared at Zach in increasing horror as he gripped into the side of his head with his metal hand even harder as he yelled out, "Never sleeping! Never getting tired! Never thirsty or hungry or- ahhh! Just straight consciousness in an empty Void for _years!"_ Zach pulled his head back at the look Darling was giving him, but his breath was coming in and letting out too fast and he kept tapping so hard on his right leg that his eyes finally snapped down to. His left hand snapped from his head to his right wrist and he gripped it so hard but kept tapping, "And I wanted to know how long I was in there for so I started counting, but I didn't know that I'd never get _tired_ of tapping the seconds, and that meant that I never stopped tapping! Tap tap tap tap tap tap tap tap tap-tap-tap-tap-tap-" Zach ground his teeth and struggled to hold back the muffled noises in his throat of trying to say 'tap' more times, just as his left hand was desperately trying to pull his right wrist away from his leg.

"Zach," Darling whispered in a hoarse voice.

"I couldn't stay!" Zach yelled at the girl in front of him with a furious look over his face. "How could I? Like this?!" He ripped his hand away from his thigh and pulled his head back with a look of so much anger covering his face. "After I lost my fucking mind?! I couldn't lead anyone- I couldn't…" Zach bit down hard and snapped his head down to glare into Darling's eyes, but his eyes just got sad and pained and he spoke faster, "Sixty, sixty, twelve, twenty-four, thirty, four, twelve, three hundred sixty five, again and again and again…" Zach panted breaths in but wasn't getting them out, and then he gasped at the girl in front of him, "And I couldn't do it."

"But if you come back with me," Darling began. Zach's jaw locked and he clenched his eyes shut again, turning his head to the side with a look of anger over it at what she started saying. "You can't stay here! We don't have to go back, you could just come with me-"

"I _can't_ go with you." Zach said it and turned his head back to look into Darling's eyes with his own bloodshot and full of regret. "All that time we spent out there," Zach paused and he lowered his head, his eyes darting to the left again but then back ahead at the girl he was speaking to who was all that mattered in the moment. "All that time fighting, every day, all day, I did too much." He whispered the last part and then pursed his lips like what he just said was some secret that slipped out. He bit down on his bottom lip and then shook his head with his eyes clenching again to hold back any tears. What he just said though, was opening up the dam. "Too much," he whispered again. "Weeks, and months, every day fighting for all that time and, and I couldn't-"

"I know. I had to too." She said it and Zach shook his head, but she rose her voice and called at him, "I know you went to more than anyone else, but if you went to the most then I went to the second most! All that time, I was by your side-"

"But I was in charge," Zach whispered in pain to the girl before him. "And so I couldn't let anyone see me break down. When things were bad, real bad," Zach whispered it and his teeth clenched. "I couldn't let anyone- I couldn't ever…" Zach's teeth clenched as faces were flashing through his mind, faces appearing and bodies dropping and pain filling his entire body in a way that had his heart in so much pain and forced him to reach up his left hand and grab his chest as the black flames flickered weaker on his left. "I had to stay strong the whole time, because I needed the others to believe in me. I needed them to see me strong so that they wouldn't falter. I did it because if I didn't then they might die, and then I'd have even more that- that I couldn't even react to. But I'm not, I'm not that cold a person that I could see them die and see all those things and be so emotionless… So I didn't think of- I didn't think about any-"

The girl in front of Zach started to tremble, her face shaking at the look on his of a man about to break. "And I still-" Zach started. He clenched his teeth and his whole face was vibrating like he was fighting himself and pain was coursing through his entire body. The way he just started that had everyone looking at him realizing his mental state not just a flash to when he was in that Void. His voice got softer but in a more introspective tone, "All I had done for so long, was look forward. The present and the future… but I didn't know if I'd ever get out the Void, and there was nothing going on in the present. So when I reached the point where I couldn't just make plans for when I got out anymore, because I didn't know when that would be if ever… I thought of the past. It all came rushing at me at once, everything I had buried _down_ ," Zach's voice cracked and tears spilled freely from his eyes. "As I thought of everyone I had let down, every regret I had, all the dead flashing through my mind and all the worst things in the world that I never even tried to understand or contemplate, things that didn't make any sense but that I didn't need to understand to push forward! In a moment that could have lasted a second, or years, because I stopped tapping! I stopped- I- I stopped tapping and, and since my reality and my understanding of time was based around tapping the seconds I had no idea how long it had been, but that single moment I missed a tap changed everything! And in that moment, the biggest regret I had ever had," Zach stopped for a second and he looked straight into Darling's eyes with his own so full of guilt and regret that it made Darling step back from him. "Was you," he finished.

Darling sucked in a huge breath as her own heart filled with the pain of hearing him just say that. "Don't-" she gasped out in agony.

"I _never_ should have brought you with me," Zach said. He said it in pain but his words also made some of the others there glare towards him while darting looks to the girl who seemed like she had been with Zach through all these horrible things he was saying. They glared at him because he had brought her or because of what he was saying now, but Zach shook his head at the girl looking horrified by it anyway and said, "It's what I regret, more than anything."

"Don't say that!" Darling snapped at him. She shook her head in disbelief and then leaned her chest forward at him and shouted, "I came with you because I love you! Because you needed me!"

"But I shouldn't have-"

"You were right to!" Darling countered louder. "The only thing you did wrong was abandoning us! That's the only thing you've ever done wrong in your life! So come back-"

"My work is done!" Zach yelled at her. "I can't do it anymore, and I don't need to. The world is safer. Crime went down. We succeeded! Death can take care of the rest without me-"

"You _are_ Death!" Darling called back at him in denial. "You can't just hand the mantle to Gentle and think I'll follow him for it. I love _you._ I breathe for _you_. _YOU!"_

Darling's look of lust and love and obsession made Zach pull his head back and look at her in the most pained way. He wanted to grip his chest to make some of that pain go down, but he didn't feel he had the right to do even that as the girl looked at him so desperately like this. "I never should have accepted your help in the first place," Zach repeated even after all she just shouted at him. She started shaking her head with a look like she didn't want to believe it, but he said, "The first time I ever went to you was a mistake-"

"What about bringing me back to life?" Darling asked. She asked it in a raspy voice with a look of utter rejection and despair over her face. She stared at Zach with grief covering it and looking like she would be destroyed by the answer, "Do you regret that? Was bringing me back to life when I killed myself, a mistake?"

"No," Zach said with a shake of his head. "Of course not."

"And that's why I love you," she said, looking at him in a way as if asking how he could not understand this.

Zach clenched his teeth so hard and looked at the girl before him in pain that turned to anger. "Well I don't love you," Zach said. "Not like that. And it never _will_ be like that." He said it harshly but had to ground his teeth more as he saw her face twisting in reaction to it. "And I can't come back with you- I can _never_ come back with you."

"You- well, if you don't-" Darling's lips trembled and Zach started shaking his head, muttering 'no' under his breath at how she just started. "If you don't- I'm going to kill myself-"

"GOD DAMNIT DARLING!" Zach screamed. He yelled it and the girl who just threatened to commit suicide leaned her whole body back just as everyone else around them did at that yell. Zach started panting after that shout, but his face scrunched up so much and he stared at the ground with his teeth grinding and his mind racing faster than ever, and yet to no avail. "I don't, I don't know what I'm supposed to-" Zach started it but he stopped and rose both hands to the sides of his head. He dragged them down through his hair and rose his head looking at Darling in the most desperate and defeated way. "I don't know how to save you," he gasped with a horrified expression.

"Wh-What?"

"There were a lot of reasons!" Zach shouted. They were in the middle of an empty town in an even more empty forest, and his voice carried over the harsh wind that just blew through making a lot of noise with the shaking branches around them. Zach shook his head while dropping his eyes to the floor again, then he rose them to Darling and he continued, "Why I came back here. In that untapped moment, I decided on everything and knew by the time I started tapping again that I was going to leave and go to Tartaros. How crazy I felt, my regrets with everyone back here, with how I left the country of Japan, All For One, none of it really mattered!" Zach rose his voice and he leaned towards the girl in front of him who was staring back at him in complete shock. "It was _you_! Darling, out of all the reasons I came back here, you were the only one that really mattered."

"Wh-Wh- I-I don't understand-"

"We were fighting every single day, and in fights where we were losing friends and almost getting killed ourselves and, and at some point I had accepted it. I had accepted that I wasn't going to make it," Zach said it with guilt overflowing in his voice. "And yet, even though I knew that I would die, and even though I knew! That if I died, you would kill yourself," Zach paused and he clenched his eyes shut in rage, all directed inwards as his hands balled into the tightest fists and his nails cut deep into his right palm. "I still fought, and I still let you come with me because- because I thought it was working. I- I couldn't leave you behind when I left because, because you thought I was the only one who cared. So I tried to show you that that wasn't true. I tried to make you care about people and I saw it was working! I saw you making friends and people caring about you, and you caring about them back! But no matter what happened, you only became more _obsessed_ with me."

"I don't care about anyone else," Darling denied while shaking her head fast at Zach. She stumbled a few steps closer to him, but she stopped as Zach took a step back while looking at her in even more pain. "And I'm not obsessed with you! I'm in love with you! I have been-"

"Since I, brought you back-"

"No," Darling said firmly. She shook her head and sniffled in once, then she said strongly at him, "When I opened my eyes, and you were standing there in front of that portal, you told me that there would always be someone who cared about me. You did it so I wouldn't kill myself again, and I love you for-"

Zach closed his eyes and bowed his head while a gasp of agony slipped out of his lips. "I didn't know," he said through gasping out a breath. Darling stared at him in confusion, and Zach whispered while shaking his bowed head, "I didn't know what it would do. I- I didn't understand my Quirk but I, I said something so irresponsible and…" Zach rose his head and he looked at the girl in front of him. The girl who was _still_ there, who had shot him in the chest because of how much she loved him, who was professing her love even as he denied her over and over. "And I didn't know what it would do to you," he whispered with tears in his eyes and the biggest look of guilt that made Darling lower her shaky eyes down to her hands for a second, as he once again had that look that made it seem like he knew something for certain, a look that she would never doubt seeing on his face.

"But- But I-" she rose her eyes back up trembling while the others were staring at the two of them at a loss for words. Her lips opened and shut, then she said in an assured voice that shook with hesitation, "But I _chose_ to follow you. Because I do love you!"

"I know," Zach whispered. "And yet, it was an obsession nonetheless." He said it and shook his head at Darling while she stared so confusedly and in denial back at him. "I knew that saving someone didn't just mean catching them when they fell. I had All Might to, to tell me what I needed to hear- but he was a hero! He knew, the right thing to tell me while I-" Zach shook his head and let out a pained breath, then he looked back at Darling and whispered, "I had no idea what I was doing. All I knew, was what it felt like to die for you. Like with so many others I felt your pain, but never before had I been so sad while doing it. So hurt, and believing I meant nothing, but I knew that was how it was going to be! When Kurogiri hesitated as he told me, because he didn't know if I would want to when it wasn't an accident! But I did, because I knew what it was like to be the one in that position. And I felt what you felt like which is why I told you how I cared, so that you wouldn't do it again. And I only cared about you more as time went on, and I do love you, but you know it was never in that way-"

"But it could be," Darling said hopefully after hearing all of that. She looked at him with a yearning and hopeful look, and she continued even as he shook his head, because he looked to be wearing down and exhausted at how she countered in again. "Really!"

"That's not what I'm-"

"We could start over and be together somewhere I won't be in danger. And you won't have to feel guilty because you won't be putting me in harm's way- not that you did before because I was choosing to do that myself! Please! I just- I don't want to lose you-"

"But you did," Zach whispered. He looked at her and wished this was happening differently, or not happening at all. "I left and sent myself into the deepest hole to get away from you. Because I wanted you to know that I didn't care about you like that, because I wanted you to accept that maybe the others cared more about you than I did-" Zach's teeth clenched, as even saying all of this was undoing everything that he had done for this purpose. "To leave you behind so you would have to be away from me, so that you could realize that you had so much even without me. It was what I thought would finally save you, and I'm so frustrated that this still didn't work… Getting out of reach."

Zach whispered the last part, but it still reached Midoriya's ears and caused everything going through his mind to come to a short and sudden stop. He thought back on the day he went to the hospital with most of Class A after Zach was shot by the very girl in front of them now. _**"One of the reasons, the most important..."**_ Midoriya heard Zach's voice as he talked about All For One, about how he had to hide his power from that villain so he sent himself to Tartaros. And yet the way Zach finished it… _**"I had to get out of reach."**_

 _It wasn't about him at all._ Midoriya thought it with his own eyes trembling as he stared at the two through the flickering black flames in front of him. Zach had said it so seriously to him that day though, and Midoriya hesitated as he almost pushed all that talk about All For One aside. He thought about those other reasons Zach listed that were not as important to him, and All For One was one of those reasons even if it was just a brief mention. _But he said All For One was trying to destroy the world! That wouldn't just be as important as…_ Midoriya stared out at Zach and the thing he was just thinking trailed off in his mind. _Unless…_

"But I didn't want you to leave me," Darling said. Her voice came out soft, and caring, and she shook her head at Zach like all he had thought was wrong. "And you didn't need to to save me. I was already saved." Zach shook his head, but Darling started to smile with the tears falling from her eyes dropping as more happy ones hearing all of this. "You're such a- you did that while I was already happy? I was happy just being with you-"

"You could _only_ be happy with me," Zach countered in agony at how calm she was trying to turn this back around, at how she could not see what was so clear right in front of him. He shook his head and said to the girl who tried to shake hers back at him like he didn't understand, "I know, because you're here right now. Because I left you and abandoned you like you said, and yet you're right back here again instead of with the others-"

"Because you're the only one I care about," Darling replied.

"That's not true-"

"It is!"

"It's not!" Zach yelled right back at the girl who was getting angry at him denying what she was saying as truth. "I know it's not! I brought you with me and we made comrades and friends, and you cared about all of them."

"That's not true," Darling said while shaking her head quickly. "I've only ever cared about you. I've only ever loved you."

"You cared about Cee," Zach countered. He said it and Darling's face froze for a moment, and in that moment Zach continued softly, "I know you did. I saw you, crying when she died-"

"No!" Darling shouted back at him. She shook her head and said through a pained voice, "I was crying, because Cee died in _your_ arms. And I knew how much you cared about her-"

"That's a lie, and you know it. That's what you told yourself, because you force yourself to believe that I'm the only one you care for." Zach said it, breaking down what her own mental state was while looking her in the eyes as he never could before. He saw her face twisting more, but he continued anyway, "She was your friend. Your close friend who you loved. And she wasn't the only one. You have other comrades. Other people you care about."

"I don't-" Darling started, but her voice was weaker and putting up less resistance to what Zach was saying.

"As much as I had my own protective measures to keep from thinking about it, what I did bringing you along in that kind of fucking warzone made your condition even worse. Because I never died so you latched on to me and pretended like you didn't care about the others." Zach rose his voice as she shook her head more and more at him, and he told her without an ounce of doubt in his voice, "But I know that you cared about every one of our comrades-"

"And they all died!" Darling yelled, snapping her head up with tears splashing off her face at the shout. Her own eyes widened at the shout she made but then her face scrunched up in even more agony, as dozens and hundreds of faces flashed through her mind. "They all died," she repeated in a whisper. "And I- and I need you-"

"You don't," Zach whispered back while shaking his head at her again. "You think you need me, because you think that the only time you can be happy is when I'm there. You think the only one who won't go away is me, but I left and you _know_ that not everybody died. There are others out there. Our comrades who are still alive and who all still love you, just like I do." Darling closed her eyes and clenched them harder at the thought of messages she had received and never responded to from all the people searching for her. "And you don't need me anymore," Zach said.

"I do!" Darling yelled at him. She snapped her head up and shook it around, pushing away those thoughts trying to slip in. "You are the most amazing person in the world! I want to follow you forever! I, I don't need to but I want to follow you!" Zach frowned at the girl who looked desperately back at him and started to tear up at the thought of leaving him again. "I remember, every single speech you made. I didn't just fall in love with you for one thing, but for all of it- and that wasn't because I was obsessed! I just- You inspired me. All those things you shouted at the gladiators in The Pit! The ones you had been killing in death matches for days! '…Never again will anything like the Pit be allowed to exist in this world! Never again!' And those people who should have hated you, they all cheered your name and roared for you just like I did. You stood there, on the verge of death promising to change this world and destroy places like that- while you bled out, while your organs failed and your heart was stopping. Every single one of them chose to follow you, and every last one of them died… And Yemen?! The things you said to those people ready to go to war! I remember _every word!"_

Darling shook her head at Zach as he stood there unwavering, and she shouted at him, "Those mobs ready to kill each other over nothing! A war about to start and you- I can see you out there, stepping out of your plane's wreckage with your stomach opened up and your arm-" Darling gasped at the memory in her mind, and she yelled at the boy in front of her, "And in that state you _screamed_ at those people ready to massacre each other. The ones about to start a war, you told them 'You don't know who will die. You don't know whose children will become orphans who will believe in this cause a hundred times more than you do now once you've become their martyrs! You have no idea whose families will burn! Whose cities will crumble and the lives that will be destroyed!' And you told those people, the ones about to go to war… that if they wanted to fight someone then they could fight you. They could fight you and you would kill them all, to unite the country in hate for a single person instead of splitting it and causing so much more- And I ran out there to stand with you! I was there with you all the way! And we stopped that war before it started. And we stopped the worst villains in the world. And I saw you do the most amazing things, and be the most amazing person, and I memorized every word you said!"

"You were there," Zach said softly. "You were with me, and I needed you." The use of the past tense just made Darling's face scrunch up more instead of getting any happier by the fact that he was admitting that he did need her, once. "Because I knew that you would kill yourself and that- as much as that killed me and reminded me daily how I had yet to save you, it continued to save me. As many times as you saved me yourself, the idea that dying would mean you dying too kept me alive. I, don't think I ever could have defended myself in the Pit if I didn't believe that. I never could have made it through every one of those battles… But as much as I may have needed that then, it was so wrong of me to accept that at all. But I- I told myself for so long that as long as you were with me I could keep working on it. I told myself that one day I could fix things so that your life wouldn't be attached to mine, that you wouldn't feel like I was all that mattered, but I never gave it priority. Instead I- I thought it was selfish to think about you first before all the other people we were saving. Just because I cared about you more than the rest of them… But I don't care anymore if it's selfish. I just want to save you. That's all I want- that's what I want more than anything in the world."

Darling's emotions conflicted inside her as what Zach said sounded like he cared more about her than anything and yet at the same time sounded like he was telling her to go away. Her confusion bubbled as Zach whispered in pain, "I told myself that I would deal with it later, but I knew that I was going to die and never addressed it. I accepted that I was dead and just… pretended like I wouldn't have to deal with that because, because maybe it would resolve itself. And I thought it was working. Sometimes, I saw things getting better, and then the progress would reverse as soon as you saw me do something- as soon as we talked-" Zach couldn't finish, and he shook his head once right and left with a regretful look over it. "So I left you. Because you have to move on, which means I have to-"

"I was with you through everything!" Darling countered angrily, her voice raising over Zach's and her expression covering in anger to block out the confusion. "Only I know you! We- We went into that world where we lost our physical forms and I _felt_ you." She paused and looked deep into his eyes that recognized what she said and got sadder as hers did too. "Our minds merged and I learned how you felt all the time. All that pain- I understand it. You know I do." Darling stepped forward and begged him in a pleading, final tone, "You don't need to be alone. Stay. If you need to stay then stay, but let me stay with you. Let me live with you and- and! You don't need to do this alone. You don't need to punish yourself anymore…"

Zach's eyes opened a little wider, but then they returned back to normal size. He lowered his gaze down to her feet for a second. _Is that what you think? Is…_ Zach's heart tugged at him and he lifted his sad but affectionate eyes back up to the girl in front of him who looked at him with more care than anyone. _Love. She really, loves me so much._ Zach's lips pursed but he shook his head once more even with his eyes watery. "You don't think I want to?" Zach asked softly. He stared at Darling who looked back at him with giant eyes of confusion that he wanted to do what she said but would start like that, in such a knowing voice but determined to say no again. His eyes were soft and his face hurt though as he continued, "You don't think it was hard? Denying you over and over again? Turning you away as you'd 'accidentally' drop all your clothes again? You have no idea how much I-" Zach cut himself off with his face scrunching up in self-hatred that Darling didn't understand and neither did the others staring at him in confusion as to what he was talking about.

"Why didn't you?" Darling asked, desperate for the answer.

"Because I wanted to save you," Zach whispered. He looked at her with agonized eyes and answered her, "And when I saw you in that much pain every time I rejected you, it hurt me so much that I couldn't stay strong. I'd call to you and tell you 'focus on the mission,' or 'not right now,' and I left it open! I- I told myself it was because maybe, maybe one day I would really fall in love with you on my own and I'd be able to… But I knew, I knew each time that I was breaking because I couldn't stand to see you hurt, the long-term consequences be damned. Even though I knew that I could _never_ be with you like that. Another mistake I made," he whispered quieter with the most regret anyone could imagine spreading over his face as he stared at the girl before him. "Because as long as I felt the need to save you, I'd always believe that maybe I should just accept your feelings. So that you wouldn't look that hurt anymore. I thought that loving you would have been the answer and I- But I knew! That if I ever gave in and accepted your love then it would be in part because I was just trying to save you. And I couldn't do that to you," Zach shook his head while looking at the stunned girl before him who stepped back with her whole face shaking and her body trembling with it. His black flames simmered down on his left side only a few feet high, but no one else was moving as they stared in shock at Zach. "Seeing how much you loved me, I couldn't pretend that I loved you in the same way if somewhere, deep inside, I'd always know that I was doing it just to save you."

"But I-"

"You deserve better than that!" Zach yelled at her as she tried to interrupt him. He yelled it at her and made Darling pull her face back, shaking as she stared at the boy denying her right to her face even while looking like he loved her more than anyone had ever loved her before. Everyone stared at Zach frozen at his shout, and Zach himself brought his left hand up to the side of his head and gripped it again. "What was I thinking? I dragged you along, even though I'd always known that. Was it because I needed your help? Or because I was willing to risk your life if it meant saving a million others? But I'm done with that! All I want is to save you, to fix my biggest mistake that brought you into a war that you never should have had to be a part of." Zach rose his eyes and lowered his hand with a shaky look into Darling's bright green eyes, eyes that made him smile as he finally appreciated seeing them again. _For the last time,_ he thought to himself, with a matching expression that had Darling's heart ripping and her hands reaching up and grabbing her chest in pain.

"Please- you don't- we can still be-" Darling stammered with a defeated look over her face, making desperate pleas despite what she already knew.

"…The reason I didn't let the bullet go through me. You're right, and I couldn't dodge, but I could have done that. But I knew it wouldn't kill me. Because before I even thought the word 'sniper,' I knew. Inside I knew it was why I was being shot, who would shoot me at that exact moment…" Yaoyorozu stared out towards Zach feeling so confused and hurt and unsure, but she knew what Zach was saying made sense. She thought back on the moment he looked at her and paused, _He really let down his guard. And in that moment where she would have shot him, both because of that and because of the jealousy. How didn't I realize it-_

"Thank you Darling," Zach said again. "For shooting me, and for every time since. All that time I pretended you weren't following me stealthier than all the others."

"You never saw me," Darling gasped out with tears in her eyes.

"I never even let myself think about you," Zach said back to her in an even more pained voice. He shook his head and said through clenched teeth, "But you were warning me. I would see those glares on windows that I'd track right back to assassins that were too good to ever make such easy mistakes as those." Zach's jaw tightened so much while the others watching all shifted their gazes to the girl whose lips shook as Zach had known, he had known all that time, and never once acknowledged her presence.

"Please…" Darling whispered.

"I could never be with you," Zach said over her own whispered plea. "Without feeling I'm only doing it for you, and you deserve better." His voice was steady and assured, and he stepped towards the girl who had backed away from him during what he had just been saying. "Someone who loves you and wants to be with you because that's what they want. I would never know if that was my reason because though a big part of me did want to just accept you, I also know that I'm too kind and might just want to be with you because I want to see you happy. Because you did so much for me and you _deserve_ to get what you want, but what you want isn't just me. You want someone who loves you back the way you love me-"

"I just want you-"

Zach kept walking towards Darling. He took another step that cut her off as she eased back, her feet frozen to the spot though even as she looked smaller compared to the huge presence walking towards her. "I'm sorry," he said to the girl sniffling and shaking her head rapidly at him back at that apology.

 _"The man who killed Stain."_ Iida stared at Zach as he smiled softer and took another step towards the girl.

"I'm sorry," Zach repeated in a quieter voice.

"Stop," Darling said, her eyes closed and her face rejecting what was happening around her. Zach saw through that rejection that she already knew though, and he stepped towards her again.

 _"Turning you away as you'd 'accidentally' drop all your clothes again?"_ Ashido and Mineta both stared at this beautiful girl who sounded like she would do anything for Zach. And yet as much as they had realized that early on, they turned to Zach now too just in front of her a couple feet and realized that the same thing was true about him.

"I'm sorry…" Zach whispered, his voice steadier even as he looked down with a resolute but sad expression. Zach stepped the last foot forward and he rose his arms around hers that shook violently as he moved. His hands went behind her back and he hugged the shorter girl into his chest, and he whispered under his breath, "Kobayashi, Airi."

Darling's head buried into Zach's chest stopped shaking. Her eyes snapped open wide as her entire body froze up. Her rasping and wheezing breaths all caught in her lungs, as that familiar name echoed in her head. The confusion rising was pushed away by the recognition that understood her confusion was just a denial of what she really knew. Darling's lips started to tremble and Zach whispered to the girl who he called by her real name, for the very first time, "It's your name. Your real name, not my 'Darling' that you named yourself, but Airi." Zach held her closer and then he slid the glove off his right hand with his left. "We had good times together," he whispered. "But our time is over."

"It can't be," Darling whispered, shaking her face into Zach's chest as the muffled words came out and only reached the boy whispering right down to the top of her head.

Zach lifted his ungloved right hand and put it behind her head. He stroked it through her hair and she tilted her head back to look up into his eyes from right there. "I'll always love you," he said down to her, "but you need to live a real life. You might think it was all for me, but do you know when I saw you the happiest? The moment where I thought maybe what I was doing was enough, because I saw you happier than you had ever been?" Zach lifted his lips up into a gentle smile and brushed his hand down the back of the trembling girl's head. "You had just pulled a family out of a burning building. You told them to run because you needed to get back to the fight, but they grabbed you. They grabbed you and they-" Zach saw Darling's face shaking more, tears spilling out of her shaking eyes at what he was saying. "They told you 'thank you,' and they grabbed you while crying and said it over and over, and you had just saved them on instinct in the middle of a fight but to them! You had just saved their lives and while bleeding out the right side of your face, bleeding for them, they looked at you like you were their hero."

"Ahhh," Darling tried to keep it in but her voice slipped out as she was unable to deny what he was saying. As what he told her resonated back in her mind and reminded her of how she felt in that moment.

"And I saw you smile at them as they ran off. I remember seeing the biggest, most genuine smile on your face not while you knew I was watching you do something amazing, not when you thought I was proud of you or happy with you- but when those people you saved called 'Thank you.' When they called it back to you in their native language that you only knew a few words in. But you knew that much, and I had never seen you look happier." Darling had tears pouring out of her eyes, sobbing as Zach told her that. "Before I knew it you had become the best person I knew," Zach said in a low voice. "So this, is my last order as Death. That you have to listen to and take to heart."

Darling opened her clenched and sobbing eyes, and she tilted her head back to look into Zach's eyes as he started like that. Zach lowered his head down to hers and he pressed his forehead against hers, and she stared up into eyes that were crying just like hers even while he had a smile over his face. Then he commanded, "Live. You're a good person, Airi. A great one. The best person I've ever known. But our time together is over. So I order you to live. Live a full, amazing life. If you don't live this life, then everything I did was all for nothing." Zach's smile shook and his face covered in terror that flashed over it in a moment only for him to try and return the look he just had. More tears fell from Darling's eyes and her heart leapt as he said that.

"None of it," Zach whispered. "Not a single thing in my entire life… ah- if you don't, if you aren't happy then I- I failed." Tears dropped off his nose and fell onto Darling's face as he continued to press his crying face down into hers. "I want you to live. Live a life you can be proud of. A happy life… And when you're old and gray, come back to me." Darling's eyes shot open huge, and Zach said to her, "I'll be waiting to hear all about it. All about your kids, and grandkids, and all your adventures." Zach smiled at her and shook his head with a broken laugh while she stared up in amazement and love, and yet also the maturity to realize what denying him even now would mean for them, which led her huge eyes to tremble and fill with even more water at that realization.

"If you don't live this life, if you don't live happily, I'll never be able to forgive myself. Alright? For me, will you do it?" He asked it and felt selfish even as the words came out of his mouth, but he hugged her closer and said in a hoarse voice, "The last thing you can do for me, is to live a full life. A beautiful life. A life, like the ones we told people all over the world could exist if they strove towards it." Zach's voice got higher pitched and more broken up as he finished, and his teeth clenched as he felt Darling's head nodding into it.

Airi started nodding, while sobbing, and she said, "I'm sorry." Snot ran down the bottom of her face and tears dripped off her chin as she sobbed at him over and over, "I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry."

"There's nothing to apologize for," Zach told the person he loved the most, and he embraced her in a closer hug with Airi throwing both of her arms around his back this time and holding on for dear life like she never wanted to let go. "I could never have asked for a better friend."

The dark flames completely died out between Zach and the others, as he had not even focused on feeding it the minimal amount for the past minute. All his focus was on one place and everything else around him became unimportant and unnecessary. He and Darling embraced in a loving way without any care for what was around them. The six other eighteen year olds had been unable to cut in through the confrontation despite all they had to say and all they wanted to interrupt with. At the embrace though that felt like a goodbye, with the darkness gone and no longer blocking them from the short distance between those two, reality came crashing back down to them.

Ashido shook her head around blinking several times as she had been staring forward so hard without closing her eyes as she did not want to miss a moment. The fact that this was all real shattered the surreal moment before her, and she leaned back while staring at Zach and this girl Airi, tears filling her eyes at what she was watching that was beautiful despite her not understanding this relationship. All they had talked about gave her the insight into the mystery of this girl Zach would never tell them about though, and as to why he would never talk about her too.

Mineta lowered his eyes to the floor at what he just thought, but then he whispered while glancing to his left, "She still… shot Zach."

 _Even if she didn't, Mineta,_ Midoriya thought as a lump bounced up and down in his throat. _She was part of the Lifebringer Incident and never faced justice like Zach did. We'd, have to arrest her either way._

 _"Death." He really was._ Sero's eyes locked solely on the back of Zach's head. _I defended you every day but… I really believed, all of it. Every story. Every lie you told me. So why? Why don't I feel…_

Darling's hands loosened on Zach's back as he started to pull away from her, but he felt that her arms were lowering more than just from him pulling away. He stared into her eyes once he could, and he used his right hand to brush the brown hairs out of the way so they could make better eye contact. She whispered up at him, "I'm going to miss you."

"I'll always be with you," Zach said, lowering his hand from the side of her face where he left it after brushing her hairs aside. He lowered it down to the top of her chest and gave her a caring smile as he pressed his palm against her heart. "But I'm going to miss you too." Zach lowered his left arm from around her side first, and then he slowly pulled his right hand from her chest as her arms lowered from him.

Airi pursed her lips together hard, but then she nodded at him in the most serious way she could to show she was following that last order, as much as it hurt her to do. Her eyes shifted once to her right while her head was still facing Zach's, and she just thought one more time in regret, _I'm sorry._ Her eyes locked back on his, and then she took a step back away from him. "Goodbye, Airi," Zach said.

"Goodbye."

In an instant, sharp wings snapped out of Darling's back and jets turned on all over her body including below her feet right against the ground. At that same instant, Zach's head snapped to his left and his eyes flared red while glaring straight at one of his old classmates. "Iida I swear to God," Zach snarled with his voice scratchy and deep, making Iida freeze mid-leaning-forward. His Engines sputtered instead of turning on as the immediate fear stopped him from getting any control over his Quirk. Zach's body turned while Darling shot off the ground and up in the sky, but no one was looking up at the girl escaping into the night. They all stared straight at Zach whose fists were balled at his sides and leaking black wisps as his red eyes bored straight into Iida's. "If you go after her, I will fight you right here and now. Then I'll disappear and you'll never have to see me again."

* * *

 **A/N ...Thanks for reading. I really hope you guys enjoyed the chapter. It's a pretty huge one, with a lot going on and happening, and a lot coming out for the first time. Ended it on a cliffhanger, but I've got the next chapter started and will try to get the next one up soon. Leave a review telling me what you think below!**

Naruffoku chapter 166 . Jul 6

Hey so about the impossible 3000 metre shot, that's the dumbest thing I've heard. The bullet would take 9 seconds to reach Zach and by then he would already have knocked them out

 **Well... currently the longest confirmed sniper shot is 2500 meters, so I don't know why you'd think it's so ridiculous. Especially in the future with better weapons and the addition of Quirks. If the bullet came at an angle that he wouldn't be able to see beforehand as they were hoping for too, plus the bullets probably fire faster from better weapons too- anyway, just spitballing a lot of possibilities here. Thanks for the review though!**

alexanderjuarez499 chapter 166 . Jul 5

and what happened to the letter that was for Momo, does she forget it or simply ignore it? since nothing of that subject is mentioned.

 **No spoilers.** **XD**

xilios2000 chapter 166 . Jul 6

You know you kinda missed a oppertunity with zach's cover story. You could have made much more interesting lies about where he was all that time. Like for instance make him claim he was sent to warhammer 40k or a similar grimdark setting with the reason for turning himself in being him wanting to attone for the atrocities he commited while there. Or you could have made him claim he was sent into that white void from the amaterasu fight for that period but have time elapsed from his point of view be millenia in lenght with flipping from crazy to sane multiple times like professor paradox from ben 10 with his turning himself in being either the result of long introspection or more interesting for him to long back for the white void because he was institutionalised like in shawshank redemption after spending so long in there although that last one might not fit with the story it is still probably something you should ponder so you can do better next time. Some food for thought there. I will however say that i love this fic and that this is meant as constructive critisicim. Ps. Is the shadow boss king more based of king from one punch man or king from worm? Or does he have his own gimmick?

 **Those would've been a lot darker lies for him to talk about in such a carefree way with his friends... I'll just say that the backstory he had was fantastical and fun with a hint of darkness, for a reason. No need for a grimdark scenario when the reality was like that already, and as for how long he spent in the Void... well, I don't know if I should say nice job on calling it (since it seems like you thought it didn't happen), I know someone put it in an earlier review that they thought Zach was lying about the amount of time in the Void. Anyway, some of the stuff you wrote in here actually gets some nice parallels in this chapter so I hope you enjoyed those, and I'm glad you're still liking the story! As for King, that's just his villain name it's not based on anyone. Thanks for the review!**

AMR-MNR chapter 166 . Jul 5

As the other guy asked, 'i thought there's be a chapter today?' will there be one on the 7th? Cause it looks like things are starting to accelerate into freefall. We still haven't seen anything on All Might and Hawk's end since the school roof scene, and that was pretty juicy in itself, and now Deku has his nose on a dangerous trail as well!  
(Btw, where are the comments about Zach pinpointing a sniper from two miles away? AND getting there, AND BEATING THEM in less than thirty seconds? And then finding the tracker in less than thirty seconds as well? )  
Anyways, hope you have good days ahead of you, I can't wait for more content!

 **So close! Lol it was 12:30 A.M. on the 8th as I finished editing this, started around 7:30 last night and really thought I could get it out on the 7th. Things did just accelerate as you thought- but we'll see what comes next. Zach pinpointing that sniper... might not have been all his own badassery on its own, as he admitted late in this chapter. Not to take away from how epic the rest of what he did there was though. Thanks for the review and hope you enjoyed the new chapter!**

Momozaki chapter 166 . Jul 5

One last chance  
MOMOZAKIIIIIII

 **Lol well, right when it seemed like it might be a Momozaki chapter it turns into a Darling one! XD however, things might look good for the ship with Darling flying off? Who knows?! Haha thanks for reviewing!**

Guest chapter 166 . 19h ago

Hey I just wanted to say this fic is a monster not only in length but it's honestly one of the best stories on this hellsite. I tune into this more than I time into the actual show. I really want Sazaki to have a happy end like get a break, boy works too much. I don't know if you have a sequal in mind but I wouldn't mind seeing ex-warlord/illegal global watchdog leader/terror of the villain world/frequent annoyance of the hero world/ scariest mofo on the planet/etc. Being a friendly househusband to his hero wife Creati and a great dad. Like I'm imagining him in a parent teacher meeting and the teacher is shitting himself because he just told Sazaki that his kid got into a fight and Sazaki just asked him if they "went for the throat like he told them"

 **Thanks! Glad to hear how much you like Death so far, and that you're into it more than the actual show is amazing. Can't spoil anything about the endgame of Death, but I will say to you and everyone else that the predictions I had earlier about like "we have 70-80 chapters left" then "50-60 more..." might have been a little off... by under-shooting how long it's going to be! XD I think this story will go well past 200 chapters, possibly to even 220 or 230. I don't know and those might be long-shots, but I have the ending in sight and will reach it... some day soon. Anyway thanks for this review, and loved the predictions/hopes for what comes next though I won't say anything about them! Hope you enjoyed the chapter!**


	168. Chapter 168

**Disclaimer: I don't own Boku no Hero Academia**

 **Chapter 168:**

 **One Year Ago…**

"Raaaa! Haaaaaa! CH-CH-CH-CH!"

 **Rmbmbmbrrrmmrmrmrm… Doof Doof DOOF DOOF! DOOF!**

The tunnel around Zach shook, but he looked to his left and right while ignoring the sounds of the cheers getting louder every second. He ignored the blasting speakers and the thunderous drums making the tunnel of sand and concrete walls vibrate around him. The scarred-up seventeen year old with only a rag around his waist and a collar on his neck looked at the two men on his right, then the man and the woman on his left who were all staring at him and darting their eyes around in fear or determination, or both. Zach stared at a man to his left who looked determined but he could not decide for what reason. "Remember the plan," Zach said.

The guards walking with the group looked towards Lifebringer as he said it. "Nobody move. When it starts, just stand exactly where you are."

"Hey! Shut up about-"

Zach's head turned and he glared at the Nigerian villain snapping that at him. His eyes did not change shade, but the villain froze for a moment before smirking at the teenager wearing a collar like all the others. Zach looked around at the others despite that villain smirking again, "No matter what, just stay where you are once it starts. They can't kill us all."

"Oh yes we can," a guard leading the group started in a cocky voice, looking back with a long scar crossing his face from the top right to the left side of his chin. "We can kill every one of you at any time."

"They gamble on these fights with millions of dollars on the line," Zach continued while ignoring the villains who he knew might shake the resolves of the others around him. "They can't just kill us. As long as we don't play their game, we can all survive this. Just stand still!"

"We will."

"I promise- I- I won't move an inch!"

"…As long as no one else moves, I will stay in my spot." Zach looked to his left again at the man who said that, and he nodded firmly at the older man in a way that got his fellow competitor opening his eyes wide.

Then Zach looked to the muscular woman next to that man who stared back at him uncertainly, before nodding her head too. The woman who only had a rag around her waist just like the others started, "I won't-"

"RAAAA!"

"Ladies and gentlemennn! Are you READY?!" The screams got louder and the voice of a man each of the gladiators despised with every fiber of their beings reverberated through the tunnel. The light at the end of it was getting brighter and they could see it was a sunny day outside that was not going to help with the heat any as they were already sweating. The light spilling into the tunnel made the sweat on their mostly naked bodies glisten, and the sweat on Zach's body ran down it along the crevices and lines of the scars already covering him.

 _Don't get afraid by them. Get convinced. Be afraid enough of my scars to listen and not try to fight. Just listen to me and everything will be alright!_

"…AND PUT YOUR HANDS TOGETHER AS FIVE GLADIATORS ENTER INTO… **THE PIT!** " The name of the arena made the entire coliseum shake, and the guards/villains walking with the prisoners all smirked and started getting rowdier themselves as they neared the tunnel's end and the opening to the circle of sand that made up The Pit's arena floor. The walls were made of limestone but colored the same as sand as were the benches wrapping around the top of the upper walls for the first several rows. Encircling the top of the arena's taller outer walls were verandas that extended over the top rows of nicer seats and cast shade over where the most wealthy and powerful villains were standing.

The gladiators walked out into the arena, five of them at a time, and a wall of limestone rose up from the ground behind them and enclosed the group inside a solid wall with no escape in any direction. There was a glowing red line at the top of the wall too right before it cut outwards and farther up towards the shady top rows. A hum came out of the line but was barely audible over the shouts of over two hundred villains gathered at the arena. All of them jeered and roared and cheered down at the gladiators, while directly across from where the tunnel had been, and all the way at the top row of the arena's outer walls, the man yelling into a microphone attached to his headset stood up. The man had dark black skin but wore contrasting bright colors and thin white fabric over his body. He had a bright blue turban-like headpiece wrapped around the top of his head, shiny various-colored jewels on his rings and necklaces and earrings, and his toga of white cloth was so light on his body that it was almost see-through.

Umbuju stepped forward to the edge of the top row on his side of the arena that only had a few chairs for him and the most important VIPs. The seats around where he normally sat were all filled at the moment, and the powerful African men in charge of entire groups of villains were already making bets with each other after seeing the gladiators step out. Across the arena from their top area though, there was also a huge screen that contrasted with the more medieval-style vibe of the Pit, and that screen already had five columns with the faces of each of the competitors in it. Zach's face was in the middle of the screen too as the gladiators walked out of the tunnel in the same order the screen had them in. The Nigerian villain in charge of the Pit looked down to the arena and straight into the eyes of the teenage boy on-line with him who never failed to glare straight up into his eyes with the most hateful look that had Umbuju smirking right back at the powerless kid who could not touch him up there.

The collars around the gladiators' necks could be detonated by any of the guards working at The Pit, better known as the Pit Crew. Umbuju's villains stood at the top of the encircling wall watching the gladiators inside who they had gathered and took care of for fights like these. The Pit Crew did not wear special uniforms, but they each did have automatic rifles in hand and pouches full of Quirk-enhancing drugs on their right sides next to their detonators. Their personal detonators would not be necessary even in the attempt of a break-out, during a match at least. The red line just below the top of the innermost wall was connected to the collars as well, and if one were to raise above it…

Zach stared past the red line. He stared past the four guards on the opposite side of the arena at the top of the wall, and past a few dozen strong villains sitting closest to their bosses who came here for the gambling and fun but also for an important meeting with each other. It was a safe place where they knew the meeting would go smoothly thanks to all of Umbuju's guards, and several villain groups yelled at each other and called out to make bets with the Pit Crew moving around and taking them from everyone there.

White glows appeared equidistant on the wall surrounding the sandy arena floor. Over each of the glows appeared the face of a competitor, and Zach walked straight ahead towards his but not without saying one more time, "No matter what. Just don't move." His eyes darted from Umbuju who started calling out about the matchup for the day, to the other villains all around who were getting competitive with this even though most were looking to him. _The other four all look strong enough to get bets too. They won't be able to just kill one to get us moving. They can't! This has to work. As long as no one moves…_ Zach steadied his expression and made sure to look as confident in this strategy as possible when he turned back around. There was a circle glowing in white on the ground ten feet in front of the wall that had his face on it. He stepped into the circle and then turned and looked back into the arena, and he looked to his left and then his right at the others who made a pentagon with equal length sides with him.

Zach ignored all the shouts down at him. He heard various names shouted down at him, but he did not react to a single one and just stared his competitors down. His eyes locked on the most composed gladiator there who turned away from Zach after a second and turned to the man who had stammered his response back in the tunnel. "Not a muscle," the dark-brown skinned man growled, his shoulders broader than everyone else's and his tone warning for the tall man on his right who appeared scared but nodded at him in agreement with that.

"Let's see what we've got for our brave gladiators today!" Umbuju called out, the signal for his men to move forward right to the edge of the arena. The guard across the arena from Zach to his left pulled out a knife, a string looped through the hilt that he held up above his head. He dropped it off the side of the wall, but it swung back and hit the wall at nine feet high. The shortest of the men on the arena floor was closest to where the guard just dropped that rusty dagger, he looked up to the height it was dangling, and then he grinned while raising his eyes up to the guard who was smirking at him like he could not reach.

 _If none of us move, he knows the one with the least amount of bets might get blown up first. It won't happen though!_ Zach thought it even as he saw more of the villains up above calling out insults at the shorter gladiator. Some looked more closely at him though, wondering if he could jump up and grab that knife- but they all stopped thinking so hard about it and started laughing instead as a rag fell down to the ground a few feet away from the one female gladiator.

"Oh look! Some armor!" Umbuju called it out seriously, which made it all the funnier to the villains who couldn't hold themselves together. They bellowed down at the muscular woman and some started yelling out in anger or disappointment that she would have something to cover her tits up with. The 'armor' was not even enough to fully wrap around her body though, and the woman with short hair just down to her shoulders turned her head with wide eyes at the guard closest behind her expecting something more.

Across the arena from her though, something else did hit the ground. The thin man who was lean himself and not looking very weak, turned his head and stared ten feet from his white circle. He stared at the ground where there was a steel sword that looked light enough to swing around easily, as well as sharp enough to easily cut through- "Don't even think about it." The thin man rose his eyes and stared past the sword at the buffer and darker man glaring him down. "We aren't moving."

A rusty metal stake dropped down right at the edge of the wall behind the man who just warned that nervous one not to move. He glanced back at it, but then turned back forward in a calm way like he was not even thinking about it.

 _All we want to do is survive,_ Zach thought. He took in a deep breath and kept a calm look over his face, but not one that was ready to fight or anything. He stood still in place and had his arms down at his sides unthreateningly. The woman to his left who was despairing over not even having a weapon in close vicinity of her, looked towards Zach and she tried to calm herself down, though her eyes did dart to the left again at the more confident man on her own left who had looked too happy to get that knife. The man just farther around the circle from that short man was also looking to his other side in even more fear, before his eyes darted to his left again at the biggest man who was farther from the sword than him, but if that guy were to get a headstart for the best weapon down there-

"..And for our reigning champion!" Umbuju called out. The guard directly behind Zach stepped forward, lifted up his right hand, and then opened it up to show nothing in it. "Oh? Looks like he doesn't get a weapon to fight off the others. How unfortunate for him."

 _Is that why he didn't want us fighting?_

 _Did he know he wasn't getting one beforehand?_

Zach continued to keep the same expression, but he turned his head and looked towards those who were getting too anxious. People started yelling down at the gladiators they picked to win, and the more people who yelled out their names and cheered for them, the more some of them were thinking they had a chance to win this. _Damn it. They all want to see me dead so much that they're not picking me. Even though I won the last one- and giving me nothing will make them even more confident to go against me and the spectators less likely to pick me. Shit. Look at my body! Look at my face! I don't look nervous do I? I have nothing to be nervous about if they don't move. If we just stand still, they can beat us and they can torture us, but we don't have to play this game!_

"…you all know the rules of this Royale! Five enter. One leaves. Even think about using your Quirks and that collar on your necks will blow your head a hundred meters off your body!" The crowd roared and taunted the gladiators below, some of them leaning forward and spitting towards Sazaki who they jeered the loudest at. They screamed down at him, hundreds of people, while four others stared his way at the stoic and steady look he forced to cover his face despite it all. _Come. Please I need you to come right now. They have to be looking for me already. They'll find this place! Even if the plan doesn't work, if I can just stall for as long as possible I-_

"Hahaha…" Umbuju's low voice chuckled over the speakers and made the crowd grow even louder. The arena started to shake with the drums again, and the spectators stomped their feet down on the drum beat and made them yell and cheer. They leaned forward and downed their drinks or started splashing them around as they couldn't hold their hands steady at the excitement of the brutality they were about to watch. The other gladiators down on the arena looked around in fear above them, and they felt the collars on their necks as the hum of the red line above them got louder, and in the corners of their visions they could see their opponents and the weapons and which of their opponents were looking towards the weapons.

"Let the games begin," Umbuju said, and the crowd erupted in the biggest roar. Everyone was up on their feet and shouting down at the gladiators in the instant the match started.

"KILL THEM!"

"PICK UP THE SWORD!"

"GRAB IT YOU COWARD!"

"DO IT!"

Sweat coated their already hot and sweaty bodies, and it dripped down nervous and panicked faces. Stern looks faltered at the anxious ones of the other gladiators, ones who they shook their heads at to stay where they were standing. "Nobody move!" Zach shouted. He did not move his hands, nor his feet, he just yelled it and he darted his eyes around to each of the others who only darted a quick look to him before checking back on the others who they were more nervous were going to start moving anyway. "Just look at me! No one move-"

"He's tricking you!"

"KILL SAZAKI FIRST!"

"GET DEATH!"

"HE'S UNARMED!"

 _Someone's going to move._

 _They're all going to go for the sword! I- I could just-_

 _He's going to move._

"Stop!" Zach yelled to his right.

The buff man glanced to his left again and saw Lifebringer looking so afraid. The sheer panic on the teen's face made the man hesitate, but his eyes shifted back to the right just as the shortest man two to his right looked inwards too. The man between them had stared across at the woman who suddenly moved in the corner of his vision. She was leaning forward, as if towards him! He did not see the glob of spit that just hit her in the left ear, and he took a step at the sight of her flinch. Any chance of him stopping and rethinking it, was completely cut off as the two on either side of him sprinted in that moment he took a step towards the sword…

* * *

 **Present**

 _"…Then I'll disappear and you'll never have to see me again."_

Zach's final words to his friends had everyone silent. Another cool breeze blew through the forest, and the teens felt their phones buzz but nobody reached for theirs yet. Zach's warning to Iida was meant for everyone, and they all just stared at their old classmate standing before them in that abandoned village overgrown with forest. After only ten seconds though, Zach's hands unclenched from his darkened fists and lost the black color to them. His eyes lost their red glow and his entire demeanor lost the threatening and intense vibe to it.

Midoriya's eyes snapped over Zach's head as he realized in all that tension that he had solely focused on Zach and forgot about the girl who flew up and away. _How far- wait,_ Midoriya's eyes darted back down to Zach's face and he knew. _She's gone. The way he looks, he thinks there's no chance anyone would ever find her again._ Midoriya opened his mouth, but he did not know what he was about to say and just hesitated like that for a few seconds before closing it.

They all stared at Zach, whose expression did lose the hostility to it and yet was different from anything they had seen before that night. It was the look on his face after Darling had called him out as Death. Ashido was frozen as she had opened her mouth just like Midoriya, only to find her whole mouth dry at that look in his eyes. She had thought it was fake before since Darling had so quickly broken that dark, intense, and powerful expression with talk of the Void, but it was back again. The person she was looking at did not seem nervous about what had just been revealed, nor saddened as the person he claimed to love so much just left him forever, nor worried about the future. He was calm. His eyes steady.

Zach looked around the floor near him once he had lost his tense appearance and just looked different instead. The shift was as clear as when Kaminari started laughing and calling himself Raijin as he shoved his feats in their faces. Yet Zach was not attacking them, nor was he trying to run, and none of them feared he would after what he had told Airi a few minutes ago. Zach leaned down and he grabbed a chunk of wall that had broken outwards when Midoriya smashed through it and had been resting in the dirt. He lifted the wall up, and he turned it so the longer side was vertical before planting it down in the ground. Then he swiped his left hand across the top of it to flatten it out, breaking apart the bumpy and sharp edges. Then he curled his left hand along the sharp edge he had just created by doing that, and he dragged it from one side to the other to make it into a smooth curve instead. Then he turned back to the others and he sat down on the seat he made two feet off the ground.

Sero stared at Zach motionless as words echoed through his head. Things they had talked above over the past month, and things he had just heard, and his eyes blinked a few times when he realized how dry they were.

 _ **"Don't talk about Darling, like you know her,"**_ Sero thought about what Zach said in the hospital when they first asked him about the girl who had been there that night. _**"I won't. I'll tell you guys anything you want, but I won't talk about her. I won't put her in danger."**_ _I understood why. I really got it. And now that I've seen, I know that even if you had tried to explain that, we never would have understood. But, you didn't tell us anything. You didn't tell us the truth. And yet, now we know._ Sero stared at Zach as he sat right in front of them, staring at the six of them in a calm and serious way Sero wanted to recognize on his face but could not in the least. _Now we know what really happened… Death._

Yaoyorozu's hands trembled at her sides as she looked straight into Zach's hazel eyes. _I knew. I never doubted since you returned, that you were Death. And then at the start of that conversation I really thought I was wrong, when she started talking about dimensions. I had to consider that she was working with you and that it was part of your plan for her to come here and say all that to make it convincing, but she didn't talk about going through a portal into a different dimension to fight a war with you. She just… the two of you wouldn't have lied to each other right there. Not when you weren't even paying attention to us. Not when you forgot we were even here, and when she was telling the truth to try and force you to leave…_

"Alright," Zach said after he sat down and stared down the line at each of his friends. Iida was to his far right with Midoriya next to him, then Mineta, Yaoyorozu, Ashido, and finally Sero on his left. Zach slid his glove back onto his right hand and curled his fingers inside to get it tightened to his scarred-up skin. Then he put his hands down on his thighs and asked, "Do you guys have anything you want to ask me?" Silence fell over the group again at Zach's question that made a few of them stare at him in disbelief for it. "Whatever comes next," Zach continued in a low voice, steady and sure. "Let's talk first. I know, you might not have any reason to believe what I'll say. I know…" Zach paused and he felt hopeless even as he said it aloud, "My words may have no meaning. But I'll tell you the truth. Whatever you want to know, to clarify-"

"Did you really kill Stain?" Iida asked.

Some of the others did not know if this was really what they were supposed to do right now, but they looked to Iida at the sudden question and then back towards Zach. Sero darted his gaze over at his taller friend, then he pulled his phone out of his pocket and looked down at the message he had received. He opened his phone and texted Ojiro back quickly, 'The villain escaped the island. We're all fine. Let everyone know.' _I don't know how much time we'll have,_ Sero thought as he pocketed his phone and looked back to Zach. _But, this might be my only chance. All of our only chances._

Ashido looked down at her phone that she pulled out, glanced towards Sero for a moment too, and then she gulped while shifting her eyes around at everyone. _Wh-What's going to happen after? Is this-_ Just trying to think about it had Ashido's chest clenching up more and her eyes watering as she shifted them back to Zach.

Zach frowned though at the one question asked of him already. "Is that really, what you want to ask?" Zach wondered.

Iida's eyes shot open wider at the question in response that was not a denial, but more like Zach was asking if Iida even had to ask. There was so much just said though, and Iida clenched his teeth after a second as that was not really what he wanted to ask. _Why? Or, when? In what circumstance did he… Or,_ Iida's focus had solely been on Stain, but everything else rushed at him as he thought about all Darling had told him. His eyes rose up after he lowered them to the floor, and he asked before anyone else could bring up their own thing, "What was the Pit?"

Zach stared into Iida's eyes, and he nodded his head accepting the question. "You were fighting in death matches? Against 'gladiators?'" Midoriya asked. He specified it, his expression harsh while in his head he was more full of disbelief than anything. _That was after she had revealed he was Death and he said he would stay. Maybe, she was trying to make it sound like he really had been somewhere else. If she had accepted it already she could have…_

"I was," Zach replied to Midoriya who interrupted before he could explain it to them. "Other people who were captured just like me and sent to the Pit. Innocent men and women, and I cut them all down."

Zach said it in the same low tone, detached and with no emotion in his voice as he stated it. After the words came out though, some of those faces appeared in his mind. Faces he had never really thought about, but ones that he never knew he remembered so clearly. Blood splashed all over them, eyes gouged out and blood spraying from their necks. He saw the fear fading from their eyes as the life drained from them. Zach could feel the wet warmth on both arms, and his fingers curled into the fabric of his pants and his scarred legs below.

"Why?" Ashido asked. She whispered it, and Zach shifted his eyes that kept steady despite the pain in his heart at the way she stared at him. Hearing him admit that, emotionless for something that sounded so horrible, it made Ashido's heart hurt even more than his did though. "Why would you do that? How-" She could not ask, 'how could you,' because she already knew the answer. _**"…the idea that dying would mean you dying too kept me alive. I, don't think I ever could have defended myself in the Pit if I didn't believe that. I never could have made it through every one of those battles…"**_ Ashido remembered Zach telling that to Airi, and she felt her heart clench up just thinking about Zach being there in that position. "You, I know that you felt you, had to- but, but where was a place-"

"Nigeria," Zach replied. He cut off Ashido who was struggling to get out what she wanted to ask him. He paused and he looked around at the others, some of whom were closer to him now without those dark flames separating them. None had run at him yet, and Zach just sat still as he stared them down. "The bounty on my head was more to capture me alive than dead at the time. Everyone wanted me dead though, so even though Umbuju paid the bounty hunters to catch me alive, I was meant to die soon after. I was put in match after match, day in and day out. I wasn't captured for long but I…" Zach's teeth clenched and the words he had been getting out so steadily cut off. His face scrunched up more in frustration that he had cut off, as he was trying hard to get this all out calmly here. "But I…" he started again, but his eyes twitched and he saw so many faces flashing through his mind that he had not been thinking about.

"How many?" Zach whispered. His eyes pointed at the floor in front of where he had sat down on a seat still pretty tall for a chair so he was straight up in it, his body looking strong and his stature impressive despite being seated in front of people who were standing. His voice did not crack at the question, but his tone shifted from the monotone one before. His eyes could not stay locked as he stared down, his teeth clenching and his mind racking as he tried to come up with a number. "I fought in… I fought in a number of Royales- but I can't-" Zach clenched his teeth harder and ground his teeth across each other. "How many? How many times-" Zach brought his head back up and he said with a shake of it, "And I tried to tell the others not to fight."

He winced at the looks of his old classmates as they stared at him in either disbelief, or pity, or both with a mix of confusion in it. His expression looked so real, but what he was saying sounded so unbelievable, and they could not really trust any of it anyway so the disbelief they felt made them question if it really was: real. Zach shook his head though at the dark, sad, pitying looks staring back at him mixed with anger, shock, and doubt. "Everyone says they won't," Zach said while looking into Iida's eyes. "That they'll go in and they won't fight for the amusement of others. They won't kill… But once you're out there, and everyone's screaming down at you to do it. Hundreds of villains foaming at the mouth for the sight of blood, and screaming at you to do it or they'll kill you, and the whole place shaking and the _fear!_ Fear so intense… There are only a couple of weapons on the floor, a good sharp sword usually closer to one person than the others so that person closest has that incentive to move-"

"Zach, what are you talking about-" Midoriya tried to interrupt with his own teeth clenched. "Why would there be, swords? Weapons? If this was real, they would have used Quirks-"

"The collars," Zach whispered. He said it and he rose his eyes to Midoriya whose gaze snapped to his neck and the red marks around it. The scars that wrapped around his neck, that Zach had said when he was asked about them in the hospital, _**"I had to wear a collar for a little, and I had my throat slit too…"**_ Midoriya's expression shook, and he stared at Zach with wider eyes that stayed frozen like that as Zach continued, "If we used our Quirks, the collars would explode. And at the time, I couldn't control Death to the point that I could turn my neck and only my neck into Death to try and slide it through- and by the time I even started to try they would have blown my head off. And I couldn't die. Darling- Airi, and the others, and so many millions of people whose lives I felt like were… and I didn't want to die. I was in the same position as everyone else, but they wouldn't give me any weapons. And I would try even as the fight started to get them to stop, and I'd knock them out instead of killing but… but Umbuju would blow their collars if I knocked them out, so I was still killing them by-"

Zach closed his eyes slowly. He closed them and took in a heavy breath to stop from speaking so fast. He calmed himself down, but then he said softly while opening his eyes back up, "Sometimes I could get everyone to stay where they were for a little. But, but the tension rises more and more. Everyone psyches themselves out, and the moment someone moves, it's all over. Because where does your moral high-ground go when someone next to you is going to take advantage of it and grab a weapon while you stand still? And even if someone's just running for a weapon close to them in order to protect themselves with it, no one else thinks that's their reason. They all think the worst. They all run at them to stop them, to get that weapon first, or to kill him so he doesn't kill them. And only one could leave. Five people go into the Pit, and only one can live. How many times? How many times?!" Zach's left hand rose up and he put it over his eyes and his forehead, gripping in tightly as he tried to jog his memories but just saw more and more people. "How many times was I the sole survivor? How many times did I go in with four others and walk out alone? How many times?"

"Zach," Mineta started, his voice loud and getting Zach to lower his hand and stare forward into the short boy's eyes who he was about on eye level with. "You don't… You didn't have a choice. Something like that-" Mineta paused for a second and he shook his head with a pained look covering it. He stepped towards Zach and said, "If you went through something so horrible-"

Zach's forehead scrunched up and his eyebrows rose up high. "So horrible?" Zach repeated, his voice leaping in it almost like he laughed at what he just repeated. "That?" Zach asked, a corner of his lip rising up and a dark laugh coming out of his mouth. "You think that was the worst of-" Zach's mouth curled back down and his eyes shifted around at the others staring at him with wide eyes at how laughable he thought what Mineta just said was. But it was the truth though, and he shook his head with a darker look over it, "That wasn't even one of the ten worst…maybe- no, no not in the ten worst things. Maybe twenty? Thirty?" Zach bowed his head more, and he shook his head again. "But I didn't lose any comrades there. When I razed that place to the ground…"

The others staring at Zach in surprise or sadly or angrily, tensed up at the shift in his tone that sounded dark to the point that it was beyond something they would expect from Zach. His voice twisted as he said it too, and more than dark it sounded- "Zach, you sound evil." Iida said it and made Zach rise his head back up with that menacing and dark look over it, but there was no smile despite how Zach's voice sounded almost happy at what he just said. "The way you're acting. The things you're saying were bad but you- What did you do, when you 'razed' the Pit?"

Zach stared at Iida and his expression got darker in a different way, more like he knew the answer to the question was what Iida thought it was or even worse. Zach's eyes locked on the tall teen ahead of him to his right, and he said in a low voice, "The Army of Death came for me. They attacked the Pit while a lot of people were there, lots of villains and high bidders coming for the next Royale who we were able to track back to bigger gangs and villain groups afterwards… There were more of them than there were us, but my comrades were prepared to save me…"

* * *

 **One Year Ago…**

 _ **Click**_

Zach's head was bowed. He sat on a wooden stool low to the ground inside a box cell in the gladiator block. His eyes opened up. His bowed head pointed his eyes down at his chest and stomach and legs and the front of his arms. There were rags wrapped around various wounds on each body part he looked at, though mostly just dirty bandages held to his skin by duct tape after the doctors had done the minimal work to stop his bleeding. He sat there without moving and opening up those wounds that had him in a constant pain and made his skin pale despite all the time he had been spending out in the hot Nigerian sun.

He opened his eyes when he heard the click, and he rose his right hand up to his neck without wincing despite the blood soaking through the rag around his knuckles. He grabbed the metal collar on his neck that he could not really see well despite trying to look down at it, and he pulled down from his neck and removed it with ease as it was turned off and unlocked. The steel collar came off easily.

Zach removed it and held it in front of his face, his head lifting up as he rose the collar higher and stared at it without the red light on it like he knew they had based on the ones he saw on his enemies' necks all these days. The cell was dimly lit by lights that went down the long sandy hall underneath the Pit that split the cells apart. Zach stared at his collar in that dim light, and then he stood up and he turned around as he heard from one end of the hall, _**CRASH!**_

Zach stood on damaged legs, but the pain faded completely from his mind. He walked towards the steel bars of his cell while most of the other gladiators in the cell block had just snapped their heads towards them after staring down nervously as they thought their collars were about to explode. Then their eyes opened wide as a collar went flying past all of the bars. Across the hall from Zach's cell, the most powerful gladiator in the cell block other than him who was there long before him, stared straight towards him with her eyes massive as he just tossed his collar down the block like that. "Over here," Zach called out, his voice low and loud.

"Death!"

"Commander!"

A squad of dark soldiers shot down the cell block, their dark helmets turning side to side with each of the soldiers inside them staring in shock at the men and women in the cells. Someone down the block yelled about looking for the keys, but the one who reached Zach's cell first was not going to wait. "Move back!" Michael called out at his leader standing just on the other side of the cell's bars. Zach moved to the side, and Michael picked up his right foot and slammed it into the keyhole in the middle of the bars where the cell's gate could open inwards. Michael kicked the door down in one go, then he stepped inside and got nervous about reaching out for Death who looked about to collapse with all those wounds. "Curalia, we need-"

Zach stepped forward and he walked past Michael who turned his head with wide eyes at how strongly Zach stepped right out of the cell. "Earpiece," Zach commanded, while everyone in the cell block stepped out towards their bars and looked towards the Champion of the Pit. They looked towards the teenager covered in scars and new wounds that bled through his bandages. None of the dark soldiers who just busted into their hall argued with him, and one of them had an earpiece ready that they handed him and that he rose up and put in his right ear. "Listen to me," Zach ordered.

"Death!"

"Zach!"

"Commander! You're alive!"

"Destroy this place," Zach growled. His voice filled the headsets of his soldiers all over the Pit already. The cell block shook and he heard shouting coming from the ends of the halls about losing connection to the collars and to the cameras in the cell block. "Tear it all down," his voice was menacing, ominous, and his soldiers hearing that rage in his voice felt the fury rising in their bodies. The fact that it could get the always calm and most composed Death to sound that enraged told them exactly who these people they were fighting really were. Zach turned his head after giving that order, looking down the cell block at all the gladiators at their bars and staring towards him.

"Open the gates," Zach said. The gladiators all staring towards their Champion, towards Death, opened their eyes wide at what he just said. Some of them looked afraid, others just looked at his neck and the bright red and chafed skin there showing how tightly his collar had been on and ripping up his skin. They stared at his wrecked body from the previous fights against the other gladiators who had been in that cell block with them, all of whom had left with him and never returned.

"Death, are you sure-"

"Take off your collars," Zach bellowed. He stomped forward, looking at the woman in the cell across from his whose strength he knew as she had won Royales of her own before. She had fought while he was captured too, in other fights where he had heard the roars of tigers and lions above that Umbuju had announced only for her to return with fewer injuries than he came back with after his Royales. Zach stepped up to her cell while she stared at him with wide eyes, and Zach pressed his right hand up to the keyhole. Darkness came off of his palm and he formed it more and more solid inside that slot as the darkness spread up his arm from his hand. The lock clicked, then Zach rose his hand and he pushed the door of the cell in for the woman who had been here longer than she could remember.

Zach's soldiers ran past him and were not going to argue any longer with all the fighting they could hear in their headsets. Some of them broke off to run at the villains in the Pit Crew coming down into the cell block, but others smashed down the cell doors or unlocked them with the keys they found. Zach turned and he walked past the cell the gladiator woman was in, and Rivona took off the loose collar around her neck that she had no longer even been able to feel considering how long it had been latched there. She rose it up in her hands and stared at it with shaking eyes which two dark soldiers outside her cell saw and made them get even more furious. "Rise," Zach growled, marching down the middle of the cell block as the gates were opened on his sides, as collars dropped to the floor one by one from each of the gladiators around him.

Men and women took off their collars, and their gates were smashed down from the outsides or from the gladiators destroying them themselves with their Quirks that they used without consequence. Death started running down the cell block, and his voice rose as all his emotions and adrenaline blocked out any pain. "Tear down the Pit!" Zach roared. Dark soldiers ran after Zach as they saw a few villains at the end of the cell block with no one between them and their commander. Those villains started running forward to get Sazaki, or to just get closer before shooting him, but two long red arms shot out between cell bars and grabbed two villains by the sides of their heads. Those red hands pushed across the hall and slammed those villains into the bars of the cell across from his, for another gladiator whose sharp claws extended from his fingers as he snapped his arms out from the cell to rip their throats open.

The others in the Pit Crew spun around and yelled about all the collars being off, and they turned their guns and fired into the cells closest to them where the gladiators charged at the bars. They started spinning back though as they saw the darkness in the corners of their eyes suddenly coming so much faster towards them. They did not spin fast enough, and four villains went flying down the rest of the hall and smashing into the wall at the end of it, blood smears sliding down those walls that cracked from the force they just flew into it. "RAAA!" Zach roared, his body engulfed in darkness and huge black wisps coming off of him and waving around in the air. On either side of him were dead gladiators who never made it out of their cells, and his eyes flared violently red with his body pulsing with two counts of death adding into his power.

"RISE!" Zach roared, his voice louder and deeper and booming through the entire cell block.

"Death! Your injuries-"

"RISE!" Zach yelled again, stomping forward and looking to either side at other gladiators still alive in their cells. The two who had killed the guards, one of which had been shot in the gut but stepped back towards the bars and nodded at him anyway. "There are no collars to hold you back anymore," Zach said, standing at the end of the cell block near the door and looking back down it. He looked over his shoulder at the cells opening up and the gladiators at the edge or stepping out where his soldiers were too. The darkness shifted off of his face but his red eyes still flared, and his skin flashed from real skin to bone and back again. "Bring justice upon those who enslaved us! Burn the Pit to the ground! Rise! RISE! _**RISE!"**_

The Pit did not take long to fall. The villains only there for the fight all wanted to run, and without their help the Pit Crew were outnumbered and outmatched. With the addition of the gladiators coming into the mix too, and the attack coming from all sides of them, the Pit Crew and the final fighting villains were pushed back into one location. The Pit's arena itself.

The stands were ablaze, the verandas up in black smoke that billowed up high, and the walls cracked and crumbling all around them. On one side of the arena, villains were piled up on top of each other and covered in blood, their status as alive or dead unable to tell as there were so many of them tossed in one place. The final villains who tried to surrender were being knocked out and tied up, struggling as they shouted that they surrendered over and over in hopes not to get killed.

Others were dragged out of the broken walls and the tunnel, and they were thrown down on the ground and stomped on by the dark soldiers and the bloody gladiators who wore nothing but rags and who all stood out in the arena too. Every one of the gladiators and the Army of Death members were all staring towards one man as he stomped forward near the middle of the arena. The final guards to still fight were unconscious around the man in charge of the Pit whose clothes were ripped up and who had blood coming out of the many cuts along his body. Umbuju was trying to crawl away with his bloody and broken legs dragging behind him, but he ignored how much pain it was to drag them as he looked over his shoulder and saw the boy marching towards him even without any darkness covering his bloody body anymore.

"Death, we need to get you help."

"Just let us finish this and…"

"Death…"

Zach stepped forward with blood dripping down his body from a dozen wounds that opened back up. He looked so strong despite how heavy he was panting, despite how much blood dripped down his body. He marched forward without pause, his right hand down at his side gripped around the hilt of a sword that dragged through the sand after him. His hair was caked in blood and fell straight but messy around his back to below his shoulder-blades, and the clumps were dripping with blood like so much of his body. Darling took a step towards him and rose a hand, but it shook at the sight of Zach's look of sheer rage and determination as he took another step forward. All the gladiators from the Pit were gathered behind him, stepping forward with each step the Champion of the Pit took. They had all heard Umbuju's shouts over the speakers while they were down in the cell block. They heard what Zach had done to the other gladiators, and they all stared at him as he stomped forward looking like he could keel over at any second… and yet didn't.

The flames of the burning Pit flickered on Zach's face, and the sky blackened above him as the smoke pooled together under an already dark gray sky. He took one more step forward, but he was already at Umbuju. Umbuju reached his hands forward to try and crawl again, but he gasped out in pain as Zach stomped down on his back. "What you did here…" Zach snarled. His voice was loud and it echoed through the headsets of all his soldiers, while the gladiators were close enough behind him to hear what he said. And all the conscious villains stared towards Death in absolute terror of the kid who had a look of murderous rage over his face, and his voice matched that expression. "Slavery, barbarism, murder…" Zach pushed his heel harder into Umbuju's back, and he rose his voice louder, "The innocent men _I_ have killed now, their blood that is forever on _my_ hands and that I will never be able to wash off."

Zach's teeth skid back and forth over each other, his eyes shaking in the most rage he had ever felt in his life as he stared down at Umbuju's back and listened to the man's snivels and begs into the sand below his face. Hearing the man beg like that just made him imagine how many had begged up towards the villains, towards Umbuju, begging him not to make them fight to the death. The same men he had cut down with his own hands, and his head tilted back with a new look of hatred spreading over even worse than the previous one. Zach reached down and he grabbed Umbuju by the back of his head and yanked it up with his left hand, "The innocents you dragged to this _Hell_ , forced to kill against their wills. Thrown into a cage and jeered at as they were _butchered_ … _**no more."**_

Zach slid his left hand around Umbuju's head and wrapped it across his face. Behind him, the gladiators started roaring, yelling at Zach to do it at the tops of their lungs. The Army of Death looked around at the gladiators wearing nearly nothing, each of their expressions looking like Zach's as they had all experienced this place that none of them had. None of them could say anything to their leader as they saw the way he looked and heard the tone in his voice that made each one of them feel the guilt of how long it took them to find him.

He leaned down over Umbuju's body and yanked his upper body back by Umbuju's face, sliding his foot down Umbuju's back farther so that he could yank it up like that. He pulled Umbuju's body back and Umbuju let out a scream, right as Zach shoved the sword in his right hand through Umbuju's back and out of his chest. Blood splashed out of Umbuju's front and his eyes lowered down to the weapon, then over to the men screaming towards him in rabid glee. They cheered and looked like animals as they screamed in the most animalistic way at the sight of Umbuju getting killed like that. It was the greatest irony, and every one of those gladiators forced him to see it as they spat towards him and roared at the top of their lungs at his death.

Zach stepped off of Umbuju's back though before the man was dead, and he dragged Umbuju up higher using his left hand that gripped the top of the man's head, and by lifting the sword that cut higher up Umbuju's body and made his hands flail and reach for it to try and stop it from cutting any deeper. His face was panicked and blood splashed out of his mouth as he reached for the blade, and the roars only got louder as Umbuju grabbed the blade and let go as the weapon cut into his palms. He tried to let out a scream of pain, but blood just splashed out of his mouth more as he found it impossible to breath or make any sound. "YOU ARE NOT HUMAN!" Zach roared at the back of Umbuju's head as he held him up in front of the gladiators.

He held Umbuju high enough that his feet were touching the ground and somewhat made it so Zach was not holding all his weight himself. Zach's face twisted and he screamed past the dying man in front of him, "A place like the Pit, where villains gather and drink and enjoy their lives that require so many innocent lives to be ruined, will be allowed to exist **NO LONGER!"** Zach ripped the sword out in a single move, then he pulled to the side as he gripped its hilt with both hands. His teeth clenched and he leaned forward while spinning both arms across the front of his body as fast as he could despite how much his wounds bled at the force he put into the swing. "RRAAAA!" Umbuju's body was on the verge of collapsing, but before it could, a sword cut through his neck and separated his head from his body in the single movement of Zach's blade.

Blood splashed all over Zach's body as Umbuju collapsed backwards and the spray coming out from the top of his neck got all over the teen whose eyes did not even close as it sprayed on his face. His sword hit the ground the same time that Umbuju's head did, and the cheering and roaring gladiators in front of Zach all stared straight at him with their noise quieting down at what Zach just screamed. They stared at the teen whose body steadied as he breathed deep breaths in and out, as blood drenched his body both his own and his enemies'. His body only clothed in a blood-soaked rag around his waist looked like a body no living man could have, and his friends were terrified as they stared at him, wondering in fear how he was even still alive. His saturated bandages slid down his arms and legs, unable to stay on anymore. Tape got too wet and came off, and bandages fell from him that were not ready for the kind of movements he had been making and were already on the edge of dropping.

Zach continued to stare straight ahead. He stared over Umbuju's fallen body to the two dozen gladiators still standing in front of him who were all facing the boy who just freed them and killed their enslaver. His head turned to the left and then panned back to the right. His men, the villains looking at him, the gladiators, he started to all of them in a booming voice, "I am DEATH! And Death comes, FOR ALL VILLAINS!" His voice reverberated around the Pit. His eyes shifted back to the gladiators right in front of him, locking on Rivona who stepped forward straight in front of him holding a medieval mace covered in rust and blood, and whose body was also splashed in red too though nowhere near in as much as Zach's drenched body was. His teeth clenched as he looked at these gladiators, so many of whom he had been responsible for ending over the past week.

"I swear to you…" Zach started. He was panting, staring down the gladiators and his own army as he spoke feeling like he could take on the world but also feeling like he might die at any second. His face was pale, but his expression powerful as he said in a loud voice, "That I will not stop. There is no haven for villains in this world!" Zach rose his left foot and he stomped it forward onto Umbuju's head that cracked at how hard he brought it down. Zach's teeth clenched angrier, as the men and women in front of him were all shaking, grinding their teeth and nodding their heads with violent and bloodthirsty looks on their faces. " _Any_ place like the Pit that exists on this planet will be torn down! I will crush it root and stem, and break apart all foundations of evil in this world!"

Zach's body started shaking, his right hand bloodied and covered in others' blood rising in front of his face in a fist. His eyes rose from his fist to the gladiators in front of him, "Villains will no longer be given free reign." His voice was low, menacing, and the tone in his voice showed no doubt that what he was saying would come to pass; that he was going to make it happen. "As long as Death exists in this world, there will be no quarter for those who would chain their fellow man. No quarter for the Umbujus of the world."

Many in the Army of Death started nodding their heads too. Most of them just wanted to get Zach some medical attention already, but they could not help but start getting more riled up, though not nearly as much as the gladiators staring at this figure before them in inspiring awe. Zach's voice suddenly rose and he roared around at his men, at the gladiators, and at the people they had captured, "This world belongs to villains NO LONGER! I will drag them out of their havens! I will destroy all they have built and treasure! And if they try to stop me I will RIP THEM TO PIECES!" Voices started to come from the gladiators who could not hold them in anymore, growls and roars of agreement coming out sporadically. But Zach still yelled louder than all of them, "Never again will anything like the Pit be allowed to exist in this world! NEVER AGAIN!" He screamed it at the top of his lungs, and the people in front of him lost their minds. The gladiators threw their arms up in the air, most of them holding weapons of some kind be they the discarded guns of their guards or melee weapons that would have been used in the Pit itself.

Zach stared forward with his eyes widening for a second under all that blood on his face that was already dripping down over his eyes. He stared at these men and women screaming at the top of their lungs and waving their weapons up in the air, and he heard his own men on his sides start yelling too so that the entire arena was filled with their roars. Rivona slammed her bloody mace up in the air and roared out a scream of approval, and then she pointed the mace forward towards the young man right in front of her while her eyes glowed purple and blood was splashed across the right side of her face. "DEATH!"

"DEATH! DEATH! DEATH! DEATH! DEATH! DEATH! DEATH! Death…"

* * *

 **Present**

"I released the other gladiators, and we rose," Zach growled in a low voice at what Iida just asked him. "Us slaves forced to kill each other for their amusement. And even though I was the _Champion of the Pit,"_ he spat the title out, disgusted by it. Then he shook his head and said through his grinding teeth, "Despite it! Despite killing so many of them! Murdering other gladiators just like them… not one of them left that day to return to whatever lives they had before." Zach's voice was low and his eyes were narrowed straight into Iida's which had his former classmate who had asked him so harshly about what he did to the Pit leaning back. Zach shook his head and muttered in a dark voice, "I didn't even know I was recruiting them, when I yelled my promise to them that I would never let anything like the Pit exist in the world again, but they all chose at that moment to follow me."

Zach closed his eyes for a second and said in a frustrated and deeper voice, "They decided of their own free will, to stand at my side and help make sure that a world without slaves came to be. That those who would make themselves masters would be cut down. And Airi was right… every last one of them, all of the gladiators who survived the Pit and the only ones who knew what it was like in there- they all died fighting by my sides. Every, single, one." Zach shook his head and then rose it back up losing the darker expression and returning to the intense one to stare Iida down wondering if that answered his question.

 _Oh shit._ Mineta's lips pursed as he realized what that feeling flooding through his body was. _Fear._ Not fear of the things Zach was referring to, but of his friend himself who Mineta suddenly felt like he did not know at all. _The person who's been talking to me for over a month, laughing and telling fun stories, that person isn't real. He can't be! Not if he's, been through something like this… "So horrible?" Something like this? Is it- is it really because he went through this? Or, is it because that's how he thinks of how bad it was? That it could have been worse? That, there were even worse things?!_ Mineta's pursed lips shook as he stared at Zach's stoney expression that made him impossible to read.

Iida tried to keep his expression stern, harsh towards his former classmate who was admitting his "crimes" right before him. _He killed people. That's…_ Iida could not even convince himself while attempting to keep that harsh appearance. His look finally softened a little, as Midoriya asked in a low voice with his expression looking less harsh too but still dark and foreboding, "Why, wouldn't they-" Midoriya paused and he clenched his teeth frustratedly, but he changed up the way he was wording his question. "Why didn't they, let you use your Quirks?" Midoriya asked it quietly. "It wasn't just you, but everyone-"

"They wanted to see a more brutal struggle," Zach replied. He said it like it was simple, and he looked into Midoriya's eyes to see that Midoriya could not understand why that would be a reason for anyone. "There was no utility in it," Zach said to his friend trying to come up with some different reason why it had happened. "The collars were the ultimate failsafe. I saw one of them explode instantly upon Umbuju choosing to set it off. So, there was no choice but to do things his way. And the way he wanted, was for us to use our hands. To pick up the usually rusty weapons, weapons he never gave me at the start, and to fight to the death in close quarters with our nails and our teeth, sticks and stones."

"This place-" Yaoyorozu started. Zach looked at her, and she lowered her eyes for a second before snapping them back up with a look of denial on her face. "It couldn't have existed. The size of what you're describing alone, someone would've noticed…"

 _Just like Jirou. They've all realized it._ Zach's expression shadowed over, the top half of his face just getting dark as he bowed his head. _She knows I'm a liar. I lied to Momo. I'm a… I'm such a fucking asshole. But the others who died there, the others!_ "It was real," Zach said. He countered Yaoyorozu and rose his eyes back to meet hers. Mineta and Ashido both looked inwards at Yaoyorozu between them, and the two of them saw their taller friend curling her fists tighter at her sides as Zach said that like he expected her to just accept it this time. "In that Pit I cut the throats of innocents to the bone with a rusty knife," Zach said it while staring Momo straight in the eyes, and the girl's disbelieving look completely broke at what would not have been a lie.

Zach saw her believe him, then his eyes shifted back to Midoriya whose face was scrunched up with conflicting emotions. _He's trying to put himself there,_ Zach thought as he searched Deku's gaze. "We fought with swords, axes, maces, sometimes just clubs or stones, but other times villains would throw bottles down at us, usually if the gladiators with me managed to hold their ground for a little. The broken glass from those bottles became extra weapons, which I wasn't expecting until a large shard of one cut through my kidney, here." Zach moved his right hand over to put over the point where he had been stabbed through, but Midoriya snapped his head up angrily at the way Zach finished that.

"You were stabbed through the kidney?" Midoriya asked. His voice was accusatory, and he narrowed his gaze at Zach while a few of the others darted looks in at Deku or harshened their own looks at Zach.

"In that place was there great medical care?" Yaoyorozu asked. She offered it up trying not to keep her voice from sounding harsh, but her eyebrows lifted up and she looked at him with so much doubt at what he was saying. "If not, then how could you have survived-"

"I didn't," Zach replied to her before she could finish. He stared into Yaoyorozu's eyes sadly at the way she was speaking, and his voice came out much darker as he continued while looking through his shadowed gaze to her. "If there had been one more Royale before my comrades came, I wouldn't have survived. I was dying already when they came though…" Zach's six friends in front of him stared at him first in confusion, but as he continued those looks started to shift gradually with their eyes shaking. "I had been sitting as still as possible so as not to open my wounds. The last two nights I'd been hit by constant strobes to keep me awake, and I hadn't eaten anything in four days. But when we rose, I ignored it all. I ignored all the wounds as they reopened over my body, and inside it, and I fought until I won and said what I needed to say. Then as they chanted my name…" Zach paused and he lowered his eyes down to where his right hand was holding his side, then he dropped his hand as his eyes shifted up his chest.

"I died," Zach said. He said it and rose his eyes back up to his friends who he continued to, "I collapsed in the Pit and they dragged me to the operating table. But I was dead. I died on the operating table, and for twenty minutes I was dead. Longer than, the first time." Zach stared at Yaoyorozu, then glanced to the right more at Midoriya and Iida too who were both staring at him in shock as well.

"W-Was it your Quirk?" Mineta asked. _Can he even-_

"No," Zach replied before Mineta could finish that thought. "I died on that operating table, but when my heart stopped, my friends didn't give up on me. They- Mark pumped my blood through my body to keep oxygen going to my brain, so I wouldn't have brain damage despite how long I was dead for without being brought back by Death. He didn't even know he could do it," Zach added while cracking the right corner of his lip up into a half-smile. Sero and Mineta both stared at Zach with huge eyes at the thought of the letter they had heard the first day they went to visit Zach. Zach continued in a quieter voice, "He had never done something so precise before, but he told me he _needed_ to do it, so he just did it. He pumped my blood, while Hank and Miraculu cut me open and worked on my heart, as Curalia blasted me over and over and they took out my ripped up kidney. They sewed some of my organs together and replaced others, my comrades offering me theirs as replacements. I've got Gentle's kidney right here, and pints of compatible blood from my comrades, and my doctors sewed me up."

Zach rose his head and stared at the group as a whole before him. "They pieced me back together as they would a dozen times after and a dozen more on top of that. A frankenstein monster mixed and matched with different parts, who can't ever get too excited or emotional about anything anymore without feeling real, physical pain." Zach rose his right hand and gripped his chest over his heart, "In this heart that cannot take that kind of pressure after all I've put it through since. Earlier, I felt like it was going to burst when I broke down to Darling. My heart was about to _POP_ and it's the Pit that the scar on my heart is from. It was real. All the others who died there were real too." Zach paused for a couple of seconds, then he finished, "That's the truth."

"Why-" Sero stopped himself. He paused for a second and then asked with a shake of his head at Zach, "Why did he- that Umbuju guy, why'd he do it? Why did he something like that to you? And to those other people?"

"Umbuju could have been doing it for money," Zach answered, while more of his old classmates were just staring over at Sero in surprise as they had needed a moment after hearing all that. Sero wanted to know though, and so did Midoriya who spun back to Zach after hearing that.

Midoriya's heart wrenched at the idea. _Overhaul had grand reasons for why he was making the Quirk-Destroying drug. Restoring the yakuza and- and it wasn't just about the money! He was a monster to do those things to Eri, but he had reasons he thought were-_

"…Lots of men cared more about money than anything. Money would get them women too, if that was what mattered most to them." Zach spoke in a steady voice full of experience like he had met many villains who valued either one of those things or the other the most. Then he added though, "Some villains cared about family, and to many their gangs were their families. Those were usually the hardest ones to break just by threatening them, besides fanatics." Zach shifted his tone again while still looking back at Sero, "To some, the ideologies really mattered. They believed they would change things for the better, make the world a better place or something through horrible, horrible acts towards innocent people." Again he paused, then he shook his head and said, "But Umbuju didn't buy me for the money he'd make with Zach Sazaki in the Pit. He didn't do it for the renown; to be known as the biggest baddest around who could capture _me._ Some men, just enjoy being evil. They like to see people writhe around and squirm under their pressure. Sometimes there is no motive. No reason for the chaos. Just horrible people doing horrible things."

Zach stared into Sero's eyes and shook his head once more at Sero's frozen look he was giving back to him. "It's not always possible to understand your enemies," Zach said. "Not all are comprehensible. Why they do what they do, doesn't really matter in the long run though. If they did it for a higher calling or just for shits and giggles, once they're stopped they're stopped. Who cares about the rest?"

 _That thing about Mark was signed -D. How could I ignore something like that? How could I still?!_ Mineta closed his eyes tightly as Zach spoke like a completely different person from the one he thought he knew. His closed eyes parted though and he stared at Zach in confusion, _Were those tears fake though? When he couldn't- he couldn't pretend like he wasn't Mark's friend. Even though he was trying to, because he had to- but he couldn't. He couldn't do it and told us how much Mark meant to him, and if Mark really did save him like that, then that's why Death had to let him know. Or Gentle! The Gentle Criminal is the new Death, because Zach handed off the "mantle" to him? Is that all true? I- I don't know anything about any of this!_

Yaoyorozu felt a pain in her own chest while looking at Zach after what he just said. _Evil? Some people just enjoy being horrible?_ Her eyes closed and she tilted her head to the side to try and mask that expression she knew was on her face. _So that beautiful world. Where people are inherently good. You don't believe in that anymore, do you?_ Momo's eyes shifted back to Zach who was making eye contact with Midoriya as his former classmate balled his fists and clenched them tighter and tighter each second.

 _I have to grab him. Arrest him now._ Midoriya thought it to a bad taste in his mouth and a clenching feeling in his gut. _Why does he want to talk now though? Is he saying he won't talk later? Will we ever get to see him again or will he deny us in Tartaros like he did before?! Is this… Is this really the last time, we can ever talk?_ Midoriya's fists clenched even harder. "When you," Deku began. His voice was low, and his eyes interrogating as he stared into Zach's. "Took on Mongoloid," he continued, and he searched Zach's eyes only to see a nod back for him to continue. Midoriya bit down and then asked in a strained voice, "How did you know what was really going on in there, when no one else knew?"

Mineta glanced to his left side at the taller green-haired boy next to him who looked and sounded so serious with that question. "Someone got word out from inside," Zach replied. He made Mineta spin right back to him, while Midoriya tried to keep his same unwavering look as he interrogated his friend. He expected a more vague answer or something about how Zach did not know but guessed- and yet Zach answered differently and made Midoriya just get more frustrated instead. Zach explained though before he could get questioned, "The images taken from inside the country would have been doubted though. Their authenticity would be questioned, and the UN would argue about what to do, they'd accuse Mongoloid and he'd send in the doctored pictures of his palace, and he'd have Firesale and Algebra Man make new pictures showing those same heads on spikes back on their bodies and looking perfectly fine. And in all that time waiting for someone else, for a hero, Mongoloid would have consolidated his control over the country and made it impossible to stop him. He'd appoint new heroes, and keep WhyFight blocking communications from inside except for what he wanted to get out, and he was planning on expanding control out into Gorran too…" Zach paused and he closed his mouth for a moment.

"Do you disagree?" Zach asked. He questioned the six in front of him who were not interrupting, and he stared directly into Midoriya's eyes after the question. "As heroes and civilians were being executed, as the old military and villains were being recruited into Mongoloid's army, as millions lived in the dark with no knowledge of what was really happening to their country, was it wrong to go in there when Mongoloid was supposed to have that month-long grace period?"

"No-" Ashido started.

"You say 'go in there,'" Midoriya spoke at the same time as Ashido and spoke in a more steady and louder tone too. The pink girl turned her head and stared over in surprise, but then she eased back as Midoriya took a step forward towards Zach and became the closest one to where he was sitting. "But you _invaded_ a country. You brought military hardware: helicopters and armored vehicles, automatic weapons and rockets, and you invaded a country with an army at your back-"

"I didn't-" Zach started, but then he cut himself off. "I mean I did, Death did-" Zach closed his mouth and clenched his teeth for a second. _There's no way I'd be able to explain that to them._ "I did," Zach started again, his voice softer while he stared into Midoriya's eyes to show he was not denying any of that. Deku closed his mouth that he snapped open to yell about how he knew all of that was true, and Zach continued to his friend standing straight in front of him, "But that's what was needed to beat him."

"That's not true!" Midoriya snapped back. "Doing something like that-"

"I didn't see you doing anything!" Zach growled, cutting off Midoriya as he leaned forward in his seat and narrowed his eyes in a pissed way at his former classmate. Midoriya froze with his mouth open, the others behind Deku all looking past at Zach with wider eyes too at that counter. For the first time sounding genuinely defensive, and angry at them, which at the same time made them each realize that he was defending himself here as much as he appeared calm and collected. As the others pondered over that though, Midoriya just thought on what Zach snapped at him, and he pulled his head back at the frustrated way Zach was staring into his eyes. "I didn't see anyone doing anything better, and people were suffering _then._ They couldn't wait, and there was no _better_ way to do it if the better way meant waiting a month and letting a fucking villain like Mongoloid rule over a country with an iron fist for all that time. That is the _better_ way you want to mention right? Waiting until I had better confirmation like the rest of the world was?"

"That's what the UN and all the heroes use as their excuse for why they didn't do anything to stop him. A lack of information," Zach glared deeper into Midoriya's eyes while saying it. "And because they couldn't 'confirm' that Mongoloid was a villain, they didn't do anything to stop him. But I did. I fought him in his palace and I threw him at the feet of the people he had wronged with as many of his Demons as-"

"Most of the Demons died before the war trials ever happened," Iida cut in. He stepped forward too to almost next to Midoriya, and he said in a lower voice, "Killed by your comrades-"

"My men were dying too!" Zach yelled back. He stood up off his chair and said it furiously while staring into Iida's eyes. "It was _war!"_ Zach called it out and everything was quiet around him. He looked into Iida's eyes in a frustrated way, and he shifted them to Midoriya's too while his face scrunched up and his eyes searched for understanding in his friend's. "It was war," he repeated in a low voice. It was a word he repeated often, but always while he was talking about different worlds.

Midoriya closed his eyes for a second, then he opened them back up and responded in just as low a voice, "No, it wasn't." Zach curled his hands but they shook before going into fists, loosening up as his eyes just half-closed and lowered down to the ground. "You acted as a vigilante and a terrorist, carrying out operations using illegal weapons and Quirk-enhancing drugs in countries all over the world. You killed villains with no oversight to judge whether you were justified to do so. You were Death," Midoriya said in the most certain tone he ever said it to Zach before. His expression darkened more and he said lower, "And you handed the mantle off to the Gentle Criminal-"

"You need to keep that a secret," Zach said. Midoriya was going to just speak louder over any of Zach's interruptions from when he started on, but he got confused by what Zach said and stopped his speech that was leading to something important. Zach knew what it was already though, and he stared into Midoriya's eyes while the others all stared at the two of them having seen what Midoriya was about to do there. "Put the people I killed in Nigeria on me. Or any number of crimes other than being Death. But not that I was him." _Not that_ _ **I**_ _ever was._

"You were though-" Midoriya started.

"Death isn't a person," Zach countered back harsher than Midoriya was speaking. He stared at him determinedly and said in a steady voice, "It's an idea. If you're evil, Death will come for you."

"Don't you see that you're instilling fear with that kind of talk?" Iida asked, stepping forward angrily.

"I was merciful enough that it doesn't," Zach replied. He looked at Iida and said simply, "No one fears that the Army of Death is going to come and wreak havoc, as even in the most trying times I almost always showed mercy."

"And, what about Yemen?" Ashido asked.

Midoriya and Iida both looked over their shoulders. Ashido hesitated for a second, but then she walked a couple steps closer and looked curiously and softly past the other two and into Zach's eyes. "What Darling said about Yemen, she said you were going to kill them all." Ashido said it and her lips trembled as she tried to force a smile, "That, wasn't right, right? You wouldn't have…"

"Yemen was…" Zach trailed off for a second. He looked towards Ashido and said in a low voice, "The war was-"

"You weren't at war," Midoriya snapped. "That was a fiction you created!" He called it out louder, his teeth clenching afterwards in frustration as he saw Zach's look of denial towards what he was saying. _Can he really not tell the difference? He said he lost his mind in that Void he was trapped in. And I- I still have to make him face justice here, even if that sounded like a worse punishment than I could imagine._

"It wasn't," Zach tried to counter, shaking his head back at Midoriya and then attempting to look over at Mina again.

"Yes it was," Iida said. He made Zach's head turn the other way towards him, and Iida shook his head with a similar look of conflicted anger as Midoriya had on his face. "It was fake. A lie. What you were doing was vigilantism, perhaps on a greater scale but nonetheless-"

"That's not-" Zach started and he grit his teeth to shake his head around for a second. "You want to know what I was doing?" Zach asked. He looked at Iida and asked if Iida wanted to hear it before saying that so assuredly to him.

"I want to know why," Yaoyorozu said. She stepped forward past Ashido who turned to her in surprise at her sudden move forward. She looked at Zach and stared in a steady way hiding the shaken nerves inside. "Why did you do, all of it? What was the reason?" Yaoyorozu whispered the final question with a softness in her eyes as Zach looked back at her. They locked eyes and Zach slowly nodded before lowering his gaze down to the floor thoughtfully.

Zach's lips curled down at the corners. _"Why?" How do I explain, all the reasons…_ Zach's eyes turned mildly red, and they closed more as he thought faster and then rose those eyes back up with the red shade leaving them. He sat back down on the seat behind him and spoke in a low voice, "I was what the world deserved, not what it needed. That is to say, the world is amazing and deserved to have someone willing to throw away everything to save it. Yet the people of the world needed heroes. They _needed_ to be saved in the _correct_ way, and in that case, they _deserved_ someone better than me too." Zach paused and he frowned deeper at the failure of what he just said to get across what he wanted to say. "In reality, the world, as in this planet, needed someone like me to do things the wrong way. Yet the world, as in its people, needed the opposite. The world was so great that it deserved to be kept alive in its beautiful form, but it couldn't be with the way things were going. It couldn't stay _good_ with the villains doing what they were doing and planning a downfall, and the world deserved those things to be stopped _no matter what._ "

 _He did throw away everything, he did but-_ Ashido's hands trembled at her sides. _I don't understand. I don't- I just don't know._

"Even if the world deserved to be saved-" Midoriya did not know how he was starting that, but he disagreed strongly and shook his head fast at Zach despite not getting it out well. "Whatever it was, you could have done those things just as a hero. You could have saved so many and still-"

"The world didn't need another hero. What it needed, was a monster," Zach's words caused a chill to run down his friends' bodies. He sat there with his shoulders broad and far apart, his hands down gripping his thighs, and his face covered in menacing scars. "A monster to make it so the people of the world never have to accept that what the world needs in a monster," Zach continued, shaking his head as it came out because what he was saying already told him how this was going to go. He went on anyway though, "That's what I was. What we all were. The people who came to understand that became my comrades as they too did not want anyone else to fall like we had. And I believed, that if people ever accepted what I was doing, then I had failed. That if the world ever reached a point where people were ready to kill all villains, accept torture and legalize vigilante justice which is no justice at all when there is no due process, then I had failed in preventing that kind of world from rising."

"But you were doing those exact things," Midoriya said with a shake of his head. His tone was angry, but also so confused at how Zach could be saying such seemingly contradictory things to them.

"And they were illegal," Zach responded with a nod back at Deku who stared at him with wider eyes at the response. "I acted as a monster willing to do horrible things to ensure that no one ever accepts those horrible things as necessary evils. Because if anyone did, that's what it would have become. And people almost accepted me- Even though I tried so hard to make…" Zach trailed off and he paused with a reluctant look over his face while his friends stared at him with wider eyes that told him to continue that sentence. "Even though Kazania wasn't even me," he said in a low voice. "I was happy to take the blame, because I _needed_ to be designated as a terrorist. It shouldn't have taken as long as it did."

"Why would you want-" Mineta started, stepping forward and shaking his head in disbelief.

"Because what I was doing was wrong," Zach interrupted the short boy who stopped where he was. He said it to Mineta and shook his head with such a frustrated look, "Right and wrong are not hard things to see. And I, I could see that other people struggled with them so often, because I had too! I had struggled with morality before, and I knew how hard it was for some people who had seen so much bad to determine what the right response was. What the _acceptable_ response was. What they were willing to let happen… My actions were not based on morality but on the desire to keep the world's value of morality high. Because destroying that was everything the villains wanted!"

Zach panted a couple of times, his breaths coming in ragged and his eyes shifting from one confused friend to the next. "Even though from afar it would seem like villains would want to avoid like that, it's true. Because in that kind of world, the line between heroes and villains blurs as they all kill people, they just kill people who follow different ideologies. And yeah people would say that clearly one ideology was correct, the heroes' one. Yet when someone like Stain arises, or someone like, me?" Zach asked it while pulling his head back, and he looked at his friends who stared at him with much wider eyes at the idea he was posing to them. "What happens when the heroes pick one side and popular opinion might pick another? Or the sides are evenly split, and everyone is willing to kill for what they _know_ is _right._ Sometimes, people are willing to kill for their ideals. Sometimes, they believe so strongly that they're right that anyone who disagrees is thereby _wrong,_ and in a world where those who are _wrong_ can be killed by those who think they're right and those people won't be punished, how long until wars start?"

"That's all conjecture," Iida started. "You can't make decisions to do wrong based on a guess of what might happen due to a change in human behavior-"

"It wasn't just conjecture," Zach argued back. "I saw it. I could see it happening and knew I needed to stop-"

"You're wrong," Midoriya said firmly. "It wouldn't happen like that-"

"It did!" Zach shouted. He pulled his head back after yelling and then leaned forward and called out, "It came close- SO CLOSE!" Zach yelled it and then shut his mouth with so much frustration over his face as his eyes shifted back to Ashido for a second, then to Yaoyorozu before going back to Midoriya right in front of him. "Yemen!" He called it out and then he planted his hands firmly down closer to his knees. His fingers curled down tightly and his breath came in with a steady inhale and then out in a quiet way. "King, Fergus, and Eziano Mozcaccio, I went to war with these men unlike I did with anyone else…"

"Who is, Eziano Mozcaccio?" Iida asked. He rose his eyebrows and questioned in as much an angry tone as a frustrated one that he still did not know this even though Zach had known that name back before the Lifebringer Incident.

"He's the one who's been sending all the assassins after Zach," Mineta said with a glance to his left.

"You knew?" Iida asked in a harsher tone. Then, his eyes widened more as he darted them around and spotted every other person there also knew this already.

"You could've known too," Mineta muttered in an annoyed voice back at the taller teen he turned away from to look back at Zach instead. "But, I don't really know who this guy is either," he added which had Zach look to the short boy frowning hesitantly at him. "So, can you tell us now? Who he really is?"

"Eziano Mozcaccio," Zach started. His voice stayed dark and his eyes darted towards the trees and nearby abandoned buildings, on instinct more than anything. "He instigated conflicts around the world for no reason. Conflict for conflict's sake. His motivation is still an unknown, but he doesn't do it for money. I don't know his ideology, though there may be some religious aspect to it based on new intel-"

"What new intel have you been receiving?" Iida asked harshly.

"The Canadian sniper I interrogated before turning over," Zach replied immediately and in as harsh a way back at Iida. "His partner was part of Eziano's actual organization and not just another hitman. The one who escaped me, just like the one who had been tracking me for weeks whose identity remains unknown to the police and never will be discovered, because he doesn't have a real identity anymore." Zach rose his eyebrows at Iida but did not hear another interruption or question coming so he nodded and continued. "He was at the Sports Festival Invasion. The worst assassin in the world, am I wrong Midoriya?" Zach asked. He looked to his green-haired classmate who hesitated with a look around at the others who all turned his way. "You've met him too, yeah?"

"Midoriya?" Yaoyorozu asked, looking to the boy on her left whose eyes nervously shifted back to her.

 _Don't say anything about All Might, Zach… Why? Why is he bringing this up now? Why mention how I- does he just want, everyone to believe him?_ "Eziano is, real," Midoriya said while looking back around at the others to his right. He felt so uneasy as he said it, because he knew that he was saying it because Zach didn't want everyone thinking he was a liar. "And he was there," Midoriya added. "But, I don't know anything more about him, other than what you've told me," Midoriya finished while looking back to Zach, saying it like all the rest could be a lie.

"Really? That's all?" Zach asked. Midoriya froze at the question, and his face looked guilty as the others around him looked his way only to get more confused as to why he would react like that. "It doesn't matter though," Zach continued and had everyone looking back at him. "I know more about Eziano than anyone in the world outside of his organization. Those assassins are tight-lipped, and most under Eziano's employ don't know anything. But by February of last year I already knew how he operated. Bolivar explained it to me when I caught him."

"You didn't catch Bolivar-" Iida started.

"Yes I did," Zach said back without pausing. Iida's stern expression he had when he said that became so hesitant and uncertain as Zach just kept talking without even lingering to explain himself. "And unlike Zolo and Turbo who I had to leave to Endeavor, I had that Shadow Boss tell me everything. All about the underworld's inner workings that he knew better than anyone from the top of that world. And I learned all about Eziano's operations over the past several decades that Bolivar was around for. Things that ran deep and had such powerful impacts that Bolivar was visibly afraid of the man he was ratting on, just like most men in the world who know of him are. Eziano could cause a single assassination that would result in a rise in an ideology, create a martyr, or lead to a different person being elected in the next election based on reactions of the populace to the death. He looked a hundred steps into the future and made careful moves no one could track back to him, passed them off as accidents or ideological attacks by crazy villains-"

"Zach," Midoriya began. His voice was low, but instead of harsh it was more serious than anything. Zach looked into Deku's eyes while his friend stared back at him with a wavering gaze, "If he's that strong, why didn't you catch him?" The other five looked to Midoriya confusedly at the wording of that question.

Zach shook his head though at the question Deku was asking him. "I _couldn't_ catch him," Zach replied. His voice was frustrated and angry, and he shook his head in that pissed-off frustration, "I tried, Midoriya. I really did. But he could disappear in an instant, and just as quickly he could appear in the middle of my ranks and kill people I cared about, then disappear again like it was nothing. His men and the assassins he brought with him weren't so lucky. Phinx and Lee attacked my forces with him at one point," Zach said it while staring into Midoriya's eyes in a dark way. "And when they attacked your mom I thought for sure that I had made a mistake letting them live, but you told me it wasn't, and I still believe that."

"That's not-" Midoriya froze after opening his mouth and starting to reply so quickly to that.

"Midoriya, did you know-" Ashido began in shock.

"No, I just," he turned back to Zach in so much more of a hesitant way. "We just talked about them before. But, you didn't tell me where it was you had caught them. You didn't tell me, that they had come after-"

"Phinx killed so many of my men," Zach growled at Deku before he could finish. "Gentle was leading them while I was in America alone with Darling for a little, and I later discovered that Phinx led the attack on them that killed seven of mine. I was so dumb, declaring war on Eziano Mozcaccio like I understood who it was I was going against…"

Yaoyorozu's breath hitched as she stared with shaking eyes at Zach. In her head she heard what she and Zach had talked about that day in the part when she first came to him in Yutapu, _**"…While I was gone, I thought I needed the Hunter's help again. So I called him, and EM picked up… I don't know how he knew, but he was angry with me for saying his name in that forest. Maybe he looked at the police records and some of you mentioned what I had said. Maybe some of the villains who escaped let him know. I don't know. But he had killed the Hunter, and he was waiting for my call… And I stupidly challenged him. I told him I didn't care that he was after me now, because I was going to destroy him and his whole organization."**_

 _He was, telling me the truth. That day he really, he was really telling me the truth!_ _ **It was a stupid thing to do. I challenged him before I knew any of the secrets of the world. Before I knew about who he really was, about Fergus, the real League, the corruption that went deeper than anyone knew… the labs, Quirks, I didn't know anything about them. And I challenged possibly the most powerful man in the world… He was right when he called me green. I didn't know his power, but I would come to."**_

"But even Eziano's assassins not a part of his organization like Phinx, were insanely powerful and capable of anything. Phinx killed my men there, then he was there when we attacked the Syndicate in the Dragon's Den to stop the Christmas nuke. He was there when Eziano attacked my headquarters-"

"Christmas nuke? What are you talking-" Iida began in such a frustrated voice.

"I found a child with the power of a nuclear bomb who villains were using to try and-" Zach bit down hard for a second and his teeth ground over each other in pure, raw emotion. Iida pulled back and his eyes shook at the look on Zach's face as he started right there. "They were going to nuke Paris. Throw the boy into the city and make him explode, to cause so much widespread chaos in the long-term that the League planned on, and that they and Fergus hired mercenaries to make sure it happened. And that boy died in my arms, and the kid tried so hard to the moment he died not to let any radiation out, trying not to kill me despite it being my fault he got shot. A seven year old- or eight year old boy, holding back his glowing light because it was melting through my arms, after he had pushed me out of the way and taken Phinx's Spike to the chest."

"And in Yemen! I knew it had to be them!" Zach spoke faster and his voice got louder, his heart rate speeding up which had his chest starting to hurt inside. "I _knew_ , it had to be him. I had seen it from afar. I could see all the hints that it was Eziano who was creating this increasing turmoil inside the country. Leading to a civil war where I was between two sides who believed they were right. Sides about to massacre each other, fight and kill and be willing to die over things that they already felt strongly about but got even more passionate for when a couple of their compatriots died. Both sides felt they had martyrs, they felt they needed to fight harder for the ones who had been killed already, as people _always_ feel in those kinds of situations. Once blood is shed, feelings only intensify. And with blood shed on both sides, with both sides having people who are ready to kill if they don't get their way, and neither backing down when the other threatens to do it. There was war on the horizon, and I couldn't stop it! But-"

"Zach!" Sero's voice cut Zach out of his thoughts and his rapid speech. He looked to his left and back at Sero who did not come any closer to him. The others all looked back at him, and Sero asked while looking at Zach with such a confused look, "What are you talking about? What, happened in Yemen?"

Ashido spun quickly back to Zach, "Yeah. You- what you're talking about isn't… There wasn't a war there."

"None of that…" Midoriya stopped himself. He paused and he bit down as Zach panned his gaze back to him. "How could- how could any of that have happened?"

"How could all this have happened without anyone knowing?" Yaoyorozu added more specifically.

"Because even in the bloodiest days of any war, in 99 percent of the rest of the world, absolutely nothing is happening," Zach replied softly. His breathing calmed down, and he continued in a lower voice, "In my darkest days, on death's door with my comrades slaughtered in front of me, dying every day with me unable to do anything to save them, I continued to fight without rest. And while I fought, I made sure to keep my war secret. Not so we wouldn't be caught or hunted by heroes, but so the world wouldn't know about those darkest days. I didn't want anyone to know just how close so many had gotten to war, to complete destruction of our society…"

Sero's expression shook as he stared at Zach's completely serious face while he said these things. Iida shook his head in more disbelief, and the six in front of Zach were pretty much split with half believing him like Sero, and others like Iida… "What you're describing," Iida began. "It's impossible."

"Why would you do that?" Yaoyorozu asked. Her voice was softer and she stared at Zach's face with her own nervous. She was willing to believe, but her heart was also pounding as she did not know if she could or not with something that sounded so impossible like Iida said. Like Iida, Mineta, and Midoriya all felt it was.

Zach answered her in a low voice that made every person there freeze up completely, "So that to the rest of the world, these things are impossible."

His response shattered Iida's look of denial, and his right foot slid back on the floor while he leaned his head backwards, staring at Zach with massive eyes. It took Mineta a couple more seconds as he tried to put that together with what he was just thinking in his head. _It is impossible, though, right? But I- but what if I, only think that because… what? What?!_

"My goal wasn't just victory. It was a total victory. Victory in all means. I wanted a victory where I could look around and see smiling faces and everyone feeling safe. In a world where people knew how bad things really were, in a world where people could see the things I had seen," Zach's face twitched and his eyes started shaking. "The horrible, twisted things that no innocent person should ever be plagued with the knowledge of- things that I wish-" Zach's teeth ground over each other and then all those images starting to flash through his mind cut away as his focus returned fully to the six people in front of him. _What happens here decides the rest of my life. I have to, have to convince them of something. I have to save myself. As I said, a total victory._

"Just as I wanted to keep my actions in the shadows to preserve the good though, Eziano wanted the opposite. He wanted to hide his own involvement so that people would think that they were naturally worse than they were. He'd influence conflicts and then leave people to believe that other people just like them were capable of these horrible things when there really was someone pulling the strings above them all the time." Zach shook his head while his friends were all staring at him with huge eyes at the ideological fight completely in the shadows that no one in the world had any knowledge of. A battle to influence people's hearts and minds, and considering they had thought it was so impossible for these things to happen, made each of them start to wonder if it was Zach who was winning that fight.

 _Is that why Eziano's trying so hard to kill him?_ Midoriya thought in shock as he watched his former classmate talk about this in a steady voice. Zach sat there looking as formidable as any person Midoriya had ever seen before. His stature gave off a power unrivaled, and despite being shorter than them the way he was sitting, Midoriya felt like he was looking up at the person sitting before him.

"He and his assassins were always there. In every major conflict their organization had a hand in it. I'd see them popping up on all corners of the world as much as my friends and I were. And I was fighting on every continent, in every country in the world, but wherever we went, they were already there. He went so far as to infiltrating my own ship, killing some of the crew I left there before I could return, and then he cut my own throat in the ensuing fight." Zach rose his left hand and brushed it across the front of his neck over the red skin, where the gash scar indicated where his throat had been slit as he had also mentioned that first day in the hospital. "But I still forced him to flee while holding my own neck closed, and Curalia hit me before I could lose too much blood…" _I knew I needed to do Wampajawa soon after, because the time it took to replenish those numbers and train new soldiers, and to recover myself, would give the villains time to reinforce that city even more. I had to send Blackjack in early… and I finally rushed too fast._

"Zach," Yaoyorozu whispered.

Zach rose his head and looked to the black-haired girl who stepped forward so she was right next to Midoriya, as close to him as anyone there. Midoriya hesitantly looked next to him at the girl standing at his side who looked at Zach so softly right here. "Tell us," she said. "What really happened in Yemen. I want the truth. The full truth of what happened there." Zach stared into her eyes and could see the light gray of her irises in the light given off from the glowsticks on her waist. "Not what I heard on the news a year ago about a couple of protests, a couple that went wrong," she paused as Zach's face darkened and his eyes lowered to the ground. "Tell us everything about it. All that Eziano did-"

"It wasn't-" Zach started but he stopped and clenched his teeth tightly together. He rose his head and he looked up at the girl before him. He sat and although looking powerful, he did not appear intimidating as everyone else stood and he was in a more defenseless position. Zach stared at Yaoyorozu in a dark way as he rose his eyes to hers, "I thought, that it had to be him. When I saw what was happening from afar, I _knew_ that there had to be a link between him and Yemen. That war that you deny happened, that you think were just protests and a couple violent clashes surrounding the issue of Quirk usage… It was more than that."

Zach sat up more and he spoke to the whole of the six before him and not just Yaoyorozu. "The protests had escalated. There was a march planned on the capital, but the government feared it would become violent so they declined the protest permit, but the protestors said they would march anyway and had the support of a few heroes who said they had the right to do it. It all happened so fast…" Zach shook his head for a brief moment with a much darker look covering his face. "I showed up too late to do anything to stop it. No heroes were reacting fast enough, because no one else saw what I could already see coming. No one saw what that protest was going to turn into, even though I could see it so clearly."

His dark eyes locked into Iida's eyes on his right, "The government said the night before the protest was still planned to happen, that any march on the city would be considered as a riot and be broken up by police with the assistance of heroes, which only made the heroes who had been defending those people get more inclined to go against it saying it was putting down civil discourse with authoritarianism. Other heroes countered that with the recent loss of life in two of the previous protests surrounding this issue, the government was justified to stop anyone else from getting hurt…" Zach paused and he bit down hard, then he shook his head and said in a seething whisper, "And I didn't know what side was right. The people who did not want change like the government, who were fewer in number but had the support of more heroes, or the larger marching group that became more legitimate with each hero to join them. I thought, I thought that this had to be Eziano's doing."

Zach shook his head with a dark and furious look on his face. "I'd seen the assassins and the League of Shadows trying to push conflict and war all over the world, and here it was finally coming to a head." The others before Zach stared at him in complete shock, with no idea of what this was or what he was talking about. "The first shot was staged," Zach whispered. He said it and shook his head, but he rose it up and looked at Midoriya, "The shooter who had admitted to it after being captured, a man from the conservative loyalists, believed the progressives pushing for change in Quirk laws would destroy the fabric of their nation. I investigated the site of the shooting, while my comrades went to infiltrate the protest groups beforehand to try and defuse the situation. And when I investigated the man who had taken the shot, I found that the guy was not in the right location for the angle of where the bullet hit that first dead protestor, and even if he had been, there was nothing in his past or with his Quirk that would suggest he could have made that shot."

"It wasn't hard to get into that town-jail he was being held in with so many heroes called to the capital for the next morning," Zach continued in a low voice, his eyes shifting to his left over at Sero who had taken a few steps forward but was still behind more of the others. "I interrogated him and found out who he had been convinced to accept the guilt from, and I did not have to go far to find that killer as the real assassin was there to tie up that loose end. He almost killed me, but I pulled away as the hole ripped through the jail's wall, and the shot only grazed my right side before blowing the framed man's head apart." Zach shook his head with an even darker look on his face, imagining the pain of the shot ripping through his right side deeper than he was giving the 'graze' credit for.

He looked to Mineta and continued in a low voice, "I got that assassin and beat him half to death." He said it seriously and darkly, and Mineta's eyes shook as Zach looked him straight in the eyes while admitting to that. "And I demanded to know how he was doing this to the country," Zach continued, his face scrunching up more as he looked into the shorter boy's uneasy expression. Mineta's face got more surprised, and then shocked at the pain that covered Zach's face. "I needed to know how he had gotten the protestors to kill three loyalists counter-protesting at the last big protest after the first shot, and how he was manipulating everything to come to what I could see would become a massacre. The next morning that I _knew_ was going to turn so bloody."

Zach closed his eyes tightly, then he opened them looking at Ashido and into her shaking eyes. "I could see that the protestors were willing to do more at the last one when they killed the loyalists, as that one was well-documented and several arrests had been made, and this time the ones protecting the capital would feel that much more of a need to defend it from the violent rioters! He laughed at me," Zach said it in pain. He said it and shook his head while looking in pain into Mina's eyes, "A single man, in Yemen with the sole purpose to make the country go to war with itself, and he laughed as he said to me: 'Nothing.' He had done nothing, except take a single shot," Zach's heart ached and he felt it breaking as he watched Ashido's face cover in confusion and disbelief, then realization at what he was telling her to be the truth that just made it hurt even more. "He had taken a single shot, and he pinned it on someone willing to take the blame… or the glory as that guy believed."

"I couldn't believe it," Zach said with a look around at all the others. "I had, been lost as to how this was happening. While my soldiers were everywhere across the country and they saw no sign of other villains influencing these events. It was sunrise, and my men had already infiltrated both groups of protestors to try and keep things calm but- but I knew that day was going to get bloody and fast. I knew it as that assassin taunted me for how minimal his own involvement with it was. About how all it took was a little push, and he turned families against families, neighbors against neighbors, generations with different values pit against each other and all he did was give them a little nudge."

Zach paused, then his eyes finally locked on Yaoyorozu's as he whispered, "War, he said, was always that close. All over the world, as long as there are people there will be conflict, and what does Death do when there are no villains to fight? When both sides feel they are right so strongly, and now with their martyrs are willing to fight for their beliefs, what happens when one side marching forward doesn't stop and the other side standing firm doesn't budge? What happens when one hero says it's right and the other says it's wrong?" Zach's face shook and his teeth clenched as he felt a pressure down on him that he remembered that day, as he dropped the laughing assassin who could see that he realized it. _**"There is no stopping it! Because what you're fighting isn't me, it's human nature! And that's something, even Death cannot change…"**_

"…And with everyone knowing that this protest or lack of one would decide the fate of the country, how radical will those who show up be? How many of them will there be?" Zach posed these questions in a nervous way, his heart pounding as he asked his peers who were trying to wrap their heads around it all, as none of them were doubting it anymore.

"Things would calm down," Iida said. He shook his head at Zach who looked to him frustratedly, and he said, "The heroes would talk it out and-"

"The time for talk was over," Zach said darkly, interrupting Iida in a tone saying that Iida had no idea what he was talking about. "The government called for the protest leaders to come and talk," he continued before Iida could try to counter. Iida paused as he did not know that, or anything about this for the matter which made him close his mouth as Zach continued to him, "But they had already been talking and talking to no change at all. The government did not want the change and that had become clear, even though Yemen's villain rates were higher than ever, even though countries around them like Gorran, and Saudi Arabia, and Egypt had all started changing laws to positive impacts… They weren't going to wait. They weren't going to calm down and talk it out."

"I could see it," Zach whispered, his eyes raising up and his heart straining in his chest as he felt so much weight slamming down on his shoulders. His eyes looked glazed over as his friends stared at him, as Zach said quietly but so strongly, "All the pieces were in place. The environment was volatile, the people were strained, and heroes were uncertain of the right path. The rule of law? Where things had to be changed slowly and would only be changed over two years from then when the next elections were? Or was popular opinion what mattered most? They were there to fight for the people, right? Not for the government?" Zach shook his head and continued in a strained voice himself, "The heroes were uncertain over whether to stand with their comrades or to hold to whatever their beliefs were and stand firmly to those, but as conflicted as they were, there were those who had no uncertainty and believed in their sides so strongly after their friends had died for it. And those people were the ones who took charge, because the heroes had shown the weakness in their resolves, they showed that they all still wanted to talk… and so their voices were trampled on by those who were ready for action."

His voice got even darker as he went on, "And they had to decide. The heroes who were with the protestors could decide to stand down and stand with the loyalists instead to stop the protest, but if they did that, they might lose the protestors altogether and be unable to try and reign them in anymore. They'd be giving up on their beliefs too to join with others who had already condemned them. And the others, they had been given their orders and were going to stand their ground, and they could not stop the loyalists who arrived to help them from around the country." Zach paused and his eyes closed as he said in a low tone, "Hundreds gathered at first, then thousands converged on the starting place for both protests while the heroes did their own things."

"First, the fewer heroes part of the protesting group joined up with the others to try and keep things looking calm and legal to try and convince the counter-protestors to stand down. And the heroes who established a line just outside of the city, were passed by the counter-protestors who started to move and were allowed to march out of the city. They left to make their own defensive line farther ahead to not let the protestors get even close, as they thought their own weak heroes might back down if confronted by such a large crowd. The protestors were riled up on both sides, and my own comrades who were mixed in called me and reported that they tried to ease tensions as people hyped each other up, but anyone who went against that mob mentality like my friends tried to were called spies or anti-Yemeni and attacked by those around them, pushing them around and screaming at them to go away if they didn't want a part of this." Zach's voice got quicker and stayed in a low and dark tone, "They had to ease back and they didn't know what was right either. My men pulled back from the front lines, as more and more people seemed to arrive every second and moved forward with no intention to stop."

He shook his head and looked back straight into Momo's wide eyes, "The war was about the use of Quirks, people wanting to be free to use their powers and those who wanted to keep them restricted." He said it in pain and his face scrunched up which made Yaoyorozu's breath speed up and her heart race even faster, at the look of guilt rising on his face. "I felt responsible and didn't want anyone to kill each other over it. I, didn't want people to reach that point I had talked about in my research paper. I didn't want violence-" Zach closed his eyes and he shook his head so frustratedly. "But the Army of Death was looking for people inciting riots, the villains who _must_ have been behind it, and yet when they got inside those riots themselves they saw what the truth really was. Riot mentality was legitimately terrifying, and it didn't really need a huge push. They couldn't stop it. If they weren't with the crowd, they had to be against it and were pushed around and yelled at for not being one with the mob mentality. The violence intensified more as people saw their own beliefs being backed up by violence that silenced my dissenting comrades, and they saw that violence worked at getting what they wanted- we couldn't stop it. I could hear them over my headset, the roars of those people in Arabic getting stronger and stronger every second. I told my men to stand down because they were being attacked inside the mobs just for trying to keep it calm, and if they couldn't do it then neither could the few heroes too conflicted to sound strong and stop it."

"Just because it was about Quirk usage, that doesn't mean it was your fault-" Yaoyorozu began to the boy who had rehearsed his speech and edited his report with her for so long. She said it in pain, and she shook her head at him for the guilty look she saw over his face.

"I know but I- I still needed to stop it!" Zach called back at her in even more frustration which made her lean back with her eyes even bigger at the panic on his face. "I needed to stop it but I had no villains to fight! I- I said my goal was just to stop villains but I-" Zach's fists clenched down over his legs and he shook his head hard while bowing his face to look down into his lap. "I flew back as fast as I could, which was faster than doing it myself. I was across the country, and after knocking out the assassin I needed to get there as fast as possible so I jumped in the villain's Super Jet on the roof of the building next to the jail, and I flew as fast as I could towards the capital. And I heard my comrades yelling to me asking what to do as the sides were screaming at each other now, as they were right across from each other on a field of sand outside of the city. I had to fly _faster,_ and I became reckless and my comrades told me they couldn't stop it, that the people were talking about charging at the city, and some people were baring their Quirks or popping them off in the air to try and intimidate the others to back down… And I spotted them."

His face looked so dark as he muttered that last sentence. He said it and he rose his head up looking as dark as they had seen him before. All of them thought about what Darling had said about Yemen, about what he had said in his speech there that had each of them getting even more unnerved than just by his face. Zach continued in an ominous, dark voice, "I knew I had to make an entrance to cut the tensions and get everybody to stop and listen for a second, to calm them down and let me try to explain and blame it all on that assassin's first move…" He paused and shook his head, looking to Midoriya slightly on his right and saying in a low voice, "But I knew that wouldn't have worked. When I crashed that plane because I was moving too fast, because I didn't know how to fucking land it-" He clenched his teeth for a second, his left hand tightening even more though he could not feel the pain of his fingernails digging into his steel palm."

His friends stared at him with eyes growing even wider as his left arm shook at his side, his eyes lowering down to his hand that he opened up in front of his stomach. "And as I skid across the desert as my plane exploded into a fireball, I knew I would fail. That those innocent people would fight and kill each other, because a few others had already died. And if this became bloody as that assassin and I imagined it would be, how big would the next incident be? How many people around the country still not fully invested in the conflict would become radicalized, like Darling said earlier-" Zach cut himself off for a second and bit down in agonized frustration. They all remembered the words of his speech that Darling called out, as Zach spoke in that low and pained voice, "The people who fought tomorrow would not be holding back, not after their brothers, sisters, mothers and fathers, and their children were killed by their enemies today."

His voice quieted down and shadows covered his eyes. "I knew all of that as I skid across the ground inside that fireball- and I could hear them outside the wreckage. I had to move. Instead of being the thing that stopped them for a second so I could interrupt, I was going to be the catalyst for what started a civil _war."_ His hands tightened even more, but his right hand moved over to his left arm and he whispered, "I- I knew my left arm was gone, but I couldn't turn to it as I heard all those roars get even louder outside. And I had to get out of the plane even though I had a piece of broken plane impaling my stomach, and as I pushed my way out I ripped my gut open, and I came out of those flames having to hold my insides in with my only hand. I held my hand over it to try and hold it all in, but my intestines were slipping through my own fingers. Slimy and wet and… And in that place where I lost my arm and came so close to dying again, there were no villains."

Zach fell silent for a second and his friends stared at him in complete silence as they tried to imagine this. As they thought of the kind of pressure they could hear in his voice with what he said last right there. The fact that there was no one instigating it, no one to fight and just make the situation resolve itself, and the six of them stared at Zach in shock as he mentioned climbing out of that plane sounding as messed up as he was in the story of the Pit. "And so," Zach began, his voice pained but rising in volume. "As I got my moment of quiet… As those people all shut up seeing me stumble out of the flames looking as fucked up as I did, I had a single moment and I _screamed._ I roared at them so loud my voice nearly broke and I made sure that every last one of them was quiet and would listen to me. Thousands of people on two sides looking in towards me, the only thing stopping them from starting a war, and I yelled at those people everything Airi said and more."

He paused for a second, then he recited in a low voice to his friends before him now, "I told them what was about to happen. I warned them in my loudest screams, in the best Arabic I could, what they were about to do. I screamed at them that they were about to kill each other because of something so small that none of them really wanted to kill or die over. Over something that should and _could_ be changed by just, backing off and talking about it some more. And if those talks failed then talk about it some more, and make a compromise," he said it with his voice growing in pain, his eyes so distressed and horrified as he thought back on that moment so tinted with red. "And when they started to get riled back up, as some of them started screaming at me and getting back- I roared how I would kill them all."

Zach admitted it and he rose his left hand to his head, putting it over his forehead and biting down so hard for a second. "And suddenly there was silence. Absolute silence falling across thousands of people." He shook his head while his teeth clenched furiously under his hand that covered his eyes from his former classmates' sight. They watched as Zach gripped his head so hard with that metal hand covered in fake skin, and he continued in even more pain, "I told them that I would kill every last one of them, because if I killed them all, their people wouldn't want to fight among themselves but would turn all their hatred solely on me, uniting their country. And… and all of my comrades scared and not knowing what to do stepped out of those crowds and turned on the forces who stared in shock at dozens of people whose identities they suddenly discovered. We were in plain clothes, and they saw who I was under the burns and the blood, and they knew who we were."

His voice got even lower and he said in a hoarse voice, "And I would have… But I- I told them that I didn't want to. I warned them, 'Don't make me do that.' I didn't want to make their children into orphans, or to continue the cycle of hate in any direction. I knew that the early fighting, the first death was from a villain who wanted to knock over dominos and it worked perfectly, and now everything was pushed in motion and I had to derail it somehow. But… But would I really have…" Zach gripped his forehead even harder, thinking about how serious he was when he shouted that. "My men who were so unsure and hesitant, they all stood out there between the forces and got ready to fight. They stepped out and the people in those protesting groups suddenly realized what they were doing. Where they were, and what was about to happen, and I screamed at them asking if they really wanted to die over this. They had no idea whose homes would be destroyed, which towns would be for which sides as the people in them turned against each other to determine that whole town or neighborhood's ideology as it became something serious enough to fight and kill over. No one knew! Whose children would burn! Whose lives would be destroyed and how many people would die! And- and the point was to make those people disperse and go back to the drawing board, to get afraid and go talk about it again and again until they came up with a solution… but if that had failed, if that hadn't worked-"

Zach's left hand gripped into his forehead even harder so much that it hurt. "I didn't know what was right," he whispered. "How could killing so many be the answer, but if I didn't then what if- what if tens of thousands died instead? I didn't know the future but I could- I could see that it would happen. If four people dying meant a fight of that magnitude would happen, how much chaos would cover the country if dozens were killed that morning? What about hundreds? And if heroes fell too- the champions of the people who stood by their sides to fight with them- more martyrs thrown on the pile!" Zach bit down on his bottom lip and he shook his head feeling the weight of the world on his shoulders. "…But it worked," he whispered.

His left hand lowered from his head, _What would have been, doesn't matter._ "It worked, and I got the sides to disperse. None of them wanted to die right there. None of them wanted their kids to become radicalized by their deaths. And they all wanted to talk it over again. I shattered the mob mentality and reminded them of their humanity." Zach lifted his eyes and said in a slightly louder and more steady voice, "And they did talk some more. And that volatile situation became the talk of the world for a day or so, because people were so surprised that Yemen's government suddenly had a change of heart and came to a compromise with protestors that more favored the progressive side than anything. Maybe they realized that they really did need more people to know how to use their Quirks, so that a foreign army couldn't show up and threaten to kill them all again. I don't know, but I just know it worked. I stopped that assassin's plan in which the outcome had already seemed inevitable…"

"And I didn't have to kill anyone," Zach whispered at the end, a grateful look on his face as he closed his eyes for a second.

As Zach finished and closed his eyes like that, each of his former classmates felt something new stirring inside them. They stared at their friend who they did not think was lying, even if they did not know if what he was saying would have passed actually would have. _He did it,_ Midoriya thought, his eyes full of belief as he looked at his friend whose eyes opened with so much grief in them. _Even though, he looks like he hates himself for doing it. The sheer agony at the idea that he would have had to kill all those people? Is that what he's thinking?_ Midoriya's head pulled back and his eyes shook at the idea, _To even consider something like that! It's- it's crazy. How could he think that was right?! I… I don't know if he's wrong, or right._ Midoriya thought it with his eyes closing a bit to become normal sized again and with much more of a thoughtful look in them.

Sero's head bowed and he thought back on the first day he went to visit Zach at his apartment. _He told us all about America when he was caught on that security footage, and he really was there. He had left his comrades though, so he was in the Army of Death even when he was there? That, makes sense. And that story about going to the fraternity party while looking for drug dealers, it was true. I know, somehow, that that whole story was true even if he must have lied about so many others in that same voice._ Sero rose his eyes back up with his lips flat as he stared to Zach who met his gaze. _Because he talked about Darling that day. And what he said about her:_ _ **"Darling drank though, a little too much actually… She was much better than me at going undercover, actually drinking and using sleight of hand to not put any booze in my drinks. Even with people around who thought I was drinking, no one noticed her keeping my drinks alcohol-free. Haha… She did it without telling me. She just knew that I didn't want to drink, not even a single sip-"**_ _She knew him so well. That day I knew it, but right there with what just happened, I saw that that Airi girl really was who Zach cared about most. He loved her, and she loved him._

Sero shook his head for a moment while looking away. _I know it shouldn't mean much right now, so why is it all I can think about? The things she talked about… they were so dark. She was so covered in scars just like he is, so does she have as many of these stories as he does? When she was almost raped by "pirates" and you ripped them apart? What the hell does that- Was that in one of those dimensions? Not just the one where you were trapped for years but the one where she said your minds were merged, and she felt what it was like to be you?_ Sero turned back to Zach who had looked to someone else now. _Just how much really happened to you out there? In a single year you were gone, how could so much…_

 _A war diverted. A coliseum-like fighting pit, for slaves, destroyed,_ Yaoyorozu looked down at her hands for a few seconds and she failed at curling them into fists. _And that's just the tip of the iceberg. The other things. Those darker things that you say were so much worse than the Pit,_ her eyes rose up and locked on Zach's as he turned to her. _I don't know how to handle this. I don't know what I'm supposed to do, hearing all of that happened here without anyone knowing. A war still going on even, if Eziano Mozcaccio is still trying to kill you. How? How can everyone be so blind? …Or, is it really everyone? There must be heroes who know the truth. Ones who worked with the Army of Death and accepted credit for the things he talks about. People who were willing to keep quiet about his involvement, because he asked them to? Bolivar was a Shadow Boss? He "interrogated" him? He killed so many people. The way Darling spoke of the men who tried to rape her, she moved right past it but it was the truth. That you killed them all for that. Like you killed the ones who enslaved you at the Pit._

 _Whatever the truth is, what Zach was dealing with is beyond…_ Midoriya clenched his teeth hard at the thought he was starting to have, but his fists loosened anyway. _How much do we really know, about what he was doing? I- I watched as you manipulated the media before but from the light. I saw you pushing your ideals and messages as a sixteen year old acting so well for the cameras. But, if you really wanted to do it more, from the shadows, just how much could you change? About what we believe to be the truth. About, what happened over those thirteen months you were gone. How much of what I think I know is just, misinformation? I- I don't know but I think- I don't know what I think. I need time to think, rather than just acting on impulse here._

Iida's thoughts were straying similar to Zach's, but he lowered his head and then just rose it the smallest amount to look up to the top of his eyes. "Zach, was what Airi said about Stain true?"

"Stain's, ideology, damaged the world too much the first time he was captured," Zach replied hesitantly. He shook his head though with a stronger look on it, "I couldn't risk it happening again. Even if I sent him somewhere where he would have received the death penalty, he would have been given his last words…" Zach saw Stain's face in front of his, as they both held swords and ran at each other. He felt the pain of Stain slashing him, saw his own blood, and then he saw his sword plunged deep through Stain's chest. "And Stain, killed so many heroes, crippled so many others…" Zach trailed off again while Iida curled his fists so tightly whether it be in the anger at himself for agreeing there or in anger at Zach for using what happened to his brother as an excuse of why he did something so horrible. Zach shook his head though and just said in a low voice, "I don't regret it. I don't regret any of it."

His eyes shifted back straight ahead, as he sat there on the seat he had created a few minutes earlier. The teens felt another buzz in their pockets but no one took out their phones this time. Zach shook his head with a dark look in his eyes, especially at the way some of them looked at him for what he just said. "I found a little girl in the snow, not far from a village that had been completely massacred by villains. And I was-" Zach shook his head once and his voice was steady as he said, "I was too late to bring them back. But that single girl, freezing to death in the snow, I saved her because I was there. Because I had an army and resources and was _able_ to be there. And everything I did that led me to be able to save her life, I- I don't regret any of it." He shook his head with a steadier look on his face, "How could I?"

Ashido's heart leapt in her chest and started racing faster than it had the entire time they were speaking since Darling flew off. _It's… it's still him._ She felt like crying but could hardly take a breath at the thought she just had. _Even after all of that,_ _ **that's**_ _what he cares about?! I- I can't-_ Ashido finally sucked in some air and nearly gasped, though that inhale alone was loud enough.

"So," Zach started. He faced the group standing right in front of him, and he asked, "What will you do with this confession?"

 _Now?!_

 _Why-_

 _I have no idea-_

 _What am I supposed to do now?_

 _He, can't…_

"Will you have me arrested again and tried on new crimes I did not admit to?" Zach wondered.

"How could we do that, having heard all…" Yaoyorozu paused. Her lips pursed as she felt the others around her turn to her with wider eyes. She did not turn to any of them though. Yaoyorozu responded, when everyone else was still trying to think, "Having heard all you were really doing out there. Zach, you haven't told us nearly, a fraction of what I'm sure was-" Yaoyorozu paused again but her expression became even stronger while Zach stared at her with his eyes growing wider for a second before returning to normal size. His expression got darker, going back to the stare he had that made him look more Death than Zach. And yet even with that look, Yaoyorozu shook her head at him in a softer way, "We don't really understand what you did. Not when you put out so much misinformation. Not while you were, pushing us to label you as a terrorist which I still don't…"

 _But I do understand. Because, it's the same reason you left the League of Villains._ Yaoyorozu's eyes that had lowered rose back up to meet Zach's gaze in a knowing way. _You were doing good things, bringing people back to life. It wasn't just that they wanted you to do more. You saw what you were doing influenced things in the wrong way. That it was selfish to bring people back solely because, you felt you needed to save more people. The way people do things matter. That's what you said-_

"You told me," Ashido started, her voice quiet but getting Zach to look her way. "Just the other day on the phone," she continued, raising her eyes up and meeting Zach's gaze with her own shakier one. "That you wanted to do whatever it took to make the most possible good outcomes. And that now, you were continuing that goal from inside the law." Ashido hesitated and she looked at him desperately, "Because the means matter, right? You said that the means matter a lot for you to accomplish certain things."

"And that only in seeing how hard someone worked for it, in the right way, can some things ever come about," Zach finished for her, as he remembered telling her that well. "And I meant all of that."

"Then, how could you do those things if the means were-"

"Because I convinced the world that it was all the heroes," Zach replied. He said it seriously and nodded his head at her showing it was his real answer for how he could do that. "Because the 'means' that people saw, were heroes removing villains from power, and anonymous tips coming from the common citizens like themselves which empowered them even more to believe they were fighting back against villains, and, and although these things really were happening… I made it so that everyone would think that it was _only_ those things, and that my involvement was limited and harsher than it usually was and too brutal to be called heroism. Even though thousands of anonymous tips came from my group, and even though scores of villains who heroes brought to jail were found unconscious in their bases covered in proof of their crimes when the heroes arrived."

Mineta's bottom lip lowered and he gulped before closing his mouth and shaking his head around. _Everything he said he wanted to do in the forest. All the good he thought he could do outside of the law, without being a hero or a villain or a vigilante, just doing things his own way! He really did it! I- I mean… of course he did. Zach was always, always so good at it. At being_ _ **that**_ _person. The first one to think of something so crazy. Is he right? If he hadn't done those things, would we have all started to accept doing things in a worse, less heroic way, because we saw how bad things were getting? Would heroes have started killing villains? Would nukes have gone off and wars started in the past year that he stopped?! I don't know! That all sounds so crazy. But, at the same time, despite everything he lied about that I believed so much… I still believe him here. That he didn't just say a bunch of lies to stay out of jail. That, he's really, that important of a person. And we never knew any of it._

Zach finished to Mina, "I said I would continue it from inside the law, and because people can see me now I have to stick to that. Because I'm back, I have to do things right now so that people continue to see that the things making their lives better, are things they can look up to and believe in. Heroes. Heroic deeds. And- and after what I've done so far now, to tell them all that I was Death too would be… It'd reverse all of that."

"I-" Mineta started. He gulped, but then he said it without looking at anyone else, "I won't say, anything." He looked at Zach with uncertain eyes, so unsure of everything Zach had said and all his feelings that were not settled inside him yet. There was one thing he was certain of though, and he nodded while finishing in a softer but more assured tone, "If you think, me doing so would hurt people. Or that it would change people's minds like… I don't know. I don't but- but I know that you do. I really think you know more than I do, because you've seen more of the world than I ever will. And because… you're you." Zach's eyes widened at Mineta's reasons there, but he shifted his gaze back to Mina who had stared at Mineta with wide eyes herself, before getting determined and turning back with a similar look as the shorter boy had on his face.

 _This isn't right._ Iida's stomach turned upside-down as he looked to his right at his classmates around him. Then he looked closer, to the boy directly on his side whose head was not bowed but whose eyes were pointed at the floor. He looked at Midoriya and his face that was intense like Iida rarely saw it. _What are you thinking about, Midoriya?_

"You…" Midoriya began. He rose his eyes with an intense look over it, and he stepped forward towards Zach so he was right in front of his wall-seat. "You still shouldn't have killed though."

"It's a difference in opinion," Zach replied right to Midoriya. "I was at war." Zach put his hands down on his knees, and they stared at him as he sat in a position with his stature broad, his eyes darkened, and his expression scary. He looked deep into Midoriya's eyes even as the green-haired boy curled tighter fists, and he said, "A war that covered the entire world. Not just a fight against villains, but a war between the Army of Death and the armies of evildoers who plagued this world. Many were untouchable. Many thought themselves too good, too strong, too well-connected with governments. King, Zolo, Amaterasu, they had contacts so high in every government reporting to them. The corruption was more widespread than anyone knew, and anyone still does."

"More than what was discovered after the raid on their headquarters?" Midoriya asked lowly, his eyes staying locked on Zach's. "More than you revealed?"

"The Army of Death forced many popular government figures into cutting off all corrupt ties," Zach replied. "Ones that may have been blackmailed into giving away hero locations, or warning villains because those villains had threatened their families or their lives. I didn't always give them up. That would have caused people to lose faith in the democratic process if all their leaders had their true colors shown. If everything their politicians ever did wrong came to life, so I kept some things quiet." Zach shook his head as Midoriya started glaring even harder at him. "Many were simple to keep in check, some just needed the villains they were working with, or under, defeated. But all are prohibited from running for office again," Zach said that and the boy in front of him froze with his eyes growing wide again. "Told that their crimes would be shown to the world if they tried otherwise."

"And why do you get to decide that?" Midoriya asked, his fists clenching even harder and his teeth biting down as he questioned his _friend_. "What gives you the right to make that decision-"

"Because I thought of all the options, all of the results that would stem from each case, measuring them on case by case bases. It's not what you do within the law, but it's what _I_ did outside of it. I judged how guilty the corrupt ones were, whether they just did it out of fear or because they really were villainous themselves. I made those choices, because I had the power to. And they didn't all deserve to be condemned because they took the risk of going into office and got threatened over it during the trying Age of Villains. And if they spent the end of their terms in office before stepping down making right the things they had done wrong, and if they spent the time I gave them to fix their mistakes helping as many of their people as they could, then why shouldn't they? I counter-blackmailed hundreds of powerful men and women," Zach said in a flat tone while staring deep into Midoriya's shaken eyes. "And instead of sitting in prisons to rot, those people who may have felt forced into doing those things wrong now have the chance to make them right… And if they fail, or if they decide not to do what they promised, then the proof will come out and they'll be arrested for whatever connections they had with villains. And the discretion of whether or not to get them arrested is now in Death's hands, as it was in mine."

"That kind of power…" Iida started. _If someone used that power for evil, and he left it in the hands of a criminal!_ "How could you give it to the Gentle Criminal-"

"Because I trust him," Zach replied without hesitation. He said it firmly and stared Iida down while continuing, "Because we all changed out there, and he was with me at the very worst days. He stood by my side and saw worse things than you can imagine. And when I- when I hesitated, or when I didn't know what was right, he was the first one to get on my back and yell at me for not being ready to handle it. I picked him because he was the best person for it. Because he _became_ the best person, while we fought together." Zach stared into Iida's bigger eyes, and he said in a firm and intense tone, "Whoever we were when we created the Army of Death, we changed after all we had seen in our time in it. Our time at war with the world that was full of more villains, more corruption, and more evil than anyone knew. More horrors than I ever wanted anyone to know about. And, I gave him the mantle because I had the right to. The same reason I was able to decide how to deal with the corrupt leaders and what means to use while fighting villains."

Zach's hands curled into his knees, and he spoke in a low voice while staring forward at Midoriya and Iida straight in front of him as he turned his body to his right. "I was the General, and the soldiers I sent out reported what they found, the dirt or how clean government officials were. How important they are, how corrupt they were, how truly evil, they are all factors in deciding how to deal with them." Zach paused for a moment, then he said stronger without caring about how it was going to sound, "It's not a law system. It's not even a code. It's just up to Death to decide, what is right and what is wrong. And if the people following him thought he was wrong in his decision, they were free to leave. And if the decisions of the Death I left in charge fail or stop being right, I know others will stop following him. As for now though, I believe in the next Death. As I believe in my ability to have picked a good Death to succeed me."

"But, when you killed Stain-" Iida started, stuck on the idea of this that had shocked him to his core when Airi shouted it aloud.

"I did what I thought was right," Zach said, though his face did darken a bit as he shook his head at Iida. "And some people left me because of that. But I stuck to my decisions." He said it determinedly and looked into Iida's eyes with an unwavering expression. "At first I did not believe in myself very much. Yet people followed me. They saw the things I was doing, and they followed me and everything I did. Whether I killed villains or let them live and had them arrested, they followed. I didn't trust easily, so the people who followed me into war, who obeyed my orders and rushed into fights to the death, I was amazed by how much they trusted me." He said it in an amazed voice too, while shaking his head again like he was still trying to wrap his mind around that. "They died for me. For what I thought was right. And I believed in them, because they were the best people in the world. And I've been to every country, but those people who followed me were the best anywhere."

Zach lifted a small smile, sad though steady as he kept the people in front of him as the ones he was more focused on than anything. "They really were all, so amazing. I believed in all of them, and they believed in me. So I started believing in myself more. I trusted my own judgement more. As heroes joined me and fought by my sides, as more and more amazing people entered into my ranks to fight solely for what _I_ thought was right, I became more assured of myself. I gained confidence in my decisions as a leader, even when I failed and people died, because others continued to follow me despite my failures. They accepted our losses, and they learned from them with me. Yet they still believed in me as the leader. No matter how many of them died, or how much we lost, or even when I broke my own rules and went too far when I shouldn't have." He admitted it but stayed strong as he said to the two he needed to convince the most of this. "They believed in my decisions. Some of them left when I killed Stain, because they believed they were like Stain. They were motivated by him and the idea of real heroes not being seen by the media, but most saw what I did too. They saw that letting Stain get more press was the worst thing possible so soon after his cult had been destroyed. They saw that giving his followers or people on the edge of being villains anything to galvanize them, was a horrible prospect. And when I fought him to the death, and I plunged my sword through his heart, that was what I believed with all my heart would have happened if I had captured him alive and handed him to someone else to judge."

Sero's jaw dropped just as a couple of others' did as Zach described stabbing Stain through the heart. _Holy crap-_ Sero's thoughts were cut off as Zach went on, "I believe in my own choices now, because I don't hate myself anymore." He said it in a steady voice, and yet his expression did darken for a moment at the admission he just made. "I… don't think I'm the worst person, because I believe in those people who trusted me, believed in me, followed me, fought and died for me, or even killed for me." _And because, I believe that what I just did might finally save her. If that's true, then- then maybe I can really believe this._

 _"Or even killed?"_ Midoriya thought while staring at Zach in shock at how strongly he was claiming all of this. _Killing, was beyond dying for him?_ The fact that Zach mentioned 'even' killing last, after how they fought and died for him, made it sound like the people who were with him would have found it so hard to kill. _If they really were like that, then- then how could they be terrorists? Or even villains? That man I caught in Italy though… Zach said, he's dead. He died fighting for the world and we never even knew. I didn't know, and for so long I've held onto the idea that they're evil because a man like that is with them, but he could have died the very next day and I never would have known._ Midoriya's eyes closed and his fists uncurled at his sides.

 _Zach, is wrong to believe all of those things so strongly._ Midoriya opened his eyes and looked into Zach's with his expression more uncertain than ever. _But, he spent years alone in an empty Void. And, and he sat in a cell telling stories of some make-believe world for five months. And he lost so much. So many friends. And I- what kind of punishment does he deserve? If I think of it like he does, and try to imagine what the justice would be for him instead of just what it would be decided on by a court. Because, the crimes Zach's committed aren't… they aren't covered in our law codes. The extent, and judging the good_ _ **and**_ _the bad in the decision. Laws only judge based on the bad. He knew that too, so long ago. That no matter how many people he saved, the few he killed was really what mattered in determining his guilt. But, stopping nukes and ending wars before they even start… And the Pit? Stain? I'm sure there are even worse things he destroyed that he hasn't even told me… yet. And worse things that he's done himself too. I'll never know those truths though. I'll never know the reality behind the myths, behind the veil he put over the entire world to keep any of it from becoming known. And how- how could I ever become the number 1 hero- a symbol of anything?! If I don't learn… those harsh realities._

"Those people who followed me," Zach began again in a softer voice as he saw Midoriya's expression of so many conflicted emotions that it was hard to read what he was thinking or about to do. "They bled and died on every corner of the world fighting villains more ambitious than the League of Villains, more cruel than the Chemist, and more sadistic than Kaminari. I've seen the worst people in the world, the absolute worst monsters beyond Shigaraki and All For One. Who did things beyond even the Chemist's twisted imaginations. Who did things so horrible, so- absurdly, ridiculously inhumane, that I- I-" _That I can't even describe them here,_ Zach finished in his head while just closing his mouth, and not thinking about those things himself.

"We fought against slavers and sex traffickers, cutthroats and hitmen, assassins and murderers, villains of all sorts. Tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of villains I faced over that year… And hundreds of thousands of villains fell." Zach's voice was powerful and low, the wind blowing by him and hitting his old classmates to give them chills as his words echoed in their heads. "And when we fell, no one knew our names. No one will ever remember them. Or know what they died for. They'll be called villains and terrorists because those are the names soldiers deserve in a world at peace, but it was not at peace. No one knew, what really existed in the shadows. The Shadow Bosses made sure of that, and when they fell, others corrupted governments to prevent their secrets from being discovered. Heroes were kept in the light, while a war raged in the darkness. The Pit was not the worst of the places I found in the cracks of this _peaceful_ world. The City of Villains, the human experimentation labs: the Mad Doctor's, Fergus's, Virginia- so many…" Zach's face got more than just dark there, a look of pain and utter horror flashing over his face at the mention of 'Virginia' that he cut off quickly to trail away. Then he shook his head at his friends who he was saying this all to for a reason, "I know it's impossible to believe, but understand that's because I kept my war a secret in order to allow people to live in peace, blissfully unaware of what I was truly doing."

 _Ignorance is bliss, or so they say,_ Sero thought darkly while staring ahead at Zach's face while he said all this. _And yet he tells us now… because he has to. And yet he tells us why he couldn't earlier too, also because he has to. Because he wants us to keep it quiet too, to keep that blissful ignorance alive. A place like the Pit, could I have seen it? Could I have really imagined something like that had existed in our world today? I… I don't think I could. And I'm- I guess I'm happy I couldn't. I guess it would be better, than feeling like this._ Sero stared at the dimly lit red marks over Zach's neck that looked dimmer now than earlier, and his eyes shifted down to Yaoyorozu's waist for a second to see that the glowsticks were gradually losing their glow.

 _It wasn't a war,_ Iida thought, his eyes staying locked on Zach for a couple more seconds before pulling away and looking off in such frustration. _But, but despite how much I disagree. Despite_ _ **knowing**_ _that what you did was wrong!_ Iida closed his eyes and curled his hands into the tightest fists. _I, owe it to you…_ Iida lifted his head back up and his eyes opened. _To give you a chance. Because you saved my life, and you saved Kendo's while you were out there. As much as I hate what you were doing. As much as it should be so simple! Is it? Is my own morality, based around a system that you kept in place? Was the world really that fragile that something like that could have changed without you? I don't know. But, I will find that out for myself first._

"I owe you my life, Zach," Iida began. His expression was cold as he said it, and he stared Zach down as his sitting friend turned to look him in the eyes. "I don't agree with anything you did. I- vehemently disagree actually… But I do owe you my life." Iida's expression got even more stern after saying it a second time. "Right now I- I don't know what to say to you. I don't know what, I can say." Iida paused for a moment and then stood up straighter, the tallest one there staring down intensely into Zach's eyes. "You were a dangerous terrorist and villain. And you killed people." Iida closed his eyes, then he opened them and finished in a lower voice, "I will be watching you closely, and the moment I think you might return to what you were," Iida's eyebrows narrowed in and a completely serious look covered his face as his fists clenched hard at his sides. "I will arrest you in that very moment."

"Iida," Midoriya whispered, looking next to him with big eyes. Then he turned back to Zach himself, as Zach looked from Iida who he nodded at seriously, and to Midoriya too so their eyes met. "Zach," Midoriya said quietly. "You know, I'm working with Lemillion to prove you're Death." He said it softly, and the others behind Midoriya all turned and stared at his back with big eyes. "I can't just…" Midoriya started it but he grit his teeth and had to stop himself before talking about lying to the pro he was working with.

Zach's expression softened too as he saw Midoriya's frustrated and conflicted expression growing at why he just cut himself off. "I'm sorry," Zach whispered back at the green-haired boy standing his height in front of him. "If, it's any consolation," Zach continued in a soft tone. "I think the Army of Death really will start shrinking though. If, the reason for proving that is to try and stop them," he added at the end, as there was a chance the reason was just to get him arrested again. Midoriya curled his fists tighter as that really was a reason he had had himself earlier that day alone. Before he had heard… so much that changed his mind. Midoriya looked at Zach in semi-confusion at the sentiment Zach mentioned though, as much as there were other things to be thinking about.

"Why?" Deku wondered softly back to him.

"Because, everyone in it wants the same things," Zach replied, a small smile formed on his face. "The things I spread through the world, the idea of a beautiful life, a happy life, I know that the hurt and damaged and broken people who came and joined my army all started to believe in those things themselves. The more we spread them, the more I could see it." Zach lifted his smile a little more, nostalgic no matter how sad. "As much as I had them saving other people we met, I had always hoped I was saving them too. Like I hope, I finally saved Airi. More-so than when I was with the League and brought her back, or when I was a student and pushed her away because I was afraid of her obsession, or when I first asked for her help while ignoring the feelings I should have known would only grow stronger the longer she was with me. I hope that as Death I was finally able to help her." He got quiet for a moment, then said while looking around at the six in front of him softly, "Only as Death, have I actually had an impact on this world. Only through Death, have I become the hero I know Jenny thought I was."

The others all staring at Zach in quiet astonishment at what he was saying felt their hearts hurt at that reasoning. Yaoyorozu's chest ached, as she thought about how he cried on the roof of their dorm to her about what had happened to that girl. And they all thought about the screams they heard at the Sports Festival right before it was invaded two years earlier. And as they were thinking about her, Zach whispered in a low voice, "Maybe, I feel this way because Darling, was more of a little sister to me than anything." He said it like he was pondering it himself, and the others looked at his face with even wider eyes at the look of reflection on it like he was only realizing this now. "And in that case, I guess I projected Jenny onto her. My sister who I was never able to save, and the longer I went without being able to save Darling the more it felt like the same thing. Like I was failing all over again even though I _swore_ it would be different this time. That I would save her…"

 _A beautiful world?_ Yaoyorozu was stuck on it as she looked at Zach's soft smile that started to lower again as his focus returned on the six of them. _He says they all believed it. That that's what they were fighting for. But, after seeing all the things he saw there's no way he can see that. He's said that this world is far more horrible than any of us can imagine. The things he describes, are so terrible I can hardly believe them._ Momo's pocket buzzed again, and she looked down only to see that her glowsticks were dim too and running out of juice. _I, need to process all of this. I need time to… to think over everything we just heard._

Midoriya's hands shook at his sides while still staring at Zach from up close. Zach stood up when he felt that buzz in his pocket, and he pulled his phone out and looked down at texts from both Hagakure and Ojiro who were coming into the woods to look for them since no one was responding or returning to the fair. The smile he had a moment ago was completely gone as he put his phone back into his pocket and looked forward. He stared at the person right in front of him whose answer he had not heard yet. "Tell me, Midoriya. What are you going to do with this knowledge."

Deku shook his head and was thinking as fast as he could, adding everything up in his head and trying to come up with the answer. _It's me. I'm All Might's successor. But- but I have to pick for myself! What do_ _ **I**_ _want to do here? What do I_ _ **have**_ _to do here?_

"I'm not done yet," Zach said to his former classmate, and close friend. He said it in a soft voice while looking straight into Midoriya's eyes, but despite his low tone, his body had returned to a stature more befitting a military leader looking powerful and unshaken. His expression was stoic, and he continued, "I knew I could do good returning to Japan, so I came and accepted Zach Sazaki's crimes. Not the crimes of the former villain known as Reaper, or the leader of the Army of Death, only Zach Sazaki."

"Do you really think," Midoriya started, his face twisting up and his eyes staring into Zach's frustratedly. "Making an army to go around the world fighting villains was-"

"I know for a fact that it saved millions of lives," Zach interrupted. He cut Midoriya off, and the sentence he cut him off with made Midoriya's heart jerk and his whole body tense up. He wasn't bragging. Zach spoke it as a fact and glared Midoriya down which made him lean away at Zach's intense gaze. "Millions," Zach repeated firmly. "This world is beautiful. That is a truth I accepted long ago. It's something I believe in, with all my heart. In the world though, there are worse things than I ever dared to imagine. Things that almost shook my faith in this world's beauty. Things, that no longer exist. Things I made sure, people would no longer suffer from. The Pit is destroyed. How many of those freed gladiators joined me afterwards, despite what I had done in The Pit himself? People to bolster my forces, to take on mafias and villain gangs who traded in sex slaves and children, or both as one and the same. The sex slave industry across Asia is wiped out, simply because no one would dare get into such a risky business anymore after what happened to the old sex traffickers. Pirating villains around Indonesia and East Africa know not to attack boats anymore and take people hostage, make them scared, hold them for ransom. Future warlords in Africa won't even consider recruiting any soldiers under fifteen years old, or they won't be doing anymore recruiting at all… Midoriya, I couldn't tell you all the things I did out there, because I spent every minute I was gone working towards stopping more villains. Every single day, against villain organizations and powerful groups, the most powerful groups in every country-"

"How could you do all this?" Midoriya asked, his voice coming out seethed through his teeth as it was impossible to believe all of that. "How is any of that possible? And in a single year-"

"Rumors, are as dangerous as anything," Zach replied. "And in the underworld the rumors about me kept them in fear. The fact that the Army of Death is not in one place, that it could be anywhere and show up at anytime, keeps villains from ever getting complacent. It discourages people from even considering becoming monsters." Zach paused and got a more defensive look on his face, "The Army of Death was my creation, something I decided would be incorruptible from the start. Because at any time its members could leave, if at any time the ideology changed it would lose all its supporters across the world, and it was only because heroes didn't want to capture me that I was able to act as freely as I was through all that time."

Midoriya clenched his teeth together and looked away. In his head flashed the disappointed and angry looks of those Italian heroes who had turned away from him, but who he could feel were upset with him for capturing that Army of Death member. Through his mind flashed the dozens of reports he had seen of the Army of Death's appearances, where heroes had failed to capture even a single member. Even in their interactions with the Anti-Death Task Force, they had never once gotten into a fight with a hero. _They never even fought me. He just, let himself get captured rather than fight back. Once I caught him…_ Midoriya stared at his friend before him who looked so serious as he searched Midoriya's eyes for his answer.

"Goals that could not be twisted," he continued quietly. "All decisions going through me. And I swear," Zach continued, his voice lower as he turned from Midoriya and looked to his right at Iida, then turned to the left and looked at the other four too. "I did good. More good than bad, so much good, that I think for decades, centuries even, the things I did that past year will reverberate through them and make this world as a whole a better place." He said it hopefully while looking into Midoriya's eyes in an almost defeated, but still hopeful way. "It's my biggest hope, my truest desire, something I hope to see while living a long life the same way I told Airi to."

Ashido, Mineta, and Yaoyorozu stared at Zach with their eyes growing huge at the sound of that desire. Yaoyorozu was already shaken as Zach had described the beauty of the world again, and this time he described it as a truth he believed in 'with his whole heart.' But this, was even more shocking to her and the others as they stared in shock at Zach. The main reason Iida and Midoriya did not, was because the two of them really did not believe Zach, at first. Then his face scrunched up a little though, and in a soft voice he explained, "I couldn't do it with her. I couldn't live that life with her, not without feeling like I was doing it solely to protect her, to satisfy her, and to save her. I knew she considered me like a God, and that would never be a healthy relationship. It's why I never touched her, despite how often she'd walk into my quarters naked 'on accident.' Like she forgot it wasn't her room…" Zach laughed a little, though his laughs sounded sad as he wondered if he really was never going to see her again.

 _That's for the best,_ he reminded himself, and he smiled more at the thought. Then he returned his gaze to Midoriya and spoke in a calm voice not trying to convince him of anything, not trying to save himself or defend himself anymore. He just said in a regular tone looking calm as could be, "Darling, Gentle, La Brava, all of them were my comrades. Those three you saw me with that night, were my amazing comrades who I've seen save thousands of people. Who helped me stop that flood in Qingxiao, and beat the League of Shadows, and storm into Hatto to free the people of Saudi Arabia. They saved me from the Pit, and countless other times besides that. And I know that whether or not they stay with the Army of Death, they'll do great things no matter what they do with their lives."

Iida's stern and steady look that he had since making his warning to Zach shook. He had wanted to keep it that firm until the end, but what Zach was saying did not sound so dark or menacing anymore. He was not speaking like Death, nor as Zach Sazaki though. He spoke in a voice sounding so mature, so experienced, that it made Iida feel strange having given Zach a warning about watching him closely only a minute ago. It made him feel like Zach could not have taken his threat seriously, which made him wonder if he thought that because he felt Zach was that far beyond just being another of his peers.

 _"It's why I never touched her…" "…I couldn't do it with her. I couldn't live that life with her…" So does that mean, you do want that life?_ Yaoyorozu stared at Zach with her eyes frozen wide. _You still want to live it-_ Zach's eyes turned towards Yaoyorozu and her inner voice cut off as they made eye contact. His eyes shifted back to Midoriya who stood closest in front of him, but the girl he had just glanced to was staring at him stuck in place. _What was that?_

Midoriya stared deep into Zach's eyes from a couple feet in front of him. His breath came out steady, much steadier than his thoughts that were racing through his head and which he was holding back from mumbling aloud. _…That flood in Qingxiao, and the League of Shadows, Saudi Arabia, and the Pit! Those things he just said are all amazing, crazy things! And yet! He was just repeating the same ones we already know. The same things we've already heard about. Things he explained to us because Darling brought them up…_

 _What's your decision, Midoriya?_

 _What would he do if I- if I what? Could we- Should we arrest him here? Should I? Is everyone else already decided, to just… What is everyone doing? What am I doing?! Do I turn him over? All those things were such amazing and trying things he had to deal with. How can I judge him when I don't understand any of it? If All Might could let someone like Eziano Mozcaccio get away… But I always said I wouldn't do the same thing. I told Zach! We said we'd stop him, no matter what… But why is it I wanted to get Zach earlier? It was what the League's doctor said. About Zach being the endgame. I needed dirt on him because, because I wanted him put away to stop his future plans! Because I didn't believe he was just here without a plan, but…_

 **"My plan was to get sent to Tartaros!"** _Could it really be?_ **"That was the full extent of it! I never thought I'd be out this quickly. I'm improvising!"** Midoriya's eyes grew wider as he thought about what Zach had told them when he, Bakugo, and Todoroki had confronted him in the national park that day. **"I just wanted to go to Tartaros, to** _ **get out of reach**_ **."** _He said it again that day! Like, it was really all he was thinking about?! He got himself sent to Tartaros so that Darling couldn't follow him! He- He left all of that behind, to save that- SHE SHOT HIM! She shot him and he, he thanked her and she- She's crazy! She's so powerful. I could have been killed if she was taking that seriously. Holy- All of those assassins after Zach, she's been the one spotting them and calling them out for him! She's the best shot in the world?! Is that true? I never even caught a glimpse of her when Zach was let out of prison, so how far was she or- or did she just slip away into the crowd? That girl is insanely strong, and she's a villain- and yet! I could never go after her! I can_ _ **never**_ _chase her._

The realization Midoriya had despite all he had just thought about Airi, made him suck in a deep breath through his nose as he stared at Zach's face. _Why her then, and not him? Why can't I be that confident about not, not going after you? Not turning you over? Why is it that when it comes to you I can't decide? Maybe, because it wasn't that girl's fault. You said it yourself, that you dragged her into it. And no matter what she thought on the matter, she was crazy and you took advantage of that. That's the difference. You aren't crazy. You made all those decisions yourself. And despite your time in prison already, you haven't paid for-_

 _ **"…As long as he's doing alright. He was a real mess when he got in here, you know?"**_

The prison guard's voice echoed in Midoriya's head from when he visited the day before. He could hear Tachibana's voice, and he remembered how what he started to think about in that moment was pushed away as they started talking about the stories Zach told them.

 _ **"I get why you think I'm still manipulating, because I do too!"**_

What happened in the national park repeated in Deku's head; what Zach told them when he couldn't take their looks anymore. _This isn't-_

 _ **"I'm not lying! I really do, feel the same way as you! I can't even have a conversation with Mina without thinking, 'How would Zach Sazaki answer that?' Or, 'what would Zach feel like' if I heard what she said, and then how I could respond to make her feel good so that she thinks it's really me… I get so angry though, because I'm the only one who thinks I'm manipulating in that conversation. Because it doesn't take me any time at all to come up with those things to say, or how to pretend to feel like Zach Sazaki, because they're the things I want to say or would feel anyway."**_

 _All the signs were there. They've been right in front of me this whole time, but he's convinced me otherwise. He's so strong that it's impossible to see! It's always so hard to even imagine that you…_

 _ **"I'm jumping through loops to 'act' like the person I actually am, because I can't just step back into Zach Sazaki's shoes. I can't!"**_

 _You've always needed it._ Midoriya and Zach's locked gaze started to shift for both of them, with Zach's becoming less certain and somewhat confused at the way Midoriya started to look at him.

 _ **"YEARS!"**_

 _Our help. You could have gone to any prison. You- You could have gone anywhere afterwards. You didn't need to come try and make things better with us! Sure, that might be, because you had regrets and wanted to fix things you left broken too… But that's not the only reason._

 _ **"Years of absolutely nothing in all directions! Never sleeping! Never getting tired! Never thirsty or hungry or- ahhh! Just straight consciousness in an empty Void for years!"**_

 _He's Death. He was an international terrorist, who fought villains exactly as he said he would when he left us. He told us what he was going to do and, and he did it. He saved millions. And he…_ Midoriya stared into Zach's eyes that looked even more anxious now, like he was preparing for Midoriya to arrest him because Midoriya's expression had taken a turn Zach was not expecting in the least and could not read any longer. Midoriya felt like he was looking down at Zach all of a sudden at the fear in his friend's eyes, the last desperate look he was giving him making everyone else around Midoriya tense up too. _And he… he looks like he's asking for help!_

Midoriya's mouth opened. "Zach. Please, tell me." Zach nodded at Midoriya in a way showing he would. The two of them were only looking at each other with no one else around them even in their peripherals anymore. "What's your current plan?"

"To get a hero license."

"Why?"

"To be a hero."

Midoriya's questions stopped. He stared forward at Zach and ignored the faint and distant shout of 'Zach' that carried over the wind when that silence fell. A couple of seconds later they heard the faint call of 'Mina' too in a higher-pitched voice. Midoriya did not feel a need to rush though, as he had already made a decision. Zach's answers were simple. Whatever the long answers, or the details surrounding them, his second response said all it needed to. "Then, if you're really not one of them anymore… And- And you continue to act within the law…" Midoriya trailed off a second time, thinking about the things Lemillion and their agency had been investigating since Zach returned that made his fists clench so much harder in the potential regret for this decision. _Two bad choices. A hard decision. But I- I know I'm right for this!_

"Then I'll keep it a secret," Midoriya finished softly. His voice got quieter but just as assured, and he nodded at Zach while saying it as the black-haired boy stared in shock back at him.

Zach's expression had been more composed and unafraid than he had been letting on. But what Midoriya just said to him made his eyes shoot open as wide as his classmates' had been a couple times during what he had told them tonight. _Midoriya?! He's the one I was most concerned about- maybe Todoroki but still! MIDORIYA?!_

"…Yaomomo! Sero? Where are you guys?!" The voice came out distant, but closer than it was a few seconds earlier.

Mineta turned his head and glanced in the direction Hagakure and Ojiro were in. _What do we tell them…_

"If you've decided not to arrest me then," Zach began softly. His eyes lowered to the floor as it was hard to look at the six in front of him right now, and harder considering what he was about to say. "Then don't tell anyone." He rose his head up and his eyes were deathly serious again, making Mineta tense up most as the simplest solution for their latest problem was to just tell the two who arrived the situation. If it was just Hagakure and Ojiro…

"If you will tell, then just come to me yourself and take me in. It would be you anyway," he said that in an apologetic tone, as he knew he was placing the blame on one of them in the future if they told someone about it. He blamed the person who may have gotten angry at a friend because the friend or trusted confidant they told said they would not tell anyone. Zach put the blame on the person who told the secret first, not on the person who did not know it currently but who might turn him in. Even if that other person was also a friend of his, or someone else the others might think could be trusted, Zach just said that to tell someone else would be the same as coming and turning him over themself.

And that put their decisions solely on themselves. Mineta felt his hands get sweatier, and his eyes lowered down to his uneasy and shaking hands. Until that moment, he had figured he would be able to talk about this with someone and try and figure out what really was the best move. _I- I'm not ready for this. I don't know what's right here!_ He did not even think about it before that moment, but it was only taking away the option of being able to go talk to someone else to determine if his choice was the right one, that he felt the pressure of the decisions he was about to make. _Lying to everyone? Pretending I don't know anything about the Army of Death and what they were- that Zach's Death?! It's not just keeping the secret. What if I'm wrong and… and he does something- and I knew! If he kills people and I knew that… I…_ Mineta's uneasy hands steadied. He looked at Zach and made up his mind again, more confidently this time. _He won't!_

 _It might be stupid, but he's still Zach! All that stuff he was saying about just wanting people to have good lives? That's definitely, 100- 99.5 percent sure that's still Zach right there!_

 _How does his body still function? After all of that, how is he even still alive? I'm- I'm so happy, you're still alive._

 _I need more time to think. If I do decide to turn you in, will you come quietly? You won't confess, so does that mean you'll deny this incident ever happening? Would I be forced to bring the others here into court to have them either condemn you or perjure themselves for you? If it comes to that, would you be willing to confess then? Or do you believe strongly enough in the ideal of Death that you spread, that you would continue to deny everything? The logistics of arresting you for being Death alone, are daunting. However the true impact would come with what else happens should I do that. How those you left behind in your army would react? No. Rather, how the rest of the world, how the rest of Japan specifically would react to learning that you were he. And should I do it, and everything you've done comes to light, what if I come to regret it? It is not something I can take back so easily. It is not something, I can decide on lightly._

 _I believed the stories. You made me believe. And yet even now I can't tell where the line is. What within what you told me was a lie and what's truth. I have no clue. You lied about everything. And at the same time, you were more honest with us than you've ever been before. You don't want people knowing the darkness that lay inside the world? I believe that. I believe you're that good a person, that you'd actually think about something like that. That you think the rest of our lives would be worse if we knew the kinds of things that happened to you. Damn it Zach. You're Death. You traveled the world and took all the power you needed to take on the worst villains there were… and you won! You kicked their asses. And now the world is, it's a lot better off than it was when you left. You- Was it you? Was it all you? You won't ever take the credit. You'll just be the greatest hero in the world and no one will know. That's- the fucking coolest thing. You are the biggest badass in the world!_

 _I can't tell All Might. This is it. It's not graduation. It's this moment right now. I'm a hero and that means, decisions I make affect everyone. I have to protect people. I have to protect everyone! Not stopping Zach, could be putting a lot of people in danger. Maybe it's the wrong move… But Zach is a part of everyone! He- He deserves a chance! Doesn't he? I- I'm not just doing this because he's my friend. I'm not…_ _ **"I thought it was selfish to think about you first before all the other people we were saving. Just because I cared about you more than the rest of them… But I don't care anymore if it's selfish. I just want to save you…"**_ _I'm not being selfish? Am I? Am I doing what he did, to save her? If I only think of other people first… Like Zach, always did before it came to her. Zach. I- I really don't… want you to leave again._

"We're over here!" Yaoyorozu called out. Everyone looked towards her, including Zach who made eye contact with the tall girl once more. Their eyes locked and Yaoyorozu took in a soft breath, then she nodded at Zach in agreement to what he had said to them. Then she turned herself, and she started through the woods in the direction of the other two, already prepared with a story to tell them of what happened with the assassin who escaped them.

Despite how collected and quick Yaoyorozu was to act, her expression just fooled the other six around her. _He's still here? I always thought- I always knew you were Death! And, and I thought I knew that if that ever came out then you would be gone again! I thought, you would maybe say it yourself, right before disappearing if it wasn't when you were arrested for it. I never even considered that we- that multiple people and myself would all keep- it's a conspiracy! But for Zach. After hearing all you did out there! Things that weren't close to the worst things you had to face! I was judging you and almost, I almost gave up. I almost gave up on you._

 _Whatever happens next, I'll always try. Because the person who cared about you most in the world is gone now. You sent her away to never come back. But there are still people with you who care. People who have always cared, and who won't stop trying-_ _ **I**_ _won't come that close to giving up on you, ever again. Zach… I'm sorry._

* * *

 **A/N Thanks for reading... The word is out. Zach's deeds are known by 6 now, and each of them are struggling* with what they've learned, (some more than others). For now though, at least for now, they're going to sit on this information that they're all still processing... Anyway! We see the Pit this chapter with the psychology behind how the fights happened, as well as what happened during the _rise_. The Pit resulted in Zach's heart stopping during a surgery we heard about at the end of 121 when Zach woke up from it, only for Mark to pump his blood and keep him going until he was fixed. I also hinted at Yemen earlier in the story, though really only on the news in Japan where they heard talks about changing Quirk laws in 124 as a surprising news story came around that the conservative government had made a surprising 180 on the Quirk issues after holding firm despite the recent skirmishes with protestors... XD Zach reveals his hand in events all over the world over the time he was gone, making it hard for his friends to judge him as they wonder what right they have to do so, as much as some of them want to just deny it as all just more lies. Lots happening right now, and this was a real long chapter (sorry for the long update time too, wasn't expecting this to be over 30k), but lots more coming right up! Haven't started on the next chapter yet, (about to though), but it's going to be a smaller one so hopefully I'll get it up within a couple days. I start up work tomorrow so might be tough, but I'll see you guys again soon! Leave a review below telling me what you think, questions, comments, or predictions as for what's coming next...**

grimXblade chapter 167 . Jul 8

I'm a 17 year male... and I cried like a baby!  
This was honestly both satisfying and heartbreaking(MY SHIP!) THANK YOU OH THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR WRITING THIS BREATHTAKING STORY! I'm gonna go cry in the corner now.

 **XD Haha thanks! I let a couple tears fall (maybe more than a couple) while I was writing it too, so I feel ya man. Thanks for the great compliment and hope you liked the new chapter!**

.0 chapter 167 . Jul 8

I've been reading this story since it had about 60 chapters, and I continue to have my expectations exceeded. This story has turned into something amazing that I'm so happy I took the chance and read it. I never expected a fanfiction to be this good, and if anyone askes me what my favorite book/story is I'd tell them this one. I look forward to the updates for this more than the updates for the official manga, and I like Zach much more than any of the official characters (heck I think I like Darling, Mark, Cee, Grabble, and many of your other characters more than the original). I'll admit I cried a lot of times while reading Death, but this chapter hit me hard. Zach's break down scene where he detroyed his dorm room had me balling too, but his interaction with Darling and them saying goodbye got me good. (Also HOLY JESUS THEY KNOW HE'S DEATH WHAT'S HE GONNA DO) This fanfic is super underated and is probrably the best one I've ever read, I'm gonna be really sad when its overrip. I stayed up super late reading this and typing so to end this off, your story is absolutly breathtaking and I look forward to every update. Keep up the amazing work!

 **Thank you! I'm really happy to see so many people enjoying this, and that it's your favorite story feels pretty awesome. You're breathtaking! XD Thanks for this awesome review and I hope you like this new chapter you've been looking forward to!**

Yatagarasu chapter 167 . Jul 8

And everything changes from here, I wish that the chapters had their own names so that key parts of the story are easier to go to.  
Fuck, now what's gonna happen to zach? Slightly sad that the Darling ship won't sail, but I don't think anyone really expected it to. Is zach gonna have to face off with his friends, and leave to actually be a vigilante? Is THIS arc gonna be how this story ends? I can't really see where zachs gonna go from here.

 **Yeah, I think adding chapter names could've been a great move. I did that for my last massive story though, and that kind of got... eh, don't really know how to describe that even though I did it for the same reason in Nexus. The interaction gets tense a couple times here, but Zach keeps calm and defuses his situation... for now. Thanks for the review!**

Guest chapter 167 . Jul 8

You hit me right in the bloody feels. I've been shipping ZachxDarling since I first read about Darling, at least she didn't die but c'mon! Why couldn't they be together! Why the hell doesn't Zach love Airi!? She would literally go to hell for him. Would Momo do that? No, ok so maybe she would but she would hesitate for like a minute or two while Airi would just immediately try to save Zach as soon as possible. When this story ends, can we have like an epilogue/in the future/x years later that shows how the world is doing and Zach's impact on it and how all the now older characters (especially Airi, definitely want her to have a happy ending, she sure as hell deserves it) are doing.

 **Always tough to sink a ship lol, sorry. Zach brings up his reasoning again in this chapter, but he knew she considers him like a God and that relationship was never going to be healthy for her, or for him either if he felt the whole time like he might only be doing it to save her. Anyway, I love Airi too, and so does Zach, but just not like that... Don't know about the whole after-story thing yet (since there's still a lot left to write in the main one! Got another million words left! XD maybe not, but actually...) Thanks for reviewing!**

Todorokiii chapter 167 . Jul 10

CJSJSUABWUBW CLIFFHANGER?! I CANT LIVE! YOU GOTTA FREAKING UPDATE BECAUSE IM CRYING, SCRATCH THAT WE'RE CRYING AND REREADING ISN'T HELPING! IT'S ILLEGAL TO MAKE A CLIFFHANGERS, IT'S DEADLY! ESPECIALLY WITH A STORY AND A CHAPTER LIKE THAT! UDHWHSAHUA! THIS WILL BE THE DEATH OF ME *PUN INTENDED*! THIS CHAPTER IS GOLD AND WILL BE ONE OF MY FAVORITE CHAPTERS! I LOVE HOW THE FLOW OF ZACH'S AND DARLING'S CONVERSATION HIT ME TO THE CORE. FLAWLESS. THANK YOU AUTHOR SAN FOR SHARING YOUR WONDERFUL MASTERPIECE! I WILL LOVE THIS FIC AND DARLING WITH ALL MY HEART!

 **HAHAHAHA I'M SORRY FOR CLIFFHANGING FOR SO LONG! I was really glad you guys all enjoyed the chapter so much, and the tension really was accidental as some stuff just came up this week that made me take a little longer. Anyway, you're welcome! Glad you love the story so much, and thanks for the EPIC REVIEW!**

AMR-MNR chapter 1 . 4h ago

When I get settled with the 1-3 day update times you manage, seeing it go for over a week gets a bit vexing... Even if this particular update may be the most important one so far! I can only imagine what chapter 168 may hold, all of the events coming up to this - it may be a sixty thousand word chapter as far as I know, God knows you posted at least 10 thirty thousand word ones so far.  
I just wonder, my good sir, when it will come. Be it in a few minutes, as I keep hoping for (which, I'll be honest, is a bit of an unreal expectation... But just a hope) or even a week from now.  
I'll read it once I see the notifications anyhow. I again wish you luck! Ciao.

 **XD I had just started editing the finished chapter and eating my lunch when I got this review. Hope the last few hours' wait wasn't too tough on you! Here you go!**


	169. Chapter 169

**Disclaimer: I don't own Boku no Hero Academia**

 **Chapter 169:**

"3. 2. 1. Start."

Midoriya sprinted forward into the training floor of Gym Omega on U.A.'s campus where he was alone except for Power Loader watching from a control room above on the side of the gym. He sat at the controls for his shift at the gym that he had in the afternoons some days when the gyms were open for free training for the upperclassmen. With Midoriya Izuku, Power Loader did not feel he had to watch very closely, though he was hesitant about believing that as he wondered about a few times earlier in the student's time at U.A. Midoriya had not hurt himself training in a long time though, and Power Loader figured the immensely powerful boy and winner of the last Sports Festival could train without his concern.

Maijima Higari typed away at his controls to get different camera angles up on the glass windows in front of him. They were translucent so he could see through and down to the gymnasium's floor too, but the angles gave him closer views from the robots down on the ground with Midoriya. Power Loader cracked a grin under his big yellow helmet, as he typed away into a dialogue box in front of him.

"Face it, puny hero." All five of the robots on Midoriya's sides spoke in unison while speeding towards him. Two had jets propelling them forwards through the air, two others were rolling faster towards him, while one large one ran towards him with rough movements on its legs but still more fluid ones than the robots from Midoriya's entrance exam. He actually recognized all the robots, though the day he remembered them from, he was just running so as to get through the first round of the Sports Festival as fast as possible. They were the faux villains that took up the path for the students who wanted to go through the quickest, and most difficult route to the finish line.

Even the gymnasium was set up with as many obstacles and sharp turns as had been put on that path ten months before, so Midoriya heard two of the robotic voices before he even saw those robots coming around one of the corners. "You cannot win-" The robotic voice cut off from the flying robot closest to Midoriya that he hit on the back of its head right in a red circular target he spotted the edge of and knew was the location he was meant to hit. Each of the robots had a "weak point" on them, which Power Loader had coded into their programming to turn off after being touched by something with around a human's body temperature, thus keeping them going even if they bumped into walls or each other too.

 _Nice pick,_ Maijima thought with a chuckle, though two holes popped up from the top of the wall directly below where Midoriya was still soaring having picked that direction first. Midoriya's direction he was moving changed though as the holes were opening, as he flicked upwards with a finger on each hand and slammed down in between the two holes. _Did he know-_

 _Power Loader made that one come closer to me to try and get me going this way. He wouldn't make it easier on purpose._ Midoriya tapped down on the marks on those two new robots before they were ready to start attacking him, though then he did have to flip backwards as Power Loader moved one hand across his control board and caused the wall Midoriya was on to start crumbling towards the others approaching him. The rolling robots spun to the sides to go around the obstacles Midoriya was flipping over, their engines soft so they were hard to hear from behind the walls where they vanished from his sight. The flying one rose over the debris, and the larger one ten feet tall showed its better movements by running straight up the falling rocks and leaping towards Midoriya's back-flipping body.

 _The kid's already better than me,_ Power Loader admitted with a small chuckle as he sent in another half dozen of the practice robots to fight with the school's top student. _Far better,_ he added with less of a laugh, as he saw Deku's head snap different directions towards where he was sending in all the robots, even the ones he intended to keep hidden and had their motors on silent to mask their approaches. Power Loader lifted the left corner of his lip again though, and he glanced down at his left arm and the metallic claws at the tips of his fingers that looked identical to the ones on his right hand. _Though, I'm stronger now than before too. I wanted to see what kind of tech he had, but I didn't think it'd be_ _ **that**_ _much better than the one I made myself. Hachiman said he's got some crazy equipment too other than that arm… Man, I wish I was going with them. Can't have the whole faculty gone though,_ Power Loader thought disappointedly while typing away even faster into his control computer.

As fast as Power Loader typed though, his machines could not keep up with the speed increase Midoriya put on with his enemies doubling in number. _Stay at forty percent, and lower instantly for the touches._ Midoriya shot through the air, but his legs bent against a wall lighter than he had been flying at it so that cracks did not form in the building's structure. He shot down at one of the robots spinning up to fire at him with the training bullets (that still hurt like hell if they hit), but he dodged three shots with a midair spin and then tapped a hand backwards, lowering the speed of his arm at the last second and only pushing the robot a little instead of smashing his hand straight through it. _Control._ His feet hit down and he felt it was a little hard because he focused too much on lowering his Full Cowling in his arm there instead, but a dart of his eyes down showed no damage to the ground, so he was able to shoot back off of it using more power to dodge the other attacks coming at him.

He rose into the air and did a flip by kicking his legs, and he shot across the air by flicking his fingers behind him inside the special gloves Hatsume Mei made for him. In his head flashed a bunch of broken windows in an Italian city, and he saw himself on the plane away from that country having been kicked out by the Italian government for his collateral damage. He heard Hawks firing him, and imagined the video footage of those three dark soldiers walking straight into a police station… _**"You shouldn't speak ill of the dead."**_ Midoriya yanked his right arm away, and a round-tipped bullet whizzed underneath with Power Loader snapping two metal fingers as he thought he almost got the kid there.

Midoriya shot twice as fast towards the robot that just missed him, then he kicked in front of him before reaching it. The wind from his kicks knocked the robot's arms up before it fired next, instead shooting the flying robot going over its head to try and hit Midoriya when he went for the one below it. As that one above was hit and dented a few times, Midoriya slammed down into the ground on his palms that he put below his body, then he flipped the rest of his body over his head while still gripping the ground, his fingers actually digging in more to give him grip. His feet flipped over his body and wrapped around the body of the tall robot behind him punching its arm forward, and while it was still mid-punch, Midoriya flung the huge robot up into the air and two more robots diving down at his body while he was moving like that.

All the robots but one were now crashing into each other or recovering, and Midoriya dodged the attacks of that final robot as he shot towards it. He darted from left foot to right foot moving centimeters away from being hit by bullets, and he did not even touch the robot this time but just flicked a strong enough wind into the target on it that it turned off and got sent rolling across the gym several dozen meters. "Watch the damage," Power Loader announced as he saw blinking red marks on the robot's body on a window in front of him. "You just broke a femur and two ribs right there," he warned, and Midoriya frowned deeper but nodded his head before leaping backwards to get distance from all his enemies.

 _This kid's got as much power as All Might did,_ Power Loader thought with an amazed shake of his head. _Wonder if that's why he's always had his eye on Midoriya? Did he know we were going to reach this point, three years ago? I can't wait to see what all these kids do out there, but Midoriya's got something more besides that power. The fact that he's going so hard to control this massive strength… I always wondered how it was all those villains survived punches from All Might. Guess it was guys like me who are responsible for that,_ Power Loader laughed to himself and then got more serious with the training again, if what he just thought really was the case.

Fifteen minutes later, as Midoriya listened to some results from Power Loader who told him the measures of force, the average timing it took him to take down each "villain," and other stats of the kind, the main gym's doors opened up and another student headed inside. Sero instantly turned his head towards the windows at the top of the room to his right, as he heard Power Loader up there talking to someone. From the announcement of the time it took to stop each villain alone, Sero thought to himself, _Either Midoriya or Bakugo-_ he saw Midoriya a second later though and just nodded that he knew it already.

Sero walked up to Midoriya once Power Loader had finished talking to him about results. Midoriya rubbed his right shoulder where one of the training bullets had hit him during another moment of distraction he had not been so fast to react to. "You got hit?" Sero wondered as he saw Midoriya rub his shoulder like that.

Midoriya turned to the black-haired teen he had seen approaching him. He opened his mouth to respond, but he hesitated as he looked at one of the few other people who knew why it was he had gotten distracted enough to be hit like that. _What is Sero thinking? He's always been Zach's biggest supporter. If I ever turn him in, he'll hate me for the rest of his life. Won't he? That can't determine my course of action though. But I already determined my course of action! I'm here, aren't I? Training at Gym Omega instead of going to Lemillion with all I've learned._

"Yeah, must be pretty distracted," Sero said. "I've been up all night. Finally figured I should start training," Sero added at the end. He looked around the gym that looked pretty messy from Midoriya's long training session in there but that some of the robots were setting back up around them.

"Sero," Midoriya started softly. He darted his eyes up to the windows where Power Loader was watching from above. Then he looked back at his classmate and started in a low voice, "You thought you should train?" He asked, his voice hesitant as he did not know what he was asking for. The tone in Sero's voice made it seem like it was obvious though, but to Midoriya that made little sense considering what he was just thinking about Sero.

 _Is he here, to train against Zach?_ Sero wondered as he figured out why Midoriya would question his own training. The thought did not upset Sero. _Makes sense,_ he thought, though he did frown a little while shrugging his shoulders. "Hey Midoriya," Sero began. He looked around the gym, then back at his classmate slightly shorter than he was. "Was that assassin really at the Sports Festival? The year of the Invasion?"

Midoriya's eyes widened for a moment, but then he nodded his head as he had confirmed it already in the forest. "When I went to save All Might, and Power Loader sensei," he added softer as he thought about how Power Loader was there too at the time, covered in his own blood. "But, he wasn't there to kill All Might like the other villains I fought there." Sero looked at Midoriya in more surprise, as he had not heard anything about this as he had been elsewhere during the Sports Festival Invasion. So much had happened that day, and with Snipe and Aizawa senseis' deaths, as well as Nirengeki Shoda's in Class B, the close calls did not get much attention from everyone else.

"Why was he there?" Sero wondered.

Midoriya felt himself get unnerved as he thought back on it. So often he had talked about it with Zach back after the Sports Festival, how they would do things differently if they saw him again. How they would capture him… but he thought about that man whose voice was so cold-blooded. He imagined how the man had appeared there, holding the barrel of a pistol to All Might's skull, and how he had taken it off without looking like it mattered much to him at all. Like the decision not to kill All Might was on a whim. _**"Hmm… I suppose I will take my children and go."**_ Midoriya remembered how that man had looked so closely at him, before looking back down at All Might and saying, _**"It's not enough yet. It's not enough, and it won't be fast enough."**_

 _What did he mean by that? Not fast enough? Was that because it was all going to happen while I was still training? That the world was going to go through a massive change while I was in school with a half-finished power?! I, I got scared by what he said there. I knew that he knew my secret, and it felt like he was talking down to not even say that to me! But- but I haven't mastered it. I'm close, so close now, but the world went through a huge spike in villain activity and then went back down. As much as I helped do that, fighting many villains in the past years, what if it really wasn't enough? Was what Zach did what really brought the world back to this peaceful state? And if so, does that mean our peace is based on a lie? That our entire world is built on lies?_

"Midoriya?" Sero asked.

Midoriya blinked a few times, then his eyes widened as he remembered he was just asked a question. "Oh- well, he said that he was just in it for Inhuman." Sero looked at Midoriya in surprise, and Midoriya continued in a slightly darker voice, "That Shigaraki was under-utilizing Inhuman and did not know how strong he was. I think, he wanted to recruit Inhuman himself."

"Damn," Sero muttered. He thought about the video Mother Russia showed them their first day back of the full fight against Inhuman that he had missed that day. "I hope all the guys in his organization aren't as strong as that."

"Eziano himself is the-"

"Hey hey," Sero shook his head at Midoriya who stared at him in confusion as to why Sero just cut him off. "You should call him EM, at school at least."

Midoriya's eyes widened in surprise, then he got a steadier look to his face and said, "There's no reason to-"

"Just to be safe," Sero cut Midoriya off before he could say something naively reassuring. Sero frowned more at what he thought Midoriya was going to try and tell him, and he said in an assured voice himself, "I don't want assassins coming after me 'cause someone heard you and me talking about this guy."

"He wouldn't be able to…" Midoriya trailed off. Sero gave him a questioning look as if waiting for Midoriya to finish that sentence. He wanted to see if Midoriya really thought Eziano Mozcaccio couldn't find out, after what Zach had told them about him. _As powerful as Zach is,_ Midoriya thought, a deeper sense of uncertainty filling him as all he had been thinking about that morning was Zach. _I asked him why he didn't catch Eziano because I thought he must have figured out something that All Might knew. After all he said, I thought he had become the most powerful person in the world. With the strongest organization. And yet, Eziano was always there before him. He was influencing things… long before him. And he might be long after we're gone if we can't catch him!_ **"I** _ **couldn't**_ **catch him…"**

 _Eziano might be the worst villain out there, but he also thinks Zach is his biggest threat to be sending all these killers after him. Zach fought him. He fought him for months, and he knows he has a huge target on his back but came out here in the open anyway? Why? He could have disappeared, if his goal was really to just get away from Airi. If he really never wanted to see her again, then he could have vanished and never let her see where he went. Which means that there's a bigger plan here! … Could it just be to become a hero, like he said? What kind of hero? The way he said it to me, I know he meant one that I would consider as a hero. I heard in his voice that he means to do the right thing this time! Not_ _ **his**_ _version of right, that so many people accepted! That so many heroes accepted! That people followed and fought and_ _ **killed**_ _for!_

 _Well, he's clearly having a hard time,_ Sero thought. "Anyway, I have to start training," Sero said, and he started farther into the gym to get away from Midoriya to do his own independent training. His face got more serious while he walked away from his classmate who only glanced after him for a moment before getting back deep into his thoughts. _I had no idea the kinds of monsters live in this world. But now I do. Now I know what's out there, and I'm nowhere near ready for it. If I want to fight with him after graduation. If I want to fight against monsters like this Eziano- then I need to be much stronger._

Up in the control room, Power Loader sat with his eyes wide as he stared at the black screen in front of him that had a white line in the middle that flickered up and down with sounds. The robot directly under the surface a few feet from where those two boys had been standing had picked up on their whole conversation. As much as it seemed like there was something else up with them, Power Loader was just stuck on the topic of the conversation that he had heard himself, though he was in a dizzy state of blood-loss at the time having just lost his arm. "Holy fuck," Power Loader muttered under his breath, after letting out a long exhale as he had been thinking about that man's appearance as well once the boys started talking about him. _What brought on the talk about that guy in the first place? All Might knew him, I know that much. He was incredible, and he's got an organization full of guys as strong as Inhuman? The same guy that ripped apart out ANTs like they were nothing and nearly took out all of Class A's strongest?_

 _If they're talking about him now, it's probably because they talked to Sazaki who knew something about him. I heard that he was in Italy for a bit last year, and Eziano definitely sounds like an Italian name. Geez, these kids are dealing with a lot._ Power Loader put his arms in front of him and he cracked his knuckles (only actually cracking on his right hand though his left did make the movement). _Time to help them out,_ he smiled again, getting ready to assist two students now with their training at the same time.

* * *

"You can't sleep?" Sero asked, yawning himself as he leaned back on his wall next to his bed. His room was styled very traditional Japanese-like, and Ashido paced back and forth on his tatami mat in slippers in the early evening that would be a strange time for a girl to be alone in a boy's room at their dorm. Especially since it was winter so it was already dark outside, and Sero only had the dim lighting of his own lights on in the room and not the dorm room's light itself on.

"Can you?" Ashido asked, turning to him with her eyebrows raised and eyes big.

"I was just trying to," Sero admitted. "And I didn't at all last night, so…"

"I didn't either, but still!" Ashido threw her hands up in the air then paced back the other way. Sero glanced to his wall separating his room from Todoroki's, then he looked back at the girl who pursed her lips and stopped pacing for a moment. "I can't stop thinking about it. Everything we heard was so crazy- even crazier than it was when he was just in alternate worlds fighting armies. Right?"

"Right," Sero said, though his voice was lower. His eyes shifted down to his bed and the floor below it, a more thoughtful look on his face at what Ashido was saying, even in her whisper-yell voice that was not loud at all.

"Everything with that Darling- Airi girl," Ashido shook her head fast. "And I should have known! I should have…" she whispered it softer and shook her head, Sero looking up at her wondering what she meant by that. She rose her head a little though and said softer, "He told me, the first day we met up when we went shopping and…" Ashido's eyes looked like they were starting to water, and Sero opened his wider at how emotional she was getting suddenly. "He _told_ me that he knew about Grater, the villain in the Stain Cult who almost killed me. And, and I got too emotional about it, so I guess I didn't think too hard about it when he told me…" Ashido's lips pursed and shook like that. "'I would have been back in a heartbeat, if I heard you were dying.' He told me that! Even though the fight against the Stain Cult happened-"

"Mina," Sero started, holding up his palms to the girl in front of him to get her to stop. He said in a lower voice, "I'm glad to talk about this, but not here."

Ashido's eyes widened, then they darted down to the floor and back up at Sero in shock. She cupped her hands to her mouth, "Do you think Kyoka's listening?"

"No," Sero replied with a small shake of his head. "But it's better safe than sorry," he added. _I'm not going to be responsible. And if Jirou heard any of this right now, I don't think she'd hesitate to rat him out._ "The park we first sparred in?"

Ashido stared at him in surprise for a second, then she smiled and nodded her head with a laugh. "Alright. Sounds like a date." She smirked at Sero who rolled his eyes at his ex who enjoyed teasing him too much. "I wonder how long it'll be before the playboy gets another girlfriend. Will be tough to get away with leaving school with me once you-"

"No more girlfriends," Sero said while leaning back on his wall again. He shook his head while saying it, _Any more and I'll be stuck with the reputation forever. I have to let it simmer a little first. Maybe I don't need to have girlfriends to have some fun though- geez, maybe they're all right. Things just never work out though! It's better to just stay single, but that doesn't mean I have to go cold-turkey on girls._

"Yeah, definitely a playboy," Ashido whispered with a stoic nod of her head as Sero looked too thoughtful about his response.

"Oi."

* * *

"All Might," Midoriya began, as he stood in his teacher and mentor's room at U.A.'s faculty halls.

"What is it, Young Midoriya?" All Might questioned.

 _Don't talk about Zach. Don't talk about Zach. Don't talk about Zach._ "I want to talk to you, about- Eziano Mozcaccio." Midoriya held in the breath of relief, as he had been nervous about coming and changing his mind at the last second to seek advice from his mentor on what to do about the sticky situation he had found himself in.

All Might tensed up and he hummed from the desk seat he was sitting in while his protege stood just inside his closed door. He turned the seat fully to Midoriya and nodded at the young man to continue whatever it was he had questions about. "All Might, I-" Midoriya paused. He appeared frustrated, and All Might could understand why as they had talked about this before. He knew where his pupil stood on the issue, and how it was one of the few things Midoriya had ever disagreed with him about. "I need to know now, why it was you did not capture him. Why, you let him go." Midoriya looked seriously into All Might's eyes, and All Might could see that he did not want the vague answer this time or just the idea of what the threat Eziano being arrested posed. "What really happened the day you caught him?"

All Might looked into his pupil's eyes, and he saw an intensity in them he rarely saw from Young Midoriya outside of fighting with villains. _Is he considering going after Eziano? Did he hear something from Sazaki about him? All those killers coming after Sazaki must have ties with Eziano, and for them to be going after his life so often, he must have made Eziano very mad._ "Hmmm," All Might hummed and he stared at his student who stood over six feet tall, broad at the shoulders, muscular and not hiding those muscles beneath his clothes that pushed out at points where his body bulged.

"I did not want to tell you earlier, but it is up to you now," All Might began. "I can see, that you look ready to take this responsibility on yourself." Midoriya nodded intensely back at All Might, as that was the appearance he was going for to make sure his teacher would take him seriously and tell him the whole truth this time. All the times prior, he had not been too serious about it and gave idealistic answers for why he would have arrested Eziano himself. And yet, there was so much time before he would have the opportunity, if he ever would get it in the first place.

 _Whatever has spurred this on, you have a different look in your eyes Midoriya Shonen._ "I was much younger when I fought him," All Might began. "It was early in my career, several decades ago. Before then, the only villain I believed was strong enough to handle One For All's might was All For One. I was inexperienced, young, and rash." All Might said these things at the start, as a warning to his also young, and often rash successor. Midoriya nodded showing he understood why it was All Might was telling him this at the start, and All Might nodded back glad to see the understanding.

"Several times during our altercation I was almost killed, but finally I managed to capture and restrain Eziano Mozcaccio. Then the man told me who he really was… as I was the first to ever catch him. He said it was part of my reward," All Might paused. A darker look came across his face, shadowy lines coming over the top half of it as he bowed his head and looked up through those shadows at Midoriya. "He told me what capturing him would mean. How all the assassins in the world, far more than I imagined could really exist, would lose the rules restraining them from causing collateral damage. How hundreds of killers would immediately kill hundreds of civilians, in order to force his release." Midoriya's eyes grew wider at that part, then All Might said with a short nod, "I did not believe it. I told him that all he said was impossible. And he responded that he was all that held back the assassins and trained killers of the world from running wild, but should he be arrested there is a contingency in place."

"What contingency?" Midoriya asked, feeling more nervous about this now as it was not something All Might had told him about before.

All Might grit his teeth, a frustrated look flashing over his face and a darker look in his eyes now. He thought back to how he had gotten angry when Eziano mentioned that "contingency," how it had caused him to hesitate from calling in others to aid him in arresting that man. "Eziano warned me that several thousand innocent people would be killed before I could even react. I refused to believe it-" All Might clenched his teeth harder for a second in an anger that made Midoriya start sweating. Even as an older man with graying yellow hair, and a wrinkled and shriveled form compared to his once impressive form, All Might's face could make for quite an intimidating one when he got angry.

"I was going to ignore him. Deny it and try to fight against, whatever it was he said… but I learned that it was not something I could fight against. As Eziano said calmly 5 words that would forever change my life." Midoriya gulped and stared closer at his mentor who lifted his head and stared deep into his eyes. "'Kill the president of Esquomalador.'" All Might recited it, and Midoriya's heart leapt in his chest at how dark his teacher's face was. "We were alone. It was just the two of us there, and yet I immediately called other heroes and shouted at them the threat on the President Nuñez's life. A minute later however, I learned that the president was just shot and killed."

Midoriya's body shook and his eyes trembled at All Might's dark, and regretful statement. All Might closed his eyes for a second, and he thought about how he had heard that and then slowly turned back to the captured villain who was now standing before him. The binds on his legs were ripped, and Eziano lowered his hands from behind his back no longer cuffed or tied up either. All Might spoke in the present with his eyes still closed, "He told me that President Nuñez was not a target. None of the innocents around the world currently in his crosshairs are." All Might's eyes opened and he sadly and regretfully looked into Midoriya's. Midoriya breathed in an even heavier breath as he imagined this, and he could not tell what the regret on All Might's face was for.

 _Is it because he let that man die? Or because he gave in and let Eziano go? I- I can't tell!_

 _ **"I hold a cork in certain fields of the villain world, but I have the power to remove it. Yet I never do. I hold it in place to allow you to live in peace, as I have done for centuries. You may call me a villain… But do you have what it takes? What will taking me out of the picture really do? Are you sure that it will save lives rather than end them?"**_

All Might lowered his eyes from his successor. "It was, a difficult decision presented before me." _**"Will you be able to live with it, Yagi Toshinori? If thousands are killed and you never know if you could have just saved them by letting me go?"**_ All Might paused as Eziano's words echoed in his head again. "And then, he offered a period of 10 years with no assassinations at the end to soften the deal." All Might hesitated as he shook his head while still looking down at the floor. "No longer bound. With seemingly the entire world hostage in his hands. The power to end lives just by saying the words. I had no idea how he caused it. How he could kill someone across the world in an instant like that. It was power unlike All For One's. Power, on a scale unbeknownst to me."

Midoriya sucked in a deep breath. _**"…He and his assassins were always there. In every major conflict their organization had a hand in it. I'd see them popping up on all corners of the world as much as my friends and I were. And I was fighting on every continent, in every country in the world, but wherever we went, they were already there."**_ _Eziano has men everywhere. Centuries? He's been alive for as long as All For One, but he never had his All Might to destroy his organization and stop him._ "Did you ever," Midoriya began. "Did you look, for ways to stop his organization afterwards-"

"His organization?" All Might questioned.

Midoriya froze and his body tensed up. All Might's eyes widened more at that reaction that showed Midoriya was not just assuming there was an organization of the assassins. "It's not just, Eziano making rules for all of them?" All Might asked, sitting up more and questioning his successor this time.

"That is, most of it, I think," Midoriya said, his voice hesitant as he responded. "But Zach said there's an actual organization of them too. Not all of them but, but a good number."

"Oh," All Might replied. He nodded in understanding, though he stared at Midoriya questioningly at his student's hesitant answer to his question. _Does he know something else? Something, he feels the need to keep from me? You are not good at lying, especially to me, but if this is something you feel must be kept from me, relating to Sazaki… Then I will not force you to lie any further._ "It was my inexperience that caused me to question my decisions that day," All Might continued, and Midoriya rose his eyes back to meet All Might's. "Had it been later in my career, I would have arrested him nonetheless. And I would have chased down all those 'assassins' who made themselves known after his arrest to try and get us to free him. There is no room for negotiating with villains. No matter how strong, we believe they may be."

Midoriya started nodding, agreement covering his face as this was what he felt too. _Even if people started to die afterwards… If I accept letting him go because of that, then all villains will use that precedent and start putting civilian lives in imminent danger if they are arrested. They'll follow Eziano's example to stay out of prison, if they knew something like this had happened in the past!_ Midoriya's fists clenched. _Even if people are killed after I capture him, I cannot doubt that decision. Because Eziano would kill others. He would have his organization kill more people. A ten year grace period is not enough, for a man who can live as long as he can._ "All Might," Midoriya began softly.

"Yes?"

"When you saw him again, at the Sports Festival," Midoriya continued. He hesitated, then he looked at his mentor and asked in a soft voice, "Did he appear any older-"

"No." All Might's response was brief, but it told Midoriya all he needed to know. "I wish I knew exactly how long he has been around for. What I learned from my own predecessor afterwards, the knowledge that both she and her own mentor had known of him, it was unnerving to say the least. The fact that we almost never heard anything about him though. The fact that his existence was a greater myth than All For One's, to the point that he was practically unknown to the entire world, it made me believe at that age that he truly was a force of nature rather than a villain. The 'cork' that he called himself, holding back villains like him all over the world. I could not tell if he was truly evil, or what his true motives were… In truth, I know so little about him that I am not the source you should go to for information about him."

The way All Might worded his final sentence made Midoriya's eyes shoot open wide even as he lowered them to the floor. He closed them for a second tightly, and All Might just said in a lower voice, "I can no longer help you in your fight with him, as I know you still plan to go after him yourself. But you do have a friend who you told me long ago would help you in this fight. One, I am sure is your reason for bringing this back up today."

"All Might," Midoriya started softly.

"For whatever reason," All Might started, and Midoriya froze again. "Go to him. Work with him. And stay close to him." Midoriya's head rose and he stared with shaking eyes into All Might's. "Whatever you choose to do moving forward, you need to stay close to your friend. Sazaki can help you. I did not know how Eziano ordered that kill from our isolated area, nor whether he was right about what would happen, but it had felt to a younger me more like I was talking to a force of nature than a man. If your renewed interest has to do with the men after Sazaki, then you should help him, and he in turn can help you."

Midoriya hummed and nodded back at his teacher. All Might's advice always helped him, and what he just said made Midoriya start thinking deeper on it. _As much as I have to focus on Zach and making sure he doesn't… do something. As long as he's here, we can work on this together. As long as I'm not turning him over… I could use his help. I think… unless he's just deceiving me._

"What is it, Young Midoriya?" All Might questioned at his successor's thoughtful and frustrated and confused look.

"It's… nothing," Midoriya replied after a few seconds, looking into All Might's eyes apologetically for worrying him. All Might looked at the boy more thoughtfully himself again, but he nodded to accept Midoriya's decision to deal with whatever it was he was dealing with, by himself this time. "Thank you, All Might. Whatever happens when I see Eziano again, I know what you told me will help."

"I'm glad. Good luck, Deku."

* * *

"Kyoka isn't listening to us," Momo said to the pink girl in her room who just cupped her hands to her mouth to say something super quietly to her. "She doesn't use her Quirk in the dorm anymore." _Not since she caught Mineta…_ Yaoyorozu shivered and shook her head at the gross thought of what Jirou admitted to her the year before.

"Alright," Ashido said, though she was still hesitant about it after she and Sero had gone through the trouble of leaving campus just to speak freely with each other earlier. Ashido smiled after accepting it, and she ran over to Yaoyorozu's huge bed and dove onto it. She always liked hanging in Yaoyorozu's room, because on top of the bed being so big it took up most of the room's space, it also felt like her bed was made out of a mixture of clouds and marshmallows. "Ahh, rich people beds," Ashido said jealously. "First thing I'm buying when I'm a famous hero," she said, looking up at the ceiling with a big smile.

Yaoyorozu chuckled tentatively, as she did not know if it was okay for her to laugh about something like that when she had always had a bed so nice that it did not feel like something big. Mina sat up on Yaoyorozu's bed after a few seconds, and she bounced on the edge of it a couple times before noticing Yaoyorozu staring at a spot next to her. A glint appeared in Ashido's eyes and she hummed in a high-pitched way that got Momo looking back at her, and then sweatdropping with a nervous smile and her eyes closed as she expected what was about to come. "Was it here? Right here?" Ashido bounced a couple more times on the edge of the bed, though she leaned to one side and then the other while Yaoyorozu continued giving her that uncomfortable smile.

Ashido was not one to back down just from embarrassing her friends though, as Uraraka knew well from when she used to be pestered every other day about her crush on Midoriya. Though, Ashido had let up on that over the past year as it did not seem like the crush she had known about back then was ever going to lead to anything, or if it even still existed between the two who were close friends anyway. "You know I heard Tsu-chan said that she always saw Zach sneaking in here-"

"That is not true," Yaoyorozu said. _And that also does not sound like something Tsuyu would say…_

"But the two of you did get it on in here didn't you?"

"That is very inappropriate, Ashido," Yaoyorozu said. Using her friend's last name made Ashido gulp and lean back, as it showed her friend was more serious this time.

"Kidding kidding," Ashido pulled her hands up in defense, though she smirked afterwards and bounced her eyebrows a few times at Momo anyway. "I bet you were happy to hear it the other night though," Ashido began. Yaoyorozu gave her friend a slightly confused look, and Ashido continued softer, "You know, that he _never_ touched her." Yaoyorozu's eyes opened wide and she quickly turned away, and Ashido continued quickly before her taller friend could deny it. "I thought for sure the two of them must have been dating, or that they were together in some secret affair. 'Oh Darling,'" Ashido put the back of her hand to her forehead and swooned backwards in a joking way that made it so Yaoyorozu could not manage to keep a semi-serious look about her.

 _Is everything a joke to you?_ Yaoyorozu thought, though she sighed and was not as upset as she tried to make herself out to be. Her eyes quickly lowered again though, as she thought about how shocked she was to hear all he had told Airi on Inazuma Island. In her head she saw as Zach smiled and pulled the shorter girl's head into his chest, crying as he told her he couldn't have asked for a better friend.

"You must have been so happy to hear all that," Ashido mentioned, looking towards her thoughtful friend and bouncing her right eyebrow up at her.

"Mina, I have told you before," Yaoyorozu began while shaking her head. "What happened between Zach and I was very long ago. I got over him while he was gone-"

"Ohh? Did you now?" Ashido asked, her voice doubtful and sounding like she knew something that Yaoyorozu did not. "And so not going to the prom with Nagiso-senpai had nothing to do with Zach?"

Yaoyorozu shook her head, but Ashido noticed that the head shake seemed a bit _too_ fast for just a calm denial. "And not going out with anyone last year? No boyfriends at all-"

"I have been very focused on my studies, as you should have been," Yaoyorozu said, her tone turning scolding to her friend who she had to tutor many times.

Ashido sweatdropped thinking about the extra classes she had over the winter for failing tests in the previous term. She frowned though and said, "I was busy with other things too." Yaoyorozu's eyes widened a little as normally her pink friend would stick out her tongue or laugh about her bad grades. They all knew why Ashido had been distracted the previous term though; what her real focus had been on. "And I don't regret it, you know? Even now that I know the truth," she added in a softer voice while Yaoyorozu stared at her in surprise. "Although he does scare me, a little, you heard him out there. You heard how hard he was fighting-"

"I don't know," Yaoyorozu cut in. She looked away, and again she saw as Zach held Airi close and cried with her. _He left it all because of her. Because he wanted to save one more person. She means that much to him… and he meant everything to her. Zach, maybe you should have just… you could have saved her, even if you were together. You could have been happier. With that life you told her to have, that you said you wanted-_ In her head, she saw how his head turned to her for a second after he mentioned it, and her breath sucked in hard again causing Ashido to look at her in confusion. _He was making eye contact with everyone there. He just wanted me to know it was the truth! He looked at Midoriya while he was saying it too, and he doesn't want that life with- He could! I mean, he could totally…_

Ashido cracked a grin at the look on her friend's face that gave away more than Yaoyorozu wanted it to. Instead of mentioning it this time though, Ashido just smiled softer and she leaned back on the bed with a hopeful look on her face. "You know, I really, _really_ never thought we'd have this again." Yaoyorozu looked at her and had more confused eyes at how softly and happily her friend spoke. "A chance to talk to Zach. To be with him and talk and laugh with him. I know, that sounds immature. And maybe there are some serious things we need to… But, but his letter sounded so final. I never thought I'd see him again. That 'goodbye' was just, so _final._ But he told me he only said it so we wouldn't try chasing him. So we would never look for him. He told me, that we'd be friends no matter what. Until the end," Ashido whispered the last part with such a soft look on her face, her eyes closing and her back falling onto the bed again while Yaoyorozu stared at her with huge eyes.

"He told you that?" Yaoyorozu whispered. _Letters again. He only didn't give one to Bakugo. If I ask about them though-_ Yaoyorozu cut off her thoughts as Ashido sat up and looked her in the eyes.

"Not in my letter," Ashido replied with a shake of her head. "A month ago. He told me it, and I know he meant it. He'll always care about us. Just like, you told me you'll always care about him."

"I did tell you that," Yaoyorozu agreed, but she shook her head at her friend's hopeful expression. "But I also told you before, that it's not like _that_ anymore. I will always care about him, we all will, but Zach and I will not be together like we were before. So if that is what is holding you back-"

"Whoa whoa-" Ashido shook her head fast and swung her arms out defensively in front of her again. "No way. Don't get jealous over there! I'm not going for him at all!" Ashido's tone was purposely overly-defensive, and Yaoyorozu just sighed again at how hard Ashido was defending herself despite how she just said it did not matter to her. Ashido grinned at the end anyway though, even if Yaoyorozu did look like it did not bother her in the first place. _I know you might think you were just joking back, or that you didn't care if I was serious about him… But I know! You two were so cute together!_

Yaoyorozu sweatdropped at her friend's mischievous look. Her eyes lowered back down to the floor though as she thought about something she just said. _"We all will…" Is that really true?_ Two faces of Yaoyorozu's close friends in the class appeared in her mind. The two who did not even come to the hospital after Zach was shot on his way out of Tartaros. _He let himself get shot anyway. He knew he wouldn't die, and I was so worried… But if he had really let that shot go through him, would we have caught Darling that day? I don't know. And I don't know if that makes it alright. But, none of us knew that he would survive it, so the fact that they did not come shows that maybe it is not true after all._

* * *

Zach stepped out of his shower and dried off in his small apartment bathroom. He dried his hair last, going back and forth through the short black hair that stuck up when he was done with it and that he left sticking up like that as was his style lately. He looked in the mirror and styled it a bit more though did not add any product to keep it that way. He was going to be in for the rest of the day so he saw no reason to go to that extra trouble, unlike he did before he went out on the two hour run he just returned from.

He stared in the mirror for a few more seconds in the circle he had made on the fogged-up glass. It was fogging back up again, but Zach still saw his frown and he shook his head around at the sight of it. He bowed his head down to the sink and splashed some water up in his scarred face, and he did that a few more times while shaking his face around in the cold water. "Alright," he said, smiling and standing back up fully. He turned from the mirror he could not see himself in anyway and walked out of his bathroom with his towel loosely wrapped around him. His bedroom was only across the hall so there was no need for the towel really, but he wore it into his room anyway then dropped it to get dressed in casual wear for the night at home.

 _The run didn't let out nearly any of this stress,_ Zach thought, as he was choosing between two different shirts. He finally tossed the one he planned to wear later aside, and he put on a long-sleeved workout shirt that pulled tighter to his body than the clothes he wore out on his run before. _I feel light,_ he thought, smiling again as he put on some sweatpants and then headed out of his room. He walked into his living room and jumped up, and he pressed two hooks with suction cups on the bottom into the ceiling before releasing and leaving them stuck there. He jumped back up and grabbed onto the hooks, but the suction was tight enough that they did not drop despite his full weight holding onto them. _Nice. Let's see._ Zach dropped off the hooks, and he walked over to his kitchen counter that he reached over and under the other side of it.

Zach pulled out a long steel bar that he turned with and jumped to hang across the two steel hooks. Then he jumped up into a backflip that he only did halfway, and he slid his feet that had no shoes or socks on between the bar and the ceiling. He hung himself upside-down by the feet, then he started doing vertical sit-ups while alone in his apartment. _I feel light right now. My whole life should feel light… should. Because it doesn't. I don't know why._ He did his upside-down crunches over and over until he started to feel it in his abs, and then he continued going at the same pace though he did breathe a bit heavier than before.

 _This is a massive weight off my chest. I saved her. I really believe that she's going to try now. She's going to go have a great life, and she deserves that! So why, do I, still feel so heavy?_ Zach slowed down on his crunches and just hung upside-down for a few seconds with his legs holding onto the bar solely by the top of his feet. His legs were not even locked around the bar, only his feet balancing on the top of the bar with the steel starting to hurt more as his weight felt heavier each time he curled his whole body up to his toes. He curled up again and then stayed in that curled position with his head in front of his feet that he stared at with a scrunched-up face. _I know what it is. As much as I don't want to._

Zach reached his hands forward and popped his feet out of the bar, and since he was curled up like that, he was able to swing his legs down faster and land on them in a crouched position. Then he fell forward and stuck out his right hand to land on alone. His threw his legs back and his feet landed just before hitting a stool of his kitchen counter, then he started one-armed push-ups that he continued for several minutes. He bounced his body up at the end of each push-up too, putting the extra weight coming back down on his arm after each pop where he pushed his palm off the ground and just held himself up by his fingertips. _I can't let that feeling get to me,_ he told himself over again in his head. _That Darling was right, and I did do so much more when I was out there, fighting every day. I can't let that feeling stop me from continuing my plan here. What I'm doing here is important!_

Zach was sweating, and he continued his push-ups harder with a small grin that the strain of working out was able to keep him from focusing on these problems. His muscles tensed and unclenched, and he pushed through the pain as continued his one-handed push-ups until he was at the point beyond being sore. _Luckily, the joint training is a great way to distract myself. I mean, it's a great place to keep up my plans. I have to get to work on other aspects that I've been neglecting. And I need to come up with new strategies to continue now that 6 people know the truth. Or at least as much of the truth as I felt I had to tell them._

Zach pushed down much harder on his next push up, and he threw himself right up to his feet. He jumped up and grabbed the bar with his left hand, and he started doing pull ups with just it. Even though his left arm was steel, the pull ups worked more for his back muscles which did still exist on his left side. _I have to figure out how to handle all of them. All the angles. Everyone coming at me, and all those who might in the future. The secrets they could tell. The web that expands with every mistake I make. Darling let herself get spotted, the same reason she acted so rashly when I got out of Tartaros. I ignored her so much I didn't even consider that she'd drop her own guard due to jealousy. Especially while Midoriya, and Iida, were in the area. It was my own fault these things are out now, but ultimately it was better we had the confrontation. If not, she'd still be following me now. She'd be living solely for my sake, and I wouldn't even be able to think of how grateful I was for all of it._

Zach sighed, then he grit his teeth and did more pull ups, though his body was not getting very tired as he did them. _All the pressure's going straight to my arm. I'm going to have to do a few hundred of these to get the workout I want in. I can't let the muscles connected to this arm get weak though. If my arm can lift a thousand pounds, but my left shoulder and back can't handle it, then I'm not lifting a thousand pounds. Lift with your legs they say. Well, I don't have metal legs. I can wrap them in darkness though… And then where's the limit-_

 _There's other stuff I need to do besides dealing with those six. I'll have my chance at the joint training. Jirou, Todoroki, the others I haven't seen again since the hospital. I should try harder to reconcile with them too. I'll have two days to fix as much as I can! One person. Get just one person there to be on my side afterwards. Get just one of them, to forgive me. Forgiveness? I want to make up with them, but what is the end goal here? I want to be their friend again. If I can't be, then what is it I need to say to them? If I've already tried but they don't want to be friends? Maybe…_

 _But I haven't tried hard enough yet. I can't give up after this much. Joint training is a great opportunity. This is where I'll make things right. Or, at least where I'll try to…_

* * *

On the first floor of Class A's dorm, a group of students looked over from the couch as one of their class reps walked to the front door and put his shoes on. Hagakure opened her mouth to ask where Iida was going, but upon second glance of his face she had second thoughts. Iida had on warm clothes and had a backpack on as he left the building, suggesting he was going somewhere for a while, although it was snowing out and his classmates wondered where he would be going to in this weather.

Most of them just figured Iida was going somewhere on campus, but his expression made some think otherwise, not that they asked before Iida stepped out into the cold. "Well, that was awkward," Sato muttered. He leaned back on the far couch from the door where he sat. Because of that couch's location, he had been facing straight towards the stairs and the front door the entire time as Iida went over to it, so the fact that none of them said anything made him feel even weirder about it now. "Not that it hasn't been like that for a few days now," he added, looking back towards Uraraka and Hagakure on the middle couch together.

Uraraka nodded with an interested hum while looking next to her too. Tokoyami and Aoyama looked over from the couch opposite Sato's, and Tsuyu walked over from the tables behind the middle couch as she had noticed the same. "Did something happen at the fair, Toru-chan?" Tsuyu asked.

"I don't know," Hagakure said in an exhausted voice, throwing her head back and looking over the top of the couch to her big-eyed friend behind her. "But you guys are totally right. It's been weird, hasn't it?"

"For everybody who went to the fair that night," Tokoyami mentioned. The others looked towards the dark boy who had noticed several of his classmates acting strangely, and all of them had something in common. He looked at Hagakure closely after mentioning it to see if she would respond, but she just groaned at the look he gave her.

"If I'm acting weird, it's only because everyone else was," Hagakure said defensively. "The whole time back to Honshu, and then after we split up with Zach the train ride home, it was just so… weird. I don't know. Nobody really wanted to talk after that incident."

"I'm still surprised none of them could catch the villain," Sato mentioned, to nods from most of his classmates who agreed wholeheartedly with that statement. "Considering that group."

"Yeah, plus Zach's been catching all the guys after him," Hagakure added. "Though this is twice now in a week he's missed someone. They think it might've been the same villain, though Momo said they didn't get a good look at him."

A few of the others just hummed or nodded, most of them frowning. _And why is it Zach has all these villains after him? If he spent most of his time gone in some different world?_ Aoyama just nodded when he thought Hagakure was looking his way, but his thoughts were hesitant and he found it hard to smile even though no one got hurt during the incident.

"Hey Mineta," Sato called out, and Tsuyu looked over her shoulder to see Mineta coming over from past the kitchen.

Mineta turned instead of going towards the stairs, and he headed for the couches only to slow down as everyone looked at him. "What's with the long face?" Uraraka wondered, propping up on her knees on the couch to turn fully to the shorter boy whose expression was less carefree than usual. She would even prefer pervy to the weird look on his face as he was walking around with the last couple of days. "You guys have been acting weird ever since you got back from the fair." Uraraka pointed at him while pointing it out, and Mineta's eyes widened and he leaned back at the accusation.

"Um," he started, and he suddenly found himself on the spot as six of his classmates were staring at him awaiting an answer. "I, don't know," he replied. "We're just disappointed we didn't catch the villain, I think. At least that's why I'm upset," he added at the end, to show he had no idea what they were talking about with the others also being in certain moods.

"Haha," Sato started laughing while leaning forward more on his couch. "Come on. Are you serious?"

"With Midoriya, Momo, Zach, and Iida all failing," Hagakure started in an exhausted tone but also sounding like she wanted to laugh here. "How could you have done anything?"

"Yeah, I guess you're right," Mineta said softly, looking away and then turning and going for the stairs.

Sato and Hagakure both lowered their smiles as Mineta did not react to their teasing in his usual way. They just felt bad instead as he didn't start yelling or jumping around, instead seeming like he was taking it hard as he walked away. Tsuyu cocked her head to the side and continued to watch after him even as the others in the couch area just got back to talking about it, as Mineta's reaction right there confirmed the weird-ness that was going around. No one noticed as the frog girl behind the couch turned and with her arms up curled out in front of her, started walking towards the stairs. _Mineta-chan?_

After Iida left his dorm, he had a long journey to make in the snow. It had just started falling, but the forecast had the snow picking up later in the day anyway. It was already February and temperatures were rising lately, and news stations were suggesting that it was going to be the last snowfall of the season, or at least the last one where the snow stuck and accumulated. Iida Tenya left U.A.'s campus with a pass he obtained from the main office, then he crossed Musutafu's streets to the closest train station for a train he arrived at perfectly on time for to not have to wait on the train platform for more than five seconds.

The trip from the train station he arrived at to his final destination was not as tough, as there was a car waiting for him upon his arrival. The snow had been coming down longer anyway, and Iida appreciated being picked up from the station by his mother. He finally arrived home over an hour after leaving his dorm, and he greeted his father before turning towards the hall where he heard someone rolling down. Tenya turned his head and he smiled at the sight of his older brother who was also smiling as he asked how the trip was. Tenya replied that he had no trouble despite the snow, and Tensei and their father both nodded as they were glad to hear that.

"I'll whip us up some dinner. Call you when it's ready?"

"That sounds great mother," Tenya said with a small smile at his mom that looked genuine, though Tensei noticed some apprehension on his little brother's face.

"You said you had something you want to talk to me about?" Tensei brought up, and Tenya looked back to his older brother who he nodded at after a second. "Alright, come on. Let's talk," Tensei spun himself around and pushed down the hall with his hands on the wheels on either side of his wheelchair. Some smoke puffed out of his elbows' exhausts, speeding him down the hall a bit quicker but cutting off as he hit the turn that he spun himself down.

Tenya sped up to keep up with his older brother, while he restrained himself from mentioning anything about him using his Quirk so casually for something like that. Their parents watched after their youngest as he ran after his older brother, and the two of them looked at each other and let out light laughter. "Just like old times," Mrs. Iida said with a sigh of nostalgia watching her two children in the house together once again.

"Hopefully for the last time-"

"Hey!"

Down the hall and around the corner, Tenya followed his brother into Tensei's old bedroom at their family house. Tenya stood before his brother in a large bedroom with the door closed behind him. "So what is it that you had to come talk to me in person about, Tenya? Is everything alright?"

Tenya opened his mouth to reply affirmatively to his brother right away. The younger of the two looked down at his thirty-three year old brother who he hesitated about bothering with his problems, but the fact that he did not just respond with 'yes' when Tensei asked him reaffirmed how much he did need this. The hesitation to respond to the first question alone showed Tensei that struggle Tenya was having too, and Tensei's face turned more serious at his younger brother's strange expression. "No, Tensei nii-san. I have a, problem."

"What kind of problem?" Tensei wondered. _A girl? No, doesn't seem like it._ Tensei kept his expression intense, deciding against asking in a joking tone about 'a girl' as it seemed Tenya was taking this much too seriously for that.

"There is," Tenya began, stepping forward from the door and speaking in a lower voice. "I know…" Iida furled his lips and he shifted his gaze from his older brother's seated position again. Every time he saw that wheelchair, he saw the face of the villain who put his brother in it, and now he saw the one who took that villain's life flash through his head again. In his mind appeared such a calm look with no regret in it, as Zach told him how he had killed Stain straight to his face. "There's something that I have to do," Tenya began in a low voice, his eyes shadowing over and his teeth clenching after how he started. "Something I feel I should do- I know I should, but at the same time I find it impossible to do."

Tensei watched his brother's conflicted expression with his eyebrows just raising up at how much more conflicted Tenya looked each second. "Something that my mind tells me is important," Tenya continued. Then he hesitated, and he spoke after a moment, "…But my heart tells me otherwise."

"Mmm," Tensei nodded with a hum that had his younger brother lifting his gaze back to meet his. "I always wondered when it would happen."

Tenya's eyes snapped open wide at his brother's response that was nothing like he imagined. Tensei was much calmer though, and he just shook his head at his brother's surprised reaction. Tensei gave Tenya an expectant look and explained, "You were always so strict with the rules Tenya that I knew it would come one day."

"I, don't understand," Tenya Iida started in confusion. He shook his head around as his brother seemed to have been expecting him to have a problem with this, like Tensei knew that someday Tenya would have a problem with carrying out his hero duties. Tenya's face hardened and he said in a firm voice, "The rules exist for a reason. Justice, fairness, good, and even if I have my own personal qualms about a situation, if I _know_ what is expected of me then the choice should be clear."

"But it's not always that simple, is it?" Tensei wondered. He watched his brother's expression as Tenya's eyes shifted down to the floor.

Tenya's expression was steady and his breath came in calmly. His brother's words echoed in his head, but he frowned deeper as it sounded like Tensei was telling him that to make him feel better about having this doubt. His teeth clenched behind his lips, then they unclenched as calmness took over him, along with a sense of dread at the acceptance of the matter. His eyes rose up softly and he asked in a lower voice, "But what if it is that simple?"

Tensei did not let his brother's crazy serious voice stop him from smiling back at his brother with a soft chuckle. "If it was, then you wouldn't be here right now."

Tenya's eyes opened huge. He froze where he stood and his heart rate sped up much more as he had just spoken like he knew what the right answer was, and yet here he stood. If it had been that simple that he could have just said something like that to himself and figured it all out, he wouldn't have been at his family home speaking with his older brother about his problems.

As Tenya hesitated with doubt filling his face again, Tensei looked into his younger brothers's huge eyes that were unblocked by any glasses. _I know exactly who it is who could make you feel so conflicted, Tenya. And I also know how big a debt I owe that person for you to be standing here in front of me now._ Tensei smiled in a soft way at his brother who relaxed at his brother's gaze and expression like he was telling Tenya to calm down. "Whatever this problem is you're facing, Tenya," Tensei began again in a teaching tone for his younger brother who he was glad still came to him for advice despite his condition. Tenya looked closely back at his older brother too showing he was holding on to every word. "What it ultimately comes down, is whether _you_ believe it is right. That's the biggest difference I think between traditional law enforcement and the heroes of today. We have the choice to pick our own battles, and to decide what it is we believe is right."

"But if I pick wrong," Tenya started countering immediately. "And I picked against what the law explicitly states, and it becomes known-"

"Then you must accept the consequences for your actions," Tensei said, shaking his head as he was not disagreeing with the negatives there. Then he looked steadily into his brother's eyes, "But they will be _your_ decisions. Most of the time it won't be very hard, because what you'll believe is right will be what the rest of the world and our laws agree with. But when it comes to times like these, with whatever choice it is you find yourself conflicted because of, then it comes down to you to decide. As you are now," Tensei added, reminding his younger brother that what he was saying was not a hypothetical but something that was happening at this very moment. Then he continued as Tenya thought about that, "You can always use the excuse that the situation was complicated, or that you were just following the rules, but either way it will sound like an excuse to yourself if _you_ feel you've picked the wrong decision."

"But…" Tenya started and he cut himself off again. He frowned frustratedly, and he asked in a quiet voice, "What if both options feel wrong. What if, I can't decide between them."

"Well that's one thing, you can't do," Tensei replied. His brother's head lifted and he saw a more intense look facing back up at him. "The path of a hero is not an easy one. You know that. Choosing not to make those hard decisions, to only make the ones that you find simple or easy to choose between, that's when you've lost it." Tenya opened his mouth quickly to respond, but Tensei continued faster, "If doing nothing is one of the choices, then you need to consciously make that decision not to act." Tenya froze, and he closed his mouth with a hesitant and wide-eyed look as it felt like his brother knew what it was he had come to ask about even with Tenya being vague all this time. Tensei finished in a firm voice that softened at the end, "But know that you made the decision, because making those tough choices, is what separates the most amazing heroes from the rest."

Tenya stared with much wider eyes at his brother who smiled brighter at how his younger brother looked at him like that. Tensei felt proud that his speech must have sounded inspiring to get that kind of reaction, but Tenya's eyes were wide for a second reason other than the wisdom he took from his brother's teachings. _Is that what Zach felt he was doing? Making those hard choices? And how we all think of him now, is the result of him making so many of those tough decisions one after the other?_

 _Every choice I make, I always look to the rules first. I follow our laws above everything, because I came close before! Because I went past being close, I went after Stain out of revenge! That was… And yet Zach did too- even after making the mistakes so many times! Except,_ Tenya's eyes returned to normal but then shifted down to the floor in a frustrated but more thoughtful way. _Except he didn't do it out of revenge. Not Zach. If the reason he went after Kurogiri was really, to bring peace to our world, when Kurogiri had tortured him and helped kill the Akers… Then he killed Stain because he really believed giving him the publicity would spur on villains like it did before? If he was going to turn Stain over somewhere where he would be executed anyway, then all Zach did was- I can't think like that! I can't accept decisions that- that I wouldn't make myself? Or is it because he didn't have the right to-_ _ **"…plunged my sword through his heart…"**_

Tenya's eyes closed, but he took in a deep breath and then rose up his head with a grateful look on it as much as he was hiding how deep he was still thinking about this. "Thank you, Tensei nii-san. I will think more on what it is I believe I should do, and act accordingly to what I determine is right."

"That's great," Tensei said with a big smile. _And debt… somewhat repaid!_ Tensei looked closely at his younger brother and sighed after a moment as he saw Tenya zone out, clearly still thinking hard about whatever his huge problem was. "So Tenya, I've got some news to tell you." The taller of the two brothers looked down at his elder brother who rolled over to his desk and tapped on a touchpad to get his idle computer screen glowing. "Take a look at this," Tensei said while his brother came over with an interested look on his face.

Iida leaned over his brother's left shoulder and looked at the logo in the center of the screen. "Virtucorp?" Tenya spoke aloud the word that wrapped around the bottom of the circular logo. "I've never heard of it," he said, turning and looking to his brother who chuckled and nodded himself.

"It's a fairly new and unheard of company. A little-known entrepreneur by the name of Entilla Oarn founded it just last year," Tensei explained, as he clicked on an About button at the top right of the screen. The website switched to the about page where it had Entilla Oarn's photo near the center-top along with a couple of paragraphs about her below. Tensei scrolled to the bottom of her biography and past the mission statement a little quicker, then scrolled down past some more faces of doctors that got Tenya glancing to his side at his brother again and then back to the screen quickly. "I received an offer from this doctor," Tensei said, stopping on a picture of a Doctor Adriana Khatri, an Indian woman with four arms sticking out of her shoulders each in a different white sleeve coming off of her lab coat.

"What kind of offer?" Tenya asked while reading the shorter biography below the woman's picture describing where she went to school and her medical experience in the field of _neurology_. She also had a PhD in the field of neuroscience and had recently won an award in her field for her work in the previous year. Tenya's eyes were wide as he read about what her PhD was for, and Tensei turned his wheelchair to give his brother the same bright smile he had had for a while now.

"I was surprised by the call," Tensei began. "But I spoke on the phone with Dr. Khatri for a couple minutes which quickly turned into an hour then two. She sent me some emails and she convinced me more and more about the new treatment and surgeries their company offers." Tensei looked straight into Tenya's wide eyes and said in a hopeful tone, "She offered me a surgery on my spine that could give me full movement again. I could stand," Tensei finished, a glint in his eyes that made Tenya's heart pound in his chest as he felt he had not seen it in a couple of years.

"Nii-san," Tenya whispered. His eyes lowered down from his brother's face to the chair, and then to the lower parts in the front of the chair that he gulped while looking at. "And, your legs?" Tenya asked in a shaky voice. He did not want to do anything to make his brother lose that hopeful look in his eyes, but he was so nervous himself as he looked up with his shaky eyes back into Tensei's.

"They have a solution for that too," Tensei replied with a nod like it was no problem. Tenya gulped again as they had already thought of it, and Tensei chuckled while patting his hands down on his knees that he could not feel his palms smacking into. His legs that were already badly damaged had gone through severe muscle atrophy in the past two and a half years, but Tensei's assured and hopeful look rose the hope inside Tenya too. Tensei sat up fully and said in a confident voice, "I'm going to America for the surgery, but I'll keep in touch and let Ingenium know how-"

Tenya's eyes bulged huge and he asked rapidly, "What do you mean?"

Tensei held up his right palm. "Even if the surgery works," he began. "I won't be able to go back to hero work," he said, his voice less hopeful than before but still a smile on his face as he showed it was not the thing to focus on here. "I've accepted that for a long time now, and I know you have too," Tensei added to his brother whose dejected look faded as he nodded in a more serious way. Tensei continued once Tenya was facing him seriously again, "But don't get your hopes up. You've taken the mantle of Ingenium. It's yours now, Tenya. Do that name proud," Tensei chuckled as Tenya stood up even straighter and nodded in the most serious way he could.

"Boys!"

Tensei and Tenya turned towards the door to Tensei's room, and the older brother said, "Go on ahead. I need to shut a few things down," he turned back fully to his computer as Tenya accepted and headed away. "And don't worry about telling Mom and Dad! They already know-"

"Aw, you told him? I was looking forward to seeing his face…"

Tensei chuckled while refacing his computer as he heard his parents and little brother talking out in the dining room. He closed out a couple of windows on his computer he had opened up earlier in order to show Tenya when he arrived. He hesitated before closing the one that emerged as some of the other windows had closed though. Tensei looked at the diagram in front of him displayed on an email attachment, and when he closed off the attachment he saw the email below from Doctor Khatri. _"…Not only would a successful surgery grant you full movement of your legs, but the bio-mechanical attachments will make your legs even stronger than they were before. If you so wished, you could return-"_ Tensei closed out the window and closed his eyes too.

The former Ingenium shook his head around and lifted back up the corners of his lips that had dropped for a moment. _I don't want to get anyone's hopes up… but if it's true?_ Tensei opened his eyes and stared ahead at his desktop cleared of all windows. He reached forward and turned the monitor off, then he spun his chair and started wheeling for the dining room as his mom called to him again. _We'll cross that bridge if it comes to it._

* * *

"Deku? Deku?"

"Huh?" Izuku lifted his head and then stared in surprise at Togata who was frowning at him.

Lemillion rose his eyebrows and questioned again, "Anything to report?"

Bakugo was the only other person in the room, and he frowned too while looking to the side at his childhood friend who shook his head after a second. "No, nothing new-"

"Really?" Lemillion wondered.

A confused look formed over Midoriya's face and a bead of sweat rolled down it. "And the fair? Weren't you there when another villain went for Sazaki this time?"

"Oh!" Midoriya said. "Oh," he repeated, less surprised this time and more like he was saying 'oh that.' His eyes lowered down, and then he rose them and shook his head while looking at his pro hero, "I mean, I didn't learn much from it. I gave chase when I thought I saw someone taking aim towards Zach, but they shook me off in the forest on the island-"

"They 'shook you off?'" Bakugo asked, his voice skeptical but his eyes more discerning as he scanned Deku up and down.

"And Iida, and Zach too," Midoriya added. "He was- well, we think it might be the same guy who escaped from him before. Teleporting away," Midoriya added at the end, frowning more and looking away frustratedly.

The way he looked away like that seemed like how he would react to losing the villain in that way. Lemillion hummed and nodded, then he shook his head and said, "Well, did he say anything in your last few talks together that would make you think he's-"

Midoriya frowned deeper and he felt his stomach turning upside-down in his gut. "Lemillion," he started. "I don't…" Midoriya paused for a moment and his look turned more apologetic before he even started what he wanted to say. "I don't think I can, do, this," Midoriya got it out hesitantly. His eyes were locked on Togata's for a few seconds, but he had to shift them aside again with a confused and uncertain expression. _It feels like I'm in a back and forth with everyone. And if I- if I decide for even a few seconds that I'm against him and say something here, then it's all over. It has to be my decision! That's what I decided in the woods when I made it! But, but I can't just stand here and lie either. I'd be getting in the way of the investigation. Obstructing justice. Because that's what it would be to arrest Zach-_

"I think I should step down from this investigation," Midoriya said, his voice getting slightly more firm as he lifted his gaze to meet Lemillion's once more. "I need to," he said in a more certain wording this time before Lemillion could try and convince him otherwise. "If I could stay on, I want to," Midoriya assured the pro two years his senior. "But only for our other investigations and patrols. Not for… He knows I'm working with you and, and I can't do this anymore."

"Deku," Lemillion started. He spoke in a firm voice and he stepped closer to the boy a couple inches taller than him though they still had similar body types. Bakugo glanced back towards the older hero who he thought would just accept Deku's decision right there. Mirio Togata looked Midoriya in his eyes closely though and asked in a serious voice, "Did you discover something? Did he tell you, the truth?"

Midoriya closed his eyes and shook his head. "It's not that," he said, though it was mainly under his breath. _I can't do this. My enemy has never been my, friend-_ "I just feel like I'm betraying his friendship as long as I continue to spy on him. As long as I keep, reporting the things we talk about."

Lemillion sighed and he nodded his head at Deku's final response. _I was afraid this was happening. Sometimes he'd come in gung-ho and report exactly what Sazaki said in full detail. Other times I needed to ask him a hundred questions or he'd leave it all out. Lately, they've been talking more about ideologies though, and I knew that he would get to him sooner or later. I thought that because it was Deku that maybe it wouldn't happen, but there's one last thing that I can use to see if he'll stay._ "That's fine then," Lemillion said, though his voice was relenting. "But, I do have new information about Sazaki that you should know about, the both of you should."

Bakugo and Midoriya looked towards their pro hero who stepped back and picked a file up off a table in the office they were standing around. It was late so it was dark outside of Lemillion's agency, but there were lights on in the agency for the boys to see the papers Lemillion held out before them. The pro had walked between the two and opened up a folder for the two to stare down into, and he spoke while looking down at the pages himself, "Hawks gathered this information on a trip to Nigeria he recently returned from. Whatever story Sazaki is telling about going through a portal for seven months of that year, it doesn't match up with…"

As Lemillion spoke about how Zach was lying, as Bakugo stared into the folder with wide eyes at the pictures right at the top of it, Midoriya's heart pounded rapidly in his chest with his eyes shaking and desperately trying not to dart to Lemillion to see if he could read his expression. _That's,_ Midoriya thought with the biggest gulp as he stared down at pictures of blood-stained walls, crumbled and burnt rubble, and a sky-view down at the destroyed stadium in the desert. _The Pit!_

"…And they called this horrible place, The Pit. The people captured by villains and forced to fight another wore collars that…"

Bakugo darted his eyes up and past the folder towards Midoriya. He stared at his classmate knowing that he would have caught that too, and Midoriya realized a second later that Bakugo would know that he would realize that so he snapped his eyes up towards his classmate on the folder's other side. Then Midoriya froze, because Bakugo's eyes did not look like they were asking him if he caught how Lemillion had just mentioned the "collars" anymore. Bakugo's eyes shifted back down to the folder without lingering on Deku's face though, and Midoriya lowered his eyes back to the papers inside that Lemillion moved around to show more of the full report Hawks had brought to him and that he had poured through a hundred times on his own already.

Lemillion did not notice his interns' expressions, because his eyes were locked on what he was looking at in his hands. No matter how many times he read it though, it was hard to accept the words on the pages in front of him. _I wondered what could turn Sazaki dark enough for him to do what he did to Faith. The "Champion of the Pit." Instead of killing him they threw him in a place like that and forced him to do unspeakable things, and they paid for it. But they also set something loose on the rest of us that they created in that arena. Sazaki held back as we invaded the League of Shadows' headquarters. He refrained from killing and his vigilantes did the same, but what happened in the Pit was not- Maybe it was just because they had us heroes with them during the HQ raid that they held back. Or maybe, something changed later down the line. Or maybe, it was the Pit itself that changed them. That changed him._

Lemillion paused for a moment as he said something very dark to his interns. It sounded like he was pausing for dramatic effect, but Lemillion's own eyes softened instead of darkened as he looked at the quotes from a captured Pit Crew villain on the top page in his open folder. _"We should have never brought him there. We should have never brought that thing in our walls." "He was a seventeen year old kid." "He was. But, but after the first Royale he fought in, when his tears dried, and he rose his… I can't- I can't! STOP!"_ Lemillion read the line of the failed interrogation of the villain who Hawks was unable to get any more information out of.

 _Given everything he's been through, it's amazing that he's still alive. Let alone acting like a hero and fighting villains in a heroic way. If I could trust that that was really all you were doing here… No. No, even if I knew that was true, it doesn't change anything. Your crimes are still crimes. Your past is still something you must face. It is not something you get to push aside. It is not something, you can escape from._

* * *

"Ubiraysya otsyuda," Zach muttered under his breath. He had in a pair of wireless headphones and his head bowed close to his computer screen that had several tabs up at once. _"Убирайся отсюда." I know how to say things like 'Get out of here' so easily, but I don't recognize the letters at all. I thought Arabic was the hardest so that was what I focused most on, but Russian's more like Korean than Romani._ Zach typed on his keyboard and tilted his head at the sight of how difficult the next sentence looked despite him picking an easier one. "Gde zdes' vannaya komnata? That's how they spell that? I just want to find the bathroom, though, I guess there's no reason to need to spell that so… moving on."

Zach scrolled to the next page and clicked on an audio clip that allowed him to flip back to a different tab and continue to practice his Russian, though with less reading than before. He was supposed to be multi-tasking anyway though, so he just continued to whisper under his breath while he popped back up several windows of research he was doing. Then, his eyes darted around real quick before he popped up another dozen tabs on his screen as he sat in Shiketsu's library with some others in his class at tables not far from him. What he was really _supposed_ to be doing was not multi-tasking a dozen things at once, but instead focusing on research for a term paper he had to do for his class that he and most of his classmates had put off for a month.

Kimona sensei knew his students were falling behind on it though, and he gave them his whole class period for Class 1 to spend doing independent research on their topics. He received a lot of gratitude from his students for that generosity, though Zach wondered if maybe Kimona just didn't have anything planned for a lesson today and figured this would be the best use of their time. Either way, he was going to spend his independent time his own way, and he just had to keep a lookout in case anyone got close and could see his lack of focus on the supposed task at hand.

 _Dover was wrong. My Russian's still spot-on. Draconian is definitely rough though. Same with elvish and dwarvish. I spent months mastering those. Creating those, actually. I haven't had anyone to speak to who knew those languages though for so long though. And even with the other languages, they had textbooks in Tartaros and I have translators on my computer. Unless I take the time out to write down all those languages, they may well be forgotten to time. Or, well, forgotten to the Void. Not that they won't still speak them in scattered places of Terra,_ Zach smiled and let out a soft chuckle while opening a new tab breaking off of a news story he was looking at.

Zach scrolled down the article with his hazel eyes darting back and forth over his computer screen. He read quickly even without using Death so that he was constantly scrolling down the page at a steady pace before stopping near the bottom of the piece written for an international online news source out of Germany. The article was in German as Zach read it, but he was still able to read fast enough that in under a minute he had finished the piece in full. _Nice,_ Zach thought as he read the optimistic ending line showing the author's view was that what he had just read about was going to continue and become more frequent. _Oarn's setting things in motion quickly. If the article didn't just leave them out, Dr. Khatri's only had successes in the initial trials, completing multiple spinal surgeries that would have been considered impossible only a few years ago._

Zach decided to double check on that, and several new tabs popped up on his internet browser. It took him a few seconds to figure out the names of the patients in those successful surgeries, then he checked the public files for hospitals Khatri would have been working at based on the success stories that got a lot of attention. _A couple deaths with her as the lead surgeon on… but none look related. Oarn's tech should make this an immediate shift, but it won't be accepted unless things go this slowly. Have to get it through the initial phases to show the work was done to make sure it's safe._

 _Zero failures though?_ Zach rose the right corner of his lips up. His expression was soft and tired, but he looked happy as he rose up his lips like that. _Soon. The technology to reattach nearly perfect limbs and allow the crippled to stand again is not too far away, but currently it's only for the very rich. Which is why this business plan works so well._ Zach got back on Virtucorp's website and looked through their donor section, still grinning though in a more sly way as he searched for information. _Already a big surplus in the money coming in compared to how much it costs. It sucks for now, doing something like that in the medical industry. But she'll get name recognition first by offering free treatment to heroes, and showing that the surgeries that would have once been called experimental work out perfectly. Some heroes are willing to take the risk to get back out there in the fight, and more will be willing too once they see it work on others._

He looked to the bottom of the donor page of the website where there were several new names and faces of millionaires and large corporations investing in Virtucorp. _Then the rich will come. The ones who still have cozy lives despite being disabled, but who decide it's worth the risk too. However, because other surgeries have occurred already for free and the tech is still crazy rare and patented, Virtucorp has the ability to charge through-the-roof prices to the first non-hero takers for the surgery. At first they'll be called unfair because the treatment is only serving the rich, but the surgery really doesn't cost as much as the insane amount they'll be charging at the start. They charge it that high long enough that they can then offer it at much lower prices after a few months._

 _Although it still is unfair,_ Zach lowered the corners of his lips for a moment, but he hummed to himself and tilted his head to the side in an accepting way. _The ones who get served first will always be the rich. This just makes it work better though in the long-run to be able to give it to everyone else cheaper once there's the massive surplus in money. Everyone else gets to pay less for waiting than if they just charged everyone the same amount from the start. Then it would have cost nearly nothing for those who are willing to pay more to get it quickest, while it still would have been more pricey than most regular people could afford. By charging ten, twenty, even a hundred times the amount the surgery should cost for the first few weeks and months, the organization can make that huge surplus of cash. Other organizations and doctors would keep charging that high to keep their surplus and get massive bonuses, but that's the beautiful thing about Virtucorp. The end goal is not for its employees to get rich but for as many people as possible to be helped._

Zach started x-ing out tabs and he went to a different news story he had up from a minute ago. As he was shifting his mind off Virtucorp, his thought continued, _The world is run by money though, and the only way to get those fake limbs and spine adjustments to common people for affordable amounts is to charge ridiculously high first. As long as no one in there decides to keep it high- I don't want anyone to corrupt Virtucorp. I hope no one tries to, seeing how much money they could make from it…_ Zach closed his eyes and shook his head around. _I have to wait longer before even starting to get suspicious. Give them the chance first. Oarn and Khatri aren't the types to get greedy and turn on their own ideals._

 _Speaking of greed though,_ Zach thought, and he let out a sigh while taking out his phone and opening up Arkitock. The last article he was reading had just come out, and an investing website was talking about the huge upturn in one of his stocks that Zach checked on and then removed ninety percent of his stocks from. _It's about to reach a peak and drop down. I'll throw most back in tomorrow, once it's dropped five points after the surge. A quick ¥120,000, if things go as I think they will._

 _I wonder if Darling's doing alright- Airi. Her name is Airi. You looked that up years ago, and she'll never go by Darling again. Airi Kobayashi. She'll use her real name, now that I said it. That way I'll be able to see how she is whenever I want, which I know she'll think about as she starts up her life._ Zach looked back at the articles he had up on his computer screen before him. His thick laptop had a low whirring noise coming out of it, and Zach started closing a lot of the different windows and applications he had up at the same time. He x-ed out the article about stocks and then hit the Back button from the section of a news' site where he had gone for the financial articles. _She was always the best at this. When L put too much money in to financing us and almost lost her father's company, Darling- Airi found the solution. Now that she's an adult, maybe she can go to her stepmother. Get the cash from her dad's will. There must have been some left to her, some that her stepmom kept after his death and said was her own. As a minor she couldn't argue that with her guardian, but if she comes back now and demands it, she won't even have to start from scratch. Not that she couldn't. She could go anywhere. Do anything. Be anyone. I don't need to be worried about her._

 _She's gone now. I have to focus on my own life. Starting with what to do about the others who know too much._ Zach looked through several windows he had opened on different corners of his screen with small clips of the Army of Death in action around the world. Most angles had shaky cameras, none were too focused, but a lot of them focused on the collateral damage and dead bodies left behind afterwards. Zach frowned deeply while looking at the carnage he paused each of the videos on that had either been taken by amateurs or were released/leaked at some point by governments who had the footage. Two of the clips had 'CONFIDENTIAL' written in faint letters diagonally across the clips, transparent so one could see through it to what was happening, but big enough that it was clear someone did not want them to see those videos.

 _All the clips just have them fighting villains or escaping from heroes. There's a lack of antipathy towards them due to this, but as long as Kazania and Bogota stay pinned on them too there won't be a surge of support either. It's the perfect level of notoriety in the real world. I told the others that Kazania wasn't me, so that opens up the whole idea that everything bad they know about the AoD is false. And that's true. They only heard about me rarely, not because I was being inactive the rest of the time, but because I pushed to never be seen or reported. How do I explain that? That when I would take action, when I would send information to heroes, I stayed in the shadows. That way the Queen's forces never knew where I was. There were too many leaks in the Allied Forces too that my own forces did not have, likely due to my personal connection with each of my warriors. I didn't discriminate either, towards dwarves or fairies, former vigilantes or villains like Blackjack and Rappa. As long as they could help me achieve my goals, I was willing to accept anyone's help._

Zach's lips were curled far down at the corners, and he rose his left hand and scratched the side of his head a couple times. Then he just rubbed it with his eyes closing for a second. _What is that?_ He thought in aggravation. The pain in his head faded though and he shook it around again before focusing on his computer. _I'm having a tough time of it. That's all. It's like I told Midoriya, Bakugo, and Todoroki. I went around Japan to check out the nature and everything this island has to offer because it was what Zach Sazaki would want to do. Because I want to go explore and see everything- because I did that around the rest of the world, while keeping Japan mainly off limits? No- because I'm saying it's what Zach Sazaki would do! Not what Death would. I couldn't explain that to Midoriya. How I am not 'was' Death, but- that doesn't make sense even but- I was never Death. Because I'm Zach Sazaki. In the forest the other night though, I transitioned back like I was for a little. Not "back!" I just got serious. No, I had become Death for a moment. Which doesn't make sense because Gentle_ _ **is**_ _Death now. I can't just do that. Even if it was my mindset that doesn't mean I was actually…_

 _What is it that holds me back? My biggest flaw right now, when I have so much power? It has to be this. That when I was trying to get back into the mindset of Zach Sazaki, it just made me sad because I was thinking about my own life. And if it was my own life I was reflecting on, then why stop with the Lifebringer Incident where I discarded my name? That's where I keep stopping every time I think about it. I can't, reflect on what happened after. I can tell stories about it, make stuff up and focus on changing details so the stories are more fun and don't hurt as much, as much as I know they will if I properly reflect._

 _Reflect. If I reflect- just try. Try._

Zach closed his eyes, and then they snapped open and he grit his teeth. _Nope. There's no point,_ He thought it, and yet he had _tried_ just like he just told himself to. And his insides felt like they were tearing apart, his chest clenching way too hard and burning in pain. _There's no way I could handle_ _ **all**_ _the stuff that happened in that one year. It was more than most people could do in a hundred lifetimes. I just moved, so fast. I got stronger so fast. Made my organization so fast. Made that organization stronger and richer and more influential_ _ **so fast**_ _. And I never stopped moving to think about it. I just focused on the next task. The next enemies. Next targets, with new plans to coordinate attacks to really stop villains based on the way they bounced back on previous attempts; I adapted so fast. I adapted faster than the Arcasians who couldn't figure out how to deal with my Army as quickly as I figured out how to handle the way they viewed me at different points in time._

 _I adjusted fast, and traveled across the entire world fast, and stopped villains fastest. Fought battles in five, six, eight, twelve villain fights a day. With a dozen squads sent out the different forts and encampments in the same region, and I'd fly to each one and make a plan and attack with the others and bring comrades who died back to life and send them to a new spot- and then I'd go to a different location myself, do the same cycle eleven more times, and then rush to where the first group had gone to a new location and set up with more recon and information. Only sleeping between rides sometimes, other times going for days straight or until Death had completely drained and I needed to recharge back at The- base._ Zach took in a deep breath and his shaking right hand steadied on his touchpad that he aimlessly scrolled down a page for his actual report with.

 _Go to base and train with others. Or train them myself. And on the Cloak! Training and planning for more attacks, making strategy meetings and working on how to deal with corruption, medial influence, Quirk laws, and the overwhelming power I had at my fingertips! I could topple governments in minutes if I gave the word._ Zach closed his eyes and bit down much harder for a moment. His head bowed closer to his screen in case anyone was looking in his direction while he was struggling like this. _There was so much more corruption on Terra than here. And powerful people completely controlled what was shown by the media- in the local newspapers! What the town criers would shout about me and my ragtag group of "thugs" they called us. "Bandits." And, sometimes we were. Before we were strong enough to be considered a true army. Even after we were an Army, when we went up against the Queen's strongest forces sometimes an attack really was just a hit and run. But then I obtained power. So much power. All at my fingertips and I never, I never really considered it but I could have turned the world on its head._

 _I had the support of so many in my Army that even if some started leaving because I had gone too far, a lot would have stayed and done whatever I said because they all trusted me so much. It was dangerous. Another reason to give up that power, before it could corrupt… The kind of power like that should have been terrible. It could have been the most horrible thing the world had ever seen, but it didn't become that._ Zach's shoulders slouched and his body relaxed. _I kept true to my morals. I handed it off to someone I trust completely, and I trust them to keep going with the purest intentions, and to replace themself at some time with someone else who their army would believe in and follow as long as it meant still helping the world. In the future. That's how much power they have now, and what they'll do in the future. Shit. It's already happened. It already happened and I was there and I saw this! Not this specifically, but I saw- I killed-_

Zach ground his teeth and his heart started racing again so soon after he had relaxed. _What am I relaxing for? I haven't, haven't even started-_ Zach's eyes shifted down and he stared at hands over his library table that were soaked in blood. He stared at his red hands, his black glove on his right completely soaked over just like his left hand of fake skin over steel. He lifted his right hand off the touchpad so as not to get blood on it, but there were fingerprints of blood left on the pad that he saw past his hands he was looking down at.

 _Stain._ He felt the warm blood dripping down from his hands to his elbows, his whole forearms getting drenched in red. _I don't regret it._ His bloody hands clenched over his keyboard and Zach curled them tighter in frustration. _In the countries the Army of Death visited, after they had left there was a marked decrease in villain activity, an enthusiasm boost in police and heroic action against them, a sharp drop in corruption and an increase in democracy. It was different from Stain! Even if, crime went down in those cities- he was hunting heroes! That couldn't have been… right. But what I did wasn't right either._ Zach clenched his eyes shut, _Or I wouldn't be seeing Stain's blood on my hands!_

His eyes snapped back open to stare down at his hands free of any blood or feeling of warmth. _What I did was different. It wasn't exactly right, but I wasn't killing heroes. I wasn't even purging villains. I did some questionable things, some bad things… but what I did worked. And it worked without people knowing that it worked! That's the biggest difference. That he did what he did publicly, that he became famous for it and people saw that crime went down in those cities he visited. Most people have no idea I was ever in their country. They have no clue that after I left the crime rate plummeted. They just, accredit it to heroes stepping up their games and arresting more villains. No one knows. The impact I had. No one could ever know. It can never be quantified, even by me. No proof left behind. No records to be kept for history. Completely forgotten and lost to time. That's what it was._

 _That's how it should be._

 _No matter how much I want those who died to be remembered. All those gladiators. Damn it. I couldn't even imagine them. The ones I killed in the Pit sure, but the ones who joined me? Damn it!_

 _Why am I thinking about this today? I guess, I want to have all my stories down. I want to be fully prepared._

 _And I don't want to lose it if I have to get serious again while they're here._ Zach rose his head and he nodded as Kimona sensei spoke to the class. He reached forward and closed his laptop, then he put it down into his backpack he had brought into the library with him. _I need to be calm. To focus and show the my class I'm that focused. I'll lose them if I show this weakness._ Zach smiled as he stood up, turning and looking towards some classmates who were walking his way to ask how his research was going.

Zach and his classmates in Class 1 of Shiketsu's third years spent their day as they always did. They had the same classes as usual, ate lunch in the cafeteria, and at the end of the day they all went to the lockers to grab their things like everyone else at the school. The other students in all three years were slow to leave school that day, but as slowly as they were walking away from campus, not many sat around for over thirty minutes after school ended. Some of Class 1 even left campus for a little, going to a nearby coffee shop or heading home real quick, before rushing back to school with things they had forgotten that morning.

Most of the others had just grabbed their things from their lockers and were standing around with their bags and hero costumes ready in boxes. They gathered up with everything they were told to bring to school with them that day, and they watched as a bus arrived at the entrance to Shiketsu ahead of them. Zach had a small drawstring bag thrown over his right shoulder, which besides his backpack and hero box was all he brought that day despite knowing what was happening after school ended. The bus made it through the gates, and Zach looked through the windshield at the dark figure in a tan cloak sitting in the driver's seat. _Wonder what other teachers are coming?_ Zach thought while looking past Ectoplasm to try and see farther through the bus.

Zach stood back straight up and just watched with the others in his class as the bus approached them. Another bus came rolling out from a garage to their right around the school's front road. The road at the front of the school curved around a grassy area with a huge plaque that had the school's name engraved on it, and the students stood on the opposite side of that little section across the road near where the main entrance of the school was. A second bus pulled onto the curved section and came up behind U.A.'s bus, though this one was meant for the Shiketsu students who were all watching the arrival from the front entrance and not from the actual training grounds where they were having their joint training with U.A.

"Here they come."

"We've got this. I'm not losing again."

Zach shifted his gaze to his right, then to his left and looked at all his classmates around him. His face got more serious as he looked at all their expressions and various kinds of looks. _Not yet. Wait just a little longer._ He turned his head back forward and watched as the bus for U.A. slowed down on its way around the curved road, though it passed the point it could have broken off down to drive farther through campus to their training grounds. It was rolling up to their class first for the welcome, and Zach watched as his former classmates got close enough to him that he could see them through the side windows of the bus.

 _I wonder if this really is just alternating? Last year they had the training at U.A., but it could just have to do with me not being allowed on U.A. campus… which I don't actually know if that's a rule. If it is though, none of them would know it. I just suspect it's true considering my talk with Principal Nezu after getting out._

 **"I cannot, and will not allow you back to U.A. after what you did last time…"**

 _But this is good! I've got home field advantage. Everyone,_ Zach's eyes locked intensely on the bus stopping in front of him. _I know how strong you are. I know you're stronger than just about anyone. You won last time, and the number advantage means nothing to you. You'll all crush anyone in your paths. I know each one of you will become an amazing hero. But everyone… I plan on winning._

* * *

 **A/N Hey guys! Thanks for reading the chapter. I hope you enjoyed it and you're ready for the joint training! So, as for this next chapter... it's going to be a while. I was reading a few older chapters and loved them, and they felt really fresh to me... which is never a great sign in my opinion. I've gotta make sure I'm not leaving plot holes or messing up anywhere, so time for another read-through! I've done this a couple times, but not in the last 50 chapters or so, which makes this a daunting task of re-reading 2 million words before getting to work on the joint training. I really care about the quality of this story though, and I always like to foreshadow a lot which I try to mark down and not forget about, but occasionally I have to shift stuff around because I messed up and posted a chapter leaving out an important point that I've gotta squeeze in somewhere else... (enough with the procedural talks of how I write), but anyway, my grandma died this morning. Finishing this chapter and editing it was a great way to spend the day, nice distraction and all. I've got work through this next week and some more stuff to do because of her passing now (along with re-reading all of Death), plus I'm going out a few nights this week with friends. Joint training's going to be split up into a couple chapters, but they're still probably going to be big ones like these last few, so might not be able to get it up in the next week. I'm going to get to work on it real soon, but just wanted to let y'all know beforehand. Running out of % on my laptop battery, and I'm exhausted, so I'm going to clock out now with no review responses today ;( sorry. But I'll get up the next chapter soon as I can! And until then, see ya!**


	170. Chapter 170

**Disclaimer: I don't own Boku no Hero Academia**

 **Chapter 170:**

"So they do have places like these at Shiketsu too," Mineta said while looking around and up over his head at the dome high above.

All of Class A was gathered on one side of a huge forest in a dome on Shiketsu's campus. They were on the east side of the dome, while to their right in the north was a high stone area that resembled half of a mountain, though the mountain did disappear into the curved wall of the dome before reaching its peak. The rocky area over there was built into the wall, and trees started halfway down it in a scattered and more sparse spread than in the dense woods between the east and west sides of the dome.

The structure itself was one of the biggest on Shiketsu's campus, reaching eighty meters tall in the center with a gradual curve out to the base that stretched over a dozen kilometers in circumference. The enemy base on the west side of the dome was impossible to see from Class A's own base behind Mineta who stood on the front lawn looking up into the sky through the glass dome high above. Although they were closer to the edge than the middle of the training ground, the dome got much steeper right close to the wall so it was still very high above the shortest boy in Class A who stared at those gray clouds up above and got a bead of sweat on the side of his face. _If it snows, would it get pitch black in here? There've gotta be lights somewhere, right? It might just rain. It wasn't that cold out…_ Mineta shook his head around and refocused, looking behind him at the base again.

The base was no more than a two story building with some vines running up the stone support pillars in front of the first floor that held up the protruding section of the second floor. There were windows on the front of the whole second floor, as well as on the front of the right side of the building's first floor. The left side of the first floor behind those pillars was where a set of double doors were with a wide flight of stairs behind them leading up into the long back room of the second floor. In the middle of that floor, surrounded by Mineta's own Pop-Off balls, was a red flag with "U.A." printed in the middle of it.

"Throw some more around," Yaoyorozu called over to the short boy ahead of her who turned his head a bit to see her coming around the side of the building from the back. Momo Yaoyorozu was checking the situation behind their base, and she saw that there was not much space back there between their base and the dome's wall to be flanked from, but she still left Kirishima over there with one of her earpieces to keep on the careful side. The lower walls of the dome were not made of glass like most of it was, instead looking more like black walls of a building (except in the rock section where the walls were covered by the mountainous surfaces). The black walls wrapped around from the east side of the dome to the west, around the south side that was more of a marshy area with a lake at the far south edge, sparse and low tree cover, and wet ground that got dryer and turned more into solid dirt farther towards the middle of the room and the forest that was the majority of their testing ground.

Mineta turned his head to Yaoyorozu who was one of two designated as 'tacticians' for their class. "Already did," he said. "Might want to watch your step."

Yaoyorozu looked around the grass area of what was kind of like a front lawn to their base. Mineta had done a good job of hiding the dark purple balls on the lawn, as she had to look closer to notice where they were hidden under patches of dirt or partially covered by some grass. Her head turned back a little and she saw small bumps just in front of each of the support pillars at the front left of the house. _Very smart,_ Yaoyorozu thought while raising her head to the windows and then the doors past those supports again. _If our opponents try to use the pillars, one of the few things they have for cover before entering the building, they will most likely stack up on this side and accidentally step on a Pop-Off._ She turned and nodded at Mineta who nodded back trying to suppress his smug grin at how she saw his set up.

Momo reached a hand up to her right ear and tapped the button on her earpiece that connected to all her classmates. "Todoroki."

"Yes?" Shoto Todoroki turned his head and looked down through the window from the second floor of their base.

Behind him, Tsuyu Asui looked over too and then watched as Yaoyorozu and Todoroki talked, no longer with her attached to their call. The way Todoroki responded while holding down on the button of his own earpiece made the call a private one for when both Yaoyorozu and Todoroki released their buttons simultaneously. They were making eye contact with each other through the second floor window, but Asui was looking a different way out the windows on the left side of the building towards the swamp and lake areas. Asui thought back on the previous year though and the wave-pool at U.A. she had gotten stuck in as the water she had been swimming through pushed one way then pulled the other over and over again. _She'll expect me to return there for a rematch. But I have to think of the class first._

 _That Dendo isn't one to come around from behind,_ Kirishima thought with a low frown. _This position isn't permanent,_ he reminded himself after his previous thought that made him too upset. _Something's going to happen that makes me move from here. With Zach with them too, and the way this is set up, there's no way this goes down without me fighting one of them. I'd rather Zach. Really? In this kind of setting?_ Kirishima frowned deeper and closed his eyes for a moment. _What kind of "setting" am I waiting for?_ His eyes opened and his clenched fists tightened harder at his sides. _Your Death can't hurt me. I'll never let you get our flag._

Todoroki tapped the button of his earpiece twice to shift channels, as Yaoyorozu had explained to their whole class right when she handed them out. _We have the advantage in communications that they don't. No assistance from the teachers,_ Todoroki rose up his head while looking out the second floor windows. He stared across the forest and up to the top of the black wall across the training ground from them. The wall extended higher up over there, and the black wall seemed a different shade too so he suspected that was where their teachers had gone after showing them to their bases. _Only what we had on our hero costumes. Only what we brought in doesn't mean much though, with Yaoyorozu on our side._

"Those communications' devices certainly create a disadvantage for your students," Ectoplasm said with a glance to his right side at the man standing there also with his arms crossed.

"It's only fair, considering your class has only nineteen people compared to our thirty," Kimona replied with a glance left at a man who used to be a sidekick together with him at the same agency when they were younger. The two of them both looked back forward at the glass and the dozens of camera angles showing the students all over the dome on them.

There were seven teachers in total watching from the spectating room outside of the dome's training area. Three were teachers from Shiketsu itself: Kimona who had the students of Class 1 for one period of the day, Ms. Anastasia who was the head nurse for Shiketsu High, and the class' homeroom teacher Hazano Worrod who sat at the only control seat in the spectating room. Hazano had the controls for the score which was displayed enormously over the top of their spectating room on the inside of the dome's glass, as well as across the dome on the opposite wall at the same height. The score was still 0 to 0, with 'U.A.' at the top of the red tinted rectangle, and 'Shiketsu' at the top of the blue one next to it that had a huge number 0 in the center.

"It isn't as big a disadvantage as you'd imagine," Midnight pointed out to her colleague. Ectoplasm looked to a screen she motioned at and hummed himself at what he saw from the Shiketsu side of the arena. Midnight was there with Ectoplasm who had driven the bus, along with U.A.'s resident nurse who came for the day, and Class A's homeroom teacher for their third year: All Might.

Ms. Anastasia sat on the opposite side of the room as Recovery Girl, her declared "rival" that the only slightly older woman from U.A. scoffed at upon arrival. The other old woman was as short as Recovery Girl too, though she was much more impressed with the fact that All Might was in the room with her than Recovery Girl was as she was used to the former Number 1 hero. Hazano and Kimona had both gone to the joint training the year before at U.A., and the magic had worn off a little for them though they still were very respectful of the former Symbol of Peace. All Might walked up next to Hazano on the left side of his control seat, and he faced the images splitting the wide glass window for the hundreds of hidden cameras over the training grounds.

 _ **"All Might. I want to treat this like the real thing."**_ All Might watched his successor closely on an angle of the front of the jail cell. The image was right at the center of the glass window touching the line that split the images apart down the middle horizontally on the glass. The U.A. side's images were all on the top half as their half of the dome was farther from the spectating area on the west side, but the image that had Midoriya Izuku in it was touching that line right above an image of the opposing team's jail cell. There was movement at both, but All Might focused on his green-haired student who said something in a firm voice that had the other five people still standing around him all nodding and then turning and running off. _**"Against Zach, leading a group of powerful enemies… It's something that I can see being a scenario of a real fight in the future. More-so than our usual training, this is direct preparation for when we have to fight. Since, I believe, I will have to fight him."**_

 _I will not question your motivation, Young Midoriya. Not yet. You do not need me to interfere anymore. Your mind is set, and you will fight today as hard as you can to win. I wish to see you win too. If you wish to discuss your reasoning at a later date, I would be more than happy to. For now though, you know something about Sazaki that I do not. Something that has made you more serious than I have ever seen you before._ All Might watched his student who stood before those cell bars with the most focused expression. _Good luck._

Midoriya's eyes darted right and left across the forest ahead of him. His head turned partially to the left so he could look fully in the direction of their base a little ways off through the forest around the edge of the dome. _The cell for the other team would be diagonal from me, wouldn't it? They could be directly across from each other thinking of the dome as a circle, but it could also just be a straight line from east to west. Not knowing the enemy base's layout is part of the set-up. Discovering their locations and learning our environment is part of the training. With such a large arena, there hasn't been mass fighting like there was so early in the last training. We're all taking it more cautiously. Scouting our larger arena, establishing new strategies based on the parameters of the test and the environment we've been given. No urban area like last year had. Just wilderness. A couple of buildings. Open air. Strong enough glass that I've been told not to worry about smashing it from afar. All Might didn't look too sure of that, but I can't focus on being careful with that if it's not part of the examination._

 _I need to win. I need to beat him. Because if I lose here, then in the real thing… maybe I'll have learned from my mistakes and can train to beat him next time. That's not the way to think about this though! I have to win. That's all there is to this. I need to show Zach that he's not unbeatable. I need to show everyone that he's not the strongest._ Midoriya bit down behind his own lips, _Including myself._

Deku focused again and his eyes narrowed towards the woods straight ahead of him where one of the teams had just gone out into. Tokoyami and Koda were behind Midoriya on either side of the huge cage of metal bars that was still low enough that it was hidden by the tops of the trees around them. And just in front of that cage but behind Midoriya, knelt Jirou Kyoka who had her earphone jacks plugged into the ground, ready to relay any new information immediately to their team's second tactician in front of her. Jirou heard the heartbeats of several of her classmates close to her. She could hear the heavy breathing and footsteps of another nine from Class A who were running farther away to the west and their enemies who had to be somewhere in the forest if not flanking from one of the sides.

 _I'm surprised he didn't try talking to all of us right at the start,_ Jirou thought, an annoyed expression on her face as it came to mind. _Not that I care. The others talk about him like he's still their friend though. Like everything's totally fine. So what was up with that look he had as we arrived? He looked like he was completely one of them. Like we were all strangers._ Jirou rose her gaze to Midoriya's back while still listening closely to all around her in a 100 meter radius. _I need to be as focused as Midoriya there. He's much more assertive than usual. Really taking this seriously. Guess it must be a precursor for him though. When Zach ultimately reveals his plans, it's going to be him who has to take Zach down._

 _…The first team to 25 points wins,_ Midoriya's eyes shifted over the trees in front of him to the top half of the score banners across the training grounds. _And with 1 point per enemy captured_ _ **and**_ _returned to our jail, we don't need their flag. 10 points for the flag though, means we only have to take down half of their team in total. Ultimately, they don't have to take me down though. Or Bakugo, or Todoroki. Other than Zach, I don't know if anyone in Shiketsu could take the three of us. But if they get fifteen of us and the flag, the other four remaining will have still lost. That doesn't mean we can just keep five people hidden though. Everyone needs to work together to get the flag first. The ten points are essential from a starting perspective. It's the primary objective. Losing our flag before capturing theirs would be like a loss in itself, even if the end result is victory. Winning the battle and the war. Capturing their flag, not letting ours be taken, and defeating them. All are important. Whatever it might represent in a real battle, we can't accept a victory without getting that hostage, or bomb, or important thing that is necessary to get from the villains! And we also cannot let them take something of equal value from us! Total victory! I need to show him that I can do it too! That I can win a total victory even without… without doing whatever it is you're going to do here._

Deep in the forest, running with a group of four others around her, Ashido gulped as she heard a noise and spun her head only to conclude that it was her imagination. _What kinds of tactics does he have to beat us with? I wouldn't even think about it if I didn't know the truth- why not? All those battles he talked about in Arcasia- the fake ones! He still made it out like he had all these amazing battle strategies and won every fight! But, but the idea that all those things happened here, on our world! That he was fighting like_ _ **that!**_ _We're about to go up against- against… I want to beat him anyway._ Ashido lifted the corners of her lips and shook her head around from behind Sato who she was running with. _I want to beat Zach! He looked like he's going to take this really seriously, and that's because he knows how strong we are. He knows we can beat him… I think._

Sero looked to his side at the pink girl to his right. Ahead of him was Aoyama, Sato, and Ojiro ahead of all four of them. Ojiro led the pack of five through the forest that he was actually swinging through by the branches with his thick tail. All five of them were wearing their hero costumes that had been updated a lot since the last time Zach saw them, yet they felt like Zach did not take very close looks at their upgrades when they got off the buses at the front of the training dome. _Her confidence is shaky, but at least she's not hopeless. Mineta just kept saying that since it's capture the flag, maybe Zach'll fight without using Death like he did last time. I doubt it though. Against all of us. Against Midoriya and Bakugo, Todoroki and Iida too, he can't stop everyone without using his Quirk. He might be strong, much stronger now with Death being so much more under his control, but if he tries to do this without going all out,_ Sero curled his hands into fists. _We're going to make him regret that._

Farther to the north and on the west side of the forest, a group of four Shiketsu students were moving carefully but still quickly through the woods themselves. Himazuri was at the front of the group as their radar, though Trabo ran at her side with one hand holding her by the shoulder to help her go. If Himazuri closed her eyes, blocking out one of her senses, her mental hearing increased nearly twice as much. The range of her Quirk, Mindreading, spread into the surrounding forest in all directions the same distance as she could not focus one way to hear farther.

When she arrived at Shiketsu High almost three years earlier, Himazuri Hikari could only hear the thoughts of someone she was looking at directly and targeting. Her powers had advanced slowly, but not long after getting her provisional license in her second year, during a particularly stressful moment at her internship in a fight against villains, her powers set expanded. Himazuri realized that day that she could hear villains around the corners. At first she thought the villains she was fighting who she had just run from to get some cover were speaking in low voices, but she heard one of them mention how he did not want her to hear him approaching the door, and she realized the voice she was hearing was in her own head from within his. And in the treacherous three-on-one she found herself in that day, those three villains never saw her again before the tasers she had on her stabbed into their backs.

Himazuri snapped her hand up as she heard a voice in her head. Her hand was held in an open fist, getting the other three behind her to stop short. Two more voices filled her head as they entered her range, and she put up three fingers with a quick look back at the others behind her and a dart of her eyes up into the trees. _Alright one is a bad one,_ Himazuri removed one of the minds from the ones she was targeting. Her lips curled down slightly more, but she remained focused and did not linger on the words that echoed in her head. _**"I know Midoriya already asked it of you last year, but there are others whose thoughts I need you not to read. Please, don't read these five certain minds, as they have deep, personal secrets…"**_ _I'll trust you, Zach. As much as I can't normally, you want to win this as badly as any of us. I know that much. And even if this jeopardizes our chances, I'm willing-_

"What's going on?" Trabo asked the girl just on his left who had pulled her shoulder from him when she threw her arm up.

Himazuri's eyes had just widened, and she whispered in quick response, "They stopped too. One of them hears us."

"If it's a girl's voice that knows that," Iida started, after what Shoji just said aloud to repeat after what he just heard in a low whisper through dense forest ahead of them. "It's the Mind Reader. A priority," Iida's calves ignited and flared.

 _They're after me?!_ Himazuri took a step back while speaking quickly to the others around her what was happening just ahead. _And one of them's hiding her thoughts. Which girl is it?!_ "I'm their target! Ingenium's rushing forward!"

Iida sped around a tree which gave him a view of the four people ahead of him. A yellow beam flew by his left side and slammed into a tree behind his back closer to where Shoji was sprinting forward and had to yank to the side as the splinters broke off. Enjino stepped in front of Himazuri and had his right hand pointed towards Iida, his whole arm breaking off into light now as he used Beam Body to increased the width of his beam that Iida dodged at first. Iida continued to dodge though, cutting a sharp corner to sprint around the side of the whole group of four so he was at their backs before any of them could turn around.

"They're surrounding us-"

"It's still just the three of them," Himazuri assured everyone from where she stood now in the middle of the group. "Shoji, Iida, and- and…" Himazuri turned her head and looked to the side where this girl was running towards her, thinking super loudly in her head, ' _UNICORNS UNICORNS UNICORNS'_ Himazuri expected to see her any second based on how close she was, but despite her Quirk telling her this person was right in front of her- "It's-"

"Light Refraction!" Hagakure shouted out her super move, while leaping up in the air on the side of the group. The signal caused Iida and Shoji to rush in from the front and back, where they had been standing with eyes squinted and ready to slam shut for a moment once they heard Hagakure's voice that started a second before her super move. Calling out that signal doubled to warn her comrades to close their eyes and to get her enemies to all start turning to her so as to get the most effect out of blinding them.

Hagakure landed with the Light Refraction stopping, and she darted backwards to get back into the woods and away from the group.

Iida and Shoji ran forward at their blinded and shouting opponents. _Short on time,_ Shoji thought. They knew the flash of light would draw attention from a farther range than their fight had been already, and with only a few of them there they had to move quickly. Hagakure was quick to escape backwards, while the two stronger boys acted fast on their disoriented opponents. Iida came up behind the group and jumped up, slamming his knee into the back of the guy who was trying to reach out and grab Himazuri. He slammed him into the ground, then landed on his left foot and fired hotter flames out of his right leg that he spun for the other guy close to where he just hit Trabo into the ground.

Iida's leg was inches from hitting his opponent, when the guy he was kicking at suddenly blurred on a duck down while stepping away from the U.A. student. _Him!_ Iida thought, re-planning his assault as he recognized the power in front of him. His opponent had changed up his costume since the last time they met, wearing dark purple this time instead of the dark red color he had last year. Iida stomped his right leg down and his Engines flared up on both legs, _Only use Recipro once he's between Steps._

Spinning towards Iida with squinted eyes, was Elinari Shuu. The shortest boy in Class 1 of Shiketsu's third years, Elinari did not have to duck far as Iida's kick was aimed high up on his chest. He faced the much taller enemy in front of him, his face scrunched because of his squinted eyes, but his expression intense nonetheless. Iida did not expect as harsh a look back at him as he recalled this student's personality from the previous year to be a more boastful and carefree one. Elinari had even bragged about his Quirk after the initial training stages where it was no longer a secret, so Iida knew more about his Quirk than he did most of the Shiketsu's.

Elinari Shuu's Quirk, Quick Step, could speed him up for 2 seconds at a time with a fifteen second interval after he used up his time. The lengths used to be much worse: longer in the intervals and shorter for the actual usage, but he had increased his ability over the years as they all had. Iida suspected as much though, and accounted for changes in the lengths to actually be overestimating Elinari's ability at the moment, which the boy with short chestnut-brown hair could see. _Shit, one of the worst guys to show up against me,_ Elinari was in a fighting stance, and he moved forward for Iida like he was going for an attack. _I need to get him somewhere harder for that Quirk of his._

Elinari and Iida both darted their gazes over to the side once during their interaction, but they remained focused on each other despite the other fight going on in the seconds after Hagakure's Light Refraction. Shoji had come straight in from the front of the group, and his first blow was enough to knock down and knock out the boy with the Beam Body Quirk. As Enjino hit the ground though, Shoji's second arm reaching out to wrap around Himazuri got smacked away by a girl whose eyes shot open wide showing she was squinting them like that on purpose.

Despite being unable to warn her classmates on time, Himazuri did manage to slam her own eyes shut in the moment Hagakure was flashing her group. Her eyes stayed squinted to convince Shoji she was as blinded as the rest of them, in preparation to push his arm aside and rush him straight on. Two more arms emerged out of the insides of two of Shoji's arms, and he grabbed her on either side of her body and squeezed hard enough that she let out a scream of pain. The shortest and smallest girl of Shiketsu was unable to capitalize on the moment she had gotten past him, her weapons falling from her hands as she was squeezed by what felt like a gorilla.

 _Three down-_ Elinari thought while sprinting up a tree, grimacing at the sound of his classmate's scream. His body blurred up the trunk and then stopped moving so fast, his Quick Step reaching its limit. He started running down the thick branch he had reached, but his eyes widened as he looked down towards the tree trunk ahead of him that came close to the branch he was moving down towards the thinner end. Iida had not run at the same tree behind him that Elinari blurred to and sprinted up, instead picking the one ahead of Elinari that he was now sprinting up. This caused his opponent to skid to a stop on a branch that shook and made the boy start losing his balance and have to throw his arms out for support. Iida jumped off the tree he was sprinting straight up with his Engines speeding him faster than before and yet still not in Recipro.

The precautionary measure on Iida's part paid off, and he used his Reciproburst without saying a word. He was still in midair coming down towards the branch that Elinari was backing up a step on now, when his body twisted in midair while he curled himself up and grabbed at his knees. He aimed his body at a different tree where three shuriken just came flying at him from, and he shot insanely fast towards the girl who let out a gasp as he saw her the moment the shuriken were leaving her fingertips. Iida also flinched though, even as he shot through the air far faster than Manzo Elia had time to dodge. _Manzo is a girl?_

Iida saw a protrusion in the front of the black bandages wrapping around this other young hero where a woman's chest would be. In the previous year's training, he remembered how this person had caught them off guard several times with her ability that they assumed was just like Hagakure's at first. The student who had not said a word to their class last year turned invisible again and started to move, but Iida's Recipro ended and he swung his leg around slowing down, but still moving fast enough and in steel armor that pounded into Manzo's back and left side. Manzo's body became visible again, and Iida jumped towards her and reached out his arms, catching the person who he figured he might have just knocked out, and then dropping to the ground while holding her.

"Manzo-" Elinari started calling down to the girl who he thought he might have had to catch too. Instead, he saw Iida wrapping her up in capture tape upon his landing, and he jumped off of the branch he ran down again in Iida's direction. Iida turned his head partially towards him, but the U.A. student did not look very worried, as much as Elinari could tell through the slit in Ingenium's mask. Elinari gasped, his body hunching forward and his legs kicking out in front of him. He suddenly understood why it was Himazuri screamed, as two large hands had gripped him around the sides and he felt his ribs squeezing inwards.

Shoji retracted his arms that extended over and over into the air to where he saw Elinari leapt off. He dragged that student back down despite the boy's attempts to speed up, and Shoji got to wrapping him up like he had Trabo and Himazuri. Enjino was unconscious so Shoji did not feel a need, along with the fact that Enjino's Beam Body made it difficult to tie him up in the first place. Shoji knew this at the start though and went for him with the intention of knocking him out, as tying up Enjino would have only resulted in him beaming through the tape.

Iida sprinted over to Shoji, and he reached up to his earpiece that he tapped over the outside of his helmet where he had stuck it after Yaoyorozu gave him his specialized one. "Shoji and I have rounded up five enemies. One is Trabo, so it may be one of his Triplets. Making for the jail now."

"I helped too," Hagakure called out.

Shoji picked up four unconscious opponents, while Iida held Manzo over his right shoulder and curled his arm in to make sure he was supporting her weight. "Let us move," Iida said to his classmate. Shoji nodded at him quickly, and the two of them ran in the direction Hagakure had, which was also back towards their side of the training dome and their team's jail.

Shoji turned his bottom left hand into an ear. "It doesn't seem there is anyone around us."

"Great job you guys," Ashido mentioned on the open channel, since no one else had said anything in their headsets yet.

"Careful on the way back," Midoriya added.

Back at the U.A. jail, Midoriya stared out into the forest with an intense expression and uncertain eyes. "Who else did you catch?" He added after telling his classmates to be wary.

"Manzo, Himazuri, Elinari, and Enjino," Iida listed off.

Shoji glanced towards his classmate in semi-surprise for a moment that Iida recalled all of their names immediately. Shoji refocused on what he was hearing though at the sight of Iida's intense expression. _Our footsteps make too much noise while running. If we pause to take small recon breaks though, we increase the chances that they'll catch up to us. Do they even know we've caught their comrades yet? Where is Zach? What is he doing right now?_

 _This isn't right,_ Midoriya thought, his right hand up in front of his mouth and a frustrated look over his face. _I've planned out a hundred battle strategies from Zach's perspective. All of them would rely on Himazuri and her mind reading. But then, what is Zach's relationship with her? How does she not know who he is? He's kept his secrets from her for so long now. How? Does she know? Or did he send her out to get captured early… because then she'd be close to us!_ Midoriya's face lit up, but then he scrunched it again after a second. _No. That doesn't make sense. Letting her get captured is stupid. Especially with four others. There would have been easier methods that didn't take out someone with the best chance of taking our flag like Manzo. Even if she could read my thoughts from behind me and somehow transfer our plans to her teammates from the jail, even if they somehow knew that one of us was going to stay next to the jail the whole time even though they can't be broken out once they've been put in! It's too much of a tactical disadvantage to lose her when our plans could change over and over through the training. Maybe her range expanded since last year, but definitely not to the area of this whole dome. And more importantly, how could she transfer messages around to people? Her Quirk isn't like Mandalay's was…_

 _Zach got around Zeira's Quirk._ _ **"Mental Infiltration,"**_ Midoriya remembered asking Midnight what Zeira's Quirk was back at the recent hero licensing exam. _**"She cannot use it more than three times in a day, but it has a success rate of a hundred percent."**_ _Midnight thought it would work no matter what. Maybe, Himazuri just can't read Zach's mind. How does he do that? I need to learn- Focus! Why would Zach allow this? Is it part of his plan? I overestimated how much control he has had in the past too. What he revealed on Inazuma Island, was that the "plans" I accused him of over and over really did not exist. I believe that. I, I think I believe that, for now, his goal is to become a hero. It was the gap between Kaminari's betrayal and his own departure that I have been stuck on. The last version of him we remember, is the fake version that tricked us all in a long-con that lasted weeks. I assumed he progressed even further to the point where he could drag something like that out over months or even years. But not everything Zach does is part of his plan. Sometimes he has to adapt, like when Darling shows up out of nowhere and everything about his current life changes. So how will he adapt to losing four comrades and one of the Trabos? Shit!_

Midoriya darted a glance behind him to the cell bars at his back again. _We can knock out the Triplet brought over here before tossing him in the cell. Covering his eyes and his ears is an option too. WAIT! They definitely know that their classmates have been captured? Could the other two Trabos locate him immediately? Are they drawn to him or can they only see what he's seeing? I assume Iida thought of this and took out Trabo first, but if not._ Midoriya reached a hand up for his earpiece.

"Three of the top ten," Satoshi muttered while running through the woods, glancing around at the others near him to see if they all felt as anxious as he did about what he just said. No one else spoke though, and Satoshi steadied his expression and turned back forward with a more intense and focused look. _Calm down,_ he told himself, closing his snake-like eyes a bit and pushing his feet harder into the ground with each step forward. _It wasn't our group, but out of all the forward teams I didn't think it would be Manzo's. She's still 7th, Enjino's up to 8th, and Elinari got bumped down but he's still 10th. Trabo says it didn't take many of the U.A.'s to take them down too._

"Stay focused and keep moving for the intercept point."

"Primary attack team ready for action." Adashi Veleno said in a low voice. The dark-skinned, five foot eleven teenage boy, glanced over his shoulder at the four people standing behind him. He looked at them and specifically the boy ranked second in their class who had until that term been the strongest in all of Shiketsu. Inasa nodded back at Adashi, and the third and fourth ranked in their class stepped forward on either side. Dendo and Hisashi gave each other serious looks which Inasa saw on either side of him and made him get a more intense expression too rather than the big smile he had over his face.

"Forward teams 1 and 3 have met up and are going silent."

The reason Midnight was able to point out to Ectoplasm earlier that the Shiketsu students were not at as big of a disadvantage communications' wise, was because some of those students did have earpieces on them that they were speaking into. Hazano watched his student who had handed out a half dozen of those to his fellow students as the training was commencing. In the teacher's head he imagined the time he spent in the Costume Development Lab with Sazaki over the past week, making the same earpieces his other students were using now. _**"…Cooperation between heroes during villain attacks could be improved if all heroes who respond are able to communicate directly from the start. Keeping five or six such headsets on my costume all connected through my helmet's network, can establish that communication line immediately in any situation."**_

 _They're all on his network now. His wavelength,_ Hazano shifted his eyes around and watched the other students in his class who the teachers around him were talking about in low voices.

Down in the training arena, one of U.A.'s tacticians was standing just outside of their flag base with a worried look spread over her face. _I can't predict him,_ Yaoyorozu thought. It had been almost a minute since they heard from their classmates about the first capture, and her other classmates were still speaking over the headsets with Midoriya doing the most to organize them. _What will his next move be? I- I can't analyze his strategy when I don't, really know who he is._

Yaoyorozu took in a deep breath, and she let it out slowly to calm herself down. Her heart ached though and she bit down thinking about a conversation she had had with Zach a long time ago. _When he came back from the War Boys, I confirmed it. He didn't lie to me. When he didn't want to answer something, he wouldn't. I wanted that kind of relationship again… but you,_ Yaoyorozu curled her hands into fists and her look became more frustrated. _If he had come straight out and told me… That's not what bothers me! It's that back then, as much as he hid from me, he didn't lie. Now, even though he's still hiding so much, he lied to me. Instead of just holding those things back- which I would have preferred! He deliberately lied about stories that he told me straight to my face, attempting to convince me of those lies, up until last week and only because he got caught!_

 _ **"YEARS!"**_

Yaoyorozu's dark expression flinched and softened for a moment, only to get more frustrated again. She rose a hand up to a button on her earpiece and said in a low voice, "Hurry up to the jail, Iida. I am worried that something will-"

"They're attacking us!" Hagakure called out, her hand holding her earpiece while she leapt backwards away from the attackers who suddenly came out of nowhere.

"How far are you from us?" Midoriya asked quickly. "Show us where you are!"

Instead of trying to answer Midoriya, Hagakure curled her elbows in and let out the biggest and brightest flash she could.

Iida and Shoji had to put down the people they had captured. All of them were either unconscious or tied up, so they wouldn't be going anywhere as long as the two strong guys from U.A. could hold their position. They also needed their hands free, as they were faced by a group of three boys who had attacked them from the trees at first only for both Iida and Shoji to dodge them. Those boys were now wary of Hagakure too after that huge flash that nearly blinded them and would have had she not given away her location when she dodged the attacks that had come too close to her when the enemies should have been aiming for Iida and Shoji.

Iida's eyes focused on one of the small black weapons imbedded in the dirt near him, and then his eyes shot back up at the Shiketsu students in front of him. "Imino is here too," Iida warned the others, his eyes scanning the woods for where the blue-skinned teen with pointy ears was hiding.

"You won't find him!" Kotsumura called out, running ahead of both Satoshi and Porrolo who shot forward behind him.

Satoshi's lower body was pushed flat to the ground and snaking around behind him, his legs together and his upper body pushed back with his eyes wide. The vertical slits of his eyes narrowed even more as his snake-like tongue snapped out of his mouth, and Porrolo stuck his hands down so white sparks came out of each of his fingertips where the small holes under his nails were. The two of them raced after Kotsumura who was smiling confidently even as he ran at Shoji and Iida.

 _He's letting that 19 ranking go to his head,_ Porrolo thought towards his best friend, though he was trying to focus on his powerful enemies who were not caught off guard at all by their sudden ambush. _Never gone above 20 before though, so it was a pretty high jump for him._ Porrolo snapped his right hand out towards Shoji's upper right arm that was hooking towards him, and Shoji pulled it back to dodge the sparking electricity Porrolo tried to fire at him. It got weaker the farther from his fingertips it got, but Shoji still pulled away quick enough anyway and attempted an attack from the other side.

Shoji had to jump backwards this time though, as two more sharp bat-shaped knives came flying around the trees and collided into each other. The collision caused the weapons to increase the speed of their spins towards both him and Iida, and Iida was already slowing down as Kotsumura smacked a sticky glove onto his back and got dragged along when Iida was dodging back from Satoshi. Iida jumped up in the air and his calves glowed blue, flipping him even with his power being depleted so his Engines had not been going very fast anymore.

"Waa-" Kotsumura let out a yelp as he was flung in a flip with Iida, then he 'oof'ed as Iida crashed down on top of him intentionally. Iida reached back and slid Kotsumura's hand out of his glove, leaving the blond down on the ground moaning and gasping for breath. Then Iida turned and he pulled his head away fast from yet another bat knife flying towards him. _The trajectory-_ Iida realized that the direction the weapon was coming for him this time was too far from the trees they had initially been coming out of. The realization was too late though, and he ran back towards the students they had dropped not far from them. Porrolo stood on one side blocking off where he knew Hagakure to be and where Shoji had dodged back to, and Satoshi snaked in front of Iida and pulled his body back with his cheeks puffing out like he was filling his mouth with venom.

At the moment they were sure they had blocked their opponents from their downed comrades, smoke pellets hit the floor behind them. The clouds of smoke expanded out to shadow over Porrolo and Satoshi too. Iida did not miss a beat, and he stepped back and looked down to his right side where there was a blond boy laying still in a lot of pain and not going anywhere. Iida's eyes started to grow wide though, as someone was sliding across the ground on the back of his heels that skid with ease even on the dirt surface. There was a wire extended out from his right glove all the way to a tree across a gap that Kotsumura was laying in, and that wire was retracting fast to drag Zach across the ground.

Iida's eyes caught on Zach's costume for too long, and his Engines were still stalling from using Recipro (even at the half speed it was at from Kotsumura's Deplete). Iida did not know what he was expecting from Zach's hero costume, but it was nothing like what he was seeing now. Zach skid across the ground in a vibrant blue costume of both shirt and pants that were tight to him and showed off his muscles while making him look even bigger than usual. The costume had green highlights up on the shoulders, down on his knees, and on the sides of his blue-and-black boots too. His steel utility belt was green as well and the handle of the grappling gun Zach had was black, but even that had some green on it as it had been down on the belt and matched the design.

There was a large 'L' in the middle of Zach's chest too that Iida's eyes locked onto for a brief instant as his gaze scanned over his old classmate. The thick red L had an outline of green, over a black background that had a white X crossing through it behind the L. Shoji turned too as he thought about taking Kotsumura if their enemies were more focused on getting their comrades back than anything. He saw Zach and froze too, as Zach looked back at the two who he had brought back to life before.

Zach's eyes shifted over Shoji quicker and back to Iida to lock on his gaze. It was the first time they had seen each other since Inazuma Island. _He's thought about turning me over. In his head he's wondering what I'm thinking. Wondering if he made the right move to say nothing. He doesn't know. He's still indecisive. But at the least, you gave me today._ Zach's eyes filled with a brief moment of gratitude, then he looked away and reached down, snagging Keiji off the ground and lifting him up with his left arm with ease.

"Zach!" Hagakure called out.

Shoji shook his head around, and he lifted a hand to his earpiece quickly, "Zach is here. We're losing the people we caught."

"No we're not!" Ashido called out, her voice loud but not over the comms. Shoji turned his head and looked back towards the smoke that he, Hagakure, and Iida all started running at. "We've got them cut off Midoriya!" Ashido called into her headset this time, responding to their team leader who redirected them while heading that way himself to catch the Shiketsu students in a pincer move.

"Forward team 3 is getting pinned down," Kerushi said into his earpiece, while running a new direction and carrying Enjino over his shoulders.

Another of U.A.'s own forward groups had come back, and the team of five were fighting against the Shiketsu students who came and were taking back their comrades. Porrolo Ven was wrapped up in white tape and struggling to get out, while Satoshi just continued to snake forward at Sero even though the Tape had wrapped around him too. Sero pointed one elbow behind him and used a branch above and behind him to swing backwards, while snapping up his left elbow after already firing another long piece of tape at Satoshi's long back. The Shiketsu student shot forward faster, leaning his body forward to snake towards where Sero was going to come down… only to find he was struggling to move any farther.

Satoshi's vertical irises darted back behind him to see that the piece of tape connected to his back was also connected to a tree back behind him. The tape was stretching out but not breaking, and Satoshi struggled harder only to lose sight as more Tape wrapped around his eyes.

Trabo X had to drop the unmoving Trabo and leap backwards, while the remaining Trabo rushed in at the back of the blond who dropped in and nearly smashed his Triplets with his strong tail. A bright beam flew past the front of Trabo and caused him to stop short, his eyes darting over to another U.A. blond who had his arms behind his head and his stomach stuck out forward. Trabo X yelled out, but Trabo was too slow to look back forwards before that thick tail smacked into him and sent him flying into a tree behind him.

Only the spiky-haired version of Trabo remained, and Trabo X called over towards Kerushi who just had his path blocked off from getting any farther back towards their side of the dome. "Can't we hurry this up?!"

"Shut up!" Kerushi called back over. He put Enjino down carefully, then he glared up at the pink girl and the guy with spiky brown hair who stood across from her. The two of them had each just taken down a tree of their own, Ashido by melting through with her Acid, and Sato by smashing it down after eating a sugar cube. The trees had fallen in Kerushi's path, and he glanced backwards only to see even more enemies coming up on them as the team they originally got their comrades back from were right behind them again.

"Why do you want him to shut up?" Ashido wondered. She put her hands on the trunk in front of her, and she flipped herself up over it. While she was flipping, she swung both arms down at Kerushi and splashed Acid at him, and some at the other boy laying next to him who Kerushi had put down carefully. She forced Kerushi to adjust his dodge to stay close to them and protect his classmate while fighting at the same time.

Sato was not thinking too hard about it, as he had eaten the sugar and was pretty much in fight-mode. Ashido was not the only one to hear what Trabo X called out though, and Ojiro remembered how this spikier-haired version of Trabo acted compared to the others last year. "Something's going on," Ojiro warned-

"Inasa's here!" Mineta shouted in panic.

"It's an attack at our base," Todoroki said, his voice calmer as he went out to meet the enemy.

"Not just Inasa," Yaoyorozu continued for the others as she shot backwards using a jetpack and hooks attached near the top of their building to keep her from getting yanked away by the strong gusts surrounding their base. Several trees fell ahead of her as a few green slashes smashed through them, and the trees crashed down with deafening cracks through the woods. The path opened up for Hisashi who barreled over the trunks and smashed them into splinters below him.

Hisashi Kuredo stood ten feet tall, and hair grew out on his arms and legs as he sprinted forward on two legs but with his arms curled down in front of him punching at the ground on every four steps or so. The black fur around his body started to suck back in though, while lighter blond fur grew instead and in a mane around his head. His arms fell forward and claws extended out of his paws, and he moved more nimbly to dodge to the right and left away from the cannon attacks coming from the roof of U.A.'s building. He leapt up in the air, and a pair of long wings spread out to either side while his body was shrinking and his legs getting much thinner.

Inasa decreased the speed of his wind in the path between Hisashi and the roof of U.A.'s building, but an ice wall shot up between them and stopped Hisashi in his tracks. A Slice cut through the bottom of the wall, and ice rained down between Todoroki, and the three enemies in front of him. Inasa paused and smirked while looking straight forward into Todoroki's eyes. Then he looked to his right, and to his left, and both Dendo and Hisashi nodded at him with serious looks before turning and sprinting in curved runs away from Inasa in flanking maneuvers on the base.

 _That Dendo is taking orders from Inasa? No, he's just following the plan,_ Yaoyorozu's eyes focused down on the green-haired teen who was one of her opponents she was most wary of. _The others said he became quick friends with Zach. The fact that he was at Zach's house for that 'fight day' the others talked about didn't make any sense. Not after the way he acted last year. Somehow, Zach convinced him of something. He made friends with Dendo, and Dendo's actions now are Zach's-_

"Zach's going to try and sneak into the base," Iida warned.

Everyone trying to organize and communicate through their headsets hesitated for a second. Even Bakugo paused what he was doing across the dome where he found the enemy team's base and was watching the defenses carefully. Bakugo had seen one of the enemies in front of him reach up to an earpiece that Bakugo noticed before the teenage girl had turned her head, but other than Reika, Bakugo did not see anyone else with a communicator like that. _He takes our flag, I'll take his. If I get it first though…_ A smirk covered the bleach-blond-haired teen's face, and Bakugo blasted explosions behind him and towards the Shiketsu base.

"Kameko!"

"Bakugo's here!"

"Just like you said. He's here," Reika reported, before lowering her hand and grinning straight at the single U.A. class member rushing at their defense team of six.

"How do you know, Iida?" Midoriya questioned, right after Iida had warned them but a moment after Bakugo made for his attack.

"We know," Shoji said. Mezo Shoji finished tying up Kotsumura who had been limping away back towards his teammates on his own, then Shoji picked him up and ran forward after where Hagakure had continued going. The fighting was still going on ahead of them, and they could hear the sounds of their comrades in the midst of combat over there. They ran forward, even without Iida who had turned back after he realized where Zach must have gone when the attack on their home base started.

Iida explained over their comms, and Midoriya grit his teeth harder but looked back and forth at the other two he was running from the jail with. _Even with Iida coming back,_ Deku turned his head and glanced towards the direction of another huge ice wall and where the sounds of cracking trees were louder than from the fight between many more students just ahead of him. "Koda, Tokoyami," Midoriya began. "Back up the others," he said, and the other two nodded at him and continued rushing off the direction they had been going. _Bakugo's across the dome,_ Midoriya thought while leaping up high in the air over all the canopies. He looked across the dome and spotted an explosion, _And he's already started attacking. He'll get the flag he said, and I believe he can do that if Zach's on offense with the others at the top of their class. Kameko could stall him, but we can stop them completely here!_

 _Against Inasa alone, I could handle this,_ Todoroki thought while facing off against his opponent. _I've gotten much stronger over the past year._

"You've gotten a lot stronger this last year!" Inasa shouted at his opponent who just thought the same thing.

Todoroki frowned that they just thought the same thing, though he frowned more as he wondered about the mind reader in Shiketsu's class. He reminded himself that she was over in the fight between a lot of his fellow students and their own, but that frustrated him even more. He refocused though. _Kirishima's intercepted Dendo, and Mineta and Tsuyu can hold off Hisashi while Yaoyorozu guards the flag. If Zach goes up there now, I'm sure we'll know._

 _This has to work,_ Yaoyorozu thought, while she stood in front of the flag where she traded places with Asui a moment ago. _I'm staying on the open channel, so I can keep my hands low and speak to him without him noticing. As long as he doesn't, mention anything over the open channel that would…_ Yaoyorozu could not doubt her plan, and she made her expression more intense while focusing on the main entrance to the room. Sticky Pop-Offs covered the floor in seemingly random but very specific placements, and there were motion sensor traps on various other places in the room thanks to Yaoyorozu herself.

"Your students are underestimating U.A.," Ectoplasm said, looking to his side at Kimona for a moment only for that teacher to frown back at him and humph with his arms still tightly crossed.

"Our students are more used to fighting in various terrains," Kimona countered. He did not say much of what was going on down there, only that the students he was watching may have had better plans than Ectoplasm thought.

"All-Terrain does have an amazing power," Midnight agreed with Kimona. The fact that they were in the middle of a city inside of a huge man-made dome was impossible to tell while looking down at the nature below. The teacher and pro hero of Shiketsu who made this arena had also come to U.A. on various occasions too to assist with making training facilities like this one.

"I admit, this is a nice training ground. All-Terrain's ability is one thing I know Mr. Principal is jealous of," Ectoplasm mentioned. Then he finished though, "It's the one place where Shiketsu excels beyond U.A.'s ability."

Hazano's lips curled down at the corners in a more subtle way than his fellow Shiketsu staff who were getting too competitive with this. All Might lifted his hands defensively to try and pacify everyone, though he added himself in less a competitive way and more like he was just observing it, "However, I must agree with my colleagues. Attacking the base where the flag was at the same time as attempting to save their comrades, Class 1 has spread themselves too thin. And with Bakugo facing such small resistance, not that those students are not trying their best…" All Might trailed off for a moment, as a pair of students thinking they got the drop on Bakugo's flanks each got grabbed and slammed into the ground with explosions on their bodies that made the teachers wince.

Hazano's eyes shifted up to one of the screens in particular where he last saw a few of his students before they went after the flag. _Not every angle can be seen from up here. I don't know if or why Sazaki would have them hide from us, but perhaps it is a coincidence. What is not a coincidence, is that Adashi went with the primary attack team and is not there with them. Using it only on the strongest members of the class…_

"The plan is too straightforward," Ectoplasm said firmly. "Midoriya has adapted to it at every step. Even…" Ectoplasm's eyes narrowed on one of the screens, a more confused look coming to his face like it did to several other teachers.

"I think, you're the one who's mistaken," Hazano said in a low voice while darting his eyes from one screen to another and another again. "My students are not the ones underestimating U.A.," Hazano stared directly at one image of a teen with spiky black hair who reached up for his visor and slid it down over the front of his face. "It is yours, who are underestimating Sazaki."

Zach stood alone in the forest. He stood in the shadow of a tree on his own, his breathing calm and steady. Sounds of fighting were loudest just ahead of him on the other side of the tree, but he could hear the other two fights on opposite ends of the dome as well. _I didn't know if Bakugo really would go straight there, but I know Kameko can hold him off now. Inasa and the others are strong enough to hold Midoriya's attention long enough. It's time to make my move._ Zach's visor extended up over the top of his head to give him a dark-blue helmet. His bracelet on his left hand opened and covered his hand, while the watch on his right folded down over his hand for Zach to curl his fingers inside of. The visor over his eyes was dark tinted, and Zach put a hand up to the side of that helmet while pulling a small black device off of his belt with his left hand.

"Going dark," Zach announced.

Ojiro faced off against Kerushi, his expression steadier than his panting opponent's. There were Shiketsu students on the ground all over the area that had become more of a clearing with so many trees felled through the fight. The U.A. students were surrounding them, with only Aoyama holding back near Koda because of an injury. Insects swarmed over and throughout the clearing, and Tape blocked off the gaps between trees in a wide circumference of the seventeen Shiketsu students on the ground or still holding their ground against their opponents. Some of the Shiketsus were outside of the opening, having been dragged back by U.A. students who got them from the others who were just trying to bring them back to their own base it seemed.

Kerushi was panting heavily, but the corner of his lip still cracked up, while not far from him, Trabo X lifted his hands up and he pressed his hands down on top of his head. Ojiro's eyes darted over to that student who pressed his black hair down to his head, and his heart rate skyrocketed while he darted his gaze over to one of the versions on the ground whose hair was flat. That moaning version lost his pained look a bit, as his lips curled up more in a way befitting Trabo X than the actual original version who just pushed his hair back down. _Why?!_ Ojiro thought, his mind racing as he tried to think of all Trabo and his Triplets had done so far.

On the west side of the dome, Bakugo turned back towards the large Tortoise Fortress facing him on the first floor of the base below where the flag room had been. Bakugo had blasted the floor apart to get below Kameko as he fell, but the flag was inside of Kameko's "Fortress," and Bakugo was struggling more to get through him than he did to get through the other five in the defensive team. He had just turned back from the long-haired blonde girl who was the second to last to fall on this squad, and he had her earpiece up in his opposite ear as his own team's. _"Going dark?" What does Zach mean by that? Why would they purposely cut off comms, unless he's getting close to Jirou or Shoji? Even then, something's up here._

Bakugo turned his head, and he leaned out of the way as a brown spike shot out of the Tortoise Fortress moving faster than Bakugo had seen Kameko attack before. Bakugo looked outside and his eyes darkened as an uneasy feeling swirled in his chest. He lifted a hand to the comms on the left side of his head, "I've got your flag." Bakugo let go of the earpiece fast to cut off his voice.

"That's not true!" Kameko shouted out, his face moving on the plate-like surface on the outside of his huge shell. "Don't listen to him!"

 _He doesn't have a headset of his own,_ Bakugo's thoughts raced as he put together everything happening around him. _No one's responding. If they heard, they would at least have to change up their plans to make a counterattack. They would need to communicate with each other, even risking my hearing them. Knowing Zach, he'd have codes for a situation where one of us got his earpieces. He's the one who brought these after all. Why would he cut his own comms?_ Bakugo reached for his other earpiece while dodging away with an explosion this time, "Oi Deku."

"What is it?" Midoriya responded quickly, leaping up high in the air so that he could grab at his ear and respond to Bakugo as fast as possible. His eyes darted across the dome for a second, then to his right at what he heard Bakugo growl on the other side of the line.

"Sero! You listening? Oi Ashido," Bakugo grimaced more while flipping backwards and getting out of the base that Kameko was guarding too tightly. _What the hell's happening right now?_

Midoriya shifted his gaze from the fight going on below over to the right once more even on his descent back down. Then he darted his eyes straight towards Inasa who was moving too swiftly around in the air for any of them to catch, and who was being the most troublesome with his winds slamming all over the place. _Zach did this on purpose,_ Midoriya's eyes focused on the former strongest member of Shiketsu's Class 1. _To try and force someone fast enough to get over there and check. He wants either me or Iida, or Todoroki, to leave the base. He wants to force the strongest to leave the base and the flag unprotected. I can't leave the flag that unguarded while we're already up against such strong opponents, especially if Zach could appear at any moment._ "Yaoyorozu, keep trying to reach the others. They must have used a radio jammer…"

Zach had clipped the jammer back to his waist, before pulling out a pair of knives from his waist. Each of the rectangular pieces he pulled off of his belt were replaced by new ones that filled in the spaces left by the blades he just removed. Those small hilts extended out into knives that Zach sprinted while holding down to his sides with the blades pointed back behind him. Each of the blades had green hilts and silver steel sticking out of them, five inches long and sharp.

 _Here we go,_ One of the only other Class 1 members not accounted for by U.A.'s students made his move too. Shoji was busy fighting, and with so many loud noises from the fight around him he was not able to scout around them as he was doing before. He could not hear everything unless he was actively creating arm-ears, unlike Imino who heard Zach approaching fast and made his move, pulling out a pair of bat-knives. These two bat-knives looked different from his normal ones though, as each of the knives were covered in another tool he used often.

Hagakure's head turned. The invisible girl had been making a loop around the exterior of the opening to make sure no one was able to escape from any gaps between her classmates, and she reached up to her earpiece quickly. "Something's flying into the opening. Everyone- hey! HEY!" Hagakure spun and shouted towards the others closest to her who looked her way in confusion. _They didn't hear me?!_

The bat-knives hit the ground in different parts of the opening. U.A. students and Shiketsu students were in the middle of fighting, when the two dozen smoke pellets erupted all at once and flooded out in every direction from the collisions of the knives with the floor. Smoke from the two explosions crashed into each other and billowed up, while also pulsing out all the way to the outer ring surrounding the opening. It seemed to be slowing down before reaching the members on the outside completely and looking in, but then more blasts of smoke caused the smoke to expand even further out.

 _None of their classmates should have a Quirk that can do this! It must be Imino,_ Sero thought while covering up his mouth with one arm and looking around carefully in the smoke. He aimed behind him, attached his tape up high somewhere outside of the area, and he shot himself out of the smoke backwards just as Ashido backflipped out of it not far from him. Sero looked towards Ashido as she came out of the smoke, ready to tell her something, but he got confused as he saw Ashido holding a hand up to her ear and already talking. "Hey," Sero called over to the girl who looked his way in surprise, then confusion at the way he was looking at her like he did not hear a thing she was just saying. _Are our comms busted? Is something blocking the signal?_

In the heavy smoke, Dark Shadow grew larger and Tokoyami curled his fists tightly at his sides with a darker look on his face. _The more Dark Shadow grows, the more I have to accept him or he'll grow wild. The more I have to act like Dark Shadow myself._ Tokoyami's eyes snapped open and he ground his teeth inside of his beak, his eyes dark but at the same time cocky and looking for a fight, looking for someone to crush.

 _First thing, is to take away all ability to call for help._ Zach shot a grappling hook out of the edge of the smoke where a girl was backing up to stay on the outside and make sure no one escaped. The hook wrapped around the invisible girl who was still talking as she tried to get her comms to work. She let out a yelp as she was suddenly yanked into the smoke, where a tall, muscular teen, slammed his right fist into her gut. Hagakure's voice and all her breath shot out of her mouth, then she collapsed to the ground as Zach continued to move away from the girl who could no longer give off a bright flash to alert those far from them that they might need some help over here.

 _Shoji and Ojiro are top of the list too. The strongest one with sensory powers who can regroup everyone without comms, alert them to what's happening. And the one who has the most martial arts prowess, who once alerted to my presence could possibly hold off long enough for a plan to be made._ Zach bent down, his thermal vision showing him where three people tied up on the ground were inside of the still-expanding smoke that Imino just added a few more smoke pellets to. He slashed knives across the capture tape around some of his classmates as he ran past, then he let out a whistle twice in rapid succession, first high-pitched and then low.

Zach sprinted off straight at Shoji whose stature he could tell apart from all the others in his thermal vision. _If he heard that, he'll switch to sensory to figure out what we're doing._ Zach saw the red silhouette of Shoji's bottom left arm transforming into something while his other arms retracted from the long barrier he was making between trees at his back. Shoji had been shouting out to locate Imino, and to not let up on their perimeter just because of the smoke. Zach's steps became nearly silent, and he appreciated a shout of pain from behind him even if it was from one of his Shiketsu classmates who attempted to get the drop on Ojiro in the smoke.

Zach dove forward, right between Shoji's legs parted the smallest amount that he was still able to slip through. Shoji's eyes darted down above his mask, his legs starting to close in as he saw Zach emerge from thicker smoke and go for between his legs. Moving his legs in like that took him out of a stance that had better balance, so that as Zach kicked backwards upon his landing, he dropped Shoji down to his right knee instantly by kicking that leg in the back of the knee. Zach slammed his left fist into Shoji's left kidney while crouching up behind him, making Shoji hunch to the side he was already turning to, dropping down on his arms and knees now as he gasped in pain and shock at how much that punch hurt.

A knee slammed into Shoji's gasping face, and then Zach reached around his neck and strangled his former classmate too disoriented from that kick to come up with a good counter. Zach sprinted back into the thicker smoke leaving an unconscious Shoji on the ground, and he darted towards the edge of it where he had seen Koda's form earlier along with one other. As he was taking down Shoji, he noticed an insect moving away from him into the smoke at the top of his vision. There were too many insects and the thermal readings on them were too small to notice for him to target one specifically. He sprinted faster, and he fired a grappling hook ahead of him while popping his heels back to skid across the ground, leaping up as he was about to hit a tree branch to send himself flying up over it.

The back of Zach's costume glowed blue, and he raced out of the smoke right as Koda turned to Aoyama and said something. Aoyama saw Zach and he leaned his body backwards, his Navel Laser glowing bright. Koda swung a punch, but Zach passed by him without slowing as he easily dodged the attack. Zach got to Aoyama and around his back in an instant, before throwing his arms around Aoyama Yuga's front so his hands locked just above the dazzling boy's laser.

Aoyama tried to fire, though there was a hesitation as Zach gripped him tightly around his front. Whether it was fear that his beam would rip through the glove on Zach's hand, even though Zach grabbed above his bellybutton, or that he would destroy Zach's hands, or just a flinch from Zach getting behind him so fast seemingly flying without using his Quirk, Aoyama hesitated. That brief hesitation made it so the laser never got very high, as it whipped backwards instead due to Zach suplexing his former classmate into the dirt.

Insects swarmed up underneath Zach's visor and forced him to close his eyes. Those insects all fell out of his visor, dead, before he had landed. He spun his head towards Koda and raced at the large boy with a boulder-like face who opened his eyes wide and pulled back as Zach sprinted at him. "Go warn Midoriya-" Koda started shouting up towards other bugs above him.

"They won't make it fast enough," Zach said, while jumping up in front of Koda with an elbow lifting up like he was going to smash it down on Koda's skull. Zach's right knee jammed up into Koda's chest and sent him slamming back into the tree just behind him. Zach dropped down and then spun, slamming an elbow into the same place and hitting Koda back into the tree so hard it cracked this time. The breath Koda just took back in after gasping in pain, completely flooded out of him as his eyes rolled back. Zach caught him with his left hand, then lowered him down before sprinting back towards the smoke that had replenished itself again.

Inside the smoke, Imino moved around seamlessly. No one knew where he was, while he knew where everyone else was. There was only one area he was staying away from, and that was the huge dark presence in the middle of the clearing that reacted to sound more than sight anyway. Imino's smoke pellets worked best to take away people's sight to use his Echolocation to a greater advantage. There were those who adapted to his attacks though. Even if they could not escape his smoke quickly, there were those who had trained themselves to hear too and not rely on their eyes while fighting, and so Imino had adapted to that as well to have counters against people who could do such things. Against something like Tokoyami wrapped in a very large Dark Shadow though, Imino was not going to rely on any of those counters.

 _ **"Yeah, I get that in that last moment I could have used them and you would have missed, but if we had separated again I would have needed those pellets to set back up. I had used a lot in the fight already-"**_

 _ **"You were running out? …No, even if I was pressing you, that's no excuse. You shouldn't ever run out of those smoke pellets. If they're that integral to your fighting style, like my knives are for mine, you can't ever run out. Let alone in a single 1-on-1 fight, the fact that you were even thinking about that shows how few you carry. What if you were fighting villains and I was the first of several? What if I wasn't even the most powerful one you ran into during that raid? You can use the excuse that you used up all your weapons on the first enemy, but it's on you to have that surplus even if most of the time you won't need it…"**_

Imino reached down into the second of four large pouches of smoke pellets that he had always only carried one of. His costume looked bulkier and like it had more unnecessary pouches and bulges than it did before, but he appreciated it now as he threw a cluster of smoke pellets in a direction where three of the U.A. students were together and trying to come up with a plan to de-smoke the area.

"It just keeps coming!"

"The fact that he targeted us means he knows what we were trying to do," Sero countered, making Sato turn to him with wide eyes and then nod in understanding. Sero frowned himself in the spreading smoke though, and he said, "Move back for a second though. Tokoyami! Try clearing some of the smoke!" Sero yelled it out, hoping Tokoyami could hear him wherever he was right now. _This would be so much easier with Midoriya over here. We really need him right now._ "Aoyama and Hagakure! Make some signs that we need help over here!"

"We could get Koda to send over a swarm of bugs too," Ashido suggested over towards where she knew Sero was, even though all she could see was his silhouette as she backed off towards the perimeter again. "Make an arrow in the air, or something." She turned her head back into the thickest part of the smoke, and she gulped as there was suddenly not much noise coming from in front of her anymore.

The clearing had suddenly become very quiet. Tokoyami felt the urge to yell out in anger towards Sero for telling him what to do, but the dark boy wrapped in a huge black shadow resisted it at the sudden anxious feeling welling up inside him. His arms spread to the sides and his claws grew huge, and he swept in front of him with left then right then left. Wind blew around the area as Tokoyami waved his huge arms, and as he was finishing each swipe he made his follow-through go upwards to push the smoke into the air.

A bright flash went off inside the smoke, and Sero nodded his head while looking in from the edge of the clearing again. _Alright, they can all hear me,_ he thought. He swore he saw a huge black movement in the smoke before a lot of it blew up in the air, thinning out how smokey the area was. The flash too encouraged him that Hagakure heard what he called out and was acting on it. The reason she did not reply to him was that she was simply invisible, and calling out her location before making that flash would have given her away and given their opponents a moment to stop her.

Ojiro turned his head though towards the sight of the flash. _That's not Toru's. It didn't look like part of Aoyama's beam either._ "That's not us! Tokoyami!" Ojiro shouted.

Sero turned to his left with the other two near him, and they spotted Ojiro for the first time in a while not too far from them. He was still mostly on his side of the perimeter, but he was looking the other way towards where he thought Hagakure should be based on the last time he saw her. "This is bad!" Ojiro called out, having had a bad feeling for a while. He had tried to keep it together through all of that, and his classmates looking over towards him stared in surprise at the number of Shiketsu students on the ground around him. All three of the Trabos, Kerushi, and Enjino were all down on the ground near Ojiro who had closed his eyes in the smoke there and fought his enemies without as much of a struggle as they were going through without their eyesight.

"Gaahh- RAaaaa…"

"What was, that?" Ashido looked into the thinning smoke hesitantly. She stepped back, and then she pulled to the side quickly as a dark form came flying at her.

"Is that…" Sato was slow to figure it out, but he was quick to reach down and pull out more sugar cubes.

Tokoyami bounced on the ground, hit again, and then skid to a stop just in front of Sero, Ashido, and Sato.

"Someone has to go tell Midoriya," Ojiro said quickly.

Sero darted a look towards him, clenching his teeth hard as he knew that was directed at him. _He's right though. I need to-_

"You think I'd let you?" Zach wondered, while stepping forward enough that his silhouette showed. He walked forward farther, and he emerged from smoke that Tokoyami had done a number on as much more of the clearing was visible now.

"Over here! It's Zach!" Ashido called out.

Sato had just devoured a lot of sugar cubes, but his eyes still locked on Zach's face with emotion in them and an expression shifting strangely for his usual dumbed-down form. Sato's muscles bulged though and after a second his face looked more enraged at what Zach just told them.

"Guys?!" Ashido called out.

"There weren't as many others here as you thought," Zach began. "And the ones who were here…"

 _Why is Zach doing this?_ Sero calmed himself down and darted his eyes past Zach and around the area. _The smoke is thickest right over there, near the middle but close to Ojiro-_ "They're getting their comrades!"

Ojiro darted his eyes to the enemies he had taken down around him. Zach sprinted towards Ojiro in that moment, done with the intimidating talk and just staring down his former classmates. They had been stuck on his costume, his expression, what he was saying about their situation, but Sero and Ojiro adapted quick. Sato charged as soon as Zach started moving too, while Sero grabbed Ashido and pulled her back when she gulped and curled her fists, ready to charge in too.

Ojiro stepped between Zach's comrades and him. He slid his right foot forward while lifting his fists in a fighting stance, then he smacked down his tail right as Zach sped up his sprint towards him. He flipped up in the air and swung his tail down at Zach who ducked low and dodged the tip of Ojiro's tail that still would have carried a lot of force. He pointed his right hand back and a flash of blue came out of his right palm without actually firing anything. The flash acted as much as a distraction as an actual flash bang as it had grown bright in the moment Zach flared it, but Ojiro was just acquainted with attacks meant to mess with his sight.

The blond boy with a thick tail leapt up in the air high with help from a smack of his tail, allowing Sato to run in below him and jump towards Zach with his fists lifting up and combining over his head in one fist held high. He came down hard while Zach dove to his right, though Sato still smashed both hands down into the ground and created a crater in the dirt that blew rocks and dirt and smoke in every direction from him. The direction Zach dodged was towards his comrades laying on the ground, and he tossed two of them farther away before getting hit in the back by a piece of ground that made him stumble forward though he maintained his footing.

Zach spun his body and leaned his head back, dodging a line of white tape coming close to his head. The "line" of tape did not go very far back as Zach realized while it passed in front of his face though, and he turned more and then leaned his body left and right to dodge the thin and short pieces of Tape firing rapid-fire at him, now with Acid fired from afar moving in the gaps between the Tapes. Sato sprinted forward and leapt out of the crater, while Ojiro moved around the area and made for where Zach had tossed two of his comrades close to the thickest area of the smoke that was still pretty thin in itself. It was thin enough, that Ojiro saw the movement inside the thicker area, though he pretended not to see it yet.

Ojiro leapt up in the air and over the spit of venom coming out at him, and Satoshi pulled his upper body back in surprise as Ojiro had not even looked his direction first. He turned to move away, as they were told not to get in the way of this fight. _We're just supposed to get everyone back-_ A tail smacked down on Satoshi's back, then Ojiro flipped backwards and spun his right leg, nailing Imino hard though Ojiro's eyes darted back as he felt fingers curl around that foot. He looked closer and saw who it was who caught his foot, and he swung his tail towards Imino which forced his opponent to push back on the leg instead of try to follow up with an attack on him.

 _If we just hold them here for a little longer, Midoriya will realize Zach isn't over there and come this way,_ Ojiro thought. He landed and glared towards Imino who was next to one of his downed comrades he was not leaving behind even though Satoshi was not moving at all now after that last tail attack he took.

"Ojiro!" The blond heard the shout from behind him, where he assumed his other three classmates were holding Zach. His head started to turn, and his tail whipped behind him to knock away his opponent he figured must have been about to get him.

Zach dove over Ojiro's swinging tail, moving behind Ojiro's back as the blond turned to the right so that Ojiro never caught a glimpse of Zach at all. Ojiro only saw his three classmates all looking towards him, Ashido and Sero unable to do anything as their attacks would hit him, and Sato just sprinting at him in fury. Ojiro's head had turned first, and the steel elbow lodged into his gut when he was starting to turn back in realization. His eyes bulged and his whole body trembled, then those eyes the size of saucers shifted down and he saw Zach right up close to him, his right hand grabbing his left fist in front of his chest. Zach's left elbow was dug deep into Ojiro's solar plexus, and finally Ojiro's tensed form slumped over Zach's elbow that he removed to allow his friend and enemy to collapse to the ground.

"Sato wait!" Sero shouted, realizing at that moment how bad their situation was.

"Sero!" Ashido grabbed him and spun him to face her. "Get Midoriya! Or get out of range of the jammer or something! They can't get us all the way to their jail if he knows what's happening!"

Imino threw down a few more smoke pellets that drew the attention of the two making plans, as Zach fought their last remaining classmate in the area. Zach and Sato disappeared into the smoke too, while Zach still had on his helmet with the thermal-vision visor, and while Sato did not.

"Try to hold him here," Sero said, looking back at Ashido for a moment apologetically. They both understood how bad their situation was, because they knew that even together the two of them did not stand a chance here. They knew better than anyone else in that clearing, just who they were up against.

"I'll try," Ashido replied, attempting to give him a hopeful look despite just more sweat forming on her face at the thought of being alone against Zach now instead of fighting with Sero.

Sero turned and without anymore delay, fired Tape towards a tree in the east to get back towards his base. _I can't mess this up! The sound of fighting over there is still so loud! It's only been a minute or two, but Zach's taken everyone-_ Sero fired his next piece of Tape while releasing the first one, but Zach did not go after Ashido or even finish with Sato first. A knife flew through Sero's second piece of Tape, and Sero did a spin in midair while starting to drop instead of rise to another branch. He aimed towards where the knife came from to counter Zach, only for black bandages to drop down from the branches above him where he was sure no one had been a second ago.

"Wai-" the black bandages tightened around him, and they yanked him up into the tree where a bruised-up Manzo Elia glared at Sero through the slit in her black mask that revealed her eyes. She put a blade up to his throat before he could call out again, and then she held her breath.

"Sero! Sero?!" Ashido ran after where she had seen Sero getting attacked, but she blinked a few times in confusion as he was nowhere to be found.

Manzo used her Quirk Breathless and continued to hold a blade up to Sero's throat. She then moved her other hand to his mouth as he looked like he was going to ignore that knife, knowing that she was not actually going to use it. Sero's arms were bound to his sides, so all he could do was squirm back and forth as Manzo's hand covered both his mouth and his nose. He was trying to take a breath, which caused him an intense panic as no breath was able to come in. His eyes got bloodshot, and then the entire tree shook and started to fall.

Manzo opened her mouth and let out a breath while jumping away from the tied-up Sero. "I knew it," Ashido said, while facing away from the tree and towards Zach instead. Sato had just smashed through that tree behind her that she directed him to when he came running out of the smoke looking for Zach who had hit him over and over inside it only to fail at knocking out the sugared-out teen.

Sero ripped his arms away from each other as the tree was falling. _She's good, but not as good as Aizawa sensei,_ Sero fired tape ahead of him, and then a thin black line went through his back and he kept dropping to the ground. Manzo caught him with black tape before he hit down too hard, which both Sato and Ashido were worried about with panicked looks over their faces.

 _Sorry Sero, but I can't let you tell Midoriya,_ Zach lowered his right hand that he had lifted in the shape of a gun.

Ashido turned back and stared with huge eyes at the index finger Zach had pointed out before pushing his thumb down over it. There was a wisp of darkness coming out that fingertip of the glove like the smoke coming out the barrel of a pistol.

Inside the spectator's box for the dome arena, the teachers and nurses were staring at one of the screens alone in shock and awe. Hazano even looked surprised for a moment, though he said after a second, "He used his Quirk."

All Might turned his head back to the right and down at the man next to him sitting at the control seat for the training zone. The scrawny former pro's already wide eyes shook more at the look on Hachiman's face, "You're, surprised?"

"Sazaki rarely uses his Quirk in our class," Hazano replied. "He says that he is in school to train, so it would be pointless to use his Quirk. Even in a fight like this against his former classmates, I did not know if he would use it."

Ectoplasm wanted to mention how cocky Sazaki had become, but after what he just witnessed… or rather, what he missed most of as Sazaki did it inside the cover of smoke, he found himself speechless. He thought back on when Sazaki first used his Quirk on him, while practicing at the Training Kitchen Land, or Training Gym Gamma. _I was out for a couple days after getting hit by that kid's Death Grenade, and that was back before he could control it well. He destroyed the Subspace Devils like they were nothing. That was with him using his Quirk, but even that day we saw him step it up after getting cornered. He holds back so much at all times. Even without using his Quirk though-_

"He waited so long though," Ms. Anastasia began. The nurse looked confusedly over towards Hazano, "Why allow his classmates to get so hurt first before moving in himself? Even if they do manage to get them out of there now, many of them are seriously injured or can no longer fight. I understand that he may have wanted them to get a chance too first, and they all proved much improvement since last year."

"It's not about that for them," Hazano said, which immediately met him with confusion from the rest of the staff. "I told you, they're underestimating Sazaki. You all are," Hazano said it in a low voice, less like he was praising a student and more like he was stating a fact that the others were not knowledgeable of.

"We know his strength," Midnight assured.

"And they know Sazaki better than-" Recovery Girl started about the students of Class A.

"I wish I could say, that the improvement you've mentioned in my students is thanks to my teaching," Hazano said, looking up and to the left at All Might who had made mention of it to him a little earlier. All Might looked at Hazano in confusion, only for everyone around him to stare at Hazano in shock at what he said next. "In the past month and a half, my class has improved more than they have in the last year combined. Maybe two years," Hazano added, tilting his head to the side and looking back forward afterwards with a deep frown but no hesitation in his voice like he thought he was going too far with that.

"What are you talking about?" Midnight asked.

Kimona had stared at Hazano in surprise for a moment, before thinking on how his students had been acting recently and getting a strange, unnerving feeling in his gut. Ectoplasm saw his strange reaction and then glared at Hazano for saying something strange like that all of a sudden, "And you're saying, it's due to Sazaki-"

"Yes," Hazano replied to his colleague who froze and opened his bright white eyes wider at Hazano's admission.

Hazano shook his head though that none of the others around him understood what he was saying. _From the very first day,_ Hazano thought. He could see that moment when he realized it himself. As suspicious as he had been before about Sazaki's tech and the strange way he was acting, he thought about Zach's fight against Manzo and could still imagine the look on her face out in Gymnasium A. He saw the shattered look on her face as whatever Sazaki said to her, combined with the way he had fought her, messed up the biggest weakness he had seen in her for years. _Something that held her back so much, gone in an instant. I wasn't sure of it that day, but the way she's acted since…_

Inside the training dome, on the east side of the facility opposite where the teachers all were, Midoriya flipped over in the air and slammed his leg down into Inasa who was just pushed up high by the ice that wrapped up his lower body. He smashed Inasa down through the ice all the way into the ground where he collided hard not far from where Dendo just hit the ground skidding in the dirt. Ahead of them and dangling off of Class A's damaged base was Hisashi, in a net still attached to a cannon Yaoyorozu had planted to the roof of the building. That cannon looked identical to several others she had been firing with normal attacks and not nets so Hisashi never saw the wider capture-attack coming.

Mineta was exhausted, but he finally made his way back out of the trees he had been thrown through when the line of Pop-Offs holding him to the ground were ripped into the sky due to Inasa yanking that whole chunk of ground up with his wind. Midoriya raced to Inasa and Dendo with his capture tape out, tying up the two who were down but neither looked unconscious yet. "How's the flag?" Midoriya asked, darting his eyes behind him as it had been a few seconds since he last asked. This was the moment where they might let their guards down the most too, right as they were defeating other enemies who they had been in such an intense fight with.

"He's not here," Iida responded, though he looked at the flag closely as if making sure it was not a double. _I don't understand. That would have been the moment! Is he waiting for one of us to take Inasa and the others over to the jail?_

Over in a clearing to the northeast, Bakugo glared around the area that was clearly the scene of a very large fight. _Where the hell did everyone go?!_ "Oi! Deku! LISTEN!" Bakugo ground his teeth as no one was responding to him anymore. _So the jammer was over here. What the hell is going on? Why didn't I see anyone on the way over? Where is their whole team?!_ Bakugo had too many questions. His one-on-one fight with Kameko was taking too long, and though it sounded to him like Deku had things under control back at their own base, the fact that they had no communications with half of their classmates was finally too much for him to ignore and just keep playing offense.

 _Is that it?_ Bakugo glared over towards some black device he saw sitting on the ground. He jumped towards it, and he smashed his right hand in the green gauntlet down to blow it to pieces.

In Zach's helmet appeared camera angles that were previously blocked due to his own tech. "Bakugo's back there. I'll draw him away," Zach said, looking around to the others moving around the outside of the dome with him. He took four bodies off of his shoulders, two of his own comrades who couldn't walk and two of the enemies from U.A. who they had captured. "Remember to stay off the comms. He probably has Reika's communicator on him," Zach reminded the others still standing among his Shiketsu comrades.

"Where's Zach?" Todoroki asked, his voice low and menacing as he glared at the three Shiketsu students they had captured.

Inasa rose his head up and he smirked at the boy with half red hair and half white. Wind started rushing down, only for Inasa's whole body to get frozen on top of tied-up. Even Inasa's face was frozen over for a second, though Todoroki lowered his left hand that he put in front of Inasa's face and quickly melted that ice to give him some room to breathe. Dendo parted squinted eyes and looked to his side with grit teeth while Hisashi looked a lot more scared by Todoroki's sudden reaction to Inasa just grinning at him.

Todoroki could blame it on that wind though like Inasa was trying another attack on him, and he glared at the boy who started coughing once he could breathe again. "Don't try anything or we'll knock you out. I'd rather put you in our jail without doing something like that."

"You guys just don't get it," Hisashi started, losing his scared look and chuckling as the U.A. students all glared at him. He gulped at Todoroki's cold breath that hung in front of his face after what Hisashi just said, but the fourth ranked Shiketsu student shook his head around and chuckled again in a lower tone from inside the net they had gotten down from hanging off the base's wall. Midoriya, Kirishima, Todoroki, Mineta, and Asui all looked down at the captured opponents while Yaoyorozu and Iida guarded the flag from inside but listened along as well. Jirou and Uraraka listened from over at their jail where Midoriya had them posted up, making sure no ambushes were set by their enemies for when their teammates were bringing captured opponents back. Bakugo listened too from the clearing where he suddenly snapped his head to one side seeing a flash of light, and then movement and a sound of branches cracking coming from his north.

"What don't we get?" Midoriya asked, his voice rushing as he stepped closer to his opponents.

Hisashi chuckled again and his eyes shifted up at the base one more time before locking back on Midoriya's eyes. "You won't catch him until it's too late…"

Midoriya's entire body tensed up. He took a step back, while Yaoyorozu's eyes bulged inside the second floor of their base at the same time. Iida looked at her in confusion at that reaction, as what he heard just had him getting more on-guard to protect this flag that their enemies were so confident Zach was going to get. Midoriya's heart pounded, his head snapping to the right and looking through the trees towards an area ahead of their jail where he had not heard very loud sounds coming from since the end of their fight, suggesting the fight over there had ended before this one was over.

"I'm going after Zach now," Bakugo suddenly said over the comms. "He's away from their base, but everyone else is missing. Broke the stupid radio jammer." Bakugo was pissed he had to relay all that, but after what he just heard Hisashi say over their comms, he needed to relay all that information right then. "You can hear me, can't you?" Bakugo added in a low voice. It did not matter which of the comms he was talking into that he had left on open channels, his voice was meant for everyone and for one specific person alone. "Stop running from me," Bakugo growled, as he saw more darkness move up ahead of him in the opposite direction of where he was coming from.

Bakugo sped up with two large explosions, and then he blasted ahead of himself too and stopped where he was. He bounced himself in the air with explosions down at his sides, and his wide eyes narrowed back normally before he kept moving again. The woods had become darker though. The canopy was actually thinner, without any green leaves, but everything around him had blackened and died. Branches were cracking and creaking, falling down to the dirt and making it seem like the trees could not hold them up anymore. Bakugo heard more noise ahead of him though that sounded like footsteps rather than falling branches, and he shot down through a tree and to the other side of it while the dead tree broke and fell behind him.

He had neared the edge of the forest, and Bakugo rose his head up the stone wall on the north side of the training dome. He glared straight ahead of him, halfway up the wall, to a cave that looked so perfectly aligned with him that it could not be coincidence he had run into it. Bakugo's fingers twitched with explosions coming out of them. And the corners of Bakugo's lips twisted up high as he stepped towards it.

Midoriya sprinted through the forest moving as fast as he could for the clearing that Bakugo just mentioned being in. He reached it, and his eyes darted every direction from the chaotic battlefield that had over two dozen felled trees around it along with several craters in the ground. There was white tape hanging off of trees but no sign of Sero. Huge claw marks dug through bark, and smoke still lingering around there in certain areas where it had been thickest latest in the fight. _No sign of him!? Nothing dead anywhere! If he wasn't here and wasn't at their own base though- is he back at ours?!_ Midoriya spun backwards, then forwards, the determined and steady expression he had had before completely shaken as he found himself alone in the woods with no idea which way to go.

"Midoriya, something's up with the three we caught…"

Midoriya's breathing sped up even more. His eyes darted back behind him towards where those three powerful Shiketsu students were, then ahead of him towards where his other classmates surely were. _Where did Bakugo go? The others had this under control before we lost contact, and if Zach's not with them then how did something like this- what even is this?! Where is everyone?!_ Midoriya's heart raced faster, and he heard Zach's voice in his head in a conversation the two of them had not long ago.

 _ **"…In war, every action I took was a deception. And I won that war I was the underdog in by far. And when I lost battles, Midoriya, it was because my enemies didn't believe in the ploys and false information I tried to get to them. They didn't fall for my strategies and they expected my maneuvers. They had to think I was there when I wasn't, but they also had to think I wasn't there when I was. That way I could get right up to them without them knowing and catch them off guard. Rush them fast and hard before they can get their bearings."**_

 _He told me how he fights wars!_ Midoriya started running forward again, but he was not using his Quirk this time as his hesitation got the best of him and moving too fast in any direction seemed wrong. The place he least thought Zach to be in that moment was on top of him, making him freeze where he was and to do so suddenly at that. _All of my actions so far were based on where I believed Zach to be. I took every step based on his location, but Zach is a master of combat who predicted exactly how I would react, who_ _ **knew**_ _that Iida would think he was going for the flag if he left Kotsumura to have to retreat back to the others on his own. I thought Zach wasn't ahead of me anymore when I was actually rushing through the woods towards Zach's position. And then while at the base even as I got new information I stayed where I was because I thought Zach_ _ **was**_ _there!_

"I can't believe it," Ectoplasm said with a shake of his head, stepping closer to the glass and darting his eyes around all the different camera angles. "How did we not see this?!"

"It's a very large dome," Hazano replied. "Adashi picked a spot that we don't have an angle of."

"Midoriya," Todoroki's voice filled Midoriya's headset. "We've made a huge mistake."

 **Ding.**

Students all around the training dome lifted their heads and saw the score change. The banners of red and blue up on the dome's glass that showed their team scores had changed, with the blue rectangle for Shiketsu getting a number 1 on it instead of 0 like it had been so far same as U.A.'s.

Right before that point was being granted to Shiketsu, the three students who used to be the top three in their class had all started smirking at their enemies in front of them. When Midoriya ran off they attempted to keep it up, but they ran the risk of their opponents knocking them out now even though they were already on the ground. The damage they had mattered, and so they decided enough was enough. "Adashi!" Inasa shouted, and Todoroki looked behind them towards the woods where he could now see there was another student standing far off. It was the name of that student that made Todoroki and his classmates feel they had missed something vital through the fight so far.

 _He improved it!_

 _It's not really them?!_ Mineta thought in shock, staring directly at Inasa as he thought it. _And still that powerful?!_

Todoroki was thinking the opposite as Mineta. _"You've gotten a lot stronger this last year!"_ _He was tricking me. Mentioning it so I wouldn't notice that he hadn't progressed much from last year. But we couldn't have guessed that Adashi got that much stronger that his Quirk could allow them to use more strength, and on more than one person!_

"You really thought that's how strong my winds were now?" Inasa asked, as his body was fading away in front of Todoroki and getting pulled back towards Adashi. Adashi himself was fading like that ahead of them too, his soul pulling back into the forest as were Dendo and Hisashi's.

Much closer to the direct center of the dome's training forest, Adashi's actual body leaned backwards and he pulled the chunk of his soul he removed back into his own body. Adashi Veleno's Quirk, Out Of Body, could remove the souls of others and send them off with as much power as their regular bodies, only that power got weaker the farther they were from their actual bodies. Only halfway across the dome though, was not a very far drop in power, not enough for the U.A. students to assume it was Adashi at least, especially when last year he could only use his Quirk on one other person at a time. At least, that was what Adashi told them the year before when they asked him to explain it after he had used it once in front of them. _Even back then, I could already use it on two people and myself. I would have told you if we ever had an internship together or fought against actual villains, but just in case this training was the next time we were going to meet with each other._ Adashi smirked and then flinched backwards twice, and thrice as finally Inasa's soul popped back into his own body with a jolt.

Adashi bowed his head after pulling them back, and Dendo hoisted up his classmate who he held over one shoulder while turning and running back towards the west. Inasa hesitated longer than his other two classmates who immediately started running the other way, but despite wanting to go show Todoroki just how much wind he really could use, he just grinned after a second and spun around too to head back to their own base.

 _Even Dendo using so many Slices on trees,_ Kimona sensei thought from up in the spectating room. _It was meant to show how much power he had right from the start, keeping anyone from thinking for a second that they were just weakened copies. Even I never saw this coming, and I should have realized when Adashi was with them early on._ "Those three working solely as a diversion," Kimona started. "I wouldn't have seen it coming."

"We have to go help the others!" Kirishima shouted around at the others close to him.

"Midoriya. Are you getting close to their jail? They might-"

 **Ding. Ding Ding. Ding Ding Ding Ding Ding.**

Midoriya was not moving at all in the forest. He was face-to-face with someone he couldn't have been facing after what Bakugo had last told him.

The teachers spectating their students were stunned, except for one of them who had just added all those points to the score as he watched each student from U.A. thrown into the jail. After the first U.A. had been thrown in, Flugeru snapped at the others arriving to wait until all of their opponents were there so they could put them in all at once. It made it so that in a single moment, the score went from 0-1, to 0-9, Shiketsu leads.

"In the last month plus since Sazaki has been in my class, every one of my students has drastically improved," Hazano said while the other teachers around him were staring in shock at what they were watching unfold. It was a complete opposite of what happened the year before, where U.A. turned the tables on the Shiketsu students who had been looking so strong at first when the U.A. class did not know what their opponents' Quirks were. The teachers around the room looked to Hazano who continued in a stern voice, "He dragged out their biggest weaknesses. Their character flaws, their traumas, anything that held them back from being the best they could be."

"You've been talking up Sazaki this whole time," Ectoplasm began. "And I saw him just take down a ton of our own, but what does this-"

"The way he got in the position to be able to remove them all from the equation like that, was because of the trust his classmates have in him, and because of the strength they've acquired in the past month or so." Hazano denied Ectoplasm's counter and looked to his left side to the dark teacher who stared at him so confusedly. "He destroyed everything holding them back, their biggest issues, most of the time without saying a word but just through his actions." The other six in the room stared at Hazano who continued while looking back at the screen that had Sazaki on it. "Most of the time his classmates did not even realize what he was doing or that he was trying to help them."

All Might stared at the back of Hazano's head with his breath speeding up at how impressed and knowing his voice was about this. All Might's gaze shifted back to the screen that Hazano was looking at that did not just have Zach on it, but Midoriya too. Hazano continued while he looked back to that screen, "He took out ingrained senses of superiority, or built up students who didn't think much of themselves. He relieved the fears of some while instilling fear in those who were too overconfident or ignorant to the reality of the world. Sazaki was, he _is,_ magnetic. My class despised him when he arrived, taking a place in the classroom that many would have preferred unfilled."

The other two Shiketsu staff members got darker looks but continued listening in as Hazano spoke about his newest student. "A former U.A., celebrity, vigilante, murderer, fugitive, villain, convict, who they all thought had malicious intentions. But yet, he was strong, and good, and kind. And most of all, he's a teacher."

Midnight and All Might both opened their eyes wider at that final statement. They each thought about the boy they were staring at back when they saw him at the licensing exam. As they were thinking about what they saw Sazaki do there, Hazano continued, "I heard about it from teachers who had some of the younger hero students who took the licensing exam with Sazaki, that they all improved greatly after the test. Sazaki had what? A few minutes with each of them? Each of the U.A.'s and the Shiketsus and all the others at that licensing exam who he interacted with during it?" Hazano paused and his voice got lower, "But here, he's spent hours and hours, days and days, weeks and months now, and he still has that demeanor. The urge to just teach those around him how to be _better._ "

No one else around Hazano was speaking now. He went on as they watched the screens and all the students on it, while Hazano went on, "Sazaki's experience alone puts him far beyond any of my other students, but it's his willingness to teach and to lead that sets him much farther apart than his skills or strengths. When Sazaki made a decision, a plan, for what he was going to do today, he convinced my students to go along with this plan immediately, even though it may have gone against whatever goals they had coming into this before he mentioned it."

"What was that goal?" All Might asked without pause from what Hazano just said.

The homeroom teacher of Class 1 glanced to the former Number 1 hero, then he looked back at the screens in front of him and shook his head. "When I was leading them to their base down there, Sazaki suddenly spoke to his classmates. He asked them a very simple question: whether or not they wanted to take this training seriously." Hazano paused and then continued again, "They were confused of course, but all of them agreed that they were going to take it as seriously as possible. So, Sazaki made a suggestion. He suggested something to his classmates that has changed the flow of the day immensely, in my opinion." The other teachers all stared at Hazano waiting to hear what it was, as none of them knew what this suggestion was or what those students down there were thinking.

"My class went into this with one mission. The entire class together was united in a single, sole mission. They're not looking to show off, not looking to prove to U.A. anything, not looking to fight specific students…"

Midnight stared at Hazano with her eyes widening more, as she felt like some of these things were reasons she had seen clearly on her own students' faces before coming in here. _Those, would just make the kids more determined though…_ She thought, though she thought it hesitantly.

 _Many of them wanted to beat Zach, others wanted to show off against their Shiketsu rivals,_ Ectoplasm gained a more hesitant expression too.

Hazano continued, "Every step they've taken from even before the training started was for the single goal, of winning without losing anyone."

All Might stared at Hazano in surprise, then he frowned and asked in a questioning tone, "Did they really think they could do it-"

"Zach convinced them they could," Hazano replied before All Might had closed his mouth. He looked to that older man and continued, "But it wasn't about beating U.A. Sazaki had asked my class beforehand whether they wanted to treat this as a game or something serious. Because this was a force of powerful Quirk users, more powerful and experienced than them, but he thought they could do it. Even though he said right to their faces that the U.A.'s were more experienced, no one felt diminished by him. They all know that he knows both classes better than anyone from either class knows each other. And Sazaki said that U.A. was stronger, but he also declared that he was a Shiketsu. And he said that they could win." Hazano paused and his hands clenched over the control panel in front of him. "But he also said, that if they were treating this like a serious situation then they should imagine themselves in it. Up against a group of powerful Quirk users stronger than them, like they could come across groups of villains that are stronger than them in the future, smart, powerful, and he asked if beating them was enough?"

Hazano shook his head and spoke in a steadier but lower voice, "Because no one there walking to the base with him thought they would win with everyone remaining, and he asked them if the time came and they went up against the same group only they were villains, where there was no capture tape and cages, but it was to the death…. Would they be fine going in there knowing they would lose people?" Hazano left a second's pause and then shook his head darkly as he remembered how his own students looked at Sazaki after hearing this. "He told them that situation could happen, and they should prepare for it in this instance which might be their only chance to have a real preparation for it. And so, all of the Shiketsu students down there, are treating this as if losing a comrade means they actually just let them die. Because Sazaki convinced them that if it happened here, it would happen out there. Your students can't predict him because they're not treating this like a training simulation right now. They're all taking it far more seriously than your U.A. students because for whatever reasons they have to win, they don't come close to the resolve of our kids."

"Just changing the way they feel about their classmates being captured," Ectoplasm began. He hesitated after starting it, but then he continued with a shake of his head, "It won't change the entire dynamic between classes. It won't change how strong they are in comparison."

"I underestimated the difference as well," Hazano began. "But I've seen it now clearly since I left them down there." He shook his head in near disbelief while looking at that score he just set himself. "After Sazaki had convinced them to follow his plan, he continued to create a strategy that they all listened to, because if they were going to accept that one of them being captured would mean them dying, then they could not waste time arguing with the person there who had the most experience in such situations. And they all believed, because Sazaki suggested it in the first place, that he had the plans to put in place for them to win without losing a single comrade which none of them could imagine beforehand."

"They're trusting him out there. Going along with his plans, because he's raised the confidence of those who needed it, and destroyed the arrogant and cocky attitudes of others. He shattered the things that held others back," Hazano grit his teeth and continued in an uneasy but firm voice, "And he molded them all into better heroes who understand more than anyone how capable he is. To Sazaki…" Hazano ground his teeth, and the heroes around him suddenly realized that as much as Hazano was talking him up, he was not saying this all in a positive voice. "My class at this moment are a predictable tool for him to use in this fight. My students, their personalities, their Quirks, their level of ability, Sazaki understands them all. He observed them closely from day one, and he improved on them in our classes, and he had gotten them all to trust him to a level that he can now command them without argument." Hazano was saying it like he was realizing it and speaking it aloud for the first time, and the other teachers were surprised that he would go so far in what he was saying.

"This does not diminish the ability of my own students, but the opposite. The fact that they are willing to let Sazaki take the lead, a person they've only known for a month and a half, against people they had wanted to prove themselves against long before, it shows how far they have improved from last year. It shows, how massive an impact Sazaki has made on not only their skills but their maturity as heroes. And it is how I know how far they have improved in the short time since Sazaki has joined my class. Their physical and mental states have all been heightened solely by being alongside him for this long. Their skills, heightened. Their weaknesses, exposed and worked on. I wouldn't say something like this lightly, but Sazaki really has taken the reins of my class. He has the most skill of any student I have ever encountered, the most power, and the most experience. If I had to say, Lifebringer is likely the closest person to being the Number 1 hero... and that's including the pros."

* * *

 **A/N Thanks for reading! Sorry for the long break everyone, but I hope you enjoyed the chapter! The joint training begins, and half of U.A. is swiftly taken down as Zach leads the Shiketsu class against his old classmates. How will Midoriya and the others adapt now that they have 1/3 the numbers as the Shiketsu students with not one of their opponents captured yet? Anyway, I hope you guys like the setup for the joint training as well as the starting fights. It took me a while to write this one because there was a lot I had to re-read on to accurately have so many characters in this one. The next chapter's coming along quicker because of that as I've read up on a lot already, so I'm already into my next chapter now. I also don't have many hours of work this week on my schedule, (though I do have to help my bro move into NYC next weekend), but I'll get up that next chapter before then anyway! So once again, thanks everyone for reading, faving, following, and reviewing! Leave a review below telling me what you think, comments, predictions, or questions about the story! Time for review responses:**

papaprep chapter 169 . Jul 23

looking forward to see class A getting beaten up by zach

 **Lol nice call! XD**

orangelarcenist chapter 169 . Jul 23

Great Chapter (as always), I really enjoy the inner monologues Class-A Members have when it come to Zach. Can't wait for Zach to see Jirou again... I bet it's gonna be interesting to read. Also, I'm super hyped for the battle between Shiketsu and UA. Lastly I'd like to say that I'm sorry for your loss. (Don't know if it's apropriate to  
say it in a review like that since it's your private life, but it's you who shared it with us.)

 **No meet up this chapter between them, but it's coming... sometime! No spoilers. Thanks for the condolences, and I hope you enjoyed the start of the joint training battle!**

GuestP chapter 169 . Jul 24

Woah, a lot of emotion and thoughts going around in this chapter, understandably so. The way you're able to separate the thoughts amazes me, especially when they're in different POVs.  
JOINT TRAINING YAYY! I've been waiting for this my WHOLE LIFE YEAH BABY  
Great chapter, and as always I loved your writing!  
I'm sincerely sorry for your loss, and I wish you peaceful sleeps and tranquil mornings.

 **Thanks and thanks for the review! Glad you're excited for these chapters, and I hope you enjoyed the first one!**

Just a reviewer chapter 169 . Aug 2

I love this fic but here's a few things I would suggest changing.  
First off, the summary. The summarys bad, it reads like an edgy 'what if' wattpad self insert kinda story. It in no way reflects your writing, change it please. It's actually why I put this story on hold for so long.  
Second, the first one or two chapters are a bit of a chore to read. They're full of flashbacks and backstory that, while important, is not something we want to read so much about at the start of the story. Maybe rely less on flashbacks, reveal less, or have these things be inferred from other sections of the story.  
Third, just a small suggestion. Maybe give each chapter a short title, so that by looking at it in the future, you can remember what happened in it as well as the time line of the story. It also makes it easier to spot important events and story changing points.

 **I've thought about changing the summary many, many times. What I hate more than a cringy summary though is a spoiler, and even just spoiling what happens after the first 20-30 chapters would've made it worse for me personally as a reader. If I changed it to mention how we follow Zach learning to understand his powers and improve- it just shows that he will figure that stuff out that the initial chapters don't give away but instead have hints leading up to big reveals of. Anyway, I'll think about changing it again but those first chapters def not gonna. Biggest problem with OC-oriented stories in my opinion is that readers don't care about them. You all came to the My Hero Academia fanfic section to read about your favorite characters, not some guy I just made up, which is why people are slow to pick up OC stories. Without anything to get the reader instantly invested in the character, I think it'd be harder for people to really get into the story and want to know what's happening with Zach. Might do the chapter name thing though, but it'd take a while of going back and changing and deciding all 170 of them now, so I'll have to pick out an hour or 3 to do that. Alright, so, thanks for the review and the critique points. Hope you continue to enjoy the story!**

Super Power Sensei chapter 169 . 18h ago

Review of chapter 169 on 07/22/19  
Uploaded 08/04/19  
(Sorry this took so long. Dealing with life and constantly reflecting on this story)  
Congratulations, you did it. Multiple times in past reviews and post notes you've talked about making more human characters. Well, no longer do I imagine these characters as stereotypes...

 **Alright, so I'm just going to cut the rest of the review before it fills up half this chapter (lol always glad getting these long ones tho). Won't comment much on the initial paragraph of ideology. I don't know if it's how I feel either, but I do disagree with one point you made about how killing doesn't signify lower moral standards. Yeah, it might be considered "different" morals, but the more civilized/moral the world has become the less capital punishment has been used to the point it's almost been eradicated from many modern countries. In this future society led by heroes, even All For One doesn't get killed for all he did, and to us that might seem silly and like it would be morally fine to kill him, but morals change and to the people in the present they usually feel they've improved from what they were in the past. Maybe we don't see it as right certain things in this story, but I think in the BNHA world the sense of what is the accepted morality is shown clearly with the fact that no one even talked about "why isn't All For One getting the death penalty?" We might not agree from the standpoint of normal people in our own world, but this is an AU splitting off of a fantasy futuristic world... Anyway, I don't actually know where I'm going with this response. Might just be my own ramblings in response to yours, but I do appreciate the time you put into that considering you had Zach's exact quotes for that review. Like the random thoughts at the end, but I'm not going to really mention any of them just cause most would be spoiler-related here. All cool suggestions though, and we'll see what happens with that... whenever we see those guys/ Life City/ tech advancements again. Thanks for another great review, and I hope you enjoyed the new chapter!**


	171. Chapter 171

**Disclaimer: I don't own Boku no Hero Academia**

 **Chapter 171:**

"We need to regroup," Yaoyorozu said with a hand over her comms. "Moving recklessly at this point will only cause us to lose more classmates, and therefore points."

"Should Jirou and I head back to the base now?" Uraraka said. There was no point to guard the jail when they had no one coming back to it with prisoners in tow, nor did it seem like they would get to that point again anytime soon.

"Bakugo, Midoriya, where are you two?" Todoroki questioned.

"Facing Zach," Midoriya replied.

 _Isn't that what Bakugo was doing?_ Mineta thought in panic. He had sweat all over his face, and the bruised up boy who had barely managed to keep himself from getting incapacitated during a fight with Inasa (even just his soul version), stared up towards the scoreboard again with a look of disdain. _What happened to him? We can't lose him or we're down more than half, and we won't even have a third of the members they do!_

"Ignore the scores," Yaoyorozu said in a steady voice from where she was looking down at her classmates on the second floor of their base. The ones down there looked back and up at the windows where their tactician was staring down towards them. "Many of their classmates were incapacitated during the earlier fights. Adashi is sure to be unable to use his Quirk again in the way that caught us so off guard, as he must have been at his limit earlier. Many of the others from Shiketsu were also reported defeated by our classmates, and even if their own classmates and Zach were able to go save them from being put in our jail, most of them will not be up to continue fighting. The score does not matter. They do not yet have 25, and that is all that matters right now."

 _That's right._

 _At least nine of them must be down after taking on half our class._

 _Iida's team took down five on their own at the start. Even if we have to consider their class as having 32 with the three Trabos, I'm sure we've got at least ten or more of them down already!_

 _They might have kept them from the jail, but now they're just going to have to protect them back at their base along with the injured Bakugo left over there. Things are under control._

 _Calm down! Yaoyoroppai's right!_ Mineta relaxed and he wiped some sweat from his face before looking to Todoroki, then over at Iida and Kirishima standing next to each other. Both looked angry about the way things had started so far, but neither looked hopeless or like things could not be fixed from this situation.

Remaining for U.A.'s side were Midoriya, Uraraka, Bakugo, Todoroki, Asui, Iida, Jirou, Yaoyorozu, Kirisihima, and Mineta. Mineta felt the strangest about still being left after half of their class had suddenly been wiped out. _Even Tokoyami's gone?_ Mineta thought nervously as Todoroki was calling out who he thought was left for their class. _And we don't know what's up with Bakugo anymore either! He won't respond to his comms! What is even happening right now?!_

Bakugo had reached the stone area of the training facility and stared up straight towards a cave in the slope he had been led to. There were scattered trees around the lower part of the rocky zone, including near that cave mouth which was why he had been unable to see it earlier just from a look to the north and the mountainous rock wall protruding from the dome's curved glass. All those trees around the cave mouth and for a good distance from it were dead though. The blackened remnants of this part of the forest creaked and cracked, leaving an obvious trail into the cave. Bakugo could not hear anyone over his comms, and those voices had started getting scratchier before disappearing completely.

 _A trap?_ Bakugo ground his teeth despite how big a smirk was over his face. _He knows I don't give a fuck. He knows I won't back down._ Even though his comms were being jammed, even though the path was so obviously leading him to that cave, even though his explosions would not work as well in a cave that could collapse around him, he shot towards it anyway. _That visor over his helmet has night vision,_ Bakugo blasted himself up the steeper part of the wall, and he sprinted up it since his body was close up. He ran up the wall while pointing his hands below him and blasting himself up as well, then he curled his palms in at the last second and exploded away from the edge of the wall.

The attack he predicted might come for right when he was rising over the ledge did not come. Rocks were still lifting up from the edge in the path of where he expected that Death might flood through, when Bakugo's body smashed right back through that lifting debris as he redirected himself at the cave entrance. "Stun Grenade." Bakugo put his hands curled in towards each other near the front of the cave and fired a bright flash of light into the cave, then he immediately shot in without any more pretext.

"I knew you'd come, Bakugo."

Bakugo swung his right arm to his side and fired a blast to light up the darker section of the cave where he suddenly heard Zach's voice come out very calmly. The idea that Zach was not taking this seriously at all to just reveal himself like that enraged the other teen who continuously was blasting small explosions off his hands when he flew himself inside.

"Wrong choice."

Zach's voice came from closer to Bakugo the second time, but Bakugo did not panic or even get unnerved by the sudden new source of Zach's voice. He had reacted too fast to the first thing Zach said. Zach's voice had not been moving either when he said that he knew Bakugo would come, showing he was not sprinting so he could have somehow moved from that spot before the light illuminated where he was. Bakugo looked into his explosion and did not see anything in the empty cave where he had blasted, but when he turned and looked to where his constant explosions illuminated a nearby wall he heard Zach's voice come from again, he saw the small black device there lodged half behind a natural rocky hook in the wall.

Bakugo's teeth grit in the most furious way, which Zach saw in the camera also attached to that device he had left in the cave. Zach stared straight at Midoriya who was shouting at Bakugo over his comms trying to contact him and let him know that he could not be chasing Zach. As Midoriya tried to contact his classmate, Zach set off his trap, and every single one of the devices he placed in that cave beforehand started erupting in loud screeching noises and sirens.

Midoriya darted his eyes to the right as he could hear the sirens faintly from there, even pretty far from the north side of the dome and the cave Bakugo was in. The fact that they could hear it from there was a testament to how loud Zach blasted those noises inside a cave that made them bounce around before escaping out the cave mouth. The teachers watching the feed from inside the cave had to pull back as the images just filled with bright white and nothing else, as all of those devices piercing Bakugo's eardrums were also blinding him with flashes as bright as his Stun Grenades. Those strobe flashes came sporadically and rapidly from all directions, just as the sirens were not blasting at any specific pattern but in a random and disorienting way.

Bakugo had spun a couple of times after initially flying straight into the cave. He also spun as the sirens and flashes began, before raising his hands up to his ears instinctually. He lowered his hands fast though and put his hands in front of him, but his fingers curled in and he continued to stand in place despite how much he needed to get out of the cave.

Zach knew Bakugo would go inside. He knew that Bakugo would take the challenge instead of just blowing it up. But now that Bakugo was inside, in a place not meant for his Quirk, Explosion, he was unable to blast his way out. Even his most powerful explosion straight up above him was not a sure thing to blow apart the mountain, and if he failed it was a sure thing to collapse it on top of him. The pre-recorded audios Zach had for Bakugo were part of the trap as well, and they would have goaded Bakugo into entering if he had hesitated outside of the cave mouth at all. Bakugo was not one to hesitate though, and even as he paused now with the flashes and loud noises all around him, it was not in hesitation but realization. He had spun around too many times. Blasting in the direction opposite where he thought the cave mouth to be could send him backwards straight into a wall, and risk collapsing the cave on top of him anyway.

The flashes came at erratic timings and Bakugo could not keep his eyes open for more than a millisecond each time he tried to suddenly part them and see where he was. The sounds were deafening but he did not think Zach was in the cave anymore, so not being able to see or hear him approaching was not his biggest concern. Without even being there, Zach was attacking Bakugo in a painfully frustrating way. Bakugo stumbled backwards as the moment he tried squinting his eyes he was facing a direction where an especially bright flash happened in that moment. He pointed his right hand forward while covering his eyes with his other gauntlet, but he curled his fingers into a fist again with fury all over his face.

Stuck in the middle of the cave, Bakugo smirked in a crazy way over his entire face. _Did he really predict I'd stop, or did he think I might just do it and was willing to let me try!? And if I died, he'd bring me back?!_ Bakugo's face was enraged but his smirk was lifted so high as he snarled out in a voice he could not hear himself, "Crazy fucker."

Eight dings had rung out through the dome in rapid succession. Midoriya came face to face with his biggest threat, while he heard the sounds of half of his classmates falling. His calls to Bakugo were met with no response except from his other classmates asking what was going on and trying to reach Bakugo themselves. Bakugo's last announcement that he was chasing Zach had not been that long ago, but Midoriya had to believe that it was some other reason that Bakugo was not responding to him rather than Zach just taking him down and rushing straight here. The loud sirens and noises he heard coming from the north on his right, along with how he thought he heard some blasts and felt some rumbling below him before those noises started, and how quickly Zach came to meet him after those blasts, helped convince him that there was another reason other than Bakugo's defeat. _It could be his teammates. It could be a trap he left for Kacchan. I have to adapt._

Midoriya's expression dipped and his feet started spreading on the dirt below him. Zach's did as well, his eyes locked on Deku's as his opponent finally focused on him. _I can't just fight. I also need to lead here. I know what's going on better than anyone._ "Everyone," Midoriya started while putting a hand quickly up to his ear. The fact that Zach reacted to Midoriya getting into a stance instead of moving forward himself told Deku that his old classmate was here to stall him. _The initial reason was likely to prevent me from stopping his classmates from capturing ours. Now, why wouldn't he just move in for the attack?_ Midoriya did not yet understand that part of Zach's plan, but he had other things to focus on first.

"Regroup all together at the base so they can't pick us off. We need-"

"Ignore that!" Zach countered, his voice coming out sounding like Midoriya's into the headset. His tone sounded more frustrated and upset too, while Midoriya stared at him with an expression starting to look like Zach's voice sounded. "Zach has a voice modulator just like Shinso's!"

"W-Wait! That's Zach-" Midoriya stopped himself and cursed in his head as there was no way just saying that would work. "Todoroki, this is the one who told you-"

"Don't listen to him!"

"LALALALALALA!"

"OOGA BOOGA BOO!"

"AAAAAHHHH!"

Voices flooded into the U.A.'s headsets before Midoriya could tell Todoroki something only they knew along with his orders. Zach smirked more at Midoriya as his classmates used the other earpieces they had stolen from their downed opponents. _Disrupting the enemies' communications. Vital to any operation taking place over a large area or over a long period of time._

"What should we do?" Uraraka asked the other girl at the U.A. team's jail with her.

Jirou disconnected her earphone jacks from the ground and turned to run back for the base. "Back to base," Jirou said, her friend running up behind her even though Deku's last order to her was still to reroute herself back to the jail.

"Are you sure?" Uraraka asked confusedly, wondering how Jirou knew which of the Midoriya's was the one they were supposed to listen to.

"Because we need new earpieces," Jirou responded, and Uraraka's eyes widened at the response but then nodded quickly as that made a lot of sense to her. _Plus,_ Jirou thought, _it's only Midoriya and Bakugo out there still un-captured for our team. Not even sure about Bakugo- but he's fine. Especially if Zach's actually facing Midoriya. He doesn't want us leaving the jail, which means he'd rather we be here to get picked off instead of close to Todoroki. Momo's probably already making new earpieces but hasn't said anything over the comms about it so that we can use the fact that they're listening to our old comms to our advantage. If Midoriya or Bakugo need to bring any prisoners back here, they won't get caught by an ambush… but if it's a really good one._ "We're going back to base!" Jirou reported before quickly moving her hand back from her earpiece that filled with noise a second later as the Shiketsus shouted to try and drown her out.

Just in case Bakugo or Midoriya were bringing someone back now, they would know neither Jirou nor Uraraka would be there to help them against a potential ambush. She knew she was also letting the Shiketsus know that they were leaving their jail unguarded so that they could go set up an ambush now, but she recalled what she just thought about Yaoyorozu's plan to use their old comms to their advantage. _If it's Zach, he'll know that's a possible strategy of ours and won't send anyone over there on what could be an obvious trap._

 _Good move on Jirou's part, whatever it is she's really doing,_ Zach thought, as he did not know what her strategy was as there could have been many reasons for her shouting out that response.

"Everyone remove your earpieces, I've made new ones that are on a new channel," Yaoyorozu called out.

 _Not even going to risk it,_ Zach thought, humming to himself and lowering his lips flat at what Yaoyorozu just announced. Despite lowering his smile down like that, he looked satisfied anyway hearing it.

Midoriya realized why it was that Zach looked that way and even why he let him see it too. _Even if they lose their ability to hear their enemies' comms, it's clear that our team would adapt to their having our earpieces anyway. They might even have a plan revolving around them that Yaoyorozu doesn't want to risk walking into. But, by forcing us to start up new comms now, we waste time regrouping so that we can do it. Forcing everyone to go back to Yaoyorozu thus showing exactly where she is based on the movements of the U.A. students, and revealing our reactions while their plan must be…_

Midoriya's thoughts were fast, but he steadied his expression and did not look flustered even at the dark revelation he was having. _We're moving at Zach's pace. No longer._ Midoriya's body coursed with One For All. It flooded with it and his legs glowed and sparked with light as he bent his knees. Zach's body erupted in darkness and the ground below his feet broke apart as he shot forward. Midoriya did the same less than half a second after.

Zach's right arm swung with darkness over it, creating a Death Wind that came out of his arm at Midoriya who slid below. Then Deku pushed off the ground with his right hand to dodge the fist of darkness coming off of Zach's left arm he punched below his swinging right. As Midoriya lifted up moving to the left but still forward, he punched his left hand across the front of his body and darkness around Zach blew off leaving only a thin veneer of Death over his lifting form. Zach was sent flying backwards as the ground below him shredded, and he smashed into a tree that would have been broken down by the punch anyway, as would have the next two behind it that Zach's body went smashing through.

Midoriya hit the third tree right as Zach was smashing through it still with darkness around him that had been blackening each of the trunks around where he smashed through them. Those trees were still falling behind them to the east, but all three of them suddenly rose up instead of falling. They rose into the air like Deku who was off the ground in the leap he had made towards where Zach was about to be, so that he could slam his former classmate into the ground hard enough to hopefully take him down. His kick lost all force and his body was sent spinning into the air, trees smashing into him inside massive winds more powerful than any he had felt earlier back at his own base.

Zach hit the ground and rolled backwards for a second before flipping up onto his legs and with his left hand dragging through the dirt below him. Then he hit something hard that stopped his skid gentler than had he slammed into the next tree behind him. Zach turned his head and nodded in appreciation at Dendo and Hisashi who had both gotten up behind him and held their arms out to stop him with less of a jolt. He had removed his darkness while skidding back at the end there, having seen them as he flipped over on the ground so he knew where they were and that they could catch him like that if he was not covered in blackness. "Let's do this," Zach said, stepping forward from the other two whose hands fell from his back so they could step around his sides and look up in the air.

Dendo held out his right and left hands in front of him. White veils covered his green gloves that were a darker shade of green than most of his costume and his hair, more like his dark green eyes that darted to his left. He twisted his body and used his Quirk Slicer with a pair of powerful Slices through dozens of trees on his left side. Hisashi meanwhile turned back into a Golden Eagle, the fastest eagle in the world with a wingspan of seven feet. Those wings flapped down as a path in the wind funnels formed above him on Zach's right. At the same time, all the trees on Zach's left lifted up as more wind focused over there and sent all the loose trees into the air with less effort than would have been needed to rip them fully from their roots, not that Inasa did not say he could have done that too beforehand.

Deku stared down from the middle of wind gusts he was being slammed around with, as much as he was redirecting himself too with finger flicks in other directions while still using One For All. He stared down at an eagle shooting up in the sky towards him, and at a large muscular boy flying up and around to his back with the winds he was creating moving through his costume to keep him going faster that Midoriya was. _Both attacks from them will be more distracting than anything. It's Zach who's going to use their attacks to take me down. He showed he would use Death on me. I don't know if he used it on anyone else. He must have to have taken down so many of them! It's not just Zach and Death I'm facing now though, but him plus the top three in Shiketsu who don't feel like they're as weak as they were with Adashi's Quirk. How'd they get back here so quickly? How'd he coordinate this plan with Bakugo on their comms- unless, he had this all planned out? Even this far into the training, he had it planned from the beginning to not even have to make new plans?!_

"Let's get up there," Zach suggested, looking next to him at his classmate and comrade who turned back and nodded intensely at his friend.

Dendo twisted his wrists and he shrugged his shoulders, taking in a deep breath while the back of his costume started to glow. _**"It's not easy tech to make, and even harder to use… Alright. Give me a week, I'll see what I can do…"**_ Blue light glowed out the back of the thicker section of Dendo's green costume, the same area it glowed on Zach's back under a blue protrusion that had four small circles under it. Dendo pointed his palms down, just as Zach did while his boots were glowing on the soles. The undersides of Dendo's boots actually glowed green, but other than that, the flight mechanisms looked almost identical despite the differences in their costumes. Zach could not use his black wings while the air was so full of Inasa's Whirlwind, but he didn't need them to fly up using only his costume.

His classmate had not had the tech for very long. His costume was only recently adapted. Dendo rose up into the air though with a confident and steady look on his stern face. He flew into the sky with the person whose private teaching was responsible for how fast Dendo had learned how to use his new tech. Only Ms. Anastasia and Hazano knew how hard Dendo had put into mastering his new gear, as Hazano had supervised them and Ms. Anastasia was needed many times when the green-haired teen took dives from up high. It was not just learning to fly that he required, but also the ability to fight while up there, and both of those teachers had been frustrated as Zach had knocked the inexperienced flyer out of the air over and over again. They weren't frustrated at him now though. As Dendo rose into a windy sky with his Quirk covering both hands, allowing him to join in the fight with the rest of the top of his class, and the top fighter of U.A.'s Class A.

"Not a good spot your class is in, huh?" Kimona asked, turning back to Ectoplasm after the teachers had stayed mostly quiet for a little after all Hazano had to say about Lifebringer's contribution to their class.

Ectoplasm frowned in at Kimona who said that to him trying to get back into the competitive mood. He turned back to the screens himself with a low frown and no response this time. "Deku's got this."

 _I wish that were true,_ All Might thought, frowning deeper than Ectoplasm was. _On his own against the top four of Shiketsu's Class 1. Even with all my power- even if that were myself down there, Sazaki and Young Inasa both have too much power in the air. Young Inasa has the ability to move them even faster too, and the Quirk to slow down One For All's holder. I cannot fly. Four on one is difficult for anyone when the four are all powerful enemies. More difficult in a setting that the four decided themselves. Most difficult when the four are working together under a single leadership. And under Sazaki's experienced command, someone who knows Young Midoriya better than anyone, knows One For All inside and out, even I cannot say that he 'has got this.' However! He did not expect to come into this and not be pressed. Young Midoriya, you knew better than anyone how difficult this would be. Show him how you will respond!_

"The tides have not turned either," Midnight brought up, speaking towards Kimona and Ectoplasm from Hazano's other side. "The score matters little really, this early at least." The men turned towards the sexy female hero who looked at one of the screens instead of just staring through the glass at the fight in the air near the center of the dome. As much as the score was still a shut-out, Kimona had to admit that Midnight was right.

Class 1 was in a bad state. U.A.'s students felt they were in a bad spot, down half of their classmates and needing to regroup to restore a safe communications' line. There was a reason Shiketsu was happy to give up the fact that they were on the comms though that Midoriya realized but did not fully understand. Deku knew that the Shiketsus wanted them to waste time regrouping and putting back together their communications, but most of the Shiketsu students who took part in that did so because they felt the need for more time to recuperate. Unlike the attack on U.A.'s flag base that resulted in minor injuries for only a couple of U.A.'s remaining students, the first wave of attacks had resulted in bad injuries for many of the Shiketsus who could have been in the U.A. jail for all they counted for now.

The Shiketsu students did not want to let even one of their comrades get captured, so despite the fact that several of their comrades were unconscious, they had been dragged all the way back to the base and were laid out on the first floor of the building. Rubble from the first floor's ceiling and some support pillars had to be cleared to the side for all the injured. The wounded and incapacitated were carried and dragged like the unconscious or tied-up U.A. students, some of whom had stirred before getting thrown into the large cage of metal bars out in the forest in a straight line from east-to-west from U.A.'s jail.

Manzo stood outside of the jail cell at the back of it, handing inside more of her black bandages to the invisible girl who she had carried back that whole way naked. Hagakure had wrapped up her waist and her chest with the black bandages and tape that were wrapped all around Manzo making her look like a ninja. Her mask was gone since those were the bandages she was most fine with giving up just to help out the naked invisible girl, and the U.A. students were still mostly surprised that Manzo was a girl with a pretty face and breasts pushing into the front of her costume.

Shoji was still unconscious, just like Ojiro, Sero, and Tokoyami. Sato and Ashido had lasted longer than all of their classmates, but when it was down to just them and Zach, several other Shiketsu students swarmed them at once and overwhelmed the two who had been taken down and tied up before getting quickly dragged out of there. They had been gagged until they made it inside the jail, where the Shiketsus finally felt safe untying and un-gagging them since the rules were explicit about how students could not keep fighting or try escaping once they had been put inside the opposite team's jail. Aoyama and Koda were awake too, with both of them sporting wounds they rubbed in pain, and in some frustration as they could see between the bars above them up to the scoreboard on the western wall's glass that showed how they were part of the only points scored in the training so far.

"Anyone here feel like they need Recovery Girl right now?" Manzo wondered after Hagakure hoarsely thanked her for the last bandages.

She received only shakes of heads back, and Manzo nodded before turning and heading off herself. She had gone alone to the jail, and as she turned and headed off she held her breath to run through the woods as an invisible person herself. When she neared their team's base, she spoke into her earpiece that Iida had never felt the need to remove earlier when he thought she was unconscious. Manzo alerted her friends that she was approaching and then appeared inside of their perimeter to head to the broken down doors of their first floor. She moved slower only surrounded by her own classmates who noticed that her brick-red hair was exposed falling down to her shoulders but did not say anything to their comrade who never fought with her hair down like that uncovered by her costume.

Manzo did not let it show on her expression, but she had to walk slow and force her hands to stay down instead of reaching up for her left side. She winced when she was sure no one was looking, and she stopped walking for a second to close her eyes in the pain she felt on her back and left side from Iida's powerful kick. Manzo shook her head around though and then kept walking for the building's opening. _Did he hold back at the end? I swear it got slower, and I was able to stay conscious and just pretend. It was because he discovered I was a girl… but that's a good thing,_ she reminded herself after thinking that in frustration at the start. _It's not a bad thing if my enemies underestimate me for that. It just shows their own stupidity._

Manzo Elia ignored the pain she was in as she had been since Imino set off all his smoke pellets and allowed her the opportunity to slip out undetected. Manzo had one of her own team's headsets on, and she listened to the other four who had them in too with only one of their comms' devices lost currently. Zach had told them through his helmet that Bakugo could not currently hear their comms, giving them time to regroup even though that was the last Zach communicated with them as he was in the middle of a fight with Deku they could hear from their base. Manzo and seven others at their base had U.A.'s earpieces on them too, and they were all still listening closely to that open channel for any noise from their U.A. counterparts.

The earpieces that Yaoyorozu created at the start of the match had another use though when they figured out how to work them. The private communications' lines that could be created between individuals on the network allowed more of the students to talk to each other from around the base as they created different channels and locked in with each other before breaking off to stay somewhere else around the base in mostly silence. A limping Kotsumura was one of the few (still standing) without an earpiece, but because of that he did not need one. His new task was to stay with the other three in the new group guarding the flag and injured with Kameko.

Manzo walked into the base and saw Kotsumura and the three others besides Kameko dealing with their injured while their outer perimeter was still up. Even with that outer perimeter steady, Kameko was in half-Tortoise Fortress, his shell still surrounding the flag and his entire body except for his legs from the knees down. His mobility increased a bit while his shell was smaller like this, the large two feet sticking out the bottom of the shell able to move him around unlike when he was twice the size and filled much more of the floor. Even though he might have to expand again during the next attack, they were not worried about keeping their injured comrades in the room with him. Inside of Kameko's shell might be the only place where they could not be taken from, after all.

"What do we do if Deku takes down Inasa and the others?" Hanodo muttered next to him at Subara. They were watching the north side of their base for enemies, neither of them looking damaged at all as they had been in forward group 4 that rerouted back to the base initially and only arrived after Bakugo had caused his damage and left. The base behind them had broken walls on the outside of the second floor which they knew barely existed on the inside of the building now. The stairs inside led up to a tiny platform with jagged edges before the huge hole where the second floor had been collapsed.

The two students who had been the first to check out the inside of the building to find Kameko still inside awaiting Bakugo to try a sneak attack on him knew their base was hardly holding up anymore. The slightly shorter girl with pure white skin and hair who Hanodo asked that shrugged her shoulders but then responded, "Then there's not much we're going to be able to do. You saw the two of them in the Sports Festival finals, and that was last year," Subara added at the end as she figured both Bakugo and Midoriya had gotten even stronger since then. "Deku gets over here and the game might as well be over."

"It's not a…" Hanodo started, but Subara nodded at him with a serious look coming back to her face that got him to stop saying how it wasn't a game. The two of them regained focus, and Hanodo said in a lower voice, "Even if they lose, we can't give up. If he beats all four of them, I'm sure they'll have at least put a lot of damage on him first. We can still do it."

"Yeah," Subara replied, saying it like she agreed but actually staring at the side of Hanodo's face in more surprise at what he just said. _Is it because of what we all agreed to do? That one of us getting caught is like us dying? You're that serious, so you must actually be treating it that way… But still, I've never really seen, that side of you before._ Subara Carina looked up at the five foot seven boy who despite being short was one of the most muscular in their class. She felt strange all of a sudden, because for some reason the barista at Rafaielo's appeared in her mind. _Tanaka's, really not that attractive…_ Now that she thought about it, Subara didn't really know why she had been flirting with that guy at all. _It's not like I even know what he's like from just talking across the counter. Whereas there was someone else at that cafe after school all the time as we headed home together._

Hanodo glanced to his side and wondered why Subara was staring at him like that. "You focused?" He questioned the girl who nodded back at him in a reassuring way that had Hanodo looking back forward, thinking it must have been nothing.

The girl whose place was not far from his, in the same direction from Shiketsu so they took the same train for the past 3 years now, blinked a few times in shock while staring forward again just like he was. _I'm not really into… holy shit. Three fucking years and he's been sitting next to-_ "Subara, can you come back in here? I want to clean out Yurinosuke's wound."

"Yeah, right there," Subara replied, glad to have something to distract her from that weird train of thought. Her Quirk was Soap, and though it did have its use in combat she understood why Flugeru called her back.

As Subara headed inside and walked over towards Flugeru and the injured, Manzo was looking over at the line of their unmoving or badly injured comrades with a look of unease. Kotsumura and Porrolo had come up to her and they were speaking without using their headsets so it was just between them for now. "Could really use your lead right now," Kotsumura said, hoping the ninja girl would speak up more as she had been recently. The fact that she was ranked 7th in their class added to the idea that they would follow her, considering Reika at 6th and the usually outspoken Yamamoto at 8th were both unconscious after facing Bakugo. The top four in their class were all out fighting Deku, and Kameko was less introversive as he used to be but had not gotten to the level of Manzo who had gone out of her way to help some of her classmates with their training over the previous few weeks.

Porrolo had noticed it too. _Ever since Ranking Day, Manzo's been watching Zach and acting more and more like him. I guess we're all learning a lot from him, but she and Dendo have really taken to the leading thing that he's been doing too. I don't think you even had to mention it, Keiji._ It was the reason Porrolo was already over there standing waiting to hear what Manzo thought they should do. As much as he trusted Kameko to lead their new group in protecting the flag, Kameko was stuck in his Tortoise Fortress in their base while Manzo was all over the training arena. "With five of us staying to protect the flag, four of us guarding Kameko really," Porrolo corrected himself. "And 12 of us down, if we're being generous," Porrolo paused for a second and looked to the side of the room where a few of their friends were resting but had said they were not out of it yet.

Manzo and Kotsumura looked over too past Flugeru and Subara who were bent down next to the unconscious Yurinosuke, who was ranked 14th in their class but had a Quirk they all knew worked particularly well against Bakugo and Todoroki. They were disappointed to see he had fallen when the U.A.'s had surrounded most of their class before Zach finally moved in to rescue them. There were others that they were disheartened to see down too though, though they hoped the three sitting together in the not-out group would get themselves back up soon. Himazuri and Elinari were exhausted and bruised up, having fought twice: before being captured and again after being released in the smoke by their comrades. Adashi had been exhausted too after splitting himself and separating the souls from three others for an extended period of time, along with keeping those three strong enough to trick Midoriya and Todoroki into thinking they were the real things. He had said that he could keep going after Dendo quickly dropped him off before rushing out again, but soon after Dendo left, Adashi had fallen asleep. They had not woken him back up yet as they were hoping to let him get some rest and only wake him when they next needed his Quirk.

Manzo hummed to herself and shifted her eyes from Himazuri and Elinari whose recoveries she was hopeful for. She looked to the others down on the ground, _Kerushi and Yamamoto being down is bad. I lost Enjino and one of the Trabos too out there, and now all three of them are down. Trabo X being down is bad for morale too. Everyone's being real quiet on the comms. As serious as we got, it was good to have him keeping the mood up. They shouldn't have gone for Tailman, especially not in the smoke. With a name like the Martial Arts Hero, you all should have been more cautious and waited for Imino and Zach. They're the ones who ultimately got him anyway._

She grit her teeth and looked away from the sole Trabo laying on the ground since they had put his other two bodies on him back near the clearing to only have to carry one injured comrade away from there. _We lost Satoshi on him too, and Tentacole did a number on Himazuri and Elinari too. They're saying they're good, but I saw them out there once they were released. That guy's built like a beast. Our own beast could have taken him, probably, but Dimarko didn't last long against Sugarman. He wasn't angry enough. If we had lost someone already and it felt like they were really dead- shit. We could have used Rage Fiend much better- Wait! What am I thinking? We aren't going to lose anyone. So there wouldn't have been a chance for that anyway. Zach's not even thinking about that. If we had kept him back for an 'in-case' scenario, then we would have been accepting the possibility we were going to lose someone!_

Manzo looked to the other two next to her and motioned up at her earpiece. They reached up and held the buttons while watching each other, doing the technique Himazuri explained to them in a raspy tone earlier as they were dragging her and one of their injured and tied-up enemies away. Thanks to her Mindreading, they knew all about their enemies' plans, at least the ones they started out with. Manzo spoke in a low voice to the other two next to her, "I over-exaggerated how much we got thanks to Himazuri. Their plans are changing if they have not already changed, and they're sure to have new earpieces already. The only one without one might be Deku, though hopefully Bakugo is still occupied too."

Kotsumura nodded, his smile that rose when Manzo started speaking in that serious tone getting back to a flat lip himself as he gained a more serious expression. "So we need to know what they're up to now?" Porrolo wondered.

"Yes," Manzo replied. "And we can't wait until they fully regroup, if Deku does back off. Let's start back up on small-time recon. We have Shoji, so Jirou's the one we have to be most cautious of now." _Hearing Hero: Earphone Jack. Currently working with the Tracking Hero: Ms. Clue. Was the partner of Kaminari Denki in the second round of the Sports Festival two years back. Zach treated her like one to be very careful of. She's the one who got me last year. There's only one person who can counter her, other than Zach that is…_

Back closer to the middle of the dome but on the south side now near lower trees and on wet ground, Zach kicked off a tree and then flipped himself over a branch behind him. He flipped around it and got his feet up on top in a crouching position, his eyes darting to the right as he thought, _Wouldn't expect anything less._ His eyes moved back forward from the two falling trees that Dendo was just sent flying through. Zach locked his gaze on Midoriya who landed so hard he blew a crater larger than the one Sato made by smashing down with both fists as hard as he could earlier. Zach wished he could blame the ground being softer around here, but Midoriya just landing had more strength than one of his other strongest opponents' strongest attack.

Midoriya's green costume remained intact too, no damage to it so far unlike Dendo's that sparked in the back and would not glow again just like his right boot. Zach could see it in the corner of his vision, and though Midoriya frowned deeply too because Dendo just got back up again, Zach frowned too with an annoyed look flashing over his face for a moment. _I know I had his gear adjusted to allow for flight, but I guess it's not made of the same protective material my costume is to withstand blows like those._ Zach's costume still worked with his flight controls despite having been smashed through several trees himself by the same student. _It's a waste,_ Zach thought, though his eyes locked on Midoriya back in an intense way again. _But I can repair the tech on my own even if I can't make it from scratch._

 _Damn it!_ Midoriya realized while staring up towards the branch Zach was on. _I'm still moving at his pace!_ His decision to rush at Zach before had been his attempt to end Zach's plans and move past them. Three other Shiketsus were waiting for him though, and Inasa had caught up and was flying up above him, while he heard barreling coming through the trees behind Zach. Hisashi had been his target several times now, but it was like Zach predicted that too and wanted Midoriya to go for the weakest link among them. _He had those three behind him ready to back him up when I attacked him. He had those Death traps ready that I almost fell into when I went after Hisashi. Dendo took a hit that was from a distance but still! It's been enough to take down several villains before. He's strong. All four of them are- and this is exactly what Zach wants me spending all my strength on! Is Bakugo out of the picture? Is it the rest of our class without the two of us and the 9 who are out right now, against the rest of Shiketsu? I don't know because I'm not on the new comms!_

"Attack him."

"Midoriya, come back for…"

"MIDORIYA!"

"Eat a- um, BANANA!"

"RABBLE RABBLE-"

As soon as Yaoyorozu got out 'Midoriya,' the old comms burst out in loud chatter again that blocked out the rest of what she said. Midoriya was already thinking about it though, and the only thing she was telling him was the thing he already wanted to go back for.

"Don't let him run," Zach said.

"Wind WALL!" Inasa roared, and all the wind currents around him redirected to one area-

 _ **BOOM!**_

Inasa spun his head, and then all the wind currents moving to make a massive wall had to redirect in two different directions. Half of the wall split off to try and stop that fast-moving projectile flying at him, while the other half shot him a different direction towards his classmates. _**BOO-BOOM!**_ Bakugo redirected himself away from the initial huge force of winds coming at him, then he redirected away again from the wind of Death rising towards where he dodge-blasted himself after Inasa.

Midoriya leapt up towards Bakugo, and he shouted towards his classmate, "Back to base!"

Inasa spun himself around just over the top of the canopies and looked higher towards Bakugo and Deku. Below him, Zach landed on a branch and stared up towards the two from U.A. Hisashi and Dendo were on the ground level down below him, and the four at the top of Shiketsu stared at the two who had faced off in the finals of the Sports Festival at the start of that school year. "We can take them," Bakugo growled.

"That's exactly what Zach wants," Midoriya replied. He glanced to his side nervously as he said it. "Whatever he did to you, it was to make you rush in at him in a fury like this."

"Shut up," Bakugo snarled. _Just because you're right… doesn't mean…_ Bakugo curled his fists so furiously, then he slammed his exploding hands forward and shot himself to the east without a word.

Zach kept up his smug look, even though he felt like frowning since Bakugo did not take the bait. _Don't give him the satisfaction- he's not watching! Guess it's for Midoriya then._ Zach knew Bakugo was more frustrated by winning there, running away and not taking the bait, and somehow the idea of that made up for the fact that his two biggest threats were retreating when he wanted to keep them there. Midoriya rushed off without reacting to that look on his face too, and Zach finally frowned as he thought about the way Midoriya just looked down at him. _He's treating this like a warm-up for our real fight. I shouldn't fight him one-on-one in case that fight does come. Why not? I don't want to beat him. If he comes after me, I'll probably deserve it. I should just let him take me. And if I do decide to fight him. If by then, I've decided to fight him… then I definitely need to show him more of my cards now, while I still think… but what if that's not the right move? Darling was right, about certain things. Didn't I do more out there? If Midoriya came for me, should I really just accept a life in prison? Forever? Luckily, I don't need to think about this now. Just win. It's all that matters today._

"What do we do?" Hisashi wondered, lifting his head and asking the black-haired teen on the branch above him.

"Head back to base," Zach replied. The way he said it sounded like he was not going with the three of them, but Zach looked ahead and hummed as he refocused on the mission at hand he was readjusting his tactics for. "They'll be making another run for our flag, and you three need to protect it this time. I'll get their flag. Then it's just six of them we have to capture…"

 _He provoked me,_ Midoriya thought as he faced his classmates. They were all gathered in front of him in the flag room except for an annoyed Bakugo standing on the roof and Jirou who was outside and listening in but from their front lawn.

Bakugo's ears were still ringing, and he could see little dots in his vision, lasting reminders of the waste of his time that was the trap in the cave. He thought about the smug way Zach was looking up at him back in the forest though, and he tried to calm down at the idea of it. _Was it too clear that he wanted me to attack though? What if this was part of his plan too? No. He wanted me to think that. He knew I'd see through him looking smug about it like he had me in a way to get me to attack him, so he wouldn't look that way if he actually wanted me to run, which meant it was two more, right back to he actually wanted me to attack him. Deku's right. But if I don't get to fight him here…_ Bakugo ground his teeth frustratedly. _Did Deku really face off against all four of them? He looked fine. I haven't been overestimating Zach. He must still be underestimating us though. Or, he really doesn't want to show us… He fucking tricked me. Again. How many times am I going to fall for his shit?!_

"…I know it doesn't seem very organized, but this plan will work," Midoriya told his classmates who had varying looks as they stared back at their classmate who told them his new plan quickly and confidently. It was vastly different from their calm, organized, well-thought-out plan from the start. It also took each of their strengths and weaknesses into account though in a more individual way than their plan did back when there were nineteen of them and a more equal fight to still have.

The confident way in which Midoriya said it made Yaoyorozu nod firmly after a second. "That is a great plan, Midoriya." Her vote of confidence assured others who wondered what their other tactician thought of it, and the plan was decided on in that moment. "Go, Kyoka."

Jirou's earphone jacks came out of the ground and she sprinted forward.

"Get out now the rest of you," Todoroki told the others in front of him besides Yaoyorozu. He glanced next to him at the girl with the spiky ponytail and added, "I'll leave some air holes."

"Thank you," Yaoyorozu said as he mentioned it.

"I hope this thing looks cool from outside," Mineta said, while he sprinted for the stairs after the others who were all quicker to get out of there.

Asui hopped out of the building, then she turned her head to the south and her tongue extended out towards the closest tree that was tilted diagonally over another fallen one. Her tongue wrapped around a thin branch but one sturdy enough to hold her weight as she flung herself towards it.

Bakugo leapt off the roof and landed down next to Deku who quickly spoke to his classmate who he wanted to know his part of the plan in case Bakugo had not been listening to him from the roof, despite the front windows of their base being shattered so his voice should have reached. The two of them ran forward into the forest, the same direction Jirou had headed just a little before them.

Kirishima and Iida moved farther out on the front lawn than Mineta, Iida holding a device in his right hand with a white line that moved out in semicircle from the small white dot that indicated his position. He saw three green dots moving away from him just ahead and one to the edge of the left side of the rectangle on the screen. He looked next to him at Kirishima who was leaning over to see how it worked, and Kirishima nodded at Iida after the taller boy looked him in the eyes. They moved forward and made more to the right back for the northern clearing their classmates had fought in earlier.

"You out Uraraka?" Todoroki asked.

"Floating above," Uraraka replied from above their base, still rising and now more than twice as high as the building itself. "I'd appreciate a floor soon."

Todoroki breathed out a cold breath of air and then placed his right hand on the wall of the first floor next to where he was standing. Above him on the second floor, Yaoyorozu slid her arms through the sleeves of a nice warm coat, right before the entire building around her encased with ice. The broken windows ahead of her that gave her a view out into the forest was blocked by a massive thick wall of ice that rose so much higher than where Uraraka was currently floating. The floor of the top of the ice castle pushed Uraraka up after it touched her, and she had to release her gravity quickly so as not to be sent flying all the way up to the top of the dome.

Once Uraraka started falling again, she quickly removed her gravity when she was at the lowest amount of acceleration downwards. She fell with that start of gravity and no more, before finally giving herself her weight back only a few feet above the top of the fortress though still shorter than the top of the tallest parts of the top wall around her. When Uraraka Ochaco walked between two of the taller sections though, the ice wall was only up to her mid-stomach so she could see over the ledge and down to the forest below and all the way across the dome. She glanced back and saw the dome's curved wall rising just above the back of the fortress she was on the other side of, while it was higher above her own head but not that high that someone could get a good drop on her from above without her noticing. _I can see the whole training zone from here. There's their base. Looks like… Bakugo really messed the place up. Can't really make anyone out all the way over there… Is that their jail? They took everyone's communicators. I still can't believe they were all taken down so early. What happened out there?_

 _"Ignore the collateral damage to our base. This is about victory now. Nothing else."_ Todoroki frowned but he kept a steady expression like he did through Midoriya's fast-paced explanation of their plan. _In a real situation, locking myself down in here inside an ice base… there could be situations where it would be necessary. I admit. But, this is not my ideal- it's not what I wanted from today. "Zach is going to win unless we start countering in ways he won't expect. Things that would be out of character for the us's he knew before."_

 _I get that that makes sense, Midoriya,_ Mineta thought as he was remembering the same line Todoroki just thought inside. _But why does that mean I have to be our front line of defense?! I can't pull of a cocky Bakugo look! That's a ridiculous expectation to have for me!_

 _Midoriya didn't even tell Mineta what the real plan is, that's how much he wants to win this,_ Yaoyorozu thought, while glancing down through some ice at the front of the base towards where she imagined Mineta was standing outside. _Zach would never expect Mineta to really be our front line of defense, so he, and anyone else, would of course suspect some kind of trap. It has nothing to do with going against your normal. It is just a trap without actually having a trap set. The bluff of a trap. Same with Tsuyu. I believe she might have seen through Midoriya's plan, though I am glad she followed along instead of calling him out._

 _Midoriya-chan, this is pretty mean of you,_ Asui Tsuyu thought. She was swimming around the bottom of the lake on the far south of the dome that she had just dove into. _If you believe that yourself, Bakugo-chan, and Todoroki-chan will not be captured, then even with myself down here, they could still get 25 points. I understand how much you want to win, but I am not a liability._ "Gero," Tsuyu croaked underwater in a disappointed way, bubbles coming out of her mouth and her feet kicking down to swim her back to the surface for a moment.

 _Maybe I am wrong though,_ Tsuyu thought while going back down for a dive. _It is possible my post here could be to stop them if they take the flag and move around the south side. Pincer them between those chasing and myself. If Reika is already defeated like Midoriya-chan says she is, it is not the worst for me to be here. Things could come down to a final hunt at the end. Even Zach-ch… he couldn't get me down here._

"I really don't think you guys should be up there," Kotsumura said, while looking up at the ceiling above him that he swore shook when Inasa landed on it.

On the west side of the dome, Shiketsu's team was feeling more confident as they prepared their defenses around the flag. The earpieces Zach gave out had a different channel on them that Zach finally switched his helmet's network too. His classmates knew about the backup channel from the start, and they had all gone to it because Bakugo stole one of their earpieces. They only stayed on the channel earlier after Bakugo had taken it to give him a few minutes of thinking he had broken their communications' line before they stopped using it out of fear of him listening. Either way, Bakugo had tinkered around with his own earpiece and came across chatter on another channel by chance when two of his enemies were speaking.

Bakugo listening in to their enemies' chatter on one line was not the only recon their team was managing at the moment though. Near the outskirts of the east side of Shiketsu's base area, Bibi Reina had her head on a swivel and was watching the forest ahead of her closely. She darted her eyes to the left again though in a hesitant way, which her partner at her side noticed and gave her a strange look for. Taiyuro whispered towards the shorter girl with gray hair and long bangs, "What's up?"

"I'm just thinking," Bibi replied softly. "If Todoroki put a huge ice cage around our jail, we wouldn't be able to get anyone else into it."

Taiyuro lifted his eyebrows up, then he turned back and stared out into the forest ahead of them in a focused way. "Well, I hope he doesn't think of that."

"As long as five of the injured and the flag stay inside Kameko's shell," Porrolo continued saying to Kotsumura back on the first floor of their base. "There's no way we could lose. That's an assured 16 points right there and we could only lose 24."

"I'm not so sure," Kotsumura replied, though he kept his voice lower so Kameko would not hear him at his back. "If Zach with just his metal fist can break it, then I think Deku could too…"

"Alright, Imino's definitely not here," Jirou said to her comrades through her new earpiece that the enemies could not be on the channel of. "And I'm hearing them talking about a lot. It seems like Zach's broken through Kameko's shell before, and they think you could do it, Midoriya. Also, someone else mentioned a pretty good idea about putting a huge ice cage around their jail. Keep them from tossing any of us in there. Even if they find a way past it-"

"It would take them longer, enough time that I could get over there," Midoriya finished for her, realizing where Jirou was going with that. _When I was going to try and save the others earlier, I would have rushed right past Zach. I should have, but I wouldn't have been fast enough to stop them all from being caught anyway. Next time though I'll have to be, but if Todoroki puts a massive ice block, with some air holes, around our captured classmates then we should be good. I just hope Hagakure doesn't get too cold inside it._

 _What the hell does "metal fist" mean?_ Jirou stopped her report and continued listening to her enemies, but she was still unnerved by something Kotsumura mentioned. _Do, the others in our class know about that?_

 _That's one hell of a fortress. Why would they leave Mineta as the only guard? Obviously a trap. Too obvious. Too obvious that it's too obvious? Nah._

Midoriya and Bakugo ran around the outer perimeter of the Shiketsu students, Bakugo looking pissed but keeping quiet about it and keeping quiet in general. Their movements were slow as the two of them moving any faster would draw too much attention to themselves. Midoriya slowed and looked around, and he turned to Bakugo with a nod at this area. Bakugo growled and looked angrily at his classmate, "I hate this plan."

"Please Kacchan, stick to the strategy. I know it will work."

"Go," Bakugo said, not going to argue about it but not going to agree with Deku either. Midoriya ran off after what Bakugo said, moving a little faster as he was able to go unlike Bakugo without making too much noise.

Across the arena, Imino Kurinou watched the ice fortress grow with his eyes wide as entire new sections appeared off the corners. Towers formed, and small platforms appeared for the weightless scout who swung on ice poles to make her way around it. Imino listened carefully with his Echolocation, while he scouted out the enemy base that did not look that fortified despite all the ice. _They're making it look like an actual fortress. Discourages a head-on struggle. Unfortunately for you, I know how many of you are in there…_

Imino's eyes shifted over to his right farther into the forest's center. _Only four guard the base. Practically our whole team is back at ours. Then again, four is basically half of their team already. These two would be able to get back over there quickly once Zach starts attacking. That's when I could get them from behind, though then we could possibly lose my tactical strength. Should I just support Zach by telling him their positions and what they're saying?_

"Kirishima and Iida both heading towards the northeast in the direction of the first fight's location. Behind them Todoroki's talking to Yaoyorozu…" Imino trailed off as even speaking in a lower voice he was worried about being heard now. He lowered his hand from his earpiece, and he just kept listening in to the two closest to him who were getting closer despite moving on a line that was going to make them move straight past the thicket he was hiding in.

"…I'm ready to take on the rest of those Shiketsus," Kirishima punched his hands together with a pissed look covering his face. "They've got no idea how hard I can get now."

"I am sure they have prepared for an increase in your strength. With Zach at their lead…" Iida's eyes shifted from the small device he was holding down near his waist. He darted his gaze towards some trees densely packed together with foliage around them. His hand in his steel glove lowered down and he clipped the radio tracker Yaoyorozu made for them to his waist. They knew Imino was here from Bakugo and Jirou's combined information, and Yaoyorozu's device made the location that much more specific. Imino had no idea what they were planning.

But Iida trailed off too early. A long-term manipulation like this was unlike him or Kirishima. Iida turned his head and body while the backs of his calves ignited. Imino jumped backwards as he adapted, though Iida was already sprinting forward by that point. Imino got out more smoke pellets though, slamming them down as he was coming down for his own landing. The smoke pellets exploded before Iida could reach him, but Iida had seen them dropping. He scanned his terrain around where he was going all the way to where Imino was landing, and Iida sprinted through the smoke to right behind where Imino should be about to land.

Imino turned his body and lifted his arms, crossing them as the leg covered in steel came flying through his smoke. An Imino-sized hole blew through the smoke all the way into a tree that was already halfway broken-apart. Kirishima's arms finished breaking through it, and he smashed those into Imino's other side as where his arms were blocking. The tree took most of the force of Kirishima's attack, but the redhead still slammed Imino so hard that the breath Imino just tried to gasp in came shooting back out.

Imino hit the ground and bounced, then skid across the dirt and dragged up a bunch of it. The blue-skinned teen kept skidding and then pushed his hands down and flipped himself over, spinning around and facing his opponents who came out of his smoke they intentionally hit him away from already. Imino reached to his waist and pulled out a pair of bat-knives he threw forward at the two who came out and looked towards him. He had a bloody nose and his side ached like hell, and his right leg was wobbly which showed in the strange way he was crouching. Iida and Kirishima both expected more smoke pellets though and so both came sprinting full speed forward at Imino when he reached for his belt.

Iida curved away quickly, then he made for a sharp angle to cut back in at Imino. Kirishima ducked instead, while focusing his hardening on his hands and smirking at his opponent who was actually going to keep fighting them here instead of try to run away. _This time against someone real! Not a half-assed copy!_ Kirishima hated how his fight against Dendo earlier did not even matter, as Dendo could always claim it was only because he was at half power that he lost. Kirishima rushed at Imino, only for the bat-knife that flew past him to glow red in the middle and suddenly pull backwards.

 _Boomerang,_ Iida shot back towards Kirishima instead of continuing at Imino, and he slammed his fist into the side of the knife while running past his classmate's back. "They come back around," Iida said, his voice coming out high-pitched and quickly as he continued sprinting around Kirishima and then over towards Imino's right side.

Iida rushed at him from his right side. Kirishima hardened more of his body and made a strong move with his right that showed his curling left fist was what he was really going for. Imino's breath let out in a slow exhale, and he closed his eyes.

 _ **"What do I think of you? No, I get what you mean. I'm just surprised… Well, when it comes to Ranking Day, we all know: Not to get in a close fight with Imino."**_

 _ **"Yeah. Your Quirk's one of the weakest in the class. Doesn't stop you though. You never would'a lost to Kotsumura like that, I'll tell you that much…"**_

 _ **"Dude, you kidding me? You nailed Lifebringer with that awesome kick! And we watched him take down the entire Subspace Devils on his own!"**_

Imino was already in a crouched position, so Iida did not expect him to get any lower than that on a kick that was already swinging around low. Imino flattened out to the ground though in the second Iida's kick was coming around still with the regular flames coming out of his Engines. Iida reacted fast though, and his right leg slammed down on the ground for his left leg to come around this time.

 _He can't back-heel because the Engines are on his calves._ Imino saw how Iida could have gotten a nice kick on him, but Iida was only using kicks that had the power of his Engines behind them and not ones that would smash those hot engines into his opponents as he could too just with slower kicks.

Imino pointed two bat-knives towards Iida's shin, and Iida had to Recipro with his eyes opening wide behind his visor. He used his special move just to dodge, as he almost kicked his leg right into those knives Imino rose up at his even lower kick that he adjusted when Imino first flattened out. The only way to get a powerful kick that low was to crouch himself, and so he was not in a good position to just yank his leg away normally. He had to Reciproburst and kick up in the air which actually took him off of other foot and sent him flying backwards. Iida tried to continue the flip he had started by kicking up that hard, while Imino shot up to his feet and rushed forward at the redhead who did not expect Imino to close in the distance at all.

Kirishima's distracted eyes darted back from a flipping Iida to the teen rushing straight at him. He punched his right fist forward, nearly forgetting that it was a feint in the first place. As he tried to focus on that left fist he had lowered down to his own waist and hardened, ready to punch into Imino's gut, Imino caught the right arm that he dodged towards instead of in from to a spot that would have put him in too easy a position to be hit by that gut punch. Now, Kirishima would have to cross his body with that left hand of his in order to hit Imino, but as he thought about doing that anyway, Imino was wrapping his right arm around Kirishima's extended right so that he could not pull it back. Imino wrapped his left arm around Kirishima's back as he had not stopped running forward, now getting past the point that Kirishima would have been able to punch the left across anyway.

The redhead tried leaning backwards so that he could have that room to punch the left across, but that just worked to Imino's advantage as he slammed his body into Kirishima's right shoulder. The right arm Imino threw around the inside of Kirishima's arm also went around his head, and he locked it in with his left hand that went around Kirishima's side. Kirishima was leaning back while Imino slammed his left foot that he got past Kirishima first behind his own legs. Kirishima felt something blocking his legs as he tried stepping back, while pressure slammed into his shoulder and knocked him backwards over that obstacle behind him. Imino threw his own legs back up as Kirishima started falling, but before they hit the ground hard enough for Imino to take the wind out of his opponent, Kirishima's body hardened to make it so Imino was the one who slammed down on a hard object with his body wrapped around it in an even more painful way.

Kirishima spread his arms with a yell, "RAA!" He kicked up, but Imino leapt backwards with blood coming out of his blue arms anyway from what Kirishima's hardened body just did to him. _This is that same timid guy from last year?_ Kirishima thought while lifting up to one foot and looking ahead of him at the teen who wiped under his bloody nose with a forearm bloody itself so more blood just smeared to the right side of Imino's intense expression. _Red Riot and Ingenium. Dendo beat one last year, and Inasa took down the other. Rising heroes. Faces of Class A. It doesn't matter though._ Imino felt his confidence soar and his fists balled so much harder at his sides as the right corner of his lip curled up.

Iida had not rushed back in at his opponent yet after watching the way he took Kirishima down there. _From the smoke back there earlier, he's the reason we lost half our team. Whatever signal he gave or strategy their class used, it revolved around him._ Iida's eyes narrowed on his opponent who was more impressive than he already thought. "Kirishima, go for his left and I will-"

Imino dropped smoke pellets, flicking them off his fingers at the end so they would not just drop with gravity which wouldn't be enough against Ingenium. "Now!" Kirishima yelled before Iida could finish, seeing those pellets fall just like his classmate did. The two of them sprinted forward and judged Imino's reactions before the smoke could erupt around them.

Kirishima jumped up and watched the smoke move backwards while it was still pluming up and before it covered his face. He brought both hands up in fists and came down hard in front of where he thought Imino would be, smashing his hands into the ground and cracking the dirt with swings hard enough to swirl down all the smoke after him. The smoke cleared a bit, showing Iida the form of Imino who tried to dodge to the left after seeing that his form was visible in the light cover of smoke. _Not enough!_ Imino grabbed out more smoke pellets, but he grit his teeth as he was at the bottom of that next pouch and only had a couple to toss. He was quick to pop the third pouch while throwing the last of the second at Iida, but Iida sprinted through the smoke that exploded around him and he brought a knee up at Imino.

The Shiketsu student's left hand that just released those pellets snapped down to where he heard that leg coming up harder, and his hand pressed down on the top of Iida's knee. Flames shot out of Iida's right Engine, kicking the bottom of his leg up and nailing Imino in the gut so hard he skid to the edge of his smoke. Iida was chasing right after him, and Imino knew his silhouette was still too clear near that edge that he could be seen by his enemies. There was so much thick smoke in front of him, but moving closer to them while they were both running his way like this was not going to give him any time to come up with a plan or dodge. Instead he pulled out nearly half of his third pouch with his right hand gripping around all the pellets so hard that some exploded in the pouch and already started to engulf him in smoke.

A massive plume of smoke erupted around Imino, and Iida yelled out in a booming voice for Kirishima, "RECIPRO-" His calves glowed bright blue out of his exhaust ports, and Iida planted his left leg so hard in the ground it cracked around him. "BURSTO!" His body spun like a top because of how fast his right leg moved around him, sucking in all the smoke in the vicinity so the explosion turned into more of a spinning pillar around Iida's body and shooting up into the sky over the canopies.

Imino's head snapped to the left and his body ducked down as Kirishima leapt at him and punched his right fist forward. Imino did not try to use the same attack as before, though he spun away from the punch and tried punching back. Kirishima did not even flinch though as Imino pulled back at the last second to not destroy his knuckles, and he leapt backwards instead as Kirishima's hardened face ran into his fist. As he was landing, Kirishima punched his left as he had run to where Imino was coming down. The two of them were face-to-face and close quarters, and Imino leaned away but only far enough that Kirishima's left hand left a bloody mark across the right side of Imino's face.

Imino kicked his right leg up at Kirishima's left side, and Kirishima hardened only to still skid a few feet away as the steel boot Imino had on packed more of a punch than he was expecting. Kirishima stopped his skid and pushed forward to sprint right back at his opponent, making sure not to let him pull out smoke pellets with that short distance he had gained between them. Imino knew that would be Kirishima's idea though, and he sprinted forward an instant before Kirishima started, his momentum increasing while Kirishima's eyes widened for a moment. The redhead had fast reaction times too though, and his right hand hardened and punched forward as Imino's fist was coming for him. Imino leaned his body away, and he redirected his punch as Kirishima changed the aim so he still would have been hit in the chest anyway.

Their fists collided instead. Imino pushed into it, but Kirishima pushed back into the sound of cracking knuckles and blood splashing out from Imino's fist. Imino reeled backwards and yanked his arm up while trying to twist his body away, but Kirishima followed-through the splashing blood and hit Imino in the right side of his chest with a blow that sent him stumbling backwards and barely maintaining his footing. Imino's left hand snapped down to his waist, as despite his panting, he needed a bat knife now as he saw the hole break through the smoke funnel Iida was inside of. Kirishima grit his teeth but the corners of his lips pulled up despite his enemy remaining on his feet. "Alright then!" Kirishima yelled, and he sprinted forward like Iida at their Shiketsu opponent whose legs shook for a second only to steady while his hands gripped around smoke pellets and a bat knife.

"LET'S DO THIS!" Imino shouted right back twice as loudly as Kirishima, his own lips curling up despite the blood coming down the right side of his face and dripping off his knuckles.

Across the arena back at Shiketsu's base, a huge explosion just went off on the south side of it that had three Shiketsu's being blown back from the wind and force of the explosion alone.

"Bakugo's back!"

"All of you, go!" Inasa shouted at the others around him.

"What about you?"

"It's probably a diversion," Inasa replied, his expression still calm despite how much he wanted to go fight Bakugo right now.

The others nodded at their powerful classmate, and then they all ran off to leave him and Kameko alone with the flag. It was not three seconds after they started running off that the base's back wall came blowing apart towards Imino and Kameko's Tortoise Fortress that grew larger in a sudden defense. Spikes emerged from it in the direction of the breaking wall, but the figure who smashed through that wall bent his knees and pulled his right hand down as a fist at his side. _If Zach can do it…_

"SMASH!"

Inasa had pulled in all his wind to push that debris away from him and directed much of it around where he knew Kameko's face was on the outer plating of his shell. He tried to redirect. Midoriya was too fast.

"AHHH!" Kameko bellowed in an agonized voice. His hands came out of the top of his shell, and he jumped up from the feet holes on the bottom of it. Despite the agony he was in, he ran forward in his suddenly shrinking shell towards where the flag was laying on the bottom of it. Midoriya spun around so fast that the shockwave from his turn sent Kameko flying to the opposite side of his shell though. Deku picked up the flag and flew back out the hole he just made in the shell.

 _ **BAM!**_ Midoriya's body smashed into the ground right after he got out of the shell.

"JUST TRY TO MOVE!" Inasa roared down, having to be heard over the sound of a gale force smashing everything around them apart. "EVER HEARD OF A CATEGORY 6 HURRICANE?! WELL YOU'VE GOT ONE SMASHING ON TOP OF YOUR HEAD-" Inasa stopped shouting, focusing instead on pinpointing Whirlwind even more exactly down on Deku's back. He was able to direct it so perfectly because he knew where Deku was going to escape from, and Midoriya had a visible tunnel of huge wind force slamming on his back and pushing him deeper and deeper into the hole Inasa's wind had created in the ground below their breaking base.

"Get Kameko out of here!" Inasa yelled to his side as a classmate dared to get close to the breaking wall. Roger ran in and grabbed their shrunken classmate who was moaning and trying to get up on their own, and the American teen sprinted out the other side and dove for cover as the walls broke apart and pulled towards that huge hurricane Inasa had condensed into a single point.

"SUPER MOVE! SKYFALL!" Inasa slammed both of his hands down. Even though Midoriya's arms were curling up, his body pushing up above them, his whole form flinched and lost half of the distance he had raised as the wind pushing on his back intensified twice as hard. Inasa stopped focusing on the rest of the base as there was no one left in it, which was a good thing as the entire building came down with debris pulling into the wind funnel and getting ripped apart by the powerful winds slamming onto Midoriya's back so powerfully that his costume could no longer take it.

 _I have to get up._ Midoriya's right hand was still curled around the shaft of the flag, and he pushed down harder with that fist and with his other hand that was open with all of his fingers dug into the ground. His right knee slid up the cracking ground, as chunks of ceiling slammed down on his sides and broke apart. One big piece smashed down into his back and the debris got pushed into him harder, but it was turning to dust before breaking through his body as he flooded himself with One For All. His other knee skid up, and his elbows unbent again after buckling for a second as Inasa powered-up his Super Move. Even more force came down on him and he heard Inasa yelling over all of it. _I just, need to get out from underneath,_ Midoriya changed his strategy, and his left hand that was already curled at the fingers started pushing up harder than the rest of his body that looked closer to buckling now as he put all his strength there.

Midoriya pushed up hard with his left hand, his fingers bouncing off the ground and his arm rising for long enough that his hand was able to curl into a fist. Inasa saw it and tried to adjust- and Midoriya's fist smashed down into the ground and blew apart a hole Inasa's crater had nothing on. His small half-punch from already on the ground created five huge cracks that split off from him out through the lawns around the collapsing building. Parts of that building blew to the sides too from the force of the Smash that had most of the teachers staring at the cameras gawking as well, as all the cameras they had been watching through were destroyed.

A section of the lawn between two of the cracks lifted up, and Kotsumura and Porrolo looked left and right before sprinting as fast as they could towards the ledge ahead of them. They dove off before the section rose any higher, though just a little higher was the highest it would get before breaking in five different sections and falling apart back down to the same level. Kotsumura looked over his shoulder as he got back up, staring past Porrolo still down on his knees who was looking back himself. "Geez," the blond muttered, a bead of sweat rolling down the side of his face. _And I thought that attack Inasa was using was devastating._ "Guess it's a good thing Manzo took the injured away."

Shiketsu's base had been completely destroyed. Over the crumbled ruins of it floated Inasa who scanned his eyes across the rubble searching for the movement of the most powerful teen below it. He rose his arms to start moving the debris- then a hole smashed in one large chunk of wall. Deku flew out of it and right between Porrolo and Kotsumura who turned inwards in shock only to see each other as that blur was gone already. The gust of wind then slammed into them, and then they heard Inasa's warning yell, "DUCK!" They turned back and then dropped flat to the floor, as half of their destroyed base came flying their way and smashed through trees as Inasa chased after Deku. Neither of the others were fast enough to see it, but Inasa had seen the flag firmly held in Deku's hand as he made that bee-line away.

After Inasa had flown over them, the two teens in Shiketsu finally got back up to their feet in a steady way again. "Well, that's not good-" Kotsumura started.

 _ **KA-BOOM!**_ The two of them turned back the other way from the path of fallen trees leading away from them. They looked to another side of their fallen base, where a giant explosion was followed by the sounds of their classmates' screams. Porrolo grimaced but started moving that direction, muttering under his breath, "Neither is that."

 _I'm no decoy. You get the ten points, Deku. I'll get the other fifteen._

Around the same time that Midoriya and Bakugo started their attack on Shiketsu's base, only seconds after actually, Zach sprinted at U.A.'s base. "Zach's here!" Mineta yelled, his face covered in panic and fear as Zach came out from behind a tree much too close to him that he would have thought he would notice Zach getting behind in the first place.

Zach leapt over a fallen trunk and he adjusted in midair to not fall where the Pop-Offs were hidden around the lawn. He had watched Mineta set up half of these anyway, but he was still cautious of others he might not have seen planted. Mineta expected Zach to be able to dodge the one he left there though, and he aimed in the spots Zach was coming down. He threw his Pop-Offs while stepping backwards closer to the ice fortress at his back. "Make me a door!" Mineta yelled in fear.

Mineta was cautious with his throws, aiming specifically at locations he thought Zach to be dodging to. Zach did not appear cautious at all. He sprinted forward straight at Mineta with only the most minimal dodges to either side, his body mainly just leaning to one side or the other. Mineta's eyes widened and he pulled off way more Pop-Offs that he threw in a flurry at Zach. _It's seemingly in panic,_ Zach thought, as several of those attacks were missing him and he knew how Mineta could only use a certain amount. _But you're better than that. I can see you're aiming, and you look more panicked than you are._

The purple balls were all around Zach, and suddenly there were two on line to hit him that he could not dodge without getting the ones on his sides stuck to him. Zach punched both fists forward, one at his neck level and the other just below the left side of his chest. Mineta's eyes opened huge as his purple Pop-Offs stuck to Zach's fists, and Zach did not slow down at all. Mineta picked up the pace and threw faster, but Zach sprinted closer and weaved better without getting hit again. _He let himself get hit?! WHY!?_ Mineta really was panicking now as Zach so easily let himself get hit, something that to Mineta had felt like it would have been a win in itself if he could have just stuck Zach.

Mineta pulled off a cluster more and threw them at Zach's face, and Zach slid down below the whole cluster without slowing down. He rose out of the slide in a crouch just in front of Mineta who pulled his upper body back in so much fear as Zach rose up with the right corner of his lips curling up and both fists punching forward. He double-punched Mineta straight in the chest. Since Mineta bounced off his own Pop-Offs, the balls pressed into Mineta's chest and then sent him flying backwards super fast. "AHH-Guh-" Mineta let out a grunt of pain as he smashed into the wall of ice behind him.

Zach flicked his hands to the sides. The Pop-Offs came off his knuckles that had turned into darkness there for a second. There was so much precision in it that when the darkness faded his gloves were still there perfectly fine, having turned to darkness as well with only the thinnest veil between Zach's body and the balls falling away when he flicked those Pop-Offs off of him. Zach walked up to the ice fortress, and then his body surrounded in a black aura from head to toe right as he saw the ice start moving in front of him.

Todoroki froze and held back. Zach did not. He smashed his fists forward and broke holes in the ice, and he smashed again and again with his arms moving in a flurry, darkness pouring out of his back and slamming him forward faster so that each punch did more damage. Zach pounded his way through the outer layer into a gap, then he stopped and looked towards the doors and the stairs behind them where ice just filled up the entire path in his way. He turned his head to the right and ran around the inner front of the building, crossing his arms in front of him and smashing through a wall of ice and stone behind it that was thinner than the thick path of ice Todoroki just put in front of him to slow him down.

The ceiling above Zach glowed, and he dove forward right before a pillar of flames shot down through the roof. The flames vanished quickly, and the entire roof above Zach's head became frozen with ice. Ice pillars dropped off of that ceiling all over the room to support the floor above. The thickest pillar of ice formed below where that hole in the ceiling was though that Todoroki created himself by firing a pillar of flames down. Zach looked around the ceiling above him, and the whole building shook again while he stared up. _Creating a hole to the roof. He didn't make one earlier because I could have dropped in from above. They all know I can fly._ Zach's eyes were red and they darted straight to where he thought the hole all the way to the roof was. He crouched down and the bottoms of his boots glowed blue, as did the bottom of his jetpack out all four holes on the back of his costume there. He pointed his palms down at his sides with blue light glowing from them, and he saw the warning for his energy readings hitting the max on his visor at what he was planning. Six wings ripped out of Zach's back, and a point of darkness formed above his head and started hardening while at the same time spinning around.

 _Uraraka's up there. She already has the flag and is getting out of here. Todoroki's going to stop me on the floor above. So before he freezes the hole he just created. While she's still in that hole and rising up back to the roof._ Zach broke through the floor with a spinning drill of Death over the top of his head that broke apart along with the ice and ceiling. Zach needed more speed, as the layer of ice below the ceiling was nothing compared to how thick the ice layer over the second floor already was. All four of his bottom wings flapped down like the top two just did, and his energy readings soared and hit max potential with his helmet filling with a ringing as he sped up to dodge the flames Todoroki fired towards him between the exploding ice and stone and Death.

Zach pointed his left hand up, and he fired a blast of blue light at the ice wall behind Uraraka who was turning to the side towards him. The beam came close to her face and made her flinch in fear. Then the ice behind her exploded outwards at her back and slammed her with a few ice chunks, forcing her to drop the flag that she was holding in her left hand while climbing as fast as she could with Zero Gravity. He let Uraraka drop while flying up himself with flag in hand, and Todoroki had to cut off his own attacks to create an ice slide for the girl instead to get her safely to the side.

 _No escape._ Todoroki knew that by the time he got Uraraka to safety, Zach would already be out of the fortress. So while he was using his ice to pull her to one side, he used it at the same time to close up the hole at the top of the fortress where the tunnel he just made ended. Todoroki pointed his left hand down below him at the same time, and with a jet of flames below him he rose after Zach even faster than Zach had just been flying up.

The tunnel closed in above Zach. Todoroki rose up from below him. Zach turned to the wall next to him and smashed through while leaving a thin net of darkness in the tunnel just below his feet where that veil emerged from. Todoroki's tunnel might have only bee as wide as the flames he shot up through it, but the top of the fortress was wider than the section rising to that top section. He was in a more narrow part of the ice fortress that was already weaker having lost its core structural stability. Zach smashed through the wall like he did the first one outside of the building, and he flapped the only two wings behind him now that had a much wider wingspan, to send him down towards the forest so he was able to duck down below the huge beam of fire that flew out after him.

The teachers who had just stared in shock at the massive Smash Midoriya just made, pulled back as a beam of flames flew all the way across the dome and hit the glass just above them to the left. Bakugo set off huge explosions down below them to the south side of Shiketsu's destroyed base, Todoroki's Half-Cold Half-Hot seemed like the best of both offense and defense, and Midoriya had just escaped from Inasa's Super Move with barely a scratch on him as he continued running back towards his own side of the dome. And despite all of that, the score was still 9-0 for Shiketsu, and although the U.A.'s now had Shiketsu's flag, Zach had U.A.'s flag as well.

Zach sprinted out into the forest back towards the west side of the dome. He ran straight but with the occasional serpentine to one side, his body barely covered in Death anymore as he did not want to leave an easy-to-follow black trail through the woods. His eyes did dart to his side and up in the air though, as he saw Todoroki flying through the air with his left hand pointed behind him and a wave of ice constantly moving ahead of his feet. It was like he was on a slide of ice that appeared wherever he went, and he was flying along it as fast as Zach was running with his leg joints surrounded in darkness and the blue lights on his shoulder-blades speeding him up even more.

Todoroki was not the only one giving chase, and Zach darted his eyes to his right as a huge chunk of ice just came falling out of the air and broke down several trees. _Uraraka too,_ Zach thought, glancing behind him back towards the fortress where Uraraka grabbed two huge pieces of ice that weighed nothing, and threw them forward like they were baseballs. She returned the weight to them, and those slow moving weightless objects skyrocketed in speed as they flew down towards where she thought Zach was running. _Not even worried about me being alright,_ Zach thought, as a huge ice chunk broke down four trees ahead of him. _Smart._

Trees ripped out from their roots and flew into other trees near where Midoriya was running. He dove through one tree as trees were moving to either side of it to block him in and corner him, then he had to quickly redirect with a flick of his whole left hand out to his left side. Inasa knew he would go through that tree and had another huge blast of wind coming down in the spot right behind it that Midoriya only just avoided. A huge hole blew apart in the ground where Midoriya would have been had he kept going straight. Midoriya flicked behind him this time and sped up even more away from Inasa before even landing, where his feet picked up and moved him fast again though his flying enemy tried to keep up…

Midoriya's head turned to the left.

Zach's head turned to his own left.

The boys running on each other's lefts saw their counterpart holding a flag, Midoriya's a blue one that was ripped and in tatters, and Zach's a pristine red one taken without any damage to it. The back of Midoriya's costume was ripped up, revealing a scar on it that Zach remembered him getting back at Breakneck's lab against an enemy they still had out there. Wind and ice and now flames all came down at the same spot in the woods, and Zach turned around.

Midoriya bent his knees and shot off as fast as he could back for his own base. _He's coming back around. They want a shut-out!_ Midoriya realized their plan in the moment Zach turned. Then he realized as he was nearing his own base, _NO! That's exactly- damn it!_ Midoriya spun, but he cursed and he turned his head towards the direction of his own jail.

After Zach turned to make it out like he was attacking Midoriya first, he spun right back around and continued for his own side of the arena. "Inasa! Turn back!" Zach called up over his head at his classmate who was speeding through the air like a blur and barely heard that order.

Inasa slowed down and he glared forward towards a boy with half white and half red hair who stopped on top of his ice slide. That slide snaked around the east side of the arena with support pillars breaking off below it every so often that it stayed up looking like a roller coaster. Todoroki's flames stopped coming out of his left hand, and his eyes narrowed towards Inasa, his real body this time. The trees between them had ignited with the fire blast Todoroki shot when he knew he had seen where Zach was in the woods. Inasa floated up higher from those flames and the smoke they were giving off, then he shot backwards towards his own base while at the same time creating a wind that pushed those flames to the east and ignited another dozen trees.

"Bakugo. Get out of there. Everyone's heading back to you," Todoroki warned. He did not pull back himself yet, instead glaring after his opponents who were drawing him in too close to their base. His eyes shifted up towards the scoreboard over the west side of the arena where the black wall rose up higher with their teachers inside that spectators' room.

"And why do you know that?" Bakugo growled in a low voice. "You shouldn't be out of the base. As long as the flag's still there?" Bakugo growled the last part in a darker, angrier voice directed at Todoroki.

Todoroki's fists clenched shamefully and in fury at how quickly Zach had swept in and out of their base without him being able to stop it. "It was Zach," Midoriya's voice filled their earpieces.

 _That's no excuse,_ Todoroki thought, even angrier at himself that Midoriya would give him an out because of that. _He's the only one it really matters against. What if that was a hostage and Zach… Or what if it was, something important that he just took from me._ Todoroki was able to focus on that "something," even though trying to imagine it as a real situation with Zach and then picturing it as a hostage did not fit well in his mind. _An already captured villain,_ Todoroki finally corrected in his head while heading back towards his base. In his head he saw a fleeing villain screaming out in fear, running for the woods as the black ball of Death came down at his back, as Zach roared how none of them could flee. He saw that man's face as he died in so much fear, and his head turned a bit with his eyes glaring so darkly back the direction of the other team's base.

"Everyone surround the jail with me. Bakugo's going to be coming to stop me," Zach ordered his classmates through their comms.

Zach sprinted for the jail, and he was cautious as he got close as he doubted what he just said would actually stop Bakugo from coming for him. _No, it wasn't me,_ Zach thought after considering it for a moment as he came into the clearing and saw only comrades with no Bakugo around them. Whatever caused Bakugo not to come this way, Zach did not fool himself into thinking it was that half-assed effort at the end. He let out a heavy breath to stop panting, then he jogged towards the base with his head on a swivel watching what was around him.

"We lost another six of us fighting Bakugo," Porrolo said while running up to Zach near the front of the cage.

Zach tossed the flag towards the open door of the cage where a few of their enemies were standing. They were not allowed out of there as was one of the few rules the teachers gave them at the start of the training, so Shiketsu just left their gate open. Even though in reality they would not be able to do something like that, they had already decided that being put in the cage meant someone was dead. They were treating it like that for their own classmates, and even though if they were capturing villains it would not be like that too, it was hard to take it seriously the idea that their captured opponents would be free to move around and use their Quirks at this stage.

"Oh man," Hagakure looked down at the flag that landed in front of her.

 _ **BRRRINNG!**_

 _ **BRRRINNG!**_

As soon as the first flag-capture noise was made, another one rang out through the arena. Only those who had been watching the scoreboard like Todoroki saw the score go to 19-0 for a second before changing up to 19-10. The U.A. students feeling dejected at the sight of such a bad shut-out suddenly felt hopeful again as their team captured Shiketsu's flag.

Zach already expected their own flag's capture when he saw Midoriya in the woods, and he was on top of the new situation already. He had seen himself being in this spot for a minute now. In front of all his remaining comrades with the need for an adjustment to their plan in order to reach that necessary 25-point mark. _I went all out with the power I have on me right now. I should drop Limiter 1 to fight Midoriya next time. Too much Death though and his attacks are going to send gusts too strong in every direction. No, it's too risky. Even with it dropped though, Midoriya's too strong and could blow it all away and I'm sure that's his strategy. It's on me to hold back Death and not on him. I absolutely can't expect him to not go all out against me just because my Death could hurt others. That's exactly why he's going all out. Todoroki too. He's worried that while controlling his ice if he hits me while I have Death if it will affect him. It's possible, but as long as he's expanding the ice or the flames from behind the point that hits me I don't think it should hurt him. It's smart of him to be cautious, but I needed to move fast while he was still showing that caution, before things seemed too dire for him. Where was Momo during all of that? I moved in fast and escaped fast. She was probably just on another section of the fortress and was never able to attack me. Moved from the flag so Todoroki could use AOE attacks-_

 _ **Ding.**_

The Shiketsu class was recovering their bearings at their jail. Different classmates of Zach's were telling him about their situation: their destroyed base, their downed comrades, and their ideas for the next strategy. None of that mattered anymore. All of the Shiketsus rose their heads back up and stared at the scoreboard in shock, as the score was now 19-11. Zach's bottom lip lowered a centimeter and his heart sped up, his cut-off thoughts filling with the name, _Imino._

On the east side of the domed training area, Kirishima and Iida had arrived right after Midoriya slid the flag through the bars of the cage. They pushed Imino into the cage that he was still weakly struggling away from, then Kirishima finally slashed the binds on him and let out a heavy breath. "Damn man," Kirishima muttered. He shook his head and then said in an impressed way, "Nice fight."

Imino stayed where he was sitting on the ground, his head bowed and a sad look spread over his face as he heard that ding echo across the mock battleground. "Hey," Kirishima said to the blue-skinned teen who did not look alright with that look on his face. "You need Recovery Girl or something?" The redhead wondered.

"No," Imino said, though his voice cracked as he said it, and he had to raise his right arm up to his face and rub it over his eyes.

"Imino?! Was that you?"

"Imino!"

Iida listened to the tone of the voices shouting in his ear in confusion. He now had the same earpiece as Bakugo who was up in a tree closer to the west side of the arena though he had stopped his assault for now. "Did you all think you were going to win without losing a single classmate?" Iida questioned their new prisoner in front of them who sat up more after rubbing his eyes hard there for a second. "You really believed-"

"We did," Imino said. His voice was steadier than when it cracked a moment ago. He rose his gaze to his three enemies on the other side of the cage bars all looking in at him. "Because right now, I'm dead. I just-" Imino shook his head at the weird ways they were looking at him. "You don't get it." His eyes hardened and Imino pulled himself up onto his knees, and he leaned forward with a determined look. "Every one of us is treating this like to be captured means we died, and allowing our comrades get captured means we let them die too. You don't have a chance at winning here." Imino finally lifted a corner of his lip into a smile again, not going to get dejected because of this as he hoped the rest of his class wouldn't. He stared down his opponents who were looking at him with wide-eyes at how determined he was while saying this seemingly simple thing. "Because our resolve to not lose a single other comrade, is much stronger than yours."

"Oh you think so?!" Kirishima shouted.

Iida just pulled back more at the glint in Imino's eyes, the determined expression even from one of their already captured opponents. _Did Zach do this? Was this his plan? He, made them all believe something like that?_

"I don't accept that," Midoriya replied. Imino's look faltered, and Midoriya's classmates turned to him too. They saw he was taking it as seriously as Iida who was realizing how much of a difference this made, while also denying what Imino said just like Kirishima. "I have a new plan," Midoriya said while tapping his earpiece in a more focused and determined way than anytime else throughout the training. "Everyone listen up. They really did plan on winning without losing a single classmate. Not winning without losing any points, just keeping their whole class in it…"

On the west side of the dome, a girl limped forward up to Zach in as strong a way as she could, which meant her limp was still very noticeable. "I can take Imino's spot," Hagakure offered.

"No way," Dendo said, stepping forward and making the shorter girl glance towards him to see him frowning at her in disagreement but also worry at the way she looked. He had just been facing off against Bakugo and did not look much better, but he turned to Zach and said in a firm voice, "We can't send anyone out alone right now. Especially not with Jirou still out there somewhere listening to our plans. That must be how they found Imino."

"We shouldn't use our comms either," Hisashi said, even though he was saying it over one of the few communications' devices they had left for their team anyway. "With Reika and Imino both losing theirs, they could have figured out the channels and are still listening in."

Bakugo and Iida heard Hisashi's concern over the sound of Midoriya's plan, and Iida relayed what he just heard to their primary tactician. Yaoyorozu chimed in herself with an addition, but Midoriya just accepted that part of it and then continued on with the plan he was coming up with that the remainder of his team listened in closely to.

Zach was not as quickly spoken as his counterpart on U.A.'s side. _Even now. Even after everything, I still lost someone. How do I do that? Why didn't I realize it? I focused on the flag while Imino was closeby fighting Kirishima and Iida. Even if Death wouldn't work on either of them, the two of us together could have taken them. With Bakugo attacking our base, Todoroki guarding theirs, and Midoriya running back with the flag, we would've gotten away cleanly. We still would have been in the lead at 11-10. And holding the lead doesn't matter! All that mattered was winning with everyone still alive, and I failed. I let everyone down…_

Zach rose his gaze and stared at the classmates closest to him who were still giving him information and suggesting theories for what their opponents were going to do and plans for what they should do to counter them. _Even though I lost someone. Even though I told them I wouldn't let any of them die- Did I say that? Did I make that promise, today? I said it was possible. I told them we could do it, and we could have! But, but I failed to make that into a reality. And yet,_ Zach looked into Dendo's eyes, and Dendo stopped speaking for a second while looking back confusedly at him.

"What do you think?" Dendo asked, talking about the plan he was just suggesting to their team leader and the top ranked of their Class 1.

 _They still follow me. Even when I don't believe I have the right to lead anymore, they know it, and I trust that they know it. They know that I'm still the best for this job. And as long as I still see that trust in their expressions,_ Zach's gaze hardened and he nodded at Dendo. _I have to lead to the bitter end._

"Alright, everyone listen up-" Zach started.

"Midoriya's here!" Hisashi shouted.

He and two other classmates were the outer perimeter guarding their current base. His body transformed and he stepped forward, and Midoriya appeared on his right side and punched forward before his head had even started turning to him. "Whoa!" Roger yelled as Hisashi's whole body slammed to the side and almost hit him.

"HELP!" Jaime called out behind her for their classmates who were not that far away.

"W-Wait!" Roger yelled the other direction. Jaime spun around, and her eyes opened wide as she saw Hisashi's large body being dragged back through the woods too fast for either her or Roger to chase.

Other Shiketsu students came running forward, and Zach yelled towards them, "What happened?"

"Deku just hit-and-ran! He took Hisashi!"

"We have to go after him!" Inasa yelled down.

"NO!" Zach yelled back up.

Everyone looked towards Zach in shock at that belayed order. "They just figured out what's happening after getting Imino! Bringing us close to their jail is exactly what Midoriya wants so there's not as much of a distance between where he catches us and has to take us back to!"

"What are you talking about?! He's not that far!" Dendo yelled right at Zach who he stomped up to with a furious look. "We're going to lose him!"

"We are!" Zach yelled right back, and Dendo's eyes opened huge at Zach's yell straight into his face.

The others stared over at the two of them with wide eyes too. They were already stunned that Hisashi was the one taken so quickly like that. One of the strongest in their class whisked away like it was nothing for Deku, the same person who had destroyed their base and stolen their flag. Zach spoke loudly at all his comrades around him before that panic could fester anymore within them, "Deku knows he's faster than anyone, so his new plan is to go around grabbing us and dragging us to their jail as fast as he can! He's going to take us all down like that with support from the rest!"

"How do you know-"

"Because it's a plan I thought of earlier too!" Zach yelled right back over at Himazuri who had not been able to read Deku's mind. Even if she had tried, which she did not because of shock and because of who it was, he had come in and out so fast she doubted she would have heard a single full coherent thought. She stared at Zach in surprise though from where she came up behind, having been slower than most of the rest of her classmates. A loud _**Ding**_ rang out across the dome making so many of the Shiketsu glare angrily at Zach, but they eased up at the bared teeth of their classmate as he heard that noise too. They listened to him instead as he called out, "Rushing around taking them all out and bringing them back to jail? It's an exact plan I had, and I knew the only ones who could do something like that were Deku and myself! I didn't think he would do it, but I have a counter-strategy for if he does too-"

"What is it?!" Inasa yelled down, though he was keeping his eyes peeled ahead of him ready to stop any high-speed people about to fly out of the woods up at him for a single blow knock-out.

Zach took in a deep breath, and then he yelled out at everyone, "Scatter! Capture the U.A.'s and bring them to our jail!"

"Splitting up instead of staying in a group at a time like this-" Porrolo began.

"That doesn't matter to Deku! He'll just pick us off or carry us all in a group, and if we don't keep attacking to only stay on defense then we'll lose this anyway! We have to keep getting points or they'll catch up in a minute!"

Inasa lowered down closer to the ground and stared towards Zach's face with his expression shaken at this strategy. _He still doesn't want us fighting Deku? Even here, at the endgame? Is this the end, or is he still making plans to prepare us for later and when the final fights come?_ Inasa did not know, but he started nodding his head at what Zach shouted around at all his comrades who could still fight.

"…Use your strengths and split up so the tides can't be flipped in a second! This is a last ditch strategy I had, which means they're feeling pressed! To rush around their enemies haphazardly to take them all down. It's what we need to go for now too though, to reach that 25 points before our opponents!" Zach stopped giving out commands as his classmates finally listened and started splitting up, sprinting away before Midoriya could get back over there.

Jirou finished relaying information and then turned to run away herself, as she heard Himazuri turn and start heading her direction and did not know how long it would be before she was caught in that mind reader's range. _I hate hearing his stupid voice… but I can't deny, he's impressive… But fuck him! Damn it._ "Midoriya, get back over here quicker. They're completely on to your plan."

"That doesn't mean they can stop it," Midoriya replied while heading back towards his own jail, another Shiketsu student in hand who was conscious but too shocked and disoriented to do anything as she moved faster than she ever had through the forest.

 _This strategy is harder for us,_ Zach thought as he ran through the woods on his own away from all his classmates. He led by example, not taking a single person along with him as he sprinted away. _Because we have more classmates so since both flags are taken, our team could only lose half and still lose. Only half?_ A frustrated look crossed Zach's face and he cursed under his breath. _I don't want to lose anyone else-_ "Fuck." _**Ding.**_ His curse came out at the same time as the dinging noise that filled the dome. He did not need to check the scoreboard to know which team had lost someone. _He can't grab me or I use Death on him, but he knows that. If Jirou's around here she can alert him to wherever I am from a far enough distance that I wouldn't be able to catch her surveilling from._

 _The most range of anyone in this dome. Keeping our opponents off our comms' lines barely matters when she can hear our voices from the earpiece of a single classmate. It's why having earpieces for everyone wouldn't have been ideal even from the start. But even without going for it as a direct strategy, they disrupted our communications from the start with Bakugo's attack that took out Reika. The level of normal Class A students is already at the highest they could be, but there are a select few who are above even the tops of the hero world and my comrades can't keep up with them! But, to have lost three of them now-_ _ **Ding.**_ _He's too fast! Then, I have to counter with increased speed of my own._

Inasa Yoarashi flew threw the air of the dome towards the south side of the arena. He was all on his own and heading far from the northwest side where his jail was along with most of his classmates who had not made it very far from there yet. Manzo was hidden in another section with over half of their class who could not fight anymore, and their enemies now had four of them captured too. Inasa could see the scores on both scoreboards across from each other in the room, but he knew those scores meant nothing even if they were still holding their lead. _The teams are about even right now. We still have our top three and they have theirs. They have Jirou though. New comms with Yaoyorozu able to make more at any time. And let's face it, Deku's the strongest in this dome right now. He took Skyfall at full power for ten seconds and got out of there still strong enough to be taking us out one by one like it's sport for him._

 _Well you're not the only one with a crazy power gap in here,_ Imino brought back up his smile and he stopped flying over the southern section of the dome. He looked down with an idea based on Zach's counter, _I wonder if Deku predicted it. If he knew how we would respond, then he would have needed enough classmates to keep in it until the end._ Inasa rose up his arms, and he emptied out the entire lake down below him into the air. Huge gusts of his Whirlwind cut chunks of the lake off and dropped it back down, and he lost more and more of the lake as a single figure inside the water swam back and forth avoiding the huge gusts of wind surrounding her.

Asui shot through the water from one side opposite Inasa all the way to the side he was on in an instant. She emerged from the water like a missile, and her tongue snapped out of her mouth even faster than she was going. Her tongue flew straight out at Inasa and came within centimeters of his grinning face, before a gust flew at the side of it in that instant before it was going to hit him. The wind sent her tongue flying off to the side with Tsuyu unable to yank it back at him. Her own body was spun around and around in the air, and a tornado of wind appeared below Inasa to send him back towards his jail on the other side of the room much too fast for anyone besides Deku to give chase if they did see him.

 _ **Ding. Ding Ding.**_

"Zach's at our base!" Uraraka shouted.

"Keep him there as long as you can!" Deku shouted, not changing his own strategy for the chance to go after Zach. Bakugo ground his teeth, but he also blasted explosions behind him to head a different direction back in the training grounds instead of towards their own base and a fight he wanted to have. The two he just tossed inside the jail with the one Midoriya got were burnt and unconscious unlike the student who Midoriya just grabbed and ran back through the arena holding without stopping.

 _Good, he's not coming back here,_ Zach thought while listening in with Mineta's second earpiece now in his own right ear. His visor was pushed up on his black hair with the helmet receded back inside it, showing Uraraka his hazel eyes that flashed red before he bounced over to the right and then to the ceiling then the floor. His moves were familiar, his movements just like Deku's fighting style that caused Uraraka to stare in extra surprise at the appearance of. Then Zach bounced straight at her, and he punched the chunk of wall to pieces as she threw it at him and tried to return its weight. The weight only came back after Zach had punched it, and debris flew at Uraraka to make her pull her arms up to defend herself- Zach slammed his left foot into Uraraka's stomach and sent her flying backwards and then rolling across the entire floor.

Zach thought about the last time they played capture the flag together. Last time he had been on Mineta's team and Uraraka was his enemy, but he remembered the fight between the two of them being much closer back then. The small moment of nostalgia pushed away as he remembered the sounds of those last three _**dings**_ that came in rapid succession. _17-19. Two is enough though._

Zach ignored the voice he heard calling out to him from above. _She has a plan to stop me._ He flew back out of a hole he smashed in U.A.'s base and wings flapped out of his back as he held Mineta and Uraraka close to his chest.

Inasa rushed back towards their team's jail with Tsuyu stuck in a wind funnel behind him. He was seconds away from reaching it, when a mountain of ice rose up around the jail they were approaching. Todoroki rose up a giant mountain with his eyes locked straight on with Inasa whose winds were moving too fast for him to have heard Asui's warning behind him in the second wind funnel he had moving with his own. Inasa looked down to the front of the jail where Todoroki was standing alone, as the rest of the Shiketsus had all scattered from around there.

Todoroki did not just create the ice mountain to stop Inasa, as it was part of Midoriya's plan to use the strategy Jirou relayed back to them. Todoroki created a cage around Shiketsu's cage to prevent them from carrying out the same strategy Midoriya and Bakugo were currently attempting around the dome. Deku was being more effective about it, but Todoroki did hear Bakugo's voice in the background of Midoriya and Uraraka's conversation yelling at Deku that he was going to catch up.

The ice was thinnest right in front of Todoroki at the moment, where he had left some air holes above the actual cage's door. _"I feel bad for Hagakure, but we need to make it impossible for Zach to counter us."_ Todoroki heard Midoriya's voice echo in his head but felt better about it right before he had made the mountain as their opponents had given Hagakure something to wrap herself up in. There was another reason for the ice being that thin in front of them though, and Todoroki's classmates continued shouting out to him all the information they had heard from inside the cell after their opponents had taken their earpieces from them.

Todoroki was barely listening to them anymore though, as his whole focus locked on Inasa who started dive-bombing towards him with multiple tornadoes growing at his sides and Asui still stuck in a funnel at his back. Unfortunately, Todoroki's sudden focus on Inasa got him distracted, and a metal fist flew out of the trees closest to him moving insanely fast to nail him in the side. Todoroki's body hunched over the fist with his eyes turning and growing huge, spit gasping out of his mouth as the rocket arm slammed into him. The second gasp came an instant later as he smashed into the ice of his mountain, the arm speeding up just beforehand to make the wall crack all around him.

The ice had not shattered yet though, but wires shot out of the arm that just gripped around Todoroki's shirt. Skin ripped from the arm that the costume was already ripped through, as metal wires came out of the arm with sharp points at the end of them and imbedded into the ice wall around Todoroki like a net to hold him there. And then Zach flapped his black wings behind him and flew out of the forest while bear-hugging the three in his arms even tighter, preventing Kirishima from hardening as he would surely hurt Uraraka and Mineta. _All I need is Midoriya's speed,_ Zach thought, the reason he was able to grab Kirishima between him and Iida who he just ran into in the woods.

Iida had dodged, but Kirishima was too slow. Kirishima's eyes also darted nervously to the left arm that was gripping tightly in his back and keeping a crooked elbow away from Uraraka. The black arm was so compact it looked solid, and yet Zach had his left leg lifted and hooked around Uraraka's midsection to prevent her from falling and to keep that Death black arm from touching her. That was mainly to mess with Kirishima though as the Death was so condensed that none of it would even be absorbing into her and it would take a much longer time to have knocked her out let alone kill her. Kirishima was still hesitating to even struggle in Zach's arms though, and during that hesitation Zach extended his right leg while flying full speed at Todoroki and his own arm.

The U.A. students inside the cage all moved away from the entrance, some of them yelling out in panic and a couple diving to the sides and pulling away knocked-out classmates as they did. The pre-cracked ice wall broke apart when Zach's leg slammed into Todoroki. So a second later, Todoroki, Zach, Mineta, Uraraka, and Kirishima all came tumbling into the Shiketsu team's jail full of four new U.A. students. Zach released everyone and grabbed his left arm off the ground as he staggered forward up to his feet and stumbled to the front bars of the cage. He locked his left arm into his shoulder no longer with his costume on any of it so his scars were revealed on the fake skin that still remained on his upper arm (though all the skin had been ripped off with the wire net that emerged from just above his elbow-down).

A few of Zach's classmates stared with enormous eyes as Zach just locked in a robot arm to his own shoulder and winced as he twisted it on and started curling his fingers again. He ran out of the cage while four consecutive _**Dings**_ rang out around them. Then Zach leaned to the side, and he allowed a fifth _**Ding**_ to fill the training zone as Asui flew by him. Her tongue flew out of her mouth towards the closest tree to try and slingshot herself back away, but Inasa created another wind near that tree and just pushed her tongue into the cage with her.

Midoriya's face was full of panic as all those dings came out rapidly. He dropped the Shiketsu student he had dragged away, and he kicked off the ground as hard as he could back to the west. He tried to steady his look even as five dings meant just about the worst thing it could mean in that situation where he had been so close to his own jail already that he could see it. There was no time to even capture that last person he was grabbing. He had thought they were catching up. It was what he was just thinking with the score at 19-17 and how it was _about to be a one point game-_ before his thoughts had cut off with all those point-scored sounds.

 _They beat Todoroki. I need to guard the front of their base. Preventing them from getting more points is more important than scoring them! Bakugo can get the last points out of their remaining classmates. They have injured comrades all over the place in hiding right now. Their numbers are low! As low as ours!_ "Everyone get points faster and don't get caught!" Midoriya yelled out while grabbing at his ear quickly.

"They see me!" Jirou yelled back into Midoriya's headset. "They're chasing me near the jail- AH!"

Midoriya did not care about anyone hearing which way he was coming in from anymore. His next step came down and the ground below his foot shattered just from him bending his knee. Trees around him broke at the roots and tilted to the sides, the trunks cracking as Midoriya's other foot hit the ground and bent down fully. The ground split apart and a shockwave rippled out from Midoriya's body in all directions, and then all those tilting trees broke down and smashed into the floor. Three nearby Shiketsus spun their heads towards the sound of the sonic boom, then they stumbled backwards or fell to the ground as the force whipped through the forest and smashed into them.

 _24-17! One point and they win!_ It was the only thought on Midoriya's mind, as well as most of U.A.'s though they all knew where Midoriya was going and focused on capturing enemies now as were his last orders.

There was one U.A. student who was not thinking it though. A single U.A. student who brought her hand up to her ear and screamed into it after the shock of hearing her own voice right there, "THAT'S NOT ME! THAT WASN'T MY VOICE!"

Midoriya was moving too fast out of the trees when he heard it. A massive force of wind came up behind him as his enemies knew exactly how he was going to be rushing in at full speed. They knew right where he was going to emerge from too after that shockwave in the forest ahead of them, and three students had reacted quickly enough. Dendo, who had run back at the sight of the ice cage around the jail that he thought he should go break, stood on the right side of the front of it with both hands risen and covered in glowing white auras. He slashed back and forth over and over again above him and to his sides, making a giant line of Slices that formed a huge wall up above him. Inasa was above, with all of his own wind coming in behind Midoriya as strong as he could make it. Zach stood on the opposite side as Dendo, with a huge wall of Death emerging from him and blowing up into the sky and towards Deku but on his left side like the Slices were on his right.

Midoriya's own momentum was way too much to just stop suddenly. His feet stopped moving though, and with the force behind him he dragged a trench through the ground that blasted rocks and dirt in every direction. The Death and Slices made it seem like there was only one escape: up. Yet when Midoriya darted a look up towards Inasa, he had to look through a thin netting of Death that was wrapping around above his head like Zach was preparing to make it much thicker and just wanted Midoriya to try up there first. Midoriya's backwards force trying to stop his momentum might have been enough, but Inasa did not have to focus his Whirlwind on a very wide area. He slammed back so hard as he used his Super Move in an attack solely meant to _push_ someone. Then, Zach whipped out some Death in front of where Midoriya was skidding in that trench across the ground which got him to try and lift one foot to dodge it.

Midoriya was pushing too hard back on his heels in that second he came out of the trees to lift up a foot like that. He lost half of his force pushing him back from skidding all the way towards that opening in the ice mountain, and the opening in the cage, between his classmates all looking hopefully and desperately out at him. The wind behind him slammed him forward when he took that foot off the ground the smallest amount, and Midoriya slammed forward into the ground and bounced at over a hundred miles per hour forward. His back slammed into the back of the cage and dented all the bars outwards. All of the U.A.'s inside the cage turned their heads and looked behind them, into the back of the cage where their strongest classmate was indented into the bars only to fall off them to the ground once they had looked back his way.

 _ **Ding.**_

* * *

 **A/N Ding! Thanks for reading! I hope you guys all enjoyed the chapter. A lot of fights and strategies and counters to the counters of strategies! It was an intense battle and got close there for a little, but Shiketsu pulls out the W as they get their 25th point with Deku. Zach uses voice changing tech along with all the other tech he's got on him, like his strobe/siren/cameras that he used to take Bakugo out of commission for a minute earlier in the fight. Imino shows some skill but gets captured along with another 6 Shiketsu students, while more than half are down for the count anyway, but Shiketsu still gets that win under Zach's leadership. Next time we're picking up right where this one ends, so look forward to that! Quick update this time unlike the long wait last time, and I'll try to get up the next chapter soon too! Leave a review below telling me what you thought of the chapter, questions, predictions, etc. Review response time:**

DarkJokes chapter 170 . Aug 5

Yo! Finally the long awaited battle and by the looks of it was damn well pleasing. I love the idea of how Hanzo defined Zach's fighting style and his role in the battle. He is so right that they are Still underestimating Zach. Being apart of so many battles he fights as if it is a death battle which means he will make sure to secure a win with no casualties or to keep it to the minimum. Unlike UA that might take risks, Zach goes in for one purpose to win and no casualties which he told the others as well for them to comprehend cause he is right. In a real fight with villains they will come after your life.  
Also the stuff about flashbacks is great and I wouldn't want to change a thing about it. Honestly that's what makes this Oc so different and why we love him. A messed up kid who suffers from so many mental health issues and all of its causes are shown to us through flashbacks.  
Great chapter again and boi that last sentence from Hanzo gave me goosebumpsLifebringer is likely to be the closest person to being the number 1 hero including the pros"

 **The UA's thought they were taking Zach seriously enough... but it takes Midoriya a little while here to stop moving at Zach's pace. Zach also knows better than anyone not to underestimate the UA's, but ultimately he was just too good. Zach loses some of his comrades here, and I'm glad you like all the flashbacks and the structure of this story! And finally I'm happy those lines sounded cool, because before I had any idea for what to do for the joint training, probably back while I was writing about the Army of Death and just had the idea for after Zach got back to have a joint training day with UA, I thought of having his teacher say all that stuff. If anything, I built these chapters up from there, so I'm glad that part stuck out to you! Thanks for the review!**

lolmyster42 chapter 170 . 12h ago

Hazano: Zach taught my students at an unprecedented level due to his overwhelming natural charisma, vast experience, and overall desire to see them improve as much as possible.  
-Previously-  
Imino: Hey, Zach, so what do you think I-  
Zach: More smoke.  
Imino: Sorry?  
Zach: MORE SMOKE.  
(I know he did a lot more than that; a lot of the development he put the class through was shown in ch 150. I'm just pokin' fun.)

 **He can never have too much smoke! Imino uses up a lot of smoke pellets this time, and I was laughing when I saw this review 'cause it's time for even more Imino char development! Anyway, this was funny XD so thanks for reviewing! Hope you enjoyed the chapter!**

Guesssst chapter 170 . Aug 6

Yes! New chapter! Please continue the amazing work you're doing, and the frequent updates are extremely appreciated.

 **Very well. Frequent update it is! Thanks and hope you enjoyed the new one!**

Grayson chapter 170 . Aug 6

This is what happens when you face off agaist the MHA version of Big Boss with a bit of Lelouch : you get outsmarted and outplayed.  
Can't believe Zach did that to Bakugo(he was probably so eager to fight him, he will explote once he finds out he wasted time. Or maybe it is a trap specifically made for him?  
I'M HYPED UP! Next chap : Rising Symbol of Peace Vs Ex- Symbol of Fear(for the villains ofc)

 **Lol you totally called it. Bakugo gets led into a waste of time trap and gets _pissed_ about it, but he surprises and somewhat annoys Zach by not just rushing at him afterwards. Hope you enjoyed Midoriya and Zach's face-off, as much as it was them facing off against each other mentally rather than in a direct fight for much of it. Thanks for reviewing!**

Menzhang chapter 170 . 13h ago

Idk why but I randomly decided to draw Zach post-jenny pre-escape. Basically when he was still stuck to the chair listening to jenny screams.  
Thing is, I've never drawn before, and I couldn't find the right chapter so I'm going off of memory :P And I also have no clue what either of them look like, other than Zach had black spiky hair and jenny had orange(red?) hair. Basically, I drew Zach looking very emotionally dead while nailed and strapped to a chair, jenny(Toga) helping clean up some of his blood.  
I'll share it here if I can make it good enough, its nowhere near comparable to the current story image. I love this fic, never end.

 **Cool! I have been looking out for someone to draw a pic of Zach's updated appearance, so I'd always be happy to get PMs with fanart if you guys draw it. You can always hop back to chapter 25? 28? to check what Zach looked like back then in that chair. Anyway, do what you do and if you like drawing I'm glad this story gave you motivation! Thanks for the review!**

3 3 chapter 170 . 9h ago

I love you

 **Love you back!**

Derodero chapter 99 . Aug 7

I know it might be late, but do you know if is there any artwork of Zach and his army of death?

 **I don't think there is. Looked around after you mentioned it, but really doesn't seem like this has _that_ big of a fanbase for it... yet ;)**


	172. Chapter 172

**Disclaimer: I don't own Boku no Hero Academia**

 **Chapter 172:**

"Oi," Bakugo dropped a pair of moaning Americans on the floor at his sides. He sported a bruise on his right cheek and a very, very pissed off look on his face only just holding back as he heard that last dinging noise. Roger Whitewood and Jaime Crowley each parted their eyelids just a bit and then closed them and pretended to be out when they saw Bakugo's face with his crazed and twitching smile. "Someone just caught one of theirs, _right?"_ His voice asked it in a tone daring someone to tell him he was wrong about that. "Right, Deku?!"

Deku had just hit the floor on the inside of the cell most of his classmates were in. Five of them had just been tossed in a few seconds earlier, and Kirishima's angry shouting out at Zach cut off. Zach had been ignoring him and shouting around at his other classmates and making plans, and Kirishima had been angrily yelling out at him about the way Zach just caught him. Koda was even trying to hold him back as it seemed like Kirishima might ignore the rules and run out of there to go fight Zach "for real" like he had been yelling about. Kirishima was not yelling now though. He did the math in his head because of the way his classmates were looking, and he realized it even with the ice mountain above them making it impossible for them to see the closer of the scoreboards.

What the students in that jail could see though, was out the front of their jail and across the entire dome to the score displayed over their own ice fortress base. Their base stood tall while their enemies' one was in ruins. Most of them in that cage did not look much worse for the wear other than Deku, though several of them were still unconscious like Ojiro, Sero, Uraraka, and Mineta. Shoji and Tokoyami had woken up and were staring at Midoriya in shock as he pushed himself up on his hands and knees but was frozen staring down at the ground below his face.

Todoroki cursed after staring in shock towards Midoriya's expression there for a couple seconds. He turned his head and looked out of the cage out to their three enemies and then to three others who came running back from the forest ahead of them looking amazed and happy, and beat up. Inasa and Zach were the only ones who looked undamaged. Todoroki glanced around the inside of their cell where all his classmates were gathered, most of them with only superficial injuries. He himself only felt a lingering pain on his side where he was first caught unawares by Zach's rocket fist, as he had even prepared himself for that follow-up kick in the instant before it happened. Todoroki Shoto stared out at Zach and looked his former classmate in the eyes for a few seconds as the Death had all faded and left Zach staring back their way.

Zach clicked a button on the side of his helmet and rose his visor back up over his hair. He stared into Todoroki's heterochromatic eyes with his own hazel ones, and after a second Zach smiled at him. He offered up a friendly smile at his former classmate who was looking so intensely out at him while thinking angrily, _We lost._ They had only seen each other twice since Zach had gotten back, and they had only spoken once before this. This was the third time, and Zach smiled at Todoroki without looking menacing or like he was taunting him for that loss. It was just a, 'the training is over, I'm glad to see you' smile.

Hagakure saw that look too and she let out a sigh. The sigh was in disappointment for their loss, but also a bit of relief after the way she saw Zach look earlier once they got off the buses. _He looked more like one of them earlier, but he was just getting into the training! Zach's still one of us._

 **"The score is 25-17,"** Hazano Worrod's voice echoed throughout the dome. The teacher known professionally as Hachiman finished while leaning back in his seat, **"The winners, are Class 1."**

"We won?" Bibi Reina wondered in shock. She was standing inside U.A.'s jail, expecting more and more of her classmates to be dragged there after she had been so quickly and violently. She still felt bruises on her arms where Deku had gripped her before sprinting them through the dome. "Hey Imino! You hear that?" She called it over to a boy who had been sitting down since they all got caught, more injured than the rest of them but holding off on getting a Recovery Girl call until it was over.

"Hey Recovery Girl," Porrolo waved at the closest hidden camera he saw in the corner of their cell. "Could we get some help down here?"

"Guess we can just leave now," Bibi wondered, stepping close to the cage exit and looking both ways from behind her long gray bangs that covered her eyes. Midoriya had left the cage open the last few times he rushed back to save some time each trip.

Bibi stepped out and glanced around, and then a boy called over to her, "Hey Bibi." She turned her head and looked in surprise over at a guy in her class who Midoriya had released after dragging him all the way back there. Once their score had hit 24 Midoriya rushed back to the other side, and Elinari Shuu had been worried that by not stopping Midoriya he was about to get his whole team screwed. He was shocked when not ten seconds later the _**ding**_ went off and gave them victory. The teen moving towards U.A.'s jail had a hand over his stomach, and his other arm was more limp down at his side when his captured classmates saw him.

"Why were you heading this way?" Porrolo wondered while stepping forward to the cell gate and looking towards him.

Bibi started running towards Shuu already, and she caught him as he stumbled and almost fell. The idea that the training was over made it hard for him to keep standing like this. "Figured, the last place they'd look for us, is behind their own jail," Elinari admitted. After Midoriya released him he thought the best place to hide would be behind the jail as close to the edge of the dome as possible. He was glad he did not have to make it all the way over there though. Bibi took his limp arm and put it around her shoulders, and he said in a low but grateful tone to the girl, "Thanks."

 **"Injured remain where you are. Ms. Anastasia and Recovery Girl are on their ways down to provide first aid… Now, All Might would like to say something."**

Everyone looked up to the west as Hazano's voice left replaced with All Might's coming over the dome's speakers. **"You all fought wonderfully. I am proud of the improvement each and every one of you have made since last year."** Not just the U.A. students but the Shiketsus all appreciated All Might's words, the Shiketsus more than their counterparts actually for most of them. **"Today went to the Shiketsu students. Remember though, that if things had gone even a little differently, the end result may have changed. I say this not to disparage the victors but only to remind you all to take what you have seen and learned today with you, as your graduation approaches. Someday soon each of you will be out in the world fighting villains as professional heroes. If this fight were to happen again, how would each of you change how you acted and fought today? All I wish, is that you think on that, to prepare yourselves for the long road ahead."**

 **"… Now!"** After All Might paused to give all his students a moment for self-reflection, he called out in a louder and more upbeat tone than the wise and serious one he just had. The students knew to think on it more themselves but at a different time, and they all started moving as All Might continued, **"Your Principal is here so we will all gather for further instruction on the west side of the dome. At the ruins of what was the Shiketsu team's base. Once the injured have been recovered and everyone is together, we will start. So do not worry about rushing there if you are hurt, you will not miss anything…"**

* * *

"Congratulations, Class 1," Principal Memuria said to the half of the students gathered more on her right. All of the two classes were gathered in front of her with the exception of one person who was laying nearby, as Sero was still unconscious from being pierced by a line of Death earlier. The woman with a far receding hairline of light purple hair only thick on the sides of her head gave her students a nod and a rare smile that they all appreciated and felt proud to receive. The administrator who spoke in the voice of someone much younger despite her wrinkled appearance wore a black suit just like Norasaki who had come with her and stood on her side facing all the students as well.

In between the two classes stood Zach and Ojiro, with Hagakure close-by next to Ashido who had a small gap between her and most of the rest of U.A. On Zach's other side much closer and more compact were the Shiketsu students who did not stand off from Zach at all and had been talking to him as everyone gathered over there. The administrators had come specifically up in front of Zach, mainly because the group around him had been the biggest with a few of his U.A. friends and almost all of the Shiketsus gathered together. The U.A.'s had been more scattered about, some of them by themselves and others talking to each other about what had happened in the fight but in lower and more regretful tones than the Shiketsus were talking.

"We arrived by the end of the training, and we saw how you all handled yourselves out there," Norasaki mentioned.

"But the joint training is not over yet," Memuria added, as Norasaki mentioned the 'end' of it. She looked around at the students and then continued after a second of them wondering what else was in store, "All of you are on the same side."

The way Memuria started confused some of the students in front of her. Both of the joint trainings had been very divisive with the classes going against each other and fighting each other in hard-fought battles. Others understood what she was talking about though, but Memuria continued anyway, "U.A. and Shiketsu, a rivalry as old as I am, a tradition almost." She paused and then continued in the same bland tone, "It means nothing. Not really." Her eyes locked immediately on the students in both her class and U.A.'s who frowned or looked annoyed by that statement, making their looks change immediately.

"Every year, the third-year hero courses of both U.A. and Shiketsu need to relieve the tensions created by the school rivalry. In order to ease into a better working relationship between the graduates of the top hero schools, the upperclassmen receive this night training. You will be allowed to take part in races and a contest of strength set up by your teachers…" The students in front of Memuria looked past her with confused looks forming on most of their faces. They looked to All Might and the other teachers from both U.A. and Shiketsu who despite their own competitive attitudes earlier had returned to more professional attitudes as well. What Memuria was saying though, was sounding less like a continuation of their training, as it was sounding like… fun.

"These events will take place under your own supervision however," Memuria continued, increasing the feeling that many of them were already having as they heard it. "You will determine when to have them. You will be responsible for setting them up. And we expect you to carry out these activities, as well as make yourselves dinner with the food left for you in the exact center of this dome, where your things are waiting as well." A few of the students turned their heads and looked behind them wondering when someone came in there and dropped off food and their bags. "You will all be heroes and comrades together fighting your common enemies," Memuria said to the students who all looked back into the principal's sucked-in eyes. What she was saying made sense to all of them, and the students feeling the most malice or anger at their opponents glanced back across the small gap to the other class and the ones they were most angry at.

 _The same side?_ Deku wondered, his eyes shifting down instead of over to the other class for a moment. Others from Shiketsu had looked towards him before accepting that they would rather be friends and comrades with Deku than his enemy, while even more of the Shiketsus looked at Bakugo after what Memuria just said. Bakugo stood in the back of the U.A. group though and was still grinding his teeth as he continued to hold back his anger over _losing_ earlier.

"This training could go well into the night," Memuria continued after another few seconds' pause. "So with the food provided in the woods, there is also a stack of tents that you are free to use."

"The bus'll leave around eight tomorrow morning," Midnight called over to her students who spun to her in surprise only to see their teacher smiling back their way.

Zach felt an uneasy sensation in his stomach. _It's on a hero school campus. It's set up by teachers and technically training. So was the summer camp. Yeah, it's more like the summer camp than… But the last time, they went camping like this._ Zach finally dared the look to his right side where he saw several of the U.A. students looking his direction.

 _He doesn't, have a plan for this camping trip… Does he?_

 _Camping with Zach again?_

 _Yeah, this should be, fun. Nothing's going to happen._

 _It's just a feeling._

"As long as everyone is okay with the procedure for tonight's continued training," Memuria continued. "Then we will get started immediately. Your teachers will go over the joint training they have already witnessed to prepare grades and individual performance reviews for each of you in the meantime." She glanced behind her at the teachers who all nodded at the older woman who nodded sternly back and then glanced next to her at Norasaki who had watched the students closely for a moment. Norasaki looked back and Memuria and nodded, and the two of them turned and headed away from the students.

 _What was he looking for?_ Kotsumura wondered in confusion as Norasaki had been watching the U.A.'s carefully there for a second.

 _She asked if we were okay with the training?_ Zach wondered while watching Memuria walk away. _Guess she was offering anyone from Class A to say that they didn't want me here. Or that they didn't feel safe. Anything really._

 _Their principal is right! Whatever else is happening, this is very important!_ Iida Tenya turned his head and looked into the group of Shiketsu students where he locked his eyes with Muoko Kimi's. The tallest girl in Shiketsu looked at the tallest guy from U.A. and nodded her head at what they were both thinking. Then the two of them made moves for Yaoyorozu and Tomoki to get their two vice-reps to help them out.

"Everyone!" Iida called out once he had given the look to Yaoyorozu and received one back. His class and the Shiketsus all looked to the new Ingenium who continued strongly, "Let us hear what the activities planned for tonight are from our teachers and then get to work on establishing camp for the night. As this is an activity to relieve tensions between our classes, I believe it best that the teams we split up into for starting a fire, making dinner, and setting up our tents should be made up of both Class 1 and Class A students."

"If we work fast to build camp," Muoko continued without pause, surprising her classmates who were still getting used to the idea of what they were moving onto now. Everyone spun her way realizing that she and Iida were already on the same wavelength. "Then we can continue our activities without worrying about doing the work later once it is dark. Anyone who does not take part in the night training events can work on dinner during them and once we have worked up an appetite, we can gather for dinner."

 _"You will be allowed to take part in races and…"_ Kirishima thought about how the principal worded her instructions, and he realized Muoko of the other class already noticed it and knew that some people would rather just hold off. He frowned and shifted his gaze towards Zach who hummed to himself and cracked a smile while looking Muoko's way after what she just said. _Yeah, I fucking knew it. Why race us or have a strength competition when you think you'd win? You're looking down on everyone! Fucking- God damn it! He picked me up and tossed me straight into the fucking jail! MOTHER-_ Kirishima clenched his teeth and shook his head around, realizing he was thinking way too much like Bakugo. It was hard not to be angry about how he just lost though.

The teachers came forward after hearing what Iida said, and they explained the activities they expected the students to carry out through the night. They added that they could check in on them from the cameras still all over the place, but they reminded the students that it was up to them to supervise and set up the activities on their own. Iida and Muoko were quick to respond and say that they would make sure each task was carried out, so the rest of their classes knew those tasks were going to be carried out exactly as instructed. Even those not too into it at first felt more interested after Kimona and Ectoplasm talked about the running races and the strength competition which turned out to be no more than an arm wrestling competition.

As the students all headed back towards the center of the dome in one giant group, the class reps and vice-reps were talking to all their fellow students. "…And although the strength tournament will be one-on-one matches, we will make that fair and an unbiased split between U.A.'s and Shiketsus as well," Iida continued to all his classmates and fellow young heroes. "We will draw lots to determine the tournament bracket out of those who decide to take part. Quirks, allowed?" Iida wondered. He was about to mention how he was taking part, but he decided to ask this question first and he glanced backwards which told everyone behind him that he was directing it at them.

"Definitely," Kirisihima started.

"Hold on," Dendo began in a pissed-off voice.

"We can have a vote on that matter before the tournament begins," Yaoyorozu suggested.

"That's a great idea," Tomoki added to his fellow vice rep. Then he glanced to his side at his girlfriend and gained a hesitant look for a moment behind his own glasses, though she nodded at him in acceptance rather than jealousy that he agreed with the very attractive and popular girl from Class A.

Muoko then added for herself though, "For the relay race however, each participating team will be split between two U.A.'s and two Shiketsus to further create a relationship between-"

"-Our classes, yeah yeah," Mineta finished quickly, while already on the other side of the group as the majority of U.A.'s still walking on one half. The others in Shiketsu glanced at the short boy already in their ranks who no longer sported any bruises or cuts and who instead looked fresh and excited unlike most who were kissed by Recovery Girl or basked in Ms. Anastasia's Painless light. Her Quirk, Painless, made even the injuries that were not healed instantly by Recovery Girl feel like they had to all the students who had received them earlier. Mineta came right up to Himazuri and Bibi, and he opened his mouth-

Himazuri smacked him on the side of the face.

Everyone else in U.A. and Shiketsu looked over at the mind reader whose face was bright red, then nearly fifty sets of eyes locked on Mineta with harsher expressions than he deserved. Himazuri glanced back at the stunned short boy who actually had not been thinking anything really perverted, and Mineta dropped his jaw as no one was looking at Himazuri anymore to see her blushing and embarrassed expression turn to a smirk back at him. "Oh that's so not fair!" Mineta shouted at the girl who started laughing after a second as she figured he deserved to be let off the hook.

Zach was already smiling at Himazuri before she laughed, as he did not expect she had actually read Mineta's mind after she told him she wouldn't earlier that day. Others looked at Himazuri and realized what she did, while a few still had hesitant expressions as they wondered if she was just trying to ease tensions by making it seem like a joke afterwards. Tsuyu's tongue that was hanging out of her mouth did pull back in though instead of reaching over and smacking Mineta herself for what he just thought, and she hummed as she wondered what Mineta was actually thinking while over there. She did not realize that Himazuri had not been reading Mineta's mind when she smacked him, but if it was a joke then she did not understand why Mineta had gone over there in the first place if not to hit on those girls in a pervy way. _Is he just keeping up appearances?_

 _I just wanted hot girl partners for the relay race,_ Mineta thought frustratedly as he saw those few looks at him still semi-suspicious about his thoughts there.

"How's the shell doing?" Porrolo wondered to Kameko as they continued through the forest. "Thought maybe Recovery Girl would've made it grow back faster."

There was a large hole on Kameko's shell sticking out of his shirt that a few others looked to when Porrolo brought it up. Midoriya and a couple other U.A. students near him looked over too, and the green-haired boy felt slightly bad for what he did as it was apparently an injury that did not recover easily.

Kameko looked over his shoulder, but then he turned back to Porrolo and lifted his lips into a small smile. In a positive voice he said, "Ms. Anastasia made it so it doesn't hurt. And, it got harder after last time when Zach broke it, so this will be better for me anyway."

Iida looked over and his eyebrows lifted up. _That is similar to my own way of how I got so much faster. Removing the mufflers allowed me to extend the length of time for Reciproburst, however I can still only control it at my new fastest for a limited time. However, it still wasn't fast enough to catch Zach after he came out of nowhere and took Kirishima._ Iida thought about stopping in the woods and looking up, seeing the scoreboard hit 25 for Shiketsu. He remembered staring up at it as a few Shiketsu students who had chased him ran past and back to their own jail to celebrate with the few others still there. _So few of them were still able to fight. There were only six at the jail when I arrived there, and that was just about their entire remaining team. Manzo was still conscious after my kick. She glared at me when we met back up, was it because I held back? Why did I hold back? Was the fact that she was a girl make me treat her as less? I must apologize. Especially if that was something bothering her last year, enough that she never let us find out that she was a girl._

"Hey," Zach started to two guys he walked up to on his right side. Inasa and Dendo both looked at Zach and wondered what he had to talk about. He was not being very quiet either, so a lot of others looked over to him. Anytime Zach spoke that happened, so even though he was just talking to two people most of the people there were listening to him. "You guys want to get firewood for the fire later? I can kill the trees since dead wood burns better, Dendo slices it up into firewood, and Inasa you can carry it all back."

"Sounds good," Dendo said, as it made enough sense to him.

"Yes! Should we get any U.A. help?" Inasa wondered, as they were supposed to be making friends with the other class right now. He figured Zach did not need to as much since he already knew them all well, but he looked over hoping to see someone who was good for it. "How about you, Uravity?"

"Uh… yeah, okay," Uraraka hesitated for a moment, but she nodded at Inasa's large smile and started walking across the group to go towards him. She knew why she could help them out, and Zach grinned too as he figured they could get even more in a single trip now to the point they would easily be set for the whole night.

"You should take trees from the middle area around where the supplies are kept," Muoko said over to Zach while a lot of the U.A.'s were still frowning over at him for his casual suggestion there. The others looked back to Shiketsu's representative who did not treat it as strange at all. Zach nodded at her at the idea, as he was first thinking of going far off to get the trees. Muoko explained it anyway even though she saw that Zach understood, "If we are keeping all the tents there, then we must clear a space considering how dense the trees are in the center of the dome. All-Terrain will be re-establishing this training facility before the next class comes here, so we do not need to worry about any damage done to the environment."

"Since the central area is not cleared yet," Tomoki added, realizing it as they were still heading towards that middle section. "We should hold the evening events on one of the lawns."

"Theirs is pretty empty," Hisashi mentioned to the vice rep walking next to him. He grinned past Tomoki for a second towards Todoroki and Midoriya, "We really cleared out a lot of the trees around there in the first wave-"

"Your whole base is destroyed!" Mineta exclaimed back, as they had been close to Shiketsu's destroyed base a minute ago. "We can go over there and have the whole lawn and where your base used to be…"

"We'd have to move all the rubble…"

"We're still in the west side anyway so it's less of a walk…"

As U.A.'s and Shiketsus started arguing about which side of the dome to have their evening training, Zach motioned to his right at the two guys next to him who saw his look. Zach then narrowed his eyes over towards Uraraka who spun after a second and looked back at Zach whose expression was back to normal and who made the same motion of his head away. Three Shiketsu boys broke off the group as everyone else was still moving mainly together, though they had started spreading out a bit as some people moved faster or slower than others across the facility.

Uraraka gained a couple of looks as she passed in front of others to head to the right, but she was more focused on the spiky-haired teenager ahead of her who stood between Inasa and Dendo and was talking to them as they headed farther south in the forest. _Is Zach not taking part in the activities? Why did he suggest something like this?_

"What's up? Don't want to hang out with them?" Dendo wondered at the guy on his left side who shook his head to show that was not it.

"I have all night for that," Zach replied. "But they're all still pretty upset about what just happened. I need to let them cool off a bit before talking about the training and what just happened." Zach glanced to his right and added in a lower voice, "They really don't like losing."

"No one does," Dendo replied.

"You think they're mad at you for winning?" Inasa wondered in confusion. He looked over his shoulder back towards the U.A.'s wondering if that was right. He flashed a smile at the girl jogging towards his back who slowed down while still a few meters behind them.

"Not really that we won," Zach answered. "Just how I did it. A few of them I bet might actually try to fight me if I talked to them right now. Definitely need to let things cool off," Zach said it without keeping his voice too low, and he looked over his shoulder at the girl staring at his back with wide eyes right behind him. He glanced down after looking at her face, and he asked the short brunette girl, "You feeling alright? Sorry about knocking you out, Uraraka."

"N-No, it's fine," Uraraka shook her head quickly at Zach. The fact that he was apologizing along with what she just heard him say about how he thought they were all pissed at him, it made her feel like she knew the answer now as to why Zach had split off from the main group. "No one's…" she added, but she stopped herself from finishing as she thought about the way a few of the others were glaring after Zach when she jogged their way.

"It's alright," Zach said while she was looking for a way to finish that sentence. He stopped and the others did around him, and they looked back the way he looked towards the rest of their classes who were out of sight now. "We can still take part in those events too. We'll be done with this in a couple minutes after all."

"Think we can get enough wood for a bonfire that will last the night?" Dendo asked.

"Should we get enough, for multiple fires?" Uraraka added, chiming in quickly so Zach would not think she was still being awkward about their last conversation. _What's going on? I'm just, talking to him so normally. That's not… if I could do this, then why didn't I ever go with the others to his apartment? He's, he's still my friend, isn't he?_ Uraraka looked at Zach with a hesitant look in her eyes that did not match her question about fires.

Zach looked her back in the eyes and shook his head though he smiled at the way she was looking at him. "I don't think so. We're supposed to be uniting our classes kind of. Making multiple fires will wind up just getting everyone to split up between class lines."

"No matter how much we get though, it's probably still going to happen," Dendo muttered.

Zach shrugged his right shoulder and tilted his head accepting that was probably true. _Yaoyorozu, Bakugo, and Todoroki all have the power for starting a fire. Assuming Yaoyorozu helps with the main one, there're probably still going to be two more fires later tonight._ "Let's get to work though," Zach said, deciding to leave questions about how the fires were set up for after they had the firewood.

He still had on his costume like most of the students in the training dome, though a few had gone into their bags at the center area they found to get dressed in plain clothes first before afternoon activities. Zach knew this was happening, because he had reached up and put his visor over his eyes to check the area ahead of him. He saw thermal readings through the forest with a tap of a button on the side of his visor, and he saw several camera angles on the sides of his visor. There were four rectangular boxes on the right side of his screen and three on the left with one blacked out from where Midoriya had unknowingly smashed through one of his cameras.

"What are you doing?" Uraraka wondered. Neither of the Shiketsu students asked, but they were both wondering too.

"The clearing wasn't that far ahead of us when we broke off. We're just a bit to the south of the pile, and there's no one on line with me," Zach stepped forward and he pushed his hands out in front of him while pointed up a bit. "Rolling Death." Out of Zach's hands pushed a Death that flew forward through three trees in front of him, then through four more past them and three others in more of a staggered line after that. The Death continued pouring out of his hands for a couple of seconds, but then Zach curled his fists and the Death stopped coming out. The force of Death he had already released continued moving deeper into the forest ahead of him though. Zach forced it farther and farther, pushing through the trees at a level above everyone's heads just in case Hagakure happened to be ahead of him or he was missing someone, somehow.

Hagakure was slipping into her clothes around the central area of the dome, hiding behind a tree as she did it so no one would be watching her change. She turned her head though and her shirt slipped out of her fingers as she watched the first wisps of Death push through the tops of the trees not fifteen meters from her. Then the mass of Death rolled in and pushed over itself, rolling over like a wave that just crashed and continued to push into other trees around where she was looking. Hagakure quickly picked back up her shirt and slipped it on, then she lifted her head up and watched with wide eyes as some of the Death even pulled away in small lines towards trees closer to her. They pierced into trees, and immediately the bark started to look more black than brown. All of the green leaves turned black and shriveled, and they fell off the stems but also mostly fell apart so the pieces of leaves fell off the trees like ash.

A few thinner branches broke off, and then Hagakure let out a yelp and she spun and ran off. One thick branch up in a tree was too heavy to stay on after dying like that, and it broke off with a loud crack that spooked Hagakure and made a few of the others who could see what was happening take steps back.

Back where Zach lowered his arms, Uraraka had dropped her bottom lip and was staring with huge eyes past Zach into the dead forest ahead of him. She took a hesitant step forward, then Zach rose up his right palm to the side in a motion for her to stop. Uraraka paused, and then her eyes widened again as the Death that he had pushed out did not just fade after a while. It could have, but the small amounts of boosts he was getting from killing the trees kept the Rolling Death moving at its same strength practically the entire time Zach controlled it. After his Death reached the point he had decided to stop it before first expelling it, Zach pulled his Death back and he rose his left hand up as the Death came at him much faster than it had pushed out. It swept back through the trees avoiding touching them as Zach did not want to keep them surrounded for too long lest what happened to much of the leaves start to happen to the wood.

Two thick whips of darkness pulling back through the trees combined into one stream and then flew straight at Zach's lifted left palm that had lost most of the skin on it. His lower left arm was missing most of its skin along with his costume, the only noticeable damage Zach had taken during the fight from what anyone else could see. He yanked all the darkness back and then curled his palms into fists that he lowered at his sides without so much as a heavier exhale of breath.

"Alright," Zach said, turning to face the others who looked at him oddly as his tone with that one word made it sound like he was finished. "I have to go collect my equipment from around the dome. See you in a bit," he nodded at the others after checking to see affirmative looks back at him that they were fine on their own.

Uraraka had just stared at him in more surprise as he was suddenly leaving after killing a chunk of the forest, but she saw Dendo and Inasa give him those looks and she turned to those boys in surprise too. She spun back when Zach turned in the corner of her vision, and her left hand twitched at her side lifting up a small amount, before her right hand moved over and held her wrist back down before she could say a word. _I don't, know him. He's so different. Just the feeling of him alone- I haven't gone to see him at all since the hospital. I don't know, if something's really wrong…_

Dendo lowered his frown deeper even as he stepped towards the darkened trees with an aura covering his hands. "Seven people," Dendo muttered in a pissed-off voice, his anger directed towards himself as he Sliced forward and cut down the trees Zach had killed.

Inasa was thinking it too and Uraraka saw that on his face as she spun to Dendo in surprise at what she heard him mutter. The cracking trees and thuds in the woods came after, but Uraraka just heard that mutter repeat in an echo in her head. She turned back slowly in the direction Zach had just run off. _Is he…_

Zach's lips were curled down far at the corners as he ran. His eyes were darkened under the shadows of his black bangs pushed down by the visor on his forehead. _How did I let that happen? I shouldn't have left Imino to fight them alone. It didn't matter that it was Kirishima and Iida. I knew where everyone else was, or I had an idea at least. An approximation. I could have taken the two of them, probably fast enough that- If I had drawn more attention to Imino by going there, more U.A.'s would have come anyway. Iida would have reported, and if they lost contact because I cut the comms then others would have shown up! If the fight lasted much longer too, I can't be sure that not getting the flag wouldn't have gotten_ _ **more**_ _people killed! DAMN IT!_

 _Even if I had just lost Imino, I should have known Midoriya would go to the last resort play at that moment! And after he took Hisashi, what was with those orders? I just accepted I was going to lose more classmates?! I should have gone straight to their jail and blocked Midoriya from getting anyone else! Except, any Death I surrounded myself in around Midoriya could likely get blown off into other people. It's my responsibility to protect people from my Death, and I couldn't rely on him not to go all out. Not when he was taking it so seriously… This was training, after all. I would have been putting the people at that prison in danger going and standing in front of the gate all covered in Death. They weren't really dead. If getting tossed in there meant they really were dying, I_ _ **would**_ _have rushed back in that moment Midoriya got Hisashi. I would have saved him! I never saw if Midoriya could beat me. And with Bakugo and Todoroki supporting him, with people I'm protecting nearby so I can't drop Limiter 1- it was too dangerous! But it will_ _ **always**_ _be that dangerous to use more Death! You can't rely on that! Can't rely on 'I would have's when you didn't do it! FUCK! Bibi, Kaan, Imino, I lost 7 fucking comrades in a fight against inexperienced… alright, not inexperienced but- fuck. Class A is, they're just too good. But so are Eziano's assassins. So are the League of Villains. I don't want to accept any casualties. And against Shigaraki, who kills without leaving a body, who I've brought back with Death already- or Kaminari, who's sure to use all the hostages around and kill as many civilians as possible while we fight. He'll use everything to his advantage. I'm not ready to beat them without losing a single person yet. I'm going to let everyone down. I'm going to get people killed by being this weak. I fucked this training up so badly. How could I let so many die? When I've already, I've already done that, so many…_

"I can't believe he took us all out without even using Death," Hagakure whispered, her voice indicating the frown over her invisible face matching most of her classmates' expressions. It sounded less like she was impressed and more aggravated over the fact that he took them down so easily.

"Not all of us," Ojiro corrected, though Hagakure turned to see him looking similarly to her. Even though Imino distracted him, it was the same for everyone else caught in that smoke field. Ojiro lifted his frown a slight bit while mentioning, "He had to use it on Sero. Hope he wakes up soon," he added afterwards, lowering his frown again but then with a more thoughtful look on his face. _I can't be upset Zach didn't use Death on me and also upset that he knocked Sero out for this long by using it. He said it wouldn't be days but hours, though he couldn't say how many. Why not? I figure he's had the experience to be able to tell how long his attack would last with the amount of Death he used. It must depend then on the person he uses it on. Sero's strong, a hero, it'll probably be... less, than Zach's expectations. I think..._

"We can set up the relay race around U.A.'s ice fortress here, unless, Todoroki would you like to melt this first? It does not look especially structurally sound…" Muoko was calling out near the front of the main pack of students, though the group had split up a lot to have more U.A.'s and Shiketsus spread apart around the forest's eastern edge. A few of them had split off on their own and were still simmering after their loss, with Kirishima sitting on the base of a broken tree trunk and glaring back into the forest to wait for Zach to get up there.

Yaoyorozu glanced over to see the back of Kirishima's head as he focused into the woods towards Zach. She rose her gaze up over his spiky red hair for a second too and wondered while staring out there, _Why didn't he attack me as well? He took Uraraka and Mineta and ran. Why leave me behind? Did he know what I had planned to use against him? Or does he just consider me a threat and did not want to risk an attack when he already had two? Or, did he just not want to face me? Why not? I need to talk to you. None of us really have since… It hasn't been enough time to really process everything. But, I think you really will keep to the truth now. At least to the six of us who know. You have to. I promised myself I wouldn't give up on you again, not after coming so close at the fair, but it's like it's not even on your mind. Everything we talked about, everything happening right now, you can't just push it all away. But, you do, don't you?_

"Come now!" Iida yelled out louder at everyone after Muoko had finished explaining only to a very small reaction from the other students. "The teachers are watching, and they expect us to complete these activities under our own supervision! Split up into teams of four with two Shiketsu students and two from U.A. I will accept no less than 8 teams in order to have a proper bracket!"

 _No less than 8?_ Midoriya thought, hearing that even as he stood off by himself with a frustrated look covering his face. He glanced back in the direction of the classes who started talking more as they needed to split up into groups together. 8 teams meant that 16 U.A. students had to take part, and with Uraraka still off in the forest and Sero unconscious and out with the school nurses, all of them except for one person was going to be taking part in the activity. Midoriya started back towards the rest of the students and he returned a more friendly and calm look to his face, but it was impossible for him to focus much with so many thoughts rushing through his head.

 _I need to learn from what I did wrong here._ Midoriya thought back not 30 minutes to the end of the fight that he had failed his teammates in. _Zach showed me he had that voice changer, when he pretended to be me earlier and interfered with our communications. He had just captured several of my comrades, meaning that of course he was going to have one of the earpieces from the new set! I didn't even think about it. It didn't cross my mind, because he made such a convincing Jirou. He got me to move my absolute fastest by making it seem like he was about to throw her in jail, and then it was me who became the final target._

"Midoriya!"

"Wait no I want Midoriya-"

"Are we allowed to use our Quirks for this one too?"

"Definitely."

"I think we're all in agreement for that, right?"

"It's a relay race, so as long as Midoriya's paired up with short stuff there I'm not too worried-"

"Hey!"

 _I was overconfident. I thought that none of them could stop me, Todoroki, or Bakugo unless it was Zach. I even got past Inasa just like I thought I would. As strong as he was, he couldn't stop me on his own, and yet he was the one who threw me in jail! It was the force he pushed on my back that sent me flying into that jail cell. Zach and Dendo together assisted, but Zach didn't face me one-on-one. He didn't want to. He didn't want to show off his real moves for when the time comes that we have to fight! Will that time really come though?_ Midoriya's teammates for the relay race noticed that he barely seemed to be paying them any attention. None of them mentioned anything though to their green-haired teammate whose head nods did not fool anyone into thinking he was focused on this activity in the least.

 _Zach was willing to let us arrest him the other day. He would have let it happen. Sure, he might have fought against the accusations, in order to keep what he believes as Death to remain that way… Why is it so important to me that I am able to beat him? Why is it, that I feel like I can't be a symbol of anything as long as Zach's, as long as he's…_ Midoriya could not place it, how he wanted to end that line in his head. He was at a loss for an explanation as to how he was feeling right then, but it was not a pleasant feeling that swirled in his gut and made him shift a glance back towards the thicker part of the forest.

Dendo, Inasa, and Uraraka came back out of the forest while Midoriya was glancing that way. Others looked over too, and Yaoyorozu called over the shorter girl who just saved the activity as neither Bakugo nor Kirishima were being very cooperative at the moment. Uraraka jogged past Kirishima who stood and frowned at Dendo coming his way. "Where's Zach?" Kirishima asked, his voice low as he darted a look past a rival of his from a different hero school.

Dendo replied casually though without the same aggressiveness in his voice, "Gathering his equipment from around the dome. He left a lot of cameras and jammers laying around."

Kirishima darted an angry look back at Dendo, then to the forest, then he spun when Dendo seemed to be about to walk right past him. "And what was with our fight earlier?" Kirishima growled. Dendo turned to face him from a couple of feet away, and Dendo frowned himself as he had been the one to lose that fight. Kirishima saw Dendo give him that look of his own frustration at his loss, which only pissed Kirishima off more, "If you really wanted to beat me then you should have come yourself. You really think your soul split, whatever fraction of your strength you attacked with would be enough?!"

 _I had thought so,_ Dendo thought, frowning more though as Kirishima was right and he knew he had to go all out to beat strong people like Kirishima. "I'd have been happy to fight you, but it wasn't in the plan."

"Zach's plan?" Kirishima corrected. Rather than it being ' _the_ ' plan, Kirishima wanted to hear Dendo say exactly who had come up with it. "And you were happy letting him decide how you'd beat us? That was fine with all of you-"

"He's a Shiketsu student," Dendo retorted to Kirishima's face. "Why wouldn't it be fine?" Kirishima hesitated, his body tensing up more in frustration at the answer that actually sounded mature when he was looking for something more emotional as a response there. "He made the best plan. We thought we could win if we followed his lead." Dendo smirked at Kirishima and then turned to head off to watch the relay race even if he was not going to be a part of it. "And we were right. You lost. Get over it."

Kirishima spun his head and his teeth clenched down so hard as it sounded like Dendo was calling him a sore loser. _It's not about losing to you! It's about- he's not a Shiketsu- He's Zach! He's, supposed to be our…_

Over at the starting line for the race, Mineta stood with his two Shiketsu teammates as they argued over what their order was going to be. They were leaving Midoriya as their team's anchor, obviously, but they needed to decide who would go first, second, and third for the run around Class A's entire lawn area near their damaged but standing base. Reika and Kotsumura both frowned down at the short boy who just gave his argument for why he should go first, which they had said would mean the person second fastest on their team. "Your Pop Offs are going to get stuck on the floor on the run around though," Kotsumura said to the short boy with a small frown at him as he tried to come up with a reason not to accept Mineta was faster than him.

"Sure," Mineta said, but he replied in a lower voice and then cupped his hands to his mouth too. "But I'll wait to start throwing any until after I round the first turn. The others will have pulled ahead already, and they won't see where I toss them down over there. You guys be on the lookout for them. No way!" Mineta suddenly rose his voice and put his hands up to his head which made the Shiketsu pair stare at him in confusion. "I threw too many during the fight! If I rip anymore off my eyes are going to bleed!"

Kotsumura held back a grin as he realized what the shorter boy was doing by raising his voice like that. "Whatever, let's just keep the order and run as fast as we can."

"No one ever said anything about messing with the other teams," Reika admitted, and she looked over towards U.A.'s base that was dripping water all over. The ground was soaked around the building, and the right corner of Reika's lips curled up into a hidden smirk.

Imino stared over towards two of his classmates and the bad influence of a U.A. student talking to them. Himazuri looked that direction too when she heard Mineta's voice raise, and she read Kotsumura's thoughts to figure out what they were really doing. Two more teams were let in on their team's plans, and new plans were made between the relay racers.

Almost all of the U.A. students were focused on the relay race as it was getting started, and even Kirishima had gone over to where the Shiketsu students not taking part were standing. He was still frowning but hated the idea of being considered a sore loser by just sitting on a tree stump and pouting through their afternoon events. He glanced around though as he looked for one of his own classmates he could stand with and talk to, but his good friend who also was not taking part in the race was nowhere around them anymore. Kirishima turned his head and glanced back towards the forest, _Bakugo?_

The teachers of U.A. and Shiketsu were back up in the spectators' booth with the exception of the two nurses who had left with Sero. Zach told them there was not much they could do for him, but they had to bring him to the infirmary anyway to give him a bed to rest on until he woke up. "Looks like someone's looking for trouble," Kimona mentioned while watching Bakugo heading into the woods with his eyes darting about.

"I say good luck on finding it," Midnight replied with a small chuckle. They had lost sight of Sazaki themselves up in the booth, and it was clear that he had located a blind spot in their cameras intentionally this time. Midnight's chuckle did not last and she lowered her lips down as she saw Sazaki's thoughtful and frustrated expression even when they were still watching. _As soon as the others could not see him, he dropped the act. And yet if he is hiding from us too, then was there another act still up? A mask of calm, perhaps. What is he doing down there?_

 _Where is he?_ Bakugo's eyes were dark as he marched through the woods. _That bastard. He knew what he was doing from the start. He had us doing fucking circles around him! That's not how this ends. That's not how I lose here!_

The students of U.A. and Shiketsu were lining up for their relay race. The mood had not risen from the end of the battle though, and despite splitting the teams with Shiketsus and U.A.'s, it did not really relieve the tension between them much at all. Kotsumura and Reika noticed even Mineta stopped talking to them after their initial plan, instead talking to the closest team at their side and his two U.A. friends in it. All three of them were frowning as they discussed their dashed hopes for how the training should have went.

Kotsumura Keiji wondered why Midoriya was not taking part in their conversation too, but the blond just got an anxious look on his face as he turned a bit and caught the extremely serious and frustrated expression on Deku's face. His eyes scanned from that serious teen back around, and Reika said in a low but not that quiet voice, "No one's cooling off. They're all so frustrated. Not that I'm not," she muttered at the end, and she glared around but did not see Bakugo anywhere. _It was child's play for him._

"What do you expect?" Sato wondered, glancing to the blonde girl on Mineta's team who frowned right back at him. Sato ground his teeth more at her frown and then just said in a low, dark voice, "There're no more of these, so it's just ending like that? That's the final one?" Sato said it sounding even more frustrated at the idea that they would never have the chance to go back and try again.

Kotsumura rolled his eyes partially at Sato while turning away towards Muoko and Iida calling out about the rules. "What?" Sato grumbled at the blond boy who just gave him that look. Kotsumura tensed as he did not think he made it that obvious that he wasn't really taking Sato seriously.

Subara glanced at Kotsumura who turned back with a low frown at Sato, then glanced over towards the forest behind them. Subara and Hanodo saw Kotsumura's gaze and they each frowned themselves next to Sato and Shoji. "Well, as hard as you all look to be taking this," Subara started, looking towards the woods herself where Kotsumura was looking. "Zach's probably taking it worse after being the one to suggest that whole 'we get caught, we die' idea."

"I liked the plan," Hanodo admitted. "And I think it worked out, the best it really could have. Stopping Deku from picking us off would have been impossible."

"Sure he sees it that way," Reika retorted sarcastically with a scoff at the bulky but short guy in her class.

Midoriya turned his head and stared at the Shiketsus with his eyes big and darting back towards the woods himself. _They think, Zach's, taking this hard? He was smiling- After the fight, was everything since the fight ended- everything until he split off from everyone! Was he just holding it back… "the one to suggest that whole 'we get caught, we die' idea." Then, was he really taking this seriously after all? Was that the best he had- why did I immediately assume he went easy on us? Why do I always think he's so much better- than I am?_

Mineta had his eyes locked back on the woods where he imagined Zach punching trees or something in frustration. _**"At first I did not believe in myself very much. Yet people followed me. They saw the things I was doing, and they followed me and everything I did. Whether I killed villains or let them live and had them arrested, they followed. I didn't trust easily, so the people who followed me into war, who obeyed my orders and rushed into fights to the death, I was amazed by how much they trusted me."**_ Mineta's eyes shifted back to the four Shiketsus closest to him. He looked at the people who Zach had led into this fight, who had come up with both their mentality going into it and their battle strategy. _They accepted the idea that getting caught meant dying, and they were still fine with Zach being the one to lead them? They've only known him for a month, month and a half barely!_

The shortest boy in U.A. was shocked by it, and he had to spin around quickly and start running as his teammates yelled at him to get moving. Mineta sprinted forward and reached up for his head before flinching as he remembered he had come up with a plan beforehand. He winced intentionally and lowered his hands like he remembered his Pop-Offs hurt too much at the moment to pull any more off. His mind tried to focus on the activity at hand, but all he could think of was Zach's voice as he explained to them on Inazuma Island how he had gained his confidence as a leader. _**"They died for me. For what I thought was right. And I believed in them, because they were the best people in the world. And I've been to every country, but those people who followed me were the best anywhere."**_

 _That's crazy! There was so much thrust at us that night that I didn't really think about that, but he's, he's a leader! A general of an army! An army!_ _**"They really were all, so amazing. I believed in all of them, and they believed in me. So I started believing in myself more. I trusted my own judgement more. As heroes joined me and fought by my sides, as more and more amazing people entered into my ranks to fight solely for what I thought was right, I became more assured of myself. I gained confidence in my decisions as a leader, even when I failed and people died, because others continued to follow me despite my failures. They accepted our losses, and they learned from them with me. Yet they still believed in me as the leader. No matter how many of them died, or how much we lost, or even when I broke my own rules and went too far when I shouldn't have… They believed in my decisions."**_

 _Even after they lost Imino,_ Mineta started throwing his Pop-Offs after rounding a corner where no one could see him anymore. He had to catch up to the others ahead of him as he was in the back of the pack, and he jumped up to bounce off his stepping balls while throwing more. _Even though by following him they lost a comrade and friend for such a long time, and they imagined we had just killed him! If they had really thought that, and they still followed more of his orders afterwards?! If I was Zach I wouldn't have been able to keep giving out orders if I had just gotten someone killed- could I have? Could I have to, as a hero? Man, that's way too much pressure… Oh shit._

 _They didn't actually die!_ Zach stood in a blind spot of the cameras with his forehead pressed against a tree in front of him, his eyes clenched furiously and his hands gripping the sides of the tree so hard they dug through the bark. _No one died! I didn't lose anyone today! It wasn't real- but it could have been! If it was real then I just- BUT IT WASN'T! BUT IT COULD HAVE BEEN!_ Zach's hands pushed farther into the tree he was gripping, splinters breaking off between his fingers and his hands getting closer together. His eyes shut harder as he groaned from the back of his throat. _It has to be real though! If it's not real- IT IS! I'm preparing for fights against villains who_ _ **will**_ _kill them! I could definitely be leading these same people against the League of Villains! It's going to be war! A REAL WAR AGAIN! That's what this is in preparation for. It was real. Then I just lost- but they're not really- If they didn't really die then this isn't a real preparation which means that what I'm doing here in Japan doesn't really matter. It means that I know that this isn't really a war going on here, but a few remaining villains that I'm just pretending are as big a threat- Kaminari is though! Shigaraki is a monster and will destroy the world if he has the chance! Just like All For One- WHO MIGHT NOT EVEN BE IN JAPAN!_

Zach's hands curled into fists that turned splintered bark into shreds, his eyes clenching harder and his head pushing farther into the tree in front of him. "Rrrggg _ggggrrr,"_ his growl of frustration and pain turned into a snarl of anger at the thought of the man who destroyed Camino Ward. _He's out there right now looking for a World Destroyer to steal, and I'm worrying about the results of a fucking training session with heroes?! None of them are going to go to an actual war. They'll fight life and death battles for sure, but I don't need to be this worried that letting them die here means they'll die for real in the war- because they won't be going to war! BUT I'LL LOSE THEM ANYWAY! JUST LIKE I LOST EVERYBODY ELS- STOP!_ Zach cut his thoughts and he pulled his hands back from the tree a bit only to slam them back forward towards each other, gripping into the wood and twisting his forehead into the trunk. _The feeling of losing comrades is bringing back the memory of losing comrades. The feeling associated with those memories is all I can feel right now. That I know what that feeling is associated with, is the feeling of losing everybody. All my comrades in Terra- Stop that. No one's listening. No one's watching. Ha, don't pretend. You know it, as much as Zach does, it's not for them…_

"Oi."

Zach lifted his head and opened his eyes. He turned his head to the side while lowering his arms from the tree. "Hey," Zach replied, looking over at Bakugo who said that from a distance off but close enough that Zach scolded himself internally for not noticing him first.

"You're the one who beat us," Bakugo growled. He growled it angrily because of how he saw Zach looking as he just stepped out. "So what the fuck are you doing?"

"It wasn't how I wanted to win," Zach replied, his voice low and the truth coming out of his mouth. "I'm sure it wasn't how you wanted to lose either. Not that you ever want to lose-"

"Shut it," Bakugo snapped. He ground his teeth after Zach did shut his mouth, then he grumbled frustratedly, "How did you- I knew you were-"

"The trap?" Zach wondered. He continued without waiting for Bakugo to confirm it. "I knew you wouldn't just follow flashes or sounds, so I really was there. So you could follow the wisps of darkness after me too." Bakugo wanted to growl something at him about telling Zach to shut up for assuming to know what he wanted to know, but Zach was right in his assumption and so the spiky-haired blond kept his mouth shut for the moment. "I did have it in part set up beforehand too though. The voice recordings, where I placed them and the equipment for making flashes and noises around me in the woods to distract you from my exact position. And killing the woods closest to the cave-"

"They were still dying when I got there," Bakugo growled back.

"A few of them," Zach answered as Bakugo was partially calling him out but also asking how Zach managed that if it was true. "The ones closest to the cave were already dead, but the ones between the dead ones and the rest of the forest were just killed as you chased behind me. It seemed like I had just killed them all the way up to the cave's mouth because of the wind the two of us caused by rushing over there. Those dead trees with leaves barely hanging on and twigs about to be cracked, just us moving around quickly below them made them creak and crack, which gave off the impression that they had just been killed and that was a natural effect of them getting hit by my Quirk. As would be clear, because the ones that were just killed and that you _saw_ darkening were making those same noises, but also because of our movements around them and not actually because of them dying."

Bakugo ground his teeth at the logic in what Zach was saying. The misdirection so thought-out that Zach had planned it before even drawing Bakugo in, before placing any of the cameras or killing any of the trees. _And I walked right into it._ "And when did you leave?" Bakugo questioned, still angry but more just wondering this time when he had missed Zach's movement away from him.

"I was on the other side of a dead tree when you shot towards the cave and up it. You were so focused on the idea that I was going to attack you at that moment that you didn't catch me slipping away." Zach finished and then added, "Admittedly, not the way I wanted to fight you either. But I needed to get you out of the way for a little, and I was hoping the trap would make you sloppier than it did."

"Sloppy as in attacking you when you were with those other three?" Bakugo asked, as he remembered Zach's daring look that was a double bluff trying to draw him in. "That wouldn't have been-"

"But it was what I wanted," Zach replied, as Bakugo was going to say how even if he had attacked at that moment it would not have gone as Zach thought. Deku was even there with him, and as he thought about it he frowned deeper, _If we had attacked at that moment, we would have gotten all four of them!_ "Maybe you could have taken all four of us. It would have been a good fight, at least. We'll never know now though," Zach finished, shrugging a shoulder at Bakugo who grunted and looked away with a pissed look at that truth.

Bakugo's eyes then shifted around the area, scanning for any cameras only to stop when he saw Zach give him a look and a tiny shake of his head. "How about it then?" Bakugo started, the right corner of his lip starting to curve up.

 _He can't be serious. Even if we are in a blind spot, the two of us fighting would definitely expand out of this one spot. He's serious. Bakugo's a lot like Rappa- Snoggro. His name was Snoggro, and he died in the Battle of the 6 Armies. Bakugo doesn't know a thing. What am I thinking about? He just challenged me. I- I really want to say yes._ "I want to," Zach replied, but he shook his head at Bakugo with a look denying what Bakugo just said. Bakugo humphed and turned around, as he was second guessing it himself already but had been unable to hold it back.

"Sure you do," Bakugo said as Zach had walked towards him and then at his side as Bakugo started walking back too, a pissed look on his face but not necessarily all aimed at Zach.

Zach shifted his eyes to the side and then back forward, and the left corner of his lips farther from Bakugo rose up a small bit. _I thought he was more against me. I think, it's one of two things. Either he's doing this to help with the investigation with Lemillion, which seems unlikely. Or I've misread more than I thought. Bakugo's the kind of guy who would hate the fact that I got back all I sacrificed in the forest. But, I think as long as I don't get let back into U.A. he doesn't really have much of a problem. He definitely wasn't going to let me back. Even if Principal Nezu and the others would have, which they wouldn't. Whatever. This is the best it'd get with Bakugo anyway._ "I do," Zach finally replied to Bakugo after a few seconds of thinking there. "I love fighting. Strong opponents more than anything."

Bakugo gave Zach a strange look at what he was saying. He frowned after a second more though as he thought back, imagining Zach in the first Sports Festival up against Hitoshi Shinso. The look on his face after he took that brainwasher out with a single great blow appeared in Bakugo's head. And again in the next Sports Festival, before the attack had started, he remembered that second stage in a moment when he had looked the direction of several of his opposing teams. He thought about the grin over Zach's face as he used only his weapons and fought against several of their classmates at once, and the look he had as he defeated Shoji too. Bakugo humphed after a moment of thinking about it, accepting that maybe Zach was telling the truth there. "The last time I really had a good fight was a few weeks ago, when I fought the Subspace Devils," Zach continued with Bakugo looking at him in surprise at what he was saying. "Man I enjoyed that," Zach admitted.

"What are you talking about?" Bakugo grumbled, a look like he was telling Zach to shut up about it and yet a tone in his voice actually wondering where he was getting with this.

"I didn't expect to like it so much," Zach replied. "But I was able to let loose and really fight again. After so long at war, fighting battles much bigger than that one, against thousands of enemies and… it was exciting."

Bakugo rolled his eyes and looked forward in a more annoyed way again. "Yeah, war," he muttered in annoyance.

Zach glanced to his side at his former classmate. He wondered if Bakugo even knew why he had come out in the forest in the first place if he was so quick to accept Zach's denial to fight him. _He probably only asked me because he wondered why he had come out there in the first place if not to do just that. I'm glad you did though._ "I'm serious," Zach said, making Bakugo shift his annoyed eyes to the side again only to see Zach giving him a serious look back like he wanted Bakugo to stop doubting what he was saying. "My whole life moved so fast, and so much happened because of that. In a single week I crossed an entire world and took down forces that were so powerful and influential, and I left an impact I could see months later in retrospect that I established the foundation of when I was there."

 _Is he talking about the Army of Death? Does he think I'd assume that and is telling me anyway? The fuck does he think he's doing?_ Bakugo gave Zach a semi-confused look, but he also could not tell him to shut up as this was something he was supposed to be finding out about. The idea of that made him get more frustrated though, _Does he know I can't tell him to shut up because I'm working with Lemillion? Smug asshole-_

"Those giant battles with massive consequences, they became the norm for me. Life and death fights, became the only fights I was in, and now all other fights where I know my enemies cannot beat me just become more training exercises-"

"You knew we couldn't beat you-"

"I didn't say that," Zach countered right back as Bakugo just got real pissed there. "And that's why I made this feel like a life or death fight too. It was weird, to have a fight that would actually be good but not have any real consequences. That's why I treated it like losing any of my classmates in this fight was like I was letting them get killed. Because it was more than just training for me this time," he finished, giving Bakugo a look that told the boy staring at him that Zach had actually taken the fight way more seriously than Bakugo had thought he had. "I really did go all out here today-"

"Now that's some bullshit," Bakugo snapped.

"I don't mean I used as much Death as possible," Zach snapped right back, surprising Bakugo at the tone that matched his own. "I mean," he calmed his voice and said in a slower tone, "I fought as hard as I could as a hero out there. It was still training after all, as serious as it was for me. We all _needed_ to beat each other."

"You didn't beat me-" Bakugo cut himself off and he turned away with a 'ch' he made between his teeth. "Shut up," he growled afterwards as he expected Zach to mention how he technically had or something. _That's why I want to fight you right now._

"I don't feel like I did either," Zach admitted after a couple of seconds. He paused and turned his head as he heard a couple of cheers. They were quiet, and the classes did not sound too excited but there were some people cheering as the first team of four finished the relay race. He just turned back to Bakugo after glancing away though, and he said, "It would have been more fun if we actually had fought. Using everything we had, like that battle against the Subspace Devils that made me feel something like that again. The same feeling I had at war, a strange feeling, that I don't really know what it is."

Bakugo looked to his side at Zach and wondered, _Is he bullshitting me? Why's he talking about this right now? Why's he even talking to me? Why am I talking to him, when all of this is probably just… It doesn't feel like it. But he's that good at lying. He already tricked me once today, am I going to fall for his shit twice in one day? What would be the fucking point of telling me any of this though? I'm sure, whatever the point is it's something only he knows._

 _I just want to talk to you, Bakugo. If I bring it up though you'll just doubt everything I say even more. It's fucking impossible to talk to you guys. Everyone doubts me so much. Trust is such an easy thing to destroy forever. It's hard to earn in the first place, but once you've lost it you can_ _ **never**_ _get it back. Damn it. I want to try though. I have to. It's, it's why I'm here isn't it?_ Zach glanced back at Bakugo, and Bakugo's eyes opened just a bit wider at the look of hesitation and confusion on Zach's face that he felt probably matched his own right there.

"The thrill of an intense fight?" Zach wondered at his old classmate. "The fear that I could die leaving behind so much unfinished business? Or something else?" Zach turned his head back forward and said in a low voice, "Terra changed me. As much as I enjoyed fighting before, I liked fighting a lot more in controlled settings with friends than against my enemies. But, the people in Terra were warriors." The way Zach said the word 'warriors' sounded so strange to Bakugo who felt like he knew Zach was making all this up.

"Warriors?" Bakugo muttered as he felt like Zach had a tone of respect in his voice for the word.

"From childhood they were trained in combat. They used their Quirks as weapons, and they were savage and cruel towards each other. They killed each other by the thousand in wars that ravaged the world, and yet despite how dark that might seem to us, in that world people lived happy lives too." Zach shook his head and continued with a half-smile, "Those wars going on war the normal for them, and they all lived their lives to the fullest despite that darkness surrounding them. Despite towns and cities getting raided and burned, mass rape and murder and enslavement of other races… it was horrible." Zach's smile was gone, but he continued while frowning now, "I tried to bring the light from our world, a world run by heroes, into that other darker world."

"You know, I don't believe any of this?" Bakugo started to Zach. He said it in a wondering tone as to why Zach would keep saying all this to him despite having to know that Bakugo knew the truth already. "I'm not like the rest of them. I knew from the fucking start you were Death, and that you got the next Death to tell people they were getting brought back so no one would think it was you anymore."

Zach shrugged his shoulders, and Bakugo's eyes opened wide with them shaking at Zach's uncaring shrug. "Doesn't really matter what you think, long as you don't have any proof," Zach said it and gave Bakugo a look that made Bakugo's heart race. The right corner of Zach's lips was lifted, as if daring Bakugo to find that proof, because then the two of them really could have that fight that he and Bakugo both wanted anyway.

It took a second, but then Bakugo's eyes narrowed and his lips twisted up into an insane smirk right back at him. _You're a crazy fucker._ "Guess you're right. I don't have any proof. So go ahead, make up your bullshit all you want."

"Thank you," Zach replied just as sarcastically back at his old classmate. "I succeeded, in bringing the light to that world. I brought a better way of dealing with enemies than just killing them all." Zach chuckled and lowered his smirk into more of an ironic smile, "I showed people a better way, which surprised me because I was the last person who I thought would be able to do something like that." Bakugo grunted in agreement with that, as bringing a 'light' into any other world did not seem like something Zach would be able to do. "The kind of person I was though," Zach continued. "From our better world but hardened despite it, allowed me to survive Terra when I don't think anyone else would have been able to." Zach shifted his eyes to the side and hesitated for a moment, _Though if a single person from here could have, if anyone could have, it would have been you._

Bakugo darted his eyes to the side in a pissed off way, only to freeze and for his steps to stop too as he caught the way Zach was looking at him that gave away his thoughts. Zach continued walking and Bakugo moved too though he was still stuck thinking on the way Zach just gave him that look. "I was tricky enough to face the most ruthless and clever Generals, powerful enough to take on their strongest warriors, and I could adapt. I adapted to fighting like them, because I couldn't always do things the way heroes should. A lot of the time I fought like them, and as much as I brought Earth's ways to that world, I probably came back with some of their values too. Because those people only knew war. They were raised on the morals of war, and many of them loved fighting. It was what they were good at. Killing too." Zach admitted that almost like he was tacking it on, and Bakugo gave him a much more confused look that he would admit even something like that. He frowned deeper at Zach too, but despite knowing that Zach saw it, the black haired boy did not stop himself, "Some of my comrades were just natural killers, but they were willing to stop killing as much and to only fight for the side of good. Yet, those warriors who were so good at fighting got that good because they loved it."

Zach gave a look back at Bakugo knowing he knew what he was talking about. "Because they spent all their time training and working out and using their skills to become the best of the best. They all wanted to be the strongest. And, I thought about how when I was younger I trained nonstop in martial arts. I trained with Dabi using weapons, my grappling gun and knives, and I taught myself to use Death to get even stronger."

"That's what everyone does," Bakugo growled, getting pissed by the way Zach was speaking like he had such a unique fucking story.

"No, a lot of people are fine not being the best," Zach countered right back, denying Bakugo and suggesting that Bakugo was one of the few who actually felt that way. The way Zach said it made it out like he was reminding Bakugo that he just happened to always be surrounded by people who also felt like that, other top heroes and hero recruits going for the top. Bakugo grumbled under his breath as he reminded himself that he purposely surrounded himself by those people in the first place. Zach continued after Bakugo did not try to counter that a second time, "I trained hard to master the powers I discovered, and to incorporate my weapon use into my fighting style. All those weapons I use, I use them because I knew from before I had good control over Death how I could fight strong people even without my Quirk, and when my Quirk runs out I can still fight because of all that tech. I learned how to fight in a hundred fighting styles because I needed to. And it was challenging. And sometimes I would lose, showing me the faults in my styles that almost got me killed, or that got my comrades killed like I did today, and I would correct my mistakes."

 _Like you did today? Fuck. You definitely didn't see me beforehand. That expression, what you were doing out there, it wasn't for me. How much is deception and how much is just you struggling? I can't fucking tell. I knew what you said out on that trail was real. Some of it at least. Pissed me off that it was really you coming back. Still pisses me the fuck off that you think you can come talk to me after all that. If you give me something I can use to get our fight I'll use it though. You know that, don't you? If not, then say something that will… Yeah, say something. Give it away. Like he would,_ Bakugo thought sarcastically at himself. _He's got lying mastered, and he knows how to find the loopholes to say all this shit while- damn it, his fucking story was the only way he could admit all this shit and still somehow not be admitting anything. I hate the way you do it, but it's fucking smart._

"…I made myself more and more powerful, and I learned more and more techniques, and I could fight against an army of warriors by myself and still not despair because I believed myself to be the best." Zach turned and stared straight into Bakugo's eyes with an intense look and his face not looking like it did as Zach's anymore. "I became a warrior." He said it and for a second Bakugo felt like he was staring at a completely different person. "A soldier. A commander." The two of them stopped, not far from the area their other classmates were in now, but far enough that Zach knew he was still out of Imino's range at least. "I learned the tactics and strategies of war, and I implement them into my every day life because life is kind of like a war. We're all struggling against our own problems, and we come up to life and death fights often, and that was what the fight with the Subspace Devils was like."

"The reason I think I enjoyed that fight so much," Zach started, saying it seriously while facing Bakugo with the two of them just standing there in the forest together. "It's because I'm still that person too. As much as when I talked to you, Midoriya, and Todoroki in that national park, I told you that I was still Zach and that was difficult for me, that doesn't mean that when I realized it that I stopped being the other person either. I am everyone I've ever been." Zach said that intensely and locked his eyes on Bakugo's red ones that stared straight back and searched Zach's eyes for any sign that he was fucking with him here. Bakugo did not see it though, and he felt an odd clenching feeling in his stomach at the way Zach was looking at him like he wanted to much for Bakugo to just believe what he was saying here as truth. "All those experiences bundled into one. And I know that at different points in my life I had totally different mindsets and goals, but even if my aspirations change I'm still myself. And the one who bonded with his fellow soldiers who explained to him why the battle was fun, why they enjoyed it, and the one who tried to enjoy it like them and became one of them, is the same as the person I am now."

Zach shook his head and then said while locking his eyes back on Bakugo's. "Sometimes when you go undercover you have to go in deep, so deep that it's a shock when you get out because you still feel like the person you were undercover. But for me it's the opposite. I wanted to make my cover perfect, so it went beyond acting. I didn't just act like the person I infiltrated as, I convinced myself that I was that person and _became_ that person."

"You-" Bakugo started, but he stopped himself and grimaced harder as he was about to respond to what Zach was saying like it was all truth.

Zach continued fast as Bakugo cut himself off. "I became an Italian mobster for a few days," Zach said it quickly and did not stop while Bakugo looked at him in sudden confusion and surprise. Zach said it so casually that Bakugo was wondering what he was even talking about, only for Zach to continued, "I wanted to stop the crime lords in Italy from hurting anyone else, but if I removed them altogether then I would have just made even bigger problems in the long run. But in order to get them to understand me and to be able to change them from inside, I needed to understand them first. So I decided to care about the things they care about and think like they think, and I turned the mob legitimate in a way that the families respected because I did it as an Italian mobster." Bakugo's eyes were wide and just staring at Zach in complete confusion as he admitted all of this without stopping like he did not care what he was saying.

 _It doesn't matter. Midoriya figured out even more already, before he even figured out the truth on Inazuma. It's not enough proof, and Bakugo would find out himself anyway- if Midoriya said anything about it._ Zach convinced himself it was fine in a sudden nervous pause at the look on Bakugo's face, but then he just continued strongly, "I went in heavy-handed, but I made sure they knew it was their choice. I laid the choices out before them, and I let them change themselves with me just there as a friendly moderator for it all." His voice lowered and he said in a darker voice, "I couldn't trust them keeping to their word once I was gone, so I got in touch with a hero and had him take my place." Zach paused again, and then he finished in a low voice, "I wanted to leave things better than I found them, and I'm sure I succeeded. But when I was there with the mobs, the ones I didn't have to shut down at least, I wanted to be their friend. To get them to see I was right, by relating with them and getting in close to the Dons, and then not just threaten them but to change things up from the position of power I put myself into."

"How did you do this?" Bakugo asked, trying to make it a growl but sounding more surprised and confused than anything. "And in a couple days-" Bakugo continued, before grinding his teeth as he believed that bit Zach said about being a mobster 'for a few days' at the start.

Zach just continued along the line he was going in instead of changing to answer those questions. "When I was there I knew I was undercover. I knew every word I said, every action I made, I was making to seem like an Italian gangster. And yet when I left, I didn't feel much different. I didn't keep speaking Italian or using gangster mannerisms, but the relationships I made while acting the part still felt real." Zach cracked a small smile and shook his head while saying, "I could probably go back to Italy right now and go join any of the mob families I helped change. Get a job involved in insurance, or loans, or a protection service." He chuckled as he listed off the legitimate businesses he had turned the Dons to focus on. "But," he started again while looking Bakugo intensely in the eyes. "There's no reason to head to Italy though, as Italy has the third lowest villain rates of any country in the world. I think the mob's doing a good job of keeping other villains from arising into a space they already fill. That was why it was better using them for that than getting rid of them altogether."

Zach finished and he panted for a few seconds while staring into Bakugo's eyes. He didn't say anything else, and he just watched his former classmate watch him back. Bakugo's mouth opened, and the teen his height staring him back in the eyes questioned in a dark voice, "Why would you tell me all of that?"

"Because," Zach replied without hesitating. "I think you would understand it. I don't know why, but the idea that I'm still a warrior from that world is the same as feeling like an Italian mafioso still. And, I just wanted to tell you something that's true. Something you could check on and _see_ is true. Something I did as the vigilante Zach Sazaki. Something _real._ And it was real, Bakugo. Everything I just said."

 _He thinks we all just think of him as a liar now. Every face he makes. Every word out of his mouth. I doubt every fucking thing he says at least. I don't know about everyone else._ Bakugo's eyes narrowed at Zach, then he turned away and headed back towards their classes. "Whatever," he muttered, annoyed at the response he received from his question, and annoyed that he had asked a question like that in the first place. _I could check it. It's all going to be as he said though, if that's what he told me. He could just be saying that to get me to trust him again. And he knows that that's probably how I'd think, and that's why he's looking at me like that right now. Fuck you though. It should be frustrating. You really think it would be easy?_

 _I can't tell if he believes even a single word of it,_ Zach watched Bakugo until he was out of sight, then Zach turned and he headed off a different direction instead of going to join all the others. _Still have equipment left I should have been gathering up._

Kirishima turned his head and looked at Bakugo when his classmate came out of the woods. He frowned himself at the look on Bakugo's face, and he asked while walking over to him, "You didn't find Zach?" He figured Bakugo was going in there to look for Zach, and Bakugo looked over his shoulder in a way that made Kirishima look over it too to look for Zach. Bakugo's eyes widened for a second, then he grit his teeth in a pissed off way as Zach had vanished without him noticing.

Bakugo looked back forward and after a second muttered, "Nope. Didn't see him." He walked forward past the redhead who frowned at him at what he thought was a lie.

Zach wound up missing all of the afternoon training sessions. He missed all the fun activities, which by the time of the arm wrestling tournament actually started being fun for the students who got into cheering for their friends. He arrived back with the classes right at the end of the arm wrestling "strength" tournament, over thirty minutes after he left Inasa, Dendo, and Uraraka. Everyone was focused on the finals so no one noticed him come over, and everyone was shouting for either Shoji or Hisashi though Zach kept from cheering for either one of them when he arrived.

Mineta nearly jumped out of his shoes when he glanced to the side and saw Zach standing a foot away from him. "Whoa!" Mineta made others around him look over and also get surprised looks on their faces at the sight of Zach there with them.

"Go for it!" Zach called out, his cheer less specific than the others' around him who mostly called out a name with their encouragements.

 _Is he even on my side?_ Hisashi wondered, while grinding his sharp teeth and pushing his hairy arm harder into Shoji's very muscular and large one.

 _Don't lose focus!_ Shoji pushed harder and his eyes narrowed over his mask as he pushed all his strength into it, his arm pushing Hisashi's back even while the hairy beast of a Shiketsu student pushed harder against him.

 _Guess it's not the team competition anymore,_ Porrolo thought while glancing Zach's direction. "Come on Hisashi!" He yelled out, figuring his classmate needed more encouragement the way things were looking. He was still sore from his shitty first round matchup against Shoji too, and he yelled, "Kick his butt!"

"They're arm wrestling," Bibi mumbled next to the spiky-white-haired teen.

"Go Shoji!" Mineta yelled, spinning back and calling it out at the large boy who pushed forward and slammed Hisashi's arm down which caused his opponent to yell out in pain. "HAHAA! Another victory for U.A.!" Mineta called out, pumping a fist in the air in victory.

"Well, you needed a win today," Kotsumura countered over to the shorter boy who frowned back with an 'ehhh?'

"You were gone for quite a while," Ashido mentioned, and Zach looked behind him to his right at the pink girl who came up to his side. She hesitated when he looked at her, but a second later she smiled lightly and her eyes told him that things were alright. Zach was worried about it after not having spoken to her much at all since Inazuma Island. "What took you so long?" She wondered softer, as he had come back looking okay but she wondered about if that was really true.

"There was no rush to grab all my equipment," Zach replied. "I had set it up around the whole dome as soon as our training started much quicker, but I was able to walk around to gather it all up this time."

Bakugo frowned over at Zach who he saw and heard talking under the voices of others talking about going back and setting up camp now. There were a lot of people looking Zach's way besides him, but the mention of Zach's equipment again made him grind his teeth at what had happened in that cave. Despite all Zach had just talked to him about, the thing that still mattered to him more than any of it was the lost fight against his old classmate who was beating himself over his _victory._ Bakugo knew exactly how that felt though. Even winning the Sports Festival the first year, he had felt the same way in that it did not feel like much of a victory for him. _We all went as hard as we could though. He's not pissed at any one of us for fucking it up for him. He's just pissed that he lost. Upset, more like. Damn it, what the fuck was all that shit he said? None of it makes any sense. If he was trying that hard to tell me something "real" then why start off with all that bull about warriors and Terra if you were going to mention the Italian mob too? Is he fucking crazy? Actually crazy?_

This time, Bakugo did not think it at Zach with a smile on his face at how crazy and daring Zach was. It wasn't a fun thought that made him smirk afterwards about going after someone crazy strong and crazy smart like that. It just made him frown deeper as he looked at Zach in between several of his Class A classmates talking so casually. The sight of that made him get a darker look on his face again though, _He gave up everything? Yeah right. Look at that asshole. Like nothing ever fucking happened._ Bakugo's eyes darkened with a more pissed off look over his face. _Don't try making things better with me, Zach. You burned that bridge, and if no one else will, I'm going to make sure that the you who did that still gave up something. FUCK! Even if you are_ _ **all**_ _those 'yous' from every- shit, SHIT! Does he know?! Oh that mother fucker!_

"…You scared the crap out of me," Mineta admitted to Zach while walking on his other side as Ashido back towards the middle of the dome. "I thought I actually had you for a second."

"It wold have worked on anyone else," Zach replied to Mineta, an impressed look on his face that surprised the shorter boy next to him when Zach gave him it.

Ashido also looked to the right in surprise at what Zach just said, "What'd you do?"

Zach continued after Ashido's question, "Your Grape Rush made it so I couldn't dodge in any direction when those two Pop-Offs came at me."

"But you just let them hit you anyway- and you beat me _because_ they hit you!" Mineta exclaimed as it was the fact that he bounced off his own Pop-Offs that Zach was able to send him flying so easily.

"No, I just adapted to the fact that I was going to have to be hit by those Pop-Offs one way or another," Zach replied. "So I figured I'd let them hit my fists so I could send you flying with your own attacks. It would work better at making you panic than if they just hit other parts of my body like I was accepting being hit. Instead, I made it seem like I _wanted_ to get hit." Mineta's eyes grew huge at Zach's explanation, as he had thought the whole time that Zach knew he was going to get hit like that from the start and wanted it to happen, wanted Mineta to make those moves, and that had been making him doubt his whole strategy.

"That's why I'm saying it would have worked on pretty much anyone," Zach continued again. "Maybe not Inasa, or Dendo could have possibly Sliced both of the ones coming at him too. Anyone else though and it would have worked."

Mineta grinned and let out a sigh of disappointment even while still smiling. "Yeah, well I didn't really expect to last against you anyway. I was kind of hoping you'd at least have to use Death though."

"No you don't," Ashido started. Mineta looked over at her and Zach glanced left too, and a couple of others right behind them looked to her too wondering what she meant by that. Uraraka shivered though and one of the Shiketsus next to her glanced at the short brunette before opening their eyes wide at the nervous expression Uraraka got on her face. Ashido continued after a second when Zach gave her a look, "I mean, you took Sero out like- like it was already pretty hard just facing you without it, but it was like if you decided to use your Quirk then it was over in an instant! It was crazy unnerving… No offense."

"You only used it on Sero though?" Mineta asked, making sure of something that surprised him about this while also trying not to get Zach feeling bad either about seeming so scary to them. Zach looked back and gave Mineta a smile that made him pause like Zach just read his thoughts, but he continued anyway with what he actually was surprised about, "You didn't need it for Tokoyami?"

Zach reached down and he pulled a small gold piece from his belt that he rose up. A silver blade popped out of the bottom of it looking like it was your average knife, but Zach turned the blade and pointed at a button with his thumb of his right hand. "It's a flash grenade. I'd already taken down Hagakure but no one knew that, so from inside the smoke I made them think I was Hagakure trying to call for help, while I was actually weakening Dark Shadow for an instant long enough for me to knock out Tokoyami."

Tokoyami was looking over out the corners of his eyes and he frowned himself as he had not even known what happened in the smoke back there until just now. _Any enemy who knows Dark Shadow's weakness, which is everyone because of the Sports Festivals, means they could all use the same tactic. I need to get stronger at close range fighting without Dark Shadow's help, so Zach can't just take an "instant" to beat me when my power's lower. Same with anyone else…_

"So," a voice started behind Zach that made him turn his head to the side and see Kirishima walking behind him. The redhead walked along with a lot of others who acted like they were not just listening to him talk right there though kept watching as Kirishima started to Zach in a harsh tone. "Why didn't you come back for the arm wrestling competition?" Kirishima wondered. "You don't want to show off your full strength or something?" He interrogated in that same harsh tone.

"Haha, that's not it," Kameko was the one responding and Kirishima looked to his side in surprise. He did not expect the teen who had a cracked shell to speak up right there, but Kameko eased everyone up by mentioning, "Zach wouldn't even show us his 'full' strength on our Ranking Day. And he still ranked first in the class while holding back on all of us."

Zach looked away, not seeming to like boasting but also not denying what Kameko just said aloud. "What's Ranking Day?" Hagakure wondered, confused by what Kameko was talking about at all. Kameko looked at her in somewhat surprise, but then he nodded his head as it made sense that she did not know. Since last year the Shiketsus did not get too close to the U.A.'s to discuss their school's inner workings like that. "And what are you ranked?" Hagakure wondered while stepping closer to the boy with the cracked shell who nodded like he was going to tell her.

"Ranking Day's the first day of the semester or one of the first days, where we fight it out to decide our rankings in the class. In the final rankings, Zach got first, Inasa second, then Dendo, Hisashi, then me in fifth."

"And who was sixth?" Hagakure asked, making a bead of sweat roll down Kameko's face as he realized he was going to have to go through their entire class's rankings here.

Midoriya looked back for a second over his shoulder before turning back forward as he almost met Zach's eyes. He frowned at how fast he turned away at the idea of locking eyes with Zach right there, but he hummed to himself as he listened to more of the rankings being listen behind him. _The order isn't surprising- not really. I figured Manzo would probably higher though._

 _Imino's 13th?_ Kirishima thought in some surprise. "He should be higher," he muttered under his breath.

"Oh wow," Zach said suddenly, looking past Midoriya who rose his head up too and looked to the center area where all their supplies were. Just to the left of that area was a huge cleared out section of the forest, and not far from their bags and costume boxes, and the food and tents for the night, there was a massive stack of wood piled up in a triangular tower. "You guys manage all that in one trip?" Zach wondered back at Uraraka who hesitated while looking at him, wondering if that amazement was real or not.

"Yeah," she replied after a few seconds. "Inasa said he could carry most, so I didn't need to take the weight off that many though…"

"Nonsense!" Inasa called out loudly while stepping forward right next to the short girl who jumped at his booming voice. She turned to the powerful teen with a happy and wide-smiling expression who said, "We couldn't have done it in one trip without you, Uravity!"

"Uh, thank you," Uraraka was kind of put off by his overly excited demeanor, but she smiled after a moment as that was just the kind of guy he was.

"Hmm, mmm, yes yes," Iida looked through the food the teachers had left for them and nodded his head in an approving way at the nutritional value he was seeing. Then he turned and looked into the wide clearing area just past a couple of trees too close to the central area that Zach's Death wind had not spread there. He looked left and right along that area, seeing many tree stumps but a good amount of space on the dirt between them where tents could be pitched. He also looked at the huge pile of logs stacked up nicely along with the smaller piles next to them that he could only see now that he was closer. There were small piles of twigs and kindling Dendo chopped up smaller for easier fire-starters, not that Iida thought they would need them with Todoroki and Bakugo both able to ignite fires anyway.

Muoko came over to Iida and spoke in a low voice, and Tomoki and Yaoyorozu came over to speak as well. What followed was a short argument about how the rest of the night would go, but they came to agreement and then called everyone together for an announcement. "I am sure many of us want to get out of our hero uniforms and into more casual clothes to wear around for the rest of the night. So we'll set up our tents now to give everyone some privacy," Tomoki began.

"As the tents each fit four people comfortably, and there are forty-nine of us here, we will set up twelve tents and one tent will have a fifth person in it," Yaoyorozu continued. "We have decided not to force there to be a Shiketsu to U.A. ratio in the tents, so you can pick your own tent-mates."

"However! We will be doing one large bonfire," Muoko said. "That way we all can sit together and ease the tensions our previous encounters have caused. We must be able to talk with one another, to work with one another, to stop villains together once we have graduated."

"So," Iida started at the end, figuring it would be good for him to speak up too since all the other reps had and they were nearing the end of what they had decided together. "We will now split up into three groups. The first team working on digging a fire pit, building a structure with the wood for a safe fire but also one that will last a long time, and starting said bonfire. The second team will work on setting up the kitchenware we were provided, and cooking the food to make a dinner for the rest of the classes. And the third team will be responsible for pitching the tents far enough from the fire that we do not have to worry about noise from those sitting at it late into the night, as well as close enough as to not be a problem to walk back and forth to-"

"Umm," Hagakure began, throwing her hand up that had a glove on it for everyone to see it. She had already gotten changed too back into clothes, but there was another concern she had. "What about, um, do we have a… I mean-"

"Bathrooms," Muoko muttered, realizing it herself and then realizing that she also needed to relieve herself soon.

"We could build a latrine," Zach suggested. Others looked over to their classmate or former classmate who curled his lip and shrugged a shoulder at the look he received from many of them. "It's not hard. Should take as long as any of those other jobs."

"You've built one before?" Midoriya wondered, glancing towards Zach confusedly at the suggestion.

Zach nodded in response. "It's either that or we walk all the way to the exit and go to an actual bathroom every time. And, I don't know if we're allowed to do that-"

"Then get to building one," Jirou muttered, though her voice came out louder than she expected since no one else had spoken over her and Zach actually stopped instantly as the words started coming from her mouth. She just got more annoyed by that and looked away, not even making eye contact with Zach after what he had done earlier. She just pushed him from her mind when the afternoon activities started, which had been easy since he had gone off somewhere to do whatever. _Just go away again,_ Jirou thought in frustration as she could see him looking her way out the corners of her eyes.

Zach closed his mouth and then looked around and nodded his head, "Sure thing. I could use some help though," he looked to Yaoyorozu who nodded as she understood how she could help him. Then he glanced to Hanodo, "Hanodo, Inasa, and Tokoyami could you help too?" Zach looked over towards the dark boy whose eyes opened a bit in surprise that Zach would ask him. Then he nodded though back at his former classmate without saying anything, while Hanodo and Inasa both agreed too.

"Do it far from camp," Iida began. "Not too far that it is a hassle to reach, but enough that if there becomes a smell from-"

"Yes Iida, we understand," Yaoyorozu said to the taller boy before he could say something disgusting when they were going to eat dinner soon.

Zach looked to Yaoyorozu gratefully for a moment, only to look away as she turned back to him and her eyes shifted the way they looked when they locked with his own. "Alright let's do it. With this team we should get it done quickly."

"Thank you," Hagakure whispered as Zach was walking past her, and he flashed a quick smile to the girl next to him who was really needing that bathroom right now.

"So," Hanodo ran up next to Zach and walked with him as they headed into the clearing and straight across for where it seemed like Zach was heading to build the latrine. "When did you make latrines before? Back when you were in the war in Terra?"

"Yeah, when I was on the run here there was never any need. I could just use whatever forest I was hiding in, buy some toilet paper nearby-" Zach saw Hanodo's eyes suddenly grow wide, but Zach glanced behind him and said, "No need to worry." Hanodo looked back, and he stared at Yaoyorozu who had been overhearing their conversation and nodded her head with a small smile at the Shiketsu boy.

 _Oh yeah, she could create a bunch of toilet paper to leave in there._ "By the way, Momo," Zach started to the girl behind him. Hanodo gave him a strange look and Inasa shifted his gaze to the corner of his eyes though Tokoyami was not surprised to hear Zach say her first name. "Could you start making a few shovels for us?"

 _So that was your plan?_ Yaoyorozu wondered, somewhat confused at how Zach came up with this. _There were better ways… Oh._ "Sure thing, Zach," Yaoyorozu replied with a nod back at him. She looked away and her chest started to glow, and she reached in to grab the handle of the first shovel she was making. _Kyoka could easily break apart the ground. After what she said back there though, do you think you cannot ask her for help? Or, do you not want to? I know she went to see you once already. She didn't say she did, but I know that's what she was doing that day when she left so soon after you came back. Yet neither of you mentioned it to me. I wish, you would. Whatever you said though, it did not make her forgive you at all. She is still so, so angry about what you did. You did that to her. And, you know that. I know you know that. So why haven't you done anything about it? I know you can't come to U.A., and- and this might be the first time since… you're going to talk to her tonight then, aren't you?_

Yaoyorozu wondered it at Zach's back, but he was talking to Hanodo, Inasa, and Tokoyami now about how they were going to go about building the latrines, plural, once Yaoyorozu had given them their shovels. "Usually we had people with specific Quirks great for building these, though they got pissed they were being put on the same _shitty_ job each time." Zach cracked the joke and bounced his eyebrows to the right at his Shiketsu friends who laughed, though Tokoyami just gave Zach a strange look at the joke as he wondered if it had any truth to it. "It was the same thing with cooking or washing dishes or cleaning the camp, there were always people with specific Quirks that could help out with it, but I'd never force anyone to do the same job over and over if they didn't like it. It wasn't fair and it would lead to my soldiers treating each other differently. They needed to know I was the one deciding jobs so if they had any problems it was all directed at me."

"It was better if they were mad at you than at each other?" Hanodo wondered.

"Definitely," Zach replied. "Because they all trusted me more than anyone else. I was their leader, and I was also the hard-ass who would scold them if they fucked up and the person who would tell them to do better even when they were doing great. I didn't sleep in the same tents as them when they'd sleep in huge ones with dozens of people in them, I had my own private one. I had to separate myself from the rest of them. Well, my lower commanders thought it would be better if I did, and I kind of just accepted that."

"What, you wanted to be part of the group?" Hanodo asked with a crack of a smile as it sounded pretty childish when Zach was talking all this army stuff right here.

"Kind of," Zach admitted. "I was actually disappointed when they gave me a single tent at first. But, I realized the benefits of having it. The benefits of being on my own outweighed how I wouldn't be treated as just another one of 'the guys.' I had to be more than that. I was their leader at that point, which meant that they had to see me as separated from them so that they wouldn't think of me as much as a friend and as more of a general."

Tokoyami stared at Zach with his eyes growing wider and wider at the conversation. _Is everything he says related to the Army of Death? Does this all correlate to reality, or is it reality?! I haven't talked to him enough to understand what he's saying. It could all just be part of the lie he's telling. It probably is. If this was how the AoD was actually run then he wouldn't tell people about it, or if it came out how the AoD ran then he would have given it away that he was Death all along! Right?_

"Anyway, Tokoyami I don't think you really need a shovel. Momo could make you an umbrella or large reflective tarp to put overhead to make it dark right now, and you could dig out holes quicker than Hanodo and I could…" Zach continued talking to his classmates and old friends, and he stopped to show them that he thought they were at a good place to set up the latrine. They were not as far as some thought Iida wanted them, but Zach told them how the place they were going to set up would not smell bad and the ventilation would point the other way. Not many of them understood it, but none of them were experienced in digging latrines when they all suspected Zach was.

Even Yaoyorozu just listened to what Zach was saying while watching him carefully. _While he was on the run I am sure he had to spend many nights hiding in the woods. And while he gained followers but before he had any moving headquarters that I believe he had, he must have camped often. When using motels was too risky, when you were with a group of around twenty just hiding in forests, you probably had nights like these often where you all stayed in tents or cabins and made your own food, built your own latrines- even if it was not the ten thousand man armies you talk about so often, I could translate those stories into reality just fine._

 _I need to go talk to Jirou. We have to finish all the set up before I can, and I have to get her away from the camp before I do. I doubt she'll actually come to talk with me. I really need to do this though. More than talking to anyone else, I need to fix things with her. I want to._

The Shiketsu and U.A. students worked hard to complete each of their tasks. Tents were pitched all over a cleared area of trees. Some of the largest logs brought over by the group who made the clearing in the first place were placed between tree stumps that made almost a perfect circle-ish area in the clearing. Those logs made what looked like benches between the tree stumps, and the fire group were busy digging a shallow pit in the middle and bringing over wood for the pyre they were building for the bonfire tonight. The latrine group finished their job quicker than anyone else, and Zach left on his own to join the cooking group who were still setting up their kitchen area and had not started cooking yet.

"Oh, and I bet you're a master chef too?" Ashido joked at the boy next to her who just came up at the counter they had set up next to the stove they had Todoroki light. "When did you master that?"

"I lived in the wild for months," Zach replied. "Mostly on my own, or almost by myself," he added while looking the pink girl in the eyes. Ashido looked back at him with an expression showing she was listening, and Zach kept his description vague but also realistic as he talked to the girl he knew also knew the truth. "While I was island hopping across the Pacific I had to clean and cook fish all the time. I spent a lot of time in American forests too early on after I left, and I cooked a good amount of food just like this in a camping environment."

Todoroki frowned over before looking back at the prep table he and one of the Shiketsu students were at getting the food ready. _That doesn't sound necessarily like a lie. More likely a truth he throws in somewhere to make the lies seem less false. Show that he has told the truth before- but then stuff like this is unrealistic!_

"…once I had that many people, I needed to establish positions for who would cook, who would clean, and I pretty much stopped cooking my own food. I had my own cooks practically until the day I came back, and then in prison again I never had to make my own food-"

"Love how you can bring that up so casually in a conversation," Kotsumura mentioned from down on Zach's right side where he was cutting up vegetables with Porrolo and Koda who both glanced over less assuredly as Kotsumura. "I mean, you were in frickin' Tartaros for God's sake. Treat it like less of a 'oh yeah I was in jail for a while' kind of thing. That's super-max. Worst of the worst."

"Guess that means I'm worst of the worst," Zach said, his eyes lowering down and his expression darkening. Kotsumura's eyes opened wide and the three closest to him all darted looks at the blond. While they all darted him those looks, he was still looking towards Zach, and he saw Zach's eyes lift up along with the corners of his lips for a split second only to drop back down before anyone else frowning at Kotsumura could see him.

Kotsumura's jaw dropped farther at what he just saw Zach do, then he spun back and forth to the people judging him and shook his head. "He's joking! He's totally just messing around."

Ashido turned and looked at Zach wondering if that was true, and Zach lifted his eyes with a sad look that could not hold as Ashido rose an eyebrow at him. He chuckled and she lowered her bottom lip this time as she was the one being tricked here, and Kotsumura called at the back of her head, "See?!"

"Not funny-" Ashido lifted a hand to smack Zach on the shoulder, but she hesitated and her expression lost the carefree look in it as she flinched instead. Zach lost his smile at the way she was suddenly looking at him, and he could imagine what she was hearing in her head right now. There were a dozen things she could have just thought of from the night on Inazuma Island, but whatever it was made Ashido lower her hand down and then turn back to the food she was taking out of boxes that had been left for them.

"I'm going, to go clean these off," Ashido said, picking up more of the vegetables from the box and then turning to head over to their water tank that was back with everyone's things.

Kotsumura opened his mouth while looking back at Zach, a small grin on his face as he considered making a joke about a 'lover's quarrel.' He hesitated himself though as he saw Zach looking down at their station and frowning over what just happened in a darker way. _Thought they were really good friends? That was, pretty awkward._

 _Did something happen?_ Todoroki's eyes shifted away without his head moving to let Zach know he found what just happened suspicious. _Something else happened that night they went to the fair. They, learned something. They must have figured him out. Or did he admit something to them? The look on her face for a moment there. What was it?_

 _ **"How many times?!"**_ _I don't get it. How is he just standing there and talking to us? How is he so alright?_ Ashido closed her eyes tighter and then opened them to try and focus on what she said she was going over here to do. _**"How many times was I the sole survivor? How many times did I go in with four others and walk out alone? How many times?"**_ _How many people did you have to kill in that Pit? If that were me, I, I never would have gotten over it. I never would have been able to get past- but, does that mean you're just more okay with it to be able to still be like this? Or, or am I even talking to the real Zach? Is it all just more… more what? Bologna? Nonsense?_

"Hey Mina," Zach started, and the pink girl bent down in front of the water tank turned her head in surprise as he snuck up on her. "How're, you doing?" Zach wondered when she spun to him like that.

Ashido froze and stared at Zach with her eyes stuck in a wide and shaky position. _How am I dealing with everything, you mean? Am I okay after everything we heard or- or are we okay? Like, how are me and you?_ Ashido smiled and lost her surprised and semi-anxious look. _"Mina."_ She hummed at Zach and started shaking her head, laughing at herself quietly under her breath for a second and then shaking her head faster and lifting a hand she quickly wiped over her eyes with.

Hearing him say her name right there reminded her of the first time he and her had hung out just the two of them since he came back. _**"I would have been back in a heartbeat, if I heard you were dying,"**_ _It didn't make sense if you were in some alternate world, but I didn't care then. Because I knew it was the truth when you were saying it._ _ **"I never stopped caring about all of you. The 'goodbye' was so you wouldn't come looking, not because I really meant it. We'll always be friends. 'Til the end, okay?"**_ _You still are the real Zach. Asking me how I'm doing after all I just heard you went through? You're such a-_ "I'm doing just fine," Ashido said, and she humphed at Zach who lifted his eyebrows back at the smiling girl who seemed mildly upset or at least like she was pretending to be upset about something.

"What?"

"And how are you doing?" Ashido asked. Zach pulled his head back and stared at Ashido in surprise, and then a laugh slipped out of his lips as the reason Ashido was acting mad was because he asked her first when she should have _clearly_ asked him first. It made her seem like not as good a friend, and Zach smiled brighter at the girl who just by asking it in that way made his response that bit brighter.

"I'm doing…" Zach stopped himself. He lowered his smile a little, and he glanced over his shoulder for a moment before stepping closer to Ashido with a somewhat serious look coming to his face. Ashido gave him a narrowed look as for some reason she thought this was also going to be a joke like what he just did to Kotsumura before. Zach did have something a bit more serious he wanted to say though, and he said in a low voice, "I actually, need your help with something. It's a big favor, and I know you're already-"

"What is it?" Ashido asked, not caring to hear the rest of that sentence.

Zach smiled again at how quickly she was willing to help him out with this. "Thanks. Alright, here's what I need you to do…"

* * *

In the evening on the night of the joint training, darkness had already fallen over the winter sky outside the dome which meant it was dark inside it too. There was a good chunk of the forest illuminated though from the raging bonfire in the middle of a wide clearing, as well as because of the lights Yaoyorozu had put up in a path to the latrine, as well as around the cooking area and where all the supplies had been earlier. Everyone had already brought their own bags to their tents which were mostly split between U.A. and Shiketsu students, except for three tents. Two of the girls' tents were mixed between schools, and Zach's tent had him, Kotsumura, Porrolo, Mineta, and Sero (who had been brought over by Ectoplasm and left in the tent where they hoped he would wake up in before the night was over).

Zach had mentioned loudly that he was sure he did not hit Sero with enough to take him out for an entire day, but he had needed to attack fast so that Sero could not escape to Midoriya and warn him what was happening, so he had been unable to hold back any more than that. As he was talking about that part of the training in a carefree voice though and like he was talking up Sero's ability to force him into using Death on him, he was internally cursing himself for messing up there too. Sero's mobility had been one of the factors he had taken into account, but he still left Sero for one of the last ones to go after which he now doubted whether it would not have been better to leave Tokoyami or Ojiro for later on.

The sun had set and most of the students were around the fire, though the cooking group was still working hard on making dinner for everyone. Yaoyorozu and a couple of others were setting up tables in the clearing between the first tents and the fire, but some of the students had talked about just eating at their seats closer to the fire anyway. The tents had been picked so the students had been able to get changed out of their hero costumes with some privacy, and everyone was walking around in casual clothing now for the night. The cooks had started up their prep work before the tents were set up, so afterwards they waited for their tent mates to change before heading over one or two at a time to get changed themselves. Jaime looked around though as it had gotten dark and Yaoyorozu was over near them creating more lights for them to keep working with.

"Anyone know where Zach went?" The exchange student wondered, looking over at the boys in her class to see if he told them something.

"Thought he was just changing his uniform," Porrolo replied, though he looked up from the chicken meat he was pulling apart (using latex gloves provided for them) to put into the stew they were having. "Though it has been a bit," Porrolo added.

Yaoyorozu glanced back but then continued with her Creating which was exhausting at this point, though it just made her look forward to the upcoming meal more. She heard Kotsumura behind her though, "I bet he's still upset about earlier. Probably checking out the rest of the dome to see what he could have done better."

"Yeah, that's definitely it," Ashido agreed with Kotsumura with a nod back at the blond who grinned that he was right about that.

Yaoyorozu frowned though and turned her head towards the pink girl whose response sounded off to her. _The fact that one of his Shiketsu friends knows him well enough to expect that would not make you respond in a cheerful way, but a frustrated one, if you responded at all. Even if it was what you were thinking, your tone would have been different. You replied like you knew where he was already. Like he told you, maybe? Except, I don't believe you. Maybe he did tell you something though._ Yaoyorozu hummed to herself and her eyes shifted from the chefs working around her, over to the fire pit and all the dozens of students near it. Her eyes widened and her head turned the other way, looking back into the thicker forest before shifting her eyes back to Ashido who had a bright and cheerful smile on her face. Upon closer inspection though, Yaoyorozu caught Ashido's eyes shift towards the dense forest too with a hint of anxiety in her eyes as to what was going on in there.

Ashido looked back in front of her and took in a deep breath. _Everything will be fine. I'm amazing though. Just, the best friend. And a great distractor!_

A few minutes earlier, Ashido had asked Midoriya to help her look for some make-up she had "accidentally" dropped over near the latrine. She said the lights over there were too dim and she could not find it, but ultimately they did find it rather quickly after going over. In a brief moment though between when Midoriya headed off to the latrines ahead of Ashido to help her out, and when Ashido ran after him to look for her cosmetics, the pink girl had stopped next to one of her friends who was walking back alone from her tent after getting changed herself. A quick whisper to her dark-haired friend about how Midoriya had something important he needed to talk to her about before heading off into the forest to the west made Jirou inconspicuously head off after him, while unknowingly moving the opposite direction that Deku was going.

 _I'm going to kill you Mina._ Jirou ground her teeth, and she thought in frustration as she glared at the person standing in front of her isolated from the rest of their classmates, _I should have known. Why would Midoriya go to Ashido first to ask me? Just because I was changing at the time so he could have missed me- damn it._ "I'm going back," Jirou said, frowning at the boy who had not changed yet and was still standing in his hero uniform. It was pretty dark around them, though the light from the fire far back still reached deep enough into the forest that along with a clear night sky and their eyes adapting to the darkness, they could each make the other out easily.

"Wait, please," Zach started.

Jirou had her body half-turned already, but she found herself hesitating and her teeth clenching hard again. _Damn it. What's wrong with him? Getting me out here alone- I don't want to talk! I made that clear last time. And he, he looks like-_ Jirou turned her body fully to him and she kept frowning but her eyes did scan up and down his body from up close for the first time. He was twenty feet ahead of her, but she could make out all the bright colors of his costume that felt so unlike him. "Changed up your costume," Jirou said. It was awkward, and she felt more awkward at what she just said that had Zach glancing down at his own clothes. His blue costume had green highlights on the shoulders and his waist, a bright red pattern near the top of the costume, and a golden belt splitting the green waistline with green and black pieces on it along with other attachments clipped on like his visor. "It's…" Jirou tried to come up with something to say about it, but she did not have any comment to make and just closed her mouth after a second in a way that showed she was not going to finish.

"Jirou," Zach started, and Jirou's teeth clenched angrily at the sound of him saying her name. "I needed to tell you something, the last time we talked. You left too quickly though, but I had to tell you that what you told me-"

"Why are you bringing this up?" Jirou snapped. She was pissed, and she felt uncomfortable as what she had said back then had been all she needed to say. _I wanted to say that to- no I_ _ **needed**_ _to tell him that!_

"That thing you told me before I left, when you came to my room-" Zach tried to start.

"I told you I took back what I said that day," Jirou snapped. She glared at Zach for bringing it up even though she had took it back already. He winced and looked away though, and Jirou flinched at the reaction. A second later though, her eyes narrowed darker and in a more furious way. "You're a liar. What makes Zach Zach is that he's a liar, and I know you're still lying!"

"I know, and I'm sorry," Zach began. "But this-"

"No!" Jirou yelled at him. Zach's eyes twitched but kept his eyes locked on her instead of looking past back towards their classes who he was sure were being loud enough that none of them heard that. His eyes stayed locked on Jirou's as she growled after her snap, "Every movement you make and word you say. You don't get to choose what's a lie and what isn't." She shook her head at him like he was an idiot for not getting that. "After you lost my trust, there is no way that I will ever believe anything you say again."

"Being the kindest, best person I know," Zach realized he was speaking to a brick wall. Trying to actually hold a conversation was going to be impossible, so he just said it aloud despite it not fitting in with what she was saying or countering it either. He just continued himself from what he began with before. She opened her mouth at him to snap something in an even louder and more pissed voice, but Zach continued quicker, "Every day!" He said it loudly and cut Jirou off so she hesitated, while also confused at what he was saying here that made her angrier too as it was most likely just more lies…

"The entire time I was gone, every single day, those words echoed in my mind." Zach told Jirou while keeping their eye contact, "You don't have to believe me, but there were decisions I made, really hard decisions that- that I thought of your words that day and they were the deciding factor." Jirou was frozen and staring at Zach still confusedly and with angry eyes, though that anger was suppressing the shock at what he was telling her with such emotional eyes and a soft tone of voice. "The path I went on was dark and full of horror, but there were moments when I could have fallen into a much deeper, darker pit. Where I could have done things that really would have," he paused and his eyes lowered from hers, breaking off eye contact as he finished, "made me lost."

While his eyes were still off of hers he added, "And there were times when I forgot your words and did…" Zach paused and he grit his teeth for a moment. Then he continued strongly while raising his eyes back to see Jirou's had finally grown and were staring back at him with more surprise than anger now at what he was admitting. "But I'd always regret those times." _As much as I could regret, without thinking too hard about any of it._ "Because wherever I was and whatever I was doing," Zach continued, taking a step forward and looking at the girl in front of him in an even more serious way. "I wanted to make sure I was still being kind, and a good person, but not because you told me to!"

Zach had to get louder and he called that out at Jirou when she opened her mouth to yell at him. He knew she was going to yell asking how he could say that after what he had done to them, what he had done in the forest, or something along those lines. _I don't have any excuse for any of that. Not for you._ "I want to," Zach began again after cutting her off early, his voice lower again and his eyes focused firmly on Jirou's angry ones that he saw were doubly pissed at him for cutting her off again. "I want to be that person, because you knew me better than anyone, and if you thought that me losing those things was Kaminari winning, then I had to make sure I never lost them."

Jirou's heart raced and her body shook at the reasoning right there. _So, so what? You want to be a good person, so that he doesn't win? That's a stupid fucking- I told you that as an aside, not to let him win because- because fuck him! Not to base everything you do-_

"I had to make sure Kaminari didn't win. That he didn't succeed in changing me." Zach smiled at Jirou and his expression softened again, "So thank you, Jirou. It's what I wanted to say. Thank you for telling me that. Without it," Zach paused and then said softer, "I would have been lost a long time ago."

He said it, and then he was the one to turn away this time. Zach turned and walked away in a different direction as back to the campsite, as that was the way Jirou was going to have to go. _She still doesn't trust me. It's easy to see, that she doesn't want to talk to me at all. Anything else I said here too, it would just make her angrier. I don't even know if what I just said will help any. I hope she knows though, that that was the truth._

 _Fucking asshole. Call me out here and the don't even let me get a word out?! He was just trying to get me to stop thinking of him as a liar. But I just told you! You don't get to decide what's real and what's going to be a lie! Idiot. That's not going to change anything. I don't care if it kept you on the right path! I didn't say it back then so that you as a terrorist could make only partially shitty decisions instead of really shitty ones! You really think I care?! I don't!_ Jirou opened her mouth, wanting so badly to shout it after him. She clenched her jaw again though and just spun on her heels to march back towards camp. _Fucking Mina setting me up and- this whole stupid trip in the first place- I don't need to be on better terms with anyone! I'm fine with all the Shiketsus except for one! I don't give a fuck about this rivalry thing! You were a terrorist that whole time you left. The Death! Until you can tell me that without- NO! Even if you could, you're still a liar. It's all lies or none of it is- and it's already all lies. Because you've decided that. I can't fucking stand this!_

Zach and Jirou returned to the campsite at different times. Enough people were wandering around or working on something that practically no one noticed how they came from relatively in the same direction. Two Class A students did though. Yaoyorozu watched as Jirou glared Zach down after he came back from a different part of the woods somewhat nearby where she exited, which Yaoyorozu had marked down in her head a few minutes earlier. The second person who saw Zach came back not long after Jirou already knew the two had talked out in the woods though. His head stayed pretty bowed and he was ready to avoid eye contact if Zach looked towards him, but Zach went straight for his tent to finally get changed without looking to the large boy with a boulder-shaped head.

 _I was wrong,_ Koda thought after Zach zipped up his tent. He turned away from the tent his sad eyes locked on, and he faked an interested expression as he looked over to some Shiketsu students talking to his friends on one side of the fire about their fight earlier. A bug flew away from Koda as the heat and smoke made it go away, but that bug had just landed right on Koda's right ear to report what it had heard after Koda sent it into the forest after his classmates. _I was worried about Jirou, but that was, that's so… sad._ Koda looked to one of his closest friends in Class A who sat on a log around the fire with her eyes occasionally glaring up and towards the cooking station where another girl was actively avoiding making eye contact.

 _She's so angry! What did Zach say to her?!_ Ashido had sweat coming down her face for another reason besides the flames heating the pot in front of her. _I thought you were going to make things better. I was so excited that you asked, so why,_ Mina's eyes shifted from Zach's tent where she saw him go back over, to where Jirou was sitting and barely masking her angry expression. _Or is this your fault? Why can't you just let him back in?_

 _I've been suspicious for too long,_ Koda thought dejectedly, looking into the raging fire before him with an upset look. His eyes had locked back on Jirou for a few seconds there before he turned away, and he grimaced as the look on her face was not one he didn't recognize. _He's not just here being undercover for the AoD. Maybe he has been lying, but, but I was too suspicious. And that suspicion has kept me from really trying to get Jirou to make up with Zach, even though I could see how much she needed it._

Koda's eyes shifted back towards that girl with her long dark purple hair tied into a ponytail who was staring into the flames herself now with a darker look on her face than just angry. _I've seen it for over a year and a half now, how much losing Zach did to her. I don't know if rekindling the two of their friendship will correct things and help her, but he's willing to try even when she hates him so much. He's willing to go that extra effort, and I know! I know he wouldn't try so hard to fix things if he was going to betray her again. I know that for a fact, that Zach wouldn't do that to us. He wouldn't do that to you. And that's how I know you're wrong._

"Well that looks more like Zach," Hagakure brought up, and Koda turned his head as the invisible girl close to him said that while looking behind her towards the tents.

Zach just came back out of his tent in a pair of black sweatpants with a black hoodie on over his shirt. Others watched him in surprise and some confusedly at what he was wearing. "Hey," Kotsumura started, as Zach got back to the cooking area and the blond saw how he was dressed. "How did you-" Kotsumura looked down and he frowned while raising his eyes to Zach who wore very comfortable-looking clothes unlike the rest of them who were mainly wearing either their school uniforms or whatever they had had on underneath them that day.

"I guessed how the day would go," Zach replied to the blond who gawked at him for a second.

Then, Kotsumura closed his mouth and replied, "Well you could have let us all in on it. Would have brought my toothbrush to school."

"What? Can't handle roughing it for one night?" Zach retorted as he headed over to a station to help finish up their dinner. "Oh no, my teeth," Zach joked as he walked behind Kotsumura's back, making Porrolo and Jaime laugh even though they had agreed when Kotsumura mentioned it a few minutes ago that they wished the teachers would have told them earlier for the same reason.

"Yeah, well I bet you went weeks- months even without a toothbrush!" Kotsumura chided back with a grin of his own. "Or did that 'medieval' world have toothbrushes when you got there?"

"It didn't," Zach replied. Kotsumura smirked more at him as Zach was admitting he was right and that he didn't brush his teeth for months. Zach then turned his head back to the blond though and added, "So I invented them on that world." Kotsumura's bottom lip fell again as did the others all in the cooking area, though Todoroki just frowned over at him and then put some more flames under one of the stew pots that was almost ready. Zach continued while working which reminded the others to get back to it too, "Life expectancy wasn't all that long over there, so most people weren't very concerned with dental health even when I brought up some stuff they could do to help with it. I made my comrades brush their teeth though, for the same reason I tried to get a lot of them to stop smoking rayal, a plant kind of like tobacco I guess," Zach added as a quick explanation.

"Why?" Porrolo wondered.

Ashido was also wondering it, though her stomach was in knots as she kept her back to Zach and tried to keep her expression from dipping. How he was speaking though, so calmly and like everything he was saying was real, it unsettled her and turned her stomach over especially as he finished. "Because I wanted them all to know I expected them to survive it. Ignoring their long-term health because of the intense fights we were in all the time, it was like telling me that they expected me to let them die out there. They saw I expected them to live a long time after the war, and I think that made a lot of them think they were going to too so it kept everyone staying healthier in their daily practices."

 _And did those people live a long time?_ Jaime wondered, though she did not dare ask it aloud. _I hope so. Not the kind of thing to ask someone though._

"Hey, you guys," the cooking crew turned to a girl with gray hair and long bangs partially covering up her eyes. Bibi paused for a moment while everyone looked at her, then she motioned behind her with a nod of her head, "Does anyone have a snack for Yaoyorozu? She's slowing down and I think she's really getting tired."

The others looked past Bibi towards the sitting area for their dinner that Yaoyorozu had lit up now too. The tables were all set up up, having been built using power-tools she Created along with screws and bolts. Yaoyorozu was finishing putting the tablecloths she made onto the tables too, and Bibi mentioned after glancing back, "She's already made a whole lot, but we still need plates and plasticware and napkins that we didn't find with the cooking supplies the teachers left."

"We could carve out fifty bowls using a tree around here," Zach suggested instead of making Momo Create anything else. He reached into his sweatshirt pocket while suggesting it anyway, and he pulled out a protein bar that he tossed to Bibi who rose her hands up with fast reflexes to catch it. She flinched when he tossed something at her and his look shifted down a little sadder for a brief moment before he returned to normal, trying not to let that be seen by the girl who caught the protein bar and looked at him with her heart racing.

 _I'm, not scared of you, anymore,_ Bibi thought. She hesitated even in her own thoughts but more in surprise than anything else. _He's doing worse at hiding his face, right? Or did he just open up to us more? I was so terrified that first day of school. And I thought that because I had all the others around me that I would be safe, but then you showed you could take us all no problem. You, you terrified me. But I'm not scared of you right now. I just flinched because of the food. I promise. What you said worked. I get now that it's why you told me in the first place._

 _ **"…It was a weak moment for me. I was, horrified. And sometimes, when I come up to decisions like I made that day in Terra, I sometimes still get that way…"**_

What Zach had told her a week and a half ago when they found themselves alone together for a training session, it echoed in Bibi's mind as she looked into Zach's eyes in a way that made his lips lift in a soft but appreciative way. _I had been thinking about how everyone else in Class 1 were so okay with you way too quickly, and I thought it was because they weren't afraid. I thought that made me less of a hero because I was so scared- that's what I thought! But then the strongest of our class, Zach Sazaki, you told me how you were afraid. Your fears of inadequacy and losing your friends? I have those same…_ "Thank you," Bibi said, and after a second she lifted the protein bar in a motion like it was what she was talking about. Then she turned and jogged off to go give it to Yaoyorozu, with no knowledge that what she was stealing was what Zach had brought the protein bar out there for in the first place.

Then again, Zach stared after Bibi and got a hesitant look on his face as he watched the girl with silver hair falling equal length around her head almost to the front of her face where it fell very long. She got up to Yaoyorozu and started talking to her and offered the protein bar, and then Zach looked back at the food he was prepping when Yaoyorozu started turning her head their way. _Haven't seen it much myself, but Reika called her a "rug-muncher" the other day in not-so-quiet a voice. She looks totally into Momo too. Focus on cooking, idiot._ Zach shook his head around and chuckled under his breath.

The cooking crew finished up the dinner they had been working on for over an hour now, and the rest of their classes who were exhausted and starving were quick to jump up to get their food. Yaoyorozu and her team called for the others to detour themselves around the tables first as they had to grab their plates and bowls first. Then they went over to the cooking station and got food piled up on their plates, stew in their bowls, and a couple of students took the vegetarian option their classmates made for them.

Zach stayed back and refilled the smaller pots his classmates were serving from over at the flames Todoroki had let simmer down a bit. He glanced towards the line of their classmates a couple of times while people were being served, but he shifted his gaze back to the large stew pot in front of him and ladled some more out when he spotted Jirou again. _She's not accepting any of that. I think she really thinks everything I say is a lie, or an attempt to make her believe something else, and she won't let any of it sink in. Or maybe, she just doesn't care. I destroyed that relationship. I can try all I want to help you, but, I'm never going to fix things between us._

The dinner line moved quickly, and everyone went back to sit around the fire or at the tables as they ate. The cooking crew served themselves last, and Iida and Muoko made an announcement about a cleaning team of both Shiketsu and U.A. students that they themselves were going to be a part of. Once they started listing off who was on that crew and listed themselves first, no one else was able to complain to the class reps. Iida told the others once they were finished with the list that they could wait twenty minutes so as to ensure everyone had time to eat, and then he nodded at Muoko and walked away over to a table of his own classmates where he sat between Midoriya and Uraraka.

Zach went to the fire instead with his food. He sat on a log that was empty because all of the people who had been sitting on it earlier had picked a table to eat at. It took a few seconds, then Kotsumura got up from the table he had sat at with some of his friends for the past three years. A couple asked him what he was doing, and he looked back and motioned towards the fire and Zach who was over sitting by himself. He started over with his food and then stopped, as a pair of girls dropped down on either side of Zach in that moment he had turned around.

"Look what we took from the supplies before anyone saw them," Ashido whispered next to her, Hagakure giggling quieter on Zach's other side. Ashido pulled out two family-sized bags of marshmallows, and Zach cracked a laugh.

"Haha, hahaha," Zach laughed and he laughed harder as he had seen Kotsumura heading his way, and he saw the blond stare at those two girls next to him with his eyes opening huge.

"We have marshmallows?!"

Ashido swept her hands back behind her back, but the commotion could not be held back. Kotsumura ran towards the girls which resulted in Iida jumping up from his seat and yelling towards him that there would be no running near the fire. Muoko and Tomoki looked up from their dinners they were eating together on their own at a table the two had picked because it was empty. The couple in Class 1 just chuckled to themselves though and got back to their conversation, as Kotsumura was making a loop around the outside of the sitting circle so there was no real danger anyway of him accidentally falling into the pyre.

Tomoki said as they were laughing, "Besides, even if he fell in," he motioned with his head towards who Kotsumura was running towards.

Muoko frowned and gave him a look telling him that wasn't funny, but Tomoki smiled at his girlfriend who rolled her eyes after a second and gave him a smile that said 'alright, it was a little funny.'

"We need some sticks," Kotsumura said, once the group that immediately gathered around the girls with the marshmallows had gotten them to admit to what they had done. "Long ones, 'cause that fire is hot." The flame was meant for a bonfire and not a marshmallow-roasting fire, partly because the ones who made it did not know they were going to have any marshmallows to roast over it.

"Got a couple," Zach said, and he brought his left hand in front of him holding a dozen long sticks that made the eight people around him stare at them with huge eyes.

"Don't tell me, you guessed we had taken them too?" Ashido asked.

"Or did you see us?" Hagakure wondered, though she also wondered how that would be possible since Zach had stopped early before reaching the center area earlier, and he disappeared for a while right after that.

"No, I just grabbed them," Zach replied.

Most of the others looked at him in confusion, but Sato was staring still with huge eyes across the fire pit and a little to Zach's right. He stared at his former classmate who had had a black appendage sticking out of his lower back and reaching back towards the forest behind him when everyone was arguing. He had only noticed because he had been focused on Zach in the first place while everyone else talked in front of him, and he saw that black arm that reached up into the trees at his back meet up with his left arm that reached back to grab the sticks from it. Zach had not even turned around, and Sato gulped before looking back into the flames himself as he thought Zach was about to glance his way.

Sato got back to eating his dinner on the log, but his frown deepened after what he just saw. _He's so, scary. I wanted to get you out of prison because I remembered the person you were and the friend I had, but when it came to election day… And when you got out of there, I couldn't- I couldn't bring myself to go out and see you. Using that Quirk so casually for something like grabbing sticks for roasting marshmallows? You slaughtered those people that night. The closer I got to seeing you, the more those faces reappeared. They were villains, and yet I saw that guy, when he made eye contact with me through the pink barrier. He looked at me with a look begging for a hero to save him._ Sato grit his teeth and glared down at the bread on his plate so angrily. _I know what they did to you was horrible, but I can't forget about that guy. One second he was alive and then… Then he was dead, and you were stronger._

More people started heading back to the fire pit when they saw marshmallows were being roasted. The heat of the fire actually made it better for cooking them, because no one was able to just get so close they could stick their stick into the flames. Zach got pretty long ones, but they still only reached out enough that after a minute they were a nice golden-brown. Zach finished up his own dinner first before cooking a marshmallow himself, and he closed his eyes and hummed as it tasted delicious in his mouth.

Then he opened his eyes. Zach stared in front of him at the fire. He saw the girls on his sides, and the friends sitting close to them on their other sides too but also still close to him. He saw the people in the sitting area as it curved farther away from him, and he saw people walking over and sitting down on the long log to his left, while Mineta took a seat on a tree stump that had a divot in it that kind of made it look more like a chair. He glanced around at the eighteen year olds all around him, a couple seventeen year olds in the mix too. They were talking and eating and laughing, sitting around in school uniforms or slightly more comfortable clothes, and enjoying a nice night together with their friends.

 _I was this young once- I am. It was all in my head, which means I'm technically still as old as I am. Just an 18 year old, who turned 18 in prison. Some of the people here are still kids. No. We're all heroes. They're all heroes, at least._ Zach corrected himself and he tossed the stick he had roasted his marshmallow with into the fire. He used his left hand to roast the marshmallow so he could hold his hand closer to the flames without feeling the heat as much. His eyes shifted down to his left arm from his elbow down where it was mostly just steel showing with his fake skin gone. He had a black hoodie on but had rolled the sleeves up as it was not very windy in the dome, and it was hotter inside than it was out there. Rolling up his left sleeve was more of just a habit, though he had told himself it was because his sweatshirt could still get damaged by the flames even if his arm could not… once he noticed that he had done it.

More of the students came over to the fire, but because of the width of gaps on the logs, U.A. students and Shiketsu students were sitting next to each other more and more. Leaving dinner tables where they had just sat with long-time friends, a lot of them wound up right next to someone they had never spoken to before. It was awkward, for a few. Even those uncomfortable and shy students got over it quickly though as they saw their classmates interacting with and even specifically talking to teens from the other class. They all knew the teachers had a point giving them this night to better acquaint themselves as friends and colleagues than as enemies, and the conversations changed from talking about the joint training of today and the previous year.

Instead, they talked about their internships, and their fights with villains past. As many of the Shiketsu students wanted to ask their Class A counterparts about all the famous incidents that had happened at U.A. or to their Class A, they all refrained for the same reason they avoided those topics with their own classmate who had experienced those things himself.

"I was definitely rooting for you, Deku," Taiyuro told the boy sitting two seats down from him on his right. "My family was up cheering when you beat Bakugo."

"Uh, thanks," Midoriya said, though he nervously glanced behind him only to feel relief that Bakugo was ignoring that and somehow also looking to ignore the conversation between Uraraka and Himazuri that went on with him in the middle of them.

Dendo glanced past Himazuri where he saw Bakugo on her other side, wondering if the girl was going to be alright when he saw the look on Bakugo's face. Bakugo shifted his eyes towards Dendo though, and Dendo hesitated for a second before asking, "That April Fool's Villain…"

Himazuri and Uraraka stopped talking for a second, while Bakugo also rose his eyebrows as he did not expect Dendo to talk to him or bring that up. "From what I saw during that fight, he had multiple Quirks, didn't he?"

Himazuri looked at Dendo in more surprise, then she spun to Bakugo who grunted in an affirmative way. "Just like the Nomus," Dendo added, frowning more as he mentioned them.

"Did you hear the rumors about the Nomus resurfacing?" Uraraka wondered over to Dendo. He glanced at the brunette with shorter hair and nodded his head, making Uraraka frown more too as it seemed like the accounts were happening more frequently.

"It's still just rumors," Bakugo said, his voice low but not necessarily pissed at the conversation. "Deku didn't get shit out of the Nomus' creator though," he added while looking towards his classmate whose eyes opened wide as he had been looking over and heard what Bakugo just said.

"You went to see him, in Tartaros?" Uraraka wondered while looking back towards Deku herself.

What she asked came out a bit louder than what they had been talking about, and Kotsumura looked over at her in surprise and then to Midoriya whose eyes shifted towards Zach with his expression looking hesitant for a moment. Kotsumura turned back to Zach close to him and his heart was racing as he saw Zach sitting there quietly with a small smile on his face as some people talking around him. _Did, none of them go to see you except for Deku? Uraraka sounded surprised that he actually went!_ Kotsumura hesitated as he opened his mouth to say something to the U.A. students on his right, _Wait! That doesn't make any sense! Ashido was all over the news and at those protests trying to get Zach out of prison. Why wouldn't she have gone to see him? Maybe, it's just surprising that Midoriya did? Even though the two of them… didn't I see them together?_

"And I send him flying into a tornado where I made him spin around and around until he was so dizzy, he passed out! HAHAHA!" Inasa bellowed his laughter, while Sato and Tokoyami were looking at him more in surprise as the villain he was talking about facing sounded like a very strong one. The way Inasa claimed to knock him off-balance first to be able to send him flying easier, it sounded like an oddly ingenious plan to be said in such a boisterous tone.

"Hey Kotsumura," Zach began, having slid down the log towards his blond friend with one of the girls next to him switching spots. Hagakure thought nothing of it and just kept talking as Zach started to talk to his Shiketsu friend, and she did not hear what Zach said behind her in no quiet voice but one so calm and regular that no one besides Kotsumura heard him. "I'm going to go take a piss. Distract the girls on my right if they look like they're going to ask about where I went."

"Wai- what? Why?" Zach frowned at the question, but Kotsumura frowned back as that sounded really weird to him. "You always just got to be so mysterious, don't you?"

"It's not that," Zach replied in the same tone as before, though he checked once more if anyone was watching him which at the moment it seemed like no one was. "But the last time we were sitting at a fire like this and I told them I had to take a piss, was the last time…"

Kotsumura's bottom lip lowered only for Zach to stop and give him a look deeper in his eyes that made Kotsumura close that lip back up. _He doesn't want them to think about it? That's what you're saying._ Kotsumura nodded as he understood, and he made sure not to let that surprise or any of the emotions that just hit him come to his face even as Zach got up and inconspicuously stepped away. He could have been going to his tent, but they could see the tents from the fire and Zach was not heading towards his own. Kotsumura looked back to his left instead of focusing on the girls past where Zach had been, and he joined in on a conversation with a few of his other classmates.

 _Distract them? They know you too well, they'll know you said something like that to me and they might even get more nervous! You're not trying anything this time, right? Geez, what the hell do you mean? That night, were you all just sitting at a fire like this? And then, then you what? You said you had to pee and then went and attacked- or you were attacked by the villains, and they put up that barrier we all heard about that kept you from the rest of your class- did you expect that?! You knew they would bring that villain, so you had to- and this was you at sixteen?_

"I'm hoping that when my shell heals this time it can survive even Deku's strongest hits. No way Zach breaks through it next time," Kameko looked over but did not see Zach where he was last sitting.

As Kameko started to look around for where he moved to though, Ojiro mentioned to the boy with a cracked shell on his back, "I'm, surprised." Kameko looked to the blond who paused before mentioning, "I thought you were a lot more, soft-spoken? I don't know, but last year when I tried to break in your shell you sounded," Ojiro could not put his finger on it, but the personality of the guy he had been talking to seemed so different from when he met him the year before.

"Yeah, I never heard you speak before," Mineta agreed from Kameko's other side. "I had no idea you were ranked fifth in your class! You should be bragging about something like that!"

 _I've always had a defensive personality. Imino explained what he thinks Zach was doing though. I saw how he fought against the others, and the change is night and day with Dendo and Manzo. Even Imino too, so I guess I don't see his as much because we're closer and it feels like he hasn't changed, which is probably the same with myself._ "I came out of my shell," Kameko said after a few seconds, smiling as he made the joke that got a laugh out of the others sitting around him. The boy literally inside a shell meant what he said though, and he again shifted his eyes around looking for Zach to give a grateful look at.

"Where were you?" Ashido wondered as Zach came back from the restroom to sit at the fire again.

Zach sat down next to her and replied like it was nothing, "Latrine." Ashido stared at him with her eyes opening wide, and he wondered if Hagakure did the same closer to him between them. Kotsumura looked over from Zach's other side and his eyes widened too at the way Ashido looked.

"Hey! Anyone got a scary story?" Kotsumura looked around after calling it out, bouncing his eyebrows and looking like he hoped someone would have one.

Reika Tiona looked down the log and around the corner stump to where Kotsumura was sitting. _Fucking what? I'd expect Satoshi to call out something like that. We were all in the middle of talking, so why-_

"Oh yeah!" Satoshi called out loudly. He narrowed his eyes and the vertical slits got thinner, his tongue sticking out as he hissed. His hiss got softer at the end and a breeze flew around the campfire making the flames lick Satoshi's face and a lot of them to shiver.

"Oi, Inasa?" Dendo snapped down towards the person who had to be doing this, as there was no wind inside the dome.

The wind stopped and Inasa lowered his smile a little. "What?" he wondered, while a lot of people frowned his direction. "It seemed like the right thing to do at that moment."

The flames rose back up higher after the gust of wind died down, and those shivering teens who leaned closer to the flames felt themselves get hotter and some even sweaty. After Inasa's response and a couple of laughs, it was oddly quiet around the fire now as all of the conversations had cut off.

 _Well, he did do it for my sake,_ Zach thought while glancing towards Kotsumura who was going to feel even more embarrassed the more time passed without anyone speaking up. Some people were glancing around at each other like they thought one of them might actually say a story now, as Inasa and Satoshi had seemed to be into it and the idea was just sitting out there. More of them started looking to the same side of the fire though, as Zach rose his hands up to his black hood and put it up over his head.

Kotsumura turned his head slowly to the right. Others past him on his left were already looking towards Zach, and he turned with his eyes opening wider as Zach put the hood up over his head. The hood cast a shadow over his face that the flames illuminated only the bottom half of. Then, on the top half of Zach's face shrouded in darkness, his right eye flashed red and stayed glowing like that in the darkness. He had taken his phone out when he lowered his hands from his hood, and Zach turned on a strobe up at his face while leaning his head back, "I've got one-"

"Dude," Kotsumura said from right next to Zach where he just leaned away. "You just terrified me."

The strobe turned off and Zach lost the red glow in the one eye while most everyone else was still gawking his way with stunned expressions. Todoroki and Jirou had their bottom lips dropped, while Midoriya and Iida's hands were down at their sides gripping the logs they were sitting on. Zach turned to Kotsumura and replied with a grin on his face, "Well that wasn't exactly the story, but if you can't even handle me getting in the mood for it then-"

"Oh we can handle it!" Reika shouted, pissed at Kotsumura now and also at herself as she had felt chills down her spine at the scary display Zach put on right there.

"That was you, 'getting in the mood?'" Hagakure asked in shock. "Wait- so does that mean you do have one-"

"Well," Zach started, seeming against the idea now as he glanced around. More of the people he looked at started frowning, and yet, many more of them were for the idea of listening to a scary story now. Only a few still thought the idea was a stupid one that nobody was going to get into, as instead they thought about showing Zach his scary story was not going to scare them, or they wondered what Zach was doing by offering to be the one to scare them.

Kotsumura continued to stare at Zach though with a somewhat confused look on his face as others started telling him they could handle whatever story he thought was too much for them. _I interrupted with this in the first place because of the way those two looked at you. Why- he's trying to help me, I guess. But, he could also be helping those two who he made nervous as he made them think about that night in the Enudora Forest. It looks like that's far from their minds now._

"Alright," Zach said, still with his hood up. "I've got a good one. It's twice as scary, because it's a true story-"

Jirou snorted and rolled her eyes, no intention to hide that she did. She frowned after when she received a few looks from classmates or the Shiketsus, and she thought, _He's going to spout off all sorts of bullshit again. He seriously thinks he can say 'true story?' What a joke._

"I was in Terra, and it was still pretty early on after I got there so I didn't know that much about that world."

"Wait," Ashido interrupted. Zach glanced next to him at the girl who spoke up and made a lot of people groan or get annoyed as no story was happening and they were only a few seconds in before the next interruption.

 _If every sentence goes like this._

 _Just let him speak._

 _I'd rather he not scare the crap out of me. That look on his face at the start, it seriously freaked me out._

"On second thought, I'm not too sure about a 'scary' story," she said, specifying the 'scary' part which made several people around the pit feel hopeful though they did not let it show.

"The fact that we're out in the woods, kind of," Bibi added in agreement, going to speak up before someone could counter Ashido about her just being a coward or something. "And it's dark, and I don't think-"

"Oh come on, you girls don't think you can take it?"

"We're just speaking up, for everyone who might not want to have trouble sleeping-"

"Booo."

"Ah come on, then tell us another story about Terra!" Satoshi called over at Zach. "Doesn't need to be a scary one!"

Tokoyami looked to his side in somewhat confusion at Satoshi's big grin as he suggested that. Others from Shiketsu voiced agreement with that, and Ashido turned to Zach and nodded too that she would prefer that. Satoshi looked to his side when he noticed Tokoyami's look, and he mentioned to the dark boy with a beak, "Zach's great at telling stories."

Mineta was also confused by the way the Shiketsu students were reacting near him, and Trabo said to the shorter boy next to him, "He tells us all about his time in that other world. His stories are insane."

 _But that's all they are, stories,_ Mineta thought, turning his head and looking back towards Zach who held his hands up defensively after jokingly countering something to Ashido about her being scared.

Aoyama and Asui looked to their right as Reika retorted at Shuu how she had already heard the story about the vampire nest under General Asgarth that Zach had to fight. Then they looked the other way as Subara called across the fire at Zach to tell them about the Siege of Razmatan. "Oh yeah!" Satoshi agreed, suddenly liking the change of pace off the tune of scary stories. "You've never told us about that one."

"I've mentioned it-" Zach started.

"Same with the Battle of the 6 Armies, right?" Tomoki added, and Iida looked to his side in a questioning way at the boy in glasses who did not seem like the type to get as into this. _Battles and sieges? Vampires? How did you get so many people to believe you?_ Iida shifted his eyes darkly back towards Zach who took all the shouting towards him in stride.

 _He's so different, but what is it?_ Uraraka stared towards Zach in confusion from her seat next to Iida. Zach held up a hand to get Kotsumura to lean back after agreeing with the Battle of the 6 Armies suggestion, and he laughed at something Reika called at him before turning and responding to Hagakure on his right side. _Is it because he's always in the spotlight, he's just learned how to deal with it? But that's not right. He always avoids cameras. And he was in hiding for a year, whenever he was still on Earth at least, if these stories really are real. He went to jail- Zach's not good in the spotlight at all! But he's handling this really well. Everyone's looking towards him, but he doesn't look nervous about it. And he was the one who took charge with their class's strategy. He's, he's popular. Whoa,_ Uraraka realized it and the surprise hit her like a ton of bricks.

All his classmates talking to him and asking him to tell stories about his crazy time gone, and Zach was treating it like it was normal to the point that Ochaco realized it was. _They know so much about those stories. They're all talking about the year he spent away, and, and I don't know anything about it! I haven't asked him but-_ Uraraka's eyes shifted around at the greater number of Shiketsu students around the fire than her own classmates. _Do they know him, even better than we do now?_

 _I've never even heard of that one,_ Ojiro thought while looking to his side at something one of the Shiketsus just said. _And I talk to Zach often, but they see him nearly every day._

"…You always say there's not enough time," Kotsumura continued, holding up a palm like showing that he had a point here.

"Same with the Siege of Razmatan," Hagakure added quickly, not wanting to be outdone by the Shiketsu students here. She looked next to her at Ashido to see if she felt the same way and Ashido nodded at her, trying to show some real enthusiasm even as she felt a pit in her chest as she nodded at Toru in a lie like that. "Any time you get started," Hagakure said while looking back at Zach, "you stop and say that it's too long a story and there isn't enough time."

"There wasn't enough time for it," Zach argued back, as she was making it out like he was intentionally not talking about it.

"Well there is now," Reika said, and she looked at Zach expectantly as he turned her way. Her look said that they had caught him if he would not say it here, and Zach sighed after a few seconds in a defeated way. Reika's eyebrows lifted up and then she smirked just like more than half of the others around the fire at that look on Zach's face. _He's really going for it?_

 _I don't know if Zach told them the truth. But they know so much more about him and still don't know this story, so that means we'll be on the same level hearing this with them!_

"Alright," Zach said. "Then I'll go with the Battle of the 6 Armies. Out of the two of those stories, the Siege was an attack I planned out, while in the Battle, I was ambushed. So it'll stay along a scary theme anyway," he added it like it was a compromise even though the ones who had been going for a scary story at first were now just excited to hear this story he had referenced many times. "A bit of background for where I was at the time: it was after the Siege of Razmatan during the peak of the war. The Siege saw heavy losses for both sides, but we also proved in Razmatan that the Arcasians did not have a complete hold on that world like most people still believed they did before it…"

"When you say, the 'peak' of the war," Tokoyami started, though he stopped himself after seeing some looks from his U.A. classmates directed his way. His eyes specifically shifted towards Midoriya who looked at him in surprise as he thought Tokoyami still thought Zach was for sure Death.

"I mean," Zach replied to Tokoyami even though he had not finished the question. "After the Siege of Razmatan the enemy forces realized that my force was the biggest threat to Arcasia and started coming at me harder than ever. At the same time, I moved faster than I ever had before in order to counter their countermeasures. And every day there was fighting." He paused for a second and his lips flattened out, a more serious look on his face that he continued with. "I never stayed in one place for long. My tactics had always been hit and run, and I did not want to put the people nearby in danger which they would be in if they were thought to be helping me. So I was always quick to change my location, quicker than my enemies were able to lock on to, and because we cloaked and made ourselves invisible using Quirks, our forward base was undetectable to the Arcasians."

Bakugo's eyes narrowed across the flames towards Zach. His expression stayed steady and his disbelief towards every word Zach spoke remained, and yet he felt uneasy at how Zach's voice sounded to be speaking from real experience here. _Is this how the Army of Death operates? Is he explaining it, right to our faces? That smug bastard. He thinks he can get away with- he knows he can._

"At least, I thought we were undetectable," Zach continued. He shifted his eyes to the right at the people sitting on that side of him, "At the time of the ambush, we were lucky. All of our forces were gathered and we still had a huge number to defend our base with. Even the single reconnaissance team that was still out was getting back, but that's what started the whole thing. We lowered the cloaking when they arrived back at base, and then…" Zach paused for a few seconds. His eyebrows lowered down a little more, his lip twitching on the right side as his gaze shifted back into the flames. "The surveillance team was hit before they could get back in the walls. They were down before we even saw the enemy, and then the enemy were everywhere. On all sides of us, in the sky and on the ground, tens of thousands in every direction-"

"Tens of thousands?" Sato asked loudly, disbelief in his voice.

"It was the biggest battle of the war," Zach replied with a nod towards his old friend with spiky brown hair. Sato frowned at the response that sounded serious, and yet also sounded so unbelievable to him still. "My force had around 10,000 at the time, just a little over actually. Despite the heavy losses at the Siege of Razmatan, and over the few weeks after during the war's peak, we still had a massive and powerful force that got replenished over that time by the Allied Forces. The Allied Forces had seen what we could do when 5 of the Queen's 18 Generals fell in Razmatan, when we took down that stronghold made up of their strongest warriors and defenses, and so they sent us help on the front lines with fresh men and some supplies. As for our enemies on the day of the Battle of 6 Armies though, their numbers had almost 100,000 in total."

"10 to 1 odds?" Reika asked, bumping her eyebrows up in an impressed way and also grinning as it sounded like the story was going to be intense with such a disadvantage.

"Yeah," Zach replied after a moment. Her smile lowered a little at the tone in which Zach said it, and Zach added, "But what was worse than the number disadvantage was how we were caught off guard. In Razmatan we were outnumbered too, badly, but we had planned that attack out for weeks and went in knowing we could win. It was scarier like this. Suddenly facing such an overwhelming force. They were made up of all the strongest enemies who we had missed over the previous weeks. Ones who had abandoned their forts and lands when we came for them, leading us to waste time raiding empty bases while our enemies had been organizing together. Those Generals who almost never worked together had teamed up, and 300 kilometers north of Bordham we got ambushed by the biggest army the Arcasians could put together. I was terrified of all those enemies. Those warriors bred from birth to kill or die in battle. Giants and trolls, orcs and elves, and humans. They attacked us with weapons that world hadn't seen in millennia. They revived the ancient weapons from the time of the Silver Reign, more advanced than the weapons I had helped them create to better match our world's. With Quirk Amplifying Fields stretching across the landscape, hundreds of zone Quirks activated with tens of thousands of warriors from all races flying and sprinting towards each other. Riding on chariots and horses and-"

Zach stopped for a second. He stopped himself and shifted his eyes down instead of to the right side at some people he just reminded himself about. _Can't say bears. Then they'll know- they'll know that it's- Dover wasn't even there! They'll think he was though! They'll realize that it's-_ He had to cut himself off before he said 'bears,' as it had initially been part of the story he devised but could create problems now.

"How did you win a battle like that with a fraction of the numbers?" Kotsumura wondered, his voice softer than when he had been asking for Zach to tell him the story in the first place.

"I outmaneuvered them," Zach replied, his mood raising back and a more confident almost smug look formed on his face. "I had Excilian take two teams straight out our main gates. Ungard and Iranda both took teams in other directions to our flanks too, while I had most everyone else go underground. I attacked with a few people aboveground; that way when our base was hit by the onslaught of Quirks fired from a distance at us, there were only a few teams remaining inside the walls to fire back at them."

"Why would you do that?" Hagakure asked.

"I had to make them think that they had almost beaten us," Zach replied. "They needed to see me too, so I left Fraisha in charge of going underground with the others. They created tunnels and muted the sounds of making them, then the sensory types down below reported where the enemies were above. Another of our comrades, Oncloa, who could change up our appearances made us look like our enemies, dressed up my soldiers in the clothes of the gangs and villain groups and enemy soldiers-"

"Gangs and villains?" Kirishima asked, his eyes darker as he glared towards Zach for an answer about that.

"The Arcasians didn't stop crime going on in their lands. The soldiers were as horrible to their people as the villains and bandits and pirates that roamed that world were. And I went after all of them," Zach said it with a frown back at Kirishima who ground his teeth more at the response that made sense that Zach would do that. "My enemies had organized better than they ever had before, to have those small time gangs and pirates following the real Generals and powerhouses of the Arcasian army. It was a who's who of all the most powerful evil-doers in that world, even the most powerful of the Queen's Generals, Amsalja, was there with an army of nightcrawlers."

"The ninjas?!" Ashido started in surprise.

"Ninjas?" Uraraka wondered in confusion, glancing Ashido's way and then back to Zach wondering what story he had told her about those "nightcrawlers" that had Mina looking at him with such wide eyes.

 _Is, she playing along with him?_ Midoriya wondered while looking at the pink girl who looked to question that herself after Zach nodded at her.

"Yeah, they were there," Zach replied in a serious voice back at Mina who stared at him with wider eyes as he had looked her straight in the eyes while saying it. "All the strongest forces of all the biggest monsters in that world. All the most powerful villains, using tactics and weapons that I had used against them but they had finally adapted to use against me."

"Oh, because you were so much better at it than they were?" Jirou retorted across the circle towards Zach. _He's humble bragging so hard and he knows it!_

"I had been," Zach replied. "But they caught up," he continued while looking to his left at more of the people watching him closely. "They had hundreds ride in on dragons to keep aerial cover, and they blocked our communications' Quirks with their jamming ones. As I charged at the five armies though-"

"Why five?" Kameko wondered. Zach looked his way, and the boy with a cracked shell held up a palm, "You say it's the Battle of the _6_ Armies, but it sounds like it was just your forces against the Arcasians.'"

Iida hated that he was focused on the story enough that that had also been bothering him. He nodded to himself though at Kameko's question and looked back Zach's direction wondering what kind of fantasy answer he had for this one.

"Because the enemies weren't really a single army, not like my own," Zach replied. His voice changed tones slightly, even though his expression stayed the same so it appeared like Zach did not notice it himself. "My own forces were smaller, but we were a combination of people from all different races and backgrounds. We fought for a single purpose and they all followed my command. Our enemies, while they were able to organize and work together for the goal of stopping us, they weren't a single united force. Many of those bandit groups had been at odds with Arcasian forces before, some of the pirates had been fighting and battling each other long before I came into play, but they all knew that if they did not stop me that they would be taken out individually. It's why I had to convince them that they were winning, and that they had almost won…"

Others staring at Zach found themselves doubting the story less and staring at him in more shock and awe as he described his battle plans. Zach continued without looking around at their expressions, just staring into the flames as he went on, "Ungard and Iranda's squads took heavy casualties, while I myself fought the most powerful in all those armies and was losing, really losing, to him. Excilian had gone straight down the middle and he and the last of his squads Amped-up to keep the attention on them, but the enemies had Amplifier too, kind of like our Trigger," Zach added while looking towards some U.A.'s giving him questioning looks. The look away only lasted for a second though, before Zach returned his gaze to the flames and said, "But we were clearly losing. We had under five hundred troops out there fighting, and with our strongest cornered by their forces, our enemies started to think that they had really won. They were already overconfident, which I knew because I never expected to be attacked in such a way."

Zach leaned back on his log a little and continued in a lower voice, "Although I knew an attack was coming, I didn't expect how they would do it. All those empty forts couldn't have meant that all my enemies had just scattered into the wind. They were planning something, but my counters were for an ambush after I had attacked an enemy base. I thought they would get me once I had moved in with some of my forces, surround me when I had only a weaker group- but they felt they could take on my whole army. And I made them believe that they had done it. I made them think that after only a few more of us were defeated, they would win. There were a few Quirks popping off from our destroyed base, but they were moving in on it too and about to take us all out… And that's when my forces struck."

"You had them sneak attack from underground?" Porrolo wondered.

"Wait, but you mentioned Oncloa gave them disguises?" Hagakure added, confused at what the point of that was.

"Because even a surprise attack on them, with the smaller number of forces I had, it wouldn't have been enough to beat them," Zach explained to Hagakure and then looked at Porrolo too. "So it wasn't as much a sneak attack, as a sneak infiltration. I had my forces enter into their ranks based on what the sensory types below ground heard going on above. I sent my humans into human ranks, dwarves with the dwarves, and even though our communications were down, I had planned for that much at least and knew how to relay my orders to everyone before we had broken off. I had all my troops go into villain groups dressed like those villains… dressed like the Arcasian forces, and I had them go into groups based on which languages they spoke best." Zach's eyes lowered to the floor and his expression got darker instead of the calm way he had just been explaining that. "And then, they sewed the seeds of betrayal, and whispered rumors of dissent."

Inasa felt like making a cold breeze fly through at what Zach just said, but he was too busy staring straight at his classmate with huge eyes. "I, don't get it," Dendo began towards Zach. "What are you talking about? How did that-"

"Why would that have done anything?" Hisashi added in confusion.

"Wouldn't they notice that the people in their ranks weren't their comrades?"

"No," Zach replied while looking to Ojiro. "You see, each of those 'armies' I mentioned was vastly different from the other four. Five enemy armies and my own, and none of those armies trusted the people in the other armies with them. Most had never met each other before. They had come there for the single goal of stopping my army. They came, to destroy us. They put aside their differences solely, to beat me." Zach paused for a second and grit his teeth, then he admitted, "And I decided to abuse that fact. It was the only way we were going to survive the day." Others around the circle stared at him as Zach rose his gaze and looked around the group all staring at him in confusion or awe. The ones who did not believe much of what he said, found themselves so confused at how much detail and emotion was going into this. And the few who knew more than everyone else, found themselves most confused of all at what Zach was telling them.

"My soldiers knew the relationships between each of those groups," Zach said. "They knew which bandits had been killed by which group of blood elves. They knew that the Ravaging Angels, a huge human gang from the northern region, had had a feud with the Arcasian troops in the region recently over dead comrades found dead in what were made to look like 'accidents,' or so they were reported by those soldiers. The Arcasian dwarves hated the night elves, even ones in their own forces. It didn't matter if it was pitting one of those armies against another, or pitting our enemies from within the armies on one another. My soldiers whispered in the ears of some, that the people to their right were going to betray them as soon as the Dark One was dead. They told the lower gangs that the larger ones were going to betray them and expand into their territories, and those villains who were already worried about something like that happening found their confirmation in the words of my soldiers. And then, a pot-shot into an enemy group, and a shout that it was 'THEM' who did it. Some of the enemies fire at another group, and that other group also looking for who took the shot suddenly see the people firing at them and fire back. They attack, and in seconds a war has started between different enemy groups. It took a few minutes, and all of a sudden tens of thousands of enemies had turned on each other and started the most brutal battle of the entire war. When we usually fought, I at least had my troops try to fight less brutally and take prisoners, but when we turned those evil men and women against each other, there was no safe place for a hundred miles in any direction."

 _Did he just refer to himself as the Dark One? He skimmed right past that!_

 _Holy shit._

 _He turned thousands of enemies against each other just by spreading rumors? They were allies and he just, he broke their bond. Not just by what he had his soldiers do, but by his own actions and the others he set up as distractions to make the enemies think that they had almost been defeated._

 _Did he, send people to die? As part of those diversions… He knew they would die, and sent them out anyway to show the villains that… Zach would do something like that?_

"What happened after?" Shoji wondered towards Zach as he had stopped for a few seconds.

Zach looked towards the teen with silver hair and a mask over the bottom half of his face. He lifted his head a little and smiled from under his hood, his face lighting up more from the flames and seeming less dark suddenly. "More and more of my forces rose aboveground to spread rumors and sew chaos throughout our enemies. The nightcrawlers were trying to just spectate on an isolated plateau, so I dragged them into the chaos by blaming them for all that was happening in a bellowing voice. I roared to my leader, Amsalja, that I had almost rid the world of all the Arcasian forces between him and the Queen. It didn't matter how obvious it was to some that I was tricking them, enough of their soldiers were fools to believe that they had been tricked. Other Generals even wondered if they were wrong about Amsalja, and in dragging them into the fray I forced the nightcrawlers to flee. Then, halfway through the battle, Oncloa returned my troops back to their proper uniforms. The enemies realized that they had been tricked, and that we were nowhere close to being defeated yet. Unfortunately, it didn't just end the battle like I hoped it would when they saw how many of us were in their forces."

"Did they recover?"

"They teamed back up-"

"Few of them were able to," Zach cut back in as the questions started. "The battle had already been going on for a long time. After defeating the most powerful enemy in those armies, I was still faced with the need to take on thousands at a time which was why I needed the rest of my troops to be back in it as fighters and not just rumor-spreaders. By that point, they had already done a great job at breaking apart our enemies' armies so they were no united front anymore. Instead it was every race for themselves. They fought against everyone and anyone, only able to trust the faces of people they knew. Even if they realized that they had been tricked in the first place into fighting each other, that knowledge did not just make them forgive the other villains around them who had just killed friends of theirs or injured them. They were bad people, they weren't as skilled in combat or battle tactics as my men who had been fighting every single day for weeks, months. The battle was hard fought, but Ungard and Iranda Amplified and powered through as they had been from the start. Exodus' Amplify ran out, and most of the troops he had taken down the middle were…"

 _Exodus?_

 _Who was Exodus?_

"Exodus?" Kotsumura mentioned, after looking to his left for a second to make sure he was not the only one who had not heard that name before. Zach turned towards the blond and his expression turned confused at the question. "Who was he?"

"The guy you said led the troops down the middle was Excilian, wasn't it?" Hagakure asked, as that was the name she thought she heard.

"Yeah, Excilian," Zach shook his head and curled his lip for a second like he was wondering where he got that other name. "It was Excilian who led the central forces, but those forces had been wiped out. They were some of our strongest, but we needed those strongest to go right out the middle because if they had been defeated any quicker the enemy would have caught on to my strategy…"

 _Because they wouldn't expect you to give up your strongest forces like that._

 _I get it, kind of…_

Todoroki was still staring at Zach with his eyes huge and his hands gripping into the wood at his sides tightly. _Did he just mess up? Did he-_ Todoroki shifted his gaze to the side and saw Bakugo leaning forward on his seat, a look of wide-eyed shock over his face. He looked the other way and saw next to an interested and questioning Uraraka, both Midoriya and Iida staring towards Zach in disbelief at what just happened. _Everyone who knows, knows what he just did._

 _But, but that doesn't make sense,_ Midoriya thought, his chest pounding rapidly and his Adam's apple bouncing up and down as he gulped again. _He can't just be changing the details of this story around. That doesn't make- this isn't a, it isn't a realistic story at all! Why would he get the name wrong though?! The name in a story he made up himself, he didn't just forget Excilian's name! He called him by the name, of the real person he's basing this character off of! But- are all his-_ Midoriya leaned back on his log bench with his heart racing. _That's impossible! I've heard your stories and they're all, every last one of them, so far beyond reality that it can't just be little details like those!_

Iida's wide eyes narrowed and his breath calmed down. His expression was much darker though as he glared towards Zach. _Something's wrong here. To change up a minor detail like that, it's clear that, he believes this story. What he is saying, he's convinced himself of it. I looked into the staff of Shiketsu so I know that Norasaki is a lie-detector, but you were able to stay at Shiketsu despite it. Somehow you are able to convince and deceive people to a level I have never seen, except for Kaminari._ Iida's hands curled into tight fists down over his legs, a heat burning in his chest at the thought of the blond teen who had pierced him through the heart with his lightning. _You've become just like him, and I don't even know if you realize. What is this reality you're talking about? I thought they were all just lies to tell people so you couldn't get incriminated for anything after you left here. But you've really… I don't know what you're doing. I don't know, but I know that somehow you are taking this story out of your own life, out of what the Army of Death had been doing._

"…and although I wanted them to think they were going to beat me, that didn't mean I could fight any less hard than my absolute strongest."

"Against thousands? I'd hope so!" Satoshi laughed back as the thought of Zach holding back against thousands of warriors sounded impossible.

"How could you survive something like that?"

"Did you win the battle?"

"Of course I did," Zach replied, and he smiled over towards Bibi who asked that in somewhat of a worried tone. "That was the most important battle we'd ever been in. The most important fight of my life thus far, and if we went down then they would have turned the tides of the war back in their favor. If they made us run it would have shown the rest of the remaining Arcasian forces how to defeat us. Not, that any of us would have been left had we lost that battle. As it was we took heavy casualties, but we won." Zach said the last part in an uplifting voice, his smile steady on his face as he went on, "Because we couldn't lose. They fought hard, but we fought harder."

"But you said you were surrounded! How could you get out of that to win that fight let alone the whole battle itself?"

"I flew into the sky and knocked off one of the dragon riders encircling me from above. I tamed the beast, and I rained Death down on their weakest forces from above. Going after the weakest first caused many of them to start running, and then the ones just a bit stronger than the weakest were now watching as their ranks broke and many of them were fleeing. It made it easier to get them to flee too, so that I could focus on the strongest enemies without having to worry about all the aside. It's similar to how I went after the Subspace Devils, as at the start I ran straight past the front line of villains to take on the ones farther back who were more nervous and hiding near their vehicles…"

Questions came up about the Subspace Devils, as most of the U.A. students there had not talked to Zach about it before, and a lot of the Shiketsus did not know that he had based his strategy that day off tactics he had used in a previous battle either. A few people noticed though. They noticed that the majority of the others did _not_ notice how the conversation had suddenly shifted onto the Subspace Devils and off the Battle of the 6 Armies. The transition was smooth, but it became less of a story in an immediate tone shift that those same people noticed. Even though Zach had been talking like what had happened in that battle was real, his tone had shifted slightly as he talked and replied to questions about the fight with the Subspace Devils.

 _Is it because we all know it's real, so we can take part in more of a conversation about it?_ Midoriya wondered with his heart uncertain as he stared towards his black-haired friend. _Whereas no one can really say that what you saw in that battle is fake. You're the only one who knows what's in that story and there's not a person in the world who was there with you to say differently. It's, not even real. It's literally a story you made up, but even the people who don't know that and believe you still know that you are the one who decides how that story is told, with no one else able to back it up or confirm it. No one's really going to take it to heart. The way everyone's listening now, it's so different,_ Midoriya's eyes shifted off of Zach and more on the others around the fire who had more serious expressions hearing about villains who they thought they could have gone up against. They figured they might have had to face them, and they knew that the things Zach was saying about fighting them were things they should listen to as he had beaten them with barely a scratch on him.

Midoriya's eyes refocused over on Zach with a discerning look on his face as he noticed the change in how they were all listening to him. _He's still describing similar battle strategies that he was talking about in the Battle of 6 Armies, but because he's talking about using them in real life, everyone's interested. Everyone's listening. I'm listening._ Midoriya realized it even as he was looking deeper into the conversation, _I know you're strong, Zach. No one denies that. And there are things I could learn from you. But, but if you wanted to make this into a teaching moment for everyone, why did you start off with the Battle of the 6 Armies in the first place? Was it because starting with this story would have made it sound more like you were trying to teach? And the transition was so smooth! You did that! Was that the reason you started talking in the first place? How did we get to this point?! How do we always, get here?_

* * *

Far from the campsite in the center of the dome on Shiketsu's grounds, Zach walked through the forest a few meters ahead of the boy behind him. Zach had his visor over his eyes, and on top of the night vision his visor also pinged in red all the electronics hidden throughout the forest. _Seems like this is a good spot. Far enough Imino can't hear us, and Jirou wouldn't be able to either unless she came a good ways this direction._ Zach stopped and took his visor off his head. He turned to face Iida who stopped behind him and continued to frown with a dark look on his face at the teen he had told to come out to the woods to talk with him.

Iida knew Zach could not deny him so he did not make a request. Zach just appreciated that Iida did it when he got up though and walked away from the fire, so they had not drawn a scene from the others still around the fire pit even later into the night so many of their classes had gone to their tents already. "What's up, Iida?" Zach asked. He put his hands down into the front sweatshirt pocket and looked his classmate straight in his eyes.

"Zach," Iida began. His look lost some of the darkness to it, and he took in a deep breath and let it out calmly. "Back there," Iida said, referring to the fire they had just left. "When you were talking about the Battle of the 6 Armies," he paused to see if Zach would react to what he was bringing up in any way.

"What about it?" Zach replied.

"Tell me the truth," Iida said. "Do you believe what you said back there? The story you told…" Iida watched as Zach's calm expression and stoic look changed. His attempt at keeping a straight look broke down and his expression became uncertain at the kinds of questions Iida was asking him. That reaction on Zach's face was the opposite of what Iida wanted to see though, and he clenched his teeth for a moment before quickly calming himself down again. "Zach, you need to know that the stories about that alternate world, they weren't real."

Zach's eyes left Iida and shifted around the forest. _This is so dangerous. On school grounds. With everyone else so close-by. It's a huge risk. I never wanted to talk about it with them again. The fact that people know is the worst outcome, but it didn't go straight from one person learning to everyone finding out. This is, this is the worst way it could happen! Because people will defend me! They'll defend my story as the rumors spread farther out from the source. They'll defend me so strongly, and then they'll learn someday, ultimately- unless I stick to the story! ALWAYS STICK TO IT!_ "They were real," Zach replied. _Not to Iida, you idiot. He's clearly doing this because he thinks you think that way-_

"Is that what you really think?" Iida asked. His tone was accusatory, but also hesitant as he had watched Zach's face twitch there for a moment like he was thinking about it before responding in such a firm and assured voice. Zach grimaced at the look Iida was giving him, which made Iida frown angrier and say, "Why are you lying? Why say that if you don't mean it?"

"I do," Zach replied quickly. "It was, it was real. That story might not…" Zach stopped himself and his lips twisted in frustration. "Why are you doing this?" He asked in a soft voice.

"Because I need to," Iida replied, his voice still stern and his eyes unwavering especially as Zach asked something like that to him. The expression on Zach's face did not bring Iida comfort. "Because I need to know that you don't really believe these crazy things."

"You already know the truth," Zach whispered with a shake of his head back. "So why does this, why even ask-"

"Because _you_ seem to think it's real. Maybe the names are different, but you messed up and mentioned someone back there who was real. Or who you believe was, and you changed the name back like you could get caught for it." Zach ground his teeth as Iida called him out, and he closed his eyes as Iida continued, "But none of that was real. There was no hundred thousand man battle. There were no armies you fought. I need to hear you say it-"

"You're right," Zach said. He opened his eyes and nodded at Iida. "You're definitely right-"

"You don't believe that," Iida responded darkly. He saw Zach responding in a way like he was accepting that, yet he saw through it. He could see Zach telling him that because it was what he wanted to hear, and it angered him more as much as it frustrated him. "Zach, it wasn't real," Iida stated. His voice was lower and came out in a tone demanding Zach accept it. _Has he really lost it? Can he not tell what the difference between reality and fiction is anymore?! Zach!_ "You weren't fighting massive battles. Whatever the story is you're imagining, that you're replacing," Iida stepped closer to Zach and said louder at his friend whose teeth clenched so hard as Iida was saying all this. "It's not real."

"You're right," Zach whispered again, shaking his head gently and shifting his eyes to the side.

Iida bit down violently as he saw through it again. _You're too strong! I can't let-_ Iida ground his teeth as not all the emotions on Zach's face were faked, and he could see how much Zach was struggling in the moment too as they were deadlocked. His thoughts that cut off as he saw that real expression were forced away though, and Iida glared at his shorter former classmate. _I can't let my feelings towards you compromise my judgement. If you have lost it, then I need to act._

"You're right," Zach repeated. His voice was low, and his eyes shifted from the side to the floor. He had seen Iida's face in the corner of his eyes and could read his expression and what he was thinking. Zach stared at the floor and his breaths were shaky as he stopped trying so hard. As he accepted what Iida was saying and told him how he was right, he really had been intentionally thinking of the Battle of the 6 Armies still, and he knew Iida could see through his lie because he was still thinking about it as the true story. And yet as he stared at the floor, his breath ragged, he repeated in a soft voice in a completely different tone than Iida had heard from him all night, "You're right."

Zach lifted his eyes slowly to Iida's, and he shook his head, "There, were never 100,000 enemies attacking me at one time. That's not, it's not true," Zach paused and he shook his head a small amount, more like he was fidgeting than actually shaking it. "There weren't even, twenty thousand. It was closer to 12, 13, maybe 14 thousand of them." Zach stared into Iida's eyes and his own were soft and pained, because Iida's expression was more pained now than before as he heard Zach describing what that "story" really was.

 _He really does, believe this,_ Iida's chest ached and he couldn't keep up an angry expression anymore.

Zach waited for Iida to deny anything like it happened, but when he didn't Zach shook his head harder and he clenched his eyes shut. "There were. You weren't there so don't, don't just-" Zach stopped himself and he glared back at Iida as his eyes opened again. "I don't know why you can't- no, I do know-"

"It's not because you made it impossible for me to believe," Iida said, countering what Zach used in the forest on Inazuma Island to defend himself. "It's because if you had fought that many villains, the entire world would know about it."

"They do," Zach whispered. Iida froze, his expression shaken as he stared at Zach in more confusion at that response. "But no one knows, what it really…" Zach lifted his eyes up and he cut himself off sharply before he could finish 'what it really was.' He gasped out after looking up like that, "Thirteen thousand of them, and I- I didn't have ten thousand troops of my own. I didn't even have a hundred at the time-" Zach's eyes watered up and he bit down while shifting his gaze to the other side, before slamming his eyes shut and tilting his head back more in an attempt to hold back the drops about to slide down his face. **_"HELP ME!"_** _ **"AHHHHH!" "PLEASE! DEATH!" "Mommy!" "Ah ah no no NOOO- AGH-"**_

Zach shook his head as the water slipped out the corners of his eyes despite his attempts to hold them back. "There weren't even a hundred of us," Zach whispered, lowering his head and looking at Iida again. "And we really were ambushed. Ambushed by, by the largest force of villains in the entire world."

Iida frowned deeper at what Zach said. His tears and expression made it look so believable, but what he was hearing countered his will to believe his friend. _He may not even be lying on purpose. But if you are-_

"This is the truth, Iida," Zach whispered in pain as Iida stared at him so doubtfully.

"…It's just another story," Iida replied.

Zach's face flinched and he shook his head hard. "No it's not," he said. "The stories, you know why I came up with them in the first place?" Zach lifted his eyes to Iida and said to his tall friend, "It wasn't to lie to everyone. That's what I told myself, how I convinced myself to make those stories in that single instant… But I don't really know what came first. No, I do. I know, that I used that excuse to make up those stories because I, I really just can't think about them, about how they really happened."

Iida shook his head in confusion at Zach, still frowning as he said, "What are you saying?" _Changing it up again. He's just making more lies-_

"Please," Zach whispered, his voice pleading with Iida whose thoughts cut off at the sight of that face. "Just believe me, because it's actually the truth that I can't tell anyone- but I, I can't differentiate- I can't recognize what's truth and what's lies after I merged them all together." Zach looked painfully at Iida who had started this because he feared the very same thing. "I've been lying since I was a little kid. It always protected me. And when I stopped lying about my Quirk, all the horrible things I was afraid of happened. The lies were a defense mechanism for myself, and they still are."

Zach spoke in such an understanding tone of his own mental state that Iida got even more confused, as he had felt the opposite way a few seconds ago. "How, so?"

"Because my own memories are so painful," Zach whispered at the tall, broad-shouldered teen before him who tried to keep a discerning look even as Zach's sad eyes stared forward into his. "The amount of people I've brought back to life, the comrades I've lost, the things I've done, the- the… horrors I've seen. It's way too much." Zach closed his eyes for a second and pushed another tear out of his left eye for it to roll down that side of his face. "And I kept moving so fast back when it was happening, because I couldn't let the villains recover, and when they adapted to my speed I sped up even more to counter their adaptations, then I sped up more, and more. It worked because I didn't want to think on those things anyway, but I just let it pile up more and more. I wasn't sleeping for days at a time, just moving nonstop from fight to fight without ever running low on information…"

Iida's eyes had grown larger and he stared at Zach in hesitation as words kept spilling out of Zach's mouth without him pausing for enough time to breath it looked like. "…and I traveled across dozens of countries in a day fighting hundreds, thousands of villains I took down with my own hands. I lost comrades in my arms, or I heard their screams over comms, or I just lost them when I wasn't looking. People I loved and cared about and fought side by side with and ate every meal together and talked about life after the war with and they were just _gone._ For the second time they died and I couldn't do anything to save them." Zach spoke faster as his face started to scrunch up, his expression steadying back a bit as the words came out more rapidly, "And I never thought about them. I just pushed forward. I was sad, and it hurt, but I had to make sure everyone saw me as confident and strong as ever…"

Something Zach was telling Darling repeated in Iida's head. It was something he had not focused on too clearly at the time, as so much was happening and Stain's name had kept echoing through his mind instead. _**"But I was in charge, and so I couldn't let anyone see me break down. When things were bad, real bad,"**_ Iida stared at Zach with his eyes shaking as his expression looked as real as it did that night when he was talking to that brown-haired girl. _**"I couldn't let anyone- I couldn't ever…"**_ Iida pictured Zach reaching a hand up to his chest and clenching it so tightly. _**"I had to stay strong the whole time, because I needed the others to believe in me. I needed them to see me strong so that they wouldn't falter. I did it because if I didn't then they might die, and then I'd have even more that- that I couldn't even react to. But I'm not, I'm not that cold a person that I could see them die and see all those things and be so emotionless… So I didn't think of- I didn't think about any-"**_

Iida's heart raced as he watched Zach trying to hard to come up with the words. And he remembered what Zach said after all of that only a few nights ago, _**"...And I still-"**_

"But when I had all that time in the Void," Zach started, looking at Iida with his teeth sliding back and forth over each other as he paused for a second again. "And that moment came, when who I was and what I had done, and everything, it all came at a single moment… But I couldn't do it. And in the next moment I didn't think about it anymore. Not like that. Not like… this." Zach grit his teeth and looked into Iida's eyes in a more serious way though his eyes were still red from the water. "But I've never thought of it- of that day- not really. I haven't thought about it like this, what really happened, until right here. Right now with you. Because those stories I made, they were close enough to the real thing that I was able to invoke some of my feelings towards them without breaking down because I knew it was just a story. As long as it was just a story, as those were just characters in a- a fairy tale, I'd be able to talk about them. I'd have a story to tell everyone about where I was, and I wouldn't lose it because- because that would be the reality that I had accepted."

"You can't just change the past," Iida responded in a low voice. "It doesn't work that way. And if you really accepted that story as the truth, if somehow you made it so you could truly believe it-"

"I don't believe it," Zach snapped, an angry look flashing over his own face. "Of course I don't- but they are the, the memories I choose."

"That's-"

"Crazy, I know," Zach replied, his face scrunching up in pain even as he said it. "But no one could live remembering all the things I decide not to- No one, Iida. You included. You couldn't do it." Zach glared at his friend who was looking like he felt he had to do something after hearing Zach admit what he just admitted there. "Those people I loved, those things that happened around us, I never thought about them because I had to be strong for everyone else and keep pushing, but I care too much," he whispered the last part with his head tilting back, his eyes so wet and his teeth clenched furiously at what he said. Iida's expression shook and he pulled back, as Zach leaned forward and whispered, "I've always cared so much. I forced myself to learn everyone's named and their pasts, to be the one who was there to recruit them, and to find out who they really were and know what they wanted to do with their lives and why they fought with me, so that I'd be that much more inclined to protect them and keep them all alive," Zach blinked and tears fell, and he gasped in a broken voice at Iida, "And then I lost all of them anyway. That battle Iida, they were terrified. They were, they were all so afraid to die…"

Zach shook his head and then pushed his chin down into his chest while the corners of his lips pulled so far apart. His teeth clenched in agony, and then he forced out, "But when we were ambushed _I_ had to make them believe that we could win. I had to be strong and convince them that we were going to survive. I made them believe that I believed they were all going to live. I can see them, looking at me with hope rising in their eyes as I made my battle plan in that moment. As I pretended like I had had this plan made for weeks in advance, as I acted like I had totally seen it coming-" Zach turned his head to the right while Iida's bottom lip lowered, while he stared at Zach who was saying these things for the first time, to anyone. "But I knew they were going to die. I knew I was sending them to their deaths, because I knew there was no way a hundred people could all survive against a force of _thousands._ But I watched them lift their helmets and cover up faces that I would never see again, and I just- I just moved forward."

"I never mourned," Zach said, his voice steady all of a sudden and his tone more detached from what he was saying. "Because I just keep moving forward. Even now," he said it and looked into Iida's eyes, and he wiped his own at the shocked and pitying way Iida was looking at him. His serious expression made Iida start to return to one too, though his eyes stayed wide as Zach explained, "I think of how to convince everyone of my stories, instead of thinking about how I'm lying in that moment and how it feels. I think of how the way people reacted to those stories is going to affect me later on and how I can fight villains in the future and what I will do moving on in the public view. And though I need to look back on the past for my mistakes to learn from, if I change up the story a little and am always thinking while I tell the stories of the past about how to convince people in the present and future that they're true, then I'm not fully focused on the past and what really happened. I don't have to imagine it and all the horrors that came with it. It wasn't some fun fairy tale, but some horrible fucking memories that I don't want to talk about. And it's not that I'm repressing the memories, Iida, because they're all still in there," Zach tapped on the side of his head with his left hand.

"But I have to convince everyone that I'm fine," he continued, his tone intense as he lowered his left arm back down to his side and stood firmly before his former classmate. "And when I'm out I need anyone who might be recording me to see a smile and a confident expression. I need to do this so I can convince all the people I hurt when I suddenly left, that I'm back and I've changed and I wasn't as hurt as I led them all to believe leading up to the Lifebringer Incident." Zach stared deep into Iida's stunned eyes, "All those other regrets besides Airi, all those things I need to fix that I left broken, I can't fix anything without doing this. And I want to convince my friends who I left behind and hurt so much that I was out having adventures and had all these crazy fantastic stories, but was acting as a hero even at war. I _need_ to convince myself that certain things happened in the ways I could tell them to other people. I couldn't walk around all day with a smile otherwise, and that's part of the reason I came back... and that's another excuse I created in that moment to build a plan to create those fake memories."

Iida's bottom lip dropped as Zach said that in a thoughtful voice, like he was realizing it himself that it would make sense for him to come up with that reason so he would have another excuse not to think on those horrible things. "The stories you tell though," Iida started. "They're still, a lot of them from what I've heard are-"

"As horrible as some of those new stories are, new ones that I still hide from most people because even those fictions I created are horrible, they're nothing compared to the reality that I hide from myself," Zach replied before Iida could finish. "The Battle of the 6 Armies really was a horrible, massive battle, Iida. And we were outnumbered, but it wasn't 10 to 1, it was 100 to 1, _easy_. And one of the villains, A Hundred Fold, he was able to multiply himself and so many others a hundred times, so even fourteen thousand might be low-balling. Plus all the bodies we couldn't even count afterwards, the ones not even-" Zach shook his head, but Iida was narrowing his wide eyes with his thoughts racing at something he just heard. "The truth, is that I was caught by surprise. And they were on all sides of me, after they shot our helicopter down as it returned to our flying headquarters, a mobile HQ I made because I really didn't want to put people in danger by being camped in any one place close to them for long. That base was my home, where I made all those memories with so many comrades I had lost, but I set off an EMP to knock out all our systems and everyone else's up there."

Iida listened closely but his expression was narrowed and his eyes reading Zach's face looking for the slightest sign of a lie. The longer he was going without seeing that though, the more anger welled in Iida's chest at the seemingly honest expression Zach had while he poured this out for him. "We all fell twenty thousand feet, towards the ground that was also covered for miles in every direction in villains. I knocked out all their super advanced weapons' systems too though. All the targeting systems and high-tech weapons that relied on electricity. Everything the Pueblos had gone and spent the rest of Bolivar's money on, a secret stash of hard cash they must have had hidden away so even after I bankrupted the villains in the Siege of Raz- Wampajawa, they had enough money to put us on a technologically equal level. And all those villains down there, even the ones outside of the majority of powerful, brutal villains, even those weaker ones were supplied with powerful weapons and Quirk-influencing drugs. And the Triakuza heads had brought their own weapons that didn't get affected by the EMP, their biological ones. Including-"

"The Triakuza?" Iida asked. His voice took a tone to it that had Zach stop completely, his eyes that were lowering moving back up and the thought of one man pushing from his head. "A Hundred Fold? After this 'battle,' were they captured by heroes?"

Zach's expression stayed flat for a moment as he saw Iida's dark one hidden just below his accusing gaze. That look rose to the surface though as Zach replied, "Yes."

"You-" Iida stopped himself and held back hard as he was ready to start shouting there. _After all of that! It wasn't even-_ "You're talking about the Villain Summit?"

"The Villain Summit," Zach repeated. He said it and then nodded his head after a second while he looked into Iida's eyes. "That's what they call it, but-"

"Zach!" Iida snapped it and he cut off the shorter boy before he could say anything else. "What you're describing isn't the Villain Summit. It wasn't an ambush on you and your comrades. It wasn't this at all-"

"You're wrong," Zach said. "The Villain Summit isn't real-"

"There were heroes there," Iida said. He stomped forward towards Zach and searched his eyes desperately for a sign that this really was a lie, but this time he knew. He could see it for sure that Zach was talking from the heart here, and he shook his head in frustration at himself for listening for so long right there. "There are dozens of _confirmed_ reports on what really happened that day." Zach opened his mouth but Iida continued quicker, "I know you were there, but the heroes saw what was happening. They found out what was going on, and it was a gathering of all those villains in order to make an alliance. They wanted to join together and make truces, but the talks broke down and they all started attacking each other. And the Army of Death joined in on that fight, making it even larger-"

"That's not what-"

"Everyone knows it," Iida cut Zach off before he could finish his own interruption. "The Chinese heroes who were there told everyone what had happened. People died in their city so don't tell me they were lying to protect you either." Zach's eyes darkened and his breath calmed down, his expression darkening just as Iida's had a moment before. "What you say happened that day, wasn't what really happened. That was a huge event that everyone saw-"

"Why are you so sure of this?" Zach asked. He stopped Iida again, but when Iida opened his mouth to respond Zach continued first, "I was there, and you weren't, but this isn't just disbelief. You really think I'm crazy rather than accept that maybe you don't know what really happened."

"That's _not_ what really happened though," Iida said, his voice pained which stopped Zach from looking so dark. "Everyone knows what happened that day. It wasn't in the shadows. It's not… it's not something you can just say we didn't see. We all saw it. Heroes saw it and people told…"

Zach's expression lifted back up and he took in a deep breath. He steadied his voice and spoke up while Iida was still speaking in his pained voice. "Iida, when the heroes arrived on the scene, I was the first one to speak to them." Zach looked into Iida's eyes with no hesitation or uncertain look. He did not appear crazy nor did he speak in a shaky voice. Zach told the teen in front of him in no uncertain terms, "And I told them that it was a Villain Summit. I told them what the villains had come to do. How they had come to form up in an alliance of powerful villains, hoping to take the place of the League of Shadows." Zach's voice got lower and he said to the teen in front of him whose face was shifting from disbelief to shock and confusion. "I told them, exactly what they would go on to tell the press. What they would tell other heroes, and what the press would spread to the rest of the world… to become the truth. I don't blame you, for believing in it so strongly. That was… that was the point."

Iida hated the apologetic tone in Zach's voice, but he could not close his mouth as he stared into Zach's eyes. The realization he had had a minute ago about how Zach really was crazy, that he really did believe in that story that Iida knew for a fact was false, was getting overtaken by a different revelation. "I didn't want anyone to know, that the villains had gathered up in such a strong force solely for the purpose of taking me down. The strongest villains remaining, every one of the biggest groups of villains from across the world. Eziano and his assassins, watching from that plateau before I shattered it, throwing a massive rock into the cliff and swinging a huge arm of Death into their paths. Former lieutenants of Shadow Bosses, the Triakuza, the Pueblos, Yusugoro, The Retainer, The Rippermen and the Gravitous…. and all of those strongest villains from every country in the world, had beef with other strongest villains from around the world. We knew the Rippermen and Gravitous hated each other, but they were united under the same leader because they knew they _needed_ to in order to survive, and because they were from the same region. And we knew the Kimchi were always afraid of the Triakuza, so a single whisper that they were going to be wiped out once I was dead was all it took to turn the Asian army against itself."

Zach's head bowed a little but his eyes stayed risen, but the darkness shadowed over his face more in the dome already deep in night. He looked up into Iida's eyes and said, "It was not a long battle like Wampajawa. It was longer than most, but only an hour, hour and a half max for the thickest fighting. And the heroes arrived late. They arrived late into the battle, as most had gone to their city first where the damage had been caused early in the fight. That city was far from the fighting though, and they arrived only after my forces had turned all of the villains against each other. And _I_ created the lie in the moment I needed the heroes to fight with me." Iida's huge eyes stared at Zach in attempted disbelief though he could no longer convince himself of it. "I could have told them anything, but even in that insanely intense battle I was focused on everything, everywhere, all at once. I thought about the future, and I told them something believable and something that would create a lie that I could use to my advantage against my enemies who would not be defeated in one fell swoop that day. And the entire world, believes in this lie."

"You couldn't have, done something like this," Iida started. "The whole world- you couldn't make a lie that…"

"But I did," Zach whispered back. His whisper was so soft like he was not even admitting to it. The whisper itself felt to Iida like something that should never be said. It sounded to him, in the tone Zach said it, like a secret buried underneath the world. Zach's eyes stared intensely into Iida's and he said in a dark voice, "History is written by the victors. It's been the case in every war in history, that in the aftermath it's the winners who were the ones in the right the whole time. It's their enemies who were the ones committing the atrocities. As for my war, a secret war in which it would be hard to write a history about anyway, I controlled how history would be written in other ways. I had the power, and no one will ever know that I had the power. I had the resources, but no one could ever imagine that a group that isn't a country had those sort of resources. And I fought a war in the shadows, in a world where no one will ever be able to accept that there was a war going on in the shadows. And I did this _easily._ How could people believe in the lie? Because the truth, is less believable. Because the lie seems like what the truth would be. Because villains who hear what they're being accused of, accept those circumstances as the new truth. They accept it because they knew it's the truth I decided on and they were terrified of me. The same reason they never brought up my name, all the hundreds of thousands of villains sent to jail by my forces and me. And sure, some crazy ones, some fanatics, they don't care and they tried to tell heroes and argue the case that they weren't really in China killing innocent people because of a Villain Summit, but because they wanted to kill Death. But when heroes saw what happened, and when thousands of other villains are just sticking to the story they're being accused of, the truth is clear."

Zach stepped towards Iida and said in a quiet whisper, "All I had to do, was tell those heroes that it was a Villain Summit, and that became reality. It's why I've lost my grip on the 'truth' and what my stories really are. I was telling the truth before, all this time, because the truth I told the others are the stories you heard, and that I believe. And if I was the only one left to know the real truth, and I now have changed my truth, then that has become the reality. Because if no one knows the forgotten truth then it's lost and becomes the story."

"That's not how truth works," Iida whispered back, a small shake of his head as he said it like Zach was insane for thinking of it that way.

Zach bit down on his bottom lip that trembled under his teeth. Iida stared at Zach's face that looked seriously hurt in that moment, and Zach said in a hoarse voice, "It has to be. Because," his teeth shook more on his lip that slipped out from beneath it. "Because I've been telling lies to Norasaki who's a lie detector, but I _choose_ to believe my stories which mean they are _my_ truths." Zach's face scrunched for a second, then he continued fast to try and get that pain to leave, "And I was the only one who knew what the actual truth was, so if I'm telling the truth and the others only know that version of the truth then that is now true. It, has to be!" Zach's face scrunched more the second time, as he thought about Kotsumura calling him out for the lie of when he took out his phone to see what was happening with the Subspace Devils. "But…" he started, his voice choked up as he thought about how much Kotsumura calling him out on that had confused and boggled him. Then another face appeared in his mind that made Zach gasp and lean his head back, "But Darling messed all that up. Because she knew the actual reality-"

Zach grimaced. He lowered his leaned back head and said to Iida in a tired voice, "I was never supposed to see people from the past again." He said it like he had failed already, like the plan he had come up with to keep these truths and lies in place to himself, had already fallen apart. _I have to keep trying though,_ Zach reminded himself, and his expression became a bit more serious again and less tired, though he could not erase it all from his expression. "If I never did, then that past would become forgotten to history, and instead she brought it back to life. Darling revealed a past that I had… that I had…"

 _I was, underestimating it,_ Iida thought in realization as he stared at Zach. _His mental state, was even worse than I thought back when we heard his conversation with Darling. He's stable, but-_ Iida clenched his teeth behind his lips in sheer frustration all towards himself. _All I used to think about, was how Zach was lying and making plans with these careful lies. This whole time I've been thinking too much of him. As amazing and powerful as Zach is, he_ _ **is**_ _struggling._

"So the Villain Summit," Iida started. _His state is bad. He seems in control. Today he fought our class without causing severe injury, and he only used Death on Sero but he swears a minuscule amount. Is what he's saying real though?_ "Not the Battle of the 6 Armies, but the Villain Summit. What really happened there?" _Is this for me? I want to know, the real truth. I don't know if I can accept that you could do something like that. That you had the ability to do it, not the will. You could have, if it was possible. You would have…_

"It really was, a Battle of 6 Armies," Zach replied. "I mean that, Iida. The Pueblos gathered up the villains of Latin America. They told the other villains to scatter from their bases, flee as I went through my world loop after Wampajawa. I knew where every villain in the world was, but as fast as I moved in those three weeks, it wasn't fast enough to stop them before they packed up. If I had just gone a little faster- but I didn't. I went as fast as I could at the time, but there were still highly capable villains all over the world. And they knew that I knew where everyone was. And they knew that should I complete the world loop and get rid of that many powerful villains, they would never have a chance again at taking me down. I knew that some of them knew this, and I knew that they were planning to organize a counterstrike, an ambush on me somewhere, sometime. They knew that I knew though, and they were smarter than they ever had been. They kept everything quiet and only told people their plans if those people were grouping with them, and they kept those other villains somewhere, in hiding, until the day of the attack. So no one could leak information on it. The Triakuza heads, used money the Pueblos leant them to carry out more horrific experiments, creating monsters out of people, twisting and deforming them to create the most powerful human weapons that they were able to reign in all of Asia, Australia, Oceania with. The African villains, well they were more united out of fear of me than anything, though there were some powerful villains there too who organized their forces. The Europeans and North Americans, they gathered up the most powerful and well-renowned villains from their continents too, under the strongest of King's men who had evaded capture for months after we stopped him. So many huge egos, and they couldn't unite under a single leadership, but five different ones. Five of their armies, and one of mine."

Zach paused for a moment and then said in a dark, deep voice, "You always tell me that it wasn't a war. That we weren't armies, we weren't fighting battles-"

"You weren't," Iida said, countering as Zach was speaking in a 'do you see now' sort of voice.

Zach grit his teeth and lost that expression only for his eyes to get much darker, "That's the reality that you believe, because you can't accept-"

"I don't accept it," Iida retorted instantly. "You were vigilantes, who villains decided to attack because you had been doing too much damage to them. I'll accept that much, but it wasn't a war, Zach. Wars are between nations, armed forces with-"

"These villain groups spanned across nations. They had control over political figures they'd been blackmailing and bribing." Zach shook his head and said in a more pissed-off voice, "Each of us on our own, each of those armies and my own had more money than the GDP of dozens of smaller nations. Far more resources and capital. We were better armed than any nation, because every nation has banned firearms, whereas we weren't just using guns but missiles and grenades and rocket launchers and tanks and weaponized Super Jets. I had an R&D department developing new weapons using technology from all the illegal weapons' facilities all the strongest countries in the world had hidden away from their heroes. Combined with all the technology made by Quirks in research labs and human experimentation facilities, and all the tech that we obtained from the villains we had defeated so far, our technology was so far ahead of the rest of the world's." Zach lifted his left arm and pulled down the sleeve a bit, revealing the metal arm that he turned over, then curled his fingers in on before opening up as a palm for a blue light to glow on it with no glove or anything covering the steel and shredded fake skin.

 _It's all impossible. Stuff like that is… But it's real. How could it be real? Even if that is, I don't have to accept-_ "It still wasn't war," Iida said, lifting his eyes from Zach's hand back to his face. "No matter what you say, you weren't fighting some war against an ideology or an enemy. Villains will always exist, and we will always need people to fight them but we fight them as heroes. Defenders of the law, not as criminals ourselves. Not as vigilantes, or terrorists-" Iida stopped himself there, as he reminded himself how Zach pushed for that title which was something he could believe and did after hearing what else Zach could change in how the rest of the world saw things. He stopped with that though, and he said in a determined voice, "But there was no war against villains. You fought them, but-"

"Why do you care so much, that it not be a war?" Zach asked. His voice rose a little as he questioned it with pain in his tone.

Iida countered strongly back to him though, his voice rising too, "Why do you care that it was?"

"Because I-" Zach started shouting, but he cut himself off with the hardest clench down of his teeth as he could. "Because I convinced myself that it wasn't, and the rest of the world believes me, and it's hard to… to convince myself otherwise, but when I'm talking to you like this! When I'm trying to just, tell you the truth," Zach's voice was sad and his eyes full of pain as he gasped it at Iida. "I was there, Iida, so stop telling me that it wasn't real because- because I don't know if I'll be able to hold onto these memories if you-" Zach stopped himself with his lips pursing and his watery eyes looking desperately at the taller teen before him who pulled back in shock at that look, weaker than he had seen Zach in years.

"And yeah, I was the one who created the story of the Villain Summit in the first place, so I made it so all those news channels said what they did about us-" He stopped himself and looked to the right, his face starting to look angry only to revert back an instant later and a ragged breath to slip his mouth. "But when they, talked about how, how the heroes had seen when we left how few of us there were, and they said how that was a good thing. How, how maybe we should just fade away, as we had just gotten in the way- and we had just made the incident bigger to damage that city and kill those people… I couldn't- I couldn't watch that and still not feel…" Zach paused and he tried to pull it back, but he shook his head as he couldn't while talking about the truth like this. "It was my plan to make that be, the story. To make everyone think of us like that. But to see it actually happen. To watch as the world got so much better," tears streamed down Zach's face freely as he let out a few slow and ragged breaths. "While my friends who had made it happen, would never get any recognition. While all those people, half of-" Zach stopped himself again, his lips trembling so his voice had gotten shakier and the words unable to come out clearly.

"A lot of people died, so stop telling me it wasn't real," Zach whispered at Iida, his head lifting and his tearing eyes locking with his friend's stunned, and regretful, ones. Zach's voice growled in a harder tone though, trying to get himself back to speaking instead of just standing there in pain. "Those gladiators I told you guys about. The ones who followed me, every last one of them. Not one of them survived past the Battle of 6 Armies. Some, only had their first death in Wampajawa, but Ansario, and Rivona, Ted and, and Berserker. None of them could survive that battle." Zach's voice was pained but steadier again, and he said while closing his eyes for a moment, "They were the last four who had been with me in the Pit, and they all fell following me. They all gave their lives for my goal, my ambition, the idea that maybe we really could stop them all. All those villains, who my friends joined an army, willing to lay their lives down to stop. And they did lose their lives. Those four fell from a hundred wounds while facing 100 to 1 odds, worse."

"Not many would survive that battle without falling once, barely a quarter of our forces could say they didn't die that day, and yet I couldn't revive those four who had already died before be it in Africa, or Wampajawa, Brazil or Siberia, in the sky and under the ocean, in deserts and frozen wastelands and jungles alike." Zach took a second and then he added, "And Spilaro-"

Zach took in a deep breath, shaking his head around rapidly before hissing in a lower voice, "Spiral. He fought hard for months with me. Through the hardest days of the war." Zach paused and then said softer, "He grew as a fighter, and as a soldier, and as a person. He made comrades and built bonds that would last a lifetime, which for him would only be a few months." Zach's eyes shook but he steadied them right away, taking in a sharp breath and then letting it out as a gasp as he could not hold it in or let it out slowly. "And he was so young," he gasped while out of breath. "So many were… Access was 18 when he joined, and he got hit by an aging Quirk- but he was still 18 on the inside, despite looking 6-12 years older. Raylei was 19 like Spiral, but Spiral was a little older since I remember fighting side by side with him, on his twentieth birthday, a few weeks before he died…"

"Zach, you don't need to-"

"Darling's just a little older than me, sixteen years old when we started. And Cee's just a year older than us, 18 when she died…"

Iida stared at his friend in front of him, and he felt his heart racing faster as he heard that name both he and Darling had gotten broken up over on Inazuma. How close the two of them sounded to her, and now he knew that she was the age he was now when she died. And he pulled his head back more as Zach whispered in a hoarse voice, "She'd been fighting villains for years, with her teacher, an anti-hero who I- who I got killed by telling Kaminari… But she forgave me. And she fought with me, and she- she was a kid. We were kids. We were just kids, and many of the others were in their twenties, lots twenty, twenty-one… and there were those younger, like Cody and Snow- What was I thinking? Having a kid on board? We got attacked, and there weren't a hundred of us who could fight, but there were over a hundred on board. There were, so many injured, and a kid, and doctors-"

Zach reached up his left hand and gripped into his head without caring as it hurt immediately upon him tightening a grip there. "How could so many of them die, and I still be here? I went first into every battle, rushed into the most danger and took all the fire so the others behind me wouldn't… And I'm still alive. I, didn't expect to live that day. I was a diversion, for all the others to go underground and then emerge and attack and create chaos- I! I thought for sure I was going to die, which meant there was nothing holding me back. I had accepted it. I wasn't afraid to die, because if I was scared for my own life, how could I do those things? How could I fly head-first into thousands of enemies who were prepared for me? How could I charge into battlefields putting myself in the line of fire, as the primary target… how could I have protected my comrades if I cared about my own life more than theirs? My soldiers… my subordinates… those who followed me to war."

Zach's face turned extremely dark, and Iida froze with his mouth partially open as he was thinking about asking about the people Zach mentioned who were younger than him. Iida lost all urge to question it, freezing up with a nervous look spreading over his face as the tone shifted in an instant. "And those amazing people died fighting a war against our enemies: the murderers, the rapists, people who sold each other like livestock, like weapons, like toys to be played with and thrown aside… People who experimented on others, tortured them and turned innocents into creatures… and my _war_ ripped the foundations of these established practices apart, as much as I tore apart the ones doing them." Zach's growling voice got darker and his eyes flared red, and Iida heard in what he just said that tearing them apart was not a metaphor, "I've killed so many of them, freeing their slaves and their gladiators, burning their cities to the ground and ravaging their armies!"

"On that battlefield I used Trigger twice in an hour, and I knew my heart couldn't take it but I did it anyway. And I stood three hundred feet tall, being attacked on all sides by _thousands_ of enemies." What Zach had said earlier about fighting thousands on his own echoed in Iida's head, but the tone he had used earlier when telling the story, made everyone who heard it just listen and take it as part of the story itself. It didn't matter how much each person believed Zach, it was the way he told the story that made for the kind of reactions he invoked. And the way he said it this time, Iida could see it in front of him now, what it would really look like if Zach had gone to war against thousands of villains and injected with Trigger while they all attacked him. "None of them were running. Fighting and killing me was what they came for. They sent in the short-range fighters, hundreds of them all at once, moving quickly around my massive body, flying and running around and- and then all the mid-rangers and long-rangers attacked at the same time. It didn't matter that their comrades were all around me, they just launched the largest bombardment of every ones of their Quirks and all their strongest weapons…"

Zach lifted his right hand up in front of his body, and he stared at it with his intense and furious expression shaking for a second. "I can, see that moment," Zach muttered. "As I opened my eyes, and I couldn't breathe. I was drowning in something, and I could barely move a muscle. I tried to spit out the liquids but opening my mouth just- and I, I was surrounded in stuff that was so wet and- hard. I pushed up, to get out of there, and I clawed my way up through those bodies." Iida took in a sharp, nervous breath at that word Zach whispered like he was remembering it, the shock of what he was actually drowning in. "The realization that I was- I pushed it away," Zach retold, as he thought about clawing his way upwards. "It smelled so bad, and I couldn't get a grip on anything. It was so wet, the blood and the sweat and the tears, the mud and the vomit and intestines- shit and piss- and I felt a hand grab me by the ankle, and I kicked it off desperately while gasping in more blood and trying to get to the surface."

He bowed his head with his own eyes as huge as Iida's. Iida could not even doubt what he was hearing with all the graphic detail Zach was saying that had him feeling sick himself. Zach continued while his shaky eyes stared at the floor, "I reached the top and pushed my arm out, and I yanked my head out of the corpses and took in a huge breath of air. I stood on a pile of bodies twenty feet high, and I- I looked, I looked forward and I saw-" Zach's eyes shot open massive, his heart pounding violently to the point he was in physical pain, but it was not slowing down easy with the image he saw in his head. "Invisible platforms all over the sky, covered in people running around and fighting, and the platforms were moving and some people in the middle of a fight got squished to guts by the walls closing in- and above them, seventeen black holes ripped across the sky. Each with dark orange cores that pulled people in and- and an ocean of lava rolled across the land and engulfed hundreds- while mountains rose and broke apart and more rose in their places. Thousands and thousands of villains all drugged up on Quirk enhancers, using weapons the world has never seen before, fighting so savagely across battlefields littered in corpses and bathed in red-"

Zach looked back at Iida and paused. He paused and his face flashed with as much pain as Iida had seen on it the whole time they had been talking. _He'll never look at me the same after this. I shouldn't have told him… but I have now, because he wanted to hear it. He wanted to know._ Zach's expression lifted a little and the pain went away as he told himself that it was Iida's choice. He looked at that astonished look on Iida's face and went on, "And I really was terrified… no? Wait."

Zach stopped himself and he gained a confused look on his face for a second. He thought about how earlier at the fire he said how it was scary for him at the time, how terrified he was of all those enemies… Zach stared into Iida's eyes and he said, "I think, I wasn't. Now that I think about it, I wasn't terrified of all those enemies. It was horrifying, and I, I was terrified of losing- but I say that now because I feel like I had to be back then. No, when I climbed atop those bodies my thoughts were clear. My mind focused on winning and nothing else, because I had to defeat them. Thousands of villains stared towards _me_ in fear as I climbed up on their dead, and then I rushed them, and the ones I rushed knew that the others around that pile of corpses would fire their Quirks in their direction just for the chance of hurting me, so along with my own terrifying appearance they had other incentives to run. And I made thousands run from me. While I was recovering from Trigger, while I was fucking bluffing, I defeated thousands of the most powerful and dangerous villains on the planet. Because if they escaped me, they would hurt innocent people."

"I think, if I ran, I probably wouldn't have lost many people that day." Zach said it with no regret in his voice, instead just looking into Iida's eyes in a serious way that had his classmate trying to look back at him like that too. "I knew that I could run," Zach continued. "My comrades all shouted at the start how we needed to. My closest advisors believed we should. But, although I knew I would lose the people closest to me, I attacked those villains."

"I knew some of my men might want to flee, so I went in first as a distraction with the highest chance of being killed because I was their main target. And I, knew that, most likely most my soldiers would perish, but those villains who could go into hiding or use their newfound alliance to become more powerful, or both, they had just revealed themselves to me. All those villains I've been looking for. Villains who would massacre thousands if I let them escape. Villains who were the final bastion of an Age of Villains in a world on the brink of recovery. 'If I could just beat them…' It's what I told myself, though afterwards I pushed myself to keep moving on to the next so I wouldn't have to sit around thinking about that day forever. I sacrificed… my friends, sacrificed their lives, because it was either we fight and probably die today on that battlefield, or we run away and allow those villains to kill innocent people tomorrow. I chose, fight. And I convinced the others who followed me, to push aside their fear in favor of confidence, confidence we all needed in order to do what we had to do that day. And those who died, died for all of our ideals including that they don't care to be remembered. As much as I hated myself for making us out as terrorists and villains, recklessly attacking the Villain Summit, I knew what it was they died for. It didn't make it easier for me, or for the other survivors who didn't know why they were left while all their friends had died. An army? A couple dozen traumatized, badly wounded… But we had won."

Zach whispered the final part and then he cracked the smallest of smiles. "The war was over. There was still work to do. People to fight and villains to stop, but, I didn't just pick the time frame for when I was off-world because of when the evidence of me being here was. I picked it because that's, that's really when the war was." Zach gave Iida a reassuring look and said, "You don't need to be worried about the Army of Death. You don't need to be worried that I have any master plans with them or anything. I worked so hard the final few months I was gone, trying to keep that war alive. Acting like it was still going on and fighting as hard as I had during the rest of it, but although there were some strong enemies left out there, I was the, the ruler of the underworld. No villains could stand against me. I was _hunting_ Eziano Mozcaccio and Amaterasu. I was, stronger, than anyone. I had more experience than any villain bar Eziano, maybe. In half a year I had stopped the rise of villains, reversed crime rates, took out the powerful invisible hands controlling villains all over the world for much longer than just that rise, saved millions- billions of lives, captured hundreds of thousands of villains, and I sent in so many tips that I couldn't stop the world from realizing something was up, so we just had them be called 'anonymous' tips and got everyone to stick to that story."

"It's," Iida started but was unable to finish with 'impossible,' as impossible as all of that sounded. "That's… I can't even-" Iida stared at Zach with his throat dry as a younger Zach's voice echoed through his head. _**"…I'm done trying to fit into these societies. How much good could I do, if I just, cast Zach Sazaki aside? Cast Lifebringer, and Reaper, my past, all of it away?"**_ _You weren't an anti-hero. You weren't a hero or, or a villain. I think it's impossible because there is no word for what you were. Because you made your own- just like you said you would._ Iida stared at Zach, and despite being over four inches taller at six and a half feet, Zach felt like the biggest person he had ever looked up at from above.

"You wanted to know. You pulled me aside, and you forced the truth out." Zach looked steadily into Iida's eyes as he said these things. "And now you know some more. I could tell you about a thousand things you couldn't believe. I told you about one battle, one battle Iida and you can't even wrap your head around it." Zach paused and his expression got slightly accusatory, "So what makes you think I can handle _all_ of it? I'm trying. I'm really trying hard here."

Zach stopped for a moment but then revealed, "I'll gladly take the opportunity to talk about those stories, when it's so graciously provided for me like back at the fire. Because Airi started to unravel my hold on those memories, that reality that I need everyone else to believe and accept. And yet this was good too, because I see that I can separate it. I can separate the truth from the stories. And although I'm going to continue going on as the guy who believes those things, I know that there are six of you now who know the truth and I think, I think I can handle that. I'm not going to talk about much. I'm not going to get into it often, at all if possible, which knowing you guys it won't be." Zach paused for a second and he smiled without the look on his face that he had had throughout most of their conversation. He looked like he had just reverted back to an earlier version of him who did not just reveal all those things and dredge up all that horrible shit.

"It's up to you to decide when, if ever, you turn me in," Zach told his friend standing in front of him. "But you know that if you do, you'd have to tell the world what I've told you to make you believe that I'm him. You'd have to convince people of what I just told you. You and I both know that's impossible." Zach started forward, and he smirked to his side at Iida, half-taunting and half-joking which showed Iida that as much as Zach was being smug about it now, it really was just incidental. Zach was just mentioning it as an aside, that what he just told Iida had made it very impossible for Iida to consider turning him in anymore. "They'd think you're crazy. And, they'd think I'm crazy too even if I backed you up. You can watch me closely like you said you would," Zach paused after walking past Iida, looking back at the boy still in Class A who had turned and was looking at his back now with a partially angry, but still mainly just a look like he was processing everything. "But I'm going to be a hero now, Iida. I've put my mind to it, and everyone's watching me, full of hope that I can really do it. They all want to see me succeed, just like I know you do. I'm glad you're keeping an eye on me, but I won't let you down. I won't let any of you down." Zach turned back forward and continued for the campsite on his own, leaving Iida to process back there, while an uplifted expression rose on his own face for when he was caught by the cameras again that he knew he would be stepping into view of in a second.

* * *

 **A/N Hey guys! Thanks for reading! Didn't realize when I started writing this chapter that it was going to be the longest one so far, kind of caught me by surprise when I uploaded it and saw almost 50,000 words. Anyway, hope you got through it and enjoyed the chapter! Zach talks with Bakugo, Jirou, and Iida (little bit of Uraraka too there, some Ashido, it was a long chapter XD). He tells the story of the Battle of 6 Armies at the campfire, though Exodus' name slips in there as he gets a little too into it, leading to a confrontation with Iida dredging up the reality of the Villain Summit that Zach's convinced the world of. Iida struggles with his own beliefs at the end as it's Zach's word against what everyone knows, but while Iida has a tougher time of it, Zach accepts his own struggle with the truth and how to separate it from his stories. So, thanks Iida! Bringing up that past is still tough for Zach though, and he's stuck between wanting to show his old friends a real version of himself, convince them he's not just lying 24/7, and his desire to keep everyone thinking he's back and happy and that all that happened hasn't destroyed him. His goals clash pretty directly, since it's not the truth that he's alright, and Iida realizes that as much as a few others like Midoriya are starting to notice. We never saw the Villain Summit in full detail, but some more of it revealed this chapter, along with how Zach imagines this Battle of 6 Armies. Neither the Terra story he told nor the reality the world knows is what really happened that day, but it's up there in his head, between all those different stories. The truth. Not the truth he believes and can convince himself well enough that Norasaki believes it, nor what history will consider the truth, but what really happened. Man, getting into Zach's mindset to write out these chapters gets tough for me, really, really tough. Fucks with me. Reality is... Lol Anyway! (I'm just kidding guys) Let me know what you thought of the chapter, comments, questions, predictions, and hope to get out the next chapter a bit quicker! Review responses: (btw, editing this chapter alone took me the last 13 hours)**

orangelarcenist chapter 171 . Aug 9

I loved the the joint training exercise! All the fight scenes were well written and described in great detail so I was able to picture almost everything perfectly. Great Job on that part!  
Don't know if this was intentional, but to me it seemed that UA somehow looked down on the Shiketsu Students?  
Also loved the Imino vs Kirishima and IidafFight. It's nice to see how Imino improved!  
You have a great way of showing Zach using his Tech to fight. This really makes the fights interesting as there are other fics, where the only things characters use are quirks without mentioning any kind of support gear.  
I'm hyped to read the aftermatch chapter, where there hopefully will be a talk between Jirou and Zach.  
also, THANK YOU FOR THE CHAPTER!

 **THANK YOU FOR THE REVIEW! Midoriya realized he had looked down too much on the Shiketsus this chapter as he thinks about how he really thought only Zach could defeat him, Todoroki, and Bakugo, yet it was really Inasa who pushed him into that cage. Imino improves a lot from Ranking Day, and Kameko's changed too to 'come out of his shell' XD. Anyway, I'm glad you liked the chapter and the fights, and I hope you enjoyed the aftermath and the talk between Jirou and Zach!**

DarkJokes chapter 171 . Aug 9

Oh no Six of the shiketsu people were captured. Which to them essentially means death. I guess it was inevitable tho as UA isn't weak as well. The way they are now they can take on the league of villains and not all of shiketsu members are super strong well quite a few of their quirks are more of a situational based.

 **Gonna cut off the rest of the review 'cause it was pretty long (thanks for that though!). Zach does get pissed though about losing seven* of his comrades, even though he admits he was taking it seriously and knew how strong his enemies were. I think Iida realized a bit of what you mentioned at the end of your review, as Zach takes a rare moment to actually brag about what he had done. It was more him just accepting the truth of what happened, but the truth sounds like he's bragging with all he's done for the world. And yeah, the villains definitely fear him more than they did All Might. Zach stood on a pile of corpses drenched in all kinds of bodily fluids, looking around at a warzone with thousands of enemies surrounding him, and those villains feared him, not the other way around. XD Zach's number 1 in my mind too. As for the last part about Death being cold... ehh, it's a bit of a stretch. We haven't really seen anything to believe that that would be the case with Zach's Quirk. Anyway, thanks for the long review and I hope you enjoyed the new chapter!**

Momozaki chapter 171 . Aug 10

Phew that was exciting  
Thanks for this. Most stories play safe and stay within cannon, but I appreciate how you've just gone beyond that and expanded Death into so much more  
Can't wait for the next chapter.

 **Thanks! Bit tough to stay within canon when I've long passed where the manga's currently at. (The last arc excluded as I was waiting for it to end, and I don't know what/ if anything, I'll do with that now). Sorry for the wait, and hope you enjoyed the new one!**

AMR-MNR2 chapter 171 . Aug 23

Author Sama? Are you alright? Going two weeks without an update (from knowing your dedication) is a little scary! Could I ask, you maybe add a little note to your profile description noting the rough 'progress' on you current chapters? Anyhow, have a good day!

 **I'm alive! I thought maybe I was writing slower than usual, but it turned out the chapter was just way, way long. XD Don't worry though, I'll always be here 3 Seriously, thanks for the worry you guys, and I'll try to get the next one up quicker! 'Til then, hope you all enjoyed, and thanks for reading, faving, following, and reviewing this story!**


	173. Chapter 173

**Disclaimer: I don't own Boku no Hero Academia**

 **Chapter 173:**

 _I'm getting so careless._

 _First I told Momo things that were supposed to have stories behind them. Whatever I could pull out of there, I gave to her. And now six of them know. Midoriya won't be able to hide it. He's too earnest._

 _Is my time running out?_ Zach sat back at the fire that had twelve people sitting around it other than him. It was later in the night, and the original structure of the fire had broken down so it was now less a bonfire. The students who remained this late had brought over some more wood to toss on and keep the fire going, and some of them had dragged their sitting logs closer to the smaller fire too so as to still feel the heat. Zach was looking to his right and listening to a darker story that Dendo was telling about an internship he had been to a little over a year ago along with a classmate Zach had never met, Ireni.

He listened as Dendo mentioned how the internship was coming to an end, how they had defeated the villains they were after, and how the agency and the cops had all let down their guards. "…That's when they appeared. All in those black cloaks, besides for the one in red," Dendo turned his head and looked towards a teen with spiky blond hair who glanced over into Dendo's eyes. Dendo did not say anything to Bakugo, but the single look in his direction was all everyone there needed to know, as Bakugo was most famous for taking down that very villain. "Faith himself didn't get Ireni, but Himazuri and I took down the bastard who did a month later when we were interning together. She heard him thinking about it, right at her." Dendo shifted his gaze away again towards the tents where Himazuri had already gone to sleep, and he thought about what she told him when they were facing that villain together. How the villain had known Himazuri's Quirk, and how he thought Ireni's screams into Himazuri's head, screams that only Dendo and Himazuri had heard of all their classmates.

"The Stain Cult's gone now," Reika said, leaning forward on her log with her hands out in front of her closer to the flames. On her side was a large tank of water they had near the fire for her to use to put it out with once they were done. The girl with long blonde hair added with a dangerous smirk, "But Intanzo's still out there. And he's mine."

Others looked to Reika, and she started talking about a favorite heroine of hers she had had since she was younger. They all recognized the name of the hero, as one of those who had fallen in the world famous Nara Raid, one of the most devastating blows for heroes over the past years. It was soon after the fall of the Stain Cult too, reminding all of Japan that one villain gang's destruction did not peace make. Bakugo's eyes finally shifted over to Zach though once the others were looking away from him. He avoided doing it just by them bringing up Faith, but he glared across the fire pit towards his old classmate who watched Reika with a straight expression and flat lips.

 _Intanzo. Shigaraki. Kaminari. Eziano. All For One. Mysti. Dabi. So many villains. I rid the world of so many, and I left Japan up to the others. I had, told myself it was because I trusted them. That I knew they could do it without me. There are only a couple outside of Japan I had left though, and so many I was leaving here. Midoriya, Bakugo, the rest, they would have stopped them, given enough time._ Zach lowered his gaze from Reika as she talked about the Nara Raid now, where her idol had fallen with a cluster of other heroes against Japan's most wanted villain. _I moved so fast though. That's the difference. Speed mattered more than anything. And now, now I'm just sitting here. I could have taken down Intanzo by now… I say, with no evidence of that. He's in hiding. They're all, in hiding. Only the Jazz have made even a little noise since I returned, other than the Subspace Devils. And the Jazz have even fallen silent since I stopped Overlord. When villains go into hiding though. When you can't find them. That doesn't mean they've disappeared forever. If it's anything like, the Battle of 6 Armies, they're just organizing. I wonder if they'll all unite? Would it be under Intanzo… no, of course not. I don't know him, but I know Shigaraki. And I know Kaminari. Whatever plan they have, I have to be ready for it. I have to focus on them, survive Eziano's continued attacks, and graduate to get a hero license. Finally…_

 _Look at him. Pretending he's not avoiding my gaze. You know that I know about Faith already. Don't you? I know what you did to him._ Bakugo's eyes narrowed more on Zach as his old classmate would not turn his direction to look him back in the eyes. _I didn't see what you could do today. I wanted to. It's all I wanted, and you didn't give it to me. I lost, in every sense of the word._ Bakugo thought it angrily, but the right corner of his lips did lift up a small amount. _You didn't get to see what I could do either. I'm stronger than I was at the last Sports Festival. I'd beat you. Is that why you didn't fight me? No, you wanted to face me. I saw that you did- but you wanted me to come down there! You told me you wanted me to… Shit, but I wanted to too. You wanted to because it fit with your plan though. Would things have been different? If I had defeated you there. I blamed Deku but, if I had attacked, he would have attacked with me instead of heading back on his own. The two of us against the four of you, we would have won. And if you were out of play, your class had no chance. Damn it. I should have attacked. Because I can beat you. I will, when it comes down to it._

 _Surprised Bakugo didn't make his own fire. Thought for sure he and Todoroki would. Todoroki just went back to his own tent though, and I think Iida went straight there too when he got back. He'll probably be the next one to find me out. Midoriya and Iida aren't good at hiding it, so with someone actively trying to find me out, I'm out of luck. As long as there's no proof though, I don't think any of them will do anything. Not that it's fear of how they would convict me that stops them. It's our friendship. The lingering remains of it, at least. For Todoroki, that might not even exist anymore. I thought I needed for sure to talk to Jirou today, and I did, but Todoroki too- there're too many people I've fucked over here. Too much to do. But, at least I got some stuff done. It's not as simple as fighting a villain and putting them away. It's not something I can just punch or kill. This is, it's harder in the sense that it's something I'm not really used to. I can do it though. I have to. I've gotten a grip on myself, I'm on good terms with my Shiketsu class and around half of Class A… maybe not half, maybe a quarter._ Zach looked back into the flames as a couple others mentioned how they would be looking for Intanzo too after the semester ended. The U.A. students did not join in, and the Shiketsus noticed but quieted down instead of asking why they were not focused on catching Intanzo too.

"The League's been real quiet lately, hasn't it?" Dendo brought up.

The U.A. students around the fire looked his direction. Mineta and Tsuyu looked over from the same side of the fire where they were sitting next to each other. Yaoyorozu and Shoji and Sato all lifted their heads too to look at the teen with bright green hair who looked around at them.

Bakugo shifted his eyes over from his own seat, before looking back through the flames towards Zach again. Zach looked back at him this time too, and he said, "You're the last ones to come in contact with them, right?" Others around the fire looked to Zach as he started speaking, but they turned to Bakugo after to see the blond frowning darkly at the question but not snapping about it or anything. "When Phinx and Lee went after Midoriya's mom, you fought-"

"You knew the guys the League sent after…" Dendo began in surprise.

Everyone around the fire looked Zach's direction, Bakugo with the darkest look of all after his eyes had widened there for a split second. Mineta and Yaoyorozu both stared at Zach with wider eyes than most though, as they had heard Phinx's name before. Yaoyorozu calmed herself down quickly though, as she recalled Midoriya had already heard that Zach knew them before Zach revealed everything else to them. _It's not something he keeps a secret._

Mineta's heart was pounding though much harder, _**"But even Eziano's assassins not a part of his organization like Phinx, were insanely powerful and capable of anything. Phinx killed my men there, then he was there when we attacked the Syndicate in the Dragon's Den to stop the Christmas nuke. He was there when Eziano attacked my headquarters-"**_ _Why is Zach bringing these guys up? Why risk this?!_ _ **"I found a child with the power of a nuclear bomb who villains were using to try and- They were going to nuke Paris. Throw the boy into the city and make him explode, to cause so much widespread chaos in the long-term that the League planned on, and that they and Fergus hired mercenaries to make sure it happened. And that boy died in my arms, and the kid tried so hard to the moment he died not to let any radiation out, trying not to kill me despite it being my fault he got shot. A seven year old- or eight year old boy, holding back his glowing light because it was melting through my arms, after he had pushed me out of the way and taken Phinx's Spike to the chest…"**_

Asui Tsuyu looked to her side and her already large eyes grew wider still at the unnerved look on Mineta's face. _Mineta-chan? Do you know, what it is-_

"Yeah, I met them overseas and failed to stop them," Zach replied in a low voice with a look towards Dendo. "I heard they were the ones who went after Midoriya's mom. I don't know if they were working on getting the other names on that kill list," his gaze shifted back to Bakugo. "But I thought maybe you'd know something more?"

 _We don't have that kill list. We fucking- I fucking lost it. I lost my cool and let it get destroyed, and we didn't get any information out of those villains._ Bakugo ground his teeth as he thought all of this without saying any of it aloud. He knew he should mention some of it to the other heroes-in-training, but his anger directed inwards at himself, which he then redirected outwards with a dark glare at Zach. "You seem to know everything about it already."

Bakugo's voice was accusatory, as Zach had been free when that incident happened. Zach responded without hesitation though, "I've talked to Midoriya about it." Bakugo grimaced harder as that made sense too, more sense even than whatever he was suggesting. "But he ran off to save his mom, while you fought the League. You and Lemillion, were the last ones to find one of their bases. And now it's been what, eight months with no sign of them?" His question was dark and made the fire pit eerily dark, with every person staring at Zach in at least a little surprise at how serious his tone and expression were.

"The list was destroyed," Bakugo said, snapping it in a low voice but at least answering this time.

"But you got a look at it," Zach said. "The other names-"

"I don't remember them," Bakugo retorted. _Was only focused on that one name._ "Lemillion did though. The list is a secret though, and the people we know are on it have protection details." Bakugo paused for a moment, then he growled as everyone was still looking at him, "That's it. They're still being protected, and there hasn't been an attempt on any of them since."

Zach frowned deeper and he leaned back on his seat with a thoughtful look. _Was the kill list a ruse then? Did they know Midoriya was coming, so they brought the kill list up to show him- no, it doesn't make sense to give up those strong assassins for just a ruse… Except for Kaminari, doing something unpredictable like that might just make sense in his long-term play. Or maybe the lack of attacks since was because of what happened to the last team of assassins, so new ones aren't lining up for hit jobs. Or maybe Eziano called back all the hitmen and assassins to await my release from prison. Send them all after me, and so the League of Villains aren't getting the same outsourcing they used to. Damn it. Kaminari's too smart. I don't see any plan of his getting carried out without excessive casualties. Hopefully part of his plan revolves around killing me at least. It's all I can hope for._

"Isn't it, a good thing they haven't made any noise?" Imino offered up. "Maybe they're just, going…" he trailed off and did not finish with the way the Class A students all looked.

Reika grunted and looked away with a pissed-off expression. _The League aren't as big a deal as they were before. I, can't say that to them though. And what if they know that's not true? The way their classmate betrayed them. Damn, if one of ours had done that after years of- I can't even fucking imagine._ "I don't think so," Tsuyu replied to Imino as no one else was responding to him. "It means that Raijin's plan this time, is even longer in the making than his previous one. Years of planning, for something, something I can't imagine-"

Tsuyu turned her head to the left in surprise, as her left hand on the log at her side was just covered by another hand. Her big frog eyes rose up from their hands into Mineta's eyes, and the short boy who was an inch taller than her now just gave her a comforting and reassuring look after he had put his hand there. There was no perverted look on his face or feel that he was using the moment as a chance to make a move, it was just a comforting gesture from a friend. For the Shiketsus who did not know that Asui had died, they felt even more like there was stuff about the League of Villains and Raijin in particular that they didn't know.

Reika looked to Zach still frowning herself, and she said in a low voice, "As much as you all hate their guts, we do too." The others looked to the blonde-haired girl who made Zach lift his head and face her as well. "If you U.A.'s are holding anything back about those bastards, and we go after them unprepared-"

"We're not-" Mineta began, lifting up his hands defensively as the Shiketsu girl was looking pissed all of a sudden with that accusation.

"Really?" Reika asked, her voice still accusatory as she looked towards the shorter boy who had reacted there like he agreed with Asui and knew something huge was coming.

Mineta did not pull back at her angry look directed straight at him this time. He lowered his hands down while looking darkly at her too, and Reika said to the short kid, "Because oddly enough, we don't know jack shit about that Raijin, even though you lot spent over a year with him." The other U.A.'s were all glaring towards Reika now too, and some of her own classmates had uneasy looks about the things she was saying, not that they necessarily disagreed with where she was coming from. "Yet you're so sure he has a plan," she mentioned, lifting her tone wondering how they could know that but not know anything else. "And that he didn't just give you the slip? You're sure, he's not just, gone?"

"He's not," Mineta replied. He glanced towards Zach to see if he would respond, but Zach was just frowning and looking back in the fire after something Reika had said a minute ago. Mineta looked back at the blonde girl himself then if Zach was not going to say anything to her. "He wants to destroy everything our society holds close. Everything people believe in, the things that will always win. People, who will always bounce back," he mentioned that softer and Zach lifted his head, looking over at Mineta in surprise to see the short boy looking straight into his eyes too. Mineta continued quietly, "He said he did it just to beat All Might, but on his way to completing that goal he added a lot of things, like beating U.A., and Class A, and heroes, all of it."

"He told you all of this?" Reika asked, her voice less accusatory though still angry and confused at how the U.A. student could know it all.

"Yeah, he told us," Sato said, making Reika look his way before seeing the same looks on the other U.A.s' faces. "He told us everything he had done, when he…" Sato trailed off and did not want to bring that day up. He could see both Tsuyu and Zach in the corner of his eyes, and he just stared across the flames towards Mineta who he was surprised had been speaking about it in a steady voice. "He's the worst of them," Sato growled at the end. "That's who he is, and he's not just 'gone.' He hasn't just disappeared, and everyone's being stupid for underestimating him."

"Hey-" Imino started with his lips lowering as that sounded directed at him.

"He was my best friend," Mineta said. He cut off Imino who turned and looked at the shorter boy in surprise. Imino's eyes shifted to Zach for a second and then back to the shorter boy who added softer, "Too." His head turned a little and he looked at Zach for a moment before looking back Imino's way, "And I didn't suspect a thing for over a year. No one did. Raijin was that good, at being evil."

There was a lot of anger in Mineta's voice as he said what he just said, and it was Asui's turn to look to her left side with a soft look at Mineta's upset one. Zach watched Mineta, and his gaze shifted so he saw Bakugo looking angry and like he might get up and leave in a second. Reika was still pissed, but she was looking more like she was accepting and considering the threat Raijin posed to their world. "Kaminari," Zach started, breaking that silence that had everyone from both classes looking so dark. "Was the only person I," Zach paused and he closed his mouth for a second like it was hard to get out, but instead of an expression that showed him struggling emotionally to say it, his appearance was more like he was struggling only to pick the right words.

The other twelve people at the fire looked towards Zach and watched as he rose his head back up and looked straight at Reika. "If not for him, I wouldn't have recovered after my torture at the hands of the League. I don't know if I ever would have trusted anyone again. And, well, he got past me because of those things." Zach paused for a second, but he kept going despite those looks aimed at him from all sides, "And when he betrayed me, he killed a lot people I cared about. He'd, manipulated my life, put me in all those situations I thought I had come across by pure chance, or fate. Kaminari tortured my family to death, killed people I loved, and he almost broke me." Zach shook his head after saying all of this in a steady, calm voice.

The Shiketsu students still at the fire had not heard any of this. They all knew that Zach had been friends with Raijin back when he was Kaminari Denki, but to this extent was insane and Zach stared into Reika's shaking huge eyes as she heard him admit all this to her. Dendo glanced around him and though he saw some pained or pitying looks on the U.A.s' faces too, none of them looked surprised by what they were hearing. That is, until Zach continued in that same tone, "But I don't hate him."

 _"As much as you all hate their guts, we do too."_ Reika's wide eyes bulged and her speeding heart rate shot up even faster as Zach's whole small speech right there seemed to be in direct response to something she said a minute ago. And the moment Zach said it while looking right at Reika, everyone could see all that he just said was about that single sentence she mentioned. "Wh-What are you…" Reika started, cursing in her head for that stutter but unable to focus much on it as his expression was serious about what he just said.

"You're kidding-" Sato began too, but Zach looked his way and right into his eyes that got him seeing how serious Zach was about that too. His look made Shoji and Yaoyorozu both stare his way in shock too, Yaoyorozu's breath sucking in sharply at the intense and strong appearance on his face.

 _He's still, lying…_ Bakugo leaned forward on his log, such a confused look on his face.

Mineta was frustrated and curled his lips in confusion too. _How does this work into his lies? Does not hating Kaminari have to do with his stories?_

"I mean it," Zach said, looking back to Reika again. He said straight to that girl who had spoken so hatefully towards Intanzo and then again when she was asking about Raijin. "We shouldn't hate anyone as heroes. It's not-"

"You're telling me you don't want revenge for what he did to you?" Reika accused Zach in a highly skeptical voice.

Zach closed his mouth as she interrupted him, and then after a couple seconds he just shook his head once with a slight frown on his face at the question itself. Everyone there stared at him in shock though at how real that head shake seemed, how much Zach actually seemed to be telling them the truth. It almost felt like he was admitting something wrong to them, just by telling them that he did not hate Kaminari. "Life's… too short to look for revenge."

He said it and then looked a little to the right of Reika towards Mineta and Asui. "How could you not hate him?" Mineta asked, his own voice getting angry as Zach was looking serious about this.

"There's enough hate in the world," Zach replied. "I don't need to add to it." The second part came out softer, and Zach lowered his voice while shifting his eyes around the fire a little more to the people farther across from him. "Besides, revenge doesn't," he paused. Zach stopped himself, and then he continued without much restraining thoughts, "It doesn't make you feel better." His tone spoke so knowingly, that it was clear he had experience in the area, making an unnaturally eerie silence in the campsite as even the fire stopped crackling for a moment. "You think you need it, for closure, or, because it's all you can think about, but when you get it you're just left with this empty feeling. And when people look for revenge it's because they hate those people who did terrible things-"

"So what? You're just going to let him get away with it?" Sato asked, his voice raising angrier at all Zach was saying in too calm of a voice. The large boy's fists were clenched furiously over his legs, and Shoji and Yaoyorozu both looked in towards him to see a conflicted look of anger directed straight at Zach instead. _I knew it! I knew, all this time. You changed too much._

"No," Zach replied to Sato, though the large boy's anger did not look to subside. He frowned at Sato's accusing look right there, but Zach looked to Momo as he continued, "And I don't forgive them either, but stopping Shigaraki and Dabi and Raijin is about helping people. The people they'd hurt if we don't stop them. And for justice for the people they've already hurt," he added at the end too, and he felt relieved as he saw Yaoyorozu nod at him and all he just said.

 _You're absolutely right. We don't need to add any more hate into this world._ Yaoyorozu Momo looked away from Zach after a moment and looked into the fire. _But do I believe, that you believe that? I told myself that you wouldn't lie anymore but that's just to the six of us. Why would you say all of this just for a lie though? Except, that's what everyone else would think. There'd be no reason for you to lie there. There was though. Everyone was feeling down, and angry, and hateful, but you started off by telling us all the horrible things he did to you. And if you can keep fighting him without doing it out of hate, then any of us can, and we all know we should. Even if it is a lie, that you don't hate, I understand your reasons for saying it. The problem is, that I can't tell anymore. It could just as easily be the truth as another lie. We can both justify them all we want, but we might be past the point of having a, even a friendship where we can trust each other._

Bakugo rolled his shoulders and stood from his seat. Without a word he turned and headed over for his, Kirishima, Shoji, and Tokoyami's tent. Shoji watched him go for a second and thought about how he was the last one of his tent mates still out there. Reika saw what he was thinking, and she yawned too as it was real late in the night. Others were watching Bakugo go, but Reika just waved her hand at the tank on her right side that started scooting forward towards the edge of the fire pit. "I'm hittin' the hay," Reika said, standing up and not asking anyone else what they thought. "And since it's up to me to put it out."

"Go for it, I'm tired too-" Imino started.

"Wasn't asking," Reika said, and Imino rolled his eyes while standing and turning away. He was saying it so she would not feel bad about ending it all on her own decision anyway. Imino stretched his arms up while the others started getting out of their seats, and Reika tipped the tank of water into the fire slowly, pulling back after pushing it enough so that her own Quirk and gravity were working against each other in the best way. She poured the water over the fire and stepped to the side to make the huge steel bucket shift another way too, and the loud hiss of steam filled the air along with all that steam and smoke itself as the water put out the flames.

"Night," Zach said as Dendo was walking past him, and he was walking a different direction towards his own tent.

A few of the U.A.'s just watched as Zach headed away, as they had stayed near the fire while Reika put it out. The blonde girl glanced at them but did not care much about what they were doing, so she turned herself and headed off with another girl towards their tent. Yaoyorozu, Sato, and Shoji walked around the fire to where Mineta and Tsuyu were looking after Zach as he headed away. "No way what he just said was true," Sato said, his voice low and getting the other four to look back at him.

"You don't think so?" Mineta asked, his voice quiet and still wondering that himself. _He's been through so much. Seen so many people die… It feels like he's on a whole other level. I, I could see him really being, beyond that? Beyond hate? No way. He doesn't even hate, Kaminari? He called him Kaminari again and not Raijin. I've never heard him call him Raijin, actually._

Asui looked at the floor for a few moments as Yaoyorozu started mentioning how she believed he could be telling the truth. The frog girl was breathing heavily and her eyes were sad as she thought about the way Zach looked back as he was saying those things in such an assured tone. "…And it would be more heroic to fight for justice, than for revenge. He is certainly right."

"I'm," Tsuyu started, and her four taller friends all looked to the short girl with her arms curled out in front of her body. Her voice was soft, and she said while glancing back in the direction of the tent Zach headed towards, "Done being mad at Zach for the camping trip." The others looked at the short girl with dark green hair in surprise. Most of them knew how she felt about what Zach had done, and the ones who had gone to see him knew that Tsuyu never had.

"You are?" Shoji asked, surprised by what she said and wondering if it was just from what Zach just told them that changed her mind.

Tsuyu looked back up at the taller boy and replied, "For anyone else who did the things Zach did I wouldn't be, but he isn't anyone else."

"It shouldn't matter that he was our classmate," Sato said, his voice getting angry and making the other three besides Tsuyu look to him in somewhat confusion. Sato had seemed like someone who had been on Zach's side, up until about a month and a half ago.

 _It's not because of that, Sato-chan. I don't think badly of Zach,_ Asui thought about the look in Zach's eyes again. _I believe what he said, about him not having hate in his heart towards them… because he still left Zach Sazaki behind in that forest._ Asui held her tongue instead of saying any of that to her friends talking softly to Sato now and figuring out why it was he had been distant to Zach since he returned. The frog girl also partially listening to Sato felt a pain in her heart though, _I knew something was off at the hospital, but only with what he just said do I realize what it is. The friend we knew back then, he really is, gone for good._

* * *

Zach lay on his back on the grass near the U.A. team's base. The grass had dried out from when Todoroki melted all the ice, and he was laying far enough from the edge of the building that even the damp spots remaining did not reach him. He had his hands behind his head, his left steel one underneath the right still inside his black glove that more softly cupped the back of his head. The dome had no artificial lights in it other than the small ones Yaoyorozu had made back at the campsite, but Zach was far enough from them that the area around him could have been pitch black. His eyes had adjusted though, and there was enough light coming in from above that it did not take long.

 _The dome must be right in the middle of campus for me to be able to see all this,_ Zach thought while watching more stars become visible to him the longer he stared at the sky. The moon was a little over half full, and at the angle he was laying he could see it over the tops of the trees past his feet. Zach heard footsteps but stayed staring straight at the top of the dome, though he closed his eyes after a few seconds as he could not place whose footsteps they were. _Not too heavy, not too light. No hesitation though. Oh, it's been enough time._ "Hey Sero," Zach greeted.

Sero Hanta stopped walking towards Zach for a second, and he chuckled before continuing as he had just been thinking about how Zach did not notice him coming. "It's pitch black out here," Sero said, having his phone out in front of him to give at least some light.

"If you turn off your phone, your eyes'll adjust better," Zach countered. "It's nice actually," he added.

"Huh?" Sero slid his phone into his pocket, and he walked right up next to Zach who finally sat up a little. He looked at the sitting boy's face next to him and Zach looked back to see a disappointed look mixed with exhaustion. Sero mentioned after a second, "Death really packs a punch."

"You forced me to use it," Zach said, and Sero smirked back. Sero knew it was an attempt to make him feel better, but he did actually feel good about knowing that. He sat down next to Zach and asked who else he needed to use it on, and Zach listed, "I fought with it against Todoroki, Uraraka, Midoriya, and Bakugo. Kirishima too, kind of. But you were the only one I used it on," he finished at the end with a nod at him like Sero was the one who beat him the most.

Sero was sitting next to Zach, and he rose his eyes up to the sky after Zach did when he finished his list. "Was really hoping we'd beat you," Sero said softly. _Not that I thought we would._

"What can I say? I don't lose," Zach replied, his voice slightly cocky but the joking tone also sounding serious too.

"What about all those times you mentioned losing?" Sero remarked back. "Since you say you learned so much more when you lose."

"I lost today sometimes too," Zach admitted. Sero looked at him confusedly, and Zach lay back on the grass with his hands behind his head again. "When we lost Imino," Zach started quietly. "And each of my classmates I lost, who I felt like were dying under my command." Sero's eyes widened as he stared down at Zach, as he had not heard anything about this.

He had been passed out until recently when he woke up in a tent with Mineta and two of the Shiketsu students. He woke up a groggy Mineta who told him what was happening, and Sero went out to get a look around, and when he did not see Zach around the empty dark campsite, he figured he could multi-task. He wanted to see what happened to their base after Mineta drowsily mentioned their loss but how the Shiketsu's base was completely destroyed, and he was glad to spot Zach laying not far from it. Sero opened his mouth to mention something, but Zach continued after a second's pause, "When I had to use Death on you, in order to prevent you from notifying the others as to your situation early, they were all failures on my part. Each time I failed to predict my opponents' counters, those were mistakes that could have cost my classmates their lives."

"I get it," Sero said, his legs crossed and his eyes looking down at Zach's face. Zach's eyes shifted over to the right corners and he looked up at Sero who nodded like he really did. "You didn't expect my counters though?"

"I didn't think you'd leave Mina and Sato behind. I predicted that you would fight together and hope to last long enough that one of the others would come back you up. Running off, knowing that she was going to fall while you did-"

"If I was thinking about it like she would have died-" Sero started defending himself.

"No, you made the right call," Zach said, shaking his head to show Sero had no reason to be defensive there. "I knew how you were all thinking of it, but you overestimated me- or you estimated me, correctly."

"Don't really know what that means," Sero said. Then he cracked his lips up into his naturally big smile, "But thanks, I think." Sero yawned while thinking to himself, _I got a lot out of this training too. If you're going to take all those "losses" to heart, I've got to consider why it was you were able to wipe us out so quickly. Mineta says it was like a 'Zach show' out there earlier._ Sero had some questions about the joint training, but his eyes were drooping and he yawned again in a long way.

His eyes shifted back down to Zach's face and his eyes that were locked up on the sky above. "Aren't you going to get some sleep?" Sero wondered. The tent had been full already when he woke up, so he had assumed Zach just decided to come out to sleep under the stars. The way he looked though was like he was not tired at all.

Zach stayed silent for a couple seconds then replied simply, "I wasn't planning on it tonight."

Sero rose an eyebrow, but then he stretched his arms up and lay back on the grass only a couple feet from Zach who lifted the left corner of his mouth farther from Sero up a smidge. "Thing is, I don't really need to sleep much," Zach admitted. "Weird, right?"

"Yeah," Sero replied. "Why don't you?" He asked.

Zach's lips that lifted that small amount fell back to flat and he took in a breath and let it out slowly through his nose. "I was, fighting at all times. Every day, and night." Sero turned his head to the side and looked at Zach confusedly, his eyes darting around afterwards at the nearby trees as he wondered what Zach was saying out in the open. "For weeks, months, I was fighting villains nonstop," Zach continued, and Sero looked back to the side of Zach's face to see a steady expression and his lips lifting into a small smile at what he was saying aloud here. "Because there was never a shortage of villains. I always knew where more were, because villains were quick to rat on each other."

He waited a moment and glanced to his side at Sero before back up as he saw his friend was listening closely to him. "They all had such strong resolves at first, because some of them assumed my army were like a force of heroes." Zach's voice had gotten softer and now he was whispering with just the two of them there to hear his voice, "But rumors spread through the villains. Things the AoD had done, things that I blew out of proportion myself when spreading the rumors on my own." He made a low noise from his throat that Sero thought might have been him chuckling, and Zach said, "I had a field day on the internet just making up lies about what we had been doing. Me and my comrades wrote all that terrible stuff we did to villains after catching them all across the dark web."

"This one time," Zach continued with another chuckle. "I had been hearing things about copycats out there. I didn't want that. I didn't want anyone changing up our message, or incriminating us, or pretending to be us and taking credit where it wasn't due." Zach kept his small smile even as Sero stared at him in more surprise. How Zach just said 'where it wasn't due' did not make Sero think they were "stealing" the credit from anyone, but that Zach considered even if they had stopped villains the credit still would not have been theirs to take if they did it while acting as AoD. Zach continued and Sero's eyes bulged at the story Zach was actually saying, "So to stop those copycats, a few of my comrades decided to put out rumors that fake AoD members were executed on the spot by any real ones who saw them. That way they could prevent fakes and copycats from appearing who wouldn't do things my way."

Zach shook his head and he said in a soft voice, "I remember walking into that room when a comrade told me what was going on. Gabriel and Pincer had tied A.P. to a chair, and all of a sudden their loud, fake interrogation was over. All three were dressed in our uniforms, but A.P.'s helmet was off and he had some fake blood on his face that was already aged-up and disguised so no one he ever knew beforehand would have recognized him. All three looked to me and got nervous, but I walked straight towards A.P. with my body covering in Death that had my comrade get even more nervous, and then fake getting really afraid after that. I'm glad he played the part well, because if they didn't do it on that first try I probably would have scolded them for just doing something like this without asking me. A.P. apologized for going too far while faking- but then I put my hand on his head covered in Death and I surrounded him with a flame of raging Death while yelling all this stuff about how non-AoD pretending to be one of us would all face the same, etcetera."

"He had already died once?" Sero asked, making sure though he was pretty sure of it already.

"Yeah, but he acted like I'd just killed him again. Even held back from flinching when I pushed his chair back and he fell to the ground motionless. We didn't make the video go viral, but we gave it out to some underworld contacts we had who sent it around to other people they knew."

 _Make it go viral? Could you do stuff like that on a whim? Did you?_ Sero let out a low breath that he had to breathe out for a couple seconds as he had held it while thinking those things somewhat anxiously. "You spread other stuff, like that?" He wondered.

"All the time," Zach replied. "It's the biggest way I changed things so they started ratting each other out faster. No villain has a strong resolve when they've heard the things I spread across the world that I was doing to them. Villains assumed they were going to be tortured in ways I wouldn't actually have done to them, and they spilled the beans on all their comrades. Villains are cowards. They prey on the weak and innocent, and run from heroes. I would threaten them with all sorts of scary things, and they wouldn't be able to see my own or any of my soldiers' faces so it kept an air of inhumanity about us. I made the villains feel like there was no way to reason with me. And because of this, and because I wouldn't let my people go into fights without me, I fought nonstop."

Sero's eyes widened again and he turned his head to just stare up at the sky instead. _You didn't let anyone fight without you? What does that mean?!_

"I didn't want them going into anything dangerous if I wasn't around to save them. So I'd travel across the world, sleeping on the way, get briefed on new information while I was there and fight. I'd fight some more if the next base we located was close, or I'd plan some stuff out and then travel back to a different country while telling the others to gather more intel before we make moves on the next villains there." Zach paused and took in a deep breath, then continued, "I was in the middle of hunting down 10 different villain groups all with intricate hierarchies, mission plans, drugs, all sorts of different variables. It was so much that at one point I actually started shouting in Arabic at a guy to tell me where the Effectless labs were, only for my comrades to remind me as the villain cried in confusion and panic about how he didn't know, that we were actually searching for a weapons' cache."

Zach's dark laugh afterwards made Sero uneasy but at the same time he just nodded his head once and kept staring up at the sky. Zach's smile lowered but he continued as he saw that nod in the corner of his vision, "I overworked myself, because I didn't want anyone to die. I wanted to be there at all times, which meant that when people did die, I brought them back. It meant that everyone in my army pretty much had two lives." He paused for a few seconds and then said even softer, "And so many of them laid down their lives twice for me."

Zach's face stayed steady as he spoke this time. _It wasn't A.P., but Access._ His lips twisted down and his teeth ground in frustration for a second. _I'm editing it though, a new story- talking to Sero? He understands that there are cameras and microphones close enough, that I could still be keeping some things back just to be safe. He knows._ "So many of them died twice under my command. A few left after the first death, the knowledge of what death is like scaring them from staying and continuing any longer. So many kept following me though. They followed me, and they died again for my crusade. But as many of them fought and died alongside me," Zach continued quickly without leaving a pause after those things he just said that had Sero staring with huge eyes up into the sky. "No one fought in as many battles, as often as I did."

"That's what you and, Airi, were talking about," Sero reminded.

Zach nodded but then explained in more detail, "Whenever I was traveling if I wasn't catching up on rest, I was learning new languages. Studying new information about governments we were investigating corruption in, new intel we had confirmed after recent interrogations, as we did not go straight from interrogating into battle unless time was pressed."

"All this," Sero started. He paused as he did not know if he should interrupt, but then he turned his head and went on to the boy next to him, "You say you went for weeks, months even, so at some point you must have took a break-"

"It was over," Zach countered quietly. Sero stared confusedly and then in shock at the response. "The end of the trails," he said. "We destroyed the labs and took down the scientists producing drugs or disfiguring people and experimenting on them. Revealed the corporations and governments funding them or allowing these things to happen. Weeded out the corrupt government leaders and made sure the next ones knew not to get in bed with villains. We destroyed terrorist organizations, and strengthened democracies, and funneled the money we stole from villains into schools in poor neighborhoods where villains come out of often because they don't have other options."

Sero gulped and then his lips curled up high at the corners with a gasped chuckle leaving his lips. _You did what?!_

"I hit the point where there weren't enough villains that I had to keep fighting every day. The villains who were left after the Battle of 6 Armies went back deeper into hiding, terrified of me."

"Do you, really think the state of the world right now, is because of you?" Sero asked. He had to clarify and he made his voice accusatory even while looking to his side, checking to see if that was what Zach was really telling him here.

Zach did not know how to respond. He opened his mouth but hesitated, and then he replied slowly, "It's in big part due to the efforts of heroes…" He paused and then continued while turning back to Sero himself to make eye contact with him, "But thousands of villains around the world were publicly captured by heroes, yet were handed to them in shady deals kept from the media and public, once the AoD had taken them down." Zach lifted his head and stared up into the night sky and all those stars again, and he whispered, "Tens of thousands."

 _Wow,_ Sero looked back up himself with that smile reappearing over his face. _Quantity and quality. Great mix._

"Without heroes, the world wouldn't be so peaceful," Zach continued as he was frowning at what he just said instead of smiling. "People wouldn't feel so free to, be free." He hesitated for a second and then nodded his head while going on, "I'm glad that people think it's all because of heroes, or mainly because of heroes, and that the AoD really wasn't doing much. It's what I wanted. I tried so hard, to keep us from making it into the news after our first appearance in Saudi Arabia. News of us was only to travel through the darkness."

"The whole world's built on a lie then, huh?" Sero muttered, as he thought about this for a few seconds now and was losing his happy feeling about it all. "People don't know it was you-"

"What's so bad about that?" Zach wondered back, still staring right up at the sky like Sero was. "The world was already built on lies. Improvements in technology and knowledge about Quirks, medicine, they were all results of human testing." Sero darted his eyes to the side but Zach just went on in the same tone, "Human tests were recreated on animals so that the data accumulation could be revealed to the public, but the human tests were easier and more reliable so they did them in secret. The worst things in the world were approved by governments. Democratically elected officials watched over teams of scientists who experimented on the innocent with no hint of remorse. Eziano's assassins shaped history for centuries without anyone ever knowing that they were there, in the shadows. The League of Shadows organized what the world thought were the strongest villain groups but were still down a rung from the top of the ladder. Even All For One has had a massive impact in Japanese history without any of us ever hearing about him before Camino Ward."

"He has?"

"He has," Zach repeated at Sero's question. "But after a couple generations, if stuff isn't recorded in a certain way, it will never be remembered by the world or the people who come after. All those who know either die or are alive but keeping their secrets to their graves. So many secrets," Zach whispered after, his voice even quieter.

Sero half-nodded as much as he could on his hands that he held behind his head. So much of what Zach just told him turned his world on its head, and yet he believed every word coming out of Zach's mouth. And he knew these things he was hearing, he was going to keep his his grave too. _They're your secrets. They're not mine to tell. Not mine to repeat to anyone. I want to tell you to stop talking now, just because I'm worried you're getting too risky here. Someone's going to find you out._ "So what does that have to do with you not sleeping?" Sero wondered. "Too hard to with all that jumbled around up there?"

"No," Zach replied with a shake of his head. _Luckily, none of that really messes with me. Everything I just said was vague. Don't need to think about those experiments to just mention how I know those things happened. In lots of places._ "Because what's really being lied about? The heroes did bring in the villains. I just helped. I just knocked them out. And sometimes I killed them," his voice got softer there and more regretful, and yet he did not see Sero's expression change at it which Zach found himself frowning over more even as he felt more free to just keep talking. "I fought for so long, that when I realized there was nothing to do, there was no battle to go to after over 50 days straight of fighting… I didn't know what to do with myself. So I just focused on after-effects, organizing my army, micromanaging things I had previously designated to my comrades. I oversaw my army, as the Commander. I did rounds, to different countries to check on the situations in them. I caught up with my soldiers who I had not talked to in a while. It wasn't bad."

He paused for a moment and then whispered in a more uplifted voice, "The world was, better. In a few days I looked around and saw what the world was, compared to what it had been two months earlier. I had not even noticed because I was so rushed, so absorbed in my constant fights, so focused on keeping everyone alive and making sure we were doing as much good as possible, that I forgot to check to see if what we were doing was having an effect. And it did. I know it did. As much as I continued my fight and went on more undercover assignments, the peak of the war was over."

""War?'" Sero asked quietly.

Zach lowered his smile a little, his eyes shifting to the side in a hesitant way. He nodded his head, and Sero started to him, "Just because you created an army doesn't mean it was-"

"It _was_ war," Zach said, no longer questioning it at all after what he talked to Iida about earlier. "The idea that there had never been a war since Quirks became a thing, never been real Quirk warfare, it's wrong," Zach said it in an assured and knowing voice that made Sero listen closely while taking it all to heart. "I understand Quirk warfare well, Sero. And what I was doing, the fights I was in, they weren't just fights against villains I was going to every day. They were battles in an ongoing war to bring peace to the world."

Sero's eyes stayed focused on the side of his friend's face, and his own look was serious but holding back his amazement and shock. _Zach's, usually really humble. He's not even talking about this in a proud way though. What's that look on his face? He's just, thinking back on it again- no, it doesn't look like it did, back at his apartment…_

"Eziano was the last," Zach whispered.

"What do you mean?" Sero asked, needing something to converse with and finding it.

"When I came back," Zach replied. "The one thing that made me hesitate about leaving was the idea that I never beat Eziano. I had lost friends to Eziano, and I lost Mark after I left," Zach added, his voice raising in tone a bit and Sero nodding his head as he remembered Hagakure reading that letter aloud in front of them. Zach shook his head in an upset way and went on, "Eziano killed him while my friends tried taking him on without me. And I could have stopped him. I should have."

"You said you would have if you could have," Sero countered. "You weren't lying to Midoriya, right?"

"No, he really did evade me all that time," Zach answered. "But, I was strong. Stronger than him, I believe." Zach's hands curled into the back of his head more and his eyes glared darker up through the roof of the dome. "His assassins carry so much power though. As much as I obtained, as much as my organization supporting peace was a counter to his sewing chaos, I still have no idea how much power he has left. The assassins fear me, like all the rest, but they don't fear me more than they do him. They know how many centuries Eziano has been twisting the world on the palm of his hand."

"It can't be that much-" Sero started. He grit his teeth at the look Zach shifted his way. "If they wanted chaos so much, and he had so much power, then why was the world at peace for so long? Why weren't there more wars if they could start them so easily?"

Zach did not reply to Sero for a while. He looked deep into the sky and said in a lower voice, "I think, it's probably because, humanity is even better than I always knew it was." Sero's eyes shot open wide at the answer as much as it confused him. He stared at Zach in shock, and he listened as Zach said, "Maybe Eziano has been trying to push conflict with all that power he has. Agents all over the world who should be able to carry out so much evil… and yet as much as they try to turn people against each other, as much as they want us to go to war with ourselves, we all just want peace. Too many people, just want to do what's good and right, compared to the powerful but few of them who wish to do wrong."

"You still believe all that?" Sero wondered in a voice that cracked for a second though he tried to bring the tone back by the end of his question.

Zach replied in a way that astounded his friend though, "I believe it even more now. Knowing there's a guy like that out there."

Sero smiled and he let out a sigh. "That would, be nice." _It makes a little sense too. But I think you're overestimating his power. Unless he has some other goal we don't know about. It's so crazy, how big this world has gotten since we found out who you are. Just in the last few minutes alone._ Sero yawned but tried to keep his eyes open, though he was feeling wiped even having just woken up from a nice nine hour nap. _I'm going to help you though. With whatever you need. I'm glad, you're telling me… I know, those secrets you told Kaminari, were about the anti-heroes. And maybe, those names you mentioned, you probably changed those up too… But just this much is okay. Just this much, and I'll never betray…_

Zach watched the moon cross the sky with his own breathing a little quieter than the heavy breathing of the sleeping teen next to him. _Still no attack. Night's looking good so far._ Zach rolled his neck out a few hours after Sero had dozed off next to him. _It's probably around 1000 people who know about today's training. The news never got a hold of it. Or they just don't care, though I feel like some station would have made a big deal about the fated meet-up between U.A. and Shiketsu. U.A.'s plans are kept secret from the rest though, and other than all of us who knew this was coming, and their families, the staff, other students at the school, anyone they told… yeah, probably 1000 people, at least. So you know I'm here. Eziano, would you attack me here? Surrounded by so many heroes, I must have let my guard down so much. I'd never expect you to attack me here, of all places. Look, I'm even going to close my eyes._

His eyes closed and he took in and let out long, heavy breaths. Then his eyes slowly opened back up, _No one's watching me. No one's about to kill me. Darling helped me out those other times, but I would have survived the attacks anyway. After that first shot, I was prepared, and I knew most of the time without your help. Even the times I knew though, she gave me more perfect locations. We were a great team. I hope she's eating enough._

Zach yawned and moved his left hand in front of his mouth to pat it a couple of times. As he was doing it, the person approaching on his right and making some noise on the grass spoke up, "Morning." It was still pitch black out, but Zach smiled and looked towards Kotsumura with a look like he had not seen him coming but did not mind to see him. "What's up?" Kotsumura wondered, as Zach had looked tired but was out there for a reason.

Zach motioned his head to his other side then put a finger up in front of his lips, and Kotsumura noticed on Zach's other side as he walked closer another boy laying there. For a second Kotsumura wondered if Zach had carried Sero over there as he looked as passed-out as he had been since during the training, but he came closer and asked in a realizing tone, "He finally woke up?"

"Knew it wouldn't be too long," Zach whispered in response.

Kotsumura lifted his eyebrows tiredly and glanced to Sero again, but the other black-haired teen was really passed out on the grass. "What're you doing out here?"

Zach hummed and then he put both palms down on his sides to sit up with his back still leaning back and his head tilted towards the sky. "I wanted to watch the sunrise."

Zach turned himself to fully face the east, and Kotsumura looked up before smacking himself gently on the cheeks a couple times with both hands. He shook his head around and smiled before stepping forward and sitting down next to Zach. "Sounds nice," he said, though he had initially gotten up so he could take a late-night/ early morning piss.

"It is," Zach whispered in reply. He took in a deep breath and kept staring up, but the glass up above his head was starting to look like different glass. The first Cloak's windshield appeared in Zach's mind, just over and around the sides of the computer he was always staring at. _So many nights spent there, and I never fully appreciated it._ "When I was in Terra," Zach began in a low voice. "Sometimes we had to travel east, really fast."

"How'd you do that?" Kotsumura wondered.

"It's not about 'how,'" Zach replied, making Kotsumura frown as he wanted to know even if that was not what Zach was intending to get at initially. "But when we had to do it, the night went by so fast. Moving towards the rising sun at those speeds, nights could last a couple of hours. The sun would rise above the horizon and to the middle of the sky all in a few hours. Day and night- I could put up blinds, close the gaps in the tents and, _imagine_ it was night. But most of the time, my sense of what time it was didn't really matter. I was awake every day and every night. Fighting different kinds of battles depending on what time it was."

"And when did you sleep?" Kotsumura asked, raising his eyebrows as it sounded like Zach would overwork himself doing that.

"Whenever I ran low on Death," Zach replied, and Kotsumura got sweat on both sides of his face as he looked to his side where Zach was sitting. "Whenever it had been a few days, and I noticed my reaction time slipping, even a little. If I waited any longer for it to slip to a level of consequence, where someone I was trying to protect was killed, just because I didn't want to sleep? It would have been my fault."

"You sleep at all tonight?" Kotsumura wondered, as he had not seen Zach in their tent but wanted to make sure.

"No," it was a simple response. "I don't sleep all that often. I spend a lot of nights up all night on my computer. And no, not watching porn," Zach continued in the same steady voice, no break between those last two sentences. Kotsumura's lips had started raising and he was formulating the joke in his head to poke fun at Zach, and now he was suddenly confused as he wondered if Zach brought that up on his own knowing how it sounded like, or if Zach had seen the subtle shift in his facial expression that told him what Kotsumura was about to say.

 _It's like he can see the future. He predicts everyone, all the time. That's spooky, but it's pretty cool that he can do that though._ Kotsumura kept a small grin on his face as he watched Zach out the corners of his eyes. _I'm real glad you came up to me that first day. This semester's been a lot of fun so far, and you've got a cool way at looking at life._ Keiji shifted his eyes back up at the sky and took in a deep breath that he exhaled slowly and in a relaxed way. _A sunrise. Never really cared about watching one, but after all the horrible shit you've seen, something like that has to be amazing huh?_

It was still pitch black though, even as Kotsumura accepted he might want to watch a sunrise too. He looked at the boy next to him just staring up with a satisfied look, awaiting that sunrise that was still a bit away. "Was good seeing all of them again, right?"

Zach looked to his side and he lifted up the right corner of his lips closer to his closest Shiketsu friend. "Yeah," Zach replied. His voice did not sound very sincere, nor was the reaction a very strong one. Zach lowered that lifted lip as he saw Kotsumura give him a strange look at the unenthusiastic reaction. "I don't know," Zach admitted. "It was, fun. It should have- I mean," Zach paused and he furled his lips as he thought about the past day. "It was intense."

"You got that right," Kotsumura agreed, as the fights he had been in earlier were no picnic. "But, you won it for us though."

"We won it together," Zach countered. Kotsumura smiled more and he hummed in agreement, deciding not to argue about that and just accepting it for what it was. "But, the thing I was most looking forward to today- yesterday, was reconnecting with all of them. The ones, I haven't really talked to since I came back."

"And you, don't think you did?" the blond boy wondered. He kept looking up at the sky and kept his voice in a low whisper, partly because Sero was asleep, and partly because if he was awake then this was not a conversation Zach would want to be having in front of his U.A. friends.

"I had a lot of opportunities," Zach started. "And, I gave them some time to come talk to me too. The ones I really needed to talk to, I tried harder, but," Zach stopped himself and he frowned in a deeper way, his eyes shifting towards Sero again though he saw his friend still clearly knocked out from exhaustion. "But I had other stuff going on too, and we were all hard at work, and, I think I might have missed my opportunity. Later today, they'll be going back to U.A. They'll stay on campus until they graduate, and when they are off of it it's probably not going to be to come see me. And after that…"

Kotsumura's lips curled down too. He thought about all the friends he had made and the experiences he'd shared with his friends in Class 1. It was a sobering thought, that no matter how much they were all looking forward to becoming full-time heroes, they wouldn't be doing it as a class anymore. "Yeah," Kotsumura just whispered, his voice showing he understood in part what Zach was talking about.

"This was my one chance though," Zach said, shaking his head as Kotsumura's agreement did not match up with what he was really talking about here. "You'll all still be friends after graduation. To me, graduation is the end date that I could…" Zach stopped himself and he grit his teeth as he saw Kotsumura look to the side in at him. Zach shook his head for a second, but he stopped himself. His eyes glanced over to Sero and then back at Kotsumura who looked like he wanted to hear what it was Zach was talking about here. "I know, I didn't deserve to go back to U.A. Back to my old class," he whispered. "I didn't deserve it, but it was what I, wanted."

Kotsumura opened his mouth to joke along the lines of asking if Zach was not happy being with them. He closed it though, seeing Zach lower his eyes down from the sky and stare at his knees instead. He also noticed that he could see a little better around them, even if the sky was still mostly dark with no signs of the sun in it. Zach stared between his knees and at the floor, "I gave it up though. I gave up, everything. Everything I had. I was, so-" Zach stopped and he grimaced, but he shifted his eyes to the side once more at the blond next to him. _He's the only one I told about limiting my power. He's the only one who knows the former reality about the Subspace Devils, how I really decided to go out there. I trust you, Kotsumura._

"I gave up _so much,"_ Zach whispered, his face full of emotion as he looked at Kotsumura right in his eyes and said it. Kotsumura's eyes shot open wide at the look on Zach's face he had never seen there before, as Zach was always this composed and strong and cool person. In front of the Shiketsu students, Zach had rarely ever let his emotions show, and he realized that other than Dendo who he threatened the day they became cool with each other, he hadn't really talked to any of them like this. He paused at the realization, but this was not just another Shiketsu student sitting next to him. "So much," Zach whispered again, accepting it and letting himself go on.

Kotsumura hesitated and did not know how to respond or even converse back at what Zach was saying. _He's talking about, what he gave up by- by doing the Lifebringer Incident?! How much he- How much did he give up? Oh man, he was- he still has those things though…_

"I left them," Zach whispered in a hurt voice. "I threw aside my morals, and my name, my entire life. I gave up every relationship I'd ever made, I left my friends, I left _her-_ and it was so much." Zach shook his head while Kotsumura was still looking at him with even wider eyes now at Zach's mention of "her." The darker-haired boy grit his teeth though and then seethed through them, "Too much. I never planned on coming back, but I gave up too much then to, to ever really… I gave up more than just my friends. That would have been just leaving them. What I did to them, it ended our friendships. It wasn't like I just walked away, because if it was just that then maybe I could come back. But what I did to them, hurt them. I burned all those bridged by doing all that in front of them."

 _All that? You, killed a bunch of people and- You're only regretting it because of the relationships you ruined? What about those people you killed, man?_ Kotsumura looked away and he held back from saying anything. _You know you can't get it back, because killing those people is something your old friends can't forgive- or is it, because you killed them in front of them? You forced them to watch you kill those villains? You killed Kurogiri! That was insane! No one ever talks about it, anymore, but you killed one of the leaders of the League of Villains, you fought off Raijin and Dabi, killed another five and took down a Nomu. All because of an attack they planned out on your class, but that you had planned out even before that! You're an interdimensional superhero general warrior! And this is the kind of stuff that can get you like- like this?!_

"I know it may not seem that important," Zach whispered. "But I hurt the people I cared the most about."

"'Cared?'" A voice asked on Zach's other side, and he looked over to see the boy who just woke up though was pretending he had been awake for more of this conversation.

"I still do," Zach whispered even softer, even though Sero was awake again and had his eyelids slightly parted. Sero just stared up at the sky instead of looking to Zach though, and the boy on his right scrunched up his face as Sero did not meet his gaze. "Remember the Sports Festival?" Zach whispered. "I'd snuck out of U.A., to go save Kaminari on my own," Zach's breath hitched in and his chest hurt, his voice cracking so much as he started speaking that Sero turned fully and stared at his friend next to him he did not expect to get worked up all of a sudden. Zach grit his teeth but the corners of his lips pulled up, "It's been so long now but, but- haha," Zach rose his right arm up to his face for a second and rubbed it across his eyes, but as much as he was trying to play this off he had to stop with his arm there instead of lowering it right away.

When Zach did lower it, he looked back into Sero's eyes and his face was serious but scrunched up, his lips trying hard to stay flat but shaking nonetheless. "None of you understand how much that meant to me," Zach whispered, shaking his head while staring into Sero's eyes with his own full of so much emotion it had Sero sitting up the same amount Zach was and staring at him in shock. Kotsumura looked at the back of Zach's head in confusion, then his eyes bulged and he slowly shifted them past towards Sero. "They wouldn't let me take part in the Sports Festival as my punishment. And- and you- every one of you, pulled out of the festival until they… Sero I-" Zach shook his head and nearly lost it there as he got too emotional, which had Sero staring at him in complete shock and awe.

 _I had no idea…_ Sero could not even finish the thought. The look in Zach's eyes now, he had never realized how big a moment that was for Zach either. _I was nervous about pulling out of the Sports Festival, but I was glad I did because it got you allowed back in it. And yet… I had no idea what it meant for you. I thought the face I saw from you that day Aizawa sensei told you in class was about how you were going to be let back in there, but this?_

"I had lost everything," Zach whispered, while his head turned forward and he sniffled in once hard. He smiled again in a calm way and just looked into a dim but brightening dawn sky above. "I ran from the League of Villains, and was alone in the world, sleeping in the streets and running for my life, unable to trust anyone. My family was murdered and my body and mind were in pieces. I never thought I'd have anyone ever again." Zach shook his head while still smiling and looking up into the morning sky, "I really didn't want to kill myself, but I did consider going out and living as a hermit in the woods forever. To hide, so I wouldn't be tortured again. The Hunter found me though, and he would have dragged me back, but Webb saved me. And Webb, he was amazing."

"Webb?" Kotsumura wondered. He was trying to follow along and just stay quiet as this was the most Zach had ever opened up to him. He was shocked by the sudden reveal, but he knew nothing about Zach's escape from the League of Villains or how it was he found his way back to U.A. No one knew the truth about it. As much of Zach Sazaki's life was an open book, there were still so many secrets.

"He was an anti-hero. A vigilante who saved my life, and then laid out two paths before me… Paths," Zach whispered, humming and then sighing as he saw some orangish glows coming up into the sky over the tops of the trees to his east. Over the black lower walls of the dome, in the sky beyond the edge of the city around them, the sun was nearing the horizon. "There have been so many paths in my life, and I always went down the set path."

Sero turned his head and gave Zach a look, his eyebrows lifted and his lips pursed. Zach glanced back and they both chuckled over what he just said. Zach then continued, "It's true though." He looked back up and said softly, "And the times I went off the path I made the biggest mistakes of my life."

"Like the Lifebringer Incident?" Kotsumura wondered.

Zach shook his head no confusing the blond though Sero also thought Zach might have been mentioning that. Zach explained to the two of them, "I had choices: to go and live a normal life and never show off my Quirk, or to go try and be a hero, where I still planned on never using my Quirk because a hero wouldn't need to kill someone. That's all I thought my Quirk could do back then," Zach added with a glance to Kotsumura to remind him. "I chose hero," he went on with a look back to the sunrise. "But then I went off the heroic path when I took a life. I didn't wait for the heroes, I killed Shindeki Buda because I- I thought I could save someone with my Quirk, a Quirk that I _knew_ could only kill. And that, that moment I stepped off the path, I got myself called a monster and fell into depression…"

 _Except it was all Raijin,_ Sero thought darkly. _Don't you remember that? It was his fault. He made you kill that guy, and I remember when we fought in that first Sports Festival. How frustrated he pretended to be with Monoma for "tricking" him. And then he went and lost to me, so as not to stand out- Damn it, Zach. You shouldn't blame yourself. At least, not just yourself._

"And," Zach continued, "and then at the trial I was told I couldn't be a hero and that path ended, but a portal opened up in front of me and a new path was there." Kotsumura's eyes widened but he resisted the urge to turn back to the boy next to him even as Zach went on. "I went down the path provided for me, and even though I was making the decisions, the path was created around me. Kurogiri made the pathways, and Shigaraki told me what I was allowed to do, and even though I liked bringing people back, I went down that path set before me. I became a villain and went down an even darker road, and when I decided to step off that path, even though that was one path you can never get off of, the _second_ I stepped off at VTS I messed up worse than I could have imagined."

Sero's eyes darkened more and his teeth clenched at the regret but also acceptance in Zach's voice at what he was saying. He spoke like these things were so far in the past, and that the way he was saying them was the way he accepted, the truth he knew to be his fault. "I got dragged right back on that path because you're not allowed to leave. And for what? Shooter and Hydro? They both escaped Tartaros anyway. And what did it cost?" Zach asked it and stopped for a moment, then he continued in a lower and sadder voice, "I got myself tortured for weeks. I got my family burned alive. I became forced to stay on that path as they tried to break my mind and walk me down it. And then before me were two new paths, to either lose it and accept that I had had no choice, or to… to run away as soon as I had a chance. And I did that but really was just taking the path in front of me again."

"You were making these decisions," Sero started in a soft voice. "But it's not like- those paths were there, but because they were there doesn't mean- it wasn't your fault." He paused and then added, "But it's not like it was fate's fault either. If you, know what I mean," Sero frowned as he wanted to argue against the 'paths' argument. Arguing against that would mean that it was all Zach's fault all those choices he made though, and Sero cursed internally as he did not know what Zach was saying enough to counter him with something meaningful.

Zach just kept staring at the sky and did not say anything to Sero trying to make him feel better, or argue against the ideas he was proposing. Zach just continued with what he believed, what he was thinking of a few seconds ago and decided to say aloud for the two he trusted next to him, "When Webb got me, I was given two new paths and I chose both this time. Every time, there were so many pros and cons with picking one choice over the other, so I wondered about picking both. I wanted to go back and not give up on my hard life as Zach Sazaki, but I also wanted to do things the way Webb did outside of the law but still in a good way. And in that time I picked both paths, when I was at my absolute weakest and came back to U.A., I could only get better. I couldn't get worse from there. So I gained, so much. Our class, the teachers, my family who I made up with but distanced myself from in hopes it would protect them, the respect and care of the people of Japan, and on the other path I earned the respect of men I admired more than anyone. Those anti-heroes, who when I called for their help, came with me to save my best friend from the War Boys."

Kotsumura could not stop from turning this time, and he saw in surprise that Sero had looked in at Zach too with wider eyes that he was saying this aloud. Sero's eyes shifted to Kotsumura too, then back to Zach as he went on, "I thought I could do it. I thought, that both paths really was the best way, but what I was really doing was the same thing once again. I messed up again, because I stepped off the anti-hero path. I kept stepping off the hero path just to go to the anti-hero one, but I messed up when I stepped off the anti-hero path to go back to being a hero right in the middle of it. Taking off my helmet-" Zach grit his teeth and he still could not talk about that without the regret that hurt him.

Sero winced and he felt his own breathing speed up as he had heard this story before, heard how Zach had taken his helmet off and… _**"I was too idealistic to keep on my helmet and not let that scared girl who almost got raped see my smile, see me tell her that everything was going to be alright. Doing that, to save one person, how many thousands did I doom?"**_

"It was a dangerous game I was playing, doing this again, but I did it and I took my helmet off because I didn't feel like I would really be saving Thompson otherwise. And because of that Kaminari saw my face. Because of that, Kaminari told me that he knew I was holding back about what I was doing out there and who those people were, and he convinced me to tell him who they were…" Kotsumura's heart started pounding harder and harder, his chest tightening up at what Zach just said. The pause after what Zach just said implied what had happened to those people Zach told Kaminari about, and Kotsumura closed his eyes with pain filling him at the thought of it, and the thought of how that must have felt to Zach.

"And once again by stepping off the path," Zach said in a soft, and tired voice. "I had messed up and started losing everything."

"Then how could you do what you did in that forest?" Sero asked. His voice was low, and steady, but he looked at Zach with a more desperate look. He needed to know the answer, especially after all Zach just said about how much had gone wrong all those other times he stepped off the path.

Zach looked into his friend's eyes softly and sadly too, and he whispered back, "I stepped off the path that next time knowing full well what I was doing. I knew exactly what I would lose, because I had lost it so many times already. But at that point, what I had done all those times before, it made it so my own pain didn't matter to me anymore. I didn't deserve it to, or so I thought at the time. And even though I was giving up, more than you know, giving up-"

His tone shifted, into the lowest and most regretful voice as he stared into Sero's eyes, "I gave you all up. Class A mattered more to me than anyone. You meant more to me than anything in the world. What you guys gave me, when you did that for me before the Sports Festival, is something I could never, ever forget. It was something I had not had in years. Something that I never wanted to lose. Losing it would have been far worse than death, but I, I had to." Zach shook his head and he said quieter, "Not to punish myself, but because, my life isn't the worst."

His explanation confused the boys next to him more than explained anything. Kotsumura had been frowning for a few seconds though in a different way than before. He had looked down between his legs, and the awkward and uneasy feeling in his stomach only turned more the more Zach talked about how much Class A meant to him right there. _I'm intruding. It's weird to stand up now but-_ Kotsumura stood up, and the other two glanced to him. Zach looked genuinely surprised, but Kotsumura just lifted the corners of his lips a small amount at Zach and then nodded next to him at Sero for him to keep going, while he was going to head off back to the tent. Kotsumura turned and he looked the direction of the sun for a moment before leaving, _Not that I'll be able to get much more sleep- or any sleep at all, after what I just heard._

Zach and Sero watched Kotsumura head off, and Sero whispered in a quiet voice, "You made some good friends here." Zach turned back to Sero and his lips lowered down, his expression shifting a little like he was thinking of how to reply to that instead but was unsure as he had been so serious a moment ago. "Your life isn't the worst?" Sero added, as he did care about that and wanted Zach to continue if he was going to explain to him, finally, what he never explained in that letter he left for him.

"It really isn't," Zach replied in a low whisper. "I thought that unless there really was some higher power, some God putting those things in action around me, destiny even? Then it was all just coincidence. And I knew, that there was no chance that I had the hardest life in the world. I knew that there had to be people who had taken as much as me, but who weren't strong enough to stop it from happening anymore. They were still suffering. I _knew_ there were people currently in horrible situations worse than my own. People who maybe the anti-heroes dying because of me at that very moment could have saved." Sero's eyebrows furrowed down, but the logic made sense and was one of the excuses he had given to Zach himself over the year he was gone.

"It was my responsibility to all those people to try, but I could never stay on the line of one of those other systems. I could never… And I knew! There were people even worse off than I was. People who had taken so much worse, and yet I was sitting there feeling sorry for myself while surrounded by friends, and faculty, in a nice warm home." Zach's voice got darker and he shook his head with a heavy breath slowly breathing out from his mouth. "I knew what having nothing was like. I had had it so many times. But, I always got it back. And yet, I didn't deserve to have it back this time. Not while all those people who done _nothing_ wrong were still being tortured. What if I could save them? What if, I made my own plan knowing full well all I would lose."

Zach shook his head and he repeated in a low voice, "Class A, my home, my relationships with all of you, my name, _Momo_ , I was fine to lose them all. I was even fine to hurt my friends who had been the ones to save me over and over." Zach looked back to his left at Sero who was sitting up now just like he was next to him. Zach's voice had taken a steady tone and he spoke like he was finally explaining himself, and yet also defending his actions too. "Because you guys getting hurt, hurt me more than anything, but if I considered that pain too strongly then I knew I was being selfish, just by caring. If caring about you, knowing it would crush me what I did to you, would stop me from saving a single innocent life then I had to push that away."

"I don't know if that's selfish or selfless," Sero muttered.

"I don't either," Zach whispered admittedly. "Because with Darling I came to decide that it was me being selfish that I had… or maybe, no, it was selfish what I did by coming back and leaving her. Like I said on Inazuma, I had been selfish with her and selfless around her, but I had never been selfish for her." He paused and then continued with a small smile, "But she came to mean enough to me, and I realized how much she meant in the Void, that I came to that selfish decision to save her."

"How, could it be selfish to save someone?" Sero questioned softly.

"Sometimes, it is. Sometimes, you have the power to save two, but you choose to save one because that's the person you love."

Sero grimaced, but he found himself questioning what he would do in that situation if he ever found himself in it. Zach continued even as Sero was finding the moral dilemma in this hypothetical situation trying, "There is no right answer to what to do in that situation. Either way you'll always feel you made the wrong choice. No matter who you're currently trying to save, you know there are other people out there dying because of that choice. The choice to stay and make amends, to fix things and maybe save those who you hurt far in the past, rather than leave and save more lives every day that you know you could."

Zach saw Sero's head lift and his eyes locked on the side of his head. He paused himself for a moment and closed his eyes, and Sero lifted his gaze off Zach's head and into the sky with a heavy look. _He's still dealing with this. That question, is something he's at war with himself over even right now. He DOES have the power to go out and save lives every day, and yet he's right here, trying to explain himself to me. Explain himself, to someone he cares more about._ Sero sighed with that heavy look transferring out to his voice in the sigh too, _None of it is hypothetical to him. It's all far too real._

"I get it," Sero began. "But I'm glad you picked this choice," he added, looking to his side and into Zach's eyes from a couple feet away. "You're still making your path though," Sero continued. "You gave up a lot to come back to us. You knew it wouldn't be easy but you did it anyway, again." Zach's eyes widened a little as the examples he had come up with for this path conversation did not include the most recent choice that Sero was definitely right about now that he thought about it. Then his eyes widened more as Sero continued with a smile, "That's pretty cool, and it's brave of you to do that again even after all the shit you've taken because of those decisions in the past. All the wrong you knew could happen, and yet you did it anyway and came back here, knowing full well you'd be tossed in Tartaros-"

"Thank you, Sero," Zach cut in as he could not hold back his thanks for another second longer and it seemed like Sero might be done there. Zach's smile was brighter and looked that way as beams of the rising sun's glow came through the dome and shone on his face. "I know I hurt our class so badly, but if you weren't like this with me, Mina too, I doubt I'd still believe that I can really fix things with everyone else." Zach looked up in a more hopeful way, "And I have to keep believing I can. Because even though I know I burned those bridges a long time ago, those bridges mattered more to me than anything in my entire life, and even after this long…" Zach's voice trailed off.

 _I still care about each and every one of them. Seeing them all again yesterday. Together and fighting, and talking and laughing, they're just like I remember them. And I remembered why it was I needed to come back_ _ **here.**_ _Why it is I'm trying so hard. It's because I care about you all._ He looked to Sero who was watching him wondering if Zach was going to finish. _More than you could ever know._

* * *

 **A/N Hey guys! Hope you enjoyed the chapter. Pretty drunk right now. Don't know how that fits in, but as I said, I'm drunk. Anyway, thanks for reading! Just had a fun night with my best friend, and you know it seems like Zach did too, maybe. Well, I'm going to hit some review responses before passing out, if I make it through editing as I'm writing this before I start re-reading the whole chapter to fix any mistakes in grammar/spelling, or change around some things to make it sound nicer. Might not be the best thing to do while 12 deep, but hey, I'm not Zach, and I'm not having Darling sleight of hand alcohol out of my drinks ;) y'all are awesome, and again I hope you enjoyed this. Getting this one out fast, and I'm already deep into the next chapter so I'll get that next one out quickly too. Looking forward to this hurricane coming this week by the way, going to head to the beach for some fun when it gets close, but for anyone in real danger zones be careful of Dorian. Hope you keep your wifi even if the power lines go down, so you're able to keep up with the reading over the next week or so! Edit: Alright, so the next night now, didn't finish editing last night, then had work all day today and am currently in the middle of my fantasy football league's draft, but I'm a great multitasker! XD Not gonna edit my previous message 'cause I found it funny rereading! Review responses time though:**

DarkJokes chapter 172 . Aug 28

The long awaited chapter is finally here. Just when I had thought you couldn't make Zach anymore badass you go and pull off that amazing "Standing on the pile of bodies and looking at the other villains". Honestly at this point his UA classmates should just back off. Do they not realise if they were in Zach's shoes they'd have given up being a hero the very first day when They were tortured just like Zach or the day where you see your childhood friend and her whole family burn in front of your own eyes as she screams your name. It's not like it stopped there as well and his last remaining blood related family was killed and he lost so many comrades in the war. A single one of these things is enough for you to give up being a hero and spend your life as an average person but Zach's constantly been getting rid of villains and never took credit.  
Ilda should be ashamed of himself as should others now. Especially Jirou acting all pissed when she's not even felt a fraction of pain Zach has. My boy Zach should stop trying to explain himself to them now. Rather just be happy with Shikatsu people at least they don't constantly remain suspicious of him.

 **Zach looked back last chapter hard at the Battle of the 6 Armies, the reality of it and not just the epic story he was telling everyone. Despite the characters last chapter seemingly all being against Zach though, we've got some more understanding ones this time as they hear him out at the fire and then has his close friends stay up with him through the night too. Kotsumura and Sero are willing to listen with less judgement than most others, and Zach realized his need to vent when he was talking with Iida the night before. As for Zach stopping trying to explain himself, he's not sounding close to reaching that point, yet... Zach lets Sero in (and Kotsumura too), on how much it is the U.A. students mean to him this chapter, and Sero can see that the selfish thing Zach did with Darling by coming back there, he's also doing with them too. Zach wants more than just to make up with those friends, as he knows he hurt them in the Lifebringer Incident more than just leaving them behind, and as many excuses and defenses as he had to tell Sero, he knows he hurt them and he knew he would before he did it but did it anyway. As much as it might feel like Zach was in the right and doesn't deserve all this grief, he's not going to give up on it that quickly, as he'd never let himself off that easily here. Anyway, thanks for reviewing and hope you liked the new chapter!**

AMR-MNR chapter 172 . Aug 27

Haven't read it yet but JESUS CHRIST 49,560 WORDS IN ONE? WHAT? AAh, ok, will review again when I'm done. See ya!

 **XD Longest chapter I've ever written! Thanks, and hope you finished/enjoyed the chapter!**

Don't hurt zach chapter 172 . Aug 28

This motherfucker is one giant lie factory. I seriously have issue figuring out what is truth and what is lies, and whether Zach really does have these 'Mental issues' or if he's bullshiting/sympathy gathering in order to fit his perceived character. He's done shit like this in the past, so I have to take his existence with a grain of salt. Was this the desired effect? because jeez dude its working too well.  
Hopefully I'm not just stupid :'D

 **Love the name! Lol at least this chapter I don't hurt Zach too much. Messing with Zach's mental state has made this story harder to write, but also a lot of fun too as it's been happening since the early chapters when he dropped in that depression after the Sports Festival. He constantly hits low points and really bad things that mess with his head, and he's lied to everyone before (and I by association lied for chapters straight before). Especially since Zach has returned to Japan though, so much of what is going on even with Zach is shrouded in doubt even for you guys, which I love. It's been over 30 chapters now since he came back to Japan and y'all still can't tell if he's telling the truth or not. XD Anyway, keep having fun deciding what to believe with what he says/does as the story continues, though he has been getting a bit more straightforward recently... Thanks for the review!**

Tmb's Kouhai chapter 172 . Aug 28

Wow. This is the heaviest chapter so far. Not only with that retarded word count, this chapter included fights, casual conversations, regular processes, rebuiling of friendships, reconciling past issues, reevaluating the past and reality, reevaluation zachs entire mental stability, and so much fucking more I can't even.

 **Cutting the review a bit, since it's a real long one. Anyway, same with the last response, not ever gonna tell you guys straight out when/if Zach's telling the truth, since, you know, no spoilers. As for some of those questions though, Access was 18 which I mentioned early on in the AoD chapters. At some point Spiral came in as a 19 year old, but when I reread Death as a whole at one point, I noticed that I had Access looking at 'the younger man' next to him, and I wondered if I messed up or what I was thinking there since Spiral was 19 and should have been older than him, so I came up with the getting hit by an aging-Quirk thing as my excuse for that. As for Spiral dying, in the chapter after the Battle of the 6 Armies, where Zach is trying to sleep and just listening to that day echo in his head in all bold, we hear a shout for Spiral's name once along with a lot of other people getting massacred, which may be the one time we heard that he was dead there. It was a real dark chapter, with Michael wanting to quit, La Brava and Gentle having taken off to take a break, the Cloak had crashed because Zach had Whiteout knock everything out high up in the sky, and Zach had that conversation in that chapter with Rebel about getting the Cloak 2.0 soon. Anyway, this is a very, very long story. Takes me some time to remember everything that happened, and I've tried to read each of my chapters multiple times so as not to leave any plot hole or storyline unfinished. Thanks for reading, and reviewing, and I hope you enjoyed the new chapter!**

Momozaki chapter 172 . Aug 30

Great bonding chapter. Loved every minute of it  
*Sees Momo and Zach  
Just kiss!  
*Sees Jirou and Zach  
Just make up!

 **XD Thanks for the review! Another bonding chapter here, Zach gets some moments with his friends, though he regrets not doing more in the one day he had with all of them. Momo and Zach and Jirou and Zach are some important relationships, and he's trying at them... but we'll see how that goes for him moving forward. Thanks again everyone for reviewing, faving, following, or just reading this story. I'll get the next one out soon as possible!**


	174. Chapter 174

**Disclaimer: I don't own Boku no Hero Academia**

 **Chapter 174:**

"General Kathers! Kathers!"

"Step back people. Everyone step back," Blitz held his arms out, and the older hero with an intimidating presence did not even need all the police who helped anyway with keeping the press back.

The cameramen tried to get a good angle past the line of cops. There was a large estate behind the cop cars, and at the door of the main building were more cops along with some other heroes who were bringing a man outside with his hands cuffed behind his back. General Kathers seemed to have known the heroes were coming, as he was wearing his full green military uniform as he came outside, his hands cuffed behind his back but his expression stoic and stern. The cameras zoomed in trying to get a good shot at him, keeping up a proud look despite the humiliation of being dragged out of his home in the early dawn while it was still dark outside.

"Look at that asshole," Revellum sneered, while laying on his back in the middle of the sky between two others in black uniforms like his. Unlike Revellum, Firefly was using her wings to keep herself elevated at that level, while Jetflame had his palms pointed down at his sides and using only his costume was holding steady though less so than the other two.

Jetflame did not want to use his flames and draw any attention to them, despite how high up in the sky they were. The three of them floated above a thin cloud but one that kept those on the ground from seeing them. It was the middle of the day in Germany while it was dawn in the U.S.A., where Revellum was watching the country's _formerly_ highest ranking general getting arrested. "He can try and look all hard-boiled all he wants, I know he's shitting himself over there."

"…That clip you just watched was recorded live at General Kathers' home in West Falls, Maryland. This continues a spree of recent arrests following the Exonbaba Oil Rig Incident. After the resignations of both General Kathers and Secretary of State John Franklin last week, this is a larger step towards finding the truth about what was going on over there."

"That's exactly right Mick, but I have to say I think it's China's turn to step up and accept their fair share of the blame. This was a joint venture between our two nations' governments, and the people here have shown our disapproval by pushing investigators and heroes to find out who in our government was authorizing that illegal weapons' facility. I don't want my taxes going to national defense if that money isn't going towards heroes and the police! Until we see Kathers and the others involved with this punished, I don't think Congress is listening…"

Rebel's voice filled the headsets of the three flying over Germany, "Looks like Blitz got my email. Kathers signed off directly on the project, but, it's not going to be as easy with China." The three heard Rebel typing away in their helmets, and Revellum rolled himself over from his back onto his stomach while looking to the right side of his heads-up display.

"The premier isn't untouchable," Jetflame said, though his voice was low and unenthusiastic.

"We've got Yue Fei on it. He was investigating anyway, thinks he came across it on his own." Rebel's voice was smug and he added, "But enough about them, you've got four minutes. Better get ready."

Jetflame tapped on a button on the side of his black helmet to switch up the channel on his display. Each of the channels were connected to Rebel, but he was on the one only locked-in with the three of them up there and their command center. He skipped past the open channel, and he hit the one he was looking for and started, "How's it looking down there?"

"This is a really old highway," Ledge said from the passenger seat of a cop car sitting on the grass on the side of the road. He had on a police uniform like the darker-skinned man at his side who was sipping out of a coffee cup and holding up a speed gun with his other hand. Ledge glanced to Blackstar who had on a pair of sunglasses and was nodding his head to the radio of their cop car. The larger man who had tan skin but not the black skin that Blackstar had, leaned back in his seat a bit more to relax himself despite how exposed he felt without his armor.

"Here they come," Blackstar said, leaning forward in his driver's seat a bit and looking down the road to his left straight towards the vehicles driving towards them. In the bottom of his vision on the car's radio next to the station playing German music, he checked the time and reported, "Right on schedule."

Hans Fischer kept driving straight, but his eyes shifted to the side while his expression stayed calm and inconspicuous. Another man in disguise as an average truck driver, he attempted to keep up that guise even though he was driving a very large and long black truck. There were two other long black trucks behind that one, and the only thing that made them look like regular vehicles meant to be driving around like that were the logos of a famous shipping company painted in white on the middles of them. Hans looked to his side and he slowed down a little even though he was doing the speed limit already. _Wouldn't have been able to call anything in to the cops without drawing more suspicion than doing nothing. Still, with this cargo we should have gone for clearing the road anyway._

Ansel and Lina Krieger slowed a bit behind Hans, and the third truck behind them slowed down as well. In the back of the third truck, twenty two men and women sat on the sides of the mostly empty vehicle. Some high-tech weapons hung over their heads attached to the walls, and the space between the rows of seats attached to the walls had some gear tied down tightly too, though it was low enough down that they could see over it to the opposite side of the vehicle and their comrades' faces. The head of security in the back of that third truck did not just ignore the slight decrease in speed, instead opting to ask in a low voice, "Why are we slowing down?"

"It was a speed trap," Hans reported.

"This road's off the main expressway," Lina began, her voice calm and condescending towards the brutish head of security who had argued against moving during the day. "Drivers who treat this empty but more curvy highway like the Autobahn exceed the posted speed limits often. We were not speeding though, and they are not following."

"Then get back to the speed limit," Caleb growled at the woman who humphed back at him over their communications. _Fucking scientists. They don't know the kind of danger we're in._

"If we got pulled over," Ansel started in a whisper to his wife, covering up his earpiece with one hand while looking at her nervously.

She covered her own too with one hand while keeping the other on the wheel, and she darted a look at the man next to her that had him shut his mouth quickly. "Then we would find our way out of it. The new laboratory is still three hundred miles away. Relax, and just keep driving straight."

"Shit, a car's coming," Blackstar said, putting down his coffee fast as he spotted the car speeding down the highway towards him. He smirked as the vehicle was going much faster than the posted speed limit, and Blackstar put his idle car into drive and shot onto the road in front of him so he was blocking both of the lanes going across the hilly German west. Blackstar kept from turning on his lights, his eyes darting again the direction those three trucks went. As far as they had gotten already, the road only wound a bit more than the mostly straight roads of the interconnected highway system in Germany. Luckily, they picked a spit of the road between three exits where the road did curve a little around a larger hill on the right side of the road. Blackstar held off on turning on his sirens, and he sucked in a deep breath a second after Ledge as the speeding driver still had not noticed them.

The car speeding down the highway suddenly slammed on the brakes, then let up a little, then braked harder still as they were still going well over the speed limit even after that first jolt. Blackstar opened his car door and he stepped out of the vehicle and started walking down the road in the direction of the driver slowing more, the woman in the passenger seat with him shaking him by the arm closer to her and scolding him for his reckless driving. The German man seriously regretting trying to show off to his girlfriend, suddenly found himself nervous for a different reason as Blackstar stepped his way in a calm way until he was eight meters away from his own cop car.

Blackstar lowered his hand down for a radio at his right side, and he lifted up his other hand in an open palm for the driver to stop. Then Blackstar turned his head to the side and looked back at Ledge who had opened the back of the cop car after getting out of his passenger side door. Ledge came around the back of the vehicle and walked up to Blackstar, holding an orange sign in his hands that he placed down while looking at Blackstar with a look wondering if that was a good place for it. Blackstar looked to his left towards an exit off of the road, a side road back towards a more populated highway that he nodded at while glancing back to Ledge and suppressing a grin.

The hand he had out as a palm he turned to the side, and he waved the shocked driver and his girlfriend towards the side road like that was the only reason he was stopping them in the first place. The sign said 'Detour' on it in German, as well as 'Road Work Ahead' above that to explain why the cops had come to redirect traffic.

"We've got the road block set up on the stretch going west," Dongwu reported.

"And going east is good too," Blackstar added. "We are good to go."

"Descending now," Jetflame said.

The drivers of the trucks heading east deeper into Germany did not think anything of the fact that they did not see any drivers coming towards them on the other two lanes to their left. The highway going east and the one going west were separated by a wide grass patch in the middle that dipped down a bit off the road but not too far that a car going off would roll easily. Hans relaxed more than usual _because_ there were no other drivers around them. Their set-up was not ideal, but their time table was also short and so risks had to be made.

 _Harsh penalties are coming down for everyone involved with the Exonbaba oil rig. Even the regular workers are catching grief and even sentences for their involvement with the weapons' lab. They had their own oil rig though, and no matter how much was confiscated, the Americans and Chinese have those kind of resources._ Ansel calmed down like his wife told him to, reminding himself why it was he was doing this which got him to put a braver face on. _They have those better weapons as failsafes, failsafes we now know we need after the past couple of years. In case things get that bad again, we'll have these weapons we created to defend ourselves this time!_

Lina's thoughts were darker though her expression stayed straight as she stared out through the windshield calmly. _The inspection teams are made. I wish we knew what was happening earlier, but it must be hard even at the top with this much scrutiny now. Can't go through regular channels to get in contact with us. Still, that lab was state of the art, and this new one won't have anything I need to continue my work. We had to leave too much behind. If we didn't though, they'd know we were hiding something. With random inspections going to come after the first one at any time, stupid new rule, we can't even move all that equipment to this new one._ Lina sighed and then took in a deep and strong breath. _But I will persevere. Standards will be met back at the facility, and I will greet the inspection team with nothing but poise and gratitude for the work they are doing. To make sure all the rest of them meet the same standards we adhere to,_ a smirk crossed Lina's face and she leaned back in her seat with a more smug expression. _These new rules might actually help us get ahead-_

 _ **Clank.**_

 _ **Clank.**_

 _ **Clank.**_

Caleb Hardedge shot out of his seat then stumbled forward as the driver of the truck slowed down hearing that noise above and behind him. "Keep moving," Caleb called out, while he ran for the back of the truck after recovering quickly. His run backwards was cut short as the truck's engine did, and he stopped his run back to instead fly forward in it and into three others who had jumped out of their seats. Others in the middle of getting out of their seats fell into each other, but the truck was not braking, necessarily.

"The engine cut off! The accelerator isn't working-" The driver tested the brakes, knocking down more of the people in the back again at the jolt while many were trying to stand. Luckily most of the equipment was tied down, but a couple of high-tech rifles dropped from the walls, and one of them fired off a thin beam of yellow light that shot straight through Dieter's left calf, the seat behind him, and the wall of the truck before sputtering out outside of the vehicle. Dieter screamed inside it, and his scream filled the earpieces of all the people in the convoy who were going from surprised and confused to panicked very quickly.

"Should we stop?!" Ansel exclaimed at his wife, as the third vehicle with all their support and security were falling far behind them.

"We still have Louis! And the most important cargo is with us!"

"You heard the lady!" Hans shouted behind him, and he sped up while reaching back and slamming a fist onto the wall behind his seats. "Get out there Louis!"

 _The 's' is silent._ Louis opened his eyes and reached his right hand to the side. He breathed calmly through the respirator over his mouth that had tubes connecting it to the outside of the cylindrical tank he was floating in. The Frenchman pressed a button in the inside of the tank that drained the liquid out of it, and his skin started to heat up as soon as he emerged from the juice that had been coating him. The tank opened up and Louis ripped the wires all off him, then he climbed up over the boxes and equipment and weapons towards the back of the truck. He moved rapidly, his body blurring up over the supplies as he used his bare hands and feet to move like he weighed nothing. He slipped between thin cracks, and he slammed into the back of the truck as he was moving too quickly when he reached it-

The back doors of the truck were not locked anymore, and Louis slamming into them sent the doors flying open and the man inside falling out with his confident and stern look turning to one of shock in a second. The other truck behind Hans' was too close, and Louis fell towards the street that he was going to bounce on and under the wheels of the vehicle behind him. Lina swerved, but as the back of her truck swung out, a blur flew past the side of the truck anyway and dipped down to where Louis just hit the floor and bounced.

Twin jets of flames spiraled behind the man in a black uniform who shot through the air only two feet off the ground and hit Louis straight on. Jetflame pushed his feet down and powered up the flames firing out of his soles because he cut off the ones coming out of his palms. He needed those hands to wrap around the man in front of him who he continued tackling up through the air with more intensity after he felt how hard his body was from that initial collision. "Let me ask you something!" Jetflame yelled in English while pulling his head back and staring straight into Louis' eyes through his visor. "Are you an experiment, or did you volunteer for this?!"

"Volunteer," Louis replied. His hands rose up and he slammed them down in a combined fist, only for Jetflame to release his back and fire flames from both hands so fast that Louis wound up just spinning himself in a bunch of front flips at his missed and overpowered attack. His eyes opened huge again as he pinwheeled down, as he had no idea how high up Jetflame had just risen them so he was falling over a hundred meters down. Louis turned his head and looked back towards that figure flying through the sky with four flaming jets coming out of his hands and feet, and a look of awe spread on his face at the sight.

 _ **"If I'm such a huge success, then why not recreate the experiment? Mrs. Krieger!"**_

 _ **"You haven't heard? The Army of Death found a lab where they were doing human testing, and the Russians covered it up, not that they didn't throw all the survivors into supermaxes. But those survivors? We know why it is they killed so many…"**_

 _He's a volunteer. It really didn't seem like a human testing lab last time we checked it out. And he seems to be working with them, or for them, and he doesn't have that look of indoctrination and insanity on his face. A human weapon. A non-hero with enhanced powers to the point he's going to survive that fall, and that's just the start._ Jetflame could see it on Louis' face and flew down after him to follow through after the man preparing for a hard landing hit down. In that moment he was focused on landing, Jetflame was going to get behind him and take him down for good.

"You're getting close to our blockade," Dongwu alerted the others.

"You on your way back, Firefly?" Revellum wondered. "'Cause I'm stopping these two."

"Was flying over to you, but a few of these guys are fast and chasing after me. Going to handle them first." Firefly turned around in the air, and the men of the security team who planned on reaching their other vehicles before the dark soldier found themselves stopping cold in the middle of the street. They suddenly realized, that there was no one around them in any direction. The roads were completely empty, and the Army of Death soldier did not look worried about it like someone could come across them.

"Should be fine. Looks like only three heat signatures left in those two vehicles," Raylei informed the team on the ground. "Open them up and report in what you find. The way they're reacting, we were definitely right about this."

"Should I come with the Confiscators?" Exodus questioned, stepping up right on the side of Raylei's seat and looking down over her shoulder at the drone images she was capturing from above.

Raylei turned the drone onto auto-flight for a moment and glanced back at the large man at her side. _He's asking me?_ Raylei grinned and nodded at him, "Yeah. Go for it. No, you guys still report in what's in there. Death needs to know now, not once we get them up here."

Exodus walked back through the bridge and tapped a panel on the side of the doors that made them both slide open. He stepped out and across a hall to an open elevator, since two others ran out ahead of him and already pressed the button. "Incite, La Capra, have you flown a Confiscator before?"

"Always wanted to," Incite replied.

"I have, not," La Capra added.

"I will walk you through it. Do not mess up, or you may drop highly explosive equipment over Germany and bomb the country on accident." The two who were looking forward to trying out these vehicles looked in at the bigger man between them who did not say that as a joke in the slightest.

"Oh shit," Blackstar muttered, his voice filling the comms of all the teams working with him. "This isn't good."

Raylei turned her drone around and had it fly back Blackstar's way, and she zoomed in still from afar within seconds to get a look on what was coming towards him. Before Blackstar could start explaining she already saw what was coming his way, "Cops?"

"It's a single cop car," Blackstar countered. "Probably trying to set up a speed trap, same reason we were going for."

"Think you could talk your way out of it?" Raylei wondered.

"He'll probably get arrested trying," Rebel chimed in.

"Act French," Rampart suggested from the seat on Rebel's right, opposite the command room from their newer third member, Angie. "You can speak French well, right?"

"French cops in the middle of the road in Germany?" Ledge muttered skeptically under his breath, feeling more nervous but keeping his expression steady and calm.

Blackstar said in a steady voice, "I'll do the talking. You only know rudimentary German, Officer Boucher. Stay here." He stepped farther forward past Ledge and kept his arms down at his sides in an unthreatening manner. He walked up and looked through his sunglasses with his lips almost flat but curved down a bit at the corners. Blackstar frowned at the two cops sitting in the front of their cop car that looked identical to the one Blackstar and Ledge had been in.

 _Let's see. Guess I'll go with secret undercover. Like, they don't know but both our governments know why their are French police here. I'll have them call Inspector Wolf in Berlin. Otherwise known as Rebel, with a phone number with a Berlin area code and modulator matching Wolf's voice. Don't fuck me on this,_ Blackstar thought, though he was not too worried as those cops got out of their car. As much as Rebel could fuck around, when it came down to it in times like these he was always reliable. "Officers," Blackstar started, in German but with his most French accent as he nodded at the men before him.

In the neighboring country to the west, in the capital city of Paris, a dark figure walked up an empty emergency stairwell in a government building. The cameras in the stairwell were looping footage to the building's security, and Angie reported to her boss in a smaller voice than she used while talking with the two in her command center, "The hall between the exit and President Chuvreaux's office has three people in it. Two now- four, sorry."

"Quite fine, just let me know when I have my moment," Tobita replied. His tone relaxed the woman who was younger than the other two in the command center. The short, Asian American woman, was also the one who ran the command center they were working out of, or at least she had constructed it. The Army of Death's previous mobile command had been compromised, but Angie's Quirk worked to prevent any back-tracing of their activities across the world to their location, and her home. It was the main reason Rebel chose her to recruit even though he kept telling Death and Rampart that he did not need a third man when they kept saying how they needed someone to replace Cherasaw.

The two black men in the command looked over as Angie started speaking in a more rapid voice, "Do it. Right now-" Her eyes widened as she saw the black blur in the camera angle she was watching. _I knew he had to go fast in order to use this window, but still-_ She flipped over her main camera angle she was watching so she was in the room at the end of the hall that Death prevented from slamming into like a missile using another Gently Rebound at the last second. He touched down and then stepped forward and calmly opened up the door and stepped inside.

"Excuse me-" President Pierre Chuvreaux looked up from paperwork he was going over with his reading glasses on. He stared at his office's entranceway where the door shut, and there was a dark figure on the inside staring at him through his visor. Chuvreaux's whole body tensed and he felt chills down his spine. His hands were both over his paperwork, but he was too nervous to reach underneath and press the panic button under the desk.

Gentle had modulated his voice after telling Angie to just tell him when he had his moment, and he spoke in a dark and deep voice not his own, "President Chuvreaux. It is a shame that we have to meet again."

"Death," Pierre whispered. _He looks, different. Is he taller- shorter? He looks maybe a bit less, bulky. Is this even Death? I've only ever met the-_ Death nodded his head and Chuvreaux's thought train derailed with unease filling him again. Death stepped forward, and the French President said quickly, "Stay back."

"You lied to me," Death said.

"I didn't-"

"1452 Green Street," Death said. He cut off the President of one of the largest and wealthiest countries in the world, and he glared at the man through his visor with a dark look. "Do you know that address?"

"I, have no idea-"

"That is the location, of a weapons' facility on French soil that is funded by your government."

"It is a facility for testing hero support items," Chuvreaux started angrily, though he breathed heavier as there was a brief pause with Death just staring motionlessly at him. Chuvreaux regained his temper and held it much farther back, reminding himself who this was before him, and how he had just admitted that he did in fact know that address and what Death was talking about. "I understand, that you may be suspicious after, what happened before. But I have done nothing but support my country and build a stronger economy, a stronger system around heroes-"

"Are you sure, there are no illegal weapons at that facility?" Death questioned.

The President's eyes narrowed and his hands curled over his desk. He still held back from sliding them tot he edge to press a button underneath, though that was less because of fear of Death now and more for the other reasons he did not want to antagonize the man before him. "I am certain," the French president glared at Death harshly as he stated it.

"Are you so certain, because all the illegal weapons were transferred out of that facility this morning?" Gentle wondered. Chuvreaux's expression tried to shift to surprise and confusion, but Gentle just continued in a low voice at the man whose lying face he could see right through, "Don't try to hide it. We hear everything. We know everything."

"I have no idea what, transfer, you're even talking about," Chuvreaux began. "And if there was some sort of transfer between facilities making hero equipment, it was a legal transfer at that."

Gentle rose a hand up to his helmet. He stared straight at the Frenchman before him, a forty-eight year old man with short grayish-black hair who found himself getting extremely nervous at the way Death nodded his head to what he was hearing. Death lowered his hand from his helmet and said to the president before him, "It seems all three of the trucks that left that research lab were carrying weapons far beyond international standards."

The French president was stunned. He sat back in his seat, his hands sliding over his desk and then falling at his sides while his eyes were huge and staring in shock at Death. _Those shipments should be on the road to a secure facility outside of Munich right now! I heard from Jacoby that they reported in only fifteen minutes ago that there was no problem! What is happening out there right now?!_

"You don't want this fight," Firefly said, speaking in French to the men and women down below looking back up at her. More of the security team had gathered on the road, and the ones who ran farthest ahead backed up to them, waiting for Caleb who came up and was now surrounded by his whole team.

"What did you do to our truck?" Caleb asked. His voice was low, dark, and menacing. It encouraged the rest of the detail with him who were ready to go through this person and chase after their other vehicles. They heard from the driver that two other figures had landed on their other trucks, and those of them with comms open heard how the other vehicles had been stopped not too far down the road from them. Their leader was muscular and wore a tight black long-sleeved shirt, tight black pants, and black combat boots. He had knives strapped to both sides of his belt, and he had two of the high-tech rifles slung over his back unlike most of his men who did not carry any in favor of their Quirks, or a few who only carried one. Caleb glared at the figure above who clearly did not have a Quirk to destroy their engine like that, yet he doubted they had sabotaged the vehicle beforehand. "How did you cut our engines?"

Firefly lowered down through the air, unarmed, and she replied in a voice that was feminine but modulated deeply anyway. Her combat armor already showed off she was a woman from the protruding chest, but she was muscular and it would not be easy to tell if the armor was a little thicker. Firefly replied to Caleb in an even darker voice than he used, "What truck do you speak of?"

Caleb glared harsher at the woman above, though he felt the biggest pit in his stomach that he could not shake for whatever reason. He did not want to take his eyes off of a potential enemy, but then he heard Dieter shout in all their headsets, "What the fuck?! Ahh!"

The European security detail looked back towards the truck they left two of their injured comrades, one who got knocked out when the second jolt happened in their truck and knocked her over, the other Dieter who was shot through the calf. Twenty one people looked back towards the truck, and they lifted their heads up and watched as the truck rose into the air, a giant steel claw sticking off of an invisible space in the air and gripping the truck on both sides. _"Grab the one in the back, Incite." "It's okay that you're inexperienced, the least precious cargo is back there." Assholes._ Incite felt a lot more pressure on him picking up the vehicle below with a couple people inside it than he would have just picking one up with weapons they would probably wind up destroying most of anyway.

As the security team stared in shock back at their rising truck, Firefly had flown down to the front of the group and shot a tiny tranq dart into the side of Caleb's neck. His hand shot up with quick reflexes as he felt it prick in, but he was not fast enough and dropped down to his knees. The sound of his knees touching the ground made a few others look back, though it was the sound of multiple thuds that made most of the rest look away from the flying truck grabbed by a claw. None of them had their weapons raised. None of them were ready to look back and see five of their comrades on the floor. And not one of them was ready to see the dark soldier behind them holding up one of their high-tech rifles that had fired a thin beam straight through solid steel not three minutes ago.

Firefly aimed the rifle at the men who had nowhere near the experience she did, who had let their guard down for multiple seconds which was much more than the one she needed. The Chinese woman thought at the group who had considered themselves pretty badass up until that very second, _Amateurs._ "Put down your weapons, slowly, or I'll slice you all in half."

"Firefly has apprehended the security detail," Raylei began. "All three trucks are up in the air. Confiscators seem to have a good hold. Don't fly too fast there Exodus-"

"I locked back up the back of that truck," Revellum assured. "Nothing should slide out."

"Just saying to be careful. Flight team, how's it going with incrimination?"

"Leaving the unconscious together with a couple of rifles doesn't seem like it's going to work," Jetflame began.

"The Confiscators aren't so we can take that stuff for ourselves," Raylei remarked back. "We're going to bring it back to that lab. The small group they sent out here aren't the only ones who knew about it. We're shutting that whole lab down, and when the heroes show up there earlier than the inspection was supposed to be, those docs thinking they escaped by the skin of their teeth are going to-"

"Skin of their teeth?"

"What are you-"

"Narrowly. They escaped narrowly," Raylei corrected, forgetting how many people were not native English speakers on her comms and did not understand idiomatic phrases. "Just, extraction team head down for our brave officers. And someone get those two out of Incite's truck." Raylei shook her head around and then tapped back into a different comms line she had muted since she needed to focus on leading the convoy capture. She listened in to what Death was doing in France while the rest of them and the Cloak were flying over Germany.

"…We knew the funders of that base come from all over Europe. Big names from the UK and Germany, and here in France. Here though, those names go all the way to the top of the French government. _Your_ government. You were trying to hide what was in that lab from the inspections, because you knew what was going on inside. We have proof you knew. Only fifteen minutes ago you were contacted about the convoy." Chuvreaux pulled his head back and scrunched his face more as the responses and excuses he had to use were cut off as somehow Death knew about even that most recent talk with one of his Cabinet. _How?!_

La Brava sat in a car in a parking lot two blocks away from The Élysée Palace. She sipped out of a smoothie she just bought at the corner when Gentle had gone the other way towards the executive building the French president worked and lived in. On her lap was a thick black laptop she typed away in, a pair of wireless headphones in her ears hacked in to all communications coming in and out of that building. She had all the cameras hacked too, and she was working point on the mission and was in charge while Angie was more of her backup across the Atlantic on the east coast of the U.S.

Jetflame threw a weapon down at Lina's feet and glared at the group of four they were going to leave unconscious here for the heroes who would show up only minutes after they had gone. His fists balled tightly at his sides, thinking about all he saw in the backs of those trucks after he had taken down Louis. "What's up?" Revellum asked, switching to just a comms link between him and Jetflame, more specifically a link between only the people on their network within a thirty meter range which the two of them were the only ones in now.

"It's beyond what was found in the oil rig. More than," Jetflame paused and his eyes were dark as he shifted them away from the people they caught a part of this. _I knew the United Kingdom's government was not involved with the facility in Scotland. I took Fergus down because of that, because they killed Titan and Red Team. I knew they didn't have a hand in it, but this time though, I know I can't deny it. They knew as much as Chuvreaux did._

"Let's fly up. We'll go through the rest of the equipment once we're on our way to their lab."

"Wish we knew where the facility they were heading to was though," Revellum mentioned, more of an aside as it had not been one of their objectives to figure that out. "They might have some more illegal-"

"I've got the address," Firefly said, having just entered their range as she was doing a quick flight in their direction to see how things ended up over here with the rest of the squad. "Their driver was quick to give it up; thought he was going to help himself. Don't know why they gave it to him if he was driving the truck in the rear. He was just following the other two anyway. Idiots." Firefly looked so annoyedly through her visor at the villains they had just taken down.

"Yeah, not the hardest mission," Rebel chimed in, hopping on the Flight Team's comms from the last team that was struggling even with his help. "But, just a head's up… The cops in front of Blackstar and Ledge are calling it in for heroes. I guess they didn't believe my German Inspector Wolf voice."

"Damn it Rebel," Jetflame muttered, spinning his head and looking back to the west where the trucks had come from. Jetflame switched to a more open channel, not full comms but connected with everyone attached to their mission, "Extraction team- Evader."

"What is it?"

"Fly down to Blackstar and Ledge and get to Rendezvous Point Bravo. They're in trouble."

"Opening up the back," Oscillate said from the co-pilot's chair next to Vintage who continued to descend them on a vertical descent towards R.P. Alpha. He flipped a switch and felt the pull of air and cool breeze that flew in as the back of their plane started opening up.

Evader put on her mask and stepped up to the opening doors after the cabin pressurized. She took in a deep breath, and then she sprinted down the ramp once the bottom half of the back door had declined in front of her. Evader dove off the back of the jet and curled her fingers in, making the bottoms of her shoes glow blue. Then she used her Quirk, Targeted Ignorance, as she spotted the two cops Blackstar and Ledge were arguing with, with Ledge spouting off in French in a frustrated way that was making the German police more aggravated but not more suspicious.

It felt more like mistakes made by upper management that had them all upset, but it was also strange for something like this to happen, especially with the officers in front of them telling them to call Inspector Wolf directly. They did not even know an Inspector Wolf, and although he had sounded like an important person the way the dark-skinned Frenchman first said how he had authorized them, and Wolf had given them the clearance, the whole situation made the local police call in their direct superiors for assistance to figure out what was happening. Blackstar's secrecy towards the "undercover" assignment he was on also confused them, as the French officers were blocking a highway and not letting them past to see what was happening on the road ahead.

The younger German officer was watching the French guys closely, though he was thinking about how this was probably going to be his entire day just because someone had messed up somewhere. The older officer put his radio back down inside his car though where he had walked back to in order to speak with his captain in a quieter voice. "You two are going to have to come with us. Whatever _'secret'_ reason you have, if you cannot explain why you are blocking the roadway, or why it is you have a German-model police vehicle, I must-"

The two men standing next to each other in front of the German police disappeared. They just vanished, and Blackstar and Ledge judged when that moment was based on those officers' reactions. The two of them turned and sprinted off the road with as light steps as they could, meeting up with Evader who landed in front of them and then started running in front of them away from the officers who started shouting in panic. One was yelling for LeFleur and Boucher, while the other realized something after a second of yelling 'where did you go,' and he ran back for his car to call in more backup.

"Disappointing we're leaving one of the cars," Blackstar admitted.

"No, you did a good job stalling them long enough for everyone to get out of there," Raylei countered. "Just get yourselves out now before heroes swarm the place. We're about to call in what _really_ happened on that stretch of road too, and we'll add in that disappearing act into what those dastardly fiends did."

"R.P. Alpha is evacuated. Got the cop car strapped in the back, and some extra room so I guess we could pick you three up at Bravo, if you'd like?" Oscillate wondered.

"Get your ass over here," Blackstar ordered in a pissed-off voice. He was sprinting as fast as he could away from those cops, but other sirens and flashing lights were speeding down the road towards them. Evader's Targeted Ignorance could only hide the three of them from five other people, and although she turned and looked through the next closest cop car to make the two in the front of it unable to see them too, they were running out of time here without much cover to get behind. "Changing the extraction point to my location in fifteen seconds," Blackstar added, after the comms had quieted down and no one made a joke after hearing his tone.

"We'll be there in a minute."

"Can only make the driver of that third car- shit wait, using it on Jedenwurst," Evader switched it up as she saw a red sports car she recognized behind the third cop car that had a hero driving it.

"Should still be fine," Ledge said, trying to get the other two next to him speaking so seriously relax a little.

"Get behind that divot and crouch down," Blackstar ordered, and he sprinted for it and dove, hoping those cops had not seen him yet.

"Switching so one of the ones in the second car and one in the third can't see us. Both of the drivers-"

"Just run forward-"

"Crap, one's pointing towards us," Evader turned and sprinted for the drop, jumping and landing on the other side of it a few feet down, before crouch-sprinting after Blackstar around a risen hill of higher elevation that had tall grass on it but not tall enough to hide their dark bodies from the ones not ignorant of them. "Luckily," Evader continued. "The other three around her looked over while she was pointing and saying she could see me, they're telling her she didn't see anything right now."

"You think," Blackstar countered.

Raylei watched on her drone, and she relaxed a little bit as Evader was right. She did not say anything about it though, as Blackstar was being as cautious as he needed to be right there. "It's alright, Blackstar. Your ride is here."

"That's my line," Vintage said, and Blackstar turned around as he heard the sound of opening doors. "Get in quickly. They see you."

"Holy shit," one of the German cops muttered, looking out the passenger side window as the driver slowed down more behind the other four police officers all out of their cars.

The other three cops were staring at the fourth who had been telling them she was sure she saw people over there. She was staring that way again, and the others turned this time and looked in that direction only to drop their jaws. In the middle of empty air, a door was opening outwards. Evader dropped her Targeted Ignorance as there was no point anymore, as she was already back inside the vehicle. Ledge moved quickly inside too and ran for a seat, but Blackstar took two steps up and then turned. He grabbed a metal handle sticking out of the wall just inside of the doors.

The first two cops who had arrived and were talking mainly to Officer LeFleur stared towards that "LeFleur" in utter disbelief. They stared slack-jawed at the man who reached up to his sunglasses, took them off, and then tossed them to the side farther into the ship. His hand he released the sunglasses with stayed open, and he caught the helmet tossed his way that he lifted up and put over his head. He was still mostly wearing a police uniform when the invisible doors closed back up and left empty space rising over their hilly fields, but the officers and Jederwurst all knew who they really were.

Jedenwurst stood behind the officers, and he was glad none of them could see as he lifted the right corner of his lips into a small smile for a moment. He nodded up at the invisible space in the sky, then he shook his head around and started in a commanding voice, "We must look for wherever those two fake officers ran off to." The cops in front of him turned to the hero in a brown and red costume who marched forward towards the fake cop car and the 'Detour' sign they left behind. "But we must also see what is waiting for us on the stretch of road ahead. You six, follow me."

Back inside the Élysée Palace, President Chuvreaux spoke in a rapid and angry voice at the man before him, "We needed those weapons to- you have no proof that we ever had them in the first place. By now they're already in Germany, or in your possession," Chuvreaux corrected himself and glared harder at Death, while also looking regretful as he had let these weapons fall into the hands of terrorists.

Tobita saw no reason to explain to Chuvreaux his plan for all the confiscated equipment and weapons. Nor did he feel a need to defend himself, but he did need to say something when he saw that look of remorse that the President thought he had messed up by allowing the AoD to get ahold of that technology... "Death warned you what would happen," Gentle started. Chuvreaux lifted his head and his heart raced as he stared at the man who he thought was Death, and he thought still might be even while speaking in that person. "Death gave you the choice to do good before the end of your term, and you broke your promise-"

"I didn't!" Chuvreaux exclaimed, though his voice stayed in a yell-whisper at loudest. "Death told me to do right by my people! To do whatever I could for them, to protect and serve them." Chuvreaux planted his hands firmly down over his desk and leaned forward over it. He stated firmly while glaring into the visor of the dark man before him, "We don't have the level of heroes other nations have. Too many of our elite pros fell over the past two years. We _do not_ have the defenses to protect our people from the evils that cover this world," Chuvreaux narrowed his eyebrows in at the figure in front of him, "The hope of an occasional assistance from the Army of Death isn't enough for me to feel my people are safe. I did this for them!"

Gentle stayed quiet for a few moments after the French president was finished. Then he spoke in a low voice, his tone dark, "You had good excuses back when Death first questioned you too. You were quick with us." Chuvreaux kept his firm look on his face but it twitched for a second as Death stepped right up in front of his desk. "That your people's lives were being threatened, so everything you did to help those villains wasn't just to protect yourself, but for them. I remember," Gentle's eyes narrowed behind his own visor in a darker way at the Frenchman. "But this is two mistakes now, and I cannot ignore it."

The President's mouth opened, but Death cut in first with a louder voice, "You're a smooth talker. I accept the wrong you did may have been for more than yourself," Death paused and then continued in a lower tone, "but as a politician, as the figure your people need to trust and put their faith in to do what they expect of you, when there are laws you publicly say you follow that you then ignore, it cannot go on. In any country." Gentle turned away, "I will not allow it. Get yourself a good lawyer, President Chuvreaux."

The older man sitting at his desk lifted a hand up, but the dark figure stepped straight out of his office and closed the door behind him without looking back. Chuvreaux's hand lowered with his bottom lip dropped, and his eyes clenched shut a second later with a thousand pound weight dropping on his shoulders. Bags formed under his eyes, and he brought his hands up to his face and put his head in them in shock and disbelief. _It's all gone. Everything, I'm going to lose it- This is, it's so horrible._ The feeling swelling inside him was the worst thing Chuvreaux had ever felt before. _They know! They know I was blackmailed that first time- and it's my discretion to enact measures to protect my people! Whatever those measures, may, be…_

The French president turned his head and his eyes narrowed at a phone sitting on top of his desk. _If it's all over anyway. I won't allow them to continue this reign of terror. They won't get away with doing this to me!_ His hand snapped out and he grabbed the phone, then he reached down and slid out a drawer on his desk and pulled out a folder inside it with his free hand. _Endeavor. I don't know what you've been doing all this time, but you will listen to me! He's here! In Paris right now! I know you're close enough to catch him._

"Wait for it, wait- I said-"

"There's no time," Death countered Angie, and he just Elasticized the ground as soon as he stepped out of the building. His legs bent down far, and then the man formerly known as the Gentle Criminal shot up into the sky like a rocket very few people saw. Those few still dropped their jaws to the ground though and then spun to the people closest to them, going to try, (and fail), to convince them of what they just saw.

"Pulling around to the first meet-up point," La Brava said, turning on the car as she said it to her partner. "Things sounded like they went well in there."

 _Did they?_ Angie wondered, feeling hesitant herself after what she had heard in there.

"I do not disagree with what he was saying," Death admitted. "But he can't have the attitude that anything is acceptable for peace, in his public and trusted position. That stance is reserved for us."

"Of course," La Brava agreed, like there was no reason for him to explain it to her.

"I understand, Commander," Angie agreed, wondering if he knew somehow the hesitation she had felt there for a moment. He had erased it though, and she typed away quickly before mentioning, "The President's making a call out of the country. It's to Endeavor, actually."

"We'll be long gone by the time he could get here," La Brava scoffed, though her expression did get straighter and her foot pushed down a little harder on the accelerator. She had gotten off her laptop to drive, and she made her way around the streets of Paris to the point that Gentle would reach seconds after she pulled up. They had planned it out beforehand where he would have enough time to get out of his dark armor and into the change of clothes waiting for him in an empty apartment they owned there in Paris, and he could put that armor into a bag that casual change of clothes was currently waiting inside.

"How are we going to get him caught?" Angie wondered, as despite what Gentle said, incriminating a head-of-state in any crime was a difficult task.

"We'll leave behind the evidence we have connecting the government leaders to the weapons' lab when we drop back off their missing trucks," Death replied. "If there was ever a time to reveal corruption, it is now in a great time for peace and stability."

"Plus, they're holding their leaders to higher standards," La Brava added, as the current world news about the U.S.A. and China's reactions to the Exonbaba Oil Rig Incident was the most popular story in the world. "Demanding resignations and getting those resignations they demanded. It'll be easier for him to be convicted when he's not a sitting president." La Brava paused for a moment and then mentioned, "People don't need that faith in their leaders anymore we were trying to preserve. It's going to stick even with some more bad eggs revealed."

 _People would only look to change the entire system due to a bad leader, in a time of unrest where a huge change might seem necessary._ Death flew up high in the sky, and he picked a moment to bounce himself down very fast towards the roof of the building his change of clothes was inside. _Even revealing his former corruption and these illegal activities will not make the French people lose faith in democracy. Solely in Chuvreaux himself. Other leaders will also learn that the trend beginning with the oil rig is not a fad soon to fade. They will see the trend of people with their level of power being held accountable for these sorts of things, and they will all be disinclined from following in their footsteps._

"Death," a voice spoke in Tobita's ear that shifted his train of thoughts while he made his way into the building's top floor and to his apartment on the east side. Jetflame continued once Death told him to, "We've searched the trucks completely. We found, something else," he had already given a preliminary report of the weapons he saw inside that were beyond the international standards, but he had not seen everything with it all packed so tightly together in those front two trucks earlier.

"They didn't just develop the tech here on their own," Jetflame's voice was regretful and he continued to look down at what many of their AoD members were gathered around and glaring at in similar levels of disgust. "It's tech from our own costumes."

Gentle's expression dropped and he stopped taking his clothes off for a second. His face became dark and he glared harshly at the casual clothes on the ground, though his hands started shaking at his sides in a fearful way. He had to clench those hands into fists, but the day he just thought of for a second reverberated back in his mind. It was filling Jetflame's head too, as the two of them thought about the comrades they had to leave behind at the "Villain Summit." _We couldn't look around for all of their bodies,_ Gentle reminded himself, but it did not make him feel any better. _The chaos was too intense. We couldn't destroy the corpses like we always do._

 _I can barely remember it,_ Jetflame thought in regret and guilt for whoever's armor this was in front of him. _I was injured myself, and I still had to carry away two other wounded comrades including Gentle, Death now. We dragged ourselves away from that battlefield, and left our comrades' bodies, and our destroyed ship which had been my home- even the R &D department in Norway was looted by these bastards. How the French got ahold of it, I don't know. Countries are trading around our tech, and our comrades' bodies even? My own country!? If the UK can do it, anyone else can too. We'll put their names on the same list that gets Chuvreaux incriminated. You'll all go down for this. _

Firefly glanced towards Jetflame, then she lifted a hand to her helmet and continued in a low voice, "They used our technology for their own purposes and developed weapons for their countries to use." A few people looked towards the woman who also had a dark look over her face as she remembered the Villain Summit, and how she had seen something similar that day as she fought against a dozen men flying around with super-powered jetpacks. "Just like that day-"

"What are you guys talking about?" Revellum wondered. A few others next to the third member of the Flight Squad looked over at Firefly too wondering where she was going there.

"Get back to it," Jetflame ordered, looking at the newer members who wanted to hear a story and giving them a harsh look showing it was not the time. He reached up to his helmet again, "Most of the armor was stripped. It's not all here, and what is has been taken apart and put back together it looks like. The helmet's a hollow shell. It's ours though. It's definitely, one of ours."

"Endeavor's on the way. Don't know who else he might be calling, isn't going to be as easy to hear his calls as the French president's," Angie started.

"Endeavor's in Greece," Rebel said without looking up from his computer. "He's at a press conference in Athens. They'll be out of Europe before he gets to France, or Germany, depending on where he stops first."

"What about other members of the ADTF around here?" Blackstar wondered at their command center who were speaking on an open line starting with what Angie announced.

"An inordinate number of them are overseas right now," Raylei replied, making Rampart close his mouth as he had been on that and checked again recently. Raylei was on top of it too though from up on the Cloak, and she went on, "With things normalizing though, more foreign activity is to be expected for heroes. Several European ADTF are off-continent right now, but there are a few Chinese heroes in Italy, two of them ADTF. Star Spangled Man is on his Europe tour too, but we all know he's in Moscow today. Team Canada are also over in Ireland, but they're scheduled to take a jet back in thirty minutes. Doubt they'll turn around to help out Endeavor, especially since only Kurt 2 is still a part of the Force."

"Outback Man is arriving in Berlin in two hours too," Rampart mentioned. "He'll be close, and he'll likely join up with Endeavor and any domestic ADTF members currently free."

"President Chuvreaux told Endeavor how Death had walked straight into his office. He demanded immediate response... though," Angie paused for a second and grinned. "It was pretty funny hearing Endeavor ask him why."

"What'd he say?!"

"He paused like- 'uhh,'" Angie exaggerated it, but the two men in the command with her started grinning and then laughed as she impersonated the French president yelling at Endeavor that the reasons didn't matter and that they are all terrorists!

Jetflame smiled before wiping it quickly from his face. _I shouldn't be smiling right now._ Angie just shouted how they were all terrorists, and even in the impersonation of the French president, which he had to admit was comical, he was a former hero. He lifted back up the left corner of his lips after a moment though, as he glanced around and noticed the mood of everyone in the hangar had shifted a bit there. _She fits in great at command though._

La Brava connected a private link between herself and Gentle, then she mentioned in an annoyed voice, "It's like having a little female Rebel."

Tobita chuckled to himself as he casually walked down the stairs of the apartment building carrying a bag in his right hand. "Must be a certain type of person who can handle their work," he suggested to his partner who was pulling up in a car outside at that moment. _Besides, you may say they get on your nerves, but I would bet you smiled right there._

"Parked out front."

Gentle did not stop walking and he twisted the handle to open the front door of the apartment building. He stepped outside in a warm winter coat, he had on a gray hat with a rim around his head, and the man with a silver mustache stepped down a few steps before crossing the sidewalk. He opened up the car door in front of him, climbed inside the car, and he closed it behind him before turning to the side. "Drive, my dear."

"Aw, I was thinking we could vacation here in Paris for a few days," La Brava remarked mock disappointedly. "On the run from Endeavor. In disguise but in plain daylight," she swung a hand out in front of her, even as she drove off the curb and down the road the direction of their own extraction point. "Just like old times," she mentioned with a glance back at the man next to her wearing a disguise like she had on similar to ones they used to wear when making videos to post online together.

"Some other time, perhaps," Gentle replied back, giving the shorter woman at his side a soft smile that made La Brava smile much brighter back at him that he actually was just putting a pin in it for later. Tobita Danjuro looked out the front windshield again though and then said in a dashing and chivalrous voice, "But first! We must save this world from- What is it?" Gentle cut off the voice he only used with La Brava now, as he saw Angie's name appear back on the right side of his visor to show she was connected in comms. La Brava sighed disappointedly from next to the man at her side, but as Gentle started talking to one of their support members, his free hand moved over and patted on top of her head. Aiba Manami's face lit up and she blushed, as her Love for the man next to her grew once again.

* * *

"It's not over Paris though," Lemillion started in English, while on the group video call with 86 other people. "Checking this soon after-"

"Death must not be with the member Suneater-"

"Exodus. It was Exodus who-"

"Enough." Endeavor silenced all the heroes who were speaking over one another and making it hard to have a conversation. He was in a back room of a police station, and the press conference he was supposed to be in was postponing in wait for him, but he had to do this first. Endeavor had his computer opened in front of him like all the other members on his Task Force currently in the call did. The computers and their phones were all built with tech supposedly making it impossible to hack into them. He continued to the rest of the ADTF, "The location is confirmed. Where our tracker is, will be where Death is returning to right now."

Suneater kept a steady look on his face, even as his chest swirled with unease for being the reason for all of this. His trepidation faded though, as he considered what Endeavor had just told them about Death walking right into the French president's office. _He must have done something to deserve it, right? It doesn't matter though. That kind of power is insane, and we let it grow to that level by failing so many times before to stop them._

"So what do we do then?" Star Spangled Man questioned from a hotel in Moscow.

"Are we gathering now to go after them?" Outback Man also wondered, though from a jet crossing over western Asia at the moment.

"No," Endeavor replied. "We will have one shot at this." Everyone on the call started getting serious and focused looks too at the tone in Endeavor's voice. "We all know their strength. Their skill. The moment we show our hand, they will find the tracker and destroy it."

"It can't be pinged-" Crack started.

"They will locate it," Endeavor repeated, cutting off the American woman who frowned but did not try to argue the point again. "And we will lose our opportunity if we go in unprepared. This now takes priority over all other missions you are on. It is our one and only chance that we will get for a clean trap and capture of the Army of Death." Everyone focused in on Endeavor even harder, as he spoke in a voice getting each one of them feeling intense and like this was it. It was something Endeavor never would have been able to do a year ago. The old Endeavor never had the ability to unite their force like he was suggesting now, and yet no one doubted that he could do it this time.

"We do not want a violent clash with the Army of Death. We do not want to fight them in public where people will watch them only trying to flee from us. Nor do I wish to hurt them, myself." Endeavor admitted the final part and then continued much stronger though, "However! We must stop them. It is our jobs. It is the goal of this Task Force, to stop Death. You must each keep complete secrecy from everyone over what we plan out in the coming days or weeks, however long it takes us to ensure a perfect victory, and the capture of Death and all his soldiers."

Lemillion's eyes darkened and he nodded his head in an intense way. _That might be directed more at me than anyone. Endeavor doesn't think Sazaki's Death though, but even for the chance that he is, he wants me to know not to say a word to my interns. Deku nor Explosion King can know. No one can know. Not until it's over. Not until we've captured them all._

* * *

 **A/N Thanks for reading! Always fun jumping back to the AoD and going on missions with them. They're continuing their work around the world, under the leadership of new Death, who's making tough decisions that will echo out across the world. Anyway, hope you enjoyed the chapter! Look out AoD, Endeavor's coming for you. He's not going in half-baked though, he's taking every precaution to ensure that this time... there is no escape. Leave a review telling me what you think of the chapter! And time for review responses:**

AMR-MNR chapter 173 . 15h ago

Ah, yeah, tried to review but I guess using the 'load last page' or 'back button' cancels out the review... So - this, and the last one, was quite a lot of talking and interactions, seeing people's viewpoints. You said that Zach had been lying about the battle of the six armies when he explained it to Iida, so I'm wondering what the real deal was? I mean, while I trust his figures for the AoD forces, the villains numbers are a little whack. Weren't there only 3-4000 villains in Wampajawa? Since the Six armies battle had more, though not too much more, I'd figure it was more like 6000? And what about way back when, when AoD members were mentioning something about a 'blood stained desert' of dead people numbering from 2-400? O had assumed Zach had killed all of them for some reason...  
Oh, and I figure his lack of need to sleep is connected to Death. We know that it cured cancer and somehow made him campatible with organs and blood that are not supposed to be compatible, and that killing living thing gives him a life force of sorts, definitely a native power boost, but perhaps that also extends into his basic physical abilities and needs?  
AAh, for every answer we get we also have another five questions to ask! Zach, please, just tell us the truth! And also fill us in on all the stuff that you've talked to us but only vaguely about...  
See you next time, author San!

 **Hey! Thanks for the reviews and yeah I get it with what happened last time. As for the numbers... kind of wondering where you're getting with it. I don't remember mentioning how many villains were in Wampajawa (at least at the time of the attack, those numbers might have been earlier on when Mark and Seraphim first visited the city with Blackjack, if that's what you're talking about). As for the Battle of 6 Armies, in the chapter after that happened I think I showed Mina and Midnight watching a news report on the Villain Summit where it mentioned something about 8k villains being captured, and thousands more being caught while on the run after the Summit fell apart. The Tusukan Desert where there was that blood-stained desert, I haven't spoken of that much besides for that one chapter, and the occasional thought from Zach that always cuts it off... so still not going to spoil anything about that or the numbers, etc. Some cool theories about Zach's powers there, and yeah there are still as many questions as answers going around, but we'll see what those answers are... when they come! XD Thanks again and hope you liked the chapter!**

.0 chapter 173 . 40m ago

I don't know about anyone else but I really loved the interaction between Sero, Zach, and Kotsumura this chapter. Sero's worry over how much Zach is telling him really brought up my respect for him, and reminded me of how much Sero cares about Zach even after all this time. While I love Momo and her relationship with Zach, I'm slowly realising how much more I like Sero and Mina. Especially after Momo almost gave up on him. (Momo's really got nothing on Airi/Darling at this point, and yet through it all Zach still loves her.) After everything Zach's done Sero still treats him like a friend, and backs him up when he can. Mina also has been a great friend, but I don't think her resolve is as strong as Sero's. I never really thought Zach would trust any of the Shiketsu students enough to confide in them, although I hoped he would, so Zach and Kotsumura's interaction this chapter really made me happy. (Ngl when Zach got emotional and started confessing to Sero and Kotsumura I kinda balled my eyes out. The combination of Zach talking about his past and willingly showing how he's feeling doesn't happen often so that scene hit me hard.) Anyway, really loved that scene. Now to something a bit off topic, I read another review that mentioned something about you not progressing the story recently and while I get where they're coming from I'd have to disagree. Chapters like these can have a huge effect on the story and can change the way a scene later on may play out. While I love chapters that have intense fighting and drama, I love chapters like these as well where it's simply a character expressing their thoughts and feelings. Like I mentioned earlier with Sero and Kotsumura, my opinion of them changed a lot off this chapter alone, all because of one conversation they had. (Same thing for Tsuyu and Sato) So while it may not seem like it, the story is progressing, just in a different/slower way. Sure its no Zach vs Eiziano, (really want that fight to happen btw) but it is pushing the story along. Whoa, this review ended up a lot longer than I intended. Sorry for making you read through all my rambling. XD All in all this chapter was fun to read and I can't wait to find out what happens next, keep up the amazing writing!

 **Thanks! I'm glad you enjoyed the chapter and the character interactions that happened in it. I get the feeling some other people (like xilos) might have towards those chapters moving slow, but there are so many open plot lines and character links Zach has between so many people in the BNHA world that I don't plan on just leaving open or suddenly having change out of nowhere. It takes chapters like these to build the character relationships, and I'm glad it hit you hard at points because I admit I shed tears while writing a lot of scenes in this story. It hits me hard as I get into Zach's mindset to try and better feel what he would be feeling to explain how he's feeling to others, and it's chapters like those with more talking than anything that I feel like are the most dramatic ones in this story. Even with the Darling chapters, there was not that much action in them, and yet those were some of my favorite ones to write recently... Anyway! I'm happy you enjoy these, and the relationship Zach has with Sero and with Kotsumura. They're different, but both of them are characters who Zach does trust to a certain degree more than most others. It's why it makes for a good scene having him talking to them, knowing he can reveal more without worrying as much about stuff coming out. Zach vs Eziano, the quicker progress in this story, things may happen quickly all at once, or they may take a while to come, but I won't let it show beforehand ;) so you'll all just have to look forward to it!**

Guest chapter 173 . 14h ago

It's fucking terrifying watching Zach try to mend all these bridges and do so much good while knowing that Kaminari is in the background doing something that's probably about to come to a head and burn everything down.

 **XD You and DarkJokes both got that fear of Kaminari struck back into you this chapter. We'll see how Kaminari's got his plans working in the background soon... probably, but we know his plans are big since the last time we saw him was blackmailing the PM of Japan. The League of Villains are still out there, and Zach's focus is a little too split while they've got their huge plans too... ;) But then again, who knows what's coming?! (I do), Thanks for the review! And hope you enjoyed the new chapter!**


	175. Chapter 175

**Disclaimer: I don't own Boku no Hero Academia**

 **Chapter 175:**

"Oh how the mighty have fallen!"

Kirishima and Sero looked down the road past the turn towards their front door. Monoma had his head tilted back and looked down his nose towards the Class A students, a big smirk on his face that pissed off the two he just called to more than the also smug grins on Monoma's three fellow classmates' faces. "What's wrong, Class A? Losing to Shiketsu, you make all of U.A. look bad! Class B beat Class 2 by the way, in case you haven't heard."

"We heard," Sero replied, not getting down by it and just chuckling at Monoma's attempt at a go at them. He headed for the door of his dorm, and he said behind him, "Let it go."

Kirishima ground his teeth harder but then humphed and followed after Sero for the door inside. It was worse for the redhead, because the retort he came up with immediately, was an excuse about how Class B did not have to face Zach. The idea of that being the reason they lost though pissed off Kirishima to no end. He ignored Monoma's continued calls after him though on his way in, and he let out a sigh as he made it through without snapping at him. Then his eyes narrowed immediately in a darker way and his head turned towards the couch area where a group of their other classmates all looked upset and pissed at the television in front of them.

"What did they just say?" Kirishima asked, marching towards the closest couch where Mineta and Tsuyu glanced back to see him.

"How'd they even find out?" Tokoyami wondered.

"Those Class 1's totally told everyone-" Mineta started. Then he frowned, and he added, "Or it could have been someone else from Shiketsu too, or their families and friends… or a lot of people, really," he admitted it at the end in a reluctant tone.

Asui looked to her side and nodded in agreement with Mineta. _Did he go back, because we're supposed to be friends with the Class 1 students now? Or at least, he's trying not to exacerbate the former rivalry. That's, very responsible of you?_ Asui looked back at the screen and though upset about what was being said, she did smile softly for a moment, _You keep changing, Mineta-chan. For the better._

"Class B beat Class 2 again," Sero started to the others in his class. "I heard from Pony earlier, it was an even bigger margin than they won last year."

Sato curled his fists into his knees looking angrily at the screen, then he stood up fast and spun around. He marched towards the door and put on his shoes, muttering something about going out to train. _He didn't even beat me! He swarmed me with all those classmates- Why did you use it on Sero and not me?! Was I not worth the trouble?_

"Hey, turn it up," Sero started, leaning over the couch and looking to Aoyama on the middle couch next to Tokoyami who he saw had the remote.

Aoyama turned the volume up more and everyone on the first floor stared with wider eyes at the news hosts talking about the rumors of how Shiketsu's Class 1 had defeated Class A in a mock battle during their schools' joint training. "…Does this mean that Lifebringer is the top hero prospect over Deku, despite Deku winning the Sports Festival this last year?"

"That has been a telling sign in recent years, as it was for Fantasma in the year prior who has just recently broken into the top 10 hero leaderboard at rank ninth."

"And that's even more impressive when you consider how much time she and Miruko have spent abroad on raids that don't count as heavily towards the Hero Billboard Chart JP."

"She's one of the most popular heroes in the country too though, and that factors in-"

"Well if it's popularity we're talking about, I think Lifebringer would have the lead over Deku too. Our reporter on the scene in Yutapu was asking around to see what people thought about Class 1 of Shiketsu defeating Class A of U.A. Takagi-san, are you there?"

The screen switched to show a reporter holding over one ear and nodding his head along. After the second delay it took for the sound to reach him, he started, "Yes! I am here in Yutapu City with some very happy residents." The camera panned a little to show a group of over ten people who had gathered about, with more walking past and behind them in a busy section of Yutapu, and some more people heading over to check out what was going on. "Can you tell us what you think about Lifebringer defeating his former Class A of U.A in a recent joint training between-"

"Go Lifebringer!"

"Look!" One of the girls on the screen ran forward and spun around while looking over her shoulder at the camera. She grabbed her gray sweatshirt by the shoulders and pulled the fabric to the sides to spread out the message on the back of her shirt, which said 'LIFEBRINGER' and had a large number 1 in the background in black. "He's the best!"

"I heard he beat all of Class A on his own!"

"I heard he beat Deku and Explosion King fighting together-"

"No way."

"So you," the reporter started quickly, jumping on the opportunity to talk to someone with a different opinion. "Don't feel the same way?"

It was an older woman who was there with excited kids, and she held up a hand defensively as everyone started looking her way accusingly. "I am happy Lifebringer is back, but let's not go so far there. Class A is full of the best hero recruits in the nation. I don't think Lifebringer on his own could-"

"He beat the Subspace Devils all on his own too!"

"And he killed Kurogiri-"

"Alright, well I think we can all see that Lifebringer has his fans here in Yutapu, though I wish we had a statement from Lifebringer himself to hear how things really went at the training with his former class. Back to you at the station."

"Thanks Takagi-san. I wish we had that too," one of the hosts said to the other who agreed strongly with that. "But Lifebringer just refuses to make media appearances. He is one of the strongest heroes in the nation by my guess, so the excuse that it's too dangerous just does not make sense to me…"

The hosts continued talking about Lifebringer, and they moved off of the topic of the joint training that the students of Class A were all listening for. A conversation like the one they moved to was one the teens had heard a hundred times before and were tired of already. _At least when that guy mentioned Kurogiri, more of the people around him distanced themselves. Even the girl with the Lifebringer sweatshirt seemed a little off-put there,_ Tokoyami felt satisfied with that at least, and he hummed to himself wondering why that satisfied him. _I am upset at him for what he did that night, however he is, doing good back here. Choosing to return and do things the right way, again, if that is truly what you have decided to do… As Death though? You are Death, I thought. I really thought it, and I know Midoriya still thinks I believe as strongly but I don't. "Exodus." The mention of that one name made me doubt myself again though. Your story was so thorough and detailed, yet if all the characters were from a different world we could never get to, there would be no reason to change the names around to protect them. It is a difficult thing, trusting your motives for being here when I cannot trust a word out of your mouth._

* * *

 **Du-du-du-du Du-du-du-du Du-du-du Ch.** The black square at the top right of Power Loader's screen filled with the image of someone else joining the video call, just as Grappler had entered on the top left. "Power Loader?" Roady wondered, looking at the U.A. teacher and pro hero in some surprise at the sudden call. "What is wrong?"

"Nothing," Power Loader assured the two former heroes on the call with him. He looked to Grappler who only did some training at his old agency building now and private lessons for people wanting to learn how to use their Quirks defensively. Then he turned to Roady who actually had switched agencies to work at Ryukyu's with his wife, Popfire. Roady was still just part of the support team though and not an actual sidekick, as the prosthetic right leg he had was not combat capable. "But I wanted to show the two of you this," he continued, and he moved his left arm forward that the other two stared at with their eyes opening wide.

The last time they had been in a video call together had been with one more person. The other two were reminded of it the moment they got the call from Power Loader, but they had both hung up that day before hearing Zach and Power Loader finish their conversation. "You got one-" Roady started, only to stare closer and in shock as Maijima had called them while in a tank top in the Costume Development Studio at U.A. He turned his left arm over, rolling it in its socket so the arm looked completely real to the other two watching him. "That's, a fake arm?"

"It's impossible to tell the difference between that and your right," Grappler agreed, his voice in shock as he leaned close to the screen he had accepted the call on with his nose. He was at home sitting at his dining room table by himself, and he took in a sharp breath as Power Loader opened his palm and curled all of the fingers individually in a smoother movement than his former prosthetic had been able to. "I've been testing it out for a couple weeks now," Power Loader admitted to the other two. "And I've tried to recreate it myself over a dozen times only to come up short. The technology is beyond anything I'm capable of making. Sazaki tells me there's a Cyborginization Quirk that these kind of prosthetics rely on for the nerve connections and pain receptors."

"That arm can feel pain?" Roady asked, an eyebrow risen partly in disbelief and partly wondering why that would be a feature.

"To an extent. It can feel hot and cold. The skin is stronger than my own though," Power Loader paused while curling his left fingers all into a fist. He opened the fist and all five of his fingers opened up at the top, iron extensions coming off of them that were blunt and shaped exactly like the Iron Claws on Power Loader's other hand. "And I can use my Quirk with it," Power Loader finished. "Something my old prosthetic could never handle. This arm is stronger than steel and more versatile than any human arm. It, it feels like I've gotten an upgrade, if I do say so myself."

Roady and Grappler both looked at a corner of the screen where something just rose up over Power Loader's shoulder, then ducked down quickly before Power Loader could look back from his arm to the tablet in front of him that had a reflection of himself over most of it. _Who was that?_ Roady wondered, his eyes shifting to Power Loader's left side and the arm the person who popped up for a second had been staring at with googly eyes.

"I just needed to call you two," Power Loader began again, looking at the two men on the screen with him in a slightly more serious way. "Because I feel like you denied the kid too quickly."

"Power Loader," Roady began. His tone was respectful but his expression dark, "What Zach did-"

"I'm not talking about changing your views towards him or ignoring the stuff he's done," Power Loader said, holding up a palm defensively, his left palm. He shook it and then curled the fingers again in a way that made Grappler stare yearningly and gulp with his heart racing at the sight of it. "But this arm is seriously the greatest piece of technology I've ever gotten my hands on, and the ones who sent it to me wouldn't charge me since it was Sazaki who asked them to make it. I haven't paid a cent," Maijima lowered his arm and looked expectantly at the two heroes on the call with him who had so many reasons to take the offer now, and so few to deny it.

"It's up to you, but I think-" Power Loader saw something duck back on the corner of his tablet, and he started turning his head with his eyes opening wide as there was someone behind him quietly building something on the floor of the lab. "Hey- HEY!"

"Give me that arm!" Mei Hatsume leapt up with a new invention in her hands, "I can improve it even more! That BABY-"

"Hatsume! AHH-" the tablet fell off the table and the call ended, and both Roady and Grappler just stared in confusion with beads of sweat rolling down their faces wondering what that was all about.

* * *

In Shiketsu's own Costume Development Lab, Zach stood at a steel workbench in a long-sleeved white shirt and black sweatpants. He had his sleeves rolled up today though, as it was hot in the lab and there were not many people around, plus he was working on his left arm anyway so that sleeve had to be up. It was difficult to work on the whole arm with the bunched-up sleeve still over part of it at the top, but luckily his repairs today were on his arm from his elbow down mainly.

The other two in the room consisted of his homeroom teacher and a first year student who came in to get help with part of their hero costume. The fifteen year old girl was too nervous to focus though ever since Zach Sazaki entered the room, and Hazano finally told her to head back to training and work on it more later. He walked back towards Sazaki himself after the girl left and they were the only two in the room. Zach's teacher ignored the scars covering his right arm from the middle of his bicep where his shirt was rolled up to all the way down to the start of his black glove. There was a long scar cutting straight down the bottom of his arm, along with over a dozen cut marks all of different lengths and widths. A few of them had matching scars on the other side, and some patches of his arm were darker shades than others, but those areas were nothing compared to between his wrist and his elbow on the underside of his arm. His skin was so dark tan it was nearly black, all of it covered in scar tissue like that whole section of his arm had melted off before.

"So, you just have extra fake skin laying around for this purpose?" Hazano Worrod wondered to his student who was peeling off damaged fake skin and reapplying new undamaged skin onto his left arm where it had ripped off.

"That attack I used on Todoroki," Zach started. "The Rocket Fist," he added with a small smile and a glance at his teacher who rose his eyebrows wondering if Sazaki really found that amusing. "It's going to do that every time, when the wires split out from inside. Knowing that beforehand, it makes sense to have more faux skin at the ready."

"Why not just replace all of it with a new skin sleeve?"

"I have those too," Zach answered. "But only a couple, and that's more for if the whole arm loses it. Like if Todoroki had hit me with a flame and I blocked with my left arm, and the whole sleeve burnt off. Then I would have gone for a whole new sleeve. Enough of this old one is undamaged though." Zach grabbed some more fake skin and he pressed it to his left arm over a skinless patch, and he flattened it down over the adhesive gel he had rubbed over the spot a moment ago. He curled his right hand over the fake skin to press it close to his arm and so there would not be any air gaps beneath that could make it clear his arm was not real. "I'll add the scars later," he mentioned too as he put that skin on a part of his arm where he used to have a scar.

"And why would you do that?" Hazano asked, as he was already wondering about it being able to see some of the scarred fake skin he had never seen before on a part of Zach's arm he knew was fake from his first fight against Inasa. "If no one's going to see your arm anyway."

"You are now," Zach argued.

"Yes, while you are working on it in a lab," Hazano countered right back. "It was not the absence of scars that gave away that arm was not real."

Zach shrugged his right shoulder with a head tilt towards it admitting that was true. "Still. Feels weirder not having the scars than having them." Zach said it casually and then got to work re-locking the wire clips on the inside of his elbow to be ready for another Rocket Fist if he needed it. Hazano looked at the boy in surprise and then rose his eyebrows as Zach said, "The therapist you guys have been making me see, she says it's probably because seeing them makes me think of the arm as more real. More a part of myself, and not some robot piece connected to me." _Like I'm less of a human for it,_ Zach thought to finish for himself. _Man, what am I doing? It's smart to make Hazano think I really did get a therapist like I said I would, but-_

"I'm glad those sessions are working out for you," Hazano said, and Zach tilted his head again in acceptance that it was true. _You haven't had any outbursts in class since. Not that I would consider that an outburst… It still seems impossible to me. How else could you get around Norasaki though? But how could things work out so perfectly, that you really did leave_ _ **before**_ _learning about the Subspace Devils' attack on Desusuta? Both seem impossible, and yet you are an impossible person._ "Is that," Hazano started, as Zach turned his arm over and rubbed over a piece of his arm lower towards his left wrist where the steel dipped in a bit.

"A dent," Zach replied in a low voice, having not made a big deal out of it so no one else actually knew he had one. "Midoriya didn't even hit me when we fought him four-on-one, but the force alone that I blocked with the left, and then I tried to catch myself on it and just broke through another tree," Zach grinned at his arm as he paused for a second. "It's actually more impressive to me it survived all that with only the damage it took. I always let this arm take the brunt of every attack."

Hazano nodded as it made sense to him that Zach would do that. He walked a few steps to the right though and reached over the workbench, and Zach looked to the side and flinched but then returned his expression to normal and looked back at his arm. Hazano turned back to his student though and held out the hammer, "To buff out the dent."

"I'm not taking off the panel there so it won't work," Zach replied, without looking back at the hammer being extended for him. "Thanks, but I don't need it."

"Alright," Hazano replied, though he was wondering now what method Zach was going to use to buff it out. As he turned away to put the hammer back though, Zach closed his eyes tightly for a second and paused his work. He shook his head in a frustrated way and snapped his eyes back open, and he got to work on his arm with his thoughts solely focused on fixing it, using selective vision to blur everything out the right corners of his eyes out.

Zach was leaving taking out the dent for the end though, with only putting the skin back over that section going to take place after it. He was covering up the back of his hand, and Zach did have special skin needed for the part of his arm that would move the most and risk ripping the most. Because the skin on the back of his hand was special too, it already had pre-made scars on it, specifically the round one in the middle of it where a spike had been lodged through his hand before. He saw Hazano sensei looking at it and gaining a darker look, his eyes shifting up to Sazaki's face that was darkly focused on that fake scar too, though he could also see his teacher looking to his face right there.

"I've never asked," Hazano started, his voice low as he spoke to a boy who was his student but also someone he looked at as more of an equal than any person his age. Zach looked at the man whose tone came through as Hazano began that, and he nodded at Hachiman in an intense way for his fellow hero to continue. "But do you regret it? That choice you made, years ago, to join the League of Villains?"

Zach looked into his teacher's eyes and then back down at the scar on his hand he put there as it reminded him of what he had done back then. "I did," Zach replied. He did not deny the way Hazano worded it, that he had 'joined' them and not that he was taken by them. His voice was low and he said in a deep tone, "For a long time, I regretted all I had done back then. But, all of those choices led me to where I am now." Zach turned his arm over, and he pulled out a special tool from a workbox in front of him, and he got to clipping that onto his wrist over the dent. "They led me to Terra. To saving worlds and countless people I never would have saved otherwise."

Hazano shook his head and he frowned in a low way at Sazaki's replies. "But also, looking back I mainly regretted those decisions because of all the pain they caused me. I still believe though, even now, in the reasons I had for following them and becoming one of them."

"Whatever you were doing back then," Hazano started to his student in a harsh voice. "All the good you thought you did- the villains you were a part of are everything we as heroes stand against. What it means to be one of them, is that you also stood for all they did."

"That's not true," Zach countered. "That's not even true for all the rest of them." Hazano glared harder at his student who sounded like he was defending villains even part of the League of Villains. Zach did not back down from it though and looked into the shorter man's eyes that stared into his with strong conviction, but not as strong as Zach's as he continued back at him. "A villain is just a victim, some people believe that. That their story just hasn't been told yet, and we might side with them if we knew."

Zach turned his head forward and stared at the wall over the workbench, "And I can feel that way too because despite all they've done to me, I've been on their side before. I've seen the world from their point of view, as I tried to integrate deeper into their organizations and become a real, trusted member of their groups. The only way to do that was to really hear them out, and feel what they felt, and see the world out of their eyes while walking in their shoes."

"You think because you were once pretending to be a villain, you know that they're not all bad? Those villains you're talking about, the ones you joined, they terrorize this country-"

"'Pretending' to be a villain?" Zach asked, raising his eyebrows at Hazano who paused and gained a nervous look at Zach's skeptical expression looking almost annoyed. "I _was_ a villain. And I was an anti-hero who fought outside of the rules of heroes to go save my friend Kaminari when he got captured, and then to stop the League and Kaminari. A straight-up vigilante in America for months. And now I'm a hero again. In all of that time though, I was still just trying to do my best to help as many people as possible." Zach paused and shook his head at his homeroom teacher, "Things aren't black and white. They're different shades of gray. I'm, somewhere in that gray, and I figure most villains are there too."

Hazano stared confusedly and in disbelief at his student whose tone sounded so assured as he went on. "I want to understand them, and to drag them closer to the light instead of just throwing them in cells. I want to prevent more people from dropping into the darkness in the first place. Or take someone seeping to a darker level of gray, back up to the light." Zach paused and then continued with a small smile, "It's not a hero's job to do that, we're just supposed to stop villains, be symbols to keep villains down, but that's just dealing with the symptoms and not the causes of villain behavior."

"No hero can change the causes though," Hazano argued. "You're right. That's not a hero's job. We work to fight villains, and the more we stop the better society gets, the safer people will be-"

"That's a shallow way to look at it," Zach countered right back. "It's not that easy to create safety. Defeat one group of villains, and another will just take its place."

"And then you fight and defeat those villains too," Hazano said. His tone turned more into a teaching one and he said to the boy whose morals he had been worried about since Sazaki entered his class. "But if you wait and try to reason with them, if you try to look at things from their point of view first, you'll let your guard down. You'll let one of them talk you out of fighting them, and they'll hurt an innocent person." Zach frowned deeper, and Hazano said strongly to him, "Villains lie. If you try to hear each one of them out, you'll find yourself with a thousand different sob stories, and every one of those 'tragic' villains will stab you in the back the second you let your guard down."

"Maybe, that's your experience as a hero," Zach responded, admitting there was some truth to what Hazano was saying. "But you've experienced that because the villains know you're not going to really listen anyway. You know that they're just using it as a way to get you to drop your guard down. When I've heard those stories, they were from comrades of mine. People who weren't trying to run away from me, or escape my justice," Zach paused and he looked back down at his left arm he wanted to fix up a little quicker here. "The line between villains and regular people is very thin. Thinner than it should be, in some instances." Zach could imagine a sandy field outside of Yemen's capital, and all those thousands of people who had been about to become villains in his mind. "It doesn't take more than a push to destroy someone's life, and I want to fix that. I want, it to be harder for people to turn to becoming villains."

"That's impossible," Hazano started at the teen. "It's an idealistic thing, naive even, to attempt something like that from our profession."

"But I'm not just a hero," Zach countered, looking to his teacher with an intense look. "I have a platform, one that I'm nervous to use." Hazano stared at the teen in shock at Zach's confession right there. "It's not all just because of the danger that I don't have these press conferences. People hang on to my every word. Already there's Lifebringer Law, and I barely did anything to put that in motion-"

"You did something-"

"Of course I did. I posted my report online under the name 'Anonymous,' and I directed conversations in my sparse press appearances towards discussing what I wanted them to discuss," Zach admitted it to his teacher whose heart raced much faster at what the boy in front of him was saying. "It was a long-term play, and it took so long I wasn't even here in Japan to see it come to fruition. It's not everything I wanted either, but it's hard for me to get out there and talk about what it is that I want. Not when I know how dangerous it is. The danger, of how much weight my words carry with people."

"It's not…" Hazano started but he stopped himself at the intense and focused look on Zach's face. _How much has he thought about all of this?!_

 _I was insane. I still might be, and going out there and saying things so dangerously could be catastrophic if I'm not in the right mind. More time in Tartaros would have saved me from making these decisions for a while. My impacts are so recent though, that people want to see what I will do next. They want to see how else I will impact their worlds._ Zach shook his head and he grit his teeth at the thoughts he was having. _And I can't avoid the media forever. I need to get my thoughts under control, and the only way I can do it is by talking about these things aloud. About what it is I really want, because I can't just think about those things or I'll never know if they're what I really think. Just part of the ruse. This isn't though._

"I'm not just going to be a hero, so maybe I can," Zach began again. "Maybe I can change the world, change the circumstances and environments that create villains, to build peace." His expression got darker and he said in a lower voice, "I experimented in Terra, using entire nations, sometimes just towns or villages." Hazano's eyes shook as he looked at the kid next to him whose expression became a new level of intense, his eyes darker and his face no longer feeling like Zach Sazaki's. "I did human testing as much as those sick monsters in the labs who tortured… I tested my theories on people, in real life situations I tested to see if my theory on preventing villains from rising would work. I had different ideas, and I played them against each other by being the strictest symbol of fear for evil-does without any mercy in one place, and in another being as understanding as possible to try and show those turning to banditry and pirating a better way, and in another a pushed a budding government into a democracy, while having the people decide to pick a democracy on their own in another. And even greater still I forced immediate changes to laws about discrimination against different races, while in others allowed the changes to happen with more subtle and democratic changes."

"Is all that true?" Hazano asked, his voice soft and full of disbelief but also awe as he could not convince himself that everything he just heard was a lie. He could not see how Sazaki would have even come up with all of that, or why he would say it if it were anything but true.

Zach nodded, and he turned to his teacher and continued in a low voice, "I tried the same thing in countries on Earth after coming back, before I decided to turn myself in. I compared the rates of villain incidents in nations, and I checked to see what was different between the ways heroes and police acted in those countries, how the laws for Quirk use differed, how the punishments for villains varied, and every factor I could think of. If I'm going to try and make broader changes than just stopping villains, I need to make sure that what I'm saying is proven by enough examples that I can have faith that it's definitely true." Zach paused and then he yanked the attachment on his wrist off and nodded while Hazano looked down in surprise to see the dent had been pulled out by the contraption Zach connected. "I tried to change things at that time through the shadows, and now through the light I can still do it but in different ways. People love me. Lots of people."

Zach turned to his teacher and said with a serious look showing he took responsibility for having that kind of love. "They believe in me, and I know that if I say things like they're common sense, then even if they were controversial before, perceptions will change. I know I can change thousands of minds, influence millions more, and I _want_ to. I want to prevent children born with cursed Quirks from ever believing those Quirks are cursed, because the Quirk is only cursed in a world that doesn't teach the young how to use them and protects them from misuse. Many of my friends, had hard lives because of their Quirks." He paused for a second and then continued to his teacher in a strong way, "They couldn't be heroes. They were discriminated against, or people just assumed things about them because of what they could do…"

"I met an enemy once," Zach continued without pause. "He was part of an enemy force who were responsible for murders, including murder of members of the Allied Forces fighting the Arcasians with me. That man became my comrade though. I made him into a comrade, and he helped me save… millions." Hazano's eyes shot open even wider than how Zach started that in what sounded like a controversial statement to him. It felt like Zach was once again advocating listening to the villains' sides, but the way Zach continued was shaking Hazano's own firm belief on the issue. "That man wasn't a bad guy. No one ever, not once in his life, ever understood the Quirk he was born with though that he thought only he understood. The ability to know exactly how to speak to people, to Bluff, to get the exact reaction he wanted."

Zach shook his head and looked away, a darker look on his face, "He knew how to speak the best. How to be the best at convincing and persuading everyone that he was on their side, and because of this no one had ever trusted him. Not really." He paused and then added softer, "I trusted him though. Because I understood it, immediately. Because I was looking for cursed Quirks, and as I was told that man's Quirk I understood what it would be like to live like that for his entire life. I trusted him," Zach said, his voice steady and firm as he shifted his gaze back to Hazano's, "because that man deserved to have someone trust him, at least once. And I trusted my other comrades' lives with that man, and without him we would have lost the war," Zach said in the lowest voice. He paused for a couple seconds and then finished in a dark tone, his eyes turning away from his teacher again, "Without him we all would've died in the Siege of Razmatan, just like he did…"

Hazano's eyes bulged and his breath stopped coming out for a second. He had been thinking of counters, trying to come up with a reason that Zach had made a mistake here. And yet hearing that last line changed his mind about this person being described to him. The idea that the man did not exist did not cross Hazano's mind at the look on Sazaki's face. _He died fighting for good? He was a villain- an enemy of yours, fighting against your allies and even killing them, but you… That won't always work. They could convince- and yet, that guy's Quirk, sounds like he could have convinced you better than anyone else, and yet you still believed him. He deserved punishment though. Villains do, when they carry out bad deeds._

The teacher looked down at the workbench himself a second later though. _Is it punishment that criminals deserve though? Or is it a chance at redemption, like what Sazaki gave him? It should be both. But, he got his redemption, and he also faced his punishment. Losing his life, to help you. How many people do you have who fell like him? And yet you still suggested to the others at the training that they treat it as if they were killed. Is that the only way you can take anything seriously anymore? When there are world-changing consequences? When there are lives at risk? Sazaki, I wish I understood you better. This has all just, given me far more questions than I had before._

 _All I've said up until now, it's what Zach Sazaki as a hero should believe. What I do believe, now._ Zach thought it at himself as he got to work putting fake skin on the last part of his arm that needed it. _It's how I'm going to treat villains as a hero, in order to help prevent more from arising. It's what I did with the homeless. But not what I did to Rancor- but those weren't villains just on the edge! Still, the level of darkness I went with them, and with Overlord and those guys… What I'm saying isn't justifiable towards all villains. I know that, and I know I can't go easy on them, but when we look at "villains" as villains and "innocents" as innocents, we put dangerous brands on people. I didn't always think that way though- but I need to as a hero! I need to look at them in a more positive way, in a way believing that I can change things on a societal level!_

 _I have to see them as human, and not just, as the same level as all the worst…_ Zach's eyes subconsciously shifted to his right again, past a thoughtful Hazano, straight to a hammer sitting at the edge of the workbench that his heart rate skyrocketed at the sight of. A pair of eyes appeared in his head and Zach felt his stomach turn over, and he looked back at his arm so Hazano would not see that look that formed on his face on its own again. _I'm not that person anymore. I can't be. I have to be better, than the kind of guy who would grab that hammer, and-_ Zach's right hand flinched and his eyes clenched shut. _I can't think of it. Not now. Not here. Not ever…_

* * *

"Angry? Yeah I'm angry. I'm pissed off-"

"You've made so much progress in that area," Softy said in a quiet, soothing voice to the darker-haired girl in front of her. They were in her office at U.A. High School, and Jirou frowned more at the school psychiatrist who continued, "Do you think, it was seeing Zach again that makes you so angry?"

"Not just seeing him," Jirou snapped, though she calmed down and just took in a deep breath to speak softer to her counselor who had always helped her in their weekly sessions over the past year and a half. "He looked so, happy. And he was carefree, as he told those lies to everyone's faces."

"And you're still as sure as you were before? That all he says are lies?" Softy wondered, questioning if maybe Jirou wanted to go back on that now.

"Everything," Jirou repeated. She paused, then she looked away from the woman who she knew would keep everything she said to herself. She did not want to bring it up, and yet she needed to with someone and not just an angry snap at Ashido for her part in tricking her, _lying_ to her. "He talked to me, tricked me into coming to talk to him privately. Probably hidden from any cameras in Shiketsu's training dome."

"And what did he say to you?" Softy asked, as it seemed like Jirou wanted to tell her about that but was beating around the bush by talking about the circumstances first.

Jirou ground her teeth and her hands clenched so angrily at her sides on the armrests of her soft chair. Softy watched it happen, and the short woman gave Jirou a reassuring look that made Jirou's angry expression ease a bit. "He told me, he tried to convince me that he wasn't lying. It was just another one of his- it probably wasn't a lie, but he was just saying a truth to get me to accept more of the lies he went and told a few minutes later!"

"Are you sure, that's what you really think?" Softy wondered. Jirou looked angrily at the shrink, but Softy continued, "Or could it be, that he wanted to tell you something real before telling more lies? And he brought you aside for that moment of truth, because he didn't want all you heard from him that day to be his lies?"

Jirou darted her glaring eyes to the side. _Even if that's it-_ "You're taking his side."

"I'm not taking anyone's-"

"Everyone always takes his side," Jirou grumbled lower. "Everywhere I look. Every news station, every one of my friends, all they do is talk about him and how he's 'trying so hard.' How he's, 'changed.' It's all bullshit. Every word out of his mouth included." Jirou lowered her eyes to the floor and shook her head, "And no one sees that this is exactly what happened last time. He'll trick every last one of them. Another long con, as he messes with everyone's heads to make them all believe in him, in his stories, and then he'll betray us all again."

Softy nodded her head at Jirou, waiting to let the girl continue as Jirou was revealing to her what she held back from telling her classmates because she knew it would isolate her even more from them to do so. Softy also thought as she nodded though, _I remember him coming into this office after Raijin's betrayal. The story he told, the lie he tested out on me to see if he could convince anyone… I wish I had done something more to help him back then. Something that could have stopped him from leaving, and prevented all this heartache for Kyoka._ "And how does that make you feel?" Softy wondered at the girl who was just sitting there angrily thinking instead of letting what she was thinking out.

"So, so angry," Jirou was glaring down at her fists, and she tried to ease up her look only for her teeth to bite down so hard again. She usually hated bringing up Zach during their meetings, and she remembered why it was as she felt her nails almost digging into the skin of her palms. _I have to do something about this though. And,_ her eyes rose up a little to Softy in a softer way as she tried to push aside some of that anger. _I know you really helped me get past Kaminari, get better after how depressed I was, for a long time after it and after Zach left too. But, I'm still so mad at him._ "He's Death," Jirou whispered at Softy, in a voice like she wanted her therapist to accept that too.

"He could be," Softy agreed with a nod. "But it is possible-"

"No," Jirou said, a pained voice that the psychiatrist would not just agree fully with her. "He told me in the forest as he drove away," Jirou began, shaking her head and looking away for a moment before right back in Softy's eyes. "How it wasn't about being a hero to him, it was about 'stopping villains," Jirou put up air quotes as she said it, and Softy's eyes widened a little at the girl who bared her teeth in anger as she admitted that aloud to Softy. "And then I heard him, up on the walls of the palace in Hatto, yelling all that crap… Except it wasn't crap. It was, good. He was right to go there when no one else would- but then he said it again, like he was _taunting_ me. About 'stopping villains.' How that was all they were doing." Jirou whispered the final part much more softly, and she scrunched her face and looked away in anger once more.

"I see," Softy whispered back at Jirou.

"And that's not all!" Jirou snapped, spinning back to Softy as Softy did _not_ see. If she saw, then she would be agreeing with her much stronger. "During the training he- he used _my_ voice to trick Midoriya into rushing at him. It was- he used a voice modulator," Jirou explained to her semi-confused therapist. Softy went 'ah' and nodded her head in understanding and for Jirou to continue, which the younger girl did. "And because of that, he got the final point on our team so we all lost. All because of Zach, and me, and now people found out about it and are talking about how great Zach is to have been able to beat Midoriya- but it was just because of me… He used me."

Softy hummed and nodded her head, though Jirou saw a look in her eyes that made the dark-haired girl glare angrily back and clench her fists frustratedly. The expression was asking if Jirou was so sure of that anger, like it might be misplaced or even like she was stretching to find a reason to be mad at Zach there. She got that from a single look from Softy alone, which made her question if it was that easy for her to come to that assumption because she was already considering it was what she was doing herself. Jirou looked away in a more frustrated way at that idea, and Softy lowered the pad she had in one hand for a moment to give Jirou a serious look with a voice that would match it.

"Kyoka, have you put any thought into opening Zach's letter?" Jirou looked back and her expression got softer, more nervous and shaky at the suggestion. It was more a question than a suggestion, but the way Softy said it made Jirou feel like it was being suggested of her.

Jirou's eyes lowered down from the school psychiatrist though for a different reason. _I want to- but I can't. I can't even tell you, about the letter he left for Momo. Taking that,_ a guilty feeling flooded through Jirou's body, and she said in a curt voice, "No. I haven't." The guilt swelling inside her turned into anger, _I can't let her read- I couldn't, at the time. And now I'm a liar too, because of you. You turned me into one. The thing I hate more than anything-_ Jirou's teeth bared so hard, but her eyes were watering through the anger and Softy cut back off the current track revolving around the letter.

 _Another time,_ "If not the letter, then try to focus on something else where he tells you the truth." Jirou looked up and into Softy's eyes, somewhat confused, but the therapist continued, "You once told me that the way he left in the forest, he was never going to return. There would have been no reason for him to lie in that letter then." Jirou lowered her eyes and curled her fists in anger, as much as that made sense, but she rose her eyes back up to meet Softy's as the older woman continued, "I have seen you make amazing strides in our talks together, Kyoka. However when it comes to Zach, there's a wall that you have never worked hard at getting over. To me, it seems like you are getting in your own way when it comes to forgiving him, or accepting that not all he says are lies-"

"I don't want to forgive him, and all he says _are_ lies," Jirou started angrily.

"But you just told me you don't believe that," Softy countered, softly so as not to further anger her patient and student. "What he told you in the forest, when it was just the two of you, did it feel like he was lying to you? Or did it feel like, just maybe, he was telling you the truth?"

"Even if-" Jirou stopped herself, as the way she started made it sound like she was accepting it. _Was it true though? I can't- none of it or all of it-_ "If you're a liar you're a liar, there is no middle ground."

"So anyone who keeps secrets, to you is a liar who you could never trust?" Softy wondered, saying it like Jirou was thinking of the term 'liar' too definitively.

"Secrets like those," Jirou replied like it was obvious. "Big secrets. Like being an international terrorist. Like whatever his huge plans are for all of this." She waved her arms around her, "For coming back to Japan, when he had left _for good._ Or why he let himself go to prison, or why he let himself get shot! And every time he's seen on tv, every word out of his mouth," she started whispering it, shaking her head and looking at Softy in a desperate way for the older woman to believe her concerns were founded. "It's all just another con. Another lie, in order to get whatever plan he's working on past everyone."

"What if that plan is not necessarily a bad thing-"

"That doesn't matter," Jirou countered, her voice cracking as she said it. "Because if he's caught- _when_ he's caught, in the _lie…"_ she paused and shook her head, her face twisting in anger again. "It's all going to happen again. The same thing, and I'm not-" Jirou paused as her face started tilting up, her expression getting scared and then reverting right back to angry as she narrowed her eyes at Softy. "I'm not going to go through that again. I won't let myself, and I won't let him do it to me. When he's revealed for who he really is, when everyone finds out what he's really done… he's going to leave again and leave all of us behind just like last time. I know it. The others I know, know it too. Some like Mina and Sero want to pretend like it won't happen. Others like Midoriya and Iida, Todoroki, they're going to make it happen. And the rest of us are just going to have to stand by and deal with it all over again, if we let him in. We all know it. I know every one of them understands, that to let Zach back in is to let in that ex who's disappointed you so many times. The one you want to believe is 'going to be better this time.'"

Jirou paused and she bowed her head, and she shook it with a dark look over her face as she thought of all those times before. "But things never do change. He never changes," she corrected herself softer. "He's a liar, so I don't know what to believe from him." Her voice was quiet, and more sad than angry as she said this to the one person she could talk about it with, "I thought maybe after I called him out he'd try to be more honest, at least in front of me, but he told some ridiculous story he swore was true about that other world he went to. A stupid fairy tale land full of crazy creatures and wars and absolute nonsense."

Softy had not heard much about this, and she questioned while lifting a palm in an offering way, "Could some of what he's talking about, even in those stories, be the truth surrounded by half-truths? Maybe it's not that he's not trying to tell you, but that you're not giving that option a chance."

"It isn't though," Jirou said. "What he said in Hatto-"

"What Death said that day does sound similar to what Zach told you," Softy agreed. Then she shook her head, "But it is not proof. It is not the conclusive evidence you've taken it for."

"I know those stories aren't true though," Jirou said. "I'm positive he's Death. Or at least, he was," she muttered that at the end, then felt angry again at the doubt she felt now. _All those stories about Death that have surfaced since he was sent to jail, it's some new guy. It has to be. I'm only doubting it now because of all he said so seriously the other day. But even if he made good decisions because of me- that doesn't make me feel any- because I don't know if it's even the truth! You're just so-_ "Softy," Jirou began in a quiet but certain voice. "Whatever it is he came back here for, what he's trying to do with me is nothing but some side mission for him. He thinks he can fix things, just by apologizing? He was _gone._ He left us and, and he doesn't get to come back from that. He _never_ gets to come back. He knew it back then, and he should still know it now, and he's just being a dick for trying at all. Because he knows as well as I do, that he has _no_ right to tell me that he's sorry." Jirou's eyes were full of water, over a face so full of anger and regret. "I'll never accept it. Not from him. Never."

* * *

'Did you see this?'

Iida looked at the text message on his screen and clicked the link Midoriya had sent him with the question. The link took him to a video online that he turned his phone sideways to watch. He was downstairs in his dorm building, eating a snack of ramen with a troubled look on his face his classmates had been seeing since the night of the joint training. Iida watched the video and his heart rate sped up as there were several "unrelated" stories being discussed in English.

"French President Chuvreaux has denied the accusations against him, however anonymous sources from inside the administration have confirmed that Secretary of Defense Forestiere and Secretary of the Interior Jacoby have handed in their resignations in only the last few hours. A joint investigation has also started inside of both the United Kingdom and Germany this morning, and we do not have much information as to the extent of the investigation, but what we have seen is that Clueseaux and Jedenwurst were working together on this, and now Governor Dengar seems to be looped in as well."

"Dengar and Clueseaux have something else in common, which brings our other story into question of whether or not the two coincide doesn't it? Endeavor has arrived in Munich this afternoon too after a brief press conference he cut short in Athens. Rumors of Death and the Army of Death have started all over the continent though in the past twenty-four hours, and we have no idea which rumors are true and which are just people taking the excitement and running with it."

"I think we can say with some level of certainty that the sources who claimed the Army of Death attacked a highway in Germany, or that they were on the streets of Paris just outside of the Élysée Palace are most likely untrue. But we also have reports that a convoy of dark vehicles were seen crossing eastern Poland _towards_ Germany, so maybe the Army of Death is around and is coming to take part in what's going on over there."

"I say they keep their noses out of it. Or, that they do come, and finally let Endeavor put a stop to them…"

Iida lowered his phone and he brought his free hand up to his forehead. His fingers pressed in on his wrinkled up skin, and he pinched the bridge of his nose with a look of frustration and darkness covering his face. _Is any of that true? Are any of those sources- they could just as easily be Zach's comrades, posting false information. Calling in fake sources to throw off the trail._ Iida glared back down at his phone and the reporters who were keeping up with the story as it unfolded. _Illegal weapons' facility? Just like the oil rig they uncovered, when they stopped that hostage situation. I don't- they can't-_ Iida curled his hands in uncertainty down on his lap.

Iida got up from his seat and went to the kitchen quickly, throwing out his ramen as he no longer had any appetite. _If Zach's true reason for leaving the Army of Death, were his mental instability and the desire to save Darling, then he really left a force capable of those things he said… in the hands of a criminal? The hands of the Gentle Criminal?!_ Iida had watched all of the Gentle Criminal's videos again when he heard who Zach had left his organization too. _An immature, man-child who-_

 _ **"Because I trust him. Because we all changed out there, and he was with me at the very worst days. He stood by my side and saw things worse than you can imagine. And when I- when I hesitated, or when I didn't know what was right, he was the first one to get on my back and yell at me for not being ready to handle it. I picked him because he was the best person for it. Because he became the best person, while we fought together…"**_

Iida grit his teeth while heading up the stairs back for his own room. _He was there with you from the very beginning. Fought alongside you more than any of us have. Of course you trust him! But that doesn't make him a trustworthy person. That doesn't mean, the world will be alright with him out there… Except, it has been. For over half a year now, for almost as long as you were Death even. And things have gotten better. They have, but that doesn't mean it can't change. You and your friends took down all those villains and-_ _ **"I was the, the ruler of the underworld."** The fact that you considered yourself that, or that you could even consider that you held that position at one point- but you gave it up! I don't get... **No villains could stand against me. I was hunting Eziano Mozcaccio and Amaterasu. I was, stronger, than anyone. I had more experience than any villain bar Eziano, maybe. In half a year I had stopped the rise of villains, reversed crime rates, took out the powerful invisible hands controlling villains all over the world for much longer than just that rise, saved millions- billions of lives, captured hundreds of thousands of villains, and I sent in so many tips that I couldn't stop the world from realizing something was up, so we just had them be called 'anonymous' tips and got everyone to stick to that story."**_

 _It's what Kendo told me, but I ignored. I thought it was a rare event what she talked about, and yet she told me the American heroes were used to it. That they were ready for something like that to happen. They had seen it how many times? Zach was everywhere, the most powerful force in the underworld in every, single, country. It's absurd. Maddening._ Iida cursed under his breath while reaching his floor. _That something like this could happen without anyone understanding! Even the heroes who let it slide, they must not know how widespread he was. They couldn't know, or maybe they really did just want to ignore, how if he was doing it for them then, then he could be doing it everywhere. For every hero. In every country._ Iida closed his eyes while he stood outside his door, and he pressed his forehead into the door at six and a half feet high.

"Iida."

Iida Tenya froze with his head against the door. The tone of that stating of his name alone, made his whole body tense up and his heart clench in his chest. He turned his head while taking it off of his door, and he looked towards another tall boy on the floor whose room was not on it.

The teen with half red hair and half white walked closer to Iida. His eyes were narrowed and cold, accusatory even, and Iida felt dread at the knowing look on Todoroki's face. Todoroki stepped right up in front of the tallest teen in the class, their respectable class rep, whose expression could not hide what Todoroki could so clearly see for days now. Todoroki Shoto stared into Iida's eyes and his voice came out low, and a defeated look crossed over Iida's face as his friend told him, "We need to talk."

* * *

 **A/N Another day another chapter! Zach and Class A are dealing with the aftermath, which the rest of the country has been clued into the results of too by an unknown source. Iida's focused more on what's happening outside of Japan though, and as Todoroki confronts him at the end... Well, don't want to spoil anything, but hope you enjoyed the chapter!**

apaprep chapter 174 . 23h ago

I am a child. I want epic fights! hahaha  
recent chapters are good( especially darling's) but I want more of Zach's epic moment...hmmm

 **Lol I feel you. Just had 2 chapters straight of Zach kicking butt in the joint training, though action is never far off in this story... but no spoilers! Thanks for the review!**

AMR-MNR chapter 174 . Sep 2

Yet another chapter? And it's a AoD focused one too! So they're working on corruption now, and resurfacing in Europe. The ADTF still have the tracker going? I figured that the AoD would have spotted it like very first thing, at the very least once that specific set of clothes was to be washed, though I also think they may have it going somewhere so as to fake out the ADTF? If they hacked the video call for them, then they'd know already about the tracker... And I think they are more than capable of doing so.  
My estimates were off, then. I don't recall that 8k figure, but I suppose Zach might not be lying if that was the true apprehension number at the summit itself. I wonder, how many villains... Actually died? At the hands of Zach, at least?  
I still want to discover what it is that Zach keeps repressing about that desert. If it was really that bad, then... Yeah. I suppose I'll see you next time, Author San!

 **And yet another! Sped up the updates a little, though I don't have anything in the next chapter written yet so that'll probably be a little longer. Would have to be a good tracker to be getting past the AoD's precautions, though could also be a trick on their part too, nice predictions. Angie hacked the calls inside the Elysee Palace, which was why she was able to hear the call b/w Chuvreaux and Endeavor, but once Endeavor hung up and called other people they were using their better equipment the ADTF weren't listening in to, (or at least we didn't see them listening). No spoilers about the desert, again, ;) but more and more truth keeps coming out, (which might not be the best thing for Zach), but I hope you enjoy it when it does reveal itself! Thanks for another review, and hope you enjoyed the chapter!**


	176. Chapter 176

**Disclaimer: I don't own Boku no Hero Academia**

 **Chapter 176:**

Midoriya walked slowly down the hallway on the third floor of his dorm building at Heights Alliance. The message on his phone echoed over and over again in his mind as it had since a minute ago when he read it. _'Come to Iida's room.'_ The message was from Todoroki, and Midoriya felt a pit of dread along with other emotions swirling around inside him. _This could be for anything. There's no certainty that it's necessarily, it doesn't have to be, about him. And even if it is, maybe this is, the right time. Before it goes on any longer. Before he gets even more popular, so it hurts everyone even more when he… But what if he never has to, leave? What if he really does stay?_

The green-haired boy's footsteps were slow, but he could not avoid reaching that door forever. Midoriya knocked twice, then he started opening Iida's door as he had heard two voices inside already. He walked into the room, and the thought that maybe this wasn't about what he expected it to be about, was dashed. One look at Iida's face told him what he needed to know. He looked to Todoroki and felt guilt swell up too at the way Todoroki turned to him, his eyes narrowed showing he knew what Midoriya and Iida had been keeping from him. Midoriya closed the door behind him then stepped forward into the open space on Iida's floor that made a triangle with him, Iida, and Todoroki.

"What's, going on?" Midoriya wondered.

Todoroki frowned at the boy on his right who he was sure already knew based on the expression on Midoriya's face. "I know," Todoroki said.

Midoriya shifted his gaze to Iida questioningly for a second, a final hope that maybe Todoroki was bluffing to try and get him to just start freely talking about it. Then Midoriya asked the taller boy who did not give him the look he had wanted, "Did you-"

"No one needed to tell me," Todoroki cut in before Midoriya could accuse Iida of giving it up. "The way the two of you have looked over this past week has been enough." Todoroki gave Midoriya a darker look which made his friend look away, "But it's not like, we all didn't know already. Him admitting it to you, or you finding out solid proof, it should have only impacted what you did about it." Iida and Midoriya both looked to Todoroki with hesitant and anxious expressions, and their classmate continued in a lower voice, "Instead, the two of you have continued on like nothing happened. You've allowed him, to remain free."

"The proof we have," Iida began. "It's not like…" Iida stopped himself, as it was not the lack of proof which caused him to stay inactive over the past days.

"Todoroki," Midoriya started, his voice a soft, pained whisper. "You don't know, the kind of things he did-"

"I know better than any of you," Todoroki replied in just as low a voice, though his was more accusing. He narrowed his gaze at Midoriya and spoke to his classmate who went wide-eyed just like Iida, "I have known the truth for far longer than you have." His heterochromatic eyes shifted to Iida and he said harsher to his classmate who looked shocked, "I can see it clearly on your face. A look, I know I myself had before that none of you saw, or understood at least. Like you know what really happened, the reality beneath the lie."

Iida pulled his head back farther and his eyes shook at the angered look Todoroki was giving him. Iida's look started to harden and get more harsh directed back at Todoroki though, "If you've known, for so long, then why haven't you done anything about it?"

"The same reason my dad doesn't," Todoroki responded. "Because I didn't have proof." He looked back and forth between his classmates who got back to defensive expressions again. "I've known since the first time I went abroad with my dad, to Switzerland." The others looked up and into Todoroki's eyes that were less harsh and more like he was just explaining it to the two of them now. "It's where I learned what the AoD were really doing across the world. How the tips we received were from the Army of Death. How they left clues ten steps behind them to lead us to villains they didn't have time to face, or who they didn't consider worth their time."

Todoroki's voice darkened more, "And I know Zach defeated all four of the Shadow Bosses other than Eziano Mozcaccio." He narrowed his eyes more at Iida and then at Midoriya at the ways the two of them reacted to that last sentence. "He himself, with his two hands. He stopped those villains."

Midoriya lowered his gaze from Todoroki, confusion over his face along with regret at being caught in this lie. _As much as I've been investigating with Lemillion, Todoroki's been digging in his own ways too._ "Todoroki, how did you find all that out?"

"Because although I'm not a pro hero yet," Todoroki started, his expression firm and glaring back at Midoriya. "I've recently told Endeavor I'll be joining the ADTF after graduation." His classmates stared at him with their eyes opening huge, and Todoroki said in a lower tone, "So he filled me in on everything I could need to know. Anything I might hear from Zach that would prove that he was in fact Death." Todoroki paused, and he said to his friends, "Since I saw the two of you at the joint training, the way you acted around him, and the way you especially looked after coming back from talking with him, Iida," Todoroki shifted his gaze to the tallest of the three of them again. A look of regret flashed over Iida's face that made Todoroki curl his fists at his sides too, "Since that night, I have been deciding what to do."

"What to do?" Midoriya asked quietly.

"At first, I wanted to go straight to my dad and reveal that I discovered the truth." Todoroki paused then added in a darker voice, "Then I wondered if anyone would back me up on it. Since, I do not know why the eight of you are keeping Zach's secret."

"Hagakure and Ojiro do not know it," Iida began, as he knew why Todoroki assumed it was eight of them. Todoroki glared at Iida, but Iida's expression stayed firm and he just nodded his head in an intense way back at his classmate one more time.

Midoriya looked to his right at Iida and he got a more hesitant look on his face now. _Leaving only those two out, is telling Todoroki that the other four have lied about it. That they're keeping that secret too, and that could get them in trouble… though, all six of us accepted that possibility, when we did not arrest Zach that night._

"Even if I did have your support," Todoroki continued. "I do not know if our words enough would be proof to incriminate him."

"Todoroki," Midoriya began. "I know, this is important to you. But, you should talk to him too before you-"

"I know you want me to do that, Midoriya," Todoroki started. "But nothing he can say will deter me from this. I'm a member of the Anti-Death Task Force." Todoroki Shoto said that in an assured voice without hesitation in it. "And I also know," Todoroki continued. "That the people in the AoD are not evil people." Midoriya paused with his mouth open, while Iida stared at Todoroki in reluctant agreement, shifting his eyes to Midoriya to see how he would react as he expected what he was about to hear. "They have helped a lot of people. I just told you Zach stopped some of the worst villains the world had," Todoroki grit his teeth for a moment, and then he said in a darker voice, "And it wasn't just him. He fought alongside people who-"

Todoroki paused, a regretful look flashing over his face and his eyes shifting to the side for a second, showing even he did not feel so righteous about what he was doing. "I read a file on Mark," he said.

Iida and Midoriya had both heard that name before too. They had heard it once, back in the forest on Inazuma Island, **"I died on that operating table, but when my heart stopped, my friends didn't give up on me. They- Mark pumped my blood through my body to keep oxygen going to my brain so I wouldn't have brain damage despite how long I was dead for without being brought back by Death. He didn't even know he could do it… He had never done something so precise before, but he told me he** _ **needed**_ **to do it, so he just did it…"**

The small smile Zach had as he told them that, the nostalgic yet sad look on his face, it made sense with the way Todoroki was looking now. "The file had the unredacted information on everything about Marcus Johansen and his Water Control Quirk. It had who he was before he became Mark Smith of the CIA, and before he was one of Death's most trusted advisors." Midoriya and Iida stared in shock at Todoroki again at the kind of information he had that they didn't. "He was trying to be a hero, but because of his Quirk which could control blood, and an accident involving a classmate, he was recruited into that agency. And he went on the run because he didn't want to torture for them anymore." Todoroki paused and he thought about how his dad looked when he told him how Mark had died. He thought about the story his dad had told him about the attack on the League of Shadows' headquarters where Mark had saved him.

The boy with half red and half white hair shook his head and continued in a low voice, "Information my dad has from American heroes around California shows that they caught a few CIA agents who they were ordered to release. Those guys with firearms, operating on U.S. soil, were caught by the heroes and would not give up what they were doing there, and then the heroes had to let them go without any explanation. Endeavor found on the unredacted file of everything Mark Smith, that that was his last confirmed spotting after going dark for over two years. A CIA agent reported seeing him, reemerging for the first time alongside a vigilante from the Pacific Islands and one other, a girl whose identity is unknown but matched descriptions of the fourth person at the Lifebringer Incident with Zach, the Gentle Criminal, and La Brava." Todoroki narrowed his eyes and confirmed in a low voice, "I'm certain it was that, Darling, girl."

He expected a darker reaction out of Iida and Midoriya. Todoroki stared at them and then found his fists clenching in more anger at the two of their unenthusiastic looks. "That's proof! My dad said that it could be a coincidence, or even that that girl being with that Mark doesn't mean Zach was associated with him, but Zach and that girl were caught in the video surveillance _after_ that and- We have proof. This is proof!" Todoroki darted his eyes back and forth at the two who looked back at him wondering what they were supposed to do, or say. "I've never known the two of you to go easy on a criminal. Even if he is, your friend, you have to-"

"He's _our_ friend," Midoriya said. He spoke over Todoroki and he stared down his classmate with his own expression getting angrier when Todoroki just gave him a dark look back. "He is. Or he, was," Midoriya lost his steady look with a more sad one forming at how intense Todoroki's was with that angry look on his face. "But I really think you need to talk to him first. There's so much that he's done, that he never let any heroes even your dad find out about. So many people he saved and villains stopped, that he gave the credit away for."

"I agree," Iida said firmly. Todoroki glared over at him, but Iida continued in a low voice, "The Villain Summit, was a complete lie." The other two looked at him confusedly at what he just said, wondering what he meant by it. "Zach fabricated the whole thing. It has, boggled my mind, trying to wrap my head around what he did to, to change our history. But the Villain Summit was actually an ambush on the Army of Death, by a force of villains over ten thousand strong."

"You can't be serious-" Todoroki started to say.

"In five _armies,_ they came at him. From Asia and Oceania, Europe, Africa, North America, and South America. Split apart by the regions they were from, united under leaders they didn't all necessarily know," Iida's fists clenched at his sides and were shaking, while the other two staring at him in confusion and disbelief started to breathe heavier as this was starting to ring a bell. "And Zach's force, his sixth army," Iida paused for a second, his eyes lifting up to look at his classmates who he shook his head at as they gawked at him awaiting an explanation as to what he was talking about. "I refused to believe him, that night in the forest. But, but he convinced me. He was the one who convinced the world what happened that day. He convinced the Chinese heroes who were the first to arrive on the scene. And the villains said nothing, like they always do when it comes to him," Iida finished with that, his eyes lowering back down and shadowing over. _I feel foolish for repeating this. I feel like, it is idiotic. It sounds like a fairy tale._

Todoroki's huge and shaking eyes steadied and lowered to the floor themselves. _More than Dad knows. If Zach's been telling them things, he's been telling them all these crazy… truths? The Army of Death caused several deaths of Chinese civilians during the Villain Summit. That's what I know._

"He's done so much good," Midoriya began, lifting his head fast and looking to Todoroki with a more desperate look. "Just give him a chance, to do it right this time."

"We gave him that chance before," Todoroki countered.

Midoriya opened his mouth, hesitated, and he closed it. Then he shook his head though and said, "Please, Todoroki. I'm asking you, hear him out?" Midoriya looked straight into Todoroki's eyes and stepped closer to him in Iida's room. "His reasons, the things he's done beyond what you already know. We have no idea how many people he's saved out there-"

"And we have no idea how many he's killed," Todoroki said. His voice was cold and his eyes dark as he looked back into Midoriya's that grew wider there. "Do you really think those six in the forest were the last ones? We got the file about the Pit from Lemillion, after Hawks gave it to him." Iida and Midoriya both got darker and more conflicted looks again, Midoriya thinking specifically on those photos he saw in the file himself, but Todoroki's shifted a little that way too. In his head he could see Zach staring at him from outside of that jail cell in the training dome. He saw that old classmate of his, give him a small friendly smile, and he could see the red marks around his neck that he knew the origin of now. His teeth ground over each other and he continued in a strong voice, "And even if the people there-"

The other two looked at Todoroki with wider eyes, as it almost sounded like Todoroki was going to say 'deserved it.' He shook his head instead though, and he said while looking up into Iida's eyes, "Do you really think they were the only ones? The only people Zach killed, himself, I'm not just talking about the people his organization was responsible for killing. How many people, has Zach himself killed? How many do you think?" He asked them and left the question hanging in the air, but neither of the others wanted to respond to it.

 _It doesn't matter how many he saves. How many he kills is what's important. That's, what he told me way back then,_ Midoriya closed his eyes while thinking about him and Zach talking about that. _Killing one person and then saving 100, killing that one person still condemns you. Everyone knows that. But what if it's, saving ten thousand, and killing one person but the one person was a villain about to kill someone else? That would be alright- and yet, what if it's, saving 50 million, and killing 100 people? What is the- ratio? If we judge on case by case bases, there is no justice. There need to be codes, or there will be chaos. But if I was judging case-by-case, then I'd choose to let Zach go. That's- that's the same decision all those cops made! Heroes around the world just let him do whatever, because they were judging case-by-case, and every time the case was that he had come to help or save them! No one ever caught one of them before me, and I know why now. They were just helping. And, and if Zach was willing to change history in so many different ways, how many of those "killed" by the Army of Death could actually have been killed by heroes, or by other villains, and the AoD just took the blame to help out?_

"I don't know," Midoriya replied softly to Todoroki after a few heavy seconds of silence hanging in the air between them. He rose his eyes up and looked steadily into Todoroki's eyes though, "But you'll never know without asking him." Todoroki glared to his side, his expression pissed as neither of his classmates he confronted were acting as guilty about it as he thought they would. He expected them to crack under his pressure and to just go along with him, having been caught hiding what they knew…

When Todoroki glared to the side, his eyes locked on something that made all the anger on his face fade away. He stood up straight and he stared at the single pair of glasses Iida had sitting on his desk, right in front of his desk chair like he had been staring at them closely recently. Iida saw where Todoroki looked to, and Midoriya looked over as well before shifting his gaze back to Iida's face and his eyes unblocked by any such glasses. "It's the only pair I have left," Iida said, his voice low and soft making Todoroki's eyes soften too at the sight of those lenses. "I still see him, bloody and exhausted and calling me a weakling as he lay over my body. As he told me to carry him to Tsuyu," Iida stared past Todoroki and straight at that pair of glasses, the only ones he kept now that he did not need all the extras in his room.

Todoroki lowered his gaze to the floor, taking in a deep breath and letting it out slowly as he thought about that day too. _I don't owe you anything, after what you kept from me… What you're still keeping from me- that's not true. I do owe you. For Shoji, and Kirishima too. I let you leave with the villains. I let you die in that arena. You and I are through… but-_ "I'll hear him out. And then I'll take him in, after he's confessed to me as I'm sure he will, as long as you two are there with me." Iida and Midoriya opened their eyes wider, but Todoroki finished in a low and firm voice, "And if he resists my arrest, the three of us, _together,_ will take him down."

* * *

"… and Power Loader mentioned you got it to him for free? How'd you manage that?"

Zach rolled his eyes and continued to walk down an empty road in Yutapu City. He looked around the corner of a building and down its alleyway, and he nodded his head at the sight of a pair of cellar doors on the right side of the end of the alley. There was a steel door at the very end that connected to the back of a business on the next road over, a deli from what Zach remembered when he walked down that street a couple minutes ago. "They like to help people, especially heroes," Zach replied, speaking like there was no secret reason or anything and Roady was just trying to be antagonistic over little things here. "Getting a hero back on his feet- metaphorically but literally in your case, it's what they want to do. Why complain about a good thing?"

"Because it's sketchy, and coming from you it makes it even sketchier. I don't want to be helping out a group of villains-"

"If you're not paying them, then how would them giving you a new leg help them in any way?" Zach retorted, interrupting his old internship friend and then looking away exasperatedly as Roady snapped at him again.

"I don't know how it will help them, but why don't you just give me their information yourself? Then I'll skip past you, the middle man, and see if they're really legitimate-"

"Sounds good to me," Zach replied, though he moved his phone away from his ear as he felt it buzz as he was talking. Roady paused for a second too there, as he was surprised Zach would be okay with that and wondered what he was supposed to say now. He had wanted to keep denying the help, but the fact that he just said he would do it if he could skip past the middle man left him in a jam. There were already so many reasons to take the offer, and now that he would get a chance to investigate himself, even if he wasn't going to take the leg in the end he still needed to do it… for research purposes.

'You need to come to Musutafu to talk with me, Iida, and Todoroki.'

Zach stared at the message for a few more seconds, then he held down on it and typed a quick response before putting his phone to his ear again. "Alright, I'll send you their information and you can get in contact with them yourself. Tell them I suggested them to you, and it should be enough for them to give you everything for free. I've got to run," Zach finished there before Roady could even respond, and he hung up the phone and pocketed it with his expression falling flat and his eyes cold. _Well, this sucks._

Zach's body erupted in darkness. Two black wings came out of his back and slammed down, and he shot straight up into the sky like a missile into the dark clouds above. His body spun around as he broke through the clouds, and he swung his wings behind him this time to head in the direction of Musutafu. He pulled out his phone again and checked the exact location in Musutafu that he asked Midoriya to specify when he checked his text a minute ago.

 _A park. Not the best location for it. Not the worst though._ 'What time?' He sent back, then he pocketed his phone into his sweatshirt pocket inside the darkness once more. He flapped his wings again, speeding through the air so fast some clouds pulled after him making a wake of gray and white across the sky. That wake was getting whiter, as the clouds had been darker up above Yutapu and thinned out much lighter above the Tokyo area. _There's Musutafu. The Rasheed Corp. headquarters over there. Still haven't gone down there. They know I can though, so they wouldn't be. What Kaminari might have left though are lots and lots of bombs. Better to just stay away._

Zach flew towards a three story building he dropped down on top of right on a helipad meant for emergency airlifts. The darkness faded from his body, and Zach walked forward out of the vanishing dark wisps towards the stairwell leading down into Musutafu General Hospital.

Everyone recognized Zach Sazaki immediately. He went down the stairs and then crossed the third floor to the main stairwell leading to the first floor. Zach reached that floor, and by the time he hit the door to the stairs for the basement, two doctors had run up to him and were talking rapidly to the teenage boy in a dark blue hoodie that had his own hero name on the back of it. "…two hours and twenty minutes ago, and another three and a half hours ago. Do you think either of them can be saved?"

"We have a patient on the second floor who just coded, but we managed to save her. It doesn't look like she's going to make it though-"

"Let's start with who's already dead," Zach suggested at the female attending on his right side. "By the way, is Dr. Honda working today?" Zach wondered.

"Her shift ended two hours ago, actually," the male physician with a thin black beard replied apologetically. "I could contact her-"

"It's fine, I was just wondering," Zach said with a shake of his head like it didn't matter. _She defended me pretty strongly on the news before. Said she was positive I wasn't Death. I'm glad she did. I needed more people doing that, or everyone would have been so sure of it from the beginning._

Zach went to the morgue, where a resident and an intern they were with were waiting next to a steel table that had a body on it inside an unzipped black body bag. "Mr. Harrison was just brought down here," the female attending began to Zach when he looked at that man's face, which still did not look too pale like he had only died recently and was just brought into the hospital's morgue. "Can we start with the ones who died farthest back?"

"Yeah. Bring them both out," Zach replied.

"Mrs. Yamato too- the patient who died three and a half hours ago?" the woman questioned in surprise, while her male coworker rushed towards one of the drawers and called the resident and intern to come help him.

The medical student interning at the hospital looked back at Lifebringer over his shoulder, then he spun forward as the doctors yelled at him to focus and grab the patient by the feet. _"Patient?" This is a cadaver._

"Put her down," Zach started, "and get the other patient out too, don't want to waste time." He said this while removing his glove from his right hand, and he held it up as a warning to the others to all move back from him as he stepped to the elderly Mrs. Yamato. _It's too long. You know it's too long. Try it anyway. Direct contact on a body that doesn't look that damaged. Come on._

The doctors in the room stared at Zach. The ones who were supposed to be getting out the other patient who died a while ago stopped and watched as the eighteen year old pressed his hand over the center of Mrs. Yamato's chest. "Nothing," Zach said, his voice low as he moved his hand back after a couple seconds. He shook his head with a look at the man next to him who had gotten hopeful when Sazaki asked to see her too.

"Alright, onto Kato-kun. He's a twenty year old college student at the University of Tokyo. Fell down the stairs at his apartment complex while moving some furniture."

"Break his neck?" Zach questioned.

"No, but bad internal bleeding. Surgeons opened him up and tried to stop it, but the fall was too much." Zach watched as the bag was unzipped, and he saw the boy's face was bruised and he had black and blue skin around his neck and naked upper body around his shoulders and chest. "Can you help him?" The female attending physician questioned, and Zach looked to his side at her for a second before looking back at the student and nodding his head.

 _Over two hours. But I'm at full strength. I haven't brought anyone back today. This could be my new record. It probably will be._ Zach pressed his right hand down on Kato's chest, and he curled his fingers in while grinding his teeth. "Come on," he muttered, his eyes closing and his body leaning harder forward onto his arm. Dark wisps started coming out of Zach's fingers, wrapping around Kato's sides and down below his back. Zach ground his teeth over each other and his expression shook as he clenched his eyes tightly shut. "Ah- Nnnn," he felt his insides slamming into something hard, and he felt his spleen rupture and his kidney puncture. "Ugh- AHH-" Zach clenched his teeth to stop from screaming, even as he felt his heart getting slammed into in a way that exacerbated a pain emerging just from his risen heart rate.

Then he moved his blackened hand away, and he let out a gasp and then a steady breath in his next release. He reached forward with his right hand and put it down on Kato's left shoulder, and he gave the older boy a light shake that made him part his eyelids a little. The young man closed his eyes a second later, and then those eyes snapped open again and he shot up on the table. He looked to his side in panic, "Lifebring-" his voice cut off, and he looked around with his face pale again even though it had regained color when Zach was reviving him.

"Did I…" Kato began softly, his eyes still huge as he looked at the doctors and the morgue around him.

"Others more recently?" Zach questioned, looking over at the medical student and resident behind him. "Besides Mr. Harrison. Was there anyone before him, after Kato?"

"Did I die?!"

"Let's get you dressed, okay?" The older male physician with the black beard quickly stepped to the table and wrapped his own white coat around the naked boy who jumped off the table in a panic. "I'll explain everything…"

"Yes, there was one more, Lifebringer. Thirty minutes ago actually, one of our patients in the ICU succumbed…"

Zach stayed in the morgue for another ten minutes, as bringing back Mr. Harrison took longer than he thought it would. He noticed another doctor enter the morgue while he was bringing back the final two patients, but he ignored the young medical resident in blue scrubs who was watching him with a darker look than the other doctors. The second and third patients Zach brought back did not wake up for long after reviving. Their eyes opened for a second and closed again just as quickly, neither of the older victims jumping up like Kato had.

The doctors took away their revived patients, leaving behind their helper who told them he needed a minute. Zach was panting and leaning back on a metal table until the last of the doctors he was helping had left the room. Then he stopped panting. He stopped, and he stared at the resident who stepped back inside and frowned at him with a dark look over his face. That look got nervous for a moment as Zach stopped panting to immediately stare at him like he was awaiting that doctor's re-arrival into the room. "There's another patient upstairs. Yunoi told you she recently coded, and we know she won't make it much longer."

Zach started walking forward, and the twenty-seven year old doctor standing in the doorway held his ground firmly. "Can I have your number? Please, so we can call you when she-"

"I'm sorry," Zach said. He looked into the doctor's eyes from up close, only a couple of feet away from him. "You can't. I have to go-"

"That's bullshit," the doctor snapped. The young man's fists clenched at his sides, and Zach lowered his eyes down to them before back up into the doc's eyes with a look questioning if he was serious. The doctor hesitated for a second, but his angry look remained, his eyes getting darker still as he looked at the boy denying him this request. "Why don't you give us your number? Every day, I watch my patients die in this building, and _you_ could stop it."

"I could," Zach replied coldly. "But-"

"That woman who we just saved!" The doctor yelled at Zach, who hoped the basement's walls kept the sound down there well enough that the first floor of the hospital did not hear that. "Saving her- it's going to kill her! I should have just let her die if you were going to-"

"Yeah, guess you should have," Zach reached forward with his left hand, grabbed the shocked doctor by their right shoulder before he could back up at all, and he shoved the man out of the way of the door. The older man stumbled to the side and spun with a stunned look covering his face at how forceful that was that it almost knocked him over. Zach did not turn back to him though, just stepping forward into the doorway to get out of there.

"Lifebringer! Wait," the doctor stepped back behind Zach and his teeth were grinding as he glared at the teen's broad back. "There was a car crash here yesterday. Three kids in the backseat, the mom was on her phone." Zach's eyes stayed locked straight ahead of him, dark and unmoving like the rest of his expression. "Three of them died. Leaving one lucky kid an orphan… We tried to get in contact with you. I tried," the man behind Zach clenched his fists so tightly he drew blood. "I posted it all over QuirkBook. Asked everyone to get in contact with someone who could get in contact with you. It was after school," the doctor paused and he tilted his head back with frustration covering his face as Zach would not even turn around. "What were you doing, that was so important? You weren't at another hospital. You weren't saving anyone."

Zach stepped forward out of the doorway and for the steps out of the basement. "Where were you? Where were you, Lifebringer?!"

"I'm here now," Zach whispered. He paused at the bottom of the steps, and he looked over his shoulder with such a dark look the doctor stumbled backwards without needing to be shoved this time. "In one hospital, in one city I don't even live in-" Zach cut himself off and glared even harder at the doctor who had no idea the clenching feeling in his chest much worse than feeling those dead come back to life. "And I just saved three of your patients. I bet I've saved more people in this hospital than you have in the past month." Zach tilted his head back as he said that, and he glared down at the man staring at him with shocked shaking eyes. "Get off my fucking back."

 _Now for the reason I'm really here,_ Zach turned back around and headed up the stairs, leaving the doctor behind shocked and alone in the morgue.

He headed out of the hospital and down the streets of Musutafu without looking back. He put his hood up as he walked, and having the word 'Lifebringer' on his sweatshirt actually made him blend in more with people walking around him out on the sidewalks. Zach made sure not to bow his head and continued smiling as he walked, though the smile was small and only half-up in case he was missing someone watching in his peripherals. _Some of these streets have changed around over the past two years. Over the past 18, really,_ Zach thought, as he looked across the street at a wall that used to be an alleyway from what he could recall a long time ago.

As the building's wall started to fade and turn into an empty alleyway, Zach's eyes shifted down and at the backs of three boys walking together down the sidewalk and turning into that alley. It was a wide and well-lit one so it was considered a shortcut by the kids, and they had no reason to be afraid as they walked down it together. Behind the boy on the left side of the three, a girl ran up behind them and right up next to that boy with messy black hair who turned to her and shrugged her off as she grabbed him by the left arm. Zach turned his head forward, seeing one last flash of red hair in the corner of his vision as the alleyway faded back into reality.

As he neared the corner of the sidewalk he was on, the same little boy with black hair was standing there, only there were a lot more people at the corner of the crosswalk than Zach had just seen. All those people, the boy included, were looking up in the sky and smiling, calling out as the flying form passed overhead. Zach lifted his head and spotted All Might in his costume and muscular form, putting a salute up to his head and waving it down at the people below who all cheered, none louder than the kid looking up at him.

Those cheers faded as Zach turned the corner and went left, avoiding the crosswalk altogether to just head down a different street. As he walked down it though, his eyes shifted across the street to a cafe that had outdoor seating. It was still the middle of February, but a couple chose to sit outside in what was not an overly cold day, and their waitress brought out some coffee for the two of them. At the table next to those two though, Zach saw the same waitress bending over with a tray of four cups of coffee she put in front of the young teenagers sitting there. Two on one side of the table, a boy with spiky blond hair and a girl with long earphone jacks coming out of her earlobes, and two on the other side… The table Zach was staring at extended, and walls formed around it with more people sitting around those four inside a cafeteria he recognized well, after all the meals he'd eaten in it.

 _What's about to come? Is my life flashing before my eyes? Oddly calm right now. No one seeing me too, and it's like I'm trying to draw attention with the hood. Or is the hood actually working? What am I thinking about?_ Zach put his hands in his sweatshirt pocket and rubbed them together, both inside of gloves already but his right feeling a little cold. Rubbing it with his left did not make it all that warmer, but inside the sweatshirt's front pocket had its own warmth to help him. _There's no point in worrying,_ he reminded himself.

Zach sighed out a breath of cold air that only hung in the air for a second before fading away on his face as he walked through it. _I'll try to save myself like always, but it might not work this time. Knowing Todoroki. All he must know, if he has his dad's resources, and he's talked to Iida and Midoriya now. They couldn't keep their mouths shut a single week, and the ones who know will only expand. It might even be better it's ending this soon._

Zach looked down the road and across the street to the entrance to a park he had subconsciously made his way towards. He let out another heavy breath though without walking into it this time, as he stood still and stared towards his destination he had crossed part of his home city to reach. His head turned to the left and he looked back in the direction of his old home, not that far from there. _There's a whole new building there now. My home is gone. This city has changed. Rebuilt._ Zach smiled softly and started walking again. He glanced around and felt a semi-satisfied feeling inside at the smiling faces, or even frowning ones that were still peaceful despite whatever problems those people were facing in their lives. _Safe._

He neared the entrance, and he took in a deep breath of fresh air that seemed fresher near the grass and trees of Musutafu's All Might Park. The feeling of satisfaction he had a moment ago completely left him after taking in that breath of fresh air. His smile remained, as there were still people around him on the sidewalk and even inside the park, but his chest felt darker and his heart beat slower than it had been before. _Not even a week. Or should I say, they gave me another week? No, no I wanted longer. I needed more time. I_ _ **need**_ _more time._

As Zach walked into the park, a woman was walking towards the exit with her dog on a leash at her side. The dog had been running around freely through the park and she was feeling frustrated as it had taken her a little while to get him to come back to his leash. The big dog was an intimidating breed to some people, but she loved him all the same. However, she knew the danger of having a dog whose head was at her stomach's height while she stood straight up, and when that dog spun its head and started growling towards someone walking their way, she tugged tightly on her leash and grabbed lower on it. It was more to make the passerby feel at ease than to stop her dog which she did not think really would do anything, "So sorry about this. He's usually more obedient-" the woman apologizing for her dog before even looking up stopped raising her head to apologize to this person face-to-face.

She lowered her eyes back down to her dog who had stopped growling with a different look replacing its face. The large animal bowed its head and its legs bent at the knees, and it scooted back down the sidewalk before reaching the end of its leash, and it tugged for a moment before moving around to get behind its owner's legs instead, keeping her between it and the figure walking towards them on the opposite side of the sidewalk. "Nnn, _nn_ _nnnn,"_ the dog whined while hugging its master's legs closely, its head turning and watching the teenager walk past who turned his head too and glanced down at the animal looking at him with half-bared teeth that could not hide the fact that the animal was cowering.

The dog owner lifted her head up, and she froze before saying anything to the person walking past her who turned his head back forward to just keep walking. She was on the right side of him, and as he turned his head back fully forward she caught a glimpse of the right side of his face and under his right eye. "Come now," she whispered quickly to her dog, and she turned and sped-walked off for the exit of the park, glancing over her shoulder three or four times on the way out. She had to double check that she was not just imagining things, especially when she saw the 'LIFEBRINGER' plastered on the back of his dark blue sweatshirt.

Zach stopped after walking a few steps past where the woman and her dog had paused. He looked down the path and to the right off a smaller section of sidewalk, to where there was a gazebo sitting in the park without anyone under it. There were three people who just arrived from the other side of it though, and who had seen what just happened with the spooked woman and her dog who rushed off in a hurry. Zach stopped walking and his smile finally lowered down.

His lips fell flat. His eyes locked on Midoriya's for a moment, before shifting to the right side of him and the middle of the three who had come out to talk to him. This time, Zach did not smile at Todoroki. And Todoroki's eyes were as cold as ever, darker even as he glared back at Zach. Iida grit his teeth on the far right from Zach's perspective, and the tallest among them looked past Zach again and yelled at himself, _Animals fear him! That dog cowered from a look at him! It must know- Am I going to allow my choices to be determined by a dog?!_

Zach started walking again, and he motioned with a nod of his head at the gazebo to his right. The other three turned left and walked towards it, up a couple of wooden steps, and under the small rounded roof. Zach had been farther off, so he arrived last, and every one of them there realized in that very moment the positions they were in. Zach stood with his back to the one opening in the gazebo. It was not like there were not escape routes all around the small pavilion, as just hopping over any railing would get one out of there. Zach had the easiest route out of there though. He could step backwards and run at any time. Zach rolled his eyes after stepping onto the even level of the gazebo, and he walked around the inside of it before leaning back against a railing so it would at least be a little harder for him to book it away from there. "Better?" He wondered at the three who could see why he had done it and why he was asking that.

 _He knows we might try to capture him,_ Midoriya thought, his heart racing much faster than Zach's steady and slow heartbeat.

 _If Todoroki makes his move, we will both side with him,_ Iida thought at Zach. _But you already know that. You came, prepared for that. Would you still come willingly? Would you ever have, or was what you said on Inazuma a lie too? I can't tell._

"Hey there, Todoroki," Zach started while facing his former classmate with red and white hair who he had not had a cordial conversation with in years. "You finally want to talk?"

"Not particularly," Todoroki replied.

Midoriya opened his mouth, but Zach responded right back to Todoroki, "Then they convinced you to come talk to me first? Thanks guys." Zach's words had no emotion in them, no tone of actual gratitude and genuineness to it.

"I found out on my own," Todoroki said darkly.

"Found out what?" Zach questioned.

Midoriya and Iida both gave Zach confused looks, while Todoroki's expression just got darker still. "You still want to play games, Death?"

"I'm not Death," Zach stated. "Unless by 'found out on your own,' you mean you suspected me as much as anyone else did, and you had it confirmed somehow recently."

"I always knew-"

"Are either of you going to admit it?" Zach wondered. He looked to Iida, then to Midoriya, as he still could not tell who it had been.

"He, knew," Iida started, his voice regretful though he did not take his eyes off Zach to show he was not fully against what was happening anyway.

"So he told you," Zach replied with a nod, figuring it out by Iida's response that it was him. _You couldn't have just tried to lie? Even- whatever. It doesn't matter now- Except it does! Because he'll tell other people with just a push!_ "And you decided that that meant you should just share everything with him? Why not, just turn me in yourself?" Zach asked it with his eyebrows raising up under his hood, his head shaking in a small way as his face scrunched up in frustration.

Iida's eyes were wide and they shook for a moment before steadying and narrowing at Zach for the regret he was making him feel. "That's not necessarily…" Iida started.

Todoroki's eyes shifted to the side with a dark glare at Iida telling him to stop that. He already felt for Iida a bit after hearing Zach just tell him that, but it would have been worse if Iida were to give Zach any false hope here. "You don't deny it then?" Todoroki wondered back at Zach.

Zach looked back into Todoroki's eyes and he stayed silent for a few seconds. His head turned to the right and he looked out of the gazebo, back out towards some tall buildings in Musutafu that he recognized from seeing above before. _I could just fly away. Never return. As if,_ Zach looked back at Todoroki. _He already knows. He's probably recording though. I- I trust you though. If I trust him, shouldn't I just accept this? Unless he's only doing this, because of Dabi._ "Todoroki-"

"It was a yes or no question," Todoroki said before Zach could start saying something to him.

"Why don't you want to talk to me?" Zach questioned. He asked Todoroki in an inquiring tone, his head tilting to the side and one eye narrowing more than the other, one eyebrow raising up as he stared closer at his old classmate, and friend. Todoroki hesitated after Zach's question instead of just snapping at him to answer him again, as it sounded like Zach knew something there, and he did not know what that was himself. "Since I've gotten back, you've avoided me or just straight up denied everything I told you."

"I want to hear you say it," Todoroki said firmly. "Tell me the truth right now, and confess that you are Death."

"I'm sorry," Zach said. He said it and in a low and sad tone with his eyes looking apologetically into his old friend's eyes. In no way did it seem like Zach was talking about this conversation or that he was sorry for not being able to answer the question.

Todoroki's fists balled at his sides as he knew what the apology was for. "I don't want to hear it," Todoroki growled.

"Fine," Zach replied, letting it drop there just as easily as Todoroki was willing to push it away. Todoroki's eyes shot open huge though as Zach relented like that and did not continue on that current conversation path. His heart rate sped up and he started to feel regret welling up in his chest, as there were questions he had but never admitted to himself of having until right then, right now. _He didn't see any visitors while in Tartaros last time. I'll never know- that's exactly what he wants! He wanted me to think of- that bastard,_ Todoroki's eyes narrowed and Zach's narrowed right back at him, no denial in his eyes for what Todoroki's were accusing him of.

"But I will tell you something you need to hear," Zach continued. By saying 'need,' it made it so even Todoroki saying how he did not want to hear it would not stop him from continuing this time. Zach went on after a second, his eyes shifting a bit to Iida and back to Midoriya too as he spoke, "What I did all that time, I did everything like you did with the Hosu Incident."

The three in front of Zach stared at him in varying levels of surprise, but all three were surprised to hear him bring that up. His tone was not defensive either. His eyes locked on Iida's specifically as he brought it up, and he made eye contact with all three with a dark look on his face and no regret to be seen there. "You guys caught Stain, and then the police came and asked you not to let people know that it was you."

"What are you talking about right now?" Todoroki snapped, his fists balling harder at his sides and a seriously dark look spreading over his face, hostile and threatening even.

"It was because the police would have had to punish you anyway!" Zach snapped back at Todoroki, who had his own teeth bared now as the recording on the phone in his pocket was now useless. Zach continued with his voice lowering again, "Even though everyone would agree that you did the right thing, they'd have to punish you because you broke the rules."

"Breaking the rules?" Midoriya asked, his voice hoarse and making him clear his throat as he noticed it. He shook his head around and then asked with his eyes searching to see if Zach was actually serious about that, "Is that what you think, what you were doing amounts to?"

"Of course not," Zach muttered, his response in a tone like Midoriya was being stupid for even getting worked up about that. "But you understand. You broke the rules for that positive outcome, and you succeeded-"

"I didn't," Iida started. His expression was darker and full of much more guilt now, as Zach used what he had done that day to justify his own actions. "What I did, it was for revenge-"

"But you two," Zach continued, nodding at Midoriya and Todoroki and ignoring Iida's regretful expression and tone like he was about to go on a rant about how Zach had done things wrong. "You went out there and fought Stain without even provisional hero licenses. Totally illegal," Zach shook his head at them and added in the same voice as before Iida interrupted, "And you succeeded in stopping Stain, so even though you broke the rules it was the right thing to do. Yet it would have been much worse if people had known it was you."

Iida was thinking of a way to get back into what he was just saying, but his thoughts trailed off at what Zach just said which reminded him a lot of their talk the night of the joint training. He listened closer to his old classmate who sounded to him like he was actually telling the truth. Zach explained it with a lift of his right palm up in front of him, "Because it would have made more people without hero licenses think they could fight villains which would have gotten them killed-"

"Why are you bringing this up-" Todoroki started frustratedly.

"Because I'm trying to explain something to you," Zach snapped back, cutting back off Todoroki like he was cut off himself. He lowered his palm down and stood straight up instead of leaning on the railing. "Because I don't know if you really got why it was you weren't allowed to take credit for beating Stain. It seemed like you thought it was unfair at the time," Zach said, specifically at Todoroki who he narrowed his eyes at and made his former classmate stare at him with wider eyes back. Iida and Midoriya both glanced in too at Todoroki who they remembered lashing out at the police chief of Hosu who came to tell them in the first place about how they would have to be punished unless they did not take credit, unless they let it get swept under the rug.

Zach continued in a calmer tone, "The police came and asked you not to let people know that it was you who beat Stain. It was because the police and this society would have had to punish you anyway, even though everyone would agree that you did the right thing, because you broke the rules. You broke the rules for that positive outcome, stopping Stain and saving Native, saving Iida and Native, saving Midoriya and Iida and Native," Zach's eyes shifted one by one to the three in front of him as he stated those reasons in a darker voice. "And you succeeded in stopping Stain, so even though you broke the rules it was the right thing to do. Saving people. Stopping a villain. It was right, even though it meant breaking the rules, and yet no one could know. Because it would be a show that people without hero licenses could fight villains and stop them, which would inspire people who aren't actually able to fight to try and die because of it. It would have turned the public against the police and heroes who punished the next generation of young heroes for doing their jobs and protecting people while so many of the pro heroes currently punishing them had been failing at catching Stain."

Zach bowed his head more and glared towards Todoroki who glared twice as hard back at him for that look Zach was giving him like it was deserved. "And if you got away with it, but then someone else got in trouble on a different occasion where they didn't succeed as much but were trying for the same kind of solution that you did, well then the people are going to be much angrier as the law has to be set and can't just be a case-by-case thing." Midoriya's eyes trembled, as what Zach was saying went against the one thing he had used earlier to convince himself that he shouldn't arrest Zach; that Zach deserved to be judged on a case-by-case basis.

"...That's not law. That's chaos. Law has to be something they can rely on and look to for moral guidance." Zach stopped for a few seconds and shook his head while lifting his head back up again to stand straight while facing Todoroki. "The moral of this story is, you can do things right and get away with it even if it was against the law. _But!_ You had to make sure that no one knew. If you broke the law, and something good happened because of it, no one could know about it or they would feel that the ends justified those extra-judiciary means."

"Well then you're contradicting yourself right there," Todoroki growled at Zach, though he stopping glaring so hard and uncurled his fists as he was feeling much angrier than he thought he should at the moment. In his more normal voice though still dark and accusatory, he said, "Because everyone knew what you were doing. You did those things in public, and, you did make some people think…"

Zach rose his right eyebrow up a small amount, looking at Todoroki in a way asking him to finish his thought here. Todoroki's heart raced faster though as he thought about all Zach just explained to him, and as he stared into Zach's expectant gaze he could see his old classmate waiting for him to put it together. "You wanted, to be thought of as a terrorist?" Todoroki asked, his voice trying to take a skeptical tone, though more of a tone of realization coming through as he said it as less of a question and more a statement. Iida and Midoriya both stared at Zach with wider eyes too, even though they had heard this before, as what Todoroki said aloud made them think about it again only with the current conversation in mind.

"I had to be," Zach replied, his voice soft but his words strong. "It's why if you saw me on the news a couple weeks back, I didn't respond positively when they asked me about United Korea's new law about vigilantes. Really, I don't like it at all. Judging vigilante action on a case-by-case basis, determined by the heroes on the scene, it's unreliable. People need to be able to rely on the law to protect them, and I think that new law is going to cause more trouble than it helps." He paused for a moment as Todoroki started glaring at him harshly again, and he continued back more on track, "What I'm trying to tell you here, is that the idea that the ends justify the means is the most dangerous thing in the world, because it will make people think that if they believe strongly enough in something they can fight for it. Not everyone puts the same amount of importance in something as everyone else though, and sometimes there are issues that are controversial and some people feel as strongly that they're right for one side as other people feel strongly that the other side is right."

Midoriya and Iida took in sharp breaths with their eyes growing again, something Todoroki noticed on either side of him and grit his teeth as he did not know what they were reacting to. Zach continued though while only facing Todoroki, "And if they've seen people do things, bad things, in order to make better outcomes like those people believe what they'd fight for would create, then they'd be more willing to say that the ends have justified the means before. That's why the law has to be upheld _every_ time. That's why at no point can someone be given a pass, once they are caught. Because if they're caught and released because people think what they did was right even though it was against the law, it leads all kinds of idealists to feel they can do whatever they want as long as they believe it will make a positive end result. As long as they think people will thank them in the long run."

He paused again and shook his head with his face scrunching for a second before he steadied it to continue, "People twist things to mean what they want them to. And I'm afraid that should anyone know what I had really been doing for that year," Zach grit his teeth so hard while looking into Todoroki's angry eyes that slowly shifted at Zach's desperate stare into them. "The world would fall apart, because everyone would want to do things the way I did them. That's why when I was doing those things, I worked so hard to keep any of my actions a secret. To make myself a ghost and a rumor 1% of the time, and the other 99% to never even be mentioned at all as having been there."

The other three staring at Zach had not heard much about the Army of Death before he got out of Tartaros. They had heard mostly the same things as everyone else in the world. The lies Zach had been telling though, this didn't sound like one to Iida or Midoriya, and they had both already heard so much about that other 99% that they never imagined could have happened. Todoroki's expression got much darker though. _That one percent of the time, you weren't always seen as a terrorist. Heroes agreed with you, fought alongside you. Police let you walk right out of their custody. Countries argued against your designation as a terrorist group. But not ours._ "The world isn't so weak, that hearing what you've done would-"

Zach bit down furiously and bowed his head with breath seething through those clenched teeth. "You have no idea what I've done," Zach said, his teeth barely pushing apart as he snapped it at Todoroki. His head rose while a cold breeze flew through the gazebo, and Zach glared at the boy in front of him who looked ready for a fight having heard that tone in Zach's voice. Zach did not want to fight though, and he leaned his head back at the threatening way Todoroki was glaring at him. Then he started in a soft and hurt voice, "Every decision I've made since I left was solely for the purpose of saving innocent lives. I know I've saved so many people in countries all over the world. But there are also things I did for peace and prosperity, for the safety of this world and its people, that were horrible, truly horrible things."

He admitted it and his heart hurt at the looks all three gave him. Zach had to continue though despite those heroic eyes glaring righteously back at him, "And yet since no one know the truth, it's alright. Because the result was good. Because I had done good and shouldn't have been punished for it." He said that in a steadier tone that surprised his classmates and angered them after as they checked his expression and saw he still looked to be telling the truth. "Because if people had seen all I was doing, the ruling of me being a terrorist would have been removed, which would have led everyone to think that they could fight in violent ways for what they believed was right too, and _that_ was wrong."

"What makes it right for you but so wrong for everyone else?" Todoroki interrogated.

"It wasn't right for me to do it," Zach countered back with a shake of his head. "But other people would have thought it was. It wasn't _right_ for you to try and fight Stain either," Zach added, tilting his head and then shifting his eyes to Midoriya as he saw the green-haired teen look at him with a more understanding look as a thought ran through his head.

Midoriya's gaze shifted in at Todoroki, _That's true. And more than that, Endeavor's let Todoroki in on classified information about the AoD, even though he's not a pro. Those heroes in Italy, they accepted the help from the AoD while pretending like they didn't know it was him, because once they had accepted it that's what makes it wrong. Or- no, it was wrong. They knew it was wrong, but they let it happen anyway? It helped them out. And as long as they never had to address it, it would have been fine. But it was also right for me to go after his comrade? He said the law has to be upheld every time! He's contradicting himself even now!_

Zach continued while his eyes shifted back to Todoroki's and locked with his combative former classmate's, "I knew. I knew the entire time that what I was doing was wrong and even evil. Yet those evil means made for ends so good that people would have justified them, if ever they were judged. I was willing to do anything, no matter how horrible. That made me a bad person. I understood that though, and I accepted it. I knew it was wrong to do the things I did, because I knew the things I was doing. But as long as no one else knew what I was doing, then nothing wrong was actually happening."

Iida started shaking his head, his eyes getting darker and lowering down with such a frustrated look covering his face again while Midoriya and Todoroki just stared in more hostile confusion as they were not wrapping their heads around this. _What is the truth?_ Iida thought to himself, his eyes lifting in a pained way to look at Zach's. _And, you knew what you were doing though? You knew what you were doing was wrong but did it anyway? I want to think, that makes you a bad person… And yet why do I feel bad for you, right now?_

"As long as history kept me out of everything, just as history will never mention the three of you in capturing Stain, what I did won't cause any harm. In that one incident too much bad stuff would have happened afterwards, and the police would have _needed_ to punish you to show that what you did was not right. It only matters when people find out about it though, and _that's_ why the police would need to punish you then. I understand why you would have needed to be punished should you have taken credit for Stain. I've always understood it, from the moment you asked me to keep quiet about it, even if I was more focused on Grappler at the time."

"The idea of lying to the public for a greater purpose made sense to me, maybe because I was already lying all the time anyway." Zach's eyes narrowed as he saw Todoroki's fists ball at his sides, his expression getting even more combative, like he was preparing for something. "And there it is," Zach said. His tone shifted and his expression was darker as he glared back at Todoroki in a way much darker than how Todoroki was currently looking at him. For a moment Todoroki thought Zach was just accepting his threatening look and was going to fight him, or try to flee, but Zach continued in that dark tone, "The real reason you're here right now. The reason you're trying so hard, has nothing to do with what I've done with the AoD. It has nothing to do with Death at all. You're just pissed at me for lying to you."

"Shut up-"

"I'm sorry," Zach said. He said it and his tone lifted a little from the dark tone, but his eyes stayed narrowed and he continued, "But that doesn't matter, because you'd rather just assume that what I just said was a lie too. You'd rather think of it all as lies, and ignore everything I say."

"You're a convincing liar," Todoroki replied, and Midoriya and Iida spun in with surprise as they were confused by the sudden turn in the conversation they did not see coming. It felt more confrontational now than before, but for some reason it seemed like Zach was the accusing one now as he looked down darkly at Todoroki. The red-and-white-haired teen glared back though and continued, "And you've admitted here, that you were Death. You told me that you're a terrorist, and you're asking that I don't say anything because you don't think the world can take it?"

"I know that you telling people, will get people killed," Zach said in response. It made Todoroki freeze, and it had Midoriya and Iida both looking back in nervous confusion.

"What are you talking about?" Midoriya asked, as Zach had left the option of arresting him up for debate back on Inazuma, and he never brought this up.

"I checked, when I got out of prison," Zach started. "Putting myself in there, there was a spike in villain activity in almost every country in the world other than this one. Villains couldn't believe it. They wondered if I had some plan or something, because they had known for far longer than anyone else who I was with a certainty." Zach's voice was ominous and wind blew through the air ruffling the hood over his head. The top of his hood shadowed partially over his eyes with an expression not Zach's emerging on his face, a more intense and focused look as he stared at Todoroki accusingly and made the teen he was glaring at feel an even stronger surge of anger towards him for it. "So they tested the waters. They made their moves, after going into hiding in fear of me. They tossed out some bait, sent weaker villains out to see if it was safe for them-"

"How do you know any of this? How could-" Iida started.

"He's just making it up-" Todoroki began too, as he had not heard of any of this back in the summer.

"The surge did not last long, nor did it make much noise," Zach retorted. "Because what people were more focused on, was how the Army of Death made its reappearance for the first time in a while, and right after I was captured too. And people focused on them, because they acted more brutally than they normally had, and the deaths they caused were reported on more confidently as crime rates were down so news stations didn't want anyone thinking they had support anymore. I don't know if it was right, but it's not my call to make anymore."

"The Ge-" Zach's focused and intense eyes shifted to Midoriya in the darkest way imaginable that had his friend pause with his chest pounding. "Death," Midoriya continued, his voice softer and his eyes shifting down for a moment before lifting up with a more determined look of his own. "You think he intentionally killed villains, in a brutal-"

"I meant brutally, just by the fact that there were more villain deaths and that they were reported on," Zach said. "I think it was a tactic. And I do think, that the villains who thought that maybe me being arrested meant that the AoD were done, learned in those few days to a couple weeks, that my arrest meant nothing. They were still out there. Death was still out there, and he was powerful, and they cowered again so the month of August did have lower crime rates than the month before, despite a bumpy first week or so. A lot of the villains who cowered and fell back into hiding though, many of them should have been convinced that maybe the rumors were all wrong. Maybe it was never me in the first place, and the real Death really is some faceless, nameless, monster out there, waiting for them."

"And you think if you're revealed as Death," Midoriya started quietly. "Those villains will surge again?" Zach nodded at him. Midoriya grimaced though and he shook his head, "But even if they do, won't the new Death, won't he stop them again? And heroes too," Midoriya added, as he did not like thinking that the Gentle Criminal would be responsible for putting down a surge in villains.

Zach's face got a semi-confused look on it though at the question. "Yeah, probably," he responded. "But that surge still means more villain attacks. Even if it is in the short run," Zach shook his head and his voice had some pain in it at what he thought would happen. "People would die. Innocent, good people, would die. A lot- but even if it was just one," Zach looked back at Todoroki who grit his teeth in anger and frustration, but could not pull his eyes off of Zach's look now that was neither desperate nor accusing. Zach already knew, and he looked at Todoroki in a soft way as he continued, "I don't know, if what I've done out there is really what makes you want to do this. But if it's the anger you feel towards me, Todoroki. If it's because of what I did to you, specifically, that is why you arrest me, then that's some bullshit right there."

Todoroki's teeth ground across each other, but he did not say anything as his thoughts were swirling with denials of what Zach was accusing him of, along with questions he was refusing to ask. "I'd tell you, now," Zach continued. "But the way you're looking at me, I know it wouldn't matter if I told you the truth I lied about for so long. I really thought I would kill him though, and that I could just keep that as another secret no one would ever have to know." Todoroki's eyes shook while growing wide, and he stared at Zach in shock as his old classmate said softer, "But I failed that night. So I told you, because I really didn't think I'd ever come back here. I didn't," Zach tried to say it in his most truthful tone, but Todoroki's eyes just started narrowing again and his breathing steadied with his bangs shadowing over his eyes just as Zach's hood had before.

Zach continued as he saw Midoriya and Iida both look at Todoroki as if seeing what they should do, like whatever Todoroki decided right here was going to determine both of their actions. "How you guys beat Stain, I learned from it. But I took it to the next level. I did everything in that way. And it worked out very well." Zach paused and he lifted his head, letting more light under his hood and illuminating his face half covered in scars. The cut up on the top right of his forehead just below his hairline, and the big scar across the bottom left half of his face over towards his ripped ear, and the slice under his right eye, they were all mementos of the _way_ in which he did things.

"No one ever knew about my involvement with almost everything I did, except for the heroes taking credit afterwards. And those heroes kept my involvement a secret from each other too, so most of them don't even know that I worked with most of the others." Zach hesitated and then went on in a lower voice, "Yet when they'd receive anonymous tips, they'd pretend they didn't know they were from me because they all knew, but they were all on the same page that as long as no one _knew_ it was me, it didn't matter." The use of the same word 'knew' did not make what Zach said confusing at all to the three before him. Todoroki's head lifted a little too and the shadow fell off of it. "Everyone who had any idea what I was really doing, accepted what I was doing for the same reason the police offered you that path to give up taking credit after the Stain incident. It wasn't because you would be getting in trouble, but because they couldn't allow the public to accept that something so great had come from a few kids breaking the law. It's the credit that really matters in the end, so as long as I was willing to keep everything I did a secret, the heroes of the world did not care about capturing me. As long as I spent all my time and effort stopping villains in complete secrecy, they were willing to let it slide and not notify the ADTF."

Zach paused and then looked deeper into Todoroki's eyes as he added, "And even when I ran into them, most of them understood what I was trying to do and came to understand why it was I did not fight the 'terrorist' label. Dozens of those heroes quit the ADTF when they saw what Death really was, because the heroes realized that they didn't want to fight me and my comrades. Because as much as we were villains… we were villains as much as the three of you had been villains when you went after Stain without hero licenses, or when you came to Camino Ward to save me and Bakugo." The second example added on the pressure on the three who did not just have one incident now where they could point out how Zach did it so much more often.

"Rules broken by good people- or by people trying to do good-" Zach cut himself off again. "By people who make good," Zach corrected, even though it did not sound right. He shook his head though and mentioned in a darker way, "Those first two ways I said it actually, they don't describe me, and they wouldn't justify someone breaking the rules because breaking rules is not doing good or being a good person. But some people break the rules because they believe that in the long run, the positive outcome of breaking the rule will outweigh the short-term negative of breaking that rule itself. That was what I did. For a year, I made that gamble with every rule I broke."

Midoriya stared at Zach with a stunned expression, _That's too simplified a way of looking at it. The scale alone that you did these things- not to mention, the severity!_

 _Going after Stain was wrong for so many reasons, but the others were not wrong for coming to save me. I've never thought they were, but does Zach? He thinks even breaking rules in that situation is wrong too… I don't understand, how he could break so many then._

 _I'm not just doing this because of… No, I asked to be let in on the ADTF's information. I thought I could help Dad, and I can! I have proof and an admission on tape, and- and it doesn't matter that he- This is why I came out here! This is what I was looking for-_

Zach continued while his old friends were all thinking hard and still watching him, "I looked ahead and made a gamble that if I broke this rule and did a certain amount of bad, how much good could I make out of it? And then if the pros outweighed the cons, and I could ensure my victory, I would do it. Then I'd move on to the next one."

"What if you failed though?" Midoriya asked. His voice was soft but pained in its accusing tone, because the times Zach failed meant that he had broken the rules and done something bad without having the end positives that he had done that wrong for in the first place.

"I didn't," Zach said back.

Midoriya shook his head and continued, "What about the times you did?"

Zach shook his head slowly back at his friend who got frustrated though was confused too by the way Zach was looking at him here. "You don't understand, Midoriya. The Army of Death doesn't lose. It _never_ loses." His tone did not shift, his expression did not take an intense or dark look, but Zach said that in a regular tone like he was just telling a common truth that would not be near impossible to absorb. He went on though even as the others stared at him in disbelief and then shock, "Not once. In hundreds, thousands of fights, I never once… not one…" His eyes shifted down and a darker look formed that turned more just sad after a few seconds. "I don't know if that's true," he muttered.

Zach shook his head and continued to stare at the floor in between him and his friends, "I, I always said that. That we had never lost. But sometimes, even in our victories, and every time was a victory, sometimes we had lost too much." The floor in front of him flashed with red, and he said lower, "They were always victories, but so often I did not feel like they were. I always pushed forward and shouted about only having victories though, even as my heart disagreed because of the amount of comrades I had lost."

"Did you really," Iida started. Zach lifted his head and was glad someone asked him a question there, as it snapped him out of the low he was feeling. Iida hesitated though and actually gulped as the idea seemed impossible for him, but he asked anyway, "You really never lost?"

"Do you think I'd be standing here if I lost a battle?" Zach asked in reply. "Losing for my side would mean death, or so much worse which many of my comrades faced after being captured." His tone got more intense and darker there again, and this time none of the three in front of him could keep their intense expressions looking back at him.

The concept that Zach was fighting that hard every day and never once lost, was intimidating. As much as what he had been saying resonated a lot with his old classmates, and on occasion what he said made it seem so much closer to what they had done themselves so it was not as bad as they thought he had become… _he's strong._

Todoroki stared at Zach after the thought, and he could hear in his head his dad's voice. _**"…Death, defeated all four of the Shadow Bosses."**_ The respect Todoroki had heard in his dad's voice that day had frustrated him, but more-so was how he knew Zach was Death at the time, and yet the most powerful person he knew was speaking like Death was even stronger than himself.

 _He fought in a death match with Stain. He led armies, and fought thousands at a time if what he said about the Villain Summit- no, the Battle of the 6 Armies was true._ Iida found his mouth feeling dry, and he had to close it as he realized it was partially the dry winter air coming into his slightly ajar mouth that caused it to dry out.

Midoriya's expression was the first to harden back facing Zach though. _Too strong,_ he added to himself after the initial thought he had with Iida and Todoroki almost in unison. _Even without his Quirk, he was the Champion of the Pit- he has the technique and the strategies, the martial arts and an unstoppable Quirk, and everything he does he plans for so far in advance it's impossible to see coming._ Midoriya felt a huge sense of dread inside him, and Zach looked back to his friend whose hardened look stayed locked on his face even as Midoriya felt all that dread filling him. _I'll have to fight you one day. Someday. I don't know when- and I don't know why. Even after this, after it seems to me really like you did not change too much, I know these different ideologies of ours will come to a head._

 _We will fight each other at some time, and I need to control all of One For All and the other past holders' Quirks_ _ **now.**_ _I still don't know two of them, and other than All Might and I, there was also the original OFA holder who didn't have any other Quirk to give me. But there's still so much power I have yet to control. As strong as I am, I know that fighting you will be the hardest fight of my life. For more reasons than one…_

"Zach," Midoriya started softly. "I, get what you were saying." Zach looked to Midoriya and his lips lowered down, a confused look that Midoriya would say that to him. Midoriya nodded though and said, "Because, I think it's who you've, always been. What you were just saying you did out there, it doesn't sound all that different from decisions you made when you were here. And some of those decisions were bad-"

"They were bad, because I failed," Zach started.

"No, they were just bad," Midoriya countered with a shake of his head that made Zach hesitate and pull back with a more accepting look. "But you did those things because you cared. I knew, it was why you attacked me in the woods at the summer camp. Why you went through that portal, and even why you killed Spinner," Midoriya admitted that and Zach grimaced harder, his eyes shifting away for a second while Iida and Todoroki both looked over at Midoriya then back to Zach somewhat accusingly. Then Midoriya said quieter, "And it's why you killed Kurogiri. I hate that you did. It was wrong, and you deserved to go to prison for it… and you did. But I know that you did it because you cared. About everyone."

 _ **"…The people I care the most about? You think I would put them at so much risk just for revenge? Something so petty… It's not about you Kaminari, but, but it's also not about me. I didn't do this because I hate you. I did it, because every night I go to sleep in Nightmare form, in fear of Kurogiri. And, and if someone like me who has been through so much, who is so strong! If I'm afraid of him, then, can you imagine how regular citizens feel? Every night, afraid for their children's lives in the next room because Kurogiri could be there. Afraid to walk down the streets, because Kurogiri could bring an army of villains to kill them and everyone they know?! You might've been just as important a player in the League of Villains' schemes, Raijin, but leaving U.A. has made you just another strong villain. Whereas Kurogiri, you're, you're the biggest threat to peace in our world."**_

Todoroki's fists loosened at his sides. What had happened at the end of that night had stuck with him so strongly over the past two years, that so much of what Zach said before his final words to him had faded back in his memory. He could recall it though. He remembered why it was, Zach threw everything away. _Those Shadow Bosses, they're alive. You had no controls. No oversight. And all four of those Shadow Bosses are still alive and in prison. I, I didn't even think about that. Why am I thinking about it now? Why did you let, the worst villains in the world… Why am I questioning, why you didn't kill people? Because Kurogiri was only because, he could use his portals to escape. I even- but those other people that night? Why did you kill them, and not someone like King?_

 _It doesn't make sense,_ Shoto's eyes narrowed and his fists re-clenched, but his expression was more uncertain than it was before. _But it does. You had heroes with you, when you fought King. Dad says the coalition of heroes who went after King really did fight them, they just left out how it was Death who located his base and invited them to fight with him. You had Dad and the ADTF show up at the League of Shadows' headquarters, and they got most of the credit along with capturing all those villains themselves… I don't care that you didn't care about the credit though! I did care though, a long time ago, when I knew it was you who had stopped Diamondfist. After you saved Kaminari, I knew that trip to Kyoto really was- fuck! That doesn't matter now! He was Death. A terrorist who- a terrorist… who stopped the worst villains in the world? And didn't even kill them, just stopped- even the day you appeared, they say you fought Mongoloid and he was put on war trials. Your comrades killed others in Mongoloid's ranks though… even if Arma was found alive, later on._

"I do care," Zach whispered in response to Midoriya. "I _still,_ care," he added, agreeing that Midoriya was right and the him from back then who cared that much was still the him talking to them now. "I don't want you guys to arrest me, because I think it will just hurt, so many people. It won't do any good- I've already been punished, and I'm not going to be rehabilitated down in Tartaros, because I'll never be leaving there. It wouldn't even be punishment anyway; last time I just spent six months telling stories to my guards and becoming friends with them. It was, nice. Relaxing. Nothing like this," Zach admitted it with a tilt of his head to the side, almost joking though there was an odd and unnerving sense of seriousness in that tone. "It will cause so much harm though. It'll hurt so many people, if they find out I really was… And it'll make villains come out, it'll- it will destroy everything I meant Death to be, and because of that I'll have to deny it forever. And I don't want, to make you guys…" Zach paused and he had to scrunch his face as this was an awkward thing to say to them, and he actually held back from saying any more there as he hoped they could just realize what he was getting at and accept it themselves.

 _Everyone would be against us,_ Iida thought, already something that had crossed his mind many times. _Whether they accept what Zach says and hate us for accusing him of being something he isn't, or they believe us and just hate that we're actually trying to arrest him for all the good he did out there. It's like we'd be the Hosu police after how we beat Stain, if we had accepted the credit, and they had punished us and our pro heroes we were interning with._ Iida's heart fell but started beating even faster as his thoughts continued, _No_ _one would be on our side, but we would- we would only have to do it, if Zach had taken credit. If he said he was Death… then I would. If there's no proof though, we shouldn't push it. It has no positive outcomes, no happy ending for anyone, and for what? So that Zach can spend the rest of his life in a cell? Will that really make the world a better place? Will it make the world, a safer place?_

"Don't say that, like you're trying to stop us for our sake," Todoroki started. "It's _you,_ who doesn't want to go back to prison. And it's _you,_ who doesn't want to be revealed as Death."

"Maybe," Zach replied. "But I don't want you guys to reveal me, because I don't want to hurt you- I don't want you to feel hurt, when people turn on you. If people turn on you," Zach corrected himself again, not saying it as a sure thing though by saying the other way first they could see what he thought would happen. Cutting back on 'I don't want to hurt you-' too sounded more like Zach did not want them to think he was considering fighting them or anything. "And maybe that is for me though," Zach continued. "Maybe it's because I don't want to feel hurt, and I know I will if that happens to you guys. If it's all my fault," Zach's eyes shifted to Midoriya specifically and his chest hurt as he pictured what he was suggesting happening to Midoriya. _It could even destroy your chances, at ever becoming…_

"So what?" Todoroki asked in a dark voice. "You want me to lie? You're asking _me,_ to lie to my dad about you? He really doesn't think you're Death, by the way. He's _convinced_ after the licensing exam, for some reason, that you couldn't be Death."

A flash of complete darkness covered Zach's face for a brief moment. His face returned to normal though as he stopped from even thinking that thought that almost pushed into his head, and then he spoke to distract from the look on Todoroki's face that showed he clearly saw some sort of look right there. He blurred Iida and Midoriya's faces out too and just said straight to Todoroki in a steady but low voice, "You were wrong in the national park, Todoroki. I didn't have anything planned. I don't-"

"I don't believe you," Todoroki said before Zach could say anything else. "You've told me that exact line before."

"I know," Zach whispered. "And I am sorry for lying about that. For lying about a lot… But if you tell your dad, it's over. He will arrest me. I will deny everything. And I think, I _know,_ a lot of people are going to get hurt. People will die. In countries across the world from here, people will die. I don't want any of those people to die. I don't want any of the AoD to die either, and I know they'll be the first to respond when those villains react to my capture again. This time, with a more permanent ending to me." Zach paused and he grit his teeth for a moment before parting his lips and letting out a heavy, exhausted breath though his face showed he was still trying hard as much as he felt the weight of all he was saying falling on him. It was like the hypothetical was playing out in his head and he could feel it crushing him already.

"I've already made the decision to come back here and go to prison once, and it got good people killed. If I had stayed there, that short surge wouldn't have happened. And Mark-" Zach paused for a moment and he looked to the side with his lips pursed, then another heavy breath coming out as he could not hold that breath in for long. "He hadn't died before. And maybe he still wouldn't have died at all, if I had been there to make things different. To stop him from going in after EM alone. He was young. He'd been, on the run since he was a teen, chased by his government and _hunted._ And we were fighting such hard battles all the time, but he really wanted to live. He really didn't want to die," Zach lifted his eyes up to the top of the gazebo and his chest ached as he thought about Mark's face. He saw a smile on it and cracked one of his own, even with his eyes feeling a little wet under his hood that he made shadow over them more. "And he really believed he wouldn't. I got him to stop smoking cigarettes, because, I didn't want him to die of cancer…"

Todoroki's eyes opened wide and his breath sucked in fast. He remembered back a few nights ago, to a conversation he was watching as he cooked the stew not far from other members of the cooking team and Zach. _**"Life expectancy wasn't all that long over there, so most people weren't very concerned with dental health even when I brought up some stuff they could do to help with it. I made my comrades brush their teeth though, for the same reason I tried to get a lot of them to stop smoking rayal, a plant kind of like tobacco I guess…"**_ _Was that story- he was talking about them, then? I thought- I didn't think much of it at all though. Even Ashido looked at him like what he was saying were lies, and she knows! But, but to realize that the story, was actually…_ _ **"Because I wanted them all to know I expected them to survive it. Ignoring their long-term health because they were fighting intense fights all the time, it was like telling me that they expected me to let them die out there. They saw I expected them to live a long time after the war, and I think that made a lot of them think they were going to too so it kept everyone staying healthier in their daily practices."**_

What Todoroki just realized was replaced by a new revelation that hit him in a more painful way. _This guy Mark, who both Dad and Zach have talked about, thought he was going to live a long life if he really stopped smoking cigarettes. That's one way to look at it. Or, maybe Mark still thought he would die but just stopped smoking so Zach would think that he thought he would have a long life._ Todoroki focused on Zach's face, and his heart panged at the sight of it. _He believes it too. What he just said, he knows it's possible but he wants to believe that Mark quit because he thought he would live. I know though, that there are a lot of people in this world who love Zach. More than anything, they love him, and yet he came back and is with us again when we're always so against him!_

Todoroki ground his teeth with the most frustrated look covering his expression that had all three of the others looking at him wondering what he was going to say. All three of the others were nervous too, though they were confused by the expression on Todoroki's face as he forced such an angry look out to cover the other emotions he was feeling that really did piss him off, but not to a level that he could look that angry without forcing it. _Fuck. I hate this, but- I'm just, amazed by Zach to do something like this when he has those people waiting for him. Other people out there… What am I thinking about right now? Death is standing in front of me. He's, just standing there. Out in the open. The most wanted man in the world… Who's somehow out in the open, despite that. No one's ever captured him. Not a single hero. All those pros out there who could have stopped him, not one did. Do I really know better than them? Do I know better than Zach, or Midoriya, or Iida? Do I think I know better than Yaoyorozu, or is she just- no, she wouldn't hide it, just because of their history. Then, is it really wrong to stop-_

 _Except, it's not even about stopping Death at this point._ The realization made Todoroki's dark expression lower and his eyes to shift to the right at Midoriya. Midoriya did not understand why Todoroki looked at him like that, but the boy in the middle of the three confronting Zach thought of a mistake Midoriya had made earlier that Zach gave him such a dark glare over. _The Gentle Criminal is Death now. Arresting Zach won't do anything- except maybe get some of them killed, if that's what Zach thinks will happen. But it won't stop them. It won't change what they do. I'd be doing nothing, except throwing a friend into- An old friend, into Tartaros, again. Not a friend. A villain. And he deserves it. For lying about Dabi all that, time…_ "Fine, I'll lie," Todoroki said, his own thoughts trailing off at the angry thought he just had that hesitated near the end and that he knew was the wrong reason to be doing any of this for.

"Alright," Zach said with a nod back at him. "Then if you ever want to talk," Zach continued. His look was serious and he spoke despite Todoroki's expression getting angry immediately upon what he was starting to say, "I'll tell you everything I know about Touya. If you're willing to listen." He turned and walked out of the gazebo, stepping down the stairs and walking away with his hood still up and the word 'LIFEBRINGER' seen on his back by the other three for the first time. He did not stay to talk any longer, nor to give Todoroki an opportunity to go back on it, nor to let him respond to what he finished with.

Midoriya looked in at Todoroki and then back out towards a retreating Zach who walked calmly away with his hands down in his sweatshirt's pocket. As much as his thoughts had been serious and focused on how he knew he was going to have to fight Zach, how those feelings had been reaffirmed by this conversation, something else occurred to him that made those grim feelings try to push away. _When you have that conversation, you know it's a talk you need to have between just you and him. Even if Todoroki was willing right now,_ Midoriya's eyes shifted back in once more at his good friend who looked so conflicted and angry at the fact that Zach was just walking away like that, even if he had begrudgingly accepted to stay quiet in that single moment of doubt a few seconds ago. _And I don't think he's ready yet, but once he is, you have to tell him Zach. You have to tell him, about his brother._

* * *

 **A/N Thanks for reading! Zach defends his actions as Todoroki confronts him, and Todoroki's left frustrated and angry though he says he'll lie... Zach's barely staying in it, but he once again convinces someone to hold off on taking him downtown. The count is up to 7 now though. Will Zach be able to remain or will he be thrown into Tartaros once more? Can he stay out long enough to stop Raijin and Shigaraki and all their plans? What about All For One? Eziano Mozcaccio? Endeavor? Lemillion?! Everyone's after Zach, but he's sticking in it... We'll see if he can keep it up. XD Hope you enjoyed the chapter, and leave a review telling me what you think, questions, comments, and predictions for what's coming! Anyway, no responses today, short on time. Sorry guys. Next time though! :D**


	177. Chapter 177

**Disclaimer: I don't own Boku no Hero Academia**

 **Chapter 177:**

"Sazaki! Zach Sazaki!"

"Lifebringer! Are you alright?!"

"Yeah, of course," Zach looked to his left and responded in a calm voice. His eyes lifted up and scanned the buildings near him, as he continued to walk down the sidewalk without fully stopping to talk to the reporters running alongside him.

"Where are you going?!"

"This is a crime scene-"

"The other heroes have it," Zach assured, nodding back towards the heroes who had been on the scene in the first place. "I just happened to be nearby, so I thought I'd come to help."

"But you're Lifebringer!" One of the reporters who ran along his side ran up in front of Zach who had not been moving very fast. The boy was unable to keep walking as his path got blocked, and the other reporters were able to stop moving and better corner him in. The one who just called that he was Lifebringer and blocked him off held his microphone forward as Zach looked back towards him. "At a scene like this you should be the one to face the media and tell everyone what just happened."

"Why me and not one of the other heroes?" Zach questioned, raising an eyebrow in semi-confusion while still smiling in a casual and friendly way. "I only stopped the last two there, FlyGuy and the other heroes did more than I did."

"Because you're Lifebringer-"

"You're the one people are looking to-"

"The Hero of the People!"

"People want to see you-"

Zach lifted his left hand up and put it between him and the microphone the closest reporter tried to shove closer to him. He pushed it back out of his face a little, and he interrupted before that reporter could yell out at him, "I think you guys are mistaken. I'm just another hero."

"Wha-" the man who pulled his microphone back hesitated, but his producer yelled in his ear and the camerawoman behind him was still rolling live. "That's not true! Lifebringer, you're the symbol!"

"Haha," Zach laughed and then asked the reporter in front of him, "Who isn't?" Zach saw the confusion on the reporter's face and glanced around getting a bit more hesitant for a second as all the reporters were looking straight at him. Then he looked back though at the man who got in his way first, and he continued, "Yeah, All Might was a symbol of peace, sure. Losing him isn't what made the rise of villains though. He was a pillar. _A_ pillar," Zach said, specifying how it was singular like that was the important point there.

"And admittedly, he was the strongest one. But the world was weaker when he was there, from what I see," Zach said, speaking of it in his view while still smiling though with his expression looking serious too. He went on to the stunned reporter in front of him who had not expected to get much out of Lifebringer despite how hard he was trying, "Because the world is heavy, and All Might was the strongest most powerful pillar directly below the world holding it up. Losing him made it weak, but did we fall?" Zach tilted his head in confusion like it should have happened if that were the case. Then he continued, "Some people became afraid, and some felt too scared to leave their homes after the Sports Festival Invasion, and yet today everyone is smiling and out on the streets feeling safe again. You wonder why that is? In such a short period of time, things are back to normal, or even better than before. Why is that?"

Zach responded to himself without really giving a pause as it was a rhetorical question, "It's because we didn't have to rise from nothing. It's because we had Endeavor, to become one pillar to keep holding us up, and we had U.A. as another, and Class A, Lemillion, Star-Spangled Man who came all the way here to help rebuild, all the heroes domestic and foreign… Even in the times when U.A. had an attack, and cracks formed on that pillar, there were so many others keeping everyone's heads high." He paused for a second again and then said firmly, "And even if all of those pillar fell, more would have just risen in their places."

He smiled softly at the reporter in front of him and said to the older man, "Because there was never a time when a single symbol ever existed. The one people look to?" Zach asked with a look to his left at one of the other reporters who had called out something like that at him. "People will always look to something to be hopeful for, something to believe in. If people want to look to me then that's fine, but they shouldn't rely on me or what I have to say. Each of them is strong enough on their own. We look to these symbols to ensure ourselves that things are still peaceful, but we would just create new ones if the old ones fall. People always do. Regular, common people are stronger than anyone gives them credit for… We're all heroes to someone. Or at least, we all can be."

The way Zach worded that at the end was specific. _Don't want to exclude anyone,_ he thought while refacing the reporter directly in front of him again instead of the ones on his left off the sidewalk. _The people who might think that no one does rely on them right now, no one does think of them as a hero, saying it like that gives them the motivation to go out and be a better person and a hero to someone else. It'd be nice-_

"Don't you realize, that what you're saying here is exactly what I'm talking about?" The reporter before Zach questioned, looking at him with eyebrows lifting but a smile on his face as it seemed to him like Lifebringer did not actually realize that. "How what you're saying will inspire people?"

Zach smiled more at the sound of that, and he told the man in front of him, "I hope it does." The scars on his face and neck did not matter. Only the smile and the tone and the words he was saying got through as Zach chuckled and added, "That's why I came back to being a hero after all. Being a hero, more important than anything else is being something people can look to and believe in. But I think that more than that, a hero is someone I wish people could look at and say, 'I could be like him, or her.' I've made mistakes in my life, we all do, but I rolled with the punches and came back after it all to try and be better this time."

"You're a special type of person to be able to do that after everything you've been through though-"

Zach shook his head and cut off the reporter with that alone. "There's nothing unique about me," he countered, opening back up his eyes that he closed as he shook his head there and staring into the reporter's eyes as he said it. "I'm just, human. But humans are _all_ special. We all have the ability to be the best that we can be. We could all be amazing if we tried. We could all be… good."

"Look at that little shit," Shooter growled, sitting on the couch of a forest mansion and watching the news with some other villains around him. Out the wide windows covering the walls to the left of the tv there was nothing but open forest for miles that they could see above since the mansion was on the side of a mountain too. "Talking all that bull for the cameras."

"I don't know," Shooter turned his head and looked over his shoulder and behind the couch to where a younger villain was standing. The twenty year old with short spiky red hair glanced at Shooter hesitantly, then he wondered while refacing the screen, "Hearing all that, it really doesn't sound like- I mean, you really think Death would say something like that? That was some gooey shit, even for a hero."

"It's Lifebringer, Rabbit, don't believe a word he says," Diamondfist muttered over towards a newer member of their group who had small bunny ears sticking out of his red hair. Diamondfist was using a pull-up bar attached to the walls on either side of the entryway for the kitchen of their hideout, and he let go with one arm but kept doing the pull-ups with his right while looking back to the tv. "He's Death alright. That innocent smile's for us, to make us think he's not so bad and show ourselves, so that he can come rip our throats out." His arms were feeling tired, but Todo Viscucci heard his own words in his head and continued working out through the pain.

"What do you think?" Sonic stood in a dining hall with a tall ceiling outside of the living room, and he looked towards the entrance of their mansion in the other direction around the corner as the majority of their gang. The blond teenager nodded his head once more at the leader of the three people who were leaving the mansion, and the tall, tan-skinned villain in black and red nodded back at Raijin once before shutting the door.

Raijin turned to Sonic and he remarked with a chuckle, "He's using everything. Thinking constantly about his next moves. Of course it's meant for us, but it's also a part of his master plan." Raijin walked with Sonic back around the corner and into the gap between the dining hall and the living room where the number of villains gathered at their hideout was double what it had been a few months ago.

The Tartaros escapee next to Raijin looked towards the television and watched as Zach apologized but started running from the reporters as he said he had things he needed to do. He had to remind them loudly over his shoulder that he was letting the other heroes deal with the incident they had responded to behind him. "How does any of that help his 'master plan?'" Sonic asked as he watched that kid call that with a laugh and a smile.

"I don't know," Raijin replied, though still smirking as he stared towards the television even as Sonic looked to him in some surprise that he would admit that. Sonic glanced behind him then as he heard the front door open again, but it was just Meta coming back with a dozen bags of groceries lining his arms, and a pissed-off look on his face though seeing Raijin's back he just kept his mouth shut and walked the other way to go around the stairs to reach the kitchen. Sonic looked back to the side of Raijin's face and felt a confidence rise within him despite how certain Raijin was that Lifebringer had some secret plan in the works. He felt reassured, because Raijin was chuckling in a smug way as he watched his old classmate run away on the screen. "But whatever happens, I'm going to outmaneuver him with _my_ plan. I'm going to beat him. And then, I'm going to kill him."

"…And as you just saw, Lifebringer has run off again to avoid further questions from the media. However, if you see this, Lifebringer, we do appreciate the time you gave us today. However short it was…"

Todoroki Shoto lowered his phone and he put it down on his desk in front of him. He had a pair of headphones in and continued to breathe quietly but heavily as he thought about what he had just listened to. _What the hell is he playing at? Saying all that, for what? He was always so subtle before, so why go right out and say- say what? That we don't need symbols? That he's not a symbol, because we all are? He brought up U.A. and Class A without even mentioning his own school or class… We are symbols the media has talked about before though. Symbols through the past years when, when people really needed… Is that what that was? Was he reinforcing the idea that, the age of villains is over? He made it sound like all that villains rising and people being afraid was all in the past, even though Intanzo's out there, and Shigaraki and Kaminari were never caught. Midoriya tells me you think All For One's looking to destroy the world! So what was that?_

Todoroki still had his phone out, and his fingers were moving aimlessly around the screen only for his eyes to refocus and see that he had opened up a voice memo application. He stared at the most recent recording which lasted several minutes, and he tapped on the Play button still with his headphones in, though he lowered the volume of his phone anyway for some reason. Todoroki closed his eyes and his fingers curled into fists on top of his desk as he listened to Zach speak, and to his own voice countering and snapping angrily at Zach every few seconds. _He doesn't just mention Stain at the beginning. He brings Stain up over and over through the whole talk. So I can't even just crop out the beginning or end. It's all, useless._

His index finger of his right hand moved over to the garbage can symbol next to the recording, and he tapped it only for an 'Are You Sure' message to appear over his screen. His finger hesitated as he moved it to 'Yes,' but it pulled back again when he moved it over to 'No.' _I need to, turn him in. But not with this. I can't use this, I need real proof. Proof that won't incriminate myself, and Midoriya and Iida, for the same kind of crime- it isn't the same though! And yet, I can't use this. It'll just complicate everything. I need better proof-_ Todoroki clicked on 'Yes,' and then his stomach gripped and his clenched his teeth in anger.

The thought he had refused to have beforehand pried its way into his head, _That's just an excuse._ "Damn," Todoroki whispered under his breath, his head shaking in frustration. "Why can't I-" _I do hate him. Don't I? He left without explaining anything! He told me something like that, and he just ran away to leave me with that for years! With no explanation! You just told me to stop Touya- Touya, is still alive. If you weren't lying- but why would you have? You weren't. I know you weren't. But I also don't, want to believe that Dabi-_

Todoroki leaned back in his chair and he lowered his phone down to rest on his lap, though his fingers tapped on the back of it with his expression staying dark. The teen brooding in his room lifted his gaze and stared out his window, and then his eyes shifted up to the top of it. He could see himself standing there on the inside of the window, looking up and getting ready with his ice, only he never needed it for the boy who he had heard up on the roof with Yaoyorozu that night. Shoto shook his head around, but when he stopped he looked back to that spot and his heart pounded in his chest faster than before. _Stop. Stop fighting it. Just, think about it without, without acting like you don't anymore._

 _It's been so long. When he mentioned Touya, that secret he kept, it made me forget… How highly I thought of Zach._ Todoroki's lips curled down at the corners but flattened back out quickly as he shook his head at his reaction right there instead of having the thought itself. He continued to himself while tilting his head back again, _And while I've been suspicious of him and treating him like a stranger since he returned, an enemy even, Zach's gotten over some of his issues. Things he talked about on the trail that first time we confronted him, that he no longer seems to be struggling with. He's taken on assassins and the press, grief and Shadow Bosses, and he's been accused of being a manipulative asshole by his old friends every day._

 _I hated it the other day. I hated how I was so amazed by you, because it had happened before and I knew I was thinking of that Zach and the one I hated now as different entities, like you did yourself! Because I never stopped being amazed by those things Zach had done all the way back then. What I heard on that roof, that stuff you managed to come back from. That report that I never saw coming, in a million years._ Todoroki's right hand curled around his phone, and he turned it over and looked down at the screen that illuminated as he turned it back on. _And even you going after Diamondfist and saving Kaminari from Shatterer, even though you knew the consequences that breaking the rules could do to you. You knew better than anyone, and you didn't make those decisions lightly. You didn't do it again because you were stupid, you did it again because you were the kind of person who would always break the rules if it meant saving a friend, or stopping a villain._

Todoroki lifted his phone up and he opened his messaging app. He paused, and he grit his teeth for a moment before opening up his texts with Midoriya, 'Midoriya, could you send me…'

* * *

"Didn't expect to see you so soon," Zach admitted, standing on a path in a national park where he had first talked to Todoroki after returning to Japan. It was where Todoroki had asked to meet him, and though he pretended like he had just walked up the trail to where Todoroki was reaching, he had been there for a few hours now. _He came alone. It really doesn't seem like the ADTF are surrounding me. I couldn't get a lock on nearly half of their exact locations though, including Endeavor. So many of them are overseas too, it wouldn't make a enough noise even if they were to come to Japan._

"I'm sorry."

 _Holy shit. I knew it was just a chance this was a trap- but what- I don't…_ Zach's expression was genuinely confused and the teen ahead of him frowned more but shifted his eyes to the right for a second. _He's, serious?_

"Zach, you…" Todoroki tried to start again, but he failed and just stood there staring back into Zach's eyes. Zach looked surprised and confused, while Todoroki was uncomfortable and awkward, but he kept going after pausing for a few seconds. "I don't know, what it is you're doing here. I don't get why you came back after leaving like you did. But, as upset as I was about what you did that night, in the end it's always been what you said before leaving, about Dabi being Touya- that's made it impossible for me to forgive you. Or to even accept, the good in what you were doing."

"Todoroki I-"

"Just let me finish," Todoroki cut in as Zach started speaking. Zach nodded at him and closed his mouth, and Todoroki continued in a lower voice, "I've been mad at my dad lately too, but not for the old reasons. It's just because he doesn't even seem as strongly against Death as I am, and he's supposed to be leading the force against him. Against you," Todoroki said that softer, despite the two of them being isolated from all of society. "And I told him what you told me. I told him, about Touya."

 _I know,_ Zach thought, though he did not say it aloud as that day he learned that Endeavor knew was a day that he kept foggy in his mind. Instead he just nodded at Todoroki for him to continue, which his old classmate did, "But, as much as that was a terrible thing to do. Lying to me about that for so long, keeping that from me, and then telling me just that before you left? I hated you for it. Still, a big part of me hates you for that," Todoroki paused and his dark eyes stayed locked on Zach's that filled with guilt but shifted just as Todoroki's did when they lost the dark appearance in them.

"But, another part of me knows that you're not just the guy who made that one decision. I get why you did it too, and that doesn't make it right but I know you didn't do it for- I don't know. You really thought I never needed to know?" Todoroki was trying here, but his face scrunched up for a moment and his eyes got angrier again. Zach's face scrunched up too, but Todoroki returned his straight before Zach could respond and he kept on talking anyway. "But I know that decision doesn't define you. It shouldn't. It doesn't to everyone else, but it has defined who you are to me for so long now. I forgot, about everything else you did. And yet," Todoroki cursed in his head as he could not stay on a positive streak here, again his thoughts getting darker as he stared ahead at his former classmate looking apologetically back at him in a way he could not accept.

"Seeing you get tortured at the hands of Shigaraki Tomura, watching as your mind broke," Todoroki started in a low voice. "And on the night of Kaminari's betrayal, when you and Yaoyorozu were talking in your room," Todoroki added, and Zach's eyes lowered down to the ground with his hands curling into his sides as another of those days was brought up.

"That night, I heard you talk about things that had happened to you that I never thought you would be able to come back from, but you always did." Zach lifted his eyes back up and locked with Todoroki's again, and the other teen continued to him, "It's why I thought- I knew that you had to be putting on an act, during those two weeks you were playing us. I _knew_ you had a plan, and yet I trusted-" Todoroki cut himself off in a frustrated way. "I believed you when you told me you didn't. In the hallway, when I-"

"I remember," Zach said, not needing Todoroki to specify it at all. "I was on my way out of the school. I needed a moment, because I was going to break character and lose it again," he admitted it to Todoroki who paused with a confused and uncertain look on his face as he did not know if he should believe this at all. "For all this time, I don't know if you've thought the way I was acting in that hall was fake, but- but All Might had just told me, about how my Aunt Maye and cousin Tsura went missing." Zach admitted it and he shook his head with a pained look covering his face as he thought on that moment, on what he heard but forced himself to react to in certain ways despite _knowing_ what was happening to them. "I knew he was killing them at that moment, or that he had already killed them, Kaminari," Zach finished, specifying who 'he' was.

 _ **"…And I mean it. Every moment from the day after you left, I've been hiding everything, but that doesn't mean it doesn't hurt when my family went missing, and it doesn't mean I didn't feel a thing when you told me that you had massacred my mentor's family in front of him!"**_ _You yelled that at Kaminari._ Todoroki believed what was being said in front of him. _I remember. That was, that moment?_

"And because I knew that," Zach continued, lifting his head and staring into Todoroki's eyes stronger. He explained himself, "I was able to lie to you so easily. At that moment, I knew I was getting my family members killed just like I was getting the anti-heroes hunted, and the thought of lying to you did not really hurt anymore. It became easy, if it meant that I could have a better shot at taking down Kurogiri, and Kaminari… and Dabi. Though Dabi was, the least, important…" Zach trailed off as he admitted it because he knew saying that would only make Todoroki angry at him.

"Not even important," Todoroki repeated in a dark voice.

"Not, not important, just out of those three," Zach whispered in reply.

"I burned your letter," Todoroki said. He stated it and watched Zach's reaction, only to frown deeper as Zach could only nod once in acceptance for what Todoroki did there. "You didn't write anything about him on there. It was all I wanted to know, after you left. But you didn't ever tell me. You didn't leave an explanation, like I thought you might have when I found that envelope. Why, Zach?" Zach's eyes lowered more as he broke off eye contact with Todoroki who stepped closer to him so they were right in front of one another on the dirt path in the forest. "I want to know, everything."

Zach nodded his head and whispered, "I wish, I had told you a long time ago."

"So why didn't you?" Todoroki asked. His face had pain over the frustration as he felt himself getting so much angrier at Zach than usual, because the person in front of him was someone he had accepted again was not a bad person. "You said he was like a brother to you, that night in the forest.." His eyes got more accusing and darker, "The two of you, going to drug deals in China together, fighting together, talking so much that he told you… something like that."

"He didn't tell anyone else," Zach said. He looked into Shoto's eyes and said in a quiet voice, "I don't even know, if any of them have figured it out yet."

"Wait, you're saying the villains don't know?" Todoroki began confusedly.

"It was his secret," Zach whispered. He froze after saying it, and then he looked at Todoroki in an even more pained way at the way that his friend started looking back at him angrily again. "I don't care about him anymore. But back then, there was a long time when I had nothing. And when Dabi admitted in the Enudora Forest about how he thought I'd be able to bring back my family, a part of me really did know that he always felt that way. I knew he had never tortured me, as much as I told myself the burns were from him. As much as I wanted to hate him, he was the last person I really opened up to. In all that time I was back at U.A. after escaping the villains, it wasn't until Kaminari that I ever told anyone as much as I told Dabi that fall."

"Why? If you were just infiltrating, why did you get so connected?" Todoroki asked in frustration and anger.

"Because he vouched for me," Zach said softly. "Because, it felt to me, at times, like Dabi knew who I was better than anyone. All the way back at the summer training camp, he called me out on things I didn't even know I was… The fact that I had Stain's speech memorized, not just because we saw it in person, but because I had watched that video dozens of times. Hundreds even." Zach paused and he looked to his right and imagined a darker forest, imagined Dabi and Ganeshi moving through it with him. "And in that courtroom, I had no purpose anymore in life. It had just been taken from me, and Dabi gave me a path. He knew I would go through the portal, and he was the one who told Shigaraki and Kurogiri to open it up for me."

Todoroki stared closer at Zach and his eyes widened as Zach's voice got softer still while he continued to look far off to his right. "Shigaraki left him in charge of me. A kid, in some dark room somewhere with a box on his hand making him helpless to do anything but go along with them. And I told myself at first, that it was all just to lure them in. That I was some kind of super spy, and not just a villain with delusions of heroism." Zach cracked a small smile, and he looked back to Todoroki and shook his head again at the way he thought back then. "But even thinking back then, it wasn't like Shigaraki had this master plan to deceive me and use Dabi to trick me into being a villain. Dabi wasn't even trying that. He just, spent a lot of time with me. Maybe he saw some of himself in me too, just like I… I really wanted to save him." Zach said that with his lips curling and a look of failure forming on his face.

"He's a villain, not a…" Todoroki stopped himself while Zach lifted his head and looked him in the eyes, those sad eyes asking if Todoroki really did not know. Shoto's eyes grew wider, and his heart pounded so fast he could hear a deep voice in his ears. _"Touya was a failure." "What happened to your brother was unfortunate, but you are the one who will succeed where he failed…" He's not a victim. He's, a murderer. He's killed heroes. He killed Zach's family, so then why is it he can see him as a victim too… I'm just denying it myself. But I know, what Dad did to you._

"I had thought when I went through that portal that I had just lost everything in my life that mattered to me. My dreams, my goals, they'd come to an abrupt end instantly. My Quirk was in the open and I'd never be safe. My life was over, but Dabi saved me. I knew for a while, that he gave me the chance to become Lifebringer which is what brought me back from that darkest moment of my life to the point that I could make a plan to escape at VTS… And then he killed Jenny."

Zach's face twisted and his head tilted back as saying that aloud made him suck in a huge breath. Water filled his eyes from the mention alone, something he did not expect to happen after so much time, but happened because he spent so much time pushing everything emotional like this far from his mind. As soon as he mentioned her name, he felt the walls breaking and his face wrinkled up on his forehead and cheeks as those tears piled up on his bottom eyelids. "I loved her _so much,_ " he said to his former classmate whose head pulled back at the tears spilling down Zach's face. "My sister, the purest most kind girl in the world who I just wanted to protect. Maybe because of her red hair like my mom's, maybe that's why from the time I was a kid I wanted to protect her because I had killed my mom. She reminded me of her so I put that responsibility on myself to save her this time, and then I watched as Dabi burned her! As she burned, slowly, screaming my name even surrounded in fire- Ahh, ah ahh," Zach started gasping as he had to stop and he reached his left hand up to his chest and clenched on it as agony ripped through his body from how hard his heart was beating.

 _It's, as bad as it was that night,_ Todoroki's right foot that slid back there pressed firmly on the floor. His eyes were huge as he stared at Zach's face that he covered with his right hand and then started rubbing his sweatshirt's sleeve over. _On the roof, I heard you talk about her just like this to Yaoyorozu, but I thought you really got over-_

Zach was trying to rub the tears away, but he lowered his arm and snapped at Todoroki in an angry voice more directed at himself for what he was thinking about how it had been so long, "You don't just get over something like that! I can't! And, I could never think about it, about Jenny-" his teeth bared again and he shook his head, but Todoroki's eyes started widening for a different reason at what Zach was trying to say here. "And yet it hurt so much even when I pushed it so far down. Because every time I look in the mirror and see the scar under my right eye, every single day I can feel that knife carving into my face as I watched her dying. But I can only hate myself because I can't hate Dabi as much as I tried. As much as I hated Dabi, I couldn't hate Dabi, because I could see him treating me as an equal and being my friend, and because I know I found the good in him. I knew that Dabi wouldn't just kill a little girl, so he did it to get to me. Because he really thought that after I brought her back that we would really be able to trust each other as I'd never go against the League again…"

He paused and he ground his teeth with his dark eyes shifting down to the floor. "I hated Dabi, and I hated myself, but I hate most of all that I never told you anything about Dabi," Zach continued with his eyes rising back up to meet Todoroki Shoto's. His expression scrunched as Shoto glared at him for reminding him of that, as this was all stuff Zach could have told him years ago. Zach's face distorted more though and his eyes turned desperate before guilty, then frustrated and then angry at himself for getting frustrated as Todoroki had every right to be as pissed as he was. The frustration came back though and Zach started in a pained voice to his old friend, "When I came back though, two years ago, I couldn't _think_ about Dabi without imagining him burning Jenny alive."

Todoroki's breath hitched as Zach's eyes clenched shut in front of him, as mentioning that again put the image in his head that looked so vivid to him no matter how long ago it had been now. "Without hearing her screams, seeing her melting flesh- and when I saw him at Breakneck's lab that only made it worse when I saw that look in his eyes, a look I couldn't even decipher because I couldn't think about him long enough to comprehend what I already knew! And the forest! Hearing Dabi admit that… more so than hearing about Webb and his family, or about Tsura and Maye, hearing Dabi say that almost made me break my own plan and charge at him. It would have ruined everything, but I was breaking apart inside when I heard it. I never knew how to handle thinking about Dabi, who was more a brother to me than- and! And I knew that I should tell you," Zach said, his eyes snapping open and looking into Todoroki's eyes in a desperate way again.

"But it wasn't because I wanted to keep it a secret," Zach said, trying to convince his friend with the explanation he had never thought of but knew was true as it came spilling out of his mouth. "It wasn't to help Touya or protect Dabi's secrets, or even to protect myself and the fact that I had that information the whole time… It's just that I _couldn't_ talk about Dabi if I tried. Not to you." Zach gasped out and he paused for a second, his breath sucking back in hard and his eyes shaking as he tried to read Todoroki's expression and what emotions those were in Todoroki's huge eyes. "I couldn't let you see how much I cared, about the man who I hated most in the world. I couldn't say his name, without that memory pulling straight up to the top of my head and replaying over and over," Zach tapped on the side of his head so hard with his left hand while saying that, and the images on that tablet blasted again fresh in his head.

"Dabi's face as he burns Jenny alive is carved into my mind, right up there with Kaminari when he pressed his face up against mine in that basement," Zach said with a gasp as he admitted how close those two incidents were to each other. His own eyes clenched shut after the admission, _I think of that as much of a betrayal?! No, not that high- but Dabi was the one killing her! Kaminari just- he just… They're both monsters. But, neither of them…_

"You really, only didn't tell me because of that?" Todoroki wondered. He would have said that it was just an excuse, if he was not watching Zach's face currently filled with all those feelings as he had to think about things usually pushed so far from his mind. Todoroki's eyes narrowed as Zach lifted his gaze to meet his again, "You told me, it was because Endeavor was too great a hero."

"If people knew what your dad did to you guys," Zach started in a low voice. "To your mom-"

"The two of them, are actually-"

"It doesn't matter," Zach cut in, shaking his head to show he did not care to know or want to find out how Endeavor was currently doing with his family. "No matter how much good someone does, how much they redeem themselves in the eyes of some," Zach paused and his voice took a much darker tone to it. "When other people find out about the things of the past, those things _just_ happened in their minds. To you who went through it yourself, you may be able to find it in your heart to forgive Endeavor. And maybe the rest of the country would have been able to as well, but only if they had known what he did back a couple years ago, and then they saw Endeavor the last few years save them so many times and represent our greatest hero. Instead, if they found out today they'd be seeing their greatest hero suddenly tarnished by all that bad."

"And that was a reason too," Zach admitted. He pursed his lips and then continued as he thought about it, "It was the reason I thought of back then, the reason I was able to think of because I didn't understand my own thoughts as clearly as I do now. I can look back and see the real reason, while also knowing what I thought back then was the most important reason not to say anything: 'Because if I told you, I didn't know if you wouldn't go and tell everyone else. The information could be useful to stopping Dabi and helping take down the League of Villains, so you might go around and tell people that secret which would lead to more and more people wondering how the son of one of Japan's greatest heroes, turned into one of our greatest villains.'"

 _I wouldn't have told anyone,_ Todoroki thought frustratedly back at Zach. _It's my burden- I'm my own brother's keeper? That's what you told me. That's how you felt, too._ "Now that you're back," Todoroki started in a low voice. Zach got a hesitant expression over his face and his old classmate looked at him closer as he questioned, "Do you think it's up to you to stop Dabi-"

"Yeah," Zach replied. "For the same reasons as before, but they're not all about me thinking of him like a brother," Zach said, correcting what he told Todoroki that night in the Enudora Forest. "When he first took that box off my hand, I could have killed him in that very moment. And, the first time I saw what Trigger was, Dabi was hurt and everyone was leaving him behind," Zach clenched his teeth, while Todoroki stared at Zach with wider eyes for a second before nodding as he had heard Zach talk about this that night of the Lifebringer Incident too. "But I saved him. If it had been any other villain at that time, I probably would have left them behind… But I didn't. And he's still out there. He's killed heroes. He's, someone I failed to stop so many times," Zach whispered.

It took a couple seconds, then Zach rose his head and he stood straight while saying, "But if you stop him, that's fine too. I just want him put in prison. Or dead, but preferably prison," Zach added, as he was trying to be truthful here. _Dabi's not the type to just reveal everything once he's in jail, right? Even if he does, doesn't he have the right to? I said it earlier, we don't need all those symbols we think we do. If Endeavor falls, this country would be fine. People would be hurt for sure, and preferably it wouldn't happen because I really do think he's a good man, now. He's faced his own punishment too. The way his kids looked at him, learning the truth about Touya, his wife… He fought alongside me multiple times. His past, the wrongs of his life, he may have to face them like we all do when they come out. But there are also things that will always stay in the darkness. What we did that day, being one of them._

"I failed too," Todoroki admitted. "That night in the training forest… It's not just on you. We've all failed to stop him. He's still out there because of our failures. Still killing people."

"And we need to stop him," Zach finished with a nod back at Todoroki's intense tone he was taking here. "For Jenny, for the world, and for myself," Zach admitted in a quieter voice, though Todoroki nodded his head in agreement with all three of those reasons right there.

"Zach," Todoroki started, his tone softer and a look in his eyes with no apprehension. He just looked calmly at Zach and said to him a steady voice, "Tell me, everything Touya told you. What happened to him? After the accident… How did he, become Dabi?"

Zach hesitated for only a second, then he nodded his head back at his old classmate and took in a deep breath. "Alright. It was after that day I saved him, when he told me. The way he admitted it was… we were watching a news segment on tv, about your Dad and you. Dabi looked angry when it was focused on Endeavor, but I didn't get the way he looked when the news started talking about you. The two of us were alone. I was arguing with him, about the type of hero Endeavor was, how he was better now- And he asked if 'Shoto' ever told me what happened, to Enji Todoroki's eldest son…"

* * *

 **A/N Thanks for reading! Sorry for cutting it off there, but I do so for obvious reasons. (Hopefully this arc we find out what really happened to him, and I'm really hoping I'm right about this theory so as to keep as much close to canon as possible). Anyone else up to date on the manga and hyped for this coming arc? Because I think it's going to be crazy! XD Anyway, Zach and Todoroki talk about Dabi, and Zach explains to Todoroki why it was he never told him all that time about Touya. Zach also has some more exposure on the news as he talks about symbols and how everyone could be good if they wanted to be, how they could all be someone's hero. :) The villains think it's meant for them to get sloppy, Todoroki thinks it's so people will feel the age of villains is really over, and Raijin's convinced it's all just part of Zach's master plan. The villains are up to something in the shadows while Zach works through issues with himself and his friends, and Raijin knows he's going to come out on top... But let's hope Zach and co. can stop those plans in their tracks! XD I hope you guys liked the chapter, and the speedy updates I've been up to recently. Finally got into the swing of work, writing, and visiting family, while enough of my friends have gone back to college or work that I have this extra free time now to accelerate Death! 30 or so chapters left, and still a lot of ground to cover! Hope you're ready...**

Hehehehehehe chapter 176 . 17h ago

Idk why but I feel like the letter to momo is gonna be what incriminate him. And it seems the hardest to convince is gonna be jirou, who also might be the one he fails to convince to lie. Convincing icyhots a big accomplishment already, even if he only half succeeded. Maybe there's hope with jirou?  
Honestly, despite zach's prowess at screwing with people I find it hard to believe that he'll manage to stay in Japan and not be revealed to the public as death, its not realistic. So zach's gonna have to pull some crazy shit to get everyone on his side, or another Lifebringer incidents gonna occur during his grand escape,when they inevitably find out. I just hope he doesn't end up doing to the Shiketsu's what he did to the UA's

 **Nice predictions. Todoroki gets over some of his own issues just as Zach does in these two chapters, with the two of them getting back on talking terms at least and Todoroki admitting to himself that Zach's not as bad as he had come to think of him due to his own anger after all that time. No spoilers about anything, so we'll just have to see if Zach can manage staying in Japan, especially with more and more people figuring him out all the time. His little speech in the beginning worked in part at getting some people to doubt more that he was Death too though... but again, we'll see. XD Thanks for the review. Didn't give y'all much time to review after last chapter, and I won't for the next one either as I'm sitting in Starbucks right now and about to get started on it! Hope to get it up tomorrow, so see you then!**


	178. Chapter 178

**Disclaimer: I don't own Boku no Hero Academia**

 **Chapter 178:**

"I told you I don't like it when you do that," Midoriya said, a frustrated expression on his face as he and Zach talked while on a run on the outskirts of Musutafu. They were in an older section of the city that got more abandoned in recent years as so much of the city was rebuilt and built on top of, leaving the warehouses and industrial parks in this area sparsely used. Some of the areas had construction going on at them, showing those old buildings were going to be replaced by something new as well, but there were not many people walking around to interrupt the boys following a path Zach had chosen for them.

Zach stared forward even as Midoriya frowned to the side at him while saying that. "I'm saving lives."

"But if you're just doing it, to get here quicker," Midoriya countered.

"I know," Zach admitted. "Don't think about it so hard though." _The fact that those people live or die determined solely on whether or not you wanted to talk to me. Their lives mean only that much, or they mean everything. It all just matters on how you want to think of it._ "I could waste a few hours on the train, but I choose to get here faster because I _want_ to save a few people too. It's not just for saving time, Midoriya. I wouldn't have just died for that alone."

"Only one today," Midoriya specified considering what Zach had already told him, then he grimaced as that sounded harsh in his own head. "Not that that's not-"

"It was almost out of my time limit too," Zach replied, not going to wait for Midoriya to apologize for something he did not feel his friend needed to. "But I've got over two hours now. Two hours twenty minutes is the max from what I know," Zach said, looking to the side as he told Midoriya it. "I struggled to get it started that time, the day the four of us talked under the gazebo," Zach added, telling Midoriya when it was he had figured out that limit and making Midoirya's eyes widen more as Zach had not told them he saved anyone that day.

 _You could have used that for an excuse to Todoroki,_ Midoriya thought while looking back forward as they were nearing a road they would have to cross carefully. _Was it another excuse you had, if all else had failed?_ Midoriya frowned deeper while jogging in place just like Zach, then they ran across the crosswalk as the signal turned green for them to do so. "Left after the next block," Zach said. "There's an old industrial park near here with a fence that's easy to slip through too, if you want to go check to see if it's unsafe and do some parkour around it?"

"Have you done that before?" Midoriya accused harshly.

"No, was waiting to see if you wanted to do it with me," Zach replied casually. "If it's so easy to get into, it could be dangerous for kids who might be able to get in and do the same thing. We can cite whoever's in charge of keeping that place locked off if there are safety hazards we discover while jumping around a new environment-"

"That doesn't sound…" Midoriya paused and he hummed to himself, losing the upset look as he decided to stop looking at it as sketchy and try to just imagine it the way Zach was. _It's a loophole, and he's really just saying all those reasons because he_ _ **wants**_ _to run around that area, but we really could find out… And if it is unsafe, and kids could- does Zach think kids would go in there to mess around? Did he just want me there in case we get caught, because it would look less sketchy if the two of us were there than if it was just him?!_ Midoriya spun back to Zach with wide eyes, and Zach looked back at him in surprise too as it seemed like Midoriya was thinking really deeply into this. The way Zach looked back at him made Midoriya's eyes shift back a little, as he wondered if he was overthinking it too.

 _If we get caught…_ Midoriya thought, as he considered it seriously while looking back ahead. "Yeah, we could do that," he finally said to Zach, replying in a way Zach did not actually think he would when he suggested it. _Then we don't need an excuse. We tell them the real reason we checked it out._ "How'd you find this place?" Midoriya wondered after Zach told him to follow him with a bigger smile on his face as he was glad that suggestion worked out.

"I've been running around a lot of cities around Japan since I got back," Zach replied. "Mainly Yutapu and Musutafu, but a lot of the rest of Tokyo too. I've checked out a few other cities too when I hit a hospital in them to keep things a bit more even and spread out around Japan."

Midoriya nodded his head, as he had heard news reports multiple times a week recently about Lifebringer's appearances and the people he had been bringing back to life. _Those reports always end the same way though. Everyone keeps asking why you aren't doing it more. I guess, I shouldn't confront you over it anymore. I should just appreciate that you are saving those people, when you really don't have to be. Of course you would though- except, you don't seem very enthusiastic about it. Or like you even care… More like, it's just something you can do, and that you choose to sometimes-_

"Over there," Zach said, pointing diagonally across the street and the next one to the right. He and Midoriya crossed the road at the perfect time too that their walk signal ended while the next one was turning on for them, so they did not have to run in place for very long. The two slowed down as they neared the fence, and Zach jogged alongside the front of it before reaching the gate that had a chain loosely wrapped between either chain-link fence. There was a padlock keeping the chain there, but Zach just pulled on the chain and then pulled one side of the fence outwards to make a gap big enough for him to squeeze through. He was a muscular and tall teenager too, and Midoriya frowned as any kid feeling risky could have easily done the same thing despite the warning sign, singular, posted on the gate.

Midoriya pulled the fence out with one glance to either side in a hesitant way, before slipping inside and letting out a deep breath to stop being so nervous about this. _I'm a hero checking out a safety hazard that children could hurt themselves on._ His head lifted and he stared at the four-story building, the large shipping containers scattered around the left side of it, the mound of sand on the opposite side of the building as the street that he caught sight of the edge of, and a lot of steel beams and sharp flat plates laying all over the place that had covered in dust and sand to show the yard had not been used in quite a while. "Let's go inside," Zach suggested, looking back at Midoriya and then turning forward and running for an open garage door that led into a wide inner room that Zach wondered what it looked like for a few days now.

"Alright, but we do have to check for safety hazards," Midoriya reminded. _He's just doing this for the parkour course. Does Shiketsu not have the kind of training grounds that U.A. has, or has he just mastered all of those already and wants one he hasn't seen before?_ "So I wanted to talk to you," Midoriya started as he jogged from behind Zach up to his side, as he was very fast and was able to catch up with a small use of some One For All. "About…"

The two of them stopped just inside of the building when they turned into the main first floor room that had been emptied of the heavy machinery that used to be in there. There was a sign sticking up in the middle of the floor like a 'wet-floor' sign would be. On that sign were big words that just said, 'You Do Not Belong In Here.' Zach chuckled which caused his friend who paused at the sight of it to look back towards him and see Zach's amused expression. Zach glanced back and shrugged his right shoulder closer to Midoriya, "What? They had a sense of humor about it. I think it's a point for them, having this second warning and all."

"Hmm," Midoriya hummed, glancing back towards the sign himself and wondering if that did count for something. _Are the last ones to run this place really responsible if something happens, when they've put up multiple signs to warn people that it may not be safe?_

"Let's check upstairs though," Zach suggested. "Could still be worse than we think." He started running in the direction he thought the stairs would be, and he asked loudly as Midoriya had to catch up again, "What did you want to talk about?"

"Italy," Midoriya replied and ran up on Zach's side again. They ran to the outsides of the room, and Midoriya hopped up like Zach did onto a pile of wood pushed all the way to the wall. They had to be more careful as the stack was not completely sturdy and had a narrow path to run on, but Zach kept up his speed and Midoriya trailed right behind him. "I want to know what you were doing there."

"Thought you knew everything already?" Zach asked without looking back, as he dropped off the end of the stack of wood and made for the doorway into the next room. He could see through the opening a steel staircase on the other side of the next room leading to the floor above.

"I mean before, you joined the mob," Midoriya specified, though he had to hesitate before getting all that out as it was a sentence he did not ever think he would say.

"Still need to be more specific," Zach replied. "Which time I went? Right after the League of Shadows' HQ was destroyed? As the war raged through February with King having the Italian mafias hunting down heroes?" Midoriya looked at Zach's back in surprise, and Zach turned his head to the side a little and looked back to see if Midoriya meant around then, because that was when Midoriya had been to Italy himself. "You showed up in Italy while I was in the middle of that war with King, where the fighting was so constant and violent that I had to leave powerful villains like the Gazpaccio to heroes, though I figured it would be fine with Hawks, Deku, and Tsuykuyomi there-"

Midoriya's expression angered and he snapped at Zach while running up to his side and past him a little, as he could see the staircase and did not need to trail behind Zach to reach the next floor. "So what? You left something so small to me?" He asked it frustratedly and in an accusing tone like Zach was saying the things the heroes were dealing with were nothing compared to the kinds of fights he was in.

"That's not it," Zach replied, slowing down a little with a look of surprise appearing and then fading from his face quickly as he could see how the way he worded that would make Midoriya think it was so. He sped up again and jumped up in the air on Midoriya's right, hitting the metal staircase a third of the way up and grabbing onto the railing with both hands, swinging his legs under it to throw his whole body onto the steps. He spun upon landing and continued running up ahead of Midoriya who just took the steps three at a time from the bottom one to try and keep up with Zach. Zach did not hit the top of the stairs either, instead jumping from two thirds of the way to the part of the railing that wrapped around the second floor. He yanked twice as hard this time on the rail, but it stayed firm and Zach nodded while throwing himself under that railing too. _Still sturdy enough,_ he thought to himself before glancing back at Midoriya who just jumped from halfway up the stairs to right over that railing he swung himself through.

Midoriya was coming over his head, and Zach spoke to his friend about to land in front of him, "Espuci Vermon wasn't something 'so small.' He was going to sell so many costumes to villains, _legally,_ and get away with those sales because some countries were allowing cops to start using Quirks. It wouldn't have been strange if huge shipments started leaving the country for destinations like those, and shipments of a lot of things were under attack in those days. The world economy was in a recession, because people were uncertain about trade when international villains were openly attacking trading vessels, hijacking ships and stealing supplies. International trade was down and everyone was worried about it with villains everywhere, and no one would suspect Vermon intentionally 'lost' those shipments to King's men."

Midoriya looked over his shoulder at Zach who stared him seriously in the eyes for a moment as they crossed a floor with more hazardous conditions than the floor below. There was more left up here, even though it looked partially like an office space in half of the floor, and Zach and Midoriya swerved between desks and old construction equipment, occasionally jumping up on things and to other obstacles just to see if those obstacles would break beneath their landings. Zach spoke to his friend as they crossed each other jumping on opposite desks than the ones that would have been their next destinations if they had just run straight forward, "Vermon would have armed King and all his forces with powerful costumes. The Gazpaccio would have gotten stronger, filled in the spot at the top of Italy the Arvanetti left open," Zach jumped and did a front-flip before coming down and sprinting ahead of Midoriya who was dropping off of sheet of metal he bounced on as it was leaning on a pillar in the middle of the room. "And I was relieved," Zach continued as his friend landed on his left and just behind him, "that I didn't need to redirect more people there to help though."

He glanced to his left and into Midoriya's eyes, "Because I was certain that even if things there were worse than I thought, the villains more prepared than I knew, you could handle it. You were my failsafe," Zach said, and he nodded at Midoriya who was first surprised and then shocked as it looked like Zach really meant that. He looked back forward though and lowered his expression he just gave Midoriya after a second, "Though, I had Hyper go anyway, just in case…" _You died,_ Zach finished to himself.

"And when you showed up in Italy after I left?" Midoriya asked.

"It was just to get Hyper out," Zach replied. "You caused me a lot of problems, but I also used the leaked footage from that police station to my advantage. Terrified the villains to see the police let me go without even trying to stop me. It was like the authorities were telling villains that they were letting the AoD loose on them, because they were out of control-"

"That's how you saw it?" Midoriya asked harshly. "Because I saw a miscarriage of justice. They allowed you to-"

"Oh it was," Zach agreed. "No doubt about that. But you showed up in Italy in a time where heroes and police _needed_ all the help they could get. I know you don't think what I was doing was necessary, but crime in Italy was organized long before the rise of villains. Italy's crime families that had operated for so long in the shadows were more ready than anyone else in the world for the opportunities they were provided as the age of villains started."

 _"Age of villains." You talk about it like it's over, but Shigaraki's still out there! All For One, and Raijin, all the League of Villains! Intanzo and The Radians! And the Jazz, so many in Japan alone-_

"…The Porzoni, the Sabbrozzi and Gazpaccio," Zach listed off. "They killed heroes like crazy. Italy already needed every hero they could get, and suddenly they were down dozens in a few weeks. It was as bad as what the Cult of Stain was doing here. There though, it was under King's orders. The heroes who died in Italy started with the ones who were part of the ADTF, with one of the strongest Italian heroes, Jupiter, falling in the early days. I couldn't-"

"I know this," Midoriya started. "Metallore told me, about how King had them hunted down. He said Michelangelo survived two attempts on his life-"

"Thanks to my tip one time, and me intervening another," Zach cut in, and he nodded when Midoriya looked at him in surprise again, as that was something he did not know.

 _Metallore probably didn't know that either,_ Midoriya realized.

Zach continued after Midoriya got quiet, "The amount of power King had was absurd. He had the strongest forces in the world, easily the largest numbers at least." _Eziano's were better quality-wise, as a mean though._ Zach slowed down his run, and then continued while turning to face Midoriya and just standing still near the middle of the second floor of the industrial building, "King was enraged that I had the gall to attack their HQ and force him to flee. So he massacred heroes."

Midoriya stopped too and he stared at Zach with wide eyes at what he was saying that he had never heard of on the news or anything. "The CHAF, the Combined Hero Assault Force that Africa created to combat the 'age of villains' that Mombat declared in early January," Zach started in a low voice to Midoriya whose expression got dark and grim too as Zach brought them up. "The bombing that took all those top heroes from countries around Africa out, was orchestrated by King. It might have been African villains who carried it out, but it was King who told them to."

"If you knew…" Midoriya started.

"No one wants to know that there's a villain in the world with that kind of power," Zach replied with a shake of his head. "King was a Shadow Boss, which meant he operated from the _shadows._ But I revealed him. I attacked his Headquarters with the entirety of the Army of Death and the Anti-Death Task Force, and he still escaped with most of his strongest forces and Digger, who I still haven't caught." Zach added that last part in a more annoyed voice, his eyes darkening more at the thought of the elusive villain he had never seen but had come across his work countless times now. "I revealed him, and so he adapted to being known."

Zach's expression shadowed over as he continued, his head bowing a little, "King had his people hunt for anyone remotely involved with the AoD. He had gangs kill families and friends of suspected AoD members in a campaign of terror across the world. Any of my comrades whose identities were suspected or revealed, we had to get their families into hiding or they'd be killed… like a few of them were. Against my forces," Zach explained to his friend who was staring at him in shock hearing that. "There were no rules. Villains are always pretty brutal, but we were villains ourselves and acted against all codes that villains had. We worked with cops and heroes, we turned over villains to the authorities, and they feared us enough that they were willing to do anything to stop us."

 _ **"Do you think I'd be standing here if I lost a battle? Losing for my side would mean death, or so much worse which many of my comrades faced after being captured…"**_ Midoriya remembered what Zach said to him, Iida, and Todoroki in that gazebo, and he grimaced deeper at the idea of what this 'so much worse' was that Zach was referring to.

"If King was doing all that, across the world," Midoriya started. "And you've said before that the villains knew you were Death, then why wouldn't he come after us? After your friends?"

"Two reasons," Zach replied and held up two fingers in front of hi. "Because of the structure of Japan's villains," he put down one finger. "And because of the strength of our heroes. The second reason, is the same reason I barely ever came back here. It didn't have to do with me not wanting to run into you guys," Zach explained, shaking his head as he meant that and knew it would be hard for Midoriya to believe. "America's heroes are considered very strong too, and most people around the world argue either Japan's or the U.S.'s are the most powerful. However the U.S.A. also has so much more land for those heroes to protect that they did need more help from their Special Forces, from vigilantes, and from me. Whereas here, Japan's heroes were plentiful and battle-hardened, powerful, and ready for whatever international villains might try to move in."

Zach paused for a second, and then he continued to his friend who was looking at him in astonishment that Zach thought so highly of the heroes of Japan compared to the rest of the world. "But the first reason is more likely what stopped him. Faith was insane, and yet the Cult of Stain _was_ the most powerful villain group in Japan for a time. If King had tried moving into Japan, he would have had to deal with fanatics and no one ever likes dealing with fanatics, especially not careful guys like him. Then after you guys took down Faith and his Cult, that was the time where King came to have more power than ever and he had the chance to move into Japan. Japan's heroes were on a high after defeating the Cult though. The ones responsible for killing so many heroes over that past half a year, they were gone and for a second Japan felt safe."

Midoriya remembered this time well and he nodded his head at Zach with a serious look spreading over his face too. "That time didn't last long though. Things didn't get peaceful here, they never did," Midoriya said it and Zach could tell Midoriya was referring to something he had seen Zach say on the news the other day. Zach agreed with a slow nod of his head that Midoriya was right, even though he had treated that conversation with the reporters too much like things here were more peaceful than they were.

"That quiet moment left an opening for King, but he didn't move quick enough here. The League were still quiet, the Cult of Stain was destroyed, and the other villain groups weren't making big moves yet. It was back when the Radians were a small villain gang and Intanzo wasn't a household name. Before he was even on the heroes' radar, let alone the most wanted man in Japan." Zach paused for a moment, but as he looked over his shoulder and thought about continuing the run, he shook his head and refaced Midoriya as this was more important than checking out the safety of this abandoned building he really only entered to get a quiet moment with Midoriya. "And now, villains around the world know that Intanzo's the current Kingpin of Japan."

"People think he's more dangerous than Shigaraki Tomura," Midoriya said in a low voice, a scar on his back burning as he said it.

"And we know they're wrong," Zach replied. "But Intanzo is dangerous. To be known as the most powerful villain in the country most people associate with having the strongest heroes, it's not an easy feat. Intanzo shook the world though. The Nara Raid incident happened back when Endeavor was off with the ADTF fighting the League of Shadows' smaller groups who they tracked all over the world with the information we got from their headquarters. All the huge arrests being made around the world had everyone here excited, but that incident is what got the ADTF to split back apart, as Endeavor needed to return to Japan for a while which caused the rest of the ADTF to break off as well. Not to mention all those heroes dying in their homes countries, forcing those strongest heroes to split apart and go home themselves, only for many of them to be killed too even if they had quit the ADTF."

Zach paused for a moment and then continued in a low voice to his friend listening closely to his every word, "King didn't have anything to do with Intanzo though. The Radians' base was found, and the raid team went in for them, and every one of the heroes involved was killed." Zach knew Midoriya already knew it, but Midoriya did not understand the importance of it on a wider scale and the green-haired boy nodded at Zach to continue explaining as he paused. Zach continued after seeing that nod, "Surviving police officers part of the raid reported that a Tartaros escapee, Camoflora, who Yoroi Musha had put in there himself was working with Intanzo. The two of those old men fought each other in a brutal fight that resulted in both of their deaths. On the other hand though, Intanzo alone killed Floodgate and five other pro heroes with her, along with eight sidekicks of those pros, and twenty-six police officers."

Zach said those numbers and ground his teeth for a moment in frustration, and Midoriya got a dark expression on his face too with his eyes shifting down to the ground. Zach continued after a moment of silence for those people he just mentioned, "Endeavor, Hawks, Best Jeanist, Lemillion, and Kamui Woods were all out of the country at the time. They had to rush back there immediately. Endeavor was flaunting his victory against the League of Shadows, and everyone could see that and knew why he was doing it, but the fact was that he was out of the country and couldn't respond to the attack before Intanzo escaped."

Midoriya nodded as he remembered how those top heroes all returned to the country, and yet the news still put them on blast for not being there to stop the Nara Raid from going so horribly wrong. _They were blamed for putting the needs of other countries before our own. Especially since there were not many villains in Japan getting caught after the League of Shadows' raid, compared to other countries at least._

"Afterwards," Zach went on, speaking a little quicker as this was not as important to what he was talking about. "Intanzo was put on the most wanted list, and he quickly rose to the top as the Radians carried out attacks more confidently through February, and killed or maimed various heroes who came after their group. Until that bad loss near the end of the month that resulted in the capture of a few of their higher members, when their attacks became less frequent and they faded out for a while. The point though, is that Japan's villains were facing off against Japan's powerful heroes, and the last thing King wanted to do was drag Endeavor back out to lead the ADTF again after his forces. He liked how the ADTF were separated and easier to kill. But he would leave it up to the big villain names in Japan to take care of Japan's ADTF forces: the Jazz, the Subspace Devils, the missing League of Villains, and the Radians led by that maniac Intanzo. As much as I left dealing with those villains to you guys, King and the international villains of the world mainly left Japan's powerful heroes to them."

Midoriya shifted his eyes to the side for a moment in a frustrated way, and Zach could see why he would feel that way. _All the biggest problems in Japan, are really just isolated to here. That's what he's saying. Zach was fighting villains on a global scale while we've just dealt with villains on a national level. But, he came back here,_ Midoriya's eyes shifted back and his expression intensified again at what that thought meant. _Which means the villains here really are the worst. As strong as all those monsters were he was facing around the world, he doesn't think the ones here were weaker, he really just thought we could do it without him. Then he comes back, and he takes down the Subspace Devils like it was child's play._

Midoriya took in a deep breath and pushed away any negative emotions towards what he just thought. _Which was a good thing. He saved a lot of people that day, and somehow he managed to convince everyone he did it within the rules again._ "Italy," Midoriya reminded, wanting Zach to continue back on track.

Zach nodded at him and his expression returned to normal too as did Midoriya's. They both knew the time period Zach was going to refer to now, and Midoriya listened closely as Zach responded to what he had asked before, "King had so much power unrivaled. Villains were most of the time weaker than pro heroes, so to be able to order villains to go hunting for heroes was something shocking. I didn't expect so many villains in so many countries to suddenly attack like that, and I was not the only one. Most people in the world would not even be able to fathom what was happening though, so no one put together that it was one man orchestrating all of this and not a coincidental incidence that in February, after the raid on the LoS' HQ, more heroes were killed worldwide that month than in the three months before put together."

Zach paused for a moment and then finished to his shocked friend who had never heard that statistic before, "Even though the crime rate continued to decline steadily in February across much of the world." Midoriya's eyes shot open wider, as that _was_ a statistic he had heard mentioned often throughout February and March. He recalled back then a lot of heroes dying, but those heroes were treated so favorably upon their deaths and people celebrated their lives and their final actions which the fall of villains were being attributed to.

"As the heroes lost forces though, from mutilation and death and forced retirements, or from them resigning out of fear," Zach added the last bit in a lower voice more disappointed and sad than the steadier voice he had said the other parts with. For some reason, Midoriya felt the same way though, as he imagined the look on Ms. Joke's face the last time he went to see her to ask what Faith had said to give Wrangler a heart attack. Zach's low voice shook Midoriya out of that sad feeling they both just felt though, "My forces grew faster than they ever had. The reign of terror King caused across the world could be seen by those in the shadows, vigilantes, anti-heroes, some heroes who could see it and what I was doing, and victims who wanted to help… And as I countered all of King's movements and orders around the world, and recruited more forces to help combat his _thousands_ of allies, I fought against the Italian mobs in Italy. I stopped assassination attempts on Michelangelo and protected towns from the mafias working with the worst villain groups that had emerged in that time."

He paused for a few seconds, then he continued in an even quieter voice, "The President of Italy was being paid off by the mafia, and so the heroes in Italy were only to focus on the unaffiliated villains while the mafias who acted in public had police teams alone investigating them. However, the police on those teams were all assigned by higher-ups in the police department who were as corrupt as the president and only picked incompetent and other corrupt cops to head those investigations." Midoriya's bottom lip dropped farther at every word Zach just said as he did not doubt it was true, yet he found it so hard to believe. _The President- wait, but didn't the Italian President…_

"…The paper trails and information we found at the League's HQ was only the tip of the iceberg for corruption across the world," Zach told his friend looking so shocked before him. "A lot was probably destroyed before we could get to it too. And forced to hand everyone over immediately to Endeavor and the ADTF as I was, there was no way I could interrogate any of them. I was lucky enough to be able to escape from there without having Endeavor chase after me." Zach paused and then said in a lower tone, "But after that day, more and more people with power were threatened and blackmailed and bribed every day to keep up with my own quickening of the pace of rooting out all that corruption."

"What you're saying," Midoriya started, his tone full of disbelief and his eyes narrowing as he did not want to believe this. "The Italian President? All the police in Italy?"

"It wasn't all of them," Zach said darkly. "But it _was_ a lot. I never wanted anyone to know how bad it was though. I didn't want everyone to lose faith forever in those symbols of authority and democracy. So I went on my own campaign of counter-terror," Zach said, the corners of his lips lifting up and a scary look appearing on his face that gave Midoriya the chills. Zach rose an eyebrow while smirking at Midoriya like he just showed him how scary he could be, but Zach kept that expression even as he continued, "And although I didn't expose everything which I felt would've destroyed faith in our societal systems, I threatened the president and forced him to stop and to not run for reelection, which he didn't this past election season, retiring instead. And I brutalized the corrupt cops and got men fired or arrested for taking bribes, and I told some Italian heroes what was happening which got them all doing more because now they knew what had been kept from them."

"That's not the way to- you should have just turned everyone in to heroes you could trust," Midoriya said in a firm and disapproving voice of Zach's actions. "All of those cops who never got arrested, the Italian president who was there when I was, who isn't in prison now even though you're telling me he was a villain-"

"I tried it your way first," Zach said. He said it and quieted his friend with that single statement that made Midoriya hesitate to continue arguing his point here. "You remember Arkistan?" Zach asked in a low, regretful tone. "That's where the Syndicate were. The ones who had planned the Christmas Nuke." He reminded Midoriya of what he had said so quickly back on Inazuma Island, but what Midoriya had not forgotten a word of as it had shocked him to his core at the idea of. He also felt bad for Zach bringing it up now, as he remembered Zach talking about that kid Phinx killed who had 'died in his arms.' Zach continued as he saw Midoriya give him a slow nod to go on, "It seemed like the obvious move to me. I had discovered so much corruption, and I had proof of that corruption implicating Prime Minister Fornkak, dozens of high-level government officials, chiefs of police, and heroes," Zach finished that with his most regretful voice.

"I turned over _every_ hero, no matter what their crime was or how corrupt," Zach said this while shaking his head at the mistakes of an earlier him. "I handed over everything I had to G-4 and Tyton, and they gathered up Urakao, Gizmo, and the Rynzo Group, and they did a clean-up of the entire country. It felt like my biggest win I'd ever had. I learned about the League of Shadows down there, and I saw how widespread the Fergus Conglomerate's power really was with the Atlas Corp's involvement. My comrades who died in the Dragons' Den, the Syndicate's mountain headquarters, I believed I was doing them a service by revealing all Arkistan had to hide. I believed their deaths had meant so much because of all the arrests that were made. But, the number of arrests wasn't what we cared about. The number of villains we stopped wasn't it either. It was supposed to be about making the world a better place."

"I don't follow," Midoriya said, shaking his head as Zach's regretful tone did not make sense to him here. "What you did there sounds like the most good-"

"And what happened in Arkistan in January and February?" Zach questioned. "You were focused on Japan mostly, with all that was happening here I'm sure," Zach said it with a darker expression at Midoriya who was speaking carelessly to say what he did was good. "You clearly didn't follow what happened in Arkistan next, and neither did a lot of the world who just reported good things about how all that corruption was stopped."

Zach took in a deep breath and steadied his angry expression back to just a serious and informative one again. "Removing all those government officials left the country weak. It put people in charge with little experience, and who were also easy to corrupt because they were not ready for the pressures of bribes and threats. Few of the new leaders were able to resist. Worse, those heroes who I exposed and who were all arrested or stripped of their hero licenses for any amount of corruption they were a part of, they included some of Arkistan's strongest. Arkistan was now down half its best heroes, and the Syndicate were gone which meant it was open season for the villains who rose back up there the _second_ I left the country. While heroes were all focused on each other and the government, lower level villains in Arkistan dug their claws in and gained power quickly. The League replaced their fallen contacts with the Syndicate with contacts with the new strongest villains there. And that wasn't even the worst part. Revealing the Atlas Corp, I really only wanted to expose the people working with Mr. Fergus-"

"Wait, when you say 'Fergus,' you mean there was an actual villain-"

"Named Mr. Fergus," Zach finished for Midoriya. "With the most annoying fucking Quirk, Possession and Beams. A composite Quirk, which we were screwed against but somehow managed to defeat during the world loop." Midoriya shook his head around as there was too much new information he was receiving to absorb at one time. Zach continued back on track though anyway without further explanation on Mr. Fergus, "But the Fergus Conglomerate employed millions of people around the world. All those subsidiary companies like the Atlas Corporation, they weren't all evil. In fact, those companies were some of the best, more humanitarian companies in the world. It was why they were so hard to notice. Why no one ever suspected anything of them, because of all the advancements those companies had made in medicine and Quirk knowledge, technology and agriculture, science in general. The Fourth Eye existed inside every single part of the Fergus Conglomerate though, Fergus' own secret society controlling something much more powerful than a country: a group of corporations. And I wanted to stop them Midoriya, I _needed_ to stop him after all I saw he was doing. The worst fucking villain in the entire world," Zach said it with a shake of his head and twitch of his right eye that went away quickly but not fast enough that Midoriya did not notice it and feel his stomach drop at the sight of.

"But it wasn't just the corrupt ones who lost their jobs when I exposed the Atlas Corp," Zach continued again. "Their stock prices fell. Investigations started into different companies Fergus controlled, and legitimate plants were shut down, and good people lost their jobs and fell on hard times because of what _I_ did. The Syndicate and Arkistan felt like my first big win since Mongoloid and SISIS, but I fought for months after that and I saw the long-term effects that my actions caused wherever I went. And the long-term effects of what I did in Arkistan were mainly negative. And I learned from those mistakes," Zach finished, his eyes narrowing as he came back around to how Midoriya originally countered his way of dealing with Italy's corruption.

Midoriya's eyes widened again as the way Zach dealt with things in Italy was not just some illegal, rash method of dealing with things Zach's own way. _He learned from experience. Every 'loss' he had taught him something. And his losses happened on huge scales with millions of lives on the line. I- I don't have the experience yet to actually say- but I know what should and shouldn't go on. I know what you should have done… Or, I know the "right" way that things should have been done. The way you did them in Arkistan. A way, that you saw put the country in worse shape._

"Back to Italy," Zach suggested again. "As I went off against the corrupt in Italy and forced them to work with me and heroes more than with the villains, I also went hard at attacking the worst Italian mobs, which succeeded in pulling the most powerful Italian gangsters out of Russia." Midoriya got confused again and Zach explained, "They had gathered there with their strongest men at King's compound in Siberia. I first went after King's biggest hideout in Italy but he had already left, and so often I was a step behind him. There's something you don't realize about King, Midoriya. All over the world King was directing killings of heroes, maintaining his control over the mobs with the League of Shadows' backing as powerful as they had ever been with King's men taking charge of Zolo's activities, and Bolivar mainly running Turbo's weapon facilities and moving them around."

Zach's expression darkened more as Midoriya stared at him in shock hearing this. "And when I took down Bolivar, it didn't take long for all of Bolivar's powerful Pueblos to flock to King and gain more power by allying with him. Power that would last even after I defeated King to make those men into the new most powerful forces in the world." Zach shook his head with his teeth clenched, thinking back on that cycle, how every time he took down a powerful villain, more of them were waiting to take that villain's place. He relaxed his jaw though and shook his head to get that frustration off his face, then he continued in a steady voice to Midoriya with his expression looking less like Zach Sazaki's each second to more a face that Midoriya associated with Death.

"I hit the peak of Quirk warfare in Italy, and Russia. Because I hit the Italian mafias hard when they sent their strongest fighters over to Russia to back up King, and so the mafia bosses sent their strongest guys back to deal with me. But then before King could replace that drop in his force's strength, I attacked with the forces I had already been gathering up at the same time." Midoriya stared at Zach in awe as his friend continued on about his strategies and how he had done this feat that Midoriya never had any idea the planning that went into it. "I trusted Mother Russia, and I trusted that the heroes she trusted in Russia and Eastern Europe could be trusted with the plan too. She was there when Kaminari betrayed us. I knew she would not fall for anything, and I searched out other heroes I could trust too. We gathered up a force we could trust, while my own forces bulged and trained harder, practiced and strategized and got comparatively smarter because of how many fights we were in daily against how little experience King's guys were getting just fleeing from me."

He paused and then continued in a low and intense voice, "Taking down King was the biggest victory of the war. I mean that, in that I felt it was because there were no negative consequences. I didn't feel a _single_ loss that day. Not a single lasting casualty, a few first deaths, but no one I couldn't revive, while I took down the most powerful man in the world." Midoriya's hands trembled and his eyes shook as he stared at the person in front of him who just said that to him in a serious and truthful voice. And as hard as it was to accept, it was not hard at all for him to believe after all he had already heard.

"How?" Midoriya whispered, and he doubted his voice could have come out any higher in volume than that.

"The Italian mobsters still at King's Russian compound called back their strongest fighters who they needed for assistance," Zach began. "But I expected that and had a trap waiting for their transportation which allowed me to capture those men as well without even having to face their powerful Quirks that could have turned the tides of the fight, or at least killed a lot of my troops. I made precise plans, precision attacks on every soldier. I knew the exact layout of his fortress including the extensive basements, and I put out misinformation to make King think I was in Italy at the time, and to make him think that I had no idea where he was or what his forces were like or what his base's layout was. My strategies were superior and my men better trained. I had to bring a force of heroes large enough that it would be believable that they defeated King and his army without me, because I also needed them to take the credit for something so huge that my force could never be accredited for. And I was able to convince those heroes why that was so necessary, and in exchange for his life, I forced a captured King to order all his men to go along with the story too."

"You would have killed him-"

"Maybe," Zach replied. "But maybe not. There _were_ heroes all around me. And killing him would have made it less likely they would keep their mouths shut about my appearance. We had won that day, without killing a single villain, or losing a single member of our allied team. It was as perfect a victory as my fight against the Subspace Devils, except on a global scale with a villain a thousand times more powerful and influential than Overlord ever was or would be." Zach paused for a moment and then lifted his flat lips into a small smile, his face actually going back to looking normal as he said nostalgically, "In the end, it was Darling and I who fought King together. The two of us against that monster shocked by our appearance in his base, in his very command room before he even had time to organize a solid defense. And oh, it was a battle Midoriya. The fight of our lives up to that point. Everything that was on the line. The pressure, King's insanely powerful Quirk, his fighting skills too, but Darling and I were in sync. We moved as one weapon and took down that villain like it was what we were meant to do."

Zach paused for a moment, and then he added still in a soft voice, "And then I got my reports from all the other teams. How each of them had taken the rooms they infiltrated. How in a few minutes, we had taken down hundreds of powerful villains. A force larger than our own. The villains who every other villain in the world thought were the strongest and most powerful of them all. Taking down King, and giving the credit all to heroes while the villains knew who was really responsible, it struck a fear in them that turned the tide of the war. It's why March and April had the steepest declines in villain activity in decades, because of what I did a year ago this month; taking down King like he was nothing but a fly in my wake. As strong as he was, I made it seem like I had done it with ease. And even though he was the most powerful, I still accepted no credit and stayed fully in the shadows, proving to all villains of the world that glory and fame meant _nothing_ to me. We were ghosts. Shadows hunting them down that not even King could escape."

Midoriya felt his hair stand on end at the back of his neck. His hands almost clenched into fists at the scary way in which Zach was speaking, and yet what he was saying sounded so good for the world that his own instincts to get defensive there did not win over this time. Zach continued without noticing the shift in Midoriya's demeanor in a strange way, "I took off the head of the League of Shadows who had remained so powerful through my removal of three other Shadow Bosses, effectively shattering the organization. Its various parts could not hold together without King on top, and their strongest lasting connections were in Wampajawa where the villains could still meet and interact freely without consequence for another month."

"Wampajawa?" Midoriya asked. "You've mentioned it before."

"The Siege of Razmatan," Zach replied, and Midoriya's eyes shot open huge that that was the response Zach had for him. Zach shook his head though and added lower, "A story for another day. What I did in Italy and Russia, taking King down and the strongest mobsters with him, it left a power gap at the top. Villains adapted after King's defeat and stepped into that gap, but with new and better tactics and technology and improved drugs and experiments. They had to improve because they saw the power I had. The stronger I got, the stronger they got to combat me. That very night after taking down King, I went southeast towards Mongolia for the raid on one of King's lieutenants there before he could move or take actions to gain more power, but I heard at that time that in-"

"You did that the same night?" Midoriya asked in shock, as Zach had just told him about what sounded like the most impressive and biggest battle he had ever heard about.

"What?" Zach wondered back, like the disbelief was not warranted. "Stopping wasn't possible. Everyone adapted too quickly, and I could never move fast enough to stop everyone at once. So I was constantly moving. It's partially how I kept King from knowing when my attack was going to be. My forces had attacked villains in South America and Africa the night before the raid on King's compound. As much planning went into the attack, I was planning it out between fights against different villain groups that I was also planning strategies against and planning future raids on in other continents in dozens of other countries," he paused as he saw Midoriya looking too shocked by all he was saying that it was like he could not even process all of this at once.

Zach continued after a moment in a low voice, " _All_ villains were my enemies. I was either calling up heroes to go after them when I found them, or going after them myself. And with so many heroes dying and peoples faith in their heroes low, I wanted the heroes to only be winning so I only really gave them the fights that were easy, once I was able to. The ones that I hoped they could all survive easily… though sometimes if it was a hero I knew to be really strong I would have them go. But my own troops were more disposable than heroes." Midoriya's eyes bulged to hear Zach say that, but Zach's expression was hardened and unshaken even seeing Midoriya look at him like that. "I loved them," Zach assured his friend. "They were my brothers and sisters in arms, but they were faceless and nameless men and women whose lives did not matter to the people of the world who would never know if they died or not. Heroes, were meant to be symbols of the strongest in society, pillars to protect people in a time where that was sorely needed. So when they were always winning and surviving and capturing all these villains I handed to them, they looked like those symbols and pillars again."

"I captured the more powerful villains, took on the strongest, sometimes with the help of heroes I called in or went to assist if they were biting off more than they could chew, but I always tried to give heroes the credit." His friend grit his teeth in front of him, and Zach could see how frustrated Midoriya was getting hearing him say all this without even bragging about it. Midoriya wanted to think that Zach was bragging to him, and yet what he just said reminded him how the 'credit' was never important to Zach. "And when during those fights, villains would kill each other with splash attacks meant to kill us, or try and fire a bullet through a comrade's head into my soldiers, those were the times I would tell the heroes to mention my involvement. Keep it so that villain casualties were not the fault of heroes being too reckless and brutal with their enemies, but that it was a group of terrorists who ignore the rules that caused it to happen."

Midoriya let out a heavy breath and he shook his head. _How he created his label as a terrorist. He's telling me straight out, and I understand it, and yet you still were one. Even if you were the one who declared yourself a terrorist anyway! That doesn't, change the facts. You change the facts. Facts? I'm learning our whole history right here, and I'm trusting that everything you're saying is true._ Midoriya looked deeply into Zach's eyes, and he thought, _And it is. All of this is the truth. It's a truth I desperately wanted to know. I knew you were playing everyone. Planning out so much while out there as Death. I knew you had to be using the media and manipulating… but to this level? To the extent, that history bent around your whims? That you could decide to expose corruption or let it go unnoticed, and forever after everyone will think of things the way you wanted them to, it's insane. And what's even more insane, is that you acquired all that power in the span of a single year._

 _He understands it now,_ Zach thought while watching the gears turn in Midoriya's head. He saw his friend look at him in a way finally, truly, understanding like no one else did. _No one outside of my army, and probably Eziano, really gets it. Iida couldn't wrap his head around it as quickly as you. He never could. But you always knew what I was doing, Midoriya. I told you for so long how I was going to use everything to change things for my goals. And you saw me doing it. You called me out on it long before I left this place._

"I kept it so everyone didn't just see how strong heroes are, but how _good_ they are too," Zach finished in a soft voice, after talking about how he always took all the blame when villains were killed. "I had the power to do something like that, and I could see that I had that much power, so I used it for so much more. In Italy, when the strongest mafias and villain groups fell, other mafias started gang wars and came up on top. It all happened again like things were before the age of villains, and the mafia families had alliances and worked to stay in the shadows and stay alive and continue to commit crimes. But when I changed their ways instead of just removing them, it was different this time. There was no power gap like there was in Arkistan. Villains couldn't just rise again in that society, as much as a new business can't just emerge in an existing market without coming up against so much better competition from those who have been there longer. Villains and economics, not mutually exclusive either."

 _Like war and being a hero,_ Midoriya thought back to an earlier conversation the two of them had had a while back.

"Their position in society is already filled up," Zach said. "And it's filled by people who aren't actually committing crimes. It's why Italy's crime rate is so low right now, because people thinking of turning to villainy would sooner turn to joining a mafia where the members don't get arrested and everyone treats each other like family. They'd prefer that to turning to a radical villain group that even the mobs are all against now instead of working _with_ them like they did earlier last year." Zach stopped for a moment and then he grinned in a way that made Midoriya feel so much dread at the look on his black-haired friend's face. "I changed Italy at its core. Altered the societal dynamic and filled the position of villains with non-criminals-"

"And with one of your own in control of that class, to make sure it never descends back into criminal again," Midoriya finished. Zach's smile lowered down and his lips fell flat, like Midoriya's while he stared intensely back into Zach's steady and bold eyes unafraid of anything. "Don Gino, they call him now." Zach did not say a word, and Midoriya spoke louder, "He's one of yours, isn't he?"

"I don't know what you mean by that," Zach replied, turning his back to Midoriya and running off. Midoriya thought he was running away for a moment, but Zach continued speaking in a regular tone which made it feel like he was just continuing the run as if they had not stopped for 10 minutes there. "Because I'm not Death. Which means I don't have anyone-"

"Do you really think that?" Midoriya asked, suddenly on Zach's right side and a little in front of him which made Zach's eyes widen at how fast Deku just moved to get there. The wind rushed past Zach and made his spiky hair wave around, even though it was styled up over his head. It had grown a bit longer since Zach got out of Tartaros and had it cut, but he was still able to style it in the same way he had right after getting the 'do. Midoriya stopped Zach in his tracks, as he asked in a dark voice, "Do you really think that if you left and went back to them right now, you wouldn't be welcomed back as Death?"

Zach froze at the question that had never been asked of him before. He looked at his friend, his heroic friend whose expression was so intense at the question. And Zach replied in a soft voice, "I, seriously don't know. I don't know who's still alive back there. I don't know if the guy I left in charge, is still in charge. I don't know anything about them anymore. There could have been so much turnover already. They could have all been killed and I'd never know. Or most of them could have been, and then the few who remained recruited more people who I don't know and wouldn't suddenly accept me as their leader." Zach's response made Midoriya open his eyes wider and wider the longer Zach went on it.

 _Has he not thought of it before?_ Midoriya thought in as much shock as anything he had heard in that building. _It's like he's wondering right now, whether he'd be let back in- Why did I ask him that? I don't want him thinking about that!_ Midoriya spun back forward and continued running, snapping Zach out of his thoughts and making him smile as he ran after his friend who was the one to suddenly cut off the conversation and get running away this time. "Don't worry about that though," Zach assured his friend who he was sure _was_ worried by the way he ran off like this. Midoriya turned his head partially to the side and looked back at Zach's smiling face looking as heroic as the last time he saw it on the news. "Because I told you why I came back here, didn't I?"

"You're going to be a hero," Midoriya replied, and Zach nodded at him while running fully up to his side.

"And as heroes, we should check out the floors above too," Zach suggested with a nod up, as they had just run into another room that had a tall ladder going all the way up to the top of the building past two other levels of mostly steel walkways and catwalks. Midoriya glanced up too, then back at Zach who he continued looking at with a hesitant look for another few seconds, before lifting the corners of his lips a small amount and nodding back at him amicably.

"Let's do it."

* * *

"…I told Midoriya it was important, but he didn't really get what I was saying," Zach said while standing next to Yaoyorozu, the two of them under a gazebo in Musutafu Zach liked as it felt like a lucky spot to him. The last time he had gone there he was half-convinced Todoroki was going to arrest him, and since then he and Todoroki had eased back into a less confrontational relationship, which he saw as a complete win. He was smiling while he talked to the tall girl next to him, and though he wanted to lean back on the side of the gazebo he also did not want to step back from her to do so. _Leaning back like that with her, it'd make it look like I'm trying to act cool or something. Doing it with those three guys I was just, I don't know, it was a relaxed way to stand- Am I not relaxed? I feel relaxed._

"If those costumes had gotten out there, and the villains got their hands on them," Zach paused and shook his head with an ominous tone in his voice before the hesitation. "Well, I don't want to think about it, or I didn't, at the time. It would have been a waste to just think of how big a victory it was, by thinking of all the negative consequences it could have had. But had King's men all got those support items and costumes, and not just the hundreds he had hiding with him, but all his affiliated gangs around the world? As soon as the League of Shadows were revealed, King took advantage of it and the fact that he had escaped Death and Endeavor, the AoD and ADTF," Zach lifted his coffee and took a quick sip before lowering it while shaking his head again. "Every gang in the world he contacted knew that King was starting something huge. It used to be that the Shadow Bosses only operated deep, deep in the shadows. King was revealed though, so he adapted immediately and was ready to arm his forces on all corners of the world in a couple weeks. I doubt even Vermon knew what he was getting into, or to how big an extent the damage would have been-"

"It does sound like that would have been very bad," Yaoyorozu agreed with a nod, and she lifted her own hot coffee to take a sip from it.

"Definitely. As much as trade was being disrupted at the height of the villain activity, stuff like hero costumes and support items were always more heavily guarded than other products. Plus, most countries just built their own and did not outsource with that sort of thing, so it was even harder for King to get that kind of armaments all over the world." Zach paused for a moment and he lowered his smile a little at the look on Yaoyorozu's face that made him feel like she was not too into this conversation. _She didn't say much right there either. It's more like I'm just the one talking. Should I ask how her day, was? No, no if she's letting me see that, is there something I'm doing wrong right now?_ "This is all," Zach started slowly. "The truth. I mean that," Zach assured afterwards as she rose her eyebrows and looked at him in surprise at the sudden shift.

"I know," she replied, her eyes returning to normal though Zach still felt uneasy by the way she was looking back at him. Yaoyorozu felt that strange feeling as well, as she looked at Zach looking back at her in a doubtful way at her expression. "I know, you're telling me the truth now," Yaoyorozu added, though her voice got softer there.

"Then, what's wrong?" Zach wondered. He was forward with it, and he said in a lower voice, "I'm sorry, for the stories. I tried- more with you than anyone else I tried to tell the truth."

"I know you did," Yaoyorozu replied again. "I remember," she assured him, giving him a small smile at the thought of one of their early conversations back before Darling or anything was revealed.

Zach nodded back at her, but both of their smiles lowered down slowly after a few seconds. He opened his mouth, closed it, then he started to the girl in front of him, "I just want-" he paused as her eyes focused on him, like she really wanted to know what it is he 'wanted.' Zach hesitated, then he continued to the eighteen year old girl in front of him with a spiky black ponytail, "I want things to go back to normal. Between us."

 _Normal?_ Yaoyorozu thought. Her lips stayed flat and even curved down a little, and she looked away and stepped to the right side closer to one of the railings of the gazebo. She almost leaned forward on it and sighed, but she held back and got a more frustrated look on her face while turning back around quickly. Zach pulled back at that spin, and Yaoyorozu hesitated herself with her head pulling back a bit. Then she stopped hesitating, and she frowned at the boy before her and told him, "Things aren't normal. You," she stopped, then her pursed lips that got like that for a second as she thought about all that horrible stuff he had told her a little over a week back, shifted back into an upset frown.

"I'm not angry," Yaoyorozu started to explain, as Zach was looking at her with eyes needing to know what it was she had to tell him. "Not about how you left," she continued. "Not even about how you came back," she added, though her voice rose a little as her hands started to curl up at her sides. "While you were in Tartaros though," Yaoyorozu looked into Zach's eyes and saw a hurt look flash through his eyes, but she did not just let it go there. "I came all the time. All the way out there, a far trip, but I never stopped coming," Yaoyorozu's voice lowered and her eyes stared at Zach in a way that made his shake at the expression in them. "I wanted you to change your mind. One of those times, just once, I wanted you to decide to come up there and talk to me. But you only saw me when you came out and were forced to."

"It's not because I was forced-" Zach started quickly.

"It is," Yaoyorozu countered back at him, her tone strong and unwavering like she knew that for a fact. Then she hesitated though, and she shifted her eyes down only to look back up and say softer, "It feels that way." Zach's chest clenched and he had to look away from Yaoyorozu's judging eyes. "It feels like, whatever your reasons for being here are, I'm not a part of them." Zach's eyes looked back and grew wider, but Yaoyorozu continued steadily towards him instead of reacting to that look, "I know you have _lots_ of reasons. I think those reasons are important too but- but I thought I was important to you. And I became an afterthought of yours," she said it without much of an accusing tone in her voice, but more assured like she did not need him to accept or deny it, as she already knew it was true.

Zach's expression steadied and his breath came out heavy in a sigh. His eyes shifted down and he thought to himself darkly, _She's not wrong._ He looked back up when she started talking again though, and he kept his mouth shut this time to let her speak.

"You left seemingly for good," Yaoyorozu went on. "And the whole time you were gone all I wanted was for you to come back, but then when you did you wouldn't even see me. You ignored me, didn't even give me a reason why for _six months."_ Yaoyorozu paused after emphasizing how long it was, searching his eyes for an excuse or reason he could give her. She only searched for a second though before stopping and going on softly, "I had so much I needed to tell you back when you returned, things I had needed to tell you that whole thirteen months. The longer you ignored me though, the less all those things mattered. How your seat had been empty since you left. How we had left it in the classroom and I had felt like that meant we all knew you were going to come back some day." Zach's eyes opened huge at what she was saying, but Yaoyorozu's voice did not have much of an emotional tone in it, and she just shook her head as she saw his eyes widen in what might have been an emotional reaction. "Or I hoped it did," she continued quieter. "That one day you would return to that seat, to our lives."

"They were things I needed to tell you and told myself I would if you ever came back. If I could just be sure that you were alive, I'd be happy… But then you did come back, you were within reach," Yaoyorozu's teeth clenched and her face got so frustrated as she glared at Zach from a few feet away. For the first time alone where she thought he would only respond with the truth, and because of that, how she really felt came out too. "I was in the same building as you, and I couldn't- I just-" She stopped herself and took in a deep breath to compose herself in a more professional way.

Yaoyorozu shook her head once while looking at the boy standing silently in front of her. "The longer you were in there, the less important those things became to me. The questions I had for you too. 'Why?' Didn't matter as much. 'How could you do that to me?' Apparently, I wasn't that important to you that that question even made sense." Zach tried to stand there and just accept the anger and grief, but he felt like weights just dropped on his heart, and he forced his arms to stay down instead of reaching up and gripping the left side of his chest.

 _I,_ Zach thought, pursing his lips to keep himself from shouting anything. The conversation was crushing him, but, _I don't want to tell you why I didn't meet with you! I- I knew it was an awkward amount of time to be gone. I knew some people might think of things in different ways… but I didn't think it would be worst for Momo. That the time was just too long, but not long enough- or maybe it wasn't about the time. Maybe it is what she just said and I messed it up myself only through what I've done since I got back._

"Well?" Yaoyorozu asked, as she was telling him all this and he hadn't interrupted again or tried to give a good explanation as she knew, or hoped he'd have.

"I don't," Zach started, a pained and hesitant expression over his face as he did not want to say a word. _Don't lie to her. Never again._ "I lost my mind," Zach whispered.

He said it aloud and Yaoyorozu felt her own chest squeeze at the look on his face. The look in his eyes as he said it, like he was admitting it aloud for the first time, it made a similar pain in her own chest as the one Zach had felt in his a minute ago. She shook her head while frowning though at the answer, and Zach's face scrunched up that that was not enough on its own.

"It was, why I threw myself in prison other than staying away from Darling," Zach admitted. His lips slammed back shut again, but then he opened them and said painfully, "I lost my mind in the Void. Absolutely, lost my mind, and I didn't know reality from fiction anymore." Zach paused and he added in a quiet voice, "I convinced myself they were just stories for stories' sake, in a deeper level of my mind than even the top level where I truly believed those stories. That I had made them just to have stories to tell, but I had- I had built myself a new reality." Zach shook his head as trying to explain this he knew he would come out as crazy, but he continued to the girl in front of him anyway, "In Tartaros, I was testing out my new reality on the guards. I passed it off all as training for telling my friends this same stuff later on, but that was how I convinced myself that it was alright for me to spend all day every day inside a fantasy world of my own making. Just, that I needed the details to make sense. I needed it to be _convincing._ I needed to make it so detailed, and so thorough, that it couldn't possibly be a lie."

"Why?" Yaoyorozu whispered. "Why was it so important, to lie to all your friends? Couldn't you have just- you could have, stayed vague. You could have withheld things-" Yaoyorozu paused and she curled her fists tightly again. Zach looked at her in a pained way too, as the way she just suggested to him was how they used to talk to each other. The vague things, the way he trailed off in conversations, or how he didn't talk about things he wasn't comfortable with. "I told you, a long time ago, that you never have to feel like you have to force yourself with me," Yaoyorozu reminded in a quiet voice.

Zach's eyes lowered down just as Momo's did in front of him. The two of them had a wider gap between them than when they were just sipping their coffee and talking about King after first reaching the gazebo. _I remember that day. Our date._ Zach lifted his eyes back up, and she lifted his eyes to him too. For a brief moment, the two of them smiled as they thought of that same day and could see the other thinking of it too.

Zach's lips dropped back down though first. _That day, at the table, I wanted to tell her everything. I had_ _ **wanted**_ _to never lie to her. But, I guess…_ "I'm not the same person I was back then," Zach started. _I don't mean that, in the way I used to. It's true though, to the extent I mean it now._ Yaoyorozu's lips lowered too but she nodded at Zach, as much in agreement about him as it was about herself too. "Admittedly, Momo," Zach continued. "I never thought about your feelings when I was lying to your face before Inazuma. It wasn't because I thought I would never be found out either," he explained, his eyes steady and neither guilty or regretful as he told her this. He shook his head once and just said to her, "But just because, something like that isn't… it's not something I think about anymore. The old me who couldn't even lie to Momo because it hurt too much, I came back to be that guy again," he said it seriously, nodding at her to show he meant it.

The two of them thought about the hospital. How he had told her how he was afraid she would tell him to call her 'Yaoyorozu,' how he had really seemed to want to tell her how he was really feeling.

Yaoyorozu heard his voice, _"How are you not- why are you not scolding me, or more mad? I killed people and- Why are you even here with me, after what I did to you?"_ It was the first and biggest sign to her that the person who had returned really was the same person who left. She remembered how his 'I'm sorry,' on the news, and the way he looked at her as he got off that bridge, they had given her hope. It was not until talking to him face to face though that she allowed herself to believe. _I wanted to believe it too much though. I ignored the signs._

 _"Did you think I cared about you so little, that what you did would really change that?"_ Zach sighed and he lifted his coffee and took a small unenthusiastic sip as he tore his eyes from Momo and looked away. _I was happy she was making things out like they were back to normal. She was happy I was back and telling her the truth. It was a nice moment, but if that was all it took… It was fleeting. We both thought with that one meeting that things could just go back to normal between us, but of course that was impossible._ "I should have realized, it wouldn't be that simple," Zach started.

"No, I wanted it to be too," Yaoyorozu countered with a shake of her head back. "We should have known that it couldn't be though."

"Yeah," Zach agreed, his voice steady even as the swirling darkness inside his chest pounded like his heart racing. The feeling expanded farther through his torso, and Zach just lifted his cup and took another sip with his breathing calm. His breaths were slow coming in and out of his nose, and he was manually forcing himself to breathe that way as he talked to the girl in front of him. _I think maybe my feelings changed. That's a lie. Why haven't I tried harder? Why didn't I tell her the things I held back for so long too, just like those things she wanted to tell me but never did- was it because of my time in Tartaros? Maybe that was it for her, but not for me. Before Darling, it was my self-hatred that made me want to pretend I didn't care for her in the same way anymore. No right to be happy. I couldn't even convince myself of that though, and I couldn't convince Darling either. She saw it, my lapse in judgement._

 _I've never stopped caring though,_ Zach thought with his expression flat and emotionless while raising his eyes back to meet Yaoyorozu's that searched his only for disappointment to fill hers. _I know, because even when I had lost everything Zach Sazaki had… When I was in the deepest thick of it, in the middle of the bloody war, with Darling throwing herself at me in what I knew were my final days… As I had already been denying that I was Zach Sazaki when people called me 'Zach,'_ _ **"I'm not Zach Sazaki-"**_ _I wasn't even right in the head, a mass murdering terrorist ideal. I had completely become Death, and yet there was another reason I could never be with Darling. Not while I was still…_

"Truthfully, lying to you wasn't hard," Zach said, thinking back on the conversations he had had with her when he told her about the same stories he did everyone else. Yaoyorozu looked at him hesitantly, wondering if he was lying now since he had gone on to tell her so much of the truth when she had given him looks showing she knew he was lying back then. Zach continued though, "I did so many more things so much more horrible than that, that to even consider something like that as horrible would be an insult to all those I killed. It would be a joke to imagine myself as righteous enough never to lie to you, when I'm a person who massacred-"

"Don't say that," Yaoyorozu said. Zach thought for a moment as he cut himself off that she was saying it for his sake, but her expression got angrier and he closed his mouth instead of countering how it was true. "You can't feel that way. I know you don't too," she said, her voice firm and almost annoyed which kept Zach's mouth shut but his eyes widening a bit.

 _Is she right?_ The knowing voice she had as she told him it made him question what he had just said himself. _Where did that rant even come from? It hurts to lie to her, doesn't it? Was I just lying? Can I even tell when I'm lying anymore?_

"In the hospital right after you were shot you really didn't want to lie to me," Yaoyorozu countered. "Those things you just said, maybe you don't think you have the right to feel bad for stuff like that after those horrible things you say you did, but you do feel bad anyway. It may not feel right to you to do so, but you are trying for those 'smaller' things as you're considering them. You always have, no matter how much was on the line for yourself and for the world."

"What do you-"

"You were right to break up with me," Yaoyorozu said. She said it firmly and continued to the boy looking at her in surprise that she would bring that up. She continued, "We both know it would have hurt me more if we were closer when you did what you did." Yaoyorozu paused and her fists started to clench at her sides again, as the most important thing she had to tell Zach for all that time was welling up inside her and climbing to the top of her throat. "You did that with everyone," she went on, shaking her head and continuing frustratedly, "Pushing us all away worked for so many reasons. Not just the practical ones to trick Raijin, but because you knew it would have hurt us all so much more… but Kyoka?"

Zach almost lowered his head in guilt, but he did not feel he had the right to do so with the way Yaoyorozu started glaring at him now. She shook her head and continued as he stood there and took it, "Those last two weeks, after what happened with Kaminari, you were closer to her than ever. _She_ felt closer to you than ever. And you know this!" She rose her voice even though they were out in public, and neither of them looked around to check if there were people in the park close to the gazebo. It did not matter to them at the moment. "I know you know it," Yaoyorozu continued softer, losing her angrier and more frustrated tone.

"It's what I really needed to talk to you about when I kept going to Tartaros. I, wanted to tell you that I forgave you, but that Kyoka needed help because of what you did." Yaoyorozu lifted her eyes back up in a pained way and added, "Help I was never able to fully give my friend. So when you turned me away, I didn't know what to think of it." The frustration was back on her face, but it wiped away quickly as she went on quickly, "I couldn't tell you, couldn't get your help, couldn't even talk to you about it and I- I see you now trying to fix that mistake without my help too. I watch you trying to help her because you _know_ what you did to her was- you were the only one she felt like she could talk to about it. Not me, not anyone else, but you-" Yaoyorozu stopped as Zach could not hold that steady look anymore, his eyes shaking at all she was accusing him of straight to his face.

She took in a deep breath to calm down, and her eyes finally glanced to the sides only to see they were still secluded with no one watching them. Then she looked back to Zach with an intense expression on her face, "But if it ever does come out what you did, and you keep lying, _especially_ to Kyoka." Momo shook her head at him and finished sternly, "You'll hurt her so much if you convince her of-"

"I'm not going to convince her," Zach said. Yaoyorozu frowned at him for interrupting her, even if he thought she was not going to fall for his stories or if she told him he wouldn't before. Zach was not referring to that though, and he said softer, "I said something on the walls of Hatto that I knew she'd remember me saying." Yaoyorozu's eyes shot open wide, as she had heard this before from the other way around. "When she listened as I drove off that night, I told her how for me it was about stopping villains. I wanted her to know," he finished softer, and Yaoyorozu looked back at him in a soft way too. There was a moment between them after Zach said that, something so real.

"I'm sorry I've been trying to do so much on my own," Zach started again. "And if you think, you know something that I could use to help Jirou," he paused and nodded at the girl in front of him that she should tell him whatever it was.

"You really messed her up inside, Zach," Yaoyorozu replied, her voice low and stern at him. It was not pained for telling him this even though she suspected it would hurt to hear. "It's the one thing I can never forgive you for. But the fact that you're here, trying, when you could be anywhere else," Yaoyorozu paused and she lifted her lips into a small smile back at him. "I appreciate it. It means a lot to me, and it may not mean a lot to Kyoka now, but we're going to keep trying. This is a mistake of your own making. You and Kaminari were her best friends..." _O_ _ur best friends._ "And in one month both were ripped from her. And neither were taken away, but they left on their own, after lying… she thinks your whole relationship was a lie just like the one she had with Raijin-" Yaoyorozu paused for a second, as she saw a look of pain flash over Zach's face at the wrong moment in her finishing statement to him. Her heart started racing faster and faster, as Zach lowered his gaze to the floor at the sight of her huge eyes staring back at him.

"And I'm going to fix it," Zach assured her. He turned away and stepped to the edge of the gazebo, leaning over the railing and taking a sip of his coffee. His expression returned to normal, while he took a long sip of coffee that he forgot to gulp down. He stopped drinking it too and stared out over the park as Yaoyorozu walked up to his left side, and as she stared at his face, he thought, _Don't forget to breathe._ His nose opened up more at the nostrils and he forced in a breath again.

* * *

 **A/N Thanks for reading. Finished this chapter and another 2 days ago but had long days of work today and yesterday that kept me from editing and posting 'til now. I'll try to post 179 after work tomorrow too though! And I'm already started on 180 so let's see for a quick update week ahead of us! Anyway, hope you guys enjoyed the chapter. We (and Midoriya) get a closer look at what Zach was fighting back in the AoD chapters that we never fully saw. Zach was fighting so much every day, that it was impossible to include everything in there or we'd still be in early AoD chapters had I not decided to allow a lot to happen between chapters. We hear about Zach's biggest victory this time though as he talks about how he took down King, recruiting a force of heroes he trusted to help and take the credit, threatening King and his men into going along with the story, misdirecting all his enemies, recruiting forces to fight that Shadow Boss, and actually fighting him himself with Darling at his side. Zach brings up his experiences and how he learned from them to make those choices that Midoriya had tried to counter him on based on what is right and wrong, and although the two of them hold philosophical differences they're still friends enough to go running together :) On the other hand, Zach and Momo finally get an earnest one-on-one conversation since the truth has been revealed, and the two of them understand the gap that has risen between them. Yaoyorozu finally gets what she needed to tell him ever since he was thrown in Tartaros off her chest, as the two of them both really want to save their friend.**

Aar0nC0le chapter 177 . Sep 12

Damn dude. Just spent the past week or so binging this between college and work. 100% worth the three hours of sleep I've been getting because jfc the suspense of this story? I can't put it down. ANYWAY Todoroki really had me nervous there for a second.. and I'm even more anxious as more people put it together that it's gonna get out and something terrible is gonna happen. I also really really need him and momo to talk soon. Like really talk. Idk if they will be able to actually be together because everything is so complicated but Zach really does deserve happiness and so does momo, or at least closure for a relationship they never really got. (If they do end up together this is an EPIC slowburn jfc) I'm also really concerned about Endeavor and the ADTF capturing Death and his crew. Idk what that would mean for Zach and al our beloved members of The AOD. Just really nervous, kinda thinking everything is going to blow up in my face here soon tbh. (Also my boi Zach needs hella therapy, especially after that void stuff. That's so fucked. I think I tested up a little bit in forest scene in the island like 4/5 chapters ago when he admitted to being death. That shit HURTED.) can't wait for the update! Thanks for this! -Aaron

 **Awesome! Great to hear I've got another reader, and thanks for the good review. Well... nice call on the Zach and Momo talk, though you're right and things are pretty complicated between them. Endeavor's got his plans, Todoroki's easing up a bit on the other hand, and Zach's getting a good amount of time to talk over his feelings and what's happened with the friends he's meeting with who know the truth. Glad I got you teary though in that forest scene a little back, and I hope I can keep up the suspense moving forward! Again, thanks for reviewing!**

saintpatrick17 chapter 177 . Sep 12

What the actual f*** are you? This story's existence is baffling. You've written 2.5 MILLION GODDAMN WORDS in a little over A SINGLE F***ING YEAR. The average novel for reference is 200k words, so you've written the equivalent of 10 novels in 1 year, which is more than some famous authors write in their whole lives. The thing that really confuses me, is that this story isn't dogshit either. Like the Subspace emissary is the longest work ever written in english but its not really a great story. Before I thought Marcus Galen Sands was a machine because he'd bang out 30k per month and his story is over a million words now, but compared to his story yours doesn't waste nearly as much of its time on pointless shit. I've had writer friends who wrote for literal 24 hour periods, as in they spent 24 hours just writing and doing nothing else, not even sleep, and they've written not only less than you, it was also worse, though to be fair sleep deprivation probably played a part in that. Like this isn't an actual review of your story, but I'm just f***ing absolutely dumbstruck by this f***ing story. I've never had an author update twice before I could finish reading their whole story, but you f***ing did. Like the only minor critique I've got is that you constantly say "their bottom lip dropped" but that feels weird and I think you should say "their jaw dropped" instead, but after 2.5 million words thats all I've got to f***ing complain about. I am terrified of the eldritch creature you will unleash when this story is finally finished, because I can't believe that you are a mere human being.

 ***Takes a bow* Lol but really thanks for the review, always cool getting reminded of how fast I'm writing, especially when I feel so often like I've been slacking on the story. I just really like this story, so it's pretty easy for me to write. Zach's my favorite character I've ever created in anything. I don't usually write OC stories either, like my last story before I was writing this one? Nexus and Nexus Heroes Will Rise are both around a million, million+ stories (really just the same one continued on a different story), but in that one I made it a point not to include even a _single_ OC in the whole thing. Was a pretty big shift moving into this one, and yet I got even more into this that I wound up dropping it/ putting it on pause for a long time at least. As long as you really like the characters and have a story to tell, I think it's easy to write because it's what I want to do. Don't know why I'm getting so into it here, but I just really like writing Death or I wouldn't have spent every day working on it for the past 15 months! XD Thanks again, and as for 'bottom lip dropped' thing, I usually put that instead of 'jaw dropped' to insinuate that their lip did not fall as far as it would have with jaws dropping, 'cause in my head a jaw dropping is like that cartoonish jaw on the floor kind of drop, and I'm not trying to put a mental image of that in anyone's mind for just someone's mouth opening a bit in surprise.**

Logargon chapter 177 . Sep 11

Wow only 30 more chapters, I just simply can't believe how great this story is. I'm gonna be sad/happy when it's over. I need to know how everything is gonna turn out

 **Ahhh, hey! Don't think of it as 'only' 30, but that there're still 30 more chapters coming to this! (also, my guesses have been off before, so I'll just say that if I am off with that number, it'll def be over 30 and not under. 'Cause I can always come up with more stuff, but I'm unlikely to ever just remove a whole arc I've got planned!)**

GuestP chapter 177 . Sep 12

Woah, holy crap.  
I haven't been reading for a while, and recently I was like "Oh no I haven't been caught up with Death! What's been happening Ineedtareadiiiit!"  
And then I found out I was 4 chapters behind. It was like you shoved four amazing super early christmas presents in my arms, smiled, and then said that there would be more to come.  
Things are super freaking intense, and I loved that chapter with the AoD - cause why wouldn't I, I'm a slut for them. ;)  
There are a lot(?) of new members in the AoD (I'm guessing) which is pretty cool, because even after all of this there are still people joining up. Gentle is doing an awesome job. And of course he's still a sweetie to La Brava, the little romantic.  
Lots of things the newbies don't know about, which means the Battle of the Six Armies aren't really widely known even in the army excpet for the OG AoD members.  
Awesome chapters, I loved every paragraph, except for the ones where Zach remembered Mark because it made me cry for my still fave character (it's so sad Zach wasn't able to be there for him, gosh, it was still really good tho).  
Welp, this is the longest review I've written, I think...  
Can't wait for the next chappie~~! 33

 **Thanks for the review! Glad you liked the chapters after a nice binge, and hope you enjoy the new one too! Mark was one of my fav characters too so it's tough killing him off, but glad those scenes get you emotional as it's the point of them. Anyway, thanks again for another review, and see you guys all tomorrow!**


	179. Chapter 179

**Disclaimer: I don't own Boku no Hero Academia**

 **Chapter 179:**

"Man, wish we could've got an overnight pass out," Tsuburaba Kosei called out while shredding down an icy slope on his snowboard. The boy with short spiky brown hair had it hidden under his helmet like his classmates skiing or snowboarding behind him down the black diamond trail. The trail was steep, and the fact that it was a busy day on the mountain meant all the fresh powder had long been pushed off by the people who had gone on the run throughout the morning. It was already past noon, and the easiest of the black diamonds on the mountain was still a tough trail, but it was the most frequented of all the hard ones despite its narrow path down.

"Can we go back to the blues?" Kendo called down, from near the back of the group of her friends who had convinced her to go down this trail on skis despite never trying a black diamond before. _Or back to the greens,_ she added to herself, though she had actually started feeling pretty confident about the intermediate blues by three hours into their ski trip.

"You're doing great for your first time," Komori called to her right at her classmate who she was staying back near, even though she was a solid skier herself. "Just keep it slow. No need to chase Tsuburaba."

"I'm not trying to go that fast," Kendo agreed with a chuckle. She put her ski poles into the ground and made a sharp S turn, and Komori smiled towards her and gave a thumbs up inside her snow gloves before turning herself a little closer to the edge of the trail near the trees. Kendo was nervous about how close Kinoko was getting to them, but her friend spun around quickly and then shot across the trail with her skis close together in a pro way better than more of their friends lower down than them.

The steepest part of the trail came to an end soon enough, and the black diamond turned back into a blue-black, which the trail sign showed by having a black diamond on top of a blue square. The trail was wider too and so there were paths to go on with more snow and easier conditions, and the students went down it in a more casual way. They started talking to each other in regular conversation too as the trail flattened out even more around halfway down the mountain from the top of the chairlifts. "I still can't believe Class A lost," Tetsutetsu Tetsutetsu brought up as he heard Tsuburaba and Honenuki joke about it up ahead of him. Tetsutetsu spun around a 180 twist on his skis and skied backwards for a few seconds to look at the girls behind him, "I guess we've always been the stronger class."

Tetsutetsu spun back forward while laughing and then grinning big as he still felt great about it as did everyone in his class. The rivalry had meant less to him in the past, but the more time that passed as people called Class A a 'symbol' of their society, he felt himself getting more into it. The worst part was that they would usually mention the symbols of their society, like 'U.A.,' and then they always just had to specify afterwards, 'And Class A, Deku, Explosion King, Ingenium…' like they had misspoke the first time by including all of them. As Tetsutetsu thought on the reason he felt excited though, at the prospect that people might consider more than Class A as their symbols, he thought about the most recent time he had heard talk like that even after the joint training.

Someone behind him was thinking it too, and Tsunotori skied up to Tetsutetsu's side for a moment after making a joke to Komori behind her about how disappointing it was that Kuroiro had not decided to join them. Kendo smiled while easing her head away back behind them as Komori's face had turned bright red, and a rumor Kendo had heard just the other day but decided not to pry into felt like it was being confirmed with the expression she saw on her friend's face. Tsunotori quickly got back into a different conversation though, and Komori could not risk going up and snapping at her without drawing the boys' attentions which was the worst case scenario here.

The short blonde girl whose long hair fell out of her helmet a bit like Kendo's, turned in towards Tetsutetsu and wondered, "What if it was just because of Sazaki-san?"

Kendo's eyes widened in some surprise behind them, and Komori's did too as her thoughts shifted away from a very black boy in her class to a different dark figure who appeared in her mind and made her shiver. Tetsutetsu looked to his left at the blonde girl for a second of surprise too, then he thought back on who Tsunotori's boyfriend had been for a long time and he humphed while facing forward again. "It couldn't have just been him," he muttered. _Though that's the excuse Kirishima gave,_ he added to himself.

"You guys talking about Zach?" Tsuburaba wondered while waiting with his snowboard pushing backwards on the ground to keep him tilted back and stuck in place waiting for his friends. A few people skied or snowboarded past them without glancing at the teens for more than a single look, as the group of them were pretty unrecognizable with their hair covered by helmets and their bodies by their heavy ski clothes. A few of them were wearing goggles too, though Tsuburaba had his propped up on the front of his helmet as he had put them like that once he stopped moving so fast that the wind bothered his eyes. "There's no doubt it was all his fault, but we can still hold this over those Class A's' heads. Unless they want to admit it was just one guy who made the difference."

"I think they'd prefer that than admitting it was the Shiketsu students who advanced so much more than them this past year," Kendo countered while finally skiing close enough to speak with Tsuburaba again. "And we know that they have improved a lot, as we have seen that improvement through all of our own joint trainings with them. Remember, we will have other exercises between our class in the coming months where we could lose the current standing we have above them." Kendo smiled as the rest of her classmates grinned at the class rep actually joining in with talk about their rivalry that she usually stayed above. She said it more in a way to encourage them to win their next training session too and to focus on it, and the others all agreed with newfound determination to win.

The group of them looked back forward as there was a turn coming in the trail, with a steeper trail dropping into the one they were on that connected from a different side of the mountain. "Let's take that one next," Honenuki suggested, before grinning back with all his teeth exposed by his lack of lips.

"That's totally a double black," Komori retorted and crossed her arms still holding poles in them. "Count me out. I don't even know if you can take the lift up to that side of the mountain if you're not an expert- like look!" Komori turned her head and looked up that trail to where someone was racing down on a pair of skis in a red jacket that looked like one of the ski instructor's or a first-aid station worker. The skis were long and thin, and the person using them looked like a pro as she raced down the mountain, her black hair waving behind her on a turn before she hit a mogul and bounced up. The heroes in training opened their eyes wide as she looked to lose control there for a moment, but she was good enough that despite getting flustered, she was able to regain control and cut sharply down the trail to another bump she hit that bounced her onto their trail that she continued racing down ahead of them.

"That was, dangerous," Kendo said, a bead of sweat rolling down her face as she continued going, a bit slower now. Seeing that woman who was so good almost lose it at that speed while heading towards the trees on the other side of that narrow and steep trail, it made her question her being out there as a beginner at all. _Definitely not touching that trail today. No matter how much they tell me-_ Kendo's eyes opened wider and her jaw dropped as she saw another pro skier, or at least she assumed they were because they came flying out of the trees a little past that connecting point of the steeper trail and their own.

"Hey! Be careful!" Kendo called to the person who she could not tell if they were out of control or not, though she suspected they were to have come out of the trees like that.

The person who landed down off the ledge they flew out of the forest above spun his head in surprise and looked up towards the group of teens skiing and snowboarding towards him. The snowboarders arrived first where the guy stopped, with Honenuki and Tsuburaba both not looking as stern as the others who were behind them. "Is there an actual tree-trail there, or were you just making your own?" Tsuburaba wondered, which made Honenuki glance to him thinking that was not what he should be asking there in a somewhat impressed voice.

As Honenuki glanced down at the person's short skis though, the person in front of him was looking through his black goggles at the bottom half of Honenuki's recognizable face in a lot of surprise. He lifted his head and looked behind Honenuki, specifically at the girl with orange hair sticking out of her helmet who had been the one to call to him. "That was dangerous," Komori scolded, skiing ahead of Kendo who just opened her mouth too. Komori skied around Honenuki and stopped more down the trail with a motion that pushed snow up in the air with her short sideways stop. "If you want to be reckless, you can do it all you want, but know other people are going to have to come save you if you hurt yourself. And I don't want to have to ski up there just to drag you out of some ditch with broken legs," Komori said it frustratedly, with a glance back up at how steep that "tree-trail" was, which was actually not a trail at all but just a forest with snow in it off of the steep double-black to its side.

"Huh, sorry about that," Zach started. He glanced around some more at the group, his face covered in a black ski-mask other than his eyes that had goggles over them with a dark orange tint in the lens. His voice was barely muffled by the thin mask but none of the others in front of him seemed to recognize him yet. He hesitated for a second, but then he smiled and he reached his right hand in its thicker black winter glove up to the top of his mask just below his goggles. He pulled his mask down and then lifted his goggles up to rest on the front of his helmet, and he looked at the group of six who stared at him in a moment of silent shock as Zach Sazaki stood in front of them. "Hey, nice seeing you guys," Zach told the group of Class B students, and he laughed at the dumbfounded looks on their faces.

 _Zach?_ Kendo stared at the black-haired boy whose helmet pushed some black bangs down over his forehead. The right side of his forehead had a scar in it though where his bangs did not push over just up at the line before the rest of it was covered by his helmet, but the rest of his facial scars were visible down to his chin where he had left the mask and covered up all the scars on his neck. "Zach," Kendo whispered, her voice stunned and her eyes huge and shaking as she looked at the teen in front of her who looked back her way before lowering his smile and getting a slightly confused look at the way she was staring at him.

Tsunotori Pony glanced to her side at Kendo too, surprised for a moment before looking back to Zach and smiling first out of her friends at the sight of him. "Hello Sazaki-san-"

"Call me Zach," Zach countered to the American girl who looked at him in surprise at the friendly way he said that to her.

"What are you-" Tetsutetsu started, before shaking his head around and finally losing the shocked expression he had. He turned and looked back to where Zach flew out of the forest on his skis, then he looked back harshly, "Just because- that warning still goes for you! You're supposed to be a hero," Tetsutetsu's friends all looked at him with wider eyes, and Zach looked at him in surprise too at what he was saying. "Doing something like that, you're going to influence others watching you to try it themselves, and they're going to hurt themselves."

"Shit, you're right," Zach admitted, glancing back up with a frustrated look forming on his face. "Didn't really think of that."

"You didn't?" Tsuburaba asked, then he shut up and shook his head around as this was such a strangely normal conversation to be having with the famous person they were just talking about. _He, doesn't seem like he's, changed? I don't know- it's like he's talking to us as if we haven't not seen each other in nearly two years! Weird…_

"No, I was just thinking about training," he admitted with a look back at the others. "Figure if I have to ski down a mountain in a hurry, chances are it's not going to be a ski mountain with easy trails to follow…" his explanation was not connecting with the group in front of him, and Zach sweatdropped before looking back down the mountain. "Anyway," he started, and he turned his skis back forward to continue down the trail. "I'll stay on the trail for now on, after lunch that is," he added.

"What-" Tsuburaba looked down the trail as Zach started skiing down it without saying anything else to them. He lifted a hand partially, his mouth opening and freezing like that as he wondered what he was going to call out. "What just happened?" he muttered as he finally dropped his hand back down, looking around at his friends to see if they knew what to make of it.

"Hey," Honenuki began, realizing something there that made him smile albeit hesitantly back around at the others. "Anyone else notice how he explicitly mentioned 'lunch' there at the end?" The others looked to him confusedly, and Honenuki shrugged his shoulders and said, "Why don't we make this the last run of the morning? He's probably going to break for lunch right now at the lodge, and I think he might've just invited us to join him."

Kendo's eyes opened wide, and she skied forward a little up to Honenuki and questioned, "You really think so?"

"Either that or he was just making conversation," Honenuki Juzo replied with a shrug. "But it didn't sound like he'd be against it."

"I'm down," Tsuburaba mentioned quickly. _He was training? For chasing people on skis down mountains? When would he ever need that- Has he needed it before? He looked, pretty experienced._

Skiing down to the lodge at the base of Yuki Yama Ski Resort, Zach glanced over his shoulder but still did not see anyone coming up behind him. _Wonder if they'll come eat with me. That was pretty surprising. I've been here all morning though, so I must have passed them a half dozen times before we actually noticed one another. I never wound up needing to know how to ski, but it was always a back-up plan if those exfils failed. Had them in Switzerland ready to extend to get me down the mountain should Scatterbox need to…_ Zach shook his head, frowning as he thought of a face that started to lose the skin over half of it in his mind's eye. _Kendo looked pretty shaken right there. The look I gave her seemed to work though. She's actually doubting it now._

 _He didn't recognize- it was like-_ Kendo was skiing down the mountain, and she almost fell again as her thoughts were unfocused on the activity at all. _Does he not remember? Was I just another… or was it even him? Iida was so confident it was. He knew Japanese, but it- it wasn't like he called me by my name. Death, called me 'Battle Fist.' He saved me first, sure, but I was the youngest one there. Maybe he just saved me first because of that? The look in his eyes, he genuinely had no idea why it was I was looking at him like that. Or- or am I just imagining things? Maybe he's that good a liar, that he can even fake a look like that?_

The group of Class B students put their skis and snowboards on racks outside the back of the lodge, and they headed in and over to the line for the food stations. It was a buffet style food court, where they grabbed trays and piled up whatever they wanted before going to the register to be charged. They searched around the lodge, before locating the table near the corner of the room that Zach was sitting at with a lot of seats around him. There were people looking towards him at the other tables nearby though, as he had his helmet off and his mask down as he was eating.

Zach's hair was not spiky like it normally was, as the helmet had given him hat-hair and made it all messy and looking longer than the last time most people around him had seen him on television. The Class B students who were walking with their trays heard some people muttering around him, some looking over excitedly and others with hesitant looks. Some people had their phones out and were recording, a few of them more subtly than others. Tsuburaba glanced around and hesitated for a moment at the sight of all those cameras pointed straight where he was going, but then he looked ahead and saw the teen eating a cheeseburger turn his head and lower it with a smile coming to his face as he chewed.

Zach rose his left hand and waved it at them, and the group headed over to his table and sat with four of them across from him, two on his side of the table. Tsuburaba sat with a gap between Zach and him, and when Honenuki came to his side of the table too he was left with the option to sit across from Komori on Tsuburaba's other side or closer to Zach and across from Tetsutetsu. He chose closer to Zach, and Zach scooted over a little on the bench of the table as his right side was closer to Honenuki. "You guys been here all morning?" Zach wondered as Honenuki was sitting down, continuing off like their earlier conversation had not ended and he was just picking up in the middle instead of mentioning how they had all come to eat lunch with him.

Tetsutetsu grunted and got into his own cheeseburger, as he had responses ready for how he knew Zach planned for them to come sit with him anyway if Zach asked the question he had thought was coming. "Yeah," Tetsutetsu replied.

Kendo unbuckled her helmet and she put it down on the floor next to her, then she leaned over and unstrapped her boots that were tight on her feet too. She did not want to eat her whole lunch with them strapped on like that, but she also needed an excuse to lower her head for a moment like that to hide her face from Zach. _Did he revive me? He met my eyes. He doesn't look like- Death was shorter. But so was he when he was put in prison! When he put himself, in prison,_ she corrected herself while sitting back up to look at Zach again.

"So Zach, Komori started, looking across everyone to the boy she sat farthest from. Zach looked over at the girl with short brown hair falling evenly around her head and who still had her bangs partially covering her eyes, though he noticed they looked a bit shorter than last time he had seen her. "Are you like, a pro skier or something?' She asked, still thinking on how he had flown out of the woods and off that drop on the side of their trail.

Zach rose his right hand and scratched the back of his head. "I've only gone a couple times before, actually," he replied. He lowered his arm and glanced around, and he lowered his smile a little as that did not get them all talking about skiing or anything. _This is awkward,_ Zach thought to himself, as only Komori and Tsuburaba really reacted to his response there. _It felt like they wanted to ask me questions when we were up on the trail, so I figured I'd give them the chance right now. Pretty weird though with people filming us. People are always watching and recording me though. At least a few have stopped since Komori glanced around at them. They probably weren't hiding how they were recording from anyone but me either, so the ones who know they were caught by them before they came over have stopped. No one's within range to catch what we're saying too, with the lodge full of as much noise as it is._

There was background music playing dully in the lodge, and people were speaking over that noise, and other people were speaking over the noise of their neighbors which made it impossible to hear people a few tables down from their own as long as they spoke in normal speaking tones. _The obstacles while I was skiing made it more realistic,_ Zach thought while grabbing some fries and eating them with a relaxed look on his face. _It was exhilarating even. Like I was in actual danger. Almost hit a tree several times there. Would have wound up killing them, so it's a good thing I managed to dodge. Even if I did fall thrice up there._

"Alright Zach," Tsuburaba started, leaning forward to look past Honenuki who glanced to his right with an annoyed look as Kosei could have just sat next to Zach if he was going to speak past him anyway. "I got to know, where were you that whole year?"

 _Well, that didn't take long,_ Zach thought as he looked back to Tsuburaba. _Wonder if they know anything from what I've told my Class A friends? Probably not considering that question._ "That's, a long story," he said, his voice sounding like he thought the question was a bit awkward and way too vague. "The whole year?" He repeated that part of what Tsuburaba said, checking to see if the brown-haired teen realized how difficult it would be for him to respond to that right there.

"Uh, yeah?" Tsuburaba replied, not seeing the problem in it himself as he really wanted to know. He never thought he'd find himself in this position, but with Zach acting in as friendly a way as he had been, he actually felt like Zach might tell them what he had wanted to know for so long now. "You didn't join the Army of Death, right?" Tsuburaba asked quieter, making all the others in Class B look towards him wondering if he felt at least a little bit of hesitation before asking something like that.

 _If he responds wrong-_

 _Shit Kosei, what are you doing-_

 _Idiot!_

"Nah," Zach replied with a shake of his head. Internal sighs of relief went through the heads of the others sitting at his table, only for them to stop too as Zach continued, "I was a vigilante for a while though. Just, unaffiliated with any country or group," he specified.

"Oh," Tsuburaba said. He opened his mouth again, closed it, and then he just said like that was interesting, "Huh."

"Being a vigilante is illegal," Tetsutetsu started in a frustrated voice at how calmly Zach just admitted that to them, heroes.

"Not everywhere," Zach countered. "All over the Americas, not just in the U.S., the countries don't really come after vigilantes much."

Tsunotori opened her mouth, then she closed it slowly and thought of a video she saw of Zach in a convenience store in Mississippi. A couple of her friends looked at her to see if she was going to counter that, but she just glanced around at them and shrugged her shoulders as it was not untrue. "It's still illegal though," she said to Zach. Then she paused and finished, "Technically."

"Yeah, but not much else I could do," Zach replied with a shrug of his right shoulder. He glanced around wondering if they really thought he was doing anything else, which got them feeling less confrontational about his response to Tsuburaba. Being less confrontational too, made them more interested instead in what it was he was doing if they could question it without having to judge so harshly as heroes.

"Were you with that girl the whole time?" Honenuki wondered, and Zach hesitated with his lips curling down at the question.

He tilted his head to the side though as it made sense for people to question him about that considering the one time he was caught on camera while he was gone. "No," he said simply. "As for what I was doing though," Zach continued, looking past Honenuki and to Tsuburaba who he'd rather respond to. "A whole lot of fighting villains. Surprised you guys didn't hear anything about it from the others in Class A I told," he added. That addition made a point of how he had already told these things to other heroes in training, taking away more of the pressure to consider what he was doing as crimes if people had already let him off with it. They thought about asking the Class A students why they were letting Zach off with it, but for now most of them decided in that moment to just talk to Zach without feeling the need to arrest him… as long as he didn't say anything _too_ out there.

"That's, crazy," Tsuburaba replied after a few seconds. "You just left and became a vigilante?"

"Well, I was already acting as a vigilante here," Zach countered. "I just stopped being a hero-"

"What do you mean you were already a vigilante?" Tetsutetsu asked harshly, though confusedly too.

"Fighting the War Boys?" Zach replied, as if it were obvious. The others stared at him with wider eyes at how easily he admitted that. "I went after Diamondfist too with the vigilante who saved me from the League. Skipped out of school for a weekend and took him down together-"

"What?" Kendo asked, her eyes huge as Zach admitted this to them without breaking tone. "You really- what?"

"Yeah," Zach replied with a nod at the orange-haired girl whose hair was pretty frizzy and messed up from the helmet too, making it fall behind her back curlier than usual. "Anyway, I was pretty used to being a vigilante already by the time I left. Good enough that I was able to stay hidden despite the whole world looking for me," he added with a smug grin like it was impressive how he had managed to evade everyone.

 _Is he bragging about that?!_ Komori thought with her lips parted as it was hard to listen to him talk with them closed. _He's so- so- normal-_ Her eyes widened behind her bangs and Zach glanced her way wondering what that was for a few seconds after he had stopped talking. _Normal?! This is the opposite of normal! He's so, casual though. About everything he did!_

 _Is this why my buddy Kirishima's so pissed?_ Tetsutetsu wondered, as he was feeling such a strange feeling of frustration and anger bubbling under his own curiosity and interest. He pushed those upset emotions farther down though, _If there was actually something to act on, he would have done something though. Which means we can ask away._ "So what's the craziest thing you did out there?" Tetsutetsu asked, his lips curled up at the corners in a smile though his eyes giving Zach a different look as he faced the silver-haired teen diagonal from him.

"Craziest?" Zach wondered, saying the word specifically and humming afterwards like he was really thinking of what it would be. "Well, if it's 'crazy' you're asking about," he started, grinning as a story came to mind. The boy with scars covering the left side of his face, under his right eye, on his forehead, and splitting his ear smiled in a way that would have unnerved the others a lot more if he had not just mentioned how it was a 'crazy' story. "You guys every hear about Russian Roulette?" Zach wondered.

"Oh yeah," Tsuburaba replied, and he leaned forward more with an anxious but super curious look that Zach would start off his story like this.

"It's a stupid game, for stupid people, who want to win stupid prizes," Komoro said, mentioning 'stupid' three times in it even while giving Zach an interested look too.

"Agreed," Tsunotori said from next to Komori. She glanced to her left while saying it, then turned back right and looked across the table to Zach. "It is stupid for people to play games like that," she said. "An Alabaman man went to the hospital just this last weekend for shooting himself with an arrow while he was playing Arrow Roulette in the woods with some friends."

"That's the south for you," Zach joked in English to the girl across the table from him who opened her eyes wider in surprise at the sudden switch to her native language, and the knowledgeable joke about her home's stereotypes. "Love it down there," he added with a chuckle, as he was not meaning to disparage it just in case that was where Pony was initially from. He lifted up a cup of hot coco he had in front of his tray and took a sip after mentioning it, then he continued while lowering it with both hands, "When you play Russian Roulette though, it's got to be with a gun. At least it was when I played-"

"Are you serious?" Kendo asked in disbelief.

"No way," Honenuki started.

"Are you telling us the truth?" Tetsutetsu began harshly. "Or is this-"

"I'm serious," Zach said, looking around at the group with that unnerving smile on his face again as he was really telling a 'crazy' story here.

"What would have happened if you got the barrel with the bullet it in?" Kendo asked. Her voice was worried and she looked at him in an uneasy way that he would play such a risky game with his life on the line.

"I did," Zach replied though, surprising and confusing the others who wondered if they did not know the rules to the game or something. "Actually," Zach continued with a low chuckle. "Five of the six chambers had bullets in them so the chances weren't in my favor from the start."

At this point, Zach had everyone's attention on the story and all of them were looking at him with big eyes. "Why would you, put five?" Honenuki started in disbelief then more confusion as Zach did not seem to be making this up. _Is he just fucking with us?_ Honenuki had to wonder, as the story sounded unbelievable. "How did you survive?"

"Were you playing a different way, from the movies?" Tsuburaba asked.

"Why would you do it?" Komori asked too, feeling like this should have come first.

Zach looked towards the short brunette girl and nodded as he figured that should come first too. "I was in disguise," Zach started. "Trying to infiltrate some really, _really_ crazy villains in Mexico." He stopped for a second and then continued to the group who were staring at him with wide eyes at how specific this was getting, "In order to join their group I had to do something insane which normally meant for them, killing innocents or breaking some crazy laws. I showed off in a different way how messed up I was and how far I was willing to go to join them."

Zach paused and leaned his head forward over the table a bit. "I loaded up a six-barrel revolver while talking to them about joining, then I mentioned Russian Roulette while taking one of the bullets back out. I made it out like I was going to take more out, but then as I looked at the gun like that I just smirked and flicked that single bullet I took out up in the air. I spun the cylinder in front of me while all those villains stared at me getting more and more shocked at what I was doing." The others at Zach's table were looking at him with bigger and bigger eyes as he continued this story further too, their jaws dropping at what he was getting at. "And then," he continued. "I snapped my left arm out to the side so the spinning cylinder would click into the pistol."

He paused for a moment and then continued in less a story-telling voice and more like he was revealing something to them, "The secret was that in the moment everyone was distracted by my snapping of the gun out to the side, I caught the bullet I had flicked up in between my teeth and hid it in my mouth."

"Why?" Komori asked, leaning over the table herself and then realizing after she asked just how invested in this story she was all of a sudden.

Zach smirked at her and he just continued, "After I locked the revolver's cylinder back in I pressed the barrel to my temple and fired. As I said before, there was a bullet in it, but I transformed my head into Death between where the barrel was pressed and my opposite temple," he reached up and touched one side of his head and then the other with a motion of his index finger like something passing through it. "I made it pure Death for a moment so the bullet would pass through."

"You can do that?" Honenuki wondered in surprise. "Without touching your chest or head with your right hand?"

"Oh yeah," Zach replied. He lowered his left hand to right in front of his chest, and he stuck his index finger up making a small flame of darkness appear over it. He curled all of his other fingers up and then down, with tiny flames igniting and extinguishing over each one when it fully extended. Then he lowered back down his hand as he figured he should not be doing that with other people still watching him, or even just with these six watching him as it was a a risky move to make. None of the six in front of him reacted in an angry way though, more just surprised that he was able to control Death so freely like that. "I've got much better control over Death now than ever-"

"So what happened when you shot yourself in the head?" Tsuburaba asked, snapping his eyes back up from Zach's hand as he needed to know how this story ended.

"Haha," Zach laughed at the way Tsuburaba worded that question. It would sound crazy to anyone listening in, but Zach responded to him with a smirk again, "We were outside in someone's backyard, and no one saw that the bullet actually went flying out my head's other side into the dirt. They were too focused on my falling down, acting like I had just blown my brains out." He continued to smirk like that while the others dropped their jaws again picturing what Zach was describing. _Back after the Battle of 6 Armies, when I had the time for more frequent long-term infiltrations. Even if this one was pretty quick,_ he added to himself. "I popped back up after they all thought I was dead though, spooking the men who leaned or jumped back and yelled at me. Then I stuck my tongue out with the bullet on my tongue like it was the one I just shot into my head, and I blew all their frickin' minds."

"Holy-" Tsuburaba began, but he was unable to even say 'shit' as he was too amazed by this story. _He actually did something like this?!_

"They thought it was magic or something," Zach added. "Some accused me of having a different Quirk, but I turned my eyes red again for them and reminded them I only had slow-mo vision." He flashed his eyes red for a second to show them how easy that was for him too, and he only turned his hazel irises red instead of even the whole whites of his eyes, though they did see those whites tinting red like he could have gone all the way there but chose not to. Zach's eyes returned to normal and he sat back with his smirk going down into a regular smile again, and he sipped his hot chocolate before finishing, "They were impressed enough by how crazy I was acting and by my magic trick that they let me join and brought me to see their boss down in Nicaragua, who I promptly turned on and took down with all the others in his gang. Then I left them for the authorities I tipped off who were already looking for them."

He finished his story, only having used a few specifics which were the countries' names alone. He never mentioned the gang's name, or the leader's, or who the 'authorities' were who Zach turned the villains in to. A couple of the Class B's noticed that at the end as they were thinking of how crazy the story was. Tetsutetsu did not realize it yet though, and he lost his shocked expression for a moment with his hands curling into fists under the table. "Telling us all that-"

"What did I really admit to?" Zach wondered. "To be charged for a crime, you have to know what the crime was," Zach started directly to Tetsutetsu who froze and stared at Zach Sazaki with huge eyes at what he was saying. "You have no specifics. There is no proof of what I've done. And admittedly, maybe I just lied about all of that," Zach said with a raise of his eyebrows at the silver-haired teen. "It would never count as a confession. Not legally. It may be a loophole," he added with a glance at Tsunotori, then to his right side at Honenuki and Tsuburaba. "But it's a loophole I use every time I talk about the stuff I was up to."

Tsuburaba started shaking his head, as what Zach said made sense to him and he decided to stop even questioning if he could do anything with this information. _Of course he wouldn't just incriminate himself with stuff we could actually go on here. Damn, I can't believe he's able to say stuff like that though, and actually get away with it!_

"That's, crazy though," Kendo began to Zach, speaking on his story and not what Zach just said that had Tetsutetsu confused and trying to figure out if Zach was right. Honenuki looked across at his classmate though and nodded when Tetsutetsu looked at him confusedly, checking if Zach really was right there. Kendo continued when Zach looked at her, "To have even tried something like that," she began, almost disapprovingly yet there was a tone of how impressed she was in there too.

"You were really, sneaking into international criminal groups like that?" Komori wondered, not hiding at all how impressed she was even the way in which Zach did that.

"It's what I have the most experience with," Zach joked with a bigger grin that had all the others dropping their jaws that he was joke about that. _It was good work,_ he thought to himself nostalgically. _I was doing a lot, doing stuff like that. Even how I took on Rancor was just like it. I could be doing that a lot more- but I'm not anymore. That's not the current goal. I'm getting a lot done here too. I finally told Todoroki all about Touya! That's, that's something._ Zach lowered his smile down a little but kept it up for the other people looking towards him who he did not want to appear dark at all for. Even his smiles before that his classmates had thought seemed crazy only looked that way to them because of the conversation they were having, while to others it would just look like he was smiling and talking to other young heroes.

Tetsutetsu finally frowned after dropping his jaw there for a few seconds at Zach's joke. "You were still doing stuff like that, even what happened when you infiltrated the League?"

Tetsutetsu's tone was less harsh as he was saying it, more just curious despite it being gruff too. He thought about the clips he had seen at the Sports Festival while asking, as he could not believe Zach would keep trying stuff like that after what had happened the first time. Others glanced at Tetsutetsu wishing he had not brought that up too, while Kendo and Honenuki just kept watching Zach's face to see how he would respond to it. Zach shrugged his shoulders though after a moment, and he countered, "I learned from my failures. Got better at it, so those kind of consequences wouldn't happen again."

His response had Tetsutetsu staring at him in shock, and a feeling of admiration grew inside him too at Zach's response that was steady and unwavering despite their harsh questioning of what he had done. "I wasn't allied with anyone. Wasn't infiltrating alongside any other group, so there was no one who knew my true intentions, and no one to reveal to the villains that I wasn't really one of them. Just like how I first took on the League, since it was pretty obvious I didn't have the support of any heroes when I joined up with them. Before VTS, I really had gained the trust of the LoV, and if I knew how to get in with villains as crazy as them, I could infiltrate anywhere."

"No one recognized you though?" Tsuburaba wondered softly, shocked to hear all this but still trying to keep it up as a conversation too.

"Once I cover up my scars, no one recognizes me at all," Zach replied. "They pretty much define my appearance now, so removing them makes it hard for anyone to know it's me. On top of that I change up a few more things too, and bam. No one knows it's me." _Which is something I could still be doing. Damn it. Stop thinking about that- All that stuff I was doing in the months before getting sent to the Void. Before I decided to come back. I came back! I can't leave now! I knew that-_ Zach lowered his smile a little more, and he leaned back on his seat with a sigh and then a clap of his hands in front of him. "Well, you guys look like you've still got a lot to finish," he started suddenly.

The U.A. Class B students looked down at their food and then to Zach's plate and drink, noticing only then how he had finished everything while they were too busy being shocked by him all that time. "See you guys back out there," Zach said. "Hope to catch up with you again soon. Next time you've got to tell me your 'craziest' stories of the past year and a half," he added, and he chuckled while grabbing his helmet and warmer gloves.

He stood up and almost turned away from the table, but Kendo started before he could, "Thank you-" Zach looked back towards her, and the others sitting there looked at Kendo too in surprise. Her mouth froze open like that, as she said it quickly because she had told herself for a year that the next time she saw him she would be sure to say it. "Thanks, for coming back," Kendo finished, though she yelled at herself internally after correcting herself in that way. "Don't leave again," she told him, giving him a serious look as she said it.

"Yeah," Tsuburaba agreed, smiling again and looking over his shoulder too as he said it. "Kuroiro's going to be pissed he didn't come today. You should hit him up," he added, and Zach smiled softly while looking back to Kosei.

He nodded at the Class B student, and he thought of the dark boy from Class B who had probably been his best friend in the class. "Monoma too," Honenuki added, finally looking back himself after taking in a deep breath and just letting all those sketchy things Zach said shift into the back of his mind. "They'd both be glad to hear from you."

Zach nodded again at Honenuki this time, then he rose up his left hand that had his gloves in it and made a small wave at the group of Class B students. "See ya," he said, and he turned away from them and headed back off through the lodge. He was only ten steps away, when a lot of other people at the nearby tables got up and rushed over to the Class B students. They wanted to talk to the famous heroes and U.A. students, and they wanted to ask questions about Lifebringer and if they were all friends with him still to meet up with him at Yuki Yama like this.

Zach glanced over his shoulder and chuckled while getting close to the doors back out to the mountain, then he reached up and covered his face with his black ski mask. His lips curled back down and he let out a sigh, _Can't keep training like I was before. They were right about me influencing other people out there. Time to head home I guess. I'll fly off from the other side of the mountain. Good thing there's some good cloud cover today, and not that far from the top of the mountain too…_

* * *

 **A/N Thanks for reading! Hope you enjoyed the chapter and the story Zach told the Class B students about one of his vigilante infiltrations in the time before he was sent into the Void but after he won the Battle of the 6 Armies. Had the idea for this chapter a while back and thought this'd be a good place for it, even if it didn't advance too much of what's going on right now, though it still reveals to us more of what Zach was up to in the late days of his war. Anyway, leave a review telling me what you thought of the chapter, comments, predictions, or questions for the story ahead! Going to continue writing 180 right now, but I've got a long day at work tom so doubt I'll get it up before mid-week. 'Til then though... review responses:**

yasideen1 chapter 178 . 15h ago

Thanks for the chapter once again author-sama  
ありがとうござい

いいえ Thanks for another review!

Momozaki chapter 178 . 11h ago

Great chapter!  
That was a heavy conversation.  
Is there still hope for Momozaki? Even if the conversation was earnest, I swear the ship's almost sinking now.

 **Never one to back y'all up on your ships, nor deny 'em, but we'll see if hope lingers there moving forward. Thanks for the review and glad you liked the chapter and conversations!**

GuestP chapter 178 . 1h ago

After this chapter, I think I'd be fine if Zach just ended up finding someone else to love. Honestly, at this point I feel like even if Zach and Momo got back together, it would lead to more heartbreak than it would love. It's like how some relationships are: I don't like you but I love you. So, Zach finding someone else or just staying alone with the love of his friends, well, I think it'd still be a good ending for his relationship status.  
Midoriya finally understands Zach without criticizing too much, finally tho 'cause honestly Mido was getting a bit annoying with his incorrect morals (lol) and Zach's obvious OP-ness being overlooked and not fully acknowledged or even seen. Midoriya's smart but sometimes he overthinks things and that's what leads to his 'not really understanding but understanding' thing. Luckily that's not the case in this chapter (FINALLY!).  
Awesome job on this chapter, was really excited to see an update!~  
Can't wait for the next chapter!~~

 **Didn't have to wait long for that next chapter XD! Midoriya def sees last chapter the full extent of what Zach was really doing as Zach explains taking down King, the most powerful villain in the world, in a total victory. Again, we'll see about any MomoxZach, and no spoilers! Glad you liked the chapter, and thanks for reviewing!**


	180. Chapter 180

**Disclaimer: I don't own Boku no Hero Academia**

 **Chapter 180:**

Dead Heroes' Day. Most people shorten the name to Heroes' Day, and the holiday was meant to celebrate the heroes who protect the country of Japan, as well as to commemorate those who had passed. Initially the day was more of a memorial for the deceased heroes who died in the line of duty, but over the years as it became more kid friendly, and as heroes continued to smile through the day and show everyone that even on that day they were standing firm, people started to move past the initial purpose of the holiday. However, the main points of the holiday itself stayed the same, as much as they were warped to turn the holiday more festive and fun for everyone instead of a depressing day of mourning.

The yearly gatherings at temples scattered across Japan to ring bells and pray for the health of heroes and to thank heroes past still occurred. People still gathered at temples and many of them did the traditional prayer, some tossing money into a collection well after ringing the bell to support the local monks and to keep the temples functioning. Most people though, were more looking forward to the festivals that went on outside of and around the temples. Stands full of food and small carnival games were set up all along the outside of the temple, and depending on the local traditions, many people took part in small parades with props and costumes made by local schools the children donated for the festival.

The festival was supposed to be honoring heroes, so some villages had effigies of heroes on display or lifted up to be paraded around during the evenings and nights of Dead Heroes' Day. The year before the day had been a bit more somber after all the heroes who had fallen against the League of Villains and the Cult of Stain since the February before. However, ever since the previous February, heroes in Japan had been winning victory after victory with few big losses. Even the Nara Raid had occurred before the previous Heroes' Day, right before it actually, and Intanzo's victims were mourned and celebrated on that day.

This year, all over Hokkaido the people remembered Wonderlass who had been one of their greatest heroines for a long time, and they were not the only ones. Midoriya Izuku would visit a temple close to U.A. with his mother, All Might, Gran Torino and Eri too that evening, in order to pay their final respects to that great hero.

Zach felt less serious than some of his friends though who were either memorializing heroes who had died in the past year, or ones who had died over a year ago but who they wanted to remember today as well. There was something he wanted to do that day though, as he had been looking forward to the festival for a while now. He stood in his room and stared at the mirror in front of him with a small smile on his face, his head bowed partially so the top half of his face was shadowed over and he could only see his grin on the bottom half of it. _Perfect,_ Zach thought while staring under the rim of his hat at the obstructed reflection.

He turned and started out of his room for the front door. Zach reached to his counter as he was walking past it, and he grabbed the wooden stick off of it that he slid into the belt at his waist on his right side. The thin stick was smoothed down and curved at the very end so it was in the shape of a blade, though it was just a fake wooden sword he grabbed before walking to his door. Zach opened his door up, and he opened his eyes wider in some surprise (that he faked), at the sight of a couple right in front of him holding envelopes and some tape in their hands. Zach turned his head to the door he opened up, to see four other envelopes already taped there.

Zach turned back to the couple in front of him who were both shorter than the teenager they were looking up and down in shock. "Thank you," Zach said to the two, nodding his head at them before stepping farther out of his door and shutting it behind him. "You live next door to my left, right?" Zach wondered at them, as he was sure they did but wanted to act like he was not sure of.

"Yes, and just so you know, we haven't told anyone that you live here," the woman assured the teenager in front of her. "I think it's terrible how the news doesn't give you a minute to yourself-"

"We both think so," the man agreed, white hair like his wife though Zach thought they both looked pretty youthful with their skin pretty clear of wrinkles apart from the crow's feet on the sides of the woman's eyes. "Anywho, here-"

"I'm actually, on my way-"

"To the festival?" The older woman asked, raising her white eyebrows and saying it like it was obvious. Zach glanced down then back up at the woman with a smile, "Go, Lifebringer. It's your day."

"Thank you," Zach said with another respectful nod at his elders. "I'll be sure to look through everyone's letters later," he added as he walked past them to go down the hall. He looked over his shoulder and nodded once more at the two who waved at the boy, before turning to each other and speaking in hushed but clearly excited voices at the way he looked.

 _I'm definitely overdressed,_ Zach thought. _But who cares?_ His steps made a lot of noise in the wooden sandals he was in, or at least he felt like they did as his usual footsteps were silent compared to these. He was still walking with quieter footsteps than anyone else could in those kind of shoes, but he stepped softer as he headed down the stairs to the street level of his block in Yutapu. His head bowed some more so the kasa over his head shadowed more of his face, then he bent forward and started running, his arms swinging in front of him and behind him with his gloved hands curled into fists as he went. Both his right and left had on thin black gloves, at the end of his hakama's very loose navy-blue sleeves. The bottom half of the hakama that had leg holes inside but looked more like the bottom of a kimono that outside was pitch black, while the round hat over his head with a long rim was straw-colored as it was made of. It had almost a pointed top though it rounded just a bit near the tip and near the bottom edge that curled down, keeping his face obscured as he ran the streets and alleys of Yutapu.

Zach slowed down as he walked down an alley not far from where he could hear loud music. The temple was still a ways away and up a trail on a hill from its traditional front gates. Zach stepped out of the alley and started down the sidewalk in a casual way towards the torii, or traditional shrine entrance gate, that he could see from down the road outside the temple. There were a great number of people around him, both native to Yutapu and tourists who wanted to check out the festival. Some of the younger children had on kimonos and hakamas of their own, and a few college girls and elderly people got dressed up as well, but they were still few and far between. Most high school students were wearing casual garb, same with middle schoolers who saw what they were wearing as what was cool. College students and most adults did not bother to dress up either, though they were still going to enjoy the festival itself.

Young Japanese girls were getting their pictures taken by tourists who were amazed by how they did their hair and dressed up in such a traditional fashion for a festival that was much more recent than the kind of clothes they were wearing. Zach noticed his footsteps had become completely silent again, though that was because the other people who did have wooden sandals were making much more noise, not to mention all the talking and the loud music coming from up at the temple too. The music sounded classical Japanese, not much pop playing to echo down to the street level. _Never thought I'd be able to go to something like this,_ Zach thought as he neared the entrance to the temple. He never turned his head towards any of the people who turned to look at him with wide eyes at how dressed up he got, nor did he even turn when a couple tourists lifted cameras to point at him only to freeze and lower them as they had zoomed and caught the bottom left side of his face and his neck that were not easily noticeable in the dim light of dusk.

Zach had only left when it was starting to get dark anyway, and he arrived at the temple after the sun had gone down and the night had begun. Lanterns were lit all along the path up to the temple from its front gates, and Zach stepped onto the path and headed up slowly, taking in the statues around him and looking around the place he had not visited since coming to Yutapu. _Don't know why I never came here. It's not like villains couldn't abuse a Shinto shrine's inconspicuous nature. I should know every inch of this city already- ah whatever, just enjoy the day. You should have died a long time ago. I never would have been able to go to something like this if not for the sacrifice of so many. People I sacrificed- they sacrificed themselves! For this better, safer world. See what it is they made. Enjoy this life, they saved._

He continued up the trail towards the better lit area at the top of the shrine where many more lanterns had been lit and there were strings of lights covering the outsides of the temple buildings as well as on top of all the stands set up in front of the main shrine. The music got louder, and Zach watched with a smile as he neared the top where part of a festival routine was already going on, with some shrine maidens putting on a choreographed dance. The young women in kimonos looked more traditional and better than anyone else who dressed up, as they went all out in every aspect. People watched them in awe at their dance, but as soon as they were finished, it was time for the party.

Dragon heads lifted up by sticks followed by another five guys who carried all the parts of the body ran down between the rows of stands, and people on the outsides called out in excitement and laughed as the dragons' bodies danced around too in a specific way. The show must have already been going on for a little when Zach arrived, because the part with the dragons turned out to be a finale and everyone got back to enjoying the festival on their own. Zach headed towards the main shrine himself and he went up to one of the many bells lining the front of it, all of them above a long grate at the edge of the building for people to toss money into. _Should help out if I can,_ Zach thought, while pulling out a 1,000 yen bill from the inside of his hakama. His hand slid under the crease over his chest and he pulled it back out to drop the bill into the grate, then he rang the bell and put his hands together.

 _Sorry Wonderlass. Saw them mention you on tv today. I know that's who Midoriya's probably thinking of right now. I'm sorry I didn't come save you. I was busy though… Not that busy. I mean what I said to Midoriya though. Why would your life matter more than anyone else I was saving at the time? And everything I was doing while I was gone, was saving people. Every second spent usefully. Not a moment wasted. Endless work._ Zach's eyes closed harder. _Heroes' Day? Dead Heroes' Day? To me, all of them were heroes too. And since the last Dead Heroes' Day, I lost everyone. Most of your deaths were in the past year. March and April… I'm sorry I can't think of each one of you right now. But I'm in public. I'm in front of people who need to see my smile when I open my eyes. I'll remember you all though. In my own way. The way, I told you to remember each other. In our own ways._

Zach opened his eyes back up and he smiled again while lowering his hands he had put together in front of his chest in a praying stance. As he turned back around, he noticed the two high schoolers to his left on the line of people praying had both looked towards the guy too dressed up for the occasion. The two seniors just like Zach stared at him, and he looked back and lifted his head up a bit so his eyes met theirs for a brief moment. "Evening," he greeted, then he continued turning from the two who kept turning their heads with stunned looks on their faces.

"Lifebringer's here? Lifebringer's here!"

 _Well that's going to spread quickly,_ Zach thought to himself as he heard very loud murmuring behind him met with questions from people who heard them but had not seen him.

"The one in the hat over there…"

"Huh? Where'd he go?"

Zach slipped into the crowd and became nearly invisible to everyone around him despite his appearance. He moved swiftly and slowly, his breathing hidden and his figure shifting in the corners of people's visions. _Much better,_ Zach thought, though he frowned to himself for a moment at the way he was moving so stealthily around. _This isn't heroic. This is stuff I learned from Toga, and assassins, and Seraphim,_ he added to himself with a small smile again, thinking of the woman and her long purple hair in a nostalgic way. _No one could move like her. Man, I miss her. I miss you all- shit. Come on and smile. This is supposed to be fun. A festival! A Japanese festival, that you got all dressed up for, just be cool. Enjoy it for what it is. Then go home, and read those letters your neighbors gave you. They've been real cool, considering the news still hasn't found me._

Zach looked to his right as a couple teenage girls in kimonos were walking by, blowing on pinwheels they were holding and laughing as they spun around. It was warm out, a little breezy, but it felt like the first evening of spring. Zach turned to his left as something flared up in the corner of his vision, and he saw a small crowd gathered near a man and woman who had their own stand set up with a bowl on it for tips. The man held his hands up while holding a torch in his right, and he reached up to the flame and picked a piece of it off with his left hand. He tossed that flame up in the air, then grabbed off four more plucks and tossed them up before the first one came down. Then he tossed the torch up too and started juggling all the fire along with the torch which had its flame put out when he grabbed off the fifth and final piece of its fire.

In the meantime, the woman next to her husband lifted up a sword so long it went from her hand she held in front of her waist to up above her head. She lifted the sword up and then jumped towards her husband's flames, and she slashed the wooden torch in half to show off the sharpness of her blade's steel. Spectators leaned back as they saw her dodge those flames and cut with apparently a sharp sword at the same time. Then she stood up straight, tilted her head back, and as people gasped and stared at her in shock, the woman opened her mouth and put the end of the blade into it. She tilted her head back more, sliding the sword down her gullet slowly and all the way to the hilt.

"Sword swallower and a fire juggler!"

"They have to be using Quirks, right?"

"Could just be a magic trick, or props?"

"They can't use their Quirks! It has to be real- whoa!"

The man caught both halves of his torch, and he swung back and forth into four of the flames until there was only one left. He put the ends of the two flaming halves of the torch together at the tips right before the fifth flame came down, his body leaning back at that exact moment the flame was hitting down. Then, the man snapped his body forward and blowed into the flames, and it was like he was a dragon himself as the fire flared off of the torches into a huge fireball in front of him that only lasted a moment for people to shriek before it died down to small smoldering flames on the ends of the two half-torches he pulled apart. He then turned to his left and held both torches up in front of him at the same level.

The woman at his side pulled back up the hilt of her blade and un-swallowed the sword she just shoved inside her. Then, to prove that it was still the same sword and as sharp as before, she cut the tops of both half-torches clean off. She cut them so cleanly, that the thin tops of the torches were sliced right onto the edge of her blade where they remained after she finished the single swing. Small circles of wood rested on top of the long thin blade, still flaming. Then she and her husband both leaned forward to the blade and each blew on one of them, putting out only the flames while leaving the wood resting on top of the perfectly horizontal blade. The routine was done masterfully, and the crowd which had gotten progressively larger around them started cheering and clapping for the performance. The performers bowed, and people came up to the bowl and tipped them before clapping some more for the show.

Zach turned away and he headed off while wondering to himself, _How'd she manage to eat the whole sword though? It could have been fake, for the first part slicing the torch at least. Cutting the tops of those sticks though, I saw those sticks get smaller since the start- or did I? Did he start burning from the other end- would that have mattered? Maybe her insides are super hard, and she actually trained at sword-swallowing so she could use her Quirk to her profession's advantage. Don't know if that would count as "using" her Quirk during work, but it's not like I care._

Across the temple grounds, around the side of the building where fewer people were gathered and it was more of a younger crowd, a group of teenagers were snickering and laughing as another smaller boy ran back and forth between them. The boy running between them was trying to smile and laugh along like he was in on this, as the others seemed to be having fun, but he was feeling uneasy and not very good. He felt even worse as the older boy he ran to while saying, "Give it back," pretended to hand back off the ball he just won at a booth, only to toss it up over his head when the kid extended his own hands in a grateful way.

The larger boy with short red hair started laughing, "Oops. My hand slipped." His tone was sarcastic and he laughed while the younger boy by two years spun around and started running to the thinner older boy who caught it.

The one who caught it there pump-faked to his right, making the twelve year old running towards him reach to that side only to be totally faked out as the ball was tossed to the other side of the triangle and a fifteen year old neither chubby or thin like his fourteen year old friends. The muscular teen with short bull horns sticking off his forehead and up above his hair chuckled as the short boy spun and started running to him. Instead of tossing to one of the others, he just put the ball into the crook of his right arm before lifting his left hand up in front of him in a slow motion. The smaller boy who was wearing a hakama slowed down and got nervous, only for the boy he was running at to keep lifting his hand and start scratching the back of his head with it. "What's with the getup Chimoshi? Dressing up like that is for girls."

"I- I don't know," the younger boy who was neighbors with the older three started. "I think it's, I don't know. Can I just have my ball, Rukio?"

"Shouldn't that be Rukio-senpai to you? You're about to be in middle school, which means Kimo and Terushido are going to be third years in a couple months, while you're a first year with them."

"You'll be a first year too," Chimoshi countered back frustratedly.

Rukio's smile lowered down, and he looked down his nose at the younger boy, "Yeah, in high school though. Don't put me on your level."

"Okay, I'm sorry," Chimoshi started as Rukio sounded like he was starting to get mad, and he wanted to pretend like they were all still having fun. "Can I just, can I have my ball? I won it myself-"

"Yeah, and we're just playing around with it," Rukio retorted with his grin rising back up. "But here, it's yours," he held it out in front of him, and he shook his hand a couple times like he wanted Chimoshi to step forward and take it.

"You're just going to, pull it back," Chimoshi started slowly, lowering his head and looking at the older boy upset as he could see it clearly on Rukio's face he was still getting messed with.

"Oh, careful," Rukio said, looking up and smirking at his friends who snickered again as Rukio pulled the ball back and held it in his elbow again with his arm crooked around it. "It's learning."

The ball in the crook of Rukio's arm suddenly popped out of his grip as something hit the back of it and knocked it up. Chimoshi's eyes widened just like Rukio's, and he snapped his head up to look above his older neighbor where the ball just bounced in an arc behind him. "Hey!" Rukio spun around and snapped, looking angrily behind him to see who just did that. The five and a half foot tall boy feeling big though, lifted his head up, and he looked under the round rim of the hat of the person behind him who was holding a long thin wooden sword in his right hand. The man slid the sword back into the belt of his hakama, while turning his head and looking down at the boys on his right as he was standing sideways behind Rukio.

He had just bopped the ball up with the end of his wooden sword, and he caught it in his left hand and was tossing it up and catching it over and over in that hand. "That's ours!" Kimo called out at the figure he could not see all that well under the rim of his big hat. The chubby boy started forward though, and the thin one looked over at him before turning and rushing over towards Rukio himself to help out too.

"Give that back, mister," Rukio started, his eyes narrowing after going wide for a moment at the sight of this pretty imposing figure.

"Why? I thought it was okay to just take people's things, according to what I just saw over here," Zach caught the ball again with his left, but he did not toss it back up this time.

The Rukio boy was in between his friends, and this guy did not sound much older than them to have just taken the ball so easily out of his hands. "Get the ball back," Rukio said, and Zach lifted the right corner of his lips though he tried to suppress the grin. Kimo ran forward on Rukio's left, then Rukio moved forward himself while Terushido was slowest of the three. Zach turned his body to the right, and Kimo ran right past him with his arm reaching for where Zach was holding the ball. Rukio did not even try going straight for the ball, balling a fist instead and moving straight for the older teen trying to mess with him.

Zach put his hands together behind his back while turning to the other side and side-stepping away. Rukio missed a swing, then another as Zach stepped another way right as Kimo was turning back and running towards him, looking to reach for the ball and not attack the older teen who was moving too quickly for that. _Rukio's got this-_

 _I'll get him this time!_

 _Once his back is completely to me,_ Terushido tried to move for the man's back so as to grab the ball once he was in his blindspot. Zach let that boy get directly behind him, while moving in such a way that got Rukio adjusting his run to come in front of Zach who lowered the ball right in front of his body. Lowering it like that made Kimo shift his target too, and he was not focused enough on where Rukio was running until the large fourteen year old saw his twin-horned friend step right in front of him lifting his right fist. "Ruk-"

Zach stepped aside quickly, making Chimoshi open his eyes so much wider than they already were as he watched this man in awe. Kimo ran into Rukio, and the two of them toppled straight through the gap Zach was no longer in, falling into Terushido who was reaching for Zach's back in that moment before he lowered the ball from above his shoulder where the tall and thin boy tried to grab it. The larger two toppled into their tall thin friend, and all three of them fell to the floor on top of each other.

Zach turned again after stepping away quickly like that for those three younger teens to fall over each other. He lifted the corners of his lips into a small grin, while raising up his head a bit too so the shadows of his hat covered less of his face. The three who had toppled to the ground turned their heads and looked up at the one who had knocked them down without touching any of them, and all three dropped their jaws just like Chimoshi and a group of other people not far from them who had been watching in amusement only to get shocked as they looked closer at this person's illuminated face. The boys on the floor lifted their heads more and looked at the scar under the man's right eye above that grin on his face, and the scars on his neck too and the bottom left side of his face.

"Li-Li-Life-"

"Lifebr-br-br-"

"L-Lifebringer?" Rukio gasped out with his voice choking off and cracking as he breathed it.

All three stumbled over his name, then Zach started to the three of them as they were scrambling up to their feet, "You shouldn't steal, or pick on people just because they're smaller than you." He lifted his head and tossed up with his left hand, and Chimoshi brought his hands up quickly. He bobbled the ball but then grabbed it tightly with both hands and pulled it back to his chest, before staring at Lifebringer again with his eyes so huge as the hero in front of him gave him a brighter smile. He looked back at the three who got up in front of him and backed up a little, and he added in a carefree tone suggesting he was not going to do anything to them, "Because there's always someone bigger than you willing to step up for that little guy."

Zach turned away and he took a step like he was just going to continue away, but he paused and looked back. "Besides, what's wrong with wearing a hakama?" Zach wondered at the group he heard picking on the younger kid who he flashed another grin towards. "You don't think it looks cool?" He asked, then he turned away and pulled the rim of his hat down again. The muscular teen with broad shoulders walked away with that wide back shown to the kids who felt like they were watching some real life samurai, or at least he coolest person they had ever seen as he dealt out that justice.

Chimoshi's hands were shaking on either side of his ball, and his lips curled up into the biggest smile on his face as he clenched that ball into his chest ten times harder, knowing he was not going to let anyone take it anymore.

"I- I won't do anything bad anymore," Terushido started, stumbling forward for a second and calling it to Lifebringer, feeling like an idiot that the hero had just scolded him in front of a lot of people.

"H-Hey, Chimoshi," Kimo started while looking back at the smaller boy behind him. Chimoshi turned his body to the side and got protective over the ball, but Kimo was eying the ball with wide eyes yet did not step closer to the younger neighbor of his. "Could I see that ball? Lifebringer was tossing it around, I mean-"

"Sure, but Rukio's in the middle this time," Chimoshi replied quickly, and the oldest of the group spun to the youngest kid who said that while lifting up his lips in a more confident grin. The other two spun towards Rukio in surprise and hesitation, wondering how their friend was going to react to that.

"I-" Rukio started, an annoyed look forming on his face. He sighed though after a second while looking to the younger kid in front of him. "I'm going to intercept it from one of you, so don't expect me in the middle for long," he warned. Chimoshi grinned bigger and then threw the ball towards Terushido who was surprised but rose his hands up and caught the ball, the ball that Lifebringer had just been holding before he knocked them down a peg. _So cool._

 _Can't believe that just happened,_ Kimo thought, turning his head away to look for Lifebringer which resulted in a ball hitting him in the face a few moments later.

 _Holy crap,_ a college guy on a date with his girlfriend lowered his phone and stopped recording. _There's no way I actually…_ he pressed play on the video and started watching, and his girlfriend leaned over with her eyes wide as they started watching it again. "I got all that," he said, his excited voice cracking with a laugh as he spun to the girl next to him who looked right back up at him in as excited a way. _I'm sending this to everyone!_ He opened up his phone's contact list and started tapping on every single name down it…

* * *

"That couldn't have been real," Bob began.

"Oh yeah, I'm sure he hired those children. You know that's what I thought when I first watched this video: 'Those kids are paid actors.'"

"Come on, Kasami," Rashi began, holding his hands up defensively as Kasami was sounding too taunting there for what was a legitimate reaction to what they just saw. "You have to admit, something like that happening? Lifebringer just…" Rashi did not even know how to describe the clip they had just shown on the news which the three of them watched from behind the desk they were hosting the news from.

"Just what? Being an everyday hero?" Kasami wondered back at Rashi who found it hard to explain what he was thinking there. He looked back to Bob, "Or is it that him being at a Dead Heroes' festival was too hard to believe?" Bob hesitated at Kasami's question which did call out exactly why he felt this must have been staged… or something. "We've spent a lot of time in here talking about all the horrible stuff that's happened to Lifebringer, but are you really _that_ surprised to see him out there smiling and showing his face at a festival like that? It's what he's been doing since he came back here!"

"That, is true," Bob began. Always one more hesitant to just look on the bright side of what Lifebringer was doing though, he continued, "However, the way he, confronted those children-"

"Teenagers," Kasami countered. He continued quickly too even after interrupting his co-anchor, "And I think he did _exactly_ what he was supposed to do. They're just kids so he didn't go too harsh on them, but it looked like they were bullying the younger boy and so he stepped in. What's wrong about that?"

"Nothing," Rashi agreed, nodding towards Kasami and then looking back to the third man wondering if Bob did have something against it.

Bob just hummed and leaned back in his seat with a nod after a second. "It just, seemed staged," he said again, though it was quieter and more in disbelief as they all knew it was unlikely something like this had been staged. They had blurred out the children's faces before putting the clip on television, but he had seen the unedited clip and still could not believe what he had seen.

"That's because it was too ridiculous," Rashi started with a laugh. "That all these serious things we've been talking about with Lifebringer: bringing people back to life, his goals for the future, taking out the Subspace Devils? It all seems so big picture, but it's nice to see he's also just being a regular hero sometimes too…"

"Ridiculous?" Mineta muttered while sitting back on the couch, his head shaking and his eyes finally going back to normal sized. "Ridiculously awesome," he countered with a small smile that lowered back down right away. _But yeah, how does Zach do stuff like that? Everything that has to be on his mind? All those horrible things he told us about… I could never just go around smiling like that after everything he's been through. I don't get how he does it… but that was so cool! Damn, he even looked cool wearing that old traditional costume that most guys just look like posers in. It was like he was an actual samurai!_

"Do you think he knew someone was recording?" Tokoyami wondered to his side at Shoji on another couch as Mineta.

Shoji hummed at the question and thought back on the video himself. _The man recording was making fun of him at the start of the video for going so far as to even carry a wooden stick like he was a real samurai. It wasn't until halfway through the recording that he even noticed the scars on Zach's face. And, Zach seemed fully focused on what he was doing too. Of course, if he knew the camera was there he would not have made it clear that he knew either._ "I don't know," Shoji replied, as there was no way to tell whether he had or not.

Mineta looked over as he heard the low tone of Shoji's voice showing he thought it would be impossible to tell. The sound of that tone made Mineta's face scrunch up more than it did just with his thoughtful look, and after a second's hesitation he reached down to his pocket. "I'll ask him," Mineta said, and he pulled out his phone while the other four in the common room looked towards him in surprise. "Though I bet he knew. The way he was smiling that whole time… though that could have just been for everyone around him who recognized him too."

"Is he only smiling for the cameras?" Tokoyami wondered.

Mineta froze while mid-text, then he lifted his head with a glance at the dark boy with a beak who was looking back his way. "I, I mean I'm just assuming, it's one reason why he's smiling all the time," Mineta replied, sounding like he did not actually know but really had just been saying what he thought there. "Like back with the War Boys…" he started again, though he trailed off thinking about one of the two who Zach was carrying out of that building that day. Mineta continued again in a lower voice while lowering his eyes back to his phone, "I mean, he had to know how screwed he was at that moment for sneaking out and breaking the rules and everything, but he still smiled for the cameras."

Sato frowned towards Mineta and got a darker look on his face as he turned back to the tv. Koda was looking past Sato on his right to the short boy sitting on the middle couch by himself, but his gaze shifted back to the boy with spiky-brown hair whose expression got more frustrated as he looked into the screen at a picture of Zach in that costume he was wearing. _Is he really just,_ Sato thought with his fists curling tightly at his sides. _He's fine now? He's back to being a hero, just like that? Is that really all it took?!_

"Sato," Koda began. His voice was soft, speaking under the others as Tokoyami and Shoji questioned Mineta if he thought Zach would really tell him the truth about if he knew the cameras were watching him. Sato turned to his left though and looked into Koda's eyes only to be surprised by the semi-serious but also soft way his classmate was looking at him. Koda gulped but took in a deep breath at the same time, then he said quietly, "Zach's, really trying you know."

Sato's teeth clenched and his face snapped, Koda's eyes widening and his head pulling back at that reaction. Sato tried to ease it up, but the others looked over at Koda's sudden pull-away and saw Sato's angry look first. "'Trying?'" Sato repeated in angered frustration. His eyes glared back to the screen and he said in a low voice, "An apology and a slap on the wrist, and he's back-"

"Weren't you out trying to get him released-" Mineta started, his voice getting annoyed as he had seen Sato's flipping attitude over the past two months.

"I guess I didn't think it would be that easy," Sato grumbled in response, shaking his head as when he had first gone out there he was so for helping Zach. He had gone to visit Tartaros a few times though to tell Zach how he was trying, to talk to his old friend again, and Zach never came up to see him. _I wanted to help him, but the more I was out there the more I saw, he didn't need my help. Everyone was supporting him already, even without me doing anything. I just sat back and watched, as you were going to get released like everyone had forgotten what you did! And when I found myself in the voting booth, looking at Nikko and Ippo's names I- I couldn't- I was so angry at myself afterwards for picking her, but then when she lost I knew it didn't matter. What I thought didn't matter. You were out._

"It's not a slap on the wrist," Koda tried to argue back, after noticing he had leaned backwards too easily to let up on trying to convince Sato otherwise. "Six months-"

"Not even," Sato cut him off. "Just over five," he countered. "He served not even half a year, of a sentence I thought was pretty harsh but actually would have been-" he stopped himself, but then he grumbled in a lower voice, "It would have been more deserving."

Sato Rikido was not the only one who thought so. Across Japan, on the southern Okinawa Island, a forty-two year old man bent down and tied his dark gray boots tightly to his feet. He stood up and reached to his right side, grabbing a mask off the wall and putting it up over his head. The black mask covered the bottom and top half of his face, leaving only a slit for his eyes. He grabbed a dark blue hoodie and covered up the tight black costume he had underneath it, strapped with support items that worked with his Quirk, Clean Sweep.

The man glanced to his right side at a counter just on the inside of his front door. He glared at the picture frame of himself and a woman with his expression darkening more, and then the clip he just watched on the news of Lifebringer repeated in his head causing a low growl to come out the bottom of his throat. The dark-haired man whose hair was hidden under his mask stepped outside of his house, and he closed the door behind him without locking it. He left his car in the driveway, and he rushed out into the dark night towards the closest beach to him… where a boat was waiting for him anchored close to shore. _Lifebringer. I'm coming for you._

* * *

Zach walked around in the afternoon after Dead Heroes' Day with only a long-sleeved dark-blue shirt on that had the maker's logo on the right side of his chest. He wore a pair of black sweatpants that were not too loose on him, his muscular legs filling them out nicely. The afternoons were still short, and he did not have much time after school to enjoy the day, though he just found something that he was surprised by and took a picture of with his phone before sending out to some friends.

Sero Hanta had dropped onto the couch of his building's common room right after school, as they had had two hours straight of strenuous practical training right before the end of the day. All Might had put them through the ringer, and he was exhausted as he relaxed on the couch. _Patrol is going to be rough later._ He had his internship coming up soon and hoped this short rest would help him at least a little before he headed out there for real. Sero felt a buzz in his pocket and pulled his phone out aimlessly while leaning back on the couch, then his eyebrows rose up and he lifted the corners of his lips too at the picture he saw on his screen.

His eyes rose from his phone to the tv that he had not really been focused on, as the news was reporting on small stories he didn't care about. Villain activity was quiet as of late though, very quiet ever since the Subspace Devils' attack, so the news was reporting on how there were sightings of the very first sakura blossoms. "…Though early for this to happen, it has gotten warmer quickly this year since the last snowfall. We're expecting to see sakura blossoms by Mid-March across most of Honshu based on current climate trends…"

Sero looked back down at his phone and the selfie of Zach in front of some budding sakura blossoms on one tree among several that had not started budding yet. Sero texted him back, 'Feels like you're watching this news story with me, seeing as…' His fingers lifted off the keyboard, and he backspaced that message. _Might be weird to say something like that. He might get upset over it actually._ 'Nice. Just saw something on the news about that. What're u up to?'

'Not much,' Zach responded, texting while continuing down a park outside of Yutapu that was mainly grass but had sidewalks cutting through the whole thing and sparse trees scattered around too. The sidewalks were pretty busy with families walking around with kids, strollers being pushed about, and dogs on leashes all over. There was even a couple enjoying what seemed like the first day of spring out on the grass having a picnic, and Zach glanced their way with a small smile before looking back at his message he had continued typing even while looking away. 'U have your internship today?'

'Yeah ;('

'Why ;(?'

'Dude, training today killed me. All Might told us with internships that we shouldn't be doing them if we can't do them and our normal schoolwork, so I couldn't complain but damn it sucked!'

'Endurance training?'

Sero rose his eyebrows, but he responded with a smirk, 'Really feels like you've been watching me.' He hesitated, but this time he actually sent it as it was too coincidental with the news' story and this now. He sent a second message quicker than Zach could respond, 'Was running nonstop through all of it. Aoyama nearly passed out from heat exhaustion.'

'He okay?'

Sero smiled some more and replied 'Lol yea he's good. What're u doing rn?'

Zach resent the picture of him with the sakura blossom, making Sero sweatdrop at the response while Zach chuckled as he imagined his friend's reaction. 'As I said, not much,' Zach replied. 'Training wasn't as hard at Shiketsu today. We're all working on reports.'

'Lucky.'

'The others say they're jamming our hardest training into the final months, but this report is going to be graded harshly too.'

'What's it on?'

'Secret.'

Sero laughed and he typed back quickly, 'You're kidding.'

'Nah. I like being mysterious,' Zach replied and he grinned before pocketing his phone and turning with a heroic smile to a couple and their kids who all recognized him and pointed him out. The kids wanted a picture, and Zach nodded at the parents that it was fine when they asked him. He kept his right hand raised to his side and flexed his right arm instead of putting it down like he did with his left to put his left hand on top of the younger boy's head. The two boys' parents thanked him for posing after Zach said something inspirational to their boys he had taken a photo with, but he told them it was no bother before heading on his way again.

He pulled back out his phone when he continued going, texting back fast as he had taken longer there than with most responses. He sweatdropped too as Sero called him out after two unanswered messages that Zach was trying to be 'mysterious' in their text message stream too. 'Haha, just had to take a pic with some people who saw me. It's really a secret though. I'm thinking about publishing it afterwards, this time less "anonymously" as my last one.'

Sero shook his head with his bottom lip dropping for a few seconds. Then he closed his mouth and just chuckled under his breath at the easy admission Zach just made about posting his report himself back their first year. 'Well, good luck with that' Sero replied. _Whatever he's trying to do with this one is probably important too. Lifebringer's Law was practically built off people talking about your last report. Now we all have to train in teaching people how to use their Quirks too. A whole extra course… That I don't mind taking. Because you were right about that. And you knew it, which is why you posted it yourself!_

'And good luck with your internship today. If you're too sore then take off.'

 _Not really an option when Ape-Man's already offered me a sidekick job after graduation. Not that he doesn't know how hard U.A.'s training is… but I don't want him thinking I can't handle it!_ 'I'm good. This is Taping-Hero: Cellophane we're talking about. Plus, things have been quiet since you kicked the crap out of the SD's.'

'Don't rely on that'

"I know I know. I'll be careful'

'K, see ya later'

'See ya'

Sero put down his phone and let out a deep breath, then he chuckled and shook his head while putting his phone back in his pocket. "What're you grinning about?" Ashido asked, suddenly leaning over the side of the couch on the left side from the center couch's perspective. Sero pulled his head away at her sudden appearance, and Ashido glanced down at his pocket where he had just slid his phone after smiley texting someone. "Let me guess, you've got yourself another girl-"

"It was Zach," Sero cut her off before she could accuse him of playboy-ing as she loved to joke at him.

"Oh," Ashido replied, nodding and her smile lowering a little though it rose back up quickly as Sero's expression shifted a little oddly as he looked at her.

She came around the side of the couch and wondered at her friend, "How's he doing? Haven't talked to him since the joint training," she mentioned it off-handedly, but Sero looked at her even more oddly after hearing that than from that initial reaction she had a moment ago.

"He's good," Sero said, though there was a questioning tone in his voice.

Ashido looked back at him confusedly like she wondered what that look and tone was for. She dropped onto the middle couch, and she looked at the screen to avoid Sero's gaze. _That's great. I'm glad he's, doing well. The thing with Kyoka, seemed like it failed… And after seeing that Darling girl I thought, maybe he would, maybe…_ Thinking of Zach, and who he had been since he came back, had made her so happy before. That had changed though recently. _He was lying again._

"Have you even talked to him since Inazuma?" Sero wondered.

Ashido looked at him in surprise and then her eyes shifted around and she saw a few others nearby on the first floor though no one was listening in to their conversation, yet. She kept Yaoyorozu, Asui, Iida, and Uraraka all in her peripherals though as she shook her head at Sero hesitantly. "Other than the joint training..."

"Why not?" Sero wondered, his tone started to get accusatory as he asked her.

Mina's heart rate started to speed up as she refaced her good friend and one of the few people she could talk to freely. Sero had been the one to tell her they could only talk about this outside of school though, which made her think about it clearer for a moment, _He wants me to keep things, secret. Just talk about stuff, without revealing anything in case anyone listens. I can do that… but I don't want to lie-_ Ashido's face fell more, and she said softer to him, "It hurts, you know? All the lies he's said to us since he came back?"

She specified and rose her eyebrows expecting Sero to agree with her, but Sero shook his head back as he did not get the feeling she had. "Did you, not believe him?" Ashido whispered softly.

"I believed every word of it," Sero replied with a shake of his head. _Almost from the start, his story about going through that portal had blown my mind. I believed there were parallel worlds, and hell there still could be. I don't know what Airi was talking about when she mentioned the other dimension they were in, but that one, and the Void. Who knows how many others are out there?_ "But he does what he feels is right, and sometimes that includes lying to us."

Ashido's face scrunched up and she pulled back for a moment. _He still-_ She felt guilty for a brief moment, as her faith in Zach had been completely shaken by what happened in that abandoned village on Inazuma. She could see it though on his face, in his eyes, the same look she had always seen on his face when they talked about Zach the hundred, or thousand of times before this. "How do you still look up to him-" Ashido began, but cut herself off again, only to get a more serious look on her face as she leaned forward and said in a lower voice. "When you know that he was lying again? When you know, how many people he's killed?" She asked that softer, more pained. "I knew that when he was mentioning 'war' it had to be worse than what I was imagining, but he talked about those battles like he was killing so many people," Ashido continued that in a soft voice, her eyes shifting to her left for a second as she saw Iida, Uraraka, and Asui all heading towards the couches to go around them or to them, she didn't know.

The others on Ashido's left heard her even as she got quieter though, and the three of them looked at her with wide-eyes, though Iida's wide ones darted left and right before back to Ashido in astonishment. "It might have been on a different world, and I might not fully get what he was going through," Ashido continued in a lower voice feeling pained as she said this to a friend who did not look to have any wavering faith unlike her. "How do you still see him, like that?"

The way in which she was asking about was clear to Sero without her specifying. He glanced to his right at the three on his right, and he saw someone past them walking closer too wondering what they were talking about that had the other three all freezing to watch them in shock. Asui was still wide-eyed but she did look to Sero with increased interest too at Mina's question, _Why is it, Sero-chan, that you always take his side?_

Sero looked back at his ex-girlfriend though and replied directly to her, "It's easy for me. Because Zach's died, thousands of times," Sero said it and shook his head in sheer amazement at the statement that just came out of his mouth. "And I don't think I could do it once," he told the shocked girl in front of him.

Uraraka's eyes were huge as she stared at Sero. As much as she was wondering if she had heard what he first said correctly and desperately wanted him to clarify it to her, that response also had her staring in shock at her classmate who she had never asked this to before. She thought about the last June, how Sero had told her, Shoji, Midoriya, and Todoroki about how that month the year before had been the saddest moment of his life. She remembered what Sero mentioned hearing Zach say, word for word, as he stood outside Zach's door the night of Kaminari's betrayal. And she always assumed most of the reason Sero was so amazed by Zach had to do with how he had come back after that to keep fighting, because it was something she was amazed by herself too even if she did not always agree with what Zach did.

Sero glanced around at the others who were all surprised by his answer, and he shook his head as to him their surprise was more unfounded than his answer. "I'm as amazed by Monoma who managed to do it like a dozen times," Sero went on. "And Kirishima, Shoji," he looked to his right, "Tsuyu and Iida too. You guys… do you think you could do it again?" He asked the two standing next to each other who froze at the question, as it was something both of them avoided thinking about so much. Knowing what it was like was something else entirely, and Ashido and Uraraka could see that as they looked to the two who Sero just questioned and felt a bit bad for bringing it up. He continued though in a softer voice, "And another time after that? And again? And again?"

The boy with tape dispensers in his elbows shook his head and said, "Monoma says that when bringing people back, there's a moment he could feel that Zach told him he felt when he actually died. Something Zach doesn't like to tell other people about, because then we'd all know what he goes through each and every time he saves someone like that. There's a moment that Zach told Monoma he felt when he actually died for real, that horrible moment that you have to feel multiple times to realize." Sero paused for a second after specifying how you have to feel it multiple times, and he frowned more when Iida frowned at him for saying it like that as it made it feel like Sero was disparaging how important his single death was. Sero _was_ doing that though, and Iida's eyes unblocked by glasses opened wider as he stared back at Sero whose expression eased up a moment after he was sure Iida saw that serious look.

Sero sighed at the ways the others were looking at him, but he continued while looking back to Ashido who he meant this for initially anyway, "Zach's felt himself die, countless times. And he's gone through so much pain too. All those scars we saw when Zach got shot," he reminded the girl in front of him who winced and closed her eyes so tightly as she imagined that. Yaoyorozu lowered her gaze down to her feet too from behind the three standing behind the center couch in front of her. She remembered more of those scars than either of the other two who saw them, as she had been in the ambulance when they finally cleaned all the blood off him to reveal just how much of his body was covered in scar tissue. Sero continued to the pink girl in front of him, and the people standing behind her, "I'd never seen anything like it in my life when I tried to stop the bleeding, when I looked over Zach's body and saw scars on top of scars on top of burn tissue on top of bullet holes."

Uraraka's eyes shook as she tried to picture that, as she tried to imagine the scars on his face and neck going farther down Zach's body as she always knew they might have. "It was like he got shoved in a meat grinder, came out and healed up, and then got cut into little pieces and put back together in a shoddy way," Sero continued, his tone getting lower and his expression getting sadder too as he could not keep saying this just in an amazed way anymore. He paused for a second, and he continued in a low voice, "All while being tortured and watching his friends get tortured and killed. Fighting a war none of us knew about, in a world I couldn't even imagine," Sero said that and did not sound like he was lying to either Iida or Ashido.

They wondered what 'world' he meant by that, as he was not talking about Terra but something more like how what had really been happening since Zach was gone on their own planet had been like a whole other world to him. "And he doesn't want people to know," Sero started again. His voice rose back up and he said in an amazed voice, "All he wanted was to help people. All he's ever wanted, and it's all I can see him still trying to do." He said it and paused with a shake of his head and a smiling face of disbelief as he then continued, "It blows my fucking mind the kind of person Zach is."

"Zach, is the most amazing person I've ever met," Sero admitted with a shrug while looking solely back at Ashido. He looked straight into her eyes and said it firmly but with a smile, "The most resilient, strongest, most terrifying," he added that but shook his head and finished, "and yet with the kindest heart. I don't know anyone who cares more about people he doesn't even know than Zach. Because what he does is sacrifice his own life for every person he brings back. He gives his life for them all the time. Like every day!"

"But," Uraraka started, chiming in for the first time and making Sero lift his gaze up to her. She paused but then asked the boy who was saying all this great stuff about Zach, "What about all the bad things-"

"And what about the good?" Sero countered right back at her. "Yeah, Zach's done bad things. I don't argue that," Sero said with a shrug. "Zach doesn't argue that," he added. "But at what point can the good ever overcome the bad? Never, right? No matter how much good Zach does, he'll never make up for the bad things he's done. Not to some people," he said that lower and shifted his eyes around the three behind the couch who he could see were still stuck on that very first thing they overheard over here even after all that good Sero just talked about. In a lower voice he added, "Not to you." His eyes locked on Tsuyu for a moment and then to Iida too, then Uraraka more questioningly though she just seemed confused and unsure of herself with her eyes shifted down and failing to meet Sero's when he looked her way.

Ashido looked behind her and up at the faces of her other friends just behind her too. Sero continued to that group of three, "And I think Zach might still be trying to make it up to you. Show you that he really came back and is being good despite your doubts, because he wants to prove that anyone can come back from the darkness and that anyone can survive even the worst things, and until everyone accepts that, he won't give up… and he'll keep fighting." Sero's tone lowered again and he frowned as despite how amazing what he was saying was, it made a pain reappear in his chest stronger this time. _It's so amazing that he's trying something like that. It's why he doesn't want us telling anyone who he is. His biggest reason to keep up from revealing that he really was Death, is just that he wants everyone to think he really can be a hero even after all they saw happen to him._

"Sero?" Uraraka wondered softly, her expression soft but confused at the way Sero looked right there even as he was thinking those amazing things about Zach.

 _I don't like it though,_ Sero thought, as much as those amazing things supposedly were to him. "I don't want him to keep fighting," Sero said. He admitted it, and even he looked surprised as the others all thought he was talking up what Zach was doing as if it was the most amazing thing he had ever seen before. He brought his head up fast and said, "As amazing as Zach is… I want him to be done. I want him to stop." _I've wanted him to stop for so long now. Since I was hearing about AoD members falling left and right. About how they were losing heavy numbers and then still showing up again and again._ "I don't know if Zach even can at this point though. He's gone too far. Put too much pressure on himself." Sero's voice got even softer to near a whisper, and he finished, "Zach puts himself in more pain than anyone else, just to save people. He wants to save them. He loves to save them. But, he's tired."

"Tired?" Ashido asked, and Yaoyorozu stepped around Uraraka's other side to look towards Sero herself in confusion at what he just said there. Her eyes were wide at what he thought and just proposed to them, and Sero hesitated at Yaoyorozu's look as he wondered about maybe being wrong for a second.

His head shook back and forth slowly though as he thought back. "I saw it that day at the 'fight day' at Zach's apartment," Sero admitted. _And I never said anything about it. I didn't even really understand, what it was I was seeing. I tried to but… I couldn't._ "I went to the bathroom to take a piss, and Zach was standing in front of the mirror, thinking about something just…" Sero stopped himself and clenched his teeth hard for a moment then shook his head frustratedly.

The others could see Sero remembering Zach's expression at that time from his own pained look. "Whatever Zach was seeing and hearing," Sero started softly and in a pained tone. "Whatever battlefield he was in the middle of to turn and look at me like that," Sero continued, his heart aching as he saw that look in Zach's eyes. "I couldn't imagine it. But when Zach spun looking like he was in the middle of a war, only to see it was me, the look that I saw when he said it was fine and headed away; it was just tired. Behind the smile and the fake calm eyes, I saw exhaustion like I couldn't comprehend at the time."

Iida's heart pounded and he had to turn his eyes away for a moment. _Ever since I discovered- not once. Not once have I even considered something like that. He's, tired? After all he's done, I see him still doing so much and I didn't think about it._

"Zach was tired of fighting," Sero said softly, and he sighed himself while leaning back on the couch he sat on. "But the fight followed him and he couldn't escape from it. Even running back home, it followed him _mentally._ And he acts like he's at war, treats life like it's war, because when he doesn't and he starts to let his guard down, that means his war is over. He'd have to think back on it, I think," Sero muttered at the end, since as close as he felt to Zach, even he could not really tell. _I really don't know. Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe I overthought everything, or maybe I'm right._ "And I think Zach wasn't lying," Sero continued while looking to Ashido. "As much as he might have fudged some of the details for us, the stuff he mentioned about time distortion, reality bending and dimensional Quirks," Asui and Uraraka were confused and staring at Sero in more shock at those kind of things he was mentioning casually, though both of the short girls noticed the taller people standing next to them had looks more of recognition on their faces that shocked the two of them even more.

Sero finished to the girl in front of him who started nodding at what he was saying right there, as she agreed that he was right about this. "The stories might have been altered but not too much. Zach's seen things so ridiculous, that I think he knows most of us wouldn't be able to believe any of it. So whatever he says, whatever he tells us, he just makes everything so crazy so we wouldn't fully believe it from the start, so that we could pick out what we did and didn't believe."

"Are the stories he's telling about Terra-"

"Those are true," Sero cut in before Uraraka could finish her question. Uraraka hesitated in confusion as what Sero was talking about almost made her think none of them actually were true, "But when he says things like he was fighting a 'war,' and then in the next sentence laughs about some fun adventure he went on in that other world, you ever think he might be leaving something out?" Sero wondered. He paused after asking it though, and then he admitted, "Not that, you've heard too many of these stories."

Uraraka felt a pain in her chest like that was a slight just directed her way at how frequently, or rarely, she had seen Zach since he came back to Japan. Sero was glad she looked guilty like that though, and he hoped to himself, _Go talk to him then. You know he can't come here to talk to you._

Sero continued after a moment, feeling hesitant now after Uraraka's started question before that made him feel he might have been saying too much here, "But as much as I know he was exaggerating before, the stories themselves I think are just darker. More gritty and full of horrific realism that Zach changed into a fun adventure, and I don't blame Zach for doing that. Because when I saw Zach actually thinking about the truth, it scarred me." Sero grimaced at the admittance, but he said in a lower and darker tone, "Just seeing that look on Zach's face, keeps me awake at night trying to picture what it is he saw in that mirror. So if he had actually told me what he had seen to make him look like that, something probably worse than what I'm imagining…" Sero trailed off and then shook his head fast, and he smiled again while raising his hands and putting them behind his head in a relaxed way.

"But that's another reason Zach's still the coolest hero in my mind," Sero added. "Because despite all that _shit,_ he's out on a walk right now enjoying the first sakura blossoms. And when I told him about how hard our training was today that Aoyama almost passed out, his first response was asking if he was okay." Sero grinned more while looking back at Ashido who smiled wide to hear something like that. "And that video from last night?"

"That was crazy," Ashido agreed with a quick nod. A big smile covered her face, and she shook away all that doubt and the feelings of hesitation she had now that did not fully go away during the joint training alone. "But he looked like he got totally into the festival atmosphere! Dressing up like that?! I literally dropped my jaw when I saw him-"

"He's enjoying himself," Sero said with a laugh, and a more relaxed smile as he had put pressure on himself there to help Zach only to remind himself here how Zach was already helping himself. _As much pressure as he's got on himself, as much as bringing those people back is still hurting him, he's evening it out with some fun. I know that's what he's doing. As much as going out in public has its practical uses too, you're having fun with it too, aren't you?_

* * *

Zach continued walking around long past dark. He had stopped back home for a minute, grabbing a sweatshirt and a black mask to cover the bottom half of his face in an acceptable way as it would be after dark. The air was colder and it was windy that night, with dark clouds filling the sky though no snow coming out of them. Even if it did precipitate, Zach figured it would likely just be freezing rain as the temperature did not drop below freezing point the night before either.

 _I didn't sleep last night,_ Zach thought, frowning as he continued walking the streets with a small cup of coffee in his right hand. He had gotten the coffee from the Karbos, but he decided while he was there not to push on the subject of villain activity that the other two mentioned not being a part of since he had made them his C.I.'s. He had the opportunity to question about previous contacts, and he could have pushed the issue about how some of them must have gotten upset at the Karbos for getting out of the game. He could have used the incentive of stopping those people angry at them, and the hidden threat that if no one was angry at them then maybe they had not gotten fully out of the villain game as they had told him. Zach knew he could do it too, but he wound up just talking to them for the twenty minutes he was in the store in a more casual way before leaving with his coffee.

 _What am I still doing out here?_ Zach wondered, as he was all alone walking down a sidewalk with a cold coffee. Only half of it was left, but he had not felt like drinking much in the first place. Drinking it did nothing for him. He did not feel tired anyway, nor did the coffee keep him up any more than he would be regularly. _I guess I like the taste. Seraphim made better-_ Zach's jaw tightened and his eyes clenched shut for a moment. _No really, what am I doing out here? I know every inch of this city by now. I could go memorize Osaka, or something… why? All this useless information. Just the chance that I'll need it… is not actually a good reason to spend my time doing shit like this._

 _So what is it? I'm not out here for anyone else. I'm hiding my appearance so it's not to instill confidence in the public. Am I looking for villains? Why didn't I say anything to the Karbos then?_

 _Maybe, it's because I was still doing that as Lifebringer. Last night I went out and had a good time, as Lifebringer. And I had to appear to the public as Lifebringer. As a hero. Why am I dressed darkly, out here at night, searching for…_ Zach's lips felt like twisting up so much, but that feeling made him frown deeper for a second before flattening back out under his mask. _Someone's trailing me. Been a few days since my last tail. At least the last one I noticed._

Zach finished his coffee and walked down a dark alley, opening up a trash can and fully looking down into it before tossing his coffee. He closed the lid and continued out the other end of the alley and then down another road. _Why is that disappointing? If it's one of Eziano's, they'd definitely notice that I was letting my guard down too much. Shit. Even that, might have tipped them off that I know. Or maybe I'm faking knowing that someone's behind me. I want someone to slip up! Weird though. Even Lemillion does a better job than this._

Zach turned his head and looked over his shoulder, and he looked back and forth on the empty road behind him on outer suburbs of Yutapu. _Just up ahead is a good place._ Zach turned back forward and frowned deeper under his mask. _Not a professional, but clearly trained. They darted away up on the roof back there quickly into hiding. I made it out like I didn't notice, but the fact that he's still coming after me even though I'm on guard is unsettling. Eziano's guys wouldn't be so gung-ho. They'd back off and wait for another moment. After what I did to the others? So then, this could be someone he outsourced. A freelancer who doesn't seem as against collateral damage if he's willing to be seen out here. Is this going to be a legitimate fight? I should move a little quicker._

His steps sped up and he glanced over his shoulder again. He looked up towards the rooftops again, his face appearing more uncertain and nervous as he swore he spotted something leaping across from one farther roof to one closer to him. _That kind of speed. The people in those buildings could definitely hear someone on their roof! His motions seem strange though, does look like a man's body,_ Zach shifted his attention forward and his eyes narrowed with his hands curling into tighter fists that he curled even harder still as the right corner of his lips was twitching.

Zach turned right and cut down a narrow path next to a grassy area fenced in by sharp metal posts. He ran to the gate and hopped it into a forward roll on the other side so he did not have to stop to open the gate. Zach rolled out of the dive and spun around, then he hopped backwards twice as the guy across that narrow street and up on the roof ran to the edge of it and jumped straight off. A spray of something came out of his shoes that Zach saw in the dim light outside of the fenced-in area, and he jumped off of the ground as a lot more of it sprayed out of the man's boots upon his landing so it coated the ground ahead of him.

The landing did not turn out to be as hard as Zach thought he was coming down before, as the ground turned smooth and clean instantly upon his feet touching the spray that had covered the ground before them. The man spread his legs out in more of a fighting stance, while glaring out from the slit in his black ski mask at the teen who backflipped during his jump and then landed softly down on the tombstone behind him. Zach's feet landed balanced on the grave marker, and his right hand reached down between his feet to grab it while his left lifted to his mask and pulled it down. The man in front of Zach pushed his right foot back, sliding it across the ground and speeding forward, but his eyes opened wide as Lifebringer lowered his mask and could not suppress the smirk from his face anymore.

The guy running at Zach stood six feet tall, just a little shorter than Zach himself. He was dressed warmly like Zach, though Zach could see protrusions under his jacket showing he had stuff hidden under there. _We're secluded,_ Zach thought, while leaping backwards again to put himself deeper into the cemetery no one should have been visiting that late in the night. _Show me what you've got. You came right at me, knowing who I was. That's not the assassins' M.O. Who are you?_

The man running at Zach pointed his hands forward, and Zach jumped up high in the air as he predicted a long-ranged attack. The villain attacking him reached back under his jacket though as Zach jumped up high like that- then a knife cut through his right arm as he grabbed what was under his coat. _Think you can catch me off guard,_ Zach thought after throwing the knife at the man trying to trick him. He even convincingly played into the man's trap of acting like he had a long-ranged Quirk to use with his hands, even though it was obvious that the guy had training, and any person with training would not have advertised their attack so easily.

Zach landed down on the slippery ground but slid straight at the man expecting Zach to slip as he hit down. Under the man's specialized boots, tiny fibers from his feet swept to the right side, more holes opening up in that side of his boot as he did it, and his left hand pulling the rest of the way out from under his coat. The man tossed the device in his left hand at Zach, who snapped his left hand out and caught the metal contraption that looked like a grenade, and held the trigger down as it was about to pop out and set off the weapon. Zach wound up, then he threw it so fast that the weapon did not have time to set off until it had slammed into its original user's left leg.

The metal device opened up, but instead of an explosion, there was just a blast of more of that spray that filled the air around the villain and covered a lot more of the grass and graves around them. Still, the throw alone of that hard metal object took down the man sliding away from Zach who was not expecting the force of it to bruise him to the bone through his heavy clothes and armor underneath. He hit the ground and tumbled across it, only to roll over onto his hands and feet and slide back twice as fast as Zach was coming down with his right heel after leaping towards that man. "Why don't you use your Quirk? Lifebringer!" The man's voice rose from the frustrated whisper he started in, as he called out Zach's name in anger.

 _He hates me,_ Zach thought at the tone of that man's voice. _First clue._ His eyes turned red and he thought quickly while standing straight up on the ground and glaring towards his enemy with flat lips again. _Calm down. Who is he? What's going on? Personal vendetta it seems like. A villain whose comrades I threw in prison? Whose friends I killed? It's possible. Villains are cowards though. There are very few of them who actually care enough about each other to throw their lives away like this. So what? An idealist? For what ideal though? I was against all villains and all of their ideals, so it could be anyone in the world who believed strongly enough in an ideology I shattered with the group who fought for it._

"Use my Quirk?" Zach questioned as the guy stopped sliding away, seeing as Lifebringer had stood straight up and stopped chasing him. "Why would I, on a weak, piece of trash, like _you?"_

The man ahead of him growled from deep in his throat, and he gripped his hands into the ground with the fibers on the skin of his palms vibrating faster and faster. The balls of his feet pressed into the floor, and the man curled his gloves in a way that sprayed mist out from his fingertips. Curling his right hand hurt that whole arm as there was a bloody gash in it, but he did not care about the pain and just used it to add to his rage. "I'm going to kill you," the man said, his voice steadier though still full of hatred as he yanked backwards and shot towards Zach Sazaki.

 _That sounded,_ Zach thought, freezing with his eyes opening wide. Then, those eyes narrowed in fury back at the man shooting across the gap towards him. Zach's right hand snapped down to his side while he eased away, turning his body to the side and narrowly dodging as the man snapped his right arm up with a black weapon sliding up out of his right sleeve. Zach had seen that bulge though already, and he ignored the stick that had a pair of metal protrusions sticking out of the end that sparked as the man attacking him pressed a button on it. The guy was standing straight up too, coming off his strange slide with his left hand swinging across the front of his body as he dropped the stun baton with his right. The left hand caught the weapon and swung it at Sazaki…

Zach lifted his right hand that had a small black hilt in it. He pressed a button on the side while grabbing the hilt with his left hand too. The black blade extended three times, getting longer and then longer again in a single instant while his enemy was catching his baton and trying to jam it into Zach's chest on his right side. Zach stepped forward, and he stopped on the man's other side with that person he crossed freezing in place as he had barely seen Sazaki move. Zach lowered the black sword already aimed down like he had just finished slashing it. He turned the blade around and lowered it for his pocket, and he pressed the button retracting the blade back into its more portable size.

The moment Zach's blade retracted, the baton the man had swung at him slashed apart twice, and the man let out a gasp of agony and a deep growl of pain as he hit down on his knees. His knuckles were both slashed through where the mist had come out before, and there were cuts on his coat going through weapons he had underneath it too that he could feel falling apart between his outer and inner layers. The forty-two year old man from Okinawa stared down at his gloves in complete shock, his heart pounding in his ears as he thought, _I couldn't see anything._

"Iaido," Zach said in a low voice while still facing away from the man on his knees behind him. "I trained with swords and with a katana for a while," he said it in a calm tone, then his head turned to the side and he glared down at the man staring at his hands in a way showing he had been completely defeated. _At some point I changed up my costume and brought the katana from behind my back to my side. I got rid of the scimitars on my back too as I transitioned to almost solely knives. "_ Although I trained with many weapons, I always preferred knives in their high capacity, low fatality rate, and the high number of things I could do with them. But, I did practice with a katana for a time, and I trained myself in Iais."

The man on the ground behind Zach started turning his head and he looked back with huge eyes in the slit of his ski mask as Lifebringer turned his body more to face him. "Drawing a sword and slashing before sliding it back into the sheath in a single movement. I got good enough that I could make multiple slashes and get it back into the sheath in one breath," Zach stepped towards the man behind him and glared down into his huge shaking eyes. "But even better is when I use my Quirk with it. Because I can move limbs faster while surrounded in Death, because they're less restricted by the limitations of the human body that Death can circumvent, I can make a dozen slashes in a blur of black that happens in the blink of an eye." Zach lowered his head down more and he reached his left hand out for the man's neck that his fingers rested on gently, "I am that fast, so you were never going to be able to beat me."

Zach curled his fingers in tighter, only to curl them into the bottom of the mask that ended on the man's neck and yank up all the way off the man's head in one tug. _I could already tell,_ Zach thought, though his heart still fell at the confirmation as he looked down at that face he recognized. _Couldn't it have been, some no-name nobody?_ Zach stepped backwards and dropped the ski mask, lifting his left hand and rubbing it up under his hood and through his messy black hair. "Damn it," Zach muttered, glaring at the man whose face covered in shame for a split second before righteous rage covered it again. "Cleaning Hero: Broom Man. The hell are you doing here?"

The hero from Okinawa, one of the most famous top heroes in the south of Japan, pushed his hands down on the ground below him despite how much they were hurt and bleeding. His face filled with conviction as his legs got back up, his body turning and hunching over with a dark look filling his eyes. _Forget about his speed. Catch him off guard._

 _He's resolved himself. He's ready to do anything here,_ Zach thought as he examined the older man's face in front of him. "Why, are you trying to kill me-"

"Because you're a menace to this society," Broom Man replied darkly. Naraki Hasagawa narrowed his eyes at the teen in front of him whose eyes shifted to the man's chin and a scar on it that started to curve up towards his right cheek before vanishing. Zach's eyes lowered to the man's bloodied hands that were clenching so hard, and Naraki snarled out at the kid who he felt like was almost looking at him in pity, "I can't forgive you."

"So you decided to kill me?" Zach asked, his eyes raising from the man's hands to his face and staring at him in disbelief. "You're a hero, and you're out here trying to murder a fellow hero-"

"You are _not_ a hero," Broom Man growled, and he stepped forward only to wince and dart his eyes down in shock as he opened his mouth to yell out. A knife just slammed through the top of his left foot he stepped forward, and his eyes shook as he had not even seen that knife be thrown. Before he could make any noise or yell though, Zach was closer to him and had his left hand jammed forward straight into Naraki's teeth. Zach took the man off the ground with his left hand curled around the man's face so tightly it felt like an iron vice. Both of Broom Man's hands snapped up to the hand gripping him by the face, but he could not pry away Sazaki's fingers that felt like solid steel to him through the gloves and made his eyes open even wider in shock and panic as he could not breath.

The hero tried taking in a deep breath through his nose and to regain his composure, but Zach slid his highest finger on the hand gripping the man around the face up to just below his nostrils and blocked them. Zach ripped the knife out of Naraki's swinging right foot making him muffle-scream into Zach's steel palm. He held the man up squirming in his grasp for another two seconds, then he curved his lips down far and slammed his left arm towards the ground. He smashed Broom Man down on his back and then spat on the man whose bloodshot eyes from lack of oxygen shifted down to his chest and the glob of spit that just hit him there. _FUCK!_ Zach's lips shook and his hands trembled at his sides as he glared at the man his whole body urged himself towards.

 _NO!_ Zach stepped back, and then he felt the biggest turnover inside of him that made him feel sick to his stomach. "What the, fuck," Zach muttered, his head shaking and his eyes shifting to the hero who rose his upper body back up, pushing his palms on the ground at his sides to try and give Sazaki a darker look. "You're supposed to be a hero. Are you really-"

"You're going to say that to me?" Naraki questioned darkly, his voice raspy but coming back stronger as he forced himself to his butt. Zach stepped towards him and kicked forward while the hero's eyes were opening huge, his mouth that he opened unable to even get words out before that foot slammed into his face and knocked him flat on his back again. "Agh- ack gah ka ack," Naraki started a coughing fit, and he winced as Zach kicked him in the left kidney after walking to that side of him.

"Tell me why," Zach said, reaching down and gripping the man by the collar of his jacket. He kept walking past the man's left side while dragging him with him now, and he threw the guy so his back hit a tombstone this time and left him propped up like that sitting up but in no position to actually move.

The hero gasping for air and coughing when he got it parted his eyelids and felt pain filling his whole body after the beating he had received. _Is this what I get, for straying off the path?_ The idea made guilt fill the man who had been a hero for two decades now. "Tell me," Zach repeated, standing right in front of Naraki and looking down in his eyes. Zach looked at him and judged the man sitting there who could feel those judging eyes boring into him. "You've always been nothing but a great hero. An inspiring hero to the people of Japan."

"Heh," Naraki had to laugh. Despite the situation. Despite his injuries and his clear defeat at the hands of this teenager who had yet to even use his Quirk. He laughed once and then felt sick to his stomach for it as the kid in front of him lost some of that look in his eyes. It was like Zach had been one of those 'people of Japan' who he mentioned, and the hero laughing at the idea of it made him lose that inspiration he just mentioned. Naraki's eyes filled with shame and shifted away from the teen whose look he knew he deserved, though he grit his teeth as the one person who did not deserve to look at him that way was the one he got it from.

"I can't forgive what you've done," Broom Man said. He spoke up while still looking away, and he added in a darker and more regretful voice, "Killing villains, and still getting so much popularity. It's wrong." His eyes darkened more and shifted back to Sazaki's own dark look. Naraki continued to the teenager before him, "The country loves you, while a hero who's always followed the rules like me is considered a nobody. Even after fighting villains through the years and throughout all of the last two years included! Such high villain rates, villains killing my friends, maiming others, and other went into retirement out of fear, but I! I stayed in it through everything and kept fighting, while you ran away from this country. Isn't it weird?"

Naraki slid his back more up the gravestone and glared at Zach only for his eyes to get pained more as he snapped at the kid judging him with those eyes, "What do I get out of it? My wife leaving me, she says because all I did was complain about Lifebringer, who she _loved_. My pay staying the same as pay raises go to other heroes who started training citizens in their Quirks instead, and not a single person even recognizing me whereas Lifebringer's the most famous in the country!" Broom Man bowed his head for a second after saying something so shameful, but his bloody fists curled more in that shame and pain while he shook his head in frustration at all that had happened these past years. "Every day, you get more popular like being a hero like you is what people should aspire to? I can't-"

"I get more popular, because I'm back here following the rules again," Zach countered. He glared down at the man, but the hero's eyes lowered down more and clenched harder. _You know that though. Or a part of you wondered about it, and hates that I feel the same way. I feel kind of bad for him. Especially since he's a hero who saved so many people. That scar was probably from fighting a villain. He's not really a bad person…_ Zach's stomach churned and his head started shaking at his own thoughts. "But," Zach began in a low voice, speaking more to counter himself though his voice reached the man in front of him sitting on his ass. "You came after me while you are a hero. Trying to kill me, an innocent civilian by the view of the law and the public."

Naraki started to raise his head, and Zach leaned down and slammed his left fist into the man's gut. Naraki's eyes bulged open wide, staring into Zach's from close up. Zach pulled his left fist back and then slammed it down into the guy's left side, before reaching up and grabbing him by his dark hair and slamming down into his knee he brought up at the man's face. "I'd arrest you right now," Zach said while pulling the man's face off his knee. "And that'd make you more famous than you ever were before," Zach continued in a low voice while putting his head close to the right side of Naraki's head. Naraki's eyes were squinted shut after the powerful knee to the face, but his face still twisted in terror and grief and shame at the aspect of that.

"I don't want to though," Zach said, and he pushed the man's head back by his hair and left the hero gasping for breath slumped against that grave again. Broom Man's head bowed and he gasped for air, his spit sliding out of his wide mouth turning red as the inside of his right cheek had cut open right there. "I'm sorry for killing people," Zach started to the man in front of him. "But that isn't why I got so famous. Some Quirks are different from others, and I would have been the most famous no matter what because of Death. What I did with it didn't matter. I brought people back to life, and I was super famous long before the Lifebringer Incident, before the War Boys, before I even became Lifebringer and just at my famous first trial as Zach Sazaki."

Zach paused and he added in a low voice, "A Quirk like mine was going to become world-famous no matter what as soon as I decided to use it that very first time." Zach shook his head while Naraki opened his pained eyes and looked up into the boy's in a painful but also sadder way at the tone Zach was speaking to him in. Zach said softer to the guy he had just been beating on, "You're blaming all your failures and the things that didn't come to you easily on me, when they're really no one's fault at all. Sometimes, life just sucks. It's just shitty," he said it and rose his eyebrows at the guy who opened his eyes wider in shock at the answer Zach was giving him to all his said. "It's not my fault. Things happen to people and they like looking to blame others. So bad things happened and you didn't like them, that pain sucks, but when you step off the path of good you've failed."

Zach leaned forward in a fast and sudden movement. The bloody knife in his right hand was up against Broom Man's throat and he stared into the man's eyes from inches away. Naraki's eyes trembled at the feeling of that cold wet steel on his neck. "However," Zach spoke darker. "When someone righteous falls off that path, the others who look up to those righteous people feel so much pain and heartache. It's why I had to come back, to show them all that I was back on the right path." Zach said it desperately, while tilting his head to the side and looking back into Broom Man's eyes with a hopeful look that he would understand what he was saying. Broom Man was starting to get a lot more nervous though, his chest pounding harder and harder as he stared into this teen's eyes from up close.

Zach continued to him though and the fear Naraki was feeling was overcome by shame again as Lifebringer said, "If someone like Broom Man were to become a killer, or it even became known that he had attempted murder, then people would lose faith in heroes and we'd all be depressed by such a story. The idea that even our heroes could turn to murder, especially of other heroes? It would crush people."

The younger man started pulling his head back a little, and he shook his head in a steadier way as he saw how much shame and regret filled Broom Man's expression hearing all this that he already knew. "I really don't care about you," Zach started again, as he stood up straight in front of the hero. "Or about the attempt on my life as I face those all the time from better assassins than you," he added, and he spoke down to Broom Man there like he was an idiot for even trying considering that fact. Zach continued lower then, "But I do care about the people of Japan and so should you as a hero and a man who wanted to be a hero once. So remember what I said, and go back to being a hero," Broom Man froze and his head lifted up in shock, his eyes trembling as he stared in disbelief into Lifebringer's eyes.

"To make up for what you just tried to do here," Zach explained his reasoning. He paused, then he added with a more pissed-off look, "Or you could retire and go do something else. I don't care, I really, I just don't care about you," Zach's lips shook, his face getting angrier still as he glared at the man who looked almost grateful. There was relief in his appearance too, as the horror of being revealed to the public for what he tried to do was becoming less of a reality. Zach's irises started to shift color, and his chest pounded with darkness swirling faster and faster throughout his entire innards.

"If you ever consider doing something like _this_ again though," Broom Man felt every pore on his body start spilling sweat. His eyes opened the size of saucers, while Sazaki leaned down in front of him, going on, "If you consider even after retiring that you should do something illegal, I will come after you and cut you into tiny little pieces with my sword." Zach leaned in closer, and he snarled with Broom Man seeing inside his mouth and the dark swirls coming out from the back of his throat. "And I'll shred you if you ever come near me again," Zach's snarl got deeper, his voice getting scratchier and overlapping with a darker and deeper voice that had Broom Man's breath stuck in his throat and his thoughts unable to make coherent streams. "I'll shred you apart and then boil you forever in the lava fields in the deepest pits of **Hell."** Zach's face turned skeletal with black flames rippling around it, and those black flames shot down his face to his neck and over his entire body to the sword he was now holding in his left hand along with the black blade that extended from the knife he was gripping in his right.

Zach's jaw curled up into a smile with the darkness over it shifting in that way too, and the dark monster leaning over Broom Man and getting bigger each second growled in his terrifying voice, "I would warn you what happened to heroes around the world who decided to take money from villains or be corrupt." Naraki could not breathe and his face was turning blue from the most horrifying thing he had ever seen or heard, at least until the next ten seconds. Zach's skeletal face disappeared so it was just pure blackness with red glowing eyes above him, the darkness shifting as Zach's voice made out those monstrous words to him, **"Over the past year many of them were turned in to the police and shamed by the world…"** His dark face leaned closer with his smile twisting up even more horrifyingly as he added in a more terrifying voice, **"But some just** _ **disappeared.**_ **Vanished off the face of the Earth, never to be seen again-"**

Zach leaned back and backed off from the man. A pair of wings emerged from his back and slammed down into the ground to shoot him so high in the sky before all that darkness broke apart and started fading in the air. "Ahh, gahhh," Zach gasped out a breath and sucked in a huge one once his face was back and so were his lungs. _Fuck. Oh my God. Fuck me._ Zach shook his head around and spun his body in midair, flapping his wings behind him that were still sticking out of his body even though the rest of his aura was gone. He left with just that warning for the hero scarred for his life and pissing his pants down below, something Zach had smelt which snapped him into flying away.

"Huh," Zach muttered as he flew off. He curled his right hand a couple of times and brought it to his stomach that he rubbed for a moment, then rose it up his body to his chest and patted a couple times there too. _Have to go back before I land down and become a target, but that actually made me feel some relief. I didn't notice before but that sick to my stomach feeling isn't in my head. I've been feeling a lot worse lately._ His frown curled deeper down as he tried to think about something like that. _I shouldn't have gone so far. I couldn't stop myself though once I decided that Broom Man was a villain. And, I needed to push out some Death._

 _I always need to do it! Damn, using it all on Faith was this huge relief I never noticed I needed until then, but I was able to ignore it for so long after that too. It's because I've been using it more frequently since prison. That long gaps of time now, my body's filled with 100% and I can't- I can hold it back. I am, but it's harder to control myself when I hate someone not to lose my shit on them and go absolutely berserk like I just did. Fuck._ Zach shook his head around and continued to fly around, his destination aimless as he soared through the sky. _I need to find a place to push all this Death out of me on a regular basis- but then I'd be weakening myself on purpose and what if something bad happens? Especially if they're watching me, they'd just pick a time I'm weaker. Damn it. 6 months of barely using it at all, and I don't think my body really needed anything in the Void either, but I've realized this overwhelming power_ _ **needs**_ _to get funneled out sometimes now. It needs to be regulated, not just suppressed, limited…_

Zach grit his teeth and then shook his head fast and returned to a flat expression. _Emotions make it well-up. I've noticed before, but I've always been in control enough never to let it really affect me, right? That wasn't, what controlled me. Shit, but if getting angry could do it, then I need to control better. And yet I can't just push it out to make myself weaker or a time when I need all of it will come and I won't be ready!_

 _What if, I never need it all against anyone ever again-_

"Shut up!" he snapped at himself high up in the clouds. His body was cold despite his warm clothes, and he ground his teeth in frustration and did a barrel-roll through the air. _Don't underestimate my enemies. I have no idea if I'm really the strongest in the world,_ he reminded himself. _But I have to assume I'm not. If I walk around with that attitude I'm bound to get killed sooner rather than later. Still… with what happened earlier, I brought up some good points. Making Broom Man disappear would have been better than revealing him for what he was. I don't care about him anymore too, and people would be less sad and hurt if he just vanished than if he was put on trial for trying to kill me. If I feel that way about him though, then isn't the same thing applicable to me?_

 _I really couldn't, let myself get captured. I wouldn't._ Zach hummed as he thought about it, and he started descending back to get below the clouds. His head turned and he looked for the direction his apartment was in. He continued thinking as he flew home, _I couldn't! Thinking about all I've told Todoroki, Iida, and Midoriya in that gazebo, and what I just told Broom Man, it's impossible. I told Todoroki that people would die if I got caught and I really believe that. I know it would only make for heartbreak and hurt so many people… but that's only if I ever went on trial. People would be disappointed and hurt too if I ran away, but I've shown them now that I'm back._ A small smile formed on Zach's face along with some relief too in his expression. _I came back from that darkest point they saw me at, and really, I don't think I need to show them much else. If it's between leaving them now or getting revealed as Death to them?_

 _All those people I think will die otherwise. The ones who the villains attack first at the start of that surge, I can save them, just by not letting myself get caught. It would be the opposite trend if I dropped back into hiding even! If it comes down to it, if that moment finally comes…_

* * *

 **A/N Thanks for reading! I feel my eyes closing... been very close to passing out for an hour but trying to finish editing and get this chapter out. So no review responses, but let me know what you guys thought of this chapter!**


	181. Chapter 181

**Disclaimer: I don't own Boku no Hero Academia**

 **Chapter 181:**

Midoriya Izuku lowered his phone he just checked again and his teeth ground in anger at the message he just received back from Zach. _I told him not to!_ He went to the front office and got a pass out of school, something which was easier and did not require much time in advance for the third years the school trusted the most to make their own safe decisions. _There's no way he could get to Musutafu this quickly- I should have said I was going to Shiketsu. I wanted to talk but-_

Kayama Nemuri watched the student she gave a pass to go, and she felt hesitant at the look on his face that was unlike Midoriya's usual expressions. _"I need a pass to go see Zach." He sounded frustrated even as he told me. Looks like you're struggling with your heart there, but that makes you going out to deal with it anyway so impressive!_ Midnight's cheeks got red as she watched the broad back of their strongest student as he headed out of the school.

Midoriya did not have to walk far from U.A. to see his classmate who was walking his way from the direction of Musutafu General, where Midoriya was walking himself. "Thought you wanted to meet at the-"

"You went to the hospital again," Midoriya said, his voice full of frustration. _I text you to talk, and you go bring a couple people back to life! Why?! Why is there that kind of pressure on just talking to me-_

"I told you, I do it so that I can get here faster as it's an emergency," Zach said without sounding regretful or apologetic in the least. He started running, and Midoriya sprinted after him to get on Zach's side and in front of him as they ran, Midoriya unable to keep the same smile that Zach put up for running around in the daylight of mid-afternoon. "What did you want to talk about though-"

"You can't just keep doing that," Midoriya scolded, his voice angered as Zach tried to just skim past it like the other times.

"What's your deal?" Zach asked, turning towards his curly-haired friend who looked back at him with wider eyes for a second because of Zach's tone. His eyes narrowed after that moment though as they continued running down the sidewalk together, but he stayed quiet as they were passing some people who spun in surprise and called out at the two heroes who rose fake smiles because of their looks.

"'Why?'" Midoriya repeated, as the two of them ran closer to a park that Zach had wanted to meet Midoriya in in the first place. "How do you not get it? How do you do something like this so casually?!"

"Save people?" Zach asked back, his voice confused and his eyes raising in annoyance at his former classmate.

"Treat people's lives like, like they're tools for you," Midoriya countered with his eyes accusing Zach of what he was saying. He searched to see if Zach would deny it, and he saw a hurt look in Zach's eyes at the accusation but it did not do much for him. They ran into the park and then slowed down as Midoriya turned more fully to Zach, and he said in a low and frustrated voice, "A long time ago, All Might told me that a hero could only save people in their reach. And, and that stuck with me."

"Midoriya," Zach began, starting to shake his head.

"And it hurt me so much when Bakugo and you were within my reach those times but I failed to save you! But Zach," Midoriya paused and his teeth ground in so much anger at how nonchalant Zach had been about this. "Those people are always within your reach and you do nothing!"

Zach's expression hardened and his face was stoic showing no emotion. "Zach-" Midoriya started, but he felt like saying anything would not mean much to his classmate who turned his expression so stoney and emotionless like that. "Why won't you take this seriously?" Midoriya asked, his face so pained at the way Zach was looking like he did not care about this at all.

"Because I know better!" Zach yelled at his friend next to him who just stared at him in confusion for that kind of answer. "And because you don't know what you're talking about!"

Midoriya hesitated for a second, then he countered strongly, "I do though. Because I see you so often, and I know what you've been doing more than anyone else… And I know I would be saving more people than just the ones I had to, in order to make quicker trips between cities." Midoriya's voice was low and accusing, and Zach's eyes shadowed over for a moment with his head bowing a bit as they stood there on a trail in a park in Musutafu.

 _Fuck. I feel so shitty right now, again,_ Zach looked to his side at the boy next to him waiting for a reply. _I don't even care though. Geez, my stomach's killing me. Bringing those two people back didn't do shit for helping it. It exacerbated it if anything._ "Well?" Midoriya asked as Zach was just staring at him silently.

"I'm not that good a person," Zach responded. "I guess, I just don't care-"

"That's not true," Midoriya started countering.

"If I was that good a person," Zach spoke over his friend. "I wouldn't have come back. If I was still that kind of a person, I would leave you again and just spend every day bringing back the dead," Zach narrowed his eyes at Midoriya and then cracked a small carefree smile that had his friend staring at him in disbelief. "But that's not what I want to do."

Midoriya was shocked by the response he never expected to hear. He expected some denial, or Zach pushing that he was doing the best he could, or something. Not this. Zach eased his dark expression even more at the shocked look on Midoriya's face at his responses. He took in and then let out a deep breath, and he put his hands down in his sweatpants' pockets as he started walking down the trail again. "Why did I live and so many others die?" Zach wondered.

"Huh?" Midoriya turned his head, then he realized he was falling behind and picked up his feet to speed-walk until he was at Zach's left side and could walk at a slow pace right next to him. Zach looked to his left out the corners of his eyes and said softly, "I was already on my second life. I knew I was dead. So why did I live?" He turned back forward and answered just as simply, "It doesn't matter. The 'why' really isn't important, as much as it plagues me. What does matter though is that so many people didn't make it. My friends died, and they never got to live their lives that they all told me they wanted to live after the war."

Zach's teeth clenched as he bit down hard, keeping the faces of those he was talking about from creeping into his head. His stomach hurt even more as he pushed them out, and he cleared his throat before continuing, "Ah-hmm, they-" his teeth bit down again and he shook his head angrily, turning it a bit towards Midoriya and looking at him in that angry way. "I'm living for everyone who isn't here right now. The ones who would have lived lives worth living, who wanted to, and who wanted me to. They loved me, and I couldn't stop fighting. I couldn't take a break, and they all knew how much it weighed on me." Zach looked back forward and said in a pained voice, "They told me to break. They reminded me to be human, to _live._ "

His voice got softer there as he said that, and he stopped walking for a moment as he thought so sadly, _It's what Ms. Calico told Cee._ "It's what Monoma told me when I was revived. He told me to live, and I want to live. My living a life worth living though," Zach continued in frustration, turning his eyes back towards Midoriya again. "Requires me not to spend every day, every minute, focused on how my Quirk _could_ be saving dozens of people an hour. If I was focused on it, I could go out and save hundreds a day."

As much as Midoriya somewhat understood part of what Zach was saying, hearing him mention that at the end there made his fists ball tightly at his sides. "Even a single hour though. If you took _one_ hour out of your day, instead of just saving a couple people because you decided to fly to Musutafu instead of taking the train?! You could save dozens of people in that hour, by your own words!"

"I'm not going to do that though," Zach said back coldly. "No one would stop me," he continued. "And that's why you're so mad," he said it in a knowing tone and Midoriya got an even angrier look on his face with no denial over it. "Because people are letting me do it and yet I'm not doing it anyway. They're ignoring my actions and letting it go as a loophole, and yet I'm just doing it the minimal amount. That's why you're so upset."

Midoriya started shaking his head, but he stopped and then lowered his gaze from Zach's face. _What can I say to him? No one can force him to change, but- But the old Zach would rush out of the dorm for the slightest chance to go out there and bring someone back to life. Even though he was scared of Kurogiri and the League getting him back! I would have too though, and I know I still would myself! Because if I had Zach's power I would be saving so many more people who heroes couldn't reach on time. People whose families are crying at their sides. The heroes crushed as they couldn't save them!_ Midoriya's expression covered in much more anger again, "So many people are hurt right now. They get hurt every day, because you decide not to save them. And you don't have to! No one can force you to… but you told me you're trying to be a hero! That's not what a hero would do!"

Zach's expression darkened more but he just started shaking his head at what Midoriya was telling him. Midoriya glared harder at the side of his face though at the sight of that head shake, and he started again, "Right now instead of having this talk you could be-"

"You don't understand!" Zach yelled back at Midoriya, his voice not low or hidden at all. He just yelled it at Midoriya with a real look of anger over his face that Midoriya stared at in surprise before starting to shake his head again which had Zach purse his lips so hard. "I-" Zach began. He stopped though. He stopped and he looked away and kept walking with his lips flat and emotionless. "I'm not that good a person. And I did come back to be a hero. That means I can't be the kind of person I was before though."

Midoriya's eyes grew wider at that defense countering what he said about how the old Zach would feel and do things. Zach said darker, "I can't sacrifice anything and everything for the sake of the world, like I used to be able to. I won't. Not Darling, not you," he added with a look to his side at the friend he was talking to instead of doing those things Midoriya wanted him to spend his time doing.

"Not anyone I care about or any of my goals and selfish desires-" Zach continued while looking back forward.

"Heroes can sacrifice, they do sacrifice all-"

"Sacrifice? What do you know about sacrifice?" Zach asked skeptically with a look to his side at his friend who opened his eyes wide at that cold question Zach wondered at him. "Anything? Your good nature and trustworthiness, I guess, because you lie all the time to people around you about your Quirk. You accept that because you think it's necessary though, even if I don't," Zach muttered at the end while Midoriya stared at him with shaking eyes and feeling like he just got punched in the chest. "It hurts, but it's a sacrifice you're willing to make. Same thing with the pain your Quirk used to cause you, sacrificing your own body for the sake of helping people. But Midoriya, all heroes do that." Zach looked to him and shook his head, "Every single one goes out there knowing they can die, and that's them putting their bodies on the line, but they can't _sacrifice_ anything. They need to protect everything, at all times, and smile while doing it. Unwavering pillars who either win a total victory or die trying. That's what heroes have to be."

"Heroes don't always win," Midoriya said sternly back at Zach, as every word out of his mouth as diminishing the acts of all heroes everywhere. His eyes were dark and angered with his friend who turned back to him and met that gaze unwaveringly.

"And people call them out on every small mistake though," Zach countered. "And those mistakes become who those heroes are. They define a hero's career. One failure. One slip up. And so heroes can't accept any losses, needing to win everything whenever they fight without sacrificing a single thing! Unless it comes to their own well-beings, because that's the one thing the rest of these people are okay with us sacrificing."

"And you don't think that's right?" Midoriya asked harshly and with his voice raising as Zach said that. "It's the job we chose-"

"Of course I know it's right!" Zach called back at him, then he opened his mouth again but rose up his left arm fast and covered his mouth with it. "Ack, ka-kuh, shit," Zach shook his head around and lowered his arm that Midoriya looked at oddly before raising his confused and still upset look back to Zach's own frustrated face. "You think, I'm not doing the same fucking thing? Bringing people back hurts like hell, and I still do it. And not just the physical toll. All those things I don't think about because I need to _smile,"_ Zach shook his head at his friend who opened his eyes wider at what Zach was saying now. "Because it's not just our physical states that don't matter as much as the people we're saving, but my mental health doesn't mean _shit_ compared to saving someone's life. That's how I feel! Saving one person is more important than however fucked up I get-" Zach paused and he heaved in a few breaths before shaking his head with so much frustration as his friend stared at him in more confusion than ever at what Zach was saying.

"I'm not going to die a hundred times a day," Zach whispered, turning back forward and calming himself down to regain a stoic expression in a single instant. He spotted people ahead of him down the sidewalk who were staring at Deku and Lifebringer in shock, though neither had phones or cameras raised to their luck. Zach forced out a smile and still spoke in a dark voice, "I'm not going to give up my name and my soul and my humanity. There are things I'm not willing to sacrifice anymore. They may not be the same as what others aren't giving up, but a hero can't just sacrifice everything, right? That's some defense to it, right? Who knows?" Zach's smile was so unconvincing to the people down the sidewalk who turned away and headed the opposite direction of the black-haired teen who stopped walking and just bit down in fury at the looks he saw before they turned.

 _I'm terrifying to look at._ "If you really, aren't feeling okay," Midoriya started while stepping behind Zach and staring nervously and in a pained way at his friend's back. "Then-"

"I'm stable," Zach growled. "But, it pisses me off when you don't know anything but act like you do." Midoriya paused and his eyes lowered for a second too before raising back up, locking with Zach's as his old friend turned sideways to look back at him. "When the chips are down and the choice you make has a million lives on the line, what are you willing to sacrifice?" Zach asked it darkly, but his voice also had an apologetic tone in it that made Midoriya think deeper into the question. Zach continued as he saw Midoriya's face shifting more thoughtfully, "How much are you actually willing to sacrifice when it comes to it?"

The question was asked so softly and it made Midoriya freeze in place. The green-haired teen tensed up, his muscles clenching and his eyes raising in a darker way at Zach as the anger all returned to his face. _I know what you're suggesting. If a "million lives" are on the line, you want to know if I'd kill a man. You want me to say that I would right now! You're suggesting that if a million people could be saved by killing someone, I wouldn't do it! He's trying to get me to say I'd kill someone. Or sacrifice my friends,_ Midoriya's face twisted in even more frustration, and anger, _"…But my own troops were more disposable than heroes."_

"Maybe you are right, about something," Midoriya started. "But if it came down to it, I would look for the third option. Not sacrificing anyone. Not killing anyone to save others, not letting anyone die, just to save someone else."

"And if you couldn't-"

"I'd make a way," Midoriya said strongly back without hesitation. "It's accepting the need to kill in certain situations that leads you to do so when those situations arises. If you never accept the need, if you never even consider it, you'll look for the better way and fight to find that way until you find it!"

Zach's eyes clenched shut and his teeth ground over each other, the worst feeling filling him as he felt sicker than he had in… _When Shindeki Buda had me, how fast was I to accept that I needed to kill him? If I had just waited. If I had just looked for another way from that very first time… He's right. As much as he's wrong about some of the time, I have no idea because I don't know what the outcomes would have been if I didn't sacrifice. If I didn't kill, if I didn't torture, if I didn't let my friends die… I don't know what would have happened. I can imagine things would have been worse. It's how I want to imagine things. It's the only way I'd be able to imagine things, if I even tried imagining them._

"Maybe," Zach muttered. He accepted it in a low voice and nodded with what Midoriya said. "And that's, that's what I'm trying now. To be the person, who doesn't consider those darker options. Who looks to fight, with only victory in mind. Not a single thought of a partial victory, where I lose some things but in the overall it's a win. Like, so many of my previous victories were." Zach lowered his voice and said quieter, "That's why, I told you about King, out of all of them." Midoriya's eyes widened and Zach said while turning his head more and saying sadly, "The one instance which we could agree on, because I had a total victory. I didn't lose anything, and doing what I was doing, even a tiny loss meant I was doing something horrible. They weren't all like that though. And as I said, that was one day, and not even the only fight of that day."

"So how much did you really _sacrifice_?" Midoriya asked.

Zach looked away from his friend at his side and just shook his head. Midoriya's fists were clenched so hard at his sides, and so Zach could only respond, "You don't want to know."

 _Because then we'd have to fight each other._ Neither of them knew it, but the other at their side had the same thought at the same moment.

* * *

On a Thursday morning in late February, Kotsumura looked over at an empty seat that was still empty even as Hazano sensei came in for first period. Everyone in the class stared towards the seat that had not been empty at this time since the first day of school when Zach came in late because of the attempt on his life.

Hazano said nothing as a few of his students pulled out phones, and he actually did himself too after a moment of wondering if he should just get started. _No big news right now. It could just be starting. Why am I assuming though?_ Hazano shook his head around as his thoughts for seeing Sazaki's empty desk revolved on either Zach being attacked or Zach being missing because some huge villain incident was going on. _Where is he then?_

Kotsumura opened up his texts and then lowered his phone under his desk as Hazano started speaking to his class without addressing the empty seat in the room. He sent a message, but he felt a strange sensation in his chest and looked back over to that empty desk hesitantly. _Zach?_

* * *

 **A/N Thanks for reading...**


	182. Chapter 182

**Disclaimer: I don't own Boku no Hero Academia**

 **Chapter 182:**

Around lunchtime on Friday at U.A. high school, Sero Hanta felt his phone buzz and he pulled it out of his pocket on the way to the cafeteria with some classmates. He looked at the sender's name in surprise, then he lifted his head and nodded off Kirishima and Mineta to go on ahead as they looked back wondering what made him stop all of a sudden. "I've got to make a call," Sero told his friends who just nodded back and then went ahead for the cafeteria with the rest of their class. It was not any of their business to pry in each other's private phone calls, especially since most of them were working with pro heroes and had to keep a lot of their activities confidential from friends.

Sero had not received a message from the pro he worked with though. He texted back while heading for the back doors of the school to get outside before making his call. 'What's going on Kotsumura?'

'Zach's out sick from school today. Second day in a row. Could you give me a call when you have a chance? I'm at lunch rn.'

Sero called Kotsumura and was glad he had already headed out to make this call as the first message alone had made him curious enough to want an actual phone call.

Kotsumura's phone rang and he was semi-surprised that Sero called him up so quickly, but he assumed the U.A. students must have had lunch at the same time for Sero to be responding this quickly. "Hey, Sero," Kotsumura began. The two of them were not necessarily close, but they had exchanged information back at the joint training after hanging out a bit more in the morning the day the U.A. students went home.

"You say Zach's out 'sick?'" Sero wondered. "You think something's up with him?"

"I actually went to his place to see him-"

"Was he there?" Sero asked.

"Yeah," Kotsumura replied while nodding himself, leaning against the wall of a hallway outside of his own school's cafeteria. He pushed off the wall and started with a small frown on his face, "And he looked fine. I mean, not to make it seem like this is some big deal or anything…" Kotsumura Keiji hesitated, and Sero understood why as despite what he just said it felt like it had to be at least a little serious for him to have called.

"And? What'd he say?"

"It's, weird," Kotsumura said slowly. "I showed up at his place after school yesterday, and he came to the door and let me in. I swear this isn't me exaggerating or anything, but I thought he might have been, wearing makeup? I don't know, I didn't mention anything about it but his face just looked a little…" Sero rose his eyebrows and cracked a half-smile as he wondered what Kotsumura was even talking about here. "But the weirder thing was, he told me how he really was sick, but then he went on about what he was up to while at home. It sounded important, and like it was actually why he was staying home. It was super obvious that he wasn't really sick at all. The way he acted, it was like he was showing me he was perfectly fine."

Sero's smile was gone and a much more thoughtful look had covered his face. "Really?" Sero wondered, his voice low and his thoughtful tone coming over the line.

"It's weird, right?" Kotsumura asked as he could hear that Sero thought so too. "If Zach was actually fine, but he was too busy to come in because of other stuff-"

"You'd think he'd actually pretend to be sick," Sero said, finishing for Kotsumura and then frowning deeper after his response. "Two reasons he might not have done that, are that he's either actually sick, or he just isn't pretending good enough to convince you-"

"Which, since it's him, you'd think he would only let me notice something like that-"

"If something was off about him," Sero agreed with another nod. _Zach's sick? Back during that trial they made it out like he couldn't get sick from anything. Like, all bacteria would just die trying to hurt him. But, aren't viruses not actually living things? So maybe, he caught a bug?_ "And what did he sound like? Did he look fine… the makeup," Sero muttered at the end, giving it more thought this time. _Hagakure talked about that night he showed up at her internship, in disguise at a night club! He would have that on hand, it's possible._

"That's the reason I brought it up. It sounded silly in my own head, but then I thought, 'What if he is sick?' And, 'What if his complexion was showing it?' Like, it's crazy to think of someone as strong as him coming down with something," Kotsumura started in a way that made Sero nod his head in total agreement there. "But, even Lifebringer can get sick, right? Did he ever, while he lived at your dorms-"

"Not that I remember," Sero replied.

"Well, then," Kotsumura hesitated for a moment. "You think, you could go see him? I asked him a couple times at the end if he really was doing okay, but he was so convincing and I relented to just leave after a little. The more I think about it though, the weirder the whole interaction was. And him not showing up today, I texted him but he just told me he's still, and he put it in quotation marks, 'sick.' Then he added how he had discovered some more stuff about his investigation last night that he's doing on his own- it was all so- it sounded like something he would do. But he wasn't convincing me."

 _And Zach's the best at convincing everyone that he's alright,_ Sero thought. He shifted his eyes to his side at his phone, and he sighed while thinking of why it was Kotsumura was asking him instead of going and trying again himself. _Zach made it pretty clear that night how close he still feels with all of us here. He's still one of my best friends too, and those Shiketsus have known each other for three years, and Zach for not even two months._ "I wish I could go check on him after school, but I have to leave right after school for the whole weekend. Interning with Ape-Man," he explained, though his voice was low and sounding hesitant as he wished he could take five or six hours out to head the other direction by train first then back before heading to where he had to be by mid-afternoon that day.

"Damn, well I know if I show up again he's just going to bluff his way through it again… if it even is a bluff. I might just be looking too deeply into it."

"No," Sero assured with a shake of his head. _If Zach really was sick, he wouldn't let anyone know. He wouldn't want anyone to worry._ "I'll talk to Yaoyorozu and see if she'll go visit him. Feel like he'd tell her, that kind of…" Sero frowned for a moment and his expression darkened as he realized what he was saying.

"Alright, that sounds great. As long as someone looks into it. If he's not actually sick, don't tell him it was me who got you guys to go… actually, nevermind. He'll know it anyway."

"Haha, yeah, he would," Sero replied. "Alright, thanks for the head's up, Kotsumura. I'm sure he'll be fine though, so don't worry too much about it."

"Oh I'm not," Kotsumura replied back with a laugh this time. "He kicked the crap out of all you guys after all-"

Sero hung up the phone and pocketed it. He had reassured Kotsumura there at the end, and the way he hung up made the blond laugh himself before heading into the cafeteria to talk to his classmates about how the U.A.'s would figure out how Zach was really doing. Sero's smile disappeared though after the end of the call, and he frowned deeper at the thought of what he just said. _He'll be fine? Zach getting sick seems unlikely. Something might be bothering him though other than… but the makeup? Would Zach really put it on in a way obvious enough for a friend he didn't want to see it to call him out on it? Except, it wasn't obvious enough for Kotsumura to ask. If Zach wanted it obvious enough to ask, then he could have actually pretended to be sick and said that he was covering up how pale he was, or something. Maybe he wanted Kotsumura to ask, and he just didn't bring it up on his own because it wouldn't make sense for him to intentionally do that._

The tall teenage boy rose his arms up and rubbed his hands through his black hair in a frustrated way. _There are so many possibilities when it comes to Zach. And trying to understand what he's thinking? That's like, impossible! Except for probably Yaoyorozu._ He lowered his hands and shook his head around, deciding against trying to look into it any deeper. _It'll just give me a headache. Even if I went to see him, he'd probably just bluff with me too. Those fun happy texts he's been sending recently, it's like he doesn't have a care in the world. And I feel like when he's talking with me he might actually convince himself he doesn't, which is why it's so great we're keeping those up. Life can't always be like that though. And if when we're talking is when you're having your good times, your shit times are happening when I'm not around to help you out._

 _If things can only be positive when we're talking though, that's fine. You got deep with me at the joint training, and I know the one you still care the most about here is her. Just hope the two of you still have a close enough relationship despite you giving it up back then. She was so quick to jump in that ambulance with you though, when Airi shot you._ Sero rubbed his forehead and sweatdropped with a glance back at the school building. _No point in standing around thinking about it. She'll definitely go, I just hope when you talk you actually tell her what's up._

* * *

Yaoyorozu walked down a street of Yutapu she double-checked the name of three times on her phone before finally putting it back in her pocket. The girl in a purple sweatshirt put her hands back into her front pocket and continued towards Zach's apartment with her hood up over her normal spiky ponytail. Her eyes shifted towards nearby rooftops and her fingers curled around the weapons she also had in her front pocket along with her cellphone. _No one's attacked him at his home, so far. The longer they wait could also be to lure him into a false sense of safety. Then again, this could be the first time they locate him if I lead them to him from the station. I didn't think,_ Yaoyorozu frowned and she shifted her head to look towards the apartment complex she had described to her earlier.

 _'Zach's home sick for the second day in a row. I think you should go check on him.' "Kotsumura from Zach's class just hit me up. Zach's out from school and he went to check on him yesterday. I think he might actually be sick… you already heard?"_ Yaoyorozu slowed down, then she curled her hands into fists in her sweatshirt and glanced around carefully again as she headed for the stairs up to the second floor of the building. _Muoko-san and Sero both think I should be the one here. I am concerned too, but,_ Yaoyorozu hesitated as she thought about the last conversation the two of them had which ended in a way that was so eerily emotionless for the two of them. _It felt like, something had ended._

Despite not wanting to think about it like that, Momo found herself moving slowly towards Zach's apartment with the thought that both of them had said what they needed to say last time, and yet they did not leave each other with words of how they needed to talk again. _I told him what I needed to about Kyoka. He said he wanted things to go back to normal, but that he knew it as well as I did. There is no more normal. I still care though, and if he actually is sick… Though it is likely something else. You cannot get sick. If everyone thinks you are sick, it's most likely because,_ Yaoyorozu frowned and stopped before reaching his door. _What is it you are planning now? You know you need to graduate in order to become a hero, and I know that's what you want to do! It's what you told Midoriya! If that, if even that was a lie… then you are more than just a liar, Zach._ Yaoyorozu hardened her expression and resolved herself, _So I must find out what you are really doing._

Yaoyorozu stepped up to Zach's door and knocked on it.

Zach jumped up from his bed and grabbed his phone off the stand next to him. _No warning,_ he thought, frustrated as Kotsumura had warned him at least yesterday before showing up. He ran out of his room and glanced towards the bathroom, and a make-up kit under the mirror. _Damn it, not enough time. How do I look- there's no point in checking._ Zach lifted his hands to his face and smacked a couple times, then he shook his head around fast and ran back to his room, grabbing a black glove off the nightstand next to where his phone had been. _I never forget this! Shit, I have to be careful-_ Zach realized his vision was starting to get red, and he shook his head around while turning off Nightmare as he had accidentally activated it back in the manual way again.

Zach turned and ran back for the hall as another two knocks filled his apartment. _Momo?_ He thought in surprise at the sound of a feminine voice calling in, then he stumbled to the left and had to put his arms out and grab onto the wall behind him, as he had run into the right side of his bedroom's doorway and bumped off it. _Ow,_ he shook his head around and looked down the hallway that looked longer to him than usual. _Can I get it past her? She's so observant, and I barely convinced Kotsumura yesterday! He's pretty observant too though, admittedly. I can do this._ "Coming," Zach called out. _That's not how I'd respond if I was fine._ "Momo? What are you- kah-" _SHIT!_ Even the single cough out of his mouth made him curse mentally.

 _Wait. This works. She's here because she must have heard. It's an act. I shouldn't act for her, shouldn't lie- But she'll just worry if she thinks I'm not actually doing alright. And I'm fine._ Zach coughed a couple more times, convinced at least partially that he was doing it on his own to better convince her.

 _Is he messing with me? He knows why I'm here,_ Yaoyorozu frowned hesitantly after getting a concerned expression on her face for a moment there. _Would he act sicker this time, knowing that he must have appeared sick enough to get others to call me? Or- wait, what is the purpose of this? Why would he- I'll just ask. I'll ask, and he'll tell me the truth. If he doesn't, I'll know. I'll know! I have to still be able to tell when you're lying. Or maybe, I never was able to tell… because you never lied-_

Zach turned his doorknob and opened the door in a strong way, looking out at Yaoyorozu in surprise that she showed up at his house unexpectedly. She took one look at his face and her eyes shot open huge, and Zach's entire expression dropped as he could see instantly there was no point in faking or acting like anything. He just dropped his arm from the door he still had it on, and his eyes lost their surprised expression to just droop unenthusiastically with a sigh coming out of his lips. His eyes lifted above Yaoyorozu's head, checking if anyone could see him through the door, then he said, "Come in."

He moved out of the way and Yaoyorozu hesitated but then rushed inside after a second. She paused and took a look around his apartment. It was a seemingly normal place, with a shoddy paint job but some nice furniture and a space much bigger than the dorm rooms at Heights Alliance. Then she turned back to Zach quickly though as he closed the door, "What's wrong?"

"Nothing," Zach replied. He shook his head and started for his kitchen, but he lowered his left hand to the side and ran it along the top of the couch as he walked. Her eyes darted down to his hand as he walked like that, seemingly keeping himself moving in a straight line by using the couch as a guide. "You want something- ack- shi- kah agh, gah kah…" Even Zach's curse after letting out the first cough got cut off by a bigger fit of them.

"Zach!" Yaoyorozu ran up to his back and reached out her hands-

"Don't," Zach said in a low voice. He hunched over for a moment while coughing, but he reached up and grabbed the counter, pulling his body back straight up and standing in a steady and strong way. Zach looked back at the girl behind him in that strong way and said, "I'm just sick. This is normal-"

"This is _not_ normal when people get sick," Yaoyorozu countered him. Her expression got frustrated and she continued, "You would know that if you've ever been sick before."

Zach hesitated at her retort, then he turned around and walked over to get into his kitchen. "I'm fine," he muttered. He opened his fridge and got out some milk, "You want some breakfast?" _She came so early-_

"Zach, what are you…"

 _What did I just ask her?_ Zach thought back on the time his phone showed when he picked it off the nightstand to check for any texts. He stopped while leaning into his fridge with the milk lifted, and he put it back in and said with a small smile, "Kidding. I've just been sleeping through most of the day, that I guess…" _I was up earlier though, wasn't I- I spent hours up this morning, working._ "I just overworked myself-"

"Zach, I think, you should come sit down," Yaoyorozu's tone had concern in it and yet got more serious as she walked around for the kitchen herself.

"I'm fine," Zach said while taking an orange juice carton out of the fridge instead of milk.

"You're not," Yaoyorozu countered, reaching out herself and taking the carton from him. "Zach, let me," she paused while standing right in front of Zach in his apartment, in his kitchen, looking up into his face that looked gray and had bags under his eyes. She looked so closely at his face from up close, his pale skin and the sweat that dripped down one side of his face as he looked back into her eyes from a foot away. Yaoyorozu leaned her head back after a moment and turned, walking around him towards a cabinet she figured correctly would have glasses in it.

"I'll make you a glass of OJ, but go sit on the couch," Yaoyorozu told her friend who turned his head and watched her back with wide eyes at how she was speaking to him. "I'm going to call Recovery Girl."

"You don't need to-"

"I do," Yaoyorozu countered in a firm, unwavering voice. "Because you won't," she said with a look back at Zach who leaned away at her scolding expression. After a moment she sighed at his expression. "Hahh, just, go sit on the couch," she repeated to the boy staring at her in shock as she just took charge without listening to what he had to say at all.

She turned back and started pouring him a glass of orange juice, and Zach noticed she was only pouring one, "Pour yourself one too-"

"Sit," Yaoyorozu repeated, looking towards him harshly and making Zach lean back.

He smiled after a second and held up his hands defensively. "Alright," he finally responded. He turned and headed back to his living room, _Better now than if it got worse. If anyone sees Recovery Girl coming in here right now, I'm still fine enough to kick the crap out of all of them._

 **Three Hours Later**

 **Knock Knock.**

"Recovery Girl's here," Yaoyorozu said, looking to the boy laying on his couch who sat up quickly in that moment only to start a coughing fit and look towards his windows with a panicked look on his face.

 _I'm not ready to fight at all! I feel like shit! What if that's not Recovery Girl-_ "Wait," Zach said, pushing down on either side of the couch.

"Don't stand-"

"I need to open it," Zach said firmly back at the girl who stepped towards him instead of the hall to the door now. "Just, let me," he said when Yaoyorozu reached out to help him back down. He looked at her seriously while saying it, and she hesitated but then moved out of the way for Zach to move around the couch for his front door. He stacked up against the edge and leaned his head towards the peephole, Yaoyorozu watched from behind him with her eyes wide at the sight of the knives that just slid into his hands from his sleeves and covered in darkness. Those knives vanished back up into his sleeves though and his eyes returned to their normal hazel shade, though dimmer than usual as he just stared out into the semi-darkness at the top of the short woman's head outside his door.

She was reaching her hand for his door again, but Zach started opening it for the old woman first. "Hello, Recovery Girl-"

"Sazaki! What are you doing standing up?" Recovery Girl stormed forward into his apartment and then frowned towards Yaoyorozu who got a sweatdrop and apologetic look on her face. "Why did you let him get the door?"

"I had to check for assassins," Zach said to the old woman who looked back at him and rose her eyebrows at the statement that should have sounded intense, but came out more like he was making excuses in a weak way. His voice had cracked midway, and Zach tried to clear his throat afterwards only to reach up and grab at his neck quickly. He started rubbing afterwards to make that sharp stinging sensation look to be more of a faint burn he was trying to rub out in his throat.

 _Why am I trying to fake this so hard?_ He lowered his hand before Recovery Girl could scold him anymore, and he crouched down and asked the woman he put himself more on eye-level with, "Do you know what's wrong with me?"

"From one look? That's not how…" Recovery Girl shook her head around. "Go sit on the couch here."

"Here," Yaoyorozu stepped forward and reached out to help Zach around.

Zach hesitated, but then he stood back up fully and walked forward on his own, just letting Yaoyorozu grab around his right arm and help him around the couch. _Focus. Not there,_ Zach sat down and opened back up his eyes as no one was touching him. His eyes only opened back up half of how open they normally were though.

"I think we should get him to a hospital," Yaoyorozu said, bringing it up to Recovery Girl even though Zach had shot her down the last two times she mentioned it over the past three hours.

"No hospitals," Zach said darkly.

"It may be serious enough," Recovery Girl agreed after examining Zach from up close for a moment. "Lay down," she scolded the boy who opened his mouth to argue with her. He lay down on the couch, and Recovery Girl continued, "But you are right. I will administer whatever treatment is necessary here. If that is acceptable to you?" She wondered to the boy who seemed ready to make complaints about even her being there. He hesitated though at her stern look, and he lowered his head back down to the armrest at the end of his couch while Recovery Girl sat on a chair Yaoyorozu had already brought over for right there when she had told Zach to lay down earlier herself.

Yaoyorozu frowned lower but refrained from saying anything else about the matter if Recovery Girl was alright with treating him here. _Bringing him outside looking like this would be a signal to villains that he's weak. He'd be targeted by all of them at once. Even Raijin would come out for the opportunity no one would ever suspect would show itself. Hopefully villains don't know his current location, but if they do, if they saw Recovery Girl come in here and know something is wrong with him._ Yaoyorozu's expression hardened and she turned away from the other two as Recovery Girl had Zach following a light she moved back and forth in front of his hazy eyes.

"I need to use the restroom," Yaoyorozu mentioned.

"Down the h-ack, agh-gah- ka-kah," Zach hunched his body forward and his hands moved up to his neck again, and then he stopped coughing and Recovery Girl looked at him oddly as the halt came right in the middle of his coughs.

"Let me feel your throat," Recovery Girl said, and she moved her hands up for Zach's neck in a quick way that made him move his right hand away from it fast. Recovery Girl pressed her hands into his tonsils, rubbed around his throat, and Zach started coughing again as she was doing this. Her eyes shifted up to his face and his pained expression as he coughed, then she lowered her hands down from his neck towards his chest that she felt tense up completely as her hands lowered under his shirt. She ignored the feeling of all the scars over his skin and just pressed down on his body, making Zach wince and his fists curl at his sides in pain.

"Here too?" Recovery Girl wondered, lowering her hands more and pressing on his stomach, then down at his sides which tensed as her cold sterilized hands came close. She pressed tightly on the areas and Zach felt himself clenching all over, his upper body no longer hurting like his throat, but his midsection feeling completely messed up as she pressed her hands on it.

 _Just stop. I'm fine, as long as you're not touching-_ Recovery Girl moved her hands away, and Zach's expression filled with relief. Recovery Girl stared at him oddly though, her eyes focused on his mouth as he did not let out a gasp of relief or anything there after she finished testing him. Zach just breathed calmly out of his mouth and in through his nose in steady intervals, and Recovery Girl hummed to herself and pulled out a notepad she wrote on with a frustrated and confused expression over her face.

Yaoyorozu came back out from the hallway and moved for the back of the couch to stand on Zach's other side as Recovery Girl. "So, do you know what's wrong with him?"

"Unfortunately, I do not," Recovery Girl replied. "He is sore over his entire body. He is coughing like he has tonsillitis, and his tonsils did feel enflamed. The back of his throat was also red, however, even if this was the cause of his coughing and sore throat." She frowned back at Zach who was just looking back at her and listening closely like Yaoyorozu, "It does not explain the pain in his kidneys, especially when one of those kidneys is not his own." Zach frowned some more at Recovery Girl who was saying this without holding anything back despite the fact that there was a third person in the room. Recovery Girl was speaking more to Yaoyorozu than to him actually though, making Zach sweatdrop as the old woman continued speaking over him to the girl who only looked back down as if to check on him before looking to his doctor. "His lungs are contracting short on breath but his heart is beating steadily… His temperature is normal, and yet he looks to be burning up," Recovery Girl frowned at Zach who just looked back at her and shook his head in confusion as her look appeared accusatory.

Her accusatory look shifted a bit and she wondered, "Do you have any problems in your medical history you haven't told me about? Or has anything happened more recently that you think could be causing this rejection from your entire body?"

"I haven't been sick in 11 years," Zach replied. "But my arms and legs feel fine. I'm a little dizzy, but I can see fine and I'm just-" Zach paused, took in a deep breath and held back any coughs that tried to just come out of his lips. He smiled instead at the old woman with a glance at Yaoyorozu too who stood there with her sweatshirt taken off so she was in a long-sleeved white shirt that had the sleeves rolled up. "I'm fine. Whatever bug this is, I'm sure it will go away soon. Or Death will kill it," he added with a slight shrug, sitting up more on the couch and putting his legs off the side in a steady way so calm that Recovery Girl did not feel the immediate need to tell him to lay back down.

"I figured staying home from school was a good move," Zach said. "Because I didn't want to get anyone sick. I wanted to get some rest too, thinking it would make it go away faster. I'm sure by the end of the weekend, I can get back to class." He turned and smiled at Yaoyorozu, "Just tell everyone I'll be back on Monday…" Zach finished that with a smile like he was completely fine, but her expression made him hesitate and think of what he just said. His smile lowered and his eyes grew wider for a second, then he lowered his gaze down to his lap in a frustrated and pained way. _I can't even convince her, that I meant for her to text my Shiketsu class. This sucks. Why did I just say something like that?_

"It's fine, Sazaki," Recovery Girl started, and Zach rose his look to face the woman who gave him a reassuring look that made his eyes widen even more again. "Knowing you, rest may be all that you need. I am going to take a sample of your blood anyway though, and I am going to test for any other illnesses that I feel could be affecting you. I do not believe this to be a contagious disease though based on what I am seeing, so do not worry about that. Just, take it easy this weekend."

"Thanks, Recovery Girl," Zach started. "That was exactly, ka- ack," he shook his head and cleared his throat, before smiling wider and opening his eyes more in a way he felt would be reassuring. "It's what I was planning on."

Yaoyorozu felt her pocket buzz and glanced down at her phone she pulled out to check. Recovery Girl got a similar text a moment later, and she pulled her phone out of her pocket which made Zach look at her and then back at Yaoyorozu hesitantly. He wanted to ask what had happened for both of them to get a message like that, but Recovery Girl lifted her head and looked back at Yaoyorozu in surprise herself after reading the message. "Are you sure?" Recovery Girl wondered.

"About what?" Zach asked, looking back at Yaoyorozu in confusion here.

"After you were seen coming here, if you were," Yaoyorozu started. "It is possible that villains already know Zach's condition. I can protect him-"

"Wait a second-"

"As well as make sure that he does in fact take it easy, as I doubt he will if no one is keeping an eye on-"

"I said-"

"And, as I came here first before you arrived, villains who saw you arrive may know that I am also in the building. If they doubt at all that Zach is truly the one sick, they will fear the possibility that I came to see Zach because I was sick, then you were called. Those who fear that possibility will believe it more the longer I am here, as they question whether or not I am waiting to die so that Zach can bring me back to life immediately."

Zach paused with his mouth open this time to counter Yaoyorozu again. He froze, because his eyes opened much wider and he looked to the tall girl walking around the end of his couch whose theory repeated in his head. Recovery Girl looked at Yaoyorozu in an impressed way herself, while Zach stared at her less in shock after a couple seconds and more in hesitation despite the great idea she had. "It's not safe-" he started.

"And I am a hero," Yaoyorozu countered right away. "Do you not think me capable of protecting you from your potential assailants?"

"That's not what I…" Zach started.

"Then it is decided," Yaoyorozu said before he could come up with another reason. "I have already cleared it with Mr. Principal."

 _When she went to the bathroom,_ Zach thought, bowing his head and then shaking it as he had not even questioned what she was going to do when she asked where it was. "Nice," he admitted, his voice low and nearly under his breath though the ladies both looked at him in surprise hearing that. Zach smiled even and rose his head back up giving Yaoyorozu that half-impressed and half-tired look. He could see she knew that he would have told her not to even get started on trying to find a way to stay off of campus to keep helping him through the weekend, if she had told him what she was doing. Now though, she already had clearance from the sound of it and from what Recovery Girl said after receiving that text.

"Thank you," Yaoyorozu replied with a small nod back at Zach.

Recovery Girl looked back and forth between the two of them, confused as she did not get what the 'nice' or the 'thank you' were in reference to. _Thought he would be more against it,_ the older hero wondered to herself. "Well," Recovery Girl began again. "I believe the two of you can work out sleeping arrangements and whatever," she continued right on despite the two teenagers with her getting more awkward expressions on their faces. "But Sazaki, you sound well enough that I feel fine leaving you in Yaoyorozu's hands for the night. I will return tomorrow with the results of the blood work I get done. Now, hold out your arm…"

When Recovery Girl was done carrying out the tests she could with only the bag she had brought with her, she said her farewell to the two students and left them at Sazaki's apartment for the night. She left with a few vials of Zach's blood in her bag, and she frowned thinking about all the tests he had undergone with reactions so different from anything she had ever seen before. _Sazaki,_ Recovery Girl looked over her shoulder after taking a few steps from his apartment. _Is he doing this to himself? Does it have to do with Death? A genetic disease I haven't checked for before? I thought he would be immune to most diseases. His body has fought off cancer, and he does not take immunosuppressants despite the foreign organs residing in his body. It did not appear like his body was suddenly rejecting them either. There is so much to check for. I will find out what is wrong with you though, Zach Sazaki._

 _ **"Recovery Girl! You're awake!"**_

 _ **"I, was attacked. Himiko Toga took my- the students!"**_

 _ **"They're all… alright. Recovery Girl, Toga tried to use you as a disguise to take the blood of all the students of Class A, but Zach Sazaki stopped her and forced your location out of Toga, which helped us locate you… There's something else though. Something that happened with Class A, after you were rescued…"**_

 _You saved my life. You saved me, and yet when I first saw you after that occurred-_ _ **"Recovery Girl… Is the offer still on the table?"**_ The old woman walking away from Zach Sazaki's apartment saw that look on his face before she gave him the antidepressants he had finally asked for. _You never took those pills. I don't know if they would have helped you, but somehow you aren't depressed anymore. You don't seem it, at least. But you are hurting. You are in pain from something, and I will figure it out! I must save you._ Recovery Girl imagined the x-rays she saw of Zach after he was shot on his way out of Tartaros. She imagined the boy's body she got a look at completely naked when she was helping with the surgery the day he was shot.

 _ **"Sazaki. I saw your x-rays. I've seen your entire body. Why- How could you, still be-"**_

 _ **"I had some amazing doctors, over the time I was gone. They saved my life more times than I can count. Kept me alive pretty well, didn't they?"**_ _Those doctors you mentioned, they were amazing. They really were, to put up with someone like you._ Recovery Girl smiled softly with a light shake of her head, _But at least, I have Yaoyorozu to watch over you this time. I would not feel comfortable leaving you for an extended amount of time otherwise. However, with her there, I know should your condition worsen she will not hesitate to call me._ Recovery Girl curled her fists in determination, _In the meantime, I will find out what is wrong with you._

Back at Zach's apartment, he lay back on his couch with a couch pillow behind his head and a more relaxed look on his face after Recovery Girl had gone. Yaoyorozu was in his kitchen, and she said in a relieved tone, "You have lots of healthy options in here. I was worried you would only have ramen…" Yaoyorozu put more food on the counter and hummed to herself as she wondered what she should make that would potentially help Zach the most in his recovery.

 _If I fall asleep right here, I won't even have to convince her to take my room. She'd push to have me move to the bed otherwise._ Zach smiled softer, and Yaoyorozu hummed to herself while looking towards the couch as Zach was not responding to her. She went over to check on him a minute later, and she looked down at his face that looked so peaceful as he lay there sleeping. Her eyes shifted from his face down to his chest, and she confirmed that there was a slow but steady movement of his chest up and down. "Zach?" She whispered.

Zach's eyes opened back up and looked into Yaoyorozu's eyes staring down at him. "Huh?" He wondered, as her eyes opened wide that he was actually awake.

"Oh, sorry. I thought you were sleeping," Yaoyorozu said.

"Just resting my eyes," Zach replied with a small smile back at her. _I was sleeping,_ he thought to himself but just smiled at her in a casual way. Then his smile lowered a little, and he added, "Actually, I'm just a light sleeper. Doesn't take much to wake me."

"Oh, then sorry about that," Yaoyorozu told him. She opened her mouth to mention what he said first, but then she closed it and just gave him a small reassuring smile herself before turning back around to head into his kitchen. _Something like that isn't a lie. He just didn't want me to feel bad about waking him. That's kind, if anything._ "I'm going to make us some dinner." _I may have to order in some groceries or food tomorrow, maybe some soup for him if his condition does not get better. What is it? He looks so ill, and yet acts so strong despite it. He is speaking normally, and yet some of the things he says don't make sense. He's dizzy, coughing, but Recovery Girl doesn't know what it is? I thought it would be easy for her to diagnose. Then again, nothing seems to be easy when it comes to you._

Yaoyorozu looked back towards the living room, and then she started moving around his kitchen with lighter steps to continue preparing their food. A worried look spread over her face for a moment, then she shook her head and pulled out her phone. _I must let Assurely know that I will not be at work tomorrow. I cannot leave the apartment though, and anything I say in here Zach is likely to overhear. I do not want him knowing I am missing my internship to take care of him… He admitted to me that I actually woke him up, but I am willing to keep this from him? I'll tell him after then._ She nodded to herself as that made sense, _I don't want to worry him and exacerbate his condition. It could be stress related. Maybe, Recovery Girl could use help determining what is wrong._

As she continued to cook food to take care of Zach, Yaoyorozu opened up her phone and searched the web based on the conditions she was seeing. Her face filled with panic, and she quickly put her phone away after only a few minutes of reading what the internet suggested his problems were. _Everyone on the internet is very pessimistic,_ she thought with a shake of her head but a worried bead of sweat sliding down the side of her face. _He is not dying. Recovery Girl would have been more serious if he… unless, she does not want either of us to worry? Her bedside manner could be that good- I am going to worry myself sick here._

* * *

Zach opened his eyes and squinted them shut right away as light came through the blinds near him and made beams flash through his vision. His eyes parted a little more and he rose his head a bit, and he groaned under his breath just from the overall feeling through his whole body, "Uggnnn." _Fuuuccckk. This sucks. I need to throw up? Geez,_ Zach turned himself to get up off his bed, before shaking his head around as he looked into the back of his couch and remembered where he had fallen asleep. _I've been waking up through the night,_ he reminded himself, as the fact that he was on the couch should not have been news to him.

He looked the other way and saw Yaoyorozu sitting back on the recliner past his feet around the semi-circle of furniture in his living room. _She's too close to the windows,_ Zach thought with a shift of his gaze above Momo to where that light had shone through at the perfect angle to hit him in the eyes. He was not used to sleeping there but figured the sun must have just reached a point in the sky to get him like that. _Quietly now,_ Zach thought, keeping an eye on Momo while reaching to his side to use the coffee table as a stabilizer as he got up. His right hand got soaked as he put it to his right, and he pulled it back fast but had already started leaning his body to put his weight there.

Yanking his hand back that fast knocked over the ramen Yaoyorozu had made him in a bowl on the middle of his plate. The soup the ramen was in was cold now, like the rest of the food Zach had only taken a couple bites out of when he first woke up and recalled her telling him to eat something. Unfortunately, he only remembered that conversation now, as he was falling off the couch and pulling the plate and bowl off the table onto his falling body that hit the coffee table and knocked it out over the carpet. "I'm fine," he said immediately after landing when he heard Yaoyorozu jump up from her chair. He cursed under his breath, _I was trying to be quiet so you could sleep. Not make as much noise as fucking possible. I'm an idiot._

"Are you alr-" Yaoyorozu started, but Zach had responded already and she realized he was answering the question about to come out of her mouth. "Here, let me help you-"

"Don't," Zach started, lifting up his left hand and putting a palm at her to stop her from reaching down and helping him. He took in a heavy breath, then he rose his face with a small smile and admitted, "I'm covered in food. Don't want you to get any on you, when you don't have a change of clothes here like I do." Her light-gray eyes opened wider at that general concern he expressed for her comfort here, while he was laying on his floor looking sick and covered in food. He chuckled at her expression she gave him that made her feel even more at ease at the genuine tone of those laughs, "I need to take a shower anyway. I think I forgot yesterday, it just went by so quickly."

"Do you, need help?" Yaoyorozu wondered, only hesitating for a second and pushing herself hard not to blush or even think of this in an uncomfortable manner. "Because I can," she assured when Zach looked at her hesitantly wondering if she really just said that.

He got an even more awkward look on his face and started shaking his head quickly at the girl who seemed to think he might actually need her help with that. "I'm, good," he told her. The fact that she was looking at him in that serious way though made him question his response there, and that made him question his going to take a shower in its entirety. _If I'm not okay, and she has to come in there… Oh man, this is so- I'm fine though! At least, I'm fine enough to take a shower on my own._ Zach shook his head and got up to his feet in a steady way. "Sorry for waking you. I'll go shower and change, and I'll be back here in a half hour. Okay?"

Yaoyorozu nodded her head, relaxing a little as he gave her that 'half hour' bit as if to tell her that she had the right to come check on him if he took any longer. Zach then quickly made for his bathroom, stopping in his bedroom for a second to grab the change of clothes he would need afterwards. _Don't want to have to walk across even the hallway in just a towel. She's seen all the scars already though. And you showed everyone the fake arm. Pretty much everyone. All of Class A and Class 1 at least-_ Zach realized he was just standing in the bathroom looking at his metal arm, and he shook his head around before stepping to his shower and turning it on.

Luckily his prosthetic arm was waterproof, so he was able to shower with it still attached to his body. He did as he said he would and showered quickly, got changed quickly, and made it back to his living room in half the time he said he would be gone just to be careful. He offered Yaoyorozu to take a shower too, but she said she would wait until later as Ashido was coming to Yutapu to bring a small bag for her and to see how Zach was doing too.

Zach smiled at the response and just sat back on his couch again in a relaxed way, _Mina huh? I was worried. It seemed like she might have still been feeling badly about me. I thought what I said at the joint training, how I acted, would help it out, but Jirou just getting angrier at me probably didn't help my case._

The two eighteen year olds stayed in Zach's living room through the morning, and it was morning as Zach had woken Yaoyorozu up at around six o'clock. She suggested he get some more rest, but Zach shook his head and responded that he had gotten so much rest he needed to be a little more active to get his body moving again. Neither of them knew if that would help or exacerbate his condition, which was why Yaoyorozu stayed quiet about it when Zach started working out. When he started coughing during his pull ups though, Yaoyorozu scolded him and got Zach to go back to the couch as she prohibited him from doing any more strenuous activity.

He accepted, but he still grabbed his laptop first to do "work" as he said when she asked what he needed it for. Zach turned on the television in his living room, he went on his computer, put one headphone in and held a conversation with Yaoyorozu at the same time that was entirely separate from what he was doing or what they were watching. For the first time in a while, Zach just asked Yaoyorozu what she had been doing at U.A. and outside of it recently. They talked about him so often; what he had been doing for over a year, how he was doing, their relationship that he had messed up, that he realized he was not as up-to-date on how Momo was doing herself.

Yaoyorozu felt strange talking about how she was considering she was staying at his apartment while he was sick, but she decided not to just put the attention back on his sickness that she was getting increasingly worried about despite Zach talking like this was just another day for him. His coughing fits had continued and seemed worse than when she arrived at his place the day before, and she called him out on covering up how bad he looked in the bathroom, though Zach told her he did not want Mina to see how badly he was doing. _The fewer people who know,_ both of them thought, and they knew that the way Ashido looked when she would leave his apartment could be a factor in whatever the villains were thinking about, if there even were villains watching from nearby.

Unfortunately, Zach's plan to make Mina think he was doing fine did not work very well. Especially considering he laid back down when a headache came on after multi-tasking so much in the early morning. He stopped his "work" on his computer, focused fully on just the tv and talking to Momo, but even then he groaned and they turned off the tv to just talk to each other without any background noise too. Yaoyorozu even texted Recovery Girl about how Zach was doing before Ashido arrived, though Zach acted a bit better then for the hour the pink girl spent at his apartment.

Ashido gave Yaoyorozu her bag and then went and sat near Zach on a chair close to his couch while Yaoyorozu went back to the recliner. Zach had a blanket over him, the same one from his bedroom he woke up to find over his body. Yaoyorozu had gotten it for him as well as one for herself, though both of them were over Zach now after Ashido decided it would be best if he was wrapped up more in case this was a bad case of the flu. Yaoyorozu assured Mina that Recovery Girl was already working to figure out what medication to give Zach, and she told the other Class A girl worried about Zach that he would be fine. She said it in such an assured way like it was what Recovery Girl told her too, that Ashido relaxed a bit, though then Yaoyorozu also told Mina quieter about their worry of villains seeing her appear too worried upon leaving Zach's apartment.

Ashido headed out of Zach's apartment with more a relieved look on her face than anything, happy that Zach was actually going to be alright and making sure that anyone watching could see that she knew that was true. Worry only flashed over her face for a moment, when she realized that Zach's condition they initially told her about might have been worse but they did not tell her all about it so she would look calmer leaving his place. She relaxed again though and told herself to worry about that after she returned to U.A., and she grinned to herself thinking about how she was fine with leaving when both Yaoyorozu and Zach told her that she did not have to stay longer. Both of the others were surprised when she was okay with leaving just like that, but Ashido felt smugly satisfied by the turn of events, and she rubbed her hands together as she neared the train station. _Momozaki back at work._

As much as Ashido was staying in a good mood about Zach's condition though, as soon as she left, Yaoyorozu got a lot more worried as Zach "relaxed" back into a laying down position on his couch again. She checked a message from Recovery Girl that had a tone of frustration in it, and she relayed to Zach in a less frustrated way that Recovery Girl was still working on it instead of saying how she had gotten nowhere. She did relay that Recovery Girl was asking for some help though, and Zach mentioned with a chuckle that he hoped she would go see Ms. Anastasia.

"How are you feeling?" Yaoyorozu asked, as Zach had been laying on the couch for a few hours and did not look any better, though he also did not look much worse. His body seemed to be rejecting his attitude that everything was fine, and although he responded positively like he was getting better, Yaoyorozu frowned at him for the response.

Zach lowered his gentle smile too that he had while answering, and he sighed at the way she was looking at him. "I feel like shit," he said. Her eyes widened for a moment and then she scooted the chair she sat on right next to his couch forward a little. "Don't," Zach started when she started reaching out to check his temperature by touching his forehead. She hesitated, and he hesitated too with her hand partially outstretched. She finished reaching it out and Zach did not pull away and just let her put her hand there on his forehead. His body that had tensed up relaxed as her hand cupped over his forehead, running over it and part of her palm resting over a scar on the upper right side of his forehead into his hairline that she pushed back to see the mark better.

Zach looked out from under her hand into Momo's eyes. She stared at the mark she made more visible by pushing his hair away, hair that covered the mark most of the time almost completely. "How, did you get this?" Yaoyorozu wondered at him, her eyes shifting back down to look into his eyes.

Zach closed his eyes and he shook his head, making her move her hand back as he did. Then, with his eyes still closed as Yaoyorozu gave him an uncertain and upset look, Zach started softly, "The Siege of Razmatan." Yaoyorozu hesitated more but looked at Zach in a concerned way at how he started. "I know, I know," he muttered with his eyes still closed, imagining how she was looking at him though. "But it was bad. The bloodiest day of the war. As bad as the Battle of 6 Armies was, I didn't have as large a force that day as when I invaded the stronghold at Razmatan."

"And it was there that you got that scar?" Yaoyorozu wondered.

"As well as the one up here," Zach whispered, lifting his left hand for a moment and rubbing cold fingers across the left side of his face. His lips were in a small smile as he mentioned it while not really thinking too hard about it. His hand lowered back down though, brushing down his cheek to his chin and under it to his neck where that scar continued. "It was bad," Zach said, shaking his head softly but trying to keep his lips in a small smile. "As much as the Arcasian forces were spread out and isolated from each other, in Razmatan they were all fighting together. It wasn't like the 6 Armies either. There was a level of deception that went into every fight, but this was a full-on assault. An invasion the likes that world had not seen before. A force of my size, taking on the biggest army, and the strongest factions of that army, all at once? It was unheard of. Their biggest stronghold. The most fortified base in their world-"

"Where was this, on our world?" Yaoyorozu asked softly.

"It was on Terra," Zach repeated softly, though his lips lowered into more of a sad frown as he said it. He glanced at her and shook his head, and after a second Yaoyorozu just nodded to let him go with that. Zach nodded in relief, looking back straight up with his lips closed for another twenty seconds as he just thought in silence. Yaoyorozu got unnerved as she watched his expression for some reason. Her eyes started shifting down it to his chest, but they snapped back up quickly as Zach started in a soft voice, "All over that world, people were getting abused. They were hurt. They were dying. They were…" He paused and his eyes closed, but even closed he still whispered in a more pained way, "There were slaves. Sex slaves. Children slaves… Child sex slaves. And people who had been experimented on. Tortured. Alone. Their families dead. Their lives ruined. Hundreds, thousands of people who were not fighters. People who were just like the people who joined me and fought with me, but who weren't fighters, and who I didn't know what to do with."

Zach closed his eyes tighter, but then they relaxed and his lips started to curve up a little. "I didn't know where to send them, when they had nowhere to go. I couldn't just take everyone with me. My army couldn't support all those people, and there were _so_ many of them. I always thought that. That I needed a place to bring them. A place that was _safe._ Too often, I would help people only for my enemies to come to that place searching for me. Too often, people I saved were not helped by the people I brought them to. The orphanages, the governments who said they would help them, they didn't do enough to help these poor, oppressed people."

Yaoyorozu stared at the side of Zach's face in uncertainty but also listened closely to every word he said that sounded like it was coming from the heart. She watched his face closely and examined how well he looked though, more focused on his sickness than what he was saying, as interesting as it was. "And then I took Razmatan," Zach said quietly, his smile lifting a little more. Yaoyorozu got confused and rose her eyes to Zach's face wondering what that had to do with all he just mentioned. "An entire city that had been the biggest stronghold for Arcasian forces. Giant towers, the best weapons' technology in the world, cloaking systems, in a hidden valley undetectable to almost everyone. It was, the perfect place for what I had always imagined."

"What do you mean?" Yaoyorozu wondered softly at him.

"The perfect place to protect all those people," Zach whispered in response. "I took the city. I sent the captured Arcasian forces to Allied territory and had them tried on war crimes. And I took that captured city, restocked it with food and weapons, brought in the best people in that world who could help me… And then I brought all those poor people I'd been trying to help around that world. I took their poor, their wounded and unstable innocents, and everyone who needed my help but I never felt I had ever fully saved. I took them all, and I brought them to haven. To a city of my own creation. To, Life City."

Yaoyorozu smiled at Zach as he told this story with a big smile over his face, looking relaxed and calm and even proud. She just received a message from Recovery Girl saying what time that evening she would be returning too, and she relaxed herself as Zach continued his story. "It's an amazing city hidden in the mountains. I made it for all peoples of that world, no matter what species or race they were. Elves and dwarves, orcs and humans, vampires and trolls and humans. It's a place of unity in the fact that they're all survivors. It's, the best thing I've ever done," Zach said, in such a proud way that had Yaoyorozu getting a slightly more confused look on her face. "The most good I've ever done, the best thing I've ever created," he let out a small sigh and rolled his neck around with his eyes still shut. "That hidden little city, in Kazakhstan…"

Zach trailed off while looking partially delirious, but the girl sitting next to him had frozen up completely. _He didn't convert it to Terra, but that-_ Yaoyorozu's heart was pounding harder and harder as she stared down at the top of her legs that her hands started to shake on. Her eyes rose up and stared at Zach's peaceful face with his eyes resting shut again. As calm as he looked though, her eyes were huge and she thought at him, _Why would he make that mistake? That doesn't make sense. It, it could mean that the rest of the story is converted from something else too though. That none of it is truth… or maybe, all of it except for the proper nouns that came before, Kazakhstan?_

"It's the most heroic thing I've ever done," Zach started again in a low whisper, his eyes still closed and his expression showing he did not notice his own slip-up there that had caused Yaoyorozu to stare at him in so much shock and disbelief. "And I'm really not, a great hero," Zach added, his smile lowering down while his eyes opened a bit.

"That's not true," Yaoyorozu started to counter at him. She was still trying to wrap her head around what she was trying to realize here, but Zach shook his head at the way she countered.

"It is," Zach said softly. "It's always been true. I've never been, hero material." Zach tilted his head back on the pillow over the armrest and stared up at his ceiling. "Back at my trial, the first one. After it was all over, Judge Wilson called me up to stand in front of him. And he asked me a question he said would determine my fate."

Yaoyorozu stared at Zach closely, leaning forward and looking at his face in more confusion as she had watched that trial over a dozen times. _In that moment, something like that happened?_ Yaoyorozu recalled watching Zach go up for one final word with the judge that the cameras never caught the sound of.

"He asked me if I would ever use my Quirk again? Should I come across a situation where I thought I could save innocent people by using my Quirk on villains, would I use it?" Zach paused and then said in a reflective tone, "And I answered wrong. I thought, I always thought, that I had answered correctly. No matter how much time passed, I told the judge that I would have to make that decision in the moment. Based on the situation," he lowered his voice in a regretful way near the end and grimaced at the thought of what he was saying like it was wrong. "That's not the hero way though."

"It's understandable," Yaoyorozu whispered back. "That you would feel that way. And who is to say that it's wrong-"

"Midoriya," Zach replied, chuckling and tilting his head back again before frowning at what he just said. He continued anyway though, "He told me something the other day. We were talking about, sacrifice. What he was willing to give up. I was, but not really, suggesting that if it ever came down to it, where Midoriya had to take a life in order to save a million, he wouldn't be able to do it. To me, that was the difference between us. But that's wrong. It's not that he wouldn't be able to do it, it's that before that moment happens, he never even _considers_ it." Zach hesitated and ground his teeth for a second in frustration, while Yaoyorozu stared at the side of his face and felt herself breathing quicker at the intense and thoughtful look over his whole pale and sweaty expression.

"I always thought, I was just being prepared. But Midoriya, and you, Momo," Zach turned his head to the side and looked into Yaoyorozu's eyes. "You wouldn't even consider it, when it's the first thing I think about. I think about the worst case scenario. That's not being logical, it's just being unheroic. Because thinking about that worst option makes me have that choice on standby." Zach shook his head and sat up a little, fidgeting where he was laying to get more of his back up on that armrest to look into Momo's eyes at a better, more level angle.

"You can't help but think about those worst cases though," Yaoyorozu started to him, lifting up her left hand as she offered this to him. "Because you've seen the worst case scenario happen too many times."

"But I _always_ thought about it," Zach countered her, suggesting it was back before he saw so many things to back up this method of processing. Yaoyorozu put down her hand, and Zach continued to the girl in front of him whose eyes lowered down as he said, "Shindeki Buda?" While Yaoyorozu's eyes were still down, Zach continued to her, "I always thought it was smart to plan for any possibility, but real heroes do that horrible but necessary thing if it ever came down to it, while beforehand they could still say confidently that they never would. It seems contradictory, but it isn't. And it's why I failed at the trial. I know now that my answer wasn't really the 'right' answer as I always thought it was. I even knew the one Judge Wilson wanted me to say but I couldn't say it myself because it would have been a lie. For so many people though it wouldn't have been a lie."

"Yeah, one day they may have used their Quirk to really hurt someone even after saying they wouldn't there when asked, but they wouldn't have been lying either when they said that they wouldn't. I understand that to so many heroes they wouldn't even consider it until they were pushed into that corner, and even then!" Zach grit his teeth and then pushed out a breath as Yaoyorozu was staring so closely at his face. He turned back and was going to lay back down, but he bowed his head for a moment and shook it in frustration at the idea of stopping there. "I thought that made me more prepared than anyone else, but it was just me being more prepared, to do something bad. That wasn't a good thing. It wasn't logical. It was just the wrong answer."

Yaoyorozu opened her mouth, but she hesitated while watching Zach who had such a thoughtful look over his face while revealing all of this. _Is it wrong of me, to think differently? It sounds like you are finally realizing some big thing but- but I don't think it was wrong of you to be prepared. Others, may have waited too long when those horrible things happened to react in ways that were necessary. Heroes, wouldn't have been able to make the kind of choices you made. In Yemen? How many heroes were still just trying to ease the tensions? How many were trying to stop the violence, and failing, but didn't try anything else? You saw the worst case scenario, and it was so much worse than the horrible decision you were left with. You lost your arm that day! You stopped a war from happening! But,_ Yaoyorozu had opened her mouth again wanting to say some of this, but she hesitated even more as Zach shook his head while staring down at his legs. _That wasn't you- or, that's not who you are now. Who you're trying to be. That person, really isn't a hero. It's why you started this by saying that you've never been a great hero… but if not a hero, I don't know how to describe a person who does something so amazing._

"It's, a different way of looking at it," Yaoyorozu finally started.

"It is," Zach agreed. He rose his gaze to hers, and he added, "It's an 'unheroic' way of looking at it, which is why I'm a bad hero." The way Momo looked after he said it did not upset Zach even though she did not have an immediate counter for him. "Because I was willing to look to that dark side from the beginning instead of when I was only forced to, which was why I was too quick to kill Shindeki Buda." Yaoyorozu felt her heart clench, imagining the scene herself and the bullets flying through Buda's arms and legs. She could hear Zach's scream, and she could see that man's unmoving corpse on the ground in front of her. "I could blame Kaminari all I want, but if I was just a little slower then Snipe sensei would have saved us, but I wasn't slower. Because as much as I said I hated it, as much as it horrified me what I did… I know everyone else in our class would have waited a little longer than I did to make that decision. Everyone else, except for me."

"You saved our-" Yaoyorozu started.

"Potentially," Zach countered before she could finish. "And if Snipe hadn't shown up when he did, and the heroes came two minutes later and I had made the _same_ decision, things would have been different. They'd be so different, that this conversation probably would never have happened. I'd probably believe even stronger in the ways I had done things for years after that. Ways, that I'm still trying hard to kick, to be a better hero who doesn't act so… so dark." Zach paused for a moment and then finished with a soft look back into Momo's eyes, "But we both know, Snipe sensei was there on time. I could have tried to stall, talked about my Quirk, said, a million different things. I could have kicked and yelled, fought back right there in a way that would have made him take me out early so that you two could have fought back against him. I could have screamed for help, making him cover my mouth or just taunt about how far we were from everyone. I could have talked about how the heroes would be there soon, and how he had no time to finish us off when he should have been running, or getting back to his Warp Gate. I could have pretended like we had planned for that eventuality beforehand, saying something in 'code' to you and Jirou, or called out to All Might like he was right behind me…"

Zach had continued for twenty seconds straight with possibilities, and Yaoyorozu's expression got more and more hurt as she heard in these options that it was not the first time Zach was thinking of them. They were all coming right off the top of his head, because for almost three years he had been thinking about all the things he could have done that day before killing the man who had taken him hostage. "You were just a kid," Yaoyorozu whispered, cutting off Zach as he was about to list something else. His eyes widened and his eyebrows rose up high, but Yaoyorozu just repeated to him in a soft voice, "A kid trying to save his friends. And hindsight is twenty-twenty. You can't blame yourself for not coming up with those options that day."

"It's not about blaming myself," Zach replied to her with a shake of his head. "Not anymore. But I can still look on that and say, with confidence, that I didn't make the best choice. Not the _right_ choice, not one to be proud of… We don't have Quirks, so that we can harm others." Zach said it and shifted his eyes down with a sadder look covering his expression. "We learned how to use our Quirks, to save people's lives…"

Momo's eyes softened more and she exhaled an audible deep breath as she had heard that before. "That's what Thirteen told us," Yaoyorozu whispered. "At USJ."

"And he was totally right," Zach said, his eyes lifting back up and locking with Momo's as he remembered that too. _It sounded so amazing to me. It was what I believed, a real hero would be like. A hero would follow that truth to the grave._ "But for so long," Zach continued while still locking eyes with his friend. "I'd forgotten that. Stopping villains? It was always, supposed to be about saving people. I had… too much hate in my heart. I started to enjoy fighting, and I enjoyed it way too much. Fighting in the sense that I was… it shouldn't have been enjoyable. I shouldn't have liked it, but I had become a warrior. Not a hero. And I liked to fight, which inherently means that I liked hurting people-"

"That isn't true," Yaoyorozu said back, countering Zach and shaking her head when he looked softly back at her. "That's not the type of person you are. You look for the bright side, and you see the beauty in everything, and if your life had become one giant, _constant_ fight, then it makes sense that you would find it fun. Because you enjoy life," Yaoyorozu shook her head at the surprised boy in front of her. "And that isn't wrong. That isn't a bad thing, that in all that darkness you tried to enjoy it. You, you," Yaoyorozu paused and hesitated at the way Zach was looking back at her. She continued though after a moment and leaned forward on the seat next to Zach's couch, "You have always pushed yourself to be better. The day you picked your hero name, you remember?" Zach stared back at Yaoyorozu and nodded his head, and Momo continued to him, "Aizawa sensei told us how heroes' names matched their natures. And you chose Lifebringer, because-"

"That was the kind of hero, I wanted to be," Zach finished for her. "One who brought life instead of took it away."

Yaoyorozu nodded at Zach and he sat up more on the couch in front of her. He looked back into her eyes with hesitation spread over his face, uncertainty and a shaken conviction of the self-deprecating things he was just saying about himself, after being reminded of how he had felt all the way back then. _I always wanted, to be a great hero. That_ _ **was**_ _the goal. I was failing back then sure, but what kid starts out as a great hero? Not many. She's telling me I'm still that person who wants that though. The type of person I am? Am I even that person anymore? If you believe I am, then,_ Zach's hazel eyes stared deeply into Yaoyorozu's light gray ones. "Momo," Zach began, his voice hoarse but raising in tone a little.

Yaoyorozu's eyes started to widen, and then she jumped out of her chair as Zach's cheeks puffed up. "I'll get a pot!" Yaoyorozu called behind her as Zach rose his left hand and covered his mouth, turning his body more and hovering his face off the side of the couch.

 _Go away. Force it to darkness too!_ Zach could feel all the liquid and gunk coming up in his throat turn to black, but it was still in there and slid up and then vanished into the darkness inside his neck. Zach felt his insides scream in pain though, and he gasped with his left hand snapping from his face down to his stomach that he grabbed through the blanket half on top of him. As Zach gasped, Yaoyorozu was rushing back over with a pot, but she froze and stared below his face where the black ooze just splashed out of his mouth and onto the carpet below his face.

 _Shit,_ Zach could see Momo in his peripheral vision, but his eyes focused back on the black goop below his face too. The darkness faded from the puke and made it go back to normal throw-up colors, which was disgusting and smelled horrible. Zach started gasping for breath too, and spit came off the corners of his mouth as he grabbed his stomach even harder feeling more puking coming. "I'm fine," he muttered, then he turned his head and puked again only into the bucket this time, and this time it was normal puke colored from the start which Yaoyorozu was watching closely while bent down next to a violently sick Zach.

 _I need to call Recovery Girl!_

* * *

"You haven't found anything wrong with him?" Yaoyorozu asked in an even more worried voice after Recovery Girl's response.

The short old woman sat just next to the couch Zach was laying out on. Recovery Girl pressed her hands hard down on Zach's chest, and he started coughing heavier than Yaoyorozu had heard him cough through the entire afternoon. "If his condition's only getting worse," Yaoyorozu continued.

"I found nothing wrong with him, but that does not mean I don't know what is happening," Recovery Girl replied, and she frowned while lifting her hands from Zach's body. "Those coughs looked painful. Are you in any pain now?" She asked it while staring at Zach's face where his eyelids were partially cracked and looking back at her. He kept panting for a couple of seconds while just staring at her, but he could not fake a surprised or confused look or anything. He just stopped panting and shook his head at her, a darker look over his face confirming what she was accusing him of with the question that sounded more like she was guessing he was no longer in that pain.

"I had a wild theory the last time I was here," Recovery Girl began while frowning at Zach who turned his head away for a moment and looked into the back of the couch with a frustrated but also very sick look over his face.

 _This sucks, so much,_ Zach wanted to cough and puke at the same time into the back of his couch, but instead he just clenched his eyes shut to stop the pounding headache he had.

"Sazaki, you are making yourself sick," Recovery Girl scolded the boy laying before her. Zach shook his head, clenching his eyes shut tighter as his whole torso gripped in pain. _I'm not doing this!_ He yelled it at himself as pain covered every inch of his body. "You've been prepared for another attack on your life." Recovery Girl stated it and Zach stopped groaning, his eyes opening and his body turning a little so his dark eyes could shift to Recovery Girl's. "You're ready to be shot again, aren't you?" Zach's eyes started filling with a look of dread and a knowing look at the accusation.

Yaoyorozu looked back and forth from one to the other at the spot closer to Zach's head on the living room side of the couch. "I don't understand," Momo began. She looked from Zach's expression of disdain back to Recovery Girl, "What are you talking about?"

Recovery Girl watched as Zach shook his head, but she frowned deeper at him and said, "Someone needs to make him take care of himself, and he never listens to me." Zach's squinting eyes opened wider, and then Recovery Girl continued with Yaoyorozu there in the conversation too, "Sazaki, you need to let your organs do their jobs. You cannot just turn all of your organs into Death and keep them like that forever. They are 'vital' organs not solely because they are weak points, but because they have important jobs in keeping you healthy!"

"What?" Yaoyorozu looked back at Zach, specifically at his chest that she had noticed something weird about in a few moments over her time there. She looked at his face too, and she saw him look at her in a guilty way as what Recovery Girl was saying made it seem like this was all his fault that this was happening. Zach opened his mouth and he let out a breath, a real breath, but he brought his left hand up to his chest and started clenching it as he fully returned his lungs back to normal instead of keeping them as a swirling black mass that had him forcing out intentional breaths and moving his chest as sub-routines. "How much, of your insides were-" Yaoyorozu started.

"When I felt around his body before, it felt like he had returned the insides but his skin was not ready for that to suddenly happen when I was pushing over it. The outer layer cannot exist with nothing solid on the inside," Recovery Girl spoke like it was obvious and in a scolding tone while shifting her eyes back firmly to Zach. The short old woman sighed at Zach's look back at her, and then she snapped, "There is no point in protecting yourself in this way if it only hurts you more!"

"It doesn't always hurt-"

"You're filled with darkness!" Recovery Girl exclaimed. Yaoyorozu stared at Zach's face and then shifted her eyes down to his body that he had been so adamant about her not touching since she got there. Every time she had reached for him to help him sit, every time she got close to touching him, _He didn't want me to feel the effects of Death?_ Recovery Girl glared at the boy trying to argue with her, "I could open you up right now and instead of blood I bet that darkness would spill out."

"But I have to do it," Zach countered. Recovery Girl and Yaoyorozu both opened their mouths, but Zach continued quicker, "Especially right now, _because_ I'm sick." He looked back and forth at the other two and sat up more on the couch, turning almost his entire insides into pitch blackness so that even his skin looked less pale. When he spoke though, the two women in front of him could see deeper in his mouth where his throat seemed to be exuding darkness. "I need to keep my body safer than usual as it's the best time for my enemies to come after me."

"You're having organ failure _because_ of it though," Recovery Girl countered in as frustrated a tone. "This is not one of those situations where you don't know which one came before the other and you're stuck in a loop because of it. _You_ made yourself sick doing this, and now you're keeping yourself sick and making your condition worse because you're arguing that you're sick so you need to?"

"I've been doing this for," Zach stopped. He paused, and he grimaced but then continued to the old woman in front of him, "How can you be sure that this is actually- ack, kac-agh, how can you be sure?! That what I'm doing is the root cause of the problem? I'll admit it probably isn't helping, but I've been doing this for a while, and I only just got sick."

"I am almost certain," Recovery Girl countered with a shake of her head. "How long though, do you mean by 'a while?' If it's been several months or years even, then maybe it isn't correlated. Do you mean a length of time that long?"

"No," Zach responded softly.

"So you just started this recently?" Recovery Girl asked, nodding as she did as she already thought so herself. "After you were shot?"

"Later," Zach said, grimacing harder as he did. "I have to do it though. I thought, I needed to," Zach countered himself this time, as he knew arguing with his doctor any longer was stupid. _I'm doing this, to myself?_ "Fuck," he muttered under his breath, and his body started to look even sicker. He tried to counter his sickness by replacing even more of his failing body with Death, but it sounded like in the long run that was going to exacerbate things even more. His face looked more tired, his skin paler, and Zach's whole figure seemed to just get weaker in a couple of seconds.

"You only just started this?" Recovery Girl wondered.

"Since when?" Yaoyorozu asked, trying to figure out how long it had been based on the interactions she had had with him recently. _Back at the gazebo? Something seemed so off, about the way he was drinking that coffee! I didn't notice because, because what? But-_ "Why, did you start?" Yaoyorozu asked, her confusion rising more though her heart was racing faster at the question she started coming up with reasons for in her own head.

Zach looked straight at Yaoyorozu with his eyes dark and with deep bags under them. His next breath came out long and raspy, and then Zach whispered in a voice that sounded so ill, "Recently, I've become, less protected. I needed…" Zach stopped and his eyes just closed in pain as his whole body felt so sore and weak.

"Less protected?" Recovery Girl muttered, trying to figure out what that meant.

Yaoyorozu understood though. She pulled her head back and her eyes filled with pain while she stared down at Zach's weakened form. _Airi,_ Yaoyorozu thought, her heart clenched up at the image of that girl's face in her mind. _She was protecting him. Even after she shot him, she was alerting him when assassins were nearby. She was exposing them to him at times when he didn't even know they were there. He knew, that she was spending her time protecting him, someone he trusted to watch his back enough that, that he didn't feel the need to make himself full of Death at all times. And now that he's gotten her to go away,_ Yaoyorozu sighed and unclenched the fists that had balled as she was getting upset and ready to scold Zach to just listen to Recovery Girl, and for doing something like this in the first place.

"Will he get better?" Yaoyorozu asked, turning to Recovery Girl and giving her a questioning look that got the older woman refocusing on Zach's condition. "If he just lets his body work without turning any of it to Death again?"

"He should be fine," Recovery Girl replied. She looked to Zach whose eyes stayed partially parted though looked exhausted like he was ready to pass out at any second. "Somehow your body can maintain itself even when you replace your insides with darkness for a little. Your blood still pumps around when you don't have a heart, oxygen still reaches your cells when you don't have lungs, it's a function of your Quirk that this occurs. However, what's really _killing_ you is that you're not going Nightmare or fully staying in your regular form. Your Nightmare form is what works with your Quirk allowing your body to function even with your body undergoing a transformation. Going only partially Nightmare is leaving the rest of your body in its human state, and your human body needs the proper amount of blood and nutrients flowing through it. Your pancreas, your liver, your kidneys, they all have important functions that keep your body in balance and maintain your good health. Removing any one of them should be enough to put your body on shut down, but you've gone the extra mile and taken away _all_ your vital organs at the same time! And you expect your body to keep moving?" Recovery Girl finished in a scoff at him for attempting something so recklessly unheard of.

Zach closed his eyes and let out another wheezing breath of pain. Recovery Girl stopped looking at him so scoldingly but continued in a steady and serious voice, "Maybe as only darkness you can't be hurt, but your tactic of becoming half and half to keep up appearances while also staying safe is destroying your insides." Yaoyorozu looked worriedly at the woman next to him who was making a diagnosis specific to Zach yet seemed to know exactly what it was plaguing him. Recovery Girl continued in a tone showing she was not to be argued with, "You have to stop, and _choose_ when to protect yourself, because doing it all the time is unsustainable."

"I'll never run out though," Zach said in a low voice. "And Death, strengthens me-"

"Is that why you heal so fast?" Recovery Girl asked, an eerie quiet filling the room at the question. What Zach was just saying had made chills fill the older woman who looked down at Zach's face so intensely though. His eyes opened more and they were filled with a different kind of agony as he looked at Recovery Girl's face. She was thinking about how messed up his body looked, how many of those injuries made her believe Zach should have been long dead. "Where did this surplus of Death come from?" Shuzenji Chiyo asked quietly, for a moment not sounding like Zach's physician though her tone was still worried.

Zach's heart ached though from pain other than the physical pain throughout his entire body. He looked away, unable to tell them but impossible to hide it well how he got so strong. The two looking at him could see with that alone that it had to have been something hard for him, though Zach started speaking and pushed everyone's minds from it, "I understand, I need to stop." His head turned back and he looked up into Recovery Girl's eyes from his laid-flat position. "I accept that, in order to get better. I know, nnggnn, Recovery Girl knows what she's talking about, and what you said makes sense to me too. I thought it might, be…" He started that but winced and looked away again, pained at the admittance that this whole ordeal they were in was solely his own fault. "It's just hard," he whispered, his room spinning in his squinted vision though the other two's faces seeming to look at him so judgmentally. "With so many people trying to kill me, always looking for a moment when my guard is down…"

Recovery Girl sighed herself while looking at the teenager who said that in a pained voice but also steady. The pain sounded more from the sickness, and although she tried to imagine that tone he took was showing some of his vulnerability, his shaky and squinted eyes had a steady expression in them ready for the fight against those people coming after him he just mentioned. "I don't know what that's like," Recovery Girl told the boy. She got up from the chair and walked down the side of the couch closer to his head that was on its side looking off right at the woman's face as she came close. "And I'm not going to tell you it isn't true this time."

 _"This time?"_ Yaoyorozu wondered. Both of the others thought about how Recovery Girl had warned Zach about being paranoid when he had mentioned Kurogiri in the past. Recovery Girl continued though after a moment, "However, I know you can handle this in a different way. You are very strong, and you can handle more than anyone I have ever met."

Zach's squinted eyes opened wide in shock as the older woman was staring straight into his eyes while saying that. He even turned his head more sideways to get a better look at her to see if she meant that, and Recovery Girl got an annoyed look on her face from his movement and from the way he was looking at her. The tick mark appeared on Recovery Girl's head as she felt that shocked look was because she was so old that the "ever met" part of what she said was so unbelievable. Zach was not thinking about that though, and he just asked after a couple of seconds of seeing her annoyed look, "Are you, including All Might, and Midoriya?"

Recovery Girl's eyes widened this time and she stared at Zach in surprise for a few moments before chuckling and shaking her head at him. Her chuckles were darker and she just said in a firm voice when she stopped, "Lay back. Rest. And keep your body completely human for the next twenty-four hours. You are likely to feel more sick at first, but as inclined as you are to turn your insides back, just remember that it could get even worse if you do that. Yaoyorozu will make sure any would-be assassins are kept away from you," Recovery Girl assured the boy, with a glance up at the taller girl to see if that was true and Yaoyorozu would be spending another day there.

Yaoyorozu nodded at the older woman who nodded back in gratitude before getting more specific with Zach about what could happen should he ignore her orders. The repercussions of ignoring doctor's orders sounded very bad, and Yaoyorozu wondered if Recovery Girl really needed to go so far when it seemed to her like Zach was already going to listen to her. _I just hope this is really it,_ Yaoyorozu thought. Recovery Girl seemed confident and Zach was accepting the diagnosis, but his condition worsened so much in her eyes after they had come to this diagnosis that it made her want to argue it anyway.

Recovery Girl had to go, but she looked back towards the couch and thought about that last question Zach asked her. _You do not even realize what you just asked._ She turned around and headed out of the apartment, and she questioned herself on her way out, _I wonder if he realizes that he should be dead a hundred times over with a body like that? How he is still alive does not just amaze me, it baffles me. I know he should be dead with those injuries. I am glad he is not, but I cannot explain it. The amount of damage he took in such a short time, internal damage too that people need to recover from over the span of years, only for those wounds to be covered up and compounded with new scars. It's unbelievable._

"You should really, go home too," Zach said to Yaoyorozu in a raspy voice as she stepped up close to where his head was laying. "Someone could attack-"

"I want to stay until we're sure that you're recovering," Yaoyorozu replied with a shake of her head. "As well as to protect you while your body is completely here and you're still weak. If I leave, you'll turn your insides into Death at every footstep you hear outside, and it'll lengthen your recovery time."

"That's not…" Zach started. Then he lifted the corners of his lips and smiled up at Yaoyorozu's face, "Alright, maybe that sounds, like it could happen… Unnngg," he groaned after trying to raise the mood, his chest and stomach and sides full of a constant stinging, burning pain. "I'm sorry, organs. I appreciate you," Zach lowered his head and looked down at his chest while saying it. "Now stop trying to kill me- ack, KAh! KAh-kuh- ack- kah- kuh koag- ag-ak" Zach tried to stop himself a couple times, but his body heaved forward and he coughed even harder like his whole lungs were about to get spat out of his mouth.

Yaoyorozu leaned down and she put a hand on his back. She rested it there and Zach flinched for a moment, then he just relaxed and coughed a couple more times to get the scratchy feeling out of his throat that he could not just turn to darkness this time. He started to lean back again and Yaoyorozu helped his back down, but she glanced around while helping him rest his head on the pillow. Her eyes shifted to a pot still on the floor close to the bed, emptied out as she did every time he had puked, though the carpet was still smelling of the throw-up she had not cleaned up much as Zach had been telling her not to and sounding so guilty when she was arguing with him. _These blankets too, and the pillow case,_ Yaoyorozu looked below Zach's head to the pillow he had been using that his sweaty hair had to have sweat all over for the past day straight.

"We should get you to your bed," Yaoyorozu suggested. Zach turned his head that felt so wobbly on top of his neck and glanced up at the girl above him with a look wondering if that was really necessary. His whole body started to feel even more sore too at the idea of getting up and moving anywhere, though he was also feeling something down in his bowels that were fully human again, and ready to punish him for what he had done to them. "Let's get you over there," Yaoyorozu said again, as Zach looked against it but was not saying anything like that. His eyes shifted towards the blankets on him and then back at the pillow case, "I'll do the laundry for a little and clean the blankets and pillow cases, alright?"

Zach looked back at her and was surprised as it sounded like she was ready to do that anyway. _I wanted her to do that, while I used the bathroom. She wouldn't have to leave for it anyway though. Shit, this sucks so much._ Zach turned his body and put his legs off the couch, and Yaoyorozu put his left arm up over her shoulders. She ignored the discomfort of how hard his left arm was, and she helped Zach up so they could walk for his bedroom. He started to walk more confidently on his own though, and he looked at her with a sheepish look while crossing the front of her body to be on the right side of the hallway more towards his bathroom than the bedroom.

"I'll get on the laundry," Yaoyorozu said at that last look he gave her.

"Thanks," Zach said it response, trying not to mutter it and to get it out in as genuine and steady a voice as he could. Then he started coughing, but he turned away from her and headed for the bathroom like it was nothing but another fit. As soon as he stepped into the bathroom though, Zach stumbled forward and reached out. He grabbed the counter in front of his mirror and brought his face up with a look of excruciating pain covering it. He stared into his shaking eyes with the corners of his vision black, and his cheeks puffed out only for him to force it back down again. _Don't do it. FIGHT IT!_ As much as he was trying, his entire being was pushing him to use Death and fill his whole body again to lessen the pain.

Yaoyorozu did the laundry in Zach's living room, and she got changed while she did into a fresh set of clothes that Ashido had brought over for her. She turned her head after slipping into a new shirt, hearing Zach through the wall past the washing machine and dryer. He had started throwing up in the bathroom this time, which she figured was better than throwing up anywhere else at least. _I know this must be hard. Just hang in there,_ she felt bad at the loud retching sounds she heard coming through the wall, but she also started to feel bad as he had gone in there alone likely so as not to bother her with this as much. _You shouldn't feel it's all your fault, but,_ Yaoyorozu moved quicker and started up a load in the washing machine that was pretty loud and drowned out some of the sound of Zach's sickness.

Zach felt a bit of relief hearing the washing machine come on like Yaoyorozu just kept at it instead of going around and listening to him from outside the bathroom door. He would not have been able to hear her footsteps either way over the sound of his own heart banging in his head, as well as his throat scratching and voice groaning. The orangish-black water in the toilet splashed as he hurled into it again, then he froze up completely as he heard a knock over everything.

"Lifebringer?"

Yaoyorozu hesitated while near the door already, but she heard that innocent-sounding question of Zach's hero name and realized it quickly. "It's fine Zach," she called out. Yaoyorozu checked through the peephole anyway, then she questioned through the door, "Excuse me, who are you-"

"Norita Riku, Zach's landlord," the man on the other side of the door responded to the talking door. He had just heard Zach's call from inside asking who it was, sounding concerned, and the man outside lifted his head to make his face easier to examine to whoever was looking out at him.

Yaoyorozu jogged over to the hallway and described the man to Zach who gave her an affirmative noise that the man sounded like he was actually his landlord. She went back to the front door and said from inside it, "Sorry about the noise, if you can hear it through the walls."

"It's not like I got a complaint or anything," Norita replied, holding up his hands defensively for whoever the girl speaking through the door was. The man got a concerned look on his face though as he continued, "I was just walking past and heard, well, is he alright?"

"He's actually not feeling too well right now," Yaoyorozu replied. "But if you could keep that quiet, he would appreciate-"

"Oh no, I understand totally," Norita shook his head around fast at the girl he heard sounding similarly concerned as him. The man shorter than Yaoyorozu herself with a chubby figure and round pink cheeks gave the girl a bright smile through the peephole as she looked back at him. "Tell him I hope he gets better soon. If he gets any sicker though, I can drive you kids to the hospital if you need a ride."

"Thank you… Norita-san. I'll let him know."

Zach stood in front of his mirror and splashed water into his face over and over. _Norita isn't a spy. Yaoyorozu is fine. She won't open the door. He won't go around telling people I'm sick. I'll be better by the time he tells anyone anyway-_ "Uggghhh," Zach groaned from the bottom of his throat and leaned his head forward over the sink. He turned the water fully on cold and stopped washing his hands for a second to just put his whole head under the running water. _I'm so fucking defenseless right now. If those assassins were to come for me… I'd still probably kick all their asses. I don't know though. I don't think I could confidently use all my Death feeling the way I do. It could get unstable. I could fly away at least though- but if they targeted civilians to make me stay? If they started an incident right outside, they could get me. They'd probably kill me._ "Gurggle-glarg-gurg…" Zach gargled the water filling his mouth and then finally pulled his head out of the sink when he heard Yaoyorozu outside the bathroom door.

"One second," Zach said, and he started drying off his whole head only to feel dizzy again and start slouching into the glass wall of his shower. "Bed?" He muttered through the towel, shifting his head to look at the door in some confusion. _Oh yeah, that's where we were going. Fuck. I'm so-_ "Feeling a little out of it," Zach admitted aloud, moving for the door as he said it to warn the girl he was about to see again. "Happens when you've kept your entire brain as a black mass of swirling Death for over a week…"

* * *

"Mmnnn _NNNnn_ ," Zach's low hum turned into a groan and his eyes opened up. _Was I sleeping?_ He shifted his eyes down to his heaving chest and thought, _Must have woken myself up right there. Surprising I can even fall asleep with as much noise as I'm making, let alone Momo._ Zach rose his gaze and looked to the foot of his bed where Yaoyorozu had stood up and was looking at him in some concern at how he had woken up sounding like he was in pain.

Zach gave her a small smile though when she looked at him in that concerned way, and Yaoyorozu sighed and stepped back closer on the left side of Zach's bed which was the side he was laying closer to. Zach noticed there was a chair sitting there on the left side of the bed, though for the life of him he could not remember her bringing it in there. _Actually, when did I even get-_

"How are you feeling?" Yaoyorozu wondered.

Zach did not pull away as she reached over and put a hand on his forehead. She frowned more at how hot he was, but when she leaned back Zach looked up at her and replied, "Like crap." It was in a joking tone, and as much as the response itself was not positive, his voice did not sound as hoarse as earlier. Zach started coughing again though after answering, though he pulled his own blankets up and just let out a long sigh afterwards to show he was dealing with it. "How long was I out for?"

"Well," Yaoyorozu began slowly. She pulled out her phone and glanced at the time on it, _He hasn't asked in a while. This is the most coherent he's been in, huh,_ Yaoyorozu lifted her head back up and replied, "It's early Sunday morning, so…"

"Sunday?" Zach muttered, tilting his head farther back into the pillow and then groaning at the movement. _I've been sick for days now. If I had known what was causing it earlier… I had my suspicions though. I even knew I wasn't just turning my insides back to normal so as not to hurt Recovery Girl, but because I didn't want her knowing. Such a stupid move._ "Feels like, I'll be able to make it into class tomorrow," Zach admitted with his eyes opening back up.

"That's good," the girl standing next to Zach's bed replied. She stepped back and then grabbed the chair near the foot of Zach's bed, pulling it around more to be closer to his head when she sat back down. "Norita-san came back a while ago." Zach's eyes shifted to her in a little surprise, and Yaoyorozu continued, "He went down the street to get you miso soup and ginger ale. I tried a few sips of the soup while it was still hot, it was very good-"

"From Akibono's?" Zach wondered.

Yaoyorozu nodded in a bit of surprise, but Zach added, "I've, tried the miso soup there before." He gulped and then tilted his head back on the pillow with his eyes shifting back straight up, "I'm not very, hungry though…"

"That's fine," Yaoyorozu said with a nod at the boy who she was fine letting get more rest. "I thought you might say that so I already put it in the fridge. You do need to eat something soon though. You cannot regain your strength otherwise."

Zach nodded in agreement, though the prospect of getting up from that position right now made him clench his eyes shut. "Ugh, this sucks so much," Zach mumbled, his body starting to turn onto its right side only for him to flip right back onto his back as his side hurt too much leaning that way on it. "I never knew being sick was so, I don't know-"

"What did you think it was like?" Yaoyorozu wondered with a smile and almost laughing at what he just said.

"Well I knew it wasn't, fun," Zach muttered in reply, though he felt stupid for saying that anyway. "And I sympathized, but I didn't really know, _uuggghhhhh,"_ Zach ground his teeth and Yaoyorozu stopped smiling even though she wanted to keep him talking and distracted from the discomfort and pain he had to be feeling. "But! This is worse, well- not worse than, Reverb's."

"Who is Reverb?" Yaoyorozu wondered.

Zach turned his head a little and said, "He got real sick, once, like this." Zach took in a deep breath and he calmed himself down. He relaxed, curling his hands into the blankets more to wrap them tighter around him.

Yaoyorozu also felt more relaxed seeing that peaceful look on his face. _He definitely looks better. I must inform Recovery Girl when I have the chance. It seems he was really doing it to himself._

"It was weird," Zach started. "Because, it was not often we had to deal with sickness on the Cloak. My airship," Zach specified, wondering if he had ever told Momo about it before. She just nodded at him though with a look telling him to continue with what he was saying and not feel the need to explain the context. "They were so strong, and they were dying all the time from non-disease causes, and after I revived people usually they were very healthy so no problems there… but, Reverb got sick once. He was from, a poorer country… He didn't have the right vaccines before joining, considering we were traveling all over the world."

"Ahh," Yaoyorozu nodded as that made sense to her. _Talking about this so casually. I am glad. I told you before I would never repeat what we talk about to anyone else._ "Was he, alright?" Yaoyorozu asked, hesitating for a moment but finishing the question she had started already.

"Yeah," Zach whispered. His eyes shifted from Yaoyorozu to the ceiling above him. His tone got a little lower as he went on, "It's why I started getting all my troops vaccinated with mandatory shots though. After people joined I had them go through a physical with my doctors-"

Momo chuckled and lifted her right hand to cover her mouth. "That is an impressive health care system," she said. _It's amazing, that you had to consider even things like that._

"Sure," Zach muttered, and Yaoyorozu lost her smile in an instant. Her eyes locked on Zach's face and she saw his head still pointed straight up to the ceiling. "Bad healthcare," he said it so softly, and then he whispered in an even quieter voice, "was never the reason I lost people. Reverb was really sick, but he got better. He got better and kept fighting with me for, a couple months after." Zach's voice got gargled as he mentioned how long at the end, and he shook his head around and swallowed as he had not noticed his mouth so full of spit that it had slid down into his throat while he was speaking. _Spit glands working, trachea and esophagus are there and separated. No more manual forced gulps or breaths. Just eat and breathe normally. This last week, I've been like a machine. No one should control every action their body undergoes, especially not when they're already controlling every thought and emotion-_

"Zach?" Yaoyorozu wondered, as Zach had just trailed off in a hazy way. His eyes shifted back towards the girl on his left who stared with wide eyes into his foggy ones that seemed unfocused and dark despite it. His head tilted to the side like he was waiting for her to continue, then his eyes grew wider though still unfocused.

 _I was talking,_ Zach reminded himself, looking back up to the ceiling and trying to get back on topic in his own head. "Statue Man," Zach muttered. "The monster, like a Medusa… not, not really," Zach mumbled at the end and closed his eyes tightly. Yaoyorozu felt her heart ache as he stopped himself like he was trying to shift back to reality, but Zach's eyes snapped open and he explained, "Because Gorgons, they turn people to stone, but Statue Man was himself made of stone. He's the one who killed, Reverb," Zach paused for a moment. He stopped and he started to look back towards Momo only to drag his eyes away not wanting to make eye contact, "I fucked up-"

"It's not-"

"I walked by Statue Man over and over," Zach continued before she could try and keep him from putting the blame on himself. "But they were always different statues in different poses. I thought they were all over the place. He was really just, turning himself into a statue though, every time I would turn the corner. And there were other statues around! Real, fake statues, but I should have noticed. I should have, I should have noticed… I should have noticed." He turned his head back to the side after repeating it over and over, and he said to the girl next to him with his eyes wide, "And Reverb was there. He wanted to help me. Wanted to… If I had just noticed he was a person… Just a little sooner…"

"It's alright. It's not your fault. You tried-" Yaoyorozu stopped as Zach's face seemed so pained despite her attempts to relax him. _After all this time, it still hits you this hard._

Zach's head hurt and he clenched his eyes shut while tilting it back to a position with the back of it pushing into his pillow. "I wish I had come up with a story for this," Zach whispered, his voice so hoarse and quiet as he continued. "But I guess I hate thinking of it so much, that I avoided even making a story. Because it's all my fault." Zach clenched his fists tighter into the mattress at his sides, his heart pounding as his mind yelled at him to counter Yaoyorozu for what she had just been saying to him. He grit his teeth and seethed through his teeth, "I brought him with me on his second life, just to get him killed."

Momo's heart rate skyrocketed and she stared at Zach with her eyes shaking at what he just said. "'Second life?'" She whispered the question at him.

Zach's whole face scrunched up, his eyebrows narrowing it but his forehead wrinkling like his lips. Zach's lips curled and his neck tilted back, and he had to turn to the right as his face was covering in so much pain. The way he had said it, made it sound like there had been many on their second lives. _Bringing people back, only for them to die again,_ Yaoyorozu looked at the side of Zach's face she could still partially see. _Only for you to lose them again. The way he looked right there, I know, many of the people you brought back to life died again._

 _I already knew,_ Yaoyorozu reminded herself with her eyes lowering down in a sadder way. _I thought you might have died while you were out there, because I kept hearing about so many AoD members dying. I knew though. I knew there was another reason it could be._ Yaoyorozu started to open her mouth but froze. _I want to ask. How many people did you bring back only to lose again? How many… I can't ask that._ The hand she started lifting lowered back down, and she couldn't bring herself to ask the question on the tip of her tongue. _When just talking about one of them is wrecking him like this? How could I bring that pain up for him… But, then, how does he even- How does he hold himself together?! When one death, one person he cared about dying is this hard for him? No, no there's no way he can actually handle…_

Yaoyorozu whispered still with her eyes down, "I'm glad you told me about him. And about that day," Yaoyorozu continued, and she lifted her head and watched Zach's head to wait for him to turn back towards her. "It's good to talk about it."

 _And I haven't talked about it once. I never told anyone, what happened to Reverb. The two of us left and I came back alone… again!_ Zach's face scrunched up and his eyes shook, and he started coughing violently but turned back to Yaoyorozu anyway during it. _She's right though. I know she's right._

 _There could have been more believable stories, so why those fantastical tales? I always wondered, why it had to be something so unbelievable. Why you would choose something even you couldn't really believe._

"Remember, that woman I let, die?" Zach whispered at the girl in front of his face who stared back at him in surprise at what he was bringing up. "When I escaped, the League of Villains. I remember talking about her with you, and how I knew afterwards how that had helped." Yaoyorozu nodded her head back at Zach who even smiled a little as he continued, "Talking about it, getting my feelings about it out in the open, I really needed that."

"You can do it again," Yaoyorozu assured him.

Zach shook his head though and rose up his blanket to cough into it a couple of times, before lowering the hand under the blanket he had reached up with. He grabbed his chest after coughing but in a way harder for Yaoyorozu to see since it was under the blanket. "I can't," he muttered, shaking his head and keeping her focus there while he gripped at his tightening chest.

"You can trust me," Yaoyorozu whispered back. "Believe in me."

"It's not about that. It's, never been about that." He paused for a moment and shifted his eyes to look back into hers, "I know, the real reason, I don't talk about the truth."

"Are there not some things that aren't too hard to think about?" Yaoyorozu asked him, more offering it up so that he would try.

Zach shook his head again though. "It's more than that," he whispered, his voice drowsy but his whole expression more dark than anything. "Ever since Inazuma, I've been remembering sometimes anyway. Those moments all end though, and the memories I remembered return to the way I transformed them in the back of my mind. But, it's happening more frequently. Those transplanted memories, are breaking." Zach's head tilted back and he stared up at the ceiling with a nervous look over his face.

As anxious as Zach appeared though, Yaoyorozu felt her heart through her chest and could only purse her lips while staring at Zach with her eyes huge. _What is he talking about?! Those things he's admitting right here, they're so far out there!_ The way Zach was admitting to thinking, and the turmoil in his own mind, _It feels like he's admitting he's insane!_ _ **"I lost my mind,"**_ what he had told her not that long ago echoed in her head, and she pulled her head back as she looked at the boy whose face was twisting in pain and fear at the way his own mindset was unraveling. _I was wrong._

Guilt flooded into Yaoyorozu's chest and she opened her pursed lips to let out a small gasp she tried to stifle before he could hear it. _About so much since you got back._ _ **"My life was a lie. The beautiful world I believed in is a lie. Everything is a lie. I- I can't believe in anything anymore, can't trust, anything… I can't even tell what's real and what's not."**_ _You told me back when Kaminari betrayed us! You were already slipping before you went out there, and created a lie that covered the entire world, built a fake history to dupe billions! And yet it was more than duping the world, you believed it yourself because it was so horrible, and so that lie detectors couldn't catch you, and, and! There are so many layers! You've messed with your head so much you can't even tell anymore…_

"Why-" Yaoyorozu started. She stopped herself, but Zach's sick face turned and looked at the girl sitting so far forward in her chair next to his bed. "Why did you do this to yourself?" Zach's face pained too at the hurt on Yaoyorozu's, and she did not need to explain what she meant nor did Zach need to ask.

Zach looked back at her softly and in regret too that he was making her feel this pained to see all he had done to himself. "It's because," he started, his voice cracking and raising in pitch. "Because, Kaminari beat us all." Yaoyorozu stared at him with shaking, confused eyes, but Zach's fists curled and he nodded his head at her. "He beat All Might, and Principal Nezu, and me. Kaminari managed all he did by going so far as to mess with his own head, and even though it was evil and he did all that in such a disgusting way… he was right." Yaoyorozu's eyes shook more and her eyes grew wider as Zach whispered to her, "He was willing, to twist his own mind to create that persona to trick us all. And, Kaminari was the smartest person in the world."

"Outsmarting Principal Nezu? Tricking the entire country?" Zach asked in disbelief, his eyebrows high and his voice only cracking at the end before another small fit of coughs. "I learned from that defeat like I learned from them all," Zach admitted. "I learned, and I adapted, and when I tested it for the first time in those two weeks after the betrayal, I had the biggest victory of my life in the Lifebringer Incident. And so I continued, _twisting_ my own mind. Gnarling it up and messing with it, because I had done it before and it worked." He started talking faster, his heart started to ache from more than the pain it was already in from the sickness, and he whispered with his head tilting far back, "Whenever I thought about something that wouldn't help with my goals, I just… buried it."

"It became second nature to me. I became a natural at just shoving everything so deep. To a place I'd never have to deal with it because I would be dead before long." Zach finally paused and he wheezed a couple of times, but then he closed his mouth shut when it seemed to him like Momo might say something about him stopping. He cut off his wheezing breaths and just whispered at her in a calmer but much darker way, "But I was wrong about that. What I told you, about never being a good hero," he paused and his eyes closed in so much regret that he was saying this straight to Yaoyorozu. "It got so much worse out there because my morality wasn't just pushed to the side, it was buried. I was able to burry it. That didn't mean those things I did didn't still hurt, but the pain was buried like the pain of losing friends or losing who I myself was. It was _all_ just shoved underneath my more important goals. And now it's coming back up… and I don't know if I can handle it all."

He finally let out a huge exhale and just stopped, laying back and closing his eyes in exhaustion after saying all that. Yaoyorozu shook her head while staring at the left side of his face, so scarred up that more of it was covered in scars than wasn't. _He wasn't just, making an excuse. He really went mad. He's functioning despite it, but this kind of thinking isn't… He's so far from alright. In so many ways, he's hurting,_ Yaoyorozu lifted her lips up into the faintest smile. "You'll be alright," she said. Zach let out a deep exhale himself, and he turned back to the girl next to him who nodded once and said, "If anyone can handle it…"

Zach closed his eyes slowly and opened them again, and he nodded back at the girl trying to encourage him with that. "Thanks. I actually, am feeling better already," Zach added, and he shrugged his shoulders as if to prove by the increased movement that he was fine. Zach sighed though, and he smiled after it as it was a real sigh he did not have to force out because he was not just recreating his own lungs for only that moment. "I was never a good hero," he started, his voice sounding stronger than it had in a couple days to the girl next to him. "Never even a good person. But, I try to help people as best I can-"

"That's not true," Yaoyorozu cut off Zach before he could continue anymore on that track. He started to shake his head, but she questioned before he could counter her, "Life City is real, isn't it?" Zach froze, his eyes widening for a second and his head turning more to the side to look at her closer. His eyes were full of shock, and Yaoyorozu did not know whether he just assumed she would think he was lying, or if he forgot even talking to her about it in his delusional ill state.

"I," he started. Zach paused, so much hesitation on his face.

After everything he had told her already, things that would get him thrown in prison a hundred times over, Yaoyorozu stared at him in confusion at why he was struggling to speak now. She kept her voice lower though seeing that fear and hesitation on his face, "Why is that place hidden? That amazing, absurd place you talked about."

"When the time comes they'll reveal themselves to the world." He responded softly and relaxed as he reminded himself who the person he was talking to was. His voice steadied and he replied, "When they're ready to, and no sooner. Until then they're self-sufficient."

Yaoyorozu's face shifted and Zach looked at her wondering what the look was for. "Is that true?" She asked him quietly, even quieter than they were already speaking. "Isn't the AoD supporting them?"

Zach shook his head at the question. "I never ever stayed in one place too long or it would be associated with me and targeted. Doing that there would be the same as implicating that whole city of people as terrorists… But I did set up Life City better than anywhere else." He paused and shifted his gaze back up above him while laying in a more relaxed and less pained way, even as he remembered more of what he did, "I tried to help so many countries, supported so many places with all kinds of charities. In Life City though I was able to start from scratch. And so, I was able to create a society with the full use of Quirks accepted, and that meant: progress. Real, true progress."

The girl sitting next to Zach found herself at a loss for words. Zach just kept going while staring up though, "I needed to make compromises while determining who could fight with me and who I needed to help with progress. A friend of mine, Ellen, wanted to come and fight alongside me but I denied her because her Quirk was too amazing. The power to bring fruit to trees, to have flowers grow bigger and bud with peppers or herbs with amazing tastes and spices. Ack- Foodify, was the name of her Quirk. And though it helped me for a few weeks when I didn't need to gather food supplies as every living thing was suddenly food for us, delicious fruits appearing out of nowhere that had never been tasted by most people before, Ellen was one of the many in this world who I saw the full potential of."

His eyes glazed over even as he smiled while talking about this, "She could not terraform desert nations though, or cause trees to grow suddenly to full size. Nor could she spread grass and flowers over expanses of barren landscape. She could only make food, and though that was great and amazing too, Foodify doesn't work on as wide a scale as some others' Quirks. However, I did know she could help something smaller. Not entire continents, or countries, but a single city?"

"Those charities," Yaoyorozu spoke up. It was not directly about Ellen and Foodify, but she could not take her mind off of all these things Zach was saying as he so quickly moved from one to the next. "These terraformers you are talking about, are they all- I have heard, something about- what are you doing it all for?"

"The end goal?" Zach wondered back softly. "I want there to be enough food to go around to everyone. Clean water, in places where they've never had fresh, clean water just laying around. We have the ability. We have the resources and the potential with Quirks to clean the oceans and shelter the homeless, feed the hungry and give the thirsty enough water to last them the rest of their lives. Things always get in the way though. Country lines, borders, language barriers, income differences, corporate greed, corruption, trade disputes, social hierarchy, all these things keep people from seeing how easy it would be. So for those who ignore borders, and speak all languages, and who only have money so that that money can go back to helping people…"

Yaoyorozu just watched the boy in front of her and nodded as he continued. She listened to him regale her with his deeds, his best deeds, and she smiled over the look of amazement and shock and awe covering her face. _This is what you should be thinking about right now. These memories will make you feel better, and so they may be able to make you physically-_ Yaoyorozu's eyes widened even more, at the mention of an amount of money Zach said he donated to a charity without slowing down what he was saying. _How much money did you- I can't even-_ there was barely any time to think as Zach hit her again and again by things that put her in so much awe she could barely breathe. Whenever he looked her way though, she smiled and nodded at him to continue on.

He looked back towards the girl sitting next to him who gave him an interested look and nodded to see what Zach was going to say next. He smiled at her for listening without interrupting or saying how unbelievable it was, and he just continued with his head turning to look back straight up as he went on. This time though, Zach did not notice just like the other times, but Yaoyorozu continued smiling at him from the side instead of returning to a look of astonishment. What he was saying was still shocking, to say the least, but the girl sitting next to his bed smiled to herself because she knew she did not need to question for a second if what he was saying was true.

* * *

 **A/N Thanks for reading! Hope you enjoyed the chapter! Zach got sick from keeping his insides as pure darkness for a while, in an attempt to keep himself better protected now that Darling is no longer watching over him. The attempt backfires, but by the end of the chapter things are starting to look up. Yaoyorozu stays with Zach over the weekend, and Zach finally tells someone about Life City and the rest of the charity work he was doing out in the world as Death. Anyway, leave a review telling me what you think, comments, predictions, or questions about the chapter and what's to come! Already halfway through the next chapter so I'll try to get that one up this weekend (if not tomorrow). And other than that, just want to say... things are about to get nuts ;)**

papaprep chapter 181 . Sep 23

wow..u ok author-san?  
u need a break?

 **Lol I'm alright! Thanks for asking, and reviewing!**

Super Power Sensei chapter 181 . Sep 23

Why am I getting the feeling Zach is...  
(A)...going to die due to all his injuries.  
(B)...being harmed/taken over by his quirk.  
(C)...going to kill himself.

 **And the answer is... B! Kind of. Zach tries to use Death as an all-encompassing protector by keeping it going nonstop, but that doesn't work out well for him. Thanks for another review!**

Incarnus chapter 181 . Sep 24

I really want Zach to have a happy ending after all he's been through, I just can't see it happening with the way the story's going though. The best ending I can see for him currently is some kind of martyr fate which is just sad.  
Also holy shit but Deku is being such a little bitch. His inferiority complex towards Zach just keeps growing. Seems like he cares more about that at this point instead of actually striving to become the Symbol of Peace.

 **Love all this love for Zach, which I can also see through all this hate in the reviews for Midoriya XD We'll see how things go with Zach, but no spoilers from me. Thanks for the review!**

.0 chapter 181 . 15h ago

If you keep hitting me with cliffhangers I'm gonna have a heart attack.

 **Don't die! But, ;) I do enjoy the cliffhangers... Thanks for the review!**

GuestP chapter 181 . Sep 23

I have a question before I start this review... Have you considered crossposting this on ao3?  
Just wanted to know, out of curiosity.  
Finally, Zach tells Midoriya that he's a little shit when it comes to trying to understand and thinking he understands, but actually doesn't understand. Poor Zach, Death is no little feeling, it's something that scars your mind, which is why Zach is like the way he is.  
That mention of Cee had me tearing up a bit...  
I read the last three paragraphs, and I'm a little concerned... Zach's never late unless something big happened...  
Ooohh, something big happened!  
Can't wait for the next chapter, thank you for your hard work!~~

 **I have not thought about it. Mainly because I hadn't really looked at that site 'til you mentioned it. It's a lot of work editing and posting after each chapter, so thinking about doing that across multiple sites feels like it'd be a chore (though I might do it once all is said and done at the end of the story). Zach was getting frustrated and pissed, and coughing too during that talk with Midoriya which was my main sign to you guys what was going to be up this chapter. That worry was founded as Zach finds himself falling ill to Death overuse, but he seems like he'll be alright. Thanks for the review, and hope you enjoyed the chapter!**


	183. Chapter 183

**Disclaimer: I don't own Boku no Hero Academia**

 **Chapter 183:**

"As third years, each of you will have to decide before graduation what it is you plan to do afterwards." Enorma stood in front of the students of Class 1 next to the screen that had lowered in front of their blackboard. She had a remote in her hand and pressed a button on it that made an image appear up on that screen. Two more pictures faded in on either side of the center rectangle that had a vertical picture taken of a man every student in the class recognized. "However, whether you choose to start your own agency, or you join an agency as a partner or sidekick, all of you will potentially face this man. It would be irresponsible to send you out into the world without a specific course to inform you on the most dangerous villains out in our society today. And so today, we will begin discussing the Radians. Japan's number 1 most wanted villain group, and in particular, this man."

Reika's eyes narrowed at the face of the figure on the screen who despite his body being turned to the side had his head looking back so it was fully caught by the camera. The picture snapped from him angled a little down showing the picture was taken from above, and the glass the image was zoomed through showed the person taking it was hiding behind their window at the time the picture was taken. "His real name is as of yet, unidentified. He goes only by his villain name, Intanzo."

 _Feeling much better today. Still wasn't totally into it first day I came back. Managed to keep anyone from noticing though. Even Kotsumura seemed genuinely convinced this time that everything was fine. Don't know how I messed up enough for him to tell both Sero and Muoko, which resulted in a rough weekend with Momo. Had it's nice moments though, as embarrassing as throwing up in front of her- and she fucking cleaned up my-_ Zach kept staring towards the front of the room and kept his expression steady, though he felt gross and wanted to frown so badly as he imagined how clean his place was when he was finally up and moving around it again. _She kept telling me it was no problem, but… No, knowing Momo, she really meant it._

 _Still, I fucked up. I told her so much, but I spent so much time on all those good things I did without providing the context. I just wanted to feel better. She just wanted me to feel better and I just wanted her to think that I was by actually getting better. So she really did make me say all that, though we both, it was my decision. I was sick though! She knew I was, and she got me to say all- don't use that bs excuse. I wanted to tell her. I wanted her to think I was doing all that great stuff, as much as I was admitting how shit of a hero I've been… She said I was wrong though. My definition of a hero, it is so far from what I am. What I've done. Yet, I have such a strict view- as strict as Midoriya's! I know heroes have to be better than what I was. She only told me I was a good hero, because I told her one half of the story. Why am I so focused on this? Listen to Enorma sensei. Intanzo is a threat._

Zach's eyes actually locked on the images of Intanzo that had been captured over the past year. The tan-skinned man had his face partially hidden or fully blocked by a mask most of the time, though his muscular arms did stick out of his sleeves in one clear picture of his back taken in the summer. He had a mask on that day covering his face and neck completely, but one of the other pictures that had part of his arms from the elbows down exposed revealed matching scars and the bottom of a tattoo that the picture capturing him from behind also showed. His face on the main picture Enorma had up was intense even with the smirk on the bottom of it. His eyes were partially shadowed over but had a low green shade in them that seemed to glow through the man's black bangs.

Intanzo's black hair spiked up four times over his head, two big spikes on the left side, one smaller one on the right pointed farther out to the side, and one farther back on top of his skull over the rest of the short black hair that covered his scalp. His bangs were messy like the hair that fell around the sides of his head and behind it, and the man was clean-shaven otherwise with his face lacking any facial hair. Other than the thin scars on his right and left wrists though going nearly up to his elbows, scars Enorma was explaining to her class appeared to be self-inflicted, Intanzo did not have any other scars to speak of to show damage from previous fights against heroes.

Enorma continued speaking to her class, and she pressed a button on her remote with her own expression getting much darker. A list started on the right side of the screen, each hero's name appearing individually before the next one appeared below it. Students narrowed their eyes and glared at the man even harder as they saw these names, names they had known for much of their lives for most of them. A few of the names were more obscure but had become famous heroes after their deaths, while some like Floodgate, had already been world-class heroes who many idolized. When 'Floodgate' appeared on the list, Reika ground her teeth and she curled her hands into the sides of her desk thinking about the news of the Nara Raid she had watched that day in complete shock.

The teacher paused for a moment after showing the list of heroes who Intanzo had killed to her students. "In this course we will focus on the thr-" she almost cursed herself as she stopped short right there. "The two major villain groups in Japan that have been the most active over the past year. Each of the known members, their Quirks, their histories, past encounters heroes have had with them, everything you may need to know if there comes a time when you are facing one of these people."

"She almost forgot you took out the Subspace Devils," Kotsumura whispered to his side with a hand cupped to his mouth.

Zach rolled his eyes at the mention though he had noticed Enorma almost mention the 'three' villain groups to focus on. _Wish she had said 'three.' Only talking about the Radians and the Jazz? Are you an idiot? It's not just her, and the other staff here though. People have forgotten. No, not forgotten. Others have just taken the spotlight. Still, for Overlord and Potaru to be removed from the top 5 most wanted, and no one from the LoV move up? It's ridiculous. The Jazz are still so active though. They acted after I returned, and they only really quieted down after I fucked up the SD's. But instead of Kaminari or Shigaraki, they put another Radian exec at 2 and an unaffiliated at 5. Splodo is only that low because of the fact that he's so far unaffiliated with any villain group, but that Blastoff Quirk of his could be and_ _ **is**_ _super fucking dangerous in hands. Escaping Endeavor alone is a massive feat for a single man, even if he was losing that fight._

 _Intanzo, then Iscariot, the former hero known as Thunderclap. Third is the Jazz's leader, Duke Dread. Dread's got the biggest gang supposedly, but none of his other members have really made names for themselves. The numbers alone though are supposedly anywhere between 2,000 and 5,000. Dread's willing to take any and all villains, which is why it's easier for heroes to track down their bases too. Despite that trade-off though, they recruit faster than heroes are finding them. It's hard to get an experienced plant into any major crime group, and once they've used an agent once they can't put the same guy back in there. If only Changeling was still alive. Fucking Cultists. His would have been a great Quirk to combat the Jazz, but then again their methods would likely be different with a hero like Changeling still in play around here._

 _Alright, then fourth, is another fucking Radian,_ Zach frowned at the front of the room harder as he saw the fourth-ranked most wanted villain in the country appear on the screen. _Bitchess 'n Cream. They really have her- damn it. She is dangerous. Not as bad as the guy below her though, or any of the League execs! Focus!_ Zach's forehead wrinkled but he tried to focus on the woman who appeared in an image with Intanzo caught in the corner of the picture too. The photo was not one that Enorma had shown earlier when talking about Intanzo, but the students figured it was him based off the black and red clothing that Intanzo had been wearing in all the other photos. It was not a single costume or anything, just the color scheme the villain always seemed to go with. "Bitchess 'n Cream," Enorma said. "On the news referred to more often by her real name, Manika Esiri."

"Manika was diagnosed with dual personality disorder at the age of six, which at first was considered uncorrelated to her Quirk, Cream-Filled. Unlike most multiple personality disorders, the second persona that appeared at age six was far more powerful than the personality her parents describe as the initial Manika. However, from medical files released to heroes first and then leaked online after her notoriety rose, we know that the doctors who observed Manika over her time at a hospital where she was receiving treatment claimed that Manika and her second personality had a camaraderie between them that emerged from what was at first an antagonistic relationship. Bitchess, the name the second personality gave itself, is unable to access Manika's Quirk without her knowledge or approval. Yet as Manika grew older, and what her doctors described as a symbiotic relationship blossomed, Bitchess was granted full use of their Quirk."

"Enorma sensei," Bibi started, lifting a hand and getting the teacher to stop for a moment. The woman whose long brown hair was tied in a ponytail behind her back nodded at the student to go ahead with her question. Bibi lowered her hand hesitantly, but she started in an unsure way, "Is the- is Manika-"

Enorma held up a palm for the gray haired girl to stop. "Manika is as much a villain as Bitchess. They are the same person, and if you run into her you cannot allow this information we have on her beforehand come between you and your duty as a hero. Rover and Rex made the same mistake, eyewitnesses reported, when they failed to capture her." The students in the class got darker looks on their faces thinking about another hero team who had been killed in a later attack on the Radians than the Nara Raid.

"Manika and Bitchess grew more similar over time. In their teenage years, the girls were still visiting the hospital for weekly checkups though they were no longer closely watched, as the friendly relationship between the two seemed to mark progress from when she was a child. Bitchess was initially very aggressive and violent, but she became more docile and appeared less often despite having been considered the stronger of the two personalities. Likewise, as Manika regained more of a sense of her own individuality, and earned half the time of the use of her own body, she became a more outgoing, then combative, then ruthless kind of person. The doctors claimed that the trade-off for Manika being allowed to use her body was giving Bitchess control over their Quirk. Bitchess had to accept less time in control of their body, while also being granted power that fascinated her far more than her counterpart."

The teacher speaking to Class 1 pulled up medical reports on the screen and testimony from doctors who had been watching over her for years. Heroes had questioned them extensively after Bitchess 'n Cream's villain debut, and people had gotten outraged at the doctors for not informing heroes earlier of the signs these reports showed they knew about. Enorma continued after pulling up these reports and some pictures of Manika in her late teens, "Before joining the Radians, Manika had racked up a litany of juvenile and seemingly petty crimes. They required her to visit the hospital more often, and it was in these visits in her late teens where the doctors began to worry about the 'healed' state of Manika Esiri. Her dual existence was something she had lived with for a decade and gotten used to, and both Manika and Bitchess were considered by the doctors as unique individuals, while at the same time acting more and more like one another in their personalities each day. 'It is to be expected,'" Enorma started, zooming in on the report on the screen to a single highlighted line for the students to read easier. She continued quoting the doctor, "'That Manika and Bitchess would exhibit similar personalities after living with one another for ten years now. However, her recent incidents have led me to conclude that this is no longer to be considered progress. The kind girl we once knew has grown into more than just a rebellious teenager. The kinds of looks she gives after doing something mischievous, the glee she seems to feel after stealing a pen or a piece of paper even that our cameras have caught recording of, we can no longer tell if it is Bitchess or Manika who carries out these actions and makes those expressions.'"

Enorma paused for a second and then continued in a lower voice, "'We know that the kinder Manika is still in there. In the coming weeks we hope to pull her out more and push back the negative influence that Bitchess has had on her. The two of them have become like sisters. Even twins would not be as close as the two of them however, as they have shared the same body and mind for a decade… We will begin with a new treatment plan to try and make Manika stronger than her dual personality first. Then, once Manika can keep control by force, we will attempt to show her that the criminal actions Bitchess has been making are…' The report continues there, but the doctor's plans didn't work out well for them." The teacher flipped to the next slide where there were several photos taken from an incident report at the hospital that had not been reported at the time to heroes, though Manika had been admitted as a patient there where she would remain for several years.

"Whether it was Bitchess catching on to the doctors' plans, or both girls acting together, Manika attacked her doctors and tried to escape the hospital. She attacked anyone and everyone in her path, and caused minor injury to eight people, while also causing critical injury to one of her doctors before she was sedated. If this was taken more seriously, she may have been arrested at that time and then tried as an adult considering her priors. However, her doctor who she hurt the worst chose not to press charges, instead going to Esiri's parents. The Manikas admitted their daughter into the psych ward full-time, where she would stay until she was twenty years old. Manika's personality had grown to take over 80 percent of her time awake, her personalities had both pacified, and it was considered a success story at the time Manika was finally released from the hospital." Enorma paused and then finished while looking back to her class, "Manika's whereabouts became unknown a short time later to everyone, even though she was meant to check in with the doctors and had made them promises to do so with an 'innocent smile on her face.' Her parents could not locate her, and it was five years later, last year, when she first revealed herself again as a member of the Radians alongside Camoflora and Intanzo."

Himazuri had a notebook out and finished writing down the key points she thought were most important to remember here. She looked back down at her paper for a moment and then lowered her pencil back down and circled, 'BITCHESS FASCINATED BY QUIRK!' "Enorma sensei, what do we know about Cream-Filled's ability set?" Himazuri questioned, looking up after circling what worried her the most through the psychological history report Enorma gave them right there. _If she was the more powerful of the two personalities, could she have gotten friendlier with Manika solely to get control of their Quirk? So that she could train it? Make it more powerful? So that she- they could become a better villain? Bitchess must have even tricked the doctors in the years after their first failed escape, in order to be released without anyone any wiser._

"Cream-Filled is a Quirk which sounds much less powerful than you should really treat it. At one point it was believed that Manika was just full of a whitish-yellow cream like that inside a cannoli. Her skin would cut, and cream filling came out instead of blood." Enorma continued with a shake of her head as the students already knew that could not be all, considering the pictures they saw of the halls of that hospital. Enorma explained what they were thinking of, "During her first attempted breakout though, it became clear that she could expel the cream from openings on her body. When she was sixteen, that only meant her mouth, nose, eyes… privates," Enorma added with a tilt of her head to the side.

Her students attempted to keep professional though it suddenly felt awkward in the classroom. Enorma continued quickly though which got that feeling to subside, "However, during her public reveal as a villain, she used her Quirk from various other parts of her body without issue." She flipped the screen to show Manika in a half dark pink costume that was also half pitch-black. The halves were not split vertically, but instead there were dark swirls of pink over a black background, while in other areas it looked like the black swirls overlapping the pink background. Her costume was thin around her arms, leaving a lot of light skin exposed with thin sheets of fabric curving the lines of her bones to her hands and the thin gloves she had there too. "We believe that either this costume she is wearing here opens up small slits on her skin that she expels the cream from, or that she has mastered the Quirk to a level that she can expel it from pores in her skin and this costume's thin nature is so her Cream-Filling can fire uninhibited at enemies…"

 _This is really the fourth most wanted person in this country?_ Zach thought in frustration, his eyes darkening more as Enorma kept going for _another_ minute about this same villain. _I bet most of the people in this room could take her on. The only reason she was able to kill two heroes is because she abused the news about her dual personalities and how it made it out like Manika was a hostage at first. Those eye witnesses you're about to talk about said she pretended to be Manika taking control and begging to just be killed, and when those two heroes tried to help instead, Bitchess got the drop on them._ As Zach thought, Enorma got back to talking about Bitchess 'n Cream's villain reveal and then the incident she was more known for when she had killed two heroes and evaded the authorities.

 _This is so dumb._ Zach lowered his pencil down, deciding against even pretending to be taking notes on all this. _Do they not know what Kaminari did, or everyone just forgot? What he did was a thousand times more impressive, and evil, and fucked up! He's not just gone either. Just because I killed Kurogiri doesn't mean Kaminari and Shigaraki just gave up! Dabi's not finished with this society yet, and Toga's still in play doing who knows what for them?! Fucking All For One might even come back and help them out. Intanzo's a real threat who we could spent a class period talking about, but the way this class is going it seems like this is the first of many days we're going to spent on them, and she wants to drag Bitchess 'n Cream's file across this whole period? I was looking forward to Splodo's. He's new at least, so maybe there's some information you have that we don't and I could actually use._

 _But you don't even have Shigaraki up there. He can disintegrate people with a single touch. I bet his Quirk could level a city block by now. I've heard the rumors of All For One's successor. As much as I heard about the rumors of AFO, more often actually, I've heard what the villains around the world who know about Shigaraki Tomura had to say about him. They feared Intanzo and how crazy the Radians seemed with a nutjob like him and with Bitchess 'n Cream getting so much attention. No one wanted to get involved with Japan because of it. And yet, the real big shots, the ones who knew they needed to avoid Japan, they didn't just do it for Intanzo and the heroes here. That was top level. Outer layer. But it went deeper than that. The idea that it was Death's homeland… and the fact that All For One was missing, and so was his successor. No one wants to interfere with their plans. No one wants to get in the way of them, because they could be trampled by that fucking fight. Death, Lifebringer, Zach fucking Sazaki against All For One, Kaminari, Shigaraki fucking Tomura! And I can't even hurt Shigaraki, after I brought him back to life! FUCK! They killed Jenny anyway! THEY MURDERED HER WHOLE FAMILY AND I STILL BROUGHT HIM BACK!_

Zach sucked in a sharp breath through his teeth that he forced to be silent after he started it. He did not want to make any noise, but he was not too focused on that. His eyes were still pointed at Enorma but his mind was so far from what she was talking about now. _I can't even think about that. It was so long ago, and I still can't look at myself in the mirror. How could I think about everything that happened last year? Admittedly, the more I talk about it the better I'm getting. I know it. As shitty as it feels. As much as I hate it, and it pisses me off, and I know it shows in public what I'm thinking about, my mental state will improve the more I think about that shit! The better I am, the safer everyone else is, I know that! But it feels fucking horrible. And I don't even_ _ **need**_ _to do it, since I'm still able to think of things on a global level while including the past without problem. Thinking about why villains avoided Japan, doesn't lead me to thinking about any specifics because it was a general feeling._

 _The Whisperer, now she gave perspective to a lot. Wisdom, as evil as she was, she had wisdom. Spoke all those rumors to try and save herself, because, I was…_ Zach closed his eyes for a second as he saw that old woman's wrinkled face pulling back from him with a terrified expression over it. _I almost gave her a heart attack. She died in jail before long anyway. Bitch deserved it, but- fuck! She was a person. A villain. She just helped villains- which made her a villain herself. She was paid for information. Used her Quirk to assist villains against heroes, against the public, helped them hurt innocents. And I stopped her, fucked her right up-_

"AHHHHH!"

Himazuri Hikari fell out of her chair and the desk knocked over. The other students around her all spun and stared towards their brunette classmate who just interrupted the teacher with that scream as she fell out of her seat. Himazuri was grabbing her head by the temples with her fingers curled into her skull in agony, "AHh, ahhhhh!" Her voice got quieter but she curled her legs up under her chest as her head pounded and the pain faded ever so slowly from her mind.

"Himazuri!"

"Hikari-chan!"

Himazuri's eyes squinted open at the floor below her that shook and was hazy with the corners of her vision so blackened. Her head started to lift, and she stared up at her friends around her who were looking down and staring at her in worry and panic. Dendo had run up to her left side, and he was bent down next to her while Reika stood on her right and was asking questions down at her in a loud voice but somehow impossible for Himazuri to hear. Reika moved out of the way though as Enorma-sensei came over, looking at her student concernedly but also questioningly as Himazuri's head was lifted now and there did not seem to be anything wrong with her.

Kotsumura had jumped out of his seat after a couple of seconds, as his initial confusion at Himazuri suddenly yelling out like that was replaced with the concern for his classmate who looked seriously like she was in pain. He turned to his left and back behind him at the black-haired boy who had jumped out of his seat first, right at the sound of that scream. Zach was staring past Kotsumura with wide eyes and had stepped forward in the aisle between his desk and Kotsumura's, and he looked back at the blond for a moment before turning Himazuri's way again just as Kotsumura did. "What just happened?" Kotsumura wondered.

"Are you alright?"

"What happened, Himazuri?"

Enorma leaned down and grabbed Himazuri under one armpit as the girl looked to be trying to stand. _She's weak._ "Reika," Enorma started to the girl next to her. "Take Himazuri to the nurse's office."

"Y-Yeah, you got it," Reika replied, nodding as that sounded serious. She stepped forward and took Himazuri's other arm from Dendo, not even joking as she just said that she had it. She put Himazuri's left arm over her shoulders and then put her right arm around Himazuri's back to help her walk towards the door. "Hey, hey you hear me? You alright?"

Himazuri's eyes focused more, and she turned her head back to the left after staring down there for several seconds still in panic and shock. Something had happened that had never happened to her before in her life. She turned to the left and looked at Reika, and she kept her eyes locked on her classmate's while trying desperately not to look past her and at the person in her peripherals who was looking her way in similar confused concern as the rest of her classmates. _He told me, to stay out of his head,_ Himazuri thought, her head turning back forward with a scared and pained look still over it. _He gave me one warning. **"One warning."** He told me! _

Himazuri's eyes filled with water after Reika got her through the door, and the blonde girl helping her walk stared at her right side with her eyes opening even wider in shock at the sight of those tears filling her friend's eyes. _What the hell just happened?!_ Reika thought, and she started speeding up to get Himazuri to the nurse's office faster.

 _I didn't know, Zach! I didn't know what you meant by a warning._ "Ah, ahha," Himazuri sniffled and tried to hold back sobs. She felt the lingering pain in her head, but worse was the feeling in her chest right now as she knew what just happened was intentional. _I didn't know you would- I didn't think, you'd attack- I didn't think you could! How did- how could-_ Himazuri clenched her watery eyes shut and the tears spilled out, rolling down her cheeks.

Back in Class 1, Enorma had all the students get back in their seats while assuring them that she would contact the nurse in a couple minutes and see if Himazuri was alright. She doubted she could get the students to refocus on their current lesson, so instead she started earlier on giving them homework which consisted of a lot of pre-research on their future enemies that she would build on in tomorrow's lesson.

Zach pulled out a notebook and wrote down the names of the villains Enorma wanted them researching what they could online alone that night. As he wrote the names of those villains down on his page, his eyes were dark and cold, and he thought, _I told you, to stay out of my fucking head._

* * *

Ousuno Kanami stood at the entrance of an undiscovered cave in the Hida Mountains to the northwest of Tokyo. The cave had never been publicly explored, would not appear on any maps of the area, and it was far from any nature trail so there was low possibility of anyone ever stumbling upon it. Though the top of the mountain the cave was on did not have any foliage because of the high altitude, trees started almost at the top of the mountain and went all the way down to the valley between it and the others in the range. Those trees kept the cave entrance hidden, as did the large fake branches covered in foliage that were currently resting to the side of the cave mouth but would be used to cover it back up later.

Ousuno, otherwise known as Iscariot, or by his former hero name Thunderclap, stood at six and a half feet tall with broad shoulders and a bulky body over two hundred and sixty pounds. He wore his former hero costume, though covered partially by a crimson cape with a black 'X' over the whole back of it. His helmet was now black too, thicker on the sides over his ears, though his gloves were still white like much of his actual costume over his torso and legs. On the palms and fingers of his gloves there was also a hard acrylic plastic that when hit against itself would make a loud noise, amplifying his Quirk, Clap. The thirty-two year old man watched silently over the forest ahead of him, and he frowned deeply when he heard someone coming from a good deal away.

"He is here," Iscariot lifted his right wrist and reported into a watch on it. His eyes narrowed off the flat ledge ahead of him and down the steeper slope of the forest that was hard to traverse and climb. All around them were impassable routes up the mountain: protruding rocks with no way to climb up, steep slants one could slip on and roll for fifty meters before stopping, probably hitting a bunch of trees on the way, and dense thicket that had been untrimmed and unmanaged so as not to leave any markings of this place existing. "And he is making a lot of noise," Iscariot added before lowering his hand.

"Bitchess is with him," the voice replied out of his watch, though Iscariot also heard footsteps when that low toned, but higher-pitched voice than his own spoke. "She won't let him-"

"I can hear them cutting through the brush." Iscariot cut off the voice on the other end of the line. "And I heard Bitchess shout at one of them, there is a lot of shouting actually."

Iscariot stopped talking as he heard the footsteps behind him, coming down the hallway with loud clanks on each step that disappeared after a couple of seconds of getting louder. Those footsteps got much quieter and then got louder again only sounding like someone walking on rock and dirt instead of a steel floor. Iscariot kept looking forward and down off the ledge stoically, while a man with darker skin stepped out of the cave mouth and then glared down off the ledge with a small smirk and lifted eyebrows.

Intanzo wore a tight black-and-red costume under an all black cloak that was open down the middle showing off some of the costume. Over the center of his chest and down past his abs to his waist was all red but in a thick line that had black on the outsides also visible before the cloak's edges covered him up. Intanzo shrugged his shoulders though to push more of the cloak behind his back, freeing up his arms and rolling his neck around as he glared towards the new arrivals. The man with big spikes of black hair over his head narrowed his dark green eyes that started to glow as he stared down towards a group of close to 70 people. "That's more than we were told were coming," Iscariot mentioned on his side, counting quickly while Intanzo was also examining just how far back that group seemed to go.

"I told you to be quiet- and where are all these fuckers coming from?!" Bitchess snapped.

Not far from the woman who just yelled that, Furuki Keymar glared off into the trees to his right where a group of five people were moving up the mountain with him. "I think they want to fight," he said with a dark look and a growing smirk. The man with a burn scar over the bottom right half of his face that extended around the side of his skull and down to his neck was a new member of the Radians, a man that the Jazz villains appearing inside the group noticed and felt unnerved at the sight of.

"Splodo joined them?" Varrenzo muttered, slowing down with the four guys behind him hesitating as well. He looked past Splodo though and over towards Bitchess and Duke Dread who were exceedingly close to one another as they continued up the mountain towards the cave mouth. Varrenzo's expression darkened and four spikes sticking out of his lower back started to glow red hot under the baggy green fireproof shirt he was wearing.

"Duke Dread!" Intanzo called down, and the noise subsided a little as the Duke stopped slamming down on the drum strapped in front of his waist. He spun around the wooden drum sticks for the snare in a masterful way and then slid them down into a holder on the right side of the drum he flipped up to his chest. The drumsticks stayed in the pouch and went past his right side, revealing on the bottom of that pouch was a holster that now rested just above his waist and under his right arm. The bottom of the drum also had a thicker black material over it that now covered much of Duke Dread's torso, a similar material there as was inside the Duke's dark blue uniform highlighted in black at his shoulders, waist, and on the rim of his hat.

Duke Dread threw his arms out to the sides after popping his drum up like that, and he called out, "Intanzo!" He called it in a similar tone as Intanzo just used, friendly, and yet with a clear show of how hostile their relationship was.

"You brought more men than we thought you would," Intanzo remarked, moving towards the edge of the ledge outside the cave mouth. "What's wrong? Are you nervous being around me without such a huge escort?"

Iscariot's eyes stayed locked down on his enemies, though his attention shifted to what Intanzo just said for a moment. _He's not making it out as a threat. Just as if Dread was taking extra precautions._

"Can never tell with you Radians," Duke Dread replied back, his tone confident and his eyes narrowed back towards Intanzo's slightly glowing dark green ones. "What if you were calling me into a trap?"

"What need would I have for trapping you?" Intanzo questioned, as Duke Dread continued to walk straight up the steep slope towards him without slowing down. "If I wanted to kill you, I wouldn't invite you to my house for a meal first and then stab you in the back. I'd walk right into yours and rip your throat out through your asshole, but while looking you in the eyes."

The air around the mountain got a few degrees colder. Trees started to shake, and Duke Dread stopped climbing as he stared up at Intanzo's eyes that glowed brighter though still a dark shade of green. The Radians inside the huge group of Jazz villains moved quicker up the slope of the mountain. A few of them stayed where they were though, with Bitchess 'n Cream in particular just turning her head to the side and smirking at Duke Dread from only a couple of feet away.

Splodo's knees started to crouch, his eyes focused on the men isolated from the rest of the Jazz as they were coming in from his right side after not having been in the group when they started towards the base. The villains in the Jazz who were told to follow their boss and converge only when they were about to arrive were already prepared for a fight though, and it may have been against one of the most wanted villains in the country, but Splodo could see all five of the villains he looked towards were ready for a fight and not backing down. Varrenzo's dark red fur started to stand on end and sharpen all over his body, his sharp teeth baring right back towards Splodo as they glared into each other's eyes.

 _He brought all his best men,_ Intanzo thought, his smirk staying cocky as he examined the group Dread had brought with him.

"Well I feel much better, knowing that," Duke Dread responded, and he continued walking up the slope towards Intanzo again.

Iscariot relaxed his arms that were tensing up and ready to raise up and clap at the drop of a pin. Dozens of others relaxed and continued up the slope, while a few dozen still remained high on alert in case this still turned into a fight.

 _Fucking Radians. They're all insane!_

 _Jazz bastards think they're hot shit._

 _Saw Pie-Face back there about to lose his mind on the guys next to him. Good thing Dread didn't start something._

 _The Duke is cockier than ever it seems._

 _That's what being the leader of the_ _ **second**_ _most powerful villain group takes. But remember, you're still second, you stupid fucker._

 _Intanzo knows it now. We're ready to be number one if he shows even a shred of weakness._

Duke Dread walked right up to the ledge but did not climb onto that last level yet. Intanzo was standing right near the edge of it, and he looked down into Duke Dread's eyes to see what the man in front of him would do. Duke Dread bowed his head a little though in a respectful greeting before climbing that last step up to get on even level with Intanzo. It was not much, but without the nod it was a certainty that Intanzo would have attempted to murder him, as he could see by the way Intanzo had looked down at him a moment before he did it.

"See you've got some new blood," the Duke mentioned as he walked right up on Intanzo's side. He was a few inches shorter, and leaner with his shoulders not as broad as the leader of the Radians'. On Duke Dread's shoulders were epaulettes that had dark blue and black adorning them, though also thick lines of gold crossing over them. There were four lines on the epaulette on his right shoulder, and two on the one on his left, each one of them with a name embroidered in black. The names of the six heroes Duke Dread had killed did not impress the man next to him who would have needed a lot more space to list off all the heroes who had fallen by his hands.

"You as well," Intanzo mentioned while walking back into the cave with Duke Dread at his right side. "I recognize the leaders of the Grouch Gang and the Bushido Dansei back there."

"Those gangs don't exist anymore," Dread replied without a look to his side like it was any impressive feat. He just continued casually, "Fully incorporated into the Jazz now. The heroes would have you believe I've only got five thousand guys, max." He said it as if it could be a joke, humphing afterwards as he scoffed at the notion that he had so few.

Iscariot followed closely behind the two villain group leaders on the left-back side of Intanzo. _Dread brought leaders of gangs he took over, along with the strongest of their villains. I recognized faces from all parts of Japan. Hokkaido to Okinawa- no, I saw the Sea Dragon back there. He's still on the run after his killing spree across the Yaeyama Islands, southernmost of the Ryukyu even below Okinawa. Killed an old classmate of mine who was working down there at the time. Nambo- Nendo? Tarisawa-san. Fuck if I remember his first name._ _ **"Hey Kanami! Want to work on a project-"**_ Iscariot's eyes filled with confusion for a moment, and then his mind cleared and he refocused on the conversation between Intanzo and Duke Dread. _It does seem like they have gotten stronger, and the Duke feels confident he can beat us because of it._

Bitchess walked behind the leaders of the group but also a little farther back now, standing side by side with Splodo who had come with her to summon the Jazz's leader. He was a newer member than a lot of the other Radians who had come with Bitchess, but Splodo was too big a personality to just sit in the background while stuff happened around him. The man had a burn scar across much of his face that he showed off with pride as everyone knew the man he had escaped from who gave him such a scar. It was one of Endeavor's most humiliating defeats of the last few years, to have let such a powerful and deadly villain as Splodo escape from his justice.

"This tunnel's getting a bit cramped, if you ask me," Splodo mentioned to his side at Bitchess, though he smirked at the men behind him too after saying it. The light from the end of the tunnel behind them illuminated Splodo's face a little with nothing but darkness behind him, and Splodo continued walking which engulfed him more in darkness for those villains to follow him into. The Jazz members continued to follow after their boss though without slowing down, and Splodo hummed while turning back forward with a grin.

"So, where are you taking us?" Duke Dread wondered to the man next to him, as this tunnel was going on longer than he thought it would. "And what's up with this place?" He added, as he looked down and noticed they were walking on a steel floor now instead of a rocky and natural surface.

Intanzo looked to his side, and Iscariot rose his hands and clapped. Dread darted his eyes to the left quickly at the sight of it even in what was almost pitch darkness. That darkness went away a second later though, as Iscariot was not using his Quirk but turning on the lights with two claps. Iscariot lowered his arms without using his Quirk and kept walking, his face pointed forward as he ignored Duke Dread's dark look at him for doing that.

"Whoa."

"Is this your base?" One of the Jazz wondered at a Radian walking at his side. The woman who was questioned glared to her side at a different villain who only a few minutes ago had been ready to cut her throat when their bosses confronted each other. That Jazz villain had a sword over his back, a headband over his forehead with a metal piece in the middle that had a horizontal slash through the middle of it. The most powerful of Ramurai's Bushido Dansei, Kimmatsu Shi, smiled at the woman next to him with a bright and genuinely friendly smile. The twenty-three year old motioned an arm around at the metal hallway the two of them just stepped into near the middle-back of the crowd of villains. "Is this where you live?"

The woman eased up her expression after a couple of seconds and humphed at his unnaturally friendly but somewhat endearing demeanor. "Never been here myself," she responded. Kimmatsu Shi's eyebrows lifted up under his headband, then he looked around and noticed a few of the other Radians were also looking around in some interest at the place they had entered.

Splodo kept his eyes forward and walked confidently with all the others, but he wondered as he saw the end of the tunnel, _Is that, an elevator?_

"Is it big enough for all of us?" Duke Dread asked, not sounding surprised by the sight of the crack at the end of the hall looking to lead into an elevator.

"Unfortunately, it's only big enough for about fifty _normal-sized_ people," Intanzo replied.

The Duke looked a little surprised there, as he was expecting the number to be a lot smaller. He thought deeper on what Intanzo just mentioned though and his eyes narrowed while shifting back to the elevators himself. _What has to fit through those doors?_ He only noticed now that they were closer too, but the tunnel was actually quite wide for any natural cave in a mountain that was just taken over by a villain group. "We going down, or up?"

"Although the base does go higher and lower," Intanzo started. He smirked with his head turning a bit to the side this time, "We're heading down. All the way down."

"Fine by me," Duke Dread replied.

 _Of course it is. I didn't give you a choice._ Intanzo nodded at the man next to him who kept walking and then stopped to look back into Intanzo's dark green eyes. _I summoned you here and you obeyed, because I am the Kingpin and that is what you lower villains know to do. It's a nice feeling. The way you look at me, like this._ Duke Dread turned the rest of the way around, then he just glanced to his side at Intanzo, "I'll bring forty of my guys down with me."

"Forty, will you?" Intanzo wondered. He hummed like he was thinking it over, even though Duke Dread had not worded it as a question. "That leaves me to bring eight of my guys down. I'll need Iscariot with me. Then, I guess I'll leave Bitchess, Elipser, and Olly up here to watch the rest of your men."

Splodo's expression became even more interested as he looked behind him to a pair of Radians he noticed had not looked all that interested or surprised by what they were seeing. _They already knew,_ Keymar thought to himself. _Bitchess I knew already had an idea, but I guess those two are more veteran higher-ups than I realized. Or at least, Intanzo trusted them with whatever's here- what is here? What is this fucking place? We have the means to empty out an entire mountain and turn it into a base? Then why the hell have I been staying in the back of that fucking bar for the past-_

The elevator doors suddenly started opening, and the villains in the hallway looked through the doors with their eyes opening wide even though Intanzo had already told them how many people could fit inside. Past the doors really was just an elevator though, with the ceiling of it as high as the long hallway's if not a few feet taller. The elevator was much wider, and it was as wide as it was long so it had a good amount of room for people to go inside. Intanzo stepped to the side instead of going in, and Duke Dread did the same only to the other side of the hallway. The Duke realized it that if the doors down below opened on the same side as these ones that he would want to be the last one on the elevator to be the first one off. He could also pick who was going with him better this way.

"Just walk by and I'll count you off," Duke Dread called out at his men who were hesitating behind him wondering if their boss had an order he was going to call them in or anything. Other Jazz members farther back in the tunnel started pushing to try and get ahead, in more ways than one. No one wanted to be left out, and some initial shoves were turning into grabs and pushes.

The Duke had to yell back at his guys to cool it, but Intanzo and the other Radians already saw what they needed to see and what Intanzo wanted to point out to his rival across the hall from him. He had ordered three of his villains to stay put up there without any retorts or back-sass or problems. Even after Duke Dread yelled at them to cut it out, Jazz members were still speed-walking forward, trying to shove in front and sneak by other people ahead of them.

Iscariot stepped into the elevator himself before anyone else and stared out of it at the scene unfolding in the hallway. _From all parts of the country. Speaking in different dialects. Some from gangs that were previously more ideological, and not in the same way Duke Dread is. He prides himself in his numbers, and it is quite organized for such huge numbers to be fair. But greater numbers will always mean these kinds of difficulties. Instead of bringing the strongest from all over, which was bound to cause trouble, you should have grabbed the single strongest faction to follow you here with only a few of your strongest and most loyal subordinates._

Fifty villains exactly stepped into the elevator that remained roomy even after its "maximum" capacity had been reached. A few of the Jazz left outside tried to argue about that fact, but Intanzo glared out at them after stepping in at the end and those villains backed off from the Kingpin's menacing glare. "Bring us down," Intanzo said, speaking over Duke Dread who was talking out to his remaining guys about keeping watch up there for heroes and guarding the elevator-

Duke Dread frowned and glared to his side at Intanzo once the dimly-lit elevator started to descend. His eyes lowered more though as their elevator continued to fall faster. The floor below him was dropping fast, and it was not slowing down in any fast way. "We in a rush?!" Varrenzo called out in frustration, trying to keep it together even as people were bumping into him and getting nervous and panicked at his sides.

"If we went any slower," Iscariot started from behind all the villains who mostly looked back at the former hero turned traitor. He continued in a deep and steady voice despite how fast they were descending, "Then it would take us several minutes to reach our destination."

"How deep does this go?" Duke Dread asked, looking back to his side at Intanzo after glancing behind him towards Iscariot for a moment.

Intanzo smirked back and rose his left eyebrow closer to the third most wanted man in the country. "Very, very deep," Intanzo replied in no exact terms. "This base is one of the larger ones," he added while facing straight ahead again, his expression relaxed and his boast casual like Duke Dread's about how many men he had earlier. The Duke was starting to feel more nervous about how he had bragged about those numbers though, as this was only "one of" the Radians' larger bases.

 _What the hell do they need bases this big for, unless they've got thousands of guys too?! I thought the Radians were supposed to just be small and crazy. Tight-nit, powerful… how resourceful are they? Intanzo always comes to us. And when we ask to meet him, it's always in a random place that's never been one of their actual bases. This is a good opportunity at the least,_ Dread told himself. _The way he said it before, he really would come to us if he wanted us dead. So he's got something else in mind. Whatever it is, I know where this base is now. When I'm the Kingpin, I think I might just move in… No seriously, how deep does this fucking-_

The elevator finally started slowing down, and everyone inside it quieted down as they neared their destination. Not many of them knew what they were about to see. Only Iscariot and Intanzo had been down there before of the Radians in the elevator, and the Jazz villains could see the Radian men and women with them looking as uncertain as the rest of them. The elevator doors opened up, into an eight-way intersection of a huge cave thirty feet tall and a hundred feet wide. Some of the passageways off of the intersection led to small dark corridors, others into small illuminated rooms, though there were two longer and wider halls than the rest going straight to the right and to the left from the middle of the underground crossroads.

There were not any villains down in that deep basement though, but when Intanzo stepped out of the elevator the artificial lights on the ceiling turned on. The automatic lights clicked on in a line from the elevator across the arrival room in that deep basement below the mountain. The lights turned on to the other side of that room where there was a huge set of steel doors as tall as the room itself unlike the other halls and cut-offs from that room which were all more normal-human sized. Intanzo started walking towards those steel doors though, unnerving a lot of the people behind him who were starting to wonder what the need for these height requirements was.

"Nice place you've got down here," Duke Dread started as he followed Intanzo out of the elevator. "Stop slacking and get up here!" He shouted too, and Jazz members rushed out of the elevator and came up behind their leader.

"What is this place?" The European wondered while stepping up to Splodo's side. A fellow Radian, The European hoped Splodo would know even if he was a more recent recruit.

"An evil lair, obviously," Splodo replied to the blond-haired Caucasian man speaking perfect Japanese next to him. " _Our_ evil lair apparently," he corrected himself.

Varrenzo and Ramurai walked up on either side of Duke Dread who stopped ten feet behind Intanzo while he was still walking towards those huge steel doors. "What are we doing here, Intanzo?" Duke Dread asked. His tone rose and he stopped where he was before asking it, and Intanzo paused near those huge doors at the tone he heard come from Duke Dread. Intanzo stopped and the aura of bloodlust came from him without him needing to turn his head. Duke Dread just continued at that feeling he felt from Intanzo stopping like that, "The acoustics down here are sure to be great. So why don't you tell me why you've brought me here?"

"How about you follow me through one last door, then ask all the questions you'd like?" Intanzo wondered back. He did not turn around to face Duke Dread. The way he worded it and the way he was not turning around made it seem like Intanzo was daring Duke Dread to force him to turn around.

"So my answer is right through there?" Duke Dread questioned. "And you really don't have any knives hidden away, that you're planning to shove in my back?" Duke Dread's voice got accusatory, dark, and he looked to his left and right with a glance back at the men behind him who all knew to be on the lookout for that order. "Because this is a new move for you, Intanzo. Something's up," he turned back straight forward and looked into Intanzo's glowing dark green eyes that were aimed back towards him with Intanzo's head turned to the right. Intanzo turned the rest of his body and stared back at Duke Dread whose right hand opened up and then gripped the black flute that slid out of his sleeve in that moment.

"Hey. Enough of that."

 _ **Clunk. Clunk.**_ Everyone in the room just off of the elevator looked past Intanzo. The thick tension did not just get cut by that single voice coming seemingly out of nowhere. The voice was a man's higher-pitched than Iscariot's, but slower and less cocky and menacing as Intanzo's. "Open the doors for our new arrivals," the same voice announced.

 _"Open" them?_

 _Is someone-_

Duke Dread stepped back. The Jazz stayed on guard, while the confused Radians moved away from the men and women who had been about to attack them right there. Everyone was still ready for a fight, but they all stared towards the tall steel doors that after clunking to show the locks being removed. Intanzo turned his back to the Jazz behind him who did not try anything as those doors started opening up. There was something on the other side of them, standing four times as tall as normal people and still looking like he was hunched over in that blue-tinted room on the other side. The hulking form stepped back with his arms reached forward and gripping the handles of the door that were as big as a person each and at a level only he would be able to grab.

The giant on the other side of the doors opened them and then nodded once at the man on the other side who smirked up at him. Then the giant form turned his head and walked off to the side into the darkness. "Follow me," Intanzo said, and he walked into the room on the other side seemingly forgetting how Duke Dread had just been speaking to him, or just not caring enough to address how things had almost turned violent.

The Jazz followed after Duke Dread when he headed towards the room and inside after Intanzo. Dread looked off to the right in the darker shadows of the huge room with a ceiling fifty feet tall and walls each a hundred long in a room that was perfectly box-shaped. The beast of a man watching from the shadows did not greet anyone, but his heavy breathing was enough to show everyone that he was there. His bulky silhouette was hard to see because he was so far from the blue glow that came from the opposite wall to the left of the entrance and in the middle of that wall. There was a large round table in the middle of the room that only had one chair at it, though that chair was unoccupied at the moment. The whole room looked unoccupied other than that beastly figure that had been waiting in there, but everyone knew there had to be someone else down here considering that voice they heard giving the beast orders.

Splodo stepped into the dark room only illuminated in that low blue glow, and he felt strange as he looked ahead towards Intanzo again and saw that man head to the table but stand on one side of it opposite from the glowing blue screen. _He's not sitting in the chair,_ Splodo thought, his palms getting sweaty as he turned towards that screen again. Then he shifted his eyes back to that hulking monster he had never seen before, then around him until he saw Iscariot taking up the rear of the group and stepping inside those huge doors. Iscariot turned towards the beast in the corner and nodded, and that giant form started back to the heavy double doors that no one else was strong enough to open by the looks of them.

"Do not be alarmed."

Jazz members had turned with uneasy and anxious looks towards the figure stepping back for the doors he was clearly going to close. A few of the Radians were even looking towards their own leader in unsure ways, though they were mainly wondering what this was all about. That voice echoing around the place originated from the screen on the wall though, and everyone in the room took their attentions off of Intanzo and to the screen instead. Duke Dread's eyes snapped to it and he growled, "And why not? You're locking us in-"

The empty blue screen vanished and replacing it was a camera angle of a man sitting on a chair in front of them. His bluish-gray hair fell long around his head down over his shoulders and behind his back. He had no hands covering his body like most villains in that room associated with him, but no one struggled to figure out his identity after a single look at the slender, smiling man on the other side of the screen. Duke Dread closed his mouth, paused for a moment, and then his own lips curled up at the corners again as he said, "Shigaraki, Tomura. In the flesh. Well, kind of."

"What's he doing here?" Varrenzo asked, his head turning to the right and his eyes narrowing towards Intanzo. "Did you really call us for some-"

Duke Dread held up his right hand, and Varrenzo looked back and closed his mouth. He still looked annoyed, though some of the people in the room were darting that man nervous looks at how daring he was to be saying all that right there. "You have some business with us, Shigaraki?" Duke Dread asked, stepping forward from the crowd of fifty people behind him. He ignored the loud clanks of the huge doors closing, and he kept his eyes locked on Shigaraki's as he came close to the wall the leader of the League of Villains was projected on. "What do you need, from the two strongest villain groups in this country?"

"You seriously don't get it yet?" Intanzo wondered over, laughing as Duke Dread turned his head and looked back towards him. Intanzo put his hands down on the table and then leaned forward and stared straight at the Duke in a way telling him to figure it out himself.

"You're already, working together…" Duke Dread started. He stopped himself though at the look on Intanzo's face and how that man started shaking his head. The Kingpin of Japan, Japan's most wanted man, shook his head while smirking at the idea of them 'working together.' "You're, working for… since when?" Duke Dread asked, his face twisting in frustration and anger and confusion as this was a turn of events he did not see coming from a mile away.

"Since when? Now that's a weird question," Intanzo remarked with a laugh. The other Radians in the room started walking towards their leader, looks of shock on their faces too as none of them had known about this until now with the exception of Iscariot. "How about, when Shigaraki asked me to go with Camoflora?" He offered it up and smirked so much more as Duke Dread's eyes grew huge while still locked with his own. Intanzo leaned more over the table and said to the leader of the Jazz in a cocky tone, "From before you all named me the 'Kingpin.' From the very beginning."

"We're working for the League of Villains?" The European wondered in shock, looking towards his true leader on the wall ahead of him.

Splodo stepped in front of most of the others and looked to the man on the screen who faced him as well. "Hello there, Shigaraki Tomura."

"Splodo. I am glad you chose to join us," Shigaraki said, and he sounded truly grateful that Splodo had decided to join the fold instead of staying out on his own. "How would you like another shot at Endeavor? With, a slight edge this time," Shigaraki added at the end, and Splodo had no idea what he was talking about but his lips twisted up at the corners.

"Hold on," Duke Dread shook his head around and glared towards Splodo for a second. That younger man just glared back towards him though with a dangerous look in his eyes, and the Duke ground his teeth but glared back at Shigaraki. "You've been missing for years. You haven't done anything-"

"Everything I've done," Intanzo started from behind the man who snapped his head around to look back again. "Every move I've made, was the public move of the Radians and the private move of the League of Villains. We are the same. We Radians, are just one appendage of the League. The most visible, yes, but that was my purpose," Intanzo started walking around the table and towards Duke Dread who stared at him and then back at Shigaraki with wide eyes. He looked back at the man closer with his body tensing up though as Intanzo continued, "I am and always have been loyal to All For One's successor."

"RRrrgggg," a loud growl of agreement filled the room from over at the doors. Villains looked over and saw the beast of a man with giant spiky hair growling through a mouth baring razor sharp teeth that could shred them in an instant if Gigantomachia so chose.

"And now it's your turn," Intanzo started to the man he stepped up behind, between Duke Dread and the rest of his men. The leader of the Jazz suddenly realized he was isolated from everyone else after having stepped this far forward. Splodo realized it too, and he turned to Intanzo for a moment before smirking past at Shigaraki, then he turned and looked at the men in the Jazz closest behind him who might try to come to Duke Dread's aid. Intanzo looked into Dread's eyes without threatening him or acknowledging the thickest tension so far that just filled the whole room.

"I'd like to extend an invitation," Shigaraki said, his image on the screen looking down at the back of Duke Dread's head while that man continued to face Intanzo from feet away. "For you to submit and join us."

They were deep underground, inside a sealed room, with the man they had thought up until a minute ago was the most powerful villain in the country. They knew nothing of the layout of the place, nor how many other villains could possibly be there, nor the true power of that monster that had opened and closed those doors. The Radians were all looking exhilarated and hyped up though by the turn of events. Splodo was ready for action, and other Radians turned on the people around them that looked more nervous than they had all day.

Duke Dread could see his men behind Intanzo. His expression stayed steady, despite the feeling swelling inside him, and the thought he knew to be true. _If they kill me, they'd still recruit all my men. They'd have to kill a few others but, not many would fight once I kick it. If I kill Intanzo the fight's only just started. Saying no will get them to kill me and extend the invitation to the next one up._ "I know when I'm beat," Duke Dread admitted, shrugging his shoulders and grinning even as he spoke in that defeated tone.

The Jazz stared towards their leader in shock, as earlier that same day he was making bold claims about how he would soon be taking the position of Kingpin. Their leader looked interested though, excited even as he smirked at at smirking Intanzo, then turned to look back at the screen Shigaraki was still sitting in the same position on. "So here we are, the Jazz, the Radians, and the League of Villains all together. What do we call it, a 'United Villains League' sounds-"

"We already have a name with League in it," a voice started from back in the room, across the table and the darkness to the opposite wall where there was actually an open door that was just hard to see in the darkness. The voice that spoke was a young man's, though there was a woman walking with him through that doorway and towards the middle of the room. The man who called that out made Duke Dread turn his head slowly and with his lips curled down, though his eyes widened more as the blue tint on that approaching man's face got brighter and brighter. It did not make sense for there to still be a blue tint over there anyway with the screen that had Shigaraki on it dim and showing that the room Shigaraki was in was dark.

The man who came into the room stopped with his right hand risen with blue flames ignited on it. Behind him on his right was a taller woman with long white hair falling all the way down to her waist. She stood six foot one, and she had on all white from her shoulders down to her feet that were also covered by the long robe she was wearing and that dragged behind her too. She turned her head and looked across all the villains in the room and back towards the huge steel doors for a moment, and she chuckled under her breath before looking back forward at the leaders of the Radians and Jazz standing together.

Dabi put out the blue flame over his hand, but he kept walking to the table in the middle of the room and tapped a hand down on it twice. A rim illuminated white around the outside of the round table, filling more of the room than any light had until that moment. "And we're going to stick with that name for now," Dabi remarked at the man dressed like he was in a marching band. _Puts the names of the heroes he's killed on himself? What a loser._

"And the League of Villains _is_ back," the white-haired woman who walked up on Dabi's right said.

"You made a good choice, Dread," Shigaraki said to the man who glanced back towards him for a moment, then turned his whole body at the way Shigaraki Tomura was looking at him. "And because of that voluntary choice you are now an executive of this organization. As for the men you brought, I assume you did not bring any spies to my base?"

"None of them could be," Duke Dread assured his new leader. He felt so uneasy in this situation where powerful villains were appearing out of nowhere and lurking in the shadows around him. The idea of becoming an executive of the League of Villains even interested him despite how high his aspirations had been just earlier that same day. The biggest problem was that none of his men were speaking up. They weren't acting out or acting big anymore. In any other setting, with any other villains or heroes, things may have been different. _Shigaraki's been here the whole time. He's been the Kingpin the whole time, and we all made jokes about him. I made jokes- people heard-_

A lump slid up and down in Duke Dread's throat but not because of the last question Shigaraki asked him. "What is that name anyway? Duke Dread?" Splodo taunted, and Duke Dread turned his head with his eyes darkening a lot as he glared at the younger man with short orange hair. "What are you, royalty?"

"Royalty?!"

"Ignore him," Duke Dread called out, turning his head and looking back into his group of villains. One of them was storming forward but stopped, while everyone else in the room looked towards him in confusion at his sudden outburst. "He's just upset he wasn't made into an executive. A sore loser, crybaby even-" Duke Dread had his flute up to his mouth before Splodo finished his step. _**FweeweeeEE**_ A slash ripped open Splodo's left cheek, his body spinning out as blood splashed out of the side of his face.

"Enough."

Splodo snapped his head back forward and his whole back was glowing bright red, but he froze and his eyes darted to the right to the screen where Shigaraki was staring their way. "I can't let that stand-" Splodo started.

"I suppose you'll have to die then," Intanzo remarked. Splodo turned his head with his eyes opening wide as the man he thought was his boss until a minute ago said that to him. "Do you think you can deny our leader without-"

"Apologies," Splodo said. As much as his pride screamed at him to continue fighting what just happened, he could see in his peripherals all these villains looking at him ready to kill and no one was going to get his back. He seethed through his teeth back towards Duke Dread who he turned to face, "I hope we can work, nicely, together. Your lord-ship." Splodo made a half bow as a finishing taunt, but Duke Dread was not going to say anything else considering Shigaraki's 'enough' he was smart enough to listen to.

The Duke was hoping that even that much would still get Splodo killed by someone, but Dabi started speaking instead and just left that conversation behind. "It was about time you joined us."

"And why is that?" Duke Dread wondered, speaking for himself and all the others who realized they were being let in on this plan right now. Duke Dread shifted his eyes back to Shigaraki and continued in a lower voice with his lips in a small grin, "What's your plan? It must have been made years in advance," Duke Dread was genuinely impressed, as he was caught totally off guard here and knew others would be too. _No one's even expecting a League comeback._

"You have now joined the fold, so you are now as much a part of _our_ plan as anyone," Shigaraki replied while holding his right arm out in front of him closer to the camera transmitting his image to that base. His hand opened with all his fingers curled upwards as if gripping some invisible something in the air before him. "We hold all the pieces to carry out our goal. There is only one thing left we are waiting for. The keystone of the entire plan. And it's almost here." Shigaraki paused and he pulled his hand back and interlocked his fingers in front of him with his elbows down on his recliner chair's armrests. "It's all about hope."

"Hope?" Splodo muttered confusedly, and he rose an arm and rubbed off some of the blood coming down his left cheek. _The hell does that mean?_

"Raising hope is the quickest path to despair," Shigaraki continued, his expression cold and evil behind his interlocked fingers. His tone sent shivers down the weaker-willed villains' spines, and what he was saying sounded as evil as anything they'd ever heard before. "Once the people of this world believe so strongly that things will be alright, their society will crumble with ease when that hope is dashed. The moment they think the dawn has come, that the darkest time is over, they are dropped into a darkness like they have never seen before."

 _How do we do something like that?_

 _Would that really…_

 _This is crazy!_

 _Why?_

 _Holy shit, now these are villains._

"That moment comes before the current third years become heroes," Shigaraki continued. Everyone stared at him with wider eyes still, and Shigaraki went on to the villains suddenly realizing just how soon he was talking here. "Those heroes-to-be that everyone considers the strongest class in decades. With the potential to fill the holes in the top 10 made during the 'Age of Villains' with such powerful replacements… and who will need to replace even more holes by the time the plan commences." His tone shifted even darker and sent chills down Duke Dread's spine at that ominous statement. "People will be desperate for that class to graduate, for those kids they've put all their hope in to finally join the pros as the protectors of this nation. They're already low on heroes, but if it's _this_ class then they know they can overcome the deficit and thrive in a world free from us. A world _'safe'_ under the protection of their heroes."

Shigaraki's lips twisted up at the corners, his dried pale skin at those corners wrinkling up and his long bangs casting shadows over his eyes. With a horrifyingly menacing look on his face he continued in an ominous voice, "The fall of Japan will be a domino that will topple all of hero society in the world. Other heroes won't be able to come to Japan's aid while their own countries' villains rise up again. Others will follow our lead and incite the destruction of the heroes of this world. We will show them that heroes are fallible, that they all can fall. It will be the spark to ignite… revolution."

"Haha, hahaha…"

"Oh man. Fucking chills."

Duke Dread turned his head and looked back, seeing leaders of villains gangs he had absorbed into the Jazz looking riled up. They appeared excited instead of just afraid as they had been when he came to subdue them. _An actual plan. A goal. A single mission._ Duke Dread could see hesitation on a lot of faces too though, and he agreed more with those looks than the looks from the guys getting too easily excited. _An insane mission. Something no one's ever done before. In a world where heroes are looking much stronger than villains again. It's not just that the "dawn" is coming. It's already here._

Varrenzo's expression was dark and he felt hesitant about saying anything, but the words of enthusiasm from his comrades behind him brought him only more frustration. _In a plan like this we'll just wind up as casualties of his insane aspirations._ "And All For One?" Varrenzo asked. He looked towards Shigaraki and stepped forward even after the League of Villains' leader looked to him straight in his eyes and lowered his lips flat. "Where is he?" Varrenzo questioned, his tone raising and his eyebrows high as he hoped there was a good answer to this.

"Sensei left everything to me," Shigaraki responded. "And now we are ten thousand strong. Now, the heroes are getting complacent. The public feels safety and security creeping up on them."

"They let their guards down starting at the last Sports Festival," the woman with long white her mentioned, a smug tone in her voice at the thought of how protected the Sports Festival was last year. "Nothing happened then, and they've come to believe that it is over."

"But we have weapons they haven't seen before," Iscariot added in a deep voice from back near the doors.

"An army they aren't prepared for," Intanzo said while grinning wider with a look back towards Shigaraki, who nodded at him showing he did a good job with the motion.

"And what about Lifebringer?" Duke Dread asked.

The room fell silent in an instant. The League members talking up their plan and the Radians and Jazz feeling excited by it all hesitated, in the ways the others who had never got excited were already hesitating because they had not forgotten what Duke Dread finally asked. Dark looks formed on several faces, some of those looks directed at Duke Dread for bringing him up. Shigaraki's dark look only lasted a moment though, but as he spoke calmly his hatred was laced thick in his voice, "He won't survive much longer considering who's hunting him."

"Who?" Varrenzo questioned, confused as he did not know there was a single person out there trying to kill Lifebringer.

Shigaraki did not say the name of the man though. He just continued on, "And even if they should fail, I have acquired a contingency of my own to get him out of the way. Sazaki won't be a problem for much longer."

"I wonder if Overlord felt the same way?" Duke Dread wondered darkly.

"Heh, Overlord," Shigaraki's voice was taunting and he leaned back on his chair. "He was a simple-minded fool. I had wanted to bring the Subspace Devils into the fold as well, but Raijin had a better idea for what to do with them."

Duke Dread's eyes were huge and his jaw dropped. "You, what?" His voice was shocked as he was trying to put this together.

Inanzo smirked towards that former leader of the Jazz though, and he wondered at him, "Do you think Overlord tried something so daring without coming to me first to ask for permission? And thus, asking Shigaraki?"

"Overlord was impatient and rash, which were not signs that we were looking for in allies," Shigaraki continued. "So instead we used him to see what Lifebringer would do. And the result was as you saw, a nice display of Sazaki's powers. The strength he accumulated as Death."

"That's a sure thing then?" Duke Dread asked, his voice even darker though also hesitant of his own doubt. The confidence in which Shigaraki was speaking despite what he was saying about Lifebringer made him realize just how far above him this man really was.

"Oh yes," Shigaraki replied. "He _was_ Death, but he is all alone now. Alone in the world against all the heroes and all the villains of this country and beyond. And even against the man who freed him," Shigaraki's lips twisted up more, and the villains in the room thinking of how the press had been treating Nikko and Sazaki's relationship started to feel Shigaraki was bringing it up for another reason. Shigaraki reached to his side and then lifted up a photograph he pushed towards the camera, and he continued with a smirk over his face as he pulled it back, "I have him under my thumb. And I'll prove it. Watch him on the news tonight, and listen for the phrase 'like a duck.' I told him to work it in somewhere. Hahaha…" Shigaraki laughed in a low, demented voice with his hands out curling in on the ends of his chair's armrests. "When you hear it you will know. It's my gift to you, you villains of this nation. A sign. Big things are coming."

* * *

 **A/N Thanks for reading. Villains! The Radians were only an extension of the League of Villains, and now the Jazz have joined as well. Gigantomachia makes his first appearance, same with Intanzo who's been mentioned a lot now, and a few other big introductions this chapter after the class period to start it... Himazuri tries to read Zach's mind again, which does not end well for her. I hope you guys enjoyed the chapter! Heading into NYC for the night to have some fun, but I wanted to get this one posted before I caught the train. I'll put a couple review responses below, and leave me a review after this chapter telling me what you think, predictions, comments, or questions about the story!**

Incarnus chapter 182 . Sep 26

"Momozaki back at work." Mina, the Voice of us fans.

 **XD haha I hoped you guys would get a kick out of it.**

Gillian chapter 182 . Sep 26

Dude, you deserve more favs and follows than most of the FF of MHA. It's just that good, not only for his MC Zach Zasaki, but also for the way you have world builded MHA. I feel like this fic is a deconstruction and reconstruction of what a hero means.

 **Thanks a lot! I'm glad you really like the story and the world-building I've done in Death. Hope you enjoyed the new chapter and thanks for the review!**

diddles321 chapter 182 . Sep 27

Thanks for the update! I have a feeling due to being influenced by Midoriya, Zach will hesitate on a critical moment, regret it, and go back to his old ways and an incident will occur where he kills publicly, and Midoriya fights Zach. At least, thats my guess on what may happen. Keep up the quality work!

 **Nice predictions! Won't say if they've got any merit but we'll see how things go... Thanks for reviewing!**


	184. Chapter 184

**Disclaimer: I don't own Boku no Hero Academia**

 **Chapter 184:**

Jirou Kyoka and the pro hero she interned with snuck through a train station as inconspicuously as they could. They had just arrived at the station closest to the Narita International Airport where their target had gone straight to after landing. He only had his backpack that was his carry-on for the flight and no checked baggage so he was in and out of the airport quickly. The two women had not slowed down once since they started trailing him, but Ms. Clue held out her arm and grabbed Jirou by the right wrist when Jirou was about to step past and out onto platform 16.

"Wait until the shinkansen arrives," Ms. Clue told the girl who turned to her and then gasped in surprise and reached down for her purse.

"He's pretty far up on the platform," Jirou said.

"It'll be a long ride before the first station. We can move up there during it, but we'll watch from back here until the moment the doors close on the first cars. The doors close one by one moving back down the trains, so the fact that he's up there means we can make sure he's actually getting on and not just trying to trick us."

"And the first couple of cars in case he gets on and starts walking back," Jirou added, nodding her head in agreement while handing off the ticket she just fetched out of her purse to her traveling companion. They could have been mother and daughter, sisters, or just friends. Ms. Clue did not look very old, and the female hero in her early thirties was disguised as an even younger woman anyway while Jirou was dressed and made-up to look somewhat older than she was. The two of them had to keep their sunglasses off as it was too cloudy out with dark gray nimbus clouds that it would draw more attention to them by wearing them. They each had on wigs to cover up their normally shorter hair, Jirou's a light shade of blue and Ms. Clue's a dark brown. Jirou's hair covered up her long earphone-jack earlobes while Ms. Clue just had on a pair of regular glasses that worked well at distorting the appearance of her small hollow circular red irises.

Ms. Clue kept watching Jirou who faced her and spoke about nothing of actual substance, and Ms. Clue mentioned to the girl in front of her, "He's pulling out his phone. I hear him swiping…"

"Is he starting a call?" Jirou asked, leaning to her right casually and getting ready to plug an earphone jack into the wall through some of her hair up against it.

Jirou wore a professional skirt and shirt that many Japanese businesswomen wore on daily bases, and she and Ms. Clue looked like they were on their way to work or off on break together. The two of them were smiling and talking to each other, and the two could hear well enough that anyone they heard actually enter earshot of them only heard what the two wanted those people to hear. Jirou groaned and tilted her head back, "What's he saying?"

"He's just, talking to that woman," Ms. Clue mentioned. Jirou could see the man out her peripheral vision around a support pillar on the platform that held up the thin but high-up steel verandas on the second floor of the station. The subways were down below while the shinkansen tracks were on ground level or even elevated for a lot of the country. "He mentioned the weather, said he heard it's going to rain, the woman is correcting him that he means it looks like it's going to rain. I think he did mean that too," Ms. Clue mentioned, as the two phrases were easy to mess up for foreigners and the dark-skinned man thanked the woman next to him in a grateful way as she did not just let him go on using the wrong grammar.

The man looked genuinely grateful to the woman next to him that she actually responded to him, instead of ignoring him or looking away as most Japanese people had since he arrived at the airport. The woman had a mutant-type Quirk herself though with her gold-furred skin spotted in white spots, and she had small pointed ears on top of her head sticking out of her shaggy white hair. The woman who looked a bit like a cheetah but with a more human-like face nodded and smiled back at the man, and she questioned where he was from. Ms. Clue repeated that out to her sidekick, but Jirou plugged in an earphone jack anyway while turning her body to lean her back up against the wall.

"Don't relax. Train's arriving," Ms. Clue said. Her tone was intense and serious, though her expression made it appear like she had just said that in a way to her friend to hurry up and come with her.

The bullet train's arrival shook the platform, and everyone waiting for the train to arrive started moving up to get ready to board it. "Search for your ticket you misplaced again while I get on. I'll get off if he does to see what's taking you, and you'll have lost your ticket. If he doesn't get off, find your ticket and get on before the doors close. Don't miss it." Ms. Clue started walking ahead of her friend, looking like she did not notice that her friend was falling behind her. Jirou was patting down her pockets though, and she looked down with a hesitant look and her expression gaining some nervousness though she smiled like she had to have just misplaced what she was looking for.

She looked into her purse, then back where she had just been leaning against the wall. _This is it. The platform will be much emptier if he gets off. He'll notice that we didn't get on the train too unless we can blend in with the people who just got off. He's going to take this train though. I know he will._

Jirou stopped searching as hard for her ticket. She knew she should keep going for the plan, but it was difficult to do so convincingly when she knew she was not doing it for anyone. When the doors started closing at the front of the train, she got on at the last second with ticket in hand and started towards her "friend" who waved her over and asked if she had her ticket. "Good thing it was there or you would have- He's still in the front car. He stopped talking to that woman, but after she took his seat he only took a few more steps before sitting himself. He's quiet now, but he's on the train." Ms. Clue's focus on the man was starting to dim, red filling the white hole inside her circular irises, and she mentioned to her intern, "Let's move up a few cars."

"Yeah, this one's too crowded," Jirou agreed, like the two of them had not intentionally picked one of the more crowded middle cars.

 **12 Hours Ago**

"Who's the target?" Jirou asked, sitting across the table from her pro hero she had been interning with for almost a year now.

"This man," Ms. Clue started. The two of them sat in a small room at Ms. Clue's agency she shared with several other heroes, though none of those heroes were privy to their investigation she had been tasked with from people higher up than her intern knew. "Rodney Black." Ms. Clue opened up the file on the table in front of her and took out a blown-up photograph of a man in uniform. The uniform was olive green, though it had darker and lighter spots on it in a camouflage pattern. The fatigues were tight on his body, and on the right side of his chest over one of the pockets was the word 'BLACK' while on the other side the words 'SPECIAL FORCES' were embroidered in black over the top of the pocket.

"Special Forces?" Jirou asked, her eyebrows raising up and her eyes lifting from the picture to her pro hero.

Ms. Clue nodded her head and then hummed at Jirou's surprised look at her nod there. "I'm a little surprised you haven't heard of them. Not too surprised though," Ms. Clue added, not wanting her intern to feel uninformed because of her confusion here. "They are a defense force in the United States. A branch of their 'military,' even though the U.S. do not have a formal armed forces."

"Most countries don't," Jirou said, looking confused and then shifting her eyes back down to the picture of the man she looked at more closely this time. He looked like he was in his early twenties, a man with dark brown skin and a straight expression on his face, with his hands put together behind his back so his elbows were out at his sides. He was muscular which could be seen through his uniform, and he had on a tight gray shirt underneath the outer layer which Jirou could see because of his collar that was opened down to the top of his chest. "What's his Quirk?" Jirou wondered, turning the photo back around and pushing it over the table towards the pro.

"Irrelevant for now," Ms. Clue responded. "We do not wish to come in contact with this target. Our mission is primarily to observe and conduct surveillance while he is in Japan."

"He's coming here?"

"Just got on a flight," Ms. Clue replied, and Jirou's eyes widened for a second before narrowing in a more serious way. Jirou had thought he would be someone in the country already, but when she heard what Ms. Clue started talking about she got lost as to what their mission would be. She also thought it was likely not a mission they were dealing with so immediately. "Heading to Tokyo. He'll arrive tomorrow morning. We'll meet up here at 5 a.m. and prepare disguises to track him in."

"And why is he coming here? Or, why are we following him?" Jirou wondered. "Do we think he's- has he committed crimes in the past?" The way Ms. Clue had described the man so far did not make her think the man was a villain. "Is it because he's in that Special Forces group? I figure we're pretty against America doing that," Jirou added, an annoyed tone in her own voice agreeing against the existence of something like that.

Ms. Clue shook her head at the teenage girl's questions. "In most countries across the world, heroes handle everything that militaries used to before the emergence of Quirks," Ms. Clue started. "It took a while for some, but heroes have become this world's primary source of defense for the public in every single country. However, there are countries that did not completely follow that trend. The countries that do have armed forces keep them small and they're mainly used for protection of the elite political classes in smaller and less politically free countries where the governments do not want heroes as the only powerful force in the nation." Jirou nodded with a darker look on her face as that description sounded to her like what she'd think of at the sound of modern armed forces. "However, America's is a little different. Their Special Forces were practically a defunct branch of the military, at least until a couple of years ago."

Ms. Clue pulled out a packet of papers from the file in front of her. She handed the packet over the top of the table and Jirou held it in front of her to read. Ms. Clue started while Jirou read the pages of information she just handed off, "Over the past three years, villain rates rose and fell at much higher rates than they had in decades before. These came to be known as the Rise, Age, and Fall of Villains in many countries. They came at different times for different countries, though most considered this time last year, a little later actually, as the Fall."

"Highest arrest rates in history, lowest villain incidents in decades," Jirou said, listing off some of the statistics she remembered hearing just about a year ago now. She kept reading the papers while nodding at what Ms. Clue was saying, multitasking to get through this packet of information on the restored U.S.S.F. "What does that have to do with these guys?" She wondered with a glance up over the top of the packet.

"Well, unlike in most of the rest of the world, things never got that bad in the United States. Villain rates in America never got as high as in most countries including our own, some say because villains were less cocky in the U.S.A." Ms. Clue paused and Jirou lowered the packet to look up at her hero who was getting to the point here. "They weren't free to do whatever they wanted, because if things got too rough for heroes, the Special Forces would be called in. Unlike heroes, they had no restrictions on what to do against enemies and would kill them without repercussions." Jirou's expression narrowed and Ms. Clue looked similarly affected after what she just said.

"It had received a lot of flak in the past from the international community," Ms. Clue continued. "Other countries decried them for being inhumane when the provision was used," Jirou nodded as she had just read about that provision on the front page of the info packet. "But even back then it was used so rarely it was never an issue. The force was so small that it was nearly impossible to get them mobilized to actually help out even in the worst villain incidents. Things changed though and more people were recruited as things started to get worse, but even as crime rates rose across all 50 states and villain attacks became more frequent all over the nation, the force was rarely used to settle disputes."

Ms. Clue paused for a moment and then slid her chair in and stared into Jirou's eyes in a more serious way. She continued to her intern, "I don't like the idea of it. It doesn't sit right with me, for all the same reasons that other countries, the UN, and the U.S.'s own America Group are all against it… However, others accredit the Special Forces as the reason for why the U.S.A.'s villain incidents never rose to the heights most of the world did. The Special Forces were rarely ever used because of the international disagreement with those methods, but the U.S. never buckled to the pressure and kept up the branch. They have no accountability, and when the new president came in two years ago, right after All Might's fall and the start of the worldwide Rise of Villains, they started getting missions again after years of near complete inactivity."

"Still, last year guess how many times they were used," Ms. Clue said to her intern.

"How many?" Jirou wondered back, having no idea to even give an educated guess on the matter.

"17," Ms. Clue replied. "And the year before that only 8 times. 25 times in all the last two years, and none this year so far." Jirou looked back down at the packet and she furled her lips. She had been frustrated by the provision she had not known about which seemed to give far too much freedom to this group that could be called on at the discretion of governors, upper executive officials, or the president themself. The idea that despite this autonomy and ability to act without consequence they still had not been used often confused as much as frustrated her even more. It did not make sense during a time she knew villain rates _were_ up in the U.S., and if they were not used more often she also knew there was little chance the force would actually get shut down like she already hoped it would just from this introduction to them.

"If they're used so rarely," Jirou began in a low tone. "Why don't they just get rid of it altogether?"

"A fair point. One many people argue, even in their own country. However it's not that popular an opinion over in the U.S. Even though they've already started to lose focus again," Ms. Clue added with a look back down at a paper in front of her with graphs and numbers on it. "Not a single use so far this year. In the last four months of last year, they were only called on once too."

 _Get why I've never heard of these guys,_ Jirou thought, as they sounded like they really weren't doing all that much.

"After President Javier took office, the United States revitalized the program and began training new soldiers while resupplying the ones who had already existed in bases scattered around the country." Ms. Clue pulled out another blown-up picture and she slid it and two others across the table for Jirou to spread out. Jirou grimaced at the bloody mess shown to her on the pictures but did not look away. Ms. Clue explained to the girl examining those photos, "The first of the 25 incidents I mentioned was not a good start for the Special Forces' revival."

"What happened?" Jirou asked in a low, dark voice. She looked at the bodies littered around the steps of a large bank that had explosion damage all over the pillars and walls, an arm sticking out from below a piece of rubble, shattered glass everywhere and ambulances and cop cars around the building. There were some cop cars turned over too, and they were blackened carcasses of vehicles that could never work again.

"Heroes were called to a bank robbery in Indiana. More were brought in when it became a hostage situation, but when the escape vehicles were brought by negotiators only for heroes to try and use that moment to catch the villains off guard, they miscalculated the villains' brutality." Ms. Clue had the report in front of her and continued to the girl feeling sick by what her hero started saying, "The villains injected some of the hostages with unstable Trigger, making for a more difficult situation for the heroes. They started killing other hostages while some ran wild, they killed heroes fighting the civilians causing chaos, and there was a Special Forces base close-by that got called in. The team that arrived caused the death of 5 villains, but ultimately it was more hero reinforcements who stopped the villains' leaders and saved the remaining hostages."

Ms. Clue paused and flipped a page in the report she was paraphrasing to her sidekick. "The PR blast they received afterwards for the unnecessary killing was bad, and on top of the kills they had caused millions more in collateral damage, blamed on the inexperience of those ' _special_ ' Special Forces, people called them. It wasn't a great first show of what they could do. So, for a couple months they weren't used again." Ms. Clue continued. "Then in the summer they got called on a couple more times, leading up to September two Septembers back," Ms. Clue sounded like she was getting back to their initial point. She pulled out another sheet from her file, this one with six pictures on it with Rodney Black's in the top right corner rectangle that was of equal size to the other five boxes on the page. She put the page down in front of Jirou and slid it forward for Jirou to look at all six of those uniformed soldiers keeping the same straight expressions and poses as Black had.

"What happened in September?" Jirou wondered, raising her gaze from the page to her hero who was staring at her in a much more intense way now.

 **Present**

"He'll notice if we go right up to the front car while we're still moving. I don't even want to go one more back in case he's moved back now or in case he decides to check if we moved there. Until the next stop I won't be able to get a good look at him to restore Lock-On's time limit." Ms. Clue had her phone out and leaned to the side to show Jirou while the two of them were standing and holding onto poles near the doors three cars back from the front of the train. "Try to listen in right now, see if you can pinpoint his location."

"I'll try," Jirou replied, smiling at the phone like her friend had just shown her a cute picture or something. As she smiled like that, her left earphone jack curved up below her wig and slid into the collar of her shirt and underneath her costume below it. She slid her jack down the side of her body and under her waistband that had small protrusions on either side for her earphone jacks to move down easier and in a stealthy way. Her left earphone jack slid down her pant leg quickly and then planted into the ground right next to her shoe. Jirou closed her eyes, and she faded out the loud roaring of the wheels over the tracks. Next she drowned everyone out behind her, and the ones on her train car, and the ones close enough to her up ahead that she knew they could not be in the first car.

More and more sound drowned out from the initial blasting in Jirou's ears. She tried to focus on multiple things at once too, smiling at her friend and acting like she was not using her Quirk. She pretended to be listening in to Ms. Clue's story when she had already drowned her and everything else around her out. _He's quiet._

Two train cars down from the disguised heroes, a man who just had a very long plane flight that he did not get much sleep on leaned back farther on the comfortable chair in his empty booth. He let out a heavy breath, his breathing calm and tired, and his eyelids fluttered a little even while closed. His lips curled down more, and the man who had fallen asleep on his seat drifted away into his dreams.

"…Are you ready?!"

Rodney spun his head and nodded at the short girl on his right who just yelled that at him. "Right above us, right?" The short girl with long brown hair asked the child at her side. They were in an almost pitch-black tunnel that ended just ahead of them, though there was a man slamming his palms into the end of it and then breaking apart the end of the tunnel by curling his fingers in and pulling to the sides. He stomped forward and then pulled up and down, sliding the next end of the tunnel up and down where it hardened into the ceiling and floor to make a sturdy foundation of their tunnel.

"I hear a lot of English voices! Definitely American, wait- there are Canadians- the Inuit Incinerator someone just mentioned seeing in the group next to them. And, Cryo-Force, someone is from Minnesota-"

"You're doing great! Just keep it up!"

"Hey, get ready to start moving as soon as you're up there. If you stay in place after popping up-"

"I know," Black told the woman next to him who was bloody and burnt but still looked concerned for him. _I heard the same spiel the last twenty times._ He had on a black vest with the sleeves ripped off so there was shredded frayed fabric at his shoulders before his muscular dark arms extended out to the assault rifle he was holding. "Just send me up. I'm good."

"Sending him up."

"Keep going farther!"

"A.J. you're next!"

"Move move move!"

Rodney Black started sprinting forward as his feet touched down on the surface. His hands gripped the black assault rifle in his hands and his expression was dark and menacing as he sprinted towards a huge smoking vehicle crashed into the barren yellowish rocky landscape. There was no vegetation in any direction, and the sky was darkening with the black smoke from more than just the largest of the crashed flying vehicles up ahead of him. There were other planes and helicopters crashed and burning on the ground in all directions of him, and some people were still being helped out of them or trying to put them out to save others who had been inside and unable to get out in time.

"They fucking fried everything!"

"Attack their ship!"

"Hit them now! Before they can spread out!"

"Ah hah, ah hah, ahh, hahh," Black breathed heavily, his heart pounding hard and fast in his chest as he sprinted across the ground. Others were jogging near him, some were getting louder and yelling while running forward themselves.

"You see that?!"

A voice screamed it in English on Black left, and he spun with the others looking just like any of the people around him. He stared off in shock at the flying black form that just shot over a huge swath of people and then dove down into what turned into a giant explosion a second later. Darkness plumed out of that explosion and fully surrounded it, then fifty spikes of darkness shot out from the blast and rained down around it. People started to get nervous and backed away from the sight, only for a huge wall of ice to rise up on one side, and five other explosions to blow up around that billowing darkness, and then a huge spike of earth rose up a hundred feet in the air out of that explosion in the next second sending some black form flying off the top of it.

"HA, haha! Look at that!"

"Only a few of them made it out of there, and even Death can't take all those attacks!"

Rodney lowered his head and he breathed heavier and more nervously. Fear filled him, and he closed his eyes, _Only for a second._ The second passed and so did the fear. He ran forward and leaned in towards another dark-skinned man whose accent was not unlike his own, "Hey."

"Huh? Who are-"

Black held a finger up in front of his mouth. His eyes darted to his left and back behind him, and the man looking at the side of his face got an uneasy look on it at the way this guy was acting, but he also did not speak up based on how intense his fellow villain looked. "Just heard Inuit Incinerator's guys talking. Death looks like he's already done for. That crazy fucker doesn't see the need to keep this charade up any longer, and his guys are hiding it well. They're up to something, and we need to know that Rayflex is ready to back up the rest of us Americans when those fucking Canucks turn on us."

The man Black was talking to turned his head, and Black turned the other way at the same time, "I'm getting others on board. Be ready for it," he whispered back, and he ran before he could be questioned. Even the man he had just talked to did not get freaked out by the way he so quickly slipped out of there, sprinting in and out of people without them noticing how he looked to be moving in a strange way.

 _It could just be I don't want the Canadians to see me. I got one. Turn the North American army against itself. I don't speak any other language well enough to turn the regions against each other, but-_

"Hey! Those fucking Gravitous freaks are attacking the Rippermen!"

"Fucking idiots! Can't they wait for Death to go down first?!"

"I knew allying with either of them was going to start trouble as long as the-"

 **BANG!**

Black ducked and spun his head. _Shit! Already?!_

"Who did-"

"It's Cryo-Force!"

"The Metahumans are trying to take down-"

 **Ka-** _ **BOOOM!**_

"We didn't do tha-"

"Kill them!"

"Of fuck me," Black spun and he started running faster, getting away as explosions got closer and closer to his back. He was panting now without trying to hide it, and he crossed his arms while turning his back to the right side where a massive flamethrower just went past him and hit three guys screaming at the guy attacking them to 'Wait!' _This is getting out of… control._ Rodney Black froze and stared ahead towards the burning ship that suddenly got hit by a dozen huge explosions. The sky shook above it, and a swirling black cloud cracked with thunder and sparked with lightning as it descended over the ship. Rain started to fall from what everyone had just thought was smoke above, and Black snapped his head back down and started sprinting forward again only lifting his rifle up now as he did.

"What the hell is happening?!"

"I can't get in contact with the command! I don't know what we're supposed to be doing here!"

"We have to focus on taking that ship! The Army of Death are almost finished!"

"There are thousands of people trying to do that same thing right now," Rodney hissed to a man on his right side who paused and turned to him with his eyes widening. "You really want to be one of the ones who goes in there first?"

"Who are you?"

"Forget about me, and think about this," Black countered with a sly grin. His face had a scar over the left cheek and two going down his right cheek over his chin to halfway down his neck. There were burn scars on his right arm, and a sealed slash scar on his chest under the collar of his vest. The American man with a villainous appearance smirked and nodded towards the ship up ahead, "The Asians are busy taking on Death-"

"Their Champion can handle him on his own they said," the larger man next to Black said.

"It doesn't look like that's happening though," Black countered.

"Really? Because I haven't seen any sign of Death for a few minutes now," another man next to the bigger one started. "And who the fuck are you?"

"One of Rayflex's-" Black snapped up his assault rifle at the looks on the two men's faces. He unloaded into them while jumping backwards, screaming, "FUCKING PSYCHOS! WE'RE ON THE SAME SIDE!"

 _They knew! FUCK!_ Rodney dropped his rifle and rose up his arms that turned to silver and gained a gooey appearance for a second as they transformed. His arms hardened though in the moment before the fast man charging at him slashed down with his katana. Black's arms were harder, and the blade broke with the top half flipping up in the air and the villain who swung it lifting his eyes in shock and fury at the sight of his blade breaking. Black's hardened arms sharpened and he slashed them down while yelling, "Fucking Cadavre freaks! We're all on the same side here!"

The man Black slashed hit the ground with two long slashes going down from near his shoulders towards his waist.

"What the hell is going on here?!"

"That guy's not-"

 **BOOOM!**

 _Gotta run gotta run!_ Black sped off using the sudden panic from the nearby explosion. He swerved between people who were angry at each other, shouting, raising weapons and firing off Quirks while still trying to figure out what was happening.

A spear flew over Black's right shoulder from his back. He ignored it and focused on the fact that it hit a woman in the back up ahead of him. "They're trying to take advantage of the chaos!" Black called out, still running away while people were chasing after him. Those people were suddenly attacked by two dozen people in the gang of the woman who was just hit in the back as Black had run into their group and shouted that. He heard gunfire and screaming behind him as he kept running, leaving everyone else behind while panting heavier and darting his shaking eyes every direction around him.

The ground shook, and Black spun his head to the left and looked towards a plateau that started to break apart in the earthquake after a fissure had run through the entire thing. When he looked over at that plateau though, he saw one even farther away that took his breath away and made him freeze in place. There were dozens of people on top of the plateau with one man standing at the front, such an ominous aura coming from that way that he could not quell his fear. "Is that-"

"Eziano Mozcaccio," a voice whispered behind him, the accent Latino. Black turned his head to the right and looked at the shorter man with light brown skin who gulped in a nervous way before turning the other direction where he had last seen Death. A bright white beam shot out of a glow in the sky over there, only for that beam to go away as it was sucked up into the sky and something that Black and the man next to him both stared at in fear.

A black hole ripped open in the sky, and a dark orange core burned in the center of it while light was sucked in from all around. The tint of the air in that part of the sky darkened and turned orange, only for Black and the man next to him to glance at each other and see the other's face also tinted in the same dark orange glow. Rain started to fall on them, heavy and blowing into their sides with sudden gusts of wind that came out of nowhere. Rodney Black looked at the man next to him who did not appear any older than he was himself, and he opened his mouth to say something but froze with it open like that. Seeing that man's fear that looked so similar to his own, he found it too difficult to mention how the others behind him were starting to fight each other in order to be the last ones standing here. "Good luck," Black just said, his expression darkening and his eyes going cold which had the Dominican villain in front of him gulping and leaning backwards.

Rodney turned back forward and started sprinting, and a few seconds later when he heard an explosion not far behind him he struggled to keep his face forward and not look back. "Oh shit!" A voice screamed on Black's left, and he looked over and spotted men and women running to the sides and diving off of a huge invisible platform rising into the sky. Others were fighting on that platform, and then his head spun around and he saw lots of other platforms and sections of earth rising up without anything below them.

He spun and looked towards the biggest explosion he had seen so far, coming directly on top of the wreckage of The Cloak. His eyes opened wide, but he grit his teeth and then started running towards the ship himself. His arms formed the shape of long curved blades silver in color but much harder than steel. His eyes darted around in a focused way at all the people around him, and he spotted two groups of people who looked different but were still standing near each other and not looking very against each other. _Everyone else is still pushing them against each other! I need to-_ One of the darker-skinned men in the group he was running towards stepped back, then turned and rose up a pistol he pointed at the back of the other group's leader's head.

 _Did someone already get to them?! Or were these fuckers already ready for it?!_ Black turned and darted the other direction fast, especially as a few dozen people over there started pulling out needles that they injected into their necks. _Farther. Farther FARTHER!_

 _ **"RRAAOOOOOAAAARRR!"**_

Something black came flying through the sky up above Black's head and made him snap his eyes up and then to the left as it kept flying far too fast for him to follow. He looked towards a rocky rise in elevation off over a mile that just exploded with hundreds of tons of rocks blowing up into the air and in all directions. Then, a massive arm of darkness reached up from the hole where all that rubble exploded from. Something came flying through the air letting out another huge scream at that dark figure, only for it to be slammed back the way it came by a twenty ton slate of ground that blew apart upon slamming into the bulked-up beast flying through the sky.

That massive black arm then swung around with the open hand over a hundred feet wide curling up into a fist as it released the last of the debris it was holding. The arm swung and extended out, and the huge fist slammed into a plateau near him that blew apart with men on top of it jumping or flying away, or getting blown away by how hard their plateau was just smashed into.

"RUN!"

"Look out!"

Black spun to his right and then he turned the same way everyone else was running. Smoke was coming off the ground to his back a hundred meters or so, and the area to that side of him was glowing brighter and brighter red each second as more people started sprinting his direction from over there.

"IT'S A WHOLE FUCKING OCEAN OF LAVA!"

"Is it them?!"

"WHAT'S HAPPENING!?"

 _This is chaos!_ Black's eyes were as wide as saucers as he ran, his panic rising as much as all the villains around him. His head spun back and forth, looking at the men running on either side of him who were clearly from other villain groups and who both gave him looks of similar fear and panic. Then they started nodding at each other, a silent agreement that they all made in that moment while running from a burning ocean together. They were allied now, no matter who they were with or fighting for, they were going to survive together.

"Over here!" A villain yelled out from their right side, and all three of them along with a few dozen others looked over to see a big swirling white portal opened up above a piece of rubble more and more villains were running up and leaping through.

"Let's go!"

"Everyone get out of here!"

"GO GO GO!"

 _No idea where this is going to take me!_ Black thought, but he did turn and yell at the two next to him to "COME ON!" They all ran for the portal, but when he turned to the right to run that way, he realized just how close that ocean of red was rolling in towards him. "FUCK!" Black sprinted even faster, and he jumped up onto a chunk of rubble before making another jump to the slanted surface up to the white portal people were diving and sprinting into while screaming. He landed on that final piece and spun back, leaning to the side to let one of the two he allied with to dive in, while reaching an arm out that turned back to normal instead of a silver blade.

 _What am I doing?_ Black thought, as he grabbed onto the hand of the man diving towards him over the end of the rolling lava. He yanked the man backwards on top of himself as they toppled into the portal, two others leaping in behind them, and the top half of one last guy making it through before the portal closed and bisected him. That guy managed out half a scream before his head fell flat on the ground and his organs all leaked out of where his body was split horizontally.

"Gracias!"

Black turned his head from the left where he was staring at that man's upper corpse, to the guy he had pulled on top of him through that portal. "Yeah, don't mention it," Black rolled the guy off him and then looked around the purple pocket dimension around him.

"We have to figure out what's going on!"

"Asura ino xia na…"

"Potete mi dire dove…"

"Who's pocket dimension is this?! Bring us where the leaders of the North American force are. We need them to regain communication with the other forces. Death is still alive, though the Champion is keeping him busy…"

 _I can't let them get back any control._ Black's expression darkened but his focus cleared in the calm he had for a moment.

Unfortunately, they could not stay long in there as the guy who created the place kept trying to tell them all in Swahili, which none of them spoke well. Black knew enough to realize it earlier than the others around him, not that he told anyone with him what that villain was trying to say. He just waited for the dimension's purple barriers to start to dim, showing what was actually around them that was moving by as the man controlling the place ran while seeing all that was really around him. The barriers thinned more and more until other villains fighting around them were able to see this huge moving force of nearly two hundred people about to come to life.

 _I'm sorry,_ Black thought without looking back to the man who thanked him a moment ago. His left hand slid into the back of his waistband to the pistol tucked in there.

"Where did you guys come from-"

 **Bang!**

Black fired at one of the guys in the villain gang their whole group just appeared inside of, and that villain gang immediately started attacking the group they were already suspicious of before anyone else in that group could try to explain.

"WAIT!"

"Use Trigger!"

"BASTARDS!"

"Watchakacha!"

"EAT LEAD!"

"TRIGGER!"

"RIOT!"

Black sprinted forward as the ground below him started to break apart. Cracks split through and branched off so many times that the solid ground was looking more like gravel each second. He was running uphill a few seconds earlier, but all of a sudden he was on a downhill slant. One chunk of rock was not dipping like the rest of the ground though, and he ran and jumped for that rocky surface. Two others jumped for that spot though, and they turned to him not looking ready to talk about anything.

Rodney pointed his pistol at the man on the left first who rose his arms up faster. That guy who rose his arms though activated his Quirk which yanked Black's pistol right out of his hand. The pistol flew into his outstretched hands, and Black twisted his body in midair to dodge the long bumpy brown tongue that shot out of the other man's mouth as he landed on the tilted rock surface. That surface was not as sturdy as they all thought though, especially with the ground below it still shaking and breaking apart more. The slanted rock dipped down in the back as it started to slide, and the man who crouched after landing with his thick tongue outstretched was not able to redirect it in the way he initially wanted when the darker-skinned man dodged him.

Black fell onto the edge of the rock the two Caucasian men were trying to balance on, and his arms turned into straight swords. He sprinted forward while slashing to either side. The rock below them cracked in the middle and made everyone's balance even more off, but Black slashed through the thick tongue retracting into one villain's mouth, while ducking below the shots of the other man and slashing across the right side of his stomach. Blood splashed out into Black's face as he ran by, but he did not stop to finish the job as he saw what this rock was sliding down towards now and stopped short instantly.

Rodney jumped backwards, and then he pulled to the side but still felt the pain of the bullet in his right side where the villain falling backwards off the breaking rock had shot him. The man was holding his side together with one hand and shot Black with the other, only to fall off the front of the rock that was sliding faster down the gravel towards the huge sinkhole. That man did not need to worry about falling into the sinkhole as his old partner was now panicking about though, as the rock slid over on top of him and crushed him into the dirt.

Black landed and ran up the slant with the ground below him breaking apart after each climbing step. He did not dare look back though as he heard all the shouts of panic and terror as people fell into the hole, and he turned his arms into more curved-scythes at the end that he started using to dig into the floor while doing mountain-climbers up it. Black was on all fours and sprinted to finally another piece of solid ground, then he stumbled forward and pulled his right hand down to his side with his arm reappearing and then his middle, ring, and pinky fingers all turning into a thin silver blade.

 _This is gonna hurt!_ He dug his sharp fingers into his side where he had been shot. _No fucking armor. In the worst place to have no armor-_ "FAAUUUCCK-" Black dug the bullet out of himself with his fingers turning back to normal to grip and toss the bullet aside. _No med kid. No extra weapons. Just my Quirk, and no support!_ Black had to start running as he heard the screaming get louder behind him. He darted a look back to see giant flaming tentacles coming out of the sinkhole, a sight that made him suck in a huge breath and spin back forward as fast as he could.

On his right side something was coming rolling in out of a thick fog and he turned the other way to dodge it, only to freeze as a wave of red just splashed up in the air. _Please be Mark,_ Black thought, though he still backed up as a pinkish-purple gas erupted around where that blood wave had been. The gas cloud expanded in his direction, and he reached down and pulled the collar of his shirt up while running forwards again towards a group a mile away that he spotted not fighting like everyone else. _If I can reach-_ His eyes darted to the right where that thing finally came rolling out of the fog. As far as he could see to the right and the left of that fog cloud, enormous roots were spreading out over the ground and curving up, down, into the ground, and back out of it to destroy the earth around them.

An entire forest emerged and came towards him, and then a dark figure in a purple cape flew over the tops of those roots and into the fog. The roots kept coming for a few seconds though before they would be stopped, and Black was within those few seconds along with another few dozen people around him who all yelled out and tried dodging the spreading forest. The farther back on the roots, the more there were huge branches and even full tree trunks sticking out of them up in the air with green foliage on top. At the ground level though it was mainly enormous roots that just snapped on both sides of Black and broke apart the ground he was running on.

He dove over a root slowing down but still growing thicker in front of him. _Has to be Trigger._ Black hit the ground and rolled, then he ducked down as a huge pillar of flames erupted not far from him. The heat wind from the force of the blast withered the green leaves around Black and seared the left side of his face and his arm. He shook off the pain from the heat though and snapped his head up, his left eye squinting from the pain in it. He darted forward, and then he heard a voice up ahead of him, "I smell one of them!"

 _They can smell me?!_ Black backed up-

"Right there! He's in the roots with us!"

"I see him!"

There was no time to think of where to run or hide. Black started sprinting forward at where those voices came from. _They're close. Closer than they think._

"He's coming right at us!"

"OH SHIT!"

Black's enemies second-guessed whether or not they were the ones actually attacking the Army of Death here.

"It's just one of them!"

Black saw parts of people through the trees, but he looked over his shoulder in panic when he was about to come within sight of them. "Holy shit! He's right behind me-" Black yelled out, swinging his sharpened scythe arms in front of him as he spun back forward in terror. He slashed through thin branches and leapt over roots, and then he slashed his right arm across the chest of the man closest to him feeling the most confident and running forward too to meet this Army of Death soldier head-on.

That man with the most powerful Quirk of his comrades was taken down by the guy they all thought was just running away, and then Black's eyes narrowed and darted to the one who opened his mouth and yelled, "That's-" Black recognized the voice as the one who shouted how he could smell him, and that guy immediately saw on this Army of Death's face that he recognized his voice too. "OH SHIT!" The man with a giant nose covering half his face stumbled backwards and tripped over a root at the look in Black's eyes that unnerved all of his enemies.

"They don't have their armor on, but they're here among us!"

"Those bastards!"

"You're going to pay for all this."

Black ran forward, but his enemies could see his Quirk, and they tried to forget about the way he just looked at them there or how he took down one of their stronger friends. Green sludge shot at him faster than the shuriken were thrown. Black dropped to the ground in a barrel-roll under a root on his left, but two of his enemies predicted that would be how he dodged and were already jumping over to that spot. One of them fired thin black spikes out of his feet, three from each one. Black got hit by two black spikes in his right shoulder as he was standing up as fast as he could, and he gasped but still slashed his left arm up and blocked the giant rock-hard fists coming down at him from the other man diving straight for him.

The guy he blocked was too strong though and made Black's knees buckle. As soon as he felt them buckling though, he allowed his whole body to go limp for a moment and dropped fully to the ground while parrying to the side. He redirected the man's fists pushing down on his blade arm to slam into the root next to them as he was falling to the floor off the punch. The blow hurt his left arm and both legs, along with his abs and ribs, but he spun while on the ground and transformed both legs into sharp silver blades that hardened in the instant his hard-fisted enemy touched his feet to the ground. That man who just landed did not have the time to jump back up, and Black's sharp shins cut the man across his Achilles' tendons.

"RAAAA!" the villain screamed in agony while falling forward and grabbing onto the thick root.

Black's left hand had turned back to normal and he used it to rip one of the black rods out of his right shoulder, then he threw it at the man who had attacked him with them in the first place and just kicked his right leg up to fire more. That man pulled his head to the side and smirked at Black's attempt, only for Black's right arm to pierce through his heart as he had risen it quickly right there and extended it much farther out from his body than his usual attacks were reaching. His legs had turned back to normal and his right arm was the only thing he was using his Quirk on which allowed him to extend that reach over ten feet, and Black ripped his arm out of the man's chest and swung the bloody silver blade to the right side causing two others running on top of a root towards him to jump away.

Even making those two back off though, gunfire blared out in the next second and hit the roots around him. Black had to dive to his right and roll behind a thicker trunk coming out of a root that dug straight across the surface. The bullets firing at him riddled the back of the tree he hid behind, and Black heard the voices over the sound of the gunfire.

"There's an Army of Death member over here!"

"We have him cornered!"

A loud thud hit higher up on the tree and the whole thing cracked. Bullets were still hitting the other side and shredding up the wood, feeling like they were getting closer and closer to his back each second. The top half of the tree was breaking and his eyes darted up to the trunk in hope. _I need this! To do, something!_ He did not know how the top half of the tree falling was going to save him, but he knew he could not stay there as he saw other people cornering him and all aiming at the spot he was in. _I'll run along the other side of the tree as the shooter, get close enough to others that they yell at him to stop-_ The falling tree stopped falling, and it flew up into the sky at a hundred miles per hour for some reason Black did not know.

"No cover for you!"

"HAHAHAHA!"

"KILL HIM!"

"That's one of the Army of Death?!"

"Probably the last one left alive!"

"EEeheheheHEEE! Don't kill him right away!"

"RIP HIM TO PIECES!"

Black was breathing heavier and heavier, his heart pounding in his head and all the pain inside him fading away. "AaaaaAAAAHHH RRAAAAAAA" His elbows curled in and his arms started morphing, his voice getting louder and louder. His teeth bared and his eyes were huge and full of terror but also rage that bubbled over in his expression. His head snapped back and he glared straight towards one enemy in particular up ahead of him and to the left. "HAAAAA!" He charged out from behind the tree.

"Blackstar!"

He spun his head to the left, and he spotted the villain with twin miniguns attached to his shoulders falling backwards unconscious. Other villains were trying to flee, and darts stuck into their necks and backs taking them all down. Blackstar spun his head back to the right, and the man who he had glared at in the end there was backing up terrified as all the villains with him "cornering" the AoD member were just taken down in seconds. Then a bullet flew between all the roots though and slammed him in the right shoulder so hard he flew off the ground and smashed into the tree behind him head-first.

"Get over here," a voice called over to him, making it through despite the pounding in his eardrums.

The adrenaline still pumped through Blackstar's veins, but he started to feel the pain again as he turned and ran towards the four people he recognized who had all come in to save their comrade they had heard was cornered. _This is so absurd,_ Blackstar thought, as an orange and green swirl of sky just rippled through the darkness covering most of the atmosphere above. Pillars of black smoke rose up all over the place, and screams echoed through the forest that Blackstar and the other four started running through together to get away from the area people might know they were in.

Blackstar had seen the guy with the big nose unconscious on the floor back there so he felt a little more safe, which also attributed to him feeling even more pain too. His eyes darted to the right and left in the most anxious way, lingering on the shortest of the group of five he felt his heart ache at the sight of. "Here," Darling said, stopping for a second and leaning back on a root that made Snow get off her back and kneel there for a few seconds, panting like the rest of them and looking around in fear.

 _We're so screwed. Can't let anyone see me look like that though._

 _The world is breaking apart! Heroes have to show up here, right? They're going to save us! They have to._

Spiral shook his head around and kept gasping for a couple seconds before grinding his teeth as he glanced up at the others. "I saw Sagitus, soon as he got to the surface they knew," Spiral stopped and ground his teeth even harder. "Bullet right through the head."

"Fuck," Blackstar just whispered, and he lowered his right hand from his side he was grabbing like the pain was too much. "What are you doing, out of the tunnels?" Blackstar whispered to the girls he looked at on his left.

"Don't focus on that right now," Darling said. Her voice snapped the others out of their exhaustion. Her expression was intense again and she had stopped panting. Snow looked at the back of Darling's head with her shaking and terrified eyes growing wide, and then all four of them just stared at the seventeen year old girl who went on quickly, "The Cloak is under too much pressure. Maelstrom is still alive by the looks of things, but the infirmary will be broken into and overrun if they fall. I need to get Snow and the injured out of there."

"We have no idea if anyone else is still even alive," Fabrica whispered, looking to her right at the shorter girl at her side. She had a terrified look on her face that she did not feel ashamed for at all even while saying that to a girl ten years younger. "What if we're, all that's left-"

"Death won't die," Darling said. There was no hesitation in her voice. Her tone was reassuring, confident, and she just continued to the wide-eyed woman in front of her, "Comms should come back soon, though we were in the center of the Temp Emp so the villains might be ahead of us to get them back. That's why we need to destroy all hope of them regaining trust and a working relationship before they get comms online. When our comms are back on, Fabrica, wait for the order and then revert all the disguises you've made."

"What-"

"Trust me. We'll gather in force and they won't be able to see our conditions under our full armor. When they realize that we've been playing them they'll run, and we might need them to run away." Darling paused and then said after gritting her teeth for a second, "This isn't Wampajawa. Let's survive this, even if it means we let some of them escape. Heroes will catch the ones who run. Right now, we just need to survive."

"And to survive," Spiral said while nodding his head at the girl only a couple years younger than him but who was acting braver than him right now. "We need to win," he said it and then grinned at the smaller girl on the root behind Darling who stared at him and then around at all four of them with the most amazed and shocked look on her little face. "Alright. Let's do it."

"Scatter. Win," Darling's orders were not specific. There was no direction for any of them to go in or follow. Blackstar and Spiral were both bleeding pretty badly, but nobody even mentioned it.

Blackstar turned from the others and ran off. His breathing had calmed down a little, and he was reassured of some things he had began doubting while hiding behind that tree in what he thought were his final moments. _Everyone is still out there. Sagitus- but we will win! WE'LL WIN!_ Blackstar ran faster, and he saw the end of the roots up ahead of him and the widest expanse of landscape past it. There were not many people around the area, more small scattered groups with people on the edges of them shouting to other groups to try and figure out what was going on.

Blackstar heard an engine roar, and a vehicle sped between groups ahead of him with a man on the top of it calling into a megaphone in an Asian language he did not understand. He slowed down to a stop at the edge of the roots, and he reached down and picked up a strange weapon that was discarded on the floor but he noticed started glowing brighter blue as he walked towards it. _They got rid of their high-tech weapons when Whiteout rendered them useless. A lot of them must not have realized power would come back on. That guy on the truck up there is probably informing everyone, showing off they've got a vehicle going already. Their communications' lines might come back on soon. If it's been this long though, come on Rebel. This is where you're needed! Right here-_

Black's eyes snapped up and he sprinted out of the roots in the next second. Villains turned their heads and they yelled out, pointing and raising weapons to the sky where a fleet of drones just flew in. "Blackstar!" Virus' voice called down from above him.

"Just do it Cody!" Blackstar yelled back without slowing down, and he rose the glowing blue weapon and leapt up in the air before firing and dragging the barrel across the front of his body.

Blue pulses fired from the gun as he held the trigger down. One huge pulse first, then smaller ones that fired out rapid-fire across the enemies who were firing up at the drones that had arrived before Blackstar. The drones on a strafing run dropped gas canisters full of knockout gas, though several of the drones were shot down on the first run. The special drone that was tinted blue that Blackstar had seen spin around to him had turned back forward though and was swerving better than all the other drones. One drone lagged behind the others after Cody had spun and called out his name, and as Blackstar tossed the empty high-tech gun to the side as it stopped firing anything, a thin cylinder dropped from the drone right in front of him.

The black cylinder three feet tall slammed into the ground and planted there, then the sides of it popped open and rose with steam coming out of them. Blackstar ran past the left side of the ordinance drop Rebel landed for him, reaching his right arm out to the gear and grabbing the machine gun it held out for him. A timer with '30' on it started counting down on a panel below the other ordinance in the package, and Blackstar kept sprinting forward and rose up the rifle he unloaded at the villains who did not run and were not aiming at the sky. He fired at the ones who were his biggest threats first, then he stepped to his right before darting to the left, faking out the man lifting up a dozen huge rocks covered in a blue aura.

Those rocks flew past Blackstar's right side, and he fired more shots towards the man who had attacked him right there. He hit the man twice in his chest and once in his right shoulder, making him spin out and fall to the ground while also causing a lot more people around him to turn their heads and yell while targeting him. Blackstar dove forward and while horizontal to the ground, pointed his rifle out in front of him and unloaded more of it into these groups. A truck that had swerved to one side came off the tires on its left, and it hit the ground on its side and started rolling with villains flying out of it. One man flew through the windshield and glass shards hit other villains trying to dodge, and two drones fell out of the air and one crashed into a woman aiming a pistol right at Blackstar's head as he rolled to his feet.

He spun his head to her as he had been dodging someone else in the second she was about to shoot at him, but the crashing drone exploded upon hitting her in a fireball that caught two others near her on fire and made them scream while dropping to roll on the floor. The ground below Blackstar's feet got soft and his feet slipped into it, and he could not run from that spot even though there was a rocket flying towards him. Cody's drone spun around and fired towards the rocket propelled grenade, blowing it up early but not far enough from himself or Blackstar that they were not hit by shrapnel. Blackstar got a few pieces in the left side of his face he turned into the blast while raising his arms, and though he screamed out in pain first, he switched the yell, "AAAH-GET OUT OF HERE CODY!"

The drone came down and crashed a second later, and Blackstar had no idea if the kid was dead or alive. The ground under him started to push him up after the crash though, and Blackstar's eyes darted down before going the direction Virus' drone crashed. _I'm out of sight of the caster, or-_

Two hands reached out of the ground and grabbed Blackstar by the ankles. It felt like those hands were going to drag him down, but before they could, or the other people about to attack from just in front of him could, an explosion ripped apart the ground only ten meters from Blackstar on his left. He started turning that way, bringing up his arms to attempt to block the flames. The ground had blown apart and debris slammed into him as fast as the heat, ripping through his chest and thighs and one pebble through the left side of his neck. The flames hit next as he screamed while pulling his head away, and his clothes burned off while his left arm got blown off below the elbow and melted higher up like the left side of his face and left ear.

 **"This stop is Hosu City."**

Black lifted his head up and he sucked in a sharp breath. His hands slid up his body and he patted himself down all over the place. The man with burn scars all over the left side of his face shook his head around and chuckled as he noticed someone looking towards him. His darker skin made it less noticeable, but his skin was discolored all over the left side of his face, around his neck, over to his nose that had a scar across the bridge of it to his right eyelid. He had scars more like cuts going down over his chin on the right side of his face too, and those scars continued under his clothes as well. _Hosu City? Didn't make it very far yet,_ he thought to himself, tilting his head back on the soft chair again. His eyes did not close again this time though.

 _That was, the last time I saw Spiral. That armor we found in Germany could have been his. Fucking corrupt assholes. Those experiments, even if the guy was going along with it as a volunteer… "It's Zombieman! That Champion they're all going on about, it's fucking Zombieman!" "They could have experimented on him in a thousand different ways and he would never die. And Death can't kill him now either, they turned him into a fucking monster, man…"_ Blackstar shook his head and pushed those thoughts from it, and he turned to the right and looked out into the city with a soft smile returning to his face.

"Does he seem like he's getting off here?" Ms. Clue wondered to her intern next to her still two train cars back from their target.

"He's not going to get off," Jirou replied. It sounded like she was answering the question while also saying that she knew the man was not getting off here beforehand anyway. Jirou frowned after Ms. Clue gave her a stern look, but Jirou said with no lack of confidence, "He's going to get off at Yutapu Station."

 **12 Hours Ago.**

"…The PR blast they received afterwards for the unnecessary killing was bad, and on top of the kills they had caused millions more in collateral damage, blamed on the inexperience of those ' _special_ ' Special Forces, people called them. It wasn't a great first show of what they could do. So, for a couple months they weren't used again." Ms. Clue continued. "Then in the summer they got called on a couple more times, leading up to September two Septembers back," Ms. Clue sounded like she was getting back to their initial point. She pulled out another sheet from her file, this one with six pictures on it with Rodney Black's in the top right corner rectangle that was of equal size to the other five boxes on the page. She put the page down in front of Jirou and slid it forward for Jirou to look at all six of those uniformed soldiers keeping the same straight expressions and poses as Black had.

"What happened in September?" Jirou wondered, raising her gaze from the page to her hero who was staring at her in a much more intense way now.

"They disappeared." Ms. Clue pulled out a tablet that she opened up, and she pulled up the same 6-box image as the piece of paper Jirou was looking at. Then Ms. Clue slid a finger on the tablet and swung over to the wall on her right and Jirou's left to make the image appear on the screen that was installed there and turned on as she needed its use. The faces went horizontally in two rows of three across the screen, and Jirou looked closely at the Special Forces team Ms. Clue put up with their Rodney Black as one of them. "All six of them vanished off the face of the Earth."

Jirou looked back to her pro hero wondering if that was really how she was describing this, but Ms. Clue just looked intensely back at her and nodded in a way that unnerved Jirou. _No one's seen them since? Heard anything? Why is this man…_ An uneasy feeling stirred in Jirou's stomach that made her heart start racing, and made a darker feeling swell in her chest at the same time.

Ms. Clue continued to the girl before her again, "Despite the revitalization, most of the Special Forces bases had never been called on to help out. And yet around the world some people were giving them credit for why the U.S. crime rates were lower than everywhere else. They were a deterrent, per se, and they were working." She paused for a moment and looked back at the screen herself and continued in a sympathetic voice, "But for the inactive soldiers of that force, seeing every month the crime rates in their own country going higher and higher, to receive praise from other nations and even people in their own including the president that they were helping, it must have felt demeaning."

"I have the case files for each of these soldiers, and all of them enlisted with the goals of helping people only outside of being heroes. They chose this path, as all six of those people did not pass hero qualifications."

"They tried to be heroes?" Jirou wondered, somewhat surprised considering what she thought of the people in this force already. She had felt like Ms. Clue was giving them too much credit here, but she looked back at the six soldiers closer this time.

"Two took hero license exams despite not getting into their high schools' hero programs." Ms. Clue made two of the pictures enlarge to cover the screen and show some other information in boxes below those images. "Grant Edwards. Quirk- Pincers. Katherine Ableton. Quirk- Hummingbird." Ms. Clue and Jirou stared at the lean woman with short blonde hair, and the bald man with a pair of spiky pincers sticking up almost two feet over the top of his head to make him closer to eight feet tall than six. "Edwards was the team's Captain, and their mechanic. He failed the licensing exam right out of high school, and he switched career paths to the Special Forces earlier than the others on his squad."

"The other four all failed at joining their schools' hero programs as well. None of them took hero licensing exams, as it is rare that someone without hero training would ever be able to pass one. However, they did not just give up either. These two," Ms. Clue enlarged two different photos this time, one of them being their target's. "Black and Smith, grew up in the same hometown. They each failed five entrance exams at five different hero programs before entering high school. The thing about each of these soldiers, is their Quirks were really not very powerful. Smith's Quirk- Skateboard, could create a board at the bottom of his legs if he put his feet together that had six wheels underneath. Black's Quirk, Alloy, allows him to transform parts of his body for a short time into a metallic alloy that is harder than steel at its hardest. He cannot keep them that way for very long, nor is Black able to transform his arms or legs very quickly into any shape he so desires, and there is a limit as to how much Alloy he can use at once or how many times he can use it in the same period. The team leader's, Edward's, Quirk was just the control of those two pincers over his head, being able to open and close them at will."

Jirou looked back at the team whose photos all returned to the same size for her to look at. "And the others?" She wondered quietly. _None of those sound very powerful. Black's could have become stronger though, if he worked out some of those weaknesses…_ "Target," Jirou read off the name of the Quirk as Altama's face enlarged on the screen. "The ability to track up to ten people indefinitely. Requires activation while the targets are in eyesight. Only works on humans. Cadrace, Quirk, Fire Fists? That sounds, decent."

"His body is not impervious to heat. Neither are his fists, though they are somewhat resistant," Ms. Clue countered before Jirou had read off the rest of the information on Cadrace's Quirk. "The point I am trying to make though, is that these people were not joining the Special Forces so that they could have licenses to kill. It was not so they could go murder villains as some who take the same view as I have on the Special Forces, would claim all those soldiers joined for. This team was made up of people who wanted to be heroes, who despite failing at being heroes continued to train with the rigorous training program of the Special Forces, and they did it even though public view of their group was not great at the time they joined, nor was pay for the soldiers high. And even though they were not getting the same experience heroes were getting actually fighting villains, their intense training focused a lot more on weapons' training and hand-to-hand combat, battle tactics, military skills, meant more for olden-time soldiers of America than the heroes of today."

"Then one day, those people who were receiving the credit while doing nothing, finally got a call to go stop an incident where heroes were overrun after trying to raid a villain base. In early September," Ms. Clue paused and she grabbed another file out from the folder on the table she slid to Jirou this time. Jirou's expression focused and her eyes narrowed down on the pages in an intense way, though there was a sense of dread growing inside her that she was attempting to ignore.

"The team was sent in," Ms. Clue said while Jirou read the reports and saw the pictures taken from that case. "And the next heroes who arrived found all the villains defeated. They found the heroes too who had fought them first and called for help while they were quote, 'being massacred,' was what the hero who called in for reinforcements shouted at the time. They found all of those heroes, alive and uninjured. Those six soldiers though were missing and declared AWOL."

"Why don't we just arrest Black right away then if he's AWOL?" Jirou questioned.

Ms. Clue shook her head and Jirou got more nervous by the look that formed on Ms. Clue's face while staring at her closer. Jirou already felt her heart racing after the description Ms. Clue just gave of the incident, but she froze as Ms. Clue continued, "Soon after they went missing, letters of resignation were sent in to their superiors along with all their missing equipment. They resigned, and they apparently made video calls too to confirm that it was really them resigning. And then they just, vanished."

Jirou glared back down at the pages and then looked to her left at the screen and the six people on it again. _I think I'm beginning, to understand this._

"Those heroes who were all alive," Jirou started. "They were killed that day?"

Ms. Clue's expression was dark but she nodded at the intern in front of her. There was no need for clarification, but she did respond, "The disappearance of those six soldiers coincides with a line of revivals going across the United States from west coast to east coast through August and September. It could be Sazaki's path at the time."

"I'm sure it was," Jirou replied. "This Black guy, he's Army of Death."

"It's a possibility," Ms. Clue said, not denying that what Jirou said was likely though giving some room there that Jirou did not. "But right now he's just a civilian who doesn't have any warrants out. We can be suspicious of him and what he's doing here, but we cannot just arrest him without him doing anything." Ms. Clue paused, then she lifted the tablet and tapped a button that made a new image appear on the screen taken from a security camera at the last airport Black was at. Jirou froze and her eyes shot open huge, as the zoomed-in image showed a very different picture of Black than the one in his Special Forces fatigues. He had short black hair that had a couple lines of baldness on the left side of his head and around his left ear that looked messed up like much of his face.

As Jirou was staring at his new appearance in shock, Ms. Clue said in a low voice, "The x-ray at the airport picked up on multiple prosthetics too. His right foot and his left arm from just above his elbow." She paused and then said in a low voice, "It's a very different appearance from the picture of him taken 3 years ago. The official who tasked me with this mission suspects that Black joined the Army of Death which is where he received those injuries. I do not know if I would make that assumption so quickly, especially since the Army of Death did not yet exist when Black and his team vanished."

"Or it did," Jirou countered. "And they just hadn't revealed themselves yet."

"Also possible," Ms. Clue replied with a nod. "But we cannot jump to conclusions without evidence. We cannot accost or arrest this man just because he has scars and because we do not know what he has been doing for the last year and a half. Nor can we allow him to see us, and prevent him from revealing his true intentions on coming to Japan. After such a long time in hiding, he should not suspect anyone is following him or even knows who he is. He is a highly-trained and unknown target though, so tracking him will be done with the utmost care. Every moment from the second we start following him, we will need to take every precaution and act perfectly to be able to trick someone like him. Wherever he goes tomorrow, we will follow. And I want you to be ready too. If we follow him and something happens, be ready for a fight at a moment's notice."

 **Present**

Ms. Clue and Jirou sprinted up the stairs of a four-story apartment building in Yutapu. Ms. Clue kept her target Locked-On despite having lost sight of him, and she said in a soft voice, "He's moving at the same pace. Not talking to anyone or saying anything."

The woman got to the roof and ran across it. Jirou gulped but forced herself not to hesitate and just leapt across the gap between buildings like Ms. Clue did. They took off their wigs, and Ms. Clue pulled out a green hood from under her clothes that she threw on top of her short pink hair. On top of the hood was a single word, one heroes shared and switched up each week privately without the public's knowledge. Flying heroes who flew overhead normally and spotted people on roofs where they shouldn't be would usually stop to say something or arrest them. Any hero to pass overhead now would take one look at the kanji symbol on the top of the green hood and then ignore the hero below clearly staying hidden intentionally.

Jirou's dark hair was tied into a ponytail behind her that did not fall as long as the wig she had taken off and stowed by tucking it into her belt under her skirt's loose waistband. She walked forward on top of a roof far enough from the edge that she could not be caught in eyesight of the man they were tracking. Her earphone jacks plugged into the ground after each few of her steps though, and she followed the sounds alone of the man's unique footsteps and breathing that were different from the noises the people around him made. "We don't even need to track him really," Jirou muttered while she and her pro continued slowly across another roof.

"And why not?" Ms. Clue wondered.

"I'm sure the government knows exactly where Zach is, right? He had to tell someone where he's staying-"

"We cannot be sure that this man's destination…" Jirou looked to her side and frowned at the more experienced pro starting to say something like that.

"We weren't _sure_ he was coming to Yutapu either," Jirou said in a low voice. "But what are the odds he came here for anything else, other than Zach?" She turned back forward and checked his location again for a second before pulling her jack out of the roof. "Either because they're working together, or maybe because he's one of the people hunting Zach down. Whatever it is, he's- he's whistling." Jirou stopped for a moment as she caught the man's voice as he started whistling on his way down the sidewalk.

Whistling drew some attention from people around him, but they quickly looked away from the man who was coming to notice that most people could not look directly at him for long. _Been so long since I've been around regular people. My face isn't the best for undercover assignments, and I have to wear all that foundation when I don't have my helmet on. Probably would have been better to have it here too, though without the scars they might recognize me from those other times. Haven't been arrested yet though, so I should be good._

Rodney Black walked in a route he did not need to check his phone for. He did not head straight to his destination though, but walked for over an hour around Yutapu before getting some lunch at a ramen shop. He spoke to the waitress in Japanese at first but switched to English since she understood it well and Black could not read any of the kanji on the Japanese menu. Afterwards he headed to a corner store a couple blocks down, then he walked through a few alleys before stopping and looking both ways after checking a street sign above him. He turned to the right and headed to the end of the block, turned the corner, then turned to the apartment complex there and started for the stairs to the second floor of it.

The two heroes following this man patiently crept forward on the roof of a building across the street that Black had just gotten off of. They were not directly across the street from the apartment complex therefore but still on a roof with a view of the outer hall between the railing and all the second floor doorways that Black started walking past. He headed down the hall until three doors from the end, apartment number 13, and the man checked the number with a nod then knocked on the door. "Is that it?" Ms. Clue whispered, watching from behind an air conditioning system on the roof of a building six stories taller than the one Black had arrived at.

"I don't… know," Jirou whispered, and her pro glanced to the side at her but did not say anything before looking back towards their target. The two of them kept almost completely hidden, and they were both listening as the door in front of Rodney Black opened up.

The eighteen year old who opened the door stepped into the doorway and stared at the man outside it with a look of surprise stuck on his face. It lasted another two seconds, then he questioned softly, "Blackstar? What are you, doing here? You shouldn't be here."

The man in front of Zach Sazaki took what he said lightly, shrugging his shoulders and stepping forward into Zach's doorway that the teen moved aside in. "I don't know what you're talking about."

Zach turned his head to the side and watched the man walk in with his lips lowering into a bit of a frown. He closed the door and let out a sigh, a sigh the two women following also heard even though they were now on the move again. They rushed to their right side and jumped to a building two stories lower than their own, and both women had to roll on the landing in a way not to hurt themselves. Jirou rushed towards the edge and crouched down behind a slight raise in the wall above the roof that made for good cover for her. Ms. Clue crouched down in front of her and the two faced each other while listening to a conversation still within their range.

"…Your Japanese is pretty good."

"LB told me it was perfect," Black replied, though his voice had an American accent in it and Zach rose his eyebrows wondering if what the man just said was true. "Good enough, perfect, same thing. Coming from her."

Zach grimaced but tilted his head to the side in acceptance there. _It is good, and there's no reason to cast doubt since the strict La Brava would not have held back on hurling insults at him._

"LB?" Jirou muttered under her breath. "La Brava," she said, looking into her pro's eyes and nodding with an assured look on her face that it had to be her.

Ms. Clue hesitated for a moment but nodded her head back at the younger girl. When Jirou looked back at the wall she had her earphone jacks plugged into though, Ms. Clue stared at the side of the girl's face with increased apprehension on her own. _This is bad. We're actually in the position to expose Lifebringer right here. I thought you would be more hesitant about this, but you look like you wanted this. If we find proof though, I'm to report it to Lemillion immediately. That means today, it could all-_ Ms. Clue looked back to her right and felt her nerves shake as music started to play inside Lifebringer's apartment.

"…New song from…"

"I listened to… on the plane…"

Jirou shook her head around and focused more, while Ms. Clue mentioned next to her, "Their voices are being drowned out by the music. I can't-"

"I'm separating them," Jirou countered, the music getting quieter even as she focused near the edge of her range. _I couldn't have done it from the last roof. Right here though!_ "I've got-"

"Did anyone follow you?" Zach asked it and Jirou held her breath.

Ms. Clue had her eyes closed and tried to focus as much as she could. She could see the inside of Zach Sazaki's apartment, and she could hear that music, and she saw her target looking at Sazaki's face. And she read Zach's lips and froze just like her sidekick. Then the two of them opened up their eyes huge, as Black replied, "Yeah, a couple heroes. Didn't see anyone else though."

A calm look formed on Ms. Clue's face quicker than on Jirou's. Her intern steadied her expression after a moment and refocused herself, as she lost her ability to listen in when she got surprised by Black's response. _He knew?! He didn't show any sign that whole time that he saw us. Alright, even if he knew, even if he knew! He doesn't know who we are. If he knew he wouldn't be speaking so freely. They must still-_

"Switch to Arabic," Zach said in Arabic to the man in front of him. _They could be listening in right now. Nothing we've said to each other should be evidence of anything. We're just acquaintances for all they know._

Zach walked over and rose the volume of the music playing on his laptop. Blackstar asked as he did, "How are you, Zach?"

"Good. What are you doing here?" Zach responded, the both of them speaking Arabic while standing next to his kitchen counter that his laptop was on playing loud music.

Jirou shook her head around in frustration as a headache was starting to come on and she was getting nothing. She looked to Ms. Clue in shock and anger and asked, "Do they know we're listening in?"

Ms. Clue clenched her eyes shut but was not getting an image of inside anymore, just hearing the two of them faintly under the music. She shook her head at the question, "It's unlikely they know we're listening, but I can't make out their voices. Even if I could, I can't tell what they were saying anyway." She frowned darker as she mentioned it, "I know six languages: Japanese, English, Chinese, Korean, Spanish, and Javanese. What they're speaking is not one of those."

Jirou grimaced deeper as she knew Ms. Clue spoke a lot of languages and was hoping that one was one of them. Ms. Clue narrowed her eyes and furled her lip, _It doesn't sound like French either, which is the one I'm currently working on._

"Sounds Arabic to me," Jirou said, and Ms. Clue looked at her in some surprise that she was not only able to separate the noises well enough to hear them clearly but that she was also able to identify the language. She paused at Ms. Clue's surprised but also hesitant look as she wanted to make sure Jirou was not just guessing. "I've watched the video of the Army of Death in Hatto more times than I can count. The translator shouting all that stuff after each time in English, it sounds like what he was yelling about, same as the rest of the people in that video."

"Hmm," Ms. Clue hummed and she stood up, revealing herself if someone were to look from the door outside Sazaki's apartment. Jirou stood up too after a moment as there was no point in hiding apparently, as the man they had been tracking knew they were there.

"Why are they doing that then, if they don't know we're listening?" Jirou wondered angrily.

"They're just being cautious," Ms. Clue replied. "In case of a wire tap or microphone in there they have the music louder than their voices. And in case Quirks were being used that could separate the sounds better and specify one of them," Ms. Clue looked to the girl next to her. "They speak a different language than one most Japanese heroes would know. And I agree, it does sound Arabic."

"Well, right after they left America they went to Saudi Arabia," Jirou responded in annoyance. "So I'm not surprised they picked some up."

Ms. Clue wanted to tell her not to make assumptions again, but she just frowned instead and said, "That may be true." She shook her head after a moment though and said, "But we don't have the proof of it."

"He went straight to Zach's!" Jirou exclaimed, then she hushed her voice as people may have heard that in the building below them or down on the street. "He even mentioned one of his accomplices from the Lifebringer Incident. It's so obvious!"

"Except, he did not act suspicious at all doing it," Ms. Clue countered. Jirou's eyes bulged that she would say that in his defense, but Ms. Clue continued, "He already had yen on him so he did not have to wait at the airport to exchange currency. He knew the route already, but despite Sazaki's apparent surprise to see him that could have been for our sake, which means Sazaki could have sent him his address himself to invite an acquaintance of his over. His passport was legal and had not expired when he came back out of the shadows, and for some reason the American government accepted those resignations and took their gear back without any further investigation as to what happened to Black's team." Jirou froze and she got a much more hesitant look on her face as Ms. Clue had not brought this up before.

"What, are you talking about?"

"What I'm saying is that it is likely the heroes there that day already told their superiors what really happened. The case file we received was likely missing a lot of details the heroes decided to leave out." Jirou's eyes grew wider, and Ms. Clue continued to the girl right in front of her as they stood at almost the same height, "The reason it has been nearly impossible for the ADTF to capture a single member of the Army of Death is because of how much cooperation their members have received from the authorities over the past two years. Even we are working with the deck stacked against us, because we don't know everything about how Black and his team resigned or why it was the American government allowed it so easily. Perhaps they did not want to make a bigger deal of it by declaring them as missing or AWOL in an already controversial program, and the resignations were their way out of accountability for those soldiers. Or maybe those soldiers understood the predicament their government was in and sent in the resignations afterwards to help out with that. Or maybe it's some other conspiracy, but Black did not admit to any illegal activity while we were surveilling him. He did not implicate Sazaki in any crime, let alone being a terrorist on the world's most-wanted list."

"But, but he was missing, and no one knows where he was. How did he show up in Turkey to get on that international flight? Couldn't we, figure out if he was in that country illegally? If he had not come in with proper means-"

"Then he could be arrested, and questioned," Ms. Clue admitted, and she spoke slower there which made Jirou's eyes open much wider that her idea was something people might not have thought about beforehand. "Though, it is likely they planned for us to think of this as well," Ms. Clue continued. "Likely, that they either had him enter Turkey through legal means, or they forged him papers-"

"If they forged papers though-"

"However," Ms. Clue continued sharply, cutting off the girl who got a flustered look on her face at the stern one Ms. Clue gave back to her. "Even if they planned on forging the papers, I figure they more than likely got those papers from a legitimate border entrance. Even if he should have been stopped or prevented from entering the country, I would bet that the person who forged the papers is legally allowed to give the papers out to people. In that case it may not have even been forged, just at the discretion of that border security agent."

"Wait. Wait, I don't, get what you're saying here."

"Authorities do _not_ interfere with the Army of Death," Ms. Clue said, looking intensely into Jirou's eyes in a way that had the girl pulling away from her pro. "We would face a wall of red tape investigating this in any direction outside of this country. All I could hope for was the chance that Black had checked a bag, because we could have put a tap on that before he got it out of baggage claim, but he had a single piece of baggage on him and never let it out of his sight. He showed up inside a country and paid for an international plane ticket despite not having worked in 18 months. He knew we were following him despite all our countermeasures to prevent him from finding out. This isn't just the training he received for Special Forces. I believe he _is_ Army of Death."

Ms. Clue stepped away from the ledge of the building, and she walked back to an air conditioner farther towards the middle of this roof. She leaned forward and put her hands down on it, and she closed her eyes for a second taking a deep breath in as she had too strong a feeling to ignore it just because of the lack of proof. _That kid is really, Death. She was right._ Ms. Clue turned her head and then leaned back and sat on the vent with a dark look on her face. "But we are heroes. We are not the Army of Death, and do you know what that means?" Jirou stepped towards the pro who looked so serious while saying this and yet frustrated at the same time. "That means we have to go through the proper procedures. It means that we don't get to just go down there and attack because we're almost certain of who they are. That's not how our justice works, that's how theirs works."

"What they do isn't justice," Jirou countered, stepping closer and looking down into her pro's eyes more now because of the way Ms. Clue was leaning back. "It's murder."

Ms. Clue's expression darkened more and she lost the frustrated expression on her face. "You're right. You are absolutely right. But what do you suggest? I want a mature response, not that we go down there and arrest them just because the two know each other."

Jirou hesitated, feeling slighted by that 'mature response' request like Jirou would have given an immature one otherwise. "He didn't avoid authorities," Ms. Clue continued to the girl who was taking too long to come up with anything. "He just went straight to Sazaki's place, because he knows it's legal for him to do so. He knows we have nothing on him."

"We could try to find-"

"That man is a ghost," Ms. Clue countered strongly. Jirou's eyes widened more though, because of the tone of resignation in Ms. Clue's voice. "Black disappeared and did not resurface once in over a year. Maybe he was AoD. Maybe, he just joined up with Sazaki and they acted as vigilantes somewhere else. Whatever they did together though, the two of us have no proof of Sazaki and Black doing anything _illegal_ together, and we won't find any proof illegally spying on their conversation." Ms. Clue grimaced more at what she called what they were doing, while Jirou got an uneasy look on her face wondering what that meant. _Being asked to do something like this, even from as high up an official as that…_ "Trailing a foreign national with no just cause is not inside our job description. There is no law to back up what we're doing-"

"It's just an investigation," Jirou started to counter.

"And when we investigate, we have rules," Ms. Clue replied with a shake of her head. "You know how difficult it is to get a warrant for a phone tap? A search warrant?"

"I know-"

"Then you know how difficult just _looking_ for proof of crimes is, and that's what we're doing here. We are just looking for that proof to give us the first step at looking for what they've done. Without that first step we don't have the right to do anything more. If we went to Turkey's officials, and if we asked them to get us in contact with whoever signed the papers or stamped Black's passport when he entered Turkey, they would ask us why we needed it." Ms. Clue paused and added, "We have deals and treaties with other countries that make it so our law enforcement agencies share as much information as possible, but for us to ask for it without having even a shred of proof to back up why we're doing it? Just that the guy knows Zach Sazaki?"

"That's, enough," Jirou said, her voice firm at the belief in that.

"Not for anyone else," Ms. Clue countered back, standing before her intern again and shaking her head at the girl. "And if I used that as my proof, their response would be an even faster 'no' than if I gave them no evidence at all."

"What do you-"

"I've gone down this road before, Earphone Jack. Tried to investigate a gang early last year that had international ties. Those international ties were all arrested during my investigation though, hindering my attempts at catching the affiliated gang here." Ms. Clue shook her head and said in a darker voice, "When I tried to find out more information about what had happened though, it quickly came to my attention that the foreign heroes who arrested them did not know how they had located the gangs and captured all their members. And when I asked they did not deny it, but they got _angry_ with me, each and every time, when I made my accusations and tried to convince them that they needed to give me something on the ones who had captured them. When I told them how they needed to expose what the AoD had done, when I told them that they needed to catch the AoD, they cut off communications with me rather than take my side."

Ms. Clue stared intensely into Jirou's shocked eyes, "And those were heroes. Not even the regular police, or border security, or regular people who all over the world don't say it but secretly love the Army of Death rather than just 'tolerate' them as we're all led to believe. Too many people have been saved by them. Too many people were brought back to life when Death visited their countries."

"But, they're terrorists-"

"Terrorists who don't leave any trace. And any trace they do leave behind? Everyone else either covers it up or ignores it, pushes it to the side where it remains and is waiting for someone who cares enough to take it."

"Like us," Jirou started.

"Yes," Ms. Clue replied. "But in order for us to get that proof that some of our contacts might have, they have to decide to go back on their original perspective that told them to just ignore it. The ones who covered it up will have to change their minds about what justice really is, and you and I can't change their minds without a genuine reason. The Army of Death is disappearing. Their incident numbers have gone down so much, and most people think that the majority of them are dead already. We have nothing. We will get nothing from anyone outside of Japan. We have some people who could help here, and we'll continue to track Black, but I can already see the result of this investigation based on what we've seen already. Because I've seen villains who use codes and hand signals, ones who cover up how they're committing crimes in a hundred different ways, and the way the two of them have us with our hands tied is better than any of the others before them. They could even be in there right now, talking about illegal activities they committed as Death, and it's like they're shoving it in our face how little we can do about it while constrained by the law."

Jirou's jaw dropped and she turned back around, staring off towards Zach's apartment wondering if that was really what they were doing. Ms. Clue spoke behind her, "Even if we could try and catch some of what they're saying over the music, and we could go get it translated afterwards correctly enough to _maybe_ implicate Sazaki in a crime, he could deny all of it. And once our methods were questioned, what could we say? That we heard some language we didn't understand, translated it, and he said something about once being Death? I'm sure they've even prepared for if one of us speaks Arabic, and they'll probably keep from saying anything particularly damning. They might switch up what language they're speaking after a little, and I might be able to pick up on some of it then, but if they do that then they're definitely being cautious enough not to mention anything of value to us."

"We are more sure that Sazaki is Death now," Ms. Clue said, and Jirou turned her head to look back at the pro with pained but wide eyes.

She shook her head back at Ms. Clue with her fists curling at her sides so tightly her nails dug into her palms, "I already knew Zach was Death from the day he stood on those palace walls in Hatto. What use is knowing?" Jirou asked it in anger, and she brought her fists up with her arms shaking and her eyes glaring down at them. "There's really nothing- RAa!" she swung her arms down with her fists opening up, her bared teeth parting and letting out that held breath of anger.

Inside Zach's apartment, Zach and Blackstar sat on stools in front of each other at the counter of Zach's kitchen but on the living room side of it. Blackstar had put the bag down he carried over from the corner store, and while he pulled out a six pack for himself he also got a cold hazelnut-flavored coffee box for Zach that the teenager took a sip out of and smiled at the taste of. "So," Blackstar continued in Arabic after putting down the first beer he popped open.

"You know, I think I know what it was," Zach started. "With your Japanese, you spoke in a pretty thick Kansai accent."

"Did I? I learned more from computer programs than from you Japanese guys. Y'all rarely spoke in Japanese anyway." Blackstar said while speaking Japanese again, but Zach grinned and nodded his head in confirmation at the sound of the accent again. "Huh, well I'm not great at any of this language learning stuff. Everyone trying to be so fluent like you, but I just need the minimum. Run. Jump. Get away." Blackstar changed languages with each phrase he said after saying that in Arabic which he switched back to for the base language of their conversation. "Arabic's my second best-"

"Which is why I picked it," Zach said, having already known that and smiling that at least that much had not changed. "I learned a lot of English from you and the guys while I was in America. Learning other languages once you have Chinese and English down, it's almost easy."

"Damn it, they're back to Arabic again," Jirou muttered under her breath after the English stopped which she could understand most of. Her and her pro continued to listen in to the two as they kept on with their investigation, though there was a darker mood over them right now as they knew that without a major slip-up they were not going to get anything by staying there.

"They may have started speaking different languages for a moment, especially with that talk of studies in foreign languages, just to give an excuse for why they are speaking Arabic other than to try and hide what they are talking about. Or maybe that is why they're speaking Arabic in the first place," Ms. Clue offered, though she sounded convinced otherwise and Jirou just grunted at the idea of it. _Oh he knows exactly what he's doing._

"You should work on your foreign language skills," Ms. Clue added. Jirou looked back and Ms. Clue turned to her, "Since your Quirk is very good for these kinds of operations, it is important to always understand your targets when they switch up their languages to keep you from listening in. I find myself regretting that I do not know more in this very moment…"

"…Dagon died a couple days after you left. Even though it was his second time already, D slowed us down a lot after that. We take a lot more precaution for most things we do now than we used to, but with EM, it just wasn't enough." Blackstar saw Zach nod, and he lowered his eyes down and grabbed his beer for a quick sip that Zach lifted his eyes up and frowned at the sight of. Blackstar knew Zach was already informed of Mark's death, but he continued darkly while looking down, "Drac's missing."

"Since when?"

"A while back. Mid-summer. He just disappeared, no warning or anything, he just vanished one day during a mission." Blackstar looked into Zach's eyes with a look full of dread on his face. Zach's worried expression flinched as he saw Blackstar already thinking the same thing, and Blackstar wondered in a low voice, "The same thing happened to Zombieman before Wampajawa, didn't it?" Zach nodded his head slowly, remembering that Blackstar had still been out for his foot injury at the time. Blackstar paused and muttered under his breath, "What happened to him could be…"

"Yeah," Zach said in just as dark and low a voice. "But, then again," he lifted his gaze and offered up a smile. "It could be Drac just went his own way, as I thought Zombieman did back then… Drac was much stronger than Zombieman though. He wouldn't have been captured very easily."

"That's what D said to everyone. Felt like he was just trying to put us at ease though," Blackstar said, and he leaned back on the stool and let out a sigh. "The corruption going on all over the world is as bad as it's ever been."

"Really?" Zach asked skeptically.

"About different things, less intensity I guess, but it's just rough out there. It never stops. In Mexico just the other day-"

"I heard about the lab on the water, and the stuff going on in Europe," Zach started, cutting Blackstar off. "And I appreciate that you came out here to tell me all this, but I didn't need this information. Any of that stuff." Blackstar frowned and he leaned back forward on the stool. Zach frowned deeper at the look that Blackstar had right there, and he continued, "I didn't need you to come, and I want you not to come back after this. None of the others either. No contact. I made it very clear that I was not returning, and that I have a new mission now."

"Darling's missing you know?" Blackstar mentioned. He looked into Zach's eyes and wondered, "Have you seen-"

Zach smiled much brighter and he nodded his head. "She's out now too," Zach said. Blackstar's eyes widened and Zach continued in a more upbeat way than a moment ago, "I saw her recently. And she's doing good, really good. Actually, she's better than she's ever been, and could you tell them that too? Tell D, that I did it." Zach smiled softer and said in a quieter voice, "He'll understand."

"Come back and tell him yourself," Blackstar replied.

Zach shook his head with his lips falling flat. Blackstar was surprised and happy to hear about Darling, and though also pretty confused he believed what Zach was saying. "I can't," Zach replied. "Now that I'm back there is no leaving again. I couldn't do that. I can't."

"Are you, really sure about that?" Blackstar wondered. "We all, wanted to know what you were planning when you left. We still want to know, and, we're all willing to help you if you ask for it."

Zach shook his head again and frowned in a more stern way at Blackstar, "I don't need your help. In fact, I need you _not_ to help me." Zach paused and he rose a hand to his forehead and rubbed it over it feeling tired but not wanting to get frustrated here. He explained as he lowered his hand out in front of him, "I created the organization, I left it in a state where I believe it will sustain itself in its best form, but there are things I can do now only as Lifebringer."

"It's not in its best form, not without you," Blackstar countered softly, but not giving up on his side of the argument that easily.

"Really?" Zach wondered. "Because this is what I remember from my last mission. Amaterasu? Mark found her, and I rushed in alone and got caught. G created a good plan and got our whole force to surround her, after finding her only two days after she had gone back into hiding." Blackstar opened his mouth to counter, but Zach continued faster, "I let my guard down and got sent into the Void for almost 3 months, while Darling's the one who took her down. I didn't do anything to stop her."

"You're being too hard on yourself," Blackstar said, his voice low and stern back at the younger man who just said all that.

Zach shook his head back at the American though. He looked down for a second and said, "I had already decided in the Void to be done, but when I came out I was made certain of that decision. I saw that even without me the others could handle everything."

Blackstar's expression darkened more and though he hesitated, he said it in a low voice, "And what about Mark? It was, it was still his first life. And things might have been different… I'm sorry." Blackstar apologized because of the sad and hurt look over Zach's face, but his own expression lowered down and he reached for his drink only to stop as Zach's hand reached out first.

Zach grabbed the beer and slid it away from Blackstar's hand, "Don't do that. Not… Not in grief."

Blackstar lowered his hand down and he nodded at the kid whose eyes were lowered down as he said that to him. "Alright," Blackstar replied. _Not in front of you, at least._ "I just, I can't get used to it. I haven't stopped in so long that D finally told me to take a break."

"That's good," Zach replied, lifting his lips into a smile and raising his head with a laugh. "And this is what you decided to do with your break? Try to come recruit me? Talk about a working vacation."

Blackstar laughed, and he laughed some more as Zach chuckled along with him. _I don't remember him making a joke in the months leading up to him leaving. Any that he made were so dry too, and dark._ Blackstar started smiling a little more genuinely and let out a long sigh as he gave up on his initial plan. "Well, this wasn't my first stop. I headed to LC first. Visited- oh! Yeah forgot that was after you left too."

"What was?" Zach wondered.

"Not long after you were gone, Icefall told everyone she was retiring. Turns out she got pregnant. Decided to spend her retirement in LC since there was nothing waiting for her back home. Then, Michael quit too to help her raise their kid." Zach grinned and he let out a laugh, and Blackstar smirked too and added, "She told him he didn't have to, but he wasn't having any of it and followed her out. I think she was actually glad he chose to stay with her."

 _I'm glad he got out,_ Zach thought, imagining a face in his mind that made his smile lower down in an instant. Michael's face in front of him, when that man asked him to be done, appeared so vividly in his mind. Right after the Battle of the 6 Armies, before they knew what the state of the world was, _Or before we capitalized on the battle, to create the new state of the world. Do I really believe that? I couldn't have done that in a couple months- I did so much more, in less time-_

"She just had the kids too, they were a little early," Blackstar explained as Zach's eyes widened at the sound of that. "But that was to be expected, considering they had twins. It's usually a bit early-"

"Twins?" Zach asked in amazement, his lips curling back up in a happy way again. "That's… that's awesome."

Blackstar nodded and his own smile lowered down though as he saw Zach's face here. "Things are different now," he said in a low voice. Blackstar and Zach locked eyes, and the older man said in a soft tone, "I don't know if you needed time, or if you've gotten it now… There's a place for you with us though."

"And there's… a life here for me, that I'm trying to make work," Zach countered with a soft shake of his head. "Most people we knew," he started to Blackstar. "They came to me with nothing, or I came to them when they had nothing. Their families were dead and they were at the ends of their ropes so they chose me to follow. But, as much as the others think the same was for me, I _did_ have a lot I left behind. And I somehow survived long enough that I was able to go back and try and right the wrongs I committed to the people I left here."

Blackstar frowned and he shifted his eyes to the side in an upset way. "Well I'm going to keep fighting," he said indignantly, though his expression darkened as he thought about a couple of the people he may have left behind in America. _No way I could face Skater's family. Tama's…_

Zach nodded at Blackstar after he said that though. He could see why Blackstar felt defensive there as what he had just been saying made it sound like he was telling him he did not need to stay. "Thank you for doing that," Zach whispered. "Because I couldn't," he said it and his voice nearly cracked, and Blackstar looked back sadly for what he had just said in that tone and also just hearing that voice coming from the man in front of him who was the strongest person he knew. Zach's face did not look all that strong now though, and he said softly, "The Void changed me. I wasn't the same man who went in when I came out, and I couldn't lead you anymore. I- couldn't be the one you needed anymore, but I could be something else."

Blackstar kept staring into Zach's eyes for several seconds after Zach stopped, and then he gave the kid a small and relieved grin. "Huh," Blackstar sat up and he let out a sigh that lasted a few seconds. _I always wanted an explanation. For more than 7 months I've needed this so much. How you could just leave us like that… I get it. I get why, you didn't just tell us all back then too. Because we left you in there for three months by not getting to you sooner. That was on us, and so I've got nothing to say about you coming back. I can't say anything._ "I get it," Blackstar said aloud. "I really, get it. I'll let them all know that you're out now for good." Zach smiled, and Blackstar continued to him with more a smile on his own face too, "We all have that option, thanks to you. Because that's the way _you_ made us."

Zach sighed and he nodded, _I never thought I'd be using that provision myself. Never even considered it, when I decided anyone could leave at any time._

"So how have things been here recently?" Blackstar wondered, reaching for his beer which Zach smiled and slid back to him across the counter. Blackstar grinned and he drank more but in a better mood as Zach started telling him how things had been going for him. "People know?" Blackstar asked, nearly spitting out his beer and having to reach up and wipe his lips as some did spill out there.

"7 people know now," Zach replied. "But I'm dealing with it. Walking the line between them trying to toss me back in prison, and them understanding what I was trying to do and why they can't do that. My biggest issue is with Deku, my friend who caught Hyper that one time," Zach specified and made Blackstar crack a small smile at the thought of the guy he had not known well but liked from their time together. "We're working things out though. It'll take me a while, and I don't really know how things will go but…"

Blackstar cracked another beer and started laughing before getting serious again, then he laughed some more as Zach recounted some of his last weeks to his old friend. "Sounds like the licensing exam was pretty tough- ha, haha, bet Best Jeanist wasn't expecting to be shut out like that."

"I did have a good fight though while I was there. This team of U.A. students really made me sweat."

"Really?"

"More than anyone else at least." Zach retracted part of his last statement with that provision that made Blackstar laugh again. "Wasn't as good a fight as the Subspace Devils though, I'll tell you that. Actually strained myself a bit there."

"I could tell," Blackstar replied. "Kept saying we should come help you, but D and E were convinced you'd be fine."

"I had it under control the whole time," Zach replied, losing his smile a little at the 'I could tell' response. "It all just depended on how much I wanted to show everyone. I don't want everyone to know how strong I am, and I don't want them to think of me as powerful as I am. The smiling persona I've got in public has made people start looking past the scars, but it's hard to keep people believing that look after they've seen you as a dark demon taking on hundreds of villains at once."

Blackstar nodded like he got what Zach was saying, but after a couple seconds he just stopped and admitted, "That's pretty rough. Being a hero sounds hard," he told the teen who was surprised at Blackstar's response to what he said. "Keeping all those secrets, smiling constantly in public, fighting villains, media sightings-"

"Not to mention hunting down the League," Zach added. "Which I have been working on, quietly. And school! I need to graduate, and write this report I've been working on for a while now." Blackstar nodded his head but rolled his eyes with a sarcastic smirk as he felt like Zach must have been saying it sarcastically too. "Oh yeah, and I got sick last weekend. Totally wiped me out. I'm out in the open getting attacked by Eziano every other week. Don't know every time I buy food at a store or restaurant if it'll be poisoned. Can't tell if the people around me are going to get targeted because I'm here as much as I imagine they're safe. My friends don't believe a thing I say to them, and most of the ones who did know I was lying to them too now so that's a step in a right direction." He said the last part actually sarcastically this time, though Blackstar was no longer smirking back at the younger man in front of him.

He had been serious about it a minute ago when he said it sounded hard. _He's doing, more? No way. Except,_ Blackstar turned his head and grabbed the bottle next to him while letting out an exhausted sigh like he was sympathizing with Zach who nodded and asked, "Right?" Blackstar did not want Zach to see how serious he was about that sympathy towards him though, _Even though he left, he's doing more than he ever did. At least before, he had all of us to split up the work, but now he's trying to do everything on his own._

"You're, I think you're taking on too much at once," Blackstar started. _Not that if someone could handle something like this, it wouldn't be you…_ Blackstar shook that thought off and continued to the boy shaking his head like it was not that bad. "I don't know how you have enough time in the day for all of that. You moved around fast before, but you had all of us to help you. Going at this alone… You won't be able to keep it up."

"Nah, I've… I've got a handle on it," Zach said, though he grabbed his coffee and took a slow sip with his eyes looking down at it in an oddly calm way he questioned himself. _I don't sleep too much so time shouldn't be a problem. Sleeping a little more again though, after I got sick._ "I have the time, it's just I've been working through some stuff lately that's been keeping me more occupied than usual. The rest of that stuff always packed my schedule, but now adding all this thinking and self-reflection on as well? Geez-"

"Self-reflecting?"

"Like that stuff about the Void, why I left, how you guys are fine without me," Zach explained with a wave of his hand. "Stuff I just worked through, that I hadn't really thought about beforehand. It takes up a lot of time."

"But you're doing alright?" Blackstar asked again, as it was starting to sound more to him like he wasn't.

"Better, every day," Zach replied with a small smile back that put his old friend at ease. "You know who else came to visit me not too long ago?" He asked, changing the subject and grinning bigger as Blackstar looked to him and shook his head as he did not know. "Dover. He came here _while_ I had friends from Class A over."

"They believe that he was a person-"

"They did, until we gave it away," Zach admitted with a scratch of the back of his head. "But I was wondering if you heard anything about him actually? He said he was going on a trip to travel the world, discover himself, and I just hope he's still going for it- Ah, and when you were in LC, did you see-"

"Oh yeah. Should have been more careful. Mentioned I was coming to see you when I saw Michael and Icefall, and I swear she must have heard me across the city she came running so fast to beg to come along…"

* * *

 **A/N Thanks for reading! This chapter we get a lot of background for some of Zach's first AoD comrades, a team of six I never really got into too much on what their backgrounds were. Blackstar, Skater, Tama, Grabble, Hummingbird, and Aces were all Army of Death members in this story. In case you forgot, Aces and Hummingbird were killed back in the mission that Gentle led back when Zach and Darling were on their own in America, leading to Zach deciding not to let anyone fight anymore without him there. Anyway, we also get a flashback through Blackstar's dream to what the Battle of the 6 Armies was like for one of the AoD on the ground that day. Blackstar died during that battle (and lost a lot of his left arm too), but he also helped win the day for the AoD. Jirou and Ms. Clue track Blackstar down under orders from a higher up Japanese hero official, but Blackstar notices them and he and Zach speak in Arabic with music blasting over them (much to the annoyance of Jirou). And Blackstar tries to convince Zach to come back, but Zach's dug in on his position of not leaving, and he's sticking with it... I hope you guys enjoyed the chapter! Leave a review below telling me what you think, comments, predictions, or questions for the story ahead!**

grimXblade chapter 183 . Sep 28

The clouds darkened and the sun disappeared. Yes the coming storm will bring chaos and madness...I better not miss a damn thing.  
XXXX  
I don't know why I wrote that, but I really didn't know how to explain the chills and hype PULSING inside of me right now.  
This famficton is in my Third favorite piece of modern literature. THANK YOU!

 **XD This comment might have been more ominous than what happened last chapter itself, but it actually kind of works with the flashback this chapter too! Glad I've got you hyped, and wonder what those 2 fav pieces of modern literature are? Thanks for the review and hope you enjoyed the new chapter!**

alexanderjuarez499 chapter 183 . Sep 28

Who was the woman who was with Dabi, was she a geten? Since she has white hair, other than that the liberation army joined Shigaraki as in the manga? since I would like to see Re-destro in this bone story they had an army of 100,000 soldiers.

 **No spoilers for who that woman was, but I will saw I don't really know about the Liberation Army right now. Would like to see some feedback from you guys and what you think I should do about them. I had the end of Death planned out for a while, and though I am able and trying to incorporate as much from ongoing manga chapters as I can, the whole Liberation Army arc kind of started and ended after I already set up for the final few dozen chapters. I added in Gigantomachia last chapter, as well as Daruma Ujiko a bunch of chapters back when Midoriya went to visit the doctor in Tartaros. I was hoping to include Dabi's real backstory in this too in the chapters of Zach and Todoroki working things out, but that arc came to an end without them going into Dabi's background like they did everyone else's :( So I wound up just keeping it vague and having Zach explain it to Todoroki at the end of the chapter trailing off so we know Zach's told Todoroki, but we haven't heard it ourselves. I've made some assumptions as to the backstory that I hope do work out, but I won't be backtracking on them if I turn out wrong, it'll just be AU around that. As for Liberation Army though, their whole 100,000 villains getting wrecked even though they all trained their Quirks apparently seemed so weird to me (I mean, Twice and Shigaraki had nice hack power-ups to help them out), but that "Army" got messed up really easily. What I think ultimately, is that at the end of the day things have already started changing in the Death timeline of the BNHA world towards the use of Quirks more freely with the Lifebringer Law and changed happening in other countries, that it would be unlikely for the Liberation Army to get as strong as it did or maybe a lot of its members realized that they did not need to do anything big for things to change. Some of its top members could show up as they might still want to change things even more radically, but as Shigaraki said last chapter "...And now we are ten thousand strong..." so as that shows there aren't 100,000 Liberation Army members in their ranks. Maybe the Liberation Army got weaker and Re-Destro was approached by Shigaraki/Raijin to join them in their plan which he agreed with because he saw the trend of how so many people were leaving his army and just going along with Lifebringer's Law and society's plan? Or maybe the League of Villains made them submit? Or maybe there needs to be an arc showing what happened with them completely? I kind of rambled here a bit, but if you guys all read this response let me know which of those options sounds best to you. I still haven't really decided so I don't think of this spitballing as a spoiler or anything, but yeah, let me know what you think! Thanks for the review Alex!**

Incarnus chapter 183 . Sep 28

If the hero side really doesn't have any preparations against the coming LoV strike AGAIN, I'll be pretty disappointed. That would be "Dany kind of forgot about the Iron Fleet" levels of stupid. At least Zack remembers. Hope he actually does something to counter them also.

 **Well the heroes are all staying vigilant against the villains of the country, though Zach does seem more focused on the League than other heroes are (which we see this chapter that he tells Blackstar he has been investigating them). Though we've also seen the U.A. students treating the LoV as more of a threat than everyone else too, so it's not just Zach preparing to face them. Thanks for reviewing, and hope you enjoyed the new chapter!**

Aar0nC0le chapter 183 . Sep 28

Ohhh fuck. Shits about to go down. This kinda gave me chills tbh, just thinking about how wild shit is about to get. Also? I appreciate how quickly you update dude. Love that and love this fic and everything about it. ;) -Aaron

 **Glad I got you guys so hyped on that last chapter! And I love posting this fast too, so I'm glad you guys like all the rapid updates! Another 22k chapter in after another 2 days, so keeping up a good streak here! Thanks again everyone for the reviews, and hope you all enjoyed the chapter!**


	185. Chapter 185

**Disclaimer: I don't own Boku no Hero Academia**

 **Chapter 185:**

 **Sicily, Italy**

"Crap. Five got past us. They're speeding off way too fast too, Delta Squad can't keep up."

"Stay on them Fillian. Don't give them any time to breathe."

Death sprinted to the edge of the highest point on the cliffs overlooking the Mediterranean. Down from the highest cliffs started more gradual slopes, with buildings built straight into the sides of the steep Italian coastline. The town was one of the most beautiful in Sicily and attracted a lot of tourists, which could be seen by the two large and expensive-to-stay-at hotels down the cliffs more to the east of the town of Cazzitanno. Death ran to the top of the highest point in Cazzitanno and leapt right off, down onto the roof of a church built up higher than most of the rest of the town. He landed with his legs curling forward so he fell into a roll and popped right out of it in a sprint across that roof before jumping off, after the three people just ahead of him who used their jetpacks to fly ahead farther after jumping off the edge of the church themselves.

"He's right behind us!"

"Holy shit!"

"Keep running!" An Italian villain yelled it at the others with him, only for another voice to counter back much louder.

"Hold them there!"

"Are you crazy-"

"Do it!"

"Death, slow down a little."

"You're between their forces now. Alpha's too far behind you," La Brava warned over comms.

Death dropped down on a tiled-rooftop connected to a line of buildings wrapping around a gradual hillside road that villains started running along instead of going straight towards the shore. "They're conserving some of the energy in those packs of theirs," Death informed his comrades. "It's not an unlimited energy source. It is high-tech though."

"All their weapons are too!" A high-pitched voice called to Death in agreement. "We should take it all!"

"Focus on taking them down first," a deeper voice countered, and the man who said it jumped down to the top of the church after another two villains he was chasing himself. "Alpha leader coming up behind you Death. Don't worry about the guys at your back."

"You're too far ahead Mark!"

"You're the ones falling behind," Mark countered at his own squad members who were too far behind him. Two others in Alpha Squad landed on the roof behind him and ran to the spot Mark was leaping off from, raising his arms and whipping them in front of him with flicks of his wrists.

"Don't let them hit you with those weapons!" Rebel warned in a loud voice over their open channel. Mark swept the whips of water out ahead of him and grabbed the plasma cannons that glowed bright green a moment before he got them and pointed them up into the air. Huge bursts of green light fired into the air, and the two villains trying to hold onto their weapons were flipped around in midair right before landing on a rooftop. Mark forced them to botch the landing, then the water whips dropped the weapons on the roof and shot towards the villains' opened mouths instead that they flew inside to choke them out through drowning.

"Whoa! Damn that was close! Haha, I barely dodged-" Rebel cut off Hyper's comms from the open channel after he dodged a green explosion back in the woods on the other side of the cliffs as Cazzitanno.

"Have eyes on Source," Darling reported in, rushing forwards faster now with jets opening up on her shoulder-blades that stuck out of holes pre-made in her costume. "He's heavily guarded by at least a dozen of them, but I'm going in!"

"Someone get up on Darling-"

"Right behind her," Gentle assured La Brava who started calling that out in annoyance.

"They're heading for the sea!"

"Don't let them escape! We catch all of them right here, and we get all that tech for ourselves," Access called out from the bridge of the Cloak flying high up above in the dark clouds over southern Sicily.

Death jumped to his right, off the roof of a building right before a villain was about to fire the green cannons attached to his wrists. The villain moved his arms as Zach dodged too early, but that was on purpose as Zach did not want the missed shots to hit the roof he was on. Instead he forced Death out of his right side and then from his left to push him around in the air and dodge the first green blast fired from the villain's right wrist and then the second fired from the left that the man aimed to where Zach was dodging into. Death then formed wings out of his back that he flapped while pushing his body forward to be horizontal to the ground, angled actually since the ground level was on a steady decline.

Zach sped back to the top of the roofs and he swung his legs up from behind him to drop-kick into the chest of the villain with wrist-cannons who tried to activate his Quirk at the last second but got knocked out first by the darkness on the soles of Zach's dark boots planting firmly into his ribs. Zach kicked the villain across the roof he landed on in the next second and dragged up a half dozen tiles with his boots upon landing, though he broke even more with how hard the villain rolled across the roof.

Death turned his head to the right and watched across the west side of the town as Darling and Gentle both dropped down on a roof even lower down in elevation as him and fought against two villains each who stayed behind to fight them. A wolf made of water dove down at a villain firing a fire Quirk up more in the middle of the town between Zach and Darling, and that villain let out a screamed curse in Italian right before the wolf that put out his flames completely swept through him and knocked him off the roof he was stepping back on.

Zach turned his head and looked more down in elevation to where he spotted a villain Darling was chasing after who had the biggest posse protecting him. In his comms he heard some more of his soldiers fighting a few of the villains he had run straight past behind him in order to catch up with Source, and he started sprinting across the roof again before jumping off and across the street to another rooftop lower down he landed on hard. He bent his legs on the landing and then fired Death out the back of his calves while sprinting up and then down the other side of the roof to leap off that one too and even farther down the town.

"We just need to get to the emergency escape ships before they catch up!" Whiplash yelled behind him for the rest of his men. He looked to the left side and the right side of his group and nodded at specific members who hesitated but then both nodded back at him and dropped off the rooftops ahead of the group Source was with.

On the Cloak of the Army of Death, Raylei typed into her keyboard faster than all the others around her. The two drones she was controlling that flew down over the town of Cazzitanno focused on their primary target of the mission who looked back again and yelled at the man around him with a look of fury on his face. She spoke only to the others on the bridge instead of the open channel, "These are the most technologically advanced villains we've fought so far."

Exodus stepped up behind her and looked down at the three screens Raylei had data up on as she worked support. Two of the screens had on her drones' cameras, and they were analyzing the tech they zoomed in on that each of the villains had equipped. "Their armor. Those jetpacks," she listed off with a grin on her face too under her intense expression.

"The plasma cannons are reading with the same energy source as Source's Plasma," Rebel said, also listening in to the bridge even without Raylei speaking on comms. "Had facial recognition working on Source after one of my drones got a good look at his face, he's an Indian man by the name of Vihaan Shah." Rebel had his voice going through the open channel as he went on, "His arms aren't just equipped with similar weapons like the rest who we know the villain by the name of Source has been supplying. He actually has these huge-ass plasma cannons in his arms, but also up near his shoulders are the vats that hold the energy he fires from them, and he doesn't need to fire that energy out in blasts. He can take it out and use it for other stuff, like making all those weapons."

Everyone chasing Whiplash's gang across southern Sicily listened closely to Rebel as he reported this all in quickly to them. The fact that Source was Indian had been unknown to them beforehand, and the rest of the villains in Whiplash's gang seemed Italian by their current knowledge. Rebel continued as he hacked into Indian governmental databases that had information on Shah, and his eyes darted around his screens reading all the information that he had to put back out in a more condensed form that only had the essentials in it. " _Doctor_ Shah's got a record. The first time he was caught he had a giant experimental lab testing all the ways to use his arms as energy. He was arrested for the experiments he was doing, but when the data on his research was discovered he went missing from his cell. Just found him in the records for the government research lab we destroyed in Pakistan. He started working with the scientists after explaining how only he knew how his energy worked, and he convinced them he was on their side building his weapons for them to use against villains, creating energy sources so they could get ahead of their rivals in the region. After helping them though, Source got turned on by those scientists who just shoved him back into his cage so they could keep draining him sporadically of his Plasma. Seems like Source thought something like that might happen though, and he got his revenge on the scientists when he escaped."

Rebel smirked as he continued, enjoying the revenge he was figuring out, "He left his prototypes there, but they would only work with his Plasma anyway, which is why you found those weapons that couldn't be used down in that lab's storage."

Zach narrowed his eyes while running across another rooftop and leaping off. He glared down the town towards the edge of it where the water started to make a lot of splashing in three different locations. Things were rising up from below the surface, and he could see a faint green glow getting brighter out there where the villains were getting close to reaching. "I understand what turned Shah into a villain, but he's long past that now." The data coming up on his own visor that Rebel was sending him made him continue to his soldiers, "Source is wanted for multiple murders after getting away too. He joined this gang of weapons' techs and thieves, and they travel the world stealing top-notch scientific inventions to assist build their weapons. Those recent hits on Cambryo and Abdullah Inc.'s container ships were linked back to Whiplash, and Source used the tech from those companies to advance his weapons even more. We stop them here before they get these new weapons out to villains across the world. Understood?"

"Understood, Commander!"

Darling was one of those who shouted it out, and she sprinted forward faster across a roof farther down in Cazzitanno than any of her comrades. She leapt up in the air and her body did a three-sixty spin with the jets firing solely out of the right side of her back for a moment. While her back was turned her arms turned into rifles, and by the time she was facing forward again she had her arms up and aimed at the men pointing their plasma cannons back at her.

"The ones farther up are better armed," Access warned, as a drone he was flying forward and watching from high above was zoomed on the villains farthest up with Source and Whiplash. "These guys are going to be stronger too."

"I've got it-" Darling's head shifted a bit to the right, her eyes darting over as she spotted something down on the ground level popping out of a dark alleyway. The town was not very lit up, and at ten at night in the middle of the winter there was low visibility of what was coming from behind her. "Gentle."

"On this side too," Gentle said back. He moved away from the edge for the middle of the roof and sprinted forward faster.

Green beams fired up from the ground level, and Darling and Gentle both jumped up as beams hit the rooftops behind them. They dropped down on the next roofs and kept chasing after the rest of the villains who jetpacked away or flew up in the air, some of them using their Quirks to speed up while others' legs just started glowing green and sped up with their specialized gear. The two villains chasing after Gentle and Darling both flew back up in the air and landed on the rooftops behind them, chasing the two Army of Death members who could not stop to fight them or they would risk letting the rest of the gang escape in the meantime. The two of them had to serpentine across the roofs though as beams of green plasma shot towards them and blew up tiles and chimneys they swerved around behind for some cover.

Bricks flew out of a chimney blowing up in a green explosion and slammed into Gentle's back right as he was jumping up. He heard the explosion at his back though and Elasticized his own back right before the bricks hit him, bouncing them backwards at the villains who swung his thick right arm in front of him and bashed aside all the bricks flying near bricks shattered and the man pointed the green rifle in his left arm back forward to fire again near where Gentle was landing.

Gentle focused on his feet and got ready to Elasticize the ground as soon as he touched, but the green explosion hit the ground first and he had nothing to bounce on. He fell through the hole in the roof and into the floor below on his knees and elbows. He cursed under his breath, then he snapped up to his feet and spun around with his right hand swinging behind him and his left to the couch on the side of the room a man just pulled his legs up on with a panicked look on his face. That old man exclaimed in even more panic as the wall to his left exploded inwards, only for all the debris that should have flown into him to bounce backwards into the second man who landed on his floor. That debris knocked the man back outside the building, and Gentle turned to his side for a moment and tipped his black helmet to the elderly Italian gentleman. "Mi scusi."

Darling leapt up in the air and she spun around in a one-eighty with her arms snapping together into a single longer rifle than the other two she had just been firing after the other villains. While running across rooftops with her arms shaking she was unable to hit any of them in the spots she desired, barely missing several times. Up in the air though she steadied herself and fired, straight into the cannon the man chasing after her two roofs back was aiming in her direction but about to miss again from what she could tell of its angle. Her sniper rifle shot did not miss though, blowing through the barrel of the plasma cannon and out its other side, and through that man's left bicep and out the back of his tricep too.

"AHHHhh-"

Gentle leapt through the window on the opposite side of the man's house he crashed through a few seconds ago, and he kicked his legs down on nothing and bounced off the air before hitting the street where a villain was waiting and slashing sharp arm-blades at his supposed landing spot. Gentle kicking off the air like that was not what the villain expected, but he did manage to jump backwards and dodge the dart Gentle tried to fire down into his neck while flipping above. The man sliced his arms up next, but Gentle's whole body covered in Elasta-Armor and bounced the man's sharpened arms back so the guy had to swing his arms out to the sides to avoid cutting himself in the face. This time, he could not dodge the second dart Gentle fired as he was mid-stumble back with his arms stretched out to the sides, and Gentle hit the villain who had been waiting for him in the chest with the dart.

Danjuro Tobita landed and then lifted his head and saw two men in all-black armor to his left jump farther down through the town. "They're nearing the sea!" Mark called out.

"You guys are so far up!"

"We can't let them get to those ships!"

"Sending down the J-20 on auto-pilot," La Brava yelled out. "Just in case they reach their ships in time."

"Bringing the drones out over the water. I'm guessing those ships are much faster than we can follow, but we'll get as far out first so as to track them long as possible-"

"Don't just assume we won't catch them in time!"

"But do it anyway," Zach countered Darling who was still farthest ahead and now coming up on the biggest group with Source down near the coastline but still over a hundred meters out. She was nearing the main square of the town on the elevation the flattened out the most, and where there were actually still a lot of Cazzitanno civilians out tonight. "Darling! Keeping civilians safe is the priority," Zach ordered over comms, lowering his voice after calling out her name as he did not want any villains who could possibly hear him to hear what he just said.

"I know," Darling replied back even softer. She jumped onto the two-story rooftop ahead of her just one block from the square, and from the group of fifteen villains who leapt off the final rooftop ahead of her and over the square or down into it. "I'm not far enough forward!" Darling yelled.

"On it!" Rebel called back, typing into his keyboard faster. He redirected most of the drones in the area down to the square the villains just entered heavily armed and with the potential to take hostages.

"AHHH!"

"Eeee!"

"Catso!"

"Che cosa?!"

"Vedi!"

"You may be strong, Army of Death!" a man yelled back to Darling. He was wearing dark green armor that glowed on his forearms, shoulders, and knees after he stopped and turned to face her. He had on a dark green helmet too with a visor that started to glow brighter and brighter green right before the glass dropped to show inside the helmet was just a bright green glow Darling only just then realized was a different shade from the rest of the Plasma gear the man had on him. A bright beam of green fired out of his face and Darling dove to the right, firing flames out of her feet that turned into jets at that last second to get her far enough from the explosion that blew apart the brick ground of the square that had over fifty Sicilians in it.

"Quirks are powerful, but technology will advance faster than Quirks evolve!" Source bellowed, his voice coming through speakers back at the Army of Death who were not keeping up with him and the others in his group whose technology was better than anyone else's. "We will be the most powerful!" Source pointed his arms backwards, and his shoulders full of vats of Plasma glowed bright while his cannon arms opened up at the ends. "NOW TASTE PLASMA!"

Two drones flew down and into the paths of the two huge burst of plasma fired into the square. The drones exploded in huge fireballs that were less red than bright green and then black from the smoke. Death shot through the explosion and he rose up his arms with a pair of dark black spheres swirling around over them. The villains looking towards the explosions in shock opened their eyes even wider and then ran faster or steadied themselves to fight as Death was already upon them.

"Morte!"

"È Morte!"

"It's Death!"

Gentle bounced up over the central town square, but he lowed his head and called down to Darling who was sprinting across it. "At your back."

Darling turned her head and then spun and shot a grappling hook towards a statue on the west side of the square where some people were hiding. "Get away from here!" Darling yelled at them in Italian, right before a wall blew up to her right in a green blast. She spun towards it and rose her right arm while the civilians ran, but a fireball came flying out of the green blast and straight at her faster than she could dodge.

"Got you!" Rebel shouted at the very last second, bringing a drone in front of the fireball that exploded and sent Darling blasting back into the side of the statue. The fireball was stopped there but the explosion was still enough to knock her down after she hit the memorial. "He's running at you," Rebel called out directly to the girl he linked comms with.

Darling stood up and ran forward into the smoke of the explosion even as her teeth bared, clenched in pain. She turned her arms into a big steel club and swung them around the side of her body up into the front of the man running forward whose body armor glowed too brightly green, not that she wasn't able to see him anyway with the thermal vision turned on in her helmet as soon as she entered the smoke. She slammed the villain out of the smoke, but his armor took the brunt of the hit so he fell to the ground and just did a barrel-roll away from Darling before flipping to his feet again and raising his right hand. Over his palm swirled another ball of fire, and he rose his left arm that had twin cannons of green attached to his wrist he aimed at the girl running out of the smoke after him.

Rubble on the man's left side shook and made his eyes dart over before he fired at the girl in front of him. His head started to turn that way right as Darling's did…

"Slash! Fireball!" A villain farther south in the square yelled at Death, and his Quirk: Yell, created the slash and the fireball he called out that flew straight at Death almost too fast for him to dodge in midair just with bursts of Death flying out to either side. The fireball he barely dodged expanded and hit him though as the villain who sent it at him screamed, "FIREBALL EXPAND!"

Zach crossed his arms while twisting his body to face the attack, surrounding himself in more Death to try and protect from the explosion that hit him. As the flames surrounded him though, water smashed into his other side and then wrapped around his front and protected him. "Thanks," Zach said while falling out of the water and the flames, ignoring the burns he still felt on his right forearm. Mark ran up to Zach's left side and then alongside him as they both headed south, chasing after the villain who yelled out obstacles behind him to get in Zach and Mark's way.

"They're getting too close to the sea," Mark warned Zach, while they left Darling and Gentle behind still facing four other villains back in that square.

"Whiplash is already on one of the ships. They're going to get away if you can't catch them in the next thirty seconds!"

"Drop that ship right in front of us," Zach ordered. "Mark, with me," Zach leapt up to his left and onto a veranda on its sturdiest point so he would not break through. He used it as a stepping point to get him up on a balcony on the road leading down to the rocky beach, and Zach ran across the railing of that balcony then leapt to the roof of a beachside restaurant that a ship just lowered down at the edge of. Mark dropped down on the roof next to him and rolled forward, and the two of them ran for their J-20 jet, right as two other ships rose off the surface of the water and shot forward with green lights coming out the backs of them. "Knew it," Zach muttered, frustrated at how fast those ships were moving with Source's Plasma supporting their tech.

Back in the square, Darling looked to her right side with her eyes bulged behind her visor. The man who was about to attack her with green pulses and a fireball had just been slammed over twenty feet away by a giant rock fist. It was not the huge golem that ran after where that villain rolled though that had Darling staring in shock, but the teenage girl covering in rock armor who stood at the edge of the square next to an old man pointing glowing red hands forward who amazed her so much. "Help the Army of Death!" The old man yelled, and scared Italians around the square looked towards the pair who just saved that Army of Death member with their Quirks. Red lines shot through the cracks between the bricks covering the ground of the square, all the way towards another villain who had yelled at another of his comrades about taking civilians hostage a second ago.

"Yeah!"

"Get them!"

"We've got your back!" Gentle turned his head and looked behind him towards a bunch of tables of a restaurant the people who had been there for late night had turned over at first to hide behind. Young men and women who had had a couple drinks that night already stepped out from behind them, arming themselves with their Quirks. Then a waitress flew off the ground with a nervous look on her face and gulped but rose her arms as fists anyway.

Gentle looked towards the closest villain to him who spun around with a terrified look on his face, and the Japanese man questioned with a smirk, "What was that about your technology being superior to Quirks again?"

"Hahaha! Fucking lit!" Rebel called out.

"I can't believe it," Cherasaw muttered in disbelief, watching through a drone's camera as the villains remaining in the square all surrendered as the town suddenly found the courage to attack them.

"Shouldn't have said that shit about taking hostages. Not in that town," Rampart said with a chortle of his own.

"Apparently."

Gentle sprinted towards two men who had just dropped to their knees, and he rose a gun that everyone stared at in shock as they thought the AoD member was about to kill the villains who had surrendered. "Tranquilizer!" Gentle called out in reassurance to the Italians after he had fired at the two men trying to stand back up in a panic. He ran past and then bounced up fifty feet in the air.

"Grazie mille! MORTE!"

"MORTE! MORTE! MORTE!"

"Wait!" Darling shouted, as the jet over a building near the coast was lifting up with the jets behind it sliding below the bottom to send them flying up. Gentle swung his arms below him and kicked down much harder, while Darling turned her entire legs into rockets and used a lot of her matter as fuel to let her fly up to Zach and Mark fast enough.

"Get in!" Mark yelled, pulling the sticks hard to the right so the plane flipped sideways for a moment. Zach yanked the side door back open, and Gentle and Darling flew straight up into the open door before Mark straightened out the plane again.

"Hit it!" Zach screamed as he snapped his head forward to the cockpit. Mark pushed the sticks forward and grabbed the thrusters at the same time he pushed to full throttle.

"The third ship is just ahead of you, and the other two are slowing down!" Access called out.

"Source got on the third one-" Raylei started. "I'm into their comms line! Whiplash ordered his pilot and the one in the ship next to him to hold back to protect Source from us. Now that you guys are in a ship they think they can take you."

"They can't," Darling said, grabbing a metal bar on the side of the jet and yanking herself another step forward which was difficult with the jet trying to force her to the back with how fast it was moving. "Right, Mark? You've got this-" Darling stomped another foot forward, and she ground her teeth as she almost fell to the floor there.

"They're locking weapons' systems on us," Mark replied, not an actual response to the girl back behind him pulling forward like Death and Gentle.

Zach got to the front first and grabbed the seat on Mark's right, yanking his head forward and staring through the windshield towards the ship up ahead of them that looked to be getting a little too far away. "Well lock weapons' systems back," he ordered, and Mark obliged.

"We're moving into Cazzitanno!"

"Delta is arriving right behind them."

"Sweep the city and take care of the villains we left behind for you. Make sure they're all unconscious and wrapped up nicely for the heroes when they arrive-"

"Three Italian heroes are heading that way now. Michelangelo's one of them, just as a warning."

"You really think he'll attack us after we saved his ass last week-"

"Death! Do you need us to catch up-"

"We have the last of them," Death assured the rest of his army back behind him getting farther away every second. "We won't let Whiplash or Source, or any of them escape."

"That's right!" Darling exclaimed.

"No pressure," Mark joked, right as the enemies started firing back towards them without having to turn their ships around. He pulled the triggers on the sticks he was holding too, and he lifted his thumbs and pressed the red buttons on top of them to release the flares around their ship that redirected the missiles locked on to them. "Evasive maneuvers!" Mark yelled out, and the three on the ship with him held on to something tightly right before he spun the ship around. The missiles that missed them exploded anyway, and the blasts rocked their ship, but Mark steadied them an instant later and then heard the dinging of their own targeting system locking on to the ship closest ahead of him.

"Here we go!" Mark fired a missile, then he waited five seconds and fired the second one while still locked on.

The enemy's ship evaded the first missile, using all the same measures they had done in their J-20. Mark's interval he gave though before firing the second missile made it so the second one moved to where the enemy's ship finished evading, and the pilot of the enemy's ship was not good enough to dodge a second time. Mark watched the missile closely both through the windshield and on the radar, and he clicked the button he used to fire the missile a second time right before it would have hit that ship.

The blast ripped up the back of the enemy's ship but did not hit it with the full yield of the missile. The glowing green engines ripped up and parts of that plane fell off, dropping the ship down towards the water. As it started going down though, twenty green pulses of light fired backwards through the explosion, along with machine gun fire and a couple more rockets from up ahead. The backs of the two farther up ships had opened up with the villains in the back of them firing out with their own weapons along with the ships' weapons themselves.

"Too many!" Darling yelled, as the ship started getting rocked by green blasts going off around their sides though Mark was avoiding any direct hits, so far.

"Fire at the other ships too!"

"Left wing is hit!"

"I'll get off here," Gentle offered, and Darling spun her head and saw the man back at the side door he opened up and leapt out of without another word.

"Source's plane hit the water, but the water-landing looked somewhat successful!" Mark yelled out, while doing a barrel roll to the left that slammed Zach and Darling up into the roof of the plane and then back into the ground.

The windshield shattered and Mark ducked his head down, and the back of his seat above where he just ducked got shredded an instant later. Zach and Darling snapped their heads up in shock as the top half of Mark's seat just got ripped up, but the brown-haired man who was sitting there unstrapped himself and dropped between the seats, crawling back towards them and then bear-crawling towards the open side door as fast as he could. The plane was dipping down, flames were coming out of the center console, and green explosions went off on the right wing shaking the whole thing even more.

"Bail bail bail!" Zach yelled, grabbing Darling by her right arm and throwing her towards the side door as she looked to be slipping without anything to hold onto.

"Zach!" Darling yelled back as she was tossed out the side door after Mark.

The plane was about to hit down into the water, and Darling fired jets out of her feet to keep up in the air unlike Mark who just swung his arms at the water below him so as to disrupt it and not make a hard crash-landing for himself. Zach flew out of the side of the plane at the last second before it hit the water, and he ignored Rebel's voice that shouted into his helmet, "You have any idea how much one of those costs us?!"

Black wings flapped behind Zach as the plane exploded with debris shooting over the water below him. He shot forward and pulled the rifle off his back where it had been strapped this whole time. "Darling! Take them down before they have second thoughts!"

Zach aimed at the jets ahead of him that had turned around and were flying back to save Source now that the Army of Death's single chasing jet had gone down. Those jets slowed down, as Gentle had hit the downed jet and was taking on the six guys there with Source who had been too slow to get on one of the first ships to escape.

"What do we do Whiplash?!"

"They're still coming at us!"

Zach and Darling felt their necks stiffen, and the two of them became unable to turn their heads any direction except the direction they were facing when Whiplash's Quirk was used on them from afar. Darling tilted her body back instead of moving her head for the sights of her rifle she just created out in front of her, while Zach flapped his wings behind him again and then started firing towards the bottom of the jet on the right of the two, as he was on Darling's right side and knew he could leave the other one to her.

"Slash-"

Gentle swung an arm in front of him and bounced the slash that appeared in midair back at the man who created it with his Yell. That man got slashed across the middle of his torso and thrown off the ship into the water with four of his comrades, then Gentle leaned down into the broken cockpit of the last ship that Source had been on, and he grabbed that man who was slumped forward over the console but was reaching down for his right side and a glowing green pistol strapped there. Gentle yanked the man out of the ship by the back of his collar and swung up over his own head, then smashed him down into the front of cockpit with the Indian man yelling out in pain as his body arched up on the collision. As the man yelled out in pain like that though, Gentle aimed his pistol down and fired a dart into the gap in his armor just below the start of his helmet and above his shoulder-pads.

He aimed around the water too at the other villains and knocked the remaining conscious ones out too. "Mark, if you could-"

Darling hit the plane on the left in its back left engine right as it finished spinning around again to face south. The explosion blowing out of that engine caused the ship to tilt to the right and swerve that way, almost slamming into the other plane that Zach kept missing his shots on as he continued flying forward towards it. It was difficult to follow the ship's trajectory as it evaded his shots when he was unable to look around after it, having to turn his entire body in order to do so as trying to turn his neck caused him intense pain otherwise. "Damn it!" Darling yelled out, as she had almost taken down both ships with one shot there.

"Just get us out of here!" Whiplash's second in command yelled out in the ship that remained up while Whiplash's was going down right in front of Death. His pilot grabbed the sticks of their ship and the back of the plane started glowing much brighter green than before as they got ready to blast out of there.

A wall of water shot off the surface of the sea and got thinner and thinner as it kept up its initial escape speed. Mark treaded at the top of the sea with both arms raising higher and higher above him, and he pierced the final ship through the center and up out of the top of it with a huge spike of water. That final ship started dropping down to the water too just like the one Whiplash had been in, but just like Whiplash's ship the villains inside that one were not done yet. The doors opened on both of those ships that fell ahead of all the AoD members, and the villains inside bailed out and used their jetpacks or Quirks to start flying away farther south over the Mediterranean.

"When will they give it up?!" Darling yelled out frustratedly, panting and feeling like she did not have much left in her to keep going here.

Two of the men shooting away from them over the surface of the water turned around as their comrades rose higher up. They aimed their green cannons back and fired at Death and Darling who were farthest up towards them. The two chasing after them had been using their Quirks for too long, and Zach flapped his wings down below him harder to try and avoid the blast while Darling had to force out hotter flames from her self-created jetpack too. The two of them got hit by the edge of the blasts, which just resulted in them getting more pissed off as they redirected south and shot after the remaining seven villains trying to escape from them.

Gentle bounced up into the air after tossing all the unconscious villains near him on top of the ship landed on the water. He swung an arm behind him and kicked his legs off the Gently Rebound he made there, and he bounced again to catch up with Death and Darling right as they started to speed up after the villains still moving quickly away from them with that tech that had allowed them to stay ahead all the way to the coast from initially outside of Cazzitanno. "They are not getting away this time," Death said in a low voice to the two on his sides.

"Get them!" La Brava yelled out to her friends she spotted on the single drone image they had out in the water that far. The image popped up on the front windshield of the Cloak's bridge that everyone on the support team and watching from their headquarters stared at anxiously.

Exodus stepped forward closer to the screen with both arms in slings over his chest, his forehead wrapped in a white bandage, and his eyes narrowed at the screen in an intense way. "I believe in you, Death."

"Take them down!" Access yelled out.

Mark shot out of the water after diving back down below the surface, and the three ahead of him glanced back in surprise for a moment at the sound of that huge splash. Out of the surface rose a massive giant made of water who rose over a hundred feet tall in a couple of seconds. It lifted its right arm it pulled back far, and it swung it forward releasing its fist off its arm when it had thrown at full speed. It looked like a huge sphere of water flying towards the other three Army of Death members first, but that sphere transformed mid-flight with Mark in the center of it and a bubble of air around him. "Water Armor: Form of, Phoenix!" Mark yelled out, and the twisting sphere finished taking form of a huge bird with wings extended out just like Zach's dark form flying through the air now to Mark's left.

Darling frowned while looking back and to her right towards Mark. She did a spin in midair while dipping down a bit underneath a beam of green that flew back at her, and she yelled towards him, "You could have picked any bird, why pick a fake one?!"

All seven of the villains ahead of them spun around at the same time and fired in a combined attack that would be harder for their pursuers to dodge. Zach's body turned more fully into Death, while Darling forced her skin to turn into steel all over for a moment which dropped her down almost to the surface though did protect her from the bullets that slammed into her and broke through her outer armor. Gentle surrounded in Elasta-Armor that made bullets bounce off, though he did swing a Gentle Rebound in front of him and bounce away as two explosions of green Plasma erupted almost in his face.

Mark's bird of water got shredded though by green explosions and shots, and Darling's taunting expression went away as she started raising back up to chase the villains who spun away again in fear as Death had gotten even closer without being slowed down by their attacks. "Mark!" Darling yelled towards the man she saw drop into the water with all that destroyed armor falling in around him.

"Damn it!" Zach yelled, flapping his wings down harder behind him and forcing out even more Death. _I might have to use Trigger here to catch them! How much energy do they have?! I thought it was limited-_

Zach's head spun to the side and he stared back with his eyes huge, just as Darling and Gentle did as a much bigger sphere of water suddenly shot out of the surface than the one the giant had thrown a minute ago. The villains who looked back stared at the sphere in shock too as it transformed back into a bird but even larger than before and with less water falling off of it. Zach's wide eyes stared in even more shock as it looked to him like the wings were steadier this time, no longer dropping as much excess water on each flap, _Just like how I let less wisps of Death off when I fly now- He's getting the hang of it so fast though!_

 _A natural,_ Gentle thought, staring ahead towards Mark with an amazed look he was glad the American man could not see behind his helmet.

Darling's eyes were wide too and she could not say anything this time like the taunt she made because of her frustration as to how Mark was flying more like Zach than she was. Mark shot past her this time in his huge water bird and neared Zach who had moved so much faster so he was right behind the villains now in an even larger Death bird-looking form himself. " _This_ is why it's a Phoenix!" Mark yelled out, and Darling's lips curled up into a smile.

Zach grinned too, right as Mark came up on his right side. The two of them both flapped their wings again to the horror of the villains just ahead of them who found their gear dimming in its green light. "VILLAINS!" Zach roared at them in Italian, his voice deep and booming out of his helmet. "FALL!"

Mark and Zach shot forward and slammed into the group of villains together who yelled out-

 _ **Click.**_

Zach woke up in his bed in his Yutapu apartment. His eyes opened up wide, _A dream?_ Then, the sound he heard that woke him up echoed through his head with every single warning signal going off in his body.

He snapped up with his body surrounding in darkness, _I don't dream-_ His legs were swinging off of the bed, but his reddening eyes bulged even wider as the wall ahead of him near his door was breaking inwards. The red light glowing on the other side of the cracks on his doorway glowed much brighter in the next milliseconds as his feet were still dropping to the ground at the left side of his bed. His head was turning more to that side, his eyes getting redder and more darkness surrounding his body. The wall on his left side cracked while the ceiling from his door all the way to the wall on his left side got a huge fissure in it and then a dozen other branches off from that. The door flew at Zach, breaking apart but coming at him fast with the growing fireball expanding at him on the other side. His wall crashed inwards and the foot of his bed rose up from the force of the blast. The sound blew out Zach's eardrums while he rose his right arm to protect his neck and face that were still covering in Death. His body rose off the ground as the force and the debris slammed into him, his reddening vision turned bright orange as he was engulfed in the explosion-

 _ **BOOOOOOM!**_


	186. Chapter 186

**Disclaimer: I don't own Boku no Hero Academia**

 **Chapter 186:**

 **22 Months Ago**

"Oh my God!"

"Everyone get out of here!"

"We need to evacuate the stadium!"

"Mom, Dad, come on!" Norita Ekusa shouted to her parents. The young woman in her mid-twenties rushed her parents, Eduna and Riku towards a tunnel out of the stadium where hundreds of other people were rushing to at the same time.

The Noritas made for the tunnel and looked to their right over the heads of other screaming spectators to see villains charging down the bleachers and attacking heroes while looking enraged and more powerful than the heroes they were attacking. More explosions went off farther to their right, and Ekusa screamed in fear that made her dad reach forward and grab his daughter by the left shoulder.

"It's going to be alright, Ekusa."

"The heroes will protect us," Eduna agreed, pushing aside people around her to get up next to her daughter's right side now. Ekusa looked back to her left at her shorter and pudgier dad, then to her right at her short and pudgy mom, both of whom were several inches shorter than their five-ten daughter who had a much leaner body than her parents in their low fifties. She regained a semi-composed look at the reassuring looks her parents gave her, but then Ekusa's face filled with fear as she looked behind her two parents right after they had entered the tunnel with dozens of other people.

"AHHH!"

"NO- NO NO NOOO-"

"Ahhhahh ahh-"

The blackish purple swirling portal that appeared at the edge of the tunnel released a small spiky ball that exploded as the civilians around it screamed. Ekusa Norita screamed as loud as anyone else, curling up into a ball and falling over as did all the other people in the tunnel around her. They were a little farther away from the actual explosion that detonated at the edge of the tunnel, but not far enough.

Ekusa screamed out in pain as she fell forward from her curled-up position. Something fell on her right leg and cut through her pants and into her calf, and she reached forward and grabbed at someone who kicked their legs back into her arms and face while trying to scramble away themselves. "Ahh- ahhhh-"

"Someone, someone help me…"

"Ekusa. Ekusa get up."

The young woman crying on the ground parted her clenched-shut eyes. She looked forward into the dark tunnel full of flickering lights and a dim blue glow from someone's Quirk though that light was moving away. Rocks fell from the ceiling, and there was a dead woman on her left side laying flat with her head turned sideways looking at her with blood all over it. Ekusa was terrified, but she heard a low voice again from behind her and turned her head around, "Ekusa. I have it, up- Nngg-" Riku groaned while yanking up the stone even higher off his daughter's leg. "Get out!"

Eduna held her fattened arms up harder and groaned in a louder voice; the ceiling she held up on her shoulders and hunched-over back pushed down more every second. "Mom, Dad," Ekusa whispered looking up at them.

Riku tossed the heavy chunk of debris to his side with as much force as he could muster. He reached down while stepping forward, dragging his broken right leg behind him with adrenaline filling his whole body. "Get her out of here-" Eduna started behind Riku, only for him to fall to his knees in front of her with a loud scream of pain. She lowered her eyes down to his back, and Eduna felt her heart break at the growing red spot on her husband's back around where his shirt was shredded.

"Dad?" Ekusa whispered at the sight of her father's agonized expression.

His eyes opened up, and he reached down and grabbed his daughter by her sides. "Run," he said, and he yanked up with all of his strength and pushed her forward. The ceiling started collapsing behind him at that moment and Riku turned his head back. His daughter screamed for her mother and father, but Riku's eyes bulged too in that moment as the ceiling was falling behind him. Despite all the heavy debris dropping down, his wife stepped forward and reached down for him with neither her daughter or husband able to see how messed up and bloody her back was. She reached down for Riku who was on his knees, lifted him up as rocks fell on her head, and she threw him down the hall where he hit the ground and rolled, his head hitting the floor too hard which knocked him out.

 **The Next Day…**

Norita Riku parted his eyes slowly. The man was outside of a hospital under a white tent that had been set up with lots of patients in critical care underneath it. The injuries he had sustained had finally caught up with and killed him, but the panting boy with black hair leaning over his body cracked a small yet exhausted smile at him when his eyes parted. "My… family…" his eyes started to close, but in that moment they were closing he saw that exhausted smile disappear and the kid's eyes fill with pain again.

* * *

 **10 Months Ago**

"Oh is that your daughter, Norita-san?"

Ekusa Norita looked over from the dining room of her father's place that she was visiting to eat dinner with him. She looked interestedly at the woman at the door who looked about as old as her father did, and who her father had apparently told about her. Riku glanced back towards his daughter too and then smiled out at his tenant who had stopped by, "Why yes, Ms. Chianou. We were just sitting down for dinner-"

"Oh my! I did not mean to interrupt-"

"Not at all." The short pudgy man with red cheeks shook his head and smiled at the woman outside who excused herself and let them get back to it. "Thank you. I will see you then," Riku finished, leaning out of his door and waving to a tenant of his who he was happy he never had to chase down for the rent.

Norita closed his door and then headed back for his dining room and his daughter. He did not notice his daughter's expression and raised eyebrows as he sat back down, so Ekusa mentioned as he took his seat, "Well you two seemed friendly."

Riku looked at his daughter in surprise, and then a sad look formed on his face that made his daughter's insinuating one disappear. She frowned sadly for a moment too, though she lifted her head with a soft smile after a second and started to her father, "You know Dad, you're not that old. You can get back out there, if you want-"

"Your mother was the love of my life," Riku replied with a soft smile back at his daughter who reminded him so much of her. "I, don't think I could love another woman like I loved her. And Ms. Chianou is just a tenant-"

"She didn't seem to be looking at you as 'just a tenant,'" Ekusa countered, and her father gained a surprised look on his face before looking back towards his door wondering if his daughter was right. "And Dad, I loved Mom too. It's already been a year though. She would want you not to spend the rest of your life alone though."

"I'm not alone," Norita countered. He smiled brightly back across the table at his daughter who smiled back as he said, "Because I have you."

 **7 Months Ago**

'Dad! Check the news right now!' A text flashed over Norita's phone similar to messages being sent all around the country at the moment.

Norita Riku ran out of his kitchen and into the living room of his apartment in the apartment complex he and his wife used to own together. He turned on his tv and flipped to the news, and his jaw dropped at the story that was playing on this station and every other news station in the country. "He's back," Norita whispered, and then his expression got angrier. It got darker, and more angry still as he watched the news continue. "JAIL?!" A rare furious look even those tenants always late on their rents never saw in such intensity covered Norita's usually jovial face, and he started screaming curses at the judge and prime minister on the television.

 **1 Month Ago**

"I cannot believe that Lifebringer is staying here," Chianou said to the man in her apartment who nodded his head with a large smile over his face. "He, brought you back to life before, didn't he?"

"That's right. I'm sorry I did not inform you and the other tenants earlier, but Zach wanted to keep it-"

"'Zach,' is it?" Chianou asked, bouncing her eyebrows at the man a couple inches taller than her who smiled brightly at what she was asking him. "You are on a first name basis with _the_ Lifebringer. That's amazing."

"I let him stay here for free, to repay him for bringing me back-"

"Ohh? And how can I get in on that?" Chianou wondered, stepping towards the man near her doorway who got a nervous and hesitant look over his face at the question. She lost her teasing smile too as the conversation suddenly got awkward, "Sorry- I didn't mean," she stepped back, and her smile lowered just as his did.

"No, I shouldn't have said-"

"It's fine! I don't actually want to get out of- it was a stupid thing to say. Thank you for letting me know," Chianou added at the end, and Norita nodded before turning away from the woman. The two of them lowered their lips down into upset frowns, and they each thought at the same time, _Stupid!_

* * *

 **2 Hours Ago**

"Wow. That was, amazing," Norita said, putting down his silverware and picking back up the glass of wine in front of the empty plate on the table of his new favorite upstairs tenant. "Thank you, Chianou-san."

"Please, call me Ino," Chianou replied, and she put down her own glass of wine while smiling at the man across the table from her. It was late at night and the two of them had been talking throughout the dinner that had lasted so long because their conversation just kept extending longer and longer. They had already poured a few glasses of wine through it too, and after Chianou told Riku to call her by her first name there was a silence in the room that made the woman start to feel hesitant again as she once again wondered had she crossed the line.

Then, Norita's lips lifted into a small smile back at the woman across the table from him, "Then, you can call me Riku…"

 **5 Minutes Ago…**

Norita Riku opened up the door of Chianou Ino's apartment, and he looked back as he felt a tug on the back of his shirt. Ino grabbed the smiling man by the front of his shirt when he turned to face her, and she pulled him back and into another kiss which lasted two seconds before he pulled back and started laughing, and Ino giggled too like a girl twenty years her younger. "Might want to fix that tie," Chianou said to the man in front of her who looked down at his shirt that he just noticed had the buttons one space too far up for each of them.

His tie was in a loose loop around his neck, and he laughed again while looking back at the woman in front of him whose apartment he was leaving past one in the morning. "Well then."

"Well then," Chianou repeated.

"We'll, have to do that again, sometime?" Riku said, raising his tone at the end with his cheeks going a little more red than usual.

Chianou smiled back out brighter at the man outside her door, "Definitely."

"Then, goodnight Ino," Norita said, bowing his head a little to her and then raising his hands to his tie that he started fixing with the biggest grin over his face.

Chianou shut her door, but she whispered out of it to her landlord walking away now, "Goodnight, Riku."

Norita was looking down at his tie that he fixed up while walking away from the room at the end of his apartment complex's second floor. He stopped after a second though as he realized there was no point, and he just laughed to himself again before smiling like an idiot with his head lifting up. _What a night-_ His eyes focused back down in confusion at the floor in front of him another two doors down. "That wasn't there…" he slowed down and stared at the package outside of Zach Sazaki's door with a confused look on his face. "Hmm."

 _Someone must have brought it by after I went to Chia- to Ino's place._ Norita smiled again with his dimples showing and his face looking fifteen years younger as he nearly glowed. _I'll bring it inside for the night so no one takes it, then bring it over to Zach's tomorrow morning. I hope I can catch him before he heads off to school._ Norita reached down and picked up the package sitting outside of the door. _**Click.**_

 _ **BOOOOOOM!**_

* * *

 **Present**

Midoriya Izuku was up late. He lay on his right side with his eyes closed as he attempted to sleep, but he was restless and rolled over onto his left side as his thoughts wandered too vividly for him to get to bed. His eyes were closed but instead of darkness, he saw a forest in front of him that a giant made of Death stood in with Kurogiri gripped by his steel brace. _**"…Kurogiri, you're, you're the biggest threat to peace in our world." "Your reign of terror ends here. Kurogiri, goodbye…"**_

He saw that dark form of one of the League of Villains' executives smash through a tree as Zach tossed his dead body like a piece of trash. _**"Hahaha hahahahahaaa… Who's next?"**_ Zach's horrifying voice filled his mind, and Midoriya clenched his teeth with his eyes opening as he flipped onto his back. _**"Where do you think you're going?!"**_ He saw that black ball of Death fall down on the villain whose terrified expression was frozen like that when the darkness faded. Midoriya could see that man laying in the dead grass afterwards as the rest of the villains ran, as Zach continued to attack and kill more of them.

Midoriya ground his teeth but shook his head around. _They pushed him so far- He went to jail for this! He already got punished, and he's trying to change!_ _ **"When I razed that place to the ground…" "Despite killing so many of them! Murdering other gladiators just like them…"**_

A girl's voice filled Midoriya's head overlapping with Zach's, _**"You inspired me. All those things you shouted at the gladiators in The Pit! The ones you had been killing in death matches for days! '…Never again will anything like the Pit be allowed to exist in this world! Never again!' And those people who should have hated you, they all cheered your name and roared for you just like I did. You stood there, on the verge of death promising to change this world and destroy places like that- while you bled out, while your organs failed and your heart was stopping. Every single one of them chose to follow you, and every last one of them died… And Yemen?! The things you said to those people ready to go to war!"**_

 _Yemen. He saved an entire country from war! As bad as some of it was… he was doing-_ _ **"I got that assassin and beat him half to death."**_ Midoriya flinched at the cold voice he heard echo in his head as Zach had explained that to them. _**"I could see it… All the pieces were in place. The environment was volatile, the people were strained, and heroes were uncertain of the right path…"**_ _He made assumptions again. He always, predicts everything is going to go wrong! And because he makes those predictions, because he always assumes the worst-case scenario!_

Midoriya's eyes opened wide as he stared at his ceiling, uncertainty and conflicted feelings covering his face as he heard Zach's detached voice speaking to those of them in the Inazuma Island forest that night. _**"…And as I skid across the desert as my plane exploded into a fireball, I knew I would fail. That those innocent people would fight and kill each other, because a few others had already died. And if this became bloody as that assassin and I imagined it would be, how big would the next incident be? How many people around the country still not fully invested in the conflict would become radicalized… The people who fought tomorrow would not be holding back, not after their brothers, sisters, mothers and fathers, their children were killed by their enemies today."**_ _You didn't know that for sure. You couldn't have, because it's never happened before! It's not something you've experienced, and you can't say that you know it would have happened because you never saw what the failed result would have been! And yet you…_

 _ **"I knew all of that as I skid across the ground inside that fireball- and I could hear them outside the wreckage. I had to move. Instead of being the thing that stopped them for a second so I could interrupt, I was going to be the catalyst for what started a civil war… I- I knew my left arm was gone, but I couldn't turn to it as I heard all those roars get even louder outside. And I had to get out of the plane even though I had a piece of broken plane impaling my stomach, and as I pushed my way out I ripped my gut open, and I came out of those flames having to hold my insides in with my only hand. I put my only hand over it to try and hold it all in, but my intestines were slipping through my own fingers. Slimy and wet and… And in that place where I lost my arm and came so close to dying again, there were no villains."**_ _They weren't even villains! You said it yourself!_

An agonized look spread over Midoriya's face as he heard what Zach said he did next repeat in his head, _**"…I told them what was about to happen. I warned them in my loudest screams, in the best Arabic I could, what they were about to do. I screamed at them that they were about to kill each other because of something so small that none of them really wanted to kill or die over…**_ _**And when they started to get riled back up, as some of them started screaming at me and getting back- I roared how I would kill them all."**_ Midoriya's huge eyes narrowed, his fists curling into his blankets that he yanked off of his body in frustration. _**"And suddenly there was silence. Absolute silence falling across thousands of people."**_ Midoriya could see Zach's look when he no longer looked like Zach Sazaki to him. The look Zach had shown them that night that he was starting to get used to. The other side of his friend, whose dark voice he heard echo in his head, _**"I told them that I would kill every last one of them, because if I killed them all, their people wouldn't want to fight among themselves but would turn all their hatred solely on me, uniting their country. And all of my comrades scared and not knowing what to do stepped out of those crowds and turned on the forces who stared in shock at dozens of people whose identities they suddenly discovered. We were in plain clothes, and they saw who I was under the burns and the blood, and they knew who we were."**_

 _It's not just that he was willing to do it. Zach, has more than just the power of his Quirk. More than just his will. He incited those gladiators and took them with him, and they all died fighting for him! People followed him and were ready to not only die, but slaughter innocents in his name!_ Midoriya's fists curled tighter and he sat up, breathing heavy and shaking his head around to try and push these dark thoughts from his head he knew he would never be able to sleep while thinking about. _They didn't do it though… but would he have? If the threat didn't work… would he have made himself the target for all their hatred to unite Yemen as one? I- I don't know. And that terrifies me._

 _If he ever feels like what he's doing is so right, that he'd be willing to slaughter innocents again?! I know he's been willing before, but- but he's my- That shouldn't stop me! I know what's right! I know it's so dangerous having him free when he thinks like that! If he thinks someone might reveal his identity, and that could get people killed, then wouldn't he try to "stop" them in any way possible?! Even if they were innocent, or a hero?_ Midoriya's face scrunched up and he had to slam his eyes shut with self-hatred covering his face. _I can't do it! It's not fear of what everyone would think! I know the others would hate me, but I-_

 _ **"Because I'm a hero. I need to support my friends in their hardest times, and if you're having a hard time I want to help you too Zach. And I want to get to know you again, and, be your friend again."**_

It was Midoriya's own voice that echoed in his head this time. His fists unclenched, as he saw Zach's face in the national park that he had chased him down in after the confrontation he, Bakugo, and Todoroki had had with him. _I said I would give him a chance. I already knew he was Death then too, even if I didn't have proof, but- But?! I gave him that chance- no I didn't. I haven't, not yet. He's still trying, and he hasn't messed up, and just because I know more doesn't mean he's stepped off the path! I know that! He told me he wants to be a hero, and he can help so many people but- but he could also- just as easily…_ Midoriya's hands rose up to his face and he put his palms over his eyes.

Midoriya rubbed his eyes around and then dragged his hands down his face. When his hands left from over his eyes though, Midoriya realized his room was more illuminated and he turned to his bedside and his phone that just lit up. He reached over and grabbed it off of the charging pad sitting there. _'Gas explosion in- Yutapu?!'_ Midoriya opened up his phone while shooting out of bed and putting his legs off the side of it. He stood up and paced forward while getting open a live video feed from a late-night reporter rushing to the scene with a cameraman just behind her.

The sky was illuminated in red on the camera that panned up over the woman's head as they ran from the van they had to get out of as they were not allowed to go any farther. "Is there danger of any further explosions? Is there a gas leak?!" The woman called out towards the police car that was sideways on the street with two cops outside of it holding up radios they were getting new information from. The two of them both went wide-eyed though and spun the other way, then one looked back as the reporter ran right up to him. "What's going on? Do you have any information?"

"It's, not a gas leak, like we first thought-"

"Then it's safe for us to get closer!" The reporter called out, and she turned and ran ahead. A cop started calling after her, but the other told his partner to get in the car they were going to drive closer to the scene now only another two blocks down.

"Are you sure about-"

"Follow me!" The woman who did not have a great shift to be the on-call live reporter for channel 3 news was acting like an intrepid journalist as she ran towards the explosion and sound of loud sirens blaring across the city. The reporter looked over her shoulder while getting close to the block it seemed like the explosion had been on, "We are nearing the site of the explosion now. We will stay a safe distance but try and get a look at what's going on up there. Look! It's Kimona!"

The reporter pointed up above her, but the cameraman only panned up for a second before pointing back down and down the block where two cars were racing their direction with ambulances behind them. "That's All-Terrain's car! And Bug Queen is there too!"

"Let's get closer," the reporter said after a few seconds of her cameraman panning after the vehicles that turned onto the next road where the explosion had gone off. With so many heroes getting closer, they figured they could too without being nervous about any villains. "Hopefully there were no casualties at the site of the blast. If there were though, we can only hope that the blast woke up Lifebringer, wherever he is in this city. Coming to you live from Yutapu, this is Toyota Emiri. We are nearing the blast site now, where it seems the fire department has already arrived as the flames are definitely lower than what we saw from afar. The sky does not look as bright either, though there is still a lot of black smoke rising… No look!"

Toyota ran faster towards the scene of the explosion, and she was able to get close as there were not enough police working to keep people a distance away as not many people had come outside yet to see what was going on. Most people nearby were staying in their homes or had gone out to get away from the site of what was initially assumed as a gas explosion. A few cops kept the reporter and her cameraman back, but the cameraman stepped to the side and pointed past the front of the cop car to the edge of the street where some debris was scattered among the cops and paramedics up there. A few fire trucks had come in too, but the firefighters were not doing anything and just stared towards the burning building that was losing more and more of the flames that had been covering it.

Toyota stared past the cops who turned around too, and she lifted her head and looked left and right at the apartment building that was getting put out by darkness that was not all black smoke. The right side of the building from her angle was still standing a full two stories, but only for a couple of rooms inwards on the top floor and one or two more below that. Farther down the building in its center almost all the way to its left side, there was a massive hole showing the walls had been knocked down and the ceilings collapsed. The building was more a pile of rubble in most of the middle of it, though the bottom left corner room was partially standing with only half of it destroyed.

A cop car on Toyota's left side moved aside, and an ambulance waiting out on the road pulled back in there for a couple heroes to carry a woman covered in burns towards it. She was groaning and the camera pointed towards her for a second only to shift back to the reporter as she started speaking, "The heroes have already arrived on the scene, and it looks like Lifebringer is inside the site of the explosion, putting it out with his Death! Let's just hope that he gets out whoever was still-"

 _ **Crash- DOOF!**_ Rubble pushed to the side, and a chunk of wall got thrown backwards by a dark arm that moved inside the smoke and made the cameraman flinch while the reporter spun back around and then took a nervous step back still in the camera's angle.

Zach leaned down and he reached an arm out of his dark mass, and he touched the side of a neck that already looked mostly crushed and broken to him. He checked anyway though, then he reached down with a large dark hand and lifted up more of the rubble crushing that body. He grabbed the body with that dark hand then, and he walked over debris of his apartment building to the edge of the complex where he lowered the dead man down to the ground. The rising pain left him, then he turned back and headed inside again as there were still flames all over the place and loose debris moving around and possibly crushing more corpses that were burning worse each second.

Silence fell over the scene for a minute, as that dark form went back inside and dragged out corpse after corpse that were crushed and burnt and disgusting. All the bodies were messed-up badly, and Zach lined them up outside of the building that other heroes evacuated the edges of while Sazaki moved around inside the most destroyed part.

 _He got here so fast._

 _Why isn't he bringing any of them back to life?_

 _What is he waiting for?_

Toyota looked back at the camera she heard was still rolling from a voice in her ear, though her producer had stayed quiet there for a minute too forgetting she should be reporting something. "It seems, Lifebringer is getting ready to revive all the people who died here. These images are graphic, and we would advise parents against letting any of our younger viewers witness what we may be about to see. If we can though, we will try to show you as Lifebringer brings back, these people." Toyota hesitated while looking behind her again, as a loud crash was following by a growl of pain from inside the building that came out dark and scratchy over the camera.

Midoriya found himself staring at the scene on his phone with more sweat on his face each second. _It's not a gas leak? Was it villains? Where are those villains now? Why is Zach… he acts better than this for the cameras. Is it because he's going to have to bring people back here? I know he hates doing it, but- those bodies look so burnt up and crushed. A few of them are barely even recognizable, most of the flesh burnt off the bone. It's horrible. Zach, you have to save them._

Zach finished searching the debris. He stood on top of a small part of floor on the floor right below his own and outside what would have been the doorway underneath his. He stared down at the ground and some gore covering pieces of really destroyed debris, and his head rose back up with a pounding noise echoing over and over again in his skull. Zach walked out of the rubble that was no longer flaming in any direction after his Death had covered up all the flames and put them out from lack of oxygen. Smoke continued to rise from the rubble of the building as Zach stepped outside of it, towards the line of bodies. There were two people hunched over at the left end of the corpse line with tears streaking down their face who his head turned to.

The couple lifted their heads from the small body in front of them, and the woman with a burn on her right arm stood up on shaky legs and stepped towards Zach with fury on her face. "This is YOUR fault! Lifebringer!"

 **"Get back."**

The woman screaming at Lifebringer froze with her mouth open, but her husband stood up behind her and grabbed her by her non-burnt arm to pull her away with. Everyone stared at Zach Sazaki with their eyes opening wider and wider, as Zach stood there in Nightmare form but with no bones showing through the darkness. He was completely black from head to toe with dark wisps coming off of his shoulders and arms and swirling off the top of his head like a flame. He rose his right hand out in front of him while standing in the center of the line of sixteen bodies, and Death flooded out of his palm and onto the closest body in front of him. It hit that corpse that was so burnt up it was unrecognizable, and then the darkness spread out to both sides all the way down the line of corpses.

"Can he, do that?" The cameraman whispered, confusion filling his voice as he watched this with eyes as big as plates.

Midoriya held his breath with his eyes shaking at what he was watching on his phone. "Zach?" he whispered, his eyes shifting to the corner of the screen again and where that couple had pulled back to away from their dead child. _Why would it be his fault?_

 **"RRRrrrggh… NNNGG… Aaah- AH-"** Zach clenched his mouth shut, and then the dark form's jaw opened up and he roared in agony in a scratchy and deep voice that bellowed through the city and over the camera, _**"RRAAAAAAAAHHHH- AAAAAAAHHHHHhhh AAahahh- AaaaaAAAAAOOOAAARRGG…"**_

Through the black veil spread over the bodies on the ground, flesh started to recover on the burned-up corpses. Bones snapped into place, and Zach screamed at the top of his lungs with every person watching him stepping backwards as darkness ripped out of his body in flares up in the air and behind him only to suck back into him and push out of his right hand to pile more on the bodies. **"YOU- AHHHH!** _ **AAEEEEEAAAHH!"**_

Skin sealed up over burn wounds, over repaired flesh, while bones reconnected with the tendons reforming between them. Faces reformed and cracked skulls sealed back up, eyeballs reforming and insides repairing in seconds. What had been instantaneous deaths for ninety percent of the dead, lasted for over a minute for the boy bringing sixteen of them back at the same time. And Zach felt it, each one of the deaths, almost at the same time as they revived one by one. The feeling of death hit him, sixteen times in a few seconds, and then that darkness settled on their bodies and started to fade away as Zach lowered his flaming dark right arm.

Zach wheezed out a few dark breaths, black steam rising in front of his face and partially blocking out his red eyes every few moments as it hovered there before fading. The couple who had been hunched over a small dead body before, rushed over to the eleven year old who stirred on the floor in front of them. They yelled out his name and dropped next to him, throwing their arms around him and hugging him as tightly as possible which woke up the boy more.

The shouting snapped someone else up who almost fell back down and passed out like everyone else. Chianou sat up with her eyes wide. She had still been just inside her doorway, leaning back against it with an ecstatic look on her face as she relived the night over and over again in her head. She got up to her feet and looked around the line of people mostly laying peacefully unconscious around her, then she turned and looked at the dark form who stared at her through the dark steam in front of his face. "Rik- Norita? Norita?!" She looked back and forth and shouted it out, and Zach's red eyes lowered down to the floor.

"Lifebringer," Kimona started, stepping forward towards one of his students who was just standing there in his dark form without saying a word after bringing back all those people. "You came quickly-"

"Where is Norita?!" Chianou asked, her eyes getting teary as she stepped towards the dark form. "I- I know it was his second time but-" she shook her head around as Zach lowered his head more, and the heroes and others around the scene started to get more confused at what was going on here. "Please! Look for him! You have to- you have to try! He let you live here for free!"

The mom who held her son tightly handed him off to her husband as the boy fell back to sleep, and she got up and yelled towards Lifebringer with anger covering her face again, "This was your fault! Take responsibility-"

"I, think-" Toyota started as she was piecing this together herself. She spun to the camera with a look of realization and then back again, and she called out, "Lifebringer! Was this where you were staying all this time?! What happened here tonight?!"

"Was it another attack on your life?" Kimona wondered, stepping another foot closer to Zach, and really hoping the kid would say something as this was starting to unnerve him.

"Go find him!" Chianou yelled at Zach. "He- He has to be-"

"I couldn't bring, him back," Zach started. His voice was low and still deep and scratchy, but not as terrifying anymore as his tone sounded apologetic and sad instead. "Even if it was his first… there's not even a body." Zach's mind worked fast as he had been standing there listening to Chianou. _They were seeing each other. He was at her place late at night, and it was not part of his usual schedule. I was sleeping deeply. How- how did they- Norita walked by my room. He was heading back to his own. There must have been a bomb, likely inside of a package. Norita would have wanted to pick it up to make sure no one took it. He's a nice guy like that…_ Zach's teeth bared and then his expression flattened out but he could not risk taking the darkness off it yet as he filled with rage again an instant later. _He_ _ **was**_ _a nice guy like that. There's nothing even left of him. Maybe it was a sensor from when he picked it up, or maybe the assassin just thought he might move it and set it off while watching from a distance. They knew they'd mess up if Norita got it and brought it for me tomorrow saying someone left it last night._

"Did you really live here Lifebringer?!"

"He did!" Another of the tenants called out, a man who had been evacuated from the first floor corner room all the way on the right. "They blew up the whole apartment because of you, didn't they?!"

Zach turned his head and looked over towards another of the tenants of the building who got nervous and pulled his head back as Zach's red eyes shifted his direction. "Lifebringer," Kimona started. "Is that what happened here tonight?" He wondered to the boy who he figured would have an idea of it.

"I…" Zach started.

He looked at Chianou, then over at the camera still with the darkness over his body though it was wisping less each second. It was not getting any thinner so as to show bone inside, but it was getting closer to his body as just a thick but tight veil of darkness surrounding his form. As it got smaller like that though, people started to notice a different color on the right side of his body through some of the darkness. "I'm sorry," Zach said, looking back at Chianou and then over to the parents whose kid died in the blast. "For making you go through, something like that. For all your possessions you lost, the memories you can't get back. I'm sorry I got you caught up in this."

"Sorry?" The mother of the boy Zach just got killed wondered back in a hoarse voice. She opened her mouth again, and then she looked back towards her son who was alive and in his father's arms. She looked back painfully at Lifebringer and shook her head at him, thinking about how she had to hold her dead son in her arms only a few minutes ago. "Sorry isn't- it's not good enough."

"I know," Zach said softly, his voice still scratchy and deep though. He kept up the darkness over his body, though he hesitated and questioned if it was really best to keep it up and keep speaking like this. _Maybe just remove, some of it,_ he thought. His thoughts were not too focused on his appearance though, and his eyes lowered back to the floor that he stared at with his thoughts jumbled in his head and bouncing back and forth so fast he could not think straight. "The ones trying to kill me… found me tonight…" Zach started it loudly like he was giving an explanation to the heroes, to the victims, and to the camera, but he trailed off.

Zach's teeth clenched, while more darkness left his body though some kept flaming on his back and off his legs. It flared on parts of him while fading away in other areas, and Zach did not seem to notice as some of it faded from the left side of his face revealing his parted lips and bared teeth. His teeth ground across each other, his jaw locked and his left eye glowing red even when the darkness faded from around it. The blackness faded down his neck too, though more of his left arm and his left side were covered by darkness while the middle of his body lost some of it instead. Zach had no shirt on, and as trails of skin formed to replace the darkness of his body, everyone awake past one in the morning and watching the news, as well as the few dozen people staring at Zach from close up, opened their eyes huge at the sight of all the scars shredding down the middle of his torso.

More darkness faded from Zach's right side, and eyes opened even wider as people got a look at where that red through the veil was coming from. Zach's right arm was cut up from near his shoulder all the way down to the back of his right hand. There was blood dripping off the right side of his chin and covering the bottom right half of his face, as well as around the right side of his head as there was a cut going through his black hair behind his ear that was full of so much blood he could not hear anything out of it. He could not hear much but the pounding of his own heart actually, nor did he feel much pain despite the deeper cuts on the right side of his torso under his arm and all over that arm itself.

"The ones trying to kill me?" Zach muttered, his voice raising. Though it was back in his normal voice, it did not have the same tone Zach took when he had been on television in the past since he had returned to Japan. His question caused everyone around him to stare nervously, and made Midoriya's eyes grow huge with his jaw dropping in fear and panic at the look on Zach's face. His eyes rose up from the floor and his black hair lifted up so the shadow was gone from over his eyes that lost their red shade to return to hazel. "Eziano. Mozcaccio."

Zach said the name and his expression was steady and pissed as he stared straight at the camera. "That's your name. Oh? Did I say it?" Zach's words unnerved the people around him, and the woman who had been yelling at him before gulped and stepped backwards, while her husband stood up and backed away with his son in his arms. Zach's expression got taunting despite the blood on the right side of it, and he said with the bloody right corner of his lip lifting up, "That name you take so much pride in, in the fact that no one knows it. That anyone who even speaks your name without permission is killed, and yet now it's going to be a household name. Eziano Mozcaccio, you tried to kill me again."

Zach's teeth ground again, his head bowing down and his left arm raising up and moving to the right side of his face where he rubbed it against a spot that felt very wet on the right side of his head. A few EMTs stepped forward thinking they should go help Lifebringer, but they were also way too unnerved to speak up to him or anything. Even the other heroes were all just quiet and completely silenced by what Sazaki was saying here. "You had the respect and fear of everyone who knew to the point no one would dare say your name, but now everyone in the world will know it. It's not a secret anymore. I made it not a secret, because you failed again. You failed, at killing me." Zach's teeth ground over each other and the corners of his lips pulled apart, a look of anger flashing over his face though his expression flinched as he saw the shaking camera aimed at him.

He hesitated, and then his teeth bared harder and he called out, "So I'm done! Done with all those attacks! I'm calling you out, Eziano! I'm tired of all these assassination attempts. If you want me, then just tell me when and where. Set whatever traps you want! Bring as many men as you want! I'll come ALONE! Ahh haa, ahh haa…" Zach's panted a few times then his voice got deeper and he growled, "I'm not afraid of you." Zach's face flinched, and his teeth bared so much harder, his eyebrows raising up and his forehead scrunching as he tilted his head back in pain. He sucked in so hard and tried to hold it back, but he still seethed through his teeth, "You killed my landlord."

Zach's eyes flashed red and darted to the left, then to the right like he was looking for something. Black flames ripped out of his back and created wings twelve meters in wingspan that flapped hard and slammed down into the ground. He shot into the sky like a missile with everyone snapping their heads up to follow him though they lost him in the backdrop of the night sky.

Hundreds of miles away, Midoriya shoved his phone into his pants' pocket and he pulled a shirt over his head as fast as he could. Midoriya threw his window open and leapt out without hesitation. He landed on the ground outside of his building, bent his knees, and jumped two hundred meters into the sky and in the direction of Yutapu. A robot outside of the apartments spun its head and zoomed in the cameras on its head as it tracked Midoriya away.

* * *

"Zach!" Midoriya landed on the roof and ran forward in his landing that came too fast for him to just stop at once. He stopped moving and skid to a stop though, staring across the roof from just past the middle closer to the side Zach was on. "Stop," Midoriya said, his voice stern and his eyes intense as he stared at Zach's back, broad and covered in darkness.

Zach did not turn his head around. He held his left hand out in front of his body, gripped around the throat of the man tugging at his fingers with his own as he gasped for air in Zach's hold. The man he held off the roof had dark black skin and the appearance of an African which Zach could tell too from the words the man had spoken a minute earlier. He was silent now though, other than the gasping for breath. His left eye was squinted and there was a bloody cut on the corner of his eyebrow dripping blood down his face to his chin where it dripped off onto Zach's steel arm. That arm did not have darkness on it like the rest of Zach's body had, though it did not have any fake skin on it either. The steel arm extending from Zach's shoulder had dark wisps at the top of it that snaked down his metal bicep towards his elbow, the black lines tugging away from Zach. They looked like they were straining to push even farther out along the straight-extended arm, reaching for the face of the man whose bloodshot eyes stared at those black lines in shaking fear.

"Midoriya," Zach whispered, his voice scratchy as he heard that voice behind him. He continued to stare straight at the face of the man he held out over the edge of the roof. "He killed Norita. He killed my, landlord," Zach hesitated before finishing, the word 'landlord' describing their relationship and yet feeling like not enough the way he was feeling right now. _I took it for granted. All he did for me._ "It was him," Zach snarled, his left hand clenching tighter after loosening for a second so that guy could start breathing in. The relief the assassin felt with his breath coming in was short-lived and his eyes bulged even wider at that new tone in Zach's voice.

"You can't kill him," Midoriya said, his eyes darker and his voice firm. He glared at Zach's back and stepped a foot closer to him. "I won't let you-"

" _I'm_ not going to kill him," Zach growled, putting the emphasis on himself that made both Midoriya and the man in his grip gain looks of hesitation. The villain was quicker to realize what Zach was saying though, but Zach continued on anyway even as that look formed on his enemy's face. "He failed his mission. He killed an innocent bystander, and he failed to kill me," Zach leaned his head forward and bent his elbow to pull the man by his neck back closer to his face. Zach glared into the man's eyes with his flaring red ones, and the corners of his lips twisted up, "But worst of all, his failure resulted in Eziano's name becoming public."

Midoriya's eyes grew wider, and they shook with his right foot sliding back on the roof as he heard the menacing tone in Zach's voice. Zach's enemy stared at him with dread and a dark look as Zach glared at him from a foot away, and Zach snarled at that man's too-calm look, "The one thing Eziano Mozcaccio hates most of all. All the respect the villains of this world had for him? The fear the worst of them had to not even utter his name in private? Now his name will be commonplace. A household name, talked about all over the world tomorrow… And that's all because of _you."_

Zach felt the man he had gripped by the throat fail at gulping as his Adam's apple was crushed too far in. "Come tomorrow you'll be dead. It doesn't matter who I turn you over to. It doesn't matter where you are or how protected you may be. It's over for you," Zach warned the man in front of him, then he brought his face up close and growled into the man's straight expression, "Unless you tell me where he is right now. You know I can do it. He knows I can, and that's why he keeps sending all of you after me. You tell me where he is and I will go kill him right now."

Midoriya stared at Zach's back with his expression shaken, as he questioned all he had seen on the news before, all the signs he thought he saw of Zach snapping in that moment. _It was all part of his plan? Or- or is he just, using it? He's going to find Eziano right now? If he does…_

"Well?" Zach's grip loosened on the villain's throat, but the man's arms lowered down flat to his sides. His eyes stared back into Zach's calmly, and then the corners of his lips lifted up and his arms started moving out to his sides. He tilted his head back and threw his arms out with his palms open, a smug grin over his face as he pulled out of Zach's grip on his neck. The villain's neck that Zach loosened his grip on slipped out of his hand. Midoriya stepped forward and started coursing One For All through him.

Zach's hand that lost grip on his neck snapped forward before the man could drop more than a few inches, wrapping around the bottom of his face and wiping the smile off below his steel palm that gripped into his skull. Zach whipped the man around the left side of his body with his left arm, throwing him onto the roof and releasing with Midoriya darting his eyes to Zach's palm with them opening huge as he saw the darkness wisping off at the last second.

Midoriya looked at the man who hit the roof and bounced towards him but a little away on his left. The villain put his arms down as he was coming to a stop, but his elbows buckled and he collapsed to the floor unconscious from the small amount of Death Zach hit him with.

"Damn it," Zach growled, and Midoriya looked back to the edge of the roof where Zach was still standing with his back to him and his left arm lowering down to his side. Zach took in a deep breath while glaring off the roof, out over the city of Yutapu he had scoured for the villain behind him.

"How, did you find him?" Midoriya whispered.

"I thought of all the best locations to watch my apartment from. If Norita was leaving Chianou's apartment to head back to his own late at night, then it was likely the package the villain left outside my door was under his direct surveillance. He would not have been able to place it that long ago either, nor would he have risked it. There was a sixty percent chance probability in my mind that he was somewhere close to watch my apartment. More likely after the attack as well, when I was covering most of my body in Death throughout 'likely' to hide my injuries and not let him see how close he had gotten, and that he may have the ability to finish me off. During that time I contemplated all other options, all escape strategies from each of the potential spots he was watching me from." Zach continued in a monotonous voice while glaring off the edge of the roof, at buildings all around that had seemed to have glowing red and orange lines coming off of them like Roady once described his power was like to him. "I can see it. Every position he could have waited, and every path he may have run from that position to escape, or to feint an escape and lay an ambush, or to get to wherever his transportation is… or to hide for days in wait before leaving. And although the room he was initially watching from did have an angle on my apartment, he did not expect me to know which other rooms in that complex that did not have vantage points were vacant, or more specifically which ones had been rented out within the past two months like his was."

 _How does he know all of that? How could he know every buildings' layout and who owns what rooms? Why would he- for this? The amount of time he must have put in to the task of finding all of that out, for the possibility of…_

Zach's head bowed on the edge of the roof, feeling Midoriya's judging eyes on his back. His expression remained so dark and he ground his teeth in frustration at the result of his interrogation. "He didn't talk," Zach muttered. Midoriya looked to his side at the man flat on the roof and then back towards Zach's flaring black back, the darkness on the back of his skull to the top where it rippled off of him like flames. Zach's voice continued in a low and scratchy voice he could only have in Nightmare form, "He knows I'm right. He knows he messed up worse than any of the assassins before him. I could see he knew it, and the fear… but it doesn't make sense. He's more afraid of Eziano than of me, so many villains are, and with you here it was clear who he'd be more afraid of. But then why keep quiet?"

Zach turned his head to the left, glaring towards where the man he tossed had skid to a stop. Midoriya flinched at the sight of the side of Zach's face too, and Zach saw that and started turning his body more to face his friend behind him. Zach's face was only as uncovered as his left arm was, as the darkness had spread down it in long lines after Zach released the man he could not risk holding any longer. Darkness spread in from the sides of Zach's face, bones showing through his cheeks and forehead, while black spiderwebs crossed the center of his face. Branching off of the vein-like darkness were wisps that cut through his skin and then left it darker as the skin reformed, his Death moving over his face in an unsteady and malicious appearance. And there was blood, smeared over the skin where the darkness faded for moments at a time, and still dripping down the right side of his face into the thicker darkness surrounding his torso.

His flaring red eyes shifted over to the man on the floor after he locked his gaze with Midoriya for a moment. "It's because it's never been about hired killing. Making money off of it, outsourcing to other assassins and controlling the actions of hitmen and hired guns all over the world, all of it is to make Eziano and his guys seem like just more hired killers. It's not about the money though. If it was, then what was that?" Zach glared at the man on his back who was willing to accept death right there. "He did not just want to die quicker, thinking Eziano would kill him slow. He was fine dying. That smug look, like I had no idea what I was talking about threatening him in that way. Why? They're fanatics. Chaos is their game. Murder and war their weapons. I can't…" Zach's voice trailed off and got even more frustrated, his eyes darting back to Midoriya's unsure and hesitant expression.

"What did you do to him?" Midoriya asked, his voice soft and his expression regaining a composure to it. His feet planted on the ground and he looked to the edge of the roof where Zach was standing wrapped in his Nightmare form despite there not being any more villains to fight. "Did you, torture him, before I got here?"

Zach stared at Midoriya and then shifted his gaze to the side angrily. "'Torture?'" Zach repeated back in a scratchy whisper. "I don't torture. I wouldn't, as a hero too. And that's what I'm…" Zach clenched his red eyes shut and bared his teeth. "Shit. I let everyone, see." Zach brought his left hand up to the side of his head and grabbed it in irritation. "Months of careful fucking, everything! And I destroyed it in seconds back there. All that for nothing-"

"Zach, what are you-"

"You saw, and you rushed straight here," Zach growled. He glared back towards Midoriya, and he said darkly to his friend, "Because it's the same for everybody. Everyone expects me to fail. You expect me to," Zach said lower, his eyes narrowing more at his former classmate who pulled his head back at the accusing look that Zach's face took, looking more like Zach as the darkness faded from it and from around most of his head. "I see it every time we talk," Zach said, his voice more pained and less scratchy now as the Death faded from his neck. "I even expect myself to half the time."

Midoriya lowered his eyes to the floor. He could not deny what Zach was saying, not to his face, not as he thought about all that had been keeping him up tonight. Not as he thought about why it was he came out here so fast. "Kill him?" Zach wondered, raising his eyebrows at Midoriya who flinched at the sight of Zach's bloodied and sad face looking back at him like that. He shook his head thinking of how Deku had interrupted and then ground his teeth and hissed, "And I know, I just put an even bigger target on myself." He brought his right fist up and hit himself on the side of his head over and over, "I know I should have just kept my mouth shut, but- but Norita-"

Midoriya opened his mouth, but Zach lowered his right hand fast and snapped his gaze back up to lock with Deku's. "And everyone thinks I'll snap one of these days. They think I'll be the villain again. Every single one of you sees me trying so hard to smile, and talking in such a heroic way, and as convincing as I can be I know every single person watching is just waiting. They're all looking for it!" Zach's tone cracked and he shook his head around in fury, "Damn it. Everyone believed that I couldn't really have changed, they've all been searching for that crack in the armor that will show them I'm the same as I always was. And there I went! Right in front of a damn camera I just- I couldn't keep it going."

Zach stepped towards Midoriya but moved in the direction of a metal pipe sticking out of the roof. He walked over to it and sat down, and his body no longer had any Death on it at all as he put his right hand on his forehead with his fingers extended out and rubbing back and forth into his hairline. He winced at the pain on the right side of his forehead but mainly just kept ignoring it, and he whispered while staring down below his palm, "And it's so _hard._ "

Midoriya's shoulders slacked and his eyes grew sadder rather than intense like they had been since he landed. He shifted his gaze to the man Zach had been choking ruthlessly when he showed up, looking like a villain as the choking assassin tried so desperately to break free. Confused thoughts about Eziano and his true motives that Zach got him thinking about faded from his mind. Midoriya stepped towards the metal pipe Zach was sitting on, and he started in a soft voice, "I'm sorry, about what happened to your landlord."

"I dragged him into it," Zach whispered. He stared down at the roof below his feet and whispered, "I knew it would happen. I knew the moment I got out of jail that wherever I stayed would be put in so much danger. And I had to tell the government where that was. I had to tell cops and heroes, so that Lemillion could have an easier time following me around whenever he wants. And I told my classmates and friends, because I told myself that trusting other heroes is more heroic than being suspicious of everyone around you. A hero wouldn't just become a darker and more secluded person because of their hardships, but would overcome them." Zach rubbed his forehead with his right hand and ground his teeth in even more frustration. "I've been trying so hard to be a hero that I- I let him-"

"Bad things happen, Zach," Midoriya said, shaking his head and looking down into Zach's eyes seriously when he lifted his head to look back at his friend. "It's not your fault though. You didn't blow up the apartment. You didn't kill Norita."

"But I-"

"No!" Midoriya snapped back before Zach could counter. "You've always done that, and you've always been wrong. Don't push blame on yourself where it doesn't belong. Once you start blaming yourself for the people you didn't save…" Midoriya trailed off, hesitating instead of finishing that line. _I don't get it,_ Midoriya hesitated more and stared in growing confusion at Zach. _He doesn't care about the people he isn't saving at hospitals. He doesn't blame himself for that, when he would have before. But this is more personal, and yet he's speaking on it in broad terms like… wait._ Midoriya shook his head around, and he started over, "Zach, you can't always save people. And you can't make their decisions for them," Midoriya hesitated when he saw Zach's face flinch right there. "When people like Norita decide to help you, that's their choice. Everyone saw you get shot on the way out of prison, he knew it was dangerous, but he wanted you-"

"Not everyone in that building signed up for that risk," Zach retorted. His expression was colder now too as what Midoriya said reminded him too much of something else, _**"You don't get to make all the decisions. You can't say you're doing something to 'protect' me and just think I'm going to leave it at that, do you?" "…And if I get hurt because of it, then that's a result of my decision. Got it? That's me telling you, I'm accepting the 'risks' of being your friend."**_

"Not everyone was willing to die for me, but I put them all in that position when I decided to live in that building. I knew how resourceful Eziano was but I chose to ignore it and believe that I was safer than I was. I pretended like everything was fine, and I got seventeen people killed. And Norita can't come back this time." Zach paused and he lowered his gaze down to the roof with a thoughtful look forming over the cold and dark one that covered his whole face. Then he felt his phone buzz, and he did not ignore it this time like he had the last twenty times he received a message. Zach pulled out his phone from his right pocket and looked down at the uncracked screen, and he focused on the top message of a list of them.

 _'Don't give up. Overcome this.'_ Zach stared at the message from Reika Tiona and his eyes widened for a few seconds at what he was staring at. _That run we went on. I told her what I'd do if the assassins coming after me killed someone I care about. I told her I'd, disappear. I wasn't lying that day though._ Zach's expression started to harden again, his breathing steady and calm, _That I only came back here knowing that it was unlikely the assassins would risk dragging in one of my friends, as it would cause me to run off again! If I don't leave now, then that threat becomes empty! And if I don't leave now, they might even… kill someone else next._

 _'And I swear to God if you don't catch that villain we're going to have problems.'_ Zach stared at the second message that just popped, and his eyes lowered in an even darker way though he let out a single cold laugh. _Oh yeah. It wasn't just me I said would disappear. She wouldn't have accepted it if tomorrow I said the villain escaped, or I couldn't find him. She feels the same way as everyone else then, thinking I'll break like this and kill again so easily._

"Zach, are you… How are you feeling?" Midoriya hesitated and knew the answer was not good, but he had to ask as he stared at Zach's bowed head and heard that dark laugh come from him a moment ago. _What do I do? He looked so, so- someone he cared about was just killed, and he didn't kill the killer in revenge… Except it's Eziano he wants. Eziano he knows is responsible. And if he had Eziano in front of him right now, he'd kill him. There's not a doubt in my mind, he'd kill him._

"I knew I'd be targeted," Zach whispered. He looked at the other messages mainly from Shiketsu classmates who had woken up in the city nearby and figured out what had happened. Recovery Girl had also sent him a message though telling him to go to a hospital that he stared at last of all the messages. He put his phone back down and just rested it on his thigh with his eyes shutting and sadness covering back up his whole face. "And it was part of coming back, that I would have to deal with Eziano's attacks but… but I told myself that if I started dragging people into it, getting people hurt because I chose to be here, that I would leave." Zach lifted his head and looked at Midoriya who stared back in a pained way at what Zach was saying.

"You didn't drag anyone…" Midoriya started, but he could see Zach did not believe him and he did not even know if he believed it himself. "You're trying. I know, you're trying." Midoriya shook his head, "And I'm sorry I keep doubting, you," Midoriya hesitated to finish it but he did admit it to his friend and step another foot closer to him. "Nothing has ended though, just because of this."

"I only felt right coming back," Zach whispered in a counter. "Because I was sure Eziano would only target me. And if I could be sure of that, then it was fine, because I could handle myself." Zach shook his head and his face scrunched up as he gasped out, "But the bomb dragged in innocents. He's going to farther lengths to kill me. He could kill my friends here. And that would be on _me._ " Zach said it firmly and without room for Midoriya to argue this time. He glared up at his old classmate with curly green hair who stared back with wider eyes as Zach hissed, "I failed to take down Eziano so many times. If I had just… but I didn't. I failed. I don't want anyone else to get hurt because of the selfish reasons I have for being back here."

"Your reasons aren't selfish," Midoriya whispered. He spoke faster as Zach always had a counter for anything he said, "You want to make the people of Japan think you're really alright and trying to be a hero. You want to show them that because you want them, you want them to believe that no matter how far someone's dropped they can always come back!" Zach lifted his head and looked into Midoriya's eyes with hesitation spreading over his face, and confusion that it was Midoriya reminding him of these things now. "Which I don't get…" Midoriya continued with a frustrated shake of his own head. "That you're trying so hard to prove to everyone that there are second chances, and third chances-" Midoriya bit down and then glared into Zach's eyes and finished angrily, "While you refused so many people those second chances yourself?"

Zach's eyes that he rose stayed locked with Midoriya's angry ones as Deku stood right before him looking down at his face. "If you really believe that you can be a hero," Midoriya started, his voice pained though he took another step forward and outstretched his left hand for Zach to take. "Then you can't kill Eziano Mozcaccio." Midoriya stared intensely into Zach's eyes that lowered to his hand and then back up at his face in a darker way. "It doesn't matter what he's done. It doesn't matter what he's done to you, specifically, or to the world as a whole. You can't go after him with the intention of killing him. If you say you'd do that, then I will stop you. But if you really are mad right now, because you let people see how angry you looked back there? If you really are upset right here, because you know how hard it's going to be to convince everyone that you're still on a path to being a hero? Then you can't contradict yourself. You can't go around acting like this, acting so dark and unheroic, and then expect to be able to convince everyone else that you're not really like that."

 _I know you're trying,_ Midoriya thought, and he held his left hand out farther and begged with his eyes for Zach to grab it. _And I want to believe so much that you can do it. I know that when you set your mind on something, no one can stop you! So since you're really trying right here! Since you know how much you messed up, to get me to come all the way out here so fast, you know it'll be even harder._ "Keep trying," Midoriya asked. "Get back up, and stay here." _If he tries to leave- if he leaves! I won't be able to stop him if he just decides to leave again. I have a chance to stop him right here. I've had that chance already! And I don't want to take it. Not while I don't have to._

Zach lifted his left hand and clasped it with Midoriya's. He stared up into his friend's eyes and thought, _I've always considered you my biggest critic here. Every time we talk, I see how different we are. I see how much differently you think than I do. If anyone would give up on me altogether tonight, it would be you. Yet I wasn't even trying to convince you otherwise, I wasn't. Here we stand though,_ Zach stood up from the metal bar and looked into Midoriya's eyes as their faces were only two feet apart. Midoriya tugged Zach's arm in and turned his back at the same time while Zach opened his eyes wider in surprise at what felt like an attack.

"Grab hold," Midoriya said, while bending his legs and pulling Zach's left hand over his shoulder and pressing it on his front to give Zach a grip. He did not wait for Zach to counter or take a breath, and he jumped high off the roof and darted his eyes around for the closest hospital.

Zach wanted to argue, but he was exhausted and just let out a sigh while turning his head as they soared through the air. He looked in the direction of the billowing black smoke that did not have any glow below it except for the ongoing sirens in the area of his old apartment. His eyes saddened and closed for a moment, and he thought about hanging out with Blackstar at his counter the other day. He saw Momo leaning over his bed to take care of him, and then back in his living room wrestling with Dover. The fight day at his apartment filled his head with all his different friends from Class 1 and Class A showing up… Zach's head bowed and he brought his right hand up from dangling behind him and rubbed the side of his head with it, as bloody as the palm of his glove was. A much more depressed look formed over his face thinking about painting the walls of his apartment, and the girl next to him laughing and singing with him.

He saw Ashido splashing paint at him and his head just tilted forward and rested into Midoriya's back. The memory of that day was so vivid as he thought about after all the shopping they did just the two of them. He could see the walls he had to look at every day for two months too, and he thought while pressing his face into Midoriya's back, _I never did put a second layer of paint over those walls. Looking at that shoddy paint job reminded me of that… that fun moment-_ Zach rubbed his face into Midoriya's back as they started a downwards arc towards a hospital below. _What am I thinking about? I'm almost down there in front of people again. I- I have to do better than this. Reika and Midoriya are right. I can't just give up on all the reasons I decided to come back, just because I lost one person. My goals aren't complete yet. I, haven't fixed all I broke…_

When Midoriya landed on the helipad atop the hospital, Zach pulled from his friend's grip that made Midoriya turn in surprise as he was going to help Zach all the way inside and to the doctors. "You go take the villain to the police," Zach said with a shake of his head at Midoriya when he saw his friend getting ready to argue here. "I did not hit him with much Death, considering you were there. There's a chance there was a second man though about to go grab his buddy and run. So go. Now." Zach motioned away with a nod, then he turned for the door leading into a stairwell down that he had used before. He let out a long sigh and then lifted a smile on his face while Midoriya was still watching, and Midoriya nodded after another second and turned back around.

He leapt off the roof, and Zach glanced back and watched him fly off at the door into the stairwell. His smile lowered down and he looked back forward with dread covering his face. His right arm was covered in blood, his face was pale and bloody too, he had a cut in his black sweatpants up near his thigh wrapping around the front of that leg, and there was still wooden shrapnel sticking out of his right calf. His thoughts ignored all that current damage to himself though as he reached forward for the doorknob with a steel left hand. _If there are any recently dead here… it's time to die a few more times tonight._

* * *

 **A/N Thanks for reading. Norita ;( Zach's apartment explodes, killing 17 people though he's able to revive 16 while on camera. Midoriya rushes out to Yutapu and comes across Zach with the bomber gripped by the throat, though Zach does not kill the man and restrains himself as much as he can, after his outburst about Eziano Mozcaccio... Hope you enjoyed the chapter! I'll put in some responses for the last two chapters since I just ended the last one on "boom!" XD Leave a review below telling me what you thought, predictions, comments, or questions for what's to come.**

alexanderjuarez499 chapter 184 . Oct 1

This chapter almost seems an insult to me because they treat the armed forces like a bunch of inexperienced children, do you know the life and training they carry? If we compare the work of real-life soldiers and anime heroes, the latter have it easy.

 **Hey didn't mean for that. Totally not trying to diss the armed forces or make what they do seem easy, this is just my AU BNHA world's view of the military in some distant future far removed from having armies. And considering the Special Forces soldiers went to that profession because they couldn't cut it as heroes puts the heroes over there in America as like the Navy Seals to our regular Navy guys. (It's not a great comparison), but yeah didn't mean to belittle it or anything, def not my intention.**

Raven Mordrake chapter 184 . Oct 1

Hey, don't be offended, but replacing the armed forces with the heroes seems absurd and stupid, we go in the anime, the police and the S.W.A.T are still there, so why would they replace the a

 **I'll put this defense here for you and the others who didn't really like the portrayal of what I think militaries would be like in the My Hero world: Japan already doesn't really have a military, they have the JSDF which is the Japan Self Defense Force. If the Police Force in My Hero can't use Quirks, and people always talk about how the heroes are the only ones allowed to, I feel like they would have referenced the military before having exceptions to that. But so far in the canon there hasn't been any mention of real armed forces, but even I haven't just fazed out militaries completely from this futuristic world where everyone has superpowers. There was the military in Saudi Arabia Mongoloid took over and was trying to get under his control, forces in Gorran I think I mentioned, not to mention there are security forces that the Europeans were using to protect some of their interests, and the Americans have the Special Forces. I think the biggest issue with having militaries in the My Hero world though is that heroes and hero society kind of run the world. If heroes are in charge, and they have the best interests of their people at heart, I don't think wars between nations are likely to happen. They wouldn't want it to be easy to start a war either, and would have likely fazed out military spending as more people just want to spend taxes to support heroes instead who they know will protect them. I've also referenced how nukes aren't around anymore, as the AoD thought those weapons didn't exist anymore/ ADTF, Zach's friends all found it hard to believe, and there wasn't even an actual nuke with it turning out to be just another Quirk in the end. Anyway, this is why I think they would replace the army. Not replacing the Police Force makes sense so as to have a group to assist the heroes who are not as high in number as well as to do all the other jobs the police currently have that heroes would be too busy fighting to take part in. I think it's less likely there would still be large militaries all over the world, especially if the chaos after Quirks first came about resulted in a mass chaos where apparently those previous militaries failed to stop it, resulting in heroes emerging to take care of it. If heroes were the ones (and they are from like the first chapter of the manga) who rose in that chaotic time and put a stop to villains, I don't see armies really reemerging in the My Hero world when it's become clear that heroes are what are needed to stop villains. Then again, the militaries of the past may have failed in that new world and people might have thought they were obsolete and unnecessary, but Zach seemed to think otherwise and went and started his own more effective than all the heroes. So, this is just where the current state of that world lies. I think it's completely feasible, and though I didn't explain it all in the story to back it up, that just wouldn't have flowed very well in a conversation between any two real people in that world (unless someone was giving someone else a history lesson, and I already had enough of that in the last chapter and didn't want Jirou to seem clueless as to her own history for Ms. Clue to explain _everything_ to her). Hope that makes sense to you. If not, I guess just suspend your disbelief on the matter a little more than usual so this absurdity can slide. ;P Thanks for the review, glad to explain it if people needed this.**

NovaAwakening chapter 11 . Oct 2

Jenny is best girl, hands down!

 **Oh man... I feel kind of bad for this guy just getting into it.**

Yoichi chapter 184 . Oct 1

Yay AoD, nice to see some old members come back, and wow jirou and Zach will never be cool with eachother especially now that she's basically gotten confirmation of his status as Death.  
Great chapter as usual, but Blackstar's dream sequence was confusing at first, I had to re read the start quite a few times before I realised what was happening.

 **Hope hitting you with a second dream sequence in a row didn't confuse you too much! XD The second time was more intentionally confusing at the start as I just gave the location without a timestamp. Once I started mentioning Mark, Zach, etc. I expected people to realize it was a flashback, but since I didn't have that timestamp it wasn't actually a flashback that I wondered if anyone noticed (really just a stylistic thing if you didn't), but then it cuts off sharply with that blast! Thanks for the review, Zach and Jirou do not seem to have an easy road ahead... and hope you enjoyed the new chapter!**

Super Power Sensei chapter 185 . 4h ago

I'm gonna guess Toga. She's using explosives because she is aware there's no way she can actually take him on. Her only chance was to catch Zach by surprise with something powerful.

 **Eziano Mozcaccio... but close! Lol nice guess, but it's the same guy over and over. Zach calls out Eziano on tv after getting nearly ripped up by the bomb. The League are moving in the shadows with a timetable of before graduation this year! Can Zach hold on? Can he survive!? Find out next time on Death! (and by next time I mean the combination of all the next times... but yeah)**


	187. Chapter 187: Fallout

**Disclaimer: I don't own Boku no Hero Academia**

 **Chapter 187:**

Kirishima woke up and leaned forward on his bed with a loud yawn escaping his mouth. He reached to his side to grab his phone and check the time, though it felt like he could still sleep some more before getting up for class. He opened his phone and blinked a few times while staring at the notifications and messages, "Explosion in, Yutapu?" Kirishima shook his head around and sat up farther on his bed, glancing at the other messages with his eyes going even wider.

He clicked on the news story and it opened up straight to a video on his phone. He did not realize that his phone was on full volume though, until the scream ripped out of his screen and blasted into the room.

"OI! SHUT UP!" Bakugo yelled it at the wall as something just blasted and woke him up, though his shout was even louder than the video Kirishima was watching itself. Bakugo growled to himself as the sound continued for another second before getting lowered, though his growl subsided and a deeper frown replaced it at what that noise sounded like as it decreased in volume. _The fuck was that?_

"Hey boss. You see this?" Shooter walked into the boss's workshop and held his phone up for the teen lifting his mask to see.

Kaminari Denki pushed the steel mask up on top of his hair and lowered the blowtorch in his right hand. He walked around the workbench leaving wires sticking out of the black-paneled steel he was working on. "One casualty in Yutapu bombing," Raijin wondered while reading the article. "Who was it?"

Shooter lowered his phone a little and said in a low voice but with a small smirk, "Sazaki's landlord. The guy had been brought back in the days after the SFI, was letting Sazaki stay in a room rent-free the news is saying. You think this is good or bad for us?"

"Depends," Raijin said, humming to himself and then heading for the door of his workspace he had gone to right after waking up, having been _enlightened_ by a dream he had the night before. He smirked as he headed out of the room to go check on the situation himself as he had been too busy that morning to even notice something so important had happened. "Has he been spotted since reviving the other dead?"

"There's a video of him, flying off actually," Shooter started, somewhat surprised at Raijin's reactions to all this. _He doesn't seem like he knew, but it's like he's not even surprised._ "Right before he flew off though, he started ranting about Eziano Moz-" Raijin's head turned to the side and his eyes widened this time with is eyebrows raising up high. "Yeah," Shooter admitted, a bead of sweat forming on the side of his face as he said it. "Kid looked… man he looked rough."

"The bomb did damage?" Raijin wondered.

Shooter nodded, and he realized why Raijin had asked him who the casualty was at first without looking like he thought it was Lifebringer in the least. _He's surprised he even got hurt?_ "The supposed bomber is in custody though. Deku's the one who captured him…" Shooter thought Raijin might speak up there, but apparently the teen was not surprised that Deku had left U.A. in the middle of the night for it. "Though the report I just saw changed to say that it was Lifebringer who actually took him down, and Deku just brought him in. Think Deku stopped Sazaki from killing him?"

"Maybe," Raijin tilted his head and admitted. "Was expecting the assassin to just 'escape,' this time," Raijin added, smirking and shaking his head as he said it. "But if the assassin's in custody, Zach's still around, _and_ he just pissed off Eziano in the worst way he could have possibly done?" The boy with somewhat shorter blond hair than Shooter's, though it was pretty long too just wavier and spiked up over his head, cracked a much bigger smirk thinking about how they were talking about Eziano in this normal conversation and using his name too. _Doesn't matter now though. Everyone's going to be talking about him. Zach's fucking nuts!_ "Can't help but love him."

"I can," Shooter muttered darker. Raijin rolled his eyes as it felt to him like Shooter was bringing up how Zach had gotten him captured. "You and him spent the same amount of time in Tartaros. You got to learn to let shit go." Raijin waved a hand and Shooter just grunted in agreement, watching that hand hesitantly as the younger man stepped out into their living room where other villains at their forest mansion were watching the news. "Oh I hate him too. And if Eziano doesn't kill him now then I'm going to take my chance to put him down myself. We need him out of the way, obviously." Others looked back to Raijin who chuckled while watching that dark video of Zach up on the screen covered in Death and blood, looking so horrifying as he ranted about the assassins hunting him. "But just look at him. Turning everyone against him in a few seconds, and I bet he'll still keep up the ruse for whatever his plan is! Fucking crazy…"

Iida and Koda walked down the stairs together with the two of them staying mostly quiet. Iida had wondered at Koda if he saw, and Koda nodded back before Iida could finish, and the two of them were too lost in their thoughts as they walked to the first floor together. Midoriya was on the first floor of the building already, mopping the hard floor of the common room with his head bowed and his expression intense as he cleaned the place. "Midoriya?" Iida started while rushing towards his classmate who looked at him and tried to raise a friendlier expression than his serious one. "I saw mention of you on the news- did you, not get permission?" Iida's initial tone shifted to a more scolding one as he saw what Midoriya was doing which seemed like punishment especially this early.

Midoriya nodded his head, thinking back on his arrival back at U.A. Principal Nezu and All Might had scolded him for rushing out even in what he thought was an emergency, and the snarky robot who saw him had called out that Midoriya had the time to put on his clothes first. "I have a day of house arrest here because of it," Midoriya replied with an apologetic nod at the class representative. "And the news has it wrong. I brought in the assassin but Zach, caught him," Midoriya did not know why he started that in a defensive tone, and he looked back down at his mop with a frustrated look back on his face. _I wanted to stay at the hospital and see how Zach was doing, but Recovery Girl will arrive soon and help him…_ He shook his head thinking about the message he received from All Might demanding he return to school, and he apologized again to his classmates for breaking the rules like that though Koda just waved his hands at him saying that it was fine.

In the girls' showers, Hagakure leaned back against the tiles below the shower head and sighed with her invisible body splashing water off still as she had pointed the head down to get her while she did this. She faced out towards the curtain and then lifted her head and wondered to the other girls in the showers with her, "Do you think he'll be alright? Those injuries looked pretty bad…" She trailed off before even finishing, getting even more hesitant as she thought about the parts of his scarred-up body not covered by blood or darkness. "Though, not as bad, as some of the older ones."

Jirou closed her eyes and pushed down the sickened feeling that rose up again in her stomach. In her mind flashed the face of that man who had gone to visit Zach's apartment only a few days before. _His face, and his prosthetics too… just like Zach- They're Army of Death. They, they got those injuries being terrorists._ The sick feeling returned and Jirou ground her teeth thinking about how closely she watched him at his apartment just the other day. _If you know how to spot when people are following you, how did you not notice a bomb being set up?! Was the one who did it just that much better than…_ _ **"Eziano fucking Mozcaccio!"**_

"Right?" Hagakure wondered to the other girls in the shower.

"Yeah," Uraraka replied softly, then again louder to be heard over the running water. "He'll be fine. It's Zach, you know?"

"Haha, yeah…" Hagakure responded but lowered her smile after a moment as she heard Zach's screams from that video she watched right after waking up. Her head bowed and she spun, turning off the water and shaking her head around to get herself composed.

"You staying in the shower Kyoka?" Uraraka wondered, as she was stepping out right after Hagakure and looked back to the still-closed curtain that Jirou was behind. Uraraka and Hagakure had towels wrapped around their mid-sections, but Jirou's water was still running and the towel still draped over the wall next to her shower.

"Yeah. Few more minutes," Jirou replied back strongly, her voice sounding less fazed than the other two who just nodded in response at the sound of her tone. In her head though, Jirou's thoughts were running wild and she had to shake her head around again in the frustration at them. _…Then did he mess up? That reaction was emotion-based! He just, went off right there! Even liars sometimes- but what about his plan? Would he have messed up whatever his plan was, just to… to? He called out that Eziano guy, on live television! That's not something a hero does! They're going to tear him apart in the media for this, for all of it, and how does that help his… plan?_

 _ **"…So I'm done! Done with all those attacks! I'm calling you out, Eziano! I'm tired of all these assassination attempts. If you want me, then just tell me when and where. Set whatever traps you want! Bring as many men as you want! I'll come ALONE!"**_ _That's insane! A guy with that much power that he can order all these huge attacks on you? Shooting you on your way out of Tartaros in front of millions?! In front of so many heroes?! Attacking you on the streets and at home- and you're telling him to set a trap for you and bring everyone he has?_ Jirou narrowed her gaze through the falling water at the wall on the other side of it. _It's because you're the most dangerous. The one even worse than Eziano who-_ _**"You killed my landlord."**_ Jirou rose her right hand to her stomach and shook her head around, clenching her dark eyes shut in fury at the feeling she felt towards Zach, hearing that tone that echoed in her head.

Kirishima and Sero walked towards the U.A. building together, and they slowed and looked back as a voice called for them to. Mineta ran up behind the others while still slipping into his right shoe and putting his left arm through the loose strap of his backpack. He slowed down as they had stopped to wait for him, then he stopped panting and just walked in a slower way with his expression dropping down more similar to theirs. "So," Mineta began softly as they neared the main building of the school, other students walking ahead of and behind them all looking at their phones and talking in hushed voices at each other. "The Norita guy, he's the one who came to Zach's door-"

"Fight day," Sero said, nodding at what Mineta was starting to say.

Kirishima's expression darkened more as he thought about that guy who had come to the door too. "He was a good guy."

"Zach's gonna be pissed…" Mineta muttered, his voice staying low though his eyes also looking nervous when the other two looked back and down into them. He quickly flattened his expression which confused Kirishima more, though Sero was giving Mineta a look that Mineta noticed which was telling him to shut it. Mineta glanced up and then said still in a low voice but without stopping, "You can't say he didn't look it, Sero. He was…"

"Understandably angry," Sero finished for him. "The guy was letting him stay there for free since Zach saved him after the Sports Festival."

"Which the news is going to use to rip him apart," Kirishima muttered. Sero looked to his side at the redhead in a little surprise at Kirishima's addition, but then he lowered his gaze and thought about that in a darker way himself. Kirishima added in a low voice, "It's like he was getting paid for bringing the guy back to life. Shouldn't have accepted it, even if the guy pushed him to." Sero frowned more and looked back at Kirishima in a harsher way as it sounded less sympathetic to Zach and more like Kirishima was just pointing out his mistake here.

"Whatever happens," Mineta started. "Did you see him bring those people back to life?" His voice got softer there, and both of the others just thought about it instead of looking to their shorter friend's face. "He did it so fast- I mean, it sounded like a long time." _Couldn't wait for those screams to stop._ "But it was like a minute, and he brought back _sixteen_ people at once. Can you imagine-"

"No," Sero replied. Mineta froze and shifted his gaze to Sero only to wince at the look on the dark-haired teen's face. "No one can imagine, what that feels like."

On the other side of the world, Endeavor stood in a pitch-black room other than the light coming from a screen on one wall and the hologram in the center of the table. Four faces were split across that screen in three boxes, while Endeavor stood with four other heroes around the table's hologram showing a 3D layout of an isolated landscape far from human civilization. The ADTF members meeting with him kept their voices low, but Outback Man started in an accusing voice at Endeavor, "You sure you aren't in denial here?"

"Death has to be Sazaki," Blitz growled in agreement from Mexico, where both he and Star-Spangled Man currently were on an international mission together which had them using the same camera to join the call. "We all saw that video Endeavor. That power looked exactly like Death's in all that darkness. The expression too, and even his damn tone."

Star-Spangled Man nodded in agreement with the more veteran hero working with him. He continued after the third-ranked hero of their country stopped, "He was talking about Eziano like they knew each other, _intimately._ The only person I can think of who would have that kind of rivalry with Eziano Mozcaccio, a Shadow Boss, the leader of all the assassins-"

"That's the wrong way to look at this," Endeavor countered the others in his force with a strong shake of his head. "Sazaki already knew about Eziano Mozcaccio long before," he said, looking around at the others who stared at Endeavor and hesitated at that statement. "He mentioned him during his Lifebringer Incident," Endeavor explained how he knew.

Michelangelo frowned deeply from across the table from Endeavor, and he said in a deep voice, "A sixteen year old who had never left Japan before already knew, while we didn't?"

"He had left Japan, I believe," Endeavor continued in a somewhat hesitant voice. He thought about a conversation he had had with his son just about a month ago when Shoto bargained with him to unofficially join the ADTF. "And I don't find it too coincidental that Sazaki knew about Eziano beforehand, because Sazaki had joined the League of Villains in Japan. They brought him out of the country, and even if he did not learn about Eziano from his time there, Sazaki spent much time dwelling in the underworld before his Lifebringer Incident. It has come to my attention recently that Sazaki was affiliated with a group of vigilantes inside of Japan, anti-heroes who he fought with…"

"The kid was all over the place," Outback Man admitted after a second's hesitation, and he shook his head around thinking of how crazy all of that sounded.

Blitz frowned deeper at Endeavor but he did hum and start nodding to himself after a moment which made Star-Spangled Man spin to him in surprise. "If anything," Star-Spangled Man started while looking back at his screen and the camera. "This new information should be further evidence of Death's secret identity being none other than Lifebringer. If he was already a vigilante before-"

"Despite the similarities," Endeavor countered without letting the first-ranked American hero finish. He narrowed his dark red eyebrows down that were not even enflamed as he kept the room darker on purpose, "There are coincidences too that we can't deny. Sazaki's prior knowledge of Mozcaccio put a target on him whether or not he was Death." A couple of the others hummed and saw Endeavor's point, but the top Japanese hero added at the end, "His status as a former vigilante makes us want to declare him as Death still without proof."

"This is all true," Michelangelo agreed with a stoic nod. "We are trying to place Sazaki as Death because it makes the most sense," he thought about something else he knew himself that made for a good argument that Lifebringer was Death, but even that he found inconclusive in his mind as he went over it again. It was part of the reason he did not bring it up right there just to add to more speculation, "However we are supposed to look for someone our proof points at, and the current proof is that Death is still out there reviving people while Sazaki's been in Japan for over 7 months now…"

"Wish I had gotten there a couple days later."

"You wouldn't have been able to stop it," Jetflame countered the man in front of him he just went to pick up at the rendezvous point they had planned out a week in advance based on what their headquarters' flight path had looked like at the time.

"Yeah, I know. But just, to be there for him right now." Blackstar leaned back in the passenger seat of the small cloaked jet that lifted back out of the dark forest with barely any wind coming out below it.

"How'd he look?"

"Good," Blackstar replied. "But… not great. And this? You saw how he looked. Kid's got a lot on his plate."

Jetflame shifted his gaze to the side in surprise that Blackstar would say that about him. _Being a hero's harder than you thought,_ the former British hero thought, then he refocused and sped up the jet to fly north and into the storm heading away from their position.

Yaoyorozu sat in her seat through the first period of the day, her hand patting down on her pocket over and over as she waited for it to buzz from a text she had never received. During the break she pulled it out and wrote a message out, then backspaced it, then wrote two more and deleted those as well before spending the final few minutes of the break just hoping to receive a message. The four messages she had already sent were just sitting there on the screen though with no response, and she glanced over across the room towards Midoriya's empty seat to relax herself again. _Midoriya will have helped him. He is just, swamped with everything he has to deal with right now. I can't, worry myself over this. He'll be fine._ Her eyes shifted back towards the front of the room as Present Mic walked in for their next class, but her eyes shifted past another empty desk in her classroom that Present Mic found himself staring at for a second too after entering Class A today.

Zach opened up his phone at the break between his first and second period, but he was unable to respond to any of the messages as Hachiman called over to his seat before walking out, "Sazaki, principal's office."

Zach's Class 1 classmates all getting ready to jump up and surround him looked towards Hazano sensei with annoyed looks. Hazano's eyes shifted to one of his students who did not give him a look like that though, and he stared at the girl whose incident in the classroom he had heard about from Enorma. Himazuri kept her eyes lowered on her desk and only subtly shifted them Zach's direction once he had started up for the front of the room with an exhausted look on his face some of the other students shared.

Many in Class 1 had been woken up by the explosion that went off close to their homes, closer than most of them had realized Zach lived before the blast. The ones who had been to Zach's apartment before were shocked by the blast and hearing about the man some of them remembered from fight day too. Anima had woken her older brother up, and Kotsumura was not slow to throw on his clothes and rush outside, where he met up with half a dozen others from his class and scattered to scour Yutapu for their missing classmate. Ultimately they had found him at half past three when they went to the hospital on rumors that he had checked in, which he definitely needed considering how he looked now heading to the door of their classroom.

"Can't believe they let him out of the hospital," Manzo mentioned after Zach and Hazano left the room. "He needs to rest with those injuries."

"He practically forced his way out of there," Kotsumura admitted with a laugh. The others who had gone to the hospital with him had all left when they saw Zach in high spirits and looking alright, waiting for Recovery Girl back at four in the morning. Kotsumura had stayed there through the night, though he did pass out for a few hours before his phone alarm went off telling him he needed to get ready for school. Zach had already been out of his hospital bed at the time and was redressing his wounds without any doctors or nurses around. Kotsumura had offered to help, but Zach just told him to help him get out of there instead and the two almost snuck out together but were caught as someone recognized Zach even with Kotsumura's sweatshirt's hood up over his head.

Zach walked through the halls after Hazano who led him to Principal Memuria's office. He was not expecting only the principal and Norasaki when he arrived, though he held back his sigh at the sight of the police and heroes waiting for him in the office. He had to answer a dozen questions on how he had gotten to school and left the hospital, about the attack and how he had reacted on the news which could lead to a panic with his fear-mongering about some 'Eziano Mozcaccio' who they had no information on. Then he had to explain why he did not bring up Eziano before after he confirmed his existence, explaining how even uttering his name would get the man to kill a person, and how he did not want to risk putting more of a target on himself when the previous attacks had stayed isolated on him. "…He dragged other people into his vendetta against me though, and he-"

"Why does he have a vendetta against you?" Norasaki questioned, the lie-detector glaring at Zach as if daring the teen to try and lie to him. The man focused as intensely as he could to make sure that Sazaki could not get around him, if he had been doing so the other times.

"Because I mentioned his name once, in the Enudora Forest," Zach replied. Everyone else stared at him and their eyes opened much wider at the response that Norasaki did not find to be a lie. "I shouted his name in front of the heroes and villains around me on the night of the 'Lifebringer Incident,' and I am not exaggerating when I say people died because I did. That alone, made him decide to kill me."

"How did he, find out?" Hazano slowed down, as the question started sounding silly to him considering how powerful this theoretical villain sounded.

One of the officers in the room pulled out her phone as it was ringing, and she lifted it and answered after seeing who was calling her. "Yes? He- what? Are you sure…"

The lead officer in the room lowered her phone and ended the call. Zach grit his teeth and shook his head, before the woman even started saying, "The bomber took his own life in his cell just now."

 _Maybe he did. Maybe it wasn't really Eziano. The guy was a fanatic. Suicide isn't that far-fetched. And yet, he was trying to escape me. He wasn't going to talk or reveal anything to anybody, and I'm sure he has no real identity so it's not like anyone would have found out anything there._ Zach's thoughtful look made the principal and her assistant stare at him closer like his homeroom teacher. Zach stood there with a metal hand sticking out of his school uniform's left sleeve, his right arm in a sling across the front of his body. He had white bandages wrapped around his neck, forehead, and diagonally from the top of his head over the right side of it just keeping far enough off his eye that he could still see out both.

"How," Memuria started, glaring towards the lead officer in the room with her. "Could that have happened? Did Deku not warn about the danger-"

"When the assassin woke up, he seems to have bitten off his own tongue and bled out. He, continued swallowing his blood so no one would notice how much he was losing, until it was too late. They have not started an autopsy yet, but he could have died from blood loss, or from drowning in his own blood if he intentionally breathed in while…" The woman saying these things was being stared at with wide eyes by the others around her, but she shook her head and just finished, "It's what I was just told. He fell face down in her cell and a puddle of blood poured out of his mouth, according to my lieutenant."

"And, still no identity on him?" Hazano wondered.

"There won't be," Zach said, shaking his head at his homeroom teacher he looked to. "Guys like that," he continued, and Hazano and Norasaki thought about a conversation they had on the first day of the term, about the five 'Mystery Assassins' that had never been identified. "They don't have real names."

"Every villain has a real identity," Memuria countered sharply at her student. "No villain was born-"

"What I mean," Zach started, interrupting her but doing so like he was making a correction on what he just said. "Is that their identities have been completely wiped from the face of the Earth." His expression was serious and his eyes intense as they stayed locked with the principal's. "I won't deny, that searching for Eziano Mozcaccio is one of the things I was doing after I left Japan. I never found him though. I could not find any credible lead on anyone affiliated with him, and most people just assumed he was a myth, if they had even heard of him at all. I, failed at stopping him, and now I'm paying the price." He shook his head in a regretful way, though his look did not take a darker one that the others were expecting him to get like they saw the night before.

Just 1000 kilometers away from Zach Sazaki, Eziano Mozcaccio stood at the top of a mountain staring out to the east. He looked out into the sea of white clouds covering the sky, his expression dark and his eyes cold as he stood in the silence and freezing cold at the top of the mountain. He stood shirtless with his right leg lifted and bent so the sole of his bare foot was pressed on his left leg's inner thigh. He brought his arms up at his sides and put them together above his head, then pulled his hands down in front of his chest with his closed eyes opening as his hands passed in front of them. The toes on his right foot curled into the floor that cracked below and spread cracks down from that spot to thirty meters down the mountain from him. His toes curled like that and then his body rose up three more inches as he stood only on the balls of his right foot with his toes pushing down more and carrying his whole weight with his heel pointed up vertically.

His balance remained as he slammed his right fist out in front of his body, making the clouds ahead of him part and then swirl around the force of the punch. The swirl of clouds remained hollow in the middle while the clouds spun around it and then broke apart, and Eziano brought his right hand back in front of his body and pressed it firmly into his left. Then he spoke in a low voice, "No…" He stayed still on top of the mountain and silent for a few more seconds, then he replied, "Actions such as those would have his army on every assassin who acts now. This is not All Might." Eziano stared out with a cold breeze slamming into him without shifting his balance in the slightest, his toes curling deeper into the divot he made in the rock surface below it. "…No. Not yet," he said again after a few moments of silence.

Eziano lowered his left foot down to the floor and then jumped off the edge of the mountain on its steepest side. "That has always been an option. First, I would use the weapon. If you have managed to do your job… Good. Then, start preparations. He will know his folly soon enough."

* * *

"…Why are you even at school right now?" Zach had his phone next to his ear but turned down the volume a couple more notches. He sat in the cafeteria at a table with lots of Shiketsu students all wanting to talk to him, though they were all just holding what they wanted to say on the tips of their tongues for now. "You should have taken the day off! Even if Recovery Girl did go to see you-"

"I'm fine Mina," Zach said, then he rolled his eyes with a look to his right side as Reika smirked with a look to her other side at a disappointed Kotsumura.

"Pay up," Reika told the blond boy who bet her that it was Yaoyorozu.

Kotsumura rose his eyebrows up though and pulled back from the girl on his left, "But, we didn't put anything down-"

"You did not look fine last night! I can't believe I only saw it this morning, I wish I had seen right away. And you said all that stuff about Eziano Mozcaccio? Isn't that bad?!"

"…Yeah," Zach replied. "I shouldn't have said his name like that," he admitted, and he glanced around the table at the people who were all listening to his phone call even though they were trying to act like they weren't at least until he was done with his call. "Everyone knows now though and there's no taking it back. I'll figure that out too."

"Are you sure? Alright!" Ashido decided not to question it any longer as Zach's voice did make it seem like he had everything figured out. She opened her mouth to continue in a brighter tone, but she hesitated thinking about Zach's apartment again. Then, a great idea came to her and she started excitedly, "You know, you're going to need new furniture-"

"I'm sorry, Mina," Zach said, cutting her off before she could continue that. He kept his expression the same outwardly, despite the swirling feeling of dread in his stomach at what he was about to say. _This sucks. I, would really like that-_ "I can't let anyone know where my new home will be."

"Ohh come on. You can't even tell just… You know you can trust-"

"I know, and I do trust you," Zach said, shaking his head while also focusing to his right side now and looking to Kotsumura who had mentioned something similar earlier that day. "But I already had a back-up plan if they ever found where I lived, and I can't let anyone follow people they know might be coming to my place. I can't widen their options beyond just following me, or I'll put more people in danger."

"Alright but-" Ashido started, accepting it quickly and coming up with another idea at the same time. "What if we just did the shopping thing again? We could go out and buy you all new furniture and everything, then you could just take it back yourself?"

Zach shook his head with his lips lowering even lower. "I still, don't think that would be good. Any public place we meet in could be," his voice lowered and the others at the table really did focus more on their lunches as they were felling bad listening in now. Zach hesitated for a few seconds and he could sense Ashido's disappointed and saddened expression through the phone. He explained softly, "My schedule is always unpredictable, so they wouldn't be able to set a good trap for me anywhere. The second a U.A. friend of mine gets on the train somewhere unexpected, it's a bright green flag for them to go ahead and follow straight to me."

"Do you think, they followed one of us to your place?" Ashido whispered.

"It could have been a hundred different things," Zach replied with a tone telling her not to think like that. "Which is why I'm removing ninety-nine of those potential possibilities this time. I won't make the same mistake twice. Don't worry though, I have a new place set up already and I didn't even lose all of my stuff. I'll get some new clothes tonight, and that's all I really need right now."

"Hmmm," Ashido hummed at him over the line, wondering if he was telling her the whole truth here.

"I'm calling you on my phone, aren't I?" Zach wondered. "And even my report for school is saved on my laptop that barely got damaged in the blast. Lost most of my notes, but at least I've got a good excuse…" Zach's dark humor was making the others at his table look back at him with wide eyes.

Ashido just smiled on the other end of the line though and said after a moment, "Alright then. You should still go back to the hospital though! Going back to school on the day after like that-"

"I heard you were back pretty quickly too after Grater," Zach countered. Ashido's eyes widened and she opened her mouth, but a smile spread over more of her face as Zach compared what he was doing to that. "And I didn't get nearly that injured. If you could see me right now you'd realize I'm perfectly fine." Zach said it while looking to his right at Reika directly on his right side. She looked back at the right side of his head with the white bandage wrapped around it diagonally, and the bandages around his neck, his right arm in a sling, etcetera.

She snickered under her breath and Zach lifted a slightly larger smile himself before nodding a couple more times and making affirmative noises to his friend on the line with him. "Yeah. Yeah I know. I will. Maybe not later today- alright. No yeah, I hear you," Zach turned down the volume on his phone again. "Anyway, if anyone else over there is about to call me and they get annoyed that I don't pick up, I've got people all around me right now just swarming me with questions and I can't stay on the phone all day. I've got to eat too, so, just if anyone wonders why you got an answer and they- no, please don't say that. Mina?" Zach lowered his phone that the call had disconnected on, and he chuckled while lowering it down for his pocket with a more carefree look on his face than any of his classmates were expecting to see today.

 _The Zach you saw last night was the fluke, not the reveal of what's underneath. A slip up showing an old version of me, not a slip up showing who I really am._ "Swarm away," Zach said, as he had been joking about that since no one was asking at the time, but he knew they all had a hundred questions to ask anyway.

"Who's Eziano Mozcaccio?"

"How long have you known…"

"Why is he after you…"

"Are you sure it was him…"

"Did you hear the guy who did it killed himself?"

Zach nodded across the table at Imino who had just seen an article about that. Most of the others did not see it yet and looked towards Imino in surprise then back at Zach too after seeing his nod.

"That Eziano guy, he's bad news huh?" Dendo wondered, and Zach looked down to the corner of the table where the green-haired teen was sitting and looking sternly over at him. "Bad enough you couldn't deal with him on your own out there?"

What Dendo said sounded like half-praise and half an insult. The praise was on how it would be surprising that Zach could not deal with it himself, while the insult was more Dendo accusing Zach of failing to capture this man before this incident occurred despite his huge strength. "Yeah, that bad," Zach replied. "Those rumors of me in Italy?" Zach brought up, seeing if the others had heard of those rumors and receiving nods form his classmates around him. "With a name like that, I figured it was a good place to hunt for him. Some of the villains I ran into had heard of him. Not a single one of them would tell me anything, and most changed the conversation or ran away immediately if I even spoke his name."

"Jeez, just from saying his name?" Kotsumura asked over with his eyebrows lifted up. He had not asked anything about it from Zach through the morning, more just worried about how Zach was doing rather than on what had happened. "How does a guy get people that scared-"

"It's the reason he's trying to kill me," Zach replied before Kotsumura was finished. "Because I said his name, once." Everyone at the table stared at Zach in confusion, then shock at his serious expression after he said it. "Those villains were right to run from the conversation. I know people who have been killed over just this. Just saying Eziano, Eziano Eziano Eziano," Zach repeated it three more times and chuckled to himself in a darker way for a moment before shaking his head and grimacing for a brief moment. _Like I understand my slip up the night before and am trying to quit it,_ Zach sighed and lifted his left steel hand to the side of his head and rubbed it in a tired way. "But I'm guessing I ended that for him, now that everyone's saying it… Unless he plans on destroying the whole world."

"Ha, haha, haha," Kotsumura laughed, very insincerely and loudly towards Zach to show he did not find it as funny when this Eziano guy sounded insane and like that was something he might do.

"Do you think," Kameko started across the table. He hesitated with Imino looking to his side at his friend's face in confusion at why Kameko stopped right there. The curly-haired boy with a shell on his back shifted his gaze to Reika for a second though, before continuing back to Zach in a lower voice, "He's a bigger threat than Intanzo?

"Not to Japan," Zach replied with a shake of his head. "But to me? Oh yeah."

"Oh? 'Cause you think you could take Intanzo so easy?" Reika wondered, her eyes next to her at the boy who looked back and kept an intense look on his face.

"Not easily," Zach answered. "But Eziano's worse." _He slit my throat before,_ Zach thought, wishing he could say that aloud to the girl next to him to explain it better. _You've all seen that scar. And it's not from an assassination either. I_ _ **knew**_ _where he was that time. I went after him on my own ship, hunted him in my own home, and he got the drop on me and cut my throat._

"Sazaki."

Zach turned his head and looked away from the table towards the gap out into the hall where Kimona sensei was standing and looking harshly towards him. "Go to the nurse's office. Ms. Anastasia is waiting for you."

Zach decided not to argue with the hero frowning so deeply at him, _Likely thinking about how I looked last night. Hopefully it's just from the injuries that has him looking at me that way._ He got up and started to leave the room, taking off more weight on his right leg that still had injuries on it despite Recovery Girl's kiss that morning which healed him up a little bit. _My calf was one of the deeper injuries,_ he thought as he kept the weight off it by limping, ignoring how that must have looked to the people behind him who had seen him walking normally before this. _Don't want to exacerbate it more before seeing the nurse. A few on my side were deep too, and it sucks I can't just keep my insides around the marks as Death. It heals quicker without me doing so though. I never realized the increased healing speed because I was hindering my own body's efforts by putting the Death there to prevent bleeding while I moved so fast everywhere. Then having Curalia and Miraculu made it so when I did have to take a break, I healed much quicker but never because, because of Death._

"…What do you think you're doing here today? Most people would take a sick day after what happened to you last night."

"The report's coming up," Zach replied with a glance to his side at his teacher who just looked at him unamused by the response. "I mean it," Zach said in response that changed that look showing Kimona seriously thought it was a joke. "I'd rather work on the report here than at home, and that's all I'd be doing today if I spent my time at my new place."

"You already have a new place?" Kimona asked.

"Had it ready a while ago, in case I ever needed to change addresses on short notice," Zach responded. "Going to do a better job at keeping this one secret, which I've already told Principal Memuria. She said she's alright with me not having an address on file with the school."

"Hmm," Kimona nodded as he hummed in response. _Smart, decision. Damn the kid acts so fast. The way he looked last night, I thought he'd snapped. If the cameras didn't catch him like that he could have gotten past this easily it seems. But he got caught in that moment, and this is not going to blow over that simply._

Back in the cafeteria, students in Class 2 got up from their seats a few seconds after Zach Sazaki had left the room. Muoko Kimi looked over her shoulder as Class 2's rep walked over to her table. Crowley, Whitewood, Manzo, and Tomoki looked over to the edge of their table too where the short boy in Class 2 stopped and glanced back to the door of the cafeteria for a moment before speaking. "You all, saw Sazaki on the news didn't you?" Kaimie questioned, looking specifically at Muoko after questioning the whole table. Muoko nodded calmly, but that just made Kaimie Sazzo look at her in a more accusatory way.

A few guys from Class 2 headed directly to the table Zach had been at, and they questioned the largest group of Class 1 students who had been squeezed into that table and spread to fill Zach's seat once he was gone. "How do you guys not see it?"

"Dendo, come on," Class 2's ranked 1 student, Sama Ledoni started with an intense look at the boy who had felt the most like his counterpart in the other class over the past few years. Inasa was too much in a league of his own, while Dendo and him had had a strong rivalry that existed from their first inter-class training their first years. Sama shook his head at Dendo's intense expression back telling him to leave it be, "That look on Sazaki's face? Everyone can tell he's reverting back to the person he was before, if he ever did change in the first place," Sama added at the end with a darker look suggesting he had been fooling them all the whole time.

Kameko looked past Sama and the other three from Class 2 who had come over to accost them over this and the way they were acting so friendly with Zach still. He looked at other students from Class 2 and the other classes who were around the cafeteria but mostly looking their direction. Some had worried looks that he had seen over Zach's head through the whole lunch period from their tables nearest to the exit doors, though they appeared to be hiding them less now and whispering to their friends about Lifebringer much more clearly.

Imino frowned deeply at some of the things he was hearing all around the room, but then he sighed and admitted after a moment, "My parents warned me too this morning." His classmates looked over at him but Imino looked right towards the guys in Class 2 as he was speaking, "Told me to be wary of Zach, make sure I'm careful around him. But just like you, they don't know Zach."

"Yeah, that's right," Kotsumura agreed. "You guys haven't seen it, but Zach's looked that way before. He gets serious sometimes and, and well, he looks pretty intense when he gets serious." _Scary's probably a better word._

Trabo grinned after listening to Kotsumura and he turned back towards their Class 2 friends too, "I agree. Zach's not 'going rogue.' Just, on the list of heroes who look most like villains, Zach is easily number 1 on the leaderboard."

Satoshi laughed once but then muttered under his breath in annoyance, "He's number 1 in popularity too."

Bibi glanced at the boy next to her and she hummed while looking back down at her plate. She thought of some of what she had seen on the news this morning, and she whispered in reply only Satoshi heard, "I doubt it, after that…"

The rest of the school day went by quickly for Zach. He was glad he had his indestructible phone still, and he left Shiketsu with the rest of his belongings on him as well. Zach slipped away from the school on his own, and he did not stop at any store near the school premises to do his shopping. He only had the single pair of clothes he had bought on the way to school while wearing Kotsumura's sweatshirt into the shop, along with his ragged pairs of sweatpants and underwear that were in the drawstring bag Kotsumura leant him too. He had to move some cash from his stocks on his Arkitock app into his bank account when he was taking out funds, as he realized he was much lower on cash than he thought.

 _Only use the ATM in Yutapu,_ Zach reminded himself at the train station already. _And no hospitals for the rest of the day. The press will be waiting for me in every city hoping I'll show up to try and 'make up' for what I did last night. Barely slipped past them around the hospital and after school today. Bet they'll wait there for hours thinking I'm just waiting inside for them to leave before leaving myself._ Zach lifted a small smirk at the thought of that, but after a second his lips lowered flat and curved much farther down at the corners. _I can't avoid them forever. I don't know what I'm going to say yet though. I need to do it on my terms. I'm not going to have that chance though. The second they catch me I can't run off. Yet I also can't hide, which means I have to move fast and to places they wouldn't expect to see me- but that won't be enough!_

Zach got on the train and he hummed to himself with a thoughtful look on his face as he went and sat down. _People are looking at me now. Any of them could work with someone who works with someone at a tv station. They start texting around while we're on the train, there could be camera crews waiting for me at the next stops. Guess I can't go too far down the line then. Just need to get out of Yutapu for it though. Can't fly without a good emergency, and can't show up anywhere for an emergency without likely running into the media. Shit this is hard. Avoiding the media is so hard when you're not supposed to. I could always just become more like Aizawa sensei and try to avoid… but that's not the kind of hero I want to be. And I can't just flip flop like that. All Might always smiled on tv. Aizawa avoided the media altogether. I- I want to use the media to my advantage. They don't like that. They want to use heroes to get good ratings, and to make scandals and build up controversial stories. I can manipulate them though even while they think they're using me. People will call me out on it, Midoriya always has, but he knows right now that I need this._

He took his laptop out of his bag and put in headphones as he sat back on his seat on the train, making it look like he would be sitting there for quite a while. _Two stops. Seems good,_ Zach opened up a half dozen tabs on his computer and searched for himself on every single one. _Let's see what I have to work with…_

In Class A's dorm, the students returning from their day of studies were beat from the afternoon training which felt harder than usual though some of them blamed how much was on their minds through it. Midoriya was moving from the kitchen to the tables between it and the sitting area of the common room. He had a bucket in hand and was finished cleaning the bathrooms and kitchen, so it was time to wipe down the tables and chairs. Uraraka was walking next to him, telling him all about what had happened in their classes and training today since Midoriya did not want to fall behind and asked her to help him.

The two of them lost focus on their classes though as Ashido yelled out in annoyance from the center of the couches she jumped up off as she shouted. "You have to be kidding me!"

"…It's what a lot of people are saying right now. February is at an end. It's been two months now since Lifebringer was released from Tartaros, and what do we have to show for it?" The dark-haired anchor on the afternoon news program wondered with a lift of his right palm that the two women on his right side nodded in somewhat agreement with.

The host across from the one who just said that had his right eyebrow lifted up his dark blue face though. Gato Munio held up his own hand and offered, "Well, we have the fall of the Subspace Devils for one." He reminded the other hosts, and the looks he received in response made him frown more at the others who seemed against him for defending Lifebringer. "It's not like he hasn't brought anyone back to life too-"

"But he showed us last night," Omiora started shaking her head at the man closest to her on her right. "That he could bring back over a dozen people in a minute! And then he went and _flew_ off, so he could have been doing that all over the place."

"It's true," the other woman next to her agreed with a disapproving look at Gato. "We've been giving him the excuse this whole time that he's too busy with school, or that he can't do it because he doesn't have his full hero license yet, but now what excuse can we give him? He's using his Quirk out in the open without repercussions already."

"Each of those times he used it could be considered emergencies," Gato started to counter.

"Of course," Taiko agreed from across the table. Gato felt like he slipped up there though at the agreement from the man who seemed the harshest critic of Lifebringer out of nowhere today. "All those times he's been reported at different cities, having arrived by using his Quirk to those hospitals we kept hearing he was at to bring back those who just died, those _were_ emergencies. And it's like he said himself, he was 'close enough' to reach them with his Quirk. That doesn't mean he was nearby at the time, just that he was able to get there and so that's what he did. He has a provisional license and that's apparently enough for him to do that much, so why hasn't he been doing it more often?"

"I can think of one reason," Gato replied. "You heard him last night. While he was bringing them back, not when he was talking about that Eziano fellow, so don't tell me 'yeah, you heard him.' You heard him screaming right?"

"We've always known it hurts Lifebringer," Omiora countered. "But he fights through the pain and does it anyway. Are you saying he just decides not to bring people back because he doesn't want to get hurt again?"

"That's not what I'm saying-"

"Then what are you saying? Because if that's not it, then is Lifebringer just being lazy? We voted to get him out of prison so that he could come back and be a hero, but besides the Subspace Devils he hasn't done what people were expecting of him! Even that wasn't something we wanted Lifebringer doing. It's in his name-"

"People die. I'm not trying to say Lifebringer should be changing that… but he should be doing more. A lot more, especially if people are getting _killed_ just because he's around. All those attacks on him I felt like he was handling pretty well, but last night he clearly lost it."

Shoji frowned at the screen in front of him from the right couch he sat on next to Tokoyami. "How quickly people forget about the good once something bad happens," Shoji said behind his mask. Tokoyami glanced to his side for a moment and then nodded his head in agreement while frowning back at the screen himself.

"Subspace Devils?" Ashido exclaimed as they brought them up again. She looked towards Momo to see if she was seeing this, but Yaoyorozu just kept watching the screen herself with a straight expression from the couch on Mina's left. "They keep bringing them up like that's _all_ he's done! But, it's not like he's- He's going to school because he _needs_ to! They told him he couldn't be a hero otherwise, and now they're what? Getting mad at him because he's following the rules?"

"It sounds pretty unfair," Uraraka started in a low voice, looking next to her at Midoriya to see if he felt the same. Midoriya stared closer at the screen though as the news hosts put up the clip from last night again, specifically on Zach covered in darkness and ranting about the one who tried to kill him. "Do you think, that Eziano guy will accept his challenge?"

"I don't think," Midoriya started. He trailed off though, _Was that even Zach's purpose of bringing him up there? Or was it just to make him angry? Make him get sloppy, maybe? Or could it have just been him snapping, and I just assume even in that moment he must have had a plan, like how he used it to try and get the bomber to talk?_ Midoriya's expression shadowed over for a second, _Zach was right. The guy's dead already. It says it was suicide, and it totally could have been if the guy was a fanatic like Zach said… but could Eziano have gotten to him?_ _ **"Come tomorrow you'll be dead. It doesn't matter who I turn you over to. It doesn't matter where you are or how protected you may be."**_

"Deku?" Uraraka wondered, seeing the frustrated look on her best friend's face that confused her based on what she asked. "What else happened this morning? When you went to see Zach?" She specified, and Midoriya looked to his side at her with his intense look fading and his eyes just shifting in a more reassuring way.

"We talked about what he had said," Midoriya replied, looking back to the screen though the video cut off at the worst part, right before Zach gasped out painfully at the end, 'You killed my landlord.' Midoriya shook his head in frustration as even Gato had to admit that Sazaki looked like he was back to his old self again right there. "And," Midoriya finished, "he said he was going to try and fix this."

"This?" Uraraka wondered while looking towards the tv herself. Ashido was getting angrier and shouted at the hosts for all talking badly about Zach after showing that cropped clip of what happened. Gato's defense got meeker, and the others felt more emboldened to discuss how Sazaki seemed like he was talking like he would have back before the Lifebringer Incident. Uraraka whispered as they mentioned how maybe everything they had seen from him for two months was like what they saw in the weeks leading up to that incident, "Zach saw this coming?"

"He knew it," Midoriya replied. His voice got darker as he said it to the confusion of Uraraka who glanced his way before deciding it just had to be due to the situation Zach was in now. _He knows how the media will react. He knows how people will react when he does certain things. I could see he was accepting on that metal pole he sat on, everything he was already predicting they would say about him on the news. He thinks he knows what the future will hold, and he makes those predictions so often only to find himself right. And every single time he's proved right, he'll believe more and more in the predictions he has for the future._ Midoriya's eyes narrowed at the screen and then lowered down at the floor, _And when Zach makes decisions in the present based on what he predicts would be best for the future, he so often does something horrible that is justified in his mind._

 _Because to Zach it's not about being forced to kill someone because they have a gun to a victim's head about to pull the trigger. It's predicting that someone might use a gun to put against a person's head, and he doesn't want that victim to go through even that in the first place, so he decides to stop it early to protect them from even that much._ Midoriya bit down behind his lips and curled his fists in, squeezing water out of a rag he was holding in his left so it dripped to the floor next to his feet. _He'd make that decision, wouldn't he? If he_ _ **knew**_ _it would happen. He's made decisions like that based on what he knew would come. He killed Kurogiri because he knew Kurogiri would escape, but that's not necessarily true. Potaru hasn't escaped Tartaros. Maybe Kurogiri wouldn't have either. So there are times when you're wrong. Times where you killed people, and you really didn't need to. And what happens when that time comes again and you kill someone, and I know you didn't need to, but I let you do it because I knew you would all this time leading up to it? What happens, if you fail and I let you? I can't let that happen. And I can't give up on you either._

 _I won't give up on anything. I'll stop you from killing again. I swear it._

On a bullet train speeding across Japan, Zach leaned back in his seat with his face unable to smile despite the camera he noticed recording him from someone else's booth. His eyes locked on the screen of the same program a lot of Japan tuned into as there was a special guest appearing on it. "…Now welcome, Norita Ekusa to the show."

A tall young woman walked out onto the stage at her cue and over to the soft chair next to the desk the talk show host was sitting behind. "Please, take a seat Ms. Norita. And can I say, my deepest condolences for your father."

"Thank you," Ekusa replied, sitting down and scooting in it for a moment before finding a comfortable position. "I was getting calls to come on one of these all day," she added while looking to the host, wondering if he would start talking to her already.

"We know it must be an inconvenient time for you, but we at Nichiori Terebi appreciate you coming out today. There are things everyone would like cleared up though that we feel you might have a unique perspective on, as the daughter of the deceased, Norita Riku."

Ekusa's expression saddened though she quickly returned it to professional. She sat there in a black dress-skirt with her legs crossed, her arms folded over her lap and her expression steady despite what she was going through. _Remember why you said yes._ She cleared her throat and nodded at the host in front of her who gave a small smile and then lifted up some cards he tapped down on top of his desk.

"Then let's begin. What we have heard so far about this whole, tragedy, is pointing at a rather strange occurrence at your father's apartments. The current reports suggest that Zach Sazaki was not paying for his apartment that your father leased out to him?" The host rose his eyebrows wondering if what he was saying sounded as strange to everyone else as it did to him. "And what's more, records show that your father was killed once before, and Sazaki had brought him back to life. He had your father give him a free room as payment for his revival, didn't he?"

Ekusa's straight expression lasted just until the end of the start of the questioning. "Let me tell you something-" she stopped herself after starting like that. Then she frowned deeply even after pausing and seeing the talk-show host lean back and looking at her in surprise at the outburst. "About my father," Ekusa continued, her voice sounding less confrontational than it seemed like it was about to. "The kind of person my father was, was the type who _hated_ tracking people down to pay their debts. He'd always get pissed off when people were late with rent, saying stuff like 'How do people do this?' Or, 'What kind of man…' Stuff like that."

Ekusa continued with her eyes softening as she thought back, "He felt like he was in debt, and that he had to give Lifebringer the room. So he tracked him down to offer it."

"As a hero, Sazaki shouldn't have accepted-"

"He told me!" Ekusa interrupted the host louder than he was trying to counter. "That _Lifebringer_ tried to deny the offer but he wouldn't allow it. He told me that it wasn't just about the debt, but that he cared about Lifebringer too and felt that kid needed someone watching out for him." Ekusa said it strongly and narrowed her eyes more at the host, "And then you come out here on the air talking about how Lifebringer got him killed?" She asked, her voice accusatory and shaming as she leaned forward in her chair with a harsher look at the host who leaned back in his own. "You should feel ashamed, all of you, because I know my father's rolling around in his grave at the idea that his name is being used to make Lifebringer out as the bad guy here."

"I heard his voice when he came out of that fire," Ekusa continued, her voice lowering as she almost hesitated mentioning her father's 'grave' as the police had told her there was not enough left to give them anything for remains. She continued though despite thinking of that, "The emotion as he mentioned his 'landlord,' I know he cared about my father." Her eyes shifted towards a camera and she said lower, "And I hold no hatred in my heart for him. I just hope that he'll succeed in finding the others hunting him down, and that he'll bring them all to justice like he got the bomber last night."

The man behind his desk cleared his throat and sat back forward, "Ms. Norita, I understand that you have some very, very strong feelings regarding Lifebringer here." She frowned back at the man who sounded like he was still going to counter her, but he did anyway as he continued, "But Lifebringer does not have the right to go after those villains on his own. Not as a-"

"No one else is stopping them!" Ekusa exclaimed. She cut off the host who frowned more but then hesitated himself looking like he understood where she was coming from, even nodding his head to the side in reluctant agreement as she went on, "Assassins keep going for Lifebringer, and we're stopping him from going after them with that rule that he has to finish school first. This Eziano Mozcaccio, it sounds like Lifebringer really wants to go after him, and no one else is stopping him! So let Lifebringer go for it I say. Let him avenge my father, and bring all those villains responsible to justice. Instead of forcing him to just react _after_ they've attacked him, as he's been doing for months now…"

"Thank you!" Ashido fell back onto the couch she had been standing in front of for a while, and she humphed with her arms crossing under her chest. "Contradicting themselves, all of them. Getting mad at Zach for letting this happen, and then getting mad if he tries to do anything about it. Stupid. Baka." Ashido started muttering under her breath, but a few others near her nodded at what she just said.

 _I don't agree with everything he does,_ Tokoyami hummed to himself. _And there still exists the possibility that he is Death… But this is a little much. Everyone expects too much of him while he is still in high school. They pardoned him, and now they're upset that he's going to school instead of just going around reviving all of them every day. People are starting to get upset at Nikko too. Releasing Zach, and also giving a provision that makes it so he can't save everyone at all times? It's like he somehow managed to anger all of his own voters and the people who voted against him in a single night. Must be stressful._

Nikko Kaizo sat on a couch in his office staring at a screen on his wall with the most exhausted look covering his face. He brought his hands up to his forehead and rubbed up into his hair and then down over his eyes as he heard footsteps walking towards him. "Not now Enri," he muttered through his hands.

"Lifebringer is smart," Enri started to her husband while walking up behind the couch. She put her hands on his shoulders that were even more tense than she thought they would be, and she rubbed his shoulders with him groaning under her touch. "He will find a way to get back on everyone's good sides. He will regain the media's favor, and you could do something to help that out by supporting his actions publicly? Add how well he handled the event, and be sure to refer to it as a national tragedy."

"I can't," Nikko said, shaking his head and dragging his hands down the rest of his face before darkly looking up to the television screen. "Something like that…" _What if that's not what they want me doing?_

"It's exactly what you need right now. Show the people, that you really can take-"

"I said-" Nikko started louder and more frustratedly, but he stopped himself before shouting at his wife. He paused and felt her hands leave his shoulders, and he bowed his head and gasped out a heavy breath full of exhaustion.

"What is it?" Enri wondered, her voice soft though a little stern at the tone he had begun taking with her. "This doesn't seem like just the pressure. Something else has been up with you lately."

"It's nothing," Kaizo assured her, starting up to his feet and turning to his wife with a smile back on it again. "I promise. I'm just stressed, and this on top of everything is so-" he shook his head around and then flashed her a smile again. "It's okay. Okay?"

"Yes, okay," Enri replied, nodding her head and lifting a small smile of her own before turning away. "I'll go get back to work. Please do try and take it easy."

"Thank you, Enri."

Enri Nikko walked out of her husband's office, and her uneasy nerves spread across her face. _What was that?_ The woman started away from his office's door but her expression was dark and afraid. _Why would he smile like that? Like, he didn't want me thinking anything else was wrong. That's what it looked like! Why? What is going on with him, that he doesn't want me finding out about? An affair, is possible. But the look in his eyes, despite the smile, he was afraid. Not afraid of me finding out, but- but what?_

 _The Prime Minister, is a very powerful position. It could be something worse than an affair. Is he doing something- no. No no, I'm overthinking this._ Enri shook her head around, pushing down the doubt as she chuckled at where her thoughts had been wandering for a minute there. _We're partners. He would tell me if he gets caught up in something bad, and we would work it out together when that time comes. I, know it..._

Zach let out a sigh as he packed up his things to get off at the station the train just stopped at. He had not looked like he was getting off there at all while the train slowed down, but while it was stopped at the station he packed up quickly and got off the shinkansen. He kept his headphones in while popping up a new podcast on his phone of someone who had always been skeptical of his reemergence in Japan and how genuine he seemed while he was there. They were not hesitant to give him credit where it was due either though, and it was the neutrality of the podcast that made him listen in to see how people on that middle ground were feeling today.

 _I'm getting so much bad press now._ **"No! What I can't get over is that way he looked after the explosion. I don't care how much it sounded like it hurt him to bring all those people back. He shouldn't be bringing that many back at once in the first place if it's going to set him off like that!"** _No one just accepts reasons I might be acting dark anymore. Not like back then. They all understood after Kaminari's betrayal. But I was just a kid back then. Since I've come back, I've acted like a pro hero- no. I've acted like the ideal hero. It's what I wanted people to think I had become after my penance._

 **"All that darkness. It didn't look like his old Nightmare form. It was just pitch black. The threat he said to that Eziano Mozcaccio too? It was so, so menacing. Ominous as Hell more like!"**

 **"It's clear that the Lifebringer we've been seeing who smiles for the camera is just telling us what we want to hear."**

 **"It doesn't have to be that cut and dry. Maybe Sazaki's really trying to be better, but something like** _ **this**_ **stirs those feelings he pushes down. I know I'd be pretty upset if people kept trying to kill me. And if they dragged innocent people into it?!"**

 **"Sure. Sure that makes sense! It did seem to be why he was most upset… but then again, Sazaki did drag those people into it in the first place."**

 **"Didn't you just see that same clip I saw? Norita Riku pushed to get Lifebringer to stay at his…"**

 _All this bad press I'm getting, and somehow Norita-san's still helping me out even now._ Zach closed his eyes and stopped walking for a second on his way to a mall in Jakku City.

"I'm so sorry," Zach whispered under his breath. He reached up and he took his headphones out of his ears, _I need to try even harder now that I slipped up._ His expression became focused and he walked forward with a purpose in his step. _What Ekusa said won't immediately fix things. People are going to be hard on me, and I deserve that, but I need to get things back the way they were. I need to do something big before public opinion is shifted the way the news decides it should go without my interference. Unfortunately, just doing more good things won't cut it this time._

 _This time, I need to be a political hero._

* * *

 **A/N Dealing with the fallout from the explosion here. Lots of bad press hitting Zach, as well as some complications at school though he's maintaining his posture now and reassuring everybody that he's alright... But he knows he needs to do something more. Thanks for reading! Hope you enjoyed the chapter. Leave a review below telling me what you think, and review response time:**

Polw3 chapter 186 . 9h ago

I never want to go against you in a strategy game. You'd be ten thousand steps ahead of me the whole way.

 **Haha thanks. I, am really good at chess. And Stratego (if anyone's played that, awesome game). XD Enjoy the morning chapter!**

Aar0nC0le chapter 186 . 9h ago

Fuck man. This dream sequence stuff really fucked me up. In like- a good way. Excellent stylistic choice these last 2 chapters with that stuff. I'm really hype for everything that's brewing here-angst, turmoil and plot plot plot. And like Zack, I'm always struck by how different him and midoriya really are. Like I LOVE Izuku and I LOVE Zack and I can't help but see both of their point of views. It really has me conflicted, which I think is the intention, to emulate for the reader how both Zack and Deku feel about eachother. (At least I think so somewhat?) love shit like that. I'm excited and nervous to see what comes next ! - ;) Aaron

 **Thanks a lot! Glad you enjoyed the chapters and the style choices. And finally! A Midoriya fan here lol, I never meant to bring so much hate to Midoriya's character as some of the comments I've been getting have. I'd been trying to show both point of views, and I do think Midoriya has as much a point as Zach a lot of the time (especially since he doesn't know all that we do), but I'm glad you've been picking up on some of that stuff and really enjoy it. I hope you liked the new chapter, and thanks for reviewing!**


	188. Chapter 188

**Disclaimer: I don't own Boku no Hero Academia**

 **Chapter 188:**

 _ **"Iida, I'm not going to tell you not to do it."**_ Iida Tenya sat at his desk with a pair of glasses in his hands he turned over and over again. _**"If my, family, had been hurt by someone. You can bet the first thing I'd want to do is go after them."**_

Iida looked towards his open computer and the time at the bottom, getting ever closer to 9:00 p.m. that he was waiting for so anxiously. _**"But that box you've got there, that's a costume made by U.A. that they entrusted us to be responsible with. Whatever we do in these costumes will reflect back on our school and everything it stands for. As the class rep, I feel like you'd be the one most clear on that."**_

Iida's thoughts of that train ride were cut in by something he had read over a year after that had happened. _'I'm sorry. It wasn't just not saying enough on the train. I felt Midoriya's text in my pocket, and I didn't check to see what it was for quickly, as I had already seen Manual out there. I should have come to help you sooner. I think a part of me thought it might have been about you and Stain though… and I…'_ _ **"The man who killed Stain! The Champion of the Pit! Destroyer of the Shadows! …Death!"**_ _How could the you who wrote that letter, go on to do something like that- '...I just needed to say this now because I don't think I'll ever be able to in person. Iida, goodbye. Thanks for being my friend.'_

A buzzing noise shook Iida from his thoughts. He looked down and checked the message, then he nodded and got up to his feet. _'You watching downstairs? I'm heading down now.'_ Iida replied to Uraraka, _'Be right there.'_ No response had come yet from the third person in their groupchat, and Iida wondered if he would see Midoriya down there tonight.

 _What Zach told me at the joint training, it was crazy. I could not believe all of it, easily. I still believe that much of it must have been altered by his own changed memories. He admits that he altered his own mind, and though that is dangerous I believe he has a certain grip on the true reality. Especially after that talk, it was like he was understanding it even more- and yet he believed all he was saying about the true 'Battle of the 6 Armies.' And in that battle, Eziano Mozcaccio was watching. There to witness the end of Death…_ _ **"…Eziano and his assassins, watching from that plateau before I shattered it…"**_

 _They were at that battle with thousands of others. He survived it. A remnant from your war that you brought back here to Japan. Except he had come to Japan before too. He has forces that seem to be able to move around with ease and have no identities._ Iida walked down his hallway for the stairs where he saw Sero and Sato heading down together, though neither of them were talking and both seemed upset at the other on their way down. _Everyone's caught up in their own opinions of him. And, people don't know whether or not Eziano is the one to be worried about here. As powerful as Eziano seems to be, Zach made it out like he could take him… Was that intentional?_ Iida's breath sucked in and his eyes widened for a moment, then he brought them back to normal size and continued down the stairs himself while trying to compose himself for his classmates he would be seeing in a few seconds.

 _Zach may have realized that everyone would realize the assassins after him have so much power to be able to pull something like that off and even badly injure him. Giving out that challenge then, it could have been him showing to everyone that he still feels confident he's stronger._

"I can't believe he's actually doing it," Mineta said to the invisible girl walking on his right side on their ways to the couches of the common room. Mineta looked back forward though as Hagakure sped up, and he exclaimed, "Dibs!"

"No way!" Hagakure called back, and she ran around the couches and jumped into the empty spot on Ashido's right side between her and where Sato just sat down. The couch on their left had Uraraka, Koda, and then Sero sitting in the corner closest to where Ashido was sitting. On the opposite side of Sero on Sato's right sat Yaoyorozu, then Todoroki and Aoyama who sat at the end opposite Uraraka. Iida realized he had nowhere to sit and just walked past Mineta to stand in between the couches between Ashido and Sero, making Mineta run around the other side to jump up and sit on the armrest next to Sato who lowered his arm so Mineta could sit, though he did grunt at the annoyance of having to do so.

Ojiro came down after Iida, and Hagakure called over to the stairs, "They're starting Mashirao."

Everyone had known all day what was coming at 9 o'clock that night. It had been broadcasted on every station throughout the day and the night prior when first news of it broke. The Night Late no Tonight Show with Kirigomo "Kipper" Rudo was having a special guest on tonight, one who every late night talk show had wanted to interview for years to no avail. Talk shows were not the only ones to fail, but every reporter, every news host, even the Prime Minister had trouble getting him to sit down for a press conference let alone an interview that could have lasted the whole hour, if companies were not offering boatloads to fill up the commercial slots of that hours.

Iida watched as the spiraling words of the show's name spun over the screen during the intro music. It was 9:00 on the dot and the station was the most watched thing in Japan, and the most streamed videos all over the internet that channel 6's moderators could not shut down fast enough. _Zach's going to lie on national television for an hour straight. He's going to tell everyone, stuff that I might one day have to counter. Everyone's going to believe him so much too… Or maybe everything he says will be the truth, and he'll somehow direct the interview in the way he wants it to go. I've seen him do that just as often. So I don't know. I could never, pinpoint who Zach was._

 _I felt bad I did not run to the teachers fast enough at USJ, to get Snipe there even a second quicker which could have saved Zach from… everything._ Iida's face shifted to show a moment of confusion, _When did I stop feeling bad about that? Admittedly, I wasn't the one who made me stop. Zach told me that it wasn't my fault. He knows he's the one who made that decision. He makes all his own decisions, and there's never been anything I've been able to do to stop him. And what he decides to do here, all I can do is watch and decide afterwards how to respond._

"Well, I don't need to tell you that we have one hell of a show for you tonight, do I?" Kipper asked, and the audience laughed as all of them were excited for it too and did not need to hear that. "The country is still rocked by the disaster a few nights ago, but for the first time in, well, in forever! Zach, Sazaki," he paused and shook his head with a big smile in amazement and disbelief at what he just said. "Is coming on this show to do an interview. Can you believe that? I'm the first one. I feel honored," he held his arms out and pointed his hands in with a 'humble' expression, though a large smile like he was saying 'of course it would be me.'

"So let's get to it, shall we? First off tonight," Kipper went behind his desk and sat down, and a graphic appeared in the top right corner of the screen as he started up his usual show. "Prime Minister Nikko breaks his silence on the Lifebringer Bombing, which is what they're calling it now. Kind of an off-name right? Though I guess sometimes these things are named after the place the attack happened, and the way Lifebringer looked afterwards it seemed like that bomb hit him right in the face! Don't worry though, he's assured us he's fine and we've heard reports that confirm that despite what we all saw he looked like that night. We'll see for ourselves in just a few though…"

"Can't we see now?" Hagakure groaned, throwing her arms up then dropping them to her sides as she had done too much strength training at school earlier. _Climbing those rock faces is starting to catch up with me,_ she thought, sighing in a tired way but then refocusing and even smiling as the Kipper guy made a funny comparison about what Nikko was saying about the incident to a 'whole lot of nothing' in that speech he made that very afternoon.

"Wonder if Zach asked to only be put on at the very end, or something?" Ojiro mentioned from behind Hagakure's seat, glancing down at his girlfriend who tilted her head up then shrugged as she did not know herself.

"He could just be keeping to his normal routine," Todoroki said.

"And he can get the commercials out of the way early," Yaoyorozu agreed, just as one started up only a couple minutes into the start of the show. As the others started wondering how the show was going to go or if there would be any commercials between when Zach showed up and the end of the show, Yaoyorozu focused in a little more on the commercial happening in front of her. _Rasheed Corporation. The former CFO, Seiki Ganji, is missing presumed dead, though there is nothing online about his anti-hero ties. I wonder if there existed anyone inside that company who knew of Ganji's extra-legal activities? If there were, could Raijin have missed them? If he did, would those people consider going to Zach? Whether to bring him back into their fold of anti-heroes, or to condemn him for what he did, it is possible._

 _I have seen a few of these Rasheed commercials recently though,_ Yaoyorozu thought with a shift in her head to focus more on what she was actually seeing right now, _They seem to be expanding into support gear for heroes. I did not think they had any hand in support tech, but with many countries allowing police and even citizens to use Quirks more freely now it is a lucrative business expansion. For a company centralized in Japan though, it does seem like production costs would exceed profits for a long time. Other foreign companies that are already ahead can produce and sell for cheaper too. So that begs a question, why now? Why not wait until Japan has loosened its rules too? The economy is great so making a risky venture like this could work out, but it's also unnecessary to take such a risk right now, unless I do not know some other factor about their company's business strategy… It does not seem that strange, and yet because of Ganji's connection I feel, suspicious. I shouldn't- but if it is a gut feeling, I should speak with…_

Yaoyorozu frowned as the show started coming back on, and her eyes shifted to her side at the boy next to her with half white and half red hair. _Todoroki may have insight on it. I do not want to sound suspicious for no reason though, so I will do some more research on my own before bringing it up to you. For now,_ her attention refocused on Kipper who continued on about the news though did continue referencing Lifebringer in all of his segments to keep people watching the show. _This is an exceptionally smart strategy. You do not want people watching only for Lifebringer. You want them to return to watch this show every night. Starting the interview late is mutually beneficial for you as it is for Zach._

Kipper talked and made jokes for a good half hour before getting back into the incident on everyone's minds and the guest he was about to call in. Zach stood backstage watching the live show on the television ahead of him that was muted but he could hear anyway because of Kipper's microphone that made his voice blast around the studio. _This was about the best I could get,_ Zach thought, pushing away his doubt that re-arose in his final minute here out of the limelight. _I couldn't go with someone who only defends me or everyone would call me out for doing just that. Going out and trying to boost my public appearance with an easy interview. I didn't want to go with someone too harsh either, but a comedy late show with a host who's well-respected enough to get other pretty important guests to show up, like former PM Ippo just last month, it's a great middle ground. I know the questions won't be too tough or accusatory, as Kipper's really going all out here on trying to get a much wider audience for his show._

The red-haired man on the screen whose hair curled up in a flip on the right side above his forehead tapped his cards down a few more times and then got a big grin on his face. "Then, without further ado, a man who needs no introduction (not that I'm not currently giving him one). Please welcome for his first time ever, Sazaki Zach, a.k.a. Lifebringer to the show!"

People in the audience clapped as Zach headed out from backstage. He no longer had any bandages wrapped around his face or neck, though the camera zoomed in on him as he was walking out and waving his right hand covered in its black glove around. His head did have a line of hair missing around the right side of it, though he had pushed some hair down covering it up partially but as best he could. A few people got out of their seats while clapping, yet Zach noticed a few others also ignoring the 'CLAP' icon that lit up outside of the camera angle as direction for the audience to follow.

"Mr. Sazaki. Lifebringer, Zach? What can I call you?" Kipper asked as Zach sat down, like it was the first time they were talking despite Zach having met with Kipper before the show too so he could hear how the show would be run and when he could expect to come out.

"Lifebringer is fine, Kipper," Zach said, sitting up in his seat and looking totally comfortable on the camera as he smiled at the host and replied in a casual tone. _You'd refer to any other hero by their hero names up here. You have every other time before._

"Good! As you can see, I'm a little excited to have you out here tonight. You chose me after all, to be your first time."

"I've always enjoyed your show," Zach replied, ignoring the innuendo he acted like he did not even notice. _Don't play into it. Don't get embarrassed by it either. Is that right? Normal people might be embarrassed or get awkward there, and people think I'm the 'Hero of the People' after all._ "And I figured, I needed to come out and do a show or an interview somewhere after what happened the other night."

"Yes, the Lifebringer Bombing," Kipper said, nodding his head and looking at Lifebringer to see if he would have any comment on that name. Zach just nodded his head though, and Kipper continued to the boy, "I have to ask, right at the start here, but how long have you known it was that 'Eziano Mozcaccio' who has been coming after you? In earlier interviews when reporters would catch you on the streets, you always just said that _villains_ were after you."

"Well, I've known from the start," Zach admitted. "I thought though that if I mentioned him by name, like I did a few nights ago, he might start dragging other people into the attacks. Now that he's already done it though I went ahead and told everyone who he was." Zach paused and he sighed with a small shake of his head, "Admittedly, the way I said it though that night was not the best way I could have done that. I knew it was something that really upset him though, and in the moment I had gotten really angry, and I was in a lot of pain. I, regret losing my cool there," Zach finished with a sincere look at Kipper that the host nodded at with wider eyes as he did not expect Sazaki to go here without him first pushing the conversation that direction.

"I, know what point you're talking about," Kipper replied, quick to bounce back off of him as was his job as the show's host. "But it wasn't just losing your 'cool' for a minute. What was all that at the end of the clip everyone- and I mean everyone's seen by now?"

"My immediate reaction to fly off?" Zach asked. He explained to the man while holding up his left hand in an open palm facing up, "I knew the bomber might still be in the vicinity and there was the potential for a follow-up attack after I revealed my injuries. Surrounded by so many people, injured, and recently-revived too who were closest to me and the ones I was most worried about after what just happened, to Norita… I knew I needed to get away from there and catch my attacker."

"And how did you do that? Was he out in the open, running away on a rooftop or something?"

"It wasn't that easy," Zach replied with another shake of his head. "I looked around in that moment my eyes went red and darted around," Zach said, referencing the video again and making Kipper nod as he knew that moment and could believe what Lifebringer was saying based on it. "I looked to the buildings with the best view of my apartment, where I guessed the assassin might have been watching from. See, it made sense to me that a villain would have stayed in the vicinity, to ensure the bomb went off with no complications."

"Complications?" Kipper repeated, wondering where Lifebringer was going with that.

"Like, Norita-san," Zach replied. His expression became more serious but not dark or anything as he explained, "My theory of what occurred that night, is that the assassin left a package in front of my door. He did not expect Norita-san to be moving around that late at night though, and when my landlord saw the box left out, he decided to take it to his own apartment so that it would not be left out all night by whoever dropped it off." Kipper nodded slowly and with a solemn look of his own at what had happened. "I believe the assassin chose to set it off at that moment when Norita-san picked it up, so that it was still the closest it would be to me-"

"But I don't understand," Kipper interrupted at Zach's theory. Zach closed his mouth and nodded at the host to continue with his interruption, and Kipper questioned, "Why would the 'assassin' not just wait for a better time? If-" Kipper quieted as Zach lifted his left hand to show he had the answer and did not need Kipper to continue with his line of questioning. "Please," Kipper said, allowing Zach to answer if he already had one ready.

"He couldn't abandon his plan," Zach explained. Others watching the program also got confused at Zach's explanation, and did his old classmates at U.A. watching together who leaned forward wondering what he meant by that. The classmates on other floors watching by themselves also wondered what Zach meant here and what he thought the assassin's reason was. Bakugo kept leaning back on his wall with his phone held out in front of him, his eyes narrowed and his mind thinking fast as he tried to come up with it before Zach laid it out for him.

"Once I discovered the box and found out what was inside, I would have moved away and had an excuse not to tell anyone where I was this time," Zach started. He cut in on his own explanation and added, "Just as no one knows where I am currently living now, as I've kept it a secret from everyone this time instead of telling a few people as I had to before. It's, my own fault too though, as I should have kept it a bigger secret beforehand-"

"It's not necessary that _no one_ know where you live-"

"Did people know where All Might lived all those years?" Zach wondered. "No, right? His address wasn't listed anywhere. Because he would've been a target."

"Are you comparing yourself to All Might?" Kipper wondered with a lift of his eyebrows and the corners of his lips.

"It's not that," Zach countered with a shake of his head. "It's just, any villain wanting to make a name for themselves would have gone after him if they knew his location. The only reason that doesn't happen to students like me more often is because we don't normally make big names for ourselves before we graduate. I have though, made a very big name that puts me in more danger than most. People want to kill me, but I accepted that risk when I decided to be a hero. The other people living at that apartment however, they did not accept that risk. I failed them, by not doing a better job of protecting myself where I lived. And that is why this time, I will keep my address a secret from everyone. I don't even live in Yutapu anymore."

"You don't?" Kipper asked in surprise. "Then where?" He wondered, and then he grinned as Zach opened his mouth only to close it and give him a look saying 'nice try.' Kipper laughed at Lifebringer playing along with him, and then he got back on focus with his interview. Kipper asked about how Zach found the bomber and what happened with him and Deku who had been the one to bring him in while Zach checked into the nearest hospital to his apartment. Then he questioned about Zach's left arm which seemed to catch the teenager a bit off guard, and Kipper explained, "Analysts have gone over the video over and over, and although your left arm was covered in Death for most of it from your 'Nightmare' form, we did catch that below the darkness was metal instead of flesh. Yet right here, I'm seeing your left hand looks-"

"Fake skin," Zach replied as he lifted his left hand. He turned it side to side, then he reached over with his right hand and slid the sleeve of his button-down blue shirt up a bit to reveal the metal below it. Kipper's eyes widened in surprise, and Zach said, "I've yet to finish repairs on my arm actually. Hence why it still looks like this everywhere but for my hand."

"So when did you lose your arm?" Kipper wondered. "If, you don't mind me asking," he added, as it may have been a hard thing to talk about.

Zach shook his head with a soft smile instead of denying to respond to that. "I lost it during the year I was gone. A lot happened-"

"That year," Kipper began, and he smiled in a way that had Zach feeling hesitant despite being the one to shift the conversation this way intentionally. "While you were off world, right?"

 _How the fuck does this guy know about that?_ Zach wondered to himself, while just having a mildly surprised look on his face as he looked back at the host. "Not the whole time," he replied, to the confusion of millions watching and the audience in the studio at that moment too.

Sero leaned back in his seat and could not help but lift a nervous smirk. _He's really going for it?!_

Kipper was somewhat surprised though at the response, but he still smiled afterwards and shook his head in amazement at the teenager in front of him who did not deny it. "Amazing," he said. "Then, it's true? You went through a portal to another world while you were gone?"

"Yeah, that's right," Zach replied, though he sounded confused himself and that response was clearly asking Kipper how he knew about this.

"Ah, you haven't heard about it? Well, I did get an exclusive with the author before this interview, as well as a copy of his new, and first, book." Kipper reached under his desk and pulled the book out. It had a hard cover with a picture on it behind the laminated covering that showed an island with a bridge connected and a large black fortress on top. "Coming to stores soon, this is the 'tell-all' story of Oda Bunogawa…"

 _Oh, shit,_ Zach cracked a smile and chuckled to himself as Kipper continued.

"An autobiographical novel of the life of a prison guard inside Tartaros over the past several years. Oda-sensei writes about the Tartaros escape during the Sports Festival Invasion, as well as several other stories from inside the prison, however the biggest chunk of this book surrounds his time as Sazaki Zach's prison guard. He writes that time as, 'The most interesting six months of his life.'" Zach nodded as that sounded about right to him.

"I didn't know he wrote a book about it," Zach admitted before Kipper could continue.

"Well, you are the main character of this book in some regards," Kipper countered Zach in a bit of surprise though he was glad he was getting this first-look at Lifebringer's reactions and that he would be the first to be able to fact-check him on everything he had read.

 _Oh Zach,_ Midoriya stared at his laptop where he was watching the show with a look of dread forming on his face. He thought about the prison guards he had met last time he went to Tartaros, _You told them all that nonsense for five months, and now everyone else is going to realize it too!_

"What are they talking about?"

"He did say, 'off-world' didn't he? What the hell is that about?"

"Are they for real right here?"

"Oda-sensei writes in the introduction where he describes what inspired him to write his story, that he quit his job at Tartaros after a life-changing moment had him considering it for a while. He was actually killed in Tartaros by a prisoner, but you brought him back in there and the experience changed his life." Zach nodded his head at what Kipper was saying, to the shock and amazement of many people watching the interview right now.

 _Oda could make a lot more money selling this book than being a prison guard. Wonder if he told Kipper not to give too much away, so as to get more people buying his book?_ Zach smiled as he nodded at what Kipper was saying, and he admitted to himself internally, _I don't blame him for this. Kind of a dick move not telling me beforehand, but I just hope that what I did to Faith is left out due to Oda's gratitude towards me. Soon as the full book comes out I'll have to start defending the story I came up, and I'll have to fact check that book against what I said too in case it's an attempt to catch me changing my story. Oda could be working with the ADTF even? Nah, doesn't sound right. He really was grateful. They all were. Hope no one targets Oda though… and I hope he's as good of a story teller as I was to convince everyone reading of what I said being the truth. I'm sure a lot of the book will be Oda's personal life though and how he dealt with dying, his slow acceptance that what "Zach" says is true._

Zach smiled as Kipper read out another quote from the book where Oda had called him by his first name, and Kipper read out, "…'I consider Zach to be a personal friend, and I think he feels the same way about myself and the others who guarded him throughout his time in Tartaros.' Would you agree with that?"

"Of course," Zach replied. "We are in kind of the same profession, after all," Zach explained. "I never blamed them for being so diligent in guarding me, protecting the other villains who everybody thought I was down there for," Zach referenced it with a laugh and Kipper scratched the back of his head with a look away thinking about how he had joked about that himself the night when news of the Tartaros riot broke. "And I was glad to have those people to talk to through my time down there. I didn't want anyone thinking I was in solitary confinement like some were reporting after the riots down there, because those guards really had become friends of mine who I could talk to about what happened that whole year."

"Some would question whether or not prison guards should really be making 'friends' with the prisoners they're supposed to be guarding."

"Yeah, but they tried not to," Zach countered. "But especially after the incident down there where I brought several of the guards back to life, it was hard for us not to connect."

"It was Faith who killed them too, wasn't it?" Kipper wondered. His question made everyone in Class A's common room lean forward in their seats with shocked looks on all their faces. All of Zach's Shiketsu classmates watching as well shot their eyes open wide and gawked at their newest classmate who had never said anything about this before.

Zach hummed to himself, "Was it?" Kipper looked at him confusedly, then Zach grinned and said, "I guess your viewers will just have to buy Oda's book to find out."

"Oh ho ho," Kipper laughed and put a hand over his chest while doing so, genuinely laughing at what Lifebringer just did there. He leaned back forward and asked in a half-serious way mostly pretending, "You aren't getting any of the proceeds from that book on the side, are you?"

"Of course not," Zach replied with a laugh and shake of his head too. "But who doesn't like to help out a friend?" _And who doesn't like an easy out on not having to explain anything that might be in that book to you right here?_

Zach's response made Kipper nod in agreement, then he pointed the book towards the camera and read out the title, "…Coming to shelves soon. So be on the lookout at your local bookstore, though it will also be released on eReader or so I've been told."

 _Getting close to ten o'clock,_ Zach thought to himself. _Likely one or two more questions I'll have to answer. If he goes hard trying to get the 'off-world' thing out of me I'll have to try and make it somewhat believable within this short time. That's going to be tough. I can manage though, possibly. Defending Oda's book will do a good job pushing away lingering suspicions that I'm Death too. There are a million other things he could ask me though, and he only has a few more minutes to go in his groundbreaking interview. How are you going to finish this, Kipper?_

Zach felt pretty confident about the way the interview had been going so far. His nerves had settled down and he felt friendlier with the talk-show host too now after speaking candidly with him for a while. Kipper did not move on to a different question though, instead starting in a slightly different tone Zach noted but reacted to only interestedly as Kipper began, "Alright everyone. We have a special show for you tonight. Just off stage is someone else I want to introduce to the audience, though I'm sure many of you know him already…"

 _Surprise guest? Not something you just spring on someone. Should react as if I knew already, just smile at whoever it is-_ Zach looked to his right around the outside of the camera angle as the man came out and started towards the set. _I know him._

"Coming all the way here from America for tonight's show, the trillionaire and CEO of Megamorpho Inc., Dustin Cayman!" Kipper called it out then lowered his voice and leaned forward excitedly on his seat as the American billionaire worth trillions in yen waved behind him for the people following at his back. "While I said a special show people, I must also warn some of our younger viewers against the content they're about to see. Sazaki Zach," Kipper began with a look to the boy who turned back from what was going on off stage. He looked like he was surprised by the set of events going on now, his expression shifting subtly from the calm smile that appeared as if what was happening was not beyond what he thought was going to happen here tonight. "All of us saw on video the other night after the explosion, that amazing ability of yours. Lifebringer on video reviving not just one, not just two, but _sixteen_ people at once!"

Kipper leaned forward while saying that in an exclamatory whisper, as it it was too amazing to even call out any louder. His tone was full of disbelief and yet they had all seen the video and knew Zach had done it. Zach turned his head back the other way though instead of responding to Kipper, just looking back to the edge of the set where Dustin Cayman was walking forwards towards the interviewer and interviewee. Zach looked behind Cayman and watched as the man's staff came rolling down the darkness just off the set, pushing a fancy-looking stretcher that curved up at the sides and did not look like a normal hospital one but a private one for the girl on top of it. The child was covered in a pink cotton blanket embroidered at the top with lace and designed with the cursive spelling of her name, 'Cherry.'

Zach looked towards Dustin Cayman and up into the trillionaire's (in yen) eyes as he stared back at Zach and smirked. There was nothing subtle about his expression. The man just grinned at Zach while Kipper was explaining Cayman's only daughter's fight with illness and how she had fallen into a coma supposedly to never wake up. Dustin Cayman then started speaking before Kipper could continue, "My daughter has just died." He stepped farther from the stretcher that two of his bodyguards turned and then set up to have his daughter propped diagonally. She looked tv ready, make-up on and everything, and her eyes were closed though she looked peaceful, as if waiting for someone to bring her back. "We were at a hospital nearby when…"

Zach looked past the man who kept speaking, talking about Lifebringer and how he knows that with Zach's Quirk Death, he could save his daughter and even recover her to a healthy state again. He looked past Cayman to the young girl in her preteens with straightened black hair, a few freckles on her cheeks the make-up could not fully cover up, and a birthmark just under the right side of her chin.

"What's, going on?" Mineta whispered as he stared straight at Zach's face, feeling the weirdest sensation inside him at the look Zach had.

Zach's smile from through most of the interview had lowered. His lips were not flat yet though, the corners still lifted slightly so there were no big warning signs to anyone around him that things were wrong. The Class A students sitting in their common room could see the gears turning though in Zach's head.

"Well I'm sure the amazing Lifebringer could bring her back!" Kipper called out, oblivious to what others were realizing about the boy in front of him.

"He didn't know this was coming?" Hagakure whispered, then she repeated it again louder in a more assured voice less a question.

"You don't think?" Ashido asked, nervously glancing to her side and then back at the screen where Zach's eyes suddenly looked dark to her despite his expression not really changing.

 _Don't mess this up,_ Zach thought at himself, keeping his expression staying as natural as possible. _Am I surprised by this? Do I speak, like I really am just… Like I don't know this situation? Like I'm oblivious, to what's happening right now?_ He turned his head and glanced out into the audience, and he put his hands down on the sides of his chair. The corners of his lips moved closer together, his lips pushing together in that moment before one opens their mouths to say something. His lips just stayed like that though, the corners now straight with his lips so they were flat, though his lips were harder to see as they pursed together in front of his teeth that were pressed up to each other too. Zach's jaw locked on camera and his eyes that had glanced around to see what the audience was thinking looked back to Cayman who got a bead of sweat on the side of his face and started to lower his smile with a darker look emerging.

Zach turned the other way to Kipper after silence had filled the whole studio. It was such an off moment on the program, as Zach Sazaki looked back to the interviewer with his mouth shut and looking like… something, no one could place. He did not look like the same composed person answering all the questions before with his heroic smile though. He just stared at Kipper and the silence continued for a few seconds, and the interviewer felt his chest pounding so violently in his chest that he started hearing it in his ears. He tried to keep himself not looking so afraid though, for another second before Lifebringer questioned him, "How much did he pay you not to tell me?"

The microphone was still clipped under the top of Zach's collar, and his voice came out clear in that silent studio that the entire audience just tensed up in. Dustin Cayman's expression just got angrier though on Lifebringer's other side between him and the stretcher where his staff were staring over hesitantly and backing up towards the edge of the stage themselves. It was Kirigomo Rudo who felt the biggest impact from the question though. Lifebringer's voice had lost all camaraderie in his tone. The relationship they had built up through the show was gone in an instant. Zach did not ask if Kipper thought he should have been informed first, nor did he ask any of the other questions Kipper was prepared to answer in this scenario.

Midoriya stood up off his bed and his eyes darted to his window for a moment before snapping back down to his phone. _Why not just save her? Zach?!_

"Is he, not going to bring her back?" Todoroki asked, his voice lowering and his eyes darting to his side at Yaoyorozu who just stared at the screen with her eyes huge at the question Zach just asked.

Kipper opened his mouth, but his eyes locked into Zach's and stared deep within them in that moment. Kirigomo had no idea what came over him. The feeling of his bowels about to explode, or the fact that deep within the hazel of Zach's eyes seemed to rage a burning flame of hell, but he stammered at the kid sitting in front of his desk, "Tw-Two hundred million." The second it came out of his mouth, Kipper realized what he had just said and snapped up out of his seat, "I mean- I didn't-" Zach looked away from Kipper and he stood up, and he reached up and under his collar to rip the microphone out from where it was pinned. "Lifebringer!" Kipper called out behind the boy whose mic just made a loud scratching noise through the studio and over the cameras. It thudded a couple times too when Zach tossed it aside and turned like he was going to walk away.

"You get back here!" Cayman yelled out. He spoke in Japanese with an American accent, and he yelled out so loudly the security for the studio looked over wondering if they should do something. Considering who it was Cayman just yelled at though, the security figured things were very likely under his control, or at least it was out of theirs. "You have ignored every message I tried to send you," Cayman continued, stomping towards Zach's back which had the teenager turning fully around to face the larger and richer man. "I came all the way to Japan just to see you! And you- you would let her die?! You have to save my daughter!"

Zach glared back into Cayman's eyes but his expression eased up a little as he saw past the man back at that stretcher again. His expression flinched, and Cayman tried in a different approach than shouting, "Please, Lifebringer. Save my daughter."

"Don't make him beg!"

"What's wrong with you, Lifebringer?!"

Zach ground his teeth while lowering his eyes down to the floor hearing those shouts. He glanced back up and saw Cayman looking between smug and worried, frustrated and relieved at the same time. _You bastard. He- he used everything in his power to save his daughter! That's what he did, but I-_

Zach darted his eyes to the back of the stage and for a moment Cayman looked horrified and then furious. "You have to bring her back! I demand it!" His hand twitched though as he was starting to lift it, as Lifebringer spoke in a voice loud enough for those around him though it did not echo out into the cameras well without his microphone.

"I'll bring her back."

Zach turned to the girl while he said it, and he started forward over towards that stretcher. His head turned to the right though as he walked in front of the man bigger than him at the shoulders and a few inches taller, and he glared into that man's eyes. Cayman leaned back suddenly terrified of how he was yelling at Lifebringer, only for Zach to say in a low voice as he walked past him, "But not for you." He walked past Cayman and looked to the little girl he stepped straight up to.

Zach leaned forward and put two fingers of his left hand up against her neck for a moment to check her pulse. Then he reached his right hand forward even with the glove still on it, and he pressed it firmly at the top of her chest just below her neck. Darkness flooded out of his palm and fingers into the girl who definitely had died recently based on the pain he felt inside his body. He took two seconds and groaned deep within his throat, but he held back any other noise and then pulled his hand off of the girl. As dark as he felt, as badly as his insides hurt right there twisting up and rotting away, Zach lifted his right hand and placed it on top of the girl's head afterwards. He pat it there in a soft way as she opened her eyes, and he smiled at her while facing away from the camera. "You can go back to sleep," Zach said softly in English, and the child closed her eyes again to pass out.

Cayman was walking towards the stretcher with his eyes huge, still frozen in fear a moment ago but snapping out of it when Zach so quickly lowered his right hand. He was going to ask if something was wrong, only to see the girl open her eyes and Lifebringer smile and say something to her that got her closing them again. Cayman sprinted forward and stopped in front of the stretcher, then he spun and looked at Sazaki's back, then to his daughter again he reached forward and held by her shoulders so softly as if afraid she would break at the touch. "Is that it?" he whispered, then he spun and asked a bit louder at Lifebringer who had started walking away without another word. "Is that it?!"

Zach clenched his eyes shut and walked out of the camera angle. He moved quickly for the back of the studio, and he walked straight past people without needing to shove them out of the way as everyone backed away from him without a word at the look on his face. He could not help it though, feeling so enraged inside and no longer feeling as big a need to hide it as a minute ago. _I couldn't just let that little girl stay dead! I couldn't! Screw the politics. Screw how much this changes everything!_ Zach saw those little eyes open back up again, and he felt the rage simmer for a brief moment that was all he got before all that darkness swelled up inside him.

"Fuuuuccck," Zach slammed the push bar in the back of the studio, leapt up in the air, and he flapped black wings below him to shoot straight up into the dark sky above. "FFffuuUUCCCKK!" He screamed, once he was high enough up that no one could hear him. He curled his arms in to his sides while his knees pulled up towards his stomach. His eyes flared red as that darkness just coming out of his back in the shape of wings spread to cover up his entire body. _**"FUUUUUCCCKKKK!"**_

* * *

 **A/N Fuck. Well, Zach goes on tv to try and recover some of his standing in the media... Doesn't seem like it went very well.**

Guest chapter 186 . Oct 4

It's super interesting watching Zach trying to fit into hero society again. I love it how the author includes chapters where we really get to see Zach struggle to overcome his PTSD, or trying not to break down in public. Especially love reading Zach's flashbacks while in the AOD, it really helps to picture why Zach became so traumatized and cautious/paranoid.  
-Celestia (I'm too lazy to make an account xd.)

 **Thanks for the review Celestia! Glad you enjoy the chapter and seeing as Zach tries fitting back in with the rest of society. Really tries to hold it back on camera today as he hops on a planned interview... But can't just stay that positive self through it all this time. Hope you enjoyed the new chapters!**

GuestP chapter 187 . Oct 7

Wow, a chapter that has a title... it's been like a fuckton of chapters since the last titled chapter, I think. This means that it's an important turning point.  
Which is correct since Zach is striving to become a political hero now. Which kind of hurts my soul, but I support good ol' Zach Sazaki. He wants to change political views, and he can't do that being Death the Commander, or as Lifebringer, or even as Reaper (obvi), he has to do it as Zach Sazaki.  
also... is this the first time we've had a section on EM?  
Mina is such a worrywart but I love her because she yells at the media like I do sometimes. Norita's daughter came out to defend his beliefs and Zach's choices. Which is pretty cool!  
I loved this chapter!~  
Can't wait for the next chapter!~~

 **Lol the title thing, was kind of just random actually. I've never titled a chapter when it was posted before, only retroactively titled several of the earlier chapters to make it easier for people who want to go back to reread to find chapters easier. I was thinking about doing it some more when I was posting, and I thought 'Fallout' sounds like a good one for this chapter anyway, might as well!' Zach's plans to be all politically smart for now on, didn't really work out too well for him here. It was the first time we had a section on EM! We saw him a couple other times, at the Sports Festival, in the call with Zach and flashbacks with Snow or dream Blackstar had, but never just a switch over to see what he was doing. That vague menacing evil blew up Zach's apartment and killed Norita, and Zach claps back with the reveal to the world on who Eziano is, though this time he mentions him and then barely elaborates like he's not even that big a deal ;P Glad you liked Norita's daughter, it was good to have her there as people'd probs be more against Zach without that defense she gave him. Anyway, thanks for the review and glad you liked the chapter!**

yasideen1 chapter 187 . Oct 7

is it just me or is eziano mozcaccio looking like netero from hxh  
he has that whole op old dude vibe and then the praying thing

 **Hahaha it's not just you! As soon as I wrote out the punch forward after he put his hands together in that praying stance I went 'shit, this sounds like Netero,' but I just hoped I could get away with it XD You called me out though! Lol nice catch, and thanks for the review!**


	189. Chapter 189

**Disclaimer: I don't own Boku no Hero Academia**

 **Chapter 189:**

'Sure. Roof of 123rd Keiju Ave. Use the side door in the alley closer to the corner. It's unlocked.'

Mina Ashido blinked her eyes a few times while staring down at her phone, and then she pocketed it quickly and ran back downstairs after having gone to her room to call Zach multiple times to no response. She grabbed her jacket while she was running to her door, and she was still stumbling to slide it fully on her arms when she was nearing the front door of their dorm building.

"Where are you rushing off to?" Kirishima wondered, looking over from where he was leaning over the couch closest to her.

Ashido looked back towards the redhead and opened her mouth to respond, then she looked past him to the tv that was now showing late-night news talking about the late show she had just watched with her friends. "Don't know why he went and did that," Kirishima muttered, his voice annoyed at Zach but also frustrated at his own lack of understanding as he looked back to the screen. "Why get all angry if he was going to bring the girl back anyway?"

"…Well I think we're focusing on the wrong points here Elina."

"What do you mean Leoran?" The woman asked the her co-host with a black and yellow skin tone.

Leoran shook his head and replied in a more upset way while also speaking in a tone like Elina should have noticed this already, "Sazaki only brought that girl back, because her father paid to get her in front of him." Elina started nodding her head understanding where Leoran was coming from, and she frowned too hearing it put in those terms for the first time. "So what is Lifebringer telling us? That an American rich kid is more valuable than the children who have been dying every day here in Japan? Kids die every day, and Lifebringer does nothing, but this trillionaire waltzes up and Sazaki brings his daughter back just like that?"

Ashido spun and she left the dorm while Kirishima kept staring back at the screen with much wider eyes than his classmates still sitting down there. Todoroki leaned back into the couch on the right and rubbed his right hand up on his forehead, a dark look spreading over it as he listened to the two news hosts continue on in this direction in the background. _He knew it, the moment that man showed up. The guy said he'd been trying already to get in contact but you ignored him, because of this._ Todoroki lifted his gaze and listened with his eyes opening a little more feeling less dark about the situation as Elina countered about something.

"Don't you think it's not necessarily on Lifebringer that this happened though? I mean, he did seem to be caught off guard there. And Kipper? Can you believe what he said when Sazaki asked how much he paid?"

"Well how do we know that isn't just Sazaki trying to get out of the blame here? Trying to make it out like someone else made the decision for him?" Leoran shook his head in disagreement. "He's the one who chose to bring that girl back while ignoring the hundreds of Japanese citizens who die every day. What are the requirements? What decides whether or not he goes and brings someone back? It seems to me, like he's doing it on a complete whim! Even in that clip I swear he flip-flopped, like 'maybe I should bring back a little girl,' then 'maybe I shouldn't.'" Elina started nodding again with more of a frown on her face too, despite having always been a Lifebringer supporter on the show in the past. Leoran continued in a lower voice, "And it didn't take him five seconds to save her life. He did that so easily, which begs the question: why her?"

"And considering how fast he can travel, using just that Quirk of his," Elina continued. "I mean, look at how quickly he arrived at Desusuta to fight the Subspace Devils! He explained how 'close' he was too, because even being cities away he was still close enough to help out. And yet if he was only a couple minutes from Desusuta, then he should be within his time limit for all of Japan!"

"Many doctors at the hospitals Sazaki has visited since returning here have voiced complaints against him for his wishy-washy way of dealing with their patients. How he refuses to give them his number to be called on when other patients passed away, like whether we all live or die is just on his dime. And they've also said, that Sazaki has brought back patients who have died up to two hours before or even longer on those visits. Two hours! What excuse does someone who can move that fast have to not go out of his way to save more lives? What excuse does a hero have?!"

 _None,_ Midoriya thought, though he was more hesitant about it than usual as this became a national issue and not just something he had to argue with Zach. _Though maybe he'll see that now with more people than just me saying it. Still… if he can't save everyone, but he starts saving people so much more…_ Midoriya hesitated as he watched the news continue to blast Zach for what was developing right now. _Would they ever be satisfied? I just wanted, a few more people. More so it doesn't seem like you're just treating it as a chore! Or like their lives only mean as much as how free you are in a day…_

"It's pretty late for you to be going out 'on a run,'" Cementoss said to the girl who had just run into the main office. _Her expression does not appear to be calm either._ "Did something happen during Sazaki's interview tonight-"

"What? Nooo…" Ashido realized her teacher had been sitting there in the office more focused on work than watching Zach in an interview, and she tried to play it off as nothing as best she could which was still not very convincing. "Okay yes," she said when he continued to look at her with slightly more discerning eyes at her lie. "But he's in Musutafu now and I told him if he wanted to talk I wanted to and he can't come here so please."

She put her hands together in front of her chest, and Cementoss hesitated for a moment then looked to his computer and searched something quickly. "Alright," he said after a moment, and he wrote out a pass for the girl in front of the office's counter. "Be back within an hour. It is very late for a U.A. student to be out."

Cementoss nodded at the thanks the young girl gave him as she snatched the pass and ran off for the exit. Then he looked back to his computer and the new news reports appearing every minute. _I thought he would use this as a chance to better his shaky standing with the media. How could it have gone, this badly? 'Lifebringer Lies About His Time Missing?' 'How_ _ **NOT**_ _To Have an Interview: Five Things You Missed in Zach Sazaki's Interview Tonight.' 'Lifebringer Brings Life to Those Who Can Pay For It?!' 'What Is He Doing?'_

Cementoss rubbed his blocky forehead and let out a low sigh before clicking on a link to watch what he had missed. _I wish there was more I could do. The most I can right now though, is allowing Ashido to see you this late even without prior notice or emergency reason._

Ashido felt so sketchy as she looked back and forth at the edge of an alleyway on a street that still had quite a few people on it before eleven o'clock. She put her jacket's hood up before starting down that road, but she was still nervous someone had spotted her and recognized who she was before she slipped down the alleyway on the side of the apartment complex numbered 123 on Keiju Avenue. She gulped as she reached the only side door she saw back there, all the way at the end right before the back wall and a different door for the building on the next street that the alleyway did not connect all the way through to. Ashido turned the handle she was relieved was unlocked, and she slipped inside closing the door quickly behind her only to slow at the last second so as not to make a loud slam as it shut.

The pink girl ran up the back staircase that had some garbage strewn around on the platforms between floors, some graffiti on the inner walls, dirt everywhere on the walls and the small window that was on every turn of a new floor. Those windows had metal bars on them preventing people outside from reaching in and unlocking the windows, and Ashido's eyes darted to them before glancing all around her as she suddenly realized how sketchy this whole building was. The fourth floor was the worst though, as she reached it and looked into the open door next to her and all the way down the floor that was empty and dimly lit.

All the other floors had the door on this end of the building shut tight with dust on the floor just in front of it and on the handles too. Ashido realized as she looked through the open door, that none of the doors on the floors below looked to have been opened in years. She stopped instead of running up the next flight to the roof access, _What is this place?_ Ashido gulped and darted her eyes back to the last stairs to the roof, then she started into the hallway that had mostly dark long light fixtures up above, though there was one all the way at the end of the hall that still had the light on, and another three past that closer to her that flickered every few seconds, giving the floor an even creepier vibe.

"Hello?" Ashido wondered, calling out to see if anyone was around but also speaking softly as she was unsure of what she was doing here. She gulped again with a glance back at the stairwell she just left, and she walked up to the first set of opposing doors that were each propped open. One had a doorstop below it keeping it open, while the other was just parted slightly with less of an open gap but still showing that the inside of the room was as dark and depressing as the one Ashido was easily able to poke her head around to look inside.

 _This is so weird._ Ashido pulled her phone out and turned on the flashlight as she stepped into the dark room. _What is this place? It looked like just a normal apartment building from outside. Are there people living on the other floors too, but just not this one?_ Ashido pointed her phone to her right and at a dresser that made her freeze. She aimed it above the dresser and saw a television with dust on the screen and all over the top and back of it. There was a gaming system on the side of the tv stand, also dusty, and as Ashido stepped farther inside she pointed her flashlight towards the couches and the table in front of them. There was a recliner chair, two couches, and a couple of controllers sitting on the longer couch that did not have any covering on it or pillows to speak of.

Sweat dripped down the right side of Ashido's face, even though it felt cold in the room that the heating was off inside. She pointed her phone to the kitchen, where there was a cardboard cereal box turned over on its side, and the cabinets were all open with no plates or bowls though a few glasses remained in one of the cupboards. She glanced over for the sink but did not see anything inside it, then she walked towards the bedroom and pointed her phone inside. There was a cot on the floor in the narrow space beside the two beds, leaving a very narrow path for the three people who seemed to live there to be able to maneuver around in their bedroom. Ashido looked back after prying into that room that still had blankets and pillows in it, and had a dresser open with clothes exposed in them but still resting there.

She bumped into the corner of the wood furniture the tv was on top of, and she spun back around quickly as she felt like it wobbled and she might need to catch the tv. She hesitated though after seeing she did not need to catch anything. Ashido lowered her phone that had swung its light around, and she stared at the picture on the side of the tv stand with three college-aged guys or maybe a little older on it. They were in a graduation picture together, two of them wearing the same caps and gowns while one who looked like the guy on the right but appeared a bit older stood between the two with his arms around their shoulders. Seeing the picture made Ashido step back, then she looked around again with her whole body filling with dread and despair that made her rush back for the door.

Ashido ran out of the room and back for the stairwell, only glancing over her shoulder once towards the rest of the ten cracked or fully opened doors down that long hallway. She ran up the stairs instead of down like part of her wanted to go, and she ran to the roof that she pushed the door open to ignoring the sign next to it saying access was prohibited to anyone but for authorized personnel. Ashido ran onto the roof and stumbled forward a couple steps before stopping, and the door closed behind her with a thud while she stared ahead towards the ledge of the building on the opposite side as Keiju Ave.

The building on the opposite side that was a little wider and blocked the alley from cutting straight through, was two stories shorter than the apartment they were on top of. It was still tall enough though that someone could sit there on the ledge and not be seen by the people on the road who might possibly look up, as the edge of the shorter building would block Zach even on the raised ledge of the four-story one behind it.

He sat in darkness, only the lights from the streets on either side of him somewhat illuminating his body. He was in the shadow of the risen section of their roof for the roof access of the stairs, sitting on the two and a half foot raised ledge with one leg up on it with his knee up, the other dangling down on the inside though he sat more longways than off the inside. He sat with his head bowed and his back diagonal but curving forward. His right arm wrapped around his risen right knee, his hand resting there over his shin while his left hand rose up a little and then lowered a little on his inside every couple seconds or so. Zach had a coin in his left hand, one he flicked up in the air again and let spin and spin on its way down for him to catch, only for him not to look down at it and just flip it back up in the air again.

His head did not even turn to the girl who just ran out on the roof which is what made her stop instead of just run up to him and start talking. Ashido stared ahead with her eyes shaking at the sight of him sitting there with his expression unknown to her, but his whole being exuding a presence that made her feet shake where she stood. "Zach..."

A light illuminated under Zach's lifted right knee, showing Ashido his phone was resting there on top of the foot wide ledge. It illuminated his face more and showed a much calmer, straighter expression than Ashido was expecting. Her tone shifted too after seeing his face, seeing his normal eyes lower down and his right hand to move to pick up his phone and raise it over his legs. Zach unlocked his phone and then glanced to his left at the girl walking towards him in a way trying to show there was no hesitation in any step. "Are you alright? What's wrong?"

"I'm fine," Zach replied. "You were the one who kept calling… I just didn't want to talk, on the phone." _Why not? Why come out here?_ He questioned himself while tilting his head back and staring forward along the edge of the building again. His eyes rose up in the night sky that was dark but not dark enough because of the city lights for him to see any stars.

"Well, I was calling because, you didn't look alright," Ashido countered. "We were all watching the interview, you know?"

"I know," Zach replied fast, almost snapping it though he kept his tone just more curt and only made Ashido hesitate for a brief second.

"What happened out there? You never usually let yourself, or you don't let other people…" Ashido did not know how to finish what she was trying to say here. "Don't… aren't you trying to show, a different version of you?"

"There is no 'other' version," Zach said, his voice low. His expression was frustrated and so intense as he turned to look at the girl on his left, "This is it. This." He glared at her to see if she understood that, but Ashido just looked at him in a more desperate and sadder way at the angry tone he had answering her. "I'm sorry," Zach said, his voice suddenly lacking any emotion instead of being frustrated and angry. "I'm being stupid. It's just, exhausting," he muttered at the end, his voice lowering more and his eyes getting colder as he stared back off over his legs again, and he flipped up the coin in his left hand.

Ashido did not know how to respond to that. She did not recognize the tone he never took while talking just the two of them. His expression did not look sad or angry anymore though, nor did it even look tired like he just mentioned. _That, sounded more like an excuse,_ she thought, and she gulped at the steady look as he flipped the coin once more up in the air.

As the coin was going up though, Zach's voice started emotionlessly, "I'm stronger than I've ever been." The coin came down and he caught it in his left hand that clenched around the small piece of metal too hard that he had to relax it or risk folding the coin. His eyes narrowed down at that closed hand made of metal, and he said in a steady voice that sounded so horrible to his friend next to him, "But at the same time, I'm more helpless than I've ever been before because of it. And that's, the worst feeling in the world." His eyes closed and he lowered his left hand for a second, before snapping his eyes back open and moving around the coin to his thumb and index finger so he could flip it up in the air.

"I don't understand," Ashido whispered. She said it like she felt bad that she had to ask, her voice soft and apologetic that she could not just understand what Zach was saying. "Zach, I don't like the way they're all talking about you now…" she started it and she hesitated with her lips pursing at his expression that seemed to already know everything. His eyes shifted to her though, and he looked steadily into her confused eyes as she wondered, "But, why were you, so against that tonight? Did you know, what people were going to say?"

"I always… know," Zach said, getting softer at the end as the way he started it sounded like it was coming out too confident at first. "I didn't know what Kipper was planning though," he added in a lower voice. "I should have made a provision for him not to do something like that. I, didn't want him getting suspicious of me though. I needed to have a candid interview for it to really be believable." Zach bowed his head and shook it in frustration, "And when I thought of just playing along? To make the best out of that situation?"

"I saw her come out and I could have just acted naively and ran up, saved her heroically, become exhausted or scream out in the pain it caused me to- to invoke some pity for me. I could have… I probably should have, just gone with the program. It still would have caused the same issues, but less of them. I could have negated some of the negatives… What am I doing?" He whispered it at the end with a look to his right and towards much brighter lights of the middle of Musutafu, and to Tokyo beyond that which was so bright that the whole sky in that direction was just brighter by association.

Zach lifted his phone back up in his right hand again and he shut his eyes at what he saw appear on it, and he flipped a coin up in the air in his left hand again. "I just wanted to clear things up about Eziano," Zach said. "And now I botched so much else right up. And I know how I can fix these problems I've made for myself. I see options I have, but it'll never be like it was before." Zach whispered that softer, his voice cold again and his eyes narrowing ahead of him. "I'm watching the news right now," Zach said.

Ashido hesitated as she had opened her mouth there to try and say something to him to help him out. He lifted his right hand with his phone in it, and another two bubbles popped up at the top of the screen. "News stories from all over the world," Zach said, and he flipped the coin in his left hand up in the air again. "I can save anyone. Anywhere. At all times. It's not just Japan. I can save them all."

"You're being dramatic," Mina said, and she stepped up towards Zach and to the ledge right behind his back that she leaned up on. She put her hands down on it and leaned forward and back, then she turned her head to the left and looked at Zach's face that he had turned to the side to look at her in a much darker way. She frowned back at him though and then said like it was obvious, "It's not up to you. The whole world isn't just resting on _your_ shoulders," Ashido said it and gave him an exasperated look that he was even suggesting that in a serious way.

"Alright," Zach dropped his left leg down to the floor and swung his right leg from the ledge down next to it. He sat on the ledge sitting straight up and looked up at Ashido's face, "Call heads or tails then." Ashido lifted her hands from the ledge and stood straight up, darting her eyes down to his left hand he rose up and put the one yen coin over his thumbnail.

"Wh-what- wait!" Ashido lifted her eyes up as Zach flipped the coin, higher this time.

"Call it." Zach told her, his voice more firm making her eyes dart down to see just how intense his were looking back at her.

"Heads?" Ashido called out, as the coin was passing her face again and she wanted to get it out before it came down. "So what are we-"

Zach caught and flipped the coin onto the back of his right glove then moved his left hand away. Ashido stopped her follow-up question to lean over and try to see what it came out as in the dark, and she peered down closer to see that it was heads as she had called. Zach nodded his head, and he said while lifting his head, "The decision's yours then. You want me to bring this kid back to life?" Ashido froze completely, staring at Zach's face and then slowly shifting her eyes to the side at his phone he lifted up for her to see. There was a smiling little white boy on the screen, and Zach said, "This kid just cracked his skull playing at a park."

"I don't-" Ashido darted her gaze back to Zach's face and then the phone again. Her stomach was turning over and she felt her fists clenching at her sides at the feelings welling inside her. _Why is he…_

"There are some video clips of it," Zach said. His fingers moved over his screen while he kept watching Ashido's face with his flat expression unwavering, "It happened twenty minutes ago at a park in Romania." Ashido's expression covered in complete confusion and she looked into Zach's eyes, only for sweat to cover her face as she looked back at the phone that a video started up on. "Watch," Zach said, right before the screaming started and the woman recording her own kids spun and pointed over while running to the jungle gym a kid just cracked his head on. Ashido felt her stomach get sick and her eyes started to water as she darted her eyes back to Zach and then to the screaming people in the video whose yells were breaking her heart.

"Maybe another kid pushed him," Zach said quietly. "So that kid's scarred for life now. Always knowing he killed a friend. His parents just lost a son, other kids so young just watched someone die in front of them-"

"Why are you doing this?!" Ashido shouted, spinning back to Zach angrily. She curled her fists and swung her right arm to the side while glaring at the boy sitting just in front of her, "Why, are you doing this? All just to make a point-"

"I'm not," Zach said, his voice the same tone and volume. And then in that same tone he said, "The decision is up to you. Does that boy live or die?" His eyes narrowed more and he said to the girl looking for something else to snap at him, "Pick." He did not hesitate and continued after she pulled her head back, "Every second you waste is a second closer to him not being able to be saved."

"Then go!" Ashido exclaimed. Zach froze and his right hand lowered with his phone turning off under a click of his finger. His expression lost its steady appearance and his eyes opened wide for a moment. Then his look fell darker than since Ashido got to the roof, though just seeing that look did not calm down the pink girl panting and glaring at Zach so angrily for what he just did. Zach put his phone back into his pocket, then the boy in the same clothes he wore at his interview though with a dark black jacket on over his button-down stood up and turned away from Ashido. He curled his hands into fists and stepped up on the ledge, jumped forward and flapped black wings out of his back like it was second nature. He shot so fast up in the air that Ashido stumbled back from the wind that hit into her, and she snapped her eyes up with them trembling so much more as he just flew off like that.

"W-Wait, a second…" Ashido held her right hand up long after he would be able to hear her. Her whole expression shook, and she took another step back as she stared up into the dark sky high above where she lost sight of Zach. "No," she whispered in disbelief. Then the look of realization spread from inside to cover her whole face, _He really, left that kid's life in my hands! He wouldn't have gone if I didn't say to- I had the ability to say yes or no I- I just had a life resting in my hands!_ Ashido's face twisted up, scrunching in anger, and she asked herself with her eyes glaring back up in the sky, "That's all it takes?"

Her head snapped down and she turned around, marching for the door back inside near this side of the building which seemed to be the only roof access despite there being another more-used stairwell on the opposite side. Ashido's fists clenched so much harder in anger, _Zach had that life in his hands too! Why didn't he just fly off as soon as he heard what happened?!_ Ashido slowed down, and she grimaced that she was thinking deeper into it, trying to find an excuse despite how he just made her feel right there. _How far is Romania?_

The question caught herself off guard. It was not what she thought she was going to use to try and argue with her own betrayed and angry feelings right here. _Wait, wait wait, Romania's, that's so far away. Like other side of the world far! He can't just- he isn't!_ Ashido started shaking her head around, then she looked down and her hands shook as she moved them in front of her. An angry look spread over her face only for her palms to open up and turn so she could stare at them. _How many other people, will die in Romania by the time he gets there? How many other people are dying right now than I could see- what did I just do?_ Ashido's expression shook and her eyes staring at her palms rose slowly to look back in the sky again in the direction she thought she saw Zach fly off to after rising up high.

 _If the response is that easy. If he is supposed to bring people like that back…_ It hit Ashido like a ton of bricks, and she stepped back and then let more of her weight lean into the wall of the top of the stairwell. Her face filled with pain, and her breath slipped out fully leaving her gasping for more as she lost it all in that moment. All of the stress, all the pain and the horror she felt in those few seconds as he asked her over and over before getting her response, she remembered it vividly and did not get angry about it this time. _All of that, pressure, of having that kid's life in my hands… He really did leave it up to me too! It was all on me whether he lived or died- that's so horrible… And that pressure is on him, every second, of every day._

Ashido rose her hands up in front of her face, and then she brought them back and rubbed them over her eyes. She had to curl her hands into fists there though and keep them there, as she gasped out again, _Because every life rests in his hands, not just one. He has the power to save anyone. To save everyone!_ Ashido lowered her hands as this was making her less sad and just making her heart pound so fast in her chest. _Zach's not like anyone else. He isn't like heroes. Not even All Might could save everyone! But, Zach has the ability to though. Being late doesn't matter- He has the power to be anywhere, and save anyone. The power to bring life or cause death. The control over life and death itself! He's-_

 _That's crazy. That's so… but it's real. It's the burden, that Zach's Quirk holds. The weight that has to be pushing down on his shoulders, at all times. What he's supposed to be doing in the present, or what he could do in the future…_ Ashido pulled out her phone and texted Zach, hesitating as she had the message written out on her phone. Again she heard those screams in her head and her fingers moved away from the screen. The sight of that little boy's face when he was alive and well appeared back in her mind, the first picture Zach lifted to show her. Her finger went back and hovered over 'Send,' but she moved it over and backspaced first then rewrote some of her message she finally sent him. The revision she made though caused her to bring up a different contact in her phone she rarely used but was glad she had saved.

 _Please Cementoss sensei, please just let me stay out a little later._ Ashido pleaded in her head and hoped her tone would come through in the message she sent out. _I have no idea how long it will take him to get there and back, but if it's within his limit it can't be-_ Ashido's eyes widened at the sight of the negatory response calling her back to the school at the time her pass allowed her out until. She froze though as another message popped up as a notification at the top of her screen above Cementoss's, a response from Zach.

Ashido put her hands up through her hair and leaned back harder into the wall with a loud groan. She needed to talk to Zach more, but her message to him said that she would still be there once he was done and told him to come back and talk to her again. Cementoss wanted her back though earlier than she thought Zach would be done, and Ashido lowered her head and stared down at her phone she rose in front of her in a hesitant way. 'Battery low. Cementoss sensei?' Ashido gulped, and then she pressed the send button and held the power button on her phone as soon as it went through.

"Oh, I'm going to be in so much trouble," she whispered under her breath, but she pocketed her phone anyway and tried to relax despite her hand patting over her pocket incessantly.

Cementoss looked at the message he received in a bit of confusion. _What is the question? Is she, pretending like she did not receive my response yet?_ Cementoss looked at the message he had sent after that most recent one, and a bead of sweat rolled down the side of his face as it still had not delivered to her phone. _It seems, her phone has run out of battery. That is unfortunate. She should not assume I gave her the go ahead, but, perhaps if she returns a few minutes late it could be overlooked. Pinky is a resourceful hero, and I know she can take care of herself… If I can be certain that it was her sending that message-_ Cementoss frowned and he lifted a hand he rubbed his forehead with.

 _No response? No delivery for the second one either. Her phone is off. Then she won't get the message telling her to go back. She didn't turn it off for me though. I need to hurry here. Remove Limiter 1._ An explosion of Death blasted Zach through the sky, and people in Kolvensk Russia looked up in shock at the dark form soaring through the dusk into the brighter half of the sky farther west.

Ashido sat down on the ledge that Zach had been sitting on before. She needed something to distract her from the potentially terrible ramifications of not returning to U.A. on time, and she stopped patting her pocket while facing towards the roof access door back into the stairwell. Ashido spun her legs around and put them off the ledge, putting her hands down at her sides and leaning backwards while her legs swung forward and back over the two-story building off this side. The drop did not scare her as she figured she could land well without hurting herself even if she fell.

She leaned forward and checked out the drop, wondering if she really could just land on bent knees and it would be alright. _As bad as things could get for me after this,_ Ashido reminded herself, her legs slowing down their swinging and just dangling off the ledge instead. _Soon as news spreads about what he does tonight, things will just get worse. No one will defend him, saying that he evened things out by saving a random person after saving that rich girl brought straight to him. They may say it now like he needs to go bring back 'at least one more' person, but as soon as it's one more, then they'll just want one more on top of that! He knows it will never end! I know it too, I guess._

Ashido tilted her head back and rose her gaze to the night sky. _He really doesn't have those "plans" that everyone assumes he has. They don't exist._ Ashido sighed and then pursed her lips in anger at herself, hating what she had thought herself for so long. _Even after hearing all that truth on Inazuma, I knew it was probably true too that he was still lying about why he was really back. Just saying what he needed to say to Midoriya. It was exactly what Midoriya and Iida needed to hear to let him go! It scared me, after Inazuma, that you were still lying about that. And even though I tried to get past it, I knew you still had those plans. 'Of course he has all these plans, but we could still be friends…' I'm an idiot. We're all idiots. I could never convince anyone though that it's true. Zach's a planner. He plans stuff, or at least that's what we all think of him._

 _He doesn't need to make a long-term plan and gather strength or anything though! He's so strong he doesn't need…_ Ashido's face scrunched up, her heart racing at the thoughts rushing through her head. _He's not planning anything. He already has the power. He already has the means to save anyone and kill anyone, like a God living among us with such ultimate power. And yet the look on his face when he flew off,_ a haunted look spread over the pink girl's expression, her eyes clenching shut as she imagined it flashing before her again. In that instant he was turning away, _He turned like my answer was obvious, because I said it as if it was. That look, like he thought he was being a bad person for hesitating, or for making me feel just a brief moment of what it's like to have that power over life and death! I wasn't prepared for it! But- but Zach isn't ready for that power either yet already has it. He just hasn't decided what to do with it._

Ashido opened her eyes and she leaned forward with her hands curling over the top of the ledge. She stared out into the city and found her mouth open and drying out as she breathed even heavier. _He came back even, maybe because, he wants help. Maybe because he needs people to tell him he doesn't have to be out there saving everyone at all times!_ Ashido hesitated though after what she thought was a mind-blowing revelation that did not have the kind of effect on her. "Is that alright though?" she whispered under her breath. _Is Zach not bringing people back okay? Especially when he does feel the guilt of letting those people die? He does! It's why he can't just say it's not his problem…_

 _Death wouldn't mean anything if Zach chose that to be his life though,_ Ashido thought hesitantly, and an uneasy sensation swirled inside her. _Humanity would completely change if the idea of death being a permanent concept were to actually change. People already complain when Zach or Death don't bring people they love back to life… And now that Zach is flying to Romania to bring a random kid back,_ _ **everyone**_ _in the world will see that he has the power to save them at any time!_ Ashido brought her right hand up to her face and smacked herself in the forehead in it, then curled her fingers into her scalp as she ran her hand up between her horns into her wavy pink hair. _I just pushed public opinion against Zach. People are going to start hating him for what he does tonight._

"Damn it," Ashido cursed, and her hand scratching her head pulled off in a clenched fist and slammed down next to her. "That's not my fault." She said it angrily, and her expression shifted into an attempted mad one. _He did this to me, just on a whim! To prove a point or something…_ Ashido slowly loosened her fists, and her expression softened and got more sad too, _Though that's only a part of it._ She knew it and shook her head, _While the main reason is because he wanted to save the kid too. It's how he made the decision during the interview too. Whatever else didn't matter, he just had that kid right in front of him. And just now, his mind was just so strained he wanted someone else to make the decision for him, and so I sent him out to do it. I chose to save that kid, and I feel like I would always choose that as my answer. Every time? I only had to pick once! He has to pick- THOUSANDS of times every day?!_

 _Maybe stories of that kid dying spread so quickly in the first place, those videos being released online, because people wanted Zach to see them before his time limit ran out. It's happening already. Or, or at least he probably thinks that and believes they're waiting for him?_ Ashido's eyes had been watery for a while, but she had to rub an arm over them as tears were about to spill out again. _All those lives that would be ruined from it like he said, and he can go save them… He has no plan. He really has nothing planned, and yet he's on the very- the precipice of something so great it's frightening! With great power comes great responsibility, yeah. That's something I think of myself! Yet, with greater power comes something else. What is Zach's responsibility to the world? Is it to change the meaning of "death" and bring everyone back when they die? Stop all villains like he tried to do for a year- he succeeded at it too all over the world! Or, is it to make a name for Lifebringer to be someone we can look to?_

 _That's what he's trying to do in Japan,_ Ashido told herself, nodding at the final option she gave for his responsibilities. _And it's the easiest. The least straining on him at least, and the one that makes him look least like a God. Maybe Zach's trying to fight his own God complex. If I can see it, then he definitely has made that comparison… Maybe Zach's, someone we have to be afraid of._ Ashido sniffled in and lowered her hands back down to her sides, her breathing steadying and her eyes staring forward in a nervous and so hesitant way. _In three years from not being able to use his Quirk at all he's become almost all-powerful, and he's lost. He is so lost, right? He has killed a lot of people, innocent people too against his will, and he doesn't know if he should be bringing back the dead or not, and if he… if he turned bad?_ Ashido's breath stopped and the cold of the night finally caught up with her making her feel chills down her spine. As she shivered, she stared forward breathlessly thinking the words, _He'd destroy the world._

For the first time, Ashido stared forward feeling a true understanding of how powerful Zach was. She started breathing again, but it was faster paced than before, _His manipulation alone, but also his skills without Death; he crushed us barely using it. The popularity he already has too, and his ability to make people trust him no matter what he does and says… which I'm sure, he'll be able to do again even after tonight. He had that Darling girl help him after he brought her back to life, and he thinks his Quirk messed with her mind! His Quirk heals the sick if they die once he brings them back, so he could promise to heal people for- for… And he's Zach,_ Ashido reminded herself of something that came so simply to her mind and made her tensed shoulders relax again. She shook her head around, and all those horrible things she started imagining were countered by that one simple reminder. _That's not who he is._

 _Zach's not evil. He just has, too much pressure on him. Because as a good person he feels the pressure that a bad guy wouldn't. He feels the pressure of being able to save anyone, and worse the feeling that- that no matter how many people, he could never save all the people that he could. As powerful as he is, he isn't actually a God! He can't be everywhere at once. He won't be able to save everyone even if this became his life, and everyone would still condemn him-_ Ashido sniffled a few more times trying to hold it back, but tears fell from her eyes and made her face colder forcing her to rub them off again with her jacket's sleeves. _It felt so horrible just having that feeling for a second. It felt so much worse, that it was Zach putting that decision on me! That he would do that to me when we, when we're friends! Zach said I'm his friend too! I know he considers us, but he still made me feel that way, because he wanted to show me how it felt for him. He wants me to understand, and to help him._

She rubbed her face harder and then lowered her arms with a much more serious expression covering her face. _He doesn't want me just telling him it's not an issue or that it isn't too hard! That was an immature way to respond- but now I understand! He's right and this isn't something to be taken lightly or joked about lightly back to him. But,_ Ashido's determined look faltered and she leaned back on the ledge again. _I don't know what the right answer to tell Zach is though…_ The determined look re-hardened and Ashido nodded in agreement with what she just thought. _But I'm going to stick by him and help him as he comes to it. Stand by him and make sure he knows there are people who understand him. That he's not that far separated from the rest of us. Like he must think he is… I want to help you, believe that you're still human._

"Mina," Zach started, landing behind her without a noise and making the girl spin around in so much shock she almost slipped off the ledge. His eyes widened but Ashido caught herself, and then he said right away when he saw she was fine, "I'm sorry about before. I shouldn't have-"

Ashido threw her legs around the other side of the ledge and ran across the gap to her friend who leaned back at her approach. "I-" he started, stopping though as he thought maybe he should just close his mouth and allow the slap to come. Ashido hugged the taller boy though who looked down in hesitation at what she just did. His expression got slightly darker for a moment, then he said with a half-smile breaking on his face, "I saved the kid. The Romanians were shocked to see me, couldn't believe I had showed up."

Ashido pulled back from the hug and smiled up at Zach, "Well I'm sorry too." He had stopped trying to apologize when she hugged him like there was nothing to apologize for, wanting to just let the mood raise as he attempted. Ashido smiled though even as she apologized to him, and she looked him in the eyes with ones that he could see had been crying since he left. "I had no idea what that feels like, and to feel it all the time?" Zach's face flinched and he pulled it back, as Ashido shook her head in disbelief at him, in a way truly understanding something Zach had never been able to even put in words to someone else. "You don't have to figure it out right now though. You don't even have a full hero license yet-"

"And in two months?" Zach whispered back at the girl in front of him. "You think I'll know in two months?" _I thought I would have six years. I thought I'd have three or four years before I'd even have to start thinking about it! I have so much I'm trying to do and work on right now, that having this looming over my head is one more giant weight crushing me! AND I CAN'T FOCUS WITH EZIANO WATCHING ME!_

"I have no idea what I'm doing," he whispered. "There's so much, and I can't give up even one thing. Not as a hero." Zach grit his teeth thinking about a conversation he had with Midoriya recently, and he whispered to the pink girl in front of him wishing she could do more for him, "But there isn't enough time in the day for it all. And half-assing it won't work. It hasn't so far." _Treating hunting the League, helping Jirou, my public image, reviving people, Darling, All For One, Eziano, and everything else all as equal parts of my whole has left me failing at every single one of those things! I only finally fixed things with Darling because of an accident that turned into that night's incident, but the rest is all harder than… It's not going to resolve itself if I don't focus on them individually one by one, and yet focusing on a single one of them at a time leaves me at such a disadvantage on all the others._

Ashido reached forward and shook Zach by the front of his shirt, and the red glow in Zach's eyes as he thought so frantically faded away. _I'm not going to come up with an answer here. There is no easy answer,_ he reminded himself while looking back into Mina's soft eyes that stared back at him in an accepting way. "Whatever you decide to do," Ashido started, and she moved her left hand from his shirt to his left hand that she gave a squeeze despite how hard it felt. "Know I'm here to help, okay?

Zach was glad his nerves were attached through his prosthetic. He felt the squeeze and even felt the warmth of her hand through the steel, and he stopped thinking so hard and just lived in that moment for a second. "I know," Zach replied, and he smiled back at the girl whose reaction was much tamer and friendlier than how he thought she was going to react when he returned. _I did something horrible to you, again. We may not be able to redecorate a new apartment together, but this is enough for me right now. A new reminder. Nothing's over. And nothing's started yet either. I'm still in school. Still have that final excuse, holding off the vultures._

* * *

 **A/N Thanks for reading! Hope y'all enjoyed the chapter. Leave a review telling me what you think below!**

diddles321 chapter 188 . Oct 9

Nice chappter. Thanks for the update. A little co fused though. What are the consequences of the revival? What was being set up?

 **Thanks for the review! As for the consequences of the revival, we already started seeing a little of it in what those newscasters were talking about right before Ashido left the dorm, and Zach knows how the world is going to react here. He's always known it... Hope you enjoyed the chapter!**

GrayReader chapter 188 . Oct 9

Hey author, I remember putting off this story a long time ago because I didn't really like Zach's attitude with his quirk (even though it was completely understandable) in the beginning. I finally decided to just sit down and keep reading and have to say that it has been one of the best experiences I've ever had on this site. No matter what direction you take this story, I'll Definitely stay and continue to read just because of your amazing ability as a writer! I loved when Zach was Death and agreed with his philosophy more so than his newer ideals, but even so, you've written the character so well even if I did want to stop reading for that, I wouldn't be able to just because I'd miss the character. Thanks so much for the consistent updates, we all appreciate it, Have a good one!

 **Hey reader, thanks for the review! I'm really glad you picked up Death and got super into the story. That was some nice praise right there so I hope I can keep Death up to those standards moving forward. Even outside of AoD I'm glad you still enjoy the chapter and the story, and another chapter out fast as I could get it! XD Have a good one to you too!**

Guest chapter 188 . Oct 9

I was wondering when something like this would happen. It's inevitable someone will eventually pay to get their dead relative sent to Zach, and at first I was actually considering that as a form of sifting. To pick who lives and who dies. But Zach could never do that, and honestly that's so fucked up there's no winnibg here.  
Now he's gonna be expected to save everyone even more than before, that's what this would cause right? Give the guy a break, yall forget he's still an 18 (19?) year old child in fucking school. He needs a life too!  
If heaven exists, God better let my boi up in there, in the vip section with the ophanim and stuff. Let Zach have peace dammit. Honestly at this point I just want to see him enjoying himself in his own home without having to worry about a single goddamn thing, without having any inner conflicts and just spending time jokign around and playing games with his friends. That would be nice for him. Never gonna happen tho lmao.

 **You really got it right there. Zach (18) has the ability to reach anywhere in the world, and it's left him needing to pick who lives and who dies which you're right, it's something he's not ready to do. He knows even trying to go out there and save everyone he's still going to have to make choices between who he is saving and who he's not, and there's just so much attached to the role that weighs down on him (and for a few seconds Mina) this chapter. Someone paid Zach to get a relative saved, and people are not happy about that already as we saw in the immediate reactions that Zach and Ashido expect to spread now. We'll see how Zach handles these pressures moving forward, but I'm glad you picked up on a lot of that stuff already and why that's such a big issue here. Anyway thanks for reviewing and I hope you enjoyed this new chapter!**


	190. Chapter 190

**Disclaimer: I don't own Boku no Hero Academia**

 **Chapter 190:**

"And what about you Kasami?" Rashi wondered. "Our resident Lifebringer supporter's been pretty quiet today."

"I'm not going to retract previous statements based off what I saw last night," Kasami said. He glanced towards Bob too and added to the older man speaking a lot more harshly on Zach Sazaki than usual, which was already a lot, "And I'm not refuting everything you were saying either though. Don't go ahead and use some unsettling moments from last night as a sign that Lifebringer's 'showing his true colors' though. He's got a lot on his plate, and seeing this kind of reaction to him bringing someone back to life last night, I figure he knew it was coming in that moment he showed us that look."

"Except, half of this is all _because_ of that look," Rashi countered.

"You say that because we saw it and can make that argument," Kasami said. "But you two would find any reason to hate on the kid, and you'd still be talking about how terrible it is he brought back Cayman's daughter even if he had been smiling while he did it."

"You're calling him a 'kid' again?" Bob wondered. "Thought he was the 'Hero of the People?'"

"I stand by that, but I mean, he's still just an eighteen year old kid-"

Bob cut in again while leaning over the long table and shaking his head at his younger colleague, "You were saying that when he was a seventeen year old, and a sixteen year old, and back when he was fifteen too. Yet you've also said on this very program that there's no way we could consider Sazaki as just a 'kid' anymore, not after all he's been through. So which is it? Is he a kid who is under too much pressure, who definitely shouldn't be looked at as all of 'our hero,' or is he this amazing pro who when he makes these mistakes should be called out on them by us? You can't have it both ways and just use whichever one works better at the time to push a pro-Lifebringer narrative."

"I don't have any narrative," Kasami said, sounding offended by the criticism. "But I see Lifebringer getting pissed because Kipper lied to him about what that interview was going to hold, and I get why he was pissed!" Rashi nodded his head in agreement with a tilt to the side and a turn to Bob to see how the older man would react. Kasami continued, "We all saw Kipper literally say that he was paid 200 million yen not to tell Lifebringer about what was coming. And that was just how much he was paid not to say anything to him, which Lifebringer specified in his question. Kipper could have been paid so much more in the first place just for Cayman to sneak his way into that interview, pulling the plug on his daughter beforehand to shove Lifebringer in that corner where he either brings back the girl or lets her die. And what are you supposed to do in his position?! Let the girl stay dead?"

"No one's saying that-" Bob started.

"Oh yeah they are," Kasami argued back with a sarcastic laugh that Bob would say otherwise. "People are outraged by it, but would we be any happier if Lifebringer had just left the girl dead? No! Nobody would even consider him a hero anymore after that. Now he's being ripped apart all over the news because of his decision."

"It's not about his decision last night though," Rashi cut in on Kasami's rant. "It's the fact that he saved that girl in a couple of seconds. I mean, it looked _easy."_

"Didn't look so easy the other night-"

"But he was bringing back sixteen people at once then, and he had been chewed up in that blast himself too," Rashi argued back like that was a different matter altogether. "Bringing back one person, a girl who died in her sleep which probably attributed to why it didn't look to hurt him much-"

"He tossed his mic to the side," Kasami started off, lifting his right palm to stop Rashi there. "Which to me, as much as it looked like it was in anger back there, feels like he probably did it so we couldn't hear the pain he was in as he revived her." The other two looked at Kasami in surprise at the analysis, and Kasami continued after they showed him they had not thought of it that way, "Lifebringer gets hurt when he brings people back. It's always been that way, from a long time ago we've always seen that on the videos. Him not screaming at the top of his lungs isn't an indicator to me that it was super easy for him to bring that girl back. I still remember those rallies Pinky was at the front of through the fall, where she shouted about how much it hurt him to bring people back and yet he kept doing it for us over and over again. So I'm not judging him for how he acted last night, being ambushed like that."

"You say he was ambushed, like he expected the interview to be a fluff piece to help out his public appearance," Bob said, suggesting Kasami knew something that would taint Lifebringer's reputation even more but was not saying it straight out right there. "Is that what you thought he was doing?"

"Isn't that usually what people do when they go on those sorts of shows?" Kasami asked back, saying it like there was nothing wrong with it even if Lifebringer had gone in for just that reason. "You were being harsh on him for a few days straight after his apartment exploded, and he went out there and tried to reassure us that everything was alright, only for something like that to happen?"

"You're saying he's the victim here?" Rashi wondered.

"Definitely," Kasami replied like that was clear. "Cayman was saying how Lifebringer wouldn't respond to him and how there was no way to get in contact which is what got him using the interview last night as his chance. Lifebringer didn't want this kind of reaction from everyone, didn't want this, and it was forced on him leading to us having this discussion right now."

"Well maybe, this was a conversation we've needed to have for a while," Bob countered strongly, not going to accept that excuse so easily. "Lifebringer might be trying, but he does not appear to have a direction for what he wants to do with that Quirk of his. Going to Romania in the middle of the night and bringing back that child, Andel Novak, confuses me more than clarifies what he's trying to do with his Quirk. And are we supposed to ignore that he did not go through any of the proper channels to travel to another country and use his Quirk, act as a hero despite not having a pro license, or permission from either Japan or the Romanian-"

"Could he have done anything that would have made you happy today?" Rashi wondered, and Kasami bounced his eyebrows in agreement as Rashi took the words right out of his mouth. "To me, what he did there was a better show of fairness than anything he could have done. Had he just brought back another Japanese citizen when we all got mad he brought back that rich American, everyone else in the world could have asked why it is us Japanese are seemingly immortal now!"

"Haha, yeah it seems Lifebringer's not a Japanese resource, as much as we all wish he was," Kasami agreed. "The kid cares about everyone, and he's been outside of the country in America and Europe and all over the world-"

"And apparently, in other worlds too," Bob added, a more annoyed look on his face growing.

"Yeah, I have to see that book for myself," Rashi agreed, though he laughed instead of getting annoyed. "I have no idea what Kipper was talking about there, or what Lifebringer told his jail guards he was up to while he was in Tartaros, but did you catch what they were saying about Faith? It sounds to me like Lifebringer and Faith might have duked it out inside Tartaros, and considering he's still down there and Lifebringer's not, I guess we have our winner…"

At his desk chair, Midoriya Izuku pulled out his phone and sent a text without thinking too hard about it. _Things have settled a little,_ he thought to himself, and he even lifted a tiny smile at the text back that did not take long. He hesitated and thought about sending another text, but he just pocketed his phone instead. _It's up to him when to bring people back to life. He knows how focused people are on it right now. If he goes to a hospital around here first, that must be part of his plan to show them something. Maybe that he's not changing up his routine just because of what you all… Except, what was that thing in Europe last night? Ashido got in some trouble today too when Cementoss sensei started class, and All Might made her stay after school for that training she's still doing._

He headed out from his dorm and to the main office, and he got a pass out though Midnight warned him what would happen if he came back late. All of Class A would pay for it next time, having their pass privileges revoked for a week if any one of them were to break the rules again. _Wonder what she and Zach talked about last night? I wish I could ask her, before going for this. What do I even want to say?_ Midoriya pulled out his phone and held back a sigh at Zach's response of how long it would take him to get to Musutafu to meet.

 _It doesn't matter,_ Midoriya reminded himself while heading down the streets of Musutafu in a sweatshirt to keep warm in the early March chill. _We'd talk a lot more if he lived at U.A., so I don't need an excuse to come out and talk to him. It's more difficult, but it's worth it to do. There's so much more I need to know. So much he can tell me. Guess, that's what I'm going for then._

Fifteen minutes later, Midoriya rose his arm up and waved to his friend who made it to their meeting spot without having to stop for any pictures today.

 _They'll forget about it in a couple days,_ Zach reminded himself. He half-waved back to Midoriya and headed towards him in a casual way, pretending not to see the looks of the last two people who saw him and opened their mouths only not to call anything out to him. Midoriya did not notice because Zach ignored them, but the darker-haired boy could not help but keep thinking about them, _They're not afraid. Just, unsettled. Not like Himazuri. She's afraid. Kipper was afraid. Terrified, when he looked into my soul._ Zach smiled and approached his friend at the gazebo in the park that had been a solid meet-up place so far. _After this one though, I'll have to pick a new place. People might bug this place, and considering the kind of shit I talk about under it I'd be an idiot to come back here again._

"How's it going?" Zach wondered as he stepped up towards his friend. Midoriya smiled at the look on Zach's face much more relaxed and calm than he thought Zach might be after the events of the night before.

"Good, you?" Midoriya asked back.

"All good," Zach assured, knowing what Midoriya really meant while asking that back. "Can't believe that asshole Kipper though. Thought I picked the right program," he said, then he sighed and leaned back on the railing in front of Midoriya. His curlier-haired friend stared at Zach in surprise, while the boy who did his black hair up spiky like usual continued, "Though, I bet Cayman could've paid off whoever I went to. Kipper's just the unlucky one whose credibility I shredded. Don't know how unlucky I'd call him though with as big a bonus as he got."

"You brought that girl back, Cherry, so quickly," Midoriya started. "I thought something must have been wrong when you lowered your hand like that-"

"I've gotten a lot better," Zach replied with a lift of the corners of his lips. "And Death's gotten stronger too, to be able to bring people back that quickly."

"Death? Not, you?" Midoriya asked, wondering if there was a reason Zach specified it.

"I mean," Zach started slowly. "When you get stronger, it's always been because you've been able to control more of One For All, right?" Zach asked. Midoriya nodded, and Zach continued, "But once you can use 100 percent all the time, and then you keep getting stronger on top of that? It's One For All getting stronger isn't it?"

Midoriya paused and he thought about that for a second, before responding, "At that point, it would be, but I'd still be getting stronger too."

"Yeah, I suppose," Zach replied. "But with Death, the, _potency,_ of it doesn't necessarily correlate with strength to me. Whether or not I could bring people back quicker or kill with a smaller amount of Death, I don't consider that as me getting stronger. That's just Death powering up."

"Yeah, I get that too," Midoriya agreed with a nod at the way Zach was speaking of it. _But,_ "Then, what do you consider as you getting stronger? If not your Quirk strengthening?"

 _Stronger?_ Zach wondered to himself. _I don't want to be any- that's not a good way to look at it. I might need to be stronger next time I face Eziano! Or All For One… Right?_ "Studying fighting techniques I haven't seen before, and preparing myself against them. Being able to look another move ahead of what I can currently plan for during a fight," Zach started replying. "Stuff like that, I suppose."

 _It's not like Bakugo,_ Midoriya thought at Zach's response. _Bakugo's a natural. His combat sense is crazy, but it's always been so good. Zach's been training nonstop since he was a kid, and he never stops even now. That kind of response from the best fighter I know, explains why you're the best fighter I know._ "That's," Midoriya started, though he frowned as he did not actually have a way to finish the statement. "I consider that, as me getting stronger too." _But I also think of my actual strength increasing as much more. Is that even important to you anymore? With Death, when one touch could already knock people out or kill them, I guess at a certain point making it get any stronger loses meaning. It was already so strong back when you first started using it, not that One For All at five percent wasn't._

"So what's up?" Zach wondered. "Is Ashido good?" Midoriya rose his eyebrows, wondering why Zach referred to her by her last name and why he was asking him and not the girl herself. "Don't want her knowing that I know she got in trouble for last night," Zach added to explain one of those reasons to Midoriya, while he really just referred to her by her last name since it was how Midoriya knew her, and since they were talking about her here and not to her face where he'd rather use Mina to make her happier.

"She got scolded, by Cementoss sensei," Midoriya replied, and Zach nodded in a relieved way which made Midoriya sweatdrop though nod in agreement there. _If there's anyone to scold you,_ Midoriya thought, wondering if Cementoss ever could have an actual mean look on his face from what he had seen so far. "And she had some extra training after school… but she also seemed a little off today."

 _I shouldn't have put that kid's life in her hands. That's a feeling, no one should ever have to feel besides me. I don't know why I pushed that on her._ "Yeah, that's my bad," Zach replied. "I let her choose whether or not I went and saved that Romanian boy," he admitted, then frowned as he wondered why he told Midoriya about it. Midoriya stared at Zach with his eyes opened huge at that statement though, and Zach rose his eyes back up and said to his friend, "Let the life of someone else be determined by someone else's 'whim' for a change. Was a shit thing to do," he finished in a darker way though he sighed afterwards and shook his head at his own actions.

 _Is he, criticizing how I've called him out on doing it just on his "whims?" Or, is it because that's what the news is talking about today? He put that decision in Ashido's hands… How did he even do that? He's still the one who had to go save the kid at the end of the day. He might say she told him to go, but the decision was ultimately his own. Saving another kid, and all I can wonder now is why he stopped there?_ Midoriya shook his head of those thoughts, _I didn't come to argue about this again. He doesn't look like he wants to talk about it either, despite just bringing it up? Well it's all anyone's talking about today. I bet it's all he's heard from his Shiketsu friends too, and he suspects it's why I want to talk to him._

"I want to know more about what you were up to," Midoriya started, and Zach looked at him in mild surprise at the conversation shift. "Leading your army. Stuff, I don't know about already. I know there's a lot you've been keeping from me, though I also know a lot is just because we don't have the time to go through every last thing."

"Yeah, don't have five months to sit around telling you every story," Zach replied with a chuckle. "Like Oda-"

"I don't want the stories that guy put in his book," Midoriya cut his former classmate off. Zach lowered his small smile, and Midoriya specified, "Full truth. No stories. No lies, okay?"

 _Transition back. The reality. One day! Just one,_ Zach's lips curled into a frown and his expression shifted in a way Midoriya was all too used to now. "Alright," Zach replied, and he leaned back on the railing with a deep breath in. "Let's see." Zach turned his head to the side and looked up around the edge of the gazebo, up at really dark clouds telling him it might storm soon. _They could be up there right now. Maybe they found the League of Villains. They could be getting massacred by Shigaraki right now. Or crushing the League without me._ "There was this one fight," Zach started as he lowered his eyes up from the dark clouds to his friend before him.

"I was over the water in the middle of a thunderstorm not of my own creation-"

"Your own creation?" Midoriya asked with his eyes confused, though he had heard something like this said before.

"I brought the storm," Zach replied, in a tone that was so serious that it did not make Midoriya think of it as cheesy in the least. Zach just continued after that like it was all the explanation he needed, "My ride was bumpy and the pilot needed to pull off to get to safety, so I jumped with three others from thirty thousand feet. We dropped from the sky towards this ship we knew some enemies to be on. Villains," Zach specified, rather than using 'enemies' as a broader term for better use in recounting stories. "Bad guys who I had information on. I knew they were trafficking lots of deadly weapons and dirty bombs, because I had just destroyed one such factory that they picked up shipments from. All-in-all, they were just up to no good. They were perpetuating the war."

Zach paused and then continued as there was no interruption there, "So I dropped onto their ship. The first guy I saw came out of a door thinking he heard something, and I knew I landed pretty hard because I wasn't using my wings, and I wasn't all that used to my suit's flying functions yet though I was training with them during that drop."

"You practiced with your equipment in actual combat-"

"There wasn't enough time to stop and train between every mission," Zach replied. Midoriya closed his mouth, and then after a couple seconds he nodded at Zach to continue as Zach was waiting to see if he had any other questions before going on. "Anyway, I had my grappling gun out already as I was going to try and shoot up to the bridge, but instead I brought it down and fired at the villain who came out. The guy adapted fast to seeing me though. Even in my dark uniform with a menacing appearance and covered in weapons, the man tried fighting and dodged the hook. I did not slow down though, and I shot forward when the hook pierced the wall on his other side and retracted in. The man had just dodged, but now that I used where the hook actually hit to pull myself in, I made the guy hesitate as I put the thought in his head that where my hook hit was where I always intended it to go based on that lack of hesitation in my reaction to missing."

 _A villain able to react instantly to a sudden noise in the middle of a storm, see it was the Army of Death and still dodge the first attack, and you-_

"I grabbed my own wire and slid my feet to the side over the wet steel as I approached him. As my opponent rose a gun to fire at me, I clotheslined the man with the thin but very strong wire. And as I was passing on the man's side though opposite the side my wire went past on, I swung my arm and twisted my wrist, wrapping the wire around the back of the man's neck too and around his front again where he had been clotheslined to double wrap it." Midoriya got anxious as Zach continued speaking here, no hesitation in what he was saying even though it sounded like it could potentially get very bad. "Now there were two thin wires pressing into the man's throat and tightening as I grabbed both sides and choked him, telling him in his ear to lower the gun or I would have to snap his neck to keep him silent. So he started to lower the gun, I took it, and the man struggled in that second to get out knowing that only one hand was holding the wires around his neck. I twisted again while dropping the pistol and pulling back to avoid the man's knife he swung around with his free hand."

Zach paused and frowned a little deeper before continuing, "The blade brushed against the front of my uniform, but my gear was too strong for it to pass through. Then I grabbed the wire and twisted one last time, making my opponent black-out in a couple seconds while the guy flailed desperately trying to hit me. When the knife dropped, unlike the pistol that I managed to slip my foot under in time, the knife made noise clanking on the steel that drew attention from someone else inside. I expected it though, and as I lowered my first opponent down to the floor quietly, I pointed a gun inside and fired into the neck of the guy who came to the hall and asked his friend's name near the open door-"

"You killed him?" Midoriya whispered, more confused than anything else. "Why, after going through the trouble of knocking the other one out?"

"The gun had darts with quick-acting tranquilizers to knock out enemies," Zach countered with a single shake of his head, assuring Midoriya he just misunderstood which made more sense to Midoriya anyway. Midoriya nodded though with an interested look too, and instead of continuing on right away Zach explained more thoroughly, "They became the primary weapon of my soldiers in most fights, not that real firearms were not also on hand for villains who needles would not break through the skin and who needed to be damaged more."

Zach paused and then continued back on track, "I dropped the second man with the needle to the neck, and I darted inside and down the hall to catch the guy right before he hit the ground. I almost was not fast enough, but I lowered him with a hand over his mouth as the guy closing his eyes looked like he was trying to call out to someone." He nodded at Midoriya in a way checking if this way of fighting sounded satisfactory, and Midoriya gave a slow nod back showing he was not judging here. Zach went on, "I had my comrades speaking softly in my ears about their infiltration too, but so far no alarms were going off and I had not heard any gunshots so I figured things were fine."

"What was the purpose of the secrecy?" Midoriya wondered. "Why did you have to dive in from the sky instead of just, attacking? Or waiting at a port if you knew where the ship was and where it was going?"

Zach replied with his answer ready, "Because we captured someone who explained to us beforehand how that shipping worked. There was one final check the cautious villains purchasing the guns, who would then distribute the weapons across that certain country, made with the in-betweens running that shipping route. Those guys were very cautious too, Turbo's men getting even more paranoid and harder to catch after Bolivar took over. Those League guys were much smarter than someone like Spade," Zach added as a reference that Midoriya nodded along with, trying not to think of how Zach was saying how easily he had snuffed out something just like this more recently.

Midoriya tried, but he still found himself frowning deeper before Zach continued, _Like the villains of today don't match up with the ones he was fighting last year._ Zach continued though, snapping Midoriya out of those thoughts, "The final check-in was to make sure the goods were on their way, so that the villain group only could show up at the port for the pick-up if it was really coming and there were no complications, and so they would only have to be there for a short window of time. We landed when they were 30 minutes from the shore, just around the time that the final message would have been sent. So now the villains on shore are getting ready to receive the ship on the dock they only told the shippers the number of in that final check, and in the meantime me and my friends are taking down the ship's crew quietly and quickly."

Zach started speaking in the present tense, and Midoriya wondered if he noticed or if Zach had just gotten so into the story that he was seeing it vividly in front of him right now. The detail he described in that fight certainly sounded like Zach remembered every moment from it, though Zach only really went into those first two he took down which Midoriya realized was not a lot of them as he continued. "We don't have a lot of time to take down a crew of around ninety people, and worse we need to do it silently or the ship could relay to their allies on shore not to be there when they arrived. Any message after the final message would be enough to spook their partners, so I couldn't even risk having them start saying something only to be cut off and for me to take the place and use voice-modification tech to try and bluff it. I needed it to be perfect, so I brought Seraphim, Darling, and Mark."

He paused for a second, then he continued without dwelling on those names he just mentioned, "It was high-risk, very high-reward. If we could get the elusive distributors at the port who no one up until then had been able to track down, no one had been able to find their bases or find them with how careful they were with their meetings, I figured I could get every big villain group in the nation as they had only sold to the best since they _were_ the best."

"Did it work?" Midoriya asked, and his eyes widened more as Zach nodded his head.

"We caught the group waiting on the docks off-guard. I figured that group was likely susceptible to talking to heroes even, by the amount they panicked upon seeing me." He continued in a serious voice with his expression looking as Death's, "How quickly they gave up every villain they knew and the codes they used to set up meetings with them, just for the promise of lighter punishments."

Zach smirked and he added to his friend staring at him in shock, "I got more out of that one than the international hero community got from Spade. The villains we tracked down afterwards were worse, and I got them by pretending to be the distributors and offering them trials of new top-of-the-line weaponry just developed in America that all those villains were excited to try out. I got all of them, made them talk about their lower subsidiary groups and gangs that terrorized towns and cities in each region of the nation they ran, which public figures they had extorted for cash and which officials they had bribed to ignore their actions or send heroes on goose chases away from the actual illegal activities going down just below their noses. Stopped drug trafficking through their borders and rooted out corruption at border crossings and city offices and waste treatment facilities. Revealed the cops who had been taking money on the side or working with villains-"

"How-" Midoriya stopped, but Zach had stopped already and he could not hold it back. It was something he thought so frequently but felt he needed to ask right here. "How could you do," he started to whisper. "All of that, in a single year?"

"All of…" Zach looked at Midoriya in confusion. Midoriya was referring to all Zach just listed off, but Zach shook his head and replied, "I did that over the next two days."

"Wh-" Midoriya could not finish the word. He was beyond shocked in disbelief, and Zach could see that look on Midoriya's face clearly as Midoriya could not hide it with it this intense.

Zach shook his head, and he explained in a casual tone, "What I was doing was very simple. The simple truth is that it was never about torturing people. Getting information from villains was never hard. Because, villains are all cowards." Zach said it like he was just explaining something to Midoriya, but Midoriya stared at Zach with his eyes going even wider as this sounded like something Zach truly believed. Zach shrugged his shoulders at Midoriya's disbelieving look that Zach would really group them all like that, and he continued, "The only reason they don't talk to heroes, is because heroes can't do anything to them once they're captured. Villains know they can't, because they see heroes who have done even minor infractions getting arrested themselves or put on blast by the media. They get abandoned and turned-on by everyone they love. But, Death's already a terrorist. Death's already condemned by the international community and people everywhere, and yet no one's stopping him from what he's doing in the shadows."

Zach paused and his voice got lower with a small smirk on his face, "And boy did I spread rumors through the underworld of what I did to villains I captured." He laughed darkly though Midoriya tried hard to ignore it and just focus on the substance of what Zach was saying and not how he looked while saying it, "The villains afraid that I might do something to them gave up other villains with barely a push most of the time. Because they're cowards. They all feared me. So each time I caught one villain, I learned the location of ten others, and just like that I had a list stretching too long to handle on my own or by myself. So I got some more help. And that made me capture more people quicker, get even more names faster, more locations, more tips and hints and corrupt leaders and villains and secret bases and underground lairs… there was so much." Zach took in a deep breath and then sighed out before continuing back in his normal tone, "Over 9 billion people in the world, 8 billion or so with Quirks, but everyone could be dangerous with firearms or Activate."

"Activate?" Midoriya wondered, having a bad feeling about the name though he was interested too at what it implied.

"A drug to activate latent Quirks that usually backfired but occasionally worked in horrible ways," Zach replied. "It's all destroyed now," he added, and Midoriya nodded slowly though amazed that he had never even heard of this drug which sounded like it could have been a huge deal. Zach spoke lower, "There were millions of villains in that population," he referred back to the billions he was just talking about. "Millions out free doing as they pleased, and a sudden shortage of heroes as they'd been killed and forced into retirement, or they just gave up. Scores of them over the past couple years. And the more heroes who fell, the more villains arose because they felt it was safer to act with heroes more spread out, which ultimately led to even fewer heroes as more were killed or maimed, others were coaxed into accepting money from villains who wanted to be looked over, and others just found it getting too dangerous and left the business. And the fewer heroes, the more horrible things they were unable to prevent or stop in time, creating-"

"Not many heroes accept money-" Midoriya spoke up, not going to let that just pass by him as the way Zach was speaking sounded like he was talking down to heroes compared to what he had been himself.

"It got hard," Zach cut in though before Midoriya could argue with him. He did not even say it like he was talking down about heroes, but the exact opposite which had Midoriya freezing and closing his mouth. Zach lowered his voice and said sympathetically, "Much harder than it ever was for all heroes around the world. Many of them went into the business never thinking that they would actually be risking their lives _every single day._ They just accepted it might happen occasionally, as an occupational hazard. But this had become nearly a war for some of them in the most dangerous places in the world where villains were not even afraid of heroes anymore, where heroes were more afraid to go into a town run by villains than villains were afraid to go into a town with multiple heroes in it. Even low-tier villains were ready to fight and kill heroes instead of run, and the heroes' jobs had become so much more dangerous, and they were still making the same pay as they always did?"

Midoriya stared at Zach hesitantly, feeling uncertain about what Zach was saying like it was leading to something obvious, yet something he did not accept at the moment nor wanted to in a minute. _Am I the one who's wrong though?_ The question made Midoriya hesitate to counter again, going to let Zach explain his perspective before arguing based on what he believed himself.

Zach continued on, "And at the same time, they had lost popularity and were being shunned by the public because of an increase in the amount of villain incidents? Why were they trying so hard for people who don't appreciate them? Why is it that there are dozens of other jobs out there that make more money even though those people could never do their jobs if heroes weren't there protecting them?"

"Not all heroes think like that," Midoriya said, unable to just listen to this any longer.

"I know," Zach agreed. "But it makes sense though, right? That some, or even most heroes would get frustrated by that? For most of them it's not enough to turn and work with villains, but if someone comes to a hero and offers them a large sum of money to just stay off the case of some lowly drug dealers, or to just back off a city official they were thinking about investigating? If the hero doesn't see any harm coming from it then why not accept? Why not just let something like that get past them, if they're busy enough with other things already? If the people are offering him or her this much money to stay out of it, then they're probably willing to fight and or kill them too if they don't play along. Maybe go after their family too?" Zach offered it up and shook his head, adding without any judgement, "It's easier to just accept the money and say that there was no harm in it, or that there was no choice because the alternative could have been terrible!"

Midoriya stared at Zach in partial confusion and part dread that Zach sounded so sympathetic here and like he was defending the corrupt heroes even. Zach saw that look though and shook his head at Midoriya's more judging way of looking at it. "9 times out of 10, Midoriya," Zach started. "When I rooted out corruption, the person I found who was corrupt used the same excuse. They were scared. They felt they had no choice. Whether it was true or not, and I didn't care really and put a stop to every corrupt thing I found, but even the ones who might have just been using it as an excuse were able to say it so quickly because they had been thinking about it. Somewhere in their heads they thought that they were in this because there was no other option for them. We always have a choice though. But as I said earlier, villains are cowards. And the corrupt are villains. And the ones who say they didn't have a choice, are cowards too for buckling under that pressure. And if they folded to some other villain threatening them, then when faced against me they always folded even quicker because I'm much more terrifying than any villain."

Zach said it without hesitation but paused afterwards. He paused after what he just said, and he grimaced and looked away from his friend in front of him who did not have an interruption or counter for him this time. He did not expect Midoriya to anyway, though he thought Deku would probably at least look upset because of it. He stayed quiet for a couple seconds and then continued softly, "As afraid as those people were of the villains breaking their words and coming for them, or what would happen to their families if they went to heroes. As afraid as they were of heroes catching on to what they were doing and throwing them in jail… The second they started breaking the law there was one thing they feared more than anything else." Midoriya stared at Zach with his eyes growing wider this time as Zach faced away and stared darkly off the gazebo into nowhere in the distance. "Even the ones who had never heard the rumors about me, and most people in the light wouldn't hear those rumors, they still knew."

His voice lowered and he said in a low voice, "An instinctual fear from the first time they saw me on the walls of Hatto making my declaration to the world. I was coming for all villains." Midoriya's eyes shook at the statement Zach made while glaring off, thinking back on the moment and the conviction he had in those words that showed on his face again now. "It didn't matter how small the crime," he continued. "It didn't matter where they were, whose borders they were inside of, how safe they felt they were, I was coming. I had taken down an entire government and army in a day. It may have been a dictatorship built on a lie, but it was getting stronger and establishing as the truest power in the country, and I crushed it under my feet." Zach's eyes got angrier, narrowing as he glared out into the park that seemed even darker now as the clouds about had gotten blacker gray. "Then I rooted out the worst criminal organization in the world, and I got heroes to help me do it then got let go by those same heroes whose job was specifically to catch me."

Zach even cracked a smirk while he stared away so darkly, and he continued in a horrible whisper, "Showing villains all over the world that heroes really weren't going to stop me from going after them and doing _things_ to them-"

"What you were doing," Midoriya finally cut in, not wanting Zach to continue any farther with every word sounding darker than the last. "It was terrorism," he said. He did not care if Zach tried to push that name on himself now, because after hearing what Zach was saying he knew it was not just his manipulation that pushed the label. Midoriya glared at Zach who looked back into his eyes, and he continued, "Using fear for your attacks in such a way. The fear you're talking about, that they must have felt of you, it's so intense and yet you're so proud-"

"It's good for there to exist a fear of doing the wrong thing," Zach countered back with as dark a look as Midoriya was giving him. "It keeps people near the edge from stepping over the line. It makes people on the other side of it want to get back on the right side."

"Like the Italian mafia?" Midoriya questioned harshly.

Zach nodded his head though. "Some people did bad things because they were not afraid of what would happen to them if they did. Not enough heroes, or not enough proof to convict them when they did things that way, that there was no point in worrying. But what if they did have to worry? Then fuck it, let's just stop doing those bad things. I'd rather live in freedom than in jail, even if I can't break someone's legs every once and a while." Zach kept his voice flat even as Midoriya looked at him disgustedly that he would defend guys like this if that was their thought processes. Zach glared harder at him though and wiped that look from Midoriya's face, "Maybe they didn't change because of their consciences," he started. "Maybe I was too lenient on some people I didn't send to prison, but if they don't commit any more crimes then isn't it better that way? Over twice the number of people I got arrested, I found doing illegal activities. Over two times as many so-called 'villains' that I just ignored than the ones I actually 'stopped' your way."

"What do you mean?" Midoriya asked, his voice harsh as Zach was speaking as unheroically as possible here.

"People watching illegal cage matches," Zach started his list. "People using drugs or peddling them at the lowest levels. I was always after bigger fish," he explained with a shrug when Midoriya looked at him angrier as he mentioned even letting drug _dealers_ go. Zach continued, "Because taking down the bigger fish makes it harder for smaller fish to even get started let alone get any larger than they already are. Most of them will just turn back to something legitimate without that outlet there waiting for them. I removed the systems that allowed people to easily become villains. I fought not to stop individual villains but to rupture supply chains and cripple organizations holding the villain world together in every part of this world."

Midoriya's judging expression started to lift, as Zach continued without pause, "I had seen it back when I was a villain. How me and Dabi needed to outsource to China for help, how Kurogiri had recruited some Korean mercs to fight with us back when our numbers were small. How did he find them so quickly? Guys like Giran find villains easily, but that's because the villain brokers are in contact with each other all over the place. They're in contact with corrupt officials and cops who can hand evil people off to them. Doctors at insane asylums can hand out tips about their most unstable patients' whereabouts so the League could get there first before heroes…"

Zach trailed off as Midoriya looked apologetic for a moment and then down at his feet in frustration. Midoriya looked back up with a frown at what Zach was saying, and yet it became more just an upset and frustrated look after a couple seconds. Midoriya shook his head as Zach was waiting for him to explain what he was feeling to look like that, and then he said in a low voice, "You have so much experience." Zach looked at Midoriya in some surprise, but Midoriya shook his head again and continued while looking into Zach's eyes, "In just, every way. A vast knowledge of the villain world and how it operates- and you used that knowledge to cripple the underworld in every country. Everywhere you went," Midoriya said, half amazed and yet sounding upset even as he did, his frown directed at Zach who nodded in a darker way at the way Midoriya was shifting his own expression back.

Izuku continued in a lower voice, "You did it in a horrible way though. The wrong way."

Zach nodded again, and he agreed, "Yeah." He looked away then back for a second as he said in a low voice of his own, "That's why it's a secret. That's why it always has to be a secret." The explanation made as much sense to Midoriya as it did to Zach, as did how he continued, "No one can know how much good came out of doing so much wrong."

 _I understand,_ Midoriya thought back though he could not even nod at Zach saying something like that. _The reason for all this secrecy. As much as it hurts Zach to lie to us, he's that afraid of our hero natures. The fear of my need to tell the truth and let everyone know what he had done. He isn't worried about getting thrown back in jail though, he's made that clear._ Midoriya lowered his gaze from Zach's face as his friend looked away again, and he stared down at Zach's feet and kept thinking to himself. _What he's most afraid of is everyone around the world seeing the way he had done things. He's afraid of them deciding that he was correct in doing so, which they would if they knew, and it would turn the world into a much bloodier and crueler place as Zach had treated it in the shadows. Zach knows the world isn't like that, or it doesn't have to be at least, and he worked desperately to keep it from turning into that!_

Midoriya rose his gaze back up to his friend staring so far away yet not darkly this time but just in a thoughtful way. He stared at his friend who he had thought for so long he would one day need to fight, and his fingers started to curl but he straightened them out to prevent from curling up fists. _I know, I can never tell anyone what you did. Can't repeat what you tell me to anyone. Even if I decide to go after you for being Death one day. Even if I'm forced to do so and we fight and you're arrested. I will_ _ **never**_ _tell the world what you did. Because you're right. And you were right not to be Zach Sazaki while you did all that. I was already worried about your popularity, but I know after what you just told me that you know just as well how popular you are and how dangerous it would be for you to tell the world what you just told me. You weren't acting as a hero, Zach. You became the action star of a gritty war movie. A super secret agent infiltrating and destroying criminal organizations. A villain with a conscience who people could look to. Committing crimes for the benefit of common people while at the same time murdering other villains…_

 _Killing some and bringing others back to life. Determining on your own who got to live, and who had to die. Zach, you had really become… Death._ Midoriya let out a breath that had his friend turning back to look him in the eyes again. And when he saw that look from Zach Sazaki he reminded himself, _I know you were most dangerous as Death, but I also believe you when you say you're trying hard to be Zach Sazaki again. I know that Zach is not as dangerous, but it's what you do and say and appear like in public that matter so much more now. And you're so careful about not letting anything slip so as not to distort reality… by telling the truth?_ The thought Midoriya had frustrated him but more-so in the fact that he understood the crazy thought he just had. _Reality, isn't necessarily the truth,_ he thought in realization.

 _Our belief of how the world exists, what structures made it this way, they might all be wrong._ Midoriya stared at Zach in silence for a few more seconds, thinking during it, _Zach understands though. He's lived in the shadows and spend his life fighting them. Sometimes going too far, killing people, breaking every law in the book. And despite all of this, Zach is still my friend._ Midoriya nodded at his friend in front of him who nodded back in a way Midoriya understood as well as Zach understood that nod he just received. _Somehow. We're still friends. I don't think I could ever stop…_ Midoriya realized it in a pained way but smiled back when Zach smiled at him. _If ever a time comes where I do have to arrest him, I know we'll still be friends._

It hurt Midoriya to think about it, but he shook his head of that feeling. "Zach," Midoriya started again. _I've always been one to think that there is right, and there is wrong, and you should always do what is right. I still believe it too, and I know that killing for any reason is wrong. But I also know, that what you do, you do for the benefit of other people alone._ "Is it hard?" Midoriya questioned. "For you to kill people?" He asked, and he waited to see Zach look hurt because of the question, or to pause and then say in a low voice how it was. They were the responses he wanted, and he grimaced at the thoughtful look on Zach's dark face there. _You do it for innocents. You believe that they'll be saved if you kill, and a lot of the time you're right. The problem you don't see though, is that when I'm wrong about a hunch, if I've only acted doing what's right, then there is no issue. But when you're wrong, you've now done something horrible and there wasn't any benefit from it. You hurt someone, or terrified someone, or killed someone… and what if you were wrong?_

 _Even if you're right! What's the cost?_ Midoriya thought it at the flat look that spread on Zach's face a couple seconds after the question still with no response. _Does your soul feel it anymore? Or has too much already broken it down? If it had though, I don't see why you would still fight for us. So you must believe in something. Your soul must be strong enough to handle all of that and keep fighting._

"It hurts," Zach replied. "It always hurts. No matter how much I hated them, I… I hate killing people more than anything in the world." Zach said it to the relief of Midoriya, and yet he turned away after saying it and glared so darkly away from that gazebo. _Oh how I wish that was true._

After a few seconds, Midoriya shook his head and gained an awkward look on his face as he started regretting his last question. He backtracked only a little bit though instead of changing the subject altogether, "I know you got results out of that wrong way." Zach looked back into Midoriya's eyes in a questioning way at how he was starting here. "But it wasn't just wrong because of the moral ramifications. The actual methods you were using, they were not the right- not the correct way to combat villains."

"I stopped more villains than you can count-"

"I know," Midoriya replied, but he said it fast and not in a way impressed but more like that was the point he was getting at. Zach looked back at him in confusion and Midoriya said, "You've told me how fast you were moving. That you fought so many fights in one day, that even the most important fights you let only occupy a certain amount of your focus." Midoriya paused and then said in a more stern voice, "And the speed at which you were moving, that you told yourself was imperative to your fight, it put the innocent people you were trying to save at more risk too."

Zach frowned back at Midoriya and shook his head in disagreement. Midoriya spoke up faster than Zach could start to counter though, "When you go after villains haphazardly, you risk letting them slip through your fingers. If you move too fast you won't see something that you could have if you had waited a little longer, and it could make the difference between a victory and a defeat. Haste makes waste."

Zach humphed at what Midoriya just said and looked to his former classmate like he was scoffing at that statement. "Where'd you hear that?"

Midoriya's expression hardened more and he replied sternly, "Sir Nighteye." Zach paused, and his expression shifted back to a regular one though did not get apologetic. He just stared at Midoriya and could see why he looked defensive himself over this. Midoriya scolded his friend who did not say anything in response there, "He told me, that we must first predict what the enemy is planning. Only after extensive analysis do we make a plan, and only with a plan do we take action."

"All of that sounds like it would take a long time," Zach replied. "I condensed all the steps and-"

"That's just being arrogant," Midoriya countered strongly, shaking his head at Zach again. "Because the cleverest villains who lurk in the shadows won't be stopped by a hastily put-together plan."

"There aren't that many villains like that," Zach countered. "Or at least, not to the level that I couldn't still handle it-"

"'Not many,' but there were some?" Midoriya retorted. Then as Zach's expression darkened, Midoriya took that moment and said in a more frustrated way, "Whatever you're thinking about, it's because you were moving so fast that you weren't able to do the proper scouting on those villains. The ones who turned out to be worse than you thought they would be, who fought back harder than you believed they could, if you had taken more time with each and every villain group you went after then you could have avoided… whatever bad things happened because you rushed."

Zach started shaking his head, and Midoriya continued with his momentum, "That's the whole point of the proper channels we have. They're not just to make sure that we really know the villains we're going after are doing illegal activities, which I bet you sometimes busted in on innocent people on accident, but it's also because going through the proper channels necessitates that we take every precaution before-"

"Does that mean," Zach cut in. "You let Eri get hurt for a single extra day instead of saving her in that moment?"

Midoriya froze and he stared at Zach with his eyes growing wider at the question. Zach glared at Midoriya and wondered, "Did you let Overhaul kill her and pull her back together over and over, so you could go through the proper channels? So you could get him in the act, arrest him for his crimes with more proof that you ' _needed?'_ Midoriya, that's not a victory." Zach said it firmly and with all the confidence that Midoriya had been speaking with a moment ago. Zach lifted his darker look a little at the angered but pained one he saw on Midoriya's face, and he said softer but still as assured of himself, "The only way to win is with haste. For me at least, but I do believe that my way of winning saves more people than the way you're describing."

"Sure, going through the proper methods may seem better in hindsight," he continued. "When a villain is let back on the streets because the proper protocols weren't carried out by heroes, when heroes act using methods that aren't by the book causing a mistrial because it would otherwise create precedent that they can go against procedure, that is treated as a miscarriage of justice. People hate it, and yet it needs to happen because case-by-case bases don't work in a society ruled by law." Zach paused and then said in an even lower voice, "But if that hero went against protocol because they needed to save someone in that moment, then good on them. Because saving someone doesn't just mean that in the end result, that person is alive."

Zach stared intensely into Midoriya's eyes and said without any hesitation in his voice that Midoriya did not think he could match after being confronted by this, "Really saving someone means preventing the horrible things from ever happening to them. I was going to sit by and do nothing but wait for Edgeshot when I showed up at the War Boys' hideout, but Thompson was screaming and about to be raped. It wasn't my place to act. It wasn't my place to move in. I did though," Zach said it firmly and went on after a second's pause. "It wasn't my place to go searching for them anyway, but I did because there was a way I knew I could find them that only I could use to find them. And when I was in that base, when I had 'saved' Thompson, I saw from the look of sheer terror on her face that if she had to live in what was like a nightmare for her, for even one more second! She was never going to recover from it. If I had just left her there to go deal with the other villains and save the other hostages, she wouldn't have been saved. If I had left that naked girl, or yelled at her to just listen to me and do what I say because I was trying to help her- none of it would have been enough."

Zach paused for a moment and then said without regret in his voice, "And in an action that likely killed the people I looked up to the most, I took off my helmet. And only by doing that. In that moment, not any later, because _speed_ was _that_ important! Only by doing it right then did I save her." Zach frowned deeply and stared towards Midoriya in an intense way that had his friend trying to frown back but failing as Zach's points were all fair and made sense to him. "It's like the speed of All Might going around solving all the crimes, except I wasn't waiting for them to begin before stopping them. I'm not waiting for more people to get dragged into it than needed to if I had enough information to act on my own. And All Might could get to every villain, but only _as long_ as they were being villainous at the time and making noise and bringing attention to them that All Might could find."

He shook his head and finished lower, "This is just the way I want to stop villains. Before they commit more crimes, immediately after seeing them. I want villains to know that there is nothing stopping me from destroying them, that I won't be restrained by 'proper methods' and they should know that even considering to keep breaking the law, in secret or without making a scene ever, it still won't be safe for them. I'll always find them and I'll destroy them as soon as I do."

Midoriya finally found his voice and started up back in an argumentative tone, "Proper planning is necessary though to ensure the raid is safe, and learn more about-"

"I do my recon too," Zach cut in. "I always do recon on everything I do, but if there are still unknowns that doesn't mean I can just ignore the villains who will probably hurt someone else while I'm hesitating to, what? Just to make sure it's safe?" Zach asked it incredulously. "I know it'll be dangerous either way, so rushing and stopping anyone else from getting hurt is the way to do it. Always rush. Always run. Every second wasted is a second a villain could be irreparably fucking up someone's life."

 _But when you don't make sure!_ Midoriya thought in frustration at his friend before him. _When you move this fast, it leaves you so likely to make a mistake! And when you are ready to kill. When you have made those mistakes before and killed people! If you rush to conclusions, rush to the scene, and rush to your judgement then- then what if you're wrong?!_ Midoriya bit down angrily and glared at Zach, "It's not safe-"

"'Safe?'" Zach asked back harshly. "Since when do we care about safety? Laying down our lives is our job-"

"Safe for the people you're saving!" Midoriya exclaimed back. "You rush in places, and you risk the lives of hostages. You risk the lives of people who get in the way when the villains escape from you using secret escape routes you could have spotted and blocked off if you had done more recon!"

"Or!" Zach countered back louder. "I save the lives of people like Jessica Thompson who would have been raped by Damian of the War Boys. And Kaminari?" Zach asked it with his voice raising in pitch and his eyes getting even angrier at the boy in front of him. Midoriya thought for a second Zach was talking about how Kaminari was about to be executed in there, but Zach continued instead, "Kaminari would have massacred everyone in that building, if I had waited for Edgeshot to arrive. If I had waited any longer, no one would have been saved. It wasn't safe. It wasn't even legal. And yet I saved all those people, stopped all the War Boys without casualties, and as many horrible things ultimately came out of that day I know that my actions during it were the correct ones. And I wasn't the only one who knew."

Zach said it in a voice hinting something while looking even deeper into Midoriya's eyes that got less angry and more confused as he pulled his head back from Zach. "Class A knew it as well," Zach said. "You knew."

"I didn't-" Midoriya started. He did not know though, trying to think back on how he felt back then when Zach apparently remembered him specifically feeling a certain way. He argued it anyway though, "I don't agree with how-"

"You were all the best people I knew," Zach said. He lifted his lips into a smile and ignored how Midoriya started right there, telling his friend straight out, "Making the best and right decisions all the time, and every single one of you backed out of the Sports Festival when I got punished for what I did with the War Boys." Midoriya's eyes shot open huge, and Zach said despite his friend's shocked look at what Zach was using to defend his own mentality here, "And if it really wasn't right of me, you wouldn't have done that. _You_ , Midoriya, thought back then that I had done what was right. You thought it like I had thought so myself but started to doubt when I was losing it after being punished for such a thing, but then because of you all I realized that despite the system, society, having to punish me for it, that it was still the right thing to do. Sometimes, you break the rules. You do something that has to be punished because it can't set a precedent, and yet everyone including the people punishing you know that what you did was right."

The way Zach simplified it right there brought it back again to Stain, and Midoriya hated making the comparison in his head as he saw the police chief who was threatening to punish them, and who also bowed to them in gratitude for stopping Stain. Zach continued to his friend though, "But that only works if you can back up your words and actions with success, because those who fail while trying what I did would be no better than criminals. The way I did things was 'correct' because I succeeded, whereas your way would always be correct whether you won or not. So I knew I could never lose, and I built up my power to make sure that I never did so that every move I made was still the 'correct' one. And if I had failed, I would have been no different than a kid who got in the way and got a bunch of hostages killed by acting foolishly in a serious hostage situation… Which is just as possible an outcome of the War Boys incident that no one ever brings up. I could have easily been the stupid kid who got all the hostages killed while fighting alongside vigilantes in an illegal costume, making everyone question how U.A. could let that happen, would have gotten me arrested and turned me into the biggest joke…"

He paused for a second while Midoriya looked at him in shock again at what sounded like it could have happened had Zach failed. What was more surprising to him though, was how in depth into that potential Zach got, and he wondered if Zach back then knew that all of those things could have happened had he failed at saving Kaminari and the hostages that night. Zach continued though after trailing off, "But I backed up those potentially foolish actions by succeeding. Only through success do the wrong things for the right reasons ever get accepted _._ People are arrested all the time and use the excuse that they 'had good intentions.' Good intentions mean jack shit though when the results are bad. Good intentions only matter with good results. People will always defend and back up people who always make good results even if the ways they got them were sketchy, but those people would be just as fast to turn on someone who got those good results 99 out of 100 times, if in that one failure things went bad and something real fucked up happened because of it."

Midoriya froze and he lowered his gaze down to the floor. He grit his teeth in pity but also a much bigger conflicted feeling within him, _I, agree with that. With them. 1% failure isn't acceptable, especially when you do as much as_ _ **you**_ _do._

"That's what I feel like happens to me all the time," Zach continued, and Midoriya rose his look that was pitying but also harsh back at Zach. "I can be a great person. Give inspiration on the news. Bring people back while smiling. Help a kid being bullied. Teach my classmates new moves and help them be better heroes. Catch a bunch of villains. Save a city… But look a little angry in an interview, or get mad when someone blows up your house and kills your friend, and that's who you are now." Midoriya stared at Zach in less harsh a way as Zach was not actually talking about Death or his time he was gone anymore. And those 'failures' that Midoriya was thinking still needed to be addressed were not as extreme in this circumstance, and yet they were the only things the news was talking about right now despite all that other stuff Zach just mentioned.

"Just as people would only focus on that one failure, they only look at the bad." Zach frowned more at Midoriya too after saying it, and Midoriya knew Zach had seen that he was agreeing with how his few failures were the most important things to look at. Zach stared at him and said in a low tone, "You never look at the millions I saved. You only look at the…" Zach hesitated. He paused and his mouth flinched, his expression getting uncertain about continuing before he whispered in a quiet voice, "The numbers I've killed."

Zach refrained from giving any set number there. What was so ominous to Midoriya though, was that he did not even give a factor or an estimate, but just the word 'numbers.' Deku held back though from opening his mouth and asking the question always on the back of his mind. _I don't want to know the answer,_ Midoriya reminded himself, as it was the reason he had not asked so far. "That is what I look at more," Midoriya admitted. "But it isn't all I look at," he countered what Zach just said to him. _I know you've saved those people. You say it's millions and I do believe that. You've done so much, but because of the way you've done it you've done so much wrong inside of that 'so much.'_

"And you're right," Midoriya added. "We look at the bad so much more than we look at the good, because heroes can't do those bad things. They can't get away with it. And if you set yourself up in the position to make more bad decisions, by keeping this same mentality," Midoriya shook his head at his friend. "Then you're only going to make more and more bad things for people to point at and criticize you over."

 _It's not about my actions though,_ Zach thought frustratedly and looked away from Deku. _It's about my inactions. My way of life, of living. Every step I take. Every face I make. And I don't have any options! You think it's easy to make a good decision here, but I've shown them that I'm willing to bend the rules, so they expect far more from me than from you. Than from anyone! Because they can just point at things I've done in the past and say that 'I've done it before,' so why not for them now? Whereas for the rest of you they'll let you get away with staying within the rules. Because to them, and to you, you're not actively making the choice. The "choice" doesn't exist if it's outside of the rules. Not for any of you. But for me? They think I can do anything. Some of them want me to do anything. They want me to make the choices that don't exist for anyone else, but that they know I consider because they've seen me make those choices time and time again. I can't get away with anything. Not the bad and not the good. Not keeping secrets or telling the truth._

 _At this point, there is no recovering the popularity I had. I knew I had to keep it perfect from the moment I got out of jail. But by keeping it perfect that long I rose my popularity the last bit higher it could have gotten to the point where it could only go down from there. That doesn't mean I have to fail now._ Zach took in a deep breath and then sighed, which made Midoriya frown at him and get an angrier look on his face as he thought Zach was still focused on their conversation.

Continuing on with the argument any longer would not have helped any though. Zach did not want to go on arguing his rationale with Midoriya looking at him the way he was, and instead he just said in a more relaxed voice, "You know, I do miss it." Midoriya looked at Zach in somewhat surprise though continued a harsh look at what his friend just said. "My time out there started off terrible. Everything I had given up was all I could think about, as much as I tried to focus on my goals and the future. Subconsciously my mind always went back to thinking about you guys. About that horrible stuff I had done. And my dreams… every dream was a nightmare. Not that that was much different from when I was still here."

Midoriya stayed quiet and watched Zach closely, listening in without interrupting now as Zach shared this with him. "But even before I stopped thinking about you guys at all. Before I stopped dreaming, before I forced myself to control every part of my mind so I-"

"You stopped dreaming?" Midoriya asked, his voice skeptical at the way Zach said it like it was an active choice on his part to do something impossible.

Zach did not respond right away though. He just lowered the small smile he had as he was starting up about this, realizing that what he just mentioned was not just an aside to bring up mid-conversation. "Yeah," he replied after a minute. "I stopped dreaming." He looked seriously into Midoriya's eyes and continued to his confused friend who was getting so unnerved right here, "To dream means to sleep deeply enough for your mind to wander. It means sleeping deeply enough that you may not wake up instantly if there's a noise of an assassin sneaking up on your bed."

"That's-" Midoriya could not even continue. He just stared at Zach with his eyes wide and his face twisted thinking about what Zach was telling him. "You really don't- why would you do something like-"

"I just told you," Zach grumbled back. Then he continued in a dark voice, "And don't say it's unnecessary. I slept on vehicles for months so that I never stopped moving towards my next fight even while I was resting. And on a truck one day I remember waking from an unnatural feeling, or noise, or whatever coming from outside of the truck. I snapped up ready to fight, right before the truck got ripped apart and most of my friends inside it killed. I defeated the villains who came for my bounty though. Because I was ready in an instant to fight them, I wasn't even hurt from it." Zach ground his teeth and then glared furiously at Midoriya when he was still looking disapprovingly and like what Zach was saying was so far out there. "Last week, I had a dream though."

Midoriya froze and his expression shook. _No,_ he thought, his eyes opening so much wider at the rage that covered Zach's entire face.

"I finally- I must have felt safe enough here. Working things out with you, having Momo take care of me while I was sick, being able to tell the truth to some people and not be put away because of it… I guess I must have felt too safe, to wake up in time. And I stopped filling my body with Death because it had made me sick, even though I knew Darling wasn't around to protect me anymore. And I invited friends over, even though I knew Eziano could target me at home and probably knew where I was." Zach ground his teeth, then he pushed out a sigh through them and inhaled a deep breath to calm down. "It didn't feel great, not dreaming at all. I barely slept back then anyway though, so it didn't really bother me. Besides, when I was awake, things were nice."

Zach smiled again at Midoriya who shook his head around to try and get over what just happened. He had to put it in the back of his mind for now though as Zach did not give him a second to process before continuing, "I didn't stay depressed and dark for long after I left. Ashido told me, after the first Sports Festival when she came to visit my place, that cool guys don't mope around for long." Zach grinned and went on, "So I tried to enjoy myself. I was seeing and doing horrible things. So much of what I saw out there was too horrible to even process." Zach paused for a moment and then continued to his friend who looked to be pitying him over that last sentence, "But it felt great for the first time in forever not hiding anything."

Zach tilted his head back and said nostalgically, "I told everyone what I had done with the villains. I told them what I had done to the anti-heroes. Other anti-heroes who joined me, I never hid from them what I had done to Ganji and Webb and the others. When it came to my comrades, I was an open book. Because I was in a different world and no one really understood or knew what I was talking about, so they didn't judge me before hearing it all out with my reasons and, everything." The dark-haired teen hesitated and lowered his smile, getting a dark and regretful look over his face at the expression Midoriya just had on his face for a second. _Not the Arcasia version. Not why I did, because I was in a completely different world._

"Even if they weren't," Zach muttered, though his rose his voice back in the positive tone as he continued. "I didn't hold back. I didn't lie to them all about who I was. They were following me into battle, laying their lives down for me, and they all deserved to know exactly why they were doing it. So I told them my reasons. And I told them the truth. I told everyone everything, because with my army there was no one forcing any of them to stay. If they had something wrong with what my plans were, my reasons for what we were doing, they could leave." Zach spoke in a steady voice while locking eyes with Midoriya, "I didn't force anyone to be there. They all chose it. They chose me. I chose all of them." Midoriya nodded his head in understanding, even as he stared at his friend who said things so confidently about how the Army of Death had been created.

 _If people knew this-_

"We picked each other, and we trusted each other. Fought and died alongside each other." Zach looked seriously at Midoriya and said, "I told you how it's because of them that I became confident in my skills as a leader. I believed in myself because they believed in me." Midoriya started nodding as he remembered Zach saying that in the forest of Inazuma, but Zach continued this time, "During our fight against Killmore I had ideas."

"What do you mean?" Midoriya wondered softly. "Do you not think I-"

"No," Zach shook his head but with a look saying 'no, that's not what I mean.' "I hesitated so much back then, and I knew you were better at coming up with those plans than me. During the obstacle course against Class B we had not too long before that, I let Tsuyu make our plan because I didn't want to lead. My decisions had cost me too much already, and I didn't believe in them anymore. Not enough to lead people I cared about into battles. Those people followed me though. They trusted in my decisions all the time, even after times when I made mistakes. And I understood that's what it meant to be a leader. I could make mistakes, get my comrades killed, but if I was able to get past that and understand my mistakes and learn off of them, I would be an even better leader. More fit to protect my comrades and the people we were trying to save."

He paused and then said in a lower but still steady tone, "I've lost so much. I have lost so many times, more than I can count. And every time I learned. Every time I killed I got stronger, and every time I won I became more confident, and every time I gained more followers or gained the trust of the most amazing people I can think of, I believed in myself more." Zach lifted up his right hand in front of him and Midoriya's eyes darted down to his open palm with his fingers curled up. Zach stared straight at Midoriya's face and said, "I am strong." His fingers curled up into one strong fist, and he said, "I am only this strong though because of the people around me. The villains who defeated me. My friends long passed…"

"It's because of you too," Midoriya said. Zach lifted his head and looked at Midoriya with interest at that response to what he was saying. Midoriya nodded though firmly and said to his friend in front of him, "It's always been you, Zach. Your spirit and determination. The will you have to never give up."

"Thanks, Midoriya," Zach said. He lowered his hand and looked at his friend with a genuine smile on his face, but he shook his head and said, "But I would have given up a long time ago. I did, a couple times. All Might though, and Mr. Akers, Momo…" _Other times too,_ Zach thought to himself with his smile lowering a little. _Dabi, and Webb, and Darling._ "It would have been over for me a long time ago without these people," Zach finished.

"That doesn't mean it wasn't still you who was able to gather up all those people to follow you," Midoriya said. He was not saying it as a compliment or as praise, but he did feel it was the truth as he stepped forward closer to Zach. "I mean it. You have _always_ been that kind of person. You talked about Killmore before. You treat that day like everyone was following me?" Midoriya asked it and Zach rose his eyebrows up confusedly, looking back at his friend and nodding his head as that was exactly what he thought.

Midoriya shook his head and stated just as firmly back, "We followed you. I made a plan after we arrived, but we never would have gotten there if _you_ didn't rush downstairs and out the door without letting anyone slow you down." Zach's eyes started widening, and Midoriya continued to him, "You found the loophole that only you could think of to go around the rules. You may have been lying to us during those weeks, and hiding all those plans you were making, but even after you had pushed us all away and isolated yourself, we all ran after you. We knew that you knew what you were doing. We followed-" Midoriya cut himself off and grit his teeth, but then he admitted softly, "I, followed you. You got us to that building and we saved over two hundred hostages-"

"Two hundred and twenty eight," Zach said in a soft voice. "Due to a plan you made."

"That you got us there to carry out," Midoriya countered.

Zach did not reply for a few seconds, and then he smiled making Midoriya stare at him with much wider eyes. "I felt pretty stupid afterwards, tackling Killmore out of the building like that." Midoriya's jaw dropped, but Zach chuckled as he remembered the video showing what he had done. _Villains saw it though and knew I was near suicidal. It helped me kill Kurogiri, but it also terrified the villains all over the world who thought they knew who I was. They saw me falling from the sky and kicking the shit out of Killmore, and they knew everywhere that I was not playing around. It was the last thing they saw of me before I disappeared in the Lifebringer Incident. They saw me step up to the window and glare out. The villains saw the last of Zach Sazaki that day. They saw what I was about to turn into, and all they could hope for was that I would be stuck in U.A. for another two years before they had to deal with me. And then, I disappeared. To lurk in every shadow. To be their Death._

"It was too risky," Midoriya agreed to his former classmate. _At that time you were not the person you are now. You got us there but you're right too, I did come up with that plan while you didn't. Now you have a thousand plans not just for super long-term things like what you were doing with your report, but in every moment. In every fight you have plans for five seconds from now, and a minute past, thirty, an hour, the next day, and every second of every day is just a continuation of every fight. And you're so good at it. So if every moment is part of the fight, is this one too? If this moment is part of the fight then, why are you telling me these things? Why do you bring up the things you do? Why do you direct conversations in this way?! How is it that we went from almost talking about how many people you've killed, to both of us trying to accredit the other with stopping Killmore? I know exactly how we got here. It's because even if you don't know you're doing it, you've admitted that you manipulated even your own mind. You manipulated your mind to avoid thinking about certain things, and to stop dreaming, and if it would hurt you to know that you're manipulating a conversation could you start doing it subconsciously? I- I don't know. You crushed Faith though. You shattered his mind without using your Quirk._

 _The most dangerous thing about you isn't Death. I know you're still my friend too, but in that head of yours is a manipulative genius. What you do when you leave here will work on getting the public back on your side, and you could do it in a thousand different ways I can't even think of. I don't know how you'll do it, but it's out of my control. I won't stop you as long as you stay in line. I won't get in the way of your plans, as long as your plans keep you on the straight_ _ **and narrow**_ _path. It is not a wide path for you Zach. Not anymore. So don't step off it! Every time we talk I see more and more just how powerful you really are, or how strong you could be. I can never let you go back to what you were._ "You should have just knocked him out with Death up there. It was unnecessary to dive through the window with him."

"Yeah, you're right," Zach admitted. "I let my emotions get the best of me when I saw him press the detonator switch. If not for Momo, everyone would have died and I- I lost it for a second." Zach admitted it and both he and Midoriya grimaced so much while making eye contact with each other. _I was supposed to be a hero at the time. I lose control of my emotions? That makes me do reckless things? That's not what either of us want to hear right now. He needs to hear about the stable me only making good decisions I've thought out for a long time._

"Like on the interview?" Midoriya asked, his voice just questioning though his eyes looking darker than Zach would have liked.

"Seeing that guy show up, I knew my own plans to ignore him forever were over. He used his power to go around my own choice and force me to see that little girl I was actively choosing to let die beforehand. I had made the choice not to save her when I first saw Cayman's calls for me to save her. I couldn't, look at her though." Zach bit down and looked away, "I couldn't see her dead, so easy for me to bring her back, and just stick to my conviction to let her die based on everything I knew would come from it. Her life wasn't a piece in a game. It wasn't just something I could ignore because of the long-term picture. I brought her back knowing it changed everything, but I couldn't- I didn't want to-" Zach ground his teeth and glared so angrily across the park with Midoriya staring at him in his peripheral vision judging every word he said.

"It wouldn't have been a piece in a game," Midoriya started in a low voice. "Even if you never had to see her. Even if she had just died, in a different building. Even if you were able to ignore it, that doesn't mean it didn't matter. Just because it doesn't affect you…"

Zach shook his head and bowed it, clenching his eyes shut and baring his teeth in frustration. "Just shut up already," Zach growled. Midoriya's eyes snapped open huge at that tone, but Zach glared sideways out the corners of his eyes at his friend next to him. "If I don't think of everyone at least a little like that, then I'm going to lose it when I let them die every day. I _can't_ feel for those people the same way I used to. If I did, I'd hate myself every second of every day." Zach dragged his eyes off of Midoriya's that stared at him in shock at how angrily he was speaking about how he did not see normal people as that important anymore. He glared away and just said lower to his friend who was in disbelief while watching him, "If I still felt like that I never would have come back here. I'd be out there saving them all right now. But, I'm not that great a person, Midoriya."

A small grin formed on Zach's face with relief in it, and he said softer in a more relaxed way, "And at least I know, I won't have trouble convincing you of that."

* * *

 **A/N Thanks for reading! Zach and Midoriya get deep with what's the right and 'correct' ways to save people. Zach goes into another of his AoD attacks and how he stopped international weapons' traffickers and saved an entire nation, in a couple days! A big chapter this time for just a talk between these two, but the divide between Midoriya and Zach is a complex issue here and something I love delving deeper into. Anyway, this is a little off topic, but just wanted to mention it. This weekend we had my grandma's funeral (mom's mom, for those of you recalling I said this before this summer, but that was my dad's mom). So Nanny (my mom's mom), was actually an author and an inspiration to me if not a role model even. Her name was Addie Meyer Sanders, and she was a self-made author who would always come into school and read her books to my classes over the years as she did at hundreds/thousands of schools around the nation. My love of writing might never have come without seeing her successfully publishing books, knowing that it was something achievable that I could do. I just wanted to thank her here, and tell her I love you Nanny. Thanks for reading that you guys who did. Anyway, leave a review below telling me what you think of the chapter, comments, predictions, questions for the future. And here're some review responses:**

Guest chapter 189 . Oct 10

Alright I'm pretty sure you said you like the whole Shonen happy ending (ish) endings and that this was supposed to have one but jfc I can't wrap my head around this story having a really happy ending? Like I hope it all works out but I'm getting kinda nervous for the end of the story ? There's just so much grey area, internal conflict and rubbish public opinion? I just want Zack and all my kids to be happy and safe by the end of this ;)))

 **No spoilers but we can all hope for a happy ending can't we? Never give up hope! Lol it's tough to keep believing with all that's going on, but however it ends I promise it'll be satisfying to everyone... (maybe) XD Thanks for the review!**

SomeDude chapter 189 . Oct 11

Love your work and the way you've developed your characters. I also really like how you have Zach tackle real-world problems that would arise due to his quirk (Like how someone would pay for Zach to revive). I just have a question: Will we ever see Zach encounter a quirkless suicide who he has to inevitably revive. I mean in the BNHA, the segregation against the quirkless is high, and this may cause some to kill themselves. Will Zach ever have to face a problem regarding quirk segregation, and will he do anything about it?

 **Thanks a lot! Zach's been tackling those real-world problems for a while, including stuff about the Quirkless too. If you don't remember, the first homeless guys Zach ran into included that one guy who had fallen into depression and was ready to rob someone because of the discrimination he felt there was towards the Quirkless that Zach helped** **propagate** **by pushing the use of Quirks even more across the world. Zach didn't deny it but tried to help the man anyway. There's a lot Zach wants to help all over the world, and we'll see if there's more he's going to do specifically about what happens with the Quirkless now that he's pushing for a more Quirk-friendly world. Anyway, hope you enjoyed the chapter, and thanks for the review!**


	191. Chapter 191

**Disclaimer: I don't own Boku no Hero Academia**

 **Chapter 191:**

 **New York City, USA**

"Wha- Ingenium?"

Iida Tensei turned his head and looked to the side of the gym just past all the wide observation windows to the doorway that had just opened. The young man in physical therapy turned more fully and looked in surprise towards the even younger man who spoke to him in Japanese while walking forward into the private gym, "What are you doing here?"

"Roady, right?" Tensei questioned the younger man who he recognized as well despite not being in costume. Tensei looked to the younger man's right side and down at his leg that Roady was walking into the room on, somewhat wobbly but walking steadily enough that the doctor who walked in with him was smiling while writing something down on her clipboard.

Urukio Endo stepped forward and then looked down in surprise at his own right leg that Ingenium was looking at. "You know, what happened to me?"

Iida rose his gaze back up, and he lifted his right hand he scratched the back of his head with, "I sort of became a little obsessed, with when heroes were crippled. Especially with leg injuries," Iida thought about the sympathy he had felt for Roady when he heard about the incident up in Hokkaido. "I had no idea you were coming here though. And you already had your surgery too?"

Roady nodded his head, and he looked at Ingenium's legs himself. "Stain, didn't take your legs, did he?"

"We do not serve only in prosthetics," a voice spoke up in English behind them. They looked back behind Roady and behind Dr. Khatri where a younger white woman was walking forward behind the Indian doctor who had been deeply involved with both of their surgeries.

Dr. Khatri seemed surprised by the sudden appearance of her boss, and she said, "Ms. Oarn. You're here?" She said it with her tone raising up at the end, wondering why as Entilla Oarn was rarely at their New York building. Oarn looked to Khatri and nodded, though with a look in her eyes warning Khatri to be careful about what she said while there were two heroes in the room.

"Entilla Oarn," Tensei Iida said, stepping forward and smiling brightly at the woman who he had read much about on Virtucorp's website.

Roady looked at the woman in surprise too, though he stepped forward with trepidation in his approach. There was a reason Roady had come all the way to New York different from Iida's reasons. Dr. Khatri had informed Ingenium of the complications considering how his legs were still attached and able to be fixed with their Cyborginization that had attached mechanical parts into his legs to make them better than new. Roady on the other hand, only needed a prosthetic and a simple surgery like the one Power Loader told him about in more detail in a private conversation the two of them had had after Roady made his decision to accept Zach's offer. When he accepted it though, he told himself he would investigate thoroughly to make sure the legitimacy of where he was getting this help from.

 _What's with the surprise? This is her building right? Virtucorp isn't a huge company either. Too new, and with too much money though it supposedly has many 'powerful and rich investors.'_ "It's good to meet you," Roady said when the thirty-one year old Caucasian woman looked to the younger of the two Japanese heroes in front of her.

 _Uh oh. That's the look of someone trying to figure out what's up with us. Can't just accept a free leg?_ Entilla Oarn smiled at the young man and her eyes brightened as she spoke, "You as well. I was very glad to hear that you accepted our offer for a prosthetic."

Iida looked to his side at Endo and said with a smile, "You too then?"

"Zach told you too-" Roady began in semi-confusion as he had not seen Ingenium in those video calls with Grappler and Power Loader.

Tensei's smile wiped from his face though and surprise covered it instead. "Zach, Sazaki?"

Dr. Khatri shook her head still with a calm look on her face while Oarn was feeling more nervous this time. Ingenium turned to his doctor who had contacted him directly for the offer, as Khatri began, "Endo got in contact with us first, unlike how I got in contact with you. He had questions about our company, which I told him and extended the same offer we gave you."

"I got in contact first," Roady said while looking back to Ingenium who was hearing this with an increased sense of skepticism each second. "Because Lifebringer told me he'd get me a free leg if I wanted. He did the same for Power Loader, offered Grappler new arms as well."

"Though we have yet to hear back from Grappler," Oarn mentioned, looking to Khatri to check if that was true. Dr. Khatri nodded her head with a tilt to the side, showing she knew they would not get 100% success in their attempts to help heroes. Oarn smiled back at the young men in front of her, and she told Iida Tensei directly, "We contacted you directly, as admittedly you were the most famous of those crippled heroes of Japan."

The men looked to the young entrepreneur who said while lifting up her right palm, "In order to help more heroes, we must first acquire product recognition. When people hear about our company, and non-heroes come to us and _pay_ to have the same prosthetics and surgeries we have given you for free, then and only then will we begin to make a profit. Helping Ingenium would have given us the most recognition, I'm afraid. That is not to say we do not relish in the chance to assist any heroes we can. However, your surgery was expedited at the request of Lifebringer," Oarn added to Roady at the end with a light smile at the younger man.

Ingenium frowned though at Oarn's attempt which worked on Roady and made the younger man next to him grimace and look away as he started thinking about something else. _Telling those three yourself while having me contacted directly by the organization, to make it out as if you had nothing to do with how they helped me. Oarn is not as good at hiding her true thoughts as Dr. Khatri is apparently._ Ingenium could even see it on his doctor's face behind Oarn as she attempted not to look directly at the more experienced hero she saw out her peripheral vision putting things together.

 _Dang it,_ Iida thought with a sigh, and he just nodded at Oarn who changed the conversation and started questioning how their physical therapy was going and how their new legs were treating them. _And I thought the talk I had with Tenya before I left was enough to make us even. Sazaki, did you do this? If they were not trying to hide it then I would not think anything of it, but it's like you did this. Is it because I am Tenya's older brother? Or is it because I am just another Japanese hero who you would like to see back out there stopping villains? Roady came out here to investigate your ties with this company, and he was right to. Your reach extends to America. To corporations that help heroes recover for free… It is no wonder Tenya is so conflicted on how to face you. This kind of power is absurd, and yet you use it to help people like me? I want to thank you, and yet somehow I know you'll deny you had a part in any of this. I saw the news though. I saw that arm. And I'd bet it's not this company that gave you the technology to make that arm, but the other way around, and you supplied this company with the knowledge to help the rest of us._

 _Ingenium's too smart! There's no way I can warn Sazaki though,_ Dr. Khatri thought, and she apologized to that boy only in her head as she added on something to what Ms. Oarn was saying to their recovering heroes. _Hopefully these two feel enough gratitude for their surgeries that they can leave it alone. Our founder deserves his peace._ The doctor did not mean the founder of the company she and Oarn were standing inside of one building of. It was only the second largest of Virtucorp's buildings after all. Their main headquarters, and the one Oarn spent most of her time at which was why Dr. Khatri had been surprised to see her boss there, was inside a city that Khatri was glad the heroes in front of her would never be able to find. The two women in the room came from different parts of the world, but there was only one place they considered themselves "from" anymore.

Khatri and Oarn both smiled at the men they were trying to help, because it was what he wanted. And yet Oarn thought too as she reminded them once again of the technology they now had in their legs, _He let you walk again. Isn't that enough?_ She imagined in her head the last expression she saw of that boy who every video of got sent around the world in minutes. _Just leave him alone!_

* * *

 _I needed to do this. I kept telling myself I needed to, and it's March already!_

Zach took in a deep breath as he stared at the entrance to the park ahead of him that was just outside of Musutafu. He looked away from the Enudora Forest though and around the outside of it where he saw someone approaching him. _Once she's out of school I'll lose my chance. Momo expects me to do this. We both know how badly I messed up! I have to try!_ He yelled it at himself, but he could not help the nerves that rose within him as the girl heading his way stopped and glared towards him.

Jirou ground her teeth behind her lips, _What am I doing here?_ She thought about the text that asked her to meet outside of U.A., one she had so wanted to ignore but then responded with by telling him only if they met at the Enudora Forest. She thought he might back down from it, but she saw him standing over there just as he said he would and her teeth clenched in frustration at the sight of him. _I'm not going to give you a chance! So, so why do this? Why again?! Just stop this already._

Zach started towards the girl who stopped walking his way and did not seem like she would get any closer on her own. "Hey Jirou," Zach started as he kept walking towards her, and he attempted a smile to set the tone of the conversation. "I'm glad you-"

"What are you doing?" Jirou snapped, the smile on his face pissing her off too much to even wait for him to finish greeting her. She curled the left corner of her lips farther down at his reaction to her initial snap, like he was hoping she would not do it and hoped for something more conciliatory in tone there.

"I," Zach began. He stopped ahead of her, still with a wide gap between them he had hoped to close first. He started wishing he had gotten closer before saying the first words, but he was close enough that she could see his expression well enough from there. "I just want to talk to you."

"We've talked," Jirou retorted. "I've heard what you had to say. That was all, wasn't it? You ended that conversation yourself, by walking away."

"I didn't want it, to be our last conversation," Zach started back to her. "I just- I wanted-"

"What do you think's changed between then and now?" Jirou asked, her eyebrows raising and her expression getting harsher as she glared at the boy who had texted her out of nowhere to meet up. _He really just wants to talk?! That's all this is?!_ "You really think things have changed between us because your apartment exploded?"

"That's not," Zach started. "I'm not here, for pity or anything-"

"Good, because you won't find it," Jirou snapped back. Her fists balled at her sides at his innocent, even sad-looking expression as he faced her. Her eyes narrowed at him and her voice darkened more at that look she had to stare at on his face, "I followed Black to your apartment that day." Zach's eyes widened a little, though he did not react much to what she just said. Jirou growled it at him as he stared at her like that, " _I_ was the one trailing him."

Zach was surprised despite his mild reaction. His eyes shifted down though at the furious look on her face, _I felt so smug about that._ Pain jolted in his chest and he shook his head once while looking down at the floor. _I had stopped speaking Japanese so smugly, and I used those tactics to avoid capture which must have- it must have been so frustrating for her! Shit!_

"I know you're planning something with your Army here!" Jirou shouted at him, and Zach rose his head fast and shook it with a sad look over his face that made Jirou just grind her teeth harder. "You're working with those terrorists, _still!"_ She yelled it at him, her voice nearing disbelief and yet without much in it as she knew she should have expected this from the start. The lack of disbelief was because she had seen it coming from the beginning, and she shook her head at his dark and denying look to what she was accusing.

"Even though you go out on tv and pretend to be this perfect hero," Jirou started. "Saying bullshit like we can all be heroes, and smiling like an idiot! Someone trying so hard to do what's right! You think we believe it?" Jirou glared at Zach and then yelled at him, "I know you haven't changed one bit! You're lying more than you've ever lied before, to the point that everyone's starting to realize how much of a liar you are. They can see that it's all an act!"

 _Can they?_

"They're getting afraid because you're still here and they all know you're planning something!" Jirou snapped it and then glared at him so much harder as he opened his mouth to deny it.

"That's not what I'm, doing," Zach argued, his voice getting steadier while he shook his head at her.

"I can't believe that!" Jirou yelled back. Zach was saying it in a voice like he thought he might be able to convince her, and she stopped him before he could even go on like that in a way she would not accept coming out of his mouth. "You were lying to us in this very forest," Jirou swung her left arm out to the side and pointed at the woods next to them they both had horrible memories inside of. "When you acted like you were about to lay down and die, you were lying! As afraid as we all were for you then, it was all a lie! And you're still lying now-"

"And you're not?"

Jirou opened her mouth to yell, but she froze with it open like that. Zach's face as he responded like that shifted too. The dark expression vanished and his eyes widened, then regret flashed over his face and he looked away while Jirou stood there with her mouth still open. She hesitated, her eyes wide as she questioned herself, _Does he know? Does he really know?! He couldn't…_

 _I shouldn't have said that. I'm here to help her and I- what kind of idiot-_ Zach clenched his eyes shut for a moment and then shook his head and looked down at the floor between them shamefully. He said while looking down like that, "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have come."

Jirou's expression flinched, but she looked away with a hurt look on her face too and anger filling her back up again. "Yeah," she said in a low voice. "You shouldn't have…" She turned to the side and then her body turned more so it was almost all the way faced away from him. Her head was still pointed to the side a little though with her eyes locked on the forest next to her, and she said in an even quieter voice, "You shouldn't have come back at all."

She never turned back. Jirou walked away leaving Zach next to the Enudora Forest that he looked to after watching her retreat from him for several seconds. _I really suck at this… That doesn't mean I can stop trying though. Nothing more I can do with Jirou today though. I should- I should move to the next! Just keep your head up. You can do this._ Zach turned the opposite direction as Jirou had gone, and he closed his eyes while taking in a deep breath. _I can do this!_

* * *

"No, I just-" Zach stopped and he held his tongue to just listen to the voice that yelled at him through his phone.

"I'm… I'm busy today. I can't come out there, today, but I-" Zach got cut off again and closed his eyes at the yell.

Zach held the receiver to his mouth and kept the speaker to his ear even as the voice shouting through lowered and got even angrier at him. He nodded his head, and he muttered in reply to the one snapping at him. "That's not what I'm doing." He spoke in his steady voice, though his expression looked like he would rather be whispering in a much softer tone. "I'm not, lying…" Zach lifted his left hand and rubbed over his forehead after what he just said. "No, the book is, it's true- I mean it- no… I know but…"

Zach looked at his phone, moving it in front of his face and seeing the call had ended. He sighed and then put his phone down into his pocket and lifted his head. _Better than having that reaction face to face and making a scene._ He nodded at the man in front of him, and the double doors were opened up so he could walk inside. Zach stepped forward into the hall and straight forward to stand in front of the two hero officials and principal Memuria who were all speaking about something with papers risen and upset looks on their faces.

"What were you thinking?"

"Do not think you can just do whatever you want without consequence."

"I was just-"

"Using your Quirk to bring some people back to life is one thing, something we can ignore even, but crossing international borders without clearance, using your Quirk in a nation that has not authorized it?!"

"It was an emergency," Zach countered to the older people scolding him. "That kid died. It's been my excuse every other time, and as you just said you accepted it all those times-"

"What constituted that as an emergency and not Cherry Cayman?"

"It did," Zach retorted. "Which is why I used my Quirk on her too."

"Only after being forced to."

"She only died that night."

"And a lot of other people died that night too."

"What about the case of Renji Shikudo and Kiki Errini? Two children in Tokyo who died last week and were put all over the news to get your attention?"

"Funori Pizzoni, Edi Muro, Akery Sazahawa? These people have died earlier today and you did not act?"

"What made it so you did not arrive at the scene any of these times, but you could arrive in Romania to-"

"I did not hear about any of those incidents until it was too late," Zach countered.

"What are you talking about?"

"It was all over the news. Each of them received so much media attention there was no way you could not have seen them-"

"I did not see the news. I am a busy person," Zach said it in a steady voice and just stared down the official who stared at him in shock at his reply there. The disbelief on her face just annoyed Zach more though, and he glared back at her in a way that made her lean her head back then push it forward with a much harsher glare on her face at the boy.

"What were you doing that you were too busy to save lives?"

"I was busy with my schoolwork," Zach replied. Memuria stared at the boy with a dark look herself, but Zach said to all three of them without hesitation, "Passing a hero course is not easy work."

"For you-"

"For anyone," Zach said firmly. "It does not matter who they are. It is hard work. Work that I must complete in order to receive my pro hero license. Before I can save more people like you want me to, I need to graduate. And if I fail because I spent all the time I need to be focused on school, bringing people back to life, it will prolong my time in school and prevent me from bringing people back during school hours as I am prevented from doing at this moment." Zach glared at the man who started asking him that and who stared at him with much wider eyes at how thought-out that response was showing Sazaki really did have an excuse for it all.

The officials started arguing again though, and Zach responded to each of them without hesitating. He prepared himself before entering the room, and he stood there ready to take everything they had and argue his way out of it. _No matter what you throw at me, I can do this… again._

* * *

"No, not on the phone."

Jirou glanced over her shoulder while sitting on a chair in the common room of their dorm. She was at one of the tables between the kitchen and the couch area, and the tv was off with no one else downstairs besides for her and Kirishima who she had heard pick up the phone while making himself a protein shake in the kitchen. Jirou continued to study down there, not wanting to sit in her room any longer as her eyes kept dragging over to a single drawer when she tried to do her homework at her own desk. _He's getting annoyed,_ Jirou thought, and she tried to smile at it but found herself just continuing to stare down at her papers with a flat expression as the redhead's voice rose.

"Why not? …You're 'busy?' What's that supposed to mean?! You're the one who called me in the first place." Kirishima growled it into his phone quieter, glancing to the side and seeing there was someone else in the common room probably listening to him. He turned away and continued while glaring at the fridge, "Are you just calling to show you're still 'trying?'"

Jirou plugged her earphone jack into the underside of the table when Kirishima lowered his voice for that growl. _"…That's not what I'm doing."_ She heard Zach's voice over the phone too as Kirishima continued, though the redhead's voice got louder again to the point she figured she would have been able to hear his side of the conversation without using her Quirk.

"Don't lie. If you really wanted to talk you'd make the time. You're just trying to use this for some more time to tell me some bullshit. You're 'busy' making plans and working over the media and everyone around you. Is that it? Oh yeah? It's not? And that book that just came out?" Kirishima asked it in annoyance with his voice raising louder. "You're going to tell me that's all true? Those are the stories you've been telling everyone! Ojiro says- It's not! It's not true! Don't even try- damn it. Stop! Stop trying to convince me. I know it's all just a big lie. Just stop. You know I don't want to hear it." Kirishima pulled his phone from his head and pressed the end call button hard, glaring at his black screen afterwards and then shoving his phone into his pocket.

He took a swig of his pre-workout and then marched around the counter of the kitchen and towards the door. He glanced towards Jirou for a second, shaking his head as she locked eyes with him. "You see that book?"

"Didn't care to," Jirou replied.

"Yeah, don't bother," Kirishima agreed while looking away and continuing to the door. "Read the whole thing, front to back. Waste of my time." Kirishima growled it under his breath, and he cursed in his head, _I wanted you to tell me it wasn't. Just one fucking truth! You can't manage it. Battle of the 6 Armies. Siege of Razmatan. Leprechauns and fairies and lies lies lies. Can't understand why you want to 'talk' if all you're going to say is complete bullshit! I don't get it._

Jirou watched Kirishima go, and she saw the frustrated and angry look flashing at the very end in so much confusion and sadness instead. _Why are you looking like that? You have it totally right!_ Jirou looked back down to her pages. Her stomach turned over and she ground her teeth, unable to focus on anything but that last "conversation" she had with Zach. _**"And you're not?"**_ Her breath sucked in and a furious look spread over her face, but she could see herself opening up that drawer upstairs just to check once more, for the thousandth time checking if those two envelopes were still in there.

 _I should just- I should open them! Or just burn them now. If I get rid of them… I'll never have the chance, to come clean._ A nervous look covered Jirou's face and she brought her hands up to the sides of her head and ran them up through her dark hair. _What will happen? I- I hate him, because he's a liar- but I'm a liar too now because of them. A liar…_ Jirou thought it but it did not make her as angry or guilty as she thought it would. _I always think of it like that, but it's not the fact that Zach lied that- isn't it?!_

Jirou yelled it at herself and then scratched the sides of her head in so much frustration. Her eyes lit up for a second, and she reached down for her pants and pulled out her phone. _I'll never be able to focus otherwise,_ she thought, sending out a message and begging internally as she waited for a response. The response came quickly though, and Jirou read it in relief: 'I'm free right now.'

* * *

In Softy's office at U.A. High School, Jirou Kyoka sat leaning back in front of her therapist who had out her notepad and nodded with the eighteen year old girl sitting before her who needed to vent. Softy was glad she had been free at the time she received the message, as the girl in front of her seemed angry and sad and confused all at the same time which made for a pretty terrible combination. "...And you think it got worse since the explosion, that they're calling the Lifebringer Bombing?"

"Yes."

"When you first saw what had happened, how did it make you feel?"

"Seeing that," Jirou stopped and grit her teeth for a second before nodding to admit it to herself. "I felt bad for him," she continued. "When I saw him on the news afterwards, and that made me feel so sick to my stomach. I felt ill that I was feeling bad for him again, and it's because I know how all of this, everything! It's all just to lead up to whatever he's planning."

"Could it have not been a coincidence?" Softy offered. Jirou looked upset at the suggestion, but Softy continued, "You do not think he is sending these attackers after himself?"

"No- I mean, probably not… No, he's not."

"Then do you think he planned on the bombing-"

"No! But- but he _uses_ it! He saw that camera and-" Jirou ground her teeth thinking about the way he looked that he never let the cameras see. _Yet he was still using it! Every single moment we see him is all just a part of it!_ She started shaking her head at the way Softy was looking at her, like the psychiatrist was hoping she would continue on her own and admit that maybe she was thinking too deeply into it. Jirou's expression got more frustrated as Soft nodded, an accepting nod like it was fine for Jirou not to continue, but Jirou bet that Softy was disappointed she could not further their work there. _I'm not being stubborn! You don't get- because I haven't told…_

Jirou shook her head again, though her expression got softer and she glanced down at the floor before raising her gaze in a serious way to her shrink. "Zach doesn't change. I, I know he's going to disappoint us again. Everyone, he'll disappoint everyone," Jirou corrected herself, though her voice got quieter for a second as she tried to switch 'us' to 'everyone.' She lowered her eyes to the floor and her voice got even quieter, as she admitted, "I was… _terrified,_ of Zach."

Softy rose her eyebrows and sat more on the edge of her seat at what the girl just said. Jirou kept looking down and said while thinking back, "When I met him he seemed shy or something, but at USJ I watched as that villain died from nothing more than, than a _touch._ " Jirou rose her eyes up and stared at Softy with her expression getting shaken as she remembered the fear she had felt back then, as a first year who had never seen anything like that before and was in no way ready for it. Then her face twisted up though in sadness but she turned it angrier right away and defended against her own thoughts, "And he was sitting in front of me in class! A killer who with a single touch- and I saw him cracking, losing it! Even back then. On the first week of school I saw how he could lose it…"

Jirou's face started to scrunch up again as Softy kept staring at her in a way as if wondering why she sounded so much like she was defending herself here. "But he came back from that," she said. "And at the Sports Festival he held his hand behind his back when he walked onto the arena, to make me feel more comfortable… and everyone called him a murderer. Because Kaminari spread it outside of our class," she said it angrily but also in regret, thinking about the look on his face before he gave up in that first Sports Festival. She looked into her therapist's eyes and told Softy stuff she hadn't before, "I went to his place to talk to him, a lot of people did, and he came back. I didn't know if he would, but I told myself when I had gone there that if… but he came back, and we became friends but he- he did what he did at the training forest and I wasn't that surprised!"

She exclaimed it and panted a few times, then she shook her head and said quietly, "It hurt later on, when Todoroki told me how Zach had attacked Midoriya, but I wasn't surprised. And I watched his trial but did not go to it, because I really didn't have that much faith in him. And he left, proving me right," she said it and then shook her head with a look of frustration filling her whole expression. "But he came back _again._ He proved me wrong, and I tried. I tried so hard, to make it right this time." Jirou said it and leaned forward herself to show Softy with her eyes how much she meant she had tried back then. "I pushed with Kaminari to get him to open up, and we became friends _again._ This time was different though," her voice cracked and her eyes started to water, though anger covered more of her face than ever despite how her eyes showed the sadness Softy felt her own heart hurting at the sight of.

"I hate this," Jirou gasped at the woman in front of her, her voice angry and sad at the same time but so much more angry at that conflicted feeling itself that the anger was easily winning. "I'm so mad at him, but I'm so mad at myself for feeling bad for him, but I- I heard that night- I shouldn't tell you…" Jirou said it but she could not hold herself back. It was something she told herself she would not tell anyone else, and she had made a promise not to spread it either, but she couldn't hold it back as everything welled up at once. "I heard, that night," she started in pain. "When Zach was up on the roof, on the edge of the roof, and Momo confronted him."

"I know why he was up there," Jirou whispered, her eyes lowering down so depressed to the floor between her and Softy. "I shouldn't have eavesdropped, but I heard Zach say how he had watched Jenny burn. How Shigaraki had carved into his face to keep him watching as they burned her and her family- ah," Jirou tried to keep saying it but she gasped instead, then she breathed out in a whisper at Softy in front of her, "I heard a tone in his voice I had never heard anyone ever use before, as he yelled how she thought he would save him but he failed her, and he- he let her die." Jirou rose her right arm to her eyes and bared her teeth so hard while rubbing her eyes. "But I also remember what he was saying before he broke down like that. Before he told her why it was he was feeling like… I was so scared of him, again."

Jirou rose her eyes back up and glared so darkly into Softy's eyes. Her therapist held back a gulp as Jirou's tear-streaked face looked as angry as ever in that moment, "As scared as I should have been _for_ him when I realized what he was doing up there, I- what he was saying I actually… I'm a bitch for thinking it. For feeling this way-"

"You're not a-"

"I agreed with him," Jirou said. She countered Softy and looked disgusted with herself at the same time, while shaking her head at the therapist to not even try to deny it there after hearing the reason.

"I agreed," Jirou whispered, softer and in regret and with so much guilt in her voice. "After he had said what he did. The way he felt- the person he believed himself to be and that he admitted to her right there. I know if it was me who went up there I don't think I could have saved him, because I was again, _terrified_ when I heard what he was saying. It was only after hearing all that horrible shit afterwards that I pushed the fear back and reminded myself to be his friend, to _help_ him." Jirou held her breath then breathed out hard and whispered, "But I heard him say it. How when he joined the League he was ready to kill them all… Ready to kill other villains for them even, as a true villain in their League that he became…"

Jirou rose a hand to her forehead and rubbed it, thinking back on words that she remembered as clearly as the horrible things that had made her cry so hard for Zach back then. "He told her, how he had considered himself the master of life and death. How he had even thought to himself, 'I could decide who lives and who dies.'" Jirou hated herself, but she whispered, "And I agreed when he said how no one deserved that much power. And I knew he wasn't lying, when he said that the stronger he got, the more like _Death_ he actually became." Jirou rose her eyes up to her therapist's shocked ones, and Jirou whispered in a regretful way, "I don't know what he was thinking when he went up there, but after admitting that, after admitting to himself the possibility that he would _become_ Death one day, I think without Momo he would have… He thought he was turning into a demon," Jirou hissed, her voice shaking as she said it, trying to justify herself even more despite how much regret she had for even speaking this aloud.

 _ **"And I failed her! I let her die!"**_ Jirou slammed her eyes shut but tears spilled out the cracks and down her face, and she rose a hand to her face and pressed all her fingers hard around it in confusion. "I don't know how I'm supposed to feel," Jirou whispered.

"Well, how do you feel?" Softy asked quietly back. "After hearing all of it, the bad and- and the other kind of bad?" Softy said, as there was no way to specify either of the things she remembered as a 'good' kind.

"Seeing him come back from that," Jirou started. She sucked in a deep breath and she lowered her hand, raising her eyes up and saying in amazement, "I was already stunned at his return, but, that was so incredible. Seeing him be good, be better, and saving people! I was beyond amazed by him then but- but then seeing him come back after Kaminari-" Jirou cut herself off with her face twisting and her head tilting back. Bringing that up brought up everything around it, but she pushed through and said in a louder voice keeping herself from choking up like would happen in a soft tone, "I looked up to Zach more than anyone!"

"I was destroyed, in the darkest place in my life, but I looked at him and saw him going strong," she shook her head and her voice cracked when she spoke lower. "Saw him trying so hard to keep going… And I went to him." Softy nodded as Jirou brought it up, and Jirou continued while looking up at the woman she said to in a softer voice than when she normally yelled about this, "And I told him how I couldn't trust anyone- How I was so broken and, and he held me, and I _knew_ there was one person in the world who- who understood me! Who felt what I was feeling! Who, who I could _trust_ again when I trusted nobody…" Jirou clenched her eyes shut. "I hate him," Jirou whispered, and Softy could see all that hatred so clearly on Jirou's face as she said it again. "I hate him. Because! He _knew_ that I would- that I would be like this! Because that's what Raijin did to him! When he had no one. When he didn't trust anyone and was at the lowest moment of his life, Raijin went to him and acted like the person he needed to get him well- and Zach knew that I knew that! He knew that I would know it. He knew all along, even while he held me there, _exactly_ how I would feel… And he did it anyway!"

Jirou yelled it so hatefully and was panting as she glared forward into Softy's eyes trying to give her a soft and understanding look back. "He was supposed to be my friend, and he did the worst thing anyone had ever done to him, TO ME! He knew I couldn't take it and- and he thought he could just say a few words and it would be-" Jirou pulled her chin down to her chest, her teeth baring so hard and her heart tightened while her whole being filled with such a sick feeling again. _The two of them were the same. They were both just, just liars who manipulated me and- and messed with my heart for their own goals with no care how much they tore up in the process!_ "I hate him," Jirou whispered again, though her eyes lowered down so sadly as the words came out of her mouth this time. "I'm sad though, as much as I'm still mad- furious at him. It's just…"

Jirou rose her head and had a more serious and focused look on her face again. She got out what she needed to say, the things she needed to remind herself and really understand saying them aloud. But then she continued in a steadier voice, "I've always known he was going to leave again." She said it and let out a breath as she admitted what she knew but wouldn't tell her friends. "Since he came back and turned himself in," she continued. Jirou frowned more as Softy gave her a look and was opening her mouth, "I know… it's what he'll do… but he's sticking it out for so long, and I don't know why. I don't know what his plan is that he'd stay even after they attacked him at home, nearly killed him _again,_ killed his landlord." Jirou finished the list without saying 'and' as there were a ton of things she could list but only came up with three.

"He hasn't given up on it though," she continued. "I know he hasn't, because I remember the Enudora Forest." Her eyes narrowed more as this was even more clear in her mind after meeting him outside it, "I remember yelling at him to fight, and I was hoping he'd kill Raijin, and I really wasn't as panicked as the rest of our friends." Jirou's expression was steady and dark but she continued in a flat voice, "I was not as afraid, because I knew Zach wouldn't just stand there and let Kaminari kill him. It was terrifying not being able to do anything to help him, but I knew Zach would lift up his arms and fight!" Jirou rose her voice a little, then she said with a small shake of her head as she returned to her former tone, "I didn't think he would just stand there and die, but then, then that truck came barreling out of the woods, and Zach roared how he wasn't in their trap but they had fallen into his?! And then he, then he _massacred_ them."

"And he screamed all these things! This person who I trusted, who I believed in! The person I thought I knew as this kind hero- my hero…" Jirou froze and her wide eyes closed and then opened again with her gaze shifted straight down. "But he injected with Trigger. He used a man he had been blackmailing- not even blackmail. He had convinced that villain that he was the _devil_ in order to force the man to do his bidding. The girl he had dragged into helping him after bringing her back to life, and teaming up with villains. The things Zach said that night," Jirou shook her head and rose her gaze back to meet Softy's. "I understood that he wasn't just lying to me about one thing. This one person I _knew_ I could trust, he had been lying about everything! It was all a lie!" Anger filled Jirou's voice again and she bursted out with, "I trusted him, when I was in my darkest place I trusted him, and I thought he would be there to help me get through it- and then he left me! He left me in an even darker place than I thought he was pulling me out of. So I don't care that he's hurting…"

"I don't." Jirou repeated it softer in a whisper, and she leaned back in her seat again. _And he is. He is- but he's here for a reason. He's hurting, but you put me through two years of- all this pain I've gone through and I- I really just hate you so much. I have to._

* * *

 **A/N Thanks for reading. Leave a review below telling me what you think/predictions. Review responses:**

GrayReader chapter 190 . Oct 15

You do such an amazing job when it comes to exploring the two different philosophies of midoriya and Zach, it's always a pleasure to read. Just when Midoriya starts to say something I disagree with, before I can even go on a rant in my head about how wrong it is, Zach is instantly there to disagree with him. I really can't see a future where Zach doesn't kill Kaminari and some of the League of Villians, or at least have the AOD kill them, but I also didn't think Zach would actually try to be a hero again and leave the AOD, so I could be wrong.  
I'm sorry to hear about your grandmother, I'm sure she's proud of you, especially of your skills as a writer! I don't know if you ever linked her this story, but I'm sure if she'd ever seen it, she would be astonished!

 **Thanks for the condolences. Also thanks for the review! Glad you enjoyed the chapter and the interactions between Zach and Midoriya. Just as we know the whole story to be able to counter what Midoriya's saying, Zach's been there too and has got his own defenses too. We'll see what the future holds for Zach and if he can hold back on killing, stay as a hero, etc. Coming soon... Look forward to it!**

Aar0nC0le chapter 190 . Oct 15

I LOVE when you dive deeper into midoriya and zack's views. The divide there is complex and skfjdbsn I never know who I side with more? Like just from watching BnHa, I've always been very fond of midoriya. Deku is the hero I want to be, ya know? (In a metaphorical sense I mean obv I'm not gonna swallow some hair anytime soon) but the more I read this the more I realize the hero worship I have for a fictional character versus the grey areas that are the anime's world. And then suddenly I'm thinking about OUR world and all the grey areas and (idk if you're from America or not but I am) and somehow I always find myself thinking about my current government and morals ? Idk might just be me but this story always has me thinking deeper about it as well as life itself? (Hah life and death oh the irony) so thanks for that? I think? But plot wise I'm still v concerned bc we haven't heard from the LOV or Kaminari recently and it feels like a storm is coming... -thanks! :) -Aaron

 **I LOVE that you love it! XD The divide gets me thinking each time I'm writing it too, def got that complexity that makes it hard to really say either of them are just flat-out wrong. I did try to make the My Hero world full of as much gray as ours (and come on fellow American, it's Gray here in America, not British grey), but yeah def a lot of gray in our world today. If only we had Zach to intervene in Syria/Turkey all that jazz, but unfortunately we don't ;(. Anyways, LOV and Kaminari and Eziano are all lurking about and scheming... we'll see what comes of that! I hope you enjoyed the chapter though, thanks for the review, and thanks again everyone for reading, faving, following, and reviewing this story!**


	192. Chapter 192

**Disclaimer: I don't own Boku no Hero Academia**

 **Chapter 192:**

"…There's not much else I can do. I can't force them to forgive me," Zach said, sipping out of a cup of coffee while he walked side by side with his friend down a Musutafu sidewalk. "And besides for Sero and Mina, most of the others are too busy with schoolwork to take much time out of their days like they could earlier in the term. I'm sure this final term is busy for you too," Zach added and took another sip as he waited for Midoriya to respond.

"Yeah, Lemillion has me busy with patrols… He's been having me patrol on my own recently, more often."

Zach nodded with a tilt of his head to the side in understanding. Midoriya only hesitated for a moment as he was responding, though he did not feel he needed to hide it as he had already told Zach how he had removed himself from the investigation into him. He informed Zach of it mainly so Zach would never wonder if he was hiding how they had new information on him or were about to catch him, though that also concerned him sometimes as he never knew if the others at the agency were ready to come after Zach when he went in to see them. Midoriya continued, "And our classes have gotten a lot more intense lately. Combat training is becoming more and more like the real thing. The other day we fought the teachers in groups of five of us against four of them, and they did not have handicaps like our first final exams."

"Really?" Zach asked in surprise, looking to his side and then grinning at his friend after he had asked in some amazement. "So you won?"

Midoriya lifted a small smile himself and nodded, before saying, "Every one of our teams did-" Midoriya stopped and looked surprised himself. He was expecting Zach to look surprised to hear that, but Zach just smiled more and looked like he was hoping and suspecting that was the case already. _He really, has a lot of faith in us._ Midoriya looked back forward and lowered his smile a little at the thought. He glanced across the street as some businessmen walking down it turned and pointed towards them. He smiled at the group and waved, and Zach turned as he saw what Midoriya was doing then gave a wave himself too using his right hand in its black glove.

They kept walking, and Midoriya glanced back at his friend while walking with his hands down at his sides as he did not get any coffee himself. "Don't you think, you should still try though? I know not everyone is going out of their ways to come see you, but they deserve explanations even if you won't tell them the truth. Explanations you never gave them about the Lifebringer Incident."

"I think every one of you knows why I did it," Zach countered with a half shrug. "I made it pretty clear, that night. Most of my shouting was meant for you guys, you know?"

Midoriya shook his head, his lips flattening and even curving down at the corners at the sound of that. _Was it really? It felt like most of it was directed at Raijin. As you defeated him; the undefeated getting his first loss._

"Lifebringer! Deku!" A man jumped out of an alleyway in front of the two and ran towards them. He was five foot six which was over half a foot shorter than either of the muscular young men he ran up in front of. He had a pair of thin glasses on over his face that slid down a little as he ran forward, and he held up his phone in one hand and a tiny microphone looking like it was part of a gaming headset in the other.

 _Amateur journalist? Good on him catching us,_ Zach thought as he glanced around through his peripherals and saw that this was the only man coming. His search in his peripherals also showed him there were only two people watching him at the moment. _Wonder if Midoriya even knows his agency is following us?_

"Who's that?" Bakugo grumbled under his breath, speaking into a similar microphone as that man was holding up though smaller and attached to the top of his undercover outfit.

Lemillion kept his voice in a lower whisper than Bakugo's, "Probably nothing. Keep an eye out though. Could be part of an assassin's trap."

"Good. Hope that Eziano fucker's around here," Bakugo said with his lips curling up a little and his small red irises darting around in search for potentially strong enemies. _He was out there all that time and knew about this assassin from the start, and he never got him. It's like his nemesis, and I'm going to fuck him up. Bastard, taking out Faith like that down in Tartaros. Your way finished him way more than mine did. Damn it._ Bakugo's excitement started to fade as he did not see any signs of this being a trap.

"Lifebringer! Everyone wants to know what you were thinking when you saved Andel Novak?" The reporter asked it and slid his glasses up with a big smile on his face that he succeeded here in catching Lifebringer out in public. _I knew staking out Musutafu for him was a better choice than Yutapu! No one ever catches him there anymore, while people have seen him here at least twice a week!_

"I was thinking, that a small boy had died and I could get there in time to save him," Zach replied, scratching the back of his head with his left hand for a second and then lowering it with his look getting a little more serious. His expression showed he realized that whatever he said here would likely be seen by everyone who wanted to know the answer to this same question.

"But why him? Why not Casey Andrews? Or Xi Liping, a seven year old girl in China who died just last night?"

Zach frowned and his expression got pained for a second before going back to normal. He nodded and then said in a serious voice, "I couldn't save them, because I got in trouble for saving Andel." Midoriya glanced to his side in semi-confusion though he tried not to show it on his face despite not hearing anything about this. "I would save more people overseas but I'm not allowed to," he continued to the surprised reporter. "I had to gradually get to that point in the first place, testing out the limits of what my provisional license would allow over the past couple of months. I wanted to see how far I could go without being stopped. I finally got confronted by hero officials though for my treatment of Andel Novak's death."

"You did?" The reporter asked in surprise, his question mimicking Midoriya's expression that was also caught on camera here.

Zach nodded, and then he continued while looking more at the phone's camera than at the reporter himself. "The problem is that even though my time limit for revivals has gone up a lot, it's only by flying straight there that I managed to make it in time. I got in some trouble for that though and now, I'm not allowed to leave the country. At least until I get my full license at which point I'll fight that decision by the officials," Zach added, showing he was not going to let that stand in the near future. He continued though with a lift of his left palm, "Even then though I'll still have troubles going through proper channels of getting across borders and using my Quirk in countries that more strictly regulate how heroes from foreign nations can come in and use their powers."

 _Did he have this all planned out?_ Midoriya thought while trying not to let his expression show the surprise in his thoughts.

Zach continued without getting asked any more questions, "As it stands, it's likely I'm only not in more trouble because the Romanian government itself isn't upset at me. It's just our own." He paused and then added with a nod as he did not want to leave it sounding like he disagreed, "Which I understand, but I want to clarify that because of this it's not that I'm mishandling the use of my Quirk, I just know that I could get in a lot of trouble using it too frequently. And if I get in too much trouble that it keeps me from getting a full license, then I won't be able to use it later on and more people will die in the long run." He looked towards the reporter while saying that, then to the camera as he knew he got a journalist who was inexperienced enough to let Zach just push everything he needed to say without interrupting with potentially damning questions that could in any way counter him. Zach spoke directly to the camera, "I'm only sorry to the people now who I can't save because of this."

He finished there, and Midoriya held his expression steady and looked to the reporter himself to see if the man would just take that and go. The man who was not expecting Lifebringer to suddenly take the reins like that felt uneasy about asking anything else and having it taken out of his hands, so instead he turned to the green-haired boy who looked at him. "And what about you, Deku? Do you agree with Lifebringer's opinion here? How do you think he should be using his Quirk?"

Midoriya looked to his side at Zach, but Zach just looked back at him and had an interested look as if wondering what Deku's opinion was. "I think," Midoriya began, hesitating but opening his mouth again quickly as he knew he could not appear so indecisive on television where he knew this would wind up soon. "It's not my place to tell Zach either, how to use his Quirk." Midoriya stated that as his public opinion, and Zach lifted a small smile while looking at his friend next to him. Midoriya glanced to Zach then back at the camera and continued, "As I also don't have a full license yet, so I don't have the authority to say."

"But if you did," the reporter pressed. "What would you say to Lifebringer's methods of reviving only certain people-"

Zach pulled his phone out that made a noise all three of them looked to. He looked to his right quickly and said to his friend, "There's an incident nearby." Zach bent his knees, and he leapt twenty feet up in the air with some dark wisps coming off the soles of his feet and backs of his knees when he did. The reporter snapped his phone up to try and catch Lifebringer escaping, only to bring it down fast and then up again only getting small glimpses of blurs as Deku shot up into the sky after the dark blur that flapped wings to fly much higher up where Midoriya rose to.

"Wait!"

Midoriya and Zach flew up high above all the buildings in Musutafu in an arc to the north. Midoriya kicked his legs behind him and flipped up in the air over closer to Zach and onto his right side. "Did you make that up?!" He yelled over the wind pushing into their faces. _I'm not in a hero costume. This isn't a time when I should be using my Quirk especially not on camera-_

"It seemed like we wouldn't be able to just walk around and talk anymore, especially not in Musutafu," Zach responded while they leveled out in their arc and started to decline. Midoriya started frowning deeper at him, but Zach added, "I was waiting for an alert of a crime in a small town anywhere in Japan since we met up though. One really did happen out in Nagatomi."

"That's hundreds of miles away! That's not what our provisional licenses allow us-"

"Are we not close enough?" Zach asked back, the two of them dropping side by side on an angle towards the track of a middle school in Musutafu that Midoriya just realized was his own former middle school. Midoriya stared at Zach and hesitated at the question, and Zach called at his friend who seemed actually thoughtful about it, "I never got in trouble for that after I gave my reasoning, which means we're allowed to go save those people who might need us right now. Do you not want to come?" Zach called it out, implying he was going whether or not Midoriya was in.

Midoriya looked down towards where they were going to land, then back up and into the distant sky over Japan. He heard Zach telling him to the side of his head, "If they accepted it for me, they'll have to accept it for you too. Precedent and all that."

Midoriya glanced back sideways at Zach and nodded once. The two of them came down on the track in the next second. Midoriya's legs bent upon landing, as did Zach's though covered in a lot more darkness this time as was his spine and joints around his body. More and more darkness flooded around Zach's legs as he bent farther into his landing. Midoriya's entire body glowed while his former gym teacher who happened to be out there stared towards the two of them with his jaw dropped to the floor. Sparks flew out of Midoriya's glowing body, and Death flared out of the back of Zach's legs and below his feet, and the two of them shot up into the sky so much higher than before and faster too.

Zach looked ahead of him and then even farther ahead of him in the next second. A pair of wings came out of his back and flapped behind him, only for Midoriya to give another kick below him that ripped the bottoms of his pant legs at how hard he kicked. _I have to tap into Limiter 1 just to keep up!_ An explosion of darkness blew out of Zach's back and propelled him through the air closer to Midoriya's side though a hundred feet to his right and down so they kept a wide berth from each other and would not mess each other up with their methods of flying.

As they both flew several times the speed of sound over Japan, Zach wondered to himself, _Should I create a Limiter 2? Just for extra bursts like this, a smaller one I wouldn't need so much of as I do for fighting, but just for my optimal movement speed. Yeah. I need to figure out what that optimal level is with my current power to be able to reach anywhere in time._ He frowned a little at the thought of that, _Not that I need that yet. Just gave myself another couple months- not even two now,_ he reminded himself when he almost got optimistic on the amount of time he had to deal with it.

At the edge of Nagatomi, a small town of 2,400 people, the two heroes of the town who rarely had to deal with incidents in their isolated area faced off against the five villains who stopped running after their drug deal got busted nearby. The cops were all back at the location of the bust and had not been able to keep up with the villains and heroes, and the villains were ready to fight now as the odds seemed more in their favor. Chaotic Good and Hula Hooper did not back off though, even when the villain who was already twice the size of all the others pulled a syringe out and rose it up with a dangerous smirk at the heroes before him.

The smirk and how he was showing off the needle like that made the heroes stay in place. _He's showing it off to make us rush to stop him from shooting-up, opening us up for his friends,_ Chaotic Good noted calmly.

 _If that's Trigger we're going to have a problem here,_ Hula Hooper kept her expression steady and unafraid though, but the villain brandishing that Trigger did not get dissuaded from it and instead just started bringing the needle towards his left arm with his right hand he was holding it with.

There was not a wide gap between the villains and the two heroes in front of them. They were at the edge of the town close to a forest and not any of the roads away from it. Whether there was an escape vehicle hiding somewhere in the woods was an unknown to the heroes, but they knew they had to stop the villains before they got in the forest which would be much harder to track the five of them in. The villains were ready to fight, and the heroes prepared to stop them, and then two figures dropped out of the sky in that small gap between the two heroes and the five villains facing them.

The two pros ready to fight stared at the broad backs of boys in sweatshirts standing in front of them. Darkness faded from Lifebringer's legs, while Deku's legs were bare from the knees down though his pants looked frayed there like they were ripped recently with some fabric threads dangling off. The group of villains in front of the two teenagers all stared forward in as much shock as the heroes, but in a lot more sheer terror than the pros who looked past the boys and became more shocked by the villains' reactions.

"Lifebringer and Deku?!"

"Whoa-" the one all the way on the right stopped hissing his long tongue at the heroes, pulling it far back and gulping like he was swallowing it. His hands shot up and he held them high, as defensively as he could which a couple of his friends looked over at nervously, though they agreed and threw their hands up too while looking back at the dark-haired boy their friend stared at in terror.

The biggest one holding his Trigger halfway across the front of his body darted his eyes down to the needle, then back up at Lifebringer who stared into his eyes and made that man fear more than he had ever feared in his life. The guy threw his right hand out to the side to discard the syringe as fast as he could, then his right and left hands shot up and locked behind his head as he shouted, "I'm not resisting!"

Deku shifted his gaze that was harsh and that he was trying to make as intimidating as possible. He looked to his right, at his friend who smirked at the villains who just surrendered like that. Deku felt his stomach clench at Lifebringer's grin, and the way he said to those five villains, "Good choice."

A few minutes later, the police caught up and put the men who were down on their knees with their hands behind their heads into handcuffs then in the back of their cop cars. Hula Hooper and Chaotic Good thanked the two for arriving when they did, and they accepted the reasoning Deku gave them that they were 'close' enough to help out. The pros informed the teens that they would be put in the report, but the teens said they were fine with that and that they were just glad to help.

Neither of the pros mentioned it as they watched the teenage boys walk away, but they both noticed the way Deku kept looking over at Lifebringer ever since that darker-haired teen said what he said to the villains. And neither mentioned either how even they had felt some diluted feeling of fear that those villains had felt in full force when Lifebringer landed before them.

 _They were ready to go all out against us. But one look…_

 _They didn't even want to risk it with him. Kid's terrifying._

As Midoriya and Zach walked out of sight of everyone, then into the forest to go far from anyone else to have a more private talk, Midoriya felt his anger simmering inside him that he was trying to hold back from showing until they were out of public. "I've never been around here," Zach started, and he climbed up over a log and dropped onto the other side with an adventurous smile on his face. "League could be hiding out in these very woods."

He suggested it and glanced over at Midoriya to see what he thought. _Come on. What's with the looks?_ Zach turned back forward and pretended not to notice how Midoriya was feeling. _I didn't even show my disappointment that they didn't want to fight. I acted happy instead that they cowered before me. Guess that would set him off too, as it's how he thinks I felt as Death. That I enjoy the looks of fear directed at me. Can't show villains that I don't want them looking at me like that though…_

Zach decided to try and get both their minds off it, "You know, things are pretty peaceful here? They always have been, even at the worst crime rates we had. Japan was always safer than most places."

"We've had our fair share of bad," Midoriya replied, stepping behind Zach and on his left side in his own path through the woods. He moved forward over the flattest ground and where the forest seemed to make a natural path for him to keep going, while Zach jumped up and swung on a low-hanging branch to get over a dip in the ground that moved him too far ahead that Midoriya had to speed-walk to keep up. "Not many countries have had anything as bad as the SFI either."

"But some have had worse," Zach replied. "Not many, but at least a dozen, maybe two, have had incidents as bad or much worse than what happened that day."

Midoriya opened his mouth to argue, but he closed it and just held back instead to let that go by him. _I could name a few, but not two dozen. Where as many people died? In Africa last February there was a lot, and those massacres in Canada too were real bad… I hate how he's speaking about these things though. So casually, and unemotional._ "They were tragedies," Midoriya added, feeling the need to mention it as a reminder. _Since you say you don't care about regular people as much anymore, that you don't care about all their lives, can you even feel what that word means?_ Midoriya's expression got harsher as Zach just nodded but without changing his expression Deku could see from the left side.

"They were," Zach replied. Then he continued with a more optimistic tone, "But those tragedies are over now. We all helped stop them, and I think they're in the past. As long as we can stop the League of Villains and whatever their plan is."

"We all did, huh?" Midoriya asked, moving quicker and getting more on Zach's side to show the look he was giving back to his friend.

"We did," Zach replied. "The AoD did their part too," Zach said, feeling fine with talking about it now that Lemillion and Explosion King were hundreds of miles away. "More so than anyone," Zach continued, his voice getting softer though he was not going to sugarcoat it. He looked forward off into a bright and vibrant forest, and he said with a relaxed and yet somehow intense gaze, "The entire world would be so different… So much has happened, compounding on top of itself to give people opinions on it and then strengthen their opinions and confirm their beliefs of what happened, and all of it is built on lies." Midoriya ground his teeth and hated how he had accepted this truth, and more he hated how Zach brought it up again this time unprovoked.

 _I can't deny it. But, every time we talk you seem more like…_

"…Of half-truths that I convinced heroes not to talk about my involvement in," Zach continued in a quiet but proud voice anyway. "And I know that even if those heroes are the only ones who know that I had helped them, they won't know how I helped heroes in every other country and region and continent. They don't know that I have altered the history everywhere, and history will go down without mentioning me in nearly any of those places." Zach's steady grin flattened out and he continued after a pause, "…All my comrades who died will never be remembered. No one will ever know what they died for. Or how many people are still alive right now, living peaceful lives and condemning the Army of Death for their ways, because my comrades gave their lives so that everyone could feel that way. So that everyone could believe that no matter what, killing is wrong."

"And yet you all did it," Midoriya said. Zach glanced to his right, his expression intense, but Midoriya's more-so as the curly-haired boy glared back at him. "You were all killers."

"We were killers, so that everyone could believe that no matter what, killing is wrong," Zach countered back just as seriously to his friend who shook his head at the response. Zach nodded though and reminded Deku, "I know it is. I was fine with doing the wrong thing though, so that it would continue to be the wrong thing. That was my goal, and yet in Japan they accepted what I did and released me from jail in under six months after I murdered a handful of villains." Zach shook his head and tilted his head back as he continued to walk. He shoved his hands in his pockets and said, "So I need to show them just as I showed the rest of the world by not showing them what I did and giving heroes all the credit. I have to show the Japanese people that I am not Death, and _repent_ for what I did as Lifebringer even if no one else feels that I need to anymore."

Midoriya's anger bubbled more and more inside him, as he could see it so clearly on Zach's face despite all his was saying. _You're not even convinced of your plan anymore! No one talks about your past and the Lifebringer Incident on the news. They aren't talking about how you came back anymore. That's all, it's old news. You don't even believe what you're saying, since you were_ _ **just**_ _talking about how much good you were doing with the Army of Death like you never would before! Like you're nostalgic of the way you used to fight, which you can't be as a hero!_

"You keep telling me you're trying," Midoriya started, and Zach turned his head to the left and pulled his hands from his pockets as he lost that relaxed look. He knew what he had done at the look in Midoriya's eyes his friend let fully come to the surface, and it was worse as Midoriya stopped while glaring at him like that in the middle of the isolated woods. "You talk about killing people and say that it was bad, but you don't regret it. You say it like it was necessary even though you're supposed to be a hero right now. Right here."

Zach started shaking his head, though he had to look away as he heard what Midoriya was saying. _That's true. I did think that, not too long ago._ "I know-"

"You don't know!" Midoriya snapped back, his voice raising and shutting Zach up with his black-haired friend looking back with wider eyes at the furious voice Midoriya used with him. Midoriya did not have to hold it back this time though. They were not on the sidewalk, or at a gazebo in a public park, but somewhere he did not have to hold back at all. Deku's fists clenched at his sides and he yelled in a scolding way at Zach, "You still act so villainous even though you say you know! When facing villains you try to be so scary and-"

"Everyone says that!" Zach snapped at his friend to shut him up. "But Midoriya, maybe I'm just a scary person. Ever think about that?" Zach asked it with his eyebrows raising and a menacing smirk over his face that Midoriya saw in surprise was not actually just to prove his point. The look on Zach's face was just, intimidating and scary. His scarred-up face, the tone of his voice, the expression he made, all while talking about how he was a naturally scary person; it all fit perfectly with that definition.

Midoriya frowned to himself, but he walked closer to Zach and then kept going forward that had Zach moving again. "We should go deeper into the woods," Midoriya said, suggesting in his tone that they get farther from the town back behind them where people may have seen them leave and could possibly be following and trying to find them.

Zach nodded at Deku and then headed after him and up to his right side to continue deeper in together. They stayed silent for a few seconds, then Midoriya just started in a low voice while they were heading to wherever was "deep" enough to have whatever this was about to turn into. "So this building, in Musutafu," Midoriya began and had Zach nod with him without turning to the boy who started without looking his way. "Ashido told me about where you met the other night when I asked her to clarify what you meant when you said you did something terrible putting that Romanian kid's life in her hands. She said she checked out the top floor and it was abandoned. An abandoned building in Musutafu that you-"

"It's not the whole building," Zach said. He explained as they continued farther into the woods, "All the top floor residents had gone to the Sports Festival in the same section and got blown to bits. Some of them, their families came and took their stuff. Others it seems to me, didn't want to go through the dead's places, or something. It's a ghost floor. A terrifying place and reminder to anyone who steps in of the horror of villains." Midoriya nodded after a moment, agreeing with that in a silent way. Zach continued softer, "As much as the city's recovered, not everyone has. 7,042 people died. An insane number. Not a number new residents could easily replace."

He paused and took in a deep breath, but he did not smile as he said, "Things are getting better. Yet Midoriya, in Japan there are still so many horrible villain gangs that exist and are stronger than almost any other villain organization in the world. Things like that ghost floor aren't the only reminders we have." Zach started to slow down, and he turned to the left while saying in a lower voice to his friend who looked back harshly at him, "I stayed out of Japan because I knew my friends could take care of things here without me-"

Midoriya's already dark expression twisted in a more upset way and he interrupted, "You couldn't expect us to stop them. We weren't all running around doing whatever we wanted!"

Zach's expression stayed dark itself though while Midoriya gave himself and the others that excuse. "I know I shouldn't have expected it, but it's how I felt. I'll deal with it myself now though, if I have to."

Midoriya balled his fists and got so angry. _He has the Subspace Devils already! I can't even say that he can't, because he's doing it!_

Zach eased his expression up and it became somewhat apologetic too, "The Japanese villains are better than most villains around the world though, so it's not like I think the heroes here have been slacking. I know Shigaraki and Raijin better than anyone, including you Midoriya." Zach reminded his friend of it, then he shook his head when Midoriya got a defensive and angered look on his face at what Zach just said like it was clear. "Despite your own personal connection with Shigaraki," Zach started. "Shigaraki and I were comrades once. I saw Shigaraki Tomura for what he truly was," Zach said and stared into Midoriya's eyes in an intense way that made Midoriya stare at him intensely but not denying what Zach was saying anymore. "I looked into the leader's eyes and saw the demon he had become because of this world."

Midoriya's straight expression started to drop. Daruma Ujiko's voice echoed in his head, but he stared at Zach in a shaky way as he thought, _I thought Daruma said Zach didn't know!_ _ **"Shigaraki never told Sazaki… He never admitted it to himself either, but Tomura always drew the comparison between them and I knew it. I saw it."**_ _Zach, did you make that same comparison yourself?!_ _ **"Shigaraki and Sazaki are much more alike than you think."**_

Zach watched his friend's expression get shaken by what he just said, but he did not censor himself. _I don't need to around you. I can say what I mean. Every time we talk I understand more about you and you learn more about me._ "I knew already," Zach said, and Midoriya flinched as Zach spoke like he was reading his mind. "Just from what Shigaraki's Quirk is, I knew what had happened to turn him into what he was." Zach's voice got much lower and threateningly dark as he said, "I will never forgive Shigaraki." His voice rose back up a little, "But I understand what created him."

"It's the very reason I pushed my report on this country and the world. I myself was able to fight against the system that pushed me into darkness, but only barely." He paused and then said darker, "But I saw Shigaraki. I heard Dabi's story. I watched Toga's insanity control her, and saw Twice manipulated by those around him." Zach shook his head and said in a deep but soft voice, "As Death I treated villains like they were all just 'villains' under the same horrible label, excusing my actions against them. To some though, and how I sometimes try to look at it, villains are just victims whose stories haven't been told. I don't agree with that, but I understand."

"If you sympathize with them-"

"They're monsters," Zach said, countering Midoriya but much too strongly to the point it went beyond what Midoriya was trying to say to just make Deku get angry for Zach being too far on the other side of the spectrum now. Zach added, "Who have backstories that some may be sympathetic towards. But we all make our own choices," he said simply.

"We do," Midoriya agreed, though his voice was lower and his expression as intense as Zach had ever seen it before. "And you chose to kill Kurogiri, when you didn't have to."

"I did," Zach replied without flinching at Midoriya's intense and accusing look. "But when I did, it was a hard choice where not killing would-"

"Stop that!" Midoriya yelled. "Stop defending, killing people!" He yelled it with his fists clenched hard at his sides, his eyes furious and disheartened by what Zach was trying to say once again. "You don't get to make that decision! No one does!" Midoriya swung his right arm out to the side and a wind came off of it that blew dead leaves off the floor with dirt. Leaves rustled in the trees to his right and Zach's left, and Zach's eyes narrowed more as Midoriya's Quirk showed with the strength of his arm swing.

 _Or is that just his natural strength?_ Zach wondered to himself, as he questioned whether or not Midoriya was actually trying to show off his Quirk's strength there. Zach's eyes narrowed more as Midoriya showed off that force, making his dark-green-haired friend glare even harder at him that Zach would be getting angry after what he just said. "I can defend it though," Zach countered. He glared at Midoriya and told his friend glaring back at him, "If I couldn't I never would have been able to do those things. If I wasn't able to defend my actions then I wouldn't have done them in the first place."

"You killed people, someone you had captured already!" Midoriya exclaimed back. "I know it hurt you Zach, but you can't defend yourself or you'll always feel that you could do it again!"

"I won't," Zach countered. _Would I?_ "That was before. I, I won't need to go that far again-"

"But if you think you have to?!" Midoriya shouted, as the way Zach was wording it was starting to change. _You can't tell me this!_

"If I have to, then I'll do whatever it takes," Zach replied with his eyes darkening and becoming colder as he stared back into Midoriya's. Midoriya's eyes grew huge, but Zach's expression hardened even more and he stuck to what he just said with his eyes intensifying as he growled out, "As far as I have to. No matter how far that is."

Midoriya bit down and he shook his head and darted his eyes to the right in fury but trying to break eye contact to control himself instead of just shouting back. "You said you're trying to be a hero," Midoriya said, his teeth clenched as he forced it out. "As a hero, you're not allowed to go as far as you're willing to go-"

"You don't know how far I'm willing to go," Zach scoffed back with his eyes glaring at Deku even darker.

"I know how far you'll go." Midoriya spun and looked into Zach's eyes and he shook his head, "You wouldn't-"

"You have **no** idea, what I am capable of," Zach's voice cut through the air like a knife. Silence cut between them as Zach glared into Deku's eyes with a fury that Midoriya had never seen in a look before. It altered the already dark mood of the conversation and made both teens stare at each other in a much more confrontational way.

"No idea?" Midoriya asked, taking that cold glare in stride and stomping towards him. "We all saw you that night. You killed those men, without mercy. Right in front of-"

"You have no idea what you're talking about."

"I've seen you kill people, Zach! But I know it hurt you, and I know you didn't do it lightly. It was a mistake, and you know- you knew that!"

"Midoriya, you have no fucking clue the things I've done." Zach leaned forward and looked straight into Deku's eyes, and he hissed, "The amount of things, so much worse than what I did that night." Midoriya's eyes grew wider at the look on Zach's face as he said that. The rage that was growing and continued to bubble over as Zach snarled at him, "The amount of people I've killed. The bodies I climbed over to reach my goals. _Mercy?_ You want to know what I consider mercy?" Zach's fists clenched at his sides and his eyes shook with rage as he glared into his friend's. "Cutting a woman's tongue out, and slashing up her vocal cords, and cutting off all her fingers with a single knife."

"Wh-What?" Midoriya was not expecting to hear that, out of all the things he could have heard in this moment.

"Because I couldn't let her communicate anymore. Her Quirk was too much, she had too much power, and it was either kill her or send her to a prison where she would have escaped the first time she came in contact with someone. She could get in their heads, blackmail and twist and… and she was evil. She used this great power to kill thousands, and the answer was clear what to do with her. To most people the solution was clear at least, but I had _mercy._ I wasn't going to just kill her, because killing people is wrong. And because I don't like to kill. So I showed her my mercy." Zach's fists started to loosen, then they clenched so much harder and he bared his teeth at the green-haired boy right in front of him. "You think you know what I'm capable of? Because you saw me kill a few men? Back when I could still count, how many I had killed."

"You don't mean-"

"I do," Zach cut his old friend off before Midoriya could finish that sentence. "It was a horrible feeling, knowing that I had lost track." Zach's expression shook and all the darkness faded from it for a second. His eyes twitched and his head pulled back at the way Midoriya was looking at him. Shame covered Zach's face and he started softer while still staring into Deku's eyes though with his own full of more regret than Midoriya had ever seen in someone's eyes before. "Every time I killed someone, I counted. I counted for so long. Every time I killed someone I'd tell myself that it was necessary, that I couldn't have done it any other way- or I'd regret it but I'd- I'd move on and remember them because what kind of person forgets the people he killed? 'What kind of person can't count how many people he's killed?'"

Zach asked it and his face pulled back in an even more twisted way, his eyes shaking and his lips pulling far apart at the corners as his face scrunched up. "But, but things started moving so fast, and I-" Zach lifted his eyes up to the right and then clenched them shut as hard as possible. And in that moment he clenched them shut, he felt the sand buffeting all around him. And he heard a hundred screams. Blood splashed on him and his eyes snapped open with his teeth clenched so hard and a panicked look on his face as he looked back to Midoriya, "And one day I was in a desert, with a few comrades and we- we were just supposed to be doing some recon."

He paused and his breath sucked in so hard, his eyes trembling as he stared at his friend whose horrified look started to change at the scared one covering Zach's face. The look of absolute horror that exceeded his own a moment ago, and he pulled his own face back as Zach gasped at him, "But they knew we were there!" His voice was a whispered gasp, and it broke anyway despite how soft it was. His face pulled back and he stopped himself for a second, but he tilted his head back more and gasped in as he saw a woman's head blowing open right next to his own. "And they-" Zach stopped himself, and he watched as a pincer flew up in the air with blood splashing out of it. "They killed my friends, and I-" Zach's eyes shook as the forest around him turned to sand, and more people than he could count surrounded him. "I was alone, surrounded by, by so many and-"

Midoriya took a step back, feeling the deepest sense of dread at where Zach was going that could have him sounding like this. _Don't-_ The answer to the question Midoriya had never wanted to ask had been given to him, but the reason for that answer was already filling him with so many different emotions. _I can't let what you say, change what this means-_

"And when I opened my eyes," Zach gasped, his head tilting up and Midoriya staring at him in fear at the sheer look of panic on Zach's own face. Zach's huge eyes trembled as he stared up in a wide blue sky unblocked by any canopy or anything. He blinked and a tear came out of his right eye and slid down his face as he was lowering it himself. He lowered it and stared back into that desert that no longer had all those people in it. "I looked down," Zach said as he lowered his head, staring ahead of himself and through Midoriya with his teeth clenched and shaking. "And I thought I must have had Nightmare form activated. Everything, for miles in every direction was red." He rose his right hand up and put it on the side of his head, and he looked into Midoriya's eyes that he finally saw again in front of him. "A desert of blood, and I was all alone, and- and I tried to _count_."

Zach's voice broke and got high-pitched as it cracked. "I wanted so desperately to be able to count. What kind of person can't count how many people they've killed?" He said it and clenched his teeth again pushing his face forward as he asked in agony. "Villains would brag about how many they had killed. 'Ten!' 'I've killed over two dozen!' 'You'll be my fifty-third kill, Death!' But, but that day there were hundreds of-" Zach bit down on his bottom lip and pulled his head back at what he was telling Midoriya, and yet he could not stop himself as he saw that desert of red around him. "And I knew in that moment that I was a monster, because I couldn't count anymore. I tried, I tried but- but there were arms and legs sticking out of the sand all around me. Faces half buried and, AND!" Zach shouted it at his horrified friend in front of him whose expression was becoming mixed with the horror at what he was hearing, and also how Zach sounded speaking back on it.

"And…" Zach whispered, his voice getting lower as he saw Midoriya's face looking back at him like that. "And I was all alone. Alone in a graveyard of my own making." His voice came out hoarse and in a whisper, and his eyes remained huge, though his lips lifted up at the corners even while dark shadows of despair covered his whole face. "I always tried keeping count, but I failed. I was able to for a time, but after that day I looked back and I couldn't… I had turned the desert red. I was alone. My comrades, my enemies, _everyone_ was dead. For miles in every direction the desert was…" Zach whispered it, no longer panicked as he just repeated himself but this time in a tone that had Midoriya really imagining it through Zach's eyes.

And Midoriya couldn't imagine anything worse than what he saw. "…and no chance of ever counting how many there had been," Zach whispered. Midoriya rose his eyes that just shifted down to the floor, and he looked at his friend in some pity, but also with the darkest look Zach had ever seen from his friend before. "It was all a _blur_ ," Zach whispered it, and his eyes lost the glazed look to instead stare at Midoriya in a way even more horrified than with what he was just saying. "But Midoriya," Zach continued to his old classmate who lost that darkness in his expression as Zach continued like he was far from over, or like what he had said was not the worst part of this story. "A single kill made a noticeable increase in strength before. Killing Spinner, then fighting at Dandy's lab, the jump was- and multiple people made crazy jumps in power; how strong I was after the Lifebringer Incident that I could take on Hawks…"

Midoriya's expression started to get more shaken, his eyes growing wider and wider as Zach's did too. "But what happened that day-" Zach gasped it out then stopped himself, his eyes shooting huge and then narrowing with his whole expression flattening and returning to what it normally was.

"What happened that day, was just another day of a war no one in this world understands the intensity of." Zach said it, and suddenly he was excusing himself again for what he had done. His face was back to normal, except Midoriya could see so much of Death in it while the one who was just reacting to what he was saying seemed more like Zach to him.

The switch made Midoriya's fists ball furiously. He wanted to stomp forward, but the gap between them was small already and the two of them were glaring at each other with the thickest tension between them. "You think you can justify those things? Torture? Slaughtering people?!"

"Amaterasu was unconscious when I removed her means of communications," Zach replied. "That was not torture." His voice was cold, and Midoriya just stared at him in shock that he could say something like that. _You only ever heard the best of what I did as Death. You knew these things happened though. You knew and to act on it now would be hypocritical! It would show that you were just intentionally ignoring it because of voluntary ignorance!_

Zach's expression got furious back at Midoriya for a moment, and then it just got darker and colder though the anger was there beneath his calm facade. "The world needed an answer for an uncivilized threat in a civilized time. It needed someone who would respond in kind to the actions of villains." Midoriya glared harder at Zach who did not waver as he continued, "As savage and cruel as they were, the world needed someone who could think like them to be able to counter their every move. The world had enough heroes. It needed a warrior." His voice was cold and he glared into Deku's eyes savagely in a way that scared his former classmate. "A warrior's mind was necessary for the survival of this civilized world, because too soon the world that it was becoming would have created many more soldiers, more warriors, who would fight the war and bring the world back to peace once it went too far! I never let the world reach that level!"

"I did not wait for other warriors like myself to be created by the pit that this world had become and was deepening by the day." Zach stared deep into Izuku's eyes and said to his friend who had never heard him get this defensive of Death and specifically the most horrible things he had done as it. "I gathered those who already understood, or others who I trained and taught to understand, and I created an Army the likes of which this world has never seen in order to _prevent_ armies from being created. There is a saying that every time someone tries to stop a war before it starts, innocent people are killed." Midoriya stared at Zach in confusion as to why he would bring up the perfect argument against what he was doing, but Zach just glared at him harder for Midoriya's agreement with that phrase. "But as true as that may be," Zach continued, "the saying does not counter the idea that those wars _are_ prevented. The saying, is a negative one towards the people attempting to stop those wars because they've killed people now, but we only have the luxury to look at them as monsters because the world is at peace and what they did was monstrous, villainous, and as heinous as we can imagine."

"But war is worse."

Zach growled it and his hateful and angry expression could not hide the pain so full in his voice that the anger attempted to mask. Midoriya looked ahead of him in uncertainty at the desperate look hiding in that pain and anger for him to understand. As the one person Midoriya knew Zach had told this to, he could see how desperately Zach wanted him to look like he understood even a bit of what he was saying. _He wants forgiveness? Or, or just understanding, from me?! You know I don't- You know I can't!_

"You say you did those things to prevent war," Midoriya started, his voice low and trying to stay steady despite seeing the impact of his words on Zach's expression that pained with each denial from him. "But if you never know the outcome of the other way, if you never see that future that you couldn't have predicted with a hundred percent certainty, then you killed for nothing. Zach, you can't blame your decisions on things that never happened. You can't say Kurogiri would have escaped from prison and killed millions, and use that as an excuse for why you killed him. It doesn't work that way! It never has, and it doesn't in _any_ scenario! And if you would have killed all those people in Yemen?" Midoriya asked it and his voice cracked itself this time at the idea of what Zach had said that he could see in this moment was the truth he could not believe before and thought Zach had to have been bluffing to all those people when he yelled it.

Zach bowed his head and shook it, and he spoke up, "You say that because you don't know war. When it comes to war, any alternative is preferable," Zach whispered it and stared up into Deku's eyes with an expression like he had no idea what Zach really meant by that. "And I did see war. I saw, every war. I was in the center of one giant one, full of dozens of smaller ones, each with hundreds of battles…" his voice got quieter and quieter as he got smaller and smaller in his explanation. "But there could have been so many more. Ones that everyone would have known about. Ones that would have drawn in so many more people, killed more than-"

His expression hardened again, and Zach said to the teen before him still looking to deny what he was saying, "War is… I could say, that I prevented wars from happening, and that would be true. But, but I didn't stop them with as simple a method as 'trying' to stop the wars. I declared a war, to prevent future wars." Zach explained himself and thought back to the very beginning as he continued, "I started a war and did horrible things and had horrible things done to me, but because I did, I prevented those same things from happening on a wider scale all over the world."

"You don't know-"

"Mongoloid had plans to invade Gorran," Zach said. Midoriya froze, and Zach went on, "Working with villains inside that country to destabilize its own leadership. He was in contact with Shakad, and the League of Villains wanted to destabilize more and more of the region to get everyone else focusing on it. They never expected Mongoloid to be able to hold on forever, but once the international heroes all focused on them and came in to shut it down, that would have been the time for the villains in every other region of the world to make their moves. Slipping into governments that don't have heroes watching them closely anymore. Breaking the already fragile systems of leadership around the world, and taking control of them while the heroes were not watching."

Midoriya shook his head, shaking off the surprise of Mongoloid and the League's plans that Zach was saying like he knew it was true. "Governments aren't that easy to-"

"King corrupted the Russian government at its highest levels, easily. His attempted takeover of the Russian government started the day of the Lifebringer Incident, kidnapping the SOQUOC and his family who were saved by Mother Russia and other Russian heroes," Midoriya's eyes shot open huge as he remembered their homeroom teacher at the time having disappeared to go deal with this. His eyes shook as Zach continued in a way that made Midoriya stare at him in disbelief, "...But not before the SOQUOC was blackmailed and corrupted, and over the next year he would help them corrupt more and more of the government until Russia was nearly completely under King's control."

"You think you know how bad things were? You think you can judge me for the things I've done?" Zach asked it and ground his teeth in anger, though defensively as he thought about the way Midoriya was looking at him before that did have him nervous inside as much as he was hiding it. "France and China? The arms' race that never happened. And it would have! If that nuke went off in Paris and the Chinese took the blame. If France built up weapons with the backing of their allies who wouldn't be able to tell them not to after what happened, and then those allies wouldn't just ignore it but would do it themselves too once China and its allies built up. Heroes would start focusing on each other and trying to negotiate for peace, and the villains would again have their chance to move in! So many times!" Zach yelled it and balled his fists as he called out, "Weakening Yemen so they could slip in, and-" _Even Japan! Never tell anyone about the Sports Festival, but it's true! EVEN HERE!_

"War was possible anywhere. It went on, _everywhere._ " Zach said it and started panting slowly with his chest heaving as he finished. _What am I doing?! I never wanted to tell you any of this! The more I tell you the more likely it is that you stop me, I've always known that! And yet I keep coming and talking about more knowing this? Why?!_ Zach stopped himself with his internal shouting and just slowed his panting while watching Midoriya's shocked expression shifting backwards.

The U.A. student's hands that opened up at his sides shook for a few seconds. His fingers started to curl then straightened out, then all of them curled back into fists and his uncertain gaze narrowed back on his former classmate before him. The tension in the air was thick despite Zach's defense. Both of them looked at each other, knowing that what had been said could not be unsaid, and that it did change things. "You use those things, to defend your actions on a broader scale," Midoriya countered in a low voice. "But the individual worst things you've aren't justified by-"

"They were!" Zach snapped back. "Not, always," he added with his voice lowering back down too, but his expression rose with a look denying Midoriya's accusatory voice. "But I did terrible things and was still at a disadvantage because the lengths I would go to weren't nearly as far as what my enemies were willing to do."

"They're not supposed to be!" Midoriya shouted back, his voice raising louder this time. "You don't fight evil with evil!"

"You fight fire with fire," Zach countered.

"No you don't!" Midoriya exclaimed frustratedly. "You use water to put out fires. Water and fire. Complete opposites. That's what we're supposed to be!"

"And when using water doesn't work?" Zach began softer. "Firefighters will often resort to using fire themselves." Zach glared into Midoriya's eyes and spoke in a firm voice unwavering despite Deku's heroic glare back at him, "If the inferno rages too out of control for water to handle, they will set their own fires in front of it to help put that bigger one out. They still use water at the same time, but having their own fire helps when things rage out of control-"

"And that's what you were," Midoriya said. His expression did not change though as he kept glaring forward at Zach, and he ground his teeth but then continued with the metaphor, "But if that smaller fire they started to help them, got out of control itself, it's also their job to put that one out too."

"I wasn't out of control-"

"You just told me you couldn't count how many people you've killed!"

"I can't! And that's fucking horrible!" Zach yelled right back. "And I tried so hard never to reach that point, but I- I was pushed too far! I saw too much and, and it numbed me-" Zach cut himself off and his head pulled down in an even more frustrated way. _I'll never be able to convince him. I'm doing the opposite with every word out of my mouth._ "I couldn't handle it all, so I numbed myself to it."

"You don't get to do that!" Midoriya scolded, his voice louder and his eyes so angry at the self-pitying look on Zach's face. "You don't get to just stop feeling bad for killing-"

"To all of it!" Zach yelled back, raising his head with his eyes so full of fury but also a terror that flashed in them as those words came out of his mouth. "Not just the people I killed, the people I hurt, the ones I terrified, my friends- dying every day in front of me. Screaming. In my arms. And the things I saw! You don't understand!" Zach called it out and looked so angry even as his eyes got wetter. "When I did all that dark stuff that was so terrible, I had to numb myself, and the things didn't even affect me-"

As Zach's voice was starting to settle Midoriya yelled out, "Stop that! You're trying to use this excuse that thinking about this stuff would hurt too much, but it's supposed to hurt!" Midoriya yelled it and threw his arms up in front of him while looking at Zach so frustratedly that he did not know something so simple. "When you do bad things it's supposed to feel bad, and that feeling is what keeps you from doing worse and worse things!"

Zach pulled his head back, and Midoriya glared into his eyes while raising his voice more, "You justify your actions by pointing to end results, but once you become the kind of person who does that, then you can start doing more and more terrible things and telling yourself over and over that it's alright and it's good even when it's not."

"I know it wasn't good, and they aren't justified but- no! They are. They were-"

"They're not!" Midoriya called back, his expression turning more desperate as Zach used the present tense naturally and had to correct himself into the past. "You have to understand that! Please Zach, you have to realize that the way you did things was so wrong, because I can see you still doing things like that. You still do horrible things and you just, push away the pain of what you're doing."

Zach shook his head, his eyes clenching harder as every word Midoriya said to him made too much sense that it was getting harder and harder to keep it up. "As soon as I accept that pain though," Zach began. He cut himself off, then hissed, "It's just added to the pile, and I can't just- It's too much." He rose his eyes up and looked with eyes getting so tired, and he said in a voice losing its emphasis, "All the bad. It was too horrible-"

"I know!" Midoriya yelled back as he was starting to lose Zach here. Zach's face flinched, and Midoriya grit his teeth but shouted at him despite the look in Zach's eyes, "It was horrible, and terrible, and you saw monstrous things and did some of those things yourself!" Deku shook his head and snapped, "But you can't just ignore them and keeping adding more on the pile like that makes it okay! You can't say that because of all the stuff that happened to you and around you that you just can't think about horrible stuff anymore-"

Zach's teeth clenched and he finally snapped back at the hero in front of him, "You don't know. You- You don't know how horrible the things in my head are." Zach's face twitched and his right hand curled all its fingers in when he stuttered on a word. He held his mouth shut though after he spoke, and Midoriya balled his fists much tighter than his former classmate's.

"It doesn't matter," Midoriya pushed. Zach flinched again, but Midoriya pushed even harder, "Because the fact that you can forget things like that leads you to make these bad decisions over and over again!"

"I don't forget them! But, the reason I had to numb myself to it, the reason I can't really think about the bad! It's because when I do open up that box it'll make me think of everything," Zach's eyes trembled and his face scrunched up as his hands flinched at his sides more and more, curling tighter each time they started to. "And in there the worst things are worse than you could imagine-"

"That's not a good reason!" Midoriya yelled back. "You can't just say that you're the only one who knows how horrible those things are, so that makes you exempt from feeling bad about what you've done!" As much as it hurt watching as Zach's face flooded with guilt, and panic, and despair and rage all at once, the look of twisted insanity only made Midoriya that much more sure of what he was doing. "You're not allowed to just ignore everything in your past because of some horrible incidents-"

"It was worse than just 'horrible,' Midoriya." Zach said it with his voice coming out as a breath, cracking even at that low volume. "There aren't words to describe! You- you couldn't imagine-"

"I can!" Midoriya countered back louder than Zach with his shakier voice. "I know you saw really, really bad stuff. I know!"

"YOU DON'T KNOW!" Zach screamed, his voice louder than any of them had gotten so far and so loud it cut through the forest and cut a silence between them. Zach's eyes darkened so much and his lips curled down as his glared angrily into Deku's eyes. "You… you couldn't… It was worse, than _I_ could imagine." Zach tilted his head to the side, his eyelids squinting even with that look of Death in his eyes, still his expression changed to fill Midoriya with a new kind of dread that went along with those words.

"Do you understand that? Worse than _I_ could imagine. And I could imagine a whole lot, Midoriya," Zach said it in a high-pitched voice and tears slipped out of both eyes and trailed down his face. "But time and time again I was shocked and my mind was blown by the level of cruelty and insanity I saw out there- but even then! Even after I saw all that, even after I had lost countless friends and killed so many people! I still couldn't even _fathom_ \- I couldn't, I couldn't _comprehend_ what I saw-" Zach's eyes were twitching, and he clenched them shut before trying to open them and only managing to squint them open blurry and full of water. His teeth bared so furiously and in sheer agony that spread over his face, "Even then! After I had seen worse things than anyone else in the world! I couldn't _imagine_ anything like what I saw in Vir-"

Zach's eyes shot wide then squinted, and his left hand reached up and grabbed at the side of his head. "It was, the worst thing in the world," he pushed it out of clenched teeth, though he lowered his hand and his breathing started to calm down.

Midoriya had stood there in shock for a few seconds there as he watched Zach losing it and talking about something, some singular thing, that gave him chills through his whole body. At the sight of him calming himself down though that easily, despite what he was just talking about, anger spread across Midoriya's expression in as much an instant flip as Zach did intentionally. "Don't stop," Midoriya scolded. Zach looked back in his eyes and his expression was flat and unresponsive to Midoriya's harshest glare. "You can't stop thinking. You can't decide not to remember, and you won't unless you tell me."

"Midoriya," Zach started.

"I mean it, Zach. Tell me-"

"The worst thing I could ever do to you," Zach started. "Would be telling you what happened there. I- I haven't ever done something so horrible to you, as what telling you what happened there-"

"I want to know," Midoriya countered his friend whose head started tilting back more. Zach's eyes shook but stayed so dark even as Midoriya stated firmly, "I want you to tell me." _Because you need to remember._

"No," Zach said. "You really don't." His stoney expression did not falter this time, and Midoriya's face shook with anger instead at Zach's look like he was the one in the right for being like that.

"How do you not get this?" Midoriya asked in frustration. "That's just another excuse you came up with," Deku explained while trying to make his anger turn more scolding though it was getting difficult. Seeing the twitch on Zach's face though made him continue faster, "You were getting close to actually thinking about it, something that hurt you, so you just decided not to!" Midoriya rose his voice louder but there was a plea in the shout that had Zach's fists shaking at his sides, his stoic face scrunching up as Midoriya yelled, "And that's something you do too much! Something dangerous that I can't allow to-"

"A place! Where people are _born_ , _live_ , and _die!_ All in darkness!" Zach screamed it and he brought his left and right hands up to his chest to clench at his heart that felt like it was ripping open. His eyes were massive and he yelled at the boy in front of him, "It was the worst thing I had ever seen! And I- I couldn't even comprehend what I was looking at. I ah, uh," tears spilled from Zach's eyes as he sobbed uncontrollably but spoke through it anyway, "Miles below the surface. A place so big I couldn't- and it was- ahh, AHhhh. SSsss," he sucked in breath through his teeth, but then he gasped it all out as he failed at getting a grip on himself.

"And when I saw- when I grabbed this head scientist next to the computers where I was watching the- the videos!" Zach tightened both hands into his sweatshirt and shirt below so hard that he ripped through them. Midoriya's eyes darted down as he realized how hard Zach was clenching as his shirts started ripping in his grasp, but he snapped his eyes back up to Zach's unhinged ones as he gasped out, "I asked that man, I- I grabbed him by the collar. Me! Someone who he knew had seen more horrible things than anyone else, in the whole world. And he watched as I- I asked him… 'What is this place?'"

The voice Zach used as he said it made Midoriya take a full step back from him. The tone of that voice, so beyond shocked it shook him at his core, and made his own eyes water as he watched Zach's face looking like he had completely lost it. Zach lifted the corners of his lips, and he gasped out a laugh, as tears spilled down his face. He opened his mouth and it twisted back down at the corners, his expression so horrified as his eyes glazed over, because all Zach could see was the man he continued describing. "And when I asked him that," Zach's teeth clenched and he had to close his eyes while more tears pushed out. "This guy who I thought was a monster, who I couldn't even think of as human- I watched- I stared into his eyes and watched as he lost his mind."

Zach's eyes clenched harder but more tears pushed out anyway, "Hearing _me_ say that to _him?_ Whatever thin lining he used to tell himself that he was a good person. Whatever reasons he had or ability he had to tell himself that all that bad was for a good cause, for the advancement of medicine, or the benefit of humanity as a whole!" Zach called it out in despair, and he yelled, "It broke! He knew I had seen worse than anyone and yet _this?!_ This was by far the worst thing and- and he started laughing. His eyes shot open huge in shock, and then his mind shattered, and this man I held by the collar started to laugh hysterically. I dropped him and stepped back, because I had never looked a man in his eyes as he lost his mind before! And I watched as he dug his fingers into his eyes that couldn't stop crying as he laughed so madly I couldn't think of any worse sound to hear- until I heard their screams! Those people who didn't even know, what being people means- what, the world was! This place they were born in, raised in- and they had never even seen the light before so to see the surface?!"

Zach's face enraged and depressed, his lips twisted up and down, and he grabbed at the sides of his head as he lost it. "I've never thought about-" he started screaming. "I had to stay strong, for them! For everyone else! And I knew if I thought about this place I'd never-" Zach dug his fingers into the sides of his head and screamed out with his head leaning forward, his eyes shaking as he looked into Midoriya's, "People who were treated like lab rats! Animals for their entire lives!"

"Wh-" Midoriya could barely find air to breathe, but he finally managed out, "Where?" He gulped in his dry throat then took in more breath and asked, "Did you destroy the place doing it? The ones responsible-"

"How could I have destroyed the U.S. government?!" Zach asked, and his eyes filled with so much more despair at the way his friend took a step backwards with his face twisting in too recognizable a way. "That's right," Zach hissed out, his head that he leaned forward pulling back. He stumbled a step back on his own and then leaned back against a tree behind him. "The U.S. fucking government. A secret science division sure, but people at the top knew. Or they at least knew what their end goals were for the place, that they would allow it. So they could develop super soldiers for a powerful army to not have to rely on heroes. That was just where some of the funding came from though. While some of the scientists were doing private research to try and figure out the best strains of injections they would sell to the most extremely rich who knew about the program… But the people they tested on. People who were born in their labs, because they were simply experiments, and they were treated like nothing more than tools."

"What are you talking about?" Midoriya whispered, unable to wrap his mind around any of this actually existing, yet finding it impossible to tell Zach he was lying when it took him this long to get Zach to start talking about it. _This couldn't have happened. Something that big- and if he destroyed it then everyone should know! Your story doesn't make sense! And, and something like this- it couldn't have…_

"The first thing I saw down there," Zach started back. His voice was sad but he looked into Midoriya's eyes and saw that despite all the denial there was willingness to listen, and to even possibly accept. "It was a genetic project they were doing to try and pick and choose what Quirks went to what people. Predetermination of Quirks before birth. They wanted to, inherently change what Quirks are by going around the natural methods to- summarily, they wanted to control Quirks. In order to completely control Quirks though, they needed to fully understand everything about them and every possible way they could take control of biology and alter nature to their whims. Humans can't decide. We have limitations as to what we are able to do to find out if that statement is true. They decided that those limits didn't matter. Even their own moral limitations, they all just, found a way past them just like they got past the legal ones."

Zach explained the reasoning for the first thing he saw, and yet he knew he was trying so hard not to actually think about what it was itself. His dark eyes lowered from Midoriya's as he did not want to look in them as he went on, "Someone could theoretically be born with any kind of Quirk, if injected with certain drugs during pregnancy. That's a long-term experiment though. Not only do they have to have the pregnant mothers, but they also have to observe the children through childhood in the strictest conditions to give validity to their experiment. And they need many subjects. And they need many trials… They had to make sure the conditions were right through childhood, through pregnancy, through adolescence for those who succeeded in order for them to breed the next batches as was determined by the scientists could hold potential for…" Zach trailed off and tears dripped off his nose as he stared down at the floor below him. "The environment was darkness. Testing if, environmental factors could influence the development of a Quirk. If they could create someone whose body determined their Quirk based off of an environment, then that person's genetic makeup would, I guess, have the potential for selective Quirk altering. I don't know. I don't know why they would- I need to justify it with reasons, because I can't-"

His face no longer looked as twisted and scrunched up as before. The wall was down and Zach was over it, but the despair on his face was so profound as he rose it even just a little to glance at Midoriya again. "Sometimes it didn't work, and if the children showed random, unique Quirks, they were put down as failures. I found the files, watched all the videos, and it was going on for _decades._ " Tears fell from Zach's eyes, and they dropped from Midoriya's not a second later as he believed what his friend just said. "No one stopped it," Zach whispered. "No one could. Heroes work for the government. I- I killed Stain, because I thought Stain was a monster who was wrong in the way he did things and that his fame was too… But the idea of the government paying for heroes, that heroes can only be such if they work for and are authorized by a government, it's idiotic to me. I've seen corruption across every continent. In _all_ the countries of the world. Corruption, and evil," he whispered while Midoriya stared back at him right in his depressed eyes. "And things that only villains should do. Yet the leaders of huge armies, people who tell their nation's heroes what is right and what is wrong, what if they're not heroes themselves?"

Zach's voice that wondered that was so soft, and pained, and searching for an answer because he had none. He sniffled in once then started again with a look to the sky and away from Midoriya, "I did destroy that science division. And I saved the children who were down there, and people who were older and had spent their entire lives in labs. Clones, a room full of people all made up of the same potentially great DNA. All of them also living in complete darkness. And I-" Zach cut himself off. _"AHHHHHH!"_ _ **"WHa- AEEEAAEEEaaa! "OOOOOAAAAAHHHH!"**_ He clenched his eyes shut as screams started to fill his ears. "But the things I saw that day," he continued whispering.

"All the videos, including the most recent from only a few days before where- where one of the girls had developed an interesting Quirk. It was amazing, and unique, but not what the scientists were looking for. Nothing involving flames or light or anything that could have, _saved_ uh her," Zach gasped in and his breathing got more ragged. "They walked her down a bright hallway that blinded her," a tear fell from his right eye and down his cheek, and Midoriya could see in Zach's eyes he was watching this at that very moment. "…And the guy held her hand as they walked to a panel in the wall he opened up and told her to climb up into. He put her inside and turned on the incinerator-" Zach could barely talk, his voice getting lower and more broken up as he tried his best not to just break down and sob. But he snapped his head up and yelled at his friend still in so much disbelief, "And that wasn't the worst! This place worse than you can imagine, there were things, but the screams! The screams…"

"Zach, Zach it's-" Midoriya's eyes shot open so wide and he stepped forward quickly, shortening the gap between them.

"None of those people deserved to be in that hell- Hell?" Zach asked it and laughed, and his eyes refocused on Midoriya for a moment as he said, "That wasn't Hell, because that's where sinners go! So why did those people who had never done anything wrong, those innocent people who didn't deserve, to be treated like animals! War doesn't discriminate. It kills women and children, the innocent and the guilty alike, war is worse than hell, but this place didn't even fit with everything else. I saw- Exodus needed time off! The hardest men I ever knew, couldn't keep it together this time. And I slaughtered those scientists, and we had lost countless friends the _day before_ this in Wampajawa- I wouldn't sleep for days! But it wasn't the people I killed, or the men I lost, that haunts my every waking second as hard as I try to block it all out! It's not what's driven me mad! It's those people! It's their _screams_ that keep me up at night! Those screams-"

"Zach come on," Midoriya tried again, his voice raising louder this time than the half-plea he did before where he was still unsure if he wanted Zach to stop. "Please just, it's okay." _No, he has to- he doesn't! I shouldn't force him to. I can't anymore,_ Midoriya couldn't look at the look on Zach's face for another second as he brought up those "screams" again. "Don't think about that anymore," Midoriya said, his own voice cracking as he watched his friend's distraught face.

Zach's face shifted and his eyes locked with Midoriya's again. His distraught expression changed, straightening out with his breath coming in for a few steady breaths that he desperately needed. "Right after Wampajawa, and just losing so many of my closest friends, and I went there afterwards first to start off the world loop because just what I had heard about that place was enough to make me cross the world to stop it as soon as possible. And in the Siege of Wampajawa where I lost dozens of comrades, where we all should have died and almost did, through that lab where I killed the scientists who to me must have looked like what those test subjects had always looked like to them. And then the very next day was the Tusukan Desert. When no one else could handle it, when everyone wanted to sit out and do nothing and they were all lost in thought- I kept fighting and trying to get them all to so we could keep our minds off, but Tama and Grabble were soldiers! They didn't need much time and, and they were ready to fight but I brought them into an ambush. They were with me from before I even started the Army, and I got them killed. For Grabble it was his second time but Tama, they saw me trying to revive her so they- they ripped her body apart to stop me from bringing her back."

Zach spoke faster and faster, and the whole time Midoriya stared at him in shock at a full stop mentally other than listening. The speed at which Zach had told him he was moving had never before made sense to him, until now. As Zach continued speaking about one period of nonstop consciousness that spanned days of as much nonstop horror, "And I knew I couldn't die. Because if I just let myself die there because it was all I wanted to do, then Darling would kill herself, and the Army would fall apart as they all told me the last time I died. On that operating table after the Pit, they told me that without me they were all lost," Zach said it with his lip quivering and his eyes trembling at the memory of how he had felt in that desert. "And I had just seen the worst in humanity," a tear fell from his left eye and slowly rolled down the side of his face. "And I _massacred_ those people. I couldn't hold back, and after a few kills I was _gone_. I went mad in that desert, as the sandstorm engulfed us and I- I couldn't breathe. I was drowning in Death as it took over and-" Zach snapped his head up again, and in regret and shame he yelled, "And I let it!"

He stared up at what should have been a blue sky, but it was a forest canopy instead that he lowered his gaze from to not see a bloody desert in front of him. He blinked a few times, and he rubbed over his face and eyes with his right sleeve for a few seconds. "I didn't feel tired after that. I didn't think I'd ever feel tired again. I didn't think I'd ever feel human again. After that, I _ordered_ people back into the fight and to missions instead of asking. I got them refocused on the world loop, but then the R&D division got wiped out by Fergus, and he was possessing us and on the ship somewhere so we needed to finish him now instead of later. The world loop again got interrupted, as we hunted down Mr. Fergus' real body. And I killed that old man, as I fought a war on a hundred different fronts, and I was losing my mind and my sanity. And on that day of several days, in the peak of the war," Zach rose his voice and he took in a short breath and called out, "Yeah! I lost track of how many people I've killed. And I couldn't even dwell on it, because I had to move faster. I couldn't wallow in the fact that I didn't know how many people's lives I had ended, because I had the entire world resting on my shoulders, and every decision I made saved or damned thousands of lives. So yeah, I couldn't think about it. I couldn't sit around thinking of how bad everything was, because I'd never get back up and keep fighting. I'd have never been able to find the strength to move on."

He paused for a few seconds, and then he said in a softer and self-reflective tone, "And because I couldn't spend the time to process it, I left it all to me in the future to deal with it. Because I believed that I would die out there, no matter how much I knew I couldn't die. I wouldn't let myself die yet I knew I would, so even though a part of me knew that I was dooming a future version of me to be fucked when it all came back, I guess, I just hoped I'd be dead before that happened. Before this. Because the future is now, and I was just trying so hard to push it farther back," he admitted it to the curly-haired boy in front of him as he looked inside at the reasons he was trying so hard in the first place. "But I don't think I'm going to die anytime soon. And the wall already cracked when Darling showed up, but now it's down and I have to live with, with all of it. And that's a good thing. It's the safe thing," Zach assured with a nod at Deku that he was right, even though his lips were pursed and his eyes shaky though holding back any more tears.

 _You're right. I was right. Was that really what I wanted though?_ Midoriya's expression was conflicted even as he gave a small nod back at Zach. _Is that why I pushed you even though I had already decided, what I was going to do? I know that it's safer now, but it's safest if I stop you here for good._ Midoriya's face scrunched up for a moment, then he looked away to his right with his face even more conflicted. _But if I could be sure of his hero mentality? I could accept that, because Zach still hasn't done anything since when I first decided. All he's done is tell me more of the truth from before, and I always knew those things were possible. It's why I never asked the question of how many people have you killed. I never asked, because I believed the answer would turn me against you. But if I already knew that, then I was making the active choice to let you remain! I was already doing it, so why couldn't I continue?!_

"You still agree though, that those things were wrong," Midoriya started up slowly. "You know that killing people-"

"For any reason, is wrong."

"And it's not acceptable to choose doing the wrong things," Midoriya continued quickly, but this time there was no immediate response. This time Zach did not finish the line for him. "As a hero, you cannot do the 'wrong' things whether or not you understand that what you're doing is wrong."

"Yet with Stain-"

"We were wrong!" Midoriya called out as Zach brought this up once again. "Not just in fighting him, but covering it up too!" Zach opened his eyes wider and stared at Midoriya with a surprised look that Midoriya looked away for a moment at the sight of. He looked back though with a steady gaze and agreed with what he just said, "I mean it. Because now it's a conspiracy. All those times you say that as long as no one knows, it's not bad, that's wrong. There's always the possibility of people finding out. And the longer the lie remains," Midoriya shook his head and saw a short-haired brunette standing in front of him, so much pain on her face as she called him a liar. He rose his gaze back to Zach's and said strongly, "The worse it is when that lie is finally revealed."

"Unless the lie never is," Zach countered, not accepting Midoriya's way of looking at it like it was an inevitability. "All the bad that would have come from you accepting credit for beating Stain-"

"Is comparable to all the bad that would happen if everyone finds out now, or in a few years when we're all pro heroes. If people look up to us then, thinking we always do what's right, then what will matter to them won't be that we defeated a villain but that we committed conspiracy against a country of people we're meant to tell the truth to and protect, breaking the very rules we enforce on them. And what's worse is that it was the government who pushed it on us, so it's not just heroes lying to them but a show that the Police Force would let things slide more for heroes, give us preferential treatment compared to if it had just been non-hero students who acted. Or maybe they just let it go because we won, while everyone would point to people who lose and are punished, and it would be horrible! It scares me knowing that this lie could one day cause so much damage-"

"It would only cause that damage, if someone like you were to feel too guilty about it and go rat themselves out," Zach said. His voice was lower, and Midoriya's eyes shot open wide this time at the wording of that. "I may have agreed with you if you did it from the start. Admittedly, it's like what I said about you telling everyone about One For All. You could do it, you could have with Stain too, but with Stain you had a choice to either accept punishment and credit, or keep quiet like you did. No one knows that that choice existed with One For All. No one is currently under some false belief of what your Quirk is, because you've never gone out there and fully described it to everyone. The way people look at you would only change for the people close to you who you've been lying to, while everyone would look at All Might differently if you reveal your Quirk's true nature."

Midoriya got a frustrated look on his face that Zach would suggest that again even though he was saying how it would change how people look at All Might. The frustration was compounded more with the point on Stain though, as Zach continued, "But _you_ made the decision not to take the credit for Stain. You, and Iida, and Todoroki… and I knew about it too, so I'm part of that conspiracy. Admittedly no one would look at me differently," Zach added with a nod of his head to the right. "But you guys, they'd wonder why the newest heroes they all look up to so much have been lying to them from the very start, from their first years at U.A. high school. It doesn't matter if it's now or five years from now. Some people, will still look at you differently. I think Midoriya, that once you make the decision that's it. If you don't make the active choice to do things a certain way then you won't get blamed for it. And you never chose to keep your Quirk a secret from the public because the public never asked. They don't know your real strength yet because you haven't flown around like All Might stopping all the crimes easily. They'll ask though, and when they do that's when the decision is made. And that's a decision you have to stick to forever after that moment," Zach said it and Midoriya felt a deep sense of dread inside him just at the idea of that happening one day, most likely a day coming very soon.

"Every time we get started on you," Midoriya started. Midoriya narrowed his eyebrows in towards his nose and glared at his old classmate in front of him, "On the way you do things, you bring it back and compare it to me." Zach's expression flattened and it got a little darker at the angry way Midoriya started looking at him. "And I admit there are a couple of things I have to think about. Mistakes, maybe, I don't know. But stop turning the tables like my side is just as even as yours. "There are a couple of things I've done wrong since we started at U.A. together, but I accept that I did those things wrong and want to do better next time. I want to make sure I'm doing it right, always."

"It isn't a clear line," Zach started back. "You say 'maybe' and you 'don't know,' because it isn't that easy. It isn't just what's right and wrong, our actions aren't at least!" He called that out when Midoriya opened his mouth to counter, and Zach snapped at him, "How often are you faced with hard choices where one option is easily the better and more right of the two? It's not a hard decision when that's the case, but the world isn't black and white. The line isn't-"

"It has to be," Midoriya countered firmly back at him. "Staying on the light side of the line, is what makes us heroes."

"Then what about all the people heroes can't save, because of the gray?" Zach demanded to know the answer, leaning forward and glaring harder at his friend as he asked. "Because heroes have to wait until the incident has already started to go in? Because they need permits to save a little girl?! Because heroes have rules?!"

"Without rules," Midoriya yelled back. "Who gets to decide what's right and what's wrong? YOU?!"

"I was never deciding what's right and wrong. It's not something people can decide for themselves. Right and wrong are pretty fucking clear things. If I see people who don't deserve to be hurting, in pain because of the actions of someone else, then that person is at fault." Zach said that and guilt covered his expression as much as it stayed strong, though he knew enough people who matched that definition where he was the one at fault.

Midoriya calmed down a little at that definition as it was not sounding wrong to him, but he continued, "The rules are in place to decide those things. They're a guideline showing us for the times when we might forget or think that we can decide what's right on our own. The clear things, you can forget in the moment."

"Those rules don't cover everything," Zach countered, and Midoriya's face scrunched back up frustratedly at the response. "They don't even touch on speed. Speed doesn't matter when it comes to following protocol, after all. Because following the rules to the letter means taking so much time to let people suffer as long as you make sure you do things the right way. Those innocent people suffer, from the wrongs that fill the world, and what about those people who are suffering because of our rules? What about helping them? The ones who suffer more than anyone else, who laws and heroes can't reach."

"Heroes can always reach," Midoriya retorted.

"They couldn't reach that lab in Virginia," Zach countered. He said it and his expression got darker as Midoriya shut his mouth. "For entire generations they couldn't reach them... They couldn't reach, millions of people."

"I reached. And I, gave heroes the credit. I kept my involvement secret," he said that almost sounding regretful for it now. He shook his head though, then he looked at Midoriya looking dark in a way Midoriya was unnerved at the sight of. It was calm and collected unlike he felt at the moment. Despite watching Zach's face contort in horrifying ways not ten minutes earlier, Midoriya could hardly imagine that being the same intense and focused person in front of him right now.

"But what I did was necessary. As a person it's damning, but I was an ideal. I was bigger than myself…"

Zach said that too thoughtfully, and the pit in Midoriya's stomach grew much bigger. _This is doing the opposite of reassuring me! Are you, thinking about how you're still like that? Because Lifebringer, is bigger than one person?! That's what's going through your head!_

"Lifebringer, has to do things the right way," Zach assured Midoriya whose reasons for staring at him like that he understood. "That's what that symbol has to represent. It's the reason for coming back and showing everyone Lifebringer isn't a villain. I have to, be better this time. Not destroyed to the point where I'd do anything. That also means not doing anything to make sure that Lifebringer thing works out too. I can't, _force_ Lifebringer to work out like I did with Death. As Death, I could do things in any way that was needed to accomplish my goals. To be the ones who could _always_ reach. When others couldn't."

"You say that Lifebringer has to be better," Midoriya started in a low voice. "But you're failing at that right now." _You sound less heroic, and more defensive of what you did as Death than ever before._ Midoriya hated what caused it, but he knew it inside, _He was able to so strongly decry Death's actions before because he did not let himself remember the reasons or the outcomes but only what Death did, and how bad those actions were, and he could look back at them as a hero and say they were objectively wrong._ "Lifebringer can't defend Death, if that's-"

"I can," Zach responded. "And I will," Zach added on top of that. Midoriya stared at him with his eyes growing wider at the addition, but Zach continued with a thoughtful look away, "Heroes have done it before. It'd be hypocritical of me to be so critical of them. If someone asks Lifebringer, I might not agree with everything they 'did' but I won't decry them as terrorists. Maybe I would have before, but they're good people. Every one of them fighting for the world more than any hero. And fuck if I'm going to push any more negativity towards them, which could result in more heroes going after them, and hurting my friends who can't ever receive the credit but could at least use a break."

Midoriya ground his teeth, but a breath slipped out and he just stared at Zach in a moment of awe at the decisions he made in seconds. Zach looked back at his more indecisive friend who knew that he was being too hesitant there, and Midoriya bit down again before saying, "And what's going to happen when things push you too far here? When Lifebringer is pushed, in the same ways you were back as Death when the war got that bad?"

"Things won't get that bad again," Zach argued with a shake of his head.

"You don't know that. With the League still around, and so many people you care about," Midoriya hated himself for saying it but he gave Zach a harsher look despite the anger on Zach's own face at what Midoriya was suggesting could happen to those people. Deku said even stronger when he saw Zach's reaction, "Things here could get that bad-

"They couldn't," Zach replied darkly, his voice scratching deeply for a moment that made Midoriya shut up and open his eyes wide. It was not a slip up on Zach's part though, but intentional to make Midoriya be quiet so he could speak uninterrupted. "Because every time I took a life, it made me stronger. I'm not talking about a boost, Midoriya. That's not what that means." Zach stared into Midoriya's eyes and deep within them with his expression so intense and calm despite what he was saying that it had Deku frozen speechless. "Like I was saying before, it means that when I killed Spinner at the Sports Festival, I was stronger at Breakneck's lab. It means that after a burst of six lives at once, what I could do with Death was completely different. Maybe not the level of what it was on Trigger, but six more human lives was much more a base-Death boost than what I showed from the immediate boost of killing all the animals in that truck."

Zach narrowed his eyes more and said in an ominous tone, "I didn't know my power enough to realize the difference back with Shindeki Buda and Compress. But at that Trigger lab, I found I could fall from higher with less damage done to me, and I could force out more Death or have it cover more places, and I could fight for longer. Each time I killed a person using Death, Midoriya, I could notice a jump, a big jump in strength. A power-up, that allowed me to do more, a lot more. And if that's from just one person," his teeth bared for a second, but he got the message across and did not need to finish to his friend who already knew how many people he had killed. _Too many._ "And I didn't want to get any stronger, Midoriya. I told you I don't consider getting stronger increasing the strength of Death, because I didn't want to think of it that way and give myself any reason to kill. Yet as hard as I tried not to kill, and despite the fact that whenever I had the choice I killed without using it, so as not to let it grow stronger! I still wound up killing way too many with it. It's part of the reason I didn't want to kill Amaterasu, and showed her my mercy instead-"

"Mercy?" Midoriya gasped out at his friend who had told him about her. "That's really, what you consider mercy?"

"Yes," Zach replied. "It was," he added, putting it into the past tense but only as an aside. He shook his head at the shocked teen in front of him, and he said while looking down at him, "You can't even imagine the kinds of things I've seen. The things that could push me that far, so don't say they could happen here too." The look of pain and disgust on Midoriya's face did not make Zach feel bad about anything he just said anymore. He just glared harder and stepped forward closer to Midoriya upon seeing that look that he felt was to make him feel guilty. "If what I just said was my mercy," Zach leaned in and he asked in an intense but pained voice, "Then what do you think I could be capable of, when I choose not to show mercy?"

"You're talking like a villain."

"That's because you push me to act like one," Zach retorted immediately to Midoriya's dark statement. His friend's eyes opened wider again, his fists that had clenched so tightly there loosening just as fast. Zach glared harder at him, and he said angrily though there was a pained tone in his voice, "That's because you've yet to understand something, Midoriya. I don't want to fight you. You get all antagonistic against me over and over, and now you have even more reason to, but I need you to know this. I would never attack you. I would never, choose to fight you. But if you come after me…"

Zach's eyes darkened worse than Midoriya had ever seen them before. He started breathing faster at Zach's serious expression and eyes full of rage. "If you come for me, I won't sit there and let you. I won't just take it sitting down." Zach turned his back and started walking off into the forest away from Midoriya, "So if you're thinking about telling me when you change your mind, this is your warning. I will defend myself. If you come after me," Zach shifted his head sideways and glared back while still walking. "I will crush you."

His legs bent, and black wings flapped off his back ten meters long to either side of him. Those black wings slammed down into the ground and left marks of black where they hit, while Zach shot up through a gap in the branches above and high into the sky looking like a giant black bird. He flew away from Nagatomi without waiting to see if Midoriya would try to stop him.

Back in the forest, Deku took a step after where Zach just shot up into the sky. His hand rose up and his mouth opened to yell out, then his legs started to bend only to give up on that halfway too. _If I fly up now, I don't know if there's anything to talk about after what he just said._

 _Why did I say it like that?_ Zach flew off with his expression lowering from the hardened and convicted one from a moment ago. He bit down and scolded himself, _Saying it like that was ensuring that he was going to have to come after me! And why did I warn him in the first place at all? Why would I?_ The angry look turned more thoughtful for a second, then he frowned deeper at the answer he came up with, _Something inside me is changing, not that that's a bad thing. Before I would have gone back to Tartaros without a fight, but I know how much damage that would cause. I can't- then why tell Midoriya?_

Zach shook his head but got a darker look on it still, _I might come to regret that. I'm already starting to… But a piece of me also still thinks that if Midoriya decides to come after me, that's what should be done and I should accept it. I know it would be right, but I know that not everything that's right has to happen. Shit- no, not shit. The part of me that would accept your decision, is fading,_ Zach hummed to himself while flapping behind him again. _I don't actually care though. That's odd, but I guess it's less about me changing and more just that I realized things I didn't before. Midoriya doesn't always know what's right. Maybe, I was always wrong to accept that, and only now am I ready to do whatever I have to. Maybe… Just change your mind. Come._

Midoriya stepped back, and he leaned against a tree behind him and then hunched his body forward. He put his hands down on his knees while panting over and over, _All those things- Focus! What he just said- all those dark things, he wouldn't have said any of them unprompted, or even just pushed lightly. I thought that it was that insanity and his broken mind that made him do those things, but it's those things he did that made his mind break like it did, and they really are so much worse than I could…_

Midoriya brought his right hand to his head and put it over the front of his face with a small gap between his face and his palm. "It's impossible," he whispered, his voice in disbelief. He couldn't believe Zach and yet knew it was more than just a truth Zach believed. _He stopped things worse than- than I ever could now that those things are all destroyed._ Midoriya's fingers curled into his head more, his eyes wide and shaking as he stared into his palm. _And yet I know what I'm going to have to do!_ Midoriya swung his hand down and stepped forward away from the tree, but he pulled his head back and his legs shook as he could not decide whether to bend them or leave them straight. _But…_

 _Come after me already!_ Zach yelled it in his head, pushing down the other thoughts telling him that was a stupid thing to hope for. _Damn it! Just come after me and finish this! I gave you every reason to right there. So let's see who would win. Why? If you do, I won't be able to stay. I'd have to leave. Unless I acted like you had no proof. I could just fight it out in court, or- or not let myself get arrested in the first place! You'd have to bring in other heroes, and I'd face off against all the heroes of Japan. I could still win- Fuck. I'd fight all the heroes of Japan? That's what a villain would do! That, would get the Army of Death to come after me. I could take them all on too, since I never had to revive Gentle or Exodus. Stop! I could take on this whole country- Not that I've ever thought about that, until now! Damn it Midoriya, you make me think like a villain! Come chase after me so I can kick your ass for that! Come after me… Please._

No one came after Zach. Midoriya just stared up into the sky with his arms going limp down at his sides and the tension leaving his body. _But I said I was going to give Zach a chance until he messed up. Zach just defending himself or admitting those horrible things isn't Zach doing more! Even right there, it sounded more like he wanted me to… I don't understand. I don't know what to do. All you've done since you come back is help. Help, way more than I ever have. Stopped more villains, saved more people, and- and I know someone needs to. It's too dangerous but,_ Midoriya's eyes he rose up to the sky in a semi-confident way shook and lowered back down to the floor. _I can't do it._

 _I'm not confident enough in myself. It doesn't feel right enough for me to do it, or like I have any right to when I know nothing about the real world. I have no right, when I've… done nothing._ Midoriya tilted his head back and let out a long, heavy breath. Then, the exhaustion and self-pity on his face faded and his eyes narrowed up at the sky above. _That's no excuse, to do nothing now._

Zach flew far from Nagatomi, several hundred miles to the north before he descended below the clouds in a city having a rainstorm. Everyone had umbrellas over their heads, or hoods up with their eyes down, and Zach shot out of the air like a rocket anyway for the few who may have been looking up in that moment who could see him. He dropped between two buildings in a narrow alleyway where there were no windows on the walls on either side because the alley was too thin for there to be anything more than one side door for the one in front of him when he landed. The alley was barely his shoulder-width wide, so he came down parallel to the walls with his wings snapping straight up over him before fading.

His wings faded while he was still falling only halfway down the buildings, but he landed with his legs shrouded in darkness. He did not need to bend them on his landing as the force of the jolt hit in a moment that most of his innards flashed black too. The alley was something Zach knew to be a flaw in initial architecture when the buildings were being built. The first one behind him was put up with the second building in mind, but the designs for the second building changed to be a couple feet shorter in width than initially expected meaning the buildings were not touching at the sides. The developers who realized the mistake decided to add a door in on the building in front of him as a potential fire exit, but the alley was rarely to never used and the door was locked from the inside.

Zach put his hand forward under the old-fashioned metal handle on the doorway, and darkness came out of his palm and slid into the lock. The darkness hardened into the shape of a perfect key and turned, and Zach lifted his hand to wrap around the actual handle he pulled outwards towards him with it scraping on the floor of the alley's cracked cement. He stepped inside and grabbed a piece of plywood that was leaning up looking like it was just in the way, and he reached down and grabbed his backpack from below it that he slid his right arm into the strap of then his left after he leaned the wood back on the wall using his left hand that was not gloved but did not have fingerprints on the fake skin anyway.

He turned back around and stepped out into the alleyway that was getting wetter now as the wind had slowed down so some rain managed to fall down all the way to ground level. It was harder to stand out in the alley with his backpack on, so Zach stood diagonally in it while closing the door behind him. There was not enough width to create his wings yet either, so he jumped up and kicked his left foot into the wall, then his right on the opposite one, and he climbed up the walls to the roof of the shorter building he leapt out over with a final kick on the taller building's wall just below where its windows started. He shot horizontally over the shorter building and flapped two wings off his back down hard to shoot straight up into the sky and nearly to the dark clouds with that single flap.

As soon as he was into the clouds, an eruption of darkness blew out from his back as he lowered his legs down so the blast that came out the middle of his body sent him flying standing straight-up through the cloud. His head and legs pulled back a little as he kept shooting a stream of Death out his back to propel him through the air, but he needed to be upright like that as he swung his backpack around his front and unzipped the middle and second biggest pouch in the bag. He reached inside and took out a water bottle even while his face was already getting hit by moisture as he flew through the cloud completely masked in the air. He rose himself up until his head left the thickest part of the clouds, and he chugged some of the water then put it back into the pack he had on backwards so it was over his chest. He dug around in the second pouch some more and pulled out a protein bar and a bottle of vitamins.

 _ **"AHHHHHH! PLEASE NO!"**_ Zach swallowed two of the vitamins and then sealed the bottle back up, snapping one hand out to the side as a pill bounced out of the bottle at the last second. He caught it and slid it back inside before putting the bottle back in his bag, then he unwrapped the snack bar and put the wrapper into his bag while protecting the bar from the wind with one black hand at the end of a third arm that had emerged out of his right side under his real one. That black hand was a little bigger and kept the wind from breaking the bar, and Zach lowered his head to it and started eating with a steady look on his face. _**"What is he!?" "OH MY GOD! IT'S DEATH!" "RUUUUNNN!" "You idiots! You can't run from it!" "HE'S GOING TO KILL US ALL!" "DEMON!" Please- Please no! NO! AHHHhh-"**_

Zach shoved the rest of the food in his mouth and swung his pack back around his back after he zipped it up. "Alright," he wiped his mouth and descended back into the thicker clouds, though he noticed they were thinner where he was flying anyway. He pulled out his waterproof phone and had to pull it close to his face, while he turned his body more horizontal and replaced the beam of Death shooting out his back with more sustainable wings that wouldn't waste any Death. "Let's see," he said under his breath, his voice getting lost in the wind of how fast he was moving. _I ignored how many people I've killed for too long. I'll hit all the hospitals first, as they've all been posting about every death waiting for me. I can't leave the country so that's the wall. Can I make it around all of Japan? I have to. I have 12 hours._

 _This fucks with the plan. It's not about the big picture! Fuck the big picture, people's lives shouldn't be considered in that. Not when I have the power to save them right now._ Zach grit his teeth then shook his head with a steadier expression replacing it again, and a smile coming over his face as he started to drop through the sky. _Would be easier with my headset on but they'd know I planned to come out instead of just going to emergencies. It's stupid, when they all know anyway, but it is the excuse and I've already used it at the review. I'll just save them all for twelve hours. No one in Japan can die for half a day. Fuck the long-term, they shouldn't have to die, and I can save them._ _ **"NOOOO! AGHH- plea- NO! No no no! STAY BACK! AHHHH! EEAAAAAAAAAaahh… You… monster."**_

* * *

 **A/N Zach and Midoriya come to odds. The Tusukan Desert and what happened in Virginia are revealed, as Zach opens up the dam and let's everything flow out. Midoriya knows the horrible truth of how many people Zach's killed, and the two split on a bad note as Zach warns him about his decision not to allow himself to be captured if that time comes. Hope you enjoyed the chapter. Thanks for reading.**


	193. Chapter 193

**Disclaimer: I don't own Boku no Hero Academia**

 **Chapter 193:**

"Damn man," Kotsumura could not help himself and leaned to his left after Zach had come into the room almost right when class was going to start. The flat expression on Zach's face somehow kept anyone from saying a word to him on his way to his seat, even though they all had heard insane things that morning that added onto what they had already heard about before going to bed last night. "I saw something like 182 people you brought back-"

"206 was the final number," Zach replied, cutting off Kotsumura whose eyes widened more at the statement in such a cold and low voice. It was not happy to have brought those people back, or even upset, but just uncaring like he wanted Kotsumura to get the number right more than he was bragging about how it had been 24 people more than Keiji thought he heard. "I died two hundred and six times over the past twelve hours," Zach muttered lower, while pulling out a spiral notebook from his backpack and putting it on the desk in front of him.

"You, died-"

"That's what it feels like, every time I bring someone back," Zach said, taking out a pencil and flipping to an open page of his notebook. "All the damage done to them before and after death, and the feeling of death itself. 206 times." He looked to his right and made eye contact with Kotsumura without looking around at any of the others around the blond who were all staring at him with huge eyes too. Zach just looked in Keiji's blue eyes and said lower, "So don't bring it up again today, yeah?"

Zach looked back down at his notebook, his expression flat, not showing his exhaustion at all like he kept it out of his voice. _I should be more tired though,_ he told himself, considering he only felt as tired as he was. Hazano came in the room and Zach looked up with a look showing he was ready for the day, pencil in hand and his expression not tired or angry at all. He just looked normally towards Hazano who wondered what Sazaki must have been talking about beforehand to have every student in the class darting him strange looks and pretending they weren't.

 _I knew he didn't sleep at all last night, considering it was only saying something like twenty before I went to sleep…_

 _Over two hundred people in one night?! Shit, and I was wondering why he hasn't been doing this more often. Is he wiped? I can't even tell._

 _Zach, you die each time?_ Dendo watched Zach's face carefully even as class started. Zach just nodded along with the homeroom teacher about their plans for the day, wrote some stuff down, and took out a different book to get ready when the next class was starting. Dendo focused on class as well, but he kept trying to recover that anger he had the night before that kept him up so late he barely slept. _That's not a… You don't really die. You're still here, after all. 206 people. They were saying not one person in all of Japan, and here you are just going to school the next day like the rest of us. How many people are dying right now you could still be out there saving? You don't look like you're even thinking about them!_

Inasa stared towards the back of Zach's head with his expression lowered and his eyes upset at the cool and collected way Zach was taking the day. _Has none of it been real? All your time here, laughing and joking around with us, were you just taking it as a joke the whole time?_

Eagle Eyes walked into the classroom, and the teacher took a noticeable pause when he saw Sazaki in his seat. He thought to mention something about what Zach had been doing for the past day that had the entire nation talking, and yet the teacher found himself going along with his regular lesson plan and trying hard to ignore Sazaki's darker look than he normally saw it. It was still not even that dark really, more just a flat and calm expression nowhere near as cheerful as Zach always gave off as his natural tone.

His vibe was off. Everyone who had known him for two months now could feel it. The teachers and the students, and everyone in the cafeteria who looked his way and saw him sitting at his usual table but not the center of the conversation as he always was. The lunchroom was quieter without Zach pushing his classmates' conversations forward, and with all of them wanting to talk about the news of the nation that was still blowing up on their phones. Yet none of them wanted to bring it up after overhearing in that silent classroom that morning what Zach said to Kotsumura. Those few lines he said explained enough about what he had done, why he had only done it this much, why his vibe was the way it was, and the most unnerving thing of the day was the realizations each of them had that the peace and quiet Zach received from them had been decided by him when he explained himself first thing after sitting down.

 _With barely a few words he managed to keep everyone off him all day,_ Muoko stared towards Zach and grimaced at how he stood up without saying a word from his lunch table. He excused himself without speaking, and without acknowledging that his departure had stopped the others' conversation instantly despite him not even being involved. _On Ranking Day, there was another reason he only went as hard as he did against us. Did he do the same thing with the Subspace Devils?!_

 _I don't recognize him one bit today,_ Kotsumura watched Zach heading out of the cafeteria, and he looked down in a sadder way at his lunch he pushed at with his fork. Trabo and Kameko lifted their gazes from across the table to look at the blond who frowned so deeply down at his mashed potatoes it appeared like they were making fun of him for some deeply personal flaw of his. _I want to think 'that's so unlike him,' but I can't even seriously believe that myself. He's never acted like this, and yet, it feels more like he's been acting unusual all the other times rather than he's acting weird today. That's all it takes. One day of not caring to cover it up, and you'll lose- no. No! No one's going to just give up on him. Not Class 1. He's a part of our class now._

Kotsumura thought it, but a look around showed him more than just upset and saddened expressions. He saw skeptical ones too, and angry looks, betrayed even and darker accusatory ones as they looked after where Zach had just walked without looking like he cared that other people were dying and he was spending his time in school.

"Did you see that phone video that came out with Zach and Deku on it though?" Jaime questioned Roger Whitewood who angrily just muttered something to his lunch table while looking after Zach. Jaime shook her head at her fellow American friend when he looked back at her, and she continued, "He explained why he can't go outside of Japan before he even started that spree. Someone questioned him about it, and he said the Japanese hero officials told him he can't leave the country anymore."

"They did?" Roger asked, his eyes widening and his eyebrows rising up high. The surprise lasted only a second though, but he did shift his anger, "Then it's their fault, fine. Why do _they_ get to decide something like that then? They think Japanese people are more important than everyone else?"

"I heard there were multiple foreigners in the group that died…"

"I heard someone just died a little while ago. You think he's going to leave school early before…"

"What's he even still doing here?"

"Do they really consider him a student like the rest of us?"

"It's unnatural. He just decided to stop deaths for the whole country for a period of time. That's insane!"

The cafeteria filled with noise when Zach was gone, everyone feeling more free to talk about Lifebringer than when he was in there. The Class 1 students were talking about him themselves, but they turned as they heard everyone else talking about it too. Class 2 students held off from going to their Class 1 counterparts though, looking at them oddly which made some of the Class 1 students start getting more upset themselves as their association with Lifebringer was putting them under scrutiny.

"That kind of power is nuts."

"I heard he even brought back a guy who killed himself. Wouldn't let _anyone_ die."

"And yet I bet today a few hundred people _do_ die. Like, what the hell's wrong with him?"

"Why do they let him do that?"

"Why are they making him come here? My mom was freaking out this morning."

"…I mean, it was cool knowing he had the power to take on whole villain groups like the Subspace Devils," a young girl in the general studies course at Shiketsu started in a low voice to her friends. She gulped with another dart of her eyes around hoping Lifebringer was nowhere around her to hear her say something like this. "But couldn't he have just stopped with that? This kind of power. Controlling life and death-"

"So if you die, you don't want him to save-"

"Don't say that," the girl hissed back at her friend, praying Lifebringer didn't hear that. "If he hears you he might take it seriously. I'm betting we have a better chance of surviving death right now, just because he's around us! But still, seeing him do it on that wide a scale… how long until he could go around the whole world?"

"That's… I don't even want to think about…"

"He'd be like God."

Zach stood right outside of the cafeteria, his back up against the wall next to the open doors. He stared forward with his eyes half-closed and unmoving as he watched the opposite wall. He listened to those behind him, and he thought to himself, _Natural reactions are mostly negative. More fear than hope. And the hope is still just on a small scale of hoping I don't let them stay dead. Even those people are still fearful of what I'm becoming. No way to reverse it though. Doing anything more, even referencing what I just did, it'll just make things worse. I just have to move-_ _ **"He's over there!"**_ Zach closed his eyes, but the voice he just heard in his head screamed out in agony a second later anyway.

 _I've lost the ability to believe the lie,_ he thought with his eyes opened again, as that memory he just thought of once had a nice calm replacement from Terra. _I captured him and sent him to the Allied Forces. Our forward army was successful that day and had a party to celebrate. And sure that party was interrupted by nightcrawlers, but- that's all a bunch of complete bullshit. It sounds so fake even in my head. I actually expected people to believe this shit?_ Zach grimaced and thought in a darker way, _Some people actually do. They're not idiots for it. I'm just a good liar. The best. Not anymore. Doubt I could even get past Norasaki anymore. Next time I'm questioned I'll have to either re-shatter my own mind and recreate the lies again, or just tell the truth, or lie and see if that bastard can actually tell- he's not a bastard. He's an administrator at a school teaching future heroes._

 _A good man. And a hero. Who has right to be suspicious of me, considering I'm the most suspicious person in the world. Considering I've killed more than almost anyone. Eziano's definitely killed more people than me though! All For One probably has too! And Shigaraki… could have, and I just don't know… 206 people, isn't even as many as were in that desert. I've killed more people in an hour than I brought back in 12._ Zach started forward back towards Class 3-1.

He arrived before most of his classmates, and he gave a couple nods when the ones who were already there looked towards him. _Don't completely ignore them. Just show them you're not in the mood to be in a good mood. I don't think I could fake a smile right now. It's enough like this though-_ _ **"AHHHHH!"**_ _And when Enorma sensei comes in, it'll be good since I'll have to focus. Going over Iscariot's past. Thunderclap already has so much information on him out there though. All of his former cases, his childhood, shit! If we just go back over all of that I won't have a chance to-_ _ **"What's wrong Reaper? Did you forget about what you did in that hole in Virginia? Those unarmed scientists, you slaughtered- Now!"**_

Zach's expression flattened out completely and he looked towards Enorma but could only half-focus for the entire lesson as she talked about Iscariot, the second most wanted man in the country. _I let Amaterasu get to me because I had that wall up, and she put a tiny crack in it. I got sent into the Void, and I was able to believe that lie so easily. I was able to convince others it was the truth, because it's all I thought about for years. A fantasy. Detailed enough to convince so many people reading Oda's book. "No way Sazaki could have made this all up!" "Lifebringer really traveled to another world! This changes everything!" "Would he really have lied to all of us about this?" "Where else could he have been?! We never saw him for all that time, and him being off-world is the only way to explain how he suddenly disappeared and came back 7 months later!"_

 _Enorma's leaving. Are we going to have any time to work on reports today? I've been stretching mine out. Saying I've been working on it while I hunt down leads and try tracking Kaminari. He's too smart though. He knows I'm coming, and he had all the time I was in Tartaros to prepare for the day I got out. He knew I'd be out early before I did. He knew Mina would succeed, and he let her succeed anyway. Or he knew that taking her out would have-_ _ **"Please don't! Death! HELP ME! THEY'RE KILLING US!"**_

 _ **"They're ripping us apart up here!"**_

 _ **"We're like sitting ducks!"**_

 _ **"FUCKING HELL! WHERE IS BLACKJACK?!"**_

 _ **"He'll be here!"**_

 _"I'll focus their fire."_

 _ **"Death!"**_

 _ **"Commander! There's too much, you'll never-"**_

 _ **"He's too far ahead!"**_

 _ **"Everyone follow your Commander!"**_

 _ **"We can't beat them!"**_

 _ **"THERE'S TOO MANY!"**_

 _ **"We have to run!"**_

 _"We will not run. We will not falter! Death will come for them all!"_

 _"WITH ME!"_

 _ **"RAAAAA!"**_

 _ **"Dea-ath! …ZACH!"**_ _They had her pants down already. THEY WERE GOING TO RAPE HER!_ He saw a sword slash straight through a man's skull, and another's head spinning around 180 degrees as he broke their neck. Pirates' bodies fell all over that warehouse, and he heard her scream his name again, _It's no excuse. Any amount of Death would have knocked them out. I wasn't even using Death for most of it though. THEY WERE RAPISTS!_ He saw a man on his knees smirking towards him, towards a screaming little girl near him the guy pursed his lips at and blew a kiss to while his soldiers held her back. That same man was still bound, but he was now face-down on the floor with a puddle pooling around his skull that had a hole through it.

A small body flew backwards in Zach's head, blood splashing from her back that he could see through because of how wide the hole cutting through her was. _La Brava,_ Zach heard Gentle's screams in his head of that name. _**"You bring her back! BRING HER BACK NOW!"**_ The small body flew backwards again, and Zach saw his vision turning to two others who ran forward past where she was flying backwards. The men in dark costumes fired forwards, screaming out in rage and gunning down the villains ahead of them. Some of those villains turned to run, and he watched as holes ripped through their backs and blood splashed out their fronts as they fell in mid-sprint away.

 _ **"Death. I,"**_ _I couldn't even look at him. I couldn't bare to. I thought, out of everyone Exodus could…_ _ **"I'm sorry. I- I said I would- I-"**_ _He couldn't even ask me. Who he was wouldn't allow it. The kind of person, and yet-_ _ **"I just need, some time. I- I can't… If you give me a day, I could- But Scotland, and the Mad Doctor's, India, and I kept going but- I'm not trying to make excuses. I know I'm failing you, by asking…"**_ _The fact that you felt that way, I must have shown it on my face. I never thought you'd ask me something like… I guess I never thought of you as, as human as the rest of us. You were like a superhuman to me. My most powerful friend who would follow me no matter- and yet I could keep going when you… I'm just glad, Darling was still out from Wampajawa so she never saw it._

 _I probably pushed you to that point._ _ **"Do you want this one destroyed like the others?"**_ _He asked it so coldly and detached, but I- I didn't think it would be Access._ He saw the body slouched up against the burnt carcass of a building in a city pluming black smoke into the sky. _"Yes." He destroyed them all. All our comrades, and I expected him to be-_

 _ **"Would you like a cup of coffee? Black? It's fine. I'll put a cream and sugar in it for you."**_ The smiling woman with long purple hair turned from him, then she was on the ground with blood splashed over her face and her hair splayed all over the place. And La Brava's body flew over Seraphim's corpse, blood splashing out of her all over him and Seraphim's body. And it flew back again, and again, over and over and over. _**"AHHH! STOP IT! STOP THIS NOW!" Crack!**_ _He didn't deserve my mercy!_

The Mad Doctor's face appeared in Zach's head, as another _**Crack**_ filled his mind. His vision shifted down, to where he had the man's hands grabbed in his own. He broke more and more of the Mad Doctor's fingers, snapping them backwards one by one as the man's screams rang through his mind. His eyes rose back up to the Mad Doctor screaming so furiously and afraid of him, and the mad scientist's face turned into Michael's no longer looking like the carefree and happy man he had known for months. _After Grabble and Access, long after Cee, after everyone,_ Zach saw Michael look down at the floor, then raise his head to him and wonder, _**"Grabble, did he, die fighting at least?"**_

 _ **"Death! There are too many! We have to get out of- shit! Just take Tama's body! I'll protect- AH! Fuck-" Du-du-du-du BANG BANG BANG- BOOM! "Please, save… her."**_ _It was the last thing he asked me, and I failed at that too. I let them rip her into pieces right in front of me! I shouldn't have switched to trying to save him. I could have finished reviving her- or just flown away while holding her body! Anything, anything but instead I just- Even Grabble! It was his second time, I could have just grabbed him and her both from the start and flown off before they could surround us! I- I was tired. I wasn't thinking straight! I was trying so hard to get in a fight to get my mind off-_ **"AHAAAAHHHH!"** _ **"AAHEEEEE!" "EEEEEAAAAA!" "WHa- huh- Wha ka- AAkhhh…"**_ _Those fucking screams! The Mad Doctor screamed too! While I beat him to death! WHY CAN'T I JUST THINK OF THOSE?!_

 _"You think I care about you?!"_ He smashed the Mad Doctor's face down into his control panel, and he broke his fingers even more to the point he felt like he was almost ripping them off as the man screamed for mercy. _After what he did, to Zeke?!_

Hazano Worrod stood in front of his class who he was trying to explain how they would be presenting their reports over the next month. He looked over towards Sazaki over and over again during his explanation of the schedule, but he finally stopped talking and just frowned deeper at the boy whose expression was so unfocused and dark it looked like it did on the day of the attack on Desusuta. _Is he going to use that as an excuse to get out of here again? Go continue his reviving spree? Do you really think you can use the same excuse twice?_

The classroom quieted down completely. The silence seemed to get even more quiet as everyone looked to where Hazano was staring, to the person who didn't even notice him. Hazano's expression started shifting and his eyes widened at the boy who was staring forward no longer with the flat normal expression he had earlier. It was not panicked either, or necessarily sad or angry. Muoko looked back and to her left towards him, and her heart raced at the sight of his eyes staring forward without looking at anything.

Kotsumura just shifted his gaze to the corners of his eyes again and then back at his desk with pain filling his chest. Others who had found themselves agreeing more with the others in the cafeteria before retracted everything they had said and thought as they looked towards him in that moment. None of them said a word in that quiet classroom in a moment of silence with every person staring towards Zach Sazaki.

Hazano opened his mouth, looking straight at his student who he now wanted to tell something to. And then he thought about a line in the book that he had read over the past couple of days, _"Usually Zach kept a good spirit about him when telling these stories, but we could always tell when something was a little worse than what he was telling us. The Battle of the Six Armies was something he referred to often but rarely ever got into, and I never questioned him why that was. We all knew from that single line he'd say about the worst of times in that world, 'We took heavy casualties.' It took me a few times hearing it, to realize that it was always how he referred to the amount of people he lost. Yet I know that he knows, exactly how many people he lost on those days."_

Hazano thought of the line from the book, and then he heard Sazaki's explanation when he came back to school after facing the Subspace Devils. _"I needed to, get out… I was having a hard time. I was, thinking about things that I, I usually don't think about. Things I can push back, most of the time… When I was gone, I fought in a war on a different world that took everything I had. I saw things and, I did things…"_ Hazano looked back at the rest of his class and continued talking as if he had not stopped there, surprising most of the students and making some of them get even more hurt looks on their faces as they tried to refocus too.

 _I didn't believe you,_ Hazano thought to himself. _I didn't know how you were getting around Norasaki, but I knew I was just accepting your reasons because it was easier to. Because if it really took everything you had, if you really saw those things and "did" things yourself… this is what I thought you'd be like, all the time._

Reika frowned as their homeroom teacher just continued class like nothing was wrong, and she glanced to her right to see what her friend next to her thought. Reika's bottom lip fell and her eyes shook at the sight of her friend's face next to her, while Himazuri stared down at the top of her desk and failed at holding back her tears.

The wide-eyed brunette could not help herself in that moment of silence. She was terrified of what would happen, but no one shouted at her to 'GET OUT OF MY HEAD.' No one attacked her when she started reading his mind this time, and she knew that it was because he had no idea she had started to as she heard thoughts she wasn't supposed to hear. Himazuri's eyes trembled as she saw what Zach was seeing, as she watched those men in dark uniforms rushing at a building they were shouting had human experimentation going on inside of.

 _"Get back!"_ Zach saw his arm reaching out and grabbing a man of a slightly smaller build than him. He yanked Zeke back behind cover, and he, Spiral, Access, and Exodus all looked at him in fear for a second.

 _ **"I'm- I'm fine. It didn't- It didn't break through!"**_

 _ **"Holy shit!"**_

 _ **"You lucky SOB!"**_ Spiral had leaned forward and checked out Zeke's helmet that had cracks all over the visor splitting off of a single point where a bullet from the defense system had hit into.

 _ **"Someone's got God on his side today boys… and it's me,"**_ Rebel's voice came out smug, right as the gunfire stopped. _**"Go on in. Outer defenses are all down."**_

 _"On me."_ _We should have done more recon. I shouldn't have gone straight in. The doctor already showed he was ready for a frontal assault. I should have expected the trap._ Zach saw himself falling through the floor that had opened up below him. The five of them dropped down into the steel box below, and they snapped their heads up as the floor above closed back up to trap them inside. _"Find a way out! Exodus, light up the place!"_

 _ **"Understood, Commander!"**_

 _ **"Death himself has come to my humble lab? What an honor- NOT! Hehehe-"**_

 _"The Mad Doctor, I presume-"_ Zach darted his eyes around the room, as vents opened up and poured the green gas into the room. _"Seal helmets-"_ His vision blurred as he spun so fast towards the one person in that room he was most terrified for, and he heard his own voice yell, _"Hold your breath Zeke!"_

 _ **"Get us out of here Access!"**_

 _ **"I'm trying!"**_

 _ **"Oh God, Fuck! FUCK ME!"**_

 _ **"Block your helmet!"**_

 _"Exodus! Blast a hole through the wall!"_

 _ **"I am trying!"**_

 _ **"Hold on Zeke!"**_

 _ **"It's in my helm- ah, AHH-"**_

 _ **"Don't take it off!"**_ Zeke ripped his helmet off though, as it was filled with green gas and he could not breathe.

 _ **"HEHEHE! CAN'T BREATHE?!"**_ The Mad Doctor's voice echoed through Zach's mind, and then he watched as he stood on the second floor balcony holding that man over a group of villains, his own men, and the monstrous people the Mad Doctor had created. The man screamed in pain as he saw himself bust back into the Mad Doctor's room, beating him nearly to death. Then he saw himself holding that brutalized man dangling over everyone again, and the fingers sliding out of his glove to make the man stop struggling before he tossed him like a ragdoll down to the horde below.

 _ **"HELP ME!"**_ As the Mad Doctor's body hit the ground, Zach saw Zeke back in the basement grabbing at his throat and clawing at it while the rest of them tried to find a way out of there. Zeke spun towards him, and he held his arms out as Zeke charged at him with his eyes bloodshot and bubbling. _**"KILL ME! AHH- Ah- Kill- PLe- AGh-"**_ Blood and bile splashed out of Zeke's mouth, and Zach could see inside his mouth in that moment all his gums were bleeding. Blood came out of his eyes while the man grabbed him by the front of his costume, as Zach pulled his head back away while red splashed all over his visor. _**"Plea- Ki- Ah- AHh, guugh, raack-"**_

 _"I- I can't. I already, brought you-"_

 _ **"AAhahhgggghh acckk-"**_ Zeke's hands gripping into Zach's front started sliding down as the man threw up his melting insides. His skin was falling off his body, as Rebel yelled how he had cut off the vents in that particular room, and Access got the door open. Zeke was unmoving on the floor though in a puddle spreading wider as ooze came out of the holes in his costume and all around his face covered in melted skin that had pulled inwards and spilled his insides all over around it.

Zeke's body replaced with the back of the Mad Doctor's he held in front of all those people. Facing his soldiers, backing away from the test subjects about to kill their torturers. _They were about to really turn into monsters. I had to kill him. A defenseless man- Another!_

 _ **"...I didn't know." "I didn't want that to happen…" "I never wanted this! I just wanted some money to get through college! My parents died first semester in a villain attack, and I couldn't get through it without the extra cash on top of the part-time job I already had!"**_ _He had slaves! HE ENSLAVED PEOPLE! He didn't know, but- but he was irresponsible and- and so he had to die?! Pedro, wasn't even a bad person. Not one who deserved to die! But what other choice was there?! I freed his slaves! I freed the Mad Doctor's! And-_ _ **"I, I've even been using the money I got from the operation to try and find a way out, try and come up with a cure…"**_

 _ **"AHHHHH! NOO-"**_

 _ **"Dropping to twenty thousand feet… Ten thousand… Here we go!"**_

 _ **"Follow your Commander!"**_

 _ **"Alright Reaper, they might have given you status as an executive, but I know what you really are."**_ _El Blanco. He was-_ The League member talking down to him started running away in a dark forest, screaming at the top of his lungs as Death caught up with him. He fell forward, as the wave of Death surrounded him and took his life, and the surge of Death pulled back into Zach's body with a pulse of euphoria. He looked around in a tinted world of red as those men ran off in the forest, as he held up a massive ball of Death to throw at them, and then the environment changed so those were not the men running from him anymore.

 _ **"We're sorry!"**_

 _ **"WE SURRENDER!"**_

 _"RROOOAAARRRRRR!"_

 _ **"It's no use! HE'S A MONSTER!"**_

 _ **"Where is everyone?!"**_ Bodies whipped up by Death into the sandstorm, and then two huge tentacles of Death snapped up and grabbed one of the men flying up to try and escape. The tentacles ripped opposite directions and tore the man in half, screaming as it happened faster than the Death worked on him.

That gold-skinned druglord in America fell in front of him, and he heard a different voice yell, _**"Why did you kill Pedro?!"**_

 _ **"We'll ambush the heroes as they raid the Silver Splitters. Kill all of them at once, blame it on the Envious and take the territory while heroes search the north to meet the demands of the public. We'll turn this whole nation into our plaything-"**_

 **"You think I'd let you?"**

 _ **"AHH-"**_

 _ **"Where did he-"**_

 _ **"Dea-"**_

 **"…What? Did- did one of you just shit yourself? Well, I suppose I'll spare him then, if you're that afraid- Jesus! Don't everyone shit yourselves at once! Hahaha… It won't save you all."**

 _ **"Please! Just- just let me go!"**_

 **"You villains who terrorize this world, I will never let you go. I will never stop. I WILL NEVER LET YOU HAVE YOUR WAY WITH THIS WORLD!"**

 **"Are you afraid?"**

 **"Death comes, for** _ **all**_ **villains! None shall escape my wrath!"**

 _ **"KILL THEM ALL!"**_

 _ **"THIS IS THEIR LAST STAND!"**_

 _ **"Death help!"**_

 _ **"THERE ARE TOO MANY OF THEM!"**_

 _ **"The Cloak's destroyed, Zombieman's our greatest enemy, and everyone's dead! I can't take this! I CAN'T HANDLE IT!"**_

 _ **"WE'RE ALL GONNA DIE!"**_

 _ **"Death! DEATH PLEASE! They're killing us!"**_

 _ **"Ahh" chh "Ahh, Death, Death can you hear me? I- I don't have my legs, I need… No. No no no! AHH-"**_

 _ **"They've got Dead Silence! They know he's one of us, and they're toying with- Oh my God."**_

 _ **"They're draw and quartering him! They've got him by the arms and legs and are pulling in different, oh- oh fuck- Dead Silence! I'm- AHH- No no! I'm not actually… AHH DEATH! Save me!"**_

Zach landed on the ground and men and women flew away from him in the blast of Death that erupted from his body on landing. He looked down at the floor, staring at Dead Silence's head. Darkcry fell on his knees next to Dead Silence's head, and he grabbed his friend's decapitated head while spinning to his Commander right near him. _**"We could put his body parts together. They're still around here, somewhere- You could revive him!"**_

 _ **"The Muting only lasted 6 seconds!"**_

 _ **"What happened to Dead Silence?!"**_ Zach heard different shouts from the start of the world loop cutting into Darkcry's shouts from the end of it. _"He already died once." Just like you had, and would again that day after I left you. Darkcry, and everyone else. I was so strong already! SO POWERFUL! How could I let that happen- Why did I kill all those people, if it wasn't to stop something like that from happening?!_

Men screamed and ran away in the Tusukan Desert. _**"Death!"**_

 _ **"Please don't!"**_

 _ **"KILL HIM!"**_

 _ **"HELP ME!"**_ They ran and stumbled away, as the massive dark hands waved all over the place growing larger and larger each time he swung them around. Their screams echoed all over, but louder than the screams echoed something else from much closer. _**"Hahahaha… HAHAHAHAHA! AAAhahahaha HAAA! WHAT'S WRONG, VILLAINS?!"**_

 _ **"I've shown you my mercy, villains!"**_

 _ **"You know I have mercy! I have tried over and over again to show you my mercy… but my mercy is running out."**_

 _ **"I WILL KILL YOU ALL!"**_

 _ **"EZIANOOOO!"**_

 _ **"GODDDD!"**_

 _ **"DEATHHH!"**_

He saw himself falling into B16, glancing up above him at the demons falling after him, splitting apart and pulling back together again. Down below he saw the test subjects, and the researchers, and the clean-up crew, and God's subjects killing them all. _**"SACRIFICE! SACRIFICE! SACRIFICE!"**_

Water pushed around him as he swam fast away from a submarine he spun back to as it exploded. _**"Replay was…"**_

He ran and stumbled down a street, buildings on both sides of him burning in raging infernos. Bullets flew through him, and he stumbled to the right as an explosion blew up on his left. He threw a knife in front of him covered in darkness, and the blade slammed into one man's chest while the darkness pulled off at the last second and hit the villain next to him in the back when that man thought he had gotten past the attack. That left only the third man who looked to his side at the other two, in a single second which was all it took before Zach's leg was swinging around in front of his face, nailing him in the head and smashing him through a burning wall next to them right before the building collapsed down on top of that man he just kicked in the face without using any Death. _**"Ahh- AHHH! NOoo! Please help! Help meeee…"**_ The sounds of that man burning alive faded as he continued to run farther from the building.

Someone else's voice filled his mind instead, whether it was in that moment that he was hearing it overlap or in the present he did not know. _**"He's going to save me! ZACH PLEASE! AAHHHHHHH-"**_ Watching the skin and flesh melt from Jenny's small body, he could smell the scent of burning flesh he knew would have been associated with it from the experience of the other times he smelled people burning.

The sky ripped apart and Zach could see the giant black holes filling it. The ground quaked, but he saw Dead Silence's head sitting there on the ground. Then the man's decapitated head started speaking in his mind, _**"Death, I wanted to thank you for bringing me back in Wampajawa. I don't know if I said it… I know, but I wanted to thank you anyway… It's, it's just, I know things are tough right now, but we can do this."**_ _Prado Marsinnian._ _ **"…Back when I was just Prado, before I was Dead Silence, right before I decided to become that anti-hero actually, it was Lifebringer that changed everything for me. Not Death. Not the Army of Death, and not what Lifebringer did in the Lifebringer Incident either. Before any of that, so far back… before the War Boys, when I heard what everyone thought you joined the League of Villains for- I know, you're not Zach Sazaki, but he was my inspiration. Lifebringer inspired me to be the man I am today, just like you have even more since I joined you."**_

 _ **"A year or so back, I decided to become a vigilante because of Lifebringer. I've looked up to him, for a long long time. I'd never be out here if it weren't for him."**_ Dead Silence's head turned to the side in a quake that shook the ground, and then it fell into a fissure as the ground split open under them. Lava swept through the bottom of the fissure, and the head fell into a river of it- And Zach fell into a river of blood at the bottom of a lab, screams of 'Sacrifice' echoing around him as he splashed out of it with those demons charging at him from all sides.

Death wouldn't work on them, and he saw Isabel in the surveillance room he just shut the door of. He heard a voice behind him, _**"Open this door Death! You don't want to do this!"**_

But he did not open it, and he heard his voice screaming as he watched himself even earlier attack the beast the first time he saw it. _**"Why didn't Death work on that test subject?!"**_ He heard his voice yell it, while even farther back he watched the monster charge through the explosion of Death.

 _ **"I don't know what you-"**_

He saw Wreck'd's head splitting apart on the wall after the British man pushed him away. His voice cut off Isabel's, _**"DON'T LIE TO ME! What did you do?!"**_

 _ **"We know all about you, Zach Sazaki… The power to kill instantly, and the power to bring someone back to life. They're remarkable. Yet there are so many unknowns, things we can still discover."**_

 _ **"What kinds of things? And why, can't I kill that test subject? The one with red fur, hunting us down? Why isn't it affected by Death? …If you don't tell me-"**_

 _ **"You know why."**_

 _They faked his death. Tortured him for, for months! All for what?!_ _ **"We knew, from a report at VTS, that people you brought back to life before were not affected by Death. Something, changed, inside them." "How could a power that kills instantly just no longer work, just because someone had been brought back to life? It implied, that something had changed genetically about them. Unless it is a singularity where only your Quirk does not work against them anymore, then there was clearly something else at play." "When people are brought back, their diseases, their former injuries, they're all gone. Back pain, cancer, AIDS, and maybe even mental illness, PTSD, what about a concussion? We had to find out…"**_

 _All those people I brought back yesterday, how many of them will have good lives now that I've brought them back? And even if some of them- most of them are fine, what about people like Hawkins?_ Zach saw that red beast charging at him, and tackling him in the red river a mile below the surface as the walls exploded around him. And he got more blood on him as he cut apart the different versions, until he was on top of Hawkins' largest body and dug his knives into opposite sides of his skull, ripping it apart while bodies without any skin on them fell from the ceiling where they were hanging. Bodies were crucified to the walls and still living, and he saw himself swinging his right hand out as he ran past one, ending a life like it was nothing. _And Zombieman?_

Another man Zach had brought back to life filled his mind. _**"It isn't your fault, Death."**_

 _ **"He told me not to bring him back! I pushed him harder and harder, and when he finally could die! When he was going to die surrounded by friends who he loved enough to want to be brought back, I should have just let him- Instead!"**_

 _ **"RRRAAAAAAA!"**_

 _ **"Zombieman?!" "No! Stop it! Stop… please."**_

He smashed through a skyscraper in China and flipped himself over to look out the windows in panic as that monster shot through the sky after him. _**"GET BACK!"**_

Zombieman smashed through a hill outside of the city, _**"You're killing innocents! PLEASE!"**_

 _ **"DEATH!"**_

 _ **"Rappa?! You're, alive-"**_

 _ **"We have to kill him."**_

 _ **"You don't know him! That's Zombieman. He's a comrade-"**_

 _ **"Not anymore. I'm killing him!"**_

 _ **"I-"**_

 _ **"Your army is falling, Death. You going to let them all die to try and save him?"**_

 _ **"RRAAAA! AHHHh HAAA ROOOOAAARRR!"**_

 _ **"…We have to kill him."**_

 _He was my friend. They were all, my friends-_ It was hard to even think that, as he saw himself and Rappa covered in Zombieman's blood. Despite already being drenched in it though, they had to make sure with Zombieman's regenerative powers, and the two of them just kept digging back into his body and ripping out more flesh. Dark claws came off of Zach's front, adding another ten to the ones he was already using to rip his friend apart. They dug faster and faster, and then he snapped his head up as he saw what was coming in his peripheral vision. _**"RAPPA!"**_ _He had only just died the first time! And I- I could have seen it coming sooner- The entire Asian third army all at once, and not a single comrade around me. The most organized of all the 6 armies, other than my own._

 _The Battle of the 6 Armies,_ Zach looked down from so high up in the air, nothing but a giant mass of darkness below him. _All the power from the Tusukan Desert at once. I knew the counterattack was coming and made sure not to drop to nothing anymore, but I had more power than ever. I used more power, and I still used Trigger at that most powerful, and I was-_ He saw ahead of him, and on his right and left sides as he stood there hundreds of feet high. Attacks flew up at him, but thousands were running in every direction away from him.

 _ **"PLEASE DEATH!"**_

 _ **"Help us!"**_

 _ **"They're killing us!"**_

The Cloak burned as a flaming carcass of its once great state. He heard his friends dying in his ears, while hundreds, thousands ran away from him. Those thousands started to turn as his comms were not the only ones back online. His enemies organized, with the strongest all moving towards him instead of away. The strongest ones came up on all sides, and the sides on his left and right were getting higher up as the elevation-changers adjusted the landscape. The sky trembled, as platforms rose and fell and pushed so close together they squished the people fighting on them to rain blood down. The black sky shook and started spinning around, and reality bent in front of him before the illusions started. And twenty of his huge black arms swinging around couldn't stop all the fastest villains flying up and running around him, attacking him from close range but moving back fast enough to dodge his attacks he could only make with split focus as he watched a thousand enemies at once.

Then the explosion came. The biggest explosion he had ever seen before, that he was right in the middle of. He couldn't see anything but darkness, and he climbed up finding it impossible to breathe even in the present. He held his breath without realizing it, as to breathe in would be to allow all that _uck_ into his mouth. The blood and vomit and shit surrounding him, as he climbed up _Bodies._ He clawed his way to the surface, suffocating under all the corpses and bodies of the dead and unconscious. The bodies turned into nothing but a different dark muck that he could not see through and was drowning in, but he reached a hand up and grabbed the hand that had reached down for him inside it.

He snapped up to the surface and rose his katana, and the man in front of him held up a knife to his own throat. They kept holding each other by the other arm during it, and Gentle leaned his head forward and screamed at the boy ready to kill him, _**"Get your shit together! CAN YOU HANDLE THIS?!"**_ Zach was panting, but he was breathing again and his head nodded at the man having a standoff with him in the middle of the battlefield. _**"Can you keep going? Because there are thousands of them still trying to kill us, and the heroes are still gathering. More are arriving every minute, but we're all going to die if this keeps up!"**_

The entire battlefield was on fire. Zach looked around, as the voice shouted at him, _**"Most of the army is dead! I'll gather as many as I can in one spot. Darling told Fabrica to wait on your command for her to return the rest to their uniforms. It's the only plan we have, so keep your shit together and LEAD US!"**_

 _ **"The Cloak is completely blown apart, but there's a group trying to evacuate the injured. Darling and Snow went to the doctors, but Hank is down and-"**_

 _ **"Spiral's down! We've lost at least sixty of us already. Death, what are we going to do?! There are only a couple dozen of us left. Everyone's dead."**_

 _ **"We're all going to die!"**_

 _ **"Drac's paralyzed. Gentle's losing too much blood and Curalia can't stop it…"**_

 _ **"Eziano's guys are running!"**_

 _ **"The heroes are here!"**_

 **"Don't stop fighting."**

 _ **"Death?"**_

 **"There are thousands of them fleeing right now, and we'll have to track them down and face them again! They could regroup and attack us again like this, if we don't stop as many as we can!"**

 _ **"Let the heroes-"**_

 **"They'll kill the heroes! This is not a request, it's an order! TAKE DOWN AS MANY AS YOU CAN BEFORE YOU FALL! We will not let this be a loss. The Army of Death, has never lost a battle. And if we let them kill most of us today and still let this many of them escape, then WE FAILED EVERYONE WHO DIED HERE! NOW KEEP FIGHTING! Ack- gah ack kah-** _ **FIGHT!"**_

 _I lost them all. Everyone. And what was it they said?_ _ **"The Army of Death took heavy casualties." "Good riddance." "I hope they just fade away." "They made the Villain Summit even worse…"**_

 _ **"Death! What's going on-"**_

 _ **"The villains gathered for a Villain Summit! They're trying to recreate the League of Villains, but the talks broke down..."**_

 _ **"Why did you tell the heroes that?"**_

 _ **"Why tell them it was a Villain Summit?"**_

 _ **"Because. No one needs to know that fifteen thousand of the world's worst villains had already allied themselves. If they knew, I couldn't hide the war any longer…"**_

 _ **"This is war! VILLAINS!"**_

 _ **"You think you can live in a city with SLAVES in it?! You thought I wouldn't come for you?!"**_

 _ **"This is not your world, villains! No one will ever know what happened here…"**_

 _ **"We will fight to the very last man!"**_

 _And we did._ His own shout was not followed by another this time. _No. No I was in Arcasia. I fought against trolls and vampires and dwarves more than humans. It wasn't that bad. There were dragons…_ In his mind he saw himself fighting Sunshine before they all got in the planes to escape. _Not real dragons. I was hit by Trip, and the sky wasn't…_ Zach saw the sky shifting, the giant dragon filling it baring its blood-red sharpened teeth down at him as he soared through the air in a fighter jet. _**"Death!"**_ He saw Valkyrie rip him out of the plane, and then as they were falling he watched her fall out of the air a different time with blood spilling from her open mouth and her eyes rolled back. Then he just saw a sword broken in half next to a body in a full black costume, and though he could not tell from the costume alone, he recognized the sword that second time.

The avalanche from the mountain his jet crashed into swept down over him, while Cyclone attacked him with massive funnels of snow and wind. His body went under, and he splashed back up over a surface of blood and screamed out a name, _**"GOD!"**_ That dark being forced his mouth open, and Azrael puked black ooze into his face. _**"Now, I claim my perfect vessel."**_ Zach's hand swung in towards it, _**"WHAT?! AH! AHHHH! NO! What, what is this… "**_

 _ **"Stupid fucking God."**_

Zach could see Azrael stirring on the ground in front of him. A piece of the ceiling fell and crushed him though. Gentle yelled at him how they needed to run, and the three of them remaining down there started to sprint away. Everything slowed down though, _I shouldn't have looked around again. I didn't have the time! Why, did I…_ Zach saw it. B16. It flashed so vividly in his mind: the people ripping each other apart all around him, eating each other, screaming 'sacrifice' at the top of their lungs even while the walls and ceiling exploded and collapsed on them. They shot back up through the lab, and he saw Yuri's body getting slammed back from the elevator with bullets riddling through him, and Wreck'd's body slamming into the wall, and how he looked down at his bloody hands when he moved them away from Wreck'd's head as he tried reviving the man who lost too much of his skull.

 _ **"I lost, Pastor. Yuri, and Wreck'd too. All three of them." "In that place were monsters that… that never should have existed. A research facility, testing on humans! And, and it was… horrible. And I didn't have to go down there!" "But if I hadn't, then this doesn't mean anything! If we give up. If we are afraid!" "If there are things, even I won't do, none of it would matter. Because that's the whole point of the Army of Death… To go places no one will and stop villains who heroes can't, or won't…"**_

 _Pastor._ _ **"And say to those with fearful hearts, 'Be strong, do not fear; your God will come. He will come with vengeance; with divine retribution he will come to save you." "I wish to save those who have strayed from the path, and to punish the false God who leads them to evil."**_ _You were a devout man, and you thought-_ _ **"…God created Satan, he, he-ack kah, ack, he cast out Lucifer, to become the ruler of Hell. To punish sinners. And I believe, that God did that for us… For mankind, as a warning… So that we would all have the fear, of what would happen if we sinned. If we were evil in life, Lucifer would punish us. God sent his favorite, most trusted angel to Hell for eternity. Cast him out of paradise, to strike fear in the hearts of man…"**_

 _I'm not the devil. I know that!_

 _ **"Are you AFRAID?"**_

 _ **"Villains! I am your reckoning!"**_

 _I WASN'T. Snow._ He saw a small face that he lifted out of the snow. The little girl covered in dirt in snow in burnt clothes and with hands about to fall off from frostbite. And then he saw that girl, watched her from the side of the hangar of their new Cloak 2.0 as she was getting on a shuttle with Mark. Mark gave him one look back too, and Zach heard the girl's voice whispering in his ear as he held her, _**"Let me stay. Please, I just want to stay with you. I- I'll be good…"**_

 _ **"I LOVE YOU! Why- why do you have to leave?! Explain to me your plan, and I could- I- I'll go to Tartaros too! Please!"**_ _Darling._ Her pleading expression transformed into rage, and a gun snapped up in front of his face with dark flames rising on their side.

 _ **"Are you going to shoot me again, Darling?"**_ His body rose off the ground at the edge of the bridge leading to Tartaros, snapping him backwards with a jolt into the wall on the plane shaking with red lights blinking inside. Outside the window a plane next to theirs was hit and exploded in a massive ball of fire, and Zach screamed at the others around him, _**"GO GO GO!"**_ The back of the plane opened and everyone was running out, and Zach was falling from the sky but snapped his head to the side as two dark soldiers falling not far from him were ripped apart by yellow flashes of light and bullets flying up into the sky.

 _ **"You're going too far ahead!"**_

 _ **"He's taking all the fire!"**_

 _ **"Follow your Commander!"**_

 _It didn't matter how far in front I went. How much of their fire I focused on myself. I couldn't save them._ A flash of white light filled the sky, and Zach smashed out of the giant ship he was in. He flew into the sky full of hundreds of vehicles falling out of the sky and about to hit the ground. Explosions blew across the landscape, though dozens of the ships were lowered slower or landed softly, while hundreds of people were already flying up there, and tens of thousands in all directions staring straight towards him.

Those people turned into less villainous-looking people, though ones who looked even more enraged and angry in the desert outside Yemen's capital. _War._ His vision shifted down and looked at his stomach he was holding inside with one hand, his intestines slipping through his fingers that felt so slimy and disgusting. And he turned his head to the left as he was inside of a burning plane, and he watched as steel shrapnel shredded through his arm and sliced it off at the shoulder. And it moved back even farther, as he flew down in a plane he was trying to land in that battlefield but was moving in too fast. The plane hit the ground, and it turned into a helicopter rolling across the sand outside of Hatto.

 _ **"We have to take this city from Mongoloid! Once he and his Demons are down, the country will be free!"**_

 _Mongoloid._ Zach saw himself inside of the palace of Hatto, charging at Mongoloid in a building shaking with each of their attacks. _King_ Then he saw himself in Russia, side by side with Darling he charged forward with at the leader of the League of Shadows. _Bolivar._ He stood before a Hispanic man pushing himself backwards with fear over his face, the rainforest burning around them and his final safe house in ruins at his back. _Fergus._ That old man sitting in his chair looking more fossil than human, screaming at him right up until he reached his right hand forward and grabbed the man by the skull with it. _Amaterasu. Eziano. Mysti. Turbo. The Dragons. Phinx. Zombieman. Capos. Traikuza. Kabo-_

Zach watched as he tossed that man out of the Cloak, and the man rolled down the slanted door and fell out of his airship screaming for help. Then he saw the underground casino he was in with him, surrounded by villains only for the next second his undercover soldiers to all be acting as Seraphim took down the villains' boss. _**"Underlord…"**_

 _ **"The Champion of the Pit."**_ _Umbuju!_ _ **NO MORE!**_ His sword slicing through Umbuju's throat, taking the man's head off with a scream while the gladiators cheered around him. Then those same kind of cheers coming from all sides, as he brought his elbows down to his sides and screamed at the top of his lungs. All around him villains leaning forward and yelling down at the boy in the arena, surrounded by four bodies, and then four different bodies, and four other bodies again. _How many times?_

 _ **"Five will enter. Only one can leave." "Oh look at that, bad luck this time." "No weapon for Lifebringer it seems." "KILL HIM!"**_

Four people who were tossed weapons stared at Zach. All four had collars around their necks, and the four of them ignored him to look at each other and nod instead. The four ran at him, even as he screamed back at them, _**"Please! I- I don't want to-"**_ Three were dead on the ground, and Zach was in the middle of them with the fourth man on top of him pushing both arms down to try and stab his knife into the already bloody teen's chest. Zach's right arm was losing strength from the gash in it, but his left arm pushed up harder, and though his right could not be used for much pressure against the blade, he was able to swing it around their arms and shove his gloved fingers into the eyes of the man leaning down over him. That man pulled back up to avoid those fingers digging in further, but that put less pressure on the blade that Zach was able to take in his left hand with a strong push up and pull away, only to jam it back inwards a second later into the side of that man's skull and out the other side of it.

Blood poured down on his face and took out his vision of the death. He could still hear though with nothing but red in his vision. _**"…and still your reigning champion. Lifebringer. The Champion of the Pit! ZACH SAZAKI!"**_ Through the red his vision rose back up, staring through all the cheering villains to the Nigerian monster calling down from above. And he saw himself stagger forward, grabbing Umbuju and pulling him up before impaling him with his blade.

 _ **"This world belongs to villains NO LONGER! I will drag them out of their havens! I will destroy all they have built and treasure! And if they try to stop me I will RIP THEM TO PIECES! Never again will anything like the Pit be allowed to exist in this world! NEVER AGAIN!"**_

 _They all followed me._ The crowd of cheering gladiators in front of him started to disappear. One by one they faded out while still waving around their weapons, then a cluster of them faded, and a few more, and the final four all vanished at once with the powerful woman at the front fading last from sight. _Rivona. Everyone. You did it. I know, you did it. I just wish, you had all believed-_ _ **"Why? Why did I follow you- ack, gaahhh… Mommy. I- I want my…"**_

 _ **"So many of them are still- kah- ack- so many! What have we even, been doing all this time?!"**_

 _ **"Save me!"**_

 _ **"Kill me!"**_

 _ **"JUST LET ME DIE!"**_

In his head they fell one by one. Faces flashed through his head as he saw them through the dark helmets that faded away. Dozens, hundreds of them, falling before him. A small red-haired girl burning. Spinner asking him for death on the stage of the Sports Festival. Begging him. He saw Kurogiri in his grasp, all of Class A watching him in his peripheral vision and that man's own eyes looking back at him so desperately. _**"Life-bringer… How many people, did we save?"**_

His eyes widened as he stared at the man in his hand who just died from the pulse of power he got from the two villains he killed accidentally with his Triggered Death. He stared with huge eyes at Kurogiri's body as the third pulse of Death flooded into him. _**"…and so is he."**_ The shadowy figure in his hands replaced with a younger girl in his arms. The blonde girl gasped out at him with blood trickling down the corners of her lips, and he just heard one word that her face matched with that expression. _**"…frustrated…"**_

His eyes rose up and stared at the man;s body dangling from the fan in front of him. Then they went back down but the girl in his arms was replaced by a man. _Hyper,_ Zach thought at the sight of that face, and the lips moving to mouth to words 'Kill me.'

 _ **"I don't want to die."**_

 _ **"Please, Zach, save me. Don't let me die- I, I don't want to. Not again, not like this!"**_

He saw men's eyes close, over and over again for their final times. And then a hand reached down for him, and he stared at it and rose his own hand up but the hand he saw himself raising was smaller. His small hand reached out and took his mom's, in a vision so blurry in the corners that it was just her face past that hand up the arm. Zach stared up at that face that twisted in that moment in terror, and then he watched as she started to fall as his hand turned black.

Someone else was watching too though. As Kaitlyn Sazaki fell, Zach was not to only one to see his mother falling from the touch of that small right hand. The smiling woman reaching for her son she so clearly loved, started to fall in slow motion in the boy's mind over ten years later. She fell, and Himazuri turned her head more towards the wall on the right side of her desk. She bowed her head more and brought her right shoulder towards her face, trying to be as inconspicuous as possible even as she buried her eyes into her sleeve.

Himazuri lifted her head up and refocused on their homeroom teacher wrapping up the final period of the day. Most people had actually focused back on Hazano, and Zach looked to be doing the same as he nodded along though still with such a blank look on his face it seemed like he was a thousand miles away. Himazuri had to shift her eyes the opposite way as Reika though as the blonde girl kept darting looks back to her and seeing the tears Himazuri was holding back. In her head she continued to read Zach's mind though, as his thoughts had shifted from his mother to the night of the Lifebringer Incident. To the moment he turned away from them all. To one face in particular he saw so vividly. _Creati?_ The look of despair and fear in her eyes, in all of their eyes as the lightning flashed in that rain. Their pink-tinted faces behind the barrier staring at him in so much anger and horror, while dead bodies littered the forest around them.

Those images faded though and Zach's thoughts shifted so he was just looking down over a massive city. In his peripheral vision were the metal bars curving up higher above him, while down below the base of the Eiffel Tower spread out a bit. _It was a good place. Turned off comms. Silent, that high up. Where I'd watch the city I saved from that nuke-_ Still on that tower, he flashed back even farther to an underground facility where he was holding the dying boy in his arms. The kid was giving off so much radiation that the child's body was melting through his arms, _Why couldn't I have saved the boy? I may have saved the city, but I failed him, and Cee. Akhmed and Juno, Georgia died twice in that raid._

 _Found out later from Lee that Fergus himself had possessed Mysti at the Dragons' Den and used his Beams to kill Akhmed and Juno. Stopped the Dragons and their Syndicate that day. Prevented the wars that would have come from the Christmas Nuke. And stopped the League of Shadows before they could put in motion their next plans to destabilize the world and take over. So many plans. A world on the verge, teetering on the edge for so long with nothing but a couple dozen people to hold it off. Soldiers, warriors like me- and those cities that would never know they were saved,_ he saw cars driving around peacefully down below. People smiling and laughing as they walked in and out of stores. Then he saw the streets of Musutafu and Tokyo and Yutapu of late, only to flash back during those moments of walking around such a peaceful Japan. He saw the map on the huge computer screen, with arrows all pointing towards Japan. The blueprints for the dirty bomb, and in his head flashed an image from the Sports Festival where he saw Midoriya and Bakugo standing up in front of each other.

He was back on the Eiffel Tower, but he heard a smack of his hand on a steel wall. The tower turned into a dim room full of his most trusted comrades. His hand just smacked against the black and white picture of Hiroshima in 1945. He heard the words echo through the room, _**"…The nuclear warhead."**_ Above the picture on the wall was the label in red of 'December 25th.' _**"That kind of weapon doesn't even exist anymore!" "We're not prepared for this!"**_

 _ **"And yet we have to go…"**_

He heard his voice but as Cee's disheveled face appeared in his mind he put it over the backdrop of the peaceful French city. _At least that city, we managed to save._ The city stopped looking the same, instead turning into a different one down in Africa that a massive bomb blew up in while he was only several blocks away. And that turned into another city full of dead bodies in every street, men aiming guns down the road and firing at the civilians as they fled. And then he saw an entire city enflamed. Five black towers, some of them collapsing as planes spiraled down and crashed in massive balls of fire. Then all those cities faded back to Paris again, and Cee's face looked cleaner this time. She looked at him with her lips flat and an intense and heroic look on her face. After a couple of seconds though, the corners of her lips lifted the smallest amount and she gave him a nod of her head.

 _ **"I forgive you."**_

 _Thank you, Cee. You saved Paris. You saved the world. And, you saved me too._

Zach turned to his right side as he noticed a lot of movement in the classroom. He looked back down at his book and closed it before anyone could notice that he had not written much down for the past hour. As he bent down to put it into his bag though, he rose up his left sleeve for a moment in an action barely noticeable. He could have been doing anything as he brushed his sleeve up near the top of his face, over his eyes.

Bibi Reina was staring over at him though as she packed up her things. The girl who had rediscovered the fear she once felt for Lifebringer, just felt sad herself as she saw what he did so well at hiding. She glanced away, then she picked up her backpack and started for the door. Someone else watched Zach longer though.

A girl with curly brick-red hair falling to her shoulders watched the subtle movement and felt her heart skip a beat. _He's…_ Manzo Elia stared down at her bookbag and her eyes were huge with the shock of what she just saw. _Was he upset at me about it- "Why would it matter to me if you were a girl?" He said that and it- half the strongest people he knows are girls, and was he just annoyed because something like that, it's so small? Being self-conscious about being a woman, not wanting to be known as a "female hero" pissed him off, because the scale of what he's dealing with is… What was that?! He's so strong and smiles brighter than everyone most… most of the time. So what was, that?_

Class 1 of Shiketsu got up and started making their ways to leave for the day. The day had felt shorter than usual and yet at the same time was so hard to get through. Kotsumura looked to Zach even though Porrolo just motioned for him to head out together, while Zach was still at his desk rummaging through his backpack. "So, Zach," Kotsumura began. Zach turned towards him, and though his eyes locked on Kotsumura's his attention shifted past him. "After school, are you going to continue…"

 _Oh yeah, Himazuri. Shit. Himazuri._ Zach shook his head at Kotsumura, and replied in a low voice, "I'm tired. I'm just going to head back to my place and get some rest."

"No yeah, you deserve it…"

 _What was I thinking?_ Zach looked back down into his bag as Kotsumura started away, having told him that he understood considering Zach was up all night reviving people. Zach's eyes widened more though as the disappointed way he just thought that at himself started to shift in a more panicked way. _What_ _ **was**_ _I thinking?! She was totally listening. I didn't notice, but one look at her and I can tell. Which means others could tell as well, and they're going to ask her! She couldn't hold it back. Not right now. I, I need to try… But after what I did to her?_

Zach lifted his head back up and turned his head, looking over towards Himazuri who rose her own and stared right back at him. He saw the look on her face as they made eye contact, and his eyes dropped down to the floor. He stood up and slung his backpack over his shoulders, then he headed off for the door slowly and resigning himself with each step.

 _He knows I know. He knows I know. He knows, I…_ Himazuri watched Zach walk out of the classroom, and she stared at the open doorway for a few seconds after he was gone. _He knows that I know though. He knows I could- then,_ Himazuri's breathing started to speed up, her hands pushing down on top of her desk. Her eyes were locked forward and her heart pounding so hard that Dendo's voice came through muffled on her left side where he had just walked up to her.

"Hey, Himazuri are-"

"Himazuri?"

The short brunette girl ran to the door, but at the last second she looked back and said quickly, "I'm fine." Her friends did not think that was true by the look on her face, but they stopped at what she said instead of chasing after her.

 _Was she reading Zach's mind in class?_

 _I saw her crying. She was totally in his head. Man he's fucked up to- he's got some fucked up stuff, in that head of his._

 _What did you hear?_ Dendo watched the open doorway with his eyes narrowing more, though he did hold back instead of going after Himazuri as she seemed to want him to.

Himazuri Hikari walked through the hallway with her head leaning left and right to look around the other people who were heading out of their classes for the day. She could tell the direction she was going was correct based on how many heads were still turned this way, and she caught a glimpse of the back of some recognizable dark hair up ahead of her. Himazuri focused on that person and tried to read their thoughts to see if she was correct, only to hear nothing instead which confirmed who she thought that was.

 _Where to go? She knows. I'm a fool. Do I have to leave? Could I get away with it?_ Zach frowned deeper and headed around the corner and down a hallway with a lot less people in it as it was in the direction to the back of the school. _Everyone would believe her. It wouldn't matter that she was using her Quirk when she wasn't supposed to be. That would matter for actual proof, at least, but if she tells everyone that real proof won't matter. There's only one way to stop her. I have to, keep bringing people back. Right now._

Himazuri hit the turn in the hallway and spun to look the way she thought she saw Zach go. She was panting and her heart raced as fast as it had in a fight against villains at her last internship. _Where is he going? Don't-_ She took a step down the hall, then she froze and her heart pounded even faster as she questioned what she was doing. _I- I don't know him at all! It could all be…_ In her head flashed Lifebringer on his very first day at their school. The girl remembered him walking up to Kotsumura and talking to him, her, and Reika before they even reached the gym. And she saw him fighting all of her friends that day in such intense and serious ways, _It could be, a trick? A trap for… that doesn't, make sense._

 _Why?_ Himazuri's feet started moving again, stumbling forward and then moving quicker into a run with her eyes opened huge.

 _"Did something happen between the two of you? You were actually, being nice to him today?"_

 _ **"… I was wrong. He's not the person I thought he was…"**_ Himazuri gulped but her hands curled into fists despite the confused expression covering her face. She ran to the back doors of the school, put her hands on the bars, then froze. Her eyes darted to the right and a closed door not far from the exit, and her hands lifted off of the push bars for the double doors at the back of the school.

 _ **"Should've come with to Zach's place for Fight Day,"**_ Reika's voice replaced Dendo's in her head, and Himazuri saw her blonde best friend with another blond boy next to her as the three of them hung out a couple weeks back. _**"I picked the winner right at the start-"**_

 _ **"Sanchez almost had it."**_ She saw Kotsumura shake his head around though, then cut off the girl next to him who was going to rub in his face how the finals had gone again. _**"But Tiona's leaving out the real cool stuff. Turns out Zach joined the Italian mob while he was gone!"**_

 _ **"He didn't 'join' the mob… I think. You've got to hear this though, Hikari. Blew my fucking mind…"**_

Himazuri could see her blonde friends' awed faces as they told her what Zach had explained he did with/to the Italian mafia families. Then she saw the face of a redhead in her class who she had seen in the locker room right after she changed up her costume a little, letting it show off more that she was a woman than her costume did before. And when the girls in their class questioned her about it after they first saw, Manzo had ignored them and especially what Reika said about how it was Zach who caused the change. She remembered what Manzo was thinking as a response to them all though, _**'**_ _ **The Stealth Hero isn't a female hero, Breathtaker isn't going to be one of the the strongest women in the country. Lady hero or heroine, whatever they call me, I'm just a hero. All thanks to…'**_

 _ **"How's your shell?"**_

 _ **"Stronger than ever. Not going to rely just on that though when the joint training comes. Zach told me he'd help out with a new training style he thought up for me. Don't know if it'll help out against those Class A powerhouses, but if he's offering…"**_

 _None of it makes sense!_ Himazuri ran up the stairs of the stairwell near the back doors, and she pushed open the roof access and stumbled out on the roof just in time. A boy twenty feet in front of her had his knees bent and was putting his phone back into his pocket, but he turned his head and looked towards the open door where a brunette just ran out and stared towards him with huge eyes. The black wings that just ripped out of Zach's back hesitated, and then they pulled back into his body straight through his school uniform and disappeared leaving no Death on him anymore. He stood straight up and turned around to face her, staring across the roof at the girl staring right back into his eyes with her own huge and her panting coming heavier than before.

She felt fear. Himazuri was more intimidated than she had ever been before, and yet she still started forward with hesitant steps that turned into a half-run which she stumbled through before stopping. Her eyes were locked on Zach's the whole time and she opened her mouth, only to close it and open it again with her head shaking as she tried to find the words. Zach grimaced and he pulled his head back at the look on her face, so full of desperation and sheer wide-eyed shock that he completely understood. _I'm sorry. I wish I hadn't let you hear… If I just start reviving people again right now you might- except that was the problem in the first place! After all that I came here and…_

 _No, that's not it,_ Zach admitted it to himself and sighed while watching the girl who he was not letting read his mind. _I used bringing people back to life to fill me with so much pain that it would keep my mind off all that stuff. These 6 hours of classes weren't intense enough to keep my mind off everything. Fucking Midoriya. You got what you wanted. I brought back 200 plus people in the last day all because of you. Good for you. Damn it. This isn't Midoriya's fault! It's your own God damn fault. I'm stabler than ever to be able to think about all that stuff, and he needs me stable. It's better that I'm stable. Except, a stable me is only possible with full knowledge of everything, and full knowledge of everything makes for a darker me. Damn it! There is no middle ground. I'm a good actor, but I can't keep it up for one more fucking second at this pace. I need to just decide when I can let it be enough, when I can be completely me, and that time is not in school._

 _I already knew this. Maybe I wanted her to know. Subconsciously I never forgot she was in class. I ignored the feeling that I thought I never felt. I wanted her to rat me out, so that I'd have that excuse to leave and not stay here and do what I did yesterday. An excuse to throw myself into a situation so intense that it would get my mind off all the shit…_

Zach's eyes glowed a dim red as he stared at Himazuri who found herself hesitating in front of the boy whose eyes glowed that color as he thought ten times faster than her. Even if she was trying to get through and hear what he was thinking, she was too nervous to do so after how easily she was repelled this time without him even violently expelling her from his mind like the first time. "Zach," Himazuri started, her voice strong though at the verge of cracking as she confronted him. His eyes returned to their normal color and he nodded once at her, and the brunette's eyes squinted with her head tilting farther back at the look on his face already accepting what she was about to ask. "You're, really him?"

 _I don't know her well enough to try. I don't even have the right to, not after what I did,_ Zach kept his eyes locked calmly on hers though they got softer in the next second. _Maybe I wanted it to be her. She deserves it,_ he nodded his head at her. "Yeah," he replied quietly.

Himazuri opened her mouth. She opened it to try and say something, but her face scrunched up so much more and she started raising her arms. She rose them up in front of her and took another step forward, but her legs were shaking and she fell down to her knees while staring at him through blurry eyes. Zach looked down into Himazuri's eyes and bowed his head with his own eyes filling with regret at how she looked. "I'm sorry," he whispered.

"I don't understand," Himazuri gasped out, her arms out in front of her reaching forward but then shaking and falling down to her sides. She leaned her head forward with tears falling from her eyes and a panicked look of desperation over her face as she stared into Zach's eyes. "Why- I don't…" Zach started walking forward, and he bent down and took a seat right in front of Himazuri only a few feet from the girl who cried while staring three feet away into his hazel eyes. "Ahh, I- I don't understand," she gasped at him, raising her right hand to her face for a second and covering her eyes with it, then rubbing her sleeve across her face over and over to get a grip on herself.

She stopped with her arm resting there though, and then she lowered it and said while her eyes filled with so much more water she was barely keeping back, "You've had, such a sad life." Zach looked at Himazuri in a calmer way than she was breathing and looking. He took in a deep breath, then he looked at her steadier and even brought the corners of his flat lips up a tiny amount. She shook her head though at the sight of it, and she clenched her eyes shut as his reaction was only in response to what she said. _It's just because, he thinks I'm sad that he's-_ "I know," Himazuri whispered, her eyes that lowered down raising back up to him in a shaking way and watching his eyes that were dry and genuinely not sad. "I know you can't be as happy as you make yourself out to be."

 _You really are, a very good person,_ Zach thought at the girl gasping these things to him.

"I know that you're faking it. Always, and it has to be- you can't trick me anymore. I know, you must be crying inside. That's why you're hiding it now." Himazuri whispered that while trying to hold it back, but she leaned forward and gasped it at him with more tears falling from both eyes as she thought about the boy who had been so kind and friendly to all of them over the past two months. The boy who had come in and taught each and every one of them how to be better heroes, and not just in their skills and strengths, but the kind of person he was and always showed himself off to be… "I _know_ ," she gasped out in a voice that cracked at a higher pitched tone as she heard screams echoing in her head. "Because, that was- your whole life- after so much sadness, that I can't imagine!"

Zach moved a hand forward and put it on hers. She looked down to see he had put his left hand on her right. He was sitting down on his butt while she was on her knees with her feet splayed out to either side of her, and he leaned forward a little and put his left hand on hers with a small smile on his face. His fingers felt cold to her, but he squeezed in a comforting way nonetheless that made her raise her head back up with shocked eyes that stared back into his.

"I'm not faking it," Zach told the shortest girl in his class, and his smile grew a little more as she looked at him in so much disbelief. _That this is really, what's first for you,_ Zach squeezed her hand a little more, not too much but enough to match the way he smiled at her. "My life isn't a sad one." He gave her a short but serious nod while still smiling, and he continued to the girl in less a comforting tone and more just one explaining something to her, "There are no happy lives or sad lives. Life has happy moments, and it also has times that are sad. That's why you can appreciate it when good things happen."

Himazuri's eyes could not have grown any wider as she stared at this man sitting in front of her saying something like that. And yet as shocking as it was, as much disbelief as she thought she should feel, she saw on his face a smile that looked so genuine and it matched all of those words that just came out of his mouth. _This moment,_ Himazuri realized with her breath catching in her throat. She was shocked by the response and his expression in telling it to her, one that was as convincing as his words were even with her unable to check his mind to see if it was all true.

"The reason I can be happy so often," Zach continued to the shorter girl sitting before him. "Is that I have gone through all those horrible and sad things. So any time I'm spending with my friends, at school, in safety, they're all good moments to me." Zach said it aloud, and then he thought to himself, _This is true. I forget sometimes, just how much other people don't understand this. I don't take it for granted though. Every moment, including this one, with you._

Zach leaned back where he was sitting and let out a long sigh, _I can't just hate my life or I'll never make it. Even one more day of nonstop dying and I don't think I'd be able to come back from it. I have to enjoy the time I have with my friends, instead of spending days like I spent today. In pain, wallowing about that pain I was in, and thinking of only the bad times._ "Other people probably wouldn't be able to take so much happiness out of everyday moments like going to school, or talking with classmates, or strangers they pass on the street even, because they don't appreciate them as much as someone who knows how much worse it could be." Himazuri had her mouth open and could not close it, as the person she now knew as Death told her with a soft and somewhat more sad smile, "So don't be sad for my past. Because I'm happy now, and if you get sad like this it makes my day not as great, because I hate to see my friends cry."

Himazuri's shocked look got even more stunned hearing him say that, and Zach hesitated for a second but then told the girl staring at him like that, "I hope we are friends. I, want to make friends with everyone in class, even if we only do have one term together. It's been hard adjusting, but I don't think I'll ever be just another classmate of Class 1 or fit in with the rest of you, be one of _you._ I can never be as close to you guys are you are with each other," _Especially after today._ "Or as I am with Class A," Zach added, "but I still hope I can make lasting friendships with everyone, in what short time we have."

Himazuri slid her hands back on top of the roof, and she rose them to her face and rubbed over her eyes with her breathing calming down. _What's happening? What am I doing?_ She realized in that moment that she had gotten much too wrapped up in the moment here. She had held onto a sliver of hope that everything he had thought before was a trick. Maybe _that_ was the lie and everything else was truth, and it was just payback for her reading his mind again! He wasn't messing with her though, and the shock that finally hit her in full force to knock her to her knees finally pushed down enough for her to remember her position and think about what she was doing. And as she sat there in front of her classmate, who had just called her a friend, she got the most conflicted look on her face thinking to herself, _He's, Death!_

 _I don't understand though-_ "I don't, understand," Himazuri said aloud, instead of keeping it to herself. She did not back up either, nor did she raise her voice as the two of them sat out in the cold air above Shiketsu's main building. _Imino could be around. Maybe he followed, maybe teachers are watching… but!_

"Why?" She asked it with the most desperate look on her face. Nothing made sense to her. Two full months of classes, every single interaction with Zach that had felt so real at the time was now in question. She saw every serious moment he had had with them, and then all those screams ripped through her mind again and she clenched her eyes shut at the sound of them. "Why? Why?" Her eyes snapped open and she stared at him accusingly through the fear and panic, and the need to know that covered her face. "Why are you here?" _If any of that- if all of it was true!? I- I don't understand- no one understands! No one knows! What he really was… what they are!_

Zach opened his mouth. He had a reason. It was a simple reason. _This isn't Midoriya. These aren't my Class A friends, asking me. The people I couldn't tell, this._ His mouth closed after he opened it so quickly, and then after a second of having a thoughtful look on his face like he was mulling it over he opened it back up. "I told Deku, that I'm back to try and be a hero…"

 _Deku knows?!_

"And yet, I also told him I returned to try and bait All For One into coming for my Quirk. So I could get him caught down in Tartaros, or so I could kill him, I don't really know, because that wasn't it either." Zach paused and he lowered his gaze for a second. _I already saved Darling too, but she's asking why I'm here. Now._

"The main reason, I think I'm here," Zach started. He started it so thoughtfully that Himazuri was shocked before he even started explaining it to her. The way he worded it too, indicated no such giant plan as she was worried he may have that he was lying to all of them for months in order to accomplish. He continued to the girl staring at him in utter disbelief, "Why I'm trying so hard, to fix things with my friends from U.A… It's because they were the most amazing people I'd ever met."

"My friends who would have rather sat out the second Sports Festival than let it go on without me because I had saved our classmate, and had to break some rules to do it," Zach said that with a soft smile and then shook his head and got his look becoming more serious again. "I loved them so much," he admitted in a quiet voice with his face looking more sad than anything as he said it. "But the thing I had done before the Lifebringer Incident made me ignore every one of my own feelings. All the horrible feelings of doubt, and indecisiveness, because I knew that my friends would be devastated if I left, I ignored them. I was able to, because I had decided to put everyone else first, to make up for what I had done that was so horrible I no longer deserved those feelings-"

"What did you do?" Himazuri asked, her voice quiet and her eyes searching his face for the reason. For why he had been able to go through with the Lifebringer Incident, when all she knew about him and all he was saying made him sound like someone who could never have killed six people… let alone what she had seen in his head. "What, could you have done, that would make you do something so horrible?"

 _"So horrible?" There are those words again._ Zach lowered his gaze at the dark thought he just had. Then he rose them and said in a low voice, "I trusted Kaminari. I told him things, that got the anti-hero society I was a part of annihilated." Himazuri's jaw dropped again and she stared at him with trembling huge eyes at the calm statement he just said in such a regretful voice. "The people who had saved him with me when I went after the War Boys. Who I helped to track down and take down Diamondfist before that. And the people, who had saved me from the League of Villains. When those villains were going to torture me and completely shatter my mind this time, Webb-" Zach said his name and his eyes closed, his head bowing more in the instant regret he felt upon saying it.

Himazuri pulled her face back more at what he was saying that was so shocking to her and just added onto all the horror she had already seen in his head. "He saved me. He _trusted_ me. And I told Kaminari who he was-" Zach grit his teeth, clenching his eyes shut even harder. "And Kaminari murdered his family, murdered him, and all the other anti-heroes he tracked down because of me." Zach seethed it through his teeth, then he whispered while opening his eyes and raising them back to Himazuri, "And the only one I could save, was Cee." The way Himazuri reacted to it told Zach that she had seen all of what he remembered thinking about not long ago. Himazuri's breathing sped up, as Zach told her with his voice losing the regret in it and turning steadier, "I saved her from the League's attack, after Kaminari had already hunted her and her master down, killing _her_ family too."

"But she forgave you," Himazuri whispered out with huge eyes.

Zach nodded his head back at her. "Yeah," he said, and he lifted his head a little more and had a calm and strong a look on his face. "She did. And she told me that I had to forgive myself too, and I've tried. I've tried everything. I replaced that society I destroyed, with something I thought would be even better to- to make proud the people who I had failed." He paused and his semi-smile he was raising faltered. He lowered it with his expression shifting backwards, "In order to fix my mistake I had to give up on everything I held dear though. I knew they'd all be crushed, but I ignored that knowledge because their being crushed didn't matter to me as much as other people's lives. I was able to ignore how they'd feel, because I put everyone's life on equal ground. But, I decided to start being selfish."

Zach said it and Himazuri stared at him with realization that he was back to explaining his answer to her first question. The 'why' of his being there, and she started breathing even heavier as he said to her, "I came back, because I hurt Japan when I left. All the people here who looked up to me were saddened when I left them. All my friends who wished they could have done more to help me… I can see their faces, when I turned away." Himazuri recalled the moment too, though she remembered him just locking his gaze on one of those people as he turned. She did not bring up that one girl, because she recalled all the other faces too that Zach had been thinking about in that memory that replayed over and over again in his head, around the same time as him killing his own mother. Her breath sucked in and she stopped breathing at all as he told her, "And I knew, that for the rest of their lives they would blame themselves."

"They'd always wonder what happened to me. They'd always think that they could have done more. I knew it before I did it, and yet I did it anyway. I left them in that forest feeling like they had failed at being heroes." He said it and his face scrunched up, his eyes lowering down to his hands that curled into fists over his own legs. "I knew that they would spent the rest of their lives hating. Either hating me, or just full of hate because of me, or just hurt from what I did to them knowing what it would do… Unless I came back and helped them." Himazuri stared at Zach in disbelief and her breath finally slipped out of her mouth, her eyes bloodshot as they had been stuck open so wide for too long.

He rose his head and shook it at her, "And I was ready to die before and leave things unsettled here. I was ready to just let everyone else be hurt forever because I had decided that all I was doing out there was more important, but what's more important than family?" He asked it with his tone raising, wondering if he should really feel that way in an uncertain voice. Zach then continued his question softer, "Than friends you cared about more than anything else in the world, and one day just decided to stop caring about? I tried _so hard_ to stop caring about all of them in the moment I decided to make my plan, because I had done the most horrible thing in my life and needed to fix it. But maybe I did make up for destroying the anti-hero society by trusting Kaminari. Maybe I made up for all the terrible things I did, before the Lifebringer Incident."

He specified that timeframe and then shook his head with his teeth grinding in frustration. "But I couldn't make up for what I did that day, without coming back. I couldn't help the people I hurt that day, if I just died out there leaving everything unfinished." He bit down and rose his head to look back in Himazuri's eyes again, "And I can still see the ramifications of what I've done, but I've lessened them. People who thought I left never to be seen again, saw me return on my own terms and in good health. People who would have thought they had failed me forever, that they never saved me or helped me, saw me come back so confidently and apologetically, and they all think I still have a plan. They realized, that I'm not someone who needs anyone to save me." Zach said that quieter, and he said directly to the girl in front of him something he couldn't tell the Class A students, "They thought they'd never know what happened to me, and that for the rest of their lives they'd have to live with the idea that they failed to save someone right in front of them, or stop me from doing what I did… I just want them to know it's not their faults. I don't want those best people I knew, feel like they're anything but the best."

He paused for a few seconds and then more regret started to fill his face as he stared at Himazuri's. He had to shift his gaze away from her again, and he continued in a lower and more regretful voice, "Just by coming back alone I convinced a lot of them. The plans they think I have, and even just whatever I do normally that seems like part of my 'big plans' for returning, I know that when my friends see it they know that I'm alright. That I'm fine and there's no need to worry about me. And just by giving them that much, even if I can't ever make things alright with them, get them to forgive me… Just by them seeing that I'm here and around, I know that I've made things better than if I had stayed gone forever and left them forever not knowing. Not knowing what had happened to me or if they could have stopped me that day. And they couldn't have. Nothing could have stopped me… No one could stop me."

Zach said the final line with more regret than ever coming out in his tone at how dark his words sounded. _I killed people that night. I was a killer... but all I want to apologize for right now!_ Zach rose his eyes back up and he said in a much softer voice with sad eyes and a look like he felt he did not deserve any forgiveness. "I'm sorry," he whispered. "I'm so sorry, for hurting you."

"You-" Himazuri started, freezing after the word came out as she was in disbelief as to what he was saying again. _He's really back for those reasons? I saw him doing things, with the fate of the world! Secrets that- I can't even begin to… The Villain Summit?! Nuking Paris?! And you- you're really…_ Himazuri's eyes grew wider at how genuine his apology looked with the intense dread and regret spreading across his face after he said it.

"When you read my mind that day, I wasn't expecting… For so long, any infiltration into my head was an enemy attack and I'd trained so hard at fending them off _violently._ And I wasn't ready when you- but I played it off like I had meant to. I told myself I was fine, and that I really was just that mad at you for trying it," Zach whispered it and he closed his eyes tightly for a second before opening them and looking at Himazuri with his head bowed and his eyes half closed in a depressed way. "But I never meant to hurt you. I- I lashed out, at someone I never, never wanted to hurt." Zach pursed his lips and stared at a girl who was trying to be a hero, who he could hear screaming out in pain that he had caused despite her never doing anything to him.

"I shouldn't have…" Himazuri started it, but she stopped herself and pursed her own lips while staring at the man in front of her who looked so vulnerable in this moment. _He's killed, so many people! He's… killed, so many people,_ the second time she thought it her lips pursed even harder to stop from trembling. _Someone, this kind? How does he live with it? How- he barely can. Thinking about it all- he was thinking of those people he killed back at the Lifebringer Incident_ _ **today!**_ _They plague him! I- I can tell what kind of person most people are from their thoughts, and your thoughts were just so full of- of horror! Of regret and sadness and, and grief._ Himazuri lowered her eyes to the roof below her, and she could see those bodies in black armor dropping one by one. Faces splashed with blood, and people closing their eyes as they died in his arms, and she gasped before shaking her head at the thought of what he just said to her like it was one more thing on top of all that other regret.

"But I still hurt you," Zach whispered back at the response she never finished to him. "And I am so, so sorry," he said it looking deep into her raising eyes, and he gave her a soft nod after a few moments when he saw the accepting look that she believed in his apology to not be a lie. He continued anyway after seeing that, "And I'll teach you to defend yourself from what I did, if you want me to…" Himazuri's face filled with surprise at that last add-on, but Zach nodded again to show he meant it. "To defend your own mind like I can, and to get around people who can protect their thoughts, to make up for it." He finished, raising his tone a little as if wondering if that would be enough to make up with her for what he had done.

Himazuri stared Zach down and did not say anything for several seconds. When he was apologizing and offering to make up to her, she saw it and heard it clearer than she had ever understood someone through their thoughts. _Despite everything! All the worst stuff he was thinking about, he still takes something like what he did to me this hard? That it weighs on him_ _ **this**_ _much,_ Himazuri had to start pursing her lips again, but she started nodding at Zach too while she did. The fact that what he had done to her weighed on him that much despite all he had seen, it meant more to her than _he_ knew. "I'd like that but-" Himazuri started, and she stopped as she felt her throat clenching up so her voice almost cracked.

She took in a deep breath and then stared up at Zach with the most disbelieving look at this impossible person sitting in front of her. "I don't care about… I want to help you," she said it with her head tilting to the side and her eyes getting sadder that he felt he needed to help her, just to make up for a sharp pain she had felt when she tried to read his thoughts without his permission. The fact that he took _that_ as something so horrible that he had done to her, when she looked back on it now seeing herself as being in the wrong, and that _he_ wanted to help her out because of it was so mind-boggling to her that she could hardly gather her thoughts in a coherent way. She stared at him in desperation though and whispered, "Those thoughts I heard, I- I can't even understand. I can't-"

Zach lowered his gaze down, and Himazuri spoke towards the top of his head with her eyes shaking at the things she recalled hearing. "So much," she whispered, as every single thing she saw and heard was more than she was prepared for. "I can't even, categorize them as good or bad. That _world_ seems like a completely different one than our own, and- and you did that!" Himazuri whisper-yelled it at him with her eyes growing even wider and shaking as she thought about the Villain Summit again, only now through the eyes of the boy right in the middle of it. In the middle of thousands of villains- "What you did," she gasped. Her voice steadied more and she shook her head around as she saw him looking like the one hurting here, and she was trying to be stronger to help him but was not matching her words with her cracking voice. "What you saw, your…" _Countless friends._ Himazuri thought it so sadly but did not want to bring it up aloud again, not when he already looked to be thinking about so much again.

Himazuri reached her hand forward this time. She was hesitant, but she put her right hand that trembled for a second in front of him, down on top of his metal left hand that he had told them could feel touch. His eyes shifted over to the hand that she put on his, then he rose his eyes back up to the girl's as she whispered, "I don't understand it, but you don't have to hide anything from me, Zach." He stared at her with his eyes growing wider, and Himazuri smiled at him with her eyes watery again but stronger now and with the look of a hero staring back at him in a way he could not understand after all he knew she had heard. "Because I know you're not a bad person. More than you know it yourself, I know you're good."

"That's… that's not-"

"Only a good person would be trying so hard solely for the sake of his friends. A great person, no matter what you've done…"

"Even knowing all I've done," Zach whispered back at her, his shocked tone doubting her in itself. "How could you, feel that way?"

Himazuri did not respond to him. She did not have an easy answer to that question for him. She just pursed her lips and shook her head, like she did not know how to answer even as she thought it in her head. _That's the difference between other villains whose heads I've looked into and yours. They always find a way to believe that, they were just doing what they needed to to survive. They enjoy it, or they make up excuses to defend themselves for all they've done, while you don't. Every last one of those horrible things weighs on you, which is worse than anything I can imagine. It's why those villains don't let it, because of how horrible it feels to carry all that guilt and regret. And yet you have more to regret than anyone. You have more to grieve. More to make you, question how anyone could see you as a good person._ The look of disbelief in Zach's eyes hurt Himazuri to see more than anything. _But I can, Zach. Not everyone could, but I see you._

 _You aren't the villain you think you are._


	194. Chapter 194

**Disclaimer: I don't own Boku no Hero Academia**

 **Chapter 194:**

"You see that? He's still out there-"

"Nah, every report says he's stopped."

"But it's up at 195 now," Mineta whispered back to Sero with his phone out under his desk.

"Young Mineta!" All Might called out, making the short boy snap up in his seat with a wide-eyed look to the front of the room and the scrawny teacher who just caught him unfocused. "Do you have something to add?"

"Uhh, no. Sorry," Mineta slouched into his seat and tried not to look around at others who he just now noticed glaring towards him for what he must have been whispering too loudly.

Sero ignored those looks though, instead just shifting his gaze over towards the windows he frowned while staring out of. _Why the sudden change in strategy? Was it even a strategy in the first place? Two hundred people in a day. All that, and they're still just going to rip him apart on the news._

Sero's gaze lingered to his left even when All Might cleared his throat and continued teaching his class. Sero looked closer than outside the windows though, to the row at the end and the seat in front of Jirou. Then his eyes shifted back more and he looked to Midoriya for a moment before looking back forward. _Heard the two of you were together yesterday too._

 _If I had stopped him then, those two hundred people would still be dead right now,_ Midoriya thought it and he couldn't refocus on All Might if he tried. He was trying though, and he stared towards his mentor who acted like he did not notice his successor's strained look exceeding all his other classmates' ones, and many of them were dealing with their own feelings as well.

 _Is he making his move?_ Tokoyami had to wonder it, as the sudden news of how many people Zach had brought back was such a sharp change in what he had been doing since returning. _What is "his move" though, that this could somehow be the start of it?_

 _If he texts me after this like it changes anything! …He won't though. Not this time,_ Jirou's eyes focused on All Might but the desk in front of her was still in her vision. No matter how many times she had asked herself why she didn't take the initiative and get rid of it herself, seeing that empty seat now just made a similarly empty feeling fill her. _He shouldn't have come back. We both agreed. He, he's done, and I'm done with him. That's it. It's over now. I know he isn't long for Japan. It's just a matter of time now, until he leaves again._

 _Every life is in his hands,_ Ashido tilted her head back and continued twirling her pencil aimlessly in and out from between her fingers. _And now everyone knows it. More than with Novak, everyone knows now… He can save them all. Even though he can't._ She frowned and stopped twirling her pencil, but she refocused as All Might's tone shifted and got some of the students thinking he was directing that tone shift at them for not paying attention.

As lunch came around, Midoriya pulled out his phone and checked on the status of the breaking story all of Japan cared about. _Everyone in the world has to be seeing this and going nuts about it too,_ Midoriya reminded himself as he looked at international news' sources as well that all had the same stories breaking about Lifebringer's activities over the past 24 hours. _'Lifebringer's nonstop revival spree has ended with a total count of 203 people. Ramini Junu was pronounced dead at 7:23 this morning, and the final confirmation of her death came at 10:23 as doctors claimed it was past Lifebringer's time limit and Ramini could no longer be revived.'_

Midoriya sat down at lunch but barely touched his food as he went through every new story he could find. _'…Initial reports that not a person had died in Japan over the twelve hour period were exaggerated. New reports show that multiple people were passed over in Lifebringer's twelve hour sweep of Japan…'_

 _'Many are claiming the fault lies in those close to the deceased who failed to make enough noise to draw Lifebringer's attention. The friends of the deceased reportedly did not believe Lifebringer would come, and all three of the deaths during the twelve hours period we currently know about occurred within the first four hours of Lifebringer's spree. Once people knew what he was doing, everyone knew to draw as much attention and focus to their deaths as possible. If Lifebringer sees it, he'll have to act.'_

Midoriya clicked on a link to a popular internet forum site with the title of the link focused on Lifebringer. The very first comment with the most upvotes read, 'Why today? My parents were both killed in a car crash three days ago, and I begged Lifebringer on Quirkbook, here on Clickit, and out in the streets I shouted his name! I even went so far as to PRAY for him to show up, but where was he?' There were angry comments below it that had many likes too, ones that argued back at that commenter for being so negative towards what Zach had done. Yet the amount of upvotes for the initial comment were much higher, as were the similar comments from people who had loved ones die on any other day than the past one.

The curly-haired teen's eyes narrowed as he read the angry posts towards Lifebringer, but no conviction he had could hold more than a few seconds at the shallow anger those people held towards him for reasons Midoriya did not agree with anyway. _I wanted him to bring back more people, but I didn't know you'd do it like this. You only save who you can, but you can save everyone! And yet you-_ Midoriya's teeth bared for a second and then he looked down and picked up a roll he shoved in his mouth to chew instead of just sitting there angrily. _I need to stop you. I have to go after you. There's no way around it now, but I need to do it smart._

Midoriya looked back at his phone to look for more information on Zach. He scrolled down an article, _'An anonymous source confirms that Zach Sazaki is currently at Shiketsu High School. No new information as to whether or not he will continue his revivals after school has ended. There is no official statement from Prime Minister Nikko or any of the top hero officials as to the status of Lifebringer or what his actions have been identified as. Considering the backlash today from the international community for their decision not to let Lifebringer outside the country anymore, it is unlikely they will condemn his actions inside the country. Some sources close to the Nikko administration have even suggested that Sazaki's ban from leaving Japan may not last after this…'_

 _Zach, was that your plan? No. What was it?_ Midoriya glared down at the screen that showed a picture of Zach at the site of a truck that flipped over off the highway and him reviving the driver and a passenger of a car that had swerved when the truck nearly hit it. Neither vehicle hit the other, and yet there were still two fatalities in the accident last night. Not anymore though. _Why did you go, and do all that? Right after leaving our talk I, I thought you wanted me to chase you. I thought you wanted to fight! Did you do all that to try and convince me not to come for you? Or was the pain of all we talked about too much, and you needed something else to block it out? Bringing back people hurts you so much though! So, does all that stuff, hurt even more?_

 _Of course it does. But that doesn't mean it's forgivable._ Midoriya glared down at his screen, and he turned off his phone and slid it back into his pocket. He continued eating his food with a determined yet solemn expression, and Todoroki, Iida, and Uraraka all stared at him through their meals with varying looks of unease at how much conviction Midoriya had on his face.

 _Did he do something?_ Iida wondered, holding his tongue as much as he wanted to try talking Midoriya out of it. He thought of a call he had with his brother the afternoon before, and he had to look away from Midoriya to keep himself from arguing against what he thought Midoriya was thinking about doing. _Tensei, says Zach's most likely responsible, for giving him his legs back. I couldn't understand. Except… I could._ He heard Zach talking to him so quickly in the joint training dome when it was just the two of them, something he had skimmed right over but echoed in his mind during his conversation with his brother. _**"…I had an R &D department developing new weapons using technology from all the illegal weapons' facilities all the strongest countries in the world had hidden away from their heroes. Combined with all the technology made by Quirks in research labs and human experimentation facilities, and all the tech that we obtained from the villains we had defeated so far, our technology was so far ahead of the rest of the world's."**_

Iida could see Zach lifting his left arm and showing it off as he said that. And he could hear in his brother's voice the frustration that Tensei felt at how he was telling Tenya what he believed, even though he wanted to just accept the gift and keep his mouth shut about it. _**"I think, you already know something about your friend… But this kind of power, Tenya, it's disconcerting. I don't know what I can even do with this hunch. But I needed you to know."**_

 _Deku,_ Uraraka stared across the table at Midoriya with uncertainty over her face. Her own unease only amplified from the looks she saw on both Iida and Todoroki's faces implying they all knew something she did not, _All of you have believed he's Death from the start, but are you really, going to do this? Even after yesterday? Even after, I thought you pulled yourself out of the investigation?_ Uraraka turned her head and looked down the table towards where Bakugo and Kirishima were eating across from each other, both in silence though Kirishima kept glancing up to see Bakugo scrolling through his phone. Bakugo's look was focused but there was less conviction on it than Deku's, more just an intense gaze showing he was analyzing what he was reading on his screen.

 _I'd tell you that if you need help I'd come,_ Todoroki thought while watching Midoriya's expression from his right side, wishing at the moment that his friend had not practically kicked that muttering habit of his. _But, this is probably something you feel you have to do alone. No matter how many times it happened, you were always the one to defend him first. I watched him attack you in the training forest, but you wouldn't condemn him. You blamed yourself for so long. You even let him convince you to give him a chance after finding out the truth. If you've decided now, after all of that, that it's finally time._ Todoroki hummed to himself and he thought firmly, _Then I believe you're right. I wanted to give him a chance too after what I heard him say. I know though, that you have exhausted every other option to come to this decision… If you've even decided yet._ Todoroki watched as Midoriya's conviction shook again, his hand moving back down to his pocket in a movement almost subconscious it looked like he barely noticed until he had his phone back in hand.

The back and forth in Midoriya's head did not get easier over time, and the school day felt like it lasted forever. Then, at last, it ended, and it was time to head to his internship. Midoriya walked out of the locker room with his hero costume box in hand. He looked down at the number '19' on the box that had remained the same from his first year despite their class only having 19 people in it total now. His class number was still 19 too, even without a number 7 or 13 there anymore. Midoriya glanced to his right after stepping out of the locker room, as a larger boy stepped out behind him and quickly maneuvered around the teen moving slowly away.

"Sorry Midoriya," Sato said, though he barely glanced to the side with the apology as he moved around Midoriya in a rushed way.

"Well he's getting out of here fast," Kamakiri mentioned, looking over with Awase where they were talking with their own costume boxes in hand. The students needed to wear their costumes during training at school too often for any of them to leave them at the offices. The two Class B students had to stop first at the Costume Development Studio before heading out to their own internships, as their practical training earlier with Vlad King had gotten so intense both of their costumes needed quick repairs before they would be willing to go out on actual patrols with their pros.

Awase Yosetsu nodded while watching Sato jog down the hall at one speed lower than what a teacher might call out at him to slow down. He turned when Ojiro stepped out of the locker room behind him, "You know what Presto Change-o has Sato doing these days?" Ojiro and Kamakiri looked at Awase wondering what he meant by that, and Awase looked back down the hall in the direction Sato ran off. "Kai Kobura shares an office building with their agency, but I haven't seen them going out on patrols or anything lately."

"He has been, preoccupied," Ojiro admitted, then he shook his head showing he did not know though and just started walking to head out to his own internship. He thought more about it though after it was brought up, as he had just thought maybe the stress of this final term was getting to Sato, (along with someone else that had a lot of their class focused outside of schoolwork and hero work). _It's at his agency though? I know we're not supposed to talk about what we're doing with our heroes, but during the practical training today too he was so focused on it, then couldn't focus enough that Cementoss had to make him read aloud a passage earlier from the textbook…_

Midoriya watched Sato leave and his thoughts occupied with similar concerns for his busy classmate, but he could not trick himself into losing focus for long. _Whatever he's doing, I'm not involved. Whereas this. Lemillion. Investigating Zach. The ADTF. We know. I know. I know more than anyone._

Midoriya lowered his gaze down to the floor, and then he turned and headed off in a different direction than the front of the school. A classmate of his who Midoriya usually walked up alongside on their ways to the same agency turned his head a bit as he walked towards the locker room late with Sero and Kirishima. Neither of the other two noticed as they were busy talking Zach's revivals and whether or not he would be continuing them this afternoon, but Bakugo's eyes narrowed towards Deku as his childhood friend walked with such a dark expression on his face so unusual for Midoriya to have.

Behind U.A. High School, some first year hero students gathered together behind the class rep of 1-A on the road that wrapped around U.A.'s whole campus. Midoriya stepped out of the school and looked their direction, and his expression rose into a more normal one when he saw the class rep look his way and then straighten up even more. The other hero students glanced his way and spotted Deku looking towards them, so when their rep called out to start their run, everyone moved faster than usual to show off to the person many of them believed had the potential to be the Number 1 hero. All the comparing the news had done with Deku to All Might after the last Sports Festival where he had won, had put that reputation on Deku throughout the school year though he rarely noticed as the students he saw most in Classes 3-A and 3-B did not treat him like it, nor did Lemillion or his teachers.

There was another reason Midoriya did not feel the comparison to All Might as much as he had in the first couple of months after the Sports Festival. That was, because in the middle of the summer after the first term of his third year, someone else had returned who shook that belief that many people felt that Deku could become the Number 1 hero. Midoriya felt buzzing in his phone, and he looked down and checked the news reports coming out now claiming that Zach Sazaki was seen walking out of Shiketsu High School in 'no big rush' after school today. _He's done? Does he think, those were enough- They weren't… I can't decide based on that._

 _I can't stop him only if he's not constantly bringing people back. I can't do that to him- I can't think of it like that! He's supposed to be my enemy, right now… I don't know if I can do this._ Midoriya started down onto the road around the campus of U.A., and he glanced in the direction of Heights Alliance before turning the other way. He started walking, then he tucked his costume box into the nook between his right arm and his side and started running faster. He had his backpack on, and his curly hair waved in the wind as his speed increased more and more to the point he was bringing up dust on his run around the campus.

His feet slowed down, with a glance to his right and the sight of a large stone castle in the process of being rebuilt because of training Class 2-B had done their earlier. Midoriya saw Cementoss sensei with his hands down on the floor working to repair the building, a building he remembered getting much more destroyed than it currently was once before. Inside Ground Omega Midoriya could see himself and Todoroki fighting against Bakugo, but he also saw the end of that capture the flag game. Injured and exhausted, for both of them, he stood in front of Zach who looked so ready to fight him. _He wasn't even going to use his Quirk against me, and he knew I would use mine to get the flag back but… That was, a long time ago._

Midoriya turned back forward and started moving again, speeding off with a wind of dust rising behind him that caused Cementoss to turn his head and cock it to the side wondering what just zoomed past him. Deku shook his head as he could not get Zach's expression out of his head that day in the capture the flag game. The happy look on his face when he had won that Midoriya did not fully appreciate at the time as he was still upset about losing. The genuinely joyful expression of victory, that he saw again the first round of the Sports Festival, _and after he beat Shoji,_ Midoriya reminded himself. He could see Zach down there with a chorus of cheers for 'Lifebringer' echoing around the stadium- _**"Not Lifebringer!"**_

 _Is it really better for everyone if Zach is locked away?_ Midoriya questioned himself, but he bit down so much harder that the thought came after he heard Zach scream that in broken panic. _It would be safer for all of us not to have him here, but it wouldn't have been better for the people who died last night. And yet if Zach snaps, like I know he can! At any time he could snap, after what I saw yesterday._ The look on Zach's face, with more scars on it than the memories he was just having, Midoriya saw it looking so ridiculously unhinged that it sent chills down his spine. _Watching him break down like that… I- I…_

 _I just don't know._

Ultimately, Midoriya's run started to slow down. He fell into a jog, and then a walk, and he came to a stop in front of a building he turned to with wide eyes as he had apparently reached his destination. He hesitated as he stared at the building just like another dorm, only this one was not for students. Deku glanced back behind him, but then he turned to the building and took in a deep breath before walking towards the front doors. He knew it was his own decision to come here and stop in front of it, even if part of that decision was subconscious as so much else had been racing through the forefront of his mind.

Yagi Toshinori put his jacket down on the back of his desk chair and let out a long sigh after a hard day at work. He rose his arm and coughed into his sleeve a couple of times, and then he sighed again in exhaustion as just standing up and teaching for a whole day took a lot out of him in his old age and weak state. The old man with sunken-in eyes and graying blond hair smiled though as he pulled his chair farther out, and he took a seat that felt so nice- _**Knock knock**_

All Might opened his mouth and let out another sigh though of defeat this time. He shook his head around and then turned to the door and responded, "Yes?"

"All Might, it's Midoriya," Deku started on the other side of the door, surprising his teacher who glanced towards a digital clock in his room to check the time.

"Midoriya Shonen," All Might began, standing out of his seat and starting for the door. "Should you not be on your way to Lemillion's agency?"

All Might opened the door for his successor, and his questioning look faded as he already half-suspected the reason that was confirmed with the look on Midoriya's face. "Do you need to talk?" All Might wondered, and he moved to the side to let Midoriya into the room. Midoriya's face scrunched from its hesitation and confusion for a moment, as he reminded himself that this was his job now and not All Might's. He walked into the room anyway though with an absent nod at the offer. "Is it about, Sazaki?"

Midoriya stopped in the middle of the room, and All Might closed the door before stepping back in himself and towards his chair that he sat back down in. He made the sit look natural and like he thought this was a better conversation to have while seated, but when he motioned at Midoriya to take a seat on the other chair in his room, the student stayed standing. "All Might," Midoriya began. The eighteen year old staring at his mentor grit his teeth for a few seconds, and then he said softly just barely above muttering it under his breath, "Zach's Death." He bowed his head after speaking the words, and then he rose up his gaze and said to his predecessor sitting before him, "And, I think I need to stop him. Now…" Midoriya added softer, indicating to All Might why it was that Midoriya did not appear worried at all about getting to his agency on time.

Nothing else mattered at the moment but this for Deku. All Might's expression got more focused too, even though he already knew this was going to be a serious conversation. "You know it, for certain?" All Might asked, just checking to make sure. "You have proof-"

"He's confessed. We've," Midoriya stopped himself for a second and looked away for a moment, only to look back into All Might's eyes feeling less shame than he thought he would as he finished, "we've talked about it, at length. There's no question." Midoriya paused and he shook his head, before saying in a stronger but angrier voice of frustration, "He was forced into telling us though, when that girl he brought back to life, who he called Darling, showed up. She revealed the lies, but we-" Midoriya ground his teeth with guilt forming on his face for a moment, then he continued quieter, "I decided to, give him a chance. I know it's not what I was supposed to do, All Might. But, I thought it was the right thing, to do…"

All Might sat back in his seat and took in a deep breath that he let out slowly. A talk he had had with the Number 2 hero not too long ago filled his mind. _**"...The place was fucked up, but almost as bad were the unredacted reports of what the villains who said anything told about what had happened to the place. The gladiators broke free, with the help of the Army of Death. I think maybe Death's army came for their captured leader, or maybe Sazaki was just another prisoner of The Pit when they came. One thing was agreed on by the villains who told me the truth though…"**_ _I didn't believe it like you did, Young Midoriya. I did not think it was as sure a thing as you believed it to be, but after what Hawks told me that day I came to accept this already._

 _ **"When the gladiators rose up, Lifebringer led the revolt. By that time he was already known by another name there though, one he lived up to during the uprising. They called him… The Champion of The Pit." "…And All Might, this is something that wasn't in any of the reports, but those men I questioned told me. It's something I don't plan on telling Lemillion because I can't really confirm it… This is what one of them told me though: 'Covered in wounds from his gladiator matches, he freed the other gladiators and led them to the surface, and by the end of it the other gladiators had swords raised in the air. They were roaring for Sazaki, as he cut Umbuju down and decapitated him.' The gladiators all went missing afterwards, but those villains who talked to me said that Lifebringer told them all he would never let something like that place exist again in the world. He promised them to drag all villains to the surface, like this, and to make them pay so that no one ever thinks something like this will be allowed again. He was drenched in his own blood and the blood of his enemies. The villains considered him to be the devil, a vengeful demon… the embodiment of Death."**_

"…and All Might, there are things Zach's told me that, that I can't accept. Things that are so bad, that I know what I need to do now."

"I, would advise you not to be hasty," All Might began to his student. "Your friend has gone through so much." _More than you know,_ All Might thought, though he kept that to himself. He also felt hesitant about his own response right there though, as he remembered how Hawks finished that conversation to him. _**"The local heroes have no idea what's true and what isn't, as they were called about an anonymous tip with the location and knowledge of what the Pit was, and that's it. Not what happened there that day. Most of the villains I tried to interrogate wouldn't speak either, and most of them completely denied Lifebringer ever even being there.. Some denied it so strongly, when I suggested that I would rumors that they had told me about him, that they started crying… I'll admit, All Might. I don't know what to think myself, but I'd have kept all of this to myself if I didn't genuinely feel, this kid is a danger to everyone."**_

Midoriya frowned at the first response All Might had for him. _I thought- no, I wanted you to be upset. I wanted your help, convincing me otherwise!_ "You told me before, All Might, that it's up to me now. Since you can't stop Zach yourself anymore," Midoriya said that lower and he bowed his head some more before shaking it in frustration and raising an intense gaze to his mentor. "I know I have to fight Zach. I need to face him now," _without any uncertainty in my feelings._

"And why is it so pressing that you rush into this?" All Might wondered. His tone suggested he was against it, telling Midoriya to calm down first and look over all the options just from his question alone.

Midoriya shook his head though and started, "Zach has plans." He paused, and he added in a lower voice, "And there's the possibility, that those plans are altering right now. As he, changes too." Midoriya's dark look shifted away for a moment, _Something I pushed to happen. Yet something that I needed to push, and that I don't regret either._ "He's told me he wants to be a hero. He's told me it's his reason for being here, and yet the day he returned he said what he did about All For One." All Might hummed and lowered his gaze down too as he recalled what Midoriya told him about that. "And I know he's still planning something with that, and with the League I know he's hunting on his own, and who I'm pretty sure he'll wipe out if he finds them! He's always planning so far into the future. And, and he's so strong."

 _Too strong. If the time came and I had to stop him after he already lost it, as he's killing again, I don't know if I could do it._ Midoriya's look of dread rose up and his dark eyes stared into his mentor's that could see so much hurt in them hidden behind the guise of intense conviction Midoriya was putting up. "All Might," Midoriya began in that dark voice, his dread shifting back more for his conviction to get even stronger with each word out of his mouth. "I've seen how fast Zach progresses with Death, faster than I've ever gotten stronger with One For All. I saw the increase myself in Breakneck's Trigger lab, after he had killed Spinner at the Sports Festival. He told me, that it's never been a temporary boost in strength from killing people."

All Might stared at Midoriya in a steady way with his expression not changing even when Midoriya thought it would fall into a much deeper look of dread there. Midoriya shook his head and spoke stronger, "I remembered the difference between it that day and the Sports Festival, and it's more than just the 6 from the Lifebringer Incident. It's so, so much more," Midoriya whispered that and All Might's black eyes widened for a moment at the horrified look in Midoriya's eyes like he knew how high that kill count was.

Saying it aloud settled things more for Midoriya too. All the self-doubt he had replaced with conviction. He was no longer questioning himself, when there was someone else to do that who he had such bad responses for. _I just needed to do this,_ Midoriya admitted to himself. His fists clenched at his sides, but he ground his teeth at how convicted he was in that moment, and yet how much doubt he still had towards the actual event this decision was leading to itself. "I need all 100%. Not 75, not 80, I need to be able to use 100% all the time, and even then…"

 _It must be so hard,_ All Might thought while watching his successor whose expression he had seen before. He recalled seeing it on a camera when Midoriya had broken off from Class A and Class 1 to be on his own in the joint training dome for a little where he thought no one could see him. The look in Midoriya's eyes reminded him of that day only a couple weeks back, and All Might wondered to his frustrated student, "Did you think that you would be able to defeat anyone with One For All?"

Midoriya froze, and he rose his eyes back up with his expression shifting to confusion and surprise for a moment. All Might shook his head at the boy staring back at him like that though, "That won't be the case, and it should not be how you look at your power." The teacher sitting in front of Midoriya spoke in a wiser voice, finally having a chance to teach his student who had taken the reins of this "conversation" throughout to seemingly just vent and gather his own thoughts together. All Might continued to the teenage hero-in-training, "Defeating All For One was not easy for me. It took everything I had and left me as I am now, and I was the first to succeed out of all the previous One For All holders."

When All Might said 'as I am now,' Midoriya really saw the tired man in front of him who looked exhausted from the day. He realized that All Might may have wanted to stand in front of him on a more equal level to have this conversation, and yet was sitting not by choice of keeping the conversation in a more casual way, and Midoriya stepped backwards and sat down which All Might just nodded at before continuing. "…Me, with years and decades of experience fighting more villains than I could count, almost lost that fight and escaped with victory by a hair's breadth. Young Midoriya, do you think if you could use 100% right now that you would just, be able to defeat All For One like it was easy?"

Midoriya started shaking his head, thinking about All For One showing off Muscular's Quirk the last time they had seen each other over the video link when All For One had taunted him. He thought about Muscular taking a full blast from One For All and continuing to fight him, almost killing him, and yet All For One did not just have the Quirk that could do that to him but also so many more he did not know about. As he started thinking about how hard that fight would be even with all of One For All mastered though, All Might continued to him, "What about Raijin? Or Shigaraki? What about Eziano?" Midoriya started hesitating more, wanting to counter on those other names that he felt more confident about facing, but he stared at All Might with wider eyes as All Might shook his head at him in an intense way denying his attitude.

"I could use my full power in that fight," All Might said, referring to his battle against Eziano Mozcaccio. "And yet I was still almost killed many times during that battle."

Midoriya took in a deep breath and calmed himself, and he started nodding in understanding at All Might for all he was saying. All Might frowned himself though in a sadder way at the serious look that had formed on Young Midoriya's expression. _He is more prepared now, steadier in hand, but just more thoughtful of what he is doing._ All Might could see that instead of fretting about whether he could beat Zach or not at his current strength, Midoriya was just going to come up with a better strategy to beat him instead. "You need to think too, about what fights are most important-"

"It's become a necessity," Midoriya said, countering this time and raising his gaze back up to meet All Might's. He accepted all the advise, but this was something he could see All Might was pushing less from his experience as a hero and more because of his own personal feelings. Midoriya could see that, even in his infallible mentor. "An inevitability," he said softer but no less certain. _No matter when it comes, we will have to fight. It has to be on my terms then. Preventative, rather than correctional. I do not want to face you after you have already stepped off this path you can barely stay on as it is. I would have no excuse to say 'there was nothing I could have done' or 'no way I could have seen it coming,' because I see what is coming. I know what he will do._ "We will face each other, and he has told me what he will do if I choose to come for him. I am ready to fight him though if that's what is needed. I have to-"

All Might sat in front of his student who was seated in his room before him. Midoriya's hands curled tightly on top of his thighs, and All Might suddenly wondered to the boy when his voice was rising like that in a way so sure of himself, "Young Midoriya, did Sazaki ever tell you why he chose Bikergang's agency?"

The question did not suddenly change Midoriya's focus or make him wonder about why All Might was bringing it up. Instead he just frowned while thinking, _'Young Midoriya' and 'Sazaki.' You always make the distinction for me and not for Zach-_

"For you," All Might said.

Midoriya froze. His thoughts cut off, and his eyes bulged, his breath stopping as well as confusion covered his face after a moment of silence where he did not understand what he just heard. All Might explained to the boy frozen like that in front of him, "After the Sports Festival and Tartaros escape, when I told you three how All For One knew you were my successor, you all left for your internships." All Might paused and sat back in his seat, and he continued to his closest student, "I suggested Wonderlass because I knew you could learn a lot from her, and also because I knew she could protect you better than most if All For One did come after you while you were away from U.A."

 _I- I don't understand what Zach- how does this mean that he…_

"I expected All For One was still badly injured though so I was not too worried, but others could be sent after you instead so I did want someone who knew how dangerous it was to be looking out for you." All Might paused, and then he admitted to his student the secret, "That was what I needed to talk to Sazaki about alone that day, when I had you go out in the hall."

Midoriya opened his mouth to start in frustration and anger at his teacher, getting ready to exclaim how All Might shouldn't have done that.

"But before I could ask him to, he promised to do so on his own," All Might continued, silencing Midoriya with his mouth still open and his eyes going huge again at what was just said. All Might stopped for a moment, then he went on to his student who did not have anything to say yet as he was still trying to process what was being said to him. "Sazaki told me that day that he would protect you. He promised to protect you, for the next two years he said he would keep watch over you until you had One For All mastered. It is as you say, Sazaki always looks so far into the future." All Might nodded at Midoriya who was staring at him still in shock as he tried to understand this.

The teacher continued after a second, "So I believe it was all part of his plan, though I did not understand it at first. Then the two of you called me though, on the same video call," All Might shook his head and let out a sigh. "When I heard where Sazaki was going to be interning, so close to where Wonderlass would be, it of course crossed my mind. But I understood when I saw you together. I knew Sazaki was keeping to what he said and following you in order to protect you."

 _The plane flight there,_ Midoriya thought, his breathing fast as he sat in disbelief on the chair in front of All Might. _We sat right next to each other on the way to Hokkaido. Then after we split up, we met back together to do the same raid… which was luck. I always knew it was luck that we got paired together, just like it was when I worked with Uraraka and Tsuyu and Kirishima in the past. Or the others who fought alongside me against the Cult of Stain… but it wasn't all luck. Not that time. Zach, planned things._ Midoriya's huge eyes lowered down and his fists unclenched at the realization of how much it actually made sense. _It's believable._

Midoriya's eyes steadying shot wide again as he was just starting to accept it. _The day we got the packets with our offers!_ He could heard Uraraka asking the dark-haired boy who had come up to him, _**"Do you know who you're thinking about?"**_

 _ **"Not a clue yet…"**_ _He said it, and really had no idea what he was going to-_ _ **"Looks like you've got someone you're interested in though?"**_ _He shifted the conversation to me! He came over to find out who I was interning with, and he picked someone… He knew. He knew from the very beginning, and he planned it out to be there with me._ Midoriya slouched into his seat, a depressed look covering his face at what he was finding out right here. "We were, really good friends," Midoriya admitted, his voice quiet and his eyes dropping as he said "were" and yet did not even believe his own use of the past tense.

All Might started to his student who rose his gaze back up again, "He did it because you were his friend, yes, but Sazaki had many friends in Class A. He had friends who were closer to him than you," All Might added, "and who I'm sure he was more worried about." Midoriya could picture Zach on the phone with someone else during their internship together, and he pursed his lips that shook as All Might continued to him, "He chose to follow you though, because he was thinking about the future. The future for everyone."

All Might said it in an assured voice, and he continued to his student whose eyes opened wider at what All Might told him with no hesitation in his tone, "He went, to protect you, and thereby to protect the world. I know that was the reason…" All Might slowed down and Midoriya's heart started pounding faster and faster in his chest. "Because I knew when Sazaki promised to protect you, when I saw that determination on his face, that he truly believed the same thing I already did. That you were going to be the one to protect this world. That you would save it."

Midoriya bowed his chin down into his chest, his wide eyes clenching shut and his teeth grinding so hard. All the doubt he felt returned again, and he felt so frustrated and pained but this time because of the doubt he felt about his friend. _He did something like that, all, for the peace of this world. That's always why he acts. Every time!_ Midoriya's clenched eyes opened slowly though, as he saw looks on Zach's face recently that shook him back into the present from this time so long ago. He kept looking down though, and he said in a dark and self-doubting tone, "Zach, might be stronger than me now though."

He rose his head and looked at All Might in a way that had his mentor's eyes opening huge. The sad look full of absolute defeat on it, because of the acceptance of how good a person Zach was that Midoriya just felt for a moment. Midoriya continued in a low and dark voice, "Zach believed that, because All Might gave me this power. His hero too… but if Zach's gotten stronger than that power, what if he can-"

"Maybe my power had a part in it," All Might cut in, admitting that some of what Midoriya was saying might be true. "But Sazaki would not have gone to protect you just for your power." All Might shook his head knowingly as he continued with that too, and Midoriya stared up at his mentor's eyes with his back hunched forward and his expression starting to lift a little from the depression that had hit him for a moment there. All Might smiled at his student and said to him, "Sazaki knew the kind of person you were, which combined with One For All made him believe that you would protect this world in my place. The next Symbol."

"Zach doesn't believe that anymore," Midoriya countered, his voice getting angry though more just upset as he shook his head around. All Might started looking at him in a way suggesting that may not be true, but Midoriya pulled back and his face scrunched up for a moment before he called out, "Zach did more- than anyone! He did so much on his own, has so much power and can influence _so_ many more people, as everyone in the world knows him and looks to him. He has press conferences and knows all the right things to say, and even when he messes up he- he uses everything. He's so, amazing." Midoriya's shoulders slouched and he looked to his left as he could not keep All Might's gaze expecting more from him. The reality was that his faith in himself was more shaken than it had ever been though, knowing how even back in Hokkaido Zach had always been thinking of things on a much bigger scale than him who had just been there to get stronger.

Midoriya gasped out at the thought of the time they spent together there where he never once had the suspicion that Zach was somehow following him around. He bit down on his bottom lip, and then he whispered while still looking away from his mentor, "Zach's more of a Symbol, than I am. Than I could ever be," he whispered that quieter and in the most defeated tone All Might had ever heard from his successor.

 _So you have finally accepted those feelings,_ All Might wondered while watching the boy who just said that feeling of his out loud. Something Midoriya pushed so far away, yet bubbled up inside every time they talked, and whenever he saw Zach in public. When they fought at the joint training too, when All Might had seen Midoriya out in the woods alone thinking of his failure, he could see a similar look as this one to a lesser intensity. _It would be impossible for you to feel any other way. When you look at what he has done in the year he was gone, compared to what you did in the same year, it must be so frustrating. I do not know much of what he was doing out there, but within four months of leaving here he created an Army and saved an entire nation from an evil tyrant. That alone, would be enough to draw up these feelings. To imagine how much else he did out there, and to be stuck knowing that worst of all he never accepted the credit for the vast majority of it, he epitomizes what so many in this world who disagree with the hero society's current state believe heroes should be._

"What if, it's too late?" Midoriya whispered, still staring to the side out a window to the bright sky outside where he saw birds flying overhead. "What if I've failed, by doing things the right way all this time?" He said it in fear and less as a question and more a confession of the darkest thoughts in his head of self-doubt towards how he had spent his years at U.A.

"You haven't," All Might assured, causing Midoriya to look back at him and into his eyes that were darker again and against what Midoriya just wondered aloud. "There are things he did out there too, that you should never consider as being the right thing." Midoriya's shaken expression hardened and his head nodded quickly, reminding himself of those things fast. All Might saw Midoriya reassure himself too hard though, and he grimaced at the sight of Midoriya's expression returning to how it looked before.

"I know you disagree with my handling of Eziano Mozcaccio," All Might began, causing Midoriya's look to shift again as he started shaking his head so as not to make All Might think that. "It's alright," All Might continued when he saw Midoriya start doing that just for his sake. "I question my decision that day more often now than ever before, after Sazaki's apartment was destroyed, and those people were killed," All Might said it in a regretful tone that made Midoriya tilt his head back in pain at the sound of. All Might continued though, "But, I do not believe Sazaki is the same as Eziano. The decision, is not the same, or you would have gone after him right away as you said. I do not believe it is your friendship that kept you from doing so."

Midoriya lowered his eyes to the floor, as he did not know if he agreed with that himself. All Might wondered in a knowing tone to him though, "Why do you think Zach came back? His real reason, if those plans you say he's brought up or you found out about already are not the extent of it?" All Might posed the question and tilted his head to the side showing he wanted to hear what Midoriya thought about it.

Midoriya looked at him somewhat confusedly though, and he frowned as he tried to come up with it but came up blank like always. _I can never tell with Zach. I've never known what he was thinking! As much as he tells me, and as truthful as he seems when he does, he's always hiding so much! His real reasons for being here? I- I don't…_

"Why is he spending time with you, when I am sure he can see through and knows that you want to fight him?" Midoriya bit down as he wanted to open his mouth and say that he did not 'want' to fight, and yet knew that the option was there and he was making this choice that he did not _need_ to. And he also knew by how their last conversation ended that he had not done well at all in hiding how he felt about what Zach was doing, which put him at a disadvantage if he actually felt he needed to fight him. All Might continued to the frustrated younger man, "Sazaki is a good liar, and you are not." He was excusing Midoriya's frustration at giving himself away all this time, and All Might shook his head that Midoriya would be upset at a lack of lying ability.

"So then why?" All Might continued. He watched Midoriya ponder it over, and he said softly to the student, "Why did he come back to do things the right way again, the way you've always done them, if he was doing so much more out there? Why would he do it, if he doesn't really think what he was doing was wrong?"

"I don't know," Midoriya whispered. _He looked like he seriously didn't think it was wrong though. He started, talking like it wasn't. But he's still here trying to be a hero. He's still going to school, to get his pro license. And he's trying to be a pro when- I don't know!_ His expression hardened and his voice rose a bit, "But I'm trying to find out."

"Have you ever considered this?" All Might started, and Midoriya looked into his eyes closely as All Might seemed to have the answer for him ready. "What if your friend knows, that he can never be that Symbol like you think he is, because Sazaki has already killed and done so much wrong?" Midoriya's eyes started to widen, as All Might continued, "People will always remember those things he did, no matter how much good he does now on top of it."

 _ **"If a hero saves a few hundred people, but then goes out and murders a couple, are those crimes forgiven because things even out? No, right? How could they? People wouldn't think of someone like that as a hero."**_ Something Zach had told him once that he always thought back on rang true in his head. _I understood his reasoning there. It made sense to me, and it was true._ Midoriya looked from All Might down to his own hands that were curled in fists right over his knees as he leaned forward in his chair. _I know that no matter how much good Zach is doing or trying to do, to me he is still suspicious. I still think of him as a villain waiting to happen, because of the bad things Zach has done._

 _That's not about perspective though, it's just the truth._ Midoriya grimaced and rose his eyes back up in no uncertain way to All Might, _I didn't understand it back then and countered him, but that was because Zach was saying it about his own case because of wrongs he thought he'd committed that I didn't think were really crimes at the time. Now, we both know what you've done was wrong. And I see you in a different light._ "Everyone in the world sees Zach through a veil," Midoriya started softly. "They want to believe in who he is now, but they'll never forget the things he did before…" All Might started to nod at Midoriya, but the student trailed off and shook his head after what he was just saying.

"That's not entirely true though," Midoriya argued with his own agreement and what All Might was suggesting. He said in an even more serious voice than before, "Actually, some people probably don't think that at all. They're like I used to be, thinking even those bad things he's done now are not bad enough to diminish their opinions of them." All Might stared at Midoriya in a growing sense of awe at his successor's realization here going farther than what he had said only on a surface level. The fear Midoriya felt was not just towards Zach, but on a wider scale too that All Might understood the wariness towards as Midoriya continued, "They accept the things Zach did as not being crimes at all, while only a few like you and I will think they are. Instead of it just being Zach now, maybe his aunt too who blamed him, a few other people maybe for those first crimes he thought he committed… Zach has a lot more people now like us who condemn him while still tons more think he's perfectly fine."

Midoriya paused and then continued in a thoughtful voice, "It really is, all a matter of perspective." He understood it, but he also understood something else that he continued with in a softer voice, "Yet to a portion of the population, Zach could never be the Symbol." He said it in understanding and looked into All Might's eyes with that realization covering his face that All Might started nodding at in agreement after a couple seconds. "Zach has all the influence he needs to do whatever he wants, all the strength to defeat anyone… or he could, maybe." Midoriya paused and then shook his head with grit teeth and his eyes dropping down, "He has so much power already, but he's not pushing his influence to try and get political or anything."

The realization hurt Midoriya as much as he wanted to stay impartial towards this thought process. "He's not going to press conferences I know he could twist to make work out in his favor. And when he does, he could have… he could have done things, to make everyone get on his side. Done more! To do that though, would be deceitfully manipulative in itself, and that's not who he's trying to be… He could have done more from the start, but he didn't. He's staying in the rules, as best he can, so that he can stay there as Zach Sazaki." _So that he can continue to be our friend,_ Midoriya added to himself as he paused.

The pause lasted longer though, as Midoriya continued in his head for a second before freezing up, _If, Zach understands already that he can't be that Symbol-_ _ **"I thought… that I could try and be a symbol."**_ Midoriya heard that booming voice of Zach in the Enudora Forest echoing through his mind. Words that were lost in the dizzying madness of that night, that only now reverberated through his mind. _**"I could try and be the Lifebringer people wanted me to be. I thought that heroes mattered so much, because people look to them to feel safe. And after beating Shatterer, I started to feel like I could actually become something like that… That's stupid though. Not because it won't work, because it could, but because I**_ **can't** _ **do it."**_

Panic spread over Midoriya's face at the realization he was having now, that Zach might have already realized what he had just figured out himself, all the way back then. _He emphasized how HE couldn't make it work. He already knew. That he never could have become the Symbol because of the people he'd already killed, the lies he'd already told…_ Midoriya's face pulled back while All Might stared at him in confusion for Midoriya's internal struggle he was not hearing. Midoriya gasped out though, as he thought, _So it didn't matter if he just went off the rails like that. His actions were all that mattered, because people would never all be able to see him as a hero again after he had killed people. Just one, and they called him a murderer. And if it's not everyone… but with me,_ Midoriya thought about himself and he closed his eyes as he saw a way Zach had looked at him before, a look he did not see from nearly anyone except for Zach. One of the people who knew him so well so the look was familiar, and yet it had a similar expression to those people who did not know him personally who looked at him like a possible new All Might.

 _My clean record. Something he's even pushed me about. About how I can't reveal those secrets… and he's always so intense about that. Because it's not just about my moral compass, because to him I'm more than that!_ Midoriya opened his eyes and All Might saw in his eyes a look so tired as all of this hit him at once. _Beating Inhuman, and Breakneck, the April Fool's Day Villain. Big names I got a lot of media attention for. I got the most internship offers two years in a row. I won the Sports Festival this year, my_ _ **final**_ _year at U.A. before I am going out to become a pro hero, who the whole country has high hopes for. Top of the world famous Class A. Taught by All Might. He sees all these things I don't, even think about. And I haven't been living up to what he knows I need to._

 _The way I've seen Zach working the media, and how All Might used it too! Always smiling and laughing for the camera like I wanted to do, but have thus far failed at, being too indecisive and hesitant when the camera's on me. And, All Might's not the only one who…_ Midoriya could see Zach smiling as he came out of the War Boys' base, holding up Kaminari and that girl he had saved. _Just like I saw All Might carrying so many people out of the flames. My whole life, I watched that video as my ideal for what a hero was, and then Zach went right out and did the same thing! "It's okay now." All Might isn't the only one who I could look to for advice on how to be the next Symbol. He isn't the only one pushing me towards that future._

"He's believed in me for so long," Midoriya whispered. _And when I did nothing but stay here and keep doing things the right way, he never lost that faith in me while I, I lost my faith in him._ He looked into All Might's eyes and whispered in a pained voice, "He told me himself so long ago. '…Long enough for you to become the Symbol of Peace,'" Midoriya said it and shook his head with an agonized look covering his face. "He said that about the clash that could potentially upheave all of hero society. And that was right after he came back from the villains, who he held out through all his torture without telling about my Quirk! Even though it didn't matter in the end," Midoriya said softer, feeling so sad as he knew AFO had told Shigaraki and who knows how many other villains about his Quirk. _If Raijin, and Phinx and Lee all knew…_

Midoriya shook his head around and said softer to his mentor before him, "He told me I could be it, back when I didn't believe I could be it myself. He's always believed in me, and I've never given him… as much faith," Midoriya finished, hesitating for a second as he wondered if he was exaggerating there. _I let him go when I found out he was Death. I kept quiet when he revealed what he had really done with the League of Villains. I've had faith in Zach before… but I still doubt him. I doubt him more than he's ever doubted me._

"He's had reason to doubt me," Midoriya said softly to his teacher who looked sadly back at his student at what Midoriya started saying about himself. "I never saved him, when he was being tortured all that time. Even though, in the worst moment of his torture, when he could have died at any second-" Midoriya sucked in a sharp breath, and All Might pursed his lips too as they both thought about that video they saw at the Sports Festival two years ago. Midoriya continued in amazement and so much regret, "Zach had the strongest look I had ever seen, as he looked into Shigaraki's eyes and said that I would save him."

"There wasn't anything you could have done," All Might assured, though his voice was a soft whisper.

Midoriya hesitated for a couple seconds, but he nodded in acceptance of that. His eyes were still so sad though, but they started to harden as he said in a steadier voice, "I knew back then how I had failed though, but Zach pushed me to believe in myself and my power. Seeing him still believe in me, it pushed me to become stronger. A better hero…" Midoriya grit his teeth and tilted his head back with a harsh glare up at the ceiling. _Why do I think Zach must have plans? Why, do I think those plans are necessarily bad?! It doesn't have to be like the Lifebringer Incident, and it's probably, most likely nothing like that…_

"What if," Midoriya started to wonder, his voice pained as he stared up at the ceiling with his face scrunching up. "The plans Zach has," he continued, lowering his eyes down to meet All Might's. "Are just to be here, so if any of us die he can bring us back to life?" All Might saw water forming on Midoriya's bottom eyelids at the suggestion. "Or, if his plan is just, vaguely, to try and make Japan a better place? Or- _or-"_ his voice cracked, but he shook his head and asked in doubt, "Or to help me, and the others be better heroes… By telling everyone how wrong he was about what he did, in case any of us thought that him breaking the rules was in any way alright?" Midoriya's voice started to speed up, "Which a lot of people _did_ believe! But he put himself in prison for it. He- He!"

Midoriya's head shook harder, his expression breaking and his lips flapping around for a few seconds as he shook it faster and faster. "Brrrr," he blew out air and took in a huge breath. Then he rose his hands to his face and clapped himself on the cheeks, and he stopped with them pressed against it as he once again saw Zach's darkest look the day before. But he shook that look slowly out of his mind, replaced by looks he saw much much more often since Zach had returned. The looks he chose to ignore, to focus on only the absolute worst. _I, have to give him back, what I haven't given him since he returned. I'll give him the benefit of the doubt, because maybe part of what's made you so dark is this injustice I've been doing to you, by being so suspicious of you this whole time._

"All Might… Thank you. I- I think the answer isn't easy, and I was trying to convince myself it was-"

"The fact that you came here, shows me you understood that it was not," All Might countered right back in a strong way at his student.

Midoriya hesitated for a few moments, then he nodded at his teacher and stood up in front of him. _It wasn't easy. And whether or not that's because of a personal reason, doesn't matter. Zach has always been, one of my closest friends. He's still..._ Midoriya pursed his lips and then smiled and nodded once at All Might who started telling him that he would not tell him how to make his decision, but just to always follow his heart. And as All Might told him that, Midoriya finished to himself, _…one of the people I care about the most. Who knows me better than most anyone. Knows my secrets, and who I am… and one of the people I trust the most?_

The thought caught Midoriya off guard, and he turned from All Might so as not to show his mentor the look that came from the confusing thought. He did not feel the doubt he felt he should though, even as he wondered it again to see if he was being serious, _Can I really trust Zach? Could I ever trust him again, after everything? I'd put people in danger doing something like that… I think- I thought. Can he control himself though? Can he do things right this time, like I know he's trying to do?! He deserves to have the chance. Even after it all, that's what I believe most firmly. You deserve this chance. A chance, to be the hero we all want you to be._

* * *

 **A/N Thanks for reading! Posting this late, so no review responses again (sorry bout that). I've got to wake up early tomorrow morning and drive 4 hours to a job fair at a mountain I'm hoping to work over the winter (so I can spend my days skiing and nights working at the mountain's restaurant, sound like a cool plan right?). Anyway, some more aftermath of Zach's half day of revivals, along with Midoriya's battle with what he knows about Zach now and a decision he makes with help from his mentor he goes to instead of heading to his internship to tell Lemillion. Midoriya learns the truth behind Zach's reason for going to Bikergang that Zach never told anyone, but that All Might knew was the case for a long time now. He also admits his own feelings of inadequacy and inferiority, doubt towards his own feats and strength compared to Zach's, and his fear to what Zach could become and how he wouldn't be able to say he didn't see it coming. Hearing Zach's faith in him has restored some of Midoriya's own faith in Zach, as he decides to give Zach the chance to stay on the right path... I hope you guys enjoyed the chapter. Leave a review telling me what you think, predictions for the coming chapters, or questions for the story in general! Just finished writing 195 before I started editing to post this, so I'll try to upload 195 by Sunday. 'Til I get it up though, have a good weekend guys.**


	195. Chapter 195

**Disclaimer: I don't own Boku no Hero Academia**

 **Chapter 195:**

On Saturday on the weekend around a week after Zach's apartment exploded, Zach Sazaki came to Shiketsu to use the facilities that were open to students even on the weekends when they did not have school. Hero students were frequently called in on the weekends to do special training regimens, though Class 1 did not have anything going on that day for him to be at school. Still, he was not the only one to show up that day to use the training gyms on campus, and someone else from Class 1 met up with him in their Extreme Environments Engine so they could train together.

All-Terrain was off that Saturday though, so the EEE was off, which was why Zach chose it as the site for their training as he knew other students would not interrupt them there. Instead they just had a rocky environment that was leftover from what All-Terrain last turned the practical training gymnasium into. On the one part of the whole room that was even semi-flat, high up in the room on a thick rocky pillar that was more like a plateau though with a bumpy floor too, Zach sat just a few feet in front of the brunette girl in front of him who had her hair tied back into a short brown ponytail.

Himazuri's ponytail pulled her hair back from her bangs too revealing more of her forehead, while Zach had not spiked his hair up that morning and just sat in front of her in his hero costume like she was wearing too. He did not have his helmet on, and his black bangs fell over his forehead partially which covered up a scar on the top right of it. There was a new scar on the right side of his face though, one that stretched around the side of his head. It was thin on the right side of his face, and it disappeared quickly under his hair that he made sure covered up how far it stretched around the side of his head all the way behind his ear that also had the scar going across it too now. His hair had been thinner on that side of his head, but he evened it up on the left side the day before when he looked himself in the mirror and gave himself a quick makeover to correct his shoddy appearance since the explosion.

Although All-Terrain was off for the day, teachers were required at the training gyms to keep eyes on the students who could be training too hard and possibly hurting themselves. Ms. Anastasia was around and at the nurse's office in case of incident, while teachers like Ekusessu watched from spectating rooms at each of the gyms over the students who decided to come in on their days off despite how hard their training on school days already was. Ekusessu looked at the cameras showing the two students in the EEE who he had to come watch though, and he shook his head again while leaning back in his seat with his phone out. _What are they even doing?_

He was supposed to be making sure they did not hurt themselves, but there was not much to be worried about when the two had just been sitting there for over an hour now. Even if there had been microphones close enough to them for him to hear what they were saying, the two spoke so rarely from what he could see when he was actually watching them. _It's like they're meditating. Himazuri could be reading his mind, I guess, which means he's definitely not Death. Still kind of thought that was a possibility._ "Aawww," Ekusessu yawned and relaxed again as he looked back down at his phone, reading an article asking where Lifebringer had been since his crazy day of reviving people. The hero shook his head and thought to himself as he read that question, _I have no clue._

Out in the gym, the two students sat on a flattened circle of rock surface that Zach had created with a blade of Death that extended from his left arm after he arrived up there before Himazuri arrived. He had been quicker to ascend to that wider summit without using his Quirk than she was, and he had motioned for her to take a seat on the spot he created once she arrived. They sat in front of each other with their eyes closed, and neither was saying a word.

 _This time at school is important to be the "public" Lifebringer. If I can't be it nonstop, I'll still need to isolate times like these where I can put away those bad thoughts. Thinking about them is hard and I doubt I'll ever want to voluntarily pick times out to do so, but I've decided that's the move and so I need to return to my heroic self now. I need to reassure not only Midoriya, but Himazuri, and all those I'm sure have seen Midoriya since the last time he saw me. Maybe he's already decided to come after me. Maybe he's told Lemillion what he knows. Heroes could be gathering outside right now to trap me in here. I can't stand trial. I won't. Maybe, Midoriya's had a change of heart though. I don't know what could keep him from coming after me after what I told him though, something that goes so against who he is as a hero._

 _I should not have let Himazuri find out in the first place, but I have to adapt to my changing circumstances. As long as I change it up and adapt faster than everyone else I can keep going. I need to practice this too, in order to stay where I'm needed most. I need a refresher since I've screwed up a few times now with her- "Nice job."_

 _"Dang it. How?! I was doing exactly what you said that time-"_

 _"No, I really mean it. That was great."_

 _"It didn't take you two seconds to call me out."_

 _"Sure, but I didn't notice you enter."_ Zach paused as the girl's voice did not respond showing a sense of confusion. He smiled too while still sitting before her with his eyes closed, _"Once you were inside you took too long to do anything. You hesitated and thought too much about the next step, and that gave you away. You were inside my head but still couldn't hear my thoughts, because I wasn't letting you. It was a wall I created that you noticed, and that you could have attempted to go around but froze up because you thought it would alert me."_

 _"Wouldn't it have?"_

 _"Yes, but that is the next step. Getting past that wall alone, will make you stronger. Once you can get past it, then you can start training to prevent me from forcing you out. If you can't even get past that wall though you'll never get in the position to fight on an equal level with me or others who can defend themselves like I can."_ Zach paused and then continued to the girl humming in a thoughtful way in his mind, _"Himazuri, this is a big step forward though. Much bigger than you realize."_

 _"You think so?"_

 _"Open your eyes."_

Zach told it to her, and Himazuri wondered back while opening them like he said, _"What is it?"_

 _"Your mouth is closed."_

 _"It's-"_ "What?" Himazuri gasped and leaned backwards from Zach with her eyes bulging. She pushed her hands down on the floor and leaned back more, almost standing up in the sudden rush of her heart rate at what just happened.

 _Interesting-_ "Interesting," Zach said aloud as she was not in his head to listen to him in silence anymore.

"How could you-" Himazuri blinked a few times, then she leaned forward again and tried to relax her tensed body. "How did you do that? You were, listening to my thoughts."

"There are many different types of mental Quirks," Zach started. He closed his mouth and gave Himazuri a look that had her start listening in his head again, and Zach continued to her with his thoughts, _"The person who taught me about the peculiarities of this particular class of the Quirk taxonomy was a great friend of mine. Seraphim."_ Zach watched Himazuri's expression sadden a little, but he continued in a steady way in his head that had her refocusing seriously instead of getting sad about the face of the woman she had seen covered in blood with her purple hair splayed out everywhere. _"Her Quirk, Brain Trap, was amazing though it had its own flaws that she understood well because of her understanding of her own mind. It's something few people with mental Quirks realize, but those who do, become much more powerful when they gain the understanding."_ The girl in front of Zach looked confused, and he explained in simple terms to her, _"If someone like me whose Quirk is not mental at all can control his mind to this extent, defend and even fight back with it, then what if someone with a strong mental Quirk truly understood all the same things?"_

 _You think I could-_ Himazuri frowned as she felt different than when she was speaking to him before. She was too conscious of the fact that she was not opening her mouth, and she was trying so hard to do what she was doing before again. She whispered under her breath to the boy before her, "I don't really, understand this though. You say your Quirk isn't mental but you were just listening to my thoughts. How could you have been doing that, or is it just something all people could do, if they understood their minds well enough?"

"No, I doubt that," Zach said with a soft smile and a shake of his head. He closed his eyes and Himazuri followed suit, and she listened inside his head as he continued to her mentally, _"The reason you were able to speak to me without moving your mouth, is because your Quirk isn't Mindreading."_

 _"Yes it is,"_ Himazuri countered, her expression getting a little annoyed with her lips curling down at what he just said like he knew better.

 _"You're wrong. To be fair though, that's what you were told as a child and what you've always believed because no one has ever countered you like this."_ Zach's reply made Himazuri start feeling unnerved but also more hesitant about arguing with him again. _"But your Quirk is potentially even more powerful considering we're having this conversation in my head."_ Zach's use of the present tense made Himazuri aware of the fact that she had just responded mentally again, though this time she kept her cool about it and just took in a deep breath at what Zach was suggesting. He continued after a second with a soft smile on his face at the calmed breathing he heard, _"Because I'm not a mindreader, and yet you're not talking so how could I hear you otherwise? I don't have this ability. Now the late hero Mandalay, she was able to transmit messages into people's heads, but she couldn't read minds like you can so there was no possibility for conversation. Mandalay had a much wider range for her Quirk too though, and the number of people she could communicate with telepathically was greater."_

 _"I can't send messages into other people's… heads…"_ Himazuri looked back at Zach as she was saying this. He was watching her too, as she was doing exactly what she said she could not. As the two of them were sitting in the gym still with their eyes closed, and yet they were looking at each other now inside of an emptiness that was almost like they were just seeing what they would see with their eyes closed. The only difference between staring at the back of their eyelids and this place, was that they could still see the other person in front of them staring back despite everything else just being dark nothing.

"How did you do that?" Himazuri asked, her eyes opening for read this time.

"I didn't," Zach replied with his own eyes opened too. "You did." Himazuri pulled her face back again and it scrunched up in anxiety. There was fear in her expression, and she bit down on her bottom lip for a couple of seconds before panting as her mind raced out of control with thoughts Zach could not hear but could plainly see on her face. "There's a lot about Quirks that we as a species have yet to understand, and yet Quirks like yours are perhaps the most misdiagnosed. The least understood of all Quirks," Zach explained to the girl whose breathing started to slow at the knowing voice he used that she nodded along with as he was speaking like a teacher whose every word she hung onto.

"Listen," Zach told her, and Himazuri nodded and went back into his head smoothly. Zach had a small block up in his mind too that she was used to feeling now after entering so many times that morning to feel it. Yet this time the wall did not feel as sturdy, and she could not hear Zach either though she suspected he was trying to speak. Himazuri closed her eyes and focused on the wall, and again she was able to see something in the darkness behind her closed eyes. Instead of seeing Zach though she saw a blurriness, weak and with a form behind it that she recognized. She pushed through the blurry wall and saw Zach on the other side, and when she saw him only then did Zach actually see himself inside a mental state facing off with his classmate.

 _She's getting better at it each time. She knows her Quirk well enough, after all, that it should be easier for her to catch onto this sort of stuff than it was for us. Seraphim was a patient teacher though- Can you hear me? I supposed you are past the wall so all these thoughts could be heard._ Zach had seen the figure in his mind following along with his thought process before he was even intending to start to speak telepathically with her. _Well this is smoother now than before, but it seems you can't put messages in my mind as easily from all the way inside. I don't understand why, but we'll figure it out. For now._ Himazuri's eyes inside that mental world shot open wide, as she felt herself getting physically pushed backwards though not painfully. It was the person in front of her in that emptiness who shoved her back out of his thoughts, leaving what she could now see as a wall behind him yet he stood in front of her staring at her with none of his thoughts able to be read. _"Let's stay like this, and practice just your speech inside someone's head who knows what they're doing. You can barely hold a conversation in here with me as you are now, so I doubt anyone without my training would actually be able to hear you if you were trying to tell them something without speaking, which could always be a very useful ability in villain incidents."_

Himazuri calmed her breathing down in the outside world. She almost found herself opening her real eyes when Zach pushed her out from the deeper depths of his mind, but she breathed slower and cleared her mind of all else like Zach had taught her to do through almost two straight hours of meditation before. The teaching was getting more intense now, and yet she needed to keep calm and quiet in both body and mind in order to continue learning. The excitement she felt about these new aspects to her own Quirk had to be subdued for the moment, and as she breathed deeply externally, she was able to speak to Zach at the same time, _"You believe I would be able to send messages then to others who are untrained, and open links for conversations like this one?"_

 _"I think it is more likely that you would be able to speak to them, and they would be able to think normally which you could hear. It would be slightly different, but there would not be different levels in the mind of the untrained for there to be a conversation like this. Where I am both able to speak with you mentally, and have my own thoughts deeper inside." Taco taco taco taco. "Were you able to hear what I was just thinking about?"_

 _"I… no. I tried when you said it- or thought it at me. I thought if I focused harder, I might be able to hear you."_

 _"It's fine. What I was just thinking, is that Seraphim and I had several conversations about our deeper understanding of mental Quirks due to our training. I always thought on these sort of things so deeply, and I was glad that she had so much experience and knowledge on the matter like no one else. We spoke just like this, about how humanity has never really pushed to understand Quirks like the two of yours."_

 _What do-_ Himazuri grimaced, then she whispered aloud as the confusion had pulled her out of the conversation as her mind became too foggy to speak back in his. "What does that mean?"

 _"Doctors can do a lot to find out about physical Quirks: emitters, transformation, mutant Quirks alike can all be identified, researched, and categorized by trained professionals. Even Death is easier for scientists to work with than yours. Other than thinking about things and asking if you can read their minds, none of them want you to go any further. They are not going to get you to try and delve into their deeper, darker thoughts, or ask the girl to mess with their minds just to test if she can. No sane person wants to put their own mind in that danger. We all understand, on some level, that minds are fragile things. But just like the body, they can also get stronger. Just as anyone else can train their Quirks, you trained your own, but there are ways to train the mind even without a Quirk involving mental abilities. Strength training you use weights. For experience in a fight you need practical training and sparring. Understanding the mind is harder so training the mind is harder, but for those who understand how it can be the most important training of all."_

"More important than training your Quirk, or your body?" Himazuri wondered, speaking about Zach specifically.

 _"Yes."_ He surprised her with his answer that showed he meant what he said right there. He opened his eyes and looked at the girl who had opened hers as well in surprise, and Zach thought at her, _"Mental Quirks are very often considered hack abilities. Abilities that even the strongest heroes could fall to, against even amateur villains if the Quirk is niche enough. Shinso Hitoshi can use his Brainwashing to defeat anyone who responds to his voice. There is also a first year at U.A. who I believe will be a remarkable hero one day, Zeira Eleinie, whose Mental Infiltration is limited but very powerful in its paralytic powers. Seraphim had to make contact, even if she was able to train Brain Trap to the point that a single tap to the head and she could knock most villains out, and could take just a second to take down even the ones who had trained their minds. Zeira can do it from a distance, and if she learned to be as strong mentally as Seraphim was then she could defeat anyone in my opinion."_

Zach paused for a few seconds as he waited to see if Himazuri was understanding him here. Then he added on with an intense look into her eyes, _"We don't know what the extent of your Quirk is. Many people go for years believing their Quirk to be one thing and then going to get it registered as something else when they discover the truth. I'd suggest holding off on that until you know your full skill set. However, I would like to see how far we can take this. The last mental barrier I made was weak intentionally, but using your Quirk you busted your way through it with a mental projection_ _ **you**_ _created in my head for that sole purpose of getting through the barrier. Did you even realize that was what you were doing when you did it?"_

"I- I didn't…" Himazuri pursed her lips again, and the corners of those lips pulled up so much a second later as Zach watched her. "This is all so amazing…"

 _Doubt we'll get much farther. The excitement is getting to be too much. We should take a break and once she's accepted all these new amazing things, we can move on and continue to train. She hasn't been speaking to me in my head for a little now._ "It is," Zach agreed, smiling back at the girl before him who he was also excited for and allowed it to show on his face now. _I wonder how strong Himazuri really is. She could save a lot more people in the future, due to results of this very training._

"Let's just work on holding a conversation inside my head though. No talking," Zach added, and Himazuri nodded back after a second of hesitating as she did want to keep exploring to see if they could find out even more. She took in a deep breath and closed her eyes though. Zach did the same, and he started thinking at her, _"You can hear me. When you think back at me I may or may not be able to hear you… As for Seraphim's Quirk, her ability was not actually meant for conversations like this. When she used her Quirk to train us- myself and a few others who wanted to learn, she was using her Quirk in almost the same way she used it to attack others. She could control the strength of her Quirk though, so even though it was Brain Trap, we were not stuck inside our minds for long unlike the villains she fought who were out for hours to days on end, or for thirty minutes if that was what she decided when she touched their heads."_

 _"…hear me? Can you-"_

 _"I hear you,"_ Zach assured, his thoughts coming through calmly so as not to make Himazuri feel too much relief or change the current mood she was speaking back to him in. She had been asking in a slow, consistent speed when he started to hear her voice in his head. _"As I was saying though, I think it may have been easier for us to learn to control our minds because of her specific Quirk."_

 _"Didn't you just say- or think, it wasn't meant for these kinds of conversations?"_

 _"Yes,"_ Zach replied, and he was glad to hear her response come out clearer this time. _"But because her Quirk actually trapped us in our heads we did not struggle to stay inside while training. We did not have the ability to move around our physical forms, or open our eyes, at least during the basic training. Afterwards when I got stronger at repelling users of mental Quirks, I could move my body even while they used their Quirks on me. Even before I got them out of my head sometimes. Once, I trapped an enemy in my own mind after she had gone inside it to attempt to attack me, and she had never fought anyone with the ability to counter her Quirk before."_

 _"That must have been…"_ Himazuri steadied her mind and tried not to get unnerved. She breathed steadily, and Zach did not think that her voice trailed off because of a failure to keep speaking telepathically to him. She started thinking more to herself, _"That person must have been so afraid. They had never seen anyone even counter them, and suddenly they were trapped in his mind. In Death's head! God, that must have been-"_

 _"Himazuri."_ Zach started, making the girl in front of him flinch hard. _"You have to learn to differentiate between your own thoughts and when you're thinking_ _ **at**_ _someone with the intention of them hearing. If you base getting this conversation going off of a certain mood or emotion, and then you continue to feel that way while attempting to think privately, you'll let the person you were using your Quirk on hear you."_

 _"I…" I feel dumb. Can he hear that? "I'm sorry."_

 _"It's why we're training,"_ Zach countered, letting her know there was nothing to apologize for. _"But you want to be the one in control. Now that you know you could speak in someone's mind, what if you could think in a different voice? It's not like we have vocal cords in our heads."_ Himazuri's face started getting confused but she nodded along and just listened intently as Zach suggested to her, _"With practice, you could theoretically think into someone's head a thought. If villains only think you know how to read their minds, they might not even know it's you when the overwhelming urge to surrender fills their mind. Nothing but the shouts of 'Surrender' echoing over and over in their heads."_

 _"There's no way! Putting thoughts in people's heads? Having a conversation like this, it's one thing."_

 _"It's only a conversation because I know what you're doing. I understand that you can hear my thoughts, and the voice I'm hearing is very clearly yours."_ Zach replied calmly and then added in a more serious way, _"As I said, we know the least about mental Quirks. Maybe what I said really is impossible. I was just stating a possibility. Instead of saying it's impossible though, you should consider that a lot more is possible with this Quirk than even that. Practice, train, and try to use it in different ways."_

 _"Death was once just a power with the sole ability to kill anyone who touched my right hand. Then I brought someone back to life. Then I touched myself with my hand," again,_ he added to himself, _"and I activated Nightmare form. With a diluted amount of Death spread over my whole body that I practiced with for months with the League before I felt comfortable using it on a person. So many animals. Testing how much Death I could use in a Death Wind to only knock something out and not throw it into a long-lasting coma, or kill it. Death was too potent sometimes, and yet other times I used too little of it and only knocked something to its knees or somewhat slowed it down. And yet when I fought the Subspace Devils, I did not have a single incident of putting anyone in a coma, or even knocking someone out for more than two full days."_

 _"Sero was out for several hours,"_ Himazuri mentioned. She did not know if she was trying to think it to herself or at Zach, but he stopped when she was thinking it so she figured she had conversed it back. _I could tell the difference too. Even without him stopping, this is not something he can hear…_

 _"I don't have as good of control as Seraphim did with her Brain Trap. Especially because the density and potency of Death changes from time to time. My Quirk gradually strengthened, then got stronger in bursts, and I've used Trigger so many times too that I have to adapt my fighting to in order not to make mistakes like I did the night of the Lifebringer Incident."_ He paused for a moment, then he added to her after that brief silence in their heads, _"I never really admitted that, to anyone. I told people I didn't mean to kill the five other than Kurogiri, but it wasn't just that I didn't intend for them to die at the start…"_

 _"The Trigger, made you lose control?"_

 _"No. It wasn't the Trigger. The Trigger did make Death too potent though. A single Death Wind at the strength I thought I was sending it at two guys charging at me, was actually much more potent on Trigger. It was not just a bigger wind because of my larger Triggered body, but the Death in that swing was thicker. It killed them easier, more instantaneous. As I was saying though, I had to learn that the hard way in the middle of a fight. It resulted in a lot of people dying. I'm not saying that would happen to anyone who doesn't train their Quirk as intensely as me, because Death is different and needs its user to go to much longer lengths for safety reasons. A mental Quirk, still unknown to its full strength like yours, could be very dangerous though and if you come to a point you're in a corner and you decide to test out some ability you wonder if you could possibly have, you could seriously fuck someone up in their head."_

Himazuri's heart raced, and she bowed her head but kept her fluttering eyes closed as much as she was getting anxious in this conversation. _I've never had to worry about that before! That's, that's why I'm- I need to stay relaxed to keep training. He said that thinking bad stuff like that was a good way for him to get me to get out of his head early on in the term. He'd think of stuff I was uncomfortable with that would get me to stop listening. I thought I was just stopping, but he said that if he could predict that reaction then it was still him doing it. I need to be able to listen in, even when I'm hearing things I don't want to. Shouldn't I want to hear this though? Mindreading has, always felt more like a curse than anything. At least in a hero school I met people who are good, but all my life I've seen the worst thoughts of everyone. This is a way to make my Quirk into something that doesn't just let me see the worst in people… Though that's not all my Quirk let me see. I saw you._

 _"…I trained Death every day. I saw Ganeshi looking nearly brain-dead from me using too much Death on him- actually, All Might had sent my flying in an attack on All For One in Camino Ward that just sent me flying in Nightmare form into Ganeshi… but that's besides the point. I hit him and stayed pressed against him, and then he smacked me away, and he absorbed too much Death that even with his strength and size it took him down and kept him down for months. So I trained Nightmare extensively so that would not happen again when I started fighting with my Quirk. And during my training, I tested out many things with my ability: Covering weapons I was holding in Death. Creating weapons out of Death. Firing Death out of my fingers as projectiles. Controlling the Death I threw even after I had released it from my body. Using the darkness of Nightmare form to revive people? Was it possible? I tested it, and I found that although most potent while using my right hand, even the diluted dark wind of Death has the ability to revive people if I use enough of it."_

 _"What else can you do?"_

 _"Turn my body intangible, in areas I focus Death thick enough that no part of my body remains within. Conversely I can condense it as thick but in the form of a solid, like my wings that don't wisp off any darkness when I use them so that I don't waste any Death during flight. Originally my wings wasted a lot of Death when I used them, but I needed to come up with a way to use them while fighting and I noticed the difference between how I was using Death on my back with the intent of keeping it in use for movement and the Death I was using on enemies with the intent of attack. When I make my body thick with Death to the point where attacks would pass through me, unless I keep my outer layer as skin, wisps of Death will come off me. After the attack on my house, I was wisping so much Death because my body was in the constant state that any attack on it would have passed through. I only stopped that night because I wanted to show weakness."_

 _He can let attacks pass through him? And, and if that's true, then could he keep it as a passive ability? If he could, shouldn't that sniper shot never have hit him? And if he could sleep with it on he wouldn't have been hurt that night. Still, if he can do it while fighting, anyone who attacks him would pass through and knock themselves out when they pass through his Death. He's, he's unbeatable! He even trained all this mental stuff so that the few Quirks that could still beat him now can't!_

 _"I'm not invulnerable, Himazuri,"_ Zach assured the girl before him.

 _"You could hear me?"_

 _"No. You were doing a good job. I just suspect it's what you were thinking based on the abilities I just described… But I do have my weaknesses. Before the attack on my apartment I had been keeping my body completely full of Death most of the time. I'm not anymore-"_

 _"Why before it, and not, after?"_ Himazuri did not understand the time table here at all. _"And in that case, why didn't the shot pass through you after leaving Tartaros?"_

 _"I only started a little before the joint training. And I stopped because I got sick. When I took those sick days, I really was out sick."_

 _"Really?!"_

 _"Yes," Is that really shocking? Guess everyone thought I was lying, like always. "Because I was keeping parts of my body normal like it is right now, while leaving most of my vital organs completely shrouded in Death or even replaced by pockets of Death altogether. I need those organs to function though in order to sustain the rest of my body."_

 _"Duh."_

"Haha, ha," Zach chuckled aloud and then shook his head wishing he had kept it in this time. Himazuri giggled herself too though after a second, and Zach mentioned mentally, _"Yeah, I guess it was pretty obvious. I didn't want to believe I was doing it to myself though. Not when I thought I needed to keep it up in order to defend myself from the assassins. See, Eziano's the one villain in this whole world who I think may be stronger than me."_

 _"…The only one?"_

 _"Yes. The last one."_ Zach breathed out heavily and he and Himazuri just sat there in front of each other with their eyes closed for a moment. _"He's cut my throat once before. He's the worst villain in the whole world. Next time we meet though, I plan on winning."_

Himazuri thought about a scar in the shape of a gash going across the front of Zach's neck. She felt sweat rolling down the side of her face, but she still wondered back to him in a semi-calm way, _"If you beat him…"_

 _"I don't know. I have no idea what the circumstances will be. I don't know if I'll ever see him again." You're right though. I'd probably kill him. I don't think there's another option. And, he deserves it. He'll deserve whatever I do to him._

Himazuri fell quiet as Zach stopped talking to her too. Silence cut between the two of them, and Himazuri bowed her head and took in deep breaths she let out slowly. _This is out of my league. I don't know what I'm supposed to say. I, don't even want to talk about it though. Not something like that. "Seraphim… What kind of person was she?"_

 _"Seraphim was,"_ Zach started in reply. He smiled and his mood changed instantly as he was glad to get off such a dark topic he was thinking of with a grim and determined expression. _"Just the coolest person. Me and Mark agreed, her story was cooler than either of ours. Others among our friends considered the two of us like… Never mind."_ Himazuri smiled a little as Zach trailed off, like he thought it would sound like he was bragging or something and would rather not finish that thought. He continued, _"She was awesome though. Came to find us soon after we stopped Mongoloid…"_

In the spectating room of the EEE, Ekusessu and Norasaki watched the screens in front of them together. Ekusessu's wide eyes darted from the bald man next to him back to the screen that Norasaki just mentioned something while staring at. "How could he be? That's not how, Himazuri's Quirk works," Ekusessu hesitated as he saw the dark-haired boy sitting in front of Himazuri smiling while the girl in front of him let out a small laugh before steadying her expression again with a shake of her head. Then, he nodded in a slight way while the two of them continued to sit there right in front of each other with their eyes closed. "You're right," Ekusessu whispered as he watched what was clearly a two-sided conversation the two were having.

 _Sazaki is too much,_ Norasaki thought, trying to subdue his own impressed look as he watched their school's top student. _Easily the top hero prospect from Shiketsu in years. Yet it does not feel like he should even be a student anymore. The experience he has is beyond anything I have ever heard before. It is to the point that I have to either accept that he is an interdimensional general who has fought in wars, or that he has accumulated the experience on this world to be able to find a way to lie to me. However, if he has found ways to counter Himazuri's Mindreading, and to advance it by training her like this, it is highly likely he is able to get around my Quirk as well. The only way he would have acquired the experience on this world to be able to do that, is if he was Death. Does Himazuri know? Has he convinced her to stay quiet? Or does she know that he really was in that world of Terra like Oda-sensei's book claims?_

 _Kid's a great teacher,_ Ekusessu thought in amazement as he watched the conversation go on between the two who had not spoken aloud in a while. _How is he even doing this?_

 _"…She was a vigilante who was completely self-taught. A gymnast and volleyball player through middle and high school, she used her school sports to train herself. Gymnastics in particular was her forte, and she incorporated it into the martial arts courses she took outside of school. Seraphim once said that she would train somewhere until she was able to defeat the one teaching the classes using their own techniques, then she'd move on. She did that for years, going to school during the day and those extracurriculars in the afternoons. Her schedule was so packed, that no one could suspect her as the same person who donned a black domino mask and purple hood at nights to fight criminals."_

 _"She did that as a high schooler?"_

 _"Started in sixth grade,"_ Zach countered. _"Didn't like that crime near her was so high, and that people who tried to stop it would get in trouble from the heroes afterwards. The fact that heroes arrested those people is what actually turned her off the idea of becoming a hero herself in the future. It didn't make any sense to her. Then she just decided that even though heroes had to wait until high school or graduation to really start helping people on their own, if she was done with aspiring to be one of them, she should just start now. So she went out there and fought villains from when she was 11. Trained herself with those ways I mentioned, and was always cautious enough never to get caught by heroes or killed by the villains she was after. Smart enough to never get caught even once."_

He continued while staring at the girl in front of him who was in the empty mental zone created with her Quirk. They each had blurry walls behind them showing that the other was blocked off to hearing whatever they were thinking outside of their thoughts directed to each other. The two sat in front of each other just like they were sitting on the outside, and even the emptiness around them was starting to make out shapes that seemed to mimic the outside though not exactly as it was based off what they knew their surroundings were. Whenever Himazuri focused on how the mental world was shifting around them it would go quickly back to nothingness, but it was interesting that the subconscious world was turning into what they actually knew to be around them even though their eyes were closed. As Himazuri focused back on Zach, the world around them gradually went back into loose focus and a shoddy image of their actual surroundings, but though Himazuri noticed, she stayed focused on Zach this time and just allowed her Quirk to do what it was doing.

 _"…Heroes had heard about her from the villains they caught after she had faced them, and yet she knew ways to get them arrested that I incorporated as everyday maneuvers for my forces. I knew some of the same tactics from when I followed Webb around, but Seraphim knew different methods and the variety she had made it harder for heroes to tell when it was actually us stopping the villains they would then go capture. We were smart enough about it that 'anonymous tips' actually became a well-known practice around the world, despite 95-99% of those tips being directly from us."_

 _"99%?"_

 _"Yes. We sent so many so fast that unless they blamed it on some conceptual shift in the public's attitude, there'd be no other way to explain it other than that it was us. So I convinced the world that people had just started being more confident about turning in villains. Heroes and cops knew though, as much as they ignored it. No civilians know who the villains are, what kinds of drugs and Quirks they have, where exactly they are or where they're going to be in a certain amount of time. As Seraphim knew though, if we were too obvious with our tips then police couldn't use those tips as an excuse to hold villains afterwards. We needed to be vague enough that it wasn't a sure thing it was Death contacting them, and yet specific enough that they would send the number of heroes we needed them to send, for the times when we couldn't go there to help them out beforehand and just leave the cleanup and arrests to them. That was about half of the time, while the other half I just had heroes going to the places I knew villains to be. Maybe even more times I had the heroes doing the work…"_

 _It had to be heroes saving this world. But I just didn't have the time to stop them all. Not without sending my forces in without me, and I couldn't do that._

 _"…Seraphim and Cee got along great,"_ Zach continued to Himazuri, changing the tone as he realized he was getting off-base there. _"Because of their similar experience, though I knew Cee looked up to Seraphim a lot when the older woman came to join us. And Seraphim wasn't that much older, but Cee looked up to her like an older sister, or a teacher. The fact that Seraphim was not part of any associated anti-hero organization, that she was completely self-taught and self-made, it was amazing. And the extent to which she understood her own Quirk was something everyone in our force respected. She once had to sit there for ten seconds straight touching someone's head before being able to trap them in their heads for ten minutes, at the most. When she joined us she still had to hold on for a second at least, but by the end she was tapping people on their heads and taking them out for days. Jumping and flipping around with her gymnastics, using moves I taught her too and she incorporated into her fighting style. I did the same with what I learned from her, as she was one of the best fighters I've ever met, able to defeat me in hand-to-hand combat the first time we sparred together."_

 _"It wasn't like she caught me off guard or anything either. I already suspected great martial arts ability from the description of her Quirk and the downside of how she needed to get close to use it. She beat me though."_ Zach paused and he said after a couple seconds, _"She was a teacher, a leader, a great soldier, and a good friend."_

Himazuri's expression dropped down sadly. She kept her eyes closed but she held off from saying anything to Zach, too worried that he might be able to hear her thoughts if she stayed in place with her deeper thoughts in so much disarray. _He's hurting so much from losing her. He taught her, and she was a good person, but… "Zach, I still, don't understand you."_

 _Despite her feelings she thought-spoke pretty clearly to me right there. "What do you mean?"_

 _"I'm sorry. I don't, I mean I appreciate what you're doing here. I'm happy we're doing this, but, but when you talk about losing people you sound so hurt. Yet you're spending all of today with me, while people are out there dying."_ Himazuri shook her head and continued quickly, _"I really don't mean to tell you not to help, or- but I just don't get it. Because, I believe you are a kind enough person that all those people you let die do get to you."_

 _"I don't like it, that you say I 'let' them die,"_ Zach replied in a steady voice though disapproving of her wording.

 _"It's true though,"_ she countered right back. _"I might not understand how it feels. I don't get the pressure at all, but no matter how you look at it there are people dying right now you could be saving. No one would stop you. I- I don't see how you can sit here with me, and not be thinking about them."_

 _I'm always thinking about them._ Zach did not respond with that to her. _Why not?_ He wondered after he had kept that thought to himself. _What's the difference between her and Mina? Why… Except, that's not the main reason. Not the worst, at least. I can't tell her… that? "I…"_ Zach started but stopped himself, hesitation filling his mind and his thoughts blocking out immediately with a thicker wall that Himazuri could feel in his head.

She pushed though, _"I want to know. I, I have to. It's been bugging me since you offered, but to have spent this much time! I don't get it. And, and because I don't, I start to feel like it's me keeping you here. It's me keeping you from them. And when I think of it like that, that people are dying out there because of me, it makes me want to stop. And I don't like that either, because I really don't want to stop this."_

 _She's right. And, I don't want her thinking I'm under that much pressure. Doing that to Mina was bad enough. I can't just put that on everyone… though I'm not sure this reason, will be any better. "Himazuri, I'm terrified."_

 _"You are?"_ She asked it back in shock, like the idea of him being scared was laughable considering how he was just talking about taking on the villain he thought was strongest in the world.

 _"Of how powerful Death is,"_ Zach continued. _"Specifically, with how many people I can bring back. That number keeps rising. It's risen so much from the beginning, but even back when I could only bring back a couple sheep in one go, that was only a couple years ago. In under three years I've gone from bringing one person back, to being able to bring back hundreds in a day."_

 _"That's amazing though…"_

 _"Yeah, but it's still only_ _ **hundreds.**_ _Maybe, if I had a global choice of everyone to bring back: the legal ability to travel everywhere, with no one stopping me, and I went nonstop for a full day, that number could be up at thousands... Twenty thousand people die a day in China. Over a hundred thousand every day. I_ _ **can't**_ _save everyone. I can't even save a good fraction of 'everyone.' But if I start trying to do just that, then every day I've let tens of thousands of people die, while choosing to save other people in their place."_

 _"It, wouldn't be 'in their place' though. It's just what you were able to do-"_

 _"That wouldn't be good enough. Not for the people I let die. Not for the families of those people who scream and yell and complain that I saved other people instead of the ones they cared about. 'Why does he get to choose who lives and who dies?' 'Why is it completely up to Lifebringer whether or not we die?' And then, 'What is Lifebringer doing today?! Why hasn't he saved anyone today?' 'Why did he take a day off today when my children died, but my old neighbor of ninety years old got brought back yesterday?' 'It's unfair.' 'He let my family members die three times in a row.' 'I hate him.' 'He's treating our lives like nothing more than a job.' 'Did you see him eating lunch the other day? How many people died while he was sitting there?' And over time, I will have angered more people than I've helped. I will turn more and more people against me who were once on my side, when the people they cared about, their acquaintances and friends, and their families die."_

 _"I, understand. It might not happen like that though. People understand you can't-"_

 _"They don't when it's their loved one who bites it. They only 'understand' now, because of their hope that by saying that I'll want to keep going to one day save them. I've heard it. People afraid to tell me what they think of how I'm reviving people, or how many people I've been reviving, because they don't want to anger me. They don't want to risk me not reviving them when it's their turn. Even the people who support me, are covering up their own fear of me with hope that I save them. That fear inherently rises every time I bring back a larger group of people. What I did the other day, shook the entire world. Mortality doesn't mean what it once did… though for most of the world it does. Most of Japan realizes too that that was one day I did that, and not to expect death not to stick. They can see the day when that won't be the case though. People are waiting for me to get my pro license. Holding on to life, until I've started reviving_ _ **everyone.**_ _They think that day will come, and the longer I wait the more and more people will turn on me. The more people will wonder 'What is he doing?' The more people forget about what I've done for them, and start asking 'What has he done for me lately?'"_

 _"That's-"_

 _"And you don't understand, because this is only the start of it. You say it may not happen this way, but it will, and it_ _ **is**_ _happening just like this. What's happening currently, is what I predicted would happen months ago when I decided against doing what I did just the other day. I knew that this would come, and I know what the next steps are too. I can see it all. But things get fuzzy when I try to look farther. As fuzzy as the future is though, I know what eventuality this will all lead to…"_

Himazuri gulped, but she held it together and questioned the boy whose thoughts were getting seriously dark here, _"What eventuality?"_

 _"My loss of humanity."_ Zach replied it and his head bowed in the mental world he and Himazuri sat in even closer now than the world outside where they were being watched. He stared into her eyes and told the girl listening to his darkest fears, _"Every time I revive someone, I die. People think it's not so bad. They think I'm prepared to do it if it means I can bring others back, because I'm not really dying. But I am. I_ _ **feel**_ _death, but I feel more than that. All the damage and pain that led up to that person's death, as well as any damage their body took afterwards and the pain it would have caused that person if they were still alive. I feel what it's like to die for them and more, every time I bring someone back. And it's terrible. I hate it. It's pain so horrible I can't describe it. And the feeling of death itself that I have felt before, I feel that every time too. It's horrible. I'm so scared and nervous and hesitant every time I want to bring someone back, and yet I resolve myself into doing it and following through once I've started no matter how much it hurts. I have felt… things. Worse pain than anyone in this entire world…"_

 _"And when I spend my entire days in that much pain, when I spend every day dying over and over for the people of this world, people who condemn me more every day, how long will it be before I start to question what I'm doing?"_ Zach posed the question, and chills ran down Himazuri's spine. Her breath caught in her throat at the serious tone in which Zach just thought that at her. _"This is usually something I don't dare think about, because it makes it real. I know it's there though. The truest fear of what my power could turn me into. That much pain, for people who don't even appreciate what I'm doing for them. All I'll see every day when I'm searching the news and online for people who have died, is nonstop hate directed towards me. People will despise me with all of their beings even though I can't save everyone. I can't be fair to everyone. I'm not strong enough to be. And yet I'm strong enough that they'll want me to be that person. If I go out with my current strength and save a thousand every day, people will fight over getting the spots among that thousand when it's their turn."_

 _"Except, I won't take money. I would never. I don't care about it. And yet what I do care about, are the people I care about. It will become very clear, when no one I knew personally before I started is dying. People will come to realize that I do have favorites. And I do. I won't deny it. If one of my friends here died, and I was sweeping across the Americas saving as many people as possible, I would break course and come straight here to save my friend. I know already that I would do that. There's no doubt in my mind that I would. And that is a horrifying thing… Himazuri, how long would it be before I started to save the people who were always online defending me? People who I believed really cared about me, just because of what I saw them saying on the internet or on tv? If my entire life at that point is bringing people back to life, the most human interaction I'll have is through stuff like that. The people who I'm still saving lives for, are the people in this world who I believe are so good and innocent… and in that much constant pain, the people who are being kind to me and accepting that I can't save everyone would be the ones I started caring about most of all. And I can see it. I can see a version of myself saving one person over another, because I'm always choosing to save one life over a different one, but I can see myself choosing based on whether or not the person is someone who cared about me. Someone I cared about too, because I saw that they cared about me and that helped make my horrible life a little better…"_

Himazuri gulped again. She sat in front of Zach quietly, listening without a sound as he continued on without her pushing him to. There was nothing she had to add on either, as this was going far beyond anything she could say that she 'understood' anymore. As he went on her shock just grew more with a deep sense of dread and fear growing along with it. _"People would see what I did there though. People would see that I made the choice, based on my personal preference. They would see that I_ _ **chose**_ _who lived and who died, based on whether or not they were supportive of me or not. Governments would declare that as a misuse of my power. Governments already pressured by their people to turn on me because I had been failing them over and over and over again would declare me an enemy. I wouldn't stop though. At that point, it wouldn't really matter to me who was against me or for me. I'd be saving people on a scale unheard of before. And those people who want to be brought back, they'd still exist in countries that were against my presence. I'd go and save them too, because their governments don't get to decide that they have to die if their hearts stop. No one gets to decide whether or not other people get to live or die… and yet I could see myself deciding that. Because it's a necessity. Because people expect me to save everyone, and yet I wouldn't be able to save them all, so I'd_ _ **have**_ _to make the choice. Every day I would be making that decision. Forced by the world to make it, and condemned by that same world for making the decisions I make because 'that's not what they would have done.' Or, 'I did it unfairly.' No one would ever think I was being fair. No one would ever accept my choices… Until they do."_

 _"When they see that I've brought people back based on my whims, based on my preferences, how many would switch their attitudes to praising me for what I was doing? How many people would start to treat me, like a God? It's a terrifying thought, one I couldn't tell anyone in fear of what they'd think of me just that I could think something like this… Even telling you, I'm afraid what you'll think, but I can't stop now. I would start saving the people who love me. The ones who tell me I can take breaks, that I could stop for a while, that I could come to their homes and eat their food and rest. I would be so exhausted of reviving everyone at that point, so devoid of human contact, and in so much pain that I would accept the offers. I would take a break, and be considered a monster by half of the world as I stop reviving them. Then I'd keep reviving people, and yet the ones I'm reviving more often are the ones who thank me, who are so grateful that I_ _ **chose**_ _to come to them even though I didn't have to. They'd all know that I didn't have to come to any of them. That I could have just rested, or I could have picked someone else, and I'd feel less shitty all the time if when I was bringing people back they were thanking me and actually grateful instead of just mad that I_ _ **only**_ _saved them, and not their families, or I_ _ **only**_ _saved their kid this time, and not the last time they lost a child."_

 _"…The world's heroes would be coming after me as I started bringing people back more and more based on my own personal choices. Less random and thereby less heroic, I'd become what so many would call a monster, a villain. Heroes all over the world would come for me, but in some countries they wouldn't and I'd save the people in those countries more. And the heroes there wouldn't come after me as much because the people of those countries would overthrow their governments or take down their own heroes if their authorities tried to stop me. In the countries I'm treated as a God I'd be bringing back so many more people, and in the other half of the world where I'm treated as a monster they'd have to live with mortality. And no longer would I have the hard decisions to make of who to revive and who to leave dead, because the authorities of so many countries and their own people have decided that I can't go there anymore, and I'll just accept that. I won't bother going into those places to have to fight their heroes and avoid arrest and attack innocent people just to be able to save someone. I'll leave it up to the people of these lands to decide whether or not they accept me. Whether or not they want me there… and what happens when half the country so strongly wants me there and the other half doesn't?"_

 _"You know why I'm so afraid of going out there and bringing everyone back right now?"_ Zach asked it with his tone getting angrier in his head, and yet full of fear too. _"It's because I can see a future world where I'm treated as God by half and a monster by the other half. I can see governments being overthrown by civil wars where the people turn on each other for the promise of immortality. Where life and death become things determined solely by my will… I've always been good at predicting futures based on my own choices. And I can see it. What would happen if I brought back thousands and thousands, and people hated me so much for it that I wouldn't reward their hate with a second chance at life. I already bring back people I care about quicker than ones I don't. And it's not that I don't care about everyone, but it's that I can't care about everyone the same or it'd kill me to let them all die every day. And yet… No, I don't care about them. If I did, I wouldn't be able to hold back from going out there and bringing them all back right now. And I don't know how long I'd be able to keep this mentality, so I have to not bring them back. As much as I do care, I can't start saving them. I have to stay at this level of care. Caring enough that it hurts to let them die, and yet not enough that I'm willing to risk this horrible future I see."_

 _"If I started that kind of life, I'm afraid of what life would become for all of us. Everyone's afraid of death, and the idea that they would never have to die would make billions follow me. It's terrifying. And so I have to thread a needle. No matter what I do, the most likely path for me is becoming a villain. Trying to save everyone will make me a villain. But saving no one would do the same…"_

 _"I can't imagine,"_ Himazuri finally whispered back to him in their internal conversation. And she couldn't. As much as this all terrified her, she could not really wrap her mind around it actually happening. He looked afraid though. He looked scared of this future he could see coming so vividly that he had all these details that did scare her. The fact that he was giving his own reactions to things that were going to happen too, unnerved her at what those future decisions of his were.

 _"…In a month, I have to figure out what mortality means for the human race. I have to decide what I'm going to spend my life doing, and if it requires me to brutally murder myself hundreds of times a day."_ Himazuri's whole body tensed up at the wording of that sentence. The way he said it like he was already angry, like the expectations everyone had for him were so horrible and he was tired of it. He went on though in a way that just made Himazuri pull back with a crushed look forming on both her mental and outwards face, _"I can't kill myself. I can't give everyone else the excuse that if things got that hard they could do it. I want them to believe they can always come back, but I don't know how I can make those ideals stick when people see what becomes of me in the not-too-distant future. And I can't do that to my friends and the people who love me-"_

 _"Do you want to die?"_

Himazuri asked it, and Zach cracked a smile and almost laughed. He stopped himself though and just said with a soft smile on his face, _"I'm just mentioning it because it's another option."_ He shook his head while responding, but deeper in his mind his thoughts got much darker despite the way he smiled outwardly and reassured the girl who relaxed with a deep breath upon hearing the response. _"It would just prevent a lot of really difficult decisions from needing to be made. That's life though. Tough decision after tough decision. This is one of the hardest though."_

 _"Ahh, anyway I'm sorry. Telling you all that, was a little far. It's not even something I predict will happen. I'd never let it get that far, especially because I_ _ **can**_ _see it coming even now. I'm just saying that if I did what everyone expects, I could see that turning into one of the most probable outcomes. And, I wanted to explain why it's not that simple. It's not as simple as 'someone's dead, I should save them.' That's how simple it should be. It's what I tricked myself into believing again the other day. I always think things out for the long-run though. I think things out much farther than anyone else, which is why people are already getting angry because they aren't looking at the whole big picture. Just what they want to see…"_

 _"This is the big reason that I can't tell Midoriya. He's been on my case constantly about not bringing back more people. About only bringing back a few. I see his judging eyes every time we see each other, but I could never tell him this because to Midoriya that's the worst case scenario long-term issue that I see as a potential but he wouldn't. To him it's always just about right or wrong. Because Midoriya's a hero, and if he has the chance to save people, he takes it. Sometimes I wish I could live like that too. It doesn't go any deeper than that for him…"_

 _"For most heroes it doesn't,"_ Zach admitted too, as he felt Himazuri probably agreed with Midoriya here. _"But I don't trust myself. That's the biggest problem. You may say it's wrong to assume this future, and Midoriya may say it's just a worst-case scenario, but I've failed under pressure too many times. I've slipped up so many times. And to do so on this scale? If I lost it, while doing what everyone thinks I'm going to be doing in a month? …And just thinking about this worst case, is already proving that I'm not the hero the world thinks I am… or at least some people, think I am…"_

He trailed off, and Himazuri hated the fact that she agreed with him more in that moment than through the rest of the conversation. Everything he had just said suddenly clicked, as he told her in that darker way about how "some" people thought he was that good hero. His tone that sounded sad but also frustrated that it was not 'the world' who thought of him as that hero anymore. _He's not just being paranoid. He knows himself too well, and the fact that he already feels it now is what scares him! He wouldn't predict something like that if he didn't have a good reason to. And if he feels it now, then he can see himself still feeling it even if he's become a person who just brings people back all day every day. I can't imagine that being his life. It would be so horrible for him, and yet every break he takes…_ Himazuri scrunched up her face in self-hatred, _People like me will question what he's doing, sitting around while people are dying!_

 _"You don't need to bring everyone back. That's not what we all expect-"_

 _"It is."_

 _"Most people just want you to be a hero. A hero who saves people at the incidents he goes to!"_

 _"I've already changed their expectations, by what I've done now. It can never go back to that."_

 _"They-"_

 _"They'll demand more,"_ Zach cut her off without letting her make another attempt at countering him.

 _"And it's your right to deny them! And some people will hate you for it, but you can't make everyone happy."_ Zach hesitated, and he stared at the girl in front of him who leaned forward in the mental void that suddenly felt much more under her control. She leaned towards him and said firmly to the teenage boy before her, _"No hero can save everyone. You might feel incredible pressure, but it's_ _ **not**_ _up to you alone. There are other things you can do too. People may be upset you aren't reviving everyone, but we will still appreciate what you do. We will still care that you save people. The lives you save, don't mean nothing. People won't hate you for the people you aren't saving, as much as you think they will. Heroes save lives. You save lives. To all of us, you'll be a hero. Whether you bring a thousand people back a day, or a dozen, and spend the rest of the day as a regular hero. Or you could say that you can't revive people anymore! That your Quirk suddenly altered-"_

 _"And then when someone I love dies, and I bring them back? The world will condemn me for lying-"_

 _"So don't lie! Just tell them why you can't bring them back-"_

 _"Because I'm afraid they'll turn me into a God-"_

 _"Because it hurts!"_ Himazuri yelled that back, and Zach pulled back with a grimace on his face at the clear way she yelled that at him. _"If you explain the kind of pain you feel, like you explained it to me- and even when you did that! I could see you holding back what it actually felt like, for my sake! So ignore that urge to help us by not telling us how much it hurts you! If you told everyone how much it really hurt you. If you told them all how horrible it was, they'd understand. They might be upset, but they'd understand, and they'd forgive you for not being able to save them all."_

 _I hope they do. I won't tell them about that pain, Himazuri, but I hope they're able to accept it like you say. "There are… other things I want to do. Other ways, I want to be a hero."_

 _"Then be that kind of hero. Don't be the kind of hero that you're afraid will turn you into a monster. Don't just become what people want you to be."_

 _"Live in a way I'd be proud of,"_ Zach finished in a soft way, and he reached forward and put his left hand over her right for a second. _"It's what I'm going to do. And I'm glad, you won't judge me for it."_

 _"I won't. It's what you should do, even if the whole world tells you differently. Even if every last one of them tells you that you should just be reviving them nonstop, you don't have to. Never forget that."_

 _"Yeah… I won't."_ He replied to her with a smile that she saw as they both opened their eyes. Then he thought to himself afterwards, _I want so much to be a good person. When Midoriya tells me over and over that I should be bringing back more people though, I feel like that's what a good person would do. Even though I never gave him my reasons, I still feel like he's right. I have other ways to be a good person though. Not just the most obvious way. I can be a hero, like other heroes. I can save people like they save people, without needing them to be dead first. I have saved more people in that way than I've ever revived. A public Lifebringer will always be expected to revive people as his job though, because that's what Lifebringer's always been. That's what it was born as. It's what I made myself. And I can't change how everyone sees me that easily, especially when they want me to be that person rather than just another hero._

 _I have things I want to do though. I want to fix the things I broke. Save the people here who I came back to help. And I can't give up! Still over a month before graduation, and even afterwards I could still keep going! As long as I have the chance to, I need to keep trying._

* * *

 **Knock Knock**

"Rendo-san. There is someone at the door."

"I heard," the man who got up off his couch replied to his house's robotic female voice. The former pro hero with long messy blue hair walked slowly towards his door, frowning as he wondered who it was outside arriving unannounced. _I'm really not in the mood right now Samurai. Could be Ebizu too. Thought he'd be back from injury-leave already, but he's still out._ Rendo Yabura stopped behind his door while looking through the thick glass of it that blurred the image of the person on the other side so it was more a hard-to-make-out silhouette. "Hello? You've reached-"

"That you Grappler?"

Grappler froze on the inside of his door at the sound of that voice. His shocked expression lowered much darker in the next second, "What are you doing here, Sazaki?"

"If you let me in I can tell you," Zach replied from the other side of the doorway. _Himazuri's right. I've been getting distracted by doing the stuff everyone wants me to do. Going out and doing press conferences. Bringing back hundreds. It's not part of the plan. I have stuff I decided I would do while I'm back here._ The door opened up in front of Zach, and he stared inwards at the taller man who looked a bit shorter than Zach remembered him. "Thanks," Zach said, and he walked forward past Grappler who turned sideways to let the teenager into his house.

Grappler turned his head and watched Zach walk in with his expression intense. The former pro grimaced at the uneasy feeling he felt though. His eyes shifted to Sazaki's back hesitantly as the boy walked inside his house with his hands down in his sweatshirt hoodie's front pocket. The kid had on a plain black sweatshirt, and he had walked into Rendo's house without so much as a respectful look at the house's owner first. He just stepped inside and glanced around at the walls with some pictures on them, into the rooms he was passing, until he stepped into the main living room and kitchen that was all connected on the first floor.

"As I said," Grappler began, closing the door behind him in a hard way before stepping after Sazaki. "What are you doing here?"

"Came to see you," Zach replied. He turned back towards the hero, and he frowned at the man with messy blue hair who wore casual clothes and did not look ready for any guests. Zach glanced to Rendo's left side and then to his right, frowning and then giving the man an annoyed look that pissed Grappler off much more at the sight of. "How are you doing-"

"Why are you here?" Rendo repeated for the third time, though his voice was darker this time and he took a large step towards Sazaki with his body looking bigger this time. "Why are you in Hosu at all? Just to see me?" Grappler asked it in frustrated accusation, and he questioned further, "When you could be out there saving people?"

"Maybe I just live in Hosu," Zach replied back in a snappy tone. Grappler paused and stared back at Sazaki in a more hesitant way at the boy's tone Sazaki had never once used with him. Zach frowned at the man who still had part of his left arm from his mid-bicep to his shoulder, a stub on one side of the otherwise armless man. "Maybe I live in this area, and I'm just walking around close to my new place."

 _Is he serious? He actually thinks, I'll believe that… It's not, impossible._ "You just happened to walk here?"

"You don't know where my apartment is," Zach replied.

 _No one knows where Lifebringer is currently living,_ Grappler thought. "There aren't any apartments in this neighborhood," he said aloud in a darker way at the kid.

Zach just shrugged back at the hero though. "Maybe I just said 'apartment' to throw off the fact that I live in a house." Grappler froze again, and Zach continued with a step away from the couch he had leaned back on for a second there. He stepped towards Rendo and said in a dark way straight up to the former hero's face, "I have a ton of money, so why wouldn't I have bought a house with it?"

Doubt filled Grappler's mind as it actually sounded like Lifebringer _did_ buy a house by the tone and tense he was speaking in. _That could just as easily be a lie though! He's- What money? What is he telling me?!_

"What's wrong, Grappler?" Zach wondered, taking another step closer to the man who stared at the kid without pulling his head back though that was what he felt like doing as Sazaki closed it to a three meter gap between them. "Why are you so mad at me?"

"'Why?' Do you-" Grappler paused, the confusion that covered his face for a moment wiping away. Regret flashed over his expression instead and he had to look away. He slowly turned back, and he stared at the boy he could see as a wide-eyed first year of high school. He saw the kid showing off his moves so proudly while trying to hide his own excitement at who he was interning with. He saw the kid who had studied all of his moves, and who had patrolled the streets with him years ago as a future hero. _I could have changed everything. What I told him, way back then…_

"Do you blame yourself?" Zach wondered. He asked it, and Grappler's entire body tensed up with his harsh but regretful gaze shooting to shock as it felt like Sazaki read his thoughts. "You're right to," Zach continued, shocking Grappler more and making the man's right foot slide back on the floor as he heard it. "You made me the person I am today," Zach said to his former idol. _Look at you now,_ Zach thought darkly and his expression matched those thoughts of disapproval and even disgust as he stared at the hero before him.

"That's-" Grappler began with his eyes huge, his heart racing as he stared at the teen who had come here to tell him this.

"Do you remember what you told me?" Zach questioned, turning around and walking farther back into the living room. He walked around the side of Grappler's couch and glanced to the television that was on but muted. He glanced at a picture of himself on the news, and then he turned back to look at Grappler who had slowly started walking farther into the room with his expression filling with rage at the blame Sazaki was putting on him. "You told me that I didn't want to be known as a hero who kills people. That, our justice system couldn't be known as one that allowed heroes to do that." Zach narrowed his eyebrows down and continued to Grappler, "That it would be an authoritative government that accepted a killer as a hero. The iron fist of the law, is what I would be to be a hero who kills villains."

"Then I did nothing to make you into this! I told you the opposite!" Grappler yelled, as the boy's words were proving what he said back then was the opposite of the cause of Sazaki's misdeeds.

"Yet you also told me," Zach continued, his head turning away with a half-nod right there at what Grappler said before he froze. He looked back out the corners of his eyes and said darkly to the man who pulled his head back, as Sazaki told him, "That sometimes I may have to kill a villain." Grappler grit his teeth so hard, as this was not something he had forgotten. Hearing Sazaki tell it to him himself though, was the biggest punch in the gut he had ever felt including during fights with villains.

Zach turned his head fully back to the former pro and said, "You told me that if I avoided the decision, it was the same as looking away. That the hardest decisions were the ones you couldn't look away from." Zach stepped back towards Grappler who started shaking his head and looking down at the floor. "You think you're to blame for all that happened to me, and you're right. You helped me train. You helped direct what kind of hero I wanted to be when I did not have a clear direction."

Rendo's eyes snapped open and shook in rage, but they darted down to his right side and then to his left and lost some of the anger with just a feeling of sickness filling him instead. He rose his head with that look in his eyes, just in time for Zach to tell him, "And I thank you for that. That help you gave me pushed me to my future, and I saved millions of lives." Zach did not elaborate on it. He just stared into Grappler's confused eyes that shot open wide and shook again as he stared at the kid in front of him.

Grappler shook his head to the right and glared away. "I heard what was in your book, or that book about you, and it's-"

"Fuck the book, and listen to what I'm telling you," Zach snapped. Grappler froze while looking away, and he slowly turned back with his whole body tensing up at what the teen just told him. "I want you to know, that those lives I took that night, I did feel I had that decision to make that I would have avoided otherwise." Zach stepped closer to Grappler, making a smaller gap between them now of only five feet. They stood there and Zach said to the taller man looking down at him, "I saw it there right in front of me."

"There was no decision-" Grappler began.

"I saw the choice though," Zach countered just as fast. He interrupted his once mentor and glared up into his eyes, "I could not help but think of ways to stop Kurogiri, even if it meant using my Quirk, even if it meant killing him. And I _knew_ I couldn't be a hero if I let the opportunity to stop Kurogiri pass me by and let him kill countless others. I saw what I could do, and so I took the chance." Zach glared at the man who once told him that doing something like that was what made him a hero, and yet who he could imagine looking at him in such a way over the video call they had with Power Loader and Roady. "You disapprove? You think what I did 'went too far?' Don't make me laugh."

"I never told you to do anything like that," Grappler growled back.

"But I _had_ the choice," Zach replied. "And you told me, that to ignore that choice would mean I was not a hero." Grappler ground his teeth and shook his head with his eyes squinting as he remembered telling Sazaki that very thing. "It was you who told me I couldn't look away, and yet you also have a choice right now." Grappler's head stopped shaking and his squinted eyes opened a little wider as he stared away, and they slowly shifted back and locked on the boy's who glared at him in such a disapproving way. "You're avoiding the decision too by putting all this blame on me."

Grappler's eyes narrowed darker, as he knew the decision Sazaki was speaking of that caused his body to shake in rage. Zach glared even angrier right back at him though and rose his voice, "You avoid it by treating it as a sketchy deal, but what's really holding you back?" Zach asked it and stepped towards the man already glaring at him in rage. He stepped two feet in front of Grappler without any fear or hesitation in his steps, and he looked at Grappler like he was pathetic, "Is it the idea of fake arms? Do you hate it that much? Why haven't you ever had prosthetics before this either? I'm sure you've been offered many times-"

"Stop this," Grappler growled.

"Why?" Zach asked back, tilting his head to the side and looking insultingly at the older man. He looked Grappler up and down, at his long and unkempt blue hair, at his slouched posture that no longer made him look eight feet but barely seven and a half, and a more tired and finished look on his face even when he was trying to show rage on it. Zach started shaking his head at Grappler who ground his teeth in anger back at Zach only to get no reaction from him. Zach just questioned him, "Why are you so pathetic?"

"You are… You need, to leave," Grappler's voice got lower, and that finished expression covered up more of the anger in a way that made Zach's face scrunch up and the anger on his own to flash off of it.

Zach ground his own teeth as he tried to make that anger reappear, but he lowered his eyes down from Grappler's and to the floor instead. He let out a heavy breath, and he shook his head in a way that Grappler thought he was actually going to leave. Zach stopped though, and he rose his gaze back up in a softer though still serious way. "You know, you were my role model as a kid. My favorite hero," Zach told the man, and he finished, "and All Might had caught me when I tried jumping off my roof to kill myself."

Grappler's body froze in shock. His eyes shook as he stared at the teenager in front of him, and Zach continued, "Yet it was Grappler who was my favorite. The one I always looked up to." Zach even managed a soft smile for a second, "And that internship, training under Grappler and taking all your advice to heart, it shaped the hero I wanted to be." Grappler heard this not in a snappy and dark tone this time, but instead just a softer one sounding, just so disappointed. Zach looked up at his former hero and said quieter, "Even though you were laying there without arms on your hospital bed, the advice you were giving was as heroic as any time you had fought a villain."

The former pro's eyes shot even wider and his breath sucked in at what the teen just told him. Zach looked right up into Grappler's eyes from a couple feet away, "You had just lost your arms," Zach said in awe, shaking his head while looking up into Grappler's eyes. "Your whole life was about to change… but you were still a hero. Never wavering," Zach whispered the last part and then closed his eyes and bowed his head with the release of another heavy breath. His voice got lower again as he opened his eyes back up, "That's what I remembered from Grappler post the Nomu fight, but after all this time, can you not remember that heroic self of yours? Was that just a lingering dredge, of what you once were? The last shred of heroism you had to offer?"

Zach questioned it less like he was asking Grappler and more just an overall question wondering if that was the sad truth. He rose his eyes back up again in disappointment at the man who stared in shock down at the kid who was disappointed in _him,_ whereas a couple minutes ago he had been the one feeling like what Sazaki had become was the real disappointment. The blue-haired man opened his mouth, but Zach asked something that made him freeze up too fast, "Is the memory of that Nomu dismembering you too hard to get over?"

His hero's flinch was all the response Zach needed to see. He gained a sadder look himself, but he said in a darker voice instead of a sympathetic one, "I know you stopped with the training classes you were offering too. I wonder, were not many people coming for the cripple hero's sessions? You could have gotten more students, if you had arms to show off moves with. But you're too scared to try."

"Why are you-" Grappler began. His teeth were grinding there in anger for a few seconds, and he snapped at the teen glaring at him in almost a taunting way again, "Why are you like this? You're, being _mean._ The kid I knew wasn't someone who'd call his former hero a 'cripple.' You've turned into a menace."

"And what'll you do about it?" Zach asked. He scoffed it at the man whose eyes opened wider at the smirk the teen gave him. "What could you do to stop me?" Zach asked in a taunting tone, then he narrowed his eyes and added louder, "Someone you created yourself!" Grappler's wide eyes stared in shock back at the kid who stepped forward and pushed him right in his chest, making him stumble a step backwards and drop his jaw at the kid's expression that turned from almost evil, to so frustrated in a second. "You can't have it both ways!"

Zach yelled it at the man and then ground his own teeth at the shocked expression Grappler was giving him without really listening to what he was saying. Zach narrowed his eyes and spoke slowly but in such a dark tone to the man who really started listening to him as Sazaki gave him a look warning him to listen, "You _can't_ say that I'm a menace and turn down the arms I so generously offered because of the bad things I've done or the bad person I am, because if you actually feel that way then shouldn't you be the _first_ person to try and stop me?! You need arms to be a hero, and you think you've created a monster, and you still won't do anything? You think I'm your fault, and you're going to just sit here and let me do whatever I want?!"

The teen ground his teeth and then pursed his lips as he saw Grappler's shocked expression be because of something completely different now. _I gave it away right there, I guess,_ Zach thought, grinding his teeth harder and looking away in frustration as he had to seethe his breath out through clenched teeth. "You inspired me," Zach hissed out, hating that any ruse was up considering the way Grappler was staring at him in so much disbelief here. "I, I hate that you're like this now. I hate seeing you like this, because the hero I looked up to wouldn't turn away if he really thought he had created a villain. He would do everything in his power to stop it… He wouldn't look away from that decision."

Zach said it and looked back up into Grappler's eyes with a soft shake of his head. "I could see it in the way you looked at me on that call. And yet you never got new arms. You sit here, afraid to be a hero again, even though you think you created something so bad."

"Maybe, I didn't," Grappler admitted. He stared at the teen who he just realized all at once why he was really there. The anger Sazaki had shown him, all signs of evil and villainous intent, it was all for this point he was making now. "Maybe I'm wrong about you-"

"But the fact remains that you _didn't_ think that a minute ago," Zach snapped back. "And yet you were willing to just, send me off? Have me leave your house? Was that really all you were going to do about it?!" Grappler's teeth started grinding again, but he could not direct his anger at Sazaki as much as he wanted to continue doing so. Zach continued louder at the man looking full of self-hatred and self-pity here, "And what if I went and hurt other people after I left? Like you looked like you thought I would! Would you have just continued to feel bad for yourself?! Feel guilty, and pretend like there's nothing you could do?!"

"There isn't- I'm not the man-"

"You could be!" Zach snapped back louder than how Grappler started arguing to defend himself. "Roady and Power Loader have new limbs! Better limbs! It wouldn't take much for you to get back out there, and yet you won't! Why?!" Zach yelled it and he stepped closer to Grappler, only to snap his left arm out and grab him by the front of the shirt using his own prosthetic. He used his fake hand to curl his fingers one by one tightly into Grappler's shirt and pull it forward and down, pulling the older man's face down too by the strength at which he yanked him. "You'd even be able to feel the arms, like I can feel my hand curled into your shirt right now! So what's stopping you?!"

"You don't-"

"Understand?!" Zach finished louder for him. "What don't I understand?! What it's like to lose an arm? Or is it just that you can't get it out of your head?! Watching that Nomu rip you apart?!"

"YES!" Grappler yelled back at the boy's face he had been pulled right in front of. Zach released his shirt, and Grappler snapped his head back with his eyes shooting open huge at what he just shouted. What he admitted to echoed through the house, in both Zach and Grappler's minds. Grappler ground his teeth for a second, and then he repeated aloud softer, "Yes. I can't, stop thinking about that. Call me a coward, but I- I can't! I see it in my dreams. I hear it, crunching my-" Grappler pulled his head back more at the look the kid was giving him.

The disappointment was gone. There was no pity either though. Zach just nodded with what Grappler was saying, in complete understanding. "I know, what that fear is like," Zach whispered back to the man in front of him. "You think I don't?" He wondered, to see if Grappler would give him a look or tell him he didn't understand again. Instead, Grappler stared at him in understanding to what Sazaki just said. He looked at him closer, and then in stunned awe as he did believe that Sazaki knew exactly what he was talking about.

"Then… how?"

"It's by admitting that fear," Zach replied just as simply. "The fear you just told me, is rooted so deep within you," Zach said it and he gave the bigger man a smile that caused Grappler to take a step back. "It's not something you can get over though, without fighting. It's scary. You might go back out there, and the first villain you see you'll remember the Nomu. You'll remember it ripping your arms off, and it'll scare the shit out of you. But, that's when you have to face that fear head-on. It'll be tough. It isn't easy, to choose to face your fears. Being brave isn't lacking fear, that's just being stupid. And you're not a coward for being afraid either… you're a coward for letting that fear control you. Letting that fear control your entire life."

"You… you don't…"

"I understand," Zach replied. Grappler was not able to finish what he wanted to say, because he already knew Sazaki did know what he was talking about as much as he wanted to deny that the teen did. "I have more reason to be afraid than anyone in the world. Worse things have happened to me my entire life, but that's also why I'm better at handling it than you who just had your arms ripped off once." Grappler flinched, but Zach shook his head at the man who flinched at how he said it so casually again. "It ripped your arms off. It did something, to mutilate you. Something only you and the other heroes who saw it happen remember exactly as it went down. I'm sure that sucked. Now suck it up, and take the arms."

Grappler's head that bowed there so his chin was pressed against his chest started to rise back up. He rose his head and stared straight into Zach's eyes, and the eighteen year old gave him a small smile and a nod of his head after what he just said. "You've admitted the fear. You know that's the only thing holding you back. So now there are no more excuses. You have nothing you can say to me that will convince me you're anything but a coward, if you say no. We both know that you're not a coward though. You're a hero. You were my hero," Zach said that with his expression getting more stern, his eyes narrowing and his offer sounding much more forceful. Zach held his left hand out as a fist in front of Grappler's left side, and he finished, "Now be someone else's."

Grappler stared at that hand and then back straight into Sazaki's eyes. In his head he saw that black beast digging its claws into his flesh, pressing him down into the ground and snapping its head down while other heroes around him shouted at each other not to attack as they might accidentally hit him. Others yelled that they would get it off him, but they were all too slow. Teeth dug through his left arm and shredded it, then the Nomu pulled its head one way while still digging its claws into his right arm so hard that it ripped his whole right arm off. It's claws sliced through up near the top, but the bones themselves broke and ripped off each other at the tendons with his whole right arm being ripped away, and then those teeth shredded the rest of the way through his upper left arm. His eyes clenched shut, his breath coming in fast as a sharp intake that made Zach stare at him with wider eyes and a look of regret but also fear as he kept holding that fist out, even extending it a little farther and closer to Grappler's stub he wanted the man to lift. Grappler's sharp breath he took in though, slowly released from his mouth with his eyes opening back up too.

 _I'm afraid,_ Rendo thought. _I've never been this afraid. I never thought… But I'm afraid. I've been, terrified for a long time now. I didn't know how to deal with this fear._ Rendo stared at that outstretched hand, and he rose his eyes back up to Sazaki's while lifting his own left stub of an arm. _I was wrong about you. I didn't create a monster, or a villain. Or at least you aren't being one right now. You're just being, a hero- no, no this is the move, of a friend._ Grappler turned his body a little to the side and bumped the end of his stub into Sazaki's fist.

"Next time," Zach said, pressing his steel fist into what was left of Grappler's left arm. "I'll bump this fist with your new left hand." Zach lowered his hand down and nodded at the man in front of him who stared at the teen before him in amazement. "A doctor's flying in to Hosu General tomorrow for your surgery at eight o'clock at night." Grappler's eyes shot open wide as it sounded like Sazaki knew how this conversation was going to end from the start. Zach smiled at the man, in a way like he knew from the beginning that Grappler would accept the fear and choose to overcome it.

When he would leave Grappler's place though, he would need to hop on the phone to make the appointment he claimed already existed. As much as he made it look like he thought Grappler was going to do this from the start, a part of him had still believed Grappler might go back on it given too much time to think. The appointment he gave Grappler was short notice, though Zach also knew, the people he would ask this of would accept without any argument about how they needed more time.

* * *

 **A/N Hope you enjoyed! Zach and Himazuri train mentally, and Zach reveals to her one of his deepest fears of his own Quirk and what the future could hold for him if he isn't careful with it. Then he heads out to Grappler's place to convince his former hero into taking the arms, with a bit of tough love there.. Anyway, I hope you enjoyed the chapter and thanks for reading! Leave a review below telling me what you think, predictions, comments, questions, etc!**


	196. Chapter 196

**Disclaimer: I don't own Boku no Hero Academia**

 **Chapter 196:**

"Thank you for coming," Lemillion said to the woman who nodded at the young man of only twenty years old. He may have been young, but when the fourth ranked hero in the country requested her help Ms. Clue did not think to deny him. "Are your sidekicks out?"

"Scattered across the country," Ms. Clue replied with a nod. "Yours?"

"The same," Lemillion answered. _Except for our most famous sidekicks. All of the third years of U.A. have weekend training today. Leaving us shorthanded, and at such a crucial time too. Admittedly it's better that they're out though, as I wouldn't have anything for Deku to do today._

"Why the sudden acceleration?" Ms. Clue wondered to the younger man who she felt had some new information based on their current activities.

Lemillion shook his head and began like there was no big reason, "Lifebringer's whereabouts are unknown to everyone. Given recent events, I have been given the all-clear by several top hero officials to locate and track him. He is a danger to those around him…"

 _Yet that danger is somewhat negated by the fact that no one knows where he is,_ Ms. Clue thought, though she kept that to herself.

"Our sidekicks are undercover, and we have heroes and undercover cops on the lookout in every major city," Lemillion started again. "The two of us will take point," he continued to the more experienced heroine who nodded her head at him in understanding why they were together at his agency instead of out there themselves right now. "When we have confirmation on his whereabouts, one of us will go. There's the chance he gets spooked if he notices our presence, so the other will stay on standby and prepare for a second attempt."

"If he flies away just because we're following him," Ms. Clue began.

Lemillion cut her off though, "He could fly straight to a hospital in any city in Japan and use reviving a patient there as an excuse for his Quirk use." Ms. Clue hummed and nodded at Lemillion's counter to what she had started arguing with. Lemillion paused and then added in a lower voice, "Though again he has not brought anyone back to life today. We don't know what he's doing. The revival spree he went on created a chorus of media calls for him to get out in front of it and explain what he was doing, but instead he just went to school and then vanished for the weekend. We only know that he isn't currently breaking his travel ban because of spottings of him in Yutapu, Hosu, and Osaka today."

"He wouldn't leave the country, knowing the consequences," Ms. Clue started, shaking her head as she doubted Sazaki would be so dumb considering how cautious she knew him to be after the last time she seen him. _Black disappeared off everyone's radar not long after leaving the country. Never got on the third plane he bought a ticket for. Just disappeared off the face of the Earth during that layover, back into the shadows. Back as a terrorist in the Army of Death._

 _I need to have a location on Lifebringer to send Endeavor by tomorrow. He has to be monitored through the next few days for precaution, even Endeavor knows that despite how he still denies Sazaki's being Death._ Lemillion frowned and said aloud in a low voice, "I am certain now, beyond all doubt, that Lifebringer is Death. We cannot have him roaming freely around Japan." _Calling out Eziano like that. Saving hundreds in under a day with your Quirk that changes everything. Every day you're out here you make dangerous moves, and yet you know better than anyone what the consequences of those moves will be. I need to know your status. I need to know where you are right now. And if I need to, I'll arrest you today if that's what it takes to keep you monitored by Monday._

* * *

Togata Mirio stepped off of a shinkansen wearing a trench coat and a hat with a rim covering his hair and shadowing the top of his face. It was dark already too, so he was even more hidden and with excuse as the night was cold. It felt like a reminder that the winter had not technically ended yet, despite the past week of warmer temperatures and blooming sakura blossoms. That cold temperature allowed him to keep his collar up high and covering more of his bland face that had a frown on it, Lemillion's best disguise of it all.

The frowning hero stepped off of the platform and headed down to the streets of Yutapu. He walked out of the station and glanced to his left, _Twelve._ He looked to the right and started walking that way where there were only five people he immediately saw upon his exit. _It's not too late, but on a weekend, as cold as it is, shouldn't be many people out and around. The forecast says potential for rain or even snow tonight if it hits 0, though it doesn't feel that low yet. Sleeting is most likely. Will make for lower visibility. His costume's helmet has a thermal reader in the visor. If he's taken his costume out of school, he'll have his motion sensors and cameras as well he could be using wherever he wants._

Lemillion kept his hands down in his long coat's pockets as he walked through the city. He turned to his left when he hit main street, looking far down it in the direction of a wide gap between skyscrapers. His attention shifted from the part of the city Shiketsu High School's campus was in, looking to his right instead. He headed that direction and down some smaller avenues, getting farther from the center of Yutapu and glaring in the direction he was heading while listening to voices speaking into his right ear. Ms. Clue continued, _"…I don't think he spotted my sidekicks though. Before he left, Kitchenette saw him disappear into an alley only for a black blur to shoot up into the sky a couple of minutes later. She never followed him into the alley or even made it out like she was watching it, but she saw the blur in her peripherals."_

 _"Why do you think he left?"_ Scorchle wondered, while leaning back on a seat in a cafe up in Feruchia in Hokkaido. _"And if he used his Quirk-"_

"It could have been to head to an accident, or a hospital," Lemillion countered his sidekick as he continued to walk down the road. "He's here now though, and that's what matters."

 _"It's possible he knows we're tracking him,"_ Ms. Clue warned the young man who sounded very intense right there. _"But I think he shouldn't. As long as the officers who spotted him in Yutapu did not give themselves away, we should still have him off guard… Or as off guard as he gets."_

Lemillion checked his phone for the time. _Darkness falls early, even in March. Those clouds aren't helping either._ He let out a heavy breath that hung in the air in front of his face only to disperse as he stepped through it.

The hero in charge of the operation walked his way down another somewhat main avenue, then he stepped down into an alley between two stores closed for the night. He walked into the alley and nodded at the officers wearing casual clothes who nodded back at him. "You didn't follow him for long, right?" Lemillion wondered to the pair who had been awaiting his arrival.

"I spotted him first, didn't change up what I was doing at all," Sergeant Mizuki replied. The woman with dark pink skin and long green hair shook her head and then nodded at her partner on her side.

The larger man with tan skin and large elephant-sized ears mentioned, "I started a jog once he was out of sight, and came up behind him on the other side of the road. We had the whole team alternating who kept eyes on him," Hirano paused for a moment and glanced back at his sergeant before looking to Lemillion in a semi-proud but also semi-hesitant way. "He shouldn't have any idea we were watching him. None of the officers on the team have ever met him, and Detective Kouishi, the last one to see him," Lemillion nodded as Hirano gave the specification. Hirano continued, "Said he didn't move from where he was waiting for Lifebringer based on our reports of where he was coming from. Didn't move before Lifebringer came into sight, or after the kid went past."

"Good. Good work all around," Lemillion said, nodding at the older officers in front of him who made it sound like their undercover op really had worked out well. _This is why having these resources is important. Sazaki's too good for anything less than this to catch him unawares. Even this, I still have to be wary as he may know I'm coming. This location is giving me an uneasy feeling…_

Lemillion left the alley and headed towards where those cops told him Kouishi was. Detective Kouishi was keeping quiet over the comms himself, and everyone understood as there was the possibility that Lifebringer had thought he was suspicious and was watching to see if the man suddenly started talking to himself or something.

Lemillion spotted Kouishi leaning against a wall of an apartment building. The cop glanced the twenty year old's way, nodded once at him, then motioned his head to the other side as where Lemillion was approaching from. Kouishi had just rounded the corner to get out of sight, and he mentioned to the hero who stopped before him, "Saw him head into the park. He had his hood up and I never saw his face, but he was coming from the direction I knew he was coming from, wearing what we knew he was wearing. I've got eyes on the other exits, but no one's left the park since Lifebringer entered an hour ago."

"Great work," Lemillion told the man who had six closed eyes on his face and only one open to look at Lemillion.

Kouishi questioned the hero after Lemillion's response, "You want me to do some recon for you-"

"You shouldn't be using your Quirk as it is," Lemillion replied with a shake of his head. Kouishi frowned at the hero with his expression losing both the gratitude in it for the praise and the willingness to assist further in the operation.

 _Bet if this was the other way around Lifebringer wouldn't have said a thing._ Kouishi just nodded at the younger man who was his superior as all heroes were, even if the boy's response annoyed him. "Alright. We'll be on standby." Kouishi rose up his hand and covered up his own earpiece, and Lemillion hesitated for a moment before reaching up and covering his own as well so none of the others on their comms would hear them. "If things go south and the kid attacks you, thinking you're one of those assassins he's got after him…"

Lemillion's expression got very dark, and he shifted his gaze to the corner and around it to where he could see the very edge of the park that Lifebringer had gone inside a while ago. _The possibility that he knows I was coming after him tonight, has skyrocketed._ Lemillion recognized the park he was staring at. _He told me in that very park, that he could have attacked me and blamed it on that very excuse. If he knows I'm coming… Sazaki attacking me, could be disastrous, and yet it could be the only thing I could use to stop him now. Get him in custody, if only for a little while. Just long enough that we can keep constant surveillance on him._

"I'll be fine," Lemillion assured the officer who nodded in agreement, though Kouishi did feel a lot of doubt about that considering Lemillion's determined expression.

Lemillion started to the corner, and he reported in to the rest of the team listening to him. "…location is most likely in Yutapu's East Park. I'm going in to pinpoint where he is."

 _"As long as we have the park under surveillance, shouldn't that be enough?"_ Scorchle wondered to his friend who he was a sidekick for. _"We can wait to see him fly up again, or leave the park for wherever he's heading."_

 _"Lifebringer did say he's not living in Yutapu anymore,"_ Ms. Clue's top sidekick, Retcher said in his deep voice. _"You sure it was a smart move to go there, Lemillion?"_

Ms. Clue did not speak against what her sidekick said. She thought so herself, even though she had already left Lemillion's agency earlier to check up on an earlier lead that left her stranded far from Lifebringer's second confirmed location. _If he leaves again, it won't matter the resources we have,_ Ms. Clue thought. _We'll be too many steps behind him and the officers we have in other cities won't be enough to keep track of him. We're lucky so far in that he's spent his time today at school and in big cities. Yet no one has been revived, even though he's using his Quirk._

"It's exactly because he said he's no longer living in Yutapu, but wouldn't narrow it down any farther than that, which makes me wonder," Lemillion replied quietly. "What if the last thing he thinks the villains would expect, is him to stay in the same place they just attacked him in?" Lemillion questioned it, then added lower, "It's late at night already, but I'm going to wait before moving in. I have a strange feeling right now, but I'll report in soon. Lemillion out."

 _"Good luck."_

 _"Call for help, if you need it,"_ Scorchle added. The sidekick far from his friend wished he was there right now, though that wish was only halfhearted anyway. _That stuff about the Pit was hardcore. And that's not even Death. That's Sazaki. He was turned in for an underworld bounty, killed the other gladiators, the ones pitting them against each other, the ones betting… He killed everyone! Or at least, he might have. The worst part is not knowing what's true and what's not with that place._

Lemillion took out his earpiece and put it down in his pocket with his phone in it. _If they need me they'll call._ Togata took a deep breath and started for the park, though he continued to make it look like he was just some random person. He shivered from the cold that was getting colder, and he moved into the park without going to the entrance of it. He was just walking on the sidewalk in one second, then his body started leaning to the right and he teleported through the fence and past a tree that he popped out of the ground behind. If anyone else had been on the sidewalk with him he would have completely vanished from their sight in that one movement into the park.

The pro hero stayed silent after entering, waiting for ten minutes in that position with his eyes searching everywhere around him. Not one person walked through the park towards the exit while he was waiting there. No one messaged him. The streets had a couple of cars drive down, and one couple who looked college-aged walked by that late sounding drunk by their loud voices. Lemillion started deeper into the park after those ten minutes, and he moved in the direction of the opposite corner without questioning where he had to go, though he was searching everywhere thoroughly on his way towards it.

The young blond hero crossed the central path of the park underground before popping up in the light brush that even his outer disguise was too strong to get ripped through despite some protruding twigs. Lemillion moved through the bushes and he headed for the far side of the park from where he entered. He watched his footsteps closely, even using his Permeation to step through leaves and only return his solid form to the soles of his shoes when they were about to touch the floor.

Togata saw the clearing ahead of him. Even though it was nearly pitch black in the small forest, light from the surrounding city came in more in the area without as much tree cover. That clearing he was approaching had a three story building in it, and Lemillion slowed down before reaching even the edge of the clearing this time. _He knew I was following him because he had known that whole weekend. And yet he figured it out through the first day. He didn't know from the very beginning, as much as he made it out like he always knew. There were ways he could have figured out it was me though. This time, I've only now arrived. There's no way he could call me out without having police working with me contacting him first._

 _None of the officers or heroes helping me have any reason to betray us here though. None have had family revived by Sazaki. None have posted any pro-Lifebringer sentiments on social media. Kouishi's willingness to use his Quirk is a sign he's more for a wider use of Quirks, but that's common across Japan right now, not just for cops. And not just for Lifebringer supporters. People argue that he was not the first one to bring up these issues, like the Liberation Army once fought for. Everyone can see the other countries though that peacefully changed things more like the Liberation Army once wanted them to switch to through revolution. We can all see the possibility of us democratically reaching the point of widespread Quirk use throughout the public. We are not at that time yet though, and we must follow the laws we enforce ourselves until that point arrives, if it ever does._

Lemillion shifted his thoughts away from the possibility of his officers helping Lifebringer over him. It was a high possibility when so many people would not consider it a betrayal as much as a potential to get themselves or their families preferential treatment when it came to revivals. He believed in the integrity of the officers on his team though that he or the other heroes had vouched for, so he hoped there was no leak in his operation even with it as big as it was. Something else took his attention though as he slowly neared the edge of the clearing where the building was that Lifebringer had once confronted him in for following him around.

Togata froze and then leaned his head forward a little more, staring towards the front doors of the building from the left side of it. He was closer to the front left corner, but he inched around so he was more on the front side so he could get a better look at the two men standing outside of the front doors of the abandoned government office. The building that never had its construction finished seemed to be guarded, as there were a pair of men standing outside… _Men?_

One of the two people standing outside of the building had on a heavy black jacket that was definitely of a feminine style. She had on warm wool gloves too, and though her hair was long and black, she had some light stubble on her chin and cheeks. The cross-dresser was staying quiet though she was rubbing her red-gloved hands on her arms in as fast a way she could without making noise of buffeting around her coat. The man next to her/him had shorter dark hair and his skin was a darker shade of tan close to officer Hirano's skin tone from what Lemillion could tell from this distance. The man was wearing a brown beanie and had silver hair, and Lemillion looked closer at him, and closer, and he felt his stomach turn over as he was recognizing the man more each second.

 _Is there a meeting here or something? I thought maybe they were villains, and Sazaki was planning on attacking them… Or maybe that he led me here, to give me something else to do. Like he didn't want to bother taking them down himself._ Lemillion grit his teeth as he stared at the two people standing outside the building, one of whom he recognized as a homeless man who Lifebringer had bumped into and gave some Burger Lando to, even after the man had tried to rob him. _They are clearly standing as if at guard posts, but neither look ready for a fight. They look tired. Why are they standing out in the cold when there's shelter right behind them?_

Lemillion grimaced deeper with the dark look on his face intensifying each second. He thought about reports he was seeing throughout the day as he waited for a hit on Lifebringer that he would follow. _All day, every day, people just talk about him. They reached out to ask him about Terra and for him to confirm what Oda wrote in his book. No response. The doctors who say Sazaki gave them his number on the day of all his revivals claim he hasn't responded to any of them since the following morning when he went to school. Now people are starting to wonder if Sazaki showed us his power just as an example of what he'll do after graduation, or when he has free time. No one knows. No one can tell what he's thinking, and he's scaring more people every day with that power and attitude he has with it._

The dark look on Lemillion's face shifted darker for a different reason. _The leak was probably on our end,_ Lemillion suspected. _He was forced to give his address to the government, even though he knows how corrupt it can be. Even though he knows how much money is being offered for his bounty, that I'm sure someone who knew where he was spilled the beans. Even if I find his real address,_ Lemillion admitted it to himself, even as he glared towards the building he suspected Lifebringer to be inside. _I'll ultimately have to keep it to myself. Not even the rest of the team needs to know. I still need to find it out myself first though, so if we do wind up needing to get him at home I can let everyone know… but only at that time we go after him will I share it. I won't make it easier for Eziano._

Lemillion moved closer to the edge of the clearing. The area just around the building was still pretty overgrown too, but there were no trees for a good range around it. Even on the right side of the building in the smaller clearing between the building and the fence blocking in the park, the trees there and the overgrown brush would keep passerbys on the sidewalk from seeing the homeless men standing out front. Lemillion watched the two guards who he wanted to start speaking to each other to explain to him what was happening, but either the two were not friendly with one another or were just being quiet for some other reason. It did not look like that reason was that they were super focused on their posts, as the woman-looking of the two took off her right glove and started messing around with her long fake nails for a minute before getting too cold and covering her hand back up.

 _This is getting me nowhere. I haven't heard anything from the building at all. It's pitch black on the second floor, yet there doesn't look to be anything blocking the windows like they don't want people to see what's going on inside. Is Sazaki in there? Is it a meeting? Who are these people, and why are they here right now? This place was empty last time I came._

Lemillion stepped out from behind his cover. He started walking forward so calmly that it took the two right in front of him a couple of seconds to process what was going on. Both of them shot straight up and stared forward in panic, only to look closer at the person moving towards them in the dim clearing that their eyes had adjusted to thanks to the city lights just outside of the park. Lemillion had removed his hat as he stepped out of his cover, and he pulled down his collar as well and moved forward with one of the most recognizable faces in the country that the two in front of him saw and stared at with even bigger eyes than what they first had, though some of their initial fear did leave their expressions.

The hero kept an intense expression on his face as he walked towards the two, expecting them to say his name or exclaim in surprise at the sight of him. He actually wanted them to turn and run back into the building, yelling out for 'Lifebringer' or something. Instead though, the man in the brown beanie let out a half-sigh of relief before holding his breath as Rebecca spun her head to him and put a finger up to her lips. Then the cross-dresser spun to Lemillion, and she emphatically pressed her finger harder into her lips at the young man who stopped in front of them with a confused look on his face at the shushing motion she was making with her finger.

 _You seriously think he's going to stay quiet?_ The homeless man with silver hair wondered with a skeptical glance to his left. Then he hesitated as his eyes shifted farther back and at the building behind him, and he frowned while turning back to Lemillion. He rose his right index finger feeling a bit silly, but he also put it to his lips in a shushing motion without actually saying 'shush' or 'shh' through his lips. He shook his head at Lemillion when the younger man opened his mouth, like he was going to ask the reason for this. The two of the homeless just gave him looks telling him to stop, but the silver-haired man frowned as he lowered the finger from his lips. _We can't just leave it at that though. He'll ask, if we don't show him. Is there any point in keeping quiet then? I guess, we can try it._

Rebecca turned to her side in surprise this time as the man next to her turned his body sideways and motioned at Lemillion to come closer. She glanced back Lemillion's way too, then she slouched her shoulders in an overly exasperated way and motioned back with a slam of her head backwards like she was reluctantly agreeing to let him come in too. The man in a brown beanie next to her slowly pushed the cracked-open door inwards, feeling apprehension but also a bit of relief as he had felt terror for a moment when that figure stepped out of the forest in front of him. _Thought I was dead for a second._

 _This Lemillion's a cutie up close!_ Rebecca thought, leaning her head forward as Lemillion came closer to the doors. He frowned at her in a way that scared the woman into pulling back fast, only to flinch and duck hard while swerving inwards. She threw her arms out to the sides for balance, after just missing bumping into the open doorway and making a loud noise.

Lemillion glanced oddly at the woman, but he frowned back at the man in front of him who motioned in the direction of a staircase Lemillion remembered the location of already. He stayed behind the homeless man though who led him through the building. _This man held a knife at Lifebringer. I didn't say anything that day because of the way Lifebringer handled it, and because I didn't want to give my own tracking of him away. What Sazaki said did not seem to have much of an impact on his life though… though I supposed he does not look as dirty- he had just come out of a dumpster, I bet he's rarely as dirty as he is after dumpster diving. What is he doing here though? Why are they being so quiet? I don't hear anything coming from upstairs. No footsteps, or movement whatsoever._

They reached the stairs, and Lemillion stayed below and looked back harshly at Rebecca who stared at him in surprise at that look. She moved ahead of the hero who was not going to be closed-in though, and then she followed up the man with silver hair who turned back after getting halfway up the staircase. He turned back and pointed at the next step up from what he was currently on, and he shook his hand and his head while making eye contact with Lemillion in the building darker than it was outside. Lemillion frowned even more as the man made that motion at him, but he nodded after a moment as the guy stayed stopped waiting for a response of some kind.

 _That step creaked last time I came. I recalled that already. I thought back then that maybe that would give me away, but I had given myself away a long time before that. Not this time though. These two haven't alerted anyone of my presence, and yet they're bringing me right up and keeping quiet almost like they want me to sneak up on him. What is going on here?!_ Lemillion stepped two steps up to get over the creaky step and then continued to the second floor of the building. He walked on the floor with light footsteps even lighter than the homeless pair who were leading him towards the main room, but Lemillion stepped past them now as he saw into that main room and saw something that made his eyes go wide and narrow right after.

He saw many more people than just the two who had been outside. They were sitting on the floor leaning with their backs up against the walls, or laying down with their heads propped up by cinderblocks with extra clothes they had between their heads and the hard pillows to make them softer. Lemillion stepped into the room, and all those people sitting up turned their heads towards him and opened their eyes huge at the sight of the young man who just entered the building. A few of the homeless started moving like they might get up, only to receive looks from others, and some of the others frowned towards the two guards who had led Lemillion inside too, though they gained defensive looks and shook their heads with frowns at Lemillion's back showing they were not the reason he was here.

Lemillion's expression changed. His accusatory expression when he came in vanished. He stepped farther into the room, and he moved a bit to the right to look past one of the main pillars to the wall across the room from him. Standing at that wall were a couple of homeless people, these two looking more threatening than all the others as they had leaned off the wall and were glaring towards him. One of them had scars on the bottom of his right cheek, the other had on a pair of horn-rimmed glasses that had a small crack on the bottom of the right lens. Between the two of them, were two others sitting on the floor with their backs up against the wall and thick backpacks next to them with gear attached on the outside too.

The two sitting between the standing strong homeless guys looked like much older men, and they both frowned towards Lemillion too while sitting there with raggedy blankets on over their legs. There were about twenty people total in the room when Lemillion entered, a couple more now that the guards from outside had come in too and were at the exit. Lemillion focused in between the two old men sitting there against the wall though, at the third person sitting there who wore the same hoodie and sweatpants he was reported to be wearing from the cops who last saw him in Yutapu. His hood was up but his head was back on the wall, not bowed, and yet his eyes were closed even in that sitting-up position.

Zach Sazaki sat there with his eyes closed and his breath coming in slowly and in a steady way that looked so much to Lemillion like he was just closing his eyes. His own eyes grew wider still, as he thought about how he had entered the building and got up here so silently. _They're all, quiet- they're all awake!_ Lemillion realized the second thing after, and his own breath sped up though he kept it quiet as he continued to stand just past the middle of the room looking across it at Sazaki's sleeping face. His eyes lowered a little from Sazaki's face to between his legs, where there sat a backpack looking like the one he knew Sazaki brought to school with him.

Twenty-one homeless people glared at Lemillion with expressions he realized as he shifted his gaze around, his head turning slowly and his eyes panning around the room. Two of the harshest glares came from the men standing right off the same wall Zach was sitting against. Neither of them moved. Neither said a word. Their eyes just darkened and their eyelids narrowed in at the pro, with the one in glasses on the left looking at him through eyes that gave off a green glow, and the other with the scars on his cheek just balling his fists so tightly at his sides. Scye and Paiku stared into Lemillion's eyes without hesitating when the pro looked back at them and got a darker look on his own face for their apprehensive looks.

 _Are they villains?! How- how am I-_ Lemillion gulped while slowly shifting his eyes right back on Zach. He felt intimidated, and it was not because of the men and a couple woman glaring at him from around the room. He stared at the teenager who sat completely still with all these people around him, awake, glaring at him in ways like they were going to fight him. _I have no idea what these people are doing here. Yet,_ Lemillion could picture Sazaki in that alleyway, handing burgers off to the homeless people he met. _It wasn't just feeding them. He, talked to them. He gave them advice and, treated them like…_ Lemillion turned his head to the side and looked back at the man who had once tried mugging Zach for destroying his life. That same person who once tried to rob Lifebringer, looked as serious about protecting him here even from a hero. _Like every one of them in this room would fight a hero, and risk going to jail if I tried attacking him._

Lemillion looked back at the younger man leaning against the wall who continued to sleep so lightly that the smallest noises would likely wake him up. _How he did this, isn't unknown to me. It's not something I can't wrap my head around. His methods of giving them money, intimidating them into being good, and acting like a friend to them has created this… Except,_ Lemillion's right foot lifted up, and it stepped back. He froze, but the homeless around the room stared at him with wider eyes too, and some with smiles breaking out on their faces. The ones who had been glaring at him threateningly looked relieved as he backed off, and Lemillion took another step back before stopping and just staring at Zach in no dark way at all.

 _This is where he's sleeping… no. He's moving around. This is no permanent base for him. If all these people are here, it's because he found this place and told them about it so they would have shelter in these cold nights when nothing is offered to them._ Lemillion stared towards Zach with his eyes steady and thoughtful, though no longer unnerved. He just watched the teenager sleeping there looking like he was awake, and the pro thought in a darker way, _This is just somewhere he's staying for the night. So as not to put other people in danger, like he did by living at an apartment complex. Moving every night._ Lemillion felt dread in his chest and he eased his expression even more, his eyebrows curling up and a heavy breath slipping from his lips though he made sure to keep it quiet.

 _He's just like them,_ Lemillion thought. _While telling everyone that he has a new place, making everyone wonder where it is. Everyone thinks… and yet here he is._ The hero's eyes glanced around again, but he shook his head while taking another step back slowly from Lifebringer he did not want to wake up and have to confront now. _I'm not confronting all these squatters. They can tell him I was here in the morning. I have nothing to say to him. I came to find your new address, and now I realize that this operation was doomed to failure from the start._

Lemillion paused and then turned around and started out of the room silently. He made for the exit and just nodded once at the two homeless people who had led him inside who stared at him in surprise at the grateful nod for just keeping things placative through this encounter. Lemillion tried to shake off the intimidation he had felt back in there as he stepped out, but he had to stop and close his eyes as it was not an easy thing to get rid of. He looked back behind him, past the two who had stepped back out after him and just watched as he stared through them back into that room he left. _Lifebringer told them about this place that he had looked up in the library, that he had visited to check out the structural soundness of, that he ascertained was a good shelter for homeless people living on the streets. To give them a place with walls and a roof to protect them from wind and the elements. And that research on this shelter that Sazaki did which helped out the homeless, is now helping him as he's in their position himself._

Togata pursed his lips and stared back with his eyes shaking more, _And those homeless who must have thought Sazaki was so lucky, so fortunate, to be able to give them money while having his easy life as a rich and famous celebrity, they all see now that he is no different from them. He's been supporting them, helping them not just monetarily but with his moral support too and sincere attempts to better their lives, while barely supporting himself, and, and Sazaki is more than just a hero to these people,_ Lemillion realized it in a hesitant and even nervous way at the thought. _He's more than just another homeless guy or a friend to them…_

 _If I had to describe the looks in those people's eyes, it looked more like they were willing to give their lives for the kid who they are all awake to protect through the night from any potential assassins. In gratitude towards him. Like his own soldiers. His own private army,_ Lemillion turned back around, and he walked towards the wall and teleported through it right out the second floor of the building and into the ground outside he slipped through and popped up far from the building so he was out in the forest around it. Lemillion gasped out a breath louder now that he was farther away, and he shook his head in disbelief while leaning against the tree on his right for a moment. He pushed off of it and started away only a moment after, but he kept shaking his head at the thought of what was behind him, _It's scary how good Lifebringer is at rallying people to him._

 _He's better than Faith, and yet he doesn't do it maliciously. He doesn't do it with the purpose of creating an army of the homeless to protect him, that's just a byproduct of who he is. He's a better manipulator than Faith to the point that he doesn't even need to try, for people to gather around him. He can raise armies and start a revolution inside a country, like he did in Saudi Arabia, And the way he can rally his troops like he did before the attack on the League of Shadows' HQ,_ Lemillion stopped and looked back over his shoulder. _It was like no speech I had ever heard before._

Lemillion stopped instead of just turning back forward and continuing out of there. He turned around more fully and stared back in the direction of the building Sazaki was spending the night in. The last time he had been there, he had been so intimidated and angered by how bad Zach was. The strength and manipulation Sazaki had shown him through the weekend, how he had directly taken down Rancor, and gotten dozens, hundreds of villains like Spade taken down indirectly… This time, there was only amazement on Lemillion's face as he looked back all by himself in those woods towards the building full of homeless. _I can't understand him. I never can,_ Lemillion was stunned, and awed by the kid back there he could picture sleeping in squalor while the whole country thought him to be fine.

 _I know I have to stay on him, and arrest him one of these days for being Death. I still know that… but, I think I forgot,_ Lemillion thought with his lips lifting into a small smile. _Just how amazing Death was all that time out there,_ Lemillion thought it with little regret at the thought. He imagined Death in front of his army in the snow of Panzerstan last January. He heard that rallying cry to his forces, the yells of what the League had been doing, the things that Death had just told the heroes about but his forces had apparently been fighting against for a while. And he saw the Chinese heroes who confronted their ADTF in Qingxiao in order to keep the Army of Death there, and how over 100 people had been revived in a city mostly saved from the earthquake and following flood that the AoD prevented from being as catastrophic as it could have been.

 _And not just Death,_ Lemillion admitted to himself too, thinking back on the last time he had come here too more objectively for the first time. _Since he's come back too. The Subspace Devils, the amount of people he's revived across Japan, and that's just what people know about. His actions in the shadows have stopped even more villains. He has Confidential Informants. He has helped the poorest in the country to the point that they're willing to go to jail for him. Fight assassins for him even. If they were at all worried about that by being where Lifebringer was sleeping, they could have gone anywhere else. They chose to stay there knowing that he's being targeted by villains. They chose to stay awake to protect him in his light sleep. Sazaki gave them all the help they needed whenever he could, and now they see the one person who was best to them in such conditions that it has to make them feel a need to save him. A chance to repay him. Or just that he's more like one of them than they ever realized before. The leader of the homeless…_

 _I get why it is Deku pulled out of the investigation,_ Lemillion admitted to himself, albeit begrudgingly. _No matter where he goes or what he's doing, Lifebringer's just impressive. I can't help but respect him, as much as I know who he is. What he's done. How it is wrong and needs to be punished… And yet who he is- who he chooses to be, is something I respect with no qualms over it being so. Whatever he's done, as long as he is out here I had hoped his actions would be good and not leading to something bad. I don't think I have to worry. Whatever contact he's had with the Army of Death since his return, it's unlikely they know his circumstances or he knows theirs. They're separate entities. And without Lifebringer at their lead, I trust them even less than ever. Not that I trust the kid, but at least that was the Death I knew. Who leads them now?_

 _Who did you leave in charge?_

* * *

 **A/N Thanks for reading! Hope you enjoyed the chapter! So I only work three days this week, but I'm driving out to spend my days off with my grandpa since his aide's on a cruise right now and he needs someone watching out for him. That's what I spent today doing, gotta do it tomorrow too, but I might have time afterwards tomorrow like I did today to write/edit a chapter. I've got this one ready to post with under an hour left to still get this in the day after I posted the last one. Trying to keep up my update speed, and it's going to accelerate even more through November as my job finishes and I get a couple weeks to just write write write. Anyway, the next arc is underway and I just finished the first chapter of it (next chapter), which I hope to get out tomorrow afternoon. Things boutta start going fast... maybe, I mean, no spoilers! XD**

cartoonfan9 chapter 195 . 8h ago

I haven't reviewed this story before, and I rarely ever review stories at all. I just had a couple things to say. First off, I'm really liking these Zach and Himazuri scenes, especially this chapter. I hope Zach remembers and follows through with what they talked about towards the end. He shouldn't feel too pressured by people, so he should be the hero he wants to be.  
Secondly, until now, I had absolutely NO idea how this story might end. After this chapter, I think Zach will get a happy ending where he can be how he wants. I remember a few chapters ago you said the ending would be satisfying. For me, a satisfying ending would be him living and becoming a hero. If he dies, no matter how epic the scene, it would be really disappointing. Not surprising, considering how dark this story is, but I would be very disappointed.  
Regardless, write this story how you like. I've found very few flaws, so I hope it stays that way. Good luck with everything, and I look forward to reading the remaining chapters. I check the Fanfiction app several times per day in hopes of there being a new chapter for this story.

 **Well wait no longer, just refresh your page and see the new chapter appear! Haha I'm glad you've been into the story and the recent Zach and Himazuri scenes. Had a cool plan to do with her from the start of the Shiketsu arc, like hers was the only Quirk that I had thought of before creating the character, or before even reaching the chapters where I needed to create those students and their Quirks. I wanted a mind reader to set up future chapters/arcs, like Zach snapping at her with that attack, her being the Shiketsu to learn everything, and a bunch of other cool stuff having an actual friendly mind reader adds. Won't say anything about your predictions or whether or not Zach keeps in mind that stuff he talked about with her, the ending, or anything, but y'all are worried about the ending for nothing. Haven't let you down thus far! Won't pull a Game of Thrones on you, I swear XD Thanks for the review!**

papaprep chapter 195 . 22h ago

where is afo...  
is he dead in ur story?  
cant remember..lol  
btw...does tomura have afo like in the manga?

 **Nah. Not telling. Not dead though from what Zach's said about him. He told Midoriya and Bakugo when he got them alone in the hospital that he thought All For One was looking for a world-ending Quirk. Then he told Midoriya later on that he was baiting AFO into coming to Tartaros so he could either trap him down there or kill him. And as for that last part... i don't think that's what's going on with Shigaraki in the manga... I don't know if that's what the doctor plans on doing with him in this time lapse Shigaraki's going to strengthen his power in, but I don't think he has AFO.**

Logargon chapter 195 . 12h ago

Yes sooooooo good, I need more though. WHY CANT YOU WRITE FASTER AND HAVE NO LIFE OUTSIDE OF WRITING. I MEAN GOD DOES OUR SUFFERING MEAN NOTHING TO YOU!?

 **Thanks soooo much! AND I'M TRYING! PUMPING OUT CHAPTERS FAST AS I CAN HERE! Lol just kidding.**

 **I can go faster...**


	197. Chapter 197

**Disclaimer: I don't own Boku no Hero Academia**

 **Chapter 197:**

 _Wonder if Lemillion's going to tell anyone what my living arrangements are,_ Zach wondered while flying upside-down through the sky. He was looking up at the next cloud level above him from between it and the lower one that was much darker and raining cold rain on Japan below. _Not much to do today. I should get to work early then. School this week's going to be busy, for real, with the tough five-day practical training and daily report presentations. Finishing mine is hard with no real end to how much I could delve into. It's been-_

Zach lifted his phone up more to his face and flapped his wings again below him to keep shooting north over the skies of Japan. He smiled at the message he received, having hoped for something like it considering the other messages he had gotten from Entilla Oarn not long ago. _Some good news. Hopefully._ Zach lowered the smile that started to rise, reminding himself to be cautious. _Roady doesn't sound as apprehensive as before though. Could be nice. Considering how it went with Grappler… Roady had been pissed at me before I got to Bikergang's agency though. Just what I did with the League was enough to piss him right off, and then I went and did what I did the first time times like a million. Can't be as easy as giving him a leg._

Urukio Endo texted Lifebringer to meet him in Rairosu City, making Zach's eyes open wide as he read that message a couple of times. _No way. He couldn't have found it._ Zach shook his head and then rolled himself over so his stomach was facing the planet's surface now as he continued to fly. He pocketed his phone, then turned his body to the right and arced himself around to head for Rairosu.

Zach flew for the city closest to the prison island where he had spent the second half of the previous year. It did not take him long to arrive, but he did not fly for any hospital to give himself an excuse to be using his Quirk. He just dropped down through the rain in an instant, dropping between two buildings and then tossing his backpack at a dumpster in front of him. After he released it off his right hand that the strap slid down, a long black arm extended out of that hand faster than the backpack was moving. The black arm's hand widened and claws opened up that wrapped around the end of the dumpster closest to him. Zach pulled that side of the dumpster outwards into the alley, then he slammed it back and pinned his backpack against the wall of the building behind the dumpster. He slowed the dumpster down once he pressed it into his backpack, as there were valuables inside it, though he was not too worried considering how much those electronics had survived through as of late.

The hero known as Roady sat at the counter of an American lunch joint off Rairosu's boardwalk, giving him a view over the water south of Tartaros' island as he ate. He checked his phone and lifted his eyebrows up, _He's already here? What are the chances- slim. Did he just fly out here? Fucking-_ Roady started typing into his message, but then he backspaced it all with his deep frown lifting up into just a slightly peeved one. _Whatever. I don't have to wait very long then. Planned on having more time to get ready for this though…_

Roady pulled out his wallet, and when he opened it up he hesitated before pulling out his money. He stared at the front of his wallet and a picture of himself on his hero license. _Fully reinstated. An active hero._ Roady lowered his right hand down to his right thigh and slid it down towards his knee, before realizing what he was doing and taking it away to pull money out of his wallet instead. When the check for his food arrived though, Roady turned to his waitress in a little surprise then put away some of the cash he had taken out. _Didn't say anything, so I didn't think I'd get a hero discount. I haven't done anything in so long, I didn't know people still remembered me._

He left the joint and left a sizable tip on the table. It was not custom to do in Japan, but his server at the American place had looked like a foreigner too and Roady was thankful for the discount she had given him. Urukio started down the boardwalk outside of the restaurant and reached up for his hood, but he glanced up as he walked and noticed that the dark clouds were not raining down on them anymore. He lowered his head and saw a woman up ahead of him closing her transparent umbrella and shaking it off before tying it up with the strap. _Hope it stays this way. Would be weird if we start talking and a storm starts. Thunder and lightning would probably make our talk turn into some, I don't know, something weird._

The twenty-two year old with spiky reddish-orange hair took in a deep breath of moist cold air. He walked over wet planks of wood, then turned left and headed onto the sidewalk and across the street that ran closest to the water. _Sazaki better not fuck with me today. I'm not, in the mood,_ Roady let out a sigh and grumbled under his breath. _This leg is too nice to even be angry. I can't let him see that though. Have to stay accusatory, if I'm going to get anything out of this… What am I even, trying to do here?_

Zach rounded a corner and looked towards Roady who stared at him with wide eyes for a moment at the taller kid's sudden appearance. _Shit,_ Roady thought, as Zach was well over his height now compared to when the kid was sixteen years old. Zach's height became less of what Roady focused on as Zach walked towards the older man who had once been his senpai at the same agency. Roady focused on Zach's scarred neck, and then more on the large scar under his left chin all the way up to the middle of his cheek, taking up most of the bottom left side of his face with the discolored skin matching the scar under his right eye that Roady was already familiar with. _The hell happened to you out there?_ Roady thought, unable to keep an antagonistic look on his face even as Lifebringer walked right up to him.

"Hey, Roady," Zach greeted. "How's the leg?"

"You-" Roady began. He frowned, and then he looked down at his right leg and patted his right hand down on it. "It feels… great." He looked back up and saw a relieved smile on Sazaki's face, and Roady's eyes shot wide for a second. _Did he-_ "You know, it wasn't on you that I lost…" _Holy shit! Grappler? He was with Grappler when he lost his arms. And Power Loader lost his arm at the Sports Festival, the one where they blasted all those videos of him. Like it was his fault-_

"I know that," Zach said, countering all of what Roady started thinking right there. "That's not why, I did that," Zach said, responding slowly as he did not know how to say that without taking credit for giving Roady back his leg. "I just got you in contact with them, after all. They were the ones already doing it-"

"You got me my leg back," Roady snapped. "Don't be humble-" Roady ground his teeth at what he was saying, but he finished quickly instead of beating around the bush any longer, "Thanks. I guess."

Zach sighed and he nodded back with a smile at the man before him who started frowning deeper as he looked up at the taller boy's relieved face. _Now that's some bullshit._ Roady glared at Zach and made the younger man lose that look to instead get a more serious one at how Roady was staring at him. "So, what have you been up to?" Roady asked. His voice was not asking for Zach to tell him how he had been lately. It was not questioning about Zach's public affairs, or his activities at school. The question clearly implied Roady was asking what Zach was doing now that no one knew about, as it was a certainty to him that Zach had things like that going on.

Zach hesitated at the question though, lowering his lips down at the corners and his eyes shifting to the right away from Roady who he stood in front of on that sidewalk. He turned his head more and glanced behind him, back through Rairosu, before glancing back forward at Roady in an even more hesitant manner. _You're asking me that, knowing that it's secret stuff I don't tell people. You're asking what I'm hiding in a tone like you know I am, and the way I've paused here I clearly do have those things, so I couldn't bs my way out of this if I tried. I could just tell you I'm not telling… and then you'll rant about me doing shit again-_

"What are your plans?" Roady asked the teen much too thoughtful about his question. "What have you been doing?"

 _Roady's, a friend. I think. He gave me his bike, which Kaminari stole. I gave him a new leg. We fought side by side. Why not?_ "You want to see?" Zach asked.

Urukio stared at Zach confusedly for a couple seconds, then his eyes grew much wider at the offer that he was in no way expecting. He nodded his head slowly, and Zach turned around and motioned for Roady to follow him. _Maybe he already was in the city?_ Roady thought, for the first time seriously pondering if that could actually have been the case. The way Zach turned and started walking made it out like whatever he had been doing was inside of this very city, and Roady sped-walked up to Zach's right side and glanced in at the younger hero who had a casual but intense look on his face as he walked forward, clearly deep in thought about something.

 _It's better than a confrontation over me lying,_ Zach admitted to himself. _I'd rather just show him. He knows anyway, but at least if I tell him it's better than if he just investigates on his own and calls me out on it. I've got enough of that going on already._ "It's across the city," Zach started. "So we should probably take the metro. Unless you're down for a forty-five minute walk?"

"Lead the way," Roady said with a shake of his head, confused as to what Sazaki was doing but letting him lead the way if he was actually going to show him something here. _He wouldn't just tell me what he's up to. Showing me, seems even more unlikely though. I have no idea what you're pulling. You probably have something set up though for cases like these. I won't let you pull my leg. I'll see through it._

Zach brought them to the closest subway, and they hopped on the train that was pretty empty on a rainy Sunday morning. _No tails today,_ Zach thought as they stood on the subway together in an awkward silence, as Roady was still trying to be accusatory towards him. _Except I thought so yesterday too. Too many people turn their heads already when they see me, that if they're dedicated enough to use resources to track me, I wouldn't be able to tell the difference between normal pedestrians and police. I'll have to memorize all the cops in every city- except, that's a ridiculous idea. How large is the Police Force? I don't even know all the heroes in the country to be able to do something like that._

 _What's he thinking about? Is he coming up with a way to get away with…_ "Where are we going?" Roady asked, tired of just asking himself all these questions that he did not have any answers for.

"Industrial district of Rairosu. There's an abandoned building out there I've been using," Zach replied, making Roady look at him in an even odder way at the response.

"Why?" Roady asked him.

"It's big," Zach replied, slowly and with his lip furling like he knew it was not a good response. He glanced at Roady and shook his head though, "Better if I just show you. I was thinking about coming here today anyway to do some work."

 _What kind of work?_ Roady thought it but decided to just hold off until he saw this place Sazaki was talking about.

They got off at the station Zach said was closest to the place he was talking about. Then it was a short six minute walk to their destination, and Zach turned right down an alleyway between two warehouses in an industrial district of Rairosu that Roady looked around for the first time.

Urukio headed down the alley aversely, narrowing his gaze on Sazaki's back for a moment before just following after him to a side door that Zach grabbed the doorknob of and opened it right up. "You just leave it unlocked?" Roady asked in annoyance as he stepped right up behind the taller boy who was opening the door. Zach glanced back wondering what the problem was, and Roady said, "People could just go inside-"

"I know," Zach responded with a knowing nod. He headed inside and then called out as Roady walked in behind him, "It's me!"

Roady looked at Zach's back in an even more confused way, then he turned and closed the door behind them as Zach gave him a look telling him to do so. He frowned afterwards that he did that without Zach saying so much as a word, but he looked back forward and then headed up the two steps to the ground floor of the industrial warehouse. The building looked abandoned, though like it had been given up on pretty recently as there was not much degradation inside. Zach explained as Roady started to examine his surroundings, "The place is for sale, but there were some workplace accidents here that resulted in deaths. I think potential buyers are hesitant because they know they'll have to do a lot to remodel and restructure the place before they'd get it passed to have any employees start working here. Too much trouble," Zach said at the end with a shrug.

"But you're using the place?" Roady wondered back. "And other people are here?" he added louder, in more annoyance that Zach was putting those people in danger too.

"I marked the areas that are dangerous. Check it," Zach nodded up and to the right, and Roady turned as they walked through a doorway into a much wider room. He stared towards a ladder that had a piece of paper on the wall next to it marked in big red katakana letters, 'DANGER.' Zach continued explaining, "The place is safer than it seems. The previous owner already had to do a lot of repairs after the accidents, but the lawsuits bankrupted them anyway."

"Zach! How's it-" a ten foot tall man in a black hoodie with a dark blue beanie on under the hood stopped walking towards Zach when he saw the other person who came in with him. The large man in a black hoodie also wore a heavier winter jacket over it with its red hood down and bunched up behind his neck. He had on fingerless gloves and had a skull on the front of his navy blue beanie, as well as skulls and bones designing his long sweatpants that had some rips on the knees.

"Hey Choze," Zach said, nodding at the bigger man who looked back towards the teen he had started calling out to in a voice higher than one would expect for a man his side. The muscular man broad at the shoulders lost his apprehensive look as Zach nodded his head to his side and said, "This is Roady, a hero. He wanted to know what I've been up to."

"Ahh," Choze said, and the big man smiled in a big way revealing several missing teeth in his mouth and a much friendlier expression than Roady first thought that large man could manage. "Well we've kept a good eye on it. I tell you, Shio was messing around with-"

"Hey, don't be a snitch," Zach said as he walked forward, and he gave a quick smile to his side at the man who went wide-eyed for a moment there. "Kidding. She didn't mess with anything though?"

Roady looked at Zach's back in annoyance at what the younger man just joked about. _It's not snitching- Snitching is good for us! We're supposed to encourage it… What is even going on here?_

Zach led Roady through the main room and towards the next one down that had a lower roof indicating a floor above it. The main room they had been in had a high ceiling all the way to the roof where there were windows on the slanted ceiling showing the gray sky above through the wet drops still coating the glass. As they walked into the next room though, Zach motioned to an open door leading upstairs, and Roady started to him as they headed towards it with that Choze guy following behind him, "Alright already, you going to explain what you've been doing here to me? Who's that guy behind us? One of yours?"

"My what?" Zach asked, glancing at Roady with a confused look. He rolled his eyes at Roady's look like Roady was going to roll his eyes back, and he said in slight annoyance, "If you're asking if he's Army of Death, I have to remind you that I'm not Death."

"You think I'm-" Choze started, stopping at the bottom of the stairs those two heroes were walking up together. Roady glanced back, and Choze's brown eyes grew even wider at the look showing Roady really did consider it. "Haha, that's awesome," Choze said, and Roady sweatdropped as the big man turned away and scratched the back of his head while blushing in embarrassment. "No no no, I couldn't be. I just work at the hundred yen store on Kambaro Street."

"So what are you doing here?" Roady asked, looking back forward for a moment as there was a turn in the stairs, but glancing back as Choze rushed up the stairs to that middle platform before the second floor.

"Rent's a little high in Rairosu, and I need to eat a lot more than normal people," Choze replied as he came right up behind Roady and then onto his left side with both of them following Zach now. "My Quirk, Hypermetabolism, is like the disease but ten times worse. Doesn't help me with anything, just makes it so I can never get full no matter how much I'm eating. And I'm _always_ hungry. Have to use all the money I'd spend on rent just keeping myself fed."

Roady's eyes widened at the response, and after the man in front of him finished, Roady lowered his eyes down to the big guy's stomach that chose that exact second to growl. "Head's up," Zach said, and both of the others looked forward with Choze smiling wide and snapping both hands up quickly to catch the thick protein/vitamin bar Zach just tossed over his shoulder.

"Yes!" Choze said as he turned it and saw his favorite flavor he remembered mentioning to Zach last time he had seen the teen who had given him a different flavor of that same brand. "You're the best, mm, Lifebringer, mmm," Choze unwrapped it and devoured the bar in seconds, before pocketing the wrapper and rushing up the last couple of steps to reach the second floor before Roady who stared up with his eyes still wide at what just happened.

 _That was, pretty cool,_ Roady thought. He shook his head around and then headed up the last couple steps himself before stepping into the second floor room of the warehouse. Roady's eyes that just went back to normal size shot open huge, and his jaw dropped as he walked a few feet further into the room and then turned his head left and right. He did a full turn and looked around all four walls with his jaw still dropped, and the other two shady guys in the building who were already in the room laughed at the spiky-haired man's reaction to what he was seeing.

"Hey Lifebringer."

"Zach! Eyyyy! Ohhh!"

Zach walked farther into the room and clapped his left hand into the left of the chubby Italian-Japanese man who had tracked him down through the other homeless guy up there in the room who had called him 'Lifebringer' instead of Zach. "R.J., how's the gout?" Zach asked with a look down at R.J's right foot that was not in a shoe but a thick wool sock over another that extended higher up his right leg under his pants.

"I'm fine! No need to kill me and bring me back just to get rid of it," R.J. assured with a wave of his hands in front of him and a suddenly really nervous look on his face. Zach frowned at him, and R.J. looked past him and over at Roady who spun to the two of them with his eyes huge at what that guy just said to Zach. Roady started frowning even more at the look he saw on the Italian guy's face a second later, and R.J. held up his hands even more defensively and backed up from both Roady and Lifebringer who were upset about the joke. "Kidding. Kidding!"

Zach glanced back at Roady, and he relaxed a bit as Roady realized what the guy was doing as well. "Asshole," Zach said with a glance back forward at the man he had greeted in such a friendly way.

"You sure it's alright for us to be here?" Randall James Cabrera questioned the kid in front of him, speaking Italian this time without looking behind Lifebringer at the guy he was referencing in his question. "This is trespassing, you know?"

"It's fine, don't worry about it," Zach responded in Japanese, making R.J. a little more nervous as Zach gave away what he was worried about. Zach smirked though at that nervous look on R.J.'s face, and the fat Italian-Japanese man pointed back at him with another loud 'Ohhh' as he saw what Zach did there getting him back.

Roady had started looking around the room again while they were talking, and he walked over to the right side from the entrance and looked over a white folding table pressed up against the wall. He glanced down at some manila folders labeled on the side borders, then he opened one up and looked at the papers inside that all looked to be photocopied or printed by Zach himself. Roady then lifted his head up from the open folder and stared at the news article pinned to the wall, on plywood that had been nailed to the wall in a line five feet off the ground to seven feet up, and wrapping around the entire square of a room. Roady stared at the article, then followed the red string from it up to a name that had a question mark on the side, then followed that string over to a photo of the back of a man's head with two others next to him who had black strings connecting them to other papers going along the wall.

Roady turned his head back towards Zach who he noticed stepping up behind him. "The hell is all this?" The older hero questioned, his voice trying to stay accusatory though he was more just very confused at everything he was seeing. He glanced back towards the three homeless guys who were all looking their way but staying out of it, with one of them going back to the couch near the edge of the room he had been sitting on with a file in his hands himself like he was doing research on the stuff Zach had pinned everywhere. "What are you doing here?"

"Looking for the League," Zach replied. The man with spikier dark orange hair stared at Zach with his eyes opening wide again. "And the Radians," Zach continued, nodding his head to his left and a different wall. "The Jazz. Splodo. Meta. Kaibo Eee… Eziano," Zach ended with more of a frown, and a nod straight back behind him. Roady turned and looked across the room from where he and Zach were standing, to an oddly empty section of the wall compared to how much information Zach had pinned everywhere else.

After Zach replied, he turned back around and headed more for the middle of the room. "No Rebo? Kallahan?"

"They both got jobs. Just started renting a place together too," Choze added, and Zach smiled at the response. "I've been taking those online classes, but I get so hungry at the library and the librarians keep getting mad I get crumbs on the keyboard-"

"Then stop getting crumbs on the keyboard," Zach replied. "Don't make excuses. You'll never get a job that pays enough for food and rent on less than a high school diploma, and no discernible trade."

"I still think entering in food-eating contests is the move for him-"

"They'd never let him! Not with that super gut of his," R.J. argued back towards Arubo who shrugged admitting that was probably true.

"Could always keep that bit to yourself," Arubo mentioned towards Choze with a smirk.

"Cheating?" Zach wondered, glancing Arubo's way and making the guy on the couch go wide-eyed at the annoyed look on Lifebringer's face. "For money, that's pretty fucked up-"

"Hey Zach," Roady started, snapping the words back towards the teenager behind him who had started talking to his homeless buddies.

Zach continued frowning at Arubo for another second, then he turned to Roady and headed towards where the hero had walked down along the wall to stop in front of a blown-up picture of Iscariot. There was a before and after picture there too showing Iscariot's former costume and how it looked now, which was not much different. Roady looked back and forth down the wall, then glanced back at the homeless guys who had been hanging out in here seemingly watching Zach's stuff and making sure no one messed with it from what he could tell. "Is this, really…" Roady started when Zach came up to him.

"What?" Zach wondered, lifting his eyebrows to let Roady finish his question here.

"Is this, how you're-"

"Hey boss," Arubo called out, and Zach rolled his eyes and turned his head a bit like Roady did to look towards that guy who both the others had gone to and started whisper-arguing with for the past twenty seconds. "I was kidding about, what I said before."

"It's all good," Zach said, waving it off like he did not believe it in the first place. Arubo looked back at the others with a humph and they both stopped how they were scolding him for making Lifebringer annoyed at them.

"'Boss?'" Roady muttered, his annoyance somewhat clear in his voice though he just gave Zach a semi-upset look showing he was not really sure how he felt here, though it was not angry.

"It's just a pet name, some of them call me," Zach replied. "Because I give them money sometimes, like paying them, they call me that. Some I just give food though, money really just on occasions I think they really need it," he said this quietly to Roady while the others talked more towards the middle of the room and would not be able to hear him over their own conversation.

 _Some "of them?" You're…_ "So this is it? What you're up to?" He asked it incredulously, though Zach could also see the doubt was not really there in Roady's eyes.

"Pretty much," Zach replied with a nod. "I can't do much with my investigations considering my status," he continued. "And I'm not trying to be the 'boss' of the homeless or anything. I think they just stay because they hope I'll keep helping them out." _Which I always do._ "Though I'm hoping I can help all of them back on their feet, until I can come in and there not be any homeless here anymore."

 _This is what he's been doing. He's even talking about helping the homeless like it's what he's been doing more than investigating. I guess, it's something he can do even without a hero license. All of this though?_ Roady looked around the room again, at more information and research splayed out than he had seen put like this in his life. _I mean,_ Roady turned away from Zach who had responded in too wholesome a way for him to look at him in any angry kind of way. He just started walking around the outside of the room with his eyes scanning over everything Zach had up there.

 _Should have brought my backpack. Didn't want Roady to get suspicious though. And even if I go grab it just to get my laptop for the new stuff, he could notice the clothes and food I've got in the bag. Good thing I've printed hard copies of most everything I had saved. Only the real important shit I've kept hidden, and the traps for if the League ever finds this place. I have the perfect fake trail of information hidden in here only Kaminari would be able to figure out, though it's a fifty-fifty on whether or not he realizes that I meant for him to realize it. I have contingencies for that too though…_

 _This kid… He's been going hard since he came back,_ Roady let out a heavy breath and shook his head around in amazement at all the dozens of papers stapled into the wooden board around Bitchess 'n Cream's photo. He finally turned back towards Zach who walked up behind him, and Roady frowned for a moment before asking, "What are you doing with all of this? You say you can't do much, but you shouldn't be working at all without a hero license. Without a pro to intern under, or anything," Roady added, his voice lower and more like he was upset that Zach was showing him this knowing that it was illegal rather than mad that Zach was doing it in the first place.

"I'm not doing anything with it, really," Zach replied, frowning himself at the illegality of it in agreement with Roady. The older hero was surprised by the response and expression, Zach showing a look of frustration he could understand while looking at a room so prepared to be a regular hero agency. "If I think I get anything out of my investigations, all I can really do is call in a tip-"

"A tip?" Roady wondered, raising his voice and giving Zach an odd look at the phrasing.

Zach shrugged and glanced away for a moment, then turned back and replied, "Anonymously. I'll, call in and say, 'Hey I have a lead on so-and-so.' I tell them what I think I know, and I hang up."

"So you don't go after any of them yourself?" Roady asked, his voice skeptical though he was holding back a different expression from forming. Zach shook his head back at him, and then Roady nodded in understanding and with a look showing he didn't think there was anything wrong with this then.

"I'm not working. This is more, just a hobby," Zach explained in a low voice as he started looking all around the room he was in again. He stepped towards a wall close to them, glanced nearby at an empty space he frowned a little more at, then shifted his eyes back to photos of villains in front of him he thought he had connected some different incidents to that other heroes may not have already figured out. He looked down at a folder he had left open last time he was here, and he continued, "I've got all these unclosed cases, information on villain groups, and I'm just trying to connect things that others might not have already. If they haven't seen it yet, and I could have seen it, and I didn't do anything, then it's on me if something happens I could have prevented. So I tell them what I think-"

"If you said it was coming from Lifebringer they'd probably take it more seriously," Roady admitted while stepping up behind the younger man.

"I know how to make the tip sound convincing, even if they think the tip is anonymous," Zach replied, like what Roady was suggesting was not a problem he had.

Roady nodded while staring at the younger man's broader back. _Of course you do._

* * *

 **9 Months Ago…**

"And you've got nothing for over a month now?" Roady wondered, crutching back into his bedroom from the bathroom he had continued to talk to his wife from as he went to take a leak. He did not put back on his prosthetic leg just for that, since he had already taken it off for the night when he got into bed. When he stepped back into the bedroom he paused at the look Popfire gave him from the bed. "Not that I blame you. They've practically vanished since the Villain Summit. I bet they've already disbanded or something."

"That's not going to happen, Endo," Popfire said with a small shake of her head. "If you want to come out of the country with me though," she continued as she saw her husband start frowning at the response she had ready for him like it was not even a question, which he would not argue with being out of the loop as he was. "You can ask Ryukyu-"

"There are a dozen guys there already trying just that," Roady argued, dropping back on the bed and reaching for his book. The two of them were sitting on their bed and reading after a quiet day at the office together, with Popfire going out on one two-hour patrol early on before just doing paperwork with her husband who had switched firms to be closer to his wife. Ryukyu had welcomed him openly, but Roady did not take that as special treatment and did not want anyone else to think he was receiving it. He continued, "Guys who've been at the agency for years, and who actually want to be a part of the ADTF." Roady finished that with a deeper frown and added, "I know some other sidekicks there who'd like to take your place too-"

"I've told you," Popfire started, keeping her voice low as she did not want to raise it and have an argument about this. Roady sighed before she could finish as he knew he would not win against this reasoning, but Popfire reminded him anyway, "It's not about catching the ADTF for me anymore, but whenever we go out there we always wind up facing something very bad. Ryukyu needs someone to watch her back, as strong as she is."

"I know," Roady admitted, though he was nodding at her in a way like he was arguing for that reason anyway. She lifted her lips into a soft smile at the caring way he looked at her, but Roady then smiled himself and leaned back on his side of the bed's headboard again with a look of relief. "Either way though, this lowered activity's a good thing. You'll be around more, the less they act-"

"I'm telling you, they haven't disbanded," Popfire replied.

"Well I haven't heard much about them-"

"Yes you have," Popfire retorted just as fast, a knowing smirk on her face as she chuckled with her eyes back down on her book again. The young woman rolled her eyes as Roady gave her an expectant look from the side, but then her smile started to lower down a little too as she kept reading. _I sit here, while they're…_ "They don't, get the credit for what they're doing. They are fighting villains though. Even right at this moment, they're probably facing off against some of the worst villains in the world."

"Huh?" Roady rose his tone and gave her a confused look at what she just said. He lifted his tone and said skeptically, "And I bet tomorrow, they'll have somehow swept it under the rug?"

"Most likely," Popfire replied even softer, and Roady's eyes grew wider at the completely serious way she said that. The fact that her voice got softer too, like what she was saying was not a joke but a secret, shook Roady all the more with the expression she had while staring down past her book and more at her lap. She turned her head a little to the side and mentioned in a quiet voice to Roady, "That's how they operate. That's _always_ how they operate. They fight, they take down their villains, and then they call in a tip on where the villains they've defeated are all laying unconscious."

"Even if they do that," Roady started, shaking his head at the surprising turn of this conversation and lowering his book down to rest on his left thigh. "What makes you think it's happening right now?"

"Because stuff like that happens a dozen times a day, every day," Popfire replied. She said it, and she turned her head and looked into Roady's eyes that started growing huge at the serious look she gave him. "So spread out that no one puts it together, except for those of us watching out for signs of them in every country at once. It happens every day, and it's continued happening without slowing down one bit since the Villain Summit. Their patterns are easy to see, once they're already gone. And the local heroes might not even know they ever passed through, but I do. I see it clear as day."

Popfire looked back away from Roady and turned the other way off the bed, a conflicted expression spreading over her face. _And I know that those sparse "fake" reports of what happened at the Villain Summit, are the real truth too. Because different villains from different countries who never met each other, had the same story. They don't know what turned their villain groups against each other, but they were there for the sole purpose of stopping Death… And they got wiped out._

"You really think, they're still out there then? With Death leading them?"

Roady watched Popfire look back towards him, and the frown on her face lifted back up in a knowing smile that made Roady roll his eyes. He snapped his book back up in front of his chest, and muttered to her under his breath, "Don't say a word…"

* * *

 **Present**

 _I stopped being so sure you were him since you came back,_ Roady thought while watching the back of Lifebringer's head. _You sure act like… except, I can't even say that. You were just like this back then. You hid it when you came to intern with Bikergang, but then you knew all that shit about the Chemist and Dandy you found out through some sketchy moves like this. And you probably saved a lot of us that night with the knowledge only you had._

Roady hummed to himself and walked right up on Zach's side in front of a long folding table that had some chipped edges on the side of it though looked to have been cleaned fairly recently. "And what are you looking at now?" Roady asked. He saw the names of a few villains he did not recognize, then one he did and looked below his picture and name to see an index card with the strengths and weaknesses of his Quirk on it. Next to that index card thumbtacked to the wall, there was a map that some of the villains' faces had strings connecting to different incidents. "Triangulating their base's location, using former incidents?"

"Any villain worth their salt goes in every direction from their base of operations," Zach replied with a nod. "It's not exact, but if they're willing to pull their stunts from let's say a 'safe' distance of fifty miles from their base, and they try to hit all over to stay hidden," Zach reached down and picked up a meterstick from under the table he rose to the map. Roady nodded though as Zach put the stick up right where he had already drawn a line connecting the incidents, and an inner circle in a black marker that he had narrowed the base's probable location to.

"Is there anything, I could do?" Roady wondered as Zach lowered the meterstick seeing his nod. Zach froze, and he turned more fully to the older boy who frowned while shifting his eyes back and forth along this wall so detailed with information. "To help," Roady specified, frowning more at the look the kid was giving him on his side in so much surprise at the question.

Zach replied though in that surprised and also hesitant voice, "Do you, want to?"

Roady's eyes opened wide this time and he glanced back at the boy next to him. _I wasn't, expecting that,_ Roady stared into Sazaki's eyes and paused for a few seconds. "Do you, want me to?" Roady wondered back. Zach hesitated at the question in response, and Roady was floored as he darted his eyes all over the room again. _Did he want me to ask that, the whole time? Or- or maybe he's not manipulating anything here. Maybe,_ Roady curled his lips down at the right corner at the sight of the teen's face looking conflicted and unsure as he tried to think on what Roady just asked him. _Maybe Sazaki's just telling the truth, and he doesn't know what- or because I didn't answer right away, when he asked if I wanted to help!_

"Because yeah, I do," Roady went back and answered Zach's question instead of asking back the question he did. "If you're fine with it," Roady added, wondering if maybe Zach's hesitation was for a different reason now of not wanting him to help.

Zach nodded back at him though, "It's not much of an agency, but the location's great." He said that a little louder, and two of the guys in the room who were pretending not to look over grinned big with R.J. even letting out a laugh. Roady cracked a small grin too a second later, and then Zach added to him, "But if we are doing this, could you, keep quiet about it? I'm supposed to just be going to school until I get my full license, but I need this. Need, something else to do." Roady stared at him for a couple of seconds, then nodded his head in understanding at what Zach was saying that made a relieved expression flash over the younger boy's face.

"In that case," Zach started with his head nodding, a brief smile appearing before he made it serious like he was ready to start working. "I do need to go grab some things. You caught me by surprise before, and- I'll be right back. I just need- I'll be right back."

Zach's body spiraled into a wind of Death that shot back towards the doorway and vanished in two seconds. Roady's jaw dropped, and he blinked a few times while trying to process what he just saw. The kid's body turned completely black, twisting into a shape of a funnel that shot away in a blur with it turning horizontally parallel to the floor near the end as he was rounding the corner. _He lost all physical form there! What the hell- wait! He's not allowed… Well, he shouldn't be doing this either. He better not have taken my acceptance of this though as just a broad stroke,_ Roady turned back from the door and started pacing to get his mind off what he just saw. _There are still a lot of things I'm pissed at him for. I've got to take this chance though to stick by him and see what he's really up to, how he fights, all of it. I just went all the way to America to investigate him for God's sake! If I can do that and can't do this, then it's on me for being a pussy and not wanting to face him._

Roady frowned deeply and walked down the length of the room towards the wall that had a wide spread of Jazz members along it. He stopped and stared at Duke Dread, then down to the left side of him at one of the executives of the group who caught his eye because of where the person operated out of. _Ricky said they're after Miss Management, but I don't like these numbers,_ Roady's eyes darkened as Zach had written something underneath her name and some cities he listed in Hokkaido where she was suspected to be operating out of: 'Number 1000+. Note: based on these projected numbers for her, the Jazz likely have more than the upper estimates heroes currently have for their entire operation. Won't mean a thing if Dread's down though.' The final part Roady read made him shake his head with a smirk cracking on his face at the optimistic tone in the note like Sazaki was hoping to be able to take down Duke Dread and finish all of the Jazz on his own.

Thinking of what Bouncer Man had told him about Miss Management made his eyes narrow again though in a darker way. _Wish I was up there to help the agency out. They got two new U.A. grads up there though. Bikergang said that the Smiling Devil: Herobro was pretty good, but they're saying that Jelloman's the real hit of the agency._

"Oi, what're you looking at, Hero?" R.J. popped up behind Roady and leaned forward to check the wall of villains. "Jazz eh? Sure Zach's got 'em handled. If he took down the third worst gang here, he can crush the fourth like it's nothing!" R.J. crossed his arms and swiped them across the front of his body out to the sides.

"'Third?' 'Fourth?' You're getting them mixed up," Roady started at the tan-skinned man behind him who sounded like a native Japanese speaker despite his over-the-top Italian mannerisms.

"Nahh, it's you all who've got it backwards. Kid's got the right idea, knowing who's still the most dangerous around here," R.J. turned and pointed back towards the wall that Roady had seen stretched the longest with information all on the same group, with articles and data dating back farther than most of the others under investigation throughout the room. "League's still around. He knows it, even if they've been quiet for a bit-"

"Years," Roady corrected.

"Thanks to him," R.J. added right back though, making Roady frown and fully turn towards the big man behind him. The man looking at Roady had such a smug look on his face, like he was personally proud of what he had just said as if he had a part in it somehow just by knowing Lifebringer. "We're having quite a time of it these days thanks to him."

"Yeah, you look like you're having a great time," Roady remarked back sarcastically. He turned to the board behind him again, only to roll his eyes at the retort of the man behind him.

"I've got no clue what you mean by that. Don't lump me in with these vagabondi." Roady's expression shifted at the tone in that retort near the end, and he turned his head to glance back again in a way asking what R.J. meant by that. "I'm not homeless, Mr. Hero. I have a place of my own," R.J. smirked and added in that triumphant tone, "Probably a nicer place than yours."

"So, what are you doing here?" Roady asked. _Are these not just bums? He doesn't look any different from them, but if he's not homeless then did he dress like this on purpose? Does Sazaki even know he's not homeless?_ The interrogative look forming stronger on Roady's face each second made R.J. ease backwards and then take a step back as Roady fully turned to him.

"Hey hey, be cool," R.J. started and held up his hands defensively to show he was no threat.

"What'd you do Randy?" Arubo started, leaning back over the couch he had dropped onto to look R.J.'s way with a big smirk over his face. "Get 'im Roady."

 _He knew me?_ Roady thought, somewhat surprised as Arubo said his hero name right there. R.J. looked back too in surprise then turned to Roady again even more nervously as the hero was apparently good enough to be recognized. "Why are you here? Who told you to be here?" Roady asked, and in his vision appeared green lines for all of R.J.'s possible escapes or attacks. _Don't know his Quirk, but telling from all the green he's not much of a threat._ The paths he saw R.J. making were not ones he would even need Speedroute to counter with, and he realized his normal fighting skills as a hero could take care of him alone. _That gout would slow him down._ _Haven't fought using this new leg yet though, other than a light spar when Ingenium asked if I wanted to. He'd been out even longer than I was, but damn I was not expecting to get my ass handed to me so readily._

"I'm, not no snitch," R.J. started, though by his uneasy tone and barely hesitant expression it also looked like he wanted to tell Roady.

 _He's not a mastermind,_ Roady thought. It was the only thing he had to be wary of, in case R.J. was faking every reaction and expression to convince him that whatever he was going to say was the truth when it was all going to be some elaborate facade. _He just wants to tell me. Shouldn't be bad enough then that it'll cause me to arrest the kid… probably._ "I promise not to arrest you," Roady said, rolling his eyes and relaxing his shoulders like he realized he must have been giving off too much of a heroic posture. "Just seemed like it could've been a cool story-"

"Oh it is," R.J. said, stepping back closer to Roady. His smirk reappeared and he started saying things that should not have come out of his mouth with that look, "My wife took the kids to Italy when she divorced me. Going to live with her mother she said," R.J. shrugged like it was whatever, and Roady frowned more at the man who did not seem to care he had been separated from his kids. Roady's look of annoyance shifted a bit as R.J. went on, "So I hit up a couple guys I knew from grade school back in Firenze. Got Sammi Short and Tino 'Macaroni' Manzoni keeping eyes out on them, make sure the boys stay out of trouble."

Roady started nodding, wondering what the immigrant was bringing up his life story here for. R.J. lowered his voice though and then continued while still smirking like the story he was telling and that he even knew about was the coolest thing he had ever heard. "Don't hear much from the guys for a while. Check-up here, the down-low there, a call about my old bag's new hubby and that he's good to them. Shit like that. _Then,_ news breaks that Zach's getting out of jail." The smirk on R.J.'s face was extra cocky as he used Zach's first name again, and he finished, "And they tell me I've got to take good care of Lifebringer."

R.J. shrugged his shoulders up high at the look Roady gave him, like when he had heard it he had felt the same confusion Roady felt now. Roady got more hesitant at that knowing shrug like R.J. had no idea what it was for, as Roady was about to ask him what the reason for that was. R.J. continued his story though with his voice lowering down and his head shaking, "After he got shot though, the boys got me on the phone with one of the Dons who was _not_ happy that I let Zach get shot." Roady's eyes grew wider, and R.J. continued with a knowing look of disbelief on his face too, "I didn't know what I was supposed to do about it, but I told him I'd help out Lifebringer best I can. As good as my bros are, it's always a good thing having the Dons on your side."

"'Dons?'" Roady repeated, finally saying the word again to check if he had this right. "As in, mafia dons? Like, crime bosses-"

R.J.'s eyes grew huge and he swung his arms up in a mild panic. "Whoa! No no," he shook his head around, then chuckled as he realized some of the hero's confusion must have been for why he was confessing to crimes right there. "Nah, you got to look into it before making such broad accusations, Mr. He- Roady," R.J. corrected himself to say the hero name Arubo had mentioned before. Roady's upset expression regarding Zach's mafia contacts in Italy lost a bit of the anger in it, though it was still very confused because of this conversation. Then R.J. finished though, "Mob's a hundred percent legit now, thanks to Lifebringer."

"What are you-"

R.J. looked like he could not hold back the excitement that he could tell someone this, and he said in a faster voice but hushed tone, "All the worst Dons are gone, and the ones left are down with the new program apparently. No more crime. I just heard about it from Macaroni Manzoni, but he did some time in Roma Max, missed out on the whole Age of Villains. Says when he got out, the whole system was upside-down. Like, he started helping cops! Helping 'em like, keep kids off drugs or something-"

"And this buddy of yours-"

"Macaroni," R.J. said, looking at Roady expectantly afterwards.

 _I'm not calling him that._ "He's in one of the, Italian mafias?" Roady wondered it, though he asked himself afterwards, _What do I even know about the Italian mobs? Most of it is from movies. I'm sure Italians know more about it, but R.J. seems like a liar._

"Eyy, like I said, I won't snitch…" R.J. continued, though he smirked again like he had one more thing he had not revealed yet that was as juicy as the rest. "As I said I wasn't there though to verify this, so I couldn't say for sure- but when Don Gino called me personally? You should've heard him. I realized right there in that call, Zach's _loved_ by the whole mob. I'm not a part of it myself, of course," R.J. said with a hold up of his palms in a defensive way again. "But from what I heard, he's practically an honorary mafia Don himself."

 _I have no idea what you're talking about,_ Roady thought. He thought it and just lost his interested and confused look. R.J. leaned back at the shift in the hero's expression so suddenly like that, and he backed up a couple steps before saying that he 'had to do… something.' Roady watched as R.J. went over to the couch and started muttering to the other guys next to it, but he just turned back to the closest wall to him before letting his thoughts wander. _I couldn't follow much of that. Sounds like a bunch of… but he didn't sound like he was lying. It's pretty absurd, but he at least looked like he believed it. As exaggerated as he was being though…_

 _The kid's not Death._ Roady realized it and shook his head in annoyance, mostly at himself. He had been telling his wife that he was for over a year, and despite Zach coming back and going to school while Death was still out there reviving people, Roady still held onto the belief that he felt many did. He grimaced at how confidently he had believed in that though, as he thought, _He must have been in Italy for a long time to have done what R.J.'s suggesting. Even if he managed to do just a bit of that- that absurdity, it would've taken him months to get in with the mob. The mob. Like that's such an easy thing to join. And if he is "loved" by their guys, he must have really become a member… How'd he do that, without being disguised?_

 _They must have known that he was Lifebringer while he was with them? How did he convince them to let him join… And even if he spent most of his time there, then how does he have the power he has in Virtucorp?_ Roady frowned even deeper, though he shook his head as that mystery solved itself pretty easily in his head. _He was in America for a while too, so there are possibilities there. He just, kept doing shit the way he always does it. It's pretty fucking annoying, especially when he gets results. Something like this though? This is barely even out of line,_ Roady turned his head as he heard noise behind him of surprise from the three slumming it in the abandoned building.

Zach was back in the room, and R.J. anxiously glanced back towards Roady and then to Zach again. Zach just walked right towards the empty space on the wall he had been looking at before when Roady had wondered about helping him, and Roady walked over to where Zach put his laptop down next to some papers he had on him. _No backpack,_ Zach thought as he glanced to the left at Roady's approaching form. _Rather not have to have that conversation, with anyone. Lemillion better keep it from Midoriya. Don't need him pitying me. I could use that- no. No if he feels the need to come after me, I need to accept that… I could use the pity though. I could use it, and if I could, and that could prevent him from- I don't need anyone's pity._

"You get what you needed?" Roady wondered, relieving Zach who hoped Roady would not mention anything about his Quirk use. As Zach looked towards Roady though, he did not notice the older man's true thoughts as Roady kept his expression clear of what he was currently seeing. Roady stared at Zach though with his heart racing even as he kept his expression flat and stern and questioning. In Roady's vision, the number of arrows was countless. They were all dark red or black. He had never once in his life seen Speedroute act like this against someone not prepared in the least to fight him. The worst part though, was that the arrows were shaking and moving around like snakes, as if every second they stood there, the next second meant Sazaki would have reacted differently to any move he could have made on the boy.

 _No use fooling myself,_ Roady thought. It was something he did not want to admit, nor something he had really thought too hard about before. It was just the two of them there though. He was a hero, with someone who had the power to be very dangerous, and who he might have to stop. Yet he did not try to deceive himself despite what he knew he might have to do, _I wouldn't stand a chance. I don't know if I could've beat him back when he interned with Bikergang… Doesn't matter though now, I guess._

Roady just looked down at the papers Zach nodded at after the older boy's question. "Had some stuff related to these cases," Zach started. He opened up his computer though while lifting the papers in his other hand. "Filled in some gaps, and I'm pretty sure Intanzo was using Camoflora from the start based on…" Zach spoke only half-focused on the cases he had new information on. He had a new case he was more interested on that he scrolled to on his computer while putting up the other papers at the same time using two black arms that came out of his shoulders and took other thumbtacks out of the wall to pin up the papers he handed to his black hands.

"Sure, improved that Quirk," Roady mentioned. _Doesn't have to touch himself with his right hand. Can create arms without even focusing on them, like they're whole new appendages._ "Pretty useful, even if you shouldn't be using it right now," Roady added.

"Like you didn't just use yours," Zach jokingly remarked back with a small grin, still looking at his computer.

"How did you-"

 _Thought he might have right there. Got you,_ Zach did not really know for sure, but he grinned more at the confirmation he got from Roady's response. He just kept going with what he was doing though, somewhat annoying Roady though also just making the older man humph and move on as Zach was not getting all smug about it or anything.

 _Must have been why all the arrows got so dark. He could tell and prepared much better than I was when I wasn't even serious,_ Roady reasoned away some of the anxiety he had felt after seeing his Quirk react like that before. "What's this case then?" Roady wondered, as Zach moved a little to the side and slid his computer towards Roady to show him what he was looking at.

"Nothing to do with villain organizations," Zach replied. "But that's what's got me hooked on it. The big shots in Japan don't leave much of a trail, and they have big enough enterprises that anywhere I could track down would likely already be abandoned by the time I- or any heroes I'd call, would get there."

"Suicide," Roady muttered as he read the article. "So, what's the case?"

"I don't think it's suicide," Zach countered, and Roady looked back at the tiny article that was not very big news. Zach looked back at the screen himself, _Suicides in Japan are highest in the world. Not by rate, but by total number, I think. People wouldn't question an old Japanese man killing himself, especially dying in such a way. It's open and shut._ "I think it's murder."

"You do?" Roady repeated, saying it with the lift of his right eyebrow and a glance to his side to see if the kid was serious about this.

"I do," Zach said, nodding seriously back at Roady who he turned to so he could show that look. "Nakahara Hiroto, was a rather wealthy man. Worked hard his whole life and made a small fortune-"

"Money doesn't buy happiness, and working too hard is the largest factor experts say people in Japan kill themselves. Kids, salarymen-"

"Heroes," Zach added.

"It's not common, with heroes," Roady countered, hesitating for a second before finishing. He gave the taller but younger teen a stranger look at Zach's reaction to hearing that, but Zach just nodded his head aimlessly before refocusing on his computer.

"You're making good points," Zach started. "But you could at least listen to this first before-"

"Alright, then tell me your reasoning," Roady snapped back instead of letting Zach be condescending for another moment.

"This," Zach opened up a completely different window from the tab he was just on. Roady darted his eyes up to the black address bar of the website, then he pulled back from the screen a little and got a darker look over his whole face. His eyes shifted around the laptop he suddenly noticed looked thick and hard to lug around, which combined with the person who was using it, and the off-brand internet that Zach just opened up looking like nothing Roady had seen before, freaked him out. He leaned back forward though as Zach pulled open a tab on this strange website that was beyond just an 'Incognito' tab to being something Roady felt was illegal just to look at.

"You on the dark web, or something?" Roady wondered.

"Or something," Zach replied with a nod. "Not as simple as that, but you see this?" Zach asked it and nodded at the picture of a very, very nice looking car. "Apparently, this is what Nakahara spent the majority of his fortune on. Fixing up, and buying new parts for that sometimes had to be made completely from scratch by pros whose sole jobs are to make that specific car piece for ancient models like these."

"It's a nice car," Roady said, though he was looking below the picture himself and already narrowing his eyes. He did not need to ask what the picture had to do with Zach's reasoning. "And it's for sale."

"Someone got the car in his will. They're selling it rather quickly too."

"An auction- Today?" Roady asked that in surprise with his eyes widening and darting to his side again.

"All priceless cars like these. The people going there," Zach paused and he frowned deeper for a moment. Then he lifted the frown and said calmly, "Some are for-sure just car enthusiasts. Eccentric rich guys like Nakahara who love their cars… _Loved,_ in Nakahara's case." Zach glared at the screen and then shifted his eyes back to Roady who turned to face him at the glint he suddenly saw in Sazaki's eyes. _With Roady here, I think I could loophole my way into this…_

 _I, have a bad feeling about that look,_ a bead of sweat rolled down the side of Roady's neck as Zach's expression became much more serious.

Zach stood up straight and looked somewhat down into Roady's eyes, but in a way like he was facing him on equal level. "You said you want to help me out, right?"

 _Don't regret this later,_ Roady told himself. "Yeah. What're we doing?"

A smirk much too similar to R.J.'s that Roady saw earlier spread over Zach's face. And he started to feel that regret already that he just told himself not to feel, as Zach started, "First, we'll need disguises…"

* * *

 **A/N Thanks for reading! Tried to get this out this morning before I left to hang with my Grandpa again, but overslept 'cause of the coffee I drank to get the last chapter out last night. Trying to still post this before Wednesday is over, though I only have 14 minutes left as I write this sentence. Going to do a couple review responses too so don't know if that'll work out... Anyway though! (Had some Starbucks tn too to keep me going right now), Hope y'all enjoyed the chapter! Zach and Roady meet up, and Zach shows off to him (and to us) some of the extra stuff he's been doing since he got back. Zach's got a case he wants to work on now too, and with Roady's help he's got an idea... Gonna be a fun arc I had an idea for a while back, though there's more going on at the same time based on what Lemillion was thinking about last chapter too, and the timeframe the League's given for when they're making their move... A lot coming to a head, and yet Zach's investigating into a suicide that doesn't sit right with him. We'll see what he and Roady do next chapter! Leave a review letting me know what you think, what you predict is coming, and any questions you have for the story!**

QuestingforBitches chapter 196 . 23h ago

'nother lovely chapter about our favourite sad lad, Zach.  
Can't wait to see what's up next even though when this story eventually I'm going to be super depressed about it like the end of a favourite animes.

 **I'm dreading that day myself lad. Can y'all even imagine how into this story I am to have written nearly 3 mil words in this much time? Cried a solid hour straight imagining/planning one of the future chapters I haven't written yet just a little while ago today... I'm real into Zach's mindset, and when Zach's pretty much lost it... but I still need to think like him to be able to accurately represent what someone in his shoes would be saying/thinking, it is super depressing. Yet I also love the fact that I got this into this character too, and so I'm keeping this going for a while longer! Just gotta admit how much this story means to me though. Anyway thanks for the review! Hope you enjoyed the new chapter!**

Celestia chapter 196 . 16h ago

Chapter. 196  
Just as I was about to start worrying about your lack of updates, you update twice. I cannot even begin to imagine how fast you must type to be able to update so fast. It's also unbelievable that you actually have a life outside writing fanfiction. I can't survive on my current schedule, and it's not even that busy.  
Kudos to you! You've managed to impress me with your writing every single time.  
-Celestia

 **Awesome! Thanks a ton, glad you liked the chapters and the update speeds as I keep trying to keep this up! On a coffee rush right now so I'm managing- 11:55 BUT I'M STILL GETTING THIS OUT BEFORE MIDNIGHT ON THURSDAY MORNING! Thanks for the review XD**

LOGARGON chapter 196 . 12h ago

YOU FOOL ANY FASTER AND YOU'LL RISK BREAK THE SPACE TIME CONTINUUM. NEAR 3MILLION WORKS IN LESS THEN A YEAR! YOU'L DOOM IS ALL!

 **Haha you're the reason I tried to get the chapter out this morning instead of right now. Had too much to do today, but it's 11:58 right now and I can get it out in the NEXT MINUTE! I WILL! XD So hyped up on the beer and coffee I'm slamming right now that I spend 11:57 taking a quick piss but I'mma get this chapter out in time I swear it! XD SCREW THE SPACE TIME CONTINUUM!**


	198. Chapter 198

**Disclaimer: I don't own Boku no Hero Academia**

 **Chapter 198:**

On the northeast coast of Honshu, Japan's largest island, thirty miles outside of the closest town of Aisuri, Lifebringer and Roady arrived at their destination to many awed looks. Zach had his scars all covered up, though he was also wearing a scarf over his neck scars that doubled in function by completing his ensemble of high-life spring fashion clothing that he had had to help Roady pick out too.

His partner did not have as much makeup on, though Urukio was upset about the amount of hair dye and gel he had in to make his hair less recognizable. After being recognized twice that day already though, once by his waitress that morning off Rairosu's boardwalk, and once by a homeless man helping out his partner, Roady knew he needed a disguise as much as Sazaki did. Still, he looked into the driver's seat and could barely recognize the person next to him even though he had been there when Sazaki was putting on this disguise. _He talked about wishing he had a "mask" like it's something he's used before. A face-mask, to make him look like an entirely different person. That's only possible with Quirks though, and Changeling died taking down the Stain Cult so no luck there. Could ask your friend Toga…_

Zach prepared himself up to the second he was getting out of the car to speak to the bodyguards and rich people around them who were all staring at his car in amazement. _Edo Minzio. Twenty-three. Born in Nara. Wealthy mother, unlike Roady's wealthy father. My mother instilled better fashion sense in me than Roady has, which is why I'm taking the lead._

 _This car is too crazy nice. The fact that you can pull something like this off is, it's pretty cool._ Roady had to admit it to himself, though he tried to make it look like he was used to stepping out of the car and not like he was anxious about every move he made in the multi-billion yen vehicle. Roady stepped around the front of the vehicle as Zach came out of the driver's seat. Though it annoyed him to admit, he agreed with Zach's reasoning for him to stand close so that Zach's large build would stick out less among the rich people who did not have as large of bodies as him. Zach's build fit in more with the bodyguards, though luckily because many of them were a few feet bigger and wider he stuck out less than he would if the high-fashion car show was not full of so many wealthy folks in need of protection.

 _The fact that we have no protection might lead some people to think we're easy targets, actually,_ Roady thought. He saw a couple of people approaching them on the driveway outside of the nicest house he had ever seen before, and he kept a cool demeanor about him as he stepped forward with his _partner._ "Edo Minzio, yes?" A slender man stepping forward asked it with a look towards Roady, only for him to give a short shake of his head that made the man and his wife look at Zach instead. "Edo-san?"

"That's correct," Zach replied with a bright smile at the couple in front of him. His smile completely pushed aside any unease they all felt towards him, relaxing dozens of people with a single innocent look like he had not lifted a finger in his life to hurt anyone. "Toyoshi-san, then?" Zach wondered, as the man he had contacted beforehand would be the only one to know his fake name. "How do you like the-"

"It is unbelievable!" Toyoshi exclaimed, looking past Zach again at the black, mid-sized sedan. The thin man with dark hair styled like Roady's dyed-black hair let out an awed breath at the sight of the vehicle. "A 2008 Honda Civic. Remarkable."

"That is an ancient model," Toyoshi's wife agreed with a nod, though her eyes of disbelief did shift from the car back to Edo Minzio more than her husband's did. Zach made sure to make eye contact with her in a moment while her husband was looking towards his car. He gave her a certain look before grinning back at her husband who turned to him to ask a question about how he even filled up the car with gas considering the clean fuel almost all cars on the road used today.

"I have it delivered to my place- our place," Zach corrected his response with a look next to him at Roady. "Sorry for the late introduction. This is my partner, Tachiko Vivishi. Vivi," Zach added with a lift of his eyebrows at the man next to him who kept himself from seething a hiss at the younger boy on his left side who just called him by a pet name of his fake name.

"Nice to meet you," Roady said, keeping his voice civil and as what he considered high-class based on the tones Zach and the couple in front of them were using.

"You as well, Tachiko," Toyoshi responded, and he shook Roady's hand as his online contact's partner held it out.

"This is my wife, Elena," Toyoshi mentioned too, holding his arm out behind his wife in her long white dress that was thin to her legs but split on the sides revealing her skin from her knees down. The dress was sleeveless though there was a white pelt-scarf/coat that was draped over her arms and shoulders and halfway down her back. She wore _very_ expensive jewelry on her neck and in her earrings, and the European-looking woman gave the gay couple in front of them a friendly smile of greeting.

"Shall we go inside?" Elena Toyoshi wondered to the group in front of her. "The auction does not begin for some time, but the showing has already started."

"Who should I talk to about putting the Civic up for auction-"

"You are- you're, seriously…" Toyoshi was stunned.

Zach had talked to him about his vehicle online, getting in close with the man who he knew was a close contact of Mitosh Xilovic. Xilovic's Japanese cliffside estate was the location of the auction that Zach knew Nakahara Hiroto's car was being auctioned off today. _No sign of Nakahara Keimin yet. She must be inside._ He nodded at Toyoshi with a sad sigh, though he tilted his head to the side admitting it was a necessity after Toyoshi just asked if he was sure about selling. "Apologies for not mentioning that before. When you said you knew of an auction where cars like mine were being shown off though, it was exactly what I have been looking for. Any attempt to sell on my own and I know it would be undersold."

"I still don't see a need to sell-" Tachiko began.

"If we intend to move to America anytime soon," Zach started back, sounded exasperated but then stopping himself before 'getting back into it.' He just shook his head and frowned at his partner who rolled his eyes in frustration but agreement to leave this for later, or never considering they were about to sell the car. The argument they had apparently already had several times became clear to the couple in front of them without the two explaining anything. The United States' emission laws had long banned vehicles like their own. Any car enthusiast would know that which made it a discussion that did not need to be had yet also one that instantly gave their characters, more character.

"Let us go inside then? Shall we?"

"Let's. Is Mr. Xilovic here?"

"Not right now, no."

"How do you know this man by the way…"

* * *

 **6 Hours Earlier…**

"So how're you liking Shiketsu?" Roady wondered, staring straight ahead as he asked. He felt too awkward sitting there in silence while Zach did his hair for him.

 _That's right,_ Zach thought with a smile as he looked over Roady's head into the mirror ahead of them. It was the bathroom mirror from R.J.'s house that Zach told the Italian man to bring to the warehouse for them to use."Oh yeah, I remember you and Popfire graduated from there years back. I-"

"Four years," Roady cut in. "Not that long ago," he muttered afterwards. Roady darted an annoyed look up in the mirror at the smirking teen who sounded like he was calling him old right there or something.

"Yeah okay," Zach started, though he did not sound convincing in his agreement with Roady. "I just thought, people there might have known you though… but no one seems to know who-"

Roady rolled his eyes and looked back down into his own eyes as he saw how Zach was just fucking with him now. "Shut it," he said, cutting off the younger boy who laughed at the remark. Zach continued to wash and dye Roady's hair so that it would not come out easily or be noticeably fake. Since he was dyeing Roady's hair just plain black, he wanted it to come off as more natural than dyed, not that Roady would not be able to talk his way out of just dyeing his hair for appearance's sake if they were questioned.

"Alright, tell me more about this case," Roady said, getting back into it.

Arubo was sitting back on a rolling chair that he had been annoyingly sliding back and forth across the warehouse floor on for the past ten minutes. He sat up after just leaning back in it, and he rolled it over towards the other two with papers Zach had asked him to hold. Choze had left for his job a little while earlier, but Arubo and R.J. had both offered to help them with their disguises. Zach was not leaving it up to the two of them though. He did not want to just deny the offered help either, so while R.J. was out to pick something else up for him now, Arubo was "helping" at their "base."

Zach started before Arubo could start saying, whatever it is Zach thought he might begin with having all the papers surrounding the case in his hand. He told the two with him, "His death was not Quirk-related. No witnesses. Apparently his wife was on a spa vacation with a few friends at the time of his death, and she has a rock-solid alibi with all three of her friends and video proof of where she was at the estimated time of Hiroto's death. She returned home the day after he passed, and she didn't even take him down yet so the crime scene was clear of any evidence pointing towards her being the culprit."

"You think it's her though?" Roady questioned, as she was sounding pretty innocent to him. Zach nodded, and then Roady admitted with a half-nod though he stopped moving his head as Zach repositioned it with his left hand, "She could have hired someone. With a fortune like her husband had-"

"That's one theory," Zach said. "Her husband could have noticed any large amount leaving his accounts though, and considering Keimin herself did not have a job, I doubt she has private accounts with enough in them to hire a professional killer." _Plus, it shouldn't be that easy to hire an assassin. For someone outside of the underworld, it should be nearly impossible somewhere like Japan. Anywhere really, now._ Zach saw Roady frowning again at his counter to that theory, and Zach added, "It's still possible, but just one option. If she's sloppy she'll have done just that. I don't think heroes and the Police Force would have missed something like that though. A wife would always be the first suspect, as any partner is, in the question of whether this was a murder or not. More so, when she was left as much money as she was."

"And the car," Roady mentioned.

"Yes, and the car," Zach replied. "Worth billions. An antique the people close to him said he was obsessed with. And Nakahara Keimin is about to sell this car at a high-scale car auction before his body's even cold." Zach said that with his voice flat and cold. His eyes focused on the mirror though Roady was not making eye contact with the boy whose eyes were so intense with that statement. Arubo sat up more in the rolling chair and lowered the papers he wanted to chime in to mention something about, realizing in that second that there was not anything for him to tell Lifebringer that the boy would not already know. "At a place like this, if cops or heroes show up, even with a warrant to investigate they'd be stalled at the door long enough for those people to scatter."

"What are you talking about?" Roady muttered, more interested than in disbelief of the statement.

"Things like these car shows are places where villains who have the most resources frequent. Villains who are out in the open and not considered villains technically because they have powerful lawyers to get them off and slimeballs working for them who can protect them in worst case scenarios where there's no way to escape guilt. People who will take the fall if the time ever comes, knowing that they'll be supported in prison if they take the fall instead of their rich associates. There are many methods these people can use to get away with their crimes. There could also be villains themselves who have large amounts of money and disguise themselves knowing that no one there will care to check their identifications as long as they fit the part, or as long as they have the cash to get in."

"And Nakahara Keimin-"

"Isn't at the level of richness of these people," Zach countered as he knew what Roady was already starting to say. "But she has the car. Priceless vehicles like hers, and ours, are the only tickets people like us are going to get into a place like this."

 _That's not what I was going to ask,_ Roady thought, though now he was even more interested in a few different things based on that response. _Just how rich are these people if Nakahara's considered poor in comparison? And, what "priceless" vehicle are we getting? He said he sent R.J. off to get the car…_ "What's this car we're taking?" Urukio wondered. "And where are you getting it from?" He added, turning his head a bit to the side to look back and up at Zach in a semi-accusatory way.

Zach understood the look. He had been making it out like this place was far, far above their ability to get into. _I'm not using Army of Death funds, if that's what you're thinking. That is what you're accusing me of at least,_ Zach sighed but just shook his head once at Roady before replying. "It's a Honda Civic, 2008."

"A what?" Roady questioned, never having heard of the car before. "And from 2008…" he trailed off, as he saw Arubo's expression in the corner of his vision.

The homeless man finally jumped up as Zach gave him a serious look showing he was not just fucking with Roady. "How?! That has to be worth- hundreds of billions! H-How?!"

"Someone owns that antique. Someone who lives only an hour from here," Zach added. Then he paused, and finished in a lower voice, "Someone whose younger sister was brought back to life during her study abroad in America two falls ago."

"You-" Roady started, but Zach shook his head. "Then, how did you-"

"When I wouldn't tell him whether or not it had been me who saved her, he assumed I had." Zach grimaced at the look Roady gave him, and he added with a raise of his voice, "And he was happy to help me too. I told him we'd get it back to him without damaging it, and that it would help me with this investigation."

"When was this?" Roady asked in confusion.

"Remember when you went to help R.J. get the mirror?" Zach asked.

"Thought you went to get our disguises during that-"

"I'm a great multi-tasker," Zach replied.

"So R.J.," Roady started, a bead of sweat forming on the right side of his face. "He's picking it up for us?"

"Yeah. I told the guy not to be worried when he gets a look at who's picking up his car-"

"You don't think R.J. will take it?" Roady wondered. Zach smirked, then he wiped it from his face quickly. Roady had seen it though, and he growled in anger, "Or you think he's too afraid of you to even try something like that?"

"No, I just think it's laughable that he'd do something like that," Zach replied, though his voice was unconvincing to the hero who just hummed at his response. "R.J.'s a friend. He wouldn't break my trust like that."

 _Especially with his kids under watch by the mob,_ Roady thought, his expression darkening a bit more as he realized there was no way R.J. was stealing the car, even if it was worth a fortune. _It may not be fear that brings him back here, but it is fear that keeps him from even considering it as an option._ "Alright," Roady started, needing something to get his mind off this. "So we go to this car auction. We find Nakahara Keimin, and then what? You think she'll just tell you that she killed her husband, or got him killed?"

Zach did not respond for a second, and Roady started to him while looking into Zach's eyes in the mirror, "This whole thing sounds real suspicious, sure, but what if the wife just didn't want the car and knows she can make a lot of money from selling it? And even if that's not it, what if there really is just no proof of her crime? As good at this as you are, and I won't deny this is pretty good," Roady paused, then he told the teen behind him who did not get a smug look from that to just stay serious instead, "You've got nothing right now but a hunch. And without her husband supporting her with his wages anymore, she could need the funds. This could just be a necessity for her."

"That sounds reasonable," Zach started. "Except I checked an updated registry I got from a Toyoshi Rando, a contact I made we'll be leaning on heavily when we get there. On that registry I saw the car went up on it before her husband was killed." Roady's eyes opened wide, and Arubo looked to Zach in a lot of confusion all of a sudden at that statement.

"But, isn't that proof?" Arubo wondered.

"Nope," Zach replied, and he turned Roady's head back forward as he started to style it. Roady grumbled in annoyance as Zach started styling his hair without any spikes, and as he saw Zach reaching for the gel he found an urge to stop him here and say that the dye was enough, but he held off. Zach continued with an explanation Roady focused on instead of what was happening to his hair, "Now I suspect if I go and accuse her of murder we'll have a conversation that goes something like this: 'Did you kill him?' 'No!'" Zach rose his voice in tone just a bit to distinguish his voice from the suspect's. He went back to his own voice, "'But it was up for auction early. He loved that car, and you needed to kill him to sell it.' At which point she would realize the misunderstanding I'm having."

"'Misunderstanding?'" Arubo wondered confusedly.

"Or she'll show me that I'm misunderstanding by giving me some shocked look and then a realization with wide eyes that what I'm saying would make sense to me, a hero." Zach paused and continued while holding up his right palm to his side, "She'd shake her head around, and say so genuinely: 'My husband loved that car.' She knows that if I had done some digging and asked around I would have learned that truth anyway. The best way to make me believe her would be to sprinkle as much truth as possible in the lie-"

"Like you do?" Roady wondered darkly.

Zach nodded his head and said, "Exactly."

Zach paused, and then he grinned at Roady's surprised look that shifted after a second in a lot of annoyance. He just rolled his eyes though as he decided to leave _that_ for later, and Zach continued when he saw Roady was ready for him to, "If I went at it this way, she'll have this excuse ready and say that he loved it but they were arguing about selling it. His job wasn't doing well, not making as much as it used to, they were going to lose the house, having marital issues," Zach listed off a bunch of reasons and then let out a soft sigh like he was using her voice again. "'He loved that car, he loved it so much that I think when he realized we couldn't afford to keep it anymore…'"

He trailed off and lowered his eyes, as if acting like Keimin herself trailing off there in a way to invoke emotion from the people she was saying this to so sadly. Then he rose his head and added in her tone, "'That's why I'm selling it." Zach paused again while the other two stared at him in shock at the emotion he actually stirred in them there just acting like this woman. Then he spoke back up, "This is where I'd cut back in that she was selling it before he killed himself. But then she'd counter, that she told him that they were going to bring it to that auction or it was over. She gave him an ultimatum. Lose her or lose his car. And he killed himself. 'He left me alone in this world, because he loved that car more than he cared about me. About us. I loved my husband, once, but this car isn't going to be some memento of our time together. When I look at it, all I see is what tore us apart. The _thing_ that he loved more than he ever loved me.'"

Zach finished with Roady staring at him with huge eyes and his jaw dropped. He imagined if some woman had said that to him using exactly that tone, the same amount of emotion, and he knew he would have probably believed her. He almost believed Zach from the look the teen was showing on his own disguised face there, but Zach rose his gaze back up to meet Roady's in the mirror in a harsher way. He continued in a lower voice, "It'd be a nice story to tell the cops or heroes who investigate further into this seeing what she's doing with the car so soon after his death. A plan I'm sure she already has in place, if she's this confident to sell it immediately after his death."

"I'm not going to fall for it," Zach continued. "Or any other story like it, though I am fairly confident on this theory of what she'd say. A nice 40% or so," he finished with a shrug.

 _Forty percent? Don't sound very confident about it, though I guess if that's the one most likely of what you've come up with and it's only 40, then you have a ton of these theories at the ready._ Roady thought it, admitting to himself that it was actually more likely Zach was right if the highest probability was that low.

"Anyway, I need to investigate without her knowing I am… we are," Zach corrected himself. "We show no signs of being heroes. Nor that we know anything about her car, her husband's death, or how fast she's selling it."

"I know how to, be undercover," Roady said, hesitating for a moment as Zach gave him a questioning look to see if Roady actually was experienced in matters like these. "Not as much as you, I'm sure," Roady muttered in annoyance at the look though he had to admit it aloud so Zach would not think he was on his level. "But I'll be convincing."

"Good, because we're going to act a certain type of way with as priceless as our car is. Rich guys who are somewhat casual about selling a car worth billions-"

"You're going to sell it? That guy lending it to you-"

"I explained to him my plan, and he's fine with me doing whatever. I'm not actually going to sell-"

"You, told him everything?" Roady wondered, confused and surprised to hear that when he himself still did not feel like he knew all Lifebringer was planning. He stared at Zach in an odd but intrigued way as the younger man replied that he had. _How does he do stuff like this secretly, when so many people actually know what he's doing?_

"…He was happy to let me borrow it and to keep quiet about the whole thing. I know it's not all I could be doing right now," Zach added, his frown lowering more as Roady watched him. The older boy by four years stared at the expression Zach made without commenting on something that had been in the back of his mind the whole time now. Zach continued while locking his gaze with Roady's, "And this really is an investigation based on nothing but a hunch, but if it isn't suicide I want to know why Nakahara Hiroto was killed over a car; what could have possessed his wife to do such a thing and set it up as a suicide? Or, what else is going on?"

* * *

 **Present**

Rando and his wife Elena walked with Zach and Roady through an elaborate entranceway into a house fancier than either of them had ever been in before. _Far nicer than L's place,_ Zach thought, though he already expected that from the high-fashion futuristic architecture he saw from outside. The inner walls were all white, with glass inner walls in several areas and underneath the ornate steel railings leading upstairs or down if one were to head closer to the cliff that the building was built on the side of overlooking the coast. An entire wall on the coast side was made of glass, though that wall had been opened up down the middle and pulled to the sides to allow guests out onto the decks, plural, some of which were more like exterior rooms just with no ceilings or ceilings that had been pulled back to give the house a more _open_ feel.

Roady tried his best not to look around the place in awe. He ignored how much money he knew had to have gone into constructing a place like this, instead focusing on the conversation Zach had initiated through his vague question about Mitosh Xilovic. "…and although very busy, he has left open the possibility that he could show up today. Mitosh very much enjoys these sorts of events, and I am sure he set it up with the intention of being here himself. It does appear that something may have come up though, unfortunately-"

"Toyoshi!"

Toyoshi Rando and the three with him turned and looked into another room where many of the other people in the place just looked to. The area just inside of the entrance was not very crowded, but the people Zach and Roady saw were ones they had to keep themselves from staring at. Instead, they looked towards the large man bigger than Zach, though still smaller than many of the men and a few women in suits who were around the building and exterior. Those suited-up men were often following around the rich people gathered at the home, many from a distance, though some right up close behind them. Others seemed to just be standing near closed doorways, or at open ones. The large men at the open doors stood motionless without making eye contact with the guests like they were as much a part of the house as any of the paintings hung up on the walls, one of which Roady found his eyes drawn back over to several times even as Toyoshi was apologizing to them that he had to go speak to a different guest.

"…You are free to look around. I will speak to the auctioneer and have the staff move your vehicle inside to include in the showing. I am sure they will all be very excited to include it…"

Rando left with his wife after giving a quick farewell to the guests he had gone outside to greet personally. He had been dying to see the car Edo told him online he would be bringing, though he had been skeptical of it until the moment he saw the vehicle itself. Such unknown people as Edo Minzio and Tachiko Vivishi having such an expensive vehicle seemed doubtful, as what he found on the two online was brief. Roady watched as the two who had let them in walked away to go speak to a man who Zach pretended not to stare at closer than any of the other guests who were much more famous. The older hero thought, _They believed our disguises. I didn't think we could pull it off. Faking being this rich… though, I guess there are other people here who I don't recognize immediately._ Roady told himself that to chill out, because of the two he saw above the famous painting he kept glancing towards on the wall underneath a staircase.

At the top of those stairs stood a pair Roady had to glance back up at as he thought he must have imagined seeing them. Roady lowered his head back down as one of those people looked down at him, trying to avoid making eye contact with the two he was sure would not recognize him, even if he had recognized them. _What? I- I didn't just… What?!_

Edo finally looked around in amazement at the beautiful building he had entered. His taste was refined, and he admired it all, and then his eyes widened as he looked up at the famous American pop singer and former United Korean president next to the railing on the floor above who looked down and saw him staring. "Wow," Edo said, looking back down next to him at Roady. He kept his expression as his disguise's, even though he could see Roady not acting much like he wanted Tachiko to right now. Roady realized it and recovered, like he knew the kind of famous and powerful people he was going to see in here, even if he was not expecting what he just saw. There were no cameras inside easily visible to the guests, though both heroes suspected they were around, somewhere. Zach looked next to him at Vivishi, "I am stunned we made it in."

Roady knew from Zach's looks that he was not saying that as a mistake letting his Lifebringer come through. He was saying it as Edo, and Tachiko just hummed and started forward himself towards a different room than the one Toyoshi and his wife had left to go speak to other acquaintances of theirs. "Who were those men Toyoshi went to speak to?"

"I don't know, but he did not want us meeting them. You would think he would have introduced us to friends of his, instead of rudely breaking off so suddenly like that." Zach's voice sounded indignant and like he thought he was being treated rudely by their contact/host. He seemed to have some position of power in the building, though from his lack of interactions with staff and bouncers during their time together the two young heroes did not know if he actually had the power to order them around.

Roady continued the conversation they were having beneath their words, "I didn't recognize them. Though I'm sure they didn't recognize us, either."

 _Our disguises are working,_ Zach thought. _We are being treated older than either of us are. We're dressed the part, even if our clothes don't cost_ _ **as**_ _much as most of theirs. Had to pull out every stock I had left to afford this kind of stuff, and it just made Roady more suspicious too that I have "that much" money. Well I've got nada now. It'll be worth it though. We don't stand out at all. No one pays us any mind._

 _That group Toyoshi went to talk to were not people he wanted to impress us with,_ Roady thought at what Zach had said first. _The man called him by his last name without any honorifics. Toyoshi just smiled and walked over to him though, even going so far as telling us a few things before he left so as not to insult us. He did not bring us over though, implying that we are not part of the conversation he knows that man wanted to have with him. Who were they? He had several bodyguards right behind him, unlike most of the more famous people I see around here._ "Do you see anyone we know?" Tachiko wondered, looking around the building some more as he and Zach walked through it together, side by side very closely.

The building was wide and the guest list was select, meaning there was much room to walk around freely. They headed up a flight of stairs and walked slowly across a floor that had circular panels all over the white floor, and over those showcase platforms that could surely rise and fall, were cars that had been brought up in the building. People around them were admiring the fancy sports cars, antiques hundreds of years old, and a couple of cars that had been crafted only once as a special design so there were no others of their kind in the whole world. One of those was on a risen platform on the side of the room with the wall behind it mostly glass, showing the water in the background with an orangish sky that cast a beautiful glow over the black and silver car that anyone could tell was priceless.

Zach and Roady moved towards that car as it was where the largest crowd they had seen so far was gathered. There were a few of the bouncer-looking men standing on the sides of the showing platform, allowing the guests to come up as close as the rope in front of the vehicle where many stood looking at the electric panel below the platform which wrapped around it. That screen had digital letters on it in a fancy font that Roady stopped from rolling his eyes at, as he could almost hear the words on the panel being spoken in an overly affluent tone. The urge to roll his eyes vanished though as he read what those letters spelled out. _Three hundred and thirty years ago, this car was designed by… President Hardoovidge? Built using government funds, it was what started the investigation and eventual impeachment proceedings… Sold in a program by the U.S. government for…_

Roady gulped as he read the first of several price tags on the car's legacy. _The military hardware Hardoovidge drew in his designs was removed by the U.S. government before selling to Franklin Drudge. Drudge made his own additions to the car however, replacing some of Hardoovidge's more childlike aspects to his dream car with sleeker, more practical designs._ On the panel below the platform, pictures of the car taken over the centuries after any changes made were put up, showing how the vehicle looked every step of the way to its current form. _Passed down from Drudge to his children, it stayed in the Drudge family until Primatech Holdings Ltd. was nearing bankruptcy, at which point Riccardo Drudge sold the vehicle to an unknown buyer around the time of the emergence of Quirks. For centuries the vehicle remained lost, until last year when a shipping yard…_

Zach kept his eyes from going wide, though he did have to suppress a smile for a moment at what he was reading in the car's history. _Shit. There was something like this in one of those crates? I knew it was being used as storage for dozens of different villain groups, but there was no way not to involve heroes with the op. How did the Chileans lose it though?_ He found new interest in the history he had only been reading with half-focus as he examined the people around him in his peripherals.

 _"Confiscated from one of the shipping crates being used by villain groups, it is suspected that the vehicle had been in the hands of villains for a long time. Whether the vehicle had been stolen by villains over the centuries it was missing, or if Riccardo Drudge sold it off to a villain himself and it traded hands from then on in the shadows, there is no doubt the vehicle is the same as the one that initiated Hardoovidge's impeachment. In his journal put into the Smithsonian National Museum of American History, Hardoovidge claimed to have signed his name below the VIN. This entry was discovered by historians long after the car went missing, after his great great grandchildren turned it in to the museum, so this could not be confirmed until the car was discovered outside of Santiago, Chile last year. Under the VIN that remains the same as it was recorded historically, is the signature of William Hardoovidge that has been authenticated to match his journal's penmanship."_

All the writing faded from the digital panel again, but instead of showing off the car through the years as it had before and seemed to be doing on a loop, a different message appeared now. A light gasp escaped the lips of a woman on Roady and Zach's right side and a little behind them showing she had just walked up and was reading the same thing they had been. The two heroes turned as the woman whispered aloud, "Up for auction?"

"How'd Xilovic get his hands on this beauty?" Another whisper said on Zach's left side, an automobile enthusiast talking to an associate of his on his other side who just shook his head in shock at what he had read.

Zach looked towards them when he heard that whispered question too, though Roady took another second to look away Nakahara Keimin who had just appeared behind them.

 _Careful Roady,_ Zach thought, hoping Roady would not turn and start up conversation with the woman this early on. _If you start talking to her then she'll get suspicious the next time we approach. Why are these strangers approaching twice? We could use that to show we want her car, except right now we have no way of knowing that she's here to sell a car. Our first approach needs to be when she's next to Hiroto's car, so that all following approaches could be seen as us trying to get on good terms with her in attempts to haggle down the price in the future._

There was no way Zach could transmit that message into Roady's head, though the wish to be able to do so did hit him pretty strongly as he saw Roady thinking about what he should do as the one closer to Keimin. _Damn it. Where's Himazuri when you need her? This would be so much easier with her next to me. We wouldn't have to say a word and we could just keep in character the whole time, while still talking about what's going on and bouncing ideas off each other. I have no idea what you're thinking, but just, just let me handle this._ Zach did not like the thought he had, as it sounded to him like he was insulting Roady even in his own head. _I know you're a hero, but you know I've got more experience. Just, let me take the lead._

Roady glanced to his left, and Zach looked to his right into his partner's eyes. Roady hummed, and he said, "Takes 'priceless' to a whole new meaning. Do you even know what the Civic's _history_ is?"

 _Good. Fucking great!_ Zach got a semi-annoyed look on his own face at the question, as he did not. What he did see though and made him the opposite of annoyed, was the look on Keimin's face. She made a small glance to her left side and the side of Roady's head that had turned just enough that he would not be able to see her looking, even if she was not staring directly at the back of his head. The way Roady was turned also made it easier for Zach to watch Keimin's reaction to what Roady just said quietly but not quietly enough that the woman on his right side and just behind him would not hear his voice.

 _She's wondering what our "Civic" is. She's interested because we're also selling a car that is also not as impressive as this car in front of us. He's built a camaraderie between us as fellow car sellers who might be disappointed in how much we make compared to some of our competition. Fucking great._ Zach turned away and held out his left elbow a bit as he started away from that crazy car that had its original description appear below again that he had already read in its entirety. "Let us see if they have hors d'oeuvres. Hopefully we can find a different room to put the Civic in for the showing-"

Roady locked his right arm into Zach's left without mentioning anything about it or even thinking in annoyance, as their target was right next to them. She did not look like she would say anything or follow them, but it was their first impression on the woman and they wanted her to see them completely ignore her while talking about their own vehicle like it was their reason for being there. "This is clearly the best room though, to have Hardoovidge's super car in it. If we put our car in here…" Roady rose his eyebrows suggesting it could make their car look nicer just by association.

"You just want to be able to say that your Civic was up for sale in the same room as that beast of a vehicle," Zach said, sounding salty at his partner though his words also made it clear he was more upset that the other car would be getting so much more focus despite its appearance. _I wouldn't touch that car with a ten foot pole… Oh who am I kidding? It's a masterpiece. And the history alone,_ Zach sighed though turned his head a bit as he did so, trying to hide his disappointment and acceptance of defeat in a way that almost had Roady laughing except for the uneasy feeling he had that Zach was not faking his expressions.

 _That's scary good acting,_ Roady thought, then he turned his head and looked around the corner of another room with an interested raise of his eyebrows. _Alright. Time to taste some food probably worth more than what I spend on food in a month… or year. Jeez, this place is so freakin' nice._ Roady started towards the waiter he had seen walking around with a silver platter on one hand that had bacon-wrapped shellfish of some kind, each individual piece stuck with a toothpick different from the one next to it in some way so the guests had a varied choice. When he started that way though, he saw a bar installed out of one of the walls that had a bartender in a nice suit vest with his long white sleeves sticking out rolled up to his elbows as he shook a shaker. Behind him on that wall, were the top-est shelf liquors Roady had ever seen, on the bottom shelf.

 _I don't even know what Pinroq Kamouev is, but I kind of want to taste it once in my life,_ Roady admitted to himself as he looked to the actual top shelf where a solid gold bottle of something sat in the middle of the line of ridiculously expensive bottles. Each of the bottles alone looked like they would cost tens or hundreds of thousands of yen, and he suspected each shot of the liquor inside was worth as much or more than that.

"You want a drink, Vivi?" Edo asked, seeing where Tachiko was looking and giving him a look offering to let his partner go get one, though with a small hint of disdain in the back of his voice showing his own masked distaste that his partner would feel the need.

 _Could be good for blending in,_ Roady thought. _Though if they ask for money or try to charge to a card or something… it's better not to risk it. He said the biggest mistake we can make here is anything that actually involves us proving our wealth, since we don't have any "wealth" to speak of._ "I am good, for now," Roady said, adding 'for now' afterwards to show he would potentially get himself something if they were speaking to a group of people later who were all drinking.

 _Sounds good. The distaste was Edo's, Roady. I don't care if you do. I underestimated you a minute ago, and I'm not going to do that anymore._ _ **We**_ _'ve got this, and if you want to grab a drink of Pinroq I can't blame you. I let my forces crush a few bottles of those we stole from King's compound in Russia before we fled. The "spoils of war," they called it. Closest thing we ever had to a party was the army taking that one united shot. Not that I joined in. Had to keep Snow and Cody from it too. Stupid kids,_ Zach smiled. It was a small smile that could have been of a hint of satisfaction that his partner had chosen not to drink in knowledge that he wouldn't, and Roady started to get annoyed by how good an actor Zach was being here.

"I wonder what this Xilovic looks like," Tachiko mentioned as they headed together out onto the middle deck behind the house. They went straight towards the railing overlooking the ocean hundreds of meters below off a very steep cliff that once had beaches at the bottom wrapping around much of the coast. Those beaches had long been eroded though, leaving only large rocks sticking out of the water at the base of the cliff that the waves broke apart on before hitting the cliff wall. The fact that the waves were broken up by those rocks first made cliffside houses like Xilovic's safer from any future erosion due to rising sea levels. It was a luxury the town of Aisuri did not have against the steadily encroaching waters that were slowly turning Aisuri into its renowned nickname of the 'Japanese Venice.'

Zach nodded in agreement after taking in a breath of awe at the view from Xilovic's house. _Those paintings near the entrance were famous, but not famously stolen. There are probably museum curators who wish they would be donated though by the private owners. Saw some originals that were painted by the most famous artists in history, and it shows the kind of man Mitosh Xilovic is to have those right at the entrance. Even without most anyone ever hearing of him, they see who he is from one look at those paintings that are put up but don't have descriptions below. Like they're not up for display but up as actual decorations in his house._

Even though most people did not know anything about Mitosh Xilovic, Zach was one of those who knew of him, and Roady knew now too because of that. He did not need to tell Roady anything else about the man he had already gone into on their way here, but that meant their current talk was a conversation the two of them could have clearly as a way to keep them talking and not drawing any suspicion towards them. It was difficult to come up with conversations to talk about as completely different people who knew little of what people like the ones they were disguised as would talk about. Zach knew a variety of strange and specific topics to talk about with people to get closer to them easier, and he thought about Roger Whitewood and the conversation they had had about Quirkball earlier in the term that had made him a quick friend of his without him even trying very hard. Though there were high-life topics Zach had gotten himself interested in to be able to help in scenarios like this too, he knew Roady would have no idea what he was talking about if he brought up the different kinds of caviars and how he wondered which ones Xilovic's waiters were bringing around. He knew Roady did not know the various species of lobsters, or what different types of modern architecture Xilovic had merged in this hybrid-styled estate.

"He clearly has a very refined taste. I would like to meet him, if he even comes to his own party," Zach added with a chuckle and shake of his head at how insanely wealthy this man was to throw a party like this and not even come.

Roady nodded in agreement with that sentiment and then sighed in a bit of jealousy, thinking for a moment about his own place he and his wife shared, and that they had been discussing selling recently for something a little bigger in order to support a third person. _I'll get a hero's salary again more than the support team's, so we should be able to get something good too. Don't need anything with this much room anyway._ Roady convinced himself that this was too over the top for him, and he pushed away that jealousy though let it come back after a moment. _Tachiko wouldn't be satisfied though. Right? The shit Sazaki wrote about me in that article made sense, but I feel like I'm supposed to come off as douchey, yet like, pretentiously douchey. Hard to act like that in a place where everyone's richer than me though. It would be easier to act like Tachiko in a place where I can actually look down on people. God this disguise is the worst. Keimin seemed to believe it though, and that's what really matters here._

"Attention mina-sama."

"Sounds like Toyoshi's voice," Roady mentioned to his side, while he and Zach looked towards a wall where there were three thin horizontal slits that the announcement was coming out of. Urukio cupped a hand to his mouth and whispered to the side, "Seems like you really got us in touch with someone important."

 _I don't even know who Toyoshi Rando is. I couldn't find anything important about him. He seems as super rich as everyone else here. Business partner of Xilovic's, I think. Maybe he changed his name too though, and I just know him by something else, or I could have looked him up if I had searched a different name._ Zach wondered about the harmless man he had met outside who he was almost certain from their initial interaction was not a criminal. _These kinds of people are careful not to break laws. More careful than anyone. They know the good life, and they are at risk to lose everything by acting stupid. They also know they're in danger though because of their wealth and so they hire goons who look strong and scary, but that doesn't make them villains either. They're the kind of people who get paid solely for their fighting prowesses, because even private security can't carry firearms. People who failed out of hero schools but were trained by heroes to use their Quirks first. Private security and security guards who started training Quirks under Lifebringer's law, and are ready to use them to protect their clientele._

 _Xilovic's security is definitely the best here though. The bodyguards of the rich and famous who came to this are ready to protect their clients, but I've seen the way they're looking at Xilovic's men. They see that these guys are as good as it gets, and there are many more of them scattered around the place than there are each of their bodyguard teams. Should their clients act stupidly, they fear what may happen should they step in between Xilovic's men and their charge. People wouldn't be so surprised, if they knew that he is an Abbasi. Mitoshi is not his real- his initial first name either._ _I knew of him back as Death. Nothing to suggest his activities were anything other than high-society legal. Skeevy and with some shady business dealings, but every time I looked into him it was more just him getting away with some small immoral shit because he's rich. Something he wouldn't think twice about though, is hosting people who are even sketchier than him. At a place like this, with as influential people as the ones who could come to buy such cars, the potential for entrepreneurial villains is high._

 _He knows the loopholes to avoid being a criminal himself as much as I do. Xilovic's just, good at being rich and getting richer. I wish there was something I could do about him but there's not much suggesting he's actually a criminal. I wasn't taking on the upper class. Wasn't just fighting all rich people. Even if he abuses the systems and sometimes did things that did not benefit common people but took advantage of them… that's just how things work. It's how businesses work! How people get rich, through taking the money of others. That's fine. Xilovic's fine. He hires the best bodyguards because he's willing to keep contacts with sketchier people he needs to be wary of. He outbid me though trying to hire the Carmoni African Security Service._

 _The CASS wouldn't protect the terraformers we hired into our charities. It would take up too much of their time, and they're under a different contract, Mijori Umbanoro said. Former hero turned private sector right in the midst of the Age of Villains, after the CHAF had been wiped out and Africa needed heroes more than ever. I didn't want to ask for his help, or even pay for it, but his firm was the best. And yet it was also under contract with the Abbasi's, and with one Mitosh Xilovic. Formerly, Oshtim Abbasi._

The Abbasi were a well-known name to some despite staying out of the news for most everything other than their businesses. Even in business dealings that had huge impacts, the name 'Abbasi' was rarely mentioned as it was people they hired as CEOs and on boards of directors who officially made moves for them. Zach knew them though as a rich family in Saudi Arabia, the richest in fact. He and Roady started back inside as others were heading to where Toyoshi was telling everyone to go, a downstairs auction hall that the access to had been closed-off so far leading everyone inside to excitedly go down to check it out. As they headed that way though, Zach noticed an increased presence of dark-skinned security he believed to be Xilovic's, and he suspected the man himself was here now.

 _Although Saudi Arabia is a democracy now with a lot of changes to their constitution, the Abbasi was one family close to the royalty but far enough removed from government affairs that they avoided Mongoloid's purge. They fled to the U.A.E. for a bit, but they returned to a country in need of powerful people and yet with a strong hatred of villains. The Abbasi were not loved by the people, but they publicly funded enough charitable works in the country to be able to establish themselves back with growing industries that they hired lots of Saudis into. Made themselves richer than they were before Mongoloid. Using the chaos of the world at the time for their own profit, yet no matter how I looked at it, it was always legal. Gained popularity through charities and hiring Saudis who needed work in a chaotic time, and really they helped keep Saudi Arabia peaceful after Mongoloid, even if doing so made them billions. They knew well enough to fear me and stay on a straight path- Still, as powerful as they were, they were bound to have contacts in the underworld. And a young guy like Mitosh, changing his own name which I believe was most likely pressured by his family not wanting to be tied into whatever he was doing, it was highly likely I would see a villain here._

He knew the chances were high, but as everyone throughout the property headed down some very wide and ornate staircase for a lower hall, Zach spotted a face he recognized despite cosmetic surgery the villain had had done. The crowd was diverse, with people from all over the world moving together and speaking different languages as they headed into the lower hall. Zach made a face while listening to a few men speaking Arabic on his left like he did not understand and was uncomfortable that not many people here were speaking Japanese.

He made that face in a moment he believed Keimin might have been looking his way. Roady also spotted the woman on the steps who seemed to be looking their direction, though he noticed her eyes locked on someone else who turned on the steps and made a certain face back towards her. _An acquaintance? Friend,_ Roady corrected himself, as the woman walked straight up to the man and began talking as they headed downstairs.

Zach and Roady were surprised as they reached the hall. They did not think they had missed that much in their walk around and time they spent outside, but all of the cars upstairs had been brought down and were set up in a completely different way now. The room was massive, covering more than the width and length of the estate above so that the people inside could tell that it actually went below the lawns too. There was a huge tinted glass wall on one side of the room too, and Roady sweatdropped as he looked at it and imagined it just looked like a rock wall from the outside. _If there weren't so many people here treating this like it's a normal thing, I'd probably call this an evil lair. And I know some other people in here have to feel that way!_

 _She knows him,_ Zach thought, while he and Roady headed towards a spectating area on one side of the risen central area that all the cars were on. It was like a road in the middle of the room, with circular platforms connected to its sides in rows of fifteen on both sides. The cars could be driven off their platforms and up and down the road before going to the end of it and the square platform that would then be raised for the spotlights and for everyone to bid. Zach and Roady were not focused on the amazing display or on what Toyoshi was announcing to people through the room though. He did not even follow the villain he had spotted. He just watched Keimin as she walked towards the side of the road where her car was waiting on display, very slowly spinning on the platform that kept the car moving so as to show off all sides to everyone no matter where they were in the room.

 _For someone who just lost her husband,_ Roady thought, keeping himself from frowning in anger despite how this was looking to him. The woman who looked to be in her mid-twenties was twice the age she looked, and Roady saw this old-young woman lean forward as the man next to her leaned his head down next to hers to say something in a whisper in her ear. The action was intimate, flirtatious, and Nakahara Keimin giggled like a schoolgirl at something the man just said to her.

 _Blond. His hair's dyed though. See darker roots. Is he conning her? Did he seduce her, and convince her to kill her husband?_ Zach's thoughts raced as he narrowed down his many theories based on what he was watching. _Did they come together? Was he searching for potential buyers before? Or is he a potential buyer himself who she spoke to beforehand to get into something like this? Is he the one who told her about the auction, or did she really know about something like this beforehand since her husband would have been involved in these circles? That man will be on the lookout. She's off-guard now though. Here she is, at the finish line. About to sell her husband's car to the richest people she's ever met. She doesn't look to be feeling guilty, which means she's not thinking about it, which means it's possible she'll be sloppy. Something like this must look illegal to the untrained or unprepared, and if she's feeling like a criminal already then she must feel like the people all around her are villains too. Her lips will get looser, thanks to the man with her, and the scary bodyguards all over the room, and actual villains in here, who she does not look nervous of but more like she fits in with them._

 _Once Xilovic shows his face, and she sees the man right in front of her who owns this "evil lair," she'll feel invincible to be here. Power crazed. Getting away with murder. The rush she's feeling to be with that younger man, selling her husband's car after getting away with a perfect crime. Her airtight alibi unable to be questioned. About to make billions. Have sex with a young man. Eating lobsters covered in caviar and downing million yen champagne. The stage is set._ "You see that?" Zach wondered to his side, not keeping his voice down at all as he spoke to his partner next to him.

Roady looked at Zach as he motioned at Nakahara's vehicle. _Here we go,_ Roady thought as he gained an interested look of his own after hearing Edo's piqued interest in the vehicle.

"Looks within our price range, hopefully," Tachiko mentioned. _She's enjoying this,_ Roady thought as he saw the woman lean up and whisper something back at the man who chuckled in a way that made Keimin smile more brightly. _This guy's part of it. Keimin needed an accessory. Maybe she's not a criminal at all, and this man seeing her took advantage of her own feelings wishing to sell the car and took care of her husband when she told him she was going on that spa weekend. Keeps her out of suspicion, which means he may care for her too- or he just knew he needed her off the hook in order to get the car sold. Could be trying to get her to sell it for cheap to someone he knows, or he's using her and wants to take all the money she has. Maybe she didn't need to be manipulated though, and she's just looking for a younger, richer model than her husband._

Zach and Roady had similar theories as they headed towards their target, but although Roady kept his cool despite the anger he felt towards the woman he was suspecting for murder, Zach had to uncurl his right hand that curled in anger for a moment there. Roady had been nervous about the fact that Zach was not wearing his glove on his right hand. He trusted the kid to be careful though, and Zach had been walking most of the time on Roady's left side with his right hand closest to his partner. It was mostly to keep people from bumping into him, though Zach also occasionally walked on Roady's right side so he could lock his left arm with Roady's right in order to make sure no one noticed how he was not touching him. The lack of a glove on his right hand unnerved Zach more than it did his partner, but as focused as he was on everything else, a chunk of his focus had been locked on his own right hand since he got out of his car. He made no indication of wanting to shake Toyoshi's hand earlier even though it was their first meeting, instead speaking as if continuing from their conversation they had been having online earlier, thus there was no need for an introduction between the two of them.

As Zach approached the couple he had stayed farther back from the road in comparison to, Roady stayed on his right side since the area around the hall's road was crowded. Bouncers and bodyguards stayed farther back in the room for the most part, watching from the walls and exits, allowing their clients to walk right up and take seats in spectating sections looking in at the road where the auction would take place on. The two young men were prepared to start, when a voice spoke on the right of the two, "Edo-san. Tachiko-san." They turned and watched as Toyoshi Elena walked their way, looking at them slightly differently than she did earlier.

 _Like she thinks because we hear her husband on the announcements we're much more impressed by her now for being married to such an important man._ Zach thought it, and yet he made his expression show that he was much more impressed with her now for being married to such an important man. He watched the woman in a slimming white dress with her white fur scarf as she sauntered their way, and she looked to the side and at the closest vehicle that the two had been heading towards to look at. "Are you thinking about bidding on this, vehicle?" She paused before saying 'vehicle' like it was not of her taste, and Zach held back a smirk as he saw Keimin and the blond man with her both look back at Toyoshi Elena as she said that.

"Actually, we were," Edo replied to the woman, acting like he had not noticed her tone there in the least. The way he replied made Keimin wonder if she had even heard that tone correctly, and it made Elena doubt she had actually gotten that tone through considering Edo replied as if she was asking because she also admired it. "Before the bidding begins though, I wanted to make sure it would pass emission standards in the U.S. We don't plan on keeping our new car in a garage, after all."

"Or we wouldn't be selling the Civic in the first place," Tachiko mentioned, and he nodded down the line towards where their black Honda Civic was spinning on display for more people than were gathered near Keimin Nakahara's.

Keimin and the man she was with both glanced in the direction of the Civic they saw a small crowd gathered around. It was a car more priceless than their own, indicating the homosexual couple in front of them were wealthier. The two of them shared a look with each other failing to mask their excitement as they already had a potential buyer interested in their car. "If you are worried about the emissions of this vehicle," a voice started to the side of Elena which made her turn and see the blond man walking forward. "I can assure you, this car runs solely on clean energy."

"That is good to hear, Mister…" Zach trailed off while stepping forward towards the tall blond man who was around six feet tall and a little less broad at the shoulder than him, and yet who looked bigger in the comparison of their two statures and postures at the moment. Roady did not know how Zach managed that, but he also stepped forward and looked over at Keimin as she came up next to that younger man's side. Elena seemed interested in this as well, continuing to stand next to the young heroes who did not know yet whether or not they were happy to have her there.

 _Not what I planned for,_ Zach thought, though he admitted to himself it was not the worst thing that could have happened. _Suspicion of us is practically erased with Toyoshi's wife here. The man making the announcements right now in this place, knowing us, is like an all-clear to people that we're okay with anything._

"Kazuki. And this is the beautiful, Nakahara Keimin," the man going by 'Kazuki' introduced the woman who stepped up to his side. Despite being fifty years old, Keimin did not have any wrinkles on her face. She had the complexion of a much younger woman, and a youthful expression to match even if it did show off some more experience in it too.

"Ah, Nakahara-san," Toyoshi began, looking to the woman in surprise like she did not recognize her until she heard her name. Zach and Roady both cheered internally as Elena mentioned, "My condolences for your husband. I heard what happened."

"Yes, yes it was quite a shock," Keimin replied, and then she shook her head and looked to the young men who seemed interested in the story behind this.

Zach nodded along as he intently listened to Keimin and gave his own condolences once she mentioned how her husband had killed himself. Roady did not look Zach's way, even as he was amazed by the woman's explanation that sounded remarkably similar to the theory Zach had given for her being there. Even though she was saying exactly what Zach said she would though, it did not make Zach any more confident. He felt wrong after hearing it. Roady felt like he was hearing what Zach expected, and yet he also felt like he was hearing a very good explanation for why this woman did not kill her husband. It did not have to be all some big elaborate lie after all, rather just that this was the clearest explanation that Zach had predicted because it was the most likely, and Lifebringer's suspicions were nothing more than that: suspicions.

The two of them wanted to talk for longer, but Kazuki was gaining the slightest sense of suspicion towards the pair as they responded and reacted to the story about Hiroto. So Roady took the opportunity when people around their Honda Civic seemed to be looking for the owners so they could question them about the vehicle. Toyoshi Elena mentioned it to him too when he got her looking that way, and Roady was again grateful that she had come to talk with them, as it gave him the excuse to excuse himself.

The separation was something he and Zach had planned out before arriving, yet Zach had warned him that they needed to be careful about the timing of. At the moment there were several witnesses of them breaking apart though, so one could discuss selling with other potential buyers, while the other continued looking into the vehicle they would try to leave there with. The fact that they were selling the only car they arrived in too intrigued Elena, and she felt a grin tugging at her face though she kept it down for now. _I must tell Nakahara when Edo leaves. They arrived in one car and are selling that car. They_ _ **will**_ _be leaving with another vehicle, so these two must make a strong pitch._

Zach glanced around, and he thanked the two he had just had a short conversation with before heading for the opposite side of the room to check out a different car. _Give Keimin a chance to ease Kazuki's worries. If he mentions any off feeling he had about me or Roady, which is likely his own paranoia rather than one of us making a mistake there, she'll mention how she saw us upstairs paying her no mind and just looking interested and focused on the cars. Roady will make them believe that too as he sells selling our car._

Roady was selling it too, as in he was acting his ass off as he repeated all the facts about their car that he had drilled into his head along with his own fake background on the way here. "I have an eye for these sorts of antiques, and I would like you to hold off…" a man in front of Roady stepped closer to him and put an arm around his side, motioning away from the Civic and the small group of people around them who had been trying to get chummy with Roady and help him decide on who to pre-sell the vehicle to. The self-proclaimed car connoisseur led Tachiko Vivishi away from the group who frowned after him, but they all turned back towards the stage-road as Toyoshi's voice started a new announcement.

As the connoisseur led a reluctant Roady away to discuss the price of the car Roady should start his bidding at, another larger man started towards them too. The guy wore a suit, and the thinner man just a couple inches shorter than Roady who was leading him away frowned a bit towards someone who Roady could tell was an acquaintance of his. The smaller man who started leading him away at first began as they stopped, their voices below the noise of the announcement so no one else would be able to hear them, "That 2008 Honda Civic truly is a priceless vehicle. Not many of its kind left in the world-"

"And I would very much like to be the one to have it," the larger man in a suit who walked over began. Roady glanced at him, a guy who looked a little bigger than Zach and appeared to be the bodyguard of the man who separated him. _Why would he be quiet to let this guy talk though? The bodyguard's acting like this guy's in the way, as if he's the one with power in this relationship. Is this just his public in to this party, and he's the one with the real power… Or is this small guy just the front man? He's the guy they have with a clean sheet, and his boss is higher up than him? Seems like that's the picture they're drawing for me._

"I bet I could convince you to sell it to me for 800 million," the big man started to Roady who frowned deeply as that was less than many of the others had already offered.

The thin man in much more fashionable clothing continued after the big man stopped, "In fact, I know that exact car." Roady froze up, and his eyes shifted back to lock with the shorter man's, "There is only one of its kind here in Japan, and it belongs to Kumoto Onu."

Roady's eyes opened wide, and a bead of sweat formed on the side of his face and started rolling down. Then, the potential buyer and large man next to them got a much bigger smirk on his face to push aside the surprise. "In that case, how about 400 million?" Roady darted his eyes back to the guy and looked surprised again, though so did the connoisseur who just informed them of the vehicle's rarity.

"400 million? This car belongs in a museum," the thinner man hissed at his bodyguard.

 _Alright, maybe not so simple a power relationship as I thought before. Something's up with the way they're acting. Maybe equals. The big guy's look is more threatening though,_ Roady frowned in a deeper way though he tried to keep his dark expression only looking to be from this blackmail the big guy was putting on him now. The mark-down of the price the man was offering was a threat to reveal the car's true owner to other potential buyers who would be more cautious to buy knowing that fact. Roady's thoughts were more on the fact that the man was still trying to buy it from him though. _He suspects it's a stolen car, and yet he's trying to buy from me. The fact that he's willing and treating this like it's something that happens often here…_

"How about no?" Roady wondered back at the bigger man whose smirk lowered down after he turned back to the seller. "As I'm sure there are many in this room who don't care about that bit of information. Enough of them, at least, that I can make a billion easily here." Roady tilted his head down more and smirked up at the man in a much more threatening way all of a sudden, making the big guy who was starting to give a much darker look back hesitate at that expression. It was like both the connoisseur and his bouncer both realized that they were accusing this man of being a car thief, a villain, and this villain was suddenly glaring back like the fact that they knew put both of them in his crosshairs. "But I'd suggest you keep your noses in your own business, and out of mine. I'm sure my boss would be very upset with anyone who got in the way of this sale."

Roady smiled again and nodded at the two in a completely fake friendly way, then he turned from them and headed back towards his Honda Civic. _Just by mentioning some vague "boss" I'm sure the two of them will shut the fuck up. No one wants to mess with a villain and accidentally piss off some crime boss. Imagine Intanzo sent me here to fund the Radians, or something. Just keep your mouths shut long enough for us to finish this._

"…introduce the host of today's auction, and the owner of this fabulous property-"

Roady lifted his head and turned towards the end of the stage where spotlights hit down to the side of the central platform and revealed a man walking out from some backstage area. Toyoshi Rando's voice called out as the lights shone down on him, "Mitosh Xilovic!"

"Thank you, thank you Rando," Mitosh gave a small bow to the people who had started clapping for him hosting this party, then he nodded his head up like he was nodding at wherever Toyoshi was watching from. "Everyone. Esteemed guests from all over the world, I thank you all for coming." He said it respectfully and in gratitude that they would come here for a simple party he was having. "I hope you have been enjoying yourselves, and I apologize for my rudeness so far."

 _Man of mystery,_ Zach thought while watching the guy walking down the road and looking so confident without even trying. He was smiling and seemed to be bragging humbly just by his casual expression of apology for being late. The amount of famous, rich, powerful people all over the world looking towards him and yet he did not seem to feel any pressure by it. His house that was nicer than all of their own, and yet an expression of a humble man who was not shoving that wealth in their faces. Many of them were seeing Xilovic for the first time, and they were surprised to see an Arabic man with fair skin tone and a head of long black hair that fell back behind his neck to the top of his shoulders. It was messy but with a charm in how it fell, seeming natural and yet cool at the same time. He was dressed in a red vest with two of the buttons together over his torso, over a plain white button down and black pants, almost looking like one of the valets outside and yet with a completely different aura to him.

Zach could not help but crack a smile as he watched the man, _And he's trying really hard to pull off that appearance. It takes skill to pull off not trying hard at all. All the people here wondering who he was are getting a first look at a man who would show up late to his own party. In a magnificent hall full of priceless cars, looking like it was built into the cliff solely for this purpose. He's even convincing me a little that he had just arrived from some important something or other, something that could not wait. Yet Toyoshi knew he would arrive late even while telling me that he_ _ **might**_ _show up. Toyoshi was in on it. Xilovic wanted to come in just like this. An entrance after people already have a first impression of him based off his wealth, location, guest list, and material possessions. Showing them a more humble man than the version they imagined. Someone shattering their perspectives of him, and someone so mysterious at the fact that they have no idea where he had been for the first half of this event._

 _But I'm not here to criticize Xilovic Mitosh on his lifestyle. He broke off from the Abbasi family and still made his own fortune, and though it looks like he has some unsavory associates in here, there's only one person I'm after right now. Two, maybe. Keimin might not actually be a part of it. I'll see though. I don't have the resources of Death. I don't have the ability to investigate each one of them, creating a list of potential villains, searching all over the world for credible information on them. I'm not Death! I'm a hero. Here to investigate a murder. That's all. And that's enough._

Zach watched as Keimin left the side of Kazuki, giving him the opportunity he had been looking for. He ignored Xilovic's introduction, his introductions of some of his esteemed guests he was glad could make it, and who the spotlights went on for a moment for each of them. He was thanking the staff and the chefs in particular, which got a loud round of applause from his guests who were all very impressed with the food that had been dazzling their tastebuds all afternoon. The sun was setting, but since they were on the northeast coast they did not have the problem of the sun directly shining through the glass window, only the benefit of seeing the sunset colors over the ocean that Xilovic mentioned. He said it in awe like he was just noticing from the road-stage where he could see over his guests and past the support pillars around the room, though he had stopped in a perfect position between two pillars to stare out at his awesome view...

"Guy's good at making a speech," Zach started, and Kazuki turned his head to see Edo Minzio next to him. He had looked up Edo himself after speaking to Keimin about the two who he thought were likely to buy the car earlier. Kazuki hummed and nodded his head, though he gave Edo an interested look to wonder why he had come to him to start talking. _All business then,_ Zach thought. "Vivi is a worry wart," Edo began, and Kazuki thought about the article he had read that had a quote from Edo Minzio referring to his partner off-handedly in an interview in that same nickname. It was an article Zach had just made, and yet one that his computer had allowed him to choose the date of publication of, showing that his relationship with Tachiko had been going on for a while and that his persona had existed long before today. He went beyond just dating the article itself, but on the very bottom of the website it was posted on, the 'Last Edited' date showed a date six months earlier too.

Some of the precautions Zach had put into making his disguise had worked, even if Kazuki had not investigated too thoroughly into who this person was. There was too much going on to focus very hard on a man who he did not actually find very suspicious, and who he was only looking into in order to see how much money he could squeeze out of him. "Yeah?" Kazuki wondered back at Edo. "What's he worried about?"

"Keimin seems like a nice woman," Edo replied, though he gave a sly grin to his side and said to the man, "But I can see you're the one to talk to about leaving with that car."

Kazuki cracked a smirk. The blond man was lean in figure and had a light beard of blond hair around his mouth and chin with only stubble on his cheeks. He was Japanese, and Zach examined his dyed beard and hair, to the necklace he was wearing that just looked black from the string as he could not see what was on the bottom of it that went inside his v-neck long-sleeved shirt rolled up only on the left sleeve. The man had on a leather belt holding up his expensive-looking jeans, and there were bulges in both of his pockets that Zach noticed when he checked the man out while in the guy's view. Kazuki felt several things after Edo said what he just said. The fact that he was _clearly_ the one to talk to about buying the car made him feel powerful, the fact that this guy who had come with his partner seemed to be checking him out built up his self-confidence, and in his head he was now the type of person who could sell that car for a fortune he would be leaving with.

 _Men are fucking simpletons. Women too, most of the time,_ Zach thought as he watched Kazuki's eyes and saw the emotions that he had been attempting to sew inside him. _Maybe I am just a manipulative asshole if this is so easy. Fuck it though, as long as I just do it to villains… except I don't. I might only do it intentionally here- FOCUS! Fuck man. Look at him. You're not the bad guy here. This mother fucker, getting close to Nakahara's wife, consoling her for her lost husband. That's what people see of him, and what I could see them talking about as I read their lips. Talking all about the new fancy apartment she's going to move into in Tokyo. He's trying to "help" her out with that, but that's what they were talking about with grins like the real conversation was just below, and I didn't even catch most of it._

"Well you're right, but this is an auction. I don't see what talking to me is going to help you out with…" Kazuki started to Zach, talking like he did not know how this worked. There was risk on both sides. Edo could offer a single price early on before the auction, one that was above what Kazuki thought the auction would ultimately bring the price to. If there were few bidders in the auction for Nakahara's car, then any offer Edo made now would be taken away and he would just bid above the top offer in the auction. On the other hand, if he sold the car now and took it off the auction block, there was a chance that someone would have paid a lot more for it had he let it remain.

Zach had this conversation with Kazuki while barely focusing on the words coming out of his mouth or the price he was haggling with. It was something no one actually putting that much money on the line could do, but the words he was speaking meant nothing. They held no weight or meaning behind them, and he just kept talking while his thoughts got darker and he continued to stare at Kazuki with eyes slowly getting more full of a seething rage. Whenever Kazuki would glance back to the side at him though (as they spoke while facing the road together and watching Xilovic speaking), Zach made sure he looked as amicable as possible.

 _He made her happy. She was blushing as he flirted with her. I can see it. Who he is. How that happened. There are so many answers, but I see you. That fashion sense is better than most men. You aren't gay but you are as easy to talk to for a woman like Keimin, with your high-class style, fine appearance, your charm. You broke down her defenses easily. A younger man looking as good as you, you must have made her feel like a young woman again with your interest in her. She looks like she still feels that way any time she's with you. But for the first times you made her feel that way, it would have opened her up completely. And she explains her debts, her issues with her husband, while you were just poaching her car and looking to be the buyer she'd be most interested in. Be the one to get in with her so that you could buy it for cheap, convincing her… except you saw an opportunity. Better than flipping the car for a profit, you wouldn't have the buy the car in the first place at all._

 _She talked to you about those problems she told me and Roady, the ones I suspected she would use to tell the police asking about his suicide. The exact reasons._ Zach's chest swirled with furious emotions, and his left hand farther from Kazuki balled into a fist, while his right stayed in front of his right thigh tucked away from the possibility of bumping into anyone. Yet even that right hand slid back down the thigh more towards his right side, as he cared less about the possibility of Kazuki touching it every second that man spoke to him without a care in the world about the man whose car he was selling. The man who died so recently, that Zach felt his heart pound in his chest at the thought of that man seeing this right now. _He was looking to be the one to buy the car for cheap, or to help Keimin sell it and take a big chunk of the profit for himself. After she talks about selling the car over and over again though to settle all her problems, he learns, after all that trouble he's gone through! Her husband is talking her out of selling the car. That's it, isn't it?_

 _You saw a problem and took care of it. Keimin was looking like that. She cared about her husband, I saw that earlier. When she talked about putting the car up for auction, about how he cared more about the car than her, she wanted us to tell her that she was more important. She wanted that! It's what you told her, I'm sure. Maybe she wanted you to do something about it, or she would… except she wouldn't! She thought she'd go back on it, because if they were truly in love then she couldn't get rid of the thing that made him so happy. Right? But this Kazuki wanted the car badly enough. He was planning from the start on getting that car. He didn't care about murdering if it fit his purpose, or maybe he had just spent too long on it to give up now. The way they were talking he and Keimin have known each other for a while. He's been playing the long con. And he's a murderer. She may have an alibi, but I'm certain you do not. You murdered him that night._

"Think about it," Kazuki said, finishing in a cocky tone and glancing at the younger man next to him who seemed uncertain but also like he did not want this negotiation to end. Kazuki had given him his "lowest" offering price though after haggling for a few minutes, and now it was in Edo's hands to figure out if he wanted to do a pre-sale or not. The way Xilovic was talking, the auction was going to begin very soon, and as Kazuki was walking away Xilovic called that out to make Kazuki smirk even more.

Roady walked over towards Zach when he saw Kazuki go away. The fact that his partner was not following their target meant he still did not have proof, but Roady had important things of his own he needed to talk about. "Minzio," Roady started, his voice semi-serious. "Someone knew that the car we brought is Kumoto's. They were still willing to buy from us though, even knowing where we got-"

"Kazuki killed Hiroto," Zach said.

There was a round of applause as Xilovic mentioned selling the car he acquired himself, Hardoovidge's super car, as the final piece in the auction. A few people whistled, and many looked very excited to see where that car would be going to. "Are you certain it's a murder case?" Roady asked quietly, having come to a mild belief that maybe they had overreacted. He was glad to be there anyway though, but he was looking to investigate bigger things now.

"I'm certain," Zach replied though, and Roady refocused on the mission at hand as he saw the intensity of his partner's expression that flashed for a moment. _Don't act on emotions!_ The younger hero yelled in his own head. _I_ _have to work him good and get him on something he'll be charged with. And, I still… need to find out if Keimin knew. Or what she knew. She must have told him about going on that spa weekend, and if she's smart then she should know something- I need to find out the truth!_

"What should we do then?" Roady wondered.

Zach turned to his partner, then he looked across more of the room to where Keimin and Kazuki were standing together. Kazuki was talking to the woman, and Zach looked away as she turned his way, though he made sure to look away too late so she saw him looking away too. "You say someone knows we stole the Civic?" Zach wondered, glancing back to Tachiko and asking, a dark look forming on his face that unnerved the hero who nodded back at him slowly. "Alright, I've got a plan," Zach said. "I want you to…"

The auction began. Toyoshi Elena came to find Edo, and she let him know that his car would be auctioned off fifth in the lineup. Zach thanked her for that, and he also inquired as to when Nakahara Keimin's car would be sold. Luckily hers was up for auction after his own, and Zach thanked the woman who excitedly asked if he was buying that car. She mentioned it having a history of its own now due to Hiroto's death, saying its price would only increase over time. Zach thanked her again but seemed distracted, getting Elena to let him go as he headed towards the woman he was intending to buy the vehicle from.

Zach approached Keimin slowly, but the woman and her younger associate both looked towards him before he arrived. He approached them, and Kazuki kept from grinning in a smug, victorious way as the first round of bidding was going off. The two he approached were already standing back from the road a bit, but not too far back so they would be close to the security and bodyguards farther towards the walls. They were just back from most of the people standing close to the road and holding up bidding signs some staff had come around to hand everyone taking part. Zach had a sign in his own hand, though neither of the two he was approaching had one of their own.

"Have you thought about our offer?" Keimin questioned Edo, who looked to Kazuki seeing that the man had made it out to Keimin like _they_ had made an offer to the couple they were acquainted with.

"I have, and I'm willing to go for half a billion under that offered price. Nothing more," Zach said. He said it firmly, and Keimin got a thoughtful look as she wondered about the fortune Kazuki mentioned that would still be a huge amount even with 500 million yen taken off of the offer. Kazuki was not budging though, feeling more confident of a negotiator than Edo, and feeling like the man who had slowly approached them might crack with only a little pressure.

"I think you already haggled down the price enough," Kazuki started, making Keimin glance to him and then back at Edo with a confident look of her own. "I was being generous with my pricing before. This close to the auction, and seeing how much everyone is bidding on _this_ first option," Kazuki shook his head as an offer was called out higher than the counter-offer Zach just made him. "I think I may need to rethink even the minimum-"

"Unfortunately, it's looking like we will not have the kind of revenue from our own-"

Kazuki and Keimin were starting to get confused, but Zach was unable to tell them his reasoning behind his hushed voice and why he and Tachiko were having problems here. "I told you, to stop following-" Roady started, his voice hushed and angry as he hurried towards Edo's side in a speed-walk that he tried to keep inconspicuous.

The car connoisseur from earlier followed after him, and said in a low voice of his own, "Except I must insist, that you offer me that Honda Civic at a much lower price _now._ See there is very little time, and only my employer will be able to properly keep the Civic while all others would be forced to return it to Kumoto Onu, its _legal_ owner." The man saying this to Roady rose his voice just a little at the end, looking up at the couple in front of Edo who just went wide-eyed as that man said that to people in front of him.

Zach then narrowed his eyes instantly at the man behind him, and he said in a dark and low voice, "We'll consider removing it from the auction block. Now, leave," Zach said that in an intense voice, though also sounding anxious as he glanced back to the side and saw Keimin and Kazuki staring at him with wide eyes.

Roady darted the guy next to him a look that made the man hold his hands up and then back away. The car connoisseur turned and headed away, smirking subtly as he did. Roady watched him go, thinking to himself, _It's a solid strategy. I'm just glad I convinced him to go along with it. Offering a share of our profits only makes sense if what he just said somehow gets us a higher price for the car, and yet he did not argue with it when I told him that it would work with this couple we're attempting to sell it to. I think he plans on turning them in after they buy it. I think he thinks, that I know he wants the car to be put in a museum. Maybe if he helps get it back to the police he thinks the owner might listen to his wishes and put it in a will to go to a museum. I'm just glad he followed along though, and he acted that out pretty well. Not nearly as good as Lifebringer's doing though,_ Roady tried to make his own expression as convincingly upset about what just happened while they faced the two they were trying to buy a car from themselves.

"If we could just, ignore what just happened," Zach suggested as he started speaking to the two in front of him again. _The car is almost sold. We just need to hold onto it for a little longer!_

 _Car thieves? Or they bought from car thieves, and they realized it and needed to sell it again quickly before anyone finds out,_ Kazuki smirked at the men in front of him. He realized now why it was Zach was in a hurry, and also why it was he was trying so hard to haggle down the price even at the last second.

"If you two could keep that quiet?" Tachiko wondered to the pair in front of him.

"Oh, I won't say a word," Kazuki began.

Keimin grinned big after a second. Zach watched that expression form on her face, and it made dread stir inside him again. _Again, the look in her eyes like she's realized she's surrounded by villains. Like she understands that by being here she is a villain herself. It's not a look of a mourning wife. But, maybe-_

"We wouldn't turn you in," Keimin assured in agreement. "We have more in common, than you'd think."

Tachiko gave her a confused look, while Edo gained a look of questioning then surprise, and then he cracked a small smirk of his own. "Oh yeah?" he wondered, as he looked at Kazuki who gave him a look saying 'I don't know what she's talking about' and yet in a sarcastic way. Zach rolled his eyes at the man looking like that though, and he even chuckled to himself in a way that made Kazuki's smug expression fade. "I'm so sure," Zach said skeptically. He looked to Keimin who faced him as if questioning why he was reacting like that to what she just said, and Edo said to her incredulously, "Even the idea that you had anything to do with Hiroto's death."

Zach scoffed at the idea, then when Kazuki gave a half-shrug like he could just believe whatever he wanted, Zach rolled his eyes again and started at the man who was obviously lying, "Given this time of heroes? The two of you thinking you could get away with murder?" Zach whispered it, yet his voice was as skeptical as could be. There was no judgement of the claim though, making him sound more like a car thief who was looking down on posers pretending to be villains like him. He even looked to Roady with a look questioning 'You see this?'

Keimin did not try to argue it very hard, instead just easing back as she was not very used to this, and was unsure about talking about stuff like this aloud at all. Kazuki kept a smug look on his face though, instead replying, "Believe what you want. Heroes aren't all they're cracked up to be."

"I'd say you think we're fools to be trying to convince us of that," Edo started, raising his eyebrows and then cracking a grin which made Tachiko do the same and chuckle under his breath. Edo finished, "But the two of you are fools to even pretend that you did it. Smart villains can't even get away with stuff like that."

Kazuki shrugged his shoulders again, glancing back towards the road that a car was rolling down towards its new owner on a giant treadmill part of the stage. Zach lowered his smile, his expression actually looking a bit confused and thoughtful for a moment. "You're right," Tachiko started to his side, as Edo was looking at Kazuki more confused now, and then back at Keimin who hesitated for a second before smiling at him. "They're just trying to act-"

"You said," Zach started to Keimin. "That your husband loved that car more than he loved you," Zach said it, reminding her of that fact before he started anything else so that she was reminded of it and made more emotional from the start. "You said that earlier. But… if that was true," Edo paused, and Kazuki glanced back and lifted the left corner of his lips at the growing stunned look on Edo's face. "Then why would he have killed himself, over your threats of leaving him?"

Keimin started a defense that she already had ready, even though her eyes looked like she was telling him nothing but the prepared lie, "Well he loved me too, but the car was more-"

"If that's the truth it wouldn't make sense for him to kill himself, because he would have chosen the car." Zach said it, then he frowned more at her look suggesting it didn't matter what he believed. He started up again softly, "But maybe he really loved you both the same, or even you more." He spoke like he was realizing something, confusing Keimin with his theory as he tried to still make this out to be a suicide with them having nothing to do with it. He continued in realization, "But when you were telling him to give up his prized possession, the thing he had worked on for years, he couldn't take it. Because the woman he thought loved him so much and who he loved the most was forcing him to give up his life's work, forcing him to choose, and that was too much for him-"

"That wasn't it," Keimin snapped. The look on her face was frustrated as Zach made Hiroto out to be this victim terrorized by his wife to the point of killing himself. "Hiroto cared more about that car than me."

"Then he really wouldn't have killed himself," Zach said, shaking his head again as that didn't make any sense then.

This time, Keimin smirked at him when he said that, and she replied in a low voice, "That's what I'm telling you." She smirked, and Kazuki gave her a look before glancing back towards the stage as Xilovic was out on it talking about the next vehicle he claimed he was thinking about purchasing himself. Kazuki glanced back to his side though and at the pair who were watching Keimin with disbelieving looks, though also ones that seemed to be getting more convinced each second that they had really pulled off something the two of them had thought was impossible in Edo's so-called 'Time of heroes.'

Sounding smug as she continued, Keimin whispered to the men in front of her who had a stolen car in their possession of their own, "I had the perfect alibi..." The car thieves in front of her were acquaintances who were the only people she could tell this to. It was something she seemed proud of, yet had had to keep a secret from everyone she knew. And as she began, there was no stopping her, and Kazuki did not care to as he was as smug about this situation as she was becoming. Keimin continued while Kazuki pulled out a carton of cigarettes from his left jeans pocket to light one up, after seeing a man smoking a cigar on the opposite side of the room to no complaints, "Motive for sure, but an alibi to keep me free from suspicion."

"Whereas Kazuki did not even know my husband," Keimin said, and Kazuki blew out some smoke while giving a dangerous look back at the two who glanced at him. He looked right back at the stage though as if he was casual about it, nothing to be too amazed or shocked by. "Nor is he someone any of my friends know," Keimin went on. "Someone who could get in my house and make sure the security alarm stayed off using my _husband's_ code." She smirked even more at the master plan this couple had already claimed was so impossible that they must have been amazed to hear that she had come up with it. The fact that she had gotten it past the police and heroes was something she was proud of, and she continued smugly, "Making it look like my husband had been the only one home at the time."

"Impressive," Zach started, finally cracking a grin as he admitted the story was starting to make sense. He countered quietly, "Forensics could tell the difference between hanging a man, or strangling and putting him up, than someone hanging themself though."

"Blackmail. I was at the spa, but having me beg in private over a burner phone as if there was a gun to my head?" Keimin smirked more as if her plan had been perfect. "Tie a noose. Get up on the chair. Put your neck through. He knew he was dead either way, but at least if he made it look like he did it himself, he saves me." Keimin's smirk faltered for a moment, but it returned at the amazed look Edo was giving her.

"That's, wow. So he really did love you then? Sounds like he cared a lot about you," Zach continued, sounding confused here as to why Keimin did it in the first place.

 _Why not stop her now?_ Roady thought in confusion, glancing to his side at Zach who he thought would have stopped there. _What are you doing?_ Roady's eyes shifted down and he caught sight of Zach's fingers on his right side twitching, curling in a little and straightening out as he held back his absolute seething rage. It sent chills down Roady's spine to see Zach's impressed and villainous expression, while his fingers showed his true feelings in the slightest twitches. _This could be bad. I should stop it now._

"He didn't care about me," Keimin countered Edo. She sounded annoyed as he brought that up, as the question had caught her off guard. "All he cared about-"

"Then why use yourself as the blackmail bait? Why not have Kazuki threatening _the car,_ if that's all he cared about?" Zach asked it skeptically, and his voice was not as low anymore which made Kazuki fully turn back to the man he had never lost focus on.

"Oi, stay quiet about-"

"He was a fool," Keimin hissed back, pissed off at the young man whose eyes were judging her. "We were tight for cash, and he was still spending our money on that damn car to-"

"So you killed a man who loved you?" Zach lifted his eyebrows, the right corner of his lips curling down as his voice came out more intense.

In an indignant tone Keimin snapped, "He killed himself, by being that much of a fool that he forced my hand-"

Zach watched in his own mind as he snapped his own right hand up to Keimin's throat and clenched her by the throat. He watched her body engulfed in black flames, only to snap back to reality and see her standing in front of him still alive and his right hand still down at his own side. In that moment he imagined it though, Keimin's voice cut off and her body tensed up at the expression change on Edo's face. Kazuki glared at the man who looked so disgusted, so dark, and he snarled in a low voice, "You say a fucking word, and everyone will know-"

"Nakahara Keimin," Zach started. His voice was loud, and his tone steady and intense as he declared her name. "Kazuki," he continued on, while people in front of them closer to the road turned around hearing that loud declarative voice. "You are under arrest for the murder of Nakahara Hiroto."

His tone changed, but more than that his entire voice changed in a way as if every word out of his mouth before that had been spoken in a voice that had not been his own. Some of the people who just turned around from in front of him started to open their eyes huge, others turned as they only heard the last part of that in a silence that had fallen over the nearby crowd as people turned to see what was going on. Bodyguards nearer to the outside of the room looked towards the man who just said that sounding so serious that it could not have been a joke.

"And who are you to say that?!" Kazuki snapped back, his voice loud while Keimin just leaned her head back.

"We're heroes, now put your hands behind your heads and get down on your knees," Roady called out. "I am the hero Roady, everyone stay where you are!" He shouted that out as voices started to raise around him, and as some of the security on the outside of the room started moving in fast.

Elena had been walking over as she saw Edo and Tachiko seeming to be the center of attention for something, and that woman froze with her eyes bulging at what Tachiko just shouted. Xilovic stood on the stage with his expression darkening a lot, and security all over the room moved. Famous people got nervous looks on their faces as a hero shouted his presence in the room, as most of them had no idea what he was there for and figured they were all in trouble. Some just heard him yelling about putting hands behind heads and getting down on knees, and rich people looked to bodyguards near them who stepped forward.

Keimin pulled her head far back, so confused and lost at what was going on. Sweat formed all over her face, while Kazuki took a full step back, lifting his hands up as he pulled in a sharp breath through his cigarette that glowed brighter with his suck-in of breath. All over the room, bouncers and security and shady people started to move despite the hero's orders. Then, everyone looking to the same spot in the room watched as the man next to Roady ripped away from his neck using his left hand.

Zach tugged off his scarf in a single swift motion. His red skin around his neck and the scars on all sides of it became visible. And as that happened, his right hand lifted at his side with darkness engulfing it. A black flame flared over his risen palm, and on the stage Xilovic threw both of his hands up at his sides. "Stop!" He yelled, his words directed at his security all over the room to stop them from moving. Because the guy who just ripped off that scar, had a Quirk that everyone in the room recognized immediately.

"Oh fuck."

"Is that…"

"Surrender now," Zach said to the pair in front of him who realized who he was.

Kazuki spat the cigarette out of his mouth along with a puff of smoke. He swept his right hand across the front of his body as the cigarette flew out, pulling the flames off the burning butt so that five flames were caught at his fingertips. Keimin snapped her head to the side in shock as Kazuki's movements, and then she stumbled back and spun as Kazuki fired off the five flames in different directions while calling out, "I've got to thank you Lifebringer, for allowing me to get training from heroes on how to use my Quirk!" He jumped backwards while saying that, pulling out his lighter to give himself more fire to use.

Roady darted to the right, dodging one of the flames that went for him. Three had gone for Zach, one for him, and the fifth towards Kazuki's right side and some of the rich people there. Zach ran straight into three tiny fireballs, darted to his left and slammed his body straight into the fourth, then he darted back in the direction of where Kazuki was coming down. He moved much faster than the villain who just attacked while calling out something so cocky, and he slammed his left fist forward where Kazuki's stomach was lowering down to in front of him. The man's shocked eyes bulged even wider while others around them pulled back going 'Ohhhh' as Zach's fist was visible on the villain's back.

Zach reached up and grabbed Kazuki by the collar with his right hand still covered in Death for a moment, making sure the man was not thrown off of his left fist due to the amount of force he put in it. The Death also worked in knocking him out, though as Zach dropped him he figured the man probably would have collapsed from that first punch even Death-less as it was. He turned his head to the right and lifted up his right hand still flaring with Death, pointed his index finger out, and snapped his hand up like a gun. A black line of Death shot out of it like a bullet into Keimin's back as she sprinted towards the stairs.

Her head turned back at the last second to see if anyone was chasing her, though Roady had just gotten in front of her actually. She saw the darkness the instant it hit her, sending the top of her body pushing forward with her momentum even as her legs stopped moving. Keimin's arms swung back behind her as she fell forward, and Roady ran up and caught her to lower her to the ground softer than if she had just face-planted at full sprint like that.

Zach let out a heavy breath, and he reached down into his pants' waistband and pulled out a glove he put on his right hand while extinguishing the Death on it. _He doesn't represent everyone who used Lifebringer's Law. It has helped more people than it's hurt. I know that._ Zach reminded himself to ease the rage he felt towards the man at his feet, though he still stared down in disgust for a second before looking back towards Roady who was looking his way. _We got the confession. I recorded it. It was not coerced. She fucking- bragged! He loved her and she-_

"How dare you?!" Toyoshi Elena marched towards the heroes who had a nice gap around them that Elena stepped right into.

"Um, Elena dear," Rando's voice came over the room.

"You come in here, and you lie about who you are- You tricked and deceived me," Elena was speaking in a voice appalled at the heroes for what they had done. Thinking about the conversations she had had with these two who she had liked and thought she could be friends with. "You sneak your way in here and-"

Zach lifted his head and locked eyes with Elena. He gave her a dark glare back that scared the woman shitless, and he said, "Your scarf looks like it's made from polar bear fur." Zach's eyes narrowed and he said in a low voice, "I love polar bears."

He turned from the woman who no longer felt any need to yell at him. He stepped towards Roady but stopped as his comrade was looking a different way at a man who just stepped through the crowd with a bodyguard detail of four men around him. The former president of United Korea marched forward and gave a stern look at the heroes. He stared from Roady over to Lifebringer, and then he started in English in a firm voice, "Do you have any idea what you have done here? You do not belong here, heroes."

"Mr. President," Roady began, holding up a hand and trying to calm down the former politician who seemed enraged at the heroes' interruption to the auction.

"No! You come here, uninvited, and attack guests after you suddenly declare that you are arresting them? Do you know who I am?" He asked that and glared at Roady, then over at Lifebringer, "You are already on thin ice, Lifebringer. I will have you-"

"What?" Zach asked. He cut off the man in a tone that had him frozen with his mouth still open. The bodyguards of the former president wished more than anything that he had just stayed back, as Lifebringer took a step towards them. Roady gave Zach a look telling him to stop, but Zach questioned in a low voice that had Roady's expression changing, "How were you going to finish that?" Zach gave the former Korean president a dark look and then rose his voice louder, "Were you about to tell me, that you were going to use your power as a former political figure to get us in trouble? I'd have you know that threatening heroes with retribution for doing their jobs, is an offense in itself. Especially if you are in a position of political power, that you would attempt to abuse."

The room was silent. Not a person spoke as Zach stepped another foot closer to the former Korean president who got sweat on both sides of his face at the intense look on this teenager's. The feeling like he was talking down to an immature teen was gone, replaced by the feeling of talking to someone completely different. Every person in the room saw someone other than Lifebringer staring down that former head of state like he was nothing to him. He felt no fear of the power that president had to threaten him with. He looked ready to arrest anyone and everyone in the room, with no care of the consequences he would face. The backlash mattered little to him, and Roady hated that he had felt so nervous a moment ago because of his own fear of the backlash from this politician whose actions he completely agreed with Lifebringer on.

Zach stepped one more step closer to the politician, and he said in an annoyed voice talking down to the old man, "Don't implicate yourself in a crime when no one's accusing you of one. Yeah?" He asked it like he was speaking to an imbecile for the president to almost get himself arrested like that. Then he turned his head and looked around. His words scared all the bodyguards frozen, though it impressed some of the rich and famous people who were actually smiling as they looked towards Lifebringer. He was speaking English, and he announced, "The two we arrested committed murder, and they just admitted to it. We are not here to break up the auction," Zach looked towards Xilovic when he said that, though he then pointed his right hand up in the air and fired off a thin line of Death like the one he had shot into Keimin's back.

The line shot up in the air, curved after rising fifteen feet, then zipped across the room to his right over many people's heads and into the chest of a man lifting his arms to protect himself. "Ahh-" the guy yelled then fell backwards right between two of his guards.

"And that man!" Zach yelled before everyone could start shouting. Even Roady gawked at him for what he just did, only to spin his head again in shock as Zach shouted, "Has a warrant out for his arrest in Poland! He is an executive of the Podpalacz! He disappeared with most of their money the day that villain group was taken down and arrested. I am sure, Mr. Xilovic had no idea of his real name," Zach added, looking to Xilovic who stared straight back at him for the first time with an uneasy expression, as he had remained calm before once he realized it was Lifebringer.

"I had no idea," Xilovic agreed with a nod back at Lifebringer. "Thank you, for clearing that up," he added as Lifebringer's announcement had kept everyone in the room calm.

 _I already heard someone call him by a different name when I lurked nearby him. Would have been a much bigger issue if he was going by his real name._ Zach looked back to Roady, and he said, "Let's get them into the Civic. We'll head out now, and let them finish the auction." He turned back to Xilovic and said, "We'll need you to raise the Honda Civic back upstairs so we can take these villains to jail."

"Yeah Lifebringer!" The female American pop singer called it out, losing her uneasiness with a big smile on her face growing instead. She had been unnerved herself by the environment and the atmosphere of the people around her. She had been worried that she was brought here to a place that seemed to full of shady-looking people, but the fact that heroes were even at a place like this relaxed her more than anything, even if Lifebringer was pretty scary. "Great job!"

"Y-Yeah," Toyoshi Rando said on the announcements, after seeing Xilovic glance up towards a camera watching him. "Let's give it up for the heroes."

People clapped. Zach headed towards the Polish man and looked at his security, wondering to the pair behind him if they knew their boss was a wanted criminal. The two shook their heads rapidly, and Zach picked up the chubby man he recognized despite his plastic surgery. He hoisted him up using his right hand without struggling at all and just put the man over his left shoulder, then walked back and tossed Keimin and Kazuki onto the same shoulder so he had a pile of unconscious bodies stacked up.

All the while people watched him, clapping and occasionally calling out words of thanks and encouragement to the heroes. Roady saw the real looks of the people all over the room though. The people who were not clapping, just watching so uneasily every move Zach was making like he could at any moment choose to attack them. Even some of the people who were clapping seemed to be overcompensating for their own fear of their circumstances at the moment. _It took him a minute, and he convinced half- more than half of the people here that he is Death. That they should all shut the fuck up and not do anything from then on that pisses him off._

It frustrated Roady as much as impressed him. So he stayed quiet about it as they got into the Civic and were raised up to the surface to be allowed to leave. _It's not even a crime scene. It's just where we arrested them. To actually interrupt and shut down something like this would cause massive consequences. If Xilovic complains now though it will seem like he had something to hide in there. It would bring unnecessary attention to him and the rest of his associates who I wish we could investigate here. Yet, I 100% agree with what you were saying down there, and how we did this._ Roady admitted it to himself reluctantly, but the two of them did not have an agency backing them up. They were already on the edge of doing things against the rules, and to be at that precarious position and try to go after people as powerful as the ones below them was an absurd idea.

 _Yet he was prepared to arrest the Korean president right there. If he had said enough to be counted as corruption, that he would use his power as a former politician to get us in trouble somehow. Something he shouldn't have the ability to do, and yet was threatening like it's completely normal showing he's probably done it before. Sure, powerful people keep powerful contacts in government after they leave, everyone knows that. You don't come out and say it to heroes though, especially not one like Lifebringer. Kid's crazy enough that they know he might do anything. Maybe if heroes can't actually go after the Korean president, he'll just disappear. That's the fear that filled him. The confidence they have to be safe from heroes with the ways they do things, is wiped away as soon as they see him. Because he uses the fact that they think he's Death._

 _And whether Sazaki is Death or not,_ Roady realized in the moment as he looked down from the lifting platform towards a hole in the ceiling of the hall. He looked at those people down below watching them rise while he sat in the passenger seat of their car, _Everyone believes he is, and he is using that to prevent future crimes through fear. Same way Death does it. Damn it, is he Death?! Or, he is a really good actor. Acting like Death, or being Death, there's no way I could tell._

The platform reached the surface, and there were staff members waiting for them who opened up the garage to let them drive up out from still underneath the house. The staff stared at the two in the front seat, confused as to what had happened downstairs that this car was the first one out and so early too. The driver did not wait to be recognized though. He just drove out of the garage, and once they were heading down the driveway to an opening gate Roady started, "That was, pretty good. You terrified a lot of those people though, people who weren't all villains-"

"And some I'm sure were," Zach muttered in response. He shook his head though, pushing aside his annoyance as his mind was swirling with thoughts of what else he could have done down there if he was not a hero. He just said after a second, "It's justice. We're putting away killers. It was the right thing to do." Zach paused, and he added, "Plus, it will make the other rich people there who felt immune to the law a bit more on their toes. That place is surely tempting to many of them who feel Xilovic got it through illegal means, especially because of their lack of recognition to who he is. Now, they'll be less prone to those tempting thoughts of committing crimes and getting away with it using tremendous power. And it will-"

"Why do you need so many reasons for everything?" Roady snapped. He sat back in the passenger seat, looking annoyed again at what Zach was saying. "Can't we just have caught these two- three, and leave it as that?" Roady did not want to think about all that other stuff Zach was suggesting would happen because of what they had done. It was too many steps in the future, and the assurance Zach had of it all pissed him off as it reminded him of the reasons he knew Zach had committed so many crimes himself in the past.

"I'm fine with that, I guess," Zach said with a shrug, and he cracked a small smile as Roady glanced back at him. His hands tightened on the wheel even as he smiled like that, and in his head he could see Keimin smiling as she bragged about her husband's death. _I could have killed her. I should have. She deserves worse- she'll be in prison for a long time._ Zach pulled out a tiny recorder from his pocket, and he handed it over to Roady using his right hand that was in a tevlon glove.

Roady lifted the tiny device that was smaller than any recorder he had ever seen before. He shook his head at the kind of tech Zach had just casually on him, then he pocketed the recording himself that gave proof of the crimes of the pair behind them. He looked back at the fat man in the back seat on the floor, then at the pair slumped into the back seat who they did not bother putting seatbelts on. He did not care enough either as he looked at the two who had been bragging about their murder before. Roady looked back forward and lifted a small grin as he thought about the car connoisseur who he had seen staring at him with a dropped jaw during the short clean-up after the arrests. His smile lowered slowly though as he thought again about the events leading up to the confrontation and arrest.

Urukio looked to his side at the eighteen year old driving the car down the road that led away from Xilovic's place on the cliff's edge. He knew he should call the local police and tell them how they were coming, and to explain why it was they were going to arrive with three arrested people too, and why he had Lifebringer with him, but all of that could wait. "You know, you did good down there," Roady started. Zach glanced to his side then back at the road as Roady was staring out the windshield too instead of at him as he gave the compliment. "You had them blabbing, and-"

"It only worked because they thought we were car thieves too. Villains like them," Zach countered. "You got that-"

"Only because you had the idea to use it," Roady countered back again, then he shook his head around as this was about to get annoying. _Yeah, I helped too. Don't be a dick, and just let me tell you good job. I'm your senpai, damn it._ "Anyway," Roady started, keeping that other stuff to himself as he was trying to be nice here. "Good work. You got the confession, and you were right about it not being a suicide… Just wish I could've tried some of that Pinroq before we left."

Zach grinned at the mention and he laughed after a second that that was what Roady had to say here. _Thought he'd be angrier about how I dealt with things down there. I'm glad he's not though-_

"Alright Sazaki, I'm making the call. This is going to be tricky, but you're just a consultant. Not an intern or anything official-"

"Call me Zach-" Zach replied but stopped himself, as that was not very important considering the stuff Roady was talking about. Roady turned to his side and looked at the teen confusedly at that response, "It's, what my friends call me," Zach added as he saw the look Roady was giving him.

Roady frowned in annoyance. Then he looked back forward out the windshield, waited a moment, and said, "Whatever. Let's just get them to the Aisuri station before high tide. Gets tricky navigating those streets at night with water running through the blocks."

"Sounds good."

"…" Roady ground his teeth behind his lips, looking out the window on his side farther from Zach as he did. "You're good with carrying those three into the station when we get there? Right…" Roady ground his teeth, _Don't be a dick!_ "Zach?"

"Sure thing," Zach said, though he had to crack the biggest smile at how hard that looked for Roady. "What a tsundere," Zach muttered under his breath. Tick marks popped on both sides of Roady's forehead above his pissed off expression, the anger almost covering up that his cheeks got red.

"Fuck did you just say?!"

"I thought you were still just acting your disguise," Zach said, faking that he had actually been convinced Roady was playing Tachiko there.

Roady rose a fist, then stopped and growled, "If you weren't driving."

"You'd what? I'm pretty sure I'm the one who beat up these villains."

"You were just too fast. I had Keimin beat-"

"Yeah yeah sure- ey! Thought you said since I was driving-"

"Well then you had to go and push your luck…"

* * *

 **A/N Thanks for reading! Hope you guys enjoyed the chapter! Sorry it took a while after those 3 days 3 updates. 'Cause I went that fast I wound up posting 197 with not much written or planned for 198, so I was starting this from scratch. Got my job at the ski place though, and even better it's not as a lift operator where I'd be working 40-60 hours a week, but as a waiter at nights so I'll have days to keep writing (on the days I'm not skiing, which will be pretty often btw). My plans to finish Death by the winter (end of the year at least) seem to be failing, as there's still a good 20-30 chapters left (which I feel like I've said a few times now... ;P) but again leave a review telling me what y'all thought of the arc. I actually wrote about half the chapter, felt like it wasn't very good and deleted it all, then rewrote it differently after the first couple days. Hope this version came out better... Review responses:**

Aar0nC0le chapter 197 . Oct 31

Sup brother. Or sister. Or whatever else floats your boat. 1)how are you alive? These updates come faster than anything else I've ever read. Kudos to you for that and thanks for the sacrifice of what is probably the majority of your sleep and free time. 2) I LOVE when we get these mission type chapters? Like we used to get them a lot when Zack was still Death but I'm very interested in this suicide/homicide investigation. Especially now that we brought back Roady. I LOVE when you bring back your characters just as I thought they were only there for a plot point/development you prove me wrong and brig back their dynamic asses to throw in another ripple. Homeless Zack makes me sad but also? It kinda makes more sense for him safety wise to constantly be on the move (and the small army of homeless people he's got watching his back is reassuring to me). Love the way this is heading. I still have some underlying anxiety about what the LOV, AFO, ADTF, and kaminari and crew are all doing. (I have a feeling the climax of this story might be a giant crossover villain fight epic enough to actually end me) but I could be totally wrong. Either way, I have anxiety. But it's GOOD anxiety. Not like the anxiety I get about my doors being locked and my shoes being tied, but like something epic is going to happen and I'm going to be the one watching it. Also? Just wanted to let you know when your chapters have a lot of action I totally hold my breath, my heart rate goes up, sometimes I swear etc. I basically get YOINKED into the story. ;)))) thanks!-till next time, Aaron

 **Took a nice week on this one to average out my updates back to 1 every 2-3 days. Woke up this morning to finish updating as I got too tired in the middle of editing the chapter last night. Going to head to Starbucks now and write for 3-4 hours chapter 199, so I'll hope to get another one out soon! Glad you like the mission chapters, and hope you enjoyed the undercover mission this time at the car auction. Zach's homeless, and now he's spent most of his remaining cash helping him out on this mission. He's playing it safe though keeping on the move, and he's got to with the villains after him. All those evil groups scattered about with their own goals, and everything happening in the shadows while Zach's out investigating a murder mystery... We'll see what's coming, soon! Thanks for the review!**

GuestP chapter 197 . Oct 31

WOOO! Another chapter sent out! Dang, tmb, you are not joking when you want to satisfy your readers, huh!? Well, you're doing a good job at everything so keep up the good work, eh?  
These were good chapters, I enjoyed reading Mirio's POV and Roady's, especially Roady's ho because I actually used to like Roady (I still do, but I like Zach more so when Roady thinks bad stuff about Zach it's like, "Oh man my dude, plz stop..." but this chapter really changed my views a bit more! I especially like how Zach got all nervous around him, it was cute when he was like, "Do you want to?", and I was ecstatic because the sad sad boi's still a cute chipmunk!  
(P.S. can we get more scenes with Himazuri and Zach? They're so nice to each other, that it feels wholesome just reading about the two of them uwu)  
I like how you had the R.J come out and mention the mafia to Roady, and I find it pretty funny how Zach's mafia fam is just telling R.J, "Take care of him, he's family." Gosh, I just really like the fact that Zach's adopted by almost everyone, in some little way, everywhere. It gave me flashbacks to that one boxing match chapter with Bobo Cambri and Zach started letting his Italian accent come out, that was really neato (except for the part where he goes sad boi on us in the bathroom and it made me want to cry ;-;)!  
Loved this chapter!~  
Can't wait for the next one!~~~

 **XD Thanks for reviewing! Glad you've been enjoying the recent chapters, and that you like Roady 'cause he was back big still in this chapter as they investigated Hiroto's murder together. Zach thinks about how useful it would've been to be working with Himazuri this chapter (if that counts), and R.J. helped the hero boys out with their set-up for the investigation earlier that day too in the flashback. Anyway I'm glad you liked that chapter and hope it continued into this one!**

Guest chapter 197 . Nov 1

I'm honestly a little scared of Zach's limit right now with his quirk, and combat skills. Honestly, this dude can probably take in anyone and win (except for maybe Eziano)

 **Zach _is_ very, very good, at seemingly everything. Other reasons to fear him also include random urges to murder, past history of mass murder, and the fact that he could carry all three of those villains on ONE shoulder?! Whoa, what strength. XD He may be one of the strongest in this world, but we've seen him be damaged since he's returned. He's not invincible, and everyone knows it... Thanks for the review! Hope you enjoyed the chapter!**


	199. Chapter 199

**Disclaimer: I don't own Boku no Hero Academia**

 **Chapter 199:**

"Far from just about anything out here."

"Stay off comms."

Faint chatter on the open chatter quieted down. The sky was clear, no storm around nor any sign of the Army of Death that were all over the vast expanse of barren landscape. Turbonya was an African country with a low population, and the closest village was two hundred miles away. Due to its low population and therefore low number of pro heroes, the nation with over 200,000 square miles of land was often a haven for villains who hid in the savannah and deserts of its flat countryside.

Locating the base of the villains who the Army of Death were currently searching for was more difficult than just spotting an odd building in the middle of an empty landscape though. "Looks like the Digger's really here," Raylei mentioned softly, while drones high up above the surface scanned over it with their cameras zoomed in far. Thermal readings showed nothing, though she doubted they would be able to spot anything through a ground layer villains would make thick enough to stay hidden below.

"Hasn't been much villain activity in Turbonya lately," Angie added from the command connected on a link with the support team on the Cloak's bridge. "The newest class of heroes caught two different villain groups trying to cross over the border back in October and November. Big timers from different neighboring countries."

"Yeah, we sent them the hint on the October one," Rebel mentioned to the woman on his back-right who spun towards him. Angie then looked back towards her own screens with a semi-embarrassed look though also annoyed at the men behind her for not saying anything before she mentioned it on comms. Rebel took a long sip from a large cola he was drinking out of, and then he mentioned to the people who listened to him slurping over comms, "I've been keeping an eye on ADTF heroes as per usual, Death. Can't get a lock on nine of the African members, with Pongo and Simba Joka notably on foreign missions."

"All the best heroes are constantly helping out overseas nowadays," Rampart remarked. He typed into his own right keyboard and added in a lower voice, "And all the best heroes are ADTF."

"Endeavor?" La Brava wondered, as she was not on the bridge but down in a cloaked transport hovering a hundred feet over the ground they were scanning with better equipment to search for villains underground. "Star-Spangled Man and Blitz too," she added, as those were also two who worried her when she questioned.

"Blitz is guarding the U.S. Secretary of State visiting China. Star-Spangled Man, no information on. He stopped an armored car robbery early this morning though," Rampart added as he found a police report that mentioned his name from Houston, Texas. "Still in the U.S. Unlike Endeavor."

"He's at his hotel in Colombia," Rebel said, relaxed as he found that information easily. "Lemillion is in Japan and I have eyes on him. Same with most of the Japanese heroes in the Task Force: Kamui Woods, Jeanist."

"And Outback Man's set for a press conference in Rome to discuss the joint operation he completed with the Italian heroes yesterday," Angie added. She paused and then looked to drone footage Raylei had transmitted over to them. She imagined down near the ground where Death probably was, and she thought to herself, _He's been getting more cautious about the heroes who might come for us than the villains we're supposed to be after lately. The ADTF members are too busy though._

 _Still over half the ADTF out of their home countries at once,_ Rebel thought, sipping his soda again and keeping a relaxed smile on his face. His eyes were focused on his screens though, and he frowned after a couple seconds while looking back at the information they had on the villain group who had supposedly enslaved the Digger and were forcing the former League of Shadows' base-creator to build them a massive base underneath Turbonya. _And this. What kind of villains go after League of Shadows members? Even not a Shadow Boss himself, Digger was still a higher up. Escaped our first raid. Helped Bolivar and King escape us for months, and he survived the whole Age without being caught. I figured he had to be with Eziano now, but this? It might be worse._

 _A group strong enough to find Digger before we could, and to force him to work for them,_ Death refocused on his task at hand, but an uneasy feeling swirled in his chest as he did so. _Worse, we only have confirmation of two Turbonyan villains we think are actually here. Last seen heading to this part of the desert, and tracked by a citizen's Quirk only to this general area. Reported to local heroes, who couldn't find anything. And then Mchanga Kivuli went missing. After investigating into what could be happening here. The same area we heard Digger was being forced to dig out a base. Too little information. Too much at risk not to do anything about it._

"What are you thinking?" Firefly wondered to her boss behind her. She was standing up near the chairs at the front of the shuttle, but she turned back and stepped through the narrow hall to where Gentle was standing. They had their dark helmets on already, though some of the ten men and women sitting in the back rows of seats facing each other across the vehicle still had their helmets off. She could see a few anxious looks, though most of them were just doing their own pre-fight prepping. "If we can't locate the base first…"

"We don't have the Quirks to search below ground," Death replied. "We could use the excavators under our Confiscators," he continued, though he frowned in his helmet at the option he offered. "But without a more precise location there's too much area to dig. And we'd give away our positions too, and the fact we know they're down there."

"If I could make a suggestion," Exodus began, speaking over comms to the other Squad Leaders on the channel Death was currently speaking on. "I could go down in disguise. Search angrily, claiming to be friends with Mchanga Kivuli. Wherever they rise to attack me, we invade through."

"Doesn't work very well with a white guy," Firefly said. She waited a few seconds after saying it, then wondered, "Not going to offer on your own?"

"I'm not Exodus. They decide to just start blasting, I have no notion I'm surviving," Blackstar remarked back at the woman clearly calling him out, as he was the only black man among the squad leaders.

"I mean, if I was there," Rebel began, sounding like he was willing but just unfortunately couldn't since he wasn't there.

"Hey look," Raylei cut off everyone with her voice. Screens popped up on all the stations in the command center, on the windshield of the Cloak, and in front of the pilots of each of the smaller vehicles that had left the Cloak with the Army of Death. "Check out the sand, here," Raylei's drone slowed down, and it zoomed in more on sand that was starting to fall into a rectangular hole getting deeper each second. The hole was getting deeper on one side than the other, making it start to look like a ramp descending down into the desert. The environment below them had very sparse grass coming out of the sand, with only a couple of trees every few miles or so, so it looked more like a desert than the savannah, though more of a cross between the two. "Picking up heat signatures," Raylei started.

"Well, we found the base," Firefly remarked back to the soldiers behind her. A couple looked her way first, then they followed suit with the others and put on their helmets.

Vintage pushed the sticks forward and their transport moved towards the coordinates Raylei's image had displayed on the bottom of it. "Gentle," La Brava whispered, on a connection between just her helmet that not even Rebel was a part of (not that he could not jump into it if he really wanted to).

"I know, my dear," Gentle replied to the woman. He switched back to an open channel, "It could be that they are opening the exit because some of them are leaving, or maybe it's to welcome us. Hold positions with eyes on the ground. Look out for any signs of weapons' systems emerging from below the sand."

"Ready for a Temp-Emp at any time," Whiteout informed from her shuttle where Charlie Squad were getting up from their seats around their squad leader. "Just tell me when."

"Stay calm. It's unlikely to be a trap," Death assured his forces. _We're hidden. No villains are stupid enough to reveal themselves to Death either. This is exactly what it looks like. Their base's secret entrance opening, so that villains…_ Gentle watched through the windshield closer, seeing his own transport's zoomed-in camera-image of the ramp leading underground. "Here they come."

"Do we stop the vehicles heading away?" Blackstar wondered, saying it now before the convoy could start driving away. There were two other jeeps behind the first one coming out from below the surface, doorless vehicles with the tops open other than the frame of a cabin that could be put up. There were mostly dark-skinned figures on the vehicles, though there were a pair of Caucasian men in the back seats on the third one farthest back as there did not seem to be any vehicles behind it.

"Facial recognition is not picking up on any of them," Electomuzz growled from the opposite side of the Cloak's bridge as Raylei. The man with yellow fur and a face similar to a dog's darted his eyes back and forth across the screen in front of him where a white square kept zooming in on each of the faces only to come up with no matches. "No criminal records, no social media profiles… grrr," Electomuzz tried zooming back on the ramp underground, but that ramp was closing up now that the vehicles had left it.

"What are we doing, Death?" Dongwu questioned from the pilot's chair of a different shuttle than the one Death was in. He glanced back at Exodus to see what Alpha Leader thought, but Exodus stepped right back to the main exit of the transport and hovered his hand over the button to open the back doors.

"Get ready to drop, Alpha," Exodus ordered.

 _They're driving away. Right?_ Death felt a pit in his gut. The vehicles down below had men on them without any firearms, and yet they looked dangerous nonetheless. And that convoy had turned the direction of the closest village after rising to the surface. _Alright._ "We'll hit the convoy first. Ten seconds after taking it on, Exodus and Alpha go through the ramp and storm their base. Careful of traps."

"Here we go."

"Get up Bravo!"

"Everyone on my signal."

"Stay frosty." Gentle said it and then opened up the back of his transport that became visible to the human eye as he leapt out. _This is less intel than we've gone on for any mission in too long. Half of the Army doesn't have enough experience for this, and for the other half it's been a while._

"Move!"

"Off the ship!"

"Epsilon cut off the front car," Blackstar called out. He did a front flip and then curled in his fingers in a way that made the soles of his boots start glowing bright blue. He opened up his fists fast and pointed the glowing blue circles in the palms of his gloves behind him as he shot through the air. The jetpack on his back illuminated brighter, as did the jetpacks on the six members in his team flying in a V formation behind him out of the air. Fly-By was in his group, keeping the team of 7 out of view of everyone outside of fifteen meters from them. The only ones they were visible to were others inside the fifteen meter radius, which was solely their team upon landing until the second the furthest forward vehicle in the three-car convoy drove fifteen meters away from Fly-By, which was only twelve meters from Blackstar already three meters ahead of his comrade closer to those vehicles.

Sand skid up in the air as the driver of the front car slammed on the brakes, to the confusion of the people in the vehicles behind that one who had yet to see Epsilon Squad. They were forced to hit the brakes too though, while also pulling their wheels to either side so one car skid to a stop on the left of the front one and the other rolled to a longer stop on the right side. All three entered Fly-By's range so he stopped using his Quirk, keeping his weapon raised though and aimed at the vehicles in front of him.

"Something's up," Firefly said, flying across the air with Gentle and Revellum up above the vehicles that the rest of their forces surrounded.

"Dropping in," Exodus reported in.

Gentle was more focused on the cars below him than Exodus and Alpha's infiltration of the base. _They're afraid. They aren't armed, so I thought their Quirks were- What is it?!_ Danjuro Tobita was thinking too much. He was contemplating all the options, and he seethed into his own head to prioritize, _What is the situation?_ The villains he examined in those vehicles had stopped, putting their hands up in surrender as they had a large number of firearms aimed at them and dark soldiers moving towards their vehicles from different sides. _They aren't bait,_ Gentle ruled out the option. He knew they could have been sent out there by the villains if the villains knew they were coming, so that the Army of Death would get close and then could be destroyed by a bomb inside one of the vehicles. The looks of fear from those men were because of the Army of Death though. He could see those looks were solely directed at his own men and the weapons they were holding.

 _They're not villains,_ Gentle saw it, and yet he still knew as he bounced through the air that the people down below were not being used by villains to draw them out. "Exodus pull up," Gentle ordered hard, before Exodus would have hit the entrance Alpha leader was getting ready to smash straight through.

"Pull up," Exodus ordered the others with him.

"Above us!"

"Above you!"

La Brava snapped her head up from where she stood in front of a team of taller soldiers at her back on the right side of the three vehicles full of unknown African villains. Her eyes rose up, then darted back down before most of the others with her. _Who are they?_ She thought while everyone else focused on what their attentions had been drawn to in that instant. She watched several expressions change instantly, but not all of them. _Seven making moves. Hidden inside the people they used as bait. They aren't afraid, and the people aren't afraid of them. Heroes._

 _No one else has this kind of power,_ Gentle knew it from the look up while his partner knew it from what she saw of the bait team that drew them out. Gentle's breath came in calmly and released slowly as he started dropping out of the air using gravity, which was slower than all the emerging vehicles lowering from the sky above their own visible transports. _We've been had._

"How did they…" Rampart muttered while staring at drone footage with his eyes huge. He was leaned forward in his seat as much as Rebel and Angie, and every pilot of a transport and member of the support team back on the bridge of the Cloak, watching as the majority of the Army were ambushed by dozens of Super Jets and heroes who popped out of holes in the ground outside of the encircling circle the AoD had around the bait cars.

As Gentle fell, he wondered what he could have done differently to avoid this situation. So many of the ADTF they were constantly tracking were so far away at the moment, and yet he could see heroes he recognized among them jumping out of hiding spots all over the desert from below the sand. Others like Endeavor, Star-Spangled Man, Blitz, and Outback Man he saw dropping from the jets above that had been cloaked as well as their own ships had to have avoided all their scanners.

Endeavor dropped out of the air with flames pushing down on his back to speed him up towards the ground. The Army of Death were looking up and though he could not see inside their helmets, he imagined the panicked and confused expressions on their faces. For months, Todoroki Enji had been gradually spending more and more time overseas even as the Army of Death had made fewer and fewer public appearances. His time abroad had less and less to do with the Army of Death, and more to do with his work as the top hero of Japan, one of the top heroes in the world, and an envoy of the Japanese hero society. He was not the only one of the top heroes of a nation to do this, with many of the ADTF spending more time overseas, much of that time on missions that would complete with great results over and over, showing that these overseas missions were not a ruse, but just a change in the way things were.

As much as the departure of several heroes from the ADTF had been very publicized and discussed throughout the news, the ADTF was much, much larger than it had ever been. The Army of Death's sixty or so members down on the ground or just above could see over two hundred heroes already emerging in the ambush. Although a few new members declared their entry into the Task Force after certain times the AoD had passed through their country leaving several villains' bodies behind, Endeavor had others keep their involvement secret. It was how he was able to set an ambush despite missing dozens of his ADTF who he needed to have in public places and with their locations known on that day. However, many of those whose locations were known to the public were also there, due to the cooperation of high level diplomats who heroes like Blitz could get to say he was still on protection detail of even though he had left the Secretary of State's side hours earlier. It was thanks to the cooperation of locals who Mchanga Kivuli had assisting him because of their anonymity and lack of any criminal records or online profiles.

Mchanga had emerged from the sand he had been hiding over a hundred heroes below as well. The "missing" hero of the region arose with a force of heroes to surround the Army of Death in just seconds after their convoy of bait cars full of his countrymen and Quirk-disguised heroes had been surrounded.

It was clear from the force of heroes around them and how prepared they were for this too, that the Digger was not there. It was a rumor spread and a tip given to the Army of Death, in order to bring them exactly where Endeavor wanted them to be. Press conferences set in locations around the world would be cancelled as the heroes supposed to be there soon were countries away. Many heroes supposedly off-duty or in their offices had sidekicks wearing disguises at their desks, or ones using Quirks to make them look like their pros. The Army of Death knew where these heroes should be and yet those very heroes were descending on them or surrounding them at that very moment. It was a plan that could only work with heroes gradually shifting the methods in which they carried out missions, how they operated overseas, and with the cooperation and support of dozens of governments and hundreds of people sworn to secrecy who could be trusted to keep the plans from Death or anyone who may support them…

Of course, it was also one of the many plans that Death had seen could be coming and planned countless counters against. As Death was landing on the ground, he said in a calm voice to his troops, "Scenario Bravo."

"It's a trap," Evader whispered in shock as she finally got over looking up and seeing all those top heroes dropping towards her. Then she gulped and a hardened expression covered her face at what Death said next.

"Protocol 1." Death ordered.

"I'm firing missiles!" Raylei yelled, typing quickly into her keyboard, popping open a glass panel next to her and slamming on the button. She used all sixteen fingers typing into her keyboards while four others ran into the support room, and Electomuzz yelled at them to get on the weapons' systems. "B-12 MRMs locked and fired on each squad leader's current coordinates! Get out of there!"

As the mid-range missiles fired out of the Cloak hidden high in the sky and far from the assault location, Death hit the ground running, "Here they come! Endeavor!" He Elasticized the ground below him and bounced up towards the man he just yelled to. "Get your men away from here!"

"Missiles are inbound on our location!" La Brava yelled in panic while pulling out a laptop, opening it up and then throwing it to the ground as if the extra weight was going to slow her down too much as she ran.

"MOVE BACK!" Blackstar yelled at the heroes behind him, swinging his rifle around onto his back and waving a hand for his soldiers to sprint away from the vehicles they had surrounded. He turned back while his soldiers ran away from him, and he yelled at the group in the vehicles in front of him, "Get out of those jeeps! They've been targeted- FUCK!" Blackstar reached to his belt and popped open a flare he tossed forward, just a little ways away from his position where a missile was heading, but a more useful location for the toss to convince the people in those vehicles to get out and run. "Drive away or get out and run!"

"Wh-What's going…" Mchanga was grinning as he emerged from the sand. They had the Army of Death surrounded seconds after the Army of Death surrounded their bait cars, but seconds after that trap had beens sprung the Army of Death were scattering and yelling about something completely different.

"Missiles?" Outback Man repeated what he just heard shouted by people below he was dropping towards. "What did they-"

"Holy shit! They're right!" Crack yelled from up on one of the Super Jets. "We have several bogeys flying fast on this position. We need to move..."

When Gentle bounced on the ground below his feet it was tough because of the sand. He sprung up though with a harder push down on his feet than he would have to on a more solid ground, and he did not look in any way or posture to be attacking Endeavor who he was rising to. All the yells happening at once did not disorient Endeavor at all, as much as his ADTF were getting panicked at the confusing course of events. This Death soldier's reaction showed he was expecting Endeavor's arrival though, _again._ Inside of the ambush Endeavor had planned on the Army of Death in an empty landscape, _again._ As much as he felt he had flipped things from the first time this happened, the feeling of deja vu was not felt by Endeavor alone.

This time though, the Army of Death were not waiting on top of some enemy base for the ADTF to arrive and help them. This time, something was attacking them. "It's the League of Shadows," Gentle said, his voice deep and modulated as he told it to the leader of the ADTF before him who recognized the Quirk this man just used. Endeavor also noticed though he was not wearing a purple cape, nor did his visor have a dark purple tint to it. His focus was pulled from this recognition though at what the soldier who rose to him so quickly said. "Those civvies are in danger," Gentle continued while rising up a little above Endeavor to the top of his own arc, then lowering back just below the rest of the ADTF falling above where Endeavor had shot down quickest.

"Did he say League of Shadows?!"

"Missiles are one minute out!" Revellum yelled, flying down and grabbing Ledge who jumped and held his hands up to get his hands grabbed. "Moving to flanking position-"

"We have twenty Stealth Carriers dropping from eighty thousand feet!" La Brava yelled out, her voice being blasted out of her helmet's speakers.

"They're here!"

"MOVE!"

Endeavor snapped his head down, then he dropped to the ground fast just as Gentle was about to touch back down onto the sand too. "Everyone move from the flares," Endeavor ordered, as no matter what else was going on, there were missiles incoming and the Army of Death seemed to know where their exact targets were based on the flares they had tossed around. He saw one of the flares over near the fake entrance of the base that another squad of Army of Death soldiers had been surrounded by another few dozen of his own ADTF heroes. He spun towards the man next to him who started running from the convoy that was being abandoned, while Star-Spangled Man changed direction instead of diving down with the others to instead fly back up and order their jets to a safe distance away for now.

"How?" Endeavor asked, stunned but then wiping it from his face in the next instant. _"How" doesn't matter right now!_ "Is it Eziano Mozcaccio?" Endeavor asked, his voice intense and focused as he thought of the one man who could possibly put something together like this. _All the top heroes and the Army of Death at once. If those missiles have payloads large enough, they could take all of us out._ "When the missiles explode, get your barriers up around as many people as possible, Gentle Criminal."

"That is not who I am," Danjuro replied, his voice deep, modulated, and semi-annoyed at the hero for his assumption.

"Wait- stop running-" a young man's voice cut off and he spun to the side. Olympia, Endeavor's top sidekick, had grabbed the inexperienced American rookie hero by the back of his shirt and tugged him away as the teen started raising his arms to try and stop the Army of Death members running right towards them.

"Fucking move!" Olympia yelled, as she had had to run back for him as he was holding his ground instead of running like all the other heroes already were.

"Why?! What's going on?"

"This happened before!"

"If it's really the League again-"

"I thought we destroyed the League?!"

"Is it Eziano?" Endeavor asked again, demanding an answer from the higher-up in the AoD so he could relay information to the hundreds awaiting orders and information.

"The other Bosses' subordinates remaining recovered it and are trying to finish us off," was the dark soldier's response.

 _By including 'finish us off,' I leave the connotation that we have already been weakened by them. That our forces you see down here are all that remains of us. That we are on the defensive and needed your help, which is why I walked right into your trap so I could get your help when they come to finish me off._

The Army of Death appeared weak. Compared to the massive force of heroes, and based on the panicked tones of their voices yelling about the attacks on their positions, they were weaker than both the League of Shadows and the ADTF. The Army of Death running yelled at the heroes they ran to and then with or right past, vague things about the enemies who had them surrounded.

Firefly flew down and grabbed one of her comrades by the hands. "We need to get in a flanking position for their landing!" She yelled while picking him up.

"Bravo Squad get to RP Theta!"

"Jesus, every time we see them," a low voice started in English. Ryukyu looked to her right at Michelangelo who had landed with Metallore and were both running together away from the flares and the jeeps about to be blown apart. She had the civilians who were helping them out riding on her wings and back as she ran on all four claws across the sand. She could not move at her top speed, but she needed to make sure the people they had asked for help would not fall off. "It's always something huge," Michelangelo continued with a glance back behind him, causing others to look that way too where the missiles were about to come down with an unknown blast radius.

"Do we have any chance of shooting them down before they hit- Ryukyu!" Popfire yelled, causing her pro to spin back forward at her sidekick's panicked shout.

The civilians and a few of the heroes running away were immediately confused and looked around wondering what just happened. Ryukyu, Popfire, Metallore, Michelangelo, and Jedenwurst knew though. Jedenwurst felt the biggest pit form inside him, as this was something he recalled himself from not that long ago in Germany. Little did he know that the fake cop from that time was one of the members of Epsilon who ordered Fly-By to start using his Quirk again once he was sure the distance they had made between themselves and the heroes was enough.

The fact that Blackstar was the one who tossed the flare closest to the group of bait heroes in face-altering disguises and civilians, meant that the heroes closest to them were the ones who went to protect and save those people. The Army of Death not turning to help those people made sense, considering they were surrounded by heroes and those "villains" themselves were possibly all heroes too who could be expected get themselves out of there. And one last thing that had given them the time to get out of the heroes' range on that side of the ambush, were the initial shouts Blackstar made: first yelling at the people to get out of the jeeps, then giving them the option of running or driving away after some had already jumped out and were running. The people became confused as they were given the choice, and with the heroes still unsure as to what was going on themselves, they were caught moving back and forth, yelling at each other to try and figure out the play. Should they run back and then try driving away, they might be too slow to start up the cars and get out of there than if they just kept running, but then again maybe just running would not get them far enough from the blast radius of whatever kinds of bombs were on their ways.

"Couldn't you blow the missiles up before they come down?" Gentle questioned Endeavor, who was running with that AoD member in the opposite direction that Ryukyu just lost sight of several members herself.

Star-Spangled Man looked down from above, in the part of the sky that their ships were flying away from but he remained in. He flew there looking down at the flying dark soldiers and how they had each picked up comrades of theirs to lift in the air and fly away with, _again_.

Endeavor looked back at the man who just asked him that question. "Couldn't you block them, and bounce them away…" _He could. He could!_ Endeavor realized very quickly, that it was not a possible response of this man but rather what should have been his initial reaction. _He knows that should we stop the attack together, his forces are still going to be captured. He knows that that's what we're here for, and he's trying to make me choose again-_

"Endeavor! I've lost sight of the AoD around me-"

"It looks to me more like they're escaping, than trying to fight-"

Endeavor's fists glowed, and Gentle swung his right arm up to his side early at the man next to him whose comms had been tapped into by Rebel and were now filling his own helmet. Endeavor slammed his right fist into the Gently Rebound the second Gentle got it up, though his fist still pushed so far into it that it hit Gentle and knocked him one way before the barrier bounced Endeavor even farther the opposite direction. "Arrest them!" Endeavor yelled. His teeth ground as he darted his eyes behind him, seeing confused looks on the faces of several of the heroes who were talking about changing plans, the League of Shadows, missing villains they thought could be responsible for this attack, etc.

The shift in mission goal had happened so reactively to the ADTF members who recalled the siege on the League of Shadows' old headquarters. The newer members who watched the more experienced heroes and veteran members of the force followed their leads while having the realizations that they did not understand what was happening here. Many of them had even come to existential understandings of the relationship between the ADTF and AoD to suddenly be able to work together against a common enemy like this.

It was too hard to suddenly realize all that, and then get back into the idea that the people who were running with them and yelling about other villains were actually their real enemies here. What was worse was the fact that so many of the dark soldiers had gone missing. Worse than that was the thought some of them had now about shouts of "RP Theta" and "RP Gamma," where they now wondered if RP meant 'rendezvous point' and that the Army of Death were actually fleeing to positions they had planned out beforehand in case of need for evac or immediate retreat. The heroes had sent their jets away, while Death's transports in the air that had become invisible again after dropping off the AoD soldiers had lowered to those RP positions and were picking up soldiers.

"Bring the jets back! We may have to give chase!"

"Those sneaky bastards," Outback Man muttered, spinning around him and realizing there weren't any dark soldiers in his vicinity despite how when he jumped off his jet he had focused on a few to drop right next to. _What was I even thinking about?! How'd I lose them?_

"There really are missiles though!" Crack yelled out. "Stay away from those marked locations!"

Endeavor glared forward into the dark figure before him's eyes. "You fired missiles on your own location?"

"I just noticed you were about to attack me, even though we have bigger fish to fry!" Gentle yelled out in English, like that was the only reason he swung up a Gently Rebound there. His yell made more of the heroes running towards him and Endeavor wonder if they still had no idea what was happening here.

"Don't screw with me," Endeavor snarled, his eyes darkening and his flaming eyebrows narrowing down at his enemy. "You are under arrest, terrorist."

"It's all a trick!"

"Scatter! Find those members who just disappeared!" Ryukyu yelled around. "We have reason to believe that if we get close, we'll be able to see them again!"

"Move faster," Blackstar hissed at the others near him as they scampered away from the scary dragon lady who was absolutely right. They moved quickly though trying to keep their footsteps light so as not to move around the sand on each step which those heroes would be able to see, even if their group was invisible.

"Don't listen to any of them!" Endeavor ordered in a loud bellow that echoed across all the comms of his own men and the AoD. "The only ones here are the Army of Death. Capture them!"

"Sir! We're losing them."

"They're escaping!"

"We have three cornered over here."

"Chasing another seven to the west of your location. They're ahead of us but we're catching up- Hey! A Super Jet just landed right in front of them and uncloaked itself! Move faster!"

"Our jets are coming back!"

"Everyone stay away from those flares!"

Gentle turned his head to the west, then he faced back towards Endeavor with his expression dark in his helmet matching Endeavor's. "I won't let you get away this time," Endeavor growled. _Where is Death? He should be using his Quirk to allow his comrades to escape. Why is the Gentle Criminal the one stalling me?!_ Endeavor bit down harder as he glared at the figure before him, then he shot up in the air with a blast of heat coming out of his feet. Flames shot out of his upper back and shoulders next, sending him down over the barrier he imagined was still between him and his enemy.

 _Fast,_ Gentle knew the hero had tremendous speed, but Endeavor redirected himself before Gentle was even able to start moving or planning for what Endeavor's attack might be.

The direction he initially started dodging got three thin lines of flames cutting through the sand there in different places and slicing across making it impossible to take one full step that way. So the half-step Gentle made, he kicked down hard on the floor in front of him and bounced himself the opposite direction. Endeavor hit the ground where Gentle just was and shot forward at the man whose dodge he expected because it was what he planned for by blocking the opposite way so close to him. Endeavor covered a fist in flames and slammed it forward into Gentle's stomach, only for his right arm to bounce backwards with his whole momentum swinging him back too to stumble backwards while he sent Gentle flying off his fist and then bouncing away over and over on the sand.

Gentle finally flipped onto his feet after the fifth bounce, and he skid across the sand dragging a ton of it up in the air. He swung his left hand in front of him, sending an invisible Gently Rebound diagonally in the air in the middle of Endeavor's path that bounced him thirty feet to his left upon slamming into it. Endeavor barely slowed down though, spinning in midair and then pointing his hands down below him to keep elevated while heat blew out of the soles of his feet and sent him skyrocketing towards the AoD member he slammed a fist forward at. At the last second though, Endeavor opened up his hand and fired a ball of flames out around the man instead of punching him again.

"Even your flames," Gentle said from inside them, and he bounced up high out of the flames and looked down at the man who stood in front of that blaze. "I can repel away just as easily."

"Their jet swooped down and the three in front of us flew up onto it. Their suits can _all_ fly."

"I'm giving chase," Star-Spangled Man said, shooting over the heads of the group who had cornered those three AoD members only to lose them. The top American hero was not going to let them escape though, not in a Super Jet. That jet was not as cloaked as the other vehicles to the point that he could easily see its silhouette in the air and the people on top of it who were not made invisible at all in a cockpit left wide open to fit them all. "They will not get away."

"Their jets are chasing after us! We can't bring them back to the Cloak-"

"Shit. They're in our comms," Raylei relayed.

"And we're in theirs," La Brava replied. "Which means everyone can hear everyone, doesn't it?" She said it sarcastically, though that was actually a very big problem they all had.

"We're not going to let you get away from here."

"Not this time."

"You terrorists will be arrested right here, right now."

Maelstrom took off her helmet and cracked her neck to either side. She pressed a button on her control panel, and the back of the Cloak started opening up. No one questioned what she was doing. No one in the Army of Death was speaking anymore. There was only one order left they were all waiting for. Maelstrom did not care about a lack of orders though. The back of the Cloak opened, and she nodded out the cockpit at the man next to her sleek plane who pulled a level and disconnected the locks keeping her one-woman jet in place.

The single jet shot out of the Cloak, and she rose up high in the air that was filling with some thick white clouds all of a sudden.

Raylei watched as Maelstrom flew out, then she went back to typing into her computers with her blocky forehead all wrinkled up. Her rectangular fingers typed away so fast it was a blur to others on the bridge, and she bit her bottom lip while going through all the data she had and everything that had happened leading to this event. _It still doesn't make sense. The tip was vague. Mchanga Kivuli disappeared on the other side of the country. We narrowed down where Digger could be on our own. If the tip had been too specific, we would have known it was a trap after all! Yet then, how did they get us in the_ _ **exact**_ _location they wanted for their trap?! The bait works, sure. It makes sense. But- but what?!_

Rebel hummed and shook his head again, tsking and tapping his fingers on the edge of his desk instead of typing like the other two in the command center. Angie darted her eyes towards him over and over again, but she kept her mouth shut at the look on Rebel's face so focused it was so unlike him. _The problem is, we could scan a large area. We were scanning a large area. For the bait convoy to have emerged when it did, they already knew we were there. Yet it's very fucking clear when our transports disappeared, and by their failure to have anyone surrounding the Cloak right now, that they cannot locate our ships. They wanted us to come out into the open, but they knew Death could see that hole in the ground. They knew he would see it in the moment those vehicles left, which means they knew when… Could be a Quirk. It could just be a Quirk._

Rebel did not order either of the others with him to change what they were doing. Instead, he changed his channel to one private just between him and Raylei. "Check all those heroes for a Quirk that could have told if our guys were above them. They knew you were directly above before they started the trap."

"And you?"

"Doing the same, but for each of their agency's sidekicks and support who could still be in hiding," Rebel replied. Raylei got to it without saying another word to the man who just told her he would doing easily five times as much work as he asked her to do. Hundreds of heroes from all over the world, with various methods of keeping records on their staff and their staff's Quirks, various different levels of hacking ability needed to break into their agencies' systems after first locating each and every one of all their agencies worldwide, and translating all of the folders on them…

 _We have to figure it out before they get to the Cloak,_ Raylei and Rebel both thought it in similar ways.

 _Death, you have to get out of there,_ Firefly thought, standing in the back of her shuttle and staring out the open back door towards jets that were flying in her direction. _We're getting separated._

"There's barely anyone left back there," Blackstar said, his helmet off as he climbed on a ship that was landed with its door pointed away from all the heroes who would not be able to see inside like this. "Death's distracting them."

"Yeah, a few of them," Oslope muttered out, then gasped again as the biggest member of Epsilon had just sprinted like his life depended on it to keep up with all the others on the way here.

 _I won't let him get caught down there,_ Revellum thought. Having dropped off two different members he picked up by swooping down on the initial scatter, he was now watching one man from above where he was invisible to only the flying heroes near him.

 _Revellum, get out of there,_ Evader thought while staring farther and farther back each second from her fleeing jet. _I won't be able to keep you hidden for much longer… But, get Death too!_

 _He's all alone now,_ Exodus curled his hands into fists, glancing over his shoulder once in the direction their leader was. Missiles flew by the side of their ship, and he turned around more fully. _With the wrath of the heroes about to be directed solely at him._

Weapons long banned by UN conventions dropped in the Turbonyan desert. Explosions ripped apart vehicles that had been driven by civilians mere minutes ago, blasts caused by missiles fired while those assisting civvies were still inside those vehicles. The Army of Death who had tricked them into giving up their tactical advantage were fleeing but not fast enough that the jets they had called back after sending away for only thirty to forty seconds could not catch up to them. Endeavor stood before one of the AoD, a man who was now surrounded as other heroes had run around and flown above where the guy had landed ten meters from Endeavor.

Gentle just stared at Endeavor as the missiles flew over their heads on downwards arcs. Endeavor was not afraid of the explosions. "The blasts won't be big," Endeavor said right before they had hit down, making sure the others with him did not take their eyes off this man for a second.

"We're heading after them!" A yell came out over the explosions.

"All jets land and pick up as many heroes as you can in twenty seconds."

"If you think they'll escape..." Endeavor started, while the ground shook and the sound of the blasts ripped though the air. The force slammed into them along with the noise a couple seconds before the sand and smoke was going to hit.

In the sound of that blasts though, between what Endeavor just started with and however he was going to finish, Gentle yelled, "Whiteout!"

"E.M.P!" Whiteout screamed, pulling her arms in and glowing the brightest white. The pulse pulled inside her in a single core, and then it erupted out in a massive sphere that extended in all directions of her from the plane that had lingered farthest back of all the jets.

Star-Spangled Man pulled back, his arms lifting and crossing in front of his eyes as he was blinded. "Ahhh," he gasp-yelled, turning away but seeing nothing but white in his vision.

"Oh shit-" Crack pulled up on the sticks, but she had lost control of the jet that she was landing right next to a group of fifteen heroes who were waiting for her.

Other heroes who had just piled into jets yelled at the pilots, but the batteries on all their vehicles were dead. The fleet of heroes' ships that just arrived back on the scene had all landed though, or were barely above the ground where they had been hovering down to so they only dropped a little with harsh jolts for the heroes inside. The bright white light slammed into Gentle and the twenty-four heroes surrounding him, though none of them were blinded as much as most of the other heroes who turned towards that flash were. They had been engulfed in a cloud of sand and smoke after all, and Gentle shot up out of that cloud with a strong bounce a second after everything happened at once.

 _Just what you'd expect,_ he thought in dread, as almost half of those heroes followed him out of the smoke or descended at him in the air.

"Elasta-armor," Gentle said aloud this time, re-surrounding himself in Elasticity. He swung his arms upwards, blocking each of the heroes descending on him. The one with wings bounced off, while the other spiraled in the air around where she suspected correctly the Gently Rebound had just appeared. She front-flipped as she was about to hit Gentle first, and the enemy who tried to intercept her had turned around and looked down at his other enemies when he thought he had blocked her.

Her foot bounced back up after she kicked it into the skull of the man bouncing subtly on air, but her kick did send his head flying down over the front of his body that did a flip on the kick. He hit his own Elasticized air that had been below his bouncy feet though, bouncing his body back up right as Endeavor shot around his barriers too and punched a fireball at him. Flames bounced around inside barriers that were popping up all over, though Endeavor moved around the barriers staying on the outside, throwing more and more flames in at the man trying to find a way out of his own corner that got harder to escape each second.

 _He'll be cooked!_ Revellum shot out of the air, the same instant he had left Evader's range.

"DEATH!"

Gentle shot out of the one hole he had in his barriers, straight at Endeavor who was waiting for him with arms spread out like he was going in for a bear hug. First Gentle's eyes shot open wide inside his helmet, as the set-up Endeavor was in right now seemed silly and yet also made him feel a pit of dread that it was actually possible that it would work. Then Endeavor's eyes opened wide, as he had noticed the person high above him but was not too focused on him yet. _Death?_ Gentle's eyes grew even wider at that moment too, his teeth baring and both arms at his sides snapping forward fast in that instant he had Endeavor the slightest amount off guard. Endeavor moved forward and swung his arms in, but the barrier emerged between the two of them and bounced Endeavor backwards instead.

 _This is the worst possible outcome,_ Gentle thought, while his gear rebooted and his HUD turned back on.

"The delay's too long!" Vintage yelled, while pulling up on the sticks as hard as he could. The ship dropped steeper and the nose was dipping down towards the ground. He had brought his transport up high before the flash though, knowing beforehand how long the reboot would take.

All of the AoD ships had lost their cloaking in the EMP. The heroes who were first worried about losing their enemies had become worried for them instead, as their enemies who were trying to run instead of fight them dropped out of the sky from an EMP blast that knocked out all of their own ships as well. Whiteout could not direct her Electromagnetic Pulses to only target enemy electronics, after all.

However, the Army of Death prepared since the last time. Whiteout had died once inside a ship that had no defenses, that was crashed on the ground, that had been her home which her power had ultimately destroyed. The destruction of the Cloak was necessary the last time though, as her EMP had evened the odds with all the villains at the Villain Summit who had ridiculous amounts of powerful weapons and ships at their disposal. In preparation for another battle like that though, in order to not just even things up with their enemies, but to get back the upper hand, they had taken Whiteout's power into account with every piece of technology they built from the Villain Summit on. So even though her EMP shut everything down, all their ships and all their own personal gear restarted only seconds after the power was cut off.

"How in the… world?"

"There they go," Popfire said, leaning back on the edge of their ship with a sigh.

Metallore spun to the Japanese girl only slightly older than him, then he looked back in the direction of the Army of Death's disappearing ships. He wanted to argue with her that it was not over yet. Their ships were all useless though. Their communications were down and they could no longer hear what their enemies were talking about. His expression did not shift very discouraged though. Instead he turned his head and looked to the closest jet to his own where he had seen another hero his own age but from Japan get on. _This isn't over, thanks to him._

"Death," Endeavor said, looking up at the man in front of him who bounced backwards behind his barrier and stared straight back through it at Endeavor.

"Fly back to the Cloak, Revellum. Now," Death ordered it in a darker tone than the man flying behind his leader expected, but he backed up and then turned and flew off as fast as he could.

"Don't let those two escape!"

"Get them and the rest will come back!"

Endeavor heard the shouts behind him, but his focus was narrowing more and more on the man in front of him. His vision was getting blurry in the corners, his breath getting heavier and showing as he panted while staring at his enemy who would not tear his gaze off the leader of the ADTF either. Endeavor was putting the pieces together in his head, which Death could see and made the dark soldier grind his teeth in growing rage and regret. Gentle curled his left middle finger in while keeping his ring finger intentionally held out as best he could keep it while doing that. The cloth on the inside of his left elbow pulled away, and he slammed his right hand towards that soft skin with a needle gripped tightly in hand.

"Get him!" Star-Spangled Man yelled, as he was helping surround the dark figure closest to them after flying back thinking he might need to catch one of their ADTF's falling jets. The pilot of that jet had managed to land upright even though it had been the highest one up when the flash hit though, so Star-Spangled Man changed his objective. He was coming up from behind on the soldier of the ADTF who he also knew as one who had been there at their very first interaction. He charged at that member with the elastic barriers, and he bounced off the air as Gentle flicked his left hand backwards after injecting with that Quirk-enhancing drug.

Ryukyu flapped her wings and shot through the air towards the man. Endeavor pushed his hands forward, and ten other heroes shot off the ground or attacked the man who just shot up like that. Gentle pushed his hands out in front of him with his thumbs touching, then he pulled his hands apart quickly to create the most massive invisible barrier that he could. He pushed forward with both hands and bounced backwards off it and at the same time also up in the sky. He swung both hands down, then to his left and right. He kicked both feet in front of him while in the middle of a backflip, pushing them against a Gently Rebound he formed behind a half dozen other boundaries of Elasticity. He kicked off after his legs pushed far in, and he shot off like a missile into the distance. Star-Spangled Man flew up to try and intercept him, only to hit an invisible Elastic barrier in midair as Gentle Elasticized the air exactly where he thought Star-Spangled Man would try to fly up after him.

Four more Gently Rebounds were sent down through the air targeted at spots around where Star-Spangled Man would be bounced with that first bounce, so when the top American hero recovered quickly and spun to give chase, he just bounced right back to where he just was. He turned to his right as he realized the enemy had planned for his second move, and he flew into Gentle's second trap, bouncing him straight into the third one meant as a trap that bounced him down into the sand. The American hero hit on his hands and knees, flipping himself over at the last second to land like that instead of flat on his back. He lifted his head from his hands and knees and looked up into the distance, where his enemy flew off faster and faster with bounces faster than he could fly himself. _Once he gets in a cloaked ship…_

On The Cloak, the AoD ships were arriving one after the other just above a white cloud, one of many scattered throughout the sky. In the meantime, not too far from where the Cloak was awaiting all its arrivals, darker clouds were forming. Dozens of soldiers emptied out of ships and fastened them into the hangar, while also yelling about the trap they had just walked right into. The Cloak had gone closer to the scene but stayed just out of Whiteout's range until the Temp Emp so it would never lose its cloaking and get spotted by the heroes.

As everyone was yelling and arguing about those events that had been very dangerous, Raylei and Rebel yelled over the rest of them. "They're tracking you!"

"We don't know how they're doing it, but they knew you guys were up there before they sent that bait out so generously," Rebel added, speaking sarcastically when he mentioned the heroes' generosity. "Scans of the Cloak are showing nada though!"

"We aren't seeing any of them who have Quirks that could be following…"

Gentle and La Brava could hear the entire open channel and the yelling conversations going on, but the two of them were speaking on a more private channel too. Rebel _was_ in on this one though, as Gentle said to his partner quietly, "Endeavor heard Revellum call me Death. We fought, and he put together what has happened."

"No way," Rebel muttered, moving his head back from his computer and then lifting a hand and rubbing his forehead. He rubbed harder, grinding his teeth angrily which caused the other two in the command to stare at him with huge eyes at the reaction. _FUCK!_

La Brava stepped away from the others she had gotten off a jet with, and she put her head against the closest wall to her with a gasp slipping out her lips. The short woman shrugged off the hand of a man behind her asking what was wrong, snapping, "Get to the bridge and help find the tracker!" _Zach. I'm sorry. We should have, we should have seen this coming._

"I'm bringing the storm with me," Maelstrom reported in to the Army who quieted down at her voice. "I'm taking an Ultra-Jet 2.1 to lead the heroes off in a storm. I'll shake them off once they chase me, but in the meantime find and get rid of whatever's tracking us."

"We need a coordinated search," Raylei ordered, as more and more people were filing up into the bridge. "Squad leaders, send your teams around the Cloak to search every inch. Our scanners aren't picking up on anything…"

On the bridge, several of the people who just arrived ran off again or awaited orders from squad leaders. One large man who stepped inside came closer to Raylei though. Alpha Squad's leader stared down at the computer screens Raylei had up that she was doing scans on and yelling at as nothing was coming up. Ralyei continued on the open channel, "Everyone think of all your recent interactions with the ADTF. The last few times we've met with them, do you remember any of them doing anything to you? Think on any interactions you have had with heroes over the last several months. Heroes who could have…"

Raylei turned her head to the right. There were 16 people still on the bridge of the Cloak, and one of those people just reached up and started taking off his uniform. Exodus took off his tight black shirt, and everyone in the room stared at the body of the man most scarred-up of anyone in the entire organization. Some people like Raylei knew though, that many of his scars were from before he joined as well. Exodus took off his costume and lay it flat on the counter next to Raylei's keyboards at the edge of her work station on the third row back on the left side of the bridge. _I thought he quit the ADTF. He was no longer a member on the oil rig. I saw him down there. I saw, Suneater._

Exodus paused. He stared down at the back of his uniform, and he closed his eyes and thought back on the oil rig. He thought of the young man who he had saved, who had fought alongside him through that night. They had talked. And there had been one moment in it, where the man behind him had… Exodus reached down and scratched at the top right of his uniform near the back of his shoulder. The black fabric looked the same as everywhere else on his costume. He burnt through the glove on his right hand though, an action that alone made everyone in the bridge stare at him with much wider eyes as he destroyed the glove instantly. He no longer had his helmet on either but clipped down on his waist, and his expression was cold and emotionless, yet somehow livid all the same as he scratched his nails on his costume on the spot he remembered being tapped by a young hero.

 _I thought nothing of it,_ Exodus thought, and yet it had been the first thing that came to his mind when he saw Tamaki Amajiki at this ambush. _We fought the same enemy. We were saving hostages, and fighting villains…_ Exodus' fears, became reality. He dug his fingers under a crease that had not been there until he was digging so hard for a few seconds. He stopped, and others who had stepped close stared with huge eyes as he clenched on that piece he started lifting up. Exodus peeled it away, revealing a faint red glow underneath a tiny piece of black fabric that looked identical to what their costumes were made out of. The moment he stripped it off too, Raylei's computers started blaring with alarms on alert as the scans picked up the tracker hidden by whatever had been stuck to his costume.

"Whatever they covered it with," Raylei began as she faced her computer and started typing again. She spoke in a low voice, "It must have been getting around our defenses-" she turned her head to the right, as a flash of white light showed Exodus curling his fist around the tracker he pulled out and incinerated. He then lifted up the small spherical piece of fabric that had been covering it up, glared at it so harshly for a moment, then he lowered it and looked into Raylei's eyes while holding it out for her.

Raylei lifted up her right hand, staring at it in surprise that Exodus did not just destroy it all. Then she grinned as she took it from him. "You're right," she said to the man who had not said a word. "We should try to figure out the make-up and reverse engineer it." Exodus nodded at her, and then he turned away. Raylei lowered her grin with a sadder look spreading over her face as she watched him walk away. Others around the room looked to the huge man whose expression was as stoic as always, but no one wanted to mention anything to him as they could feel the anger radiating off his body.

"It was you, Exodus?" Gentle's voice came through frustratedly and in a scolding tone.

"Suneater. At the oil rig," Exodus replied to Death speaking to him on his way back to the Cloak, the last one now that Revellum was waiting just inside the hangar. "I didn't…"

"Endeavor fought Gentle," La Brava said to the man who was in the link just between the squad leaders. "And heard him get called, 'Death.' He knows now."

Rebel and Gentle both grimaced at what she just said to him. La Brava felt it was harsh too, but she yelled, "You should've checked yourself after each fight for trackers! _Especially_ after interacting with ADTF members!"

"To be fair, Suneater shouldn't have been part of the ADTF anymore," Blackstar mentioned.

"It was Exodus?!" Maelstrom exclaimed. "Hahaha- sorry. Sorry. Not funny, but if anyone-"

Rebel cut off Maelstrom who was finding it too ironic that Exodus had been the one to mess up. Mica was not one to usually help out when someone was getting poked fun of or joked at the expense of. The silence from Exodus was getting painful though, even for him.

Exodus left the bridge and got down back to the hangar when Death was arriving. He stepped towards his leader, no helmet on while the doors closed behind Death landed in the hangar. Revellum looked like he wanted to say something, but he turned back and forth confusedly between Exodus and Death while they stared at each other. Gentle covered up his earpiece too after having taken his helmet off, and he said in a low voice to the man before him, "He would forgive you."

"I-" Exodus started. His face scrunched up, and his teeth ground over each other in sheer agonizing rage and grief at the same time. "I messed up."

Down on the ground and getting farther away each moment, the ADTF were regrouping and trying to figure out their next move. Endeavor had the sidekick of the second ranked hero in all of Mexico at his side. He was finally able to get in contact with ADTF support in Geneva, Switzerland. "Which way is the tracker going?" he asked. Although he could see the dark clouds forming in the distance and heading one direction, he felt it was too likely that was a trap to lead their forces the wrong way.

Unfortunately, Kayla responded to him through José Guacamole whose voice came out sounding like hers, "The tracker's signal just got cut off." Endeavor frowned at the sidekick in a green costume who pulled his head back a bit at that intimidating and dark look. Kayla kept speaking through the man whose hero name had more to do with the costume he wore to look friendlier to the public and children than with his Quirk, "I don't know what happened. Maybe they found it?"

"It _is_ supposed to be able to survive an EMP while inside that Thine material," Endeavor remarked, agreeing with the hypothesis that it must have been found as he doubted that EMP blast had knocked it out. "Alright. We'll be here until the Temp Emp runs out. Whiteout's EMP's do not last." _Though somehow their tech negates her Quirk quicker now. We are always too far behind them. One step, is all they need. We had them… But, even though we lost them…_

ADTF members around the area started arguing with each other about their failed plans. Newer members complained about how the veterans had made them think something else was going on when they were ready to stop the AoD. Older members and top heroes were cursing themselves for their failed judgements. Endeavor stepped away stoically from the rest though. He moved away and just stared off into the desert with a glare and dark expression over his face in the direction of the rising storm. _Even thought I lost him, I know now that wasn't the original Death. That Death, is the Gentle Criminal. Which means the original Death really was Zach Sazaki._

 _The one they called Death had to have been the one wearing purple all those times at least,_ Endeavor thought to himself, separated and alone so even his own sidekick looking his way did not want to get any closer. _Almost certainly the Gentle Criminal based on his fighting style and Quirk. Taking up the role of Death not because Death has died but because Death left the organization. And to cover that he had left, they told people who they had been saving to report that they had died and been revived by Death, in order to protect Lifebringer. This Death cannot revive people and yet those are the reports we have received since he has become Death. It was all a lie._

"It's alright," Gentle assured the man he put a hand on his right shoulder. He had already scolded him, and now he just gave Exodus a slightly softer look. "He'd understand."

"He'll find a way out of it," La Brava remarked too.

"If anyone can," Rebel admitted. "He can."

Endeavor rose up his right hand in front of his body. He stared down at it while also looking above his fist and into the distance he knew the AoD to be escaping into. The leader of the Anti-Death Task Force felt his stomach turn over as he stared at his own fist. He was in shock. That disbelief was impossible to believe in anymore though, even though he had pushed himself so hard to believe that Lifebringer was not Death. _I really didn't think he was. And if I could believe it, as someone who had come across Death multiple times and fought alongside him even, I know Sazaki could convince anyone… Except my son, and his friends. But, but if-_

The fist Endeavor had risen rose more towards his face. He opened it up and pressed his fingers into his forehead. _God damn it._ Endeavor stared into his palm and he ground his teeth in anger. In his head, he could see the hero licensing exam back in January he had gone to. _I knew that it wasn't him that day. I knew, because if I believed even a little that he could have been Death, then I knew what had to have happened to him for him to have acted as he did that day. The Death I saw at the Sports Festival, wasn't someone who could have done what Sazaki did at the licensing exam. To not show any sign that he had done those things while he fought so carefree… I didn't want to accept he could still be Death, because if I could, then that would mean he had broken apart. And yet it is him._

Endeavor knew who Death was. He knew Lifebringer was Death, and yet the revelation only gripped at his chest and hurt him to understand. _I respected him!_ Endeavor thought it with his teeth grinding harder behind his lips. _And- and I don't think Sazaki has big plans for the villains of Japan. He could have done them just as easily as Death and he wouldn't have had to go to jail first! So, Death really just couldn't take it. He sounded like- that day! I could hear how close he was. The voice I heard last April when Sazaki stopped the attack on the Sports Festival- and then I heard two days later from the Chinese heroes about the Villain Summit. Crane said how devastating it had been for the AoD. I heard the accounts from the villains who talked about what really happened which we ignored to tell the story that more of them accepted instead. I knew the truth though. And I already knew, from what he had told me._

 _Death had been fighting every day. So much fighting that it had ripped him apart. As a kid. A seventeen year old kid. He-_ _**"You really think I'm just a fucking mask?! There's a person inside here, you know?"**_ The reason it had been impossible for Endeavor to think of Lifebringer as Death echoed in his mind as he heard that voice screaming through the helmet. The panicked, scared, _desperate_ voice of a kid who just needed someone to make it easier on him. _**"If you tell everyone what they tried to do, then, then what did I kill them for?!"**_ He could see Death screaming it in agony, even though he could not see the face behind that mask. Even though a big part of him until that moment _had_ just thought of him as that mask.

Endeavor remembered hearing all of this at the licensing exam too. He could hear everything Death yelled at him at the Sports Festival, the day he had accepted creating the biggest conspiracy of his life. _He fought, every, single, day. He sounded so stressed. The surge he was afraid of coming if he let the failed Sports Festival attack become known, it might have destroyed them. They always seem so weak. Like one push is all it would take, and it's just by skill that they keep themselves alive. But, I know about the Villain Summit. He made it sound like an extra surge would have been too much to handle, and maybe that was true, considering what I heard happened only a couple days later. Yet after that Villain Summit, the world changed._

 _Most people gave credit to the Sports Festival, and I know it was because of the Sports Festival too. Shoto, Class A, all of them showed the world the strength of heroes. But for existing villains it wasn't that public affair but the Villain Summit that changed everything. And everything else Death was doing that month too. That April, the end of the March before it too leading to about a month later from what I could see. Three to four weeks straight of just countless anonymous tips around the whole world giving locations of every wanted villain. It was absurd. I couldn't keep up. I didn't even pass it along to everyone in the ADTF, since most tips didn't show any indication of it being them. They all were though. Countless tips of villains who had "been fighting each other" or who someone "overheard" talking about a deal nearby. Only for heroes to arrive most often and find hundreds of villains unconscious with bad wounds and firearms on them or drugs in the same building… Almost none of the villains would say it was the AoD who caught them, and every hero in the world had to accept the villains would not say anything._

 _Many just let themselves believe that it was nothing out of the ordinary. Anonymous tips being a real thing made sense to some. Anyone who saw it happening on an international scale understood though. Anyone who could see the sheer number of similar cases like it that happened_ _ **every day**_ _knew that something huge was happening. Bigger than all of us._ Endeavor narrowed his flaming eyebrows into the distance, then he slowly started turning his head. He looked across the horizon, and he turned himself around to stare back to the east in the direction of Japan. _Prisons around the world filled up and everyone gave the credit to us heroes. Though I know we helped, that was just it. We were the ones helping, but the ones really changing the world and how things worked were the AoD. I knew that! I knew, and I accepted but played the part-_ Endeavor's fists curled at his sides, his teeth baring even harder and his eyes squinting in rage and frustration into the distance.

 _I know what I have to… what I should, do. But the peace the world lives in now was built on more lies than just the one at the Sports Festival that I helped cover up. I know that the entire world is built on a web of lies the AoD created. That_ _ **he**_ _created. I accepted it though, because I had been working more internationally than most heroes. I saw the state of the world over a year between Sports Festivals that was more chaotic and horrible than any I had ever seen before. The amount of dead children, massacred innocents, corrupted governments and companies, guns and drugs like never seen before… I was getting ready for a war._

Endeavor shook his head and lowered his eyes down to the floor. A few heroes behind him had started looking his way noticing the ADTF's leader standing on his own and glaring in so much anger and regret, and with such a thoughtful look out to the east. Endeavor rose his eyes up slowly after his last thought that reverberated through his mind causing him to look down in shame. _I knew it though. I realized that I could not step into All Might's shoes, and instead I was going to have to lead a new breed of heroes against a world darker than before, but one we could still stand up for the innocents in. I had accepted that the term "heroes" was going to change in its meaning, and that we were going to have to start fighting villains more brutally. Like a war. To do that though would have turned the world darker. If heroes were killing people._

 _If the people the side of good looked to were fighting more like a war, and less like they were stopping criminals, it would have changed everything._ Endeavor let out a sharp breath, and he shook his head before raising his eyes up to the sky. _I never think about any of this._ He let out a heavier breath, and he turned himself more and looked back at all the ships and all the heroes on them and around them. He looked at heroes from all parts of the world, many of whom were already looking towards him. _I, know… that I avoid thinking about this just as I know any hero who started to understand it looked away, to avoid finding out just how much the AoD did rather than learn the truth. To allow history to be written the way it is… In order to preserve a peaceful world._

 _As is our job._

 _We had to accept it. For the peaceful world. To protect the innocence of people around it, who I was ready to let see a much darker version of heroes they never had to… I accepted it in order to keep what it means to be a hero as a hero's true definition, keeping everyone's heroes from becoming monsters as Death saw himself._ Endeavor's eyes flinched but he kept them from opening wide at his last thought. _The monsters I thought we would have to become… who he saved us from turning into._

"Endeavor, sir," Olympia walked towards her boss. She stared at him in a semi-hesitant way at the strange look on his face and how he was facing all of them now. "How are we going after them? They were all fleeing in that direction, but more likely southwest than northwest where the storm is heading-"

Endeavor shook his head at the younger woman who hesitated upon seeing that look on his face. Her questioning had led everyone else to look over to see how their leader would respond. Endeavor looked around everyone in the task force meant to take down Death, and his expression hardened and became firm for everyone to see. "As of this moment," Endeavor began. He paused for a few seconds, and then he said just as firmly, "I resign as the leader of the Anti-Death Task Force."

A few hundred people stared towards Endeavor with their eyes opening huge at the sudden declaration. Endeavor turned away from them all instead of answering any questions though. He just started marching off through the desert all on his own. His eyes shifted towards a crater with some burning carcasses of vehicles in it, but his gaze focused back straight ahead of him with no regret in his eyes. _Knowing what I know, believing what I believe, I can't find it in me to go after them with any real effort at all. I won't take the lead position of this task force only to treat it as a joke._

 _I accept the Army of Death is clearly smaller now. It still acts with impunity, and it needs to be stopped without Sazaki at its head-_ Endeavor grit his teeth at that thought, and he closed his eyes frustratedly but then just bowed his head darkly. _It needs to be stopped,_ he reminded himself with his eyes opening back up. _But I don't consider them villains. They aren't terrorists. I trap them by making them think they're coming to fight terrorists and villains, save captured heroes… It's always been hard, to convince myself otherwise. I don't think of them as villains now though, and I don't think I ever will again. I know more than anyone else… though I'm sure my resignation won't be enough. It's over for him._

 _…I'm sorry._

* * *

 **A/N Thanks for reading... Chapter 199 hits with the ADTF and AoD going at it. Hope you enjoyed. Chapter 200 coming up next...** **Leave a review telling me what you think is coming, predictions, comments, questions about the chapter and more.**

DarkJokes chapter 198 . Nov 8

What the actual f... the moment Zach pictured killing the girl right there and then had my heart racing. This chapter really reminded me of how much fear people have of Zach and I love it. Been a while since he showed complete authority. I'm gonna say it again that you should write a real novel and sell it. I've never seen anything as good as this fanfic and I won't even call it fanfic anymore. It is it's own thing now and it's fucking great

 **Oh yeah. He can only act so well for so long, then his real rage draws out. People do fear Zach a lot, and we also see with that small moment of imagining killing her that they are RIGHT to fear him. I'm glad you think I should write a real novel, I'm actually planning on that as my next project after Death instead of going right for another fanfic as I've done pretty much on a chain for years now. People have been telling me to go for it for years, and though I've got a new job now I'll still be more focused on writing than working at the ski resort this winter. On the plus side, I did get that job! I will be skiing all winter and working as a waiter at the mountain. And this past weekend I went up with a friend to finalize my paperwork, and we found me a house that I rented out for 4 months at a great deal and I'll be moving to in a few weeks! Anyway, I'll have a lot of time to write between now and then: no job, no nothing going on, so I'll try to get the chapters pounding out faster again! Thanks for the review!**

xPricefieldx chapter 93 . Nov 8

I haven't even thought about it until now but holy crap you are like a master of character development, this is on par with land of the lustrous' character development but even more natural, if you ever right a book I'll be first in line to buy it.

 **Thanks a lot! Know it might be a while before you reach this far, but love that you decided to review after 93 (still probably my favorite chapter). Lifebringer Incident was nuts to write, and it's hard to believe that was about a year ago now that I wrote it! Anyway, hope you enjoy this chapter (whenever you get to it!) XD**

GuestP chapter 198 . Nov 10

I like how NovaAwakening is just in denial about Jenny being dead that it kinda hurts, lol. I remember having the same thoughts, but then I realized that Zach has a time limit with when he can revive them. And even then, if I remember correctly, she didn't really have a body to bury, no?  
Anyways, this chapter was super frickin awesome (the next time someone tells you a funny joke and you're done lauging about it, tell them "that was so /frickin funny (or awesome)/ in like the most 'surfer dude trying to discuss something quickly and intensely' accent you can muster up, it's fucking hilarious and my brother does it all the time lol) because you get to see that Roady is super cool at acting, but then you look at Zach and he's basically one of those actors that literally adapt to the personality of the character in order to be really good at acting it out. Zach's a cryptid sometimes, tbh.  
Lot's of shit went down, and I had shivers run down my spine because of the fact that Zach just had an urge to kill the lady and I had so many flashbacks to his urges of wanting to murder someone, like, woah, I haven't seen that in a while. Also, a little bit of the Commander, Death leaked into his personality when he didn't give a crap that the Korean President was literally standing in front of him. The balls of this man...must be humongous.  
Also, banter between Roady and Zach. Loved it! ALSO ALSO, ZACH THINKS OF HIMAZURI WHICH IS NICE, AND YES THAT TOTALLY COUNTS THANKS. Honestly, we've had five best girls so far, Jenny, Ashido, Cee, Darling, and La Brava, but the newest edition is HIMAZURI EDITION YAAAAA  
Well, anyway, I really loved this nice and beefy chapter, it had me really interested and in 'woah' mode so, yeah!~  
Loved this chapter!~~  
Can't wait for the next one!~~~

 **Hahaha I keep seeing that. Usually the disbelief fades in a couple chapters, but he/she's really holding onto that hope! XD Anyway, glad you liked the last chapter! Lot of fun Roady stuff, Zach acting, cool chapter of infiltration and mission (and some Himazuri too ;) ) but this time heads off to the AoD getting in some shit. Endeavor finds out Zach's Death. The idea that Death's been going around reviving people ever since Zach got arrested is shattered to Endeavor who sees through it all, and yet also sees more than anyone else... Chapter 200 coming up next. Enjoy.**


	200. Chapter 200: Atem

**Disclaimer: I don't own Boku no Hero Academia**

 **Chapter 200:**

On the side of the road on a side street of Musutafu City, Zach Sazaki stood in front of a store window full of television sets. He had his hood down, as he could not hide his face from the people around who would be looking his way if he had it up on a sunny day as this. The chilly day called for a hoodie that he wore, a plain black one covering up his body and arms and most of his neck too. He stared in at the tvs with his backpack on and full of all his belongings other than the clothes on his back.

"Is that Lifebringer?"

"What's he doing just standing there?"

Zach pretended not to hear the murmurs of people nearby who were not approaching him. A couple people just walked by on the sidewalk without giving him too long of a look, and a few came over and started watching the tvs too thinking something important might be going on for Lifebringer to just be standing there watching. Those concerns the people who decided to watch had faded from mind, as they realized why it was he was interested in the news segment being discussed.

"…And just yesterday, hundreds of posts were shared over a hundred _thousand_ times on Quirkbook. There was no response from Lifebringer though. Every hospital that called for his help was ignored-"

"Can you stop with all this negative coverage of Lifebringer?!" The co-host snapped it, looking pissed at his colleague who would not give up on this despite the argument they had been having. "Enough, okay? _I_ just appreciate so much that day he brought back 205 people to life. He can't do it every day, but that was _last week!_ Are you so quick to condemn him again-"

"Why last week and not this week?! You're just saying that because you want to be revived if-"

"That is a lie! I just see that what _you're_ doing is the _worst_ way to get him to want to keep reviving people. Let him do it on his own choices, because pushing him like this clearly isn't doing anything but stopping him…"

 _They're starting to realize it,_ Zach thought as he watched the man more on his side. _Demanding it of me is not the best strategy. I want you to know that._ His eyes stayed dark as he watched the screens though, and he could not force a smile even as he noticed someone filming him on his left side down the sidewalk a bit. _I'm letting all these people die. I saw all those posts. I- I let kids…_ He felt guilt, and regret, but he hardened his own thoughts, _It's a lesson that they need to learn. That I can't- I won't._ He turned his head and took a step as he was going to head off.

The screens all cut off though. Zach felt a deeper sense of dread than he thought he would in that instant, because down the street ahead of him and up on an electric billboard on the side of a skyscraper, the glowing advertisement also cut to black. Yet cars were still driving on the road, people were still using their phones and talking, and lights were still on inside of stores and buildings all around him. The power did not get cut off, and yet both the news and the advertisements on different televisions on different systems had cut off at once. His head turned back to the window on his side, his eyes narrowing intensely before the black screens even switched the images they were showing.

As intense as his look was though at the realization that something was wrong, his eyes still bulged at what he saw on the screens. His lips parted and a gasp escaped them as he stared at the screen in shock…

* * *

In a rural area of Japan a far distance from any nearby cities, three dozen heroes surrounded a mansion high in elevation but still camouflaged by the forest around it. The top of the house only stuck out from the back of the building which was difficult for anyone to see since there was just a steep descent on that side into a thicker forest where no one lived. The back of that large estate had a wide deck on it barely lifted above the tops of the trees over the slope behind it, and the heroes gathered in groups of 4-6 behind the building and on its northeast and southeast (as the building's front faced west), were moving in stealthily while keeping an eye on the few villains on the deck who had yet to notice their approach. The thick canopy had gaps between branches and leaves for the heroes to keep views on the windows and the villains near the deck's outer railing where two people were smoking cigarettes out in the open.

Across the mountain road in front of the mansion isolated from the nearest town by a couple of miles, Best Jeanist moved into the closest hiding spot to the front door. The third-ranked hero in the country ordered everyone with him, "All heroes, commence Operation Atem."

 **14 Hours Earlier…**

"This has nothing to do with Intanzo," Best Jeanist told the group in front of him.

Thirty-four heroes and sidekicks were gathered in the briefing room facing Best Jeanist who stood at the front next to one other man also in the Top Ten rankings of their nation's hero leaderboard. Wash nodded his head with the flap of his washing-machine-looking body moving up and down in a somehow serious way. Although most of them were part of the task force put together under Best Jeanist solely to track down and capture Intanzo, they had been working together for close to a year now and were almost all well-acquainted. It was a team ready for a mission at an instant's notice, so none of the heroes suddenly called there had anything to say against how they were called together for something not Intanzo-related.

"I have called you all here today for a different reason." Best Jeanist lifted a remote and pressed a button that turned on a screen on the wall behind him that he stepped aside from in front of. He and Wash stood on opposite sides of the projected image of a man caught on a security camera. The camera image was in color, paused and zoomed-in on a man leaving a deli across the street from a bank in the small town of Koimou. "As some of you may already recognize, this is Tarito Nagae. Otherwise known as the villain, and escaped Tartaros prisoner, Meta." A side-by-side image of a man's mugshot was put up on the screen next to the captured image in Koimou.

"I've heard of Meta," Frolick's sidekick, Ant-Beater began. "But nothing about his Quirk."

"Meta's Quirk is a powerful one," Best Jeanist explained. "It is called Magma. Extremely dangerous, in his hands especially. Responsible for the deaths of over thirty people, including multiple heroes."

Everyone in the room got even more focused after hearing that. Tsunagu Hakamata nodded his head and narrowed his own eyes, frowning though with his mouth hidden behind the popped collar of his jean jacket that was a turtle-neck covering all the way up to his nose. Best Jeanist started to the heroes gathered in front of him which included a group of twelve of his own sidekicks and several other pros who had come with their sidekicks too. "The Radians can wait. Intanzo can wait. This man is a priority one target on the list of the most dangerous Tartaros villains to have escaped during the SFI. Meta was the top lieutenant in a powerful villain group by the name of Braizos which operated twenty years ago. He rose through their ranks by killing upper members and demanding respect through his power. It is suspected that he had gone missing along with an old comrade of his known as Sonic, another lieutenant of the Braizos."

A picture of Sonic was put up alongside Meta's on the screen, the most recent picture they had of him which was him inside of Tartaros after his capture but long before the SFI. Sonic's hair was short and blue unlike Meta who was a bald man, and Sonic did not have any scars on his face either unlike Meta who had a badly messed-up right ear and a scar across the top of his face. Meta's facial scar cut through his left eyebrow and over his eyeball itself as his mugshot showed. He looked like a scary man and had tattoos on both arms and on his neck with arms of all skin colors reaching up grasping for something desperately, though some looked to just be reaching in attempting to strangle him.

Jeanist kept speaking on their target, "It is because Meta is suspected to be accompanied by Sonic that I have gathered this raid together instead of moving in on his position with my agency alone. We will take precautions and face them together. Meta, Sonic, and the leader of the Braizos: Traxx were the three most dangerous members of their gang, and with their defeat came the end of the Braizos who were one of the last powerful villain groups that existed in the time of All Might. Traxx, fortunately, never escaped from Tartaros," Best Jeanist continued, a picture of that man appearing in an interrogation room in Tartaros where he had been brought to earlier for additional information for this raid. "Prison guards reported they saw Sonic and Meta escape through Kurogiri's portal together, but Pixie Bob stopped Traxx from getting out with them. If all three had escaped they would have been top priority from the start, but despite their high status in the Braizos, Meta and Sonic were supposedly more hungry for power and did not have the same high ideals and ambitions that Traxx operated under."

"So what are they doing in this town? Just hiding out?" The Running Hero: Track Star, questioned the country's third-ranked hero.

Best Jeanist opened his mouth to respond, then he paused and forced his arms to stay down and the cough to stay down with it. He cleared his throat and continued after a moment with barely anyone outside of his own agency noticing the strange pause. "I believe he is solely in hiding, though we have no way of knowing what his current plans are. We are acting on this information quickly, however. Meta was disguised as he entered town to buy groceries and a sandwich from this deli, only recognized this time because of his protruding neck tattoos. He since disappeared again since this last spotting, however the business owners we questioned in Koimou reportedly have seen him before though always in heavy clothing with most of his body hard to make out. It was unusually hot two days ago though, and it looks as if Meta removed articles of clothing he had gone out in which revealed part of his tattoos."

Wash swung his right arm out and pointed at the projection with another intense nod as Best Jeanist pressed a button on the remote to change it. Jeanist started seriously to his team, "He was said to have left town on foot so we searched the surrounding woods and found a large property purchased privately sixteen months ago under a fake name. That alone has given us a warrant to search the building, though initial surveillance has also shown unusual activity inside the building. It appears that despite there only being one car in the driveway, there are several people inside whose appearances are distorted by obscure glass windows. Windows which when matched up with images of the same property taken over two years ago have all been replaced so as to keep those inside impossible to recognize by those looking in from outside."

"Do we think Meta and Sonic have recruited other villains to them?"

"Other Tartaros inmates who are still missing, perhaps?" Frolick wondered. The hero in a dark pink uniform had his tight spandex ending before his knees, all four of them which made his legs look abnormal as he sat in the front row just in front of Best Jeanist. "Do we know how many?"

"Based on the groceries Meta bought and the frequency of appearances in the town, we project only 5-10 villains inside at the max. However, without enough information on who these villains are or what they're doing there, we will not take any chances. We will move in with stealth and with full force from the start. These men are not amateurs and will not surrender easily based on psychiatric reports of them." Best Jeanist stepped forward and spoke in a firm unwavering voice, "We will raid this forest estate with the intention of arresting Meta and any who are with him, who are immediately warrant to arrest due to their harboring of a deadly criminal. Do not allow them time to react. Once confirmation is made on Meta's presence, all inside the building are subject to arrest. We will move swiftly, sweeping the entire building and capturing all those inside," Best Jeanist pulled his right arm up in front of his body in a tight fist and had an expression ready for battle on his face. "And we will send these villains back to Tartaros where they belong."

Nods of agreement and intensity went around the room. Everyone focused again as Best Jeanist went on in a voice showing he was discussing the particulars of the raid now, "We believe them to be here, at least for the moment. I wish we could do more surveillance, but Sonic was known to be the smartest of the Braizos and we cannot risk him catching on to our movements and fleeing into the wind. We will move in tomorrow, so we will prepare over the next twelve hours nonstop for the raid. Starting with a description of Sonic's Quirk which may be even more dangerous than Meta's, which is designated as Slow. Sonic's real name was never discovered, and he appears to be a foreign man who spoke as good English and Spanish as he did Japanese, leading prosecutors to label him as an unknown 'American' villain when he was sent to Tartaros. Sonic's Quirk slows time for his enemies to make him seem to be moving insanely fast, and it is unknown the drawbacks of his Quirk."

Grimaces and confused looks went around the room at Best Jeanist's last sentence which made a lot of them feel dread at that aspect. "Such as limits to the number of enemies Slow works on, or how far away they have to be for him to activate it. As it was All Might who defeated all of the Braizos, even a much slowed-down All Might was still far too fast and stopped Sonic easily." Best Jeanist continued strongly though to encourage his discouraged comrades, "If I can see my opponent though, then it won't matter how fast he is. I will use his own fibers to tie him up tighter than he can escape from."

"Wash is going after Meta," Wash's sidekick, Dry, added to the others in the room who he glanced left at from the farthest right seat in the front row of heroes watching this presentation. "Meta's Magma Quirk was responsible for horrible cases of arson that clustered up crime scenes and turned one disaster into several wherever the Braizos appeared. Wash is the perfect opponent for him and will keep Magma from creating chaos the villains could use to their advantage."

"The specs of the mansion," Best Jeanist continued, changing the projection behind him to show all the different rooms in the blueprints. "We will enter from every access point at once, blocking off all exits. Different teams led by different pros will move in simultaneously, with the intention of neutralizing all threats within thirty seconds of the mission's start. This raid will be designated as Operation Atem, as in 'Meta' backwards…"

 **Present**

"All heroes, commence Operation Atem." Best Jeanist gave the order and rushed forward out from behind a tree and across the mountain road in a second. Several sidekicks ran out behind him, while he saw another team ahead on his left moving at the north side of the mansion towards both a side door leading into the mud room next to the kitchen and a window for a first floor guest room where Frolick and Ant-Beater were going to enter from. On his right he spotted just some movement from a team of five sprinting across the slope at a lower elevation on the south of the building, moving at a basement door below the back deck that wrapped around the right side of the house from Best Jeanist's approach.

The back teams moved in as well, though with a few staying on the perimeter just as some heroes stayed out on the road while the others continued running behind Best Jeanist for the front. As Operation Atem began, however, people all over Japan stared at their televisions or up at giant electronic billboards in confusion. In every Japanese city, transmitted via satellite across the nation, the Japanese people looked inside a house that had a hidden camera in the living room above the tv a bald man with neck tattoos was watching.

That camera had a great angle over the living room, behind the couch, into the kitchen, over in the dining room too. It was a wide angle that showed everyone in the rooms, even catching a piece of the entryway though not much of it. The back deck was visible through the windows that covered that back wall, including glass sliding doors that showed a pair out there smoking cigarettes together. Those two were not easily recognizable to most people in the country, but Zach Sazaki saw both and recognized them as easily as he recognized nearly everyone else in that building.

 _What is going on?!_ Zach closed his mouth and darted his eyes back and forth on the screen. He watched as Todo Viscucci dropped down from a pull-up bar between rooms, the shirtless man with short light blue hair rolling his shoulders after the set. _Diamondfist._ He saw out the back doors, a pair who he remembered being caught the same day as Diamondfist, _Jackson- or Morph, and Sheik. The German's behind the couch, and Marx is over in the kitchen with Shooter! That's Meta on the couch- where's Sonic? And, where's Kaminari?!_

The camera angle changed to show the stairs leading down to the hallway cutting through the middle of the house, a side room and the dining room he had already seen in the other angle, and a perfect view of the front door only a second before it smashed down. Best Jeanist ran in behind Linebacker who smashed the door down for the leader of the operation. Best Jeanist was not alone in sprinting through though, as Linebacker's pro hero on his first mission out of retirement dove through the dining room window with Old-Fashioned Hero: Samurai, leaping in with him and one of Best Jeanist's sidekicks who Zach recognized from the licensing exam, Flemming, coming in that way too.

A villain in the dining room who Zach did not recognize turned his head to the front door first, then as he was dropping his jaw in shock, he spun to the windows on his left he saw silhouettes coming towards and then smashing through. The red-haired man with small ears sticking out of those hair spikes bent his knees and leapt backwards into a triple back-flip, Rabbit trying to get closer to comrades and farther from the pro heroes who all just smashed into the building.

"Meta!" Grappler yelled at the man he saw through the dining room jumping off the living room couch with a shocked expression on his face. "You are under arrest! As are all the villains in here with you!"

Two villains ran down the hallway towards the front door, one raising his right arm that glowed yellow and the other's chest opening up with two tentacles flying out towards the heroes. Both of their clothes suddenly tightened around them with a curl of Best Jeanist's right fingers, dropping them to the floor without either of them even able to let out a shout first that was how fast it happened. The central camera angle everyone in the country were watching with a deep sense of dread switched back to the living room one, then quickly to one showing out the back doors onto the deck where Morph and Sheik tried running for the doors.

Icarus and Highwind, two of Best Jeanist's sidekicks Zach also recognized from the licensing exam as ones who tried to fly up through the cage before he created the Death net on the top of it, dropped out of the sky and on top of the two villains. They pinned those two villains also captured at Diamondfist's LOV base to the floor instantly and so hard that the wood of the deck cracked below them. Eight heroes shot up over the edges of the deck too, and the windows around the living room shattered all at once only for several of the heroes running through them to start running in slow motion instead.

 _Sonic!_ Zach thought, still not seeing the villain but darting his eyes around just as many of the heroes at that crime scene were in search of the villain.

Another man came out of the kitchen into the divide between the kitchen and the living room when Shooter moved forward. Marx, who Zach also remembered Webb taking down on their raid against Diamondfist though who got a good shot on him first, followed Diamondfist's loud order to give him covering fire as he sprinted towards some of the slowed heroes.

 **"Best Jeanist, sir! We just got a report-"** the sidekick of Best Jeanist's who was supposed to be behind the building on the perimeter was cut off.

His message was being relayed to everyone on the team. Grappler, Samurai, and Linebacker all darted quick glances towards the back of the building where their friend and former sidekick of Grappler's who now had his own agency, Big Supreme, was stationed for the mission with Best Jeanist's sidekick who just got cut off. There was no time to wonder what had happened back there though, as Sonic sprinted into the room moving fast even for normal men which just made him seem all the faster to everyone he had used his Quirk on that had them all slowed down.

 _So that's it,_ Best Jeanist thought, finding that he was moving slowly too though not as slow as he thought Slow could make him. _It works less with the more people he uses it on at once. Every one of us already in here puts a strain on him._ His thought process took an instant, the same instant it took him to raise his arms while still locking his gaze on the man who ran through his path and then did a spin to dodge the fibers Best Jeanist disconnected from his own sleeves to create a web through that room. The dodge Sonic made though just revealed himself better for Best Jeanist though, and the third-ranked hero in the country tightened all the fibers of Sonic's clothes around his body.

Sonic's legs pulled close together, dropping him to the floor and making the man drop his knives that had red on them. The sight of that blood disheartened a few of the heroes in the room who wondered where Sonic had just come in from and who he had met before Best Jeanist took him down.

Diamondfist leapt up, his right arm covering in a light blue coating only on his shoulder, elbow, and all over his fist. He swung forward fast, and his fist filled more with Diamond the second before he was going to slam it into Grappler. Grappler leaned his head to the left quickly, and the wind from Diamondfist's punch blew his own long blue hair back behind him. His hair was the middle shade of blue compared to Diamondfist's much lighter shade and the navy blue of Sonic's long hair that was only second to Shooter's in how long it was among the villains. Grappler swung his own right arm up while stepping forward so Diamondfist's body pressed into his own tightly. He wrapped his left arm around the villain's back and clasped his right hand into it while throwing his own legs up behind him, and Diamondfist's eyes opened huge as they both lifted off the ground and started coming down horizontally. He hardened his back, but there was too much to harden and too little time before Grappler slammed him into the floor.

"We have to get out of here!" Rabbit yelled to his side at the villains firing at nearby heroes only for a couple sidekicks with simple Hardening-type Quirks to get in the way of them.

Shooter aimed his finger guns around and snapped his right down between the legs of the sidekick who got between him and shooting Grappler once the hero's back was exposed on the ground like that. Samurai saw that his comrade's legs were too spread apart, and he ran forward- **Bang!** Blood splashed out of Samurai's right ankle, then Shooter leapt backwards farther into the kitchen. Marx spun but not as fast, though Flemming was not even running at him and solely focused on Shooter. Marx was firing multiple long-range projectiles each second, but he was slower than Shooter and less precise than the villain Flemming knew to be more wary of.

Marx turned to fire at Flemming from close-range where he knew he could not miss, but a brown bumpy tongue snapped out of the hallway where Ant-Beater stood. Frolick bent his double-knees and leapt into the living room right as Rabbit jumped up in the air, only for the unknown young 20-year-old villain to do a jump while already in the air and slam his legs into Frolick's face before the surprised pro could react. Ant-Beater swung his head to the left, flinging Marx across the kitchen and over Flemming who ducked as he saw what Ant-Beater was doing. He slid under the villain flying over his head as Ant-Beater pulled his tongue back into his mouth, turning to run and help Frolick against the villain with the rabbit-like Quirk while Flemming took on Shooter from close-range.

 _Even though his Quirk is long-ranged,_ Flemming pulled his body to the left as Shooter whipped a blade up from his right side with it spinning into his hand due to the way he drew it. He put his left hand over his risen right arm to steady it too, but although blood splashed from Flemming's right hand, his whole arm ripped open anyway in the next second as a dozen thin but strong-looking fiber-like tentacles that shot forward to wrap around Shooter. Shooter slashed at one, then two, firing again at Flemming who dodged easier as Shooter was less focused on offense and more on stopping the attacks. A window shattered behind Shooter tearing away some of his focus, allowing all those tendrils of Flemming's split arm to wrap around him at once.

Linebacker held a villain with blond hair poking out from under a fedora against the wall, but The German curled in his fingers and controlled the metal around him. He crushed in Linebacker's lungs by pushing in the armor on Linebacker's costume, but he was finding it difficult to push in any harder on the strength-enhancer's powerful body. What he was able to attack with though, was the ceiling fan that slammed down into Linebacker's back and on his head. The German dropped to his feet, and he swung his arm inwards from the dining room towards the living room, pulling all the chairs and the table that he had attached metal plates beneath. He had put them there in precaution for any fight he may have in this building soon after Diamondfist got in contact with him while he was still in hiding alone as he had been for over a year since the SFI when he broke out of Tartaros.

There were more villains in the building than the heroes had expected. The fact that so many of them were Tartaros escapees did not make them falter. It made them all the more serious about catching every villain there. As The German fell from clothing fibers suddenly wrapping him up, and Meta was pulled into a swirling whirlpool above Wash's head that continuously pushed him into the ceiling flailing around and making steam as he could not create Magma well from inside that funnel, the citizens all over Japan felt like the heroes had been prepared for the villains in this building too from what they saw. There were a couple minor injuries between Linebacker who was pushing himself up on his hands and knees, Samurai whose ankle one of Best Jeanist's sidekicks started wrapping up to stop the bleeding, and Flemming who had a lot of blood coming out of his right arm but a victorious look on his face as he wrapped up Marx and Shooter.

The fight was practically over though. Rabbit was in a corner looking like he was ready to surrender as he saw he was the only one not taken down yet. Heroes moved in on the deck away from a tied-up and handcuffed Morph and Sheik, who were both nearly unconscious anyway from the first attack where Highwind and Icarus hit them hard and fast. It had been twenty to thirty seconds, and the resistance the villains put up was short-lived.

And in the moment where Rabbit rose his hands in surrender, as reports came in of all-clear around the house, Best Jeanist's body flashed bright yellow with electricity shooting off him in a flare that took out the power in the house. Everything except for the hidden cameras sparked electricity, and then the cameras all cut off too leaving nothing but darkness on the screens all over the country. The last thing everyone saw was Best Jeanist's body smoking and twitching from the blast of electricity that came out of nowhere to electrocute him in the moment where the fight seemed to be over.

Zach pulled out his cellphone without any further delay. He cursed himself mentally and searched the number of the Prime Minister's Residence, calling it as fast as he could while people on the sidewalk around him started yelling at him.

"I'm finding the location now!" Zach yelled as the people who had come to look through the same window were telling him to get there. "Hello?! This is Zach Sazaki, I need you to connect me with Nikko-"

"L-Lifebringer? …The Prime Minister is, I will contact him and see-"

"Patch me through, now!" Zach ordered, right as the screens turned back on all over the nation.

Zach froze, and he slowly lowered his phone from his ear to stare at the screens in front of him in shock. His expression narrowed and disbelief covered his face as he saw Best Jeanist standing before Kaminari Denki who was down on his knees. Kaminari looked to be struggling with his arms pulled in tight to his sides, grinding his teeth in frustration as a charred Best Jeanist stood before him with arms raised at the teenager on the ground. Kaminari's hair was longer than the last time Zach saw it, going down his back below his shoulders with spikes coming out all the way down that far and a few tall spikes up above his head and sticking out to the sides. The teen with a blond beard of stubble that got thicker around his chin and mustache struggled, electricity sparking out of him only for his arms to pull into his body tighter and a gasp to escape his lips.

 _It's zoomed in too much,_ Zach knew it, and he snapped his phone back to his head and yelled. "Get Nikko on the line now- please, get me the Prime Minister." _He has to know the situation. If he tells me, it'll boost his-_

"The Prime Minister is not available right now-"

 _SHIT!_ The regret doubled inside Zach for never getting friendly with the Prime Minister that he did not have the man's private number. Others around him felt their nerves get so much worse at the expression on Lifebringer's face as he shouted like that, and they looked back to the screen anxiously only to see that struggling teen on his knees lift the left corner of his lips closer to the hidden camera. Raijin turned his head a bit to the left, smirking straight at the camera and then moving his arms away from his sides that they had seemed pinned to a moment ago. The hidden camera zoomed back out as he smirked at it too, showing the rest of the room instead of just Raijin and Best Jeanist.

The villains had been released. The heroes were now the ones on their knees, pinned, bound, and bloody. The villains they had been fighting were the ones who had them down too, looking real pissed and angry about what just occurred here. None of them seemed to have known beforehand what was coming, but Raijin's single smirk towards the hidden camera showed one of them knew. The spiky-haired blond who had been missing since the day of the Lifebringer Incident, with not a single sighting of him in all that time… until now. He stood up, and he said, "Pinoko, please have Best Jeanist stop their struggling."

A short young woman stepped forward from behind Best Jeanist and a bit to the side so her smirk was revealed to the camera she also had to have known the location of to keep herself hidden like that until now. All six of her hands were raised, and she moved her arms like she was playing with a marionette. Her Quirk, Puppeteer, made Best Jeanist lift his arms too. Then the two hands she had risen towards the back of Best Jeanist's head and top of his spine, forced the barely conscious hero to use his Quirk on Grappler, Flemming, and Frolick who were almost pushing out of their captors' holds.

"How did they find us?!"

"Quiet," Sonic said to his right side, making Marx's eyes open huge and his mouth to slam shut at the small smirk the dark-blue haired man gave him while faced away from the main hidden camera. Diamondfist darted his narrowing eyes over to the older Tartaros escapee from where he removed his foot from the back of Grappler's back he had been struggling to keep it down on.

Grappler let out a scream, as The German bent down in front of the man now bound by fibers who had been using very powerful arms to push up with. "I heard about these," The German said, his accent coming through in his Japanese as he started pulling Grappler's arms to the sides.

"Get me Nikko NOW!" Zach yelled. "I need to-" He winced and had to tear his eyes off the screens for a moment, as both of Grappler's arms ripped off and the hero let out a scream as The German laughed in his face.

"Grap-pler," Linebacker wheezed while lifting his head up, Ebizu staring horrified at his pro who he had been so happy to fight alongside again.

"Did you think I was gone?" Raijin wondered. He said it while stepping towards Best Jeanist again, leaning down in front of the hero who was brought to his knees by Pinoko stepping up behind him and raising all six of her arms up. "No. I have been here, _always._ This is my country, after all. I hope this reminds all of you, who's really in control here." Kaminari's voice echoed over the entire nation who his message was being transmitted to. He looked down on the country's third strongest hero, while the eighth-ranked Wash lay unmoving slumped over the couch, a drenched Meta pounding Magma-covered fists into his box-shaped side over and over so he was denting into the hero's body.

As _**clank**_ after _**clank**_ echoed through the room, Kaminari rose his right hand towards Best Jeanist's face while looking into the hero's eyes that seemed to focus again just a little as he witnessed his impending death.

Sonic grinned victoriously while stepping towards their leader, and he darted a smug look at Meta who despite the damage done to him also shot a grin back in Sonic's direction. _Fucking perfect,_ Meta thought, turning back towards Raijin who had sparks coming out of his fingers as he prepared to execute one of the country's top heroes in front of a bunch of other heroes unable to do a thing, and in front of the entire country watching as that happened.

Sonic's muscular legs disproportional to the rest of his lean body bent. He had trained them the most of all his muscles, as his speed was his main weapon. He darted to the right and out of the living room, his reaction time better than everyone else's including even Raijin. Shooter snapped his arms to the blurs and fired, but he lagged behind even trying to lead the two women who were too fast for him to shoot. Raijin rose his risen arm higher and curled his fingers up to fire a huge mass of electricity in front of him in an expanding cone.

The older of the women who just busted straight through the wall of the house near the corner next to Diamondfist pressed her feet down on his back and then shot off of him after indenting him into the ground. Rabbit was strong and reacted quickly to the woman who had a similar Quirk as him, jumping towards her as she bounced forward so as to quicken the time it would take for her to reach her second target. He thought she would not expect to be closed-in on like that only a second after she arrived, but Miruko reached two muscular arms up and caught his legs as he was kicking them at her. She caught him by the calves, and as she came down she swung Rabbit down into the ground like he weighed nothing. He bounced off the ground letting out a gasp of spit as she nearly broke his back, then Miruko bounced towards Raijin's back while flinging Rabbit towards Shooter who dove to the side so Rabbit just brushed into the long blond braid that trailed behind him.

Marx got slammed into by Rabbit and both of them were slammed back into the refrigerator too hard that it fell over on top of them. Miruko extended her feet at Raijin's back, which the villain saw and was starting to dodge as he thought he already had his first enemy who his widened blast of electricity was sure to have hit. Two arms shot out of the cone of electricity before Raijin could even start turning though, and Fantasma's head rose out above them with a huge grin spread across her undamaged face. Her palms smashed into his chest so hard that it sent him flying straight into Miruko's kicks Raijin saw start but did not expect to have to dodge so quickly.

The blows on his upper chest and lower back were strong hits that landed directly on him, but Miruko landed and jumped straight after the young man she sent flying. She felt the surge of electricity he sent into her legs in the moment of impact showing neither her nor her sidekick's blows had knocked him out.

"It's Miruko!" Ashido shouted at the screen in the common room of Class A's dorm building.

"Indago-senpai too!" Uraraka exclaimed. "Oh my God- Rubber?!"

"It is very likely," Yaoyorozu said, having already put it together from the moment she saw Indago's first attack. "Fantasma, is Raijin's natural enemy."

"Damn it," Bakugo growled under his breath. He stepped closer to the common area where a few of his classmates looked his way and made room for the one among them who had been a part of Miruko's agency for a long time. _Doing this without me…_ His anger at them for leaving him behind was only a smoldering upset feeling inside him, with a much more intense look covering up that anger and his eyes narrowed in focus at the screen still showing what was happening inside that house even as it descended into chaos again.

Meta's fists erupted in bright red light as did his eyes, and he slammed his hands down on the ground yelling, "Get back boys!"

It was the only warning he was going to give the villains who had not known about the ambush in the first place. Pinoko leapt backwards from Best Jeanist who had turned his head to the side and was controlling her clothes, even as she fought against him to keep controlling his body. Best Jeanist was not yet up on his feet though, finding himself too paralyzed from the initial electrocution to move well at all. So when the ground below his knees cracked, all he could do was dart his eyes down with them opening wide in shock. The cracks spread quickly, much too quickly he realized instantly with a dart of his gaze towards Meta who smirked in the shadows cast by his glowing red hands and eyes. _He knew,_ Best Jeanist thought in the haze, right before the ground below him broke apart into a massive pit that swallowed up the couch and Wash too, and that Samurai fell into unable to move away quick enough.

"Samurai!"

"WASH!" Dry yelled out too, running towards Meta in anger and lifting arms that funneled into swirling gray tornadoes-

Dry slowed down and started turning his head to the right, where Sonic sprinted at him ten times faster than he was moving and brought a knife from the kitchen at his throat. Sonic spun his head and turned the knife, but the muscular leg bent fast as Miruko's foot first touched him, and she extended that leg at almost full force sending Sonic flying at shattered back windows so hard that he broke through the wooden railing of the deck's other side he flew all the way into. Meta moved towards Dry when the man turned towards Sonic though, and Miruko yelled at him, "Dodge you id-" her insult at her fellow hero never finished, and she never would finish it as Meta slammed a Magma fist into Dry's chest and blasted a fist-shape of Magma out his back and up into the ceiling it melted through too. A hole ripped in the ceiling and the second floor's floor and the wall of that upstair's bedroom so the fist continued flying outside and going far before arcing down into the forest it would set ablaze after dropping into.

"Bastard," Miruko snarled, though as she landed there was no time to attack Meta. Instead, she bounced towards the pit that had opened across most of the living room, spun her body in midair, and kicked off the edge of the hole on the foundation of the house to bounce down at the heroes dropping towards what looked like the depths of Hell. _They knew!_ Miruko thought, as there was already a huge pit of Magma deep below the house at the bottom of a huge wide hole that had been dug a half mile deep.

There was a hidden camera imbedded in the walls of that pit too, catching the image of Miruko bouncing down on falling debris and catching a shouting Samurai first. She then bounced off another wall and caught Wash who was dented badly and likely dead, then she shot towards Best Jeanist who had spun himself in the air to look up but could not manage to do anything as he fell. "What are you doing?" Miruko snapped at the hero who was supposed to be ranked higher than her on the leaderboard. She caught him and continued flying at the nearest wall of the pit to bounce on again but in the other direction this time. "You don't get to drop here. They need you up-" Miruko's eyes had already risen back to the surface where she needed to get these heroes and continue fighting.

The hidden camera showing the woman who just saved those heroes transmitted the images down in that hole across the country. Everyone felt hope as she caught even Best Jeanist who fell first, and then they all felt the worst dread imaginable as the spot she pushed her feet in on the wall crumbled. Miruko's eyes darted down at the spot her feet were pressing in on that fell apart on her touch. It was not just that area either, as she realized when that collapsing wall spread to the dirt connected on all sides that had been piled up so weakly it could barely contain the red light she only now saw through the cracks on the other side as the thin dirt wall crumbled.

Miruko kicked off as hard as she could, wincing as her feet pushed into Magma that had been piled on the other side in secret pockets. She flipped back towards the middle of the hole, keeping calm even as she was dropping just above the surface of a Magma pit looking and _feeling_ like the heart of a volcano. Her clothes were burning, and the skin of the heroes she had caught was searing, but her focus was unwavering and she pushed her feet into the couch that hit the Magma pool and was quickly melting into it while on fire. She bent her legs into the flames on the only thing solid down there that she could trust wouldn't break apart, and she put the most force she could into a bounce high up in the hole.

 _Make it!_ Zach thought as he watched her shoot out of the flames with her legs on fire and her teeth bared in pain and focus.

"Make it," Bakugo seethed through his teeth, watching as Miruko rose up higher so she was almost on level with the hidden camera but on the other side of the hole as it. Miruko pulled up her feet as much as she could with her purple leggings burnt off and her skin burned in the second and third degree. She grinned as she found her feet pressing into the wall, and then a shadow came over her and her eyes darted to the top of the pit, where a wave of Magma just filled the entire width of the hole she was planning on bouncing out of.

"Miruko!" Fantasma yelled, changing directions and flying towards Meta faster than the villain was able to raise his arms. Fantasma slammed her leg into Meta and sent him flying into Shooter devastatingly considering the high speed she sent him flying.

Without Shooter to worry about, Icarus flew across the room and dove into the hole above the wave of Magma. "Best Jeanist!" He yelled, not seeing anyone but hoping there was a gap between the Magma at the bottom and the level dropping now.

Miruko did not have time to come up with a plan or think about anything else. She bent her legs, harder than she ever had no matter how much it hurt, and she gripped all three of the heroes she held in her muscular arms harder. _Wash might be dead, but those cameras are watching._ A smirk spread over Miruko's reddened face burned from the heat of the Magma on all sides of her, as she imagined All Might's destroyed body in Camino Ward. _But there are a lot of things heroes have to protect!_ Her body became a blur as she shot towards the top of the hole, leaving a Miruko-shaped hole in the thick layer of Magma falling towards her that was not thick enough to stop her from busting out the top of it.

Indago Fera kept her eyes locked on Raijin who shot towards her in a house full of chaos. In her peripherals she saw Miruko rise though, and it was all she needed to fully focus on her enemy who grinned at her with a feeling of murderous intent radiating off him that she could feel in her core. The young hero in a bright red costume locked her blue eyes on Raijin's golden yellow ones. The two blonds glared at each other, in a split second that lasted long enough for both to get their feelings across to the other before they raced forward solely in attack.

 _Maybe electricity won't work on you,_ Raijin whipped up his right arm while sprinting around the outside of the room. A spear of lightning condensed in his right hand, and he shot towards the middle of the room and the edge of the pit where Fantasma was turning her head and following him without her body moving. She had no constraints in how far her neck could turn though, her Quirk: Rubber allowing her to twist her head without moving her body. Raijin sprinted forward and slammed his spear of lightning into Fantasma's side, _But heat-_

Raijin was ready to dodge as Fantasma swung her right arm from the far side of Raijin's approach across the front of her body. She did not aim at him though, but at the ground behind where Raijin had shot in to attack her. His jump backwards brought him farther than she punched down, but her fist hit the ground hard enough to break apart the floorboards and send debris flying up at the younger teenager by a year who moved his head and body left and right dodging each piece as it shot towards him. Sparks flew off of Kaminari's glowing body, moving him faster than almost anyone. Fantasma's legs bent down though. They bent even farther than just at her knees, as her skin and flesh and bones between her knees and ankles pumped down and turned all of her skin a much darker red with so much more steam coming off of her.

Raijin expected Fantasma to charge through the debris and get him while he was dodging it all, but she used that moment he was dodging to instead speed herself up even more. He saw this and ground his teeth while still smirking, though he felt pain as so much more electricity surrounded his body and filled the room.

Behind Fantasma, Miruko had risen to the top of her arc. Most citizens in the country could not follow Fantasma and Raijin as they moved faster than the untrained eye could see. What they could see though, was their fifth-ranked hero rise up with Magma splashing away from her. She twisted her muscular arms that had liquid fire dripping down them and melting off her flesh, and she spun with all her strength to throw the three heroes she had grabbed towards a safe landing area. That twist of her arms too was so fast, that it not only shook off much of the Magma on her arms, but all of the Magma that had gotten on the heroes she was trying to save. She actually got more Magma off of them than she did off of her own body with the movement meant to do just that.

Icarus may have been Best Jeanist's sidekick, but he shot towards the hole and straight at Miruko who was starting to fall back into it as she did not arc far enough towards any side of the pit where she could save herself. Chairs flew towards Icarus, then they dropped without any control on them as a muscular arm of steel slammed into the metal-controller's back. The German never saw the arm coming, as there was no hero behind him. The arm that hit him was not connected to any hero's body though.

Grappler was panting as he glared up while on his knees ten feet from where he just punched Icarus. He was not used to the controls, and The German's Quirk had crushed in the joints on his shoulders which would allow those arms to reconnect to him, but the blue light still glowed inside his crushed left shoulder. He controlled that arm that had a bright blue glow coming out the back of it, knocking out The German and dropping the chairs he had thrown at Icarus. Those chairs dropped into the hole faster than Icarus was flying down though, even as Icarus tried to fly faster down to catch a descending Miruko who saw Icarus reaching his arms slowly down to her.

Her eyes darted to the chairs falling above her, _If I could just reach…_

The hidden camera inside the pit had been destroyed when Meta's top wave of Magma dropped down through its whole area. No one could see inside the pit from the outside where the hidden camera just behind Grappler had caught him take down The German to the cheers of the Japanese people. The people of Japan stopped cheering though, as a hole blew through the front of Flemming's head as he tried to attack a bloody and bruised Sonic who just came back through the back windows he had flown out of before. Shooter was leaning up next to where Marx was crushed under the fridge, blood puddling out around where it had cracked his skull and killed him. The blonde villain with blood trickling down his own forehead under his messy bangs cracked a grin though, as Flemming dropped dead into the living room in front of others in his own agency who yelled his name out in despair and anger.

"You bas-"

Shooter rose his other hand with his pointer finger out, and he started flicking both up over and over. He hit three of his enemies in their heads, before one of his shots flew back and hit him in the right shoulder, and another in his gut. Fantasma had gotten in the way of a downed Linebacker, and she bounced Shooter's bullets off of her own body straight back into the man. She tried not to hit anywhere vital, but it was not a priority to her at the moment. Shooter's head bowed as he lowered his left hand down to his stomach, a groan escaping his lips and blood pouring through his fingers and down his right arm.

"AhhHHH-"

"MIRUKO!" Fantasma yelled, never having heard her pro yell out in so much pain before.

"Miruko-" Icarus started flying faster down as he had left Sonic's sight for too long, the hold on him released. He reached down farther with his right arm burning, all the hair on it shriveling up and his skin turning red as he reached for Miruko's right hand that she rose for him to take.

The Magma at the pit's deepest level bubbled like wild. Miruko's risen arm melted quicker, her scream getting shriller and then cutting off, right before a huge bubble of Magma popped and got all over Icarus who screamed himself and spun out. He slammed into a wall down there that broke apart upon him hitting it, making more Magma spill out a hidden pocket and coat his body that fell into the pool of it that Meta looked down from the edge of the pit into with a terrifying grin spreading over his face.

Fantasma had been distracted by Miruko's scream, and she only pulled away at the last second, which was a few milliseconds too late. Raijin crossed her side already burnt by his lightning spear with a knife splashing blood out, and Zach screamed into his phone at the receptionist stone-walling him. "I NEED THAT ADDRESS NOW!" _INDAGO!_

"Fuuucckk," Bakugo stepped closer to the tv in the common room that all of Class A were staring at with huge and afraid eyes as they heard those screams.

 _Miruko?_ Midoriya thought in disbelief. He could see another hero on the floor unmoving and looking beaten down, not far from a sidekick of his who had a large hole through their chest. _Wash, and Dry! Best-_

Sonic and Meta had grinned as they heard those yells cut off in the pit Meta had prepared beforehand. They started to turn though as they heard a deep wheeze of breath that somehow sounded terrifying in its own right. The two of their bodies got clutched so tightly neither of them could breathe, as a charred Best Jeanist curled his hands in and suffocated the two of them. Best Jeanist's eyes were shadowed over but glaring so darkly at Meta who he had seen act surprised at first, but he knew it was an act now. _It was all a trap from the beginning,_ Jeanist thought in regretful rage. _It's why he "foolishly" let himself get spotted out in Koimou on a day particularly hot so it was believable for him to remove clothing. It was Raijin's plan, but that Magma…_ Best Jeanist tightened even more, blood coming out of wounds opening up on the Tartaros escapees' bodies being squeezed so hard.

And then those two men were released. Best Jeanist's own hands turned inwards, and his own clothes started to tighten around him with fibers tightening most around his neck. So many fibers tightened so fast around his neck that there was a thick jean choker suffocating him and getting tighter each moment. Fantasma had felt the ability to focus solely on Raijin who she forced to back up with rapid steaming punches forward so fast it looked like she had dozens of arms punching in front of her, which took out the other few remaining villains on that side of her other than Raijin. "Best Jeanist!" Grappler yelled out.

Fantasma did not drop her guard this time as she saw Raijin waiting for her to do just that. She saw the fibers loosen around Meta in her peripheral vision though, and although he and Sonic dropped to their knees gasping in pain, she felt the deepest sense of dread as screams all over the room for Best Jeanist cut off in shock.

Pinoko had pulled all six of her arms away. The three on her left pulled away from the three on her right, making Best Jeanist's right and left hand pull away suddenly from each other, tightening his own clasp on his neck more than ever and closing the loop like a guillotine.

All over Japan, people cried out in horror and shock. Tears ran down their faces, and screams echoed out of every building in Musutafu around Zach. The people on the sidewalk with him gasped in horror. All the cars on the road had stopped, with people standing outside of them looking towards electronic billboards and televisions in absolute horror. Best Jeanist's head rose up in the air spinning and spinning, and falling to the ground away from his own body, rolling into Fantasma's peripheral vision to not a flinch from the nineteen year old girl whose body shot to the right in the fastest blur of the day.

Her fist lodged into Pinoko's face so hard her face squished inwards, her nose busting with blood flying out around Fantasma's knuckles even as her own blood spilled out of her left side. Pinoko was thrown limp through the damaged wall dividing the living room from the hallway, and then through the next wall too into a guest room she got lodged halfway through the outer wall of. Fantasma kept facing Raijin as her feet skid to a stop, and then she whipped her right leg out in front of her body and slammed it across her front into both Sonic and Meta's heads after the two Tartaros escapees had dropped to their knees from Best Jeanist's last hold on them.

Raijiin did not move as it happened. He just smirked at the girl older than him by a year, the sixth-ranked hero in the country despite still being an intern for the hero ranked one spot above her. Fantasma glared back in rage at Raijin, but the calmest rage imaginable for her to still be standing there instead of rushing at him in a blind fury.

Bakugo knew he would not have been as composed as Indago was. Part of him wanted to scream at her to charge Raijin and _kill_ him, and yet he found his eyes dragging to to the corners and glaring so hard at his classmate with half white and half red hair.

Todoroki could feel the glare boring into him. He turned his head towards Bakugo, and every inch of his body felt for his friend who he hated he had to shake his head at. Bakugo glared back at the tv, hating what he had just done himself. Todoroki knew what the look was for though. Iida and Midoriya saw Todoroki's shake of his head and both felt their heart rates spike as one of the last hopes they had was squashed. _Dad's not in the country,_ Todoroki thought, his stomach turning over and his chest tightening up as he looked at the bloodbath on the screen. _I don't know what he's doing, but there was something_ _ **big**_ _happening this weekend. With the ADTF. I don't know, how many of the top heroes are even in the country to get there as backup._

 _Zach, get there already!_ Ashido thought, her heart pounding as she watched her senpai stare down their old classmate who looked so confident and smug despite it being a one-on-one now.

"Why aren't you going to help them?!" A man yelled on Zach's left side, stumbling towards the muscular teenager in a black hoodie who was just staring at the screens in front of him with a phone up to his head.

"They won't tell him where it is!" A woman between them spun and held off the man, both in defense of Lifebringer and trying to help the man who froze at the sight of Lifebringer's face.

"Talk to me," Zach growled into his phone.

"Sir!" Nikko's receptionist yelled at the man while lowering one of the two phones she was holding again.

The executive cabinet were all gathered in Nikko's office, and top hero officials were yelling at each other while almost everyone was on the phone was someone else. "Damn it Endeavor!" Nikko yelled over the phone he had shaking as he held it to his head, watching between his advisors at the big screen across the room from his desk. "How long will that be?! …NO! We don't have that kind of time- Lemillion can't get there that fast."

"We have a team of American heroes at the U.S. Okinawa training facility ready to move in," the Secretary of Foreign Affairs yelled. "They have a Class S Ultra-Jet on a carrier three hundred miles out ready to move in to pick them up and drop them at the location-"

"SIR! It's Lifebringer again, and I can't tell him-"

"Out!" Nikko snapped at the woman who came in this time instead of just buzzing him on the desk. _All I was told was that I can't tell Lifebringer! I CAN STOP THIS!_ Nerves shook the Prime Minister in his first crisis since the Subspace Devils attempted to invade Desusuta. "What is the status on getting the televisions back under control-"

"Every station is being overtaken. It's like the satellite itself is under their control!"

"Is this the only place we have to worry about?! Their attack could be on a wider scale-"

"What should I tell Lifebringer-"

"Call in Gang Orca and tell him to move with his agency and any heroes he's gathered already! Send the location-"

"They'll still be over fifty minutes to respond!"

Heroes mobilized all over the country. Miruko and Fantasma had been the backup to arrive though. They had turned the tides again after they looked to have flipped upon Raijin's emergence on the scene, but now the heroes and villains were all down leaving just her on her feet, Frolick pulling injured sidekicks back towards the deck, and Grappler scooting out of Fantasma's way so as not to give Raijin any collateral he could use to get the drop on the powerful young woman. Fantasma's body was made out of rubber, but her fingernails were still sharp. Blood dripped between the fingers of her clenched fists. Blood came down her left side though it was hard to tell the damage done to her thanks to her already red costume.

Raijin did not wear a costume but a casual orange t-shirt with his villain name in script on the back written in yellow. That shirt was ripped at the left shoulder, on the front and the back, while his black jeans were just ripped up around the knees though that looked more like the intentional design than damage done to him. Steam came off of Fantasma, and sparks flew from Raijin's body, and the two of them flew at each other with Fantasma's right forearm slamming into Raijin's left that he rose in the same way crossed in front of his body as the two collided above the ground in a living room that had caught fire in a few places. Smoke filled the second floor already, other walls of the building were enflamed, the fire was spreading to the deck on the south side, and the building's foundation shook upon Fantasma and Raijin's collision that blew wind and sparks and steam around them.

"Your rubbery body is quite immune to my electricity," Raijin flipped around the knife in his right hand and then flicked it up into his opened left hand above the cross of his forearm with Fantasma's. After he caught it he flicked it right away with electricity coated all over the blade at the hero, and though she pulled her head away fast, he pulled the electricity off of it and into her eyes as the blade passed. Even though that still did not work to damage her, it partially blinded the girl for a moment.

Fantasma just closed her eyes though, and she kneed up into Raijin's gut while the younger teen formed a blade of electricity even more condensed than the spear he had almost pierced through her Rubber skin with before. Her knee rose so fast Raijin barely saw it coming, and seeing it coming did not save him from flying up into the ceiling and cracking it with a dozen branches breaking off and dust falling down back through the smoke with him. He grit his teeth in pain, and he swung his arms towards heroes on the floor to his right.

Grappler dove towards Linebacker and yelled out in pain before falling unconscious as he took a full blast of electricity in the back to save his sidekick. "Grappler!" Frolick yelled towards his fellow pro who fell unmoving after taking that blow. He glanced towards his own sidekick who Raijin just fried black despite Ant-Beater's already unconscious state, and Frolick held back tears as he darted towards Grappler's body instead and grabbed the man who twitched and his sidekick below who groaned but was still alive too.

Fantasma heard that scream, and she squinted open her eyes while already bending down and targeting where she knew Raijin was about to land. Smoke rushed by her and pulled after her back as she flew five hundred kilometers an hours at where Raijin was landing, and she swung her arms forward only to lose balance and start falling forward with less force in her blows.

Diamondfist's back was bruised up, and the floorboards he had broken through when Miruko hit him out of nowhere had cut up his body as he only protected his vitals with Diamond armor in that instant before he collided with the ground. He had protected his head enough to keep consciousness though, and he had seen Raijin make eye contact with him before in a split second moment. He tried to grab her by the legs, but Fantasma was so fast that all he managed to do was put his arms in the way of her legs. It was enough to send her upper body pushing forward and down though, but when it looked like Raijin would be able to attack over her arms with an easy blow straight into her face, Fantasma struck forward with all her force at the ground between her and Raijin.

An explosion of debris and dust blew apart from where her palms just slammed into the floor. She hit the ground and rolled through her own crater, then dove through the dust and slammed her fist forward out of it and into Raijin's arms he crossed fast with his eyes opening wide at how fast she followed-up there despite not seeing Diamondfist at all before he tripped her. Despite her fist being blocked by his crossed arms though, her foot kicked up between the crossing point and caught him under the chin sending him flying backwards with a cut ripping on the bottom of his chin that had blood splashing out of it. Fantasma grit her teeth through her own pain, and she knew everyone was watching, and through the haze and the smoke, Fantasma forced out a smile showing she had control of this. Even as she bled, even as she fought all alone, Fantasma charged forward at where Raijin hit down and rolled backwards onto a knee and a foot, his right hand pushing down on the ground with sparks skidding out of where he dragged himself backwards into the dining room.

Fantasma's body slowed down again. Her eyes darted to the right as she kept running still faster than most anyone could. Meta had been knocked fully out by her kick before just as Pinoko had by her punch, but Sonic glared towards her with a smirk as she was slowed while facing the fastest among them. Diamondfist got up too, and he lifted up a knife he grabbed from the floor next to him before stepping towards Fantasma's back.

 _ **Booom!**_ The wall on Raijin's right side blew apart.

Debris flew out of the flames of the Explosion. Fantasma's focus split in all directions in the same moment. She saw Diamondfist behind her drop down and slam his knife into Samurai's neck, ripping through while Frolick screamed at him and tried to run in to stop him. _I won't allow a single other hero to die!_ Fantasma decided it, while also keeping in mind Sonic who she noted was dragging himself up to his feet while still using his Quirk on her. Raijin had the chance to attack her now, though she was still prepared to fight him as she accounted for how slow she may have become. She knew she needed to take Sonic out first, and she almost had her chance as the wall next to Raijin blew apart, but she never needed to head that way as Highwind tackled Sonic in the middle of that villain getting up. They rolled away into the smoke of the hallway pouring into the kitchen and disappeared from her sight, and she felt herself speed up at the same time.

All that split focus narrowed though on the figure who flew through the explosion at Raijin who turned in utter shock towards it. The sight of the person there blew Fantasma's mind, and yet she grinned while Raijin stared in shock and jumped away just in time to avoid the second explosion that Bakugo blasted in that dining room, forcing Raijin back into the entryway. Raijin landed, and then a mass of electricity blasted behind him and sent him back into the dining room where Bakugo pointed his right green gauntlet in front of him and fired a blast out of it, while pointing his left the other way at the cracked windows Grappler had dove through first, sending himself flying towards Fantasma and then spinning so his back was to hers.

Fantasma turned and glared furiously at Diamondfist who froze as he saw who just came in their building. He backed up, and Fantasma punched a fist out into his face faster than he could harden it with Diamond. He flew backwards without hitting anything. Viscucci flew through destroyed glass doors and over a deck covering more in flames with each passing second. Frolick shot into the billowing smoke of the kitchen as Highwind came stumbling backwards with a bloodied nose and Sonic beating him to a pulp. Frolick attacked Sonic, and Fantasma panted while turning her head and then her body to face the same direction as Bakugo. "Nice of you to show up," Fantasma said, panting slowly while glaring into the dining room where a silhouette moved through the smoke of those explosions.

"Like I'd miss this," Bakugo growled back.

Raijin stepped through the dining room and turned his head inside that smoke that flashed and strobed at random times. Two small circles of white light glowed inside it at his head level, and both Fantasma and Bakugo narrowed their eyes through that smoke. Bakugo stepped forward, his hands raising up. "Let's get this bastard..."

"IT'S NOT ME!" Bakugo screamed at the tv screen in front of him, like it would somehow make Indago hear him. All of his classmates stared at the screen and their classmate in front of it in horror as the Bakugo on the screen started lifting the corners of his lips in a sadistic smirk. That smirk spread so much, as a knife slid out of the green gauntlet on Bakugo's left hand. Fantasma was still glaring towards the silhouette in the smoke of the dining room, but when the other girl in front of her spun around and brought the knife at Indago's face, Fantasma's head snapped ten feet to the right with her neck extending it over there.

Raijin's glowing white eyes grew wide. Himiko Toga's tiny red Bakugo irises grew wide too, just as the real Bakugo's did. Nikko and all the other advisors panicking froze with their jaws dropping, and Zach stopped yelling out at his screen about who that really was with his eyes opening huge too. "Don't underestimate heroes." Fantasma said it loudly and with a smirk on her own face, and her arms flew back behind her and stretched so far her hands went out over the burning deck and above a forest that was catching fire too.

Toga dropped the knife and swung both gauntlets forward with a huge blast in front of her that engulfed Fantasma and shook the camera that caught that on video. Everyone leaned forward with their hopeful looks wavering, as it looked like Fantasma was hit… "You call those Explosions?!"

All the smoke blew away from them as Fantasma's arms shot back inside in an instant, both palms slamming into Bakugo and breaking apart his gauntlets and knocking the skin right off him. Toga flew out of her disguise and straight at Raijin who dove to his right, only for his legs to still get hit by a naked Toga that made him spin out and hit the ground in a barrel-roll. He snapped up looking like he thought Fantasma was already charging at him, a look in his eyes in that moment of so much intensity and violent focus, and he glared with that look straight into Fantasma's unshaken eyes full of conviction and unwavering determination at his glare.

She stomped forward and put a footprint in the ground as she cracked the floorboards beneath it, and she yelled out, "RAIJIN! I _WILL_ STOP YOU HERE!" Her voice blasted out of every screen in Japan.

"DO IT!" Present Mic yelled at his screen at his former student while in the teachers' lounge with a half dozen colleagues.

Ashido's fists clenched so hard as she was filled with so much hope and she screamed at the tv, "FANTASMA!"

 _"Win,"_ Bakugo seethed through his teeth, his voice still cracking even as he did not bring his voice any louder in knowledge that it would crack if he did. He felt like an idiot for underestimating her so much, that she would think so little of him that she could believe in Toga's representation of him. The panic and fear he had felt that Toga was going to kill her using his own body, became sheer admiration for his senpai who did not fall for what he knew he would have. His fists shook at his sides, and he seethed it again louder at his screen, _"WIN!"_

Raijin shot forward in a flash of lightning. Fantasma vanished too. Walls cracked, and smoke dispersed in shockwaves around the room. The lingering glass shards on window frames blasted outwards, and those frames themselves cracked over and over. Midoriya, Bakugo, Todoroki, and Iida's eyes darted back and forth on the screen they were watching so fast that their own classmates wanting to yell about not being able to see anything could not in fear of breaking their concentration on what they clearly _could_ see.

Tokoyami was not there in the common room, and wherever he and Hawks were it was not at this scene. Heroes racing across the country watched on tablets as best they could, with only a few like Lemillion and Nejire-chan, Mt. Lady and Kamui Woods, Underguard and Gran Torino, able to see them. Shoji, Asui, and Yaoyorozu caught glimpses on the screen, but Raijin and Fantasma moved so fast it was like real life was happening in slow motion around them.

Then Raijin slammed into the ground and bounced off slower than he had been moving on his own. And in the following second where Fantasma was going to follow up, Frolick screamed behind her and on her right. Frolick's scream came out lower-pitched than the man's usual high-pitched tone. _No one else._ Fantasma touched down on the ground and shot at Sonic so fast he did not even see her this time unlike before when he at least braced for her leg about to kick him in the face. This time, he flew through the kitchen sink and the wall past it with nothing stopping him as he felt like he got hit by a truck he never saw coming.

Raijin shot behind her, and Fantasma swung around with her right Rubber arm extending out across the room in an instant and ripping through the living room walls almost taking out the camera with it as she dragged it across so fast. Raijin ducked faster than her speed though, and though she pulled her body to the side, he was able to catch her again as she was unable to extend far enough to avoid his blow. It was not a knife that Raijin stuck her with this time though, as Fantasma came to realize a second after she shot away from Raijin, as the drug inside the needle he stuck her with poured into her bloodstream.

"What is, this?" Fantasma squirmed, her whole body feeling weak and her arms and legs straining as she tried as hard as she could to stretch or bounce in one direction.

"Don't tell me…" Raijin said, as the electricity all around him simmered and he smirked the most victorious smirk that horrified the Japanese population. People all over the world were watching this now too as news outlets in different countries reported on what was being live-streamed across every Japanese island. Tens of millions watched, as Raijin walked towards a struggling Fantasma and finished, "…You've never heard of the Quirk-Destroying Drug?"

"No," Bakugo gasped, the same time All Might gasped it out in the teachers' lounge full of horrified former teachers of Fera Indago.

"Get out of there!" Nagiso screamed at the tablet he held in his now shaking hands as the jet he was on took off from Hokkaido.

"You didn't want to let anyone else die here, did you?" Raijin asked the girl who had bounced a _safe_ distance from him in the moment he had stuck her. That last action she made while still using her Quirk brought her away from the hero she just saved, and Fantasma's eyes opened huge just as Frolick's did. The man in a hot-pink ripped costume pushed his hands down on the ground to get away, and Indago started running towards him, but Raijin appeared behind the man in a flash of movement Fantasma could not match anymore. Raijin put his hands down on the sides of Frolick's head, and millions listened to the hero's dying screams, though he was not the last hero Fantasma was going to watch scream as they were fried to death in the next thirty seconds.

"Please," Zach whispered into the phone he held to his head again, speaking directly to the receptionist he hoped was listening despite no one having responded to him for so long now. "Please tell me where this is." _I could fly up and search, but the chances I see the smoke… If I can just get them to tell me._ "Tell Nikko, I'll do a press conference with him or- or just tell him I can save them," Zach begged it, his voice getting hoarser and agonized as he watched Raijin turn towards Grappler and Linebacker where Frolick had brought them. Kaminari zapped a charging Fantasma and laughed as she dropped to her knees, paralyzed and unable to go after him as he marched towards other heroes he was going to kill right in front of her, while she was _helpless_ to do anything.

"Sir. We should tell Lifebringer."

Nikko turned to his left at a close advisor, then he looked across his desk at Enri who stared at her husband and gave him a nod with her lips pursed tightly together. The Prime Minister of Japan looked around at the others all around him, then he darkly put his gaze back on the screen. "He only has a provisional license," Nikko said in a low voice. "And I cannot authorize him to go into what, is most likely a trap meant for him." _That's what Raijin said, to use as my last excuse._ Nikko bowed his head, the deepest feeling of shame filling him than ever had before as the people around him agreed that what he said made a lot of sense.

"You, you monster-" Fantasma struggled up onto her feet. She was shaky but stood there firmly and glared down Raijin despite her burnt body and the blood she had lost. Fantasma breathed heavier, and her eyes shifted to the right and where she thought a camera may have been based on what she and Miruko had seen before rushing in. Her breathing slowed, and she turned back to Raijin who walked towards her calmly. Raijin walked across a room in flames, firelight flickering on his face and shadows casting over his eyes. He smirked at her, and then Fantasma started to the younger teen by one year, "You will lose. They'll beat you."

She stood still and did not flinch as Raijin walked right up in front of her. Indago stared down the blond teenage boy who continued smirking all the way until he was only two feet in front of her body. "Class A will-"

Raijin swung his right hand in front of him in a quick movement sped up by his electricity. He swept his hand across the front of Fantasma's neck before the girl could raise her arms, and the knife sticking out of his grasp slashed open her throat. She fell backwards with her hands rising a little farther but falling limp as she was hitting the ground. Some blood sprayed on Raijin, but she had fallen too fast for much to get on him. He stood there in a building cracked on all sides, engulfed in flames from Meta's Magma. "I _am_ Class A," Raijin said with a deadly smirk at the dead girl laying in front of him.

Nikko fell into his chair behind his desk as he watched that teenage girl get her throat cut. He dropped his head into his hands as he heard audible gasps and sobs from the others in his office. _I killed her. It's not about sleeping with another woman anymore. Now, it's not about blackmail. I've done, the worst thing- I'm a villain._

Raijin turned towards the hidden camera that survived the trap. "Not Lifebringer, not Deku. _I_ am Class A."

"Sorry, Lifebringer. The answer is no." A quiet female voice whispered in his ear. Zach lowered the phone from his head. He stared at the screen in despair and right into Raijin's eyes that millions of people stared at in fear and with tears in their eyes.

"And we are the League of Villains," Kaminari grinned at what he just announced to the world. "We never disappeared. We were just waiting. And now is our time…"

Raijin took a step towards the camera, and then he looked around the room he was in as the only one still standing. "You know what, Zach?" Raijin glanced back at the camera and then down at Fantasma who he nodded at with a merciful look. "I think I'll leave Fantasma's body here. If you can reach her in time, that is. The rest, well I think Meta's Magma will be a good resting place." Raijin looked back at the camera and straight into Zach's eyes with a knowing look that caused Zach's fists to tremble as he balled them in fury. Then the camera cut off, and all the stations and ads returned to their usual programming.

"We have to send Lifebringer, now," Shichi Koi said, the old man stepping in front of Nikko's desk and saying it without room for argument.

Nikko lifted his head up and stared into the old man's eyes, and he nodded after a couple seconds as everyone stared towards him awaiting orders. "Call him," he said loudly. "Tell him the location, and tell everyone else to be careful that Raijin may still be there laying a trap for all the reinforcements. What is Hawks' ETA…"

"Lifebringer!" Zach turned slowly from the screens in front of him and looked down the sidewalk on his left where so many people had gathered. "You have to go save her!"

"Save Fantasma!"

"Stop Raijin!"

Zach covered his body in Death and jumped up high. He flapped massive wings of Death below him and shot off higher and higher, awaiting the call he knew would come soon. _No matter how fast it comes, he'll be gone by the time I arrive. All their bodies will be destroyed. Grappler-_ Zach thought of the man he had spoken to not a week ago. The man who he had pushed _so hard_ into getting back in the field, who he had expedited his surgery to get him new-and-improved arms in a single day. His heart gripped, _Why did I do that? Why- why couldn't I get there in time? And why does Kaminari know that I already brought her back?!_

"Bakugo!" Kirishima called it after his friend who was walking towards the stairwell away from his classmates.

"Wh- Kacchan?" Midoriya stepped after his childhood friend who bit down so hard and froze for a second.

"She'll be alright," Todoroki said while looking at Bakugo's back.

Uraraka stepped up next to Midoriya and then another step farther. "Bakugo… we're-"

Bakugo kept walking to the stairs without saying a word after he stopped like that seeming like he might say something. _No one knew,_ Bakugo thought. He walked away and up the stairs, _Only me and Miruko knew… And Zach knows too, but Kaminari has to have- Fuuuucccckkk._ Bakugo continued to his room after leaving without saying a word to the others, his expression emotionless as he left them all in the common room in panic and discussing what was happening.

Bakugo walked into his room and closed the door. Then he stopped. He stopped just inside his door, and the face he had made while in front of his classmates and kept the whole time up there flinched. His teeth bared and ground back and forth, as his hands trembled at his sides. In his head he saw Miruko and Indago on either side of him, both smirking and laughing as they teased and bullied him. He was snapping at them for it, though both women just teased him more for those reactions… And then he saw those same two stuck on a plane with him where he was just trying to watch a movie through the flight, and the two at his sides in their row fell asleep after a long day of fighting down in Kyushu.

He closed his eyes while lifting his shaking hands up to his head. He curled his fingers into his hair and gripped his temples, his teeth shaking which made him grind them even harder as he tried to hold it together. He saw them though, as the two who fell asleep dropped their heads on his shoulders. Both of them doing it one after the other, he thought they had to be teasing him and trying to get a reaction out of him. Embarrassed, or something… Bakugo's clenched teeth gasped open with a sharp breath breaking out of his mouth in a cracked voice, his eyes snapping open so he watched as water dripped from them and fell on his floor. _Why am I thinking about…_

He did not say anything because he did not want to play into their trick, but when it lasted longer he noticed both were actually asleep… and he didn't wake them up. Bakugo gasped in, as watched Miruko falling back down into that hole after the last time he saw her bloody burning body raise above it. Then his right hand gripped into his temple moved to the side of his face, and he brushed it over his cheek. His eyes shut closed, and he pressed his back against his door and dropped down on his butt. His hand dropped from his cheek as he saw Indago walking down that tunnel away from the Sports Festival stadium after she graduated, and tears ran down his face over both cheeks when he opened his eyes to see that girl falling in front of him with her neck opened up. "Ahh… ahh-" Bakugo rose his arm up in front of his mouth, bit down on it, and he screamed into it as he drew blood, "NNnnnnnnnNNNN!"


	201. Chapter 201

**Disclaimer: I don't own Boku no Hero Academia**

 **Chapter 201:**

Zach sat in an abandoned room on the fourth floor of a building of Musutafu. He stared out the windows into the dark of the early morning following the worst defeat heroes in Japan had suffered in years. No one had labeled what happened yet. Some information had come out showing the raid had been designated by Best Jeanist as Operation Atem, so most of the world just referred it to that so far. The failed Operation Atem. The trap set by Kaminari Denki, a.k.a. Raijin. The re-emergence of the League of Villains. It had been brutal to watch. With every screen hijacked across Japan, thousands of children had seen the raid as well. Millions watched as their heroes were massacred.

Villains won the day.

The only light in the room Zach was in came from his computer sitting open on the unused bed next to the chair he sat on. He stared out the window as in his peripheral vision news stories popped up every few minutes showing reports of villains emerging all over the world. His backpack rested against the wall next to the door of this dead man's bedroom. He wore all black and his hair was pushed down, his bangs getting long again though he felt no need for another haircut. He stared through eyes shadowed over by those bangs into a darkness that would only last another hour before the sun began to rise on a new day.

The eighteen year old sitting there closed his laptop and got up off the chair without a word or a shift in his expression. He walked towards his backpack and took out his extra clothes, tossed them into a corner, then he took off what he was wearing now that was the set he chose to keep so people would see him wearing the same things on occasion. The other sets of clothing that he just tossed aside he switched with two sets he grabbed out of the dead man's dressers. He put one of those sets on, and he put on a new hoodie too from the man's closet. Then he put on his stuffed backpack and headed out of the building down an unused staircase to a door that scraped the floor as he pushed it open.

He stepped out on the road, a road he was very familiar with. He had seen a villain incident on this road once back in middle school. The dark street looked more lit up to him as he recalled it, staring to his side and remembering the villain who charged at him and his cross country team. Zach pictured a third year at the time when he was only a second year get in the way of the villain while he just tried to get the others back, and then he remembered the hero who came and saved him and Nagiso from the villain. Best Jeanist faded from his mind, but Nagiso's voice echoed in his head even louder.

 _That's one more. Nagiso already suspected me though, most likely._ In his head he imagined the call he received yesterday that had been making his phone beep during the first call he got from Nikko's office on the address of the incident. Nagiso yelled at him when he picked up. _He got my number through Bikergang who got it for him from Roady he knew I worked with… the other day- I gave myself away on that call._ Zach grimaced and started down the sidewalk that got dark again with not a car on it that early in the morning. _That I couldn't bring her back. Even before I had gone there to "save" her myself, I knew I couldn't do it, and I know he knows that I already knew after he heard what I said afterwards on camera. Even though it took me so long to get there, everyone knew it was within my time limit. And it's my own fault. Everyone knows, that I denied the press conference with Nikko. There was no official back-channel between us for me to use. One that I could have created! But, I made sure it didn't exist myself._

 _I don't know if Nikko denied me solely because of this antagonistic relationship the media's made us out to have. Or maybe he didn't ignore me at all and was just trying other pros? Maybe he's actually begun to regret letting me out, or- or what? I don't know, because I didn't want to know. I didn't want to take part in politics or use my popularity from back when I was released from prison, and now the country's turned against me. First they lose faith in me. Then in the rest of the heroes who failed- heroes can't fail. They're supposed to always win. Heroes always do, and yet this time they failed. They failed to no benefits. Nothing of value, at least._

Zach flew into the air and rose up a pair of wireless headphones he put in while he shot away. _Endeavor stepped down too. Some people think it was because of what happened here, but it was probably just his own failure. Two in one day._ Zach's red eyes narrowed into the distant sky as he flew through gray morning skies. It looked like it was going to rain; appropriate for the sort of day Zach figured was ahead. _Star-Spangled Man is now in charge of the ADTF. That speech he gave was harsh, using "terrorists" and "villains" over and over. Nothing like the man who once spoke of his gratitude after the LoS raid._

 _"_ _ **Yes, every member of our team is still alive, but… I was killed during the raid. As were several of our comrades, both in the ADTF and in the Army of Death."**_ Zach heard what Star-Spangled Man once said in gratitude towards him, then what he heard the evening before televised across the world. _**"…Hypocrites who use terror to condemn weapons' testing while using those very same weapons themselves… Terrorists who force their way into government buildings to threaten heads of state and officials, ignoring national borders, breaking every law known to man under the guise of vigilantism. Murderers, thieves… Make no mistake, there is only one way to define the Army of Death."**_

 _ **"Villains."**_

 _Now that Star-Spangled Man has revealed how Death escaped, nations are able to use concern about those weapons to make their own. Leaders worried about the weapons the ADTF claim that Death used in order to get himself out of there, firing missiles at heroes!_ Zach frowned deeply and then shook his black head around with a few wisps coming off it as he did it so fast. _It was necessary, I'm sure. Death's narrow escape though is a hero's failure, or so the world is calling it. Especially when he goes out and calls out the AoD for being so bad- why do that when you just failed? Endeavor's resignation seems to be to take responsibility for it. Maybe…_

 _Endeavor's resignation satisfies everyone though. Shows he takes responsibility for failing to capture even a single member of the Army of Death despite carrying out such a big operation. Shows the people of Japan he plans to stay here and protect them from the League and to make up for not being here when he was needed most. Hawks showed up at the scene while I failed bringing back Fantasma too, looking at me like a fraud that I had even tried to revive her when he knows I knew I couldn't. I could barely keep a convincing tone to Tokoyami that I think Death must have saved her before… That's 4 of the top 10 down. Wash and Best Jeanist, Miruko and Fantasma. Not to mention Yoroi Musha in the Nara Raid, along with Floodgate who was in the low teens of the rankings too, yet Intanzo got her that day…_

Zach stopped flying for a moment and he closed his red eyes while floating there in the sky with black flames coming out below him to keep him in place. _I knew the heroes of Japan were top class, but the villains here are monsters. I- I can't do anything that will get me arrested though._ He continued flying through the air again. _Nothing exceeding the rules, or I can't get my license. I can't stay in school. I can't stay as Zach Sazaki. Go to Yutapu General after arriving. It's not a chore, it's a_ _ **necessity.**_ _Don't forget._ _ **This**_ _is illegal. Even just this,_ Zach ground his teeth behind the black veil over his face but then calmed himself down and nodded his head in acceptance. _I need to stay here to be me, even though there's more I can do. Everywhere. For everyone._

 _The ADTF just faced the AoD without Death, and the AoD didn't need him to escape! Even with the ADTF as powerful as they've apparently become. His lack of presence, no Death Quirk at all out there,_ Zach's expression darkened more under the darkness and with it shifting too. _I know they're putting it together, if they don't know already. Endeavor probably knows. Time's running out. The League's making their move. Heroes are falling one by one. The next top 10 need to stand tall in the face of villains. Who will they be? Will they speed up the time of the next billboard rankings, in order to reassure the public? Or wait until after graduation to allow Class A to hit that list? Is that too long? Can we survive another two months before a ranking chart? Raijin's speech sparked the villains who went into hiding. He wasn't afraid of the strongest heroes in the strongest country. He showed pure evil incarnate, defeating all the forces of good who stood against him._

 _He's unraveling everything! And I- I'm just wasting my time! No-_ Zach ground his teeth, as his attempt to start arguing with himself there failed to draw any real meaning behind it. _That day I spent with Roady wasn't- It wasn't! It wasn't!_ He yelled it again a third time in his head to no more a convincing feeling than the first two times. He dropped down into the city below, a few blocks from the hospital though giving him room to walk there and clear his mind first. _It wasn't a waste. I saved people those villains could have killed in the future. Just as much as I'm saving these people in the morgue in a few minutes. And I-_

Zach turned his head after stepping out of the alley and walking down a sidewalk two blocks from Yutapu General. He looked to his side from under his hood and watched a car driving by early in the morning still before dawn, darker down on the street than it was higher up in the sky where he had seen the first rays of light in the east. He had been above the clouds on the flight too, so he knew it would be even longer with the dark clouds above him blacker in Yutapu than they were in Musutafu. Zach looked through the front windows at the driver in a suit heading past, a man who glanced his way but focused on the road ahead instead of making eye contact with the early morning passerby.

The car Zach watched drive past started changing in his mind to look more ancient and blacker than the silver of the businessman's model. He saw himself in the driver's seat with Roady next to him, as they drove towards Xilovic's estate together. Something he had pushed from his head at the time echoed through his mind again as he remembered Roady telling him to 'Shut it' during their car ride. As that car drove past and he saw himself in the driver's seat, he saw the version of him in that seat turning his head a little more to look behind Roady and into the back seats…

 **12 Months Ago…**

"Go go go!"

"Shut the doors- it's still open- Still Open!" Access yelled behind him from the passenger seat of the black SUV speeding away despite the blinking red light and beeping alarm noise the vehicle made to tell its passengers that a door was ajar.

"I'm, trying-" Shang opened it a bit again, but the SUV bumped and the door came back to a close too softly again to lock.

Grabble leaned over the side of the Chinese man who had jumped into the car last right after him, pushed out hard, and slammed it shut even harder to lock it and get the alarm to stop. He and Shang fell backwards across the backseats, and Xia pushed back into the men as she was shoved into her door during the turn the driver of the vehicle made the next second. "Can't you take it easy up there, Death?"

"Yeah, I'll slow down now," Zach replied, taking his foot off the gas a bit and relaxing. The seventeen year old turned down an alleyway off the side road already lacking in many vehicles, so it was already unlikely anyone had seen where they had come from. He drove carefully down the alley so as not to scratch the side mirrors, though Access gave him a few more inches on the right side by opening his window and folding the mirror closer to their vehicle. Zach moved down the narrow alley and pulled out onto another side road that connected to a main one after only five seconds of them being on it. As they waited at the light to turn onto the main road, cop cars with their sirens blaring sped across the intersection with other vehicles pulling aside to make way.

Zach lowered his head a little, keeping his dark bangs shadowing over his face as he had taken off his helmet after he got in the driver's seat. Grabble and Shang ducked down in the back and popped off their own helmets too, with Grabble twisting his whole body even more to do so and making Xia pull back far into her seat as she reached for her seatbelt. She pulled her head back as his right pincer neared her face, then she shoved it away when Grabble unclasped his helmet he did not lift up like the others. He instead opened it up and then clasped it back shut before clipping his custom gear to his belt.

"We're good," Access said, and Zach glanced to his right before looking forward as the stoplight turned green for him. When he glanced to the side he had seen Access with a computer on his lap he had pulled out from under the seat, and the Access Panel he had on the back of it had him locked in on the authorities' communications. He picked up their signals, and the translation feeds were reading on his screen in English while the voices in Portuguese yelled out of his computer. "They don't have anything on our vehicle. No one saw us escape, or they haven't reported it in yet at least."

"By the time they do, we will be very far from here," Xia said, and she smiled a little more with a deeper breath of air releasing as she saw the sign for their exit to the highway coming up. Zach put on his blinker and moved at the speed limit towards the exit lane, and he slowed down for a speedy driver trying to get in ahead of him instead of challenging the guy to try and get in first. The Brazilian speeding past turned and smirked back through the windshield as he was passing around the left side of the vehicle.

The SUV did not have windows tinted too darkly that would make it stick out, so the Brazilian man who had two attractive women in the car with him turned and saw through the driver's side window the figure on the other side of it. Zach rose his head and turned it to the left for a moment as the man was moving past him. Although he had slowed down to let the guy go ahead in a calm way so as not to draw any attention, the man smirked at him in a way looking too similar to some of the villains he had been fighting. He stared out at that man from the driver's seat of a large black SUV, wearing black gloves he had on the wheel at 2 and 10 perfectly, and in tight black sleeves on a day much too hot for them.

The car passing Zach sped up even more after pulling in front of him, shooting up the ramp for the highway and skidding as it pulled out. _That was dumb. If he draws attention in fear and we're nearby, it's still bringing attention near me-_

"Yeah, send the extraction to Rendezvous Alpha. No complications on exit," Access said, speaking to Raylei on a channel for just the support team. "Alright. Yeah. I'll tell him."

Access nodded and looked to Zach on his left as they continued onto the highway that was risen off the ground as it headed out of the coastal city. The highway leveled out ahead of them with the land around it as they drove to the higher elevated country just off the coast, though there were also exit ramps before then that headed down to other outer-city slums existing all the way to the cliffs and then even up them a bit. Their highway went over some of the poorer neighborhoods down below, where they had spent a couple of hours that morning on quieter operations. There had been nothing quiet about the final push on the gangster's nicer house he had all his gang bangers pull back to in order to protect him though, as one of the upper-echelon guys they had captured before the final raid had told them about the booby traps, fortress-like defenses, and amount of cocaine and Quirk-enhancing drugs stored in the house.

The Quirk-enhancers were enough to be worried about especially in a house that had strong defenses, but the copious amount of cocaine was an additional reason they had to treat the final fight as more dangerous. Not many villains would risk all-out battles with the Army of Death, rather taking to tunnels to escape or finding some other way to get out of there. The idea that Ranchito Loco was preparing for them instead of running meant he had dipped into his blow heavy for all that confidence. So the Army of Death blew holes in half of his walls, filled the house with gas to smoke out the gangsters, and then barred all exits other than the walls they had blown open themselves. They went in through exits villains were rushing towards already and eliminated their threats, then retreated leaving the unconscious and few dead gang members scattered throughout the house that the cops and heroes would be rushing to considering the amount of explosives that went off and gunshots that were fired in a three minute period.

Access spoke softly to the group in the car with him as they got farther outside of the city, "Ranchito Loco's mansion is filling with cops right now. Man, the amount of stuff they'll see in there they never would've got a warrant to find."

"Let us hope the others we let go through the day pass on our message to others who would attempt to take his shoes," Xia added.

"Bolivar's gone, but there's no power gap," Shang said with more of a grin than his sister had. "We're in charge now. Get with it. Yo."

"Chinatown taking over Brazil," Access said, laughing again about what one of the low-level gangsters they had dragged down an alley of an outer slum earlier thought was happening. They had not been in costume back then, all five of them in disguises with Xia, Shang, and Zach being the ones to interrogate him in that alley. "Surprised he didn't know you were Japanese," Access mentioned, as he had not earlier since they had been rushing through mission to mission all morning under Death's direct lead.

Grabble chuckled along with Access, but he did not laugh much with his friend in the passenger seat who Zach gave a small nod at before looking back forward through the windshield. _I should get to Darling up in Panama. She, Exodus, and Cluster found the Beavers hidden inside the canal's locks. We could stop inter-ocean black market trade through the canal by tonight. Make it a lot more difficult for top American villains on both continents to move product. They'll have to shift more to land routes we can follow better, though they won't know for a few days as long as we keep the Beavers in the Cloak's brig through a few trades they should currently have scheduled. Should be able to take down several groups trying to get through the pass and hopefully get info from those crews on the villains sending them. I'll jump back over here for those as we sweep across Africa and Asia the next three days. Keep weakening all the strongest groups across the other continents, then hit Europe hard and fast. King's allies won't be willing to send reinforcements when they think the Army of Death is still in their area, and we'll corner him by next weekend. Soon as he's gone the Capos will take full control of Wampajawa… likely bringing in a lot more people. I still need to wait until 150 though. That was the number I chose, and until we hit it I won't risk going in without the resources-_

"Damn Death, you don't have to do him like that," Shang started.

He and his sister had just looked across the middle of the back seats and snickered at each other, and Xia continued as Shang stopped, "You could at least roll back the sunroof. This is just cruel," Xia shook her head, smirking more while Zach looked into the rearview mirror and then turned his head to the side to look half-apologetically at Grabble.

"I've been here longer than both of you," Grabble grumbled, annoyed as the Chinese twins were poking fun of his Pincers that he had to stop from pushing against the ceiling by keeping his head bowed. He had slouched into the seat at first after getting his helmet off, but he had been uncomfortable and sat more straight up, only to bow his head and dart several looks to Zach while shifting his Pincers towards the sunroof. Death had nodded at Access before though and just seemed to focus back on the road in front of him, though when he just glanced in the rearview mirror he stared straight at Grabble's Pincers, only to look back ahead of the car as if he did not notice at all.

Zach had really been too focused on his own thoughts to notice the uncomfortable look, only looking in the mirror as a subconscious action of driving the car and as a look out for cops who could be tracking them. Access mentioned after Grabble got poked fun of like that though, "You know the car with Sagitus…" He looked over his shoulder back at the three behind him with a small smirk as he added quieter, "They needed to get a specialized car-seat for him."

 _Don't know if he's trying to help Grabble or what,_ Zach thought while rolling back the sunroof himself. _But,_ "It's not Sagitus' fault cars aren't made with people like him in mind. We don't have the excess funds to spend on a customized car just to make it easier for him too, or I would-"

"It's all good, Death," Grabble assured their leader who was getting a bit too defensive here. He smiled too, relaxing and elbowing out with both arms into the shoulders of the shorter two on his sides. "We all know we're just messing around with each other."

Shang and Xia nodded with looks into the rearview mirror and Zach's eyes they saw looking back at them too. Shang leaned forward and smacked Zach on the right arm too after seeing the look his way as if wondering if they really were just messing around. He smirked and added, "It's not much better being worthless in a fight if you don't have your big sister holding your hand? Right?"

"Not much better having to drag your little brother with you everywhere," Xia corrected in agreement from the other side of the back.

Access put his hands behind his head and leaned back into the passenger seat smugly. "I guess my Quirk is the one with no drawbacks here-"

"Your Quirk is the worst," Shang said.

"Rather have Pincers," Xia agreed.

"Yet somehow you're the worst fighter, even with that best Quirk," Grabble remarked.

"Shouldn't dish out what you can't take yourself," Zach said barely a second after the others while Access was still reeling from how fast all of them had their comebacks ready for him. The other three in the back laughed most at Death's comment though, and though he said for them to 'Shut it,' Access grinned himself too after a second. He shrugged uncaringly about their taunts to show he could take it, and because he did not actually care as getting that grin out of Death was the real win here.

 **Present**

Zach's head turned more and he watched the red lights on the back of that car fading then disappearing around a corner a couple of blocks down. He turned back forward and continued towards the hospital he had decided to visit already, but he thought darkly as he walked that way, _I can still have times like what I had with Roady but out there. While still doing huge things impacting millions of people at a time, instead of solving one murder. Good, but important times._

 _But Death doesn't need me. They evaded the heroes' big plan without losing anyone, without harming the heroes, it's perfect. I'm needed here much more. Aren't I?_

 _Yet as a hero can I… I can still stop them. I have to, as a hero. It only matters if heroes stop the villains here. Especially now. Especially after they failed. Heroes need to recover. And I can't be another loss for heroes. I won't be…_

* * *

 _Guess I should get up._ Sero sat up on his bed and checked his phone again, though he did not suspect much time had passed since the last time he looked. He got off his bed and threw on a pair of sweats and a shirt, did a few stretches, then he headed downstairs to wash up. He opened his phone and turned off his alarms for the morning since he did not want the first one to go off in the pile of his clothes while he showered. He walked past the common room and glanced towards a few classmates sitting on the couches, Hagakure with her head leaned to the side on Ojiro's left shoulder, seeming asleep. The blond whose thick tail was partially wrapped around her was not sleeping like his girlfriend, and neither were the other two on the couches who were looking wiped though.

As Sero headed for the bathrooms, Yaoyorozu glanced to her classmate and then out the windows into their courtyard as she saw it was lighting up outside. _It's going to rain today,_ she thought, then turned back to Sero and gave him a nod. She glanced down at the cups she was holding and moved one of the ones in her right hand to her left so she could extend a mug in her right to Sero, but he shook his head at her since he could see she had poured four for the four of them awake in their shared living room. _Doubt any of them got any sleep,_ Sero thought after she nodded and then headed away, neither of them saying a word in that conversation.

The showers were already on in both bathrooms from what Sero could hear as he approached them. He moved towards the boys' side wondering who else was in there already, though he just did his own thing and started brushing his teeth before he would hop in. Not far from the sink he brushed his teeth in and behind one of the curtains separating the showers from the rest of the bathroom, Todoroki had his right hand out on the shower wall in front of him with his head bowed, water dripping off his red and white bangs down in front of his face in a steady stream. The way he had his head tilted made the water dripping down his face miss his eyes, so he was able to glare down below the knobs for hot and cold at a single spot his eyes bored into for no reason. _"I will not stop you from pursuing a future with the ADTF, Shoto. I will no longer assist you, however…"_

 _He knows. A fight with the Army of Death, and Zach wasn't there, and he knows!_ Todoroki's hand shook on the wall, and as much as he tried to keep his focus on one thing, he saw Bakugo's face again as his classmate walked away. _And Bakugo knew Zach couldn't save her. We all told him not to worry, that at least she'd… Then Zach got on and said-_ Todoroki clenched his teeth. _Of course he did! He has to stick to the lie, but, but he should have told everyone immediately. Going there and pretending to bring her back like that? Pretending like he was actually trying?!_

 _How many of our classmates were able to sleep last night?_ Yaoyorozu wondered while sipping from her coffee. "Drink," she encouraged over at Aoyama who had just lowered his mug after she handed it to him, staring in a depressed way at the news they had been watching nonstop.

They used the excuse that they were heroes in training and needed to be ready, but Yuga did not know why he was still there watching this anymore. He had bags under his eyes, he looked exhausted, and he glanced towards the girl who nodded at him showing she was concerned about how their performance in class that day if they did not drink. Aoyama lifted his mug and took a sip of the hot coffee, immediately shaking him a bit out of his silent and dark stupor he had been in for several hours since silence fell on their dorm. _Frolick-san,_ Aoyama thought of a hero who had worked with a pro he had interned under once before, a pro who had complimented him on his "dazzling" costume. It was the first time any hero had called him "dazzling" without him first asking them how dazzling he looked.

 _ **"You know the Boxing Hero…"**_ Midoriya jogged around campus in a heavy green tracksuit, sweating pretty badly considering how long he had been out there even if it was chilly that morning. _ **"…I've been watching the free self-defense courses he puts online for years. In most of the newer videos the past couple of years he repeats stuff he's already taught, but even when he does he always brings new experiences from fighting villains…"**_ _Zach._

 _ **"Yeah I'm going back! So what?! …I do hate them. Annoying bitches… but, they're less annoying than the rest…"**_ _Kacchan._

Sero glanced down a couple of mirrors in the boys' bathroom, but he headed off for a shower without saying anything. _I don't know what to say to him._

Bakugo glared at himself in the mirror while brushing his teeth as violently as ever. His eyes glared right back at him, so hatefully. Those eyes shifted up though and at his spiky hair that he suddenly saw smoothed down and gelled to be more professional. He brushed his teeth harder at the sight of the annoying hairstyle Best Jeanist had forced on him, and at the sounds of the laughs of the other sidekicks in Best Jeanist's agency… and of Kaminari's laughs, at the hairstyle that had gotten stuck and he saw- The toothbrush Bakugo was using broke, the front of it snapping off and Bakugo's fist curling even harder on the handle as it failed. He prevented from cutting his gums on the sharp broken brush, but he was done brushing apparently so he ducked his head and gargled some water to spit out the toothpaste.

As he kept gurgling more and more water, he reached his hands into the sink and splashed some onto his face and then did that a few more times. He shook his head around and stood up straight, then darted a look towards the door of the bathroom where Kirishima was standing. "Hey Bakugo," Kirishima started, walking into the bathroom and not treating him like some fragile person to walk up and talk to. "You doing alright?" He just wondered while going to a mirror next to the one Bakugo finished at.

"Peachy," Bakugo grumbled back, and he turned and headed off to take a much needed shower.

Kirishima nodded and watched him walk that way, then he turned and looked into the sink where Bakugo had left both halves of his toothbrush. He turned his head back with wider eyes but Bakugo closed a curtain and turned on his shower. Kirishima's fists curled down at his sides and he turned back to look himself in the mirror again. _I- I don't understand it. Everyone else knows what it feels like, and I don't want to know! It's not like that but, but how am I supposed to do anything, again?! I didn't do it right before though. What's he feeling like though? I, I wish I understood… just so I could help you man._

Bakugo scrubbed his right cheek first thing after getting in the shower. _Damn it._ His scrubbing hand curled in and he dug his nails in for a second before dropping his hand hard and curling it into a fist. He punched it forward but stopped before slamming it into the tiles below the shower faucet he knew his classmates would hear. _I'm going to murder him._ For once, the thought was not hyperbolical. _I'll kill him. Blow him apart. She was right, that wasn't an explosion. I'll show him an explosion. I'LL KILL THEM!_

In one of the faculty dorm buildings, Ectoplasm sat in a meditative stance with his breathing calmed and his eyes finally opening as an alarm warned him to get ready for work. _The League is moving._ He stood up, and he walked over to his hero uniform he put on with intense focus and emotions pushed aside. _They could come for U.A. again. I will not fail these students. Not again._

Not all the teachers were able to focus solely on the present and future now. All Might sat at his desk, staring at a picture he had in a picture frame alongside many others but that sat in front of them all now and right in front of his slouched form with his elbows down on his work desk. _"Would you mind taking a picture with me, All Might?" "Thanks. And, thanks a lot. Your teaching here, and just the hero I saw growing up, it molded me into the hero I am today."_ Her confident look as she smiled at him, and the bow of her head in real gratitude that told him she meant every word of that. He knew it was not something that girl would have said to all of her teachers, and she didn't say it to all of them, but, _She always spoke her mind. Said what she believed, and-_ All Might had to raise an arm again and rub it over his eyes, then he reached it out and touched the frame again with that picture in it of him and Indago back at graduation.

 _She was so strong. One of the few…_ All Might moved his hand from the photo and leaned back in his chair. _Who I believed could truly stop Raijin._

In one of the dorms for the first years of U.A., Kimikaro Hone continued doing handstand push-ups in front of the full-length mirror he had in his room. The sixteen year old with long white hair glared through pitch black eyes that had tiny blue pupils into his mirror, and he started up another set of push-ups while upside-down like that. Blood was rushing to his head, but it strained him more to work out like this so he did so ignoring the head rush he was getting. After another thirty reps though, his muscles strained and when he heard a clicking noise in his right elbow he dropped fast down to his hands and knees. The teen reached out to his right and grabbed a gallon of milk he popped open with his thumb and then started chugging.

Kimikaro had challenged Bakugo Katsuki at the start of the year for his upperclassman's attitude, calling him out for being too cocky just because he was a Class A when he had been kidnapped by villains twice. It had gotten him in some heat with other students, but he never stopped darting his senpai those looks through the year whenever they would pass each other, even if Bakugo had had more restraint than Kimikaro thought he would to hold back from fighting. The younger teen actually had wanted the fight and thought Bakugo would be the only Class A to accept and fight him for real like that if provoked. He lowered his gallon of milk and rubbed his light-skinned arm across his lips to get rid of the milk mustache. _It fucking sucks, to be in Class A,_ Kimikaro pushed the milk jug to the side and rolled onto his back to start with sit-ups.

The white-haired boy was the first to pass the hero licensing exam of all the prospects across every school at his testing site, and the shirtless first year pumped out his sit-ups again for another set through a sleepless night. _It sucks, being a hero,_ his grit his teeth at the thought but had to pump out his sit-ups even faster. _All those strong heroes. All of them! Killed so, so brutally- And they made everyone watch. Like they were showing us, what's coming. What they're going to bring for every hero-_ His lips trembled and no matter how strong he was making himself, on the next sit-up Kimikaro could not hide his fear from himself as he looked in the mirror.

Unlike her classmate, Zeira Eleinie's expression was calm. Despite being one of the last of her class to pass the licensing exam, and despite Kimikaro placing second in the Sports Festival at the start of the year while she never made it to that tournament in the first place, Zeira trained in a less frantic way. She felt that fear inside her too, but the girl with brown-fur and stag antlers sticking out of her head just slashed the sword down in front of her body again. She wore a white tank top, and she was sweating through her light coat of fur as she brought the sword back up high and then slammed it down again straight ahead of her where she stopped it.

Her muscles tensed, her body yelling at her to just drop the blade that weighed too much to do this a two hundredth time at the same rhythm without stopping. She just moved to the 201st swing though, growling, "Ten more-" The 202nd make her clench her teeth in pain, and her hands made an involuntary twitch that had the hilt of her blade fall out of her grasp. Zeira stared down at her sword, then she turned her head and glanced towards her buzzing phone that silently let her know she had to shower and get ready for class. _Going to school, the day after? Public schools took off today. Day of mourning across the country. We don't take breaks though. Not us._

Zeira turned her head and looked towards a poster of Lifebringer on her wall. She stared at her scarred-up idol who was not smiling in the picture she had blown up of him. It was not a poster sold anywhere, but one she had created herself because it was the look he had in this image that motivated her. Zeira stared at that image for a few seconds, then she turned and walked to her desk where she opened up her computer and looked something up. She reached to her side and turned on her printer, then she printed her computer screen and picked up the paper that came out of her printer.

She stood back up and grabbed a towel off the end of her bed, but she stopped in front of the poster. Zeira lifted the paper and the stapler she had grabbed off her desk with it, and she stapled the image she had frozen of Fantasma right in the middle of that fight which was not hard to find online in full HD. The look of that bloodied hero smiling despite her hopeless situation with all those older pros dead around her, in a flaming building, fighting such a monster… The picture of Fantasma was just the size of a normal printer piece, but she put it right on level with the middle of her Lifebringer poster so it even overlapped over the side a bit. Zeira tossed her stapler over on her bed and nodded at the pictures on her wall, then she headed out to take a shower.

"Snn, sn," Ashido sniffled and shook her head in 3-A's dorm showers. Her long wavy pink hair flipped around the sides of her head and some strands stuck to her face as she took her scalding hot shower. She did not raise her hands to move those hairs out of the way, she just clenched her eyes tighter shut. "She was, so close," Ashido whispered. She gasped it out, then her fists balled in rage. "Kami-nari," she hissed it out, her voice cracking as she said the name of her old friend.

Jirou shook her head with a glance to the divider between her and Mina's shower. Then she looked back forward and grabbed her soap to continue cleaning herself, _It's Raijin._

Midoriya Inko lay awake on her bed as she had through the entire night. Despite the phone call she had with her son, who had called her because he knew how worried she must have been for him after watching something so horrible, his reassurances to her only made her more afraid at how heroic he was sounding. _All of those heroes were so strong. You say you're strong, but that isn't enough! What if- What if…_ Tears spilled out Deku's mother's eyes freely in fear for her young son. _You aren't ready for this, Izuku!_

Hundreds of miles from Inko, someone who felt very differently than her finally fell asleep on his couch. The woman with long green hair who had her arm around Kota's head curled her hand down from his shoulder over his chest so she felt his slowed heartbeat and the fact that he was actually asleep now. Ragdoll let out a quiet sigh, then the woman in her pajamas watching tv with her eight year old adopted son, (officially as of the new year), leaned her head back while being careful not to stir the boy beside her. She turned back on the news using her left hand farther from him, as she had put on cartoons to watch with Kota though those mainly stayed in the background as they had just talked through the night.

Ragdoll watched as the picture of the boy she was thinking about appeared on the screen, along with another dozen photos of Class A boys who were all in discussion. "…Friends of Raijin!" Ragdoll turned down the volume on the already quiet tv so it was almost at nothing, and she just turned on the subtitles instead. "If any of them had realized sooner, none of this would have happened. We talk about Deku on here like he _might_ have the power of All Might, but these heroes of Class A never noticed something was up with Kaminari Denki? I've never seen someone so clearly evil in my life!"

 _He believes in you, Deku,_ Ragdoll thought with a look back down to her right and the boy she kept holding. _Don't listen to them. We know you can do it._

In Tokyo, Gran Torino returned to his place after a long night of small villain incidents that occurred at higher frequencies than they had for months. He walked through his living room and into his kitchen, but he looked down the hallway breaking off it leading to the bedrooms. He glanced that way and saw a small girl walking out of the bathroom. The nine year old looked his way, and she frowned in so upset a way at the old man before spinning and walking into her room. The old-young man sighed in a way much more tired than his face could show as youthful as it was, but he shook his head thinking on the argument the two had had the day before. _I will not let you open that Pandora's Box. The second you bring back the dead with your Quirk, is the second your life will end. I won't let you walk his path._

"It's just more collapsed tunnel. And behind that, more nothing," Hawks said to the other heroes standing in front of him near the burnt carcass of a forest estate. Some of the surrounding forest had burnt too, though only Backdraft was still there of the heroes with water-type Quirks who had come. More strength-types were there along with the top heroes and heroes who could destroy the rubble rather than just move it away in the underground tunnel that led away from the villains' hideout.

Hawks gave his report on no progress then headed back towards the site of the dig. "Tsukuyomi," he started, and his intern looked back at him. "I told your principal you'd be back by the time school started. It's time to go."

Tokoyami was taking a short break and still sitting down sipping from a water bottle. His Dark Shadow had been useful at clearing debris, especially considering they thought Raijin may have left traps in the tunnel for if they broke through. The heroes behind Tokoyami had lights on to keep Dark Shadow from being too powerful or out of control through the night, though they were ready to cut all those lights to allow him to go full strength at any sign of trap setting off that Tsukuyomi claimed he could manage.

"A little longer," Tokoyami said, looking back in the direction of the others he had been working with through the long night.

"Wish you could," Hawks said, and he meant it but shook his head at the teen who frowned at him but sighed after a second and nodded in acceptance.

 _I'm not going to be the one to stop Kaminari,_ Tokoyami thought. _We are badly matched. He knows my weakness well, and his Quirk can easily defeat me. I do want to be the one… But all of us do. As much as I know Bakugo must want this fight for himself now though, there is only one way I see this ending._

 _I've heard word on Lifebringer since the incident,_ Hawks thought, seeing a look on Tokoyami's face that made him think of the kid who was always there in the back of his mind anyway. _He's still around. Thought for sure he would have disappeared. Gone for blood. He's holding back though. Maybe he's really lost that desire, if he ever had it…_ _ **"He's a demon! You don't understand!"**_ Hawks thought of a man he had gone to speak with who was in a Gorrani insane asylum, who he had decided was too insane to listen to at the time. _**"I saw him, Hawks! We set a trap for him- and- Haha, Hahahaha! HE'S EVIL! I can hear him-**_ **LAUGHING!** _ **As he- Ahhhahaha- AAAHA-HAHHHHHH!"**_

 _We might need some of the old Lifebringer, if you can pull that out of you,_ Hawks thought. He thought of the heroes he had worked closely with in the past who had died in the burnt building next to him both he and Tokoyami turned to stare at again. _Though I'm pretty sure I'll regret hoping for that, someday._

Midoriya and Zach watched the same news story as they walked to different schools in their school uniforms underneath slightly warmer clothes. They each looked into the sky, and Midoriya put his hood up while Zach just lowered back down his head that already had a hood over it as the skies opened up over Japan. The two of them continued to watch their phones they held out in front of their chests though with their heads partially bowed over them to keep the rain from hitting the screens.

"…And if the Army of Death could beat that many top heroes, in an ambush _set_ by the heroes, then maybe those kinds of weapons _are_ needed. Don't you think?"

"Clearly, Quirks and heroes aren't enough to take down the Army of Death. They are an Army, after all. Maybe we need to consider something other than a Task Force made up of heroes to take them down. In that case though, I admit, we would need to authorize the use and production of better weapons to match the kinds of weapons the AoD have. Rockets like what they fired…"

 _I hate this._ Zach glared at the reporters on his screen who seemed to be in agreement about this. _I hate you. I hate that they're using the AoD as an excuse. I hate what's happening in the world. Why does any single incident have so much of an effect? Why were all those villains who have acted in the past 16 hours right on the edge? Just waiting for an opportunity. Just WAITING for an excuse, for a reason! Is there really no way to stop them all- NO! No? What did they die for if not- It wasn't for this._

 _I hate that my forces got in an actual fight with heroes- They're not_ _ **my**_ _forces anymore!_ Zach's eyes narrowed more at his screen, and then he rose that dark look up towards the high school he was approaching. _Not that my friends will care about that. To them, it's just as much my actions as ever._

 _He created an Army that is now fighting heroes openly,_ Midoriya curled his fingers around his phone tighter. _Didn't he say they don't fight heroes? Isn't that their rule?! So what's his excuse? They fired missiles at heroes! They- they missed, and I'm sure that was intentional, but they took that risk. They could have killed someone- innocents, and heroes! Just so they could escape. None of them were caught, but someone has to take responsibility. It doesn't deserve to be Endeavor either…_

"Tell me, Endeavor," Lemillion said over the phone with the older pro who was quiet as he paused. "Did you see Death out there? Any sign of him?"

"No."

"What do you think, sir?" Crack wondered to the new leader of the ADTF who stood in front of a good four dozen heroes. They all stared at the leader of the ADTF and past him at the video showing Lifebringer taking on the Subspace Devils through the obscuring black flames he had set between him and the cameras. Next to that video was another video they had showing Death using his Quirk on a similarly huge group of enemies in a desert. "We didn't see Death's Quirk down there. It's most likely him."

"Most likely," Star-Spangled Man agreed. Loud murmurs started through the room as the top American hero just agreed to that. "But we need proof," he continued in a lower voice. "Something concrete, before we can arrest him."

Zach walked towards his high school and ignored looks from other students heading through the gates around him. People stopped and watched as Lifebringer entered, _They think I would have left. To hunt him down. Nikko's office contacted me. The ability to leave the country again, but for "emergencies only." He has to show people that he's trying to give me more freedom… Why didn't he contact me? Does he not trust me? Does anyone?_ Zach walked into the school, _But he stopped me from saving Fantasma, Miruko, Best Jeanist, all the others!_ Anger bubbled inside him as he pictured all those sidekicks of Best Jeanist from the licensing exam he stopped from attacking the other applicants.

And he remembered fighting alongside Miruko and Fantasma before. Zach felt the pain of bringing Fantasma back to life, and he heard her voice after that, _**"If you ever see Bakugo again, don't tell him I let myself get killed so easily. I'll never live it down…"**_ He felt worse than he had in hours, his expression getting visibly sick as he took off his hoodie at the lockers. _I know how Bakugo has to be feeling. He doesn't deserve that. No one does. Fuck. FUCK! We're heroes. We have to keep it together at times like these most of all. We're supposed to be the ones people can look to right now and recover quicker because they see how we're handling it, but what about our feelings?! What about us? I- I can't keep myself calm._

Kerushi, Flugeru, and Kameko stood around Dendo's desk looking down at the phone he had out streaming a news station with the volume up. Dendo held his phone at an angle so his classmates around his desk could watch it, and the hosts went from talking about the flawless escape of the ADTF to Lifebringer. "…I read in the book on his story of what he did that year, that he told Oda in Tartaros that he supported the Army of Death. It said something in there about how Lifebringer went as far as to mention that he had considered joining them himself!"

"Yes, but that was back right after Mongoloid, before he left the world-"

"Yeah, I'm sure that's what really happened too. But leaving that for later, what about saving Fantasma?" The skeptical host asked harshly. "He came out and said that he was unable to revive her even though he got to the scene of the incident only an _hour_ after her death, at most!"

"That's not his fault though! It's the heroes, and the heroes' process in general that it took them that long to tell Lifebringer! Nikko's office released that he was restrained by the rules too, that he could not send an unqualified teen with only a provisional license to the scene of the fight."

"He should have been the first one told. Against Raijin especially-"

"We only have to wait another month for him to graduate, then it will all be…" Dendo turned down the volume of his phone. The others around his desk glanced at him then to the door where Zach just walked into the classroom.

 _Things won't just suddenly get better. The day I graduate will be the worst day, ever,_ Zach kept his mouth shut as he walked over towards his seat. _I've been trying to act like everything's fine. Like I have enough time not to worry about post-graduation until it comes. Wasting these final days. My last days, free._

School started in a few places around the country. At those schools though, they still had moments of silence to start the day after short messages by the principals. Nezu and Memuria mentioned specifically their own alumni first, and the schools fell silent as everyone thought about those lost. All over the country, a special silence was held for Fantasma as the last one fighting even after all the others had fallen. The hero who had almost saved them, even if she didn't. The nineteen year old girl who gave everything she had including her life. The way she died was so horrible too, having to watch all the heroes she was trying to protect get killed first too, and yet in her final moments she did not despair.

 _She believed in us,_ Kirishima thought during the silence, imagining the final words out of their senpai's mouth. _It was more than that though._

 _She put it on us._ Sato looked towards the windows in the silence and hardened his expression from the sad one he had. _Indago knew everyone was watching, and she knew we were too. She needed- she needed everyone not to lose hope!_

Asui bowed her head harder. She clenched her eyes shut thinking of the most inspiring speech she had heard in her entire life, which had been at the previous year's graduation. Indago's speech as the top of her class had gained a standing ovation from the crowd watching in the destroyed Sports Festival stadium that would become a memorial for the SFI. The speech about heroes, and villains, and about society as a whole changing around them. _She told us how a few days after graduation, she would be going around the world to fight villains in the parts of the world where crime is worst. She went places that Zach was, fighting with him and dying out there…_

Asui heard her upperclassman's voice echoing over that stadium, _**"We heroes have to work together to bring peace to a chaotic world. It doesn't matter how strong each individual hero is. We're a team. We're all a team fighting for the same side. I am honored and grateful to U.A. for giving me the opportunity to do my part, to join that team, and to be able to take the fight to them!"**_ _Indago-senpai._ Asui's hands curled into fists under her desk and she rose them over it with an intense expression spreading across her face. _We won't let you down._

All Might stared around at the class who he could see were taking Indago's final words to heart without being told to. _They know the hero she was. They saw how amazing Fantasma was yesterday, and she told the people of Japan and the world that you would stop the ones she couldn't. They haven't lost hope because of that. Raijin tried to silence her, but she said enough. He tried to make everyone think about the bad of U.A. and Class A in those final moments, but the people listened to her more than they will him. They know the Class A Fantasma was talking about, and it was not you, Raijin. It is the nineteen students in this room…_

 _And maybe, one more._

In Shiketsu High, the students of Class 1 tried to focus on their lessons for the day which were just as they were scheduled to be as if it were a normal school day. There was a teacher who changed her lesson plan though. Enorma came into the class, and she wasted no time projecting her lesson plan on a villain she had not spent a whole lesson on before. She had done lessons on both Shigaraki and All For One, but she did those lessons on the same day and did not spent as much time on them as she did the current worst villain groups in the country like the Radians and Jazz, or individual unaffiliated villains like Splodo.

"Kaminari Denki. Raijin. The killer of Fantasma," Enorma said that harshly and in a stern tone telling none of her students to get upset at her for saying it like that. Her expression was not in mourning but scolding the students who looked at her in mourning like they did not want to talk about that yet. It was not _too soon_ though, and Enorma started, "The League of Villains are already in the middle of some sort of plan that this kicked off. We're not going to sit around for a few days before getting to work on figuring out what it is. Unfortunately, since we have _nothing_ on what they've been up to or where they have been for almost two years now, there's not much to go on."

Enorma turned to Zach Sazaki. "If you've got anything to tell us about Raijin, then stand up and tell the class." Everyone looked to Zach who faced his teacher and saw the intense look asking this of him seriously. Zach pushed back in his chair and stood up, giving Enorma a serious nod right back with colder eyes than the teacher had. "What do you know?" She asked him, and she stepped in front of her desk and leaned back on it as she got ready to hear this.

Dendo nodded his head and focused in on Zach, glad Enorma said this as he wanted to ask Zach questions himself about Raijin after what happened yesterday.

 _He's known Raijin was the most dangerous._

 _He said the League were still the worst._

 _All of Class A knew it, back at the joint training,_ Reika thought darkly. She remembered how the U.A. students were acting, like the League were so much worse than anyone else knew and they in Class 1 were being foolish for not taking them seriously enough.

"I don't know what the League's plan is," Zach began. His voice had a different tone in it than usual. No one had spoken to him so far in the day, and everyone looked at him in serious ways but with a few of them looking uneasy as he spoke in a cold and deep voice. "Kaminari… he's unpredictable. He knows I'm trying to predict him too, so he's even more cautious than he was before. And before, he spent a year and a half at U.A. under watch of top pro heroes who suspected there was a spy in our midst and never thought he could be it. He blocked the calls we tried to send out at USJ to tell people about the villains attacking. He gave the villains our location in the training forest of my first year at U.A. He helped free Himiko Toga when she invaded U.A. in an attempt to steal our blood, after I defeated her…"

The students of Class 1 stared at Zach with bigger eyes at what he just said that none of them had heard before. "And then when we were gathered to figure out who had betrayed us and freed her, he nearly got away with framing Hagakure Toru. That plan failed however, so he paralyzed all of Class A and all the teachers, police, and Kamui Woods in a single instant. His personality that we had known and been friends with completely switched. He paralyzed us all and then killed Class A students one by one with us unable to do a thing as our friends were killed."

Enorma's eyes grew huge and shook at the words that just came out of her student's mouth. Everyone in the room stared with dropped jaws at Zach, as all they knew were vague accounts that Raijin had betrayed U.A., killed Iida Tenya, and escaped killing two others who were not revived unlike Iida was by Zach Sazaki. They knew Zach had passed out that day which was the reasoning U.A. gave for why he was unable to bring anyone else back, as he had been unconscious through his time limit. "Zapping them, killing them," Zach continued. "All the while taunting us on how he had managed to get around every defense we had by splitting his own neurons and forcing neurotransmitters across synapses with what he believes to be full control of his mind."

"He can't…" Porrolo started in disbelief.

The spiky-white-haired eighteen year old froze though as Zach just gave him a look that simply said 'he can.' Dendo looked at Zach oddly there too though as he thought about the wording at the end of what his classmate just said. Zach continued to look to his side instead of at the front of the room now, as he went on, "He called himself Raijin, after the God of Thunder, while in a completely different personality than who we knew at U.A., so nothing I picked up in all that time together could give me the slightest hint as to Raijin's plans. I do know, that Raijin considers us to be in the middle of a fight though." Zach said that with his tone getting more personal and yet he was still speaking as if this was a fact that would be useful for his classmates to know.

"A fight he plans to win this time, since the score is 1 to 1. Kaminari had never lost before, and I beat him by killing Kurogiri, after he had beaten me…" Zach did not describe how it was Kaminari had beaten him. Imino, Reika, Dendo, and a few others recalled it though. The remembered what Zach said so late at night before they put out the fire at the joint training. _**"If not for him, I wouldn't have recovered after my torture at the hands of the League. I don't know if I ever would have trusted anyone again. And, well, he got past me because of those things… And when he betrayed me, he killed a lot people I cared about. He'd, manipulated my life, put me in all those situations I thought I had come across by pure chance, or fate. Kaminari tortured my family to death, killed people I loved, and he almost broke me."**_

Reika could picture something else she had seen that night that she just ignored at the time. Yet she remembered when Asui Tsuyu was talking about Raijin, and how Mineta had put a hand over hers on that log in such a soft and un-perverted way. _That bastard killed more of them? Iida's death became public a while after it, and he owned up to it, but I guess their school kept it quiet about anyone else… And I had the fucking nerve to treat him like a second-rate villain._

Zach shook his head and continued in a darker voice, "By humbling him with the defeat of the Lifebringer Incident, I've also made Kaminari more dangerous, and I knew it that night which is why I didn't stop with Kurogiri…" Others stared at Zach with bulging eyes as he said in a deep voice, "But kept going to try and kill Kaminari too, though I failed." He paused and looked to question if he believed what he just said himself. He rose his gaze up though and said to the others in his class, "I'm telling you this so you don't underestimate him. Really," Zach finished. "If you ever face Kaminari you should contact my with your location and try to stall him as long as possible. It's unlikely you'll be able to reach me with his ability to block communications, but try anything to get me there. Not because I want to be the one to stop him," Zach assured with his look getting darker at the few he could see may have just thought that themselves. "But because there are very few who could k- stop Kaminari as he is now."

"Even Fantasma, his natural enemy, did not expect the Quirk-Destroying Drug. And why would she have? There had not been a single reported case of it in over two years." Zach paused and then said with a slow shake of his head, "But with him you have to expect everything. His Quirk is so strong, and his intellect is peak. He's planned everything out for years in advance, and his brutality makes it so there is no limit to what he is capable of. No limit to what he could and _will_ do to win."

He stopped, and he sat back down without another word. _He's being patient. He knows I can't last. That's what he thinks. I've shown my weakness on tv as I've been recorded too often. He can see me slipping. He knew the ADTF would figure out Death was no longer there sooner or later. He knew I'd be charged with more crimes even if I got freed from prison early! And he acted now to try and draw me out, make me act sloppy, break the law, and get sent back! One less obstacle in his way. The biggest obstacle! I can't let myself get thrown in jail. I can't let myself get arrested, and let everyone see that it's not just Kaminari who's a massive failure of U.A. and Class A!_

Zach calmed down his inner voice as he felt a soft infiltration that almost got past him with how emotional he was despite his steady expression. _Not now._ Zach felt Himazuri leave his head, and he took in a deep breath and calmed himself down a bit while the room was still quiet around him. Enorma finally cleared her throat and thanked him, for 'all… that' Then she got to talking about what the public knew about him and his upbringing, specifics of his Quirk and what his maximum speed seemed to be based on what the cameras yesterday caught of his and Fantasma's pivotal fight.

At lunch, students around the country got on their phones to see that the fact that they were in school today was a huge news story. Stations were talking them up, and talking about the messages their schools had given out as official statements. There was no time to waste. 'The new ranks of heroes were preparing to get out there and stop the villains who thought they could stir chaos in a world that will not tolerate them.' 'The third years are determined to train harder than ever, and although in mourning for their fellow heroes, they know the importance of keeping cool heads and focusing on their schoolwork now more than ever.' Quotes of the kind were given out to the public who saw their nation's youngest heroes were not taking a second to push through this tragedy and stand up in front of it.

Zach hummed and nodded as he listened to the responses of the hero schools, and of top heroes who lamented the fact that they were too late to assist their fallen heroes, but how they would carry on for them and make sure their deaths were not in vain. _Not in vain, huh?_ Zach wondered while eating in silence. _No one ever dies in vain. Grappler. Samurai. Linebacker. Big Supreme. The four of you trained me before I could even use my Quirk. Watching you die, is a motivator for me. Most people wouldn't consider that a reason why you didn't die in vain. I'll do it for you though. And if I do it for you, then your deaths had that much more meaning. If they push me, if they push anyone to do more, they've motivated us so your actions have made you martyrs. Killed because of your beliefs. Killed because you stood against villains and evil._

Zach's motivational thoughts at himself faded as the news talked about the heroes he was thinking of. _And not one of your bodies is still there for me to bring back. I doubt Raijin dragged your corpses away either. I hope he didn't. With the amount of villains there he needed to drag away though- yet, he probably zapped a couple into consciousness and got them to drag away the injured others._ The news continued as he listened patiently, **"…Only a few of the villains' bodies were recovered from the flames along with Fantasma's that was undamaged other than her neck that Raijin had cut open. All of the other heroes who were declared "Missing" by the first responders to the raid, can we just report here that they're all dead? I don't think it's fair to pretend like we, as the news, don't know what happened to them."**

 **"Raijin threw their bodies into Meta's Magma to prevent Lifebringer from reviving them,"** the fellow news host agreed, nodding his head and then rubbing his brow as he did not know if it was okay for him to say that on the news. He frowned though at the idea that he could not do that, and he just continued after a moment, **"The lack of bodies for most of the villains we thought were defeated at the scene is also disheartening. I wish the heroes had decided to use lethal force earlier on in the fight, as so many got away through that underground tunnel that heroes have yet to clear to find any trace of where Raijin and the other League of Villains' members went."**

 **"Shooter is one notable villain whose body was recovered,"** the female host continued. **"Along with one Marx and Chronic- who were villains captured before with Diamondfist, two other unknown villains, and another Tartaros escapee: GoldenArm. However, high-profile villains like Diamondfist and The German, Raijin, and both Sonic and Meta who were the targets of the raid are all suspected to have survived the incident."**

 **"So six villains,"** the white-haired man said in a grim voice. **"For the trade-off of thirty-eight heroes? And I don't mean to diminish the efforts of any of the other heroes, but among those 38 were** _ **four**_ **of Japan's top ten heroes."** His voice became less grim and started getting angrier, more accusatory, **"While several Tartaros escapees escaped. A leader of the League of Villains too! There is public outcry today, as people** _ **demand**_ **to know where Hawks was during this fight. Why was Endeavor overseas,** _ **again?**_ **And he took Ryukyu, Suneater, other heroes who could have been there to help!"**

 **"And what about Lemillion? He was here, so why was he so late? Lifebringer too-"**

 **"Well, I have seen a video of Lifebringer during the incident. He was recorded, shouting into his phone."** The man who seemed pretty harsh against the other heroes kept his harsh look but his tone was not directed at Zach who was watching him speak with his headphones in at his lunch table. **"And in that call he was having at the time I heard him offer to hold a press conference with Prime Minister Nikko, if they would give him the address of the incident-"**

 **"Did Nikko hold back the location because of his tense relationship with Lifebringer?"**

 **"That's clearly what Lifebringer seemed to think, though the Prime Minister's office has given a different reason…"**

 _I shouldn't have done that,_ Zach thought darkly as he watched the news start discussing conspiracy theories. _I knew people were watching, but I wasn't careful enough in the moment. I said something presumptuous, which will only do to exacerbate our relationship more. I isolated myself. I denied the private channel in fear it would make me look corrupt. I needed people to see a perfect example of a hero when I came back here. I've almost kept to that too, and admittedly that video will do more to better my public image than anything as of late. It is bad though. I practically accused Prime Minister Nikko of corruption, no not "practically." I made it out like he chose to let them die because of something so petty, when I knew it was because of the rules. I can show up places, and ask for forgiveness afterwards or come up with excuses for why it wasn't illegal. Asking for permission beforehand? Demanding an address of a raid? That's not how I've operated so far. They didn't know how to respond. And I expected them to just do what I said._

 _I expected too much of the legal system._

 **"…And why was it that Lifebringer could not revive Fantasma?"** The younger woman on screen wondered to her older male counterpart. They were speaking on 'what-if's' and things that seemed suspicious to them despite public statements, and this was one that had really caught her attention. **"He said after arriving that it was within his time limit, so the fact that he could not revive her meant she had died before. Likely Death brought her back while she was fighting overseas, and she kept it a secret, or so he claimed. And then he also claimed that Kaminari knew that already somehow and intentionally left her body so as to give us all some hope he could tear away again!"**

 **"He did a good job at it,"** the older man said in a lower voice. **"Fantasma was the most heroic, and so strong… and she still died like that. It wasn't fair."**

 **"That the villains have a drug that can take Quirks away?"** The younger woman started softly and in a more nervous tone again. **"Gran Torino claimed when he was interviewed on the scene that he knows for a fact that there are not many doses of the drug out there. He was famous for losing his Quirk to the same drug, only to get it back somehow-"**

 **"Along with what looks like 50 years,"** the other host added suspiciously. **"He's a young man again, and he gives no explanation as to how that is! Gran Torino still wouldn't give up the secret that turned him young again, though I know the drug did not just run its course and he got his Quirk back. If it was that simple he would have said it. We don't think the Quirk-Destroying Drug has a time limit though…"**

"Hey Zach. Zach," Imino rose his voice a little. Zach lifted his head and then took out his headphones as there were others at his table looking at him too.

He brought his expression up a bit, showing he was trying to be somewhat positive though that he was as much in mourning and serious as the rest of them. He nodded at Imino motioning him to ask the question that seemed to be on the tip of his tongue. "It's just," Imino started. "Why didn't you revive the villains?" Others looked at Zach closer, though a couple looked Imino's way wondering why he would want something like that. They understood though with their eyes going wider as Imino continued, "As you could have brought back someone like Shooter, and found out what the League's plans are, no? Shooter was around for a long time, so…"

Zach shook his head and looked down at his food. "It wouldn't have mattered," he started. _Not that I didn't try._

His expression got much darker as he stared down at his food. His last attempt at keeping it looking like the mood he tried to always keep at school and had been forcing since he let Himazuri find out, ended just as quickly as he started it. Others saw the version of Zach who was not trying so hard to be positive with them or even just hiding the slightest bit of how dark he really was. Zach glared at his food, _You don't understand, Imino. I did offer to the heroes there to do just that. Tokoyami heard me too. He looked at me like… Of course he would. The way I said it. How I said that if I did it, then I had to do it on my own somewhere else. That I would bring Shooter back to them after an hour._

 _No one accepted, and they tried to force me to save them anyway,_ Zach ground his teeth for a moment. _Was it the right call, ignoring them? I got so pissed that they wouldn't let me interrogate, that I made it so no one could. But it wouldn't have mattered! I could have- That was just what he wanted! Me to drag one away, torture him, and then he'd get me out of his way! So I told them, that just as it's against the rules for them to let me drag Shooter away like that, it's also illegal for them to force me to use my Quirk there. So I let them stay dead. And there was nothing any of them could say to make me do it._ "I wanted to, Imino," Zach started again with a glance up at his friend with the pointy ears.

He shook his head though, "But I wouldn't have been able to interrogate anyone. No one trusts me enough to let me get some alone time with the villains-"

"That's not what I was suggesting-"

"And _that's_ not what I'm saying I would have done," Zach countered right back at the boy getting too defensive over not having told Zach to torture. Imino's eyes opened wider, as did some of the others who realized what Zach just called Imino out on suspecting he had wanted to do. "But just as the heroes were scared of me doing that, I'm sure any of those villains would have been too. Just waking up somewhere alone with me, it would have been enough to get them to tell me everything they knew. None of the heroes believed that though. Every one of them took one look at me, in Nightmare form, and they _all_ thought I was going to torture it out of Shooter."

Others at the table grimaced, with Imino's eyes staying wide as Zach said the exact name he had just used as an example. "And they wouldn't have told anyone else but me," Zach continued too. "But, admittedly, it's not like I tried very hard either." He admitted it and got back to eating his food. "It's not like Kaminari would have left their bodies if they knew enough about his plans that my bringing them back could change anything. He had the time to throw all the heroes' bodies into that Magma, so leaving the corpses of his own guys was solely to tempt me into dragging one away and reviving him. Or it was to show people how heroes had killed six villains. Murdered them. Heroes who aren't Lifebringer, killing villains on camera in front of the people who believe in their ability to win without needing to do that. Everything. Everything that happened was planned out by him. Every negative outcome of this," Zach glared at his mashed potatoes and stabbed his fork into them with a pissed off slam of it down. "He planned it all."

* * *

 **"And I want all of you to know, we are here. Heroes are here. In this stadium they tried to destroy. In a stadium that represents our whole society right now. Because look who stands in that stadium now, heads as high as ever. The villains who attacked this place are in jail. And yes, some villains escaped Tartaros that day. The ones who freed them will be sent back there too, just as over 70 percent of the villains who were freed that day have** _ **already**_ **been recaptured! We won't settle for 70 percent though. I won't settle, for anything less than every last one of them. None of your heroes will. We enter the world of pros now, as we feel the hope of a return to normalcy. A return to relative peace. We make that change though. We all have to fight for it. We can't ever, give up…"**

Midoriya watched the recording he had seen first hand as it was played on the news he was watching at his lunch table. He had felt inspiration that day as he believed every hero felt when they saw it. _She uplifted us. Indago-senpai, Fantasma, was the strongest of us. Lemillion joked he was worried she would pass him on the leaderboards, and then she breached the top 10 so quickly. Not as fast as he had, but she didn't start her own agency. She didn't get a building or hire any sidekicks. No support… Just her and Miruko. Fighting so often. Reporting to every incident they could, until one was finally too much. Yet in a single year, Fantasma took down famous villains both in Japan and abroad. Fought alongside Miruko and some of the best heroes from America, Germany, Egypt, China, and here. They don't have a lack of things to say about her,_ Midoriya frowned in a sadder way as he could imagine those accolades and how well-deserved they were with every word he heard Indago say on the day of graduation.

 _I'm expected to make a speech like this? Indago went into her third year and the Sports Festival Invasion happened. She was already out there as an intern, fighting so much- But we're no different! How was she my age when she said this? She's, she made a huge impact with this speech alone. She did that, all on her own. Just because she knew she could. I'm sure she knew the pressure and felt the weight of her words here. I don't think she ever thought they'd be played out so soon though, as a way to remember her. As something for us to remember her by!_

Iida looked up across the table at Midoriya. Todoroki sat next to him on his left, and Uraraka was sitting across from Todoroki at the end of the table on Midoriya's right. The tallest boy in Class A frowned at Midoriya's saddened look still of mourning. His serious expression lowered down a bit again, and he stared at his own phone that he pulled out to check the new headline which had popped up on his screen. _Dozens of countries Indago-senpai had visited are in mourning over her death, and the deaths of the other heroes. It's the single largest loss of hero life in one incident since the CHAF Bombing last year… Even Zach would admit the numbers lost were high, though I wonder if the Villain Summit…_ _ **"…There weren't even a hundred of us…" "We took heavy casualties."**_

 _"The Army of Death fired missiles upon the Anti-Death Task Force during an attempted capture of the terrorist organization yesterday. The missiles are believed to be short-range low-yield tactical missiles, but heroes of the ADTF and several UN officials also suspect the Army of Death may have more powerful weapons with farther ranges as well…"_ Iida shook his head as he recalled the news report which finally gave them all the reason why Endeavor had not been around to stop Raijin. _They had to make them out as villains somehow. His group managed to escape that huge force of heroes without harming a single one of them. That's what I see. If I look below the story we are hearing. If I look for the truth, instead of just condemn him for this… Still, what gives them the right to have those weapons and no one else? Why should the Army of Death be the strongest force in the world? And after what we saw this weekend, they most likely are._

 _…In control of everywhere, except for Japan._ Iida corrected his thoughts in a darker way after a hesitation there.

Uraraka got up from her lunch table, turning her head and watching as a boy with spiky bleached-blond hair walked out of the cafeteria early. The others watched as she headed out after Bakugo, then Midoriya, Iida, and Todoroki looked back down at each other. There was a small gap on their other sides as the end of the table, separating the three who gained serious expressions and took out headphones with their shared looks meeting. "So they're back," Todoroki said in a low voice.

Midoriya shook his head right away at how his friend started. "No. Not back. They've been here. They've just been…"

'Waiting' did not seem like a good enough word. Iida finished for his classmate who cut himself off though, "Preparing." Midoriya and Todoroki each hesitated and then nodded in agreement with that.

Midoriya started again, "Kaminari reminded us all who's really in control. Who's always been in control." His eyebrows narrowed down frustratedly, but the smug look on Raijin's face was so vivid in his mind. _He knows we have no idea what he's up to, and he loves every second of it._

"The only one who's ever beaten him," Todoroki started. "Was Zach."

"He wanted to be out there," Midoriya said, his voice getting softer as he thought about the video he had watched too. _And he caused more problems shouting that stuff, even knowing there were people recording him. But I could see it in that video. All he cared about was getting to those heroes fast enough. Grappler, Fantasma, Best Jeanist… With Fantasma though, he knew from the start that he had to get there before she died._ "For Zach, people think it's not about him being too late." Iida and Todoroki looked to their curlier-haired friend who grit his teeth for a moment before saying in frustration, "But there are times when even Zach can't do anything after the fact. When his time limit doesn't mean, anything."

 _Admittedly, that will probably help him,_ Todoroki thought, though he could not say it aloud and give a single positive for the incident that happened yesterday. _It's shown people that he can't do anything, at least. Though the fact that he wasn't told the location keeps everyone from coming to that realization, as some will argue that it's only because of that that he couldn't do anything… And maybe they're right too. Could Zach have beaten him? Or, were the rest of the League in hiding somewhere nearby waiting for him to show up? There had to be others in order to get all those unconscious League members through that tunnel before the first reinforcements showed up. Tokoyami texted that he arrived while the flames were raging, but there was no sign of any of the surviving villains other than the collapsed tunnel in the deep basement._

"He claimed the title of Class A," Iida said in a low and intense voice. "But he does not represent us-"

Whatever Iida was trying to say, Midoriya cut him off with a raise of his head, "But he _was_ Class A." The other two looked at him and Iida paused with a darker look on his face at what Midoriya just said. Midoriya grimaced too in pain as he thought about Iida yelling at Kaminari in that basement of the betrayal. He shook his head though and started so as to explain what he meant, "He was taught by All Might, just like us. He was at every major incident that made our class famous."

"He caused those incidents," Todoroki countered.

"But he was a part of Class A for all of it. Here, right next to us," Midoriya looked down the table to where he had had many conversations with Kaminari on this very bench. He looked back at his friends and said lower, "And everyone remembers that. We remember most of all, but the rest of the country was just reminded of it."

"And Fantasma also reminded them that we're going to stop him," Todoroki said firmly, using their senpai's hero name instead of the name most of them knew her by.

Midoriya nodded his head at that too. "Defeating Raijin is more than just beating one of the League of Villains' leaders though," he started softly to his classmates but in a completely serious voice showing how deeply he believed this. "Class A means nothing if he beats us. U.A. as a whole will become _solely_ the institution that helped train Raijin." His friends gained just as serious looks at these things Midoriya was saying that hit them hard. "If he becomes bigger than us, inside the symbols that people are looking to _right now,_ " Midoriya shook his head at the aspect of that happening. "All of us who called him friend, the teachers who called him their student, the institutions that raised him to be this powerful will be more than just put into question. People will lose faith in them, and in us, and he's started that all in a day."

"You think that's his plan?" Iida wondered intensely at his classmate who seemed to have figured all that out already.

"I think it's part of it," Midoriya replied, though he was shaking his head as he did. "But that's still _just_ part of it. What Raijin's planning is massive. And although I don't think Shigaraki's pulling his strings, Shigaraki has his plans too. They're working together, along with a large number of villains who we did not see yesterday too…"

"We all know how dangerous they are," Todoroki assured Midoriya, as he was not the only one concerned about these things. _Among those others we didn't see yesterday…_

"And we won't let Kaminari succeed," Iida agreed. "We'll stop all of the League of Villains." _Is this why I'm more supportive of Zach today than ever?_ Iida questioned himself after what he just said, because there was one person he was including in that "We" who was not always included when he was speaking about his friends and fellow heroes. _I don't know, but I know this…_

"Then waiting until graduation isn't good enough," Midoriya said to his friends who stared at him in slight confusion wondering what he was getting at there. _I know Zach won't. I saw how ready he is to fight them right now, and we have to be that ready too! I can't still question myself. I can't question whether or not I can inspire people like Fantasma could! There's no more time for that. I need to be ready,_ _ **now.**_ _Because if Zach finds the League, I can't let him go after them alone. He revived Shigaraki. Raijin's been planning for him for years. And even if Zach somehow manages to beat them all, if he goes at it all on his own… He'll slaughter them all._

* * *

 _ **"You kids there, get back…"**_ Zach sat in class with Kimona sensei explaining how the presentations would be working, though they all already knew since they had to be done by today anyway and prepared to present. It was not Zach's day to present his report though, so although he looked focused and ready to take notes on his classmates' presentations, his thoughts wandered all over the place. _He saved us that day in middle school._ Zach saw Best Jeanist, a hero he had known for years and had watched all over the place in awe of his ability and skill. _Part of the team to rescue me and Bakugo from Camino Ward. He got maimed for it, and he went on. He came to help stop Dandy… and he helped take down the League of Shadows._

 _He was there to storm the HQ, and we fought alongside each other that day. I can still see it as I spun to the left on my way to Zolo, the holographic wall that those three came flying out of ready to kill me while I still hadn't seen them. And when I turned, all three hit the ground unable to move, and Best Jeanist was back behind me with the save._ Zach tried to push that feeling to nostalgia, but all it made him feel was sick as he imagined the man's head rolling across the living room. He could picture Kaminari picking it up and tossing it into the pit of Magma, _Or maybe just kicking it, like a fucking soccer ball!_ Zach felt a surge of Death explode out of a tiny black ball condensed in his gut, and he pulled it back in from inside his arms where it almost seeped out of his fingers.

 _And how did I last face him? I made myself look tired after fighting his agency, so as to trick Best Jeanist into thinking I was weaker than I… I fucking hate this. Why was that our last interaction? So insincere…_

Zach felt Himazuri read his mind, and he trailed his thoughts off before thinking in his head, _What's up?_

Her voice came out quiet but got clearer after a couple seconds, _"How are you? I saw, that you tried to get to that incident… I'm sorry, you didn't get there in time."_

 _"…Yeah, it sucked."_ Zach relaxed a bit as he stopped being so tense and just said that in his head to the girl there was no real need to push away anymore. He was feeling like shit too after what he had watched the day before, so helpless like everyone else Raijin forced to watch as he traumatized them. _"I couldn't save any of them. Kaminari leaving me Fantasma hurts the most though. Like a slap in the face. Or a kick in the heart. Both, really."_

 _"Well I'm glad you came in today. I was worried you would go after them on your own, and you know you need a pro license before you can do that."_

 _"I know…"_

As Trabo started presenting his report which he had done on his own Quirk and its odd nature, Himazuri and Zach conversed telepathically through the mental link she had created between them. It was training for Himazuri, which Zach had suggested to her in their first training she should do often with him whenever she could as there were no other people she could currently practice with. She also was glad to be able to use that as an excuse though to see how he was doing, and she heard him speaking in a way his expression had been showing him feeling all day.

 _"I'm sure a lot of heroes feel the same way right now. What's important is finding them now,"_ Himazuri thought at him. _"And we all have to pool our resources in order to do that. So, while you were out there, in the rest of the world… Did you hear anything about the League of Villains?"_

 _"Bits and pieces. Small things, and rumors about Shigaraki's plans that were mainly conjecture. All For One's disappearance was big, just because so much of the world and guys as high as the Shadow Bosses held him in high esteem. It was actually Bolivar who gave me the first hint that he had left Japan… Not that I got any more specific clues on where he was."_ Zach fell quiet in his own head for a few seconds and just watched Trabo as he flipped to the next slide in his presentation showing a video taken of him sparring with a clone of himself while Trabo X was recording, which they could tell when Trabo X flipped the camera and smirked at it and made funny faces for a few seconds that got laughs out of some of the others in class. Trabo went more into those actions by Trabo X than the fighting he had been doing with his other more identical Triplet, and Zach continued to Himazuri at the same time, _"I did see a League member while I was gone though. One villain, I remembered from my time with the League years ago."_

 _"Who was it?"_ Himazuri wondered back at him after focusing on Trabo for a second there but managing to keep her mental link open, something she was happy to have succeeded in doing.

 _"Art. Some American guy who Twice liked for some reason and Shigaraki let in after Giran vouched for him. I never thought much about him, never thought he was much of a threat, and yet I recognized him out there… Sitting on one of the chairs, highest up in the bleachers."_ Zach's mental tone was getting darker, his expression staying the same though appearing intense to Trabo who tried to ignore it as just Zach's normal scary appearance. Himazuri held her breath though to the notice of Reika on her side who gave the brunette a strange look as nothing Trabo just said was especially shocking.

 _"Sitting not far from Umbuju. Trying to talk to him, seeming somewhat frantic."_ Zach paused again and then added, _"I recognized him after the fight. As he was on his feet telling Umbuju something in panic. I think he wanted me dead. It was probably his mission to see if the rumor was true and I was there in the Pit. I doubt the League, or probably Raijin, believed that I had been captured. That Umbuju was probably boasting about a fake Lifebringer to draw in bigger crowds… Art knew it was me though. I think had I remained there for a few more days, even if I had survived more Royales, the League would have come to finish me while they had the chance."_

 _"Did you find out anything about them, afterwards?"_

 _"I didn't think any of the Pit Crew would have known anything about the League of Villains. I doubted Art would know anything too important anyway… I wasn't in the right mind to care about that at the time though. Afterwards I didn't think of how useful Umbuju could be with all the contacts he knew in the underworld."_ Zach paused, and he knew Himazuri had seen what he had done to Umbuju, though he tried to keep that out of his head this time so she would not see it again. He continued to the girl as he focused his thoughts back from how the Pit ended and more on the day he saw Art, _"I know why Art wanted me dead right then though. Why he wasn't satisfied with the Pit being my resting place. I forgot about him up there. That day, it was brutal. Savage. We all…"_

 _"There was only one match I fought in the Colosseum- The Pit, where I did not pity my enemies,"_ Zach started this with a tone of recollection as much as he was telling it as a story. He could see it in his own head, and he told the girl realizing this in shock, _"I remember how I had pushed it all to the back of my mind when I woke up on the table I had died on. Where my friends had revived me. I couldn't think of the innocent people I had killed in there, so I just shoved all that happened in the Pit aside so that I could continue to lead without breaking down. Now that I think on it though, on that day in particular, I recall the match that had the strongest enemies in it."_

 _"They were men who so easily killed the other two in the arena with us. Men, who I could tell something was different about from the start. From when I was heading out there and trying to convince everyone not to move, again…"_ Zach winced, but he regained his composure and continued watching Trabo without letting what just hurt him show on his face. _"I think they were there to kill me,"_ Zach thought, as he recalled his own memory of that day. Memories that had been so far pushed down for so long that they were hazy as he tried to bring them back up. _"Whether they were just strong villains who knew of my capture and wanted to make names for themselves, making a deal with Umbuju to enter the Battle Royale with risk of death if it meant they could kill me. Or, maybe they could have just been captured on purpose by men they knew would sell them to Umbuju. Assassins who would go to those lengths to kill me, not just let me rot and get killed by someone else."_

Himazuri gulped and tried not to dart her eyes over to Zach's head as she saw Reika giving her strange looks from the sides. Try as she might though, it was impossible to keep her face stoic at what Zach was telling her right now. He was speaking to her and yet also to himself as he theorized what had happened that day, for what she could hear was the first time he ever pondered it. _"…And yet these two had something to prove too, and they fought me so savagely. First there were the weapons. The rapier one used was thin and made of sharp steel, and the other had a war hammer he snagged and used masterfully which made me think more along the lines of those weapons having been dropped for the two intentionally, though maybe they were just masters of all weaponry. They were definitely masters of their craft though. Their craft being murder. Monsters who could kill easily, and who killed the others while looking my way. Into my eyes, as they used their bare hands on the others."_

 _"I faced these two men and the fight was easier than the rest, as much as it was the hardest."_ He said a seemingly contradictory thing and then explained to the girl he said that to, _"It was the easiest because I didn't feel bad for the men I was going to kill, because in that moment I knew they were there for me. At a moment where I could not use my Quirk, when I had no weapons on me, with hundreds cheering down at them to kill me. While I was already injured from the last Royales, and just on the walk out there a wound under a dirty rag had already opened up. And, I made it out like I knew I was defeated, though like I would go down fighting. I_ _ **acted**_ _like I knew it was the end, then made it through the tight gap between my attacking enemies. I managed to reach one of the dead competitors, one who had picked up a sword before getting his neck snapped from the man who snuck up behind him without him noticing."_

 _"I used the sword to parry rapier thrusts, and to misdirect the hammer slams, though the guy with the hammer who put all his weight into it still lifted a knee as he was taken aside by the momentum. He kicked me back across the arena, and when I came out of the roll the other man was coming down with the rapier slamming forward already so all I could do was shift my body into a slightly better position,"_ Zach was speaking mentally faster to the girl who was trying to keep up with his real-time recollection of the fast-paced Battle Royale. Her jaw dropped though as Zach went on just as fast, _"I moved so the rapier would impale me in a non-vital area. Then as the villain shoved the sword through me all the way to the base with nothing stopping his momentum, I stood as firm as I could and snapped my head forward past the hilt to the man's neck that my enemy did not pull away from my jaw in time. With a sword impaling me through the upper left side of my chest, I tore that man's throat out with my teeth."_

 _"I remember the audience who had started cheering as I was impaled fell silent in that moment. My enemy fell in a heap in front of me, his hands that started to move towards his neck falling limp with his legs after only a second, as I had taken a huge chunk with the bite. I spat half that man's neck onto the floor in front of me, jugular and esophagus, vocal cords and trachea all ripped apart in the flesh. And I smirked a mouthful of blood at the other man who lowered his head and stared at the crumpled body of the one competing with him to see who would kill me…"_ Zach's fast-paced train of thought slowed down, and he pictured the face in front of him in that arena as it became a one-on-one fight. He hesitated while speaking mentally to Himazuri, and he continued slower, _"I saw in the moment, that the two had known each other."_

 _"They had not been fighting together, but more like they were having a friendly competition to see who would win… maybe in preparation for their final fight against each other in the finals, or maybe they were going to escape from there together once I was dead."_ He closed his eyes for a second slowly and blinked them back open so as not to draw attention. _"I don't know. I would not have the chance to ask the other who charged at me. Lifting my left arm became very hard and painful, leaving me crippled against the best fighting I ever faced in the Pit. One of the best fighters in the world. And yet those cheering in the stands realized something as they watched me fight, for the very first time, with the desire to fight and kill the man in front of me."_

 _"I was always holding back in the Pit. Life and death battles against people trying to kill me, armed to the teeth, but I did everything I could to try and save them. I begged them not to fight me. I tried to stand still and do nothing, until my body moved in defense of itself, my own fear and desire to live winning out over my morality."_ Zach's teeth clenched behind his lips he had to purse shut to keep them hidden, but Himazuri heard the tone shift in his head too. _"The ones who enslaved me, put me in chains, they made the worst mistake as they gave me a taste of slavery. I understood what that felt like, that hopelessness and helplessness, trapped under someone else's whim… So to see these men come in there voluntarily? To see them come to this place where so many had been killed, enslaved- watching them come and_ _ **compete**_ _like it was a GAME?!"_

 _"The guy with the hammer came at me, enraged but also fighting calmly and strategically, though I could see in his eyes as his attitude gradually shifted. That man thinking I had caught the other one off guard, realized that I was not an easy target. I fought harder, despite my wounds. I got angrier, much angrier than my enemy's rage could compete with. The audience cheering for my enemies found themselves silent. I had always seen Umbuju smirking down at me, whenever I was being hurt, cheered against or for, or when I was killing people. I caught a brief glimpse of Umbuju as I fought that day though. Not a long look, but enough to see even Umbuju in a moment of fear towards me. I don't know who those two men were. All I know is what it felt like to kill them."_

 _"I never enjoy killing anyone… but it was easier to kill them."_ Zach admitted it darkly and without remorse in his telepathic tone. _"Easier than it had ever been to kill someone before. I almost considered not counting them towards my kill count,"_ Himazuri got confused, wondering for a second why Zach wouldn't count two like that. He finished though, _"Because I only kept count in order to feel guilt for them all. To make sure I never forget the value of human life… But I didn't feel guilty for killing those two."_

 _"I don't feel guilty about it at all."_

* * *

In Class A's kitchen after school was over for the day, Midoriya stood with his back to the sink and faced the girl with brown hair tied back into a short ponytail in front of him. It was a new hairstyle that Midoriya considered mentioning, but this was not much a day for small talk. Earlier they had others at the lunch table with them so it had been harder, and in class people sat around their desks during all the breaks so he never had a chance with her alone until now.

"Last night," Midoriya started to his good friend who lifted her head to look up in his eyes. "I, saw you go into Bakugo's room… I was in the hall myself, to talk," he added, explaining how he had seen her. She nodded at him, her look staying sad but getting a different level of sad as he brought this up. "How is Kacchan doing?" Midoriya whispered.

Uraraka shook her head as she thought back on the night before too where she had gone and knocked on Bakugo's door until he let her in. "He knew," she started, but she closed her mouth and pursed her lips after just those two words. It was something she desperately needed to talk to someone about, something that had been weighing down on her all day and she wanted to share while at the same time not knowing if sharing broke Bakugo's trust. She just shook her head though and started to Deku in front of her, "He knew Indago-senpai had died before…"

Midoriya lowered his gaze to the floor. _I thought that, was probably what happened_

"I've never seen him so angry," Uraraka continued. Midoriya rose his eyes back up and listened as Uraraka said with concern in her voice, "Real anger, not just… Bakugo being Bakugo."

She whispered the last part which MIdoriya nodded his head with in agreement and understanding at what she meant. He opened his mouth to say something about it, but then he and Uraraka turned and looked across the first floor to the front of the building where the door just opened with a swing inwards. Kirishima stepped inside, wearing his blue gym clothes that he had just changed into from his costume, so they were not messed up. The redhead himself looked very beat up though, and the two in the kitchen started over to him in some worry at his appearance.

"Kirishima," Uraraka began. "Are you-"

"Fine," Kirishima muttered, closing the door behind him and then taking off his shoes. He shook his head and bit down hard again with his sharp teeth as he thought about what just happened.

"What happened?" Midoriya asked softly, though he suspected where Kirishima had been.

"I tried talking to Bakugo while training together, figured he needed to blow off steam, or something," Kirishima muttered it in a dark way, pausing a few times as he was still panting. "He's going all out though, training harder than ever before." _And while super pissed._ He shook his head darkly, "I'm mad about this too, but I can see it in Bakugo. He's all over himself on this one." Kirishima turned and he grit his teeth harder, though he then added under his breath, "Zach's got to be beating himself up too…"

 _Both of my-_

Kirishima's teeth chomped down hard and he narrowed his eyes as he started marching towards the stairs to go to his room. _Damn! Why did I, start thinking that like-_ Kirishima stormed off in a way angry at himself too, though for different reasons than the two he was just thinking about were.

Midoriya and Uraraka watched him go. They looked back at each other, and Uraraka shook her head after a second and then walked away herself. Deku watched her go then looked at the door in front of him. _Kacchan._ His expression hardened, _Kirishima may not be able to take you blowing off steam at full._ Midoriya reached forward and grabbed the doorknob. _But I can._

* * *

"You're a fucking bastard," Diamondfist snarled towards the blond teenager walking his way. He put his hands down on the armrests at his sides at pushed out of the recliner he had passed out on.

"I'll ignore that," Raijin said as he continued forward, though he gave Diamondfist a dangerous look warning the tan-skinned man with light blue hair from overstepping.

Diamondfist gave fuck all about the dark look Raijin gave him though, stomping forward in a bright underground base with dozens of people in it moving around and about. He stepped in front of the kid while others nearby sitting in the same infirmary-type area gave him varying looks of unease at his balls. A few just watched in amusement wondering if Diamondfist was about to die, but Todo Viscucci glared into Raijin's eyes without fear of that and growled at the teen before him, "Marx and Chronic were my boys. You got them killed."

Raijin stared right back into Diamondfist's face and shifted his gaze over to the side at other guys who had been part of Diamondfist's group that had stuck together during their time in Tartaros and afterwards. As small-time as some of those guys were, they were glaring his way as Diamondfist started like that to him. Raijin refocused solely on Diamondfist though who continued darkly down at him, "Shooter, GoldenArm, the noobs too."

Rabbit lifted his head and pulled his right arm from the doctor on that side of him. The twenty year old's expression got angrier and his eyes narrowed with what Diamondfist just said, and despite not being a part of his crew his expression more matched those guys' than it did Meta or Sonic's. "Lighten up, all of you," Raijin said. He said it at Diamondfist but then moved to the man's left side and walked around him without the muscular man reaching out to stop him. "You survived! Which means," he continued with a raise of his tone suggesting something good. "You're all allowed in on the plan now."

The German's widening eyes narrowed again quickly, and Raijin looked towards the man whose forehead was wrapped in white bandages and who had to lay on his stomach as one of the doctors with them had ordered. "Not enough for you?" Raijin wondered at the foreigner who frowned deeper then just lowered his head straight back to the floor so as to straighten his back that felt like it had been broken, and one of the doctors told him it nearly had.

"The whole reason you were in that forest hideout for so long was for what we did yesterday, after all," Raijin started up again with a look around the eight guys who made it out who did not know the plan beforehand.

"And why'd you tell them, and not me?" Diamondfist growled, motioning with a nod of his head to where Meta and Sonic were each sitting on chairs of their own. Neither of the two seemed to care much about this anymore as Diamondfist did not try to stop Raijin from walking around him which would have been the moment a fight would have broken out. "You kept us in the dark and it nearly killed us-"

"I needed to keep most everyone in the dark for it to work," Raijin replied, shrugging his shoulders but looking to Diamondfist and getting a more serious look on his face too. It showed he understood the reason for his comrade's anger, though he continued speaking like his plan was not to be questioned, "And it did work. And now you're one of the famous villains who killed Miruko, Best Jeanist, Fantasma, and Wash." Raijin smirked around at the other villains in front of him, "I bet we all get on the top 10 most wanted in the country."

"It's just been updated," Sonic mentioned, and the others all looked to the man with long dark-blue hair who sat forward in his chair, shrugging off the doctor working on sealing up some of his wounds he got from smashing through walls at the end of the fight. Sonic frowned at the rankings, and Meta leaned over the armrest of his buddy then grinned at his friend who just ignored the look as he spoke to everyone. "Intanzo's still number 1, but Shigaraki's second, Raijin 3, Meta 4, I'm 5." Sonic said it and humphed, though he hummed in some acceptance as he added, "Pinoko got 6, Dabi's 7, then Toga, Iscariot… and you made it too, somehow." Sonic finished with a glance up towards Diamondfist who grunted in acknowledgement though did not seem very satisfied with just that.

"We took the top 5 spots," Raijin said with a chuckle. "Not that we didn't already have all those spots anyway."

This time, Diamondfist froze and he turned in confusion to the blond on his left. "What about the Jazz?" He wondered it, and Kaminari looked out the corners of his eyes with the right corner of his lip closer to Viscucci rising up. "And Splodo?" Diamondfist added, raising his eyebrows more to just a continued smirk from Raijin.

"It'll take longer for the heroes to adjust their own leaderboards than it takes them to edit ours. They'll wait for the _official_ billboard rankings. They take so long with everything, after all," Raijin said in a taunting way. A couple of the doctors working on the injured villains lifted nervous gazes at the eighteen year old whose tone was getting seriously scary here. Rabbit gulped and he lowered his gaze down when Raijin looked his way too, only to rise it back up as Raijin said in a low tone, "It's not just the Radians under us now. It's all of them. And yesterday was just the start…"

Although Raijin was speaking to the others in a way fully confident and with intentions of making them all feel a certain way moving forward and into the future, his thoughts were split in focus. _A weak start. Zach was kept in the dark. I knew Endeavor wasn't around, and the AoD was busy too. Not that I'm afraid of either on their own, but with Fantasma in the field of play I needed to get rid of the other big players before I faced her. Admittedly, I didn't think I would face her yesterday either as I had been unable to account for her and Miruko's whereabouts beforehand, but I was hoping I'd get her out of the way. A good chance to test how strong I had become even without my gear… And yet I needed the backup plan with Toga, then the second contingency with taking her Quirk. I kept it looking planned though._ "It was the perfect start. To scare them, and weaken them, and to remind them what U.A. created."

Others around Raijin looked at him with more uncertain looks or ones getting more excited too. Diamondfist felt better about letting Raijin just walk around him, as the teen continued with a deadly smirk, "What was a part of Class A for so long without any of those new top heroes realizing. Reminding them of my existence. Of the League of Villains' existence." His voice rose louder, and he smirked towards each of the men giving them looks showing they shared in the victory he was talking about and all it caused. "Of the Sports Festival Invasion, USJ, and the Age of Villains they had all hoped was over even though their worst nightmares were never captured. They wanted to believe we had just faded away, and now they're _afraid._ And people in fear tend to do rash things. Trust people easily. Fear who they're told to fear, attack who they're told to attack, and small-time villains will rise in this period of fear."

"They'll keep the attention of all the Japanese heroes now going to focus solely inwards…" Raijin continued, touching on the speeches given by the top heroes who had tried to encourage and reassure their people today. His eyes narrowed under the blond bangs that fell over his forehead, and he continued menacingly, "Keeping them busy for the next month. And by the end of this next month, 30 days, they'll all be dead. And they'll never see it coming." His smirk curled up both sides of his cheeks in a terrifying way to most of the people staring at him. Diamondfist stared with his eyes growing huge, _This kid seriously believes he's about to shatter all of hero society… And I believe him!_

Diamondfist's face relaxed and a smirk crossed it too, though he only chuckled after a couple seconds and stopped when Raijin looked back at him. He looked to his own guys, some who were not so ambitious and who were more upset about their friends getting killed in the chaos of the day before. Raijin smirked as he saw the predicament Diamondfist was in though, and he put two fingers inside his bottom lip and whistled. "I figure a more material reward is well-deserved here as well though. So enjoy, you monsters. The whole nation hates you…"

Behind Kaminari, a couple of League members came around a corner of the base and held their arms out motioning into the room where the group who just survived Operation Atem looked their way. Even Meta and Sonic looked surprised like they had not been told about this, but neither of them complained as two lines of strippers rushed into the room towards them. "Uh, be careful-" one of the doctors started, only to just shut his mouth and back off from the injured villains who no longer seemed to care if their wounds were exacerbated.

Raijin turned away from the valuable forces behind him. He started walking away and thought to himself, _Luckily only had to find women. Pinoko, has slightly more Toga-ish tastes. The two of them should be satisfied with their own rewards though._

 _Enjoy your victory for today. Starting tomorrow, we move nonstop for the end. For one, final, win._

* * *

 **A/N Thanks for reading! Aftermath of the battle makes for a pretty dark chapter. Our heroes are in mourning but trying to reassure the public, while the villains prepare their next moves in the shadows. The heroes know the villains will not wait and that this is only the beginning, but can they keep up with Raijin and the united front of villains going against them? Can Zach hold on as more and more people find out and come for him? The timeframe drops. And with it, I'll drop this too... This story ends at the end of this school year. Here it comes... XD Hope you enjoyed the chapter. Leave a review below telling me what you think, predictions, comments, and/or questions for the story!**

QuestingforBitches chapter 200 . Nov 13

Well...shit.

 **Yep. That pretty much sums up the last chapter.**

Darkmagic0703 chapter 200 . Nov 13

Like deadass bro your to fucking good of an Author like you had me screaming and my heart racing fam like wtf. You cold asf fam!

 **Thanks a lot man! XD Glad I got y'all so excited.**

GrayReader chapter 200 . Nov 13

Holy fucking shit, this chapter was amazing. I can't wait for Zach to beat the hell out of the prime minister, he's way too smart to fall for this trick. If this doesn't make the AoD come to Japan, then nothing will, Zach might not go back to the AoD but there's no way he's playing with the red tape of bureaucracy anymore. Can't wait for the next one! Cheers!

 **Thanks for the review! Glad you really liked the chapter. Lot of you saying stuff about Zach beating up Nikko in the comments, but it's not so easy for someone who doesn't have this all-knowing view over everything that you readers have to link not being given the location to Nikko definitely working with Raijin. Lots of other reasons people gave this chapter for why Nikko/ Nikko's office couldn't/didn't give Lifebringer the location until it was too late. Some blamed hero society and rules/laws, others blamed the tense relationship believed to exist between Lifebringer and Nikko, and Zach blamed himself for not creating a more direct link to speak to Nikko, as he only reached his receptionist during the incident. He convinces himself not to disappear into the shadows as a lot of others thought he would have too, telling himself that to do that would be another loss for heroes after already such a big one. Hope that's understandable to you as you were pretty sure otherwise in this review. Hope you enjoyed the chapter nonetheless!**

someguy1011 chapter 200 . Nov 14

Hey there it's been a while since I last posted a review, So ill just say that you have been hitting it out of the park lately and you're doing an incredible job. The fact you always come back to zach's mental state and other people's perception of him just brings this world to life. But rn im losing my shit with Kaminari returning and enemies closing in on Zach from all fronts, but im still holding out hope that he will come out of this alive.

 **Thank you! Glad you're still enjoying it and all the different angles I'm hitting the story from. Enemies are def moving in hard on Zach right now, every front seeming to close in on him at once... We'll see if he can handle it. XD Thanks for the review!**

GuestP chapter 200 . Nov 13

Oh yeah, and HAPPYYY 200TH CHAPTER YOU GUYS  
WOOOOOOOOOO~~~~  
You've come so far, tmb, be proud of this!

 **200 Chapters in. Nearing on 3 million words. I'm excited, and thanks for the shoutout for this 'cause it's a pretty exciting mark to hit. Can't wait for the next chapters. Hope you all enjoy them too! Thanks for reading and reviewing, to you GuestP and to everyone!**


	202. Chapter 202

**Disclaimer: I don't own Boku no Hero Academia**

 **Chapter 202:**

 _I didn't sleep last night. Shouldn't I sleep tonight?_ Zach stood on the edge of a skyscraper in Osaka. He was on the west side of a giant hotel in a city of twenty million people, perched on the ledge with his hands down between his feet and his body shrouded in Death. His black wings were still formed but pulled in on his back, and he glared through the rain out at the skyline of the city in front of him so active despite the time. The streets down below were packed, and he knew they would be in a district known for clubbing and fancy bars in hotels that stayed open late with live music and DJs coming through nightly. Under his dark veil of Death he had his backpack on, all of his belongings inside other than his hero costume he left at Shiketsu High with a pair of indoor shoes and his school uniform he figured he could just put on after arriving at school for now on in a bathroom stall. It gave him more room in his backpack that he kept all his possessions in, not that the bag was not still packed to capacity.

He stood where he had been standing for a good while now. There was a security camera on the roof, but only one that pointed from the top of a roof access door outwards so as to catch anyone going up. He figured it was most likely just for employees who sneak up there for a smoking break or something, and less for actual intruders or people flying around since the angle did not cover all of the roof where it could catch view of him. Zach stood on the ledge of the building and stared out into a city that was full of so many people that he knew, _Someone just died here. Somewhere in this city. If I see the sirens, should I go revive them? It's not about "should." I'm using my Quirk. I need to bring a few back today. A few more- no, it's past midnight. They'd be the first ones today._

 _Sirens._ Zach looked past a few tall buildings ahead of him and down to the street level where he saw blinking red and blue lights coming from around a corner. _Crime? Accident? Emergency, or just a traffic violation?_ The dark figure came out of its crouch and stood ten feet tall on the building's ledge. His red eyes glowed through the pitch blackness over his face, and the darkness on the bottom of his head curled down into a deep frown over the veil. _I can't go check it out as this. I'd chaos a panic._ His size started to decrease, the Death around him simmering a bit. _It's been enough for today. I haven't had an incident since Broom Man. I know I have to push out Death. Keeping my insides as Death worked for a time, but that hurt me more than not expelling it enough did. Reviving people has always made me weaker. It doesn't do as much anymore, but my lack of revivals since that big day is catching up with me. I'm getting too strong. Fully recharged. Bubbling inside me wanting to be used. And yet despite the dark times we're in now, I need to show people more than ever the version of me I showed when I returned._

 _Like I could manage that._ Zach pushed off all the Death from around him and let it wisp away instead of sucking it back into his body. He stood on the edge straight up, and he took in a long breath of air while rain drenched his black hair he had out of his hood that bunched up behind his neck. He rose his hands and rubbed around in his hair, then tilted his face up to the rain and washed his face off too. _I need to get out of the rain. My bag's waterproof, but they don't mean it can get continuously drenched when they say that. I don't have space for an umbrella though._ Zach lowered his head back down and frowned as he saw two cop cars with sirens over them pulling onto a road that actually was in his sight now. They turned the other way as him on that street, _I should follow them._

His phone buzzed, and he rose up his left hand while putting his right into his pocket. Out of his left hand formed a thin pole of darkness straight up above him that expanded out into an umbrella curving down above his head and in a circle to keep rain from falling in front of his body. Rain dripped down the solid Death he condensed above him in that shape, and Zach stared down with rain dripping off his chin at the phone he held in front of him that actually was waterproof unlike the backpack that was just branded as it by the company that made them. He wiped some water off the screen as his fingers in his wet glove on his right hand were having trouble registering on the touch screen.

 _Huh?_ Zach read the news story he opened up on his phone. _A day after Kaminari's plan kicks off? I don't think it's a "malfunction" that caused the plane to drop._ He read the article on the breaking news story, seeing that a plane flying from China to United Korea had malfunctioned mid-flight when the side door of the plane ripped open. _I'm sure some heroes are suspicious about what happened there too. Puleun Nalgae and Won- Wondeo… Blue Wings and Wonder Man caught it, a couple southern UK heroes responding to the distress call. Most of the passengers were saved, but several people who weren't buckled in along with the flight attendants were all ripped out of the plane. The few who fell like that and died, were all murdered._

Zach leaned forward and his feet slipped off the ledge of the building. His body spiraled as he erupted in Death again, and he flapped down and soared up into the dark clouds above still pouring freezing rain on him as he entered them. _It's no accident. Kaminari's inciting violence. Inciting distractions to keep us busy. He knows he doesn't have to do the work to distract us at all. He leaves it to those who think they're making their own plays. Who think they were just waiting for the right moment, and who don't realize that they're all just going to be used. What kind of villain opens the door on the side of a plane though? It's odd that that would be the story if the plane landed with mostly survivors. They'd see if there was an actual hole blown in the side of the plane, marks on it or something. The story claims malfunction, but it's breaking news. That's what the pilots called down as they dropped out of the sky. They had no contact with the back of the plane during that time, since their flight attendants were ripped from that metal tube and fell to their deaths in terror._

He flapped his wings harder behind him and left the country as he was allowed to do again. Zach dropped out of the sky and soared over the Sea of Japan only a few feet over the water, flaps of his wings hitting the sea each time he flapped them, and he rose and lowered with the rough waves of the storm. _They felt real hope too, which made the terror all the more real. Never a moment of acceptance, because they all hoped a hero would come. Even if the bodies fell over land…_ Zach grit his teeth behind the dark veil over his face. _This is going to_ _ **fucking**_ _hurt._

Zach pulled up and flew up high before reaching the brightly illuminated Korean coastline as he had been on-track to hit one of its largest coastal cities. He soared back up into the clouds that were not raining down on him anymore and looked to be thinning out the farther north he went. He crossed the nation quickly, thinking to himself as he sped up a bit with a blast of Death behind him, _It's been a while. No telling how far the bodies are spread apart too, so if I have to look around for them- I should have more than enough time. It's still important I get there fast. Anything could happen that forces me to get back in seconds. So I'll act fast. And do, whatever I can._

The jetliner that had been plummeting from the sky had been the priority for Korean heroes who had been driving back to UK through Manchuria when the call came through. They had flown out of the convoy of Korean and Chinese heroes who had grouped together to take care of a villain group in Mongolia that Mongolian's top heroes had called in emergency assistance for yesterday. Blue Wings and Wonder Man were the only two who could fly, and though Blue Wings did not have the strength the third ranked Korean hero had to really assist him in lifting the nose of the plane back up, he had been able to fly into the open door of the plane and then back below to relay instructions and information between the pilots and Wonder Man during the descent.

The landing was still hard, as when the plane finally came to touch down on its landing gear, Wonder Man and the pilots were unable to put it down gently enough. The landing gear broke. The wheels snapped off, and Wonder Man was left below the plane skidding on the heels of his boots that wore through quickly as his legs dug into the highway they landed on near the northern border of United Korea, just south of it inside the nation the plane was meant for. The plane finally did slow to a stop though, the bottom of the plane dropping down and the people inside jolting hard but then cheering as they realized they had stopped moving. Those cheers did not last, however. Blue Wings was yelling under the plane for Wonder Man to pick it back up and move it off himself, while trying to lift up the jetliner himself to no avail.

When Zach arrived on the scene, he saw the passengers and pilots had all unloaded. Cop cars and ambulances were still pulling up on the scene, fire trucks too though they seemed unnecessary as no fires had started anywhere. Zach flew up above the landing site and turned his head left, looking back down the road the plane had landed on and skid down. He turned his head to the right and looked towards a bridge over the highway that connected an intersecting one that went over this international highway. The trenches digging up the middle of the right half of the highway got deeper closer to where the plane finally stopped, like the man underneath it had seen they were rapidly approaching that bridge and dug his feet down harder to slow them down. Panels on the wings had been lifted, and he could see the pilots did everything they could to slow the plane as well.

After he arrived and hid his backpack in the closest tree, he saw that some of the passengers who had exited the plane were speaking enthusiastically with emergency authorities and the pilots. He heard people crying down there, some screaming, others yelling out orders to each other. _All those with strength Quirks. They're completely ignoring Quirk laws in the country. The police don't seem to care though. They're just agreeing with those passengers and Blue Wings who's most into it. Should I go for the others first?_ Zach looked up into the sky and where he thought the plane's path was, though he did not see much smoke. _It wasn't engine failure. The cabin just lost pressure when the door ripped off. What the hell happened up there? I want to investigate. I've got to revive those passengers who fell first,_ his gaze lowered down into the distance northwest, and he grimaced to himself while wondering, _If I even can. It looks like the path was over land, so I should have a chance. Looks like I'll have a chance with Wonder Man first. It's surprising he's only third ranked in Korea with power like that. Rivals Star-Spangled Man's… though I think he would have caught the plane_ _ **and**_ _survived._

 _It's kind of cooler that he caught it and died though. As much as that sucks for both of us. He's someone I can trust tonight, at the least. Damn, some strong Quirks down there._ Zach rolled his shoulders, and then he flew down out of the sky as soon as the powerful passengers, cops, a fireman, and an EMT all lifted the plane and rested it down off of Wonder Man's body. Zach landed down as everyone was putting down the plane, so those people turned back around to look at Wonder Man, and the people who had been behind them waiting to rush forward all stared forward too with dropped jaws. Two hundred passengers and crew of the plane, and a few dozen cops and emergency personnel, stared in disbelief at who just showed up within three seconds of them getting the plane off of Wonder Man.

Most of them just hoped that Wonder Man's body was strong enough that despite the plane falling on him he would still be alive. Zach also held onto that hope a little bit, though his hope was as crushed as Wonder Man was as he looked down at the guy's body from up close. _Didn't want any of you to see this,_ Zach thought as he looked at the body of the hero who had just saved all those people. _Should check anyway,_ he reached out of his darkness and put his right hand in its glove on the side of Wonder Man's neck that was still intact. _Yeah, no pulse. Obviously. Would be dumb not to check though and accidentally kill the guy I'm trying to save._

Darkness flooded from the veil around Zach's body down his right arm that had just lost its Death when he checked for the hero's pulse. All of the darkness on Zach moved to his right hand and then covered Wonder Man for a couple of seconds. "Grrrr, FUU- **AHH-** Haa, ahh, haaa," Zach panted a few times, rolling his neck and shrugging his shoulders. He shook out his arms and legs that all felt like they broke right there, _Wonder how much of that pain Wonder Man felt himself before kicking it? Wonder if he even felt the pain, or if he just knew he had to keep the plane from hitting down and cartwheeling into that bridge._ "You alright?" Zach asked, speaking Korean and reaching his right hand down for Wonder Man to take.

The hero who felt exhausted and ready to pass out had snapped his eyes back open wide when he saw who was standing over him. Once Zach saw that he was fully awake, he clasped the hand of the man who was not about to pass out on him. "Nice job," Zach said, as he helped the hero back onto his feet in front of him and looked up at the Korean man a couple inches taller than him and a little broader at the shoulders.

Blue Wings pulled his elbows down to his sides, shaking so hard with the biggest grin crossing over his face. Then he did a jump into the air and pumped his right hand up, yelling out, "YEAH!"

People rushed forward all at once, and Zach moved aside to let them run towards Wonder Man who he figured most of them were heading towards. A few ran straight towards him though, and a man yelled out at him while grabbing him by the arm, "Thank you! Thank you Lifebringer!"

"Hey," Zach said in Korean, getting the older Korean man to stop thanking him. He looked around at the others who quieted down with everyone staring at Lifebringer who seemed so serious right there still. "How far back did the door open? I heard others fell out of the plane."

The others who were on the plane all stared at him in shock, and then a hundred voices started shouting at once.

"My husband was ripped-"

"Do you mean it?!"

"Can you get the flight attendants?" The co-pilot started, walking forward away from the captain who was still standing with the police he had tried to explain to about the curious situation that befell their plane.

"Just tell me where they dropped. I'll go see if I can," Zach told everyone. His words assured them that he would at least try, though he gave no certainties which they all heard in his voice which made them settle down a bit and lose some of the hope he had filled them with. He saw those looks losing hope, but instead of countering them he just added in his best Korean, "I have no idea how destroyed the bodies are. But I promise, I'll try to save them."

* * *

An hour after the initial problem caused Flight KA20459 to plummet out of the sky, Zach brought back two of those who had flown out of the plane in those seconds of sheer chaos in the sky. He felt like shit on his way back towards UK, as he carried two people over the border with China inside his dark veil and flapped wings he made huge on his sides to be able to hold the three of their weight. _I should have let the kid pass out at least. Showing him those splattered bodies, ones so completely fucked up I couldn't do a thing, it's gonna scar him as much as dying himself._ Zach held his right arm a little tighter into his chest, then he did the same with his left arm a second later that was made of Death at the moment so as not to be as hard as a steel arm would be.

While he was reviving the two he located in a cluster of cabbage farms, and explaining to some panicked Manchurian farmers what had happened, things had started to get organized back near the crash site where Zach returned to with the revived pair. One of the two he brought back was the ten year old boy who was crying into his chest at first but Zach felt like he might have fallen asleep since. The other was a flight attendant who was still whimpering in fear after what had happened, unable to make out anything coherent to him since he brought her back, though he told her she did not need to say anything.

Zach flew towards some large white tents that had been set up on the side of the closed highway. The other half of the highway than the side the plane had landed on was split in half to allow traffic to go both ways on it, with police detours up and down the highway to redirect drivers onto the other side of the road. Under the tents on the far side of the highway as the other half traffic continued moving on, all the passengers who experienced minor injuries were being treated by the EMTs and doctors who had arrived afterwards as there was no way to transport everyone to the nearby hospital but yet those people still needed to be checked out. Police were trying to question people too along with the heroes who had arrived, but the doctors were being pushy with the authorities and keeping them from upsetting their patients who had just been through a very traumatic incident.

Those doctors shifted focus onto the two who Zach handed off to them after landing just outside the tent and nearly scaring half the doctors to death. He quickly pulled all his Death back into his body to show a less threatening version of himself, though he also looked apologetic as he handed off the unconscious boy and let two doctors grab the female flight attendant under the shoulders to lead her to a bed. Zach turned to Wonder Man who came up to him ready with a thanks as he had failed to say anything to the teen earlier. "I tried, with the others." A couple other heroes, two cops, and a few hopeful passengers and the plane's captain had all come towards him too around Wonder Man. Zach shook his head though and the hope they had that maybe he just couldn't carry all the people he had brought back was squashed by the look on his face. "Their bodies were too… I'm sorry," Zach said with a look at a woman he remembered crying out at him about her husband.

She broke down in grief, finally falling to her knees and sobbing which got a doctor to come over to her. Zach walked away from the tents and motioned for the heroes and officers to do the same. He thought maybe the captain was just there to ask about the other flight attendants, but the main pilot followed him off too looking ready to take part in this discussion. Zach glanced back after he and the other authorities had made some distance from the tent and the traumatized people who could have overheard them. "Every body up there was super fucking mangled," Zach started darkly in English to the group around him as he noticed the pilot of the plane had a Chinese flag on his right sleeve while there were mainly Korean authorities around him. "The flight attendant fell in a swampier area, cushioned her fall a bit I think. The kid's, was less mangled than the rest but…"

"Maybe because of his smaller body?" Blue Wings wondered softly, glancing back towards the tent and the bed the doctors had put the boy down on. His parents had run over and were sobbing loudly while hugging the boy who woke up because of their yells. Blue Wings looked back at the teen responsible for that reunion, and he said, "Not a lot of weight meant he didn't have as much force upon hitting the ground?"

"I don't think so," Zach replied with a shake of his head. "It felt like the kid was either knocked unconscious or killed when he flew out of the plane. His head slammed into something, probably the edge of the door, that made his whole body loosen up unlike the others who all tensed up before hitting the ground." The description Zach gave suggested to the others around him that he was confident of his theory here. It also told them something about his Quirk, and those who had seen him bring back Wonder Man thought about the way he had groaned and yelled out during the revival with their eyes widening at the idea of it.

"Are you, alright?" The captain questioned the teenager in front of him.

"Yeah, fine," Zach replied. He motioned towards the plane on the highway, "Nice job on the landing, by the way. If I had gotten here any sooner," Zach continued while looking to Wonder Man in a slightly apologetic way.

Wonder Man shook his head at the teen saying that though. "I'm just glad you came at all, Lifebringer."

"I was close enough," Zach gave his reasoning, and he did a quick glance around at the others near him to see if that was alright with them. No one wanted to argue about it, and Zach nodded in appreciation about that. "So," Zach started again, still using English which he was glad it looked like most of the people around him were fluent enough in. He nodded his head to the side back at the road, "What crashed the plane?"

He looked to the pilot who faced him too and leaned his head back at the direct eye contact Lifebringer was making with him. It was something he had already tried explaining before, but the others he had been explaining it to were just looking at the Chinese pilot too waiting to hear the official story. The problem was, "I, really don't know." The captain answered and shook his head in a frustrated and also apologetic way as he knew he should be the one with this information. "We lost cabin pressure at 24,000 feet. Neither of us in the cockpit had any contact with the cabin until Blue Wings arrived, but I knew the front-most emergency exit was gone. I tried to keep everyone calm we heard screaming behind us, but, nothing I said over the speakers did a thing…"

"What next?" Zach asked, not waiting for the man who lowered his head to get depressed and think too hard about it.

"We did our best to stabilize, speaking to flight control and looking for a place to bring her down," the captain looked to Wonder Man and Blue Wings standing on the same side of him. "But it was the heroes who-"

"You kept the bird in the air long enough for us to reach," Wonder Man said, shaking his head and giving the captain a smile. "You did everything you could."

 _What a cool hero,_ Zach thought with a glance back to Wonder Man again. A couple of others looked his way too with similar looks, and the captain even took a few seconds of just staring blankly at him before that registered and he quickly replied about Wonder Man's more impressive feat. Zach frowned as this went on and he looked back towards the tents that had more being set up with more emergency personnel and even press starting to arrive too. "We have to figure out what caused the door to rip off mid-flight," Zach started.

"Could it have not just been," one of the Korean heroes started, a woman who arrived just after the first police. AboveWater stepped up on Zach's right side and continued in Korean to the teen, "A technological malfunction? That was what it was initially reported as."

"It was reported as a malfunction by pilots who didn't see what happened," Zach replied, also in Korean without lowering his voice though he noticed the pilot on his back right did pick up on most of it. _He spoke good English too. Good thing there're a lot of multilingual people around here. Doubt many of them speak Japanese though. I haven't had to converse with anyone like this in a while, though I had those short refreshers when Dover and Blackstar were around. Plus, this is the point of the constant training. Can't stay fluent without practice._ "But how often does a passenger plane experience mechanical failure on this level? There are checks done to make sure proper maintenance is done on a routine basis. And this kind of failure? It's weird."

"That's right," Zach and AboveWater looked to the left where a different hero who had arrived more recently stood. Zach looked closely at the man he recognized, a guy in a black suit in his thirties who looked to be wearing a pair of sunglasses even this late at night. _That's part of G-Man's gear though,_ Zach thought as he inspected the older Korean hero with straight black hair two-inches short over his head. That hero turned his head slowly on approach with his eyes scanning over the passengers and authorities scattered out in front of them. G-Man looked to his right without turning his head, looking into Zach's eyes from behind his sunglasses and checking out the teen who stared right back at him. "I examined the inside of the emergency exit once the plane had emptied out. No sign of structural damage. It looked to me more like the door had been opened-"

"You cannot open a door of the pressurized cabin," the captain started in broken Korean, stepping forward and countering the hero angrily at what he just caught being said. "It is impossible-"

"For men with normal strength, yes," G-Man countered. "But if it's not the plane's structural integrity, and it was sabotage of some kind, then this is a terrorist attack. If it was someone on the plane going insane though, ripping the door open to try and get out and using their Quirk to do it," G-Man had a dark look on his face but what he was suggesting sounded plausible to the others around him.

 _If that was all it was though,_ Zach thought with his lips curling farther down. _Then shouldn't someone have said something by now? The passengers would have noticed someone freaking out and opening the door, and they would have been yelling about it this whole time. Instead they just seem confused and angry. Sad, too,_ Zach thought as he listened to loud sobs of a woman who started wailing, maybe from the trauma, maybe from loss. Zach heard similar screams a little over a week ago, when his apartment exploded. _Norita-san had people like- there's no time. Something's going on here, and you know it._

"We should split up," Zach suggested with a look at G-Man who seemed calm and ready to investigate what happened better than the others more focused on the current melancholy moment of loss of life. Zach looked behind G-Man to the other heroes, specifically Wonder Man, "And find out what we can from passengers able to speak. Does this airline designate seats for its passengers?" Zach wondered at the pilot who looked at him in surprise again at the question before slowly shaking his head to the disappointment of Zach and G-Man who looked his way hoping for a better answer.

"It's going to be harder to find out who sat closest to the door," G-Man said with a look back at Lifebringer.

"Then let's get started with it," Zach replied right back.

G-Man explained to the other heroes around him what questions they should ask the passengers as they go around looking for ideas on what had happened. Zach backed up for a moment though and he slipped away the first instant he had where no one was watching him anymore. The teen stood on top of a firetruck separated from the main area a bit as there was no need for it to take up space over there. The firefighters had all gone over to help out other emergency personnel in any way they could, leaving no one around the truck he stood on to examine the scene from afar. _Would be no point in gathering everyone here. This isn't an interesting place or a trap. The other side of the highway's mostly empty, but there are the occasional cars and trucks driving past that would make this too crowded a scene._

 _Pamdon's not far. Biggest town up here._ Zach took in a deep breath and his eyes darted every direction of him. _United Korea. Some interesting political climate with the recent changes to Quirk laws specifically regarding vigilantism and acts by civilians to stop villains. Not much else happening though. No big villain groups here anymore. Very low crime. Increasing birth rates, though still one of the lowest-populated "first world" countries in the world. Most of this country is abandoned…_

The history of United Korea was unique compared to most of the world's during the rising age of Quirks. Although similar to most of the world, in how the emergence of Quirks created mass chaos and caused the emergence of heroes in that society, the biggest issue for South and North Korea came in their declining populations. South Korea had had steeply declining fertility rates for years, shrinking marriage rates, and anti-immigration policies that rivaled its northern neighbor's. North Korea's food shortage had finally caught up in a period of excessive draught, causing a famine that killed off millions of its population in a two year span. Then the War of Unification killed a large chunk of the young male population in both countries already with shrinking numbers in the 20-40 year old male demographics. In that time of the emergence of Quirks, in a strange time for the world as most people still did not have Quirks but many did, the "War" of Unification did not last very long, as the world came to understand that many old methods of warfare had become obsolete in a world of Quirks.

Unfortunately, with the chaos going on all around the world at the time, not much from that time was recorded in the present. The short-lived war was ended based on necessity rather than on either side coming out victorious. Even after unification however, the population plummeted further as the older generations with the greatest numbers died off without enough children to take their places or fill the workforce. Cities became towns full of abandoned skyscrapers, towns and villages were completely abandoned altogether, as people flocked to a few surviving mega-cities like Pyongyang, Seoul, and the biggest city of Lundang which was surrounded by smaller port cities like Sueguon, and which Zach had flown over part of on his way up to the crash site. Those cities increased in size while the rest of the country's population dropped, and now the majority of the Korean countryside was covered in farms to support those cities. Over 80% of the land was used for farming, with farmers using modern technology to grow crops right on the slopes of many mountains covering Korea that were once considered infertile, and yet 95% of the country's still-low population existed inside the major mega-cities, with only a few towns like Pamdon being exceptions to this divide.

 _Is there an airport in Pamdon?_ Zach wondered, checking online for himself as he watched the heroes move about between the passengers, getting scolded by doctors on occasion though the passengers were trying to just cooperate with the heroes. _More heroes showing up. That's good. We need to be able to start working on this while still leaving these people to other heroes. I just need G-Man it looks like. His agency's up here, right in the middle of nowhere. Angers a lot of his people for not being in the cities, but that's where most of their heroes are stationed. Admittedly he'd probably do more in one, but maybe he just prefers the countryside. Either way I'm glad he's here._

 _That kid is definitely Death,_ G-Man thought while glancing out towards a fire truck he saw Lifebringer watching them from.

 _He's acting like he belongs here. I'm not going to be the one to tell him to leave,_ Blue Wings thought, though he started glancing around with a confused look as he wondered where Sazaki had gone off to.

 _Whether he's Death or not,_ AboveWater thought. The secret member of the ADTF who had been busy during the recent raid and thus was never revealed as a member kept her mouth shut about it though and her focus solely on this crash. _I'm just glad he came._

Zach dropped back to the ground and walked towards the area after he noticed G-Man had spotted him. _There are only two who I know for sure might have information. It'll be tough to talk to them though even as the one who brought them back. I'll go make sure to look frustrated while questioning people near them. That should work._

He walked back into the crowded tents, and people made way for the teenager who none of them had seen in the flesh before. _I don't think a single person here is wondering who I am. Now that's a level of fame not many people could say they have. Some look really surprised that I'm here though. Wonder if they know Nikko un-suspended my foreign travels. For "emergency" purposes only his office tells me._ "Excuse me," Zach started, walking to his left where some passengers were standing in a group. It looked like an entire extended family to him, several kids and teens along with their parents and some older Asian folk he supposed were grandparents.

"Eee, it's Lifebringer," one of the fifteen year old twins nearly squealed it with a hand cupped to her mouth as she tried just saying it to her twin but failed at being quiet.

"I can see that," the other hissed back with her hand also cupped to her mouth.

"Uh, how could, I save you?" One of the middle-aged men in the group wondered, stepping forward trailed by his teenage son who Zach saw was trying to act similar to his dad, or uncle, or something.

"Did any of you see what caused the door to open in the middle of the flight?" Zach wondered in Mandarin to the Chinese man who struggled to speak Japanese there. "Anything strange at all happen during the flight?" Zach added with a look past the man and at his whole family, as he could use tips from anyone there.

"I thought the guy in the seat next to me was acting weird," the teenage son started, stepping up quickly next to his dad and saying it to Lifebringer.

"Wha- I'm sorry," Zach turned around as someone had been listening in to this conversation, and Zach tried to keep a straight expression even as this flustered passenger stumbled forward and started defending himself. "That is absurd. What about my actions were 'weird?' Lifebringer, I assure you I'm not-"

"Yeah, this guy spoke to me in Mandarin when I sat down, but the subtitles of the movie he was watching were in Korean," the teen started quickly again to Lifebringer as that older guy was defending himself. The boy's dad put a strong hand on his shoulder and pulled him back, giving the kid a glare for him to shut up.

Zach nodded in clear understanding and looked back at the flustered man again, "Ah, I do that too sometimes. Helps to study the written language as well." He looked back at the boy who was about to be scolded, and he continued, "But thanks. Anything else?" He wondered, not wanting to discourage the other passengers by making that first example sound like something too small or insignificant. "Anything at all?"

"I'm sorry, Lifebringer. Wasn't this just a technical failure?" A woman asked, stepping forward past her teenage boy who slunk backwards to get out of the way as he felt like he had been.

"That's what we're trying to make sure of," Zach assured her with a small smile, like this was only precautionary. "Well then, if you'll excuse me," he finished with a nod at the group who were whispering to each other but could not come up with anything at the moment. "And tell one of the heroes around if you remember anything strange," he added back to them, saying it a little louder as he had already started off, which also told the other people who were staring his way what it was he was doing and looking for.

"What is Lifebringer doing here?"

"Why are his clothes all wet?"

Zach ignored the young women on his right he was passing who were whispering to each other loud enough for him to hear.

"He's not wearing a hero costume."

"Does Lifebringer even have…"

 _I do,_ Zach thought as he continued through the crowded area looking for someone who might look like they were wanting to talk about something bothering them. _I'd have worn it, but taking it out of school just to have to lug it around everywhere would be a nuisance. Plus it's hard to get away with 'rushing here in an emergency' if I bothered to put on my costume first._

After walking around and asking a couple more questions, Zach stopped as the other passengers had all been questioned or were being questioned currently by the other heroes around. He glanced towards G-Man past a woman who they needed to talk to, and he sighed but then started towards her as he knew it had to be him. "Hey," Zach started as he got close to the young Korean woman he had brought back who was wrapped in a blanket. She did not have any clothes when he got back with her, only wearing his damp sweatshirt that looked extra-large on her underneath that blanket. "How are you doing?" Zach wondered, directly at the flight attendant instead of at her friends around her who had been trying to comfort her.

The other flight attendant who survived, a thin man who had been yanked into a heavyset woman's seat and held there in her lap until they landed, stepped towards Lifebringer between him and the flight attendant who was sitting on the edge of a bed being checked out by two doctors at once. The man with straight blond hair flipped up in the front was traumatized himself, and he spoke in a flamboyantly high-pitched tone, "Ayumi just lost three of her friends." His tone was high but his voice hushed as he got up in Lifebringer's face to say it.

"And I'm sorry I couldn't bring them back," Zach said to the man whose anger he saw the source of. He gave the man a soft nod showing he knew Ayumi was not the only one who just lost three of her friends and coworkers as Zach assumed the man was talking about the rest of the flight crew who had been sucked out of the cabin. He did not know if this flight attendant had strapped himself down in time first or someone with a strength-multiplier Quirk grabbed him during the emergency, but he kept the man under close watch without looking like he was in case it was the first option and the man somehow knew the crash was coming. "But I do need to ask you, Ayumi," Zach started again as he looked around her friend and to the woman whose body was shaking but who lifted her head a bit as he started towards her. "Did you see what caused the door to open?"

"It was mechanical failure," the male attendant snapped at Zach's side.

"You should let her rest," the co-pilot agreed from where he stood at the foot of the bed, looking at Lifebringer and then back to the trembling woman in front of him.

 _Was it really just mechanical failure? No one's showing any sign that it was anything else. Maybe I just want this to be a case. Something to distract me-_ "Hey, hey Lifebrigner," Zach turned his head and looked back, and he saw some people who had been gathering behind him watching him act getting shoved aside so someone else could get through. "Hey! Let me through," a young woman who Zach could not tell if she was in her teens or twenties shoved past and ran up in front of him. She had bright yellow skin and a mouth of sharp teeth that were shown off by her lack of lips. _Kind of like Honenuki,_ Zach thought as he saw her.

Other heroes saw this woman's actions and made their ways over, with G-Man getting there a second before Wonder Man who landed on Zach's left. "She's saying-"

"What do you mean when you say the handle turned?" Zach questioned back in fluent Chinese at the girl.

 _Kid speaks Mandarin as well as he does Korean and English._ Wonder Man just focused on the girl in front of her when she started speaking again though, and his expression narrowed as he heard what she had to say.

 _Could be an invisible person,_ Zach started to himself at what the passenger had seen out the corner of her eyes right before the plane jolted and started to fall. She said she had forgotten about it or thought it was a trick of the eyes until she heard everyone talking about how it might not have been an accident. Zach nodded his head along with her long explanation, the only useful part of which was just that she had seen the handle turn, but that alone gave him a good read as he could see she was serious and truthful about this. _That would just be suicide though for an invisible man. And even if he/she was invisible, the flight was at full capacity so they would have had to be standing during liftoff if they snuck on. Someone would have noticed them bumping around during the flight… Invisible's a stretch. Telekinetic could have moved the handle, but they'd have to be immensely powerful to have done it while in a pressurized cabin, and they would know that they would be the first person suspected if anyone who survived saw. Also what's the point of crashing your own plane? The handle turned, and yet there was no one turning it. It can only be opened from the inside…_

"Alright, we'll have to ask you to give an official statement to Captain Yong there…"

Zach watched as the woman was led towards one of the officers, then he turned to G-Man and frowned in a thoughtful way. "Are all the passengers accounted for, including the dead ones?" Zach wondered. He said it as if his question would help him figure out what was going on, and AboveWater spun and called over to officers trying to get a manifest. She also mentioned something about calling the recovery teams that had gone out to locate the bodies, or what was left of them, in the locations Lifebringer had searched and found them earlier.

As one of the Korean heroes got to figuring that out, G-Man stepped right up on Lifebringer's right side where he stood a couple inches shorter than the teenager. "What if it's not someone on the plane? If every passenger is accounted for, that doesn't mean they're innocent, but it would be easy to narrow down who could have done it…"

"And if none of them did, we'd be nowhere," Zach muttered in agreement with the hero at his side.

"Su Yung- Su Yung!"

Zach and G-Man glanced backwards at that woman's voice Zach remembered clearly from her cries before. He looked straight at the ten year old boy who was running his way in front of the woman who was trying to keep up with him. "Lifebringer!" The kid called out as he got close to the hero who brought him back to life.

"Hey there, Su Yung," Zach said to the boy. The look on the kid's face interested him and he bent down to his right knee in front of the boy he put himself on eye-level with. "Do you remember something important?"

"Yeah!" The kid exclaimed emphatically, as no one seemed to be listening to him or wanting to hear what he had to say until now.

"Su Yung- I'm sorry, Lifebringer. G-Man, he's just-"

"No, it's okay," G-Man started, stepping forward and holding his right hand up a bit to tell the mother to hold on.

"So I was walking back from the bathroom," the boy started to Lifebringer who nodded along with him looking very interested in what he was saying. Others looked over and quieted down on all sides of them to listen to the kid who continued, "And I turned when I saw the door opening up…"

The woman with yellow skin who was speaking to officers had looked back over as there seemed to be a commotion. Her jaw dropped as she saw the child she had watched get sucked through that door in an instant after it opened up. Even though she knew Lifebringer had brought back a kid, she stared at his smiling face in shock, _Thought it'd at least traumatize him, like forever!_

"I was scared when I saw it opening," the kid continued, lowering his smile a bit. He shook his head though and then continued to Lifebringer, "But I thought it was funny too that the guy who opened the door was holding another door!"

"You saw someone opening the door?" Zach wondered.

"Well, not when he was opening…" the kid looked somewhat confused himself. His mother stepped forward and was going to tell him to stop saying nonsense, though she was feeling unsettled too as this was a strange thing for her son to just be making up on the spot. "It was like he popped up while the door was opening, like when the handle pushed outwards his hand appeared, then his arm, but it was really fast! The guy flew out of nowhere holding a door though!"

 _So in the moment this kid was sucked towards the door he saw a man holding a "door" appear in midair._ "I saw him right before I can't remember anything else," the kid said after looking back at his mom who questioned if he had really seen it. _It was the last thing he saw too. I wish we had more people, any theory I've got right now isn't based on enough to really narrow down. The kid's head hit something on his way out of the plane which helps in that he's less in shock than most of the others who endured a long fall, but although he's calm he also didn't see anything after he was pulled out. If I had been able to bring back more people they could have told me if this theory is-_

"I-"

The group gathered around the Su Yung turned and they watched as a woman wrapped in a blanket stepped forward again, being helped by the co-pilot who had his arm around her back under her left arm to help her walk. She looked nervous and scared, but she gulped again and rose her head to the teenager who had saved her life. She had finally found her voice, and the first thing she had told the people around her was to get her over to Lifebringer. "I remember, when- while we were falling…"

Tears spilled out of her eyes, and Zach stepped forward past the kid's side, darting a look at the mom next to him who opened her eyes wide and then grabbed her son to lead him away. The boy complained as he wanted to know what had happened, but Zach just nodded at the flight attendant in front of him instead of focusing on what he had just caused with those subtle movements. After he nodded at her to continue, she sucked in a sharp breath and then started as strongly as she could, "The others who were falling around me, they saw it too. They saw…" she brought up the others seeing it because she did not want to sound crazy, as she remembered the others plummeting out of the sky seeing this crazy sight that made her feel insane right now to even bring up. "It didn't make sense," she whispered.

Ayumi turned her head and looked after the small boy who pulled his head around his mother's legs and looked right back at her. She gulped, but then she continued as she knew the boy had seen something that confirmed her own insane thoughts. _He saw, this impossible thing too._ "The man with the hook-shaped scar," she whispered, her heart pounding in her chest while everyone stared at the young terrified woman. Her left hand gripped into the co-pilot's shoulder, and he whispered at her that she could stop right now, as much as he was fully focused on what she was saying too. "On his, left cheek," she added, glancing around to see if anyone else had seen this person.

She only saw shakes of heads in response, but Wonder Man told her softly, "Just tell us what you remember."

"After- after we were flung from the plane… the door got ripped off too. We were confused, but I heard Xilung-" she winced and her face scrunched up but she continued after mentioning her closest flight attendant friend. "She yelled at me to look, and a few of us looked towards the door down below that, there was a man falling with it, holding another door. Like, a regular wooden door to a room," she clenched her eyes shut as she thought of that insanity while she fell thousands of feet out of the sky. "And that… _man,_ he opened the door he was falling with by turning the doorknob, and he pulled himself through it and then closed it behind him while the door was spinning and flipping in the air. He was gone."

Ayumi gasped the final sentence out, then she shook her head in disbelief and horror. "I tried getting to it, but Xilung… she turned the doorknob and pulled herself through only for nothing to happen- and then- and then!" Her body trembled, as she thought about how desperate they all were to reach that door, how they lost hope when they saw it didn't work for them, and how they looked down to see the ground was right below them- Ayumi brought her right hand up in front of her mouth and let out a yell into it.

Zach backed up and let a doctor and the woman's friends calm her down. He turned and walked away from the area that was crowded with passengers who were getting riled up and angry as they started hearing the rumors spreading that this was the action of a villain. "What do you think-" G-Man started in an intense tone, rushing with a speed-walk right up to Zach's right side before walking side-by-side with him.

Zach interrupted quickly though and spoke his thoughts aloud, "The person with this Quirk can open portals to other places, but likely only through doors that already exist. And probably, doors that they have touched before themself."

Blue Wings tried rushing after the other two, but he froze in surprise for a second behind them as he heard Lifebringer there. He rushed up after pausing, questioning at Lifebringer's back, "Why would you say that?"

"There are millions of doors someone could open and kill super important people, or rob someone and get rich, but this was an indiscriminate killing." He paused, then he muttered as his feet stopped too, "Unless it wasn't. Unless the guy wanted to kill one of the flight attendants on the plane who wouldn't be buckled in, or if he knew that the person he was after never wore a seatbelt on flights." _Leading to the possibility of one of the passengers' acquaintances._ "The guy could have just been testing out how to kill using his Quirk, but we should figure out if any of the victims or the surviving flight attendants had any enemies. We should check the handle of the plane's emergency door that got ripped off for fingerprints, and on the doorknob of the door that must have shattered when it hit the ground." _Was that what I saw near those bodies? I was too focused on failing to revive most of those people at the time, that I didn't think of why they might have all been clustered in one area like that. They felt hope almost the whole way down. Don't know if that's better or worse. Sounds like Ayumi didn't have much time to despair before hitting the ground._

"Do you think faster when your eyes are red?" G-Man wondered to the boy next to him whose eyes had been glowing for a couple seconds now.

"Yes," Zach replied.

 _I've never heard of that before,_ Blue Wings thought to himself, darting his gaze to G-Man and then back to the teen who he leaned in front of to catch a glimpse of his eyes. "If there are so many reasons this could have been targeted though, why do you think it's only through doors he's touched before himself?" Blue Wings questioned when Zach glanced his way to see what he was doing.

"Blue Wings, have the recovery team contact forensics and get them to search for fingerprints," G-Man said to the hero who asked that question which would only waste time for Lifebringer to sit there explaining. _He's in a rush for some reason,_ G-Man thought, and though he wanted to question what that rush was, that question would be another thing to slow down the hurry he was in. Blue Wings frowned at the order from another hero when he felt somewhat in charge here as an initial hero on the scene, who had been there for the crash and everything. When Lifebringer nodded at him though showing that would help out, Blue Wings nodded as Lifebringer's expression alone told him not to call them but to fly out there quickly himself, make sure the recovery team did not mess up the scene before forensics could get there.

"We'll see if we can get a match on this hook-shaped scar guy. Doorway Boy," Zach dubbed him as an insulting name easier to say than all that.

"If it really is just a random act though," G-Man started. "Or a test of his powers, there could be no way to find him. It's likely not a grudge between any of the survivors and the man, since a scar like that would have been recognized by the flight attendants. That woman did not mention any of the others falling with her as having recognized the villain."

"True," Zach nodded in agreement. "I think it's still possible to find out who he is though. Even with nothing but a vague description." Zach hummed and turned to the man on his side where they stood down the highway a bit from the main gathering area and closer to where G-Man's black car was. "Even if it was a random act of violence, his limitations… The villain touched the door handle on his way off the plane once in order to activate it. But then… he would have had to do it recently." G-Man opened his mouth to say these were too many assumptions about his power, but Zach continued, "The man would have wanted to track the plane he had been on because he would need to know that it was in the sky when he opened it, and most likely if it was a random act it wasn't planned super far in advance. He could have done it at any time and did not need much planning for it, so there would have been no point in waiting a long time unless he suspected that someone could catch him, and someone with his Quirk?"

Zach posed the question skeptically that he would feel they could find him so easily. "There's no way he even suspects an investigation at this moment into who he is." G-Man started nodding slowly, and he turned and called out to one of his sidekicks who had been trailing far behind him during this whole incident. Zach had noticed the younger man also in a suit but without the sunglasses, and he let G-Man tell the twenty-one year old to get fetch the pilots for them. Zach then went back on what he had just said after getting a few seconds there to think, countering himself, "Actually he probably is worried. All murderers, no matter how good, always think they left some piece of evidence. They're worried at least. And especially if this is this guy's first time doing something like this."

He paused and G-Man added, "Maybe it's not though. It could just be the first time he did something this big," G-Man said.

 _If that's true, then he's experimenting,_ Zach thought at the suggestion. _Doing more, getting riskier, more dangerous, testing himself to see how far he can go. I need to stop this guy before he can do something worse._ Zach turned his head and saw a higher-up among the police walking towards him and G-Man seeming like he wanted to be let in on what was going on. "We should talk to all the flight crews who have been on this exact plane in the past week," Zach said while looking to the officer who gave him a look wondering 'who me?' Zach continued to the officer he was suggesting this to, "Ask all of them if they remember anyone with a strange scar on their face. Maybe mention a 'hook'-shape, though it's possible our witness didn't see it exactly so just ask about all passengers with facial scars."

"You heard him," G-Man said back to the officer, telling him to get to making that happen. "Sujin," G-Man said, nodding towards his sidekick who rushed back over with both pilots behind him.

"Do the plane's numbers, identification codes," Zach started without missing a beat. He stepped towards the pilots who stared at the teen questioning them and nodded to show they were listening. "Do they change? Is there a system in place to make it so planes can be distinguished from one another-"

"There is a, numbering system. Outside of each individual flight number," the co-pilot began slowly. He nodded when the heroes were looking at him to continue on this, and he went on, "It's based off when the plane's first flights of the month are, and the planes are only renumbered again when they go through inspections at the end of the months-"

"End of month-long periods," the pilot started, giving the co-pilot a look showing he had been misleading.

 _Damn,_ Zach thought, as it was early enough in March that it would have been nice for it to just have been from the 1st of the month. The captain continued to Lifebringer and G-Man, "Last inspections were on February 15th. The sixteenth would be when this particular plane's identification number would have last been changed."

"Thank you," Zach said to the pilot, then he nodded at them back towards the tents in a way telling them that was all. G-Man had other questions, but the way Lifebringer nodded so quickly there made him just look back at the teen who seemed to want to say something to him without them hearing rather than just being rude to him as a fellow hero. He turned when the pilots were walking away, and he started to just the four around him, (as AboveWater had just ran over and Wonder Man dropped down next to them too). "It makes even more sense that this guy had to have ridden on this plane recently then, unless he was part of the inspection crews and did all this from the inside. That's a minuscule chance though, as he'd be the first one suspected by all his colleagues working on planes if people heard that the door on one he had worked on opened up suddenly."

G-Man nodded quickly in agreement with Sazaki, even though the other three were struggling to keep up here. "So from the 15th of last month, we need the passenger manifests of every flight this plane has gone up with," G-Man said.

"The villain is going to be on one of those lists?" AboveWater asked in surprise.

"Yes," Zach said. _Don't use 'most likely,' or 'probably.' Just be confident about this. It makes sense. It's not a certainty, but the amount of manpower I'll need to check my theory isn't something I can get without question anymore. And I don't have Rebel and Raylei, Rampart and Access- I don't have the best hackers to assist me here. Just regular heroes and support. I'll need a lot of them._

"That's going to be a lot to go through," Sujin mentioned. "And we'll have to send in requests to the airlines. Hopefully they all comply without us needing to get warrants first, though considering what's happened I don't think it should be a problem."

"What may be a problem," G-Man started, turning his head a bit and glaring over at some people rushing their way.

"Lifebringer!"

"Zach Sazaki! What are you doing here?!"

"Are you going to revive the other passengers who died?!"

The press interrupted the conversation Zach was having with the Korean heroes, and G-Man nodded for Zach to head over to his car as he started walking towards himself. "Give us an exit, Wonder Man," G-Man said under his breath as he turned and started away.

"Alright people! Please give us some room-"

"Lifebringer!"

"Wonder Man! We heard that you caught the plane yourself?! Is that true?!"

Zach ignored the press and was grateful that at least one of the reporters was more focused on Wonder Man so they did have reason to stop and question him instead of trying to chase Lifebringer to G-Man's car. Sujin rushed to the driver's side door and jumped in, and the other two heroes got in with Zach in the back seat and G-Man up front though the older hero turned to face him right after getting in. The car had tinted windows and as they drove away the two of them spoke in low voices completely ignoring what was outside. "…Eyes on the road, Sujin," G-Man ordered his sidekick who was trying to focus too much on the fast-paced theorizing of the heroes with him.

"Pamdon's airport. Private or-"

"It's an international one, just smaller than the ones in the big cities." G-Man paused and added while keeping his phone on mute for another few seconds, "I've got a team setting us up a workspace inside already. We'll be let in immediately upon arrival."

"Good," Zach said. He left it at the one word response so G-Man could un-mute his phone and continue coordinating efforts with the people he had on the line. _I need to consider every theory._ Zach's eyes glowed red in the backseat and his thoughts raced as he allowed himself to just think and wait for arrival at the airport instead of flying ahead of G-Man. He initially used the excuse that he could not show up first and just barge in, but even after G-Man told him they would be let right in he chose to stick with the intelligent experienced hero who was a good man to bounce his ideas off of. _…Ayumi's recollection when she dropped is the best clue we could have gotten. I doubt our villain expected me to show up considering my lack of enthusiasm for revivals lately. Unless he planned on killing everyone on the flight, though that's unlikely too as he'd expect most of the bodies to be too destroyed in that case for me to save. Without a personal relationship to anyone on the flight it's going to be difficult locating him. If my predictions on his Quirk are wrong then we'll have nothing to track him with. If it is personal, it will still take a while for each of the passengers to be shown a sketch to see if any recognize him. Too long, with the possibility that he's only just started…_

The three of them arrived at Pamdon's airport that Zach was surprised to see looked bigger than G-Man made it out as. He knew the others were much bigger so G-Man was not lying, but it was still a very large airport and one that was getting more and more crowded as so many flights had been grounded due to the crash. _Would be a good time to have my hero costume on me. This is going to look sketchy. Unless I act right._ Zach steadied his expression and rolled his shoulders in the sleeves of the long-sleeved shirt he was wearing. It was too cold not to have a sweatshirt or jacket, but he had given his away which meant he was going to stick out from the second he stepped out of the vehicle.

Luckily, his appearance shocked too many people for too long. Those people stunned by his appearance with G-Man and Sujin took too long to register it, and Zach made it through security who had been awaiting their arrivals already. They entered the terminals past security with those guards ordering people to stop when they tried rushing after while calling out Lifebringer's name. Others in the terminal who were waiting around for their delayed flights felt their luck had changed, all of them looking towards Lifebringer in surprise even though they had seen some other heroes and authorities rushing around already. Zach nodded at some people but kept his expression serious showing them to stay back and not approach, even as a few started recording. _Is this an okay time to smile? I just saw a bunch of dead bodies, and I failed at reviving them. A hero's always supposed to be smiling, but it's hard at a time like this._

"G-Man. Lifebringer," a police officer stepped out of a door that had other cops guarding it on the far end of the terminal. "We're set up in here," Captain Leong started as he motioned for the heroes inside. "We just received full cooperation from the CEO of Korean Aero as well. They've agreed to work with us, giving us everything we need without us needing a warrant."

"They want this cleared up as not a technical issue with their plane but as a murder case, or act of terrorism," Sea Fong started, "And they want us to get justice for their employees too." The blue-skinned woman stepped away from a table set up with several computers that had the support staff of her own agency that was located in Pamdon seated behind them. "Lifebringer," the costumed hero said as she approached the teen. "Glad you're here," she finished intensely, as she had heard what had happened at the site of the crash with Wonder Man's revival, and two others.'

"What do we have?" G-Man wondered, not taking the time for pleasantries and just saying that loudly for everyone in the room to hear him.

Captain Leong snapped twice in the air and called over a few of his sergeants to report in.

"We found fingerprints on the handle of the plane door and a partial on a piece of brass around the bodies at the clean-up site," a female cop who had the face of a black and white kitten reported, trying to keep her eyes on her superior and not on Lifebringer. "Recovery's heading back to the closest station to run them through the database now."

The captain looked to the next one down who looked back himself towards others at the station he had been working at. One of his comrades stood up and nodded over with a thumbs up, and the sergeant looked back and said with confirmation, "Two flight attendants recognized seeing a man matching the witnesses' descriptions earlier this month, period, based on the identification system. We just got second confirmation from a flight attendant who works with the first one to reply positively."

"They each say it was over a week ago," that sergeant's subordinate called over. "But neither can remember the date, though they were working together on that day."

"Figure out all the flights those two were on together," Zach started right back towards that officer who stared at Lifebringer in surprise at the sudden orders he was giving.

"The manifests for every flight in this period," the third sergeant started, holding up a stack of papers that G-Man took. "There are over sixty for V7K9A4, the I.D. number for that aircraft since February 15th."

"We can put aside everything from five days ago to now," Zach said next to him at G-Man. "And everything before three weeks ago too."

"The attendants would have said more than just a week," G-Man agreed back with a nod. "Margin of error wouldn't be that big."

"That's still way too many manifests to go over," Sea Fong started. The blue woman with short black hair shook her head and added, "With hundreds of passengers on each one, and it's not like the passenger lists have pictures next to the names. We'll have to go through each."

"Those two flight attendants flew on V7 together only between February 26th and the 28th. 6 flights in all, starting from the second flight the plane took on 2/26, to the last one on the 28th." One of Sea Fong's support staff called that over to her, and the woman hummed with a grateful nod back at the useful information her subordinate got her. The support team member continued after getting something whispered at her from behind and one of her juniors at the agency, "They were put on a different plane heading back somewhere else while the plane in question was still refueling and standing by the morning of the first."

"Six flights to look at-" Zach started, but stopped as there was no need. G-Man handed off all the rest of the pile showing he had the six manifests they needed isolated already. _No time wasted. A huge amount of resources at our disposal,_ Zach thought. _I forgot because I had to deal with what I had, but heroes have far more resources than I ever did. Far more people. I considered their resources mine so often because my guys could hack into their systems and use them, but it's so much quicker this way, with cooperation from everyone and no need to hide what we're doing. It's fucking easy._

"If we ask the two which of the flights in that period the man was on-"

"They were still working for Korean Aero, they wouldn't have noticed the difference between the planes to be able to narrow it down anymore."

"Well there have to be over a thousand people we still have as suspects then-"

"That's too many."

"We have six flights to look at," Zach said. He saw G-Man looking at him from the side, and he stopped hesitating when he watched that hero in a suit give him a single nod that told him to go ahead. He spoke to the whole room who stopped for a second to look at him, "And the manifests for each flight which give us the names of each passenger that had to match up with their boarding passes, which also needed to match their photo I.D.'s to get through security with. Passports and driver's licenses that are scanned for validity. So the names on those manifests are all real names… Except for maybe, our guy. Process of elimination. We look up everyone on those six flights on Quirkbook, Quirked-In, Quirker."

"Each of the flight numbers will be taken by a different team," G-Man called out.

"Going through them all will take forever-"

"Not if every one of us is searching," Zach snapped at the cop whose eyes opened wide and whose mouth shut quickly at that counter. "We have a lot of manpower. Split up a thousand into the thirty of us in here, each of us has to look up 33 people. Every second we spend discussing this is a second wasted. The man who took down this plane and is seeing his partial success could be getting ready for his next attack." Zach said this in Korean and stared harshly but in a determined way around the room full of people who stared at this teenager, not knowing what authority he had, but not going to argue when he put that kind of pressure on their success here.

G-Man shouted out the flight numbers and designated teams of people around the room to deal with each one. The leaders of those teams took charge, head support members of agencies like Sea Fong's who had reported in and sidekicks like Sujin who ordered around G-Man's support team, along with the sergeants who yelled at the pressured lower officers to focus and start typing quickly into search engines. "Don't ignore the female-sounding names," Zach called out as everyone started getting to work, their leaders ordering them which sections of the manifests they had to search through the names of. "It's unreliable to just guess their gender based on the name. The security may have found it strange too but ignored it out of politeness, and the flight attendants wouldn't have known the name of the man they recognized. It could even be a woman disguising as a man. We do not know, so look up everyone."

Zach called all this out while G-Man walked back with the final manifest himself that he showed Zach and Sea Fong who stepped up next to the other two and looked at this final list. Zach had his phone up and he typed fast into his search bar, and Sea Fong did the same next to him but asked at the same time, "What if every name on these lists pans out?"

"It won't. Not everyone has online profiles, and a lot of those names are probably children who we won't be able to find on there. Korean Aero doesn't have assigned seats either so we can't look at two people with the same last names and see one sat next to the other, to assume family. They could just be passengers with the same last names. Along with people who have names too common to cross off… Have we called in for the security footage-"

"At the airports both for the departures and arrivals of each of those six flights," G-Man replied while continuing to type into his own phone as he stood on Lifebringer's left. He told them he was already on top of this with that one sentence, but he continued while listening to a voice speaking into an earpiece from back at his own agency where he had some more people working off site. "We're still in the process of getting them sent to us," he went on. "But every airport contacted is cooperating and moving as fast as they can to accommodate us."

"Let's hope they're fast enough," Zach muttered under his breath.

Sea Fong darted her eyes to her left, then back at her phone intensely as she saw G-Man just continued looking things up himself without giving Lifebringer the look she gave him. "You really think there's going to be another attack?" She asked in a hushed voice. "And soon?"

"Hundreds of flights are still in the air. Not everyone knows this was deliberate yet, though the press at the crash site I'm sure have started reporting on it." Zach paused for a second and then added in a lower voice, "I don't know if Doorway Boy plans on doing anything more tonight, or if he'll wait a month before carrying out another attack. But because I don't know," his eyes darted to Sea Fong for a moment and he finished strongly, "I'll assume he plans another for an hour from now. Because if he does and we wasted time assuming we had it to spare, then that's on us," Zach shook his head as he looked at a photo of a young woman who looked nothing like the description they had of their villain. He lifted his right hand and slid it over the piece of paper G-Man held out in front of him while the suited man typed with only one hand much faster than either of the others could manage.

G-Man did shift his gaze this time as he watched Sazaki do that, and he and Sea Fong stayed quiet instead of wasting time by mentioning how he had just cut a slit in the page over the name he had looked up. "Where did you two start?" Zach asked in a low voice.

"Bottom up," Sea Fong replied.

"Four below the name you picked. I'll move down," G-Man added, and Zach nodded then started working his way up the list he had picked from randomly as he doubted he would pick the same first name as either of the others if he did so.

The team worked fast for a few minutes, ticking off passengers one by one, and ten by ten. "If we get more people in here, we can make this go faster," Captain Leong started, stepping back from one of the stations where two of his officers had just spent two minutes looking for two passengers and not finding anything on either of them.

"Then bring more in here," Zach said. "We'll need people to watch the security footage at each airport for the boardings and when they disembark. If a guy with a scar like that was on one of those six flights he'll be on camera, and if we know which flight we can narrow it down even quicker."

"Where are we on security footage?" G-Man asked in a normal voice. He turned to his right after a second and passed on what he heard in his ear to Lifebringer, "We've got footage from Istanbul, Cairo, Pyongyang, and Beijing so far. I'll have my support start looking through it at the time V7 arrived and when it left each of the airports."

A couple more minutes passed, with twenty or so names getting marked off each minute. Even some of the more common names with multiple hits, the team were able to figure out which of the people on the online profiles were the ones they were looking for based on pictures taken of vacations or out plane windows. There were several private profiles too, but the police had contacted an executive of Quirkbook who gave them a special privilege account that allowed them to check Quirkbook pages that are private for friends only. Several people whose profiles they saw but could not confirm if the person was the same as the one who bought the plane ticket were sent a message by official police accounts or hero agency accounts questioning if they had flown on these flights. It was not a perfect system, but by the next time a big clue came in they had been able to cross off over a hundred names with some confidence.

"We've got a hit a hit on the fingerprints." An officer called it out, and Zach moved quickly over towards his computer. _I didn't think he'd slip up again like this. I'm glad though, he's made so many mistakes. He didn't think I'd come because of my recent inactivity. So he didn't suspect anyone who flew out of the plane and saw him would be able to talk, so no one would check for his fingerprints as it would be considered mechanical failure of the locking mechanism, or something jolting loose during the flight…_

The officer who turned back to Zach explained what Lifebringer came over and looked at, "A match from the FBI criminal database. One Jason Lee."

Zach turned his head and frowned when he saw G-Man's face. Everyone else in the room had been getting excited by the new information, but Sea Fong's smile faltered at the look on Lifebringer's face which made her turn back to G-Man who had a similar expression. "What is it?" Sea Fong asked in confusion, and some annoyance as she darted her eyes back and forth from G-Man to Lifebringer as both seemed to know something she did not. "Let's search for this Jason Lee-"

"He's not on any of the manifests," G-Man said to his fellow hero. "Which means the name he used is fake."

"But with his real name," Sea Fong started again. "We can still do more."

Zach started nodding his head, agreeing with Sea Fong despite his initial disappointment as the villain did still have countermeasures in place showing he was not the sloppiest villain ever. "Our villain's using an alias," Zach called around at the station that seemed to be slowing down after hearing the new information. "Which means someone on these lists was using a fake I.D., which means that name wasn't real in the first place! We still need to know what name he used-"

"Sir!"

"Lifebringer," G-Man called over to the teen who was yelling that around at the authorities around him who all got back to their tasks. Zach moved over towards G-Man's support area as did Sea Fong and G-Man himself. G-Man started, "My team caught him in Cairo on the 27th. Footage is being sent here." G-Man motioned away and his sidekick who called 'sir' over to him got up from his chair to let the pro sit down at it. G-Man typed in quickly and then fast-forwarded through the clip while listening to a member of his support team over his earpiece. "Everyone focus on flight KA73003," G-Man called out in the meantime. "Split the remaining names on that manifest across the room, and figure out which of them is fake!"

"KA73003, was the flight from Seoul to Cairo," Zach said and got a nod out of G-Man sitting in front of him. "So he got off in Cairo. Do we know when he left?"

"Check the following days after his arrival for another appearance in the same airport," G-Man ordered his team he spoke to over his comms. "Let's get a look at our terrorist," G-Man added in a different tone showing he was talking to the others gathered at his computer while everyone else narrowed down the names on a manifest already with thirty six names crossed off as legitimate.

 _If he went through the trouble of getting fake I.D.'s worthy of getting him on flights,_ Sea Fong thought as she had been wondering why G-Man and Lifebringer were still insistent on finding out his fake name even when they had so much on him already. She understood it though and nodded to herself, _He'd likely use the same I.D.'s for renting vehicles, or purchasing a hotel room. It's unlikely he'd have multiple aliases, as that could get him in more trouble easier especially if he was caught with multiple fake passports. He might be going by more… Let's just hope it's one fake name. One for everything. Jason Lee. You aren't getting away with this so easily._

Zach narrowed his eyes in on the recording of the gate where the Korean Aero flight arrived in Cairo. G-Man paused the video, and the white square on his screen boxed in around Lee's face and identified him. They saw him right as he was getting out of the tunnel from the plane, and G-Man started the video again while at the same time sending it around the room to pop up in a corner of everyone's screens. As the man started walking, Zach's thoughts split again with a dart of his eyes around at everyone in the room who could not multi-task like him and were distracted by the videos G-Man just sent them. _I'm glad I practiced my Korean. I haven't had any trouble understanding anyone or giving out orders, so we're moving fast as we can here. I just hope it's fast enough and this guy isn't on a high feeling like he can do anything._

His eyes darkened as the Caucasian man who also looked part Asian, which most of them just described in their heads as 'American,' walked into the gate area looking confident. He just walked out holding a navy-blue bag by the straps, though he slung it up over his shoulder once he had more room in the airport's terminal. As he did that though, Zach caught the man looking back at the plane too through one of the large windows aligning the walls. The man slowed down, staring at the plane through the glass. _Not like he regrets it,_ Zach thought as he stared at the zoomed-in image of the man's face. _Just nervous. Jittery. That he's finally going through with- and he wiped it away. Calmed his nerves. Because no one can catch him, or so he thinks._

 _Just like Raijin- Lee is making his moves now! Don't let that shit catch up. Norita, everyone finding out about me being Death, Darling being gone forever… being so alone right now. The fuck are you doing?!_ "His Quirk is as I thought," Zach said in a low voice.

"He looks different than his mugshot," Sea Fong mentioned while looking at another computer rather than the one with the recording covering all of it. "No scar back then. He looks younger, and he got arrested," Sea Fong motioned with her hand at her sidekick who scrolled down and enlarged the writing on the tab up with the FBI information. "Twelve years ago. Accused of theft by a relative who knew about his Quirk. Spent five years in a Texas state penitentiary…"

 _Maybe he got wrongfully accused because of his Quirk,_ Zach thought as he read the file himself with his red eyes darting back and forth faster than anyone. _He pled innocence, but because he would have had to touch a door in her place, as it says there! And he had opportunities- it doesn't matter. Whether he was guilty or innocent. It doesn't matter now. Whatever happened in the past, he just killed people. Killed a little kid. He's a villain. He needs to die-_ Zach clenched his eyes shut. _HE NEEDS TO FACE JUSTICE!_

The correction Zach yelled in his head made him take in a deep breath, and Sea Fong stared at the teenager next to her she just saw squeeze his eyes shut like that and take in a hard breath. "You alright there?" She asked, keeping her voice low so as not to make a big deal out of it.

"Yeah," Zach replied to the hero next to him. "Just tired," he said in a low voice but one showing he was determined to keep going.

Sea Fong just nodded at him, deciding not to say anything else about it. _Of course he's tired. Kid's acting superhuman being here right now, after all that's happened to him recently. Saw his place exploded just over a week ago. He's got Eziano Mozcaccio hunting him, and that taunt he made it was like he was exhausted of it all. Others thought he was just being cocky or angry, but damn how many times now has he been attacked since he got out of jail?! It's-_

"Wonder Man!"

"And Blue Wings too, what are you two-"

"We came to help however we could-"

"Where are we on the manifest?" Zach called out, snapping the attentions of everyone else in the room back to their work.

"Only a few names left," Captain Leong reported confidently, and he nodded when Lifebringer turned to see if that was right. "We've got everyone on it, and we're searching the security footage from Cairo and Seoul to see if we can't cross off some of the names we couldn't find online. And to check to make sure the profiles we found online show the same people we saw boarding and disembarking that flight."

"We'll be done in a second, Lifebringer!"

"Lifebringer," G-Man started, motioning back at his screen that Zach looked to and saw the villain they saw enter the bathroom heading back out again.

Wonder Man and Blue Wings glanced in at each other in surprise, then they looked back towards G-Man and Lifebringer who whispered quickly to each other in hushed voices while Sea Fong turned her head back trying to listen in on their fast-paced back-and-forth. The other two heroes who just arrived to help out with the manhunt walked farther into the room and towards their fellow heroes, and they headed over to listen in as Lifebringer was going on quietly to the other heroes, "…Which doors can he go through? Can he only enter some and leave others? He likely can't connect one door to multiple places, or he wouldn't have needed to carry an extra door with him when he opened the plane's emergency hatch. Even if he could have gone back through that hatch too by acting like he was opening it again, he probably would have been sent back to the place he left. Or he can't use the same door multiple times in a row with his Quirk… There, see?" Zach looked back at G-Man after watching the video for a few seconds while he was theorizing, but this time G-Man just got a more confused look on his face as he did not see what Sazaki was referring to when the villain was just continuing towards customs in a casual way.

"Sirs. Ma'am." The five heroes looked over at one of Leong's sergeant's with the kitten-like face who came over with a narrowed-down list of the passengers on the manifest who could possibly be their target.

"Here," G-Man took the list, looked down and scanned with his sunglasses. The narrowed list that had been written with pen was uploaded onto the computers around the room. He handed the list off next to him to Lifebringer too, and Zach held it out in front of his body far enough that the others trying to lean in could see without crowding him any more.

 _First narrow down to names of males only,_ Zach thought once he had the narrowed list. _Don't cross off the others but leave them for now. He most likely wouldn't have picked a feminine name that would draw unwanted attention to his fake I.D., or anything that would make him more memorable to security officers or others in the airports who could remember him later on. Next, only regular names. That works just as much as feminine ones. This one is too out of the ordinary. Still not a good alias name. This looks like a name an American would pick after looking up "common Korean names" on the internet. These two both work for that too…_ "Alright," Zach started, and he stepped over to his right where some of the police officers were talking about doing something that he thought was a great idea. "Try these three names first." _4-5 others on that list are highly probable. Just depends on how good he is. We'll start here._

"We can contact the airline to-"

"Yes?" A thin man in a nice suit walked up from the back of the room near the door where he had been standing for a couple minutes now. "I am a representative for Korean Aero. If there is anything I could do-"

"Phone numbers for these three customers," Zach said, grabbing the sheet of paper from the officer who was still turning and looking at the man to see what he looked like. He handed it off to the agent and said, "When they paid for the tickets they put a number in, right?"

"Y-Yes. Right away."

"Footage from two days later at the same airport in Cairo," G-Man said towards Zach's back, making him turn and walk back over to look at the screen where G-Man's men put up another video already set to the point where Lee was entering the airport.

 _Just the one bag. He's not going to pick up anything at baggage claim then… Most likely. Keep watching the other one._ "Start fast-forwarding them both," Zach said, his voice stern and his eyes locked on the two screens side-by-side with footage of Jason Lee on both.

"…Understood."

Zach's eyes glowed red and they darted back and forth between the screens he watched at the same time even as both were moving even faster now. _No bags. No doors. No trouble through security. Confidence rise. Calm on the way back. Like his plans have worked out well. Calmer than when he left the airport. Two days in Cairo. Or in Egypt, he could have left the city. Need that alias._

"We have the phone numbers," the airline rep started, having received the information he requested quickly from his IT department.

"Video call on that computer," Zach said, pointing at the officers who had been talking about what they were going to do before he handed them the initial written list. "Each of the three. We'll see who they are and question them."

"No time to wait-" Blue Wings started, taken aback by how quickly Lifebringer was moving from one thing to the next in front of him.

"There might not be," G-Man said firmly back to the hero who shut his mouth at that stern look from his colleague.

 _What does that mean? Is there another attack coming?_ Blue Wings opened his mouth, but Wonder Man put a hand on his comrade's shoulder and kept him from interrupting again as everyone around the room seemed to be in a much different mood than the two of them. They were moving quickly, without wasting any seconds in their movements that each seemed to be in purpose of getting something done.

"Everyone else work on finding anything and everything you can about the passengers who we haven't identified."

"You four," Lifebringer started, isolating a group of officers who he thought might listen to Captian Leong and get on that. "Contact Jason Lee's relatives. Former places of employment. Friends, coworkers, former cellmates when he was in jail, and credit card companies he had a card with. Figure out if any of them know anything. And try to get his most recent credit card records." _Though I'm sure he paid for everything he's needed for these crimes with whatever cards his alias owns. It's still possible though. A hint. A condo somewhere as a backup retreat for him. Relatives' locations too. Everywhere he could run, and he could run_ _ **anywhere.**_

"Kim Park's phone is ringing," the officer sitting in front of her computer glanced back at the heroes. A few of them moved over and stood behind the officer and the other next to her moved to the side out of the camera angle by the time Park answered.

"Hello?" The Korean man who answered the phone started in confusion. The computer was acting as their phone and his voice came out of the speakers for the group in front of him to hear.

"Mr. Park. Does your phone have video capabilities?" The officer started to him. "Please activate them now." The man did so without argument and he stared forward in shock through the screen. He was chubby and had short black hair, and G-Man frowned that he did not instantly recognize the man, though they had been following Lee on the security cameras so there were others farther back in the plane who had gotten off after him that he knew he would not have recognized. Kim Park stared at Wonder Man in the most surprise, and he continued after a second of dropping his jaw at the sight of these people calling him from the short number he was supposed to call in emergencies, "I-Is something wrong. Do I-"

"Mr. Park," Officer Choe started. She paused, and she glanced back behind her and at the heroes who similarly did not know what they should say to this confused and flustered citizen.

"You flew on Korean Aero on February 27th from Seoul to Cairo, is that correct?"

"Is this about the plane crash? I heard- I mean, yes. I did-" he corrected himself as he saw G-Man's look get harsher when he did not answer after the hero asked him that question. "Is- Are you suspecting me?! I heard on the news that it might have been foul play- I swear I'm not a villain! I run a convenience store in…"

 _His Korean's fluent. Suppose Lee's would be too,_ Zach thought as he walked around the heroes and to a different part of the room where he checked on some of the other officers' progress. _It's not him. He doesn't look it at all._ Zach looked over the computers and at the heroes now on the other side of the table as him, looking above the head of the officer sitting in a chair in front of him and the woman on the other side who started telling Kim Park that the plane he had flown on was the one to crash. Zach shook his head at the other heroes who agreed, and Sea Fong tapped on the officer's back which got her to quickly tell their citizen they were sorry to disturb him for no reason then promptly hung up.

"Why'd you ask if he had video capabilities first?" Blue Wings wondered at the woman sitting in front of him.

"Suppose if he said he didn't," G-Man started. He nodded at Officer Choe when she looked back to explain, and he gave her a small smile too showing he thought it was a good idea on her part. "We would know he's lying. Since all cellphones have the option for video calls."

"He could just say no if he doesn't want to show his face," Blue Wings started to counter.

"We would then press the issue," G-Man countered back. "And state that they would be considered as a suspect should they fail to comply. Which they would be," he added, showing that was not an idle threat they would be making here.

"Making the second call…"

Zach turned his head and looked around the room full of people. He saw the airline representative arguing with Captain Leong about something near the door he thought he should go listen in to for a second. He moved that way while also focusing on what the other officers around him were doing. He listened as the computer rang with the noise for another phone call that would start off just over voice, then move to video which he agreed was a good idea as it was more likely Lee would pick up if they could not see his face. Then when they requested he allow video call too he would have to make the decision of whether to lie, pretend he had a bad phone or broken camera, or to show his face to the officers calling him. _Everyone here is competent. They spend their lives tracking and fighting villains. It's not bad. Having a team like this. For missions. It's always been, so much easier this way. So much better._

 _Jason Lee is sloppy. He's never carried out anything as big as this. This was his first attempt, which means any attempts after this would be better. He would be more experienced and better prepared. Unless he never gets another chance. One mistake is all it takes. He'll never leave as many mistakes again as he did today. In Cairo he only had the one bag._ Zach caught part of the conversation he had wanted to hear and figured out the context from just that bit. Then he walked over around the other heroes and glanced to the screen where a blond Korean man was speaking with the heroes who questioned him a bit better and more prepared than what they had ready for Kim Park.

Zach continued just walking past the other heroes, _He left two days later on a flight back to Houston. Not far from where his last known address was after he got out of prison. His stop in Seoul was just a layover where he switched planes, but he had come from Houston as well before he went there. Didn't touch all the doors. One bag, but two days. Only two days, but a full two days. Powerful Quirks have massive drawbacks. Even if he spent years training it after getting out of prison, I know his weaknesses. I've seen his expressions. Know who he is. We know who he is. I can find him. I'm the most experienced one here. I_ _ **have**_ _to find him._

"Plane crash?! I wasn't even on the plane- this is ridiculous."

"Sir we- he hung up," Officer Choe muttered as the screen went black.

"Recognition failed to pick him up?" Sea Fong wondered, glancing to her left where one of her sidekicks sat at another computer and was trying to make match during that short video call.

 _He looked a bit familiar,_ G-Man thought. _I have to watch the full clip of everyone getting off that flight in Cairo again. He could have been any number-_

"The third name is-"

"Don't bother," Zach walked back over to the heroes who he had moved past during the last call but did not stop his train of thought to even acknowledge what he had seen. "That was our guy. Gim Jeong," Zach said it with a nod and focused look as he moved on to the next step in his head.

"What? How do you know?" Wonder Man asked in surprise, looking at the teen somewhat doubtfully at his confidence but also with a willingness to believe considering what this boy had done for him.

"He didn't have the scar," Sea Fong argued.

"He just sounded tired, and annoyed," Blue Wings agreed. "And he didn't look much like our villain."

"He didn't hang up because of that. He thought you might be tracking the call," Zach said. "He's a good actor. He wasn't frustrated about the call 'waking him up' and having to talk to police for no reason. Everyone find whatever you can on Gim Jeong in Cairo between February 27th and March 1st. Let's track the card he used for the plane tickets too, see if he used it for anything else he purchased while using that fake name."

"Are you sure?" G-Man asked the teen, seeing a confidence that made him want to just accept it here, even though he knew acting on wrong information could lead them down a dead end that would waste too much time.

Zach nodded though without a doubt, and G-Man nodded back with the decision not to argue about it.

"We've located Jason Lee's mother and one of his cousin's addresses in the Texas area. Should we contact American heroes and have them-"

"He's going to be in Cairo," Zach countered. He said it firmly, like he already knew it without needing to track down all these leads anymore that they had ready around the room. "He only stopped in Seoul while he spent two days in Cairo. Korean Aero was the airline and it crashed between Korea and China, while if anyone back home knew his trip they knew he went to Cairo from Houston and returned back to Houston. When he opened that door and disappeared as he fell, he was not going to appear inside Korea as the only place he visited here was the airport-"

"How can you be so sure of this?" Sea Fong asked the boy coming up with too much on the spot.

"He's afraid of his phone being tracked," Zach said. "Confirming the limits of his Quirk and that he does not want to have to use it again. He does not want us to know where he is or who he is, because he knows it _is_ possible for us to capture him better than anyone else. He knows all of his own weaknesses, and he's taken dozens of precautions to avoid being caught." Zach continued with a look around the room at people he had seen doubting him more with each assurance he gave them without an explanation for what he was saying. "If he thinks we already knew where around he was, heroes could already be there and ready to move in once he was pinpointed. It's why I didn't say anything even though I figured out it was him, because I don't want to spook him into running. Based on that call he likely thinks we still have no idea who or where he is. He is going to be more anxious though, ready to escape in an instant so we can't let him catch on to anything from here on out."

"He put on makeup to cover his scar," Zach continued explaining to the people just in front of him who saw what just happened. "His hair color was different, he was wearing contacts to change his eye color, or he was wearing them on when he appeared on the flight. We were recording that call though, correct?" Zach asked with a look at the officer next to Choe who nodded his head showing that was right.

"Yeah-"

"We should show the picture to the flight attendant, Ayumi. And to that child, Su Yung. See if they recognize him. All we had was the hook-shaped scar, but he could have left that revealed intentionally to draw attention to it then covered it up immediately after with makeup so his most defining feature would be his disguise. Even if that man looked a lot different from our most recent pictures of Jason Lee, he'll look a lot more similar to the person Ayumi saw as she fell from the plane. He's had two weeks to disguise himself from what he looked like in Cairo too, so he could have undergone a big transformation in that time alone."

"Alright, alright maybe," Sea Fong started, but she stepped towards Lifebringer and shook her head in frustration. This villain was sounding so prepared to her, and so she asked angrily, "But how are we supposed to find him? You say Cairo, but with the Quirk we think he has, he could be anywhere in the world."

"There are several weaknesses his Quirk has," Zach countered right back to her in an intense way that had Sea Fong pull her head back. Lifebringer stared into her eyes and spoke quickly and loudly for everyone in the room staring his way, "First of all, he had to touch the door to be able to control it in his connected pathway of doors. That's confirmed by the fact that he really did fly on this flight before, giving himself the opportunity where he most likely touched the handle of the door he was going to turn later on. Two," Zach continued right away with the next flaw, "he does not have a limitless amount of doors that he can activate with his Quirk."

G-Man's eyes opened wide as he suddenly realized what Sazaki had been getting at before when the teen told him to look at the footage. Zach continued to everyone else what he saw he no longer had to explain to G-Man, "If he had infinite control, then if he really wanted he could have gone and touched all the doors in the world, and then start some master plan opening all plane doors and submarine hatches, space shuttles and car doors to make drivers freak out and crash with huge accidents." Others around the room started staring at Lifebringer with much wider eyes, especially as he was talking in a calm and even positive tone as he described this horrible possibility. "And maybe the guy is just starting small time, which is a real option here and means this is something we need to stop right away before those disasters happen. Yet, it's also true that he _can't_ do it on as wide a scale as I'm suggesting."

"He's shown he is seemingly intelligent through his actions so far. And yet on his way through Cairo airport he went into a bathroom, he went through security-"

"I get it," Sea Fong started with her eyes widening for a second and then a big smile spreading over her face. "If he just went into the bathroom and disappeared into a stall, then it'd be more likely he has limitless, because he wouldn't have wasted one of his precious few doors on one that he couldn't practically use since he'd have to go through security check with his I.D. and passport each time or the plane wouldn't let him on a plane in the terminal anyway."

 _Not necessarily true,_ Zach thought even as he nodded at Sea Fong in agreement. _A terrorist could go into a terminal bathroom after the security checkpoint and use that Quirk to grab a weapon from home then bring it back there and get it on the flight, but in this instance that wouldn't make any sense after getting off the plane he targeted._ "That's right," Zach said. "And more than that, he walked past several doors on his way towards security that he did not touch. He didn't even look at them like he was considering activating his Quirk on them. Plus, he went back to Cairo airport and left on another plane instead of just teleporting somewhere else in the world. Now maybe he wanted to activate his Quirk on that plane too, and we should ground every plane that 'Gim Jeong' and Jason Lee has flown on. The two days he spent in Cairo also suggests that's where he is now-"

"Can we wait a second?" Captain Leong started, stepping farther into the room and frowning deeply at this teenager who was going on for too long here. "This is all just conjecture. The villain could have wanted to spent time in Cairo, or maybe it was so he could give an excuse for traveling to people who know him back in the States. Taking pictures and the like. And disappearing from the airport would have drawn suspicion that he did not want, so he wouldn't have just disappeared from there without leaving security, same with heading back to the U.S. as people would notice that he had never traveled back!"

Leong came up with more and more good reasons to counter all of these theories the longer he went on, and by the end he was raising his voice as it all sounded like even _more_ conjecture than proof to him. "He only had his carry-on bag with him," Zach started again. He looked to Leong for a moment but then turned to Wonder Man and G-Man who were standing next to each other on his other side. "He could've disappeared from the terminal with all his things and been just fine. No one would notice, at all."

"Why Egypt though?" G-Man asked seriously, not questioning everything like Leong but still wondering as this was the most confusing part to him.

"How many doors can he control?" Zach wondered. "We saw him walk right past doors without considering using them. He acted rather quickly between when he flew and when he carried out this attack, so does his Quirk wear off at some point? There may even be a time limit to how often he can open doors to go through, or how many in a row." Zach paused and he said in a deep but stern voice over the whole room, "This may have sounded like an unbeatable, super powerful Quirk when we first heard about it, but all Quirks have drawbacks. They aren't as amazing as one would think!" He looked towards Sea Fong who he had seen look so grim earlier when they were discussing his Quirk, like the aspect of catching this man would be some huge ordeal and likely not able to be completed by them alone here. "Maybe going through the doors hurts him, or maybe it's not about a time limit but just the number he can go through in a single day?"

He questioned that and looked around at some of the officers, then towards Captain Leong who was hesitating at the boy's firm voice and how many questions he was posing that it sounded like he had already thought out thoroughly. "We know he went through two already today, opening the door connected to the plane door, and then opening the door he brought through connected to one somewhere else in the world." Zach paused and then added loudly, "Now hopefully, where he was before he opened the door is where he returned to. A home or base of some kind, but there's a strong possibility that he planned out disappearing from one spot and emerging in another too in case anyone was tracking him afterwards and found out where he had been. Which was likely near where he initially lived-"

"Lifebringer!" one of the officers called out, looking at credit card records in front of him and jumping out of his seat as he got something. "With the fake name he used on the flight, Lee had a credit card that he also used to rent a room at a motel for two nights just south of Cairo."

"That motel is under construction for new renovations," another who had been sitting next to him called out while he was finishing that report. They had looked up the motel to contact them, but the woman's eyes opened wider as she switched over from the home page discussing renovations to a satellite image of the map on the search engine that showed where in Cairo this place was. "His credit card record shows he had drank one of the Lipto Waters in his room they charged him 90 Pounds for. It marks his room number as 403, and the third and fourth floors of the motel are under construction this week."

"Which means no one would be using the rooms," Zach said, and others around him turned their heads back to the teen with their eyes growing huge at the intensity in his voice. He did not look surprised, but like he was waiting to hear where their villain was because he knew the exact location was coming soon.

"Construction," the woman who was just calling all that out started. She gulped, then she turned around to look at Lifebringer with her eyes wide too, and she finished, "Is off today, for an Egyptian national holiday."

Zach nodded his head calmly and started thinking while speaking to the people around him all giving him amazed looks or ones of just plain disbelief. "He used his trip to Cairo for two purposes. Both were for deciding the doors he was going to touch connecting his pathway. The first was to touch the plane door to carry out his plan. He shouldn't have been able to figure out what crew would be on his flight, what flight number or identification number the flight was in advance, but he could have tracked it afterwards. It was not a targeted attack on anyone on board most likely then. The second door was likely of his own motel room where he would be able to leave things secretly in well-hidden places so that after he reappeared in that country, far far from anyone who would think to look for Jason Lee, he would be set until things died down a little or until he carried out his next attack while everyone was still in panic or trying to figure out what happened the first time."

He paused and narrowed his eyes while furling his lip for a moment. _No. It's too risky. Any sirens, and even if it's a smart hero, he could pick up police scanners as heroes tell officers to get ready to evacuate the area in case of a big fight. A specific hero with the right explanation could get it._ Zach continued without a second pause to the others as he was thinking about something else, just explaining the stuff he had already come up with but only confirmed with the new information about this motel. "People he knew might think it was him if information about the doors being used did come out as foul play, but he's not even using his real name anymore, not where anyone would be searching for him, and he looks completely different too. It's very likely 'Gim Jeong' held onto his cellphone in order to see how close we were to finding him, and now he knows that we know more than he expected. It could also just be the phone he's been using since changing personas, and he didn't expect to be called by police asking about him and checking what he looked like. He did think something of it though, as he must have had the tools nearby to cover up his scar well enough that we could not notice it through the phone camera. Yet it was definitely him in that second call, based on his facial movements and body language, on what he said, and because he failed to even react to seeing me in the background while everyone in the world knows my face."

Others stared at Zach with eyes growing even wider as he had apparently done something like that intentionally during the calls. "Jeong saw me but pretended not to look my way. He played it off so inconspicuously while still just sounding annoyed that it was clearly scripted for him. He was clearly the villain we were looking for." Zach paused and then added as he theorized some more on the spot, "He likely went home to the U.S. first after his initial flight, finalized other parts of his plan, then carried it out earlier. Then even if his alias was discovered, and Gim Jeong was tracked back to the United States where he never left again, we'd be left with a dead end as he's not where he would have some base or home, but he's in Cairo. He would assume that we'd suspect Cairo was just a random stop during his goal to activate his Quirk on the airplane. He's hiding out in a country he barely knows?"

Zach pondered it like that was somewhat unbelievable, but no one was doubting him anymore and just listened closer as he went on with narrowing eyes, "The country with still one of the highest rates of villain attacks in the world, even if that rate is lower right now than it's been in years. A country where heroes have struggled, where many have been killed, where it'd be less likely they could spare a lot of manpower at any given time to go after him." He stopped and then continued darker, "Cairo is where he has moved to rest and get ready for the next part of his plan. If he suspects we know who he is now, his only options are to go into hiding or to continue his plan. This was the first part and meant to test things out, see how well-prepared the heroes are for him, and even if that call alone does scare him into stopping with just this," Zach's eyes darkened and he said firmly, "I'm not letting him get away with this."

"He might just open the doorway and escape and just never be seen again. He could use his Quirk to vanish back and forth bouncing all over the world, but right now we know he's used his Quirk twice recently and in rapid succession." Zach thought faster, and he spoke aloud to a group of people realizing less and less like he was explaining anything to them, "Too much time hasn't passed afterwards, and even if this guy can only do it so many times in a day, twice like that is bad. If he could touch every door and go through at any time, he would touch _every_ door and be a master of jumping around teleporting through every door there is, but his Quirk's seeming more and more flawed each second. If his Quirk has a great number of limitations, then he needs to recharge and won't want to use it again so quickly unless he absolutely has to. Plus, he'll be cautious against using a third one in case he suspects that we know all his possible locations, so he'll want to wait until he's sure we're after him in Cairo before using his Quirk to escape somewhere else again, if he even can right now." _There are a ton of possibilities. The construction is the assurance though. The fact that he did not touch every door in that airport, showed that he was either stupid for not being prepared to run and be able to pop out anywhere, or that he couldn't do it, or that he could and it would take away his ability to go through another doorway somewhere else. Maybe the possibility to use it as many times as he wants but only through a certain amount of doors so once he uses it on a fifth or sixth door, the first one he touched is no longer applicable._

"What's the address of that hotel?" Zach asked.

"Ah, it's uh, the Sherilnon 7, on 312 Farzhad Place in the Maadi district south-"

Zach looked from the man responding to him to the one who had called out about Jeong's credit card info. "Locate any other lodgings or locations that credit card was used on. As backups in case Lee slips away." Zach turned and he started for the door.

The Korean heroes and cops stared at him for a few seconds, then the heroes' eyes opened wide and they all rushed to the door and out into the terminal after Lifebringer whose actions they understood a few seconds after he started moving. "Wait, Lifebringer," G-Man started, running up to Lifebringer's side as he marched away behind a barrier that police had put up. The barrier created a hall on the side of the terminal keeping the movements of heroes and personnel in and out of that room from the prying eyes of people pointing cellphone cameras over at it. "Where are you going?"

"We'll call Egyptian heroes," Wonder Man started as he dropped down in front of the boy and on his right side, and he moved more to the side as Lifebringer just kept walking with his expression intense and a short shake of his head denying that. Wonder Man shook his own head and rushed forward still in front of Lifebringer so he was partially backpedaling. "You've done great figuring out as much as you have, but you should let the pros handle it."

"You may not think much of Egyptian heroes," Sea Fong began.

"If he sees the Egyptian heroes coming, he'll disappear," Zach stated. "If he's suspecting they might be contacted and come to his motel, he may be watching out for them too." _He knew I was here already. He knew I brought back some of his victims, so he must have suspected information about him would get out. Then again, he knew that was a possibility from the start especially if he planned on killing a lot more people with the crash. So he did not panic. He kept calm even though he saw me, which gave away that he knew I was there already and that he's prepared for it anyway. If these were his precautions for me being a part of this though, then he's just feeling even more confident now that he went to all the trouble to make these plans. Like he planned for this._ "Lee's shown he's willing to kill innocents, and the way he looked after getting off that plane two weeks ago, he was excited to start out his crime spree. Excited, and yet patient. Smart. Dangerous, but inexperienced, as of now."

Zach's voice got darker, and his feet sped up as he moved faster through the airport towards a door he saw up ahead that he was not supposed to enter himself as it led outside. "Based on how I interact with the villain when I see him, if I can't take Lee out immediately, I'll also be able to influence his decision when going through the door about where to pop out next." Zach turned to G-Man who had traded cell information with him in the car on the way to the hospital, and he gave the man a dark but serious nod telling him to contact him in a moment. G-Man's eyes opened much wider behind his sunglasses at the single look that told him there was no stopping Lifebringer, and he sped up even more with his mouth opening to try and argue. Zach continued first though, "I will fly immediately to his next location, all his most probable other locations that I'll need the addresses for as backups."

"And how will you, influence where he goes?" Sea Fong asked, breaking partway through as she was even nervous to ask, but then speeding up more to keep up with the kid talking crazy that did not sound as crazy when it came from him.

"Tell him I know about his other hotels and locations where I suspect his backup doors are, while leaving out the most obvious backup that he would probably go to anyway but would feel even safer about having when it seems like Lifebringer doesn't know about it." Zach stopped and grit his teeth, _And after using another door like that so soon, he shouldn't be able to flee from that backup. I hope his power isn't any stronger…_ "Not that it will matter," he muttered and cut off his own doubtful thoughts. "I won't let it come to that anyway." Zach put his right hand on the lock of the door at the end of the fake hall the police had created in the terminal, and he unlocked it and opened it up to a small staircase down and one up both leading outside. "He'll never see me coming," Zach growled while pushing the door open, stepping outside where it was colder and much darker as the area was not illuminated and covered in walls of windows.

"Lifebringer-"

"He'll be none the wiser as to what happened when he wakes up in a cell somewhere," Zach growled under his breath, jogging up the stairs but slowing down near the top. "How? Because I'm a ghost," he muttered to himself even quieter and then turned his head and glared down at the heroes who followed him. "Calm down flight control in ten seconds. Don't tell the press where I'm going as we know Lee is watching. Hold a press conference though and announce that we're still just trying to work it out, with a few suspects. Talk about who he really is, stuff that won't spook him too much and that he probably thinks we already know. And start the conference when I give the word," Zach gave one more look at G-Man, then he pushed open a door at the top of the metal staircase that did not have any path off of it.

His body erupted in darkness and he flew up in the sky in an instant. A massive set of black wings ripped off his back and he flapped them under him, soaring a thousand feet higher in a second, then a few thousand feet higher than that. He spiraled up through the clouds and then shot himself into the west. _It worked in Camino Ward. The heroes did a press conference that eased the villains into a false sense of security. He'll see the very same heroes he knows are investigating him, and my absence won't raise any flags as I'm not even supposed to be there. And that doesn't even matter, because All Might wasn't at that press conference either and it still eased the villains then just to hear them being talked about without any sign they were being hunted at that moment._

Zach's phone rang, and he brought it up to the side of his head with darkness hardening in front of his face to act as a windshield and make it possible to hear G-Man and for him to be heard back. "You know, this is far beyond your jurisdiction now," G-Man began in a dark voice to the teenager who picked up the phone. Zach did not respond, and G-Man paused for a few seconds then started, "Everyone's working on a list with all the possible addresses we think Lee might flee to. I'll adjust it to figure out which is _most_ likely his first backup, for when you go in."

"Thank you," Zach replied.

"Wonder Man is calling a press conference now, and luckily there are a lot of press stuck outside the airport already. How long-"

"Twenty minutes," Zach replied. There was a brief silence on the other side of the line, and Zach added, "I'm very fast. Call me in eighteen." Zach hung up and he pocketed his phone again, and he wrapped himself in more darkness as it was freezing up there without anything more than a long-sleeved shirt on. He was wet again too after flying through clouds and getting poured on earlier that night, and behind the darkness over his face he sniffled once.

 _Cairo. Seven hours back from Korea. Should still be some light._ Zach flew out of clouds into a clearer pitch black sky, and he rose up in elevation higher and higher.

 _There it is._ Zach spotted the growing sunset. He was traveling so fast to the west that the sun looked to be rising to him. He dropped back down in elevation, but the dark sky got brighter again as the sun rose up above the horizon. _How fast am I moving? Did I release more?_ Zach slowed down, and he pulled his phone out carefully with a wind guard of Death protecting it again. _GPS location… Not too far. A good estimate, maybe underestimated my speed to G-Man. I should recognize Cairo anyway. I'll check again for the exact location._

The sun stayed low on the horizon for Zach. Even though he had traveled closer to the equator and thousands of miles to the west, the sun was still setting. _It was past midnight. Well past. It's March though, and farther south, 7 hours back. Sunset's close. It's hotter here._ Zach saw a city he had been to before, and he thought upon a closer inspection of it, _Looks a lot better than the last time I was here. Cairo was out of control, and it was the least chaotic part of Egypt. Last February was absolute chaos across this country, like it was in most of Africa after the CHAF. Before the CHAF too. It's why they united like that in the first place. Chaos._ Zach saw smoke rising from all over the city in front of him that shifted a bit in appearance, but he shook the memory out of his head. He pushed the thought away angrily actually, glaring down at the city and then to the south in the direction of where he knew his enemy was. _Millions of lives could be on the line if I fail here. If this villain learns from his mistakes today and becomes stronger and more capable of mass destruction!_

Zach picked up his phone and he called G-Man as he flew through the sky over Egypt's capital. The phone picked up after half of one ring. "Start the press conference. What do you have?"

"Near his childhood home outside of Houston, his mother claims he had come home not too long ago and visited a childhood fort he made with friends as a kid out in the woods near their home. There's got to be a door out there. Other places include his former work…"

Zach listened as G-Man listed off places secondary to that fort, while he hoped someone else was notifying Wonder Man to get started on a press conference. _Jason Lee's in this building._ Zach stared at a motel from high up above it with his body cleared of most of the Death so he would stand out less if anyone happened to look up there. _Construction all over the exterior of the building. New balconies being built, windows boarded up,_ Zach noted the exterior renovations with a satisfied look. _Doorway Boy knew about what was being renovated. Probably asked about it beforehand to make sure inner doors were safe. One two three, two "third" rooms from the edges that could be 403. That one. Hole in a board over the window._

Zach's red eyes narrowed down on the window that had wooden planks over it during the construction. _It doesn't make sense for the construction guys to carve that hole in it, but for someone using the room who might want to look outside for approaching heroes, it makes sense. Stay out of the direct sun. Don't cast an early shadow._ He slid his phone down in his pocket and then shot up high in the air. Someone shouted down below, and he arced and dropped into a dive. _It's possible he hears the scream over the sound of his tv. He'll turn from the tv towards the window he'll want to check through the hole of again…_

Zach smashed through the wall of the motel room instead of through the boarded up window itself, as the man might be looking towards it already and see him approaching if he chose to go through there. He smashed down the wall of a building in Cairo, and his red eyes glared through the debris blasting inwards at a villain leaning nervously on the wall next to the door while facing the tv in his room. The room was dimly lit and almost dark but illuminated fast as the hole was blown in the wall. The villain was leaning on the wall with his arms crossed like he was telling himself that there was no need to be nervous. His head started to turn with his arms coming uncrossed, but Zach flew across the shaking room through flying debris and his hand shot out of his black aura before the man even finished uncrossing his arms.

The dark form grabbed the blond villain who had rubbed the makeup off so his scar was showing again. His right hand in its glove tightened into Jason Lee's chest, furiously yanking him off the ground and knocking the wind out of him at the speed Zach smashed into him. A wall of darkness blew out around Zach's sides and prevented the debris following him from slamming into his target. The man in front of him's mouth was wide open but no noise could come out after he lost all his breath. He stared with massive trembling eyes at the figure of darkness holding him up, and then Zach pulled towards himself so the villain's face was right in front of his. _**"RRRAAAAAAAAAOOOOAOAA!"**_

The horrifying voice echoed out from the room and around the building for dozens to hear. Black smoke pushed out of Zach's mouth as he screamed it too in a scratchy dark and deep voice. It poured out of Zach's mouth and into the face of the man before him who finally got knocked-out as Zach had gripped him at first with his glove that had no Death on it whatsoever. Zach's fingers slipped out of the man's shirt and dropped him to the floor, and he stared down with his red eyes turning back to hazel and going wide. The villain shit himself, and Zach thought with his expression shaking, _Did I kill… No, it wasn't a death shit. It was just from the fear._

Sirens started outside the building getting louder as they approached. He looked down at the man on the floor with a scar in a curved shape on his left cheek. _Does look a bit like a hook from this close._ Zach took in steady breaths and let them out just as calmly, and he frowned deeper each second as he glared down at the villain who he captured so quickly. Unlike Jason Lee, who made all those precautions for good reason as his opponents were better than had prepared for, Zach felt a feeling of disappointment he pushed down hard in disgust at the sensation of.

Zach pulled out his phone and looked down at the time. "Ch," he pocketed it and looked away in annoyance towards the tv where Wonder Man, Sea Fong, and Blue Wings were answering questions from the press without the knowledge that he had already succeeded. _It's still the middle of the night. Still long before class even if I fly back to Yutapu slowly. And what will I do in Yutapu for the next few hours? I'll have to pick up my backpack from Korea at some point. My homeless pals said I could squat with them whenever and they weren't afraid of any villains. They'd even protect me while I sleep!_ Zach lifted a small grin and almost chuckled at the idea of it. _I appreciate them for that, but that's why I shouldn't take them up on it again. Show appreciation once, and it was nice even if Lemillion found me. And if he could, Eziano could have._

 _I'll just deal with the press here and explain to the coming heroes in Arabic why I just smashed a hole in one of their buildings._ Zach looked out the hole in the wall towards an approaching hero jumping on rooftops in his direction. _He was too dangerous not to take on with every precaution. As fast as possible. No holds barred. Damn, I wonder how many people I just saved. I'll never know… That's fine though. That's, what it's supposed to… I never knew._

* * *

 **A/N Thanks for reading! Hope you enjoyed the chapter! Leave a review below telling me what you think, questions, comments, or predictions for the story! Gotta admit, my predictions for how many chapters I have left keep getting blown away. And as I've told you guys "No spoilers" many, many times... I start to wonder if the few things I have revealed have been lies too... Unintentionally, of course ;) Anyway, review response time:**

DarkJokes chapter 201 . Nov 18

Surprised that Zach didn't realise the prime minister could have been corrupt like at least the idea should've floated through his mind. Also a very important question I think I would like to know is if Eri's quirk Rewind works on Zach? Since his quirk is death and well death doesn't age or die would that mean She can't really wipe Zach from existence? Rewind is basically a time quirk and Zach has basically a type of immortality quirk so I'm just wondering would that make him immune to her rewind?

 **Zach does wonder, at the least, whether or not Nikko did it just because of the terms the two of them are on which to him likely counts as corruption. He also considers a dozen other reasons though and mainly just blames himself for not having that channel where he could have actually talked to Nikko. Plus, the incident went on quickly (even if that chapter was pretty long), so having to deal with bureaucracy and not immediately getting results wouldn't really make him assume evil, though maybe he is considering it too in a deeper way. We haven't seen it yet, doesn't mean it's not on his mind somewhere, but just a few reasons for why it's not his immediate assumption. As for Eri's Rewind, I'd say it'd def work on Zach. His Quirk is Death, but he's not really Death- I mean, he is Death, but not Death Death, even if some villains thought he was Death... Get it? XD lol she sends people back, and Zach's still just a human being. If he was sent back 19 years, then as an 18 year old, it would most likely make him disappear. Hope that makes sense-ish. And hope you enjoyed this chapter. Thanks for reviewing!**

TheGreatBaljeet chapter 201 . Nov 18

This may be kinda late, but congrats on 200 chapters!  
That's like 100 chapters but twice that much (I'm joking, don't worry)  
I've been reading since chapter 63? 64?  
It's been so long I don't even remember, but I'm loving every chapter.  
Keep this up, and you might even have the longest fanfiction on here. ;)

 **Thanks a lot! XD (nice joke). All y'all who've been reading for so long and keeping up with the story, I'm glad I've kept you interested all this time! Doubt I'll get the longest on here, but I would bet that in the past year and a half I have written more words than anyone else has ever written in the same amount of time. (Nearly 3 million XD XD). Anyway, thanks to everyone for keeping up with it!**

UWU chapter 201 . Nov 20

I swear to darling if the ending is open ended I will find you and do something. I don't know what but I will.

 **I had no idea Darling was God... Though it does make sense. ;) Thanks for the review, and don't worry I'm pretty sure everyone'll really like the ending... or maybe not. I think it's going to be awesome though! XD Thanks for reading mina-san! 'Til next time!**


	203. Chapter 203

**Disclaimer: I don't own Boku no Hero Academia**

 **Chapter 203:**

Zach sat down in his seat in Class 1 at Shiketsu High, and Kotsumura slammed his hands down on the side of his desk as Zach had just came in, ignored the silence of the classroom, and took his seat. "Dude! You… you look beat," Kotsumura Keiji stopped talking so emphatically and lowered his voice a bit. He said that in a more normal tone and rose his eyebrows up high as he noticed how tired Zach actually looked.

 _It's not about not sleeping last night. Just the exhaustion of having to sit in a school right now and deal with this._ Zach thought it while looking up at Kotsumura and giving him a single tired nod that falsely confirmed what Kotsumura already knew was what had made him so fatigued right now. _I saw what I could do as a hero last night. I can do that, right now. For a hundred different cases. I don't have those kind of resources though. Not on my own. Not without everyone thinking it's an emergency, to be able to get away with that. I know I'm not actually going to get away with it anyway. I'll have a few more minutes though._

"What were you doing last night?" Dendo questioned.

Zach turned his head and looked back at the dark-green haired teen who stepped forward and stared at his classmate he needed an explanation from.

"Yeah, I heard you were in Korea," Imino started from his seat. "And Egypt?" he added, raising his eyebrows to see if that was true too.

"I heard about that plane malfunctioning mid-flight," Zach started. He let out a yawn and stretched his hands up over his head, returning his expression more to normal and trying to wipe whatever exhausted look he had off his face. "And I went to help out. It wasn't as much as the news made it out to be-" Zach got interrupted by the blonde girl two rows to his right who snapped over at him midway through that sentence.

"Don't humble brag. It's gross," Reika retorted at how he was trying to play this.

"It really wasn't though. I just brought back the two I was able to, while I failed at saving nearly a dozen others," Zach said. He frowned more at Reika who heard in that tone that he thought of those failures more than he was thinking about the two he saved, in which she understood why he would not want to be getting praised here. She still humphed and looked away though. _Don't get pissed your Quirk's good enough you can just fly off and help out wherever. People'd kill for that kind of power._

"Was the villain really strong?" Satoshi wondered. Others looked towards him, and he continued to Zach while leaning out of his seat and looking over interestedly, "I watched this clip from an Egyptian news station that channel 6 put on, where these witnesses close-by say they heard this like, demonic roar from the motel room where the villain was caught!" Zach started slowly nodding his head, and Satoshi said with wide eyes and his thin vertical irises thinning even more in shock at the sight of that nod. "Well you were the one who got him right? They didn't show him on the news I was watching, but was he like-"

"I bet the one who roared like that was you, wasn't it?" Reika asked, looking over and then calling Zach out on the way he was looking back at Satoshi.

"Got me," Zach replied, and Satoshi's smile wiped with his jaw dropping hard at the sound of that. "Didn't want him reacting at all. No fight or flight, since his flight mechanism could've teleported him across the world. When people are that scared sometimes they just forget how to react. Even their instincts are thrown off," Zach explained like it was reasonable for him to do what he did. _I just did what, came naturally. Scaring villains. It's second nature at this point._ "Death works out well for that. Made him shit himself," the right corner of Zach's lips rose up and the room fell completely silent. Even Himazuri who had heard a crazy thought like that before in his head stared towards him frozen at that statement. _No one? Oh that sucks. Wish I hadn't said that._

"He'd just murdered a little kid," Zach muttered, his lips flattening out and his shoulders slouching. _And me, twice. And Ayumi. I deserve it. They were innocents. What? I can't feel good about stopping villains anymore? It's the only fucking thing I still feel good about doing. Whatever. None of them know. Bringing back the dead. Being in a situation where the world could've been fucked but I stopped it! And yet it just comes out that I helped catch a villain who killed a couple of people and grounded some planes. No one knows how high the stakes were. No one ever knows! How far I see things happening in the future. I saw what Doorway Boy could've done to this world with his Quirk. Had he been a little smarter. Planned a bit better. He had plans to carry out more attacks too, I'm sure. Now he'll be in jail forever, and they'll never let him near a door again. Stupid fucking villain._

"Y-Yeah," Kotsumura agreed after a couple seconds. "Damn, you made him crap his pants though? That's uh," Kotsumura scratched the back of his head. He grimaced as he glanced around for some help on how to finish this, only to see uneasy expressions across most of his classmates or just ones pitying Zach for his exhaustion and darkness here. "It's cool you caught him though."

"Kotsumura, you should sit down," Muoko said over to the blond boy standing next to Zach's desk.

"What?" Kotsumura started, getting defensive as he looked towards the class rep. "It was. He just-"

Hazano Worrod walked into the classroom and he frowned towards a standing and talking Kotsumura who did not notice that class was about to start. Muoko sweatdropped at her classmate's stunned expression when she had just tried to warn him, and Kotsumura quickly took his seat with a bow of his head to avoid their homeroom teacher's gaze.

Satoshi held back a snicker he would not usually be able to keep back, still thinking too much on the clip he had seen earlier. The witness statements he heard in Egypt that morning after he woke up had made him all the more amazed by Zach who had managed to go there and beat his enemies. _Zach's the one who scared all those people. Sure the villain was there, but those people were saying they were so glad Lifebringer had shown up because whatever they heard up in that motel was so horrifying. Wait- Did he roar like that, in order to scare people away from the crime scene in case it became dangerous?! If he doesn't speak their language, he'd have to find a different way to communicate that to them! And he just feels bad for it, which is why he's not trying to come up with excuses for us._ Satoshi bowed his head and then shook it in amazement, _What a guy._

 _I've got no home. Everyone in Japan's seen me in some dark state looking like my old self again. I came back here to try and show them I was over that! Most of Class A won't even talk to me, and the others know I'm an even bigger mass murderer than before._ Zach stared towards Hazano and was just waiting on what he knew was about to come. _Eziano's killing people around me. Norita got murdered because of me! Midoriya's against everything I do, which means everything I do must be wrong. Momo knows I lied to her. Straight to her face. And now we don't even talk- we haven't for a while now._

 _And who appreciates what I did last night?_ Zach thought it with his expression getting darker for a moment and then returning back to normal as he did not want Hazano thinking the glare was meant for him. _I got angry texts all morning from people telling me not to overstep, warnings, and people saying how what I did was "cool." No one thanked me._ Zach grimaced hard and he turned his head and looked out the windows with his expression getting darker. _It wasn't about being thanked though. That's never been what it's about. I-I don't care about that, because none of them did and I'm still, fighting for what they believed. Our shared beliefs…_

"Sazaki."

Zach nodded at Hazano and put his hands down on his desk. He got up before Hazano even started telling him what he needed to say, making the teacher frown though he just finished anyway as Zach started forward on his own…

* * *

"What were you thinking? You had no legal right to be out there. Did you even question for a second if what you were doing was justified by your _provisional_ hero license?" Memuria scolded the eighteen year old standing before her who had his hands down together behind his back so his elbows were pointed out at his sides. "Did you?" She asked again, as this was not just a scolding but she was actually asking if he thought about it.

"I thought it was an emergency. And that I was close enough-"

"That excuse does not work for everything," Memuria snapped at her student she felt was getting snarky with her to bring up that camera-ready excuse. "You broke the rules, plain and simple. Or you stretched them at the least," she continued with a harsher look at the boy whose expression did not waver when she told him how he broke them. "Doing whatever you want. It's unacceptable."

"I was re-allowed to leave the country for emergencies," Zach said of the permission the Prime Minister's office made public the day before. "I felt it was acceptable to go help, and because I was allowed to, I should."

Memuria shook her head at her student but took in a deep breath to calm herself too before speaking. "Reviving those few you were able to from the plane crash constituted an emergency," she snapped. "Joining the Korean heroes on a manhunt, traveling to Egypt, and taking down a villain there does _not!"_

"No one's complained," Zach argued back, keeping respectful and staring straight into her eyes as he said it from the other side of her desk. "Have they?" He wondered. "Has the Egyptian government complained about me ignoring their border and stopping that villain?"

"It doesn't matter if they do or don't," Memuria retorted right back in a harsher tone, standing up from her seat and glaring at the insubordinate student before her. "Or if our own government doesn't, because I have my own rules and hero code. I understand the laws surrounding provisional licenses well, as I need to as the principal of such an institution as Shiketsu High. I have argued on the sides of my students for decades when they have overstepped during internships and been confronted by the law and heroes afterwards. Not _one_ of them has ever overstepped like you have though, and with such arrogance that you do not even consider you may face consequences."

"I understand that I could face consequences," Zach replied. He said it firmly and then added while staring straight into his principal's eyes, "But with his Quirk he could have opened another plane door at any time and killed a lot more people. I was able to get there first, so I got there first. Had it been anyone else, had anyone else shown up a second later than I did, he could have escaped and killed more people." Zach paused and then continued to the older hero, "I considered the entire course of events from my arrival on the scene of the crash to when Jason Lee was put in custody as _all_ part of the emergency situation. Reviving the dead, working with heroes on the scene, and capturing the villain who caused the crash were not different incidents in my mind. They were one incident that I responded to due to my understanding that it was an emergency, and that I remained at until I was certain that it had been resolved and that everyone was safe."

Memuria frowned darkly at her student who stared back at the older woman with light purple hair nearly turning gray and looking whiter after this frustrating argument. She sighed and leaned back behind her desk where she was standing, then she shook her head and continued to the student, "You say that you 'remained' there until it was settled, but you flew to Egypt in order to finish it. You could have left that to anyone else. Someone closer."

"No one was _closer,_ based on the definition that I have given and has been accepted previous," Zach countered without flinching and still in his same posture as when he stopped in front of Memuria's desk. It was just the two of them in the office, and Zach finally loosened his expression from the serious and defensive one he was giving. He just shook his head back at Memuria in the same softer and even condescending way she had just shaken it at him. " _I_ was able to get there first, and _I_ was able to stop that villain before he teleported away. I was twenty minutes from his location, and had anyone else arrived in thirty minutes he may have taken down another plane in that ten minute span." Zach shook his head at the principal and finished to her in a semi-frustrated way of his own, "It's not that I don't understand there may be consequences to these choices I make." Her eyes widened as Zach finished at her, "I just understand that there were worse consequences to _not_ making those choices."

Memuria stared back at the boy in front of her who sounded like he was frustrated himself, and even angry that he had to make that choice. _You don't have to make the choice though. No one expects you to. We don't even, want you to._ She sat back down in her chair behind her desk. _But to you, even if no one else expected you to, you'd still know that you could have been there first if anyone else got there late and people died. Not one person would blame you for not making that choice to go after him yourself, because none of us see it as a choice at all. I saw you as an immature student who overstepped because he wanted to. You just did, what you knew would haunt you the least though. Every hero's made hard choices in their lives. Those choices are where the gray lies. Yet, you've made more of those choices than anyone else. If I look back on all you've done and consider what you did as you making the same choice you made last night…_

 _The principal looks to respect me now. That's a plus. I know everyone in my class is scared of me though. Losing the faith they had gained in me after months together. Why can't I just be the person I was after I came back? The longer I'm here, the harder it's getting to pull off Zach Sazaki- That's not even a thing anymore. I'm not acting like anyone. I was just a version of Zach who pretended to be more cheerful and upbeat and a helpful teacher to my fellow heroes, and because I had to convince myself of my act I had actually become him. And now I'm a version who knows the true reality again, yet I have to pretend without believing- I don't even know what I'm trying to hold onto here. Fuck. Eziano. Raijin. Shigaraki. Fuck these villains. Fuck All For One. I'm so fucking tired of this. And as much Death as I expelled this morning I feel like I was feeling before Broom Man._

 _I feel like I need to expel Death and yet just that isn't enough. Filling my whole body with it worked for a while at keeping back these tendencies, because I was using so much all the time. I'm losing it though. There's just so much in there. Bubbling inside. And it's turning me darker. I already knew when Midoriya forced all that out of me. When I changed my mind on fighting him. But, I really think it's my own damn fault. I'm not even trying anymore. Not hard enough, at least. It was a full time job keeping it up all day every day. Not sleeping is just making it worse too. But where the hell am I supposed to sleep that'll be safe? Where couldn't I be tracked? Forests. Under a bridge maybe. I'll find a nice spot before I finally sleep tonight, for the first time in days._

* * *

"Underguard."

"Bikergang," Rubbergirl greeted the other hero back with a nod of her head. Her voice came out as her own, and Bikergang's eyes widened for a moment before he nodded at the girl before him and just continued on as if speaking to Underguard himself. "How are preparations going?" Bikergang wondered while in the lobby of a different hero's agency. There were no cameras in the lobby, just as neither of their own agencies had cameras anymore in certain rooms too, as of the day before. The meeting place they were in had some traffic in it, as they were at one of the largest hero agencies in the country in its Kyoto headquarters. Local Kyoto sidekicks working for Ryukyu or on their own but in close coordination with her had offices on other floors in the building, and support staff, sidekicks, and police officers were busy enough that the lobby stayed crowded.

It was crowded enough even, that two heroes just meeting up on the first floor and talking did not draw all that much attention. Only those who recognized the two heroes normally operating up in Hokkaido thought twice about it, but they were all poised enough to ignore them and move on with their own assignments. They knew better than to ask what they were doing there, as it was none of their business, and it would make them look as suspicious as could be in a time like this. Bikergang continued to act as if he was speaking to Underguard who replied in a voice quiet enough and intentionally deeper after she informed him with her statement of his name that it was her and not her pro.

The girl in a green coat had her shoulders spread broad and her back straightened out, and her face was covered in the black mask and goggles that Underguard wore normally anyway so she did not have to use her Quirk much there. The girl had her hood up and spoke to the man in front of her from under it, "Didn't see anyone suspicious following me. Notice anything?"

"Did some detours on my motorcycle as if patrolling randomly. Would have shaken any followers," Bikergang replied. After hearing Rubbergirl's voice he had continued to look at Underguard in a casual but serious way, while he kept from letting it show that he was simultaneously scanning the room and keeping an eye on the fifteen people in the lobby at the moment. _It may turn out over and over to be nothing there. Nothing we'll spend so much time avoiding. And yet the precautions are necessary,_ Bikergang thought while Underguard gave him a single nod showing he thought Bikergang was right in probably shaking anyone who could have been following him.

 _Raijin knew of Operation Atem beforehand. He led the heroes into a trap._ It was common knowledge to heroes like Rubbergirl, even if it had been kept off the news as the authorities kept it amongst themselves and stayed quiet about it. _People think Raijin's just that good. That he saw them coming or hacked computers on his own, and he let the rest of his people fall into a trap because he wanted to videotape himself. They think he's just insane and crazy powerful too… Which are both true. But it's not "just" those things. Someone leaked. Someone had to._

As terrible an idea it was that someone on their side had betrayed them, it was a more reassuring reason for their failure than the other option. If Raijin really had just beaten them completely with his own power, just outmaneuvering some of their best heroes and slaughtering them on his own, it would be hard for even some battle-hardened heroes with years of experience to feel any kind of confidence about going up against him and the League. Bikergang and Rubbergirl both rather thought that it was one of their own, even though the news seemed to be in consensus otherwise and that it was Raijin alone who managed that win.

 _He couldn't have killed them all without any help. I refuse to believe it… Yet I know it's better to let the news keep reporting it this way. Probably why so many of us are installing all these new security measures without giving clear reasons for why it's happening. Keeping it quiet. People need to trust us right now._ Rubbergirl frowned darkly behind the black metal mask covering the bottom half of her face. _Raijin was the best spy though, and he knows the value of a well-placed spy better than anyone because of the value_ _ **he**_ _had. Yet it could have been anyone. One of those 38 heroes' staff or family who knew about the raid. We keep things close to the chest as heroes, but unless one of those 38 is still alive and disappeared with the villains as the actual spy, we've got a rat hiding high up in the ranks. Other top heroes. A higher up official privy to the innermost dealings of our government. How many of the top hero officials knew? They must have worked with Best Jeanist on coordinating the mission and figuring out who to bring along. Police officers nearby who worked with the heroes too or just people in that town who may have given the tip… in the first place… And there's the problem._

 _We assume it's a spy when it could have been any of the people of that village,_ Rubbergirl thought. _Someone there who called the heroes and let them know where the villains were hiding, because Raijin_ _ **wanted**_ _that to happen. They may have even been an unknowing spy. Whether they assisted in his plans voluntarily or not though, if it's just some random civilian who lived in that village then he's hit us even harder now because of all these precautions we're taking. Extra time we waste being safe, just in case. And it could all just be paranoia based on a spy we don't know even exists!_

Rubbergirl's pocket buzzed, and she looked to her side at Bikergang who had checked his phone quietly for a few seconds there. "Let's head up," she said in a deep voice trying to mimic Underguard's. She tried to focus inwards on her vocal cords that she stretched longer to male lengths to deepen her voice, "Each team leader's here now."

 _Last one to arrive then,_ Bikergang thought, though he just nodded with Underguard as they headed onto the elevator without anyone stopping them. The two of them were in hero costume, after all, so everyone on the first floor just assumed they knew where they were going.

The elevator doors closed on the first floor and an officer walking with two others towards the front of the lobby turned his head partially to look back. The officer had red skin and small tan spikes sticking out every few inches in every direction all over his body. His blue uniform covered up most of him but his face, neck, and hands all had equal distribution of his odd spikes. The man walked behind the other two officers out the exit of the building, but he mentioned to the two heading towards their patrol car, "One second. I have a call."

He lifted his phone as if he had just picked up, walking the other way on the sidewalk a few steps while the other officers got into the car to wait. He had actually just called out though when he put his phone in his pocket, doing so with the press of one button. The man in perfect disguise of Runudo Inezzi, a run-of-the-mill police officer of Kyoto, spoke into his phone while keeping his usual expression that Edward Murray had seen would work with his colleagues after he tracked Runodo's every move for a week straight. "Underguard and Bikergang are meeting with Ryukyu and other heroes for a large joint operation. The fact that they're doing so much to hide their activities suggests big action."

Murray nodded his head, "Uh huh. Yeah. I got it. I'll see if I can't figure that out. Alright." Runodo tapped the End Call option with his left index finger, then he turned and held up his phone once with an apologetic wave of it before he put it down in his pocket. He showed he was hurrying up towards the back of the cop car he had to ride in as three of them had been required to transport a villain from a local station's holding cell to the agency. The officer sped-walked back and slid into the car, rubbing his hands together for a second and then groaning and mentioning his wife being on his case. "…It's been all week with her. 'You're not as romantic as you used to be.' 'Why don't you do the dishes?'"

"Hate when my old lady gets on my case like that," the driver joked back, getting an annoyed roll of the eyes from the female cop on his side.

 _Though her complaints are just her natural reactions. She says those things and gets frustrated on the surface for small things that she let her husband get away with,_ Murray thought while leaning back in the back seat and raising his eyebrows at his partners' argument that just started up. _Because deep inside she knows something is seriously wrong with him. Like he's an entirely different person. A stranger in her house, and in her bed, and she's terrified without even knowing why._

 _Human instincts are quite interesting. Any more suspicious and I'll have to have her go on a vacation. Shouldn't be hard finding her prize tickets for a getaway solely for women. She'll take her sister. What a romantic gesture that would be._ Murray felt like smirking, but Runodo Inezzi rarely smiled on the job as it so happened, so his expression stayed stoic.

On the elevator inside Ryukyu's Kyoto agency, Rubbergirl removed the mask she did not need like her pro and she shook her hair out from under the green hood she had up. She took off the wig of short blond men's hair and let her longer blonde hair fall out over her shoulders though most stayed behind her head falling down into her coat. Rubbergirl kept her hood up and her goggles on while her body thinned up and her face vibrated with a shake of her head that got it looking more feminine again. Her jaw structure changed back to normal and she let out a heavy breath as the insides of her neck stopped stretching too.

The elevator opened with a ding and the two heroes stepped out into an office no busier than the one on any other floor. Ryukyu did not operate often out of Kyoto, so even though the building was known under her name, that was more as a deterrent for villains than anything. Her own staff had fewer people at the Kyoto HQ than many of the other heroes who spent full-time at this Kyoto agency, (which for most of them was their _only_ agency).

Ryukyu was looking towards some empty space in her top floor though with a frown as the two who got off the elevator headed across the building towards her office. She stood at the door to her private office and looked around the much wider area of her floor at open spaces that desks could be put in. _I was hoping I'd be bumped off the top ten,_ Ryukyu thought. She had on her costume which consisted of a traditional Chinese qipao dress, dragon wings sticking off her temples, white sleeves, black boots, and a set of fake dragon claws over the right side of her face and sticking up over the top of her head. _But instead it's looking like I'll need to pick up my slack. I'll start recruiting more staff for each agency over the next week. I'll pick up a lot of new sidekicks soon as graduation hits too. Get as many out of this graduating class no matter where they are in the country, whatever hero school it is. This year's promising across the board. All the other recruits have been trying to keep up with Class A for three years. I'm looking forward to getting some of them._

 _It's not a chore. It's a responsibility,_ Ryukyu shook her head at some of her reluctant ways of arguing her need for more people with herself. _I'll blame it on Hawks. Done too many operations with him lately. He won't even go for getting the new arm that Virtucorp offered him. Too much of a "hassle" he said last time we talked. I told him how Roady was doing with his too, but he wouldn't go for it. Hope it doesn't affect his reliability… It hasn't for years now. He'll be fine tomorrow._

"Ryukyu."

"Ryukyu," Rubbergirl said after Bikergang who she let walk first into the office.

Ryukyu nodded at the girl behind Bikergang to show she could come in too. Then she looked over towards a desk that Popfire was leaning on the side of, and Popfire turned her way then back at the man behind it who frowned but motioned her away with his head for her to go to the office. Roady had made eye contact with Bikergang as his former pro walked across the room too, but he could tell from the mood in the office that it was not the time to get up and exchange greetings with his friend.

Popfire entered the room last and closed the office behind her. The blinds were dropped over her office's windows, then they were tilted to block off the inside of the office from view of those outside it. Roady rolled his eyes as that happened, and he just looked back at his computer, _We all saw everyone who went in there. Might as well let us in on it now, instead of right before whatever we're doing. Bet I'm only on the "need to know" list right now. If I show what I can do with this new leg though… Ryukyu'll still prefer Popfire. Prefers her to everyone, though it's hard not to._ Roady smirked at the thought that pushed aside his own annoyance as he remembered how lucky he was instead.

In the office, the sidekicks gathered were Popfire, Rubbergirl, Olympia, and FlyGuy. FlyGuy had attempted to work on his own for a while after SkyLord died, but his recent work had been through another's agency though publicly he was not a sidekick of Hawks. Olympia had been Endeavor's go-to for foreign missions and ADTF work for over a year now too, which meant her activity inside of Japan had been lacking for a long time, long enough that without much disguise she had been able to arrive under the guise of a reporter with an appointment with Ryukyu. That was still only just for show, as the receptionist in the lobby who sent her up knew who she was as Ryukyu informed her beforehand.

Neither Olympia nor FlyGuy's pros were there. Too much was going on lately for the number 1 and number 2 hero to meet up like this. Underguard, Bikergang, and Ryukyu were all there though, taking the time out before the raid began as sub-leaders of the mission and not just as precautions as Endeavor and Hawks would be. The two who would draw the most attention were going to be on standby, just as Best Jeanist had personally put Miruko on standby for a different operation a few days before. The goal was _not_ to have to bring them into the raid though, as Endeavor and Hawks had already been showing up strongly over the last two days with ridiculously high response rates to meet the surge of small crime that happened since Operation Atem.

The organizer of the raid and the pro in the room with the second most sidekicks of the group after Ryukyu greeted all the others who had come. Presto Change-o stood just over six feet tall so he was two inches taller than Bikergang and taller than Underguard as well. He wore a black vest with two buttons done over a white long-sleeved shirt that the sleeves were rolled up on. He wore white gloves that went halfway up his forearms, black boots that shone at the bottom of his bright red pants, and he had a white top hat over his head with a red lining on the rim. On his white belt there was a black wand with a white tip at the end, as well as a radio on the other side next to where he kept cuffs and zip-ties. Inside his black vest were some pouches with additional hero tools such as a container with smoke pellets, and a handkerchief tied to two dozen others but condensed in a tiny black tube.

"We have acquired a warrant," Presto Change-o informed everyone. "The leader of the Jazz's various gangs in the Yamagata prefecture, Miss Management, is confirmed to be on premises and to our understanding she will be there to personally receive a large shipment of domestically-made support weapons tomorrow at noon."

"And we're sure about moving in on her?" Underguard wondered. His voice came out deep through the black mask over his face that had tubes sticking out of the sides going around his head under his green hood. He had gone up in disguise earlier himself as it would seem strange to people to see Underguard enter the building twice, and Rubbergirl had been impersonating him for an hour while he was already here with Ryukyu and Presto Change-o. He had arrived earlier than Bikergang despite both of them operating mainly in Hokkaido, and he wondered to the man who made this plan that he had examined closely for himself over the past two days, "She will meet with Duke Dread after this. The shipment will most likely get to him."

"We can't take the risk of losing it," Ryukyu denied with a shake of her head at Underguard. Now one of the top six heroes in the nation, by default, even if the new rankings had not been released, her word was law in these sort of situations. She explained anyway to her fellow hero, "The Jazz are too large to assume Duke Dread will meet with her any time soon. We know where the weapons will be, that there will be a large number of villains there for us to capture-"

"And it will be shortly after the failed Operation Atem," Presto Change-o finished. Others all looked to him and gained more intense looks with some appearing darker as they frowned at him. He continued though, "The people need a big win right now. Something to look towards and see that the rest of us are capable. We'll show the villains and our citizens all their heroes' efforts, but we cannot forego safety either and will have Hawks and Endeavor on standby to show up if needed." He looked to FlyGuy and Olympia and said sternly, "But only if necessary. We have already seen what the top two heroes can do in these past days, but our people still fear as they know two men cannot stop the villains alone. They need to see the rest of us do our part. Remind them that their heroes are stronger than villains."

Ryukyu nodded her head in agreement. Popfire glanced at her pro and frowned, even if she agreed on the overarching issue Presto Change-o mentioned. _They believe in you too, Ryukyu._

"It has to be a perfect victory," Underguard said in a low voice, nodding in agreement with Presto Change-o at what importance they were putting on this mission. He would rather get the bigger fish of Duke Dread, but there were other ways to make this into a bigger victory, ways that he knew other heroes were better at seeing than him.

"It will be," Bikergang said, his voice positive and optimistic as he nodded at his colleagues. "A big win."

"A perfect win," Presto Change-o continued with a nod in agreement at Bikergang and a smile of his own. His look got a bit more serious too, and he added, "You're bringing Jelloman, correct?"

Bikergang nodded his head, a more intense look forming on his face too. "And Herobro," he added to the taller hero who nodded as Bikergang knew what he was asking.

"Good. That's important," Presto Change-o said. "Fantasma was not the only one in her graduating class. Those two, and my own intern, are keys to this being as much a victory for stopping these villains as it is reassuring the public."

"And after it's over," Underguard continued. "We find that weapons' production lab. Offer deals to the villains who transport the weapons, as soon as the raid is over. Before they can pack up and leave."

"Do the same with the Jazz we won't be tracking back. Hopefully one turns on Duke Dread," Bikergang added, as their main goals were not necessarily blocking their ability to do other things.

"They may have moved the Jazz off the most wanted," Ryukyu continued. "But people still consider them some of the most dangerous in the country. With them out of the way, Japanese civilians will believe that we can focus our full efforts on the League of Villains and the Radians."

"And that's as important as anything else," Presto Change-o finished. "Now, let us begin preparations for the assault…"

* * *

 **A/N Short chapter this time! Wanted to get it out yesterday, but my sleep schedule got messed up and was a bit scattered through the day. I had this one finished though, finished the one after it, and have started the one after that. So hopefully the next chapter's out tomorrow (today since it's 1 A.M. now). Feeling tired so no responses, but I hope you all enjoyed the chapter and leave me a review below telling me what you think. Thanks for reading! ...And, I got to admit this now because apparently I suck at math, but I have no idea how many chapters are left in this story. I don't know why I kept giving you guys countdowns like I knew... seems a bit foolish in hindsight, as I kept coming up with moreee! XD Anyway, yeah don't think I'm rushing to finish or that I'll drag it out. The story's got a good bit to go though, so hope y'all are looking forward to it!**


	204. Chapter 204

**Disclaimer: I don't own Boku no Hero Academia**

 **Chapter 204:**

Class at U.A. started for the day, and all of Class A noticed a strange absence from their class. All Might came into the room showing their classmate was not going to arrive just on time, and it was strange for any of them to arrive late to class too. "All Might," Uraraka began when their teacher stepped in and looked to Sato's seat but seemed to know something. "Do you know where Sato is?"

"Do not worry, class," All Might said as his students all had some strange looks on their faces for just a classmate being absent. "I received word from Recovery Girl that he is sick today."

"He's sick?" Mineta wondered, surprised as he had seen Sato the night before and did not notice his classmate coughing or anything. _Maybe he's faking it._

Sero kept his mouth shut, but his eyes did linger over on his friend's seat again. He knew better than the rest of his classmates, because he had left his room to use the bathroom early that morning and saw his neighbor already. _Saw Sato leaving his room looking ready for a fight. He saw me and acted normal, just using the bathroom and going into a stall until I left, but he must have left his hero costume with Presto Change-o already._ Sero turned his head and looked out the windows with an intense look.

Todoroki spotted what his other floormate besides Sato looked like, and he frowned deeper himself at All Might's response to their students. _May not be a lie from him. Recovery Girl could just be in on it, the principal too. I knew something was up over the weekend with the call I overheard between Burnin and Presto Change-o. Endeavor and Olympia were still overseas for the ADTF, but Burnin took charge of the agency in the meantime. Once I heard Presto Change-o mentioned I knew why Sato had been acting strangely recently. Not strangely, but just more focused than usual._ Todoroki focused on All Might as their homeroom teacher started teaching, but he thought to himself, _What is going on right now?_

Most of the class just accepted All Might's explanation, but a few who had seen how Sato had been acting recently had doubts in their minds too. Yaoyorozu spotted Todoroki's expression on her side and worried about her classmate, but she paid attention to their lesson with a simple reminder to herself. _Sato is strong._

* * *

Rikido Sato stood in his yellow hero costume that covered his body more muscular than any of the others ready for the raid to begin with him. He stood stacked up behind a corner of an alleyway, while a mobile base drove past looking like a normal truck and pulling onto the side road next to the warehouse. Sitting on a chair in the mobile base was one person…ish hero who Sato wished had not come. Principal Nezu was keeping a close eye on his student though who he allowed to leave the campus only after coming to an agreement with Presto Change-o who requested Sugarman's help on a daytime raid in the middle of the school week.

Standing behind Mr. Principal's seat in the back of the truck was the section chief of the Police Force in Higashine City in Yamagata-ken. Chief Otoshi was a tall woman at seven feet tall with a large bust and rounded curves, somewhat hidden under her modest police uniform. The pink-haired officer nodded as Mr. Principal kept the dozen screens on his side of the mobile base's wall covered in traffic cameras from the surrounding city he had been granted access to. The small mouse-bear-man's eyes darted all over the screens showing he was keeping up with everything and everyone that moved in the city. She turned the other way, and Otoshi snapped at the young man with spiky orange hair sitting on the other side of the mobile command, "Keep up, Roady."

"Yes ma'am," Roady said, trying not to seethe in through his teeth. _How the hell am I supposed to keep up with him?_ Roady thought with a dart of his eyes behind him at the insanely smart and dexterous principal of U.A. _And why am I not out there? This new leg's great! Not reliable enough my ass. How am I supposed to show- Here we go._ Roady's annoyed thoughts switched instantly as he heard Presto Change-o's orders come out of the screens in front of him and into his headset he wore over his head.

"Warehouse is isolated from the west," Roady reported in, as the truck came to a stop on the far side of the road as the warehouse. It had its hazard lights on and the disguised cops up front arguing as if confused on the directions.

On the opposite side of the warehouse, a white van with ladders on the roof stopped too. The women in the front seats each had tablets out, Keiko pulling hers out only when they stopped as she had been driving. She and Daisy checked the area around them, and Daisy reported as the lead support of Bikergang's agency, "East side secure."

"Get ready boys," Keiko said with a glance behind her at two nineteen year olds in the back of the van.

Rylo and Nagiso, wearing the hero costumes of Herobro and Jelloman, nodded their heads and awaited the signal as they each held onto handles of the van's two back doors. The red-skinned teen who had been in Nagiso's class at U.A., and in Fantasma's, had a pair of horns sticking out the back of his skull that pointed upwards. He wore a bright uniform countering his scary appearance though, with flowery patterns on his chest and back, white highlights all over it, and a big grin on his face even if it looked a bit scary like that as friendly as he tried to make his expression out as. Jelloman stood next to his friend with a calmer look on his face and taking in steadier breaths, his eyes narrowing as he focused solely on listening for Presto Change-o's voice.

"North and south sides are under close watch-"

"The shipment is arriving from the north," Nezu said, as he watched the truck he located several blocks away that he believed the weapons to be in. "However it will likely go around the east side of the warehouse and pull in from the southern entrance."

"How can you be sure?" Captain Iona wondered from the south side where she had been ready to lead their own disguised blockade forward in preparations to set up a perimeter as soon as the raid began. She held off on it, but her question alone showed the difference between her and the hero team on the east side who immediately pulled out and around a corner away from the warehouse.

"We'll circle back," Daisy reported back to Nezu.

"Listen to Mr. Principal," Presto Change-o ordered, not going to go against the super-intelligent mouse man if that was what he predicted was coming.

Heroes and police all around the warehouse watched from windows, rooftops, alleys, and vehicles as a large truck approached the warehouse. It turned onto the road on the north side but did not pull into the short driveway in front of a locked gate. Some people looking closely from the north did spot a signal the man in the passenger seat gave towards the warehouse though. By the time it had pulled around the east side and onto the road to the south, two men in construction workers' outfits had walked out the southern entrance to the gate and were letting the truck inside.

"Move."

A force of over sixty people moved at once. They each followed their own specific orders Presto Change-o had given them before the raid. They moved forward together in teams or as individuals, some running forward straight on while others moved for exits they suspected the villains would use as escape routes. Many used Quirks right away, as the force of more than five dozen attacked a warehouse owned and operated by the Jazz. The base was suspected to be the headquarters of operations for all of the Touhoku region, which consisted of the northernmost collection of prefectures on the main island of Honshu.

Miss Management herself had only been confirmed as a member of the Jazz recently during the preparation for this raid, as she had been believed to be unaffiliated beforehand. Her designation as a Jazz executive did not change her independent actions however, and since the raid that resulted in the deaths of four of Japan's top 10 heroes, villain activity rose in Touhoku more than in any other prefecture. Her former gang, BOSS, was incorporated into the Jazz's forces, but there were other Jazz villains at the base at the moment that numbered between forty and sixty-five based on their surveillance.

Three of those 40/65 were taken out within seconds of the "move" order, as the heroes did not wait for the weapons to go inside the garage and potentially be distributed to the gang members inside before they attacked. The fake construction workers and the villain in the passenger seat who came out with his hands turning into fists of water were all taken down by the fastest two who moved in on the south entrance. The driver of the truck smashed through the windshield however and straight towards the opening garage door that was automatic and still rising as the other three were taken down. He was about to fly through the open door and into the safety of being surrounded by comrades, when he vanished and appeared in front of Presto Change-o.

Presto Change-o jabbed forward his wand that he just waved around to make the villain appear before him diving his way instead of into the building. The villain was unable to react fast enough, as the wand's white tip popped open to reveal the stun gun below that the hero jammed into his chest.

As Presto Change-o led one primary assault force through the southern entrance of the base, Ryukyu landed down on the north side and released a dozen of her sidekicks who rushed forward with Popfire in the lead flying at the second floor windows and punching a glowing orange fist through them so glass shattered all around her. Her eyes glowed orange while her black hair waved behind her, and she swung her head to the right at the woman who had received the signal from the truck that approached initially from the north and who Popfire had spotted give a signal back from the rooftop they were waiting on. Two beams of orange shot out of her eyes which made that villain dive away right before the explosion of orange blew up behind her and sent her flying twice as fast as she dove.

Ryukyu swung her tail forward and hit the growing man who just burst through the north wall sending the door flying forward and almost hitting some of her sidekicks running at it to knock it down. They had dove in time to dodge it, and to get below their hero's dragon tail that hit the villain before he even reached his full height. Her tail sent him flying farther back into the warehouse, which was their intention as they wanted to corner all of the villains in the center of the building by surrounding them on all sides.

Gran Torino stood up after zip-tying the two "construction workers" he had flown at in a second after the order to move came in. He looked to his side at Bikergang who finished tying up the passenger with water-fists who he had taken out after Gran Torino's despite only going after one himself, and the younger hero who actually looked older than Gran Torino now nodded his head back at the veteran. Presto Change-o ran forward past them with twenty others behind him, letting one of his sidekicks tie up the man he had zapped back there as he needed to lead the team forward. "Sameko. Sugarman. Guard the garage exit. Rubbergirl and Elitist get the front door. Everyone else split and push inwards."

The team of twenty divided in half, with eight rushing through the opened garage doors where other villains had been waiting to unload the trucks and were now running forward yelling about fighting the heroes. Eight others ran between Rubbergirl and Elitist- who was one of Presto Change-o's oldest sidekicks and who was leading the inner perimeter of heroes on the south side exits as the most experienced of the four. Each of the four stood to the sides of one of the exits and prepared for the villains who would try escaping as heroes cornered them inside. They had another perimeter of cops forming outside of the warehouse's property on all the streets surrounding it, but this team was to ensure that the officers never had to face the villains and could just focus on getting out the already captured ones and keeping civilians away from the raid.

"Nejire-chan. You have the north," Ryukyu ordered behind her, as she shrank down and then ran through the hole in the northern wall to join the rest of the heroes inside where it was harder to use her Quirk without making the building fall down on her.

Even though Nejire-chan was no longer a sidekick of Ryukyu, the former Big 3 member of U.A. called out to her former pro, "Got it!" She was an established pro on her own now, despite only being 20 years old. "Get in there, you two," Nejire ordered Shishikura and Utsushimi who looked back at their blue-haired pro who gave them an encouraging nod forward. The two Shiketsu alumni who graduated the year before rushed in after Ryukyu without any further encouragement. Meaty and Mirage sprinted forward after the rest, and they entered the fight with ten villains who started fighting as soon as the heroes busted inside, even the one Ryukyu hit back with her tail standing up with a bloodied face but ready to start fighting his smaller opponents for real.

Sameko ground her sharp teeth in annoyance but stood firm at the garage entrance with Sugarman to her right on the opposite side. The two of them stood between the truck and the garage, preventing anyone from getting out of the warehouse to the weapons or to the escape route behind them. Sameko had her hands open and curled down, her knees bent, her sharp teeth clenched, and the girl with a dorsal fin sticking out of her back darted her gaze to Sugarman for a second to see if he was as frustrated about being left out here as she was.

Sugarman's head started turning fast though. He looked inwards but past Sameko and back at the front of the truck behind him he swear he just heard a clanking noise from inside of. The front of the truck moved a bit too, despite it being parked just outside of the garage. He saw the truck shake as if something moved inside it, and he yelled for the other three just outside the building with him, "In the truck!" His warning came just in time, as a glowing orange light could be seen through the steel dividing the front seats of the vehicle from the back carriage. He and Sameko's eyes opened huge as the sight of the melting steel, and they dove to the sides right before a bright orange beam shot out of the wall and out through the gap of the shattered windshield. If flew past the dodging sidekicks into the garage where it hit a parked van and made that van explode in a blast so huge the whole property shook.

A hero and five officers whose job it was to remove the truck from the premises during the raid itself, were behind the vehicle and had a bolt-cutter on them ready to break the lock and force open the doors. The truck bounced backwards with the recoil from the beam though, and the hero back there who had dragged away some of the unconscious villains outside first before joining the officers with this yelled at the cops with him to get back. They had just broken the lock though before Sugarman yelled his warning, and Calm Fire feared the villain inside had prepared for them to break the lock first. He was right, and he slammed his hands together in front of him creating a purple flame that did not flare or anything but would be hot at the touch. As quick as he was to react though, the villain inside the truck who was meant to guard all their powerful weapons was one Calm Fire was not expecting.

A well-known member of the Radians, Castro, did a flip off a small blue platform that appeared as he said in Spanish, "Up." He rose over the purple flames then said, "Down." The much darker red platform appeared above his head, more solid than the translucent blue one that just gave him a small bounce up. He shot off the 'Down' platform ten times as fast as the lighter blue one, and he slammed his knee into Calm Fire's face which had the officers running off behind him calling out his name in panic to see the hero smashed into a crater on the ground with one hit.

 **CLANK!** Castro spun his head, and he jumped to his right with a spin in midair as the truck he jumped out of just slid across the driveway from a powerful punch from Sugarman. Sameko had a more direct line at Castro as the truck was moved, but she had to turn and dart to where Castro jumped as Sato made the loud noise with his punch. The punch was less for Sameko though, as it was for Rubbergirl who came running faster than Elitist at where Castro was going to land on the other side closer to her. Elitist was staying farther back, keeping his eyes both on the exits behind him and on Castro who Rubbergirl told him to let her take care of so as to let him focus on their initial mission.

"We're fine!" Elitist reported at the yell he heard from Presto Change-o wondering if they needed anyone to come out to assist. _Get it, Rubbergirl-_ His eyes bulged and his head started turning back around, as a gunshot rang out across the lawn.

Rubbergirl was moving too quickly towards where Castro was coming down. He had two enemies in front of him too he still needed to deal with, and so the Radian drew a pistol from underneath his shirt from the back of his waistband. He fired it twice into Rubbergirl while pointing his right hand forward and yelling, "BACK!" Sameko ran into the blackened-yellow wall that just appeared in front of her and sent her careening halfway across the lawn where she rolled across the dirt for several meters before flipping onto one hand and one knee to skid back on.

Sugarman leapt up over the yellow wall, and Castro started moving the gun to point up at the muscular teen who was bulked up even more and looked dangerous with his fists rising like they were and getting put together like that. His eyes darted back to his side though and grew huge at the girl he saw running towards him, her green hood falling back and her long blonde hair dropping behind her. Her face changed its bone structure and her appearance changed as well, making Castro see a ghost as Fantasma grinned at him in the same confident way she had near the end of her fight against Raijin. "Imposs-" he started, and both Rubbergirl and Sugarman took that moment of hesitation and destroyed their opponent with simultaneous blows from different sides.

As Rubbergirl heard the cracking of her opponent's ribs from Sato's smash of both arms around into his front, while she slammed him in the side with a punch of her own near his kidney, her grin lowered down into a more grateful look than the one matching Fantasma's final one. _You were younger than me, but I don't think I'll ever match up to the hero you were. I'll make sure that I make you proud though, as someone with a similar Quirk._ The young woman with the Quirk: Stretchy Cells, put the villain who was famously at the Nara Raid with Intanzo into cuffs, then she glanced up at a jacked-up Sugarman panting from his sugar intake. _Couldn't have been a better person here to take him down-_

"Assist!" Elitist yelled for his comrades who spun back towards the building. The three younger heroes rushed back towards it at the same time as a group of three were heading out after slipping by the main assault…

* * *

"You need a warrant-"

"We have a warrant!" Popfire yelled at the villain trying to act innocent in front of her.

"Drop the formalities," Miss Management's voice announced through the speakers filling her base. "Heroes are weak. Kill them all."

"Heroes _are_ weak," the man who had just been defending himself to Popfire said as if realizing that Miss Management was right about that, and there was no reason for him to be trying to avoid fighting here.

"We should kill them all."

"Take us off the leaderboards will you?!"

"JAZZ BABY YEAHHHH!"

Miss Management dropped the microphone she had been handed to make that announcement through her base. She was on the lower level cellar that had been transformed into the main base area, and she snapped over orders at some of the most reckless Jazz members who she had requested from Duke Dread. The closest-knit allies of hers from the former BOSS had joined up with her too, yelling about how the heroes were all over the place upstairs.

"Through the escape tunnel-"

"Get away from there!" Miss Management yelled over, a second too late for the idiotic Jazz villain who did not think first about why it was the others had not all rushed towards that exit.

A green cloud of gas pushed out the cracks on the door's sides and under and above it. The green gas surrounded the villain Underguard heard on the other side, then he stacked up against the wall on the side of the door. He pressed a button that detonated and blasted the door off its hinges and over the man who just fell to the ground. The man in a black mask with tubes connected turned and sprinted through his green gas cloud and out the other side, "Another powerful piece you've lost." Underguard called it out in a deep voice that seemed to echo through the basement as he emerged from the gas cloud with a menacing expression and scary appearance. "Through your poor mismanagement of these thugs."

Miss Management got a tick mark on the side of her forehead but she yelled with a smile, "They're not a crew another else could manage!" She pointed her hand forward and made every one of the villains around her smirk and glare furiously towards a charging Underguard. "This crew of psycho powerhouses can only be managed by me! _MISS_ Management-sama!" Her voice rose louder, and she slammed her left foot down forward in a stomp that seemed to echo around the room. "Attack Underguard together. Battle Formation 1!"

 _Much more united than we thought,_ Underguard released a mass of gas around him and jumped backwards into a thicker cloud of it. "I'm drawing them in, but they're well situated down here."

 _The southern entrance was their main entry point,_ Miss Management thought after her comrades had all started attacking in one of the battle strategies she had ingrained into them. She backed up, and she turned and darted away when none of them were watching her. _Which means it's the least likely position they'd expect the raid's primary target and most dangerous! Miss Management-sama!_ She thought it, but sweat dripped down her face as she heard the shouting on all sides of her of her allies inside their shaking base that was no longer under her control.

Presto Change-o heard Underguard's warning from below, and as Underguard's assisting team moved in on top of the forces he got focused on him, he stopped what he was doing with the rest of the assault team to look behind him instead. _Considering how we found them, I didn't expect them to be so organized or willing to fight to the end here. Miss Management's power is stronger than I thought, and yet, I prepared for it to be stronger… I still have a bad feeling through._ "All perimeter teams hold steady at the exits."

"We could use an assist back here," Elitist finally called to Presto Change-o in response to that warning.

His pro hero did not waste a second, and he turned and darted back himself to be that assist they required. _Numbers were closer to 65, yet what is with the report of Castro being out there? Are the Radians and Jazz working together? Or is it just weapons from a Radian facility that the Jazz were purchasing? If we could track down the Radians-_ Presto Change-o turned his head to the right as a secret wall panel opened up not far from the front entrance that he could see through to the sidekicks fighting three villains together. His eyes opened as wide as Miss Management's did as the two of them came face-to-face only twenty feet away from each other.

"You're under arrest!"

"Die! HERO!" Miss Management pulled a hilt out from her waist of a weapon she had been sent first to test out before the rest were being sent to her. The hilt extended out into a blade of flames that started off blue right out of the hilt and then turned white higher up. The blade stayed thin, but it burned so hot that Presto Change-o could feel it from a distance as Miss Management charged him, sweat forming on her own face too.

Miss Management was running towards Presto Change-o, whose Quirk she knew well. When she disappeared and appeared behind him running the wrong direction, her thumb pushed up on the hilt of her blade that extended the length of it while she was spinning a hundred and eighty degrees and swinging it out in front of her. Presto Change-o had predicted that she would spin that fast, but that was why he teleported her even farther from him so that after she spun like that he could run past the finished swing and hit her with his stun-wand. The length of the flame blade extending was not part of his precautions, but he reacted fast to drop down on his knees with his back snapping down closer to the ground as he skid forward on his knees.

The blade of white and blue flames passed right over the magician-looking hero, then when Miss Management stopped right after swinging past and tried to cut down into where Presto Change-o was still sliding, she found herself five meters up in the air and swinging the opposite direction. Her blade was still as long as it was before though, and Presto Change-o had been more concerned about his own health so he forgot to take into account the closeness of the wall. Flames ignited across where Miss Management slashed her blade, then as she was dropping and spinning back to Presto Change-o, the woman with a backdrop of fire spotted two of her members outside fighting against sidekicks struggling against them. A third had just been taken down, but the two she saw were closer to the building than the sidekicks whose priority was keeping them from getting out.

"Assist me first! Then we'll go out together!" Miss Management yelled out towards them.

"Yeah!"

"The boss is with us!"

The two in the middle of fighting both spun without finishing the sidekicks who hesitated before following them. "Stay out here-" Elitist called as Sameko and Sugarman decided to give chase. He and Rubbergirl were not doing as well as the other two who decided to run for the building after their targets, which was bad news if Miss Management decided to rush out of there while leaving her goons to face the others. The building was starting to smoke near its southern entrance too, Presto Change-o yelled out in agreement with Elitist towards the sidekicks, but Miss Management took that moment to charge the other direction right past the two who attacked Presto Change-o.

Neither of the other two villains looked weak, and Presto Change-o yelled, "Switch!" Unable to use his Quirk to bring Miss Management back towards him and give her the three-on-one with his teleportation-type Quirk needing a fresh recharge, he teleported one of the other two eight feet to his right and charged at the other who found himself on a one-on-one with the pro in charge of the raid. It was going to take Presto Change-o a few seconds to take care of the two, or so he hoped. And he also hoped the two young heroes just outside were able to hold off Miss Management for as much time…

* * *

In Shiketsu High School, Zach sat in class looking towards the front of the room where Enorma-sensei was teaching a history lesson on the Braizos as an introduction for the next two days of class where she would be doing individual lessons on Sonic and Meta. Zach had done all this research on his own already though and knew everything about the Braizos that Enorma was going into today. Instead, he was studying up on Japanese _heroes_ while pretending to focus on his teacher's lesson.

 _...It's difficult to just assume Presto Change-o would know how to best utilize his Quirk with me though. And it would be difficult to get in sync with him in the middle of a battle. Should he teleport me using Replace, there's also the possibility of it knocking him out if I'm shrouded in Death in that moment. Still, he controls a space of six meters and I could punch in any direction and suddenly be facing the enemy not expecting me. It's a better support Quirk than one to use in combat, and yet Presto Change-o's a great combat-type hero, and rescue too. He's an all-around, but he doesn't use it often enough to support other pros which is a waste. Combo moves with other heroes would be the best utilization of his Quirk, rather than Replacing his enemies. Light-Taker is similar, however less powerful. If Tokoyami had Light-Taker as a sidekick instead of Endeavor though, it'd be a perfect match. Little pockets of darkness where it wouldn't matter the time or lighting but just how close he is to his sidekick…_

Zach felt a fourth buzz in his pocket in the same minute and he frowned deeper still. _I'm in the middle of class. Felt a few notifications before, but these vibrations are messages- Someone's calling. Feels like an emergency. Can I, fake it? I don't want to._ What he did the last time to get out of class made him feel sick to his stomach already, and he did not want to try. Yet he knew if he looked at his phone and did it again, Kotsumura would catch him for sure as he already had once. _Everyone would know too. I can't get away with having PTSD twice and both times just happening to be when big incidents are happening. Do I check?_

 _Checking will only hurt. I'm in school right now. That's my excuse! I have this excuse, not to have to go out there and bring people back…_

Zach's right hand went down to his pocket and he started tapping his fingers on his phone over his pants. He tapped down over and over, once a second, and his breathing calmed down with his eyes focused on the front of the room and his teacher discussing Braizos' command structure. He got another call, and his fingers continued to just tap aimlessly down on his phone. His taps were starting to change though, with each drop of his finger starting to shift his phone around inside his pocket. The next time his index finger came down he flipped his phone over, and the time after that his finger dropped down on the part of the screen that he had to tap to answer the call… but through his pocket, nothing happened. _The screen didn't register,_ Zach thought, even as he tapped his finger onto the part of his screen where the 'Speaker' option would be just to check if maybe he was wrong and he had picked up.

The phone just buzzed again though showing him it was still ringing and he had not picked up. He stopped tapping anyway. Then his phone buzzed, and it vibrated a few times with text messages, and Zach grit his teeth but pulled his phone out quickly when Enorma turned around and faced the board. Zach looked down at his phone screen and the missed calls and text messages he had gotten, while a couple others in the class glanced down at messages they had just received too but had not looked at while Enorma was watching them.

The Shiketsu students who got texts saw they were all from the same group of people, their Class A friends who had their numbers. They all looked towards Zach with their eyes opening huge, and Zach stood out of his seat that scraped on the floor as he shot up like that. _Shit._ Zach's teeth bared so hard that when Enorma turned to question what her student was doing, she just froze instead at the huge-eyed and panicked look on Sazaki's face. "I'm sorry, Enorma sensei," Zach started. He stepped away from his seat to the windows and he slid one open.

"Wait- What are you doing?" Enorma called out, while other students jumped up with confused and nervous looks on their faces.

"My friend just died," Zach said, his phone vibrating on top of his desk with more messages yelling at him in all caps still appearing one after the other. "I'm going to go bring him back."

Zach hopped up onto the windowsill, then he jumped outside and flapped two wings down behind him that sent him soaring across the sky a hundred miles per hour. Wind flew back into the classroom and picked people's papers up and threw them around the room, blowing their hair around and messing up the classroom at the same time as it knocked Zach's own phone off his desk.

Enorma rose her hand and pushed her hair back behind her head as some blew in front of her face with that blast of wind that flew inside. The rest of her students were on their feet now and talking loudly, but Enorma just stared towards the windows and frowned darkly at the black form shooting off through the sky. _No pretext this time. He's not pretending, or lying to try and hide his reason. It's his friend. That's the reason. Which means he's letting the rest of our citizens die, because he doesn't care about them as much. And that's about as unheroic as it gets._

Enorma lifted her own cellphone as she felt a buzz on it. She looked at the breaking news she was seeing for the first time, and she just grimaced at the sight of it. _And yet he needs to do it too. Anyone can see that. He didn't say because it's an emergency though. Stupid, stupid kid. Go bring back your friend, then get back here quick. Things are about to get rough for you. Rough-_ _ **er,**_ _really._

In Higashine, a large town only on the border of being a city population-wise, though considered a city by its mayor already who often emphasized before his election last year that 'Higashine _City_ ' was very strong, a short-lived raid had just come to an end at a warehouse supposedly rented out by a foreign shipping company that investigators discovered was a shell. This raid successfully resulted in the capture of 68 villains, which meant the building itself had the 65 on the exact high-side of their estimate for the villains' numbers, with three more included in the three who arrived with the weapons in a now-confiscated truck. All of the villains were captured without major injury, though some had broken bones and were being treated before getting taken to jail.

Out of the heroes who joined the raid, barely any received more than superficial wounds. Underguard took heavy damage against a large force of some of the strongest villains, but he was still standing at the end and only felt regret despite the strong villains he had taken down. The man getting treated at an ambulance on the southern perimeter stared towards Presto Change-o, Principal Nezu, and a few others who were gathered around a teenager's unmoving body that had a deep burn cutting deep through his stomach and chest up across his left shoulder diagonally. _I shouldn't have let her leave the basement,_ Underguard thought as he stared towards that figure in a tight yellow costume who he could just catch a glimpse of between others gathered around him.

Miss Management was unconscious after Sato had landed a powerful blow into the right side of her face at the same time as she was bringing up the heat blade she had been equipped with. The blade came flying out of her hand when his fist connected first, the teenager from Class A faster than the woman trying to escape the compound. Presto Change-o had his hand up running through his dark hair and his white top hat down at his side in his other hand that clenched so hard into the rim of it in his tightened fist. _I should have teleported her back to me. I could have taken all three of them! Why did I leave it to-_

"Everyone move back," Principal Nezu ordered the others around him. He was looking up in the sky already, and he motioned at the others to step away with him while backing up on his own.

Rubbergirl snapped her head up as she had been crouched by the side of a teammate she had fought side-by-side with during this raid. Sameko stood up too from the hood of a cop car she had been sitting on nearby with a frustrated and furious look covering up the grief she was feeling at being right next to him when Sugarman's torso got gashed by the scorching blade. The police officers around the student too yelled at other people around to move back, as some of them were already expecting this.

Roady turned from the computer he was sitting at still in a mobile base and looked out the back of it. _Finally. Knew it wouldn't be long._

Jelloman humphed as he heard the commotion outside, and he shoved a villain in the back who he had already cuffed to get the man moving faster and stop dragging his feet out to the cop cars.

"Sugarman's going to be okay," Bikergang said into his headset to inform the rest of the depressed raid members. "Lifebringer's here."

Zach dropped down at the feet of the boy laying dead just inside the perimeter of cop cars. He stared down at Sato's body and lifted his head a bit, looking over him and across the dirt lawn separating the front of the building from his former classmate. There were scorch marks slashed into the ground all over, and he glanced back down at his friend who managed to just sustain one slash. _Was it because she got too close to the perimeter? You had to go for it. I don't really know what happened here. Just that you're dead, Sato._ Zach stared down at his old classmate whose insides were visible and who had a puddle under his body. There was nothing covering him up. No sheet, no blanket. _They all knew I'd come for you. Or they hoped, at least._

Lifebringer stood without any darkness on him as his wings had sucked back into his body as soon as he landed. He was wearing his Shiketsu class uniform with nothing over it to disguise where he just came straight from. Cameras zoomed in on him from the other side of the perimeter where a few officers were trying to keep everyone back. It was getting more difficult though as so many of them were busy taking arrested villains to their vehicles. The perimeter was less necessary now that they had confirmed the success of the mission, and so there were fewer officers back around the streets, though the Police Force presence was heavy around where Sugarman's body had been lying.

Presto Change-o dragged his hand down from the top of his head over his face and then dropped it to his side. _It's alright. I didn't fail him. Not yet._ "Do it, Lifebringer," Presto Change-o told the teen in front of him.

A few heroes and officers continued towards the south gate of the property while taking the captured villains out with them. Others stopped and watched as Zach bent down and took the glove off his right hand. He got down on his right knee next to Sato's right side. _The heat must have been intense. It cut almost completely through him. His body should have been stronger too, as I'm sure he ate a bunch of sugar cubes during the fight. And yet to cut this deep. And if it's that Miss Management, that means she used a weapon. His bones, his organs, it burned his insides right up. I wonder if he managed to feel it even for a few seconds after getting cut._

Zach took in a deep breath, but it came out ragged as he stared down at Sato's body. _What am I doing? Why is this taking me so long?! He's your friend! Just put your hand down on him._ Zach's face scrunched up, and he breathed faster, but it did little to prepare himself. _Waiting just makes it worse!_ He yelled at himself, while grabbing his right wrist with his left hand and forcing it down onto Sato's body. "AAaaaAAAHHH!" Zach felt his torso from his waist across his stomach over his chest and to his shoulder burn in searing agony. His insides below his skin, his muscles, his organs and bones, they all _burned._ "AEEE- AH- AHHH-" Zach's right hand lifted, and he shoved it back down. _It's just pain!_ His eyes clenched shut and he felt the pain come back again as moving his hand gave him a moment of relief. _FASTER!_ The pain became more condensed as he flooded Death out of his hand, taking all the pain at once instead of slowly which cut off his screams and made him just kneel there with one hand on his classmate.

Then his eyes parted open. He gasped out a breath and stared down at Sato's skin through his costume that had sealed up completely. _He's-_ The relief Zach felt in that moment as his shoulders started slouching vanished. The heroes leaning forward started turning their heads slower than Zach moved. The teen down on one knee gripped Sato with both hands that were still down on his chest, and he threw his classmate off the ground and towards the warehouse. Sato's eyes snapped open at the sudden jolt- **Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!**

Officer Runodo Inezzi stood behind Lifebringer with a heavy pistol raised as he fired off a fifth shot into the teenager in front of him. Zach spun around and he snapped his right leg up off his knee to his foot with his right fist punching out, covering in darkness at the last second so a touch would not be instant-kill as he still had his glove off. The officer firing a sixth shot at him though ducked down below the punch and stomped forward at the same time, getting closer to Zach onto his right side that he moved to while pulling a blade out of his sleeve that he cut across Zach's turning chest. The blade that emerged out of his sleeve had no hilt, it was just a two inch wide blade two feet long that the officer with red skin and spikes all over it gripped hard enough that it cut through his palm and fingers, and that he slashed fast enough that it cut through Zach's school uniform and his chest.

The assassin slashed the blade past Zach after cutting the blade across him, and then Edward Murray's eyes shot open wide and darted to what he saw splashing out of his target's right side. Death. Black splashed out Zach's cut and out of his uniform as if it was blood coming out of it, but then all that darkness pulled towards the man still moving past him faster than Murray could change his momentum. The villain disguised as a cop stomped down and pushed down both feet towards Zach to jump away from him, but the Death wrapped over his blade and gun and touched his hands before he could let go of them.

The villain leapt away but when he hit the ground his legs gave out below him. Zach stood up straight and he glared towards the villain who fell to his knees and then rose his head to stare right back into Zach Sazaki's eyes. People were still yelling out in panic just outside the perimeter, with no press catching what happened after they caught a police officer suddenly drawing on and shooting Zach Sazaki several times in the back. Heroes and other cops could not start calming everyone down either, as they were too busy staring towards the teen who had swirling darkness around the cut in the front of his uniform as well as darkness coming out of holes in the back of it.

 _He looked like just another officer around here worried for Sato. I didn't even expect it, but I'm always ready for it._ Zach stared at the man who one look at now and he could tell exactly who he was.

"Who is this man?!" Another officer who just noticed this figure dressed as one of them exclaimed. He had never seen the man before in his life, as Runodo Inezzi was an officer in Kyoto who no one in the Yamagata prefecture would recognize.

Rubbergirl recognized him though. Only now, as she stared at the figure down on his knees, did she recognize who he was from the day before. _In Ryukyu's lobby. He was… Holy shit!_ She stepped back with her eyes darting from the officer with a scary dark expression on his tired face with drooping eyelids, and the teenager whose darkness faded to show no mark underneath on his chest where he had been slashed. There was no mark of _that_ slash, at least. When she stared at Lifebringer who had his costume cut like that, she saw through the cut in his uniform that flapped a bit in the wind that just blew by, revealing his scarred-up body underneath. _He's not League, not Jazz or…_

 _Assassins._ Presto Change-o thought it in shock as he stared at the man kneeling there who despite his failed assassination just looked right back at Lifebringer without fear of the teen's dark glare.

The fake officer whose arms went limp at his sides after he fell to his knees, resigned himself as he felt on the verge of passing out any second even from the minuscule amount of Death he saw touch him. Zach slid his black glove back onto his right hand while Sato was running over. The assassin started biting down, and Zach shot forward in an instant that had all the police and heroes tensing up and getting ready to draw. Zach gripped the man by the cheeks using his left hand, and Principal Nezu yelled, "Stay calm everyone!"

Sato spun to his principal and then back to Zach who just shoved his right hand into the villain's mouth. Then Rikido audibly gasped like a dozen others as Zach ripped one of the man's teeth out. He held it up in front of the assassin's widened eyes. "A fake tooth," Zach said to him smugly. "Cyanide capsule you were too slow to break." Zach tossed it aside and growled at the man while darkness came out of his left hand, "You don't get to die that easily." The villain knocked out and Zach pushed back with his left hand to drop him to the ground. "Asshole," Zach muttered, and he reached his right hand around his back and rubbed over a shallow wound that the first bullet had managed to enter before everything turned to Death.

"Sazaki," Principal Nezu started.

Zach turned his head and looked at the principal who was the first to recover from witnessing all that. Nagiso was still gawking towards his former cross country team captain who just took getting shot a half dozen times in the back and cut across the chest like it was nothing. Even Sato stared in disbelief at Zach, though for shorter than most others who had witnessed it. Zach looked towards Nezu first though, and he thought of the last conversation they had right after he got out of Tartaros. He just looked away from the short mouse-bear hero after a second and over to Sato who had just whispered, "Zach."

Zach stared into Sato's eyes and the two of them were silent as Zach did not say a word back. _We haven't really talked since the hospital. Never one-on-one. It's been a long time, Sato._ He just nodded at his old classmate, and then a pair of black wings ripped out of Zach's back and he jumped twenty feet up in the air before flapping them. He shot back towards Yutapu, never saying a word to the heroes around him. The only one he spoke to after landing was the villain he had knocked out and left for them to deal with.

No one knew what the protocol for this was. Most of them had been hoping Lifebringer would show up to save Sugarman anyway, but none of them knew what to do about what just happened as there was no precedent for it. Principal Nezu tracked the events that transpired in his head, _The emergency situation allows him to legally come here, though I am doubtful his teachers at Shiketsu feel the same way. His attack on the officer was in self-defense as well. Stopping the assassin from taking his own life… I did not even notice that that was what the man was planning. When I saw where Sazaki grabbed him I realized it though. Everyone else expected- no, I included, also make that assumption when he first moved._

Roady stared up into the sky from the back of the mobile base he had been working out of. No one was watching him, so he let the grin form on his face. _Nice work, Lifebringer._

Sato stared up into the sky in the direction Zach just flew off. His jaw that had dropped before lowered again when Zach just flew away without a word to him. His hand snapped down to his waist after a second of disbelief, and he reached it down into a white pouch where he kept his cellphone. And then Sato felt the most regret he had ever felt in his life. And he felt worse inside than he had ever felt before, his stomach turning over and his eyes clenching shut while he bit down in agonizing pain. Presto Change-o quickly asked if he was alright as he saw Sato's physical reaction to what he just realized, and others around assumed that the teen was still hurt from his death. Nezu understood the expression on Sato's face though as the teen moved his hand out of the pouch, and he felt for his student whose head bowed so his chin touched his chest.

Sato felt like yelling out so he had to clench his teeth shut even harder, because he did not even have Zach's cellphone number to call him and thank him properly.

It did not matter if Sato had Zach's number anyway, as Zach's phone was back in his classroom where the rest of Class 1 were trying to keep up with the unfolding story in Higashine. Zach would not get back there for another half hour either, as he dropped into an empty forest between Higashine and Yutapu. _Selfish. Villain. Using my Quirk for the people I care about alone. For a Class A student and not for all those heroes at the raid in the forest. Did Kaminari plan this?! Are they just fucking with me?! THEY'LL DESPISE ME FOR THIS!_ Zach put his hands up over his face and he screamed into them. _Why does this keep happening?!_

 _It's Eziano._

Zach's hands dragged down his face and lowered down below eyes hardened and cold, with irises flaring with red. His hands dragged across his mouth and over the scars on the right and left sides of his face. They curled in and ran under his chin and down his neck too before he dropped one down to his side, moving his other over to the cut in his uniform that went across the front of it from just past midway to around his right side. _It's always been Eziano._ Zach could feel the scar when he ran his hands over his throat. His fists clenched and his breath came out ragged as he pictured that villain's evil face. _Norita. All the attacks on me. Showing everyone me after the explosion, and that I could bring back so many people at once which only escalated further and further!_

"It's Eziano," he muttered, shaking his head and grinding his teeth in anger. _I didn't want to believe that any of them could affect me like this. That any of them had this kind of power over me, but I- I…_

"I want to kill him," he admitted. "I really, really _want_ to kill him." A horrified look flashed over his face for a moment but disappeared. _Want. I never "want" to kill anyone. Not sober- not without Death being…_ Zach's face twitched and the corners of his lips pulled far out into his cheeks showing his grinding teeth behind them. "It's all his fault. He's facilitating my defeat, which is helping the League. They're turning everyone against me… Not that I'm preventing it! I'm just making it worse." He shook his head and then muttered under his breath to himself, pacing forward between some trees before pacing back, "If I could find him though. I laid the bait. I called him out! What else do I need to do!? How many times will he attack me like this until he realizes he _can't_ beat me this way?!"

 _One more._ Zach stopped walking and he hummed to himself at that last thought. _Probably. At the moment I was most off guard they see neither bullets nor blades can harm me. Their explosion failed. What will you try next? Powerful Quirks? Biological or chemical weapons?! Will you drag in everyone around me- and kill them all?! Should I just leave? …Should I?_ Zach closed his eyes and shook his head. _No. That's how Eziano's facilitating their victory. By making me think it's better if I'm gone. And it's not…_

 _I'm helping…_

 _Aren't I?_


	205. Chapter 205

**Disclaimer: I don't own Boku no Hero Academia**

 **Chapter 205:**

"…Impersonating one Runodo Inezzi." A picture of the villain appeared on the screen for all those watching. "His appearance even now remains as Runodo's, an officer of the Kyoto Police Force whose wife claims had been acting weird for several days. Apparently this villain had completely stepped into her husband's shoes."

"Now are we sure this is not Officer Runodo himself? The 'disguise' he is in has not come off, so it would appear that Runodo's appearance would have had to have been this man's-"

"Or there was a Quirk involved to make it look like him. Either way, he is not Runodo Inezzi. The assassin's DNA does not match up with Officer Runodo's. And although police have yet to identify him in any way, he has had to be stopped from killing himself when he tried again after waking up in his cell, the first time being when he tried to take a cyanide capsule hidden inside a fake tooth that Lifebringer noticed and pulled out before he was able to do so."

"Quick thinking on his part. But we've been having this problem now for a while."

"Nameless assassins, coming after Lifebringer. It's been happening since he came back. Some have been identified too, mostly as foreign villains who came to Japan to kill him, but most have had no identity at all! And not one has said a word to the authorities on who they are or who they work for."

"Well it seems to me like Sazaki knows who's after him. Eziano Mozcaccio's existence has been confirmed by several top heroes including Endeavor, who recently made public that Eziano was a former Shadow Boss of the now defunct League of Shadows."

"The bomber who destroyed Lifebringer's apartment and killed Riku Norita also killed himself in prison as this new assassin attempted this morning. It's crazy to think about the kind of dedication these villains have to have to this Eziano Mozcaccio that they would rather die than reveal anything about him…"

The screen in Class 1 paused, and Enorma turned back to her class after playing this clip for them the day after the Higashine Jazz Raid… which had been overshadowed on most news stations by what happened right after it. People were praising heroes for the assault, and yet the fact that a third year of U.A., and a famous Class A student, was the only one killed put a damper on things. Sugarman's contributions to the raid were emphasized and the fact that it was against the enemy base's leader who he fell to impressed citizens who heard he took her down as well, but the victory had been tainted. The death of a teenager surrounded by heroes and his own principal, while on leave from his school for a special mission some believed the heroes only took him on as a public display more than anything, diminished the idea that the raid was a big success for heroes. That, and the ominous feeling that stirred inside when people heard about the Radian member who had been delivering weapons to the Jazz, which did more to scare them at that camaraderie between villain gangs rather than encourage them on the fact that a Radian was taken down.

Enorma did not have much to say about the raid itself either. She played the clip she just paused on purpose, and she looked back at a student of hers who the rest of the class looked to and who stared right back at the brunette teacher wondering what she was doing. "Do you have anything to say?" Enorma asked him. Zach rose his eyebrows more at her, getting a confused look on his face while some of his surrounding classmates got more nervous and glanced back towards their teacher hesitantly. Enorma frowned as he did not take the bait, and she sighed before specifying, "As you did with Raijin. Have anything for us?"

The rest of Class 1 looked back towards Enorma sensei in surprise, but the teacher who had never heard of this villain before a couple weeks ago now felt a much more real understanding of this villain Sazaki revealed to the world. "What do you know, about this Eziano Mozcaccio?" Enorma wondered.

 _Nothing I should tell you._ Zach hummed while staying seated, a look of uncertainty forming on his face that made more of his classmates frown as Zach was rarely out of the know about anything. _I told everyone his name. Everyone can make assumptions from here on based on that, and he can't kill them all. If just you guys knew more specifics though then he may wipe you all out. Make it so no one is allowed to know how old he is anymore, instead of people not being allowed to know his name. It's better not to put you all in danger… But you're all heroes. He has spies in the country. He has villains everywhere, and the only way they'll ever be stopped is if everyone is educated! I know that, and yet I keep secrets unnecessarily. But I also can't make this decision rashly! If I choose to bring them into it, I could be signing their death certificates… I don't know._

"He's an assassin. And I knew he was part of the League of Shadows, but now that's common knowledge too-"

"If you only know as much as everyone else, why would he be gunning for you so hard?" Kerushi questioned up a few seats towards his classmate.

"Because I told everyone his name," Zach replied, like it was that simple. "And there are other things I've heard, but…" He stopped himself and pursed his lips for a second with the right corner of them curling down. _He's my worst enemy right now. The one I need to focus on above all else._ "But I've never found anything useful on him. Nothing to help me track him down. Nothing to help you," Zach finished with a shake of his head back at Enorma who just frowned darkly at the teen. He did not sound like he had told her everything he knew, but Sazaki also sounded like he was not _going_ to tell her everything even if she pressed him.

Enorma kept frowning for a few more seconds, then she started in a stern voice, "Fine then. Today we'll continue with the Tartaros escapee Meta, focusing solely on him instead of his whole former gang…"

Zach glanced towards the windows and out them into the blue sky above. _Hazano sounded serious earlier. The meeting after school is not going to be pleasant. At least I'm still in class today. Tomorrow's supposed to be my presentation too, but I'm just so… No. This isn't the time to be tired. Not the time to give up or start slacking. Eziano's going as hard as ever. He doesn't tire. Doesn't falter. And I let my guard down yesterday at the moment I should have predicted was the moment I would let my guard down the most. Not while I was busy reviving, but in the instant afterwards where I know that anyone who would have attacked me would have chosen during the revival. The instants after were where I felt the most safe because it wouldn't make sense to attack me then, just like sneak-attacking at the end of a fight. It's the same thing. That assassin put a hole in my back right behind my heart. My heart was there too. A little slower and I was dead._

 _You told me he cut your throat,_ Himazuri thought as she stared Zach's way during class. _So you have to know more. I know you do. Why not tell everyone? You warned us about Raijin too and how we should contact you if we ever bump into him. Is- Is Eziano that much worse, that you think if we ever see him it'll be too late for us?! Oh my God. You're afraid of him…_ Himazuri's eyes bulged and she darted them down to her desk so Enorma would not see as she continued her lesson on Meta. _That there's still anything you're afraid of- I didn't think it was possible._

Bibi Reina sat through her morning classes with her focus barely managing to stay on her teachers. Her eyes kept shifting towards the boy she had once been afraid of, who had become her friend, and who now… _Other people died last night. A lot of people, and a hero who died in a car crash on the way to the scene of a different crash! Turbo-Rider's death is barely on the news though. Once the time limit passed, people gave Zach excuses and said he wasn't able to get up there. He was a kind hero._ Bibi thought of the man who had been a hero of her hometown, and her eyes narrowed more staring out through silver-gray bangs angrily in Zach's direction. She reminded herself where she was and refocused on class, but her thoughts stayed locked on her classmate who was taking notes as if it was any other day.

 _You let them die, but you saved your friend?_ Bibi felt her stomach clench up and she pursed her lips in frustration. _What kind of code is that? It's like you're really just deciding based on how you feel at the time!_

 _How long 'til the news turns on him?_ Kotsumura wondered from his seat on Zach's right. He stayed quieter through the morning than usual, not saying much during the breaks between periods and not talking to Zach when he did speak up. _It's obvious what he did. Once the immediate "He saved Sugarman" wears off, it'll be "Why Sugarman?" And yeah, why is that?_ Kotsumura did not feel like he did when Zach came into class the morning after he stopped the plane-crasher and brought back the Korean Aero passengers. He did not feel enthusiastic or excited about what his friend had did. _He was willing to leave right in the middle of class! He could've gotten in a lot of trouble, or like even arrested! But bringing back Sugarman was important to him, so he took the time out and risked the consequences… For your classmate._

There were thirty people in Class 1, just as there had been for about half of the time since this Class 1 was created. People die during villain incidents. Heroes risk their lives to stop villains. And sometimes, heroes die fighting them. They were simple facts of life that the students of Class 1 had had to accept the year before, as hard as it was for some of them to do so. They had accepted it though. They had cried about it but come to the final stage of grief, _acceptance._

But what if they never had to reach that point? What if they did not have to just accept it? And for many of the students in the classroom, the blame that they put everywhere, on everyone involved, which had ultimately faded for them to just accept that it was an unavoidable fact of life, returned in full force the longer they had to see Zach Sazaki sitting in their classroom doing his schoolwork as if people were not dying outside at that very moment. His calm look, the way he was taking notes as if nothing bad was happening, at least _they_ blamed themselves when they could not save people. It was clear through his actions though that he did not care about the other people dying today, whereas _yesterday_ it was an emergency when someone died. When _his_ friend died.

 _So what if he was able to save her…_ Reika could not help but wondering it as she listened through a pointless math class. _And he just didn't do it? He does that with so many people. Including heroes and kids! So even if he had been able to- did he let Ireni die?_

 _We had to watch that, and you could have,_ Dendo glanced towards Himazuri in anger to see if she was feeling what he felt today. The two of them had been the ones to face the Stain Cult, who had seen their friend die and heard her screams, and he grimaced as he saw her just focusing on her schoolwork as if this was not suddenly bothering her. _He saved his Class A friend like he had to! But when it came to one of us, I guess he didn't care enough back then. Didn't care about her. Or about us. If one of us had died yesterday would he have done the same, or was it because of Class A?!_

Inasa stared towards his classmate's back with a similar frown as many of his classmates. He also got confused though at his own frustration, _Zach wasn't anywhere near here to save her. It's not his fault. If it was his fault every time someone died, that's not what I'm… I know Ireni died as a hero. The fact that she could have been saved, doesn't matter. She wasn't. He wasn't able to- I think._ It was the doubt that formed in Inasa's mind, that he only _thought_ Zach had not been capable of saving Ireni, that made him frown even deeper as he considered the possibility that Zach _had_ been able to, but _chose_ not to.

When the morning classes were all over, Zach stayed in his seat while most of the classroom was emptying out. He reached down into his bag while there were still some people around, and he pulled out his own lunch that he brought to school instead of getting it from the cafeteria. He pulled out a bento box from a convenience store and put it on his desk. _Something would go down in the cafeteria if I went today,_ Zach thought as he pried apart a pair of chopsticks and peeled the plastic film off the top of his lunch. _The anger will only bubble stronger unless I look to be super depressed. The fewer people I save, even whatever amount I do, they'll not want me smiling. My smile was to show I was trying my hardest. Doing whatever I could, and people believed it. And it was true too._

He started eating his cold lunch and glanced towards the windows out into the blue sky again. _Now they think I'm always half-assing it because I went and saved too many people one day. As many as I possibly could while staying inside of Japan. They all think I can save hundreds of people every day, so no number will ever be enough now._

Students started returning to Class 1 before the break was even a quarter of the way over. Zach glanced towards the doorway as they were entering in a cluster. _Shit. Separating myself gave them time to bounce their feelings off each other. Realize that their feelings are "well-founded" if their friends feel the same way. Gives them time to get angrier. Mob up. Feel cocky that they're right, and have the moral high ground. Humans are so quick to action when they have others to act with them. That's a bad thought. They're your friends. Classmates. People you've known for a couple months and have lied to constantly about who you are. People who see through your lies now._

They approached Zach's desk while he lifted another piece of broccoli to his mouth and popped it in. He chewed casually while ignoring their looks clearly with something important to talk to him about. More than half the class returned to the classroom, and Zach sighed internally as it was only frustrated and angry-looking members. It was like the ones who were not as upset decided to just not join as their point of not being as against him, but he was wishing at least one of those people on his side or at least neutral had returned to moderate this. Even as he was wishing for that, his eyes lingered on Kotsumura who he hoped was someone who could at least partially be on his side despite his own angered look.

 _That probably won't work though. Kotsumura knows how much I care about Class A. He knows better than anyone, unless he's told them too now why it is I cared more about Sato than their friend._ Zach lowered his gaze as he thought about Kotsumura walking away during the night of the joint training. _I should have realized, that he would be the most upset after hearing all that._

"Zach," Porrolo started, putting down his lunch on his desk that he had brought with him like half of the others did. The angrier-looking ones including Dendo, Kotsumura, Flugeru, Kerushi, and Manzo did not have their lunches with them. Either they already finished or they were too preoccupied to even care about food today. Others took seats close to Zach's desk, but Kotsumura walked up on Zach's right side and did not even lean back on his own desk as Flugeru started leaning over from the next row down. Zach looked diagonally to his front right to the teen with spiky white hair who put his tray down but did not start eating to talk to him instead, "We have to talk about what you did yesterday."

"Our classmate, Ireni Kabbala," Kotsumura said down to Zach who looked more to his right and up into Kotsumura's eyes. "She died fighting the Cult of Stain."

"Yeah, I know-"

"If your friend Pinky had died fighting them, would you have come back to save her?" Kotsumura asked.

The question caught Zach off guard. He froze with his mouth open for a second, and Kotsumura said angrily at that hesitation with his classmates looking towards him in surprise as he went off on their newest classmate who had almost seemed like his new best friend, "If you could have, or if she had actually died, you would have come back for her then?! But not for Ireni?" He snapped it and his fists curled at his sides, as he was starting to think of this as more than just a possibility.

"I'd, probably have tried if…" Zach paused. _How can I respond without just flat-out lying?! If Pinky had died, my story wouldn't make sense at all! Do they believe my lies- and what is with this confrontation!? What did I do to deserve this…_

Manzo narrowed her eyes at Zach and she stepped forward closer to him from down the row just on Zach's right side. She moved up next to Dendo and frowned at Zach when he glanced towards the redhead glaring into his eyes. "Ireni was our friend. As close to us as Sato was to you," Manzo said it in frustration as she thought of the girl who used to sit next to her since the first day of high school. "She was killed fighting villains, just like Sato was." Manzo shook her head and her head pulled back tilting up as she saw Zach just frown back at her without getting emotional like the rest of them were. If anything, he looked annoyed at them for coming at him like this.

"Well I wasn't around to fight the Cult of Stain," Zach started. "Nor bring back the ones they killed," he added, darting a look around and making eye contact with as many of them as he could. "Now if you want to be mad at me for my part in creating the Cult of Stain, because I killed Kurogiri," Zach continued with his tone getting angrier. His classmates looked at him in surprise and confusion at how he was going on, though most stayed angry despite that. "Then that's fine with me. Faith made moves as soon as the League was not at full strength, and that was my fault, and I didn't stop him before he could get too powerful and get the follower who killed Ireni-"

"That's not what bugs me," Kotsumura grumbled, interrupting Zach and shaking his head at his classmate that he would have an angry look like he did for their confrontation. "It's that you _clearly_ care more about your old classmates than you do the rest of us! The rest of the country, and regular people, who you're supposed to be…" Kotsumura grit his teeth and then snapped, "You're supposed to be their hero! That's what people call you, you know?"

Zach's eyes widened, and most of the others around Kotsumura darted him shocked looks to as he snapped that in as angry a way as the rest of them felt about Ireni. "Not just a hero to Class A… To people who, who I know don't really care the same way about you," he said it in a semi-regretful way even as it came out of his mouth. H felt he needed to say it though as he thought about how much Zach cared about those people who mostly ignored him or gave him dirty looks through the joint training. "Heroes have to care about everyone, equally," Kotsumura added.

"So if your family was in a villain incident, and there were other people-"

"Of course I'd care about saving my family, but no more than everyone else!" Kotsumura called right back at the darker-haired teen trying to counter him like that. Zach looked surprised at the answer, which hurt Kotsumura to see and made him shake his head with his expectations of Zach dropping just from that surprised look alone. "We're supposed to be heroes who are above that kind of stuff. Asking me that, like it's obvious I'd care more about… That's what we have to be above! And so many people look up to you, thinking you _are_ above that kind of stuff, but you really…"

"He's right," Dendo agreed. He looked from Kotsumura to Zach who he felt the blond was only going off at so much because of how close the rest of them thought they were. Dendo glared at Zach who bowed his head a bit so his black bangs were covering his eyes, and he continued, "People look up to you. The news puts everything you do up for display, and you were taking that so seriously for a while. I saw that," Dendo said it to give the credit where credit was due. There were a few things Zach had said in the impromptu press conferences when reporters caught him on the street, that Dendo knew Zach had planned out or at least was saying because he knew how closely everyone took what he said and did. "But now you showed that heroes care more about their own friends than the rest of us- than the rest of the people of Japan. You care more at least, and you're the most famous hero in the country now."

"Where are we going with this?" Tomoki asked, the vice class-rep standing from his seat and stepping forward as everyone had gotten off-topic. "You saved Sato and let Ireni die-" Tomoki stopped for a moment as Zach rose his head and glared towards him looking so pissed.

Everything Kotsumura and Dendo were saying resonated in him, but Tomoki's words gathered up the frustration and regret he was feeling and transferred it all into anger as he was given the easy chance for it. "She was a hero too, right?" Zach snapped towards the class representative who was clearly representing his classmates' feelings. "She knew the risks, and she died fighting villains! How is that my fault?" Zach lowered his voice at the end as he asked that, glaring around at the others who got much angrier looks on their faces as the root of their anger was thrust in their faces by someone who did not know her like they did to be talking about her like that. "Are you mad I didn't bring her back?" Zach asked, raising his voice and leaning back in his seat to sit straight up as he glared around at them.

"No?" Zach wondered. "That wouldn't be fair either. I wasn't bringing anyone else back in Japan, so to bring her back would have just been selfish too-"

"It's not about being selfish," Porrolo began over.

"It's the fact that you made it obvious how much more they matter-"

"You can't put one life above another in importance!" Flugeru snapped, done with the pretenses. "Ireni wouldn't have… And she died because of villains who, who you weren't even in Japan to fight."

"You think I don't know that?" Zach growled towards the tallest boy in the class. "You think, it didn't kill me to see what they were doing in Japan?" Zach asked it with his pitch raising, his head tilting back and his eyes getting angrier as he stared at Flugeru and into his surprised eyes. "You think," Zach started harshly, darting his gaze towards Dendo now. "That I didn't want to turn around the second I saw heroes getting massacred by these people? Heroes I knew! Heroes I had fought with during internships," Zach seethed that through his teeth as he thought about the Wild Wild Pussycats, and about Gogogo, and so many others whose lives were taken by the Cult Stain in the months following his initial departure from Japan.

His eyes slowly shifted over to Tomoki past Porrolo's seat, "And to know that they were only as strong as they were, because Kurogiri was gone? Because there was a gap in power that _Faith_ was able to take advantage of?" Zach seethed it through his teeth and he started panting, his hands gripping the sides of his desk as he leaned forward to ask that. He pulled back again, shaking his head but then glaring in front of him as Elinari opened his mouth like he had something to add. He shut up his classmate with just that glare, and he snapped, "Or do you think when I saw heroes and Japanese citizens getting killed back here I didn't want to abandon whatever it was I was doing and come back to save them? I am from Japan! I am Japanese! Why do you think I'm here now?!"

"Zach," Kotsumura started firmly. He used a voice he meant to calm Zach down, but he also continued as Zach turned and looked in his eyes, "I think you're here because of Class A. Right?" Kotsumura asked it and Zach flinched, his hands loosening on the sides of his desk and his eyes growing a bit wider at the question. "At least a big reason why, is that," Kotsumura continued. "But you can't do that. You can't, treat them as more important as the rest of us. Not while everyone's watching you. And if while you were gone, you felt the same way that you would have come back for them but not when the rest of us were…" Kotsumura grit his teeth in frustration as he thought about the possibility that Zach had done that in regards to Ireni.

"I do whatever I can," Zach said, his voice coming out half-seething but half as just a whisper. "And I'm sorry, I didn't save your friend," Zach whispered at Kotsumura with his eyes raising and looking guilty but getting angrier at the same time. "But I did-" Zach stopped himself, grit his teeth, then he darted his eyes around at all the Shiketsu students glaring at him like this. "I couldn't fight the Cult of Stain when everyone needed me to. I did beat Faith though. I made him pay, for what he did to her…"

Zach's teeth grit harder, his hands clenching back on his desk so much harder this time. "If that's what you're really mad about. That I didn't do anything," he continued with his lips cracking into a smile for a second as the rest of them stared at him in confusion with no idea what he was talking about.

"You didn't, beat Faith," Dendo started. His eyes narrowed as he thought about Bakugo and how he had given him a nod at the joint training during the conversation just to show his appreciation for what Bakugo had done. "Bakugo did-"

"What I did to Faith, in Tartaros," Zach continued with his eyes locking on Dendo's. Dendo froze. His breathing cut off and everyone stared at Zach completely stuck where they were at how that sentence started. "Is stuff Oda left out of his book," Zach continued. "I know you guys have read it," he continued, his voice seething and unapologetic as he glared around at the classmates confronting him right now. "But he left it out, because Oda was dead already, and he didn't see what I did to him."

"You wanted me to do something for Ireni?" Zach asked, raising his pitch and looking towards Manzo frustratedly at the way he remembered her just looking at him before the nervous and stunned way she was watching him now. "Well I did. I did, what I do best. When I attacked Faith from inside my own cell, calling him predictable and shattering his sense of self as I proved it." Zach's cracked smile flinched, the left corner dipping before rising back up as he continued, "Not just his self-importance, but everything he was. That he was just another random villain barely worth my time. Unimportant," Zach's smile could not stay up anymore, and his voice that was already getting lower just finished darkly, "And Faith will spend the rest of his life in a straightjacket thinking of how I so easily put him there. How I predicted his moves and his escape and even where he is now, I knew it all and he knows I knew."

Reika had come with the group, but she was sitting at her seat and eating like she was not as focused as the others though was ready to jump in at any point. She had stopped eating though and was just turned to her side with her eyes shaking as they stared at the teen who just admitted all that to him. "You-" Kerushi started, stepping closer to Zach's desk but pulling back as Zach looked his way and wiped the disbelief right off of Kerushi's face. "You're too, too kind to-" Kerushi really believed that, that this was what had him in so much shock here.

Manzo dropped her gaze from Zach and took a step back. The belief in him she was trying to hold onto was more than just shaken now. "I thought you were a good person," Manzo started, her eyes raising and glaring at Zach for what he just said.

"I am a good person to people I like," Zach replied right back towards the girl he had tried to help a lot after joining this class. Then he continued darkly to her, "But I can be a monster to the people who hurt my friends. Or hurt innocents."

 _Pinky was in critical condition after that fight,_ Reika thought as she stared over towards her classmate saying these things. _I was impressed to hear about her quick recovery after the fight against the Cult of Stain. Then I saw you and her in those pictures spending a lot of time together, smiling like a couple._ Reika thought about what Zach just said and she shook her head to look away from him, _He just saw those prison guards that he made friends with killed him front of him too. He had reasons… but still, he's terrifying. Having that much power seemed fine for him to have as long as he was the person I knew he was, but this person is…_

"Whatever Faith did," Kotsumura finally started after shaking away a bit of the shock of what he just heard. "He's still a person-"

"You can't be mad at me for not doing enough for Ireni then!" Zach snapped back angrily at the boy next to him who pulled back at the frustrated expression covering Zach's face. A few more of their classmates had just re-entered the room, and they were just standing near the front of it and staring over with wide eyes at this confrontation. "What is it?" Zach asked Kotsumura. "Did I go too far or not far enough? I was in a different world at the time, so what the fuck was I supposed to do when she died?" Zach asked it leaning his head away from his desk and glaring furiously into Kotsumura's eyes that made him lean back. Kotsumura pulled away at the angered question that Zach asked looking hurt that his friends would be this accusatory towards him despite what he had already told them. "What do you want from me? An apology? I'm sorry your friend died. Don't put it on me though," Zach hissed, his teeth clenching hard after he got it out, then he glared around at them all to leave him the fuck alone.

Flugeru backed off, and he walked away without saying anything more. _He told me not to keep pushing him. That there's too much he's dealing with, and that was before any of this shit happened. I know I shouldn't be adding to it, and there wasn't anything he could do for Ireni!_

 _Why are we being so hard on him?_ Porrolo looked away and he focused on his food he only had a minute or two to finish. He chowed down, in part to just make it so he was out of this conversation. _All he did was bring a friend of his back to life. Yeah, it's kind of selfish. But I don't know how it feels having that power. He says he has to die each time he brings people back, so the fact that he saves strangers is amazing in itself. I think I could do it- but I don't know! I shouldn't act like I do._

"Zach I'm," Elinari began.

"Just drop it," Zach growled, glaring at his classmate who confronted him over this in the first place. "I get it, alright? I'm Class A. You're Class 1. And it pisses you off that I didn't save your classmate but I saved mine. It pisses you off that I'm letting everyone down by being a selfish hero. I _completely_ understand all the criticisms you could tell me. So just leave me alone," Zach glared at Elinari to get out of the seat of the person who was supposed to be sitting in front of him and who had returned to the classroom already.

Elinari opened his mouth, as he had wanted to apologize. Zach did not sound like he cared though or even wanted the apology, and after a second he just looked away and got up off the seat. Zach frowned to his right at Kotsumura who was still standing there even as everyone else was going back to their seats. "What?" Zach asked, his tone harsh and like he was snapping the question at some random person coming at him with these complaints. Like the person next to him had no idea what it was he was thinking about or going through. Like the blond to his side had no idea who he was.

 _If that's what you think,_ Kotsumura thought, and the regretful feeling and his anger both pushed down as he took his seat. _I guess if I don't know you, there's nothing to be mad about either. I'm just pissed because you're not that type of person, but maybe you are._

Zach crumpled up his bento box and shoved it back into his backpack quickly. He unzipped his bag and shoved his box inside, pushing aside his clothes and some water bottles in his bag that made his teeth clench so hard as he moved them. He zipped his back up before anyone could look inside it, and his hands shook on his bag with darkness just inside his skin pushing to slip out of his fingers. His eyes trembled, and he sat back up in his seat with an angry look covering his face instead. His clenched teeth ground back and forth, but he was struggling to keep it together as he saw the looks of the people all around him in the classroom directed his way. Looks of unfamiliarity, anger, doubt, and more dark looks of people feeling he did not belong there than he felt he had received on the first day of the term.

Hazano stepped inside the class, but Zach was standing up at that same moment. "Sorry, Hazano sensei," Zach started. "I should have went during break, but could I use the bathroom?" Zach asked.

Hazano frowned at his student who cut him off before he could even start talking. Some of the class around Zach started losing the expressions they had, and Hazano's frown lifted back up within a second of looking at Zach's face. "Yeah," the teacher said, his voice quieter than usual. "Go ahead." He turned and watched as Zach walked by him and out of the classroom with his eyes stuck straight ahead.

Zach walked out of the class and he headed towards the bathroom with his breath coming in ragged and leaving in sharp bouts. He pushed open the door to the bathroom and walked straight past all the stalls, looking through the cracks in them connecting the doors to the walls to see if anyone was inside. Since lunch just ended though and the next period began, students had usually gone during the break and teachers did not usually let them go right after it was over. Zach spun back to the mirrors lining the other side of the bathroom once he passed all the empty stalls, and he gasped out as he stepped up to a sink and put his hands down on either side of it.

The water turned on automatically as he put his hands beneath, and he splashed that water up in his face that he bowed down close to the sink. He splashed a few handfuls up and gasped again before cupping some water and sipping it, then splashing more water straight up into his eyes that were already open. "Nn," he winced and then rose his head, staring at the mirror in front of him as the water turned off. His expression steadied instantly, but then his lips curled and pulled apart to show his clenching teeth behind them. He rose his right arm and started wiping his face off, _What am I doing? Am I really hiding in the fucking bathroom, again?! Like a teenager in school trying to hide his feelings from his friends, like I used to! I still am a teenager,_ he reminded himself, and the corners of his lips pulled up his cheeks into the biggest smile. _That's the funniest joke of them all…_

"Hazano sensei," Kotsumura started, raising his hand not long after class started back up. The bald teacher turned back and looked to his student who said quickly, "May I use the bathroom?"

Hazano stared at the blond boy for a few seconds without saying anything. Then he nodded once at Kotsumura and watched as his student got up and rushed for the door he went out with a worried expression covering his face. _Hope he's actually in there,_ Hazano thought grimly, before turning back and continuing to his students who he wanted to focus despite what he could see them all thinking about.

Kotsumura rushed towards the closest bathroom and hesitated at the door. He pushed open the door and let it close behind him, staring across the bathroom to the furthest mirror where Zach was standing at the sink looking into the mirror.

Zach's eyes darted Kotsumura's way, then back at the mirror as he forced that dipping smile to go back up. "Haha," he chuckled under his breath, and he tried to smile into the mirror and laugh despite his lips curling so far down after the fake chuckle. "Haaahh," Zach laughed once that turned into a long exhale with his teeth clenching at the end of it. _Come on! School is one of the places I can't think of- one of the places I have to be positive! After letting Himazuri know, I decided this! I- I made the choice that this is where I can be- where I_ _ **have**_ _to be positive!_ He thought that while staring into the mirror, and his right hand lifted up with his eyes squinting a bit. He watched his hand as it brushed across the scar on the left side of his face, and his eyes slammed shut to see the army in front of him in a burning city while his face bled so badly that he felt blood pouring off his chin that he knew he had already dried off so he could not pretend it was sink water.

His eyes parted again to see Shigaraki's face translucent in front of him, cutting that gash into the right side of his face that made him gasp out to watch the scar in the mirror being formed. And then he saw the blood splash out of his throat from Eziano's blade, and he brought both hands up to his neck fast before flinching as there was no blade there to grab and push back so it would not cut so deep. His head turned a bit to the left as he tried to look behind him at the man who should have been cutting his throat, but Eziano was not behind him this time. Instead he just saw Kotsumura staring towards him, and he brought his hands up from his neck to his eyes that he rubbed hard for a couple seconds. "What?" Zach whispered, moving his hands aside and shaking his head with a frustrated look towards his closest Shiketsu friend.

"Zach," Kotsumura started after seeing something that had his heart pounding. "We- I… I'm sorry. I was being too harsh before, and-"

"No, you were absolutely right," Zach whispered back with a crack of another smile and a shake of his head right back at Kotsumura who was apologizing to him here. "All of you, were right. That's what's so…" Zach grit his teeth and he turned back to the mirror. "I am a bad person. You all know it, and the fact that you know despite not even knowing half of- a fraction-"

"You're not a bad person," Kotsumura started, moving closer to Zach across the empty bathroom and shaking his head at his classmate. "I'm sorry if that's what, you think I was-"

"It was," Zach hissed through his teeth. "It's what all of you think, and you're right to think that way."

"We know you're a good person," Kotsumura argued back. "You just… Sometimes you," Kotsumura did not know how to say what he wanted to. The things he was upset at Zach for started seeming more trivial the longer he stared at Zach looking like this. "I don't think you're a bad person-"

"Well I am," Zach countered while looking himself in the eyes in the mirror. Those eyes were watery, and he squinted them shut for another second before snapping them open and looking at himself disgustedly. "And I can't-" He brought his right hand back up to his face, but it moved from the scar on his left cheek down over his neck to the reddened skin that had remained scarred for over a year after what scarred it had come off. "I can't, sit there and have everyone look at me like that any longer. I'm a bad person but-"

"You're not a bad person," Kotsumura countered, his expression getting sadder that Zach was saying that.

"I am," Zach whispered though. He rubbed his neck, his hand moving back and forth over the reddened skin as his breathing got heavier and more raspy. "You don't understand. I am… Waking up in that cage, with a collar on- And thrown into the arena with…" Zach's lips were trembling too much and his eyes clenched shut again as he rubbed the scar that disgusted him to look at. "I know I'm selfish. Yeah, I treat some lives more important than others. I care about my own life more than-" Zach bit down and he bowed his head down hard to slam his chin into his chest. He shook his head in frustration, "And I see people look at me all the time knowing how bad a person I am, but here- I didn't want that here and I-" _They all think it, without knowing anything! They don't even need to know it all!_

Kotsumura's breathing got quicker as Zach curled his fingers into his own neck over the skin that was discolored and wrapped around his whole neck. _A collar?_ Kotsumura watched as Zach opened his curled fingers and rubbed again, rubbing back and forth along his throat and gritting his teeth in agony and rage and self-hatred beyond anything Keiji had ever seen. "And I woke up in the Pit- the Colosseum! A gladiator-"

"That chapter of Oda's book," Kotsumura started quickly. "I read, how you had freed-"

"I lied to Oda," Zach whispered with a look towards Kotsumura and then back into the mirror again where he glared at himself in disgust. "I- I was at war, but that's an excuse. I give myself that excuse all the time, but I killed a _lot_ of people, Kotsumura. I killed, I killed _so many."_ Zach shook his head while glaring into the mirror, hating that tears could come up at something that he did not deserve to cry about considering what he just said. But as he tried to force them back, his face filled with horror and he whispered, "And it wasn't just my enemies. I- I told you about the Battle of the 6 Armies. How I sent forces to be distractions, to be decoys for the others- _I sent them to die_ ," Zach gasped, tears dripping out of both eyes and sliding down his face.

"Zach you-"

"No! I sacrificed them," Zach hissed, glaring towards Kotsumura who he could hear was going to try to counter him. "I knew they would die, and I sent them…" He bit down so hard his jaw shook, and he hissed as he forced his teeth back apart, "I killed them."

"You didn't-"

"I did," Zach snapped, turning away and seeing Switch's face in his mind. "I killed my friends. I sacrificed them for my goals and- and I killed innocents too." Zach said it and looked into Kotsumura's eyes to see if he wouldn't try to counter that too. "Innocent people," he whispered at the blond teen in front of him who stared back trying not to jump to conclusions at the admission while also feeling his heart tear at the look in Zach's eyes. "Don't tell me I'm not a bad person, because you don't know. You _don't_ know what happened in that arena. Turned into a gladiator, a _slave!_ Forced to…" He stopped himself and bit down in rage at how he started that sentence. "Forced? I gave myself, so many excuses afterwards!"

"When they brought me back, _again,_ I couldn't think about before," Zach whispered as he looked himself in the mirror, in disgust at who he saw looking back at him. "I could only look forward. After that, I just pushed forward so much faster. I stopped dreaming about anything because- I told myself it was because I couldn't sleep too heavily or my enemies could ambush me in my sleep, but I stopped dreaming so I wouldn't have nightmares anymore." Zach said it in rage through the tears that spilled down his face, "Because all I had for years were nightmares, and after Scotland, and the Pit- The Colosseum!" He yelled that louder then cut himself off as the reason for the correction was because he knew he was losing it in the first place.

His breathing was cracked and without rhythm. He could see Kotsumura staring at him in the mirror to the left of his own face, and he squinted his eyes more shut before rasping out, "I killed innocent people in that place. 'Five enter, one may leave.'" He quoted it, his head tilting back and his teeth shaking, his hands gripping into the side of his school uniform with sheer terror in his eyes at who he saw in the mirror. "And I killed them all-"

"Then that's not your fault," Kotsumura gasped out, stepping closer to Zach so he was right at his side next to the sink. He shook his head around while having to hold back tears himself at what he just heard Zach say, and what it was doing to him to think about that. He could barely wrap his head around it, but he knew enough to say, "If that's the case then it wasn't your-"

"I did it over, and over," Zach gasped, turning his head and glaring back into Kotsumura's eyes from up close. His classmate's eyes grew huge, and Zach whispered at him, "I didn't get to win and just be done. They put me back in, and I came back again! _Alone!"_ He gasp-whispered it yet like he was yelling, tears dripping over his top lip and snot coming out of his right nostril he sucked back in with a sniffle. "I tried _so hard_ to count how many people, I had killed! But in that place…" his heart raced so hard his hands rose and clenched over his chest in the pain of his damaged heart beating like that. And yet the guilt forced him to leave his heart as an organ and feel that pain he _deserved_ rather than turn it all into Death. His hands gripped into his skin through his clothes, and he stammered with a look back at the face in the mirror, "I- I tried to- spare- but I! I couldn't use my Quirk and- and I still! I used my teeth to- and my _hands._ In that place," Zach stared at the monster he saw looking back at him. He saw himself looking truly horrifying, even though his appearance did not change at all from what it normally looked like. "I did it over and over, and over and over again! Innocent people who I killed to save myself. Who I was forced to-"

Zach bowed his head and he bit down in rage, but also despair as he continued to his friend at his side. "And when I broke out…" his tone shifted, still depressed but even more horrified now. He rose his head and turned to look with tear streaks down his face at the anxious teen next to him who tensed up at how Zach started there. "Against those who had pit me against innocents, force me to kill- ahhh," Zach gasped and sucked in a sharp breath at where he was going with this. He shook his head though while straightening up and turning his body more to face Kotsumura. "I wasn't forced to do it anymore. No one forced me, once the collar was off, to do what I did to the people who put me in there. Who put me in _chains."_

"And I can't handle it anymore," Zach whispered. _Seeing them all look at me like that. Like they knew all this already! I can't…_

"I don't know what happened to you," Kotsumura said. His arms were down at his sides and he stared at his friend from right next to him, not backing up despite all he just heard. _He lied to the prison guards. Doesn't tell us anything like, anything like this- And even the stories he told, he doesn't really feel that way about them! He was the leader of that army and he told us his forces took heavy losses and we- But hearing that? That's so much worse._ Kotsumura shook his head, and he whispered, "And I don't know what to say, after hearing all that." He admitted it with a half-shrug that he forced even as his lips were twisted down and his heart aching to see the amount of pain Zach was in right now. "All I know, is that you're telling me the truth."

"You're telling me what really happened," Kotsumura said. "And it's fucking horrible." He said it and shook his head more, even as Zach bowed his head and bit down so much harder to hear that. "And you've killed so many people. And I know, that no one could understand the shit you're talking about." Kotsumura paused and just bit down hard himself as Zach's head stayed bowed so he could barely see anything past his hair other than Zach's shaking lips. "Not one person in the whole fucking world, could understand what that was like," Kotsumura whispered. He had never pitied anyone more than the person standing before him in this moment. As he watched his friend losing his fucking mind, it killed him to look at and he had to rub his eyes while Zach was not watching.

Kotsumura took in some deep breaths to calm down while he rubbed his eyes. _That's not what-_ Keiji shook his head around, and he straightened up and wiped his eyes harder to get all the tears out of them first. _What he needs right now. I don't understand. I can't, even comprehend it. A different world. War. Killing people and losing friends like- I don't know what any of that feels like. I do know you though. I thought for a second there, that I didn't… I was just being a dick though. I wasn't thinking about any of this. Just how it felt for me to lose a friend. Ireni's long gone though, and you're here in front of me. And I looked at you like we weren't even friends-_

 _But I can't relate. I can't tell you that I understand this._ Kotsumura took in a long inhale and then breathed it out slowly. _No one could ever understand what that was like… But, I understand you, enough._ Kotsumura had the tears wiped from his face and his expression got calmer while Zach stood before him with his hands gripping his chest and his face covered in tears. "I'm going to ask Tiona out after school," Kotsumura said.

Zach's clenched-shut eyes twitched, and then they slowly squinted open though his head stayed bowed. His thoughts slowed down too as Kotsumura continued to him, "On a real date, and I'm not going to beat around the bush treating it like a hang-out sesh or anything. I think she'd treat me like a pussy if I did that." Zach rose his head up and looked through eyes red from the tears but not actually glowing into his friend's eyes. He was confused, but he stared at Kotsumura who admitted with a shrug, "It might be too late in the term to get serious before the end of the year anyway. You were right, and I should've done something much earlier…"

Zach blinked a couple of times, and he stared with his eyes huge at the teen in front of him saying this stuff in response to what he just told him. He stopped crying, stopped losing it so much as he stared in confusion at Kotsumura. _What is he, even talking…_

"You helped me find this, confidence," Kotsumura continued slowly. He stopped and then added with his lips that just curled down a bit raising up quick, "And I know it'll translate over to me fighting villains too, as a hero, and I really do like Tiona and want to…" He paused, but he continued softer, "I like her. I am really, really into her," he admitted strongly, no hesitation in his voice as he said it. He tilted his head to the side with a half-smile that vanished in a second, but he admitted after pursing his lips, "I've never told anyone that seriously." _Even myself._ Kotsumura smiled again and continued, "And yet I know, you've known it from the start that it's more than just a crush."

"What are you…" Zach started but found he had not breathed in for long enough that he ran out of breath before finishing.

"You didn't make fun of me for not doing anything about it," Kotsumura went on. "Or for being too joking and not serious enough. Instead you've just been trying to help me since the start of the term. Zach," Kotsumura's lips curled down at the corners as his expression got sadder. "You didn't have to do any of that. You didn't have to help me at all. You didn't have to be this good a person." Kotsumura grit his teeth in regret at how little he understood and how much he assumed just a little earlier. "None of us understand you at all, and you've been through so much, and yet you've been helping each of us with our fighting, our worst flaws, our relationships…"

 _How did I not see all this? It's so fucking clear now! From the very first day. All those fights, all the training, everything!_ Kotsumura bit down in anger at himself and then said through a raspy breath, "You're a cool person."

Zach's wide eyes blinked a few times, and he gulped while pulling his head back and staring at Kotsumura in disbelief. "I can't say whether you're good or bad," Kotsumura continued with a shake of his head. "As I don't really know much about what happened to you. Or what you've done." Zach's lips that opened right there slammed shut again, but Kotsumura leaned forward and continued fast, "But Zach, you are by far the coolest person I have ever met. Turning down Tiona, you looked my way like- And being a hero despite killing so many people," Kotsumura did not know if that was a sentence he ever thought he could say, especially not in defense of the person he was saying it about. His heart just hurt more though at the look on Zach's face, and he whispered, "And being a friend to people who- who can't help you…"

"You made me a better hero. I can say that much. And you, you just helped me in general," Kotsumura added. _I don't know what I've done for you, if anything. You've done so much for me though that I've gotta try here at least!_ "You helped all of us and we just, we took you for granted. And that's not cool. That's not heroic and- and we've got no right to tell you, anything! Not while we're judging you without knowing a thing."

"You do know now though," Zach whispered, his voice raspy as it came out as he was finding it hard to locate his voice after all that. "You know and-"

"I may know, but I don't understand," Kotsumura said with a shake of his head back. "I won't understand, no matter how much you tell me. That doesn't make me- I don't know. I don't know, what I'm even trying to say. But you don't deserve this kind of despair. Those things you were talking about like they're the worst things ever- those are things I couldn't have survived, let alone been able to move past and continue helping- God Zach. You're a fucking tank to be able to come into school and sit there with…" Kotsumura shook his head with his teeth grinding for a moment as he thought about what he had thought earlier. "And we think you're too calm or acting like it's not bothering you, but it is and you're just good at keeping that back so that we don't feel bad for you, right? So we don't feel even worse because you're feeling like shit?"

Zach could see Himazuri crying on her knees in front of him up on the roof. He pictured her face that hurt him so much to see after he had let her hear everything that went through his head that day. And he saw Kotsumura's face now that hurt him too, and he looked away to the mirror again where he saw himself but did not associate it with a monster's this time. _I cared more about my own life. I killed innocent people so that I could live. That's despicable. I sacrificed my own men. Killed them! And I knew I was doing it but I did it anyway… And I helped Class 1 get stronger. It's not just bad. I'm not just bad. Things aren't that simple! There's good and bad in there. The fact that I've only showed the good to the people here and they still looked at me like that though,_ Zach imagined all those looks as the lunch break ended and he had to shake his head to get rid of them.

"Let's go back to class," Kotsumura said, and Zach opened his eyes back up and looked into his classmate's. "And dude, don't care so much about how we think of you. You do you." Kotsumura lifted a small smile and gave Zach a nod like that was enough, like he would not ask for anything else but for Zach to just be himself. "I'm sorry for pushing you. That was my b." Kotsumura reached forward and patted a hand on Zach's left arm. "Come on," he motioned away, but he was not turning yet until it seemed like Zach would be walking with him.

 _Damn it. Thanks Kotsumura. Have to keep my cool. I should have had better responses ready at lunch. I got myself like this by not preparing after bringing back Sato. I knew it'd come, and I didn't get ready like I could have._ Zach shook his head around, turned to the sink and got the water back on so he could splash some more on his face. _Don't let it show._ He looked up, wiped his face off to get it back to normal with no lingering traces of his crying. _I talked too much. Said stuff I shouldn't have. But Kotsumura doesn't care. That's been happening a strange amount of times. I have to stop that though! I barely held back anything to keep it sounding like that happened off world._ "Alright," Zach said, turning back to Kotsumura and giving him a soft smile. "Yeah, let's head back."

"You good?"

"Good as I can be," Zach replied, which sounded more like the truth than had he just nodded or gave a positive answer to the question. Kotsumura tilted his head to the side and smiled himself as that sounded about right, and then he turned only when Zach walked past him to follow his classmate back to their class. After Zach passed Kotsumura too, he mentioned as he stopped at the bathroom door, "Thanks for coming after me. Kind of a girl move though-"

"Hahaha-" Kotsumura burst out laughing then stopped himself short as Zach opened the door and he did not want his voice carrying down the hall. He smirked in a relieved way and just said at Zach's back as he followed him out the bathroom they had their emotional talk in, "Asshole."

* * *

The U.A. cafeteria was quiet when Sato Rikido grabbed his lunch that Lunch Rush gave him an extra big helping of today. Sato tried to ignore that as he ignored all the looks his schoolmates were giving him on his way to his lunch table. Sato walked over towards where Iida was sitting and he sat down next to the class rep who scooted a bit to make room for his classmate.

Uraraka and Asui were sitting across the table from the taller boys, and they each looked to Sato who stared down at his lunch and then started pushing at it with his chopsticks in growing annoyance as everyone at his table was staring at him just like the people all over the cafeteria. He had only returned to school that morning though after going to the hospital, then meeting with hero officials and debriefing on the cause of his own death. He had even been scolded by one strict official who reminded him of the victory that they needed to show people the strength of heroes, U.A., and Class A, and how he had tarnished that win. Presto Change-o defended him and his actions that other officials had argued were not just justifiable but very heroic, but the whole incident and following sleepless night had everything feeling surreal to him.

Everyone staring at him now was not helping shake off that sensation any either. He had been awake almost nonstop for three days as he barely got any sleep on the night before the raid either, but other than a short nap at the hospital yesterday he was feeling awake and yet out of it at the same time. Sato rose his head and glanced to the girl across the table from him, but considering the amount of people looking his way now he reminded himself not to say anything to the frog girl who most still did not know had died before. He envied her thinking on how his own family had reacted, but even though he could not talk to Tsuyu in such a public setting, he was able to talk to Iida about it.

Iida was hoping Sato would say something, as he had arrived back that morning just before school and none of them had really been able to talk to him yet about what happened. "This feels, weird. Now I know that's what it's like that," Sato's big lips closed after he said that while getting slower near the end. He frowned deeper and then glanced down to his own chest where he could imagine that burning pain he felt before... nothing.

"Do you feel any different?" Iida wondered to his classmate.

"Did you?" Uraraka wondered, as she realized she had never asked Iida or Tsuyu about it. Too much had happened in those few weeks that it never really came across her mind if they were acting strangely, as all of them were different after Kaminari's betrayal. She glanced towards Tsuyu too but kept from making that noticeable in case Tsuyu wanted to keep quieter with others in the cafeteria looking their way and probably trying to listen in to their conversation. Other students did start talking again though after those few seconds they all stared towards Sato in an uncomfortable silence for the revived teen, and Sato relaxed more at that background noise and the conversation starting with his classmates who were not treating him any differently than usual. Even though he relaxed though, Sato felt a pit in his gut and his frown only deepened with a soured look on his face.

Iida hummed and he nodded his head, then he responded, "But not wearing glasses was a huge adjustment for me. It changed everything about my life."

Uraraka sweatdropped and just smiled at her friend who she nodded at in agreement. _Your glasses really defined you as a person, huh?_ Uraraka glanced her other way to see if Deku thought that was funny too, but her other friend in their little group of three was seated on her side yet somehow isolated from them. He looked farther away even though he was not much farther from her than Tsuyu was on her other side, but his focus was so solely on his food and whatever he was thinking about that it practically made him invisible to the others who were not going to interrupt him with, whatever it was he was doing.

"Is there something wrong, Sato-chan?" Tsuyu asked, cocking her head to the side and putting a finger on her chin as something looked to be bothering Sato.

"How bad did it hurt?" Mineta asked, leaning forward on Tsuyu's other side as Uraraka and asking it with a nervous expression. Tsuyu smacked him on the head with her tongue and pushed him back, but Mineta rubbed the side of his head fast and kept looking to Sato who rose his right hand and rubbed it over his school uniform in a line where his classmates imagined he had been gashed. None of them had seen the wound itself, but Mineta gulped as Sato ran his hand from his shoulder down across most of his torso.

"Not much," Sato admitted. "It was, quick. Her heat blade cut deep. I knew, so I ate most of my reserve sugar to get as fast as I could to dodge her-"

"But you made yourself too dumb and forgot?" Mineta assumed.

Asui wanted to smack him again, but she half-believed Mineta's assumption was probably the truth. _Still not a delicate way to say that,_ she thought with a glance back at Mineta before looking to Sato again with her eyes going wide.

"No, I remember. I kept backing off so as not to get cut, but it was so hot and she was too fast to close in on without getting burned." Sato frowned again but not as deep as before as his thoughts shifted back to the incident, and he stared down at the noodles on his plate with a frustrated expression. "I needed her to just give me an opening to move in, but she was trying to run while we fought. She got too close to the perimeter and if I backed up again all the cops were going to get dragged in, then I'd have to worry about all of them, and her blade blowing up cop cars… So I just picked a moment." Sato grimaced hard and he rose his right hand up to his forehead that he rubbed in frustration. His teeth clenched harder as he thought back, his expression getting angrier too at the same time. _And even though it was my own damn fault… Fighting villains and, and I'm not special or anything!_

At another table where Class A students were sitting, a few staring Sato's way took their eyes off him at the sight of how frustrated he appeared to be. Ashido and Sero faced each other across the table and they shared a look and a shrug, then they turned the other way as Sato's table as Kirishima started reading something off his phone in a low annoyed voice of his own. "'Zach Sazaki Saves Friends Over the Sick?' 'Thirteen people dead in Tokyo alone this morning.' Can't even give him this one?" Kirishima muttered his question in a pissed off voice.

Sero hummed in agreement with the right corner of his lip pulling into his cheek as he made a tsk noise. "Why do they keep doing that?" Ashido asked, getting annoyed herself and pushing some of her food around.

Sero looked at the pink girl across from him who started complaining to her right at Kirishima, Ojiro, and Hagakure about how Zach deserved better coverage. _When even Kirishima's backing Zach,_ Sero thought, then sighed as that thought alone was a tough one to have as he thought back on how close Zach and Kirishima used to be. _But we know. We know he can't do it all the time, and he shouldn't go during school since it's one of the only excuses he has not to constantly bring people back. Then we went and sent him a million texts demanding he go save Sato. I didn't mince words either. I told him to bring Sato back. Even if we didn't though… He would have still saved him._ Sero shook his head in frustration at himself for the hesitation he had to even finish that thought. _Of course he would have. No one else knows as much as I do either, just how much he loves us._

Hanta Sero leaned back in his seat and stretched his arms up over his head with a chuckle that made an annoyed Ashido spin back to him and give him stink eye as she thought he was laughing at her. He lowered his right hand in front of himself defensively, then he just got back to eating and said with no worried look on his face, "Zach'll handle it. He's got more support than they focus on, and he knows it."

"Yeah!" Hagakure agreed quickly, nodding her head as that sounded true to her. "We elected the Prime Minister just for Zach after all! I personally still prefer Ippo… But she wouldn't release him so that was a big fat 'NO' from me!" She crossed her arms in defiance and Ojiro chuckled at his girlfriend's enthusiasm in stating that.

 _I liked Nikko's other policies he said he would push in his agenda too,_ Ojiro thought as he got back to eating too. _He's had a slow start though, but there've been some bigger things to focus on, admittedly._

Sato turned his head to their table when he heard Hagakure raise her voice while talking about the prime ministers, and that deepest pit in his gut sank even lower with his eyes dropping down to his clenched fists in a depressed way. Even those clenched fists could not stay very hard though and just loosened as he stared down at them with a guilty conscience. He saw the voting booth he had entered back in December. And he saw the buttons for Nikko and Ippo, his finger hesitating over the screen, then lowering over the former prime minister's.

Sato rose his left hand and he rubbed his forehead. _If he never got out, I'd be dead right now. And I voted to keep him down-_ Sato's fingers curled into his forehead in regret, his teeth clenching tightly together. _I didn't even have his phone number. He's been back for months and I- I've seen him three times. I only went to see him once on my own, and we didn't even- DAMN!_ Sato dropped his hand and shook his head around. "I've got to go talk to him," Sato muttered.

Iida looked to his side at his classmate he was a bit worried about seeing him grabbing his forehead so tightly right there. Iida nodded his head in agreement with his friend who saw him nod and glanced back his way. "I will come with you," Iida said. "I have not seen him in a while." _I should check up on him. His recent activity all seems within the law, with perhaps the exception of reviving Sato... I promised myself I would keep a close eye on him though when I heard the truth on Inazuma Island._

"Can I-" the two boys looked across the table. Asui looked inwards in a bit of surprise too, and Uraraka glanced her way into her friend's big frog eyes, before looking back at the boys across the table. "Do you mind if I tag along too? I, haven't gone to see him either," she said, looking at Sato in a similarly guilty way. In Uraraka's mind flashed Zach rolling over her on the Sports Festival stage to take the shot meant for her, like he did later on for Yaoyorozu only to actually die from that one. _You're not the only one who's been a bad friend, Sato. I know he can't come to U.A. and it's up to us to go see him, but I just focused on class and interning with Ballerclava- that's no excuse._ "After school?" she wondered, cutting off her own thoughts and asking with a specific time so this would not just be a vague plan in the back of her mind like it always was.

"Yeah," Sato agreed back, nodding firmly at the girl who made the plan he would have a harder time backing out of with more people.

Iida saw how Tsuyu reacted to what Uraraka was saying, so he did not think of asking the girl who looked away and back to her food. He did look at Midoriya though and mentioned it to his classmate who seemed a bit less focused on whatever he had been thinking of as he started rushing through his lunch to finish before the break ended. "Would you like to come with, Midoriya-kun?"

Midoriya absent-mindedly shook his head no and just kept chowing down. "Deku?" Uraraka asked, wondering if he actually heard the question.

"No thanks," he said, too focused to even note his classmates' reactions to his reply. The others all just let it go without thinking deeper on why Midoriya might say no, as it clearly was not for any personal reason but more just whatever he was focusing on. _Lemillion accepted my request. The two of us and Kacchan are going to the scene of the Koimou Massacre after school today. Ever since Official Yuranama called it that, it's been dubbed that due to the repetition from news agencies. That's what we'll call it from now on. A massacre that took the lives of 38 of Japan's heroes, including 4 of the Top Ten. But it won't be a complete defeat. Raijin left clues. He made mistakes by being so arrogant. Fantasma almost had him! And we won't let that be in vain. She put it on us, and we_ _ **will**_ _live up to that responsibility._

* * *

In a rural area of central Honshu forty miles from the nearest town of Uwuki, a pair of heroes were turning a weapons' factory upside-down in a forest that somehow had kept this place hidden from their sights for a long time. The building was abandoned when the three heroes arrived, and Gran Torino was now searching the upper two floors while the top two heroes in the nation searched the first floor together. There was no time to gather a bigger team than this. Each of them knew the chances of the place still having the villains and weapons they were searching for were low, but they had hoped by moving to it as fast as possible after ascertaining its location with help from Mr. Principal, they could be able to catch villains still packing up to leave.

The factory Carlos' truck was tracked back to was empty though. It was left in a hurry so it was obvious there had still been people there until the night before or that very morning even, but nothing of importance was left there. They did not find any booby traps either though, and so the heroes hoped to find a clue indicating where the villains just fled to so as to find them before they got far. They were hopeful they could find something too, considering the villains were rushing to escape so quickly that they did not leave any traps despite expecting they were coming. Endeavor ripped a hole in a wall that looked unusually thick, and he glared inside it at the insulation that he tore off to find money lining the inside of the wall. "Would they have left this all behind?"

"They care more about their freedom," Hawks replied back after glancing over Endeavor's shoulder to see what he found inside the wall. "But that shows either they had no idea when we were coming and just ran as fast as they could…"

"Or they just left after seeing us approaching," Endeavor finished darkly. "And they aren't far."

"I didn't see any fresh tracks outside of vehicles speeding off or anything," Hawks said with a shrug though as Endeavor looked back to see if that idea had panned out. Hawks had initially started checking nearby for running villains the moment they got there. "Found these though," Hawks added, and some of his red feathers flew around a corner of the huge room they were in at this factory in the middle of nowhere. "Might just look like random parts," Hawks started. His feathers were carrying what looked like junk, but one of the pieces had an oddly shaped edge that fit too well with another piece oddly far from where it had been laying.

"Weapons they couldn't drag with them, destroyed to prevent us from figuring out what they were," Endeavor said as he watched Hawks' feathers put some pieces together showing a potential for something bigger having been made with the parts. Unfortunately, the two pieces of steel Hawks put together were very large, and yet both still had broken edges on the other ends of them opposite where they were connected. Endeavor's look darkened and shadowed more under the flames of his eyebrows.

"The Radians may be crazy," Hawks said while dropping the scrap. "But this is unsettling."

"Selling weapons is likely where this cash came from," Endeavor said with a look back inside the wall. "So we have cut off part of their income stream."

"Let's hope it's a big chunk," Hawks agreed while turning and heading over to check out more of this large factory first floor. He heard a loud clanking sound upstairs of something crashing, and he shook his head with a chuckle while Endeavor just grunted at the sound of their older colleague working up there where he said he would check while 'leaving the first floor to them.' He had sped off without waiting for argument from the two heroes who were supposed to be the strongest in the nation.

Both of them knew the truth behind the Higashine Jazz Raid though. It was a truth few even in the hero community knew about. The two of them were supposedly called there as insurance to protect the raid and ensure that it went off without a hitch. Hawks flew into another room on the first floor and heard his venerable elder smashing around upstairs looking for clues himself, _He's one of the strongest in the nation, yet he's doing his hardest to stay out of the limelight ever since his age reversed, for some reason._ Hawks pushed that thought away as he always did whenever he considered it. _He was supposed to be the failsafe though to save anyone faster than any other hero could, faster than the minute it would have taken us to reach the scene, but the old man was busy with villains inside and protecting the other heroes on the team._

 _None of the villains have talked yet,_ Endeavor thought darkly as he ripped more and more of the thick inner wall down to see if anything besides money was hidden in it. He frowned more even as he revealed to himself that he had confiscated more of their cash, as the more he found the less likely he was finding it that their cash flow was small enough that this damaged it. _I need to search for laundering schemes. Those could bring us back to them better than searching like this could. I'll double the staff on working with the tax-collectors. It's hard to get that kind of personal info even from companies, but any suspicious activity we find and it's fair game._ Endeavor reached into the wall and pulled out some stacks of ten thousand yen bills he flicked through to check them. _Some five k's and ones in there too, but each stack is labeled with a million. Has to be tens of billions of yen in here they just left behind. That's not good. No amount of rushing should have led them to abandon so much. The Radians can't have so much more than this that it's an insignificant loss!_

"It's not counterfeit," Endeavor muttered too as he checked some of the bills individually to make sure. He glared back at the rest of the cash, and he knew if the random stack he had searched through was real then it was doubtful it was mixed in with a ton of counterfeit bills too. "I have a bad feeling about this." _Not one talked. They don't talk to heroes. Not Japanese villains. Abroad at least there were some who ratted quicker. Sazaki actually wanted us to let him drag Shooter away before reviving him. As a condition. Death. He's in our midst, but we're going to need him. That's what I'm feeling right now._

Hawks glanced Endeavor's way as he walked back into the room. The winged man whose wings were reforming with feathers flying back his way and connecting slowed down and he frowned with a look at the man whose thoughts he could read right now. Hawks grimaced as he thought of his own failure to arrive fast enough on that scene, and how he had kept Endeavor back after the teen's death to keep himself and Endeavor from the scene where everyone would know they had just been watching from nearby to have arrived so quickly. The fight had been over by that point, and Hawks held Endeavor back as he knew what was coming. The two had been watching though, and Hawks frowned more as he thought about just staring down there at what happened after the raid finished.

"Neither of us noticed anything off about the assassin who tried to kill Sazaki," Hawks mentioned. Endeavor looked back at the younger hero who glanced his way and then turned more to face him. "I didn't even realize that officer was getting into his blind spot. Not for a second, until he brought up the gun." Hawks paused for a second and then shrugged with a half-grin as he admitted, "Though even Lifebringer didn't notice while that 'Inezzi' was right behind him."

Endeavor nodded darkly in agreement with that statement, and Hawks' smile dropped instantly. His expression became flat as he stared down the larger man whose reaction he watched right there closely. "When did you realize Sazaki really was Death?"

Endeavor froze. His expression shifted in an instant, his eyes narrowing and the flames all over his body flaring for a moment as he considered Hawks tricking him right there. He just glared at the younger man without responding, and Hawks said after a moment, "It's clear why you stepped down from your task force." The younger man with red wings turned away and started walking across that room, and Endeavor turned away too as if not even acknowledging these accusations with a response. Hawks' voice lowered more though, his expression staying flat though his voice taking a tone that made Endeavor tense up, especially as Hawks said, "Does it have anything to do with the last Sports Festival?"

The Flame Hero and the Wing Hero kept facing away from each other. Endeavor was frozen completely but he did everything in his power to keep from reacting or even allowing his expression to shift as his heart pounded. Everyone knew Hawks heard things and was the kind of man to know the deepest secrets, but Endeavor was not expecting that question more than anything else Hawks could have said. His expression got much, much darker in the next moment as his head turned. He glared towards Hawks in a silence that filled the factory, and Hawks turned his head to the side looking out the corners of his eyes in a similar way as Endeavor.

The tense moment lasted for a moment until Gran Torino made noise above them. Then Hawks' shoulders slacked and he relaxed his facial expression. The younger man scratched the back of his head with a chuckle and turned away, then his smile just lowered a bit as he mentioned in a low voice, "I'm just anxious about Lifebringer is all I'm saying… But we do have bigger problems." Hawks thought about the rumors he had heard overseas of the missing villains whose final plans had been in relation to the Sports Festival. He knew something weird had happened with the way Endeavor and the other hero officials he had been protecting that day sent one of the officials to prison for life for a corruption crime he admitted to committing without any push during the trial, and yet without any proof against him either besides his own condemning confession. The fact that it had been kept so quiet, the missing villains targeting the Sports Festival, and Endeavor's reaction to what he just said confirmed what he had already put together as a theory, but as much as that was a concerning thing to know…

What he was seeing now, was far more disconcerting.

Endeavor refocused and moved quickly across the floor to where Hawks was staring at a piece of the wall he had to look at closely to even notice the crack looked too straight. A few of his feathers flew over and dug under the crack, and he pried what had looked like just part of the wall apart to reveal a hole behind it. Endeavor and Hawks each felt a dread neither thought they would be feeling today despite the worrying things already bugging them. They looked down on the first floor through the secret passageway Hawks found with the worst feelings rising inside them, at the sight of the collapsed tunnel at the bottom of the dark stairs hidden in that wall. That staircase opened up much wider right before all the rocks and dirt and rubble started to block it all up. The two of them stared down the staircase barely illuminated from the dim factory only lit by the light coming in windows near the top of the floor, and they stared at a tunnel that looked familiar.

The horrible familiarity of that tunnel was gut-wrenching to see for the top heroes who had seen one just like this not a week earlier. "You know," Hawks started in a low voice. "When the League suddenly went underground for a few years, I never really considered that they really, _went underground_ for all of it." The statement was made in almost a joking tone that could have been taken as one if he was not so serious with what they were seeing. "But it makes sense why we couldn't catch them."

"There's one man I know has been here who must be working with Intanzo… or the League," Endeavor grit his teeth as he glared into the dark tunnel below.

They stared at a tunnel similar to the one under the League of Villains' base where Raijin made his return, while inside of a Radians' weapons factory, that had been selling weapons to one of the Jazz affiliated gangs. Endeavor glared down with his look infuriated and as intense as could be, "But this, this is the worst possible scenario."

* * *

"Where's Zach?" Sato wondered, looking at Iida who just checked his phone and a text he received a moment ago.

"He was held up after school for a few, he says he will be here shortly," Iida replied and pocketed his phone after sending Zach a brief response.

Sato nodded and then leaned back on the tree behind him. He crossed his arms, then lowered them back down to his sides while looking towards the entrance of the park he thought Zach would be coming in from.

Uraraka hummed to herself and she looked around the park some more as there were a lot of people there but few looking their way. It was chilly so they were bundled up, but their faces were visible so she expected more people to recognize them. Distracting herself with looking around for people who knew who she was did not work for long. She thought back on the question she asked Iida when he mentioned how Zach would come right after school ended to Musutafu. _He revives people just to travel between cities faster. I know it counts as an emergency so he can use it, but it just, it makes people's lives seem like… Zach doesn't think like that though! So then, how can he do that?_

Sato was trying hard not to judge Zach for his decisions on who to bring back to life. It was nearly an impossible thing to do considering who Zach chose to revive the day before, and yet he thought about the second-years in the hero course at U.A. who had confronted him after lunch. _"Lifebringer brought you back, while a couple of grade schoolers drowned in a flash flood two days ago without him doing anything about it." "Why you?!" I don't know! I don't know why I get to live again and they don't. Just because, I know Zach._

Iida had seen that argument he had let Sato just deal with himself, as his interruption would only cause it to escalate considering his own revival at Zach's hands. _Our underclassmen could see it had been bothering Sato as much as them though._ Iida considered maybe the looks from some of the others in their Class 3-A had also caused those second years to back off, instead of it just being Sato's own confused and frustrated responses to them.

Outside of the park in Musutafu, Zach jogged down the sidewalk after flying to a car crash just at the edge of the city. He was able to avoid heading to the hospital first due to the highly-publicized breaking news' story about the crash. He only regretted that due to the amount of coverage the story got just to draw his attention, everyone was going to be doing the same thing again despite how rarely he actually responded to them.

He had too many regrets already to think too much on that though, and keeping up a smile was tough after the scolding he just got from Principal Memuria. _"Thin ice" she says. The hell am I supposed to do about that? Leaving to save Sato wouldn't have been as big a deal, if I had at least gone through proper procedures or asked my teachers and then got her permission. Just opening a window and flying out of school in the middle of class isn't an "Acceptable form of communication." Idiots- no. It's not always better asking for forgiveness than permission. Permission would have gotten me out there without retribution- why is this so fucking annoying?! It's because I didn't plan far enough forward. Too fucking preoccupied in the moment- Smile!_

Zach saw Uraraka and Sato and he stopped near the entrance, looking towards them and smiling as it was the first time he had seen them come out to talk with him on their own. His look showed a gratefulness that made Sato and Uraraka feel a bit more guilty that it had taken them this long, but Zach just jogged into the park and towards them to join the group of three. "Hey guys," Zach said as he neared them, then he focused more on Sato who pushed off of the tree and stepped out a bit onto the sidewalk cutting through the park.

A lot of other people in the park started staring their way with each of them recognizing the boy with his black hair spiked up over his head though a bit messier in style on the back and sides where it just waved around a bit in the wind while he ran. The teen in a black hoodie and dark blue pants slowed down in front of Sato and he asked with his expression getting more serious, "How are you feeling?"

"I'm doing great," Sato replied, and after a second he smiled at Zach and bowed his body in a grateful way. "Thank you, for bringing me back."

"No problem," Zach replied with a shake of his head like it was nothing worth bowing over. "Come on, you're drawing attention," Zach continued as Sato refused to un-bow that quickly.

Sato stood back straight up, and Zach walked forward on the path with a motion of his head at the others to do the same. The park he told them to meet him was a different one than where he had met friends in Musutafu the last few times, and he glanced around it in an interested way to see if he still recalled exactly all the dimensions of this park too. _No eyes on me from the great positions. Two heroes were watching as I left Shiketsu, but they'll see I revived the boy at that nearby crash and won't have anything to catch me on._

"How was, the hospital?" Iida wondered as he jogged up to Zach's right side and then started walking with him.

"Didn't go today- but there was a car crash outside of town," Zach continued quickly as Iida was opening his mouth to complain at him. "Saved a little kid," he added, giving Iida a look telling him to have some more faith in him not just breaking the rules so easily.

Iida closed his mouth and he nodded his head at Zach who glanced behind him to see how those two would react to what he was saying. Zach mentioned to them, "Stopped taking the train a while back. It's a waste of time and I can revive people more often this way."

"Y-Yeah, that makes sense," Uraraka said while speeding up a bit right behind Zach, then moving to his left side more to walk with him.

Sato stared at Zach in surprise at how casually he was speaking here and the smile on his face that made it seem like everything was fine. It made the frustration he had felt before yesterday rise again, and yet he squashed that immediately with the guilt he had felt yesterday afternoon instead. "So how have you been?" Sato wondered, and Zach turned sideways as he kept walking to look Sato in the eyes. "With Shiketsu, and everything?" He added in a lower mutter, as he could have asked that question back during the joint training and felt bad he did not.

Zach thought about earlier that day in Shiketsu and the tough day he was having before even getting chewed out by Memuria. He thought about just dying, again, with his ribcage crushed and his heart punctured by broken ribs as were his lungs and other internal organs. He shrugged his shoulders as his smile lowered a bit right there, the shrug disguising the fact that his lips had curled down from his actual thoughts to instead just show things were 'alright.' "I have a big report I'm presenting tomorrow. It's pretty important to my final grade. Need to do well on it or I can't graduate, and no pro license. I'm not too worried about failing though," Zach added. _That's not what's important about it._

"What's it on?"

"Secret," Zach replied to Uraraka, and he gave her a small grin that made Uraraka smile wide as Zach had said the same thing before his report their first years at U.A.

 _Like he's the same person,_ Sato thought, slowing down a bit behind Zach. He was surprised by how much that one thought stunned him, but the idea of it was mind-blowing to him that Zach was in any way similar to that person they used to know. Sato rushed forward as Zach glanced back towards him again, and he brought up, "I saw these stories about you in Korea and Egypt the other night. What happened?"

"Yes," Iida agreed with Sato's questioning. "I am also interested in the real story- if there are things that were kept from the media," Iida said, speaking a little too fast after saying 'real story' that he drew confused gazes from Uraraka and Sato.

"Well, there isn't too much to tell…" Zach started.

He recounted how he had been looking for something to do that night and heard about the plane crash. He led them off the sidewalk at one point towards a more wooded trail in the park that had a dirt path through it instead, still wide so it was not like hiking but at least less populated so there would be fewer eyes on them. "…I knew with that kind of teleportation Quirk it was dangerous to let anyone else go after him. One mistake and we could lose him forever. Though, as much as portal Quirk users are some of the most OP of us all, there are ways to contain them safely in prison without worrying about them escaping with their Quirks." Zach said that regretfully and glanced to his left at Uraraka and then back at Sato too afterwards.

Sato gulped at the look and what Zach just said, which sounded genuine and at the same time like something Zach had scripted for their conversation. _Is he apologizing again, for killing Kurogiri? Saying he learned from it or something?!_

"You went after Potaru too, first," Uraraka mentioned as she recalled the attack on Desusuta that Zach had stopped. "And stopping all of them was amazing too, but they were at least close-by… You went all the way to Egypt to-"

"It's not much farther to Cairo than it is to Desusuta," Zach countered as she was starting to complain about his methods too. _How many fucking times am I going to have to say the same things? Don't you all realize I've answered this a hundred times already?!_

Zach's response annoyed him, but it shocked Sato and Uraraka, and even Iida who was unnerved by how casually Zach said that without even seeming to be thinking about it afterwards. _He was not bragging,_ Iida thought. _He was defending himself. Flying around the world, is that casual a thing to him._ In Iida's head he remembered a video that tourists in Paris had taken, where a dark blur had jumped off the Eiffel Tower and flown up into the clouds. The thought of Zach's disregard for any procedure back then angered him now even more as he knew Zach did not go through any procedure before flying into Egypt and attacking someone inside their borders.

"And you just flew into Cairo, smashed down a wall, and took down this villain you tracked down?" Sato asked, raising his voice to see if this was really the case. _He said he was just helping, but he was describing events like he had been the one suggesting the ideas?!_ "And you made it back for school in the morning?"

"Yeah," Zach replied, his voice lower than Sato's was and making the large boy behind him flinch at the tone in it. _All that and I couldn't even kill three hours. Could barely expel the Death I needed to. I need to push out more and more- That's bad. I've been ignoring it, but that's very bad. I know what this is._

"Do you-" Uraraka started but paused when she considered what she was asking. She had started already and Zach had turned her way, and she began in a low and serious voice, "Was that just a way to kill time?" Zach stared at her in a bit of surprise, but Uraraka just realized that he was not just being modest. He was not bragging because he did not see this as something to brag about, because it was just something he killed time with. "You were saving people and fighting villains, because you were bored?"

"It's hard to find something to do without a pro license," Zach started countering. "I can't do anything more than that-"

"That's still a lot!" Uraraka exclaimed in surprise and some frustration at how lightly he was treating this. "You did a great thing!" _Am I mad, that he's helping too much?_ Uraraka got confused and she eased up her expression, but she was still looking confused and the others did as well. "If that was the only reason though…"

"I wanted to save those people too," Zach added, but the fact that he only mentioned it now was like he was adding it as just an aside. "The thing is," Zach started, sighing and then raising his eyes as if he was about to speak on some truth he was keeping from them. "The things I was doing in Terra, out in space," Zach shook his head and he frowned at the two who stared at him with wider eyes at how he was starting this revelation. Iida tried to match their expressions even as his eyes darted back and forth to the two Zach was lying to with such a truthful look on his face. "The consequences were always global, or bigger, and I was fighting nonstop against much stronger enemies who were much smarter than Jason Lee. The reason this doesn't feel like much to me, is because it wasn't that hard," Zach said with a shake of his head and a frown at the two for being angry at him for this.

"It wasn't?" Uraraka wondered quietly though. "What about, bringing those people back?"

"It doesn't hurt as much as it used to," Zach said. He glanced at Sato too and nodded his head to show he meant that. "I've gotten used to it, and the stronger my power got the less it hurt me to revive people."

 _Is that true?!_ Iida stared at Zach with his heart racing and his eyes huge. _I have no idea! Even with what I do know, I can't tell the difference between the truth and the lies coming out of his mouth!_

Zach looked back forward and continued walking again farther through the park that was brightly lit during the March mid-afternoon. A cloud just passed under the sun though and put a shadow over the forest where Zach's old classmates started lagging behind him. Uraraka glanced back and to her right into Sato's eyes, and the two each felt a strange feeling at how serious all of what Zach just said sounded. Things they assumed were lies swirled with the theories they had made for themselves, and they each looked at Zach with the unnerving ideas that he had really spent over a year in different dimensions fighting wars against trolls and aliens.

"How did you get out of Egypt fast enough to make it back to school though?" Iida suddenly began, keeping the conversation on something recent and something he believed Zach would be able to talk about more truthfully with them. "Was there another emergency here, or-"

"I waited until I was finished speaking with authorities and the press," Zach started back. "Then just flew back, checked Shiketsu General, and brought back the last person to die. That's how it usually works."

"And you know, Arabic?" Uraraka began. "To talk with their heroes and everyone?"

"Yeah, I spent some time in the Middle East," Zach replied with a shrug. "But I spent time everywhere, practiced a ton of languages-"

"And the Egyptian heroes weren't concerned at all about you just flying into their country without asking or-" Sato started darkly.

"Not one bit," Zach replied, scoffing at the idea. "They're busy in Egypt. They're still low on heroes, which is tough even with crime as low globally as it is right now. Crime's high in Egypt. They accept all the help they can get. But they're doing a great job over there; I'm not saying they aren't. The state of Cairo after what it looked like in the weeks after the CHAF got blown apart," Zach shook his head darkly but also in an impressed way as he was complimenting the Egyptian authorities to have fixed things from that poor state. Uraraka slowed down her steps though, while Zach continued ahead of her, "It's amazing how much the city has recovered. In barely any time at all-"

"But you still didn't trust them to take care of him themselves-" Sato started, as what Zach had said before seemed to counter the idea that he trusted Egyptian heroes' capabilities.

"The weeks, after the CHAF explosion?" Uraraka wondered, and Sato and Iida turned around to look at the girl who had stopped a couple meters behind them on the path.

Zach stared ahead for another moment, then he turned to the side and looked back at her in a similar confusion as to what she was saying. "But, your timeline for when you were off, when you have gone through that portal… The timeline wouldn't add up if you were there for that."

"Well I saw the state it was in, after I came back-"

"Wait!" Sato exclaimed, spinning to Zach with his eyes huge. "No! That's not what you were saying though." Sato's expression got furious and accusatory, and he snapped, "You were saying it like you were there!"

"That's not necessarily-" Iida began.

Zach rolled his eyes and he sighed in an annoyed way. He turned away from Sato and Uraraka behind him who each turned towards Iida and stared at him with their eyes going huge. "Really Iida? Defending me?" Zach muttered as he looked into the trees to one side and then rose his gaze up to the blue sky above again that got brighter as the cloud moved out of the path of the sun.

Iida's whole body tensed up at Zach's question. Uraraka and Sato slowly turned their gazes back to Zach from their anxious class rep who had been one of those who firmly believed Zach was Death and used to be more vocal about it. "The timeline doesn't work, Zach," Uraraka whispered, her eyes huge as she stared at her former classmate just looking up in the sky and frowning in so calm a way that it scared her. "You shouldn't have been here for-"

"No, you're right," Zach said with a nod. "I messed up right there," he admitted, and he rose his right hand and scratched the right side of his head farther from the two on his left farther back on the trail. "That was stupid…" He dropped his right hand down and turned more to face them fully.

Iida's heart pounded twice its normal heart rate, which was still slower than the two of his classmates in front of him who darted looks his way again before glaring back at Zach getting more serious each passing second. _Zach! What are you, why aren't you denying it?! Come up with an excuse!_ Iida thought, darting his eyes to his right at his former classmate who just stared down Sato and Uraraka to let it soak in.

"It's all, a lie?" Uraraka asked, seeing if Zach was seriously telling them that by admitting his mistake a moment ago.

Zach shrugged his shoulders. "Are you Death?" Sato demanded to know, glaring darkly at Zach for an answer.

"No," Zach replied with a look into Sato's eyes. "I am not Death."

"And why should we believe you?" Uraraka asked, her voice raising and her eyes darting to Iida to see if that was a lie too.

"You have no reason to," Zach admitted.

"You were lying to us back then? About Terra and space… you just made that all up," Sato ground his teeth and his fists curled harder than they ever had before without eating any sugar. _And I felt-_ His forehead scrunched up and the corners of his lips pulled so far apart in rage. "Lying straight to our faces with your fucking real plans hidden!"

"Sato-"

"Don't! Iida," Sato snapped, glaring at his class rep who apparently knew something beforehand. "What are you doing here?" Sato glared back at Zach and demanded to know.

"I'm trying to be a hero," Zach replied, like it was simple.

It was not simple though. Uraraka gulped as she stared at her large, muscular former classmate who had scars all over his body. The wounds visible on his face and neck terrified her to imagine if he got them on this world. _If all he talked about different worlds was a lie… Was what he joked about wearing a collar? Getting his throat slit?! And the Battle of the 6 Armies, what even is that?! Is it all just lies- I don't know! I don't know anything about him!_ Uraraka's right foot slid back on the dirt path, and she flinched as Zach's gaze snapped onto her.

 _I forgot why I didn't go to his apartment before it exploded,_ Sato thought darkly with a furious glare at Zach. _It's because I already knew this. He told us at the hospital and I knew, and I wasn't going to go there just to be lied to! And then I almost- just a few minutes ago I actually believed him! Am I that stupid?! That I did it AGAIN?!_ "Thanks for bringing me back," Sato said. He said it in part to calm his own thoughts, as he felt he was about to start shouting at his old classmate in front of him. And yet yelling even started to feel unnecessary at this point. _I don't- I don't have anything to say to you. You aren't the person you pretend to be. And you're barely masking it, but I still almost fell for it. You think we're that stupid, and I really almost fell for it._

Sato turned and walked away. There was no more to say for him, not after the response Zach just gave him that was the most obvious lie showing him that anything he asked from here on would just be a set of lies for him to tell. _I won't let you trick me anymore._

Uraraka turned and she opened her mouth to say something to Sato. She wanted to stop him as he turned and stormed off like that, but she slowly turned back towards Zach and Iida herself. The short brunette girl with her hair tied back in a small ponytail stared at them in a hurt way, and her eyes locked on Iida's before she asked, "Do Deku, and Bakugo know?"

"Know what?" Zach asked. Iida looked to his side at Zach with his face scrunching up too as that response was not going to help this situation. Zach frowned more himself too as Uraraka looked at him and showed her betrayed face that she had believed him before too. Hers showed it more than Sato's who just let the anger cover up everything else. "Midoriya knows the Doorway Queen wasn't real. Bakugo doesn't know anything but what he's figured out on his own."

"And you're really not Death?" Uraraka whispered again. "Wait, just… Just don't," she countered her own curiosity, as she knew that however Zach answered here it was only going to hurt her more. _He saved me! I can't turn him in for, for what?! I don't know anything yet, and I don't want to! Iida wanted to but he, he changed his mind? I don't know. Zach is Death though. He'll lie about it some more. Kyoka's right. She's been right this whole time._ Uraraka turned away quickly, and she followed after Sato with some more speed in her steps so she would get farther from Zach before letting her eyes tear up.

Zach turned from the trail behind him and he started forward the direction he had been heading before. _Well that was a total failure. The fuck am I doing? Losing that badly is unprecedented!_ Zach sighed though as despite his own inner scoldings, they felt forced. He did not feel any rush to fix what had just happened. _It's not a big problem. Neither will be able to stop me. Or even slow my plans. I can't even convince myself it's a big issue._ "Sorry about this Iida," Zach started. He stopped and looked back at his taller friend who stared at him in an uneasy way. "They can tell you knew, so they'll be pissed at you too."

"Zach," Iida started. He was confused, and he said after staring into Zach's unafraid eyes for a moment, "What are you, going to do? I mean- You were so serious about not letting anyone find out, and just like that…"

"There are more important things," Zach replied. His tone was uncaring. Iida could see that he really did not care about it much, and he believed that after how easily Zach just let it slip up. Zach sighed as he watched Iida's expression of confusion and uncertainty due to the fact that his own actions were contradictory to things he had told Iida before. Zach slid his hands down into his pocket and shook his head after he sighed, and he started in a quiet voice, "I was trying my best nonstop to do everything."

"What?" Iida asked, his reactionary response to what Zach just said as something he did not at all understand.

"I had a thousand different goals when I came back here," Zach replied. "And really, I stretched myself out too thin. There are things that are important and things that aren't. Lies I have to tell and, lies I just tell because it's easy." Zach shrugged up his right shoulder and looked away, frowning a little more as he thought about what he just said. _I treated every single thing like the most important thing in the world. And it wasn't. I just did that because it's how I knew how to live. Because not treating things that way got people killed as Death. That's how I lived, when I had those lives depending on me. I don't have that kind of responsibility anymore. No one wants me to have it, and I was putting it on myself alone._

"So you just don't care anymore, is that it?" Iida asked, his expression getting sterner with the teen he stepped closer to on that dirt path.

"Not about everything," Zach replied without backing down from Iida's step forward and serious accusation. "But you know how important saving Sato was?" He asked it and rose his eyebrows showing he was actually wondering if Iida knew. His old classmate just froze though with his eyes shaking as they opened huge. "I haven't actually said this out loud, Iida. It would be unfair of me to mention like it was important to me. But you know U.A. couldn't lose right after what Fantasma said."

"You-" Iida started in shock.

"I saw those messages and I knew it couldn't be a loss," Zach said. "Sato dies a few days after Fantasma promises everyone that Class A will save them? It would be disastrous. I couldn't let that be a loss. It was _that_ important. Sato's death would have made that victory a defeat. He was brought there solely to make the win even more a win, and because he's strong, but mainly we needed people to see a Class A at the front of the charge." Zach paused and he shook his head at his taller friend who was in disbelief as he stared back at him, "I couldn't let the other heroes there be blamed for letting him die. I couldn't risk Sato's death destroying the momentum heroes had brought up after the villains' recent victory. Villains would have surged even more. Slaughtered way more people. Faith in Class A would have been destroyed making Kaminari into the biggest reminder of Class A instead of their heroes about to graduate now down so many classmates- How many different reasons were there to have? How many different things to force me to go there and save him? I can't mention a single one though like it's actually the truth."

Iida froze and his huge eyes shook again as Zach continued like that. "I can't defend myself when people call me out on saving Sato and not others, because they're right! I didn't care about any of that. None of those reasons mattered to me." Zach said it and grit his teeth in annoyance. "It was just Sato." _When did I become so selfish? When did my feelings for a friend become more important than the greater good? Than the good of the world as a whole?!_

 _He's, he's upset that he cares more-_ Iida shook his head once as he tried to put together what Zach was telling him here. "You can care about saving Sato and all those other things-"

"But I just came up with the rest afterwards, things I knew but- right there I listed off reasons that came so easily!" Zach shook his head back at his old class rep and scoffed at what Iida was trying to say in his defense. "But it's not like I focused on any of that… in the moment." Zach grimaced and he looked away from Iida again before letting out a heavy breath to ease his nerves. _I needed to focus on what's important, and yet I acted in my own self interests. That's not "what's important." That's "what's important, to me." I can't be that person. I'm Lifebringer. I'm in public. And yet that's not even the most important thing either!_

"We told you to go save Sato," Iida said, his voice quiet as he knew he himself had no right to talk about Zach's reasons for going when he was one of those who texted him to do it. "We all felt the same way. It wasn't about all those other things, it was just about saving someone-"

"A friend," Zach countered Iida, glaring at him and shaking his head when Iida opened his mouth to say it did not matter that it was Sato. "You texted me because you cared more about Sato. And I responded, because I also cared more about Sato. Everyone knows, that I did it because I care more about him. Cared. Care? I don't know, but _that. That_ is something I can't do. _That_ is selfish. You said you were going to be watching me, right?" Zach asked it in an accusatory way and then narrowed his eyes even darker at his old friend who stared at him anxiously and with wider eyes as he was finding it hard to come up with a defense or even a retort to that. "But you're clearly as selfish as I am, though at least I know that what I did yesterday was for personal reasons. If you can't see that your text was personal, then you're in no position to determine when I've reverted."

Zach stepped back from Iida, then he turned 180 degrees and walked down the path away from him. "Heard your brother's legs are working great," Zach finished while walking away from Tenya Iida. He rose his left hand and waved it, then curled all of that hand's fingers in and lowered his fist down to his side with a smirk on his face. _That'll keep him off my case for a good while. This was a complete failure of an afternoon. I need them to back off me though. Separate myself again…_ Zach's smile started to drop, and his lips flattened out with his eyes getting colder and staring farther into the distance ahead of him. He noticed Iida turning the opposite direction back behind him and heading away, but he did not look back to measure his reaction or posture. _He knows I'm right. He knows, however dark I just acted, it was in anger at myself over acting in a way too much like Death, so for him to go back on his prior decision wouldn't make any sense. And yet the way I said it was stupidly dark. Thus the mention of Ingenium. Leave him wondering if I really did plan everything-_ "Ahhhh…"

Zach seethed a loud breath out through his barely parted lips. His eyes narrowed as he walked through an isolated part of the park all by himself. He slowed down and looked to his right at a pond he had wanted to bring Uraraka and Sato close to earlier to show them how nice it looked. _What kind of waste of time is that?_ Zach scolded himself with a dark turn of his head away from the pond that he did not see why he would even think of returning to now. _Everything going on right now. My enemies all around me, and I'm still trying to play make up with Class A. It's been too long. I'm done treating this as the most important thing._

 _If I didn't save Sato, I would have lost all of them anyway,_ Zach stopped and he stared between some trees towards the pond that he saw a family walking around the edge of more on the opposite side of it though so they would not be able to see him easily. _So many different reasons to save him, yet if I hadn't I'd lose every relationship I hold dear. All my friends would have turned on me. Everyone I love would hate me so much right now. They'd never forgive me. They'd despise me for not dying for him. And I still just did it for Sato though! All that is just extra benefits… right? Right?!_

Zach's face wrinkled at his forehead and he lowered his eyes down to his right hand he moved in front of him. _I don't know,_ he thought, a disturbed expression on his face as he stared up from that glove a bit. He imagined the burn scar under his sleeve, and his teeth trembled forcing him to clench them together as he pictured the child melting through his arms. _I don't know what comes first in these situations! I think of too much at once! Did I want to save him because I wanted to save him or because I couldn't let him nuke us all?! What reason mattered more?! That kid just saved my life, but I needed to capture the Syndicate and save the Army. And Sato's my friend- but all those reasons! So many reasons I could have just saved him for! If those reasons didn't exist, would I really have been selfish? I think so! I'm just human, after all._

 _But I don't know._ Zach turned away as he saw across the pond the father in the family looking his way as if the man might be trying to figure out his identity. _Assassins everywhere, and I'm worried about how Class 1 looks at me? Kaminari's slaughtering heroes and, and I'm just going to school. Shigaraki's got the nation riled up. They're planning something big- massive! And, children like me are still being born in this world. I have to be better. I have to do more- more things of greater importance._

 _Every one of those things I tried my hardest at, they were not all of equal importance to split my time as I have. I had a thousand different goals and I treated each and every one as if it was an apocalypse in the making. If bad things happened because I failed at those goals, and I wasn't trying my absolute hardest, then those failures would have been on me. So many things, big and small, and I cared about all of them so much but it's impossible to keep that up any longer. I see that now. It's too hard to focus on everything at once, while constantly under attack, and under suspicion, and having flashes of… of just the most horrible shit that's ever existed. I thought I could manage it forever, Iida, but it became too much again. Messing up like I just did was bad but, it really doesn't change much if Uraraka and Sato don't say anything. I don't know if they will. I've saved both their lives before, but then again they both looked pretty disappointed in me there- Kotsumura's right though. I care too much about them, and about what they think._

 _Fuck what they all think. No one knows. No one understands the pressure I feel. The crushing weight of all these bodies. FUCK! Focus! I know, that Class A was going to be difficult. I thought it was necessary to try as hard as I could to fix things there to make up for what I've done, but it's been enough. I have to accept that the Class A's who didn't come out accepted that I was back but stayed away anyway. Others came out and talked to me, but whether I made up with them or not, I never deserved to be able to in the first place._ Zach shook his head and he relaxed his shoulders as he took a walk through the park without any rush to go anywhere. His current train of thought was removing hundreds of pounds of weight from his soul, and his schedule was suddenly clearing up in front of him with an open path out into a more open area of the park without so many trees around him. _I'm done trying so hard for something I don't deserve. Something that, only holds me back. I have shit to do._

 _I guess I've figured it out. These past few days. The hero work with Roady, as small as it was, led to bigger action with the plane crash. Bringing back Sato is such wide scale. I'm back on track. Subspace Devils gave me an easy shot. Everyone else knows me too well now, but Raijin's win will make others act in sloppy ways. I have to follow up on their sloppiness before he can carry out the next stage. I have to take action!_ Zach grinned and he rolled his shoulders in their sockets, cracked his neck to either side in a ready way. He winced at the feeling of the pain in his back where a bullet had pierced through before he turned his innards to darkness, something he had kept quiet about to everyone so no one knew the wound was there, covered in white bandages. The teen smiled through his pain though, _People stood behind me for saving Sato. I thought I would get a lot more grief for it than I have, but people haven't been as much on my case as I or Sato thought they'd be. I saved a friend from Class A and let so many others die every day. I don't need to explain myself to anyone though. I don't need to put it on anyone else by explaining what that feels like._

 _It's my burden to carry. Shit to deal with on my own. And get past on my own._

 _And I can finish this school year however way I like, to do the most good that I still can despite my setbacks._

 _And I do criticize myself more than anyone else does. Yet I know I do a lot of good. Great things no one else knows about. It's not all important though. That murder case was not an efficient use of my time. Some things I do are worth the time though. Things I must take seriously with 100% of my energy. Things to focus fully on with a determined attitude to make them into complete successes. Like my report. As much as it was an aside from my other goals, it has become more now. And it's my turn tomorrow. To change the world, again._

 _I needed this today._ Zach realized it in self-reflection and turned his head to look back the direction of his Class A classmates who were not even on his mind anymore. _My guard was down, intentionally. To reveal what I did is a mistake I don't make. Subconsciously pushing myself to this realization. I am not defenseless anymore._ Zach smiled in a calm way and turned back forward with his path clearing up before him. _The person who hid behind a mask did so because he wasn't strong enough to keep going without it. The person I had been since returning was one I thought everyone needed. Zach Sazaki to return, showing he had not been broken but was stronger than ever. I had to show the people of Japan who I betrayed that I was a hero and someone they could look up to, because I didn't want them looking up to the last thing I had become that they remembered._

 _It was all so important to me back then. I showed them though, then I rose their expectations even higher by how heroic I was appearing to be, which I didn't know was possible._ Zach chuckled to himself and then lowered his grin into a small smile with the corners of his lips risen ever so slightly. _I had to bring them that high though in order to let them down again. They don't need me here. That reason never mattered, since I could only bring it high so they could watch me fall. It was dumb. All my ulterior motives and reasons, so few actually mattered. Darling, isolating my insanity from Death, the League… Eziano. I can narrow down what's important now easily. I've failed at some things which I should no longer try to complete anymore. There's no point._

 _All those relationships I built at Shiketsu were based on the person I forced myself to be too. To be strong, and heroic, and a teacher to my fellow heroes, always. They can never see me as that again. That was the best version of myself, but I was trying so hard to be that guy. Trying hard is good though. It feels good, and people around me were happier, which made me happier… but it was so tiring._ Zach almost lowered his smile, but he shook his head instead and kept with his current train of thought being a positive thing for him. He let out another sigh of relief and also exhaustion, _To try that hard meant I had to be focused on those things, which I couldn't be without breaking my own mind to get rid of all the dark shit that'd clog up my thoughts all day every day otherwise. As rough as it is to remember it all now… there is no going back. Not with the truth known to so many. I'd never be able to convince myself._

 _I have the strength to, the_ _ **ability**_ _to, but, I don't think I have the energy for it anymore._ Zach rose his right hand and slid it up through his spiked hair that he messed around to make it wavier than he had styled it that morning. He smiled a bit more as he did so, and he dropped his hand with a relaxed look on his face as he let out a long yawn. _Right now I'm free. In this moment. I don't have the will to use my full energy to try my hardest every second. That requires a level of self-sacrifice I can't find anymore. Every moment of my life for years has been in self-sacrifice…_ Zach's smile wiped from his face and his expression got insanely dark in a moment. _I'm just boasting to myself. Giving myself reasons to give up on these things- NO! I know I can't, and to half-ass it is worse than just giving up. You know you can't succeed at anything if you half-ass it all. Just going all out on the things that are important though, now that's something I still can do._

 _I beat myself up for no reason other than the guilt; the feeling that I'm so horrible that I don't deserve to take credit or feel good about what I've done. To keep me from taking a break. From relaxing._ Zach rose his eyebrows and he thought to himself, _I've never relaxed in my life. Choosing training alone over video games with friends. Choosing to go with the League, or to be an anti-hero and a hero at once, Death! And all that came with it! And creating my new persona, because I couldn't just give up in that Void._ Zach shook his head and let out one more deep breath of relaxation. _I wouldn't let myself think about it. It hurt too much to do. Would have hurt too much to stop._

The realization was hard to have. It made his expression darken to a new level. He stood still in the park with his eyes shadowing over by his black bangs. _And yet I'm feeling that hurt now anyway because it was all forced out of me, but I'm still fighting too. All the pain I had to accept, finally, even though I always knew that once I accepted it things had to be over as there'd be so much to unpack. I knew it would have hurt too much that I would not be able to keep going! When it got_ _ **too**_ _much, I had just accepted that I was going to die in order to never have to face it. And now that amount that I knew was too much to ever handle is on top of me, and at the same time I'm supposed to care about all this? About those goals, that mean nothing when I think of what else was out there! Things I intentionally forgot about because I'd never be able to take these issues seriously, as they are so small in scale compared to what I've done._

 _I need to finally accept, that it is over. I don't need to keep trying. Not so hard, that I have to spend every second with goals in mind. As has been my life for months. Every action, every step, and every thought were dedicated to a hundred goals, a thousand split focuses as I tried to better each of my classmates individually, better my image in their eyes, strengthen their Quirks to defend our people against villains, make friends with them, keep them from finding out I was Death, dealing with my teachers, graduating, and writing a report. And that is just Shiketsu alone! It was shit that all seemed so important at the time, but I can see looking in from outside that only one of those things truly matters. And only because I've made it something that matters now._

 _I am tired of the rest though. I am so tired- Does Kaminari care? Does Shigaraki care that I'm wiped? Do I think Eziano gives a fuck? Of course not. I waste time standing here thinking about all the bad. It is a waste, and I know I am punishing myself by doing it. I waste time questioning myself too and whether or not this new path will be the right one. I can't continue on like this though._ Zach steadied himself, his resolve matching his expression as he rose his head and let the shadows lift from his eyes.

 _Decide. What is important? Had I let Sato stay dead, every friend I have would have abandoned me. Class A would have lost, U.A. a big defeat as well, and one for me for not saving him. Hero society taking an irrecoverable hit with the loss of a Class A days after Fantasma promised our victory. Their victory. A hundred thousand different reasons to save Sato, but I made my choice for the wrong one. The result doesn't have to be wrong though._

 _It was wrong of me, but that doesn't mean it has to feel wrong. I saved him. I saved a life. That is good. That's all I have to think about._ Zach leapt up in the air and he flew straight into the sky above with a flap of huge black wings below him. _I can act for the greater good when I need to. I can act selfishly too as long as it's still for the greater good. They are not mutually exclusive. So I saved him, not for any of those grand reasons for greater purposes. I just wanted to save my friend. I am selfish. I'm okay with that though. I know I'm not a good person. Being selfish sometimes. It's what I need, in order to take the other half seriously. As long as I get done the most important things, I'll have succeeded. Screw the rest._

 _There are those few things I_ _ **have**_ _to do though. Things that I need to prioritize. Everything else comes secondary._

 _ **Everything.**_

* * *

 **A/N Thanks for reading! Sorry it's been a little while. Moved up north this week, right into the middle of this blizzard hitting NY right now. So I spent most of today shoveling my driveway so I could get my car out and to the ski mountain I'll be working at all winter. Got back home after a couple runs and my driveway had another 4 inches in it (nearly 2 feet by now X/ ) but then I started editing up this chapter (after a couple episodes of Detective Conan). So, sorry about the distractions but I'm starting up on the next chapter now so I'll try to get that one out quicker! Hope you guys enjoyed this chapter! It was a long one, with Zach's classmates confronting him on his revival strategy and their classmate Ireni who was killed, Zach revealing a lot to Kotsumura as he nearly loses it, Sato and Uraraka learning some lies, and Hawks and Endeavor stumble upon a tunnel in a Radian base that looks very similar to something they saw below Raijin's... Anyway, Zach's got his priorities re-aligned, and he's moving on with his report tomorrow! XD Look forward to it, I'm enjoying writing it already!**

yasideen1 chapter 204 . Nov 25

Zach needs a moral compass, someone who understands everything, but can stop him before he goes too far. He needs someone to keep him sane, to prevent him from overflowing with death and snapping. Other than that, great chapter, looking forward to the next.

 **Oh you are right. Unfortunately, no one knows everything he's been through, even Himazuri and Iida getting unnerved and confused a couple times this chapter from stuff Zach says. Someone to keep him sane... would be very nice, but instead Zach's on his own. His Death slips into his fingertips as he feels himself slipping... We'll see what happens. Thanks for reading. Hope you enjoyed the chapter.**

Super Power Sensei chapter 204 . Nov 28

Sato...YOU HAD ONE JOB! You say he's strong Yaoyorozu, but not only did he die, he was the ONLY ONE who died! Sato has made Class A look even worse. And people wonder why Zach doesn't think much of heros(just kidding).  
I've been thinking about this for a while but the whole "people becoming immortal because of Zach" argument doesn't work. Mainly because the people he revives can die again. Ethier from injury like so many times before or natural causes...unless they don't.  
Now its' already been established that people who've been revived gain PERFECT health, so would they die from natural causes? I guess at the very least, ones lifespan would be doubled. And just because their DNA is perfect doesn't mean it will stay that way(because of cell imperfect multiplication). But at the most...if ones cells multiply perfectly, they don't catch any life ending diseases, infections, or cancers, consume the neccessary nutrients for bodily functions, exercise enough for sustained good health, and don't die from injury...then they could just live forever. Children who are revived will grow into adults, because of their genetic instructions, and then just stop aging. They wouldn't get older after a certain point. Old people who are revived wouldn't get younger though. The damage already done to their bodies wouldn't reverse. Rather their internal organs, blood, and other bodily structures become youthful again. They would look old but feel, think, and move like a 20 year old, at least for the next 30 years. From that point their insides would age as if their 30(if they are not immortal).  
A game changer like this is probably one of the things Zach wants to be distracted from. Because for him, he has the responsibility of humanity's future in is hands. People in this story, and in real life, all have their OPINIONS about what life is and how it should be treated...  
Author-sama please answer these questions:  
-What was Midoriya's logic for making the decision to arrest Zach in chapter 194 other than pent up unease, resentment, and frustration of having his "purpose" of number 1 hero taken away? Midoriya has been on Zach's ass about reviving more people, and when Zach finally does Midoriya decides "now is the time to go back on my word about giving Zach a chance and attempt to arrest him?" If All Might didn't talk Midoriya down and he went through with it, he would have officially became the pettiest nigga on the planet.  
-Would it have been okay for Zach to revive Sato if one of the Pro Heroes on the scene asked for his help instead of Zach's friends? Because if so then what the fuck is wrong with these so called "pros"?  
P.S. Happy Thanksgiving Author-sama!

 **Thanks for another long review! Posted a lot of it down here (still not all like usual, though a little more than normal since only 3 reviews I'm responding to). Anyway, yeah Sato dropped the ball. This chapter he was more upset though about the fact that he had let down Zach so much since his return... though seeing him again kind of changed that. People becoming "immortal" because of Zach really hasn't been much of a thing either (not as much as they'd be able to prove it). What I mean is that it's so early on in the stages of Zach bringing people back to life, only a couple of years it's been going on, that people don't know what his Quirk really does to the people he uses it on. Thus, things like what happened in Scotland go down with scientists trying to figure that out, though luckily the Army of Death were around to fuck them up for trying. That said, since they never learned much before getting wrecked, we don't know as much either with Zach likely being the one to know the most of his Quirk and yet he knows there are still a lot of unknowns too (like when he got sick from using too much constantly inside him). And yeah, Zach does feel the weight of the world and humanity's future on him as we see a couple times in here, but at least he's accepted taking a little less responsibility? Maybe a positive. Maybe not... Alright, as for those questions: Midoriya had a lot adding up time after time for why he was against Zach, and I don't think it was a single thing that made him do it but all of it together, considering he already was the last one to be able to hold on back on Inazuma where he almost took down Zach in the first place but held off. Like he was on the verge then learned even worse things that made him think his initial decision was bad, though luckily All Might did talk him down. It _was_ "okay" for Zach to bring back Sato, whether or not anyone called for him, he's still not being arrested for it or anything. People were going to call him out on bringing back a Class A anyway though, as he's so far chosen to bring people back all on his own, so even if he was called to help, people would have still said he could have said "no" but chose to come because he cared more... etc etc. Anyway, hope those answer it. Thanks again for the reviews and continued support, and happy Thanksgiving to you too!**

R-dawg chapter 204 . Dec 1

Yo man, just letting you know i'm still following your awesome story. Looking forward to the conclusion as well as your next project if your still thinking of doing an original:P  
Keep it up bro, stay frosty!

 **Hey glad you're still following and enjoying it! Still focused fully on Death as I'll try to be until it's over so I've got no focus on my next project yet, but I'm glad to hear you'd read that one too! XD Thanks for the review, and the few feet of snow I've got outside my door right now makes me think you knew something with that "Frosty" comment! Lol stay frosty too, and hope you enjoyed!**


	206. Chapter 206: Origin

**Disclaimer: I don't own Boku no Hero Academia**

 **Chapter 206:**

In Shiketsu High's Class 1, much of the faculty had gathered and were seated in extra chairs in the back of the room. There were too many of them actually that some teachers and Norasaki all had to stand, while Principal Memuria who had even showed up was seated next to this class's homeroom teacher who just sat down himself after calling up his student. Hazano glanced next to him at the principal who had shown up without giving an explanation, then he looked back ahead and got his clipboard ready for his notes that he would take on his student's report. _He's finally going to tell us what it is._

The third years in the hero course had to present their reports they had been working on through the third term to all of their classmates. The reports were long enough that they started presenting in early March to be able to get through everyone's by the end of the school year, as only a couple of students could go a day, if more than one. They still had to keep up with all their other subjects, after all, while they were working on their reports and presenting them and editing them into final versions. Teachers were also allowed to show up for the students' presentations, and a few of the teachers in the room had come to other presentations but so far only one at a time, and mainly for students who they had worked closely with over the past three years or specifically on the report.

Muoko Kimi turned her head to the left with a sharp glance back towards some of her teachers who did not show this much interest in her report that she presented the day before. Her eyes shifted back towards Zach's desk though where her classmate just got up from his seat. He walked towards the front of the room without any paper or notes, though he did have a storage drive that he plugged into the computer on the teacher's desk. Zach grabbed the remote off the desk and he walked for the middle of the room in front of where the screen would appear on the blackboard.

Zach's eyes scanned his classroom. _The others who already went look annoyed. Some who were more against me yesterday seem to pity me more right now instead. Himazuri and Kotsumura might have done some stuff for me behind my back. I'm glad._ Zach analyzed their frustrated expressions as mainly focused on the fact that he had brought more attention from the faculty for his report. Then again, even the ones who were pissed at him for getting this much attention despite his report topic being unknown, were still interested themselves in finally figuring out what it was Zach had spent so much time on. He had even given it to them as excuses before when they asked what he was doing when people had died the day before, shocking his classmates that he would admit that though some suspected he may have been lying those times.

His expression was serious as he faced his classmates and teachers. He held the remote down at his right side and took in a deep though steady breath to prepare himself. _Here we go. Focus. Be convincing. Change their minds._ "My report title," Zach began without further ado. He clicked a button on the remote and stepped to the side to allow the first slide to appear on the screen that he did not look back at. "Is: The Origin of Quirks, and the Relation of Death to the Understanding of Human History."

 _What did he just say?_ Dendo repeated it in his head as he read off the title on the screen, but the topic caught him too off guard to close his mouth quickly.

Zach did not pause at all though after introducing his report topic. "Can anyone tell me what caused the emergence of Quirks?" Zach wondered to the classroom. "The simple explanation you know. Anyone?" He asked quicker and rose his tone telling someone to work along with him here.

Kotsumura spoke up, "Evolution."

"Good," Zach said with a nod at his blond friend whose response was one he was expecting. "What else? Anything more specific?" Zach added.

Flugeru decided to play along too and he said loudly what he knew, "Genetics."

"Yeah," Zach agreed again with another nod. "Those are the answers. The simple answers we all know. Global understanding of Quirks indicates that the existence of Quirks is likely the next stage in human evolution. And we back that up because it is genetics that determine the Quirks that most people receive. We use the fact that inheritance of Quirks work similarly to other traits of the human body, to back up the theory that Quirks are inherently a genetic trait."

Zach paused and he flipped to the next slide that showed a giraffe with a short neck and one with a long neck reaching for leaves on a tree. "The existence of Quirks is more complex than that however. Lamarck's theory of evolution was that organisms that changed during life would pass down traits to offspring. Giraffes with short necks stretched them to reach treetops, and they passed down that trait to their offspring. Lamarck was wrong though, as we all know. Giraffes did not stretch their necks. Instead, imagine a selection of ten thousand giraffes. All with different length necks, and the trees are all just as tall as the tallest giraffe, but the shorter ones can still reach some of the leaves too."

 _What is he talking about here?_ Enorma was feeling like she would have been losing interest and thinking that her student was trailing off on a strange rant, if it was anyone but Sazaki. Instead she just leaned forward in her seat and looked closer at the teen who continued in a steady tone to all the people watching him explain evolution.

"The giraffes who were born with the genetic trait of having longer necks, would be able to eat all of the leaves on all the trees. The ones born with traits for shorter necks would only be able to eat the leaves of the lower branches they could reach. Thus, when the next generation of giraffes came around, the ones who were stronger and better fed and better fit for their environment would reproduce more. More giraffes with longer necks would be born and fewer with shorter would. This was Charles Darwin's theory, one that is widely accepted across the world as the correct Theory of Evolution. It suggests that natural selection determines which traits pass on because the animals that are born with better chances of survival will reproduce more, and that it has nothing to do with them changing after birth. Survival of the fittest, therefore, determines evolution."

Zach paused and then continued with his tone raising up in intonation, "So how then, did humanity come to reach nearly 85 percent of Quirk holders in a few hundred years since the emergence of Quirks?" He posed the question and flipped the slide again to continue without giving much time for anyone to ponder it. "Many people believe that Quirks are the next stage in human evolution. Yet we know, or at least we think we know, that evolution take millions of years to work like this. For a single genetic mutation to be passed on to offspring, and those offspring to reproduce more and expand and spread across the world, ultimately out-surviving the other members of the population who did not have that genetic trait. Yet this was not a process that took a million years. Or even one that took a thousand years. What's even stranger about that, is that humanity has one of the lowest reproduction rates of any species on Earth, suggesting that any evolution from mutation would take far longer than it would for other species that could have hundreds of generations in a couple years. That's why in studying Quirks and trying to learn more about them, scientists did things like experimenting on mice, to be able to study multiple generations over shorter periods of time."

A lot of the people in the classroom opened their eyes wide at what Zach just said as a casual mention in his report. Zach made sure to touch on it, "These experiments were condemned and shut down for their cruelty. They have been every time scientists go too far, and that is a good thing, but it leaves us still very much in the dark as to the origin of Quirks. What they really are, if they can't just be accepted as another random mutation that was passed down to offspring. And that, is something that Quirks could not be, if that glowing child really was the first to have a Quirk."

Zach flipped to the next slide which showed a picture of the glowing baby he was referring to that everyone in the room already knew about. "This Liang Wei, born in Qingqing City, is believed to have been the first recorded instance of a Quirk emerging in a human. This is a wrong assumption that we continue to make in the present, but that we make because this was the time that scientists first dubbed the word 'Quirk.' Quirks existed before this child, however."

"Sazaki," Kimona sensei started, interrupting the report as he spoke up towards his student. Zach looked to the man who hesitated at the expression his student made in his direction, but he shook his head and then said, "This is sounding like a conspiracy theory more than a report on facts."

"Darwin's revolutionary theory was nothing more than conspiracy to the people of his time," Zach replied in a calm voice to his teacher who opened his eyes much wider at the teen who said that in a completely serious voice like what he was going to continue with would be just as groundbreaking. It made him lean back and just stare at his student who continued, "Most scientists we look back on as a geniuses, were considered heretics and idiots by the people of their times, because those other people believed in other ideas that those scientists countered with new theories. It is the well-accepted facts that when challenged, make the challengers appear as fools. Yet I am right, and I do have evidence to back up my theories, which counter the accepted truth."

 _He can't be serious._

 _Is he really going to try and counter the theory of evolution?_

 _Zach thinks he knows the origin of Quirks? I mean, he's strong but that's- that's outside his realm…_

 _Sazaki… Has an extensive knowledge of this world,_ Memuria kept her focus on the teen whose presentation she was glad she came to witness. _This is far more than I expected though._

Zach continued after Kimona's interruption. "The main reason Quirks cannot _just_ be explained by the simple 'genetics' answer, is that after the emergence of that first child with his Quirk, they appeared all over the world rapidly. Now there have been explanations to fit this occurrence into the current theory. Something changed in the atmosphere. Climate change has been going on for thousands of years, and it is possible that chemicals that had never been in the atmosphere before were introduced due to human industrial production or radiation caused by our activities, which increased the potential for this specific mutation in places all over the world. Scientists have yet to find any proof to back that up, however it is one of the few explanations for how this mutation could have become so widespread in such a short time that it now covers every corner of the planet. That is not proof. Proof is not just the explanation to back up your theory. It cannot just be an excuse to give for why your theory does not work perfectly. And it is why the common explanations on the origin of Quirks is still just considered a theory in the scientific community, just like evolution, even if both are taught more as straight facts in school."

"There are other explanations though. Explanations that may be considered more far-fetched. Some would call them conspiracies, but to try and figure out the true origin of Quirks one has to look into all the possibilities. That is what I did." Zach paused and he let out a heavy breath, then took it back in in an intense way as he looked around his classroom, "It was something I put off for a long time. Something I knew, was off. That our shared belief on what Quirks were was flawed. I knew it, but…" Others in the classroom started staring at their classmate with wider eyes as he sounded like he was admitting something to them here. "I focused on other things, because this scared me more. The idea that, we were all wrong. And yet I had proof we were, and I saw the flaws in the reasoning behind our science, but I never really focused on looking into it because I did not think it was the most important thing to be doing at the time. Then this report came around, and I needed to come up with a topic to look into and research, and I knew that this was something I pushed so far from my mind but was something that I knew more about than most. And I also know, just how important educating and spreading knowledge on Quirks is." Zach finished that in a darker voice, even regretful as he said it.

He rose his gaze and continued in a strong voice, "But in the generations following Wei's birth, Quirks emerged at a rate too rapidly to explain away with genetic mutation and inheritance of traits by offspring. Unless! Quirks had already existed before Wei," Zach paused and he flipped to the next slide that showed a bar graph with the middle section of it missing. On the bottom of the graph were dates, years going by 20s and a huge section of the graph was just empty while only a few bars existed at the start, and a lot were at the end of it. "This data over the past several hundred years is nonexistent for a lot of it, due to the chaotic times that occurred because of the emergence of Quirks. In the beginning though, as Quirks were just starting to pop up all over the place, these are the age distributions for when people discovered their Quirks."

On the graph that the whole class was looking at, the bars in the very beginning were all high up on the y axis that was labeled 'Age.' The bars showing the average age that people discovered their Quirks was up in the twenties and thirties for the first few bars before the data suddenly cut off for a couple hundred years, then reemerged in recent history when the data started being kept again. In the recent history section though, it was much more obvious the difference in Quirk revelations, as the average age of Quirk discovery was under 5 years old across every data point.

"There are a few explanations as to why this happened," Zach said in reference to why the red bars were suddenly shorter in the past hundred years compared to the initial emergence of Quirks before the chaos. "During the years where global data is impossible to acquire because of how few areas in the world remained stable in the chaos, there could have been a gradual decline in the age when people started showing signs that they had Quirks. That is the assumption to be made and one could easily fill in the graph like this," Zach pressed a button that created a set of bars all a shade of blue instead of red going across the middle of the graph and gradually getting lower for a few hundred years with some variation but just a steady decline until it reached the bars of today.

"However," Zach continued and he made those bars disappear off the screen again. "That child who we believe to be the first to show a Quirk came out of the womb glowing. So we know that back then there were children who showed off their Quirks, and yet after the initial discovery, adults started popping up all over showing off that they had Quirks too. These older people with Quirks, I believe, had their Quirks since they were children as well. In our time we know that once a person hits a certain age it is unlikely to impossible for them to show signs of a Quirk later in life. Doctors declare children Quirkless if they don't show it off early enough, like I was declared before my Quirk revealed itself at age seven."

Everyone stared with wider eyes at their classmate who said in a lower voice, "When I accidentally killed my mother." He paused and then continued in a stronger though still low-pitched voice, "Which occurred because of the lack of understanding of Quirks. The lack of knowledge, and the fact that people are willing to accept the easy explanations rather than push the boundaries and find the truth." At this point, no one in the room questioned Zach's reasoning for his topic choice anymore. They stared at their classmate who stood before them broad-shouldered, talking with a purpose far beyond the grade he was looking for on their term paper.

"If my theory is correct," Zach continued, back on track more and with the full attention of his classmates and teachers more willing to listen to him after he made it personal like that. "Then those people were hiding their Quirks in fear before the 'first' child was born with one. They hid them because there was no explanation for the powers they had until scientists declared that Wei's glow was not dangerous. They said that there was nothing wrong with the boy, except that he glowed. And they declared that his special trait was just a 'Quirk,' or a unique trait specific to him likely from a combination of two of his parents' alleles and a mutation that had not existed beforehand. This _scientific_ explanation gave these other people a chance. The child had just been born, so there was no way he had gotten his power through witchcraft, and he had not done anything wrong to be cursed, though at the time some people still did believe maybe the parents did something wrong to incur that glow in their child. Yet because the glow was not dangerous, even the people who blamed the parents considered that it was more likely the mother had come in contact with radioactive material during her pregnancy rather than she had been a witch herself."

"A witch?" Kotsumura asked, as it was the second time Zach mentioned the word without explaining why he was talking about witches here.

"If," Zach began loudly in a suggesting tone to his class. "We accept that there is the possibility that those adults who appeared to have Quirks after Liang Wei, had their Quirks since they were children when we know Quirks manifest, we have to question why they were in hiding. And the answer to that is simple. They were afraid. Up through the nineteenth, twentieth, and even into the twenty-first centuries there were trials for witches in certain parts of the globe. Anyone who showed a strange power or did something unGodly were considered heretics and witches, and even though in the 1900s and 2000s science and logic started to reign supreme, people still feared the unknown and what they could not control. If governments saw people showing off strange powers that were beyond their control, they would have taken these people and experimented on them. Dissected them to figure out what gave them power so that those governments could obtain the powers for themselves and weaponize them, as people at the time did with every technological advancement."

"Are you saying Quirks existed all the way back during those witch trials?" Memuria questioned her student, getting a lot of the others looking back to their principal who was watching him closely to see if that was what he was suggesting.

"I am," Zach replied. She did not respond afterwards, but Zach gave a longer rebuttal anyway, "And yes, I do believe there was a mix of mass hysteria that caused many people without any powers at all to be considered witches and burned and hanged. Yet we look back on the past from a modern perspective and we say, 'Witches could not have existed.' And why do we say that?" Zach wondered with a raise of his eyebrows and a look around his classroom. "We hear legends about monsters and local folklore talking about demons and strange occurrences throughout history, and yet we say that those things are just myth. We say that those things could not have happened. Books were written of men who could walk on water, or bring lightning down from the sky, and we say that they could not have existed. We don't include any of these stories in history. No matter how much record there was, no matter how many people claimed to see these things, at a certain point historians determined that those stories could not have existed. And this point, was in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries when our modern-day history books were written. When the history we now accept was written by men who _knew_ those stories were impossible."

Zach watched a couple sets of eyes in the room widening, though most people were still just staring at him in confusion and waiting for him to explain more as they were lost as to what he was suggesting. "In the 1900s, religion started to take less importance as science and logic took over as the strongest beliefs in the world. In that time, the men and women who wrote the course of human history into books determined what was and was not real. And the later it got, the more they left out because of lack of proof. They determined, that because they did not see these things in their time, that they had never existed. And everyone else around the world hears these 'facts' that witches were not real, and that it was only mass hysteria that caused people of the past to kill their neighbors and families. People accepted those explanations, because they had never seen witchcraft either. They had never seen strange powers and abilities, and so when smart people told them that those things were impossible, they believed it. And people believed less and less in the strange stories even in their ancient religious texts, if those texts mentioned abilities that they knew in the present never could have and never will exist…"

"But what if that few hundred year period was the anomaly? What if that small period of so few signs of Quirks, was the _one_ time in our history when those powers really did not exist? Or, that the people who still had those Quirks went into hiding because of what they had seen done to people like them over the past millennia of executions by the church?"

He flipped to another slide, with a dozen pictures pasted onto it showing inquisitions, and witch burnings, and mass hangings for blasphemy. "Throughout the West, from the time of the dark ages until around the seventeenth century, the Catholic Church was the strongest single power in the world. Priests and bishops and the pope had more power than kings and their lords in many places. People put their religion and faith before everything else in their lives." Zach paused and he clicked a button on his remote that circled figures in each of the images who had not been focused on by his classmates looking closer at the victims when Zach initially put up the slide.

In each one of the pictures, the inquisitors had crosses on their armor, and the judges at the witch trials were wearing religious garb. Zach explained in a simple tone, "And when people emerged with powers that could challenge their hierarchy, challenge the idea that Jesus was alone in his having strange powers, it was declared blasphemy. They got their power from the devil. They were witches who practiced witchcraft… And when there was a common understanding that to have these powers meant being a witch, someone being born with them might step into that path as they see they have a power and understand that they must be a witch if they have one. Then the church finds people like that in the woods doing the stereotypical latin readings and then using their powers, and they say that they're witches, and those people believe that they're witches, and everyone around sees that this was not hysteria and that there really are witches around they have to be panicked about, _causing_ the hysteria itself."

Zach took in a breath as he spoke fast there, but he flipped right on to the next slide without stopping. "This is why if Quirks had emerged before our understanding of the 'first' emergence, they did not become as widespread as quickly as they did after the modern day emergence. Those who showed strange powers were executed for heresy and for witchcraft and for associating with the devil. Because the people of these times did not have the understanding of science to explain these powers as anything else but magic and devil worship... Or, that the ones showing the powers were gods. But those who would appear with their powers and start getting worshipped would have been even quicker to be attacked by armies of the church, executed with their whole families to cut out the bloodlines and make sure that no one else around them could appear with these strange powers. And though they did not understand the science behind it, what they were doing really was cutting Quirks out. They were succeeding, as those with powers were killed over and over for hundreds of years in stories well recorded not just in the West but across the world. Yutas here in Japan were beheaded for their spiritual rituals, and in every country I researched there were recordings of people executed by governments and mobs for using strange supernatural powers. Powers that those in the 1900s and 2000s determined were falsely recorded, due to their modern day understanding of what was and what was not possible."

"But today if you heard that a man walked on water, would you be surprised?" Zach asked his class. "If you heard a man turned water into wine. If you heard that someone split a sea, or a man created lightning with is hands, or that a kappa looking like a human with a shell on his back appeared," Zach looked towards Kameko who lowered his bottom lip as Zach called him a kappa. "Would you think twice about it being real? No! Because we all understand that it's completely possible that someone like those people I described could exist. And yet we believe that it could not have existed before the initial emergence of Quirks?"

"Why?"

"It's because people for a two hundred year span, give or take another hundred years, declared that those kind of things were impossible. So when they started happening, we believed that they _just_ started happening as before then they could not have. And the fact that after Liang Wei was born, people all over the world at all different ages started showing off strange powers shows either one of two options, both of which back up the idea that Quirks existed long before Wei."

"One option, is that all those people were in hiding or just never attempted to use abilities and just discovered them after Wei's birth. They saw that science backed up that power as nothing strange or without a logical explanation, and so they felt safer to reveal that they also had their powers which were then also declared as Quirks by the scientific community. All different kinds of powers, somehow considered to be the same trait because it was the logical explanation at the time. The second option, is that Quirks can just emerge out of nowhere in people scattered around the world, which would mean that the origin of Quirks has far less a genetic reasoning behind it that we believe. It is _impossible_ otherwise for Quirks to have spread so far so rapidly. I know that Quirks did not just randomly appear at this time though, and all those stories of the past were not all fake and folklore and myth. The fact is, most of history was passed down orally until the last thousand years or so, and even then much of the written history of any story that had a supernatural aspect was turned into just a fake legend during the time that logic reigned supreme. The logic that supernatural abilities were impossible for humans to have. A logic that we now know to be far from the truth, and yet something that we still base our entire history off of because we have not gone back to the stories of the past that were considered fake by historians who did not know what they were talking about. If they saw our world today they would not be able to wrap their minds around our current world much less than people farther in the past would, though those people would probably consider us all as gods if they saw us today."

"Sazaki," Hazano began. Zach nodded back towards his homeroom teacher who continued, "You've posed some interesting theories here, but do you have any proof to back them up? Most of what you're suggesting sounds like speculation, and unless you have proof then your research-"

"Most of what we currently believe is speculation," Zach countered right back at his homeroom teacher. "Because there is little to back up our current explanations of the origin of Quirks, but there is much more evidence to suggest my reasoning is better than our current theory." Zach flipped past several slides with a rapid click of the next button on his remote, showing his slideshow was already longer than most of his classmates who had gone before him. The title of the page he flipped to suggested he had just moved onto a different _chapter_ of his report, quieting down his sensei who felt more like he was watching the presentation of a college thesis, or of the results of a scientific grant. "The cause of the chaotic period following the emergence of Quirks was not solely because of villains," Zach started to the class before him who stared at the slide titled 'Fear And Chaos.'

"'The mob fears what it doesn't understand.'" Zach stated in a low voice. "That was a quote from Philosophy on the Origin of Quirks, a book I read as a child that led me to fear my Quirk even more than I already did. No one understood my Quirk. People feared the power that Death was. The ability to take a life instantly, or to bring life, it was beyond the normal scope of Quirks and it scared people." Zach paused and he continued in a dark voice but steady to his classmates and faculty, "It was something I had feared happening from the time I was seven. I was terrified of the world finding out my Quirk, and I wore a glove just to cover up a contagious hand-fungus and pretended to be Quirkless until I was in high school in fear of what people would do if they found out. I lived in fear that they would call me a monster and put me on trial, because I was afraid, that they would fear me. And then as I stood there in front of the judge, he told me that the Quirk Death, was too dangerous a Quirk. All the other reasons I was up there on trial, faded from my mind. As I realized what I was doing there. As I thought about the way people had looked at me since hearing the name of my Quirk. It was exactly what I thought would happen when it was finally revealed to the world what my power was."

He shook his head and then continued while raising his voice, "Fear, causes people to turn on each other. And my power was- _is_ terrifying. I myself was so afraid of it that I call the dark form I have 'Nightmare,' because for years I refused to believe it existed. I was _so_ afraid of that dark monster that I convinced myself that it was just a nightmare each time I had seen it. For most of my life, I lived in terror of my own Quirk." Zach shook his head in a disappointed way, "And the cause for this is a lack of education. People don't know enough about Quirks, and so not enough is taught about Quirks in school, and children are just told not to use them because it's not safe, but of course they're going to use their superpowers. They all want to be heroes, and yet between kindergarten and high school there is no training, no education courses personalized for children to deeper explain their Quirks to them, and because of this there are kids who are born with 'cursed' Quirks that in many cases turn them into villains. Such as someone like Twice, who split himself into a hundred different versions and went mad as all the versions of himself killed each other leaving him insane as he did not know if he was the real Twice or not."

Porrolo's eyes bulged in front of Zach at the sound of that. Zach continued, "Or even, Shigaraki Tomura." Zach watched as a lot of looks in the room got a lot darker, some even warning him to stop here before he kept going. He went on though, "I know Shigaraki massacred his family with his Quirk when it manifested." He said it and ground his teeth but continued in a pained way, "I know he did because it's what I did. We say that we understand Quirks more now. We say that we live in a logical time still and we consider Quirks as just part of science, but there are people who show Quirks that have nothing to do with their parents' Quirks. My own parents, had the Quirks of Titanium, and Healing Tears. Now I could see that maybe my mom's ability to heal people by crying on them, could be related to me maybe bringing back the dead, but that is a _far_ stretch from what her Quirk was. No one understood why I had that Quirk. People are born Quirkless when both parents had Quirks, and people are born with Quirks when both parents did not have them. And we _don't_ understand. And people who show off dangerous Quirks, ones that scare us and are too creepy, are often shunned and treated badly- And don't think I am justifying Shigaraki Tomura!" Zach snapped into his classroom full of judgmental looks. "He massacred my loved ones in front of me and carved this scar into my face," Zach rose his right hand and pointed at the scar under his right eye that erased all those expressions from his classroom.

"But!" Zach called out, frustration in his voice as he said it so his classmates saw how hard it was to actually get this out. "But I still see what happened to him as a tragedy, and something that could have been avoided if our society treated Quirks differently. If we understood them more… And Shigaraki's not even the worst-"

Zach grit his teeth, shaking his head again in a frustrated way with a more pained expression. "My best friend. He, messed with his own mind as a child. He was experimenting with his Quirk because no one knew the dangers and no one explained to him the dangers of using his electricity on his own mind."

People in the class started opening their eyes wide, each one of them freezing and tensing up at what Zach was saying to them so angrily and yet so sad at the same time. "He was just a _kid,_ and he isolated a part of his mind that only cared about winning, and he gave that part full control… Kaminari, he didn't know what he was doing when he did it. He didn't know, that by giving that part of his mind full control he was giving it up forever, because the part of his mind that cares about winning would never give back control." Zach shook his head and closed his eyes for a second, "Of course it wouldn't, because it knows that the things it was blocking out in order to keep winning would come back and he might start losing. He- he was a little kid and he, he turned himself into the biggest monster in the world because, because no one explained to him the dangers of using his Quirk like that. No one _knows_ the dangers enough, because we are still in the early stages of understanding what Quirks are and where they came from, and we're too afraid to teach everyone how to use and understand their Quirks because we believe that somewhere in the world is someone whose Quirk could have the potential to destroy the world. We are _so_ afraid of that person emerging that we would rather stay in the dark about Quirks and tell everyone to just not use them until they're training to be heroes, and that has created more villains than anything else in the past centuries. It is that _fear_ that creates villains and breeds chaos!"

"There is a saying that without the emergence of Quirks, mankind would be in the Space Age exploring the depths of the universe by now. I believe that. Because our world stagnated. Why? Because the appearance of Quirks created chaos. Mass chaos across the world that bad people took advantage of. Yes, it was Quirks themselves that created that chaos, but villains took advantage of the chaos to make it even worse. They took the fear people felt and amplified it, used the fear to gather followers and-"

"Sazaki," Norasaki started. He cut off the student as some of the teachers had been now, and he started to the boy giving all these baseless claims, "We do not have enough record from that time to say that what you are saying is-"

"It is fact," Zach responded without letting his teacher finish. "I'm not making these claims baselessly," Zach said with a stern look at the bald faculty member whose eyes widened a bit more at how firmly Sazaki was staring into his eyes and stating that. "If you want to know the truth, this topic has plagued me ever since I met a man who did not have a name for his Quirk." Zach paused and he took in a deep breath, before stating in a low voice to his classroom, "There are Quirks that allow people to live beyond the normal lifespan for humans. We accept that that is a possibility, don't we? That someone could live with a power that allows them to live for an extended amount of time compared to the rest of us? That someone in the world could have a Quirk that even allows them to be immortal?" Zach wondered it and glanced around the room at unnerved and disbelieving faces but not one straight out denying what he was saying.

"And this man I met, had lived for hundreds of years," Zach continued. He said it and continued with a shake of his head, "On our own world. He had lived for so long, that it scared me. I did not even want to think about the implications when he did not have a name for his Quirk, because at the time he was born they were not naming Quirks." Others stared at Zach with their eyes huge, and Zach continued in a darker voice, "And he was not the only one. Eziano Mozcaccio and I spoke once…" Everyone held their breaths at how Zach just started, keeping quiet now as their classmate continued, "…And he told me that many had tried to kill him over the past three hundred years. He wished me luck," Zach said it darkly and the room was completely silent with everyone staring at him with their eyes bulging at that sentence. "And every villain in this world who I met who knew of him, were terrified of this man. A person who had existed long before any of them. A Shadow Boss stronger than the rest, who was older than everyone, who was treated as a myth and a legend by heroes and villains alike."

"And All For One?" Zach wondered to his classroom. "We all know that he has the ability to take Quirks from people and give them to others. So no matter how rare a Quirk giving a longer life may be that we don't see any signs of them, All For One had the ability to take that immortality-type Quirk. And he did," Zach said firmly. "He did not just appear to lead the League of Villains. He was Shigaraki's master. He was the leader of the Underworld, known as the kingpin by all Japanese villains and respected and feared by most villains outside of Japan too."

"How do you know-"

"Because I dwelled in the Underworld! For years I have," Zach said with a dart of his eyes towards Dendo who started saying that towards him. Dendo's green eyes widened again as did some of the others', but Zach continued to them all quickly, "And I spent time with heroes, with villains, with vigilantes and anti-heroes. I have been across this world and have seen the underworld below the surface. It's how I know that people with Quirks that aren't easy to understand are the first to become villains! It's how I know that the chaos that occurs in the light is _always_ taken advantage of by villains who exist in the shadows. Even if the root causes of that chaos were unavoidable and un-spurred by villains, villains _use_ the chaos to become stronger."

"Take All For One as an example," Zach continued. "In a time when Quirks were just emerging, he appeared in the chaos. People were afraid of those with Quirks. Why didn't they have Quirks but their neighbors did? Why was it that their neighbors were suddenly so much more powerful than them, and there was nothing they could do to stop them? And that fear and jealousy led to hatred. When people fear something enough, and they gather together and discuss that fear, they get angry. It becomes a _mob._ As they realize that they don't have to fear because there are a lot of them who feel the same way." Zach paused and his voice was darker as he delved into the human mind and the creating of this mob mentality. "And when someone in that group who hates those with Quirks gets radical, they go out and kill a bunch of people who have Quirks because they feel they're _right_ to do so. And then people with Quirks feel more isolated and afraid of those who don't have them again, but they have power to resist. And so they fight back. And some people without Quirks also side with them and call the other Quirkless who attacked them racists, and so even the Quirkless don't know who among them is on their side and who is not. Some people with Quirks hide them in fear. Others use them to fight back. Many try to find peace and come to a compromise, but villains abuse the fact that good people are too focused on fighting each other and they make their moves during civil wars and internal strife and when those cases of domestic terrorism are so high, and they just add even more to the chaos!"

Kotsumura was breathing faster, leaning forward over his seat. Himazuri read Zach's mind but it did not help as his thoughts were solely on everything he was saying, making more sweat form over her face like it was on many of her classmates' at the sound of what sounded like a history lesson of a time they had never learned much about. "And All For One emerged in that chaos," Zach said, lowering his voice again as he was starting to speak faster and louder there for a minute. "He appeared and took control of it, in the shadows. Taking Quirks from some and giving them to others who were jealous they did not have them. He gave Quirks to people who had been abused and who were afraid their whole lives because they did not have them, and those people pledged their lives to him. He stole the Quirk of someone who could live forever, or at least for a very, very long time. And he has been around from the dawn of Quirks," Zach said that in the darkest voice while everyone in his classroom just stared at him with dropped jaws and sweaty expressions. "Or at least, from what we know as the dawn of Quirks."

"But that chaos I described happened in a world that was already based on science and logic. Even though we accepted Quirks were a scientific discovery and not magic or religion, it _still_ created that hatred and fear that it always had in the past. Even though we understood it more that it shouldn't have made us so afraid, as people fear the unknown more than anything! Despite all that, the world still descended into chaotic times for centuries before heroes got control over it. The majority of the time since Quirks emerged has been that chaotic period, but even though things have settled and calmed down, that fear still exists. People still are unsure about Quirks, so unsure that they would rather never use their own and most have not wanted anyone else to be using them either. Nearly our whole world is full of Quirks, and yet in our society barely anyone uses them, and that's because for the last several generations people still remembered that chaos too vividly."

"They knew that the peace of the current age was better than the chaos of the past, so they were willing to accept the negatives of the times today if it meant they could keep their peace. Change, scared them. Because change is what created all that unrest and chaos in the first place. A world on fire…" Zach slowed down and he flipped a slide again. And people looked at the picture on the screen of a teen in a courthouse looking back with a scary determined look on his face below his teary eyes. "I understood that fear from a very young age. And I believed I saw it that day. I believed at this moment," Zach motioned his head back at the screen where he had paused an old recording of his first trial on his own face. "That what I was faced with was a lynching mob coming after me because of my Quirk alone. Because they were so afraid of me. And even though I wanted to be a hero, and save people like my parents, what happened to me pushed me away from this society. I admit that my decisions were wrong, but they're the exact decisions that so many of our worst villains make and feel they were pushed into. _Fear,_ creates villains. People afraid of what others would do to them, join others who they think understand their isolation from the rest of society. And when society would rather ignore certain rare cases, and treat some Quirks as 'unheroic' from the moment a kid develops it, and all that is told to that child is to never use their Quirk again? Of course it breeds villains."

"Because those people who feel isolated are taken advantage of by the villains who already exist," Zach continued softly. "That's why it was so easy for All For One in that time of chaos where so many people like that existed in a world that isolated people on all sides. Yet it was not much harder for Shigaraki," Zach said in a deep and dark tone. "I watched as he recruited people who were no more than low-level thugs, who he gave purpose. People who wanted to use their Quirks but society told they couldn't, because their Quirks were not 'hero-material' and so the only other place they could use them was with villains." Zach shook his head in regret and admitted, "I say this, through not just what I witnessed but what I experienced myself. I was used by villains, as much as I thought my choices were my own. I was an impressionable kid who heard that he could do whatever he wanted if he joined them. That I'd be allowed to use my Quirk however I liked, with villains."

Zach's classmates stared at him in shock and awe as he admitted these things to them without holding anything back. "And I wanted to save lives," Zach continued. "So they let me, and I became even more disillusioned as villains let me save people and heroes wouldn't. I didn't understand it. And if I, as someone who was trying to be a double agent, secret anti-hero, could see how appealing it was to be one of them, then I see how easy it was for them to recruit so many others. Death, was a Quirk that was perfect for a villain. It was a Quirk so unstable and powerful that it terrified everyone, and it made villains see something they could take advantage of. And as I saw what happened in Terra, and across the rest of this world as I dwelled in the shadows that year I was gone, I could see what had happened to me happening to different people at all different stages. I could see the kids who were being bullied and who were afraid of their own powers that no one ever taught them to control or educated them about the dangers of. I could see teenagers being enticed by villains and dragged into their crimes after being shunned by others around them. As 'peaceful' as our society had become, it had become an oppressive system towards a portion of the population because of a 'rational' fear."

"Fear of that apocalyptic Quirk appearing has impacted law across the world for the past century. Bad people continue to take advantage of the fear and the oppressed, making even more bad people who I don't think ever had to become villains if things were just a little different. Yet it's because of these villains that people want things to stay the way they've been since heroes got the chaos under control, so that things don't revert to an even worse time. But that's where we're wrong. We have decided to give up on progress for the sake of security. People say that they don't want everyone training Quirks because that apocalyptic Quirk is bound to arise. How wrong is that though? We have superpowerswers and we've decided to live in a world where we don't use them to better our society, where instead we only allow the use of them to protect from those who use them illegally."

"The tech I use in my costume," Zach continued. "It was created through the use of Quirks in methods never before used but could be used now because of slight variations in law codes in certain parts of the world. My own arm, is only a result of Quirk-based technological advancement," Zach lifted his left arm and turned it with a grin rising on his face. "The most advanced technology in the world was _all_ created by Quirk-assisted tools or with materials made by Quirks or energy that someone with a Quirk that had boundless amounts of it could create." The people in front of Zach stared at him in even more awe as he revealed more facts that most of them were completely unaware of before this.

"It's so easy to see how much the world has stagnated after having the sharpest rise in population growth back in the 1900s and 2000s. It was the biggest technological boom throughout all of history. Humans were always advancing before that. Centuries of advancements that led to the point where we were finally able to come up with a scientific response to Quirks instead of people just condemning them for being mutants or monsters or witches. And though that still did happen on a smaller scale and chaos rose across the world, logic and science won out in the end as we see today. We won, because we accepted that scary new idea of people with powers and adapted our society to it. We pushed forward into a world where those scary things would be accepted instead of just persecuting those with powers and killing the ones we're afraid of. The change wasn't inevitable. The world didn't _have_ to adapt to Quirks. It could have done what it did for thousands of years before and just denied it, oppressed that change and killed those with Quirks, but this time the world was used to progress. We wanted to believe Quirks could make life better, but after the decades and centuries of chaos people lost that desire for advancement to rather search for any means of finding control and peace. People desired only one thing, and that was safety from a terrifying world, a safety heroes provided."

"History often leaves out the 'why' when people choose how to live. Why was it we decided to accept that the government could stop anyone from using their special abilities? Why was it that we accepted that only a small part of the population could use their Quirks? It was because we wanted to feel safe." Zach gave the answer as if it was simple, and it was sounding pretty simple after all he had just said. "Humans decided that security mattered above all else. But if we had thought that way back when that first Luminescent Baby showed itself, well, people would have killed that kid in order to keep to the status quo. Fear of the unknown, is the worst kind of fear. And when those Quirks appear that have consequences beyond what we're ready to face in our current system, people are afraid of that eventuality of apocalypse and want to postpone it by just having everybody except heroes to stop training or even studying their Quirks. Yet Quirks have changed our world completely, and we still live like they haven't! We _pretend_ that it wasn't as impactful as it was, and we returned back to the way things were before Quirks existed for almost all of the population."

"This is the cornerstone of my report. The modern history of Quirks begins with that Luminescent Baby, Liang Wei, and all that has happened since has been what we look at as the entire history of Quirks. If we look at what happened before though and admit that the historians before Wei left out half of history because it did not fit with their acceptance of what was _'possible,'_ we see a trend that carried over millennia. We see stories of people with powers in every part of the world since the dawn of man. Since the first written words, that almost always described some sort of Godly figure and miraculous deeds that the people at the time could only attribute to being godly or monstrous because they understood nothing of science. During a few centuries of technological revolution however, all of these religions, stories, myths and legends alike, were all determined by the people of the time who for the first time became globalized, as nothing but fiction. The internet came to global consensus that denied local stories that even the locals were already iffy on, and who their children started to realize were just myths passed down by their ancestors because that's what everyone else in the world called them. And so the origin of Quirks became Liang Wei, because in the generations before him, the world had transformed each and every one of those stories into nothing more than fiction and legend. It is in that gap between when people started deciding that all those legends _had_ to be fake, and the emergence of someone who could have shown that maybe the impossible _was_ possible, that the world forgot that these impossible things were not new. They were not some brand new occurrence. It was just the first time that they were able to be recorded on videos, viewed across the world in seconds, and scientifically explained."

"But all our explanations of where Quirks come from are flawed. We scientifically explained them because _that_ was the common belief of the time. The same reason those powers were explained away as works of Gods and of devils and witches, because those were the beliefs of the people of the times. We accept that Quirks have to be based on evolution and genetics despite the flaws in that logic, because we believe in science! We decided that the world is run by logic, a long time ago. And so we have fit this crazy existence of superpowerswers into our explanations of 'why' things are the way they are. Just as everyone else, throughout all of history has done."

"But then begs the question," Zach continued sternly and flipped to another slide to continue to his awed classmates and teachers watching him without interruption now. "Why is it that Quirks expanded exponentially now and not in the past? The biggest flaw in my reasoning that Quirks have existed throughout history in those scattered cases, is that when Quirks appeared this time they spread all over the place. And since they spread so rapidly too, why wouldn't they have spread so rapidly before that? And I think the answer to that is in the fact that for millennia, people who showed these kinds of powers were killed along with everyone associated with them. Massacred for defending friends and family who showed those strange powers, which cut off bloodlines at the source. But even considering the times when it didn't happen like that! Even when the people who showed off those powers were not considered as monsters and witches, we still see reasons why their bloodlines did not expand and their Quirks ended with them."

Zach's counters to his own reasonings seemed damning to his whole theory. Even with the witch trials he mentioned, the scale at which he was talking about this made it nearly impossible that Quirks could have been kept from spreading sooner. He continued though, "The ones who were not considered as monsters, weren't because they were Godly men and women. Anyone who showed off a power in the past and used it selfishly, used it for their own gain, they would be seen by the rest of society as heathens who needed to die. The only ones who could show off powers and be accepted instead of rejected, were those who believed that their powers were given by the Gods of their times. If we take Jesus Christ," Zach continued, "and we assume that he had a Quirk, then we understand why his Quirk did not get passed on. Because holy men like him chose paths of celibacy! Figures seen as Gods, often had no need for material possession, for desire, and it was because of their lack of these desires that people saw them as Godly and did not persecute but instead followed them! Yet if a man could do the things that Jesus could do, and he used them to seduce women, or to kill his enemies, people would have hunted him down as a monster and a demon whose power they feared rather than respected. It's only the ones who did not scare anybody who were able to withstand the oppressive society around them that normally rejects Quirks."

"However then comes the question of the strong," Zach continued right away. "What about the people who are feared by their societies, but who were strong enough to face off against all those who resisted them? Or even conquer them and rule over them as kings? They're the ones who I believe the stories are born from. Gods, and monsters, who were so powerful that the people of their time passed around stories of them and told their children, who told their children, who passed it down for generations and wrote it on paper in documents of old we consider nothing more than epic tales and religious texts. But I think what we fail to understand, as a species as a whole, is that 'religious texts' in those times were as much a recording of current events as what we record now. Things we believe now, could be looked back on in thousands of years by people who consider our beliefs and our writings on them as nothing more than our religious texts."

"You think," Memuria began, humoring Zach because of the thought he had put into it but also maintaining a sense of skepticism in her tone. "That the stories from thousands of years ago about Gods are as realistic as our current understandings of science, history-"

"We have a better understanding, yes," Zach countered her with a shake of his head. "But we also believe that their understandings were false, just because we cannot prove them in current times." He said it firmly and continued to his older principal, the oldest person in the room who had spent most of her life with a certain of beliefs that he was challenging. "We are doing the same thing the people in the twentieth century did when they determined that all those stories were fake, if we continue to believe that they're fake solely because those people determined it. They determined that all those stories were beyond just skeptical, and that they were absolutely impossible even though they did not have proof of that. They had an absence of evidence, not evidence of absence. They were not able to prove that those things had never happened, and yet they determined that they were not true because they did not think they could be. Because their current science told them that those things were impossible. So why is it we still believe that? Why is it that now, even though we _know_ that those things are possible! Why do we still think all those stories are so obviously fake that we never looked back as a species as a whole to wonder if maybe the stories and legends of the past had more truth in them than we thought?"

Zach wondered that and looked around at his classroom at people who were stunned to see him actually questioning them on this. "If you try to counter that should Quirks have existed for this long then they would have spread more, I'll counter you just as fast. Who else had Quirks? If we imagine that Quirks back then worked the same way they do now, there should be stories of those with powers passing them down to offspring, shouldn't there be?" Zach wondered it, then he tilted his head back and said, "Oh yeah, we do have those stories. Sons of Gods. Demigods. Demonkin."

Zach flipped past a couple of slides and showed pictures of legendary heroes he had pulled from the internet. "In Ancient Greece they wrote entire tales and epics about the sons and daughters of their Gods. And the reason these bloodlines stopped, is because the strong in those times went out on adventures. They died young, because they ran around fighting with their epic powers against too many enemies, traversing with ships that were not built very sturdy compared to modern ones, and when they got sick they died because they did not have medicine. And once those powerful people who were able to fend off their enemies with their Quirks died, their enemies went after their families. And everyone who felt threatened by their powers, and even their old friends who used to follow them, start to fear the others related to those in the stories who may be discovering powers of their own."

"The same goes for the Mandate of Heaven in China. Could someone with a Quirk have taken control of the country, and then passed down control to their children, and their children's children over generations because those people were the only ones with massive amounts of power who could lead armies because they were seen as servants from the heavens due to their amazing abilities? We saw it here in Japan and over in China, that when child emperors would emerge because their parents died too early, their advisors and people close to them would kill the child or use him to take power on their own. Perhaps because those figureheads seen as Gods would have become too powerful on their own if they trained their abilities."

"All of that is just speculation-" Norasaki countered towards Sazaki with a firm statement as he did not think their histories were that skewed that this was even a possibility.

"It's what the people of their times believed!" Zach countered right back louder at the faculty member. "They believed their leaders to be Gods. Someone then determined that they weren't, in a distant future from that time where they looked back and said that people back then did not have superpowerswers. Because superpowerswers don't exist. Obviously," Zach said that sarcastically and shook his head towards Norasaki who stared back much more hesitantly at that response that he tried to think deeper on but was too hard for him to wrap his mind around.

Hazano noticed it too as he looked in front of the faculty seating into his actual class. _They're finding it easier to accept,_ he realized in shock at the sight of the anxious smiles of his students. Some of them glanced around at each other excitedly even as they were hearing this, asking their classmates with their looks if they were all hearing the same things they were, or if they believed them too. Hazano lifted his gaze back to his newest student who had always amazed him since the first day of class, but had gone far beyond that in the past few minutes. _He told me about cursed Quirks before. That friend of his who was once his enemy but who he trusted since the man had lived his life always oppressed because of his Quirk no one else understood. When he mentioned Raijin though, hearing him talk about his own friend like that made me pity that villain who just killed so many of our own. He made me feel for someone I did not think I could feel for…_

"We are _failing,"_ Zach continued to the people in front of him. "Failing at educating ourselves and future generations by continuing to believe a history written by the people who might have known less than everyone else throughout our species' existence. We believe history as it was written by those who could not fathom what we are capable of now. Controlling the wind, reading minds, cloning oneself, and bringing back the dead?! These things were beyond impossible. They were the focus of stories and comics and movies, because they were that unrealistic."

"Zach," Muoko began to her classmate. She no longer felt annoyed in the least by the interest he had garnered in his presentation. She did still feel doubt though, unlike many of her fellow students around her she noticed were getting too drawn into his theories. "Even if Quirks had appeared a few times over history, and I admit after what you've been saying, I think it is likely there were others before Liang Wei who likely actually displayed precursors to Quirks. Even if that was true though, there is no way it could have been widespread enough for what you are suggesting happened in those early years after the Luminescent Baby's appearance. The average age Quirks manifested in people was older, it had to have been, because not that many people could have hidden their Quirks their entire lives only to reveal them after the glowing baby emerged."

"Why not?" Zach wondered at her.

"It's a crazy assumption to make," she said with a raise of her right palm. "You mentioned absence of evidence. Sure, there isn't evidence of absence, but there isn't evidence of proof either."

"'Once you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be true.' Arthur Conan Doyle," Zach quoted to his class rep. He shook his head at her and continued, "The thing is, I knew someone who was born before that Liang Wei. So I know that that child was not the first to appear with a Quirk, and I also know because of that, that it was not just a change in the atmosphere in that time period that changed human biology across the world. If that is impossible, then what remains is the truth we know that Quirks are passed down from parents to children. So if all those Quirks popped up all over the world at the same time, so often in adults who have _never_ shown in recent history to just pop up with a Quirk after living their whole lives without one, we have to accept that those adults were just hiding the fact that they had Quirks back then. And then children started showing Quirks much more often too, because parents felt less of a need to keep them in hiding."

"That is what I believe _must_ have occurred for hundreds of years in that gap time of Quirk suppression and technological advancement." Zach continued strongly and he looked around the back of the room at his teachers, "In the period where people determined that those abilities were nonexistent, they did so because they thought they had become smarter than everyone else who had ever been born before them. And yet that may have only been true in the most part for people who _did_ still have those powers. As they finally realized after thousands of years of discrimination and horrible deaths at the hands of fearful governments and religious fanatics, that they should just hide their abilities rather than show them off. And _that,_ is where survival of the fittest comes into play more than anywhere else."

A few of the faculty members in the back dropped their jaws as they realized what that suggestion meant. Zach continued to explain to everyone else confused by that, "An evolution in the people who had Quirks, if you imagine them as a different species altogether for the course of human history. The ones who knew to hide their Quirks did so while watching what happened to those who showed them off. They taught their children never to reveal that they had special abilities, and their children were educated on what happened to those who did reveal it. And I don't think this is some massive conspiracy. I don't think all the people with those Quirk precursors banded together and decided to keep their powers hidden. It's just simple to believe that there were those who hid their powers, when we look at the stories and records that exist in every country about their witches getting burned, paraded around streets and executed, beheaded, drawn-and-quartered… The most intelligent who had no intentions of using their Quirks, who would rather just live their lives in peace and have families and normal lives, would have kept their Quirks secret in order to protect those close to them."

"They would have passed down the warning their parents gave them, to their own children. And even as organized religion started to lose its power, those people would have still been afraid of any powerful group who if they revealed themselves, would likely come after them because their power was too threatening to the natural order. That is why I see the gap, and why after supernatural abilities were determined to be nothing more than a trait known as 'Quirks,' there was the immediate appearance of far more Quirks than could have just sprung up out of nowhere otherwise." Zach paused and gauged the reactions of the people around his classroom who all looked taken aback, shocked, amazed, and in disbelief as to what he was saying.

"The reason!" Zach continued firmly after seeing all those looks. "No one has considered this option seriously before, is because to consider it would be to most people to accept that there was some underground society of people with Quirks beforehand who decided to reveal themselves afterwards. But it's not that complex. It wasn't organized. Maybe there were some in that community who knew of others with powers and did stuff to keep each other secret, to help each other in those dark times where everyone like them were hunted. As a whole though, I think it was most likely inside the family that they determined it was better to keep it secret. It's how their ancestors survived. It's how they planned on surviving. But that kid's birth gave them the option of revealing themselves, in a time where they may finally be accepted even with their powers."

"The origin of Quirks, therefore," Zach went on. "Is something beyond our comprehension. I do not claim to have the answer for it. My report is on the origin of Quirks. That was what I decided on because I wanted to get a deeper understanding of it, and yet my deeper understanding is that we do not know what they are or where they come from. My studies were inconclusive, in that aspect. And yet the theories my research provided… theories that I already thought had some merit to them but had never considered too strongly before, have become more than just theories in my own mind. I see a world that for thousands of years decried Quirks, oppressed those with them, and kept that 'next stage' in our evolution from continuing as it could have. For _thousands_ of years, the fear of these abilities kept them from spreading to the greater population. And as soon as humanity accepted them as a part of _us_ , as a trait that some people would have, as much as people started considering women, minority races, homosexuals, all as equals! Only then did they spread."

"Yes, discrimination still exists. And yes! There are still problems here with Quirk discrimination too, but when Quirks were accepted as a fact of human life, we stepped into a stage that humanity had never reached before. We had reached a place where we were that unafraid of the unknown and of greater powers that we were willing to accept Quirks."

"I keep saying 'we' in the royal sense, as in 'us' as humanity as a whole. Because I do consider myself part of that 'we.' We are all part of that 'us.' And with that said I feel we can look back on what happened in the past and see the biggest failure of people throughout history to see _all_ of 'us' as a part of that whole. More than any of those other minority groups, those with special powers have been oppressed throughout history worse than anyone else… Which is pretty impressive considering."

"Our failure at education in the present, is a continuation of that oppression. Our subjugation of Quirks as something we should ignore, something no one but heroes should use, is perpetuating the failures of mankind. Every system we have in place that keeps us from studying Quirks, training them and learning more about them because of the fear we feel of what _could_ happen someday if we do it, is an oppressive system that has been creating monsters this whole time. And I, I think- I know there are children around the world right now who will face that kind of discrimination and hatred and be turned away because of _their_ special abilities which are considered even more 'special' than regular superpowerswers which usually just means creepy, scary, or dangerous ones. I know that more kids will become villains because of our failure as a species to advance any farther than we have! And I have been doing everything I can-"

Zach grit his teeth and he curled his fists at his sides in frustration for an instant before calming immediately. He relaxed and said in a more uplifting tone, "Progress is being made. I won't deny it. And it does give me hope for what the future will look like. We are making strides quickly that are changing things for people with abilities faster than they have ever been changed before. Change to allow Quirks to be used in certain manufacturing and mining jobs. Quirks that are given special permissions for certain charities or jobs that never existed before. Laws have been passed to allow these things in countries now considered the most progressive for those values, and yet those countries have forced the progress to be made in other countries around them and their trading partners who need to keep up as they have an edge in economic competition."

"And it's clear that these changes have to happen in every country because they've started happening in a few. I know a man I met living on the streets here in Yutapu who was angry at me, because he had lost his job due to foreign countries expanding the use of Quirks to more of their people." Zach paused and he continued to smile despite what he just said. "We're friends now," he assured his classmates and teachers confused by his look. "But I understood why he was upset with me, and why even more people will likely be upset with me if they hear this new report. Yet there would also be those who are grateful if I can push that change quicker. I push it for our economic growth. For our safety and the assurance of safety in the future for _everyone_. And the change has been happening more rapidly already as popular opinion changed due to the edge that foreign progressive nations have gained over our own and over other large economic powers who see rivals emerging in nations they never expected to start pricing them out by using Quirks to lower production costs."

As Zach continued on the statistics of this progress he put up graphics showing production levels in different countries based on Quirk laws. Line graphs popped up that showed rapid rises and gradual declines of growth in countries that he described and then gave that proof to show why it was really happening. And then he took the nations with the declining bars and lines of production and public support for keeping the status quo, and he showed polling for more progressive leaders over a twelve month span where the popularity of those pro-Quirk-use figures had been skyrocketing.

"…Progressive leaders who vie for policies regarding law changes in regards to Quirk usage on a broader scale won more than eighty percent of elections last year, with the other twenty percent mainly coming from long-time incumbents who used to have their positions secured. Even many of those long-time decorated politicians were removed from office however, in exchange for newer, more progressive-thinking ones. We have almost hit the point where we have accepted that we can both maintain our security _and_ allow widespread Quirk usage across the public."

"I say 'almost,' but that is not to say it is going to change immediately or even in the next couple of years. Democratic elections for representatives and heads of state take place at different times in different countries at different intervals. Some take place every 2 years, 3 years other places, 4 or 6 other places still." Zach held off and then added, "And even those who promise change often face walls in split legislatures, barriers in pre-existing regulations preventing easy change. This is a new movement in terms of its popularity that has gained ground so rapidly in two years, that the only reason the world has not completely flipped on its head yet is because a ton of older politicians are still in office who don't believe in the changes. Yet the trends are showing that they will more or less be voted out of office in the next year to three years as recent worldwide elections have shown that the majority of populations want changes made in Quirk laws to allow them to use their Quirks…"

Different graphs passed by on the screen behind Zach. Polls taken from across different countries, age distributions of conservative no-change politicians compared to the progressives, and polling over time in dozens of different countries showing popularity for conservative leaders dropping with progressives getting more popular. He ended on a graph showing Ippo's popularity over the past six years and then Nikko's that started later on in the line graph but shot up exponentially in comparison to many of the others Zach had shown. Zach ended on that one because it was the most relevant to them in Japan, and yet he also went past it after only a couple seconds of letting everyone see it as there were other reasons why Nikko got elected that he could not deny.

"…Countries like Japan that have started late will need to catch up, and that is not a belief but a fact. Every nation that has allowed the use of Quirks in more fields of their workforce has seen a marked increase in productivity, and there are things to be said about employment rates and safety but this report is not on what is to come. My report is on history. It's easy to see why historically these changes were not popular though. However, generations alive today never lived through that time of complete chaos where everyone was using their Quirks, and vigilantes emerged to fight, as laws and governments couldn't keep up with all the chaos and mass murderers and influential villains taking power across the world. For decades the world had lived in a relative peace, and anyone born in that time who had only known that world had always wished they could use their Quirks but accepted that they couldn't because that was just the way things were. And the way they _had_ to be… But now they've seen it doesn't have to be that way."

"Now we've seen an Age of Villains of our own," Zach continued steadily. "And instead of it being that rule of law that kept us all alive, everyone saw as people defended themselves from villains. People survived and stopped villains in places where laws had changed to allow citizens to do so. And we saw countries that changed laws like that to get quicker drops in villain rates than countries without those extra defenses." Zach paused and he rose his voice louder, "It didn't prove anything like a pointlessness of heroes, as heroes were the ones stopping villains more than anyone else! But it did show people that to disagree with the way things had been was not in itself actually a bad thing. To do so didn't mean they didn't like heroes or felt the system was broken, just that it could be _advanced."_

"We got the security we wanted and needed after that time of chaos, but now it's clear that changing things isn't necessarily going to bring back that chaos. That chaos can reappear on its own, so maybe the system wasn't perfect after all like we were led to believe. Maybe, it's time for the next step in how the world treats Quirks. For everyone to learn and understand their Quirks. To educate children about them instead of telling them never to use them and just how dangerous they are. We are going to see jobs change fundamentally. The world is going to advance more quickly than ever as technology using Quirk-imbued resources will skyrocket for the utility and cheap prices to create them…"

Zach's tone was more optimistic. He slowed down though and focused on summarizing a few key points, and his tone showed he was leading up to something. "…Possibility for change. The potential for laws regarding Quirk usage to completely turn over. Training of Quirks along with education from a young age. Acceptance of Quirks as a whole too, due to the education which will lead to less fear and discrimination as we come to understand Quirks we previously actively avoided talking about. However, as hopeful as I am, we need to be careful. As we can look back and see that there have been times of huge upheaval like this before which are almost always marred by times of chaos. There are forces at work attempting to create that chaos, destroy the chance at a peaceful progress, and that attempt will keep more people from wanting progress and instead choosing to revert. They will go against those who want to push forward, making even more chaos, so that even if the villains lose in the short-run, they have succeeded at their ultimate goal."

He paused and said with flat lips and a straight expression, "All those things I'm hopeful for have started in places around the world. At some level, the change has begun even here…. But we took too long." His voice rose and he said loudly, "We are in the generation of change. There has never been as much an upheaval in the rules of our society since the creation of the profession of heroes. Or even before that at the acceptance of Quirks as science and not magic. I want to speed up the change we are seeing now though, and I believe I can with this report. To show people their failure, all of our failure, so that we can end this cycle of creating more villains. We _cannot_ fear the villains so much that it prevents us from making this change, because I _know_ that these changes will do more to stop villains than heroes ever could."

"People keep asking me what I'm doing back here," Zach started. His tone was intense and everyone in the room was silent as they stared at their newest classmate, or student, whose speech was intensifying and resonating and yet still unbelievable at the same time. What he was saying now though had them leaning forward as it was something every person in that room had wondered to themselves or asked him about even. Zach continued firmly, "And I tell them I want to be a hero but it's more than that."

He took in a breath, then he said while staring out into a classroom of people with bulging eyes, "I want to stop villains."

Dendo's jaw dropped as Zach stated that while staring them all down, almost like a confession. Zach continued without pause to his class and faculty though, "It's why I haven't been tough on the Army of Death. Why I don't fully agree with how we have to consider them. Because as much as that 'stopping villains' line seems shallow on the surface, I agree with it." He shook his head at the few looks of disapproval he saw starting, and he explained, "Stopping villains isn't about just going after every villain everywhere with the intent of catching them all. If that was it, then yeah heroes have the moral high ground. As heroes we don't just fight villains. We're signs. Symbols for people to look to and feel safe at the knowledge that we're here for them. Heroes, don't tackle the root causes however. The things that create villains, are only fought by people who are not heroes, people who act in their own self-interests more often than heroes do."

"That statement Death made on the walls of Hatto's royal palace resonated inside me. Being a hero, means stopping the villains as they act. It's important! And yet _prevention_ has always been the priority, even for heroes. But it's often the most overlooked because people tend to focus more on things that have already created damage." Zach held his right palm up and said, "They never knew what the bad things would have been if they were prevented, so they don't get much coverage. As it isn't really _news._ It didn't affect anyone, it just _could_ have affected them."

"This isn't a good way of looking at it. If we all look at the big picture and imagine what created our own monsters, we can make it so our children don't have to face those very same monsters!" Zach called it out, and the others thought back on what he was saying about Shigaraki Tomura and Raijin, two of the most dangerous villains in the nation. The foundation of what his report was built on were not research purposes. He had a reason he chose this report, something they all saw him speaking so passionately on, and considering how much effort and time he had put into it not one of them could stick to their old beliefs strongly. Those beliefs were things they had never thought too deeply on to be able to be rooted in them. It resonated especially when they considered the amount of time that he must have put into this, hours upon hours where he could have been reviving people all over the country or the world, but he spent researching to make this report instead.

 _It's the bigger picture,_ Kotsumura thought with his bottom lip trembling in awe as it occurred to him. _He, he thinks he'll save more people with this, than the individual lives he could have… What?! I can't even, begin to-_

"And they will," Zach continued. "Our children will face the same monsters we face today, if nothing changes. Every generation has its villains and heroes, but what if we did something to stop the villains of the next generation in this one? If we can see what created our own villains and did something to change that! On a grand scale, across the whole world. If we change society inherently to prevent the damage I see has happened to so many because of a lack of education." Zach grit his teeth and then yelled out, "I should have become a villain years ago!" His shout startled his classmates by the raise in volume and content of what he said. But he continued in a frustrated voice to his classroom, "No one ever wanted me to be a hero. No one ever pushed me towards it. My heroes told me I couldn't be one!"

He shook his head and then continued in a steady, still upset, but also serious voice as this was a report and not a vent of his frustrations but something he needed to explain to justify the radical ideas he was suggesting. "They told me to stop trying, to give up, and villains invited me to be one of them. They treated me like one of their own, more than heroes ever had… I hate it, but I cared about them." Zach paused and he ground his teeth, but the shameful statement he made was not met by angry looks from his classmates. His pause only lasted a moment and then he continued strongly, "But I love this world. I hate what villains do to it. And yet I don't hate villains. I can't. Because I saw them care about things. About their beliefs, about each other… about me."

The last part came out softer, and his eyes lowered for a moment while the class in front of him gawked and stared with huge eyes at their classmate whose time with the League of Villains they knew close to nothing about except for his torture. "I saw them look betrayed, as betrayed as me and my friends looked when Kaminari turned on us." Zach clenched his teeth for a moment and then said softly, "I had seen those looks before from the villains I betrayed at the Villain Training Simulator. And seeing those looks confirmed everything I had been looking for in them during my time there so that I could try and change them. The fact, that deep inside… they were all just human."

" _Monsters,_ who killed my family and friends and betrayed me and broke my mind and spirit. Tortured my body and carved me up! And yet I know that their existence was preventable. I know because I saw things around this world that showed me what happened here does not have to have to happen everywhere. I tested out solutions for these problems in different worlds!" Zach announced it in a voice frustrated that he knew so few people would listen to all his radical ideas even when he was so experienced and knew more than them. He continued strongly to the stunned forty people before him, "All I've wanted to do for so long, is make it so that other children like me are not given such easy routes to become villains. To make it so that other children with 'cursed' Quirks around the world don't have that outlet, and that there are things in the light, supports for them other than turning to villains! People who will help them, teach them about their Quirks no matter how dangerous or scary those Quirks are or how scary they could become."

"People were terrified of what Death could be," Zach continued back on a personal relationship with those 'cursed' children he was talking about. "More than what it was at the time, they didn't want to see what I'd be able to do if I trained it… And now I have the ability to save hundreds in a single day. Hundreds who no one else can save but me." He hesitated, then he continued with a single proud nod, "And I can't do that all the time, but I still think about those two hundred and six people I saved the other day. As much as saving them has damaged my image, and it's made people question 'why them, and why not me?' I still think about them." He said this softly and with his expression pained as much as he tried for a stronger voice there. His eyes were down instead of on his shocked classmates as he said, "I think about them living good lives, healthy, free from sickness, living with their grateful families who did not have to go through the loss of a loved one."

"I think about those people every day, and how if I had given up any of the days before then, those people would be dead right now." Zach paused and he admitted with his eyes raising to those watching him now, "I was given so many opportunities to give up, because Death to the rest of the world today, is as big a heresy as other Quirks were to people throughout history. And that's why I understand this, because I've understood it all my life." Zach locked his eyes on Bibi's in front of him to his left, "It's hard, not to fear something so powerful."

His eyes shifted over towards Trabo and then past onto Hisashi, "As I said before, the only ones in history who were not feared or rejected were those who were so solely good that people were not afraid of them." His eyes locked onto Dendo's, and he said to the future All Slice, "All Might had power unheard of, yet you never heard people questioning 'what would happen if All Might turned bad?' And that's because All Might was the Symbol of Peace and a solely good influence on the world. Never besmirched. Yet if he did have scandals? Or if maybe he was not a hero but still had that overwhelming power and we all knew about it? People would have been _terrified_ of him. That kind of power, people don't trust it in the hands of someone they don't trust entirely."

Zach paused and then continued in an admitting tone, "And as much as people want to trust me, I've shown my power is far more than anyone expected when they released me from Tartaros. I've shown a kind of strength that scares people. I know what it will bring, I've always known," he said it acceptingly, and without question that what he was saying was true. History was repeating itself in his mind, and those in front of him who wondered every day if Zach knew the way people saw him or were treating him understood in this moment that Zach had always known. "It's why I'm so reluctant to use my Quirk all the time, because the more I use it the more people fear me and the more riled up they get about my strength…"

"The bigger the mob becomes."

Zach took in a deep breath then continued with a small lift of the corners of his lips, "I tell you this not because I'm afraid. I just know that I fit in with the historical importance I'm trying to get across. And if I can accept that objectively, without getting upset over it, I can do more to help people like me who could be born with similar Quirks that others look down on. That others are afraid of, which will ultimately lead them into attacking those they're afraid of as people have throughout all of history, and those attacks will ultimately turn more of those oppressed people into villains. And if those oppressed people were discriminated against in the first place because their Quirks were too strong or dangerous, and we turn them into villains because of our fear and hatred of them, then we are going to create the very apocalyptic Quirks everyone is so afraid of that we have this system in the first place!"

Muoko's eyes snapped down to her desk behind her glasses though they barely fit behind the lenses now with how wide they were. The realization that what he just said sounded like common sense blew her mind, because it meant: _This is a ticking time bomb!_ Her huge eyes snapped up fast as Zach started speaking again, and she was not going to miss a word.

"Our lack of understanding leads us to fear, our fear leads us to turn on people who have done nothing wrong but be born different, and that in turn creates the villains who currently plague our world and will continue to do so until we stop this current track. Lack of understanding is _easily_ fixed. Start training kids in how to use their Quirks safely as soon as they're discovered to prevent accidents, to prevent the very things that turn those kids into outcasts and get them shunned by others because of the bad incidents that occurred in their childhoods that they were not responsible for. I spent most of my life in hiding and in fear because my parents did not know what my Quirk was. They did not know how to handle it. I killed my mother, and the scientists did not want to do much research on my Quirk after initial testing, rather they were just looking for ways to hide it forever." Zach shook his head, disappointedly and showing his clear frustration for the broken system that only sounded so broken to everyone else in front of him now that they were hearing it from his perspective.

"We could do nothing to slow the spread of Quirks across the world to a much higher percentage of the population," Zach started, his tone foreboding. "While population is now booming in a time of peace as it has been for decades since the end to the chaos. And if we continue to oppress people into becoming villains, in a world full of more Quirk-users than ever… the inevitable outcome is going to be the creation of a world-ending villain." Zach said it like he was talking about a time in the not-so-distant future. He declared it as 'inevitable,' but instead of feeling intense dread and fear, everyone just listened closer because their classmate sounded like he had the solutions and that this was not the future that needed to come.

"In a report I wrote my first year of high school I asked how many of the people who wanted to help fight villains and be heroes in their own ways would do so if they were allowed. Well in all those people there would also be someone to counter a world-ender. It's what I've believed for years." Zach said it like despite having thought so for years, nothing had changed his mind and rather right now he was more assured of it than ever. "It's much more important than I believed back my first year, though Principal Nezu knew it and asked me a question on it afterwards, and I regret never editing my report to add it in. Yet it is the most important thing I should have realized because it was Mr. Principal saying it."

He paused and then as everyone was listening as closely as possible, he stated, "World-ending Quirks, are just as likely to appear as world-saving ones, if everyone is trained. But because there are so many more of those who are good and want to do right than there are evil people in this world, I know that educating and training everyone would do more to save the world than end it." He smiled and he added, "And it would do more to make it so there are even less 'evil' people because that education would prevent so many villains from being created in the first place."

Zach kept his smile as he saw the people listening to him were hooked. _They're convinced. And I have them,_ he rose his voice and his tone stayed optimistic as he changed speeds into what sounded like the start of a conclusion. "I never used to go into any of this: all my explanations for why I do these things or why I push them. I just talked about the things I felt most people could associate with, because that would be the easiest way to get people to agree. I think I underestimated everyone else before though considering I thought they would not believe all my reasons. I didn't want them to ignore all my fears and things that I believed could be conspiracies too, because I did not see many people talking about them. Yet I know people are willing to listen. I can see it now," Zach said as he stared into the eyes of those before him. "That it's not impossible if one does enough research and presents their ideas in a confident way not afraid of how others will look at them. Not caring how others might call them absurd, because I know it's much more absurd not to believe and that it's a disservice to the people of the world not to share my beliefs, especially when I think sharing those beliefs will save lives."

"We continue to make the same mistakes that humanity has made since the dawn of our creation." Zach shook his head and called out, "The Dark Ages. Hundreds of years of scientific and technological repression that occurred because those in power controlled those below them through the idea that the church and God and _only_ the church and God could explain things in their world that were hard to understand. Science is just magic to those who don't understand it yet, and so the scholars and the inventors were shunned and executed, and intellectual advancement was stalled for so long. We finally reached a point where Quirks could be explained by science, but then we fell into the same pattern we always have. Quirks are just science? We decided that in a time where everything was understood scientifically, and so we fit the existence of Quirks into that current belief system, even though explaining them on a more specific level gets hard."

"We think the same allele controls skin pigmentation, horn number or appearance at all, fire control, telekinetic or telepathic abilities, or the power to control life and death itself? Do we really think guys like Mendel, and Punnett, and Darwin, knew enough about things they never knew would exist that we should still be trying to fit these superpowers into their limited theories?"

"Despite our current advancements, scientific and in the understanding of Quirks, we continue to do the same things just at a different scale and to a different group of people like we always have. I know this is happening. I can see it, just as easily as if I was looking back on a different history unfolding I'm watching our own unfold in the same way. So we need education on this history. We need to look deeper into it, to put more focus on the truth and the 'why' rather than putting all focus on heroes and stopping villains in the present. Progress and history should matter most, and law and order should just be in the background of our lives." Zach's expression straightened and he said in a firm and conclusive tone, "If we can get past this transitionary stage we'll be in the perfect time for it. And if we don't change anything, that peace we make won't last long. Just as the peace provided by All Might was flimsy, and reliant on his presence alone."

"I am not claiming that I have all the answers! Anyone who claims that has closed their mind to the prospect that they could be wrong, and that alone _makes_ them wrong. We know, looking back on history, that no one has ever _known_ the whole truth about what happened before them or what was happening in their own times. Yet we don't mention this because we tend to think that we're different. We're the most advanced we've ever been so maybe that means we're the ones who really know. That's naive. And we're making the same mistakes people who thought the same thing throughout history have made. And we make these mistakes because we don't know that they've already made them. Those people who could not accept that they were wrong or allow others to challenge without getting angry and fighting the change, created conflict and bad people took advantage of that conflict to turn it to chaos, and it will keep happening over and over and over. Because if we don't learn from history… we are doomed to repeat it."

"And we are repeating it now without even knowing, because our understanding of the history of Quirks, of discrimination, of our human history as a whole is all flawed, skewed, or just _wrong._ And I know that there is little way we can learn it. There are Quirks that can look into the future though so why not ones that can look into the past? To see the truth. Maybe people who could be able to travel through time." Zach suggested it and held up his left hand defensively but not retracting what he just said, "These abilities might sound insane, and yet just a couple hundred years ago _all_ our powers sounded unbelievable. I see a future where we can know the past for certain. Where we could look back and learn from it all, but even before we can do it with certainty, we should still try. _Try_ to figure out what really happened, and learn from the mistakes of the past to make our futures better."

"Death was only a 'cursed' Quirk, because it was a Quirk we did not understand. As much as anyone who showed a special ability had a 'cursed' Quirk in that first age of Quirk manifestation," Zach held up his fingers making air quotes as he emphasized it and how it was the same hundreds of years ago as it was today. "Because any Quirk in this room today would have been one of the very few in the vast minority of that world that barely understood them. Yet back then, even those first Quirks were nowhere near as 'cursed' as those who would have shown Quirks before that time when science had not yet reached the point where it could accept them."

"History does not have to be a cycle forever. We do not have to continue on the path, but to step off we need to look at our past closer. We need to accept that our version of the truth is not the only one there is. And when we can truly accept that those who wrote our history knew nothing of what is and is not impossible, when we admit to ourselves that our ignorance of Quirks far exceeds our understanding of them, only then can one start to look at the past with an open mind. A mind open enough to learn and accept different realities, _impossible_ truths, and things that we could never before accept but have been right in front of us the whole time."

Zach exhaled a deep breath and then relaxed his shoulders and expression at once. He clicked the next button again on the remote, but the slideshow was over and the screen just turned black. Then he put his hands together down in front of his waist, and he said, "That was my presentation on the Origin of Quirks, and the Relation of Death to the Understanding of History. Thank you for listening." Zach bowed to his class after giving the generic closing lines of a presentation as all his classmates had done before him.

He came out of his bow and stood at the front of his classroom looking out at the people before him. _Alright. Initial reactions. Gauge how difficult it would be for a greater scale on a less personal level. Each of them looks unable to speak yet. I left them speechless. That's because they believe me. They know me enough to understand the tone was serious. That every word I said was my true belief. Others who could just hear or read about it on their own would not be so convinced. They would not be as willing to listen. It has to be said in a certain kind of way, at least at first. Once ideas become more considered, it does not take as much to convince more people. These ideas came out of nowhere though. This is the first sample. A group of people who were unprepared to think about these things, who had never considered them on this level, and who have had far too much thrown at them in a single sitting._

 _But I like those looks. I knew if I could convince them, convince the old principal, I'd have a real shot at this. If I couldn't I would know that it was impossible. I should have known though. Nothing is impossible._

Manzo's heart was racing as fast as it ever had. She stared at the boy at the front of the classroom with spiky black hair who looked back out and made eye contact with her for a moment before continuing to scan his discerning gaze around the room. _I think, I'm in love with this boy._ The teenage girl with curly brick-red hair admitted it to herself and gulped nervously afterwards as she continued to stare in awe at him. _Even now, it looks like he's thinking about what's next. This whole report… He wrote it to save children. And he wants to convince us because change can't come if he's the only one who knows those things. And, and!_

Everything she had thought about Zach since he brought Sato back echoed into her head again. The doubt she felt because of his selfish actions, seemed like a misunderstanding to her now as she tried to wrap her head around all he had just said. _The big picture. The long run. That's, what he's always been about. But still… is everything we knew, is it all really… He's not the symbol I imagined him as. I thought he let me down by bringing his friend back, but I've been putting him on way too high a pedestal. His strength and his ideals and ideas, while he's just a person who lost a friend and wanted to bring him back. And he's just one of those "cursed" kids he wants to save. But he's also, he's the voice of…_

 _His report strayed off its main ideas,_ Hazano thought as he tried to come up with a critique as if this were just another one of the presentations he had to grade. The look on his student's face made those thoughts trail from his mind though. _Was that Luminescent Child really not the first Quirk holder? He's convinced so many people here. And if he really knows someone, who had been alive for that long… All For One, is how old? Eziano Mozcaccio, and the friend of his he says is just as old as those villains. His world is so much wider than ours. I've known that, but I never thought he would go this far to try and broaden our understandings._

The homeroom teacher of Class 1 was usually the one to start after the presentations were over. He would ask a question or two of his own before opening up the floor. Most of the class were still just awestruck by his report though that seemed less like a presentation, or even a college lecture. Rather the speech almost seemed like a sermon, yet it was not religion Zach was preaching. It was an entirely different way to look at life, at history, and at what they as heroes should be doing most to help the world. Hisashi lowered his head and his huge eyes narrowed at the top of his desk in a sudden anger that welled inside him. Porrolo finally released a gasp of breath but then panted a few times too loudly that he had to stop himself as he noticed people glancing his way.

 _What are the most important things here?_ Hazano wondered while standing up from his seat. _The biggest impacts. First of all, this isn't about his report. I'll just give him an A on that. What matters now is what he plans to do with it. He has power and he knows the responsibility that holds, but if no one challenges him then he'll go right along with his plans. Education of Quirks is necessary for Quirks like his and for others like his in order for them not to be shunned by society. I can get behind that. Education is a priority, and maybe that's also why he chose this environment as his first place to spread these ideas. He knows educators would be quickest to support the idea of broader education._

Students and administrators looked to Hazano and wondered what he was going to say. They were all shocked by every aspect of Zach's report, but they were nervous to even ask him questions as they felt he sounded so far beyond them with what he was seeing and talking about. The past, the future, the secrets of the world and what was really going on in the political and economic atmosphere. _It's hard to keep up, but,_ Hazano took in a deep breath and then looked seriously ahead into his student's eyes. "New technology created using Quirks would almost surely take away many jobs. The greatest advancements in technology always do, but if this revolution of people using Quirks to create more efficient tech really does occur like you're saying it will, would we not face immediate problems with the rising population and shrinking job market?"

"New jobs we can't even imagine right now will be created by the incorporation of Quirks into the workforce," Zach countered. Most of the room were still staring at Hazano in surprise at his line of questioning considering all Zach had just talked about, but they spun back in as much surprise as Zach did not seem to get caught off guard by it and just responded normally. "It's not an idealistic approach either," Zach added to his teacher who seemed to dislike his simplistic answer. "We can already see it. This has happened in Pakistan, Gorran, Esquomalador, and Mexico in manufacturing jobs. In Mexico, steel and iron production is now assisted by workers using their Quirks. It is allowed only with strict regulation by the government, but it is still allowed. This allowance has cut the employment in these industries by almost a third in only a year. On the plus side, efficiency is up, wages of the more valuable workers are up, and the price of steel products leaving Mexico or being sold domestically have dropped. Those lower prices they are able to sell at will draw in more consumers abroad, and those foreign companies losing customers and profit will lobby their governments and push for similar allowances in Quirk usage."

"So with all of that," Zach continued right away to his class who were surprised by his vast wealth of knowledge to just have that as a case study at the ready only for answering a question after the report. They were not that surprised though. "You would expect that the unemployment rate in Mexico has gone up. The iron and steel industry is one of Mexico's largest. I don't have the graphs and data to show you, but that is not the case which you can look up and confirm easily on your phones if you want. Unemployment has stayed relatively the same despite the changes in these laws that allow fewer people to do the work that it took more people to do previously. One would ask how? First of all, if there are places where unemployment rises due to these shifts, it's only in foreign countries who lose work while also not gaining the same new jobs that Mexico and other countries like it have replaced some of those manufacturing jobs with."

"The tourism industry has risen dramatically in every nation that has allowed greater use of Quirks outside of the hero profession. People who never felt safe to use their Quirks or just did not want to break the law can travel abroad and use their Quirks freely in places foreign nations designate for them. Quirk Free beaches, which don't mean Quirk- _free_ as in no Quirks allowed, but the opposite. Lifeguards working with heroes and authorities as supervision for these areas prevent accidents and allow people to come and enjoy themselves. When enough people show up constantly throughout the year, businesses sprout up around these areas selling Quirk safety gear, or selling food to travelers, opening up hotels and renting out their houses as bed-and-breakfasts to tourists. Entirely new industries sprout up too. Quirk sport leagues have gained popularity rapidly over the past few years."

Zach looked towards Roger Whitewood and nodded as he continued to a fan of American Quirkball, "The Quirkball league in America now rivals American football as their most popular sport. This means that advertisers need big ads to show during commercial breaks of their televised broadcasts, and organizers need to employ food stand workers at the stadiums, stadiums that need to be built- which the Americans have allowed in the spirit of Quirkball to be built by people also using Quirks. Construction of buildings using Quirks required fewer resources. When less resources need to be expended for construction, the building is made at a much lower cost to the public too. Instead of taxes going to a new highway over the course of a month, pay a single guy to pave roads with his Quirk in a day."

All of what Zach was describing sounded so cool, to most of his classmates. Muoko shook her head though and got an intense look on her face when Zach looked to her. "What will happen to the impoverished who cannot sustain themselves in a world where their jobs have become obsolete, and they can't just change to a new one?" Her hard question made some of her classmates look to her in surprise, though they were more amazed as she poked another hole. "Or the Quirkless," she continued. "Who will now surely be treated as second-class citizens when people with Quirks are given preferential treatment in jobs."

"I admit, there will be challenges," Zach started to her. "There always are when it comes to progress." He frowned back as she glared like that was not a counter to what she said. Then he continued to her with a small shake of his head, "There's no point in saying this to me as if asking what my plans are to stop it if I go through with it. I may be pushing it, but this _is_ what I see coming in the next ten years, five years even. Other nations will need to respond to the changes of the ones who have already begun adjusting and are pulling ahead because of it. Public opinion will shift just as quickly as jobs will be lost faster by not changing than they will be by going with the flow." Zach paused and he continued more to everyone once he saw Muoko shifting her expression in less a confrontational way at him.

"It will be a rapid change unlike the world has seen before," Zach went on. "With everyone trying to rise above each other in a competitive environment where they don't have to fear villains because heroes are still there protecting them and villains are still at the lowest rates they've been in decades even with these new changes happening. I don't think this will be stopped, but sometimes you need to just put it all out there and look at everything beforehand. What I'm doing is not suggesting the future we should make but how we can guide the future that's already being made into one that we can be sure is better than our present. It's by understanding what's coming now that we'll be able to come up with countermeasures beforehand so people don't have to fall into poverty, or get discriminated against, before we admit that it is a problem that will occur. As you say it will be," Zach continued with an agreeing nod back at Muoko again. "And I agree that would probably happen if we don't address it early on, because it's what has happened in the past."

He continued with a look past Muoko to others behind her, "And there are ways we can address it now and see to it that those problems do not come to pass! With these advancements will come other gains as well. No need to worry about the poor going hungry, as there are charity groups currently terraforming deserts with special permissions from governments in the Middle East, Africa, North America, and in China and India. Various people with Quirks that can create grass, plant seeds, grow trees and forests, make it rain and fill lakes," Zach listed off amazing Quirks after amazing Quirks with a smile on his face and a hopeful tone full of optimism. "Those people are working to change huge swaths of land in projects that don't have much publicity but are working hard to bring excesses of food to places there haven't been before."

"What are these projects?" Kimona sensei questioned, confused at what sounded like something they all should have known about already if it was this big.

"They are not non-profit, but rather new, experimental 'charities.' Ones no one would have heard of before a year ago because that's when they were created. And since they are so new, it is hard to determine whether or not they will work yet so I don't see that it's strange it would not be considered 'news.'" Zach referenced his report and reaffirmed all he had said before linked in with this. "If these things do work though, and we all come to see that allowing Quirks in these ways saved so many people, change will come even more rapidly. An end to world hunger thanks to Quirks? Clean water everywhere? And an education system designed to prevent villains through Quirk training. World peace, that has already been achieved but in addition a drop in crime so low that the existence of organized villain groups would be put under question. A better world-"

 _How, can I best help the world?_ Hisashi thought it to his own distress and he brought his head up with wide eyes that filled with anger at the sight of Zach's smile. "What are you, talking about?" Hisashi asked, his voice starting out as a whisper but then raising in volume nearer to the end of it. Zach looked his way and Hisashi clenched his fists under his desk, before opening them just so he could curl his fingers down into his thighs. He had never before even considered all the things Zach had talked about, and now what Zach said resonated so much within him that… _Does this, matter even more than fighting villains?_ "Fighting the League!" Hisashi said it, his voice loud and angry but also confused and frustrated while at the same time asking Zach a question.

Others looked to their classmate and as strange as it felt to them, they all understood what it was he was saying right there. Those feelings welled up inside them as well as they saw Hisashi staring at Zach in disbelief, "I, I don't know what I'm…" Hisashi continued it while Zach looked him back in the eyes unshaken. "What I should do as a hero. You make it all sound so trivial now. Everything…" _I've ever worked for. What was it all for! What have I-_

"Remember what I said before. We're in the generation of change," Zach reminded his class with a steady and intense look into Hisashi's eyes that grew huge while staring back at him. "We're in a transitionary period, but the transition can go one of two ways. If it goes the direction I am hoping for and discussed a future for, things could be better as I said. I am assuming a victory in this transition though before we even have to start a fight on any of those issues. Yet getting there is not easy."

He said that firmly and glared around in the most intense way at the others around the room, "There are those in this transitionary stage fighting against that change to a peaceful world where these things are possible. This stage has gone on for years now, and there were those attempting to descend the whole world back into chaos. I heard rumors out in the underworld that the League of Shadows intended to have nations fighting each other, so that they could take advantage of the focus heroes had on other heroes to plant their roots and breed chaos and evil across the world." Zach's voice rose louder and he snapped, "In the Age of Villains, the heroes succeeded at pushing the villains back down, but if they had failed then this whole world would have been fu- in trouble."

He paused for a moment and then said in a much darker and lower voice, "And yet I believe there's danger of a reemergence. A resurgence that could only happen in Japan." His eyes were so focused that some people almost missed what he just said that made each of their hearts beat faster and faster. "Where we have the most dangerous villains in the entire world. Ones who if we don't stop them, will make this transitionary period into one that transitions the world into a period of darkness. Four of the top ten? What happens if they get them all? All our strongest heroes? Who would protect us then?! And villains may push the same things I'm suggesting by allowing everyone with them to use their Quirks, but if they're able to recruit based solely off those principles then why not take that power away from them? It's easy if we give those people desperate enough to use Quirks that they'd join them a different option."

"Villains are considered such because they're people who use Quirks without being heroes, but we can take a chunk of them out just by changing the rules that they play by before they can change them first. And they would change the rules. Because if villains win, they would rule over chaos and crime and a world on _fire_. We need to do everything we can to stop them."

Zach looked straight into Hisashi's eyes after he finished all that, and he continued slower, "We can be heroes, and still accept things like allowing everyone to train their Quirks. Heroes can still keep control, can still maintain order, even in a world where everyone can use Quirks. It's not impossible. It's the only way we can continue progress. But Hisashi, if the League wins then that world I see can't happen. That world of safety, a world full of progress… and a world without villains, can't happen if we don't first stop the League of Villains."

His voice got softer near the end, but it was still serious despite what he just ended with. Principal Memuria stood up and she stared down her student who looked past all his classmates' faces and into her eyes. "Are you serious?" She wondered to the boy. Her arms crossed and she frowned at the teenager standing there in front of her. "A world without villains?"

Zach stared at his principal with his lips flattened. His posture did not falter at her skeptical question seemingly calling him naive with her tone and the wording alone. His intensity only got stronger though, his focus locked on hers, unshaken at the question. Zach gave her his most serious look, and in that moment he saw far more people than the forty in the room in front of him. A hundred faces appeared, on bodies covered in blood in dark uniforms but with their helmets off so Zach could see each of them. Then a blond girl's face appeared behind Memuria's sticking out from behind her head a bit to the left, blue eyes looking towards him with a straight expression waiting for him to finish. _ **"I really do, believe in you. In all of it. You made me…"**_ Her voice echoed in his mind as she stood there waiting for him to say what she had believed; what he had convinced her was possible as she told him at the end.

Zach looked into Memuria's eyes and replied to her skeptical question, "If that isn't the goal, I don't know what is."


	207. Chapter 207

**Disclaimer: I don't own Boku no Hero Academia**

 **Chapter 207:**

DismemberMen walked down a bright tunnel two miles below the surface of Japan. The Radian member waited a moment at an intersection with a smaller tunnel breaking off to the right, and he waited for the shorter version of himself to walk out and back into him. He grew another foot back to six foot three as he was now only lacking one of himself. The muscular man was dark red-skinned and his high-tech costume stretched to stay wrapped tight to his body even as he grew a foot and bulged all over his body. As the villain was about to continue walking down the path he was on, he paused for a moment to stare down the tunnel his fraction just emerged from where the lights on the ceiling dimmed before getting brighter again, only to dim a couple seconds later to a lower brightness as the main tunnel he was in.

The villain grunted and continued walking forward again. He walked to the end of the tunnel where the exit was black and had no door. Through that empty darkness at the end of the tunnel where the light inside it did not seem to spill out, a flash of yellow appeared in the distance and around a corner. DismemberMen marched out of the light and into the dark tunnel that had walls impossible to discern between where they started and where the open air ended. He knew the path though, not that it was necessary as another flash of yellow made it into even the dark tunnel before the open hangar.

Agara turned a dark corner, putting his hands out to maneuver his way without bumping into the walls. He got through the trap area keeping everyone inside the hangar from getting into the main halls of the base where many of them were not allowed. Then the fifty-two year old villain marched through the dim hangar that kept him fully in the shadows as he was far from any large light source. The only thing that lit him up was the occasional bright flash of yellow coming from fifty meters ahead of him in the middle of the massive dark room. The flashes barely illuminated the ceiling up above that DismemberMen glanced towards again, reminding himself how deep underground he was and making him frown as he felt the ground shake below his feet.

DismemberMen glared to his right as he started towards the flashes where he saw who he was coming to see. He looked down the long room where he heard the _**clanks**_ of steel slamming into steel. Sparks flew from dark areas and illuminated workers wearing steel masks that had night-vision visors on them considering all the lights above were either dim or off. A few of the lights closer to him were still on up on the ceiling but did not illuminate too far to the ground, flickering occasionally but staying dim enough that they kept the main floor hidden in shadows.

"AAahhh-" a scream rang out through the hangar and cut off a couple of the clanking noises for a second or two, then those noises started back up again and almost covered up the sound of the next scream. "AAHHH! FUCK!"

"You did this to yourself."

Another flash of yellow came from in front of DismemberMen that he just glanced to once in an uncaring way. He was not here to watch Raijin zap Duke Dread with 10,000 volts at short intervals that each on their own were not long enough to fully electrocute him. DismemberMen walked towards the man watching who wore a black and red long-sleeved shirt, with dark tan skin and big spikes of black hair over his head. "Intanzo," DismemberMen growled as he saw the Radian leader who had finally made it to this base with the other new arrivals.

Furuki Keymar and Manika Esiri both glanced over towards Intanzo themselves, but their boss made a motion of his head for the two to relax despite DismemberMen's clearly pissed-off voice. Splodo and Bitchess 'n Cream eased up and refocused on Raijin as he yelled out, "Restrain yourself!" The blond teen smirked as he held up both hands with sparks coming out of his fingers, lightning trailing down his arms as he prepared another attack on a man whose clothes were getting more ripped up, skin getting more burnt, and who had a flute attached to his right side that his hand was twitching near. Raijin laughed and he slammed his hands down in front of him, making Duke Dread's eyes dart to the lightning shooting across the gap between them quickly but slow enough that he had to watch it coming before it hit him.

"RA- FUUUuuu-" Duke Dread slammed his mouth shut again, his hands that curled into fists at the pain opening back up and twitching over and over. His eyes squinted open and rose back to Raijin again, dark and full of murderous intent. "I'm telling you," Dread snarled. "It's your own damn fault- FUCK!" He screamed it as a thin bolt of lightning hit him in the left achilles tendon, dropping him down to a knee again in the agony that pierced his body.

"There are a lot of nerve endings in your body, and I know where they all are," Raijin warned his _comrade._ "Your mistake by not keeping your Jazz in line is costing us already. Endeavor knows, that we're all working together. We had to move more operations underground," Raijin stepped forward, smiling but with his own fingers twitching as Duke Dread could see with his head partially lifted while down on one knee. Raijin cocked his head to the side and continued, "And bring more people into the fold this early, with too much time on the timetable."

A man standing opposite Dread as Kaminari Denki took a step forward. Raijin rose his head a bit and looked back to the man hidden mostly in the shadows now that there was no electricity flashing around them. "There's not much time left anyway."

"I have things planned _specifically,"_ Raijin countered to Dabi who just closed his mouth as Raijin looked back down at their fellow villain and zapped him again. "And keeping my timetable the same while bringing in more people early puts a strain on my operations, due to the risk of _exposure…"_

Despite the flash from Raijin's attack, and the scream Duke Dread made rising over Raijin's angered voice, Dabi's focus was drawn more to his right side and above. He stared at a thick shadow in the darkness past the Radian members who seemed in an argument, and he rose his head up that dark shape and the scaffolding silhouette next to it. He stared up and listened to the _**clank, clank, chhh-**_ **BRrrrrRRrrRRRRrrSShSSH** _ **ssss…**_ The hammering noises were replaced by saws and then the sound of steel sizzling and welding together as he could further tell by the sparks coming from a hundred feet above him.

"Yeah, Carlos should have been more careful, but he's still our boy," DismemberMen retorted at his leader who he was right up in the face of. The man older than Intanzo was more muscular and did not look his age despite having spent almost half his life inside a cell. "He kept to the plan and went forward because to deny the trade would have seemed strange, and he got caught because of that fuck's sloppiness," DismemberMen referenced the man getting tortured to their side without even giving Duke Dread a look. "But we look out for our own," he continued in a sterner voice getting angrier with Intanzo who he glared at without looking afraid. "And if we don't go after Carlos who's always been here. One of us, a Radian, since the Nara Raid! All the others will think they're not protected either. All the crazy people we've united under our name."

Intanzo nodded in agreement with his comrade before him standing an inch shorter but a hundred pounds heavier with his muscle, and yet still not his maximum size from what Intanzo knew. _He's got a piece of him around here somewhere,_ Intanzo noted, something he had already noticed but had yet to discern where that extra piece was. _He's right too. Carlos had to keep up his previous deals so as not to draw attention from anyone. Even just tipping off the villains we had not let in on the plan yet, which included Miss Management and her insane BOSS guys that we couldn't trust to keep a secret. Backfired though, in this case._ "Don't worry about it," Intanzo assured with a smile formed on his face to give his comrade.

DismemberMen's face twitched and scrunched up in anger and frustration. _He seems to be talking more about himself than the "others" as he claims,_ Intanzo thought, though DismemberMen's aura alone gave that away when he had approached. Intanzo did not get mad at his comrade's attitude or the tone he was taking with him. He was not Overlord, and they were not the Subspace Devils. The Radians were a smaller villain organization. Smaller than all the other big ones, yet more powerful, more insane, and more closely knit than the other villain groups in the country due to their small but elite status. The majority of the Tartaros escapees who had yet to be recaptured by heroes had remained with the League of Villains and patiently awaited their epic return under Shigaraki. The others who remained free from that prison though, who were too impatient to just wait around, were almost exclusively members of the Radians who had actively approached and recruited those insane villains unable to bide their time because of their bloodlust and insanity.

Intanzo's calm expression and understanding look was one of the few things that held together a group full of so many insane and powerful figures. Those traits, along with his strength that made it so he was able to accept their outbursts and attacks and still _forgive_ his comrades, made him the perfect choice to lead the Radians. He continued to the villain in front of him who was huffing and puffing at the calm response Intanzo gave to his serious concerns. Intanzo reached forward and pat Agara on the left shoulder though then gave it an encouraging squeeze. "We'll get Carlos out as soon as Tartaros is under my command."

DismemberMen rose his eyebrows and lost his angry expression to just look into Intanzo's eyes curiously. "As has been promised to me," Intanzo assured him. "Tartaros will be the prison to put all the dissenters and heroes in for torture, as death would be too easy for them and wouldn't squash rebellion as easily in our new world." DismemberMen started nodding in agreement with a look showing he felt encouraged to hear all that. "Those heroes and cops who put you down there will see what it is like to feel so desperately that they are right, and yet be stuck in tiny cells for the rest of their lives. At my mercy. Toys for us to play with, haha," Intanzo chuckled at the end and finished his shoulder squeeze to pat DismemberMen on the shoulder again.

"Now go make sure everyone's working hard back there," Intanzo finished with a nod of his head to the far end of the hangar away from where DismemerMen entered.

DismemberMen looked down that way, then he frowned and looked towards Raijin. He hesitated though as he watched Raijin fry Duke Dread to another scream, and he looked back at Intanzo instead of yelling at the boy who seemed like he would be much less forgiving if one were to shout something at him. "It's dark in here. I don't have night vision goggles on me."

"I'll get the lights on," Intanzo replied with a nod at his comrade who just nodded back in response to hearing that. Intanzo watched as the villain turned and headed away in the direction he ordered him to go, and his lips stayed in a smile but lowered down a bit so they were just risen at the corners. _Agara Inorgami. One of our most important pieces now, or so the Doc says. He's always been though. One of the first I looked for._

 _I still remember watching the news as a child. Seeing what happened to him in real time. The "hero," the irresponsible killer, the tragedy, and finally the traitor, and the villain._ _ **"Look closely at this-**_ **ERRRR** _ **,"**_ The deep voice Intanzo heard in his head got fuzzy for a second as a blaring buzzing noise filled his mind and made the memory shake. _ **"…'What's happening to him?' Simple. What this society does to everyone, at some time or another. Agara Inorgami was considered a hero of the Police Force only a few days ago. He saved civilians, stopped a villain on his own after a hero had been defeated… but he is but a lowly police officer. The prosecutors see an easy target. Heroes see someone trying to upstage them. Higher ups in the Police Force do not need 'heroes' in their ranks, but tools for them to use and discard as Agara has been… Remember**_ **ERRRRR,** _ **this is the way of this world."**_

 _Sensei,_ Intanzo's eyes narrowed into the distance towards the old man he had always thought of as a tragedy. Agara became nothing but a shadow in the distance until he got illuminated by another flash of electricity from Raijin at his side. _I have recruited this man to make right the wrongs done to him._

Agara Inorgami was a name few people in the present knew. The news kept talk of him short, as Intanzo believed to be a conspiracy between the media and the Police Force and heroes who wanted to leave that stain on their reputations behind. Decades earlier, when Intanzo was a child, he had seen the news on Agara that went on for a week alone and was over as soon as it started. He had never forgotten about the officer labeled as 'DismemberMen' however.

Agara had stood in the way of a villain at a crime scene, after the responding hero had fallen to injury and his fellow officers were taken down defending civilians like he was attempting to do as well but failing without the ability to use his Quirk. So he used his Quirk. Agara was praised for a short time due to the videos taken showing how he had not rashly chosen to use his Quirk, but how he had fought first like his fellow officers and only used it when it was absolutely necessary. However, they still found ways to prosecute him. Calling his behavior uncalled for. Claiming that All Might would have arrived if he had just stalled for a short amount of time more, instead of attacking in a way that left the rampaging villain dead.

Agara was arrested publicly before public view of him had started to shift, and then the talking heads turned on him and gave the point of view of the prosecutors' office and that of the nearby heroes who claimed they could have done a better job at arresting the villain without fatality should Agara have waited. Despite the injuries many sustained during the fight, the villain was the sole fatality, and so the arrest of Agara was made despite widespread disapproval. Agara felt his defense was strong, others in his Police Force stood behind him and defended him publicly, and yet it was the members of his same squad who had been the ones made to arrest him outside of their precinct in front of cameras as he arrived for work only days after the incident.

Then, during Agara's second day in confinement, before any hearing was called to determine bail or if the trial would even go forward, Agara Hiroomi was mugged and killed in an alley on her way home from work. Inorgami was informed of this on the same day he was to be released. He was acquitted of any wrongdoing due to overwhelming public support of his actions, despite what the media and the nation's leaders and heroes were saying. Even after Agara was arrested by the very same comrades he had defended from a villain days before, he still believed that justice would prevail and he would be released. When he came out however, he found his wife murdered despite her powerful Quirk that should have been able to protect her from almost any villain. The autopsy report showed she had never activated her Quirk though despite the signs of a struggle shown on her neck and under her fingernails.

It would dawn on Agara that his wife had had the chance to use her Quirk either to defend herself or fight off her attacker, but she chose not to. He did not know whether it was in fear of being prosecuted like her husband currently was, or because she did not want his name to become even more associated with illegal use of Quirks that she refused to use it even as she was about to die. The worst part of it though, was that Agara Inorgami got off of work thirty minutes before his wife every day. He would walk to her office which was twenty-five minutes from his precinct, and by the time he arrived she was usually walking out the doors so the two of them could head back to their apartment together. It was a walk they had done more than a thousand times before together, but he was not there that day to protect her. The hero who arrived on the scene showed up late to stop the mugger, arresting him and sending him to the closest precinct that was Agara's. When Agara heard this he barged into his own station and right into the interrogation room where he attacked the villain and punched him in the face before being pulled out of the room by his colleagues.

Then, as Agara was suspended from duty and shunned by the media and leaders who claimed his actions were symbolic that they had been right in the first place, the final straw broke. The villain he had attacked in the interrogation room was released due to his actions. Police misconduct freed the man from his crime, and the mugger, and murderer, walked free.

He would not be free for long.

Over the course of the twenty-four hours after the murderer's release from jail, horrifying incident after horrifying incident would take place across that city. First came the discovery of various body parts of the mugger's corpse littered around the streets. His arms and legs had been torn from his body, as discovered by forensics who found that no sharp blade was used but rather it was force that tore the man's body apart. There was only one suspect. Agara had not even worn gloves, and the motive was clear.

The captain of Agara's precinct and three of Agara's unit were found in pieces next. The arresting team who came after Agara did not expect that their friend's revenge was not solely directed towards the one who murdered his wife. His revenge became clear, as his own partner was next, with his partner's arm located nailed to a picture of Agara's wife on the far side of the city as his precinct. The scene Agara made there under the cover of night drew a huge crowd in the morning and brought heroes in who were looking for the rest of Agara's partner's corpse before the civilians could find it.

Then Agara's partner wandered into his precinct that had but a skeleton crew due to their losses over the past days. The remaining officers in the building rushed to his side, as his right sleeve dangled empty on his right side and waved around as if his arm had been ripped off. His fellow officers soon realized that the blood on his face was strange, and upon a closer look they realized that the face they were looking at did not belong to the body of the man who had shrunk down in size to better match his own partner's physique. Agara fired his gun from the hand hidden under his partner's bloody uniform, and he slaughtered the rest of the officers he once called friends.

The killing spree ended as heroes arrived on the scene to arrest him. They took Agara down, but Agara had one last kill as he spoke to the hero who had failed to save his wife in time, the very same hero he had saved himself during the villain attack only days before that when the hero had fallen first. He blamed the hero for all the deaths in the rampage. That it was his fault for not standing behind him when he knew they would have all died if not for Agara's _illegal_ Quirk use. Agara claimed that he saved the hero's life, but he demanded it back. He believed he was wrong to save that hero, and it turned out the hero felt the same way as Agara would learn at his sentencing. The judge told him in search for some sign of guilt from a man who only days earlier he had called a "hero" who clearly took his duty seriously to protect and serve. Yet the sentencing for life in prison came down quickly as Agara only smiled at the news of that hero's demise by his own hands.

Dabi had focused on Intanzo for a minute there as the leader of the Radians watched their powerful comrade walk away, though Dabi was thinking less on Agara and more on what Intanzo said about Tartaros. Behind him, sitting on top of a ten foot tall wooden crate with the left side opened for villains to grab materials out of, Toga smiled and twirled a knife back and forth between her fingers. The girl still with some bandages wrapped around her body from Fantasma's attack smiled to herself in a giddy way. "It's too bad Shooty's dead, but I can't wait to see Twice! You think he'll be surprised? I think he'll go, Toga- _chwannn!"_ Toga leaned forward off the box and mimicked him to Dabi who just glanced back over his shoulder once at the crazy girl.

 _You still think it's the same as the old days,_ Dabi thought as he turned back forward, a small feeling of pity forming that pushed away just as fast as he shook his head and started forward up to Raijin. Intanzo was also walking that way, and Raijin had stopped zapping the man down on both knees now who was wheezing and barely looking to hold himself together anymore. As Dabi approached, he saw past Duke Dread, Raijin, and Intanzo. He looked beyond where Splodo and Bitchess were watching from, to where he saw a group of three others staring his way. He at least thought Mr. Compress was staring at him through that mask, the same way that Kurogiri and Spinner were. All three of them fell forward though, lifeless, and Dabi saw a terrifying dark figure behind them with red eyes that flared as he looked into them.

 _ **"You killed her Dabi! You think I'd feel sorry for you? You think I could ever stop hating you?!"**_ Dabi shook his head and the figure past the other villains vanished so he could focus on what was happening right before him.

Dabi focused on Intanzo who nodded at Raijin when the teen looked back to see what the leader of the Radians wanted. Raijin tsked and rolled his eyes as he turned back to Duke Dread, but he did not continue his zapping as he already seemed like he might have stopped doing. Dabi kept watching Raijin now as he stepped right up in front of the knelt leader of the Jazz, but his thoughts did stray onto the tanner-skinned man to his right. _Only two people Raijin really considers on his level. Intanzo and Shigaraki. Intanzo though, I don't get why we aren't following him. Only a few of us know, that he got his Quirk from All For One as a kid. Kurogiri told us that AFO chose him first, but he wouldn't say why that guy switched to Shigaraki for whatever reason. I've seen Shigaraki do some crazy things, but if I had to pick the strongest in the country, I'd agree with the heroes' top 10 villain leaderboard for who's in first._

"That's about enough, I think," Raijin said to the man on his knees before him. The Duke's eyes were aimed at the floor between Raijin's feet as his head was bowed before the teenager. The blond teen continued to the older man in shredded epaulettes and a costume that needed as much repair as his own body. "How about you start thinking for a change though, and not just do nothing because you weren't allowed to tell Miss Management the plan?"

Raijin scolded him like what he was saying was obvious. "Just be smart," Raijin ordered. "And keep your guys from doing anything stupid or that'll draw attention. You _are_ in charge of them, right? They'll do what you say?" Kaminari asked it sarcastically, but his tone had a serious pitch in it too with his smirk getting deadlier and his eyes narrowing on the man below him. "Because if not, then I'm wondering if Shigaraki was right to include you at all and not just take all your-"

Duke Dread brought his head up. His chin rose, and his fists pushed down at his sides. He got up to his right foot, then off his left knee too. "I understand," Duke Dread growled as he stood up, cutting off the teenager who he gave a very, very dark look.

Raijin hummed in satisfaction, more convinced by that response than if Duke Dread had groveled right there at his feet. The leader of the Jazz just turned away after replying like that, then he rose up his right arm that twitched a bit as he lifted it, but rose nonetheless. He snapped his fingers and motioned with his hand away, and a few Jazz members turned and jogged over to his side to follow him off. Varrenzo darted a glare back after running right up to Duke Dread's right side, and the red spikes under his baggy green costume were still glowing as he bared his teeth in rage back there.

"Letting them treat you like that," Ramurai began from behind his leader. "That's not the Duke Dread I know," he said it in a dark voice that got the others glaring at him, though the Duke just kept marching off.

"Careful-" Varrenzo started to his comrade.

 _ **FFwweEE!**_ Ramurai's eyes started to widen, but his hands did not raise fast enough. Duke Dread had his head turned to the side with his flute up in his hands that he just blew a sharp note into and cut Ramurai's throat to the bone. The other Jazz members backed off, while Ramurai dropped to the ground gargling on his blood and trying to hold his neck together but failing over the next ten seconds it took him to die. He fell on his side with his eyes partially open, watching as Duke Dread continued walking away and put his flute back down on his side like what just happened was inconsequential to him. Ramurai was one of his comrades who had been there the longest with him, and he died watching his comrades follow after Duke Dread without saying a word to him.

Raijin completely ignored the quick internal strife that just went on right there, more focused in a semi-impressed way at how Duke Dread was moving fine like he was. _Not many could do it,_ Raijin admitted to himself, as Duke Dread surviving that torture was purely due to the man's own fortitude rather than Raijin trying to let him live.

"What do we think the heroes know?" Intanzo wondered to Raijin which finally made the blond look back. He noticed Dabi looking up towards the ceiling again, at a flickering light that was the only one still somewhat bright at all on the ceiling.

Raijin hummed as he looked back at Intanzo, and he replied with a shrug, "A good amount. Endeavor and Hawks are quick, and they were with Gran Torino when they found the tunnel at El Toro's factory. Your man Carlos really fucked us-"

"He did his job," Intanzo replied. "And the death of Sugarman may have helped us more than that defeat hurts us. It is how you use it," Intanzo said, putting it on Raijin to make it a victory and making the teen chuckle as he shrugged in agreement there. "So they surely suspect some sort of agreement between villain groups. They wouldn't jump to the assumption of us all working together. Not with Carlos _selling_ the weapons to Jazz members."

"It does put the thought in their heads though," Dabi replied. The others looked to the man covered in discolored skin and a patchy appearance. "Hawks won't take long to find something."

"A one-armed man clearly too worried about Zach," Raijin scoffed at the worry for what Hawks could do. Dabi frowned at him as that remark sounded like Raijin was underestimating him solely because it was Dabi himself who had taken Hawks' arm a long time ago. The blond villain continued though with one palm held up in front of him, "He'd accept the limbs Zach's giving out like candy if he wasn't so nervous, which means he's still focusing on Death despite what's happening right underneath him." _Literally,_ Raijin could not help but smirk big at the thought of where they were right now.

One of the lights cut off above them and made it darker between the group of three standing in a room full of people who started voicing complaints that could be heard as fewer clanking and construction noises could be heard. Dabi looked up again and then back down at Raijin who had looked up himself that time. Raijin looked back down and shrugged his shoulders at the other two giving him an expectant look. "Hope you didn't waste too much right there," Intanzo began as the three of them started walking forward down the center of the room. "There are other ways to torture a man."

Other villains who had been around them followed after the group of three, though Toga just leaned back on top of the box and closed her eyes with a sigh, rubbing her hands on her bruised ribs and wincing but smiling nonetheless. Raijin laughed at Intanzo's worry and said, "That's not a problem."

"We're using up the power quicker with every expansion," Dabi added to the younger villain. "It's a lot-"

"Don't worry," Raijin repeated with a chuckle and then a smug smirk as they neared some dark rectangles on the floor that had some low humming noises coming out of them. There was a line of these boxes going out in front of him, black wires connecting them and curving out to all sides towards the walls and down into the ground below. Raijin stopped between a couple of the generators, and he continued, "I've been siphoning from around the country for a few days now." The back of his costume near his shoulderblades started to glow first, then up over the metal strap behind his neck to the headset over his ears that sparked out to the sides and made his eyes start to glow bright yellow.

"Might want to back up, Dabi," Intanzo warned the man on his left, not that he took a step back himself.

Dabi took the warning to heart though considering who it was coming from, and he took several steps back so he was where Splodo stood, the next closest behind them. Splodo glanced at Dabi once in confusion, then ahead to one of their leaders who he had never seen in action before, and who he had never met until today. "What is he-" Splodo winced and pulled backwards as sparks hit him. Then he opened his eyes that he squinted shut in the pain but had to keep squinted almost closed considering how bright the room just became.

 _ **VvvrrRRROOOOO-**_ **HMMMM…** The sound of all the dozens of generators filling with power roared through the room. Lightning raced down metal tubes and leapt across black wires covered in insulation, zapping other generators connected to different power sources across the underground base that was almost out. The entire hangar ignited as the lights on the ceiling blared with light and flashed down on everyone. Power tools people were using sped up, and everyone stopped what they were doing as they could feel their hair standing on end no matter where they were in the room as there was too much metal everywhere for this big of a blast. Lightning flashed over and over as a huge pulsing light came from near the middle of the room still far on one side closer to the main area of the base.

When the hangar lit up like that, Dabi was able to see just how far back the expansions actually went. He could see the entire hangar at once, and Dabi stared miles down in front of him in amazement he kept from showing on his face. _We're only able to stay off the grid despite using so much power, because this kid could power a whole country on his own._ Dabi's focus was still just hardly focused on Raijin though, as he saw something on his left he turned to and looked up at. _No scaffolds. No ladders. Considering the paint job, it looks like this is the finished work…_ His eyes rose from the ground level all the way to the top of it, then back down at the long legs. He turned back to the right and past Raijin and Intanzo and the line of generators before looking to the top of another one in the middle of construction. Then he turned back forward and stared down the gap between the two rows going all the way for over two miles down the hangar full of hundreds of villains.

The huge surging yellow light with lightning shooting out of it mostly focused straight up above Raijin started to settle. He took in a deep breath and stood up straight with his fingers still sparking but the support tools on his back losing their golden glows and dimming down again. Then, the blond boy who smiled calmly after standing straight opened back up his closed eyes and stared down the middle of the room. Villains all the way down the hangar and other people working on the vehicles had all stopped and stared his way, but that single glare he gave down the middle of the room had them all hammering away faster and filling the room with the sounds of construction once more. _That's better,_ the teenager standing in a bright underground hangar thought to himself.

Then he turned around and nodded away in the direction of the main base for the others to walk with him towards. He had only come to the hangar as it was where Duke Dread came to meet him upon his arrival, but he had other business to attend to here that he was ready to get started with. The group headed into the base, and Toga turned onto her side from on top of the box and just watched as the boys went by. She stared at Raijin's back as he slipped into the dark trap first, and her eyes narrowed once the blond boy was out of her sight. _I think I'll kill him._ Toga turned back and lay flat on her back with a look straight up towards the ceiling. She smiled so wide the corners of her lips were nearly at her ears, and she giggled to herself while holding her hands up locked together in front of her chest. _Tomura-kun said not to yet, but I don't know if I can stop myself! I want to see him bleed!_

"How did it feel, by the way?" Intanzo wondered, walking side by side with Raijin down a brightly lit white hallway in their base. Raijin glanced to his side and rose his blond eyebrows at the man who smirked a little more as he continued to stare straight ahead. "When you watched the light fade from Fantasma's eyes? She was strong, wasn't she." The last part came out as less of a question as it was worded, with Intanzo just sounding hungry, and jealous even. His eyes darted to the right corners and stared at Raijin who he asked this to and wanted to hear an answer from. He watched the boy's reaction closely, and he saw the teenager's own smile rise casually but falter even as he tried to gain a look like Intanzo's.

"Empty," Raijin said. He kept his smile up, and he just continued casually despite the others all looking at him oddly for the response with the exception of a purely interested Intanzo. "All of you saying it's such a victory. That she was my _natural_ enemy. It's nothing to me. She was a bump in my path, nothing more. Nothing ended and nothing began." Raijin sighed and rolled his eyes as he continued down the hall. "She's not the one I'm after."

"Only Lifebringer then?" Intanzo wondered to the boy.

"If it weren't for Zach," Raijin replied with a chuckle. He shook his head and stopped laughing, saying in a lower voice, "Never mind."

Splodo stopped walking behind the pair whose conversation he was quietly listening to. Sweat formed on both sides of his face as Intanzo tilted his head back and let out a loud laugh before smirking insanely and in an incredibly amused way. _I'm right,_ Keymar realized from Intanzo's reaction to what Raijin just said. _Holy shit. Oh fuck! It's really that close?!_

 _If it weren't for Lifebringer, Raijin thinks this would be too easy._

 _A couple kids are determining the fate of this country,_ Dabi thought while following the spiky-haired teen whose long blond hair fell past his shoulderblades. _And I know better than anyone, all this one cares about is killing Sazaki. I saw you in those days after as we ran without Kurogiri to help us. Barely avoiding Endeavor and Hawks. Cornered and without a play. I knew back then, that whatever came next this was your ultimate destination. One last rematch with the kid…_

Dabi kept staring forward even as Raijin's head turned to the side with his eyes glaring back into Dabi's. "You don't think I can do it?" Raijin asked.

Dabi tilted his head back in surprise, which annoyed Raijin more as he realized he was wrong in what he just assumed based on Dabi's reaction. "I'll hold my bets," Dabi replied, not denying that he was thinking about it, though he was not picking a winner in his head yet. "You better win though."

"Hmph," Raijin looked back straight ahead and grinned again to himself. "That's not going to be a problem. I mean, it would be tougher, if I had to face him myself." Others behind Raijin who were thinking he was being too cocky got confused at his continuation. "Even then, I'd still win. But if all goes well it'll never come to that. After all, Zach making it until the day of is seeming less likely by the hour."

Raijin flicked his index finger in front of him and sent a bolt of electricity down the hall into a keypad that activated to open a round steel door out to either side. "Zach's worst enemy is himself. We can get rid of him before the plan starts. That's the goal. That's always been the plan," Raijin added with a smirk and look back to show he had not changed this just because of scary things Lifebringer had been doing recently. Then he turned back forward and headed into the next room that was not as large as the hangar but still a massive area for the underground laboratory.

There was a flight of metal stairs just inside of the door, and Raijin headed down them without looking around at all the machinery around the room people were working at or plugged into themselves. He moved around to the right side of the room and towards a line of hospital-like beds that were all attached to huge metal machines, with men and women alike strapped to the beds and sedated into unconsciousness. "This place is even more massive than the last one," Splodo muttered in reference to the entire base while looking around another huge room full of expensive machines and dozens of more people he had never seen before.

"It was worth renting _him_ out from King before Death took him down," Intanzo remarked. Splodo looked to Intanzo confusedly, and the leader of the Radians continued with a look to the younger villain, "We've got his Digger working solely for us, and Raijin's plans are all based around the Digger now."

"Dice!" Raijin yelled out.

"Haven't seen this Digger," Splodo muttered under his breath. He wondered where the guy who could make places like this was, and just who he was though he kept quiet about that since everyone else seemed in the loop already.

"Ah, Raijin-san! Intanzo-san!" A loud but shrill male's voice called out, and clanking noises came out from between a couple of machines down the line of hospital beds where a tall, bald man in a white lab coat just poked his head out from behind. He ran out from behind the machines and tossed a wrench onto a metal table next to him before running down their way, blood dripping off the rubber yellow gloves he had on though the scientist did not even seem to notice it. "Come now, doctor," the scientist snapped to his right at an older Indian-Japanese man who was sitting on a chair behind a curved desk where he was forced to watch over these patients. "It is rude to keep them waiting!"

The two were taking too long to get over to them, and Dabi figured they had a minute so he asked what was on his mind due to the conversation about Digger. "How's it going on Shigaraki and Rikiya's end?" Intanzo glanced bad at the lean man with similarly spiky black hair though more evenly spiked and not as high up over Dabi's head as his random large spikes were.

"Fine," Intanzo replied curtly.

"Focus on getting the arsenal deployed," Raijin remarked too while stepping forward away from a further annoyed Dabi who just grunted in acknowledgement. "Discreetly," Raijin added, pausing for a second and saying it to the man behind him without turning around. "There's no doubt in my mind Zach's already on the lookout for our movements, and there's the possibility he already knows we have the Digger, though I doubt it. Zach is looking for us though, and underground is not beyond his scope of search. He showed up in Mythril's old base underneath Rasheed Corp."

"Wait, what?" Bitchess wondered in confusion.

The mad scientist and the reluctant surgeon Dice pulled with him by the sleeve slowed down and listened in too as Raijin turned and spoke to those behind him with mild annoyance at the need to explain himself. "The cameras I left in an old anti-hero lair were instantly spotted by Zach, and he went around smashing apart everything in the base. He deactivated the bombs he found that I didn't set off. I noticed that Zach noted that I didn't do that either."

As much as it sounded like Raijin was ten steps ahead here, Dabi felt differently about it. "You think Zach knows that we're using Rasheed now?" Kaminari turned to him and lowered his lips into more of a frown as Dabi continued, "If so, we have to make sure that Rasheed and Nikko are not seen together."

The 'doctor' who Dice had dragged over felt his skin cover in sweat. The elderly man of Indian descent felt unnerved at the thought of the Prime Minister's name just being mentioned, but the villains in front of him ignored the fact that he was there as they discussed it, which scared him much more. _Do they ever plan on letting me leave here alive? They said I wouldn't be killed if I… They'd never let me live now-_

"It's no issue," Raijin replied to Dabi with a single shake of his head at the concern. "It looked more to me like Zach believes the League of Villains really had lost lots of power. He arrived there before the show of Best Jeanist, Miruko, Fantasma and the others' executions, back when the League was still off the radar…" Raijin turned a bit and smirked at the surgeon who had been missing from the surface for a few weeks now. He just gave the shocked man an evil and menacing look showing that what he just said about the heroes was truth which terrified the doctor all the more. "I suspect Zach thinks that when I first went on my purge of the anti-heroes, I left the cameras there for anyone who came by afterwards looking for Ganji, and I left the bombs to detonate and kill them if anyone showed… Which was true."

"But after so long," Raijin continued. "Despite the cameras and bombs still working, Zach saw the dust that had accumulated and figured no one was watching the feeds constantly. And he probably confirmed that to himself when he was able to deactivate everything without incident."

"After the recent attack, Zach might think differently-" Dabi started to suggest.

"I spoke directly to Zach for that reason though," Raijin countered right back with a bigger grin as he had pre-empted these concerns far in advance. Dabi's eyes widened more this time, and Raijin explained in a way that made even Intanzo raise his eyebrows in surprise at him, "Without even mentioning seeing Zach down there. As if it were the first time I had seen him or that we were interacting in a private sense since his return. As if I had no idea that he is searching for me. Dabi, I know how Zach thinks better than anyone, so you shouldn't worry." He rose his pitch in a cheerful tone suggesting it was the end of the conversation and there was no need to continue it.

 _You were fooled before,_ Dabi thought, yet he knew much better than to say that aloud to the younger man.

The villains turned their focus onto Dice, otherwise known across most of their forces as just "Doc." Even "Dice" was more of nickname than anything, and while some people called him "Doc" due to the work he was doing, others called him by that shortened name of his. As "Dice," was just them shortening the name the doctor had picked for himself: Dissector. Dice gave a concise progress report to the leaders of their organization who followed him around the room and listened to him show off his experiments.

In the middle of the scientist's explanation on one of the biotech implants they were working on adjusting certain limb-less villains with, Raijin cut him off, "I need those adjustments finished within the month. You said you had this covered, _Doc._ I even brought in the help you said you needed," he continued with a motion at Dr. Suresh who he had kidnapped himself and who just gulped and stayed quiet when the teen looked his way.

"It is not… It's not as simple as I thought, to recreate the materials I need just based off blueprints," Dice paused and he grit his teeth in more frustration than fear of Raijin's anger. He looked mad at his own failures more than Raijin was angry at him, and the mad scientist put his hands up onto his bald head that he scratched over and over in a gross way that made flakes fall from his scalp. The digging into his own skin reminded a few of them of someone when he got angry, and Dabi rose his eyebrows as he wondered if Dice was mocking Shigaraki or if this was something the doc actually felt the need to do too. Dice continued in annoyance, "Virtucorp's designs don't work- it's not a matter of going around their patents. It's like a secret recipe!"

"As in," Intanzo began as he put it together himself. "They're afraid of us doing this exact thing, and so they've kept certain aspects of their work in total secrecy."

"Can you make as good of limbs as what Zach has?" Raijin asked, his eyes narrowing at his scientist who rose his gaze and met the boy's.

"Without insider information on how they were made?" Dice paused and then shook his head, "Not in the time span we have."

"We could heist Virtucorp," Splodo suggested, catching up with what was going on and bringing it up to his superiors who looked back to the man who had been following them around as no one told him he couldn't. "Steal-"

"And incur the wrath of the Army of Death?" Intanzo wondered back at the younger villain who hesitated at the question. "What we know of Virtucorp, is that their main headquarters is somewhere unknown. There are great doctors on their website whose addresses have changed to locations where those people do not live, addresses in the middle of nowhere. Their families are missing, they've been missing, and they randomly show up in civilization once in a while like it's completely normal."

"Wait… what are you-"

"The Army of Death is behind Virtucorp," Raijin said in simpler terms for Splodo. "And we don't directly piss them off. They stay out of Japan, but they won't wait until after our rise if we move internationally this early. Zach, Endeavor, Deku, the ADTF, and the Army of Death. We can take on half of them at a time, or we can take all five of those forces at once. The second we bring the Army of Death here, they'll bring the ADTF after them. As much planning as I've put into this, as powerful as we are, that would be a difficult adjustment to face them all at the same time. So we deal with not having the kind of prosthetics Zach is supplying heroes with. It's one area he's ahead of us, and I guess I'll just have to accept that."

Raijin finished with a half-shrug, but as he was turning away he did look back at Dice and the other doctor. "Though I would be very pleased if you could change this report, soon." He gave the two an encouraging smile then turned the rest of the way and headed back towards the stairs where he had noticed some people at the door of the lab.

Splodo chuckled to himself as Raijin was walking by him, because he kept looking towards the two doctors who each gained similar looks on their faces after that single statement from Raijin that sounded way too friendly for the mass hero-murdering teenager. He turned after the blond teen and grinned as he followed right after him, now the one right behind as Intanzo and Dabi stayed farther back and were now discussing something else. Keymar watched Kaminari's back and smiled wide as he thought of all he had seen of him so far. _Following this guy, I don't think anything can stop us. This arsenal's so huge already I feel like we could conquer the world, and he still has us preparing a hundred more things before we'll be ready he says._

At the top of the stairs were some people who Splodo and Bitchess did not recognize. The two Radians who had been bumped off the Top 10 villains' list were making sure to stay in the loop and not let those lost rankings mess with their status here. Each were already preparing themselves for when the Koimou Massacre villains next showed themselves around them. So many had been at that forest mansion for so long, that the two were not ready to let these villains they did not know come in and take their positions as leaders here. Splodo was new too, but he had been finding that no one said anything against him moving around with the big shots as long as he was doing so confidently and without questioning first if he should or could follow.

As Furuki Keymar came closer to the top of the stairs though, he slowed down more until Manika was at his side before he continued after Raijin. Bitchess 'n Cream did not even mention anything to him about how he seemed nervous to not stay right next to their leader anymore, as she was too focused on the man at the top of the stairs flanked by a pair of women in tight black clothes that covered everything but their stomachs and eyes. One of the women was a little shorter and had light blue skin on the exposed area of her stomach, while the other's skin was paler so she looked Caucasian, with blue irises in the slit of the black wraps around her face unlike the pitch black ones that filled the shorter's entire eyeballs and not just her irises.

"Mercenaries," Dabi mentioned to the two in front of him in a low voice. "Don't look afraid."

The warning did not warrant a response from the two. He said it quietly to them and as much like he was giving them an order so as not to embarrass the League, as he was warning them not to get themselves killed. The man in the middle of the three who Raijin walked right up in front of had a straight expression on his face. The dark-skinned man was six foot and nine inches tall, muscular but lean in his camouflage costume of different shades of green. The material was pressed tightly to his skin for his long-sleeved shirt, though his pants looked more like military fatigues and were looser on him. He had black weapons' straps over each of his shoulders and a steel belt around his waist, and when he opened his mouth to speak, everyone could see his teeth were wide from front to back and sharp at the ends. His mouth was big and looked to nearly unhinge as he talked since his lips continued all the way to the sides of his face.

"I just arrived," the man began to Raijin before Kaminari could say how he did not know the group of mercs were in this base. The teen closed his mouth and held back from frowning despite this villain knowing what he had been about to say. "Walk with me," he said, and he turned with a motion down the hall past the lab.

Raijin walked out and up to the side of the man past the two women behind him who gave the eighteen year old close looks glaring darkly at his back. Other villains were moving up behind Raijin though, and the two women moved first to stay between their comrade and the others behind them. Intanzo looked ahead and his expression was intense as he watched the trio walking with Raijin, and his look alone amazed Bitchess when she glanced back at him and saw how ready for a fight he looked despite these seeming like a talk between allies. _Who the hell are these guys?!_ Manika spun back and stared towards the group, though she was unable to hear Raijin and the man in front speaking to each other.

 _Rare for him to let someone get away with using that tone with him,_ Dabi thought as he watched the two up ahead of him walk without interruption or a sign of animosity between them. _Though it's easy to see why._ Dabi slowed down himself and decided to stop following the group, turning around instead and heading away from this tense situation. _Fuck this. I've got to prepare too…_

 _Daniel O'Sullivan. Danny "The Devil."_ Raijin thought of the man next to him in an impressed way as they spoke in low voices about the completed mission Raijin had paid them to do for him. _Acted throughout the Age of Villains as one of Eziano's freelancers. At a similar prestige as Phinx, or the Painter who he's in the middle of hunting for Eziano. Never caught by Zach. Never even seen by the Army of Death from what he claims despite being there many times when they showed up._

"Good," Raijin said after The Devil finished his brief mission report to him. "I have another mission for you, two actually. One assassination and a heist-"

Daniel held up his right palm for Raijin to stop and he turned to face the teen after they had just walked into an empty room looking almost like an office space. There were a few desks with lots of computers around them, but also a few fridges and a small kitchen area that Intanzo headed right over towards after they all entered the room follwing Raijin and O'Sullivan. "I am unable to continue working with you, for the time being," The Devil stated.

"Thought you'd accept any mission, for the right price?" Raijin asked back with his eyes narrowing at this annoyance as he had goals in place where using these mercenaries was necessary for his timetable.

"I have been called on," Daniel replied back as that explanation was all he needed to explain why he could not stay.

"Are you going after Zach?" Raijin asked, frowning still though with a less annoyed and more understanding look now, as much as it did piss him off. _Can't argue with Eziano's orders-_

"You would be wise to stay away from him, in the coming days," O'Sullivan warned.

Intanzo froze as he neared a fridge, and he turned around and stared towards the mercenaries who the other villains were all staring at too now with uncertain looks. Raijin shook his head a second after hearing that, and he started, "I wish you good luck in this attempt, though it's going to have the same result-"

"I do not underestimate Death," O'Sullivan said. "And you should stay cautious of him as well. More so, than you have been."

Bitchess turned to her side as she noticed the taller of the two ninja-women next to her got an uneasy look in her eyes and tensed up a bit here. She herself got more sweat on her face and looked forward to the head mercenary who said in a dark voice, "I discovered what happened to my target. The Painter is long dead," O'Sullivan stated to Raijin who knew that hitman's name and his top prestige to be getting hunted by Eziano and still operating despite that. The mercenary in green camo continued in a low voice, "Your friend took The Painter's sniper and blew his brains out with it."

Splodo's bottom lip dropped and he gulped at the same time at what he just heard. _Lifebringer did that? Oh fuck- fuck me! He's targeting us?!_

"Did he now?" Raijin said, wondering it aloud but not really asking a question as much as he was just pondering it to himself. _I know many of the stories of Death were exaggerated out there. Zach was not as brutal as most villains believe… And yet there were also times, where he became a savage. Where I can hardly believe he's the same Zach I knew back then…_

"So be wary of him," The Devil warned. He turned to the two women accompanying him and nodded, and the shorter one reached up under the tight bandages above her bellybutton to pull a USB drive out that she tossed to her boss. "One more thing," O'Sullivan continued. He held it up in front of him in between him and Raijin, "I've got something you need to see."

Raijin stared at the drive and then behind it into O'Sullivan's eyes. "How much?"

"10 billion yen and it's yours," Danny The Devil offered.

Intanzo glared towards O'Sullivan's back and his expression got much darker, his dark-green eyes slowly brightening with a glow. Raijin just stared into O'Sullivan's eyes though and mulled it over in his head for a moment. _We lost too much in El Toro's factory. Ten billion is a lot. Despite how expensive having all these underground lairs would seem to be, we created and maintain them at minimal cost to us. The arsenal was not cheap though. Feeding everyone. Weapons. Forty two minus thirteen, times ten based on weekly…_

"That's a lot of money," Raijin said as he continued to determine if he would pay it.

"It's something I just grabbed off the black market from a merchant in Egypt," Danny continued with a smirk slowly spreading to cover the entire bottom of his face. "Got to it right before the AoD showed up to shut down the market that only existed through word-of-mouth, as it's not safe to do any business on the web that Death controls." O'Sullivan opened up his palm and left the USB flat on top of it as he held it in front of Raijin, "Trust me that when I say ten billion, that this is worth every cent."

Danny's smirk rose more and Raijin's eyes started to grow and then darted down to the hardware his ally was showing off. "I promise, it's exactly what you've been looking for," O'Sullivan finished.

The biggest, most excited smile crossed over Kaminari Denki's face. His eyes rose from the drive to the eyes of the mercenary who nodded once with a grin of his own. "I'll take it," Raijin said without a second's more hesitation.

 _Won't even be necessary in a few days, but he'll buy it for the contingency either way,_ Danny thought as he nodded and tossed the drive in front of him. "Wire the money to my usual account. Enjoy that," he added, before turning and heading away to leave this base with his comrades. His smile lowered a little as he heard Raijin's low laughter coming from behind him, almost seeming like it was directed at what he had just been thinking about. _He is right to have every contingency…_

 _Sazaki is much more deserving of the nickname they gave me._

* * *

 **A/N Thanks for reading! Hope you all enjoyed the villain chapter, the first one in a while where we're actually seeing a lot of these villains and some issues they're having, some of their plans, though I kept a lot in the dark too... Introduced a couple new villains, and I hope you guys like DismemberMen's background as I initially just had 'one of the Radians complains to Intanzo about Carlos' as my plans near the start of the chapter, but as I got ready to actually write the chapter and went through my summary I kept coming up with cool ideas first for DismemberMen's name, then his Quirk, then his backstory. We get a little about Intanzo too, some scientists/doctors, mercenaries, and the League's plans. What are the assassins planning now that Danny "The Devil" has to back off from helping Raijin? What did he give Raijin first before leaving? Can Zach and the heroes really fend off Raijin and his growing army and arsenal meant to destroy them?! XD Almost done with the next chapter and I've got a couple days off work, so I'll try to get the next one up tomorrow! Review responses:**

BobRossButExplosive chapter 205 . Dec 10

First off this story is actually amazing, and I have no idea what you'll do next since every time I try to guess what comes next the complete opposite happens.  
Second off, have you ever considered opening a discord to talk to everyone who follows the story? It can even help people post artwork of the story and it'll be a great way to connect and keep everyone updated.  
Third, it's still way early but happy early Christmas!

 **Thanks! Really glad you think the story's great! Seems some people agreed with your second point too, and for everyone who wants to do a discord server thing I'd gladly hold one... but after I finish the story. Admittedly I just know as good as I am at holding back spoilers down here in the Author's Notes (A/N) I might not be able to censor myself while talking to you guys. I'd have to keep in mind what I have and have not posted yet despite knowing how the story (and most of the next chapters) are going to go. Anyway I don't really know what I'm rambling with here, but after I finish the story I'll def do a Discord thing where I can answer questions, talk to you guys about Death, and let you know what I'm thinking for afterwards/ epilogues, stuff like that. If y'all want to send me artwork for Death, the cover photo could really use an update so you could always PM me here on Fanfiction with a link and I'd check anything out through that. And thirdly... Merry Christmas to you too! Though, hopefully I'll be getting a few more chapters posted before that! It'll be my Christmas present to you guys, since Christmas week is the busiest week for my work all year and I'll be swamped from Christmas til past New Year's. For now though, hope you guys enjoyed the quick update! And thanks for the review!**

GrayReader chapter 206 . Dec 11

Holy shit, I'm used to trying to sleep during a school presentation, I never thought one would have me gripping the edge of my seat in anticipation. I damn near had to stop myself from going out to call for better quirk education in real life because I was so immersed in your writing. We can all easily tell you put days into each of Zach's points. Impeccable writing as always, I'll be eagerly awaiting the next chapter. Thanks so much, have a nice night.

 **Haha glad you liked it! Always have fun with these reports I've written in here. Really gets me into the world-building aspect of BNHA more, and I think there was a lot to work with especially for Zach who's seen so much of their world that he's got such a unique outlook on it all. I'm glad you liked the chapter and the effort I put in it, and here's another chapter for you! XD**

Guest chapter 206 . Dec 11

Jeez...it's ridiculous how much better an explanation that is for quirks than Hori's "It was a rat virus lol" explanation.  
I never thought of Kaminari like that either. He's just a mistake made by a child who watched the movie Limitless one too many times.

 **Glad you enjoyed that! The more I was writing this chapter, the more I started to go: "If Quirks ever did pop up randomly, I'd totally believe this rather than they just started happening too..." And yeah, Kaminari's story's pretty rough when you think of it like that... though then you see him again in this chapter straight up torturing people as he plans the end of the world... Zach knows this could have been prevented, but he also knows it's too late for many and they have to break through this transition first, beating the current villains before there can be change. Hope this chapter shows that doing that isn't going to be easy though. Thanks for the review!**

yes chapter 206 . Dec 12

And here we have the Shiketsu faculty being destroyed by facts and logic. and Zach being a cool motherfucker  
btw how tf did you just write a 20k word legitimate thesis.

 **Zach crushes it as always ;), as for me, well... I've written them before. At this point I'm not even surprised at myself when I pop out a 20k chapter in an afternoon. It's just a lot of fun, and I enjoy that you guys seem to like it! XD So here's hoping y'all enjoyed this chapter too, and thanks again for all the reviews!**


	208. Chapter 208

**Disclaimer: I don't own Boku no Hero Academia**

 **Chapter 208:**

"I was telling my parents and grandparents all about your report last night. My grandpa was totally into it," Satoshi said with a laugh as he leaned over the right side of Zach's desk before class.

It was the day after Zach gave his presentation, and he was glad everyone came up to him to tell him these things themselves. Zach nodded and smiled at Satoshi after hearing that, while he was thinking, _Grandparents huh? Maybe I've been underestimating the old too. Memuria seemed very intrigued by everything I had to say, even if she doubts my ability to stop all villains. I even doubt that myself though. Always have. It could just be impossible, but if I don't try, no one will._

"We video called our parents too late last night when we thought they would have woken up for work," Jaime started. Her and Roger made Zach look back and over his shoulder to the American exchange students, and Jaime added with a laugh, "My mom thinks you're even crazier now."

"My parents were just too tired to care, but they sounded like they could believe it," Roger mentioned with a shrug of his shoulders.

"I've heard guys from Class 2 talking about it-" Hisashi mentioned from his seat back to Kerushi behind him.

"That's because I was talking to them yesterday about it," Kerushi replied before Hisashi could finish. "I mean, how do you hold something like this back? I wanted to talk to everyone I knew…"

"Anima loved it," Kotsumura said from the seat on Zach's right side, though he was sitting on the edge of it and leaning off closer to Zach. "But my parents thought it's all crazy talk. I tried convincing them, but it didn't come out nearly as convincing as when you said it."

Zach shrugged as he had figured that would be a problem. _Do I publish it online? Or should I go on a talk show and reveal it first before I publish it so people interested can look on their own, but only after I discuss points I think everyone can get behind first? Or…_

"The one thing my dad got really caught up on being impossible though," Kotsumura continued, getting Zach to refocus on him as Kotsumura wanted since his friend seemed to just be thinking hard about something else. "Was the guy you say didn't even have a name for his Quirk. That he's _that_ old."

"He exists," Zach replied with a small smile and shake of his head. "He's definitely real," Zach assured as he still saw some looks of disbelief around him.

"Well who is he?" Kotsumura wondered. "He's still alive, right?" He asked that and then hesitated with a more anxious look forming but relaxed as Zach gave him a small nod.

 _I hope so. Blackstar says Drac's missing, but I believe in his strength. He's still alive._ Zach smiled more to himself after his reassuring thoughts.

"Then who is he?!" Kotsumura exclaimed more interestedly again. Others started looking over as Kotsumura rose his voice like that, and Zach hesitated while Kotsumura questioned him, "What's his name?"

Zach paused with his lips pursed, then he had to laugh and looked away for a moment. His laugh was unnerving to his blond classmate, as Zach chuckled like it was an inside joke for only him to know as he started shaking his head. "You don't want to know," Zach said with another laugh, though that one sounded darker and his warning sounded way too serious for his smirking expression. Zach reached down off the left side of his seat and unzipped his backpack, pulled out a book quick, and then zipped the thick bag up just as quickly.

Tomoki and Muoko were standing next to each other around Tomoki's desk, but the two had just been listening for a few seconds and glanced at each other after Zach's warning. Each of the class reps pieced it together quickly, and they rushed around the far row to come up on Zach's left side. "Do we know the name?" Tomoki asked, his excitement almost masked by his anxiety over that question.

"No way!" Kotsumura realized as he looked to the representative couple and then back to his spiky-haired friend. "Wait- you used Jesus as an example a ton, right?! Is it Jesus? Is Jesus real?!"

"No- I mean," Zach cut himself off as Kotsumura asked different questions right there. "I don't know. But no, I didn't meet Jesus," he laughed again as Kotsumura had been completely serious with that question. _Two thousand years plus would have been way too insane to believe… At the time I first- no, even now. That's impossible- shouldn't say impossible. I can think it though._ "But really," Zach continued again. "You don't want to know."

"I really do," Muoko countered that and nodded when Zach looked her way.

He turned his head and glanced around him, noticing everyone in the classroom looking his way interestedly. _Should I say anything? If Drac's alive then… well, it's not like saying anything would affect him._

"I'll give you a couple hints," Zach began.

"Oh just tell us," Reika snapped his way past Kotsumura who was between her and where Zach was sitting.

"I'll play the game," Kotsumura countered, glancing back to Reika and giving her a grin that surprised the girl behind him a bit. "If he's giving hints, then it must be someone he thinks we can guess right?"

"Hmm," Reika stood up and stepped towards Kotsumura's desk, leaning over it to the boy's right and then nodding at Zach with a grin of her own. "Alright then, who is this guy?"

"The thing is," Zach started differently this time. "The stories about him, are pretty messed up. They're skewed though, or so he tells me, because of how people of the past viewed people with abilities like him. Yet there was another reason he was considered the way he was."

Across Class 1, all the students were watching Zach with wide eyes and keeping their mouths tightly shut as he told a story about their own world this time that sounded as crazy as his usual stories about Terra. Dendo got out of his seat and maneuvered around to be able to see Zach's face as he talked, while Inasa just leaned over his own seat back behind Zach and stared to his classmate with an insanely interested smile over his face. _This is real, right?_ Inasa's smile grew wider as he saw Zach grin too before continuing to them.

"I know that stories get altered after several generations pass because I have him as a reference. Although he tells me, that his father did have a similar power to his own, he also told me that when his dad died he told him how his was much, much stronger. And that his father's father did not have any power at all. Yet maybe, it just skipped a couple generations, I don't know," Zach hesitated for a moment while he thought back on this conversation that had unnerved him so much during a private sparring session he had had with Drac once. His pause and the look on his face that appeared there unnerved every one of his classmates as they could see this story even had Zach feeling like it was crazy to imagine.

"The stories of him were blown out of proportion," Zach continued. "Because of his famous ancestor, and the atrocities that his ancestor committed. His great, great, great to some power grandfather was a terrifying man who was brutal to his enemies. So when someone in that region where there were already stories about that man, appeared with crazy and scary powers, of course the two became mixed. Maybe it was coincidence that it just happened to be an actual relative of his, or maybe his ancestor really did have insane powers to allow him to kill as many hundreds, and thousands, as he was rumored to have impaled…"

A couple of people in the room found themselves frozen where they stood or sat as they heard that. _Did he just say… "Impaled?"_ Muoko Kimi gulped as Zach made eye contact with her.

"You can't be serious," Kameko whispered, confusing Imino and Elinari at his sides who did not understand that reaction from their classmate with sweat covering his face.

"His accent when we met made the name he gave me to call him by so much worse. Somehow, the movies got his accent right, though I guess they do know where in the world he was from…"

 _Movies?_ Reika thought, then she glanced to her right and noticed a few of her classmates staring towards Zach with completely shaken expressions.

"They got a lot about him right, actually. It's how I know the stories we think are just fairy tale, do have a lot of truth in them. There were things they had wrong though. He doesn't suck blood, and he was fine in the daylight," Zach's voice got lower while some of his classmates stopped believing him and leaned back, while others just dropped their jaws and stared at him with bulging eyes of disbelief. "You want to know his name?" Zach asked with a look right back at Kotsumura and into his nervous eyes. "This man with powers who was born before the first revelation of Quirks. Do you want to know the name I called him by?"

Kotsumura gulped. His Adam's apple bounced up and down, then he grinned a nervous grin and nodded his head.

"He went by, Drac-"

The door to Class 1 opened up, and Zach sat up in his seat and looked towards the door as Hazano sensei walked in. The homeroom teacher stared at all his students in semi-annoyance but mostly just confusion at how stunned they all looked. Most thought Zach had just been cut off, but Zach was planning on slowing down so that he would be ready to finish like that right when Hazano came in. _Pretend like I'm cut off, when really we did just call him "Drac." I'm serious. His name was actually Dracard. His father's name was Dracula,_ Zach thought with a glance over towards Himazuri who was gawking at him in shock that he was seemingly not lying about this. Zach imagined in his head the memory of meeting the man, and after a few seconds Himazuri got out of his head in a panic and started panting in reality while the others were all rushing to their seats at the annoyed clearing of Hachiman's throat.

Zach sweatdropped as Himazuri never made it to the part of that memory he was trying to show her. _She got freaked out by Arachna. Should have just skimmed forward, but it's hard not to think of her in that memory. She was amazing in every way, died fighting those Somalian pirates and again in Wampajawa. But damn, was she the scariest in the army. Didn't have to threaten most people when she was with me. God, why is it we're all so afraid of spiders?!_ Even Zach thinking back on the way Arachna looked still gave him shivers, though he smiled nostalgically at the sight of her in his mind. His smile dropped down though as he saw a couple of bodies, both belonging to her despite being in different places. _I'm just glad they woke me up after that fight in Somalia before my time limit would have run out. Me and Darling were fucked after that-_ Zach's teeth ground at the way he worded that in his own head, reminding him too much of what had happened to Darling that day.

Hazano started class and informed his students of what their practical training would be for the morning, and what time they were going to come back in here to try and get two presentations done that afternoon. First period started, but it did not last long. The peace of the morning was shattered in a single instant as a siren filled the classroom out of nowhere minutes into class. Half the students jumped up as the alert went off, a blaring first buzzer noise of **ERRR** followed by three loud **DOO DOO** **DOO** 's then a pause of two seconds while everyone started spinning to the source of the noise that returned for another four long low beeping noises.

Kotsumura had tensed up, but he looked to his left in confusion and eased a bit as Zach was moving differently than the others who had jumped up. Zach reached down to his backpack and unzipped it all the way, yanking out his laptop and pulling a camouflaged black sat phone off the side of the thick computer that he slammed onto his desk as it made two more **DOO DOO** noises.

 _What kind of alarm is that?_ "Sazaki!" Hazano yelled at his student who just interrupted the class.

"Zach, what are you-"

No one else knew the signal because it was a code that Zach had created himself. The top of Zach's laptop glowed red on a clear circular piece that made Zach pop open the laptop at the same time as he pressed a button on the side of the sat phone he just put on his desk next to it. **"Lifebringer, come in."** A deep, modulated voice came out of the radio in English sounding like a person was talking to him.

Immediately the entire classroom felt a change in the air. The atmosphere just got much darker, and a few of the students who were not so quick to understand realized what their classmates all thought as they glared towards Zach. The excited, fun mood from before class had vanished completely. Hazano marched down the line between desks and demanded to know in a low voice, "Who is that, Sazaki?"

"Zach! What's going on?!"

"What are you doing-"

"What's wrong?" Zach asked the radio while his computer started up on its own next to it.

 **"Picked up a bogey launched over central Asia. Moving east over a thousand miles per hour."**

"You have visual?" Zach asked, ignoring everyone around him as he did.

 **"Getting a sat lock on it now,"** the voice replied, and Zach turned to the screen of his laptop that finally turned on and showed his desktop.

After his desktop appeared, three different windows popped open showing coordinates and a satellite image. The image zoomed, and a white box moved around on it and locked on to something shooting through the atmosphere. Hazano stopped demanding things of his student and just walked past his desk now to look at the computer screen himself, and he froze up as the image zoomed again and showed what was flying across the sky. "Is that-" Hazano began.

"Is this a live feed?!" Dendo yelled down at Zach as he had ran up on Zach's left side.

 **"It's a BART Missile, can't tell its payload from the size though. Could be anything."**

"Do you have its projected target location?" Zach questioned, and he listened to Rebel typing quickly on the other end of the radio. _I'm so fucked- Don't think about that now. This is…_

Zach looked at the other window that appeared on his screen to the side of the live view of the missile traveling farther across China so it was almost at the coast. It was about to reach the East China Sea heading northeast, and the new window that appeared showed a trajectory location appearing over Japan's mainland. The new white box that appeared from the satellite imaging zoomed in on a part of Honshu that made everyone behind the screen stare with wider eyes. Then they watched as that white box zoomed in and then got smaller on top of a single city. And then that white box zoomed in on Yutapu to an even more precise location on top of a building that the satellite could see in high definition.

"Oh fuck," Dendo muttered in disbelief as he took a step back.

His teacher did not care about the curse word his student just said. "Is that our school?!" Roger yelled out as he was farther back but could partially see the building from back where he was standing on his chair.

 **"Take the laptop."**

"Inasa!" Zach yelled behind him while he was jumping out of his seat. He grabbed the radio and laptop in his right arm, reached to the window with his left, while turning his head back and looking at his classmate whose eyes shot open huge as Zach yelled, "With me!"

"W-Wait," Hazano began.

"No time," Zach countered without looking back at his teacher. Out from his left arm extended a thick black sleeve that covered his hand and stretched to the windows before creating a much bigger hand. That huge hand pulled the window open in an instant while Zach had been looking back towards Inasa, and Zach rushed at the window and yelled out, "There may be countermeasures against me. I need your help!" Zach dove out the window and massive black wings ripped out his back and flapped below him to send him soaring into the sky.

"Sorry sensei," Inasa said to his homeroom teacher, while throwing open the window closest to his own desk.

Hazano did not say anything against Inasa though, instead just pushing Zach's desk out of the way and stepping closer to the windows himself. _That missile's heading straight for us. Who was that Sazaki was talking to though? How did they have satellite images at the ready- He's Death. He's Death and there's a bomb heading for this city meant to kill him._

"Holy shit," Trabo fell back onto his seat while staring at the windows in shock. "If they fail at stopping that thing… That guy said, they don't know how big the blast is going to be, right? So, like, is there even any point in running?"

"Kameko," Dendo started after a few seconds. He looked towards his classmate who stared back at him in anxious confusion, and Dendo continued, "Take ten others and go warn everyone of what might be coming. Tell them to get ready to use their Quirks to protect from a blast, and wherever you are when the blast comes just get as many people inside your Tortoise Fortress as possible. Everyone with long range attacks on me," Dendo called out to the rest of the classroom which included his teacher who stared at the boy in growing amazement as Dendo was suddenly taking charge despite him being the teacher here. Dendo yelled out while moving towards the door himself, "We'll go up on the roof and if the missile comes into the city, we'll try to blow it up in the air. It'll still cause massive damage, but we can minimize casualties."

"Don't you think Zach and Inasa can do this-" Kotsumura started.

"It's not about what I'm hoping for," Dendo snapped as he sped up for the door. "It's about being prepared for anything. Muoko, get Class 2 to help!" He called out before reaching the door, then he rushed out and made as fast as he could for the roof access.

"You got it!" Muoko replied just as loudly and started running herself.

"You heard him!" Tomoki yelled out. The vice-rep spun around and yelled out at everyone, "Get moving! This is an emergency!"

"I'll inform the rest of the staff," Hazano told his students who were acting as heroes already to the point he did not feel the need to supervise them. "Stay safe," he added, then he rushed for the door himself. _Sazaki. You've put this whole school- this whole city in danger. You're a menace. A danger to us all! So please… save us._

* * *

"What are we going to do?!" Inasa yelled over the wind, wishing he had his costume to help him fly and speak right now. He was a master of Quirk control though, and he was keeping up with Zach as they flew across the sky together. "Drop it into the sea?!"

"And make a tidal wave?" Zach yelled right back.

"We could stop that too-"

"It would still cause irreparable damage if it went off in the ocean!" Zach yelled again to cut him off. "And it wouldn't just be a tsunami in Japan we'd have to worry about! The waves would carry in all directions. Kill thousands if not millions in coastal damage!"

"You think it's a nuke?!"

"I'm preparing as if it is!" Zach shouted.

 **"Virus is in the laptop,"** Rebel told his former leader, keeping his tone intense and monotonous as there was someone with Zach right now who might be able to hear him. Anyone who could hear that would have thought the voice was just talking about any regular computer virus though, while Zach understood exactly what Rebel meant by it. **"Just attach this laptop to the control panel and we'll get in. Whether to deactivate or mess with the navigation system inside."**

"How long will that take?"

 **"Can't know for sure until we're in, so get to it fast,"** Rebel snapped. **"It's already crossed the northern East China Sea and most of Korea. It'll be over the Sea of Japan in twenty seconds."**

"Are we getting close?!" Inasa yelled over at Zach who had the radio lifted up near his ear to be able to hear it over the wind. Zach's body was not covered in Death, with all of his Death only focused on his huge wings that were not wisping any or losing power as they looked solid and like they were covered in feathers. Inasa just carried himself inside a funnel of wind, though there were also four tornado-like gusts sticking out from a single point in his back and swirling around behind him in the main wind stream that changed his direction and speed in the air.

"Yes," Zach called back towards his classmate. "It'll be in sight in seconds. Slow down, we're going to have to change directions."

"We can't let it get any closer to Japan!"

"If we slow it down immediately, we may trigger a backup system to set it off at that moment," Zach countered. Inasa stared at him with wider eyes, and Zach continued loudly, "If it's meant to kill me then they likely projected I would come for it. Any attempt to change its course or slow it down could set it off prematurely and kill us both!"

 _I can't control the wind from too far a distance. If I do send it straight up in the middle of the Sea of Japan, I could get it out of danger of hurting anyone else-_

"Don't think about it!" Zach yelled at Inasa who he saw getting much too serious as Inasa never usually did. "We aren't dying up here! That'd be stupid," Zach snapped it at his classmate seeming too willing to sacrifice based off that last expression alone. _Part of the reason I brought you is so I don't consider it myself. So that I'm more careful. You're my contingency plan to stop this thing, but you're also here to prevent me from letting this bomb go off at all!_ "I need your help Inasa. I don't need you to die," Zach said, shaking his head at his classmate who stared back at him with wide eyes, then started nodding only to turn with his eyes growing wider and making Zach spin back around himself.

"I see it," Zach said while moving his radio in front of his mouth for a second.

 **"I've scanned the missile during its flight, and I don't think there's a camera on it. That could be as much to make you drop your guard though."**

"Could the weight of the laptop set it off as I connect it?" Zach wondered quickly, as he was changing his flight pattern and starting to fly back to the east himself. He started slow and then sped up slowly, but quicker and quicker as the missile approached so that as it got to him they were moving the same speed with Zach turning his body and flying over the rocket. Inasa turned himself around too and controlled even the wind in front of him to prevent it from hitting his face and front as he shot himself as fast as he had ever moved before into the east.

 _This is insane!_ Inasa thought as he and Zach flew with a missile heading in the direction of their school. _Everything is on the line!_ The student never felt more like a hero, as he had never felt more pressure on him. It was suddenly thrust on him too, as he was sitting in class expecting another calm day like any other until minutes ago. Everyone he knew was relying on him though. _Everyone, we won't let this happen!_ Inasa smiled wide despite the pressure and intensity of the situation. He looked to Zach who was leaning down over a lower part of the missile but just ahead of the jets that were heating up his legs and burning the pant legs of his school uniform because of how close he was to them.

 **"…They wouldn't want it setting off prematurely, and the laptop does not weigh more than what I think their margin of error would be."** It was not much of an assurance, but Zach agreed that if the missile had bumped into anything in the air it could have blown up without ever reaching its target.

He set down the laptop that magnetized to the missile and locked in before Zach opened it back up. Despite all the wind slamming into it, the top of the laptop remained open after Zach popped it up. A blue light covered half of the screen, and Zach asked, "Can you get in?"

"The steel's too thick," Cody replied out of the laptop, a mouth moving in the blue that Inasa could not see from Zach's right side following alongside the missile and staring more towards the coast of Japan in the distance.

"Running out of time," Inasa warned at the top of his lungs.

 **"You'll have to pop the panel and connect him inside,"** Rebel said.

"Quickly," Cody added, making another window pop up with a timer on it showing they had under a minute until they would be over the Japanese coast. "And where are we sending this thing-"

 **"Plotting a course now into space,"** Rebel announced.

 _I trust you,_ Zach thought, deciding not to question it and hoping Rebel would somehow manage to get this thing out somewhere it would not just explode in the upper atmosphere. Zach reached down to the edge of the steel panel while pushing out even more Death down below the soles of his feet and keeping careful not to let any Death touch the missile he felt would be able to sense it. His left hand gripped the panel, and without using any Death, he peeled it up bending the metal off of the missile and exposing the navigation system inside.

He grabbed the laptop and pressed a button on the left side of it that unlocked it from the steel panel before putting it down into the system and connecting it to a piece inside it. "Go go go," Zach muttered, watching as a dozen different screens popped up on the laptop screen that he had to watch carefully.

"There are hundreds of different systems in here," Cody said in shock. "Important! If this thing slows down at all from its current velocity we're going to have major problems. Like, timer drops to two seconds left problems."

"Timer?" Zach asked.

Rebel's station in America had all the same windows Cody just made pop up on Zach's screen on them, along with a hundred others as he looked at everything Cody could see and not just a few important things Cody thought Zach could be able to follow along with. He spoke into the microphone in front of his mouth, "The same amount of time the missile would take to reach Shiketsu High School. If the navigation system is messed with in any way, the timer will drop. If the course changes in any way even with the missile still trying to send itself to your school, it's going to drop. Even if it stays the same speed…"

"Yet if I change the time dilation, and slow the amount the system registers as one second… Alright, the timer now drops a second every thirty minutes. There are immediate triggers as well not connected to the timer, but those are not automatic. Someone controls them and is probably watching the missile's path right now. Hold on… and we've got those triggers jammed. Signals will not reach any of them." He worded it as 'we' in the final part, as he noticed several of those manual triggers getting disconnected before he was able to do a thing. _Nice work, brat,_ Mica thought, right before Cody yelled out of the laptop that Zach was in the clear.

"Alright! Inasa!" Zach yelled out. "Push up underneath the front of the missile! Get it aimed up!"

 **"Altering the navigation and setting a point in space. Keep the laptop connected and open over the panel so I can see out the webcam on its way out the atmosphere. I'm going to try and get it out there without blowing until it's- Alright. I've got one hour until it blows. Or two seconds. However you want to count,"** Rebel smirked while taking control of the missile that was changing direction and now had two seconds on its timer as it would for the next half hour.

"Let's move!" Zach called out to Inasa after dragging up on the front of the missile for a few seconds there, bringing it higher up as they reached the coast to make it point straight up and get out of blast range of the people on shore. _Manual triggers may be deactivated, but if he has any agents flying around here or watching from its path, they could set it off themselves. We have to move it out of the way as fast as we can!_ Zach let go of the missile and he flew off from it fast once it was headed straight up into the sky.

Inasa spun away from the missile as well and did a dozen flips through the air as he sent one last massive wind to help it along and lost some of the focus on controlling himself for a few seconds. The two boys pulled back and stared up into the sky above them, at a long ballistic missile with an unknown blast radius that was now soaring up towards space. They were panting, and neither of them felt relieved yet as they glanced in every direction on the lookout for planes or other aircraft. They continued to stare up at a trail left behind from the missile as it soared ever higher, even as another figure came flying through the sky like a missile himself towards them.

Inasa turned in surprise then looked right back up, though he glanced down again when the number 2 hero got closer. "Hawks, it's alright," Inasa started. Hawks looked worried himself, but he was staring straight up instead of at the two teenagers flying near him. He gulped as he stared up at the size of the missile he had been called on by the government to stop in this emergency scenario. He was not expecting in the least, to find a couple of teens from Shiketsu High already in the path of the missile, with the missile heading straight up into space now for some reason.

"How…" Hawks started, lowering his gaze from up at the missile to the boys in front of him. Inasa lowered his smile down a little too at that question, and he turned himself towards Zach who Hawks was already more focused on. "Did you do that?" Hawks finished to the eighteen year old with spiky black hair wind-blown back during his flight so it was wavier now. Zach kept staring up towards the missile though, just watching as it neared the upper atmosphere towards some location unbeknownst to him.

 _Dragging everyone into it now? Not just me. Any collateral damage is fine? Killing all those people is fine, if you can kill me too?!_ Zach's eyes darkened more as they narrowed up on the missile that had yet to explode as he was waiting for it to while full of dread at the idea. _It'll be a horrible EMP even if it blows up that high. Get it out of here, Rebel. Please. If it blows… If it blows right now,_ Zach ground his teeth and stared up with them grinding back and forth. _That would be a bad thing. It would. I'd… I'd have to leave._

Minutes passed, and the three flying heroes stayed staring up in the sky together until even the trail left by the missile started thinning out and get blown away by the wind. They had lost sight of it up above, and the blast they were waiting to see never came. Zach continued to stare into the sky after when he thought there would still be problems. He looked up as if waiting for a blast, while really just avoiding Hawks' darting gazes. His eyes were red, and his thoughts moved rapidly through his mind, _Norasaki's going to ask me again. I can't- I have to. If I don't, I'll be forced to leave. Re-shatter it. Terra was real. That voice was from an old vigilante friend whose location is unknown to me. His name is unknown to me. I don't know how he did what he did. I wasn't here. Terra. Eziano. Not my fault. I'm not Death. Quicker. Running out of time. How do I explain… I don't. I just say, that I don't know. They contacted me knowing I'd have a plan to stop it. That's the only reason. That's what my answer has to be!_

* * *

"…I received word from the Minister of Defense that the missile you sent out into space narrowly missed an occupied Chinese space station in orbit. Luckily it flew past without incident, though it was tracked from the Xili Space Station until it exploded on an asteroid…"

 _Whoever those people were who got the missile out there did a good job,_ Zach thought with a stoic nod at his principal in front of him. _Straight on to an asteroid without prematurely exploding. They did a great job somehow dodging space debris and satellites to get it a safe distance._ "The firing mechanisms were deactivated," Zach countered the woman who just continued loudly about how if the missile had been detonated remotely when it passed close to the space station it could have killed the astronauts inside. "Prior to when they redirected the-"

Memuria slammed her hands down onto her desk, "No! This is not the time where you talk. Listen," she said it and glared at her student who closed his mouth and stared back at her with his hands together behind his back and his expression serious but unapologetic. "Listen to me," Memuria continued, curling her fingers on top of her desk and staying leaned forward while she glared at the student not responding to her expressions at all. In her peripheral vision on her left were two bald men, both Sazaki's homeroom teacher and her own assistant Norasaki. On the other side was a professional looking young woman in a suit with dark hair tied in a short ponytail who had her sunglasses on inside, and Hawks who was told to accompany Sazaki back to school after the incident.

"Who redirected it?" Memuria composed herself and questioned, though still leaning forward over her desk and glaring at Sazaki. "Who called you?"

Zach shook his head once. "I don't know." His response made Norasaki clench his teeth to the boy's side, as nothing signaled to him that Lifebringer was lying. "The laptop and attached satellite phone came in the package that was sent to me upon my release from Tartaros." Zach explained this calmly and did not look guilty at all as he stood there recounting it. "Inside the box was also my hero costume, a replacement arm as I brought a non-weaponized one with me when I turned myself in-"

"And you're saying you don't know where this box came from?"

"No," Zach replied to the number 2 hero who asked him that. "I do not know the names of most people I worked with after leaving Japan." Others in the room stared at him with wider eyes including the defense ministry official staring at him from behind her sunglasses. "The message I received with the package was labeled only with '-L' and I did not question its contents as it was sent as a gift from someone who had helped me with similar gifts before."

"So you don't even know where your gear came from?" Hazano asked skeptically, but Memuria darted him a dark look that had her teacher leaning back and quieting down.

"I had it registered immediately after receiving it," Zach explained slowly. "The costume was seen fit to be used in Japan, and as I had no other belongings after being released from prison I was grateful for the gifts. The laptop was one of the only things to survive my apartment's explosion. Today, by attaching it to the missile in mid-flight I was able to give someone else who was modulating their voice to mask it control over the missile. Yes, this was a dangerous and risky move on my part. And yes, there was no other way. Someone else already had control of the missile, and by giving control to the ones who warned us about it in the first place I was making a gamble that paid off. You say the missile exploded on an asteroid. How large was the blast? Can we tell or not, since it was out in space and the explosion would be different-"

"Do not…" Memuria gripped her desk harder and she glared down her student before taking in a sharp breath and standing up straight behind it. Her hands loosened on the desk and regret flashed through her eyes, her teeth gritting again though she had to maintain eye contact with the boy and would not look away from him like this hurt her to do. "Frequent disobedience to ignore our rules and laws is one thing. One thing too many actually, but just one thing, that I am not willing to overlook. I have warned you over and over," Memuria stared down her student while Norasaki and Hazano each looked to the principal with their eyes widening.

"But putting the rest of my students in danger while on school premises," Memuria continued in a low voice while even Zach's eyes widened a bit now. Hers stayed cold and narrowed at the teenager in front of her. "Contacting foreign unknown sources to help you who you refuse to speak truthfully on the origin of. Who were they, Sazaki? How did they have a satellite tracking the missile?"

"I don't know," Zach replied. "Someone powerful must have wanted-"

"Enough," Memuria shook her head at the boy and closed her eyes to stop him from speaking. "Sazaki," she began, and her eyes opened and stared deeply into the boy's. "Have you lied to Norasaki since getting here?" Her question came out cold, harsh, and she watched every movement on the boy's face only to see him as calm as ever as he stood there motionless in response.

"I haven't," Zach replied. _Which means every time I've spoken in front of him so far, I've believed every word I said. I was telling the truth then. And I'm telling it now. I have no idea how they knew that missile was launched. It was lucky the missile was headed directly for me, as I was able to stop it with their help. I'm glad they still want to help me, the Army of Death. I'm sure that's who helped. They, they- even though I went to Terra, I would have joined them. Become a part of them. Other vigilantes did… Didn't they? People I knew before going to Terra. They did. But when I returned I saw the things the Army of Death had done and knew I couldn't join them. I knew I had to repent for my crimes and come back here, face the music._

"I don't believe you," Memuria said in a soft voice. Zach stared at her in surprise, then looked to Norasaki as if wondering if that was not the man's Quirk. That look though just appeared so fake that it threw Norasaki off that the teen would look at him like that. Zach slowly turned back to the principal who glared at him harsher as he turned to see if Norasaki thought he was lying. "You brought danger to this school, Sazaki. No matter how strong you are, or how intelligent you may be," she added while thinking back on the day before and things she had been thinking about nonstop since until this incident occurred. Memuria let out a short sigh and then rose her head with an intense and dreading look on it as she stared into her student's eyes. "Your loose cannon behavior is responsible for this incident."

"It is my opinion as it is your own, that this missile was sent by Eziano Mozcaccio. Signs of the launch site have been located, but heroes who found it have not located any clues to who the villains that fired it are or where they went." Memuria paused and glared at the boy who started to get a darker look himself as if thinking on Eziano too. She shook her head and said in a lower voice, "A man you antagonized despite not having a pro license. A man who you intentionally angered by what you told him on national television, which you already claimed that night you thought would make him angry. This is retaliation. You and him, fighting one another, has now put the children I am tasked with protecting in danger. You even brought out one of your classmates to help you, despite knowing that the missile was meant for you and could have been exploded prematurely when you approached it."

"The voice said they scanned for cameras and-"

"I don't care what that voice said," Memuria interrupted without changing her expression. There was not enough anger in her face that it had Zach feeling the pit in his chest grow even more. The old woman with grayish purple hair kept her mouth shut for a few seconds, then she opened it and said to the boy before her, "You have broken our student conduct policy several times. You have blatantly ignored the strict rules set before you in this learning institution. I see now that I have been giving you special privilege because of who you are, and what you have been through. However I can see now, that I was mistaken to allow you to remain here as long as I have. This school is not safe with you here."

"Zach Sazaki…"

"You are hereby expelled."

* * *

Zach leaned back on the gym locker next to his one that was still open as he could not decide what to do. _I can't take my own costume with me? What kind of- it's not even a costume you made here. They say they'll send it to me after they do more checks, but I shouldn't have said anything about it. I could just take it. They're not my teachers anymore. She's not my principal. Hawks was there though. The Defense Ministry was involved. I don't need to worry about them figuring out how to make it. Like my arm. The steel is too strong, too rubbery while hard at the same time, yet hollow to be full of the wires and nerve endings and energy that my arm is full of. Recreating my costume is as impossible as figuring out how to build my arm without having every top-notch tech advancement from every corner of the world at your disposal._

Zach looked to his right at the open locker and the box inside with his costume in it. Everything else was already out on the bench in front of him, inside of his backpack. He looked from the box to his backpack, then back at the open locker, and he grit his teeth but he reached over and shut the locker on his costume. Then he stepped forward and looked down at the bag in front of him. He was already in his sweatshirt and jacket, and he had a pair of long pants on too, even though it was not that cold out today. It was just too hard to carry everything if he tried putting another piece of clothing into the heavy backpack.

His eyes clenched shut though after he glared at that bag for a few seconds. _Why the fuck did I even do that?_ Zach wondered to himself. _Terra's- it's not-_ Zach's teeth bared harder. _It's not real! I KNOW THAT! Fuck,_ he shook his head around, shaking out memories of orcs and the Doorway girl and the evil space Empire that filled his mind. _It didn't save me. I broke my mind for no fucking reason at all. Replaced all these goddamn memories again even though I couldn't even fully believe them- but they are the truth, a version of…_ Zach reached his right hand up and gripped the side of his head. "Nnnn," he groaned, his eyes squinting and glaring ahead of him in rage. "I hate this," he hissed. "I hate everything about this."

Zach reached down and grabbed his backpack, slinging it over one shoulder and then sliding the other arm through it as he headed for the door out of the locker room. Left back on the bench outside of his locker was his Shiketsu school uniform, damaged and burnt with several sewn-up holes in it. He walked out into the hallway in a blue jacket over his black pants, his hair still wind-blown and wavy instead of spiky due to his earlier flight. The hallways of the school were empty as he walked out, even though through the windows one could see it was clearly midday. School was out early due to the scare though. Not just Shiketsu High, but schools across Yutapu had been closed as well.

There were not many people left in the school building after Zach's meeting with Principal Memuria which already came after school had been cancelled. Zach moved down the hallways in no rush. He could already hear them outside of the school where they were gathered and waiting for him. _Nice way to avoid calling a press conference, I guess. I'd have to if they didn't hound me immediately upon leaving. If I give them the answers I have. The answers they demand. They'll demand more afterwards. Say I need to explain myself even after I do, but I'll have given my explanation and in it re-cement how when my location is known beforehand it's a dangerous thing. Explain why I won't hold another before they even start calling me out for it. Preempt everything they can do._ Zach's eyes were half-closed and he let out a heavy breath as he walked slowly down the hallway. _Easy. It's easy. I need to smile for them though. Talk about my new path. The, plans I have. Plans…_

He rose up his right hand again and rubbed his forehead with it, looking down to the floor as he continued dragging his feet on the way to the school's front entrance. _Probably an assassin in the crowd too. If he kills some people in an attempt on me, I'm going to have to die in a few minutes. I gotta stop that… Hopefully. Eziano has too much power. Fucking intercontinental ballistic missiles. We never saw anything like that, but he built one for me. I'm so fucking honored._ Zach let out another heavy breath and his eyes closed slowly then opened back up halfway again. _The nightcrawlers are each on their own monsters. Together in one force, they're the worst villain organization in the world. Under the strongest, most resourceful… And unlike Death, and his army, the nightcr- assassins never took as big a hit as I did. Their forces were whittled away at, but never devastated. Never a large a chunk of them at once._

 _And he's intent on killing me._ Zach shifted his gaze towards the windows to his left where he just heard a loud shout of his hero name. _No one can see me in here. Walls around the school should prevent that. Guess they're not just clustered at the front entrance though. Surrounding me. This is global news. If I had died in that explosion, protecting this city, I'd be a hero who sacrificed himself for millions. Instead, I'm the irresponsible hero who could have gotten everyone killed today. I knew that would be the outcome though. I knew it before I even left the classroom. I needed you to be there, to keep me from thinking too hard about that,_ Zach thought it while looking down the hall to where a classmate of his stood still inside the school building waiting for him.

Inasa Yoarashi looked towards Zach with his lips flat and his usually jolly expression nowhere to be seen. The bulky teen slightly taller than Zach watched as his classmate approached before stepping to the side and right into Zach's path. The school building seemed empty other than the two of them, and Zach stopped before the future hero and now the strongest recruit in Shiketsu once again. "Is it true?" Inasa wondered. "The rumors, what they're saying out there?"

"Yeah," Zach replied quietly with a short nod. He lifted a half smile using the right side of his mouth and gave Inasa a partly apologetic look. "Thanks, for today," Zach said.

The apology in Zach's voice was for this being the last time they would be able to see each other, in school at least. He was apologizing that he got himself expelled and could no longer stay with the rest of them, but Inasa frowned deeper than Zach had ever seen him frown before at the sound of the apology. _So fake,_ Inasa's face scrunched up and Zach's expression started to shift at the angry look in Inasa's eyes for him pretending like that. "Why do you do this?" Inasa questioned under his breath.

Zach stared at the teen who was always smiling and laughing along whenever he told his stories about the alternate world. And as he looked at Inasa he could see that the question just asked was in reference to all of it. Every moment the two of them had shared since Zach came to Shiketsu High. "I… don't know what you mean," Zach said quietly, his eyes lowering from Inasa's that were harder to meet as he responded like that. _I can't break it again. Not like this. Not, I just can't. I won't be convincing otherwise-_

"I don't know you at all," Inasa said, his voice low and almost in a growl though it was more frustrated than angry here. "We just-" Inasa paused as he started that. The two of them had just saved the city together, and yet as he heard himself be praised on the breaking news he heard just how harshly Zach was being treated. He wanted to feel bad for Zach too. He wanted to defend his friend, and yet he did not know his "friend" at all to do that with any confidence. "All this time and you, you haven't once gotten real with me."

Zach lifted his head and saw Inasa's teeth grinding so hard. His heart clenched up at the sight of the usually happy teenager's pained expression to know so little about him, in this moment where Zach was about to leave and he would never be able to find out as he wanted to. _If I just, had a little more time,_ Inasa's eyes shook and squinted a bit before snapping open again as he kept himself from glaring at Zach as this was his own fault. _I didn't try enough! Kotsumura and Himazuri did and I, I wanted to too!_

"Something real?" Zach whispered back at Inasa as he watched his _former_ classmate's expression twisting like that. Zach's own face scrunched in anger that Inasa was asking for this, but Inasa nodded back angrily at him with his own teeth clenching harder too. "You, really want to-"

"Yes," Inasa hissed, barely seething it through his teeth as he looked at Zach from only a couple feet away.

 _Real?_ Zach thought. His heart pounded and his eyes closed as the word echoed in his mind. _What is real? Something. Right now. What-_ The first thing that popped into Zach's mind made him wince, but he opened his eyes and looked at Inasa and into his eyes while thoughts of that underground rushed through his head. He breathed heavier while Inasa started to stare with less of a frustrated look and one slowly getting more focused and surprised as Zach looked at him like that. "There was," Zach started, but he stopped himself as he imagined a woman crucified to a wall next to him. He saw the blood smears on walls that started to rot and blacken, and numbers echoed in his mind, _Fourteen. Twenty-three. Sixty-six._ Hawkins' face flashed in Zach's mind. Disfigured. Enraged. Snarling at him and roaring as he split apart, glitching in and out of himself.

"What?" Inasa whispered, seeing Zach thinking about something real, and pressing him despite the pained expression of the scar-faced teen before him.

Zach heard in that whisper a sense of desperation that this was his last chance. _It is. I'd never talk to him-_ Zach tried to distract himself with the present moment, but he gasped out as floor B15 flashed through his head. "I only saw it for a second," Zach whispered. _Just on the fall down to B16 and while we flew up! How can I remember it, so vividly?!_ Fear flashed over Zach's face, then he slowly pushed it down while lifting his eyes and meeting Inasa's gaze that showed he still wanted to know no matter how Zach was reacting just starting to think of this.

"I was in, Scotland," Zach started softly to his classmate who nodded his head to show he was listening and to have Zach continue. _What did he only see for a second?_ Inasa wondered, confused by what it was Zach was talking about here, but just content so far in the fact that it felt like it was real to him.

Zach paused for a moment, but seeing that look on Inasa's face, mixed with the thoughts rushing through his own head, he had to keep going. "I heard there might be a human experimentation lab in this area I searched. I, had hoped I was wrong, but I had to check it out anyway. And I…" Zach thought back, and it all started rushing at him at once. "I found this building. A two story building, white, normal, right in the middle of a field somewhere. It was weird," Zach continued and paused for a second as he thought back on finding this place. "That there would be such a building there. It was, so out of the way. But it was inconspicuous. Didn't turn heads unless someone were to question, why is there a building like that here?"

Inasa gulped as Zach stared him in the eyes while saying all this. "But when I got closer to the building to check it out, and I saw the blood splashing onto the windows…" Zach paused at Inasa's eyes going wide, but he only grit his teeth for a moment before continuing to him, "Inside, everyone was dead. This little monster had killed them all. Ripped them all apart," Inasa got a darker look on his face and started nodding, understanding why this was painful but also appreciating in that nod that Zach had gotten serious with him. Zach started shaking his head back though at the other teen who seemed to be misunderstanding something here. "That's not-" Zach started. He ground his teeth and continued in a hoarser whisper, "Everyone was dead, on those floors."

Zach got specific and then shook his head, his eyes clenching shut as he said, "But inside the elevator, below the buttons for the first and second floors, there was this panel I pulled off. And I… I knew if I went down there-" Zach hesitated and turned his head to look into Inasa's eyes, "Into any one of the sixteen basements below that building. Where the rest of the lab was. Where, the test subjects were running wild. I-" Zach gasped and his eyes watered and piled up on his bottom eyelids causing Inasa to stare at him in even more shock. "When I saw 'GOD' smeared on the window that had gotten covered in blood, I already knew that it was- it was going to be bad. And when that drugged-up person, experimented on and fucked with so badly that he had become a monster, praised his God in his final moments before the drugs made his eyes pop and killed him- I knew! I knew, that it was going to be, it was going to be bad."

"I knew it," Zach whispered to himself and closed his eyes tightly shut. "But I- even though I knew it was going to be bad. That whatever I saw down there would, change things. Change everything," he whispered. His head bowed a bit and a tear slid out of his right eye and down his face before he opened both eyes again. "When I tell you, you can't imagine it," Zach started, lifting his head a little and looking up into Inasa's stunned eyes. "I really mean that."

"I thought I was ready, enough, at least," Zach said softly. "But after a couple minutes down there, on _this_ world," Zach emphasized with his teeth clenching together and his gaze glaring into Inasa's eyes. Zach's fists curled at his sides and he hissed, "I saw things that I needed to see. Things, that I _chose_ to go down there and witness. I could have left. I could have run, far away. And maybe I should have. I had no business being there. It wasn't my job, to go down there and- and try to- I don't know. It didn't matter what my goal was. It didn't matter what I thought I could do. I was _wrong,_ " Zach finished and shook his head rapidly at Inasa, while a couple more tears fell out of his shaky eyes full of regret and despair.

"And I can hear the chants of 'Sacrifice!' 'Sacrifice!' 'Sacrifice!' Echoing in my mind, even now," Zach continued with his lips curling and pulling far apart at the corners. Inasa's eyes trembled at the sound of that, as he tried to imagine what it was Zach was describing with barely any details. Yet he did not want to ask for the details that had led to whatever it was Zach was describing. "As they ripped each other- skinned each- _**devoured…**_ fucking _monsters_ and demons!" Zach's voice cracked at the end, and he gasped out, "And God. God… That fucking bastard, haha, ha," Zach's laughter came out broken and nervous, and he rose his right hand back to the side of his head that he grabbed before taking in a deep breath.

His eyes cleared of some of the blurriness and he refocused on Inasa in front of him. He let out a heavy breath and rubbed his eyes quickly with his right sleeve. "Geez," Zach muttered, shaking his head and then lowering his arm and giving Inasa a serious but steadier look again. "You said something real, and I came at you with-"

"No, I believe you," Inasa said, cutting off Zach and shaking his head as Zach tried to go back on what just happened. "I do," Inasa repeated as Zach frowned that Inasa would say that. Inasa saw though, that Zach's retraction here was what sounded much more fake than what he just heard, even if that should have been unbelievable. "I don't get it," Inasa continued softly. "But," Inasa smiled brightly and surprised Zach who opened his eyes wider at the sight of that smile.

"I'm glad, you told me," Inasa said. As Zach finally confided something "real" with him, Inasa thought, _Nothing he ever said about Terra ever sounded so real. I knew he was always sugarcoating everything, and I don't know if there were similar stories in Terra he left out or if that's really just the cover. But,_ "Thanks, Zach." Inasa bowed his upper body far down to his friend in front of him. "Thank you for saving the school today too. And for letting me help you!"

"You don't-" Zach began, but he stopped himself and just sighed after a moment as Inasa bowed farther so his head was almost touching the floor. "Yeah, thanks for helping me," Zach replied to him instead of telling Inasa he did not need to bow. "I've got to get out there now though," Zach added, focusing on what was next to move past this encounter he was getting too caught up on, as well as moving quickly away from the dark thoughts still threatening to take over all the space in his mind.

"Good luck out there!" Inasa yelled out while standing back straight up. He gave Zach a thumbs up that Zach laughed once at before raising his hand, giving a small wave as he walked by Inasa this time without his classmate from Class 1 stopping him. "You can do this," Inasa finished, turning and saying it to Zach's back as he continued away towards the building's entrance. Zach walked without dragging his feet like he had been when Inasa saw him approaching before, and the teenager who could control the wind smiled in a semi-accomplished way, only semi because half of his mind was too occupied with what Zach just told him for him to feel any kind of good way.

Zach made it to the lockers at the front of the school right inside the entrance. He planned on walking straight out confidently towards those reporters past the front gate, but there was an ambush in wait for him in the school's mud room. Zach was walking between two rows of lockers, when at the end of the rows two boys stepped out from either side and into his path. To his right stood the taller of the two with green hair, spiky bangs on the left side and a flip of his green hair on the right. He had a v-shaped scar on his right cheek and black eyes with dark green irises in the middles of them. On the other side of Dendo stood a shorter boy who had blond hair and was looking more upset than angry. _Dendo doesn't really look angry though,_ Zach noticed after taking another step and looking past the initial appearance of the two who stayed to see him off. _He's just bad at showing it._

"You, really got expelled?" Kotsumura wondered after he and Zach stared at each other for a couple seconds. That brief period was all it took to convey the reality across to his two classmates, and Zach just nodded at the blond who asked that feeling he knew the crappy truth already. "Damn, what's the principal even thinking-"

"This one's on me," Zach countered before Kotsumura could finish putting the blame on Memuria. "I knew after saving Sato that one more time and… and this," Zach finished, with a sad but also accepting shrug of his shoulders at the way things turned out.

"You going to be alright?" Dendo wondered, giving Zach a curious look at how calmly he was taking this.

Zach nodded back at the taller teen with green hair, and he flashed a smile at the two in front of him. "Yeah, I've got contingencies ready for a situation like this." Kotsumura's eyes widened to hear that, though a glance to his side showed Dendo just nodding like he suspected as much. Zach chuckled at Dendo's nod suggesting he thought it would be fine, and then he added to his friends, "Shouldn't be too tough for me out there. Just another month to go until graduation, but I talked to Memuria about it after she expelled me and she says she'll give me a partial transcript. Show whatever school I go to finish out the term that I've done the work and have the grades I need from one of the top two hero academies in the country."

He explained himself in a reassuring tone to Kotsumura whose upset look stayed sad but did get a little more at ease upon hearing that. "Anyway," Zach continued again after he finished, and he stepped forward down between the lockers towards the two. He already had all his things on him, and he just smiled at the guys he walked up in front of so they were close and could see the grateful smile and look that fully covered his face. "Thanks, you guys. Our time together was short, but you accepted me and made me feel like a part of the class these past couple of months." He grinned a little more while the two before him just got surprised looks over their faces, and Zach nodded intensely at the two while grinning in that way. "I'm looking forward to fighting together, side by side, as heroes."

Zach walked between the two and closer to the exit behind them that the boys spun around to when Zach walked past. As Zach was moving by though, he glanced to his left at the shorter boy who looked back and saw Zach's interested look. "How'd it go, by the way?" Zach wondered, stopping himself before leaving and raising his eyebrows at his classmate who did a quick glance in Dendo's direction before looking right back at Zach with a reminder to himself that it did not matter if Dendo heard this.

"Great," Kotsumura replied. He grinned more and in less of a sad way that things were over here, as it seemed like even though Zach was leaving things were not going to change too much between them. "I took Tiona out to go night skiing. We had dinner at the lodge too. It was fun," Keiji smirked and Zach could see from his look that Kotsumura actually thought the date went really well.

 _If he had that kind of confidence during it, I bet it did,_ Zach thought back at the blond, though his smile did lower a little bit as Kotsumura continued about how he was going to ask her out again next week. "Might not want to wait so long, if it really was fun…" Zach started, though he glanced the other way and noticed Dendo still staring in Kotsumura's direction in surprise at what he was hearing right now. Zach smiled again but looked back to Kotsumura and added seriously to his friend who looked interested in what Zach thought, "Term's almost over, like you said you know. I guess too much right away might seem clingy or, something. But I think… well, I don't know," Zach stopped himself as he saw Kotsumura was going to take whatever he said here and go with it by the look on his face.

Kotsumura got confused as Zach stopped himself there and started sounding unsure. Zach scratched the back of his head though and glanced away, _If he thinks it's working out great, I don't have much to add._ "It's not like I know any better. Never, been very good at holding a relationship myself," Zach trailed off and looked back through the glass of the doors in the direction of the main street past the school gates where the noise was getting even louder with demands to question him by every reporter in the world it sounded like.

"Well you gave me some great advice," Kotsumura countered Zach's attitude there, making his friend look back his way and regain that smile at Kotsumura's return of the grateful look Zach gave them before. "So thanks for that, man. I owe you." _A whole lot._

 _I'm glad,_ Zach thought back while just giving Kotsumura a nod in response. In his head he saw the first day of school there at Shiketsu. Talking to Kotsumura and Reika on the way to the locker rooms before Ranking Day, watching the two of them fight after his initial fight with Dendo, and then he recalled the fight that happened after theirs. When Manzo challenged Dendo and the two were out there fighting, and Reika had come over between him and Kotsumura to stand next to the blond who just beat her, confusing and making him flustered by her strange attitude that he had thought would be angrier. Zach remembered the smirk he saw only on the half of her face closer to him during that next fight while Kotsumura fidgeted nervously about his victory, and despite being anxious about it he had still called her by Tiona that day after having the guts to challenge her and defeat her in combat. _I think I figured it out, on that very first day._

"Keep it going then," Zach said, going back on before if Kotsumura was already heeding the advice and thought it was great. "You move too slow and things won't be serious enough by graduation that you stay together. If you want to go for it, then go for it now," Zach said as his final piece of advice he could give out. Zach also turned his head a bit more though there and added, "Same goes for you."

Dendo stared at Zach in surprise with his eyes opening wide in confusion as Zach just smiled and turned away. Zach walked out the exit and started down the path outside of the school for the gates where he would be swarmed be the hundreds already outside demanding to hear from him and his account of the events of the day. Dendo watched Zach's back for a few seconds still in confusion, but he turned to Kotsumura who was looking his way, and Dendo started to his classmate, "I'm not into Reika."

Kotsumura rolled his eyes. "Obviously," the boy said and then shook his head with a chuckle while turning away and looking after Zach himself again. Keiji got a serious look thinking on what Zach just told him again, and he turned back to look into the school behind him he only had just over a month left in. _Zach's never been wrong once since I met him._ Kotsumura headed back through the mud room as he had been waiting here without any of his things, and as he moved farther into the school confidently, he continued loudly to the confused teen behind him, "It's pretty obvious to the rest of us who you're into, even if you won't let yourself _think_ about it."

Kotsumura grinned at the hint he gave with his emphasis, and he finished without looking back at his shocked classmate behind him, "It's probably why you're the only two who haven't figured it out." He laughed to himself but got louder after a second, thinking, _Though it's going to be impossible for you to keep it off your mind now. That's gonna be pretty funny to see…_ Kotsumurar stopped moving and his smile dropped down as he stood still in the locker room.

Outside of the school, Manzo Elia turned her head from where she was leaning on a corner around the front of the main building. She leaned away from the wall and took a step off as she turned and stared towards the back of her classmate with such a heavy backpack on who walked tall without looking like he noticed the weight. He had a calm look on his face and even a smile as he headed towards the gate and the people shouting for him to answer for their fears. Her right hand lifted up, but it faltered and her opening hand curled back into a fist and dropped as she watched him go.

Manzo stared at the boy she wanted to run after, to say something to, but she held herself back. _I don't know him. What he said yesterday, I know you're the most amazing person I've ever met but, I don't know you. What you said about killing your mom, about the tragedies of Shigaraki and Raijin, the history behind All For One and Quirks… All those amazing things you talked about will forever change the way we think about Quirks. At least, it will forever change my life. What you told me the first day you were here, and everything since, you've changed me. I don't know how to put that in words to you._ Zach's head turned a small amount to the right, and Manzo met his gaze with her eyes widening for a split second before her surprise vanished as of course he knew she was watching. And when he looked her way and into her eyes, his head made the tiniest nodding motion with an understanding smile shifting slightly different from the one he was going to face everyone with.

And she knew he understood it. All the words she found impossible to put together in one coherent thanks, she saw she did not need to tell him that she understood what he had done for her. And Manzo did not feel surprised this time as he gave her that look. She just smiled back his way with her curly auburn hair falling behind her head, her smile bright, and her expression feminine and beautiful as she rose back up her right hand. Instead of extending it and calling out to him though, she just rose it at her side and opened it into a palm, giving him a wave goodbye before he turned back forward to continue to the gate with his expression back to what it just was. _Goodbye, Zach._

Hazano Worrod stared down from the second floor of the school out the windows tinted on the outside so no one could just look in and see him. He could see outside of the gates though, and despite the walls being high enough that the sidewalk and road just on the other side were too hard for him to see at his height, the crowd was large enough that he could see it on opposite sidewalks and extending down other roads where the mobs of people around Yutapu had come to demand answers from the hero who had apparently saved them from a missile… that may have been sent their way solely because he was in their city.

The homeroom teacher of Class 3-1 saw Manzo near the corner of the building where she barely stepped out into his view. He watched the quiet farewell between the two, and his fists clenched down at his sides as he thought about the impact Sazaki had had on some of his students. _All of them,_ Hazano corrected as he was listing them off individually in his head only to find that not one had remained the same from the start of the term. _I saw them every day more than any of the other faculty. I saw the change happen gradually, so gradually that I missed it sometimes…_

 _I know Memuria is right, but it's tough nonetheless,_ Hazano thought while watching the boy almost reaching the gate where a security guard gulped as he turned back to the boy he was about to let out into the madness beyond their school grounds. Hazano frowned deeper and his fists tightened even more as he watched the teenager's back, _Despite what I thought on his first day, that boy I thought would never be a student of my class is now leaving and it feels like if any of the other Class 1 students were getting expelled right now._ Hazano grit his teeth for moment but relaxed himself as a teacher and pro hero needing to be composed in a moment like this.

In the teacher's head though, he could see Sazaki fighting his other students on the first day. He saw the looks on his class's faces as Lifebringer taught them lessons without the kids even knowing he intended to do so. _Subliminally making them better heroes. Training them. Making them elite fighters, a class that could challenge and defeat U.A.'s Class A with his help. A natural leader and fighter like I've never seen. But more than that, it's everything he does! The report yesterday. Stopping the missile today!_ Hazano's fists uncurled and he let out a sigh while wondering to himself, _What will he do tomorrow?_

 _I wish I could be there to see it…_

Kotsumura had laughed at what he just told the oblivious Dendo behind him who was much too serious usually for anyone to tease him, even though Kotsumura knew a lot of the others over the past few years had seen what he and Zach were referring to. After he laughed though he found himself frozen in the locker room with his smile gone and his expression filling with sadness again. He was sad, even though Zach had just relieved him with his explanation of his plans for the future, and how he was looking forward to fighting together as heroes. Zach thanking them too, made him feel relief that he did not know where it came from, but he was glad that Zach felt they had helped him when he never thought he had.

As much as he wanted to just end this on a good note though, he stared back behind him past Dendo who was getting an annoyed look on his face but did not snap anything at his classmate when he saw that expression on Kotsumura's face. Keiji just stared outside towards where the shouting got much, much louder as Zach went out to face the masses turning against him more than ever. His depressed eyes shifted away from Dendo he was afraid would catch on to what he was thinking about, then Kotsumura lowered his gaze down to the floor and closed his eyes as he imagined what happened right after Zach flew out of the room.

Everyone had been so focused on Dendo and Hazano sensei's orders. They were rushing around to get to work protecting the school and preparing for the missile, but Kotsumura felt more confident than most that with Zach and Inasa out there they had no reason to be worried. He figured that was probably why he was the only one to notice. The only one to look down at Zach's bag that he had opened so quickly to pull out his laptop in that emergency, getting so solely focused on the incoming missile that he was not careful to zip up his bag right afterwards as Kotsumura had noticed him doing lately ever since his backpack started getting heavier and noticeably thicker on the regular.

Kotsumura thought of the shirt sleeve that had been partially hanging out of the bag while everyone rushed about around him. He had seen it and looked closer, to see the couple of water bottles below it and the secondary pair of shoes shoved to the side of a couple of Zach's books. _I'd noticed his bag looked heavier the past couple weeks. Ever since, his apartment blew up, really…_ Kotsumura clenched his eyes shut then turned back the direction farther into the school again where he headed with his lips curled into a deep frown. He shook his head then opened his eyes, and he had to rub them once before steadying his look. _There's nothing I can do for him now,_ he thought sadly.

 _Nothing, anyone can do to help him anymore._

* * *

 **A/N And just like that, school's out. Thanks for reading. Hope you enjoyed the chapter...**


	209. Chapter 209

**Disclaimer: I don't own Boku no Hero Academia**

 **Chapter 209:**

"I applied at Isamu, THT, Ketsubutsu, Seijin High…" Zach held up his right hand as he was running out of room on his left after lifting a finger with each place he told Hagakure he had applied to. He had to put his coffee cup down before lifting it and finishing his list which shocked Hagakure even more as it had only been a day but Zach was _way_ more on top of things than she thought he would be when she asked in a worried way what he was going to do now. "In the meantime my hero costume's still at Shiektsu High though. Only problem I'm really having is getting them to release that to me, since I had to tell them about where I got my laptop which-"

"Ah! You told them about that package you got?" Hagakure asked in surprise and with her look getting more worried again.

Zach shrugged and scratched the back of his head with one hand while lifting his coffee in the other. "It's not too bad. It's better telling the truth than pretending and making something up about where I got it. Ultimately they'd be able to track it back since I never bought it in the country, nowhere in the country sells those kind of laptops, and so I would have had to have bought it in some foreign country after getting out of Tartaros. They probably would have assumed something worse than the truth, to be honest."

"Everyone always does with you," Hagakure said with an annoyed sigh, leaning back on her chair at the cafe where a few people were recording them from a distance. "Well I'm done," Hagakure mentioned, shaking around her coffee cup after Zach just tilted his pretty far back on his last sip. "What do you want to do now?"

"You have all afternoon, right?" Zach wondered to his friend who had texted him that day while she was at school wondering how he was doing, and who he invited out here to hang with after school.

Hagakure nodded back at him fast, smiling as he could tell with the cheerful humming noise she made during her invisible nod that he noticed from movements in her clothing. "Mashirao's interviewing at some other hero agencies around where Incognito's headquarters is, for after graduation," Hagakure added in a softer whisper with a hand cupped to her mouth indicating to Zach that it was a secret. "And everyone's super busy today, but not me! I've got the whole day- afternoon," she corrected herself, wondering if that was somehow offensive considering Zach really did have the whole day without a school to go to.

"That's cool," Zach said, and he got up from the table which made Hagakure jump up too. "Alright, let's go find something to do then. Maybe shake some of these paparazzi," he lowered his voice as Hagakure giggled at the mention of the people she also noticed watching them, and he added, "And you could tell me about your plans with Incognito for after graduation." Hagakure's face got red as he said that, and she shushed him for saying it even though she was the one who brought it up in the first place.

After shushing him though, she added in a quiet voice right back, "Sounds like a plan!"

* * *

"Sir! Raijin-san!"

Kaminari Denki turned his head and looked across the underground tram he was on connecting two sides of the largest base the League of Villains had underground. The tunnel was dim to dark outside of the tram, but the small train-like vehicle itself was illuminated on the inside so he could see who just shoved open the end door to his car and rushed in. "What?" Raijin snapped towards Rabbit who slowed down and stumbled as the tram jolted on something on their shaky tracks.

Rabbit snapped his head up with his small light-red fuzzy ears flopping over the spikes of his darker red hair. The young villain had a flustered look on his face and he looked up at his boss while another eight villains also in the tram car looked towards him confusedly at why he looked like that. "Ah-ha, I was just-" he gulped and took another breath to calm himself down. "We were just watching the big reveal. And- have you seen it?" Rabbit wondered.

"Why would I watch it?" Raijin asked back at the villain before him who he rose his eyebrows at. "I was there." _Like you were too. What are you doing wasting your time on that instead of moving towards the next goal?_ Raijin was annoyed but he decided not to say it aloud. There were other more important pawns in the car who he would be belittling by insulting Rabbit's desire to rewatch that tape he knew some of them had probably looked back on fondly.

"Get back to the front," Meta snapped at the boy who was annoying him with this interruption as the group of stronger villains were actually talking about something important before Rabbit interrupted them. "You're signaling to them when we're getting close to the end of the line."

"What is it, Rabbit-chan?" A woman with long white hair questioned, looking more interested than the others around her. Raijin darted his gaze to her quickly then back to Rabbit in slightly more interest as the woman taller than he was stood up and motioned for him to come back and talk to her.

Rabbit glanced to her and then at the seat next to the one the woman rose from where an intimidating man with a very dark gaze was glaring at him. He continued forward into this car full of villains he felt were likely all stronger than him, and he started, "I was watching the tape, like I have like a hundred times." He admitted it and gulped, but others were starting to get more interested instead of judging him for getting caught up on that fight they were in. "And you have to look back on it. Right now," Rabbit said, nodding his head quickly and lifting up the tablet he had been watching it on himself.

"Why?" Sonic snapped, annoyed at the roundabout way Rabbit was telling them this.

"Because," Rabbit said, an unnerved look on his face that made Sonic get far more interested and lose all annoyance at the sight of. The younger man continued while playing the video and turning it for the group in front of him to watch, "There was someone else there. A third party not with us or the heroes-"

Raijin reached forward and took the tablet out of Rabbit's hands, sitting back down and looking at it closely without needing the floppy-eared villain to show him where to look. _What the hell is he talking about?_ Raijin's hands sparked as his eyes shot open wide, and he paused the video playing on the tablet. _Wait a minute…_

* * *

On the top floor of a skyscraper in Tokyo, three dozen pro heroes were gathered in a room with Endeavor who was having a very ominous and serious meeting with them all. They had been at the top floor for hours considering all the information they had to pour through and all the videos they had to watch on their many, many enemies. They were some of the sharpest and most elite heroes in the country, and as they rewatched the footage from the live feeds Raijin had set up before Operation Atem, Endeavor's eyes suddenly shot open huge from the side of the room where he was standing.

"Wait!" Endeavor yelled out.

Burnin paused the video, getting a confused look on her face like Olympia had behind her where the slightly younger woman was leaning against the wall. Burnin lifted her head after pausing from the laptop she was controlling everything from, "Boss?"

Hawks was frozen where he stood, having noticed it that time as well in a moment that made the hair on the back of his neck stand on end and his eyes open huge. Endeavor spotted Hawks' reaction telling him it was not a trick of the eyes, and he snapped over to Burnin while all the other heroes in the room were looking at Endeavor or Hawks in confusion as none of them had seen anything new or shocking there as they rewatched their comrades' deaths in the Koimou Massacre. "Rewind the tape. Just a few seconds, then start playing it frame by frame," Endeavor ordered his sidekick.

Burnin was still confused but she was interested too and nodded affirmatively back at her boss who looked to the screen again with a look full of dread. The dread on Endeavor's face unnerved a few of even the most elite heroes around who had no idea what Endeavor could have seen in a moment that was just an unimportant scene in the middle of the fight. Burnin rewound a few seconds back though then paused again as the video of the living room was showing, with the back deck in view and most of the dining room as well. The cameras had been switching throughout the video but mainly stayed at this angle where the majority of the action went on.

As the scene started moving forward though, the clip switched camera shots to show one from the kitchen aimed down the hallway with a partial angle into certain rooms. Most everyone's focuses locked on the fight going on in the hallway that did not seem that important in the long run, as it was not between any of the most important villains they were worried about and did not even show off any weaknesses or great strengths about opponents they would be going up against. Burnin stopped tapping on the right arrow key on her keyboard as she was progressing the film forward though, as she was watching the footage away from the main fight that everyone else was focused on. "What the fuck?" she muttered under her breath.

Endeavor stepped forward, and Hawks looked his way and said in a low and deadly serious voice, "You recognize that, don't you?"

"Yes," Endeavor said, the dark tone in his voice showing Hawks that he very clearly knew what he was looking at.

"Can one of you explain what we're looking at here?" Presto Change-o asked the heroes at the front of the room so focused on something he was not seeing.

"Top right corner, through that door," Underguard said in a low voice, making Presto Change-o look his way and then back to the screen where many of the other heroes focused on the piece of the footage Underguard just pointed out.

Ms. Clue felt dread stir inside her unlike anything she had felt since she watched this video the first time when it was happening live. She felt that deepest pit in her chest because Suneater grit his teeth and gripped the tops of his thighs with his eyes opening huge on her right side. That twenty year old stared with recognition and a terrified look on his face at what he saw through an unbroken window in that guest room. They had to look over a body resting halfway in the room and halfway out as the person was collapsed in the doorway, and they had to look past the fight that would come to block that door from sight in a second so the image was not even able to be viewed for the full couple of seconds that this camera angle was actually televised for.

In that brief moment though, inside of the brief instant that this angle was exposed, there was something just visible in the corner of that window looking through the glass. Only a few people in the room knew what they were looking at, and even Suneater just had a vague idea as he was mainly getting this feeling from the confirmation he received from Endeavor and Hawks' expressions. "Suneater?" Tamaki Amajiki turned to his left and looked at the older woman giving him a questioning gaze.

Endeavor looked back, and he saw Suneater turn back forward and look right at him with an anxious look on his face. "I've, heard something about that," Suneater started, giving Endeavor a questioning look though he already felt he had it confirmed to him.

Endeavor hummed in a deep tone that came from the bottom of his throat. He turned back to his side where Hawks was staring darkly at the screen, his eyes focused on that face sticking out in the corner where it would only appear this once throughout the whole video. It was so brief it almost felt like a trick of the eyes when Hawks just saw it, and if not for Endeavor calling it out he might have just ignored it. But Endeavor's shout to stop the video told him he was wrong to dismiss what he thought he saw. "This is bad," Hawks muttered, lifting a hand up and pushing it back through his ash blond hair. _Why here? Why now?!_

"What it that? Endeavor, Hawks?" Gran Torino said, getting serious with the heroes ahead of him who seemed to know about this. He had been staying quiet during the meeting, but the veteran hero could tell something bad was happening here due to the appearance of this figure. " _Who_ is that?"

The footage was frozen and everyone in the room stared out the corner of the window at the head sticking out there, though it was impossible to determine what that person looked like behind the white mask they were wearing…

* * *

"I don't get it," Meta snapped, confused as he looked at Raijin and then up at the white-haired woman who looked seriously dark all of a sudden. "Isn't this a good thing? It's not like we haven't been dealing with Eziano doing the same thing, messing around in our country where he doesn't belong."

"Eziano wouldn't do something like this though," Sonic muttered, catching on to why Raijin looked so hesitant and indecisive as to whether this was a good or bad thing for them. "None of us even noticed they were there."

"It's not a 'they,'" Raijin muttered under his breath. "It's just one fucking person. Someone, who didn't come in and talk to us even though she could have. She doesn't care about what we're doing though. Not about what Eziano's up to, even if their goals intersect… I do not know how to deal with this person."

"'She?' It's a woman?" the white-haired villain questioned, in a bit of surprise but also with a smirk growing on her face. The bulky muscular man wearing a crimson cape with a black 'X' on it grinned in the same way as the woman who had just been sitting at his side did.

"Yeah, Hypnos," Raijin muttered, lifting his right hand and running it up through a spike of his blond hair over his head. He turned and looked up into the eyes of the woman behind him who was leaning over his shoulder to watch the video. He handed the tablet up so she could get a closer look for herself, then he looked ahead of him into the back of the next seat with his thoughts racing as he weighed the pros and cons.

"Is it that serious?" Meta wondered even more confusedly as this had suddenly taken their full attention off the previous discussion about their master plans.

"Might be," Raijin replied, though he let out a deep breath and then leaned back on his seat with a grin spreading across his face. "But it's going to help us out more than hurt us, even if I didn't predict this bitch showing up out of nowhere."

"I've heard a thing or two about her," Hypnos began, a dark chuckle escaping her lips as she looked closer at the pointed ears at the top of the mask. The indents where the eyes of the mask would be even though there were no holes, and the three slits on either cheek like whiskers going across her face. "This, cat mask bitch. That's what they call her. What everyone calls her."

"Hmph, yeah, she's a crazy bitch alright," Raijin said. _If anything I've heard about her is true, this is about to get real fucking ugly real fast. How did we make it this long without noticing her presence? I wonder, if Zach knows she's here?_

* * *

"Huh? What are you talking about?" Hagakure wondered in confusion as she and Zach walked down a sidewalk of Musutafu in the dark.

The sun had set while they were in the theater, and Hagakure lowered the soda she had just been sipping out of after refilling on their way out of the movie. It was a cute movie made more for children than young adults, but when Zach suggested going to see a movie, it was the second movie he listed off as ones that were currently playing. Hagakure had not wanted to ask Ojiro to take her as it was not a romantic movie nor one that she knew he would like in the least, but the fact that Zach listed it _second_ was enough for her to excitedly jump on the idea and drag him to it. She found herself confused by the direction their conversation had just turned in though, as the two had started talking about something serious in a mood shift from the movie.

Zach had not called it the Koimou Massacre but the 'failed Operation Atem' to keep the mood from dropping too quickly. He sighed though as Hagakure got confused by what he just mentioned off-handedly like she would know what he was talking about, even though all he had said was how he had received the "warnings" from his "enemies" very clearly.

"You're talking about what Kaminari was saying to you?" Hagakure wondered to him.

"Yeah, Kaminari for one. But there was someone else there in the video who I spotted on my first watch-through as it was happening. I wasn't focused on her very much because of the emergency, but she knew I would see her there in the window staring straight at one of the cameras. As if she was looking right into my eyes through that cat mask of hers," Zach said, tsking and shrugging his shoulders out before lifting his own soda and taking a sip out of it.

"In the window?" Hagakure repeated in confusion. "Wait! Someone outside of the League? Not even part-"

"No, she's someone else from my past," Zach replied in a slightly reluctant tone. "But I'll deal with her when she comes. Right now we have to focus on one problem at a time, and the League's definitely the most important thing we have to deal with right now. Agreed?" He asked with a lift of the corners of his mouth at her, showing he knew Intanzo was not the worst villain in the country as even the new villain leaderboards still showed.

"Oh yeah. We're going to beat Kaminari up though- or Raijin, whatever he wants to call himself! I still haven't forgiven him for trying to frame me," Hagakure pouted and crossed her arms in annoyance.

Zach sweatdropped though and added with an odd look at her, "And for killing Iida and Tsuyu, right?"

Hagakure's eyes bulged and she spun to Zach with her arms uncrossing in defiance to instead cross over and over in front of her desperately. "I didn't mean that! Of course for them too… and, well, for you," Hagakure added with her arms lowering down and the mood shifting a little more serious again as she said that softly to him.

 _With Hagakure, her tone says everything,_ Zach thought as he turned and looked closer at the girl he was pretty sure was already looking sideways at him. _Everything you have to see most people's faces to read, mixed with their tones and body language. She knows that people don't understand her as much though without having those simple facial cues we're so used to with everyone else, and so her voice has so much more emotion in it. Or at least, it's easier for those of us who know her to really hear how she's feeling when she talks._ Zach gave Hagakure a soft smile after what she said to him.

Zach then looked back forward and continued walking, and he turned at the corner instead of waiting for the walk signal to go across the crosswalk. It seemed to Hagakure like just Zach wanting to keep walking without stopping to wait for a moment, and yet the pause they had on the sidewalk was at a perfect length to allow them to reach the corner when it was red so their easier route was to the left around the bend and off of the more main road. "I'm, really grateful you came out with me tonight," Zach started to the girl at his side as they continued walking away from the movie theaters with no real destination in mind as they had not talked about where they were going yet. The two were just enjoying the company of each other, and Hagakure hummed in happy agreement with that statement he just made. Zach paused, then he continued in a softer voice, "The thing is, Toru-"

Zach paused and his eyes widened for a moment, but after his feet stopped like that, he kept walking and the girl who spun to him in surprise on his left rushed to hurry to his side. "Sorry," Zach said before Hagakure could say anything. He apologized to the girl he had never called by her first name before, and he explained, "I got used to calling Mina and Momo by their names, but I shouldn't have just out of the blue-"

"You can!" Hagakure said quickly. She interrupted him and Zach glanced to his side at her in surprise, then an expression wondering if that was really fine with her. Hagakure felt a warm feeling stir inside her at that look on his face though. Hagakure felt giddy at the idea of what he just said, thinking to herself, _Mina and Momo always seem so close to him. I guess, I felt a little isolated even though we spent the day together just the two of us, since you wouldn't call me by my name. But the fact that we got so familiar that it just happened on its own must mean we really are that close too!_ All her fears and worries about the status of their friendship were wiped away, and it made the girl really happy which Zach could see from her body language and the little giddy noise she made right there of half-embarrassment and half-excitement.

He looked back forward with a small, more relaxed smile of his own as they continued walking together. _That's good- fuck. I'm sorry, Hagakure._ His thoughts were almost able to match his expression that showed nothing was wrong, and that in fact things were going great for once. The guilt he felt dissipated though as his expression lowered from its happy one into a semi-serious but also anxious look. His eyes shifted sideways, then looked back ahead. His irises pulled to the corners again though and to the girl next to him who hummed wondering what was up as he gave her a look like that without seeming to notice that she had been staring at his face.

The streetlights illuminated Zach's face enough, and despite it being chilly out neither had their hoods up so Zach's face was too visible to the girl next to him. His hair had not been spiked that day, leaving it wavy so when he stopped, it blew in a sudden gust of wind that had Hagakure holding her light jacket at the top of her zipper on either side where the zipper was down a bit. She zipped it up the rest of the way, then wondered to her friend giving her that strangely uneasy look, "What is it?"

"Hagakure," Zach began, using her last name again which seemed less like he was going back on what they just talked about and more like he was just trying to get serious with her here. She turned to face him seriously, stepping past him and turning fully around in his way and nodding for him to go on.

"What is it, Zach?" She asked him. It was a rare moment, where she felt like she saw the more vulnerably side of him that he never let anyone else see. Where he was going to tell her something serious that he usually just took on himself to deal with all alone. "You can tell me."

"It's, that person I was telling you about earlier," Zach started. Hagakure nodded at him and he continued softly and with a hesitant look on his face, "When I saw her…" his voice came out just above a mutter, his words seeming to slur as his lips moved in strange ways for the words coming out of his mouth. Pressing together between sounds like he was making different ones than the noises he was actually saying, though Hagakure barely noticed the strange movements of his mouth considering what he was telling her in an odd voice and hesitant tone. "I knew that she meant for me to see her. She had appeared inside the League's big reveal video. While heroes were being killed and Kaminari was making his big moves, and she did it solely to tell me something."

"She was warning me," Zach said. Hagakure felt her heart rate start speeding up, as much for what Zach said as for some different reason she was too confused to place. She gulped as his tone had started to shift there too, getting less nervous and more assured of what he was telling her in this serious voice. "Declaring war," he continued in a low tone, his eyes getting more focused too on the girl right in front of him.

"War?" Hagakure whispered, not sure what he was talking about or how she should feel right now about it. _If that's what he thinks of it though, I shouldn't say it's…_

"She's here for me. Mysti," Zach said that name with his lips becoming more noticeable to Hagakure this time as they moved in a way that would have been impossible to read as 'Mysti.' Her heart started racing much, much faster as Zach looked at her with his serious look getting darker and guiltier. "I know she'll drag in everyone I care about," Zach told the girl in front of him. "That's what the warning was for. She wants me to know that it's her. She won't settle for anything else, because she wants revenge. As, I was the one who destroyed everything she had."

"Zach, I don't understand," Hagakure whispered to him. The way he was talking was getting scary to her, and her desire to hear something serious from him was getting replaced with a lot of other feelings here. This seemed like something she would want to hear too, which made her all the more nervous as to why she was feeling a surge of panic rising within her. The tone of his voice, sounded far too serious for this to just be something he was deciding to mention to her now. He could have told her any serious thing, but he chose this one. Could have picked anywhere to do it, but he picked here and now. "What are you saying?" Hagakure asked him quietly.

"I know because she was right there when I took everything from her," Zach said, his tone darker and making Hagakure's chest fill with pain at the menacing way in which he said that. _He's just putting himself down!_ She yelled it at herself in defense of the boy who was scaring her but who she did not want to doubt after all the time they had been spending together today.

Zach grit his teeth while looking at the defensive way in which she was standing there. He shook his head to the left and down in a slow motion and continued, "She won't accept anything, other than taking everything I care about from right in front of me. It's why we had to spend that time in public getting filmed for a while first. Why we went to your favorite things, a movie _you_ wanted to see, while at the same time staying in the same place for a long period of time definitely enough for her."

Zach pursed his lips and his eyes shook, but the confused girl in front of him suddenly noticed something about that reaction he was having compared to what he was telling her. _It's not a reaction to what he just said!_ The panic inside Hagakure rose even more, as Zach's lips moved in a strange way at first only for words to start coming out after him fake-mouthing a few words first.

"You specifically was not ideal, but it was more predictable for me than bringing anyone else. Because your facial expressions wouldn't give me away early. She'd have to gauge your body language like I do… Hagakure," Zach continued stronger, looking at her more intensely with his breathing speeding up like what he was telling her was even more intense and secretive. "She wants to get revenge on me," he said in a desperate tone, one that did not match the situation the invisible girl felt was spiraling out of her comprehension and control. "And she wants to make it as horrible for me as possible. So I know a moment that will come, where I've let my guard down enough to tell a close friend a secret. Where I'm vulnerable, and we're both off guard at that moment," Zach's voice started to speed up while Hagakure's eyes trembled and her body shook with anxiety taking over.

He pursed his lips though, and then his shoulders slacked as a decisive but sad look covered his face in a moment where he was determined to finish and let his guard down enough to finally tell her… "And in that moment of vulnerability, she's going to strike at my heart. As she sees me tell something horrible and get rejected for it, she's going to kill the person I care about the moment they take the step back from me in horror."

In that very moment Hagakure had just felt like she was punched in the gut. The confusion she had been feeling finally pushed away with the realization that slammed into her with as much force as Kaminari zapping them all in that basement. The biggest bombshell she was not ready for, was that the entire day they had spent together was fake. He had been playing her the entire time, as she realized that she was the friend in this scenario he was telling 'a secret.' As she realized that the odd movements of his mouth were so that anyone who could be watching them would not be able to catch on to him already knowing what was about to happen. And with her realization of the betrayal of her trust and the thought that he had lulled her into this sense of security in order to get her reaction to be like this, the complete shock of what was currently happening and that she was the bait smashed into her like the force of a train, because she could never imagine that Zach would use her like this.

Her foot was already in the air as he was saying 'step back from me in horror.' The fear she already felt amplified a hundred times in under a second, her heart nearly flatlining at how fast it raced in the sheer terror of being inside the moment Zach was describing that he had predicted and planned for hours, if not days in advance. Her eyes started darting to the right side, her head turning but far too slow as her foot was touching down on the ground. And that look of genuine despair that was replacing all the hope on Zach's face that the girl in front of him would be understanding of this secret, vanished instantly. His entire body shrouded in darkness in a millisecond, and the left side of his body bulged with darkness that exploded out and in front of him right at Hagakure.

The huge mass of darkness that ripped out of Zach's left side curved around Hagakure's back and then condensed as strong as Zach could make it. Hagakure continued turning in shock as that darkness swept by her right side faster than she was able to follow. _**BANG**_ The sound came next of something firing not too far in the distance, and then as Hagakure finished turning around the same way Zach had been facing, she stared at an indent in the huge black hand larger than she was tall. Slowly, a long steel bullet fell through the indent as the darkness left it and let it drop to the floor at the invisible girl's feet. She was frozen without looking down at the bullet though, as when she had turned that indent in the darkness had been directly behind her skull so it was right between her eyes.

The shot was on an angle to go through her and hit Zach on her other side, though Zach had seen the approaching bullet's angle would likely not have killed him after blowing Hagakure's head apart too much for even Death to fix. The human-shaped mass of Death now standing behind Hagakure pulled into the thick arm and faded away, while out of the other side of the thick hand curled around Hagakure in a protective fist, a new dark figure stepped out of the Death knuckles with his glowing red eyes locked on the position the shot was fired from.

All the darkness pulled back into Zach's body at once. Only his fists stayed surrounded in raging flames of Death, while his red eyes stayed honed-in on the white mask of the woman staring at him as she got up from prone position on a rooftop several blocks away. _You were going to kill her for real. Take me down for now so I couldn't give chase, while I attempted to bring her back. She would have been the first of your revenge, Mysti!_ Zach's teeth bared, his jaw grinding and becoming more visible as darkness spread like veins out from his eyes and the corners of his lips that vanished in the Death to show his full jaw behind them. His black fists of rage flared and he stomped forward-

Something grabbed him by the right sleeve. Zach's head snapped to the side and he glared back behind him as Mysti had just started running, and he had to move before she could escape. He stared back though and into wet eyes of the girl behind him who had stepped up to his back and grabbed him firmly by the sleeve. "I have to get her," Zach snarled, his voice coming out deep and in a scratchy tone.

"You can't-"

"I'm going," Zach said, shrugging his arm out of her grip and grinding his teeth harder as he turned away from the expression on her face he couldn't look at for one more second. "I have to finish-"

"Not by yourself!" Hagakure yelled, her voice carrying around the street that had more people on it that were not running as they were too confused as to what was going on. Some started to run though as fear rose inside them, seeing Lifebringer looking like he was with Invisible Girl who yelled at him from right behind him. As people started to run, Hagakure stepped up on Zach's right side and made him pull his right hand away from her in a quick movement so as not to touch her with any Death. She glared into his eyes as she got to his side, shocking Zach to see the strong movements in her steps that covered up the betrayal and the sadness. No tears fell from her eyes as she had held them back, and Hagakure said in a low voice to the taller boy next to her, "I'm afraid, you're going to kill that woman. You have to bring me with you. That's final."

 _There's no time to argue._ Zach's hands lost their darkness, while at the same time two huge black wings ripped out of either of his shoulder blades. They snapped up into the sky, with sharp angles on them as they pierced up and then back down over and over to make the shape of long flat bat wings. "Grab hold," Zach said, as he stepped towards her and wrapped his arms around her back. She did not argue and did not get flustered, just grabbing on tightly right before those huge scary wings of his snapped down behind him. Only once they were up in the air, did Zach think, _She couldn't have stopped me. I can't kill Mysti now though. That's the real point of not arguing. That one vestige telling me to accept and bring her, before I…_

Zach dropped down into an alleyway two buildings down and across the street from where Mysti fired from. The woman who just dropped down from a fire escape ladder to ground level stopped running to the door in front of her on her right side, as darkness filled the end of the alley and swept down both walls on either side of her in a single flash before fading. The darkness had swept right over the escape route she was going for, showing that in a second he could hit her on her way to that door and knock her out if she was not careful.

The woman had a black ponytail visible behind the white mask that covered the front of her head. There was no way to see her expression behind the mask, no way to see her face and read how she felt, and yet Hagakure suddenly realized how her friends must have felt around her as she could understand that woman's emotions in a second after she snarled one word. " _Death._ "

"Mysti," Zach growled back her way, stomping in front of Hagakure and glaring at the woman who rose up her right hand rapidly and fired something at him out the tip of her middle finger. He swung his left arm in the way of it and slammed the tiny needle-shaped projectile aimed at his throat into the ground to his side, his arm moving like a blur to stop the projectile that fired faster than normal bullets would. It was a projectile thinner than a bullet too so Hagakure still did not see it even after Zach hit it into the ground, especially as it was so sharp that his redirection sent it almost fully into the cement so barely any of the needle was sticking out. The only reason Hagakure knew something actually was fired at him was because of the small _clink_ she heard as his arm swung across the front of his body.

Then Zach opened his left hand he rose at her and the middle of his palm glowed blue. His action caused the woman in the mask to pull her head back and then yank away as he fired something at her she was not as fast enough to dodge as he was.

"AHH-" she yelled out in pain, pulling away as her right arm blew apart at the forearm.

"That's impressive tech," Zach growled while taking another step forward towards the woman who rose her head back up after grabbing at her pained fake arm with her left hand.

Hagakure felt a wave of despair crash over her as she heard Zach speak in such a tone. She looked at his back and repeated the name that villain called him in her head, _"Death." Then, he really is. And all those stories- everything he told us! The nightcrawlers, the Doorway Queen- Terra was never real, so portals to other dimensions… It's all a lie. Everything!_ Hagakure stepped forward and tried to speak, but as strongly as she was able to force him to bring her here with him, she could not find the strength to even make a sound at this point.

"I…" Mysti started, her mask shaking as she rose her head higher seemingly to glare down at him from the indents of the eyes of the mask. There were no actual holes there for her to see out of, but Zach figured the mask had to be made out of some special material that allowed her to speak and see and breathe fine through it. Mysti's voice shook, trembling with rage as she snapped her head forward and screamed, "I HATE YOU!"

"Yeah, I hate you too," Zach replied, then he kicked off the ground with his right foot and shot to the wall on his left in between where he was standing and the woman facing him down the alley.

Two knives slid out of his sleeves and into his hands, and he threw them behind the woman and to her left side. He bounced off the wall while blocking her escapes, and she whipped a device up from her belt after she quickly moved her left hand away from her broken right arm. Zach sped up though as she moved like that at "the last second" thinking to catch him on his approach when he was too close to stop his momentum. She only had the weapon halfway up as he suddenly reached her, punching his right hand down into the device and smashing it apart while breaking some of her fingers too. The machine flew out of her hand already broken but shattered more upon hitting the wall on her other side, and as this was happening, Zach's left knee came swinging over and hit Mysti in the left side of her chest on a downward push that slammed her into the ground and bounced her into garbage cans that dented from the force she smashed into them.

Zach stuck his left hand out and a black arm extended out of his actual one, looking like his sleeve suddenly turned to darkness around his forearm to cover up his hand and then stretch out towards a garbage can rolling away. A black hand opened up at the end of the arm with claws instead of fingers that dug into the steel of the can, making crunching noises as he rose it up and then slammed back towards where Mysti spun around and started yelling, "You bas-" The garbage can slammed into her side mostly below her waist and knocked her back to the ground and rolling across the alley.

"Z-Zach," Hagakure weakly called down to the boy who was once her classmate. In her mind flashed the kid her own height who was too nervous to tell her his Quirk when she asked. And she saw the tears that spilled from his eyes one day because he couldn't save some little girl who had been killed by a drunk driver, a girl he didn't even know and wasn't even around to save. Then she saw the person in front of her, marching towards that woman whose fingertips bled as she curled them in the cement below her to get back to her hand and knees.

"You really thought you could come here," Zach began in a low, deep voice though not full of Death as he held that back. "And kill the people I care about? Target them specifically?" Zach snarled it with his tone raising and his head tilting back, his eyes narrowing in a furious glare down at the woman who turned her bruised and bloody body to glare even harsher back at him.

As angry as he looked, Hagakure felt a rage unlike anything she could imagine radiating from that woman's posture. The way she spun around, the heaviness of her breathing and the way she clawed her nails into the ground to get up and left trails of blood behind. She had heard this rage in the very first word this woman said to him, and she looked back up over Mysti and at Zach's face that was shadowed over in this alley that had a light at the other end from the next street down making his front a darker and more terrifying sight to look at.

"You took, _everything_ from me," Mysti growled, her hateful tone mixing with some of the worst pain Hagakure had ever heard before. It sounded like that woman who was so furious might have been crying behind her mask as she said it. She curled her left hand down into a fist below her and dragged her right knee forward in an attempt to get it to raise, but she winced instead and let out a gasp of pain as Zach had broken her leg. The knowledge that he had chosen to break her leg when he could have more easily just killed her, made Mysti's curled fist shake even more in the most frustration and agony and hatred she had ever felt before. "I _hate_ you with every fiber of my being. And if you don't kill me now," she seemed to even start laughing here through the pain and rage. "I'll slaughter them all in front of you. Kill everyone you care about! BEFORE I RIP OUT YOUR HEART AND EAT IT!"

"You psycho bitch," Zach snarled down at her. He took in heavy breaths and let them out loudly as he was panting while standing there in front of her, his fists flaring and then losing the Death as he thought about her threat. His eyes darted back up above her though to his old classmate for a moment and then down where they narrowed as his teeth bared in rage that Hagakure suddenly saw was close to matching this woman's. "I know you hate me, but I hate you too. Just as I took things from you, you took things from me-"

"You destroyed EVERYTHING!" Mysti screamed up at him, before gasping from the pain in her chest from his single hit there that was so heavy she found herself unable to breathe all of a sudden. "Ack, gah- ka, ah, ah, you _ruined,_ everything. Mr. Fergus!" She yelled it with her head snapping back up after bowing there from the pain for a moment as she wheezed. "You killed him!" She called it out at him a few feet away from where he stood and the teenage boy did not flinch at her shout. "My comrades on every corner of the world! The Shadow Bosses and Dragons, Capos and Amaterasu," she sobbed, her voice cracking and her head shaking again. "You destroyed it all. _Ruined it-"_ her voice rose in pitch and cracked again as tears filled her eyes, and in that cracked voice Zach could hear it. As if all those people she just mentioned had been her allies, the armies she knew and the friends and comrades within them. And the thought of that made his blood boil and his teeth grind in a new kind of fury as his panting breaths got more ragged and closer together.

"You killed Steamer!" Zach yelled at her. He panted again and then stomped forward but held himself back from kicking her in the face as he saw Hagakure in the top of his peripheral vision rush forward to stop him. Him stopping made her stop moving forward too though, and Zach shook his head but seethed as he glared down into the indents of Mysti's mask, "And you looked into the cameras so I would know it was you-"

"I hope that hurts," she hissed up at him. Her voice was taunting and like a menacing smirk just spread over it, and Hagakure's pain she felt for this woman faltered, though she finding both of the people in front of her to be worse than she had realized at first as the two of them went at it like this. Mysti's smirk vanished from her tone though, as the white mask pushed forward and her voice broke again as she yelled, "You killed Mr. Fergus! The only one…" her voice trembled and Zach's rage grew so much more with disgust in his eyes too that made Mysti snap her head up in a more defensive fury now at that look admonishing that she should feel like this for such a clear monster.

"He came for me," she said, talking down to the man towering over her for knowing _nothing_ about it and judging her anyway. "When I was just a little girl, abandoned in the world when no heroes had come to save me." She sniffled in and bowed her head that she shook back and forth before snapping it up and calling out, "But Mr. Fergus did! And he raised me, put _me_ in charge of operations- Saving the world through medical research no one else dared to attempt! Through methods that the word didn't understand but were worth it-"

"You-" Zach's seething start had to stop as he had no more breath to continue that interruption he made it so fully out of reactive anger. His head twisted back and then he leaned in in as he yelled, "You oversaw experiments on human subjects! The worst things that existed in this world-"

"They're not!" Mysti yelled right back at him, before coughing a few more times and then bowing her head and repeating it again in a lower voice. "They're not. Those subjects," she rose her head slowly and spoke in a determined and convicted tone, "were necessary sacrifices to save thousands, millions from diseases. Tens of millions considering all their families." Her voice got more indignant at the anger on Zach's face and the way he was panting faster each second, even while Hagakure behind her was just staring with a shaking and confused expression too shocked to even try to interrupt this. Mysti took heavy breaths and then growled at the small, naive boy above her, "All the advancements the world ever made were because of Mr. Fergus and the Fourth Eye. And those assassins you are still trying to hunt, are the only reason the world made it this far-"

"All of you, are the reason the world _only_ got as far as it did," Zach countered back at her in a darker voice. "If you want to take credit for the world being in the state it was in, that's fine with me. But that's over now. The world is a better place without Fergus. Without all the monsters who followed him," Zach spat out. Then he finished in a deep voice showing no remorse, "You were one of the last."

"That's right," Mysti whispered. In her voice was sheer despair. "I tried… so hard. For _so_ long." Her voice was defeated, sad, and broken to a point that nothing mattered to her anymore. "Even after Fergus died, I looked at that camera after killing your soldier, because I wanted you to know that it wasn't over. That, his legacy would live on through me. But you- you and yours they, they wouldn't let me… I couldn't do it like he could," her tone rose up and cracked again, and tears dripped off her chin under the mask facing Zach that kept this woman's face from being seen. "I couldn't hold anything together, and you destroyed all I had left. But, but even in the worst of days, I still took things from you."

She rose her voice as if that was the silver lining, and she rose her head a little more as she looked at Zach like that and made his face fill with pain. "I was there for everything, and I did my work dismantling your forces. From Norway to Tibet, Wampajawa to Arkistan, all the way back to Scotland." Zach's heart skipped a beat and his eyes shot open huge, shaking as he stared at the woman below him whose voice did not change at all as she continued to this teenager before her. "You may have destroyed what I loved but I have done everything I could to destroy you. And I am responsible for killing dozens of your comrades. And in Scotland, I want you to know that I was not just the representative from _Corporate_ who took over the cleanup crew."

 _"You?"_ Zach's voice hissed, though his newfound fury could not cover up the different tone in his voice that Hagakure had not heard before. It filled her with fear as she lowered her eyes back to the woman on her knees before Zach but who suddenly sounded in control of this situation.

"That base was under _my_ direct command," Mysti bragged to Death before her. "And when it was built, _I_ put in the failsafes in case my experiments ran wild. Ha- Didn't you ever wonder why the whole lab started collapsing? Haha- Why it self-destructed all of a sudden?" She asked it with her tone getting higher and her voice pausing between sentences as crazed broken laughter came from behind her mask. "What was it like?" She asked in a breath-whisper, making Zach flinch and lean backwards, his right foot sliding back on the floor below him.

"While you were a mile below the surface. _Sixteen_ basements down in that cave system I knew was down there when I first chose the location. With the walls collapsing around you, and everything exploding…" the description she was giving was becoming all too vivid in Zach's head. His eyes grew wider and filled with panic, as his teeth clenched harder in fury and to stop from shaking. "And all those people down there, ripping each other apart. Skinning each other alive. _Eating_ each other. What was it like for you? Surrounded by those demons and all those flames, and the blood! Do you remember it? Are you seeing it right now? It must have been like _Hell._ " Zach's breath hitched in and his eyes shook at the memory flash in front of him. "…In that chaos as everyone murdered each other. Like animals! It was like nothing I had ever imagined. So to think that it was my own creation that had done something like that," she paused and Zach completely froze up, his body tensing and his breath catching in his throat so he could no longer breathe.

"Wha-" Zach stared down at the woman in front of him in utter confusion as the breath remaining in his mouth almost made out a question.

"Did you really think it happened on accident?" Mysti wondered. "The creation of _God_ was no mistake. It was my _design_ ," she leaned her head forward and taunted Zach with her hiss before laughing at the teenager unable to convince himself that she was lying. "Mr. Fergus was getting old," Mysti taunted, pain in her voice again but still a smug tone at the way Death looked before her now. "And I wanted to give him a present. A body to possess, but one that could then possess him back in return and make him immortal." She brought up her tone in an optimistic and intelligent tone, as she explained in simple terms, "His original body was all that held him back, but if I could _create_ a soul. _Create_ something that could take over bodies without needing one single host to latch onto as an original, then I could have made him immortal! A man truly worthy of that title of God! He, who made all the sacrifices this world was too afraid to make."

"You understand that, don't you?" She asked it in a desperate voice to the boy to finally see how all he had done was wrong and for nothing. His eyes just shook more as she said that to him as if actually trying to convince him, shocking him to the core as she felt he might actually understand. "Making the _hard_ decisions for the greater good. You think that's what you were doing, but you didn't have what it takes! You weren't the chosen one to save this world… You killed him! The best man-"

Zach leaned forward, and he dug the fingers of his left hand underneath the right side of her mask. "H-Hey! Wait!" Mysti yelled it at him, her voice desperate and panicking with a fear unlike anything Hagakure had ever heard suddenly filling her voice.

"Zach stop!" Hagakure shouted and ran forward. She gave the woman a wide gap as she went around her, but she moved quickly for Zach's side as he smacked aside Mysti's flailing arms with his right hand and then gripped her by the neck with that hand still in its glove. He ripped backwards with his left while pushing forward with his right, and he stumbled away as a loud _**crack**_ filled the air.

"Ahh- AHH! Why- WHY?!" Mysti fell forward onto her elbows, and she slammed her fists down and then her face into the floor only once before Zach grabbed her by her ponytail and yanked her up forcefully by his right hand. He lifted his left at the same time and made a glowing blue light shine on her face from the low glow coming out of his palm. There was blood trickling down from her nostrils, but that was not what Zach and Hagakure focused on as they saw her face. "Why?" Mysti whispered, the despair so clear on her scarred face like she felt Zach had just done the worst thing he ever could have to her. Her eyes were locked on his left hand that despite glowing in the center, still had a piece of her mask between two fingers. Her eyes lowered down to the rest of it broken apart on the ground, and then they rose back into his eyes in a desperate, sad way.

"No one's ever seen you with that mask off," Zach said to the woman whose ponytail he released now that he felt like she was not going to just bash her own brains out on the floor. Hagakure had rushed to his side to stop him, but she still had to back up as she looked at his shadowed-over face and the dim blue glow that partially illuminated his own horrifying red eyes. Those eyes were not even glowing, they had just gone from hazel to a deep red with a black swirl inside them moving around as if it were alive. And that dark figure glaring at this devastated woman sneered at her, "Fergus abused you from the time you were a child-"

"Don't say-" Mysti started, but she did not feel strong enough to make out a full sentence without her mask on. Her skin was peeled in certain areas of her face, but below those new marks were very old scars that Zach could see illuminated in the blue glow. He saw there were marks on her neck too besides the red ones he had made by gripping her by the throat. "You're wrong," she just whispered with her eyes lowering from his that were too scary for the woman who looked to be in her thirties or forties to keep staring at.

Her voice broke and got softer as if it were a child's, and Zach's face twisted in anger at the appearance of this grown woman before him. "You don't know," Zach said, his teeth baring for a second and then opening up as he panted a couple of times, his fists loosening then tightening fast as he recalled the way she had turned and looked at those cameras. The cocky appearance she seemed to have to look straight at them as if taunting him directly for killing his friends. "When we destroyed the Fourth Eye, and I killed your _Mister_ Fergus, I found out the truth about you Mysti. You're not as _mysterious_ as everyone thinks."

The woman with her head bowed in front of him flinched, and she started shaking her head around to push away the sound of his voice. Zach continued down to her though, "Even before he 'saved' you, Fergus had possessed the men who killed your family and raped you."

"That's not true," Mysti snapped, her head lifting up as she said it in a louder voice than she knew she could find.

"Fergus knew what was happening there. He had possessed them one at a time and pushed them to go after your family."

"You're lying-"

"He just wanted your Quirk. Wanted a nice tool-"

"Stop!" Mysti exclaimed in a cracked voice, her broken left hand lifting to an ear to cover up. Hagakure stared at Zach with a horrified expression at what he was doing, but she lost her voice and couldn't find it as she just gasped at him instead.

"That mask wasn't a 'gift' he gave you," Zach snapped, his voice disgusted as he said it to the woman so broken up over losing it. "It wasn't a _present_ that your savior had you put on and helped you attach to your fucking face. It was his leash on you! His way of controlling you and making you forget that you were anything without him. Because if you could see your own face then you might see some of your parents in it who he had killed. Who he had _had_ killed-"

"Mr. Fergus saved me from the ones who killed my parents!" She exclaimed desperately at him.

"You know your own organization best, is that what he does? Save random people like that?" Zach asked it skeptically and like Mysti was stupid for that belief. "He had to break you down to mold you into what he wanted, and you should have known because of all the horrible things you all did to others that didn't make sense with how he saved you. You weren't special, you were just a tool. Fergus manipulated everything to create that situation and make you believe it. To give himself a good pawn still young enough to completely mold in his own image. You really think he couldn't do it? You think he _wouldn't?!_ In order to give himself a good pawn? A good slave?"

"Zach!" Hagakure exclaimed, her voice cracking and tears spilling out of her eyes as he yelled this down at the woman with his face twisted and the corners of his lips rising up.

Zach froze, his lips flattening out and his head lifting a bit too as he was leaning it farther and farther down there for a moment. Mysti had stopped rapidly shaking her head in disbelief though. "He wouldn't to me. He wouldn't- not to me." Her voice was disillusioned, and in the words she was saying was a disbelief that could not mask how what Zach said made too much sense. And Zach knew by her understanding of the truth, that she had witnessed this exact thing happen to other people. She had witnessed Fergus do it herself, and he knew that that meant she had probably done it to others herself as well.

"Even now," Zach muttered down at the woman whose mouth froze open and could not make any sound. "Even after he's long gone, you're still his slave. Fighting for the master who destroyed your life. Killed the only people who ever really cared about you. He turned you, into a tool to help take care of his huge organization. A tool to make him an immortal body, while thinking it was your own idea for a present." Zach's voice got even lower and he just finished to the woman who had spit slowly drooling out of her mouth as her head was bowed and unmoving, her shaking eyes freezing to just stare motionless at the ground below her as her world shattered into pieces. "You spent your whole life a slave to a monster, and you never even knew it."

Zach reached his right hand out with some darkness on the tips of his fingers, and he rested his hand on top of her head. She collapsed forward and hit hard onto her own face. Then the alley was silent. Silent other than the sound of a nearby siren a few blocks away from them.

Hagakure panted heavily as she stared down at the collapsed woman she saw slight movements from showing her that Mysti was still alive. She was too nervous to lift her eyes back up, but she gulped down her fear and forced her gaze up to Zach's face that was focused down on the unconscious villain at his feet. As horrible as everything she just heard was, Hagakure tried to remember some of the things Mysti had been telling him first before letting him see this way she was staring at him.

As hard as she tried though, Hagakure felt her heart breaking again as she rekindled hope in him only to think of how he had "mistakenly" called her 'Toru.' _It wasn't out of familiarity. Or friendship,_ Hagakure's lips trembled but she held back tears with a more serious look forming and getting stern with the boy in front of her. _He just wanted to make me react a certain way. Manipulated me, so that he could settle this grudge- it's more than a grudge. What I just heard her say. That place…_ "Zach," Hagakure began.

He turned his head and looked to the invisible girl still at his side in this alley. _She's not running,_ Zach thought, more surprised just by the fact that she would stand this close to him after seeing all that. "I'm sorry, I did that to you-"

"To me?" Hagakure cut him off. "Zach," she shook her head and pursed her lips again. Then she rose her voice louder and scolded at him, "Whatever she did- and I don't know. I don't know what happened between you two. I don't know," Hagakure paused and she curled her fists at her sides. "I don't know, what she did to you, to make you so…" Hagakure clenched her eyes shut for a second but snapped them back open and continued in a sterner voice to the boy whose expression was not shaken in the least by what she was saying. "But to say all of that to her! You knew, that she had just been used by that villain. Abused, and tormented, and turned into what she was- and you still-"

"I made all that up," Zach said.

Hagakure froze with her mouth wide open. As horrified as she had been before, this put a new lump in her throat and made her right foot slide back from the man in front of her. "Wh-What?"

"She has to take personal responsibility for her actions," Zach said in a deep, menacing voice. His eyes shifted back down to the unconscious woman before him who had been a drooling mess before he finally knocked her out. With a look showing no remorse he growled, "After a certain point we all make our own choices, and you can only feel bad for your enemy for so long before you lose that feeling. She's a grown woman. I guessed her past and filled in the details around what I put together myself as I saw her face," his head slowly turned back to the side and he stared into Hagakure's eyes out from behind his bangs that cast even more shadows over his eyes.

"Why?" Hagakure asked, her voice squeaking as she could barely make the question out. "Why would you-"

"Because she doesn't deserve death," Zach replied in as angry a voice as he had been using when the woman was still awake. His teeth bared for a moment, and he had to part them with a seething breath before hissing, "And life in prison is nothing. For the things she's done, she deserves a punishment worse than any villain in this world. Something beyond what our systems of 'justice' can give her." Zach pulled his head back a bit as Hagakure stared at him like that, and he snapped it back forward with a growl, "You don't know what she did. What she was a party to. Mysti, committed every worst crime you can imagine, and dozens you can't. This _woman,"_ Zach spat the word out like it disgusted him to lump her in with other women as if they shared anything in common.

"The things she did were the worst atrocities that ever occurred on this world. On _Earth._ It wasn't even-" Zach bared his teeth and his face scrunched in a flinch that made him pull his chin down. "It wasn't even on, another world. No different dimension- she was just, _human._ The same choices all of us have to make, she made," Zach snarled it, his left hand raising up to his forehead and his fingers digging into his skull. "It goes against everything… How can humanity be good, if she existed?" Zach's whole world view, was based around certain assumptions he did his best to hold onto. Yet thinking of the things Mysti was just saying joyfully while taunting him had his teeth grinding in anger and a dark rage searing inside his heart. "Mysti killed my comrades, helped Fergus abuse the world and kill thousands, _millions._ She hired a team of mercenaries to try and stop me from preventing a nuclear blast in Paris. She was there in the worst research labs where human experiments faced the most monstrous treatments."

Zach was shaking his head as he listed these things off, as much of an excuse to Hagakure as a defense to himself as he repeated those images in his mind that were so much worse than what he just did to her. His head rose and those dark eyes stared into where he assumed Hagakure's scared ones were, "Yeah, Fergus abused her and turned her into it. And if he really planned out breaking her down in the first place then he was even more of a monster than I thought."

"And you, you told her so-" Hagakure's voice was shaking. "So that she would, suffer?"

"Yes," Zach replied. "That's what punishment is. It's supposed to be suffering. Suffering like the children she tortured and burned. Suffering like everyone who had to live in that _Hell_ that-" Zach's face flinched again and his eyes shook, fear flooding into them in a moment that shocked Hagakure to see and made her heart pound in her ears at the sight of. Zach's mouth opened to continue, but he saw Titan's body pulling up into the ceiling and all the blood and organs spraying down at him. And he saw Wreck'd and Yuri's bodies, spilling brains and riddled with bullets. And he saw the fall into B16, and the river of blood, and the _screams_ of _'Sacrifice'_ that echoed all around him… And then he saw their faces.

"They were so afraid," Zach whispered as those faces filled his mind. Faces he had pushed so far out of his head, even while he was in the moment itself but in every time he thought back on it before as well. "Everyone in there, as the place came down around us… Ah, ah ha, ah-" his panting breaths sucked in sharply and his wide eyes refocused on the girl standing in front of him too unnerved to say a word to the seriously panicking man in front of her. Her former classmate's expression had a moment of horror on it, but that was quickly shoved down as his eyes locked back on her invisible ones and steadied in a calm way that made it look like that brief panic was actually to show her the horror that he had lived through, so as to explain his actions to her.

Hagakure was unable to wrap her mind around what was happening. She was scared. Confused. The person in front of her was someone she no longer felt she recognized. _And if this happened while he was gone, to turn him into this! Then, then every time since…_ Hagakure bit down on her bottom lip and stepped away from Zach, thinking about all the interactions and hang-outs they had had since he returned to Japan. _It was all part of this plan? To get me here, now, so that he could destroy this villain's mind?!_ Hagakure had to force herself much harder to hold them back, but she still sucked in a deep breath that cracked on its way into her throat.

"You should get out of here, Hagakure," Zach started. "I'll call the cops on her and explain how she tried to attack me, like any of the other assassins. You don't want to get drawn into this," Zach said it in a knowing voice while looking back down at the woman below him who Hagakure was not actually afraid he would kill. _He thinks that death isn't enough for her? He killed her friend- mentor- I don't know what Fergus… Shadow Bosses… And he's-_

"By the way, Hagakure," Zach added while still looking down at the woman laying in front of him. "I'm not who she said I was. I don't know where she got that idea." Zach could not even turn to his former classmate as he said it. The words came out flat and emotionless, and Hagakure could not even respond to him.

Zach pulled out his phone to call the authorities. The teenage girl in the alley with him stared at him so depressed, lost at what was right, and she took another step back from him with a sniffle coming in her nose and her eyes dropping to stare back at the floor. "You didn't break any laws here, Zach," Hagakure began in a trembling and weak voice. "And you stopped the villain you were after," a tear slid down Hagakure's face and she closed her eyes while turning away from him. "But that doesn't mean you're right." _I don't know- I can't-_ Hagakure started away, keeping her footsteps steady to mask how there were full streams of tears now pouring down her face.

In his peripheral vision, Zach could see through the back of her head anyway. Turning away from him meant nothing for the invisible girl whose tears were fully visible to the boy behind her whose gaze snapped back down to Mysti and stayed locked on her as he informed the police of his position. _Even if she does escape one day, all she'll be doing is trying to find a way to kill me for revenge for just breaking her mind right there. Vengeance for saying what I did about Fergus, instead of any plans to recreate their organization. And because of what I said, a huge part of her will always believe it now, keeping her insane and questioning her own thoughts. Paranoid. Forever unsure if she's the one pushing for revenge or if it's just what Fergus programmed her to do, as his tool… I'm a fucking monster._

Zach's eyes shifted back towards where Hagakure had walked away. The hate he felt towards Mysti and Fergus could not compare the hatred he felt now, directed only at one person. _Mysti would suspect the least from her. I knew she was good enough to be able to tell if my friend knew what was going on beforehand. But I was only able to get it past her easily, more than even Hagakure helped with, because up until the time was right I just let myself enjoy the day with her. Under the belief that I was doing it so convincingly so as to stop Mysti._

Zach frowned and glared down at the woman the cops were on the way to pick up. _Then, did I not just do it this way, so that I would have the excuse to pretend even for a short time that everything was alright? Because when I pretend I actually do feel better, because I believe in my own lies with part of my mind? I don't know it until afterwards when my real thoughts take back over from below._

 _Just like him. But by my own choice._

 _I've ruined things with Hagakure forever right there._ Zach thought it to the feeling of a knife in his heart, twisting around as he thought, _Now I have truly lost her._

The horrible feeling Zach felt in his chest swirled around with different emotions and then pushed under. His expression flattened out as red and blue lights started flashing on his face. He rose up a hand and blocked his eyes to get a better view down the alley, then nodded towards a hero and some officers who had been nearby already and came to him. "Over here!" _Raijin killed a ton of heroes the other day. This country's on the verge of a horrible disaster. I can feel it in the air. I can't have Mysti here throwing another powerful enemy into the midst of villains I already have to face. One more thing, is one thing too many. So I dealt with her accordingly._

 _What I did was not right. It was_ _ **necessary.**_ "This woman made an attempt on my life. She was wearing this mask and rambling insanities as she attacked me…" _Just be a fake Zach Sazaki again. One who is willing to use his relationships to capture villains, no matter who it hurts…_ He imagined Hagakure walking away from him again, and his chest clenched for a moment but unclenched just as quickly. _That isn't something I'm deciding to become, that's just who I am now. Who I've always been. She's crying but, her tears don't matter compared to this. Not caring about that is a new low I've hit, but I don't care about not caring either. Death, at least, got shit done._

* * *

 **A/N Thanks for reading. Hope you enjoyed the chapter...** **Leave a review below letting me know what you think, and predictions for what's about to come.**

GuestP chapter 208 . Dec 16

What. The. Fuck!  
CODY MY BOY, YOU'RE BACKKKKK  
REBEL MY DUDE, YOU'RE BACCKKKKK  
I don't have much time, so I'm going to make this review short and sweet.  
I really like the whole shebang that occurred right now, it was kind of like drinking a banana smoothie, weirdly enough, and the fact that Rebel and L were like, "yeah lets just make an alarm thing for Zach just in case cuz Lord knows the guys gonna get involved with shit" is pretty funny. It's basically like putting a bell on a cats collar lol  
I loved this chapter, and i'm SUPER DUPER excited for the next one!~~~~

 **Guest appearances by Rebel and Cody last chapter, and a reemergence of Mysti in this one. Hope it lived up to the excitement ya felt, though I'm guessing this chapter caught most of you off guard too. XD Thanks for reviewing!**

D - D chapter 208 . Dec 17

Ayyy AoD! Rebel! Yay! Oh no zachs been expelled...  
Shes fully right to expel Zach and he deserves it but still, Fuck you memuria let my baby live and be happy in school. Now we won't get anymore Kotsumura or precious Himazuri moments...  
I think this is the first time I've ever seen you make a mistake but "kotsumurar"  
On the bright side, you said the story would end around the time Zach graduates from Shiketsu, and now that he's not gonna graduate from Shiketsu, the story has been extended!  
Let me dream ok.

 **Tough times for Zach being expelled there... but at least he was talking to Hagakure at the start about already applying at new places? Nice catch on Kotsumurar, I reread my chapters when I edit before posting, but there're always a few things that slip by me even on the second time through. As for the story being extended... well, who knows? Dreaming's nice. XD Thanks for the review!**

QuestingforBitches chapter 208 . Dec 17

There should be a sad version of Alice Cooper's "School's Out Forever" for this chapter

 **School's out, but Zach's not done yet... Would love to hear that sad version tho!**

Momozaki chapter 208 . Dec 16

Damn... Zach just can't get a break can he?

 **No. The answer to that question, is no. ;)**


	210. Chapter 210

**Disclaimer: I don't own Boku no Hero Academia**

 **Chapter 210:**

On a news program with WWNN in the bottom right corner, an old female reporter stood on one half of the screen while the face of another woman took up the other half. The face of that woman was shown in a picture taken of her unconscious with her broken nose centered and still some blood on the bottom of her face, scars all over her skin from her forehead to around her eyes, around her mouth and nostrils, over her ears, and under her chin to her neck. WWNN was one of the most well-accredited news forces in the whole world (as the World Wide News Network), and the reporter was speaking in English despite how she was in Japan for the story.

"…This Mysti has no known name, however 'Mysti' was a wanted woman in 87 different countries. Not much is known about her as of yet, though authorities are still trying to dig up more information on her background and where she came from. This is not the same as just another case of one of Zach Sazaki's nameless assassins coming after him. Mysti was involved with many of the world's worst villains captured over the course of the past two years. I have uncovered rumors of her being in league with names like Kabo, Dorgon the Dragon, and King, and she was known to be involved in companies like the Atlas Corporation and Primatechno, organizations found to be severely corrupted by villains that helped them carry out villainous activity in the shadows."

"Her criminal record is nonexistent, and the Japanese authorities do not know yet how many charges they are charging her with other than the most obvious: the attempted murder of Lifebringer. Other crimes she is suspected of however are numerous. Heroes from around the world have seen her infamous white cat mask that was put back together after Lifebringer broke it during their fight, and Japanese officials have released a statement claiming that they are working with those heroes to determine what she will be charged with. An anonymous source has told me that the litany of her offenses includes murder, torture, conspiracy to corrupt government officials, bribery, organizing villain groups, assassination, and sexual assault on a minor, among others."

"Heroes believe she was involved with a number of atrocities throughout the past two years, yet I have heard reports that add charges against her going back multiple decades where her appearances were less frequent but still occurred. That mask she was wearing when she attacked Lifebringer was what was always spotted in during these incidents however, and we currently believe that this is the first time the mysterious Mysti's face has ever been revealed to the public. Last night, I caught Lifebringer on his way out of the police station where Mysti had been taken. We'll show you a clip from the impromptu interview now."

The whole screen switched to show the older woman approaching Zach as he headed down the steps outside of the back of the police station. She was the only one around, and she caught the boy who chuckled as he saw her approaching and turned her way with his hands sliding down into the pockets of his jacket. The back of the station was lit up and there were a couple of cops around including back in the doorway Lifebringer just left out of. "Lifebringer, do you have a moment?"

"Of course, Eisheia," Zach said with a nod at the reporter who he knew and respected.

"Can you tell us what you know about this Mysti? Was there a reason she attacked you tonight? How did you defeat her?"

"I can't tell you much," Zach replied with a curt shake of his head. His head shake showed he did not know enough to tell rather than he just could not tell confidential information. "She thought I was Death, and she came at me yelling nonsense I didn't understand. She sounded crazy, but I didn't care about her grudge. I just took her down because she was a villain."

"She was wanted in over eighty countries. Did you struggle-"

Zach laughed before he could stop himself. He chuckled at the idea of it and responded to the woman he cut off with that laughter, "No. She was just one more in a long line of failed attempts on my life. Nothing more," Zach smirked and his cocky tone matched the look on his face that had the veteran reporter suddenly at a loss for words. "I just want people to know, that there's no need to be afraid of these villains. I stopped that missile heading for Yutapu, and I stopped her, and I won't let what happened to Norita happen to anyone else. I promise," Zach assured with a serious look towards the cameras but still a determined smile on his face too. "No one else will die because of me."

Zach stepped away and out of his back emerged large black wings that flapped down and sent him soaring into the sky. He spiraled around in the darkness when the camera aimed up to follow him, and that black blur silhouetted by the moonlight flapped its wings out to a much wider wingspan than it had a moment ago, before the shadow shot away in a blur. The camera then lowered back down to the reporter who turned to it again and cleared her throat while lifting back up her microphone to speak into it. Eisheia was at a loss for words though, speechless as she tried to put together her own feelings over what she just saw. The cocky attitude and scary tone Sazaki had confused her, because of the reassuring things it sounded like he was saying and promising them.

The news cut off on the laptop Ojiro was watching it on, as he x-ed out the tab completely at the tearing-up eyes of the girl snuggled into his side while they lay on her bed. "No one knows you were there," Ojiro started, his voice hesitant. "Are you sure you want to-"

"I don't, want to…" Hagakure did not know what he was going to ask, but she cut him off and just shook her head into his side at whatever he was asking if it meant for her to get more involved with this. "You heard what they said about her. She was evil. A really, really bad person," Hagakure whispered, but she closed her eyes tightly shut and a couple more tears spilled out of her eyes. "But-"

"You can tell me about it," Ojiro whispered, hugging her tighter to him with the tail he had wrapped around her side. They told each other everything, but he had barely been able to get Hagakure to tell him the vaguest amount of detail on what had happened last night. It was the night after already and the whole day Toru had been so off, and when she was acting like that it made his whole day off too. "Please, tell me. What did Zach do?"

"She killed his friends," Hagakure whispered in Zach's defense. "She was, bragging about it to his face. Taunting him," Hagakure stopped herself and she shook her head though, as despite these defenses she could not even convince herself that he was right. Tears fell though as she started to get angry at Zach again, as she could not cover up her sadness with anger as some people could. "She was evil, and he knew she was in the country after him… and he used me," her voice cracked with more tears coming out of her eyes, so she had to bury her face into Mashirao's side. "I was just _bait_. I thought he- we spent the afternoon together, and it was fun and- and it was all… a lie."

Ojiro's eyes shadowed under his blond bangs while they stayed locked down on the top of Hagakure's head where he put a hand down on top of her invisible hair and brushed it down slowly over and over again. His other hand had taken his phone out though, and he got onto his messages with Zach without hesitating. 'Stay away from Toru.' He sent it and put his phone away before wrapping that arm around his girlfriend too. _I trusted you._ A normal boyfriend would get nervous about a guy friend of his spending time alone with his girlfriend, wonder why they were doing it at least or if he had ulterior motives behind it, but Ojiro had never suspected Zach for a second when Toru told him they were going to hang out after school yesterday. _You were my friend, and you knew what doing that would mean. You knew!_

Ojiro could not even feel like Zach had made a mistake, or that he would want to make up with them or something afterwards. _He knew nothing he could say could ever make up for this. He did it anyway, which shows he really didn't care about us at all. Tossed us aside, as long as he was able to defeat another enemy. That's all that matters to him. The fight. The next fight. And using whatever he can… Fuck. Fuck you Zach!_ Ojiro was glad Hagakure's face was buried into his chest, because he had to lift one of his arms for a moment to his own eyes.

* * *

In the dead of night so it was actually technically early in the morning, over sixty heroes stood in a round room gathered around a central holo-projector. The stand came out of the ground four feet high and was rounded too with a grid of glowing blue lines over it, and above that grid played images that looked three-dimensional despite just being recordings. Among the sixty-four heroes stood several who were twenty years old and younger, including a few U.A. Class A students who were still only eighteen years old.

Ms. Clue and Lemillion were at the meeting though, and they had taken along Explosion King and Earphone Jack with them. Bakugo and Jirou were standing next to each other at the meeting, one row back from the inner circle that kept a wide enough berth from the central holo-projector that all of the heroes were able to fit within three standing rows of it. The two teenagers once a part of Lifebringer's class were staring shocked at the hologram that was going through a list of suspected associates of Zach Sazaki scattered all over the world.

Lemillion was the one up close to the hologram and talking as images and videos appeared on it. Also in this meeting and one of the other people speaking most frequently, in their language despite the fact that he was an American, was Star-Spangled Man who just had his face on a wall covering almost the whole thing as he took part with them. Lemillion continued as he made more faces appear over the hologram that Jirou recognized this time, "A team of American Special Forces who are believed to be Army of Death, but who we are certain are acquaintances of Zach Sazaki thanks to surveillance done by Ms. Clue and Earphone Jack. This man, Rodney Black, visited Zach Sazaki at his apartment days before it was blown up. Since then, he has once again disappeared off our radar as he had for over a year since resigning from the US Special Forces."

"This is Gino Garbaldi," Lemillion continued with a picture of an Italian man appearing high over the hologram. It was a 3D image of him that spun around slowly to give everyone a look at his face, while below it a video started playing of several black vehicles rolling down a street with a white label beneath showing this was in 'Rome.' Gangsters flooded out of the vehicles and into a restaurant where they sat in the outdoor seating that was recorded thanks to a security camera of a store across the street. "Leader of the Garbaldi family in Italy. Potentially the most influential mafioso in the country. Also a known associate of Sazaki's."

Lemillion frowned as he looked down at his tablet and a few pictures that were darkened out showing he could not make them appear up on the hologram. His gaze shifted towards the big screen where he saw the leader of the ADTF's face, and then he continued to the people around him while skipping past members of the AoD who they had no confirmation that Sazaki had any association with. Not everyone in the room was ADTF, and not everyone was privy to learning all the information that they in the Anti-Death Task Force had acquired. Lemillion easily kept himself from looking towards Bakugo and Jirou though, _Neither of them would tell Sazaki what we talk about here. It makes sense for foreign heroes to get suspicious of us though. We have to be worried about everyone telling Lifebringer, considering his popularity._

"If that Gino Garbaldi is a 'known' associate of his," Ryukyu started, having not heard this herself until now. She stepped forward on that inner circle just outside of where Lemillion was standing, and she wondered to the younger man, "Then why have we yet to arrest Sazaki for that alone, giving us the opportunity to investigate him further while he's in custody?"

"Because the Garbaldi family hasn't committed any crimes since this Gino took over," Star-Spangled Man mentioned to his comrade in the ADTF. "Metallore and Michelangelo came to me with information on Lifebringer's involvement in Italy shortly after our last attempt at arresting the Army of Death, where they fired missiles at our forces." Star-Spangled Man mentioned that line again that he had repeated so many times now to the positive results that he was looking for. "It was back last May, after Sazaki would have returned to our world based on the story he told his prison guards in Tartaros. Lifebringer _was_ in Italy, as there were rumors that he was, and he had been acting as a vigilante, however not in the conventional sense. The Italian government and Metallore are in agreement that they would fight any use of Lifebringer's time in Italy as an attempt to have him arrested."

"If we can find something solid that links Sazaki to the Army of Death, we can arrest Lifebringer," Lemillion continued to the heroes around him. "But he is careful. He knows what we can and cannot use against him. Without proof that Lifebringer was actually committing crimes or fighting villains in Italy, all we would have is that he had spent time there while on the run as a fugitive. That was part of his initial sentencing however, that he had fled the country and became a fugitive. So there is no way we can arrest him for it again when he's received an executive pardon."

Lemillion's voice got lower, "Make no mistake however, I am certain that Zach Sazaki is Death." He said that with as much assurance as any of the heroes could imagine seeing on Lemillion's face, which alone convinced most of those on the fence. Mirio Togata needed that though, to precede what was about to happen. "However we find ourselves in a worse position than ever, even as our new strategy following the failed capture of the Army of Death in Turbonya has given us more information on the Army of Death than we have ever had. Since the Army of Death fired those missiles at Anti-Death Task Force, heroes and police and civilians around the world have come forward with new evidence that they 'found' despite most of it being from a long time ago."

Bakugo humphed and crossed his arms over his chest as he understood what Lemillion was getting at there. _Making a huge deal out of those missiles even though nobody got hurt seemed weird. Thought it was probably governments trying to make those weapons themselves though that were pushing it. Didn't expect it was you,_ Bakugo kept frowning though he had to admit in the back of his mind that it was a good idea, which confused him as to why they were now apparently in a worse position.

"Zach Sazaki is a clear and present danger to this country," Lemillion stated firmly. "His resources, the allies he has, the things he has done, all add up to the most dangerous man in this country."

"If he's so dangerous, shouldn't we have surveillance on him at all times?" Kimona questioned in a low voice, a dark look in his eyes as he talked about his former student who had gotten Shiketsu High targeted by Death's enemies.

"If you didn't kick him out of your school, we'd be able to keep eyes on him better," Ectoplasm remarked right back over towards the other man who grumbled in annoyance at the response, glaring back Ectoplasm's way.

"What about at home?" Ryukyu wondered with a look to Lemillion.

Lemillion shook his head though. "The more people who know Sazaki's home location, the more danger he's put in. I alone know his current address, and I will only reveal what it is when we decide to go after him."

"You think he's such a danger, but you sound worried about him," Ms. Clue mentioned to the young man leading this meeting.

Lemillion just frowned darker at the observation she made. "Let's move on," Lemillion continued. He tapped an option on his tablet that made a new video appear up on the hologram paused at the start of it. "Our newest piece of evidence regarding Death puts a damper on my investigation into Sazaki. United Korean heroes in Sueguon have recently sent the ADTF several surveillance videos that they just found in an evidence locker that they believe could help us find and stop Death. This video is highly classified, and what you're about to see will not leave this room."

Jirou got an intense look on her face and stared closer at the video about to start. Bakugo's eyes shifted towards his side at the girl next to him whose glare was obviously full of hatred, and he just looked darkly back towards the hologram himself. Star-Spangled Man started speaking this time before Lemillion could start the footage, "Although you are not all members of the ADTF, it is my shared belief with Lemillion that Zach Sazaki is most likely Death. Because of this, I know that you are the ones who will have to deal with him, and so although I cannot give you everything, I will show you this piece of confusing evidence and let you determine your next course of action domestically."

"What is this footage?" Fat Gum wondered.

"Is Sazaki in it?" Underguard asked in a low voice, as if not then he did not see why they had all been called here. Based on what Lemillion had said too, he did not feel like they were about to see any kind of concrete evidence incriminating Sazaki.

"No," Lemillion replied. "The footage is from a set of secret surveillance cameras that were used by an underground casino to get dirt on powerful company executives and politicians who visited the establishment, as well as a source of leverage or insurance to use against the villains who showed up there if ever came a time they would need it. The stored footage was mostly destroyed when heroes raided the building after being called in with an anonymous tip explaining the disturbance that got the illegal casino shut down. That tip does not match up with the surveillance from that night that we have obtained, as unlike the stored footage this was still being recorded throughout the raids. The cameras were made to stay hidden from some very high-level villains who visited the establishment, and so even the Army of Death did not seem to be aware of their presence when they appeared."

The video started playing without any further ado. The angle showed from just inside a building as they could tell because of the cut-off corners and top of the video, out onto a narrow street where motor-scooterists were moving by quickly and some bikers and pedestrians were crossing the path too. There were street vendors caught in the sides of the footage, and an old man selling his wares just outside the shop right in front of the camera where he continued to stand even as a long black limo rolled to a stop in the frame. There was a time stamp at the bottom right of the screen showing when this was taking place at night, and a busy Korean man on a scooter tried maneuvering around the limo in a rush, honking as they could see but not hear as the surveillance cameras did not have microphones.

The scooter tried to sneak around the driver's side of the limo which was closer to the storefront, but the backdoor opened up when the man was about to reach it and blocked his path. A figure stepped out of the limousine and turned to face the man who got terrified at the sight of this figure. The tall man already over six feet tall had more than another foot over the top of his head due to the large spiked Pincers sticking out of his bald skull. He had on a black suit and white gloves, and he stood in front of the smaller man in an intimidating way which also moved his jacket a bit to show the pistol he had inside it. Lemillion froze the image right there, and Ms. Clue spoke up right as he did, "I recognize that man."

"It's because of this recognition that we're able to watch this footage," Togata replied to his fellow hero. He made six pictures appear back on the hologram for a moment above the video, and the others in the room suddenly remembered where they had seen those Pincers before. "His name is Grant Edwards. The captain of the team of Special Forces that Rodney Black was a member of." That alone sounded like solid evidence to most people in the room of Zach Sazaki being a member of the Army of Death if not Death himself. Lemillion continued, "If this footage only gave us this connection, the evidence would be damning for Lifebringer. However, we must take the whole video into account, and you will see why this does more to exonerate him than condemn him."

Lemillion unpaused the video which allowed everyone to continue watching as another figure stepped out of the other side of the limo. The man who came around the car had a head in the shape of a water jug, which Ryukyu and Kamui Woods both stared at in recognition which Lemillion saw as he glanced their ways. The man was more muscular than Edwards, and without Edwards' Pincers he would stand taller than him. This man came around the car holding a briefcase in one hand that everyone focused on for a second.

Those two tall muscular men stood on either side of the back door of the vehicle that was still open from when Edwards stepped out of it. A man stepped out of the vehicle with a cocky and villainous look on his face if the heroes had ever seen one. He wore a red blazer, had white skin and a Caucasian and more specifically American-like expression. He looked to be in his thirties, and although clearly with a muscular figure under his clothes he was smaller and shorter than the thugs who had gotten out of the vehicle first.

The man who stepped out of the vehicle turned back to it right after getting out, and he reached a hand down to help a woman out of the car behind him. First came a woman with long purple hair who stood around his same height. As he helped the other two out of the back of the vehicle, a lot of the men in the room found themselves staring at one of the most beautiful women they had ever seen before who brushed an arm along the red sleeve of the man who helped her out of the vehicle before he got the other two out of there. Her hair was long and fell straight behind her over her fur coat, just as one of the shorter girl's orange hair did, and the other's brown hair did too. Despite the purple-haired woman's coat that covered her assets, the way she carried herself was sexy and alluring, but both of the other two were very attractive young women too looking to be in their twenties.

As Lemillion paused the video, Jirou's eyes narrowed in with a strange feeling of recognition stirring inside her as she stared at the frozen clip. _Why do I feel like, I've seen…_ her eyes were locked on the brown-haired girl with the largest bust of the three and who clinged onto the arm of the villain in the red blazer. Lemillion zoomed in solely on that man though after pausing the video, and Jirou refocused too on him herself. "This is Underlord," Lemillion said. "A villain with a criminal record in the United States. Known to be involved in drug and weapon smuggling, and there was a warrant out for his arrest at the time of this footage for skipping bail before his trial as he had surrendered peacefully to heroes at first without committing any Quirk-related crimes. He was also wanted for murder after killing police officers who tried to arrest him after he skipped out on bail, and _this_ is what would come up for an online search of 'Underlord' at the time of this incident."

Several clippings and reports about Underlord appeared on a holographic web page showing search results. Then the search engine turned dark and a different set of results popped up, and new information appeared up there, and the dates on the reports showed to be from a few years before the night of this surveillance. Lemillion let them see this, and he zoomed in on when an underground report on Underlord's criminal profile had been written. The date was from years ago, and yet Lemillion said in a low voice, "All of this information on Underlord, was created and uploaded to the internet hours before his arrival at this secret casino, known as the 100 Club."

Everyone in the room got a lot more intense as they stared at the man who was smirking as he had his arms around the two shorter women. The man with the Pincers was ahead of him speaking to the old man at the vendor stand, attempting to get them past. They all just focused on Underlord though as Lemillion zoomed back out so everyone could see this clip carry on. He explained before pressing play again, "Underlord does not exist. He never killed any officers. His profile was completely fabricated and made to look like it had been compiled over a long period of time. Small enough crimes taken place a long enough time ago that it is understandable why Koreans would not recognize him, with a few small pieces of more recent information on his whereabouts and what he was doing now. These villains you see here, are an undercover team of Army of Death soldiers. And Underlord himself, is Death."

Lemillion played the footage again, and Jirou and Bakugo stared as closely as they could at the figure moving forward with no mannerisms that reminded them of Zach. He and his crew of three women and two men moved through the store and then into a hallway so the camera angle changed again. The camera pointed at a steel door at the end of the hall that the group walked towards and that opened up for a thin man with combed black hair unlike Underlord's dark hair that had a wave in the front of it. The thinner Korean man in a black suit started speaking with Underlord, and during their talk the Korean suddenly froze with his mouth open as Underlord's eyes flashed red for a brief instant. Then Underlord said something threateningly to him, before being allowed into the back with his crew who were led by the employee of the casino the heroes were about to see.

 _Those eyes look like his,_ Bakugo thought. _And that's him. He's a fucking actor. Something like this, isn't beyond his…_ Bakugo stared with wider eyes as they finally got a look into this "casino" they kept hearing about.

"Whoa," Mt. Lady whispered next to her husband. Kamui Woods was also staring with a surprised expression at what was apparently behind that run-down clothing store that was no more than a front.

The two story underground casino that Underlord stepped into was an amazing place that looked far wealthier than the slums outside. Underlord stepped forward in an amazed way and put his hands down on the railing, shrugging off the grasp of the brown-haired girl who tried tugging on his arm, so that he could take in the beautiful casino with a smug smirk that he had made it in the villain world just to reach this place. The camera angle shifted from that entrance view to a corner of the main room where it showed one of the staircases down to the lower level that Underlord and his cronies started heading down with the employee of the casino.

"That's, Zach Sazaki?" Underguard wondered, his voice disbelieving as he watched what this white man was doing. The gorgeous purple-haired woman had leaned in towards the side of his head and put her lips nearly on his ear as she whispered something to him, and he did the same back to her a moment later while sliding his hand down to the small of her back that made her bite her lip in a seductive way and him to get a more victorious look on his face. _Doesn't look anything like the kid,_ Underguard thought, unable to believe Lemillion here that Underlord was Death, or that Death was Lifebringer in that case.

"That's him," Jirou said in a low voice.

The video paused for a moment, and Star-Spangled Man questioned, "Are you certain?"

Jirou lifted her head in surprise, and Star-Spangled Man was looking straight towards her. "As his fellow Class A students, I do take your opinions on this matter very seriously."

"Former," Jirou muttered under her breath, though she frowned more as people looked her way.

Bakugo glanced to his side at Jirou who got nervous by the sudden attention all pointed at her. "Yeah, it's him," Bakugo said loudly. "We know that. Keep the video running." He snapped it, wanting to see what was happening next and getting impatient with the hero whose question did not matter since their opinions here couldn't actually do jack shit about anything.

"Yeah," Jirou agreed after a second. Her eyes narrowed and she said in a dark tone, "That's Zach."

Star-Spangled Man nodded, humming to himself that even his former classmates thought this way. He continued the video, and all the heroes in the room just watched closer now as they felt the Class A students knew Zach Sazaki best and they should probably listen to them. It was hard to imagine this Underlord was Lifebringer though. He was acting cocky and talking down to the casino employee with such a smug look. He took out a heavy golden pistol he put on the weapons' counter with the guns of his men, and then he had the women behind him take off their coats before smirking as he looked at their sexy bodies. His villainous look was even grosser as the brunette woman and taller woman both had visible scars on their arms, the brunette with pretty bad ones that made it look like she had been beaten and abused by Underlord who she smiled at and got up close to again.

 _This is crazy,_ Mt. Lady thought after watching Underlord pull a knife out of his boot and give it up. The villain on the screen was acting so evil, so clearly a villain that for him to just be pretending seemed impossible to her. _That kid, couldn't be…_ Her eyes shifted towards Bakugo though, and she saw that spiky-haired blond glaring at the footage with the right corner of his lip twitching and then curving up into a menacing smirk of his own. Mt. Lady got a bead of sweat on the side of her face as she wondered what his crazy look was for.

 _They're checking out their targets,_ Bakugo thought as he watched the group who just seemed to be acting like villains down there. _All those people in that room are villains. They're probably there after someone. What "incident" happened that night? Zach's a fucking psycho, to come up with something like this. Finding a place like this to raid with his friends. While we were at school, doing fucking nothing- Shit. What's he planning here? That's what's important now. And how he fights. Every fight I can see of him…_ Bakugo thought back to the joint training and the conversation he and Zach had had in the forest after it. He remembered Zach's grin during their talk at the idea of the two of them fighting, and he could not hold back that smirk anymore as he watched just how dangerous Zach could be with everything. What he was seeing now had nothing to do with fighting. Yet the scene playing out in front of him showed a more formidable version of Zach than he had seen since the Lifebringer Incident.

When the women took off their coats, the heroes noted to themselves that they were not patted down like Underlord and the men he brought in with him were. As they focused on this though, Lemillion paused the video again and pointed out certain figures in the hologram who enlarged and then had written profiles appear next to their faces. The ones Lemillion zoomed in on first had long criminal records, with Reno Grande of the Farolio Cartel being someone Lemillion pointed out as an important person to focus on. Then though, he changed up who was being zoomed in on to show just one figure at a table who had the most guards seeming to be watching him and protecting him as he carried out business.

"Kabo," Lemillion said in a low voice for everyone staring towards the hologram. "As most of you probably know, considering his arrest was a big deal, a few days after this incident."

"What happened between then and this day?" Underguard wondered, noticing Kamui Woods and Ryukyu both getting serious but also hesitant looks on their faces. The two just in front of him noticed that he was speaking to them, and they each looked towards the wall where Star-Spangled Man was watching from.

The American hero gave a nod of his head, telling the ADTF members in the room that it was fine to pass on what they knew. "Kabo was captured by Death in this incident," Ryukyu started. "We thought differently, until about a week after this when we received a tip on the Army of Death's location."

"Death told us when we ambushed his army, that he had captured Kabo himself and discovered the location of the League of Shadows," Kamui Woods explained. "Which was directly below where we ambushed him."

"As it was Death himself," Lemillion finished for the other heroes in the room who had not known about this before and were shocked to hear it. "Who gave us the tip as to where his army would be. He did so while leaking to us a short time span that he would be there, so that we would have to rush to him and be unable to report to our governments first or to the UN where he knew that the LoS had corrupted certain members." Bakugo and Jirou each stared towards Lemillion with their eyes huge, like many of the heroes who had just heard from Endeavor's speech after the incident that they had come across the Army of Death and the League of Shadows in the middle of a fight. Lemillion finished as he saw all those stunned looks, "The Army of Death knew that they could not take on the might of the League of Shadows themselves, but they were not willing to wait just so they could get stronger and thereby allow the League to continue acting during that time, so they informed the very people hunting them down where we could find them. It was another gamble on Sazaki's part, that we would choose to fight alongside him rather than against him that day."

Lemillion continued right away with his voice raising louder, "But despite the positive results of that fight! It was through whatever Death did to Kabo that made him talk, that they revealed the League of Shadows' base. Kabo was arrested without any external injuries, and he would not speak to the heroes who arrested him, and yet he was killed three weeks after his capture while inside a jail cell. The word 'Snitch' carved in Russian into his chest." Lemillion paused with a darker look on his face, "I can only imagine Sazaki was able to make such a man talk through some kind of torture."

"The one who captured him here though," Fat Gum began again. "It wasn't Sazaki, was it?"

"…No," Lemillion started. "It was Underlord, as I'll let you see now."

Lemillion unpaused the video, and while one camera angle continued to show over half of the hologram, another angle suddenly appeared showing the back of the club. A white van with a logo of a fishing company selling shellfish pulled up behind the store. The van's back doors opened up and a couple of short Korean-looking employees in white uniforms and hats that had some dirt on them were dragging metal crates with lobsters in them towards the back of the van. A burly employee of the 100 Club came out and was seriously angry at the two for a few seconds, but the short woman started yelling at him and motioning back and forth at the product she was hired to bring and the building next to the bouncer who was getting a confused and anxious look on his face as he wondered what to do here.

"Those more of them?" Incognito wondered to Lemillion.

"Yes," was Lemillion's short response that had the heroes staring in some more amazement at the disguises and level of skill the Army of Death had with all of this.

"Korean businessmen, arrested on charges of association with wanted villains, accepting bribes, and visiting an illegal casino. They were acquitted of some of the charges and just took plea deals for the charges of visiting the 100 Club," Star-Spangled Man announced as they saw where Underlord was heading after trading his briefcase of cash for chips. There were a group of men with Kabo who he was seemingly pitching something to while they drank and played poker together.

Underlord pulled out a seat while gaining the attention of Kabo, the businessmen, all Kabo's guards, and a lot of other people around the room surprised at his boldness. He sent the busty brown-haired girl away with a pat behind him up high on her leg, using his right hand that did not have a glove on it. Jirou's eyes suddenly opened wide as they followed the brunette backwards, then back to the man sitting there in the red blazer whose villainous and smug expression seemed so realistic to her. _That's… Is that her? The same girl from- No way!_

There were now five people seated at the table being dealt into the next hand. The three with the important villain whose arrest would become big international news looked nervous about Underlord sitting with them, but Kabo's look was calm and indiscernible. The powerful villain rose his hand in a small motion that kept things docile as he had the dealer deal Underlord in instead of ignoring the new arrival or having him taken out by his subordinates. Kabo gained an interested look in the villain across from him who leaned back in a confident way over his chair with the body language of someone unafraid at all of his position here.

The villain in the red blazer looked back at the sexy purple-haired woman behind him who smirked in her usual seductive way back at him. When Underlord turned back to the table to start playing the hand though, Seraphim looked to Kabo who met her gaze. Underlord did not notice, as the gorgeous woman behind him and Kabo had a silent interaction. The woman gazed around at all the men seemingly working for Kabo who was far more powerful than her boss appeared to be, giving off a different aura of calm power unlike Underlord's cocky attitude. Kabo checked out the woman's body as well, while Lemillion had the camera zoomed in on the table alone and the looks of these two facing each other. The woman looked down at her feet, bit down on her bottom lip, and then rose her eyes back to Kabo's again.

"What is going on there?" Kimona muttered as he watched the interaction.

"It's her strategy," Lemillion replied, confusing the teacher from Shiketsu who just stared closer to see what the point of this was. That woman looked down at the back of Underlord's head and started to gain a look of disdain for her current position, and Jirou felt her palms get sweaty as she saw a change in Kabo's expression too.

Kabo started speaking to Underlord, who said something cocky which cut off the more powerful and established villain. In the silence that followed, Kabo gave Seraphim another look, and he stared directly at a scar on her arm. Then with the smallest motion to his side he said a dozen words to the woman who looked stunned by what he was telling her. The cards were dealt, and the five men put in their large antes which alone were worth a lot of money.

The brunette came back towards the table, handing off drinks to the two men who had come in with Underlord first, then to the orange-haired girl. She looked to be trying to give the taller woman a drink too, but that woman who Kabo had motioned at suddenly started moving around the table. The brunette walked up to the table and nervously put a drink next to her boss, while Underlord turned his head and watched with confused but growing eyes as one of his groupies was heading around the table away from him.

Kabo asked Underlord a question. The area around them got tense, as Underlord's smile had gone down and his look got darker, despite Kabo looking to just be enjoying himself in the same calm way yet with a smirk on his face now. The power move Kabo just made was topped though, as Underlord smirked back at him while going all-in with his chips to dare the man across from him to do the same and risk a fortune on this hand. The other villains around them were staring at this interaction with wide eyes, both Underlord's guys behind him and most of the other villains not just with Kabo but looking interestedly towards them too at something risky Underlord just said.

Then, Kabo started counting his chips after focusing on the hand a bit more. Underlord's hand holding his drink shook a bit, and Kabo asked him something that got most of the people around them looking Underlord's way to see how he was reacting to Kabo calling his bluff-

The purple-haired woman who had come around the table right to Kabo's side grabbed him by the back of the head. Her other hand that reached into her cleavage whipped out a knife from under her dress that she put against Kabo's exposed throat while yanking his head back by his hair. Reno Grande jumped up and smirked big as he involved himself into the situation, calling out towards the woman and stepping her way. Most of Kabo's men had their hands down at their pistols they never had to give up, but they would not draw in fear of what she might do to their boss. The sudden takedown of Kabo was unexpected even for all the heroes watching this over a year in the future, and many of them held their breaths as Underlord calmly got out of his seat.

The looks of confusion he had before were clearly faked. His henchmen who had seemed uneasy about their friend's betrayal all had calm looks on their faces. The act was over. Each of their cold expressions were so different from what they were a moment ago. The businessmen had fallen out of their chairs or scrambled away, and all of the villains in the room were turned and staring towards this wondering what was happening that Kabo might actually be killed. It was a shocking turn of events, but as Underlord started speaking while up on his feet, his expression flat and his eyes dark, terror crossed the faces of everyone around the room.

In a second after whatever Underlord just said, sheer chaos broke out across the underground casino. People started screaming and trying to run as fast as they could. "That's…" Presto Change-o muttered, shocked by how terrified all of those villains looked after what they saw on their profiles. Mass murderers who had killed even heroes were just trying their hardest to sprint away, falling over tables and trampling each other in their sheer panic of what was happening here.

Darkness erupted around Death and shot out in different directions as some people tried attacking him. The man with the wide cylindrical head blasted water, while the guy with Pincers used them to toss a villain attacking him up into the air. On another camera showing the back of the building, as gunfire started going off down inside and made the bulky employee turn away, the short Chinese woman he had been arguing with tased him in the back to drop him to the ground twitching for a moment before laying there unmoving.

Some of Kabo's men and the Farolio Cartel were quick to bail as soon as the madness kicked off. Kabo's couple of guys abandoning him went out the front, while the cartel members rushed for the back of the building with Reno Grande, one of them staying behind to try and grab The Mule who was one of those Lemillion had zoomed in on at the start. It was not the Quirks of the group of six who suddenly started this panic that caught the eyes of most of the heroes watching this unfold, but their physical abilities and combat skills as they took down the villains around them while also keeping others from running away after the initial scatter.

"They're so organized," Ms. Clue whispered.

Incognito nodded her head absently as she watched this. _Sazaki was so smooth in the night club we saw him in. He was able to blend in perfectly and carried out the job he went in there to do before I could even get started on it. It wasn't just him this time though. He had a whole team here who were as good as I am to have pulled this off. And without losing any..._

In the back of the building, the two AoD members who had hopped out the back of the white van were in a fight with the Farolio sicarios. One of the employees of the 100 Club who had met with Underlord in the hallway at first was now unconscious on the ground too, but the Hispanic men fighting against the Army of Death agents were doing better than the rest of the villains inside with Death and his main infiltration force.

Bakugo's eyes narrowed back at the main fight instead of at the back of the building. He watched as the girl with brown hair put her arms together and created a cannon with them. _That Quirk seems like his partner's from that night. "Darling" he called her. That's how he was able to put his bare right hand on her without it doing anything. Still, what's with the way he looks?_

Enrique Lopez had been one of the top cartel sicarios the initial zoom had focused on, showing he had one of the highest kill counts of everyone inside before. Although the cartel members had their weapons taken, Lopez had noticed a gun on the body of the unconscious employee who had been arguing with the shellfish deliverers before. While Tuco and Vasquez were fighting the two delivery people, and losing, Lopez had grabbed the pistol and he unloaded into the enemies preventing them from escaping.

Lopez marched forward and glared into the van ahead of him before aiming the pistol down at the woman who had been fighting them and showing off a greater strength than her small body suggested. Lopez put a bullet in her moving head as she crawled on the ground, slamming her head back into the floor and leaving her motionless. A second later, the van shook. Reno Grande stepped out of the building and grabbed one of their enemies' pistols off the ground, yelling at Lopez that they had to go as it seemed like based on Lopez taking a step back.

Then the front windshield of the van got smashed out of the vehicle and sent flying down the alley along with a piece of one of the seats. The sides of the van started denting out with the windows breaking, and the cartel members yelled out in panic as a beast of a figure charged out of the back of the van still growing larger and ripping through his own fake uniform as he let out a roar of anguish and fury. Lopez stumbled backwards and lifted his gun that he fired a couple more times, but the figure who roared at him charged forward right through the shots and then jumped up over the villain who dropped the gun to raise his hands and make them start glowing red instead.

Death seemed to notice something was wrong from inside the building, as he dropped Kabo who he had been carrying to rush for the back of the building as the purple-haired woman did too. They would not arrive back there in time. The heroes stared at the holograms in shock and horror as that bulking figure covered in muscles and an enraged, animalistic face, slammed a fist into Lopez that smashed him into the ground so hard it looked like his body must have broken. Blood splashed out of Lopez's mouth as he gasped on his bounce up off the ground, but the beastly man was not finished yet, grabbing him by the right leg and swinging him to the right into the wall, then down on the floor after his arms and legs seemed to break. Then the bulking mass of a man lifted Lopez up above him while screaming out, and he ripped Lopez in half, throwing the halves of his body to either side of him in his rage.

Reno Grande and the other cartel members were getting away, but the beast that just charged out the van and butchered Lopez stayed where he was for a few seconds with blood drenched over his hands and arms. A lot was splashed over his whole body too from when he ripped Lopez open, and yet that animalistic look on his face faltered for a moment as he looked back and down at the unmoving woman laying on the ground closer to the back of the damaged van. That soft and sad look twisted in rage a second later, his head snapping around and his body leaning forward as he let out a roar of rage.

Death charged out the back of the building, and he did not chase after Reno Grande. He sprinted towards the huge bulking man who he yelled out at, but Shang ignored Underlord's orders and started running forward. So Death leapt up in the air and he swung his right arm out in front of him, a longer right arm extending out from it completely black with a massive black hand opening up the size of the beastly man's body that it slammed into the back of to knock him to the floor. Death's arm retracted as he curled his claws in, pulling himself down and onto the man's back who he landed on top of and started yelling at. The monstrous figure reached back behind him though, grabbed Underlord, and threw him to the side into the wall while clawing his way back up and trying to keep chasing the rest of those escaping villains.

The other woman who came up with Death sprinted around the beast's other side as where he just threw Death, and she jumped up on the wall next to her and then towards Shang's head that was too high for her to reach without using the bounce. Shang ducked down though, his instincts and reflexes both powered-up as his eyes darted to the woman moving for his head. He unbent his back quickly as she was going to pass over him, knocking her backwards, and then letting out another roar as he tripped because Death slid in front of him and took him down at the legs using both hands.

"Why doesn't he use Death to knock him out?" Kamui Woods questioned confusedly as he was watching the fight continue.

"He must have already brought that man back to life," Lemillion replied. "His Quirk does not work on those who he has revived before. Though hopefully, it does not work on those who were revived by Death at all," Lemillion added with a look towards Mt. Lady.

Mt. Lady just frowned as Lemillion looked her way like that though. Most of them knew how Monoma Neito was responsible for her revival, as it was made famous in the days after the Sports Festival when he was helping Lifebringer revive people that Mt. Lady was the first person he claimed he had tested Zach's Quirk on and seen that it worked. People were confused as to when that happened, but Mt. Lady responded publicly to confirm the deed when it came out.

"Yeah," Mt. Lady whispered in response after Lemillion kept looking at her, as if awaiting her to say something about that. "Hopefully." Her voice did not sound very convincing, and she looked back to the hologram herself afterwards and just focused on what was happening in that alley behind the casino. _Even while he was out there as Death, I didn't know he was trying so hard not to kill anyone. Stopping his own comrades too, if that's really him. Could it be? It looks, nothing like him._

Seraphim knocked out Shang with Death's help as a distraction in front of him, then she dragged that naked beast of a man to the back of the van by one of his muscular arms. The busted-up van reversed closer to her, then the driver inside went to the back and helped get their unconscious enraged comrade into the vehicle. The corpses of their other two comrades were brought in as well, as were a pile of unconscious villains that the two "thugs" who Underlord had come with carried out from inside the building. But what the heroes noticed for a few seconds was the look Underlord had as he stared back through the alley towards the corpse of Lopez, ripped in half with blood splattered everywhere. There was regret on his face and a deep frown that things had turned out this way, but after that he just turned around and helped the others get the villains they had captured into their van. At the last moment they saw him too, Underlord was tossed a black glove that he put onto his right hand before climbing into the vehicle.

 _It was dark. I didn't see her use her Quirk like that… but that was her, right?_ Jirou wanted to say something out loud as she got her final look at the girl jumping into the van with the others. _She's wearing makeup to make her look a little older, maybe padding too since she'd, she'd have only been like 17- or am I just assuming she's wearing padding, because I know her figure is different, and I'm trying to fit that girl into one who matches the description of who helped Zach? That guy has to be Zach though! So why, doesn't he look like him?_

"Authorities would show up here soon after, however the incident did not end at the casino," Star-Spangled Man began to the room of Japanese heroes who glanced his way and then back at the hologram as a different recording appeared with a similar time stamp as the other ones. This angle was a little more pixelated with not as clear an image. The view came from inside of a clothing store pointed towards the front doors out onto the sidewalk and street outside close to an intersection.

"So Death not only caught Kabo here, but Umbagu as well," Underguard began in a low voice as he thought about that other big name he saw in the downstairs of the casino who Death had captured with some of his men. Lemillion looked the older hero's way and the man in a green hood spoke directly to the third-ranked hero in the country, "You've shown me that the Army of Death has done far more than I have been giving them credit for, and yet you've done the opposite of making me think Sazaki is this 'terrorist' considering what we just saw." Lemillion started frowning deeper just like Star-Spangled Man, but Underguard continued in a deep voice through the mechanical mask over his mouth, "If anything, it seems to me like Sazaki is right, and Death is just a man with an identical Quirk as his own."

"You think it's that Underlord who is the real Death?" Emergence questioned from behind Underguard.

"It's most likely a Quirk like Changeling's," Encode began from Emergence's left side. Others looked towards the hero in a pair of glasses who looked Lemillion's way to see if the younger hero thought the same, which Lemillion did so he nodded back at the hero with a raised-intelligence type Quirk. "Someone changed Sazaki's face to make a new persona of Underlord. That is one possibility, and another that we cannot ignore is that the Army of Death has technology that some believed to be impossible only a few years ago. I believe that making a mask as good as the one Underlord could have been wearing is possible."

"You think it was a mask-"

"Showing his real face and then also revealing that he is Death, would have been far riskier," Lemillion cut off Presto Change-o who was asking that with a lot of skepticism.

"That's true," Star-Spangled Man agreed. "Death would not have revealed his identity this easily. Besides, Underlord does not exist. There is no record of him ever existing, nor does facial recognition pick up on his appearance at all. What we do know, is that the man with the Pincers disappeared the same time as Rodney Black, a comrade of his in the Special Forces who is also an acquaintance of Zach Sazaki's. An acquaintance who met Zach Sazaki just over two weeks ago, for some reason we do not know as they detected the surveillance on them and started speaking Arabic in order to hide their conversation from Ms. Clue and Earphone Jack."

Jirou was somewhat surprised that the leader of the ADTF and one of the most powerful heroes in the world, the strongest in the USA at least, had known about her and Ms. Clue's surveillance. She found herself frowning though at the mention of how they had failed to pick up on the conversation and how Zach and Black had known they were listening. Bakugo looked to Jirou in surprise though, having heard nothing about this from the girl who had kept secret the fact that she was investigating Zach, just as he had kept his own investigations quiet as well.

"Everyone focus," Lemillion began to the heroes who were murmuring and giving theories about what had happened here. "As this is another example of why I believe this evidence does help us, as much as it makes Death look like someone other than Lifebringer."

A pair of black SUVs sped down the road just outside the store they had surveillance footage from of that night. One of the vehicles suddenly slammed into some invisible wall though and bounced backwards, riding up on top of the other SUV behind it. A man dropped out of the sky in front of the two vehicles but between them and the invisible wall that he had put there to block them from going any farther. This man was not in a disguise like the rest of his comrades, instead wearing the usual black uniform of the Army of Death. And yet there was something different about his uniform that was caught even on the shoddy store camera that had a good angle on him through the display glass at the front of the shop.

"That man, stood on the walls of Hatto's palace," Star-Spangled Man began. "His Quirk matches the ability of one Danjuro Tobita. Known in Japan as the Gentle Criminal, who assisted Zach Sazaki in his Lifebringer Incident. The fact that he has the Kanji symbol for Death on the back of his purple cape, and that the color scheme of his cape and visor seem to match that of the costume he wore in videos he once posted online, has led us to suspect that this man _is_ in fact Gentle." Bullets were ricocheting off the man as the villains in their SUVs leaned out and fired at the guy who just stood there bouncing on the soles of his feet without reacting to the gunfire much at all.

Gentle bounced up on top of the SUVs, causing one of the Hispanic villains to move away from the vehicles to try and get a better shot on him. Tuco then stumbled away just as a huge hole opened up in the ground; all of the pavement suddenly disappearing below the SUVs to drop them down into the sewer below. Gentle flipped behind a stunned Tuco and though the villain attempted to fight, the Gentle Criminal slammed him down into the hole where the rest of his comrades had just fallen down.

A man came sprinting down the street and into the camera angle behind the hole that Gentle was standing on the side of. This figure also in a black uniform stopped at the edge of the hole where his legs morphed into the ground and started making it look more like a liquid substance around him. The pavement rippled and then shot out from where he was standing to cover up the square-shaped hole in the street, and in only seconds after he arrived there was no sign of the vehicles or the cartel members who had been inside them anymore. Blue and red lights were dim in the recording but getting brighter, and Gentle looked behind him in the direction of some lights before turning to his comrade, swinging an arm behind him, and bouncing towards Paveway who he crashed into fast before slamming down with another hand to send them bouncing up into the sky.

Only seconds after the two of them left the top of the footage, cop cars came speeding out from different sides of the intersection and all converging on one position. The officers got out of their cars and started yelling at each other in confusion, and a hero showed up too only to scratch their head with no idea as to where the villains just disappeared to. "That was, before the League of Shadows raid?" Kamui Woods wondered in a low voice. _They were pretty organized in that fight, but we know they've gotten so much better since. So for this to be before that is incredible… and unsettling at the same time._

"The remainder of the Farolio Cartel would be destroyed in the days after this. Reno Grande, Tuco, Vasquez, and The Mule would all be captured along with many others in their gang at the same time," Lemillion explained to the room of people looking towards him again. "They were arrested by North American heroes, and in those arrest reports is not one mention of the Army of Death's involvement. Kabo's capture neither, same with Umbagu. Their arrests were assisted rather by anonymous tips, which was one of the greatest weapons used by the Army of Death throughout the Age of Villains."

The hologram finally cut off fully, and Lemillion looked around at all the heroes in the room who had various kinds of looks on their faces. He was young, only twenty years old, but he was now the third-ranked hero in the nation and felt the pressure that that put on him. And he had also been the one investigating this from day 1 after Zach Sazaki was released from Tartaros. "What you just saw, was but one of the ways Death fought throughout that period. What we didn't see, were the people Death himself killed. Nor how he makes the villains he captured talk. Death, made so many enemies around the world, that he has brought those enemies after him now that he has returned."

"The raid on the League of Shadows' HQ," Star-Spangled Man began to the Japanese heroes he needed to convince to put their full efforts into this. "Was a setup entirely put together by Death, who led the charge inside and took down the leaders Zolo and Turbo himself while the rest of his forces and the ADTF took on the rest of the League. It is also our understanding," Star-Spangled Man continued, and Lemillion grit his teeth but did not speak up as Star-Spangled Man was about to reveal this classified information to many of his countrymen who he did not want to hear it. "That using the same tactics he used in Sueguon, Death was able to capture several other big names afterwards such as Bolivar, and King, two other Shadow Bosses who were also taken down by Death himself over the course of the next months."

Jirou was shocked and stood frozen in place, and she turned her head left and right to see other astonished expressions around her. People started demanding answers, and Jirou asked aloud herself, "How does no one know about this?" _I thought King was taken down by that big group of Russian and Eastern European heroes?! That was massive news!_

Ms. Clue looked back at her intern though and shook her head with a dark but more understanding look on her face as to the reason for their misunderstanding. "We can't very well tell the public that terrorists were the ones who stopped all these villains. Especially when there's little proof they did, and heroes have already taken the credit," Ms. Clue added at the end with her head turning back forward.

"What kind of heroes take the credit for-" Jirou started muttering, more under her breath now.

In the third row right behind her, an older boy who Jirou knew from the short time they spent in school together her first year spoke up in a low voice to answer her. Jirou looked back just as Bakugo turned his head to the side to listen as Suneater replied, "The AoD don't want the credit. They want the public to believe that it was heroes who saved them, every time." His eyes just stayed focused towards his former classmate and best friend who got everyone around him to settle down and listen to him and the ADTF's leader again as they were finishing here.

Jirou was feeling too confused to focus on Lemillion though. _Why would the ADTF members think like that? Suneater's, supposed to be treating them like terrorists. It's the ADTF who are the ones who have been painting them as the biggest terrorists for such a long time, so why are they, the ones who think differently? They're the ones who know them best and know that what they're spreading to everyone else is not necessarily the truth. It's just the truth that they, and the AoD have decided on._

"I still don't think this proves anything about Lifebringer being Death," Mt. Lady spoke up, stepping forward and confronting Lemillion when the twenty year old looked back at her in a frustrated way that people were not accepting what he was telling them. "That's a completely different person. I read the book on where Sazaki had spent most of the time he was gone," Mt. Lady said, and she actually smiled as she thought back on it. "And the stories in that book were way too detailed for him to have just come up with as an alibi. It's not-"

"Sazaki was on this world within that period, that is something, that cannot be debated," Lemillion started.

"How do you know that for sure?" Kamui Woods asked back. He was a part of the ADTF, but he had to agree with his wife here. "We don't have any information about him between when he claims to have left the world, and when he…"

Lemillion lifted his tablet, frowning deeply but resigning himself to this as he tapped the screen and made information pop up in the hologram. Several pictures appeared up in the blue holo-light, though still colored with what they actually looked like. "This has less to do with the Army of Death, and more specifically to do with Lifebringer during his time 'off-world.' In February, while Sazaki should have been in some other dimension," Lemillion paused and he stopped speaking in that kind of doubtful tone. He just lowered his voice while looking back to the pictures of the destroyed Pit. He took in a deep breath while the rest of the heroes in the room besides Bakugo were staring at this with wide eyes. "This is the Pit. It was once, a place in Nigeria where villains would come and watch as people they had captured were forced to fight each other to the death. And it is where Hawks tracked back information on Sazaki's whereabouts, after learning that his underworld bounty had been cashed in; the bounty for him to be captured alive."

Mt. Lady and Kamui Woods were both staring towards the pictures in shock. There were still corpses littered around the ruins of the Pit when the pictures were taken. There were pictures of the underground and the empty cells, and of collars that lay on the ground of those opened cells that also had some corpses littered around them of men who looked like guards and some in nothing but rags and with marks around their necks. The aftermath of whatever happened at the Pit had left a lot of corpses all over the place. Lemillion spoke in a low voice while everyone got a good look at this place for themselves, "The prisoners were forced to wear collars that would explode if they attempted to escape, remove the collars, or use their Quirks. As such, all fighting done in the Pit happened without the use of Quirks. Most of those villains still alive who were arrested in the Pit where Nigerian heroes found them did not speak of what happened, but there were a few who gave small pieces of information to Hawks when he investigated."

Lemillion's voice got even darker, and he said in an even lower voice that made everyone stay completely silent to hear him, "Sazaki had been thrown into that Pit, where he was forced to fight for his life and kill the other prisoners with him." The statement was brutal, horrifying, and it made the Japanese heroes who had varying levels of respect and care for Lifebringer feel even worse about all that had happened to the kid over the years. Lemillion continued though and their pity changed to something else, "Yet before long, Sazaki would stage a revolt with the other gladiators in the Pit. Most of the villains refused to speak on him or claimed he was not there at all, though some who initially claimed that cracked under pressure and fear to reveal that Lifebringer had been the Champion of the Pit. That he had won fight after fight against other gladiators he was forced to kill, until he finally rose up and killed those who had put him there."

Bakugo glanced to his right side as he saw Jirou's jaw dropped and her eyes shaking. _She's never heard of this shit._ As Lemillion had finished, others started muttering to each other and talking about what they thought of this or if they even believed those villains. Bakugo said in a low voice to his classmate next to him trying to examine everything on the hologram at once, "That's what the red marks on his neck are from." Jirou darted her gaze to the left only to see Bakugo's eyes narrowed forward on a close-up picture of the collar that Jirou turned back to herself. "He butchered the fucks who put it on him…" _Why are you here?_ Bakugo had been annoyed since she came in, and he wondered in a low voice at the girl on his side, "Are you just here so you can arrest Zach?"

Jirou looked back into Bakugo's eyes for a second, only for Bakugo to turn away again first. _Why do I care?_ Bakugo thought in more annoyance at himself now than the girl he just questioned.

Jirou did not have an answer for Bakugo anyway though. She just looked back towards the holographic images that did not show any concrete proof that Zach was at this place, just like everything they had been looking at gave them nothing really that showed he was actually responsible. Jirou believed Lemillion though. She believed that Hawks had actually tracked Zach back to this place, and that he had destroyed it, but one part of this was too unbelievable to her. _Zach killed a bunch of innocent people? Even if he was forced to, I don't think he could… Why don't I?! He's a…_

She found it difficult to finish that thought in her head, as she imagined the boy who had asked to meet her not too long ago and who she turned away after they had barely been talking for a few seconds. Every time she had seen him since he returned, her blood had boiled and she felt so angry just looking at him. Jirou brought up those feelings inside her on purpose as she had been unable to finish that last thought about him, but Lemillion and Star-Spangled Man were not finished and had one more piece of information they wanted to give the Japanese heroes who were being brought in to deal with their Lifebringer problem.

"There's one more thing we want you all to know before we begin the next stage in our investigation into Lifebringer," Star-Spangled Man started. "Something that has not left the Anti-Death Task Force before. I believe it will give you the greatest understanding of what you are up against though, should it come to the point that you need to apprehend Lifebringer."

"We don't have a way to convert this video to your holo-projector," Star-Spangled Man continued, and his face vanished from the big screen covering one of the walls. "So just look here. What you're about to see is an interview between Endeavor, Sheshou, and Fu. Sheshou and Fu both arrived at the scene of the Villain Summit on the day of as two of the first heroes to respond to the chaos. This interview occurred several months afterwards as Endeavor was following his own intuition that more could still be learned about what happened that day last April."

The two Chinese women Endeavor was in an interrogation room with looked ready to respond to the Japanese hero. They were wearing their hero costumes, just as Endeavor was as he visited the two of them in their home country on their terms after requesting the meeting. The video started playing, showing Endeavor questioning the women in Chinese with subtitles appearing on the bottom of the screen as not everyone in there spoke Chinese to be able to follow along otherwise.

Fu's claws were retracted but visible where her hands were resting over the table, while Sheshou had her costume's archery weapons resting to the side against the wall. The two were attempting to answer Endeavor's questions to the best of their ability, though they each looked hesitant as well when Endeavor asked them to describe exactly what had happened that day. Fu turned her hands over on the table and responded with her palms facing up, "We announced everything at the press conference."

"I'd like you to repeat it, for me. And be as specific as possible," Endeavor requested, his voice stern and deep but only as demanding as if he were asking it as a professional courtesy. "Lifebringer may be in prison, however public opinion is turning to support him. If there is a chance he is Death, I need to know before he is released and can bring danger to Japan. Any information on the Army of Death not only supports my efforts as the leader of the Anti-Death Task Force, but as Japan's Number 1 hero. Please, to the best of your ability," Endeavor gave the women an intense look that made the two looking hesitant about this return those looks in kind, leaning forward themselves and getting more into this.

The Japanese heroes watching this interview wondered whether or not Endeavor just used that as a way to get them to be more loose-lipped, or if that was really coming from his heart. Most assumed it was some of both, and it impressed the heroes who had wondered where Endeavor was during this all-important meeting. Sheshou and Fu started talking, the two of them looking at one another occasionally as they recounted what had happened that day.

"…We left most of the heroes on the outskirts of Huangdoo, to protect the city and deal with the damage caused by Death's fight with one of the enemy-"

"Death should have been one of your enemies as well," Endeavor started. The Chinese heroes looked annoyed for a moment, but Endeavor was not judging them with his look after mentioning that. He just questioned Fu's wording, "Why had you determined at that point already that Death was not an enemy you also needed to face."

"If I had to say," Fu began. She hesitated, then she sighed as Endeavor looked into her eyes, and she admitted, "It would have to be Qingxiao for me."

"Same, here," Sheshou added, albeit more hesitantly than her comrade. Endeavor gave her a look wondering why she was, and Sheshou added after a moment, "I was in Qingxiao when the earthquake happened. I'd never forget what Death did for us that day, but seeing the damage caused by his fight I almost turned- no, I did. I turned against him at the first report that he was there and part of the reason, but all the citizens who saw what happened said otherwise. Death had taken blows for them, and he had forced the enemy who his Quirk was not working on back out of the city and towards the rest of the… the, madness."

Endeavor's facial expression shifted a little as he heard how Death's Quirk had not worked on the villain he had already known was very powerful to have fought Death over such a wide area as was originally reported. He nodded though and just continued his questioning, "What happened next?"

"The two of us left the city," Fu continued. "I flew out, carrying Sheshou. We, couldn't risk getting too close. You have to understand, our priority had to be keeping the villains from getting close to Huangdoo again."

Sheshou nodded, though her look was darker too as Fu's was getting with a regretful look in it as well. "It was terrifying," Sheshou admitted, making Fu's head snap to the side for a moment, then her eyes to shift down like her comrade's were. Sheshou rose her gaze back up to Endeavor and she said, "But when we got close, and found a spot and determined that the villains ahead of us could not get any farther, the Villain Summit was already out of anyone's control-"

"Why did you think it was a Villain Summit?" Endeavor wondered.

"Death flew over to us. Right in the middle of all of it," Fu replied. "He yelled out in Chinese what was going on, how the villains had all gathered to create a new League of Shadows but their talks had broken down. His Army had shown up and was trying to stop them all before it spread too far, but they didn't have the power to face off against all those villains at once."

"Did he ask for your help?" Endeavor questioned.

"No- yes," Sheshou got hesitant again as she answered too quickly. "I mean, not with fighting. He told us, to just stay where we were but to spread out…"

"He said he couldn't defeat them all, but if he could force them to scatter he would," Fu continued. "There was no way, we could have captured all those villains… At least we didn't think it was possible when we showed up there… His idea sounded like the safest option for the citizens behind us. It was still dangerous to have so many thousands of villains running off inside China but, but you didn't see, what it was- not the aftermath that I know you were there for but…"

Fu fell silent, and Sheshou just got a disturbed and darker look over her face again herself. Dark lines covered the women's faces as they sat there in front of Endeavor who had to ask them in a low voice, "What did you see out there?"

Sheshou shook her head. She was thinking about what had kept her and Fu from going any farther and joining in the chaos that they had seen. What the Chinese heroes had stayed out of until it was time to rush in and start arresting villains in a much larger force that they thought could finally handle it, only another ten, fifteen minutes after she and Fu had arrived when the battle was already almost over. Sheshou lifted her gaze to Endeavor, half of her face seen by the camera pointed across the middle of the table to get both Endeavor and the heroes he was questioning at once. "It was like nothing I'd ever seen before."

Her words were translated on the bottom of the screen into Japanese for the heroes watching in Japan months after this interview. Jirou gulped at the look on Fu's face as she rose up her right hand and put it over her forehead, letting the bottom of her hand partially cover up her eyes as a small nervous smile broke out over her expression for a second. Sheshou glanced to her side and then back at Endeavor, "There were so many of them, spread out as far as the eye could see. And there was no way to tell who was on whose side."

"They were all just, butchering each other," Fu said, her voice a whisper so the Japanese heroes would barely have caught it if not for the subtitles that showed up normally. "In the sky, on the surface, underground too. Mountains rose and fell like the ocean's waves."

"The whole landscape changed, it must have been a dozen times in a few minutes," Sheshou continued. "Forests emerged and seas of lava rose to melt hundreds of villains. The smell was... The whole battlefield was covered in the destroyed remains of the hundreds of planes and helicopters that had fallen out of the sky in the initial flash citizens said they saw. An EMP, I think. It took out the Army of Death's headquarters' ship, but there were _hundreds_ of anti-air vehicles, helicopters, fighter jets and- and yet there were still trucks and jeeps speeding around the landscape and blowing up throughout…"

"And Death," Fu started again in a lower voice but with her lips cracking up into a smile for another second before dropping just as darkly again. She rose her head and looked in the most serious way back into Endeavor's eyes. "He was unstoppable. Thousands of them must have fallen at his hands alone."

"She means that," Sheshou continued, to say that it was no exaggeration. "And you know the villains who were there, Endeavor. These weren't just run-of-the-mill thugs and thieves. It was the worst of the worst, from every damn country in the world. And he was the one they were all targeting most of all! But he took _everything_ they threw at him, and he gave back twice that. The sky was ripping into pieces, literal _black holes_ filling it and sucking in the more unfortunate villains who flew too close. The ground opened up with huge fissures that swallowed entire villain groups at once, before the Earth closed back up on them. Enough explosions to level a city went off every minute, blowing apart plateaus and- and... Death didn't flinch."

"We could see him through it all. It was hard not to see the one drawing all the attention, taking on the most villains at once. It was like, everyone was either fighting each other or fighting him," Fu said, her voice still dark with her eyes locked on Endeavor's. "You couldn't beat him. I don't think anyone could. He had the ire of the entire villain world directed straight on him, and he rose up a hundred feet tall and swept Death down on them. Taking out a hundred _powerful_ villains with a single move. And it was brutal out there, Endeavor. Absolute madness and chaos, but those _eight thousand_ villains everyone praised us for capturing at the scene of that Villain Summit… It wasn't the villains sparing each other, I'll tell you that much. And we only started capturing them once they were running at the end, but almost all of those we actually captured at the scene and not during the days after as we chased down all those who fled, were unconscious already. I thought it was a graveyard, but there were more villains laying around unconscious than there were actual corpses at the Villain Summit."

"He was in the middle of all that chaos," Sheshou continued, emphasizing what she and Fu were trying to get across to Endeavor here. "And he _still_ had the power to be able to spare his enemies like that. 7 civilians were killed in Huangdoo that day, in the crossfire between Death and some monster the people of the city blame for their deaths. We still have to put accountability on Death though for that, and yet there's no way to reach him to hold him accountable. He took on all those villain groups though who were really responsible for their deaths. And all those groups were organized by region into five massive forces, six if we're counting the Army of Death too. They left the landscape of Tibet where they had their battle completely demolished. Covered in crashed planes and helicopters and that massive airship believed to be the Army of Death's former base, not that much was able to be salvaged from it as it had been nearly entirely destroyed as the target of the villains' heaviest fire…"

 _Hold up._ Bakugo stopped staring at the screen as intensely as everyone else in the room. His eyes shot down to the floor and the thought he just had but pushed away because of its ridiculous nature came back up slowly. _Six… armies? No._ Bakugo lifted his head and refocused on the screen, but he furled his lips and had to shake his head with a quick close of his eyes. _No, I'm overthinking- unless I'm not. He messed up a name in that story. That's not what… no. No. It doesn't, make sense…_

 _He had to wear a collar, and kill people? There's no way!_ Jirou may have picked up on what Bakugo was coming to a hesitant realization of herself, but her mind kept pulling back to the pictures of the Pit, a place she never believed could exist in this world. _They don't even know if he was really there! Everything everyone knows about what he was doing out there is just a rumor! Even this, though I know he is Death- so then this is real? This, actually happened? I thought the Villain Summit was just… I don't know. They said the Chinese heroes and heroes who came to help them dealt with the villains, arrested them, and everyone was blaming the Army of Death for those Chinese people dying when the summit spread to the nearby city. So why is it sounding different now?_

"…At the end of the battle, the Army of Death were not chasing the enemies they had forced to flee." Fu paused, and she continued in a voice with more pity in it as Sheshou gained a sad look too, even grabbing her left upper arm with her right hand in a guilty way. Fu's voice was soft as she went on, "Our group of heroes had grown large enough to give chase in the many directions the villains had fled. We still had to leave several between Huangdoo and ground zero, just in case. And we also needed a lot of us to stay in that main area to deal with the thousands and thousands of villains laying everywhere, dead and unconscious. The two of us, were part of that team."

"The only ones left standing were the Army of Death," Sheshou said. "When we got over to them… they had already gathered up together. And just around, two dozen Army of Death members were still able to move. Less, actually." Sheshou paused and she had to look away from Endeavor and the camera too, her voice just barely audible as it continued to come out with the subtitles continuing on the bottom. "We couldn't apprehend Death, or the others with him there. Every one of those twenty of them still alive and moving, were dragging at least one comrade with them, carrying two or three on their backs for some."

"They were bloody and dying, each and every one," Fu muttered. "A single jet showed up for them a few minutes after that they dragged themselves onto and flew off in." Fu's hands opened up over the table and dug down into it, her claws extending a bit as she grit her teeth imagining that most depressing scene at the end of the Villain Summit.

 _ **"Has anyone seen Spiral?"**_

 _ **"Scatter too?"**_

 _ **"I don't- ahh, ah-"**_

 _ **"Heavy?"**_

 _ **"There could be more of us left. We should keep looking-"**_

 _ **"We have to go… There's no one else."**_

 _They didn't even care that we were there. I didn't even know, what to say to them,_ Fu closed her eyes that were getting wet, but a tear still dripped down the right side of her face as she thought back on it. "There were probably," she tried to finish, her voice steady despite the way she looked. "Fewer than fifty of them remaining alive, when all was said and done. And half of those were likely, unable to fight anymore… Though maybe Death could have brought them back from injury, if it was their first time." Fu finished that with a voice crack, and she apologized while raising an arm and rubbing over her eyes quickly as she noticed she had gotten choked up. She just took in and let out a couple deep breaths, before lifting her head and telling Endeavor, "There were a lot more of them when they saved Qingxiao, and it was pretty clear, a _lot_ of them died that day."

She had lied to him when he came to Qingxiao and demanded to be allowed to go in to apprehend the Army of Death. Fu and the other Chinese heroes who had been there were ready to fight the ADTF for trying to involve themselves that day, but she told him the truth anyway and just looked sad to say it. Endeavor nodded back at her in understanding of what she was saying too, and he had a respectful look in his eyes for the way the two of them took it.

As Endeavor had that moment of silence in a similar kind of mutual respect for Death as the Chinese heroes had, the Japanese heroes watching this in the future found themselves silent too as they imagined the description of the Villain Summit. They wondered for once if the news they heard about the Army of Death expanding the fight even larger so it just touched the city of Huangdoo, because their involvement had made it that small amount larger that spread there, was not the truth behind the events that occurred that day. Instead, many of them wondered just how many people in that city would have been killed if not for the Army of Death, which was clearly what the Chinese heroes in that interrogation room were thinking as they defended themselves for not apprehending Death and his army even in their weakened state there.

Jirou's eyes lowered to the floor, and the hatred that she felt so deep within her subsided. Her teeth bared forcefully, but as angry as she was at him for everything he did, as much as she was mad that he was _still_ lying to everyone and tricking the country… She recalled the way his body looked when he came out of his destroyed apartment and the darkness faded from parts of his shirtless torso. _And on his neck,_ she imagined the red marks wrapping around his whole neck, and her eyes shifted to Bakugo at her side again before looking right back at the floor. _He already knew. He knows, and he's still here right now! I should- I… He had to wear that, while being forced to kill other prisoners…_

 _What am I doing here?_ Jirou asked herself, as she felt so much pain at that last thought for some reason. She knew the reason though, and she clenched her eyes shut at the thought of it. _Trying so hard, to get Zach arrested. Sure I'm mad at him, but, when did I start wanting… this?_ Her eyes opened and she rose her head to look around the room full of heroes discussing the danger of Zach Sazaki. _A witch hunt for my friend- a former friend…_ As much as she tried to correct herself in an angry way, she just felt sad at the urge to get mad at him after all she had heard today. _I don't get what you were doing. Or why, you thought it was okay- I'm just- I'm not mad, at what you were doing out there. That was never it._

 _The biggest reason I'm still mad at him is the lying. He's a,_ she could not even think that convincingly at herself anymore. _But I'm a liar too as long as I hold onto those letters. He may be a liar, but he's done a million amazing things to try and even that out. I don't have that. I'm just… Then, why not change that?_

* * *

 _ **Bzzzz. Bzzzz. Bzzzz. Bzzzz…**_

Zach's eyelids parted slowly. It was pitch black around him, but he opened his eyes with them already glowing red and letting him see everything down there just basked in a low red hue. He felt movement on his right side and his red eyes shifted to the corners to look down next to him. His back was still against the wall with his legs out in front of where he was sitting, and his arms were limp down at his sides with his forearms resting out forward since he was slouched low into the damp wall.

He stared at the small disgusting creature crawling towards him on all fours, and he watched it in silence without moving a muscle as it crawled onto his right hand. He stared at the rat as it nibbled down but was unable to break through his thicker tevlon that was not meant to rip anymore as he would not ever need it to. The rat moved up the back of his hand towards some exposed skin between his dirty jacket's sleeve and his glove. The rat stopped moving and fell off of his hand, and Zach sucked in a sharp breath of rancid air. He was able to ignore the smell though as the corners of his lips cracked up for a moment, then he sighed and reached for his phone that had stopped vibrating but would go off again soon if he did not respond to his alarm.

 _Good few hours. Ojiro texted me._ Zach opened up his phone and looked at the message he had to unlock his phone to view. He stared at the text through his glowing red vision, then he turned back off his phone and pocketed it before standing up and lifting his bag with him. _**Drip. Drip. Drip- sclch sqsh, squish, sklsh,**_ Zach walked down the underground murky tunnel with his footsteps making louder noises than the ambient dripping that had gone on through the early morning hours he had rested for. His expression that had dropped in disgust and darkness rose back for him to have a flat lip and calm look on his face. _Searched different cities' sewer systems all night for any secret tunnels connected to them, not that I found any. What's the move for today then? Nothing much._

 _Can't stop someone on Mysti's level every day. The League are in too deep of hiding too. If I had searched every forest though… across the whole country? It's impossible. I couldn't have guessed, and now there's less of a chance too, though I don't have a lack of time. Too much time. Too little freedom, once I emerge from the darkness. I have to show myself though. Let them see, what? What am I even showing them? A disgusting- I'll decide on today once I'm showered and in some clean clothes._

He rose to the surface when no one was watching. Then he snuck into an abandoned apartment, one of many he knew of across the nation and in every city. _Water's still on, even if the electricity is off. I'll plug my phone into the new laptop for a little. It'll waste the computer's power, but the phone's about to die. One charge will last me a few days with this thing though._ Zach stared at the phone in his hand as he walked out of the bathroom he just turned the shower on in. The battery indicator signaled that the phone was going to die soon, but he gained a half-smile as he stared at the glowing object in his hand. _Don't have my costume, nor any of the money remaining. Everything in that box was destroyed or taken from me, or I just used it up. Still have these though._

Zach reached over to his left shoulder with his right hand. He twisted and popped off his arm, sliding it down out of his sleeve still with his phone in its hand. He looked at his arm and phone that he had received in the box L sent to him, the last remnants of the things he received that day. And he remembered the others sitting around him as he went through the contents of his package. _Haven't seen any of them for a while, other than Hagakure. It feels like so long actually. And I doubt I'll see Hagakure or Ojiro again. Koda too, most likely. Unless they die._ Zach shook his head around, and he tossed his arm to the side before snagging his phone out of the air when it was slipping out of his left hand.

He opened his smelly backpack and got out a laptop that had half its battery remaining which he frowned at again. _The other one rarely ran out. It's the research I did yesterday before searching underground. Had to empty out the base at Rairosu. Can't let any of the homeless take on his wrath just for associating with me. It's time to be alone. I had enough time out there. I'm back. Train. Disguise. Fight._ Zach stripped, then he dropped to his right and only hand that had scars over his knuckles and crossing all over the back of it as he could see after removing his glove. He did push-ups on one hand, then one finger as he pushed his index finger down and sweat it out with no Death around him.

 _Train harder. It doesn't matter that she didn't stand a chance. She could have, and that's the issue. Just the idea that someone could be stronger than me… There could be. Eziano cut your throat. Don't forget it- and then he ran with his tail between his legs._ Zach continued pushing down and up, though he stopped panting as much and just continued with his muscles losing the strain in them as Death filled certain parts of his arms and joints. _Cowards. The whole lot of them. Every fucking villain in this world. Running from me. Even he's too much of a coward to come for me himself. I told him- he'll do it. I'm just waiting. When I defeat all of them, only then can I face the boss. That's what this is, right?_

Zach stood up, then he lifted his left foot and put it up on the inside of his right thigh covered in burn marks and scars. The sole of his left foot had a few bumps and gashes on it he could feel as he pressed it against the warm skin of his inner thigh, and he took in and let out a deep breath before pushing up higher on his right foot that was alone on the ground now. In a room almost pitch black as the sun had yet to rise over the horizon, Zach stood on his toes and did a squat with his right hand in front of his chest. The palm he held out in front of his chest was pointed inwards as if together with a left hand, but as he lowered in the squat his hand curled into a fist. He had barely any balance on his curled toes, but he punched his right fist out and held his arm there for a moment without losing his balance. He stood back up, then dropped down and did the same thing again, and again, for twenty reps.

Steam came out of the bathroom door he had left open, and Zach alternated onto his left foot before he did another full set of squat-punches on the tips of his toes. Then he headed into the bathroom and closed the door behind him, letting the shower he had pouring water as hot as it could get fill the room with steam that was not escaping anymore. The air got thinner, and the floor tiles got damp from the water vapor in the air, and Zach did his workout again with thirty reps on each foot this time. His toes dug in harder as the wet ground threatened to make him slip, and his muscles ached until he poured Death into them to ease the workout gradually.

Zach turned and he stepped over the edge of the tub and into the shower that was still sending out searing-hot water. He sighed a breath of relief as the heat hit him though. Zach ran a hand up into his hair and pushed back, getting the dirt and grime to flood down his body and make the bottom of the bathtub look black for the first few seconds after he got in. _No soap. No shower curtain even. Floor will be even wetter for the post workout, now that it's splashing off my sides and onto the floor. Hope no one calls the police on someone using the shower in this unused room. I'd slip them easily, but getting my shit from the other room would be annoying. I'd really have to finesse it. Could be good training._

He tilted his head back and got hot water to fill his mouth. He gargled it in the back of his throat, sloshed it around his mouth and licked his teeth to clean them off a bit. _What do I need? Money, first of all. Still have a toothbrush and toothpaste in the bag. Had to compartmentalize and choose what was worth keeping with me. The water bottles are empty though, and brushing with sewage this morning wasn't an option. This water tastes like lead. It's too hot. I should fill up the empties with some tap, but I tossed the empties yesterday to make room for a laptop charger. Should have plugged the laptop in too, would probably charge the phone quicker and without wasting as much computer battery. This is starting to hurt._

Zach cracked a grin and stared up into the water pouring onto his face. _Not bad. Doubt the water stays this hot for much longer though. Shouldn't use up too much of the hot water for people at this complex either, if we share a water supply. Not fair since they're paying rent._ He shook his head around and got to scrubbing himself all over. _Should have brought my prosthetic in here too. It's waterproof and could use a good scrubbing after last night. I'll just leave the clothes I wore down there here, but I'll have to wash that backpack. I should get a hiking pack to fill with more… people would notice too much. Wonder why I'm carrying around so much every day. A backpack's easier to explain away…_

He got out of the shower before long but turned on the bath faucet and blocked the drain. When he returned to the bathroom he had some more things he needed to clean, and he knelt at the side of the bath and scrubbed his metal arm, cleaned his bag, and then put some dirty clothes into the bathtub too. _I'll leave them to dry on hangers in a closet, and maybe come back for them one day. People shouldn't notice if my wardrobe has too much variety, as long as I keep one good set I wear on multiple occasions. I should still wear other things more than once though. I know there are more clothes in here for me, but sooner or later I'm going to get in trouble for doing this shit. No I won't. That's stupid. No one's ever going to catch me. No one could._

He chuckled to himself while washing some clothes, and it was getting difficult so he brought his left arm back into his socket and twisted it to lock in. He winced with a smirk on his face as he felt his nerves reattach, and then he stared down at his left hand's fingers he curled one by one to test out the arm's reaction time compared to when he thought about those fingers moving. Zach's eyes glowed red and darted from his right to his left hand. _No difference. The nerves are as good as my actual ones. I guess the arm's still able to keep up with me then. Fucking geniuses, all you guys._ Zach shrugged out his shoulders and got back up, moving into the other room and hanging up the wet but clean clothes to dry. He grabbed out another set too he tossed on the bed, though he did not get changed into them yet as he was still a little damp himself despite air-drying for a while now. _Wish she had a towel in here, or that my bag could fit one,_ he thought to himself while stepping back into the apartment's bathroom that had belonged to a woman from his deduction.

 _Her family cleared almost everything out of here, but they could have left me a towel. I guess, I didn't revive her, so it's on me. I was younger then. Couldn't save everyone at the Sports Festival. Couldn't even save Aizawa sensei. But I saved Shoji. And a few dozen other people, including Richard Hawkins._ Zach had walked back into the bathroom, holding his toothbrush and toothpaste in either hand. The thought of the man who had been coming to mind very often recently, flashed in his head again charging straight at him. He saw Mysti's face in his mind, _Was she responsible for that too? Bringing him there, was her idea?! It wasn't my fault-_ Zach felt scars on his back in the shape of claw marks searing in pain as he stared at his own reflection in a mirror that had lost too much of the steam on it. He was able to see a blurry reflection, and the anger inside him suddenly flared up at the sight of it.

 _ **CHHH!**_

Glass shattered and fell around Zach's right hand that just smashed through the middle of the mirror. He stared forward with his eyes getting a little wider as he pulled his hand back and lowered it to his side, his eyes following after the hand that just sizzled with some Death but faded after a moment. His eyes rose back up to the mirror that still had many shards despite the middle of it having fallen down into the sink. His own reflection had been shattered too, different shards reflecting at different angles to make him unrecognizable anymore.

His eyes lowered from those shards though that made him look like a disfigured mess in the mirror. _She looked at me like a monster,_ Zach thought. In his head he saw nothing above a floating set of clothes, but that nothing had a look that made his stomach turn upside-down. _I couldn't kill Mysti, not with Hagakure there. But I did the next worst thing. Maybe even worse than… than killing her._ Zach closed his eyes, and he calmly started brushing his teeth with his eyes shut. _Which was what I tried to convince myself and her, in order to keep myself from taking Mysti's life in that moment. You know that's what you did._

 _Mysti has other comrades though. She was the second most powerful person in an organization that controlled the world from the shadows._ His eyes shot open and glared back up into a single shard of the mirror that let him see into his own hazel eyes with red pupils. Those pupils pulsed, widening then shrinking back to normal size as he stared into them. _Inside corporations and governments, with research labs everywhere advancing mankind to a new future. A better future._ His lips twisted in rage, _They thought they were changing the world, and I destroyed them. Fergus' scientists received no mercy. I killed more of them, than my enemies from any other group combined outside of Tusukan. But Mysti escaped._

 _She had the resources. She had the know-how in order to keep up her power. The amount of resources and allies she could still have- but I can't kill her- I couldn't! It's in the past. There's no way to kill her now,_ Zach bit down on his own tongue inside his mouth, gritting his teeth on either side and drawing blood as he did both at once. _DON'T DO IT! Taking her out was necessary. She'd have killed them all! I'm not evil. Hagakure's wrong. The way she looked at me- whatever she told Ojiro! I'm not wrong. They're wrong._ He said it to himself again, but his chest did not stop squeezing in the grief and guilt of the decision he was questioning.

And then that grief went away as a dark aura swirled around his heart. Then that darkness pulled away from his heart that raced much faster as he glared into the mirror with wide eyes. _Shit. Don't ignore it. Don't act like you're in control._

 _Death might be a drug,_ Zach lifted his right hand, staring at his open palm covered in so many scars that there was more scar tissue on that hand than non-scarred skin. _Before, I rarely used it and I was happier and more stable. Then I felt I needed it, needed to use it, convinced myself that my problems were from not using it enough. In prison I stayed in a good mood for so long. Stable. In the short time out of it, my use skyrocketed, and yet using it to empty hasn't happened. So I thought the occasional bursts were good for me, to keep it down. But then I overused it like an overdose when I got sick, and yet my tolerance got higher after I recovered as well… or so I've thought._

 _Unless that thought process is just another way to convince me to use it more. To_ _ **need**_ _to use it more, in order to get the same feeling of relief- And I use it so much more often now too. Forcing myself to do periods of it a day, and yet those violent outbursts I had with Broom Man that I chose to believe would subside if I did just release Death every once in a while have not gone away either. I've changed. I'm changing constantly. It's changing me. Not using Death is not the answer though. That's just, impossible. Using it more is just adding to it though…_

 _If the answers were easy, they wouldn't be problems I need to think about in the first place. But killing that rat this morning, and killing the trees I'd been sleeping on for no other reason than like an expresso shot to get me up in the morning? I'm killing, in order to function. What happened to a good old coffee? I love coffee. I should go get a cup._

Zach turned on the cold water in his sink, and he splashed some up into his face a few times before smiling and heading back into the bedroom that still had a bed and mattress even if there were no covers or sheets. He grabbed the clothes in the closet that did not look like the woman's that had been mostly cleared out, and he assumed the black sweatshirt and sweatpants might have been her boyfriend's that she stole from him or that he left there one day. Zach did not know, but after getting changed and packing everything up with him, he glanced over a nightstand and out the window into the Musutafu air getting brighter by the minute. He took in a deep breath and then let it out slowly, and he imagined some couple seeing that same sunrise out this very window themselves many times.

 _I know I didn't stay here last night, as it was too dangerous for the other people in the complex,_ Zach thought while facing the bed and staring as if at a person sitting on the foot of the bed. He bowed his head a little and then rose it in gratitude, _But thank you, for letting me use your bathroom. I needed that._

Zach turned and he headed from the bedroom out into the main room of this person's apartment. He stopped himself as he was about to head for the door though, and he turned back towards the couch that he remembered having searched under the cushions of the first time he found this place. _Huh, that's right._ He walked towards the couch and looked at the headphones on top of the middle cushion where he had left them after finding them stuck in the crack behind the cushions last time. _I never checked to see if these worked._

He rose up the headphones and glanced at the insides of them. He wiped around the earmuff-like receivers, but they were surprisingly clean for being stuck inside a couch. He bent out the headband part and put it up over his wavy black hair still semi damp even though he had dried only his hair using an actual article of the dead woman's clothing. His hair dried slower than the rest of his body anyway, but he rested the headphones over his head and found the ambient sound around him instantly muted. _Didn't even notice it was loud enough for that to happen,_ he realized with a smile breaking out on his face.

Zach took back off the headphones and smiled down at them as he turned them sideways and found a power button. _Let's see._ He held the button for a few seconds, and then he cracked an even bigger grin as a **Boo-Doo-DEE** noise came out of them and a green light turned on in the middle of the right headphone. The headband connecting the two sides was light green, just like the plastic around the rubbery black part that soundproofed each of the earpieces. He opened up his phone and went to the bluetooth settings, put the headphones back over his head, and then he popped his hood up too and on top of them while heading out of the apartment.

 _I'm feeling good today. Refreshed, I guess. Wearing a dead man's clothes. Aren't all clothes a dead man's clothes, at some point in the future anyway? I'm glad they bought these headphones though. I don't even care about the lack of noise. No more assassins are going to be able to target me without any routine. No known locations. I'm loose. Fresh. Free. I'm out of school for today at least. I'll keep trying though. Need to test out some more potential transfers!_ His optimistic thoughts could not distract him from his own souring expression as he scrolled over the news, and available podcasts, then flipped over to language-learning apps on his phone.

 _You know what?_ He wondered to himself and stopped for a second in the hallway he was walking down. _I just stopped Mysti. Even as Death, I couldn't do that. Death could never take a break and celebrate though. Too rushed. And that drove me mad! So why not?_ Zach popped open a music app and smiled brightly at the sight of some songs he had not listened to in over a month. _My mood is down and I have to be cheerful out there. Can't force myself as easily anymore, so this is actually productive._ He laughed at the reasoning he gave himself, for why he suddenly started blasting some music in his headphones.

Zach pushed open a back entrance to the apartment complex and headed into an alley, then he walked for the main road with a chipper expression and a bob to his head. _I need some fuel. I'll hit a convenience store then. None that were too close to my house. Don't want to see anyone who would remember me instantly. None too close to school either. That still leaves a good chunk of the city. Sounds like a plan._

As he headed out onto the sidewalk, he lifted a hand and put a white mask over the bottom of his face. It was too warm to be wearing a winter face-mask anymore, but in Japan it was not uncommon to see people wearing surgical masks to help prevent the spread of illness. He drew little attention by putting the white mask over half his face, and with his headphones covering up his left ear and his hood most of his neck, he was unrecognizable to anyone who may glance his direction. His hands were down in his pockets so no one noticed the black glove over his right hand, and he was nodding along to the music playing in his headphones in a way no one could imagine Lifebringer would be doing.

 _Haven't eaten in a while. Water's more important here. I should keep two bottles on me at all times for now on, and just refill in clean taps. It's better than- I'm going to have to stop anyway for food. I don't have much money though. I shouldn't be wasting cash on water when it's free everywhere else._ Zach walked across the city in no rush, smiling at the randomness of his playlist on shuffle that he was trying to find a pattern to but failing. He did not know what the next song would be, even though he had guessed it twice out of the last ten songs to turn on which also intrigued him as to how he did that on a list of over 100 songs. _Probability hasn't shrunk on any of the songs for playing next. Just going down by one each time shouldn't have been enough to be that lucky. Is there a pattern then? It's not perfectly random? I wonder…_

He headed into a convenience store near a corner of a side road but two doors back from the actual intersection. The road was not crowded, though there were people on it heading to work and school that morning. _Elementary school kids. School's started a while ago then._ He headed into the store and made a slight nod at the shopkeeper before glancing around the room. _Actually,_ his thoughts switched from how the man behind the counter would be less likely to think he was a teen playing hooky this late in the morning, to the smell he caught a whiff of from behind the counter.

"You got fried chicken there?" Zach wondered, heading towards the counter and nodding down through the glass that did not have any hot food displayed there yet.

The clerk seemed surprised, but he also grinned in the fact that he had started cooking this early which did not always play out like he hoped it would and was often a waste of his time. "Yes sir," the old man started, a guy in his early sixties who was balding but still had some gray hair on the back of his scalp with thin slivers over the top of it. "Give me three more minutes and I'll get the first batch out for you. Your choice of the piece that looks best."

"Cool, thanks," Zach nodded at the man then looked around the store from just on the other side of the counter. His eyes scanned around the shelves and the fridges to his left on the far side as the shop's entrance. _No one else here right now. Not a big place. Not a crowded street. Maybe he has times when business is booming. Hope so, I don't see how he'd make a profit here. Shelves are fully stocked- no, there are some popular items. Didn't notice he ran out of the new Chinmon toys, but there should be some under that sign. If he doesn't have any other employees it could be profitable, I guess. Cost management of a place like this…_

The clerk and store owner behind Zach just stared at the back of the man's head for a minute as he wondered what his customer was looking at while awaiting his food. If he had been able to examine Zach's face during that time, he may have slowly been able to figure out who the teenager was, but from the voice and stature of the man in front of him the owner of the store thought the person was more likely in his upper twenties. When his food was ready, Zach sucked in a deep breath through his mask of the great scent coming from behind him. He turned as the owner was pulling them out of a fryer and about to tell him to choose, and Zach cut him off by just nodding to the right side of the tray at a good-looking piece he saw.

"Haha, alright. That'll be six hundred yen… Exact change. That's what I like to see," the man grinned thankfully at Zach who put two coins on the counter, a five hundred yen coin and one hundred yen coin the clerk did not have to make change of. "Have a nice day-"

"I've got some shopping to do too," Zach mentioned with a nod while turning around and heading in the direction of the fridges.

"Take your time," the clerk called after him.

Zach slid his mask down once he was faced away from the owner and he rose his left hand he had picked up the chicken with. The piece was in a napkin and small cardboard corner-holder too so as to be easier to eat, and Zach went at it while grabbing a couple water bottles from the fridge. The store owner back behind him stared oddly at the heavy backpack he was carrying while walking around, but it looked too thick to be a student's and made the man wonder if this was a traveler or tourist in his store. The older man did not have much to do other than look to his customer, but as the younger man picked up a nutrition bar from one of his shelves, another customer came in who the older man turned to deal with.

Rain started outside which Zach heard as he had lowered the volume on his headphones even after putting them back up, having removed them from his right ear at least while he spoke to the store owner so as not to be rude. He heard the woman who entered the store talking about it, and he heard her asking where the plastic disposable umbrellas were as she had to get back out quickly. _Guess it's going to pick up,_ Zach wondered with a look through the front windows and out onto the road. He took off his hood, while looking away from the counter and to the back wall where there were lines of manga and magazines on display. _I can put my hood back on heading outside, use that as an excuse now. So there's no need to walk around constantly with it on then to make that just seem like habit._

His eyes scanned the magazines first that told him a few happenings of the world he had not heard of. Mostly it was celebrity news, though there were a few conspiracy theories that made it to the front page, including theories about the Army of Death. His eyes scanned down as he took another bite from his delicious fried chicken, _I've… seen that before._

One of the manga covers had a picture of a young man on it. The man in his early twenties was a teenager the last Zach had seen of him. The pirate with a golden tail sticking out of his lower back held up a sword no longer covered in bandages like Zach remembered it being a few years ago. _I read this,_ Zach thought, trying to think back on when it was he had read it before. His smile rose in a nostalgic way before dropping flat in an instant in regret. _I went out to meet Webb outside of school. Read the manga to seem casual, and got scolded 'cause there was no way a blind man could just casually walk up next to me and start reading too. Stupid._ Zach shook his head and pushed the dark thoughts from his mind instantly.

His eyes opened back up, and he hummed in interest while looking below the ninja headband the pirate was wearing now that he did not have on that first time years ago. Partially sticking out from below the headband was a scar on his forehead, and Zach crouched down in front of the manga shelves then scooted to his left after picking up the comic book he was interested in. He scooted that way to get out of view of the counter, using one of the shelves in the middle of the store to completely block him off. He crouched like that to stay out of easy sight of people walking by the windows too, and when he crouched he did so in a way that would make his legs start to ache after a while, just sitting in midair with his knees making a right angle.

 _He looks older now. His expression isn't as carefree as before too, and he has a scar on his face. I mean, maybe they're basing him off me. Or I'm just projecting, but still, seems like something I'd be interested in. Years have passed in the story that I was already jumping into the middle of. Wonder if I can keep up…_

* * *

In Class A's dorm after classes had ended for the day, the exhausted third years done with another intense practical training entered their building with groans and limps in their steps. "Why'd Mother Russia sensei, have to come back, today?" Ashido groaned while heading towards the couches she promptly fell face-forward into.

"Weren't you the one so excited to see her, that you jumped up and yelled her name?" Mineta asked with a sweatdrop looking over at the couch, though he turned his head a bit more as the way Ashido fell like that made her skirt…

In the corner of Mineta's gaze he saw a dark aura, and he cleared his throat while heading towards the couches himself like that was his only reason for looking that way. He just took a seat on a different couch as Ashido, still trying hard not to make eye contact with Asui whose eyes he could feel following him across the common room. "Let's see what's on tv," Mineta said, slouching back into the couch tiredly himself and clicking the power button on the remote.

Kirishima had headed over towards the kitchen with Bakugo, the two of them still talking about the fighting style of Mother Russia and her army of U.A. training robots that could mostly fly like her. "…You flying guys headed off too fast," Kirishima complained at Bakugo who grunted in annoyance, though he knew Kirishima was right after how poorly the training session had gone. "You know you and Midoriya can't just take everything by yourselves."

"We almost ended it before it started," Bakugo muttered.

"Yeah, but you didn't," Kirishima replied with a raise of an eyebrow as it was odd for Bakugo to make an excuse like that after messing up. Kirishima gained a more interested look though and added, "It almost seemed like you were preoccupied though. Like what was bothering you all day-"

"Nothing's bothering me," Bakugo started. He glared to his side and finished, "Except you right now."

"Alright alright, but I don't remember you coming back in last night. Lemillion's working you to the bone, huh?"

"Yeah, that's it," Bakugo muttered. He turned his head while losing focus on their talk here and getting a lot more focused on the things coming back to mind now that Kirishima was bringing them up. His eyes widened as he stared back towards the common room, then he grunted in annoyance but started that way as most of the class did as Mineta called out and rose the volume.

"Lifebringer stops robbery?" Sero wondered, and he grinned after a second of just being surprised. "Nice," he added.

"He did that today?" Tokoyami questioned in a low voice. _Though, he is not at school anymore. There is no reason he would not be able to stop crimes on his free time. He has given himself many reasons, why no one can tell him otherwise._ "He should be looking for another school to enroll in," Tokoyami added, though that was more of a mumble of disapproval as he did not care to say it loudly when it sounded like Zach had done something good. _He can't get his pro license this way. Prioritize, Zach. Or you will wind up falling behind._

Mineta turned up the volume even more as everyone started talking, and he wanted to hear what the news was saying about this. "Three robbers were arrested by Lifebringer after fleeing from a convenience store they attempted to rob this morning, just another of an increased number of villain incidents since the Koimou Massacre. As a stroke of luck of being in the right place at the right time, apparently, Lifebringer was already in the store when the robbery occurred. A source has sent in video from a surveillance camera inside the store during the robbery, which we'll play for you now."

The screen suddenly became filled with the surveillance footage inside a convenience store. The angle was from behind the counter pointed down and out over it across the entire store. It had the front door on the right of the counter, refrigerators on the left, and shelves across the middle of the shop. From the angle the camera caught, there were only two people in the store at the start of the tape. There was the old shopkeeper just below the camera whose face was unable to be seen the way he was standing, and across the store from him where the man just leaned to the side to check on around a shelf, there was another person wearing black sweatpants and a black sweatshirt with a thick backpack on too. That other person had wavy black hair pushed down in the middle of his head by a green headband that connected the two thick pieces of his headphones, and the person sitting back there did not have a seat from what anyone watching could tell as the angle caught more of his right side than the owner was able to see.

"That's Zach?" Shoji wondered, looking closely at the screen and to their old classmate who he was confused to see back there near the manga shelves. "What is he…" Shoji watched as the teen back there flipped a page of a manga book, then took a bite out of something that seemed to be the last bite as he crumpled up the carrier afterwards. He left the manga resting over his thighs for a moment while wiping off his hands, then he opened up one of the two water bottles he had sitting next to his right foot and took a big chug out of it before getting back to reading.

The manager of the store noticed this and frowned at the sight, but he shook his head around and then turned with his face blurred afterwards when it was shown on the news. He got to cooking some more food for people who would come by on their lunch breaks for a quick bite to eat, when the door to his shop suddenly swung open. The store jingled with the noise of bells to indicate customers had arrived, and the shop owner started turning back around.

Three figures in all black sprinted into the shop out from the rain. The first one of them had a baseball cap on and his head stayed pretty bowed as he ran across the front of the counter while pointing a pistol over it. "Don't move!"

The surveillance did not pick up sound, but the teenage heroes watching afterwards read the men's lips and gained glares as the other two yelled at the man too. A few of their glares did not last long, as they noticed someone in the back of the store the robbers had apparently not realized was inside when they rushed into the otherwise empty shop run by a single man.

"Open up the register!" The man in the middle called out. He had wet and wavy blond hair that fell down behind the back of his neck and over his shoulders draped in a black cloak. The other two just had on heavy black sweatshirts, with the last of the three who entered not carrying a pistol at first like the other two. Instead that bigger man just had his black hands risen, his hands a different shade than the rest of his skin that more matched a normal Japanese tone like his partners. His hands rising like that did something to the windows that flashed dark for a moment before becoming able to be seen through again from the inside, his Tint Quirk just making it harder for anyone outside of the shop to see into it. Then he pulled out a larger pistol from under the hem of his shirt than either of his comrades had up already.

"I don't want to have to tell you again!"

"Do it now!"

The guy in the middle started shaking his pistol in his right hand while yelling at the man behind the counter. _He's scared,_ Midoriya thought. _Nervous. Trigger happy. One wrong move and he might fire. Zach, you were careful weren't you?_

"Hey."

Zach kept his voice calm and steady as he spoke to the three men in front of him. He had already moved back between the shelves behind him so he was halfway to the counter from where he had been crouched before. On the surveillance footage, it showed Zach Sazaki stand up and walk their direction, his eyes scanning left and right across them to check them out while not one of the three noticed him. When he spoke, it was calmly and meant to make the men turn to him without panicking too much that one might fire on accident into the shopkeeper.

The man behind the counter trying to steady his hands to open the register, snapped his head back up too and froze in shock at the sight of who was in the middle of the store. Then the manager flinched, just as the three on the other side of the counter as him did, because the man in the middle had spun in too much panic and fired at the sight of someone that close behind him. The blond man's hair bounced, his left arm swinging up as he had tried to pull away at the last second as he felt himself pulling the trigger in reaction more than because he planned it.

 **BANG**

When the gun fired, four of the five people in the store flinched. Even the man who fired it was not expecting the sudden loud noise and the jolt on his arm that made it swing even more. He stopped swinging his arm though, freezing in place as he recognized the person in front of him he just fired his gun at. Zach had his surgical mask down to eat, and he was not wearing his hood anymore. He had pulled his headphones down when he heard the shouting behind him, so the earphones were close to touching in front of his neck where he had dropped the loop down around. Everyone watching the clip afterwards stared with their eyes suddenly bulging too, while even Zach's eyes grew slightly wider at the gunshot he had not flinched at.

Then, every person watching both in the present of that video and afterwards stared towards Zach Sazaki with sweat forming and their heart rates speeding up. His eyes lowered down to his own torso, his chin dipping a little as he stared at the middle of his chest. Then he turned his head to the side and stared down the middle of the aisle between two shelves. He looked at the space on the shelf he had put the manga back on when he stood up, directly behind where he was standing now. There was a hole in the middle of the manga over the main character's face on the cover. He turned his head back forward and looked down at the middle of his chest again where there was not even a hole in his sweatshirt. Then, his head started to rise.

The right corner of Zach's lips curled up and revealed his teeth behind them as he grinned at the enemy who just shot him. And then it was Zach's turn to freeze up, as the villain directly in front of him threw his hands up in the air still with the gun in his left. The man on his left side threw his hands up almost at the same time, while the largest man noticed the other two give up first before putting his hands up in the air with a look of terror flashing over his face at the look that replaced the last one on Lifebringer's.

Hagakure found herself gulping and crossing her arms in front of her chest, her heart pounding as she stared at Zach's face that lost the smile the instant the center villain put his hands up. His eyes shifted over the counter and up, directly at the camera for a brief moment before looking back down at the villains in front of him. His lips flattened and his eyes got much darker than when the villains were threatening the old man or spinning to him. Even when it seemed like he was going to have to fight them after the first man fired, he looked interested and excited more than anything. The three putting their hands up like that though made the emerging smile vanish from his face.

"Leave."

In the convenience store, Zach spoke that one word to the men before him seconds after they put their hands up. His tone was angry, even though his expression was flat and did not look pissed. He did not even sound annoyed. His tone was just dark and the men who heard it felt like the person in front of them was an angry person rather than his anger was all directed at them. His eyes had returned to a normal size though half-closed even, just glaring forward at them and speaking in a voice much more menacing than straight rage or hatred. His words were cold. "Or die," Zach added, like just informing them what would happen if they did not do what he had said.

The sheer terror that filled the villains' expressions was not caught fully by the cameras. The three men did start shifting their feet towards the door though, and the people who thought they had read Zach's lips correctly were shocked by what they were seeing. The clerk behind the counter started to move, and Zach shifted his head and looked into the older man's eyes. "Not you. This is your store." The clerk stared at him with his expression flinching, though he nodded as he had just been so shocked that he thought he had to go too.

 _Leave?_ The largest of the three men glanced towards the door, then back at Sazaki who he felt his whole body tremble in fear of. _Why? Does- does he want us to run, so he has an excuse?!_

The villains started to lower down their arms. None of them wanted to argue, or to fight, and they were almost too afraid to run. They lowered their guns so their pistols were even passing Sazaki, but not one of them thought to shoot at the kid anymore. The large man took a step towards the door, darting his gaze to it and then back to Zach in so much fear that the front of his pants started to get wet. "Should- should we leave our guns?" He asked, while pissing himself.

Zach tilted his head to the side while looking at the villain like he was an idiot. "Obviously," Zach replied, sounding more pissed off this time that he even had to say it.

All three of the villains quickly bent dow and put down the weapons, then they ran for the door and sprinted out almost falling over each other or slipping on the fat man's piss. Zach walked up to the counter as they scrambled outside and started running down the sidewalk. He stepped up and he lifted a protein bar and one water bottle, though he scanned the water bottle twice under the scanner on the counter the clerk would usually scan items under. _He'd take too long._ Zach looked at the price that appeared, then he pulled out his wallet and turned it over above his more coins fell onto his hand, and he counted off most of what fell there before placing it down on the counter.

He put the rest back in his wallet and slid it into his sweatshirt pocket. His eyes were still half-closed and his expression dark, and he grabbed the items in front of him on top of the counter. "Are, you not going to chase them?" The clerk finally asked the teenager in front of him he had no idea had been the one in his store.

"I'll catch them in a minute," Zach muttered. "First, I'll let them start to believe they're free. Give them that hope that they escaped. Make them question all their life choices as they realize just how differently this could have gone for them: jail, death, and they might even consider turning their lives around." He paused and lowered his arms down to his side while glancing towards the door he had to head to now. "And then, I'll appear back before their eyes. And I'll catch them one by one."

He turned his head partially back, "Keep the change." He had left a little extra on the counter due to leaving an almost empty water bottle on the floor, getting a manga shot through the middle, and making a small piss puddle the clerk would have to clean up.

The clerk looked down and saw seemingly for the first time that there was money on the counter, as he had been frozen with his eyes locked on Lifebringer for most of that. He looked nervously back up at Lifebringer's back. The man was nervous. He was scared. Everything that just happened in front of him was terrifying. But before Zach reached the door, his body starting to wisp with dark tendrils coming off his arms and back, the man called out, "Lifebringer!"

Zach paused and his head turned slightly, the smallest movement that indicated he heard the man behind him. "You- You know," the guy continued, leaning over the counter and saying it towards the teenager's back. "We all, appreciate you." Zach's body twitched, the teen hesitating at the door as the older man behind him gulped but found more courage within him anyway. "I mean it. We're all glad you're back. We're glad you're here!"

Zach closed his eyes. He lifted his right hand up and rubbed his forehead, the dark look vanishing to replace with more of a tired one. Then he turned partially with a half-smile back on his face and said, "Thanks. I really needed that."

The clerk let out a breath of relief and smiled brightly as he felt that he helped Lifebringer. Zach turned the rest of the way back forward and said in a more heroic voice, "I need to catch those crooks now." He stepped outside and crouched down just past the door. He jumped up into the sky with his body erupting in darkness so there was a miniature explosion below him upon his jump.

Zach rose up above the building and the one next to it. He landed on the opposite side of the top of an alley nearby that he did not see the villains under despite knowing it was the first place they would have ran to. _They'd probably get changed in this alley and then make a break for it out the other side._ He dropped down onto the sidewalk at the far end of the alley he figured they ran out of. _They were quick and already made it out, but probably only a few seconds ago. Probably not moving very fast so as not to draw attention. No escape vehicle left from here, so should still be on foot. Moving slowly but…_ His eyes scanned either side of him down the sidewalks, and he recognized three pairs of shoes while he gazed around with his focus low.

His eyes rose to three people on the opposite sidewalk heading away from him. All three had different hair colors and clothes on than before, and only their shoes that remained the same. People started to yell out about his appearance there with darkness swirling off of his body and his huge black wings sticking out to his sides and pointed above him. He looked towards three people speed-walking the other direction who glanced over their shoulders towards him, so that he made eye contact with the three who screamed at the sight of those red eyes looking back at them.

It took two seconds for the man in the front of the three who ran the fastest. Zach landed down on top of him and made the other two stumble and skid to stops back behind him. The man in second spun too fast and slipped on the cement, yelling out in pain as he hit his knees and then attempted to scramble forward. "Help-" Zach grabbed him by the back of his head as his friend who turned and ran back the other direction glanced back his way. Zach pushed his head into the floor, then kicked off the ground and slammed both feet into the chest of the guy who had shot him and spun around screaming-

"WAI-"

* * *

Eighteen of the nineteen students of U.A.'s Class A were gathered on the first floor of their dormitory. It was dark outside, and they were all talking to each other while scattered into a few different groups around the room. There was Iida, Midoriya, Mineta, and Sero who sat at one of the tables nearest the empty kitchen with a gap between them and the others in the class. Despite their separation though, Jirou was sitting on the couch and had one of her earphone jacks plugged into the floor as she attempted to drown out the people closest to her. _I knew it! They do know!_

Most of the class was gathered in the couch area, including Yaoyorozu who was taking part in the conversation but just barely. And she was also looking to her side at Kyoka who flinched at the look Momo was giving her. Her earphone jack came out of the floor and her eyes opened wide as she saw Momo giving her that look, and then her eyes dropped down to her lap in a dejected and regretful way at what she was just doing.

Yaoyorozu shook her head and then turned to her right to look over at Todoroki who said something serious about Zach's attitude all the way back during the hero licensing exam not making any sense either. His actions that day against the other participants were excessive and violent, and he took a longer amount of time than he needed just so he could go fight more enemies. Uraraka offered up hesitantly, "But, maybe he just did that, because he wanted to fight more people? And maybe that's why he was… disappointed, by what happened in the store-"

"You think he risked letting those villains go out and hurt people as they ran away, just so he could have a chance at fighting them?" Kirishima asked. The question came out darkly, though not skeptically but more as something he was actually wondering himself.

"His actions put people in danger," Asui agreed with Kirishima from the couch she sat on between Uraraka and Koda. "And the way he looked at the camera," Tsuyu added it, and she glanced to the television they had on where the newscasters were talking about Zach as they had been for most of the afternoon and evening.

Yaoyorozu looked to the screen as they started replaying the video from earlier that everyone turned to watch again. Her thoughts strayed from the video though. _He isn't the same person he was back then. There's, no point in reading it…_

* * *

 **Four Hours Ago.**

Momo Yaoyorozu closed the door of her best friend's dorm behind them after they entered her room after school. "What do you need to show me, Kyoka?" Yaoyorozu wondered quietly, as everyone was still gathered downstairs and arguing with each other about what they just saw on the news. _What is he doing? I understand why he would do something like that, but he must know what would happen! To be so…_ "Kyoka?" Yaoyorozu asked softer, as Jirou was hesitating in front of her with her hands starting to shake at her sides.

Jirou walked to her desk, her trembling hands steadying as she opened up a drawer. _Don't look at her,_ Jirou could not bear to turn around yet. She did not want to lose the conviction she had found in the early morning at the meeting with so many of the nation's top heroes. _They were all right. He's too dangerous to be left alone. But, but then I can't-_ Jirou pulled out a pair of envelopes from her drawer, and Yaoyorozu's concerned and wide eyes went back to normal-sized.

"Momo," Jirou whispered. "I- I have something I need to…"

"Kyoka, it's okay," Yaoyorozu began in a soft voice.

"It's not," Jirou shook her head around. She turned, and she held one of the envelopes close to her chest for another second before moving it out in front of her between her and her taller best friend. "I've- I've been a bad friend." Yaoyorozu stayed quiet now and just looked at the envelope Jirou was holding out that had 'Momo' written over the middle of it. "Everyone, got these letters. I heard that they all… I don't know, if you thought he didn't leave you one. He did though," Jirou said that in a whisper with her voice breaking and her eyes dropping down from Momo's that locked with hers for a moment. "I'm sorry. I- I went to your room, the night he left us. I took it, because I knew he'd have left one for you too and I-"

"Did you read it?" Yaoyorozu wondered quietly.

"No!" Jirou snapped her head up and replied fast. She shook her head around, "I couldn't. I wouldn't, read either of them, while denying you…" Jirou shook her head again as she tried to give what she did some kind of moral justification. "I'm sorry," she whispered again. "I, I was so angry. And the longer I kept it, the more afraid I got of- but I'm sorry," she stopped trying to give herself an excuse again by explaining her reasoning. She just shook her head and apologized again and again, "I know you must hate me-"

"Of course I don't hate you," Yaoyorozu countered, walking across the middle of the room. She reached out and took the envelope, but she just slid it down into the waistband of her pants without giving it a second glance. "I'm not, I'm not that mad," Yaoyorozu said. Jirou rose her head, and Momo gave her a soft look though she did not embrace her friend for finally telling the truth. She held back, if to just make sure Kyoka actually learned a lesson from this. "You shouldn't have lied, or kept this from me," Yaoyorozu continued. "But it's fine."

"It's not," Jirou said, her eyes watering up as she shook her head faster. "You're just saying that for-"

"Anything he wanted to tell me in this, he could have back then," Yaoyorozu countered with a shake of her head right back at Jirou who froze at the sound of that. "And, admittedly, he wrote this without the intention of ever coming back here." The taller girl shrugged with a half smile at the stunned girl before her with her hair tied back into a dark purple ponytail. "Thank you, for finally telling me the truth, but I'm not going to read this. I don't want to."

Jirou rose her right arm and rubbed her eyes quickly, then she lowered that arm and glanced at her own envelope she did not plan on opening either. She rose her gaze up though as Momo continued, "If this was the last thing he had to say to me, which I think it was, then it doesn't matter anymore since he's back." She sighed with a look down at the envelope she considered just ripping in half right there to prove her point to Jirou, though she decided against it and just rose her head again with a strong smile on her face. "Anything he wants to tell me, he can do so face to face. There's no point in reading his farewell now, is there?"

* * *

 **Present**

"Dude, come on. You can't defend that," Mineta said, his voice low as he looked back next to him at Sero. "He looked like totally evil right there!"

Sero had looked back towards the tv as well from over at the table they were isolated from the rest of the class at. "It's not about defending that," Sero started, though he was hesitant as he watched Zach's calm demeanor as the villains went running out of the building. He frowned deeply at the sight, "Though, that does look really bad. He shouldn't have done it," he said it, then his eyes shifted towards the closed front door. _I don't know what I'd say to Zach right now. Just glad Mina went, at least. Hopefully she gets something out of him._

Todoroki looked to his right from where he was standing behind the couch, and he saw Ojiro saying something to Hagakure but she was shaking her head back at him telling him not to. Ojiro frowned down at his girlfriend, but he glared back towards the tv screen himself with a dark look over his face. _This isn't an isolated incident,_ Ojiro thought. _He's getting worse. After this, the next step being any worse would already be_ _ **too**_ _worse._

"What you just saw was footage from an armed robbery foiled this morning by Lifebringer in the Kudou District of Musutafu City. Violent incidents like these have become more common in recent days since the deaths of several of Japan's top heroes, just as incidents of Lifebringer appearing in our news' stories has been on the rise as well."

"He's been popping up all over the place," the other newscaster started in a disapproving and even angry voice. "Appearing places he shouldn't be. He's still showing up in hospitals and bringing people back at random, and now these kind of events have been becoming more frequent too. He's out of control. Just doing whatever he wants. And after being kicked out of Shiketsu-"

"I heard he got even that high hero institution too scared of his presence. That it has less to do with him breaking their rules-"

"Of course they'd be scared! Villains fired a rocket directly at Sazaki- that Eziano Mozcaccio person Sazaki talked about and dared to attack him!"

"Yes, though he said that his challenge to Eziano was in an attempt to keep more people from being dragged in like they have been," the other news host countered. "I think he's really trying on that front, and we can't just talk about what he's doing wrong. Even in that last incident, by the end of it he was smiling and looked like he was really trying to be a hero to that shop clerk-"

"Yes, Lifebringer's smiling there," the host angrier at Lifebringer started, his voice calming for a moment. "And whatever his fault in carrying out that incident like a pro hero, I admit he's doing better than when that explosion went off at his apartment. He was very professional in both his interviews about getting kicked out of Shiketsu and capturing that Mysti villain."

"He's been acting professionally, and maybe he was just shocked a bit from getting shot in the chest during that altercation which caused his lapse in judgement-"

"Sure, sure I'll accept that if he says that's his reason. But, you have to admit, Lifebringer is scary."

"Oh yeah, haha, no one's denying that. Lifebringer is ranked 1 in the rankings of heroes who look like villains."

"Though he's also ranked first in the popularity rankings too…"

 _And the rankings for the most hated hero too,_ Tokoyami thought. _People's views on him are becoming more and more polarizing with each person he fails to save. After seeing this video too, I cannot blame them. What was Zach doing in that store but reading a manga? They've accepted that he can go to hospitals and revive the dead, so seeing him do something like that in his spare time has to anger a lot of people. I'm surprised that he was doing that too, but I suppose if he knew the robbery was coming he may have set up in there in order to catch them. How could he have known though? Well, how could this have been a coincidence? That's more unlikely than him knowing in advance._

 _I was probably wrong giving him a chance,_ Todoroki Shoto thought darkly as the hosts continued to talk about Lifebringer. _I should have taken him in the moment I found out… And then Sato would be,_ Todoroki's gaze shifted towards Sato who sat on the couch to the left next to Yaoyorozu and Jirou. _I don't know what will happen a week from now. Someone else in here could die, and Zach could revive them if they do. He probably would. He would,_ Todoroki corrected himself by removing the 'probably' from his thoughts. _But is it alright to let him be just as a precaution for that? He's acting like a villain. If that camera wasn't there-_

"If the camera wasn't there," Aoyama began, as Kirishima changed the channel to a different news program where they were talking about Zach yet even harsher than the last one. The title on the bottom of the screen showed what the news hosts were in the middle of talking about, and Aoyama read it before questioning the others around him. Shoji and Tokoyami looked in at the blond boy between them who asked nervously, "What do you think, Zach would have done?"

"He waited to attack them until after he was out of the camera's view anyway," Kirishima started in a low growl. He hesitated though after saying it, then he said in a lower voice, "Maybe, so that he could counter this kind of argument he knew would come, once he had already looked up there." _He could have planned that. He knew we'd ask, and so he took them down where no one was watching and with little to no injury to them, so that we don't think he was only taking them down normally because he was on camera. So what was he going to do?_

 _They're more than just certain it's Zach,_ Jirou thought while thinking of what she heard Iida mention to the others at the table back behind her and the center couch. _Iida, Midoriya, Mineta, and Sero. Does Momo know too? She caught me, and- it's that same group who went to the fair with him._ Jirou's eyes shifted past the couch to her right and back to the wall where Ojiro and Hagakure were standing. _I didn't think the two of them had been acting weird afterwards, but Hagakure went out the other day and I thought it was to spend time with Zach. That Mysti thing happened and she's been… What did she see him do? It had to be bad. She's been out of it._

"I gave him a chance," Iida said to the others at his table. "What he did today-"

"He caught those villains," Sero argued back. "Maybe he just didn't want to risk taking them down inside the store, and having one decide to take the shopkeep hostage? We don't know what he was thinking."

"That's just it though," Mineta argued to Sero now. "We don't know what he's thinking. We never know. He's got so much mystery surrounding what he's up to right now. It feels like he's fighting all these villains around us and dragging everyone else into it, but he won't tell us- I mean, he did tell us about Eziano, before he told everyone else."

"Eziano Mozcaccio," Midoriya whispered. The other three looked to the curly-green-haired boy whose expression darkened as he said that. "He's so powerful. Zach was right, and he's the only one who knew just how strong Eziano could be. So antagonizing him… Zach knew the kind of target he'd put on himself."

"The target was already there," Midoriya turned his head and saw Todoroki walking to his side. "The two of them are in the middle of their war. They haven't stopped just because Zach came back here for whatever he's doing now. Taking on Eziano is still one of his goals."

Midoriya hummed and nodded in agreement with Todoroki there. Mineta and Sero each gazed at Todoroki hesitantly, as neither of them had talked to Todoroki much about Zach despite having heard from Iida and Midoriya that he had found out some things on his own and had them confirmed by Zach. The two felt weird about how they had kept it secret from their classmate, but Todoroki just continued to all four of them sitting there, "Eziano killed his friend Mark. I can't imagine Zach will let that go."

Mineta and Sero's eyes each widened as they remembered that letter they read the first day they went to visit Zach at his apartment. Mineta nodded in solemn agreement, and he added in a low voice, "I wonder if that's part of why he was so angry that night, when he called Eziano out. Not just Norita, but Mark too, and for any of the others who Eziano's killed." _And for Yemen,_ Mineta thought. _For his own arm, or for the people of countries like Yemen but where it went too far and he wasn't able to stop it. Zach's still fighting his war, but he brought it back here instead of continuing it away from people he could drag in. I don't know why, but it has to be for some reason other than being a hero._

"…It's surprising that for the first time ever, the number 1 and 2 in the popularity polls for the country are both not even pro heroes themselves yet. Though as soon as Deku and Lifebringer become pros, I'm sure they'll be at the top of the hero rankings too in terms of strength and incidents solved."

"Haha- thought Deku's going to have a hard time catching up on the 'heroes who look like villains' rankings though. No one's going to catch Lifebringer on that one-"

"That's not funny! It's not just looking like a villain, Lifebringer _acts_ more like a villain than a hero most of the time…" the argument started back up on the news as the upbeat way they started reporting on dropped back down in a more confrontational mood discussing Lifebringer's dark antics.

Koda shifted his gaze left towards Jirou whose expression was intense and her eyes locked on the screen. In his head he thought about the message Zach gave him when he tried to listen in on Zach and Dover's conversation after they had to leave his apartment. _He keeps so many secrets. He knew I was going to listen in, but instead of just having a fake conversation and letting me- then he went and tried to make things right with Jirou. In the joint training, he tried to fix things again. He's trying a lot, but there's also no denying the kind of person he is. Zach's scary. He scares a lot of people. He, scares me._

Bakugo leaned back against the wall next to the windows looking in on the courtyard. He had his phone lifted and was looking at different articles that were written over the past few hours about this incident. _He knew it would blow up like this. He plans everything out, so what's he looking for here?_ Bakugo rose his eyes from the article on his phone to the tv where the hosts started getting a lot more derogatory towards Lifebringer's style and even _villainous_ ways of taking down villains. They talked about Mysti's injuries, but worse the mental state of the woman who is on suicide watch in prison after her run-in with Lifebringer. They talked about his appearance after the bombing of his apartment and how he looked on the talk show afterwards, and then even on the interview he had about capturing Mysti where he was so cocky about how no villains could hurt him or the people around him, as if _daring_ them to try it.

 _He knows what he did will scare most of them. Drop that rising rate since Indago's death,_ Bakugo knew it, and yet his eyes still narrowed at the screen and a paused picture of Lifebringer in that store when his smile dropped. _But that wasn't faked. He was pissed he couldn't just smash the shit out of them right there. The fact that one of them would shoot him, it made him think maybe he could actually get a good fight._ Bakugo grit his teeth and could not even force a smile on that. _Thousands? That fucking battle he was talking about at the joint training, he was talking about the Villain Summit. He was really… They only know it's a Villain Summit because that's what he told them, and no one else even picked up on that last night. They aren't even thinking about it, to question if he was lying about even that. But what's the story? What's the real fucking lie here? He's fucking nuts, and I'll get to fight him soon. The strongest enemy… Except he's not an enemy- the strongest opponent. He might be my enemy._ Bakugo narrowed his own eyebrows in, as he was getting annoyed by how complicated he was feeling when it was supposed to just be simple.

 _How do you plan on getting out of this hole you've dug yourself into?_ Yaoyorozu stared down at her hands interlocked over her legs. _You wouldn't tell me your plans. Nothing about the present and future, just stuff about Life City and the good things you did. Trying to hide all the bad. You were sick and I didn't want to push anything… But I need to know what's going on. At this point, you've already moved into the next stage though. You're moving faster and faster, and no one here can keep up with you. Not Midoriya, not Sero, and Mina is trying but she, she won't be able to get anything out of you. I know that._

 _In two weeks his apartment's blown up, he's been kicked out of school, and he's done a million other things._ Asui Tsuyu croaked under her breath while looking away towards the windows out the front of their dorm. _No one knows what we're supposed to do here. We don't want to have to face Zach, but we all know we'll have to face Zach. The problem that Zach's turned into. That, I knew he would become, as soon as we spoke to him in the hospital._

 _He's a danger to everyone,_ Ojiro held Hagakure's hand as she sadly leaned back on the wall behind her, her gaze shifting around the room at all their classmates and then back to her own boyfriend's expression. Her hand squeezed his tighter, as Ojiro's eyes narrowed and his expression got angrier. _Toru trusted you. Not for a second did she ever think- did we! I trusted her with you, because I thought we were friends- that you wouldn't do something like that! Not after last time… Isn't that why you came back?! So what are you doing?!_

Midoriya took in a deep breath and he let it out through his nose. He listened as his classmates talked around him in hushed voices about their problem. _I haven't seen him lately. He's going through so much, that I don't even know what I'd talk to him about. Mysti. The missile? Today? Saving Sato? Or what he said to Uraraka and Sato afterwards, that Iida said was him pretty much admitting his lies without even caring… I don't know what you're doing. What this new direction you're moving in is. I can't figure it out, but you're getting more and more dangerous._

"Zach's out of control," Sato said, speaking up suddenly with his dark voice louder than all of his classmates' around him.

Sero stood up from his seat as he heard that, and he started for the couch area which made Sato glance his way and just frown deeper at the look on Sero's face. "All he's been doing," Sato continued with a shake of his head, regret covering it but still an angered look as he spoke. "It's vigilantism. There's no way around it. He just, doesn't have a pro license. And he doesn't do things as a hero…"

"When he's close enough to stop it," Sero started arguing back to Sato, stepping up behind the middle couch and shaking his head at this argument. He continued, "And he has his provisional license, there's nothing wrong with what he's doing."

Sero looked past the couches and towards the screen where the reporters were just talking about how Zach and Midoriya's rankings would look like once they were pros. "Don't know why they're sounding so sure Zach's still going to be a pro though. I don't know how Zach's going to do that without graduating." Sero shrugged and lifted a partial grin that still showed more of his teeth than most people's full smiles. "Maybe the Prime Minister only forced Zach to go to the last term of school because of his age though, and Nikko'll let it go even without Zach graduating if he keeps up what he's doing-"

"That's wrong," Asui said, shaking her head back up at Sero who looked down at her in confusion. "The whole reason they forced Zach to go back to hero high school was to ensure that the morals and teachings of being a _hero_ are instilled into him. And, no one is confident of that right now."

As they were talking and arguing, the front door of the dorm opened up and Ashido walked inside. Her expression was dejected and she just glanced towards the common room, then headed that way without drawing too much attention to herself. A host on the screen suddenly started snapping at the others in the news room, calling out, "Are you all forgetting? He saves people solely based on if he wants to or not at the time! That's all it is for him. He only bothered to stop that robbery in the first place because he was there, while-"

"He only has a provisional license, Tanado. That's the only time he-"

"Except he does it at other times too! We only use that excuse when it's convenient, like right now, to explain why he does this but not saving the dozens of people who were dying while he was sitting there reading a manga! He was acting like a child, with the power of- the power to stop missiles! The power to take on the whole Subspace Devils with superficial wounds, and take a bullet to the chest like it's nothing! Did you see that?!"

"Maybe, the shot missed?"

"Did it look like the shot missed him?! Sazaki stared at his own chest like _he_ was surprised the shot went through him. We're dodging around the question we don't want to ask, because we're nervous of what the answer might be!" The students of Class A looked towards the screen and the man with green horns sticking out of his bald head who declared firmly, "What if Sazaki really is a villain like he's appearing to be recently? What if he's shown us his true colors again, and we just don't want to admit it because we know how powerful he is?!"

"I don't think-"

"Tell me, was what he did today something a hero would do? Something you could imagine any other hero doing?! No! But we see Sazaki do it and we let it slide, because it's literally just _one more_ thing added onto a list of monstrous acts he's committed. Sazaki is a villain, and it's time people start to see that and call him out on his actions. If we don't, he's going to get worse and worse, and we all know it. We _all_ see it coming."

"And as popular as you say he is, that doesn't mean anything about his nature. He is scary because not one of us knows what he's going to do. In that video, all I heard was that it was a robbery Lifebringer had foiled before I watched it, and none of us knew what to expect from that description. Was he going to brutally beat them? Take them down quickly and easily? No. He just glared at them and said something, and they put down their weapons and ran. He took his time and then went after them when it would be more of a challenge. Like he was playing with his prey. Or like it was a chore and getting that water bottle and protein bar was more important to him."

"He actually bought those things before chasing after them," another host admitted, cracking a smile and trying to relax the tense mood with their comment. "Which I think is ridiculous, but also a testament to his strength and ability that he was _able_ to do so and still catch up…"

"Hey, hey can you turn that off?"

Everyone in the room turned towards the pink girl in a light pink hoodie who just came back in. She asked that towards the couch area, and Kirishima muted the screen before frowning back over at Ashido for asking them to turn it off. His annoyed expression shifted a bit though at the sight of her depressed look with her eyes still shifted down towards the floor. Ashido rose her gaze, and she looked around the room at the other eighteen students in Class A. Her mouth opened, and she hesitated at the looks of the people staring back at her who thought they could see what she was thinking.

Ashido's eyes shook as she stared around at the eighteen of them looking at the one person who had taken Zach's side right away, as she always did. The look on her face actually made a few of her classmates wonder if she had changed her mind about that. The hesitation and depression did not hide the shock that was on her face too, but the expression of shock was less of a surprised look as her friends realized the longer they stared at her. "Mina," Uraraka started, getting up from her seat and stepping towards the pink girl who looked more like she was _in_ shock with the way she was frozen up and unable to make out words. "Are you alright?"

"What'd he do now?" Jirou asked, her eyes shifting back towards Ashido from the couch she stayed seated on. Her expression was dark at the look Zach had made form on Ashido's face, _First Toru, now you. What the hell is he thinking?_

"Noth…ing," Ashido responded, her voice coming out as a whisper as she tried to speak up in Zach's defense. She shook her head, but her eyes shifted towards Hagakure who had told her something earlier she had kept secret from most everyone except Ojiro. She stared above the invisible girl's floating clothes, then shifted her eyes to Ojiro's harsh eyes though also sympathetic towards her. Ashido started shaking her head at that look, a look clearly showing that Ojiro thought something had happened to her that she was refusing to believe. "You don't…"

Bakugo frowned towards Ashido as he saw her eyes shift his way for a second with much more hesitation in her eyes as she stopped talking. _That's not it? Then what're you doing?_ Bakugo leaned off the wall as the pink girl broke eye contact with him and then rose it again in an even more hesitant way.

"We-" Ashido started. She panted a few times, then she said in a soft voice to everyone looking her way, "We have to let him come back here."

Ashido sucked in a sharp breath as she got it out, then she kept panting while standing there watching the surprised and then annoyed expressions of her classmates. "You don't understand- we have to," Ashido whispered, her voice already pleading as she knew it was a losing battle from the start. Her face covered in desperation at the rejecting looks of disapproval that crossed the whole common room.

"What are you talking about?" Ojiro asked, stepping away from Hagakure for a moment and closer to the back of the couch where a few of the others were standing. The four sitting together at a table closer to the kitchen had walked closer too, to about where Bakugo had been leaning though he had stepped away and closer to Ashido with a darker look on his face than most of their classmates. Ojiro shook his head at Ashido, "Zach?"

"That's not our decision to make," Iida began. "Principal Nezu was-"

"Even if it was our decision," Bakugo snapped. "I'm not letting him come back here."

"Why not?" Ashido asked, her voice raising in pitch though still very quiet as she asked it of him. Her eyes then shifted to Iida as Bakugo just frowned deeper without giving an explanation, "And how do we know, it's not our choice?" She asked it of the class rep who got a more confused look on his face at the question, as did half of the others around the common room. Ashido continued though with her voice desperate but also hopeful as she said, "We've changed their minds before, when it came to him. Like the Sports Festival? We could- we could at least try. We never really tried, to get them to let him come back-"

"That's because he knows, he doesn't deserve to come back here," Kirishima said. He said it in a low voice neither happy nor upset about it. He said it like it was a fact, and then he added with his eyes narrowed and focused sternly on Ashido's, "Not after what he did-"

"Please," Ashido begged, her voice cracking and her eyes watering up as she said it towards her middle school classmate. Kirishima froze at the look on her face again as her lips quivered, her eyes trembling in fear. "Pl-please. We have to. He needs us-"

"Is that what he told you?" Midoriya asked, concern in his voice though he also doubted Ashido was passing this on from Zach himself.

"No," Ashido replied. "No, of course not." She shook her head, bowing it for a moment with her eyes closing tightly shut. "Zach doesn't ask for help, but I know he needs it-"

"He looks fine," Todoroki countered.

"I, gotta agree," Mineta started towards Ashido who lifted her head a bit and made the short boy pause at that terrified look in her eyes. "What did you- what makes you think… It's Zach. He wouldn't want us to-"

"What makes you think this is what he wants?" Yaoyorozu wondered, as Mineta was starting to ramble trying to get out what he was thinking while also not upsetting Ashido any more than she already was. _Zach. Is Mina right? I thought after seeing you today, that you were handling everything…_

"Did he say something?" Midoriya asked too.

"It doesn't matter," Bakugo muttered. "He's not coming back here-"

"Why?" Ashido asked, her voice breaking as she asked it, stepping towards Bakugo and looking straight into his eyes from up close. "Why do you hate him so much?"

"It's not like that-"

"Then why?!" Ashido exclaimed, tears in her eyes.

"Ashido, did he say something?" Todoroki demanded, as it sounded like something serious must have happened for her to be acting this way.

"No! No," she whispered it the second time, shaking her head and closing her eyes again as she leaned away from Bakugo who had narrowed his eyes at her shouted question demanding to know his answer. She turned her head to Todoroki, then glanced Momo's way then to Midoriya after. "He didn't say, anything like- I went to see him, and he asked me how my day was. Asked how school was and what we did, ah, haa, ahh-" Ashido sucked in a sharp breath as she was panting there to the confusion of her classmates who thought this sounded like a normal conversation to them. "He asked, how _I_ was," Ashido continued, her voice holding steady though emphasizing sharply on herself and in an angry tone. "Before I could ask him- and when I asked him, he was- he laughed it off. That everything is fine, and he's fine, and that he was just getting ready for what was next… Like he clearly knows, what's about to come."

"What's coming-" Iida began.

"That's not!" Ashido started to exclaim but had to stop with her teeth clenching hard. "When, when has it ever been so obvious, that Zach has a plan? That he," Ashido had to close her mouth but her lips just trembled again. "But I believed him," Ashido clenched her eyes closed again, in so much regret. "I believed him because, because he's always been a good liar."

Her teeth bared and she snapped her head up, and she said in a strong voice, "But he needs our help. He's in a corner, and he needs his friends to help him."

"We're not letting him back here-" Bakugo started.

"He's going to leave again!" Ashido yelled, her head snapping forward and her eyes furious and full of dread as she yelled it in Bakugo's face.

"What?" Yaoyorozu stepped closer to Ashido. Several people jumped up at that shout but Momo took multiple steps past Uraraka so she was closest to Ashido on her left side. "Why do you say that?"

"Did he say something-" Midoriya began too, though his eyes shifted towards Bakugo for a moment away from Ashido to see his friend's surprised eyes go back to an even angrier look than a moment ago.

"He looked fine, and he sounded fine," Ashido continued strongly, though with tears in her eyes. "And when I asked how he's going to get his pro license now- he was so quick. How he had already applied to like a dozen different hero schools that he listed off for me. How each one would just love to get Lifebringer there, so that they could have one of the, the top hero recruits graduating from their school! And he was so certain, that everything was going to be okay… That I believed him. I believed _every_ word out of his mouth earlier, even though I had already been out of school before I texted him to meet up. Even though, he had appeared so quickly, that it was obvious he had already been in Musutafu and-" Ashido bit down again, her eyes clenching shut.

"Mina-chan," Tsuyu began. Ashido turned her head and stared over at the frog girl with shaking eyes, but Asui just continued softly and in an apologetic tone, "I understand, that you are worried about Zach." Ashido winced as Tsuyu called him 'Zach' without the 'chan' after as she used with the rest of them. Ashido's flinch at that moment made Asui lower her own gaze for a moment, but she rose it and finished, "But he's fine. He's always fine, and he always has a plan."

"Don't try to understand the things he says," Sato agreed. "You already know he's lying, so why even bother?"

"Why do you think he's leaving?" Yaoyorozu questioned softer than her classmates, asking it to the side of Mina's head and making her friend turn back to her with her frustrated and sad eyes shaking even worse. "Did he make any indication he was going to?"

"No," Ashido whispered. "That's not… He talked about going to school, and getting his pro license… it's just-" she paused and started panting again. "When we left each other…" Ashido tilted her head back with tears falling out the corners of her eyes and down her cheeks. "See you later, has never sounded more like goodbye."

Yaoyorozu flinched. Her eyes shot open wide and darted towards the door. Back behind her, Mineta spun to his side as he noticed Sero reaching into his pocket quickly and pulling out his phone with a panicked look on his face. Midoriya stepped closer to Ashido so he was on Bakugo's side now, "What do you…" he began.

"And so it ate away at me," Ashido continued, her lips pursing as the tears fell down her face. "And so I called Isamu on my way back. I decided to check to see if he was telling the truth, and Zach _had_ applied there to enter their hero program with a transfer from Shiketsu. But that wasn't all they said... I called _every, single, one_ of the schools Zach told me he applied to!" Ashido called it out and shook her head, tears splashing off her face. "And every last one of them told me how they had _already_ declined his applications. Right as he sent them in, actually." Midoriya's eyes opened wide at the sound of that, and Ashido recited straight to the curly-haired boy in front of her, "'Lifebringer's too dangerous to have here.' 'We can't risk the other students' lives.' 'Sazaki doesn't represent the values of our hero- our hero class…' Every one of them, had a reason not to let Zach go there. But it was mainly just because it's not safe for him to be there."

"He's brought that danger on himself," Tokoyami began. Ashido spun his way angrily, but Tokoyami started shaking his head and continued, "He brought the wrath of-"

"They've been attacking him long before he called out Eziano on tv!" Mina yelled back at the dark boy who pulled back at her emotional shout. "All he's been trying to do, from day one out of Tartaros, is become a hero! That's _all_ he's been doing and- and we told him that he had to go to hero school before he could be one. And so he tried. He went to school, and he's done his best to stay within the rules, and it doesn't matter! Because they won't let him come back! They won't let him be a hero… He got expelled, because he _protected_ Shiketsu High from a missile?! He knows they're targeting him and that being at school makes him an easy target, but he _has_ to go in order to be a hero, and now- now he CAN'T go!"

"That doesn't mean he can come here," Bakugo said. Ashido turned to him and Bakugo stepped towards the girl who was not going to just accept that this time. "He gave up everything," Bakugo continued in a low voice, the rest of Class A staring towards him as he spoke in a tone most of them had not heard him use before. Even Ashido's eyes opened wide at the sight of Bakugo's face, and even the respect in his voice. "He tossed it all aside for that goal he had, _knowing_ he could never get any of it back." Bakugo grit his teeth and anger spread across it, and he continued darkly, "But then he came crawling back for it. All that which he gave up, and he got _all_ of it back. He came back here, after leaving like that?" Bakugo asked it furiously, thinking about the awe he had felt that night as Zach left them, dropping his wallet into the mud and turning away.

"And there's only one thing he hasn't gotten back," Bakugo said. "One thing, that he's still sacrificed. If we give him that back too, then what consequences does he face from what he did that night? What did the sacrifice even mean?"

"Bakugo," Kirishima whispered, staring towards his friend who never got into the explanation that deeply. Kirishima's face hardened though at the resolve on Bakugo's, and he nodded his head intensely with a look matching several of his classmates' expressions too.

"'One thing?'" Ashido repeated back at him. "You think, you think any of that other stuff he got back matters?" Ashido asked it with her voice cracking and all of those hardened expressions around the room shaking at the tone in her voice and what she was asking them. "You think he cared about his name? About being allowed to be in public and, and his fame? You think he cares about any of that?!" She yelled it at Bakugo who even lost that resolved expression too at what she yelled looking like she thought he did not understand anything. "Is that 'one' thing you're talking about U.A.? Because he doesn't even care about, about that… He was fine with going to Shiketsu, because he knew he could still see us even if was there. And that's what matters to him! That's the ONLY THING that he really- that he came back for-"

"Mina, you-" Hagakure started towards her friend.

"What he lost that day was all of us!" Ashido yelled around, staring towards Hagakure desperately for a second for her to just listen. Ashido's eyes shook and Hagakure closed her mouth that she opened to argue with what Mina just said. Ashido bit down in anger and she spun back to Bakugo, "When he said, 'all of it' that night, he was talking about us. You saw that right?" She asked Bakugo, seeing if he remembered that moment as he talked about casting 'Zach Sazaki' and everything he had aside. " _That_ was the hardest part of what he was giving up, when he looked around at _US!_ Because what Zach cared about more than anything, was us. He shouted it that night too! That he wasn't going to risk the lives of all the people he cared about just for some petty revenge…"

"That was, a long time ago," Shoji started. "He doesn't still care like-"

"You're wrong!" Ashido yelled back at the boy with a mask covering his mouth. Shoji froze at that angry shout, and Ashido continued at him, "You just don't realize it, because you didn't go to see him. He came back here for us and- and he cares about us so much, but he's out there and we're in here, and he's come to realize that we don't care about him the same way. That some people just, want to move on," Ashido said it while looking into Shoji's eyes, and glancing next to him to Aoyama then Tokoyami too as the three of them got more hesitant and shocked looks on their faces. "He stays though, because he wants to make sure. He wanted to make sure he did _everything_ he could to fix what he did that night. And so he came back, and he made sure to show us that he's perfectly fine. That he's got a plan still, and that there was no reason for us to ever feel guilty about what he did that night because he's always planning his next moves and making steps to do more-"

"We shouldn't feel guilty," Kirishima countered towards Ashido, stepping towards her himself now. "Zach made the choice-"

"When did we start accepting that?" Ashido asked, her voice so angry but as much at herself as it was at Kirishima. "It wasn't our fault?" She asked, skeptically and like what she just asked was absurd to even say. "Was it because that night, he shouted all those things that he had planned out beforehand? And he told us all the terrible stuff he did, and showed us an unfamiliar version of him to make us think we knew _nothing_ about him? After _weeks_ of him pushing us away and trying to make us hate him, think of him less like… like a friend. He did _everything_ he could to push us away, and we let him!"

Hagakure felt her heart drop in her chest, her head bowing and her eyes snapping open huge as she stared at the floor. "And he's doing it again," Ashido whispered in horror, her eyes shifting to Hagakure again. "He'd never let me know, that he was actually planning something big if he didn't want me to know it. But he wanted me to be able to figure it out so that if he leaves- _When_ he leaves, I'll just think it's some big plan he's got going. And all of you will hear that he's gone and wonder, 'what's he up to now?' And 'was this all part of his big plan-'"

"HE DOESN'T HAVE A PLAN!" Ashido screamed it at them, trying to get it through their thick heads. "He just reacts and responds to what happened around him _so fast_ that it seems like he's always had it all planned out. Like, it was all part of some master plan he had," Ashido said it with her face scrunching up and her voice disgusted in the fact that she had believed this herself.

 _He doesn't have a… that's not, true,_ Kirishima got confused, because Ashido sounded convinced of what she was saying despite it not making sense to him. Worse though, to him and to most of the others in the room, was the fact that Ashido had been the one likely to see Zach the most since his return. If she thought it… _He does have a plan though. She heard him, talking like he was planning on, on leaving?_

"Zach," Ashido started again. "He's a good actor." Her voice rose but more tears formed in her eyes as she called it at her classmates. "You think he looked at that camera and held himself back?" She wondered. "That was so obvious, which means it wasn't what he was doing!" She stopped and panted a few times while all the others except for Yaoyorozu just stared at her with wide eyes at what she was yelling at them. "Zach knew we would see him do that! He didn't just notice the camera then, because Zach always knows! But he knew that we would see him and make these assumptions that he's reverting, and turning bad, and it makes us wonder what kind of horrible things he would have done to those villains if- if he wasn't being watched-" Ashido's voice cracked a couple more times and she had to sniffle in hard to control herself.

"He knew we would see him and make these assumptions, and if we made them, then the villains have made them too!" Ashido yelled it at her classmates like they were all being idiots. "And those villains who see Zach barely holding himself back are going to be too scared to do anything in fear of him and what he would do if there was no camera around when he caught them. Zach knew everyone would call him a villain, that he looked like a monster, and too dangerous, but he did it anyway! He did it because it could stop villains from hurting people. It could stop the lower level villains from distracting the heroes supposed to be hunting the League, who Kaminari wanted to start acting up and making big distractions- We all know this! We know Kaminari and should have been able to see that this was his plan, right? Zach saw it! And when that robbery started happening, Zach just acted! It wasn't a _plan._ He couldn't have guessed what was coming- Yet he knew what would come afterwards," Mina continued. "He knew everyone would hate him for it, call him all sorts of horrible things, but he knew it could save people, and that matters more to him than what we all think."

"But-" Ashido continued, tear streaks flowing down her face as she went on. "But do you think it doesn't hurt?" She asked. "Yeah, it was the exact response he wanted out of everyone, but you think he can do that without it hurting him?"

Iida's eyes shot open wide, as he thought back on a talk he and Zach had had about the Villain Summit. _**"**_ _ **…And yeah, I was the one who created the story of the Villain Summit in the first place, so I made it so all those news channels said what they did about us… But when they, talked about how, how the heroes had seen when we left how few of us there were, and they said how that was a good thing. How, how maybe we should just fade away, as we had just gotten in the way- and we had just made the incident bigger to damage that city and kill those people… I couldn't- I couldn't watch that and still not feel…"**_

 _Is that- it is. There is no question._ Iida realized the similarity was too much to be a coincidence. His fists tightened at his sides at the thought of what Zach was trying to do, and what he had succeeded in doing so well that he had not even noticed it himself. _But, even if that's true, that doesn't mean we can just assume that he's-_

"He's hurting. All they've been talking about, all day, is how horrible what he did was. How horrible a person he is. That's all they talk about anymore. And when they don't, they only say good things about him with how he's bringing people back, but even then! Even then they still _hate_ him for not doing more."

 _ **"…Shown that he brings back certain people over others based on his own preferences. He decides when he saves people on a whim!"**_ Mineta thought about one of the last things he heard on the news earlier that day.

Shoji heard another reporter's voice in his head, _**"Bringing assassins after him. Getting people around him killed."**_

 _ **"It isn't safe for those kids to be in a school with Lifebringer!"**_ Hagakure could hear it as if being said fresh in front of her. _That's, the only excuse schools need to deny him. But if he can't go to any school, and he can't be a hero unless he goes to a… what's he, going to do?_

 _ **"He's putting everyone in danger through his reckless actions."**_

 _ **"…And when we haven't seen Lifebringer lately, what's he been doing?! Reading a manga in a convenience store?"**_

 _ **"He needs to graduate to get a pro license-"**_ _**"I don't even know if I want him having a license. You've seen how irresponsibly he's been acting with his Quirk!"**_

 _ **"And seeing how strong he was when he beat the Subspace Devils? He's so strong bullets don't hurt him, attacks seem to go right through him! And he has the strength to take down an entire villain group on his own, one that had defeated several heroes and plagued the country… I'm not saying this in an appreciative way! He showed us he's able to do all that? And bring back hundreds in a day? His power's unheard of!"**_ Midoriya felt his heart pounding as he thought about the news reports that had only made him concerned earlier. Concerned _about_ Zach though, rather than for the boy he now remembered was probably watching those same things. _**"Like there's a nuclear weapon just walking around the streets of Japan. One that we can't trust."**_

 _ **"He's made bad decisions before! Decisions that resulted in the deaths of a lot of people! Now he's brought assassins into the country hunting him down, because what? Was he Death? Was he a vigilante fighting- I don't believe his stories about being on a different world. That's a lie. He's lying to us, because he knows we'd throw him back in jail if he told us the truth!"**_ Yaoyorozu gulped with her eyes darting towards the door for a moment and then back to her pink friend who was barely keeping it together in front of her.

"'He's a danger to Japan,'" Ashido whispered, as if quoting the last thing she had seen on the news herself. "'A danger to us all,' they say." Ashido whispered it and her classmates realized how subconsciously they had been accepting those news reports as they were repeated over and over. To the point where in their subconscious these quotes were actually things they had to be concerned about. "But _we_ know Zach. We know that more than anything he just wants to help people. Yet, he came back here. He came back knowing that he'd have to follow the rules, and that he'd have to face us for the things he did, and even though he has so much power he's done everything he can to stay within the rules so that he can stay with us! He could be anywhere in the world. He could be doing _anything_ , and no one would be able to stop him. But he's HERE!"

"Why? Why when he can't go to school anymore? When he's brought danger here, to people close to him-" Ashido sucked in a breath though the tears streamed from her eyes. "And so he's got no school to go to get a license, and no home to go to at night, and he lives on the streets, in the cold-"

"What are you-" Bakugo started.

"You think he would find a new place to live, after what happened to Norita?" Ashido asked, her lips shaking and tears falling from her chin as she asked it like it was obvious. "I didn't even question him," she added, feeling like a fool again. Her classmates stared at her in shock, and Ashido continued, "When he told me that we couldn't redecorate his new place, like we had the old apartment, because he didn't want anyone knowing his new address. I didn't even- I didn't _think_ that he was lying. It made so much sense to me that he didn't want anyone finding his new apartment, so he wasn't going to tell _anyone_ his address this time. But- but do you really think he would live anywhere now, after getting Norita killed?! His landlord who cared about him and, and gave him a place to live for free since Zach had already saved him once before. You think Zach would just move to another place and put the people around there in danger?! No! No he wouldn't risk that. But, he also wouldn't want anyone knowing… because Zach hates hurting people, and he knows that people care for him and would be hurt just to know about his situation that they can't do anything about!"

"It's why he puts up a mask!" Ashido yelled at them all. "He doesn't let anyone see how much it hurts him, or how much he needs help, because he doesn't want to be a burden on anyone! He doesn't want to hurt us by letting us know how bad _he's_ hurting. And he is-" Ashido pursed her lips as she said that. "He is, being _crushed_ under the weight of it all. Every day, having to hear everyone call him out on not saving more people, even though it _kills_ him to do it. That he has to _die_ over and over, and no matter how many times he does it, every day! It's never enough for anyone! HE CAN'T TAKE IT!"

"Ashido," Koda whispered while staring at his classmate sobbing at them in so much grief. _Is Zach really,_ Koda started to think too as he watched this heartfelt breakdown of his classmate who knew him best.

"And of course he didn't say anything about wanting to come back here, when he was told that he couldn't," Ashido continued. "Even though that's why he's here. Because he hurt us. He, who can't even let us see the smallest crack in fear that he'll hurt us, did something like the Lifebringer Incident? I remember what he did!" She yelled at the people who were questioning before if she recalled what he had done. "I remember him killing those people right in front of us. Making a trap, and using the Hunter, and doing really, really bad things. But as much as we remember it, Zach came back here _because_ of it! He came back because he knows that he hurt us and might have made us question if there was anything we could have done to stop him. He knows that as heroes, we might blame ourselves forever if we never saw him again. Even though he showed us that night that there was nothing we could do, and he told us afterwards how it was all his plan and there was nothing we could have done to stop him… And then he left us those letters too, to show us that he had had it planned out so well in advance!"

" _AND THEN_ in those letters!" She screamed at them. "He tells us again! Again how it's not our faults, and how he's made the decision on his own, and by having those letters we're able to go back and see it again and again, and remind ourselves over and over how there was nothing we could have done. And when he tells us so many times, he who's so convincing and able to make people think what he wants them to, we start to tell ourselves it! We remind ourselves over and over how it isn't our fault, until we've forgotten that it's a _LIE!"_ She screamed and started panting desperately while glaring at her friends around her staring at her in shock.

"Nothing we could have done?" Ashido asked in disbelief. "We were the _ONLY_ ones who could have done anything. We were RIGHT THERE! Right next to him, for weeks as he carried out his plans. And we did _nothing._ We just, sat by as he planned out the Lifebringer Incident right under our noses. And we say we couldn't have done anything?" She asked it while staring at Midoriya who pulled back as the guilt flooded back into his heart from some deep well he did not even know he had pushed it away into. "We were the biggest influences in his life! He didn't have a family, everyone else he cared about outside of school was being _butchered,_ and we all wallowed in our own sadness about Kaminari while he lost his fucking mind! Right in front of us!"

Ashido cursed at them at the top of her lungs and threw her hands up into the air, pushing them up through her hair and making strands fall in front of her face giving her an even more disheveled and panicked look. Her heart was pounding so hard as she shouted all these things that Zach was always able to convince her were never a problem, and which her phone calls to every school he told her about had gradually broken down that wall in her head of belief in what he told her.

"You're mad that Zach lied to us?" Ashido asked, her voice cracking and her eyes shifting towards Uraraka for a moment. "Or that he's still lying? Zach's, Zach's _always_ lied to protect himself, and to protect others- and the only person he ever told the truth to- the first person he ever trusted enough to do it! It was Kaminari, and Kaminari took that trust and used it to murder everyone Zach loved- and Zach knew it was his fault! He _knew_ that he was the biggest monster in the world, and we should have been able to see that that was what he felt like. We're mad that he spent those weeks deceiving us? Why was he able to? Why, were we so easily fooled? Are we all that stupid? Did we really think, Zach could come back into class the next day and just- WE WERE BEING IDIOTS!"

"And now he's doing it again," Ashido whispered. "I know he's going to leave again, and that's why he's been pushing us away. Why he's been acting like he has… even if he doesn't know it himself. He looked into that camera to scare the villains, yeah, but he also did it so that we wouldn't feel as bad when he disappears. He did it, so that we'd start to hate him again," Ashido pursed her lips while her classmates staring at her in so much shock started to believe those things she was saying. Hagakure's eyes watered as she imagined the friendship she had with Zach, breaking apart a few days ago and then causing his relationship with Ojiro to end, all his relationships straining more and more.

Bakugo turned his head away from Ashido when she looked towards him. In his head he saw a meeting he had with Lemillion and a few other heroes a few days ago. _Lemillion said he knows Zach's address. That he wouldn't tell anyone, to keep it from getting to Eziano. That made sense. What didn't though, was when he said we didn't have to worry about him dragging in the people around his new address. I didn't get it. I thought he just meant because not many people know, but she's right. The convenience store makes it obvious._

"He's living on the streets," Ashido whispered. "As he has been since they blew up his apartment. And yet even without a home he was still trying. Even though we rarely went out to see him, he's never once said no if I asked to hang out with him. Has he ever denied you? Has he ever said no when you've asked to see him since coming back?" Ashido asked it with a glance around. Shoji and Tokoyami felt punches in their guts when she looked their way, because neither of them knew whether that was true or not.

"And even though he can't go to school anymore, and he already knows that he hasn't gotten into the others he applied to," Ashido continued in a shaky voice. "He's still here." She said it in a gasp, and she shivered with her arms crossing over her chest as agony filled her body. "All alone. Alone in the cold, with not one person who cares enough to even _know_ what he's going through. Dying every day, going through so much pain to revive people even though he's terrified of losing his mind. Terrified that by having no one by his side, and his life nothing but pain- that he won't be able to hold on any longer. And I know this, I know that he's out there right now listening as they call him a monster over and over. As they talk about how terrifying a person he is, when that's just who he is! When he can't help it- and he's exhausted, and he doesn't know what he should do next, because he's in a corner."

"We won't let him be a hero if he doesn't finish hero school first, but we won't let him go to hero school, and yet we still demand that he be a hero? What is he supposed to do about that? Where is he supposed to go?!" Ashido asked it, yelling it around at the room of stunned people who did not have an answer for her. "There's only _one_ place that's safe enough for Zach to go and finish his studies. The one place he has people who could maybe help him, because no one else understands him at all! And it's not like we do either, but we know _better_ than anyone else! Right?! We know, that we know Zach better than anyone else does. Tell me, do you really think Zach's a bad guy? Please! Do you really think he's turning into a villain? Zach?! He- he had Kurogiri in his hand, one of the people who had burned his family alive and _tortured_ him- how many people could have held off like he did?"

"Was it easy for Zach to kill him?" She asked. "Zach had _every_ reason to hate them, to want to kill them, but Zach, more than anyone, _hates_ killing people. He's the kindest person I've ever met, to be sitting out there in the cold right now with no one around, and to still put up that front just so I don't feel slightly bad about him having problems. Yeah, he lies. I still trust him," Ashido said. She said it in more assurance than anything in her life, and she continued to her class shocked to hear that statement. "No matter how much he lies, that doesn't change anything. Zach lies. That's who he is. That's _always_ been who he is. It's not like he suddenly changed! But just because he lies, doesn't mean I don't trust him. Because I know Zach. I know that what he did that night hurt him more than anyone else. And he did it anyway, for the peace in our world! Because he's _that_ good a person, which no one else understands but us. We're the only ones who should know that. The only ones who know, that more than anyone else in the world, Zach's not a selfish person."

"So if Zach isn't selfish, then why did he come back here? Why come to Japan specifically? Why spend so much time trying to make things right with us? Trying to help us and make us think that the Lifebringer Incident was just some mistake he made and not- not something that we failed to see coming." Ashido bowed her head and tears dropped off her nose to the floor. "And even though he's out there sleeping in the streets, in parks, and alleys? I come to see him and he asks how _my_ day was-" Ashido gripped a hand into her chest and rose her head, staring at Bakugo in so much physical pain that it made him lean back away from her. Tears spilled freely all over her disheveled face, "He can't take it, because no one can take that much. As strong as he is, as much as he's able to handle and he can handle more than anyone- he has taken more than he can take. Nowhere to turn. No one to turn to, who he's willing to ask for help. Because he doesn't feel like he deserves help," she sobbed at the class.

"He came back here to make things better with us, fix things that he messed up by leaving, but either he succeeded, or you didn't want to be his friend anymore. But he tried! He's tried for a while now, and, and what else is there for him to do?" She questioned in despair. "He can't be a hero. We won't let him." Ashido bit down hard and her eyes narrowed at all the people in front of her, "You won't let him."

The class had a collective moment of shock, as she put it on them. "Every decision Zach's made," Ashido continued, her tone angry at the people around her. "It's all on you. I blame you. All of you, and me, for not trying earlier." She cursed herself in her head for just putting this on the others for denying her request. She could not just blame them alone though, and she said in horrified regret, "I wanted him at U.A., and I knew that that's where he wanted to be, but because he accepted it so easily I accepted it. Because that's how it always happens! He tells me it's fine and I accept because that's what he said, but Zach lies all the time! Especially when it comes to if he's alright, because he's never alright! He- he lost his mind-" Ashido said it with her eyes locking on Yaoyorozu's for a moment, then darting over to Midoriya and Iida. "And he watched so many of his friends murdered in front of him- his _family."_

"And he is covered head to toe in _horrible_ scars from _wars_ I can't even imagine!" Ashido yelled. "Battles between thousands that I don't even understand how they could happen. I'm confused, and scared… but most of all I'm terrified that he's about to leave again, and that we'll all say the same thing: 'Oh, he's off doing something else.' 'I knew he couldn't do it.' 'This is all part of his plan-' He has NO PLAN!" She screamed it at them after saying those things in a mocking but horrified voice. "He's just sitting there with nothing! Nothing to do! And he's still trying, but this new plan isn't working out as everyone's just criticizing what he's doing and- and-" she bit down on her bottom lip so hard, but she shook her head as she had to let go from the pain. She had seen the scar on Zach's bottom lip though, a scar that told her that even though what she just did hurt and she couldn't break through, Zach had bit through so many times before.

"Zach has given up more than anyone…" Ashido continued. "And we're all sitting here talking about how he hasn't given up enough?" She asked it with her shaking eyes shifting onto Bakugo. "That, that letting him come back is- is what? It ruins the sacrifice he made in that forest? Really? Because he sacrificed his relationships with all of us," Ashido clenched her eyes shut, while everyone else froze where they were in shock as she whispered, "and that's what mattered to him more than anything."

Most of the class in front of Ashido felt their stomachs turn over. Their mouths were dry, and their hearts raced as what she said echoed in their minds. Even Bakugo understood it in that moment, and his wide eyes narrowed but looked away from the girl before him who was breaking down in tears. _Not letting Zach back into U.A., isn't even that important._ It had been all-important to him since the idea of Zach getting a pardon started floating around. But in a single conversation he realized how idiotic it was to hold that action in such high regard. _Because it's not, to Zach…_

Midoriya had started to realize it through everything Ashido was saying, but he found himself unable to breathe for several seconds at the end there. _Every time,_ Midoriya realized with his breath finally releasing in a harsh gasp of panic and fear of the realization he was having.

"We're letting him down again," Ashido called out, her head raising back up as she said it desperately to the class in front of her. "We all failed him over and over and didn't believe it anymore, because Zach always blamed himself and told us it was his fault." Midoriya bowed his head as the realization only got stronger in his head at the things she was saying. "It doesn't matter what're lies and what's the truth; it doesn't mean anything! Do we trust Zach doesn't depend on trusting every word he says!" Sato felt his racing heart stab with pain at how angry he was for something so stupid. Then Ashido yelled towards him, "I trust him, because he's always been the best person I've ever known, but also the most vulnerable."

"The strongest and the one who needed the most protection, but who never got it." Ashido was sobbing at them and she cried out, "Do you really think Zach's a bad person? Is he an evil villain, or does he just need help? I think he needs help. I- think he doesn't have it all together. He doesn't have huge plans that he needs to stay here for, because he can fight the League and Eziano and all his enemies without being here and doing it as a hero. The only reason he needs to stay in the light, is to be able to continue interacting with us. That's the only way he can still be our friend. Which means, that that has to be the only thing keeping him here. And so he's going to leave, and we're never going to see him again, because none of us are trying to stop him! We'll all think he's out there with some new plan doing some new thing, and we'll tell ourselves that so we don't have to think about how we let him down here AGAIN!"

"We'll think about how he disappeared but it wasn't our fault, it was Zach's own choice to leave. It's always his choice!" She yelled, then she shook her head violently and shouted louder, "But that doesn't mean we don't influence his choices! That doesn't mean, that all those times he made those hard choices that we were all free from blame, because we've had some of the biggest influences of anyone on Zach's life. So whatever he chooses to do _is_ on us! We do hold fault in all those hard decisions Zach made, the ones he made while we were around him and should have helped him figure it out, should have pushed him in other directions sometimes, and should have pushed harder the times we tried and he ignored us! But we were there when he planned out the Lifebringer Incident. And he planned that out because he got all those anti-heroes he fought with killed, but it's not like the reason was that far removed from us either, because he only acted as an anti-hero while he was back here with us after escaping the League! He was sneaking out of school, fighting with them against villains in the shadows, and we were blind to what was happening! Right under our noses!"

"He made those choices, and it was him who made them." She paused and took in a deep choked-up breath, "But even when he made stupid! Stupid decisions! Not once, did he lose my trust. Because I know that what he says doesn't matter as much as what he does, and who he is. That every choice he's made, he's made it because he believes it will save people, protect the world, protect _us._ And he doesn't just protect us by saving our lives. That's never been it at all, and I know that because he's going to leave and do so knowing that none of us will feel bad about it this time, and that was the point! That was the point of every action he made since coming back. To make us believe that it wasn't our fault, but it is!"

Tokoyami and Shoji had gotten up from the couch, and the two of them looked at each other with similar looks of guilt-ridden dread. Sato dropped his gaze down to his hands, and Uraraka covered up her mouth in realization of what happened the last time she talked to Zach. _Did he do that, on purpose- does he even realize what he's…_ Uraraka sucked in a sharp breath of shock with her eyes filling with tears at just the idea of that.

The people who had been ignoring Zach since he returned understood deep in their chests that those actions had been messed up. They stared at Ashido who told them these things about Zach like it was still how he felt, and how much he cared about them, even now. Bakugo darted his eyes to the side as he saw legs crouching next to him, and then he spun with many others towards the front door that swung open as Midoriya was gone from the dorm.

 _He's in Musutafu. The robbery happened here, and he was still around because Ashido's right,_ Midoriya thought with his teeth baring as he shot towards the main office building of U.A. High School. _He's just here because of us now. There's nothing else holding him back, except for us, and we're not even trying to hold on!_

Sero stared down at his phone with his teeth clenching as he stared at the four unanswered texts he had sent. His eyes darted to the door Midoriya rushed out of, and even as Yaoyorozu ran for it as well with her eyes wide and afraid, he just shook his head and glared down while sending off another message. _Don't you do it._

Sato sprinted for the door a second after Yaoyorozu went, only glancing back when he saw Ashido falling out the corners of his eyes. Ashido fell to her knees, and Hagakure and Uraraka rushed over to her sides. Sero started walking forward, and he looked down at Ashido who her friends just bent down to help. "Midoriya will find him-"

Ashido just shook her head with her knees splayed out to either side. She cried softly but with tears still dropping off her chin, and she sobbed to the others still around her, even as more of them rushed out, "He's- he's-" she rose her head and looked to Todoroki whose expression was concerned and serious, but not very depressed. Then her eyes shifted over to Jirou who just looked upset about everything Ashido had said and blamed them for. The two of their expressions shook though as Ashido whispered hoarsely at them in a completely broken voice, "He's our friend."

Uraraka bit down on her bottom lip, and Hagakure rose a free arm that she was not holding Ashido's with to rub her own eyes to the surprise of Ojiro walking up behind her with a hesitant look in his eyes. Bakugo ground his teeth but he stepped back and leaned against the wall again, looking away with a frustrated look over his face. Ashido gasped in again, and then she whispered to the others right around her, "He cares so much about us, all of us, and we're going to pretend like it was _his_ decision to leave again. That none of us were able to impact it, because Zach just makes all his decisions on his own. And I can't- I can't just accept that this time."

"But that's what he tells us, so that we never feel like it's our fault," Ashido whispered with her head bowing and her words coming out devastated. "And every time he did something we could have stopped him, or helped him, or- or done something! We could have done _anything._ We were right there. We were always, right there next to him." Ashido shook her head some more and then rose it and stared into Todoroki's heterochromatic eyes in anger, "And somehow we all think that it wasn't our fault. That it's never our fault. But- but we don't get to do that this time. I won't let us. We don't get to say that he just _chose_ to leave, when there is no other choice before him. If he disappears right now- if we never see him again…" Todoroki's eyebrows curled up softly and his eyes shifted slowly to the exit some more of their classmates just sprinted out of. He heard Ashido's raspy voice as she whispered in the corner of his vision, "…It was our own damn fault."

"And whatever Zach does after," Ashido continued, her eyes shut and her tone sounding thoroughly exhausted. "Wherever he goes. If he goes back to what he was doing before, if he goes to any other country to be a vigilante where they accept him, or just to go be a ghost in the wind… doing what he's doing now in Japan but on a wider scale across the world… alone… all alone." Ashido whispered that final part, having exhausted herself with worry, and Hagakure knelt down to help hold her friend up who seemed like she might collapse right here.

Uraraka could hear how tired and near passing out Mina sounded, and she held her arms around Ashido's back and her front. _Zach, how could you make her so worried about you?_ Uraraka thought with her face scrunching up and her lips curling into a frown. _Please, you have to prove her wrong. Be there, when Deku-kun shows up. Please be there._

"Mina, it's going to be okay," Hagakure started, whispering it and trying to comfort her friend who sounded shattered at the end there.

Ashido rose her head though, looking at her invisible friend next to her who was stunned that Ashido was this torn up that she could not even stand. Ashido's face looked like she felt years of guilt crashing down on her at once though, and she looked at Toru with her black eyes bloodshot and shaking. "I never even thanked him," Ashido whispered in a voice that crushed Hagakure too, and it made Jirou take a step back seeing that look down on Mina's face. Hagakure sucked in a sharp breath and failed at holding back her tears, as Mina whispered to her, "Not once, for saving us all."

Ashido shook her head around and then bowed it forward into Hagakure's shoulder. She clenched her eyes shut, _Zach's not one to brag. He'd never tell me all he did out as Death, but if what he talked about was just a_ _ **few**_ _things, and there were other times too that I had heard about on the news, and odd stories about villains caught by heroes but who said that it was Death! Even though all the other villains there said it was just the heroes. Or how without the heroes doing anything big, no big change at all, suddenly they were all just catching so many more villains than ever before. How in a few months, the crime rate in_ _ **every**_ _country went down. It didn't make sense that_ _ **all**_ _the heroes suddenly got better. In those countries where there were fewer heroes, since in February there had been so many hero deaths, how was it that in March crime rates went down in every country in the world? And that month there were more villains caught than ever before in history. Until April, where nearly twice as many were caught!_

Mineta ran down the road outside of the dorms as fast as he could for the main office building, even using his Quirk to bounce himself there quicker. _He wouldn't tell anyone where he was living anymore. Since he wouldn't tell anyone, it wasn't weird that he wouldn't tell me. I didn't even- I didn't push the issue, because I thought I understood it was just to be safer… Ashido's right though. I'm so dumb!_ Mineta shook his head around frustratedly, and he bounced past Shoji and Tokoyami on his right who were surprised to see him catch up and get past them.

"He was still trying," Ashido whispered with her head bowed and her only support being Uraraka and Hagakure on her sides. "His apartment exploded but we hear he's alive and see what he had to say, and it looks like he's got everything under control. And we thought he could handle it, because he was strong. But we were wrong!" She gasped it and coughed as she had lost her voice and failed at raising it right there again. "We had seen it before. When Aizawa sensei said he couldn't be in the Sports Festival, we all saw through his mask when it was at its weakest! We saw that Zach could get hurt as much as any of us, and even if we didn't know why he was so at the end of his rope at the time, even if we thought it really was just because of being kept out of the Sports Festival… we knew. We saw through it, and I saw through it today, but too late. He's putting up a mask again, and we have no idea how much he's hurting. But we're wrong to think he can do this now, all on his own!"

Ashido rose her head and her anger was back on it though there were bags under her bloodshot eyes. "To think he'll stay trying to be a hero when no one wants him here, when people are complaining about him getting Shiketsu targeted, his apartment targeted. He didn't have a place to live but he still went to school because we said that he had to, and they kicked him out for protecting them even if it was just because someone was targeting him! Zach has so many enemies. Monstrous enemies that no one else is helping him fight. And he's at it alone. I can't even- imagine… If I got people killed like that, and the school targeted- I would kill myself if that happened to me."

She said it in horror and gasped out with a look to her right into Ochaco's wide eyes, "If everyone I still loved abandoned me, the world hated me, and just being alive was putting everyone else in danger. It's horrifying to even think about, what it would be like to stand in his shoes for a second. I _know._ He made me know, what that was like, and it was the worst moment of-" Ashido couldn't breathe as she thought back to that night on the rooftop of the abandoned apartments, apartments she suspected in pain Zach had likely been using on occasion lately. "He's trying!" She sobbed. "But they keep trying to kill him, and we're going to lose him again. Because as hard as he's trying, he can't do this. Not without help! And we just sat here, and let him go away again."

Ashido dropped her chin to her chest and whispered down to the floor as her friend stared speechlessly at her. "Because what's left now? What's keeping him here? If he can't be a hero, and he can't go to school, and he can't even have a home… and all the friends he came back here to be with don't even care?" The final part of that question stabbed into the chests of the others around her who felt that guilt vibrate throughout their bodies. They each understood, that Ashido was right, in that there would be no way after Zach left that they could go on thinking they had been unable to stop it.

 _We didn't even try,_ Todoroki thought darkly.

Hagakure felt a buzz and she shot a hand to her pocket, pulling out her phone fast as she had sent Zach a text a little before. "We should have tried harder," Ashido whispered under her breath to no one in particular, though Toru felt it was towards her. "It's our fault…"

Toru's heart fell as it was just Sato texting from the main office to say that they were not letting anyone else out. _Midoriya,_ Hagakure thought, and then Zach flashed through her mind towering over Mysti and ripping her mask off. _Please, find Zach,_ Hagakure thought back on what Zach looked like all the times before that. And her realization from the other night fully shattered as she realized that it was not a realization she had had but something Zach wanted her to believe instead. _He wasn't like that the entire time he's been back. He turned into that. Turned back into that, maybe. It wasn't all fake though. It wasn't a lie! Midoriya, we're losing him, so please… Find him._

Shooting across the sky over Musutafu was a curly-haired teen whose head snapped each and every direction while he kicked the air behind him. _Zach! I know, Ashido's right._

"Where are you?" Midoriya whispered it to himself as he shot across the air, his eyes darting around the streets and between buildings as he flew over them. _All Might told me how you were there for me. That you were protecting me._ _ **"…He had friends who were closer to him than you, and who I'm sure he was more worried about."**_ _I didn't come to talk to you about it though! I thought not taking you down was, was helping you- I'm an idiot! She's right, I haven't done anything-_ _ **"He chose to follow you though, because he was thinking about the future. The future for everyone."**_

"Zach," Midoriya gasped as he felt his heart pounding violently in his chest. _I remembered who you always were. Who you still are! I saw that even in the middle of that torture you wouldn't betray me. You were going through so much, and I- I was just a kid. You were covered in scars, and I had just seen how you got them at the Sports Festival. I saw the horrible torture, heard your family getting murdered in front of your eyes, and you had all that dragged back up too as they tried again to destroy you… And then you chose to follow me. You came to Hokkaido to protect me! Not once did you falter. After all that, you never faltered in who you were. The deepest traits inside you that make you you, they didn't change even when everything else did. Your body and mind, your soul and your ideals, they changed… but you never gave up._

 _He came close sometimes,_ Midoriya spun around in midair and looked around the vast city below and in all directions. _Please, be here!_ He shot back another direction moving faster, _I heard how close you came when Kaminari betrayed you. At your worst moment, about to take pills and just break down completely, knowing that your best friend was out there killing your friends and family and there was nothing you could do to stop it._ Deku bit down in self-hatred and frustration, seeing nothing down below to give him any hope and feeling the deepest regret as he heard Zach's screams in his mind that night. _I stood outside his door because I thought Yaoyorozu could handle it better, but I was just being a coward back then not going in myself!_

 _It's like Ashido said. None of us understood what Zach was going through, so we told ourselves we'd only make it worse, or that Zach wouldn't want to talk to us- to me. But I didn't know! I didn't know what he needed, because I didn't know what it was like… and so I, and most of us just ignored it and figured that he could handle it in his own way as he always seemed to do. We didn't give him alternatives or tell him that it would be alright._ _ **I**_ _didn't tell Zach that. I could have, but I didn't._ Midoriya felt tears come out of his own eyes and fly off the sides of his face at the speed he was soaring around the sky.

 _I stood outside your room and cried myself. I went back to my own room and cried for you, for what I just heard you say about Kaminari killing your family. I thought you were done. But Zach came to class the next day. He was back, and he was strong. For Zach to be there so strong, I thought I should go tell him that he didn't need to be there, but what if Zach_ _ **did**_ _need to be there to keep himself strong? Maybe it was something he needed to do, or something. I didn't know, so I didn't presume to ask. I didn't talk to him about it. I could have. I had weeks,_ Midoriya clenched his teeth in deeper regret. _But I just tried to talk to Zach about other things because Zach said we had to move forward and past Kaminari, and that was easier for me than going back and talking about him. Ashido was right. She knows, what we all decided to forget._

 _I could have said that we could go after Raijin together. I could have talked about what I heard him say that night, or asked him why he and Yaoyorozu had to break up where I would have noticed something was wrong with him! Even if he ignored everything I said, even if none of that had worked… If I had spent more time with him I would have seen the signs of the Lifebringer Incident before it happened. Instead I was floored by it. We all were. We were caught completely off guard, because we knew as much about Zach as everyone else in the country, as the villains Zach was trying to fool! Zach was my friend though. We lived, ate, studied, and fought together. It shouldn't have been so easy to fool me as to how he was really feeling, no matter how good of an actor he was. Damn it! Why did it take so long?! Why were we all so stupid when it came to Zach? I let him convince me time after time that my failure at saving him was never my fault, but it was._

 _Somehow he thought I could still be the Symbol. I don't know how you think that, when I'm failing you even now. But you told me it, back when I didn't believe I could be it myself because I had let you get taken from right in front of me by that Nomu. I had failed you so much back then. So many times._ Midoriya gasped in while flying over All Might Park and not spotting any sign of Zach down below. He dropped lower to the ground to get a better look below canopies too, but Zach was not in sight. _And you convinced me that I wasn't to blame, but I can't accept that. I did let you get taken. I had All Might's power, and you stepped through the portal in front of me, twice. You were dragged through by the Nomu._

 _In that worst moment of his torture, when he could have died at any second, Zach had the strongest look I have ever seen. When he looked into Shigaraki's eyes and said that I would save him. I knew back then that I had failed when I saw that, but then he pushed me even harder to believe in myself and my power. Pushed me to become stronger, a better hero, and he stayed by my side to… Why couldn't I believe it when I talked to All Might? The plans I thought you might have actually been back here for, to just be by our sides again, Ashido was right about them. I don't know why I thought your plans were necessarily bad._ He thought it in a pained way, and he wanted to grip at his chest as he thought, _He really is, someone I trust more than- more than almost anyone. No matter what he's done, he's my friend. I failed him. I let you down, Zach. I've always let you down._

"I promise," Midoriya said aloud, while the trees below him shook at how hard he just kicked off the air above them. "It won't be like that if I can find you," Midoriya promised it to no one in particular. He just said it aloud, and continued under his breath, "I'll be a better friend. I promise that I'll try, no matter what, to save you-" Midoriya's eyes darted down at the sight of something in bottom of his peripheral vision, and then they grew…

* * *

 **Some time ago…**

Midoriya's suspicious gaze followed Zach ahead of him where Zach and Sero were standing and watching in amusement as Hagakure told the photographer to get another picture with her and Ojiro. The two boys were trying hard to keep a straight face as Hagakure complained about how she looked and asked for another picture, which the kind photographer just agreed with a smile and a sweatdrop as he felt he probably should not mention anything about it. The mall had background music Midoriya wished was a little louder, as he sweatdropped himself having to hear all the people around him whispering about Lifebringer and Deku, and Class A, as a lot of them were watching the group hanging out in Yutapu together.

Midoriya shook his head around as he saw Sero glance back towards him, then he walked up and stood next to the other two. Zach looked to his side and flashed a grin at Midoriya like he was wondering if Deku saw what Hagakure just did, and Midoriya chuckled too as he saw Ojiro trying to just appease his girlfriend and not say anything about it either. "Ah! That's a great idea!" The three boys turned their heads and saw their pink-skinned friend running up behind them with an excited look covering her face that made both Midoriya and Sero gain dreading looks to their faces that lowered to have only half-smiles as they could see what Ashido was about to call out.

"Let's take a group photo! Come on!"

"It's-" Midoriya started.

"I'd be honored to take a picture of you all," The photographer said quickly over to the group of boys, looking specifically at Lifebringer for a moment and then at Deku too. Sero rolled his eyes as he was completely passed over, but he shrugged his shoulders anyway with a glance at Zach who nodded in agreement that they should just go with it now.

Ojiro looked relieved, and Hagakure called out excitedly about the group picture too as Ashido ran over in front of the background. The camera in front of them was an old-timey one that Hagakure had spotted and dragged Ojiro too, one where the photographs came out the front of the camera and after being shaken could be seen right away. The photographer motioned the others to move inwards, and Midoriya awkwardly moved towards the background's edge which got Ashido sighing at him for his slow and unsure movements. She ran up behind him and pushed on his back, "You're big, so you go here in the middle, and- Zach! Sero!" She turned after pushing Midoriya, and the other two walking over and just talking to each other glanced to their pink friend who separated them and rearranged the group to get a more artsy pic.

"Here, put an arm around me like this," Ashido continued, moving in front of Zach between him and Midoriya. She grabbed his left arm and put it over her shoulder, then pulled it down a little more, and Zach finally got a bit of a hesitant look on his face at what she was doing and how close his hand was getting to her chest. Ojiro glanced over to his side with a risen eyebrow, though his eyes shifted back to Midoriya who he smiled to see was looking nervous at the amount of attention they were drawing so that many other pictures had already been taken around them.

"Smile kids," the photographer said to them while leaning down to his camera.

Sero started laughing as he spotted what Mina was doing even worse now, and he mentioned across Midoriya's front, "Not making it easy to convince people that you're not dating Zach."

Ashido looked up from Zach's hand she was trying to position in a good spot on her, then she turned from Sero and looked around at the interested and shocked people around them who were wondering if she and Zach were dating. Her eyes darted up to Zach who had already noticed but did not say anything, then her cheeks somehow got more pink. She laughed but threw a hand up towards a couple of teenage girls near them who had their phones out and were typing quickly as they sent the pictures that they had taken to their friends. "Hold on we're-"

"Hahaha-" Sero couldn't hold it as Ashido somehow didn't realize what she was doing. Midoriya looked inwards at Zach with a surprised look as Zach scratched the back of his head with his gloved hand, his look partly apologetic since Ashido just spun to him looking like she had not realized what she was doing. Hagakure held up a peace sign in front of her, not that it was able to be seen above the end of her sleeve, and she squeezed Ojiro's right hand with her other one just up against her left side down near her waist.

The flash went off…

* * *

 **Present**

Midoriya dropped down in a dark alleyway near the edge of Musutafu. The car that's lights flashed down the alley as it was driving on the street completely passed behind him, leaving only a faint red glow for a moment that let Midoriya see down more of the alley and into the darker shadows farther from the road behind him. There were no street lights in this section of the city, leaving even the edge of the alley closest to the street only lightly illuminated, and Midoriya had landed past that area so he was further into the darkness now.

As Midoriya landed, his shoes squished on the floor that was wet due to the earlier rain. In the corner of his vision he spotted something when that red glow was still there, and his eyes shifted from down the dark alley to the puddle the light had reflected off of. There was something sticking halfway out of the puddle, and Midoriya saw the polaroid that had a corner burnt off and a rip on the bottom of it. It was clean other than the damage though, yet despite being kept in good condition usually it was sitting in the puddle as if discarded. Midoriya's eyes shifted up again, towards the silhouette down the alley that stopped moving when he hit down on the ground.

In the bottom left of his vision and on the edge of the alley laying flat next to the side of a building, there was an open backpack. A half-empty water bottle rested outside the zipper with crushed plastic in the shape of fingerprints around the top of it, just past the end of a sweatshirt sleeve splayed away from the rest of the sweatshirt sticking out of the bag. And Midoriya heard a buzzing sound coming from inside that backpack, sounding like a phone set on vibrate.

Midoriya recognized the backpack. He recognized the brand of water bottle even, but it was the photo he recognized that made his heart pound. His heart rate raced as he heard the vibrating of the phone this figure was seemingly leaving behind, as he had seen the person finishing a step right as he landed when the red glow was still at its brightest and gave him a better look down the alley. Even then, all he had seen was a black silhouette in the shape of a human, but now it was barely a shadow in the dark. Deku's breathing was heavy, and he said to the figure down the alley, "Zach."

The silhouette turned his head first, and a faint red glow near the top of his face faded away. Midoriya stepped farther into the alley, and his eyes were adjusting to the darkness, or so he thought must have happened as he was suddenly able to see farther down it and make out the face of the person who just turned. His dark face came into focus to show there was no actual Death around it, and Midoriya could see him. His heart rate skyrocketed. His eyes stared straight ahead into Zach's cold, dead eyes, as Zach stared back with an emotionless expression on his face.

"Midoriya," Zach replied. "What are you doing here?"

* * *

 **A/N Thanks for reading. Hope you enjoyed this very long chapter. Merry Christmas everyone (technically Christmas Eve now as I finish editing this after a whole afternoon and night of it, no dinner even). I'm working both days of Christmas and all the way through the new year, so I doubt I'll get another chapter up though I did get this one up today after work... so who knows? But happy New Years too everyone if I don't get another up by then. Hope you enjoyed this Christmas present, even if it made me cry to write and again when I edited it. Leave me a review telling me what you think and any predictions/questions you have about the chapter. I have work this morning, so I have to go to sleep now as much as I want to spend another hour doing review responses lol ;) but I really do have to pass out. I'll do a bunch of review responses next chapter to make up for it, but yeah, Merry Christmas guys, I hope you enjoy reading this over the next couple days (if it takes you more than one to read which I'd totally understand). XD**


	211. Chapter 211

**Disclaimer: I don't own Boku no Hero Academia**

 **Chapter 211:**

"Midoriya," Zach started as he heard the voice that said his name behind him. "What are you doing here?" He looked back down the dark alley with his eyes no longer glowing red. His eyes were well-adjusted enough to the darkness to see Midoriya's face though. His body turned more and he stared down the alley towards Midoriya, keeping from looking down himself at the things he saw his friend had noticed and kept darting his eyes to.

Midoriya felt the vibration below his feet and heard the low buzz of Zach's phone again coming from that discarded bag. His eyes shifted towards the bag this time as the phone buzzed in a silence he knew meant Zach heard it too, then his eyes looked back down the alley to Zach. _He isn't picking up,_ Midoriya thought about asking Zach why he had not been answering. His mouth opened to mention the phone, but he stopped himself and just stared down the shadowy figure staring back towards him. Midoriya's expression shifted a few times in only seconds as he examined Zach's face. He closed his mouth, deciding against beating around the bush which did not feel right when he already knew what this was.

Midoriya could see Zach knew that he knew what this was too. Zach saw that Deku could see it too as his expression changed, and he heard it in Midoriya's steadier but darker voice that asked, "Where are you going?"

Zach glanced back towards his backpack, then to Midoriya. A thought passed through his mind of making some lame excuse, but it faded. _There's no point._ Zach knew there was no use in making idle conversation and gradually getting to this conversation that was bound to happen anyway, even if he attempted to lie for some back and forth first. _He knows it's over._ Zach looked to his right at the dark wall on that side of him, quiet for a moment, and then he responded, "You know where."

Midoriya's fists balled at his sides. His knuckles clenched in anger with his thumbs pushing down over them, his eyes narrowing towards Zach who looked him back in the eyes. The two of them stared at each other face to face, and Midoriya's arms shook as he stood there in the slightly more illuminated side of the alley. _He just told me, that he's going to go join the Army of Death again. Go be a villain…_ In his mind flashed the grief-stricken face of his classmate, her pink hair splayed out over her tear-streaked expression. What she had shouted at him had stuck, and his fists loosened with his eyebrows raising up instead in a softer and more hurt way at the response he could not feel any more anger towards.

 _I failed Zach. We all have. He's tried his very hardest to get back into our society, to do things by the rules, and to still help and do good while he's doing that. He's tried for months, with no help, and with people like_ _ **me**_ _constantly working against him and trying to undermine his efforts. Because of his_ _ **plans**_ _that I was so sure of, for so long._ Midoriya eased his head back as Zach stood there fully facing him and without any sign of emotion in his expression. _Even before tonight a piece of me still believed you had some master plan for coming back here. The way you acted, even letting us know that you were Death could've been part of the plan for the start._

"You don't have to do that," Midoriya whispered in response, making Zach's eyebrows raise the tiniest amount as he was surprised. He did not expect Midoriya to say that, but that small amount of surprise did little as he just returned to the same expression in knowledge that Midoriya had no idea what he was talking about. Midoriya winced at that look on Zach's face so cold and expressionless, and he forced down the feeling of doubt he had rising within him because of Zach's scarred, dark look. _I was the paranoid one this time. I know Zach. I finally know that I know him, because if I had gotten here a few seconds later… Zach would have disappeared._

Midoriya felt he knew that with assurance. Zach's response to his question was confirmation, but the sight around him alone was all he needed for that. _He's been in this alley for a while. There's a dry spot where he was sitting- he never had a new place. She was right about everything._ "The photo you got from the mall is in a puddle," Midoriya mentioned. "Were you going to leave it?" He asked it in search of some reaction on Zach's face that was unresponsive to the question.

Zach did not react emotionally. He did not even look at the photo Midoriya was talking about that he had already spent too long looking at in the past few minutes, and hours. "What do you want?" Zach just asked Deku. His eyes remained cold and his tone stayed the same as he continued, "Did you come for a fight? Because… I'm done fighting you. Midoriya," Zach muttered his name at the end of that, his expression looking even darker.

He bowed his head an inch which was enough for his bangs to shadow over his eyes. "This works out for the best," Zach told his former classmate, and Midoriya flinched at the statement that sounded so grimly resolute. "You know it's true, Deku." Zach rose his eyes and stared through his bangs towards the face of his hero friend. _You can hear it. You can see it in me. I am, devoid of light. The last of it is gone. I need to go. I said he knows where, so they'll assume I'm back with Death. Or Death myself. It's a good ending. The best way for a ghost to disappear, is just to fade quietly away. Won't be much of a scene. Too much mystery around me already. Was I killed? Did I run? Am I dead, alive, between the two… that's actually probably closest to the truth._

 _He's barely keeping up the disguise for me,_ Midoriya could see through it. Zach was hardly masking his true face at all. The attempt was weak, and Midoriya could hear in Zach's voice a deeper apathetic _darkness_ regarding what he was saying that straight terrified him. Midoriya's expression hardened though despite hearing that menacing tone sounding so ominous when it came from Zach. _I can't let him leave._ The thought he had was too serious and not focused enough solely on Zach, which he knew even though he was determined not to let Zach go for his own sake too. Guilt rushed him again as he knew he was not just thinking of Zach though, _I let him go in the courthouse. I was too weak to do anything at VTS. Too slow, too hesitant, and too late. This time though, I wasn't too late. It won't be like the forest. I won't lose Zach after getting so close. This time. For the first time._

 _I'm going to save you._

Midoriya felt a weight in his pocket he was reminded of, and he took a step closer to Zach. In a steady but raised voice he denied down to his old classmate, "I don't know. You're wrong, nothing's working out for the best right now. I know things are tough, but you can't give up." Zach ground his teeth with his lips curling into a deep frown, his head bowing farther with the anger shown clearly on his face. "You haven't had a place to stay recently, have you?"

"Mina's a good friend," Zach said. _She forced my hand though._ "And more observant, smarter than people give her credit for." _The second the texts started pouring in, I knew she must have called the schools. It was better this way though. Any longer would have just prolonged the inevitable. Journalists have to be trying to get that first scoop on where I'm going before the rest figure it out. They'll call all the different schools, realize that I did apply everywhere, and figure out for themselves that I've got nowhere to go._ "She'll be a great hero-"

"She'll never recover from this," Midoriya countered darkly right back. His voice was firm and he glared harder as Zach rose his eyes to his old classmate's. Midoriya's expression faltered though at the agony that flashed for a second on Zach's face before replacing with an emotionless look again.

"She will," Zach repeated. _What did she say-_ The tone in Midoriya's voice and how assured the curly-haired boy sounded made Zach imagine some kind of look on Mina's face. He forced that away though at the pain that filled him, _It doesn't matter._ His eyes narrowed back towards Midoriya who had had a judgmental look there for a moment before easing it to stare at him in a more pitying way instead. "It's not anyone's fault, Midoriya. I know you'd want to blame yourself at this point, but there's nothing you can do to help me."

"That's not…"

"Nowhere is safe when I'm around. Not even hero schools. Heroes are supposed to protect people, and my very existence puts all those around me in danger." Zach said these things as a matter of fact, and he shook his head in a single dark motion while giving Midoriya a cold state. "Which inherently means I cannot be a hero. So it's time for me to leave-"

"You can't-"

"I can, and I've decided," Zach countered right back as Midoriya started to argue. "No one can stop me from going. There's nothing keeping me here. No path forward, anymore. She told you about the schools I applied to?" Zach asked it and Midoriya's eyes widened and shook as he thought he had information about Zach that Zach did not know he had. Zach had figured out everything he knew though based off his expressions, based off assumptions he had made, and the ability to figure all of this out unnerved and stunned Midoriya. "Not one is willing to have me. Nowhere in this country is safe as long as I'm here, but the country itself is not safe either."

"Villains know I'm in Japan. That's too small an area to hide from them." His explanation sounded crazy, and yet to Midoriya the paranoia sounded all too rational at the sight of Zach's ripped-up neck and face.

"You don't have to run," Midoriya started back. His voice started quiet but he rose it louder and called down to Zach, "You can't. Eziano may have stepped up his attacks, but that doesn't mean-"

"Nowhere is safe, as long as I'm here. Everyone knows it, and no one's willing to accept the risk. I have no choices. No options. Nothing… It's time for me to go." Zach shook his head while staring into Midoriya's denying eyes, and then he let out a sigh. The sigh was the most terrifying sigh to Midoriya who stared with huge eyes at Zach's bowed head. He could not imagine what was going through Zach's head, but he heard that sigh and froze up with sweat forming on both sides of his face.

Zach sighed almost as if he had just accepted what Midoriya thought deep inside. Like Zach thought he had to accept that he was going to have to deal with Midoriya here, when that 'you can't' left Midoriya's mouth and implied that Midoriya was not going to let him leave. The sigh scared Midoriya because it sounded like Zach was willing to fight him, yet it came out so calmly and like he was more tired than getting ready for a fight. _Even though he just said he wouldn't fight me. He's exhausted. Tired of this already, but also accepting, because despite being tired… He is going to deal with it. With me. With whatever's next too._

"That, might not be true," Midoriya said though. He countered Zach's replies. He shook his head and his right hand lowered down to his sweatshirt's pocket. He was wearing this dark green hoodie while in the common room with the others, and it said his hero name in white bubble letters across the middle of his chest. Deku put his hand in his pocket and he pulled out his phone that Zach darted his eyes to quicker now and then back up at Midoriya's face faster than he had been reacting so far.

 _Tricky. Didn't think Midoriya had it in him. He came up with a plan for this?_ Zach's eyes were red as they darted from Midoriya's steady eyes back down to that phone Midoriya held up in a way that made it illuminate considering he was already in the middle of a call. _He does think far ahead though. He made a plan. He knew, just coming out here couldn't do anything. Not that his call is going to…_

 _Please, say something,_ Midoriya darted his eyes to his phone as he saw little change in Zach's expression other than his eyes going red. He had tapped the speaker button on his phone while lifting it in front of him, and Zach's red eyes focused on the top of the illuminated screen which had the name of who Midoriya had called on it. The one who had been listening in from before Midoriya even landed, as Midoriya knew that if he found Zach he would never have the chance to make the call during their talk.

"Sazaki."

"Mr. Principal," Zach replied. _Midoriya couldn't have planned this out beforehand. There is little planning that has gone into this. For any of them. Or for me. No one knows what's happening here. He heard all of that though. Midoriya was implying something Nezu can't-_

"I would like to offer…"

 _Don't._ Zach's red eyes narrowed, his fists balling furiously at his sides before Nezu had finished his sentence.

"…you a place back at U.A."

"Zach, U.A. is safe," Midoriya continued right after Nezu finished, his lack of hesitation making the mouse-man on the other side guess how poorly Sazaki responded to his offer.

Nezu sat alone in his office with his phone out in front of him. His eyes rose from his phone though and to a chair in front of his desk where he recalled a muscular woman in a red costume sitting earlier that day. It had been over a year since she had been a member of his faculty, but due to the circumstances of her withdrawal from Japan and how she had not gone through proper protocols, getting Mother Russia back to U.A. had been a hassle. He was happy to finally have her back with them, though the conversation the two of them had had after classes alone earlier had him feeling restless again as he heard the tone of Sazaki's voice on the other side of the line.

 _After all he has done, he sounds defeated,_ Nezu hesitated though at his own thoughts. _Could that be his, plan? In order to get back here… he could have predicted Midoriya's strategy. He and Raijin, the two of them have made it past me before. But…_ In Nezu's head he saw as Mother Russia started talking about the Army of Death without provocation.

Something had been bothering her since she arrived at U.A., and Nezu had not seen what it was until the middle of their conversation as he made a joke about being a mouse and not a man due to something she said. That led to her bringing up a testing facility on polar bears in Siberia, and Death's brutal slaughter of all the tortured subjects that wanted nothing but death… _Except for one. He revived the one creature intelligent enough to regret, and curse its life as it died. Gave it a second chance. She still didn't know why he did it. Or how, he could make that decision in the middle of a fight like that. Sazaki is Death. Death's actions were so far removed from those of a hero or villain. What I know however, is that the kind of decisions he made out there weighed heavily on him and crushed him every day. That tone in his voice isn't of defeat. No. It is a dread, knowing what he plans to go back to. The kind of life he would have to live outside of society._

"I told you before that you could not return to U.A., but since you have nowhere to go-"

"That's not something to concern yourself with," Zach cut-in before Nezu could finish. "I do have somewhere, and I'm actually about to leave."

Nezu closed his mouth and his eyes closed too. He had to stop his offer at what Sazaki said right there in such a calm and decided tone. _He is telling me that he is going back to the Army of Death. I know that._ The mouse-dog-bear man sighed and he opened his eyes again to stare at his phone in a thoughtful way. _What should I do? Can I continue the offer now, knowing that Sazaki is so easy to revert to breaking the rules?_ "Are, you going to disappear forever?" Nezu questioned.

Midoriya spun to the phone he held out, then back to Zach in front of him who did not react to the question like he did. Zach hesitated, then he just said, "I am." Midoriya tilted his head back with his face scrunching up, and Zach continued while looking softly back into Midoriya's eyes, "I won't come back again just to make things worse, as I know I have already this time. I'm sorry, Midoriya," Zach said to the curly-haired teen in front of him. Midoriya stared back in a crushed way as he saw Zach's expression reverting to the way it had looked only once before: right at the end of the Lifebringer Incident. When Zach had said 'goodbye.'

On the other end of the phone back at U.A., Nezu's eyes shook as he stared at his phone screen. He suddenly remembered a conversation he had once had with All Might. _**"Sazaki has cooperated fully yet would not confirm anything on his injuries. The judges accepted and the matter is to be kept private. We will give a press conference as soon as the media catches wind to confirm his return, but say nothing of his time with the villains… It was my failure as a principal that allowed this to happen. He has been left in our care in order for us to educate and protect him as he is made into a hero who can protect himself and fight the villains. In the next two years, I wish to fix my failure. Will you help me?"**_

"What if that were not your only option though?" Nezu wondered. Zach looked towards the phone again as he heard his old principal's voice coming out of it with a different emotion than he believed he had ever heard come from Principal Nezu before. "You made this decision without knowing that you had an alternative, correct? Well I take back what I said before-"

"It was never just because of our call after I got out of Tartaros," Zach countered in a low voice with a slight shake of his head. His teeth grit though as he heard that desperation in Nezu's voice to get him back, not very clear in his tone yet clear to Zach who could hear it in how quickly Nezu was speaking and countering him here.

"There are still-"

"Why would you let me?" Zach snapped, his voice dark and his eyes glaring harsher at the phone. "Knowing where I plan on running to right now?" _Or where the two of you think I'm going._ Zach's eyes stayed narrowed though shifted to glare Midoriya's way too then back at Nezu's name on Midoriya's phone.

"Because you have one more month," Nezu answered. Zach frowned deeper as the hero on the other side continued, "When that month is over you will have options. You will have choices to make," Midoriya's eyes widened and darted back to his phone as he had been examining Zach's dark face closely trying to see a sign of him changing his mind. Nezu continued in a lower voice, "When that time comes I do hope you would make the right choice, and stay here as a hero who people can look up to. As it stands now though you do not have that choice in front of you. And without options, I know you pick whatever you see can working out for the best."

Zach started shaking his head, but he froze as Nezu suddenly stated, "It was my greatest shame as principal to allow what happened to you at the hands of the League of Villains." Zach rose his gaze up and he stared at the speaker of the glowing phone he heard his principal's voice coming from. "That was what I believed when you returned the first time," Nezu continued in a quieter voice. "I promised myself, I would look after you from then on until your graduation. Instead I stood by and watched, oblivious, as one of the League's core members continued to torment you and set up the most horrible betrayal-"

"I forgive you for that," Zach said.

He spoke up suddenly and with something that stunned Nezu into freezing as much as it made Midoriya's eyes open huge at the kind of response Zach had. Zach would usually tell someone not to worry about it, or that it was not their fault, or treat it as nothing. Zach just said in a serious tone at the silent phone though, "Whatever your miscalculations, they are not your fault for not being smart enough. Kaminari was just smarter," Zach said. _Give the credit where it's due._ "He was more cruel than one in the light could imagine," Zach explained in a soft but intense voice to show he meant each word of it. "And I determined how I responded to his betrayal, knowing I could never return."

 _I never even wanted to go back,_ Zach reminded himself. The tips of his black hair were getting blacker than the air around him. Darkness covered his hair and extended it longer and wavier behind his head. At the same time, black tendrils wisped out around his forehead and sides of his head at the same level. A cloth-like black ribbon wrapped tightly around Zach's forehead with twin tails waving around behind his head. _I knew U.A. was too far away. It always has been._

"This country still needs you," Nezu continued rapidly, telling himself to speak fast as he knew how quickly Sazaki could think and respond. "The country needs Lifebringer, more now than ever. The message you send to people is vital in today's tumultuous times…"

Midoriya's breathing got heavier just on the other side of the line, and Nezu's tiny fists curled over his desk as he heard the boy's breath hitch. Midoriya's eyes darted down to Zach's right side where a pair of black swords just formed attached to his waist as if on some kind of invisible belt. And then his eyes snapped to Zach's left hand at his side that curled open the smallest amount to allow the black hilt to form inside his grip, and the katana's blade to start extending out from it. "Don't, Zach," Midoriya started over Nezu's voice.

 _He can't let me leave._ Zach's red eyes locked steady onto Midoriya's. _This isn't an attempt to help me. They need to stop me. They can't have me out there without oversight. They can't let me off their leash._ Black spiderwebs shot in from the sides of Zach's face over his skin, and the hair on top of his head spiked up and waved around more as if there was a wind over him even though the alley was eerily calm and quiet. _He's holding himself back even now. All he's wanted is to fight me from the beginning. And now he has to uphold the guise of being forced into it. They'd never just let me go. Prison's not a place._

The sword coming out of Zach's left hand extended farther, and Zach glared at Midoriya who had stepped towards him down the alley and who was now looking at the tip of the sword that stopped extending only two feet from his body. Midoriya stared at the blade with an unsettled feeling swirling in his chest, but looking up he did not feel threatened by Zach's threatening look. "You won't hurt me," Midoriya started. He shook his head at his old classmate who just grit his teeth in anger and then ground them at that kind of response to what he was doing.

 **"You've been looking for this fight from day one,"** Zach's voice came out darker, deeper, his regular voice overlapping it and making the whole thing sound scratchy and off.

"I've been dreading it!" Midoriya countered and even took a step forward towards Zach. He got over half the distance of the gap closer to the tip of the blade held out in front of him, but Zach's dark sword did not waver to Midoriya's movement. Midoriya grit his teeth as Zach did not even flinch to him doing that, as he hoped Zach would. Yet seeing that only made him feel all the more desperate, "You have to come back to U.A., Zach! You have to. Everyone you need is there. And you can still be a hero!"

"I know you won't let me leave," Zach replied under his breath, his voice still dark and deep, though not as scratchy as a moment ago as it came out somehow soft to the teen standing six feet in front of him. Zach stared into Midoriya's eyes with his glowing red ones, and he warned, "And when you chase me and try to stop me, I will fight-"

"I won't have to chase you!" Midoriya snapped back and interrupted Zach. "Because I'm going to convince you to stay," Midoriya continued, and he stepped forward in a steady movement without hesitation and looking like as big a step as he took the last time.

Zach's red eyes shot wider and his sword shrank a foot. His teeth just bared harder though as Midoriya stopped where the tip of his blade had just been. There was a moment of quiet between the two, as Midoriya had not been knocked unconscious by the sword he almost just stepped into, even though neither was positive that that was going to the result of Midoriya's last step. Nezu's voice spoke up in that silence between the two, "It's not just about your public figure." Zach kept his eyes locked on Midoriya's even as Nezu spoke this time. Nezu's voice continued through the air and filled the ears of the boys locking eyes with one another, "What the public thinks of you, it's not just a positive or negative. It's the public's view of you and everything you've done, even if most of what they think may be myth and legend, stories, or truths maybe they can't believe."

Midoriya thought for a moment that Zach's expression would shift in an accusatory way thinking that he had told Nezu something, but Zach did not react. Zach just knew Principal Nezu's mind well enough to understand why he would say something like that whether or not any of his friends had told him truths he had shared with them. "You are bigger than one man now," Nezu continued. "And you know that, and you have taken that very seriously for a long time. I wish for you to think about what it is you came back here to do," Nezu requested of the student he was speaking to. "And whether or not you have truly made things worse, or if they are simply unfinished?"

 _The real reason I came back here,_ Zach reminded himself. _I could have gone anywhere to leave Darling, but why did I come here? All those goals weren't as important as I made them out to be. I just needed those reasons to survive. To keep myself occupied. My mind is clear now though. I can see, so I know that I clearly can't go back to U.A. No one would accept me there. This talk means nothing. Nezu and Midoriya aren't the only ones at U.A._

"Some things would be finished," Zach countered the principal with a shake of his head shrouded in Death. "Should I leave now, what happened this morning will have greatest impact."

Midoriya's eyes widened and he thought back on the video of the convenience store but also of Ashido's explanation of what he was doing. _If he meant to scare villains, then Zach disappearing after that would be more effective than anything! They'd be absolutely terrified! Everyone would be! So for villains-_ "And so you'll use that as an excuse to run away?!" Midoriya snapped, his breathing ragged but the shout coming out faster than he could even think about it. Zach's red eyes narrowed at him, but Midoriya leaned his head over the top of the black sword that wavered this time at his movements, and he scolded, "You don't need to do things like that. That isn't the only way you can help, and I know being like that is hard for you."

"Haven't we had this conversation?" Zach asked, his head tilting back and his red eyes flaring as he snarled, "I'm just naturally scary."

"No, you're not!" Midoriya snapped right back while ignoring that whole movement that he felt no intimidation over seeing. It was not the reaction Zach had expected or wanted, making him grind his teeth again as Midoriya just continued at him in a knowing voice, "You don't like when people look at you afraid. You hate it, when people are that afraid of you. And you can still become a hero, and get looked at like a hero, and save people as a hero who doesn't have to scare everyone-"

"I don't hate it-"

"Taking off your helmet?" Midoriya asked, and Zach's body tensed up with his eyes snapping open wide and losing most of the red glow in them. "You wanted to save that girl, right? At the War Boys Incident?"

"I took it off, to help her," Zach argued, shaking his head as he had been shaken for a moment there by what Midoriya dragged up. "Not because I hated how it felt to be looked at, like that."

"So it didn't hurt you?" Midoriya asked, and Zach stayed quiet instead of responding as Midoriya called him out on not really countering what he was saying here. "You did it to help her, but seeing that look on an innocent girl's face directed at you, when you were trying to save her… I've never had to feel that, but just imagining getting looked at- in the way I see people look at you," Midoriya's face scrunched up, and Zach pulled his own head back at the water in the bottom of Midoriya's eyes.

Zach lost the darkness surrounding his body as his threatening actions were doing nothing to dissuade Midoriya from his attempts or get him to attack. He shook his head though with his teeth grinding again as Midoriya tried to step closer, and he got his former classmate to stop from approaching any closer. _Why am I here?_ Zach closed his eyes when his head shook to the right one time, and he stopped and bowed his head down with his thoughts bashing against each other in his mind. _What's the reason? Why would I leave though? I can't just forget the reason because things aren't going well for me. And why would I deny them? What's the reason? It's because… because… I'm afraid._

 _Of everything I've done. Out of all the battles and wars, going back to U.A. and facing everyone I left behind in such a bad way is scariest. If just another couple of months had passed, we never would have all been together again. Yet if I would have to return and live with them, I'd have to make the amends I'm so afraid to keep trying- or to start trying for- And I don't even have time! Less than I thought Kotsumura and Reika could- and I think I can get everything in within a month?! I destroyed everything!_

 _ **"Zach don't!"**_

 _ **"STOP!"**_

 _ **"Please! Don't do it!"**_

 _ **"Just knock him out!"**_

 _ **"Get the barrier down!"**_

 _ **"Zach!"**_

 _ **"Zach!"**_

 _ **"ZACH!"**_

"No one would accept me back there," Zach said darkly, his eyes raising up and locking back on Midoriya's. "Just because you came-"

"No one will be against it," Midoriya said back. Zach stopped with his mouth open and his head just pulled back more with a confused and pained expression. Midoriya knew what that was for though as he thought about how the common room had looked before Ashido came back in earlier. "You haven't fixed things with everyone yet," he paused, and Zach looked at his friend's face closer with widening eyes as Midoriya's expression shifted and Zach knew that Midoriya was talking about himself too. "And so a lot of them will still have a hard time accepting you, and you're going to struggle to deal with them too, but you have to try again." Midoriya said it with his face scrunching up too and him shaking his head that they had come to this point once again. "As hard as you tried before, only now do you actually have a chance to live with them and study, train, and fight with them- with us in close quarters."

"It's the only way you can really make an effort-"

"I did try," Zach whispered. His eyes dropped down from Midoriya and he said under his breath, "Even without those things… I tried, Midoriya. I really…"

The resolve from earlier was gone in Zach's voice, as he knew Midoriya had a point. Yet in his mind now all he could remember were the looks of unfamiliarity from the joint training forest. Former classmates who just watched him with skepticism, doubtful looks to every word out of his mouth. _Like I was a stranger,_ Zach saw some of those looks directed at him from old classmates; looks that were the same as how some of the Shiketsu students had looked at him on his first day in their class. _Like I was planning something that had nothing to do with their training, and that every word out of my mouth was fake. I don't think I can deal with that every day, from everyone around me, again…_ Zach's shoulders slouched and his breath gasped out as he barely finished that exhausting thought.

His feet felt dead. How he was still holding up his own body suddenly amazed him. There was no way to react to the amazement though, as he was too exhausted to make a face. His panting came out ragged and his eyes half-closed as he felt an fatigue unlike any other slam into his body. _So tired. I can't even-_ Zach closed his mouth, and his half-closed eyes clenched in frustration at himself. _Villains won't care. You know that. Every moment thinking about… They won't! I can't just, give up either though. I can't give any room. I have to move. Have to, keep moving._ Zach rose his right hand up to his forehead that he rubbed slowly back and forth. He pushed his own forehead up and took in a deep breath while looking at the teen in front of him.

"You're right." _I'll have to fix the things I gave up on. Things I decided were not important anymore._ "I was only leaving, because I couldn't stay-"

"Once you return to U.A., Sazaki," Nezu started. Midoriya's eyes were still wide and his mouth was in the middle of lifting into a smile, which was why Nezu's suddenly serious voice surprised him and made him spin to his phone anxiously. "You will not be permitted to leave until graduation." Zach rose his right eyebrow but said nothing for the moment, and Nezu continued, "It will be my decision. Due to the transfer, your workload will be too much on its own. I expect you to complete it, however."

Zach started taking in deep breaths through his nose and letting them out slowly from his mouth. _He's helping. Just let him help, don't argue with anything. Cutting down my workload means I can put more focus on each thing. He knows. He's smart. I should just listen. Follow his plan._ Zach nodded his head, and he responded, "I understand."

"I need you to," Nezu said after hearing Zach say that. "Because I am taking a risk here, Sazaki. You know it as well as I do. And so I will not make you promise anything to me, when we both know that any promise you make would be difficult for either of us to believe. I have to tell you this though, in the absence of any assurances from you:" Nezu paused and then lowered his voice and finished to his new and former student, "If you break the rules I set before you, there are no second chances this time." Zach stared at the floor between him and Midoriya without reacting to the principal's statement. "You must complete the term without incident. One wrong move and I will regretfully expel you just as Memuria was forced to. I need to know that you understand this."

"I do," Zach lifted his head. He said it firmly and locked his eyes back on Midoriya's again. "I know, this is my final chance," Zach said, and this time Midoriya could see Zach was speaking to him as much as to the principal.

* * *

In the dorm building for Class 3-A of U.A. High School, around half of the class sat around the common room well after midnight as they awaited news from either of their two classmates who had made it off campus. Neither Midoriya nor Yaoyorozu had checked back in with anyone yet, however, and so they were in the dark as to what was going on or if anything came from what Ashido told them earlier.

Ashido herself had passed out and been taken up to her room by Uraraka and Hagakure, only one of which came back down herself. Hagakure had remained upstairs, and Ojiro had gone up himself as well afterwards. Bakugo left for his own room and Todoroki did the same not long after, then Jirou followed suit followed by Aoyama and Asui who each returned to their own rooms without making a scene about it.

The others who remained stayed rather quiet as they waited for news. Mostly they just reflected on what Ashido had yelled at them while darting occasional glances towards the door and wondering if they should perhaps try to get a pass off campus again. Kirishima's pacing was getting on Tokoyami's nerves the 300th time he was going back and forth, but the dark teen with a beak did not have a chance to snap at him as the door to the dorm opened inwards.

 _This is awkward- no. No this is just, just wrong,_ Zach stared towards nine of his classmates who all stared back at him without moving as they watched him enter the dorm. He was a scar-faced, muscular teen, at six feet two inches tall, wearing all black with a heavy backpack on over his black sweatshirt. His clothes looked semi-damp, like his backpack, and his appearance was scraggly and gave off an aura of 'just-came-off-the-streets' feeling. Zach looked at them though and he gave a nod in their direction before turning towards the stairs and walking that way.

Midoriya stepped in after Zach and turned in surprise as Zach just started right for the staircase. His eyes lowered down to the floor after tracking Zach away for a moment, then he turned and looked back the other way to the rest of the class. Midoriya took off his shoes and closed the door before walking towards the other students who were still stunned by the way Zach just entered and walked right into the stairwell without more than a nod to acknowledge their presence there waiting for him. "Midoriya, you really found him," Kirishima said, sounding impressed even though his arms just crossed over his chest in annoyance at what just happened.

"He was still here after all," Sato muttered.

Uraraka sighed out a breath of relief as Deku nodded. _Mina had me so worried._

Sero leaned his head around and looked towards the stairs where Zach went to without coming over to talk to them first. _What was up with that? He didn't even make eye contact with me or…_

"He came back here," Shoji began quietly. "I didn't think he would."

"Yeah," Kirishima agreed, though he grunted it more than Shoji was just stating his thoughts aloud. "Ashido was overreacting after all-"

"No," Midoriya whispered, his head shaking side to side softly as he interrupted Kirishima. His voice came out for the first time since they saw him, and they heard a sad tone in it that made Kirishima flinch to hear and dart his eyes back towards the stairs. Midoriya turned his head partially to the side too though and he whispered to his classmates, "Ashido, was right about everything. If I had gotten there a minute later… A few seconds later, even," Midoriya paused for a second and his head bowed as just thinking about what could have been had him horrified at how close he had been to failure once again. _And it wasn't even me! If not for Ashido- and without Principal Nezu's help I couldn't have done anything!_

Midoriya finished in a low whisper to the others behind him who stared at his back in shock, "He would have been gone."

On the fifth floor of the dorm, Zach stood outside of a room staring at a closed door he faintly recognized. His right hand hesitated in front of the doorknob. The boy turned his head to the left and looked down the hallway to see if anyone was going to come stop him. His head turned a bit more and he looked straight back to the girl's side of the hall where he could see Yaoyorozu's door too, but no one was emerging from it. _No one stopped me from walking up here. Thought Bakugo would be waiting, or something. Maybe there's someone inside._

Zach opened the door and stepped into the doorway. He stared into the dark room and did not bother to turn on the light. His eyes were adjusted enough that even when he closed the door the light from outside his window was enough. The blinds were open in his window frame filling his room with the light of Musutafu at night and a clear sky above. Zach stood alone in a room still furnished despite no one having lived in it for years. _I was sixteen last time I stood in here. I don't even, remember._ Zach stared to his desk, then to his made bed, over to his dresser. _They must have searched my room, right? Or, or did they all know that I would never have left clues to my whereabouts after the way I left them? Or- or why did they leave it like this? Why is my room so… pristine? Untouched?_

Zach stepped towards his dresser and ran his right hand over the top of it. He lifted his hand and looked at the dust on his palm and fingertips, then he brushed off his glove using his fake left hand. _Didn't have this last time I was in here,_ Zach stared at his hand as he lowered it. He slid his backpack off his shoulders and dropped it to the floor, and he looked around a bedroom that appeared just as he had left it. _Even though it looks the same,_ Zach's lips curled down more at the corners. He recalled the looks of those downstairs who could not come up with anything to say when they saw him enter. _Not like I could either,_ he told himself darkly. _We're strangers. I'm not meant to be here, and they know it…_

He reached down from the top of his dresser and opened one of the drawers. _None of the clothes will fit-_ Zach's thoughts cut off as he saw something sitting on top of the clothes in his top drawer. The fact that his classmates and faculty had left this room like this had him surprised, but stunning him frozen was what he saw sitting on top of his clothes. _I, left this here,_ Zach remembered as he reached into the drawer and picked up the small piece of paper sitting on top of his clothes.

Zach lifted up the receipt he found in his drawer. He rose it up in front of his face, and he felt the muscle memory of doing the exact same thing in the same place once before but several inches shorter. He remembered picking it up off the floor while cleaning his room after he had smashed it apart. _I decided not to bring it with me,_ Zach thought as he stared at the receipt that told him his meal was free, that 'Lifebringer eats free.' _I abandoned Zach Sazaki. Things that meant a lot to him… I remember a time where seeing that would have warmed my heart. His heart. I don't even know the person who received that receipt anymore. He may have been an anti-hero, getting an alibi in Kyoto, but he isn't me._

He rose his head and glared around the small box of a room. _I don't recognize this room, even though it should feel like home. My room in the Cloak was bigger. It was never anything more than a place to sleep though. The Cloak 2.0 I barely ever slept on too… My room at the apartment felt like something, but it was Norita who made that place feel anything like a home._ Zach walked over to his desk and he pulled out his chair, though he stopped and stared at the top of his desk as he remembered the last things he had written on it. His eyes clenched shut, and he shook his head around while glancing back towards his door leading to the rest of the dorm.

 _The people here are strange. They aren't who I remember. Who I came back to help… I didn't know the people I was coming here for. I didn't know anything about the new them, and they don't know the new me…_ Zach sighed and he sat down in the chair he had still been gripping the back of. He shook his head some more while staring down at his hands he held palms-up on his lap, _I doubt I even know the new me. Those looks they gave me though,_ Zach thought back on how the group of them looked his way with one collective look of unknowing. Not one of them knew what to say to him. Whether they were friends he had seen a dozen times since returning, or only a couple, it all felt the same as he returned to be a member of their class again. _Half of them haven't even- they don't accept it. Midoriya can pretend, but he was lying. I don't belong here,_ Zach leaned back in his chair and stared straight up at the ceiling.

 _I'm being let in on obligation rather than merit. I don't deserve this,_ Zach sighed and blew air out his mouth while lifting his left hand up above his tilted-back head. _Or because Principal Nezu and Midoriya fear what I'd turn into if they weren't watching me. I'm a prisoner under their watch,_ his left hand opened up wide above him then curled into a fist as his lips curved down more at the corners. His eyes narrowed as he glared at that darkening fist, _Soon to be revealed to everyone for what I really am, and then I'll be taken away on their terms instead of my own._

His hand lost the darkness as soon as it started spreading, and he dropped his left arm down to his side limply. He stayed leaned back in his chair but he bowed his head again to put his chin into his chest.

Downstairs, several students in their own rooms lifted their phones as a message was sent through their class's groupchat by Midoriya. 'Yaoyorozu come back to the dorm. Zach is here. Principal Nezu has offered Zach a place in Class A to finish off the term.' Midoriya hesitated himself after he had sent the message, wondering if he should go back and add the other things he had wanted to but erased every time he started writing them. Telling the others to accept Zach, or welcome him back; he could not decide and finally chose not to send anything telling the others how they should treat Zach, as he knew it would be different for each one of them.

Midoriya was still downstairs with a few classmates in the common room when he sent the message, and it was Iida who suggested it in the first place since Yaoyorozu was still out looking. Midoriya felt bad he had not sent something to her sooner, but he had not actually known that anyone else had been allowed out of school to go looking for Zach. After sending the message though, Midoriya headed back up to his floor alone, though he did pause in the stairwell and look up it before walking for his own room. _I already told him everything I needed to tonight. From here on we can make things more normal. See him every day, and not just after he's already taken a dozen more hits each time. Will Eziano try again while he's here? Is the League going to move before we graduate? There's so much happening right now, but I'm glad Zach's back._

 _I really needed you here. I- I don't know how we're going to deal with these threats. But we can do it together._

Zach sat on his chair with his arms limp at his sides and his head bowed down into his chest. His eyes were still wide open though and he just breathed heavy breaths while thinking about all the people around him right now. _I'm supposed to just get up tomorrow and walk into their classroom like nothing happened. I can still hear them screaming at me not to kill them. Not to kill those villains. I could have released them to fight alongside me. They could have all joined me and fought Kaminari together, and with Todoroki, Bakugo, and Midoriya all with me I know we would have stopped them from escaping. If I had taken down Backfire from the beginning too, even after I killed Kurogiri the others could have just joined me and helped me stop the rest… but then I wouldn't have been able to escape. Or save Snow._

Zach shook his head once. _I made the right choices. Every choice that led me there- that led me everywhere I saved a life. I saved two people today. Brought two people back to life, more precisely. Maybe I saved more. I scared more._ Zach's eyes closed slowly then clenched tighter once they were closed. _Stop avoiding the inevitability. Tomorrow you have to face them. Everyone you've lied to constantly… and you'll have to keep lying just to stay here. You told Midoriya and Nezu you would try. I can't try without lying. Half of them know already! So I'll just be-_ Zach rose his right hand and he gripped his fingers into the side of his head. _I'm starting over! Doing the same fucking thing all over again, and even more of them are going to find out, and I can't leave this place! No more reviving people. I won't have to die every day, so that's a small plus side. One month without constant death before… before- before what?! What comes then?! After?!_

 _A hero license? The right to go anywhere, and save everyone? That_ _ **responsibility?**_ Zach's breathing got heavier and his left hand rose like his right already had to the other side of his head. _Nothing will get better. One month here of having to face them all in this- this shitshow! And then eternal- nonstop- Ashido knows! She knows I can't- I warned her! Of course she doesn't have the answer though. No one has the answer, because it's not a question that's ever been asked._

 _What am I supposed to do?_

 _ **BOO BOO BOO…**_ Zach's head lifted and his hands lowered from his temples. His eyes opened a little wider but in that moment nothing less than a wave of relief slammed into him. _**BOO-BOO… BOOOOO BOO BOO BOO.**_

Zach lifted up his phone and he put it to the side of his head as he answered like he would any other call. His cellphone had not rung with its normal ringtone though. The voice that spoke over the other end was not the modulated voice he had heard the last time he was signaled with one of his own codes though. Instead he heard a very familiar voice, "Hey, Zach. It's me again. I'm alone right now. The other two here went out for drinks, actually…"

"Where?" Zach asked.

Rebel paused, but the question he was just asked was not referring to what bar Angie and Rampart had gone out to for drinks. The tone in Zach's voice told Rebel that the way he had started right there told Zach exactly what he was calling about. Rebel rose his right hand and he rubbed it on his forehead with a dark and hesitant look covering his face. "The coordinates are 40.7236N by 128.6012E. Hey," Rebel continued quickly. He had heard something in that single word questioned back to him in English, and he continued strongly to the boy over the line with him, "Let me call the others. I can have him meet you there-"

"It's too risky," Zach replied while opening up a map on his phone. "They'll scatter, and I'll never have another chance at this. It has to be me alone." Zach said it and he lowered his voice at the final part. "You know that, and it's why you called me instead of just relaying it on to your boss."

"No one's my boss," Rebel scoffed back. "I'm my own boss," he continued, his voice flat but his eyes sad as he stared at the computer screens in front of him. _Which is why I make my decisions, like calling you even though I was already ordered to call Gentle right away if I ever picked up a response._ "It was a code meant for me I found deep in the web," Rebel explained in a low voice. "In a sudden thread that drew my attention. A code only I could break, with coordinates and a message saying they were meant only for Zach Sazaki. Guess they knew you would be the one to get it-"

"Thank you," Zach said. "Rebel." Zach smiled softly and stood up from the chair in his room. He turned towards his window. "Keep being your own boss. You've always been good at bossing people around."

"Haha, ha," Rebel laughed at his computer, a few real laughs with his head tilting back for a moment. Then he shook his head and a more serious look came to his face as he heard a different tone in Zach's voice there arising. "There's only one person I'd ever consider following besides myself," Rebel said over the line.

Zach opened up his window in his old bedroom, his eyes flaring red and his entire body wrapped in darkness. Black wings were ripping violently out of his back and growing larger as he climbed up onto the windowsill. His teeth bared and his expression underneath the veil of Death turned Deathly intense. His shoulders shrugged and cracked as he leaned his head forward and dug the claws under his feet into his windowsill. The call between him and Rebel ended, and Zach's phone hit the top of his desk and bounced off of it once. Then a gust of wind blew it backwards off the desk onto the floor of Zach Sazaki's room as a dark missile shot away from U.A. at three hundred miles per hour.

On the second floor of Class A's dorm, Midoriya snapped up from his bed while picking up his phone that suddenly rang in his hands. "Principal Nezu?"

"Midoriya! Get to Sazaki's room now!" Nezu ordered his student who shot up more to his feet and rushed at his doorway with some Full Cowling going through his body.

Wind rushed by Midoriya's sides as he shot into the stairwell and up to the fifth floor without passing anyone. He shot down the fifth floor's hallway to Zach's door, and he opened it without hesitating to enter an empty bedroom. "No," Midoriya whispered. _Was it all fake?! He pretended to accept just so we wouldn't fight- because he thought if he tried to leave otherwise I would have fought him! NO! After just saying how he understood that leaving would mean he could never come back?! It was all a lie- AGAIN?!_ "He left?" Midoriya gasped, staring at the open window ahead of him. Zach's backpack sat on the floor to his right, and his phone lay face-down on the ground on Midoriya's left. His legs felt weak and his desperate look out the window did not show him anyone out there he could see and give chase to. _Wait- how did the principal know?_

"He is gone already then, as I feared," Nezu whispered, though Midoriya had brought his phone back up to his ear quickly having realized something himself.

"How did you know he left?" Midoriya asked.

"I intercepted a message entering our school's signal zone. All such signals are now tracked and recorded by the school without the knowledge of most everyone at U.A., and I myself do not listen to these messages but it is a safety measure I have installed. Midoriya, close the door behind you and listen. This is the call I just caught and started listening to before I called you," Nezu stopped for a moment and he pressed Play on a recording in front of him that now had an end time to it unlike when he first got the notification of the strange call.

Nezu and Midoriya listened together to the call from start to finish. Both sides of the line were recorded on it, and Midoriya's eye shot open huge at the sound of the coordinates the low voice on the other side of the line relayed to Zach. "Rebel," Nezu whispered as he heard Zach say the name, without caring that he would be associated with the person should he have been overheard or recorded.

Midoriya stared outside the open window in shock. _Those coordinates. I know who left that coded message._

"I told Sazaki what leaving would mean," Nezu began, and Midoriya's eyes opened wider with his breath hitching at the principal's words. "But he's gone anyway, because this is something he cannot let go." Midoriya's heart raced as the principal was not saying what he just thought the mouse-man was starting to. "The coordinates are the answer to his challenge," Nezu said with his voice getting much lower. "And I am certain that your friend knows he is walking into a trap."

Midoriya's fists clenched and Nezu's voice continued into his ear, "A trap set by the most powerful man in the world, and yet right now he's going to do something foolhardy, something reckless." Nezu paused and his teeth ground like Midoriya's were starting to. "Go save him, _Deku."_

"I was going to anyway," Midoriya replied right back in a firm voice, while opening up his phone and checking where those coordinates were himself.

"This will be the most dangerous thing you have ever done. However, Sazaki did not sound like he plans on surviving this, and considering I see that his phone is still located in that room and he knows he can't come back there, he does not plan on returning to U.A. even if he should survive. Deku, you heard that tone in Sazaki's voice." Midoriya nodded and made an affirmative noise while jumping up onto Zach's desk, stepping out on the windowsill scratched by talon marks. He bent his legs and thought, _Twenty percent._ He shot up into the sky, a huge gust of wind sliding Zach's desk backwards behind him. _And- NINETY PERCENT!_ Midoriya's body was not going to hold him back as he screamed it into his head, and he kicked his legs backwards after soaring high in the sky already.

 _I saw how beaten down Zach was by the world,_ Midoriya grit his teeth angrier as he heard that calm phone conversation and even the relieved tone Zach had at the end of it that this was how things were ending. _Crushed by everything! But I still can't believe, that he would rush out right after coming back! Knowing he'd never be allowed back here!_

"Bring Sazaki back," Nezu said as Midoriya held his phone back up against his head again. "Save Sazaki and return to U.A. with him." Nezu shook his head after saying it, then he yelled into his phone, "Sazaki would never be safe until he stops Eziano Mozcaccio! But more importantly to him, the people around him would always be in danger! And now that he was back at U.A., in a building surrounded by Class A!" Midoriya's fists tightened more and the mild pain he felt from constantly using 90% of One For All faded from thought at what Nezu was telling him. "Sazaki is breaking the rules, likely going for the kill, and yet I want you to save him! We need Lifebringer for what is coming! We cannot have him fall before the League and Raijin make their move, which I have seen for a long time now will account for Lifebringer being here!"

Midoriya's teeth grit even harder as Nezu told him that. The principal's tone was dark considering this was a reason that he needed to have Deku bring his friend back, and more-so one he _needed_ Deku to understand too as he had never told it to any of his students yet. "And if they're accounting for Lifebringer being in the heroes' ranks, then the villains' strength will be beyond anything we can imagine. Raijin would plan for victory even if we have Sazaki on our side, so we cannot lose him here! We can't lose Sazaki, not in this fight he feels he has to go to alone in order to protect everyone around him- in order to just live!"

"Those assassins will not let him live," Midoriya said back, his tone pained as he yelled it out over the wind to his principal with a furious look covering his face. He thought about the look on Zach's face after he had flown out to Yutapu the night Zach's apartment exploded. The sheer rage and agony and frustration of his friend whose apartment was destroyed by the assassins trying to kill him every day, killing his friends and everyone close to him… "None of that matters, Principal Nezu!" Midoriya yelled out. "They won't let Zach live here! They pushed him to feel like he had to leave- to leave _everything_ he cared about, _AGAIN!"_ Tears splashed off the sides of Midoriya's face as he shot through the sky as fast as he could safely in knowledge that he was going to have to fight where he was going. "I will catch up to him! I will save him! And… WE'RE GOING TO STOP THEM TOO!"

 _Getting Zach back tonight means nothing!_ Midoriya screamed internally. _I didn't save him, not if Zach goes off and dies right now in what he thinks is his final battle!_ Midoriya's face set in a fully determined way. "No matter what," Midoriya said, his voice hitting a tone Nezu had never heard from his student before and made his beady eyes shoot open huge at the intensity that made him no longer feel any urge to warn Deku to be careful. "I'm going to save Zach, and we'll bring in Eziano and his assassins… alive."

Midoriya shoved his phone into his pocket and kicked again into the direction of the coordinates he had checked. _Ninety- TWO!_ Midoriya forced himself to put a little extra into a kick, _He's ahead of me, but I am faster! I have to be able to reach him before he gets there! His headstart isn't insurmountable!_ Midoriya flew over the water and swung his arms behind him while kicking again, yelling out over the empty sky, "RAAAA!" _I won't let you kill anyone ever again! You haven't since you returned, and as long as I can keep you from it then it's not too late! I can bring you back as many times as I need to!_ Midoriya kicked back behind him again, swung his arms down at his sides to give himself extra speed, and he snapped his head forward to scream, "ZAAACHHH!"

* * *

 **A/N Thanks for reading. Hope you guys enjoyed the chapter. And Happy New Year's everyone! Wanted to get in one final chapter before the year's end, and I don't have to head to work until 5 tonight so I knew I had the time to edit and post this one... Zach gets sent coordinates. His return to U.A. is short-lived, but Midoriya's chasing right after him... Get hyped! XD Leave a review below telling me what you thought of the chapter, and predictions/questions for what's ahead!**

Logargon chapter 210 . Dec 24

HAPPY NEW YEARS, this was such a good chapter

 **HAPPY NEW YEARS to you too! And thanks!**

diddles321 chapter 210 . Dec 25

Ch 93 and ch 210 are my favourite chapters by far. Brilliant chapter, and i cant wait for the next one.

 **Happy to hear that you really liked the last chapter! Hope you enjoyed the new one too!**

Raven Mordrake chapter 210 . 1h ago

Did you read the last chapters of the manga where Kurogiri's true identity was discovered?Do you plan to implement it in history?

 **I did, and not likely. The character it would affect the most is Aizawa and he's gone in this story. Kurogiri's already dead too so the reveal wouldn't mean much, except to make Present Mic real sad.**


	212. Chapter 212

**Disclaimer: I don't own Boku no Hero Academia**

 **Chapter 212:**

Zach reached and passed the coast of Korea without stopping. The lights below him quickly faded to become more sparse and spread out. He glared into the distance with his red eyes at the silhouettes of the mountains he was approaching. _So close, this whole time._

In northeastern United Korea, the mountains were especially high compared to the other mountain ranges around the country. A long mountain range stretched across the entire Korean Peninsula, but the tallest mountains in the northeast also came with the coldest and longest winters because of their elevation and latitude. Due to this, even the advanced farming techniques of UK that allowed for farming on the sides of mountains had left a huge expanse of the landscape untouched in a certain section of the mountain range. Attempts to move in any farther had failed to be cost effective, so even though the country was prioritizing its agricultural sector to prevent another famine that had become legend to the Korean people in how devastating it was, United Korean farmers stayed away from the Muindo Range.

The Muindo Mountains seemed to be against the Korean people. They had used reform alongside advancements to expand their farm program over the past century, where Korea had subsidized city-dwellers to move back out into the country and grow crops. Infrastructure had been rebuilt with roads leading all over the nation with a great highway system and good bridges. These programs were somewhat unpopular in big cities where most people lived and were paying for these things despite not being out in the countryside where they were used the most. Yet the programs still went on, because despite some public frustration at the high taxes, Koreans naturally looked up to those who moved out to farm.

They respected the hard work. Frontier-ish, even.

Everyone knew that another famine would be horrible, considering the first one had been disastrous enough to unite the separated Koreas. Everyone also knew that crime was much higher in the countryside where there were fewer heroes. Villains were most active in the Korean country during the recent Age of Villains, though Korean heroes did much to combat them, so people thought it was generally safe again. City dwellers considered the rest of the country as a safe place to travel around, where they could visit small towns, give some tourism to local attractions that drew in city folk on vacation who did not want to go too far but would still like a trip.

However, the farther northeast one would travel in Korea, the fewer and fewer towns and attractions they will find. None of the major cities are in the northeast, with Pyongyang being the farthest city north in the new United Korea. In the far northeast which was once a more populated area, people had long abandoned the towns and cities there to migrate south. Too split off from the rest of the country by the tall mountains, there had been a mass exodus a long time ago.

Despite some farmers returning to the far north over past decades to retake the land from nature, those areas were still divided from most of the country by tall mountains, and as such the people used sea routes to travel down the nation and trade goods with the large coastal cities. Other than sea routes, they could only use the air, but even the air routes went around the Muindo Mountains that often had dark clouds high above them and dropped heavy snow year round. The tallest mountains in the country, the Muindo Mountains also had the shortest recreational climbing season that only took place during a few months of the summer season. It was illegal to attempt the climb the rest of the year as it would put rescue personnel in too much danger to allow tourists to climb in the worst conditions.

Yet travel to the Muindo Range was rare, even in climbing season.

The range did not become something people pointed at and said that they wanted to climb as a challenge, because those who did looked up help on how to climb and failed to find easy paths. There were of course guides who would lead up the tallest mountains, but those guides charged high fees and lived far from the uninhabitable mountain range itself.

The countryside had been forcefully repopulated through government programs after the war and famine, so all of the land around that un-farmable region had once been abandoned. Empty towns, old broken-down houses, roads that were falling apart with no upkeep for centuries, and yet those were the roads climbers had to take to get as close to the mountains as they could before beginning their ascents. There was no service out there either, as cell companies knew no one lived there for them to bother to provide service for.

It was just a cold, desolate place. There were some small forests, abandoned failed farms where the land had been cleared and then overgrown in past decades, new but still abandoned buildings near them that the guides would often use as rest stops when taking regretful tourists towards the mountain range, a hike in itself just to reach them as there was no way to drive to the bases. No businesses had sprouted up in the areas around the range, even though one would think that some entrepreneur or a kid of a farmer would see the opportunity and start a business. They could market tours to city vacationers, hire some of the local farmers who act as guides for a high fee once in a while to become more full-time… Yet no one did.

There was something most people in United Korea did not know about the Muindo Mountains. Something only the locals who lived in the closest arable areas knew, or rather they believed in. It was why the cost of leading groups of the mountain was so high, higher than just a fee for their time, and their service; it was a fee the guides set knowing that it was unsafe as well. The trek was dangerous, and groups even led by guides were frequently discovered by heroes who went to search for them as having frozen to death, starved or died of exposure, fell off cliffs, etcetera. It was one of the most dangerous mountain ranges because of its lack of clear trails or professional guides, and due to few government regulations because of a lack of interest in mountains that were not very interesting to climb, (Most of the reviews discussing the trek mentioned how the fog and bad conditions made it so there was never a good view. They also discussed how the lower paths were all overgrown first, then became steeper and covered in snow that had not been traversed and made it nearly impossible to move higher up the slopes).

People knew that the path was not just dangerous and difficult, but that the guides would also overcharge and act superstitious for no reason, deciding not to climb on certain days or to turn back for reasons unknown to the disappointed climbers. The reviews claimed that they turned around like they were afraid of the mountains themselves.

The farmers who lived closest to the mountains did fear them though. Those locals had made stories about the things that lived on the mountains, and when acquaintances of theirs went up and died on treks, they were told that the deaths were from natural causes but who could be sure? What if the government was covering it up? What if there were monsters out there? Parents told the stories to their kids, kids who then heard about other farmers going missing and winding up found dead near the Muindo Mountains. Sure-footed guides who had done treks up the tallest and most dangerous mountain dozens of times, found at the base of a small cliff with a broken neck.

Superstition became fear. Why were those mountains infertile, even though some were still at a low enough elevation which their techniques had worked on other mountains in the south? Why was there a disproportional amount of snow in their region, every, single, year? Every bad storm became a cause for the people nearby to blame the mountain monsters, blame some God, blame their stories, even if to most of them they still were just stories…

Those stories stayed with the people of the region though. Local tales passed down through time, some that felt like part of the attraction to the tourists who did try the trek. It added to the "culture" of their vacations into the boonies. They were soon forgotten by the people returning to work in cities who were grateful for the hospitality shown to them by the country folk in the northeast but who did not actually take those country bumpkins seriously. Conspiracy theories require people to dig into them and look for answers… and so there was no conspiracy of the mountains, as no one seemed to care enough to make them up.

A few conspiracists had gone there to record once, but they accidentally died, showing they were not prepared for the environment they had entered just to prove the deaths were not accidental. They had stupidly frozen because they did not pack warm enough clothes and could not find their ways back after going in without guides. It became big news after a few of their deaths, but everyone knew the area was dangerous and those young college students were considered foolish for underestimating nature. Locals knew though. In the backs of their minds. The superstitions they felt ingrained since they were children, and that those people had gone to prove. The fact that they lived so close to the mountains, and yet their parents and grandparents never took them there. 'No hikes,' their parents would tell them.

"Don't become a guide."

People at the end of their ropes because of a few bad harvests or bad investments into which crops to grow, or who used their money irresponsibly, would often turn to becoming guides to get that extra cash… Another risky investment. And many would die because of it. In hiking accidents. It was an occupational hazard of being a Muindo Range guide, one of the few who actually traversed through the surrounding forests and up in elevation to where the trees could not grow.

There were some valleys in between mountains too with other forests, though most had not been traversed for centuries. The range went on for a hundred miles north to south, with around fifty to sixty miles wide across that hundred mile span as uninhabitable as well. Thousands of square miles, with barely anyone ever exploring the area, with a few "safe" paths through it that people still died on. And there existed no modern-day roads built into the area except to failed farming villages on the outskirts that were still considered part of the Muindo Zone because of their abandoned state.

The locals on the outskirts of the Muindo Range, on both sides east and west, and just to the north and south of the Range, all knew in their hearts what they refused to believe in their minds. The "stories" they told, were a better explanation than whatever else could be happening. The "monsters" they described, were more believable stories to tell themselves than the truth. Because that many accidents? That many coincidences? Too many smart guides who knew exactly which trails to take, where to step, and what _not_ to do in the Muindo Range had died. And everyone died naturally. In a mountain range that should not have claimed as many lives. Mountains that are not the tallest in the world. An area not very far from places where people live… And yet they die.

A disproportionate amount of people die compared to how hard the trek should be. Yet they have been dying for so long, that to people outside of the area, that range is just one of the hardest to traverse. And locals who heard that consensus outside of their region: that their mountain range is just one of the most difficult to climb… they don't argue with it. They don't argue even though they know it's strange that people think that way. They stayed quiet while guides agreed with that consensus and got fewer people to travel there, fewer hikers, and much fewer vacationers who were just looking for a fun time and not a death sentence. Professional climbers still came, but among their community the mountains were considered over-hyped by "the locals wanting business" as the treks were nowhere near as hard as some they had prepared for. And so, the mountains were unpopular to all.

The Muindo Range was an isolated part of a longer mountain range, with no one living in its uninhabitable wilderness. The closest people to it had made up stories that were passed down over centuries about the Range… and yet the people around to that day who considered those stories as having been created by ancestors a few hundred years ago when the Muindo Range was named and isolated, or back only a hundred years to when farming villages were created and abandoned, did not realize that their ancestors' stories were also based on superstitions they already had and just adapted in a new form. Stories that had long existed in the area, but had been mostly forgotten for a few centuries of _science._ Local legends, that people remembered again as hiking to the top of hard-to-climb mountains became a worldwide sport. Old legends that were almost forgotten to time, and have been now, replaced by the new stories of the monsters in the Muindo Range. Stories of the inhabitants of the Muindo Mountains. A demon clan who would occasionally leave the mountains and kidnap an entire village.

Disappearances of dozens of people had been attributed to the Muindo Range claiming more lives, as not every _body_ was found when the bodies piled up. Searches were called off though after a certain amount of time, every time, as the area was full of wild animals too so any dead body left out there for too long would never be located at all. Bears, wolves, and some even rumored tigers that must have repopulated on their own after nearing extinction in the region centuries earlier. It was rare to see them, but it was illegal to carry a firearm, and illegal to harm one of the endangered carnivorous animals, and so those creatures all just added to the reasons people believed the locals told stories of monsters. It was why people accepted that travelers would disappear without a trace in those woods, or with the only trace of them being their shredded belongings like a bear had ransacked their campsite, or just some blood splashed in the snow…

Locals had feared the truth for a long time however. Deep inside, most of them understood that their fear of the mountains had nothing to do with the "Natural" order and danger of mother Earth. Some thought it to be the will of God. Others considered that it was a secret government testing site- where all those who wander in on something they were not supposed to see were silenced. Fortunately, the United Korean government was not that evil. And yet it was corrupt at the highest levels, if only for one reason.

The top officials had not all accepted bribes. They were not being blackmailed… not technically. Most just pushed it from their minds too, though they all listened. They listened to the local of the Muindo area who would arrive after elections at their campaign offices, and who would be allowed a meeting with them in private to discuss local issues in their area.

Some politicians considered repopulating the whole of the nation as a priority. Farming supposedly "un-farmable" areas was a big deal too, to some. Yet those issues never got anywhere in regards to the Muindo region, a region that was not originally actually called "Muindo," a nickname for the area which meant "uninhabitable" in Korean. It was what the mountains had been renamed as solely because everyone started calling them that when the nickname spread.

Government officials would never see this local again. Some looked into him afterwards but never found an address for his name.

The man never threatened them. Others at the top of the United Korean government mentioned it to each other though. The strange man who had come to them and warned them not to do anything to encourage people to move into the area. He had _warned_ them, about how many, many people would die should they push for more tourism in the area. Tourism that he claimed the people in the Muindo Range would prefer did not happen as it was dangerous for them as well. The officials assumed the man meant for the people _around_ the Muindo Range.

The warning never mentioned _why_ it was dangerous, as the messenger did not talk about the dangers of the mountain at all. He did not mention the treacherous environment, or the animals, or the stories, and yet those were to be assumed as his reasons for warning him. Those were the things the politicians told themselves late at night when they would remember that man from the start of their careers, or at some point during them as soon as they gained traction. Or when they talked about something unpopular about the Muindo Range. They believed he just came to give them the warning, so that they would hear from someone in the area what he thinks about their plans, or to just let them know not to get those plans any more in depth in the first place.

A few still pushed their ideas for Muindo but found very little support among colleagues who had heard the same warning. Colleagues who brought up how dangerous it is to push their people to enter such an uninhabitable part of their country. The _safety_ of their people comes above agricultural and demographic reform, and policy has to be crafted around their safety most of all. And yet in those talks about safety, many of the politicians remembered the wording that never said what their people would die of. The warning to stay out of those mountains, from a man who seemingly did not exist other than to warn them, from a man who rookie representatives heard political veterans tell them about in hushed visitors had visited them as well.

The biggest conspiracy in the world, because the politicians of Korean could not begin to _fathom_ what they knew was wrong in the bottom of their hearts. No one could comprehend it though. No one could imagine that there were powers greater than nations and corporations in a world seemingly run by them. Where governments were supposed to be the ones warning people about not going towards secret areas, where governments were supposed to be the ones creating conspiracies, why was it that the United Korea president still recalled his first days in the nation's legislature and acted as president based on that warning he heard?

Or rather, he did not act, and yet there was nothing to say about not acting either. There were very clear reasons to stay out. The warning could have just been a concerned citizen of that region doing their part. The threat was indirect. It was not a threat at all… supposedly. As long as people stayed out of the Muindo Mountains, they wouldn't die. The government cut the hiking season down. They did not encourage travel to that part of the nation as much as they did sponsor tourism in other more rural areas… Most politicians just accepted the danger and chose to forget about it. Few ever looked deeper, and those who did stopped quickly and just moved on with their lives.

The people around the mountains made stories to keep their children from sneaking out to enter the forbidden areas. People who grew up in the vicinity knew something was happening but stayed quiet, kept to themselves, and just traded their stories as fun tales to talk about in the bar, tales to scare tourists with… They joked about it when tourists would come and mention wanting to try climbing the mountains of the range.

They treated it like it was part of the fun to scare away urban dwellers… while at the same time they were trying to save their lives. Subconsciously. Not in fear that an accident would befall them, but because deep inside they knew something lurked in the mountains. Something evil. Not a monster. Not the things in their stories at least, but something _real._ Something that killed the few who had gone in with the hope to find and expose that something. Something that for some reason their government was not investigating. That for some reason heroes did not think was strange, even though it was obvious to them! And if it was so obvious but no one was doing anything about it, then why?! And those were the scariest questions of all. And seeing unknowing city-dwellers arrive to excitedly visit the mountains because they did not know that the conspiracies they believed deep inside were true, horrified the locals who scared them with their stories in hopes that they would never have to go in with the rescue teams for another search. Hope that they would not have to pull out more corpses as had been the job of those living closest to the Muindo Range for centuries…

…

Zach Sazaki neared the southeastern Muindo Mountains when he heard the lowest vibration in the air making the tiniest sound in his ear. His wings slammed in front of him and stopped him short in the air, his right wind slightly harder than his left so that he did a one-eighty too upon his brake. His eyes searched the red-tinted sky behind him as he flapped his wings down to keep him up in the air. He did not just keep Death pushing out the soles of his feet to hover in place, as that method of flight wasted Death unlike using his wings that looked solid and did not let a single wisp pull off of them. _Damn him,_ Zach saw the dot in the distance who approached five times faster than he had been flying himself.

Midoriya stopped short and a huge gust of wind slammed into Zach and forced him to focus harder on not letting his wings get ripped off. He squinted his eyes and then opened them back fully to stare at the panting green-haired teen in front of him who was staring at him in relief but also anxiously at the expression on Zach's cleared face. "Midoriya," Zach said, and he grit his teeth for a moment. "Tch," he turned his head to the side. _Nezu told him to come after me. The look on his face shows he doesn't plan to arrest me though. Nezu listened to the call to have gotten the coordinates as well. He must have made it to that room seconds after I left._ "This is a problem," Zach muttered, and his wings flapped down again below him to keep him up just as Midoriya tapped his feet below him to do the same.

Both of them did small arcs straight up before stopping and then beginning a slow decline back down that they had to stop with more flight movements. The actions were background though and did not require much focus. Midoriya stared at Zach's intense face and saw none of the depression from earlier. Zach no longer looked out of it, barely holding up, or anything of the sort. _He looks like a completely different person,_ Midoriya could see an expression matching the look Zach had on Inazuma Island at times when he explained what he did as Death. It was more intense than that, even, as Zach was already back into a completely different mindset.

"I heard, Eziano gave you his coordinates," Midoriya started to his classmate. "You can't do this alone-"

"If I'm not alone," Zach started, his teeth grinding for a moment as he locked his eyes onto Deku's. "He might run off. If he does, and he kills hundreds of people in retribution for me breaking my word," Zach paused with his face scrunching up even angrier and more frustrated at the boy flying in front of him.

"We won't let him escape-"

"If he wants to escape, he'll escape!" Zach shouted back furiously. "You don't get it!" He yelled, his fists balling down at his sides and a pissed-off look spreading as he looked down on Deku. "He can't run away from this after finally giving me the coordinates I asked for. Not after I told him he could bring as many men as he wants. Not after I gave him _so_ much time to prepare for a battle where I would be his _ONLY_ enemy! I need him to fight me, not run away," Zach paused and his expression darkened more as he glared at his former classmate. "And you coming here puts everything in jeopardy. My whole plan. Challenging him means nothing if he runs. And so having to deal with all that aftermath to my challenge would have been pointless," Zach said that in a low growl thinking of all he had had to deal with over the last few weeks.

"Just one more person, won't make him run," Midoriya countered with no doubt forming on his face from what Zach was scolding him about. "I have to come with you though," Midoriya said firmly. "I won't let you kill him, Zach. Or any of the assassins you may fight tonight."

"Fine," Zach said, shaking his head back at Midoriya with his thoughts still racing. Midoriya got confused at the agreement right there that did not even sound angry or frustrated. "I can't kill anyone now anyway," Zach muttered. "Not with you here. You'd feel like a shit hero if you let me kill again in front of you, and now that you're here even if I knock you out and go kill them all myself, you'd never get over it." Zach muttered all that with his thoughts still speeding through his head as he came up with an entirely new plan on the spot. He had known what he was going to do if ever he received those coordinates, but just making all those assassins disappear forever no longer seemed like a viable option. "But you still can't fight with me," Zach continued and shook his head more while looking into Midoriya's eyes again.

"What? Zach I came here, so that I can fight those assassins with you," Midoriya said. He lifted his right hand in front of him and curled it into a fist, "And to stop Eziano Mozcaccio who is not just your enemy. He's the world's enemy."

"That may be! But you still can't fight alongside me!" Zach shouted back. Midoriya opened his mouth to argue, but Zach snapped at him, "If you fight those assassins Midoriya I'm going to wind up killing them." Midoriya froze and his eyes widened at the frustrated expression covering Zach's face. "Because I won't let you die. And if it comes between killing an enemy or letting you die, I'll kill that enemy every single time. And Deku! It doesn't matter if you would have been able to stop it anyway. If I see even a _chance_ that they might kill you, I'm not going to take that risk!"

"You can't decide that-"

"You haven't fought these assassins like I have," Zach growled back. He shut Midoriya up with the tone he used, and he snapped, "Sure they're your enemies too, and the world's enemies, but _I'm_ the one who's been taking them on nonstop for _years!_ A worldwide network of powerful and well-placed assassins and spies who would like nothing more than turning the whole world against itself and bathing in the bloodshed they caused. Ezaino was sending me a message the other day!" Zach yelled.

"If that missile failed to kill me, he knew it would still show me how much he is still capable of. It would show me that even in a world with the Army of Death safeguarding the shadows, there was nothing they could do to stop him from doing _whatever_ he wants! And it would show me that should I go back on my challenge or bring more forces instead of just myself, which would make Eziano run, that he would then carry out attacks with _that_ much power and slaughter _thousands_ as retribution for my attempted treachery." Zach flapped his wings more behind him than just straight down this time and closed the distance between him and a stunned Midoriya. "But I'm hoping that with just you watching my back as support, he won't take it that personally and flee. I'm hopeful, because I'm thinking he's already pulled out too many stops on this to give it up just because Deku followed me. He'll know I didn't want to bring you."

"What do you mean, by he pulled out the stops?" Midoriya asked slowly.

"I don't know what to expect where we're going," Zach replied. "But I've heard strange news stories in the last couple of days that are starting to make a little more sense now that I've received his trap's location. A mysterious disappearance of a Secret Service member on board US Air Force 2," Zach paused and his eyes narrowed to glare into his confused friend's. "One of the Vice President's guards vanishing off the plane mid-flight on the way back to the States. And the Premier of Yugalvenia never showed up for a press conference this afternoon. I was going to investigate it after I flew off from that alley you found me in, because that small nation's head of state just straight up vanished earlier."

Midoriya wanted to ask what Zach was getting at here, but he was starting to feel a faint idea that he knew what Zach was saying and so sweat just formed on the right side of his face. His eyes looked past the side of Zach's head and to the mountain range in the distance that had dark clouds over it unlike above where they were now. Zach continued speaking as Midoriya looked that way, "…A student at a hero high school in Canada was reported to have left the school premises in the middle of classes, and it became news because his classmates and teachers had not tried to stop him. When asked why, they told everyone that he had started acting weird and even threatened them, saying weird things about being glad he didn't have to waste years there in school and acting in a completely different way than the people around him knew he normally acted. His family is concerned and heroes are searching for him, but nobody's going to find him!"

"That's-"

"Maybe none of these things are related!" Zach shouted at Midoriya. "But in the last few days I've heard about a weird number of disappearances, strange circumstances that are all the more odd because of how many of these people seemed to be in important places or near important people, some of them important people themselves. A couple of heroes could disappear and it would not become big news, because it happens in different countries in different regions and hasn't been noticed by anyone yet since they're so separated that there's no way these random disappearances are related. No one is connecting them, because they don't seem connected, because NO ONE can imagine the kind of power I know Eziano possesses."

"So if the missile was only stage one of the attack on me," Zach continued to his friend breathing faster now after all Zach just shouted at him in a pissed but more just serious tone. "With Eziano knowing that it could likely fail, and it was meant to make me nervous and force me to really come on my own. If it would force the one who broke the code to just send it to me in fear that Eziano would retaliate with missiles if other forces came… then what's waiting for me? Eziano responding to my challenge with coordinates means that it will be Eziano there, I am certain of that, but anything else is possible. Everything else," Zach corrected himself. "And even though I know of many disappearances that unnerve me, there are hundreds of other sleeper cells and agents I know were probably scattered all over the world. Recruits still in hero school who were getting prepared to spend their whole lives as spies for Eziano in important places, as important figures- Do you understand the kind of power I'm talking about?!"

 _"'Kill the President of Esquomalador.'" All Might explained that power to me well, Zach. I still didn't understand how Eziano could have done it, but you've made that painfully clear. Eziano has lived for centuries you've said. And if he's had this kind of power for that long, then he could have recruited children decades ago, and those children could now be important figures and even heroes all over the world._ "I understand that kind of power," Midoriya replied, and Zach's face eased up as he heard an intensity in Midoriya's voice that showed he took it as seriously as Zach needed him to.

 _The President of Esquomalador might have been one of Eziano's assassins himself. He could have killed himself under orders, or maybe one of his advisors or guards had reached their position after full lives of infiltration._ "I understand," Midoriya repeated. "And I'm still coming."

"Then you'll be my support," Zach replied. Midoriya frowned again at the statement, but Zach continued, "You cannot attack with me, or I will kill down there. I don't have the kind of power to stop all my enemies, hold back enough with Death that I don't kill them, and make sure they don't kill you at the same time. And that third part will become most important to me, to the point that I will ignore the second goal."

"Zach-"

"It's when I kill my enemies most often and with the least amount of regret!" Zach snapped. "When I am protecting a comrade, I do not know how things would have turned out had I left it to them and not killed the enemy targeting them. I will never know, what the outcome would have been otherwise. I can only assume and guess how things would have turned out, and I know that there would have been worse outcomes should I have let you deal with a villain sneaking up on your back. Or if I rushed them but did not use enough Death for an instant kill and they still manage to get a shot off..."

Midoriya hated all Zach was saying, and yet he heard it in Zach's voice that he was fully serious about this. "If it comes to saving your life by killing someone I will do it without question," Zach finished.

Hearing that unnerved Midoriya, and yet it was also a promise for the other way around. "Alright," Midoriya started. Zach nodded, showing he meant that with Midoriya agreeing here he really was not going to kill a soul. "I will step in if I feel I need to help you though," Midoriya continued with an adjustment to the promise. "And for when we confront Eziano Mozcaccio, together." Zach grimaced deeper as Midoriya said that with no room for argument in his voice this time.

 _If a big fight is to come I know the villains there will all be highly trained murderers and assassins who could kill me. I know that Zach would be worried about how strong they are, and I know that to move in after Zach's made this promise to me will only get people killed._ It was a split second decision, but Midoriya nodded his head firmly at Zach whose expression re-hardened instantly in such a ridiculously intense way that it seemed to chill the air around Midoriya just to see that kind of seriousness. Zach rarely ever looked that serious anymore, so this was something Midoriya could see he was putting his full attention on with no other goals in mind other than what was happening tonight.

"Fine," Zach acquiesced. "Let's move," he turned around and Midoriya moved up to his side with a glance in towards his comrade's face that he tried to match the preparedness of. "Stay frosty, Deku. I have a bad feeling already," Zach's eyes shifted down to the dark landscape below that went on for a dozen miles away from the bases of the Muindo Mountains. He said it seriously and as he started flying forward again, but Midoriya still stared at him with wider eyes for a moment at the phrase he had heard Death say on the walls of Hatto.

Midoriya shot forward and kept up on Zach's side as they moved at a slower pace for the mountains still much faster than most people could move. _He said it back then in a serious way too. People thought it made him sound like an American- What am I being distracted by? Eziano Mozcaccio is ahead of me._ Midoriya refocused and his gaze narrowed on the mountain range the coordinates he had checked were over. _The coordinates were right on the southern slope of the second tallest mountain in the range. Mount Sankastu. I checked a satellite image but there was a fog around much of the range. Some forests in the valleys between mountains. Where is the trap going to be? And, are there any people around we have to worry about getting… dragged in..._

"You've noticed, Deku?" Zach questioned over the wind flying by them. "There's nothing below us. Farmland, but no real lit-up towns near those mountains. Pitch blackness." Midoriya's eyes darted to Zach then to the mountains ahead they started raising in elevation themselves on their approaches to. The black-haired teen let that linger between them for a few seconds without saying anything else. "Let's rise above the clouds," Zach continued, and he flapped down harder with Midoriya kicking down too to rise up with him.

"I really think you should go back," Zach said as they rose up over the dark clouds beginning near the edge of the mountain range.

"Stop, Zach. We're doing this together. I've accepted enough already to-"

"Don't you think this is strange?" Zach wondered. His voice was quieter, but it did cut off Midoriya who looked to the side of Zach's face and saw beyond the intensity on it for a moment. Midoriya's eyes bulged for a split second before going back to normal as his head turned straight forward.

Neither said another word for a few moments. Midoriya shook his head and pushed away his own nerves, ones that got worse when he saw that Zach felt fear himself there. _This kind of power is absurd,_ Midoriya reminded himself. _And yet it feels like anything is possible when we're talking about Eziano. Things no one else in the world could even comprehend. We know._

 _It's just the location for a trap. He wouldn't give me the actual coordinates of… of what?_ Zach felt a churning feeling in his stomach. _I've never heard of this place being a location for villains. Villains hide in uninhabited areas, so why is this "uninhabitable" range not somewhere heroes find villains hiding out? Why have I never heard of anything happening here, and all of a sudden this is- No, just relax. He may have picked such an inconspicuous area so he could set up a missile. Maybe there are bombs all over the range. I need Midoriya to stay up in the air. I can't kill anyone. Deku can't let me. And, if Deku were to capture all these assassins, reveal the kind of organization that Eziano had… It'd be a great way to start._

 _But this is bad. The worst case scenario here is really, really bad._ "The worst villains I took down in United Korea," Zach started. "Were international ones. There, were never many very strong villains actually established in this country. The Triakuza were closest, but it was odd… I thought their Korean bases were just great at avoiding me, because it did not make sense for there to be as few as I had found." _I didn't notice. Why question a good thing? I was suspicious that I wasn't finding them but they really were around, but what if they weren't? Is this his actual base? Am I just searching for reasons to believe that this is his base? I don't know if I'm giving him too much credit, or not enough. Are these clouds real or does he have someone like Maelstrom?_

The tops of some tall mountains stuck out the layer of clouds he and Midoriya were flying over. _Does Midoriya fully understand the kind of power I'm talking about?_ Zach darted another look back to Deku who glanced to him as well so they made eye contact once again. "You've never fully believed me," Zach started. Midoriya's eyes grew a little and Zach continued, "My stories of Eziano Mozcaccio and his agents starting wars in countries, having done so for, for so long… If you don't believe it in this moment though, you'll die."

"I'm not underestimating him," Midoriya assured.

"I'm more certain of it every second I consider it," Zach continued right away then in response to his friend. "But the lengths he'd have to go to. In order to convince everyone, and keep out suspicion, keep away heroes for centuries, having to make it look like something else…" Zach and Midoriya stopped over the clouds in the middle of the Muindo Range on the coordinates Eziano had given. Zach shook his head as he breathed heavily but with his heart rate calming down and his expression becoming steady. "I have no idea how he could do this. It sounds insane, but I also know it's not impossible to hide a place like that from the rest of the world. I don't think think Eziano just set up in an area without many people and is 'hiding' in this uninhabitable zone."

Zach's eyes narrowed and he seethed at his friend, "Eziano lives here, and that has made this region _into_ an uninhabitable zone. Eziano's not hiding. That's not the word to use for a man like him," Zach shook his head and he glared down at the clouds imagining what was below them. _For centuries, he could have holed up in these mountains without anyone ever coming for him. No one even knew he existed to come and stop him. He has people in every country. He's planted seeds for hundreds of years! I- I know that he is the most powerful enemy. Far more powerful than King or Fergus. His kind of influence goes far beyond. His level of fanaticism, for everyone to think that Eziano's assassins just do it for the money… What is his true motive?_

"Why does he do the things he does?" Zach whispered, and Midoriya stared down too at the clouds that fogged the slopes of the closest mountains. "It doesn't matter," Zach whispered louder, shaking his head once and looking angry for a moment that it was even on his mind. "We're stopping him today. Hundreds of years of his terror, ends right now." Zach turned his head and looked into Midoriya's eyes one last time. "Stay up in the air. Don't watch me too closely or they'll kill you. Here we go."

Midoriya just nodded at the other teen who said that like he was giving out orders. Then Zach shot down through the clouds, and Midoriya followed behind him keeping a gap between him and the closest mountain. The two of them dropped below the cloud level above a valley between two peaks that did not dip down too far. Zach turned after dropping down though, and he flew over the valley to head to a lower elevated area, into a deeper valley where there was a thick forest that spread down and to the north and south at lower elevated areas. The slopes of the mountains around them had icy ledges and steep slants looking impossible to climb, but the forest was so heavily wooded it would be as difficult to traverse.

Then Zach flew through an invisible barrier and the forest ahead of him disappeared. The ground below the woods vanished as well, and the elevation of the valley showed for what it really was. A deep ravine that dropped hundreds of feet down just inside of the barrier he entered, and then dropped even farther into the darkness while spreading out wider to the sides. The slants of the mountains stopped going inwards on the valley and cut back out underneath the mountaintops, creating a huge wide area without any snow in it. The curved-in slants of the mountains had rocky spikes sticking down diagonally over the ravine, just as there were huge rocky spikes sticking out of massive crevices and out every wall in the deep dark pit.

Down a few hundred feet there was a level of more flat ground though the rocky surface was still bumpy and had dozens of tall spikes and pillars sticking out across the several square mile surface. There were cracks on that surface too that led even deeper down, and on the far side from the part of the barrier that Zach just entered, there was a giant skull-face made out of protruding spikes in a cliff wall. The open mouth of that face had man-made light coming from inside, but everything outside of it was only lit by fire. Torches sticking out of the walls where there were some thin stone staircases, or just sticking off of rock pillars and stone spikes scattered across the cavernous hell below. Some lanterns hung from ropes that dangled at the tips of wall spikes mostly pointed horizontally, but there were not many of them. The cavernous ravine was only dimly lit by the flames scattered around, faintly illuminating the many, many people gathered there.

Zach dropped out of the sky without hesitating after entering through the barrier. Midoriya entered behind him and froze with his eyes going much wider for a moment, then when he did start following Zach he did so slowly and stopped after just dropping down between the mountain's inwards protrusions. _There could be enemies up here too. Careful of shots that come from outside the barrier._ As much as Midoriya was focused on the potential for enemies attacking him, his eyes did track down after Zach who he could only watch in awe as he descended without a shred of hesitation.

Zach Sazaki fell through the air straight down, and his wings flapped at the last moment to slow him before he dropped on top of a tall stone pillar up twenty-two feet from the rest of the bumpy stone surface. His wings faded away and Zach yelled while standing there in black sweatpants and a black sweatshirt, "Deku followed me on his own, but he's just here to make sure I don't massacre you all!" His scream echoed around the landscape hidden in a barrier inside a mountain range with no people for miles and miles in any direction. "Be grateful for his presence. If not for him, you'd all die here today." Zach lifted his right hand up to his face and spread his fingers out in front of it. Those fingers curled inwards while Death bubbled around his head, and he dragged his fingers down with his ring and pinky touching and his index and middle coming together too.

He dragged a gap in the Death that formed over his face, leaving his skin visible under a black helmet that formed around his head. His eyes flared red and he rose back up his right hand to push up above his forehead, creating four spikes pointed backwards diagonally over the top of his skull from his forehead back. He rolled his neck out and snapped both arms down to his sides, creating black hilts in his hands that extended into black scimitars that had wisping dark gas coming off the top of it and black liquid dripping from the bottom.

Zach looked at everyone he could see in a three-sixty view from his pillar. He picked a spot right in the middle of the ravine's clearing, giving him an angle on enemies on all sides of him. He saw people he recognized and many more who he did not. As he looked around, more enemies emerged from all over where he had not seen them before. These enemies were in hiding before he even arrived, and he had not spotted them as he searched for everyone he had to be careful of. Zach already suspected there were enemies he could not see yet though, leaving himself calm even as Eziano's forces more than doubled in a single moment that made Midoriya's eyes bulge up high above.

 _Some of them I knew were missing. Others will surely be missed tomorrow- no,_ Zach kept his face steady below the black veil of his helmet though he wanted to 'tch' at the thought he had been having. _People will be saddened as those heroes are revealed for what they really are. False heroes, false leaders, and- you mother fucker._ Zach glared for a second longer at a man of over 500 pounds who he recognized well. _Vinny, you piece of shit._ Zach had been glad to see his friend in the Italian mafia was doing well when he spotted him at the boxing tournament he showed up at with the Cambris. Vinny's expression looked nothing like the carefree bookie he knew though, and so his eyes just continued scanning across his field of enemies.

 _Rhino Chick,_ Zach moved right past her without even stopping on a female hero he had met once in Texas. _She sounded into what I was doing, so I spoke freely around her. Yet there was something about her at the time that made me against recruiting her, even though she seemed like she would have quit being a hero to join me if I asked. Nice try, cunt. Restless and Skyfaller are out of prison. Seems like they got a lot of old enemies I've defeated before back out for this. I knew some had escaped prison, but a few must have put doppelgangers in their places. Or they just escaped. Some I recognize from reputation._

 _There's Danny "The Devil,"_ Zach spotted a muscular black man standing almost seven feet tall. He wore tight forest-camo different from the darker and blacker clothes of everyone around him including the two women at his back who dressed like ninjas. The villain whose mouth stretched from ear to ear was strapped with weapons all over while the three people behind him were unarmed. The two women each had black cloth over every part of their body except their eyes and stomachs, showing one of the women who was a little shorter also had blue skin. The other woman appeared white to Zach, just like the sixteen foot tall figure who had risen up out of the ground behind them and hunched forward with rocks dripping off of his muddy hands. That large figure was wider than Danny was tall, had wild spiky red hair above his head, and a bump sticking out over his shoulders showing he was a hunchback.

 _Nuomo,_ Zach stared to the end of a stone spike coming out of the ground slightly diagonal so that the Asian man on the end could sit with his legs dangling off and swinging back and forth. After he had leapt up there, his smile showing his sharp teeth and black gums, gums that Zach knew would spread the blackness down his teeth and into whoever he bit down on to kill them with his deadly Quirk. The smiling assassin with a sword on his back glanced down to his left as a six foot eight figure twice as muscular as Danny and wearing all white unlike anyone else in the ravine walked forward past him.

 _Don't know him. Looks dangerous. S-threat. Mark the worst targets. Isolate to never have to face too many S-ranked ones at once. And that bastard,_ Zach saw a man who his expression darkened more at the sight of. The thin figure wore glasses but took them off when Lifebringer saw him. He dropped them in front of him and stomped on them with a cocky smirk on his face as he stared at the boy who had brought him back to life once. Zach remembered reviving the man after he had found this innocent civilian dead when the man had gotten killed by a villain group he "accidentally" stumbled across right before the Army of Death showed up to take them down. _He died then just so that he could be here now to face me, as a Death-resistant enemy. His name was Gunther, though I doubt any of the people here actually have real names-_

A bullet came flying at Zach without a sound on its firing. J-1 lay flat between two spikes sticking out of a wall high up on Zach's back left, and the Japanese man who fired his sniper watched as his bullet went perfectly on target and hit the back of Zach's skull. The bullet flew through the other side of his head and across the ravine to stop in the ground underneath the curved-back second tallest mountain in the nation. The other assassins under Mount Sankatsu did not know where the shot had come from, as J-1 had set up his position a very long time ago and had been camped there for over a day.

Zach's head blurred to the left and he glared towards where the angle of the shot told him his enemy was. _The same guy,_ Zach knew while shooting off the top of the pillar so fast that it exploded below him and collapsed down to the surface of the ravine.

In that same instant, a hundred different enemies moved at once. A few let out roars. Several lifted up in the air and flew after Sazaki when he turned his back on them. Others readied their Quirks, and one woman used her Quirk on the boy flying towards their teleporting sniper.

J-1 teleported from the spike he jumped up on into the air behind Death. He aimed his sniper down at the top of the boy's spine, as Zach continued to fly straight towards where J-1 was still jumping up. The wings that ripped out of Zach's back took some of his Death that J-1 hoped had been inside his body to make it so this second shot would actually do damage. Zach's body spiraled in midair as J-1 fired his second shot though, making the bullet whiz past the side of his neck without hitting him. The female assassin down on the ground whose hands had risen and were glowing dark purple stared at Sazaki in shock as her Quirk should have made the boy's eyesight be lagging behind and making everything that happened appear to be happening slower than in real time.

Zach remembered how fast J-1 moved around though from the time he smashed into the hotel room J-1 and the Canadian sniper had used to try and kill him. _You killed the Painter! Now I will kill-_ J-1 glared furiously down into Sazaki's eyes that had looked into the position of the air where he knew J-1 to be based on the second shot's trajectory, even if the image of J-1 he could still see had just teleported to a different spot in the air. Zach's wings snapped forward on his sides and broke off his back to fill a whole area of the air where his enemy should be. In that same moment he filled every inch of his body and mind with Death, and down on the surface of the ravine's lower level, a woman's purple hands lost their glow as she fell to her knees and then down on her face.

Zach Sazaki's wings reemerged and pushed forward a second time, but this time instead of breaking off they just pushed him farther from the enemies who stalled or slowed ahead of him. They were wary that the second set of wings would break off too and come for them, but Zach just used the flap to send him backwards near the spikes that J-1 had established his sniping position on earlier. He bent his knees as he was about to hit the wall, but when his feet planted he was unable to push off in a jump three times as fast towards his enemies who just started moving his way again. The wall below his feet pushed in as if rubber, and then he heard a _**click**_ inside the wall as his feet started sinking into the surface that had bent instead of giving him a solid surface to use for leverage.

The wall exploded, and Zach flew out of the blast with his right arm swinging forward already. He released the sword of darkness towards the fastest flyer of the group who pulled to the right to dodge it then increased his speed when the darkness suddenly yanked his way instead of just flying past. The villain slammed his right fist forward and nailed Zach in the right side of his chest where there was no Death- only for Zach's chest to open up as the fist was colliding and a dozen tendrils of darkness to rip out and surround him. The villain's speed meant nothing at that close a range, and Zach pulled back his tendrils to grab the villain by the top of his skull using his right gloved hand.

Zach shot down out of the air faster than the other flying assassins could move, and he tossed his unconscious villain away from him before flying over underneath J-1 and kicking him in a way that slowed his momentum enough for a second before he hit the ground and rolled unconsciously across the floor. A translucent ten-foot high ghost shot out of a pillar on Zach's left side holding a pair of huge scythes in its hands, and it swept them down at Zach who dodged with a dive to his right. In his peripherals he saw the scythes that were translucent too cut through the ground like butter, and so he came out of his roll with a staff emerged in his right hand and a scythe blade coming out the end of it.

He shot back towards the ghost as it was turning its head, and the ghost's pitch black eyes started to widen while Zach was already running past its other side and towards the villain in all white who just smashed straight through a stone pillar still exploding out in every direction. The ghost behind Zach was fading with the gash of darkness fading faster on its front, and Zach set off another blast of Death behind him to send him flying at his muscular enemy with huge bulky shoulders and a straight expression on his face. The Caucasian man in all white was strong for sure, and when Zach gave that extra burst of speed the villain just slammed his right foot down harder on his next step and made unsteady the ground below Zach's feet.

Zach did not slow down nor lose his balance on the shaky floor even as cracks appeared below his feet. Wings flapped behind him and an explosion of Death came out of his legs, and he spun around his scythe using both hands before ducking his body backwards at a ninety degree angle to dodge the swing of his enemy's large left arm. He shot by the enemy's lower left side and dragged his black scythe across the side of his body, dropping the villain down to his knees. The man turned his head sideways and glared after Zach, and as his eyes were closing, a smirk spread over his face right before he collapsed.

On Zach's left there were three enemies running at him, while the majority of Eziano's forces were now to his left as he had gotten close to one of the walls. He swung his right arm to the side, and a wave of Death came out of his hand. Then he flooded Death out of his body into the wave and accelerated it twenty times as fast so it shot across the ravine while rising up and turning into a mega-tsunami. Zach turned to the left himself while creating a wave that looked like one of Todoroki's attacks only made of Death instead of ice, moving so fast that the Death would not linger on anyone too long. He meanwhile bounced from one of the three assassins on his left to the others, though he only took down two of them before the survivors of his massive wave came rushing at him in the moments they thought he had figured they were all defeated.

Zach was in the middle of rushing at the Hispanic eighty year old woman with eight long pink tentacles sticking out of her back that helped with her mobility, when the young Canadian hero-in-training came up over his right shoulder with a hatchet in his right hand lifting up and swinging down for the side of his throat where there was no Death visible. He just turned more of his body into Death in that moment and let the hatchet cut through the opposite side of his neck where he figured the attack might actually be coming from, then he pushed a little Death out his back and hit the sixteen year old kid who thought he had a drop on Death for a moment.

 **Bang-ba-ba-bang!** Zach turned to his right as bullets flew through him, and he ground his teeth as he glared towards Gunther. Zach kicked off the floor and shot at the enemy he had revived before faster than he had moved so far. He brought his knee up like he was going to slam it into Gunther's chest, then his left fist hit the side of the German man's face before the assassin even saw it coming. Zach slammed him into the ground and then grabbed him tightly with his right hand as the man was bouncing up, so that he could pound him in the face two more times using his hard left fist before throwing the bloodied villain to his side and cracking the man's back on a pillar that cracked itself at how hard Zach threw the man like that.

The ground under Zach's feet opened up and teeth appeared all around the edge of the hole. Zach started falling, as a voice spoke in English, "You got too cocky-"

An explosion of Death shot away from Zach in all directions and specifically below his feet to send him flying back up over the surface while knocking out whoever was speaking to him right there. He turned his body to the right while rising in midair, dodging the half-mile long spear of burning blue flames that just missed him. That spear retracted back just as fast as it had extended if not faster, towards a figure ahead of Zach in the air who flew there wrapped in an aura of blue flames. The villain's blue flames created wings larger than Zach's that flapped behind him when Zach made eye contact with the villain's burning blue eyes.

As that villain was flying towards him, Zach saw everything around him turn 45 degrees so the world was tilted. The skull entrance into some deeper part of this assassins' world flared with red flames and the stone face's eyes turned a deep pitch black with black liquid spilling out of them. His enemies all over the tilted ground started looking like demons, and the sky up above the barrier tinted darker red with the clouds rumbling and shooting lightning around the sky.

Midoriya did not notice any of these illusionary things that were not affecting everyone, only Zach. Zach swirled his whole insides with Death but it did nothing this time, as his enemies only needed to use their Quirks once on him instead of a constant use of it that would keep them connected to him. All Deku noticed was that his friend who seemed to be unstoppable with nobody touching him was suddenly flying sideways and down for a couple of seconds before redirecting, only for Zach's senses to get even more messed with to the point he had to stop flying to try and get solid ground where he would know at least that he was right-side-up. As he dropped, he sent out a blast of Death below him first that knocked out an enemy coming to get him when he was clearly disoriented, as well as the one under the ground but who was controlling the floor where Zach was landing to try and get his feet stuck to the surface.

That second villain Zach knocked unconscious with that pre-emptive blast was then crushed under the weight of the ground his Quirk was no longer keeping from squishing him. His body broke apart and stayed trapped under the surface with nobody on the surface even noticing as it was not Zach's Death that killed him, just the fact that he was unconscious underground that took his life. As Zach landed though, his fiery blue enemy shot two piercing spears of blue flames at him that were solid enough that they sliced straight through the rock surface ahead of Zach and behind him while hitting his body. The slices carved through him but caused little damage as Zach let his body turn to Death and start re-merging right afterwards.

His red eyes darted to his right where two enemies were rushing him. One was a woman with long blonde hair and a missing eye covered in an eyepatch, but as she saw Zach spotted her, the eyepatch pushed outwards and a snake shot out of her eye twice as fast as she was running to slither through the air towards him. The snake got thicker too so it seemed impossible for the anaconda to fit in her eye socket, but she also pulled out a blow-gun at the same time that she blew into and fired a dart towards where Zach's body was merging together on his right side near his right shoulder. The other enemy next to that woman jumped up in the air while she attacked below, and they clapped their four hands together in front of their round body to make a tremor in the air that had Zach's ears suddenly over-sensitive and filling with the noise in every direction around him.

He saw there were two other enemies rushing at his back, along with another underneath the flying fire villain shooting a hundred fifty miles per hour at his front to bring the total up to six. The one flying at him was flying upside-down, though Zach was pretty sure he was actually right-side up. It was the man to Zach's left who gained his undivided attention during the rush of _seven_ villains at once though. He saw the man in green camo standing instead of running or flying at him. In the moment after the clap affected his hearing, he saw Danny the Devil's mouth move and heard his voice whisper. **"Sink."**

Zach dropped down to his knees as his body reformed. He was pulling away from the dart as he wanted to reform his body and not keep letting things pass through him which took too much Death this early. He had to spin out to dodge that while also feeling his weight suddenly exceed anything he had imagined coming. "Fu-"

 **"Sink into the floor."**

This time the ground did not stop Zach from falling farther, and the ground below him broke apart at how hard Zach smashed through it. He fell through the ground that also fell around him in a hole just as big as he was, dropping him down into the surface where flames suddenly came up from below him. _HOT!_ He knew the blue flames were actually coming from above despite seeing them wrapping around the back of his head, and he felt the heat on the front of his body as he burned. _Conserve power. Eziano. His sons. Hundreds of assassins._

Out of Zach's back that was breaking farther through the ground fast enough that he was staying ahead of the flames another villain was sending after him, an explosion of Death stopped his downwards momentum. He also pushed out more above the top of his head though while creating sharper Death blades out of his legs he cut through the stone with and made himself a path. At the same time he whipped his arms above him into the falling stones that were bright red with heat as the blue flames pushed them down at him. His black arms extended up and around the fiery pillar dropping into the surface…

Midoriya was staring down towards the stone surface with a worried expression. His kicks slowed so he started to lower down himself, his anxiety winning over his faith in Zach- for a moment. Two huge black tentacles broke out of cracks in the floor that they expanded wider by emerging like that. One of them smashed down in Danny's direction and forced that villain to leap backwards and up in the air, releasing the pressure down below on Zach who emerged out of the surface an instant later right behind the fiery villain whose head started turning at the vibration.

Zach slammed his left hand down on top of the villain's head and pushed him into the floor while landing on top of his body, then he dove off and parallel towards the snake that raced below his body with its head turning up at the last second and unhinging its jaw. Zach's fist he was about to pound into the one-eyed woman's chest opened up and he curled his blackened fingers into her shirt instead. He clenched and yanked upwards, and the slash from his other enemy's Quirk went below the woman he yanked up so she would not be killed. He himself was sliced across the middle of his chest, only for darkness to erupt out of the slash and shoot forward at two of his enemies, only one of which was able to slide down under it.

Zach flung the woman he was still swinging up to his right while pointing his left hand in Danny's direction. His palm opened and a blue light glowed on it and fired at the man landing down a distance from him. The ground in front of The Devil exploded and rock shards shot up in his face out of the smoke, causing him to dive to his right into a roll. Zach had dove to his own right after firing towards Danny, and he pointed his left hand behind him while coming out of it. A bow of darkness was forming in his right hand, while wires shot out of his left arm from his elbow to his wrist aimed at the fat villain behind him whose arms just spread getting ready to clap again.

His attack missed and he saw his enemy was actually a few feet to the right of where he aimed based on the amount of reaction the man barely in his peripheral vision had to just almost dodge by leaning one way even though the attack would miss anyway. The wires stuck into the ground instead of an enemy, and Zach pushed off his feet before clenching his fist and making the wires jet-propel him backwards with his body spiraling and his legs looking like a drill as the spinning Death surrounded them. He slammed the soles of his feet into his fat enemy's chest as he shot right between the man's arms he was clapping, then he snapped his own torso backwards at a ninety-degree angle and turned his head to the right while pulling his left hand across his chest away from his right arm.

The black arrow that formed in the longbow in his right hand got longer and flared larger as Zach pulled his arm across his chest. He stayed with his legs straight up only to his knees where the rest of his blackened body was bent and parallel to the floor. He released and sent his arrow flying just over the ground while another enemy dove over his body with their scissor-like arms snipping nothing but air, their eyes lowering down wider at how fast he snapped his body back like that after kicking the fatter man. Zach slammed his head upwards while that villain lowered their eyes, and he snapped the guy's head backwards with blood splashing out of his nose and his eyes rolling back as Zach's black helmet hit too much Death into him.

The black arrow flew away from Zach so fast that Danny was unable to even get footing to push off the ground and dodge. A woman in all black moved so fast it almost seemed like teleportation, though Zach had seen the actual movement the short blue-skinned woman made to get in Danny's way and grip her hands around the black arrow to keep it from passing fully through her body when it impaled her between her breasts. She spun out at the force of the arrow that impaled her, but she did make it so Danny was able to jump backwards and get away, as he went into a full retreat to get away from his enemy he was staring towards with huge eyes.

Despite the powerful combination attacks his enemies had hit him with, Zach Sazaki spun and punched his right hand so hard that his arm ripped off at the elbow. His Death fist flew out and hit the last of the four enemies still closest to him, knocking her off her feet so she was flying back like the three others all were. The eighteen year old planted his feet back down firmly and stood back up in a powerful stance with his body losing some of the excessive Death surrounding it that he did not need at the moment anymore. The ground around him was on fire and breaking apart, and yet he looked balanced on the chunk of stone that enemies of his were sliding off of and away from him.

He still had enemies in all directions of him. Insane assassins who had killed hundreds, thousands of people across the lot of them. And as unfazed as Midoriya felt some of them looked to his amazement after what they all just witnessed, he saw that he was not alone in his awe. _Zach,_ Midoriya thought. His friend's straight and calm expression remained the same, even as his black wings ripped out of his back again and slammed down into the sinking ground below him to send him up twenty meters into the air. Shots were fired towards him and enemies flew his way, but he dodged them all calmly and with precision in every movement. Midoriya's mouth felt dry and his huge eyes shook at the sight of it, _You're the only one who could come to this hellish place and make the world's worst assassins, fear you._

* * *

 **A/N The battle begins! Zach tells Midoriya to stay out of it in return for him not slaughtering the assassins, which leaves Zach taking on Eziano's legion with the goal of not killing them all. Eziano has yet to reveal himself, but Zach faces off against many other powerful enemies. Will Deku be able to stay out of it or will he be drawn in? Can Zach maintain enough strength to take on all these villains knowing that he has to face Eziano at the end of it? What else? I don't know! No spoilers! XD Anyway, I hope you guys enjoyed the chapter. Thanks for reading. Let me know what you think is coming in a review below!**

Gillian chapter 211 . Dec 31, 2019

What is in play on the next chapter is not only the fate of Japan, but also Zach downfall and even Class A redemption.  
Because if Zach dies, then Japan is screwed. If Zach kills someone then his downfall is assurred. And if he escapes at the end or any lf the previous outcomes mentioned become true, then Class A(Deku of all people) will have failed Zach as a friend.  
Idk what to say anymore. Class A gave the cold shoulders as always, and Zach seems to be growing out from them(aside from some exceptions). And Zach is right: they are completely diferent people now. He is not the Zach from before, and clearly all that happened has made him forget even more who he was. Is so sad, and the most distraughting of all this is that this could be fix his friendship with his Class A if went honest with them. But doesn't really that matter now? With broken and Vexed Zach has become, his lack of affection from this ex-friends and these unwillingness to restore the bond, the country polarized about him, and the fact that Ezziano is even willing to kill those who are dear to him just to get the kill, thus endangering anyone close to him, will Zach really leave?  
Jeez, damn author, making me worry about a fictional character. But noneless you did a great job in the build up for the next fight. I see is not the final battle yet, but is definitively gonna be a climatic moment for Zach.  
Also, I'm calling it now: Midoriya is going to die trying to save Zach and he will have to revive him.

 **Not just one chapter here, we've started a full arc! Zach and Deku need to make it back to Japan for that ultimate fight we all know is coming with the League, but that doesn't mean they've got an easy task here or that they can even do it. Zach's return wound up not being as permanent as it seemed, and people's minds really don't just change suddenly even with Ashido's heartfelt speech to them that got them to allow Zach to come back. It wasn't going to fix everything immediately though, and the fact that none of them knew what was happening to him put a real distance between them when he entered the dorm. Zach could see they were still so far away from each other, and at this point he was ready to disappear again only for Midoriya to chase him down again. As for what happens after... we still need to see where this arc leads us first. Eziano's army was waiting for Zach to arrive, and now they have to face the world's strongest assassins and villains. Will Midoriya die? I won't say. But nice prediction though! XD Thanks for the review!**

Long-sam-yo chapter 211 . Dec 31, 2019

And the build up for this fight has finally paid off.  
So Ezziano is finally coming up, huh? And Deku is even joining the party!.  
Omg, a climax point is about to happen! ZachIzuku vs Ezziano

 **Oh it's here! What was just a random character I once decided to throw in to try and kill All Might during the Sports Festival, has now become one of the pivotal villains of this story. Izuku's determined to join the fight against Eziano too, so that ZachIzuku vs Eziano is not far off... maybe. ;) Enjoy the next chapters! And thanks for reviewing!**

Sea gull chapter 211 . Jan 2

Man I just realised that Eziano is only in this story. Got me reeling thinking this was Canon.

 **He's been in Death for so long now and outlasted a lot of canon characters who couldn't make it this far. Hope you enjoy his character though... and that you start to like him more, (or hate him) in this coming arc... Thanks for reviewing!**


	213. Chapter 213

**Disclaimer: I don't own Boku no Hero Academia**

 **Chapter 213:**

 _Is there really nothing I can do but watch him?_ Midoriya's fists shook at his sides, his eyes narrowed and intense as he had long gotten over his shock of how Zach was fighting down below. It had been twenty minutes already, and there were dozens of assassins unconscious around the lower surface of the ravine. Chunks of stone pillars and spikes were scattered as much as the bodies. Some flames lingered about but there was little down there to burn so the Quirk-produced fire flickered and waned, before blowing out when someone especially fast would sprint or fly by them.

Zach clashed with an enemy in midair, swinging his black sword forward into his enemy's blade again for the third time in a row. He pushed into it, but Nuomo leaned forward and then slashed hard back against him when some darkness shot out of Zach's chest and between their blades at the assassin who was one of his fastest and most-skilled enemies. _All-Directional Acceleration,_ Zach determined his enemy's Quirk and brainstormed countermeasures while scanning the area behind him where he was bouncing back towards after that last clash. _Not just the Poison Gums. It's just a composite, All For One isn't here._ Off to his right something caught his eye that made an earlier pit in his chest reappear, as a villain wearing white gripped the boulder on his right and dragged himself to his feet while that huge rock cracked under his fingers digging into it. _He's back up too quickly. Nuomo's returning. Two others trying to get a good shot in a moment they think my body isn't Death through and through._

 _Rhino Chick and two other heroes are off to my right. Premier Slavenko of Yugalvenia looks more nervous than anyone else down there. He's been avoiding me so far, but I'm nearing him now. Rush him._ Zach spun and he kicked off the air behind him while flapping his wings, shooting towards the ground ahead of Slavenko to give himself options of how to attack in his next movement. There were eight different paths he saw as his legs bent upon his feet touching the ground. 'Help me,' the Yugalvenian Premier mouthed at Zach while hesitantly rushing forward himself at the boy, see-through but strong tape holding the pistol to his right hand.

Zach shot forward in an instant and his right hand wrapped around the Premier's throat. He lifted Slavenko off the ground by his neck and crushed inwards, the man making choked sounds of pain and panic as Zach closed his windpipe. "I don't believe you," Zach growled. The wisps of darkness came out of his right palm while the long razor blade was still shoving out of Slavenko's left hand he was moving up with blood splashing out his palm. That hand fell limp, and Zach tossed the head-of-state's unmoving body to his right unceremoniously. He jumped up in the air and flew away without looking back towards Nuomo who assumed Zach was going to spin around and try to hit him while he was flying at the teen's back right there. Nuomo adjusted after pushing backwards through the air in a moment that tripled the distance between him and his target as Zach had gone the other way, just giving him a wider gap away from Nuomo where he could focus on other assassins and get Nuomo frustrated.

 _Why did the Premier join Eziano? Or was he a sleeper agent from the very beginning of his political career? That seems more likely considering everything else, but why Yugalvenia? Why would he- what are all these people fighting for?_ Zach grit his teeth at the questions he asked himself even in the middle of this intense combat. _Why do they follow Eziano? It's not all fear. The fanaticism is religious in nature, I think. Unless J-1 mentioned "Our Lord" to Edward McMillan knowing that I would capture the Canadian and make him talk- That's not good._

Midoriya noticed what Zach had just seen too, and his eyes widened at the sight of the movement from the large villain in white. As Nuomo shot over Zach's head and spat black ahead of him to force Zach to stop, Zach's eyes were still more focused on the villain he saw off to his right than Nuomo. The swordsman with black gums and very quick movements shot down to the ground ahead of Zach then bounced back up in the air where he stopped and just hovered in place. "I like you, Death! You're _exciting!_ Never a dull moment in your life I'm sure."

Zach's red eyes shifted towards Nuomo's dark brown ones that did not waver at all when Death stared into them. "Around us stand the murderers with more kills under their belts than anyone else in the world. It should feel like home to you! With Death here, we can be sure of that fact now," Nuomo added with a wider smirk at the teenager who he suspected may have killed more people than he himself.

Zach knew Nuomo was trying to get under his skin and did not let it bother him. Instead he just moved towards Nuomo in the moment the rock spike on his right blasted apart. Nuomo was too quick though and even while reacting to that eruption of rocks he still had his gaze locked on Zach's and dodged him perfectly. The black spikes that shot up out of the ground while Zach was running and raising his arms like he was only just starting an attack moved too slowly to catch up to Nuomo's feet that flew over twenty meters up in the air in an instant.

Nuomo's eyes did shift more towards the villain wearing all white as he rose out of Zach's range of easy attack. Zach was already more turned and focused on that enemy who was back up on his feet, and who he had to fully concentrate on considering how fast that man just sprinted across the ground that tore up below his large feet. The smash apart of the stone spike caused some of the shrapnel to pierce a thinner villain standing between the spike and Death, looking for a moment to catch Zach off guard during his confrontation with Nuomo. That thin villain had not noticed the larger white villain standing back up as Nuomo and Zach both had, making them more ready than the guy who was almost killed by the rocks that blew apart into him at insane speeds. He _was_ killed as the white villain in all white whose costume expanded for his slightly larger body than when Zach first faced him, swung his left arm to the side into the man getting pierced by rocks moving just as fast as he was still sprinting through the hail of them.

His left arm broke the man getting shredded by sharp stones in half and splattered him in the next millisecond because of the force of the swing that just sent pieces of the assassin flying away to his left side with some chunks of stone spike that got sent soaring by the quick swing of the assassin's arm. Zach sprinted towards this powerful villain whose every step tore a hole in the ground and then ripped up the ground behind that step into a longer trench from the force following behind him. _How did he get back up? Several viable reasons._ Zach's body snaked up in the air twenty feet and arced over the top of his villain who continued rushing at his lower half that remained looking less like Death than his top half which looked more like a thin pillar of darkness with a face at the top now.

The rest of his body shot up after his top smoke half while his hands emerged from the pillar and planted on the upturned stone behind his charging villain. Retracting the Death that quickly was not hard when he had most of his Death already focused at the very top of himself just below his emerging arms, though he did split some off from his legs and send it straight ahead at the charging man instead of rising it up and around him. His opponent hopped up though while spinning 180 degrees, allowing part of the darkness coming straight at him to pass below while the rest of Zach's quicker body moved up over his head. Zach lifted his right hand off the ground while still doing a handstand as his body pulled back together, and five black shurikens flew out towards his enemy who had hopped in midair and would not be able to dodge easily now.

The villain's bulky body did not hinder his agility though, nor his reaction time. His body twisted in midair and caused all five of Zach's attacks to miss, though Zach's throws were not reliant on being on target from his initial throw. Each of his attacks going by this villain's side pulled back towards him and collided on the man's back while he was getting ready for landing and instantly charging at Zach again. Zach narrowed his gaze as the man took the five hits of shurikens that were not too large but each had a good amount of Death in them. The man landed and groaned, then the groan turned into a growl with his eyes narrowing and a furious look spreading over his face as he shook his head around to regain some composure.

 _It's taking more Death than the first time._ His enemy leaned forward and curled his fists tightly while locking eyes with Zach who stared back and then leaned forward as if preparing to charge right back at him like they just did. His villain kept leaning forward though and then fell forward onto his face with his arms dropping limp, as the ground below his feet had turned black without him noticing and just wrapped up his lower legs. Zach had already started spreading the Death there when his shurikens were pulling back into his opponent who he had suspected might be able to keep standing after getting hit by them. _This isn't good. I can't use much more or he'll die, based on normal projections of how much Death to use. Normal projections don't seem to mean much here though, as he got back up within twenty minutes while I'm using enough Death to knock everyone out for over a day, as there's no need for any interrogation after this as long as Eziano's here._

Two enemies attacked right as the villain in all white had collapsed, choosing the moment at the end of Zach's intense but short fight against that powerful enemy as a good time to ambush him when he may have dropped his guard. Zach had already turned all of his insides into Death though in preparation for an attack to come as he made his guard appear to be dropped so he could catch a few hiding assassins in a trap. He kept Nuomo in his peripheral vision where that powerful assassin had not chosen to attack foolishly like two of his comrades, yet stayed close showing he was getting ready for a moment Zach's guard was actually lowered.

 _He's getting worried about it. He should be,_ Nuomo kept his eyes locked on his enemy, yet he could still see his fellow villain laying not far from where Death was fighting. He himself had kept a close eye on that large man before the fight began, and his lips curled down as he thought about him now. _He's got my interest as much as Death does, though I'm not sure about Eziano bringing in someone potentially stronger than us all. After this fight too-_ Nuomo's brown eyes narrowed and he snapped his sword out to his right side while propelling forward and opening his mouth of sharp teeth that dripped black down them from his gums.

Zach did a sideways twist while still facing forward, and he slashed a katana of Death that was forming in his hands behind him. His blade connected with Nuomo's but passed right through it. Nuomo slashed his sword to the side quicker with his arms suddenly accelerating even faster, but his blade passed through the side of Zach's head as well. Nuomo had to release his weapon and shoot backwards as fast as he could, and the tip of Zach's black sword went by the front of his face missing by only inches. Zach still grimaced as he was unable to finish, yet Nuomo shot back forwards even after retreating so quickly right there it looked like he would be moving farther away.

Zach did not know if it was his grimace or if Nuomo had planned to return that fast beforehand, but Nuomo was suddenly shooting at him before the right side of his skull had even reformed after being cut into by the sword there. _Forward,_ Zach had barely any time to dodge or react to Nuomo's attack, and he did not have the time to redirect his sword with his momentum still moving it to his left past where Nuomo was approaching him from slightly to his right. He moved forward though and to his right, trying to dodge on Nuomo's right side instead of his left where Nuomo would clearly slash his blade as it was the only way Zach could potentially dodge to while jumping backwards to give him more time to prepare. By moving forward while also going to the right side, to Nuomo's left, it forced Nuomo to change the direction of his own blade's swing in order to hit his enemy who did not want to turn his insides fully to Death again and waste more of it.

 **"Move left."**

 _SHIT!_ Zach did not see where Danny The Devil had come from, yet his renowned enemy just emerged on his right side in range of both Zach and Nuomo who moved left in unison while Zach was attempting to go to the right of the swordsman. His body yanked to the left while Nuomo's did the same, just enough in that moment where the two were already moving towards each other that Nuomo's initial swing was now still perfectly on target to hit Zach, and Nuomo accelerated his arms that he was slowing right there to get a chance to re-maneuver.

The blade connected on Zach's stomach between his bellybutton and ribs, cutting through his sweatshirt, shirt, and some skin before slicing through the rest of his body and back that all turned to Death in that moment. _Tapping into Limiter 1 too early!_ Zach knew it and yet there was nothing else he could do as he was cut in half at his stomach. Nuomo shot to his own left side after he pushed his feet down and made a light movement to that side which he accelerated a hundred times as fast. As Zach tapped into Limiter 1 though, he flooded Death into his mind and his eyes flared more vibrantly red than they had through the fight. Everything seemed to slow down even more including Nuomo's movements away from his back.

 _Nuomo did not know that Danny's intervention was coming. He looked more surprised than I was, but that was the only way The Devil was going to get me._ Zach was pissed and his lips curled down farther at the corners. His right arm snapped towards Danny who was retreating to get a safe distance even with a small smirk as he had seen red splashing with the Death wisps that came out of Zach's back when he was bisected. Danny's smile vanished though while Zach's body reconnected in the middle, and while his right arm extended out with a long thin whip of darkness that shot at the assassin too fast and wrapped around his face _and_ mouth. The whip wrapped twice to cover Danny's eyes and mouth on the second wrap around, tightening hard as a gag into the villain's mouth that had opened at the last moment when his eyes were first being covered.

Danny was still conscious, as the whip was almost completely a solid with how condensed all the Death Zach shot out of his right hand that fast was. The younger boy ground his teeth while swinging his right arm across the front of his body, his head snapping towards Nuomo and his flaring red eyes glaring menacingly into Nuomo's. He swung Danny's body from forty meters away up into the air and then across the sky like a ragdoll, while Nuomo shot in all-directional movements away from Zach as quickly as possible after the miniature explosion of Death came out of Zach's body in his direction. Death sent a half dozen tendrils of darkness slicing through the air at him and making short-angled cuts wherever he was dodging.

Nuomo continued to grin even as the fight got more intense than ever. He thought he was leading the cuts though and moving with them chasing him, but he realized it when he saw The Devil in his peripheral vision with a black whip wrapped around his head and the two of them on-track for an imminent collision. _He must have planned it,_ Nuomo's realization came in fear too late with his eyes refocusing fully back on those red ones glaring back at him. _For me to be in this spot, in this moment, he led me here-_

The whip broke apart right before Danny would collide with Nuomo, and Zach sent the broken pieces of the whip along with the long tendrils of darkness chasing Nuomo to all collide with the two men who crashed into each other. Zach took down two of his strongest enemies at once, but as they were falling out of the air he only felt dread.

 _Again?!_ Midoriya spotted the villain in white dragging himself up off the floor with his body shaking and pulsating every moment. His muscles bulged and his neck cracked to either side as he stood up. Then he turned and glared straight towards Death with his face looking insane but a huge smile crossing it that made Zach feel a deep sense of unease inside him.

 _Only a minute that time,_ Zach thought, while retreating across the ravine and into the air more towards other enemies watching from afar. As he was flying backwards though, focused on the enemies he was moving towards and the one he was fleeing from, a few chunks of stone scattered around the floor got pulled together into the shape of a sphere not ten meters to his left. _Center of gravity is shifting,_ Zach thought, and he shot to the ground and picked up a few bodies of enemies he had defeated already, before racing across the ground and grabbing a few more, then zipping even farther away from the sphere in the air pulling him with an even stronger tug.

 _Hopefully it works,_ Zach glanced back as some darkness he left behind flew up with help from the gravity and surrounded the sphere. The gravity continued to shift stronger towards that floating rock ball though, with his Death doing nothing to knock out the one who had created it but was not actively controlling it. _Not great,_ Zach thought, with a glance back in the direction he heard a familiar roar in. "DEATH! You can't keep me down!" _That's not good either. Worse, actually._ His eyes darted up towards Midoriya for a second who spun his direction from the figure he was watching there for a moment with a great sense of unease matching Zach's.

 _Could be quick recovery,_ Zach thought as he dropped to the ground due to the air being oddly thin up where he rose to. _Or time advancement from one of his comrades who keeps bumping him a day into the future where his body would have woken up. He could be stronger than I gave him credit for, but getting up the second time quicker despite how I used more Death that time counters that. A third time is too risky now. I can't kill him though. I need another way. If I use Death on him again though it'll have to be insta-kill, or after the next time he gets up even insta-kill may not work._

"DEATH!" Zach did a backflip and spun at the sound of that roar coming from behind him. There was a sixteen foot tall man rising up out of the floor, mud pouring off his body and his skin turning more solid to look like rock instead. He was nearly eight feet broad at his shoulders when he arose, and his hair turned red after losing the mud that poured off of it and stuck straight up in a crazy spiky position. The hunchbacked figure snapped his head forward and screamed in a deep and booming voice, "HOW DARE YOU DO THAT TO DANNY?! RAA-"

Zach was just landing while facing the villain ahead of him, when he yanked his body to the left as hard as he could. The right side of his shirt and sweatshirt were still ripped off by the force of the object flying past his right side almost faster than he could follow. His eyes darted back forward after the object that passed him, and he stared through the hole in the center of the spiky-haired giant to a distant wall where the rock hit and created a massive crater that broke off a half dozen of the stalactites coming off the slant.

Zach turned his head to the right and looked back behind him, the rest of his shirt and sweatshirt falling off his scarred body as The Devil's henchman fell lifeless ahead of him. Zach glared sideways and back past two rock spikes that each had round holes in them, neither fully completed as they were too much to the side of the stalagmites. Those spikes still could not keep standing and fell inwards into the small gap between them even though they were separated in distance from Zach and the villain in all white whose arm that was swung forward moved back to his side finally. That villain smirked towards Zach as the pillars fell between them, blocking him from sight for a moment in which both he and Zach moved towards each other.

The spikes continued to fall, and Zach reached one while the larger villain in a white costume that was stretching to his new bulging size hit the other. That villain kicked the falling pillar with a hole in it that shattered into pieces flying at Zach, while Zach's huge third arm that swung around his right side spun the spike he caught like a baseball bat. Before those shards that the villain kicked could gain any speed, Zach slammed them all right back into him and knocked him backwards while he was reeling back from the debris slamming into him. The villain was lifted off his feet and sent flying back, though he flipped backwards recovering in under a second- only for Zach to be above his head finishing a flipping kick down into the eyes of the villain that went wide as he saw Death had appeared there in the moment he closed his eyes while wincing.

Zach did not have any Death on his leg as he smashed it into the villain's face at his eye-level. He did however force out a huge amount of Death out the back of his right calf to speed up his leg tremendously before the bone-crushing kick into his enemy's face. The villain slammed into the ground, then Zach caught two chunks of rubble still flying his way as he had moved faster than all the debris he sent flying with his baseball bat stone spike. He used the two huge black arms sticking out of his back to throw the chunks of stone down at where he just kicked the villain into the floor, but the man on the ground lifted his fists up from his sides just a bit then smashed them into the ground below him so hard that dust rose up past the debris and completely engulfed Zach too.

The dust on Zach's right moved, and he spun that way only for his red eyes to widen as a rock was flying up past him there. Much more of the smoke parted behind his back and between the thick black arms he still had back there, as the villain rose up much more sane than Zach thought he was to come up with that tactic for his attack. Zach spun his head 180 degrees with his neck turning into Death fully to give him that kind of movement without twisting the rest of his body, and he opened his mouth with the entire inside of it filling with Death. His enemy was punching forward at the back of his head, but before Zach could unleash the roar of Death out into the fist about the blow his Death-filled head apart, a blur dropped through the dust and slammed his enemy out of the air and into the ground with a bigger explosion of dust that fully covered the two teens in the air even more.

Zach and Deku each flew out of the explosion of dust though in the same direction. They dropped out of the air and skid away from the collision point of their enemy who despite Midoriya's hard kick, neither of them thought was down for the count. "What are you doing down-"

"He was killing too many people," Midoriya replied with a dark and focused look over his face. Zach grimaced as he had not even cared about this villain's rampaging actions enough to realize that Deku would come down, even though he had been trying to keep the villains from killing each other earlier as he had done with the Subspace Devils. _It's because he's not someone I can hold back against,_ Zach knew, as he saw the silhouette rising back inside that dust cloud. "Plus, your Quirk isn't working on him anymore."

"It could still work," Zach countered. Now that Deku was down there with him he had to try it, and he shifted his head a bit to give his comrade a look into his eyes as seriously as he could. "If I use my right hand at this moment, it could still kill him. If I knock him out with Death again he might become resistant to it, and then we'll be screwed-"

"There has to be another way," Midoriya replied, taking his eyes off Zach's and staring back forward to where all the dust suddenly parted in all directions to clear the air around their enemy. "What do you think his Quirk is?" Midoriya wondered, while their enemy faced the two of them and grinned more at the sight of both Deku and Lifebringer facing him. As they stared his way, the boys saw his busted nose and blackened eyes returning to normal. His nose unbent without him even wincing, and the bruises under his skin seemed to just fade away as he recovered completely only panting to show that he had even been fighting so far. Zach looked worse off than the villain did, which was now clear without any clothes on his upper body to cover up the shallow gash across his midsection.

 _Zach's getting hurt down here, and this villain almost got a drop on him. I've never seen Death stop working on an enemy like this though._ Midoriya's eyes scanned the villain whose Quirk he had been hypothesizing on as well. _If he can get resistant to my strength as well, then we could be in real trouble here. There are ways to stop him though._

"His Quirk is impressive," Zach started, his voice raised louder than Midoriya had just questioned him. "I think it has something to do with, Evolution. That might be what it's called." Zach stared towards the villain who looked right back across a thirty meter gap at him as he was saying this aloud. "Survival of the fittest as a Quirk, giving him the ability to change based on how he was defeated the last time. The second time I hit him with Death it took a lot more-"

"You're close, Death!" The villain yelled across the gap, his voice bellowing towards the boys who saw their enemy's body seeming to shake with excitement as he faced the two of them. "My Quirk, is Adapt! Every attack you make on me will only make me stronger. And I am Matthew Umburt! Remember it when I send you to meet God!"

"Are you just another religious fanatic like the rest of them?" Zach asked, his tone getting more disappointed along with his expression as he lost some of the intensity and anger in his glare.

"God is real," Umburt replied with a knowing smirk back at the boys. Midoriya glanced confusedly to his side, while Zach just glared harsher at the villain again who lifted his arms out at his sides with his palms facing the sky. "And Eziano is his messenger. And I," he tilted his head back down after looking up to the sky, and he leaned his body forward with the toes of his feet cracking the ground below him. "Shall become his fists." The ground behind the adaptable villain broke apart, but Zach and Midoriya both shot up in the air in different directions away from where Umburt raced to.

 _Zach's plan worked,_ Midoriya thought while staring down at the villain whose body blurred for most of those people still standing around the area but not as much for Deku or Lifebringer. _He bragged about his own Quirk._

 _He seemed like the kind of guy to tell me,_ Zach thought while staring towards his enemy whose Quirk was more impressive than his mind. _But his fighting ability is high. His reflexes and skills are heightened to a level surpassing most of the other assassins, and with his Quirk making him stronger every time I attack him, and more resistant to Death, he's seeming more like someone I have to kill each second._ Zach could see Midoriya rising up with him in a slightly different direction away from Umburt. _If Deku hadn't dropped down here I could have just hit him with an overwhelming amount of Death and killed him while pretending to knock him out. It wouldn't have been perfect but I could have acted as if I did it on accident even just because I knew it would take more Death. He wouldn't have felt I killed intentionally again. He may have dropped knowing that I would try that though, which is why I had to ask him._

Zach pushed Death out of the soles of his feet instead of creating wings, sending him in a short burst of speed up in the air above where Umburt was approaching from. Umburt saw how Midoriya changed directions in the air though, and seemingly on instinct alone he tried kicking the air as Zach dodged him, readjusting in midair and flying after Zach who had to force out a much larger amount of Death from above him this time to drop past his enemy starting his punch too late. As Umburt had to finish his punch and then flip up to kick again for his new redirecting move, Zach continued his thought process while dropping below the villain he did not want to attack recklessly here. _Midoriya knows it too. He can't just start bashing away at him or this man will become far too powerful to stop. Dodging him is our best course-_ Zach's intended landing position was no longer where he was dropping to.

His eyes darted to the side as he saw Umburt was moving across the air in a strange way too before kicking himself back down. Midoriya was shooting across the sky towards the other two in the fight, but his eyes locked farther past them towards a floating sphere of rocks that was now the size of an SUV. It was flying across the sky closer to Zach and Umburt, with the bald sixty year old CEO of a hero support item company running across the ground after it. His Planets did not affect him with their gravity pulls, so he was able to stay close to it while still with his full mobility, giving him a huge advantage against anyone who tried getting close to him under his Planet to try and stop him from using it. Those who came at him would have to both fight against a skilled martial artist and the tug of gravity yanking them up in the air so much harder when they were closer to his "My World" attack.

 _That man will only grow stronger, so there's no need to worry about him,_ Santiago Hernandez thought with a sly smirk on his face untouched by wrinkles despite his older age. The assassin in his earlier sixties was in peak physical condition, and he sprinted below his spinning sphere of rocks that pulled up debris and slammed the rocks hard into the Planet only growing larger and tugging Lifebringer and Umburt towards it with a stronger pull. A mass of Death flew in his direction though, and Hernandez stopped moving the Planet for a moment to leave it hovering and disconnected from him. _Close enough._

 _I have to take him out first. Letting Umburt get resistant to this kind of intense gravity will put us at even more of a disadvantage._ Zach saw where the gravity-disrupting enemy had just gone into hiding after his failed Death attack towards the now-unmoving mass of rocks floating in the sky. As he flew that way though, Midoriya slamming into Umburt's back when the hulking villain in white tried to give chase through the air, a woman sent a pillar of rocks flying towards him.

 _Vectress,_ Zach saw the woman whose Quirk he knew as he had seen it in action before. _One of the only ones who got away with Eziano that day,_ Zach thought about the attack on his ship, and he saw faces in his mind and felt pain in his neck. Most of the villains in that attack he had captured that day, even if they had escaped later on. There was a woman who got away with Eziano Mozcaccio that day though. One who Gentle had been fighting and whose barrier did nothing to stop her from stabbing him in his right arm and in his gut. Luckily the same people who had managed to stop him from dying from a cut throat had been able to seal up Gentle's wounds as well.

She used the shifted gravity to her advantage, sending debris in an arc making it look like it was nowhere near on target to hit her enemy. It curved in though as the strength of the Planet increased, pulling the debris in curves straight at where Zach was moving towards. He redirected himself away from Hernandez who sprinted from his cover to closer directly beneath his Planet. Zach flew faster towards the center of gravity himself and left behind the debris that passed behind his back and continued a curve so it was more on his left side now. Even though he dodged the rubble though, in the right corner of his eyes he saw Vectress herself flying at him using a jetpack and two swirling funnels of wind coming off her back so strong that they were visible behind her.

Her wind funnels were pulled by the gravity as much as she was, and yet she threw two short blades towards Zach in perfect angles that the gravity took them and pulled them straight into the side of his neck and lower ribs. Her throws sent the blades flying faster than bullets in the first place, but she curved them using Hernandez's gravity in a perfect way based on where Zach had started flying towards. _They trained together,_ Zach decided, realizing that her skills to perfectly match the increasing pull of gravity towards that Planet were too high to be spontaneous. _For me,_ Zach added to himself, and he stopped short instead of continuing to the center of gravity after those blades passed through his body he filled with Death to prevent even getting cut.

Vectress continued to fly at him, and Zach shot straight at her this time only for the Planet to fly after his back and slow him down as it pulled him harder back. It sent Vectress flying towards him faster too which she saw coming earlier than Zach did as the one facing Zach and the Planet behind him. She slammed her open right hand forward as Zach punched a swirling left fist of Death ahead into her. _SHIT!_ Zach tried yanking his arm backwards at the last second, but he did not have the timing right and was blasted backwards as all his force immediately reversed. Trying to pull back the other way just increased the speed in which he was sent reeling backwards, his left arm ripping apart fully as he did a backflip towards the sphere of rocks now over the size of a small one-story building.

As he flipped backwards so rapidly towards that source of gravity though, one of his arms ripping apart, he spotted Umburt fully distracted by Midoriya who was on that villain's other side and looking his way after seeing him get damaged like that. Zach was hoping Midoriya would look to him in that moment which was why when he spun backwards from the force, he let his arm get fully ripped apart into a swirling mass of Death looking like Vectress had torn his arm up with her Quirk. The instant Midoriya stared into Zach's red eyes, two pairs of wings flapped out of Zach's back and a mass of Death exploded out behind him to add to the force sending him racing forward.

Midoriya shot towards Umburt who punched but was too slow for the teenager who ducked below his right arm and then continued right past him and towards Vectress who tried to get in Zach's way as he seemed to be flying away from the huge sphere of gravitational pull behind him. Her eyes started dropping down and to her left though while Death passed by her too quickly for her to stop, as she saw a blur in the bottom of her vision charging across the ground and keeping his feet low to the ground to avoid being pulled up in the air. He was crouching as he sprinted too, while Zach arced up first and drew Hernandez's eyes up after him. By the time Santiago looked back down at the sounds of Vectress' yell and the ground breaking apart just ahead of him, Deku was too close for him to drop the world and slow the boy's attack.

"DALLAS…" Midoriya slammed his left fist into the gut of his enemy so hard that his fist was visible on the man's back. His right foot slammed down though as it was still in mid-step when his punch collided, and Vectress' eyes shot open huge as Deku stomped his foot on the ground to his right and twisted his whole body with his arm swinging upwards. "SMAAAASSSHH!" He sent Hernandez flying up in the air straight towards Vectress who dodged up higher to avoid her comrade flying her way. The huge sphere of collected debris started falling out of the air at that moment too though, and Vectress was too adjusted to dealing with it so she rose that much faster up in the air, straight into Deku's path as he predicted that she was already fighting the pull of gravity and would not be ready to adapt as quickly as the one taking Hernandez down in the first place.

Vectress' eyes snapped up above her, but there was no time to ready her Quirk before the leg of the student flipping over her slammed down into her skull and sent her flying straight down into the ground. Midoriya had seen Zach's arm get ripped apart just by touching the woman, all of his Death blown backwards so it did not affect her even, and he knew the same could be said with his own strength and force if he went too soft on her. He still stared down uneasily towards where the woman collided with the ground, hoping that the assassin was strong enough to withstand that kind of attack. His eyes were dragged towards where Zach had flown to however, bulging as he finally saw what it was Zach did when they suddenly switched enemies without a word said between them.

Zach had flown at Matthew Umburt before the Adapting villain had fully turned around. The Death arm that had ripped apart fully reformed once Deku had passed behind him, but the arm was not in the shape of an arm when he made it reappear. Instead his arm was in the shape of a nine foot long curved blade, which he used while flipping like a spinning top over the left shoulder of Umburt who was turning to the right and did not even see Death until Zach had spun over his other side. Umburt's left arm rose up in the air and was still flipping around when the other teenager turned after moving with such immense speed that he had taken down both of the other enemies already.

Zach passed by Umburt's other side and slammed into the ground, skidding away and making his left arm emerge out of the curved arm-blade. His weaponized arm faded in an instant with the villain's blood on it falling to the ground with no Death blade to stay coating. Some of that blood fell onto his exposed left arm though, an arm with some scars on his skin despite there only being steel below it. The Death faded on his dark pants as well that were ripped below the knees, and it faded from over parts of his torso though left strange designs and patterns crossing over his scarred skin. Swirling patterns of Death made spirals over his chest, under his arms, and around his sides just above his waist. The teenager's helmet re-spiked up over his head, his red eyes flaring and his bloody left arm lifting up in front of his mouth as he smirked towards his enemy.

 _Let's see your regenerative abilities,_ Zach thought as Umburt just smirked back at him after losing the pained expression that seemed fake by how quickly he wiped it from his face. Muscle and skin bubbled around Umburt's left shoulder that was no longer bleeding, and a white bone protruded through the middle with all that muscle and skin wrapping down it. His arm reformed in only seconds, muscles and tendons wrapping around his bones and then skin sliding down from his shoulder where the tight white fabric of his costume was now ripped to reveal the veins that showed on his reforming skin, pulsing to be visible through his skin and so dark they looked purple. _Based on the speed of regeneration, I'll adjust the next attack based on having less time than this one because of Adapt. Let's assume 1/20th as an overestimation to base the next attack on with how quickly I'll need to follow-up. It's do-able, but now I need to figure out what kind of next attack to do that I can follow through with successfully._

 _Did Zach know he could regenerate? It doesn't matter,_ Midoriya focused his thoughts back away from his anger at how Zach removed their enemy's arm. _His strength and speed increased. His resistance to Death is up. Taking off his limbs doesn't even work. I know Zach wants to kill him right now. There are other ways though. I'll show you, Zach. There's always another option!_ Midoriya shot forward so hard that the shockwave created by his movement made a blast in the air as he far exceeded mach speed. The soundwave hit Umburt, after Midoriya's right hand grabbed him by the back of the head and took him off his feet.

Zach leapt up in the air and looked down as Midoriya passed below him dragging Umburt through the air behind him. "What are you doing?" Zach shouted after Midoriya while the wind force slammed into him of Deku shooting past.

 _Attacks on him make him stronger. He Adapts, but does that mean it's only when he's hurt? Not because of the need to get stronger, but it's a defeat that-_ Midoriya felt his enemy yanking his head down, tearing his skull out of the younger boy's grip and then continuing with the front flip to try and kick the person above him. Midoriya turned sideways in the air, and he caught Umburt by both legs that he yanked upwards to force away the man trying to bend his body and swing fists inwards too. As quickly as Umburt moved and reacted to Midoriya catching his legs, Midoriya reacted just as quickly to his enemy's follow-up attack that prevented Umburt's fists from colliding with him.

The villain twisted his legs though as MIdoriya held them, and once again Midoriya released his grip rather than let Umburt hurt himself by breaking his legs in an attempt to twist himself with more force than his body could handle. _His body is getting stronger though, and despite how strong he is it's hard for him to just break himself down. He still feels pain too._ Midoriya dropped down and then ran backwards as Umburt landed and sprinted forward at him with the air behind him pushing back in a funnel and breaking down two stone pillars fifty feet behind him each.

Umburt sprinted after the teen backpedaling away. He jumped forward and came down with both feet pushed together trying to do a flying kick down into Deku. Midoriya stopped moving backwards at the last second before that kick was going to hit where he had just been standing though, almost leading him but slow enough that Umburt would hit the ground just behind where Deku was running. If he had kept moving back at the speed quick enough to avoid his enemy, all the debris sent flying up by Umburt's collision with the ground would either be used as weapons sent flying towards him or at the least a smokescreen to separate them for a moment. Deku shot the other way so fast that Umburt could barely see how the boy had stopped and gone back the way he just came from. It was too late for the man to change his own momentum, so he wound up creating a wall of weapons and an explosion of dust that all pushed the opposite direction as his opponent behind him who turned and glared at his back through a gap in all the dust.

 _He's as fast as All Might,_ Umburt thought while looking back at the boy he knew was a certain distance behind him, only for his eyes to have to raise as the eighteen year old was already rising straight up above his head.

Midoriya grit his teeth in frustration while glaring down at the villain. _The boost up to ninety percent still strains my legs too much. I can only use 85% normally, and I can't risk any more here knowing that Eziano's ahead._ Midoriya took in a deep breath that still looked sharp as he did so quickly considering how fast he was moving that the rest of the world seemed to be slower in comparison. _Though I don't need any of it now._ Midoriya pointed both hands down below him, and he flicked all five fingers of his left hand at once. "Delaware Smash: AIR FORCE!"

The villain who just raised his head was taken off his feet and slammed back-first into the ground by a funnel of wind force that cracked the surface all around him and made Zach stumble around where he was watching from. Zach turned his head to the left and spotted a group of five others who could not keep their balance at the miniature earthquake Deku just created. Several cracks over the surface of the ravine's lower section grew wider, and chunks of rubble and debris bounced on the ground along with unconscious bodies of assassins. Zach refocused solely on Deku and not on the scattered and few enemies they had left down there, _I don't need to worry about you. As much as I thought I did, at least. Even though you say you can't use all your power, I can see it here, Midoriya. You've already surpassed All Might._

 _100% of your power, is more than 100% of what his was. I don't know if you realize it yourself,_ Zach stared at the hole in the ground with cracks that spread so far out across the rock surface despite Midoriya not even using a full swing of his arm, despite him not even colliding with the ground itself but just flicking the air twenty five feet over the ground. _You're stronger than he ever was. And you've also got that,_ Zach cracked a smirk as he finally saw what it was Midoriya was doing, as Deku's right hand erupted with a darkness that shot in five long whips out of his fingers.

Deku's enemy who was stuck into the middle of the crater ripped his arms out of the ground where they were indented. He leaned upwards and pushed his feet down to get up, growling and glaring up through the dust that had rose around him when the ground broke apart. Darkness dropped into the dust though, and Umburt smirked for a moment as it raced at him. "Haven't you realized yet?! THAT WON'T WORK ON-" One of the black tendrils shot at him and wrapped around his face as he was yelling and giving away his position.

Midoriya wrapped up Umburt's eyes and mouth in the first instant, stopping his enemy from dodging the following four black tendrils he controlled to fly towards the brute. He flicked only one finger down on his left hand with less force than before to blow away all the dust that had flown up from the harder crater-inducing Air Force. "Blackwhip: Binding Cage!" Midoriya's other four Blackwhips wrapped around Umburt's torso and his legs. Two whips pulled Umburt's legs together so hard that the insides of his legs crunched together near the knees and he lost balance. At the same time, he was unable to use his hands to help himself on his landing, as his arms were bound to his sides and tightened there so there was no wiggle room at all. His elbows and wrists were pressed into his sides so hard his ribs were squishing together. Though Midoriya gave him no room for movement, he made sure not to start crushing his enemy who he had to use _almost_ all of the force of his Blackwhips on, though not all of it thanks to using four separate ones all at once.

He finally unwrapped the final Blackwhip that was around his enemy's eyes, one that had also wrapped up his ears so he had not heard Deku's shout of his attack. Umburt still thought that somehow this was Death just using his Quirk in a way preventing it from actually knocking him out, or maybe that he had just adjusted to the Quirk enough to not be affected by it in that way anymore. He stared up from where he lay on his right side though, struggling against his binds that would not bend or break.

Zach ran up to the edge of the wide crater he looked down into where Umburt was laying on his side and growling in fury up towards them. "Will it hold?" Zach wondered, glancing to his left side as Midoriya dropped down into a crouched position and then stood back up straight there. The two muscular boys each over six feet tall stared down at Umburt together as he roared at them and started rolling back and forth to try and struggle harder against the binds. _That secondary Quirk of his is so strong,_ Zach thought while seeing his enemy who had been taking both his and Midoriya's powerful attacks unable to break free from it. _I could slip right out of it. And if I used Death while wrapped in them it might knock out Midoriya- stop. Stop that._

Zach turned to his _friend_ who he stopped planning out counters against. Midoriya kept looking down at their enemy for another few seconds. "I think it should, based on what you got him to say about his Quirk."

Umburt's eyes shot open wide and his teeth bared so much harder as he glared towards the teenagers he could hear from the middle of the crater. "RAAAA! I will get out of this! I WILL- ESCAPE-" he pulled his arms as hard as he could away from his sides, but he did not even have the room to start straining himself to rip them free. He had so little mobility due to the way Midoriya had tied him up, that he could not even hurt himself by struggling any harder. Umburt screamed out in frustration and rose his head off the ground, and he smashed it down into the rocks below him creating a hole below his face with blood splashing into it from his newly broken nose.

"Blackwhip!" Midoriya yelled out, swinging both arms ahead of him and creating another ten long whips of darkness. He wrapped a few of them fully around his enemy and rolled him closer across the ground to a flatter area with less cracks on it, then he used all ten emanating from his hands to flatten over the enemy he rolled to be face-up on his back. Whips went around the top of his head, around his neck, over his torso and the arms still tightened to his sides, over his legs, and over his ankles to keep them pressed strongly into the ground so there would be no room for him to raise them up and smash them down. The whips stuck into the ground on either side of him, piercing through the ground like stakes being driven in to keep him in place.

Umburt twitched, and flinched, and when he let out another roar it was not even as loud as the others, as trying to get louder pushed his neck into the whip around it and choked him off. When Umburt felt that he tried to lean upwards and push his neck so hard into the Blackwhip that it would choke him out and hopefully kill him, making him strong enough to break free of all these weapons that were not actually harming him enough to make him stronger. The other Blackwhips on his upper chest and over the top of his head prevented him from pushing his neck up into the Blackwhip strong enough to strangle himself though.

"Nice," Zach said. He witnessed what Umburt just tried to do after hearing his scream of lower volume, and the fact that Umburt was trying to strangle himself meant that their assumptions on how his Quirk worked had confirmation. "Don't want anyone releasing him though, so I'll leave this here for a little while as we finish off the rest." Zach swept his right hand towards Umburt while turning his back to the villain who could only dart his eyes in Zach's direction rather than turn his whole head. A black cage of Death with thick walls keeping Umburt impossible to see from the outside wrapped on all four sides of Umburt and above him.

Midoriya gave Zach a hesitant look, but he decided not to assume the worst of his friend. The fact that his Blackwhips were wrapped all over Umburt gave him a safer feeling about if Zach was doing anything to the villain inside that Death cage as well, as neither he nor Zach knew if Death would knock him out if used on his Blackwhips.

 _If he gets out of there,_ Zach started thinking to himself, but he cut off his own thoughts and forced the inner walls of his Death cage to flatten back out. The wisps that were pulling off the inside and towards the villain bound in the middle of the pitch black box sucked back into the walls and ceiling to recreate the gap between them and Umburt. _Midoriya's here. Don't make the backup plans. Believe in Plan A. Every second I spend thinking about what could be is a second I take away from planning a perfect victory, which is the only kind of victory I can have with Deku alongside me._

"We've got under twenty of them left," Zach started while looking in the direction of the skull face in the farthest wall from where they were standing now. They were close to the center of the ravine far from the glowing mouth of that skull, and it was a lot darker around them now as many of the torches and lanterns had fallen or gone out. Zach could see through his red-tinted vision some enemies up on the reverse-slanted mountain slopes that seemed to defy physics considering how much weight those protrusions had to weigh. Those enemies hung off the ceiling or hid on top of spikes, and he wondered if any of them were planning on releasing Umburt after seeing him put his cage of Death around it. _Not many of them should have the ability to get through or below the cage. I'll keep an eye on them all though and make sure to keep him in there._

"You're not going to tell me to go away?" Midoriya wondered. He was not planning on leaving even if Zach told him to, but he was a bit surprised Zach said "we" instead of telling him to get back to where he was before.

"No," Zach replied with a small shake of his head. "There'd be no point. In another minute we have to head inside anyway." Zach started walking forward and he broke into a jog, Midoriya quickening a pace behind him into a quick jog as well. "I'm sure that's where we'll find Eziano. And more traps," Zach added as an aside.

"Don't worry," Midoriya said in a reassuring voice. _He sounded grim. Attacks pass through him, but I'm fast enough to dodge… I will be. I won't make you die for me._ Midoriya promised that internally to his friend running ahead of him. _I won't make you watch me die,_ Midoriya thought that second, wondering if that would be worse for Zach than having to feel himself die again. He imagined what Zach would look like if he died fighting here, after what Zach shouted at him in the sky before about how he would kill people if there was even a chance Midoriya could be killed by them. _**"…fought and died for me, or even killed for me."**_ _As many people as he's killed, he wasn't just talking about how bad it was for his soldiers to kill. How badly they didn't want to kill and yet they would; I know that's still how you feel too. So if you would be willing to go that far for me, then I cannot let you feel like that would have been the right decision by dying here today._

"I've got them," Zach said, his voice sounding like he was offering to do it on his own to his friend behind him.

Midoriya was going to reply, but he saw the group of six people they were rushing towards now as he moved a bit to the right side while running at Zach's back. Looking past Zach he could see the half dozen assassins ahead of them were wearing costumes he recognized despite them being darker versions of those people's usual uniforms. Midoriya slowed down, but he grit his teeth and pushed his feet down harder to run after Zach towards the group of heroes facing off against them.

Zach did not think Midoriya's hesitation would last anyway, so while Midoriya was just speeding back up to his last speed, Zach shot forward five times as fast for Rhino Chick and the others gathered with her. Pharaoh was the only other American hero in the group. The Egyptian American man was dressed in black but had gold highlights and supposed jewelry on his wrists and around his neck. Those bracelets and necklaces started to move though as he ran to the left side as the center of the group. _Advanced gadgets,_ Zach thought as he saw the technology moving on its own in preparation for some sort of attack.

The shirtless teen's body covered in more wisps of darkness, and then all of the Death vanished from around his body at once and he came to a short stop between the heroes. Across from Pharaoh was Twin Rivers, an Iraqi heroine who had a dark blue visor on her helmet that covered up most of her head but left some of her dark brown hair flowing out the bottom of it. She had been flanking on Zach's other side, while Rhino Chick ran straight forward at where Zach was charging at her. Behind Rhino Chick using her larger body for cover of what they were doing were two others who Midoriya did not recognize, though Zach did know the two more obscure heroes from small towns in Kenya and Moldova. The sixth hero in the group was The Spear, who stayed farther away from the rest of the group but who Zach had kept an eye on for a long time now due to his enemy's powerful and very far-ranged attacks.

 _Above!_ Midoriya darted his eyes to his back right as he was still running after Zach to take part in this fight against the heroes. Zach seemed to be fully focused on whatever team attack they had planned on him, providing two of the other non-hero assassins with their moments to drop from high above on the under-slope of Mt. Sankatsu. Midoriya bent his knees and shot up into the air, moving so fast that the attacking villain who dropped first had barely gone down ten meters and was still far from being ready to change targets or defend himself from Deku's sudden appearance in front of his eyes.

 _Good. Don't want you fighting heroes here._ Zach smirked as Deku flew off behind him, and his enemies glared harder at him before they all attacked at once. He did not have any Death on his body at the moment, as if he was taunting them with the fact that he was not even using his Quirk to take them on. _This is different than Broom Man,_ Zach reminded himself as the coordinated assassins used their Quirks and teamwork and support items in conjunction to attack him from three sides at once.

His enemies were rushing at him quickly, but Zach's eyes retained a low red glow in them even when the rest of his body lost its black aura. His eyebrows narrowed inwards and his lips curled down at the corners. Twin Rivers stopped short and Pharaoh jumped into the air. The ground from Twin Rivers past Zach and below Pharaoh all got swept over by a fast-moving stream that poured out of her legs all directed straight forward fast enough that it did not all just spill out to the sides. Pharaoh's wrist support items dropped when he was jumping up though, and one of them electrified the water while the other sped upwards through the stream towards Zach's legs.

Twin Rivers grit her teeth from farther away but still in range of the powerful electricity that zapped her as well. Zach focused more on Rhino Chick ahead of him than the shooting pain in his legs as his feet were standing in shin-deep electrified water. He stomped forward and reached his arms in front of him- then he pulled to the left side but still had to turn his insides into Death as Covenant leapt out from Rhino Chick's right side and fired something at him he caught a partial glimpse of. His eyes returned to a brighter glowing red while darting to the other of the two heroes just behind Rhino Chick who was doing something with her hands, but Covenant dropped the device he had just fired from and clenched both fists as fast as he could right as Zach was being impaled.

 _Shit,_ Zach tried turning more of his body into Death to pull away fast, but the other of the two behind Rhino Chick disrupted his movement the second his body was turning to a gaseous state. _I'm not gas! I'm intangible!_ Zach screamed it at himself while trying to yank away from the point pulling his black body back into a more solid form, then he snapped his head forward in rage. His body zapped with a much stronger burst of electricity due to the black spike currently stuck in the middle of his body, having been stopped in the moment that it pierced through him so that it would not keep going so fast that it passed out his back. In the moment he was more focused on the pain, his body returned to a more real form enough that the second bracelet Pharaoh had been wearing clipped to his right ankle and locked on.

Pharaoh grabbed Zach by his back in the instant after his support item attached to the teenager who had several different attacks to focus on. The hero started to use his Quirk on the boy whose entire back flared with darkness and shot back into him, and Atmos added to her comrade's plan to push that gaseous Death even faster at Pharaoh. Zach felt his Death leaving his own control to push harder into his enemy who had been attacking him but who would not be able to handle that much Death. Instead of pulling it back towards himself, Zach sent it flying up in the air and dispersing to avoid-

His hands snapped inwards and he grabbed Rhino Chick by her horn, but the heroine leaned her head down and then snapped it up, her horn pushing through Zach's arms and knocking them aside to slam her horn straight into his chest. She pierced through his body and ripped upwards, tearing a wave of Death up in the air that Zach's body had filled with. That Death yanked hard away from Rhino Chick and pulled back into Zach's body that was spiraling away, only to disperse out all towards Twin Rivers at once who Zach was falling towards. Twin Rivers' eyes shot open huge as did Covenant and an injured Rhino Chick's, as they thought Atmos had Death's power hindered based on the way his Death splash just pulled back towards himself when it looked like it was going to try and wrap around Rhino Chick.

Rhino Chick darted her eyes backwards while panting heavily from the small amount of Death she took that was not enough to knock her out. She saw that it was not Atmos who stopped that though, as there was a spike of Death removing itself from her chest and sliding back into a crack in the ground ahead of her that it had shot out of. Twin Rivers slammed her arms ahead of her and made a much stronger stream than the last one blast at almost point blank into Death's body and his cloud of darkness. _Water isn't great with Death,_ Zach thought while submerged in the wave he could not push his Death through very easily with as hard as the current was pushing him backwards. _And it washes me too far apart from myself, especially at this strength. I'd waste too much just getting out of this._

Zach let himself get washed through the air then rolled across the ground thirty meters from Twin Rivers, though his counterattack on her failed and he wound up just standing up out of the fading river without taking down his enemy. Rhino Chick had yelled a warning out to Twin Rivers, and so her comrade was able to avoid the Death that came her way after taking out Atmos. That second attack was all that mass of Death had left in it, and it faded away into little wisps that vanished only a second after the failed attack. As Zach was standing up out of the river losing strength however, seeing his enemies regrouping in one direction of him with Rhino Chick slow on her feet, and Pharaoh and Atmos down, his guard was let down the amount his sixth enemy needed.

His body had used little Death during Twin Rivers' last attack suggesting the fast-moving water made it difficult for him. Two of the enemies who had just been doing a combo attack on him were down and he had just been moved a fair distance from the other three still in the process of attacking him. The Spear fired when Zach was standing up out of the river, while his body was washed away of the Death with only some blood trickling out of him now in a new wound on his upper chest. His drenched body twisted as he saw movement to his right side, and to the left of the three heroes who intentionally pushed their other hero comrade from their thoughts to forget about his existence and completely ignore his presence.

 _The Spear,_ Zach thought while staring over towards where his enemy really would have gotten a good shot on him. _Too much of my insides were organs right there. His shots move fast, but I probably still could have reacted quick enough to avoid a fatal blow. Thanks though,_ Zach added while refacing his three enemies who were much more enraged as they stared towards Deku who was standing on top of The Spear.

Midoriya let out a deep breath and then turned his head towards the remaining three enemies in this group facing Zach. After defeating the two back behind them and up high in the ravine, he had to carry them to the ground level to place them down without dropping them to their deaths. On his way down to drop them though, he had spotted the movement of The Spear who had been heading in a strange direction considering where Zach was fighting from. Twin Rivers' turned though before sending out her second blast of water, pushing Zach to a position where once he stood facing them The Spear would be too far to his right and out of his peripheral vision that in a good angle, he would have a perfect shot.

 _The pro heroes are as good as any assassin,_ Zach thought. _Maybe because they're assassins and heroes. Experienced some of everything._ Zach glared harder at the villains ahead of him even as he gained a smirk on his face, the corners of his lips moving up this time as he stomped towards them.

Deku started jogging forward as well, going to take them on from another side. Rhino Chick spun her head though while the other two moved in front of her and closer to Zach, "Stay out of this Deku!" Midoriya slowed down and his eyes grew wider at the look on the Texan hero's face. She looked angry. Her eyes darted back towards Sazaki who stopped himself after the single stomp, looking interestedly towards his enemies and specifically between Covenant and Twin Rivers straight at Rhino Chick. The woman he had met before darted a look his way to see what he was doing, before glaring back towards Deku and shouting over at him, "You know that he's Death, don't you?!"

Midoriya stood frozen and stared at the three heroes in darker versions of their costumes. His eyes narrowed and his glare grew harsher as he stared into Rhino Chick's eyes, but the woman with a large body and big gray horn on her forehead stood up on her back thick legs and yelled his way, "He's killed more people than anyone! He'll be the end of the world!"

"You're with Eziano Mozcaccio," Midoriya started. "Whatever Zach's done, you have no right-"

"Eziano isn't what you think he is!" Rhino Chick snapped at the curly-haired teenager, shaking her head frustratedly then turning back towards Death who she saw take another stomp in their direction that seemed to make her vision shake for a second. She darted her eyes back Deku's way and saw him glancing in Zach's direction as well, gaining an uneasy look at the smirk on Zach's face as he stared down the heroes before him. "He knows that Death is going to kill us all. He's a balancing force in the world. A force of nature rather than a man!" Rhino Chick yelled at him, making Midoriya look straight back at her with his eyes wider as he thought of what All Might had told him the last time they had a conversation about this.

"But Death is… he's chaos incarnate!" Rhino Chick yelled it and Zach lowered down his smirk. He stopped where he stood and stared towards the woman whose voice shook with rage but also a fear in it, yet the fear did not sound as much for herself as for what she was saying. "He has killed more people than any of us, and you stand by his side and fight with him?"

"Eziano called us here because he knew that we cared about stopping Death as much as anyone," Covenant snapped, his expression steadying and getting darker as he glared Zach down while speaking to Deku. Midoriya turned to that hero with his eyes wide as the man rose up a pair of strange-looking pistols he pointed at Sazaki. "Even if it means Death, we have to prevent a world where he gets any stronger. You've seen it, Deku. You must have, being around him all the time." Covenant's teeth ground and he growled while glaring down Death, "He's more of a villain than Eziano. The greater of two evils."

 _They can't be… Are they just heroes, here to stop Zach?_ Midoriya's eyes shifted around the three of them, then back behind him and down to the hero he had just taken out.

"You're not our enemy Deku," Twin Rivers called out. "So stand down."

"You're a great hero," Rhino Chick agreed, fully facing Zach and dropping down on all fours to glare furiously at him and in her most intense way. "The world needs you. What it doesn't need, is a mass murderer to look up to."

"You can't take the moral high ground while fighting with assassins…"

"They know that your friend's death is the only way to keep the balance of power in the world!" Covenant shouted.

"He's too strong to be left alive," Rhino Chick agreed. "He's killed too many heroes already. Too many villains. Too many… people."

Midoriya lowered his gaze to the floor. He shook his head, then he rose it and said with his voice steady and his eyes glaring towards the three of them, "I don't believe you." The group of three did not take their eyes off Zach now as their dark-haired enemy smirked big at them. Zach stepped forward, then took another step as Midoriya told the heroes, "You just want to turn me against Zach. You didn't just get 'called' here by Eziano. You became heroes because he ordered you to." Midoriya called them out and not one of the three looked away from Death who was marching towards them now and chuckling under his breath. Midoriya darted his gaze to Zach who was unnerving him and making it harder to say this with such confidence, but he knew he was right anyway and he was so assured of it that the villains were not even trying to argue with him as they could tell he would not be convinced.

"You're assassins. You've always been assassins before being heroes. So maybe the things Zach has done are bad, but I'll never make my decision based on what you say." Midoriya said that firmly and then stood back, as Zach ran forward at his three enemies who moved towards him with Covenant and Twin Rivers each moving to the sides to try and flank him this time.

Death's body grew twice in size suddenly though. It made Covenant stumble as Zach's body rippled and shot to twelve feet tall, leaning forward with two more arms ripping out below the huge ones his normal arms had just grown into. Four black blades appeared gripped in the large hands of Death, and Zach yelled out while turning fully towards Covenant, "What's wrong?!" Zach jumped up in the air, his two huge legs bulking around his thighs and calves to send him fifty feet up in the air with his jump. He rose up all four blades, and Covenant rose shaky arms and fired while Twin Rivers sent a force of water right at her comrade.

Zach dropped down into the river and slashed at nothing since Covenant was thrust away by the force of the stream. Rhino Chick was still charging at him though, and his upper body twisted with his lower body solidifying so that the water did nothing to him despite the heroes' experience telling them that Zach should have been trying to use less Death once submerged in some water. Zach was up to his four-foot high thighs though in a fast-moving current, and he just slashed his swords towards Rhino Chick in four different spots so that even when she tried to dodge, she was hit in the side by a huge black sword that cut straight through her. The blade passed through her and looked to retain its shape on her other side. It passed her without cutting her, yet the huge woman hit the ground and rolled unconscious across it after being cut.

"You've fought against villains your whole lives," Zach continued while turning fully into the direction the current was coming from. He started walking up through the river, his steps slow but pushing through with ease as he brought back up two of his swords and held the other two out to his sides. "Thank you for that," Zach continued. His large black face grimaced and then started snarling down at the woman who put all of her force into sending rivers crashing forward at Death who had to stop for a moment and lean forward into them. "And yet because of Deku's presence I'm unable to just kill you and allow your citizens to go on believing that you were truly heroes that whole time. The idea that I'm going to make them have to feel so much despair at the thought of their heroes being assassins, _**sickens me."**_

Zach slammed his four swords in with them expanding in length and thickness. There was nowhere for Twin Rivers to go, except diving into the back of her river and trying to take the strong current between Zach's legs. Zach broke apart his huge thick legs though into the water, flooding the river with black and making the woman inside open her mouth and breath in the slowing water that she choked on to start drowning. The river dropped down into the ground and poured out in every direction, mostly just falling into cracks around the area.

 _ **Squish. Splsh. Splt. Slquish.**_ Zach stomped through the shallow water with his footsteps making squishing noises under his bare feet. He glared towards Covenant who stood up drenched, coughing, and panting as he rose his gaze to see Death walking his way. Zach's eyes stayed red and his fists flared with darkness, as he lifted up his left foot next to the woman laying still on the ground next to him. He stomped down, making Covenant and Midoriya both flinch as Zach stomped on the already unmoving figure. Zach stomped on her chest though, then kicked her to the side so the water poured out of the unconscious woman's mouth and throat where it had just splashed up from her lungs.

"You're heroes?" Zach asked, rage laced in his calm voice as he glared down Covenant. "So how could you…" his tone turned so fucking disgusted, and he tilted his head back while glaring in seething hatred towards the hero who took two full steps back from him despite already being thirty feet away. "You've fought against villains your whole lives. You're assassins pretending to be heroes. Yet you've never seen anything so horrifying before." He moved as a black blur so fast forward that he was in front of Covenant only three feet away in a second. His body leaned upwards and over the villain who looked up and into the flaring red eyes glaring down at him, Zach's body erupting in darkness yet leaving parts of his scarred-up figure visible.

Then he vanished, his whole body blowing away as if in the wind. Zach appeared on Covenant's right side sprinting forward at him, yet when Covenant swung his arms at Death they went through nothing but an after-image. The hero was too confused to realize it was just martial arts, making it feel more like some kind of demonic magic or something. Covenant's eyes darted around, and then that darkness that had seemed to fade before started spinning around the floor in a circle surrounding him. That circle rose up twenty feet and spiraled around him like a tornado-

"Zach! Stop!"

Zach turned his head and looked towards Deku who was watching him do this. _What the hell am I doing?_ He pulled his tornado back into his body, completely ignoring Covenant who part of that swirling tornado just passed through and knocked out behind him. He started walking in Deku's direction with a steady look on his face and his eyes going back to a low red glow returning some of the whites to his eyes. "Sorry," Zach shrugged up his right shoulder in apology as he neared Deku, though he did not sound very sincere about it. _Can't tell if the public humiliation and shame and prison will actually affect these kind of villains. They need punishment, and I'm the only one- Midoriya won't understand that. He couldn't._

 _Dipped into Limiter 1 occasionally up here. Not a great move. I have to reign it in._ "Eziano, his sons, Red, and possibly dozens of others are certain to still be around here."

Midoriya frowned as Zach walked past his side, but he started moving himself without stopping Zach to talk about what just happened. There was a lot he wanted to say, but instead he just asked, "What's Red's power?" He figured if Zach mentioned him by name then he had to be one of the stronger assassins he knew about that they had yet to face.

Zach started to explain as the two began running in the direction of the skull made of stone. As Zach explained though, Midoriya's thoughts could not stay on Red and what Zach was discussing about him.

Midoriya watched Zach in the corner of his vision and recalled what he was thinking about just a minute ago. His eyes shifted from Zach's back he was chasing to the bodies of the fallen heroes they ran past, barely moving at all though Midoriya did see movement from them. His eyes rose from those heroes up to the scar-covered back ahead of him, _You hate killing, yet you came out here ready to kill them all because that's what you thought you had to do. That's horrible. I don't know how I can convince you of that. That doing something so horrible, so against your nature, that you hate to do, is actually wrong… Why is that something difficult for you to understand? Why, is the only reason you're sparing them because I'm here with you, right now?_

 _People are going to learn that their heroes were fakes. That so many heroes were fakes. Many will refuse to believe it. They'll lie. People will call Deku a liar. And me. It's not fair that they get to cause so much grief and chaos even after they're defeated. No one gets justice by them being revealed. It's only heartache that awaits us._ Zach's eyes narrowed and his own heart ached for a moment as he glared at the figure ahead of him standing in the way of him and Deku and the entrance to some lower cave system illuminated brighter than the darkness of the ravine.

Zach sped up while Deku was just spotting this enemy. He had seen a small shift in Zach's expression before Zach sped up, and he kept his same pace to allow Zach to take on this single large villain seemingly guarding the entrance of the skull mouth. "È bello vederti, amico mio. Cadi."

The world spun around in Zach's vision, so he closed his eyes and continued sprinting straight forward to find the ground still where it was supposed to be. He jumped up and spun around his right leg, surrounding his lower leg in darkness and colliding the roundhouse kick with the side of Vinny's head. It did not matter how much the fat man weighed. The mafioso who Zach had been led to believe was Quirkless hit the ground and bounced, rolling away as he fell unconscious. Zach opened his eyes and landed with his vision no longer impaired, and he released a heavy breath while keeping his eyes forward and on the inside of the cave. He could finally see the inside was illuminated by strange orange lights that glowed through thin glass strips going across the walls of the tunnel.

Midoriya slowed down and he got to Zach's side but was looking towards where the final assassin on the surface had just rolled to a stop. The two of them started walking into the cave, but Midoriya looked back to Zach and stared at the side of his face. He asked after hesitating for a moment, "Was that, a friend of yours?"

Zach kept his eyes forward and did not reply for a second. Then he muttered back under his breath, "Apparently not. Stay focused."

The two of them were inside Eziano's base now. The entrance was slanted downwards and into a deeper cave below a mountain range. There were strange lighting fixtures inside the walls, and the boys knew there were traps laid ahead of them. Midoriya knew he had to focus and yet could not help but feel a pang of sadness in his chest at Zach's intense and uncaring expression after what he just said. The response was affirmative towards what Midoriya had asked, which he had wondered because of the familiar tone that man had spoken to Zach in Italian.

The path down into the cave was long and winding. It remained lit by the strange orange lights all the way inside. Neither Midoriya nor Zach hesitated as they continued heading down at a steady pace. They stayed silent and more focused on their surroundings now that they were in a confined space. Zach knew he could turn to Death to slip through cracks and Midoriya knew he could blast away everything around him if the walls started pulling in towards them, or if the ceiling collapsed, or a hundred different traps the two were preparing for. Nothing had happened so far though, and they reached an intersection on a lower part of the cave that had just flattened out a bit from the winding path behind them.

Only on their left was there a darker area the hallway led to. The boys looked that way and then at each other, but Zach frowned and shook his head while looking ahead of him instead. He glanced the other way rather than the darker path. _Eziano wouldn't be down that way. Something else is over there though that he doesn't want me to see. It wouldn't be slaves and hostages though, he'd want me to see them._ "Well," Zach turned the way of the dark route and he rose up his left hand, making the center of his palm glow blue.

Two enemies emerged out of the dark hallway and shot towards the two boys who each eased backwards and took defensive stances as they readied to figure out their enemies' Quirks first. Being this far in suggested some kind of trap, though Zach also wondered what was behind the two that they rushed out when he suggested the idea of firing a blue blast of energy out of his arm in that direction. _Something they care about. Whatever it is, they didn't want me shining a light towards it. So what if I…_

Zach separated the two enemies. He rushed past them and into the dark tunnel behind the two guards, making one of them turn and race after him while leaving the other to face off against Deku. Midoriya watched Zach disappear into the darkness which had a hesitant look forming on his face again though he had to focus on this powerful assassin he was facing himself. "Full Cowling, 85%," Midoriya bent his knees, and he shot to the wall on his right, then the ceiling, then the wall to his left and back down to the floor. He started slowing down at only certain moments while he bounced around on all the walls around his enemy whose body had tiny purple holes all over it that could fire projectiles or just pierce out points from his skin to impale enemies who attacked him. It was a great defensive and offensive Quirk, especially when combined with his superior skills as a martial artist and assassin.

His spikes were passing through the versions of Midoriya he could see though, only after-images left being by the teenager moving too fast between the blurs that it was starting to look like there were over six, then seven different Dekus jumping about. Midoriya sped up further, and all the different versions of himself that were appearing started to move the same direction while more versions appeared at the same time. He saw the limit to how many spikes and projectiles his enemy could fire at once, and he made it look like he was attacking from all sides while shouting, "Clone Wars!" The blurred teenager raced in behind his enemy and punched into his spine between two different defensive spiking protrusions, while ducking under a Quirk projectile spike to the right of one of the protrusions too.

As Midoriya made his precise attack, his eyes darted down the dark hall to where he heard a scream come from the other assassin. A flash of blue came from down that hall, and Midoriya caught a glimpse of Zach looking much darker than he had during their entry to the cave and yet smirking as he yanked his enemy's arm farther back behind him in a way dislocating it. He slammed his glowing blue palm into the side of Red's face when the villain was turning and stopping his scream to get a look at his opponent. Zach's enemy yelled out in pain, only to fall silent as darkness jumped off Zach's wrist and took down the villain whose face he was burning. _One fatal error on your part, was facing me in the dark,_ Zach thought as everything remained visible in a red tint even after his blue glow had faded.

 _Now what are those?_ Zach stared towards a glass case on the wall in the darkness that was tinted. A spike of Death flew off his body into the dead end and slammed into the dark glass, then he rose his left hand and fired a blast of blue energy into it too. _Not a scratch. It's probably a trap. Shouldn't have Deku break through it for no reason. Eziano's down the central route. Whatever's in there is interesting but unimportant._

"What's in there-"

"Doesn't matter," Zach said while walking towards Izuku who stopped heading his way when Zach said that. Despite Zach's attempts that said differently, Zach seemed to lose all interest and just motioned towards the central path they should keep heading down. "It's not Eziano. Let's finish this."

"It's only just beginning," Midoriya warned Zach, and Zach glanced to his side at his comrade whose intense expression returned. Midoriya's look relieved his friend who was glad to hear him say that. He nodded in agreement back at Midoriya showing he understood that as well, then the two of them continued down the middle path and pushed that glass case behind them out of their minds for now.

 _Does he enjoy hurting them? He starts smiling like…_ Midoriya hated the feeling in his gut and the thoughts he was having. _Zach didn't kill him… but if I wasn't there then he may have done so. Those heroes outside, I know they were lying and that they're just Eziano's- but they might have actually believed that too. I know they're wrong though. No matter what I've seen from him, I'm never going to be afraid of Zach destroying the world._ Midoriya's eyes stayed focused ahead of him and not on his friend at his side who he was thinking on in a calm way.

 _Zach purposely kept all his achievements secret despite how much good he did, in order to protect the world. I know that Zach cares more about the world than anything. More than fame, or glory, or his own codes, his own body, or even the lives of his friends. He put us in mortal danger to stop someone like Kurogiri. I know he cares so much about us, and yet even though he cares more for us than nearly anything, I know that he has hurt us before in order to better protect the world. The Lifebringer Incident is just one piece of proof that Zach would trade anything, do anything, if it meant better protecting the world. As he sees protecting the world to mean, though._

 _That's a dangerous outlook to have,_ Midoriya thought as they continued ahead together. _It leads Zach to make poor decisions and kill people, and yet that mindset also led Zach here. It led him to take down this organization of assassins that no one, not even All Might, had ever been so close to defeating._ Midoriya's eyes focused ahead and towards a wide set of open doors that had a darker room on the other side that did not seem to have a floor. _Eziano is just ahead,_ Midoriya believed, and he admitted to himself, _and Zach is the only one who could have done this. Gotten this far. I've been amazed by the things Zach's done before, and by the things he's told me he had done as Death, but it's here. In this cave in Eziano Mozcaccio's base where we could finally stop him… you're the most impressive hero in the world. Despite the bad things you've done, you've accomplished more than anyone. You are more capable at combatting evil than anyone alive. I envy you…_

 _Not for the life you've lived,_ Midoriya's eyes stayed focused on the entrance he and Zach were only twenty feet from reaching. The two of them were each slowing down and preparing themselves more, and yet Midoriya could not help but think on his friend next to him who looked so serious and focused on this mission alone. _But for who you are able to become when the world requires it of you. I saw a version of Zach not a few hours ago who was on the verge of despair and hopelessness. And yet here you are. He is able to compartmentalize and become the weapon that can do this without dragging in his baggage. Separating himself in battle from who he is and what he's going through. A man able to solely focus on the task at hand, and be the best suited to take on that task at any given time. It's… amazing. Inspiring, even. Yet you need me here too. Because someone who can do that to themselves, to make themselves into a perfect weapon, has lost something important inside. I don't know if you're stronger than I am, Zach. But I know you lack the restraint to spare Eziano without me. I can't let you kill him._

 _If you kill him… then I have to arrest you. Like I would anyone else._

Zach and Midoriya stepped up to the ledge of a room dimly lit by two torches hanging on opposite walls to Zach and Midoriya's left and right sides. Those torches were also down ten meters, on the sides of the floor at shoulder level of the man down there and across the large throne room they just entered. The entranceway had no floor on the other side of it, only a drop down to a floor below made of some black material that Eziano stood on thirty meters ahead of them right in front of a small black stone staircase that led up to the throne.

The throne was made of stone looking more like the regular stone of the ravine outside or walls of the cave. The rock throne looked almost natural, worn down by time and yet in a shape that would not naturally occur. Yet most of this cave looked naturally occurring as well, like the stalactites up on the ceiling that lowered down from a perfectly curved dome of a ceiling and only dipped a couple meters down from it. The domed ceiling had some bumps on it too, new protrusions like the forming of new stalactites that in thousands of years could extend to the lengths of the other ones.

 _This place is old,_ Zach thought, while he stared straight towards Eziano Mozcaccio across the black floor that he hesitated before dropping down to. "Let me take him first," Zach started.

Midoriya dropped down and landed at the same time Zach did. "We fight together," Midoriya replied.

Eziano had been alone in the lair awaiting the two boys. He faced them with his arms crossed behind his back, still in the sleeves of his purple cloak that he wore with the hood down. Zach had seen that cloak Eziano was wearing before, and he had seen the back of it and the white cross there that Midoriya had seen before as well. When Zach faced Eziano on equal level though his first remark to the assassin was, "You can remove that cloak of yours." Midoriya thought Zach might try to argue with him but was glad he did not and that they were just getting right into this. He tried to keep his concentration solely on their enemy though, even as Zach continued, "I know you're no Christian."

"I don't remember claiming to be Christian," Eziano replied to the boy before him who was covered in so many scars there was less un-scarred tissue than scar tissue revealed on his body. Unlike Midoriya who appeared untouched, Zach had marks on his skin given to him recently and almost his whole body was bare other than the space between his waist and knees. Eziano continued to his enemy, "Is that all you imagine the cross can mean?"

"Eziano Mozcaccio," Midoriya started, and his enemy's gaze turned onto him. The assassin had tanner skin than the boys and dark eyes that were shadowed over naturally but also had dark brown irises. His gaze was like none Midoriya had ever felt before, and yet he stood there before this enemy unafraid and unwavering. Midoriya had last seen this man at the Sports Festival two years ago, and he remembered what Eziano had said that day. He had not seen Eziano's face that day as the villain had worn a mask, but he imagined that voice when the man looked straight at him, _**"…It's not enough yet. It's not enough, and it won't be fast enough."**_

"Deku, Sazaki," Eziano began to the boys in front of him. Neither moved carelessly. Not against this man. "You've both made it here without much trouble. That is impressive."

"Your army is destroyed, don't act like that doesn't bother you," Zach remarked back. His voice was cold and his eyes glaring dangerously into Eziano's with the red glow bright and every possibility of how this fight was going to start racing through his mind. "All your sleeper cells and agents. They all came here to stop me or at the least weaken me before I faced you."

"I didn't think you would bring Deku into this," Eziano remarked back.

"He came on his own," Zach replied.

"You're under arrest, Eziano. Surrender peacefully…" Midoriya closed his mouth as he saw Zach turn his head to the right with a skeptical look on it. Eziano himself just rose his eyebrows, taking what Deku said more seriously than Zach who cracked a smile at what Midoriya was saying. "You always have to give them a choice," Midoriya said firmly, his eyes staying locked on Eziano and no joking tone at all filling his voice when he saw that look showing Zach thought Midoriya saying that was like a joke. Zach's smile flattened back out and his head turned forward with a renewed intensity on it and an even darker look on his face now. "Surrender, or we will capture you and take you in by force."

"All Might's protege, all grown up." Eziano said it in no joking tone himself as he stared at the young hero who was far more mature than the last time they had been in contact. Even then, Eziano recalled this child taking down Saberclaw, his sons, and Inhuman all in one day. "You have grown even more," Eziano continued. "And yet you were too slow. I was not wrong." Midoriya's teeth grit behind his closed lips, and Zach shifted his gaze for a moment to his friend on his side thinking back on what Eziano had said that day. Midoriya also thought on the person next to him who made him wonder, _Maybe I didn't get strong fast enough. Maybe taking my time as I did, forced Zach to do it himself while I sat in school. He held off the world from destruction long enough. Now, it's my turn._

"Shut up, Eziano," Zach said. His tone was dark and his voice low and cold. He stared down his enemy across the gap in the room that did not have any obvious traps laid there for him. That still left the non-obvious traps that could be hiding under the ground in the direction Eziano knew he would move in first, whichever way that would wind up being. Zach spoke in a cold voice to his enemy, "Your assassins were too weak to slow us down. Now, you are all that remains."

 _"Too weak?" Most of those villains up there were stronger than any I had seen before. Many were as strong as the leaders of villain groups, and most of them were as strong as executives of the League of Villains or Radians. More powerful even._ Midoriya said nothing even though he felt Zach was talking down how powerful all those enemies were up above to have put so much damage on him and to have forced them to use their full power at times. _We should have come up with a strategy for this fight. Maybe Zach knows that he could potentially hear our plan though. Maybe, we both just have to fight our hardest to stop him._ Midoriya spread his feet out and turned his body side-face into more of a readied fighting stance for this kind of enemy. The last time he had seen Eziano he took his eyes off the man for a moment and never saw him again, as Eziano had disappeared with his sons and Midoriya had to focus on defeating Inhuman rather than chasing them down.

"You called your full force back and we still defeated it," Zach continued to his enemy who he sounded like he was taunting to no reaction from Eziano. "Exactly as I planned. You did what I wanted you to do every step of the way," Zach remarked and glared at Eziano but with a victorious grin forming over his face. Eziano did not try to argue. He did not attempt to bluff even though Midoriya found himself confused as he continued to stare at their enemy while listening to Zach on his side. Zach continued as much as a taunt to Eziano as to explain to his friend at his side, "Unlike All Might, I would not have stepped back or stopped my rampage if Eziano had his forces start killing innocents around the world."

"That's what stopped All Might from capturing you," Zach continued with the presumption he had had from long ago. Midoriya's eyes widened though as he had never told Zach certain things that he was certain All Might had not told him either. Zach continued right to his enemy, "He let you go, after he had defeated you. All Might could never let all those innocents die. I know the bigger picture though." Zach's lips flattened and he glared murderously at his opponent. "I would have let the innocents die, because you would kill for centuries more. So one day of massacres would have been horrible but something I would have accepted for the good of humanity… And you know this about me. You know _exactly_ how much I'm willing to sacrifice for this world."

"I do," Eziano replied to all Zach had said so far. "Which is why your bringing of Deku to our battle confounds me."

Zach stayed quiet for a moment, as he had already told Eziano that Midoriya came on his own and that it was not his decision to bring him along. Eziano's repeated statement implied confusion as to why he would not just knock out Deku and leave him behind. "Deku is just being a hero, preventing me from killing anyone. Even you." Zach paused as Eziano looked at him in mild surprise, because he could tell that Zach meant what he just said. Zach took in a deep breath and then with a calmer and less angry look on his face he said, "I need people like Midoriya."

Zach's voice had a knowing tone in it, and his expression stayed steady and flat even as he surprised the teen on his right side by what he just said. "I've always needed them," Zach continued. "And so I surrounded myself with them to make sure I never strayed-"

"And what about the times when they were all killed?" Eziano interrupted. Zach closed his mouth and his expression darkened. "When you were all that remained?" Eziano finished, and Zach stared him down silently with Midoriya's expression getting darker too though Eziano could see in his eyes that Deku already knew what he was referring to. "Interesting," Eziano remarked.

 _He'll stop trying to turn Midoriya against me now. That was the start of an attempt and the realization that it would not work. Where will he come from? Do we move first or will he make the first move? He knows..._

 _Every move we make could have been planned for. If he sets off a trap and we make our moves to avoid it, he could rush at where we dodge knowing how we'll do so. I trust Zach to guard my back, and I can guard his too, but I will not underestimate Eziano here._ Midoriya's muscles clenched and his body filled with strength as he prepared to move in this deep cave filled only with dim light from the entrance connecting the hall above, and the flickering flames of a few torches on the walls. Midoriya did not suspect those flames would remain lit for long once they started moving at speeds that would create too much wind for the small room. The room was not actually small compared to most rooms, in fact it was rather large, but for the fight Midoriya saw coming it started to feel like a confined space.

 _ **"PLEASE NO!"**_

 _ **"Have mercy! Please! MERCY! AHHHH!"**_

Zach heard screams in his head and his teeth bared at his enemy dragging up some things that were pushed far down for this. _He knows._ His focus strayed from his enemy's attack pattern, as he could see Eziano was waiting for him to make the first move now. "You know, you're the one in my trap?" Zach wondered to his enemy he did not want to rush at considering where he was.

"Am I now?" Eziano wondered back.

"Yes," Zach answered. "I told you to tell me where you are, and to bring all your forces, so that I could destroy you all in one swift blow. Look at what's happened, Eziano."

"None of my forces are dead," Eziano replied right away. "And when the two of you are dead, I will regain-"

"You can't win," Zach countered. "We've fought before, Eziano."

"And I cut your throat," Eziano remarked, making Midoriya's eyes so focused on his enemy dart towards Zach's neck for a moment and the scar cutting across the front of it.

"You did, and then you fled because I was too much for you," Zach continued. "And we both know how much stronger I have gotten since then."

"Why don't you show me just how much stronger then?" Eziano wondered back. "If you can, with your friend here-"

Zach's right foot dragged across the floor in front of him and kicked up with a slash of darkness flying straight at Eziano. It was perfectly aligned with the center of his enemy's body, not purposely shifted to one way where his enemy could dodge easier. He split it straight down the middle, and then he predicted Eziano moving to his right side closer to Midoriya so he was already crossing the cut ground behind his black slash by the time Eziano was finishing his first step to that side. Midoriya meanwhile bounced off a stalactite in the center of the room up above them, and he broke it off by how hard he smashed into it with his feet. Midoriya reached down between his legs and grabbed the broken off spike of stone, and he thrust it down to Eziano's left side where the assassin's momentum was looking like he would continue a dodge away from Zach.

As Midoriya was releasing the spike though, Eziano's body faded in front of his eyes. Zach shot off the ground and intercepted the figure who Midoriya saw again only as Eziano threw a pair of knives at his attacking friend. Zach reached forward and caught the blades- **Boom**

Zach's hands ripped apart and he dropped down to the ground with them reforming in instantaneous swirls of darkness. The knives had explosives inside them and blew up as soon as Zach caught them by the hilts, but when he landed and reformed his hands, Eziano stabbed him through the back with a katana. Zach's back erupted out not that he expected to catch Eziano in his attack, and instead he started running the direction he did predict his enemy was going to run. He removed the blade from his own body and swung it twice, creating an X-shaped black slash with the weapon that cut across the ground and expanded wider and larger as it started spinning and expanding with different points. The X crossed over with another X to have eight different lines coming off it spinning faster and then connecting with a net-like pattern so there was nowhere for Eziano to dodge to in the entire room.

The only place without the netting, was high up where Midoriya was. So Eziano rose up like he was going to use that, and then he immediately bounced off the air into a hole that Zach's Death made as he tried to redirect a large amount of it to protect his friend. Midoriya shot down right towards the other side of that hole though where Eziano just went through, as Deku expected him to, and as Zach expected Midoriya would when he gave Eziano the hole. Eziano also knew it was a possibility the boys were thinking about that in advance though, and he stopped short in midair so Deku flew past his front where he was going to attack the assassin by leading him.

Eziano rose his right hand and fired a pistol straight at Midoriya's face, but Midoriya flicked his fingers in the moment he saw Eziano pulling the trigger. His body bounced up and just over the bullet that was already aimed higher than where he was but not high enough as Eziano did not predict the strength of Midoriya's flicks. Midoriya could see that Eziano knew which direction he was going to dodge though and that the bullet passed closer to him than he had planned on.

Midoriya hit the ceiling and bounced farther away from the assassin who almost just killed him, though he told himself it was less a retreat when he had the thought that he only backed away because of fear. Instead he believed that he moved back so that Zach had room for the swirling blades of Death that formed an arsenal in the air behind Eziano where his net had broken apart. Eziano flew through the air though while those weapons hovered behind him, and Zach's eyes narrowed more at the villain who flew without any kind of gear on him. "Are you having trouble identifying my Quirk?" Eziano wondered to the boy who hesitated before attacking him.

Zach sent his black swords flying forward and he shot the opposite direction to catch Eziano between his frontal attack and all the Death weapons coming at his back. "You couldn't understand it," Eziano continued, and he shot down to the ground level and then over towards the wall on the left side of the room. Midoriya bounced away from that wall to give all of Zach's Death attacks more room. He could see Zach trying to give him a wide berth, and he knew that Zach could not use his full Death powers while he was inside the room, but he had to remain here and fight as he could already see Eziano was by far the most powerful enemy he had ever faced before.

Eziano was running to one side of the room, when Zach stopped chasing him and spun around in a full three-sixty spin before snapping his head up in the air. _Is it sound?_ Zach wondered as he did not know how he lost his enemy who was disappearing better than he knew how to do despite all the methods and techniques he had learned over the years. _Or are my eyes playing tricks on me? It could be his Quirk- but he can fly. Did he meet All For One a hundred years ago and get transferred several abilities… What is it?_

Zach split his body in half vertically and then wrapped around where he saw Eziano in the air. Eziano's body that he surrounded flew up into the ceiling though and hid behind one of the stalactites that Zach sent all his Death flying in towards at the same time.

Midoriya spun his head to the right as he saw Eziano appear out of nowhere in a full sprint towards him. _Can he teleport?! His sons can, so-_ Midoriya kicked off the ground towards his enemy instead of away from him. Midoriya rushed Eziano and so the two of them collided before Zach could drop out of the air above where he was confused at how he had lost his enemy again. He moved behind Eziano though, in preparation for Midoriya to push him back.

Deku failed to hit Eziano though despite how fast he punched at his enemy's head. Eziano's eyes shifted one way, and his feet pointed another, and yet he dodged in no way that Midoriya had predicted. Midoriya had kept a close eye on his hands though and saw when Eziano rose the pistol from inside his cloak to fire at him again. So in that moment, Midoriya shot past where Eziano was leaning away in a dodge, moving so quickly that the force of wind that blew off him ripped off Eziano's cloak too. Midoriya dove into a somersault that he rolled out of just as Zach landed on his other side, and they both looked towards Eziano who had a white tank top under his cloak and wore a pair of heavy black pants.

Eziano wore weapons connected on black straps to his arms, his waist, and crossing over his chest and back. His thick black pants seemed to be hiding more inside his pant legs. Eziano's unclothed arms had scars on them, though not as many as Zach's. He shrugged his shoulders back and then turned his body from side-face as he looked to his enemies he thought were going to attack right away. In the moment the boys paused to get a good look at him, Eziano turned his body to look straight forward at them across an eighteen foot gap. "You cannot defeat me, Death. Deku." Eziano's muscles suddenly bulged without him seeming to move an inch, his arms just flexing and looking bigger as his legs filled out his pants more. Eziano took in a deep breath and let it out, his chest puffing out and then staying that way as his fingers curled out and then back into fists that made the ground below each fist shake upon his clench.

 _What kind of Quirk does he have?_ Midoriya thought, wondering how these things were possible for him to do considering what he had already seen from the assassin.

"I can defeat you. There is no way for you to kill me," Zach said. "And all it would take is for me to go all out for a few seconds, and it would be all over for you-"

"I am sure that is what Mark thought as well," Eziano replied. Eziano stared down his opponent whose expression just dropped with a deep frown emerging. Eziano just continued while Zach glared at him and Deku found his heart racing at the comment Eziano made, "You will fail to protect Deku as you failed to protect your allies that day in the Tusukan Desert. And as you failed to save Mark."

"Or as you failed to save yours, like the last time we saw each other," Zach remarked back in a colder voice sounding more taunting and personal now. His eyes narrowed but his lips curled up in an angry way despite his smile, "At the Battle of the 6 Armies."

"Is that what you call it? It has a nice ring," Eziano admitted with a small grin forming on the assassin's face as well that just made Zach snarl in rage to see.

"Don't let him get to you," Midoriya started to his friend who he wanted to stay calm here despite the history he had with their enemy.

"You were standing there with over a hundred of your assassins," Zach remarked, his voice calming but his tone still taunting as he talked down to Eziano. "On a plateau watching the war rage. When I got my comms back up, you were what I told everyone to target first and foremost. I smashed apart your plateau myself. Exodus blasted over and I know he killed many of yours." Zach smirked more and his fists clenched so much harder at his sides as he held back his seething rage to just taunt his enemy instead of charging him recklessly. "And my comrades told the other thousands of villains that the assassins were planning on turning them all into their subordinates, but the League of Shadows were almost destroyed. They thought of you as just lingering remains of a dead group, and the ones who did not know of Eziano Mozcaccio were willing to go try to kill him. Your own anonymity was your downfall!"

"Death's strategy on that day was impeccable," Eziano admitted. He gave Zach the credit in an impressed tone that made Zach bare his teeth harder, as he did not want to hear praise from this man. "I had gone to witness the end of Death," Eziano continued. "The end of an amazing feat that I knew could not survive that coming battle. Then to be forced to flee like thousands of others from Death's might?" Eziano posed the question in a tone like it was shocking even to him.

"You talk too much," Zach said, and he rose his hands with Death swirling over his palms. Doing that did not make Eziano fall for the idea of a frontal attack, and he dodged very quickly and easily from the Death spike that just shot up from the already black floor behind him Zach had camouflaged his ambush into. Eziano landed and then started walking to his right, keeping his head turned and his eyes on the boys whose heads turned left and right to follow Eziano while also watching his body that lagged behind it, and then the body behind that one too. "Cheap tricks won't do anything," Zach growled over, and he rushed at the figure doing some kind of assassination technique he ignored with his whole body shrouding in Death.

Eziano lifted a remote from his belt using his left hand, and a pair of squares on the wall behind him on either side of the throne opened up to show a space behind them. Turrets emerged from the wall and pointed towards Zach, only for Blackwhips to wrap around them and point them towards each other right as they started firing. Zach smirked as those Blackwhips went over his head for that attack, but Eziano only meant for Zach to get distracted by the turrets which he did even with Midoriya taking care of them. Another hole had opened, only in the ground directly in front of where Eziano was standing. Zach was reminded of how he took down Faith inside Tartaros, and he leapt up in the air and threw down two spears of Death from his palms swirling with darkness to stop Eziano from what he was doing.

Eziano lifted up the thick gun that just popped out of the floor where he was standing and into his hands though, and he pointed the wide opening of it up and fired right into the Death Spears falling at him. Those spears broke apart and the pulse cannon slammed into Zach and knocked him straight up into the ceiling. The full force of the gun caused Zach to cough and wince, and the gun dropped to the ground down below him with a **clank** that his eyes darted to. There was a glowing low orange light on the side of it that was slowing brightening and spreading back along the gun that needed to recharge after using such an attack that it could blow Zach all the way into the ceiling.

It was the moment Zach looked down towards the gun though, when he coughed to show that parts of his insides were real, that Eziano appeared directly above and behind him. "Zach!" Midoriya yelled up, bending his knees and shooting into the air as fast as he could.

Eziano did not stab Zach. He knew the boy would turn his insides into Death the second a blade touched him, and the earlier blade attacks were just to make Zach think that was what was coming for him. Eziano's index and middle fingers on both hands jabbed Zach in several different places before Zach surrounded his whole body in Death again. "Ahh-" Zach tried to spin around, and his eyes shot open wide as he could not do that on his own. He forced out some Death below him to spin himself around, and Midoriya's eyes shot open huge and he had to swing his arms to the side when he was almost up and reaching Eziano. Even doing that he still just barely dodged the slash of darkness that flew out his way.

 _I can't properly control my Quirk,_ Zach thought as he fell down to the ground, his body spinning out of control as he would not try to use Death again after whatever Eziano just did to his nervous system and Quirk control ability. "What did you, do to me?" Zach asked, then he hit the ground and winced as even filling his own body with Death at the moment was dangerous as he could not tell where he was directing his Quirk when he forced it into use. _If I try any harder, I might accidentally release it all straight at Midoriya! I can't even control which direction I send it, so how much I use could be out of whack too. Careful. Gain back control slowly. Midoriya won't let you die._

Midoriya dropped down right in front of where Zach was laying even after Zach just showed he could not control his Quirk. "What's wrong?" Midoriya asked his friend while keeping his full focus on Eziano who he was not going to let escape his vision for even a second. Eziano was floating down towards them, and Zach just groaned behind Midoriya as he tried moving harder.

"I am 352 years old," Eziano began, lowering down then stopping so he hovered ten feet over the ground only twelve feet ahead of Midoriya who did not want to move any farther away from Zach even just to keep Eziano from getting any closer.

Hearing this villain say that made Midoriya's teeth grind in anger instead of in fear or shock. "In all that time," Midoriya said through a pained voice. "All you've done, is hurt people."

Eziano stared down the boy glaring up at him. "You are so much alike. You and your predecessor. He managed to defeat me on his own," Eziano admitted, though he looked down on the eighteen year old after saying it. "You will not be able to do the same."

"Watch me," Deku retorted, and he slid his right foot out and back behind him. He rose his hands and curled them into a fighting stance, and Zach's eyes opened up wide where he lay on the ground testing out movements of his fingers and toes and his Quirk little by little to gain back control of his body. He stared with wide eyes at the fighting stance Midoriya just got in, because it was one he knew so well. _That's…_ It was one he remembered showing Midoriya before the first Sports Festival, when the two of them were training together in Ground Beta. Three years had almost passed, and Zach's heart raced as he watched his friend get into that fighting stance while facing down the most powerful villain in the world.

 _Grappler,_ Zach closed his eyes, and a smile formed over his face. His fingers slowly curled together and he gripped the ground below him. His eyes opened and were full of focus, but no more rage as he solely concentrated on getting himself back up. _If his attack doesn't wear off, then adjust to fight with your body obeying different commands. If right means left, then learn to fight like that!_ Zach started leaning upwards, but his dedication did not make him move fast enough to join in on the fight that was starting back up without him.

Midoriya flew at Eziano who shot backwards and increased the amount of time it took for Midoriya to hit him, making Midoriya give away how he was going to attack too early as he started moving the arm he was going to punch with. Midoriya knew Eziano would be prepared for it now after the milliseconds Eziano had to adjust, so instead he twisted his body in midair and kicked his right leg across the front of his body. The force of the kick alone sent Eziano smashing into the wall between broken turrets over his own throne. Midoriya slammed into that wall directly above where he smashed Eziano, breaking through it and then attacking Eziano from the one direction the assassin was not expecting him, from farther inside the wall he had already indented into.

Midoriya hit him so hard that he was sent flying over Zach who rolled out of the way of some debris flying out towards him too, allowing Midoriya to focus solely on another follow up attack. Unfortunately, Eziano was not going to be hit again, and that last blow did little to Midoriya's enemy he was shocked to see barely even reacted despite an 85% punch into his side. _He can ignore the pain, but his body must have been damaged. It was a direct blow and his Quirk isn't… I don't know what his Quirk is._ Midoriya tapped his feet on the air and sent huge forces under the soles of his bare feet, as he did not have shoes on and his socks had long ripped apart from how hard he was kicking his feet.

Deku rushed past rocks Eziano sent flying back at him. His enemy vanished, and Deku flew back towards Zach who he landed with a foot on either side of, his eyes darting around and locking with his enemy's when Eziano was mid-sprint towards him on his right. Midoriya shot that direction instead of staying on the defensive and allowing Eziano to escape again, using his superior speed to catch his enemy right as Eziano was cutting to the left and leaving an after-image running forward. Midoriya guessed correctly which way Eziano was actually moving though, and despite his enemy staying low and seeming to be smaller than life as he dodged, Midoriya got closer and closer to him.

"All Might had already become the Number 1 hero when we faced each other," Eziano said while still leading Midoriya around the room in a circle. He moved closer to the wall and then slammed both hands back into it and made it start collapsing over him. He spoke through the noise of the collapsing wall and while Midoriya tried to rush him before any dust or debris could block them from each other. "You are nothing but a child." Eziano reached out and caught Midoriya's right arm by the wrist, redirecting his punch to the side of the villain's head so that it kept moving and pulled Midoriya's own face close up amidst the falling rocks to see Eziano's head only inches to the left of his own. "A child who sat in class while Sazaki bled for this world."

 _He knows what gets to me,_ Midoriya slammed his head into Eziano's without reacting to the fear or regret he already felt that Eziano was taunting him with. The fact that it so closely mimicked his own thoughts told him that Eziano was not just coming up with this on his own but actually saying it intentionally to make him feel that Eziano had just come up with it too. _He is right, but he knows that it would get to me and said it because of that, not because it's what he believes._ Midoriya calmed himself and glared towards his enemy who backflipped off the headbutt and glared towards his heroic opponent. He kicked up, and a rock flew at Midoriya and slammed him in the chest as the boy had not even seen that a rock was resting on Eziano's right foot for him to send flying that fast.

Midoriya eased backwards and then yanked to his left side and dodged a knife that flew at him and slashed across his shirt on his right shoulder. The blade clearly missed, then a second later a slash opened up on his arm and blood splashed off of him. "Nn," Midoriya winced and leapt backwards. _How?!_ He knew for sure he had pulled away fast enough, but there was no more time to think about what Eziano had done as the leader of the assassins was already sprinting at him. Midoriya bent his knees, then a noise banged on the wall on his right that dragged his eyes away for a part of a second. It was just a rock hitting the wall though, obviously a ploy by Eziano. He knew that taking his eyes off his enemy for just that long was too long anyway though, and he jumped up in the air… exactly as Eziano thought he would.

Deku's eyes shot up and to his left towards where his enemy was already moving towards his throat with a butterfly knife flicking out of its hilt. The blade was centimeters from his neck, when an even thinner blade of blade shot through the knife and shattered it while ripping it out of Eziano's hand. Eziano spun with his eyes widening, to see Zach up on his wobbly feet but glaring towards him with control over Death again. His shaking legs steadied and his red eyes flared as a pair of black wings ripped off his back wisping more than usual.

 _Such a fast recovery,_ Eziano flew backwards, but Zach flew at him ten times as fast so that his retreat back did not give him the extra time that pulling back like that usually would. Midoriya's eyes widened more as Zach did not just destroy the blade coming for his neck when Eziano got a drop on him, but his friend was also back up and rushing at Eziano harder than ever. Zach slammed both hands forward from his right side and fired an inordinate blast of Death at his enemy he approached quicker than he knew the assassin was ready for. Eziano still was able to dodge it though, suddenly dropping after making an indication that he would dodge upwards and hide behind the spikes above that Zach knew he would have to focus his Death to curve around.

 _Fuck,_ Zach knew he had misread Eziano's dodge as his whole mass of Death fired above his enemy who rushed at his legs that had stopped shaking but that he had gotten off of before starting his attack. Eziano knew that Sazaki's legs were likely not responding fully to his own commands yet which was why he was up in the air, which also meant there was a strong possibility those legs were not full of Death and were vulnerable targets he could cut up.

"Midoriya wait!" Zach yelled, as it was too obvious that his legs were easy targets. He knew that Midoriya was about to rush in and protect him by intercepting Eziano, but the fact that that was so obvious told him that Eziano's rush for his legs was more a trap for his friend who was about to protect him in an obvious maneuver.

"Too slow," Eziano said, while dragging Midoriya's right fist across the front of his body and completely pushing the boy off balance in midair. Midoriya's legs were turned to his left, his left arm was blocked by his own right arm that Eziano pushed across and down to keep that other arm away, and Eziano wrapped his own left arm around Midoriya's neck after half-turning him to put the teenager in a stranglehold. He spun towards Sazaki after grabbing Deku like that, and he clenched tighter with his left arm around Midoriya's neck while pushing the other way harder with his right to keep his hostage from making a move.

"You should have taken him out before coming," Eziano said condescendingly to his true enemy who faced him in midair with a dark look but not one overly panicked. "Now you are-"

Midoriya's right hand suddenly yanked back out to the side it was normally on, swinging Eziano's arm back across his own body and making the man tighten his grip on Midoriya's neck. Deku just slammed his own chin down and crushed Eziano's forearm with his neck and chest, flipping the assassin over the top of his head and then backflipping as hard as he could to nail Eziano in the right shoulder with his own right foot. He had been trying to kick Eziano on the top of his head, but Eziano was able to pull away at the last second so only his right shoulder was hit, but even that Midoriya still heard the crack as his foot collided with his enemy's upper arm at 90%.

Eziano hit the floor and a huge crater blew apart in the black surface. The ground seemed harder than normal rock or steel after Eziano blew a hole in it only as wide as it was, when the two teenagers above expected something larger after how hard Midoriya hit him down. "You're a fucking fool," Zach said, his smirk rising up and the teen seemingly laughing down at his enemy in the hole. "Midoriya's even stronger than All Might. And All Might beat you," Zach glared down at the figure standing up on the floor and looking back up at him with a straight expression, rolling his shoulder and reconnecting his arm without even wincing. Zach continued to just smirk though despite his harsh glare, and he said tauntingly, "All Might beat you, I beat you, and Deku's beaten you."

"You're a loser."

Zach dropped down fast with a hard flap of his wings behind him. Eziano opened his jaw to reveal that he had put something inside his mouth when he hit the ground. Zach maneuvered out of the way of the dart that fired from Eziano's lips rather than let it go through him, as he had had a bad experience now with that outside and he did not know if Eziano was watching every second of those fights. As he dodged away though and landed on the ground, his legs steady again, Eziano kicked something up towards Zach while starting his sprint towards the boy.

A flash filled the cave and made Midoriya bounce himself up towards the ceiling as he was unprepared for it. Zach suspected it as a possibility though, and everything just glowed brighter red in his vision as he charged at his enemy who rushed through the flash and kicked up and to the right at him. Zach's upper left side turned completely into darkness that pulled towards Eziano's right leg. but Eziano swung his left arm in front of him while Zach focused that way. A cloud of silver dust flew out of Eziano's left fist that opened in front of Zach's face, and Zach completely turned his head into Death and then exploded it and his whole upper body backwards.

Eziano snapped his left fingers and an explosion ripped apart the floor underneath the blast where part of Zach's body remained and was trying to catch Eziano with a Death kick even while most of him pulled back. Zach had to yank away the rest of his body as the explosion caused by that mysterious dust was larger than he had thought and hurt his lower half that had already turned mostly into Death. His lower body reformed below the top half of him that just had darkness pouring out under his stomach to keep him floating. The black wind pulled back and recreated legs below him, while Zach lifted his hands in front of his body and created a long black staff seven feet high.

He lowered the staff down to his right side and tapped the bottom of it on the floor once, twice, then a third time that he lowered it a little ahead of where he put it down the last two times. He pushed down on the staff and kicked his legs out in front of him, vaulting towards Eziano who awaited him and then threw a smoke bomb in his clenched right fist down at the floor under his feet. Zach spiraled as he entered into the smoke, spinning the cloud around and dispersing it while checking where the movement in the spinning smoke was to indicate which direction Eziano had run off in. There was no indication though. At first Zach thought that meant Eziano was motionless in the smoke or had dropped down to the floor, but a quick flood of Death around him did not result in any more movement in the smoke of his enemy fleeing.

A pair of stone spikes from the ceiling flew down to Zach's right, and he internally thanked Midoriya who was up above and just told him where his enemy was. He shot that direction and saw where the assassin was dodging easily away from those attacks. A burst of Death blew out of his back- and Eziano flew back towards him in that moment. _He knows!_ Zach swung his arms forward and he caught Eziano's right fist, while pushing the assassin's left hand away in midair. Eziano kicked up his right leg and Zach intercepted with his own right knee that he started pushing Death out of, but Eziano bounced backwards before he could do that while ripping his right fist out of Zach's tight grasp even in his steel left hand.

"Are you so confident?" Eziano wondered to his enemy, while landing and grabbing a spike that was falling towards him by the lower and thinner part of it. He flipped it around and then threw it straight back at the one who just sent it towards where he was leaping back to. Midoriya shot off the ceiling as fast as he could, barely dodging the spike that flew back at him faster than he threw it as Eziano was trying to kill him unlike the other way around. Eziano continued while Midoriya recovered down on the ground behind Zach, "That you can hold back your Quirk while facing me?"

"You say that like you aren't holding back yourself," Zach replied. His eyebrows narrowed and he smirked at his enemy who did not make the same expression, "Unless you aren't, and this is your full power. I still haven't figured out your Quirk which makes me think you still have something more to give. No matter what it is though, you cannot surpass me." Zach glared harder through his red eyes at his enemy who stared him down motionlessly and without reacting to what he was saying. "I've prepared for every eventuality. I won't lose to you."

"I am sure that is what Mark believed as well," Eziano said back.

Zach's look darkened again, but he focused fully on his next moves he plotted with his red eyes boring into Eziano's.

"It wasn't quick you know. When I killed him," Eziano's voice was calm and did not change tone fro anything else he had said. Zach's face remained steady and emotionless, even as his heart started racing like crazy in his chest. "I know you must think that I caught him off guard, due to how powerful his Quirk was. Liquid Control. An unbeatable Quirk, or so he assumed."

 _Don't do it._ Zach held himself back. _Even if you can remain calm, the next thing out of his mouth could make you slip up. Don't move in while he's just trying to mess with you-_

"I cut out Mark's eyes before he could see me and target me with his Quirk," Eziano continued. Zach's fists twitched at his sides, and Eziano continued, "Sure, I could have killed him instantly, but Mark thought that it was either instant death or that he would kill me. Instead," Eziano's head leaned forward and bowed to put shadows over his eyes as his voice echoed around the room. "I made him experience Hell itself."

Midoriya kept himself calm and his breathing steady. His eyes stayed locked ahead on their enemy who was trying to mess with Zach here, and yet he could not help but think back himself on something Zach had told them in such an emotional voice back on Inazuma. _**"I died…I collapsed in the Pit and they dragged me to the operating table. But I was dead. I died on the operating table, and for twenty minutes I was dead. Longer than, the first time… When my heart stopped, my friends didn't give up on me. They- Mark pumped my blood through my body to keep oxygen going to my brain so I wouldn't have brain damage despite how long I was dead for without being brought back by Death. He didn't even know he could do it… He had never done something so precise before, but he told me he**_ **needed** _ **to do it, so he just did it…"**_

 _ **"Don't ask him about it, Midoriya… Whoever the Mark guy that Hagakure read aloud was killed, Zach really cared about him. He couldn't keep it together. The guy, Zach talked about him like he was his closest friend. And the letter said that EM had killed him…"**_ _Eziano,_ Midoriya glared harder at the villain who would not stop but who he could not sprint at recklessly when it was so clearly a trap. _Stop this!_

"…He fought even after the loss of his eyes. Barely made a noise of pain, staying quiet instead to keep track of my position through sound. He acted as if he was disoriented and panicked though, slashing in random directions with sharp whips of water, giving me a path towards him that he hoped I would attack him from. They were all remarkable. Your army, was far superior to my own. How they convinced my assassins that your comrade was an assassin himself who they should bring into our ranks… The powerful backers your Army has to fake hire him. The things Mark was willing to do in order to make an assassin's reputation for his alias. All for the chance of seeing me, so that he could assassinate me with a single look. And so even without his eyes, he knew that it was I who took them from him. He yelled as much as he attacked me blindly, yet more composed than any other man would have been in his place."

"So I cut through his eardrums," Eziano continued and paused as he stared down the boy who tried to see a sign that Eziano was lying to him. "He could not target me and rip apart my body, as I was silent as I approached him. Yet even without his sight or hearing, he continued to fight. Rapid and seemingly random patterns of the water he brought with him in defensive slashes around his body. He filled the surrounding air with water vapor to catch movements close to him. Astounding the will he possessed, which I was determined to break. I am sure you know, that Mark is able to stop himself from bleeding. It got harder and harder for him though, to hold in all his blood from the cuts I inflicted through the gaps in his defenses. He could not hold himself together and continue to fight and defend himself all at the same time, not after fifty cuts had been made. Not after a hundred. Yet he would not fall."

Zach's eyes remained cold and steady as he glared straight ahead at his enemy whose face was just as cold and his voice no longer taunting as much as just recalling the past aloud. "I cut him so many times, and yet he refused to bleed. Pulled his blood back in from sense of touch alone." Eziano even rose his tone in a way suggesting he was impressed, as he added, "Some of the cuts I made were so close together that it was easy to flay off pieces of skin between the gashes. He screamed the most at those moments. His will held firm though. Maybe he thought someone would come save him. Or that every second would count, because once he was dead he had the possibility of being revived should his comrades inform you in Tartaros… But those hopes vanished the longer we fought. He screamed, until his lungs gave out. He could not even keep up a single spinning scythe of water to keep me from moving around him and cutting him over and over again."

"And so, he tried his last ditch effort. As I gave him the final slash, he ripped himself apart into one spike of blood he forced out of his back as fast as he could… It almost touched me," Eziano finished.

Midoriya felt his heart ache at the sound of such a horrible death. The idea that this man had saved Zach's life too, and was Zach's friend, he had to shift his gaze and look to his side at his comrade. The sight of Zach's unemotional expression shook the boy next to him who had no idea how Zach could keep that kind of look on his face after hearing all of that. Zach took in a deep breath though and released it calmly while his enemy stared him down and watched this reaction. "I could have gone on the rest of my life assuming Mark had died instantly," Zach admitted. "As I knew he had to have been killed, or he would have killed you for sure. Getting emotional about this is what you want though, so I won't."

He said that in a determined voice and just stared down Eziano in the same concentrated and calculated way he had been before. He was even surprising himself by how calm he was remaining here, and he continued to his enemy, "That's all there is to it. Mark did not die for nothing, because what you just told me will only make me stronger. You cannot make me get reckless and sloppy, because I'm better than you. That's all there is to it. And in this fight, I'm not going to lose. I control the pace."

"I called you out on television, and that's why we're here right now," Zach continued without pause and with his voice raising as he stared down condescendingly at the old villain before him. "You giving me the coordinates was what I wanted. It's not that I'm here because you called me into a trap- I am the one who built the trap!" Zach yelled it and his voice bounced around the room in a booming tone. His eyebrows narrowed in and he growled at his enemy, "You think I'd fall for something like that? I wonder how often in all those centuries you claim to have lived that you've taken part in battles? Not assassinations, but _war._ " Zach glared at the assassin and spoke down to him, "Why did you flee so quickly from The Cloak that day, as I held my own throat shut after you had slit it? I chased you down and made you run away with my doctors at my back and my friends taking down your weak fucking assassins."

"Why did you run from the Battle of 6 Armies?" Zach continued without giving Eziano a moment to respond. "It's why we're here now, because you didn't take the initiative and strike at that moment we were at our weakest," Zach taunted it at his enemy who was there that day. "I forced you to run before you would have had the chance. The chance at the end of the battle, that you and your men did not stay for because heroes were there, because I had attacked you and dragged you into the fight that you wanted no part of!" Zach rushed forward, and he screamed at his enemy while bursting Death out of his feet to speed up at him, "I turned all those villains against you and forced your army to scatter!" Zach swung his right arm down in front of him and smashed the huge war hammer he created down into the ground. "Because I am the better commander!"

The head of the hammer blasted upwards in a pillar of Death chasing after Eziano and then breaking apart into ten thin black lines. Zach flew up with four wings coming out of his back and flapping rapidly, claws forming over his hands that he slashed upwards and sent waves of Death flying out of them. He moved as fast as Eziano was dodging, but his enemy was not panicked or flustered in the least and stopped short during the flight to instead rush straight at Zach. **Bang bang bang-** Eziano tapped a button on the side of the pistol he just fired into showing skin on Zach's upper right side, and instead of a fourth bullet flying into Zach's skin and only making Death burst out like he was full of it, a flash of yellow came out the muzzle on the fourth pull.

Zach followed after Eziano without being slowed by the flash, swinging his left hand down after the villain who dropped below him and cut at both his legs that fully shrouded in Death but had not been full of it on the insides so Zach actually did have to yank them backwards. He sped after Eziano though, and he kept his Death flooded around him even as they moved towards Midoriya who instead of running just bent his knees and jumped up at them. Zach dispersed his body in two directions and swirled down through the air past Eziano and Midoriya to appear below them, so when Eziano refocused on his other enemy after dodging Midoriya, he was now falling right to where Zach had reappeared and was kicking upwards with a leg covered in black.

Eziano did a spin in midair as he had seen in his peripherals Zach dropping below him, and as he spun he stuck out his arms and then twisted them to speed himself up further. Zach had not fully reformed his body yet, and Eziano changed up the movements of his gaseous Death with a weird shift in the air. Zach pulled himself together fast instead of trying to adapt to the air's shifting movements, as Midoriya had flipped around and flicked the air above him. Zach reformed more fully as just a human-shape covered in darkness in the air, and he shot up between the Blackwhips that Midoriya sent down on either side of Eziano.

Eziano grabbed all six of the whips though, three on either side of him, and he yanked down so hard that it pulled Midoriya down in front of his body. He kneed into the teen's chest and sent him down straight in Death's path which caused Zach to turn off much of his Death so as not to knock out Midoriya. Doing so meant that Midoriya slammed into him that hard though with him unable to turn to darkness to avoid the pain, and the two of them crashed down into the ground and rolled over it a few times before flipping up to their feet and knees. Zach darted his eyes ahead of him, above him, and to his left. Midoriya did the same but to his right from just on Zach's right side, and Deku shouted, "Up!"

Zach swung his left hand up in the air while his dark hair waved over his head with dark tendrils wisping out of it. A black sphere shot off his left palm all the way to the ceiling, and when it exploded Zach yelled, "Death Grenade!" He focused all the shrapnel in one direction though, cutting pieces of it around the spikes on the ceiling all in Midoriya's side of the room. Eziano kicked the largest of the stalactites on the ceiling and made a perfect cut with the tap of his foot. He grabbed the flat top of the spike and shot out of the air while holding it, then he thrust his right hand forward and sent that spike moving twice as fast as he was already flying.

Midoriya shot up and spun around while swinging his right foot in a roundhouse across his body. "St. Louis, SMASH!"

Zach punched his right hand up and surrounded the breaking apart spike with Death. "Death Storm!" He fired out much more Death and sent the rocks covered in it flying up like a reversed meteor shower. Those rocks flew all the way up into the ceiling and broke apart more of the stalactites and even just chunks of the domed ceiling.

Eziano dodged all that debris and Death, but he realized that Deku was the only one below him now as he finished dodging it. Zach had risen up behind one larger chunk of the spike Midoriya just shattered before it could hit him. As Deku landed from his roundhouse smash, he looked up to see Zach dropping down and slamming his left fist into the side of Eziano's face. Eziano pulled away so it was more of a graze than anything, but then Zach's right leg kicked up with all the Death that was missing from that punch bulging and bubbling as he had to force it inside while kicking up like this. All of the Death he had was focused on his knee, and Zach's enemy reached down and grabbed him by his upper thigh that he pushed slightly to the side.

A huge mass of Death exploded out from Zach's knee and went just to the left side of Eziano and all the way up into the ceiling that so many rocks were falling from now. Zach slammed his head forward though when his huge attack of Death missed instead of redirecting the mass to the side as Eziano thought he would with his full control of his ability. Zach adjusted his headbutt to where Eziano would dodge his extra Death, while swinging his left hand back after only grazing Eziano's cheek before to try and grab him by the throat.

Eziano took the headbutt with his head already leaning partially back, so that it more just continued his own momentum to a certain point away while he used his right knee to keep the distance between the two as he jammed it into Zach's gut. All of that Death Zach just kneed up was pulling to the side now even as Zach focused more on close combat than the use of his Quirk, but his gut still opened up after Eziano's knee with darkness swirling around his stomach and stretching out to catch Eziano.

Eziano dodged both the thick pillar pulling towards him and yanked his knee away fast enough not to get caught by Zach's opening body. The way he pulled back though, had him move into a position in midair directly below some falling rocks that had Death transferred onto them from the condensed Death Zach had covered the earlier debris he sent flying up with his Death Storm. That condensed Death he punched up from the spike Midoriya blew apart had spread to all the different rocks that broke apart on the ceiling. The only lights in the room came now from the hallway connected to it, which meant all Zach had to do was block that hall with his upwards knee that he suspected Eziano would avoid in a direction which would keep that pillar of Death in between him and the door. That kept the shade of the darkness falling from above from being noticeable to the villain, and considering how they were already up in the air, any rocks falling from the ceiling would not gain enough speed on their own to be dangerous enough to Eziano Mozcaccio for him to care.

A few pebbles fell in the left corner of Eziano's vision with darkness covering them and little black wisps coming off. He could see that the rocks were black even in the darkness of the throne room, and his eyes darted up right as a larger rock hit him on top of the head. He dropped down, realizing that the rock that hit him was probably covered in Death as well- Zach landed both of his kicks into Eziano's chest and sent him flying across the room. The instant his enemy was distracted by his previous attack three back, he changed the fight's momentum completely, and Eziano coughed as he was imbedded into the wall he quickly had to rip himself out of to dodge the flying black axes.

Zach was already flying towards where the assassin just jumped out of the wall though, and this time his legs coated in Death that had pulled back into him from all the attacks he had filling the room already. Debris rained around them still as seconds were passing slowly in their battle, and Zach sped straight through it all without having to worry if the pieces were covered in Death like Eziano did have to concern himself with. "I'm not just a better leader," Zach spun his right leg at Eziano before reaching the man he was going to kick, he continued flying forward and nearly passed the black slash that Eziano started to dodge already. He aimed down below Eziano now to try and force him up into his last attack, which made Eziano pick an entirely new direction then have to do a spin as he dodged that way as Zach spiked an arrow of Death out of him in that direction. The arrow was just meant to make Eziano dodge below a chunk of ceiling though that hit the assassin in the upper right of his back and made the villain wince before he flew off faster. Zach called after him though while soaring close behind, "I'm the better fighter. I'm more composed than you-"

Eziano spiraled in midair and was holding something in his hand that he aimed down below him. His other enemy was not down there though for him to fire the wide-barreled gun full of something Zach suspected would have killed Midoriya, if Midoriya had not moved locations a few seconds ago when he knew Eziano did not have his eyes on him. Eziano was still focused on Zach even as he realized his mistake, but the one arm he had to defend against Sazaki while he planned a different attack to force Zach to fly down and in the way of it, was not enough to defend or even redirect himself in a good enough way. All he could do was dodge in any direction with his flight ability, but that alone was not enough as Zach was moving faster already and had the reactiveness to adjust his flight and then flip over Eziano's turning body and spin his leg up over himself.

Eziano rose his right arm and was bringing up his left too, pointing the gun ahead of him and firing right before Zach's leg was going to collide with his other arm. He could not get it aimed all the way up, but just that high still made Zach focus on what came out of the gun for a split millisecond. In that instant, Eziano released the gun and swiped his right hand across his left arm. Zach's red eyes shot open wide as did Midoriya's up above him, as Eziano's left arm was sliced off in a perfect cut in the middle of his bicep. Zach's flipping kick was completely covered in overwhelming Death, but when he collided with Eziano's arm he was expecting resistance to push him back which was why he put so much force into it.

His eyes trailed back from the canister that just started releasing purple gas in mid-flight, to the disconnected arm his leg was colliding with and turning paler as he killed the living cells inside it. The arm broke from the force he put into the kick, but there was no resistance whatsoever which flipped him around more in midair while a huge amount of the Death he was using expelled out through the arm and missed the assassin already dodging it. Zach turned his head to the side Eziano was moving, but his enemy was gone and he felt the blade in his right temple an instant later. He turned his skull to darkness and his head got blown apart by Eziano who finished swiping his right hand through it with the knife splashed with blood.

Eziano grit his teeth and spun out in midair, attempting to keep flying only to have to raise his blurry vision up as a blur dropped towards him. He flipped the bloody knife and flicked it up by the blade, but Midoriya smacked the knife away with one hand and kicked Eziano in the chest with his whole right leg and 90% of One For All coursing through him. Eziano had never felt force like it in his life, and the blow actually shook him from the tiredness he was feeling after his hand had passed through Death's head.

Midoriya sent Eziano flying down into the floor he cracked apart and skid through over towards his throne. Then Deku spun and shot down to the ground where Zach just hit on his hands and knees, Death swirling around over his neck and reforming a round shape there. His head regained its form and then the color and hair started to return to it, but Midoriya's relief did not last as he saw the heavy blood trail coming down from the right side of Zach's head down over his ear and to his chin where it was dripping off. "I'm fine. It didn't go too deep. Head wounds just bleed a lot," Zach said as he saw Midoriya's reaction to seeing his wound. He pushed up off the ground and stood up next to his comrade, then he swept his right arm to the side and created a mass of Death that flew over to a canister releasing gas in the air.

"He might be immune to it," Zach said. "And I don't have lungs right now. But you might want to get out of here," Zach's Death swirled up some of the gas in the air and pulled it over to the canister he was containing with his Quirk.

"Can you keep it from spreading?" Midoriya asked back. "Keep it from spreading," he corrected himself. He figured asking the question might make Zach say no so as to get him out of there. After what he heard Eziano saying about Mark though, he felt he had to stay in there more than ever.

"I'll try," Zach replied, then he refocused solely towards his enemy who stood back up on sturdy legs despite the fact that it took him a little longer this time to get up.

Zach spoke across the gap to his enemy who had taken a lot of Death now but was still not someone to just "finish off" or take lightly because of the damage done to him. Zach was the one bleeding heavily from the head, though even Midoriya knew after the last clash that Zach had taken the victory when he got ahead in his attacks. Eziano had lost his own arm, even if it was self-inflicted and helped him get his blow in on Zach. The villain reached up to his upper left arm though and he smacked just below his shoulder at the stub of arm remaining there and bleeding heavily. The flat section of arm suddenly tensed up in his right hand's grasp, his muscles convulsing and his skin tightening. Eziano's face stayed stone cold and stoic as he glared down the boys who watched with wide eyes as his arm closed itself and stopped bleeding.

 _What the heck is his Quirk?!_ Midoriya thought as he watched another amazing ability come from this assassin.

"Eziano," Zach started again, while walking to his right side and making a motion to his left back at Midoriya. Midoriya did not argue and just followed Zach's direction to move. "When you called me 'green,' I took that to heart. You were right." Zach spoke down to his enemy who he was circling and glaring at intensely without even acknowledging the blood dripping off his chin. "I came to learn that in the following weeks, and months… and then I wasn't green anymore. Then, I had more experience than anyone in the world."

"The only one who had more, was Eziano Mozcaccio," Zach finished, stopping where he was which made Midoriya stop on the opposite side of the room as him. Each of them stood diagonal to Eziano who was in the center of the room, now having to look Zach's way with Midoriya barely in his view. He could just stare forward to keep both in vision at the same time, but then he would not have great focus on either and he was hoping that Midoriya would continue following Sazaki's directions as he just did. Yet he also knew that Deku had acted so far without consulting with Zach first too, as the two of them knew that any plans they made together he might see through. It was a simple movement a bit apart from each other, and yet there was a new tactical advantage his young enemies had on him that Zach saw so clearly as an opportunity before he had started moving.

"You should have used that experience to help out King more, or Fergus, or the other Shadow Bosses before I finished them," Zach told his enemy who watched him carefully, unsure whether Zach would start rushing in like he had last time he was speaking. Eziano could not know if Midoriya was going to be the one to attack first. And Zach knew that his enemy had no indication of when he would move for his next attack or if that attack had already started. Zach's tone was confident as he continued speaking down to the one-armed assassin standing there lightly panting in front of him, "Did you not see my strategies coming? Or were you just too busy being a mystical supernatural untouchable super-assassin who cared more about being mysterious than you did about how I was destroying everything you had built across the world?"

 _Does he really think he'll be able to get Eziano to get sloppy?_ Midoriya knew that it was likely a strategy on Zach's part, but the thought of how unlikely this strategy was to work on a man like him made Izuku wonder if this was not just Zach's grudge talking. _It could be both,_ Midoriya admitted to himself. _Things he wants to say, and has convinced himself are worthwhile saying because there's a chance he makes Eziano upset here._

"If you destroyed everything, then who were they on the surface who faced you?" Eziano wondered.

"The lingering dregs of your army," Zach replied as if what Eziano asked was laughable. "How many of your assassins have I thrown in prison over the past year? In the past few months alone, you've lost valuable assets trying to kill me, and now today? This was everyone!" Zach shouted at his enemy. "This, was your full force come to get me. And I know it is, because you wouldn't be able to do to me what you did to All Might. Because I would kill you anyway even if the whole world was your hostage!" Zach yelled, then he smirked violently and insanely towards the villain who Midoriya could see past to that crazed expression on Zach's face. "And unlike with All Might, your forces _wouldn't_ carry out your will if you had been killed by Death. Because they fear Eziano Mozcaccio. Most of them are _terrified_ of you, and I could see that terror every time I questioned villains about Eziano."

"Somehow Eziano's name was unknown to the whole world but could still strike terror into the hearts of Shadow Bosses like Bolivar at the idea of ratting on you," Zach said it smugly but with so much malice laced in his voice. Eziano's expression remained flat, though there was a movement in the right corner of his lips that made Zach's eyes get much darker. Zach snarled at the man whose lips just curled up the smallest amount at what he was saying, "That's what Eziano Mozcaccio managed with three hundred years of experience, and now Death strikes that same terror into the hearts of even more villains! While my activities and what I've done for this world are still unknown to the billions of its residents!"

"Even if you killed me," Eziano began. "If my men were out there preparing a massacre, they would carry it out without fail. It is not fear alone that unites us."

"Because you don't just kill for money, is that right?" Zach wondered. He did not sound like he cared though even as he asked it. "Well whatever your reasons, whatever your _fanaticism,_ your organization dies here today. It falls with you."

"Nothing will end here," Eziano replied back with a shake of his head. He had a knowing look on his face, and he took in a deep breath before bending his legs and making the floor crack below either of his feet. "This is only my beginning. I am chosen." He bent his right arm inwards and curled his fist tightly in front of his body, then turned side-face with the bump of his left arm raising up a bit too. "Destined to lead this world and guide it in the Lord's path. As my father did before me, and his father before him-"

"And what about your own children?" Zach asked, while Midoriya was still focusing on what Eziano just said with his eyes growing huge. Those eyes darted back towards Zach though as his friend asked that in such a low and menacing voice. Eziano's readied position stalled, the assassin staying in place after Zach's question to him. "I didn't see them here. I've never seen them before, but I would have recognized their Quirks based on what Midoriya told me. I haven't seen them… But they're not just somewhere else," Zach continued as he watched Eziano's stoic expression. Zach bared his teeth at the villain looking at him like that, and he snarled towards him, "Just as you have taken things from me, I've taken things from you."

"Where are your children, Eziano? The Twin Assassinos?" Zach asked. He demanded to know it and then snapped, "Was it Mark- no," Zach stopped himself. "You would not brag so much about that day if Mark had been able to kill your sons first. My other comrades then?" Zach shook his head and his eyes flared but a darker red with a swirling black color in the middles of them. His lips twisted up at the corners, "Odd, it feels like it was me myself who did it, but I don't remember…" Zach's eyes scanned Eziano's unmoving face, and he wondered aloud, "In the Pit?"

He smirked after wondering it to Eziano in a surprised voice. Eziano glared harder at the boy as his expressions were not changing so they should not have been giving anything away to Zach for him to be able to connect dots like this. Eziano's silence was all Zach needed though, and his bared teeth showed more as his blackening lips curled higher up at the corners. Midoriya heard mention of The Pit though and he found his heart rate skyrocketing at the kind of look on Zach's face after he brought it up. Zach grinned at his enemy who he snarled at, "There was only one match in The Pit where I did not show my enemies any mercy. Where I did not feel bad for those two fucking retards who voluntarily put themselves in the arena. The only two fools to challenge the Champion of their own accord." Zach's voice was scratchier as he spoke and as taunting as it could get as he glared down the villain before him.

"I know now why I didn't realize it sooner. They couldn't use their Quirks, but they were masters with their weapons. They thought they could come in there, while I was already injured, and finish me off? They couldn't even beat a second-year Midoriya at the SFI." Zach lifted his right hand and moved it across his body to the upper left side of his chest where he tapped over a circular scar, "The smaller of the them impaled me here with his rapier, and when he buried it to the hilt in his downward thrust, I snapped my head forward and tore his throat out with my teeth." Zach snapped his teeth forward like he was biting down to replicate the action he had made to take one of Eziano's son's lives.

"They did not plan on dying that day. They were competing to see who could kill me first, probably to prove something to you," Zach remarked it colder with his lips flattening out while Eziano stared at him in the same way, dark and expressionless. "The first one's death was quicker than the larger of the two. After I ripped the stupider one's throat out, watched the life drain from his shocked eyes…" Midoriya stared horrified towards his friend who was saying this in a taunting voice despite the disgust that flashed on Zach's own face. "The other got more serious in fighting me. He thought his brother had just let his guard down, but he would come to realize his mistake. He had put on Umbuju's collar though. And I could see it, the regret in his eyes near the end. Though, I supposed he was more afraid to give up and flee knowing what his dad might do to him. Either way, you talked about how long it took you to kill Mark? How strong Mark's will was until the end?! Well your son was weaker than Mark, yet I made it last longer! He was afraid! PATHETIC! AND I _**BUTCHERED**_ _ **HIM!"**_

Zach screamed that in rage and disgust as he imagined the fight that day that had so long evaded his thoughts. Even as he first brought it up in his head to Himazuri, he avoided thinking of what he had done to the second competitor that was even worse than biting the first man's throat out. "Yes you killed many of my children in the war, but I killed sons of yours too!"

"They underestimated you. Foolishly, and they showed their weakness-"

"Weakness? I'm stunned that trash like them were related to the _great_ Eziano," Zach interrupted the assassin who started touching on it himself. "They died like animals. Like all the gladiators in that Pit, except they were the only ones stupid enough to die in the arena because they put themselves there. The stupidest deaths I've ever seen. Cowards who came at me while I was injured and could not use my Quirk, and who still couldn't kill me."

Zach spoke to Eziano in a way that the older man had done to too many enemies to fall for it and attack recklessly because of. That being said, it did make the assassin very, very angry. "They thought they could fight me in non-Quirk combat? Even two on one. Even with both of them having weapons and me none…" Zach smirked and he pushed his right foot down hard on the ground, "I put them down like dogs." The red glow vanished from Zach's eyes and he sprinted forward with no darkness erupting from his feet this time.

"Quirkless combat?" Eziano wondered, while standing in place and allowing Zach to run at him. "Why give yourself a disadvantage that I cannot match?"

"Stop using your Quirk and fight me hand to hand then," Zach replied as he clashed with Eziano, swinging his left arm across the front of his body to where Eziano would have been able to block better with a left arm.

Eziano kicked his right leg straight up though and redirected Zach's arm higher. The teen hopped up at the same time though and spun his body, swinging his right leg out around behind him with his heel aimed for Eziano's head. Eziano rose his right arm and caught Zach by the ankle that he pushed away quickly, though the foot did not instantly break apart into Death as if Zach was just playing him and trying to lull him into this fight. As Eziano pushed Zach's leg away and leaned his body forward though towards Zach's off-balanced form turning in midair, Zach's right hand clenching and the toes of his left foot curling in… Eziano replied, "But I haven't been using my Quirk."

Midoriya was about to rush at his enemy who Zach was taking on hand to hand and foot to foot. Hearing that made him freeze though, and Zach pushed off the ground when one foot touched down to bounce fast away from his enemy who did not sound to be lying. "How?!" Zach yelled out, able to tell from Eziano's expression and knowing look that this was no bluff. _What is his Quirk? He's pushed us this far without it- and-_ "That's impossible. You've been using powers-"

"Would you like to know what my Quirk is called?" Eziano wondered to the boys. Midoriya held his breath as this mysterious figure of unimaginable power posed that question. Even Zach had a bead of sweat rolling down the right side of his face, but neither of the teenagers responded to the villain who spoke the name in a deep voice: "Longevity."

"My Quirk, is solely the ability to live many times the average length of a human life." Eziano claimed that and the two boys facing him could not believe it. They were in disbelief and narrowed their gazes at the assassin who was clearly lying.

"You were flying before," Midoriya said to the villain. "And your arm…"

"It's impossible," Zach denied the villain who he was not going to humor by taking his words seriously.

Eziano just replied in a calm voice though, "Human limitations are just excuses the weak invented." The assassin stepped backwards, moving slowly and stepping up on the first step closer to the throne. He stared down at the boys who moved slowly towards him at the pace he was stepping back, getting closer to the villain who was saying things they could hardly believe. "All of my power and speed was just accomplished through training of the human body." His feet lifted off the floor as he floated into the air again, "Yet in the thousand years my father lived, he never reached the pinnacle of strength. I myself have yet to reach that point, as I believe that humans are capable of far more than anyone comprehends."

 _He's not even using a Quirk?_ Midoriya imagined Toga and Shigaraki. The two of them had skills and speed, strength and ability beyond their Quirks. Their Quirks alone were not what made them so dangerous. And yet this, _This is the next level. So far beyond anything I could… His Quirk is just, his immortality? His seeming immortality- his father lived a thousand years?! How? Quirks haven't been around for that long!_

"I knew that you would have a vast wealth of knowledge on the true history," Zach started. Midoriya's breath hitched as Zach did not sound surprised but instead calm and replying in a knowing tone. "Records of the truth lost to time."

"You passed those records on your way here," Eziano replied to his greatest enemy. Zach knew what Eziano was talking about as he thought back on the tinted glass case he had been unable to break through easily. "But you do not need those records to see the truth of the world. There exist many ancient texts describing the precursors to Quirks. Stories left behind by history." Eziano glared down at the boy staring up calmly at his floating form as if he knew all of this already. "Figures seen throughout time to have Quirks. Their existence shrouded in mystery…" Eziano stopped talking at the look on the teen's face so uncaring and even _bored_.

"I guess you don't have a spy in Shiketsu," Zach said, mentioning it off-handedly and just remaining calm as he noted certain things in his head. "But you are not the only one to know that truth, Eziano. I have long known-"

"You know nothing," Eziano's words sliced through the air and gave Midoriya chills. The declarative way in which Eziano said that as if Zach thought too highly of his own knowledge, suggested an amount of secrets about the Earth that Midoriya could not begin to imagine. Zach himself frowned deeper at the statement, but he rose up his hands into a fighting stance and once again had no Death around his body. Eziano's lips curled farther down for a moment before flattening out like Zach's did in an intense way. "You know that I was not using my Quirk to face you with Death on your side, yet you would still attempt to face me without it?"

"Maybe," Zach replied back, shrugging his shoulders but staying in a fighting stance otherwise. He bit down and darted his eyes around his enemy's body looking for gaps in his stance, but even with the missing arm Eziano was the epitome of a master. "I won't have the chance to figure out which of us would win though," Zach added, right before he sprinted forward at his enemy who had to snap his body backwards and to the left to dodge Midoriya's first two attacks.

 _Is he really not going to use Death?_ Midoriya wondered, before regretting that decision to lose focus for even the shortest of instants. Zach threw a knife from out of nowhere though, surprising Midoriya who had no idea where he had been storing it all this time with most of his body laid bare. Eziano did not have to pull away his hand, only open it and catch the knife by the hilt. In that moment he changed from a punch to catching the knife and finishing a swipe to cut Midoriya instead though, Deku was already ducking below it and kicking his legs at Eziano's.

The assassin hopped up in the air and curled his knees up, his upper body barely rising at all so Zach's blue beam fired above him. He only really hopped his legs, and he kicked those out into Deku who spun to him and crossed his arms only for the drop kick to still knock him skidding backwards. Eziano hit his back on the ground but kicked his right leg above him and spiraled on his upper spine, spinning out of it into a kick that Zach blocked with his left arm he was about to fire from point blank at the ground under Eziano. He curled his fist as he blocked the kick and stopped another blast of blue energy from firing, then he punched his right fist forward and collided it with Eziano's that the assassin punched up into his glove. It was the only article of clothing Zach had on other than the top of his pants. And when their knuckles collided, Zach pushed harder into the punch than Eziano who had to worry about the force of their blows ripping through the material.

Zach bent Eziano's arm back, then he yanked his head to the right which made Eziano pull his to the left. Zach's eyes had flicked behind the man for the brief instant before he pulled his head away. It was less he actually looked back there as much as he was trying not to look at the punch that was coming and that he had to dodge. Eziano dodged Midoriya's attack too, only he dodged into it and got an elbow in the back of his head that smashed his head into Zach's head. Zach opened his right fist and grabbed Eziano's hand with it, falling backwards and yanking up over his own head to use Midoriya's attack's momentum to his advantage.

He flipped Eziano over the top of his own head that splashed off some blood from that hard hit, but Midoriya was not worried about his friend who he pulled his punch to a weaker elbow because of Zach's strategy to get Eziano hit by it. Zach smashed Eziano down on the opposite side of him as Midoriya, but Eziano twisted his body and slammed both legs down. He bent them at his knees so right when his back was about to hit the floor, the soles of his feet stomped down instead and prevented him from a hard landing. Midoriya flipped over Zach and came out of his spin with his right hand pulled back at his side, "DETROIT-"

Eziano's right leg kicked up leaving him only barely standing on his left leg with his whole body bent backwards. He kicked so high up it seemed impossible because of how flexible he would need to be, slamming his foot into Zach's face and making the dark-haired boy pull his head back to avoid getting such a heavy blow. Zach traded only getting grazed for having to release Eziano's right hand though, and Eziano reached up with that hand as he yanked it from Zach's grip to grab onto Midoriya by the front of his shirt instead. Midoriya punched faster and without putting as much strength in as he had to do it in a rush, but Eziano yanked down faster and rolled his body out of the way. He used the hand he had on Midoriya's shirt to flip himself around Midoriya's side and right past the punching fist that hit the ground instead and sent huge cracks breaking apart much of the room.

Cracks ran up the walls after splitting the floor in nine different directions. Midoriya turned his head while his fist was still slamming harder into the floor, and the villain who released his shirt now had a knife in that hand he was bringing straight for Midoriya's turning face. Midoriya felt a new hand on his shirt this time, or what was left of his shirt as all of the right side had just gotten ripped off like his pant legs had been from earlier kicks. He still looked better for the wear than Zach, but despite Zach suddenly yanking him out of his finished Smash, away from the blade slashing at his face, Eziano redirected it at the sight of Zach's hand pulling Deku away.

Midoriya tugged his face away from the cold steel nearing his left eye, making the slash cut up diagonally across from his cheek to his hairline on the side of his eye. Blood splashed off his face as he was thrown backwards, Zach using his weight as a slingshot to substitute Midoriya's position with his own. He saved Midoriya while at the same time moving in for an attack on the man whose knife started swinging back for the teen who slammed his left hand up and blocked the blade with his own forearm. _**Clank!**_ Zach gripped Eziano's only arm using his fake steel one so tightly that he was not going to let go. Then his right hand that was flaring with flames of Death tightened harder into a fist on his right side, while Midoriya landed behind him already with his legs crouched and his right fist rising.

 _That knife got too close, it's time to finish this,_ Zach's right fist erupted in even more Death. Midoriya's feet pushed down and broke in half the section of the floor he had already split from the rest with his missed Detroit Smash. His left fist pulled back this time as he shot up on Zach's left side the same moment that Zach stomped forward. Eziano tried to rip his right arm out of Zach's left hand that just pulled down hard on his wrist to prevent him from getting away. The assassin's attempts and movements were too slow and weak though, and Eziano could see there were already wisps of Death slipping between the fake fingers of Zach's left hand gripping onto his arm.

"This is where it ends!" Zach slammed his right fist forward with a swirling mass of Death around it. He punched at the same time as his friend on his left so he could not make a massive explosion of darkness on the collision, but there was far more than enough there to knock a man out. His fist collided with Eziano's upper left side just below his shoulder, splashing blood out of the tightened muscles of his left sealed arm bump that Eziano lost control over. Midoriya's fist hit Eziano in the right side of his face, denting into his head and splashing blood and spit and teeth out of the assassin's mouth as it took him off his feet. Zach had to let go of Eziano's right arm as the blow from Midoriya was so strong he could not hold him any longer or he too would be thrown along with it. Even letting go, Zach still found his feet sliding on the ground below him just being in the close vicinity of Deku during such a strong blow. Wind pushed his hair and his Death away, but Zach was certain he had connected most of it with Eziano before Midoriya's wind could send it fading.

Eziano flew backwards so fast and hard he collided with the wall ahead of the boys in the same second they punched him. The top of the throne broke apart as did the right armrest, along with a huge crater of the wall behind and above it. Eziano did not get stuck in the wall as too much of it cracked and then started falling, dropping the assassin down to the cracked throne he bounced off onto his face and stomach. Midoriya was panting and he rose his right arm, wiping it across the left side of his face and then glancing down at all the blood he got on his forearm. A dart of his eyes to his side showed him that blood was not dripping off Zach's chin anymore, but there was still marks of blood streaks down the right side of his head and to his chin, even down his neck. The blood on Zach's stomach seemed more dry, and Zach was not panting even as badly as he was so he tried to stop himself too while refocusing solely towards Eziano who was barely moving ahead of them.

 _It could be a trick,_ Midoriya thought. _Even his not having a Quirk- one that helps with fighting. He could have been messing with us to… for what? What reason would he have to get beaten like this?_

 _You're an assassin. Not the strongest warrior I've ever faced. Not, someone who could beat me,_ Zach stared down at Eziano's body. The boy panted but slowly as he watched his enemy's slow-moving form. _As strong as you are…_

"I can't," Eziano began, his elbows pushing down and his legs curling up at his knees. The man face down on the floor dragged himself to his hand and knees, but he was shaky and barely able to raise his voice. "It's not _you…_ My story, still has so much longer…" Eziano's voice was raspy, and he turned his head while pushing up harder. He froze though as he glared towards the teenage boys a fraction of his age. The two eighteen year olds stood firm and fearless in front of him. The anger and determination on his face wiped at the sight of them, and he leaned down to the left where he did not have an arm to support him and just had blood spilling from the messed-up stub of a bicep still protruding there.

 _He can barely stay up,_ Midoriya thought, his breathing heavy but steadying as he stared down their enemy. His eyes shifted for a moment to Zach to see what he thought, then he refocused straight on their enemy who Zach was still looking at with complete concentration.

 _Is there no contingency? That's all- That's all? He's been sniping me, blowing me up, ambushing me all over the place. He had me shot in the back a week ago, and fired a fucking missile at me a few days back! But… but even with all that, and all his forces up on the surface- Umburt! He was dangerous, right?_ Zach's hands shook at his sides as he stared down his defeated enemy who continued muttering to only himself for a few seconds in more disbelief than Zach felt at the moment. _I thought he had something hidden away. He showed off powers here I never knew he had. But, in the end it's all just his ability as a fighter. The weapons he could use…_ "Did you really think, you would beat me?" Zach wondered.

Eziano's eyes clenched shut and his teeth bared in rage. His right hand shook on the floor though and his arm was wobbly, barely holding him up. Closing his eyes made him feel too close to passing out too, and those eyes had to snap open to avoid that from happening. "This isn't how it was supposed, to go…"

"You really thought that highly of yourself," Zach whispered, though his tone was degrading and he continued to speak down to the assassin kneeling there. As they all realized it was Eziano's defeat, as the villain knelt there fully at their mercy. Whatever influence he had around the world meant nothing. Zach already said that the use of hostages would not deter him. Midoriya was already determined to arrest him. And Eziano had exhausted his resources.

The sons Midoriya had worried were still in hiding and waiting for a moment to attack, were long dead. He stared down at the man who Zach had taunted with the murders of his sons. He tried to justify the dark tone Zach used while bragging about killing them, telling himself, _They went to the Pit to fight him. That place Zach was forced to kill everyone. Innocent people… To him, the two of them entering that match means that two less innocent people were in there for him to have to kill._ Thinking of it in that way just made Midoriya pity his friend on his side, and it helped him from getting too upset about those things Zach had shouted before.

"I am, the most prolific killer in the world," Eziano started. He shook his head, pushing up harder with his right hand and then leaning back so he was just on his knees. He was turned sideways in front of the boys facing him, and his head just tilted up so he stared at the cracked ceiling high above him. "I've fought thousands of heroes, faced armies and… Two, children-"

"Your time is over," Zach interrupted the man's confused thoughts. Eziano sounded like he could not understand how he was beaten so readily, and Zach just shook his head as he glared at this villain, _I thought… I thought you were the only one, who could compete with me. The only one strong enough- but it was just your age. Your age and resources… and you yourself may not have even been the one to accumulate all those resources. If your father did this as well, you just inherited it. You didn't build up anything, did you? Eziano Mozcaccio… You're a fucking weakling._

 _Zach and I together are the strongest team,_ Midoriya thought while giving his old classmate another look. _To have taken down Eziano like this,_ Midoriya reached up and rubbed over a bloody scratch on his face again that Zach saved him from being any worse. _Though I wonder,_ Midoriya lowered his hand back down and wiped the blood off on part of his shirt that remained on the left side of his stomach. He stared at Eziano who as he knelt there with one arm and his head tilted back to mutter in his misfortune, Midoriya could not help but lose the feeling of any intrigue he had for the man. This mysterious assassin with so much power who he and Zach had been afraid of on their way here, despairing at his defeat… _Could either of us have taken him on our own too? Even without each other's help, I think it was possible. Zach held back with me here and I was, I didn't necessarily hold back but I was trying to protect Zach when I fought Eziano one on one. If either of us fought him with just the goal of taking him down…_

"On the surface, Eziano," Zach started, stepping forward closer to the assassin. He spoke darkly to the figure who lowered his head but did not turn to the ones who had defeated him. "Is that really all you have left? Or are there others out there, who will come after me even after you're put away?" Zach asked his questions in an insulting voice and as if what was coming next was now inevitable for the villain on his knees. Eziano started shaking his head, a strange look on his face as his right hand shook down at his side. Zach snapped at him from ten feet away, "I'm asking you a question! Did you give them orders-"

"Zach, it's over," Midoriya started from behind his friend. Zach froze and he closed his mouth, gritting his teeth as this was not how heroes did things. Zach turned his head partially to the side and glared back at Midoriya, who just gave him a soft look in response.

"I'm sorry."

The two teenage boys turned their heads and looked back towards Eziano. The villain on his knees there had his head bowed, but he turned it to the throne behind him and gasped out again in a defeated tone, "I'm sorry."

 _What is he doing?_ Zach's eyebrows curved up and his heart pounded at the tone he never expected to hear from Eziano's mouth. "I failed you," Eziano's voice cracked, and Zach and Midoriya each leaned their heads back. Even though Eziano Mozcaccio was turned away from them, the two boys had to glance at each other to confirm that they had just heard the man sound like he was, _crying._ "Thousands of years, and I- ah, it was me. I thought I was, the strongest to-"

"Are you serious?" Zach muttered, raising his voice towards the end as he wanted Eziano to hear him. The villain just winced though at the sound of Zach's voice behind him, and he shook his head harder with a defeated expression covering his face.

"Thousands of years?" Midoriya asked, taking a step forward so he was closer to Zach though still farther from Eziano's devastated form. "What do you mean by that? How long, have you assassins been-"

"From the be-ginning," Eziano said, his voice cracking as he responded. "And I! I failed them. I failed you, my Lord," Eziano said that in a broken voice sounding so despondent, so full of self-hatred and loathing through the absolute shock that he had failed to this degree. The realization of his defeat had made way for these emotions, as he came to understand that there was no way for him to beat the boys behind him now. He stared at the cracked throne in front of his bloodshot eyes, and he gasped out, "All this time, hiding our appearances throughout human history. Yet we did our part in guiding it, and controlling it… and making sure historians never revealed our actions."

Zach's eyebrows narrowed back down. A dark feeling swirled in his chest, but he ground his teeth in dread as it was not just the similarity between Eziano's tactics and his own that he found unsettling. Zach's eyes darted to his right and left, and Midoriya caught the change in aura radiating from his friend next to him. Zach lost some focus on Eziano even as that villain continued talking. Midoriya was too focused on every stunning word out of the assassin's mouth, but he also felt a weird pit in his gut that sank deeper as Eziano rasped hoarsely back at the throne, "The foundations of war, of society, even the Quirks they all have without understanding where they come from… We controlled it all. I was supposed, to lead us! And instead I have led to our destruction. He was right, I made mistakes. I let him grow too powerful."

"No… You did well, Eziano."

"My Lord?"

 _FUCK!_ Zach's eyes bulged huge and then narrowed in under a second, his fists balling and exploding with darkness at the sound of that voice, and more specifically the wording of Eziano's response.

Midoriya's eyes just grew wider from the initial confusion into shock and then horror as he put together things slower than the teen at his side already glaring behind the throne at the wall that voice seemed to radiate out from. The two of them stared at the wall as it crumbled behind the throne. A hole opened in a long jagged crack cutting vertically behind the crater and falling rubble as the wall lost structure. The cave around them shook from loss of support, as footsteps echoed into the room from the pitch black emptiness behind that wall. The hole ripped open six and a half feet tall, a few inches taller than the shadowy figure walking forward through it. He stepped out and right through the throne that fell apart as he walked into it. The figure barely seemed to notice he hit it as his body just broke straight through to the top of the steps and stopped in front of Eziano Mozcaccio.

Zach stared up those two black steps to the platform this man just emerged onto. His heart was racing but his breathing stayed steady, unlike his friend's which was getting more ragged each second as he stared at the being looking back down on them. More specifically, the figure stared straight into Zach's eyes. Zach's eyes stayed their normal hazel shade and his body was not covered in any Death at all. He took in deep breaths and hardened his expression. _This was the whole point of the contingency. Holding back power. Just in case, this happened._ Zach released a heavy breath out his nose and then asked in a deep and unwavering voice, "Who are you?"

Some rocks that had been falling from the shaking of the cave fell past the tunnel exit across the cave and above that cast light down into the room. The rocks fell and dim orange light shone on the man's light-brown face, and the smile he had as he looked down at Zach. He had blue eyes and ashy blond hair that fell behind his head down to his shoulders. The man was muscular but no more than Zach or Midoriya. His facial appearance gave off the look of a man in his forties or fifties, yet there was a youth to his eyes as he stared at the black-haired teen below. He wore a black t-shirt, and a pair of baggy dark blue sweatpants. His smile showed off white teeth, and his arms were unmarked other than a strange tattoo on his right forearm of a cross over a name.

The name 'Aurellio' was underneath the cross written upwards below the longer vertical crossbeam going along his forearm. His appearance was less physically menacing than many of the assassins and Eziano himself. Something about him made Midoriya's heart race faster than it ever had before though. Izuku's face was covered in sweat, and he gulped as he stared at the man who Eziano just called his _"Lord."_ Midoriya's right foot slid back on the ground then stopped short, his teeth baring behind his lips as he realized what he was doing. _No! If this- if this is… What is this?! Does Zach know-_

"You came," the smiling man said. He looked and sounded happy, then he turned his head down and looked at Eziano who had twisted his knees to better face the figure who had walked right up to him. "Eziano," this man spoke down to the kneeling assassin as if he were a child, "you were defeated."

"I am so sorry, master," Eziano gasped out. His expression was horrified but in his own failure, not of the man before him. "I failed you-"

"Did I not just say, you did well?" The 'master' questioned the man down on his knees. "Now I-"

"I let them-"

The man standing behind Eziano had been raising his eyes back up towards Zach when Eziano cut him off. Eziano stopped speaking quickly as if realizing what he had just done. He stared up at the figure who lowered his eyes back down in surprise and then anger. He leaned back down in front of Eziano and reached his right hand forward. "You may not have failed me here, as you believe," he started. His right hand reached to Eziano's chest and did not stop moving at its steady pace as he pushed inside and then out Eziano's back with his heart in hand. "But you are a failure." Eziano's mouth opened and blood spilled out as his eyes stayed locked on the man's in front of him, while that man crushed Eziano's heart behind his back in full view of the teenagers watching the organ squish out between his fingers.

Zach snapped his left hand to the side with his palm turned backwards. "Get out of here, Deku," Zach said. His voice was low and his eyes did not move from the man he was watching to the boy he was talking to. Midoriya spun to look at the side of Zach's face, but Zach just watched as their new enemy pulled his arm back out of Eziano's torso as slowly as he had put it through. He used his left hand to steady Eziano by his right shoulder as he removed his other hand, then he lightly pushed Eziano to the side afterwards and let the dead assassin fall. He put his arms down and interlocked his fingers in front of his waist, blood from his right hand getting all over his left as he stared straight to Zach with the smile he had when he walked out of the wall and first saw Zach standing there looking at him.

"I'm not leaving," Midoriya said in a low tone back after hesitating for a few seconds from what Zach told him. He glared back forward himself at the villain who had not once even acknowledged his presence, let alone looked in his direction. He was just staring right at Zach as if Zach was a long lost friend, or a plate of delicious food, Midoriya could not tell which. He could not read the expression that seemed genuinely excited though withdrawn, and just hopeful as Zach looked right back at him with a much more serious and scary look.

 _I need him to go._ Zach watched the figure who just killed Eziano and did not seem to care like it was an unimportant action.

Zach opened his mouth, but Midoriya spoke up first beside him and made Zach's eyes snap open wide again, "You killed him." Midoriya glared at the man who did not seem to want to take his eyes off of Zach, slowly turning his head a bit and glancing at Midoriya with his smile lowering a little. "He was your own, subordinate, wasn't he?" Midoriya's voice was frustrated, and angry. _I can't treat him different than any other villain! No matter how, how afraid I am!_ Midoriya knew something was seriously wrong with the man he was looking at, but that feeling could not affect his judgement as a hero.

"So this is One For All," he began while looking at the one who just said that to him. "This is a hero," he wondered to himself. His eyes turned back towards Zach and he regained his smile again. His attitude shifted and he spoke without acknowledging Midoriya's presence anymore, "Death, or should I call you Zach?"

"Either one is fine," Zach responded. Midoriya darted him a look again in confusion and anxiety at the calm way in which his friend was talking to this murderer. "And what should I call you?"

The man Zach asked it to just smirked a little more with the right corner of his lips lifting up higher. "You have no idea how long I've been waiting for this day. Zach… You are the one I've been waiting for, all my life."

"Really now?" Zach wondered back. _Control. Power. Speed. I can't tell how strong he is. It's insane. This is insane. Keep him talking. I need Midoriya to get out of here._ Zach glanced to Eziano's body that had been discarded to the side, and he asked the new villain confronting him, "Why did you kill Eziano?"

"Eziano was… He had his moments. Unlike his father, and his grandfather, Eziano cared very much about his own strength," this mysterious man spoke as if he had known Eziano's father and grandfather. Midoriya and Zach each had heard Eziano talk about his Quirk being Longevity, along with his father's age, and the two of them could not help but in that moment wonder if his grandfather also had a Longevity Quirk. "The others were more content with simpler power. Eziano, truly revered me however. His idolization caused him to attempt to be as much like myself as he could. He also had his theories though on how to better create wars than his ancestors had. Interesting theories. Some worked, others did not."

 _This is unreal!_ Midoriya's fists tightened harder at his sides to keep from shaking. _There's no point in saying how it's impossible though. It's happening!_ "How old are-"

"Are you that invested in the struggle between All For One and One For All?"

Zach glared harshly at the villain who was asking him this question. The man spoke over Midoriya but in the same tone and volume as he completely ignored the other of the teenagers in the cave. "And why shouldn't I be? All For One is trying to destroy the world," Zach responded.

"Yes yes, so I've heard. That may be something we have to deal with at some time, but in the future. You're too concerned about that though. To have based your current life around that insignificant goal," he shook his head in a disappointed way. "That is why you went to Tartaros in the first place, wasn't it?"

Zach did not reply. Midoriya gulped again as he thought of the first thing Zach needed to tell him and Bakugo in the hospital after getting out of prison. "But that man never showed up," Eziano's killer continued. "You gave Eziano all the time he needed to kill you as you awaited the one who would never show. And he failed." The older man looked down to the corpse on his right side. "He has failed over and over in the past few years. Even here where he thought he had brought in powers enough to handle you. He did not understand what I do. What I have known for some time now. You're special-"

"And yet you allowed him to come after me?"

"I knew he couldn't hurt you- or, I knew you would defeat him," the villain corrected himself, and Zach's eyes shot open wide for a moment as he had felt angry in the split second before the villain's correction. This strange man sighed and said to the surprised boy, "I am sorry for what he did to your landlord. You will get over that though. One day." The man took in a deep breath and he smiled again in a bright way. "Our first meeting," he said to Zach in almost a nostalgic tone that confused the boy he was talking to.

Midoriya spoke up again with his fists curling tighter and his body filling with power. "I don't know who you are, but if you were in charge of the assassins-"

"Who do you think I am?" He wondered, not losing his smile this time as he was in too good a mood to. He glanced towards Deku and asked the boy who had frozen with his mouth open, _"What_ do you think I am?"

"Why don't you tell us?" Zach requested.

"Where is the fun in that?" Was the reply that made Zach close his mouth and just examine the figure closer now. The man saw what Zach was doing and grinned at his actions. "That's right, think back. You've put together the pieces. Those ancient texts always speaking of men who have amazing powers. For thousands of years these men appeared around the world." He rose his voice and continued down to the teenagers watching him, "Most times they were hacks, or they were considered witches and warlocks, to be killed by regular humans. Yet there were those who avoided those deaths. Even with a few survivors though, how could Quirks revive so often throughout history. It must have been the work of higher powers. Of… _Gods._ "

"And that's what you are?" Zach started.

"Yes."

The one-word response was still the most powerful thing Midoriya had ever heard before. Zach found himself momentarily frozen in place before glaring in rage again at the figure who just declared that before him. That man stepped forward though so he was just at the top of the steps where Eziano had been kneeling, closer to the boys now who leaned back when he took those steps towards them. "My name, is Ares. I am the God of War."

"You are no God," Zach responded while Midoriya was still holding his breath and staring with shaking eyes at the self-declared God before them. Those shaking eyes shifted to Zach who just got an angrier look on his face as he snarled at the villain, "You're a human."

"I was, once," Ares replied with his face losing that intensity it just gained as he gave Zach his name. He smiled at the teen who spoke to him in a knowing way, and he continued, "I am glad you are already open to the idea. That you know, what I am. How I became a God."

"I just told you-"

"What else would be a God? An immortal being, with vast power and knowledge," Ares pondered to Zach. "One who no one else could kill. Whose power allows them to live forever. Like mine, and like yours," Ares stopped for a moment and grinned wider as Zach's teeth clenched hard and his fists suddenly balled in rage. "Do you see now why I have wanted to meet you?" Ares wondered with some of his excitement coming through his tone. "God of Death, you have felt it haven't you-"

"I don't know what you're talking about," Zach growled furiously, his rage so seething that it confused his friend on his side who turned his head more with his eyes growing huge at that level of hatred.

"Yes you do," Ares remarked back at the clear sound of that hate. "You-"

"Did you create the assassins?!" Zach yelled, interrupting the so-called God with his shout. "You built this whole thing? Sent Eziano off to start wars around the world?"

"He did that without me ordering him to," Ares replied. He continued to speak in Japanese to the two teens ahead of him for whom it was their native language. "He did so in reverence of me. As tribute, an offering to grant me more power."

"What do you mean by that?" Midoriya asked. Everything happening right now was happening too fast. Too much was being said and it was hard to absorb, but the look on this villain's face as he shifted his attention back to him made Midoriya's entire body tense up as he caught eye contact with this man. He brought his arms up into a fighting stance instantly at the look on Ares' face.

"Did you ever wonder why Eziano let All Might live that day at your Sports Festival?" Ares wondered. Midoriya's eyes stayed steady as he expected the villain was just trying to get him off his guard. Ares continued to him though, "He told me that he allowed All Might to live because you were not enough yet to get the world back on track once it was in the darkness. He believed that you would not reach that point without All Might's continued teachings."

"Why, would you want out of the darkness?" Midoriya asked, panting but still snapping that at the villain saying seemingly contradictory things here.

"Eziano acted under your orders," Zach added in a dark and accusing voice.

"He acted in what he believed to be my interests. I have long since lost any interest in this world, however," Ares replied while looking back to Zach. "And as for why he would want it to rise back out of the darkness. That is because only out of darkness could he plunge it back in again. An endless cycle harder to move one way than the other, that way being back to peace through men like your friend." Zach's eyes narrowed at the villain speaking only to him while Midoriya tried to follow along but was lost as to this man's reasoning. "The Mozcaccio bloodline has followed me for generations. The first man I ever met who had an ability like my own, was Eziano's grandfather, Aurellio Mozcaccio."

"The only man older than myself at the time. I searched him out, as I had questions about who I was. Who we were, that men revered us as Gods." Ares stepped down to the step below the platform, then to the lower one, then down to the same level as Zach and Midoriya though he had to step to the left as the ground was cracked. He stepped to his left and stood more straight in front of Zach who he was speaking to instead of speaking to both boys as if they were equal in confronting him. "I left my home of the old cities of Greece and traveled to Rome where I had heard rumors of another like myself. I was already hundreds of years old, but Aurellio had wisdom and knowledge I did not possess. An amazing man who had traveled the world, while I had spent my years fighting and warring and leading a single land. It was through him that I came to understand my power. The origin of my vast abilities and why they continued to grow stronger. Why my power never stopped growing…"

 _"Never stopped growing?"_ Midoriya's heart nearly jumped out of his chest. _This was a question he asked, how long ago? Ares… he can't mean. Rome? Greece? This isn't… This isn't possible!_

"If I were to name my ability under the current accepted conception of Quirks," Ares continued, standing ten feet in front of Zach and staring straight ahead into his eyes. "My Quirk would be called, _War._ Like your own, Zach Sazaki, War is an ability that grows in strength with each war that passes. As you kill, and each death adds to your own strength." Zach's eyes trembled while as wide as saucers. Midoriya stared to his side at his friend for a moment and gained a nervous and scared look at the sheer panic that flashed over Zach's face.

"The world was constantly at war back then, but the wars were small. I was a warrior of renown across the lands. I grew stronger and stronger after each passing battle. They called me a hero at first, then revered me as King, then a God. As my power grew more I continued to fight wars that I was undefeated in. I stopped getting hurt by blades that bounced off my skin. Arrows could no longer pierce my body and spear shafts broke when they were thrust into me." Ares paused and then he spoke lower, "I came to realize that I did not have to be in the war myself for it to make me stronger. War, any war, gave me strength."

"Midoriya," Zach started, his voice raising as he saw a glint in Ares eyes right there with his lips curling up into a more deadly smirk. "Grab those two in the hall and get out of here!" He shouted louder, "They'll die otherwise! You don't want that, right?!"

Ares' fingers that had been interlocked in front of his waist separated. Midoriya saw the movement from the villain, God, monster right before them and his eyes darted from Zach back to the tunnel behind and above them and then to the God again. "I can't leave you to face-"

"I have to face him alone," Zach growled, his voice furious but sounding so different than when Zach was talking about fighting Eziano before. The tone was personal this time. It was not a simple goal to stop the assassins and end Eziano's reign of terror. It was solely personal, and Zach was not trying to hide it as he told Midoriya to get out of there. "Save those two or they'll die. Everything's about to collapse."

"This will be an interesting first meeting, Death." Ares spoke without referencing the other person still in there. A white translucent veil surrounded his body, and the ground started to rumble as he stood there with both fists curled and a huge smirk crossing his face.

"Zach you-"

"Drop Limiter 1," Zach said aloud. His teeth clenched and he forced down the darkness that threatened to explode out of him. "GO MIDORIYA!" Zach yelled, while red filled his hazel eyes and the whites of them blackened. _Finally,_ Zach's clenched teeth parted and a thin black steam slipped out of his mouth in a single breath. _I can release it all._

 _I can't leave him here! This isn't a villain Zach can take on his own!_

"Good," Ares bellowed and started laughing. "At least now I know you're serious. If you were not holding back at all against Eziano, this wouldn't be a good-"

 **"Drop Limiter 0."**

Ares froze with his mouth open and his eyes actually widening this time. His arms snapped up at his sides and the stone ceiling above them ripped to pieces. At that same moment, Midoriya's body twisted and he shot for the tunnel behind him as fast as he could. He bounced off the walls of it that got destroyed under his feet and hands as he sped towards an intersection he barely stopped at for a second. He scooped up the pair of villains while the entire cave around him shook and the walls broke apart. The tunnel's ceiling cracked, and Midoriya yelled out, "AhhhhHHHH!" He sped up while dragging the two assassins behind him, and he shot out of the entrance of the cave that was collapsing behind him.

Midoriya spun around as he dropped the villains to his sides and flipped over in the air. He bounced himself up and away from the cave and the dipped valley below it as well as the protrusion of a cliff sticking out above. The roof of the cave and everything above and surrounding it was blowing upwards. The protrusion of the mountain got slammed into by massive chunks of rock that caused its protruding section to crack and a few pieces to rip off. They had ran pretty far forward in the cave before fighting, so most of the villains were behind Midoriya while the range ahead of him exploded up into the air around a massive black pillar of spiraling Death.

A glowing blur of light flew up through the sky with the rising pillar of black that just shot up into the clouds. Midoriya suddenly realized that the clouds were much lower down now too. They were darker and there was a rumbling coming from them he had not heard inside the collapsing tunnels, though he did not know if he could not hear them from inside or if they only just started. Light crackled from inside those clouds and the sky illuminated brighter as a massive white aura pressed against that curling pillar of darkness that pushed right back into it. Lightning fell out of the clouds as dark waves ripped through them. Flashes lit up the sky and illuminated what that massive black pillar was shifting into the shape of, making Midoriya's jaw drop farther while the ground trembled below him in an earthquake that seemed to shake the world.

Deku's eyes darted to his left as he heard a loud cracking sound. The heavily panting teen lifted his gaze and saw cracks under the protruding part of the mountain on his left side, the diagonal slopes that pushed out and then back in splitting apart and dropping hundreds of thousands of tons of rock. Midoriya glanced around and saw at the bottom of the cracking ravine hundreds of unconscious foes he and Zach and taken down. His head spun around and he looked back up at the divided sky. _He was holding back. That entire time… When you told me how many people you killed I didn't realize it, Zach. It wasn't until he talked about each War making him stronger. Seeing the way you reacted…_ Midoriya's eyes shook as he stared up towards the five hundred foot tall giant of Death reaching up into the clouds. Twenty huge black arms ripped off Zach's sides at once and swung forward. As they swung in though, a huge beam of white flew through his chest and ripped a fifty foot hole in diameter right through him.

 _There never was any question about who's stronger between us. Your power is out of this world! So why?_ Midoriya leaned backwards, then he spun and he shot as fast as he could for some of the knocked out villains at risk of dying in this dangerous environment. Midoriya heard a deep and thunderous roar of agony scream out from that massive figure of Death in a voice he barely recognized but knew the origin of. _Why don't I think you can win?!_

* * *

 **A/N Thanks for reading! Eziano's dead. His master revealed. Zach drops Limiter 0 for the first time... which he technically didn't lie to Kotsumura about before: "But, Limiter 1? How high do your limiters go?" "Just 1." ;) He's been holding back this whole time, and he's finally got an enemy to go all out against... Ares, the God of War. Quirk: War. Spent all of yesterday jumping right into the next chapter, and I wanted to write more of it today but just editing this chapter has taken me the last 6 hours. Another 40,000 word chapter is tough to get through, especially with it nonstop action I've gotta keep up with an imagine and try to make vivid. Anyway, hope you guys enjoyed the chapter and the sudden turn of events. I'll put some review responses below. And as for the next chapter... might be just as long away as this one, so sorry about the long updates this has transitioned into. Got work and people visiting for the long weekend, but I'll be writing this on all my time off so I'll get the next one out soon as I can!**

QuestingforBitches chapter 212 . Jan 5

Ezaino is basically the Demon King of planet Earth.  
Spooky mountain base? Check.  
Long-lived? Check.  
Super evil? Double check.

 **Yeah... Eziano might take second fiddle to the real Demon King... ;) Thanks for reviewing.**

Guesssst chapter 212 . Jan 5

Amazing as always. Is it bad I'm kinda hoping some of the assassins go after Deku so Zach can stop holding back? Thank you for your work and time as always!

 **Midoriya jumps in during the early fights as Umburt kills too many of the other assassins while trying to get Zach, making him jump in (and to prevent Zach from killing the villain getting resistant to his Quirk). The two of them manage to capture that Adapting villain and take down all the rest, and Eziano too, but only now is Zach unleashing it all... XD Thanks for the review!**

DaddyBathSoap chapter 212 . Jan 11

Continue please.

 **Yeah yeah, takes a little time with chapters as long as these. Hope y'all enjoyed though, and thanks for reading, following, faving, and reviewing!**


	214. Chapter 214

**Disclaimer: I don't own Boku no Hero Academia**

 **Chapter 214:**

"Cloak to Command. Come in Command."

Mica Freeman turned to the computer on the right of the four screens he had in front of him on the bottom level of his personal command center. Above the middle two screens were two wider screens he had set up to add to six total. He had two mouses, two keyboards, speakers on the sides of the different screens, and he wore a headset with a microphone in front of his mouth as he heard the call coming in to him. His eyes only darted to that screen on his right for a moment before looking back at the top two screens again that he was sweating while looking at. "I hear ya'. Rebel here," he replied after a moment when he heard a click of Raylei about to call in again. "I'm the only one at Command right now. What's up?"

"Rebel," Gentle spoke over the line. Rebel grimaced more as he heard Gentle's voice and not just Raylei contacting him. In his peripheral vision he saw both Gentle and La Brava had jumped in on the channel with him and Raylei. "Something's happening above Korea. The Cloak is heading that way and we need-"

"Don't-" Rebel stopped as soon as he started talking. He tssked with the right corner of his lips pulling out into his cheek, as the people in the call with him were way too sharp for him to even try backtracking now.

Raylei stared at the screen in front of her with her eyes widening huge and then darting towards the middle of the bridge where Gentle stood up from the captain's chair. Gentle's voice got extremely low and dark as he asked, "What's happening?"

"Rebel! Do you know something about this?!" La Brava shouted in annoyance from another seat of the bridge as the other on-call support team member with Raylei right now. It was only the three of them on the bridge, and they had not called to the rest of the force yet despite already changing their course. La Brava continued snapping when Rebel did not answer immediately, "Shutting up for once?! What are you hiding?"

"Rebel?" Raylei asked in confusion.

"I've been watching it myself from a private cloaked drone-"

"Why do you have one of those without telling us-" La Brava started yelling at him.

"You need to stay away from there," Rebel said. He interrupted La Brava and the short woman froze with her eyes bulging at the tone in Rebel's voice.

He sounded scared. Raylei opened her mouth but hesitated, wanting to say something about it but too confused and stunned to come up with something quickly. Gentle did not falter though, and he growled at Rebel, "I told you to contact me and not Zach directly." La Brava spun towards Gentle as did Raylei a second later in shock and realization of what Gentle was suggesting.

La Brava asked in shock, "Is it Eziano-"

"I have no idea who that is fighting Zach," Rebel said while leaning back in his chair all alone at his command center. "But my drone just crashed, after catching… I don't even know what I just saw." Gentle's dark and angered expression flinched as he had never heard that tone in Rebel's voice before. He saw a blinking red light on the screens that kept appearing up on the windshield of the Cloak, flashing warning signs of emergency signals they picked up inside Korea. A window popped up on the screen showing a satellite image down above northeast Asia, zooming in specifically on Korea not that they could see much of the landmass in the north of the peninsula.

"Don't get involved here, Gentle. You'll just get in the way." Rebel grabbed his microphone and pulled it closer to his mouth in worry they would not hear him if he didn't. "Really," he muttered, sweaty and with anxious eyes as he watched the same satellite images showing what he had just seen from up close only visible from space. "You'll just get in the way. It's… It's like nothing I've ever seen before."

* * *

Over a four-way video call in Korea, the nation's four top heroes were speaking in an emergency conference. The fourth ranked Excelsior, third ranked Wonder Man, second ranked Bogseo, and the top hero in the nation Launching Hero: Cataphault were each on a corner of the screen when the fifth hero they just called up to add to the call responded. In a hero agency fifty miles from the large town of Pamdon, out in the Korean countryside instead of one of the mega-cities of the coast where the top four heroes' agencies all were, G-Man responded while his sidekicks and support staff were running around the agency behind him.

"Arung! Finish bolting everything down already! Sujin I cannot talk to the Captain right now- Just handle it!" G-Man finished shouting at his subordinates then spun to the huge screen in front of him that had the top heroes on it.

"What's going on over there G-Man?" Wonder Man asked in surprise at the chaos going on when G-Man picked up the phone.

"Are the quakes that much worse there?" Cataphault questioned, the top hero analyzing what was happening quicker.

G-Man nodded his head with a look to the top left screen where the number 1 hero of their country was looking at him. The top hero had wavy brown hair and darker skin than normal Koreans, along with a strange appearance as his arms were stretchy and did not fall normally down at his sides but lifted up over his shoulders and curved behind his back instead before dropping down. G-Man wore his hero costume of a black suit with his sunglasses on, and the man with short black hair had to reach forward and grab the long console under the screen to steady himself as another shake hit his building. He reported to the top heroes in the country, "We're analyzing the epicenters of these earthquakes-"

"Are those aftershocks?"

"They could be preliminary ones leading up. If the foreshocks are not as bad as one to come-"

"It's been going on for two minutes now, and I just felt that down in Seoul," Bogseo said. Seoul was the capital and one of the farther north of the large cities, which was why Bogseo felt the tremor the other three from cities farther south were only hearing about. "Was that the biggest one-"

"Listen to me," G-Man said. His tone stopped the other four heroes trying to figure out the situation of the earthquakes their agencies had picked up on in the north of their country. G-Man's tone was not rushed though or indicating that what he was about to say was about coordinating emergency efforts. His tone suggested something else. It was serious but to a level beyond that of a natural disaster, more like what he was about to say was something he needed the other four to shut up and listen to him about. "These tremors are originating from inside the Muindo Range." G-Man could see a map blinking over to his left, with red concentric circles emanating out and getting dimmer farther from the glowing dots, but more importantly he could see out the windows of his agency to the northeast side.

"What are you talking about?" Wonder Man asked confusedly, unsure as to what that had to do with anything.

Cataphault and Bogseo each felt differently though. They each reacted in ways that made G-Man's eyes narrow while shifting up to the top two boxes of his screen. His thoughts were shaken though as the ground rumbled beneath his feet though, and he heard a crashing sound in another room that got his staff yelling at Arung to hurry up and better bolt their furniture down. "The seismographs detecting these quakes are reading them strangely," G-Man continued while glaring at the top heroes in the nation. "Reading at lower on the Richter Scale than things are shaking up here. The ground itself isn't shaking at an evenly distributed rate as well-"

"Just come out with it," Bogseo snapped, sweat on the right side of his face as he already could tell what G-Man was getting at here.

"These quakes are unnatural," G-Man suggested. "Someone is at the source."

"Creating earthquakes?" Excelsior asked in disbelief. "Of this magnitude?!" He added, as it was not so hard to imagine someone having that power, but that it was being considered an emergency situation did make it seem impossible.

"There's a storm brewing above those mountains," G-Man added in a lower voice. Excelsior's shocked expression faded and his look got far more intense, as the member of the ADTF was well aware of a certain phrase. The other top heroes and G-Man had heard it before as well, and G-Man continued without touching on it, "I don't know why these earthquakes would be happening if it were just one villain out there right now."

"You think someone's fighting," Cataphault said. "And their clashes are… G-Man, coordinate evacuations around the Muindo Range. Get people to follow earthquake procedures and speak nothing of your hypothesis."

"It will only create a panic," Bogseo agreed. "I'll organize a force of heroes from Seoul and head out your way as fast as we can."

"I will send every hero who can fly to get there and assist with emergency protocols," Cataphault added. Then his voice got lower and he ordered to the other heroes, "But under no circumstances, is anyone to enter the Muindo Range."

"What-" Wonder Man started confusedly.

"I agree," G-Man said, and Wonder Man looked to the newest member of their conference call who was lower ranked among their nation's heroes. They all knew of G-Man's intellect though and the fact that his low ranking was in large part due to his location in the countryside. G-Man looked into Wonder Man's eyes and said sternly at the third-ranked hero, "Our priority has to be the safety of our people. Not one Korean citizen lives in the Muindo Range. I have long been investigating this phenomenon in absolute secrecy even from my own agency." The other heroes stared at him in surprise, and Cataphault and Bogseo even stared in shock with their eyes huge at G-Man's daring. "I suppose the two of you received visits from _him_ at one point as well. I did not know he met with anyone other than politicians."

The top heroes stared at G-Man in disbelief. Bogseo finally asked slowly, "Were you, working with anyone-"

"None of the brass knew. No one knows," G-Man replied. "But it's the reason I'm really out here. It doesn't matter now though. Listen to Cataphault, Wonder Man," G-Man told the third hero in the country who was so confused as to what the others were talking about here. After hearing G-Man just say that it was why he was out in the countryside though, Wonder Man planned on listening without argument. "Treat this as a natural disaster and keep the citizens calm. Protect them at all costs. All we can hope, is that whatever is happening in there stays contained within the Muindo Range."

"And if it spreads out?" Excelsior wondered. "If whatever's causing this phenomena reveals itself-"

"Then God help us all," Cataphault muttered. Excelsior stared at him in shock, but Cataphault shook his head and shouted, "Now move! Coordinate efforts with the police and other heroes, and get the situation under control…"

* * *

In the sky over the Muindo Mountains, Zach Sazaki flew forward as a ten foot all man whose dark body was pulsing and blowing off wisps of Death above him and lagging behind his body with every movement he made. A huge swirling black mass continued to sway around below and behind him, while the sky full of dark clouds spun around a single point fifty meters ahead of him. Zach's red eyes glared out of his dark form towards where Ares was floating in a white aura that surrounded his body.

His glow filled the sky around him as the only light with so much darkness flooding the region from the dark clouds and Zach's Death body. Other than Ares the only bursts of light were from bolts of lightning that flew around him and some that crashed into his body itself. Ares did not even react when the lightning bolts crashed into him, instead just smirking more towards his enemy who had abandoned using a giant body when Ares flew around him attacking from all sides and never missing. Wind blew around them and pushed Zach's black aura that flared again as he and Ares floated fifty meters away from each other. A loud thunder crack filled the sky and a huge bolt of lightning dropped down behind Ares with branches breaking off of it as it cut through the air. The Death swirling below Zach crashed upwards as it swirled around like a raging ocean, and two thick black streams of it started rising from a lifting wave to pull up into Zach's back as he rose his arms in front of him.

Ares lifted his right hand with his palm up and his fingers curling in. Over his palm formed a ball of white light, and his aura flared behind him as he shot towards Zach and straight at his arms that he was funneling his Death into. "RAAAA! Death BEAM!" Zach fired Death out of his hands in a cone that expanded in all directions as it blasted out in front of him towards Ares.

Ares threw the sphere of white light forward and into the beam of Death that it split apart without slowing down. The energy flew forward and Zach pushed harder into his attack, but the ball of energy flew through it all the way to his hands and then ripped them apart along with his arms and his body behind it. Ares was rising up over the black beam of Death his energy ball ripped through, and he swerved around in the sky as despite his attack ripping through Zach, five new black figures flew up out of the splitting dark beam. Each of the black masses had four arms and spikes all around the top round parts of them resembling heads, yet those spikes protruded out and extended as their punches and kicks missed the lightning-fast enemy dodging around in the sky.

The supposed God spun and kicked his right leg towards two of the black forms that could not take the force of the kick and blew apart so thin that they started fading as they were blown backwards. Underneath Ares, five black spears suddenly shot out of another rising Zach that did not have glowing red eyes but was just a mass of darkness. That figure ripped apart into the black spears that sped up faster with better aerodynamics and less wind resistance. Ares created a flare of white energy out from below him that tore them apart though, as well as creating a wind over him that blew away the regular-sized version of Zach who just dropped out of the clouds with a burst of speed from the wings he flapped behind him.

Zach spiraled out through the air and snapped back open his red eyes to see Ares flying towards him. He kicked behind him and flapped wings he grew larger in that second to speed up faster than Ares would predict, but Ares punched his right fist forward as Zach did the same. Their fists smashed together in midair to a shockwave. Zach's red eyes widened, and he pushed harder while strengthening that arm and flooding more Death into it. Ares just smirked though while leaning forward, his arm bending as he pushed his face closer to Zach's that filled with more shock as pushing Death into his enemy did nothing. Ares punched forward and followed through, breaking apart Zach's arm and ripping through his shoulder and whole right side as his enemy went past him.

Zach winced and he regenerated that half of his body with more Death that pulled out of the rest of his body. Down below him at the same time, the Death ocean swirling around started pulling to either side away from Zach and Ares. It rose up with waves to their far left and far right to create walls on their sides. Then the top of the waves curved inwards so they were almost getting inside two barrels of the wave at once, and Zach flew forward while suddenly shooting up a straight wall of Death behind Ares to trap him.

There was only one place to dodge, and that was up. Ares just flew forward at Zach again though, and he swung his right arm up from behind his back. He windmilled it up with an open palm and then swung down in front of him, and a flash filled the sky which caused Zach's red eyes to start sliding up his black head. He looked up and then let out a roar of pain as a huge bolt of lightning slammed down into him, right before Ares ripped through the front of his body in the middle with a spinning kick to his gut. Zach reached back behind him as he was splitting apart though, and he grabbed Ares with his right hand. He held on for dear life and the the top half of his body was tugged out of the crashing Death waves that Ares left behind.

Zach's lower body bulged out of the split top half, and his right hand slid out of his darkness with his fingers curling in tighter on Ares' leg. Zach yelled out in a horrifying voice that echoed through the sky, _**"DIE!"**_ Lightning crashed as Zach pierced his fingernails through his glove, even using some Death as sharp as he could to cut through the fabric that was no longer meant to slide away to allow his fingers to get through it. With his increased control over Death, he did not want that possibility of his fingers sliding out to instantly kill anyone. It was not supposed to be an option. Zach cut through the fingertips of his glove though and he gripped Ares' leg tighter, touching him with his bare hand…

Ares stopped flying. He paused in midair, leaned forward, and his right hand gripped on either side of Zach's black face that still showed his disbelief through the veil. Ares yanked Zach up by the head and held his enemy in front of him. Zach's right hand was yanked off Ares' leg, but he curled his left into a fist and slammed it forward with darkness swirling around but his arm actually there to make it harder. He pounded that fist forward and an explosion of Death blew out into Ares' chest and behind him as the fist collided. Ares did not even bother dodging. His aura just flared and the Death slamming into him pushed out in all directions, wind crashing into Zach and pushing his head back but not too far as Ares continued to hold a grip on him. A massive wave of Death was flying towards Zach's back as the huge mass of it that erupted from his body earlier was still under his control even if it was not inside his form, but Ares just chuckled as he stared into those red eyes staring back at him in shock from a foot away.

"Did you think Death would always work? On every enemy?" Ares' voice boomed across the sky and louder than the thunder that cracked above him. "You know that you need to use more Death on certain enemies than others. I know that much, so considering I am several thousand times as strong as any human," Ares lifted Zach up by the head. The movement was so fast that Zach was confused for a second at why he was no longer looking at Ares' face. Then he was thrown out of the air from above Ares head where the _God_ had just risen him, and he slammed into a mountainside so hard that a fissure shot through it diagonally.

An avalanche fell from the top of the mountain and down over the fissure that was still splitting apart wider. Rocks broke apart from the fissure walls and fell down inside, and Ares rose his gaze from that area of breaking apart mountain to the huge mass of Death moving towards him that suddenly bulged up at the top. A fifty foot wide arm ripped out of the Death and reached out towards Ares, then the upper body of an enormous black mass emerged with glowing red eyes at the top of it glaring towards his enemy. Zach broke apart that massive arm that shot Ares' way and attacked with a dozen smaller arms that his enemy flew around on a path towards his rising form, punching away or even letting Death slam into him only for him to break straight through them on a direct path in his direction.

 _Death isn't killing him! IT'S NOT WORKING!_ Zach's eyes darted to his right where Ares just flashed over to, then up above him as the villain was up there with both hands risen above his head. He brought those hands down and the swirling energy he condensed there smashed down on Zach's huge form, sending the beast of Death crashing down into the mountain range below. Zach fell into a forest that died as the ground below it cracked and blew apart. Huge chunks of forest, trees and roots and all, rose up in the air while cracking and breaking into cubes. Zach rose his upper body up as Ares was dropping out of the air, lightning falling behind him slower than the God himself was moving.

A pair of legs slammed into the middle of Zach so hard that it ripped through his huge body and the ground below. Four cracks split off from the crater, then the crater dropped down a second time into a deeper one with those four cracks each splitting wider and causing the chunks of ground that were split to rise and fall at different elevations. The top of the fourth tallest mountain in the range, Uingo, cracked and started a rockslide to mix with the avalanche already rolling down the slopes of the mountain.

Zach's body was ripped apart in the middle, but the outsides of it all sucked in quickly towards the point that Ares was imbedding into the ground. Zach did not waste time by surrounding him first only to let Ares fly out through one side, he just attacked with everything he had at once. Waves of Death shot in at full speed, with a few rising up instead of just zipping straight at Ares like he was a magnet. Those other waves just rose up to prevent him from rising, but Ares went down instead of up anyway. He dropped down into the ground, speeding his way through a tunnel that formed ahead of his body and that Death chased through after him but could not keep up with the villain who emerged behind where Zach was standing up with a seven foot tall figure again.

"Can't control this form very well, can you?" Ares wondered from behind his enemy who did not even know Ares had risen behind him yet. Zach turned his head and looked back where that man was floating a few feet off the ground above the hole Zach still had Death flooding through too far back to know Ares' intended final destination. "You're using your eyes too much. Needing a form like this in order to control where your Death goes. It's what you get from a lack of training with your Limiter 0 down."

Zach spun and slashed back his right arm that transformed into a sword in mid-swipe. Ares rose his right arm and pushed against the side of the blade that moved slower than his arm rose, allowing him to redirect it so the sword just slashed down on his right side and into the floor next to him as Zach was unable to stop it at how fast he attacked. Zach's head even leaned down as he missed his swipe and stabbed his sword into the floor, making him look back up to see Ares floating inches in front of him and staring down with a confident but not smug look at his enemy. "Keep that in mind for next time."

"There won't be a next time," Zach growled, his black mouth moving but lagging behind his deep voice. Black steam shot out of his mouth and at Ares who punched his left fist in a hook for the side of Zach's head. Zach focused more Death down below his head in his shoulders, and as his head was ripped apart he immediately reformed it above his neck- only for Ares' left leg to kick it apart again with Zach having no immediate plan to regenerate this time. Then Ares smashed both fists down on the rest of Zach's body, and on the floor below him where a huge mass of Death was swelling and getting ready to shoot up around Ares and crash down on him.

The smash of both of Ares' fists broke apart the earth and separated the mass of Zach's Death that now had too many sections to control while not even having a full body to coordinate it. He had no brain or head, and Zach felt himself losing his thoughts as his entire body was destroyed. _Focus! Don't die!_ Parts of his separated body started to fizzle out and fade without a constant stream of thought keeping them together. He reconnected part of himself in an especially condensed mass of Death, and he thought in a panicked and rushed way, _I can't do that again! I barely found my way back here!_ It was only by not having coherent thoughts for a few seconds there and remembering that moment in which he was barely functioning that he realized just how close to death he had just been himself. _I almost died. Holy shit. Could he have killed me? "Next time?" What the hell is he playing at?!_

Zach sucked more and more Death into his body this time. The huge mass of it that was still swirling around him and reconnecting while chunks of earth fell back down around him pulled into a single point without making his body that much larger this time. _I can't get it all back inside. Not after releasing my first limiter. Limiter 0… I haven't had to use it all since the Battle of the 6 Armies. I never thought I'd have to use it again. I never thought I'd have a chance to, as I can't use it in a populated area where I need full control over Death to make sure I don't kill anyone. Even dropping Limiter 1 outside Desusuta was dangerous, but that was the point of making Limiter 1 in the first place. A stronger version as strong as I could get but with full control. This is just,_ Zach pulled more and more back inside himself, but his insides were so condensed with the swelling Death now that his body was pulsing with it and getting larger on its own. _Alright, focus. Fight. Kill him. How? I don't know._

 _I have to figure it out though._ Zach flew up into the sky with a thick trail of Death following behind him. It looked more like a long tail now that stretched all the way to the ground before lifting up a few seconds after Zach had flown into the air, making it a hundred meters in length easily. He shot up into the sky after Ares who floated above the east slope of a mountain looking down at Zach as he reconnected his body and tried to control more of it, as Ares just suggested he do.

Zach flew up towards Ares though kept a gap between them as he rose to the man's level and was not instantly attacked. "I'll admit, you are the strongest enemy I've ever faced," Zach started as he hovered ahead of the God of the assassins.

"Of course," Ares replied back to his enemy whose appearance was more humanlike than before. He showed more features on his black form with the long wide tail than earlier, and his red eyes glowed brighter as he faced his enemy from fifteen meters apart. "War did that to me. As your Quirk does for you." Ares smiled to the boy before him who he spoke to in a friendly yet competitive way, and also as if he was passing on wisdom, "Not just my strength and speed, but everything advances with every war in the world. My recovery time, my stamina, all of my abilities become better. My reaction time is quicker. Even my body started to heal faster and faster, to the point where I can now just regenerate from small wounds in seconds. Tell me, Zach! How is that wound Nuomo and Danny gave you faring?!"

Zach leaned his head back and then darted his eyes down. _He won't attack me,_ Zach knew it when he hesitated, and then he pulled all of the darkness away from his upper stomach where Nuomo's blade had cut through before he turned his insides to Death. He had already noticed a lack of pain during his fight with Eziano, and when he got cut in the head and considered his blood loss, he had checked down below and seen that he was no longer bleeding. Ares called out to his enemy as Zach checked the wound that had already scabbed up, but that scab was starting to look old. "Well?!" Zach reached his hand in and scratched off the scab. Ares' laughter bellowed into Zach's ears as did the following shout, "See that? It's already scarring up below!"

Zach lifted his gaze up to see Ares looking at him with a huge grin of amazement. "You are remarkable," Ares complimented, shaking his head in sheer excitement at the sight that Zach re-covered up in darkness anxiously at the expression on Ares' face. "It took me at least a thousand years to accumulate half the scars that you have on your body. But then again, I had never fought quite the war you had. My enemies could not compete with me or damage me after the first hundred years or so, and my worst scars came from assassins. As some of yours have as well."

Zach breathed heavily and his black breath hovered in front of his face then pulled back into him. His body pulsed with his dark energy, and he glared into the shining eyes of his enemy who could not hide how much fun he was having. "Is this all a game to you?!" Zach yelled towards Ares, a shakiness in the rage of his scream. Ares rose his eyebrows and smirked more, and Zach leaned forward and yelled, "Your assassins killed thousands-"

"Millions," Ares corrected. "Billions, if you consider all those they could take credit for."

"'Billions?'" Zach repeated in disbelief. _He's exaggerating. How many people have even lived for that to... There's no way!_

"Probably," Ares replied with a shrug, as if the exact number did not even matter but that it was just so high it could likely be in the billions. Zach dropped his jaw in shock, and Ares lifted his palms up defensively with more of a shrug of his shoulders. "Come on now. Why not enjoy this? I can tell you that there's no one around to get dragged into our fight. No one for a few dozen miles in any direction of my home. So you don't have to worry about dragging innocents into this fight! Which means you can just go all out, and have fun!"

Zach shook his head, his teeth grinding behind the dark veil as he considered the implications of what Ares was shouting. "The War of Unification helped reduce the population around my home," Ares admitted with a tilt of his head to the right. "But these mountains have been my homeland for over 800 years now. Those Koreans started encroaching on my lands, and so they needed to be culled." Ares said it casually in a voice that shook Zach in his core at the innocent and uncaring nature of the statement. "So I had them massacre each other, and then while they were distracted, a younger Eziano created famine across the nation. With an elite team of assassins, they killed the crops and made the country starve. It was a tactic of his father Enzo that Eziano reproduced nicely."

Ares sighed for a moment nostalgically, then he started in an explanatory tone to the boy before him he seemed to care about explaining to, "Enzo was, he was just an insatiable genius. The most brilliant of the family. Enzo was far superior to his son in intellect, and in… creativity." Ares sounded like he was bragging about it, and he admitted aloud, "He even surprised me at times." Ares lowered his smile and then continued, "Eziano was strong, but he was too pious. Which kept us from being close."

"Aurellio knew me well. We were friends, and so Enzo was raised by a man who knew me personally. He was like a nephew to me," Ares said, but his frown just grew deeper as he said it. "The last true human who I could relate to in any way," he said in a cold voice that sent chills down Zach's incorporeal Death body. "Enzo raised his son to know that I was a God though, and Eziano never saw someone who treated me more of an equal as Aurellio was oft to do in front of Enzo."

"I have long lost any love I once had for humanity," Ares admitted to the teenager in front of him. "But you," his voice rose in tone with a smile reappearing on his face. "You are no human."

"Shut up," Zach growled. "I am-"

"You're just like me," Ares cut him off. "A God among men."

"SHUT UP!" Zach's body split into three. The other two versions of himself flew to the right and the left, flapping pairs of wings behind them in symmetrical movements that had Ares' eyes darting left and right. Swords formed out of their right hands, while Zach slashed in front of his center self with two forming black scimitars that solidified but still wisped the excess darkness he could hardly contain as more flooded into his back from the huge condensed well behind him.

Zach shot forward while his two flanking versions flew in from Ares' sides. Ares had all dimensions of movement however and just shot straight up, making the three Zachs fly up at him from below on different sides making a triangle around the rising enemy. Ares flew into the clouds above that were pushing and pulling with strong winds. Zach flew up with all three split versions of himself, and he focused hard to see with the other two versions despite them having less Death inside them. _I can be mostly in here, and still partly in each of those. Transfer my consciousness without being physically connected. Jump to each, and control all at once!_

The version of Zach that had flown off to Ares' left initially spun to the side and rose his sword as a path parted through the clouds. Two more arms ripped out of his chest as he rose the sword above his head, extending forward at Ares who just sped up to hit him in the torso. Ares did a spin dodge to the left of the extending arms that ripped apart and yanked after him in a sharp movement instead of curving around. At the same time that Zach slashed the sword down at his enemy who rose up over the yanking Death wind and just above the tip of the sword now passing right in front of his chest.

Ares was flipping over the top of the sword that started doing the same as the extra arms to rip apart and pull after him, but it was the second version of Zach that had gone on Ares' right that shot out of the thicker clouds Zach added Death to in order to prevent Ares from seeing that second version approaching. That second Zach kicked over the top of the head of the one slashing the breaking sword, intercepting Ares' leg that just pushed down on his kick anyway and smashed one black leg into the other's head. Those two Zach's merged together though with eight arms pulling out of their sides at once and wrapping around Ares. Before they could finish an eight-armed bear hug around him though, Ares kicked his left leg up and split the reconnected more condensed version of Zach in half vertically.

The Death split apart so fast that Zach lost control over it as he was no longer controlling from inside that mass but from his other version still flying into the area. He could not see all his Death well in the clouds to control it, and Ares could tell as the Death swirled and shot around as if trying to hit wherever he could dodge to, yet he was finding it much easier to dodge Zach now. He turned his head and sped towards a point in the clouds, raising his right and left hands in front of his body and slamming them forward right as Zach came out into the gap in the clouds created by their attacks. Zach's red eyes bulged and his body sharply pulled to the left, making him look rubbery between his head and legs as his body just bent one way to dodge the beam flying at him.

That beam Ares fired out of his hands whipped up as he yanked his arms upwards, dragging the beam with him and making Zach pull as hard as he could after the rest of his body he had dodged with. He spun around as he pulled his head after his torso that had continued its momentum forward with a blast of Death out of his back. He finished with a left elbow above Ares' arms, taking away some of the Death there and hitting him with the hard steel while firing a blast of blue energy out of that arm at the same time. The elbow gained speed at the last second and indented into Ares' face, and then Ares punched up with his own left fist and hit Zach in the arm that just hit him.

The force of Ares' punch knocked Zach much higher in the air, but he caught the glimpse of pain on Ares' face for a moment when his elbow had collided. He winced harder though as he lowered his left arm down, and he turned his arm to the side while pulling more Death off it only to stare with his eyes huge at the fist-sized dent left in his prosthetic. _He, dented it? With just the half-punch from that weird angle-_ Zach fully turned his arm into Death along with the rest of his body as Ares flew out of the nearest cloud on his right. He thought he could still see Ares in his peripheral vision down below, but his enemy was fading from there with a smirk up at him while his actual body just connected with Zach's and sent him soaring back out of the clouds.

 _Zach? Where are-_ Midoriya spun his head to the right while on the slope of a mountain he was trying to locate the fight from. His head snapped after the black blur that just shot out of the clouds and all the way to the side of another mountain in the range, where Zach collided with but on a weird angle that made it seem more like a graze. He hit the mountain and just by grazing it he dug an eighty meter trench through it that ripped huge chunks of stone up in the air and blasted a portion of the other side of the mountain off where Zach had dug too deep before exiting that side. Midoriya spun from the rain of huge rubble flying off that mountain to the clouds that left a hole below them where Zach just came flying, Death trailing after him and trying to keep up with the physical body that just got hit.

Out of that hole descended a muscular figure in a black t-shirt and baggy pants whose body seemed to exude an aura of pure power. He was smiling. Even from a distance, Midoriya could see a smile that did not appear evil. There was no malintent in his appearance. It was similar to how Midoriya thought he looked back inside. A different kind of feeling than All For One had given off that day in Camino Ward. _He's more powerful than All For One, even though he's… What is he? All For One may have lived for nine generations, but I already accepted Eziano could possibly be older. Yet this? This_ _ **man,**_ _if he's as old as he says he is, and Quirks have really been around for that long- No. That's not, possible._

Midoriya's legs felt heavy as he stared at the descending figure whose expression did little to ease the fear he felt. _I have to join in the fight. I moved all the assassins to an area debris shouldn't fall down on them, and now I need to fight this guy. Help Zach, because he can't do this on his own-_ Midoriya's eyes grew wider and darted every direction, as his enemy vanished from sight. He spun to the left as he caught sight of the blur of light trailing after where he must have just flown. _Am I that much slower?!_

Zach dragged himself to his feet, and more and more Death filled into him as he breathed heavily and glared up from on top of a huge boulder just ripped from a mountain. He ground his teeth while more Death available for use in fighting filled him, not withheld behind walls and limiters, just condensed inside his body. The boulder below his feet started to cover in Death that spread out from under his soles. The surface of the boulder bubbled with Death, dark wisps coming off and not fading as they rose into the air around him and even in front of his face where heavy steam hovered already.

"Are you getting into it now?" Ares taunted down, though it sounded more like a friendly competitive tease than a malicious taunt of Zach's weakness. "Or was that before really all you could show me?!"

 _CALM DOWN! Don't move at his pace._ Zach was losing his train of focused thoughts as rage and a much different and scarier feeling had filled him. The smile under his black veil dropped hard and he bit down in frustration while Ares lowered his own smile too in a disappointed way. "Why me?" Zach asked. The question caused Ares to raise his right eyebrow at the teen who snapped at him for that confused eyebrow raise, "Why are you…" Zach pursed his lips, telling himself again that he was speaking up like this to gain a moment to strategize, to use the fact that his enemy wanted to talk to him to his advantage. Yet the things he was asking he could not convince himself that he was not desperately invested in. "Why not Midoriya? Or All Might? Why not All For One for that matter or-"

"None of them are Gods," Ares replied.

"Neither am I!" Zach shouted back. "And you- you killed Eziano. Someone you've known for hundreds of- since he was a child?! Your friend's grandchild? You raised him!" Zach shouted this and searched for a look on Ares' face to suggest that what Zach was saying was not the case.

Ares just stared blankly back at Zach for a few seconds, then he shrugged his shoulders and said, "So what?" Ares sighed and rolled his eyes at the dark figure's low growl of anger at that reaction. "I keep forgetting you're still so young. To me, you're already my partner."

"What?!" Zach snapped at the nonsense his enemy was spouting.

"To travel through time with," Ares continued as if that explained it. "The two of us, it's a future I can see going on for… for a lot longer than anything else in this world. Nothing's a constant. Nothing except for me," Ares paused and he cracked a slightly bigger smile again. "But that's changed. Your Quirk reminds me of my own. Your exponential rise in power. _Raw_ power." Ares chuckled while Zach felt the pit of despair in his body clench up and start strangling him. "You don't realize it yet because you're so young, but you've stopped aging. That power of yours has made you immortal! Just like me."

"How could you possibly know that?" Zach demanded to know. "You're just assuming-"

"Maybe!" Ares yelled back. He rose up his right hand and pointed his palm at Zach, "But I have hope! For the first time… in longer than I can remember!" Ares yelled in a sudden rage that had his face twisting in distortion. The sky cracked above him and Ares had to shout over the thunder of the storm, "Because you surprised me! You don't understand how long it had been!" Ares dropped that hand and stopped himself, deciding against attacking as he shook his head around and looked at Zach with softer eyes that made the teenager pull back so far at the look.

" _What?"_ Zach's deep voice cracked at this man's confrontation.

"Humans have bored me for so long! Enzo, he really was the last," Ares said with a shake of his head and frustrated tone in his voice. "His creativity led him to do things I had never seen people do before. A cruelty I never even believed possible. Enzo, he created the first real human experimentation labs. I mean, this was the stuff of legend!" Zach stared with shaking eyes at the amazement in Ares' voice towards something he himself found as the most horrifying things he had ever witnessed. "People had been killing and torturing each other for millennia, but Enzo was different. Even the most brutal dictators and kings cared at least a little about their people, about some of their people. They cared about _who_ they were sacrificing, or how many… Enzo, he just experimented. With his goal being testing the hypotheses he wanted to prove. He used humans as if he were not one himself. And it didn't matter who they were! He would test on kings and prostitutes, priests and beggars alike. Thousands, hundreds of thousands of them over the thousand years he lived for-"

"He was a monster," Zach gasp-snarled at the sound of this. "Evil- insane!"

"Brilliant!" Ares countered back with a laugh at those other terms Zach used for him. "Enzo could still surprise me even after I'd been around sixteen hundred years! After two thousand years! He was far more brilliant than you, and I admit your brilliance has stunned me at every turn! That this world could still produce someone like you!"

"Shut up! Don't compare me to him!" _I can control it! I was gaining better control over the separate parts of myself!_ Zach's eyes glowed red and he tried to distract himself with his strategies despite how caught up he was getting in what Ares was telling him. _Attack from all sides while creating walls around, then when he can't see past the walls make more… what?_

"Using his labs, Enzo created the first biological weapons. And the world never even knew it was man-made. A _plague,_ he told me." Zach was frozen in place as Ares smirked at him and recounted this amazing event he knew Zach knew nothing about. "One he spread using the Mongol hordes and barbarians to a world progressing too fast and too _peacefully_ that he knew my strength would not be increasing as fast as it once did. At the onset, Enzo explained to me that the tens of millions he had killed with the Black Plague meant nothing to him. He knew it would wipe out two thirds of Europe, our homeland, but as he explained to me, it was all in perpetuation of future holy wars that his father had failed to reach the extent of. Enzo believed that the Crusades Aurellio perpetuated at the end of his long, long life were failures. Failures because the Christians and Muslims didn't _hate_ each other enough."

Ares chuckled again and told the confused boy in front of him, "The things he talked about were so far beyond what I myself had thought of, and Enzo was still a young man at this time! Imaginative, creative, and _brilliant._ He knew that by following certain hygienic practices, people would be able to survive his plague. Unfortunately for the Europeans, only the Jews were that cleanly. So Enzo knew that all across Europe the Jewish population would be the ones the be surviving while the majority Christian lands fell victim to his new weapon." Zach's jaw dropped as did Midoriya's where he was hiding behind a rock behind Ares with his back to it and a terrified look on his face.

"I don't… believe," Zach started.

"Of course you do!" Ares called back at the kid in front of him. "Because you know how easy it is for people to turn on each other from fear alone! Instead of it being Quirks that made them turn on each other though, it was religion! They blamed the Jews for being monsters and witches because they were the only ones surviving! Those who didn't understand why the Jews were living and their families were not got jealous, and then afraid, and HATEFUL! And for centuries and centuries following that hate was passed down. And the Jewish people who survived passed their own hatred for the inquisitions that followed and the massacres of their people, and then _real_ stories happened that were spread down more from hateful people hurting others who had done _NOTHING_ to them! Violence incites violence and hatred breeds hatred! And for a thousand years Enzo saw the results of his actions as we sat back together and watched as armies _burned_ and nations _FELL_ and bombs that could annihilate entire cities DROPPED TO THE CHEERS OF BILLIONS ALL AROUND THE WORLD!"

"YOU FUCKING BASTARD!" Zach's feet broke the floor below him and Ares' eyes shot open wide at the eruption of Death that just exploded out from Zach's body and mainly from his back.

Zach shot forward at rocket speeds into his enemy who he slung his arms around that had lost most of their darkness that could not keep up with him. Midoriya leapt away as Zach tackled Ares into the floor creating an explosion of Death close to his friend who had to leap away again as a wave of Death yanked after where Zach dragged Ares through the earth. Ares flipped over as Zach continued to slam him through a trench into the mountain, and Ares punched Zach in the chest once, twice, then gripped him around the face and flew farther into the mountain while yelling in the darkness, "You only hate me now because you still care about the value of human life! It means _NOTHING_ to men like us!"

"SSNNRR-NNUP!" Zach's head exploded into Death with Ares hand falling through it and slamming into the ground, then the older man spun around and looked back through the tunnel they had bored into the mountain. Ares' eyes widened again as his enemy had only kept his head that solid for so long to let Ares get so much farther into the mountain. A different version of Zach back far down the tunnel slammed his hands forward. "DIE!" He screamed while filling that collapsing tunnel with Death that shot after Ares and made it so the villain would have to fly back through all that Death to- Ares flew upwards and then back right over the tunnel below him that was getting full of Death.

Even as Ares flew through a newly forming tunnel above the first one though, Zach dragged his Death upwards and through the solid ceiling falling apart above him but staying mostly strong as the mountain was too secure to just break apart like that. Ares glanced down as he flew back through rock that broke apart around his body, and he readjusted up a little higher as the Death was seeping through ground that did not have many cracks in it. Ares emerged from the mountain and slammed his right hand forward in a fist, punching away the huge black sword swinging down at him. He spun and punched five more times, and the thin lines of Death shooting through the air to pierce the God ripped apart and blew away too.

"Why do you fight me so savagely?" Ares called down towards his enemy who was flying up at him. Ares flew higher while looking down at the teen who sped up more to keep up with him, only for Ares to speed up faster again.

Instead of just firing Death out of his feet, six huge wings giving him a twenty-five meter wingspan slapped down after tearing out of his back. He continued to blast Death out from below him too then controlled that Death and added it to a huge mass he had left down on the ground level before flying up. That mass was now raising but staying far enough behind Zach that Ares could tell it was not for any imminent strike. "I have thousands of years of experience, but I was already a master of combat long before anyone called me a God!" Ares announced down as the sky rumbled above him again, clouds shaking at the sound of his voice. Zach continued to fly up at him, and Ares shouted at the teenager, "A hero of the Greek cities! Epics were written about me and my children who were born with amazing abilities! Slaughtered by people jealous of us, who I still tried to love!"

"You loved people?!" Zach shouted up in disbelief as if that were the craziest thing Ares had said so far.

"Of course I did!" Ares yelled back, his face dropping for a moment with a darker look flashing on it before returning to what it just was. Zach slowed down and the Death far below him stopped accumulating and moving too as he stared in surprise up at the leader of the assassins who moments before had been talking about holy wars and plagues that he had enjoyed. "I was human once," Ares said as if that was all the explanation he needed, which to Zach it was and made the teenage boy hesitate more at the sound of it. "But after too long of not feeling certain things that make one human, I can no longer associate with them at all. I am sure you've already begun to notice it. The excitement of a good fight. Fear that one can kill you. Fear that people have and expect you to feel in circumstances that you no longer feel fear in! I watched you fight those who called themselves the Subspace Devils."

Zach flinched at how knowing Ares' voice sounded about things that he wished he could just deny as being untrue. He knew it before Ares even continued, as the God wondered his way, "You fought them all without killing a single one. You did the same with the assassins back there! You wished your fight against Eziano would be different- Was it?!" Ares yelled to Zach who rose higher to put himself at the same altitude as the villain. "But here I am, forcing you to fight at your strongest! And you, pushing me to fight at a level I have not had to fight at _EVER_ in my life!"

"Before I kill you," Zach started, his voice low and his red eyes dark as he started that to the villain who stared at him in shock at the way Zach responded to all of that. "Tell me," Zach continued. "Are there any other fake Gods out there?"

"I am _not_ a 'FAKE' God!" Ares yelled back. Lightning cracked through the sky above him and dropped down at his back, and his body flared with a white aura larger than it had been earlier at the same moment that Zach started bring all the Death up at once from down below them. Ares' face distorted with anger at the question Zach had, and his voice boomed over the sky as he roared at his opponent, "But NO! There are no others! At least, I have never seen anyone else… I am ALONE! The only one with this kind of power that has made me immortal. I no longer care about humanity because I understand that it is fleeting, as you will come to-"

"I will _never_ be like you-"

"You will!" Ares yelled back. "You will spend your eternity watching everyone you care about die! You will live alone. With no one in the entire world who can understand you. Stand beside you! No one who knows what it's like… Except for me!" Ares shouted, and he flew forward at Zach with a huge grin on his face. Zach shot back towards him at the same time while all the rising Death sped up and pierced into the sky far from the two of them curving like a net from below to up in the clouds above. Ares punched a fist at Zach while still eight meters off, and the wind force slammed Zach backwards as Zach was flying forward. Zach's momentum changed and then changed again as Ares rose above him and kicked down.

Zach's wings were still sticking out of his back and all six flapped down right before he was going to hit the bottom of his own net. _Can't leave this gap!_ Zach shot back into the sky for a frontal assault while the bottom of his net continued to rise up after the ten different thick pieces that got thinner as they spiked up into the clouds. He shot towards Ares and yelled out at the supposed God, "You think I would want to spend an eternity with you?! You who I know were responsible for so many wars-"

"War happens whether or not I push it!" Ares yelled back.

"But you do push it!" Zach shouted.

"Why shouldn't I?!" Ares called out. He swung his right elbow towards Zach and hit him in the face with the blast of force that came off his arm as he swung it before Zach could reach him and punch with his own flaring right arm. Ares swung a second before his enemy and hit him backwards with enough force that Zach's finishing punch fired off the Death from too far, allowing Ares to fly up over it and above Zach's head in the same moment. His dodge and follow-up punch down at Zach's lifting face sent his slower opponent flying out of the air again. Ares dropped down below Zach and yelled out as he wound up with his hands together and his body spinning around, "As God I have the right to make myself stronger!" He swung and slammed his connected fists into Zach's back.

Zach's body split apart as Ares' arms collided with him. He ripped himself in half and then reconnected around Ares' arms, bringing both arms up above his head and forcing a wave of Death forward while tightening his Death body around the arms plunged into him. Zach swung his own arms down, but Ares ripped his arms left and right and swung up and down, dispersing all the thickening Death on him. Zach had condensed it too much, and he growled out in pain as that body was ripped in different directions by the tugs of Ares' arms.

 **"For that reason,"** Zach's voice came out of different pieces of the black clouds that had dispersed around Ares. The "God" darted his eyes around at the sound of that deep voice coming from different sides of him, a more intense look forming on his face as instead of fading, each of those clouds started bulging and growing larger. **"You killed so many people?"**

Five different black bodies formed flying around Ares in a sky full of fast winds slamming into the fighters. Ares' body spun around and he spoke while facing all of the five dark figures whose bodies condensed and solidified more though with none of them having glowing red eyes. "I have long lost any love I once had for humanity. They are fleeting creatures. Weak. Prone to war at the simplest actions. It didn't even need to be from me." Ares paused and then smiled more smugly as he called to one of the versions of Zach, "You saw how easy it was for a nation like Yemen to fall into civil war! A push from one assassin."

Lightning flew out of the sky and around the six of them flying up there. Ares shouted over the sound of the crashing thunder that came right after those bolts fell, "If humans are that predictable, that easy to manipulate, as I know you are well aware of…"

"That doesn't make them worthless!" Zach yelled from the body directly behind Ares who spun around to face that one instead of the other dark forms floating there. The red glow faded from that Zach's eyes though and reappeared on the one to its left, making Ares shift his gaze while lowering his smile more though gaining an even more impressed look. "There are good people-" Zach continued from that other body.

"There are good dogs too!" Ares called back with a laugh at that version which lost its glowing red eyes and made Ares search for the real one Zach's consciousness was moving into next. Zach watched Ares from two different angles as he switched over to different bodies he was controlling using his Death. As he started that, Ares continued to him while looking back at those versions, "Animals are neither good nor bad. They're just animals. Surviving. Living their lives and dying."

"You get in the way of them living their lives," Zach snarled from two bodies at once, his voice echoing over itself.

"You eat animals without caring how they feel," Ares replied as if it were that simple. "Humans are just one step above those other creatures because of an increased self-awareness and intellect, but they still just live and die and spend their lives surviving and reproducing. It's different for us."

"I'm not like-"

"The way you've gotten stronger is so alike my own ability," Ares countered with a knowing shake of his head as Zach started to shout a denial at him. "You will be immortal like me. Living forever alone."

 _I'm holding back more in each. Splitting my consciousness better. Control. Power. SPEED!_ Zach's bodies shot inwards at Ares all at once.

Ares shot up towards the clouds, then dropped as the Zachs changed trajectory and aimed upwards while still leading him to hit together in a single point. Ares dropped between them, then he raced towards the one with the slowest reaction time that was lowest down still. He neared it and his right arm covered in a white aura, but that aura glowed much brighter to the point his brown skin became impossible to see inside it. His whole arm glowed and he swung it towards the dark mass that swung its own arm and fired a black beam at Ares- Ares' white energy slammed through the Death and the body behind it, ripping it apart to shreds in the light.

"Are you learning a lot here?" Ares called out as he spun around and faced the two ten foot tall versions of Zach who were speeding towards him. They each held huge black swords, but they slowed down as Ares pointed palms glowing with white at him while his bodies were still too far back.

 _He's still much faster. If I "waste" much more he'll realize that I'm not nearly being careful enough._ Zach held back instead of rushing haphazardly at the enemy who smirked and lost the glow on those hands as Zach refrained from charging at him. "I'm glad," Ares continued to the teen who heard Ares' tone sounding like he was speaking to a friend. "It's better we meet now, so you don't have to live a full life as a human first before realizing it."

"And what do you think, I'm really going to learn from you?" Zach asked his enemy who his bodies started to move to opposite sides of. "You treat humans like animals. You don't even consider yourself human anymore, which is why you're so alone-"

"I'm alone because people die," Ares countered back, his lips flattening and his eyes getting harsh and cold for a moment. "You don't believe that I was like you once? You don't think it's possible, that we're more alike than anyone-"

"You're a monster," Zach snarled.

"I was once a benevolent God," Ares informed his new friend. "I believed that with my amazing power I should help those around me. Use my ability to make the world a better place! Believe it or not, it's true," Ares snapped with an agitated look flashing over his face for a moment as Zach's dark expressions were unchanging and he felt the teen thought he was lying. Ares called out at one of the two versions he could only look at one at a time because of their positions in the air, "You will lose your faith in humanity as I did. You'll realize how I came to be, and you'll stop trying to help them. I did EVERYTHING I could to make a world that was safer, better, with _less_ war in it. I ruled over Athens, as a beloved king and ruler who cared about his people," Ares shouted at Zach who actually stopped thinking about his own powers and attacking for a moment at the sound of Ares' tone that just shifted in pain and frustration.

"And then I stepped away from leadership and allowed my people to determine how to rule themselves," Ares continued with a shake of his head. "I thought it would be a great idea, this concept I invented… 'Democracy!' Then I spread my culture and its wisdom that I had accumulated through travels across the Greek cities. I spread it all over the world after meeting Aurellio and learning how many people were out there. He already knew what I had yet to accept, and so I spread what they call Hellenistic ideals all over the world in order to progress it! And all the while, people fought wars that made me more and more powerful. Even when I wasn't around. Even as I tried to make peace between neighbors and brokered it between enemies…" Ares' eyes got darker and he rose his head with a disconnected and angry look on his face as he stared into one set of the glowing red eyes looking back at him.

"But men are easily swayed creatures. Driven by power and greed, lust and envy." Ares' voice shook the air around them and made Zach feel like there was a haze in the air as his enemy was getting blurry. The air got hotter around them and the wind speeding through the sky started to swirl in a wide funnel around them so fast that it became visible. Dark clouds pulled down out of the air into the funnel too and lightning cracked to the sides of the men rather than above them as they entered a swirling black tornado. Ares' voice rose as the winds buffeted loudly around them, "I returned to the Greek cities where my children had been regaled as heroes. Demigods who saved cities, and led armies, and fought monsters, and took men on adventure! My grandchildren, whose mothers and fathers oft died out on their adventures, were _butchered_ in their cribs."

Ares' eyes glowed white and his muscles bulged, ripping through the black t-shirt over his upper body and revealing scars underneath. He was facing one of the two ten foot tall Zachs in the sky, letting the one in front of him see the huge diagonal scar cutting from his right shoulder down to the left side of his waist, as well as jagged scars and bumps over his ribs and abs. On his back were scars of lashings, scars Zach recognized far too well from seeing them on the backs of slaves he had freed. He hesitated, staring towards Ares with his red eyes widening for a second as Ares roared out, "The cities that they had saved and which called them heroes, were the same ones who burned their houses down upon word that they had died on the seas or at war. The same people they rescued _SLAUGHTERED_ their children, _MY_ grandchildren, the little- ...In jealousy of their abilities or fear that they would obtain them as my children had."

For a brief moment, Zach stared at this God in understanding. A realization of what could turn Ares-

"It happened every time!" Ares screamed as Zach looked at him like that. He hammered it into the boy watching him whose froze again as the moment was about to pass, as Ares yelled at him, "Unlike the rest of the animals, humans kill their own by the scores. Animals may not be good or evil, but you're wrong. Men _are_ evil. You just haven't lived long enough that you maintain such a naive view of the world.

"Whatever happened to you, way back then," Zach paused and he grit his teeth. "It doesn't matter." Ares narrowed his eyebrows but then relaxed and just smiled anyway which confirmed what Zach already believed. "I know that you have long since stopped believing, but the world is different now."

"Is it?" Ares asked, his voice booming through the tornado that it seemed to bounce off the violently spinning walls of. "You think because it's been a little less violent for the past year than the year before it, that you did something to change the world? There are ups and downs, but human nature does not change! I made peace across my world, across _this_ world more times than you can imagine! Yet every year, as I felt stronger, and every decade, when I came up with new powers, I knew that these people I was trying to help were still just massacring each other! And when I helped them have better and easier lives, they had more children, and populations boomed, and I gained power ever faster as wars were fought between millions instead of thousands. As cities were sacked and the people raped and butchered, and they hated each other so much more… and that made me stronger."

"Who was I to try and stop War when I had fought in so many?" Ares wondered, as if posing the question he had asked himself thousands of years ago when he had finally stopped caring to try. He added, "When I enjoyed it?" That statement posed as a question was directed at the boy in front of him who he smirked at more when saying it. Ares looked at him knowingly and then said to the boy glaring back whose large black fists clenched at his sides, "Maybe that is just the state men love the most. That no matter how wealthy, prosperous, or advanced society gets, men love war. They love to fight, to shed each other's blood, and even when they say they do not, no man ever lives a more fulfilled life than one who dies on the battlefield for what he believes in."

"Is that something you saw often?!" Zach shouted back from both sides of Ares, though his bodies started spinning around him and making Ares turn to track one then dart his gaze to the other from the middle of the tornado. "Because my comrades hated war! My friends died lamenting their deaths and crying and screaming-"

"Is it easier for you now?!" Ares shouted back, as the tornado started constricting around them and making Zach dart his eyes backwards to see the walls closing in. Ares shouted at the teen who glared right back at him as Ares' words pierced through to his core, "If you could kill yourself wouldn't you? I know you want to die! You won't do it though, but you would have gladly given your life on thousands of battlefields! Isn't that right?!" Ares shouted it at the teen who hated how well Ares somehow knew him, as these words echoed in his head and dragged out feelings he had never put words to. "You can't commit suicide, and yet if an enemy had killed you then you would have been satisfied, because dying in battle is the sweetest form of Death! Something I have known for thousands of years has been beyond my reach!"

The tornado collapsed in on itself, and Zach's two bodies exploded backwards into the spinning winds surprising Ares who thought they were about to rush forward at him. Out of the winds that crashed into their creator though, came sharp slices of Death that Ares leaned away from and cut apart with waves of his arms that glowed white around his fingers. More and more slashes of darkness flew out of the winds though, far more than Ares could cut apart and more than he thought could have even been inside those two large bodies of Zach that had been circling him.

Ares flew out of the wind funnel, and a few dozen shards of black wind shot straight out after him. The dark winds spun around while combining and turned into a six foot tall figure coming out of a spinning kick. Ares snapped his body back as a flying slash came off Zach's leg and flew towards him. That slash broke apart into a hail of nails dropping down at the God who shot the other way and then split apart into three bodies himself. Zach's eyes snapped to the right as he thought that was the real form, only for the one in the middle to spin a kick into his left side that sent him flying into the one on the right who connected his fists and pummeled both down on top of Zach's black head that stayed together but squished as Ares pushed down into it and sent his opponent flying out of the air.

The third who Zach had focused on first smacked out his right and left palms down over and over, firing spheres of white light out of the sky down at Zach who spun around with more black wisps flying out of the air and connecting with him. Those wisps created wings on his back that flapped to help him avoid those small spheres that felt much more powerful than their sizes suggested. He shot across the side of a mountain and over the summit, then he raced past a valley that exploded behind him with huge domes of white light exploding every half second just behind his back.

Ares flew through the sky, his bodies reconnecting and then his arms raising up with one larger than usual sphere of light forming over them. Zach sped across the mountain range below him, flying over the mountains that were getting riddled with craters. He turned his head as a light glowed in the corners of his vision, and he ripped two more wings out of his back to speed up even more as Ares sent the attack flying down towards him. Zach hit the side of a mountain, bent his legs, and then dove straight down it and flapped up above into the snow that exploded upwards before melting in midair as the sphere got closer and started expanding before even hitting the ground this time.

Midoriya stumbled to his right and had to leap up in the air as a rockslide started from the cliff above him on his right. He had returned to the area of the ravine to check on where he left the assassins, but when the sky started glowing white and the earthquakes got closer together to the point of being continuous he had to fly up and check what was happening. He looked to the distance north and saw right as that largest sphere of light hit the side of another mountain, and his jaw lowered as the summit of that mountain broke off while an enormous white dome flashed out into the sky. Smoke billowed off the top of the explosion that had flames ripping out of it and a mass of heat condensing it and then bulging up and expanding again in the shape of a mushroom.

All that black smoke mixed with the darkness of the clouds that seemed lower than ever. The sky was not even dropping lightning anymore though, but just filled with static electricity so Midoriya could feel all his hair standing on end as little charges zapped through the air. The being of immense power creating these unnatural phenomena descended on the location of the explosion, and Deku's fists clenched as he knew who was just targeted in that blast.

Zach stood up slowly after getting hit in the back by that blast. He turned around and looked up through the hot black smoke sparking with lightning and rippling with flames. A silhouette moved through the smoke and lowered down ahead of him, dropping with gravity to the ground instead of floating all the way down. He fell to the floor and walked forward on burnt but wet stone. Ares spoke to the boy staring at this enemy who had a backdrop of horror behind him, "I know you better than you know yourself. It's why I don't want you wasting any more time with them. With your foolish goals that you will look back on one day and find so meaningless."

"You don't know anything about me," Zach growled back. "About who I am-"

"I waited for you to come to me, but I _have_ been watching you," Ares countered with a shake of his head at the panting teen boy just fifteen feet in front of him who stood on unsteady legs. "When you killed all those men in the Tusukan Desert, how did it feel?" Ares asked it to the teen who just ground his teeth in anger at something his enemy was reminding him of. What Ares continued with made the pit in his chest turn over though, as Ares continued, "When you found yourself in that place, all alone? All your allies, and all your enemies dead, for the first time. Once you experience that you have finally hit a point of no return."

Zach shook his head, hating the tone of his opponent who sounded to be speaking from memory, from experience. "Where your loneliness can know no bounds…" Ares told a confused but knowing Zach who he could see recognized what he was saying, "In that moment you must have realized it deep inside. That it didn't matter what your ideals were. Nor who your enemies were. Nor how many allies you have or fight with. Your own strength has surpassed them all."

"That's not all that matters," Zach argued back, his voice stronger than his shaky body with black wisps coming off his hands and shoulders looked. "My own strength was important but never the most important thing."

Ares countered in a dark tone, "Your allies were too weak to survive against overwhelming odds. You were the only reason your _Army_ worked. That day you must have known it. When your allies were too weak that they were slaughtered, yet your enemies despite only having to face you afterwards could not stop you, leaving Death the sole survivor." Ares said it and then continued lower to the boy before him, "Death also understood that day, because of the realization of his overwhelming power, that he could not save everyone."

Zach's eyes shot open huge while staring down at the floor. His head stopped shaking in denial and he froze where he was, slowly lifting his eyes up to meet Ares' gaze. "Even on that battlefield against enemies he was able to defeat all on his own, he lost his friends. He could not save them. And if he could not save those two who he cared about so deeply, who were right in front of his eyes, who were strong enough on their own to supposedly have been able to fend for themselves-" Ares voice was rising and rising, but he got quieter as he finished, "Then how could he ever save everyone? How could he save people all over the world if he couldn't even save them? Death can't. Death, you can't."

Ares said that in a soft voice and shook his head at the teenager staring back at him through dimly glowing and wide red eyes. "Your whole quest and purpose was foolish. Flawed. There was an extent to which you could fight, but you could never do it in its entirety as you wanted. You could never stop _all_ villains. It's not a naive goal, it's just an impossible and stupid one." Ares' eyes narrowed and his voice got lower as Zach just glared back at him for saying that. Zach's legs stood firmer and his body loosened up, and Ares growled at the boy acting like that in front of him, "Naive implies some kind of foolish ignorance that allows an innocent person to believe something far-fetched, implausible, but you chose that goal knowing how impossible it was! You only convinced yourself you could do it because you know that when you believe in things the most you try your hardest to complete them."

"Shut up." Zach's voice came out low and menacing. His body no longer appeared damaged at all. Nothing had changed with it, but the way he was standing just made him look perfectly fine rather than nearly collapsing.

Ares did not falter though, just glaring at his opponent who looked to get a second wind, "You must have realized the stupidity of it all then, when you changed your goals, when you decided to just be a God like I once decided…"

"I never decided that. I know that I am not-"

"I know everything that happened that day!" Ares yelled at the younger man trying to deny it. Zach froze and he tilted his head back, his face scrunching up as Ares snapped at him, "Don't try to convince me otherwise, because I know you didn't kill them all!"

Zach clenched his eyes shut for a second. Hiding nearby in the smoke, Midoriya was already holding his breath but he found his heart racing as he thought he already knew everything about this day from what Zach had told him. Ares continued in a low but loud voice, "When you were in the middle of killing them all in that sandstorm. As you dyed the desert red with their blood, you spared some of them! You gave them mercy. Why?"

"I was-"

"You wanted them to spread the fear of you, sure," Ares called at the teenager before he could explain himself. "Even in that crazed state, you chose to let some of them go free so that they could tell others what would happen should they try to ambush you again. Should they kill more of your comrades. And by doing this, you must have felt somewhere inside that it would save some of your comrades in the future. That that action would help you, no matter how insane it was!" Zach shook his head, but Ares snapped at him, "I've felt what it is to be God for so long, but I can only imagine what it was like for you there. Killing hundreds, and then letting a handful go. Right in the middle of it all, as they all screamed while you ripped them apart…" Zach's eyes clenched shut harder, and Ares continued louder at him, "I heard from one of the survivors that you separated four of them, told them to flee while your hundred arms whipped around the sandstorm. And then as they started to run, you grabbed one of them and dragged him back in! Why? Tell me! Why did you do it?!"

Zach stopped shaking his head, a disturbed look flashing over his face as he remembered in that blurry memory doing exactly what Ares was yelling at him. "Do you even know why?! Did he give you a funny look?! That's what the man I spoke to couldn't handle more than anything else! That you seemed to do it at random. Like you just decided for no reason other than a whim that you were going to kill one of those you had just shown mercy to! Like sparing four was sparing one too many, and you just randomly picked that one! Was that it?!"

"I DON'T KNOW!" Zach screamed, snapping his head up and roaring in rage, a massive flare of Death ripping out of his back and going for fifty meters behind and above him. Ares' eyes darted up and his mouth snapped shut at how huge that flare of darkness was. It continued to flare out of him like that, only now it started twisting around and getting wider out to the left and right sides. Zach was panting, but he slowed down his breathing and glared at Ares with a newfound rage unlike anything he had ever felt before, because all of his self-hatred and loathing was directed towards Ares along with his hate towards Ares himself. "Did you think I was getting weaker?" Zach snarled.

Zach cocked his head to the right then tilted it back as he rolled his neck in an insane way. He smirked violently and leaned backwards with his arms bubbling in Death. His skin ripped apart to replace with Death. His scars lined with it and webs raced up his neck and around the back of his head. Zach's hair waved over his skull and grew ten times longer, looking long and straight as it waved around twice as tall as Zach's own body. "Did you think I was running out of Death?" Zach asked, as the amount of Death behind him kept growing and pulsing out and ripping around the sky at his back. "The fifth version of myself your earlier attack ripped through had barely any Death in it compared to the others, a decoy I wanted you to destroy. You think me showing you less Death was a sign that I had less and less to use?"

Ares stayed quiet though his eyes did shift around examining the enormous mass of Death behind Zach and the boy's own transforming body. "You see, Ares, I haven't used Limiter 0 since the Battle of the 6 Armies. I couldn't control it then and I still used Trigger a couple times that day. I needed to, because I couldn't control it all but I needed more than ever to face Zombieman and all those thousands of villains. Yet, I killed many people that day and in the months following. I never used my full power at once on that battlefield because I couldn't control it even without the Trigger, and now I'm even more powerful."

A constant wave shot out of Zach's back from the back of his skull down to his ankles. Death just poured out of him like a faucet on full blast that made the ground shake below him and start turning blacker like the sky all around.

Midoriya backed up, and he jumped away fast as he stared at Zach's huge growing body. _He wasn't in trouble. He, was luring Ares in. He was pretending. Like against Kaminari in the forest that day._ Midoriya gulped as he stared towards the God of War and his own friend who he just heard had done some absolutely mad things back in time. _"I DON'T KNOW!" Ares is getting to him. He's drawing out the worst in Zach… Zach still has so much power though, and he can't fight at full with me in the vicinity. Even though he's claiming that stuff like he has control over that much Death now, if I'm in the area a single missed blow could-_

Ares rose up his right foot. Zach's red eyes darted down to it, then he shot backwards into his own two hundred foot tall wall of Death that had formed behind him. The ground where he had just been standing blasted upwards as Ares stomped into the ground and split it. Light shot up through the crack that cut past where Zach just was all the way underneath his black wall. The light that shone up was not nearly enough though for the wall that crashed over itself and just revealed an even wider and thicker mass of Death behind it.

Ares floated off the ground again and stared ahead as he rose up the wall of wisping Death. Past it he could see the waves of Death that moved less violently than earlier. They moved in more specific patterns. _Controlled,_ Ares realized as he saw Death swirling in different directions towards single points all over the surface of the strange mass of Death Zach had created. It was not just crashing one way or the other, nor was it random despite the hundreds of movements seeming random to the untrained eye. _He's been gradually getting smaller and looking to have less Death while really just condensing so much more of it inside smaller and fewer bodies._

 **"I learned control in smaller and fewer forms, just to get a hang of it. To have those options available in a prolonged fight."** The middle of Zach's wide body rose up, while four corners of it speared into the sky and shaped like towers. The center section that rose appeared like a long thick torso except there was no neck before the head portion that had the two huge red eyes on it each larger than Ares was tall. Those tall thin eyes glared down at the God whose body erupted in a brighter and larger aura of his own white energy than he had around him before. The red of Zach's tall eyes swirled around like a liquid among the gaseous darkness, but even the darkness flowed more like liquid than it should considering it had no containing walls. Yet it had tendrils that ripped off the top of it and seeped into the air as if strands of pitch black smoke.

Hundreds of pitch black tendrils seeped off of the massive dark structure that in no way seemed to have shrunk since Zach's release of Limiter 0. "GOOD!" Ares shouted as those tendrils did not fade away but instead started to narrow and take shape as hundreds of little black needles hovering over the waving black fortress. "It's about time I get serious as well!" The sky around Ares seemed to shake, the atmospheric pressure around him changing so that Midoriya could see from a distance their enemy get blurry without that God moving an inch. The air around him just became so thick that it became harder to see that man whose blurry face still showed a mouth opening as he roared out, "For this first, of many clashes between the God of War and the God of DEATH!"

 _You are not the only one who's been waiting for this._ Out of Zach's upper body that was twenty feet wide, twenty five feet thick, and over a hundred tall, four arms ripped out of his sides. The two arms on either side were not directly above one another, instead just ripping out at different elevations and at different points on his huge pillar-like body. Zach waved the bottom left-ish of his hands forward, and the storm of black needles shot off from the top of the waving surface of Death under the upper pillar body. _As much as I've wanted a fight like this though, I despise you with every fiber of my being._ _ **"GRRRRrrrrr…"**_ Zach's voice came out shaking the already fuzzy static air ahead of him, darkening it more even as the clouds dropped from above them.

Ares' aura exploded around him and shattered the hundreds of thin black needles flying his way. As they ripped apart however, they were overcome by the thicker streams of darkness that all shot up from the massive fortress of Death Zach had created. Those thick jets of Death got wider as they pulled back in the tendrils that had seeped off before, and just by flaring his energy Ares could not destroy these thicker beams of Death. He shot between three of them though, then his body twisted and flew around the lower of Zach's right arms that shot towards him faster than the rest of the Death appendages were moving.

As two upper black arms slammed down towards Ares, and the God of War slammed his right hand forward while dodging to fire a beam of blue light through Zach's midsection, a dark figure flew out from that midsection. Zach flew directly underneath the bright blue beam that burned hotter than the white energy from before. He shot out of his own huge body with his red eyes high above losing some of their glow, but not all of it even as that smaller body gained a red glow on its head-section. Zach shot out when the beam was colliding thus hiding beneath it as it was fired at Ares' mid-level. The God seemed to sense the attack coming from below was more of a threat than the two huge arms still swinging down at him that he had planned on dodging.

Ares dropped down himself and reached his right hand forward, swiping it an instant before the blade of black that pierced out of Zach's extended right arm could connect. Zach continued flying behind the blade as it pushed into a forcefield in front of Ares' hand. Even when the force from Ares' swipe was finished and he continued pushing the black blade out into the God to try and hit his hand, Ares continued to force it away without the darkness even touching him. Then he moved his right hand, and he let the black blade pass by his side as Zach's full force pushing forward slammed the weapon past the turning God. Ares allowed Zach to pass right in front of his body, then he shot towards the middle of Zach's much larger form that had a huge hole in it now.

Ares stopped inside that body right as all the darkness started pulling in on his sides to refill what the beam had blown away. He rose up his hands though, creating a bright white light that started turning light-blue after a moment of charging it. Zach spun and flew back while two other normal-sized versions of himself leaned out of the darkness approaching Ares from all sides. They snapped out of the Death as if Zach was hiding below the surface and jumped out with blades formed in his right hands, or his right arms just making the shape of blades themselves as they were created. All three slashed at Ares, but he slammed down his hands and fired an even wider beam than a few seconds ago. He blasted it through the bottom of Zach's protruding massive body and made the top half rip off, while the whole bottom of Zach's enormous castle-like form had a hole blown through the center of it.

The towers on the corners of the fortress crumbled and pulled inwards towards a whirlpool of Death that was flooding into the middle hole where Ares had just blasted away all the darkness. The ground below the Death mass exploded but Ares had to fly high up as all the Death pulled down right above that hole where he was floating. Despite how large his attack was, and the fact that the landscape around them broke apart and quaked from the collision of his beam with the floor, it did nothing to disperse all the Death that immediately yanked back inwards against the force of the explosion pushing out and upwards.

Zach allowed more of his body to get blown upwards with the force of the blast when that was where Ares started flying to. As Ares started dodging the huge swipes of Death coming out of the bulges from Zach's fast-moving and giant body though, he suddenly had to dodge much more as massive chunks of stone shot up out the top of Zach's Death. Even when he swiped his hands towards them and blew away the Death shrouding the rocks, his attacks shattered the stones rather than destroy them completely. Then waves of Death flew up and surrounded all the debris, before dropping it below and then slinging it back up in hails of debris streaming trails of Death in every direction.

Ares threw his right hand up as this enormous mass of Death chased him into the clouds. A ball of white light flew off his right palm and into the clouds that dispersed from the force of the explosion. And then it rained. It rained down white light in sharp long pieces that widened as they collided with Death. And then all of Zach's huge body sucked in towards one point, towards the one figure of Zach's normal size who shot out of the Death as it pulled like a hurricane-force wind back into a single body.

White and black shards of energy dropped out of the sky in all directions, and Midoriya had to flee backwards even farther as every piece was too dangerous to let touch him. Even the smaller strands of white light that missed all the Death after Zach pulled his body together, seared deep holes through solid stone that barely seemed to slow the energy down at all. And Zach's Death, Midoriya was not going to let even the tiniest piece touch him and risk knocking him out in the midst of this. Yet not being able to touch any of that made it impossible to get within a half mile radius of the two now. They were getting harder to avoid though as their fight suddenly shot all over the sky with no limit to the expanse their battle would stretch.

It was all Midoriya could do to follow the explosions of white pushing against black that went off all across the sky. A dozen sphere-shaped eruptions or domes of light took place just over the ground or even just underneath it in some instances. In those instances where they clashed under the surface after dropping there with the ground breaking apart around them to make room, the collisions they made sent the debris flying up into the sky in all directions of the crater. Then more flew out from the double-crater that was created each time since they flew off from those spots with another explosion of force.

Midoriya spun to the left and watched as Zach's four arms swung inwards towards where Ares was ducking and kneeing up at the same time with a bright white light bursting from his kneecap. Then Deku had to spin to his right and cross his arms to block the force of the hit much closer to him but higher up in the air so all the clouds around it pushed up high. Clouds swirled in a circle around the point they were just torn away from the moment Zach and Ares shot back down into the ground, breaking it apart down the slope of the mountain Midoriya tried to stay standing on. He had to jump up as the ground under his feet cracked though, but at least it was better than the ground down in the valley that all rose up while Zach and Ares dropped down on a single descending chunk. All the rest of the cracked pieces of valley rose up on cubes and rectangular prisms of stone and dirt and breaking tree roots.

Ares shot towards his enemy as they were sinking and Zach still was crouched on the piece they landed on. The God's head snapped to the side though and he yanked his body away but not fast enough. The long arm that stretched behind Zach and around the side of the chunk they descended on came out of Ares' blindspot and grabbed him by the right ankle. It whipped the God of War around and then threw him under the heaviest of the lifted pieces of earth that was already dropping down because it had not risen as much as the other chunks around it. Zach threw Ares straight through one block of stone and then another chunk of earth as he did not get Ares fully under that huge one.

Ares slammed his arms out to the side and let out a scream, "HAAAA!" A white pillar ripped out of the surface and high into the sky, protecting the man inside it who shot up his own energy and watched as dozens of black tendrils broke apart and shredded in the outer wall of his light in attempts to reach in and pull him out. As one of those black tendrils was breaking apart though, a body with much less Death on it came flying through that darkness with the last of his black veil shredding and then his skin underneath too. Zach's smirk covered from ear to ear though as he reached both hands forward, only for Ares to pull his head back in the energy and avoid as Zach tried to clap his temples. Zach continued to push through the beam even after his arms swung and missed though, and he slammed his searing head over his crossing arms.

Zach smashed his forehead into Ares' in the middle of the beam and knocked his enemy out of it. Then an eruption of Death blew out of his back and did not get ripped apart as the beam was losing energy without Ares inside it anymore. Blood had broken from the skin of Zach's forehead when he smashed it into Ares' face, but there was a mark on Ares' forehead as well. The older of the two laughed though while punching his left fist forward. Zach spun with the wings that came out of his explosion and spiraled him around Ares' fist- only for Ares' right leg to hit him in the right side of his ribs. _**CRACK!**_

Zach lifted his left hand covered in darkness and fired an energy blast of blue out of it, straight into Ares' face and eyes that were nowhere near as bloodshot as Zach's were around his glowing red irises. He had been glaring at Ares nonstop even inside that high pillar of energy, and his eyes burned as much as his ribs screamed in pain. Zach fired blue light out of his dented left arm though into Ares' face and made the God reel backwards, then he snapped that left arm through the smoke and gripped it on Ares' cheeks.

Ares ducked his head down, which pulled Zach's left arm down and away from the left side of his own face that Ares' left fist just came flying at. Zach covered the left side of his face in a much thicker veil of Death that made his skull impossible to see inside, and Ares' bare fist about to hit it pulled back for a second, then opened up into a palm from which a force knocked back the spear of Death shooting out of Zach's face. The force that Ares just fired out of his own hand without even using energy or a swing of his fist still sent Zach flipping backwards through the air over ten times before he was able to spin around and flap huge wings behind him.

When Zach stopped himself in the air he saw Ares with his right arm finishing a downwards swipe in front of him. A thick bolt of lightning dropped out of the sky that Zach saw flash in the top of his vision and made him start pulling away. He only got his body half out of the way though, and the lightning cut through his right side and electrocuted the teenage boy who let out a deep bellowing roar that echoed across the mountains. Two more bolts of lightning dropped down and hit him as he was screaming. _MOVE!_ As much extra pain as that put him in, floating there unmoving in the shock was only going to get him hurt more. So even as he roared out in pain again, he flapped his wings behind him that were not electrocuted like much of his currently paralyzed body.

His eyes flared with red as he shot across the air and moved his limp limbs using only the Death he surrounded them in. He covered them in so much thick Death that he removed the actual limbs from inside and just controlled his Death arms and legs as if he was controlling his own limbs, but with full mobility manually using his mind rather than the movements he had known instinctively since he was a child. He flew at Ares full speed and kicked and punched all his limbs at once. Ares crossed his arms then uncrossed them, and since Zach's limbs were not actually formed enough to be solid they just tore into pieces and shot in all directions from the force of Ares uncrossing his arms outwards.

"Even if you have more and more Death inside you," Ares called at the boy who was pushed backwards while his arms and legs were torn apart by the shockwave rippling through the sky. "I'll shred it all piece by piece until you have no strength left!"

"Then you better be ready for a very long night," Zach snarled. His arms and legs reemerged out of his body and his dark voice carried through the sky as the air around him darkened. "I have far more than you know left to give," Zach's growl echoed through the night sky, and the air around him dropped two notches darker while Zach brought both his right and left hands to the right side of his waist. A hilt snapped out of his curled hands in an instant, stopping a couple centimeters over his fists at the guard of the weapon that bubbled and condensed before piercing out into an fifty meter long blade. The weapon expanded that long in a second, flashing the sky to Zach's right side in darkness.

Lightning cracked out of the clouds, and it got pushed back by the raging cloud of Death swirling around Zach. The air seemed thinner around him, as if all the oxygen was getting ripped out of it. Ares lowered down his smile for a moment as the blade Zach had extended out across the sky to his right just thickened more with all the darkness around Zach's body seeming to flood into the weapon. His form itself stayed black but with his bones becoming visible inside again, and Ares could even admire some of his own work as the cracks in Zach's ribs were visible to him now. His eyes were drawn to the blade though and the Death that swirled around the weapon's thin blade like a double-helix getting more violent each second with how fast it was spinning around.

Zach released a breath that hung in the air in front of him. The entire landscape around him was eerily quiet in the moment. The clouds had stopped rumbling. Ares was not shouting and neither was he. Midoriya found himself holding his breath as he watched from far down below and three quarters of a mile away as he was barely keeping up with the other two. Ares' eyes snapped open wider as the spinning helixes around Zach's huge black weapon suddenly flattened to the blade and tripled it in size. Zach's arms bulged as if with muscles only made completely of Death that gave him the strength and speed to swing his huge weapon across the front of his body in a slash that moved so fast yet barely left a trail of darkness in its wake as Zach condensed everything into the weapon he had charged and thickened with his immense power.

Ares' widened eyes darted to the left, and his arms that were raising just slammed down hard. He was flying up anyway, but he fired out a pair of white beams from his palms and shot up even faster to dodge the blade that extended while slashing across the sky at him. The weapon itself seemed to be alive, pulling towards him so fast and with barely any warning other than the swirling Death around the weapon pulling into it in the second Zach swung.

The God of War was too fast though. His body leaned backwards while pushing up, so even though the beams of white below him got cut straight through by the much larger black blade slicing through the sky, Ares just felt the wind from it passing below his back. Zach bit down furiously as Ares dodged rather than try to take the attack or block which he was hoping his enemy would do, underestimating just how much Death he had put specifically in the section of the blade that was aligned with where Ares had been in the sky compared to the rest of the sword. All of that Death pulsed out into the rest of the weapon as it passed below Ares though, as it was meant to explode on and around the God but Zach no longer wanted it all wasted.

As Ares finished his dodge with a grin formed on his face but an intense look in his eyes, and Zach focused on controlling all that Death and not wasting his failed attack, Midoriya's jaw stayed dropped as he stared past Ares at the damage Zach caused. The collateral of Zach's missed attack was so destructive Midoriya was worried some of the huge chunks of mountain trailing with Death wisps would be a danger to people, though he had to remind himself that there was absolutely no one around in any direction. That fact had led to earlier confusion and dread but only made him feel relief now. Zach's black blade had cut across the surface of a mountain much higher up than where Midoriya was standing down on a rock surface, up on a slope that had a lot of snow on it still on either side above and below where Zach's blade had cut through.

Zach's blade had left a huge black mark ripped through the mountain's snow cover and the stone surface up near the summit where the blade finally passed across and cut some very large chunks off the mountain, one of the ten tallest in the whole range by Midoriya's estimate. Ares was floating only a few hundred feet in front of that mountain, and the enemy and secret leader of the assassins chuckled in a way so unsettling to Zach as the dark boy glowered back at his enemy. As giant chunks of rock fell out of the air off to Zach's left, he floated backwards through the air and tried to hide the fact that he was panting from his enemy. Ares could see the darkness move in and back out in front of his face though.

"What an attack," Ares started, having seen what the slash did as he backflipped in the air during his dodge. He had watched as it cut across and dragged a trench through the mountain behind him, and now he floated in midair staring towards an enemy who could do such a thing and who still had more left in him. The look on his face was more intense than Zach had seen it yet. And that made his heart pound faster and faster in his chest until he made that heart disappear due to the fear he was feeling in this moment.

Ares' right hand snapped up at his right side. He held it out with his palm open, and Midoriya spun his head and looked up as he heard a whirring sound flying through the air. Deku spun back around and watched as the spinning sword flew straight towards Ares' right hand. The hilt slammed into his palm with a deafening crack that filled the sky as a flash of lightning illuminated Ares' face and the deadly smirk that was there. Zach stared into the eyes of a man who had killed more people than anyone he had ever fought before. His eyes shot to the blade that Ares gripped the hilt of in such a strong way, his right hand turning the weapon and pointing the blade out to his right side as he repositioned in midair.

The air all around Ares changed color. The entire atmosphere from Ares' body out to the slashed mountain behind him and to the ground a half mile below turned a dark shade of blue. It was as if a filter fell over the world, and then all the sky pulled back in towards Ares with a brighter shade of green filling the atmosphere so even the lightning crashing out of the rumbling dark clouds was shaded green in the eyes of Zach and Midoriya who found the air around them changing tint as well. Unlike when Zach held his massive blade, the regular-sized sword Ares held in his right hand seemed to make the sky and the ground tremble. Ares took in a breath and let it out the same as Zach did before… The same exact exhale.

Zach's red eyes bulged and his body started stretching, as there was no time for anything else. His whole human form vanished inside the spread of Death that he sent skyrocketing up while screaming and looking down where he thought Midoriya might be, "WATCH OUT WATCH OUT WATCH OUT-"

Ares slashed across the front of his body. Zach's red eyes tried to follow the God's lagging body, his form never seeming to move in a smooth way but just appearing in three or four different positions as his blade appeared in different spots ahead of him and then onto his left side. The slash was straighter than Zach had cut with a more diagonal movement up the slope of the mountain behind Ares in the end.

The blade itself never touched Zach. He still felt his body sliced in half down below where he only had Death on him. Getting fully cut in half was not so shocking. The fact that as he had turned partly to the side already so now he was turning even more but diagonally was not much of a shocker. The problem was that the entire world was tilting down below him, and yet the largest mountain in the range that was back behind him farther than another of the mountains was behind Ares, was not tilting with the rest of the world. Zach's eyes dragged down from that summit that seemed level with his eyes for too long despite his head and upper body turning to the side.

The mountain had been split completely. There was no trench slashed in the surface, as Ares' slash did not stop with stone. _That power…_ Zach could not finish the thought he was having in too much shock as millions of tons of stone rose up into the air from the force of the split with the rest of the mountain below it. And then his moment of shock passed, and Zach's upper body and lower body shot backwards away from Ares while flooding tone of Death towards his right arm that extended a hundred times and then expanded a hundred times more than that at his right hand.

Zach reached underneath the summit of the rising tilting mountain. Deku's jaw that could not drop lower after turning and seeing what Ares had done, hurt because it was already at its lowest point possible yet he found himself in more shock as Zach wrapped up the base of the summit as it was reaching the top of whatever arc it was making. The huge black hand with dozens and then hundreds of black tendrils wrapping underneath the bottom and up over the sides pulled towards Zach who swung his right arm forward.

Ares laughed with his voice bellowing through the sky. He shot forward as Zach threw the mountain at him, and he slashed his sword up and then across his front to the right side. The mountaintop split again with a plus-shaped cut dividing it into four even chunks, and Zach came flying through the split with his body reconnecting as Ares had cut him right through the mountain that Zach was chasing the back of immediately after throwing. Ares swung his left hand forward and fired a beam of light-blue energy towards Zach who dropped below it and then allowed himself to get cut vertically only to start reconnecting as if that was his plan the whole time. Meanwhile, Zach's stronger body dropped above the split in the top two mountain quarters Ares was flying through and that Zach had hidden behind while another version of himself with red eyes had flown straight at the God of War.

Zach dropped down on Ares with both of his feet extended and Death amassing there. He went through his enemy's body that faded above him. Ares' real form appeared past the after-images and the backs of all four pieces of the mountain he had split and that Zach had flown through to intercept him. He kicked his right leg across the front of his body and dissipated the two thick black tendrils that had formed from Zach's splitting body below that he never really had fully focused on. Zach flew through the dissipating Death though stronger than that single force of kick could destroy, yet Ares had both hands behind his back with his wrists together. Zach darted his eyes up as he saw the sword was not in Ares' hands, giving him both to charge a dozen huge white spheres all pushing into each other behind his back and getting more condensed.

Zach's body tore apart into five different forms with a dozen black tendrils ripping off them around Ares back and pulling towards it. _If he can't attack fully forward-_ Ares swung his arms forward and brought ten of the spheres of white light with him, sending two off behind his back in seemingly random movements that cut apart Zach's attacking black tendrils. The other ten chased after Zach's black bodies that flew off with black wings behind them, but Ares could control the movements of these attacks and he had them chasing the Zachs all across the sky.

Two seconds after the spheres started chasing Zach, two of Zach's bodies flew towards each other and then straight up at the last second as they merged. Another two swept down near dropping pieces of the mountain that had yet to touch down unlike the lower two that were causing massive earthquakes all over the Muindo Range. As three spheres of light erupted in a midair blast after colliding too quickly with each other, another five slammed into shards of mountain and blew away the versions of Zach that had led them there. Those Zach bodies were torn back from their forms into just winds of black Death that swept into the sky and then spun around from the force of the explosions down below them.

The final Zach fired beams of black at the energy spheres flying at him, pushing them away and then curving them into each other using his own power as he fought against Ares' control. His eyes were torn from the explosion he made to the one down closer to the surface level though, as the five spheres exploding at once had created one enormous and compiling explosion that tore apart most of the tallest of the Muindo's summits as soon as it had touched the ground. Zach only looked towards the explosion for a second, when he caught Ares doing a flip in the corner of his vision still right where the God had been when he sent all those attacks flying that made him scatter across the expansive battlefield.

 _What is-_ Zach saw a glint from the light of one of the explosions reflect off something flying at him, but there was no way to dodge the sword that Ares kicked the bottom of the hilt of from over three hundred meters away. The blade pierced through him and tore off his right arm, and Zach screamed as he did not know how much of that had been darkness as he was too scattered around at the moment. Black wind flooded through the sky back towards him though, and another version of himself flew up between him and the opponent who had to have heard that agonized roar.

Ares was too fast for just one piece of Zach to block though. That version spun and shot back towards the one who had screamed, even letting off an explosion of Death behind it as Zach tried to pull it towards his largest collection of Death before Ares reached him. There was no chance of that though. Ares stopped in front of Zach who crossed his left arm in front of him, a recreating right arm emerging as well with a blade ready for a counterattack-

The Ares that appeared in front of Zach with his fist swinging forward just faded as it slammed into him. _Another after-image,_ Zach realized, but he rose his eyes too slowly to the God who was right above him with his body parallel to the ground down below. His fists were pointed down towards the top of Zach's head, and Ares stared into Zach's red eyes with his arms extended and his fists only a couple centimeters apart and just a few inches away from Zach's face. _**"# &*$%"**_

Whatever language Ares spoke had long been lost to time. Zach did not know it. He could barely understand the sound Ares made to be a word, let alone making any of the sounds he had heard before and could put letters to. The name of the attack did not matter though, as Zach coughed up blood from lungs he did not even think he had at the moment. He fell from the sky faster than an anchor, creating a hole in the smoke of the explosions down below and then through the water too so deep he actually had a moment to breathe in after coughing up like that. After breathing in while inside an air pocket, the water collapsed back in on the forming lake at the bottom of the enormous new crater.

 _Where am I?_ Zach was spinning around in the swirling whirlpool that collapsed in after he had dropped with such force to open a hole in the lake. The water was already rushing hard though because it was flooding in from underground aquifers no one had tapped in centuries, and it washed even more water through the whirlpool as the lake increased in volume. Zach stopped spinning around as much, though he had to swim his way to an upright position as the water was moving too hard for him to get a solid underwater grasp on Death. _The whole landscape is changing to our fight._ Zach held his breath and he moved his left hand down to his stomach and right above where his insides were more damaged.

 _Nerve damage in the prosthetic,_ Zach could only feel three of his fingers, which he almost did not notice as the pain of the touch on his torso overpowered the rest of his sense of touch for a second. _Right arm?_ Zach glanced down through the water that was almost pitch black, and he curled two of his fingers on his left hand in a way to make a low blue glow underwater giving him a view of the gash and all the blood coming out of his right side. There was still darkness all around his right shoulder and the arm, but he tried to force more away and would have let out a sigh of relief at the sight of skin underneath if not for the fact he was still underwater. _Can't breathe. Think faster. There has to be a weakness- not one he wouldn't have worked out the kinks of in thousands of years._

 _Midoriya's at risk up there. The world is breaking. How far are the quakes affecting? It doesn't matter. We have to stay here or-_

The water around Zach started pushing to the sides, and he grit his teeth while glaring up at the glowing white light coming down towards him. _Not a beam,_ Zach saw a figure inside the energy that was so strong it was pushing apart the waves. He forced out Death below his feet. The water level pushed away from him and wings ripped out of his drenched back. He flapped them down and flew straight up through the white aura towards his smirking enemy who opened his mouth as Zach reemerged from the new sea in the deep valley. Zach flew up between pillar islands of rocks from the broken mountains around them, and smoke chased up after him as it was pulled back in by the force of how fast he rose up towards Ares.

Zach spiraled and swung his right arm, but his body twisted and his left leg came spinning around his back, only to miss the side of Ares' face as the God pulled his head back. Zach finished swinging his right hand and punched a single fist of black out away from him to make it disappear in the smoke that rose past the two, while he kicked a slash of darkness off his foot as it passed in front of Ares' face. Ares blew out his pursed lips and made the slash flying at him push back away. Then he ducked down and kicked upwards with a white aura surrounding his right leg and strengthening right before it hit Zach in the gut barely covered by Death.

Zach could feel the foot on his spine through his stomach, though luckily he turned most of his vital organs into Death to avoid a fatal blow. The force of the kick still shot out of his back where Ares' foot was visible, blowing a huge wing up into the sky and taking the rest of the dust and smoke up with it. The force was so strong it nearly pulled a funnel of water up from the lake down below them as it took all the air between them and the lake's surface away.

Then Ares spun and he slashed his right hand behind him with a white veil over it that cut through the black fist flying at him through open sky now with no cover to hide behind. Zach knew there was no point in trying for a sneak attack without the cover, but he watched Ares' right hand closely as the supposed God of War cut through it and then swung his arm back around towards the boy he pointed his palm at. Zach opened his chest up with a wide hole that only bled Death on the insides of his shoulders, under his collarbone, and above his stomach. The force that erupted out of Ares' palm expanded almost immediately, but he was so close to Zach at that moment that it only grew in strength halfway through his body and ripped some Death out of Zach's back from the open hole in him.

Ares pulled his arm backwards as Zach reached his bloody right hand in towards it, then his left hand that lifted over the crossing right flashed bright with blue into Ares' eyes. No actual attack came out of the fake hand, but Zach grinned while snapping his wings forward on his sides and sending himself flying back through the air. He was panting but seething his breaths through his nose rather than out his mouth. _Gather strength. Keep it together. Can't waste any more. But…_ Zach's mouth flattened as the wings he had snapped forward on his sides pulled back. After flapping them forward the tips of his wings had covered the front of his body for a moment, but Ares smirked at the sight of his opponent's face that could not hide everything he was feeling.

"This is what I wanted, Death God," Ares said. He seemed to relax for a moment, before his grin turned more deadly once again and his expression as serious as could be. Yet even looking like he was getting back into the fighting mood, he called out at his opponent floating twenty-five feet ahead of him, "You and me, together at last. For the first fight of many."

"This will be the first and the last," Zach growled back in reply.

His voice was angry and devoid of the excitement that Ares was feeling and displaying, but Ares just grinned more and tsk-tsked at his opponent who glared more furiously back at him. "Don't pretend you aren't enjoying this. I know you, Zach!" Ares called out, sounding close to laughing like what he shouted was obvious to him and should be to Zach too. "You really think Deku could ever fight you like this? He can barely track the two of us, too focused down there on protecting those pathetic monsters you came here to destroy-"

"They're your fucking assassins!" Zach yelled back in rage at his enemy. "And I am nothing like you! I hate you!" Zach screamed that, his fists shaking at the idea of them being similar to each other. Ares' expression did not shift though, it only got more assured and like he was closer to laughing at Zach's denials. "You have started countless wars! How many?!"

"Hundreds."

"HUNDREDS!" Zach repeated in a roar of fury. _"Hundreds?!"_ He repeated, his voice cracking as he called it out, his head tilting back with his eyebrows curling up in an emotion he had not felt in a long time.

"Don't act so horrified," Ares started, though he did lower his smile a bit and then sigh as he stared at his opponent whose expression was real. "I understand how you feel. I do. But you and I are the only ones who will come to matter to you, someday." Zach shook his head while staring down this insane figure who just continued speaking in a _knowing_ voice, "All those who died in the wars that made me strong, their lives mean nothing to me. Not anymore. Not after this long." Ares looked down on Zach from equal level and he informed his new companion, "I believe you will be with me longer than even Aurellio. He lived the longest of the three. Eziano aged faster than Enzo did, and none of his sons had ever inherited Longevity."

"None of them are alive anymore either," Ares added, raising his tone and glancing up into the air for a moment. "He had more children than just the two you killed in the Pit, and yet you killed more of his sons than just the two that day." Zach stared at Ares with his eyes widening a little more for a second, and the God of War glanced down and finished while looking into Zach's eyes, "Even if you had the Saudis execute Enzo instead of doing it yourself."

Zach's breath hitched. _Enzo Kiribachi!_ Only in that moment did he remember that he had heard Eziano's father's name before. He had not made the connection between him and the escaped prisoner from Tartaros though. Ares continued to the teenager in front of him staring back in shock, "Eziano abandoned that son in order to turn him into Mongoloid. Through the time he would spend in prison, influenced inside by agents of Fergus and King who were loyal to neither. They whispered in his ear, what they believed were their ideas because of the whispers in their own ears."

 _He's… he's been everywhere. The whole time it's been-_

"I was searching for an immortal for so long," Ares continued, his voice cutting through the air between him and Zach. Everything else was silent between them with only their words filling the space. "And when I found Fergus I knew there was a possibility. I wanted to see if he could become the man to stay with me through time. I whispered to him in his youth. The idea for his first lab… in Virginia." Ares watched as Zach's face distorted and then froze like the rest of his body. "Fergus started there and became rich from the discoveries he made in that lab. That allowed him to build more such facilities all over the world, and grow stronger and create the Fourth Eye. Yet, as much as I had hoped he would be immortal," Ares lips curled down at the corners into a disappointed and detached frown. "Fergus was cruel and greedy, selfish-"

"I can't-" Zach started but stopped himself. He froze with his mouth open, and Ares looked at him confusedly. Zach shook his head once but had to stop again. His face scrunched up, "You- I've never, despised anyone more in my life than you in this moment." Zach said it as he was realizing it himself. The look of disgust could not even fully form on his face because he was still in too much shock from that realization and what he was trying to comprehend in his head.

"His search for immortality _bored_ me," Ares said in a deeper voice while staring deep into Zach's eyes again. There was a despairing hint in his eyes, as the tone Zach just had while saying that suggested the hatred he felt would not die down easily. "You do not need to search for it though, and rather I feel more connected to you because you don't want it. Unlike Fergus who grew old and desperate, you _yearn_ for that which you can never have."

"Are you always responsible for war?" Zach and Ares were having different conversations. The two of them saw the other differently than the other saw them. Zach could see what Ares thought he was and what he would become one day, while Ares had to admit to himself that he understood his opponent's feelings in the moment. "Men like Fergus and Eziano… The Shadow Bosses and Fourth Eye- even Mongoloid. The shadowy forces that push the world's greed and violence and evil!"

"That is just the nature of men," Ares countered. His tone was knowing and his voice low as if he was speaking down to a naive child.

"I know that's not true," Zach countered back though.

"You don't know anything yet," Ares replied, lifting up the corners of his lips once more at the implication in his words that Zach would come to understand him. The aura around Ares flared so huge that the sky around them brightened with white light. The top of it rippled like a raging inferno, pushing against the black aura that erupted out of Zach's body in that moment. Zach leaned his head forward and rose his arms up at his sides. His aura pushed inwards, into Ares' that pushed right back at him. Zach's body raged with the Death around him but it did not surround his core body in the center of the aura, while Ares had a separate thin veneer of a pure white inside the more translucent veil that kept his body nearly impossible to make out inside.

Zach and Ares flew forward as their auras pushed each other apart. The white and black masses in the sky pushed so hard against each other that there was a clear gap forming between them where the pressure of all that Death and energy could not help but be pushed back. The two fighters left their own auras as they shot into the gap created that turned into a sphere of open air around them as Zach's left forearm clashed with Ares' right. Zach only had a pair of black wings looking solid on his back with no dark wisps coming out of them, while Ares' body was surrounded in white light but became clearer when Zach got that close to him.

Their enormous powers were left behind, and their clash exploded out to their sides with white light and dark energy seeping into the sphere but getting pushed back by the two pressing into each other. Zach turned his left hand without twisting his arm as much, his wrist making movements normal arms could not. Ares eased his right arm to the side and made the blue light fire past the side of his face. He kneed up towards Zach's stomach, and Zach turned his body to the side while pulling his left arm back. Ares gripped him by that arm and started to squeeze, but he released to back up as Zach's right hand came swinging up with his fingers sticking out of the ripped black glove on Zach's hand.

Ares eased back then swiped his own right hand across his body, hitting Zach in the right wrist with a palm that sent Zach's right arm fully out to the side and opened him up for Ares left palm that nailed Zach in the chest. Zach coughed but kicked upwards while his upper body was getting slammed back, and he hit Ares under the chin as his enemy was leaning forward to follow up on that palm only to try and pull back at the last second. Ares snapped his left hand in though as Zach's foot was passing after hitting him in the chin, but as he was grabbing it Zach kicked his other foot at Ares' hand while also letting some Death out around the ankle his opponent had grabbed. Ares flicked his wrist and sent Zach's right foot into his approaching left, and Zach snapped his body back upwards after the palm to his chest that still hurt his aching body. He swung his left fist towards Ares' face, only for Ares to lean forward past it and right over Zach's right shoulder before Zach could continue raising that right hand for a new attack as he expected Ares might dodge the left.

Ares had not just dodged the left, but he also made it impossible for Zach to follow with the right. Zach's legs had hit each other and were turning Zach in midair too so his wings had just adjusted him and were mid-flap so in no position to swing around his sides and hit Ares who was already directly in front of him. Ares' head moved to the right side of Zach's while the younger boy's red eyes were still darting that way after the faster man. "You are skilled. However, I fought when the world was populated by warriors."

Zach's wings snapped to his right side, missing the man who was not even there when the wings fully hit the space he thought Ares was in. The way he swung those wings sent him flying backwards in a predictable way though, and Ares hovered on the inside of the gap between the powers they had left behind for this clash of combat skill. "Thousands of years of close combat," Ares continued while Zach was spinning around, only to see that the man he had spotted in his peripherals was dropping underneath him- yet flying above at the same moment, and yet the after-image Ares left behind regained its solid form as Zach looked down and up to try and focus on a single enemy.

The version of Ares Zach took his eyes off of shot forwards while Zach was turning his head to look behind him where the Ares who rose above and dropped below seemed to be going. "And you-" Ares tried to yank his head away, tried to swing his right fist harder and faster, but Zach also exploded out Death from the side he was turning to while suddenly slamming his elbow back the way of the fading Ares. His right elbow jammed into Ares' face and made Zach wince at the feeling of a deep gash near his right shoulder opening more. He turned back with his eyes flaring bright red and his gums black as he smirked at the man whose head snapped to the side with a drop of blood trickling out of his lip. "Maybe you've had all that time!" Zach yelled, while spinning and kicking his left leg at his enemy who shot backwards instead of taking it.

The white and black auras collapsed in on each other, and Zach shot in the way of Ares and his own power that he had flown out of a few seconds ago. His own massive black Death was pulling at Ares' back, but he had more inside him he had not been using that he covered himself with in that moment to trap Ares between Death and more Death. Zach sneered through the black veil coating his face, "But in the past few years how much time have you yourself spent fighting? Have you been training every day-" Zach shot at Ares while black whips of Death flew out of his approaching aura and shot on all sides of the villain to keep him from dodging.

A flare of white flew up out of Ares head and forward from the huge aura that slammed into Zach's back. Ares flew up through the hole in the dark trails ripped away by his power, then Zach flew right up into that white aura with his darkness pushing through above him while spinning around like a drill. It even made the shape of a spinning drill over the top of Zach's head as he chased after Ares into the huge white light that the older man had created earlier and which Zach could see was dimming. His huge black aura that had been pushing forward into it stopped pushing all over the sky as their energies fought, instead flooding up behind the drill that pushed through a single weak point in Ares aura that Zach had broken through. Zach yelled as he chased after Ares even into the God's own protective forcefield he drilled through faster each second, "Or did you get lazy because you think you know everything?! Every fighting style there is?!"

Zach's aura erupted around him, pushing out into the white veil as Ares spun and shot back down at him. Ares swung his arms up before reaching Zach, and Zach swerved to the left then got hit on his right side by a massive boulder that shot out of nowhere from below him. Wind crashed through the disappearing white veil as Ares stopped powering it, spinning Zach faster in the momentum Zach tried to use to his advantage in order to gain speed as he flapped his wings when he got hit by the boulder. Spinning too fast, he was unable to see the lake until a second too late to dodge and it hit him and washed his Death around the air, but ten black spikes that avoided it flew at Ares-

The God of War shot through the lake as some of Zach's Death attacked him outside of it. He flew through the water that he parted in front of him with the same power he used to raise it and surround Zach, and then all that Death that was swirling around the water uncontrollably stopped doing that and shot towards the parting of the waves.

 _Good thing I've had to deal with this multiple times today,_ Zach flew forward himself out of the water using his black wings that snapped behind him with barely a wisp getting pulled off in the liquid that had earlier been much harder to deal with. Death was stronger now though. The control had only been harder at the start, but once he got a grip on it he realized the amount of control he had was far beyond what he could normally do with the Death he allowed to flow through him in normal circumstances. He shot at Ares and swung both arms forward before reaching his enemy, extending long black arms at him that made Ares slam each of his own hands out to the sides and redirect Zach's arms out into the water he flowed faster to try and make Zach lose control again. "You don't know my fighting style, because I've created my own!" Zach sped faster up through the aura and passed right by Ares with a boost spinning him up above Ares' head.

The man with the War Quirk continued moving forward rather than stopping and turning to where Zach passed him. He dodged the blade Zach slashed down at his back, then spun and swiped his right hand smacking Zach across the face with the wind from swinging his arm that fast. Zach's head pushed against the force slamming into his face though, and he glared back at Ares with his black aura raging around him and violently spinning faster than it had before. It looked less and less like a smoke cloud moving around Zach and more like mist. The Death looked like granulated sand spinning around him and funneling over his arms and legs, splashing in and out of his body faster and faster in less a gaseous way but with a clear form and feeling of Death emanating off of it.

Zach created a dozen black blades sticking out of either of his arms. The backs of his calves ignited with darkness and started flaring but not yet shooting back behind him in jets that would send him forward. Those same kind of neutral engines formed inside his back and under his wings that narrowed and thinned but kept a solid form while his head transformed into a more aerodynamic shape. His hands turned into three-pronged claws, while knife blades stuck out of those palms and stayed hidden in the thicker cloudier Death, masking the solid forms Zach was making inside the black smoke. "You're out of practice," Zach growled. "Which means today may be the weakest time I would ever face you in our 'history' that you imagine, but it is also the day you are the weakest and least prepared to face me."

Ares' face intensified more even though Zach could see that what he was saying made his opponent more excited than anything. That made him grit his teeth inside the darkness and snap his arms behind him, his whole body firing off the jets of Death as his attack started. "I fought every day for a year against thousands of different Quirks! You fought your wars back when the people of this world still used guns and swords as their main weapons!" Zach sped at his enemy, and he flipped and spun and spiraled diagonally while releasing the blades out from his arms and then gripping the knives he made inside his already sharp talons. His wings snapped up above him and dropped him down below before his jets exploded out much stronger and made it so his dodge resulted in a counterattack right behind Ares who just slammed a beam of white light forward at Zach's initial approach.

Ares swung his left hand down with a larger sphere of white energy than the ones that had created the lake-sized crater down below them that rain was falling into now from the earlier telekinetic attacks Ares had used the lake for. Zach swung his arms forward and released the knives in curves around the sphere towards Ares, then he gripped the energy with both arms and clawed his six talons into the sphere which almost immediately shredded them apart. He was able to redirect its trajectory slightly away though and also use those arms that were about to rip apart in order to slingshot himself up towards where Ares dodged the two black knives. Ares sped forward faster though as he dodged between the knives, moving forward to where Zach just slung up and tried to stop short as Ares was suddenly in front of him with his right fist swinging forward.

Zach's chest bulged with Death as Ares' fist swung towards him with power behind it so strong Zach could imagine the ground behind and down below him was going to shred. Ares fist slammed right in front of Zach's chest and stopped, and all the Death that Zach was collecting there blew around his sides first before Zach's body went flying through that wind of Death and out the other side. He flew all the way out of the sky leaving a black trail and some red that splashed out of Zach's mouth from the force that just slammed into him head-on.

"Despite all your posturing," Ares flew down through the air and stared down at the new crater he just made with Zach's body in the lower slope of one of the mountains in the range now more cracked than the others directly around it. "Your skills are still far below my own. Maybe I am not as strong as I would be should I have spent every minute of the past hundred years training, or even the past decade…" Ares grinned down at the teen who still gripped the stone at his sides and struggled back to one knee, then the other. He called down to his opponent who had blood spilling out the corners of his mouth, down his right arm and that side of his body, around the right side of his face, and more dried blood on his stomach and chest though the wounds there had closed up.

"But you never truly forget when it comes to combat," Ares continued in a teaching tone. He lowered himself down more and closer to his opponent who was panting and lifted a dented left arm to rub over his mouth, smearing his fake skin there with blood. "I am a master of every martial arts ever invented. Your fighting style may be unique, but, it is just a combination of many other styles I have seen and that were adapted by people you learned from and observed over your time in battle." Zach wheezed out a couple more breaths as he felt his lungs constricting. He forced himself not to cough as he felt blood filling his throat, swallowing it down instead and just narrowing his dim red eyes at the enemy ahead of him.

Zach stopped panting. He spread his unsteady legs out and rose his arms with darkness covering them up again, and his eyes glowing a brighter red once more. "It must be obvious to you by now," Ares scolded the teen ahead of him who was standing in a fighting stance as if he was just going to continue this fight. "You are not yet at my level. You have shown me all you have, and you can barely-"

"Why did you pull your punch?" Zach asked.

Ares paused and stopped speaking at Zach's question. He closed his mouth while the young man down on the surface spoke darkly up to him, "The speed I just flew down here was not the fastest I could have dropped. I was able to soften the second blow of my collision with the ground, as there was not as much force in your punch as I expected." Zach lifted his head with his eyebrows narrowed in towards his nose. His eyes were raised just below those dark eyebrows and red glowed out from the shadows cast by his long wavy hair that had black wisps coming out of it. His voice deepened as he continued up to his enemy, "Earlier you punched straight through my Quirk. You flew through Death as if it were nothing to you and even allowed me to touch you with my right hand." Zach's smirk rose but did not match the intense and angry tone of his voice as he continued to the ancient man before him.

"So why didn't you follow through this time? Was it that you didn't want to punch through all that darkness around my chest, so you just used the force of your pulled punch instead? I've noticed Ares, a change in your patterns." Zach's voice got louder and his body stopped looking so weak, and he rose up off the ground with darkness pushing out the soles of his feet. Wings ripped out of his back again and reformed the solid flight mechanisms in their optimal form that did not waste any Death. Ares did not say anything yet which kept Zach speaking in a more taunting tone that Ares had just started to use himself as he accused Zach of fighting when there was no chance. "You acted like you weren't afraid of Death," Zach snarled. "Acted like because you were far stronger than any of my other opponents, Death would not work on you. Yet there's only one conclusion I can come to when you have started dodging my attacks, or blowing them away using the force from your punches and kicks, or your aura, rather than using your body itself… You feel yourself getting weaker."

Ares tilted his head back and his expression was straight as he stared down the boy calling him out on this. Zach continued calling out at the sight of that expression, "You will only get weaker and weaker through the fight-"

"And you?" Ares wondered back. "What of your power?"

Zach stopped shouting and he started panting again as raising his voice that loud was hard. He had been covering more of his body in Death again though, and that meant his panting breaths were easy to see as the dark smoke pulled in and out in front of his mouth. Ares' breath hung in the air as well, simply due to the cold over the Muindo Mountains. That cold suddenly made Zach feel chills though. Even inside his dark aura and with his blood pumping fast, his adrenaline spiking, Zach felt chills at the look on Ares' face.

"Does it not drop over time?" Ares questioned, then his voice got lower. "Hahahah," Ares chuckled in a low voice that echoed through the sky, and he lowered his right hand down to his side with the air around him getting hazier and his breath freezing in midair. Zach's breath of Death hitched and froze in midair too, as Ares shifted his eyes away from their locked eye contact. "I suppose there is a way that may not be true…" Zach's heart skipped a beat, and his eyes shook as the white light around Ares' hand turned bright blue and then a much, much darker blue as the entire atmosphere blackened around them. "I should make sure you have no way to rejuvenate yourself."

"Wai- stop it-" Zach could not raise his voice loud enough, as he saw which way Ares was looking and started turning that way himself.

Ares moved his left hand over to his right and curled it over the top of the energy condensing there. The sky shook with Ares' movements and the ground down below him started to break apart. Pieces of earth rose up off the ground, small at first and then larger and larger chunks lifting. Some of those large chunks were not even just pieces of scattered debris, but rocks and boulders getting ripped out of stone surfaces down below.

 _This is insane-_ Zach had never felt any power like the surge he was feeling in front of him now. He swung his arms forward, firing out two huge arms of Death towards Ares who let out a yell, "HAAA!" A white pulse of energy expanded out from him in a perfect sphere that ripped apart those black arms and knocked Zach twenty feet backwards through the air. In that same moment, the dark blue energy between Ares' hands grew larger, and brighter even as the sky shook and the clouds spun fast up above their heads.

"It's just you and me." Ares stared down his opponent one last time, then he let out a heavy breath and both of his arms bulged up near his shoulders and around his biceps. The power he had collected seemed to weigh a million pounds, as his every movement appeared to be the hardest thing Zach had seen Ares do as his whole expression strained on pushing his arms forward.

"No," Zach sped backwards, then he spun and he shot across the air as fast as he could, right in the path that Ares had turned and started pushing his arms forward in.

Ares' eyes were squinting as he shoved his arms forward, but they widened as his own breath hitched only for him to scream out as there was no stopping now. "Raaa- RAAAAAA- HAAAAAAAAA!" Ares shoved his arms fully away from him as the energy was already expanding, and he needed to attack as he could not just let it all explode there. _DON'T!_ Ares thought towards his enemy who curved inwards and flew right in the path of the enormous dark blue beam that got brighter despite not getting any lighter in shade except right on the edges where it was thinnest. The core of the beam was already hundreds of feet wide though only milliseconds after Ares shoved his arms forward, and it grew even wider as the God of War who charged it screamed out at its back.

"MIDORIYA!" Zach screamed, while Midoriya was turning his head from the valley he had shot back over to not thirty seconds ago. He felt he needed to move the unconscious army of assassins who were in danger from being this close to the action without being able to protect themselves. Not all of those assassins were unconscious anymore, some of them up and actually facing off against Midoriya who they either yelled at in confusion, or yelled at not to interrupt their God…

Deku heard his friend's voice echoing deep and scratchy through the sky in his direction. The ground was already shaking worse than it had the entire night, which had unnerved the boy who was not directly next to the battle anymore but a full mile and a half away from it. Zach had shown he had more tricks up his sleeve and was able to keep fighting against this monster in a way Midoriya knew he could not. There were things he could do to help though, to make sure that Zach's full release of power did not result in the deaths of all these men and women. He did not know why Zach screamed his name, but he turned along with the others who were awake near where he had brought them earlier for their own safety.

They all looked towards the black blur shooting through the sky, and they all had to squint as the sky filled with bright light behind him. The ground shook far worse, and avalanches and rockslides started in every direction as the Korean Peninsula shook like it had not the entire night. They felt it at the coasts. They felt it in the big cities and the small towns and on every farm. The ocean raged with the waves growing larger and rougher as Ares fired off the largest attack Zach or Midoriya had ever seen before.

Zach could see it in his peripheral vision chasing after him. He had flown into its path because he knew where it was directed. He knew the method that Ares was going to take away any chance of him regaining his lost power. There was no time to think about it. Zach flew straight towards the curly-haired teen his own age who was still opening his eyes wider as he stared towards a beam of light so wide and tall and spread out and that was approaching him faster than he was prepared to do anything about. Zach landed directly in front of Midoriya and spun around as fast as he could, swinging both arms in front of him and pulling his wings from his back to his arms that they flooded out of along with every last bit of Death he had inside him. "HAAAAAAA _AAAAAAAAAA_ _ **AAAAAAAAAHHHHH- HAAAAAA!"**_

The wall of Death Zach just created got hit, and on either side of Zach and Midoriya blue light shot past them so fast that they were completely surrounded in blue in the same second. The sky above them was blue. On both their left and right sides there was nothing but blue light. Midoriya darted his eyes down to his right and saw the ground breaking apart closer to him, from fifteen feet away to ten, more of the stone below his feet cracking and tearing into the light that it completely shredded away in.

Midoriya turned his head farther around as Zach screamed out at the top of his lungs. He still could not breathe himself as he looked back and saw that the blue light passing them on both sides pulled back in after getting split by the black wall pushing as hard as Zach could against it. Midoriya's eyes widened as he saw one of the last assassins in the area reaching towards him, only for the light to engulf him as well and rip the skin from his flesh in the first millisecond, then it shattered the bones under his melting muscles that ripped away in the force of the energy.

"AHHH **AHHHHH!"** Zach screamed as he saw the blue light on the other side of wall, cracking through it and shredding the edges of it where his Quirk was weakest. The ground below him cracked more and he started losing his balance, making it harder to focus on keeping every last bit of his power in front of him and Midoriya who was wobbling at his back. The chunk of ground they were on became all that was left of the surface of the valley around them as the beam had stretched too far down too and was breaking apart even their last remaining footholds.

 _What is this?! What's happening?!_ Midoriya's heart raced faster as the heat bore down on him. His face sweat, his feet lost balance on the stone below him that cracked too much and started to break apart. He started leaning backwards, his heels tilting back on the stone upturning below him. The back of his head got hotter-

Deku's eyes bulged, as Zach's left hand snapped backwards and grabbed him by the waistband of his pants. He pulled in, and Midoriya fell to his butt but closer to Zach than to the back of the tiny space getting even smaller now as there was less Death pushing against the beam. The floor below them broke, and Zach screamed out as the wall he tried to reinforce by slamming his left hand forward again just broke even more apart. The front of his body was completely covered in Death, and Midoriya was sitting behind his legs staring forward in disbelief as the blue light broke through the wall and slammed into them-

Zach leaned forward and screamed at the top of his lungs. His arms crossed and the black aura surrounding the front of his body pushed forward, splitting the blue beam that pushed into him and right into his face that he leaned into it. _**"RRRAAAAAA!"**_ Zach's deep voice scratched out through the sky out of the beam that tore through the protective aura all around him. Midoriya could feel the heat from between Zach's legs that he had parted and were digging down farther into the ground that broke apart below them, yet still the beam did not get past Zach. Zach felt all the skin on his right arm searing, as it was on his face and legs…

Then the back of the beam passed them.

Zach was frozen where he stood. He froze mouth wide open in mid-scream as the beam passed and there was nothing left to block with the Death he had surrounding him and that was now pushing forward away from his body. That Death faded away into nothing and Zach blinked a few times with the world tinting back to its normal shade, not even with a red glow to it now. His left arm was devoid of any of the fake skin that usually covered it, and his right was bloodier now than below. His face was burned and his hair singed, some of his bangs burnt off in a weird way though his hair had been mostly Death throughout the attack.

There was nothing on either side of Zach's feet. The ground just dropped thirty feet from the stone pillar that Zach dropped down to his right knee on, wincing as that knee was singed like his left and his shins. He had guarded his vital areas with the strongest Death and so he still maintained rags around his waist to his lower thighs where fibers of the material waved around behind him in the strong wind that returned after all the air had been blown away. The ground underneath the two felt so unsound like it could crack and collapse at any moment. Midoriya could barely take his eyes off of Zach's back, and yet he still managed to turn his head partially to the side to see how much of the ground behind them was left standing too.

 _They're all…_ Midoriya started to think, but his thoughts of the other people who had been there trailed off as he saw what was behind him. Or rather, Midoriya saw what was not behind him that made him lose any capability to speak or think, let alone breathe. His eyes were the size of saucers and remained that way, just as Zach's grew almost as wide as he turned his head slightly to the side too and saw what was behind them.

Zach had seen this side when he approached Midoriya at full speed before spinning to face the beam. He had seen the mountain ahead of him slightly off-angled to his right, along with the taller one almost perfectly aligned with the beam's path farther ahead of that mountain another couple of miles away. Zach was breathing in heavily as he glanced back, but he gasped it out and knelt there in shock for a moment as he did not see the mountain that should have been straight ahead of him. He would have thought that he was looking in the wrong place, if not for the one slightly to their right which had a hole in it that took away the entire summit along with most of the north side from east to west. The new top of that mountain curved over the empty gap to show a perfect crescent shape carved through the mountain as if a hole had been blown through it, which it had been. "That's, crazy," Zach whispered hoarsely, in a cracked voice that sounded so nervous and scared, and yet it made Midoriya flinch as well at the sound of it…

* * *

 _ **Crreeaaak-**_ **CRACK!**

"AHHHH-"

"Eee- EEEAAAH-"

"Everyone quiet!" The booming voice that shouted came out in a tone none of the citizens of the Anguong farming community were ready to hear from the hero helping them. Wonder Man took in a deep breath after silencing the crowd that was about to start panicking due to the loud screams of a few people who had gotten spooked by the most recent set of vicious tremors. All those people looked to the hero who flew up in the air above the civilians he had gotten to evacuate their homes and stand out on a field so that nothing would fall on them during the earthquakes.

 _Someone needs to do something. G-Man, I'll be the recon we need to figure out what's going on in there._ Wonder Man stared towards the mountains where the most violent storm he had ever seen was raging above and around even the summits at the edge of the range. "What we need to do now is remain calm above all else," Wonder Man continued in a loud voice for the citizens below who were starting to feel uneasy about the direction their hero was looking with such a determined expression forming on his face. "Other heroes are on their way from all sides of Korea to help make sure that you-"

"Don't leave us, Wonder Man!" one of the women of the village shouted. She was the old woman who told Wonder Man that they could use her farm as a gathering place for all her neighbors. "We need you to stay and protect us!"

"You will be safe as long as you stay here and out of the way of-"

"W-Wait!"

"Wonder Man! Don't go over there!"

The tone in the citizens' voices started to make the third ranked hero in the nation feel uneasy. He looked down and saw faces that reminded him far too much of the way Cataphault and Bogseo had looked when G-Man started talking about his real reason for being stationed out in the countryside. He saw fear on the faces of the citizens, mostly from the older ones, but he could see those looks traveled down through the generations all the way to the children who were looking at their parents in fear and terror as if they already knew what was causing this catastrophe.

"Wonder Man, hold back and wait until everyone's out here," G-Man suddenly ordered into the earpiece that Wonder Man was wearing. Wonder Man did not know if G-Man could hear the civilians on the other side of his headset or if maybe his tone had given it away to the other hero coordinating efforts as well, but he reached up and turned off his communicator to get some silence.

 _I'm tired of waiting around._ Wonder Man glared into the mountains where the origin of these earthquakes was located. _There's bound to be a reason for this. Be it the Army of Death, some villain hiding in the range, or something supernatural even. I won't rule anything out._

"Wonder Man please! I beg of you!"

Wonder Man looked down and saw that older woman stepping closer to him on her field below. She shook her head at the man hovering over her property that was one of the closest to the Muindo Range. Her family had lived there for generations, passing down stories of plagues and famines and wars, and yet there was only one thing she feared in this world. She looked at Wonder Man with scared eyes that were clear even on her withered face. "Please, stay out of there."

Everyone in the community looked towards the elder begging this of Wonder Man. "There's nothing to be done about what lurks in those mountains. There's nothing you can do to stop it."

"What is in there?" Wonder Man asked.

"The beast!"

"The demons!"

"The Angunguong!"

"We don't know!"

"Just stay here! Protect us and… and don't die for nothing!" A younger man and guide in the mountains who had lost his mentor twenty years ago to an "accident" in the Muindo Range yelled up.

Wonder Man looked around at all the citizens so worried about his life. _I'm sorry. As a hero,_ he rose his gaze back up to the mountains. _I must…_

The hero's jaw dropped. He froze in place and the rest of the citizens looking towards him spun back around to the mountains where a bright light just flashed. It was not lightning this time. That, they could all see for sure.

"Oh my…"

"God help us."

Another man opened his mouth, but he just dropped to his knees and then pulled his hands together in front of his chest. He bowed his head into those hands and clenched his eyes shut to stop having to see the insane and impossible beam of light that just tore through a mountain and into the clouds.

Wonder Man lifted his head and watched as the beam that ripped through so many clouds vanished up above the ones over his head. Most of those clouds got pulled away from the Muindo Range only for clouds on either side of the dragged ones to pull in and collapse over, making the storm worse than ever with lightning cracking all over the space the beam just passed through. The hero who considered himself very strong turned back and looked towards the Muindo Range.

Even over fifty miles away from it, Wonder Man had been able to see a mountain in the range that was no longer visible to him. The storm got worse out there while the world's shaking started to die down, and Wonder Man just stared forward at miles of land where rocks were falling out of the sky and all over the abandoned forests and fields and failed towns at the edge of the Muindo Range. The community he was in was only twenty miles from a failed town with not much between the farms here and that town that had to be abandoned long ago. Wonder Man watched as huge rocks fell out of the sky in the distance and crushed buildings, rolling across forests and knocking down all the trees in their wake.

"I…" Wonder Man glanced down at the people below him. "I have to stay here, and protect you people." He reached up and turned back on his communicator, to hear G-Man yelling at him for a response after that set of most horrible earthquakes yet. Other heroes were on the line shouting about what they had felt so far away as many of them were still gathering in their cities and preparing to leave. Others were on the road but they had stopped their cars on highways when the ground shook like that. He heard someone over the link shout against this being anything but a natural phenomenon after such a powerful earthquake, and Wonder Man had to disagree, "It wasn't natural."

His voice was a welcomed relief to G-Man and Cataphault who were each worried about what he was going to do all on his own. The tone of his voice shut up the rest of the heroes though over the link and all their sidekicks and support staff listening to him. Wonder Man gulped as he realized something else, _Even if someone could make an attack like that, why would they? What, are they fighting? Does that mean… there are two people with this kind of power out there? What happens… if the wrong one wins?_

* * *

"That's, crazy," Zach's whisper made Midoriya flinch and turn his head back forward, seeing the sideways face of his friend looking back at the same damage he had just witnessed. Midoriya stared back at Zach's face with his heart pounding even harder and his breath still stuck in his throat. He looked into Zach's eyes, and he saw _excitement_ the moment before Zach turned back around himself.

Zach turned forward, and he got up off his burnt knee to stand on wobbly legs. He smacked his hands down on his legs and growled through the pain, blood seething through his teeth as he made such a guttural noise. Zach stared ahead of him towards the figure flying through the half-mile wide trench that separated him and Ares. Ares was laughing as he shot across the gap towards his opponent who survived an attack he was worried Zach might not be able to handle.

"Z-Zach," Midoriya shook his head around and got up, panting hard and staring at his friend's back with his eyes still the size of plates. "We have to, take him on together."

 _There's no one left here to protect. The only people I can protect is everyone outside of this range who Ares can kill if we let him leave here._ Midoriya's expression hardened despite the fear he felt of this opponent he now believed beyond all doubt was the strongest villain they had ever faced before. "Let's formulate a strategy-"

"Stay out of this." Zach's snarl came out angry at the suggestion Midoriya was making behind him. Zach ground his teeth, and he hunched his body forward with his back bubbling with Death down along his spine. "Get the fuck out of my way. You don't stand a chance." Zach slammed his right hand down into the edge of the stone pillar in front of him, then he dug the fingers of his left hand into the rock face next to his right. Out of his back spiked eight long Death spines and around his back and sides wrapped an aura of darkness that flared like spiky hair all over his body.

His fingers digging into the stone dug in easier and farther as they became sharpened by Death. His eyes flared red as he reached deep inside and grabbed out whatever was left within him and surrounded his body. "Grrrrr… _**GRRRrrrrrr…"**_ Zach's growl got deeper, venomous and snarling as his body transformed to look more like a four-legged beast bending its forelegs or Zach's arms. **"They were your own followers. They considered you a** _ **God,**_ **and you-"** Zach's voice oozed hatred like none Midoriya had ever heard before. The combination of every single thing Ares had said so far, all of Eziano's actions, Fergus's, and now this last attack as Ares wiped out his own soldiers…

In Zach's head flashed a room of a hundred and fifty people all holding up a shot glass. A few like him had nothing but water in theirs, as the rest got ready to take a shot of Pinroq Kamouev from the bottles they looted at King's compound during their most successful raid ever. They were about to flee and let the Russian and Eastern European heroes take all the credit. King was already in the heroes' possession and had accepted the deal with them on what he and all his captured men were going to say happened, just as the heroes had. All those soldiers with their helmets off looking his way as he was supposed to make a toast, because Michael shouted at him to do one. Gentle had given him a shove on his back, and he remembered the look in Exodus' eyes like he was expecting something profound even as he was just trying to let them all have the small moment of celebration he never really let them have at any other time.

He could name every single person he saw as that image flashed in his mind. As he saw himself turning and looking in a three hundred and sixty degree angle of himself at all the faces looking back. All his smiling friends and subordinates and _comrades_ who had fought and died by his side. Zach flew up off the ground with demonic-looking bat-like wings ripping out of his spiked back, and Ares called at his opponent, "I'm surprised you still have anything left to give!"

 _He just killed my only means of getting back more Death, which means that I was right and Ares doesn't want me getting any stronger for this fight. Ares thinks we'll be fighting forever, but he also thought for sure that he could win at the start of this one. He took me too lightly._ Ares' huge smile lowered down and stayed in a slight grin but got as serious as ever as he stared into that spinning darkness around what he thought was probably Zach's head based on the dark red glows coming from behind it.

Midoriya was dropping out of the air, as Zach had shot up off the pillar too hard that it broke apart below him. He jumped backwards too though, while staring at Zach in disbelief at the sight of the amount of Death Zach was still able to muster even after he thought all of it had been destroyed blocking that last attack. Midoriya dropped down to the new surface at the bottom of the massive trench that stretched so far to either side of him that he was trying to avoid looking to the edges where he would be reminded of how powerful their enemy was. _I don't stand a chance? Zach, you can't match this! I admit you're stronger than me, but I'll get behind Ares and help you here. Maybe you know I will. Maybe, you just want Ares to think you're acting a certain way. I know you're not a monster… But that kind of focus, even after this?!_ Midoriya was astonished by the focus he could _feel_ from Zach as his friend stared down Ares with a body resembling a monster's.

Ares grew in size. His right hand opened up while down on his side, and rocks flew up from the ground down below up into his palm. They merged together, crushed by the pressure of his curling hand into the shape of a hilt that got pounded together longer by more rocks rising up. Some kind of metal rose up out of the ground as well, and lightning flew down and slammed into the ore as it reached the end of the stone staff Ares was growing. His body reached twelve feet tall, and his eyes narrowed while glowing white, his ashy blond hair waving around behind his head in the wind that surrounded his flying form. The steel that forged at the end of his stone weapon created the shape of a massive axe-head, while the butt of the staff got bumpier and wider than the rest to form a war hammer of stone.

Zach's black claws snapped out to his sides, and they gripped around hilts of long black blades that flared out and that he slashed together in front of him. _He is weakening. Weakening? Look behind you. The trench goes for miles through the planet. He tore through mountains with that last attack. An attack he charged. One that strained him. One that took a lot of his power, more than he's likely used in thousands of… Ever? Other than to test his strength- and the last time he did that would have been when he was much weaker. He just used all of his power for that. I know because of the charge time. It has to be._ Zach erased the doubt from his mind after imagining the damage done by Ares' last attack due to the fear he felt because of it. Erasing the doubt was a necessity and so he did it. He decided not to question if that was Ares' strongest and just that it was, because questioning that would cause him to be cautious at a time when he did not have enough strength to keep the fight going for much longer. Thoughts did not cross his mind that usually would have thanks to his experience and fighting prowess, due to the inherent knowledge of how his own fear could affect his fighting style.

And he knew that attacking now and right away without giving Ares a moment to talk to him was the most important thing. Ares opened his mouth but Zach flew at his enemy without hesitation. He just took Ares' largest attack straight on, and he flew at Ares and swung his blades at the man who spun his war hammer-ax around in front of him and parried both. He knocked them both to the left while making it out like he was going to knock them up. The legs Zach was kicking upwards in preparation for his body opening from Ares' parry were now not angled on target, but a third leg kicked out of Zach's left side because Ares parrying to his left meant that Zach was turned to the right.

Zach's left side closest to Ares expelled a leg that kicked Ares in the stomach. The toe of Zach's new foot was just touching Ares, when Ares kicked around with his own right leg while making it out like he was reaching for Zach's black leg with his left hand. Ares slammed his leg into Zach's side and allowed that black foot to touch him, but the trade off did not feel worth it to Zach who felt his sprained and fractured ribs crack this time. They made loud cracking noises too, while Zach was sent flying through the air out from above the trench and into the slope of a mountain he bounced and rolled along the side of.

Ares flew right after Zach and he slammed his right fist down as Zach spiraled out of his roll with his arms rising fully black and extending out again. Ares knew this attack already though and popped Zach's arms out to the sides, while also kneeing upwards with a beam of white coming off that knee as he would not just use the same deflection strategy of slamming his arms out that he had done the last time. As Zach's arms were pushed out to either side though by Ares' swings, as they were the last time, Zach's body down below that was about to get hit by a white beam broke apart into a black rushing mist that shot straight upwards at Ares and all around the beam that none of the Death was caught by.

Ares pulled up. He turned to the right, dodging one of the arms that he had slammed out to the side and that had transformed into a falcon-shaped Death object that shot right past him. It broke off its wings into smaller birds that shot back at Ares above and below him, but Ares was more focused on the other initial arm he deflected away using only force so that he would not have to touch any Death. So far, he had not been touched by any Death in this clash, but the wave flying up from below, the twin birds flying above and below, and the full version of Zach that had come out of the second arm he deflected were all coming too fast and all at once.

He dodged the top of the birds and flew much higher into the sky. All of the Death down below changed directions and flew up after him, but Zach separated it farther and farther from himself as he flew up. Two birds split into four. The wave of Death from his old body that was rising up in a large encompassing wave split apart and turned into several black pillars that rose up on his sides but many meters away from him. Those pillars flew up faster and started to resemble human shapes at the tops of them. _Keep what's below moving up to the top constantly. Empty the middle of large shapes and make the external Death seem larger and more dangerous. Forcing him..._ Zach continued to fly up, though he dodged better than some of his hollow black pillars that got pierced through by white beams Ares fired at them to lower the amount of attacks he had to worry about as they all chased after him. _To waste more energy only hurting tiny amounts of Death. Not much wasted. Not hard to reform._

Zach stopped for a moment in the air, brought his elbows down to his sides, and he yelled out, "HAAAA!" A black wind pushed out of his back, and he punched his arms out to the sides and sent most of his aura flying away from him in the shape of two more pillars of Death. The wind flying out of his back turned more into a cape. That cape flew off of him though and curved upwards like a thin wall behind him, stretching out to the sides.

 _He's lower than he'd have me believe. Now that he's confirmed his Quirk can actually do something, he expects me not to touch any of it. Even small amounts will compound and make me gradually weaker._ Ares continued to fly upwards, his thoughts moving as fast as Zach's as he faced an enemy for the first time in millennia who had the power to keep facing him after this long. He could not help but smile. _Even fighting Aurellio the day we met, this fight is harder. Harder than many fights from my days as a mortal man. He is more than a warrior, or a God. He is my greatest rival ever._ Ares spun around and he brought down the clouds from above him, surrounding himself and Zach in the darkness and dampness of the storm.

"They say you bring the storm," Ares called out through the clouds where his figure became impossible to see to his enemy somewhere ahead of him. "But you aren't the one making it. Can you even handle the intense winds up here? Do they not pull the Death from your body? Can your smaller creations survive?!"

 _His voice is coming from all around. He still believes himself in control of the situation despite losing some overconfidence. He's always thought of me as a worthy adversary though. Ares can't see in here. He may be able to feel vibrations in the air and he'll be able to tell where it's coming from, but what if he's more right about the wind than he thought? He's been avoiding even the smallest amounts of Death because he knows they will compile. His "maximum" power means nothing anymore. What he did just then was not even his full strength. I touched him with my bare hand, and he is acting in a way as if I've weakened him. He must have been so far above me. He wasn't showing his full strength at first and has only got much stronger instead of getting any weaker, which he still hasn't really shown. Not through his speed and power at least. But he is_ _ **acting**_ _weaker. Which means he_ _ **is**_ _weaker…_

The forms and pillars Zach brought into the clouds were breaking apart though there were pieces of them that stayed together more. He did not have a wide variety of ranges for his creations' sizes. There were either the large pillars and two small birds just slightly larger than the others had been, or the thin wind of Death he released out between those masses that he expected Ares may notice. At the same time, he flew forward himself towards one of the loudest echoes in the clouds where he thought Ares could be.

Winds slammed into Zach in the direction he flew, knocking him down a bit and right into a bolt of lightning in mid-formation that made him lose track of his thoughts and his Quirk control. He had barely any Death around his actual body, and he started dropping out of the air. Fortunately, his own plan had worked in that same moment. He fell from the clouds that exploded out in all directions, as Ares noticed there was Death mixed in with the clouds around him that were pitch black because of the violent nature of his storm. All of the Death flying around inside the clouds because of the fast winds was sent out in all directions, then it all flew down after Zach who turned himself back to face into the sky where Ares just hit him with a tiny piece of that explosion of force.

Knocked back into his senses a bit, Zach rose his arms that wrapped in snakes of Death while most of the rest of that aura pulled right behind his back. He had to create wings to stop from falling any farther. Ares shot down after him, but the snakes of darkness that wrapped Zach's arms slithered back out to his hands. He grabbed the ends of the long tendrils of darkness that continued to move as if with minds of their own. It was hard to move his burnt arms, harder now because the lightning had messed with his left arm and the rest of his body just as much though less permanently. He was twitching, but he did not need to swing his arms for the black tendrils to crack like whips across the sky ahead of him and extend all the way up to a dropping Ares who spiraled to his left then stopped his descent completely as those whips changed direction to chase him.

 _He's slower._ Zach thought it while tasting the blood in his mouth. He realized his eyes were squinting closer together, and despite what he just noticed, he knew he was weaker as well. There was no need to think about his own weakness in that moment though. He had no Trigger on him and thus it was a moot point to consider how weak he was. Rather he considered how best to utilize his remaining Death without wasting any as it became more vital each passing second. Even maintaining wings at this point was difficult, but it was better than forcing out Death below his feet which would waste it for no reason.

Ares could see it even in Zach's red eyes. The excitement simmered inside him for a moment as there was a different look to the kind of intensity his opponent was showing him now compared to earlier. _He's, still planning on winning,_ Ares saw it. The young man facing him was not questioning whether or not he could win. The question did not look to even cross his mind. _He's seen the difference in our strength and it doesn't matter. I showed him the gap in our strength, but he believes his skills exceed mine. Zach, you truly are…_ Ares' smile returned with a vengeance, curling higher up than ever with the corners pulling towards his ears, because he felt his heart start to race in a way so long forgotten to him.

"What are you smiling at?!" Zach flew at his enemy whose expression was childlike, full of glee and excitement. _The most prolific murderer of all time._ Zach's body was fueled with the kind of hatred that cleared his mind so that he would be the most efficient fighter he could be. He raced at Ares who backed through the sky without having to make any flight motions that Zach needed to do manually with his wings. Zach had to chase the man who flew smoother and with more angles of movement because his control had been honed across centuries rather than across months.

Zach brought more of the Death he had inside him as part of his defensive mechanism out into his wings on his next flap that had been looking just like all the others he was chasing Ares with. He had already sped up, but he only expanded his wings at the last second during his flap that gave him an even faster boost that Ares was not expecting. Zach lost the blades in his hands as he pulled more Death to his back, but Ares noticed some of that Death had trailed away as well and was moving in strange patterns much farther away from them that it could not affect their fight.

 _What is he planning? It's so interesting!_ Ares rose up his left hand and called the ax he had created back to his hand. In that same moment he brought up his right over his shoulder and curled it around a bolt of lightning that formed in his grasp. Sparks flew off the bolt that he held there as Zach flew straight at him. Zach was under a second away from the enemy who stopped flying backwards but did not change directions to move forwards and shorten the time between them. Ares just held and created the bolt, and Zach knew he could not pull back and let Ares charge a longer attack after what he saw the last time Ares had that time.

Zach slammed his right hand into his own chest and tore a hole between his exposed scarred-up pecs. He ripped a curved blade out from the darkness he pooled there, and he slashed it upwards right as Ares threw forwards towards Zach's upper left side. Ares' eyes widened and he shot back farther, as the end of Zach's blade slashed out a wind of Death towards him. It missed to his left but then pulled towards where he was dodging straight back. Ares had to yank himself harder to his own right, focusing partly back on that wind slash now as he had been too focused on Zach's swing of his blade itself. The swing had sent that multi-layered attack flying at him, but the more impressive part of it was how Zach had predicted and sliced fast enough to cut _through_ the bolt of electric energy Ares had thrown at him.

Zach shot forward as the sparks split around his sides. He flapped his wings while controlling the slash which consisted of part of the blade he just swung, as he did not have enough of his remaining Death on his person to send any excess flying from the blade. He reshaped the sword he had pulled from his chest where there were still a few small pockets of Death stored for security. Zach lifted the katana he had out now, then he snapped his right hand out in the shape of a gun after he tossed the blade's hilt to his left hand. Ares had suddenly shifted and flown through the black wind he was dodging from. The God of War split it with a swing down of his arm that created too much of a wind for Zach's own Death Wind to survive. The wind pulled back together and shot towards Zach to reconnect with him, while Ares did a front-flip in the air and extended his body with the thin black line fired from Zach's right index finger shooting just below his chest.

Ares spun out of his front flip and punched at the enemy who shot at him and slammed his own left fist forward. Ares pushed harder into it, but he had to yank back as a wisp of darkness came out of Zach's left fingers. Zach had not been able to focus much Death down there, but he made a wisp come out that he had prepared before even punching so that Ares would yank away. Ares realized that as the single wisp that emerged faded and his hand pulling back showed that Zach's knuckles had not even turned black with Death in that moment.

 _Where is his Quirk?_ Ares could see there was barely any Death in use on his enemy's body, but Zach shot at him and kicked up a slash of Death more powerful than the swipe from his sword a minute ago. Ares flipped around the ax he was holding down at his left side, then he spun it around in front of his body so fast it looked like a fan. The Death in front of him all got pulled down into a visible wind funnel that shot back in Zach's direction and engulfed him.

 _Right through the middle,_ Zach's wings sucked into his back and shot out of his chest in the middle of the wind funnel. The force of the funnel was strongest on its spinning edges, but the funnel was thin enough that it had caught Zach with both the top and bottom of the wind force. It started spinning Zach around, cartwheeling him through the sky, but Ares let go of his weapon that he was spinning with both hands and pulled his arms away fast.

His body shot backwards using his flight and he yelled out, "HA!" The force of the shockwave from how fast he flew backwards sent the piercing line of Death breaking apart and scattering into the wind that ripped off the dying out twister he made. That thin black line had moved so fast that it pierced through the hilt of Ares' weapon right between his hands, then hit him in the chest before he was able to pull backwards. His eyes darted to his right and left as the shockwave destroyed the line that just hit him, that he had just felt. _It's so light, but it's gathering around me. He had it farther in the distance a minute ago. As scattered as it was, the closer it gets the more combined it becomes._

Ares could not focus on the thin black wisps a half mile away, up in the clouds, snaking across the ground in tiny movements that were barely visible to the eye because of how faint the Death moving there was. Zach was too quick to react to Ares breaking apart that last weapon, and without the wind funnel pushing him without his control he was able to recreate his wings and fly back in Ares' direction. _More of it is gone. I can't call more to myself. Only what I have left._

Zach's red eyes flared brighter, even as his internal defenses and reserves ran on dry. _One sword. Two wings. Eyes. All I can use as I continue laying my traps. He's noticed, but he still believes I have no chance. He could fly away out of the area of effect, but he'll wait too long._ Zach's enemy brought up his right hand, and across the sky flew his sword into his hand. He had smirked when Zach's single blade formed down on his right side. Both of Zach's hands were down on the hilt as he flew horizontally through the air at his enemy. Ares slashed his sword down from his right shoulder to his left side, then lifted up to his left shoulder and slashed back down to the right side of his waist where he held the blade with one hand and held his left palm out in front of him pointed at Zach.

Ares turned that palm back towards himself and tilted his fingers out in Zach's direction, then he curled inwards towards himself. Zach thought maybe he would feel a tug from his opponent's seemingly telekinetic powers, but the movement was sheerly a taunting motion and nothing more. It beckoned him forward to attempt the challenge Zach was making by flying straight at him with barely any Death use and only a single weapon for combat. All of the white aura around Ares vanished, and other than the sword all he was using was his ability to fly.

Rain fell from the sky above them. It did not start slow. A few droplets fell, and Zach saw maybe the fifth or sixth that reached his level was falling in between him and Ares. Ares leaned forward and swung his left arm down at his side, snapping his body forward to be horizontal and parallel to the ground like Zach's. Ares shot forward, and he and Zach swung blades that turned the falling raindrops to the sides. The wind that broke off from the clash of Zach's sword that he swung with both hands and Ares' that the God slashed only with his right, sped the rain out away from them in the wind that was made by their collision.

Zach leaned forward and his bared teeth ground as he pushed all of his force into Ares' blade. Ares leaned his own head forward closer to Zach's, his eyes serious but his expression showing that he was having fun despite it. Ares reached his left hand up over their crossing blades and gripped Zach by the neck in a sudden motion. Zach was growling out of his mouth angrily, so the loss of his breathing ability caused his whole body to flinch. Ares pushed his sword back into Zach's body and then flew by his left side, swiping up around the connecting point of Zach's left arm and his shoulder. His blade dug deep, but Zach's wings flapped up when he felt the loss of strength in his arms that made him look out for where Ares was going to slash him. Even the deep wound was only shallow as Zach pulled Death from his sword up into where Ares' blade was cutting through to turn it all into Death.

Then Zach spun around and he threw his smaller sword backwards towards where Ares spun to face him after slashing past. Ares smacked his sword into Zach's and parried it away, but Zach's sword spun around on its own with Zach lifting his left hand and curling all his fingers into a fist. That sword broke apart into five knives that raced at Ares and shot around his body in random by quick movements. Ares slashed at them back and forth faster than those blades themselves were moving. Zach had made his sword completely solid though, and the knives that blade had split apart into were just as strong and did not just get destroyed by the God's swings that Zach could see were weakened again.

Ares flew forward between two of the knives that shot down to his lower left and up over his left shoulder when he ducked it- Zach was already there. The gap was intentional despite looking like both were meant to keep him inside the cage of slicing knives spinning around him and getting close but not on piercing angles, only on ones that could graze. Zach's right hand reached for Ares' face, but Ares blew from his mouth and knocked Zach's hand back- only for a leaning back Zach to finish raising his left hand that had been pointed backwards so as not so show Ares the brightening blue light on his palm. He fired into Ares' chest- two of the black knives slammed into Ares' back as the God of War flew to his left. The blast of blue energy was aimed partially at Ares' left side and Ares knew that despite everything going on, Zach was probably thinking even farther ahead and wanted him to dodge to the right which was why he acted off-balanced and off-angled. It was why Ares dodged twice as fast to the side Zach aimed instead of pulling gentler away to the side easier to dodge on.

His predictions were wrong. Zach's black blades slammed into him, and Ares yelled out, "RAAA!" His body shrouded in a huge white aura that shredded the blades sticking into his back, and ripped apart the other three Zach still had too close to him. Ares flew after his enemy who just stabbed him like that with pure solid blades of Death.

 _I can't get hit out of this space!_ Zach flew right back at Ares, no more Death for weapons on him and only his wings on his back that were losing force and thus making him slower. He grit his teeth as he sped back towards Ares who just increased his own speed so much to fly at his opponent who had acted like the blow from his enemy had pushed him more off-balanced than he was. Zach flew in at Ares and swung his left fist, kicking up with his right leg. Ares stomped down on Zach's right thigh, raising his own left foot and dropping it on Zach's thigh as he was raising that leg. _**Crack!**_

Zach was grabbed by the left wrist at the same time, and more fingerprints dented into the steel as his angered enemy gripped it hard this time. Ares smirked angrily as he slammed his head forward and bashed it into Zach's forehead that he knew there was no protective Death behind. Zach's red eyes lost their glow and his mind got boggled- for less than a fraction of a second. His eyes snapped back open and turned bright red while his head was still leaning back with blood splashing from his forehead. He smirked right back at Ares, while finishing his right punch forward at Ares' chest where his enemy was so close to him having grabbed onto his left wrist.

A fist of black punched out of the end of Zach's knuckles. Ares had pulled his own body far enough back that Zach's punch would stop short of him, but the fist of darkness came out of nowhere and was stronger than Ares imagined possible. Zach was dropping though, and Ares realized it as he swung Zach by his left arm so that he would not have to let go in order to dodge this fist colliding with him but not yet absorbed into his body. _His wings._ Ares knew he was right in how much Death Zach still had with him, but when he got that close Zach's wings had sucked back into his body and coursed through his insides straight into his right hand that he started punching after his left and after his right leg was swinging up.

Zach felt his right femur was broken, but the smirk on his face only grew more as Ares swung him rather than let go as the God thought Zach would have wanted. Zach had plans for whether he got dropped or if Ares spun him like this though, because his left arm was able to turn in ways that normal arms could not. His wrist was grabbed, but his palm was able to turn around on his wrist and point up into Ares' face where it fired another blast of blue light that Ares snapped his head away from and let fly just past his left cheek. He was still in the middle of dodging that black fist that turned to follow him in the air, but his eyes darted up as Zach's whole dropping body suddenly yanked up in the air around his own shoulder like he was a contortionist dislocating his limb.

Zach flipped up like that and slammed down his right foot in a spinning kick, covering only the toe of his foot in the remaining Death he had inside after punching most out in that flying fist. Ares yanked down to throw Zach down at the planet below. Zach dislocated his arm for real this time. Ares wound up flinging a disconnected arm that Zach had spun around on and flipped up over as if to prove in the previous half second that he was forced to do so, that he was connected completely to it. Ares' swing was meant to throw Zach's kick completely off course and to put him falling down in front of where Ares' other fist was already swinging forward. His punch was going to hit nothing but air now, and he just threw a useless piece of metal out of the sky with no one connected to it.

The toe of Zach's right foot slammed down into the top of Ares' head, and then the fist of darkness that missed the first time sped up as half of it just exploded backwards to speed up the other half. It did not hit him with the full Death that the fist had in it, but without the burst of speed Zach doubted the fist would wind up putting any Death into his weakening opponent.

A hand gripped Zach by his right ankle and yanked down. Ares slammed his other fist into Zach's gut, then he brought the hand that yanked on Zach's ankle up to his throat and squeezed. He brought his left hand out to his side and grabbed Zach by his swinging right arm, right by his inner elbow which kept Zach from even bending his arm. The red glow faded from Zach's eyes as they opened back up from squinted when he was punched in the gut. Ares could have let him drop, but there was no point. His enemy who did not have wings nor any Death on him anymore, was just a one-armed boy with a broken leg and broken ribs and blood pouring down his face from the gash on his forehead.

Ares choked Zach with one hand while keeping that right hand far away from him using his other. He glared straight into Zach's eyes that looked right back and made a connection with his. Zach stared deep into his opponent's eyes, and Ares grinned as he could see hidden behind the strong resolve to not give up, a regret at the fact that he could not deny as hard as he pretended. "You, are beyond my expectations. You far exceeded what I had hoped the day we met would bring."

Ares was still choking Zach, but his hand loosened the smallest amount to just let Zach take in some breath, before he started choking the boy again. He gave Zach no permission to speak, and he stared into the eyes getting more and more bloodshot and soaked with blood as it poured down his face. Ares panted a few times as he strangled Zach again, but then he spoke to the figure he held up breathless and out of power. "Eziano downplayed your importance, until the end. His attacks failed because he truly believed himself to be 'chosen' and that you were not." Ares paused and panted twice more, then took in a deep breath and let it out calmly. Zach's face was red but turning paler underneath the blood, blue even as he suffocated in Ares' grasp. "He considered you no more than a pawn for so long. Too long, he would come to realize too late."

"At one point Eziano approved of your war around the world, but your war was going too well. You decreased the amount of soldiers for the other side and reversed the damage that was being done to the world order to descend it into chaos again. To power War. Not that I had asked him for any more power," Ares said that as if he were not involved in it, but Zach's bloodshot eyes with blood gathering on his bottom eyelids narrowed in unforgiving rage even as his head pounded and his vision was getting blurry. Ares relaxed his grip again which let Zach take in a massive breath, and he finished, "As I have long become omnipotent."

"That's not, how Quirks work," Zach snarled through gasps. His eyes that shut during that breath squinted back open with bloody tears coming out of them.

"How many powers have you obtained in such a short time?" Ares wondered to the child before him who he kept risen by the throat but was not choking anymore, as he had proven his ability to choke out and kill his opponent now. "How many powers do you train and master every month? Eziano was right about human potential. War makes me stronger. Powers me. But, I believe the powers I obtained could all just be advanced human techniques that would take hundreds of years to master for normal men. Then again, I really don't know. Maybe Longevity never was their Quirk…"

Ares mentioned "their" in reference to multiple people, and for a moment his expression saddened as he thought about that entire family line now gone. His eyes filled with a little more light as he refocused on the boy he held by the right elbow and the throat. "I don't know the origin of Quirks," Ares admitted. "I don't know if my own, so unique thousands of years ago, is truly the same as the Quirks of today. It is so much more powerful. So different in its fundamental existence, as a concept and not a thing… but then someone like you comes around. A God in the making."

"You're just a man, whose Quirk is powerful-"

"What do you think Gods are?" Ares wondered. "Do you need to be worshipped and praised? Have knowledge beyond that of humanity? Power like no other?" Ares chuckled while staring down his opponent he asked these things of. "Did you ever wonder if your increased power was extending your lifespan while making you stronger? I believe that the amount of wars in the first hundred years of my life were enough to power me for a thousand years. I stored power gained in that next millennia without dipping into it for a thousand years when I found myself low on the level I tried to keep myself at to feel more human… The power we have, _is_ Godly. And you could be the God of Death."

"I won't be," Zach growled, no pauses in his voice this time. Blood splashed out of his lips as he spat that denial out.

Ares stared deeper into his eyes and replied in an ominous voice, "Do you think you have a choice?" Ares grinned at the look on his opponent's flinching face, and he started laughing and called out in a loud voice, "There's no point in denying me! I know you! You know how it feels!" Ares opened back up his eyes he closed there while laughing, and he looked into Zach's with a knowing gaze as he elaborated, "To know that even when you do good, that every act you commit is thanks to power you have from the deaths of millions? That without all that horror and bloodshed and violence you wouldn't have this strength? And every second having to live with it?!" Ares shouted that in a knowing voice with pain in it, but a shared pain he called out at his companion whose face was not reacting to these things. That did not dissuade Ares though, and he called out, "I know that you understand that, because it was a feeling I used to have and hated every second of when I still felt human! A feeling that drives you mad!"

Zach's face twisted and pulled back, his eyes unable to keep out the fear he was feeling at how deep these things Ares was calling out were. How deep inside him they resonated despite how he had never thought hard about them himself. He shook while pale and bloody and feeling the pain of his broken bones all over his body, but he tried to refocus and ignore his enemy who was distracting him… "Maybe, I have felt that before. And I do hate it," Zach admitted, his voice scratchy and hoarse. It felt like the inside of his throat was ripped and bleeding, and he could taste that blood in his mouth and felt it in his lungs. "Constantly feeling it… but I was at war, and I killed because I- I had to. You just killed because-"

"I didn't even know if I would consider what you were doing a war," Ares mentioned, excitedly as if glad he had someone he could talk to this about who did not treat him like a God. "I wondered if my Quirk was getting stronger because of you, and I couldn't tell, because you changed the game! You fought an ideal that the world didn't think was possible to defeat, one that I still don't believe you could realistically do, and yet you convinced powerful person after capable person of your ability to do it. And that was your most impressive power. Your comrades were amazing! The best soldiers I've ever seen," Ares admitted with an impressed shake of his head that made Zach's face scrunch up at the compliments towards his dead friends who Ares was in such a huge part responsible for killing.

"It's all thanks to you," Ares added. "Turning them into the perfect warriors, far better than Eziano's who always feared him to so much an extent that he could never tell which of them really believed in his goals and God. It was all just… mediocre, when I compare it to the kind of dedication your comrades had that I wouldn't even call fanaticism. For them to be that dedicated though without being fanatics," Ares shook his head back and forth, then he looked straight back into Zach's eyes that were glaring back but full of more emotion and reacting to everything he was saying. Ares grinned as they were able to talk like this, and he called out at his new companion, "They were normal people! Villains, heroes, vigilantes, and just random civilians! Gladiators and test subjects and fucking slaves! I commend you for turning them all into extensions of your weapon. Part of your military might. You utilized each person to their fullest and never tossed them aside which made them even more dedicated."

"And when you did toss them aside, you even convinced yourself you didn't so that none of the others would realize that you had." Zach's face distorted in rage, as thoughts he had never let himself fully have suddenly blasted to the surface and distracted him. Getting distracted made him freeze up, and he re-locked his eyes with Ares in more thoughtful and angry manner, but also a tone like he was going to shout something important back. There was no need to make the shift in the way he was looking though, but he did so too intentionally because it was reaction at this point to focus on the task at hand whenever he started thinking something like that. It was the only way to keep himself sane, keep himself from accepting some of those things that were still too hard to think about.

The fact that he was refocusing on listening to Ares and giving him that kind of look, made Ares turn his head left and right and look around them. "What have you been doing all this time?" Ares wondered to the boy he continued to hold by the neck, slightly tighter now but soft enough to still give Zach a chance to make some sounds to explain himself. "I could have killed you a dozen times over, and yet you're just keeping it all out there for what? Is it to keep your friend from interrupting us?" Ares glanced back at Zach with a confused look. His look was not serious at all but just curious and a bit annoyed that Zach was more distracted than he had thought during their conversation there. His annoyance grew as he thought to himself about how he was the one doing more of the talking, and that maybe Zach's reactions were even just part of some strategy rather than the two of them conversing as equals.

"I never tossed-" Zach started arguing, making Ares squeeze tighter and dart a glare back at him for the boy trying to keep the conversation going even though he clearly just looked around and saw the darkness on all sides of them. It was all still so far away from them, but there were no more gaps in those thin shreds of Death that were spinning and pushing into each other. It was still clearly a thin wall of Death, but Zach had pulled it from several hundreds of meters away from them to only a few hundred feet of a radius from where the two hovered up over the surface.

"You did," Ares countered. He glared back at the boy and revealed, "And you drove yourself mad so as to convince yourself and everyone else that you wouldn't do such a thing. Just to keep being the perfect commander and warrior that you needed to be."

"You... _Fuck!_ Fine!" Zach sneered it out through a choked breath then wheezed inwards with the lack of breath he had, only for Ares to squeeze tighter as he continued to try yelling. Zach forced it out anyway, "But they- di _ed_ with, pur-pose!"

"You tell yourself that to feel better. But I lost more men than you can imagine in battle. More men in more wars than you can count… Do you think I look back on some empires the world doesn't even remember, and think that those people I fought with died for something important? No. None of it ever mattered. It never matters." Ares said that as an absolute. This time, Zach did not get angered or saddened or distraught or confused by Ares' words.

 _He's wrong._ Zach squinted open his eyes more and looked down his face at Ares in denial so strong it made Ares stop instead of repeating what he had just said so strongly. _Maybe your wars of the past, were for reasons that you look back on and feel mean nothing in hindsight. Ours is not that kind of war._ Zach's eyes opened more, stronger, and both of his fists clenched as he glared into Ares' cold gaze. "Are you getting concerned?" Zach asked in a raspy voice yet stronger now than it was before as he forced his words out in a single breath.

"I wonder why Deku hasn't flown up at us yet," Ares admitted at what Zach was calling him out on. There was some confusion he felt about his current surroundings. He added, "I admit your friend may give me some trouble at my current strength. That Midoriya Izuku seems like the kind of person who would have come and interrupted us to save his friend though."

 _I know that's why you stayed here longer even though I've been defeated already. Why even after noticing my long play, you just kept going on and on because you were glad I made those walls to keep Deku out. Because you wanted this time before you would have to now deal with Midoriya._ Ares narrowed his eyes a little though he seemed more interested than concerned as he stared into the boy's eyes, "Why hasn't he come to save you yet? He had time before you moved those walls closer."

Zach grinned and choked while opening his mouth as Ares gave him a tiny squeeze to make sure he was not going to try lying. The right corner of Zach's lip curled up with blood trailing down it to his chin where it dripped off. He stared out through eyes that had blood all around them on his lids and running down the corners from his forehead to his cheeks. And he rasped out of his squeezed throat, "You think you know me, so well, but Midoriya knows me better."

Ares looked back around him and noticed the thin veil of Death was moving fast. _Faster now,_ Ares realized, watching as it spun with more movement and each strand actually spinning around the sphere instead of just vibrating and moving back and forth in its area. Each individual piece of Death in the walls were moving far distances, sliding past each other and flying around and around. Ares' eyes shifted to his right and left, down and up, _As thin as it is, how can he move it so quickly? With so much control?_ Ares could see each of those individual pieces was not just moving at random, and his eyes shifted back to stare right into Zach's eyes that were squinted but showed a look back in them that Zach had seemingly lost before.

"Your final move then?" Ares wondered at the sight of Zach's look indicating he thought this was still an ongoing fight. "I'll say it, we're in a sphere of Death. Rapidly spinning around us and getting closer each second."

 _Move it faster. Keep it thin. Don't let him break through until it's all set up. Keep him here._ "You-"

Ares dropped Zach.

 _NOT YET!_

Zach's eyes widened but narrowed immediately while Ares was turning to his left. The God of War flew in a slow way towards the curved wall of Death off on his left side that did not react to him getting closer except to move slightly farther away from him. Ares could see in his peripherals that all of the walls of the round containment of Death had moved with the slow-moving wall that adjusted as he flew towards it. He stopped twenty feet from the wall, and he brought up his palms with them pressed together in front of his chest. White aura surrounded Ares' hands, but his head turned and he darted his eyes back behind him with them growing wider.

An arm made of steel with no fake skin on it had flown through a spinning black wall behind Ares in the direction the God had been floating towards. His turning gaze narrowed angrily at the dented arm flying straight at him, and he moved apart his palms to reach his right hand out towards that approaching prosthetic he was going to destroy for good this time rather than just dropping. That fist flying his way suddenly opened up though before it reached him, and Ares' eyes shot wider as five long wires shot out of the arm even faster than it had been flying.

 _A weapon Ares has never seen before,_ Zach imagined while dropping below. _I don't know how he spends all his time, but he was caught off guard by the functions of my arm before._

Ares reached up his arm he was going to block the fist with, and he slashed an open palm across the wires that had just wrapped around his face. Those broken wires fell and Ares glared to where he thought the arm would still be flying at him. His eyes darted down, and he pulled backwards but stopped and forced an aura out of his back as he was too close to the upper curve of the sphere that was repositioning on its own to try and keep him in the center. It continued to do that even as he flew closer to it intentionally to try and get Zach to pull some down to use it himself. However the boy flying up at him while gripping his left forearm with his right hand just screamed out with no Death around his body, "HHaaaaAAAH!"

Zach flew up dangling from his left arm that kept flying with a bright blue light coming out of its shoulder connecter jet. His own shoulder joint had bright glowing blue light coming off it as well, and Zach controlled his flying left arm to send him faster and up in front of Ares' body rather than straight at him. He then weakened the power of his arm while controlling the sphere around him with his mind to move it farther so they were centered in the middle, and with the sphere at a smaller version now than earlier it was easier to move it faster and all at once. The speed he had risen brought him to a stop as he reached the top of his arc, and he swung his left arm down with his right hand and threw it at Ares who swung his right arm across the front of his body to smash apart that arm-

Zach's prosthetic arm suddenly sped up again right before Ares' arm was going to cut through it, making Ares miss instead and the slash from his force to fly at the wall of the sphere forty five feet from him now at almost a radius of the sphere. Ares' eyes darted to his right side as the arm flew past him faster thanks to an increase in power from the shoulder joint, but he lost focus on the arm that changed directions below him. His eyes focused towards where his slash had just cut through part of the spinning sphere of Death. That wall had quickly closed back in because of how fast all the Death was moving on all sides of them. That was to be expected though. That _was_ what Ares suspected Zach's intentions were with this last ditch attempt: that Zach had the Death moving so quickly so that even if Ares cut or punched a hole through it he would be able to fill it in quickly and still get Ares with some Death before he managed to fly all the way out.

Ares believed in his own speed and ability to get through in the split second he could open up the trap for. When he saw that opening though, his own heart raced faster. His eyes darted back to Zach as soon as the wall closed up, and Zach yanked Death from the spinning sphere above him down to his body again for more personal use now that Ares had clearly seen it. Even though a slice had been made splitting that thin inner spinning wall of Death, Ares had only seen black on the other side of it.

Zach wrapped his body up in Death again, and he pointed his arms forward and fired five small tendrils from each hand that shot at Ares and made him start dodging around in an ever-shrinking sphere of darkness. The sphere of Death around them shrank more, but Ares noticed as it did that it was not getting any thicker. Earlier it had gotten to a point where it fully surrounded them on all four sides, above, and below. Once it hit that point that it blocked them from seeing anything outside though, it stopped getting any thicker and just started moving faster. The fact that it was getting so much closer should have meant that the Death was condensing more too though, but now he realized where the majority of that Death had been going.

More Death from the inner sphere flew to Zach's back, but with the sphere shrinking as much as it did, Ares knew the creation of Zach's wings only took a portion of the Death that left their shrinking ball of confinement. Zach flew down where Ares was dodging some of his thin attacks, and Ares slammed his right fist down at the bottom of the sphere. He broke through it, only to see Death on the other side. His fist had covered in a white aura and he had slammed it so hard that it forced a funnel of wind down as it broke through the spinning black sphere. That spiraling wind kept the Death from immediately filling the hole, but Ares watched as the force of his punch dented down on the outer and thicker wall of Death slightly separated by the inner sphere with the small gap between.

The force of Ares' punch dented the bottom of the outer sphere out, but that outer wall was moving fast too. As the bubble bulged outwards on the enormous sphere of Death Midoriya was watching from the outside in sheer awe, the inside of the sphere regained form quicker than that bulge flattened back out. Ares shot around the inside of the sphere that still did not collapse in or pull any strands towards him that would weaken the inner walls before whatever Zach was leading up to. Ares punched and kicked as he flew around and around the inside of the sphere, but each time he tore through the spinning walls he saw thicker black walls around it that were moving faster now too despite having so much more Death than that inner containment that he had not been worried about because of how thin the combining wisps had been.

 _Even if he pulled it this close and kept it that thin, the outer version shouldn't be as thick as it is!_ Ares spun to Zach and growled, slamming his arms together in a crossed motion in front of his body that created an explosion of force too much for the smaller tendrils Zach still had chasing his opponent. It was not enough to do anything more than slow Zach for a moment himself though, as the boy now covered in armor around his joints and with strong wings sticking out of his back flapped them harder to accelerate at his enemy.

Zach punched his right arm and extended it out fully black ten feet but right past the side of Ares' head that his enemy yanked away still too fast for him. That arm broke apart and sped into the spinning Death around them that Ares could not see was actually looking thicker because although it was still thin on the inside, Zach was shrinking the gap between that inner sphere and the Death he had all around it. Ares kicked upwards and then extended that foot out in a jab with a beam of white shooting out of it and straight into Zach's chest where the boy shrouded it full of Death so thick that the beam ripped straight through and out his back without Zach slowing down.

Zach elbowed forward for Ares' face, and a splash of Death came out of the spinning wall behind them, and Ares had to fly up in the air to dodge rather than counter. He rose both hands and created two more spheres of white energy, grinding his teeth and then shouting in an impressed way, "It's really another full sphere around the inner one! How? How did you manage that?!" Ares threw one of the energy balls down that grew immensely in size in a moment.

 _He thinks it's all equally distributed now after those tests he did all around the trap. Now I can make it thicker in individual parts, but not where he threw that one. That's the distraction. The next is for where he's going to chase it out._ Zach flew around the sphere of energy and then he spun and kicked his left leg fully shrouding in darkness into the second sphere that Ares threw at him instead of at one of the other walls like he expected. Zach kicked it as hard as he could while making his leg fully Death but also solid- Ares curled his right hand into a fist and made a white explosion of energy that Deku could hear outside of the spinning black spheres and coincided with a flinch in the spinning darkness.

A flinch was all that the blast made though, and Zach recreated his destroyed wings as he fell to the bottom of his spinning sphere that Ares was dropping down after him towards. The so-called God of War pulled back his legs that he was dropping for a double-kick into Zach's unprotected body, as the spinning wall below Zach rose up and connected with him. Ares darted his eyes up above expecting the ceiling to rise as well when the ground rose, but the sphere shrank faster now. His eyes shot to either side, while Zach righted his burnt body in the air down below with a deadly smirk covering his face.

The inner circle of Death was spinning so fast that it closed up any gaps made as Ares forced his aura out around him to test if any sides had weakened Death compared to the rest. "You can't get out of here, Ares!" Zach yelled up, his voice more victorious now and making Ares dart his eyes down and stare right back completely focused now and full of the intensity of a fight. _It's too late!_ Zach thought then shouted, "This never could have worked! Not when I started it!" The sphere spun around faster and faster around them but stopped shrinking in for a moment. It just spun around wildly in all directions while Ares floated in the direct center of it, Zach standing on the bottom curve of the sphere with the darkness below him holding him up now and spinning up around his body as well while flooding him back full of its power.

"This trap started when you were far too strong for it to work," Zach snapped, his tone knowing and smug as he glared down his enemy just up above him. "It wouldn't work unless I managed to weaken you much more than the strength you were at when I started this attack several minutes ago. But I did weaken you. And I've gained much more control over my Death with the small amount I have left which is _SO_ much easier to control than the vast depths of Limiter 0. I can control it because there's _only_ this much to control at once!"

Shouting how it was "only" this much was amazing in itself, because "this much" was still an enormous amount of Death to be controlling individual strands of in such a coordinated effort. Ares had witnessed his enemy barely able to control all this power only thirty minutes ago, losing control of it and wasting so much as his huge bodies could not be fully utilized by a single mind. The fight had gone on long enough that both of their powers had weakened, and yet Zach shouted how that put him at the advantage and Ares could see this was no empty boast. His eyes darted all around, but Zach yelled at him, "It doesn't matter which direction you ultimately decide on! It's all equally distributed!"

Zach's eyes glowed red once again. His body fully covered in Death, and Zach growled, "Two massive spheres. One inner one that you can cut and try to fly out of, but a thicker and larger one behind it that you never saw coming. Because it's not just the Death from the inner sphere that pulled back and added to it, but the reserves that created the foundation of it the _instant_ I created the inner wall! Before I even started shrinking it- as soon as it got close enough that you could not see outside it!"

"WHEN?!"

"THE SECOND I NOTICED YOU FIRST DODGE DEATH!" Zach roared, speaking on over half the fight ago. Much farther back than he even started coming up with this trap. His body was beaten and bloody and had broken bones inside. He had been fighting with no Death while using his remaining power for the start of this trap, and yet Ares heard this and realized that the "reserves" Zach had put aside were to be used only in his final and finishing move. That he had separated a chunk of himself back when he still had so much of Limiter 0 to use, meant that it was an unknown amount of Death inside that thicker wall outside that he had not seen gathering to judge how much was in it.

Even while the inner parts of the sphere had looked shaky and thin, even when Zach had been allowing his body to get broken while letting Ares believe that the trap was nothing more than the inner sphere he was surrounding them with, Zach had refrained from fully believing in this plan. _If Ares had left- there's no point._ He knew there was no purpose in considering the other options he had planned out in case this failed; in case Ares flew out of the trap and he had just allowed that much damage to be done to himself for no reason when he could have been using that Death to protect himself. There was no reason to even think about those contingencies now. They faded into the back of his mind while his teeth ground and the corners of his lips pulled back down and just apart with the rage shown in his bared teeth. The Death around him got thicker and hid his broken femur and ribs under the blacker Death.

 _Super move._ Zach's breath sucked in and his left arm attached to his body out of nowhere. He rose up his arms at his sides, while Ares' body suddenly surrounded in bright white light with his own arms rising and glowing with bright auras of white energy. That energy started to glow blue, but Zach pulled his arms faster than he was going to let Ares charge anything. **"Death Trap: IMPLOSION!"** The Death below him flooded up his sides and made him vanish inside an ocean of fast-moving Death all condensing in on a single point.

Up through the Death waves all pulling towards a single point, a sword shot across the sky and sliced through the outer wall. It cut through fast, but that wall was so thick already that while pulling in, it filled the space of the split before the hilt connected with Ares' right hand inside the condensing Death that slammed into his aura-shrouded body. Death pounded Ares from all sides, and the multi-thousand year old God rose his sword up over his head while his aura raged around him like a flame. "RRAAAAA!" Ares slammed his sword down and he cut a hole through the Death ahead of him.

Ares shot forward, and all of the Death flew after him and filled in that hole. It battered him from all sides into his white aura, but he saw the other side of the hole even if that was filling in faster than the rest of the tunnel. He just slashed his sword forward again and cut through it, only for a pair of black arms to reach up when he was just about to fly out of that hole. Zach grabbed Ares by the legs right through the man's white hot aura, and he gripped his hands in tightly as Ares let out a scream. Ares spun his body while keeping up his momentum.

Midoriya was scanning his eyes back and forth rapidly across the sky where all that Death just convened and was imploding and then bursting back out all over as it could not be condensed any more than it was. His eyes shot across the broken sphere to the left though, as a hole ripped through it and Ares came flying out, slashing his sword down and cutting off Zach's arms that had him gripped by the legs. The slash was so strong it tore those arms completely into black shreds, and Zach's real arms came pulsing out of his shoulders as a trail of Death followed him like a flare coming from the wild Death Sun behind him. All that power pulled after Zach as fast as he and Ares were moving, making a cone of darkness that spun after them and pulled directly into Zach's back.

Zach slashed his right arm up with a black sword in it that Ares parried, then another all-black Zach leaned up out of Zach's upper back with two more swords gripped in his hands he was slashing down. Two other Zachs came out of the one that rose up out of Zach's back, with another pulsing out of the one that ripped to the left only looking less human and more demonic as those bodies had been turning each time they separated. Ares swung his arms fast but slower than ever before. He sliced through black swords or parried them away if they were harder, and he punched his left fist forward that took most of his aura with him and blew a hole straight through the connecting point of Zach's back and the rest of his bodies ripping out of him.

All that aura that Ares brought to his left hand at once exploded after flying through Zach's upper back-neck. It exploded in the connection point between all the Death remaining that Zach had imploded on them, and Zach himself who was blown forward by the explosion but slashed two swords across the front of his body using all the Death from his breaking extra forms. Those bodies turned into the two black swords Zach needed to parry Ares' sword backwards this time, stronger than Ares was swinging unlike all the other times right there when Ares had been overpowering Zach's swings.

Zach parried Ares back then dropped the swords and punched forward faster than he would have been able to swing again and catch Ares while his arms were moved from a guard position. Ares could have been able to move fast enough to get his sword back in time to block or parry or redirect Zach's next sword attacks, but Zach's black blades just hovered in midair as Zach slammed both fists down onto Ares' shoulders and dropped his enemy out of the air with his punches.

Then the rest of the Death from behind that last explosion shot through the smoke and hit Zach in the back with the biggest boost of all time. He flew out of the air far faster than he had just sent Ares dropping. Ares slashed his sword up with his right hand. His left hand grabbed the hilt too at how hard he saw Zach swinging down both swords he had gripped again as soon as he finished punching downwards, right as that explosion of Death was hitting him in the back. Zach swung the left sword down faster though and hit Ares' blade with the same speed Ares was swinging up at him, then he passed by the collision point of their crossing blades and caught Ares on the left side of his chest using the black sword in his right hand.

As he was cutting there though, Zach flooded all the excess Death he had for protection and aura and wings and whatever absorbed into him as the explosion hit his back, straight into the sword in his left hand that had collided with Ares' blade. Ares thought the sword cutting into him in Zach's right hand would be the one all this excess power moved to, but Zach put it all into the left blade that Ares was just trying to push past to knock away the right sword before Zach could fill it with power. It was a fatal mistake he realized the moment the sword he tried to push past suddenly shot the other way so much harder than he was expecting or able to withstand. Zach knocked his sword out of his hands while also knocking both his arms to the side and completely opening up his chest and stomach and face and neck.

He was completely undefended. Unguarded. Zach's slash with his right sword that had already cut through skin in a shallow way had finished and the one he slashed with his left was done as well. Both of his swords lifted up while Ares' arms were being pushed away and his body twisting. Zach's legs dropped down below him faster though and wrapped around Ares' waist with the bottoms of his legs transforming into claws that gripped the God's hips. He kept Ares from spinning so that his front was still facing upwards as they shot out of the air ever closer to the ground. Zach rose up both of his swords with no Death on the rest of his body other than his claw legs and on the hands gripping his flaring swords so powerful and strong and distributed evenly now as the blades passed Death between them when Zach rose them and crossed them like that.

Ares leaned his head up and let out a roar, _**"RROOOAAA!"**_

 _ **"RRRAAAAAA**_ **AA** _ **AA**_ **AA!"** Zach screamed right back down as he leaned his head down towards Ares' face and as he slashed both of his swords down insanely fast across Ares' upper body. Blood splashed out of Ares as an X was carved through him. The swords were hard enough in their core to cut through his diamond strong skin, but there was enough flaring darkness around them that it flooded into the gashes as they were made and right into Ares' bloodstream as the two of them slammed into the ground.

Midoriya stood frozen in place as the ground shook below him again. He stared towards where all the dust and smoke and Death blew up around the two who slammed into the ground. His feet started moving that way. _He was losing. I was going to step in, but I saw that Death that snaked by me. He was controlling it._ Midoriya's heart pounded and he was breathing heavy as he jogged towards that smoke, and he slowed down as he stared into it at the one silhouette standing over the other imbedded into the ground.

 _ **"Stay out of this… Get the fuck out of my way. You don't stand a chance."**_ Midoriya was reminded of those words as Zach's face became clearer in the fading smoke around where they had smashed down. The sky above them thundered and cracked, the clouds shaking and swirling around fastest right above them now. There were fissures all over the ground in the part of the range they were in. Chunks of mountains lay scattered around them in pieces of all sizes. Dead trees completely blackened lay uprooted underneath ten thousand ton boulders. The sky flashed with light from a bolt of lightning that shot across the sky and branched out as it flew down and struck a mountain in eight different places. Despite that light, everything in front of Midoriya was tinted black by the swirling darkness that hovered above Zach's body and at the top of his right hand that was risen above him.

Zach's feet were on either side of the man he stood over. He was panting heavily and glaring down as he wheezed in and out, his legs wobbly and filling him with the worst agony as he put weight on a broken femur. He stayed standing though. His skin was pale as blood dripped off his chin and down his nearly bare body. Zach stood with his body covered in lines of red and black, hunched forward and seeming larger despite not having that much Death around it. He seemed to grow even more while he held up the massive sword in his right hand, that he flipped around and ripped all the darkness out of the air to pull solely into that blade.

The sky all around the sword blackened. The tint spread in all directions and despite there not actually being Death surrounding Midoriya, he felt _dark_ at the color that just shrouded them. The ground around Zach's feet started turning black, and it became less solid as bubbles of darkness boiled all over the land out from where Zach was standing but out from around Ares' body rather than towards him. Ares coughed and squinted open his eyes for the first time after smashing into the ground and creating the crater below him that so many cracks had broken off from.

"I can't, believe I was, defeated," Ares opened his eyes a little more and stared up into the dark red ones looking down at him. Swirls of pitch blackness spun around in those red orbs, as Zach's body seemed to grow even more with his face twisting in a demonic way. Black lines cut across his face line veins and pulled off the edges and back behind his head, flaring over him with his hair that waved around looking like Death itself. Wind blew around Zach's body and his aura flared while his sword gave off a feeling of pure _death._ "For the first time, in all of history," Ares could feel it down in the X-shaped gashes crossing his chest that so much Death had absorbed directly into.

"You truly are a God-" Ares started up.

"I am not the God of Death!" Zach screamed out, raising his left hand up to the hilt he held over himself too. The weapon shook in his hands and his legs vibrated harder as the ground all around him seared and bubbled with Death. "Just as you are not-"

"If you strike me down, you will be ALONE!" Ares roared up at the boy holding that sword up higher over him. "One day you will find yourself, the only one left in this world!" Ares yelled, panting as he made it out and leaned his head up to call it at the teenager glaring in such murderous rage down at him. "You and I, we could be-"

 **"YOU, are a _MONSTER!"_** Zach bellowed, his voice rippling out and causing shifts in the wind around him. The mountains seemed to tremble beneath his voice, as he roared that out in the most hate Midoriya had ever heard anyone scream in.

"Zach," Midoriya whispered. His feet picked back up again, _What am I doing?!_ "Zach!" Midoriya screamed out, running towards his friend who was holding that sword of Death over his defeated enemy.

Zach's teeth slammed together at the faint sound of his name shouted in the background. His eyes did not leave the man down below whose head lowered back down to the ground as he saw that look in Zach's gaze. Ares coughed a few more times, and then his lips curled up into a regretful and even _pitying_ smile. He looked up at Zach as the boy held up a black sword full of all his power, a sword that was changing the environment around them from how condensed the Death inside it was. A blade more powerful than Ares had ever seen before. Zach rose up that blade the highest he could get it, his teeth grinding back and forth as all the wind around him slammed into his face and pushed the Death even harder back behind him.

"You may not yet accept that you are the God of Death," Ares started, his voice raising in volume as Zach's hands gripped tightly around the blade and made Death flare off it so hard that Midoriya stumbled while running forward at the shake of the world around them. Ares leaned his body up though as Zach started screaming out, and he declared in a yell, "But you kill me now, and you _ARE_ the GOD OF WAR! HAAAA…"

Zach did not care. Maybe it was a trick because Ares thought that he did not want to become a God so it would keep him alive. Maybe it was just one final taunt. Whatever it was, he did not know. He did not care. Zach tilted his head back and rose his sword in a swift motion up, and Midoriya sped up rushing in, yelling out, "ZACH! STOP!"

Zach brought down his blade though. **"You are** _ **NO**_ **God! NOW DIE!** _**AREEESSSS! RRaaaAAAAAAHHH…"**_

Zach slammed the sword through Ares' chest, piercing his heart and the ground below him. Ares whole body jolted and his screamed grew louder, "HAAAAAAAA…" He was a screamer, and his head leaned upwards higher as Zach impaled him, as he smiled while letting out the loudest scream of pain or just a yell into Zach's face. He survived more Death than anyone ever had, but injected directly into his heart with that much…

The ground below broke apart when Zach's blade slammed through underneath Ares' body. Midoriya stumbled and fell to his right knee, his eyes widening in horror as he stared only ten meters ahead of him. All of the darkness and Death around them pulled into a single point and shot right into Ares' body. Then came the shockwave out from Ares' form as he roared out in pain, his power erupting out and making the ground that had just cracked so much worse from the already separate explosions and shocks lift up and drop down at different elevations. Then all the shifting ground stopped moving as the pulse of energy that just pushed Midoriya's body back on one knee and forced him to cross his arms, pulled back the other direction towards a man who just fell silent.

The sky stopped moving. The clouds stopped swirling and two bolts of lightning froze in midair. The silence was shattering. Midoriya had been pushed back by the shockwave, but the pull forward of all that force had literally yanked him back to his feet and made him stumble closer to Zach. He froze like everything else though as all that Death and all that power pulled directly into Ares' body. Zach's body had shrank down and even the sword he was still gripping was barely a fraction of what it was before, a shimmering dark sliver that got hazy and broke apart as the atmosphere around Ares' unmoving body became unstable.

Zach was staring straight down at Ares' face whose mouth that stayed open had no noise coming out anymore. His eyes were rolled back and not a sound escaped him in the deafening silence around them. All that pulse of energy pulled back into Ares' body, and Zach could feel what was at the bottom of his sword now that Ares' heart had stopped. All the Death plunged down started pulling backwards into that sword. Zach turned his head slowly to the left as Midoriya scrambled to steady himself and then backpedaled fast at that look in Zach's eyes. _"Run,"_ Zach's single word of warning came right as the eruption of power exploded from Ares body and all the Death shot up the sword Zach had piercing through him.

The explosion shredded the stone below them at nearly a molecular level. The rocks turned to pebbles turned to dust, as Midoriya's legs bent and he jumped back the other way with his arms raising up to protect from the blast of force that came out of Ares as he died. He landed and stumbled backwards, busy punching his fists forward rapidly and destroying the huge chunks of rock that tore out of the ground ahead of him and flew at him fast enough that they were tearing long trenches through the ground. That ground was breaking apart more and flying out in all directions around Zach and Ares, and the force from the God's death broke the ground deeper and deeper, sending a force of a bomb blowing out in all directions.

Midoriya could not keep up with all the rocks and smaller debris that were flying at him, blinding him as those small dust particles got in his eyes. He crossed his arms in front of him and planted his feet down to try and keep from getting thrown by the force, but it still made him skid backwards through the floor dragging up a trench far far back with even more rocks being dragged up by his heels that he dug in harder. He did not feel any more huge rocks slamming into him, only a few smaller ones and pebbles that his body managed to take without them breaking through his skin, but it was the force of the explosion itself that hit him with the brunt and made him gasp out at a loss of breath.

There was barely any heat in the blast, but it was still one of the strongest explosions Midoriya had ever felt in his life, and he was childhood friends with Bakugo Katsuki. The explosion passed him though. It flew by and Midoriya brought his right arm in front of his eyes, wincing as there was still a gash on his upper arm there but using the arm to shield his eyes as he started to open them. He needed to be careful, and he had to rub his eyes and blink over and over. They were watering and that tearing up of his eyes pushed out the dust particulate that had gotten in them. His eyes still stung and his vision was blurry, but it gradually cleared as he lowered his arm and stared through settling dust towards where he saw a dark shadow hunched forward with several long black wisps seeping off of him.

The rumbling of the ground stopped, but Deku watched as that dark form pulsed and pulsed with the pitch black aura that surrounded it. Midoriya lowered his arms more and stood back up straight with his eyes shaking as he panted over and over. He stared ahead towards the shadow in the smoke. A wheezing shadow wisping with dark tendrils that moved higher up in the air to snake up to ten meters above him. A dark form that started turning its head in Midoriya's way, looked him in the eyes with pitch black ones of its own…

And smiled.

* * *

 **A/N _WOMMM WOMMM_ XD Thanks for reading guys. Crazy long chapter, one of the longest I've ever written (again). Zach vs Ares ends with a massive bang, but what comes now? ... Find out next time! Anyway, onto a more serious note. I was able to reread this chapter, edit, and post today because I've decided to stop going to work. Just stocked up and am going to isolate myself for now on. To anyone living in areas near people already suspected or confirmed of contracting the coronavirus, be careful. Pharmacies near me are already sold out of surgical masks, had to drive 30 mins just to get a couple boxes. I'm stocking up on supplies and food and maybe I am just overreacting, but if a week from now people I was dealing with at work (and I have to meet and interact with hundreds on a daily basis), start showing symptoms, then I'll have been exposed to the virus during the incubation period where it's still contagious. On the positive side, hopefully that means I can start writing faster again and uploading with more speed than these once a week updates I've slowed down to recently (though the length of these chapters has been a factor to that). Also, RIP Kobe and the others in that chopper crash today. RIP those who the virus has gotten already. Hope y'all aren't bugging out as much as I have been. And just stay safe guys. Back to our imaginary world (more fun to escape to), I do hope you enjoyed the chapter! Leave a review below telling me what you think, comments, questions, and predictions for what is to come now... And review responses:**

papaprep chapter 213 . Jan 15

eziano is a mystical supernatural untouchable super-assassin... ahahahhaha

 **XD Glad you liked that line, and the plot twist at the end there! Hope you enjoyed the new chapter and thanks for reviewing!**

AMR-MNR chapter 213 . Jan 14

Well shit. I guess a new cataclysm has come up on the horizon! The god of War and the god of Death come together for a faithful brawl, yet who will win?! It's a fight that will go down in history!  
. . . Literally. Zach being taller than the clouds and expunging this much death in such a battle will bring the world's eye upon them. And seeing the power of these two individuals, as well as the possible presence of other such immortals, the people of earth may just question their own existence.

 **The God of Death takes it, though now Ares has declared him the God of War too right at the end... As for bringing the world's eye to them, a few of you guys mentioned thinking this was going to happen. We don't know what'll happen yet with that, but I set up the Muindo Mountains last chapter as an explanation for why this fight was not going to be interrupted, and even with that establishing setting we still had Wonder Man thinking about rushing in... until mountains were literally destroyed in front of him. XD Thanks for the review, and hope you liked the battle!**

Super Power Sensei chapter 213 . Jan 17

WHAT THE FUCK WHAT THE FUCK WHAT THE FUCK WHAT THE FUCK WHAT THE FUCK! WHAAAAAAT! THE! FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK! ARE YOU FUCKING WITH ME AUTHOR-SAMA!? ARE YOU JUST TROLLING AGAIN?! WHAT IS HAPPENING!? WHY IS HAPPENING!? IS THIS AN ILLUSION!? DREAM!? HOW COULD SOMEONE LIKE THIS EXIST?!  
AAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHH-[CONTINUES TO GO NUTS AT 3a.m.][Calms down eventually]

 **As always, thanks for the long review! Glad you got super hyped by the last chapter and hope this lived up to it! XD The job was going pretty good, btw, until today. Woke up to more cases in the US and was just like... "Nah. Done with going outside and interacting with people. Much better to finally edit and post that chapter." :P so yeah, you wrote a lot of stuff in that review that Ares talks a lot about during this chapter where he meets his long awaited companion... who doesn't feel the same kind of way about him. Eziano resisting Death too, it's always been shown that the stronger characters are more resistant to it, but Ares took that to a whole other level this chapter. In the end, Death worked on him as well though. Anyway, thanks again for reviewing, and hope you enjoyed the battle!**

Anon chapter 213 . Jan 15

I'll bet my left pinky toe that Raijin is the lightning god.

 **Couple of you mentioned this as well, just wanted to remind you guys that in the chapter where Kaminari betrays them (86), he says that on his way out. Tells them they can call him by that name: Raijin, after the God of Lightning. Thanks for the reviews guys! Hope y'all enjoyed the chapter. And I've already gotten started on work on the next one, so hopefully I get that out before next weekend!**


	215. Chapter 215

**Disclaimer: I don't own Boku no Hero Academia**

 **Chapter 215:**

Ares was dead. Eziano and all his assassins too. Every one of their enemies was defeated, so why? Why, Midoriya asked himself, did lightning fly out of the sky up above and the loudest crack of thunder he had ever heard rupture his eardrums with its blast. He flinched at the sound of that cannon in the clouds, but his eyes did not move to look up when what he was staring at was so…

 _Haven't lost too much blood. The cut on my arm is still bleeding but only because it just reopened, and the cut on my face scabbed up-_ Midoriya's thoughts jolted at the realization that he was doing a status report on himself and checking to see how ready he was to fight. He had lost his shirt and wore nothing from his torn pant legs down just about at his knees. His upper right arm was looking brown from the blood and dirt smeared around it that had mostly dried, though some new red was getting over that dried stuff now. And he had a slash on the left side of his face diagonally up from his cheek to the outside of his eye and into his hairline.

Izuku Midoriya lowered his gaze down. He stared at a form on the ground that was frozen with its body leaning up and its hands gripped into the cracked floor at its sides. That body was completely gray, and a gust of wind flew harder into the body and cracked it all over. The arms broke and its upper body fell, and when that body hit the ground too hard only a few inches below where it was leaning up, it could no longer keep its form.

Zach glanced down but lifted his head as the wind blew the gray ash away. **"Time caught up to him."** Zach looked back down and saw nothing where Ares just lay. The body that had collapsed into nothingness was gone, leaving a black scorch mark below him at the bottom of the split earth they had dropped down to. Even though the bedrock was much harder this far down, there were still cracks all over it. That surface looked pretty solid in comparison to the rest of the mountain range in view of him though. His eyes rose and he looked to his right and his left. The red-tinted world had cracks all over it. _**Bu-dump-Bu-dump-Bu-dump.**_ _What is that? My heart's, in my chest. It's pretty fast. It's this swell. It doesn't know how to handle it. Have to leave it there though. And my brain. All vital organs. Oh yeah. That's right, brain. Hypothalamus._

Midoriya gulped. He stared ahead and watched as the dark figure who had smiled at him before looking back down at Ares' body was now gazing around the mountains as if admiring his work. They were in the middle of a crater. Neither of them were wearing much besides for the pants that remained between their waists and knees, though even those pant legs were tattered above the knees and had strands of material waving off them. Zach stopped looking around and just tilted his head back though, letting out a breath of air that seeped high into the sky. The black breath twisted and started snaking around before flying straight up all the way into the clouds above.

 _ **"Hahaha…"**_

"Zach," Midoriya started. The figure ahead of him stood still and kept looking up for another second. Then his head started to lower. He lowered it down and stared towards Deku with his eyes glowing bright red. His entire body was shrouded in Death, a thin veil but one apparently thick enough that his bones were not visible through it. The way Zach was moving though… Midoriya glanced at a leg he thought was supposed to be broken yet Zach did not struggle to stand on now. _Killing rejuvenates him. Those broken bones. The injuries he sustained in that fight,_ Midoriya locked his eyes with Zach's red ones. His lips flattened out, and he started walking towards the dark figure-

Zach's lips curled down. The black veil over his face showed the movement. Midoriya froze after his second step, as Zach's body turned fully to face him and bent its legs at that same moment. His knees started to bend and he glared into Deku's eyes. _**"RRrrrrr…"**_ A low guttural growl came from the dark figure ahead of Midoriya. He stared with his eyes growing wider as the darkness around Zach started swirling and bulging on different parts of his body. Zach hunched forward and his arms that got thicker in that last bulge dropped to the floor like front legs on a four-legged beast. Dark spikes came all out of Zach's widening back and the top of his head, making him look furry but with spiky fur all down his body.

"Zach- Zach stop!" Midoriya rushed a few more steps closer to Zach and held his hands up defensively at his friend who stopped growling and just glared darker at him. "Are you-" Midoriya stopped asking if Zach was alright when the growls stopped, when Zach just rose his head with a darker look on that black face that no longer appeared as animalistic. "Zach, do you understand where you are-"

"I do," Zach glared harder at Midoriya. He stood back up on his thick hind legs and shrank back down a little, though he continued to stay covered in a strong aura that looked threatening and evil. "You were coming for me, so I got ready to stop you. Or is that not your goal right now?" Zach's voice came out as a dark hiss, malice laced through it and his eyes flaring brighter red as he glared down his old classmate. Midoriya's head leaned back, and Zach stomped a foot closer to him, "The assassins are all _dead._ You came here to stop it, and you failed. You failed at stopping me from killing too. All you seem to do lately is fail."

Midoriya flinched and a hurt look flashed over his face for a moment. He leaned back at the sneer Zach made at him, then he straightened back up and stared down the darker figure ahead of him. Zach cocked his head to the side at Midoriya's look, and he stepped closer to him with his body growing larger and pulsing with darkness again. _Keep it outside._ Death swirled around Zach and his smirking mug, shrouding him in a spinning cloud that moved quickly but left a gap between him and Midoriya every second or two so as to allow his friend to see his face. Zach smirked violently with his eyes narrowing and his head leaning forward, "But I already told you. I won't be coming easily. You can't let me go, can you? Then come on."

Zach beckoned him forth and his fists balled at his sides, shaking as he stared down his old friend whose face got more serious but was not getting any angrier like Zach's was getting. _There's only one way this can end now,_ Zach's heart pounded, and he ground his teeth while shrouding his hands in most of the Death that swirled on the inside of the small funnel surrounding him. In the moments where the gap appeared in his swirling aura, his fists could be seen getting covered in more raging flames of darkness. He smiled madly and leaned forward, _I have to go all out. It's the only way. I'll force you!_ "Get ready Midoriya," Zach snarled. His eyes filled with rage, flaring red and his body tensing up as he leaned forward more. "I'm going to-"

"What are you doing?" Midoriya asked. He said it suddenly, interrupting Zach in a tone that made Zach freeze and lean backwards. The tone was nowhere close to as intense and on-the-verge as Zach's voice had just been, showing Midoriya was in no way ready to defend himself or attack or anything of the sort. Midoriya's question made Zach stop, his voice freezing and the Death around him stopping its spinning movements around his body.

Zach shrank back down to practically the same height as the other teen staring at him. All of the Death around him vanished, and Zach's eyes were back to normal too. He stared at Deku with his own expression having lost all its intensity as well. He could not even convince himself of it anymore, after Midoriya's question yanked him out of the illusion that this _was_ happening. _He doesn't believe me,_ Zach stared Deku down more monotonously than before. He spoke in a deadpan voice, "My bones healed, mostly." Zach rose his right hand with little effort and he rubbed it over parts of his head that had opened up, only to feel nothing there. On his forehead there was not even a scar where his skin had opened up from an earlier headbutt. Some of his hair was still missing where he had been cut on the side of his skull, but the wounds were gone. "My external injuries sealed up nicely as well."

The boy examining himself continued to his old classmate, "I just fought the hardest fight of my life, and I won. I killed Ares. I didn't have to." He said that curtly and then narrowed his eyes again in a darker way at Deku who grit his teeth at what Zach was saying to him, "I killed him though, because I wanted to. And now I'm feeling better. Ares killed all the assassins too, so I get to avoid the world ever finding out the truth. No one will ever believe you. Not when I deny it all." Zach stared down the curlier-haired boy who grit his teeth harder and balled his fists at that statement that had his stomach tying in knots inside him.

Izuku shook his head though. His eyes were angry for a moment but they got softer and just more frustrated than anything. He watched as Zach continued in less an evil voice than he had been using before and more just a flat tone, "You understand now, don't you? I am the most powerful. In the entire world." Zach said it as a matter of fact and less that he was boasting. He just spoke the words and then glared at Deku in a harsher way, "And you can't hold a candle to me. You couldn't even take part in that fight. You couldn't save those villains you so desperately spent your time protecting. And you know you can't stop me so you're giving up before you even try?"

Zach's taunt felt dry. He heard it coming out of his own mouth and it sounded empty to him. He trailed off after it and just became quiet as Midoriya stared at him in a way showing he was not being drawn into Zach's pace. A few things were getting reactions out of him, but Midoriya's expression remained stern and just focused… Though Zach saw something else barely hidden in his eyes that frustrated him to no end. Zach bit down then snapped, "I can feel a new kind of strength within me." The corners of his lips pulled up at his cheeks and he shook his head while Midoriya stared him down, "Something new, and _exciting…"_ Zach grit his teeth again and he glared down at the floor while his mouth was still twisted up in a smile. "I'm not- lying," Zach admitted, looking back up at Midoriya with his smiling mouth shaking, but his eyes scared as he denied the look on Midoriya's face that was telling him all it needed to.

Midoriya's eyes widened this time though, as Zach's tone actually sounded like he was telling the truth about not lying. Deku started shaking his head. "Zach," Midoriya started in a low voice. "You shouldn't have killed him-"

"No prison could have held him," Zach snarled back.

"He was defeated. On his back and," Midoriya paused as Zach's eyes shook and glared at him so hatefully.

"No prison could have held him," Zach repeated in a deeper snarl. "He killed, _billions._ And you still… what? What is justice for him? Fuck! It doesn't even matter!" Zach yelled it before his classmate could answer. Zach leaned forward and yelled, "You couldn't have held him, just like you can't hold me! No prison can!" Zach roared it and glared furiously at the curly-haired boy who pulled his head back with his eyes growing huge as Zach yelled that his way. Zach's eyes filled with rage at the pity he saw get less masked in Midoriya's gaze, and he snapped loudly, "I won't let you arrest me! I've told you that, and if I'm down in prison on my own accord and Kaminari or Shigaraki appears, I'm going to leave and go fight them! No prison can hold- No! I won't even go to jail! I WON'T! No one can force me to. No one can push their judgement on me…"

"I am the one who judges."

Zach's head bowed forward as he paused after saying that. His eyes rose slowly to state into Deku's huge eyes. "Don't you get it, Midoriya?" Zach asked, his voice low and oozing ominous feeling that filled Deku and made him gulp. "I've killed before and I will kill again. I promise you that. I make good on my promises," Zach added with an even darker look at the teen who stood up straighter and started narrowing his eyes back towards him. "So if you let me go, after I've told you this, then those deaths are on _you._ And right now, I have no idea how many more people I'm going to kill." Zach tilted his head back, "Kaminari? Shigaraki? They're dead for sure. All For One will die the second I see him."

"And if you try to stop me, I'll go somewhere that people accept me and all I do," Zach added. He added it and rose his voice, "Where I don't have to spend my days on the streets. Where I can live and relax and only revive those who care about me enough not to prosecute me, not to _judge_ me." _Everything I told Mina. As if it'll come true!_ "The God of Death, he called me! How long do you think it will be before others can see what Ares saw?"

 _Why would he tell me all of this?_ Midoriya's eyes shook as he stared down his friend who was making his heart clench so hard. _Why say anything at all? You never do, when you actually want to do things._ Midoriya's eyes got even softer as Zach screamed at him, "Countries sending people after me will have to fight the ones who offer to protect me and give me quarter! With as much power as I already had, I thought it was possible. Now?! It's an inevitability!" _I saw what he turned into. The founder of democracy. A benevolent ruler with friends and family he loved and cared about, and every single one of them died. He turned into a monster. The worst monster in the entire world!_

"That power boost I just got from Ares," Zach continued. He flinched and the right corner of his smirk lowered a little, but he kept it partially up with a mad look on his face. "Oh my God, Midoriya." Zach's eyes lifted up in his sockets and he took in a sharp breath. "Oh my- it's so fucking…" He breathed in hard up his nose, and he tried to accept that feeling he had been suppressing with all of his might. And that look showed on his face for a brief moment before he flushed it out with a flood of regret and horror and absolute disgust at himself. Zach kept all those feelings from showing on his face though, just dropping the euphoric look for a moment to let out his sharp breath in a much longer orgasmic relief. "It's better than drugs. Or worse, I guess," Zach corrected with a tilt of his head to his right shoulder he shrugged up at the same time.

"And my power?" Zach added, continuing and stepping another foot closer to Midoriya. "Oh man, Midoriya. If you thought I was strong before, wait until I recover everything I spent in this fight. All I have right now, is just from that surge! And I still feel more powerful than… than ever before. Killing him! The boost is like killing fifty- a hundred even! I've never felt such power come into me all at once before. I feel fucking AMAZING!" Zach stopped yelling and he lowered his head that he just tilted back to shout that. He stared at Midoriya and lowered his smile down, almost flattening his lips out. "But this is still the weakest I'll ever be from this moment on. I will only recover all that Death over the coming days, and I doubt I'll ever have to use it all again."

 _Zach, stop telling me all this. Stop saying things, that you think will get me-_

"Look around you, Midoriya," Zach growled with his lips flattening out at the sight of his friend's reluctant expression. Midoriya's eyes pulled off of Zach and glanced around the shattered mountain range they were in. "You think you could really push me this far? I beat him, and I wasn't even as powerful as I will be now after this fight. In a few days I'll have recovered it all. I'm sure it'll take me at least that long this time." Zach added that with a lower voice and a partial smirk once more, but his eyes just got darker as he stared down the other teen who turned back towards him. "This is your only chance," Zach warned. "You know that. You won't be able to stop me after this-"

"Zach," Midoriya started. His voice was hoarse and his hands shaking at his sides, but they gripped into fists that continued shaking as he stared down the darker teen growling so menacingly at him. "You don't want me to-"

"Your _only_ chance!" Zach yelled louder, cutting off Deku with his bellow. He leaned forward and snarled, "You still have most of your strength, and I _still_ don't know if you can do it. If you can beat me. And if it's questionable now, then you have _NO_ chance after this." Zach paused for a second and then rose his eyebrows up, asking softer, "Do you really think I won't slip again? I don't even consider it slipping. He was a genocidal maniac! A brutal, SAVAGE man who believed himself a _GOD!_ And the world is better off without him," Zach snapped that at the end, to Midoriya's fists clenching harder and his eyes glaring at the smug smirk that covered Zach's face during that shout.

"It wasn't a mistake," Zach said in a low voice while grinning straight at his friend. "I killed him, because I decided that that was justice. _My_ justice. And I _always_ act, based on my own justice. I promise you I will do it again."

"Don't say that," Midoriya hissed, his voice rasping and his fists clenching harder as he stared down his old classmate. Pity filled Midoriya's eyes, as conflicted thoughts pushed for dominance in his head. _He's doing it all to make you have to fight him! To…_

"There's only one way this ends, Midoriya," Zach snarled, his voice cracking this time and his head tilting back as he looked down his nose towards the ninth holder of One For All. "No prison can hold me. If I wake up in restraints I will slip right out of them. It's as easy as forming a key made of Death to open up a jail cell," Zach added with a smirk towards his friend whose eyes shook more thinking of a video he saw on a plane back from Italy a year ago. "Tartaros couldn't hold me. I left my cell like it was a simple thing to do, then went back inside because that was what _I_ decided to do. And I won't decide to go down there this time, so I WON'T go down there. I'll stay up here and kill villains. And even if you defeat me here, I'll escape my restraints and you will _NEVER_ find me!"

"You know the kind of resources I have?!" Zach shouted. "The allies? The dirt I have on heads of state and company leaders and officials of all kind in every corner of this world?!" Zach shouted that with his arms raising at his sides and a huge smirk covering his face. "If I come to decide, that I will use it all for my goals, then I will break every single law and no one will be able to stop me! Like Ares, but active in the world! The power of that God but with more followers, more strength… More everything!" Zach's voice bellowed across the gap to Deku and Zach's smirk twisted higher up his cheeks, his face looking like he was thinking about all the possibilities he possessed with this kind of power.

Midoriya's right foot leaned farther forward. The ground under his foot started to crack out towards other cracks to his sides. His teeth were grinding and his eyes full of conflicted emotions got watery even as his fists clenched hardest in resolve. Zach leaned his head forward with darkness surrounding him in response to Midoriya's actions, and he yelled out towards his friend, "You know there's only one choice to make! Now let's fucking go!"

Midoriya Izuku froze. His teeth biting down hard parted and breath slipped between them. His eyes staring towards Zach grew wider as he saw a look even in his glowing red eyes. _**"Someone else is about to die because of you! Is that what you want… Eri?!"**_ Midoriya's foot stopped pushing down as hard, and his body eased backwards as he stared straight towards his old friend covered in darkness that raged around him in preparation for this fight. A fight that Midoriya did not want to have and that Zach was forcing on him with every word shouted from his mouth. _Why?_ Midoriya thought it again, his mind clearing as he saw Zach's dark face twisting hard as it attempted to maintain the look Zach had been giving back to him. Zach couldn't hide it though. Not under the darkness or his angry expression wanting a fight… _He's, he's so scared._

 _ **"…It's easier to be hurt yourself than to have others be hurt for you, huh?"**_ Midoriya could hear Chisaki Kai's voice echoing in his head. He could see the look on that little girl's face that tried to hide her own fear behind a willingness to go get hurt by Overhaul more, as long as it could help the others getting hurt by her in that moment. And Midoriya's heart clenched up in agony, as he realized that Zach's anger was barely hiding it any better. _It's not about the present for Zach, or who he's hurting right now… The future, everything that will happen, he thinks about it constantly and knows- He knows right now what will come and he- he wants me to…_

Zach started shaking his head at the crushed, saddened look covering Midoriya's face as he leaned backwards. As tears came into the corners of Deku's eyes, Zach's lips trembled behind his dark veil and he hissed while leaning his head forward farther, "There's no other way."

"You can't, seriously think I'll," Midoriya gulped as he started replying to the boy who clearly did think he would. "I'm not, going to kill you, Zach."

Zach's teeth clenched and all of his muscles tensed up. His whole body shook as he stared down one of the strongest people he knew. _I can't handle it. It's too much. I feel so FUCKING good._ Zach's red eyes shook and his breathing sped up, his heart rate skyrocketing as Midoriya spoke his inner desire out loud despite him hiding that from even himself while he had set this up. His teeth bared harder and he seethed through them, "You, have to-"

 _It's the same._ Midoriya heard Zach's tone, and despite him looking nothing like that little girl's scared face that day, it was the same. _He's afraid of everyone getting hurt more because of him, and he'd rather die than risk that. He'd… rather me be the one to kill him._ "You seriously think I'd…" Midoriya started. "You're my… friend, Zach."

"You have to," Zach whispered back towards him. "You don't understand. I'm not lying. None of that was-" Zach started and cut himself off as Midoriya grit his own teeth at the sound of what Zach was saying here. "I have no idea, what I'll come to believe is right. What I will think the right thing to do is next. But when I decide, on whatever it is, I'm going to do it. And _no one_ will be able to stop me." Zach's voice was scared but certain. He was warning Midoriya and making a promise as well as a threat in the same moment. "Even now I can't… I can't just let you-" Zach's hands shook at his sides. _I can. I will. But you need to think I'll defend myself so that you use it all. Even if you do it on accident. That's still fine! As long as it's you._

 _You've changed so much,_ Midoriya stared at the scarred-up body of his friend whose darkness was swirling, pulling back into him and flattening but then flaring out when Zach would get a glimpse of a more intense expression seeming to form on Deku's face. Zach searched his gaze as the two of them locked eyes. Midoriya knew Zach was telling the truth based on what he knew Zach wanted yet what his friend was telling him at the same time. _The you now is so different from who you were a long time ago, but I don't think, you'd ever become what you're imagining… And if I'm wrong?_

"Please," Zach whispered. The darkness shifted off of his face and he stared at Midoriya with his eyes shaking and soft. He stared down his old classmate with his face cleared while the rest of him was engulfed in a fiery black aura that raged violently and even pulled Izuku's way like it was trying to get at him. Zach's teeth clenched and he tilted his head up while pleading, "You know, it's the only way. The only thing you can do to stop this now. Before it's too late."

 _Zach isn't Eri. I know that,_ Midoriya looked at his friend who he had compared to that little girl. He questioned his own internal comparison's motives, and countered himself, _I know, Zach has seen worse, done worse, lived full lives on the amount of experience he has. All of that has led him here, to the point where he- he wants to die now…_ Midoriya's face scrunched up and he stared ahead with his expression distraught but his clenched fists steadying at his sides. _Zach's at the end of his ropes. Years ago he already felt like he couldn't make up for it, and he lived under such a huge weight. Now? After… after all he's done, I don't think it got easier for him. He's just able to live with it all because he thinks he doesn't deserve not to. He believes the pain of having to live with it is what he deserves, even as he constantly saves people to even out the bad- or just because he's a good person. It's just about safety now…_

 _But even though he just killed that man, it wasn't something he did lightly, or that he wanted to do. He'll feel sick to his stomach because it feels good to kill,_ Midoriya pursed his lips and shook his head Zach's way.

Zach's darkness flickered, then it all pulled Midoriya's way and he leaned forward himself. Zach roared out at the top of his lungs, "YOU HAVE TO! FIGHT ME!" Darkness flooded towards Midoriya and broke off onto his left and right sides. The force of the wind flying by still created a gust of wind that slammed into Midoriya, but the curly-haired boy stood firm as that darkness flew by his sides. Midoriya leaned forward himself and the parting wind started parting even farther back, then it all faded as Zach leaned backwards, seeing Midoriya not reacting or counterattacking…

Midoriya stared at Zach's face that pulled back with more frustration than he could bear to see twisting up Zach's expression. _He feels that pleasure right now,_ Midoriya thought with his sad eyes looking into Zach's angry and afraid ones glaring back his way. _His Quirk makes him feel good, and it is making him feel good at this very moment. It disgusts him so much that he wants to die._ Midoriya shook his head at Zach, and he started off in a soft voice, "I can't. I won't fight you," Midoriya paused and he thought back on the things Zach had just promised him, the threats he had made. It made his face tighten up for a second, but he just glared more frustratedly back at Zach for putting him in this position, "We both know that you aren't going to do those things-"

"You're wrong," Zach said back, his darkness fading away again as Zach stumbled quickly forward to shorten the gap between them. Zach came out of the stumble and moved quickly to just six feet in front of his friend where he stopped. "You can't let me get back to full strength now. We both see that I'm the stronger of us, and I have always relied on the fact that I have you to stop me if I go off the rails." Zach admitted it and shook his head while looking even more afraid into Midoriya's green eyes. "Do it," Zach said softly. He made his legs more sturdy on the ground and balled his fists again, yelling again, "DO IT!"

"I can't go back," Zach continued. "I don't belong back there. Not with Class A. Not with those people who I don't even know anymore. They don't know me, and-"

"And we don't care about you?!" Midoriya yelled back, making Zach stare at him just in more pain at the question that Midoriya shouted like it was what Zach thought. Zach started squinting his eyes, not responding quick enough which made Midoriya pull his head away and ask after a second, "Do you really think that?" Deku's heart ripped in half as Zach did not deny it, and his own eyes got watery as he was close to tears himself.

"Zach," Midoriya started in a whisper. "You think, that you care about all of us way more than we care about you back." Zach turned away and Midoriya yelled at the side of his friend's face, "I'm sorry!" Zach's face flinched and his eyes widened, darting back to his left and the boy there whose watery eyes were visible to him. "I'm sorry, that we made you feel like that's true… I'm sorry it took until what Ashido told us tonight to make so many of us realize, just how bad we've been to you."

"You haven't-"

"We've been horrible friends for so long!" Midoriya yelled in Zach's face, denying Zach's denial before he could get started with it. Midoriya shook his head and then added in, "We still care about you though. We do," he whispered that again as a depressed-looking Zach bowed his head and just looked off to his side as what Midoriya was saying that would make it hard for him to accept what he knew needed to be done here. Midoriya asked as Zach looked away like he wasn't listening or wasn't accepting any of this, "How many of us know that you're Death now?"

Zach's teeth clenched and his closed his eyes tightly. "How many of our class know for a fact that you are the most wanted man in the world?" Midoriya asked him, and Zach's breath got stuck in his throat as he tried to ignore what Midoriya was saying to no avail. "And how many of us have tried to arrest you? Tried to lock you up, or told other heroes who want to do that, what you told us?" Zach slowly turned his head and looked back at Midoriya, the one he suspected was most guilty of doing these things other than maybe Todoroki. He looked at Midoriya's face in a hurt way and searched to see if Izuku was lying about the words coming out of his mouth.

 _If he told Lemillion, it'd be over already. He didn't… Did he tell All Might? Did Todoroki tell, Endeavor? No- he couldn't have… They know. They'll come for me, and I won't let them and- and…_ Zach's lips pursed and he shook his head once though had to pull back harder at the expression showing Midoriya was not changing his mind or giving up here. _How many? 7, to 9… ten maybe, not for sure though. 7 certainly. Uraraka and Sato would put it together why I had to lie. Others, would only make assumptions. They have and they're right, or they think they're wrong because I convinced them otherwise and so they'll be that much more betrayed when the others reveal it. It can't be long. With me there all the time, they'll talk to each other. They aren't good liars. Anyone questioning half the class for more than a few minutes about me will figure it out based on their reactions and responses. Iida gave it away that he already knew to Uraraka and Sato. He told Todoroki outright. He's not the kind of person to know how to lie, and it's only because no one suspects that he defeated Stain that he managed to keep that a secret. If anyone had started questioning him about the actual fight… what am I thinking about?_

Zach closed his eyes and he rose his head slowly to open them back up and stare right forward to meet Deku's gaze. _None of this matters if I can convince you. Please, you know it's the only way._ Zach winced as Midoriya stared him down without a shred of the possibility of him doing what Zach wanted him to. His look got more hurt as he thought about how Midoriya tried to just convince him that Class A had not turned on him, yet he just spent the last few seconds thinking about all the ways they were going to turn on him anyway, be it intentionally or just from their failure to keep secrets. Zach lowered his eyes, _Why would I go back there? So much I can do around the world, why return to U.A.?_

An unsure look spread on Zach's face and he grit his teeth, shaking his head once while glaring hard at the ground, _I have to- No. I can't! And yet Midoriya won't just let me… what does he want to do with me? It doesn't matter. I can do what I want regardless of his intentions or wants. And going back there, it isn't important… I told myself that! That reconciling with Class A was not important anymore. I decided that it wasn't a top priority… and yet I also told myself I could be selfish. And if there is one thing in the world I want, which I've known since I "decided" that they didn't matter because Sato made me realize it- it's just to be with them._

 _That's what I want. To save them and protect them… because they're precious to me._ Zach's eyes clenched shut and his fists balled furiously at his sides. _And they'll turn on me. Arrest me and betray me and HATE me, and I'll turn on them. I'll leave them worse than the last time. I'll just, disappoint them. And then I'll turn into a monster like him._ Zach's head snapped up and he opened his mouth while glaring at Midoriya-

"Even after what you just did, I understand!" Midoriya yelled, cutting off his classmate before Zach could get out a word. "I'm not going to turn you in now, just because of… because of this!" Zach's eyes shook and he closed his mouth but only partially, leaving it open as he took heavy breaths while staring forward at Midoriya's frustrated facial expressions. "I understand, I- I really understand why! I hate what you did, but you've been back for months and that's the first person you killed, right?!" Midoriya shouted it and searched Zach's eyes for him to deny that, to give him a reason if there was any to counter what he was already thinking. Midoriya continued while shaking his head, "That monster…"

Midoriya hated the words coming out of his mouth. _It's unjustifiable. Saying it like that makes him think-_ "That doesn't make it okay," Midoriya seethed, squinting his eyes and glaring at Zach for a moment. He tilted his head back and to the side though with a pained look showing more prominently than the frustration. And he yelled as that pain appeared on his face, "I don't want you to kill anyone! More than anything," Midoriya gasped and shook his head more while staring sadly into Zach's huge eyes. "I just don't want you to keep killing!"

"I see what it does to you," Midoriya continued softer. The two of them heard the words Zach had been shouting echoing in their heads, and it made Midoriya's teeth grind for a moment while Zach looked in a shakier way forward at his friend whose perspective he considered to hear all that. Midoriya whispered quieter at Zach when he saw the understanding in Zach's eyes as to what he was saying, "We all know that you've killed. We all also know, just how kind a person you have always been!" He rose his voice back louder while a couple tears fell from either eye. He shouted, "And it kills me to think of what you're feeling right now if you think your own death is the only answer. That you deserve to die so badly that you would ask _me,_ the one person in the world who I know you know would never kill, to kill his own friend!"

Midoriya shouted that in Zach's face with pain and frustration all over it, and his voice got through how utterly ridiculous it sounded to Midoriya that Zach would want that of him. Midoriya continued, "So the fact that you can ask that of me now, that you feel like such a monster that you could think that I would… That I would actually see you as the worst villain beyond all the others I would refuse to kill- That I would think that of you?!" Midoriya shouted that and silence fell over them for a few seconds as the two of them just panted while staring forward across a small gap at each other's faces.

Another tear slid down Midoriya's face and he broke the silence, "It makes my heart feel like it's tearing into pieces."

"Midoriya-"

"I'm not going to kill my own friend!" Midoriya yelled at Zach whose face was desperate. The start of what he was saying got through the pleading tone that angered Midoriya to no end, that Zach was so desperate as to ask this of him. "My friend who was being hunted by these people! People who attacked him, destroyed his home, killed the people around him- they were practically torturing him! They ripped apart the person that my friend was trying to be when he returned through all their attacks on him that wore him down and broke his spirit," more tears fell from Midoriya's eyes as he sped up faster and faster saying all these things. "And I watched as he struggled to keep it together while being shot and blown up- And I didn't do a thing! I didn't help, and yet you didn't kill them. Any of the assassins. Not one."

"You stopped me," Zach countered in as dark a voice as Midoriya had ever heard. Zach's eyes were down looking below Midoriya's chin, and he said in a deep and low voice, "You stopped me the night my apartment exploded. You stopped me today. That doesn't mean I didn't want to kill them-"

"You never want to kill anyone," Midoriya responded. Zach froze, flinching, and his eyes shifted back up to look into Midoriya's.

 _Do you really feel that way?_ Zach thought as he stared forward with a flat and dark expression. _You really think that of me-_

"You want me to kill you, because for some reason you still believe in me," Midoriya continued while Zach was meeting his gaze. His words caused Zach to lose the dark look and to stare more confusedly at him, then his eyes grew wider still as Midoriya continued, "And if I'm the one who does it then you'll feel it was right, and that you had to die." Midoriya's face scrunched up as even saying this sounded weird to him and worse at the fact that Zach was actually reacting as if surprised he knew that. Midoriya paused at the sight of that look, but he continued after a moment, "You think that there is no other way to protect the world, from you! But you're wrong!"

Zach stared at Midoriya with huge eyes as Midoriya stepped closer so they were arms' reach from each other. "There is another way to protect it. And that's to be your friend. Be someone, who you need, and who needs you in return." Midoriya's green eyebrows curled up and he stared ahead into his friend's eyes, and he told him, "You know I'm right, Zach. It's when you are alone that you fall into this kind of pit, this kind of despair, and I know that you had no one you could look to while at Shiketsu… And I didn't leave U.A. enough to stay with you and make you feel like you were not alone."

"I am alone-"

Ignoring him Midoriya snapped, "We'll never let you be alone again." He cut off Zach and stared at him firmly, denying with the look in his eyes that Zach could separate himself here anymore. "You push people away to protect them," Midoriya continued, his voice explaining it like he knew that he was right and Zach had to start seeing that himself too. "If you're that worried though," Midoriya went on. "That you're going to hurt people, then you have to stop pushing us away like this! Zach! What's most dangerous for the world right now is you going out on your own! You said it, and I know it's true! But the world needs you, I… Zach, there are many enemies left for us to fight together, but if you go out on your own then you will become the very danger that you think you could become."

Zach's breathing sped up and he started panting heavier, his shoulders slouching and a massive weight of exhaustion and fatigue spreading through his body. The immediate surge from killing Ares was simmering down inside him, returning him to his exhausted state from before that made his chest start heaving. And Midoriya told him while he let this exhaustion crash over him, "I know that I won't let you become that as long as you're with me. Your friend." Midoriya's eyebrows narrowed in and he stated without doubt, "Class A won't let you turn into the evil you think you'll become. Our teachers, and Principal Nezu who is trying so hard right now to forgive you and help you become a hero, stretching rules or just plain ignoring them in order to protect you and get you back where you belong!"

Zach winced and his face scrunched up, his eyes darting down to the floor as he thought about how much the principal had to be conflicted with those decisions. _Mr. Principal… Deku,_ Zach rose his eyes and looked back at his friend. _Midoriya,_ he corrected to himself, as this was his _friend_ he was looking at and not just the hero, Deku. Midoriya snapped at him as Zach looked back into his face, "And where you belong is with us! Where you've always belonged. I swear Zach, I'm going to drag you back there whether you like it or not. And you might not like it. It'll be hard, I know. Really hard." Zach closed his eyes, and he clenched them tighter as Midoriya told him, "I'll be watching you closely, to make sure you don't do those things you promised me you would not a few minutes ago. And everyone else will question your motives. They'll think that you planned on getting back to U.A. the whole time, and they'll accuse you of so many things I know you aren't doing but… but that they'll doubt and question every step of the way."

"But you can do it." Zach opened his eyes back up and looked at the boy who just made that baseless claim in such a confident tone. "You _have_ to do it. For us, who you already left behind once. All of us, and for yourself, and for the whole world. Come back," Midoriya stared him down and reached his left hand out in front of him. Zach stared at that hand and heard Midoriya's voice in his head slightly higher pitched than it was now. All of their classmates were around them in his room and in his doorway, and he heard Midoriya speaking as a younger version held out his hand in front of him. _ **"Let's do it together. Let's become heroes, as a class, once again!"**_

"Be a hero, like we all want you to be." Midoriya held that hand out and his look was the desperate one this time, searching Zach's eyes for an answer.

"I… I'll kill again-"

"I won't let you-"

"I'm going to kill Kaminari," Zach stated. He said it without hesitation and with a determined voice more than just a statement of what he knew he would do when the time came. It sounded more like a goal than anything. He said it about Kaminari, not Shigaraki or All For One who he threatened to kill earlier. He stared into Midoriya's eyes and repeated, "I am going to kill him-"

"I know," Midoriya said, his voice hoarse as he admitted it.

Zach blinked a couple times, confused by that response. "I heard you, the night he betrayed us." Midoriya admitted it and shook his head. "Myself, Todoroki, Sero, and Sato heard a lot of it too. But Kaminari, we all heard that. Why, you think you need to kill him."

"I do need to," Zach countered that 'think you' that Midoriya said. He glared into Midoriya's eyes and then eased up his own expression and looked anxiously back at Midoriya's hand once more. _How can you extend your hand to me and ask me to be a hero? When I just said I'm going to kill someone else?! That's not, that's not heroic. Why-_ Zach rose his gaze back to Midoriya's face and his expression shattered. The feelings swelled inside him as he realized it from the desperate look on Midoriya's face that had nothing to do with fear of what Zach might do if he did not take his hand. _It's because… even you, can be selfish sometimes. Selfish, for me? That's- that's I- I don't…_

Zach's steel left hand had no skin on it. His arm was dented all over, but it managed to raise up better than his right arm that despite having its open wounds closed, hurt a lot to move. That right arm was missing the glove on it now anyway though, having ripped off fully by the end of that final clash. Zach lifted his left hand and hesitated, darting his eyes to Midoriya's hand then to his face and back again. Midoriya lowered his left hand and grabbed Zach's as it stopped there. Zach's eyes bulged and he stared at their clasping hands, "Let's be heroes again." Zach rose his eyes slowly and he stared up with his heart pounding rapidly and painfully in his chest, as Midoriya finished, _"Together."_

"Together," Zach repeated not a second later. He said it firmly, his whole posture and expression and tone all changing at once. He said the word determinedly and surprised the boy who had to clasp his hand as Zach hadn't raised it all the way on his own. Zach nodded though with the hesitation fading from his face, and he squeezed his damaged left hand into Midoriya's grasp. _I hope,_ Zach thought while trying to keep his expression from showing the doubt that resurfaced even as he tried to push it away. _That neither of us come to regret this._

 _I don't know how to save Kaminari. I don't understand completely how you must feel about that._ Midoriya nodded back at Zach in just as determined a way as his friend was looking at him. _But I don't want you to kill. It hurts you to do. Even to kill someone like Ares, so for you to kill your best friend? Don't think about that now. You'll cry and he'll know what you're thinking. That he feels he has to be the one who does it- Stop._

The boys released their handshake and dropped their arms down to their sides. Both of them started panting heavier as soon as that was done, then Zach turned his head and looked to the west. "We should start moving." Midoriya stared at him in surprise for a moment before getting back into a more serious expression himself as Zach had suddenly snapped into action. "We have to look around for any surviving assassins. There's a chance a couple escaped, considering some were awake over here and confronting you when the beam hit…"

The two of them shot off from one another without any argument or discussion. Zach used the remaining power from the surge he got from Ares that despite settling inside him was still there for use as he had not used too much yet. He flew around fast and without caring about wasting it, as he was only concerned with keeping enough to make solid wings for a return flight to Japan. He shot around as Midoriya bounced about the air as well, and they searched the destroyed mountains around the epicenter of the fight which had been close to Eziano's lair.

Neither of them found any sign of life, not that Danny "The Devil's" surviving female ninja henchman was going to let them find her and Danny who she had secretly dragged away from the other unconscious assassins to a place to wake him up. He was still unconscious, but they were both hidden thanks to her Quirk which was vital to Danny's assassinations. The Devil's high assassination successes and the inability of enemies to stop him was in large part due to Sly's ability to bring him straight up to the target no matter how many guards were surrounding them. Not even most people with sensory Quirks could locate her, so the two massively powerful teenage boys flying around the Muindo Range had little chance of spotting this woman and her comrade, though she still held her breath when Death flew by overhead. She was afraid she would start breathing too heavily in fear of that dark monster above her, and she went even more blue in the face before risking releasing her breath.

Zach and Midoriya met back up close to where they had landed in the first place. Midoriya was the one to stop looking second, as Zach had suggested they search yet Deku saw his friend finished searching already after only a couple of minutes. "I think heroes will be coming here soon," Midoriya said while landing behind Zach and jogging on his landing up to a stop at Zach's side. "I usually wouldn't be one to run away, but I have no idea what we'd… what is that?"

Zach was holding something in his right hand that he had just picked up after digging it out from partially under a rock. He blew at the top of the book he was holding and then wiped it with his other hand. The book was embroidered with odd stylizations around the edges and on the spine of the brownish-red cover. Zach shifted his eyes to the right corners and gave Midoriya a skeptical look. "Seriously? Put it together yourself."

Zach looked back at the book which felt surprisingly hard in his left hand. He kept his right hand partially crossed in front of his body away from Midoriya who had stupidly jogged up on his _right_ side. Zach turned himself so he was more facing Midoriya directly rather than having his friend on his right. He held the book between them and admitted while looking at the word on the front cover, or at least what he thought was probably the front cover, "Don't recognize the language."

He flipped the book over, "Wonder if they started from this side. It looks old." He lifted his right hand and gave a quick wave at Midoriya who glanced at him confusedly then nodded as he understood the look in Zach's eyes giving him a general warning not to move any closer here to try and grab the book for himself. Zach opened the book from the side that had a word on it, then he turned it over and opened from the other side only to find the last page empty. "Nice."

He lifted it and showed Midoriya the empty page, then went back to what he now believed was the start of the book. Midoriya had been sidetracked when Zach gave him the little wave, but he was putting it together faster in his head now what Zach had apparently assumed from the start. "Is that," Midoriya began. He thought back on something Eziano had said, and something he and Zach had seen on their way to Eziano's throne room.

"Ancient texts, written by men who knew the truth of the world," Zach said while flipping through the early pages with careful movements of his right fingers. He did not dare touch the pages with his left hand, though the papers inside the book seemed to be coated with something that preserved them from the decay of time. "Okay… yeah, the writing is familiar here. The sentence doesn't end though- yet this one, starts in an old form of English. Turns into a Germanic language halfway before the sentence ends, and it's written in some kind of code…" A smile broke out on Zach's face as he looked through pages and pages of absolute nonsense written in so many languages yet described things he suspected were answers to questions he had been asking for a long time now.

Midoriya lifted his eyes up from the book to Zach's face when he heard that excited tone in Zach's voice. He gulped and then asked hesitantly, "You don't, really believe everything, Ares was saying… do you?"

"Of course I do," Zach replied with a chuckle. He closed the book, and he held it carefully up against his chest with his right hand. "And so do you. Denying it is an easy way out, Midoriya. Don't do that." Zach scolded him for even asking that last question, and Midoriya's eyes widened at the response that was not even meant to start an argument about this. It was just ending the argument Zach did not want to bother having when he knew that he was right.

Midoriya gulped again and he stared back down at the ground between his feet. "All those things he said… I only heard a little of it," he admitted. "But, but to think that so many people were hurt by him. By the people who worked for him. And no one ever stopped him, until you-"

"And I still gave him exactly what he wanted," Zach admitted in return. An annoyed look flashed over his face while Midoriya looked at him confusedly and in surprise. "I mean yeah, sure, he would have rather the two of us traveled 'through time' together. Fighting each other and becoming friends or some shit, which never would have happened." Zach declared that firmly, but then he admitted again with a frown on his face, "The death I gave Ares was the best way for him to die. The way Ares was looking to die, that he thought he never could obtain until he found me. Might've even been his real goal here, waiting this long to finally fight me… But I don't know."

Zach frowned deeper and growled, "I hate that I gave him that kind of death… No I don't." He countered what he just said and grimaced even harder, the real reason he was frowning so hard here being the fact that he did not believe what he was saying aloud. He darted a look to Midoriya almost in shame, though that disappeared as he knew Midoriya would not even get it let alone judge him for it. "Ares suffered enough. No he hasn't," Zach muttered that and shook his head. _He was a monster responsible for… except- NO! He needed to die. He was evil, and yet, what if-_

 _I don't know. I don't know what to think of him. He was so, so horrible. But he was also, in many ways, just like…_ He shook his head rapidly. _No. Don't think that. Don't think_ _ **about**_ _that._ "This book is interesting though," Zach started, changing the conversation both aloud and in his head. "I won't be able to read much of it yet, however. The one writing it knew what they were inscribing but did so in a way to prevent others from being able to easily decipher what they were saying. Code, various languages, it's pretty interesting. We'll decode it together, yeah?" Zach suggested with a curious and hopeful look at his friend. _Don't want to be the only one to know. That'd be rough. One other person knowing the real truth will make it much easier._

"Y-Yeah," Midoriya agreed, nodding his head as that sounded good to him as well. _Knowing the truth, is important. We can learn from history, and I'm sure there are things in that book…_ Midoriya shook his head as he found it hard to think too much about what was likely written on those pages. _I guess I should have realized it. If Zach could write history the way he saw fit, and All For One was left out as well, then Eziano and so many others throughout time must have had that ability as well. To alter the truth and write history while only a few know, the truth. Reality, and history, they're different things._

Zach chuckled as he thought more about what he was holding. "You know I recognized a few languages in the book, but admittedly I never practiced the written language too much as I didn't need it as much as I needed to speak it." Midoriya looked at Zach with an uneasy look at how carefree he was speaking while talking about the past and future like this. "I needed to be able to read a bit for street signs and records, but this will be a much better reason to learn. I can practice by reading some books I've been meaning to read in their native languages rather than translations, or both so I can properly know what it was meaning to say. Hmm," _Like the Rosetta Stone. If there are any copies of things written in the book too, I could maybe make out even lost languages written in there that would be impossible to decipher otherwise. I can bring back entirely lost languages. Cool._

"Alright, Zach." Zach lifted his gaze back to Deku who turned his head and looked to the east. "We should get back to school. We have class tomorrow."

"Sounds good to me," Zach replied. He rolled out his shoulders and cracked his neck to either side. _Right arm really hurts. Ribs aren't in peak shape. Wonder how long it'll take for them to heal? This will be the first test to see. Don't let him see that you're still hurt._ "Let's go."

The boys rose up into the sky. Zach created black wings he flew up with while Midoriya jumped off the ground instead. Midoriya watched as his friend started flying off ahead of him, looking to chuckle under his breath as if he thought Midoriya was staying behind him to make sure he really flew back to U.A. as he said he would. _He's, in a better mood than a few seconds… Or he was already in this mood. Just denying it as hard as he could, until now._ Midoriya watched Zach's back as the other eighteen year old flew off at a casual speed slower than they had approached this area. _At least it's better… He was talking about learning and getting more powerful and resourceful, knowing more and more…_ A small smile lifted on Midoriya's face. _That shows he's serious about not wanting to die now. He's accepted he has to live and is going to try and live his best life. Please Zach, live in a way that makes you happier. It's the only way this works out…_

 _He's yanking me back into the light as hard as he can. I can't let him fail at that,_ Zach flapped his wings again and smiled at the positive impact he was making just by returning once more. _You succeeded, Deku. You got your friend and made sure he didn't go off on his own to turn into some, some demon. I was about the abandon this path forever. Completely. For the last time. Disappear and never come back again._ Zach let out a breath and he flapped again with a relaxed expression on his face. _Just, go away. And it would have sucked. I wouldn't have this last month to, to really enjoy being here. Human. With all of you. Before that day comes,_ Zach's smile dipped back down. _A day I'll think about more when it does come. As for now,_ his smile returned as he ignored the looming and imminent end. _I'll finish things here. Get some closure. And without being allowed to leave campus, I'll get a full month of, of the best life I can live right now._

 _The amount of power Zach has is absurd._ Midoriya continued to fly, moving a bit above Zach now as he kicked the air behind him to return to Japan. _Even if he didn't have any of those resources, it wouldn't matter. Even if he can't just go back to being Death, he_ _ **could**_ _go and gather new strong followers. He could topple villain organizations with them, blackmail governments, and probably kill a bunch of people._ Midoriya's eyes darkened more as he flew up in Zach's blindspot. _He'd evade heroes, and no one would ever catch him. He would become a ghost that I imagine through my entire life, I'd know he would always be out there with no one who could possibly stop him or change his mind. I can see it too, Zach. What you see as a possibility. It's not that I don't know it could happen. I'm not an idiot. Every time you make those hard decisions, every time you come up to these choices, that is what you see. The future. It's not the real future, or just not the only one. It's just the one we're imagining, but also the one you believe you're right about and is your backup for the life you live now._

 _I know it is._

 _Really, what now?_ Zach wondered while smiling nearly ear to ear and flying through the air that blew into his face in such a nice way. His black hair waved around behind him as he flew forward, his eyes squinting a bit as it was tough to fly fast like this without a visor or goggles. He created a black pair of goggles and made his eyes glow red behind them, allowing him to speed up a bit without having to care so much about the wind in his eyes. _I feel good. Real good about this. I've got some more goals…_

 _Don't think I'll have too much trouble with them now. Now that it's all I've got to do._ The weight and looming threat of Eziano was gone. The truth was in his hands. Zach's smirk got cockier and he tapped his fingers on his side, but he made sure to tap to a fun beat and not a repetitive one. The rhythmic tapping matched the humming noises he started with, as he wondered to himself, _Did I just stop war?_ The question was open-ended and he was unsure about the answer, but he did a barrel roll in mid-flight and chuckled again as he caught Midoriya watching him and the other boy's head snapping up as he was not expecting Zach's sudden roll in the air.

Seeing Midoriya watching him like that did not mess with him though. He wondered while looking back out to the east now that they were over water, _Don't know if the good mood I'm feeling is deserved, but I know one thing. I can never pretend my life didn't mean anything ever again._ He grinned wider and started laughing to himself. The new feeling of power that filled his lungs let him release the most cathartic breath of air ever, and he started laughing again after getting it out. _I might have saved the world right there. Billions more. Who knows? I don't. I know that I've got this though. I can take on the world! Nothing can stop me now. The "God of Death," ha! Haha,_ "Hahaha, haha," Zach laughed aloud too as he repeated that phrase back into his head again. His laughter slowed down and a smirk came out of it, _That's silly. Being this powerful doesn't make you God._

 _I'm just a man. A man ready for the next stage. Kaminari, I know you're preparing for me. You've been preparing for me, for years now. And I you. Don't disappoint me now. That villain name you picked for yourself, you better live up to it. Or you'll be dead in seconds the next time we meet, God of Lightning._

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 **A/N Thanks for reading. Hope you enjoyed the chapter. Zach and Midoriya get close to fighting here... but Midoriya de-escalates the situation and has convinced Zach to return with him to U.A. Zach's got a new surge of power but is currently at a lowered strength due to using everything he had in Limiter 0 before the surge, and with killing Ares comes something else as well... We'll see how his return to U.A. goes as well as reactions from the world to various events going on right now, next time! XD Was tough writing this chapter as I've gotten so into the next one already and found it hard to edit and post this rather than just continuing to write 216. Hopefully that means I can get it out before the weekend though, as I'm off on Friday before a long weekend of work this weekend (Decided to go back. The coronavirus is much slower than I thought it'd be). Anyway! Leave a review below telling me what you think, what you think is coming, or any questions you've got for the story!**

zangetsuflameo chapter 214 . Jan 29

I just finished a recent reread of this story, as well as just read this last chapter and I am shaken. First off, unlike a few other people, I don't think this fight made Zach weaker from what I understand of Zach's quirk I am certain this made him stronger, like SIGNIFICANTLY stronger. First off, while Zach definitely used up a lot his reserves of death in this fight from the way I understand how his quirk works that does not mean that death is gone forever. We've seen Zach (before he came back to hero society) go all out before and use up his reserves and he still retains his power. For example, the time during the sports festival invasion arc where he kills spinner gains a power boost then uses up all of his death in that fight, and when he fights again in the following up arc Zach notes he still retained the power. Also, regarding him getting stronger well we've already seen that whenever Zach kills something he gets stronger. We've also seen that the power-ups typically have something to do with the relative strength of that organism. Take when Zach killed spinner in the invasion arc, and then when he kills a spider in the aftermath to confirm the insta-kill was still a thing. Obviously, the power he gained from those events was very different. Now considering how powerful are was and Zach killed him, I at the moment have no idea what's going to happen. Zach's power is unrivaled at the moment and to anyone who fights him I wish them good luck I would not want to be them. Also, I just want to thank this author for this epic story, it doesn't get a fraction of the popularity it should have and I just want to thank the author for still putting his best into every single chapter. Arigatou

 **Oh you right. Zach knows he's about to get way, way stronger too. He did use up his reserves though like you mentioned, but he knows even though it might take a couple days because of how much there is now, it'll come back to him. Really nice call on all that, and we'll see how Zach handles all this power as it returns to him over the next couple days... Thanks for the review, and really nice predictions!**

xPricefieldx chapter 214 . Jan 27

Wait did Zack get his powers then?

 **It's not that Zach "gets his powers," but we have seen that Zach gets stronger with each kill, so he has gotten _more_ powerful. If Zach took the Quirks of everyone he killed... man he'd be unstoppable by now! (Not that he isn't XD) Anyway thanks for reviewing!**

Tigracho chapter 214 . Jan 29

Hey,Gillian here. finally decided to go with my account.  
I must say that I dont believe you are overreacting, at all(better safe than sorry), considering you go abroad for work.  
Anyways, to the story!:  
Damn, that was battle of epic proportions. Zach as always, showing why he managed to survive and overcome all the adversities on during his life: Planning ahead of his adversary. Lady luck smiles upon the well prepared.  
For the other hand, I really, really adore how you managed to build this fight, as well the character of Ares. Normally one would critize how you would toss an antagonist, give him his backstory, and the kill him in the next chapter he is introduced, but it didnt felt like that. Mostly because of chapter 200: Origin, in which you settled up the build up for us in form of foreshadowing. Everything that Zach said in that eassay was proven true when Ares started to monologue about his life. Hell, monologing about his life is even well justified due to his terrifying, mad-inducing loneliless.  
And Ares. God lord Ares. He is the reflection of what Zach could become and at the same of everything he absolutely loathes, which makes him really angry when Ares tries to pull the "You and I are the same" Trope.  
Oh, and poor Midoriya is there just being witness of all the crazy spectacle. How is anyone going to believ-  
Oh. Yeah. Now what? Zach just killed a person in front of Midoriya. Is he going to arrest him? Or is Zach going to argue that he was way to powerful to live, given he gets powered up everysingle time a war happens? Or Midoriya is going to call him out on this one argument? Hell, is he even sane at this point? What hell are they going to say to the Korean authorities? That they just defeated Ezziano, and that that battle was Ezzianos master with a god complex?  
Wharever happens now, Im sure of one thing: Zach Sasaki is now the strongest being of the planet. And thats scary as fuck.

 **Nice to see you've got an account! (Cool name btw). Glad you liked the battle and hope you enjoyed the aftermath chapter (first one at least). The build up really was more from that other stuff like Zach's Shiketsu report, brief mentions from an assassin before of a "Lord" that they had, but I never really dove into it much so as to separate Ares so much from all the stuff going on in the world, as he really was a whole tier of his own. Midoriya and Zach have that argument this chapter, and although Midoriya comes close to attacking, Zach claims no prison could hold him anymore. He claimed that "too powerful to live" line too that you called, (a bunch of nice predictions this time around you guys!). Annnddd... the two of them fly off before Korean authorities can roll in. As for Zach being the strongest being on the planet, and that being scary as fuck, well Zach definitely agreed with you there! XD Hope you enjoyed the chapter, and thanks for the reviews!**


	216. Chapter 216

**A/N Hey guys, sorry for the long wait. Been pretty busy at work and was really swamped over Presidents' weekend, but here's the new chapter and I hope you enjoy!**

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 **Disclaimer: I don't own Boku no Hero Academia**

 **Chapter 216:**

 **"Do you really think I won't slip again? I don't even consider it slipping. He was a genocidal maniac! A brutal, SAVAGE man who believed himself a _GOD!_ And the world is better off without him," Zach paused and panted a few times while staring down Midoriya across the gap between them in the devastated Muindo Range. He opened his mouth to continue shouting, but he stopped himself and just closed his mouth with his eyes darkening more. His body erupted in thick darkness and massive wings ripped off his back. "Goodbye, Midoriya. The world needs me now…"**

 **Zach flapped his wings down, and Midoriya shot up in the air after him. "I can't let you go like that!" Midoriya yelled, flipping up over Zach's head and then spinning around on Zach's other side as Zach just turned himself around while raising too. Midoriya got in his way, fists raised, and he yelled, "You can't tell me you'll kill and then go like-"**

 **"You can't stop me. No prison can hold me. And you can't defeat me even at my weakened state right now. You can't do anything except sit back and watch as I cast my judgement on this world." Zach's red eyes flared, and he rose up his hands with swirling black spheres on them. "Now you either get out of my way, or you'll wake up in a few days."**

 **"Zach! You killed a man who was on his back! Surrendering to you! I- I can't," Midoriya's fists clenched so much harder as he glared back at Zach's horrifying body. All of the things Zach was saying as he tried to just fly off here finally culminated, and Midoriya's expression hardened at once. "I can't let you go. Zach, I'm… taking you down."**

 **"And tell them what?! That I killed the God of War?!"**

 **"I'm going to reveal that you were Death," Midoriya replied. "And I'll get the others you admitted it to to come forward and back me up. You'll have to go back to Tartaros."**

 **"Not a chance." Zach flew at Midoriya rather than let the other boy shout at him how he needed to surrender.**

 **Midoriya could already see that Zach was not going to give up without a fight though. He shot at Zach too, and he punched forward while still at some distance from him. Much of the Death on the front of Zach's body got blown backwards, but Zach fired out some down at the bottom of his back and pushed him over Midoriya's head in a mid flip-kick down at the top of his skull. Midoriya spun around faster and dodged, pulling some of the Death from Zach's kick as he moved so fast. He shot around Zach's back and sped at it, and Zach spun around with his body covering in Death again as he rose his arms.**

 **Zach slammed his left fist forward, and Midoriya swiped his left across the front of his body before punching his right forward. The swipe of Midoriya's hand ripped the Death from Zach's left arm and then Midoriya's right hit into that left and swung it out of the way. Zach punched his right fist forward, but Midoriya saw the Death shooting up from Zach's right knee and he slammed his right hand down onto the top of Zach's thigh which knocked his leg down and backwards before the Death could come out of his thigh. Midoriya balled his right fist that he had knocked Zach's knee away with, pulled it backwards, and then the jet of darkness shot out of Zach's right elbow while his arm was still in mid-punch. There was still some distance to go before his fist would hit Midoriya in the face, but the darkness blasting out of his elbow propelled it much faster.**

 **Midoriya's eyes were huge as he was punching his right arm forward. Zach started to dodge his body to the left at the same moment that he accelerated his right hand towards Deku's face. As the glove had been fully ripped from his hand, Midoriya could see his life flashing before his eyes as those unclothed knuckles came close to his eyes. He started pulling his head back while punching his right hand even harder, because even though Zach was dodging, if he could speed up his punch then he could create a force huge enough to completely throw Zach backwards.**

 **Zach rose back up his left arm while his body that was dodging to the side eased back to the position it had been in. His right arm moved a bit to the left side of Midoriya's face less than a millisecond before Midoriya's right fist collided with the middle of Zach's chest that just moved perfectly aligned with Midoriya's speeding-up punch. Midoriya sped it up without full focus on it as he had to focus on Zach's attacks too, and he thought he needed to go at full force in order to redirect the arm that never hit him anyway. The right fist flying at his face went by the side of his head, while Midoriya's eyes shifted away from that right arm going along the side of his face with wind brushing against him.**

 **Midoriya looked down to his right arm that was buried up past his own elbow in Zach's chest. His hand felt the cold air on the other side of Zach's back as he had punched through his friend who he thought had dodged him. Zach's left hand that was lifting went around Midoriya's back and held him there, pulling himself even closer and farther up Midoriya's arm. He coughed as Midoriya's arm slid further into his chest, but the blood splashing out of his mouth went past Midoriya's back as he put his chin forward onto Midoriya's right shoulder.**

 **The curly-haired boy was frozen and staring forward at the huge wind force that shot out from behind Zach, mixed with some blood that was sent flying from the hole in Zach's back and off of Midoriya's own naked arm now drenched in red. Midoriya's arm started trembling, his fist opening and all of his bloody fingers shaking like crazy. His eyes shifted down to his right at the side and back of Zach's head while his friend rested his chin on his shoulder. He could feel a beating against his own arm, and the look of terror on his face was something Zach did not want to see which was the main reason he leaned forward and put his head there to rest.**

 **Zach kept his right arm lifted over Midoriya's left shoulder, but his tricep came to rest down on top of Midoriya's left shoulder as he lost the strength to hold it up anymore with the pain it was in mixed with his newfound and increasing exhaustion. He managed to hold that arm up though with his right fist held far from Midoriya's body, and he chuckled while blood trailed down both corners of his lips.**

 **"I would have got you," Zach whispered, as they both knew his bare right fist had gotten to Midoriya's face before Midoriya's arm impaled him. "Listen, Midoriya. I did that to myself," Zach paused and his eyelids were closing, his body losing all function in the state it was in. "I moved the Death out of the way. Led you into it… I'm sorry. I know, it's a horrible thing I just did to you… This was the only way though."**

 **"Z-Zach, you don't-" Midoriya leaned his head back and looked down into Zach's face.**

 **Zach's body went limp though. His right arm slid down his friend's side and his right hand brushed against Midoriya. A surge of power flooded into the dying teenager whose eyes snapped open as an arm was forced out of his chest. His bones and muscles reformed and his skin spread to cover the vanishing wound. Zach stared forward with his left hand clenching into Midoriya's back, a horrified and panicked look covering his face as he saw Midoriya's unmoving expression. Midoriya's mouth hung partly open and his eyelids with half closed with a blank look in his glassy eyes. "Midoriya? H-Hey! HEY!"**

Zach Sazaki blinked while staring up at the ceiling in his U.A. dorm room. He put his hands behind his head and leaned back on his bed in a more relaxed way after playing out an alternate scenario in his head of the early morning a few hours before. _See, things worked out for the best. I would have fucked it up somehow in the state I was in. Trying to get Midoriya to kill me? I must have lost it to even think that was a possibility. Plus I would have destroyed him even if I didn't accidentally kill him there. That would've been such a dick move. Good thing he talked me out of it then._

He rolled out of bed and rubbed his right arm with his left hand. _Can barely feel the left hand. I need to do more work on it than just buffing out the dents. Right arm's just as fucked though._ Zach distracted himself from the pain with thoughts on the lack of nerve-endings he could feel in his fake left arm. _How's crouching? Have to put on a different pair of pants, and getting these sweats on was hard enough._ Zach tested it out, and he grimaced as his insides still felt mashed up. His ribs ached and screamed out in pain that he barely reacted to while standing back straight up. _Today is going to be such a weird day. It'll be tough to get to a sense of normalcy from where we are now, but I think I can manage it by week's end. At least with Class A. And hopefully my teachers. Mother Russia just came back yesterday…_

 _ **"…try not to kill this one."**_ _That was pretty stupid of me. I was passing out after bringing Dover back, but she told our class that story about how she killed her first bear. It was clearly an inside joke. Darling even asked me about it when I woke up. I denied being Zach Sazaki, only to pretty much confirm it a few seconds later. Not to mention bringing her in on Wampajawa. Had my helmet blown off, though maybe with my face ripped in half she wouldn't have recognized me. I needed Dover though that day. I needed everyone I could get, without risking the lives of heroes. She agreed with that. She always, accepted my decisions out there. Taking full credit for King and helping to keep Wampajawa a secret. People like her really helped me as much as my own soldiers. Not people like her. She did. She helped me, and this person is going to be- Fine. It's going to be fine. I'll just act oblivious._

 _I'm a great actor. I enjoy it too. I'll even come up with a real reason why I was lying to Sato and Uraraka that day. They caught me lying, but I'll have to reveal something real to get away with why I've been telling everyone I was off world. Something real that's not Death. As in a lie, but a real lie. Yeah. That's going to work. As long as I take it seriously enough._

 _Can't work-out this morning. Even a run would be painful right now. I need rest. Enough rest and I'll recover. A full recovery of my body, my mind, and of Death._ Zach picked up his backpack from the floor and dumped its contents out fully onto his empty desk. _Not much left. My phone. A charger. One extra set of clothes. This photo,_ Zach picked up the photograph with his right hand, holding back from making a wincing expression as using his right here was practice for the rest of the day. He smiled down at the picture that had a stain on it from the night before. _Should take this with me even if I leave. A memory of a better time- I won't leave. I promised Midoriya._

 **Knock Knock.**

 _Speaking of whom._ Zach lowered the photo down and walked to his door. _Sounds like Midoriya's knock. Wonder if he has something for me._ Zach opened up his door and looked down to Midoriya's right side immediately. _Knew it._ "Come in," Zach motioned back with his head and held the door open so Midoriya could come inside. He had spoke softly to his classmate as it was still rather early in the morning.

"Did you sleep, at all?" Midoriya wondered.

"Nope," Zach replied. "Same with you?"

Midoriya hesitated then nodded his head as he had done nothing but think throughout the night. He had finally had too much of it and got moving even earlier than Zach had rolled off his bed. "Here," Midoriya lifted up a school uniform he had brought with him that Zach had looked at when he first opened the door. "We're the same size, so you can use my extra for today and hopefully you'll get a set of your own, later." Midoriya handed it off to his friend who gave him a smile of gratitude for the clothes. Midoriya could see behind Zach on his desk a small pile of belongings with his empty backpack on the floor next to it. There was not much there for Zach to work with, which he reminded himself to justify why Zach had opened the door shirtless though at least wearing a pair of sweats.

Zach started putting on his school uniform right away, and Midoriya averted his eyes as Zach took his pants off to put on the nicer pair Midoriya had brought for him. "Thanks for this," Zach said. "After I get my set I'll wash them and get them back to you."

"Yeah, no problem," Midoriya replied quietly. He turned back to his friend who stood up fully after getting dressed, and Midoriya stood still for a moment as he took in the sight. Zach stood there wearing a U.A. uniform again. The two of them each looked at Zach's body in the school uniform that fit him almost perfectly. "Looks…" Midoriya started.

"Weird?"

"Familiar," Midoriya finished differently than Zach did. Zach's smile as he joked about that lowered for a split second before rising in a less joking and more genuine way. Midoriya shook his head as he realized what he just said, and he rose it back up and looked at his smiling friend whose great mood was not hidden in the least. _He killed someone last night. Murdered a man on his back who… Who he wanted to die because of! But now, now that the feeling has filled him…_ "Are you feeling alright? Unaffected-"

"Not unaffected," Zach countered as Midoriya was continuing. "But yes, I'm fine. I knew the surge of power would come with feeling pretty great," Zach admitted. "Greater than it usually does- actually, better than ever- I don't think I've ever been this," Zach found it hard to come up with the word he was thinking of. He just chuckled and shrugged his shoulders as he did not know how to describe what he was feeling right now. "It's nice though. Unburdening," Zach said, raising his tone as if he found the word that worked best to describe it.

Zach looked closer at the left side of Midoriya's face. "Guess the wound wasn't too deep. Can barely see where it was."

"Recovery Girl says it won't scar," Midoriya replied. "And you, are you sure you don't need-"

"I feel fine," Zach replied. "My wounds healed the second I killed Ares."

Midoriya frowned at the way Zach said that. Zach tried to lower his smile a little, but he found himself turning away from Midoriya instead as that was easier than forcing a frown for him. _Truth is, Midoriya, I feel even better than I'm showing you. You know that I'd feel good so I can't hide it all. But damn if I'm not feeling just, just so… SO! I don't even know! I don't know how to act when I'm this happy. It's just so new. Good mood Zach should be able to better work this than getting depressed Zach who did nothing but bring others down with him. Eziano's gone. I'm safe. Can't leave U.A. again so the pressure is off. Haven't spoken to Nezu yet since that first phone call. Wonder if he expects me to apologize? He heard it and let it go. They let me get away with everything!_

 _Relax. He did a great thing for you and you need to thank him for that. Don't take his offer for granted. This is the last chance to get a hero license. To not have to act outside the law forever._ Zach took in a very sharp but also long deep breath. He held it in his chest for a few seconds even as his body yelled at him to release it and take in more, then in a more calm and relaxed way he released the breath and turned back to Midoriya behind him with a casual smile. "Midoriya, thanks again. For dragging me back twice last night," Zach specified, smiling gratefully at him and then nodding in a serious way back at the curly-haired teenage hero. "I promise, I'll stay and graduate alongside you all now."

Outside of U.A.'s campus, Principal Nezu stood in front of a pack of reporters who arrived when he called the impromptu press conference before school that day for an announcement. He had not said what the announcement would be about, as he knew the amount of press to come in that instance would be far more than he could handle by going out on his own. His announcement was brief. Brief for Mr. Principal was still a good minute long though. The reporters ahead of the short mouse-bear-dog-man found themselves shocked silent though as the principal of U.A. made his speech to them.

"…and despite the danger that many believe this will bring to U.A., this institution does not fear the threat of villains. It will not back down nor accept the idea that the danger of bringing Zach Sazaki in as a student determines that he is not allowed to enroll here. If other hero institutions believe they are unsafe however, then it is my duty as U.A.'s principal to re-enroll Sazaki here, at the safest and most protected of all hero institutions in the nation."

"I was adamant in maintaining Zach Sazaki's expulsion even after his pardon and release from Tartaros. However, in the past few months he has shown a remarkable willingness and determination to remain within the rules and strive to be a hero in all sense of the word. I have therefore decided to give Sazaki one more chance, and after speaking with Principal Memuria of Shiketsu I have worked out a way to smoothly transfer him back into the U.A. hero course from Shiketsu's. During his time at U.A., Zach Sazaki will be prohibited from leaving campus at my direction. If he disobeys he will be expelled and lose his last chance at obtaining a pro hero license. There will be no questions at this time."

That was not accepted by the reporters who immediately lost it as the principal told them they could not ask any of the million questions they had. Luckily, U.A.'s security was much too good for them to be able to chase him back inside the campus. A huge metal gate slammed up from the floor and another wall cut inwards from the sides to double up the steel doors and make the reporters scramble backwards at the loud clanking noises as Principal Nezu shut the doors on them.

"Mr. Principal, sir. You have a call from the Prime Minister's office. It sounds urgent…"

"Are you serious?! Is Sazaki back already?"

"Why weren't we told about this? When did you decide- when did you change your mind?"

Nezu was swarmed by his faculty who had either come out with him or were waiting just inside the gates. None of them were ready for what he was about to say either, and only All Might and Recovery Girl were aware of the situation after speaking with Midoriya earlier that morning. In a surprising response from that student though, Midoriya had not told either of them much about where he had received his injuries or what had happened between him and Zach the night before.

"If Sazaki's disqualified from the aspect of becoming a pro hero, by leaving campus," one of the reporters just outside the school gates was speaking to her cameraman and piecing together what Nezu had suddenly announced. "Then it seems, Lifebringer will not be bringing anyone back to life in the coming month… Afterwards though, he will have his pro license, if he manages to obey the rules Mr. Principal has laid out before him…"

"This is outrageous! How can U.A.'s principal just decide that everyone who dies in the next month has to die for good?! This is unheard of and an abuse of his power as the principal!"

"He just accepts the risk to all the other students all for Lifebringer? That's a little selfish if you ask me…"

"I hope Nikko has a response for this kind of irresponsible and absurd…" The responses from the media were varied but all mostly focused on Principal Nezu rather than Lifebringer himself.

"I do not see what the problem is," Principal Nezu replied with a small smile as he spoke on the phone with the Prime Minister's office. It was not the PM himself who stood near his minister of defense arguing on his behalf, while Nikko stood back at the windows with a deep frown and a bead of sweat rolling down the side of his face at this turn of events. Nezu's voice came out over the speaker, "It is in my right as the principal of U.A. to determine which students are allowed at this school. This institution may receive government funding, but it is ultimately my decision, and I have chosen to allow Sazaki to return as long as he obeys the law and the rules of our school. I have instituted this same kind of penalty to Sazaki before prohibiting him from leaving campus. There is existing precedent, and with his pre-existing record at U.A. and from what Memuria told me about her experience with him at Shiketsu, I found this response to be imperative in order to maintain a level of fairness and equality among our students who would feel Lifebringer is receiving special treatment should he be allowed to carry on as he had without punishment or restriction…"

 _Damn mouse is too smart. I should get him off the phone. He'll figure me out if I say a word._ Nikko looked towards his defense minister and shook his head, a look on his face giving up on their attempt to rein in Nezu. _If he had contacted us before the announcement we could have done more to prevent it. Stopping him from this now would be a disaster. I hope they see it that way too. Otherwise, I'm fucked. Oh I'm so fucked. They wanted him gone and they told me it was almost there. I fucked up. What could I have done better?_

The others in Nikko's office felt for their prime minister. The defense minister who ended the call with a curt reply to Nezu even eased away from the younger man he was about to start speaking to. The former hero official turned high-ranking member of the executive branch thought as he looked at Nikko's face, _He looks ten years older than the day he was elected. I know the office does that to you, but it's happened so quickly here. Then again, I can see dealing with Lifebringer would do that to a man._

Zach was left to get ready for school on his own after Midoriya left his room. It was still pretty early and Zach hoped he could get through going to the bathroom and doing a morning routine without having to deal with seeing anyone. _It'll be better to just start up at school. Those who saw me come in last night saw a different me. They'll think I was acting that way to get them to let me in if I act so carefree now. Or will some of them put together the news coming out of Korea? Luckily Japan's news will be flooded instead with Principal Nezu's announcement._

Midoriya went to school early and entered the principal's office as he was called to do. He stepped forward up towards the principal's desk and faced the small mouse man who had a moment between all the talks with his faculty members, frustrated parents, hero officials and heroes alike, and the increasingly hostile press trying to get more information from him. All of this was happening at once, but he called in the school's top student who stepped in front of his desk and faced his principal who looked back at him in a serious and grim tone.

Zach showered in Class 3-A's showers for the first time in a very long time. He relaxed as the hot water washed over him. He tilted his head back and faced up at the water that rushed over his face. _I can feel it all._ Zach smiled at the heat and wetness pouring over him. _It burns. It's actually stinging. Amazing. Take it all in. Who knows how you'll feel in a few days? Ignore that. Enjoy now. Being human. I'll still be human then but, but there's no telling what that'll be like. So just forget about it until it comes!_ Zach opened his eyes then squinted, looked down, and he had to rub his eyes while chuckling under his breath as he had gotten water in his eyes. _Someone's coming._

"Yo, so he's really back huh?" Kirishima asked while getting into the shower next to the one that was already on. He reached forward for the nozzles to turn while opening his mouth to continue to whichever classmate also could not sleep in and was up getting ready this early.

"I'm really back," Zach replied, trying to mask the smug expression he had to force down as he tried hard not to make a joke out of what Kirishima just did.

The redhead in the neighboring shower opened his eyes wide then grit his sharp teeth that he just did that. "Oh," Kirishima muttered, realizing there was no way he could get annoyed there for what was his own doing. He opened his mouth again and tried to come up with something, but his eyebrows narrowed in at the wall in front of him, and he just reached forward and turned on his own shower. "Yeah," Kirishima said, as Zach had not added anything yet.

 _Kirishima,_ Zach glanced to his right at the wall past which his old friend was standing. _You came over for that fight day, but, after the joint training, and that day too at my apartment..._ Zach frowned again but he sighed and lifted his head to face up into the water once more. The shower head did not pour it down at a very strong setting, not as strong as the one in his last apartment or back on the Cloak at least. It started to feel unfamiliar and no longer relaxing, and he reached forward and turned it off without staying for another second. _We were really good friends, and I left you only a couple weeks after Kaminari did. A guy like you, carefree and easygoing, that had to change you. As much as anyone else._

Zach walked past the curtain at Kirishima's back. Kirishima's head had turned to the side partially when Zach's shower turned off, but his head did not turn any more around to watch that silhouette passing by behind his curtain. He just glared forward with water running down his face and dripping off his bangs. "See you in class," Zach's voice said as he left the room, and Kirishima bit down hard as there was no time to respond since Zach was gone already. In Eijiro's head he saw the tears spilling down Ashido's face. Her words echoed in his head and he finally turned towards the door to the bathroom Zach just left from. His expression eased up but it was too late, and he frowned to himself with his fists clenching at his sides that he glared down at.

 _I know he has it rough. Every time I get close though-_ Kirishima's fists tightened harder. _He's not some fragile kid. He's a man! Don't just walk around pretending nothing's wrong. That nothing ever happened! Face me like one and, and have the balls to at least tell me the truth! Say it to my face and- and! I don't know! I don't even know who you are anymore. So fucking tell me. Even if he does, how could I believe it? He faked everything those two weeks. All that time I spent trying to- for him! All that and he ignored me and pushed me away, all so he could lure Raijin in for his stupid fucking- Damn it! Damn it, I'm not ready for this._ Kirishima glared down at his hands that opened up as he admitted that to himself, and he felt his stomach clench in regret at the thought he had. _And me not being ready kept me from doing anything about it? Midoriya said it when he came back last night with Zach. He was gone. If Ashido hadn't said what she did, when she did, I'd have regretted it my whole life. Now that he's back I have to…_

 _I have to do it! Do WHAT?!_ Kirishima leaned his head forward and slammed his forehead into the wall, letting out a frustrated growl as he did not know what he wanted to do. _He's back. A whole month before graduation. That's, that's a lot- not that much time. I don't want to wait until the end too- I shouldn't wait at all! FUCK! Just, just do something. This isn't like you!_ Kirishima glared forward at the wall tiles and he rose his hands, smacking himself on the cheeks a couple times and splashing some water off his face with the hits. _**You**_ _go face him like a man! It doesn't have to just be up to him. Call him out on it- And if he lies?! Then what?!_

"…I haven't even told All Might. Principal Nezu, did I," Midoriya hesitated and his eyes shifted down from the beady black eyes of his principal for a moment. He rose them back up from the desk though and wondered to the smartest man he knew, "Did I make the right decision?"

"That has yet to be seen," Nezu replied. He shook his head as Midoriya just looked more conflicted and unsure at that response from the principal. "But it is up to you to _make_ it the right decision." Midoriya stared back with his eyes widening for a moment and then a more confident look forming on his face. "If you will not give up on Sazaki, then I will do my best to do the same. We can help him. I can only do so much though," Nezu paused and he gave his student a small smile. "You already know that though."

 _It's up to me. To all of us in Class A._ Midoriya nodded back as he did know what Nezu was saying here. _Whatever Zach's done in the past, I have a chance now to change his path. We can make him into a hero. We have to. Being a hero makes Zach happy. All the rest is what he does to help the "most" people in whatever way he can, which always winds up hurting him more. Only being a hero do you not have to hurt yourself. Only being a hero, can you stay out of the darkness. We both know that's what you need most of all. Zach's power is going to grow out of control if he kills any more people. Already it's become nearly unstoppable… And I need to come up with contingencies._

The thought angered and upset the formerly strongest student at U.A. He shook his head once though with that serious look on his face that Nezu also understood from his responsible and powerful student. _I hate looking at the worst case scenario. I never usually do- because I have to win! No! Contingencies be damned!_ Midoriya's upset look got replaced with one solely determined now. He shook his head free of those thoughts to the surprise of Principal Nezu who thought he understood what Midoriya was thinking there for a second. _I will put everything I have, all my bets, on not giving up on you. Ares was a special case. Kaminari might be too… I don't know! I'm not supposed to pick and choose. Exemptions aren't supposed to exist. But I know right from wrong. I know that I'll be able to see the moment if I have to give up. Until that moment comes I will fight against it with all my being!_

 _I swore I wouldn't give up on you. And I'm going to keep that promise, as long as you can keep yours to me._

Zach finished getting ready and packed up his bag with the supplies he had left for school. He had dumped most of the unnecessary weight immediately after being expelled from Shiketsu, though he had kept a few notebooks in case he was accepted to any of the other schools he had applied to. _Not enough to get me through the next month. Guess I'll write small. Had a couple pens in the smaller pouch of this bag too. Lucky._ Zach shrugged his shoulders and pulled tight the shoulder straps. _Alright. Here we go._

Out on the street passing in front of the dorms, Yosetsu Awase and his girlfriend Yui Kodai were walking with Hitoshi Shinso towards the main U.A. building. The three of the Class B students glanced towards Class A's dorm when the front door opened, and Awase's open mouth froze as he was mid-sentence about the tough training they expected they were having today based on some ominous statement Vlad King mentioned at the end of the day before. Shinso was distracted from the conversation as he was preoccupied thinking about a convenience store robbery gone wrong that had many implications yet to be seen but that he had been predicting since seeing the way Zach acted while on camera…

The three of them stared towards the boy who walked out of Class A's dorm and closed the door behind him. He turned their way a bit to the left as they were still farther back on the road than where Class A's dorm's sidewalk was connected to the road. Zach chuckled at their looks that he expected he was going to see a lot of this day. He rose his left hand and gave a small wave while starting down the sidewalk towards the road himself.

"Life… bringer?" Kodai wondered in surprise. Zach heard her and his smile lowered slightly though he tried to ignore the fact that she used his hero name.

Awase blinked a few times and finally closed his mouth as it was drying out. He jogged a couple steps forward and stopped, and he asked loudly towards Zach, "What are- Are you, back for…"

"Yeah, I re-enrolled for the last month of the term," Zach replied with another glance back to his left right as he was reaching the road. "Principal Nezu just made an announcement about it actually. Not surprised you guys haven't heard about it yet." Zach turned and he started towards the school's main building, his arms down at his sides and his hands sliding into his pockets. _Glad I had one backup glove left. Managed to avoid having to talk to anyone about what happened last night yet. Wonder if Midoriya's telling people? I wouldn't if I were him. They'd think he's crazy or lying._

 _Midoriya would not have lied about something like that,_ Principal Nezu ignored the ringing phone in front of him. His hands were interlocked under his chin and he stared forward intensely and with the gears spinning rapidly in his mind. _How much? How big of an influence did he have on the world? Midoriya was hiding even more from me than he said. To reveal Ares' existence and still be hiding more, what could it be?_

 _I can't tell anyone about that book we have,_ Midoriya was the first one in Class A's classroom for the day. He sat back in his seat and stared up at the ceiling thoughtfully and with an intense look of his own. _It wouldn't matter if anyone found it. They wouldn't believe what's inside even if they could decipher it… I don't know if I'll even be able to believe it. Zach was certain though. When I asked him, he made it out like I would be stupid to even doubt it. Am I? Am I just wishing, that our entire history isn't a lie? To have to know such a secret-_ _ **another**_ _, secret. I can barely hold back One For All. Keeping it from Uraraka is one of my biggest regrets, but I decided that that was the right answer. I have to make sacrifices as the successor to All Might._

 _Todoroki, Bakugo, Zach, and any number of villains._ Midoriya's expression darkened and filled with more regret as he thought that. _If the villains already know, is keeping it from my friends so pertinent? I don't know. These new secrets though, they're mine. They aren't secrets I inherited from All Might. They are not ones I've been instructed not to tell people about. It's up to me. Zach thinks no one will believe me. I wouldn't, if I started talking about… Gods, Ares, the plague, war. Principal Nezu looked shocked. He believed me, because he knows I have no reason to lie about all of that. All Might would believe me too. Bakugo, might… I don't know. I feel like, it's just, it'd be easier to keep it secret than try to convince anyone. I don't even need to lie. Because no one would_ _ **ever**_ _ask something that could force me to lie about that._

The door to the classroom opened and Midoriya glanced over to Todoroki and Tokoyami who headed inside together. They did not close the door behind them, and Yaoyorozu came in a second later behind them. Midoriya greeted his classmates who all looked his way and wondered about the faint mark on the side of his face. Tokoyami glanced at it more oddly than the other two who got discerning looks on their faces. _I don't remember seeing that last night,_ Tokoyami thought, as he had still been downstairs unlike Todoroki who had gone up to his room before Zach returned and Yaoyorozu who had still been out searching at the time.

 _Did you two fight?_ Todoroki wondered, giving Midoriya an intense look that Midoriya leaned back in his seat at the sight of then shook his head fast at his friend who just became more confused by the answer.

 _What happened last night?_ Yaoyorozu did not give Midoriya such a look and rather just glanced towards a seat in the row closest to the windows. She was on her way to her own seat in the back of the room next to where Todoroki just sat down, but she turned towards the door of the classroom as it opened back up. Her eyes widened partially for a moment, and the boy who entered the room turned and looked straight her way and into her eyes. _Zach,_ Yaoyorozu thought as she saw him, her heart racing at the sight of his expression and the smile he gave her after seeing her in the room already.

 _She looks surprised I'm actually here. Wonder where she was last night? She didn't wait downstairs with the others. She doesn't seem upset to see me though. Todoroki and Tokoyami- no, they aren't grouped together. Each individually. Todoroki looks apathetic. He could go either way, but Tokoyami has some regret in his eyes. He couldn't keep them on me the whole time._ Zach focused on the four in the room without thinking too much on Midoriya who he could tell was still thinking about what happened last night. The other three watched as Zach slowed down and stared at a seat at the far side of the room. He stood there with his smile lowering down a little and the others in the corners of his vision blurring away.

 _Did they really leave it the whole time? Through the end of last year, and all of this year? While I was a vigilante? A killer? In jail? We threw Kaminari's desk out the window on the first day. I don't get it. With how betrayed everyone was, why would you leave it there? For this? This moment- none of you could have guessed this was coming. After I was released and Nezu made it clear too, that I could never return,_ Zach's smile finished flattening out and he just slowly walked over towards his desk. It was clear no one had been using it. Dust had even accumulated as it seemed no one had even been cleaning it, touching it; they'd just left it alone.

Zach ran his right hand over the top of his desk. He glanced down at his glove he turned inwards, then he leaned over and brushed the dust off his desk and his seat. His smile returned and he grabbed his chair that he slid out a bit with a jolt from the legs of the seat which had not been moved in a while and were kind of stuck to the floor. He pulled it out and slowly rested down on it. _Oh man, am I making this too much of a scene? Figure they want it to be an emotional moment for me considering they left it all this time. For this moment. Have to make it intense. Just sitting right down would have been worse. This is nice though. My butt feels familiar in this chair._

He wiggled around his butt and then rested his arms up over his desk. Yaoyorozu's eyes focused onto his right arm, _What is with his movements? They look cautious. Midoriya's sealed cut, the way you walked and sat down slowly, it looks like it only has to do with your seat and how we are watching you. If that's what you're thinking, then are you not even thinking about your own wounds? Does that mean you have wounds? What could have happened last night?_ The smartest girl in Class A put her hands down on the edge of her desk, but the door opened back up to Class A and she loosened her grip. _After. So he won't lie… Will he? What is your strategy? You know, that too many of us already know. Will you go all out and lie to all our friends? You need to, I know. But can you be as convincing as you once were? Mina said you couldn't handle it anymore. She knows it all too. She isn't being drawn to your pace. She stepped over it and revealed it to all of us. Midoriya, myself, Todoroki, we didn't see what was happening to you until she made it painfully clear._

 _Momo knows something. Did she come to my room last night? I can't lie to her right off the bat without knowing where she was and what she did. I can't tell her about Ares though. She finally has some trust in me again. Right? I haven't spoken to her in… Well there's Aoyama. He looks, unsettled._ Zach looked towards the blond who had not been waiting for him downstairs the night before either. He leaned forward in his seat and looked towards Aoyama, who for a second pretended like he did not see Zach in his peripheral vision but looked over as it was obvious he could see him. "Hey," Zach gave him a small wave to the surprise of the other four who Zach had not greeted when he entered the room.

"Uh- hi, Zach," Aoyama replied.

"How's the neck?" Zach wondered. Aoyama's face stayed confused for a second, then his eyes opened wide as he suddenly recalled the last time he and Zach had gotten up and personal. It was really the only time the two of them had interacted closely since Zach returned. Aoyama thought about the joint training and when Zach sped around his back before wrapping both arms around his front, right before Zach suplexed him into the dirt. Zach grinned after Aoyama remembered it, chuckling to himself at the stunned look on his new-old classmate's face.

"F-Fine now. How's… um," Aoyama thought he would have something to reply with as he tried to make a friendly small talk back. The blond boy ran on empty though and he wondered, "Your burns?"

Midoriya darted his eyes over to Aoyama in surprise and with his bottom lip lowering at what Aoyama just brought up. Zach did not let it get to him though even as Aoyama's eyes widened like he realized bringing up Zach's apartment exploding was probably not considered "small talk" on a similar level as their joint training. Zach responded though, "Pretty good. Healed up nicely. I checked the recording afterwards, and it looked worse than it really was."

"Are you really alright?" Tokoyami wondered, as he thought about the expression on Zach's face the night before when he had come back to the dorm for the first time. _Midoriya said you were so close to leaving. One night back in your old dorm couldn't have had- or is this just, to make us think you're fine? Because you know Ashido was upset?!_ Tokoyami tried to figure it out while looking Zach's way, but Zach just looked back at him and furled his bottom lip as he continued to smile casually.

"Yeah. I got shot a few days back, but the bullets didn't get far before I turned my body to Death-"

"Wait! When you brought back Sato, you actually…" Midoriya was surprised as he had not even realized this when he had watched it live. "I thought-"

"Did you tell Recovery Girl-" Yaoyorozu began as well as she was upset to hear Zach bringing this up in such a casual tone.

"As I said, it was a shallow wound," Zach countered his friends trying to argue with him here. He looked into Momo's eyes and reassured the girl whose eyes opened huge at the look in Zach's, "If it was worse I would have said something." _Tokoyami was asking more about my mental health. Ashido must have really gone off on them. It's like everyone's looking at me and talking to me as if I could fall apart at any moment. Was I really that bad when we talked? I thought I acted the same as always._

As Zach was thinking about her, Ashido Mina walked into the classroom and she stared across the room right away with her wide eyes shaking as she saw Zach sitting there. Immediately those eyes filled with water at a sight she doubted she would ever see and that last night she had become positive would never be a reality. She did not even know if she would ever see Zach again and had been convinced when she cried herself to sleep that he was gone from her life forever.

 _Oh man,_ Zach had something he had prepared to say to her. Watching her eyes fill with water like that even in front of other people though, it pushed away the grateful words and friendly tone he was ready to use with her. His smile lowered a bit and his eyes got much softer than he had planned on letting them get. Zach did not pretend or act like anything he said last night was important. He did not pick up as if from the end of their last conversation, because that conversation had been mostly a lie. He just stared at her as she cautiously stepped forward into the room, as if hoping this was not an illusion and that he was actually over there sitting down.

Todoroki had been about to mention something about Zach choosing to save Sato, though he was going to ask more how the Shiketsu students reacted rather than tell him it was wrong to do. He looked over at Ashido though and then back towards Zach who got up out of his seat and walked across the front of the room. Without a word, Zach wrapped his arms around Ashido and gave her a tight hug. He released the hug and stepped back, gave her a bright smile, then he walked back over to his desk and sat down.

Ashido's wide eyes blinked a couple of times. Then her own huge smile broke out and she rubbed her right arm across the top of her face rapidly. "I can't believe you were lying about all those schools you _applied_ to," Ashido ran up to Zach's desk and smacked her hands down on it. Her face was in a pout but the frustration was not too real. It was hard for her to suppress the smile after that hug that felt more real than any words could have. "Though I'm more surprised those schools are even considered 'hero' academies. Full of cowards that's what I think."

"Oh yeah, we're in agreement there," Zach replied with a serious nod of his head but a crack of a smile after a moment too just as Ashido did. He did not apologize or thank her. The two just started talking like a couple of friends who had some time before class started. Everyone else who entered the classroom after Ashido was met with a sight they were all relieved to see. The pink girl who had looked depressed beyond belief the night before and who most of them doubted would ever be her same cheerful self again should Zach disappear, was beyond bright this morning as she leaned over Zach's desk talking to their long-gone classmate back once again.

 _It's different from last time,_ Mineta thought as he sat down and turned in his chair to look left over to Zach and Ashido, and Sero who walked right over to the two of them after he came in. _He tried so hard to isolate himself last time. And Kaminari pushed him to open up to us. Last time we all wanted him to just be back to normal though, whereas this time it's like, what is Zach's normal? This kind of seems like it,_ Mineta admitted himself with a tilt of his head to his side. He thought of all the visits he had done to Zach's apartment and how Zach acted during the joint training. _He's been, pretty carefree this whole time. That's it! It was Kurogiri!_

 _Holy shit! And the spy!_ Mineta realized both things right away as he looked towards his smiling friend talking with Sero and Ashido and ignoring how everyone else in the room was watching them. _He knew there was a spy here and that Kurogiri could grab him at any time. The spy's gone. Kurogiri's dead. Even Hackerman's in jail so it's just, it's easier. Easier to relax. He saw how powerful they were. Felt their wrath. But now they know his. And damn Zach's wrath is the scariest thing in this whole fucking world._ Mineta admitted that to himself while looking down at his backpack he started taking some things out of.

 _Does Zach not, scare you at all?_ Tsuyu looked over towards Mineta who just had a small grin on his face as he reached into his bookbag. _He's not the same person you once knew. It's not about him changing._ Asui lifted her eyes back up and to the side of her classmate's head. She had gone to bed early the night before as she doubted Midoriya would find Zach, and she did not know what she would do if he did. Now Zach was here. He was in their classroom and seated where she had once hoped, a faint hope she never believed would come true, that Zach would somehow make it back there. _I knew he couldn't do it. At the Lifebringer Incident it was clear he would never be back. For him to do something like that, and be here now…_

Bakugo's eyes were glaring down with his eyebrows narrowed in towards the back of Zach's head. He stared past the seat in front of him that Jirou was sitting down in, an uncaring and unmoved expression on her face that Zach had noted but pretended not to when she stepped past without giving him a second glance.

 _Unlike Bakugo, she's not even mad. Or she's pretending she isn't. I hope it's that one. She's been so angry at me but, but I'd rather that than no emotion at all. Please don't- I'd rather have her be angry at me all day? Isn't that exactly what I don't want? If she can just be happy and move on, without me… that should be fine too. That was the goal. Or, it was fine if that was how things turned out. Now that I'm here though, I should only go for a perfect score. I can do it too. From inside U.A.? I should only succeed._

A confident feeling surged inside Zach and he laughed as Ashido mentioned something that got Sero laughing along too. He looked past Sero and tried to make eye contact but was pretty sure he failed with the invisible figure walking towards the desk ahead of his. The one ahead of him and to his right became filled too though and Zach shifted his gaze to Shoji who looked back at him. Zach stared at the larger boy for a moment before Shoji gave him a nod of greeting. "Glad you're back," Shoji said from behind his mask.

"Thanks," Zach replied. Ashido looked towards Shoji and her eyebrows rose up, then she grinned big as she thought about the bus ride back to school after the Lifebringer Incident.

Shoji somehow knew exactly what she was thinking about as he saw the girl's expression. He thought about how Ashido had leaned over the seat on the bus and asked him if he wanted Zach to get caught or not, and how he had said he did. _I wanted that for his own sake. Before he could do something even crazier. Like flee to America. Or, invading Saudi Arabia… If that was really him. He was in America after that, but that isn't evidence that he didn't go there. He could have went and gone back. If it was Zach, he could have had the resources. He could have gotten them, at least. I doubt it would have taken him very long._

 _He_ _ **was**_ _an anti-hero, after all,_ Shoji finished to himself. Then he turned towards the door of the classroom, because the bell had rung and All Might walked inside.

 _Hagakure knows for sure. I'm hoping she didn't tell Ojiro, but, well I can't tell if that has anything to do with being Death. All Might seems to know as well. More than half the people in this room. Not great._ Zach looked towards All Might and just nodded with his homeroom teacher's greeting to him and welcoming him back to U.A. in a more friendly way than most of his classmates had. _I haven't spoken to most of them yet. Mina and Sero, Midoriya and Aoyama. Kirishima for like a second. Shoji right there. I've barely said five words to Shoji in the span of the last few months. Shoji never talked much anyway, but we were at least together. He could have come to fight day- Sato looks unsure about his silence this morning. Jirou's just glaring at my head, but her attention shifted to All Might quickly. Trying not to even be angry at me. Bad sign. I don't, I don't want that to be normal._

Zach's mind was clear of everything except his goals for his time at U.A. Those goals revolved around his relationships with his classmates, and he focused on each of them while just paying attention to All Might during their first period of the day. All Might was explaining a good amount of stuff that he did not need to go into this much detail for, but he felt the need to do it for the new student who had not heard it all before this. Zach was grateful to All Might for taking the extra time to explain it to him, but because it was something the other students had already heard it meant that they were even more focused on Zach as they all understood the reason why their teacher was explaining it like this.

 _That could be a good thing. See how they look at me directly now. Man, Ojiro's more pissed than anyone. Much more than Bakugo. What's Bakugo checking for while giving me that look?_

 _Was he fucking with her?_ Bakugo glared at the side of Zach's head as the expression he saw was nothing like what Ashido told them Zach was experiencing. _He's not losing it at all. He's exactly the same as he's been. Where did she see it? I shouldn't have backed down if he's just, going to act like- unless it really is acting. Fucker's too much of an actor. I can see through it though. So why don't you look upset in the least? If it was as bad as she said, you'd show signs._

After the first period of the day, Zach looked down into his backpack that felt oddly light to him after weeks of carrying so much stuff in it. Its emptiness made him check inside if there was anything else in it that he might need for classes, and so he was looking down to his left when Sero walked back up on his right side between periods. Sero smacked his left hand down on Zach's right shoulder, "What are you looking-"

Before Sero could say 'for,' he took his hand off of Zach's shoulder and looked down at it with his eyes widening and darting back to Zach's face that did not hide the wince well enough. "You okay?" Sero asked quieter, seeing that wince of pain from his friend.

"Yeah, just have a bruise there," Zach mentioned while sitting back up and turning to Sero with a smile but mock annoyed look at Sero's smack on his shoulder.

Midoriya stared towards Zach with his eyes growing wider for a second too before he was able to hide that reaction from anyone who might look his way to see if he had something to do with it. _Crap,_ Midoriya thought as a few people had seen his reaction. _Is he in pain? For Zach to wince, it has to be a lot. Not just a bruise._ Midoriya reached down to his pocket while turning forward and pretending like he was not focusing on this at all. Zach saw him in his peripheral vision and was glad that Midoriya was acting oblivious instead of reacting to the others' discerning looks questioning if Zach's "bruise" had something to do with the way Deku managed to get him back here.

What Zach did not know, was that Midoriya only started acting like that for him alone. So that Zach would think that Midoriya was doing it for the others who had looked at him. In reality, he had opened his texts and was sending a message to Recovery Girl right now. Second period had barely started when Recovery Girl arrived at the door to Class A, snapping towards Zach to come to her office immediately.

Ectoplasm watched as his new student left the room before he was able to really say anything to him. He did not want to argue with the shrill old woman who was glaring down the boy sweatdropping as he darted a thought Midoriya's way in realization. _I wanted to test out my own recovery. I think I will._ Zach decided it after getting into the hallway, though he stayed quiet as Recovery Girl started scolding him and asking what he had gotten himself into that Midoriya thought he needed help.

"It's not much," Zach started, and Recovery Girl grabbed him by the right arm and moved it to a wince from the boy next to her who returned a calm smile right away. She glared at him much harder though as he tried to pretend in front of her.

Recovery Girl brought Zach to the nurse's office and barely needed to go through any tests before coming to a diagnosis. "Your right arm is broken. In _three_ different places! And you have two cracks ribs and several bruised ones, not to mention your right femur-"

"I don't even feel any pain there," Zach countered.

"Which I don't understand at all since it shows signs of a clean break, and yet the x-ray I just took shows it realigned perfectly and healed itself. The mark remains though." Recovery Girl gave Zach a harsh look and Zach's joking tone faded from his face at the look in her eyes. "What happened last night? With you and Midoriya?"

"Nothing important," Zach replied. His mouth was still in a small smile but his voice was dry of the humor or friendly tone. It was just telling her not to ask any more questions about it. "And I'm fine, Recovery Girl. Midoriya did not need to contact you-"

Recovery Girl shook her head around with a flabbergasted expression on her face. "Did you not hear a word I just said? You are _not_ fine."

"I'd really like to get back to class."

"Only after treatment-"

"I don't want you to use your Quirk on me," Zach requested. This time, Recovery Girl's annoyed look faded and she gave him a strange confused one instead. "If you need to do something, give me a sling, or a cast. I'll limit my movements and stay out of practical training for a little-"

"There's no need for that when I could-"

"It's important that I let my body heal on its own," Zach countered. _I don't want you speeding up any of my recovery. Not my body that I want to test its own recovery time, and especially not Death. Who knows how much longer I have already- Enough. Enough time to enjoy this._ Zach smiled with a brighter and assured look on his face to counter the unsure one on the older woman's. "Trust me. This is important. I'll do whatever you want me to, but just give me your treatment and advice as a regular doctor and not a hero with a Quirk to help me."

"Why?" Recovery Girl asked him. "Only if you tell me why," she added, as he looked about to just say some vague platitude to dodge the question.

 _"Only" if I tell her?_ "As you've noticed already," Zach started to her. "Death has a strange effect on my body's ability to heal itself. Part of getting hurt is recovery, and if my body can do it on its own then I'd rather train that ability of mine than stay dependent on your Quirk that will not always be around." Zach explained his motives clearly, and Recovery Girl hesitated for a moment but slowly nodded as that made sense and actually seemed like the real reason that Zach was telling her.

 _He just didn't want to say, because he has enough powers as it is. Admitting that he is even stronger is not something he wants to do._ Recovery Girl sighed and then relaxed her shoulders as she realized even she was getting affected by his admission of that extra ability. _He is still just my patient and student. And a good kid,_ Recovery Girl reminded herself as she thought back on the time she had treated him recently at his own apartment. _He is still learning new things about his own Quirk. He may not be able to keep his insides full of Death at all times because it makes him sick, but if he has to leave himself vulnerable then he knows he must train his ability to heal and survive. I knew there had to be an explanation to how you survived with all those impossible injuries._

"Fine. Come here…"

Zach returned to class an hour and a half after he left. He was in time for one more period before lunch, though his classmates gawked at him for a second as he returned with his right arm in a cast and in a sling in front of his chest. He sweatdropped at their looks and wondered if maybe he should have just let Recovery Girl help him in a different way. He reminded himself of his reasons though as he headed towards his seat, and in the meantime Uraraka turned her head and glanced hesitantly back at Midoriya. Her eyes asked him, 'Did you break Zach's arm?'

Midoriya sweatdropped this time as Uraraka was not the only one to give him that look. What he noticed though to his own somewhat bewilderment, was that Yaoyorozu did not give him any similar look as the others. Instead she looked his way for a moment and then back down to her own phone and a story she had been checking up on constantly. _No casualties. Some bad property damage but the people are praising the heroes' response time and how they evacuated everyone near the epicenter of, of the earthquakes. This is weird. Too many strange occurrences happened last night. Where were you two, when I returned?_

In Yaoyorozu's head she saw the empty room she had gone straight up to when she finally got back to U.A. Only she and Midoriya had been allowed out to search for Zach, and when she finally got back she had convinced herself to go and confront him. The empty room with the open widows had left a deep pit in her gut that kept her from sleeping. Instead she had been on her phone, keeping a close eye on the world news. _Midoriya wasn't in his room either. I only checked for the two of them. They're both acting strangely. I know Mina was right, so something happened last night to have you like this. The way you're acting too, it's almost as if you've,_ Yaoyorozu felt her gut clench at the thought of Zach's mood and what the reason for it could be.

 _Was it Eziano Mozcaccio?_

Bakugo glared at the left side of Midoriya's head from over on his side where he sat at the windows. _If the two of you fought, how the hell didn't I hear about it? Your fight should have been massive. Even if the two of you tried to keep it down._ Bakugo hummed deeply to himself before focusing on the front of the room as their next teacher entered.

 _Alright. Focus. Please don't say something incriminating._ Zach looked towards Mother Russia who stared directly towards him when she entered the room. The woman had a scar on her left cheek from the Sports Festival Invasion two years earlier where one of Spinner's knives had slashed her before Inhuman sent her flying. Her hair was long and light blonde, and she wore her usual red hero costume and red bandanna to match.

"Hmph," Mother Russia stopped and glared at the student in a desk she had considered tossing out the window herself. She had not been around after the Lifebringer Incident though and only returned the day before to see that desk. It was part of the reason she told Principal Nezu what she had about the experimentation lab in Russia. When she had decided not to mess with the decision of this class to keep the desk instead of discarding it. _He's back. All this time and he's back here. After all that._

 _I thought when I watched you work out there, that you were finally where you belonged. You were amazing out there. What are you doing here? Doesn't make any sense to me. You could have crushed that brat Raijin better if you had just brought your army and stayed hidden with them._ "Sazaki," Mother Russia began at that student she had glared at for a couple seconds in a crazy intense silence. Zach nodded back at her, and Mother Russia glared harder with a deeper frown as his look was not as hesitant or apologetic as it should be. He got a more hesitant look on his face at her reaction, and she snapped, "Letting those robbers leave the convenience store yesterday was beyond irresponsible. They could have grabbed hostages on the street, or even killed people as they ran."

Zach's lips curled down and a feeling of guilt and regret filled him. He shifted his gaze from classmates who gave him darker and more judgmental looks as they were suddenly reminded of that too and how he had messed up. Mother Russia then humphed again and crossed her arms as she added, "Though I suppose crime is likely going to drop now." Zach lifted his gaze back to her in some surprise, while the rest of the class were more shocked at that admission that had a tone of respect in it too. "As villains assume you might kill them all."

Zach felt another bead of sweat rolling down his face. He could not tell if Mother Russia was actually complimenting him for this or if she was just intentionally making the rest of the class angrier at him. _This isn't Russia, Mother Russia. Please stop._

"Alright, let's get to work," Mother Russia continued. "We're going to be talking about Diamondfist today. I don't think he's much of a threat but he's up on the Top Ten now and I'm forced to include him in this new curriculum I'm going to be teaching for the next month. Don't complain about it, no matter how stupid it seems."

 _I think, Diamondfist might be a bit of a threat,_ Uraraka thought but did not want to say aloud even as she thought back on the Koimou Massacre and what they had seen Diamondfist capable of then.

"Should be teaching Class B about this guy. You'll have the big shots to take care of," Mother Russia muttered under her breath, making a few of the students closest behind her lower their jaws at their teacher clearly picking favorites here.

 _She's not wrong. Kaminari's mine. I'm sure Todoroki's going to go after Dabi, and Midoriya'll have to face Shigaraki. As much stronger as I think I am than you, the fact is that I've already revived him and so I'm pretty useless. Especially if his Decay starts to work on Death. It'll have to be you. Also, it_ _ **needs**_ _to be you who takes down Shigaraki. The leader of the League of Villains. The top recruit of U.A. and winner of the last Sports Festival. All Might's successor and the one who ends Japan's Age of Villains. I'll admit it. The age here hasn't ended. Not as it has around the rest of the world. We still live in fear of them._

 _This is where I need to be._ Zach was certain of it, and it made him grin at the idea of how he was in the right place. _I have to tell you all that too._

 _He's smirking because he beat Diamondfist already._ Bakugo glared in even more annoyance Zach's way. _With his fucking anti-hero group. How the hell did I miss that? All that time you were here and running around as a vigilante and I didn't know shit! I did know- fuck, no he convinced me otherwise. Though I was suspicious. Not enough. Not, of what was really going on. I know now though. I know what you did out there. More than anyone. That story about the 6 Armies, is the Villain Summit. Sueguon. The Pit. What you've been doing since you got back. You never stop. You just kick the shit out of every villain you see- every villain in the world. No consequences-_

 _No._ Bakugo stopped himself there when he thought something he had to counter immediately. _I was wrong about that._ In his head he saw Ashido's disheveled face with tears covering it and a look of absolute despair all over. He remembered the look on her face he saw when he came into the room earlier while she was talking to Zach, something he knew that Zach had brought back for her as he must have known for sure what he had done. But Zach's ability to get her back to her usual self did not make him forget the look she had for him. Nor did it make him forget all she had said, and he knew that 'no consequences' was not a way he could describe Zach's behavior anymore. _Even if he's back here. Even if he makes things right with them. How many people did he kill in that Pit? Innocent- people in the same situation as him who… fuck. Just, fuck that._

 _Whatever happened that made him lose it, his friends here should be able to help him._ Mother Russia taught her class but could not help but lose focus. As much as she attempted to just act as if it was not important to her, she knew very well the truth about Zach Sazaki. And yet the fact that he had come back to Japan surprised her more than anything when she first heard the news about it. _He hadn't contacted me in months. Just for some help with Life City on and off, but I haven't heard shit from them since you turned yourself in. Guess I was your contact rather than Death's. It's probably Mark in charge now. He was the fucking strongest I'd ever seen. Could have killed you in an instant. Anyone really. The fact that we had to have that fight in Wampajawa when we had him on our side, it was absurd. Sometimes I feel like he should have just killed them all._

 _But then, that would have made you into villains._ Mother Russia kept Zach Sazaki in her peripheral vision. _It was what I was looking for, as much as I would have appreciated it. I wanted you to do it so I would have my reason. You wouldn't give me that reason though. You waited longer than many heroes would. Bringing me in on it, on everything, there's no way you planned on coming back here. And yet here you are. Hoping I won't out you. I don't have any proof though and I'm sure you'd deny it. Call me a liar or say I met some fake. Even your expression before you acted as if we hadn't seen each other in years. Smug little… If you hadn't saved Dover, my life would be very different._

 _I love that bear. Didn't think I would fall for it, when you asked me to take care of him. Wonder if you knew something I didn't? Because I didn't want you reviving it. Thought you were making a stupid mistake. And then, then you rode him in that battle into a horde of villains who ran from the two of you. As if you had seen that opportunity coming months in advance._ Mother Russia could not help but feel awe mixed with confusion at the sight of her student who she never thought she would have the pleasure of teaching again. _What do I even have to teach him right now? He knows exactly what he did yesterday. And last night. I don't know what he had to do with, but it's unnatural that Nezu brought him back here the same time the rest of that shit happened…_

* * *

At lunch, Zach sat down at a table with food from Lunch Rush that never looked so good before. He did not address the elephant in the room to the other third years from all the classes sitting around the room and gawking over at the sight of Lifebringer in their cafeteria. The moment felt even more surreal, as this exact moment had happened once before, though that time he had only been gone for a single term in his first year. This time he had been gone for a year and a half. This time, he had returned with a smile on his face and a reputation as a _killer_ who most of them had seen on the news yesterday acting like his most terrifying self as he faced off against the convenience store robbers.

Zach figured, and hoped, that Midoriya would come and sit next to him. Midoriya did not stay in the cafeteria after grabbing his lunch though. Zach wondered what news Midoriya was looking at so closely on his phone, but he decided against checking anything for himself. _I already know there has to be a story about it. Act oblivious. Real reason I don't want to look is because of all the news about me. About how Lifebringer's ignoring dying people. I get to use that as an excuse to dodge the real news. Besides, even if there are emergencies going on right now,_ Zach smiled more and dug into his food. "Mmm," he hummed with his eyes closing and a look of more euphoric joy coming to his expression. _It's not like I can leave campus to deal with them. I have to stay here now._

Zach had picked somewhere without any people sitting there already, as he did not want to assume anything about the way his classmates felt and was going to let them decide to sit with him if they wanted. He figured Sero or Mina would be the first to sit with him, but he was surprised when Shoji sat down across the table from him. Zach gave his classmate a lighter version of the smile he had while he was eating. There was no way to tell if the boy in the mask had smiled back, as Shoji kept his mask up even while eating.

Shoji created a mouth at the end of one of his tentacle arms that he opened and spoke to Zach, "No sleeve today?"

Zach looked down at his left hand that Shoji was referring to as he had glanced towards it while asking. Zach's left hand was bare steel with no fake skin over it. It had not been as noticeable until Zach's right arm was put in a sling, and since then his classmates had been examining him all over. "Yeah," Zach replied with sliding up the sleeve of Midoriya's extra uniform he was wearing. He checked out some of the dents on his forearm and upper arm, then he turned his hand over and checked the damage on his hand as well that Shoji had not even noticed as he thought it was really just the fake skin that was missing. "I'll have to make some more. I think U.A.'s Development Studio should have what I need. Shiketsu's Costume Development Lab was stocked with-"

"What happened?" Shoji wondered.

Zach closed his mouth and returned a small smile while sliding his sleeve back down. He shrugged out his right shoulder and then his left too, and he replied casually while getting back to his food, "Got in a bit of a scrap with a real tough enemy."

"When was-"

"What I want to know," Zach cut off Shoji and started asking back before Shoji could pry into things he could not respond to. "Is what's been up with you?" Zach rose his pitch and made it out as a question at the end. "Most of what I do gets blasted all over the news, but I've got no idea what you've been up to. How you've been…" Zach trailed off as Shoji gave him a weird look. It was not a look calling him out for changing the subject. _Guilt? Is that what I was going for? I shouldn't do that just for- I didn't do it on purpose. Maybe part of me did. I do want to know though._ "Really," Zach continued. "Didn't really talk to you much at the joint training, or since I've been back at all really."

"I'm good," Shoji replied. He opened his mouth and got ready to say something that he had wanted to say since the night before. Everything Ashido had shouted at them echoed in his mind, but again he was faced with the person actually sitting before him. This person who looked nothing like the weak and fragile person Ashido had explained to them couldn't take it anymore and was on the verge of, breakdown. _He's fine. Isn't he? He's still just hiding everything. Lying and, and I told myself- I promised myself. I am going to be a good friend. This time I'm going to make sure. And sitting here, being your friend right now,_ Shoji started eating his own lunch and Zach smiled as he got back to his own too. Shoji was not a very talkative person, but he did bring up his own internship and their schoolwork, though his part in the conversation dwindled once Sero and Ashido had dropped down on either of Zach's sides to eat too.

Shoji was not the only one to feel conflicted out of Class A though. Tokoyami stared over for a few seconds when he was returning with his tray, but instead of sitting with Shoji as he often did, he walked over towards Kirishima, Bakugo, and Uraraka who were sitting at a different table. Kirishima was not hiding the glare he kept shifting in Zach's direction with a hint of confusion but more just frustration in his eyes. _I understand, Kirishima. In that I don't understand, how we are supposed to respond to this,_ Tokoyami thought after sitting across from his red-haired classmate.

The way most of the class had thought early in the night yesterday after seeing the robbery video and then after Ashido's heartfelt cries and breakdown were so vastly different. They had felt in both far extremes about their former classmate who was now once again their classmate who none of them had a solid grip on their own feelings about. Whether he was the person they had seen in that video or the one Ashido had described, neither really reminded them of the person Zach had been acting like all morning. He was not the dark monster who scared villains into pissing themselves and taunting assassins on the news. Nor was he looking depressed or on the verge of his own breakdown, which a few of them thought they may have seen the night before when he came back to the dorm for the first time.

Some were even convinced that Ashido had been right when Midoriya told them how close Zach was to leaving. Only Ashido and Deku had seen that version of Zach though, apparently. And now he seemed better. It was not obvious to any of them, and to Midoriya and Ashido they both seemed to think he was better as well based on the way they were treating him. Aoyama had glanced over towards the table Zach was sitting at after he got his lunch, but he averted his gaze even as he wondered to himself if maybe he should- And he headed off to another table where he sat without looking back over, too uncertain and anxious to go sit with Zach like Shoji had.

Ojiro's expression was dark as he glared over in Zach's direction again. Koda and Jirou did not know what Ojiro was so angry about, yet they had both noticed the change in Hagakure over the past few days from the night they thought she had gone out with Zach only to hear on tv that Zach had gotten in a fight with Mysti. Hagakure had still remained off the news about that, but rumors had spread throughout mainly their own class as people wondered what it was Hagakure had seen, especially after Mysti was reported to have woken up, in a severe state.

 _I know what he did to her,_ Bakugo thought as he wondered about Mysti himself, catching a glimpse of Hagakure's invisible head in his peripheral vision. Her posture alone was different from what it always was, but she just had not been her usual self lately. And he remembered how she had seemed to argue with Ashido the night before, at least until it got to the part that Zach was trying to push them away recently. The brunette girl next to him at the table had reacted strongly to that as well, just as Sato had.

 _If he did to Mysti what he did to Faith, but in front of Hagakure,_ Bakugo frowned deeper and shoved another bite of mashed potatoes into his mouth. _That's not what's annoying about it. He could have beaten her without- or maybe she was just already like that when she attacked him. Insane villains after Zach. And he claimed that she was calling him Death when she attacked, so whatever she says now he's already ahead of it. Is that why you made it out like that? Or why you drove her mad?_

 _Fucking psychopath. How the fuck can you be doing something like that, with reasons like those, while also doing it just to push Hagakure away? Which was the more important reason?_ Bakugo chewed slowly while thinking about his returned classmate whose recent actions had him more baffled than usual. _I was keeping up with him. For a while at least. Then these past couple of weeks, it just happened so rapidly. Whatever happened last night too… He made it back here. That was the_ _ **one**_ _thing I decided he wouldn't get when he came back here. I don't even have the ability to say 'but I won't give him back' his relationship with me, because this was our fucking relationship! Me being suspicious of him, without knowing shit about what he's really up to._

 _Well not this time. I'm ahead of the curve._ Bakugo smirked as he chomped into another bite, making Uraraka glance at him oddly and then smiling with a bead of sweat rolling down her face at the look on his. _It's not all faked. Known that since the national park. You've gotten a grip though. You were dealing with shit and you dealt with it. The Villain Summit. The Pit. Torturing Kabo. Everything you did, is spreading out before me. Taking down the Shadow Bosses. Fighting Eziano's assassins. You started a war you couldn't finish, and now it's going to come back here. It better. I want a crack at those fuckers too. You aren't the only one who can fight those kind of villains. Don't think yourself on some other level!_

 _Was it really this easy?_ Shoji wondered as lunch was nearing an end. _I could have done this at any time over the last months. Whatever my feelings here are, I should have at least done this much. If it was all he needed._ He got up with his tray to go throw it out, and none of the others at the table really made a deal out of it besides giving him a glance as they continue to talk. The others started getting up behind him too, and Shoji just thought to himself, _Zach saved my life. If all he needs is this in return, then what kind of hero would I be to ignore that?_

 _Almost half the day done. No confrontations yet. Good. After school is easier. More freedom to act and respond, as well as for both sides to just walk away should things turn gritty. No easy escape in school. Everyone knows that though. Keeps uncomfortable confrontations low. Midoriya's preoccupied as well so he can avoid having tough questions asked of him for now. He'll keep Ares a secret. He better. He'll sound insane if he tells anyone. I know, Midoriya. You don't understand because you haven't spent every moment lying about everything. Too often, the truth is more unbelievable. Lies are accepted easier. Make things easier. Lying is just, easier._

* * *

In the common room of U.A.'s Class 3-A dormitory, Zach Sazaki sat after school in almost complete silence. In fact, the only noise around him was the white noise he had playing from his phone. He had decided on not wearing any headphones, as he was not prepared and did not want to go upstairs after he had already sat down and started studying. Other reasons were less important than that one. When he had sat down and started, he was not expecting to be so distracted that he needed the white noise for background ambiance.

The noise coming from his phone reminded him of the low whirring of The Cloak's engines. It was a noise he had studied languages to very frequently, though he was usually only able to hear that noise when the native speaker repeating phrases and words and grammar points to him was quiet. He was not studying how to say anything in foreign languages though, even if linguistics was his area of study for the moment. He sat on the couch rather than one of the tables that were too small to lay everything out in front of him that he had grabbed from U.A.'s large library. _It'll be a day before the stuff I ordered arrives at the school. Managed to call in a favor to get some money transferred to my empty account. Can't risk asking from the rich, but Roady wasn't too annoyed. Sounded happy I got back to U.A. actually. I'll repay him for the laptop and new clothes soon as I'm out of here and can go rob some villains._

Zach shook his head around and refocused on the material in front of him. _Focus,_ he scolded himself as he re-leaned back in to go over everything he had laid out in such a wide display to give him a lot to work with. His eyes turned red and scanned all over the coffee table in front of the center couch he sat on, and he slid down the cushions towards the right side of the couch where he leaned forward and flipped a page on one of the textbooks he had out. His backpack sat on the floor at his feet resting up against the corner of the couch, looking pretty empty as most of its contents that had actually filled it up were out and being used at the moment.

 _Was that a noise? Tokoyami's upstairs. Studying. Classes here are as tough as ever. Didn't think anyone else was around, though Mineta's still on campus, I think. Could just be the building. Everyone else is out at their internships._ The whole building was nearly empty after school with the rest of Class A out working with their heroes. Tokoyami was only back because Hawks was out of the country again.

Mineta entered the dorm and immediately turned to the left where he was surprised to see Zach sitting alone in the common room. He rose his eyebrows at the other teen who glanced his way and looked the five foot tall boy up and down. _Mineta's not just taller,_ Zach noted from his sitting position as Mineta entered the room. _Must have just been working out. Made him look a bit swole._ "No internship today?" Zach asked, as if he had not known Mineta did not leave already.

"No," Mineta began. He hesitated, then he started over to the common area rather than heading upstairs.

 _Oh you did this on purpose. Why else are you sitting here?_ Zach got annoyed at himself, but considering he was calling himself out on doing this on purpose he knew he was not really annoyed about it at all. Rather what he was hoping would happen happened, even if he did have to refocus once more to make sure he did not just completely ignore the necessity of his task. _It's just so tedious. It should be fun. Maybe it's less fun because everyone else is out there fighting villains and I'm reading. Or learning languages is just more fun when it's for practical reasons that will help in emergency scenarios, rather than just to be able to decode and read a book. A very, very interesting and old book. But still, a book._

"I got called out today. Tinsel Tiger is meeting up with Gargantuan, and they're heading to," Mineta slowed down as he dropped down on the couch to Zach's left. He was talking to his friend but at the same time Zach was only half-focused on him as he looked back at his schoolwork while glancing back over and over to show he was interested and listening despite that. "To deal with…" Mineta led Zach on there, hinting at something, but Zach just nodded for Mineta to continue while looking more interested in his work now than when Mineta entered.

 _Better. Can't have full focus on this. It's not enough. I can focus a full half of my focus on it much easier,_ Zach realized his problem with a grin, especially as he figured out the meaning of a different picture based on two things he had seen in different languages just a few minutes ago. Those symbols along with a chapter he recalled in a history book on classical philology studies, focusing on the studies of hieroglyphics and cuneiform, gave him a hint on part of a sentence in the book upstairs he had read without being able to decipher any of it. He remembered exactly what was written there though, and he hummed to himself while drawing a picture with a pen he suddenly had in his left hand to the surprise of Mineta who did not see it beforehand.

Zach slipped the pen back up into his sleeve when he was done rather than let it go. Mineta sweatdropped as he glanced up Zach's sleeves and wondered if he always had pens under there along with whatever knives he was hiding. Mineta scooted down the couch a couple of times until he was closer on Zach's left side, and he leaned forward to look at what Zach just scribbled out with full focus. "What are you doing?" Mineta asked in a deadpan voice. He shifted his eyes from the drawing back to Zach who was looking at him now and losing that grin, and Mineta continued confusedly, "It's not catch-up work. Thought that's what you were doing," he explained, as it was what he thought when he first saw Zach in there with so much work out in front of him.

Zach shook his head, though Mineta bringing that up reminded him of a brief meeting he had with the principal right after school. **"…Each of your teachers should have informed you already of anything else they want you to complete, but those materials and the assignments described on the notes make up what your teachers managed to put together for you to work on in their free time today. They did not have much time but worked hard so that you can catch up with the rest of your class."**

 **"…You will have more time than your classmates who will often be off campus for their internships. In that extra time you will have other work to do. It will not be easy, and I plan on cramming two years of information into this half of a semester. My hope is that you will graduate U.A. with the same education as the rest of the students who graduate from this institution…"**

 **"…Many of your classes have tests coming up shortly, and there are assignments that were due earlier in the term that you must also complete and hand in on time."**

At the end of the meeting, Zach had asked something he wondered now if he should have just stayed quiet about. **"Principal Nezu. Do you have anything to say about last night?"** The boy who asked stood in the principal's office with his hands together behind his back. He knew the principal was well-informed about the situation already because of how Midoriya had come chasing after him, and how both of them had returned, and how they had not brought any captured assassins back with them. He wondered what Midoriya had told the principal though as he was never able to ask Midoriya before his friend ran off right after school ended along with the rest of the class.

Nezu had stayed quiet for a few seconds after Zach's question. Then, he had replied, **"The report you wrote for Shiketsu was sent along with the rest of your course load that Principal Memuria emailed over to inform me of what you had worked on so far this term. I must say… I am, surprised, you wrote that report before last night."** It was not the response Zach was expecting. He realized that as Principal Nezu had only just spontaneously allowed him back into U.A. though, that his principal must have read that report for the first time only that day, likely while he was in class only hours before.

 **"…And Sazaki… Do not let it happen again."**

Zach shrugged his shoulders at Mineta while recalling how dark the principal bear-mouse had looked in that final moment as he had been about to leave his office. He had thought the principal was complimenting him seconds earlier for his ingenuity, but Mr. Principal's final warning was that from a hero. It was not a warning from his principal telling him that another mistake and he could lose this opportunity and be expelled. It was too intense and dark for that, but Zach understood why he needed to say it in that way. Knowing that the principal knew everything about the night before, and considering his own state of mind and current cheerful attitude, he got why both Midoriya and Principal Nezu had given him that look today.

"I'm just studying," Zach finally replied to Mineta after thinking for a moment and shrugging his shoulders at the shorter boy. "I know what I need to do," Zach continued as Mineta gave him a more skeptical and confused look as Zach's "studying" seemed really weird. Zach continued, "But this is important as well."

Mineta looked back at the papers out in front of him. He focused in on one of the books and his eyes grew wide in surprise for a second before just getting way more confused as he glanced at the rest of what he was looking at. _That, doesn't fit though,_ Mineta's explanation that had surprised him when he thought it did not make any sense as he looked at some pictures of ancient Egyptian writing with descriptions and how old picture writing like this influenced linguistics of today. Mineta's eyes shifted back to the Korean writing then up to Zach's face that was examining the work he had laid out before him again. "Have you, watched the news recently?"

Zach shook his head. He continued to smile in a small way but then frowned with a shift of his eyes back at Mineta's skeptical look that was accusing him of lying. "There's no point," Zach explained. His voice made it sound dull and easy, and he went on casually, "Since I can't leave school. All watching the news will do is make me upset and guilty," Zach spoke in mild annoyance with a glance up at the tv he had off in front of him. He cracked a smile though and shrugged his left shoulder closer to Mineta while looking back down at his papers, "So I'm just going to ignore it for the next month."

"Learning languages is real important," Zach continued in a more interested tone he rose while leaning forward back into his work. "Don't know what I'll be doing when I graduate, but it keeps my options wide to know everything and speak everyone's languages."

Mineta leaned back into the couch for a moment with his jaw dropped. _He seriously doesn't know?!_ He was shocked, but Zach's explanation made sense to him and he realized it as he shook his head around in disbelief. "Yeah, okay. That makes sense," Mineta said, trailing behind Zach though as he was talking about how Zach was going to ignore the news. "And I get that I do, but Zach, the world's kind of in a bit of a panic right now."

Zach paused and he turned back fully to Mineta. His eyes shifted in the tv's direction again but he furled his lip, _I don't know if I want to know._ "Is it now?"

"Did you not check your phone, all day?" Mineta wondered again as he thought Zach might have gotten notifications or something. "Or hear anyone talking about it-"

"About what?"

"I don't even know where to begin," Mineta started with a shake of his own head now. He searched Zach's eyes though and got more hesitant when he opened his mouth to speak. "You're not, messing with me are you?" Mineta frowned deeper and his eyes shifted to Zach's right arm, then his left hand that had no fake skin on it. He frowned more when Zach frowned at him like he was frustrated by the lack of trust. Mineta shook his head and added, "I don't know what happened last night, but so much happened and- and I can't help but think you had to do with it."

 _"So much happened?" Alright. This is actually starting to get interesting. What have I been ignoring all day?_ Zach shook his head again at Mineta. "I really, have no idea what's going on right now. Haven't checked the news once today."

"Here, I'm sorry," Mineta grabbed the remote off the coffee table where Zach had pushed it into the corner. "But just look for a second. I mean," Mineta turned on the tv and he leaned back while getting ready to watch himself. He had not even gone up to his room yet to change into casual clothes, though Zach was still in his school uniform as well. The two of them stared at the tv as it turned on, with reporters talking about a news story that Zach's eyes focused in on in an interested and intrigued way.

"…Reporting from northern Korea, two hundred miles northeast of Pyongyang in a small town of only twelve hundred. This town of Nonpo is still one of the larger ones in this area which borders the long abandoned Muindo Range. The mountain range named for its uninhabitability experienced large-scale earthquakes in the early hours of this morning. The earthquakes were felt all across the Korean peninsula, though they were felt strongest here around the Muindo Range. Some call it a stroke of luck that the worst of the damage was done in an area completely devoid of human life…"

"Earthquakes in Korea," Zach began. He glanced next to him at Mineta, "How many people were hurt?"

"I didn't see anything about there being bad injuries from the quakes," Mineta replied, off-handedly while continuing to watch the report himself. There were people moving around in the background of the female reporter who was walking backwards on the town's main road with the mountains as a backdrop behind her. Mineta continued, "As they're saying, the earthquakes were really bad but in that mountain range. Heroes came out and evacuated people too, and everyone knew the earthquake protocol so they ran outside away from buildings- but that's not the strangest part about this."

 _Mineta's been keeping up with this story. Unfortunately it's this one. Wish I was actually seeing something right now that he was talking about. I can't get more interested in other stories though or I'll draw attention to my lack of interest in this one or even an attempt to push our conversation off this one. I'm glad no one got real hurt by the earthquakes at least. If our fight could actually kill people hundreds of miles away just from the ground shaking alone,_ _ **that**_ _would have been insane._

"Strange how?" Zach wondered, focusing back on the reporter as she was going on about the images they got from inside the Muindo Mountains earlier.

"…Camera crews like ours have been given special permission to fly helicopters over the Muindo Mountain range, where several heroes have already begun investigative efforts," the reporter started speaking over footage from helicopter crews in the region. "Due to the severe scale of the damage to the Muindo Range, yet the oddly low reading on the Richter Scale, it has been determined although not confirmed that the earthquakes last night were likely caused by a human source."

"Are you talking about someone's Quirk?"

"That is what the current belief seems to be, however," the reporter on the ground closer to the Muindo Range than their counterpart in the studio was still speaking over the stunning footage of the mountains. The camera crews were showing huge upturned sections of earth, fissures splitting through mountains, and even one mountain with a huge flat top to it that looked so strange that it could not have been formed naturally. The camera angle still switched back to the reporter though as she continued, "The people here don't seem very upset over what happened last night. There is some damage here to the town of Nonpo, but the people are in unusually high spirits despite that. Look over here."

As the reporter started walking over towards a group of people gathered out on a street in Nonpo near a building that had some broken windows on the second floor of it, the camera angle switched back to footage from over the mountains. In the studio, one of the other reporters spoke in softer voice, "The extent of the damage is remarkable. If not for the fact that this occurred in an isolated and uninhabited area, there could have been many casualties. Look at that- Can you zoom in? Right there! There is supposed to be a mountain there, right? I mean, it's just gone. And this one in Korea, covers a much wider expanse than our own…"

Zach's eyebrows rose up and his eyes shifted towards Mineta in confusion. Internally his thoughts got darker while Mineta barely caught his reaction while too busy himself gawking at the insane damage to the Muindo Range. Mineta's eyes grew wider too as a forest was zoomed in on by the camera crew. "…The entire forest is dead. Those trees are black too…"

Mineta's focus was on the dead forest on an overturned section of valley. His eyes shifted back to Zach only to see a very dark and thoughtful expression on his face as he examined the screen as well. _Something else happened last night. A lot of somethings. Fuck. Had I not been about to lose it, I could have been out there right now. This is the course of action best for me. I accept that and will not go back on it. Yet, acting oblivious is too hard._ "What else happened last night, Mineta?"

"Besides this?" Mineta wondered back, his expression narrowing now after seeing how dead that forest looked despite this event only occurring last night. _Even uprooted trees wouldn't just blacken like that._

"Yes, could you explain the news to me now?" Zach wondered, getting more serious and looking at his shorter friend who stopped being confrontational about it and just nodded at the serious look on Zach's face. That look alone made it seem like Zach might go back on his reasons for not looking into the news before, which made Mineta want to tone down how serious he was being about the news in worry that Zach might run off to deal with it if he kept acting this way.

As Mineta started to explain though, the news on the tv in the room with them focused in on the trilingual reporter speaking in front of a group of Nonpo residents. "The people here are happy, actually. The skies over the Muindo Range have cleared. For the first time in as long as many of the people here can remember, there are no dark clouds over those mountains." As she was speaking, the happy-looking residents behind her were grinning and smiling towards the camera, waving, looking back towards the mountain and laughing in relieved and excited ways. Every one of them felt the weight off their shoulders they had lived with their whole lives.

"No storms are projected for the day. It's like, what happened last night was one last big storm mixed with earthquakes and now, nothing-"

As she was saying this, the people of the town behind her started cheering. She turned in some surprise but the townsfolk saw a couple heroes and some of their local guides returning in the distance across the fields of farms between their town and the mountains. The investigative teams were driving back and on the back of some of the pickups were their friends who waved their way looking happy despite coming _from_ the Muindo Range.

"It seems the people here are undeterred by the strange incidence of last night. Rather, they're taking this as a sign of good things to come-"

"Wooo!"

"Alright let's do it!"

"Are we doing this?!"

The reporter heard some things behind her seeming like the residents were deciding on something now as this investigative team was returning. "Excuse me," she tried to get a word from one of the people who was cheering so much to her surprise. "Could you tell me why you are all celebrating? What is the meaning of last night's occurrence to all of you?"

The older woman that the young reporter had confronted just shook her head and smiled back at the girl who could not understand. "The mountains are clear. God willing, they stay that way."

"They will Nana!"

"The beast is gone!"

That last shout in the background was in Korean and not translated by the Japanese telecaster who was subtitling many of the responses and questions being asked by their foreign journalist who mainly spoke in Japanese only with the studio. Zach understood it though and would have grinned if not for what Mineta was telling him. Instead, his expression only soured and his eyes grew dark as they glared at the screen and the reporter in the studio who was switching over to one of the reporters covering another of the many stories of the day…

* * *

In Shungwon, another town bordering the Muindo Range but on the opposite side of the mountains as Nonpo, G-Man and Cataphault stood at the edge of a small village where forty people were going absolutely wild in the early evening with the festivities set to get even crazier that night. The town elder returned to the two of them again and interrupted their conversation as they were watching the mountains closely. "Please join us. The rest of the town really does insist," the ninety year old man looked far younger than he was, a youthful energy filling him at the idea of what the youngsters did not truly understand or appreciate but he did.

Cataphault held up his hands from his arms that curved up over his shoulders and behind his back. He rose his arms at his sides in a defensive way and chuckled at the old man's enthusiasm and renewed efforts to have them join the fun. "Ey Jiji! We're going to start making decorations too! We'll make a whole festival out of it!"

The old man turned and before he could respond to the teenage girl shouting his way, a jeep came drifting around the corner onto main street. Some people had to scramble out of the way as some young twenty-somethings waved out from the vehicle and called to the elder. "We're going to drive out to the Son's and the Wang's compounds down I-64! They can join us right?!"

"The more the merrier!" The old man shouted back to the roar of applause from his village-folk.

G-Man sweatdropped as this was starting to get a little out of hand. _I've heard reports of celebrations and festivals all over the place, but in a small village like this I didn't expect things to get so rowdy so fast._

"Let's make today into a holiday even!" One of the women called out while running up to the jeep the boys were in including her husband as of the last two weeks. She slapped her hands on the outside of his open-air door, and she leaned in while exclaiming to him, "We'll have a celebration every year on today's date!"

"Sounds good to me!" He called back, and he leaned out and kissed his new bride to the cheers of the people who had all been to their wedding a few weeks earlier.

Cataphault smiled softly at the sight of that and the cheers of the relieved people all around him. He felt that relief himself, yet he also saw G-Man looking at him out the corners of his eyes from behind those sunglasses, and his relieved smile lowered down a bit. He managed to keep it long enough though to politely decline the village elder once more, as the two of them had more work to do tonight and could not stay for much longer.

G-Man watched the villagers who the rest of the country would never understand why they were celebrating. None of those confused people in the cities or his colleagues calling him and asking about the strange reactions of their people up here would get it. _They heard word that entire forests in the range were dead and blackened, and I never heard them cheer louder. The people of these villages know who they believe came to their range and fought their monsters. They don't say it aloud; they know how to keep quiet about things, but they know they'll be celebrating today… for a long time to come._

After the elder had walked off, G-Man turned more to Cataphault and his look got more stern. Cataphault was already thinking about it from that look a minute ago though, and as G-Man turned his eyes focused in on Cataphault's right eye quickly before he just stared at his fellow hero in surprise that he kept from his face. Cataphault let a tear slip out of his right eye first, then he turned away more from the people who might see him as he cried tears of joy as G-Man realized they were after a couple of seconds.

As the citizens they had come to check on started plans for a celebration, Cataphault rose his eyes up to G-Man who he looked at in a guilty way. His guilty conscience surged up to the surface and those tears stopped as he felt no right to let them fall the way he was feeling now. Cataphault responded to G-Man's accusatory and discerning look, "They're safe now so… I suppose, it doesn't matter anymore."

G-Man nodded and held off on passing judgement as Cataphault turned fully to the man he knew he owed an explanation to after hearing how G-Man had spent his career. The top hero in United Korea took in a deep breath, then he began in a quiet voice, "Once upon a time, this… _man,_ appeared in my home one night." Cataphault paused and grimaced but continued to the hero in a suit before him, "When I had gone for some water downstairs at two in the morning. My girls sleeping in their rooms above me, my wife waiting on the glass I told her I'd bring for her as well after waking her when I stirred. And, the man spoke softly, telling me not to raise my voice or my wife may come downstairs."

G-Man just nodded again for Cataphault to go on. The top hero of the nation shook his head once and continued, "He vanished when I got ready to fight him, and this _man_ appeared behind me and held a blade around my neck. Up against my jugular… And he warned me: 'Stop looking into the Muindo Range.' He whispered how there were three others in the house besides him. That it didn't matter if we were at home, or on the street, or at the pharmacy- where they knew my wife works… or at school." He hesitated after saying that with his eyes clenching as he remembered the moment he heard that how hard his heart had started racing in his chest.

"The _moment_ I consider bringing up the Muindo Range again, looking into it again- if I even breathed the word 'Muindo' in a public setting, one of the three would die in an accident." Cataphault shook his head in a guiltier way again, and he admitted in shame, "I was too much of a coward to ever speak the word again." His eyes dropped from G-Man's stern face and he said to the slightly younger hero also middle-aged though, "I focused as hard as I could on capturing every other villain I could. Stopping them all- made it so that I was so busy that there was no time to investigate something like that…"

"You ignored what you knew was the biggest threat," G-Man started, his voice angry as he spoke down to their nation's top hero. He kept the pity from his voice as much as he felt for the other man though, but he had kept away from starting a family for this exact reason. "You should not have succumbed to the threat." _If you thought you would, you never should have put yourself in that position to be compromised in the first place!_

"The man vanished from my home without a trace," Cataphault said, his defense weak as he rose his gaze back up to meet G-Man's. "I _wished_ I could imagine it was just a nightmare, but I had brought it up to a few members of my staff and a couple sidekicks just a day before as I discussed what had seemed like a strange pattern of disappearances and deaths in the Range."

Cataphault's look of betrayal was clear and G-Man's look got less harsh as he thought about why those assassins had appeared in Cataphault's house in the first place, which his comrade must have understood as well. Cataphault continued quietly, "The rest thought over time that I forgot about it as other villains appeared who we had to fight, but I never trusted anyone in my agency again. Never fully trusted anyone outside my family. Those I hired myself had been the ones I thought I trusted most, to have my back in the field. They all worked with me to save lives and they had saved my own many, many times."

"But when it came to the Muindo Range, apparently, one of them had superseding orders." Cataphault finished and his eyes got slightly sterner though also accepting as he gave G-Man a more serious look. "Will you turn me in?" He wondered to his fellow hero. "For not saying anything? For corrupting my hero values and oath?"

G-Man wondered back, "Do you think it was Eziano Mozcaccio? His assassins?"

Cataphault did not respond for a few seconds. Then he looked back towards the Muindo Mountains himself, and he whispered softly, "I saw news that Zach Sazaki returned to U.A. this morning. Which means he's still alive."

G-Man nodded his head while looking towards the mountains himself. _Was that it?_ He thought. _If Sazaki is still alive, then he won. The villages here think the same. So then, is it over? The end of the assassins who had apparently been controlling Korea's heroes and politicians from the shadows…_ G-Man started to smile, and he said in a low voice but a tone that made Cataphault's eyes grow wide, "Don't worry about it." Cataphault turned and stared stunned by the smile on G-Man's face.

The suited-up hero loosened his tie and relaxed as much as Cataphault had ever seen him. Then, the top hero was even more stunned as G-Man rose his right hand and went so far as to remove his sunglasses. "I think," G-Man continued. "I may stay for the celebrations," he said, sounding like he was deciding it in the moment to stay and party with the others of this village. He did not have to worry about them recording him and posting it somewhere. That was not going to happen tonight. The joy on these people's face was much too pure for that, which G-Man understood just as he knew how the people of these villages were feeling.

 _I too, have lived under the weight of knowing what was in there for so long,_ G-Man thought while walking away from Cataphault towards the citizens who looked his way and went nuts to see G-Man looking relaxed and as happy as they were if not slightly more reserved. _It has driven my entire life here. Until this point. No one knew why I acted in the ways I did. I see now that it was right of me not to tell all my staff and explain to the higher ups why I chose to set up my agency where I did. It never was paranoia. It was always justified._

 _Starting now, I can refocus. Restart efforts to move our people into the mountains, and I'll be here to protect the new settlers of our final frontier._ G-Man smiled wider and nodded at the people asking him if he had changed his mind and was going to stay with them now as an "honored guest." _Protecting these people who are the ones I now recognize most. Keeping them safe from any villains who would try and stop us from turning the Muindo Mountains, into something more habitable. A home for our growing population. A safe place, instead of a horrifying expanse of death looming over our heads for all time. All generations._

G-Man had looked back at the records going before the War of Unification which were harder to come by. He had traveled to villages all around the range who knew him thanks to his work as a hero up north, and he heard all the stories, all the myths, all the legends… _That end here._ G-Man thought it with a smile but the most grateful feeling welling in his chest as well. _If Zach Sazaki survived, and he really was the one who came here last night, then he just saved all of United Korea. I believe that he was our savior, and no one will ever know. That's not him._

 _But for those who believe it, we will_ _ **never**_ _forget it._

* * *

Zach sat on his desk chair and stared at the empty wall across the room from his bed that he had moved all his furniture away from. He had no laptop yet, so he had to go back to the school building and print out several reports and papers and pictures he now had taped all over his wall to examine in a clearer way. He had considered doing something like this for the kind of linguistic investigation he was doing earlier, but those papers he had had splayed out over the coffee table were now on his desk and out of the way of his new pertinent investigation.

 _Only positive I can see in all this is that the rest of the news here in Japan, in the US, and the missing persons all over the world have distracted from what's in Korea. The news is muddled through of all the cases. Not enough information is out. And if what happened in Korea is going to be reported completely wrong then I must assume everything else is a lie as well. All those missing persons will stay as missing persons. The missing premier of Yugalvenia, the missing heroes including Rhino Chick who is suspected to maybe be in the town of Gondorhan, Arizona. I don't know where they made that jump, but considering what's going on there it might be assumed that she was investigating something that turned sour._

 _What happened out there?_ Zach stared at pictures taken by journalists in the US who had been denied access to a town of 14,000+ that had been quarantined by the federal government. Quarantine efforts involved hundreds of personnel: Special Forces at the Arizona base with help from neighboring states' US Special Forces, as well as help from American heroes coming from all over the nation and other heroes from the America Group which consisted of heroes all across North and South America. The mass outpouring of help for the town of Gondorhan was appreciated and praised by the American government which was telling its people to remain calm and wait for word from the response teams going into the town.

 _The response from the government is surface-level. The only reason I can think of for why they'd say such vague responses is that they really have no idea what happened in there._ Zach looked at a picture of Star-Spangled Man who had arrived with a huge group of heroes, only to be fitted with HAZMAT suits as the report claimed. _Unconfirmed reports of mass destruction and death are coming out of there. Can't believe all of it, but the fact is that no one's heard anything from inside the town other than initial reports from heroes that there aren't any survivors. Investigation's still underway, but the quarantine covers an area of nearly fifty miles wide and going north and south._

 _Then there's Japan. With no one giving any relation to the disappearances or the USA, and yet they have proposed theories of how it's the same circumstances as Korea. They're wrong. I had nothing to do with this._ Zach stared at the images taken in the middle of a mountain range, and he rose up his phone and opened back up a video that had been taken by Japanese press earlier. _Midoriya and Bakugo are still out there. Didn't realize most of the class was rushing off for the same reason,_ Zach thought, frowning more that he did not pick up on it before. He had already expected to see them when he first watched this video, and he watched as his classmates and dozens of heroes walked around the huge wasteland spanning several square kilometers.

 _All of Mt. Yamagucha is gone. And then there's that…_ Zach's teeth ground but he relaxed after a second while the wind died down on the video. He watched as that gray ash settled back down, and he bit down but shifted his gaze towards his door and calmed down completely. _Do I hide it? No point. What am I hiding? That I'm investigating the same thing as everyone else only from in here? That's the whole point of putting up pictures from the other incidents wasn't it?_ Zach questioned himself while glancing at pictures of "missing" persons he knew very well were dead, as well as pictures of the aftermath in the Muindo Range particularly with photos of the dead forests as if he was confused by that.

 **Knock Knock**

"Come in," Zach said, rolling his chair back from the wall and looking to his door. The girl behind it opened it up and stepped into his doorway. "Hey Momo," Zach greeted the girl whose footsteps he had recognized and knew she must have returned from her internship when he heard them.

Yaoyorozu stepped into Zach's room. The tall girl with a spiky black ponytail wore comfy clothes she had changed into after returning to the dorm, and she planned on heading back to the main building to get dinner in a little. She walked into Zach's room first though and turned to the right, looking at the wall covered in pictures he had taped up and drawn on with some arrows pointing towards other papers and reports stuck up there. _He couldn't have been everywhere,_ Yaoyorozu thought, telling herself not to doubt that what he had set up was actually real and not just a ploy to trick anyone who might see it. She sighed that that was the first thought that came to her though.

"You all figure anything out about that missing mountain?" Zach wondered.

Yaoyorozu shook her head. "A few theories, nothing concrete," she said.

Zach nodded his head back at her. _Same here,_ he thought, as he had some unconfirmed theories of his own about that.

"Zach," Yaoyorozu started. She decided not to beat around it and gave him a serious but also sad look that had Zach sitting up more on his chair and giving her a nod to go ahead. "You were about to leave, last night." Yaoyorozu stated it and gave him a look but Zach did not deny what she just said, not that she had asked him it in a question for him to confirm. Her expression stayed hurt for a few seconds and she continued softly to him, "I don't know why you're hurt. You won't tell me," she added, as his silence there was painful to stand there and watch.

"It's not one single thing," Zach replied. "Just, all of it was too much." _What a lame excuse,_ he thought at himself while watching her expression twist frustratedly and sadly to hear it.

"Were you really going to leave?" Yaoyorozu asked him quietly, looking at him softer but seriously to make sure he told her the-

"I was," Zach replied.

 _The truth,_ Yaoyorozu knew it was at the way he said it to her. A sharp breath released from her mouth, then she scrunched up her face for a moment before asking in a whisper, "Without telling us?" Zach stared at her hesitantly but in surprise, his eyes growing wider still as she said to him in more of a scolding voice, "I thought you wouldn't leave like that again."

Zach shook his head though. He looked more surprised by the question she had asked, and he wondered back at her, "How could I have left you, if I was never with you all in the first place?"

"You were-"

"It didn't feel like it," Zach replied with another shake of his head. Then he paused, and his eyes shifted down from her as he added, "It doesn't feel like it." _It doesn't matter that I'm back. Most of the class wasn't part of that decision. Ashido forced it on them and I saw it today, they're regretting letting her break them down for that moment of weakness where they allowed her to bring me back._

Momo's eyes dropped down too after she had opened her mouth right away at Zach's response. _He's right,_ she admitted to herself. _Not everyone's on board. I know it, though I thought, you would have at least said something to me before leaving._ Her eyes rose while her head was still bowed, and she said softly, "You _are_ back now though." He rose his eyes too and they met each other's gaze, "So don't leave. You're not allowed to. Not just without telling me. You can't go back. Okay?"

Zach stared back at her for a few seconds and then nodded his head. He reluctantly responded, "Yeah, I got it."

Yaoyorozu nodded back, then she stepped backwards with another glance at the wall he had been investigating. _There are other things I want to ask you. Things I wish you'd tell me. I should just-_ "I was out looking for you last night, same as Midoriya." Zach's eyebrows rose up and he looked at her in surprise. "I came to see you when I returned, after getting the text that you were back." Yaoyorozu kept staring to the side at the wall of pictures Zach had posted up, including the ones with the dead trees and broken mountains. "Checked Midoriya's room as well, to see-"

"Momo-"

"You seem to be in a great mood today," Yaoyorozu continued, still staring straight at Zach's wall because she did not want to be looking at his face when she said it. Her statement came with an implication and a question, and she had to turn farther from him to get him out of her peripheral vision. Her eyes clenched shut as there was no response from behind her. _I knew it. Why? You- You can't just… And Midoriya, what were you doing? To let him, kill?_

"I won't leave again," Zach just repeated. It took him a few seconds and she was still turned away from him. "I won't leave this place. I promise. And, the only one I'm going to kill now," Yaoyorozu's eyes opened wide while she was still faced away from him. She heard Zach's voice echoing in her head in this very room almost two years ago now. Zach's voice lowered and he finished to the girl he had explained this to, which was overheard by the boys listening from outside but that he had told _her_ directly. "Is him," Zach finished, and there was no need to specify it as her slight reaction alone told him she remembered what he had told her that night.

Yaoyorozu nodded her head. She did not argue or speak against it, as his words pierced her heart once more as she remembered the pain in his voice that night. _To still want to kill him for that reason,_ Yaoyorozu thought after leaving Zach's room, resting her right hand on the wall next to the door to give herself balance for a second. She held back tears thinking about a spiky-haired blond smiling at her, and the one smiling in so much more malevolent evil at Kyoka and Zach whose lives he had destroyed. _What am I thinking?_ Yaoyorozu leaned off the wall and smacked herself on the cheeks a few times. _Don't let him distract you from, from something you don't know all the details of. Don't make assumptions. Midoriya will not be able to lie as well as Zach could. Zach wouldn't though, would he? In this instance… Do I even want to know the truth?_

 _I don't think I was lying to her there,_ Zach admitted to himself while leaning back in his chair, his arms together behind his head with his fingers interlocked. His eyes shifted to his right arm he moved around more while feeling less pain than he had earlier. _I just promised her straight to her face. I don't think I can go back on that._

 _I know it was you in Korea,_ Yaoyorozu thought while heading downstairs. _I needed to see how you were doing when I got back here, but you weren't in your room. The window was open, your things left behind, and I was so confused as to what had happened… I'm still unsure. Did you fight Midoriya? Then why the hesitation? Why does it feel like you killed someone? Why did you look, all day, like you did after killing Spinner? In the Lifebringer Incident- even without any darkness on you, you had that look. A look that I had to see all day today and right there too. It just won't wipe from your face! Why?! What happened out there?!_

Yaoyorozu stopped again in the stairwell. _I searched and found what you were doing. I couldn't sleep. I heard when you returned and when you went back to your room. So late in the morning, and I don't know what happened. I don't understand, why those people are celebrating. The clip of the damage though- there was clearly someone there you were fighting. A broken arm. Recovery Girl said your ribs were damaged too, and the skin on your left- It's too much. Far worse than you were damaged by the Subspace Devils. Zach… You looked like you weren't afraid of being attacked. Could that be just being at U.A.? It was different than usual. The look may have been for the reason I assume, but under that bad joy was relief and a lack of fear. I needed to see it close up to be sure._

 _You killed Eziano Mozcaccio, didn't you?_

* * *

In Midoriya's room on the night of Zach's first day back at U.A., Zach lay on his friend's bed on his back with "The God Book" held up over his body. He had nicknamed the book, to Midoriya's unease, and was back to deciphering it while hanging out with the boy who had recently returned from his internship. Midoriya's hair was still wet as he had showered after returning back and only just got into some casual clothes for the night when Zach came to his room so they could do this together.

As Zach was deciphering it though, Midoriya was more focused on the various news stories he also wanted to get Zach's opinions on. He turned from his desk though and looked towards his bed as Zach described what he had just finished decoding, "After befriending the Khan, Genghis and Enzo lay siege across Asia. Growing tired of women it looked like Enzo 'dabbled' with men as well, unlike his friend whose ravenous lust was insatiable." Zach rose his eyebrows and thought to himself, _Pretty sure it's like a tenth of the world is a descendent of Genghis Khan. Or something, I heard that somewhere before._ He continued on after pausing for a second, "Enzo lost interest in both men and women, however Genghis himself was a good friend and teacher… I think this word is 'teacher' at least."

 _It's unbelievable, but it's even crazier how much of that you've been able to figure out already,_ Midoriya thought while watching Zach's intrigued expression as he continued to read the book carefully. Midoriya had flipped through the pages himself and saw nothing he could make out, but Zach was treating it like a puzzle he had been putting together and was pleased at his results. Zach turned his head and continued while looking Midoriya's way, "Enzo writes in here that Genghis actually had a great military mind, yet his overwhelming power and skill in combat led to him not using all the strategies that he and Enzo developed together. Wonder if Enzo would have come up with the idea for bio weapons earlier, if he did not have the Mongol hordes making it so easy for him?"

"What, was Enzo doing?" Midoriya started. He specified confusedly, "With Genghis Khan? Did he cause those wars-"

"I don't think so," Zach replied. "I'm pretty sure this is a very young version of Enzo we're talking about. Since it's before the Black Plague that Ares said Enzo spread as a young man."

"I heard that," Midoriya responded, his voice soft though he nodded as he recalled hiding behind a rock and trying to join in on a fight only to hear that shocking revelation the night before.

"That's why I think this is probably a very young version of Enzo we're reading about here. Probably before he even knew he had the Longevity Quirk like his father, Aurellio, as none of Aurellio's other children had inherited it. I don't think…"

"If it was this early in his life, but he was already fighting in wars and developing strategy and strength and skill," Zach shook his head while looking back up at the pages he held above him. "I'm sure Enzo was as amazing as Ares claimed-"

"He's as _horrible,"_ Midoriya cut off and corrected Zach. His eyes were wider and stared at Zach in horror at the things Zach had been describing but also the way Zach worded that last sentence.

"I agree," Zach replied while still looking at the pages, rolling his eyes at Midoriya's disgusted interruption. "But few men in history have had as much of an impact," Zach continued. "As terrible an impact as it may be, I am amazed to read these things I never thought possible about history." Zach frowned more while looking on farther down the page he was on. _Wonder if he explains what made him start having children again, that he would come to have Eziano nearly a thousand years later?_ "The languages change again," Zach said while lowering down the book, turning to the side and dropping his legs off Midoriya's bed. "Into a more Latin-originated language. Can't read it well," _Or at all really._

"Hmm," Midoriya hummed and he finally moved past the weird response there he tried to think about and not just deny Zach's interest and amazement in these things. _Just because it amazes him doesn't mean- Just, just move on. Genghis Khan. He's a villain- he would be. This is a historical figure. Reading this book that's so casual about historical events and figures is strange. Textbooks don't have this kind of, intimacy. Enzo could have died out fighting with the Mongols. Longevity does not mean immortality. Yet he survived and went on to have Eziano, and then that bloodline ended._

Midoriya leaned back in his chair and let out a long breath at the stunning thoughts he was having. _If I even thought I'd be in this position- That I know for a fact that history is full of lies,_ Midoriya closed his eyes and breathed heavily but shook his head around to clear his mind. _I never thought it. Who could imagine they'd even be in this position?_ His eyes shifted towards Zach for a moment, then he turned back to his computer after making eye contact with the boy who his eyes were drawn to at his last internal question.

"Which are you focusing on?" Zach asked as Midoriya had pulled up the news on his computer.

Zach was sitting on the edge of Midoriya's bed but left The God Book closed next to him as it was time to focus on the present now. "I'm supposed to be staying on Mt. Yamagucha," Midoriya began. He frowned deeper though as the majority of the sites he had pulled up on his computer had to do with the crazy event in America that more news was coming out about. "It's horrible," Midoriya continued. "What happened in Arizona today."

"Yeah," Zach agreed, frowning deeper himself as he thought about the confirmation reports from heroes who had gone into the town. "Atmospheric levels in the town read strange on sensors, but the air isn't toxic."

"Or it isn't toxic anymore," Midoriya corrected. "Whatever it was though, it's saying here that dogs and cats, livestock too."

"Plants?"

Midoriya shook his head darkly in response. "Some people are suggesting it must have been Death-"

"Who's saying that?" Zach asked skeptically.

"Conspiracy theorists," Midoriya replied quickly, denying it was prevalent with his tone as it was not being called out on major news programs or as a theory by top heroes or anything. "But so are the reports saying that you were responsible for Yamagucha… and the disappearances, and the Muindo Range-"

"Two out of four," Zach said with a shrug. "And the disappearances aren't even our fault. It's not," Zach added quickly, and he frowned deeper while Midoriya glanced over his shoulder back at him in slight confusion as to why Zach repeated that so seriously. "I'm sorry, for saying that you failed at that-"

"I know why you did," Midoriya countered with a shake of his head. "But you were right-"

"I wasn't shit," Zach retorted with a crack of a smile as Midoriya tried to put that on himself. "Ares practically Kamehameha-ed apart a couple mountains. It's not your fault he blew away hundreds of his own forces with the attack."

"We just stood there," Midoriya countered in a lower voice. He thought about it often today, and he finished while Zach stared at him in surprise, "As Ares crushed Eziano's heart. I didn't, even move."

"Good," Zach scoffed back with a raise of his eyebrows and a laugh at Midoriya's regretful tone. Midoriya glared at him though at the laughter, and Zach forced his smile down a little though could not help but keep grinning which made Midoriya frown even deeper. "Listen, Midoriya. The way things went last night, was how they _had_ to happen. No point in regretting it."

"That's not true," Midoriya countered. "We could have- I could have, done something else. Reacted better, so that not so many people died."

"You couldn't-"

"We were the only two left," Midoriya snapped. His voice was low and he glared down Zach who lost his smile fully this time. "Everyone else died. That's not how fights are supposed to end. Heroes, shouldn't allow something like that to happen. They can't."

Zach hesitated instead of just countering Midoriya again. _If that's how you really feel._ "Fine," he said, shrugging his shoulders and dropping back on Midoriya's bed again though with his legs still hanging off the side. Without looking at Midoriya's face he added, "Think of it as a failure. I don't care. Don't let it happen again then," _Is he right? If it's how he feels, it must be what he needs to do as a hero. Or just, what heroes should do? I don't know many heroes who would put that much blame on themselves but, but you're better than most heroes. I know that. I shouldn't, try to make you accept anything less than perfect._

 _A Symbol needs to be perfect._

Midoriya frowned while looking towards Zach's accepting and slightly grinning face as his friend was laying back on his bed. He looked away though to keep Zach from seeing his face and reading his inner thoughts as his mind wandered to earlier that afternoon though. _**"…Like you don't know."**_

 _ **"What is he talking about?"**_

 _ **"I, don't know,"**_ Midoriya remembered how Bakugo looked at him when he replied like that.

 _ **"You know what's going on already. I don't know what you two did last night, but Zach's got a broken arm and you look like-"**_

 _ **"We fought."**_

 _They looked like they believed that much at least,_ Midoriya thought while looking at his computer screen. _And telling Zach to go along with that if Kacchan asks isn't important. Him not knowing is better, as Kacchan won't be able to tell if you aren't expecting it. Your confusion and surprise- I don't like this. They didn't believe everything anyway though, so I doubt they ask just about that._ _ **"…But I don't know about anything else, because we weren't a part of-"**_

 _ **"Why didn't you tell me about this? Why didn't you mention that you were bringing Lifebringer-"**_

 _ **"Why didn't**_ **you** _ **tell us that Zach was homeless? You didn't think it was important to mention?"**_

 _ **"Yeah,"**_ Midoriya was glad that at least Bakugo had been on his side there, as Bakugo looked equally pissed at both of them on their dual-rotored helicopter flight earlier. The Jospreys they had flown in on were loud, but the three of them had had headsets on with microphones sticking out of them that they had been speaking to each other through just the three of them on the channel. He remembered Bakugo had snapped at their pro hero they were going in with, _**"…No. You're a dick for just keeping quiet about it, like that was somehow doing him a favor. Don't you look at me like that, Deku. You fucking brought him back for no reason, 'cause he looked fine today-"**_

 _ **"He isn't-"**_ Midoriya frowned in the present while thinking of how Kacchan had been measuring his reaction. He had seen that Bakugo just brought that up in order to get him to reveal something about Zach, and yet now as he thought back on it he grimaced even more. _Stopping there showed Kacchan even more. Did he let me see that he was trying to find out, just to see if I would stop and hold back from telling him? I could see that,_ Midoriya frowned deeper but shook his head as he thought of what happened right after that which ended their argument in its tracks. The three of them had to stop being pissed at each other and focus as a team of heroes who stayed serious and on task, as the task was of utmost priority and importance.

One of the news channels Midoriya was streaming in a corner of his computer screen, something that was already starting to slow his laptop down, switched topics from the investigation he was supposed to be working on himself over to the news in the United States. "I just don't understand it," Midoriya whispered as he looked at what was going on there. "Do you think it was villains?"

"Officials are still looking to find the cause," Zach replied while holding up his phone he was watching things on himself. _Wish all these other news stories made me feel lucky that the focus isn't on Korea. It's all fucking shit though._ "This US story is bad enough, 'a real terrible tragedy' they're saying. It's an 'accident' that believers are starting to push blame around though like the government that's been saying it couldn't have been a power plant."

"Do you think it's a cover up?"

"Doubt it," Zach muttered in response. Midoriya looked back and watched Zach's expression as his glowing red eyes stared straight at his phone he was scrolling on quickly. "They're blaming the strongest US villain group right now, and people are buying it. The Freedom Fighters. Blitz and Coola are hunting them down now with a force of American heroes moving as fast as they can, because this is too much to accept. Yet the Freedom Fighters have taken responsibility for their attacks before. I'd go as far as to say that they would have taken credit even if it wasn't them. Which makes me wonder, how long until they're all found dead, and the blame for that is put on the Army of Death?"

"Wh- What?" Midoriya asked, spinning in his chair fully and staring towards Zach who just cocked his head to the side while sitting up a little more.

"I don't know," Zach replied, his tone raising as if what he just suggested was only a possibility. Only one of many possibilities he was thinking of. "People would believe it. It would let the US government off without having to search for the truth any longer. People would believe that the ones responsible were all dead, and the heroes would be able to stop looking. Whatever killed them all would stop being searched for. Slipping away without anyone the wiser. Except for the Army of Death, who I'd bet would be pretty pissed off being the scapegoat. And they'd also know that something else was going on. Maybe they'll find the Freedom Fighters first though, and maybe it really will be the Freedom Fighters who will be prosecuted in front of all the people… Or maybe some kid developed a Quirk that wiped out the town and killed everyone inside."

Midoriya's eyes shot open huge at that suggestion Zach said in a much darker voice. "Watched as everyone around him died to his confusion, unless it killed him too. The heroes inside the town now might find him, all alone surrounded by bodies-"

"Why would you say something like-"

"It's what I imagined would happen if they revived me at the Sports Festival," Zach replied. He glanced at Midoriya with his eyes hazel but with a dark red tint inside those hazel irises. "It's why I told Monoma not to revive me that day. I thought my Quirk might change, and I would wake up in a city of the dead."

"If I believed it could happen with my Quirk," Zach continued after a second. He grimaced and looked towards Midoriya's window that had the blinds slightly parted so he could see out them. "Then why not someone else's?"

"That's, never happened before," Midoriya began.

"Which means it never can?" Zach wondered back. Then he backtracked and added, "And who says it hasn't happened before? History?" Zach scoffed at the idea of them knowing anything about the past, and he lifted up The God Book in his left hand and shook it to make his point which Midoriya just frowned at. "Whatever it is," Zach continued, putting the book back down and sighing as there was no point arguing about this or even speculating on it anymore. "We'll know more after the investigations are done. There's nothing we can do about it now. We'll just have to keep watching and hope there are some survivors, someone in there who can explain what happened." _There are a few missing Japanese college students who were traveling the US too. Must have been in the wrong place at the wrong time. Really sucks._

 _A lot of people were calling on me to go there and revive everyone. Some bullshit right there. I didn't even know about this until after my time limit… I think._

 _When is my time limit now?_

 _Do I even have one?_ That question made Zach's head tilt up and his eyes stare at the blank ceiling with a calm but darker look. _I can't let anyone know that. Never revive over three hours. They'll believe you immortal. Believe your power as unstoppable. Back when I explained to them how I was just figuring out my Quirk they weren't_ _ **that**_ _worried because I didn't know how to use it. Now they know how good I am with it. Now they know- that I'm going to U.A.! That the heroes here and Class A are around me and making me into a hero. The best kind of hero._

 _Being here will restore their faith in me. Graduating from U.A., as part of Class A, will make them believe in me far more than even stopping the Subspace Devils._

"Anyway Midoriya," Zach started. "How was it out there today? Figure anything out, that you can tell me," he added afterwards, as what happened during internships was occasionally classified information.

Midoriya immediately thought about all the conversations he, Lemillion, and Bakugo had had about Zach throughout that day. Those were not things he was willing to discuss with Zach right now, betraying the trust of the other two who did not think he would go tell Zach what they had talked about when the topic of discussion was him. The rest of the day though, Midoriya thought about only somewhat hesitantly while giving his friend an uncertain look.

"Come on, I know you have a theory already," Zach started at his friend giving him that look. He lowered his mouth into a flat line and added, "We both know who was responsible for this."

"Mount Yamagucha completely disappeared," Midoriya began. "The entire mountain in central Honshu went missing last night, along with all the train tracks on it, telephone poles, houses… There are a lot of missing people who lived on that mountain."

"A shrine with some Buddhist monks, a family on a camping trip, I know. All the power was knocked out for the region around it, I know." Zach frowned at his friend stating the things he already knew. "Those videos I saw didn't show as much destruction as the ones I saw from Korea, but I saw what was down there, Midoriya. We both saw that ash. So tell me, what is your theory?"

Midoriya hesitated for a couple of seconds, then he started, "I think, that maybe Shigaraki-"

"Shigaraki," Zach said at the same time he saw Midoriya's mouth start to move in that way. He spoke over his friend so they said the word at the same time, and he nodded as Midoriya did not hold back what he already believed. "Good," Zach said with a nod as Midoriya thought so too. "I'm glad you think so. It's clear to me that's what this is."

"We don't know yet-"

"We don't, but it was him-"

"You can't just assume. There are a lot of missing people. If we just assume they're dead-" Midoriya was scolding Zach, but Zach's eyebrows narrowed at his classmate in anger.

"You _pretend_ that they're just missing because you don't want to have to tell their families that they've all been _decayed._ You don't want to tell them that Shigaraki Tomura has the power to destroy an entire _mountain_ with his Quirk," Zach said it and he stared into Midoriya's soul while the green-haired boy's eyes opened wide. "Other heroes can't easily comprehend that there are Quirks out there with the power to destroy an entire mountain, but you and I understand."

Midoriya's eyes returned to normal size though his right hand did raise to his mouth as he looked down and started contemplating this harder than just a theory he did not want to believe. _Ares was different though. Stronger than, than everyone!_

"Of course Shigaraki would be this strong," Zach countered Midoriya's thoughts in a way making his friend's eyes snap wide open again as it felt like Zach had read his mind. "Because All For One told him about you having One For All, which means Shigaraki knows that you're as strong as All Might _at least._ He's going to be preparing for even stronger than that, so being at mountain buster level was to be expected." Midoriya stared at Zach in shock, but the boy sitting on the side of his bed shook his head like it should have been obvious to him as well. "If the successor to All Might is going to be stronger than All Might, then we should expect the successor to All For One to be the same. And Midoriya, it's up to you to stop him."

"You, don't want to fight him yourself?" Midoriya wondered. He asked it as images of Shigaraki carving through Zach with a knife flashed through his mind. He imagined what Zach had screamed about the scar on his face during the Lifebringer Incident. And yet Zach just shook his head with a small chuckle that unnerved Midoriya deep inside that Zach thought his question to be laughable.

"I know how formidable Shigaraki is," Zach replied. "Because even though he thought he was going to break me with his torture, he still went through the precaution of having Ganeshi snap his neck so that I would bring him back and make it so I could never hurt him. As much as I'm strong even without being able to use Death to kill or knock someone out, with Shigaraki? No chance. And if he's gotten strong enough to even Decay my Death and destroy that too, then I'm really screwed if I try to go after him." Midoriya stared at Zach with his eyes huge, but Zach just smirked and tilted his head back in a more relaxed way now, "I'm not saying it would be impossible for me to defeat him- it would be hard- but it has to be you, Midoriya. I'm going after Kaminari. I need to beat him myself." Zach's smirk lowered down there and his lips flattened out more, but he lifted them into a small smile while refocusing on his friend in front of him.

"But you? You've got the power of All Might. You stopped Inhuman during the SFI. The winner of the last Sports Festival. Beating the leader of the League of Villains?" Zach posed the question and let it hang in the air of Midoriya's room. He grinned at his classmate whose expression could not be more serious at the aspect of what Zach was suggesting. "It's necessary. It _has_ to be you. And you're going to do it. No doubt in my mind."

"Wh-" Midoriya's mouth opened and made the sound even though he did not have a question he was prepared to ask after hearing that. He just stared at Zach with a shaky expression and confused look, as his friend had just told him how he could probably not take Shigaraki himself yet thought he could do it without a doubt. _But- but last night you- but- what?! What, are you even- Are you lying? You don't sound like you're- What?!_ Midoriya's eyes shook as he stared at his friend who stood up from his own bed to grin down at the stunned boy ahead of him.

"You can do it. Tell me you can." Zach stated that down to Midoriya who lowered his bottom lip at the request. Zach was smiling at him when he asked it, and Midoriya stared right back up at his friend for a few seconds before getting an intense look on his face and nodding once.

"I will… if I get the chance to. Maybe, someone else will, before-"

"It will be up to you," Zach countered what Midoriya started saying about the uncertainty of the future. Zach knew it in his mind, and he said to his comrade he wanted to be fully ready for this, "Only you, can stop him."

* * *

Zach sat on the stairs between the second and third floor. He had his phone out and his headphones in while watching the news on his phone. _Left Midoriya on a good note. Optimistic. We're in a good place, the two of us. Things are good with Mineta. Tried to normalize some stuff with Aoyama today. We were never too close, but I know everyone pulled out of the Sports Festival for me. You were in the training forest that night and I had to keep Dabi from you. I heard how you defended me when I was with the villains the first time too. Shit- why am I even thinking of this. You're Class A. Everyone, is Class A. You're all my-_

 _Anyway, Tokoyami avoided me. Think the way I looked today has something to do with that. Shoji ignored it- stay second floor for now. Can't skip to fourth, when I can't even walk past the third floor._ Zach's eyes darkened more and shifted back to his phone's screen. _Pleas all over the world right now. In the places where it's the middle of the day. Yugalvenian citizens begging for the return of their premier. The parents of the student from the hero high school in Canada. Really wish he hadn't have died. Without Eziano or Ares, I might've been able to set him on the right path._ Zach's expression saddened a bit and he saw something flash through brightly in his mind that he knew Midoriya had been thinking about all day. _I could only save him. I was barely able to. It almost killed both of us, that attack. Defeating him was still one of the hardest things I've ever done. At any moment he could have beaten me, killed me, drained me of all Death. I held out though._

 _And every one of the assassins died. Luckily for me- no. No, I- I never wanted that._ Zach frowned deeper and he rose his right hand to his mouth, bowing his head more. _What am I thinking? I was going to kill them, but Midoriya came and stopped me- Or you just told him that. It made it easier, to believe that the choice to kill them wasn't in your hands alone. That you could have just done it, if Midoriya wasn't there. So as soon as he showed up, you accepted that you couldn't do it? I did- FUCK! I had to kill them- or they had to die at least. That made it easier._

 _Easiest isn't best. Just because-_

 _Just because it's what you needed to do,_ Zach closed his eyes and he brought his fists up to them and rubbed them into his closed eyelids for a few seconds. _Did I do the same thing the other night? I pretended like she was the only reason holding me back, when I just wanted to put it on her- No! I was going to- and she knows I would have, which was why she interjected in the first place. She didn't want me doing it. She knew I would. I knew I would, which is why I brought her- right? Right- just to what? Why did I… Because I'm a bad person._

 _A bad person to the people I hate- I told them I don't hate anyone. I lied._ Zach stood up on the steps and shook his head around. _A bad person to the people I hate! But,_ he turned and looked up at the third floor, and he walked up the last few steps then onto the platform. _But to the people I love…_

Zach gulped but shook his head around. He hardened his expression as he walked around the corner and down the hallway. He slowed down as he neared her door, but he took in a deep breath while he was outside of it. _It's still early enough. She won't be asleep._

 **Knock knock.** "Hagakure?"

Zach didn't want her to open the door and be surprised to see it was him. Saying her name aloud he gave her fair warning of who was outside her door. _In case she doesn't want to open up,_ Zach thought while glancing down for a second as he heard movement on the other side of the door.

The doorknob started turning and Zach's eyes flashed red for a split second before going back to normal. Every time he had seen her all day his great mood had sank. Looking her direction had been a damper on everything he did so he had avoided making eye contact with her once. It was hard to make eye contact with her anyway so he was able to avoid it easily, but he was in front of her door now and there was no way to avoid it.

In Hagakure's head as she opened the door and looked into Zach's eyes, she saw the moment she had grabbed him by the sleeve on the street the other day. She had turned him after the darkness spread across his face like veins from his blood-red eyes. After he had swung a black arm around her, and she had watched that bullet seep through the darkness on perfect line to blow her head apart. Then she thought of what she had seen in that alleyway afterwards though. As she looked at Zach she saw the boy who had talked down to the woman he had beaten, whose mask he had broke, and whose entire life he had destroyed all meaning to with a few sentences he admitted to her he had made up after it all.

Zach thought about the sight of her invisible body's postures when he had placed her in that trap. He opened his mouth as soon as she opened the door. Nothing came out.

No words could escape his lips. He just stared at that blank space over Hagakure's pajamas and his heart pounded violently in his chest. His heart ached and he tilted his head back for a second as he thought about how she had left him in that alley when he told her how he wasn't Death, and how she should leave so he could call in what had happened…

Zach's head bowed. He broke eye contact with where he thought her eyes were, and he whispered, "Hagakure." Zach bent down. His knees bent and he lowered to them with his mouth curling, his eyes shaking even as he clenched them shut harder. Zach lowered his upper body from his knees and prostrated himself to hide his face from her and to bow as low down as he could. He shoved his face into the carpet below him. Hagakure stared down at him hesitantly, even easing back as Zach's face shoved into the ground and she heard the gasp down below her. "I know, I don't deserve your forgiveness." He paused and with his face still down he said, "But I want you to know how sorry I am."

"Mysti," Zach paused and he grit his teeth, "She was, one of the most dangerous people I had ever met. Putting you in her direct crosshairs was too risky, so horrible of-"

"It was," Hagakure gasped out, her eyes clenching up and her voice coming out hoarse as she heard Zach say this to her days later. She shook her head and then whispered down frustratedly and with shaking eyes, "How could you do that, if you really care more about us than…" Hagakure trailed off. She thought about the night before and all Mina had said that had broken everything she thought about what had occurred between her and Zach and Mysti. On the other side of Hagakure's door that was opened inwards, the blond boy who had been with his girlfriend continued to stand facing his door and frowning as he listened to the other teen boy on the other side.

"It's because of that," Zach whispered. "That I knew all of you were Mysti's targets," Zach continued. He shook his head into the floor, continuing strongly but regretfully, "And if I didn't do it on my terms, she'd catch me off guard and kill one of you when I wasn't perfectly prepared for it. And I had to be. She was truly _that_ dangerous. I believed she could probably assassinate half of you if I was not careful. After the first she would be ready to get around my preparations too, so it had to be the first one that I set her up for- but also because I didn't want anyone- but- but I-" Zach grit his teeth and sucked in a sharp breath.

"So I set up the perfect moment for her to get her first kill," Zach whispered. "A completely fabricated day and scenario and everything because Mysti would have noticed or suspected something, or that I knew that she was there if I had shown the slightest idea of knowing, or if my friend had, or if our schedule hadn't been just a fun day with nothing to indicate an actual threat to her." Zach paused and he rose up his head slightly. He glanced up at Hagakure who was listening to this and staring down at him stunned to hear his explanation in full without him being that same dark person he had been after this incident the other night. Zach just grit his teeth while looking up at her then shook his head, "I had to convince myself your feelings didn't matter to me, so that I could save you and- and I just couldn't be the person I was before it, right after it, leading me to say things and act in a way I forced out for necessity… But that's no excuse."

"You put me in danger," Hagakure whispered. "To protect me, and the rest of our classmates too." Hagakure hesitated but shook her head with tears in the corners of her eyes, "But I don't know how you could do that? Both morally and, how you could even think up something like that!" Hagakure gasped it at the boy bowed down in front of her whose face scrunched up at the question. Her eyes shook and Zach saw the pain in them as she thought on that day they spent together.

He did not really have an answer for her question. He closed his eyes slowly, and he shook his head while opening them with his gaze shifted down at Hagakure's feet, "Certain things, are important enough to me, that no options are taken off the table. Some outcomes are so horrible, that when I consider ways to prevent them, _every_ alternative is preferable no matter how horrible some of those alternatives may be…"

Zach stopped and his breath hitched in. His voice got sharper at the end as his voice cracked. He lifted his gaze back up to Hagakure's face with tears in his own eyes, pain all over his face as he wanted to just hold this back as he felt no right to say it even if it was true. "But that's no excuse. I- I destroyed our relationship for a grudge, but I was just so afraid when I knew that she was coming for me. For the people I love. And it _crushed_ me to know what I was doing, but I had to even convince myself it was real for her, and so-" Zach lifted his head up higher and looked desperately at the invisible girl's face above him. "Hagakure, I wasn't lying."

She pulled her head back and stared down at him with her watery eyes shaking at that desperate plea up at her. "All of it was not a lie. Our day was real, because I had to convince myself it was so as to better convince Mysti. I know that might now make sense, but it's true! Because she's smart enough that I doubted I could do it any other way." Zach grit his teeth and then gasped out. "I lied to myself that everything was fine, and though some was intentionally an act I- I don't know where it began because most of the day just came naturally to me. The movie and hanging out- It wasn't all a lie. Because as much as it was part of my plan, I had planned it out that it be the _truth._ That Mysti see truth and so- so I believed it, and that might not make sense to you but- but it's what I- I had to-"

Hagakure reached down with both hands and grabbed Zach by his armpits. Zach stood up as she pulled him up to his feet, and he held his arms out as she wrapped hers around his back and hugged him. He stared over the top of her head with his teeth clenched so hard as she buried her face into his chest. "I'm glad, you didn't kill her." Hagakure whispered it while pulling her head away from his chest for a second. Even after all of Zach's planning, and despite the fact that he really thought she was going to kill all of them, and that she had killed his friends and was one of the worst villains of all time… Hagakure thought of how Zach had spared her life rather than killing her.

"It's thanks to you stopping-"

Hagakure shook her head and looked up into Zach's eyes, "It's because you're a good person."

Zach flinched but he could not lie while looking down at the look he knew was staring back at him. "I- I know I… What I did then," Zach whispered. "When you grabbed me and stopped me from chasing her right away, I had to convince myself you were the reason I wasn't killing her. Yet I-" his teeth clenched and darted down for a second. "I still had to believe that what I did was worse than Death for her, because I hated her so- so much- but I didn't want to kill her," Zach whispered that and clenched his eyes shut once more. "I didn't. I needed to bring you with me to make it easier, not to kill- I just, I just couldn't stand the idea that she had aimed to make it, so I couldn't revive you-"

Hagakure's arms tightened back into Zach's back and she pulled herself in for another hug as he gasped that out at her with his voice straining to get the words out. His eyes shook as he stared down at the top of his head, then those eyes darted up and looked around the end of Hagakure's door that another figure just walked past. Zach stared at the blond boy wearing casual clothes who had a thick tail drooping behind him. His eyes widened at the sight of Ojiro there, as he actually had not expected or seen the boy in there. He stared at his classmate who had only given him dark and angry looks all day, and who now had a single tear down the right side of his face touching his chin as he stepped out.

Ojiro's girlfriend was hugging Zach as tightly as she could, and she whispered how she had forgiven him into his chest multiple times. Ojiro told Zach silently instead. As he nodded at his friend whose head tilted back farther with pain flashing through it at the accepting look on Ojiro's face of what Zach had done, even when to Zach it felt like an unforgivable act that these two were forgiving too easily. His chest heaved though and tears slipped out of Zach's eyes too, and after seeing Ojiro's look he finally put his own arms around Hagakure too and hugged the girl back. His eyes closed, and he just whispered softly to the girl he hugged and the boy behind her, "I'm sorry."

* * *

 **A/N Awww ;). Hope you guys enjoyed the chapter. Took me too long editing last night so I woke up this morning and finished up the second half of it. Already started on the next chapter and I'm going to work on that a bunch today too! Thanks for reading! This chapter we see Zach's first day back at school. Interactions with Yaoyorozu, Aoyama, Midoriya, Kirishima, Shoji, Sero and Ashido, Mineta, and here at the end with Hagakure and Ojiro as he tries to make things right after what he did to Mysti in front of the invisible girl. Meanwhile, the people around the Muindo Mountains are celebrating and we see some aftermath from that, though the news about Korea's earthquakes gets a bit less airtime when some other events have just taken place with many casualties, and just as little information about them.**

sloganlogan chapter 215 . Feb 6

I hope more than anything that Zach gets a happy ending. He deserves it after everything hes been through.

 **Me too. Me too... Maybe. We'll see. XD Thanks for the review!**

R-Dawg chapter 215 . Feb 5

Some awesome writing here man, loved ares's character haha. Looking forward to how you're gonna end this, even though i will probably be depressed about it :P With all this happening lately i feel that Eri's gonna play a big part in the endgame, since she always seems to miss a meeting with Zach. Whether she gets rid of his quirk or maybe reduces his power? Also if Zach had to revive All Might, would he get some of his powers back, would certainly help Zach's image though regardless as well as act as a mini homage to "The Two Hero's" last fight, well if the story calls for it haha. Looking forward to Life Cities reveal as well as the Army of Death's ultimate fate. But I'm now blathering so i will just say that i cant wait for the next chapter, the long waits kill me but they are always worth it in the end haha.  
Keep writing bro!  
P.s I think AFO definetely has something more to give us, maybe he stole a "Godly" quirk.(God Tier sounds far cooler actually)

 **Nice prediction about Eri, not gonna say but always cool seeing these. Same with the All Might thing though that sounded more like a hypothetical rather than you were suggesting it would happen. Lot of cool stuff in store too, but I like your predictions about more Godly and God-tier Quirks too. A lot of you guys were mentioning stuff about it in the comments last chapter.**

zangetsuflameo chapter 215 . Feb 16

First off thanks for responding to my last review. SENPAI NOTICED ME. I was curious about some power scaling things regarding Zach and the rest of the world so I decided to analyze it a little bit. I'd love to hear comments on it so please if anyone including other reviewers wants to speak about it go ahead.  
I'm going to analyze all of his different forms as Zach's power varies greatly depending on that.  
Whoof that was a long review, but I'd love to hear your commentary to see how well I scaled characters here, and if you disagree.

 **Alright just going to start off with: Wow. That was awesome, (everyone else should read the whole review I didn't post fully here). Loved seeing all that power scaling and didn't really have anything I disagreed much with (just like SPS), XD but also not going to confirm or deny any of it too. Like certain levels of Zach might be able to defeat some heroes or other at different levels than you said, but I haven't written that as much as you guys haven't seen it, and you understand that already which you showed pretty well when you talked about how you weren't sure how well Zach would do against Kamui Woods without use of his Quirk. I think a cool thing that My Hero has that lots of other shows don't though, is that Quirks are each unique which makes it real hard to power scale against others. Like Lemillion's Quirk alone sucks, but he made it up to the top of the hero leaderboards (third unofficially right now), even with a Quirk like his. Yet there are still going to be villains who can beat him despite his huge strength, even if he's more powerful than them, which is why I disagree with a bit of your ending points on Zach's current strength or his God tier level where you said how no one could beat him other than the whole world together or something of the like. Lemillion was superior to Overhaul in canon, then the Quirk-destroying bullet changed the tides. Same thing happened in Death when Fantasma looked like she might actually have a chance to stop Raijin, and he took her Quirk away. But also same thing happens the other way around when Shinso brainwashed Midoriya in canon but he pulled something out his butt to negate that trump-card kind of Quirk. Anyway, just wanted to mention that because as much as I enjoy power scaling and think you did a great job on yours, I think unless I pit the characters against each other and actually play out a fight between them then there's no point in saying that one is stronger than the other. So yeah I don't want to really confirm or deny any of the rankings (even if based on what we've seen so far I didn't see anything you wrote that I disagreed with), so nice, epic job! Thanks for reading the new chapter and hope you enjoyed it! And thanks everyone for reviewing to these chapters, faving, following, or just reading them. Try to get the next chapter out quicker, so see you then!**


	217. Chapter 217

**Disclaimer: I don't own Boku no Hero Academia**

 **Chapter 217:**

"This doesn't make any sense."

"You said he wasn't going to be a problem, and now he's back with all the people we're expecting _will_ be a problem?"

"If Lifebringer's in our way, I'm not- I mean, we've got to find a way to get him out of our way."

"You said you would deal with him," Diamondfist growled towards the blond teenager standing in the middle of a crowd of League of Villains villains. Unlike Rabbit who cut back on saying how he was not going to take part of this when Raijin shot him a look, Diamondfist kept frowning at the eighteen year old who looked back his way. "Now that U.A.'s got him, and until the end of the term too? Our plan goes off while he's there."

"It will all work out," Raijin assured the villains crowding him.

"Do you really believe that?"

"Not to overstep," Duke Dread began. He glowered at Raijin though when the teen who had tortured him before glared back intensely his way. "But Lifebringer _can't_ be around when we start this. I may have the loyalty of the Jazz, but not a hundred people will follow me if they think we're going up against him. Let alone eight thousand."

"More every day, I hope," a white-haired woman standing behind Raijin questioned over to the lord of the Jazz who just frowned back her way only to ease away at the look in her menacing eyes.

"Zach isn't a problem," Kaminari Denki repeated, a line he had told the other villains around him many times before. "He won't be there the day of the assault, but should he be, I have preparations in place for that as well. Dozens of contingencies for everything, and yet we will not need almost all of them. Zach's about to lose it. Moving to U.A. will only work to quicken his deterioration as he is surrounded by suspicious and hateful people resenting him for all he's done to them specifically." _Except with Zach, he's sure to get them back on his side. I need them thinking this right now though. No point in explaining what's on the flashdrive to peons._ "Just focus on your own tasks and forget about Zach. He's my problem to deal with, and I _will_ deal with him myself. For that, you all have my word."

Raijin held up his right hand, "Villains' honor."

A few of the people around him eased up at how relaxed he seemed. Others humphed or turned away as they decided that Raijin was keeping things from them if he really was this unconcerned with Lifebringer's recent movements. Raijin looked back and nodded gratefully at the white-haired woman who had come over and had been backing him up there, then he walked off towards Dabi and Toga, who glanced his way then spun and started off before he arrived. Raijin rolled his eyes but stopped next to Dabi who he preferred of the two anyway.

"Everyone's nervous about the kid," Dabi muttered. _Toga didn't say anything,_ Dabi thought, watching his long-time comrade heading away. _But I could see it. He's on her mind too. The kid-_

"Zach's not going to be a problem for you. I'll have him out of the way before the attack," Raijin assured.

"And if not?" Dabi wondered.

"Then I'll kill him myself," Raijin replied with a grin spreading on his face. "Though, I will not slack in my duties in hopes of that future," he added. _No one would accept that,_ Raijin thought to himself. As much as the aspect actually made him grin in an excited way, he knew that if he did not precede it with his promise of not having to face Zach himself, no one would believe in him. _Once I kill Zach though, all of that will change._ _ **If!**_ _If, I kill him. My plans should result in him being nowhere near us when the plan starts. He'll be too doped up and trapped to even know what's going on let alone stop us._ "How are things on your end?"

"Waiting on word about the…" Dabi slowed down and he turned his head with his eyes growing huge.

In the underground camp of the League of Villains, a cold win flew into the villains who all turned where Dabi just stared with his eyes huge. Kaminari spun and stared past the hooded figure who was one of the other two who just entered the room and who made the entire room feel a few degrees colder. Not far from that figure in the purple winter coat with its hood up, just a little behind and to the left of the figure in back rather than on the right like Geten, was a figure with long orange hair spiked up a few times over the middle of his head but with a single spike going down across the top of his face and shadowing over his right eye.

Rikiya Yotsubashi wore a black tattered domino mask over his eyes that had frayed edges intentionally making it look like it was made of black flames. Under the mask on the right side of his face there was nothing but scar tissue though it was hard to tell at first glance that he only had one eye due to his pointed bangs covering most of those scars.

Everyone in the room stared to the middle of the three who just came in though. They all looked towards one figure none of them had seen in person for quite some time. The white-haired woman who had started speaking to Toga in a low voice stared over in shock like everyone else, though she noticed the shorter and younger girl next to her grinning madly after a second and with stars in her eyes as the excitement flooded through her body.

Raijin was the quickest of everyone to react though. No one had expected the lean but muscular figure with long gray hair waving behind his neck. He had no extra hands sticking to his body, and his face was cleared, and Raijin took a step forward and smiled towards the leader of the League of Villains who he had seen a few times on video calls but not in person in several months. "It's good to see you, Shigaraki. When the mountain you were training on suddenly vanished, we were all worried about you."

Shigaraki started forward into the deep underground room full of his allies. Keymar dropped off of the box of weapons he had been sitting on and staring towards Shigaraki with his eyes huge. Furuki Keymar, or the villain Splodo, could hardly believe his eyes despite having already "met" Shigaraki Tomura not too long ago. The sight of the man in person was another thing altogether. Shigaraki's presence was insane. Members of the Radians who had not known that Intanzo was secretly under orders from Shigaraki until recently lost all qualms they had with it.

Duke Dread felt his body cover in sweat as he saw a man he had not long ago considered a has-been. Bitchess 'n Cream smirked and licked her lips as two voices echoed over each other in her head. _He's pretty hot,_ Manika Esiri thought with her co-inhabitant Bitchess. _And damn, was I wrong about him and Intanzo?_ She looked to her side at a comrade of hers who she had been alongside for so long now. He had told her their biggest secret a while back, knowing that she was fine with it and trusting her which they had appreciated. _Intanzo's strength is unreal. I thought he was the only one with a chance of stopping Lifebringer if it came to it, but, just one look at him._

Intanzo started forward as only a few in the room had. He looked to his left and motioned back at Iscariot. Just past the number two of the Radians, the woman with long white hair started ahead as well with Toga and they moved past the former hero Thunderclap who stepped back from them and also darted a glare around him too. Splodo stopped heading forward himself. As much as he had been trying to keep up with the big players of the League of Villains, getting involved with all their plans and making himself a big shot by acting as such, he held himself back. He looked towards Duke Dread, then back at Iscariot, then over at Diamondfist too who seemed to hesitate himself before deciding to just stay where he was and watch from farther away.

"So you really were responsible for that, huh?" Dabi wondered after walking up towards Shigaraki, his hands down in his pockets while he looked their leader up and down. _Something's real different about him now. He had this kind of look already, so it's not that. A whole mountain was really him?_

"I knew it! I knew it was you!" Toga exclaimed. Shigaraki looked her way and Toga leaned forward while bouncing up and down excitedly, "Are we doing it? Are we really doing it now Tomura-kun?!"

"Any reason for showing off that you could destroy the whole mountain like that?" Intanzo wondered, tilting his head to the right as he watched the younger man who gave him a look back right in his eyes.

Shigaraki smiled at the group of villains he had around him right now. Geten and Re-Destro came up on either side of him and completed a circle of villains who stood in the deep underground where only a few of their strongest leaders were not around. Shigaraki hummed before responding to anyone or saying the things he wanted to. "Sonic and Meta?"

"Hypnos?" Raijin wondered to the white-haired woman beside him who was on top of that.

"The mask technology we recreated is of amazing help to us," Hypnos replied with a smirk to Shigaraki who had not been directly involved with their smaller plans lately. He was not much for micro-managing them ever since he isolated himself to train. "The two of them are carrying out all we need them to in broad daylight. Nikko has no idea his secretary's been replaced by Pinoko either," Hypnos added with a chuckle. "And luckily, she _was_ Quirkless."

Toga smiled and enjoyed this conversation so much it made her jaw hurt at how far the corners of her lips pulled up. After watching a video from Sueguon that they had gotten leaked to them, she had been very _persuasive_ to Hypnos and the Doc in order to get them some of those masks themselves. _I get to be here for this!_ Toga thought, so glad she had gone through the trouble of pushing for the use of those masks now as she was able to be there when Shigaraki had returned. Although the masks were not perfect as they did not completely change someone to match their target like her Quirk could, even going so far as to giving her their Quirks as she had discovered (which was why Hypnos mentioned the secretary's Quirkless-ness), the masks completed their purpose nonetheless.

"Sending them in quite early," Intanzo mentioned, as he had not been directly involved with Hypnos' plan here either.

The woman with long white hair smirked towards Intanzo whose eyes remained calm and his expression relaxed as he stared back at her. His smile lifted slightly on the right corner but she just continued looking right back at him undeterred and unintimidated by the most wanted man in Japan, while the Japanese government and heroes did not even know her name. Her smile just lifted back in response at him, and she wondered, "Why? Did you need them for something in the meantime? I figure it is better to give them time to adjust the people around them to any new changes in their personalities, keeping suspicion down on the day of if people are out to look for those acting strangely."

"You are all doing very well," Shigaraki said to the others around him. His eyes turned to Raijin though and he added, "Although I thought Sazaki would be out of our way by now."

"He was about to lose it," Kaminari replied with his shoulders shrugging up. "But-"

"Unless Zach was acting that whole time," Dabi countered. Raijin glared back at the black-haired man who he instantly took back how he liked him more than Toga as he thought before.

"He was acting in a way that didn't have anyone thinking he was going to be leaving-"

"Except for you," Dabi replied. That statement made Raijin close his open mouth, and everyone else looked at the two of them as Dabi stared into Raijin's eyes. The blond boy frowned at the counter that he did not have an easy reply for, and Dabi did not need to add anything else.

 _Maybe all the acts, you're saying, were all meant_ _ **just**_ _for deceiving me._ "It doesn't matter," Raijin responded after a few moments. He had to admit to himself that Dabi had a point, as he figured Zach considered him the biggest threat that he might have spent all that time and action solely to deceive him, as he had before. He had also planned for that though. "In my possession is something that will turn the tide on Zach once and for all."

"It should be enough to get rid of him for good this time," another voice spoke up, outside of the circle of villains who all spun at the sound of it.

Intanzo, Raijin, and Shigaraki all stared over into the shadows with darker looks for a moment that made the woman with blue skin freeze where she was. She only hesitated for a split second though before walking forward towards those insanely powerful villains who all glared her way at once. Sly stepped out of the darker shadows and in between several higher-up League of Villains' members who were all shocked to see this person that a couple of them had seen before briefly.

"What the," Dabi began muttering at the sight of this person who he did not remember showing up down here.

The others relaxed sooner as the person who appeared down there revealed themself and they saw who it was. "What Danny gave you is worth what he charged. And, he is willing to offer his services again-"

"What changed his mind?" Raijin asked. He stepped away from the circle of judgmental villains who had been questioning him about his methods of dealing with Zach himself. "Weren't you all heading out to stop Zach yourselves?" Raijin's eyebrows narrowed in and the boy glared at her darker as he added, "Isn't Eziano going to take care of Zach before I get my chance to? Wasn't it your 'Devil' who said that-"

"Things have changed," Sly replied, her voice soft but her tone unsteady as she responded. She glanced towards Shigaraki, and she added, "You're the only ones who can stop him now."

Her voice was afraid. This ninja-looking woman with a small amount of blue skin showing sounded unnerved, not about the powerful villains all around her who could have killed her for suddenly appearing in their base like that, but about the one she was speaking of now. "We were always the ones who could stop him best," Raijin replied smugly, leaning back and tilting his head to look down his nose at one of the "assassins" who sounded so much less impressive now that he was seeing this.

"What is your boss offering?" Shigaraki asked towards Sly.

Intanzo looked next to him as Shigaraki Tomura started walking that woman's way. The female assassin herself opened her eyes wide as the leader of the League of Villains started her way, asking in a normal tone with a small smile on his face but yet so much power and authority behind it that it shook her at her core. Sly gulped, then she began, "Full loyalty. Same price as before, but to become a member of the League of Villains…"

 _It's amazing,_ Intanzo thought while looking at the back of Shigaraki's head.

Intanzo thought of the way Gigantomachia looked at Shigaraki that he never fully understood. As former followers of All For One, the idea of following his successor had been harder for Gigantomachia to accept or so he had heard. Intanzo smiled in a low way while staring at the back of his leader's head, _I can see now._ Intanzo noticed how Raijin was grinning with such a cocky look happy about Shigaraki's strength rather than in awe of it. Intanzo shook his head though at that boy's immature reaction, while thinking, _I know now why Shigaraki was chosen as the successor rather than myself._

"Why does he not ask me this himself?" Shigaraki wondered to the woman whose voice he cut off while looking over her head. Sly's eyes bulged, and back behind her Danny appeared in the shadows out of nowhere.

Sly spun as her boss appeared there, her power no longer working on him once he moved like that. Danny "The Devil" shook his head though as Shigaraki calling him out did not do anything for him. "Was she not speaking for you?" Shigaraki wondered as the woman who had been offering their services was just offering loyalty that Danny did not seem to want to give. "Do you need another demonstration of my strength?" Shigaraki asked, tilting his head to the side and smirking more. He held up his hands and Sly stared at them in panic, but Shigaraki just held his palms up and seemed to be relaxed completely as he said, "Well if you do decide to join us, I am glad we have you on our side again. Even if you are not impressed-"

"You need to stop Lifebringer in a way that doesn't involve fighting him," Danny said. He said it in a low voice with his eyes dark as he spoke to the leaders of Japan's underworld. _You're the only ones who can,_ Danny thought with his heart racing harder as he saw Shigaraki frowning back at him in a way that _did_ look somewhat dangerous. He shook his head more though and added, "Use the flashdrive. Use your ties with those in the light and get him out of the way first." He bit down as he saw more looks darting his way of people losing fear of him, losing respect for him, and he snapped in a low growl at Shigaraki when that leader frowned at him, " _One_ mountain is nothing."

The growl made silence fall underground as everyone stared at the assassin who many of them had thought was going off to join Eziano to try and kill Zach Sazaki. "I'll join you," Danny offered. "No rules this time. Because there's no longer that threat of what happens if I break them."

"You mean," Intanzo began, his eyebrows raising up in surprise.

"He's fucking crazy," Danny whispered. "Yeah, one of your mountains is gone. The entire Muindo Range was reorganized and redecorated with the corpses of every assassin in the world." Danny bit down, and he hissed, "We have to stop Lifebringer without fighting him. He came in and the world shattered and mountains fell apart and were blown away and at the end of it, Lifebringer flew off and all the assassins were dead. Eziano was dead. Even our God who came down to fight him was…"

Everyone in the room stared towards the two assassins in a sudden confusion overtaking the fear of how The Devil just claimed Eziano Mozcaccio's death. The Devil spoke in a lower voice after beginning that, "Our God who Eziano and Eziano's father, and his father before him all praised…" Sly looked back towards Danny who had stepped closer to the woman he had been a part of Eziano's actual assassin organization with. The two of them were members, but because of fear rather than actually being devout.

"We were in their order," Sly admitted as it seemed Danny was fine with revealing this now. She looked back towards the top leaders of the League of Villains, and she whispered softly, "We were not just hired and working under his rules, but part of _His_ order. God's… I saw him once."

"I'm glad to be rid of them all," Danny said, his voice a deep growl. Sly looked back towards him and her eyes softened more and Danny shifted his gaze to her for a moment to show there were a few people he did mean to exclude from that 'all.' Other than their friends who had died that night though, Danny could not think of any he actually cared about losing. He continued darkly though, "But I also know that now, you League of Villains are the only ones who could stand between him and ruling the world. Exterminating us all."

The League around the room were stunned. They were frozen where they stood, because to them, it was Lifebringer who stood in the way of them and world domination. Why did this assassin make it sound like the other way around?! Raijin flicked his right hand forward, and everyone around spun then looked towards Danny and Sly who screamed out in pain as they were zapped. "Thank you for your input," Raijin thanked the assassin while Shigaraki turned himself and looked back to Raijin from the electrocuted bodies of their spazzing-out allies on the ground now. "But you already helped more than enough."

He did not sound scared. Nothing Danny had said seemed to get to him, and he held something up for Shigaraki to see when the leader of the League turned back to him. "Will you get Sazaki taken care of in time?" Shigaraki asked the confident younger man who seemed so assured that this was no problem to him.

"I'll deal with Zach as promised," Raijin assured Shigaraki. "I actually wanted to punish Nikko for letting him get back to U.A.," Raijin continued, raising his voice and making all the villains look to him now rather than to the assassin who had scared so many of them into an even deeper-seeded fear of Lifebringer than they already had. It was a rational fear, but Raijin needed to quell it anyway and he continued calling out about how he had full control over the Prime Minister of Japan, shrugging his shoulders as he did while he spoke in a casual tone about this amount of power. "I want the prime minister to keep thinking he's nothing more than a pawn, and that he has to do everything I say, as Nikko has yet to realize just how important a piece he is in our games that he actually does have some push. Things he can say he won't do in order for us to keep him under our control and in the position he's in…"

Other villains were getting confused. Raijin had seemed like he was talking about the control he had over the PM which was somewhat reassuring, but now he was talking like Nikko actually had control over _him_ that the man just did not know yet. That somehow started putting them even more at ease though, which was the real confusing thing here. Why it was that he was smirking despite what he was saying to them. The fact that even though he was the only one having bumps in his plans while the rest of the operations were moving smoothly, should have made him more apologetic or nervous, or anything but calm and excited. Unless he was crazy… but he did not sound crazy. He sounded intelligent.

Intanzo leaned his head back and looked towards Raijin hiding the amusement from his expression, only allowing the impressed look he had show through slightly as well.

Danny rose his head shakily and glared with a furious expression at the blond teen whose intentions he could not read. He could not even tell if Raijin planned on killing him here or if that was just to get him to shut up, but he was preparing himself to fight back and kill them all as he did not believe Raijin like the rest of them. What he could see on the kid's face after looking up like that though, _He believes in himself. I can see that much at least._

"…I couldn't get too annoyed at him when Zach made it back to U.A. when I thought Zach was about to disappear." He looked back Shigaraki's way and added, "I have the situation under control. I'm all ready to send this to Nikko who I so _graciously_ forgave for his mishap, a mishap he was terrified I was going to react harshly over." Raijin tossed up the flashdrive in his right hand and snagged it between two fingers, his index and middle, then he curled those fingers up and held the flashdrive over his head. "Now I can give this to him, and I _am_ ready to send it to Nikko. Just say the word."

"And it will work?" Shigaraki wondered.

This time, Raijin looked back down to Danny who he gave a small and grateful grin. "Oh yeah. Although I don't appreciate you sneaking your way in here, I suppose this gift I _paid_ for evens things out." He paused and nodded his head as a signal that he was going to let them live and continue to help the LoV. He glanced back at Shigaraki and added, "Pick the right moment to use this, and in that time we can make our final preparations for the swift conquest of Japan. Turn them all against each other and abuse the moment."

"It's not just about Japan," Shigaraki responded. The leader of the League of Villains had long wavy bluish gray hair, a slender and lean figure not as tall or large as many of his subordinates. He wore gray and black, and he had scars all over his neck from years of digging his own fingers into it. Shigaraki held up his hands in front of him and out to the sides, "Nor is it about making villains around the world 'rise up' to do the same in their nations." Some of the others who thought that was a major part of the plan got confused by that statement, only to stare at Shigaraki with their eyes growing wider as he continued, "They will rise only behind us. Below us. We will not stop, nor will we slow down when Japan falls. Their nations will crumble and their skies will burn."

Shigaraki's tone was not overly cocky. That was the craziest part about it. He was smiling, speaking on their bright _dark_ future, "I need you all to trust me. Neither Lifebringer, nor Death, nor Endeavor, nor Deku will be able to stop our ambitions. They will be rolled over by the free future where everything in this world has fallen. Their society rubble beneath our feet. All they've built destroyed… torn down…" Shigaraki's body gave off a destructive aura unlike anything any of them had ever felt, other than Sly though even that assassin stared forward with her eyes trembling at the familiar sight. Shigaraki's face shadowed over and he looked absolutely horrifying yet at the same time made everyone in the room smirk in crazed ways with bloodthirsty excitement surging through them, as Shigaraki Tomura finished, _**"…decayed."**_

* * *

Zach lay on the floor of his room and did sit ups on a slant to make it harder on his abs. His legs were up against the wall and he curled his body in as far as he could without any Death inside his stomach to make it harder on his abdominal muscles. _So much stronger._ The boy who had not slept all night slammed his left fist into his own stomach after doing a crunch, and he chuckled at the faint feeling of pain he felt in his ribs. He had barely held back on that swing inwards, and though flexing, the fact that he could not feel anything was good news.

He lifted his shirt and ripped off all the bandages wrapped around his torso. Zach kicked his legs up and backwards, flipping himself up onto his feet and then cracking his neck to either side. _Still not tired at all. Another day is starting up. Barely felt anything from all that working out. Wasn't too focused on actually training as much as on the languages and news and tomorrow- today. It's already light outside. I'm pretty smelly. Under the bandages too, and my right arm?_

Zach swung around his right arm. He moved it in front of his body and he ripped the cast off of it with his left hand. He broke pieces apart and checked his red skin underneath while rubbing his arm that did not feel very sore or even in the slightest amount of pain. He smacked down on his own shoulder as Sero had done in class the day before. _Broken bones are like nothing. A few days and they're gone. Though without killing Ares my body wouldn't have done it this fast. Recovery speeds up with killing, not just with my strength. I should get this injured again just to test if the recovery speed at my new max is slower than this recovery is going. I think it should be without a kill to boost its speed, but there's no telling what Death has in store for me this time._

He headed downstairs for the showers. His head was bobbing as he imagined the music he had been listening to while working-out there for a while. He had put on some electronic music with heavy beats that were rhythmic and sped up gradually through the song, making for a good workout song that he liked to lift to. His head was bobbing to his internal music as he was passing the fourth floor, and he glanced in at Bakugo who was just about to walk out of the hall when the blond stopped to stare at him. Zach looked Bakugo's way and smirked while bobbing his head still, and his smirk grew more at the dark look that covered Bakugo's face as if taunting his classmate whose eyes bulged at the look Zach just gave him while turning back forward and continuing to bob to no music at all.

Zach had told Bakugo before how he was looking forward to their fight. It's what echoed in Bakugo's head as he wondered if maybe Zach's smirk was a reference to that, though he was frozen to the spot and just stared at Zach's back as he continued down the stairs. The spiky-haired teen had a hesitant look on his face at how smirk-y and carefree Zach had looked. He had been busy all afternoon the day before and could barely sleep with all that was happening everywhere, yet Zach looked like he had just gotten a full night's worth of sleep and did not know or care about the tribulations of the world.

 _Chill. No way._ Zach laughed to himself at the half-attempt he made to try and fake a less happy expression. _Everything's going great for me. Hagakure and Ojiro forgave me. Thought they'd be the hardest to get done in a single week, and here I am. One day in, crushing it._ Zach went to the showers and turned the water as hot as it could go as he stood under it.

He stood there and washed off. He shampooed his hair, scrubbed his body down, and he frowned as he could clearly see the steam rising from him despite his body not feeling very hot. _It was hotter yesterday. Hurt more. This arm can't feel shit,_ Zach got more annoyed as he turned his left arm over in the shower. _I've got some free time today. My shit should be arriving so I can do some work more effectively. If my arm is repaired I can do everything more efficiently. I can't hunt them down from outside the school, but I have the resources to hunt them as well as any hero could from inside this facility. From on this fucking campus, I can track them and locate them. I feel like I can do it right now._

 _That's fucking sick._ Zach smirked and stared straight up into the hot water that he let get in his eyes and clenched them shut with his mouth twisting into a bigger grin this time. _Get it out now. Can't walk around like this. You just saw how Bakugo reacted! Need to chill. They'll think you're a psycho otherwise._ He chuckled under his breath and shook his head while bowing it forward and resting it against the hard tiles in front of him. _I already feel it surging up to Limiter 0 levels, but I have the control now. I learned control and I won't create new limiters. It will all be mine to use. At any time. At any place. Under my full control. I won't limit it like last time as I felt it rising like this. In fear of what I might do or how strong I might get._

 _I wasn't prepared to face Ares because I held back my power from even myself. I won't do that this time. I told Midoriya I know that Shigaraki's going to be near impossible to beat. Kaminari's a fucking genius and All For One just needs the drop on me and he can end it all. I won't let that happen. I can't. I have to be as strong as I possibly can be._ Zach snapped his eyes open and glared forward with tinted red vision that faded back to normal shade after an instant. The droplets of water stopped falling in slow motion off the strands of his hair that were wet down to his forehead and stuck off the skull bones of his eyebrows. Those droplets moved faster and faster while the streams of water falling around him sped back up, and Zach grinned again and even laughed as he could see and count the individual droplets in that moment.

Zach finished getting ready for class and put on the new uniform he was granted. Midoriya's was almost perfectly his size, but this one was just slightly bigger as he was about an inch taller than his friend. _Have I gotten taller since I came back in January? I knew I grew in prison, but I thought maybe it was over._ Zach walked out of the building in a uniform made just for him. He thought back on waking up in the hospital after getting out of Tartaros, and the looks of his classmates from Class A who had almost all shown up for that other than Jirou and Todoroki. _They're still some of the most distant. Two of the hardest to normalize things with in under a single week. Under it now? Can I do it? By the end of the weekend. Start of the weekend? Ha! Giving myself less and less time. It's an ambitious goal. Can I accomplish it in one day?_

 _Do I want to?_ He wondered to himself in a more thoughtful way as he headed down the road towards school. _Without needing to fix this, what else would I spend a month doing here? Wasting time that's what. It's what it'd feel like, yet if I_ _ **could**_ _do it quicker and I don't just so it doesn't feel like it then I'll know it and it will feel like it anyway. So then I need to do it now. As fast as I can- don't rush it. Don't get too cocky. They won't like that. That's not how… It's not an easy task. It's the hardest thing ever. Harder than killing a God?_ Zach asked himself it skeptically.

As he was on his way to school, Zach spotted some figure up ahead of him who was half a foot shorter but a muscular teen who he suspected was in the hero course. The first-year he spotted was glaring down the road towards him already, even though a few of his classmates were talking to him and urging him not to do this. Zach slowed down while raising his eyebrows at the boy with long white hair who started marching down the road towards him. _Ah shit. This must be that kid who challenged Bakugo. They told me about him. Kimikaro Hone._

The boy with pitch black eyes stopped directly in Zach's way on the road to the school building. His tiny blue pupils were steady in those black eyes as he stared down the older boy, and he crossed his arms after looking Zach Sazaki up and down from close up. Kimikaro's classmates in the first year hero course were staring at Lifebringer but they gawked as their classmate called out, "What are you smiling about? Think you're better than us because you're a celebrity? Or that you can still get into Class A?"

 _What a ballsy fucker._ Zach lowered his smile down a bit but the corners of his lips were still raised in a friendly way as he looked down at this sixteen year old. _Though I'm glad,_ Zach thought as the kid kept snapping at him in a cocky way as if daring Zach to try and fight him. _He stuck with that kind of stuff and didn't call me a murderer or bring up my parents like Dendo did._ Zach's expression got flat for a moment as Kimikaro announced how he was 'no big shot' and how he 'could take him' easily. Zach stepped forward and he smiled again when Kimikaro's body tensed up with his eyes growing wide as he thought this was the start of a fight.

Zach moved to the side though and continued around the younger kid who turned and glared in a more pissed-off way as he had thought Lifebringer was coming at him, only to do the same thing Bakugo had done to him at the start of the year. Zach glanced to his right at the boy glaring furiously up at his face though, and Zach just smiled at the kid who had spent a year at U.A. now with the intent to be a hero. There was no anger on Lifebringer's face suggesting anything Kimikaro had said had gotten to him. Zach just said as he walked by the kid's side, "I look forward to seeing you become a great hero. Pretty brave there, Kimikaro."

Zach continued down the road. The student behind him just turned with his face scrunched up. His mouth opened as he wanted to call something out at him, but he was confused and could not continue his angry rant as he for some reason felt like _thanking_ Lifebringer for saying that to him. _He knew my name? That's, pretty, fucking cool._ Kimikaro frowned when his classmates spun back to him and started rambling about the same thing he had just thought.

 _He must have gotten scared after watching Fantasma's live death. The strongest of her class in U.A., only a few years ahead of him. So he's trying to prove to himself that he's still the same fearless kid who challenged Bakugo on day 1. He needs to prove it to himself because he doesn't know if he can still do this. He doesn't know if he's the same person, the same kid who wanted to be a hero._ Zach continued to smile in a more friendly and casual way as he headed towards school, hiding all of his thoughts as he just walked at a steady pace forwards. _Wonder if it would have been better to call him out on that? Make him confront it directly?_

 _I think if I told Kimikaro instead of letting him figure out those insecurities on his own to get past them- but we might not have time for him to do it himself. Is letting him overcome it on his own prudent? Time's running out. That push will help at least. If he's still struggling next time I see him I'll disappear and reappear behind him. Whisper something in his ear about fear or something. Scare the shit out of him and make him confront fear like he's never faced it before._ A low chuckle slipped out of Zach's lips and he frowned for a moment as he wondered, _Why did that make me laugh? That's not good. I need to relax. The euphoria hasn't started to die down yet, but it should before the boost does. The boost won't die down actually, because the rest of my strength is recovering even as I lose the boost, and then that boost will get added onto the full recovery._

 _As I lose the boost I'm recovering faster. There will be a moment when the euphoria should be gone but my strength is still rising. I have to know that moment! If not, I'll have to live with the euphoria of life forever._ The thought made his lips crack back up into another smirk. _That wouldn't be so bad, would it? Living life like this? On fucking Cloud 9! Just accept it for another day before getting worried. Keep the excitement lower though. People are still concerned about yesterday. All of Class A will be focused on it, so my reactions will make them make assumptions about the things they're thinking about. They'll want to put me into their theories because they didn't know where I was, and some of them who would have counted me out because they saw me come back that night are also the ones who might remember I still had my skin sleeve at the time._

 _There's Zeira. She hasn't come to see me yet. I expected a greeting when she first saw me, but she's stared from afar without approaching. If she hears about Kimikaro's approach and what I said to him then maybe she will. After all, I treated the two of them very differently upon our meetings…_

Zach started up a new day in Class A no longer wearing his sling as he had on the day before. All Might questioned him about it, and Zach replied that Recovery Girl was being more cautious than anything but that his arm was fine. He moved it around to show it to his teacher who confusedly nodded his head while watching Zach's arm movements closely and not seeing anything wrong with them suggesting it was still broken. Recovery Girl had told him Sazaki's reasons already though, so Sazaki's lie did little to make All Might believe that was actually the truth though it did convince many of his classmates who thought the sling and cast were a bit of an overreaction considering how fine Zach had appeared to be.

 _It could not have recovered that fast, could it have?_ All Might wondered to himself as he tried to teach homeroom without keeping too much focus on only one of his students.

Zach's classmates watched as Zach showed off his arm movements as well. None of them could read his expression as he showed it to their teacher. He had stared straight at All Might as if only showing it to him with no care that the rest of them were watching him and his arm carefully. Some of them remembered how he had reacted when Sero hit him in that arm the day before. They could not tell if he was faking it then, or now, or what!

Unlike the day before when he missed some of his morning classes while he was with Recovery Girl, Zach stayed for the whole morning this time. He was there for Cementoss' class and was glad to see his block-shape-headed teacher smile at him looking happy to see him back at U.A. Cementoss would change his mind by the end of the class period about being happy about Zach's return. He had even asked his newly returned student to read a passage from a classical Japanese poet's epic that the class was in the middle of and that Cementoss had hoped his student had caught up on by that class.

Zach read casually. He read aloud the difficult grammar and messed up once as he saw an old kanji that was not used much anymore, making him smile in an odd way when Cementoss had to correct him on the more classical meaning of the word. His smile confused most people around him other than Midoriya, and for Mineta who felt like what he saw Zach reacting to had to do with what he was doing in the common room the day before.

 _What the hell would he need to know some old dead kanji character for though? If it was really just for being able to speak with people from different countries- now that I think about it, a lot of those books were on old languages, like I saw hieroglyphics out there!_ Mineta's eyes narrowed at Zach while he was reading, and the short boy finished to himself, _And if he was lying about his reasons for studying that kind of stuff, then was he lying about not knowing the news until I started talking to him either? He just wanted to talk about it- I would have been happy to!_

 _There was no reason to lie. So maybe, he wasn't? I don't know. I can't tell… Which sucks. Even though you told us you were Death- you were forced to tell us. It doesn't count. It doesn't, show that you can tell the truth. It wasn't even that you were forced to say it, Darling just said it to us. Said it so that you couldn't stay, and we trusted you enough to believe that other stuff you said. Stuff that made it so we didn't arrest you for being Death, even though there's no proof other than what you said… I believe some of it though. A lot of- most of it! Should I?_ Mineta lowered his gaze down to his desk frustratedly. _He got so emotional about stuff. It makes sense that it was him. I believed him! Yet I believed what he said yesterday and it's clear he's lying about a lot right now!_

Zach sat back in his chair with a strange expression of happiness on his face. It was different from the day before. Other people had seen his smile and the way he had been talking to Ashido before school, and they could tell that in a big part he was showing her that he was alright. That was finished though. He could have gone back to some sort of normalcy. Instead, he was relaxed and showing it without a care in the world. For the students of Class A who spent the afternoon before searching for survivors on Mt. Yamagucha, only to find none, it was unwelcome.

Ashido stared over to the side of the room and frowned as she saw Jirou glaring at the back of Zach's head. Her frown stayed there though as she shifted her gaze forward and saw Zach's fingers on the right edge of his desk tapping away. _Is he struggling, because of the tapping?_ Ashido did not know why she would have felt better had Zach tapping like that been a sign that he was struggling with PTSD from the Void. But the tapping was not repetitive or to each second, it was to a beat of a song he was thinking of and practically humming along to.

 _His eyes are red._ Cementoss could not help but think it after leaving Class A. He stood in the hallway thinking of what upset him most about Zach Sazaki's overall demeanor through the class period. Yet as much as he seemed overly cheerful, in a general good mood, and free of the concern that the rest of his students clearly felt over the events of the day before, his eyes were the most concerning thing to the teacher and pro hero who felt more like he had to focus on the hero part right now. _Or, were they?_ Cementoss wondered to himself, walking past a confused colleague who glanced at him with a look wondering what his expression was for only to receive no response as Cementoss' eyes were lowered thoughtfully as he walked down the hall.

Zach's normally hazel eyes were not the same shade as usual. They were not red, but Cementoss' confusion was justified nonetheless. They were darker than usual. Not in an emotional way, but his irises were a darker shade of greenish-red that melded in a strange and off-putting way to the teacher who had looked him straight in those eyes unlike the rest of the class who could only catch side glances of him while they all faced the same way in that classroom. When the period ended, Zach focused on making his eyes return to normal as some of his classmates got up. The swirls of pitch-blackness faded from the hazel and any hint of red vanished as well.

 _Cementoss knew I had Death on the brain. Thought I kept it out of my corneas, but even maintaining regular vision with no red tint I couldn't keep the physical aspect from showing…_ Zach had his left hand over the desk, and he tapped the pencil between two of his fingers on it while deep in thought. His head turned slightly to the left and he looked out the windows during the break between periods. "Ahh," he let out a long breath of air that made a noise from how heavy it was.

He shrugged out his shoulders then looked back down at his left arm which felt much different than his right during the shrug. _Everything I need should be coming in today. Don't know if the Costume Development Studio will have everything I need. Power Loader might have stocked up because of his arm, but it's still better to have my own personal repair kit on standby. New clothes, a laptop, everything I'll need for a few weeks here._

Jirou glared hard at the back of Zach's head and at part of his face as he was somewhat turned which gave her a look of it. His eyes never shifted back to her though as he could have looked into the corners and back at her. Her frown deepened for a moment but then lifted back so her lips were flat. _What am I getting annoyed for? I want him to react or something? I don't even care._ Jirou put her left elbow on the desk and rested her chin on it so her head was turned mildly to the right, getting Zach's face out of even her peripheral vision. _Just staring at the back of his head doesn't piss me off. Anymore,_ she added it to herself in some frustration as she thought about how angry she would have gotten about this had it been a month earlier. _Even a few weeks ago- but not being mad just means it's done. We're not friends._

Jirou rose her eyes up to the ceiling and then took her chin off her hand as TyreFire walked into the room for their Calculus lesson. It was a class she was struggling with, though she found herself getting annoyed again as Zach refocused as well and looked to get ready to take close notes. _Like you don't know calculus,_ Jirou scoffed internally. She lost the annoyance quickly again though. _Why would he? Why do I just assume, he knows everything? Probably because he outsmarted Raijin,_ Jirou's eyes darkened but she tried to focus as TyreFire got right into his lesson to the third years at U.A. he was teaching.

 _I'd never admit that before. What you did was so unforgivable, but you beat him. Seeing that smug look wiped from his face should have felt so much better. It only really feels good right now, at this moment, thinking back on it._ Jirou lifted the corners of her lips for a moment, laughing about it in her head as she imagined Raijin's face in the moment his plans stopped going so perfectly that night. She got back to her usual expression a second later though, yet instead of anger she just stared at the back of Zach's head in an apathetic way. _A main reason I was mad at you, I guess, was probably because you made me into a hypocrite. By my not showing Momo the letter._

She admitted it to herself sadly but at the same time relieved by what she had finally done the other day. _It just built up for so long, but that weight's totally gone now. That weight is gone and I'm no longer being a hypocrite, which means now I can see clearly that I am still angry at you and it has nothing to do with what I'm doing myself._ Jirou's thoughts were clear and her eyes narrowed with her glare returning at the back of the head of the boy in front of her. The anger was much less infuriated and no longer something she could not articulate to herself well because of the guilt, as it had always been before. Then again, even with her calmer anger at the boy in front of her, she found it getting offset while she tried to tell herself all the serious reasons she was concerned about him. _He's killed before. He is a killer, and he can do whatever he wants. He has the power at least. Considering the Villain Summit he interrupted, the League of Shadows' bosses he took down, the Pit…_

Her feelings of concern and her intense gaze wavered at that thought.

 _ **"He said he had to wear a collar?"**_

 _ **"That's what he said, Todoroki. And the scar looks like it could be-"**_

 _ **"It's not."**_ Jirou closed her eyes and grit her teeth for a moment as a small movement of Zach's head revealed some of the back of his neck where the scar tissue wrapped around and was visible to her above the collar of his school uniform. She remembered how dismissive she was of Sato when he was telling Todoroki about some of the stuff Zach said at the hospital that neither she nor Todoroki had gone to visit Zach in after he was shot on his release from Tartaros. _**"Every word out of his mouth was a lie. I knew it was all you were going to hear. Getting shot was just his way of drawing you all in, or a way to pretend to villains like he's weak so that they don't go too deep into hiding. It's all a ploy, and any of you who seriously buy his stories are being idiots."**_

Jirou opened back up her eyes and focused on the calculus lesson as best she could. _The Pit, Sueguon, the Villain Summit, it was all so crazy. Learning about all of that- and that you set up the raid on the League of Shadows' HQ to include heroes from the start. That's crazy. They could have just arrested you on the spot! They should have, no- well, it would have been legally the right thing to do, but you had faith in them I guess. The Pit,_ Jirou thought it to herself again, as every time she started thinking about it her mind quickly wandered to all the other things she had heard at that meeting which were crazy too. None of them made her heart twinge and ache though as this one did, though when she thought about the way Zach had been looking the past day now she could not imagine the Pit having existed at all.

 _I saw the pictures!_ She yelled it to herself, because somehow Zach's cheerful expression was making her doubt her own eyes. _He killed innocent people. People pit against each other in fights to the death. And you were there killing so much that they dubbed you the "Champion?" The Champion of the Pit, the Pit that you would go on to destroy. How many people, in that place alone?_ That thought had Jirou's heart lose the aching feeling to start speeding up more instead. _He was brutal out there, and yet,_ Jirou thought about the surveillance in Sueguon where Death glanced back towards the corpse of the villain who had been ripped apart by his comrade he had just had to take down himself.

 _That was Zach,_ Jirou had known it through the video despite Underlord's appearance. That moment though frustrated her at what it suggested he was feeling at the time. _An enemy he was fighting in the Villain Summit wasn't affected by Death either. What kind of mystery is that? And why does it make me sick to think about? The implications of it,_ Jirou was getting frustrated by how little she could focus on the calculus class, and how it was not even the things Ms. Clue wanted her to concentrate on after yesterday that were keeping her distracted. _He left me- us. We needed him and he left us. And now we let him come back here? And, now I have to deal with being part of the force going after him while also… also being his classmate again?_

Jirou frowned deeper and in a more serious way, _As long as I don't think of it like that, it's fine. We're in the same classes, that's all. I'm sure that's how Bakugo's going to do this._ Her eyes shifted to the right and back to check on Bakugo, only to dart her eyes to the front of the room as Bakugo was writing furiously and taking many notes that she sweatdropped at the sight of. _And he's going to do it without failing out too,_ Jirou scolded herself, as her grades were far from the top of the class unlike Bakugo's.

* * *

"MMmm!" Zach lowered the burger in his hands and had to shake his head with his eyes clenched for a second. _Man that's good,_ his eyes opened and he stared down at the burger Lunch Rush had made. _As good as Bailey's BBQ._ Zach sat back on the bench and thought about the Tennessee park table where he and Darling had had some delicious burgers and brisket she had picked up for them at a place nearby while he was working from the park. He could imagine that girl smiling at him from across the table as he talked about their next moves across the American southeast and what he had talked to Gentle about over a video call a few minutes ago.

Airi faded from mind though. No one sat in her place. His eyes shifted around as he took another bite with less focus on how good his food was. The table was empty except for one other person who sat down at the end of it, though Bakugo had his headphones in and was focused intently on something on his phone. The cafeteria was oddly quiet, and Zach glanced towards other tables too which caused some business and general studies' students to avert their staring gazes.

 _I really need to give them some space. My goal was too lofty. No way I could fix everything in a couple of days. Look how busy everyone is,_ he took another bite of his food and had to smile at the wonderful tastes of BBQ sauce and spices that Lunch Rush had mixed together. _Fucking amazing- It tastes just as good as yesterday's! That's good. Great! So they're busy,_ he refocused as he chewed slower to savor the food. _They all know that dealing with me is important too. I've seen how intense some of them are about figuring me out, or figuring out how they want to deal with me, and yet they're swamped with schoolwork and their actual jobs too._

Most of Class A was missing from the lunchroom, but a lot of Class B were not there either. Even more were gone than yesterday which was before his classmates knew they were all going to be as swamped as they had become after meeting with their pro heroes who wasted no time getting them to work. Even now, Zach had seen some of his classmates poking heads around corners or talking on the phone while carrying away their lunch trays and juggling notebooks to take notes on the calls they were on with other heroes who wanted to keep them up to date on new information only privy to their investigative teams. They all needed to be ready immediately after work to start helping or there would be no point in the pros bringing them along when things were so tense.

 _I have to give them some time. Use the whole month. They'll feel rushed if you keep showing creepy smiles- I'm not being creepy. I'm just happy. Relieved. Kind of sucks though that no one else is feeling good right now to share this time with me. Don't know how much longer- Just enjoy while you can. Even if Sero was being a bit,_ Zach lowered the right corner of his lips down and stopped chewing. He thought of looking past Jirou who darted him a dirty look when she thought he was approaching her, then she rushed off while he went right up to Sero on their way to the cafeteria a few minutes ago.

He had tried just talking to his friend in a normal and friendly way, but as much as Sero responded at first and tried to humor him back, the conversation did not end well. _**"Zach I- just. I've got to make a call to Ape Man,"**_ _He was busy. A lot of people died around Mt. Yamagucha. Or at least they're reported as "missing," but I don't know when my friends are each going to learn that they're not. Trying to smile and have friendly conversations with me about nothing isn't what they want right now. It probably pisses them all off to see me so relaxed while they're busy like this. It definitely does._ He imagined the cold shoulder he got from Tokoyami who was speaking with Kirishima about something now that Gang Orca and Hawks were going to work together that afternoon so their schedules intertwined.

Even the boy at the lunch table Zach was sitting at with now, Zach thought of Bakugo's annoyed snap at him not too much earlier. _**"Out of the way! Nobody's got time for your shit."**_ Bakugo had barely looked at him, more just one of his angry shouts as Zach had walked into his path near the door to the classroom which made Bakugo tilt his head back and yell that before storming past in annoyance. Tokoyami had given a glance but looked away back to Kirishima who Zach gave a look as if wondering what Bakugo's problem was, which got Kirishima's look turning much angrier too like Bakugo's had been. _Nobody's got time today. That's fine. I've got enough to do while they cool off. If they do- They will._

Behind Zach and at the door to the cafeteria, a pair of Class B students entered the room after a call with the pro hero they were working with together. Monoma Neito and Kuroiro Shihai stared towards the near-empty table where Zach Sazaki was sitting and the two stopped their talks about Mt. Yamagucha. Both of them thought about all the incidents that had happened within the past few days, and the one that they had focused least on was Zach's oddly timed return to U.A. They each thought that if he was still out there he would have been dealing with these things himself, but instead he was hanging around U.A. while the country wondered what he was doing.

The two glanced at each other, but Kuroiro looked back towards Zach first and just stared towards the boy he had not gone and talked to since Zach returned. He had not seen him since Zach's release from Tartaros, yet Kuroiro thought back and he felt his stomach clenching as he imagined the last time they had talked. He started towards Zach's table. Monoma took in a huge breath of air and then started forward as well, cracking a grin as he walked towards the Class A student who turned his head and stared back at the two of them approaching with eyes that seemed strange.

Monoma ignored the look _of_ Zach's eyes because of the look _in_ those eyes and the smile that broke on Zach's face at the sight of the two of them approaching. "Hey guys," Zach said to them, lifting a napkin and wiping his mouth as he finished chewing and swallowed his last bite of food. "Great lunch today, right?"

Monoma could not keep up with his casual smirking appearance as he stepped up right behind Zach on his left. He was lost for words for a second at the first thing Zach said to him after years, and he dumbly nodded before realizing he had been flustered. Monoma sat down on Zach's left side, and he wondered next to him at his old friend, "Can you even taste food? A superhuman monster like you-"

Zach rose his eyebrows and then smirked menacingly back at Monoma who leaned his head away. Zach laughed and his face was back to the relaxed and friendly one in an instant, before turning to Kuroiro who had darted his shocked eyes to Monoma at the last statement he made. Zach's response took it as a friendly jab at him for being Class A or something, rather than how he knew he could have taken it. He also completely ignored how Monoma's first question fueled the dread inside him that he desperately tried to ignore with some humor. "Hey, Kuroiro," Zach said to the dark boy behind him who had yet to speak or sit down.

Kuroiro slowly sat down on Zach's right side. He nodded at Zach in response and greeting, but the nod was slow and he could not speak yet as Zach looked at him awaiting him to say something. "I-" Kuroiro started. Monoma had a weird sense of deja vu, thinking of right after the Sports Festival when Kuroiro had brought up Zach's childhood friend, whose screams they had heard before the SFI. "I'm sorry," Kuroiro whispered.

"Don't be," Zach replied with a small shake of his head, knowing what Kuroiro was referring to and giving him a light smile but also soft look of understanding. "It's not your-"

"I avoided you after Kaminari's betrayal," Kuroiro said, his eyes low as he sat next to someone he had once called friend. Someone closer to him than most of his own classmates. "Because I couldn't face you," Kuroiro admitted with his teeth clenching for a second in pained regret as it came out. "I couldn't go to you and say what I needed to. Say how sorry I was that I told Kaminari about the letter." Kuroiro rose his eyes and looked into Zach's that he definitely saw now were darker, shaded with blackish red inside the hazel. The look of those eyes made Kuroiro's pitch black face show even more regret all over it, as he gasped out, "And brought him with me, to meet Jenny."

Zach stayed quiet for a few seconds. His lips were flat as he stared at the boy in front of him. Monoma's eyes were huge as he stared past Zach's back and into Kuroiro's agonized eyes. Down the table, Bakugo had muted his own phone and was staring out the corners of his eyes with a surprised look at what he just heard. He had interacted with the Class B student a few times in the past year and a half, nearly two years now, without noticing once that what Kaminari had taunted Zach with in that basement had gotten to the Black boy so much.

"And I'm sorry," Zach replied back to Kuroiro after watching him apologize for that. "I'm sorry for not telling you earlier, that it's not your fault. And," he continued fast before Kuroiro could interrupt. "That I forgive you if you need it."

"I was the one who you told to go to her, and if I didn't bring him-"

"Shigaraki would have killed her anyway," Zach replied with a shake of his head. "And I do know that for sure. Because I'm the one who told him," Zach explained it to his friend whose eyes opened much wider just like Monoma's behind him, though it was Bakugo down at the end of the table who froze and stared with massive eyes of shock at what Zach just said. "In Camino Ward," Zach explained. "When Shigaraki leaked to the press that I had gone voluntarily and U.A. didn't deny it, I knew that the Akers were watching. I knew that they had heard, and I whispered, 'I have a family.' How I didn't want them to find out that way," Zach shook his head and he looked away from Kuroiro for a moment with a darker look over his face and the regret coming back up despite how far in the past this was.

"Doesn't matter now," Zach continued though, his smile returning as he leaned back to see both Monoma and Kuroiro. He focused more on the boy on his right though, as he went on, "After Mr. Akers came to the trial and said all he did for my sake, that sealed the deal anyway. Nothing you or I did could have affected it more, than John's kind heart which doomed him to that terrible death. Blaming ourselves for the actions of villains only causes more damage than good. So I forgive you, because it really, _really_ isn't your fault."

Kuroiro gulped. His eyes shook for another second, and then he gave one of his rare and _actually_ creepy smiles that Zach appreciated to see lighting up that dark face. "Anyway," Zach continued, shrugging his shoulders out and then reaching back for his food. "Saw you've been incorporating a lot of support tools lately. Following my lead huh?"

Monoma rose his eyebrows high that Zach was going to move right past this, and more-so that apparently Kuroiro was going to as well when his classmate started responding in an affirmative way to Zach's tease. _It's been weighing on him for that long? And Zach just…_ Monoma smiled, and he hopped in on the conversation talking to Zach about his own weapons that he could use while Copying anyone's Quirk, though Zach responded casually how he had not noticed or seen Monoma on tv though. He said it as just an observation, but the jab hit Monoma in the chest and made Kuroiro chuckle in the back of his throat.

"…I have cans for spraying black graffiti everywhere. I can use Black anywhere I need-"

"Have you tried using black flares? Or smoke grenades that pop black smoke?" Zach wondered. Kuroiro paused and stared at Zach hesitantly as Zach continued eating but spoke faster and with a growing grin at his own ideas. "Since you can move black things that already move on their own, instead of painting certain things black you could toss those grenades that release smoke and then control the whole cloud. As well as dragging the grenades along the ground as they continue to give off smoke if you paint those grenades black in the first place. Then you'll have a reproducing cloud of smoke to zip around with as fast as the air can travel- And if you ever died," Zach continued even more thoughtfully and with a bigger grin that unnerved the two Class B students. Zach eased back on that grin, but he still elaborated on why he smiled there, "The two of us would be unstoppable, as you wouldn't need any of those weapons."

"In full Nightmare," Zach continued with an amazed shake of his head as he considered more combos and possibilities with their Quirks. "I could have you controlling a mass of Death without getting hurt by it. It would be like you have Death too as well as your own Quirk…" Zach trailed off, and he coughed and cleared his throat as he saw the other two staring too stunned at him at the things he was saying here rapid-fire like he must have had them all planned out long beforehand, or that he had to have been thinking about them for a long time. "Just saying," Zach finished, as if the ideas could still use work because they were vague and had not had a lot of thought put into them, which was true. True for him at least, which the other two actually believed.

"That's, beyond anything I've thought of myself-"

"Sorry," Zach said, knowing he overstepped and probably made Kuroiro feel inadequate for his extensive reasoning there. _If there was a time you were just too weak, I know you're pissed now that you never thought of this. I hope it works when you test it out._ "It's because of my time as a leader and commander," Zach attributed all he just said to. "I had to come up with uses for everyone's Quirks and counters for everything that my enemies could use on each of my individual comrades," Zach spoke without needing to explain what he was talking about, as he just assumed the two of them had read Oda's stories about him from prison. "But I went too far there," he added at the end with a look of apology next to him, making Kuroiro realize that what he was feeling must have been noticed by his old friend.

"It's no problem," Kuroiro started. He paused, then he added, "But I'd rather not think of how I could use my Quirk after dying, as I'd prefer not to die."

"I'd bring you back," Zach replied though, smiling at the Class B student and then giving Monoma a grateful look too as well as one suggesting the same thing. Monoma could not accept that though, frowning darkly as he heard Zach's offer and thought of something that happened about a week ago.

"Why me?" Kuroiro asked.

Monoma continued to frown while looking right back into Zach's eyes. "Us specifically?" Monoma added.

Zach's expression started to darken too, as what he just said was meant to be a good moment. He looked to Kuroiro whose look also got darker, and then he responded, "Yeah you specifically."

Monoma bit down and he closed his eyes for a second. "You can't just-" everything he had been seeing on tv for months, rushed at him all at once. "You don't get to choose," Monoma whispered, and he pushed back and got up from the seat. It was the end of lunch and a lot of people were getting up, but his standing seemed more to do with what they were talking about. "No one does," Monoma said, thinking on the Sports Festival and how many people they had brought back together. "'As many as we can,'" Monoma said. He stared down at Zach who looked back at him with his eyes slightly wider, as Monoma just quoted him from a moment when he had needed that.

The blond teen remembered sitting in a stairwell in Musutafu General that had cracks on the walls from the battle's damage. Crying as he could not take it after dying again in such a painful way, and what his friend had come down there and told him in a moment neither of them had spoken to anyone about afterwards. "You forget that?" Monoma asked softly, and when Zach did not respond he turned away and started off.

Kuroiro continued to frown when Zach looked back towards him too. He wanted to be annoyed by the response Zach gave to their questions. Yet instead, he felt bad about looking at Zach this way as it did not represent how he felt inside. He had to stand up and get going himself though, as he did not want to face the warm feeling he had that he already felt guilty about. _Even after all this time, we're still friends. You still consider me a friend._

* * *

After school Zach stood in the workshop where he needed to repair his left arm. U.A.'s Development Studio was equipped with most of the tools Zach needed already. His packages had arrived at U.A. though, and after being closely searched through by the school's robots to make sure it was safe for him to bring them in, he now had everything he needed. He had music playing though did not wear headphones as it would be dangerous to do such work without being able to hear his surroundings.

The person who came into the Studio was the one person at the school who spent most of their time there, as she had for the past three years. The genius mechanic girl had pink hair short down only just below her chin where it curled out a bit in thick strand clusters. She wore a gray tank top, gloves, and work pants that were navy blue other than the gray overall straps that were currently down at her sides making her pants look baggier than usual. Hatsume Mei wore work boots and had tools sticking out of the pockets of her work pants, and she had her own specially-made goggles up on her forehead pushing back some of her hair too.

Hatsume entered the lab expecting to see someone in there since she could hear the music from outside. When she stepped in though, she stared forward with her jaw dropping slightly and her eyes bulging at the sight of the figure ahead of her. He had on a black tank top and tight black pants, as well as a black glove on his right hand. Above that glove and below his shoulder though where he had no sleeve sticking out, his arm was covered completely in scars. The amount of space not covered in scar tissue was less than the amount with scars on it. As for his left arm, she could not stop from staring at the pitch black shape of the muscular appendage that was holding onto a metal left arm as well.

Zach needed both arms to do repairs, but he was doing repairs on his own left arm. He needed the left, and he worked with his Death Arm working the same as his mechanical one would. Oddly enough though, his left arm actually stuck out of his side just below his actual shoulder. Some of his repairs were needed in the shoulder joint where his nerve damage had been especially severe, causing the lack of feeling farther down his arm that he was working on now to save the shoulder part for later. He had a steel mask over his face with a glass slit near the top of it he looked through while using the blowtorch with his right hand. He turned his head though when he heard someone enter the room, and he turned off the blowtorch before fully turning and raising up the mask from his face.

"Hatsume," Zach greeted the girl he had not spoken to in years. "Good to see you," he said, and Hatsume grinned big and rushed into the room.

"Is that it?!" Hatsume ran right up on Zach's left side. Zach tossed up his damaged left arm and then sucked his whole Death Arm back into his body as she approached. When he pulled it in on his left side though, the black appendage shot right back out of his right side just below his right arm. He maintained two arms at once, though he caught his left arm with his right hand and then turned it over and showed Hatsume both sides.

"Whooa," Hatsume slowed down and her eyes bulged. Zach thought it was just at the sight of his amazing prosthetic, but Hatsume had seen the kind of prosthetic Zach was using before already. "This arm's as good as Power Loader sensei's? The one you got for him?"

"I helped him get it," Zach said, trying to distance himself from being directly accredited for it. "But yes, it's as good-"

"Then how'd it get this much damage?!" Hatsume exclaimed in amazement. She snapped her eyes up to Zach's face, then she grinned and looked back down before reaching out and taking the arm out of his hands. "Wow. That's insane," Hatsume bent the arm at the elbow and checked out the dents, scratches, then she winced and let out a yelp. "Ah!" She tossed up, and Zach's black arm extended around and up in the air, catching the arm and lowering it gentler as his arm retracted back to its normal length. Hatsume forgot about the burning sensation in her fingers for a second as Zach's arm did that so naturally without him breaking eye contact with the girl he chuckled at as she got too excited and grabbed where he had just been blowtorching.

"I tend to get it banged up pretty often," Zach replied, without giving any specifics. "Fake skin does a good job at covering up damage, but sometimes you need to do some real maintenance to get everything working right. Not the usual tinkering," Zach said, putting the blame on himself for letting it get to this point as if the damage had accumulated over time rather than it being a single recent incident that caused this. That was the first warning sign to Hatsume, as she was nearly convinced by him yet at the same time did not believe that one bit.

"Huh," Hatsume said, nodding and keeping up her smile though as she remembered her excitement and kept it up. "Well get back to it! I want to see how you repair it," Hatsume said, then she added to the boy in front of her who she tossed his arm to, "And I have to do some work on my own babies! So don't mind me!" She expected him to maybe counter her or ask for privacy, so she made sure he was unable to do so by bringing up her own work that she could use as an excuse to stay and watch him closely.

The two of them started working not far from each other. Conversation died down as Hatsume got really into her work, though Zach could tell that even as focused as she was and as good at building as he watched her to be, she had enough skills to make it look like she was fully focused while at the same time watching him eagle-eyed. _She's Zooming in on my scars. And on the dents. She can tell many of them are from the same place. As Zoomed in as she is too, I'm sure she can tell there are finger marks where he clenched down. Someone strong enough to dent my steel, will likely make her think of Midoriya._

 _Did the two of them really fight?! I heard from Vivi that Komori said that Mini-ta thinks you two slugged it out the other night!_

Zach started buffing out the dents that she was staring at. He checked energy levels on a panel just below his elbow on the underside of his arm. He reconnected and disconnected the arm several times from his shoulder and checked the energy during the process to measure its readings. He got to tinkering on his shoulder, wincing as he used two black hands wrapped around his body and extended out while in front of a mirror, watching them work inside his shoulder that he could not just turn to Death in order to stop the pain, as then he would be unable to do any work in there. _Maybe if I just make my central nervous system Death for now. I could do all the work without pain, and get it done easier as well. Without causing unnecessary damage or wasting any time. Or just disconnect a few connectors by turning, this section in between, into Death-_ "Ow." _Alright that didn't work. Don't know why, but I guess if I'm turning individual clusters of nerves into Death it couldn't disconnect my nervous system. My body just adjusts to the changes. If it was that simple to mess with my internal bodily functions then I never would have survived haphazardly using it without considering them for the past few years…_

Hatsume leaned over Zach's right shoulder as he was working away, his eyes glowing a dim red as several black arms stuck out of him and helped his maintenance work on one of the most high-tech pieces of equipment in the world. Her eyes sparkled through her goggles she was wearing now, and Zach had to turn to the right and squint at the glow coming from her eyes. As soon as he acknowledged her presence, she erupted with the questions she held off on as to not distract him, now that he was distracted already. "Are those wires inside connected to the nervous system- Those thicker ones are weapons, right? The cables look thin though, so do you have to repair them after each use? Have you already repaired them this time-"

"Power Loader's arm has a nervous system connector as well-"

"But your baby is much more amazing! It's far more advanced!" Hatsume exclaimed it and Zach did not bother trying to under-sell his arm any more as she was clearly able to tell from her closer inspection. "That energy inside it, where does it come from? Is it limitless, or do you have to charge it-"

"It recharges on its own-"

"The energy source is Quirk-based then, right?"

"Yes. It runs the energy weapon inside my left palm," Zach turned the arm and showed off a small circle on his palm that opened and glowed blue, then closed back up with the steel panel again. "It's-"

"Did you just control that with your mind?" Hatsume asked, and then she had to hold back a squeal as Zach's disconnected arm moved its fingers and gave her a thumbs up in response.

He rose back up a hammer in his right hand while most of his Death arms had retracted leaving just one to steady his prosthetic. "You want to help me repair it?" Zach wondered as he got back to work, hammering away at dents on the underside of a panel he lifting up to try and get it back to normal. Hatsume's eyes lit up and she spun to Zach in surprise, and he offered, "You can have a look inside while you do. It's not too easy for me to do on my own." A black strand whipped out of Zach's right side over to a tool bench he grabbed a suction device from and pulled back to himself. Though the tool was weak and he doubted would work on anything more than a dented car door, he figured maybe the U.A. lab would have an adjusted one meant for some stronger materials.

Hatsume's uneasy feeling rose back up inside her at the masterful control of those black strands he had been doing a good job of keeping away from her. She figured that was to make her feel safe, and yet watching him use this Death to create multiple arms that extended faster than she could move was more unnerving than reassuring. His mastered control over Death, scared her. _He's a nice guy,_ Mei reminded herself, as it was something she had picked up on after the first time the two of them met. She had remembered the interest he showed in costume development that was more focused than many of his friends with strong Quirks who thought of their costumes as ways to _improve_ their abilities, while his reasons were more for compensating and improving his mobility and ability compared to everyone else.

She agreed to his offer. Zach quickly regretted inviting her to help him though, as it was not a few minutes into her "helping" him that she was trying to add various new devices she had created for Power Loader's arm only to be denied by him. Zach had to deny her as well, as much as some of the attachments for his arm _did_ look pretty cool when she strapped them on suddenly and showed it off to him. He held off on immediately denying everything she offered, rather telling her that they would finish repairs first then talk about anything more that might be added afterwards.

"So I've got some ideas for my costume I'd like you to have a look at too, by the way," Zach brought up as he went back to working on his arm alone, having to nearly pry it from Hatsume's hands so he could finish without her installing her jet engines that would make his arm fly much faster when he used his rocket fist attack. It completely worked at distracting the girl who had no idea what Zach's costume looked like and asked him as fast as she could to see it. "Shiketsu still hasn't sent it over. They have it right now, I don't know what the wait is. Principal Nezu doesn't want me going out in it, but for practical training I wish I had it rather than just our blue gym uniforms." **Clank**

"…But a lot of the tech in my costume is top of the line, and I really want you to get a look and see if there's anything worth adjusting before graduation. Plus, I hope you can get some ideas from what you see included on my costume too." **Clank** "It'd be useful I think in your post-graduation work to see-" Zach paused for a second as he lifted back up the hammer in his right hand. His eyes darted to it and he focused in on the tool for a moment. Then he continued while looking back at the girl confused by his sudden pause, "To see the kind of tech I accumulated around the world and got incorporated all in one costume. It's as amazing as my arm, more even-"

"More?! We have to get it here now!" Hatsume exclaimed with a small dribble of drool at the right corner of her mouth making Zach smile and chuckle at her enthusiasm. "Let's go complain to Mr. Principal together! We could get it expedited here this afternoon…"

 **Clank**

* * *

At five o'clock, U.A.'s resident psychiatrist stepped out of her room and turned around to lock the door behind her. Her patients' files were in there and thus this room was locked to everyone at the school, and she was the only one with a key to it. She stopped as she was locking the door though, seeing something in her peripheral vision she had not noticed when she stepped out a moment ago. Softy turned her head to the right and stared towards the person, then she tilted her head and looked up to his face so much higher up than the boy's head used to be. He was no longer the runt of his class though, rather he was taller than average and far larger with his imposing figure.

"Zach," Softy whispered at the sight of him.

She opened back up her door, and she motioned inside with her other hand. Zach smiled gratefully at her and nodded. He walked into her office and she followed him in, closing the door behind her. "I'm very glad you came to see me," Softy said to the eighteen year old who no longer looked like a child. The scars on his neck, on the left side of his face, the right side of his forehead partially visible under his bangs, on his left ear, they were all horrible.

Softy expected that whatever had brought him to her had nothing to do with those scars though. _You were the cause of the grief for many of my patients over these past two years. And yet,_ she took in a deep breath while Zach was still faced away from her after entering the room and walking towards a chair he looked at nostalgically and with a small smile.

"I'm sorry, I failed you." Zach spun around and lost his smile at the sound of that when he was just thinking about how much he had been helped in this very room.

"You didn't-"

"When you lied to me, in our final session," Softy continued. "I should have understood why you were doing it, rather than getting flustered and suggesting that you stop coming. I should have seen why you would practice lying to me. It was all in order to deceive everyone, so that you could better prepare for the Lifebringer Incident."

"Can we, not talk about that?" Zach asked.

Softy's mouth was open, but she hesitated and then closed her mouth. _You are a student. Your problems now, come ahead of my own remorse._ "Of course," Softy said. She walked over for her own chair and motioned for Zach to sit down with her right hand.

"Thank you," Zach said with another nod back at her. "And, if you use Sooth here-"

"I won't-"

"No, it's fine," Zach countered. He paused at the look she gave him, but he smiled and said, "I don't mind it. Might help me out if you do, so just use it if you feel it'll help."

"Are you alright?" Softy wondered.

The question gave Zach pause. He leaned back into the chair and put his hands together in front of his body. His left had new fake skin over his repaired hand, and he wore a black hoodie with his own hero name written across the front of it in white. His hood was bunched up behind his neck, and his hair was messy and had waves in it as it continued to get longer from the short haircut he got right out of Tartaros. Zach pressed his fingers together in front of his face with his thumbs touching just below his chin, his elbows resting on the armrests of the comfortable chair he had leaned back in and looked so thoughtful as he did.

"I don't think so," Zach replied. His voice was calm, but his expression got more serious as he stared ahead into Softy's eyes. The tone he used got Softy much more serious as well. She nodded her head at him, hearing the uncertainty and yet seeing a look in his dark eyes that scared her both for the boy and for the rest of them. It scared her more for _him_ though, and she nodded at him to continue in a way hoping he would trust that her intentions were first and foremost to help him. Zach nodded back at the sight of that intensity in her eyes to do her job, and he took in a deep breath while lowering his hands down.

"The thing is," Zach began. "I can feel, something changing. Inside me. It's happening even now," the boy with dark red eyes spoke. They did not glow, but they were not hazel. His eyes were a low maroon red and the bones above his eyes shadowed over his sockets to make them even darker while he spoke in a steady flat tone. Softy was not prepared for this kind of conversation. She did not even know if Zach would come to see her, though she had been told by the principal that apparently Sazaki had been seeing a therapist at the order of Principal Memuria of Shiketsu. She did not want to ask about his other therapist, nor was she certain that he had actually been seeing anyone at all.

"What's changing?" Softy asked.

"It's, hard to explain," Zach replied. He glanced away to his right, then he looked back at her as he thought back and began speaking aloud what he was remembering, "When I was gone, I spent almost all my time fighting. I didn't want my friends to die without me there to bring them back. More importantly, I didn't want them to die at all, and I wanted to be there to protect them." He paused and then continued on in the same tone, keeping it from dipping dark despite what he was about to talk about. "I was in charge, so I had that power to order no one to fight unless I was there. Yet that didn't mean I could be everywhere, at every mission, at all times."

"No one could be," Softy replied quietly back at him, reassuring him that it was alright that he could not be.

He nodded thanks back at her, but then he went on, "So one day, some of my comrades were out on a recon mission. I had messed up. I didn't take the proper precautions, didn't send a strong enough team, and backup wasn't close enough to get to them when they didn't report in. I got there as fast as I could," Zach paused and he grit his teeth for a moment. Softy nodded in understanding, but Zach shook his head at her in a sadder way that she thought that was the end. "They weren't there," Zach explained. "The three of them were missing, and I knew they had been taken by our enemies. And these enemies were known particularly for their brutality. I thought, if I could just figure out where they were as fast as possible- if I could just get to them _right_ then, I could still stop what I knew was about to happen to them."

"So I investigated myself. We needed the recon because we didn't know where they were, but _I_ put my full focus onto this now rather than all the other fronts of my war that my focus had been split around. I brought my forces back from other battlefields and other nations and empires they were planning attacks on the Queen's forces in." Zach paused and he shook his head while giving Softy a knowing look, then he nodded his head to the right as if saying 'moving past that,' to her bewilderment and yet understanding at the same time. He continued, "We tracked down their gear which we _designed_ to be impossible to track, and which made us completely rework our armor afterwards so as to prevent our enemies from being able to use the technique we used to find our friends. To save them," Zach finished.

"You did save them," Softy said, though she did not smile as there was something about this story that already told her it was not that simple.

"I did," Zach replied though. "I flew as _fast_ as I could. I had their precise location. Not just the enemy fortress, but the _room_ that my friends were in. My comrades. People who trusted me to protect and save them. Who I loved," Zach paused and he thought about a wall smashing apart as he flew through it. "The enemy weren't ready for me at all. I did not wait for my army. I rushed in alone. I smashed through the outer wall and right into the room my comrades were in. As the wall broke apart I can still see this room becoming more and more visible as the debris flew around me. I saw, my comrades. Two of them…"

Zach paused and he had to close his eyes. He saw through bricks and stone flying around the glimpses he had spotted at first before everything settled and he could get full views of them. Even just those initial glances had told him though. "I was too late," Zach said quieter.

His eyes opened and he looked at Softy, "See, one of the enemies I was facing, I knew of him. Let's call him 'the Torturer,'" _Though he was really known as The Hammer. After his tool of choice._ "He was renowned for his cruelty. I figured he might be who my comrades were going to be brought before. I wasn't ready, to see them though. Two of them were already dead. Not just dead though, but their arms and legs were completely shattered. Every bone in their fingers and toes too." He stopped for a second, and he went on quieter, "The same thing was already in the process of happening to my third subordinate, but as the only one left who the Torturer had, he had to do it slower and with less fatal methods so as to keep him alive. When I busted in, the claw of the hammer was in his left eye- the socket I mean. Both eyes were already gone, but the Torturer was just tugging at his skull from the inside and taunting him as the claw mushed through what remained in there."

Softy had heard many horrible things in her life. Watching Zach talk about this still in a steady tone though, as if the story was still far from being completed, it pained and scared her even more. _He's, so far gone,_ Softy could not wrap her head around that look Zach had given her about the stories he was telling. The look like they both understood the reason he had to tell the story like this, and so she knew that the rest of this was real. The fact that he was telling her despite also showing that he was not being entirely truthful, or rather the fact that he was in her office at all told her that this was no attempt to trick her. _Something worse is wrong now though,_ Softy understood from the tone Zach used of just building up to the point still, while able to tell about his friends' brutal demises.

"I can smell that room still," Zach continued. "The stench of my dead friends and their shit, their blood… But I wish I had restrained myself," Zach admitted. He looked into Softy's eyes and she knew where he was going with this now. "I told myself afterwards that not killing anyone else at that lair except the Torturer was enough. It was mercy, and restraint, and then when my comrades arrived we needed to clean up and get the villains I had faced to the proper authorities. We took the information we got from them to go after everyone associated with their group. And I had to send everyone back across Terra to work double-time to catch back up on our fights that I had dragged them away from to save our friends. I told myself while I brought the three of them back, that it was justified because of the pain I was feeling. Then I just moved forward."

"It's not something I think about," Zach said. He paused, then he corrected in order to better explain to her, "It's not something I've _ever_ thought about. Not how I cut the throat of my friend begging me to do it, so that I could revive him back to his full strength rather than leave him an eye-less cripple the rest of his life. His short, short second life. All three would continue fighting with me. Those three who did not crack under the torture, and who fought at my side until their final days." Zach stopped again and he said softer, "But I never thought about this moment. Not really. It's my first time ever confronting it, and suddenly being able to do so is frightening, but what's worse is how _un-_ frightening it feels. How ready I am to face it, how confident I feel about facing living without having to fear or hide everything from myself, and facing it all without the kind of crushing depression-inducing feelings I've always felt."

He paused for a few seconds, then he continued in a lower voice to the anxious woman before him, "But I can still see that man's eyes." He said it and he paused as he pictured them so vividly in his head. "As the hammer was taken to him. His own hammer," Zach whispered. "With the blood of my friends still on it. The same blood splattered all over that room. I remember shouting, 'Oh you like hammers do you?!'" Zach's voice rose as he quoted himself loudly. Then he said back in his softer voice, "As I broke the man's kneecap with it. He had tried swinging at me after I caught the hammer that went flying out of his hand in surprise as I smashed through the wall. I think, he still thought himself strong up until that moment. He was quick to react, I mean, when I suddenly rushed in at him."

"After his first kneecap though and my screams of rage, he lifted his other knee to try and flee but, but I took that kneecap out too. Shattered it into a million pieces," Zach swung his arm again, then he whipped it back the other way. "As he tried to speak to explain himself or beg for mercy, I don't know, I shattered his jaw like glass. Took it clean off. Nearly ripped it through his skin, and pieces of the shattered bone were sticking through. I had hit it so hard though that the jaw shattered without spinning his skull around, so he was still alive. And I grabbed him by that shattered jaw, clenching his chin and making him stare at me in…" Zach slowed down. For the first time it looked hard for him to speak, which was reassuring to Softy as much as him explaining this brutal execution was the _farthest_ thing from okay.

"I, lifted his his chin," Zach continued. "And I slammed the hammer down on his skull so hard that it hit the floor. I smashed straight through his body, with a hammer. Just a regular hammer, like one you would find in a toolbox. The simplicity of it made him so horrifying to those he tortured. That he could inflict so much pain with a simple object they had all used themselves, at some point in their lives. My men had withstood all the torture though… But in the end, the three of them were alive at the end of the day. He was dead, and I had killed him."

"I justified it to myself, Softy, that this guy had killed people. Probably a lot more than I knew. More than just my own friends and it wasn't just because it was personal, though in that moment maybe," Zach shook his head at the thought of his selfish reaction to what he saw in that room. "But that moment before I brought the hammer down," Zach continued. His voice was low and his expression dark, and he said in regret as he thought again about those eyes, "No matter how much pain that man was in… he didn't want to die." Zach rose his head and he looked into Softy's eyes sadly.

"He wasn't hoping for the release of death, he just wanted to escape, to run away, or even to be thrown in prison." Zach hesitated, then he whispered, "He was at my mercy, and I bashed his head open all over myself. God I was strong in that moment. I don't even know if I used any Death, but I had to have. His eyes flew out of their sockets and splattered on my chest. My hammer did not slow down. Not on his skull, nor his chest cavity it partially dug through as I continued swinging down so hard it took me off my feet. I threw all my weight into that swing, and when I hit the floor the cracks shot out from the hammer all the way to the walls."

"And he shit himself," Zach added. "Like so many men do when they die. Like so many did just by looking my way." Zach paused and his eyes shifted away for a second, his expression darkening but getting sadder itself. "Do you know what that feels like?" His eyes shifted back to Softy, "To be so terrifying to your enemies, that when you walk into a room men lose control over their bowels? Their bladders empty into their pants and you have to step through puddles to get close to them, and the closer you get, looking into their terrified eyes the more likely they're going to shit themselves in fear because they lose focus on holding it in when the only thing on their mind, the only thought they are able to have is of whether or not they're about to be killed, or worse, by the _monster_ before them."

"You're," Softy started. She gulped, cursing herself internally that she did and it stopped her from continuing. "You're not a monster," she finished.

"I am- or at least, I was," Zach corrected when he saw her opening her mouth to argue with him. "To defeat the monsters who prey on the innocent, I became the same kind of monster except I preyed on them." Zach's therapist gulped again as he admitted this to her. "War when one side is willing to go farther than the other wouldn't be a very long war. I didn't want my forces to lose their humanity though. I needed them to stay _good._ But I had to show my enemies that I was willing to stoop to their level. That it would not be the side of good fighting the side of bad, but two sides of a war who were both willing to do whatever it took to survive and destroy the other." His voice got more exhausted by the end, even as Zach felt the energy surging inside him stronger than it had ever been. It's what pushed aside his exhaustion so quickly despite speaking on things that he could never talk about without getting so weighed down that it was hard to continue on.

He lowered his eyes again and then spoke in a lower voice, "War meant losing friends. Losing yourself. Giving up your own needs for the sake of the army's. And it meant that sometimes, you'd find yourself doing something you never thought you were capable of." Zach's tone was dark, and he said in a serious voice to the woman ahead of him, "I couldn't hold a hammer anymore. I couldn't even look at one, or a plane, or chains, a helicopter, a sunset… They were all hard to look at, even just a couple weeks ago. Fixing up my arm at Shiketsu, I couldn't even _look_ at a hammer for more than a second, but today I was using one fine and didn't even think about this."

He rose his head and the concern was clear on his face. Softy's eyes shook though, and it was hard for her to focus on what it was he had finally gotten to which seemed like the real reason he was here with her. And as much as the rest was terrifying and confusing, _this_ was by far the worst thing to hear from him. She shook her head though, reassuring herself mentally as Zach said, "And when I did think of it, it didn't make me gag. It didn't make me drop the hammer with shaky hands as I recalled what I had done in horror. No. I just went on using it and decided to come here after to delve into my psyche for why it is I'm fine now."

"That's a good thing," Softy started. She took in a deep breath, then she let it out slowly. She took in in again and she said, "Isn't it?" The question made Zach pause again, and she told him, "As horrible as some of what you just told me was, I have to remind myself that you _were_ in another world. Whatever that world may be. And things sound different there. I won't justify anything you did, I can't- But when you come here talking about this as if it is a bad thing that you are overcoming your traumas, I feel concern for you. It is something you do often, where you cannot let go of the terrible things in your past."

"It's not about letting them go, Softy," Zach countered with a shake of his head. "I couldn't even think of that day and now, I can talk to another person about it and not break down? Not even feel guilt, but rather just regret at making the mistake."

"You wouldn't have talked so much about his eyes if you didn't feel guilt," Softy countered. Zach did not have a response for her. He nodded his head after a second in understanding, which made Softy's heart race so much more rapidly. _Did he just accept that? He sounded assured not a second ago that it wasn't guilt he felt! How is he changing his mind and accepting…_ Softy focused in on Zach's red eyes. "Your eyes," she brought up. "Why are they red?"

"It makes me think faster," Zach replied to confirm the suspicions he noticed her having. "Death on the brain. It makes me think so fast, and without hiding from my thoughts or from how others see me, it's just smarter. It will help me figure out Kaminari's location to do it constantly-"

"Is that your goal?"

"It's the most important thing now," Zach replied. "Stopping him. All For One might destroy the world, and Shigaraki might take it over, but Kaminari's still inside Raijin." Softy froze and her heart raced at that sentence. "…And if he's witnessing all this, it has to be constant torture. Far worse than anything the Torturer could do. A nonstop, _endless_ torture forced to watch what his own body's doing." Zach's head shook back and forth as this was not what he wanted to talk about here. "Softy, you might think it's overcoming trauma to be able to think about this thing with the hammer. It's bad though. I shouldn't be able to think of it. Not like this."

 _He's so self-aware it's scary. He knows his own mind inside-out. I don't know if I have anything to add that could help alleviate this situation._ Softy pursed her lips, as she definitely did not want to respond with what she just thought about being unable to help him. "Are you afraid, of yourself?" Softy wondered to the student sitting in front of her.

"No," Zach replied, rather quickly. _That would be a bad thing to say to her right now._ "Just concerned about what this means going forward. And dreading what's to come."

"What is to come?" Softy asked.

"Just," Zach paused. He pursed his own lips and then said in a low tone, "I know that when I come back- if I come back to my senses, I'm going to look back on how I feel now and hate myself. Hate myself for the sole reason that I was unburdened for a short period of time. That I could live without feeling it all."

Softy's voice got even quieter, as she repeated back to him in the form of a question, "'It all?'"

"The past. The present. The future. All I've done and will have to do." He responded with the answer that he felt coming from the heart. "How I may come to be treated by the people I had loved, or hopefully still love at that time." His voice got softer itself, and he finished on a positive note, "Yet maybe this feeling won't be fleeting as I fear it is. Maybe I can continue on like this. Happy. And maybe I'll be, better, because I'm doing better. A better person like this."

"As much as having a guilty conscience helped me know I was still human, it hurt," he explained that and shook his head in amazement. "Oh did it hurt, but right now I don't feel that. That's why I had to come here and sort these things out aloud."

"Because you're not in pain?"

"Yeah." The response was simple, and both Zach and Softy just sat back in their chairs at the sound of it. _I guess, it's just that simple._ Zach put his hands behind his head and looked up at the ceiling. "Huh."

* * *

 _This is much easier with a laptop._ Zach sat at Midoriya's desk while his classmate sat on the left side of it, both of them on their laptops with The God Book open in between them.

The two of them were talking and discussing the texts they were deciphering, so neither had headphones in. That meant Midoriya was unable to hide it when he clicked on a link that immediately started playing a video that caught his eye. Zach looked to his side, and Midoriya grimaced but slid his computer forward and turned it diagonally so both of them could see the screen. There was a title below the video taking up more of the screen, explaining how the man being recorded and aired by a large news station was the husband of a missing hero. "…I woke up and she was gone. I have no idea where she is, but I just pray to God she isn't in Gondorhan."

"No one at Rhino Chick's Texas agency have been able to contact her…"

As the reporters started talking about the clip that they aired again, Zach humphed to himself and refocused on old Roman texts that had long been understood by historians. _It's ironic. He's praying to God when her God killed her._

Midoriya lowered the volume and turned on the subtitles as Zach lost interest quickly. The noise Zach made from his throat as if scoffing at the man's heartfelt plea crushed him a little bit, but it was nothing compared to the guilt he was already feeling watching this. _I should have helped you. Saved her, and brought her to justice but still, saved her life._

 _They were my prisoners. People I had captured which meant they were now in my care until I could put them on trial and send them to prison. I had even tied up Umburt with Blackwhips, dragged him away with the others while he was still conscious, and that villain died where I left him along with so many others-_ In his head he saw the one reaching a hand towards him, before the light closed in on them and shredded their body so fast. With his speed though, he was still able to watch it in slow motion as skin and flesh was ripped from bones that shattered and turned to dust and they were blown away by the force of the beam blowing through them. _All of them. Heroes, and the premier of Yugalvenia whose whole country is calling for his return, a call that I know there will be no answer to._

 _And I can't tell Principal Nezu everything. Not about who was there. I, I don't want to speak ill of the dead. Zach's right about that,_ Midoriya glanced to his side at his friend who already seemed past this. _He doesn't want to implicate all those missing people. I don't either. Them being missing may leave their loved ones without closure, but knowing would actually be worse in this instance. That's not a reason to kill them. But if they are already dead, does that make it okay? Is that gray, light enough? I don't know. I hate, dwelling in the gray. It doesn't feel right. I once was able to question how you could do it. I used to think, maybe, that I was even jealous that you could do it. But it's wrong. And questioning how you can is something I only did because I thought we were the same. Friends both trying to be heroes…_

 _Isn't that what we are now?_ Midoriya thought it to counter his previous thoughts, but he could not convince himself that things were that simple anymore.

 _I'm not going to be the only one working on this right now,_ the darker haired boy thought without showing his classmate he noticed or that he was mildly annoyed at Deku's being distracted. _Not Rhino Chick either though,_ Zach thought as he looked up other top stories in the news today. _Yesterday's news. More news following up what happened yesterday. Still no survivors in Gondorhan. Images of inside the quarantine are still not getting out. Fears of similar incidents happening around the world is causing some panic. Every little flu in, Denmark and, China, they're treating it like the end of the world. Just a bunch of hysteria that should get easily calmed down by heroes. Worst place to check for how people are really reacting are message boards like these. Conspiracy theories are 90% nonsense. Luckily I can tell which is the ten percent. If I imagine that 9.9% of that truth is what we spread as conspiracy, and 80% of the bull are theories that are fake that we also propagated… What's the .1% that the Army doesn't know about but is the truth? Where's the hole in the needle for me to thread?_

 **Knock Knock**

The two boys each lost in thought spun to the door. Neither were thinking about The God Book with so much going on in the present, but they each spun back to it quickly. Zach grabbed it and got up quietly, moving towards the corner of Midoriya's room without making a noise with his footsteps in a way that Midoriya wished he did not notice. "One second," Midoriya said, while getting up himself and heading towards his door.

"Deku-kun," Uraraka started from the other side of the door. Midoriya paused for a second, then he continued to the door and started turning the doorknob while wondering, _What does Uraraka want?_

"Can we talk about Zach?" Uraraka said through the door as Deku was opening it up. Her voice sounded rushed, but Midoriya still stopped with the door partially open. He saw Iida also standing out in the hall next to Uraraka, and he sweatdropped at their serious expressions as he knew this was about to make everything very awkward.

Zach finished hiding The God Book then walked over behind Midoriya as his friend finished opening the door. Uraraka's bottom lip dropped and her eyes widened as did Iida's next to her, though his eyes shifted onto Uraraka sympathetically after a moment of surprise.

"Oh, hi- Zach," Uraraka said. _Stupid. Stupid stupid!_ Uraraka kept her thoughts from showing as much on her face, leaving her just staring towards Zach awkwardly for a few seconds.

Midoriya opened his mouth, but he did not really know what he was supposed to say either. "Do you guys, want to come in? We were just discussing the news," Midoriya said with a motion to their computers that he and Zach had already switched over to news stories even before the knocks came at the door.

"Ah yes, of course," Iida said with a serious nod. _I have not yet gotten Zach's insight into the events of the past few days. It would be valuable to all of our investigations._

 _Shouldn't be long now anyway,_ Zach thought to himself while stepping to the desk and sitting back at the chair he was at before. He turned the chair though and put his elbows back on the desk behind him while leaning back on it. He suppressed a grin but let it show through that he was doing so while glancing by Uraraka, clearly avoiding her gaze as he attempted to hide his feeling of wanting to laugh about what had just happened. Each action of just turning his head and the expression he made was so multi-layered that Uraraka did not realize how deep inside she relaxed at the sight of him treating it as less awkward and more just amusing to him or that he was trying not to laugh at her expense. It made her think that he was not as much concerned about what she was going to discuss with Midoriya, which on an even deeper level started to alleviate some of the concerns she had arrived there to speak about if Zach was not worried at all about what they could be talking about or what Midoriya could tell her at some other time.

"I'm most concerned about Gondorhan," Zach started to the two who entered the room who he had yet to speak much to since coming back to school. "I know Yamagucha is closer, but the mystery around Gondorhan's really got me at a loss." Zach's eyes were a dark crimson, and he leaned back and nodded at Iida, "What about you?"

"I, am currently fully focused on Mount-"

"Yamagucha was Shigaraki," Zach said. He spoke like it should be obvious to Iida, and he rolled his eyes at the surprised look Iida gave him at his response. "Come on. I know focusing on it is important, but it's no mystery we need to look deeper into. He did it. No idea why, so maybe that's something. Maybe he just wanted to show those of us who would know it was him just how much he's capable of now. Or just a taste of his power," Zach corrected himself, the second suggestion sounding worse as he made it out like maybe Shigaraki was even more powerful than that.

"You really…" Uraraka hesitated. She thought of the last conversation she had had with Zach.

Zach looked at her and his smile lowered a bit as well but stayed lifted at the corners. He recalled it as well. He remembered admitting to her and Sato about the gaps in his story. How what he was saying did not match up with the timeline he had provided. "That's what I really believe," Zach said. His voice did not get any more serious. He just said it with a raise of his tone as if telling her that she could believe it or not. Her eyes widened in surprise at that kind of tone, telling her that he was not going to get more serious and say something as if in a more truthful tone than last time he would expect her to believe this time.

 _It's like he gave up,_ Uraraka thought while staring at him with her wide eyes going back to normal. Her head nodded, though she did not know if she fully believed that Zach was telling her what he truly thought. _He doesn't think he can get me to trust him again after that._ Uraraka glanced down and to her right. _He's right. It wasn't just to push me and Sato away. Mina… she may have been right about that. Maybe it's why he said it, but he was saying the same things he's been saying the whole time. He just admitted it that he was lying all that time. Admitted it, to push us away. So that he could leave again and I'd think he was fine and that he had plans the whole time? That doesn't seem right! He looks,_ Uraraka lifted her head back to Zach who turned to Iida as the taller boy started scolding Zach for coming to conclusions without any evidence.

"Unless you have evidence that it was him?" Iida finished, giving Zach a more stern look wondering if he knew anything from that night he had returned to U.A.

Zach shook his head though with a shrug. "Maybe not. But you don't need concrete proof to prepare as if it were true." He said that calmly and got Iida's stern scolding look to shift, as did Midoriya's frowning one on Zach's right side where he was standing hesitantly next to his bed he did not know if he should sit on. Zach held up his right palm, "It's the most realistic explanation. Maybe we don't have proof, but what could we do if we did that we can't do without it? Tell the families that we're certain their loved ones are dead, rather than just that we 'suspect' that they are. And _then_ we can try super hard to stop him?" Zach lowered his hand and he started up again, "So maybe we have to keep searching for that proof, just in case it isn't him and we need to be ready for some other mountain-decaying villain."

Zach's eyebrows narrowed in at Iida and he said firmly, "That doesn't mean we can slack on preparing as if this were him. Wasting more time pretending we don't know the truth. Wasting time we could have spent preparing for Shigaraki Tomura. Hunting Shigaraki Tomura. Theorizing about who else could have done it when we already have a suspect, and a motive, and that suspect has no alibi. It's obvious who did it."

 _If having a suspect, motive, and not having an alibi was all we needed to convict someone of a crime-_ Uraraka thought it and found herself gulping as she wondered if Zach meant for her to think of it in that way. _Is he reminding me, that just because he lied about his alibi that doesn't mean I have proof of him being Death?! But- but didn't he just say the opposite was- WHAT?!_

"Alright, even if we were to just make this assumption though," Iida started. He was frustrated by the way Zach thought of their whole process which he was making out as flawed in too cocky a way. "What would we be doing better if we were just focusing as if it were Shigaraki who had destroyed Mt. Yamagucha?"

"Searching for him. And the League-"

"We're already doing that," Midoriya countered.

"Not good enough apparently," Zach replied with a shrug of his right shoulder and a look to his side at the green-haired boy who frowned much deeper at him for that response.

"And what have you been doing?" Uraraka asked.

All three of the others in the room with Zach were frowning at him now. They were each upset, and Zach eased back into the chair as the standing teens all glowered at him for his responses. _Could be my attitude. Maybe I could break the mood with a joke, but if it's my attitude and not just what I'm saying then that'll do worse to deescalate the situation. I have been searching, Uraraka. More than you. More than all of you. Why be sneaky and quiet about it? It'll just make her annoyed if I lie more. Make her hate me. I need to gain trust here, and all I've been doing is confusing her._

"Well," Zach started. "Just a few days ago I searched the sewers under all major cities in Japan of over four million people." He paused and then continued in a more casual tone while grinning again now that their looks had changed, "I didn't find any tunnels breaking off of them. Actually, the day I came back here I woke up in a sewer that morning." Zach brought it up as the others were all looking ready to ask him about what he just mentioned. That sentence had them freezing again though, allowing him to continue, "I had spent the day before searching, and when I was done I just sat down and rested my eyes for a few hours until my alarm woke me." _Wonder if that's the last time I'll ever sleep. No. Shut up._

"Weren't you…" Uraraka paused. She hesitated confusedly, unsure of what to say here. She thought about the convenience store and what Zach looked like on the same day he was talking about though. She stopped pausing and asked, "Weren't you smelly- I mean, how did you do that without people noticing?"

"I know where all the abandoned buildings and homes are from the Sports Festival Invasion," Zach replied. Midoriya's heart rate skyrocketed as he thought about how Zach had told him on the night of his apartment exploding how he had located the assassin. He remembered how shocked he had been because Zach's knowledge of the surrounding area and who owned every room was beyond anything he could imagine. That last statement shocked him though, because he already knew some of Zach's ability to do this, and so the statement did not come out as hyperbole in his mind as it did in Iida and Uraraka's. Those two immediately made assumptions as to Zach just meaning that he knew where _many_ abandoned places were, not "all" as he claimed.

"And which ones still have running water," Zach added. He lowered his smile more as he saw Uraraka's expression getting much sadder, then in a relaxed and not-at-all upset tone he told her, "I wasn't going to have anyone else be put in danger because I was around. Living like that was best." Uraraka rose her eyes and tried to change her expression at the way he was looking at her. He eased up his look when she leaned back too, getting more of a smile back on his face.

 _Leaving that for now,_ Iida thought. "Why did you search the sewers?" He questioned his classmate who turned to him now. The tallest in Class A wondered to the black-haired boy sitting in front of him, "Did you have any leads you were following? Or-"

"Nope," Zach replied. He looked to Midoriya who did not know if he believed Zach there. "But there was nothing indicating that they were in a forest either. Would have been tough to search every single forest; not so much the sewers. Plus, there are rats down there," Zach said with a raise of the corners of his lips and his tone. "So I was searching for those rats in their natural habitat." He smirked more and glanced back to the left of Midoriya over at the other two, "Just like there are pieces of shit down there."

It was a joke. Unfortunately, Zach's humor was a few shades too dark for his U.A. classmates who just stared back at him in silence for a moment. Despite it sounding like a joke, they were left wondering if those were actually Zach's reasons for searching for the League of Villains in the sewers. Zach's phone alarm went off though to save him from the silence. He pulled out his cell before the second ring of it could finish, then he slid it back into his pocket and got up from the chair. "And with that, I'll take my leave. Sorry," he apologized for the bad taste of his joke.

Zach walked forward and between Iida and Uraraka who shifted out of the way of the boy who had just grabbed his laptop and was leaving with no explanation. He thought to himself on his way out, _Heroes don't describe anyone, villain or otherwise, as 'pieces of shit' when they're human beings too. Should have realized that would fall flat. No one even smiled._

"Where are you going?" Midoriya asked confusedly, as Zach seemed to be on the way to do something, yet he would also believe it if Zach just set that alarm a minute ago so that he could leave here without a good reason. He had to ask anyway though, but Zach looked back and gave him a single shake of his head denying the possibility Midoriya had just questioned in his mind.

"The alarm is to let me know it's time to head to Training Gym Zeta. I got it reserved for private training in a few minutes," Zach explained. _Add "private" in there so you don't suggest coming along. Make it clear I want to do this on my own._ "See you guys tomorrow." Zach nodded back at the other two as well, then he headed out of the room and closed the door behind him. He grinned as he was not stopped this time. His eyes flared brighter red for a moment and his eyes shifted down to his closed laptop. He looked back at the shut door, then down the hall towards the stairs. _The God Book is in good hands. Maybe he could actually decipher something without my help tonight. Doubt it. They'll probably just talk about me for the next few hours. Wonder what they'll all decide to do with me?_

Dark wisps shot out the backs of Zach's legs. Darkness formed under the soles of his feet too though and softened each step as his shoes were gone. He made no sounds on his way back to his room where he got changed and gathered up a few things while also putting his laptop away on a charger. His thoughts raced a thousand words a minute, his mind shrouded in Death, and the smirking teen in his fifth floor room sucked in a huge breath of air then focused the Death on his arms down to the two knives he had in his grasp. _Slide under the sleeves. Keep Death around them. Keep Death so close its invisible from outside the sleeves. And,_ Zach slid the knives back into his hands that were already coated fully in Death.

"Hahaha… here we go."

* * *

 _I know it's not easy without All-Terrain, but U.A. still makes their simulated environments look exactly like real ones. Must be much more expensive though. U.A. spares no expense, for the education of this nation's youth. Plus it has government funding. A lot of government funding._

"You are obsolete! Your human body makes you weak!"

"Stupid human!"

"Foolish hero!"

 _These things aren't even on the level of ANTs. It's easier to just ignore them._

Zach continued to walk forward into the middle of the gym. The robots of Training Gym Zeta leapt at him. They swung their arms and kicked sharp legs, all of them set on high difficulties meant to give the students trouble. Their attacks went right through him. The robots had protocols that kept them from seriously wounding students training with them, so when their arms and legs started piercing through Zach's body they pulled back in panic.

"What the- hey! Meatsack!"

"You're not hurt!" A robot that was just kicking through Zach's stomach and pulled back its leg called out at the teenager who just chuckled at the robot's stupidity.

 _Zeta is pretty far from the dorms. Not a high chance of someone walking by and checking in. Not too popular a gym to reserve, and I didn't pick the earliest open time. I picked a time when most people would be back at their dorms for the night. Most everyone's back from internships. I'll see them when I return. A few of them at least. Focus on Class A interactions when you return. For now this is training. The power is getting stronger._

The boy walking forward had darkness swirling in a few holes around his torso and on his right arm that finished sealing up with skin. As those injuries fully figured themselves out though, the robots around him considering attacking again hesitated as something walked out of Zach's back and to the left. Zach continued walking forward, as the dark shadow form the same shape as him stepped out of his body and started walking forward diagonally at a slightly faster speed.

Zach glanced to his left and looked at the shadow figure that he made look right back at him. _Red eyes._ Zach thought it and forced his creation thicker with a black trail connecting the two of them on the floor. A bulge of darkness shot from Zach's feet to the shadow. Red eyes formed around the head, and Zach could see himself appearing in a blurry red vision. He stared forward at a version of himself wearing a black hoodie and sweatpants, two black knives sliding down into his hands. A katana hilt formed in the left hand of the shadow staring back at the Zach whose body was starting to get darker now too. That shadow turned sharply to the first Zach's right side though, as another dark figure walked out of it and grew two feet taller.

The one moving to the right grew another foot but started slouching. Its back hunched forward as its arm muscles bulged. The beast of a Death turned its head to the left and faint red orbs grew brighter on its head. Zach smirked more and more, and he clenched his fists tightly on the hilts of his knives, and he forced out two more black shadows at the same time from his left and right sides. They walked out of his body and straight out away from him.

 _My vision is fucked. I can see too many sides right now. It's like a panoramic view constantly but it's overlapping and my eyes can't keep up!_ Zach's squinted eyes had to clench shut as it was too disorienting to keep them open. His smirk grew so much wider in that moment. _ATTACK!_ His eyes snapped open, then one pair of red eyes blinked closed and vanished in the dark mass of one of the four dark forms that converged on him at once all with created weapons of their own in hand.

Zach could not defend from more than one attack, and he leapt backwards as he saw himself about to stab himself with a black longsword. He shot twenty five feet backwards and skid across the floor, robots trailing behind him diving out of the way as three black shadows chased after the initial form that was almost as black as they were now. Those shadows flew forward so fast they left wind trails and rose up dust behind them. Death did not lag out of their bodies though. Trails of Death were only left behind in the footsteps they made that wisped up in the air, lasting rather than fading quickly at all.

 _Sound is as bad._ Zach did not cover his feet with Death as he started running forward towards the other four shadows he was also controlling to rush at him. The one farthest back leapt up in the air, cutting off his main escape as two curved to flank him from his back diagonals. By rushing forward, he was now pincered in a triangle formation with his upper angle also blocked. His enemies were not equidistant from him though, and that made his mind even more disoriented as he could hear several different sets of footsteps. They all originated from him, but they were both at different volumes and reached his many ears at different times because of the varying distances. The distances were not that varied, but thinking as fast as he was and processing this so quickly with so much Death on the mind, he could read the minuscule differences in the soundwaves that were unlike anything he had ever experienced before, yet that he recalled happening for the first time the other night.

 _At the peak of Limiter 0, I remember my senses expanding. It was in the moment. It was in the most intense fight, requiring that I just accept what I was seeing and hearing. I adjusted and reacted as I needed to in that moment, without considering the implications of seeing multiple things at once. Splitting my body and creating multiple sets of red eyes, allowing me to see all over… Ares was right. New powers come all the time. Learn them all this time. As strong as you can be. Powerful enough to overcome disadvantages. Fighting in populated areas. Fighting against those who I have revived. I can make my handicaps obsolete. If I am so strong, on a level so much higher than everyone else, then no amount of preparation will be able to stop me._

 _I could be causing trouble for heroes later on by making myself any stronger. That's no longer a safe way to look at this. Kaminari has Quirk Destroying bullets. Shigaraki can Decay entire mountains. They've beaten me before. They've been preparing for me for years. Kaminari in particular, will have spent every waking moment preparing for our next fight._ Zach's body erupted in darkness and speared out through the other four shadows falling towards him, intercepting all in mid-flight and piercing through them even as they tried to dodge. The spears he shot out of his own body had so much more Death in them than each individual shadow that could not move fast enough to get out of the way. He stood there with those bodies he stabbed getting sucked into the spears themselves, then pulled back into his body with the rest of the Death. _But I have been preparing as well._

* * *

"Nice haircut," Kaminari Denki stood on the inside of the doorway to the room their leader was in.

Shigaraki turned his head and looked back to the boy who had just commented on his shorter yet still wavy gray hair. He looked at the long blond spikes going down Raijin's back and over the top of his head, and he mentioned, "You should consider getting one yourself."

"I'll pass-"

"You should have known Sazaki would not have just left," Shigaraki looked back forward and stated that interrupting the younger man from continuing on with any small talk. Raijin leaned off the wall too and he headed into the room closer to the leader of the League who he had not had a one-on-one conversation with in a long time.

"You know that he will not break so easily," Shigaraki mentioned. He turned to his side and faced the younger man slightly more muscular than him. Raijin's face did not have fear on it. He walked right up to Shigaraki to speak to the League's leader candidly, and Shigaraki repaid that by speaking frankly with him, "It is a mistake both of us have made in the past. _Assuming_ that he was broken when he showed us that he was."

Kaminari frowned instead of replying for a moment as he thought about that. Shigaraki continued, "I lost him by assuming I had broken Sazaki to the point I could get him to kill Luniva. While you-"

"I know when I made a wrong assumption-"

"Because of that we lost our Warp Gate," Shigaraki cut off Raijin just as the boy had cut him off a moment before. He interrupted the teenager and then added, "And then we lost Daruma Ujiko and the means of producing Nomus for well over a year, as well as the Nomu which was our last Warp-ability user." Shigaraki paused and Raijin's face twisted with his frown deepening more as he knew where the boss was about to go with mentioning that.

"Your plan to use the Subspace Devils backfired as none of them escaped with Potaru, as you had planned." Shigaraki pointed it out, even though Raijin had never told anyone that part of his plan. Shigaraki said, "I know it's true, even though you played off every move as a total success- which is good for our forces. Keeping them in line below you and from questioning anything as long as it all seems like part of your plan." Shigaraki paused and his face got darker this time as he stared directly forward into Raijin's face not a few feet away from him. "But even if Overlord was too much of a liability to bring in, and the Subspace Devils weren't as strong as they once were, _Potaru_ could have saved us a good deal of trouble."

"I know that," Raijin said. His voice was low and in it there was no hint of pretending like that was still just part of his plan though. He did not try to spin that loss in any positive way. Rather he felt the annoyance of it that he had shoved so far down pretending that Potaru had never even come to his mind when he discussed his reasons for allowing Overlord to be captured. Intanzo and Shigaraki had done a good job of spinning their defeat the way he had wanted them to without him needing to explain his reasoning to either one. All the Radians, Duke Dread and the Jazz, and the League members themselves who had not known of his strategy were all convinced by their act when they revealed how the Subspace Devils' defeat was planned.

But that was all it was. An act. Shigaraki continued to glare at the child before him whose failures brought up all at once like this were really looking to mount. _What was it Sazaki supposedly shouted that night? Dabi told me, that he called you just another powerful player now that your job spying was done._ Raijin rose his eyes back up and denied Shigaraki's glare with his look as confident as it had ever been and a smirk returning to his expression. _Yet you promised me that you would put your full focus into perfecting our plans. And most importantly, preparing for the eventuality of having to face him again._

"I've been preparing for your revolution for years. It's all I've been doing," Raijin assured the big boss in front of him. "A few setbacks doesn't change how far the odds are scaled in our favor." Raijin held up his left palm out to the side and chuckled, and he added smugly, "Also, as much as you isolated yourself to train out in the mountains for all this time, I wasn't slacking on my own training. Or more specifically," Raijin corrected what he just mentioned. "I have not been slacking in my preparations to face Zach, though part of those preparations do involve training myself as well."

"There are more important things than raw strength though in defeating Zach. And with the amount of time I've spent planning this fight, a fight that I still suspect will never come because of everything I'm doing to prevent it anyway, the final contingency is the strongest one."

Shigaraki continued to glare at him and responded to Raijin's cockiness, "We now know that Sazaki killed Eziano Mozcaccio-"

"That's not necessarily what Danny said," Raijin cut off the leader. He rose his tone and smirked while adding, "I _inquired_ deeper into what had happened from those two assassins who have joined us now. It seems neither know very much about what happened after Zach _and_ Midoriya showed up and defeated their army." Shigaraki's eyebrows narrowed in and his expression got a few notches darker at the sound of that name. "The two of them went inside to face Eziano together."

"And what happened?" Shigaraki wondered to the teen who clearly had a theory about that.

"I think that this 'God' they spoke of was the one to kill Eziano," Raijin replied. "Maybe Zach and Midoriya beat him together, and then Zach showed off more strength against that 'God' but only because he was completely isolated with barely anyone he could hurt with his power." He spoke faster and went on, "No one who could see him or get hurt by his massive strength which let him use of all his Death at once. More power than he could control, in a city," Raijin suggested it with a smirk to Shigaraki whose thoughts lingered back on Midoriya even as Raijin was clearly focused on someone else. It was the fact that Raijin seemingly was this prepared though that Shigaraki found himself focusing on the other one he hated most of all instead.

"It seems to me like Zach getting more powerful with Death, if anything, has made him less of a threat." Raijin chuckled from the back of his throat while tilting his head back, "Because with that overwhelming power I'm sure he obtained the other night, after what I saw in the Lifebringer Incident. From what I've heard overseas about Death's more _horrific_ atrocities…" Raijin's head leaned back forward and his blond bangs shadowed over his eyes as he smirked crazily with excitement and confidence, as he finished, "I'm certain that my old friend's control is weaker than ever. In fact, it wouldn't surprise me if he can't control it at all."

* * *

Zach spiraled up into the air with a double helix of thick jets of Death pushing him into the middle of the training gym. He snapped up his right and left arm with long whips of Death extending twenty meters out from his grips cracking in midair. He cracked them and was swinging to slash down at other shadow forms spinning around and flying up on their own using the wings out of their backs. Two more muscular arms ripped from below the arms he was snapping upwards, then a dozen black spikes shot out of the double helix and flew off of it as projectiles.

His flying versions were mostly too strong and fast. Only one was destroyed and turned into a cloud of black smoke as it was pierced too directly where Zach was leading it. He managed to control the others fast enough in order to make them dodge after firing those last attacks he had planned to hit despite his own dodges. He dodged faster with more Death pulling from the bodies of those shadows into their wings and down into the soles of their feet that were spraying out Death like jet engines to send them flying around so fast.

The two lower arms extended out towards versions of himself that flew up faster and created massive swords to swing at him. As they dodged his extending arms though, he slashed his whips back not with the consistency of a black whip but of a razor wire that was so sharp it cut through them a half dozen times each with the flicks of his wrists. In a single second, the dodging flying versions of his Death shadows were cut into a dozen pieces each. Their split bodies reformed though into one larger one that flew into the double helix and right up it without being affected by the Death below Zach that he was controlling to make as strong as when he first created it.

A black sword slashed up from beneath him. He stayed still and got cut in half, and two bodies reformed rather than the one there had been. The ten foot tall shadow that just slashed through him had so much momentum and slashed so hard that it rose up between the splitting halves of Zach's body that were forced to either side. Those two were still in the process of reforming into bodies, but the left arm and shoulder and part of the back of one created first, while the right side of the other did the same. Even without a full form yet, Death pulsed out of the opposite side of the backs of the two split versions, speeding up the muscular and hardened side of Zach's twin bodies still in the process of recreating.

He smashed his fists so hard on opposite sides of the huger shadow's head that his fists collided in the middle of its skull he broke apart. He even solidified the head at the last second to try and not let that happen, but he had sped up his attacks and hardened his fists so much already that they smashed into each other. He broke apart those hands as they hit each other, his arms merging and his bodies pulling back into the larger form that broke apart while the helixes below shot back up, and the spikes that had flown off through the air all shot back in towards him.

He flipped backwards and spun, black wings ripping out of his back and flapping once hard behind him. As he neared the floor closer to the entrance, he forced Death out of his feet and dragged along the ground to slow himself before touching down on the soles of his shoes he continued running forward on into a jog and then a walk. His wings had pulled back into him after the single flap, and two arms emerged out from below his upper arms when those wings pulled in. Those arms got thicker and more muscular, and they slid backwards to instead come out of the sides of his back but more hidden behind him as he flooded Death into them and kept them back as the front of his body lost the Death on it.

Zach walked forward and let out a deep breath before smiling wide at the girl who had come into Training Gym Zeta a few seconds ago. She had stared up into the air right when the huge Zach was splitting the other one in half, and the tallest girl in Class A had watched as all that darkness slammed together into one giant mass in the air before reforming the shape of a human. Zach walked towards her looking like himself again, but he was grinning as if wondering if she had been impressed with that final attack she just witnessed.

"Those different bodies," Yaoyorozu began to the boy who slowed to a stop in front of her. "Were you controlling them all… Of course you were, but I mean-" Yaoyorozu paused. "How long have you been able to do that?"

"I don't know," Zach replied. He said it thoughtfully and hummed to himself, "It's a new power, really. Something I'm just discovering now." The corners of his lips pulled up a little more, though he lowered them and got a softer and more questioning smile on his face. "What are you doing here?"

"You shouldn't strain yourself," Yaoyorozu started. "If you're still hurt," she continued. She stared at his right arm that he was moving around fine. "I talked to Recovery Girl and you shouldn't be-"

"I'm fine," Zach said. "Seriously. The pain is gone from my arm and ribs."

"Your ribs?" Yaoyorozu asked him.

"They were broken too. Everything's fine now though." His response came with a smirk and a clench of his right fist he slammed into his stomach only to hold out a palm as if showing her 'see?'

"…How?"

Zach chuckled once and lifted his chin, wondering right back at her, "I wonder?" He looked back at his right arm and curled his fist. He turned his arm out in front of him and cocked his head to the side while examining it inside its black sleeve. _She can't see the Death shrouding my arm under the sleeve. She hasn't mentioned the extra two arms I'm moving around on my back either. Have to continue training here. No time for a break. That's why I'm doing it-_ Zach smirked for a moment while still staring at his right arm, then he regained a steady look he rose to show her. _I'm too fucking hyped,_ Zach thought as he tried to stop smiling at the serious look she was giving him.

"Zach," Momo started slowly. "Why haven't you… Why not pull those arms back in so we can talk?"

"I'm training," Zach countered. His voice got more serious too and the corners of his lips lowered a little. "If you have something to ask me though, ask away." He flexed the arms on his back out to the sides to show off he had them under control, then he started juggling black spheres between his two hands back there that made him smirk more and laugh to himself as she watched it.

"The way you've been acting lately," Yaoyorozu started again. She looked up into his eyes and the corners of his lips flinched as she said to him, "You killed Eziano Mozcaccio, didn't you?"

Zach stayed quiet for a second. His arms stopped moving around behind him and instead just slid to a stop out of her sight and closer to his back. "Eziano is dead," Zach replied to the girl standing there. "But I didn't do it." He shook his head and then let out a short sigh while lifting his eyes up and looking away from her as if wondering how to put this. "The war is over though. The one responsible for all of it- The _God_ of War, is dead. His reign is over." The cryptic words coming out of Zach's mouth gave the girl before him chills as she looked up into his eyes and his steady but insanely intense expression. "War will not cease so simply, but perhaps in time, it can."

He lowered his gaze to her and spoke in a low voice, "I would tell you about Ares and the end of the assassins. About how it was not I who killed Eziano to feel this way, but I don't want to lie to you, and you won't believe me, so-"

"I do believe you though," Yaoyorozu cut him off.

Zach hesitated. He looked at her, and he asked after a moment, "Really?" It was not a soft question or something intense and emotional. He was just skeptical that she could believe something as unbelievable as what he was just saying. "I mean, I don't just mean I'm not lying like I meant with my stories I wasn't lying about," Zach continued to explain to her. That explanation unnerved Momo a lot more as he brought that up like he had been telling the truth back then too. "I mean that there are Gods in this world and I killed one. For thousands of years his hands have forged our world and I ended him."

"Why?" Yaoyorozu asked softly. She caused Zach's lips to twitch and lower down, then curl up, then distort frustratedly in all directions. "Did you need to kill him?" She questioned in a whisper.

"What do you think?" Zach asked. He said it harshly, and spiderwebs of Death stretched out from beneath his sleeves and covered his arms. Those arms were already wearing black but the Death black was a much deeper darkness. A pitch black void stretching around his arms, then up his shoulders and over his chest into the shape of a skull for a moment before scattering with most of it sliding back below his sweatshirt.

"I think you've been using too much Death," Yaoyorozu responded, moving from the subject to what she just saw.

"I'm training so of course I'm using it," he snapped back at her. Her eyes widened at the annoyed tone. It was not angry, nor upset with her, just frustrated at the fact that she was bothering him. "And I want to get back to it, and figure out these new powers I've got." He tilted his head expectantly yet kept staring back into her eyes with the ones so dark hazel with swirls of blood red in them that Yaoyorozu refrained from mentioning. She just shook her head at him and stepped back once, her lips pursing but her expression hardening after a moment. Zach lowered his gaze down, but then the look of semi-shame vanished and he turned away from her the same time she turned from him.

"I'll leave you alone then," Yaoyorozu said quietly, though she was sure he heard her. _I do believe you. Whatever happened, that you say is truth… I believe that you didn't kill Eziano. I was convinced you had, but I don't know anything about it. I don't know and you won't let me in. You won't tell me the truth, and it's not because you think I won't believe you. I told you I would. You're only using that as an excuse. The excuse that it's all so unbelievable that you have to keep it to yourself. Whatever happened though Zach, I hope you see what it's doing to you soon. When you do, please tell someone._

 _You can't do this alone._

Zach turned away from Yaoyorozu and walked the opposite direction of her as if pissed off by the end to their encounter. His two Death arms moved to his sides though and looked like his only arms, while he rose his actual hands up in front of him. He stopped as he heard her leave the gym, and his eyes shook as he stared down at his hands. _Go back in,_ he ordered. He pulled the Death back into his hands, but he glanced down to his right side as one of the muscular arms he had sticking out of him just got stronger. _When was the last time…_

He gulped, then he shook his head around and started running forward. Death came out of his calves. It came out the joints of his knees and ankles, and he looked back and saw black footprints being left behind him. He had been trying to pull in his arms at the same time that he ran, and he growled but forced it all in at once. As those extra arms sucked back into him, his hair flared up and the black strands got darker. His vision turned more red as his eyes flashed with it. _Off the brain! When was- Just stop it now!_ He pulled that darkness off his brain, but his heart stopped beating as he flooded it into his chest. His teeth clenched with his lips curling apart for a second, _It's only getting stronger!_

 _Calm down. Chill,_ Zach relaxed. He laughed at himself while letting the darkness fill his whole body. His skin turned black and he laughed some more, but when his laughter came out darker and scratchier he stopped. _It feels good. It feels so fucking good! Just accept it- I can't! YOU HAVE TO! Accept it all, to get it under control. No creating Limiters this time-_

 _WHO ARE YOU KIDDING?! I can't make Limiters right now. It's too late to start._ Zach's face flashed with fear, but the webs of darkness that remained when he just tried to suck all the Death back in started spreading back over his face and seeping into his eyes making swirls of darkness flood into them around the red.

He had gotten the Death off of his heart, so he could hear how fast his heart was beating in his Death-engulfed ears. _I'm so fucking strong,_ "Hahaha! **Hahaha…** " He looked back down at his hands that were covered with Death without him trying to surround them. Zach's face twisted up and his eyes trembled as he stared down at those hands. His hands were shaking and black wisps came up off of them. The dark tendrils wisped and then stopped slithering up, shooting back into his hands as he curled them into fists. _I am in control. Death is my Quirk. I've been controlling it for years._

"THIS FEELS SO GOOD!" Zach roared, and he let Death explode out from him all at once. Then he sucked it all back into his body, his eyes flaring red and his body tensing up as it all shot inside him at once. For a moment there was no Death on the outside and he felt full control as it was not even on the brain, his eyes were fully hazel, and he chuckled to himself as he still felt that power and the euphoria despite that control he regained.

And then it got even stronger.

And that control was lost.

Zach's eyes shot down to his left side where an arm was bulging out of his armpit. He flooded that Death upwards onto his arm instead, then he slowly pulled back so it was just spread partially down his shoulder towards his elbow and forearm. _I should enjoy it while it lasts. This feeling!_ He called it out at himself, but the feeling was overshadowed now. The euphoria had finally been overtaken by the fear of that euphoria. A fear that almost always was mixed with the disgust of the euphoria and overshadowed the good feelings. The fear and disgust that this time was not enough to mask how great he felt. It had not been enough to keep Zach down in the dumps as he usually got when he murdered people. The euphoria was still there, but he gagged and felt his throat fill with Death as he did so.

 _I've been allowing this surging euphoria and power all this time._ His self-awareness made it all the more terrifying to him. _It's allowed me to ignore the rising power that I don't know the end of! I don't know how strong it will get! FUCK!_ It only got stronger still as he tried to hold it all in. He tried to make it disappear like he never had before. As he had not been for several hours now, as he had always had Death on the brain or in the eyes or extending out of him in one arm then pulled over to another arm or multiple at once.

 _I can't do it._

The realization hit him like a ton of bricks. He froze in place with his breath catching in his throat, _I haven't stopped using Death for hours. I didn't realize it either. Make it all go away. Stop. Stop! STOP!_ Nothing stopped. _It won't stop,_ he thought as it still swirled inside him as much as he tried to force it away, force it into a pocket, force it anywhere but out. _I can't stop it. It's just…_

 _Getting stronger._

* * *

 **A/N Thanks for reading. Zach meets with Softy this chapter, as well as Hatsume, and Kuroiro and Monoma, though Class A's a bit busy for him with everything going on right now. So Zach's left to his own devices. He pushed Yaoyorozu away. And now what Raijin expects, and Zach could feel coming but tried to ignore... Well, we'll see what happens. Anyway! Get some more looks at the League this chapter and see that they have had a few hiccups in their plans, and they also learn the truth behind the Muindo Range's destruction as Danny "The Devil" rolls up for their help. The heroes and the villains are all concerned about Zach, who they absolutely should be concerned about as Softy probably realized this chapter when Zach told the story of The Hammer. Alright guys, enough for the summary and foreboding ominous implications I'm trying to make... Instead, coronavirus! X( Been very worried about this for weeks now, but in the past couple of days this has escalated rapidly. (And right when I hopped back into my stocks too after pulling out in panic weeks ago, meaning I just lost big ;.Anyway, if you find yourself quarantined right now, give Death a reread! XD Here's a chapter for you to enjoy if you're stuck on a cruise ship or in a hotel somewhere they've locked you into! Hope you all stay safe out there, and here's hoping that the next update doesn't come mid-Pandemic! Hope you all enjoyed the chapter! Leave a review below telling me what you think of the chapter, predictions, comments, etc!**

GrayReader chapter 216 . Feb 18

I had to immediately stop what I was doing the second I got an email saying this was updated. I think you almost gave me a heart attack with that dream sequence in the beginning though. Keep up the good work!

 **Haha! That's great to hear- not the heart attack part, just how quick you were to read this! XD Thanks, and hope you enjoyed the new chapter!**

WomanSlayer chapter 216 . Feb 19

Okay, I think I finally got it, it had been bugging me since I read about the events in Arizona with the quarantine but, I gotta ask...  
Is that a reference to Ultimate X-men: New Mutants?  
I remember reading part of that volume on a reddit post when Logan has to kill a kid whose powers manifested while he was going through puberty. If so, mad respect bro, mad respect.

 **Thanks for the reviews! No spoilers, but admittedly I have not read the Ultimate X-men: New Mutants, ;( sorry to disappoint.**

xilios2000 chapter 216 . Feb 19

i think you are really understating zach's power vs shigaraki here. he is at this point faster then lightning which means he atleast must be going at around mach 300. this is WAAAAY faster then anything shigaraki could possibly react to especially as his quirk does not boost his reaction time which if we are generous is 0.4seconds zach should be abel to just squish him before he even realises death immunity is irrelevant against brute mountain buster strenght

 **Idk man. I think we're about to get a taste in the manga of a Shigaraki level still in the first year of Class A's time at U.A. where he's going to be stronger than every hero around him. He's already close after that fight with ReDestro we saw (by the way hope y'all liked seeing him this chapter!), but he's also got the experimentation being done to him. We haven't seen him for a long time. We don't know what kind of tests he had done to his body. Don't know what kind of training he underwent, and as we saw with Eziano, not having a Quirk that has anything to do with boosting reaction time doesn't mean you can't be one seriously strong badass motherf***** XD. Anyway, we haven't seen the two fight so I don't know where you're getting that Zach's power is being nerfed or anything, all we saw was Zach telling Midoriya it needed to be him and that he couldn't do it... You're getting your information from Zach? And you think that's a reliable indicator of how I'm judging the power scaling? ;) lol Anyway I liked the math you did and how intense you are about this, but don't worry. I don't think I've randomly nerfed anyone yet for the sake of plot. Call me out on it if I do guys, but just Zach mentioning it isn't an indicator that it's actually going to happen, or that it would be close, as we see in this chapter Zach thinking about how much better he is than them all already, but that he's training so that he can be in a whole other league entirely! Thanks for reviewing, hope that satisfies you for now, and hope you enjoyed the new chapter!**

JanbFire chapter 216 . Feb 19

Gotta say I love that out of all the people ultra suspicious of Zach, Momo is the only one who guessed what happened right immediately. lol Zach really is shit at keeping secrets from her.  
Also now that we have the newly-minted God of Death/War, I can help but worry about the future implication of Zach possibly losing touch with his humanity. Like I know Zach is Bestboi and is aware of the danger, but still he really should see a therapist before it's to late.

 **Momo's always been good at that. Been calling him out on his shit for years now. This time she is a bit off though, as much as she assumed it did have to do with Eziano and that he had killed someone. Just as much as she guessed some of what had happened though, she also believed that he was trying to stay truthful with her... even if he did push her away at the end there. Worrying about Zach losing touch with his humanity, is something Zach also seems worried very much about this chapter! And he went to see a therapist, but is it too late already? Is he fucked?! We'll find out- Next chapter! ...Maybe, no spoilers. XD!**


	218. Chapter 218

**Disclaimer: I don't own Boku no Hero Academia**

 **Chapter 218:**

On Friday morning three days after Zach Sazaki's return to U.A., the first period of the day was starting and Zach was nowhere to be seen. All Might walked in for homeroom and saw five of his students' hands shoot right up as they were hoping Zach would make it before their teacher, and now that they had lost hope they all had the same thought. All Might rose his own hand for them to lower theirs though and sighed out a breath of air before taking in a long one. The teacher with grayish-yellow hair had sunken eyes and a weary expression that seemed stuck on his face because of his sucked-in cheeks with protruding cheekbones. His students were energetic though, and trying to match their energies all the time was tough on Toshinori Yagi.

"Recovery Girl just called me," All Might began to the class who did not need to ask for him to know what all of them wanted to know. "Sazaki called in sick today."

"He called in sick?" Todoroki questioned. His eyes shifted towards the windows in both a skeptical and suspicious way.

"She is going over to your dorms now to check on him. He says he is there in his room but is too sick to come to class," All Might assured the students. They knew from that assurance that should Recovery Girl come upon an empty room, they would all know about it very soon. The fact that Zach had told them he would be there even knowing that Recovery Girl was coming to check on him though also eased some of their immediate suspicions that he had flown off somewhere.

 _After she leaves though,_ Midoriya wondered to himself. _What is he doing? Did you find a lead on the League? If you did, would you really still be here just to pretend… No. You would have flown off immediately. Or maybe you wouldn't- but if you wouldn't, then you would have told me and we could have started preparing already. Unless you don't want to tip them off? Do you know something?!_

 _Shit,_ Sero leaned back in his chair with his hands back down at his sides now. He put them on his lap and tapped on his thighs while darting looks at the windows and wishing he could go back to the dorm to check for himself. _What did he want to tell me last night? He looked, he looked fine! I was busy though- shit! I wasn't that busy. Ape Man wanted me to start watching you though and I- I have a job lined up with him after graduation already, and I messed that up for you. Of course I did though! What kind of friend would have just been okay with that? It's not me doing you a favor, it's just obvious I wouldn't investigate you for them! Damn it. I shouldn't have said so much shit to my boss though._

 _But I really shouldn't have been annoyed at you that I did. That's not on you. What are you doing right now?_ Sero shifted his gaze back towards Yaoyorozu in the back row of the room. _You said he really did get sick that time a few weeks ago. Mina and Recovery Girl both confirmed it too._

 _Did using too much make you sick?_ Yaoyorozu frowned while twirling her pen between her fingers and trying to keep her eyes focused on her books that she had pulled out to study some notes for the two tests they had today. _You had to make up even more tests. I know you were supposed to take them all today, even if you didn't ask me to help you study-_ Yaoyorozu lifted the back of her pen and bit it anxiously. _You got mad at me last night. I thought it was just annoyance- but when have you ever?! When has he ever been upset with me? He told me we didn't make it feel like he was back. That leaving us wouldn't have even been like leaving!_

 _And you're so strong. Watching you fight yourself yesterday, even just for a few seconds…_ The version of Zach she saw flying up in the air and slicing himself in half traded with the one who had been standing right in front of her. As serious as they had been a moment later, for some reason she found herself remembering the two black arms sticking out of his back that flexed and started juggling spheres of Death. The right corner of her lips rose up and barely lifted her mouth from a frown to just over a flat lip, but only for a second. Her frown returned and her expression became more distant, as she thought, _Gods? I can believe that there is much in this world I don't understand or know about. I believe that you know many things that most people would call make-believe. Gods though? And you killed one?_ Her eyes lowered sadly and she closed them, _What's going on with you? I try to pry but, but you make it so hard Zach._

The day went by slowly for most of the Class A students as it had been for the past few days. Most of them felt a strong anxiety about after school, considering a large portion of them were going off on their internships with about half spending their entire weekends until Sunday night out with their pro heroes. They did not have much time to spend at U.A. after school, with some of them already planning to leave straight from the school building with their things they had brought with them as there would be cars waiting outside to take them to airports or straight to their agencies. They knew the cars would be arriving before their school days were even over, and so a few like Ashido, Koda, Iida, and Bakugo and Midoriya too had not been planning on going back to the dorms first.

Jirou and Todoroki both had to leave right after school too, but despite being curious as to Zach's absence from school, neither were getting too distracted from their schoolwork because of it. Jirou felt better than she had the past two days actually and let out a sigh in the second half of the day after the penultimate class where they had their second and final test. She felt she did well on that test which was great because she needed the boost in her grades. Her hands went behind her head and she closed her eyes while letting out that relaxed sigh. Then she turned to the right and glanced around the room where most people were looking her direction, or rather towards the windows and in the direction of the dorms that were too hard to see from here.

 _Give it a break,_ Jirou thought with a roll of her eyes. _Not having him breathing down my neck is a relief. Recovery Girl didn't raise any alarms so he must still be in his room. I've heard the others asking the teachers too multiple times, but they wouldn't be lying to everyone knowing that they'll be checking his room after school anyway. He must really be there. Sick. Momo said he really does still get sick. He's fine though. He always bounces back. He got shot and there was no need to worry when you all freaked out over that. I knew he'd be fine though. He's always… fine._ Jirou's eyes shifted to her left too while her arms dropped from behind her head. _Or maybe he's always fine, physically._

 _What was up with him the past two days?_ Jirou cut back on her relaxed thoughts to her own chagrin. _Wait wait, that was really weird wasn't it? We've only been seeing him for two days now like this, but it's not like we haven't interacted with him before this. Why didn't anyone else pick up on it? Because of Mina?_ Jirou examined her pink friend who could not hide her own anxiety even as she was texting Zach and staying in contact with her friend who told her again that he was just sick and in his room to recover and get rest as Recovery Girl told him to do. _She told everyone that we had no idea what he's really been thinking, and so no one wants to assume that he's actually acting strangely because maybe we were just wrong about before! But- why am I thinking about him so much?_

 _But what if he really was acting weird?_ Jirou thought it despite her own annoyed thought telling her to shift her focus away from the topic. _Something wasn't right with him. The Pit didn't make any sense, with the person I was seeing these past two days. Did he lose it? Is he fucking mad?! Is that why he stayed in his room then? Does he realize he's losing his mind? If I had to go through that- No! Just, finish class and get to the Cluemobile. Arufuredo is picking me up-_

The teacher for their final class of the day was walking into the room, but Jirou still pulled out her phone to check the notification she just got buzzed for. She sweatdropped as the sidekick to Ms. Clue who had come to pick her up let her know that he was waiting out on the curb outside U.A. for her already. _There's a limit to punctuality,_ she thought in annoyance, pocketing her phone without sending a response as the class was starting.

In a room down the hall and around the corner, a thin five foot two girl with long black hair tied into a ponytail anxiously stared towards the clock and then back to Ectoplasm as she was worried he would notice her looking away. The scary-looking advanced trigonometry teacher for Class 2-B did not seem to catch her checking the time again though, and Azure thought maybe she could get away with a little more then. Her right hand slid back down to her pocket, then it pulled off of her phone as it had several times already.

Turei Ioui glanced to his left side at the jittery girl who had clearly had something on her mind all day ever since she got to their class late that morning. _She wouldn't tell anyone what she was doing,_ the class rep of 2-B wondered to himself. _Must be work-related then. Doubly secretive in your case._

 _No I can't._ Azure moved her right hand from her pocket. _I want to tell him though. Sero needs to know. He might be gone all weekend if I don't- but the Hippocratic Oath! But, I never took that oath- It's assumed._

Azure pouted and pursed her lips. _I'd never get Recovery Girl's trust back._ The pro hero she worked with kept her on campus more often than most of her classmates. And that morning, she had been called to assist Recovery Girl and see a patient who had called in sick to school. The anxious girl tapped on her left thigh with her right hand she kept away from her phone in her right pocket, only for her tapping finger to move closer and closer back to her phone as she tried and failed to focus on trig.

 _Something was seriously off. I don't even know the guy, but you were seeing him even while we were still dating. You said he was doing fine. Fine! But, but you also said that other world was tough for him. I didn't think you were being serious. I didn't think you believed it until that book came out and,_ Azure slid her phone out of her pocket, but her heart clenched up and her stomach turned over at the idea of what she was planning on doing. _I can't do this. It's not right. Medical information has to be… then I won't say anything specific!_

In Class 3-A, Sero felt his phone buzz and he checked to see if Zach had sent him something more specific than the brief responses his friend had hit him back with all just staying vague about some "cold" he had come down with. Sero's eyebrows rose up for a moment at the sight of his ex-girlfriend's name appearing on his phone screen. He rose his gaze back up then glanced below his desk as he slid open his messages and checked what she had sent to him.

The two had ended on pretty good terms, as Sero hoped and which seemed about right considering the message she had just sent him. He had just felt they had kind of drawn apart, and neither left with hard feelings… Which was becoming the normal for him now as he thought back on his other girlfriends at U.A. he was still friends with too. _Koko saw him! I should have known!_ The realization that his ex had gone to see Zach when Recovery Girl checked on him faded from thought. Sero read the message and his heart rate sped up as fast as it had earlier when Zach did not make it to class before All Might.

'Check on Zach after school. Make sure he's doing alright.'

 _What does that mean?!_ 'Why? What's wrong with him?'

Azure felt frustrated at the message she saw on her phone that was not just an accepting confirmation of what she told him to do. 'Because I said so-' Azure backspaced the message. 'I can't say. Doctor-patient confidentiality. Shouldn't even be telling you this. Just check on him.'

She sent the message and then looked up and to the side as if in a thoughtful way while moving her hands below her desk. She knew for sure that Ectoplasm-sensei was looking towards her that time, but the teacher acted again like he did not notice as he knew something had been up with her since she came in late, (as he was their homeroom teacher and had gotten a message from Recovery Girl as well that morning).

Azure refocused on class as Sero only sent her a message of 'Thanks' in response that she was not even going to see until the end of the period as she was not risking taking her phone out again. Her thoughts wandered quickly back to the morning as they had been for hours now which had led to her sending that message to someone she knew was Zach Sazaki's close friend. In her head she imagined how Recovery Girl had opened the door on the fifth floor of the famous Class 3A's dorm building. She had looked inside and then followed slowly behind her mentor towards the teenager sitting in a comfortable pair of clothes: black sweatpants, white socks, and a white long-sleeved shirt.

He had looked almost fine, other than the light cough he had as they entered the room that had sounded believable to her. She only questioned it after they had left if that cough was actually real, because of what Recovery Girl had asked him about the three swirling spheres of condensed Death that had been hovering up near the ceiling of his room during their checkup. _"Figure if I'm stuck inside all day, might as well train with my Quirk." Why couldn't it have been that simple?_ Azure recalled how convinced she had been by his reasoning there. It made sense to her, and she had been amazed that despite being sick he was still training as hard as he could to be even stronger, and she had come to understand why it was he was so strong if he trained even then…

 _"Then stop that for a moment while I give you an examination,"_ Recovery Girl's voice echoed in Azure's mind. She watched the two of them right in front of each other. The short woman standing in front of Zach's desk chair he had continued to sit on while controlling those spheres of darkness up above his head. His eyes had shifted up towards them for a second, and then three black lines came out of his upper back and connected to them. Ever so slowly, the three black spheres had started sucking back into his body. They got smaller, and smaller, and then Lifebringer had darted his eyes down to his hands that he curled into fists to pull back the Death forming on them. As he did that though, the spheres got back to their previous sizes, though still with lines connecting them to him and with his upper back covered in it now.

 _"Alright. Truthfully, I'm having some issues with my Quirk. I just don't want to freak anyone out, so I'm dealing with it on my own."_

 _"Can you?"_

 _"Yes."_

 _He sounded convincing enough,_ Azure was unable to convince herself as easily. _All day I've been thinking about it. He lied so convincingly at the start! But, but was he just being that calm because he didn't want me freaking out? His Quirk is Death! If he can't control it…_ She shook her head and let out a breath while telling herself to relax. _You all know him better. I'll leave it to you, Hanta._

When school ended it took all Sero had to keep at a steady pace back to the dorm. He was already in contact with his friend who told him nothing much was wrong, but Azure's message had his pocket feeling real heavy with every step he took just ahead of a few of his classmates. Sato, Shoji, Hagakure, Uraraka, and Mineta were all moving pretty quickly back towards the dorms too. It was all just walking pace, but Shoji did notice that the five in front of him all seemed to be in a rush.

 _He's going to be in his room,_ Sero reminded himself. _What the hell is going on then? What's got me so, so-_

 _Was something wrong last night?_ Uraraka thought about the boy she had walked into Deku's room to talk about. _He didn't even care that I was- or did he?! Was he actually upset about what we were talking about? Did he know what I had come to ask Deku-kun?!_ Uraraka thought back on the night before after Zach had left to go train by himself. The three of them remaining had continued talking about the news and what they thought about Zach's assumptions and the danger of Shigaraki. She had waited five minutes until she was pretty sure that he would not still be waiting outside the room, before she brought back up the question that had been so urgent that she started asking it before Midoriya had finished opening his door, which had led to that awkwardness.

 _I didn't think they'd both disagree with me so much._ Uraraka sped up a little more as she saw Sero glance sideways as if to check if he was getting too far ahead of the rest of them. _Iida and Deku both, they both think he's Death too don't they? Why aren't they concerned then? Zach's been acting weird since he came back. He was acting weird at that convenience store too. Totally different to just a week before that when we went to see him._ Her eyes shifted to her right and Sato whose frustrated look made one form back on her face too. _I have to be suspicious of him. Coming back that night with all those strange occurrences coinciding at the same time. Couldn't he have planned that? Zach's smart like that. Everything was part of the plan to get back here first so that he'd have an alibi for all those mysterious coincidences!_

 _Even getting Mina to think…_ Just the thought was one of the most painful things Uraraka had ever considered. She thought about her friend who had broken down that night and sounded so devastated, and to imagine that Zach had done that to her on purpose just to be able to get back to U.A.? _He wouldn't,_ Uraraka thought. _I'm certain of it. He may lie about a lot. He wouldn't do that though. Not to her. If he would, then he's a villain. And I don't think he's… I mean, but I do think he's Death?_

"What do you think he's sick with?" Mineta asked.

Shoji looked down to his right at the shorter boy walking next to him. Mineta's head was up to his chest now unlike their freshman year, but the boy was still shortest in the class and he tilted his head back to look in Shoji's eyes after asking the question. Shoji stared back from one eye not covered by his silver bangs, and he responded from behind his mask to the question that had come out very sarcastically, "I hope nothing serious."

Mineta's eyebrows lowered down and he turned back towards the dorm himself. The skepticism in his question faded from his face and his expression got a little worried instead. _Why'd I say it like that? Just because I know he's lying about whatever that language stuff he was working on was… And probably what he knows about the news- If he's actually sick, then it has to be something serious if it kept him from school. Right? Or, am I just trying to feel guilty because Shoji called me out on that?_ Mineta sweatdropped and stopped worrying so much pretty easily. _He's fine. I'll see him in a second._

Hagakure slowed down a little as they were nearing the sidewalk back to their dorm. She sped back up though as Mineta and Shoji were gaining behind her, and she headed for the building while letting out a cool breath that hung in the chilly afternoon air on a day colder than it had been for a week or two now. _If something's wrong maybe I can help him. He scared me that night but, but I know it's still him in there. He proved that to me. Zach's a scary person but he became that guy because he was worried about us! If he can do something so horrible because of that, because of how much he cares about us!_ Hagakure sped up more and started right up the stairs after Sero and Uraraka who had to jog to keep up with their classmate who did not slow down after entering the building.

"You going to check-" Uraraka tried starting up to Sero who was a few stairs above her, forcing her to run to keep up with the boy taking the stairs two steps at a time.

"Yep," Sero replied before she could finish.

Uraraka picked up her feet faster and sped to keep up with him. "Did he tell you what he's-"

"Just a cold," Sero replied.

 _And you don't believe him,_ Uraraka thought as she chased after him to the fourth floor now. _You don't believe it, but you're still this worried about him? You think he's lying… But like Mina said. He lies because he doesn't want us to worry. So if he says it's nothing,_ Uraraka gulped and she sped up more so she was running at Sero's side instead of behind him now. The doubt came to her when they were heading down the fifth floor and slowing so they would not be heard running towards the door at the end of the hall. _Or it really is nothing. We wouldn't be able to tell on the times it actually isn't anything big- though if it was something small, he wouldn't have let us know anything at all, would he? Just the fact that we know,_ Uraraka steadied her expression and gave a nod to her side at Sero who just glanced her way in a hesitant way wondering along similar lines if he was going into this expecting something too bad.

Sero nodded back then walked up to Zach's door and knocked twice. "Hey Zach, you doing alright?" Sero started opening the door without waiting to hear a response. He was turning the knob and pushing the door open as he finished his question. He pushed the door inward and stepped into the doorway, then his eyes shifted up from the shadowy figure in the lit-up room to the seven spheres of blackness swirling in the air above. Uraraka stared from outside the doorway with her eyes locking on those hovering black spheres all around the size of a bowling ball.

Each of the seven Death globes were attached to Zach by a squiggly black line that vibrated and snaked around but mainly kept its position between Zach and the stationary black orbs above. Zach was in his room though. He sat at his desk chair facing the door where he had heard his classmates approaching from, not that he did not know they were coming as classes had just ended. Out from his shoulders and the top of his back stretched those black lines, and from the position he was sitting in the others in his doorway could not see the fading black around the top of his back making the only parts of him with Death on them the connecting points of his Death lines.

"Hey guys," Zach said. His lips were flat when they entered the room, but Zach gave the two of them a reassuring smile, small as it was. "How was class?"

"What're you doing, Zach?" Uraraka wondered to her classmate, stepping forward into the doorway too which made Sero move farther inside and then freeze.

Zach held up his right palm and made Sero stop in place. His eyes shifted past them to Hagakure, then Sato, and he lowered his smile back down but kept from grimacing as he looked back to Sero. His expression showed he was holding back from grimacing as Sero could pick up on though, and he wondered what Zach was hiding by not actually grimacing in front of them. "Stay, right there," Zach said, lowering his hand back down and putting it on his right thigh. He took in a deep breath and made a few of the still-squiggling lines above him steady out into just straight ones. Then, at the end of one of those thin lines connecting to a bowling-ball-sized Death sphere near the ceiling, the ball started to shrink.

The thin line got a little thicker as the ball started to suck back into Zach's body. He took in another huge breath, then he exhaled it slowly while steadily pulling the sphere of Death back into his body. _Calm. Show complete control._ Zach closed his eyes while letting out the last of his breath, and while pulling in the last of the Death in that seventh sphere.

Shoji and Mineta looked into the room too from the doorway, giving the four of them just outside who had gone straight to Zach's room after school barely any room to see past their classmates and to Zach. They leaned into good positions though and all caught the gist of what just happened at least. Mineta was leaning his head to the side to look past Uraraka who was just too tall for him to see Zach past easily, and his eyes opened wide as he watched what Zach did. He stared into Zach's hazel eyes though that had a faint red tint in them that was illuminated by the light fixture on his ceiling. Those eyes opened and stared back in a hesitant and uneasy way back at Mineta's nervous ones, making the shorter boy open his eyes wider at the sight of them.

"What was-" Sero started.

"I'm not going to lie to you, Sero," Zach began. "I don't have a cold. I'm struggling to control Death at the moment."

"You're-" Hagakure began. _He had so much control that night-_

 _I've never seen this before-_

 _No control over Death would-_

"It's not the first time this has happened," Zach continued on in a steady tone, though there was a seriousness in his voice that he got through to the others in front of him very clearly. The six of their trains of thoughts cut off to instead listen as Zach's tone implied he wanted them to just listen for a moment. "I've had limiters on my Quirk for a while now."

"Limiters?" Shoji wondered inside.

"Yes. I had placed constraints on my Quirk to keep it weaker at all times. The first and only time I released them in public since returning to Japan was against the Subspace Devils," Zach explained. He went on in a calm voice, "Whether I need to use Death sporadically in order to keep it low, place more limiters on it, not use it much at all, or constantly use it, are all methods I have spent countless hours trying in order to make sure I never lose control of my Quirk. If Death was out of control, I know more than anyone how dangerous that would be. However, I do have control over my Quirk. To say otherwise or to even make people question whether I do or not by showing them this," Zach nodded upwards at the spheres still hovering above him. The others all nodded to show they were following along, and Zach continued, "It would do nothing more than scare them all. Make everyone afraid of me, far more than they already are. It's why I meant to keep this from ever being seen, and why none of you knew that I've been doing things like this in order to keep my power down for a long time now."

"So I'm asking you," Zach continued steadily. He looked into the eyes of his individual classmates and asked them collectively, "Don't make this a bigger deal than it needs to be. I have this under control."

"I get it," Sero said. He responded quickly and nodded his head back at his friend. _I get why Azure would be worried if she saw this._ "Totally. Do what you need to do," Sero said with a nod and a lift of the right corner of his lips.

Zach smiled back and looked relieved to hear Sero say that. Uraraka nodded too, and she glanced behind her to see if the others felt the same way.

"Do you…" Mineta started. "Want notes from-"

"I'll get them later. I need to focus," Zach said.

His tone was dismissive. It made Mineta nod quickly, as he realized that notes were not what Zach needed to concentrate on at a time like this. "Yeah, yeah got it. Well uh… good luck with, you know."

Zach shifted his gaze onto Sato who stared back for another second before frowning and glancing away. "Yeah, luck." Sato started off, and Mineta followed.

"Let us know if you need anything," Hagakure mentioned. "Text me," she added.

"Yeah. I'm heading off for my internship in a bit, but hit me up too if-"

"Got it guys. I'm fine," Zach reiterated, nodding at Sero in appreciation but motioning for him to go too.

The group left Zach's room and closed the door behind them. Zach released a heavy breath only once he heard them far enough from his door. Then he looked up at the black spheres above him, and he focused on the sixth one that he had been attempting to make somewhat smaller there near the end to show off some more. _Come on,_ Zach glared at the sixth sphere he had created, but getting frustrated at it was having the opposite effect even as the black line connecting it to him was growing thicker. It was not getting thicker from Death pouring back into him though, but from Death in him moving out to the growing bowling ball. Zach's eyes darted around to the other five, and his eyes widened for a moment as each of them started growing more too.

 _Back to seven?_ Zach questioned himself as he took the strain off and stunted the growth of all six by starting back up a new one. _I only made the sixth and seventh in order to demonstrate my control!_

 _It's speeding up. Or maybe I just can't keep up with it any longer. Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck fuck._

Down the hallway from Zach's room, Sero let out a sigh and rolled his neck around with a more relaxed look on his face than he had had all day. "Not at all," Sero started while looking to his left where Mineta was speaking to Sato and Hagakure about what they just saw. "I had no idea about the limiters. Makes sense though. He's got to hold back Death so that he doesn't kill anyone."

"Do you," Uraraka started but stopped herself. "Do you think there's any reason it's acting up _now?"_ She specified the current incident and they all thought about the events going on in the world around them.

"Unless everything's connected, I doubt it," Mineta admitted with a shrug of his shoulders. The others mostly looked to him, and Mineta continued with a thoughtful look, "Before, I thought it was weird that there were so many things happening at once. But like, unless you come up with a way to connect a dozen coincidences it's a lot more likely everything's just isolated events. Even those heroes disappearing. It, makes more sense that someone like The Spear is off on some mission tracking villains in secret, and Rhino Chick may have unfortunately been in Gondorhan. I mean, everyone thought that was just one thing but now…"

Shoji had turned around and stared down the hall back towards Zach's door. Something did not sit right with him after what they had just seen and all Zach had said. Mineta's voice fell in volume in the back of his mind, and he wondered, _He kept us from talking about it to anyone else. We all know to keep it to ourselves now. What if that's not what's going on? Is there a reason he would show us something like that though? Make that excuse? No. Zach could have come up with a dozen different plans. Even if that one would be something realistic he could trick us with, something's been going on with him for a few days now. The way he's been acting. This loss of Quirk control. And most of all…_

 _He had the fake skin on his left hand when he arrived the other night. The next morning it was gone. His arm was broken. Midoriya had a mark on his face that is gone now. Zach's injuries recovered as well. Evidence that something had happened was sparse and has disappeared quickly._ Shoji continued to the stairwell as Sero looked back from his door closest to the stairs and asked what his classmate was doing. Sato had gone into his room to get changed out of his school uniform, but Shoji's room was on the floor below.

Sero kept on his uniform as he was supposed to wear it while traveling to and from U.A. He was not staying on campus for much longer, and he watched as the taller and more quiet member of Class A walked past him before heading into his room. _Man, I got worked up over nothing,_ Sero thought while grabbing his carry-on bag to pack a couple days' worth of clothing. _He's fine. As fine as he can be, at least. Better actually!_

 _Those first weeks he was back, nobody knew how hard it was for you. Losing Mark, none of us knew how close you were. But it wasn't until Fight Day at your apartment, when I saw you looking in your mirror,_ Sero frowned just thinking back on it. _Then again,_ he added to himself while packing slower. _How about how you looked in that convenience store on Tuesday? Or when Norita was killed, or the talk show,_ Sero rubbed his forehead thinking about all the moments Zach did not look as good as he just did. _Will he really be alright? No, of course he will be._

 _If he was actually having a hard time controlling his Quirk he wouldn't be here. He wouldn't put us in danger. I know how much he cares about us,_ Sero thought about the night of the joint training and grinned to himself again. _And I know just being at U.A. is going to help him…_

At dinner, not many of Class A were still around at U.A. to eat together.

Hawks and Gang Orca had to go to Geneva as Japanese envoys to an international meeting about the Gondorhan Incident, showing international solidarity and the desire to investigate more about the tragedy's origin. It was a show of good faith and friendship to America, but also a show to the people of Japan who were worried about something of a town-destroying nature suddenly happening in Japan with no explanation. Endeavor could not take the time out of the country though, which Tokoyami tried to explain to Kirishima at dinner when the redhead complained again about being left behind and how Endeavor should have gone for something like this so they could have continued investigating Mt. Yamagucha.

Aoyama sat across from Ojiro and the two of them were talking, and Shoji sat down the bench a bit from Ojiro with a thoughtful look behind his mask while his upper right arm ate his dinner. Sato was sitting across from Shoji and gave his classmate a risen eyebrow and confused look in reference to Shoji's demeanor over the past couple hours. Even down in the common room where a few of them had gathered that afternoon to go over tests and review, Shoji had seemed even _quieter_ than usual.

Shoji glanced up at Sato who he noticed staring. "Zach hasn't come to eat anything all day," Shoji said. Sato started to frown as Shoji began his sentence by talking about Zach again, but at the end of it his eyes opened wider at the realization.

"Should we bring him some food?" Sato wondered. _I didn't see him eat dinner yesterday either,_ Sato thought to himself. "He might not want to come to the cafeteria if he can't keep all that Death inside."

Shoji frowned and his eyebrows narrowed down at his classmate who said that aloud and without hiding his voice at all. Sato just spoke in a normal tone, but he glanced to his left still looking surprised when both Aoyama and Ojiro turned and looked over towards him. Then he turned to the right and looked at Kirishima and Tokoyami who looked his way as well. "What do you mean by that?" Tokoyami asked, having started listening in to the two of them once he heard Zach's name mentioned.

Shoji's eyes shifted towards Class B's table where nine of that class were still there on Friday evening. "It's nothing. He's dealing with it," Shoji said in a low, deadpan voice. He got back to eating and Sato did the same, frowning but keeping his mouth shut other than to eat his food.

Aoyama gulped but then shook his head around and turned back to Ojiro with a smile to continue their conversation in a carefree way. _There's no way._

 _So that's what Toru didn't want to talk about. She said he wasn't sick,_ Ojiro nodded along with his longer-haired friend who was going on about some dazzling story. _But she didn't want to say what it really was._

Far across the country, Sero tapped his fingers on his right thigh during an important meeting with some heroes including Ape Man and his other sidekicks. _What if I've got it backwards?_ The nagging doubt in the back of Sero's mind wormed its way to the surface of his thoughts and overshadowed his focus on talks about the League. _Every time I think it's one thing, it's the other. If I felt that way right after leaving his room, then that was how he wanted me to feel, right? That doesn't mean it was a lie. Of course he would want me to feel reassured. And if Mina had thought this way instead of checking up afterwards the other night when she had this feeling, after initially being relieved,_ Sero's heart fell. _We'd never have seen him again. If he can't keep a lid on it…_

Shoji looked towards the doors to the cafeteria again as he ate his food faster. _He pulled back in one of the seven protruding spheres hours ago. It shouldn't have taken him this long to get the rest under control. He shouldn't have missed a day of school for it at all!_ Shoji finished up and he went to dump his tray. He headed out of the cafeteria without grabbing any more food. _I was wrong again._

Shoji felt a buzz in his pocket and pulled out his phone with one of his six arms. He glanced at the groupchat for Class A where Sero had sent a message to them, 'Can someone check on Zach and post how he's doing in here?'

All across Japan, different members of Class A glanced down at their phones. No one else sent a message back to Sero. They all just pocketed their phones again, and a feeling of dread hanging over their heads relieved a bit with not many of them noticing it. Yaoyorozu lowered her phone down slowly though and she let out a breath of audible relief. _Thank you, Sero._ She checked back onto her messages with Zach and what he had been telling her about his methods of keeping his Quirk under control that he has started explaining earlier when she asked what the symptoms of his sickness were.

 _These past couple days I thought maybe Ashido had been off,_ Shoji thought as he headed back to the dorms in a quicker-paced walk than he had left school right after classes that afternoon. _His attitude. The gleeful way he was acting, except it wasn't acting. There was no reason to act so happy. It was putting everyone off around him. We were all serious and focused on the horrible events going on, and he was having a great time all the time. That isn't him. I thought he was either lying or, or that I just had no idea who I was dealing with anymore._

 _But he's just been in his room trying to get control of his power? All day?_ Shoji thought it again in his head in a more skeptical and concerned way than the way Zach made them feel earlier. He had treated it like no big deal but something that most people would overreact to. By treating it in such a way, all of them _under-reacted_ to it which Shoji was realizing as he rushed up the stairs for the fifth floor again. He stared down the hallway from the platform at the top of the stairs, frozen in place as he stared towards the black tendrils coming out from below the crack of the door and dragging over the floor outside it.

The door itself was turning black as wisps stretched in from the cracks all around the frame. Shoji walked down the hallway and glanced towards the ceiling at the end where some wisps had gotten in the way of, or at least they must have since he felt it looked darker down at the end of the hall. As he was nearing the door, all of those tendrils and wisps shot back through the cracks and left the hallway empty again. He could see only pitch blackness below the crack of Zach's door as he stepped slowly towards it. _ **"…rrrRR Gah- SShhhhiii… rrrr…" Crreee-eek**_

The building in front of Shoji seemed like it was under pressure. The walls were not shaking but they were under an enormous strain on the other side of this door. At the end of the hall back behind Shoji, four others got to the top of the stairs and started down towards him. Shoji reached forward and he grabbed the doorknob, and he turned it and pushed Zach's door open. Shoji opened the door inwards, while Ojiro, Sato, Tokoyami, and Kirishima were coming up behind him.

The door scraped open into a world of black. Whether the lights were on or off, the room in front of them should not have been this dark just from the light that should have poured in from the hallway alone. Instead, the hallway itself seemed to get darker as the door opened. The shadow fell over their faces as they looked into the room and at the figure standing in the middle of it.

Zach's chair was discarded into the darker shadows in a corner of his room. The top half of it had broken off from the bottom half while he was sitting there, and now he stood in the center of his room with his elbows pulled in at his sides and his hands shaking while curled down in front of him. He had no shirt on nor pants did it seem, though there were shreds of cloth on the floor at his feet and scattered around the room mostly covered in bubbling pools of Death.

His arms from his elbows down to his hands were completely engulfed in Death. The Death was thinner up near his elbows and peeled off into regular but tanner skin up that high. Down near his hands though it was thick. It was so thick with black Death that it went down his fingers and then sharpened off of each of them. There were clouds of black smoke thinner than the core Death claws inside that they were wisping off of, yet while staying around those hands and not fading or disappearing into the air. Zach's hair was waving around over his head, though most of it was moppy around his skull and could not be differentiated between the black strands of Death everywhere around him and floating all over the room.

Zach's body was hunched and his back started to bend with his head snapping back, a wing coming out of the left side of his back stretching longer and then curling in with an even more condensed and familiar form that was easy to create and hold together. Zach pulled more of the darkness off from near the walls on his left and behind him, as well as up from the floor onto his legs that were already engulfed with it but became thicker all the way up to his completely shrouded waist, and his stomach and chest that got even more covered as he groaned out. That groan turned darker though as his head turned to the side, and his flaring bright red eyes glared out his doorway at the group standing there. _**"GGRrrr- Gettt-"**_ Zach's head shook around.

He shook his head more, his head spasming and blurring as it snapped back and forth. He opened his mouth so huge his jaw looked to unhinge with nothing but pitch blackness inside, then he clenched his jaw shut and yanked even more darkness off his face just as he pulled as much as he could down through his throat and away from his vocal cords. His arms got more covered in Death and his head leaned forward, his neck bowing and his face clearing up more with Death pulling away from around his eyes and mouth. His skin got lighter but was still dark tan on his cheeks with black spiderwebs retreating to the sides of his face. They pulled back near his hairline and his ears, and darkness flew back behind Zach's head towards the window that it pulled away from before hitting. It looked like a constant wind pushing into Zach's face though from the direction of his open door, with wind streaks of Death pulling off the back of his head while he leaned forward in the most strained and agonized way just to give them a human look with his own face and eyes that were not completely glowing red.

"Get…" Zach started again. He bit down and then pursed his lips before continuing to bare his teeth at the others in almost as scary a way as he had just looked with all that Death on him, then his eyebrows narrowed in more and his eyes got darker as he growled, "Out."

Zach's ears pointed up and some of the black wind coming off the back of his head pulled into them and condensed to give them a solid form. His hair spiked over his head, and another black wing formed on his back with more Death pulling off the floor, only for a wave of it to come out of his calves and splash into the dark ocean behind him that scraped his desk along the floor a couple inches when it hit. Wisps pushed out in all directions and then yanked back into his body with a twitch of Zach's facial expression, and then Zach forced his expression as calm as he could make it under these circumstances, which was still incredibly strained and intense.

 _I can't leave. The second I leave it's over. I'll have to accept that I can't live without using Death, and I can't accept that! Once I do, once I leave here! A place where I_ _ **need**_ _to hold it in. Where the people I care about are around me and I can't let it touch them!_ Zach darted his furious eyes to Ojiro for a moment, then he started to all five of the others in front of him, as well as the sixth who was down the hall a bit but stopped when he saw the expressions on his shadowed-over friends' faces. "Everything's under control," Zach began.

He said it even as darkness crawled up his arms over his biceps and triceps. His claws curled and dripped with liquid Death, and Zach's voice was nervous but he spoke in a calmer voice, "I haven't felt it get, any stronger in the past thirty minutes." He paused and grit his teeth again, then he continued to the group in front of him, "This, is better than it was a half hour ago, and I'll get it all inside- _soon-"_ Zach's voice struck with pain and his eyes clenched shut, then opened glowing red again which made him grind his teeth in frustration as he could see the others through only a red-tinted veil.

Inside the swirling sky of Death above Zach, a black sphere spinning in the mix pulled down and slammed on top of his head. It pushed back off but then turned into a funnel-shape that sucked back into his skull and made Zach lean his head back with a low guttural growl coming out of his throat. _**"RRRaahh-rraagah- gah, ah,"**_ he gasped and groaned through a raspy throat after making the strained noise.

"I'll go get Recovery Girl," Ojiro started.

"Just close the door," Zach countered at Ojiro, moving the darkness away from his vocal cords again, though his voice still came out scratchy and almost as deep as a moment ago. Ojiro pursed his own lips and got ready to deny him as he could see Zach was in agony here. Zach's lips curled up though in that darkness, his skull showing through for a second with his face making a horrifying smile. _Is he, really in pain?_ Ojiro wondered in shock for a second. Zach snapped him out of it though as his strained voice spoke through the darkness, "Recovery Girl can't help me with this- I have to do it on my own."

Zach's eyes shifted to Tokoyami who he glared at in a knowing way. Tokoyami's eyes opened wider for a couple seconds, then he returned them back to normal and nodded in a serious way back at his classmate who he had never felt more connected to than in that moment. _Without telling anyone how serious it is. Keeping it quiet, like I did. And-_

"Just get out," Zach repeated, shaking his head and then turning to Kirishima who had stared at him with huge eyes after he opened the door. The redhead was still staring at him in disbelief at what he was seeing. And he only blinked as Zach's voice rasped to him, "Go, away."

Shoji backed up and he closed the door. He stopped after closing it, and he let out a heavy breath and closed his eyes.

"What are we-" Aoyama started whispering towards the others who looked his way upon hearing his voice.

"Zach knows what he's doing," Shoji started. He said it knowing that Zach could probably hear him on the other side of the door, but he continued anyway, "He's having trouble controlling his Quirk, but Sato's room is next door to Zach's. Mine is directly below his. And the only other room in direct contact is Kirishima's which only connects at the corners." Kirishima and Sato both stared at Shoji with their eyes opening huge at what Shoji was suggesting while glancing back towards Zach's door. "Nothing can happen to the three of us. We'll be able to tell if things are getting out of hand."

Ojiro nodded in understanding as to Shoji's reasoning. He looked to Zach's room again and thought, _You didn't tell anyone, because you wanted to keep it from even getting into their rooms. If it got that far it was already too far. Now you won't be able to tell though._ Ojiro lifted his tail around the side of his body and rubbed his forehead with the bushy part at the end of it. _How long have you been struggling with this? And Mysti- not getting into those schools and being expelled, hunted, shot and- damn it. I thought by coming here you'd get some relief._

Kirishima turned and his glare forced Aoyama to the side of the hall before the spiky-haired teen even started stomping his way. _FUCK!_ Kirishima's fists balled at his sides, but he kept his cool as best he could while Aoyama was looking at him with such wide eyes that it sure felt like he was not hiding it at all how pissed off he just got. _Was that it?! The past two days I couldn't fucking stand him- was he trying to hold this back all that- Fucking- FUCK! This must be what it's like to be Bakugo,_ Kirishima thought and tried to cool his head as he stormed down the stairs for his own floor. _What the hell was that?_

He stopped on his floor and just stared up at the ceiling ahead of him in the direction of Zach's room. _I've never seen him like that. He was losing it. He let us_ _ **see**_ _him losing it. He never-_ "God damn," Kirishima whispered it and balled his fists tighter at his sides. _Why didn't I know? Why didn't I have any idea that he was struggling like that? It's because… It's because we aren't- we aren't even-_

Mezo Shoji stood outside his own door for over a minute after he and the others had broken off to go their separate ways. He looked back down a door to Kirishima's room he had heard the redhead inside. Then he glanced back down at the floor, _Neither would. They both know there's nothing anyone can do about this. And once it's out there, once it's been said once, it can never be retracted. If he gets it under control it won't matter._

 _"If?"_ Shoji lifted his eyes back to the ceiling. _He was struggling. It doesn't look easy. Can he do it? He's done it before, hasn't he? It feels like he has. He explained it like he had, but he also showed us earlier that he was getting a grip on it only to lose control. He hasn't lost control. He's holding it back. He is, and yet I assumed it would seep through his floor and through my ceiling, that's how strong I think it's going to get? If he was showing us how much a hold he had on it earlier though, then what if what he just said about it reaching its max was also a lie?_

 _He doesn't want anyone to freak out. If we alert anyone, he can't stay here. He knows that by losing control he's putting our classmates in danger. And he's doing it anyway._ Shoji's gaze narrowed, and all six of his fists clenched down at his sides. _Why would Zach do that? It's because he can't leave here. If he leaves, he can't come back. Does he want to be here with us that badly? That doesn't make sense. He was doing so much good out there._

 _Every time I saw him on the news, he'd say something amazing. About everyone being better. Being capable of being heroes. He was showing off how much of a hero he was. And, he was reviving people. And stopping villains. More than I thought he could while still going to school at the same time. I heard Midoriya and Bakugo talking though,_ the large teen whose Quirk could work as a sensory type imagined a few months back when he saw the two of them murmuring amongst themselves after a day at their internship with Lemillion. _What he was doing before facing the Subspace Devils is part of the reason those villains got desperate enough to attempt such a high-risk maneuver even with Potaru as a failsafe. At the time I thought he was being reckless and going to get himself expelled, but I really think he knew what he was doing would drag some bigger villains into the light from the shadows they were in._

 _And now he's here._ Shoji stared frustratedly up at the ceiling still from the hallway outside his room. His right foot inched towards his door but he stopped himself again for some reason. _Is it that I think the Death is already coming through my ceiling? His floor was so covered in it, and if it is… I don't want to have to tell- that's not it._ Shoji's thoughts were not sounding familiar, and the reasoning he made for why he was being hesitant did not make any sense to him. _Even if it was there I wouldn't say anything._

 _He's my friend. He brought me back to life- that's not the reason!_ Shoji frowned deeply behind his gray mask. His eyes darkened and he wondered to himself, _That was what I was doing at the cafeteria, sitting with Zach. I did it out of obligation. I thought about, how I owed it to him. That's not friendship. Yet he's still here. He's here when- because of Sero, or Ashido, and Midoriya. And me. All of us. I can't think he doesn't- I was just hanging around Zach, to make him feel like we're friends, but doesn't that really make us friends? If that's the reason for our friendship though then it's fake. If it's just to help him, rather than to be friends._ The thought process was confusing but the situation was one Shoji had never found himself in before too.

Shoji turned and he started back for the stairs. He walked slowly at first, but his feet picked up and he moved faster still in a walk but with urgency in his step now. _I spent days so focused on the problems we were all facing that it felt like he was ignoring. Because our problems seemed like the most important things. How could he not care about them? But that mentality was wrong._ Shoji started down the fifth floor towards the door that had Death spilling out from below it and around the cracks again.

He was alone this time. He marched towards Zach's room, _It's not that he doesn't have problems of his own. He just does whatever he can to keep us from realizing that he does, which is why he's suffering alone in his room as his power fights him. His terrifying power that he's losing control of, which has to be the most horrifying thing for someone like Zach! Zach, who already thinks of that as a Nightmare, thought himself a monster, tried to kill himself… To see himself losing control like this?!_ Shoji grabbed Zach's doorknob and opened it without knocking. Whatever he was going to see on the other side of the door did not matter to him anymore.

He opened it up and all the darkness around the entrance yanked back towards the solid dark shadow hovering in the middle of a swirling vortex of black gaseous Death. _"Shoji,"_ Zach's voice hissed from ahead of him, quiet as Zach had been muffling his voice and all sound in there to keep the others in the dorm from hearing him. He stared through the swirling black mist that was thinner in front of his face between him and Shoji, and he watched the taller teen with six arms step inside and close the door behind him. Shoji was tinted red in his vision, but once the door was closed he was nearly impossible to see, though for Shoji it was even harder in a room full of real darkness.

Zach floated off the ground in the direct center of his room. He lowered down to the floor though as Shoji stood in front of him, and he no longer needed to keep his center off the ground so as to prevent any Death from slipping into his classmate's room. _Koda's not here below him. Mineta neither below that. No one's raised any alarms or let me know that it's getting in yet. Aoyama didn't tell… who would he tell? No one's qualified to handle this. I'm exploding. IT'S TOO MUCH!_ Zach's body was hardly physical. It was the most condensed collection of Death in the room, but his arms and legs were wobbly and unsteady in their material form. He lowered to the ground but his feet merged with the pool of Death covering the first five inches of ground rather than stepping on top of it or even into a shallow liquid.

The loss of his feet only became noticeable to him as he turned towards Shoji who was tracing his hand along the wall to the left side of his door. "I told you, to get out." Zach steadied his voice as much as he could while speaking towards a classmate who looked towards him and could see Zach's face from the bright glowing red orbs in the middle of the room. Zach seethed through his teeth that he barely felt existent in the black cloud of his face, _"What are you doing?"_ His voice got even deeper and lost the last of its normal tone overlapping before, _**"I need- I need**_ **Focus!"** Zach rose his voice, then he glowered at Shoji harder and attempted to pull more Death from his ceiling light that should still be on so he could see his classmate better.

 _ **Cchhhh!**_ Zach heard the glass above him shatter and felt it falling through the cloud of his body. Parts slid through him slower like he was a viscous form, while others dropped straight through him like he was intangible. He could feel the glass sliding through him in parts slower, and he tried to solidify them more to see if pieces could bounce off him. **"GGRrr- OWw-"** Zach turned his body more into Death again, but he accidentally turned the glass that had lodged into his body into Death as well like he usually did with his clothing and weapons. _FOCUS! Just on my body around- ah-_ "Ah- AH AH **AHHhhh-"** Zach clenched his teeth again and his jaw collapsed as he was not focused enough on making it solid, when too much of his focus was on his lower torso and right leg that the glass shard was sliding through _slowly._

He kept turning his body farther and farther down into more of the same viscosity as it had before, as that was a tested method of sliding the shard all the way down him. "I'm here because I want to help you," Shoji said after walking over towards Zach's bed where he knew it to be in the room. He pushed the back of his legs against it and sat down while Zach looked back towards the teen he nearly forgot had come into his room over the past few seconds that had felt so much longer to him. "Because-"

"There's nothing you can do to help me," Zach snarled back at Shoji. "All you're doing is distracting me. Keeping me from getting control!"

Shoji hesitated while sitting at the edge of Zach's bed. _No matter how convincing he is. I won't let you do this alone. If the reason I sat there in the cafeteria was only to make you feel like we're friends, then I would leave. If it was just to help you… And even this,_ he admitted to himself. _Might just be because I want to help you. Or to convince myself more that we're friends, but I_ _ **want**_ _to help you, Zach. Rather than I feel I_ _ **need**_ _to as I did when Ashido called me out on my behavior lately._ "You don't have to do this alone," Shoji finally responded after a few painstakingly quiet seconds to Zach who had his fists clenching and his power pulling back into him as much as possible so he could better see his red-tinted friend's face.

"RA!" Death shot out of Zach's mouth into the boy who responded like that. He slammed it into Shoji and it pushed to either side of the object that got in the way of that wind. Shoji's mask and his bangs did well at keeping the Death out of his eyes, but he still squinted as the wind pushed into them like that. He squinted and stared through the gas at Zach's head that snapped back with his mouth opening over a foot wide without a jaw bone to prevent it from unhinging like that. **"DAaaamnn itttt,"** Zach's voice growled up at the ceiling from his wide open mouth that had black teeth stretching in from either unhinged jaw.

All of the Death that just pushed out from him started dragging back, and Shoji snapped his head to the left and then right as streams of it sped by his face. Zach's body hunched forward but grew two feet in size. His chest pulsed as if with a heart beat going twice a second, pulsing and pulsing then stopping, and double-pulsating again. Zach's jaw unhinged farther but breath just hissed out his jaw only to suck back in as that breath was full of too much Death that came spilling out from inside him. His entire body was already made of Death, and he filled it more and more as the room actually got a lighter shade of black. Shoji realized his eyes must have adjusted to a much darker black that even in the darkness he was able to make Zach out better now, which just meant he was able to see the full terrifying silhouette of the creature before him stretching nearly up to the ceiling as Death yanked more and more into his body.

Five swirling spheres of Death spun around and around Zach's head that had almost touched the ceiling now. His back was hunched forward, his arms bulging with black muscles that pulsed with every bit of Death that flooded into his body. It moved so quickly into him that Shoji could not track the movements of any individual strand of Death. _It's like water. Raging,_ Shoji felt a wisp slide past his calf and he darted his eyes down to the right, only to see a black strand of air spiral out of control and slam into the door then bounce up into the ceiling. Another piece slammed into it and they broke apart into four winds that got swept over by a wave and then it all collided with one big black sphere that sucked it all in while at the same time leaving a trail of black dust behind it.

 _This big, I can stand to lose it a bit,_ Zach focused back on Shoji now that he stood twelve feet tall and hunched forward in his room four times the size of his classmate. Zach leaned forward and growled at his friend sitting at the edge of his bed, "Leave."

"No." Shoji answered the beast of a dark being that snarled that at him through dripping black teeth. "You're in pain, and I'm not going to let you go through this alone." Shoji stood up in front of Zach but the larger black form did not ease back at all. Zach continued to lean forward with his three-foot-tall head glaring straight at Shoji inches away from his face. Zach's bigger flaring red eyes with black swirls in them glared daggers into Shoji's small black pupils, and then the silver-haired teen finished, "Not this time."

Zach's big head twitched. When it twitched, some darkness pulled off of it and Zach leaned back up so he bumped the top of his head into the ceiling. That drag against the ceiling shredded Death off his skull and left a streak of black across the ceiling like a blood stain. It dripped down like one too and made it rain black between the boys staring in each other's eyes. Zach ground his teeth and curled all four of his hands into shaking fists, and then the fifth and sixth too as he created them to keep more of that spinning wind condensed together and fully attached to his body. "I didn't ask for you to stay here. It's not going to help, and it can only make this harder."

"I doubt that," Shoji responded, sitting back down on the edge of Zach's bed again. "Maybe there isn't any utility to my staying here. Maybe I will distract you, but maybe a distraction can help out, somehow. I don't know," Shoji admitted it and stared up into Zach's eyes with his sharp bangs narrowing his gaze up at the larger more unstable teen. "But just looking at you it's clear you're hurting. So it doesn't matter if you didn't ask me."

"That's the essence of being a hero, isn't it?" Shoji wondered after a moment. He paused and shook his head at Zach who was treating this like his problem alone. Shoji rose his tone up and finished, "Getting involved even when it's not asked of you makes a hero in my mind."

Zach clenched his red eyes shut. _That doesn't make a hero. That- that's not- Nobody ever asked me, to do what I did. I'm not a hero though! I wasn't._

Shoji could feel the frustration in the air somehow. The Death shards and wisps that floated around him started to make him feel that frustration, and yet he understood that it was not his own emotions he was feeling. His eyes widened as he stared ahead at his friend who rose four hands up to the sides, front, and back of his head to grip it as tightly as possible. Zach groaned as he gripped his huge head that he pushed inwards on all sides and started shrinking, which looked odd when the rest of his body was still proportional to that bigger head. _I could feel his emotions. It's almost as if, all of this is a part of Zach. I'm inside- That's not a way to look at this,_ Shoji tried to stay serious despite the weird thought he just had. _It's just his Quirk._

 _But with Zach's Quirk, what does "just" mean? His Quirk is amazing. More amazing than anyone's. And you're a hero Zach, and what I just said was meant to remind you of that. I didn't think it would anger you so much to hear something that resonates with you also being associated with heroes._

 **"It's…"** Zach lowered his hands from his head and looked back at Shoji angrily as he was about to start speaking, only to remember that he did not want Shoji there in the first place or to talk to him at all. _Does he know something I don't?_ **"It-"** _I need to focus- what if he's right? Does Shoji know that I wanted to have someone here? I don't know. I don't know anything._ **"Death might not be able to hurt you, Shoji,"** Zach's voice was louder but it was in a deep and ominous voice. Shoji could hear that despite that tone, Zach was speaking normally and this was not meant to come out menacing at all. **"But you being here isn't safe. It's not- not a, smart idea."**

"I think it's one of my better ideas," Shoji countered softly back at his friend. "If you get out of control I'll be here to see it up close." Zach's eyes shook and his teeth clenched up on his smaller head that was subtly growing back to the size Zach just crunched it in from. "If you start to lose yourself without realizing it, I'll be here to help you get back," Shoji continued. His first sentence made Zach think it had to do with stopping him afterwards, but the second one had him opening up his squinted eyes and staring back down at his six-armed friend who shook his head up at the feeling in Zach's Death of those doubts and fears. "And if you even think of leaving here, because you're too afraid of hurting us, I'm going to stop you."

 **"Ha!"** The laughter was involuntary, but Zach thought it was funny. He laughed and stopped himself after the single one. He smiled though inside that darkness, before wincing and losing two of his arms as a wave of Death ripped out of his body. He slammed it all into the opposite wall as Sato's though, as some Death seeping out into the night sky outside the dorm was not a big problem to him. He still hoped while looking Sato's way and wondering about how much Death he could see in the room, _Did any get out? It's a solid wall, but there are gaps in particles. Solids' particles are close together but unmoving which makes it more controllable. I could morph right through walls even without cracks, couldn't I? I'm that powerful, and Shoji's actually offended,_ Zach looked back towards his classmate who had frowned behind his mask when Zach laughed at what he was saying in a serious tone.

"I'm glad you'll stop me, Shoji," Zach's voice relaxed a bit as his body started to lose size again. Pieces of his big form ripped apart and went back to being swirling globes of Death up in the air that he tried to hold in place and keep connected by squiggling Death lines. "But come on. How many times now have I beaten you without even using my Quirk?"

Shoji thought of the last time and it made him grimace but also sweatdrop and nod admittedly. He imagined Zach rushing out of the smoke, getting behind him, kicking out his legs and kneeing him in the face, and the last thing he remembered was the vice grip around his neck before passing out. Then he thought back farther though, and he frowned deeper but in a more upset way of his own while looking ahead and watching his friend struggle again to control the Death that was whipping out and around him.

 _"SO-_ strong," Zach whispered, gasping out afterwards and grinning madly in the black smoke around his face. "Hahaha, I'm so fucking amazing. Ha- haha, I'm the strongest there is," his smile lifted up higher but his face distorted in the darkness and his face just looked afraid. "So why am I- nnnn, why? Why won't it stop, increasing?" Zach bowed his chin down to his chest and rose his hands to his face again, just two hands though in a funnel of swirling Death that went from his feet and rose up his legs. It rose around him while spinning violently; such a thin veil of liquid or gas, a mist of black like sand that grew thicker and thinner in milliseconds. It spun around him but did not prevent the core form inside that was so much thicker from being seen on the outside.

Out of Zach's head while he had his black claws over his face, another head pulled out with arms reaching out of Zach's body and pushing back on it as if to drag it out of itself. This new body had sharper red eyes and a malevolent expression on its black face, its teeth stuck in that sharp way baring at Shoji who it smirked at in such a crazy way that it had the six-armed teen leaning back on Zach's bed. "RAaa- FUck-" Another Zach pulled out of his body in the other direction, yanking him that way and pulling him apart at the upper torso so a chunk of him was ripped into the spinning vortex that now touched the ceiling.

"Just go away," the new version gasped as half a body emerged. It pulled away and looked back in fear at the head with bared teeth getting dragged into Zach's main body that reached even sharper claws at it, the afraid version pulling away as Zach's thoughts were too jumbled and overlapping with his mind scattering across the Death.

 _NO!_ Zach screamed internally, as his panic rushed for the window. The clump of Death that shot at the window exploded out on it and shards ripped apart in all directions. Shoji swore he could still see a shadow of a hysterical expression imprinted on the glass for for a few seconds. "No no no," Zach swung his fists in and created a solid central form to punch against inside his funnel. He rose his hands up and started beating on his own temples, "Stop stop- **STOP- s-s** _ **-**_ _sto-stop. Please?"_

"It feels good," Zach snapped while spinning his head and glaring through the vortex towards Shoji. "I'm not in _**pain.**_ You fucking imbecile. I feel _goooood,"_ Zach breathed the word out and lifted his chin, his eyes closing and the euphoria flooding through him. "Why do you think I feel so good these days, Shoji? What makes me feel like this? What makes me so much stronger?" Zach lowered his gaze back to the teen sitting outside his funnel but still getting slammed by all the Death that poured out of him now.

"Why are you getting more powerful?" Shoji asked.

Zach's mouth slammed shut and his head pulled back. He snapped his head down to the right, murmuring under his breath and then growling out in agony before two huge wings ripped out of his back. The tips of the wings curled around the walls, and the wings got more solid and condensed which made them too thin to the point that they looked like bat wings. On Zach's body, huge back wings looked as demonic as it could get. **"I tried,"** Zach growled, his hands raising to the sides of his head and gripping in with his sharp claws through his temples.

 **"I,** _ **tried**_ **to stay here."** Zach's red vision shook and he gripped his head harder as everything felt like it was breaking apart. The room vibrated, and all he could imagine was Ares flying twenty meters ahead of him. And the two of them were grinning at each other.

A smirk shot across Zach's face and he growled in a deep and menacing tone, **"But I couldn't leave Terra behind. I thought I could,"** he turned his head. He cocked it to the side and looked towards Shoji with the swirling red orbs on his head. His room was full of Death and he growled angrier now, **"But they wouldn't let me. I thought, that I had left some of my worst enemies to be dealt with by the friends I left behind. Instead, they chased me back to this world."** Zach lowered his hands from his head and started laughing, "They came after me!" His voice cracked and rose higher, and he laughed harder and madly as he bellowed, "They wouldn't let me _**REST!"**_

Shoji's heart pounded but his mouth was closed as he stared down his classmate. Zach was yelling in a _mad_ voice, but Shoji was frozen still at the look on that demonic face. Zach started panting, his heavy black breaths going in and out of the dark clouds already filling the room around him. "So I went back to that world," Zach whispered. His voice lowered and his gaze hit the floor as he confessed to it. "I returned to a world I swore to myself never to go back to."

"And now I'm back here?" Zach asked it incredulously but his voice cracked again. His scratchy voice got higher pitched and confused, and he shook it around frustratedly before shaking it even faster as his head was vibrating out of itself as there was far too much Death condensed on his mind at once. "No no no- NO no no noooo-" Zach clenched up. Everything froze at once, an ocean of Death in the room coming to a standstill all at once. Then it continued moving slowly, some of it sucking back into Zach's body, but the rest just spinning around and slamming out into the walls again. "I can't do this," Zach whispered, his voice hoarse and shaking as he said it. "But I can't stop- try… _ing_ , either," his lower body pulled to the left leaving just a torso in the air that dropped down and started falling apart. Death pulled up from the floor and hit into Zach's unstable upper body while Shoji shot up to his feet and reached forward, grabbing him by the arms as Zach was about to sink down and collapse into a black puddle.

"It needs to be me alone," Zach pulled out of Shoji's grip and smacked his hands back towards the other teen in his room. The mass of Death below his chest started to take back shape of a human body, but in doing so his Death pushed out even more out of him and smashed into the walls. Waves of it went up the walls and it felt more like they were underwater as the Death completely engulfed them in a thicker mass than it was earlier. "I can do this," Zach hissed. It was the opposite of what he just said in the pain of losing his balance and control, but he had to say it aloud to remind himself that it was true.

"You're right," Shoji said. "You can do it," he nodded at his friend who looked back his way and met his gaze once more in the dark sea covering them. Shoji's voice passed through the Death just fine though. "And you're right when you say I couldn't stop you from leaving. Not if it came down to a fight. You've made that clear many times now."

Zach lost focus on Shoji as he felt his Death seeping through the cracks around his window and sliding down the halls outside his door. He pulled it back into his room, but that made the Death pushing against his walls just too thick. Sato got up off his desk chair in the next room over and walked over right to the wall that Death wisps were seeping through. He stared at the black tendrils shaking so hard, then he rose his gaze as he heard the voices on the other side of the wall. Sato hesitated before turning his back, and the big-lipped boy put his back against the wall and slid down to his butt.

"I know how strong you are Zach," Shoji started. "Not strong like this," he continued, speaking on the kind of power Zach was displaying at that very moment. "I was your teammate in that Sports Festival too, and when we fought together I saw up close how great you were but never thought I'd lose myself. Even after you and Kaminari got first place together. Even after you went and took on the War Boys by yourself. Even after your report, so beyond anything I was thinking about at the time."

"What, are you-" Zach winced and clenched his jaw shut as speaking made it harder to keep himself together.

"But when you fought me I regretted it." Shoji paused and his eyes got darker, his voice full of regret for a moment before his expression steadied again. "After I was defeated, immediately after actually, I regretted it. Pulling out of the Sports Festival that year to get you back in." Zach stared back at Shoji unmoving for a moment as the six-armed boy confessed that to him, and Shoji grit his teeth as he could actually feel the surprise and even shock of his classmate to hear it. "I told myself in the moment that you deserved it and tried to let you have the moment, but I was frustrated. And of course I was, but it was still selfish. That for a moment I had wished I hadn't tried to pull out for you…"

"It was why I died." Shoji said it and Zach could hear in the voice an admission of guilt. He wanted to speak, but he kept his mouth closed and let Shoji continue, "I've believed that for a long time."

"I had regretted something that was likely the most heroic thing I had done until that moment. Among the most heroic things at least," Shoji said softer. He shook his head though once and admitted, "But to have pulled out for you just to be defeated by you, by someone not even using a Quirk…" Shoji rose his gaze and finished while looking into Zach's eyes, "And then you saved me. Right before that invasion started, I was thinking about how I wished I hadn't done it. That's what I felt, and then I saw what happened on those screens-"

"You were the one who brought me back from the brink-" Zach started to counter.

Shoji continued without letting Zach interrupt him here, "Seeing those videos snapped me to my senses." He made Zach close his mouth in that darkness, and Shoji finished to his friend standing just ahead of him, "But there was still a moment where I regretted it. And that regret, I've believed for a long time… a part of me, at least, believes that wishing you hadn't been allowed in the Sports Festival was the reason I was killed on that stage."

"Heh- haha," Zach chuckled and shook his head at how serious a tone Shoji was admitting this to him. "Sorry, Shoji. But we were just kids," Zach shrugged his shoulders and stepped forward in the darkness towards his classmate staring at him in shock and darting his eyes around the room at all the darkness still out of control, but apparently not enough to keep Zach from doing this. Zach smiled at his classmate and added, "We were kids and I had just beaten you in a fight, there's no reason to regret it so much."

"I know that," Shoji started again. That confused Zach as he thought Shoji brought all this up just to mention his guilt for this. Shoji nodded and added, "Thank you, for saying that though. But I really said it to you to show that I'm superstitious at times as well. I don't just believe in logic and reasoning, but I look deeper on it…"

 _Is he talking about how I'm turning into a demon here?_ Zach wondered. _Even though I didn't say anything aloud,_ "Shoji, do you think I'm a demon? The devil-"

"I just understand," Shoji countered Zach's questions coming out in too steady and flat a tone in that scary deep voice. "I know that you have thought those things about yourself, and I don't think you're crazy for doing so." Zach tilted his head up and stared even more hesitantly at Shoji now, wondering if his nonsense about Terra before had actually stuck with him too. He stared at him nervously, and Shoji finished, "I'm not going to talk down to you or call those fears ridiculous. Because I thought karma got me killed. I know it's stupid, but I can't help but think it." Zach's heart rate sped up in his dark chest where he created his heart to feel how much this actually resonated with him.

"Just as I know it's hard for you not to come to these kinds of conclusions on your own," Shoji added. "When you have to spend so much time thinking on it, of course they would cross your mind. The fact that you call it Nightmare form is the proof of that," Shoji continued but then hesitated for a moment. "And what you shouted in the Enudora Forest that night." Shoji paused again and lowered his gaze to the floor but only for a moment before raising it back up. "I know you must believe in some supernatural stuff."

Zach could not help it. The acceptance and understanding towards him believing in the "supernatural" made him think about Ares, Gods, the God Book, and a hundreds different things that the world would consider "supernatural." He cracked the biggest knowing smirk of all, and he had to look away when Shoji saw it. "Haha, HAHAHA- **haha,** HEe- I'm- haha," Zach lifted his right hand to his chest and grabbed it while trying to hold back more laughter. "I'm sorry, haha, but- oh but you have no idea, how right you are."

 _Stop laughing._ Zach stopped laughing immediately. He stared down Shoji with his expression flat while two other heads ripped out his neck and bulged before popping and spiking out into different walls. His legs got thinner but much more muscular and his knees tensed which cracked the floor below his claws. _He just revealed something deep. Because he's your friend. Is he just doing it to make sure he believes in our friendship though? Or that I believe it? Even if that's what he thinks, the same thing happens to me all the time. I overthink it._

 _He's here right now. Reasons be damned._ Shoji stared into Zach's red eyes that still looked as menacing as ever, though for some reason he could not feel any ominous vibe coming from them despite Zach's maniacal laughter and scary statement a moment ago. Zach stared back into Shoji's one eye he could see over the mask and under his bangs, _He's my friend,_ Zach thought. _And since I've come back, I haven't said one truthful thing to him. He has no idea. He's completely lost as to what's going on. No clue as to why I'm losing it. I can't even explain myself._ Zach's face twisted up, the darkness distorting around his head and shaking at the thought. _I can't even be truthful._

 _I want to tell him- tell him what? I can't! I knew I would have to lie if I came back here! I KNEW IT! Just- just lie and- I can't._ Zach rose his hands up to the sides of his head and gasped out but sucked the breath back in hard as if that hanging dark air would make out words that would condemn him. "You saved me too," Zach started. "That day," he stared at Shoji and kept to the truth even as he grabbed the sides of his head that felt like they were ripping apart (which they really were). "Don't you remember?" Zach wondered back to his friend who had sounded too guilty while talking about the SFI before.

Zach shook his head back when Shoji started to shake his own, and Zach whispered his way through the darkness, "Seeing those videos, that I couldn't even rem- _ember-"_ Zach's voice cracked and his lips trembled as he thought about not remembering certain things. His hands gripped into his head harder and he laughed, _It's still happening. I can't stop it! How long have I been-_ "And I, I thought maybe even I- that I _was_ a mole. That he had planted me, to- to _kill?_ My _friends?"_ Zach's voice trembled in the darkness, and all the Death around him started shaking too. "But you grabbed me and, and you told me that you didn't believe it. You didn't believe any of it."

Zach said that firmer and shook his head once more with his teeth clenching hard. "Nothing about what I said. You knew it was just to escape, when even I didn't. And you were still telling me when- when you!" Zach's lips shook again and he stared at Shoji harder, wondering if the other boy had really forgotten because of how he had died seconds later. _We both have horrible memories of that day,_ Zach realized while watching Shoji think back on that himself while staring at him with wider eyes, apparently having no idea how much that had actually meant until now. _You remember me saving your life, but I remember you telling me how much you believed in me. I came to believe in myself too, to be able to fight that day! And if you hadn't, Uraraka, and- Momo…_

"Shoji you," Zach started. Zach's heart clenched up and his mouth felt dry. _He's not here because he's my only friend. I told the others to go. I tricked them all, because I'm a manipulative monster. A MONSTER!_ Zach's hands turned into claws again so much sharper than before and he slammed down at his sides, his hair flaring up and spiking around. Black spheres spinning in the air shot into his body and bulged him twice his size, but he shot three of them right back out as he realized what he was doing. "NO! I can't- Don't accept, pull slowly- _Fuck_ ," Zach's breath caught coming out so he just gasped the curse with his eyes slamming shut in the pain.

"Are you-" Shoji started, trying to ask his classmate if he was alright.

"Yes! _I'm fine,"_ Zach hissed the answer after shouting 'yes' at first. He bowed his head and pressed his chin into a chest he had to make harder solid so he would not just push his head into a front-flip through his own body. The fact that he could feel the possibility of doing that made the corners of his lips pull up his cheeks to the sides of his eyes, and he laughed again with a terrified expression in the black.

"I'm not fine," Zach said with his mouth huge, smiling, and wide open. "You don't understand. It's not your fault though. Haha, I have no one to blame. It's mine. Everything happening now. This moment, so horrible." Zach's eyes got watery and he saw the red-tinted cracked floor getting blurry from the tears. _I chose to kill Ares. I chose to lie to them. I isolated myself and pushed everyone else away. I'm alone here without anyone who knows, with more power than I can handle- AND IT'S ALL BECAUSE OF MY OWN DAMN CHOICES!_ "Hahaha- HAHAHA-"

"Every time," Zach gasped with a mad smile across his face. He rose his head and shook it while looking at Shoji who stared with his own shaking eyes at the tear sliding down the left side of Zach's black face right over the Death. "I just make the choices that bring me to, to this. And I can't- I don't know how to explain to you that-" Zach gasped again and tilted his head back. He sucked in so much air, then he whispered, "I had this friend in that world…"

Zach lowered his head and started shaking it before even reading Shoji's reaction to what he trailed off on. "And I mean that. You don't know- you don't! I did. I really- when I say world- ah ha ah hah," Zach breathed heavily with his breaths coming in staggered as he tried to explain and at the same time not lie and not tell anything damning. _I can't. I want to though. Does it even matter? I just-_ "He went missing one day-"

Zach pursed his lips and his eyes filled with more water. He clenched them shut and bowed his head hard, "I should have searched harder for him." A version of Zach pulled out of his back and reared up in the air, opening its mouth and letting out a soundless roar as its head ripped open from its jaw that's how hard it shouted, without actually making noise. The unhinged jaw ripped the rest of the head apart and the body got slammed into by spheres of faster-spinning Death that were also rotating on their own while revolving around Zach's head. Zach continued as this happened, "He was my friend, and my comrade. I recruited him," Zach whispered in agony.

Tears spilled down his face. "He looked like a kid but, but that was his ability. He hadn't aged for decades. He couldn't die," Zach whispered that part with his lips curling up again. He let out a dark gasped-laugh and then kept laughing with his chest full of pain. "He thought he couldn't, at least. Zombieman, he called himself." Zach whispered it and did not laugh this time. "We called him," he corrected himself as it was the name he called his friend too. "And I was supposed to protect him. Even if he was nearly immortal, there were things that could kill him. _And he still felt pain,"_ Zach breathed that out and his hands rose and covered his face as he felt like screaming into something. And then he did, "AHhhnnnnn **nnNNN!"**

"But something could kill him," Zach whispered through his hands. "And when he was poisoned and dying, he was surrounded by his comrades. His _friends,_ who cared about him so much that he-" Zach cut himself off and couldn't speak for a second. He lowered his hands and looked at Shoji to explain, but he paused for a second, then he went on anyway despite Shoji's expression of hesitation, doubt, but also showing he was listening despite his confusion. "When I recruited him, he told me not to revive him if he died. I- when he was dying though I- I _convinced_ him to let me bring him back. He was happy! Around friends, and he _wanted_ to be brought back. I should have let that be it. He had lived a full life! He, he died just about the best way anyone could."

More tears fell from his eyes and down to his chin where they gathered and dripped off. One of the tears hit the floor, and Zach whispered in horror, "I should have let him stay dead." He pursed his lips, and he shook his head around while turning it to the right so he would not have to look at Shoji. "And days after he was brought back, he was captured by the enemy. I'm sure they figured out his Quirk from the torture, whether from him telling them or just them seeing it for themselves. But I know they tortured him to the point that he told them how I had brought him back. A man who couldn't die, and who I couldn't kill, and-" Zach's eyes clenched shut and he bowed his chin into his chest again as hard as he could. "And I don't want to think about him, but I _left_ him behind in that mission. We couldn't look for him. There was _no_ time. I had to believe that he had just ran off, or- or something- anything but…"

Shoji's breath caught in his throat as Zach wheezed out the most pained breath he had ever heard from his classmate. "But I left him in their clutches. And no matter what kind of torture, what kind of experimentation they must have done to him- Things! That would have killed _ANYONE_ else. The things they did to him must have been the most painful- _excruciating_ things that anyone had ever felt. The worst things ever done to another human being. Torture that would have killed _EVERYONE_ except for him, which means that they could have used all kinds of tortures that just aren't applicable to anyone else. Things that would kill people too quickly because our pain threshold just isn't high enough- enough to-" Zach gasped and he brought both hands to his chest which he clenched with all his might so his hands were ripping into his Death body. "And when I saw him, the _Champion_ of the largest of the five armies that came against me…"

Shoji's heart pounded harder and his breath started coming out more, and he could see it as the Death in front of his face pushed forward and pulled back with his breathing. "It didn't matter how strong I had become," Zach hissed. In his mind he saw it when they released that _beast_ in front of him. As different as he looked, Zach had recognized him. "One look and I knew," Zach said.

"I could separate all the horrible things from my mind. I had to, in order to keep leading. To command and lead my forces without fear and without hesitation. But one look and-" Zach's breath got shakier. "In the middle of that huge battle! Thousands and thousands of enemies on all sides and all I-" His head bowed again and he shook his chin hard against his own breaking chest.

The entire wall separating Zach's room from Sato's was black. The boy leaning against the dark wall did not move away from it though. He sat there with his back up against it, the back of his head pushed on the wall and tilted up with his eyes shaking in sadness. _I thought he said it was a lie?_ Sato wondered, right as a tear fell out of his own right eye and slid down his chubby cheek.

"And I knew that it was my own doing," Zach admitted. "I couldn't think about it at the time, but I know. I know because I made the _choice_ to leave him behind. We could have expended the resources to search. I could have called Fillian in from across the world to, to search the area-" Zach's breath gasped in sharply. "He was probably hidden by someone else's Quirk, _right there!_ Right next to us, a hand over his mouth keeping him from screaming our names. And we left him. _I_ left him. Because it was my decision. It was always my decision. An army with no supervision. No oversight. I made sure the world knew that the- Allied Forces were, they weren't involved with me. I had full control. I had all the decisions in my hands. And every decision I made, every _choice_ led to that moment. To facing my greatest and strongest enemy… my own friend."

"My friend who I couldn't kill because I had already revived him. My friend whose body had been experimented on so badly that he was the strongest thing in the world! A punch from him sent me flying MILES away! I slammed into a building in a city I WASN'T EVEN IN!" Zach screamed it and he tore part of his chest out with a claw and yelled to his side at the wall. "And I- I felt the surge from killing people, because some of my Death had hit them when I smashed through that wall that I didn't even know, I _was in."_ He whispered the end and laughed with tears falling from his eyes, "The middle of a skyscraper, and people screaming- and Zombieman was flying towards us at full speed! And no matter what I shouted at him, no matter what I tried, I couldn't stop him."

"I had made it so I couldn't stop him. I had made it, so that he was able to occupy my time for so much of the Battle of the 6 Armies- ahh-" Zach wheezed out in pain and shook his head violently. "While I was supposed to be distracting those armies. Allowing my forces to slip inside and make their moves. Relieving the other decoys who I left behind and-" Zach gasped again, barely able to breathe yet keeping his lungs at minimal capacity which was all he could get to with them still filled with overflowing Death. "And by the time I got back to the fight, how much of my army was-" his red eyes got glossy at the started question he could not finish. The Death all around him shook, then he had to refocus on it as he distracted himself too much and he knew it. _I need to control it. I need-_ "Stop doing that," Zach hissed at himself. "Stop, focusing on what's important when it gets hard."

"I hated command," Zach whispered. He said it softly and looked back towards Shoji with sad and teary red eyes. "It was horrible. And I was a, a horrible leader. I was," Zach said it again, but he closed his eyes as saying it again did nothing to convince him. "The others didn't think so and I believed them. I felt like a good leader- I was, because they thought I was. So were my decisions right? Ones that led me to, to there? That was the endgame but, but without Zombieman how much different would it have been? If I was able to focus on the rest of those armies from the start? If I had never been separated from my forces, and those civilians were never killed. I was horrified when I killed them because I knew I couldn't bring them back, but I couldn't bring back any of the civilians that day. I just didn't have the power at the end of it. I was drained. The odds were…"

Zach looked down and rose his eyes back to Shoji as he continued on steadily, "They were 10 to 1 and it was just- haha," Zach stopped laughing and he paused as continuing on what just too hard. "Ten to one," he repeated the numbers he had told Classes A and 1 before, before shaking his head and chuckling. "My men were worth a hundred of our enemies. Easily," Zach said. He said it in a proud way, smiling and laughing at the suggestion of 10-1 odds which had a very bad feeling welling inside Shoji, and inside Sato listening from the other side of the wall.

"A _hundred_ of our enemies," Zach repeated hoarsely, his voice shakier though as he said it. Dark wisps slipping through his wall vibrated, twisting and snaking around Sato's sides which made his eyes dart to them before opening huge as he heard Zach's voice through a very immaterial-feeling wall at his back. "If only the odds were 100-1 then," Zach gasped out inside of laughter. "Oh my God, haha, ha- how many of them were around us? It was- it was _insane._ And yet even right after the fight, even when I try to look back with a clear mind," Zach gasped it while looking up, then he turned back to Shoji and whispered in shock, "I don't think I can remember correctly. As hard as I try and- and I try- I don't try very hard," Zach admitted with a cock of his head to the right side. He laughed again as he admitted that to himself and to the six-armed boy sitting on the edge of his bed.

"I don't try to remember because I can't do it," Zach said. "I just can't. I can't do a lot of things anymore. Just like," Zach glanced towards the windows of his room, then back to Shoji who he smiled at through a tear-streaked blackened face. "You don't need to keep me here Shoji, because I won't leave again. I can't do it."

"I've lost everyone too many times," Zach whispered. "And I can see them all now. Every family I ever lost or left behind. My parents. The Akers. The villains. The anti-heroes. You-" Zach pursed his lips but then pushed past hard. "And Darling? I- I don't know how I could do that to…" Zach's heart pulled down into his Death chest, his brain hurt, and he wheezed out without any breath to give in his lungs. "She loved me more than, than anyone's ever loved me. And I abandoned her. I pushed her away and…" Zach gripped at his chest to keep his heart inside, and he sucked back more Death towards his body as he felt even more leaking out again.

As Shoji listened, he felt his own heart nearly ripping out of his chest. _I heard how much you cared about her that first day at the hospital, but I didn't fully understand until now. I don't know anything about her. I judged you for it, but whatever it was is something beyond my comprehension. All of this is…_

"I already couldn't do it again," Zach whispered as he went on. "After what Kaminari did to me, I couldn't do it. I knew that Webb and Ganji, Tsura and Maye, I knew they were all dead before they had even died. I knew there was nothing I could do to stop it. All I could do was hope or, pray," Zach's voice became so soft as he was out of air, and then he just kept speaking anyway even as all his insides became fully Death once again as he pulled too much of it back inside. "I knew I couldn't think about the Lifebringer Incident though," Zach admitted. "Leaving that day? Leaving all of you, _voluntarily?"_ Zach wondered it in disbelief at his own decision.

"I had- I had everything I had always wanted. The chance to be a hero. A Quirk I could use to actually stop villains without killing them, _and_ to revive people?" He shook his head and his teeth clenched hard for a moment, before he added onto the pile, "A girl I was in love with. Friends who cared about me like family. I- I've seen the world. Many worlds. I have seen people who have nothing. I didn't have nothing! I-" Zach stopped and felt the guilt flood into him. _I had everything._

"I had to move forward but couldn't knowing what I had done. So I didn't know anymore. And when I came back there were things I needed to do in the present and events in the future that I needed to plan for. No time to relax. No time, to actually reflect," he admitted introspectively. "As my past reflections were all part of the present efforts to help everyone else get through what I did. It had nothing to do with me. And I always regretted it, solely because of how you all had to feel afterwards, and that killed me but- but actually thinking of how it affected me? Selfish. Considering what I did, what I left behind, just so I could go and- AND-" Zach's body hunched forward and he sucked as much Death in as possible to focus on it, but he could not distract the mind from it anymore.

 _The crack Midoriya made,_ Zach grabbed the sides of his head. _I could reach through and grab things, and things sometimes seeped through too fast on their own without me wanting them to, coming in like this but- but never because I wanted them to. Never because I wanted to look back like this and accept it!_ "I can't even consider how it felt to me," Zach whispered, trying to explain it aloud as he looked back at Shoji confusedly again but slowly realizing what it was he was coming to say. "And I can't think about how I couldn't consider it or I might start considering, just what I had- Because I need _all_ my thoughts at once to be able to really explain what I- but I've never had my whole mind."

Zach tried to explain but the look on Shoji's face told him all he needed to know. _He can see I've lost it too._ "Everyone knows, when they see me like this," Zach admitted in response to what Shoji was thinking. "But Himazuri knew," he added softly. "She _knew_ and she," Zach shook his head, confused and frustrated. Scared, grateful, and in a sudden sharp pain as he had not seen her in a while. _She's worried about me. I should call her. She doesn't know what's been happening. Could she read my mind and learn about it all through the phone? Would that change things?_

 _I hope she knows I'm alright here. I'll call her tomorrow._ Zach's Death calmed down a bit around him as he came to a calmer decision, releasing some of the Death he had pulled in again, but leaving more of it attached inside this time to slowly absorb. _That worked didn't it?_ He wondered, as out of all of his methods of controlling this overpowering ability, the last effort had done best to let him control and pull more back into him than he let out in the same allotted time span.

 _I had wondered about the mind reader at Shiketsu before. I don't know what she knows, that keeps her from… Maybe it's because she knows. I've heard the others talking about you Zach as if they know for sure that you're Death. Like you've told them. That didn't make much sense to me. If you're Death, they would have to arrest you. And yet these stories are not lies. I don't understand that at all,_ Shoji wanted to understand but it frustrated him how little he did.

And so Zach explained to the boy who his Death surrounded so much that he could feel Shoji's feelings emanating off of him just as Shoji had been able to feel Zach's emotions earlier. "I wish I could make you understand," Zach began. "I wish it was that easy. That I could just, tell you," Zach said. His voice was soft and he spoke knowingly of the situation but Shoji still shook his head at the sound of that.

"You can," Shoji countered.

"I am," Zach replied back, his eyes shaking as the answer had to make no sense at all. "That's what, it is. That I can't- That is the…" Zach closed his mouth and just stopped. _There's no point in trying. They think I'm crazy. I am. They think I'm just lying. Lying to them for no reason! Making up nonsense!_ "I'm not trying to-" Zach started raising his voice but cut it off. "It's not your fault but, but there's nothing I can do. Nothing I could say-"

"Just tell me the truth-" Shoji began, and immediately regretted.

 **"The truth?!"** Zach roared.

Kirishima glanced up towards the corner of his room. His eyes widened for a moment and then narrowed angrily at the dark wisps coming through the corner. _That's a solid. How is he doing that? Why is he- It's because he can't control it, right? It's not on purpose. Not, just to fuck with me?_

Sato stared across his room that just became dark for a moment as his ceiling light was engulfed by the Death filling it. He stared up towards the shards of light that pushed through the raging darkness around him, but he listened silently to the growling coming from right behind him and echoing through the darkness so it was in his ears too.

Shoji held his breath but kept from letting any fear show on his face as Zach's entire body distorted and transformed in that shout of rage. Then the darkness that just exploded outwards pulled far back and Zach sucked in a huge breath of air at the same time. "The truth," he repeated. "Is that I- I'm not lying. I'm not," Zach said it nervously but in a depressed voice too at the admission. "I never was. Those worlds are," Zach started but he clenched his eyes shut when he began like that. "They were, they weren't like- but, I don't know. I really did go to different worlds, Shoji. Entirely different dimensions where the laws of nature and physics, they didn't matter. Matter didn't matter, because it didn't exist!"

"And I was in that world and adapted to it and became… blue," Zach grit his teeth again while looking at his classmate who he knew couldn't believe him. "And when we went in, our minds became one. Our bodies were linked and were no longer physical. I could feel them and they, they could feel me." Zach said it in a choked-off voice, and he whispered with disbelief in his tone, "And when we came out of there, I- I had to talk them down. I was afraid they would kill themselves, because they had to feel like what it was to be me- Just for a few minutes or- or whatever time was inside that realm. But they felt my mind and were in my head, and just like Himazuri they couldn't take it. They broke down they-" _Every second I spent, they couldn't take just a few? To see that and know what must have been going on in my head. To know how I really felt when I wouldn't dare think it._

"And in a different world without time-" Zach began again. He stopped and then asked with his head leaning forward towards the boy sitting in front of him, "Can you imagine that, Shoji? No time?" Zach wondered it while his lips curled up into a smile but tears bursting in his eyes once again just from the question alone. All of Shoji's thoughts stopped. He froze where he sat and just stared in silence and shock at his friend's face and the tone in that _crazed_ voice. "No time," Zach whispered, his voice cracking. "A world where our reality meant nothing. Where there was _nothing._ No space, no time, no hunger or exhaustion or thirst. Just nothing. Forever." Zach's glossed-over red eyes trembled and his body shook with the overwhelming power that made him larger again, larger than life to the boy sitting on his bed and listening to this.

"A world where the only time that existed were the seconds I counted." Zach's eyes squinted and his hands shook down at his sides, his index fingers trembling more near his thighs as they urged to tap on them. "Every minute and every hour," Zach paused and he bit down on his bottom lip that was shaking too much as he tried to say this. More of his face became visible through the veil as he pulled it aside while staring into Shoji's eyes. His irises were red rather than the whole eyeballs glowing the color, and Zach's face became tan instead of shrouded in black mist. There was still mist between them but that pulled aside as well and made a tunnel in the dark power as Zach continued in a shaky voice, "The days, the weeks- the _years._ "

"Years and years," Zach's mouth curled into a smile but his laughter was as horrifying as what he was saying. "And in that nothingness I had no choice but to remember it all. And yet I still couldn't. I was forced to remember but I wouldn't allow myself, and so I remembered wrong. And I was convinced it was for a reason. That, I could come back here and have memories to share but- but I overwrote my memories. I _created_ a fiction. A fiction that has grown out of control. One that was always out of my control, as much as I convinced myself otherwise- because the insane don't realize that they are!" Zach laughed again but his laughs came out choked and more tears splashed out of his eyes that became fully red again.

"And I create this _lie,_ and when I returned to this world I knew that my memories were shot." Zach admitted it with a single shake of his head and a dark look towards his door. He imagined through it and down that hall to the girl's side and a closed door with no one behind it. "Given enough time I thought I could recover. After all that had happened. After everything I had been through, that world finally broke me. And I threw myself into the deepest pit I could find so that no one would have to see my madness. And she hates me, because she came to visit and I couldn't go see her. I was too busy, telling my stories to the guards. My _fantasy-_ my reality," Zach closed his eyes but the tears had run dry and none were squeezed out this time.

"You all let me out," Zach whispered with his eyes closed while Shoji stared at him in utter shock and disbelief. "Out into the world, _mad_ as a fucking hatter. And I had to revive people. I had to continue with the lie, in order to stay to- no but it wasn't for any purpose. The lie was all there was," Zach whispered. "Fiction was truth. Norasaki could tell I was telling the truth, at Shiketsu. I knew I had abandoned my reality. But at the same time," Zach grit his teeth again in frustration. "You all poked so many holes in it. Holes I completely ignored. Things that I had subconsciously made contingencies for when creating my memories. And yet what was I supposed to say? How was I supposed to respond, when the truth is- the truth is _madness._ The world was- the worlds were-"

"Haha, how could any of you understand, if I can't even understand what happened? If I don't even believe in it enough to consider it my own truth?" Zach whispered these things in disbelief of his own actions and mindset over the past months. The power he was trying to hold in was far too much to focus any effort on reigning in his mind. Nothing could hold back the waves of realization and memories that he had spent _years_ blocking up and keeping himself from looking back on. "But, but I did know it wasn't true," Zach continued on, his voice shaken again and sadder as he looked at one of the friends he had been lying to. "When you call me out on it, I know I'm caught. I know, that it wasn't real. But the holes in the story were there intentionally. I wanted you to know- I wanted someone to, figure it out. I didn't want to be able to convince- it was only supposed to convince me. But I can see through so much, that any lie to convince myself was sure to…"

Sato rose his right hand and put it over his forehead. He leaned back on the wall and let out a heavy breath as weight piled up on his shoulders thinking back a week ago. The anger he felt at Zach for lying to him and Uraraka, for so cheerfully admitting the plot hole they had called him out on, it dissipated instantly. _He convinced me. It hurt, I guess, that I believed him and it was a lie. Another lie. Everything's a lie though? How… how do you live like that?_ Sato slid his hand down fro his forehead over his eyes. _You actually lost your mind? You were so strong- you are so- Damn it. Why am I doing this?_

At that very moment, Sato's pocket vibrated and his whole body flinched at the feeling. He looked down and lowered his right hand he brushed across his shirt first before pulling his phone out of his pocket. The message sent to him was in Class A's group chat. 'Anyone check on Zach and see how he's doing?' Sato tilted his head back and rubbed the back of his skull on his soft wall completely black and seeping that dark aura all over his room. Darkness seeped around the sides of his face and brushed against his cheeks and past his eyes, as Sato thought with a grimace on his face, _Sero still thinks he's just… What am I supposed to say in response?_

Shoji did not check his phone. What he was doing now mattered more than what anyone could have to text him about. Sato sat there with his back up against the wall and his grimace slowly raising over the seconds that passed. No one else responded in the groupchat. No one got annoyed at Sero for asking about it, but no one else chimed in either agreeing with him and telling one of their classmates to go to him. Sato frowned but his eyes that got darker lost that angered look in them as he flipped his phone over. _Enough of this. What's the point of being so petty? All I'm doing, is making more grief for him. He doesn't need it. Not from, not from us._

Sato tapped on the top of the messages for their groupchat and saw the list of people in the conversation. His thumb moved over to the plus symbol and tapped right on it, and he wrote the contact name in and clicked when Zach's number popped up. It was the newest contact in his phone, and the thought of how he had yet to use it despite being so angry at himself for not having it the day of his revival made the decision easy. He confirmed what he did and then put his phone back down in his pocket. _He's in Class A again._ Sato Rikido crossed his arms and pushed away any thoughts of how his classmates might be reacting to a decision he made completely on his own and without consulting any of them first.

All across Japan though, and in a few cases abroad, Class A students looked at their phones when finally a new text was sent through. 'He's doing fine.' Shoji's response was brief and did not reference the notification right above his message and below Sero's. Everyone else stared at it though with their eyes opening wide at what Sato had done, then Sero chuckled once and slid his phone away with a relieved and happier look on his face at his friend's decision. Uraraka felt confused by what Sato had done as she thought back only a few days, and Iida tilted his head back on the bed he was already trying to sleep on when these messages came through. The class rep had a disparaged look on his face and he squinted shut his eyes he could look through with perfect vision, _It should have been my decision as class representative. I avoided the decision rather than discuss it with the class however, and now the choice has been taken from my hands. I should have done it, already._

 _Iida, I'm sure there will be other opportunities to show you care,_ Yaoyorozu sat in the back of a black van in her hero costume, her phone back away in a pouch of it as she prepared herself for the signal. _Shoji, Sato, Sero, thank you. I wish I could be two places at once._ The others in the van shot up to their feet but Creati was quickest when the bright green light shone through the back windows of the van. She pushed open the doors and leapt out of the vehicle being carried high in the sky by red feathers. The number 2 hero supposedly in Geneva, which was pretty well-known because of his and Gang Orca's public arrival there that afternoon, sent his feathers flying down with the two vans full of heroes ready to raid a base of opportunistic villains who had risen in Osaka over the past month.

Hawks' thoughts strayed from his hopes on how these villains were in some way related to the Radians, Jazz, or League of Villains, which he was anxious to believe were all the same due to his recent investigations with Endeavor and Gran Torino. Instead he watched the young heroine in surprise as she flew down using the jetpack that emerged out of her back and the rockets shooting flames out of mechanical boots appearing over her usual ones. Instead of arriving with the rest of the heroes to back up the infil-team already down there who just sent up the flare, he shot down far faster and landed at the same time as the girl in the dark red costume split down the middle of her chest. His wings broke apart and feathers shot everywhere, while Creati sped on roller-blades towards the building and then raced straight up the walls as she jumped and fired twice as much fuel out the jets that came out contraptions on her back and from her calves. Her right hand was finishing covering in a thick black glove with tiny sharp protrusions on all the knuckles, right as she reached the window shattered by someone who ran to it and smashed the butt of their rifle through.

Creati leaned her body forward and slammed her fist through the shattered window, and her enemy's hair all stood on end as she electrocuted him with the glove she created. Her jetpack pulsed flames and shot her forward through the broken window into the middle of the room, still with her fist indented into the face of the first villain. She dragged him out of the way while dodging the four water spikes that flew towards the window she entered, and the bullets that came out of the other villain's eyes and were a little closer to the ends of her feet than those spikes were. Seeing the collisions of the bullets off to her left closer behind her than the spikes, Yaoyorozu released some of the power from the thruster gripped in her black glove which turned off the jets on her right side. Her body spiraled in midair as more power rushed to the left thrusters, and she released the villain she had carried across the room in the direction of the gun-eyed villain still turning after the girl too fast to follow.

While Creati's thrusters turned her in a way to let her punch one enemy at the other, it also sent her flying the other direction towards the even slower villain to react who was still creating three more spikes of water out of a bucket attached to the front of his shoddily-made costume. Even as Yaoyorozu spun in midair and rolled her roller-blades across the side of his head with more speed from a jet blasting out of two new thrusters she created on a panel strapped around her calf, the student from Class A could not help but frown in a way with deeper meaning than just being upset with the villains she was fighting. Their mediocre skills and lack of advanced equipment showed a high percentage chance that they were not associated with their main targets, but she kept her focus straight as she landed with her three enemies falling around the room. She spun the direction of the one who was only hit by a comrade and would not be knocked out yet, and she rushed him before he could recover. In the back of her mind though, she held onto some hope, _It could be Raijin doesn't want them being suspected as his comrades. Most may not even know they're working for him. They wouldn't. But someone here might. And that's who we need to find tonight!_

* * *

Early on Saturday morning, Zach and Shoji sat a couple feet away from each other on the floor in the middle of Zach's room. It was still dark outside, not that either of them could see out the window through the thick fog of Death hovering around them. The Death was barely moving anymore. It was steady and seemingly under control, yet that was in the very core closest to Zach's central body inside sitting cross-legged in front of his friend.

"How far has it spread now?" Shoji wondered, after the past hour of silence.

Zach knew his face twitched to make his classmate question, and his eyes opened up bright and glowing red. "This time, _truthfully,_ I don't feel myself getting any stronger." Zach hesitated, then he continued, "Your room is filled. Sato's has a lot in it as well, though I'm trying to keep it less there."

"Do you know that it's not spreading through my walls downstairs?" Shoji questioned.

"I can feel the rooms' layouts. I know where I've-" Zach cut himself off. He took in a deep breath and released it slowly. The Death swirling at the outsides of his aura in the adjacent room to his right and below him got rapidly spinning out of control for a moment. "Moving it to the right and down, up above me, to the back and left at shorter distances too. It's a lot to do at once."

"Seems like a strangely shaped set-up you put yourself in," Shoji mentioned. Zach hummed and nodded his head. There was no single point that there was Death in equal lengths in all directions from there, and Shoji knew it was not impossible to do that. _If it slips into Koda's room that's bad. Koda is not around, but you create more difficulty for yourself for no reason. Or, there is a reason but,_ Shoji frowned more under his mask and Zach gave him an inquisitive look through the thick veil of Death over his face. "Why don't-"

"I'm maintaining the current distances away from me," Zach started. "Any adjustment will only agitate the progress I've started making." _Remain calm. Quiet. Unmoving. All focus off my body and only on the outlying Deaths. Subconsciously I'll keep myself together. Too much focus on my physical form and all the possibilities I had with it led to the chaos that was yesterday. Control first, then experiment with new powers. I was too excited._ "I can still tell where the walls are," Zach continued. "As well as the floor below us. However there's so much of it that solids are feeling like open gaps, to Death."

"Too much power," Zach whispered. "I never imagined it would be this strong. The density of some of these Death pockets… It's," he fell short of describing it. "Words can't- these pockets are the densest things in existence. It's an ungodly power. Far too dangerous-"

"I know you can do it though," Shoji encouraged. _I believe in your ability, Zach._ "You can reign it in and not hurt any of us."

"It already won't hurt you," Zach said. His voice was low and his eyes narrowed, and he added in a deeper voice, "And you're staying here to make sure I don't hurt everyone else-"

"I'm here to make sure you don't hurt yourself," Shoji corrected with a raise of his pitch.

Zach's face lost the darker look but all the Death on it swirled as his expression scrunched up in pain that the Death facial could not maintain. As it scrunched up, the skin of his blackened face just pulled apart and turned his head into a swirl. His mouth opened and he gasped out in agony, because all this Death just pushed at his shattering face. Shoji could see all over Zach his body pushing outwards and then stopping like it was mid-explosion. All that power welling inside him was pushing at his skin, but he forced it back inside and steadied a body with black flares sporadically ripping from it.

 _I know you can do this._ Shoji lowered his gaze down to the floor as Zach groaned and closed his own eyes. _One of my biggest mistakes since coming to U.A. was how I dealt with Tokoyami. I saw what his power could do early on, and how out of control he got. How much pain it put him in, to not be the one in control. Before Dark Shadow's rampage that got Tsukuyomi's provisional license suspended, before Tokoyami had to go through all he did, I could have done this. I had seen it before. I knew he struggled with it, but like Zach he was one to train his dark power on his own._

"Zach," Shoji began in a very low voice. _With Dark Shadow the risk was much higher, but Death is the more terrifying of these powers. And when I see how strong this has suddenly become, I need to know._ "Why are you getting more powerful?"

The question was not in reference to Zach's reasons for getting stronger. It had nothing to do with his own intentions or desires. Zach opened his eyes slowly but shook his head to either side, refusing to answer rather than give another strange response. "Hey Shoji," Zach began. His tone showed he was not responding to the question but completely starting a new topic. "Where do you think Quirks come from?"

Shoji frowned for a second but then considered the question he was asked. _Based on what I read you told the prison guards in Tartaros,_ Shoji thought about Oda's book he had gotten a copy of as soon as it came out. "Arcasia- or that whole world of Terra, right?" Shoji wondered. "If the Doorway girl was not the first person with her kind of Quirk, people could have traveled from that world to ours a long time ago." Zach cracked a smile through the veil of darkness, as Shoji added, "Even many of our stories about creatures you recognized in that world like orcs and elves-"

"Alright alright," Zach said, as Shoji sounded like he was reading off a passage now. "Do you believe any of that?" He wondered, his eyes closing again and his focus retaining on the darkness to his right and down below. He grit his teeth as it tried to pull towards each other. Zach maintained a vertical line down of Death with a cloud coming off, and a shorter horizontal line with less fog into Sato's room. All of that Death wanted to pull towards each other in the shortest route though instead of curving into his room and then down through the floor. It wanted to use the unused hypotenuse that Zach avoided more with the more precision he acquired.

 _Is he-_ Shoji had things he wanted to talk about too, something in particular that was bugging him for a while now, but he could see Zach struggling and stopped hesitating after the question. _Distract him from it- but not too much._ "I… I've never really thought about it."

Zach raised his head and grinned at his classmate. He panted a couple times and his skin flashed through the veil only for his skull to appear completely for a moment. His head flared with Death again, but his body rippled in the center of all the Death for a second as Zach tried to absorb more Death into him without overloading his insides that he did not have entirely made out of Death. "I have some theories that I'm pretty confident in…"

Zach shifted his mind from the various things attempting to push into his head and create mental instability at a time he needed full relaxation and focus. He could feel and see it eating away at Shoji though, which made it worse considering he already knew it himself as it was something he was actively avoiding thinking about. The troubling nature of the thoughts he was trying to avoid only made them more difficult not to think about though. And the more he focused on not even thinking about not thinking it, the harder it became to only keep Death in Sato and Shoji's rooms outside of his own.

 _Really, he should be asleep if anything. I'll have it under control enough by dawn that I can get it back out of there before he wakes up._

"Nnnn _**GRR- rrrr…"**_ Zach growled and leaned away from the right side of his room, tilting his head back as he brought a wave of thicker Death slamming back towards him. It rushed from that wall up into him and Shoji and surrounded them in a wave of gaseous Death that swirled around the boys sitting on Zach's floor.

"It would be easier for you if you used Kirishima's room too," Shoji brought up. Zach frowned and gave the other teen a glare for saying it aloud. "Instead of the strange shape you're trying to maintain now."

"I don't," Zach started. _Want to bother him? I don't, want him saying anything- I'm not actually worried about that. What is it then?_ "I don't need to-"

"But why not?" Shoji questioned. "You're making it harder for yourself when you don't need to." Shoji paused, then wondered as Zach was too slow to respond with anything, "What's up with the two of you?"

The corners of Zach's lips curled down, _There are more important things right now._

 _Like what?_

 _Wasn't this, the reason I stayed?_ Zach shifted his gaze down still with no answer for Shoji. _I could have left and done everything else. Being here has one purpose above all else._

"I thought you would patch things up with him as quickly as you did with many of the others," Shoji began. _Like you probably would have with me if I had gone out to see you more often._ "He went to your apartment. Didn't he?" Zach's head motioned in a small nod, and Shoji wondered, "So what happened? Why are the two of you so…" Shoji thought back into the classroom on Thursday and the last interaction he saw between the two of them. The looks alone without any dialogue between them, which was not hard for anyone around them to understand as Kirishima's expressions were far from subtle.

"I don't know," Zach replied. He said it quietly and just looked back into Shoji's eyes again, no answer to his friend's question available to him.

Shoji could see that absence of a reason in Zach's glowing red eyes. "The two of you were closer than most anyone here," Shoji started.

Zach muttered back, "It seems that has had an adverse effect on my current relationships."

Shoji hesitated, then he wondered, "Doesn't that make sense?" Zach frowned deeper but with guilt in those glowing red eyes at the question. "As those were the people who stood to be betrayed the most by you."

"Hm," Zach's thoughtful hum came in response immediately upon Shoji's finish. "Notice how you didn't say 'feel betrayed.' As I really did betray you all." Rather than those people standing to 'feel' betrayed by his actions the most, the way Shoji worded it reflected his own view of what happened. He looked into Shoji's eyes knowing that his classmate knew where he was coming from by that wording alone, and he continued, "It's not just a feeling of betrayal I left you with. I betrayed all of you that night. Put you in the crosshairs of villains. Leaked your location. Tortured the Hunter's mind, and killed half a dozen villains- people. And those lies I shouted while laughing, Shoji I know. I know the people who trusted me most would lose the most that night."

Zach paused for a second, then he continued on in an even softer voice, "But, even though I know, I didn't think Kirishima would be…" He trailed off.

"I don't understand it either," Shoji admitted. "Not many of us went to that fight day at your apartment, but Kirishima did for some reason."

"He wanted to talk to me," Zach said. "But, he wanted the _'real'_ me. He wanted something to explain myself. Why I had done it. Where I had gone. What I was doing back here. And, I didn't have the answers- I couldn't answer-" Zach stopped himself again. "I could have," he admitted after a quiet moment. "But he wouldn't understand. No one could. Because when I saw him looking at me like that, out the corner of my eye. Constantly through that day. I knew how anything I wanted to tell him would be a lie, in some way. He's a straightforward guy. It's right or wrong. Truth or lies. I just couldn't, imagine having a serious conversation, knowing that I was just pretending to be me."

"And you think it's different for you now?" Shoji asked.

"Partially- mostly- somewhat," Zach started unenthusiastically, got more upbeat, but finished under his breath in a knowing tone. "I wish I could do it all," he whispered. "But that day, seeing him watch me like that brought up lies that I didn't want to think about. Stories that I had created, mixed with my memories, into horrible trauma just a little better than reality. Seeing him look at me in that way sent me right back to the day I- the day I went through the _portal-"_ Zach ground his teeth with his head leaning forward, his eyes bulging wide for a second and his hands gripping onto his knees as hard as he could. "To the start of the war," he hissed, feeling walls shattering in his mind that was already shredding apart as his head pulled two different directions at once. "Against the Queen, and the villains," his voice came out of either side of his head, while there were mouths creating on different sides of his faces.

And then it stopped. Zach's face returned to its initial spot and his focus scattered across the Death he had to gain control of. "I couldn't take it," Zach whispered back under his breath again after his volume had just been rising for a few seconds. He stared at Shoji and admitted in a quiet voice to his friend staying with him through all this, "I still don't think I can."

"I know, what kind of talk I need to have with him. I have to be straight with him. And… that's something, I forgot how to do," Zach cracked a smile at the end, but his eyes were different. As brightly glowing red as they were, Shoji saw a sadness in them at that admission from deep inside. "Every conversation," Zach said, then pursed his black lips and lifted his eyes up towards his ceiling shrouded in dark clouds. "Every word out of my mouth, even now. I just don't know."

* * *

"How were things back here this weekend?" Ectoplasm wondered while walking into the teacher's lounge and seeing Present Mic and Midnight talking to each other. He and TyreFire just returned to campus, and the pair of math teachers looked at their coworkers confusedly at the way the two of them looked back their way. "Eventful?" Ectoplasm asked.

"Not, particularly," Present Mic responded. He lifted his coffee and glanced back to his side at Midnight who he had only been talking rumors with.

Midnight hummed and rubbed the back of her head over her long hair. "I haven't seen Zach all weekend. Most of the students haven't either," Midnight added.

"You call him Zach?" Tyrefire wondered, as he had no idea how to treat his newest student who had given him the absolute deepest sense of dread the first two days he was in class.

Midnight sighed and rolled her eyes. "It's how everyone refers to him."

 _Who's everyone?_ The newer teacher wondered, though he figured at least the students of Class A seemed to always refer to him like that.

"The lack of Lifebringer sightings has led to some pretty, upsetting rumors," Present Mic added while lowering his coffee for a moment, lifting it back quickly and taking a nonchalant sip as if the rumors were just that. _Like that he left a clone in his room, and is out there searching for the League right now._ Mic stared at Ectoplasm for a second too long and then shook his head and got back to sipping his hot coffee quickly.

In Training Ground Beta, Zeira leapt backwards and then ducked as a huge arm swept towards her. She spun and fired her grappling gun at Oribia's thinner legs now that all the muscles had bulged in her right arm alone. The wind pushed Zeira's light brown fur backwards, but she pushed against it and knocked down her friend by yanking hard backwards with the hand on her grappling gun. She pulled back hard enough to hit Hono in the face with the back of her hand as he was diving towards her for a tackle. He knew that he was in a bad angle to fire his Quirk from his hands, as a dodge from Zeira would make him hit his partner he was fighting with against her.

Zeira nailed him in the face and then spun as Hono lifted his left hand out in front of her while grabbing at his nose with his right. The ends of his fingertips stuck together and opened up, but before any black sticky tape shot from them, his eyes rolled back into his head. Zeira's did the same, but this time they rolled back quicker than her opponent's. She panted, but she had him and rushed forward before Hono's eyes could roll back themselves. _Faster!_ Zeira jumped up and kicked around at her friend's side before her could raise his arms to block or counterattack.

Oribia and Hono were both down, and Oribia asked up towards her classmate while panting herself and trying to pull the wires off of her legs, "Why not just take him down from in his head?"

"And leave myself open for when you get up?" Zeira asked. _Mental Infiltration leaves me too open in group fights. And, if anyone else can block me like Lifebringer could…_ Zeira turned her head from the rooftop of a skyscraper in Ground Beta. She looked towards the dorms, _People have been saying he's acting weird. I saw him smiling and walking around, not much different from how he acted at the licensing exam. So much has happened between then and now… but he can keep a smile on his face._

 _That's it. He just wants everyone to know that he's fine. And to show the world his smile. "I'm okay." "It's okay." Heroes should always smile. No matter what's going on in their lives, someone will appreciate that smile._ Zeira smiled herself at the idea of it and then looked competitively back down at her two classmates. They each looked at each other, then the two started getting back up with challenging looks of their own.

"Did you guys hear?" Uraraka asked when Midoriya and Iida were walking down the road with her after seeing their friend shortly after returning to campus, even before they returned to the dorms. Uraraka hesitated when they gave her strange looks, and she specified softly, "Why, Zach really wasn't in class Friday?"

"No. Was he not sick?" Iida wondered. _I thought with Recovery Girl's assurance-_

"Is he alright?" Midoriya asked. Iida's sterner look he gave down the road shifted as he darted his gaze next to him at Midoriya, then he looked to Uraraka too with a concerned look as he realized that question came first.

"I… I hope so," Uraraka responded. "I just saw him after school that day, but Sero knew and Shoji said he was alright so…"

Inside Zach's dorm room, he got up from his floor and lifted the repair tools in one hand while picking up his newly-fixed chair in his other. He put the chair down and slid it under his desk carefully, but the back part stayed attached to the seat despite how he had broken it in half earlier that weekend. Zach took in a deep breath then turned to Shoji who was still hanging out in his room, "I'm sure some rumors are floating about the school right now. I'll go make sure to relieve them."

 _He's kept all his Death inside him for 6 hours now._ Shoji nodded his head, his eyes half-closed as he did and no audible response coming from him.

 _Over the last two hours too, Shoji, I've gotten it so there aren't even pockets of it inside me like there always were with my Limiters set._ Zach gave his classmate a small and grateful smile. _Now, it's all just my Quirk._ _ **My**_ _power. Under my control. And I believe you helped me out a lot with that._ Zach smiled a little more, and his face was cleared of many emotions except the gratitude and a feeling of clarity. _For some reason I still don't feel guilty. Even though through this whole weekend I never gave proof or confirmation that I was Death._

 _You never asked though. And I'm thankful for that. And yet I also know that it's because of that, that it's so hard to leave U.A._

 _Shoji, you just made that impossible. Even more impossible. Which means I have to lie harder so that it never comes to that… but for now,_ Zach nodded at his classmate with that smile that showed off that everything was good and under control once more. "Thank you, Shoji. I owe you one-"

"No you don't," Shoji replied. He then yawned and Zach could see the mask in front of Shoji's face push out and move back in a bit with the wind from his breath. When he was done yawning he looked back at Zach with his squinted eyes opening back up, and he wondered, "Are you not tired? After all of that, it had to be exhausting." He gave Zach a strange look as Zach just lowered his smile back down to a partial one before shaking his head in a steady and relaxed way.

 _No need to lie. I don't want to._ "I don't really sleep much," Zach replied. Shoji's expression turned darker at the answer, and Zach continued on, "I rarely slept anyway, but yeah, with the new power burst I'll sleep even less. I know, it's weird."

Shoji hesitated for a second, then he just nodded in agreement with his friend who laughed at the response. "Get some rest though," Zach continued to the friend who had not slept for more than a couple hours through the whole weekend. He had tried to keep absolutely quiet during the couple hours Shoji's eyes had gone from relaxed and closed to _way too_ relaxed and closed. It was his own groaning during an especially painful part of the regaining control process that had woken up his friend, and Zach still felt bad about it as Shoji had scolded himself for falling asleep in the first place and had not allowed himself to do so again the rest of the time there.

As for food, Zach still had a few plates of untouched lunch and dinner sitting next to his door. Shoji had eaten his own but refused to eat Zach's when his classmate offered it to him. As if to prove that everything was alright now, Zach walked over and reached down to pick up the roll that Sato had brought him last night with his dinner tray. _He didn't say anything,_ Zach wondered while chewing into the tasteless bread. _It's just stale. Sato. Focus on Sato and not the food. He helped in his own way. Why was I okay with putting Death in his room and not Kirishima's? Sato's been more blatantly against me. He's called me out. I just ruined things worse with him last week. So why him, and not Kirishima?_

Zach lowered the bread with a bite in it and placed it back on the tray. "I'm going out," Zach said with a look over his shoulder at his friend still hesitant about leaving Zach alone now. "I'll go show the school everything's fine. Try to find Sero's ex, make sure she's not freaking everybody out." _That Azure girl totally told him something. She looked like she was going to when Recovery Girl promised how she wasn't going to say a thing. The old bag just didn't see that look in her eyes like I did._

Zach left the room and headed down the hall, just smiling towards the three who were halfway down it and froze when they saw him step out. Zach gave Uraraka a knowing look and a grateful nod as he was walking by, immediately guilt-tripping the girl who just told Midoriya and Iida about his losing control over Death. _So they do know. At least she only saw the first time. Aoyama never saw the second but I'm sure he's terrified of me._

 _Was he really having trouble controlling his Quirk? That look,_ Iida glanced next to him at Uraraka who seemed uncertain herself about what she had told the boys now.

 _Did I need to say anything at all? He got it all back inside, like he said he would. He probably had it back Friday night. I shouldn't have said anything to Deku,_ Uraraka thought it because unlike Iida who seemed as uncertain as her now, Midoriya's expression was different as he stared after their classmate's back.

Midoriya turned quickly as he heard Zach's door close, as Zach had left it open when he left a few seconds ago. Midoriya looked towards Shoji and examined the taller boy's face closely. _Shoji's been killed before. He could have been in Zach's room without worrying about anything. Death could have made it through the ceiling and alerted him to the problem. Sato and Kirishima's rooms are close too, and they were here for the weekend. Zach told me his power was going to be too much. He told me to kill him because of how powerful he was going to get. I didn't realize it would be so much that he couldn't even keep it all inside…_

 _Except he can,_ Midoriya turned back away from Shoji while Iida and Uraraka were still looking curiously over towards him now. Midoriya stared towards the stairwell and breathed out heavy breaths with his heart speeding up. _All weekend I tried to focus on our work out there. Back here, you gained control over Ares' power, didn't you? All of the strength you obtained by killing him… And the surge is finished now. It's just your base power. Refilled from all you used. With the new addition on top of it. So much more powerful than even that night._

 _ **"We have to accept the possibility, that Mount Yamagucha's disappearance was solely the act of Shigaraki Tomura."**_ Midoriya recalled Lemillion saying that to the group of them around him as if it was a shocking and incredibly serious revelation. And he remembered Bakugo's eyes shifting his way as if to check his reaction, only to see the knowing and dreading look already on Deku's face. _Kacchan saw it though,_ Midoriya thought regrettably as he recalled the way his spiky-haired classmate looked at him the night before. _A mountain is nothing. That's what I was thinking. In the hands of Shigaraki it's the worst possible scenario, and yet, I can't imagine Zach actually losing to him. Not now. That kind of power- more than Ares could accumulate in thousands of years. All those wars! But, Zach also…_

 _ **"…back when I could still count, how many I had killed." "…what kind of person forgets the people he killed? What kind of person can't count how many people he's killed?"**_

 _There's no limit to your power. You tell me the only other person you're going to kill is Kaminari. If All For One shows up though, you'd kill him, wouldn't you? I'd have to stop you- And let AFO get your Quirk? Just risking that alone- it's worth it._

 _If it means stopping you from killing anyone else. I'll do whatever it takes._

 _I failed once Zach. I will not let it happen again._

Zach walked out into the campus of U.A. with no skip in his step. His hands were down in the pockets of his sweatpants, and he wore a hoodie with the hood down and his hair messy around his head. He did not frown, but he looked different than people had seen him since returning. _That's better,_ Zach thought as people looked his way and avoided his gaze. _They were creeped out by my smiling, but at least they kept looking at me. Staring my way. Confused and nervous, but unafraid. It's better this way?_

 _I guess at least it's more normal. They should fear me. I'm a terrifying person- creature. I'm human. I have friends. I couldn't taste that bread. I don't sleep. I didn't need to taste that bread, did I? I didn't need to eat it at least. Strange. I somehow knew that was coming. I suppose food tasted bland and stale right after the Tusukan Desert. I knew in those few days before this weekend though, that I was savoring some things for the very last time._

Zach looked to his right and nodded towards Vlad King who had stopped on the street and was watching him go by. The teacher with short and spiky white hair did not know how to respond to the nod from that student whose expression was unreadable and mysterious. His thoughts could have been about anything, and Vlad King had not even the slightest idea as to what they could be. His mood was as much a mystery. His lips were only slightly risen up at the corners to prevent anyone from thinking he was in any way upset, but it was also hard to tell if he was actually smiling and happy.

He looked like Lifebringer. How everyone expected him to look when he returned. His classmates who saw him come back that other night no longer saw the silent depression barely hidden below the surface, nor did they see the strangely excitable and cheerful behavior of his first two days in class. _Inside me,_ Zach thought as he spotted three second years in the hero course staring his way with harsh looks. They stared daggers into his sides and he avoided looking back at them as he knew the fear he would see replacing that determination if he were to even give them a glance. _Is the power to wipe out cities. I shouldn't have thought that. I never have- I forced myself not to. Because I didn't trust myself._

 _You can think it and just know it's true. That's not bad. Like Midoriya hasn't considered it? Yeah, but he considers it so as to better control his power. Isn't that why I thought it? It's not like I'd ever do it. I just know it's true. I could kill everyone in Musutafu right now, and with all the power from killing them I could wipe out Japan. The world. I wouldn't even need Apocalypse. Which means All For One wouldn't. I was right. Years ago, I knew it was true._

 _He's going to take my Quirk- he didn't though. He had chances. Many now. Were the rumors false? Ares didn't seem to think so. He had heard them as well, though he wasn't worried. Then again, he didn't care about anything else other than me. He waited forever for me. For someone like me. To be a new companion. Or to kill him._ Zach lifted his gaze to the blue sky above and followed a white cloud for a second with his eyes. Then he looked down and wondered, _I wonder if there are any training gyms open right now? My head is cooled. Last time I trained uncontrolled and without a purpose. It set off the weekend._

 _I need to understand my current ability. Train it alone. Practical training in class should never include abilities I'm testing for the first time. Only what I've trained. Safety is vital, when I hold so many lives in my hands. And control is most important. If I come to sleep again, which I hope I will, I must have Death fully under subconscious control. Live without any focus on it at all, so that any expulsion of Death would itself have to be forceful._

On the fourth floor of Class 3-A's dorm, Shoji stood a door down from his own. He stared at it before reaching his own room. His right arms started to lift at his side, but they hesitated and after a moment he lowered them back down. _Maybe I'm misunderstanding something. Maybe, I don't know what keeps this so hard for you two. But,_ Shoji's eyes rose straight up from Kirishima's door to the ceiling above it.

Shoji returned to the fifth floor and walked back down it. He rose his top right hand in front of the door second to the end as he had just done on the floor below, but this time he reached forward and knocked too. Sato opened up his door and looked out in surprise to see Shoji standing there. "Shoji," Sato started to a boy he had seen multiple times over the weekend, including over the past two days when he had been the only other one to enter Zach's room. "Is Zach," Sato started, having been napping up until a few minutes ago due to an excessive lack of sleep over the two nights before.

"He's alright now. It's been hours since he's had any trouble holding it in," Shoji said. He nodded behind Sato, and his big-lipped classmate looked surprised but nodded after a second and moved out of the way to let Shoji in. "Because Zach already brought us back, it didn't matter that he was having a hard time controlling his Quirk. He was in the right place to deal with it."

"Yeah," Sato agreed with a nod. He had closed the door behind him but still stood close to it and stared at Shoji who did not walk far into his own room. "What, are you-" Sato began again, confused as to what Shoji wanted to talk about.

"Zach and I talked for a long time. Although he's changed a lot, he's the same person we knew back then," Shoji told his classmate. _You didn't stay. You were willing to come in and bring food without either of us asking you to. I don't know why._

Sato looked to his left and down at the floor. He argued back in a low mutter, "We never knew him back then."

"That's not true," Shoji denied. Sato looked back up and into Shoji's eyes partially uncovered by his silver bangs. "Zach lied when he made it out like we didn't know him, more than he had ever lied to us before." Sato stared back confusedly and then with bigger eyes as Shoji continued, "I think, that it was all during the Lifebringer Incident. He wanted us to think we didn't recognize him-"

"When we went to see Zach in Tartaros though," Sato started, though his voice was low and he trailed off at the thought of it. _The lies. He continued them out here. What was he talking about? Was he lying about lying, about… uh? I still don't get it._ "He could have explained himself. He had no explanation though… He still has no explanation."

"I, don't know," Shoji admitted. _Zach's lying about everything. He knows he's doing it but can't stop. He was Death. Being Death, would drive him insane. Doing the things that I know Death did. I can't imagine Zach doing them and keeping his sanity. Not, with the type of person he was._ "I don't know why," Shoji started but paused again. "Why Zach was so distant, yet still trying to make things right, from the distance. It's who he is though. That's how he is now, and it might frustrate us but Sato," Shoji's eyes narrowed at his classmate who stared back at him in more surprise at the harsh tone he was taking.

"Accommodate to the kind of person Zach is. Don't expect anything from him going into it," Shoji instructed. Sato stared back with wide eyes mostly confused at what Shoji was suggesting. Shoji started back forward though and back for Sato's door. "Zach _wants_ to talk to us. Just remember that." _I can't tell you anything more, Sato. Whatever you heard the last few days should be enough though, with just a little push._

 _He turned himself in,_ Shoji reminded himself. _We forgot that, because he got out so quickly that it felt like part of his plan. Like he knew he'd be getting out that quickly. He could have been convicted for decades though._ Shoji left the room and he walked back for the stairs so he could finally go back to his own room. _He could have been in that prison for the rest of his life. He didn't_ _ **know**_ _anything. We think he's so smart that he can figure it all out beforehand, but he had no idea. He threw himself in the deepest hole he could get to, and didn't accept any visitors, because he didn't want the rest of us to see that. To see what I just saw. Zach, trying to explain the truth. Trying to explain things that don't make sense to anyone else, because they're insane to the rest of us._

 _I tried to show him as understanding a look as I could through all of it. Most of what he said though,_ Shoji rose a hand and rubbed under his bangs across his forehead for a few seconds as he neared his own door. He lowered that hand and opened his door, while dark lines of exhaustion and pity covered his face. _I didn't understand it Zach. You can't just throw bits and pieces out there and expect it to stick. Talking about Terra and wars and losing it about them, about the things that happened in that world, while at the same time explaining how the world is a lie. How everything you say, is a lie. How am I supposed to even respond? I want to. I wanted to, and somehow what I did helped. I could see that. And I knew that you needed it. But the things you say when you lower your guard, they're absurd._

Ten minutes after Shoji left Sato's room, the large tan-skinned teen stood up fast from his desk chair. He stormed out of his room with purpose and sped-walked outside. Confusion hit him once he was out, as he had no idea where he was going on a campus of this size. Luckily, Sato happened to bump into the one person who was on his way back to Class A's dorm after just running into Zach himself and talking to him for a while.

Sero was the only one who Zach actually told where he was going. So when Sato arrived at the training gym Sero was glad to tell him Zach had just reserved for an hour, he was the only one around. The teen with brown spiky hair stared at the doors in front of him and listened inside for any sound of his classmate. _What am I doing? He's just going to lie. Make stuff up. And-_

Sato took in a deep breath. His eyes closed as he breathed in that heavily, and in his mind eye he saw an image getting clearer. He thought about waking up and the black-haired boy looking down at him. Sato opened his eyes and released his breath. He reached forward and opened the doors to the gym, stepping inside and looking towards the middle of it. There was a figure there just shorter than him who paused what he was doing and curled his hands into fists, making the spheres of darkness above his palms slip back into his fingers instantly and vanish. Zach turned his head to the side and then turned more, and Sato closed the doors and entered the gym.

* * *

 **A/N Thanks for reading! Sorry for the long update time guys, been a little busy... Also I started binging Friends. Got through 5 and 1/2 seasons already! (I know, that was time I could have spent on this). XD Anyway, I also had some stuff to finalize with escaping from NY before the quarantine hits. I'm moving to Alaska, and I'm a Door Dash delivery guy now so I can go anywhere and still have work. ;) Good luck protecting yourselves guys. Hope nobody catches it. I'm going to try to get another chapter or two out before I move out from here, but ski season is effectively over. I don't want to return to my job at the mountain where too many foreigners and people from the city show up every weekend, so I'm just not going to. Schools and works are all about to get shut down, (if yours isn't already), and not to make you panic but hospitals are going to be overcrowded and overrun... BUT THAT'S NOT IMPORTANT, because reading this (writing it for me) is a fun way to escape the sudden pandemic everywhere in the world. I hope you guys enjoyed the chapter. Leave a review telling me what you think and predictions for what's to come now. It's going to be a crazy ride these next couple of months, but as long as we all keep our wifi going through the chaos I hope to keep getting you guys some Death to enjoy through it! No review responses this chapter, since I'm really in the mood to write today and just wanted to finish editing and post this chapter quick as I could before getting on to the next one! So again guys, thanks for reading and for all the reviews, and I'll get out the next chapter as soon as I can!**


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